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Violence never solved anything, still we suffer in silence. | Credits: UN Mission
I sometimes wonder how many opinion pieces and articles we have to write to bring the matter at hand. How many organisations have to speak out. But mostly, I wonder, what tragedy has to occur for us to truly understand the scope of the problem and fight to bring more legislation around it? The truth is, atrocities and gender-based violence happen every single minute somewhere in the world. Tragedies have happened and continue to happen before our eyes. Within the United Kingdom alone, 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse and 1 in 5 sexual assault during her lifetime. Globally this rises to 1 in 3. Now, those are statistics based on women who speak out — and 40% of women don’t. Because the stigma attached to us is scary, because culturally, many around the world cannot afford what will follow.
It seems like the odds are against us and still, we fight to turn this around.
Is violence physical or verbal?
I was asked a couple of days ago if verbal violence truly is violence. Why wouldn’t it be? In an age where most of our population struggles with anxiety and mental health problems, the power of words now more than ever have the ability to subject us to humiliation, shame, guilt, grief. Over what? Over expressing an opinion on behalf of a marginalised community? Over using our voice louder and bolder? Speaking your truth doesn’t have to cause you any of those feelings. But this is the reality for women around the world. Leading scholars around the world cite that the effects of emotional abuse can be painful and destructive, both in the short and long-term, survivors are often riddled by low self-esteem and depression as a result.
By definition, violence is as follows:
“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”
So why do we not define is as a verbal force as well, when it results in the same traumatic instances?
In War and Peace
Throughout my years studying at King’s College London, I focused my dissertation and the majority of my papers around violence against women in war-torn areas. And I remember vividly translating through war journals and forgotten papers the accounts of women, mostly anonymous, subjected to accounts of sexual violence even by peace-keepers, imposed to look after those women. Throughout war-torn areas, women have historically been used as a vessel through which anger and resentment can be expressed. In terms of social impact, stigma and awareness distribution, I knew that what had to be promoted was a greater transparency of the UN’s efforts to counter violence against women and children in war zones, by establishing a monitoring team to assess the impact of such efforts.
During my research, I started wondering — is there a moment in time, in history, where women were not subjected to violence? Unfortunately violence does not stop at war or peace, it exists in the seemingly happy family next door, the quiet village, the empty city. And because I have always considered myself as a true feminist, one that believes in equality, I found it harder and harder to defend my arguments without including the one about us being the weaker sex and being an easy target. But equally, the upsetting reality is that many kinds of violence against women (specifically rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence) are under-reported, often due to societal norms, taboos, stigma, and the sensitive nature of the subject, so they are naturally exacerbated against us. It’s truly an inconvenient statistic for those of us that decide to blind ourselves towards the matter. And trust me, it was not comfortable for me either to read as a 20 year old girl accounts of torture and rape against women simply because they were there. Let that sink it, that they did not do anything to provoke that, they were just there. And it was convenient for the perpetrators.
At work and Home
When I think about how many women subject to domestic violence had to stay at home and experience this violence daily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I get shivers. But I am also grateful to have seen so many campaigns helping those women call, make it known, make it apparent. That home is not home for many. Violence against women equally happens at work too, not all work environments function properly, even the big corporations, even with HR’s paid big salaries. Again, because if we complain, we might lose our livelihood, we might be judged, the world might turn against us.
The global pandemic we are experiencing now opens the doors for many legislative measures to be implemented more strictly, so that we can feel comfortable in our surroundings — home or work.
Credits: UN
It all starts with raising awareness and asking questions, asking many questions. Making it comfortable for women to share our stories, without any implications that would suggest otherwise. That is all this article is — making it apparent and known that violence against women and girls is all around us, in war and peace, at home and work — physical and verbal. And we need to make it a bigger topic of discussion, no matter how uncomfortable it is. | https://medium.com/global-impact/violence-never-solved-anything-still-we-suffer-in-silence-7795974029a1 | ['Yoanna Koleva'] | 2020-12-15 14:30:46.232000+00:00 | ['Women', 'UN', 'Violence'] |
I Gained 100%+ Profit in Less than a Month by Trading Cryptocurrency | A couple of months ago I started to publish my articles on a website called Publish0x. It’s a platform where writers can earn cryptocurrency by writing and reading stories. The readers tip the stories they like from the rewards pool. Every time someone tips, they can choose to get 0% to 80% of the tip for themselves.
Screenshot by author
The main topic on this website is cryptocurrency. However, all other topics are welcome. I would even say that if you don’t write about cryptocurrency you have a higher chance to be at the top of your category.
I mostly write about faith. One of my stories made to the second place of being the most popular since the opening of the website.
Compared to Medium people do not make as much money on Publish0x, but cryptocurrency has the potential to grow. If you write on Medium, it’s only fair to publish your stories there to reach more people and collect all that cryptocurrency.
The Method for Crypto Trading
During my first month of publishing stories, I made enough to withdraw one of the currencies. It was equal to $1 dollar.
I made an Uphold wallet and sent all the Eherium there. Because I couldn’t withdraw that to my bank account, I decided to play around with trading. I wanted to see if I could increase the value.
I have to mention that I have a very small knowledge of cryptocurrency. The only things I know are:
You need to buy low and sell high to get a profit.
The cryptocurrency can go up and down resulting in big losses or wins.
The vast majority of people experience losses.
It’s hard to predict the upward or downward trends.
Having just a dollar to play with, I decided that my risk factor is almost non-existing. Sadly, the reward in the case of success will be small also. But hey, there is something sweet in seeing money appear out of thin air.
I found a website called tradingview.com signed up for a free account and started checking which cryptocurrency had the potential. Every popular currency was rocking up and down like a boat in an ocean.
Realizing I had no idea what I was doing I was about to put this idea away. However, I found a section called Technical Analysis. It caught my attention because it had gauges that pointed at different points such as strong sell, sell, neutral, buy and strong buy.
To my understanding, these gauges are generated by many different experts “voting” about the most likely future trend of a certain cryptocurrency. The number below is the “vote count”. In this example, 3 experts expect a downward and 18 an upward trend. That makes the majority lean toward buying and the gauge indicates that.
I found the most popular cryptocurrencies on Uphold and check which of them have this technical analysis part.
Here is a list and links them to the technical analysis found in tradingview.com:
At this point, I wrote down which ones have the most likely upward trend. I check predictions within a day, then a week and a month. If all of them show buy or strong buy, it’s indicating I should invest in them.
After that, I split the amount of money I have into smaller chunks and distribute it into the cryptocurrencies in my Uphold wallet.
That makes sure I don’t lose much if only one of them falls. In other words, I don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket.
That’s basically it!
I check the prognosis weekly and redistribute the money accordingly. It’s also important to take into consideration the exchange fees (in Uphold they are less than 2%) to make sure the profit is going to pay it off.
Below is my total balance charts (day, week, month) where you can see how everything raises consistently. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/i-gained-100-profit-in-less-than-a-month-by-trading-cryptocurrency-e51c7639a6f7 | [] | 2020-11-29 16:41:58.255000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Profit', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Success Story'] |
Solana 2021 Wrapped | Solana was, arguably, the crypto story of the year in 2021. As a self-appointed member of the community, I want to help the uninitiated understand what the hype around Sol is all about.
From humble beginnings
Anatoly Yakovenko, a former Qualcomm engineer who spent his days thinking about microsystems design while creating semiconductors, published a whitepaper in 2017 about Proof of History. This new way of reaching consensus in a decentralized system drew some attention, and Anatoly spent a few years working to make it reality.
Fast forward to March 2020, and Solana launches on mainnet. Right before the crash caused by the rapid spread of COVID-19. Talk about timing.
Moving on to early 2021, Solana mainnet has been live for nearly a year and has a demonstrated history of low fees and fast execution. This makes proponents of, um, other chains, take notice. After getting trolled on twitter, SBF writes this tweet delivering the now infamous punchline, “I’ll buy as much SOL as you have, right now, at $3. Sell me all you want. Then go fuck off”.
Today one SOL is trading for $170.
So what’s the blockchain all about?
Solana is able to deliver short finality times with low transaction fees, but how? Isn’t it true that once Solana reaches, say, as much traffic as Ethereum that it will run into the same scalability issues?
The Solana blockchain uses the concept of trustless time to order transactions, helping validators reach consensus faster. Validators are rotated, each serving as the ‘king’ validator for periods of time.
And that’s about as much as I understand, we can leave it up to the former researchers at $200B companies to sort out the details. Suffice to say that the the most complex attack vectors that you and I can think of have been considered. Only time will tell if Solana has solved decentralized scaling.
What does the ecosystem look like?
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Solana over the past year has been the explosive growth in the number of projects using the chain. From vibrant NFT communities buying and selling on the Sol Digital Eyes marketplace to traders using the Raydium DEX to people listening to songs on Audius, Solana is able to consistently deliver fast, low-cost settlement.
Projects like Serum provide critical infrastructure for DeFi developers. Instead of having to build an entire matching engine from scratch, developers use Serum to create markets that let users buy, sell, and settle transactions easily on Solana. Serum is used by many of the top Solana DeFi projects including Mango, Psyoptions, and Bonfida.
It’s wild to think that even Phantom was released in 2021. As you know if you have ever used a blockchain, a great wallet experience is absolutely essential and Phantom provides just that.
Wrapping up
It’s been a crazy year, but also a defining one for the Solana network. The Solana community is growing, and growing fast. Great builders, loyal community members, and advanced traders alike have migrated to Solana in shocking numbers. Here’s to 2022 being another year of community, underdog mentality, and… gaming?
P.S. I’m hoping to write more about the Solana community in the new year, be a good community steward and share =) | https://medium.com/@0xbenchy/solana-2021-wrapped-3f6f27028518 | [] | 2021-12-31 18:23:33.184000+00:00 | ['Web3', 'Solana Network', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto'] |
You Have Been A Bad Friend | Friendship is riddled with challenges as we grow into ourselves as people. As children, it feels easy to make friends — we’re forced to interact with others our own age for the duration of our schooling years. But beyond that, as adults, we’re on our own to try and figure out not only how to make friends, but to keep them. For me, one of the biggest challenges has been about managing expectations. I expect a lot from myself, and so equally I expect a lot from others around me.
Friendship gets complicated when you’ve been disappointed; but equally, we have all done wrong by those we call our friends. I am a big believer that people can change their behaviour for the better — and enough altered behaviour means a change in personality. It’s not easy, but change is possible.
We can always do better — as long as some of the fundamentals are in place, and as long as we don’t perpetrate toxic friendship behaviours deliberately, there’s always the possibility for redemption. Sometimes even when we are toxic or difficult — when the strength of the friendship is tested — there’s still the possibility of change for the better.
Balance is essential. We want to remain understanding and forgiving, but we also have to have a sense of when things have gone too far. Adopting an attitude of reflection is key. It’s not so easy, but one of the things I try to keep in mind is that I, too, have failed. I too have been a bad friend. Apart from the ‘love yourself, love everyone’ message of the average self-help text, it’s perhaps at times just as powerful to remember that we have all failed — and just as we try to forgive ourselves, we try to forgive others.
We’ve all challenged someone’s trust
Trust is often hard to gain and easy to lose — revealing information someone has confided in you, or lying, are obvious ways to lose the trust someone has for you. We’ve all done things to disappoint our friends at times, but a baseline of trust is rather important in the search for a true friend. We have all challenged this at times — whether to show off, be cruel, out of indifference, whatever. It has happened. We seek forgiveness, and try to prove with action and words that we are trustworthy.
We’ve all judged someone
It feels harsh to say that we judge the behaviour of those around us — being judgmental is often a clear barrier to trust and openness between friends. But we do all make judgments, even on a subconscious level. We want to assess those we draw into our lives, and this is perfectly natural. But to have a trusting relationship with someone, there has to be the sense that you can be your true self without undue judgment. We have to put a cap on just how far we judge others, and what for.
We’ve all miscommunicated
The importance of communication is no secret; without it, how do we relate to anyone at all? But it’s never going to be straightforward. An idea has to form in your mind, be expressed by you in words or actions, be regarded by another individual and then absorbed, understood and interpreted by them. There are so many points of potential failure along that line. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we’ve never failed to communicate something important, or be understood by our friends.
The main through-line to successful communication seems to be about a combination of flexibility, perseverance and openness — asking questions, seeking out opportunities to clarify, and offering up opportunities for further discussion. We’ve all shut these things down when we’ve decided on a foregone conclusion. We can all stand to give more of the benefit of the doubt.
Photo by Nathan Rogers on Unsplash
We’ve all been selfish
Taking over conversations, failing to listen, making everything about us… We’ve all done it. We’re the centre of our own universe, after all. And Western capitalist society does teach us that we are each in a struggle towards our own success. It’s not exactly a world that prioritises commune, even though we as humans absolutely require it. Selfishness is everywhere. This one is tough to combat, but does often ease in those who do their best to remember the needs of others around them. We can all be selfish at times, and sometimes it’s totally necessary. But this does affect the people around us — sometimes, we have to reassess how what we do affects others. We have to remember that everyone can be selfish, but they can be generous too. Sometimes you have to ask for generosity, give a little reminder. And sometimes we have to remind ourselves.
We’ve all held a grudge
Keeping score is such a bad habit, but it’s easy to do. When small actions or words start to build up, we’re all inclined to place these on the scale sometimes and keep track of where the balance lies. This feels connected to communication — an inability to communicate in the moment of a slight having occurred against us can mean that the slights start to build, maybe we start to tally them, instead of just saying, “Hey, that wasn’t so great for me.” Holding on to the grudge seems easier than just addressing the slight, but nothing could be further from the truth where a long term friendship is concerned. We can all stand to get into the habit of finding better ways to express our discomfort.
We’ve all been unreliable
We’ve all failed to show up when we were really needed. We’ve all forgotten something important, or failed to act when we should have done. Of course there’s a line — that one friend who never shows up is going to be hard to maintain a relationship with. We have to show up for people. But we do all slip up. Remembering that, doing our best to apologise and show up next time, is the important first step.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
We’ve all regretted our actions
There’s hope in all this. Most of us do feel regret when we know we’ve done wrong. ‘Regret’ has been a bit of a dirty word in the self-help arena for a while. But what’s so bad about it? Sure, we don’t want to find ourselves falling down the pit of regret when we’re assessing everything we’ve ever done, regretting every risk we’ve ever taken. Allowing regret to take over would mean giving in to a crippling level of anxiety, second guessing everything we do. But feeling regret in the arena of friendship — about something specific that we know we did wrong towards someone close — isn’t such an issue, in my view.
I’d watch out for those who say they ‘never regret anything’. If anything, regret demonstrates our capacity for reflection and empathy — our ability to look back and honestly consider what effect we had on someone else. Not always such a bad thing. Only by realising what we have done wrong can we honestly seek forgiveness. Only once we are aware can we actively do better.
Coming up: I will look at ways we each can redeem ourselves — the steps we can take to make sure we are doing better. Stay tuned! | https://christinacare.medium.com/you-have-been-a-bad-friend-5dc52621c0ee | ['Christina Hope'] | 2018-11-02 08:51:30.807000+00:00 | ['Wellbeing', 'Friendship', 'Acceptance', 'Self Improvement', 'Relationships'] |
My Tweets Got Me In Trouble With The FBI | My Tweets Got Me In Trouble With The FBI
It all started with a harmless Wells Fargo joke. Well, I thought it was harmless.
Twitter is a bad thing. The eternally profit-free microblogging service, lauded for spurring calls for freedom during the Arab Spring, has mostly devolved into a howling wilderness of fake news, bad takes and inventive insults. It’s a tremendous waste of time that no decent person should use.
Naturally, I love it.
I grew up in the wild and wooly early days of the Internet, before rules for behavior were set in place, and in those days verbal invective was the coin of the realm. You earned respect in some circles by how well you “flamed” — invented outrageous, cutting insults and levied them at your cyber foes. Twitter lets you take that art into the whole world, forcing celebrities, politicians and brands to be roasted in public.
When you break a rule on Twitter, there are a number of things that can happen. They can put your account into a hidden state, where people who don’t follow you can’t see your tweets for a period of time. They can lock it down completely and not reactivate it until you delete the offending tweets. They can delete your account entirely, forcing you to flounce off to more racist alternatives like Gab. Or, in a worst-case scenario, they can call the cops.
That’s what happened to me in 2013. I have a general rule that I try to respond to “promoted” tweets — where brands pay money to put their microblogging content in front of me — with derision and aggression.
My perspective on this is simple: my Twitter timeline is something I’ve curated to be relevant to my personal interests. By paying your way in there, you’re sort of like an uninvited guest at a very weird party, and I reserve the right to throw you out by your underwear.
Wells Fargo, the bank notorious for ripping off their own customers by creating millions of unauthorized accounts, found that out when they tweeted this and promoted it:
It’s “Summer Nights,” from the “Grease” soundtrack, in case you were wondering. My response was a little different.
I’m not a big fan of banks, especially malevolent corporate monoliths like Wells Fargo. I keep my liquid assets in a small community-owned bank and encourage everybody else to do the same. The tweet did OK — 18 retweets and 52 likes — and I forgot all about it promptly afterwards.
Wells Fargo didn’t, as I’d learn. | https://medium.com/dose/my-tweets-got-me-in-trouble-with-the-fbi-a7b2893f4a49 | ['K. Thor Jensen'] | 2017-05-26 19:09:18.849000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Twitter', 'Crime', 'FOIA', 'FBI'] |
10 Cool Python Project Ideas for Python Developers | Python Project Ideas for Python Developers
If you have made up your mind about the platform you’re going to use, let’s jump straight into the projects. Mentioned below are some fun projects addressed towards developers of all skill levels that will play a crucial role in taking their skills and confidence with Python to the next level.
1. Content Aggregator
Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
The internet is a prime source of information for millions of people who are always looking for something online. For those looking for bulk information about a specific topic can save time using a content aggregator.
A content aggregator is a tool that gathers and provides information about a topic from a bulk of websites in one place. To make one, you can take the help of the requests library for handling the HTTP requests and BeautifulSoup for parsing and scraping the required information, along with a database to save the collected information.
Examples of Content Aggregators:
2. URL Shortener
URLs are the primary source of navigation to any resource on the internet, be it a webpage or a file, and, sometimes, some of these URLs can be quite large with weird characters. URL shorteners play an important role in reducing the characters in these URLs and making them easier to remember and work with.
The idea behind making a URL shortener is to use the random and string modules for generating a new short URL from the entered long URL. Once you’ve done that, you would need to map the long URLs and short URLs and store them in a database to allow users to use them in the future.
Examples of URL Shortener —
Here is the link to join the course for FREE: —
3. File Renaming Tool
Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels
If your job requires you to manage a large number of files frequently, then using a file renaming tool can save you a major chunk of your time. What it essentially does is that it renames hundreds of files using a defined initial identifier, which could be defined in the code or asked from the user.
To make this happen, you could use the libraries such as sys, shutil, and os in Python to rename the files instantaneously. To implement the option to add a custom initial identifier to the files, you can use the regex library to match the naming patterns of the files.
Examples of Bulk File Rename Tools —
4. Directory Tree Generator
A directory tree generator is a tool that you would use in conditions where you’d like to visualize all the directories in your system and identify the relationship between them. What a directory tree essentially indicates is which directory is the parent directory and which ones are its sub-directories. A tool like this would be helpful if you work with a lot of directories, and you want to analyze their positioning. To build this, you can use the os library to list the files and directories along with the docopt framework.
Examples of Directory Tree Generators —
5. MP3 Player
Photo by Mildly Useful on Unsplash
If you love listening to music, you’d be surprised to know that you can build a music player with Python. You can build an mp3 player with the graphical interface with a basic set of controls for playback, and even display the integrated media information such as artist, media length, album name, and more.
You can also have the option to navigate to folders and search for mp3 files for your music player. To make working with media files in Python easier, you can use the simpleaudio, pymedia, and pygame libraries.
Examples of MP3 Players—
6. Tic Tac Toe
Tic Tac Toe is a classic game we’re sure each of you is familiar with. It’s a simple and fun game and requires only two players. The goal is to create an uninterrupted horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of either three Xs or Os on a 3x3 grid, and whoever does it first is the winner of the game. A project like this can use Python’s pygame library, which comes with all the required graphics and the audio to get you started with building something like this.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Here are a few tutorials you can try:
More Fun Python projects for game dev:
7. Quiz Application
Another popular and fun project you can build using Python is a quiz application. A popular example of this is Kahoot, which is famous for making learning a fun activity among the students. The application presents a series of questions with multiple options and asks the user to select an option and later on, the application reveals the correct options.
As the developer, you can also create the functionality to add any desired question with the answers to be used in the quiz. To make a quiz application, you would need to use a database to store all the questions, options, the correct answers, and the user scores.
Examples of Quiz Applications—
Read about the Best Python IDEs and Code Editors —
8. Calculator
Photo by Eduardo Rosas from Pexels
Of course, no one should miss the age-old idea of developing a calculator while learning a new programming language, even if it is just for fun. We’re sure all of you know what a calculator is, and if you have already given it a shot, you can try to enhance it with a better GUI that brings it closer to the modern versions that come with operating systems today. To make that happen, you can use the tkinter package to add GUI elements to your project.
9. Build a Virtual Assistant
Photo by BENCE BOROS on Unsplash
Almost every smartphone nowadays comes with its own variant of a smart assistant that takes commands from you either via voice or by text and manages your calls, notes, books a cab, and much more. Some examples of this are Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana, and Siri. If you’re wondering what goes into making something like this, you can use packages such as pyaudio, SpeechRecognition, gTTS, and Wikipedia. The goal here is to record the audio, convert the audio to text, process the command, and make the program act according to the command.
Here is the link to join the course for FREE —
10. Currency Converter
As the name suggests, this project includes building a currency converter that allows you to input the desired value in the base currency and returns the converted value in the target currency. A good practice is to code the ability to get updated conversion rates from the internet for more accurate conversions. For this too, you can use the tkinter package to build the GUI. | https://towardsdatascience.com/10-cool-python-project-ideas-for-python-developers-7953047e203 | ['Claire D. Costa'] | 2020-09-08 19:41:49.515000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Software Development', 'Technology', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Huawei Finishes Construction of its First Chipset Factory | Huawei | Huawei Finishes Construction of its First Chipset Factory | Huawei Waseemakhtarwattoo ·Dec 15, 2020
After the US government-imposed sanctions caused a rift in Huawei’s operations and prevented most companies worldwide from conducting business with the Chinese OEM, the company decided to become self-reliant, especially when it comes to chipset manufacturing.
Taking the first step in the direction, Huawei has reportedly reached its first milestone by completing the construction of its first domestic chip manufacturing factory, called the Wuhan Huawei Optical Factory Project (Phase II). The project is spread across 208,900 sq. mt. and is located in Wuhan Optics Valley Center. read more… | https://medium.com/@waseemakhtarwattoo/huawei-finishes-construction-of-its-first-chipset-factory-huawei-68066779a64c | [] | 2020-12-15 11:50:50.257000+00:00 | ['First', 'Chipset', 'Huawei', 'Huawei Factory', 'Construction'] |
This List Shows Why Afghanistan Is Called “The Graveyard of Empires” | Mongol Empire (1206–1335)
The emperors of the Mongol Empire (Public domain)
The Mongol Empire managed to gain control of Afghanistan in the years directly following the death of Genghis Khan but not without great hardship. Genghis Khan failed to fully subdue the unruly territory during his reign which lasted until 1227.
In the year 1221 during the Siege of Bamyan in Afghanistan Genghis Khan’s grandson, Mutukan, was killed by the defenders. This enraged Genghis Khan who enacted swift revenge. After capturing the city, the Mongols slaughtered everyone inside and razed the city to the ground. Despite the Pyrrhic victory, Genghis did not manage to bring the territory under his direct control.
Afghanistan was eventually captured but the gains did not last long. The Mongol Empire began to split into client states beginning in 1256CE. The Ilkhanate was the state that retained control of Afghanistan but it dissolved in 1335.
In the end, the great Mongol Empire only managed to hold onto Afghanistan for roughly a century before it collapsed.
Mughal Empire (1526–1747)
Greatest extent of the Mughal Empire (Public domain)
The Mughal Empire dominated large swaths of the Indian subcontinent for nearly three hundred years. Their name derives from the word for Mongal and they were seen as a successful successor state to the Mongol Empire. The Mughals rose in the 16th century and quickly gained control of much of India. But they never could bring Afghanistan under their direct control and that wasn’t for lack of trying.
After securing their core territories in the 16th century, the Mughal Empire began looking abroad for strategic trade routes in the 17th century. This put them into conflict with the nearby Safavid Empire which was the current ruler of Afghanistan. A series of wars and conflicts broke out in the middle part of the 17th century between the Mughals and the Safavids in Afghanistan. Much of the fighting centered around the important fortress of Kandahar.
Many years of fighting followed and in the end, the Mughals had to give up their hopes of securing Kandahar and their ambitions in Afghanistan. The extent of their conquests stopped in Kashmir and the Mughals never subdued Afghanistan.
British Empire (1839–1919)
British Guides Infantry in Afghanistan (Public domain)
After the Mughal Empire fell in the 19th century, the British moved into the region. They began taking control of the important ports, trade routes and infrastructure in India before seizing control of most of the subcontinent. The British Raj immediately came in contact with Afghanistan and it sucked them into a series of conflicts that spanned nearly a century.
At the time, Afghanistan sat between the growing Russian Empire which had expanded into the mountainous region to the north of Afghanistan and the British Empire to the east. Afghanistan once again became a strategic hot spot and a struggle between the British and the Russians began centering around Afghanistan. This 19th century power struggle became known as the Great Game.
The British Empire fought three wars in Afghanistan from 1839 to 1919. The First Anglo-Afghan War became known as the British Disaster after three years of fighting resulted in a complete withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan.
The British won the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1880 and established a protectorate over the region but it did not last long. A third war was fought in 1919 which granted Afghanistan its sovereignty and freedom from British rule.
Yet another empire spent decades of blood and treasure in Afghanistan only to come away empty handed.
Soviet Union (1979–1989)
Locals man captured artillery in the Soviet-Afghan War (Public domain)
The Russians had coveted Afghanistan for a long time. They lost their power struggle with the British in the 19th century and failed to secure the political and economic inroads in the territory that they always wanted. They saw an opportunity to change that in 1979. After a period of turmoil in the region, a communist government was declared in Afghanistan. The Soviets quickly seized on the opportunity to intervene in the country they long had their eye on.
In 1979, in support of the communist government in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union invaded with the purpose of supporting and absorbing the new communist state. The problem was, there was a large Islamic insurgency growing to oppose the invaders. What followed was a disastrous decade in which the Soviet Union was bogged down in an expensive guerilla war with the rebels. The United States and local Muslim powers were heavily supporting the rebels which gave them enough weaponry and money to continue the fight far longer than the Soviets anticipated.
Equipment, money and resources poured into Afghanistan with diminishing returns. In the end, nearly 15,000 Soviets were killed and over 50,000 wounded in the harsh fighting.
In 1989, the USSR was forced to withdraw completely from the country. The loss was seen as an international embarrassment for the Soviets. Two years later, the entirety of the Soviet Union collapsed ending the Cold War and communist intervention around the world.
The United States of America (2001–2021)
US convoy in Afghanistan (Public domain)
Finally, the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Afghanistan was seen as a lawless region that was harboring and supporting international terrorism. The US went in with the purpose of destroying the terror networks in the country and hunting down Osama Bin Laden.
Over the years, the mission morphed into one of nation building. The United States believed that they could foster and support a democratic government in Afghanistan that would help in the War on Terror and serve as a strategic and political buffer between Iran and Pakistan that was friendly to the United States. The US and its allies set up a democratic government in Kabul and worked hard to subdue the insurgents in the countryside.
But the effort was ultimately futile.
Like the Soviets before them, the United States ran into a tangled network of tribal alliances and a gruesome insurgency that cost thousands of lives over the course of decades. While the US was able to control the large urban centers, they struggled to control the sparsely populated remote tribal lands. In the end, the Taliban managed to unite the Afghan tribes against the invaders once again and a military blitzkrieg emerged from these uncontrolled tribal regions and recaptured the entire country over the course of a month.
Legacy and looking to the future
Afghanistan never manages to stay subdued for long. Once again, it finds itself independent and facing an internal struggle as the eyes of nearby great powers watch closely. It is independent of foreign invaders but how long will that last?
China is keeping a close eye on Afghanistan because of its Belt and Road Initiative as well as fears that Islamic extremism could spread from Afghanistan to the nearby Xinjiang which is controlled by China and has a large ethnic Muslim population.
The United States and its NATO allies will be keeping a close watch on the developments in Afghanistan and surely will use and terrorist activity as another pretense to get involved in their favorite region of the world.
In some cases, losing a conflict in Afghanistan leads to a rapid collapse. The Ilkhanate dissolved less than a century after controlling the territory. The British Empire evaporated just thirty years after their last conflict in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union went belly up two years after they were forced to withdraw. Now, the United States has been kicked out of the region.
Who will be foolish enough to try their hand in Afghanistan next? Some of the world’s most famous empires, greatest militarires and largest armies have attempted to invade and control Afghanistan and they all failed eventually. It seems like every attempt to conquer the region leads to years of conflict, an exhaustion of funds and countless casualties. | https://historyofyesterday.com/this-list-shows-why-afghanistan-is-called-the-graveyard-of-empires-f359b213e136 | ['Grant Piper'] | 2021-09-06 08:02:35.870000+00:00 | ['Afghanistan', 'United States', 'Lists', 'History', 'World'] |
Introducing Windmill | Windmill is exploring how to make developer tools (source control, build, and test) cloud-based, simple, and easy.
Our Product
Every good codebase we’ve worked on has a testing document:
“If you’re working on the UI, run test suite X. If you’re working on the DB layer, run test suite Y. Running all tests in Y is slow, so use command Z to test one file. Or command ZZ to only do one test case. But don’t forget to run lint first to catch dumb mistakes. Install the linter with steps A-K.”
Every bad codebase we’ve seen locks this in the senior developer’s head.
The product we’re building will unlock this knowledge. Every time you save, Windmill uploads your change to the cloud and immediately runs the best analysis (lint, compile, test, etc.) It gives you live, intelligent feedback that makes your inner loop tighter.
Unlike your IDE, it’s faster and deeper because it runs in the cloud.
Unlike your CI server, it’s part of your inner loop, running on each save and keeping you in flow.
Windmill uses your workflow with no extra sync or push commands. We integrate at the Unix level (filesystem and processes). We use machine learning to run the right test first so you get fast feedback. You keep your editor and our plugins pull error messages from Windmill.
Our Hypothesis
Developers waste time waiting for their development tools.
Continuous feedback makes developers more productive.
Our product is powered by new abstractions that make it easy to build reactive developer tools. Our insight is the common shape of developer tools: they’re composed of functions over immutable snapshots of filesystem state. When you express your tool in this framework, Windmill can run your tool at the right time, in isolation and in parallel.
Our technical hypothesis is that this framework will open up new possibilities for development tools, like how MapReduce opened up data analytics, or how Deep Learning opened up AI. More cloud capacity will let developers waste less time waiting.
Our business hypothesis is that we can turn cheap cloud compute time into valuable developer productivity. We’ll have revenue and positive gross margin starting with our first customer. Customers can make their developers more productive by increasing their budget.
Our Values
Continuous feedback makes us all more productive.
We want to build an organization where everyone can succeed; not just white cishet male software engineers with good pedigrees. We need to be diverse to have enough teammates and perspectives to build good products.
We’ll do the work of inclusion to help everyone succeed. We’ve started by donating every month to orgs that make tech less toxic (e.g. Black Girls Code, Code2040, Hack The Hood, Project Alloy). We want to help explain why these orgs are important. We’re a partial sponsor of the diversity tickets for this year’s GothamGo.
Our Team
We’re currently tiny (two people, NYC-based, VC-backed).
We’re publishing this post because we’re looking to hire people that want to help build the next generation of tools, and figure out how to make our peers more productive.
Dan Bentley — Ten years as a software engineer at Google: Google Code, Open Source Programs Office, internal build tools/continuous integration, Google Sheets. Two years on internal development tools at Twitter. $2.56 check from Donald Knuth.
Nick Santos — Seven years as a software engineer at Google building consumer editing tools (Sheets, Forms) and Closure Compiler (a type checker for JavaScript). Four years at Medium, leading the implementation of its writing tools. David Carr wrote “[The editor] is such a pleasure to work with, Medium has become something of a pleasure object for writers.”
We saw Google change office productivity tools by building a technical foundation for cloud-based collaboration. We’d love to do that for developer tools.
Interested? Curious? We’d love to chat. You can find us at Work-Bench in New York City. Follow us @windmill_eng. | https://medium.com/windmill-engineering/introducing-windmill-98036ed5d824 | ['Nick Santos'] | 2017-10-20 03:18:36.405000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Continuous Integration', 'Test Automation'] |
Qanday qilib 10 qator kod orqali obyektlarni tanib oluvchi dastur tuzish mumkin?! | Welcome to Python.org
The official home of the Python Programming Language | https://medium.com/uzbek-developers-community/qanday-qilib-10-qator-kod-orqali-obyektlarni-tanib-oluvchi-dastur-tuzish-mumkin-3a2ee13bf874 | ['Shohjahon Rahmataliyev'] | 2018-12-09 18:35:49.140000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Machine Learning', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Facedetection'] |
I Was Forced to Come Out of the Closet When I Was 16 | We were kissing on a friend’s bed.
She lifted her head and asked me, “Is it okay if I leave you a hickey?”
I said no because my parents would see it.
We’d been dating for exactly one month, but neither of our parents knew. Our friends knew, and anyone who saw us holding hands in the school hallway knew, but neither of us was ready to come out.
She was — is — bisexual, but I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t even know I liked girls until a couple of months before we started dating.
If my parents saw a hickey on my neck, I had no idea how they’d react.
Anyway, the kissing continued. Eventually, she lowered her head and started kissing my neck, and a few moments later she met my eyes, and with fake worry, she said she’d “accidentally” left hickeys.
My eyes widened, and I got up to look in the mirror. Sure enough, two dark marks were in visible spots on my neck. | https://itxylopez.medium.com/i-was-forced-to-come-out-of-the-closet-when-i-was-16-dd0bb00b7421 | ['Itxy Lopez'] | 2019-08-19 13:31:01.262000+00:00 | ['Equality', 'LGBTQ', 'Sexuality', 'Love', 'Self'] |
I couldn’t be a deep-sea diver | I find it insane that we know more about space than we do the depths of our oceans. Truly, the fact that we know so much about the skies above us to the degree we have multiple chocolate bars named after the contents of our galaxies and not a single one about anything below sea level is intimidating.
There’s one thing about the fear of the unknown, but there’s something more about the fear of what’s hiding in places we sorta know. Like the void socks disappear into every time you do the laundry. We know that the oceans are made of water, we know fish and other life live inside the oceans…but we don’t always know where, and we don’t always know what.
It’s unfathomable the true extent what exists in the fathoms below.
A deep-sea diver, and I mean, a proper deep-sea diver…Those you imagine dressed in those reverse space-suits…is a profession I don’t think I could ever do. If I was sat before the captain of an ocean explorer vessel and I was offered a job — an underwater boss offering me a Poseidon adventure, if you will — I would wonder that a) Why are you offering me this job and 2) Why do you think I could do this job?
Straight off the bat, I can’t swim. I feel like that is a pre-requisite for a job like that. It’s the aquatic equivalent of requiring a driver’s license (a thing I also do not have), and even with the right equipment, surely I also need to know to do a bit more than a doggy paddle and a dead man’s float.
By the way, a “dead man’s float” is such a presumption. It sounds more like a prediction than a valid state of being. And a “doggy paddle” neither looks nor sounds as good as when you first hear the term.
It is through this naivety to the world of waterborne employment I have definitely already fallen at the first aquatic hurdle. I do, however, would like to ponder further.
Hypothetically, I pass the physical, I pass the base requirements, I don’t pass out when travelling deeper and deeper down in the ocean, there’s still the fact that I’m in the ocean. Whether that’s in a pod going deeper and deeper into the dark depths or I’m in a diving suit feeling the pressure of the job and the pressure of the very waters around me.
At a push, I would try to still do the job at the best of my ability. I am getting paid, after all…But there’s just something about the small amount we do know about the dark depths that puts me in kind of unease.
You know what an anglerfish is, right? When you describe it as a fish that has a light hanging off its head like a carrot in front of a donkey, it’s kind of a cute mental image. Then you see an anglerfish and you wonder what fresh water hell that creature came from*
*Anglerfish do not live in fresh water.
Anglerfish live so deep they exist in total darkness. They’re me when I was a teenager. The males cling onto their female mates because they don’t develop enough and without them, they’d die alone.
Again, me when I was a teenager.
The anglerfish is a demon fish made of teeth and false promises. The orthodontic model teased to you before you’re subjected to years of restricted diet and strict oral hygiene. What’s scary is that’s just one example of what’s lurking in the dark depths of the ocean we still don’t have a total grasp of knowledge on.
There’s jellyfish that never die, there’s giant isopods that look like those pill bugs from A Bug’s Life if they were exposed to radiation, there’s a whole range of creatures named clearly for the nightmares the people who discovered them had.
Anglerfish is innocent enough. That light hanging off their head is the light ushering their prey to their untimely death. The fish that are normally hunted by us this far below have become the hunters. It’s cute that we named the fish for their fairground hall of mirrors version of a human angler.
Beyond that, however, we have…the vampire squid. As if bats weren’t bad enough, I now have to deal with vampires in a place that’s without sun 24/7? The frilled shark, which sounds like a true renaissance man of the shark world, except it doesn’t use its 300+ teeth straight away, but instead constricts you like a snake. That’s the problem the deeper you go, the more rules go out the window. And at thousands of meters below sea level, there aren’t any windows.
Did you know that there’s a thing called a goblin shark? Not because its fond of gobbling up your friends and family, purely because it looks like something Tolkien would have written if he truly wanted to take the piss with his world building.
That’s not all, there’s the grenadier, which I am honestly surprised it not just an explosive fish, there’s the black swallower, which is definitely too easy of a target to joke about, and there’s the barreleye, which is completely transparent, can move its eyes completely around, and swallows its prey whole. What. The fuck.
It’s insane to think that this is just a fraction of the fraction we do know about the ocean. The smallest possible slice about the smallest amount of ocean we’ve been able to explore up til now in the history of the world. Let me remind you that our planet is mostly water, just like how we’re mostly water, and yet there’s enough mystery for generations to come. Yet we’re also at the point where we’ve discovered an entire planet lightyears away from us and have since decided, no, actually, it’s not a planet at all.
The ocean is weird, man. I could never bring myself to take a trip below the surface. How can you trust the one place so open for exploration and yet so claustrophobic? So yeah, I couldn’t be a deep-sea diver, however much you might pay me. It’s not worth the trouble, the trauma, nor the effort. Shoot me into space. Let me see the stars.
…Then again… | https://medium.com/@theclubgroucho/i-couldnt-be-a-deep-sea-diver-3c136c6313f1 | ['Christopher Francis'] | 2021-07-02 14:51:42.022000+00:00 | ['Deep Sea Diving', 'Finding Yourself', 'Ocean', 'Comedy', 'Life'] |
Intro : The Attenborough Effect. I am your average 20 something from… | I am your average 20 something from Liverpool. I'm living in a house share in London. I have a normal job and consider myself just another person who has very little influence over anyone else outside my friends and family. Even then this was limited due to the stubborn and strong willed tendencies of Scousers.
In 2018 I (like many of us) tuned in to Blue Planet II hosted by, the man, the legend and the person we all not so secretly wish was our grandad: Sir David Attenborough. He highlighted an issue that most of us (myself included) hadn't really ever put much thought into. What happens to all those single use items we use daily? Well…I guess now we know.
After this episode I did what many of us did — I went about my normal life: got up, went to work and used countless single use plastics. I had always been rather happy in my own little bubble, only thinking about what mattered to me in the moment. But, on this particular day I couldn’t stop thinking about all those plastics floating around in the ocean. It wasn't even that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t stop talking about it. Telling anyone who would listen about how awful it was. It went on and on like this for weeks until my boyfriend couldn’t take it much longer and asked me what I was going to do about it? My answer to this question was that I didn’t know.
It started small in the form of some research. My initial thought was if everyone could make some small lifestyle changes we as a world would be better off. Isn’t that the start of all things? You start small like a tiny seed and let it grow into a tall, beautiful tree. But then I had to take a good hard look at myself and realise that if this “epiphany” was so easy and great then why hadn’t I ever bothered to do it before?
A book called Sapiens, gave me some interesting concepts about the development of humankind. Before I jump into this I would just like to point out that I listened to this book during my commute to work over an 8 week period and that I am not some great scholar who can devour the content of a book in days — I like my napping and the pub too much so self discipline isn’t my strong suit. Anyway back to my point. I had learnt in this book that mankind is partially driven by the desire for ease and convenience. We don’t really want to sacrifice our creature comforts and make things harder when it doesn’t need to be. Thus came my second “epiphany”. What if I could make small environmentally sound changes to my life without feeling like I was missing out on the good stuff. This is where the term The Lazy Environmentalist came in.
It seems the problem is our societies acceptance of single use items. Our world war predecessors with the mentality of “make do and mend” would be completely shocked by the sheer amount of single use items which for the most part are completely unnecessary. There are many small and easy lifestyle changes that can be made that can really make a difference.
My plan is to make small changes wherever possible. I will try and test out products that are not only sustainable for the environment but also easy to use, and sustainable for the average person. Then hopefully a small handful of people will read my journey and see that change can be easy. Greta Thunberg has my favourite quote so far: no one is too small to make a difference. Hopefully that what I can do too. | https://medium.com/@thelazyenvironmentalist/intro-the-attenborough-effect-4e7fd1e72e49 | ['The Lazy Enviromentalist'] | 2020-01-14 21:32:09.759000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Single Use Plastic', 'Plastic Pollution', 'Environmental Issues'] |
Expande filas de tabla con jQuery — jExpand plugin | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/xdesign/expande-filas-de-tabla-con-jquery-jexpand-plugin-6f3180632072 | ['Federico Bozo'] | 2016-12-06 14:39:51.196000+00:00 | ['HTML'] |
Evolution of BI Platforms | We live in an era of Big Data. Around 1.7MB of data is created every second by every person. 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced by humans every-day. This sheer volume of data has become so huge, complex, and fast-moving, that to make sense of this vast amount of data is a challenge. So, Business Intelligence (BI) tools are used to analyze this humongous amount of data to uncover the insights that are crucial for the business. It makes data of any kind, easy to digest with stunning visualizations, detailed historical analysis, and customizable reports.
Over the decades, BI technology has evolved, and the market shows no signs of slowing down. While the inherent meaning has remained the same, but BI as a set of processes, technologies, and tools has changed a great deal, right from Traditional BI to AI-powered BI which uses Augmented Analytics. Before understanding how augmented analytics will change the analysis and business intelligence process, let us have a look at the evolution of business intelligence.
Traditional BI
The first generation of BI technology often referred to as “Traditional BI” was a centralized guardian tool for all enterprise data largely owned and driven by the IT and data specialists. Legacy deployments of multiple components such as data marts, data warehouses were technically complex and required extensive IT staff to maintain and manage it. The Extract Transform and Load (ETL) paradigm integrated data from disparate sources into a central repository for storage. Once stored, data was normalized and structured before it is further utilized to run queries and retrieve data for reporting.
Ultimately, the IT department generates and delivers static reports to the business owners. The analysis was usually descriptive and performed by specialized data analysts with restricted access to the reports. This entire process could take days, weeks, or even months to produce insights due to dependency on skilled IT staff. And thus, unable to make timely data-informed decisions. To make BI more accessible to business users, self-service BI became the next generation of analytics and BI.
Self-Service BI
The main drawbacks of traditional BI were the need for highly skilled technical analysts, lengthy time-to-insights, and poor quality of the data being analyzed. These drawbacks were overcome by a more agile approach that favored self-service capabilities: Modern Self-Service BI. This eliminated the technical stack designed for IT users and focused on providing data discovery and visualization tools to business users. It also provides business users the ability to conduct ad hoc analysis of data from disparate sources without any advanced technical skills. As compared to traditional BI, they can handle larger volumes of data drawn from multiple sources allowing for deeper analyses. They replaced the rows and columns of traditional data presentations with graphical pictures and charts.
In addition to historical reporting, it provides predictive and prescriptive reporting and insights in real-time. With these tools’ users get the information to make better decisions, with greater ease, and without having to rely a lot on data analysts and IT professionals. Modern BI solutions also make data governance, security, and access control simpler for IT teams.
Need for an AI-powered BI tool
Despite being more insightful and easier-to-use than traditional BI, self-service BI tools do have few limitations. As the volume of data rises, there is a requirement of data scientists to make sense of huge datasets. But the scarcity of data scientists and manual data preparation makes the process highly inefficient and prone to error. Also, the insights provided by self-service BI systems are limited to the type of queries made by business users. This is where the need for a new AI-powered BI i.e. Augmented Analytics BI system arises. It not only automates the data preparation tasks but also parts of data insights and the data discovery process.
Augmented Analytics BI
Augmented Analytics integrates AI into the analytics and BI process to help the user to prepare their data, identify relationships within the data, discover new insights, and easily share them with everyone in the organization. It reduces the dependency on highly skilled data scientists by automating insight generation using machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. Gartner states that more than 40% of the data scientists’ roles to be automated by 2020. Augmented Analytics BI tool can help less technical experts like Citizen Data Scientists to provide recommendations and suggestions based on their domain and primary skills to understand and gain insights from the trends and patterns. It will be free of human biases and reveal hidden insights crucial for the business. Also, the use of Natural Language Generation (NLG) can enhance the BI reporting process by allowing users to query the system and present the insights narratively.
Augmented Analytics will help move organizations beyond the dashboard paradigm to a new way of consuming insights i.e. data story. These will help the user understand just the insight and context that they need at the right moment to make the decision. By 2025, 75% of the data stories will be automatically generated using augmented analytics techniques.
Every organization will need an augmented analytics platform to create visualizations, aid in storytelling, and then help users to effortlessly share their findings across the entire organization. This will boost the adoption of Augmented Analytics BI across teams, especially among non-technical users. Augmented Analytics will change how users experience analytics and BI.
Does your organization still use Traditional BI and Self-Service BI? Do you plan to adopt Augmented Analytics BI in the future? If yes, then how it will benefit an organization. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.
Author: Payal Paranjape | https://medium.com/@subex/evolution-of-bi-platforms-6e9cc7f9dca2 | [] | 2020-12-08 04:44:17.987000+00:00 | ['Augmented Intelligence', 'Analytics', 'Business Intelligence', 'Intelligence', 'Etl'] |
How Hashmap Works Internally in Java | In this post, we will discuss the internal working of hashmap. Being the famous question in the interview lets discuss the internal working of hashmap.Before discussing how the hashmap works let discuss some of the important terminologies which will be used further in the blog.
Hashmap is a java class which stores the object in the form of key, value pair. Each key is associated with a value. We can understand this as each person can be identified using the unique mobile number. Here, in this example, the phone number is the key and person object is the value. So, in java we can define the hashmap in the following way :
Map<String,value> map = new HashMap<String,value>();
Terminologies related to hashmap –
1. Hashing Principle –
The hashmap works on the principle of hashing. Hashing is nothing but transforming the given entity to some number. So basically hashing depends upon the function which returns the integer value. This integer number is known as hashcode.
2. Bucket –
Bucket in hashmap is nothing but the entry of multiple singly linked list. These LinkedList are registered as an array of Entry.
3. Collision –
The collision occurs when we try to add different keys with the same hash. So, in simple terms collision in hashmap will occur when hashmap finds two objects have the same hashcode.
4. Load Factor –
It is the measuring unit which decides on exactly when the hashmap needs to be resized. Resizing hashmap means increasing the size of the bucket. The default capacity of hashmap is 16 and to that of default load factor is 0.75.
5. Threshold –
The threshold is the next size value of the hashmap to which it needs to be resized. Resize will happen once the hashmap is full. The threshold value will be calculated based on the below formula:
Threshold = CurrentCapacity * LoadFactor
For example :
If the hashmap is created with the initial capacity of 16 and a load factor of 0.75, then, the threshold will be 16 * 0.75 = 12.
So, these were some of the important terminologies which relate to the hashmap. Now, one more important thing or rule that we should discuss while discussing hashmap. The rule is The contract between hashcode and equals method. The contract states that:
1. If two objects are equal based on the equals method then their hashcode will be equal.
2. If two objects have the same hashcode then they may or may not be equal.
Now, after becoming familiar to these terminologies we are good to go with the interview questions. Let’s discuss them.
Q1. What is a hashmap in java?
Hashmap is a java class which stores the object in the form of key, value pair. Each key is associated with a value. We can understand this as each person can be identified using the unique mobile number. Here, in this example, the phone number is the key and person object is the value. So, in java we can define the hashmap in the following way :
Map<String,value> map = new HashMap<String,value>();
Q2. How hashmap works internally in java / Explain the internal working of get() in hashmap?
Internally hashmap works on the principle of hashing. Hashmap provides put(key, value) for adding the values in the hashmap and get(key) to get the object which corresponds to the specified key.
While inserting the object into the hashmap we call put(key, value), hashmap internally calls the hashcode method on the key object to apply the hashing mechanism. This hashcode returns the integer value which is known as hashcode. This hashcode is then can be used to find the bucket location for storing an Entry object. Hashmap will store both key and value pair in the form of Map.Entry.
Q3.What will happen if the two objects have the same hashcode?
This is the case of collision. In this case, before answering we should remember the contract between hashcode and equals method. Since hashcode is the same bucket value will also be same and collision will occur. Hashmap internally uses LinkedList to store objects. Hence, this entry will be stored in LinkedList.
Q4. How we can retrieve the object if two keys have the same hashcode?
Hashmap handles this case by using the mechanism called Channing. Hashmap uses LinkedList to deal with collision and store the objects into the bucket. It will be better understood by the below:
Q5. What is the difference between hashmap and hashtable?
The main difference between hashmap and hashtable are as follows:
Hashmap is non-synchronized. It is not thread-safe hence, we should not use it in case of multi-threaded environment whereas Hashtable is synchronized. Means it is thread-safe and hence we can use hashtable in a multi-threaded environment. As hashmap is non-synchronized the performance is much faster whereas Hashtable is synchronized which makes it slower as compare to the hashmap. Hashmap allows one null key and multiple null values whereas Hashtable does not allow any number of null key and null values. To make hashmap synchronized we can use this code Map m = Collections.synchronizedMap(hashmap) whereas Internally hashmap is already synchronized Hashmap can be traversed using iterator whereas Enumerator an Iterator can be used to traverse the hashtable. Iterator in hashmap is fail-fast whereas Enumerator in hashtable is not fail-fast.
Q6. Why string is used as a key in hashmap?
Since the string is an immutable class in java, its hashcode can be calculated at the time creation and it does not need to be recalculated. Hence, its processing is faster than other hashmap key objects. All the wrapper classes in java are eligible for hashmap key.
Q7. Can we create a custom key in hashmap? If yes, how?
Yes, we can create the custom key in hashmap. To do so there are some of the rules that we need to follow:
1). The class which we will be using as the hashcode key, that class should be immutable.
2). The class should implement equals and hashcode methods. Hashcode will be used when we insert a key object into the map and equals method will be used when we retrieve the object.
Below is the example of a sample class which is eligible for hashmap key:
<script src=”https://gist.github.com/sourabhrai235/e470a94df5b36a3853b50a28eec1efa6.js"></script>
Q8. Can we store the null key in hashmap?
Yes, we can store the null key in hashmap. Only one null key is allowed in the hashmap. This entry will be stored as the first location on the bucket array. The Hashmap does not call hashcode() on the null key as it will throw NullPointerException. Hence, when the user calls get() with null, then the value of the first index is returned.
Q9. Can we store null values in hashmap?
Yes, hashmap also allows null value. We can store any number of null values in the hashmap.
Q10. Which data structure is used to implement hashmap?
HashTable is the based implementation of HashMap. HashMap also uses Array and LinkedList. The array data structure is used as the bucket while LinkedList is used to store all mapping which lands in the same bucket. Java 8 onwards, LinkedList is replaced by binary search tree.
Q11. What will happen if we use hashmap in a multithreaded application?
If you use HashMap in a multidimensional environment in such a way that multiple threads structurally modify the mapping by adding, removing, or modifying the map, then HashMap’s internal data structure may be corrupted as if some links are missing. , Some may indicate incorrect entries, and the map itself may be completely useless. Because of these drawbacks, we should not use HashMap in such environment hence, we can use ConcurrentHashMap or HashTable which ensures thread-safety.
Q12. What is ConcurrentHashmap?
ConcurrentHashMap is synchronized. As HashMap does not provide thread-safety so, ConcurrentHashMap can be used in the threaded environment. ConcurrentHashMap is fail-safe and it returns ConcurrentModificationException during iteration. ConcurrentHashMap does not allow null key/value. It will throw NullPointerException. ConcurrentHashMap is slower than HashMap.
Q13. What are the different ways to iterate over hashmap?
Here are the ways using which we can iterate the HashMap, By using
keyset and iterator
entrySet and iterator
entrySet and enhanced for loop
keyset() and get()
That’s about some of the important questions from the Java HashMap interview. I’ve also tried to answer them, but if you disagree with an answer, feel free to comment. HashMap is a very important class in java, so I suggest everyone go through HashMap and its features in-depth.
Related Articles:
1. Core java interview questions.
2. Java 8 interview questions.
3. Abstraction in Java.
4. Encapsulation in Java.
5. Compile time polymorphism in java.
6. Runtime Polymorphism in java. | https://medium.com/@sourabhrai235/how-hashmap-works-internally-in-java-952206717924 | [] | 2020-09-21 09:54:47.664000+00:00 | ['Core Java', 'Hashmap', 'Internal Working', 'Maps'] |
How can we police the police? | As long as there have been police, there have been complaints of police brutality; the only difference is now people have cameras with the ability to finally hold the police accountable. With the recent cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others, the American police system has been put under the spotlight. Many people have even gone as far to suggest that the police system should be completely reformed.
The ability to capture images and save them instantaneously is rather recent but has completely changed the way evidence can be used in court. Instead of just having one person’s word against another’s, it becomes one person’s word against video evidence.
“… [the smartphone’s] ability to make the world witness police brutality toward African-Americans that was all too easy to ignore in the past. We could now see, with our own eyes, the black sides of stories that were otherwise lost when white officers filed their police reports.” — Joanna Stern, Wall Street Journal
This new truth is especially visible in the 2015 murder case of Walter Scott where witness Feidin Santana caught the murder on camera. Feidin Santana was able to think quickly and record the incident with his smartphone. This would lead to a verdict of 20 years in jail for the police officer in trial. His phone video was the key piece of evidence used to convict the police officer.
Image captured by Santana of the police officer killing Walter Scott
Stories like this are only possible because of the invention of the camera phone. In 2009, Karina Vargas caught Johannes Mehserle killing Oscar Grant III at a train station. She had her 10-megapixel Fujifilm with her and was able to record the situation. She said in an interview, “If I had this iPhone back then I would have taken much better video. I would have been able to get closer and I probably would have shared it to Instagram or another place so everyone could see it.”
One aspect of how cell phones have revolutionized holding police officers accountable is its ability to create virality. Social media has become a breeding ground for viral videos. In the past, a video could not be shared to the public in a matter of seconds but now it happens regularly. A great example of videos going viral is the George Floyd video. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin. The altercation was recorded dozens of times and shared millions more. It was able to spread especially quickly due to the cruel way he passed away. The video shows Officer Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck as he pleaded for help. Many people were outraged and protests against police brutality in response. Derek Chauvin is now being prosecuted for second degree murder and manslaughter; the other officers present are being prosecuted for aiding and abetting murder as well as aiding and abetting manslaughter.
“Getting choked by detectives, yeah, yeah, now check the method
They be askin’ us questions, harass and arrest us…” — Kanye West, Jesus Walks
Cops have gotten away with police brutality too many times for far too long. Now, finally, anyone can produce court changing evidence with the help of smartphones. Although cameras were accessible before smartphones became popular, it was not nearly at the same scale that they are today. This brings up the question: How many cops should be in jail today but are not just because they weren’t being recorded? | https://medium.com/christ-school/how-can-we-police-the-police-865d81d46d69 | ['Sanford Gardner'] | 2020-11-20 16:46:48.406000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Police Brutality'] |
The voice inside me | Photo by Jonas Von Werne on Unsplash
It doesn’t matter how loud you are, something silent and soft is going to make you quiet one day.
All the hurt you carry inside you as it belongs to the broken glass chunks is going to make you want to heal your wounds one day.
All the cold, numb pain you sip in the morning, once out of the bed... Like it doesn’t matter how who leave you anymore is going to make the sky rain down someday
And the thought you have every day, that the world will be better without you in, just want to let you know that it doesn’t matter useless or used you feel at this hour
It doesn’t matter who loves or hates you this morning
It doesn’t matter who pretend to care or not to care for you every time you need
It doesn’t matter what others like or dislike about your eyes, face, and body
Some would appreciate you, some not
Some say friends rest say enemies or in between frenemies
Never give yourself up on whatever the labels are
Some want you to succeed
Some would wish you fade out
You should know, that someday or sometime you are going to be grateful for choosing to stay no matter how hard it is to do so...
You are going to make yourself kind and proud one day…
And even if you don’t end up doing anything great, just I am letting you know that the love you give yourself, is somehow saving the world that feels you have failed… | https://medium.com/@ahalarul/the-voice-inside-me-4dbbc7059b7c | ['Blank Voice'] | 2020-12-20 06:59:58.998000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Mind'] |
Predict fuel efficiency using an Artificial Neural Network in TensorFlow 2.x | After we started using just one linear neuron, we continue and build our first Artificial Neural Network (ANN). This tutorial is built upon the regression tutorial by Tensorflow.
In this tutorial, we are using a dataset describing cars. We are provided with data as the number of cylinders, horsepower, weight, etc. We need to predict the miles per gallon (MPG). Therefore we use the labeled training data and implement our first ANN.
In the last section of this tutorial are a few ideas that you could try to optimize further.
Setting up the dataset
As last time we start by setting up the dataset. The dataset we are using is the Auto MPG dataset available from the UCI Machine Learning Repository.
We do this by adding a new Python file named ‘auto_mpg_dataset.py’ into our datasets folder and receive the raw dataset.
This should output something like this:
A glimpse into our dataset
There are a few problems:
If you run print(dataset.isna().sum()) you can see that there are rows with unknown values; we need to drop this using dataset = dataset.dropna() The origin is really categorical, not numeric. This introduces information into our dataset, which we don’t want. The column is encoded like this: 1-USA, 2-Europe, 3-Japan. Higher numbers are interpreted better, but we don’t want to rate any state of origin, so we need to encode this column one-hot.
dataset['Origin'] = dataset['Origin'].map({1: 'USA', 2: 'Europe', 3: 'Japan'})
dataset = pd.get_dummies(dataset, prefix='', prefix_sep='')
This leaves us with the following output:
We dropped rows with unknown values, and one-hot encoded the origin column.
We need to split the dataset into train- and test-set; we do this 80% trainset and 20% test set. The feature we want to predict is ‘MPG’ so we need to separate the target value, the “label”, from the features:
Split the dataset, separate the label and return everything in order
Implementing the Model
We can implement the model now. Therefore we open a file regression.py in folder ‘models’.
The model's structure in the last tutorial is the same; we only inherit from tf.keras.Model:
Normalization
If we look at the data in the table, we can see that there are columns with different scales. To treat each column the same way, we need to normalize the columns.
We can do this in two ways:
Use NumPy to normalize the dataset or use a normalize-layer in our ANN.
In this tutorial, we implement the latter.
To do that, we fit a normalize-layer to our feature data. We can do this in our __init__() method.
self.normalizer = preprocessing.Normalization()
self.normalizer.adapt(np.array(train_features))
Layers
In the init() function, we also need to define the dense layers. In a dense layer or feed-forward layer, every neuron of the layer is connected with every neuron of the following layer. The connections between neurons are the weights.
The function call() defines in which order we call the layers.
Our first model will use two dense layers with 64 neurons each and ReLU as non-linearity. The output layer is just one neuron that uses the activation function linear and outputs the predicted MPG. In the get_model() function, we feed the train_features to initialize the normalization-layer.
Training the Model
We need to connect our prepared dataset with our model and train it accordingly. Therefore we write a new trainer called trainer_regression.py and place it in the ‘trainer’ folder.
As you can see, we basically do the same steps as in the tutorial before:
get model get dataset train the model evaluate the model.
Changes in main.py
There are a few changes in main.py. We need:
parameters val_split and train_split add the trainer regression
That’s it! | https://medium.com/@janbolle87/predict-fuel-efficiency-using-an-artificial-neural-network-using-tensorflow-2-x-ad9e4d288dd6 | ['Jan Bollenbacher'] | 2020-11-12 18:17:23.466000+00:00 | ['TensorFlow', 'Tutorial', 'Regression', 'Neural Networks', 'Machine Learning'] |
Golden Nugget from a Former Bad Girl: New Year Resolutions are Flukes | Photo from Laura Marques in Unsplash
I used to steal, fight, and sell drugs. I even went to jail for conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Back then, I was so angry with myself and others that I wanted to be a hit woman. I wanted to kill people for a living. I even tried to enlist in the Army so I could kill legally. Can you imagine how stupid that was?
Then I changed.
For the last twenty years, I’ve been working a productive career, enjoying my family, and making positive changes in my life. My peaceful life with my husband and sons includes writing, working, drinking chai latte, playing with my grandchildren, and watching Netflix. Life is awesome.
People who know my story often ask me how did I change from an angry delinquent to a professional woman who promotes love, kindness, and peace. Some people search for an insightful piece of wisdom or inspiration in my story. A spiritual revelation or something that can be sold in a cute little bottle for others to change their life too.
Well, sorry to disappoint, there isn’t any.
Truth is I changed when I started believing that I had no choice but to change. When I realized that if I didn’t change, I would end up in prison, dead, or worse lose my son. Three outcomes that scared the living shit out of me. I was backed into a corner with only those three options. That was the catapult of my transformation.
There isn’t any magic trick that will make people accomplish their goals. It is simply the desire to change regardless of what gets in the way that truly empowers us to change. That’s it.
When the fear of doing what we’re doing now becomes bigger than the fear of the new behavior, that’s when we change. I know this may be different for some people. I know everyone’s circumstances are different, and so are our excuses.
I’ve seen it, first in me, and then in others. People will only change their behaviors when they are sick of it. I was sick of fighting, sick of living in raunchy motels. I was sick of running from the police and sick of not making enough money. So I changed. I’ve worked as a career counselor for 18 years. I worked in a homeless shelter for six years. Every job I’ve taken in the last twenty years has been in one way or another helping people make positive changes in their lives. When it comes to leaving an abusive relationship, not using drugs, or anything else, people have the potential to change only when the new behavior outweighs the negative behavior. I don’t mean to be pessimistic or harsh about this but that’s it.
As we start 2019 and are inundated with tips to maintain our resolutions and advice to become better people, employees, entrepreneurs, or writers, a good question to ask is, Am I really done with this [insert whatever behavior you want to change here]? The word shit fits in the brackets too.
I’m a bit over the top, so I always ask myself, “If someone was to put a gun on my head, would I fight for this? Would I even think about this [insert whatever behavior you think is important here, if you can put yourself in that mental space]?” I sure wouldn’t be thinking about looking thin and pretty at that point, or getting that nice house, or that extra paycheck. Nope, I probably would be thinking about my husband and my kids. And yes, that book I didn’t finish. I would. I know because a gun has been drawn at me twice. And each time, my thoughts included my son, how I would never know what a peaceful life would feel like, and how I never got to tell anyone what happened to me.
So what really mattered to me is what I decided to focus on.
The second piece of this goal setting puzzle is once we realize what we want above all, the nagger comes in to stop us. Regardless how much we try to shut it down, there it is. That nagger has been called fear, shadow, or whatever we want to call it. I call it reminders or naggers. Reminders that I am human, alive, and that life is exciting, yet dangerous.
It’s true we must strengthen our risk muscles. I am not suggesting you rob a bank though. If you really want something, just go for it, but you must be willing to take the long road. No matter how long it takes. If you want something bad enough, you’ll die for it, and you won’t stop until you get it. That positive stubbornness has proven priceless. Of course, it also was what landed me in jail.
Now I just choose to direct that power within me to bring positive changes to what matters the most. I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set my mind to though. There’s nothing special about me. I have naggers and have never ignored them. I just moved past them. I move forward in spite of what the naggers tell me. Of course, I’ve failed. I know that it seems like I wanted to be rich–which I’m not– when I robbed that bank and obviously I got arrested for it. What I really wanted was a home. I wanted enough money to rent a house so I could sleep on my own bed. A place where I could sleep without gunshots flying through my window, drug addicts knocking my door to buy drugs, or bed bugs messing with me. To do that, I thought robbing a bank was the fastest way. Turns out I had to work for eight years to buy my own home. Turns out the fastest way is not always the best, huh?
Again anyone can do this. It’s really up to you. | https://medium.com/@nilsarivera/golden-nugget-from-a-former-bad-girl-new-year-resolutions-are-flukes-39b6eb5560ad | ['Nilsa Rivera Castro'] | 2019-01-10 18:49:04.515000+00:00 | ['Life Goals', 'Life Lessons', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Goals', 'Writers Life'] |
The Mystery Man | So yesterday we looked at Isaiah 7 and it forces us to also look at Isaiah 9 to get a better understanding of the child being prophesied about. We saw yesterday that the child could be the Messiah, but that he could also be a future king in the line of David that would be a godly king.
But, before we jump to Isaiah 9, we need to go back to Isaiah 7 for a moment. Many scholars take the view that when Isaiah gave this prophecy and Isaiah 9, he had an immediate fulfillment idea in King Hezekiah, meaning Isaiah believed that Hezekiah was the child of the prophecy. However, if you don’t know the story of King Hezekiah, he was alive when Isaiah gave this first prophecy, but he becomes king after King Ahaz and Hezekiah is a great king, one that few could compare to. However, Hezekiah fails to live up to the expectations of the prophecy and Isaiah. 2 Chronicles 32 says that Hezekiah was a proud king and failed to truly give God all of the glory and because of this, wrath came upon him and Jerusalem. Therefore, scholars have stated that because of this failure, Isaiah realized that the prophecy could not be about Hezekiah and could only be about a future king to come, potentially the future Messiah.
So, in Isaiah 9, we get more information about this prophesied child and it’s worth looking at. Specifically, Isaiah 9:6–7 says,
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.”
The first part probably sounds really familiar if you have ever been in church for a Christmas service. The second part might sound familiar, but not as much. But after reading this passage, it seems a little out there to think that Isaiah might assume this is referring to an earthly king, even one so great as Hezekiah. Some scholars have tried to say that this is referring to the coronation ceremony of Hezekiah and the names are a sign that he is chosen by God and to be God’s vessel for justice and peace. Some have said that these names parallel the way Egyptians viewed their Pharaohs and is showing how the Egyptian pharaohs were nothing compared to God’s chosen king. All of these views fall short. There is too much speculation in these views and not enough evidence.
What is clear from the text tho is that this prophecy is all about a future birth. So if we take what we know from Isaiah 7, that it could have been referring to the future Messiah or a coming earthly king, to knowing that Hezekiah was not the fulfillment Isaiah might have thought he would be, we are now faced with looking to a future birth of a messianic king. Now Isaiah did not know this would be Jesus, the name Jesus was not even remotely in his mind at this time. But, we can see a few things from this passage that point to a king above any other king.
For starters, we see that “the government will be upon his shoulders”. There are a few scholars that actually say that this declaration about the child is a direct slap to the previous kings because they don’t even come close to comparing to the coming child. This child is so special and above all other kings that government as a whole, all authority possible, is going to be on his shoulders. He will be the ruler of rulers!
Second, we have 4 different names listed for this coming child. Specifically those names are, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Wonderful Counselor tells us that he will be supernatural peace and comfort to those in need. Mighty God tells us that this is truly God in the flesh that will come to earth (part of the name Immanuel is the Hebrew word “El”, which is the name for God, hence the meaning of the name being “God with us”). Everlasting Father tells us that he will be like a father to all who trust him, he will care deeply for those in need and this is and will always be his character and who he is. Prince of Peace tells us that he will not only bring and end to all war and strife, but will bring peace that will live in the heart of his children, because he is their father. This can be none other than the coming Messiah, Yahweh, God, Jesus himself made flesh. His reign will have no end, David’s throne is now his, and from his throne he will bring justice and righteousness for all time.
And he comes in the form of a child, born with livestock and in a feed trough, no glorious announcement, only the gifts and welcomes from shepherds and wise men. From the humblest of beginnings, to death on a cross, to resurrection, to reigning forever in Heaven. That is Jesus and that is the true reason for why we celebrate this Christmas season.
What is so unique about this prophecy is how counter it was to what the Jews hoped for. You see, the Jews were tired of war and oppression and getting beat up on. You name the country that warred against the Jews and they just wanted it to be over. Their hope for the Messiah was this figure would come in and throw off all oppression, bringing the Jews and Israel to dominance over all. He would be a mighty and strong leader, a war-like general who would fight and win! He would be the king that no one else could equal, ruling with political savvy and power. This king would look like, sound like, and exude kingship.
And yet what they got was the exact opposite. Jesus wasn’t born at all like a king. Jesus didn’t look like a king, he looked like a well-traveled wandered used to life on the road without a home. He never fought as a warrior. He never actually was established as a king or ruler of any nation. He wasn’t political, he didn’t care about power, he didn’t care about gaining the approval of the rich and powerful to heighten his own status.
And yet the power that was in Jesus was something no one had EVER seen. He healed those lame from birth. He healed the blind. He resurrected the dead. He spoke with such grace and love that people were captivated by his words and turned from their sinful ways. He loved the kids and the needy. He served; he wasn’t served. He gave his life for those who hated him and in the ultimate show of power, he rose back to life for those very people. This is the Messiah they never wanted, but this is the Messiah they absolutely needed. This Messiah, Jesus, set the framework for what a true follower of him looks like and it was good.
So this Christmas season, focus on that. Focus on the very things that the people did not want in their Messiah and how perfect it was that they did not get what they wanted. Focus on the person of Jesus, focus on exactly who he is, and be thankful for that because he loves you as an Everlasting Father, a Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, and a Prince of Peace.
Passage to read: Isaiah 9:1–7
Prayer to pray: God I am thankful for you. I am thankful for your love and for the example that you set for me on what it means to truly follow you and love people. Thank you for living a fully human life so that I can trust that you understand what it’s like to be human. God help to always seek comfort in you as my father and counselor. In this season, I want to celebrate you and what you did for me and for the world. Thank you Jesus, in your name I pray, amen. | https://medium.com/@mwking116/the-mystery-man-c3c7e7deab7f | ['Matt King'] | 2020-12-22 22:31:58.966000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Bible Study', 'Devotional', 'Student Ministry'] |
Table Stakes: Goodbye Executive Recruiting, Hello Furniture Making | Table Stakes: Goodbye Executive Recruiting, Hello Furniture Making
Sheldon Myeroff is a true entrepreneur. He launched Direct Recruiters, Inc at the age of 31 and successfully grew the business into a major, executive recruiting firm.
But after 37 years at the helm of the company, he embarked on an exit plan — turning over the management of the company to a group of partners.
“They wanted to grow. And they wanted to have their name on the front door. So, one day I just said, ‘Okay, let’s just sell this place and you guys will buy it.’ And they worked out a beautiful buyout. They didn’t have to put one nickel down and they paid me everything for 10 years. I trusted them and they came through.”
That’s when Sheldon installed an elaborate wood shop in his basement. And over the past seven years, he has turned a hobby of work working and furniture making into a booming business called Chagrin Valley Custom Furniture.
The business had a rough start. According to Sheldon, “I tried to be everything to everybody. So, if somebody said they wanted a bunk bed, I built them a bunk bed. If a guy said he wanted a stereo cabinet, I built him a stereo cabinet. So, I was making all these different projects, didn’t really know what I was doing. I hadn’t been in a manufacturing business ever in my life and didn’t understand the concepts of how to make money in the furniture industry.”
But one day a client asked, “Can you build me a wooden table with resin down the middle?” When he asked his production manager, the reply came back, “What’s resin?” So they went on the internet and figure out how to build the table.
Today, Chagrin Valley Custom Furniture is the #1 manufacturer of custom-made “river tables.” A river table is two pieces of natural wood with a “river” of epoxy resin flowing down the middle. According to Sheldon, “It quickly became 80% of our business.”
The company has moved out of Sheldon’s basement into a 6,000 square foot workshop with nine employees. And the Covid-19 pandemic has actually been good for business. “We deal with a lot with baby boomers and they have all the money right now. They have saved and they’re going into their retirement homes and they want to live a nice life. But they can’t travel and they can’t visit their grandkids. So they buy a nice table for their house.” | https://medium.com/second-act-stories/table-stakes-goodbye-executive-recruiting-hello-furniture-making-4c49c21a50ba | ['Andrew Levine'] | 2020-12-11 18:03:48.071000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Life Lessons', 'Work', 'Career Change', 'Second Act Stories'] |
I Write Erotica… And It’s So Boring | The stories I write are erotic shorts, around 5,000–8,000 words in length, retailing for the tried and tested price point of $2.99. I create “chapters” of around 500–800 words that move the story along. Each chapter has a “cliff hanger” that usually ends with the sex almost happening, but not quite. The stories have one main character — the cool, older chick — and one or two minor players. Emphasis on the players.
My readers (such as they are) say the stories are fabulous. They say the stories are witty, well-written and (as much as possible) have a satisfying character arc. My writing process is that I outline the story, write it with placeholders where the sex should go, then go back and add in the sexy times once the story is complete. And it’s this going back to fill in the sex gaps that is boring to me. Coming (pun intended) up with various descriptions and synonyms for my characters getting hot and heavy in its various forms and shapes and permutations, is creatively taxing. Tab A. Slot B. Slot B.Tab A.
I wish I found it exciting. I wish I didn’t find it formulaic. I wish I didn’t have to grapple with the myriad of ways to describe a tongue going into places it probably wasn’t designed for. Or the waves of pleasure washing over one as one is about to ride the cusp of eternal bliss via aforementioned tongue. Or getting graphic with words or language I never use ordinarily like See You Next Tuesday.
I always thought I was comfortable with sex. Yes, I’m vanilla. I’ve never had a threesome or been interested in one. Hell, I don’t even like sharing my food. I don’t do anything that involves an implement (organic or inorganic) near the vicinity of my butt. I don’t dress up, mainly because I can’t be bothered. But within the bounds of vanilla, is definitely some strawberry: I like the lights on. Afternoons and mornings are lovely times of day for getting jiggy with it. Up against the furniture is fine. Anything involving water, I’m there. Ditto cream and chocolate sauce.
So maybe it’s not so much that I find writing erotica boring (which I do) but more that I’d rather write about sex in the context of human relationships and emotional connections. An exploration of feelings and attachment and physicality.
Because that, in all its messy beauty, is never boring. | https://medium.com/literally-literary/i-write-erotica-and-its-so-boring-b0bc6a4c4ed3 | ['Diane Lee'] | 2020-07-04 08:35:35.988000+00:00 | ['Publishing', 'Nonfiction', 'Sex', 'Self', 'Erotica'] |
Matrix Algebra For Data Scientists | Matrix Algebra For Data Scientists
Understand The Building Stones Of The Machine Learning Algorithms
Most of the machine learning algorithms perform matrix algebra during training and predicting phases. This article will explain how matrix algebra works.
Matrix algebra is the pillar of machine learning algorithms
Why Should We Learn About Matrix Algebra?
Although data scientist languages such as Python can perform matrix algebra for you but I strongly recommend everyone to at least understand how matrix algebra works. It will help you understand the algorithms better and will increase the confidence in the machine learning algorithms.
Matrix Algebra Forms The Basis Of Machine Learning
Matrix algebra is used in a number of areas of machine learning field:
Regression algorithms rely on matrix algebra
Neural networks utilise matrix algebra
Classification algorithms compute matrix algebra
Optimisation and cost functions are based on matrix algebra
Dimension reduction algorithms heavily depend on the matrix algebra
Support vector machines, time series analysis and the entire deep learning is based on the matrix algebra concept
Let’s Start With Basic Concepts
Scalar
A scalar is a single number. It does not have a direction:
Vector
A vector has a direction and magnitude (size):
Vector is an array of scalar numbers.
Matrix
A matrix is a table of numbers. It has rows and columns.
Tensor
A tensor can be a scalar, a vector, a matrix or a matrix within a matrix. A tensor can contain multiple tensors. As an instance, a tensor can contain multiple matrices.
Matrix Transpose
This is the process where the rows and columns of a matrix are switched.
Let’s Look At Matrix Algebra
1. Matrix Addition
Matrix addition is simply achieved by taking each element of a matrix and adding it together as shown below:
2. Multiplying Scalar With A Matrix
Multiplying Matrix by a scalar is as straight forward as multiplying each element by the scalar:
3. Matrices Multiplication With Vector
Matrices multiplication is achieved by multiplying and then summing matching members of the two matrices. The image below illustrates how we can multiple a 3 by 3 and a 3 by 1 matrix together:
4. Matrices Multiplication With Matrix
To multiple a matrix by another matrix, perform the dot product. Essentially the key is to multiply the matching members:
Rule
N x M * M x O matrix = N x O matrix
Uses Of Matrix Algebra
For better understanding of practical use case of a matrix algebra, have a look at these two articles.
Some concepts live in the heart of data science. Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues are one of those concepts. This article will aim to explain what Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues are, how they are calculated and how we can use them.
2. The article belong explains the two most important components of a neural network. These two components are known as weights and bias. The weights are multiplied to the inputs via matrix multiplication to compute an output.
That’s all the Matrix Algebra Maths we need to know for the moment
Summary
This article explained how matrix algebra works. We understand that matrix algebra is one of the most important concepts that form the basis of the machine learning algorithms.
Matrix algebra is used nearly everywhere in Machine Learning.
Let me know if you have any feedback.
Hope it helps. | https://medium.com/fintechexplained/matrix-algebra-for-data-scientists-da0e33b93043 | ['Farhad Malik'] | 2019-06-12 22:56:54.173000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Fintech', 'Matrix', 'Mathematics'] |
The Rich and Well-Connected Get First Dibs on Antibody Tests | The Rich and Well-Connected Get First Dibs on Antibody Tests
But there’s no guarantee they’ll be accurate
A private luxury boat drives near Fisher Island, Florida. Photo: Editorial RF/Getty Images
During a recent biotech roundtable hosted by industry group SynBioBeta, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak suddenly appeared in the Zoom meeting, taking all the panelists by surprise.
“I’ve always wanted to be a Zoom bomber,” he joked. The event was about antibodies, which are at the center of research and testing efforts to combat the novel coronavirus. Wozniak revealed that he and his wife Janet underwent testing for antibodies after traveling through China and Southeast Asia earlier this year.
Wozniak tweeted on March 2 that Janet was getting checked out for a bad cough after returning from China. He added that they might both be “patient zero” in the United States, causing a mild panic on Twitter. But, as he said during the roundtable, their antibody test results came back negative.
While the vast majority of people in the United States are waiting for antibody tests to become available, some wealthy and well-connected individuals and communities are already getting access to them, even though the vast majority haven’t been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration and are not guaranteed to be accurate. The great hope is that antibody tests could reveal who’s immune to the virus, allowing those people to safely reenter society.
Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos said in an April 21 tweet that he tested positive for the coronavirus antibodies. The week before, he announced that he tested positive for the virus, despite never having any symptoms. Other celebrities, professional athletes, and politicians have gotten diagnostic tests even as those tests have been in short supply. Antibody testing is the latest way that the pandemic is underscoring the class divide between the rich and famous and everyone else.
On Florida’s Fisher Island, one of the country’s richest zip codes, everyone can get an antibody test. The private island, which boasts an average annual household income of $2.2 million, purchased 1,800 antibody tests from the University of Miami Health System for its residents and workers, according to the Miami Herald. About 800 families live on the island, and 400 employees work there.
Like the residents of Fisher Island, people in other wealthy areas are driving efforts to bring testing to their communities. In Telluride, Colorado, and surrounding San Miguel County, married couple Mei Mei Hu and Lou Reese, who live in the area part-time and are executives at biotech company United Biomedical, provided free tests to all of the county’s 8,000 residents. But the company has experienced delays with processing the tests.
In the reclusive Bay Area village of Bolinas, known as a weekend retreat for the tech elite, biotech executive Jyri Engeström and venture capitalist Cyrus Harmon used their connections to provide free antibody testing for all 1,680 residents and get researchers at the University of California, San Francisco to set up a study in their town. UCSF is also launching a similar effort in San Francisco’s Mission District, a largely Latino neighborhood.
While prosperous communities are taking testing into their own hands, some local public health departments and universities are beginning so-called “serological surveys” to test residents for antibodies. The National Institutes of Health is also beginning one of these surveys, with plans to include 10,000 people. But with so many people interested in signing up, these studies can’t take everyone who wants a test.
Antibody tests are designed to reveal whether someone was previously exposed to the virus, rather than diagnose a current infection. Widespread antibody testing could be the key to learning the true infection rate of Covid-19 and has been proposed as a way to identify those who may have immunity and may safely return to work or school. But in the United States, these tests are still being developed and validated to make sure the results are accurate.
The tests work by looking for the presence of antibodies to the novel coronavirus in a blood sample. The immune system makes antibodies when it’s exposed to a new pathogen, and these antibodies can provide protection if a person encounters that pathogen again.
The hope is, if a person has specific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, they could be immune from getting sick or passing the virus on to others. But scientists don’t yet know for sure which, if any, antibodies provide immunity to the virus or how long that immunity might last. The World Health Organization cautions that there is not enough evidence to show that antibodies prove immunity.
The Wozniaks’ tests, done by a lab at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, revealed that they did in fact have coronavirus antibodies but not those specific to SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the current pandemic. That means they’ve been exposed to other coronaviruses at some point in their life, which isn’t surprising since the common cold is a type of coronavirus. The result highlights a challenge in testing: An antibody test needs to pick up the right antibodies for the right coronavirus — specifically, SARS-CoV-2 — to give an accurate result.
Public health experts are worried that antibody tests that are becoming available from abroad may also give inaccurate results. They are particularly concerned about “false positives” — when someone tests positive for the coronavirus antibodies but doesn’t actually have them. The worry is that people could receive a false-positive result and go out in public because they think they are immune when they aren’t. They could then get infected or spread the virus to others.
Despite the concerns about their reliability, these tests are available — and accessible to those who can afford them or are well-connected enough to get them. Relaxed FDA regulations have allowed tests from Chinese and Korean manufactures that haven’t been reviewed or authorized by the FDA to flood the market. More than 100 such antibody tests are now available. Some high-end concierge medicine services and wellness centers offering to test for the coronavirus appear to be using them.
Sollis Health, a concierge medical service in New York, is providing Covid-19 house calls to members for antibody testing. Membership costs $5,000 a year and house calls are an additional $1,000. On the group’s website, it says “most antibody tests are not currently authorized by the FDA” and that antibody testing “does not have our official recommendation.”
ConciergeMD of Los Angeles is offering at-home antibody testing to members for $299, even though no home antibody test has not been authorized by the FDA. A West Hollywood luxury wellness lounge called NextHealth, where clients can get intravenous vitamin therapy and cryotherapy, is advertising in-person antibody blood testing for $249 on its Instagram account.
The FDA has granted emergency use authorizations to just a handful of antibody tests, including those from Mount Sinai Health System, Cellex, ChemBio Diagnostics, and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. The Mount Sinai test is only being conducted at the New York health system. As for the other tests, it’s not clear how the companies plan to roll them out. In the meantime, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control are now working to validate other tests.
Critics, like Adam Harris in The Atlantic, have pointed out that the wealthy can leverage their influence during the pandemic to get access to tests and other medical equipment that most Americans don’t have. Arguably, the wealthy need antibody tests less than many other people in society do, since they’re able to stay home while frontline workers can’t. If antibody tests do end up being a true indicator of immunity, they’ll need to be distributed to the people who need them most.
But though the elite may be able to access these tests before everyone else, without hard evidence that the results prove immunity, they might not be better off than the rest of us — at least not yet. | https://onezero.medium.com/you-can-get-an-antibody-test-if-youre-rich-and-well-connected-d70b0edca3fa | ['Emily Mullin'] | 2020-04-28 13:37:40.227000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Technology', 'Testing', 'Health', 'Coronavirus'] |
Maharashtra government imposes night curfew from Dec 22 | In the wake of new strain of COVID-19 spreading rapidly in the UK, the Maharashtra government on Monday, December 21, has decided to impose night curfew from December 22 in municipal corporation limits in the state. The night curfew will remain in force from 11 pm to 6 am every day till January 5.
The Chief Minister also announced that passengers coming to the state from European countries will have to remain under compulsory institutional quarantine for 14 days starting tomorrow, December 22.
On Sunday, December 20, Thackeray had warned the people of the state that the coronavirus threat was still very much there and asked people to follow all COVID-19 preventive guidelines. Though he stated that there would be no night curfew in the state but wearing of masks would be compulsory for more six months. | https://medium.com/@devendra-kumar/maharashtra-government-imposes-night-curfew-from-dec-22-35411368ef56 | ['Devendra Kumar'] | 2020-12-21 16:20:17.658000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Maharashtra', 'Lockdown', 'Mumbai', 'Covid 19'] |
Crazy deal alert: This 50-inch 4K HDR Roku TV is less than $200 today | If you're planning a socially distanced holiday season, you're going to need a bigger TV might watch Wonder Woman 1984 and catch up on The Mandalorian. That's where today's ridiculous deal comes in: Target is selling aHisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV with Roku built-in for $180Remove non-product link, down from the $300 MSRP and one of the best prices you're going to find on a 4K set.
The biggest feature for this TV is that it's rocking HDR (high dynamic range) supporting both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR 10. HDR is a feature that creates greater variations of colors allowing for a more vivid picture. In addition to HDR, the TV also supports DTS Studio Sound for your surround sound audio set-up as well as three HDMI ports, Ethernet, and a USB 2.0 port, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth.
This Hisense 50R6040G comes with Roku TV onboard giving you access to all kinds of premium video services including Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and audio services like Pandora without any extra equipment. The set also works with Google Assistant and Alexa to control your TV via voice command. It has a game mode to improve input lag coming from your console, and the TV has a thin bezel providing a larger viewable screen area.
[Today's deal: Hisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV for $180 at TargetRemove non-product link]
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@brent66557278/crazy-deal-alert-this-50-inch-4k-hdr-roku-tv-is-less-than-200-today-38b13ad5c869 | [] | 2020-12-24 10:44:28.116000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Home Theater', 'Cord', 'Security Cameras'] |
Love, Amy | The day I died
in our 4th floor apartment,
winter snaked through dark halls
as you pounded on the doors
of nameless neighbors —
screaming,
desperate for someone, anyone —
to breathe me back to life.
Did you know I was disappearing
(Where are the sirens?)
into thin air, as they say, ironically?
I put my hand on your shoulder once
that morning, in the hallway.
Remember? You turned around thinking
(Help me) help had arrived, pleading
to a ghost.
The day I died
I felt your breath crawling toward my lungs — I know
(I’m so sorry) you tried, my friend.
After a million cold stones have been turned over
searching for ways you could have saved me,
after all these years the memory still sits on your shelf,
a delicate relic.
Set it down now.
The night before
the day I died
I didn’t know how to tell you
(We were so young, weren’t we?)
that the weight of my skin had become too heavy
to pull over my bones,
that I was ready to peel off the layers one last time,
to wake
and finally
be light. | https://medium.com/lit-up/love-amy-3b5fc90f182 | ['Jen Smat'] | 2019-07-01 02:22:38.007000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Death And Dying', 'Death', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
redux 조금 더 파 보기 — part 1. redux를 공부해보려고 튜토리얼을 따라해 봤지만, 이해력이 딸려서… | redux를 공부해보려고 튜토리얼을 따라해 봤지만, 이해력이 달려서 그런지 개념이 잘 들어오지 않는다.
한 단계를 더 아래로 들어가서 보면 좀 더 이해가 쉬울 듯 해서 몇 가지 확인 작업을 해볼까 한다.
우선은 확인을 위한 기본 세팅부터 해야 겠다. index.html 부터 만든다. 기본 틀은 html5-boilerplate 로부터 만들면 되고, 여기에 redux CDN을 통해 스크립트를 로드하도록 한다.
작성한 html을 브라우저를 실행하여 오픈하고, F12 키를 눌러 console 탭으로 들어간다. 프롬프트 창에서 Redux라고 입력하면,
Redux의 멤버
튜토리얼에서 봤던 몇 가지 함수들이 보인다. createStore을 실행해봐야겠다.
Redux.createStore()
redux.js:123 Uncaught Error: Expected the reducer to be a function.
at Object.createStore (redux.js:123)
at <anonymous>:1:7
Redux.createStore()라고 입력하니, reducer가 필요하다는 것을 알았다.
reducer는 설명대로라면, 현재 상태와 action을 받아서 새로운 상태를 넘겨주는 역할을 한다라고 되어 있다.
console 창에서 입력하는 것은 상당히 불편하다. 가장 간단한 형태로 reducer를 rootReducer를 정의하고 Redux.createStore()의 파라메터로 넘겨봤다.
redux의 createStore() 실행
createStore()에서 리턴된 객체 내에 익숙한 함수들이 보인다. dispatch, getState 를 좀 더 살펴볼 필요가 있을 것 같다. 앞서 html 파일에 inspect.js 파일을 포함시켰던 것은 중간 단계의 확인한 내용을 보관하기 위해서였다. 지금이 중간단계를 저장해 둘 시점이다. store라는 상수에 생성한 store를 담아둔다.
function rootReducer(state, action) {
return state;
} const store = Redux.createStore(rootReducer);
다시 html을 로드하면, console 화면에서 store로 Redux.createStore() 결과를 접근할 수 있다.
console에서 store.getState()라고 입력하면, undefined 가 출력된다. reducer에서 뭔가가 제대로 리턴이 되지 않는 것이 예상된다. state의 디폴트 값을 지정하도록 rootReducer를 수정한다.
const initState = {}
function rootReducer(state = initState, action) {
return state;
}
다시 html을 로드한다. 이제는 store.getState()를 입력하면 빈 오브젝트를 리턴하는 것을 확인할 수 있다.
store의 state 얻기
이 state 값은 initState 로부터 온 것은 확실한데, store에 업데이트하기 위해서는 분명히 rootReducer()가 호출되었을 것이다. rootReducer()에 로그를 출력하도록 살짝 수정하고 html을 재실행한다.
function rootReducer(state = initState, action) {
console.log({ state, action });
return state;
}
rootReducer의 파라메터 확인
createStore()를 호출할 때, 최초의 action이 “@@redux/INITw.k.w.3.5.6” 이라는 type 값으로 넘어온다는 것을 확인할 수 있다.
결론
글이 장황해지고 있어서 일단 여기에서 끊고 정리해보는 것이 좋을 것 같다. redux의 store를 생성하기 위해서는 reducer를 필요로 한다. reducer는 현재의 상태와 action을 받아서 새로운 상태를 만들어주는 역할을 한다. reducer 의 최초의 상태와 action은 store를 생성할 때, 호출이 된다. 디폴트 state 는 reducer의 디폴트 인자값에 의해, action은 redux 자체의 초기화를 위한 action값으로 해서 넘어온다. | https://medium.com/@moony211/redux-%EC%A1%B0%EA%B8%88-%EB%8D%94-%ED%8C%8C-%EB%B3%B4%EA%B8%B0-part-1-c01d8ff0d8ba | [] | 2020-04-24 12:25:31.857000+00:00 | ['Createstore', 'Getstate', 'Store', 'Reducer', 'Redux'] |
The Predictive Power and Cognitive Limitations of AI in HR | AI and HR seem to be a match made in heaven — in some innovative heaven, driven by smart technologies. Intelligent apps and chatbots have penetrated deep into the processes associated with managing human resources. They are here to meekly do all boring repetitive tasks like screening resumes, answering common questions or onboarding new employees.
Can we expect more from digital hard workers? Of course. The new generation of AI technologies is supposed to ensure a personalized approach to each employee, forecast the workforce behavior, and help HR managers with detecting, motivating, and retaining talent.
Will a particular candidate be a good match for the position? What should be done to increase performance across the company? Who is going to leave your company in the near future? Who is ready to become a team leader? Smart digital assistants can potentially generate intelligent data-driven answers to these and other complex questions. In this article, we’ll review the most advanced use cases of artificial intelligence in human resources management and discuss some of AI’s limitations.
Hiring the right employees
AI has already gone far in hiring people. The achievements of conversational chatbots like Mya are really striking: they can answer up to 75% of the questions from candidates while 73% of interviewed people do not even realize that they are interacting with a bot, not with a human agent.
When it comes to choosing candidates with the right qualifications, technologies have also proved to be extra helpful. The point is, our decisions are often driven by emotions, and not always for the better. As one survey revealed, one in five UK bosses decides whether or not to hire an applicant within one minute of a job interview. Sixty seconds are hardly enough time to objectively evaluate a person’s skills and qualities. Employers judge prospective employees on first impressions, based on appearance, clothing, tone of voice or even a type of a handshake. None of these parameters are relevant to education, problem-solving ability or professional experience (with a few exceptions such as hiring models for the beauty industry).
AI algorithms are not affected by emotions, so they can painstakingly sift through dozens or even hundreds of applicants to detect qualified candidates. For instance, the Hiredscore recruiter’s AI assistant helps to find the right person faster and reduces cost per hire by leveraging big data and predictive analytics. AI-fueled solutions like Pymetrics or PredictiveHire not only match people to a job but also eliminate gender, racial and other biases.
Yet AI still can’t fully replace a human in the hiring process. Many studies show that technical skills often matter less than soft skills. Sociability, curiosity, and critical thinking are as important as tech expertise for 92% of executives. Another survey reports that when they are hiring, organizations with the highest financial return pay just as much attention to a candidate’s psychological traits, such as the ability to learn quickly, a sense of purpose and ambition. All of these features are much harder or even impossible to evaluate using existing math algorithms and pure logic.
To sufficiently uncover soft skills and emotional characteristics, AI requires self-awareness, which implies reflecting on one’s own thoughts. Most AI researchers believe that machines will learn to ‘know themselves’ in the way people do somewhere between 2036 and 2060. Until that time, we won’t be able to do without live recruiters when performing final candidate assessment.
Just-in-time learning and professional development
Millennials, or people born between 1981 and 1996, are already dominating the job market, and by 2030, they will comprise over two thirds of the US workforce. 87% of them underscore the importance of career growth and professional development. And what about the present day? The 2018 Workplace Learning Report shows that people strive for more flexible and faster upskilling, with 68% of workers preferring to learn at work and 58% opting for learning at their own pace.
To attract and retain talent, the most farseeing organizations already offer AI-powered learning opportunities to their staff. Most modern platforms for staff development exploit algorithms similar to those used by Netflix, Spotify, and other content-streaming services. They aggregate data about employees’ preferences, background, and skills to provide articles, courses, videos, books, and other resources which fit their needs best.
AI-fueled solutions like EdCast, Degreed, BetterUp or Axonify help businesses match workers with relevant learning content, design personalized development strategies, and build skills that really matter both for the company and employees. Moreover, with smart technologies, the learning process becomes as engrossing as watching ‘Game of Thrones’ (or whichever TV series you like best).
Identifying areas of stress and preventing toxic behaviors
Another promising usage of AI is to control fraud and non-compliance. Intelligent software can filter email traffic, and perform sentiment analysis of comments made by employees. In such a way, it can recognize patterns indicating ethical lapses, workplace bullying, loss of motivation, or fraudulent behavior. This information will allow HR managers to address risks before problems really occur.
One of the predictive tools already existing in the market is KeenCorp. To detect risk areas, it analyses emails, chats in messaging systems, and other digitally written texts created across the organization over the past two years. Then the system starts aggregating and evaluating real-time conversational patterns. As a result, managers gain insights into what is actually happening in the organization at the personal level, whether there are any areas of tension and conflict, and more.
Finding hidden stars and rising leaders, and managing talents
If AI is able to identify possible fraudsters, can’t it find high-potential leaders, hidden stars, and influencers inside the organization as well? The fact is it can, or at least is already taking steps in this direction. There are hundreds of psychological studies that list the personality traits of effective leaders. Here, the AI mission is to help HR managers spot desired characteristics and behavioral patterns in existing employees.
Again, an organization’s real-time communication flows become a source of valuable information. By measuring interactions, AI solutions like TrustSphere can answer the following questions:
How do employees collaborate with each other as well as with clients and suppliers?
Who influences whom in your company?
Who acts as a leader?
Which collaboration network is the most productive?
What small changes in the behavior would lead to better performance?
HR managers can use the results of internal communication audits to improve employee engagement, align team members with organizational goals, give ambitious people more opportunities to shine, retain talent and predict employee leave. The opportunities are endless, though a human perspective is needed to explore all of them.
The story of success to be continued
We must admit that: AI is not omnipotent. It lacks the intuition and imagination of a person. Its decisions are based on pure logic while people are often irrational, and HR managers shouldn’t ignore this fact. Even the smartest chatbot is not ready to take the place of a human being in circumstances such as conducting a final job interview or preventing a vital employee from leaving their job.
What AI-fueled tools can really do best is to aggregate data, recognize and match patterns, and make data-driven predictions. Algorithms are able to analyze millions of pieces of information in seconds. Yet it’s still up to a human expert to evaluate the results and make the final decision.
In order to stay competitive under current market conditions, AI is inevitable. In the future, AI systems will become even more clever, reliable and specialized. The story of cooperation between artificial intelligence and human resources is only beginning, and we’re sure that new breakthroughs are just around the corner. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/ai-and-hr-seem-to-be-a-match-made-in-heaven-in-some-innovative-heaven-driven-by-smart-d711ddca16e | ['Liudmyla Semyvolos'] | 2019-06-03 10:41:57.140000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Digital Assistant', 'Recruitment', 'Human Resources'] |
イタリアのアール・ヌーヴォー、フィレンツェのリバティ様式建築探訪 | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/fraze-craze/kn13-e567240c0526 | ['Kumiko Nakayama'] | 2019-01-17 01:48:48.411000+00:00 | ['デザイン', 'イタリア', '建築', '日本語'] |
Crypto Wars: Scams & Hacks With Erica Stanford | Erica Stanford wrote the book Crypto Wars. She spent the last year researching the biggest hacks and scams in crypto to then share them in her book. She covers faked death, missing billions, & industry disruption.
There are so many scams and just risky investments out there and so few people talking about it. Those who risk so much by calling out scams in order to help others should be applauded and have their voice amplified.
Video Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:45 About Erica
04:30 Crypto Wars
08:21 Defining A Scam
15:12 What Can We Do?
18:20 NFTs & DeFi
24:00 Red Flags
28:50 Scam Demographics
33:10 Other Scams & Hacks
36:10 How To Protect Yourself
40:45 Legitimacy & Value
46:45 Scam Awareness
51:30 Psychology
53:45 Drawing The Line
57:10 Mindset
1:00:35 Risky Speculation
1:02:03 Will This Get Better?
1:04:20 The Next 5 Years
1:07:40 Outro
If thousands of people can lose billions of dollars in OneCoin, masterminded by the now infamous Missing Cryptoqueen made famous by the BBC’s podcast series and called ‘one of the biggest scams in history’ by The Times, what makes you think your money is safe? OneCoin isn’t alone. Crypto Wars reveals some of the most shocking scams affected millions of innocent people all around the world with everything from religious leaders to celebrities involved. In this book, you get exclusive access to the back story of the most extreme Ponzi schemes, the most bizarre hoaxes and brutal exit strategies from some of the biggest charlatans of crypto.
Crypto expert and educator, Erica Stanford, will show you how market-wide manipulation schemes, unregulated processes and a new collection of technologies that are often misunderstood, have been exploited to create the wild west of crypto, run by some less than reputable characters. From OneCoin to PonziCoin to Trumpcoin and everything in between, Crypto Wars uncovers the scandals, unpicks the system behind them and allows you to better understand a new technology that has the potential to revolutionize banking and our world for the better.
These are some of the questions we went over:
• Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
• How and when did you originally get into cryptocurrency
• Can you give us a brief introduction to Crypto Wars?
• How did Crypto Wars get its name and what was the original idea or motivation to start it?
• Can you share some notable scams and hacks with us?
• Are there any scams that you know of that are still ongoing?
• What makes a project a scam and not just a risky or bad project?
• What are red flags to look for and how can people protect themselves?
• Thoughts on Bitclout, and Hex?
• Is this going to get better or worse? What do we need to solve this? Can it be solved?
• Where do you see the crypto space going in the next year? The next 5 years? Specifically, regarding hacks and scams
• So where can everyone go to learn more about this?
Check out her book on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crypto-Wars-Billions-Industry-Disruption/dp/1398600687/. You can find here on Twitter @CryptoCurryClub
What do you think about Crypto Wars? Have you ever been scammed or rug pulled in crypto or otherwise? What red flags do you look for and avoid? What’s the “right” way to invest? Let us know if you have any further questions on Crypto Wars in the comments below and don’t forget to like and subscribe as well!
This is a LBRY first video meaning it shows up on LBRY before it gets published anywhere else. If you’re not on LBRY, sign up and get started here: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@ScottCBusiness:4
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*Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and is purely for entertainment purposes. What you see, hear, or read is my personal opinion, and any statements made are based on my views and should not be misconstrued as fact. My crypto portfolio may or may not be simulated* | https://medium.com/@scottcbusiness/crypto-wars-scams-hacks-with-erica-stanford-7c1eb3065b4b | ['Scott Cunningham'] | 2021-06-08 03:28:20.438000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Scams', 'Crypto'] |
Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro review: Sophisticated front-door security — for a price | Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro review: Sophisticated front-door security — for a price Jasmine Jan 15·7 min read
The Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro isn’t cheap at $249, but it’s prettier and more sophisticated than the similarly priced Ring Video Doorbell Pro ($249) and the Nest Hello ($229). Vivint offers one of the best professionally installed and monitored smart home/home security solutions on the market, but you don’t necessarily need to buy the entire system to deploy this doorbell.
You will, however, want to sign up for the ostensibly optional cloud storage plan, which costs $4.99 per month. Without that plan, you only see a live view from the camera (Ring’s doorbells and security cameras have the same limitation.) But Vivint will install this doorbell for you at no additional cost, even if your home doesn’t already have the low-voltage wiring in place that it depends on for power.
Vivint’s best doorbell is outfitted with infrared night vision and an image sensor that supports HDR—and the camera’s image quality is superb. It has a wider field of view than either the Ring or Nest video doorbells—180 degrees vertical as well as horizontal—enabling you to see your entire porch (the camera has 1:1 aspect ratio and resolution of 1,664 x 1,664 pixels, but video is streamed in 1080p).
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best video doorbells, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping.Even though the doorbell is installed at a right angle to my front door, it still affords a view more than 50 feet down my flagstone entry walk. There is a small amount of fisheye distortion when objects are very close to the camera, but the wide-angle view lets me see visitors head to toe, as well as packages left anywhere on the porch.
Michael Brown / IDG Notice the message at the top of the screen indicating that a package has been delivered, and note that the resolution is crisp enough that you can read the logo on the truck in the driveway that’s nearly 100 feet away.
Package and person detection Mentioned in this article Ring Video Doorbell Pro Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $249.00See it And package detection is one of the Doorbell Camera Pro’s best features. In addition to sending “person detected” alerts when someone comes within range of its motion detector, the camera will also alert you when a package has been delivered. If you can’t get to your porch right away, and the doorbell is in “deter” mode, it will sound an alert tone on its speaker (I selected a “you-who!” whistle) whenever someone approaches your door, causing them to look to the source of the sound and therefore present their face to the camera. In addition to the alert tone, a bright red LED encircling the doorbell button lights up. You can turn this “deter” feature on or off, or you can schedule it to operate on a schedule.
Michael Brown / IDG Push notifications alert you when the Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro detects a person or a package.
Another exceptionally good feature—although it is optional and requires your having the larger Vivint Smart Home system installed—is the Doorbell Camera Pro’s ability to continuously record to a local network-attached hard drive (a four-channel NAS box, essentially, although it can accommodate just a single 1TB drive and it can’t be used for any other purpose).
Vivint calls this product the Vivint Smart Drive and it operates with up to four of Vivint’s security cameras (both indoor and outdoor models). There’s no arguing that it’s expensive, but there’s also no arguing that it’s a fantastic option to have—and it’s unmatched by any other vendor.
[ Further reading: The best home security cameras ]Rather than record a short clip only when motion is detected or someone rings the doorbell, up to four of Vivint’s cameras record continuously to the drive for up to 30 days (you get 14 days of clip storage in the cloud without the drive). When you look at the camera’s live view via the Vivint mobile app, you can press a Rewind button to bring up a timeline of recordings. Dragging your fingertip along this timeline scrubs band and forth through time of recorded video. At any point along the timeline, you can start watching in real time or at an accelerated speed: 2X, 4X, or 8X.
Vivint The Vivint Smart Drive is a pricey option at $249, but it delivers continuous video recording for up to four Vivint security cameras without worry that you’ll bump into your ISP’s data cap.
Markers on the timeline alert you to detection events, and a label appears at the top of the screen to let you know if it’s a person or a package alert. Rewind, fast-forward, and play/pause controls help you quickly locate these motions events, and there’s a helpful time stamp above the timeline and a date stamp above the primary video screen.
Whether the camera has flagged an event or not, you can create a video clip lasting either 30 seconds, 90 seconds, or five minutes from any starting point on the timeline. You can then either download the file or share a link to the clip. If your camera captured a crime in process, you can share this forensic evidence with the police. Unfortunately, these clips are not timestamped, a factor that could diminish their value to investigators.
Nest cameras are among the few other security cameras that can record continuously, but those devices record continuously to the cloud, which can cause problems for users with data caps and/or limited upload bandwidth. Vivint’s cameras record only event-triggered clips to the cloud. My ISP doesn’t currently impose a data cap, but I live in a rural area and do have to put up with very slow upload speeds. Vivint’s official recommendation is to have at least 1.5Mbps of upload speed for each camera. Unlike Nest, Vivint doesn’t allow you to tailor the quality of the uploaded video stream to reduce its bandwidth consumption.
Michael Brown / IDG A message at the top of the screen labels this event as someone ringing the bell. Skip back and skip forward buttons let you jump to previous and next events (the bar to the left of the green line indicates previous events, and the dot indicates the current event).
Motion detectionYou can draw a single but irregularly shaped detection zone with your fingertip across the camera’s field of view, to block things like branches from shrubs and trees from creating false alerts, and you can also fine-tune the motion detector’s sensitivity. But the camera proved so accurate at discerning the movement of people from other things—including animals, for the most part—that I didn’t find the custom detection zones to be all that necessary.
Mentioned in this article Nest Hello Read TechHive's review$229.00MSRP $229.00See iton Nest Store There was just one occasion in the several weeks that I tested the doorbell when it misidentified my large (12-pound) cat as a person. But that happened around 2:15 a.m., and only after he jumped from the porch to a bench and then a 20-inch-high planter. I have two other smaller cats, and they’ve never set off a person alert.
The Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro looks more like a conventional doorbell than most, measuring just 1.5 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall. Much of the reason for its svelte dimensions, however, is that it doesn’t depend on a battery for power. I thought that would be a problem for me, because it never occurred to me to ensure my general contractor included a doorbell when we had our house built 12 years ago. Fortunately, Vivint’s installer came up with a clever solution: My dining room is on the other side of the wall from my front porch, so he drilled hole into the exterior wall, snaked the doorbell wiring through to the junction box hosting an AC outlet, and connected it to a plug-in adapter there. (The doorbell can operate on 12-24 DC or 16-24 AC adapters that deliver a minimum of 1.0 amps.)
Michael Brown / IDG The Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro only once misidentified my (overweight) cat as a person, and that was at 2:00 a.m. (I added arrows to point out the cat and the alert).
The doorbell has dual-band 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) wireless adapter onboard. However, instead of connecting to your Wi-Fi router, the doorbell connects instead to Vivint’s smart home control panel and the control panel connects to your router. The doorbell supports two-way audio, and you can talk with visitors using either your mobile device or the control panel. By the same token, you can view thumbnails of every event and select any of those thumbnails to play a recording in a larger window on either your mobile app or on Vivint’s control panel.
Deep smart home integrationAs with all Vivint’s products, the Doorbell Camera Pro integrates tightly with the rest of its smart home system, including its new Car Guard onboard diagnostic product. When you’re viewing a live stream from the doorbell, you can push a button at the bottom of the screen to bring up the user interface for the security system, where you can arm or disarm the system, lock or unlock any of your smart locks, and open or close your connected overhead garage doors.
Michael Brown / IDG When a person is detected, live video is streamed from the doorbell to Vivint’s control panel.
You can also create custom rules such as “record a clip with all cameras when an alarm is triggered;” “turn on my porch light when my doorbell detects a person at night, and turn it off 30 minutes later,” or even “record a clip with my doorbell when my vehicle is disturbed.”
But as I said early on: This level of sophistication, security, and automation isn’t cheap. The Doorbell Camera Pro costs $249, plus $4.99 per month for the cloud storage service. The optional Smart Drive costs another $249, and a Vivint smart home system starts at $599 plus a $99 installation fee (which is often waived if the company is running a promotion). The kit includes the aforementioned smart home hub, two door/window sensors, a motion sensor, a water leak detector, and a $100 credit for additional sensors. Monthly service fees start at $39 and include professional monitoring. If you choose to finance the system purchase through Vivint, you’ll need to sign a service contract; no contract is required if you pay for the hardware up front.
If those costs aren’t a barrier, the Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro is the best device in its category.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@jasmine93608024/vivint-doorbell-camera-pro-review-sophisticated-front-door-security-for-a-price-6222c5cf7689 | [] | 2021-01-15 15:56:49.331000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Home Theater', 'Surveillance', 'Headphones'] |
Race, faith + femininity with Yassmin Abdel-Magied | Pinning down certified style icon Yassmin Abdel-Magied was not easy. She’s busy. Busy making a change. Busy writing her second book, You Must Be Layla which is out in a few weeks. Busy being questioned about her faith and subsequently — busy being questioned about other Muslim women. The level of questioning and explanation required from women of colour, about other women who share the same race or faith is remarkable. We don’t question Fiona Bruce about Katie Hopkin’s behaviour, yet WOC, and particularly Muslim women in the last two weeks, are expected to be experts on a British Bangladeshi teenager in Syria.
This week, Yassmin went on BBC news to talk about Mariam Khan’s release of ‘It’s Not About The Burqa’ a collection of essays by Muslim women — exploring the different individual experiences and thoughts on faith, race and sexuality — and without any irony, Yassmin and Mariam were asked about their thoughts on Shamima Begum. The media narrative continues to be one dimensional when it comes to Muslim women.
Imagine having your race and faith constantly questioned (and having to continuously defend your existence on the behalf of a multitude of people). The sheer strength to deal with it would drive most of us to destruction, but Yassmin is not most of us. As well as being an author, she’s also a broadcaster and an activist (and previously a mechanical engineer). An all round super human.
Speaking last year, she said “I’ve never had the space to explore what it means to be a Muslim woman of colour without everybody asking me all the time what it means to be a Muslim woman of colour.” That’s exactly why we’re hosting her at Second Home — to do just that.
Yassmin comes to our new site in London Fields, for a conversation on Race, Faith and Femininity on Monday 25th February. Joy Francis, founder of Words of Colour will be hosting the discussion, find more details here. We asked her a few questions ahead of the event.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied
What would be your advice on overcoming adversity?
“I hated hearing this when I was first told this, but it’s really true. Time will pass. If something feels like it will never end, take stock in knowing that it will, eventually. Nothing is forever. Also, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and my faith allows me to believe that no-one is given more than they can handle. So when you’re uncomfortable, you are growing (as long as you are safe, of course!)”
What’s the best book you’ve read recently?
“I recently read All About Love by bell hooks and thoroughly loved it. It’s a classic. I’m also partway through Death of the Gods by Carl Miller and it’s a great look at how tech is changing power.”
What have you been working on lately?
“I’ve just finished my second book, launched in a couple of weeks — You Must Be Layla — and I’m heading to Australia to go on tour next week! I’m also in the process of writing a couple of screenplays. In other news however, I’ve partnered with The Other Box to do some cool things for creatives of colour (stay tuned on that) and am building an online / mobile platform to record sexual harassment anonymously at events so that we can push the accountability of a safe space onto organisers rather than individuals.”
Like we said, Yassmin’s busy.
It’s Not About The Burqa by Mariam Khan is available to purchase in Libreria. | https://medium.com/@nisha_55521/race-faith-femininity-with-yassmin-abdel-magied-886645c01fcd | ['Nisha Patel'] | 2019-02-25 17:03:36.104000+00:00 | ['Muslim', 'Femininity', 'Yassmin Abdel Magied', 'Race', 'Faith'] |
Passion For Healing | My passion is to provide a service to the community that will help people live their best life both physically and mentally
https://druppalchiropractic.com/
The vision for my Chiropractic Medicine Practice is simple: I want to ensure the physical and emotional well being of my patients by bringing an integrative and holistic approach to their health. As medicine explores more holistic and less invasive ways to heal, there has never been a better time to enjoy good health, energy and renewed strength — my goal is to get you there. I work through natural, scientific and specific care that extends far beyond an appointment. | https://medium.com/@drsereenauppal/passion-for-healing-5e4ba245f496 | ['Dr. Sereena Uppal'] | 2020-12-18 01:08:38.643000+00:00 | ['Chiropractor', 'Canada', 'Vancouver', 'Chiropractic'] |
Non-Geek Guide to Continuous Software Delivery | How to continuously deliver?
The continuous delivery process starts with keyboard strokes of your engineering team and ends with the experience your customer has with the product. The goal of continuous delivery is to shorten the time and avoid mistakes between these two points in time. A well-oiled mature continuous delivery system takes deployment management burden off your engineering team, allowing them to focus on engineering and product build. As a consequence, a continuous delivery system decreases the on-boarding time for new joiners allowing them to start contributing within the first few days if not hours.
While there is a great variety of different continuous delivery approaches, you can split all involved activities and steps into the following:
source code management, automated and manual code quality control — including verification of your unique functional, performance, security and compliance requirements (PCI, HIPPA, etc.), stage-by-stage deployment with automated and manual acceptance testing, and production deployment and continuous monitoring.
Store your code in the code repository
The very first and most important step towards continuous delivery is a centralized place to store and share code. Code is the key (and sometimes the only) outcome of software engineering activities, and this code needs a place to live. This place is a common and shared environment that everybody on your engineering team knows and uses every day. You can think of a code repository as a Google Drive or Dropbox for engineers to share and work on the code. A great place to start your journey to build continuous delivery is to introduce a code repository in your organization if you happen not to have one.
The code repository of choice is most often git available through providers like github, gitlab or bitbucket to name a few [1]. These providers offer powerful free tiers that will serve you for a long time until you will see a need to pay for premium features. Check-in with the team if they have any preference or prior experience before choosing any specific platform.
The most common way to approach your code management is to have one code repository per product (or a piece of product) that has its distinct life cycle. For example, backend code will have one repository, a frontend website will have another, admin and a metrics dashboard will be in a third repository. Take it is a rule that every piece of code should have its repository — starting from frontend and backend code, and ending with database schema code, serverless functions, and infrastructure definition.
Setting up a code repository might seem like a waste of precious time especially in a startup environment. However, look at it as a high ROI investment and major mitigation for various operational risks. Consequences of not having centralized storage for code artifacts can vary from minor things like a decrease in productivity and slow knowledge sharing to more disastrous events like loss of your entire products should your engineers’ laptops break or get stolen.
The code repository is an integral part of any software development process and should be adopted by any technological company early its days. The code repository makes it possible for engineers to store and share code, track revisions, and incoming change requests.
Review, inspect and test every product change
All changes to your products are made by humans, and humans are prone to making mistakes — which is not bad, but rather how things are. And while we can all ask our colleagues and teams to write bug-free code — bugs still do slip through the cracks. To minimize the risk of getting bad product changes into our customers’ hands we can introduce a couple of additional hops that the change needs to jump through. First, we can employ computer programs (automated tests and various code analysis tools) to be impartial judges of the quality of changes we introduce. Second, other people on the team might be able to spot issues or deficiencies in the change the author overlooked (manual review process). Both of these steps ideally would be triggered automatically on every code change.
Most of code repository providers (including github, gitlab and bibucket) provide tools to build continuous delivery pipelines. A pipeline is a set of predefined steps that run automatically following a particular event (code commit, time schedule, manual trigger). An example of a pipeline definition could be “on every commit, build the product and run automated tests on it”. Configuring and streamlining pipelines will require some time and iterations but will quickly bring the reward of stable products and happy customers.
One of the options how the process of accepting new code change into repository can look as following:
Submit new code change. The author of a code change submits a change request to the code repository. At this stage, code is placed in a separate “sandbox” (also known as a pull-request, or change-request). This is done to prevent potentially harmful changes to making their way into the main code base unverified. Trigger automated tests. On changes submitted to the code repository, pipeline executes tests that validate basic functionality, compliance with code style, and security standards. If the pipeline fails, it notifies the author of spotted errors and waiting for the author to provide a fix. Open a code review request. At the same, either automatically after smoke tests or on author request, the code management system opens a code review request where teammates can check out the change candidate, leave comments, improvement suggestions or ask questions. Once all involve satisfied and approve a request — change can make it to the next stage. 1–2 people to look through the code is usually enough.
Once steps above are completed, your code is ready to be merged to the main codebase where it will slowly progress through a series of stages and additional verifications.
Early validation of changes avoids costly impact on your customers. Setting up gatekeepers prior code merged into the main branch helps ensure that at any given moment your main code base is stable and functional. One of the additional benefits of having such gatekeepers is to allow engineers to work on different changes simultaneously and not stepping on each other toes. Each new incoming change is an increment on top of a stable and tested product.
There are countless articles on how to build your manual review process as well as on how to build test automation. Below are some articles that I would recommend as a starting place to dive deeper into the topic:
Deploy changes stage by stage
Your code change is now ready and finally merged into the main codebase. It might be tempting to get and deploy your change right to production. However, you run a risk of having a product that has functionally correct but either fails to communicate with its downstream dependencies (database, other services), or due to miscommunication it is not what you expected to see. For these reasons, you can decide to introduce a multi-stage deployment that will first deploy your code internally — for you and your team to have a look, and then externally — for the public. In its minimal setup, it translates into two stages — a development stage and a production stage.
The development stage is an environment where your product is similar way and structure as in production, with a difference that it doesn’t process production data, and only you and your team have access to it. In the development stage you can run integration tests to verify integration with downstream dependencies (databases, metric aggregators, etc.), run automated user experience tests to automatically check that all buttons, links, and fields are functional and behave as expected, as well as to try out the product by clicking through it yourself — perform manual testing. In the case of the customer portal, for example, the development stage would be a website with restricted access, in the case of an app — development stage would be a draft version of an app available through beta testing tools (like TestFlight for iOS).
The production stage is the final stage where customers interact with your product. The goal of the whole continuous delivery process is to ensure that as little bugs as possible end up here. The production stage works on production data, integrates with other production services, and serves real customer traffic.
While at least two stages can be considered as a minimal setup, depending on the type of the product you build (SaaS APIs, licensed software, software for hardware components, customer portals, machine-learning algorithms, etc.) you might need to have a broader set of stages. Here is a non-exhaustive list of possible options:
Development stage — for your internal testing and validation
— for your internal testing and validation Testing stage — to allow your customers to integrate with it in their test environment (relevant for SaaS companies)
— to allow your customers to integrate with it in their test environment (relevant for SaaS companies) Performance Testing stage — to run load testing and measure the performance of a system similar in setup to production
— to run load testing and measure the performance of a system similar in setup to production Canary stage — to deploy release candidate and divert production traffic partially to it. This will allow you to get a sneak peek preview of how new change will behave in production without impacting 100% of your traffic [2].
— to deploy release candidate and divert production traffic partially to it. This will allow you to get a sneak peek preview of how new change will behave in production without impacting 100% of your traffic [2]. Production stage — your final stage that your customers are continuously interacting with.
All major code repository providers have pipeline solutions to enable you to configure multi-stage deployments. Some will have rich pre-defined workflows and integrations, others will give you just bare basics to build on top of them. In addition to code repository providers there are solutions focused solely on continuous delivery — for example, circleci, travisci, etc which can help you solve some unique problems like mobile testing, custom approval workflows, and others.
There is no-one-size-fits-all pipeline configuration, so work with your team to figure out what stages, transitions, and notification you need and how to best configure and run your unique pipeline.
Monitor, rinse and repeat
If you have your code change deployed automatically, but then you manually go to the browser and nervously check if production is still up and running you can say you have a Schrödinger’s Production (analogous to Schrödinger’s Cat [3]).
With almost any kind of product, you would want to continuously monitor its status, performance, and other metrics that are important for your business (conversion rates, latencies, resource consumption, etc.). Monitoring approach and a specific set of metrics will largely depend on the type of product you deliver (SaaS, IoT, mobile applications, etc.). The main point is that in order for you be able to proactively react to outages and issues with your product you would need some minimal set of health checks that will trigger alarm notifications to you and your team. Last thing you would probably want it your customers reaching out to you notifying that your product is out of order.
An example of a basic health check for your backend server is a periodic ping from a monitoring system to your production server that expects a successful response. For a mobile application, it could be analytics platforms that provide you an aggregated view of your customers’ activity. Big unexpected deviations in customer activity might be an indicator of issues the newly released version.
There is plenty of metric aggregators and other solutions that can help you streamline your monitoring. For example, datadog provides beautiful easy-to-configure dashboards with countless integrations for your cloud and mobile needs; or CloudWatch for those who’d like to stick to AWS. Again, when picking a tool, ask around and check-in with your team if they already have some experience with any of the monitoring platforms. This could potentially save you a lot of time finding and onboarding the right solution for your needs.
Having said all that, issues do get sneak into production unnoticed despite our best efforts. In anticipation of that, you might decide to give your customers a quick and easy way to report problems with your service — a feedback form, a “report problem” button, etc.
Visibility into your product operations is an essential part of continuously delivering stable and reliable software products. A well-configured monitoring system will bring you peace of mind and will save precious time should things go south.
Why do I need all that?
Let’s face it. Building products is hard, and what is harder is to keep the pace up when product complexity grows. Through research and analysis, it became apparent that leaving the quality of your code unattended can bring disastrous consequences to your team and to your business as a whole. Without proactive measures to continuously keep the code quality up the amount of maintenance effort grows, while the speed of delivery of new features goes down. Investing time to automate your testing and deployment processes as well as dedicating time to removing technical debt is rather a necessity than an option. Check out a nice talk by Asa Schachar on the topic of technical debt and how to proactively tackle it.
Companies and startups too often fall into the trap of fast delivery and short-cuts forgetting to balance speed with sustainability. You might have heard the phrase “if it works, don’t touch it” that usually becomes a motto of teams that didn’t prioritize continuous delivery and automated validation in their development process.
Investing time in the continuous delivery system will make your customers and your engineering team happier by increasing the stability of the product and increasing confidence in introducing new changes. Tailored and well-functioning delivery system will have your back even if you happen to make a mistake. | https://medium.com/swlh/non-geek-guide-to-continuous-software-delivery-aea670f99fba | ['Vasilii Trofimchuk'] | 2020-08-04 20:28:29.075000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Continuous Integration', 'Continuous Delivery', 'Software Development'] |
Retirement Calculator Shakedown | Yup, you probably guessed it, I fell victim to using a shady online retirement calculator; those ‘helpful tools’ provided by your friendly Asset Manager to help you see if you have saved enough for retirement and find out what you need to change. Some call it a ‘veil’ to make you feel scared and appease your fear with sweet financial products (I love a good financial product).
Actually, I’m finding the concept quite useful. Don’t get me wrong; you need trained financial advice and using a reputable CFP is advised. As Hilton Tarrant once tweeted, ‘you wouldn’t not go to the doctor for your physical health, so why not spend money on professional advice for your financial health’, or something like that. I’ve enjoyed them simply because it helps one test various scenarios, at a high-level, and assists to drive the critical thinking.
So I agree that it is a tool that leads to sales, but it’s also a very useful tool which helps people think about retirement and helps them take the steps towards retiring right
So, let me introduce the ‘Battle of the Retirement Calculators’; a shakedown of what’s available on the South African market and how they shape up, based on my evening’s foray into very simple scenario modelling, with a sample of our finest FS institutions’ tools. Take into account that this is the entry point for many people into the retirement planning topic, which makes it important. | https://medium.com/@mmcfly/retirement-calculator-shakedown-390d382e447e | [] | 2020-12-23 19:45:23.528000+00:00 | ['Retirement Planning', 'Personal Finance', 'Retirement', 'Financial Services', 'User Experience Design'] |
Are Chatbots The Future of Customer Support? | Technology advancements in the last ten or so years have shaped the world to fit better in the modern age. All the gadgets that we have now were unimaginable to exist in the 2000s or so.
For example, would you think that Joe from 2007 would believe that by 2020, we will have electric cars and e-scooters buzzing in the city? Probably not. Even though many people say that technology has more cons than pros, we disagree.
Sure, if you overuse technology, you might lose connection to the real world and spend more time in virtual reality but let’s face it, all the technology and the gadgets we have undoubtedly made our everyday lives more comfortable.
Companies are no different. To stay current and flexible in the competitive market, they had to implement various technologies in order to be ahead of their competition.
We’re talking about different systems, programs, software, and such. There probably isn’t a branch that doesn’t have some sort of technology advancement available.
One particular department of companies resisted technology changes for a while, but in the last couple of years, the use of tech is visible even there. And we think that this is fantastic. The department we’re talking about is Customer Support.
An interesting thing about customer support and it’s resistance to modern technology is the fact that humans can only do this job. To support potential clients, you need to have an employee who will listen to them, gather information, and based on that create a deductive solution.
The core of customer support is problem-solving, and five years ago, technology still didn’t advance to the state where it could behave the same as the human. In big companies, there was always a customer representative, and when he/she didn’t work, there wasn’t anyone who would replace him/her on its duties. But thanks to AI, machines can now do everything even humans do.
They can learn things, process information, and make conclusions. This might sound like a scenario for “Terminator”, but it really isn’t. AI gave birth to something called chatbots, a smart tool used for customer support almost everywhere in the world.
What Are Chatbots?
Chatbots are programs that are mostly used for customer support purposes. They are placed on your website (presumably you have one) and there, they respond to the questions potential clients have. These tools aren’t only made for communication with customers.
They have various other functionalities that can give you an insight into how your customers behave, what are the questions they ask, and where they click on the website. This is valuable information as thanks to it, you can adjust your website, create selling plans, answer questions faster, and a lot more.
Have you ever entered a site where a pop-up appeared with a woman saying: “Can we help you with anything”?. Yup, that’s a chatbot. A chatbot is not a real person but rather a program that is programmed to ask you different questions. Customers can talk to it like it’s a real person.
It’s programmed to listen and respond based on the content of the question. Chatbots are present 24/7 on your website, so it doesn’t matter if your business is closed or not. If someone interested in the products you sell enters the website, the chatbot will be there to aid him.
Chatbots are incredibly customizable. You can select the questions that the chatbot will ask, what information it will gather and you can even place different ads that will push to customers. There is so much you can do with this small tool and the best thing — it’s not even that expensive.
If your site is built on WordPress, all you need to do is to download a free chatbot add-on. It has most functionalities that are enough for an average business owner, and if you want even more from it, you can upgrade to the PRO version for several dollars.
Even if your site is not built on WordPress, creating a chatbot is pretty straightforward, and your programmer would probably need several hours to do it. Chatbots make every business alive and available 24/7, no matter the working hours. It will help your company respond fast to clients, give them the information they need, and commence interaction with them.
Should You Use Them?
Thanks to chatbots, every company can establish a deeper connection with their clients. Today, they are pretty widespread among many businesses — learn how those businesses use chatbots. They are a tool of every modern customer support, and if you wish to stay on par with the competitions, chatbots are a must-get.
They are easy to install, lightweight, and they often don’t cost a dime. Add on to that the fact that they can help you immensely and provide you with some valuable information, and we don’t really see why you shouldn’t get them. Chatbots are the future indeed. | https://medium.com/@cunninlynguists16/are-chatbots-the-future-of-customer-support-61e4849ef4a1 | ['Mark Smith Evergreen'] | 2020-12-21 18:38:09.376000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Customer Support'] |
Online Courses: Lessons Learned (Part 2) | Last week, I wrote about how I have been taking two online courses and lessons I was learning as part of being a student in that context. Previously, I wrote about what I learned from taking the Twitter Masterminds course. Today, I want to share with you a lesson I have learned from being a part of the Edorble Academy.
What is Edorble?
I’ve written about Edorble when it was in its very early, Beta, stages (it’s since moved out of Beta mode). You can read more about it and get access to it here. In short, Edorble is a 3D world intended for educational purposes. The world you create is private to your group. They have a number of tools you can use that allow students to do things like engage in group chats and give presentations. Check it out to see what it’s all about.
What is the Edorble Academy?
The Edorble Academy offers courses about such topics as educational technology, online teaching, and gamification. It’s a relatively new addition to Edorble and content is still being developed. I signed up for a free course that recently launched called, “3D +VR (virtual reality) Technology in the Classroom.” As with Twitter Masterminds, I signed up because it met some professional goals of mine. However, I also used it as an opportunity to take the student perspective and see what I could learn that I could apply to my own online teaching.
Lesson Learned: Thoughts on Structured Release of Content
The Edorble class differed from Twitter Masterminds (TM) in its approach to releasing content.
Where TM had all the content available to me immediately, Edorble’s class was intended to be four weeks long with content being released every Saturday morning. Like TM, Edorble has modules (they are just called sections), and each section has its own set of chapters. I can go back and forth between the sections. Once content is released it’s mine. The Edorble course had a more academic/school type feel to me. Probably because it was set up to be a four week course and so had a more semester like feel to me.
It was an interesting experience to contrast the TM approach of all content at once vs. Edorble’s release once a week for four weeks. TM probably has about the same amount of content as Edorble. Here are my thoughts:
Edorble’s approach was initially less overwhelming. I didn’t run around sifting through all the content at light speed, but I did sift through all the content I received and then went back to dive into particular aspects more deeply. As with TM, after I had settled into the course I basically did the content in the order it was presented unless I could articulate why I shouldn’t. I continue to assume the instructor orders things in a particular manner (probably a reasonable assumption; I know it’s what I do)
Being less overwhelming doesn’t make it better. It just makes it different. It’s simply something to notice. In both cases, I was overwhelmed to varying degrees but again, that’s not bad. It’s a good reminder that students likely experience this, it’s a normal emotion to experience, and it goes away as one becomes familiar with the content and structure.
In a typical college course, the expectation is to release the majority of the content all at once. Think about it…I give my students a syllabus that has all readings and assignments on it with due dates and what not. It’s not everything, but it’s a substantial portion of what they will be doing. It’s helpful because it allows students to plan how they want to approach their work and structure their time. But my experiences in these two courses have raised questions for me about the degree I should be giving more or less content away right off the bat in an online course. I have zero answers, but I am thinking about it.
Where I’m At With All This
As I write this, I am still working on identifying readings and just getting the basics done for my course. But I have plenty of time (sort of. I am moving across the country soon!). I plan to keep thinking about how content will be released in my course. I’m also still thinking about the idea that syllabi are written in a linear manner (understandable) and so as students we read and interact with them that way. This means that content, once it’s been “covered,” is often not returned to.
I’m thinking about this in two ways. First, I’m considering if there is a way to structure my syllabus so that it doesn’t promote linear engagement. Second, I’m considering if the standard structure is OK and that perhaps it’s more about how we ask and expect students to engage with it that promotes a linear engagement with it. For example, in my last post I discussed how my professional goals allowed me to pick and choose content. Those goals would take me back to content I had viewed in a previous module. Therefore, while the TM course was set up in a linear way, how I approached it allowed me to engage with it in a non-linear manner. How can I encourage this amongst my own students? I’ll get back to you.
One Year Ago
Two Years Ago | https://medium.com/academic-confessions/online-courses-lessons-learned-part-2-33ac6c29f767 | [] | 2017-03-27 14:00:30.667000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Education', 'Higher Education', 'Teaching', 'Edtech'] |
The magic behind Ensemble Learning | The magic behind Ensemble Learning
One of the most useful and simple techniques in Machine Learning is what is called Ensemble Learning. Ensemble Learning (EL) is the method behind XGBoost, Bagging Trees, Random Forest, and others but is much more.
There a lot of very good articles here on Towards Data Science (here and here two of the stories I appreciated most). So, why another article on EL? Because I would like to show you how it works with a very simple example that has convinced me that it was not magic!
Well, the first time I saw EL in action (with few very simple regression models) I could not believe my eyes and I still thank the Professor who taught me this technique.
I had two different models (“weak learners”) with an out-of-sample R² of 0.90 e 0.93, respectively. Before looking at the result, I would have thought to obtain an R² somewhere between the two originals R². In other words, I thought that EL could be used to avoid having a model performing as bad as the worst model but not a model that could outperform the best model.
With my great surprise, the results of a simple average of the predictions had an R² of 0.95.
At first, I looked for a bug then I thought there might be something magic behind this!
What is Ensemble Learning
With EL, you can combine the predictions of two or more models to obtain a more robust and performant model. There a lot of methodologies to ensemble models but here I will discuss only two of the most useful, just to give an idea.
In regression, you can average the predictions of the available models.
In classification, you can let any model vote for a label. The label with more votes is the label chosen by the new model.
Why it works better
The basic reason why EL works better is that every prediction has an error (at least in a probabilistic sense), combining two predictions could help to reduce the error and therefore to improve the performance metrics (RMSE, R², etc.).
In the following chart, you how two weak learner works on a sampled data set. The first learner has a much higher angular coefficient that it should be while the second an almost zero angular coefficient (maybe as a result of excessive regularization). The ensemble seems much better.
Looking at the out-of-sample R² we have -0.01¹, 0.22 for the two weak learners, and 0.73 for the ensemble.
Image by Author
There a lot of reasons why a learner might not be a good model even in a basic example like this one: maybe you chose to use regularization to avoid overfitting or you chose to not exclude some outliers or you used a polynomial regression of a wrong degree (as when you use second-degree polynomial but your test data show clear asymmetry more fitting a third-degree).
When it works better
Let’s look at two other learners with the same data.
Image by Author
In this example, we can say that ensembling these two models didn’t improve the performance much but the R² were respectively -0.37, 0.22 for the learner, and -0.04 for the ensemble. Hence, the EL model scored between the two original models.
There is a big difference between these two examples: in the former example the errors of the models were negatively correlated while in the latter they were positively correlated (the coefficients of the three models were not estimated but chosen by the Author just for the sake of the example).
Hence, Ensemble Learning could be used to improve Bias/Variance balance in any case but when the errors of the models are not positively correlated the EL mode could result in a boost of the performance.
Heterogeneous vs Homogeneous models
Often EL is used on homogeneous models (as in this example or Random Forest) but you can combine very different models (Linear Regression + Neural Network + XGBoost) with different sets of explanatory variables. Chances are that it will result in uncorrelated errors and a boost of performance.
Comparison with Portfolio Diversification
EL works similarly to diversification in portfolio theory but it’s even better.
In diversification, you try to reduce the variance of your performance investing in uncorrelated stocks. A well-diversified basket of stocks performs better than the worst single stock but never better than the best one.
Quoting Warren Buffet:
“Diversification is a protection against ignorance, [it] makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.”
In machine learning, EL helps to reduce the variance of your model but it could result in a model with overall performance better than the best single model.
Summing Up
Combining more models in one is a relatively simple technique that could result in a solution to the bias-variance trade-off and a boost of performance.
If you have two or more models that look good, don’t choose: use all of them (with care)!
About Me
I’m an ex-mathematician with a passion for a lot of different things: Data Science, Data Visualization, Finance, Asset/Liabilities management, and (but don’t tell anyone) Accounting!
¹ if you are wondering, an R² could be negative if calculated on out-of-sample data or if your estimator is not OLS | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-magic-behind-ensemble-learning-569be80fbab4 | ['Luca Monno'] | 2020-10-11 18:26:21.808000+00:00 | ['Kaggle', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
How Much Should A Freelance Writer Charge Per Word? | Photo by Rajiv Perera on Unsplash
Every now and then you stumble upon some version of this question on some forum or Quora.
Quot homines, tot sententiae. (Latin)
“So many men, so many opinions.”
Or, we can put it like this:
So many freelance writers, so many prices.
This one may work for freelancers just fine, but what about the clients who are supposed to hire them for writing tasks? They would certainly appreciate some additional and more precise information to help them offer a fair price. At the same time, freelance writers should know where they stand in terms of their expectations and the market’s limits.
Better To Charge Per 100 Words Than Per Single Word
It’s much simpler this way, don’t you think?
The native writers usually charge around $10 for 100 words.
On the other hand, you can find freelance writers who charge as low as a dollar or two for the whole article. It hurts me to even do the math how much that is for 100 words.
I consider the price of $5 for 100 words to be the most acceptable and fair for a freelance writer. Based on my experience it usually takes you up to one hour to write a 500-word article. So, if your hourly rate is $25 per hour, you can do the math.
The catch is that freelance writing prices can vary a lot. You can get an article for just one dollar or you can pay $100 for it.
Freelance Content Writing Prices vs. Freelance Copywriting Prices
Just to clarify, I’m talking about the prices for the content writing. When it comes to copywriting, that’s a completely different thing. Why? It’s not the same when you are writing content for a website and blog posts. Those are “traditional” content writing gigs. On the other hand, you have the landing pages and other sales-oriented materials that can easily cost you thousands of dollars. Of course, these copywriting pieces of creative work are supposed to ensure the high conversion rates. That’s why you have to pay a lot because you expect a lot in return.
When we talk about freelance content writers and copywriters, there’s so much more at stake than just semantics. That’s why I have to stop here and simply say, copywriting is a completely different ball game. As a freelance copywriter, you may charge per hour, but you should forget about the prices per word basis for obvious reasons.
Your Freelance Writing Price — Your Freelance Thing
Long story short, it’s up to you to decide how much you’re going to charge per word. Just make sure both parties are happy with the price.
There are no rules. There are countless exceptions to the rules.
Here’s something I learned working as a freelance writer. This may be the only part of my article that my fellow freelance writers would actually like:
You can’t make the whole word like your writing, just one guy who is supposed to pay for it. | https://writingcooperative.com/how-much-should-a-freelance-writer-charge-per-word-df8be30e089e | ['Nebojsa', 'Nesha'] | 2019-01-31 18:18:55.992000+00:00 | ['Freelancers', 'Freelance', 'Freelance Writing', 'Freelancing'] |
React Native: What it is and how it works | The trend of using React Native for developing iOS and Android apps is growing. But what exactly is React Native and how does it work under the hood? To understand this, we must first know a bit about React.
What is React?
React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. A key concept in React is that of a component. A component is a particular piece of the user interface, such as this Facebook input field.
An example of a UI component
To display this component using React, our code should look something like this:
render() {
return <WriteComment />;
}
Components in React are composable and reusable. A component can consist of other components and of primitives. In the case of a web component, examples of a primitive would be HTML elements such as div and span .
render() {
return (
<div>
<ProfilePicture />
<CommentInput />
</div>
);
}
React is smart. It detects which components need to be re-rendered based on the changes in the data, and which not. This makes it fast and powerful, and that’s why it’s a popular choice for development of web applications.
But React is not bound to the document object model (DOM) of the browser. With React, we can also build other types of user interfaces, such as mobile apps.
What is React Native?
React Native offers a way to build mobile applications using React and JavaScript.
Instead of the span primitive, which we have on the web, React Native offers the Text primitive. If we are building an iOS app, React Native will make sure that the Text results with a native iOS UIView containing the text. If we are building an Android application, it will result with a native TextView .
This is very important. Even though we are building our app using JavaScript, we do not get a web app embedded inside the shell of a mobile one. The result is a real native iOS or Android app.
How does it work?
There are two important threads running in each React Native application.
One of them is the main thread, which also runs in each standard native app. It handles displaying the elements of the user interface and processes user gestures.
The other one is specific to React Native. Its task is to execute the JavaScript code in a separate JavaScript engine. The JavaScript deals with the business logic of the application. It also defines the structure and the functionalities of the user interface.
These two threads never communicate directly and never block each other.
How do threads interact?
Between these two threads is the so-called bridge, which is the core of React Native. The bridge has three important characteristics.
Asynchronous. It enables asynchronous communication between the threads. This ensures that they never block each other.
Batched. It transfers messages from one thread to the other in an optimised way.
Serializable. The two threads never share or operate with the same data. Instead, they exchange serialized messages.
The React Native architecture
How does the development process look like?
Now we understand the basics of React Native’s architecture. It would be interesting to check out how the development process looks like.
We first open our project using our favorite editor. Let’s say that we have a component named Greeting , which only displays some text that says “Hi!”
A very simple React Native component
To start the iOS application, we need to execute react-native run-ios from the command line. This will start the app on a simulator or on a real device, if we have one connected to the computer. The result will look like this:
Our simple iOS app
If we change our mind and want our app to say “Hello!” instead of “Hi!”, we can open our editor and change the text. Then, in the simulator, we can press Command + R , like we do when reloading a web page. The change will immediately be visible! Instead of waiting on a build process which can take a minute or so, we have instant feedback. This makes the development quite fast.
Instant reload, like working on a web app
To start our Android app, we need to execute react-native run-android . For it, we can completely reuse our Greeting component. This is because the component does not contain any platform-specific code. React Native will make sure that it provides an Android TextView instead of an iOS UIView . This potential for code reuse is one of the strongest sides of this technology.
Our Android app, which utilises the same “Greeting” component
But for me, the most interesting feature is the way we can debug our application. From the device’s developer menu, we can choose to “Debug JS Remotely.” This will launch Google Chrome and run our JavaScript in the browser instead of running it on the device. React Native will set up a web socket connection between the device and the browser. That will enable us to use Chrome’s powerful developer console. With it, debugging is easy, especially if you are coming from a web development background. | https://medium.com/we-talk-it/react-native-what-it-is-and-how-it-works-e2182d008f5e | ['Blagoja Evkoski'] | 2018-04-09 09:06:46.805000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'React', 'React Native', 'Software Development', 'Mobile App Development'] |
Microsoft Edgebook: The Future of the Midrange Laptop? | A few years ago, I was part of the initial batch of external beta testers for ChromeOS. I was issued a Google Cr-48 (Named after the Chromium Isotope of the same number) with no confirmation email , phone call, or Tweet. It just showed up on my parents’ front door in a brown box. It was actually around the same three week period that Microsoft inducted me into their Office Insiders group and sent me a Dell laptop to test Office 2010 and eventually several Windows Phones and a tablet for Office 2013 so they were concerned where an undergraduate was getting the money to acquire two laptops in less than a week. ChromeOS has always fascinated me since day one though, just the idea of Google making an operating system struck me as cool because they took traditional problems that Apple and Microsoft have been tackling for decades and turned them on their head. ChromeOS started off as literally a full-screen Chrome window on top what I believe is was Fedora Linux kernel, but dang, the thing booted fast. They were one of the first ones that really pushed the idea that you could open a laptop and get to work in seconds. The entire machine was SSD-based with only 16Gb of storage and 2GB of RAM. The RAM and processor were very underpowered, but for running a single full-screen browser for web applications it was enough for a college student. It turned the idea of cloud computing into an appliance, something that nobody to this day have come remotely close to, not iOS, not Windows 10, or even Google’s own Android. With time Chromebooks gained the ability to run multi-window, multiple monitor, USB-accessory, Android apps, and even Linux app support for the truly daring.
ChromeOS can now run Android and Linux apps via Container technology, making them much more capable computers.
The new version of Edge is actually Google’s Chromium web browser underneath with a bunch of Microsoft technologies built on top of it and minus the Google bits like Google Sign-in, Sync, and other settings. New Edge also will come with support for an Internet Explorer mode built-in so that enterprises will be able to deploy Edge as their new standard browser across all versions of Windows, including Windows 7, 8.1, and 10. I see this as the best of both worlds. End-users get an excellent default browser experience and Microsoft gets a standard web browser going forward to target their own web tools such as Office (online), Azure, Web Remote Desktop, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc.
Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) running on Windows 7
There has been talk that Microsoft is working on a new Start Menu and a lighter version of Windows, which omits traditional x86 applications. We already have the latter with introduction of the Surfacebook and Windows 10 S (Now Windows 10 S “Mode”). The new Star Menu removes the live tiles that have been part of Windows since Windows 8.1. I could see Microsoft releasing an “Edgebook” later this year that only starts off in “S” Mode, only running newer Windows Store apps, Microsoft Edge, Windows Explorer, etc, and then have end-users being able to go and simply toggle on legacy application support. I don’t think this should be a separate build of Windows, but rather more like Windows Server and have legacy apps be like a “role” that you can turn on. If people need a legacy app, they could even allow just a single app at a time to run in legacy mode. This would boost performance and security. There is an entire host of end-users who can get by with just a solid web browser like Edge, Chromebooks have proven this much for schools and some enterprise applications. In the enterprise this could be an interesting scenario when you consider you can easily publish remote legacy applications via Microsoft RemoteApp or in the cloud via Windows Virtual Desktop. With OneDrive known folder protection (It moves the desktop, documents, and photos folders into Onedrive and makes them available everywhere and Files on Demand), consumers and enterprise users could have a very lightweight, ChromeOS-like experience.
The new Windows 10 Tablet experience released this week in the Insider Fast Ring
The baseline would run lighter and more securely than traditional Windows 10 and then if you needed the legacy applications for work, gaming, or old hardware it could be just one click away. The biggest benefit would be that you could a much better experience for people at the low end of the market and the midrange line. I could see Microsoft even including an added level of enterprise security using Hyper-V virtualization engine by isolating legacy applications in separate virtual environments like Google does with Linux and Android on ChromeOS.
Windows 10 Xbox app…aka Microsoft’s vision for gaming on Windows 10
Heck, I could see them even releasing an “Xbox mode’ version of the same technology that runs games in a separate Hyper-V controlled environment in much the same way that the Xbox One divides itself into “XboxOS” and the Windows 10 core for the multimedia layer. I think separating user-data and Windows functions and the XboxOS on Windows could allow for better gaming performance as the operating system could freeze all the unnecessary resources and redirect all the power towards gaming, allowing for stuff like MyPhone or other notifications to come through if the player desires, but otherwise everything else is shutdown, all towards the goal of providing the most performance for the gamer. This could also make it easier to maintain a stable system that lets gamers play all of their games without fear that a Windows Update is going to brick their performance. Windows 10 core could continue to move forward, but the XboxOS VM as part of the Hypervisor tree could be a static environment almost as if it were a dedicated gaming PC (I know a lot of people who do this and disable Windows update because it does have a history of messing up with graphics card and other driver performance).
Unrelated, but I love the new dark mode in Office365
Of course, we will probably have to wait until Microsoft Ignite 2019 this November for any actual announcements, but I am really hoping that we do see Microsoft announce an “Edgebook” that runs this new, more streamlined version of Windows. I think that the lower end of the market would really benefit from something like this in the world. Education and enterprise would also really benefit from it as well since modern tools like Microsoft Intune or VmWare Airwatch could make managing this category of devices a breeze. I think that a lighter version of Windows being the new default would be a great boon to everyone.
I’ll be at Microsoft Ignite this year! Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn and we can meet up and geek out over all things enterprise tech! -Hobie | https://medium.com/@hobiehenning/microsoft-edgebook-the-future-of-the-midrange-laptop-e430e41deb69 | ['Hobie Henning'] | 2019-09-01 18:26:10.304000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Windows', 'Windows 10', 'ChromeOS'] |
Some Authors That I Recently Started Following | Some Authors That I Recently Started Following
Photo by Stephane Coudassot-Berducou on Unsplash
I just read a great story by Bill Abbate
I could use this technique in a number of different ways. One of the thoughts I had was to spend about 10 minutes looking at stories by authors I have recently started to follow and write a very brief synopsis of one of their stories that I particularly like. Then link them all together.
Here it is:
Haucem Sadki
An excellent collection some of these I have read and should reread. Others I have intended to read but never got around to. There is only one that is completely unfamiliar to me. | https://medium.com/illumination/some-authors-that-i-recently-started-following-6780a7fbdc4d | ['Jim Mcaulay'] | 2020-12-16 05:29:39.371000+00:00 | ['Illumination', 'Ham', 'Jim Mcaulay', 'Humour', 'Humor'] |
The Masked Singer UK 2020–21 — A Ranking of the 12 Costumes | Featuring a singing Sausage and a very lively Grandfather Clock…
A simple yet addictive combination of talent show and guessing game, The Masked Singer has become one of the most successful reality TV formats of the last few years. The show features celebrities performing for a panel of judges whilst disguised in an elaborate costume. The judges try to guess their identity, and the audience votes for which contestants they want to stay in the competition. When a masked contestant is eliminated, their true identity is revealed, with hidden contestants ranging from actors and singers to politicians and social media personalities. The Masked Singer originated in South Korea in 2015, but really became an international phenomenon when the American version premiered in January 2019. Since then, the format has been exported all over Europe and the Americas, with versions in countries ranging from Mexico to Australia. The British version finally arrived in January 2020, with Joel Dommett hosting, and the likes of Johnathan Ross and Davina McCall on the judging panel. Critics were divided over the show, with some impressively harsh reviews, but it proved a ratings hit, and got all of Twitter talking as celebrities ranging from Teddy Sheringham to Katherine Jenkins were revealed as the performers behind each unusual disguise. Unsurprisingly, The Masked Singer UK renewed for a second series, which begins airing on Boxing Day (Saturday 26th)
This series was filmed in September, carefully adhering to COVID-19 guidelines. For the most part, these haven’t affected the show too much. However, comedian Mo Gilligan has joined the judging panel, replacing eccentric Masked Singer USA judge Ken Jeong (who was busy filming the most recent US season, and unable to enter the UK due to travel restrictions), and the two-metre rules mean that there will be less opportunities for close interaction between Joel and the performers. Despite these constraints, the performances will be as memorable as ever, and we can look forward to seeing more than a few famous celebs and musicians showcasing a different side to them beneath all the elaborate headwear and clothing.
However, the highlight of any version of The Masked Singer is the costumes, and the second series of The Masked Singer UK contains 12 eccentric new characters singing for audience votes. The costumes in the first series were hit and miss, with some terrible ones (Tree, Monster) and some excellent ones (Duck, Hedgehog). The designs this season are far stronger. Here is a ranking of the 12 new costumes, from worst to best.
12. Blob
Monster and Alien-based costumes have become a fixture of The Masked Singer, as they allow the costume designers to go all out and create something truly unique and eccentric. However, Blob is one of the least impressive costumes in this category. The Blob is a melty being with too many eyes, and the lack of connection to traditional humanoid or animal imagery feels a bit distancing — it is a little hard to connect to them. The design also feels a bit crude compared to the elaborate and detailed costumes used by other performers, possibly because Blob seems to be a primarily plastic creation in contrast to the impressive fur and textile work on many of their competitors. That said, the Blob costume is far better than some of the costumes from last season — its bright smile is less creepy than Tree or Queen Bee, and its use of eyes attached to the arms give it a range of movement that the Monster costume lacked.
11. Dragon
Costumes in The Masked Singer often have a strong “sporting mascot” element, and this is most clear in the design of the Dragon. In contrast to the enjoyably monstrous dragon design used in The Masked Singer Germany, or the striking East Asian inspired one used in the American version (worn by rap icon Busta Rhymes), this costume is emphasising cuteness — there isn’t a single person in the world who would find it intimidating. However, interviews with the judges and Joel have promised that this dragon breathes real fire, which could be pretty fun to watch. The rainbow belly is also an unusual feature. Dragon is the most child-friendly costume, which isn’t a bad thing, but it feels a little safe compared to some of the more unusual and creative costumes being showcased this season.
10. Seahorse
Like Octopus last year, Seahorse is representing the underwater kingdom. By sheer co-incidence, the most recent series of The Masked Singer USA also featured a seahorse costume, worn by pop star Tori Kelly. In contrast to the more realistic design used in America, this version is more cartoonish, with saucer eyes and translucent wings and collars. It also features plenty of the light-up effects used for Chameleon last year. Chameleon didn’t get very far — can Seahorse showcase more luminous magic? The American interpretation of Seahorse was superior, but this costume seems to have its own charms…
9. Swan
Tall, Graceful and bad-tempered, Swans are one of the most iconic birds in the world, and have frequently inspired The Masked Singer costumes. Whereas most swan costumes have been of the conventional white swan, this version is a Black Swan, possibly inspired by the villainous duplicate swan featured in Swan Lake. The decision to embrace the deadlier side of Swan feels creative, but the design is a little too busy. The main problem is the fact the signature swan feathers have been replaced by ruffled, frilly fabrics which feel a little bit distracting, and ensure that the body of the costume is the most disappointing element. The boots are really impressive though…
8. Badger
Hedgehog was one of the best costumes of the first season, featuring plenty of the expected spikes, some charming steampunk clothing, and a surprisingly posh singing voice provided by comedian and West End star Jason Manford. This year, another fixture of British wildlife gets the Masked Singer treatment with a Badger costume. The head is pleasingly furry and detailed, fitting the endearing image which badgers have acquired from like stories like The Wind In The Willows. However, this Badger wears a simple leather jacket, which suggests a “middle-aged rocker” persona (Hopefully, they will get to show some range and sing slower songs or tunes from different genres). The Badger is much lower down the countdown because of the far higher standard of costumes this year.
7. Robin
It’s pretty appropriate that a series which begins airing on Boxing Day features a classic winter bird in its lineup. The Robin has the red head and feathery torso we would expect, but also has a cool blue jacket and suprisingly strong golden legs. Furthermore, the bird legs and clawed feet work surprisingly well in human proportions. Robin has been confirmed as a male, with the promotion openly using male pronouns, and the bright colours and detailed featherwork suggest he could be quite the showman. Provided his vocals are strong enough, this Robin could stick around long after Christmas…
6. Bush Baby
The Bush Baby is indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, so it is pretty surprising to see it in grey and rainy Britain. However, it is wonderfully cute and furry, and will certainly prove popular in the nation which gave us the Compare The Meerket adverts. The baby part is being emphasised with the clothing — a giant yellow Babygro and insect charms around the neck, which allows the costume to show an extra level of personality and cuteness. The numbered blocks printed on the Babygro will also raise curiosity — are they a clue to Bush Baby’s identity?
5. Harlequin
Putting the mask into The Masked Singer, Harlequin represents a more mysterious take on the traditional Jester. The Venetian costume ball imagery is enhanced by a colourful gold and red mask and a gigantic hooped skirt that stands out from the rest of the competition and makes it a lot easier to socially distance. Like Queen Bee last year, this costume draws heavily on historical styles to seem powerful and authoritative, but the use of an expressive traditional mask instead of a porcelain face makes it a good deal less creepy.
4. Grandfather Clock.
Grandfather Clock is a relatively unusual concept handled in a pleasingly eccentric fashion. Although the feet are encased in giant blocks, the human aspects are emphasised over the clock ones. This allows Grandfather Clock to demonstrate a full range of movement which many The Masked Singer costumes lack. Furthermore, the little details (such as a pendulum on the shirt) demonstrate how much time and effort went into it. This is the sort of costume that seems a bit boring at first, but soon wins you over with a deeper look. The grey hair, face and moustache suggest an older celebrity with plenty of eccentricity, but limited singing ability. It is almost impossible to predict the success of these costumes when you don’t know who is beneath them, but Grandfather Clock looks like the sort of novelty performer who would usually be unmasked early on. However, we can expect the performances they provide will be quite fun.
3. Viking
Costumes themed around Vikings and Norse mythology are unsurprisingly common in Scandinavian editions of The Masked Singer, but this Viking costume represents a very British take. The costume discards traditional human proportions (with a giant beard coming down to the knees) and is all the more enjoyable for it. Viking also features an impressive horned helmet, though its sword and shield feel like an anticlimax in comparison. Viking looks like they will specialise in loud rock music, but The Masked Singer always features plenty of unexpected song choices, so they are just as likely to sing a tender ballad or two…
2. Alien
It may seem a bit counterintuitive, but the Alien costume demonstrates that the best “fantasy/extra-terrestrial creature” costumes on The Masked Singer are the ones closest to reality. The braided hair and silver dress would not seem out of place on a chart-topping diva, but the blue skin and giant golden eyes embody the classic alien stereotype. Combining the two allows Alien to seem like a seasoned performer who is both confident and imposing — the performer element is emphasized just as much as the alien aspects. Overall, Alien seem like a powerful pop star who could get pretty far…
Sausage
Some of the best Masked Singer costumes around the world are the ones inspired by symbols of national identity and culture. There are few things more intrinsically British than the chip shop, so it’s really fun to see a chip shop-inspired costume on this season of The Masked Singer UK. The Sausage theme conjures up rather phallic implications but surrounding him with a newspaper cone full of chips tones these down and the newspaper clothing features some pretty amusing headlines. The only issue with this costume is the fact that the eyes are a little too wide, but an overly expressive costume is preferable to one with no expressions at all. Sausage is the sort of costume that embodies everything The Masked Singer UK is all about. | https://medium.com/@rphlhwrd42/the-masked-singer-uk-2020-21-a-ranking-of-the-12-costumes-8377aca96ade | ['Raphael Howard'] | 2020-12-26 18:36:26.727000+00:00 | ['TV Shows', 'Game Shows', 'The Masked Singer'] |
Zingterview with a Translator: Natasha Cloutier | Is life everything you thought it would be, and more? What did you think it would be?
In Canada translation has a higher value because it’s done by people in an ‘Order of Translators’ whereas in Europe it’s more of a free for all. Although translation remains interesting as it evolves, the business side of it keeps a lot of us poor, and I wish we’d stop pretending that we’re OK with that. Realistically, many translators I know are basically ‘subsidised’ by either their partner or the government to be able to continue to translate even though they cannot make ends meet. We’re not paid enough, it’s getting worse every year, and it’s not sustainable on the long term. We need to talk about this and stop ignoring it.
What is it you love about your lifestyle as a translator?
My lifestyle as a self-employed person means I live by the sword and die by the sword: everything I do right is all my doing, and I’m solely responsible for anything that goes wrong.
What was your darkest moment as a translator?
About 15 years ago I had a maritime translation where I had to deliver a set amount of words per day (yes, weekends too) during a hot summer month. The woman in charge of the project took off for a week with no warning and left me hanging. Once the project was over, she sent me four pages of hate mail, refused to pay me, and tried to sue me, which is rare in The Netherlands. I got legal help and pushed back. She reluctantly paid, [I was in the right], wrote me more hate mail [pointed out mistakes she made herself] and went around on platforms saying I was the worst translator she’d ever dealt with. One day, the CEO of a major translation marketplace who I knew had a meeting with her face-to-face. Without me having told this person my story, they told me unprompted that she was a total bitch and I felt vindicated. (If she’s reading this, f*** you).
If you listen to music while working, what’s on your speakers lately? Spotify links or YouTube links are much appreciated 😉
I’m also a French music DJ [DJ Natashka], but I don’t usually listen to music when I’m translating. I do recommend new stuff like my talented French friend Minimatic:
…and the best ever version of Erik Satie’s Six Gnossiennes by French pianist Anne Queffélec:
If you had a magic wand and a pointy hat that actually worked, what would you change about the translation industry or your working lifestyle?
That we don’t have to rely on partners and or the government to be able to work! Nobody should have to pay to work. That we could all make a decent wage and stop pretending that we’re fine, when we’re not.
What are you doing at home or in the office to be more productive?
Upgrading my gear: a new computer, a new monitor, keyboard, and mouse. And (drum roll) Internet at home. I only had it on my phone for years because that’s how tight money was for a while.
Tell us about the weirdest thing you ever translated.
Probably that one catalogue from Dutch into French about anal toys.
What’s the best question that we didn’t think to ask?
What’s your best business tip? Translation is not the tough part, running a sustainable business is! | https://blog.zingword.com/zingterview-with-a-translator-natasha-cloutier-74de91984957 | ['Julija Savić'] | 2020-12-18 13:07:15.788000+00:00 | ['Zingterview', 'Translation', 'Interview', 'Freelancing', 'Copywriting'] |
Here's how I get from "is" it "ought." | Here's how I get from "is" to "ought."
Morality is only relevant where it might change a choice we are about to make. Whether I should kill my loved ones for sport is not a moral choice. Whether I should kill a stranger for sport is a moral choice. If I enjoy the chase, then I must give up that fun to do the morally right thing. The “is”: Every moral choice is a Prisoners’ Dilemma. If a moral choice has the potential to change my behavior, it’s because my narrow self interest drives me to a different course. But I would not thrive in a world where everyone did what I was about to do. That is the essence of the Prisoners’ Dilemma: defecting pays off for the lone defector, but the defector loses if the other player (aka “everyone else”) defects, too. Prisoners’ Dilemma games are resolved by introduction of a coordinating authority, an agent with the power to compel cooperation when universal cooperation produces a better outcome for everyone than universal defection would produce. Morality is what we call the coordinating force in the Prisoners’ Dilemma games that continually spring up in our lives. Sometimes morality is supplemented by law, but that does not change the fact that morality addresses and resolves the “ought” part of the problem. The “ought”: We ought to cooperate in Prisoners’ Dilemma situations and, therefore, in making all moral choices.
I recognize that this approach does not deal with some arguably “moral” issues, e.g., the trolley problem. I would argue, though, that the trolley problem does not raise a moral issue except to the extent that the decider’s life would be affected by a universal maxim implemented by the decision. The situation in the problem is so unrealistic, however, that no moral actor can actually decide whether he would be worse off under one scenario or the other as a universal behavior.
For me, morality is only worth discussing when it involves sacrificing one’s own interests. If one insists on treating the trolley problem as a “moral” experiment, then I would simply say that my is/ought argument applies to the subset of moral choices in which one’s own interests are in play. That’s a pretty wide array of is’s turned to ought’s. | https://medium.com/@remarklj/heres-how-i-get-from-is-it-ought-7c483be77894 | [] | 2020-08-19 17:05:45.956000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Ethics', 'Morality', 'Moral Philosophy', 'Science'] |
How Sevdaliza Captures the Art of Being a Woman in “Ison” and “The Calling” | Natasya Fila Rais for Le Citoyen
Sevdaliza, Iranian-born Netherlands-based singer songwriter. (BBC.com)
LE CITOYEN — Operating from another world, the Iranian-born Netherlands-based singer songwriter producer Sevda Alizadeh, known as Sevdaliza, has proven that she is not like other girls. The self-taught artist who began her career as a basketball athlete for one of the basketball teams in the Netherlands released her debut album, “Ison”, in April 2017, and then became a scene stealer for her artistic perspectives and otherworldly tunes. The whole album was like a trip into another dimension; heavy beat drops, eclectic musical instruments play, poetic lyrics, and soothing vocal leave our jaws to drop while listening from one song to another. Aside from the magnificent music, there are also a few stories told in every single song from the album, but mostly they tell tales about the art of being a woman.
“Human”, the tenth track from the album, captures the imperfection of human. The statements written on the lyrics tell about the existence of human as a whole, somehow living and accepting their flaws because that is how they will stay alive. The music video of this song is beyond imagination ever depicted. The singer took a role as a dancer with a mythical creature persona — a woman with horse legs — and danced to entertain the men who were watching around the amphitheater. The video itself represents the judgmental trait of society; they see and objectify women, they tell women what can and they cannot do, they command women to be perfect when the fact that nothing is perfect in this world.
There are also tracks that depict women’s roles in relationships, for example “Angel”. The song only consists of one sentence of lyric, sung on different levels of notes and pain. Sevdaliza states in the song that it should not be this hurtful to be someone’s angel. It represents a woman who is in a toxic relationship — not limited to relationships with lovers — and somehow her good is not good enough for them to value. Tired and pain can be felt throughout the 6-minute track, as the words will slowly be pictured on your mind, leaving trails of scars and heartbreak. The track “Bluecid” represents deep longing of a lover, whose presence only exist in a woman’s dream. The guitar strums and beat drops will give you the relaxing vibes, as though you are traveling in your own lucid dream. Aside from that, the lyrics are simple but hurtful. Those are the kind of lyrics that will get stuck in your head, for everyone seems to have experienced such a thing in real life. The pain is very relatable on this track.
Another side of women that Sevdaliza tries to capture on this album is motherhood. On the track “Hero”, she describes the struggle of being a mother and how the things a mother does will somehow affect the children. She also describes how strong a mother can be, with all of the pain and problems faced in the world. A mother’s love is unconditional and that is what the singer tries to tell through this song. The music video of this song featured her mother, who both were covered in all-white clothing, in order to capture the purity of the track. | https://medium.com/le-citoyen/how-sevdaliza-captures-the-art-of-being-a-woman-in-ison-and-the-calling-e9ba2bb8cb4 | ['Le Citoyen P C'] | 2018-04-18 10:54:12.298000+00:00 | ['Ison', 'Sevdaliza', 'Women', 'Music', 'Feminism'] |
Why Do I Read and Write? | Why Do I Read and Write? Prompted by Emily-Jane Rafferty’s Why We desperately Need Creative Writing in 2020, I felt compelled.
Reading fiction, in all forms from whatever young age I was capable of reading, has continued throughout my life. Writing first came in essays at school and letters to the government on subjects about which I felt passionately.
As they are wont to do, life and career forced me to write passive business emails and reports. The only reading for pleasure achieved was of the latest bestsellers on a beach twice a year.
Eleven years ago, I had a lot of time on my hands and a scarcity of books, so I started a blog. It gave meaning to my existence on a barren Atlantic island.
I haven’t looked back since then. Honing my writing skills, reading for research for my passion pieces, and still reading for pleasure. | https://medium.com/illumination/why-do-i-read-and-write-24d583239f11 | ['Karen Madej'] | 2020-12-13 11:59:34.267000+00:00 | ['Reading', '2020', 'Culture', 'Prompt', 'Writing'] |
How to Make a Courier Delivery App like Lalamove- Features and Costing | The Chinese apps ban has impacted the mobile industry in a very strong way. It has given a shock in sleep to many business owners who were dependent on these Chinese apps. Their working got affected which ultimately influenced the revenues and profits.
But at the same time, this sudden ban over the non-Chinese and Chinese apps gave owners an idea to ponder over. The idea was why to depend on others when you can have an app for yourself. This means the Chinese app ban has thrown light on the fact that we are very much dependent on other apps. If by any chance they are not functioning, it could hamper our work performance and result in losses in revenues. Especially if your business requires attached services like home delivery.
Home delivery service is one of the most demanded services that are required by the users as they want the ease of shopping. At the same time, it is equally important for the business owner because the delivery service app works as a mediator between the owner and customer. In this blog, we will learn how to make clone apps like Lalamove. The home delivery service app of China that got recently banned in India.
Scenario Post Chinese Apps Ban
The Indian government banned 43 mobile apps inclusive of Chinese apps and non-Chinese apps on 24 November 2020.
When read in detail about this action of app ban, the reports by Economictimes, stated that the action happened under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act because of a contract breach.
The Government of India said that the reason was the activities by Chinese apps that had the potential to hamper India’s sovereignty, integrity, defense, security, and public order.
The ban on apps was imposed after the order passed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology after receiving the comprehensive reports from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center. The Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed this with a press release.
India has also banned Chinese apps earlier in 2020. At that time, India blocked 59 Chinese apps in June and 118 more apps in the month of September. The apps like Tiktok, PubG, UC Browser, etc were put down from play stores and the functioning stopped.
When the apps got banned, the whole of India and the world got a new perspective on dependence over foreign apps. It made users and business owners think that why they have to go for other apps and pay service rentals when they can make their own!
Making a clone app will give multiple benefits like-
1. Cost Saving
Save the cost of paying rentals and service charges to foreign apps. Making your own app is only a one-time investment. But then you have all savings and more revenue could be used for expanding business for growth.
2. Better Understanding of Market
When you launch the app in your locality and in your country is a big advantage. You are very well known about cultures, tastes, and preferences. If you make an app that aligns with the mindset of the users, it gives better chances for your app to get popular amongst others.
3. Readymade User Base
It is the best opportunity that one can use on Chinese apps. Since the users of the app are already there in the market. By sudden ban of apps, the users may get devastated and feel an urge to get compensated. If you make clones of banned apps the users are already in the market that can promise you good downloads.
4. No legal complications
The major reason why India banned Chinese apps was the question they had over privacy that was being intervened by the Chinese apps. If you’re in your country, making apps for your country and business you will be well aware of the legal complications. Therefore you will develop mobile apps that abide by your country’s law and policies.
Courier Delivery App Lalamove and India
Lalamove was one of the famous Chinese apps in India that used to deal with courier services online. It was banned this 24 November 2020 along with major other Chinese apps due to integrity reasons as stated by.
The app allows vendors to coordinate and use the app’s resources for performing home delivery services for the vendor’s clients. The app was famous because of its ease of use and fast parcel delivery solutions. The image below highlights the USPs that made Lalamove one of the go-to courier service apps for the users.
Thus it is very clear that Chinese app Lalamove offered-
The app had employed more than 30,000 drivers and vendors in the loop. It means that it had a broad range of employers that were attached to them which were ready to provide more services.
This means, the more the people for services, the better is the performance. Therefore if you are planning to develop a mobile app like Lalamove, consider employing or onboarding more drivers.
The app was very fast in response. As soon as the vendor requested for pick up of order to deliver, the app used to provide the driver within 30 seconds. No waiting time led to customer satisfaction as people want fast service and Lalamove did that.
Matching drivers with the vendors and then having fast order assignments to the drivers made deliveries fast. The vendors were able to complete their orders fast and make cash flow run quickly post deliveries.
One of the major highlights of Lalamove was its fast response and quick deliveries. The app with a big task force and efficient networking technology was able to deliver the products in a very short span of time.
In Fact, it was counted as a promising same day courier service delivery. On the official site of Lalamove, they claimed to have 1 Lac plus home deliveries due to their fast deliveries.
The app was so good with its logistics and delivery management system that the drivers were able to deliver more than one courier at one go. This made their courier service faster and more efficient due to high-cost savings over petrol.
Details to Consider while Developing Courier Delivery App
When you are making an app like Lalamove, you have to consider the features that it used to provide. Because if you are making a clone app, you have to provide similar features. If to be more correct, you need to provide better features. Like having easy-to-use panels, better delivery, easy app navigation, etc. Similarly, apart from these stated features, there are many other features to look upon as shown in the infographic below.
Let us learn about each of these features and functionality in more detail.
1. Easy Onboarding
Whenever you log in to the app, the process should be absolutely convenient. Either it is about logging in or signing up. The process of coming over to the app for users should be easy. The app should have an option to get signed up with Social Media Platforms. The person by simply linking the app with one of the Social media IDs should be able to use the app easily.
The next option for signing up or logging in should be by filling in email id details or phone number. This assures unique users over the app.
Apart from logging in and signing up the driver should also have easy onboarding for the job. This means their document verification and submission should happen over the phone easily. Along with that, they should have the power to show their status online or offline for taking orders.
2. Impressive app Layout
In the delivery service app, the user has to keep track of multiple activities. In the user panel, the person should be able to know about his order status, estimated time of arrival along with a rating option.
Whereas talking about the driver panel, the person by looking at the app should be able to learn about his assigned job and what route he should take for order delivery. And in the admin panel of the courier delivery app, the person should have easy access to understand and manage all the other functions for smooth coordination.
But in order to make all this happen, the user interface of the mobile app should be self-explanatory. By opening the app only the person should be able to navigate themselves which tabs and screens to go and learn about particular information. Therefore easy on hands layout should be a must!
3. Synchronization of Panels
The panels are the heart of any app. Be it a home service on-demand app or the food delivery app, there is a need for panels when there are three parties involved- the user (customer), vendor (driver/service provider), and admin (owner).
So making an app where all these three panels are integrated at one spot and they are interlinked with each other makes the functioning of the app smooth. Especially the admin panel in the courier delivery app is very important for better coordination.
For example, if you have the product ready for dispatch and the driver doesn’t know when to collect the purpose of developing a delivery service app would be a fail. Similarly, if the end-user does not know when his product is going to come, the satisfaction level falls down.
Therefore the panels should work together in alignment altogether for impactful performance.
4. Pickup and Delivery Management
As mentioned above, the panels are very important for the functioning of the app and each of them has its own importance. Since we are here talking about making a courier delivery app like Lalamove, parcel delivery is our central focus.
The picking up of the order and delivery stats should be well updated over the app. The driver should be able to know which order he is going to collect and where they have delivered.
Similarly, the admin should be able to have all insights about the number of products in the warehouse, the ones in transit, and completed orders. The essence of a logistics app should be present for order pick up and delivery services.
5. GPS Enabling
In the courier service app, GPS plays a vital role. The driver with help of GPS route enabling gets optimized routes that allow them to reach the destination in the shortest time and do the delivery.
Also with GPS tracking, the user also keeps getting insights about the order like estimated time of arrival and the admin is able to know and track the parcel and driver easily.
Therefore embedding GPS features in the app allows ease to use to drivers, users, and admin for better courier services.
6. Push Notification
Out of sight, out of mind is the real story of every consumer today. Since the competition is very high today. Many people want to take their business online and make the best out of it. You need to gain personal attention from users by sending them updates.
With help of push notifications, the admin is able to send the notifications regarding discounts, new features, or any pricing plans they want to inform their users. The push notification allows the admin to write and send the desired notifications to people all at once. It is easy and the admin does not need to depend on mobile app developers again and again for sending the notifications to all app users.
7. Payment Security
The Courier service app involves the payment as it is the source of revenue for both the vendors and the admin(owner). The payment gateways that are integrated with the app should be standardized and accepted globally.
The reason behind it is that courier service is required to have the product from one corner and delivered at another corner. Therefore payments should be acceptable across all the parts of the country or globe.
So standard payment gateways should be included that ensures secured payments supported with OTPs for surety of payments.
8. Feedback Submission
If the user is given the power to share their experience of delivery, it will eventually give better insights to the vendor and admin. They will learn from feedback which drivers and middlemen they have to involve for better parcel delivery.
Also, it gives the satisfaction to the user that their voice is being heard and action is taken upon.
Budget Estimation for Making App like Lalamove
The budget of making an app depends on what features you want to include and at what level you want your app to get launched. For example, to make an app like Lalamove, will require vast Geo-mapping and employment of many vendors and drivers. It will automatically be pricier than an app with small courier service delivery constraints.
On average, to make a courier delivery app like Lalamove starts from 10,000 US dollars. The price could vary depending on your requirement. You can contact the app development company for better clarity.
Conclusion
Home delivery apps today are in demand because people today are dependent on a comfortable “on-demand” life. With apps like Lalamove getting banned, people are having problems and they are eagerly waiting for the apps that provide them good courier delivery services.
So making an app that already has a good user base and its major player gets out of competition, it is the right time to make the most out of it!
Originally published at https://www.apptunix.com on December 4, 2020. | https://medium.com/@apptunixappdev/how-to-make-a-courier-delivery-app-like-lalamove-features-and-costing-5fd888f13e3c | [] | 2020-12-04 07:29:16.110000+00:00 | ['Couriers Services', 'Courier', 'Courier App Development', 'Mobile Apps', 'Mobile App Development'] |
A Fresh Look at Clustering Algorithms | Photo by Guillermo Ferla on Unsplash
A Fresh Look at Clustering Algorithms
A deep dive into a new methodology for cluster recognition.
The project is by no means in its final stages. Sharing the current thinking and going through code in some detail to get some feedback and see if this is worth developing further. Born out of frustration with the current methods ( at least the ones available via standard libraries), particularly the adhoc nature of all the main approaches, including the crowd favourite KMeans. I am not claiming that the proposed code is done in the most efficient manner possible, but I certainly made an effort to get there. Tips on improvement would be greatly appreciated.
Video tutorial
Setting the problem
Let me start by providing a little bit of context. Since Medium is a blog platform rather than a place for scientific research, I can afford to tell the story rather than present the results in a very dry form. Please forgive me if that disappoints you — this is essentially a bit of a ‘show and tell’.
A couple of years ago I was trying to solve the problem of analysing the raster files. In case you have never worked with these before, take a look at my Geospatial adventures series for more detail:
In a nutshell — these are matrices of height numbers acquired by flying over the area you are trying to analyse, firing a laser beam at it at regular intervals and measuring the response. The resulting matrix can be used to extract the information about various objects on the surface. These objects can be anything from mountains and trees to buildings and bridges. I was specifically interested in extracting building information, which meant that I had collections of closely packed points, which I somehow needed to interpret as polygons. If you have a lone, free standing building in the middle of a field — it’s easy, all you have to do is apply convex hull algorithm out of the box (from shapely library. Again, if you are new to this — take a look at my primer here). But what if we are looking at a densely populated city centre area?
I ended up solving this by writing a custom clustering algorithm, which essentially treated collections of dots representing the buildings as a graph, where each node (our raster pixel) is connected to it’s immediate neighbours if they meet the height criteria. The problem of recognising the building polygons was essentially solved by counting unconnected graphs and then applying the convex hull to them.
Now, with the COVID crisis upon us and with plenty of spare time on my hands while job hunting, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the problem and generalise the algorithm. What I am presenting here is the result.
Phew… That was kind of a long introduction. Let’s dive in.
One of the fundamental problems with clustering is, we are really good at judging it visually and we rarely think about the mechanics of it. As a result, it is really easy to find ways of confusing the casual observer into jumping to a false conclusion. If I zoom in on a set of points on a 2D graph — I might say that they are fairly distributed, if I zoom out — they appear as a cluster. So from the very beginning, we need to define the scaling of the problem, this will be one of the main parameters driving the model.
The easiest way to do that is by defining the size of an elementary cell in the space of our problem. If this is a simple 2D, this means that we spread out all of the points in our dataset in the bounding square containing this dataset and draw square cells around each point. If we are talking about a more complex, n-dimensional problem, for example a collection of word2vec text representations — this will be a unit volume cell in n-dimensional space. It’s a lot harder to spot groupings of data when you can not see their graphical representation, so having the right way of defining the scale is really important.
If you have categorical variables, they can always be reduced to a set of binary variables (1/0) or you might opt for a more complex version using real numbers if you want to build in some meaningful relationships between them. In any case, an approximation for the number of required cells/divisions for each dimension can be constructed as:
Where N is number of points (vectors) in the dataset, n is number of dimensions (continuous variables) and k is number of categorical variables. I am assuming here that categorical variables are reduced to just 1/0.
The intuition behind this number is: going significantly above it would result in divisions being too small and therefore unless the clustering is very pronounced, you wouldn’t be able to detect it. Going significantly below it risks making the cells so large that you just gloss over any irregularities in the data. In my buildings problem example this is particularly important as, in order to detect all the buildings, we want to have the number of divisions quite a bit below the critical one. This is because the distance between our points is the same everywhere, what changes is their type (their height profile). Ultimately, we make the divisions large enough to include two layers of neighbouring points.
For the purposes of this post, I am not going to deal with multi-dimensional problems, I might come back to it some other time. The code presented here should be able to deal with them though, with small modifications if you want to include the categorical variables. After all, the purpose here is to demonstrate the principle.
The algorithm
To give you a very condensed, nutshell version of what we are doing:
Normalise the data, so each variable is now in a 0 to 1 interval. Multiply each variable by D and take the integer part. This effectively standardises each point, by placing it into a specific grid cell. Count number of points in each grid cell and discard the cells with numbers below specific threshold. This is another important parameter we are going to pass into the model. In this implementation, I am looking at specific percentiles, but it can be driven by an arbitrary number. The resulting structure can be represented as a collection of trees(or rather graphs, but lets roll with trees) and all we have to do to identify our clusters is run a breadth first search (BFS) algorithm to count the instances of unconnected trees. Finally , once the main clusters have been identified, the points which were left out, as their cells didn’t pass the threshold, need to be attributed. Here, I am doing this outside of the main function by calculating the minimum distance to centroids of identified clusters. This is not the only option and I believe not even the best option. It will do for now though and (!) it’s easy and quick to implement.
OK, let’s get down to it.
Let’s start with creating a dummy dataset we are going to be playing with. Towards the end of this post I will also share the comparison with the results of running this dataset through some of the standard clustering algorithms from scikit.
Loading the libraries we would need:
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
pd.plotting.backend='seaborn'
import time
import itertools
Most of the time I am going to try and avoid using pandas, it will be used in the very beginning as we set up and then in the end to help with visualising and to keep everything in one place. Throughout the bulk of it, we are going to work with numpy arrays, lists and dictionaries. Keeping it simple (and helping with performance a bit). As a side note — I have played with acceleration of the code using numba and cython, but I wasn’t impressed with the results, so for the time being we are going to leave them aside.
Matplotlib and Seaborn for visualisation, also using Seaborn as a backend for pandas. Using time module to look at comparative performance and using itertools to avoid loops (well, at least in the explicit python form).
The dataset:
Essentially these are four clusters, with points nicely bunched together toward the centre of each cluster + some basic stretching on top of it so they don’t appear too regular. They also end up overlapping a bit so will be good to see how we deal with those cases.
We are going to normalise them:
And now go ahead and visualise:
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 10))
sns.scatterplot(ttf.x, ttf.y, alpha=0.5)
Sweet.
In our case, the number of cells can be calculated as:
D = int(np.sqrt(len(ttf_norm)))
tolerance = 50
This gives us D=63. So model parameters we can use would be D = 60 (just going for a nice round number) and we are going to look for 50th percentile in terms of number of points per cell (tolerance). In general — the choice for tolerance depends on how well our data is distributed. If there is no way of checking it visually or otherwise — It’s not a bad idea to run the model at different tolerance levels and see how many clusters are found for different levels and which result makes the most sense (is most stable).
We’ll also convert our input dataset into a numpy array. In this case it will have just two columns, in case of more dimensions/variables it will have more.
X = ttdf_norm[['x', 'y']].values
OK, we are ready to build. I am going to go through it step by step.
Scale and discretise:
Xint = (X * D).astype(int)
2. Create string ids for each cell:
Xstr = np.apply_along_axis(
''.join,
1,
np.char.zfill(
Xint.astype(str),
len(str(D))
)
)
What’s happening here is, we are converting each coordinate into a string and then pad it with preceding zeros so that each one is the same length as the string representing the number of divisions (D). Final step, merge them into a single ID. The reason I am creating IDs this way is, this gives me an ability to home in on the nearest neighbours of each cell without having to do expensive lookups in large arrays, I can just infer their ids from the current id.
3. Create the dictionary with frequency of occurrence counts for all cells. As easy as :
unique, counts = np.unique(Xstr, return_counts=True)
tree = dict(zip(unique, counts))
4. Calculate the threshold:
mincount = int(
np.percentile(
np.array(
list(
tree.values()
)
)[
np.array(
list(tree.values())
) >1
],
tolerance
)
)
This one is a bit busy, so let’s see what is going on. We are creating a numpy array out of all the values in our tree and discarding everything with one point or less. We don’t want these to influence the percentiles too much as they don’t bring any value. Out of the resulting array, we calculate the value corresponding to the percentile set by our tolerance variable. The simplest case of 50% corresponds to median.
5. Pruning the tree: get rid of everything below the mincount. Using simple dict comprehension:
tree = {k: v for k, v in tree.items() if v > mincount}
As a side note — when playing with numba.jit I had to replace this with a straightforward python for loop (my heart bled as I did so) — as numba can not handle list/dict comprehension in the current implementation. Now, thinking about this — this can be done without loops at all using numpy arrays for key and values. This should make the code faster, although this isn’t the main bottleneck, so this won’t change the calculation time materially.
The main part is already done. What we are left with is a dictionary with keys corresponding to all meaningful cells, which need to be counted.
Essentially, we need to perform a breadth first search on these. What this means is we are going to select a random id from our tree, mark it as visited and assign all its neighbours to ‘tocheck’ list (queue in classic implementation), we then go select any value from ‘tocheck’ list and repeat the same process. In the classic implementation this needs to be the first value from ‘tocheck’ hence the use of queues, but, in our case, we are going to have to go through all of them, so the order is immaterial. Once we run out of items in ‘tocheck’ list we have completed our first tree. We can assign it to the first cluster and pick up the next id from the original list.
I am not going to go through the details of exact implementation here as this is not particularly novel or interesting — I am still trying to make it faster as this is where most of the time is being spent. I will, however, show you the neighbour selection, since this part is not trivial (especially without loops).
First, we generate the list of shifts for our coordinates. We are looking for all nearest neighbours one space away. In 2D case — that’s 9 points (including the origin, in 3D — it’s 27 and so on. We need to be able to perform the shifts in any number of dimensions defined by X. This is where itertools comes in handy.
l = list(itertools.product([-1, 0, 1], repeat=Xint.shape[1]))
l=list(map(list, l))
l.remove([0] * Xint.shape[1])
What’s happening here is — first we create all possible permutations of -1, 0 and 1s in the horizontal dimension of X matrix (in our case 2, as we only have 2 variables).
These are returned as tuples, so we need to convert them to lists — that’s the job of the second line.
Final step — we remove the zero shifts as it’s not useful for us.
Here’s the result:
[[-1, -1], [-1, 0], [-1, 1], [0, -1], [0, 1], [1, -1], [1, 0], [1, 1]]
Now, let lD be the length of string representation of our D parameter and ids be the single id we are trying to find neighbours for. I know, using id would be more logical, but Python has dibs on it, so we have to do with ids instead.
nbrs = np.array(
[
list(
[
int(
''.join(
list(ids)[i * lD: (i + 1) * lD]
)
) for i in range(len(l[0]))
]
)
] * len(l)
) + np.array(l)
OK, lots going on here, so to break it down: Taking a list of a string — converts it into a list of characters making it up. We then take portions of that list with number of elements corresponding to the length of our D parameter (lD) and glue them together into strings using join. Once that’s done we convert them to integer values again and that gives us a replica of the corresponding line from X matrix, i.e. all the variables corresponding to this unit cell. We then replicate this list as many times as the number of neighbours we are trying to get to (number of stresses in the l list). Final step — convert both the resulting list and the list of stresses to numpy array and add them up. This gives us element-wise sum and hence the coordinates of all neighbours. Note that this would work for any number of variables, so this is good for n-dimensional vectors. The problems will potentially start when get into really large numbers of variables, but let’s not worry about that for now.
Finally, we repeat the conversion to ids:
nbrs = np.apply_along_axis(
''.join,
1,
np.char.zfill(
nbrs.astype(str),
lD
)
)
And voila, we have the ids of neighbours. All that’s left is a quick check that we haven’t visited them before and that they do indeed belong to the identified tree.
Look ma, no ‘for loops’!!!
Erm.. Actually there was one list comprehension there, even though it is quite a short one. Still, if you figure out a way to do it without it — please let me know!
Once we’ve done our tree counting , we are more or less done. All we have to do is attribute the unit cells we left out and then mark up the corresponding points.
Let’s look at some pictures!
Time to compare the results of running our function with the standard clustering methods. If you want to review the latter, here’s a very good post with a whole bunch — 10!
In fact, we are going to run all of them on our dataset (apart from the optical one, since it’s rubbish) and then compare them to running the method described here (I call it DenseTrees, since we are looking for high density areas using tree structure).
Just to give you a quick example of running it for one of the methods
Load the model:
import sklearn
from sklearn.cluster import AffinityPropagation
model = AffinityPropagation(damping=0.9)
And run the fit:
%%time
model.fit(X)
The first line is to get the execution time.
Final step
ttf_norm['Affinity'] = model.predict(X)
On my laptop this particular method took the longest — around 21 seconds.
Same process with the others. I have played with the parameters driving them a little bit to get the best result out of the box. In case of Affinity — it didn’t really help much.
I have to stress that some of the methods — KMeans (straight and minibatch), Spectral, Gaussian mixture, Agglomerative and Birch, all have number of clusters as an input, which, in a way, defeats the purpose. You have to know the number of clusters before applying them. In reality, we can discard them straightaway as they won’t be useful for any interesting problem we are going to try and solve. Let’s keep them in, just for the sake of the exercise though.
Plotting away:
You can see that MeanShift, Birch, DBSCAN, Affinity all performed poorly. Incidentally, DBSCAN was particularly fiddly in terms of getting the right parameters to even get to this stage. Gaussian mixture looks like the best of the whole lot. Our DenseTrees method performed on the par with KMeans. If we change our second path attribution we can probably get as good a result as from GM (in fact we can use GM for the final attribution). Incidentally Gaussian Mixture was about 6x faster than DenseTrees, so there’s some room for improvement there too (we still did OK with 300ms — 6th fastest). The main outtake here — we have outperformed every algorithm which didn’t have the number of clusters as an input and we are not far off the best algorithm from the ones that did. Not too shabby.
Final note
I did mention that the problem of identifying the buildings from raster files served as the inspiration for this, so it would be a shame not to show how the algorithm performed against that dataset.
Just to give you some context. After some filtering and cleaning the raster file plotted as a scatter plot looks like this:
Extra kudos to those who can figure out where this is.
These are just points plotted on a normalised scale. Anything below 10 meters is set to zero. You can just about see that we caught some trees in our net. Not much we can do about that unfortunately. At least for now. This square has 2000 by 2000 resolution (so 4mln datapoints in total) and each pixel corresponds to 0.5m by 0.5m square. We have to go pretty granular to catch the gaps between buildings, so to process this I used D=500 and tolerance of 10%. Note that critical value for this would be too much as all points are evenly spaced already. On my laptop this took about 5 hours to process. Not great. The original optimised for 2D algorithm took about half an hour, so there’s definitely plenty of room for improvement.
The algorithm returns 247 clusters. And here they all are in all their rainbow- coloured glory:
You can see that we mostly got lucky with the trees anyway — all the grey dots are the ones left out. For this problem there is no need for the extra attribution step, which is why I am leaving it out of the main function.
That is all for today. Looking forward to your criticisms and suggestions. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-fresh-look-at-clustering-algorithms-c3c4caa1a691 | ['Dmitry Selemir'] | 2020-09-24 16:35:27.344000+00:00 | ['Clustering', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Video Tutorial', 'Data Science'] |
What high school students can do to prepare for college in the midst of a pandemic | 1. Take advantage of all virtual opportunities available from colleges
One of the most important things that students can do during this time is to take advantage of all the virtual opportunities that universities have recently been putting up such as virtual tours and virtual zoom sessions to listen to what each college has to say about the importance of the college admission process As a high school junior I have recently been attending a lot of virtual zoom sessions hearing from a variety of colleges and listening to their Q&A live sessions about the important things of the college admission process and it has really taught me a lot about the certain things that colleges are looking for in their applicants. One thing I have learned is that colleges are looking for well- rounded students who not only do well in academics but that also take part in extracurriculars and community service projects. There is so much that you can learn by hearing from these college experts giving you tips to make your college admission process so much easier which is why I encourage all high school students to take part in using these virtual opportunities to learn more about what colleges are looking for in applicants.
2. Take on a leadership role
Another thing that colleges love to see on an applicant`s application is how they demonstrate themselves as a leader making them stand out from any other applicant. Recently a lot of things have been going on in the world with increasing rates of world hunger, world poverty, social injustices and etc. Now would be the perfect time for students to take a part in spreading awareness and change on how we can better address all these issues to make the world a more peaceful place through a variety of ways which will demonstrate to colleges all that students did to showcase their leadership skills. By doing this it will allow colleges to see what high school students are really passionate about and how they will make a beneficial impact to society which is something they look for deeply in an applicant. Taking on a leadership role will give college admission readers a good opportunity to distinguish you from all the other applicants showcasing what makes you different from other people which can help better your chances of getting in to your dream college. Who wouldn`t want to take the opportunity to better ensure that they will have a greater chance to get into the college of their dreams? I bet you all wouldn`t which is why all high school students should take the opportunity now to really engage in a type of leadership role to make themselves shine in their application.
3. Start exploring potential majors that you can find yourself studying in college
Making the decision on what you want to study and do for potentially the rest of your life is one of the most stressful and important decisions that high school students and young adults in college are faced with making. It is really hard and time-consuming to try to figure out what it is that you can envision yourself doing in the future so what better way to plan for college then by getting a head start on this long process now that you have all this time on your hands due to the pandemic? I find this to be the most productive thing that students can do now in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic to really reflect on who they are as a person and figure out how they can gather up all their aspirations, goals, likes, and passions to bring into focus what they feel will be the perfect major for them. By using available resources of personality quizzes, career quizzes and more it will allow students to find out what major was made perfectly for them which will help them so much in the long run emphasizing just how beneficial and productive it is to start exploring potential majors that students can gain an idea from of what they want to major in college. It will bring students a huge stress relief knowing that they have a few ideas on what they see themselves studying in college. Who would want to have the chance to reduce all the stress possible to make their college admissions process that much easier? Students for sure is the valid answer to that question!
I hope to have inspired all high school students on all that they can do to stay productive in planning for college in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. I encourage you all to use this advice I have given because it will benefit your college planning and lead you on the right path to success!
Resources to use to help high school students take advantage of all the virtual opportunities available from colleges:
https://www.platformqedu.com/cwl/
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search
http://www.ecampustours.com/campus-tours.aspx
Resources to use to help high school students explore possible majors they could see themselves pursuing in the future:
https://www.mymajors.com/
https://www.jamyway.org/
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/college-major-quiz | https://medium.com/@lifeadvice/what-high-school-students-can-do-to-prepare-for-college-in-the-midst-of-a-pandemic-3407dd17f82a | [] | 2020-12-04 18:45:21.832000+00:00 | ['Students', 'High School', 'Pandemic', 'College Preparation', 'College Prep'] |
The Best Gift You Can Give to Your Loved One (and it’s free!) | Photo by Antonio Janeski on Unsplash
It’s funny, but when I ask people what I could give them for their birthday or Christmas, they ask for something completely free. I’ve been on the giving and on the receiving end of that gift and I can assure you — it is the most valuable thing you can hope for.
I am talking about a thing so simple, but so powerful — a handwritten letter. All you need is a pen, a piece of paper, a heart and a quiet place. During the times when money may be a struggle, your package might be late or materialistic gifts seem to be of last importance, a piece of paper with some honest words written by you for that specific person can be a blessing.
“So how do I write a letter, that serves as a gift” you may ask. It’s pretty simple!
Don’t feel pressured.
It is a scary feeling when you look at an empty piece of paper and it is looking back at you. Of course, you don’t know how to start or what to say, or even how to say it, but don’t feel pressured to write a perfect letter on the spot. First of all, the perfect letter is the one written with love, care and that person in mind, so your letter will be perfect no matter what. And the blank page won’t feel scary anymore if you write whatever thoughts you have, then sort through them, pick what inspires you and let your hand follow your mind. Relax and it will come to you.
Photo by JK Sloan on Unsplash
2. Don’t be scared to be vulnerable.
A good letter is a heartfelt letter and to write that, you need to be honest. Think about things, that you’re too scared to tell in person, that are too difficult to say out loud, and write it all free. Don’t be afraid to compliment that person, say sorry for something in the past or just tell them how much they mean to you. If you smile while writing that letter, the person reading it will smile too.
3. Mention a memory or an inside joke.
A letter for your brother, mother, best friend, or your significant other (ha, that rhymed) doesn’t have to be formal, it’s for the best if it’s not. It’s going to feel more personal if you add some details that you share with this and this person only. Once again, if you laugh writing it, I bet they’ll laugh reading it and that’s what we want, right?
4. Write by hand and by hand only (if possible).
Even if the person on the receiving end is on the other side of the planet, be old-fashioned and practice that cursive! An e-mail or a printed message doesn’t feel as intimate as a handwritten letter. It shows dedication and care when you take your time and paint every letter and every word on that paper just to make another human happy.
5. Have fun!
Write a letter that you’d like to get yourself, put thought and effort into it and have fun along the way. It’s all about making another person happy and I’m sure their happiness will warm you up. | https://medium.com/@eyesofanobody/the-best-gift-you-can-give-to-your-loved-one-and-its-free-cc0298ade8cd | ['Nina Hemart'] | 2021-03-20 20:53:21.974000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Birthday', 'Letters', 'Holidays', 'Gifts'] |
AWS reInvent Sessions | 15 things I wish I knew about securing my AWS account
Good for intermediate level AWS users, going beyond the standard suggestions, note on conformance packs and aws config rules for MFA was good.
Application integration patterns for microservices
One of the implications of applying the microservices architectural style is that a lot of communication between components is done over the network. To achieve the promises of microservices, this communication needs to happen in a loosely coupled manner. In this session, learn fundamental application integration patterns based on messaging and connect them to real-world use cases in a microservices scenario. The session also describes benefits that asynchronous messaging can have over REST APIs for communication between microservices.
Ignite migration and modernization with DevSecOps (FIRST 15 MINS)
Companies employ DevOps practices to expedite production of new application features and accelerate migration to AWS through better collaboration and automated testing. The challenge for many organizations is getting application features delivered at a fast pace while embedding needed security at the speed of DevOps. In this session, learn how AWS users, together with third-party solutions from AWS Marketplace, easily turn the idea of DevSecOps into well-orchestrated operating models. Hear how Silicon Valley Bank used third-party software to improve performance, availability, and security while migrating and modernizing their applications.
Amazon’s culture of innovation
Amazon has a peculiar culture and approach to innovation that is intrinsically linked to how it uses technology. In this session, learn how Amazon innovates, organized around four interdependent elements: culture, mechanisms, architecture, and organization. Attend to learn more about Amazon leadership principles, “working backwards,” and “two-pizza teams.”
Securing protected health information and high-risk datasets (Trump style pitch)
Join this session featuring Jonathan Cook, Chief Technology Officer at Arcadia, for a discussion around securing mission-critical and high-risk datasets such as personal health information (PHI) in the cloud. Learn how Arcadia developed a HITRUST CSF-certified platform leveraging AWS technology that enabled both the high performance and high scalability needed to support petabytes of data Arcadia manages on over 100 million patients. Discover how Arcadia accomplished this while ensuring that all data was adequately protected in compliance with stringent HITRUST certification requirements.
Open-source observability at AWS (confused by the choices of open source stacks — Advanced session)
Hear from a CNCF SIG observability (o11y) member on the state of open-source o11y on AWS. From the Fluent Bit-based FireLens to Prometheus metrics in Amazon CloudWatch to OpenTelemetry, there is a lot to discuss and show in the context of microservices, containers, and serverless compute.
Swiitch to 20 mins
Observability workshop link
Monolith to serverless SaaS: Migrating to multi-tenant architecture (look at it as layers and start moving layer by layer — logs, metrics, silos, etc)
Many organizations begin their journey to SaaS with a single-tenant monolithic architecture. Their goal is to transform these systems into modern, multitenant serverless systems that can realize all of the cost, scale, and agility benefits that SaaS environments demand. In this session, dig into the details of this transformation, exploring approaches to incrementally decompose your monolith into serverless microservices. Also learn how tenancy is introduced into your new microservices, pushing tenants for logging, metrics, and data partitioning and tenant isolation into AWS Lambda layers. The goal is to outline an evolutionary approach that guides your path to a serverless SaaS model.
Securing your Amazon ECS applications: Best practices
With Amazon ECS, you can run your containerized workloads securely and with ease. In this session, learn how to utilize the full spectrum of Amazon ECS security features and its tight integrations with AWS security features to help you build highly secure applications. | https://medium.com/@elango1/aws-reinvent-sessions-902006a31334 | [] | 2020-12-06 03:06:30.648000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Cloud Computing', 'Conference'] |
Getting started with NLP using IBM Watson Studio | Hola!!!
Welcome to the blog-post on Natural Language Processing by leveraging the capabilities of IBM Watson’s NLU(Natural Language Understanding) service.
Prerequisite: An open-mind
For newbies like me in the field of NLP, I feel images are more communicative in terms of story-telling. So, I have added screenshots and code-snippets wherever possible.
I’ll try to keep our learning experience as relevant to industry as possible.
To start using the start-of-the-art Watson Services, you need to first create an account on IBM Watson. Don’t worry about the costs incurred! I’ll try to stick to only free-tier services.
Today’s task:
We’ll be uploading a dataset into IBM Cloud Storage and do data transformation task on our notebook, while communicating with Watson’s APIs to get the sentiment of our reviews-dataset!
We’ll be using IBM Watson Studio for this post. Sign-up with Watson for free trial version for your testing purposes. After successfully creating your new account, you’ll be greeted by the following homepage.
Click on the “Create a project ” button to continue.
Now, we will create our first project by clicking on the New Project button.
You’ll need to provide a name for your notebook in the dialog-box, keep the Plan as Lite (free-tier). Once, done click on Confirm to continue.
Whenever you are selecting your plan of choice, read the features thoroughly.
Under the free-tier category, you’ll be able to make 30k service calls. We’ll see how to make use of such services under strict boundaries, to avoid incurring costs.
Once the new project is created, it should be listed under the NLU category.
Once, you go inside the project, you’ll find that there aren’t any credentials.
We’ll be needing credentials to make API calls to Watson’s NLU service, so let’s click on the New Credential button and keep a backup of the credentials in a notepad.
You’ll be asked to give a name , so go ahead and name your credentials!
Listed below are the various attributes of the service credential. We’ll be using “api_key” and the “url” endpoint for the current use-case.
Once our service is created, We will now build our NLP project.
Select the first option, to create an empty project.
In the dialog-box, you’ll be prompted to enter details, along-with a storage location. Scroll down to see how we create our Storage (IBM Cloud object storage).
Also, notice there’s an option to select a storage. Now, we need to specify a storage for our datasets. The setup is very simple, simply follow the screenshots below!
Just like NLU service, we’ll stick to the Lite (free-tier) plan for IBM Cloud object storage.
Update the Storage name in the dialog box and click on Confirm button.
Let’s now add our notebook, Click on “Add to project” button.
Select Notebook from the asset type. We’ll explore other assets in future iterations.
Select the environment for Python, including the CPU support you may require for your job.
We are done! Congrats…we’ve been successful to create our first notebook!
If you want to get a glimpse how the notebook looks like, click here.
Time to code!
It surely won’t end up this way!!
Once, your notebook is created, its going to look like this! A Blank Slate…
Default setup of Notebook
Data Ingestion
The very first component in an ML project is the dataset. You can download it here.
This dataset comprises of customer reviews in an e-commerce portal. Each of these reviews has been split up into multiple snippets, to allow us analyse its sentiment much better at a granular level.
Confused? Let’s see an example:
Review:
This shirt is very flattering to all due to the adjustable front tie. it is the perfect length to wear with leggings and it is sleeveless so it pairs well with any cardigan. love this shirt!!!
Sentence 1:
This shirt is very flattering to all due to the adjustable front tie.
Sentence 2:
and it is sleeveless so it pairs well with any cardigan.
Sentence 3:
love this shirt!!
I hope you’ve downloaded the dataset by now. Let’s quickly import it!
There’s a wierd icon on the top-right corner of the menu-bar. Refer to the snapshot below. You can either drag-&-drop or simply browse from local system. The dataset will be uploaded to IBM Cloud object storage.
You’ll always be able to view all your datasets under the “Data assets” category as shown below:
In order to read this dataset in our notebook, what if I said that you need not write a single code?
Enjoy the beauty of Watson Notebook!!!
Simply click on the “Insert pandas DataFrame” under the dataset, to automatically populate your notebook and creating a dataframe!
You’ll see something like this.
df_data_1 is your default dataframe.
To view, how the dataset looks like simply run df_data_1.head()
In order to analyse sentiments for each sentence, we’ll be using data from “sentences” column.
Data Transformation
In a real-world scenario, this layer would comprise of multiple action-items, which we’ll discuss in our future iterations.
In this tutorial, we’ll consider first 10 records from “sentences” column and store it into a new dataframe. Subsequently, we’ll filter out the important columns once we invoke Watson’s NLU API.
Execute the following code to copy first 10 records and store it in df1:
Cognitive Analysis
We can infer properties from the customer-reviews using the following options provided by Watson’s NLU as:
Features, EntitiesOptions, KeywordsOptions,SentimentOptions.
In this current tutorial, we’ll incorporate EntitiesOptions and SentimentOptions
We’ll be importing all the necessary packages and include the API key to facilitate NLU-based analytics.
As I have already said, in today’s use-case we’ll find the sentiment score for a review and also the relevant keywords in that review. We’ll execute this operation for our complete dataset.
The example below will bring more clarity:
Sentence:
This would definitely be a true midi on someone who is truly petite.
Corresponding Sentiment:
{"sentiment": {"document": {"score": 0.89721,"label":"positive"}}}
Corresponding Keyword/s:
{“keywords”:[{ “text”:“true midi”,“relevance”:0.5,“count”: 1}]}
As can be seen here, the output payload from NLU API service calls comprise of JSON data.
Since, we are using the Lite-tier version, be cautious about the number of API calls you make.
Thus, we have created a method to compute the sentiment and keywords for a review in a single service call.
Hence, we would be extracting our required attributes along-with their corresponding scores from this JSON data.
We’ll now apply the API service calls row-wise for our dataset.
Let’s see how the resultant data-frame looks like. Click here to download notebook.
Congrats!! You’ve learnt how to implement Watson services for concurring NLP analysis.
I’m glad you stayed with me for so long.. Here’s a perk for you!
J OB SCHEDULING
In many instances, while working on an industrial project, you may be asked to run a job at repetitive intervals, whether it is for data ingestion, data cleaning or data transformation.
A utomating the boring task!
That’s really BORING!!!
So, let’s check out this trick! and I promise its super easy to setup!
On the top right corner of the notebook, there’s an option to “create a job”.
We’ll now be redirected to a new dashboard specifically dedicated for job creation.
You’ll get a provision for selecting an environment. Select the python version and other attributes to get started.
Once we’ve named our new job, it’s time to click on the slider on the right side of the dashboard. We can now schedule to execute the notebook repetitively by specifying the start date and setting the time.
Once, the setup is complete, we’ll be redirected to the dashboard as below.
All the job runs, once executed successfully can be viewed under “Runs” category. You’ll be able to see the time taken for the model to execute.
Voila!!!! You’ve not only created a notebook, but also scheduled it to run at regular intervals! How cool is that! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/getting-started-with-notebooks-in-ibm-watson-nlu-part-1-3b0b92894901 | ['Aritro Mukherjee'] | 2019-11-29 14:54:00.576000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Natural Language', 'Watson Nlu', 'Ibm Watson', 'Watson'] |
How we made the entire company* cross-functional** | Quandoo & OKRs
2017: OKRs done wrong
Quandoo has a history of working with OKRs dating back to 2017. Back then we were doing monthly OKRs down to the individual level. There was quite a lot wrong with that (yes, we know!). Since we, of course, wanted strong alignment, huge efforts were invested in structuring these OKRs. Now though, with the nature of OKRs being that one level’s key results are potentially the next level’s objectives, things soon got out of hand.
Not to mention that these OKRs were documented in countless disconnected spreadsheets. Also, it was no surprise that since we tried to do this monthly we were not only late in defining OKRs each month, and any person above ‘team member’ level didn’t get much done besides this.
2018: OKRs done better
The changes we made weren’t necessarily on a yearly cadence, but these sections best represent the rough situation during the time. So, in 2018 we transitioned to what can be described as Delivery Agile with some flaws. Goals and OKRs were top-down, while experimenting and delivery worked very well on execution level. Unfortunately, both goals and OKRs were still set first on a three-month, then a six-month basis, which still resulted in a lot of planning, focus change during the year, and huge alignment efforts.
2019: OKRs done okay
In 2019 we set yearly top-level OKRs for the first time. This was great, because it meant we were following a consistent path that you knew wouldn’t change for the foreseeable future. This was the first time we weren’t struggling with goal setting on time or working on the right things in realistic timeframes. Great!
However, we were still struggling with alignment between OKRs, teams and departments.
2020: OKRs done well
We had been learning this for quite some time, while still focusing each year on the operational side, still getting things done and still growing the business and the company. Because we value the following:
Working software over processes and tools.
In 2019 we realized that two more things needed to change: | https://medium.com/quandoo/how-we-made-the-entire-company-cross-functional-ce003bdcb77f | ['Robert Kalweit'] | 2020-02-26 10:32:32.770000+00:00 | ['Agile', 'Leadership', 'Evolution', 'Organizational Change', 'Okr'] |
What It’s Like To Leave Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp | What It’s Like To Leave Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp
I should have done it sooner
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Ah yes. The Zuckerberg empire. It’s one that many of us can’t seem to evade. Facebook products have been so deeply embedded in our daily digital lives that depriving yourself of using any of these may feel like going back to the stone age. At least that’s what I thought at first.
Over a decade ago, social media was still in its infancy. Global internet adoption was growing. Platforms like Facebook were fun places to be on back then. Sure, it made connecting with friends and family more convenient. But more importantly, Facebook back then made wasting time on the internet entertaining.
Over the years, the appeal clearly started to grow. Furthermore, smartphones became affordable, the internet became cheaper and faster. The technology grew and so did the adoption on a global scale. By 2012, Facebook over a billion users, Twitter had over 500 million, Instagram had 30 million (before Facebook acquisition), and LinkedIn over 140 million. A year later, WhatsApp reported 250 million monthly users. Clearly social media was picking up and was fast becoming a vital component of our daily lives.
The convenience factor played a major role in this regard. For example, it was cheaper and faster to text via WhatsApp than send an SMS. It was easier to check your Facebook newsfeed to check what your friend has been up to than say, call them. Following news and other important events became easier on Twitter and Facebook’s newsfeed. These apps soon became so ingrained into our habits that now it’s almost impossible to find people who aren’t looking at the phones all the time. For a long time, I was one of these people, until I wasn’t.
The communication and convenience conundrum
One of the biggest arguments for keeping yourself on platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp is the fact that it offers a convenient means of keeping in touch with your friends and family. If it weren’t for WhatsApp you might not be able to talk to some of them. Without Facebook, you might not know what’s going on with your friend’s life.
Image by Alfredo Rivera from Pixabay
Social media has indeed made some things easier for us. This is particularly true for WhatsApp. In my case, it wasn’t just friends and family, but professional contacts as well. Yes, I understand there are so many tools available. But here in this part of the world, WhatsApp is the most convenient option since everybody is on there. Also, it's cost-effective and casual enough to maintain a healthy professional relationship. Furthermore, it doesn’t stop with clients, even internal communications get tricky without something like WhatsApp.
I work as a writer and a digital marketer. Whenever I need to get an article published, quick communication helps to expedite the approval process. In my case, it’s a matter of sending a Google doc/Word doc link of my article to my editor, a few quick messages here and there, finalize it and schedule for publication. There’s a lot of this happening every day and so quick communication is vital. It’s the same for digital marketing activities, where it’s a matter of clients being able to reach me for quick updates. WhatsApp fills the gap perfectly.
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
Therefore, WhatsApp is often an obvious choice for business communications. Cutting yourself off WhatsApp means you lose out professionally in terms of maintaining convenient internal communications and building a good rapport with your clients.
But even so, I feel the cons have far outweighed the pros. Take WhatsApp. Right now, almost everyone uses the app. As a result, you’re bombarded with so many messages every day. Particularly from those groups. I was on over 15 WhatsApp workgroups. Add friends and family groups into the mix and your phone is filled with text messages, GIFs, memes, photos, and videos by the hundreds. Suddenly, this convenient messaging app is a daily nightmare. That’s not even considering that one friend in your contact list who keeps sharing dubious claims with everyone.
Facebook is objectively worse. No longer is it a productive space. The newsfeed is filled with people hellbent on proving their followers that their lives are glamourous. All the albums, the proud moments, and whatnot. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Then there are always those pointless heated debates in the Facebook comments. There always seems to be one. It could be about a movie, a political statement, or even a simple scientific fact. Everything is up for debate on Facebook and hardly any of them are productive. Yes, there is a mute option. But that’s like substituting beer for whiskey because you have alcohol problems. Plus, this is merely scratching the surface.
Going from bad to worse; its Facebook’s fault
Facebook’s disappointing history of protecting users’ data has been its biggest bane. To make matters worse, the platform enabled the mass distribution of hate speech, fake news, and misinformation. From Cambridge Analytica to accusations on interfering with the US presidential election 2016, Facebook has been the epicenter of many controversies.
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
At the heart of all this lies Facebook’s need to dominate the digital space and capitalize on its massive advertising power. All the inaction and the unenthusiastic approach towards fixing these problems are fuelled by this need. Look no further than the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. But what’s worse is that you and I are enabling this one way or the other.
You may ask, “Wait, I’m not into any of those things. So how am I enabling?” Simply put, all those Facebook likes and all the Instagram stories feed into the numbers. As long as users keep engaging regardless of what sort of content lives on Facebook products, the platform will thrive in its controversial ways. After all, the more users are immersed in its features the more ways Zuckerberg will find to sell you adverts. Facebook newsfeed, instant articles, Instagram stories, Messenger, are all advertising spaces in case you haven’t noticed.
Bidding adieu to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram
Between the constant WhatsApp group spamming and the many Facebook controversies, I felt it was time I removed myself from the Zuckerberg empire. Like many, social media was a core part of my daily routine. So, it wasn’t easy by any measure. But as a starting point, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. A week or so later I proceeded to permanently delete my Facebook account. By around January 2019, I was on Facebook no more.
It took a few weeks for me to adjust to not unlocking the phone screen every 10 minutes to open the Facebook app or keep a Facebook tab open on the computer browser. But I was already feeling a significant shift in my habits soon enough. I felt more at peace knowing that I won’t be too bothered with all the negativity on Facebook. Most importantly, I saved precious time and energy. In fact, just one and a half months after leaving Facebook I managed to finish reading three books.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
However, I did continue to be on Instagram and WhatsApp. It was easier for me to leave Facebook than the other two. Instagram for example has been a very productive space for me. I found content around photography to be fascinating on the platform. Between the @visualsofjulius image manipulations to crispy clear photographs by @petermckinnon, Instagram served me well as creative inspiration. WhatsApp, even though its hell to navigate your way around the many conversations it was still the only way to keep in touch with some of my friends and relatives.
As much as I wanted to leave all Facebook products, it felt a little counterproductive to remove myself from Instagram and WhatsApp. Then a couple of months ago I came across Indi Samarajiva’s story. I thought to myself maybe I could give it a try. Unlike Indi, I never substituted my smartphone for a dumbphone. But I did eventually make the leap. Last June, I deleted WhatsApp and Instagram too.
It might have taken a week or two for people to notice my disappearance. Nobody really noticed I was gone from Facebook. Neither did people on Instagram. But once you’re off WhatsApp next moment all hell breaks loose. Family members think something’s up. Professional connections assume they’ve offended you in some way. Friends’ alarms go off. In short, you’re either going through something serious or you’re dead. Those are the only two valid reasons why anyone would go off WhatsApp apparently.
Living without Facebook
Though I didn’t see it at first, leaving Facebook products puts you in a far better place than you think. I started being in touch with people more than I used to. My communication took the form of phone calls, SMS, Telegram, Google Hangout chats, and Twitter DMs. Instead of thousand-odd things blasted at your face, now it was only a select few that you kept talking to regularly. Reminds me of the pre-social media era.
But to be fair, my attempt at giving Zuckerberg the middle finger has not been perfect. See, I’ve been working as a digital marketer and a tech journalist for years. So, logging into Facebook and monitoring the platform was an important part of my professional career. Maintaining a social media presence for my clients was still vital. I couldn’t let my personal motivations dictate my professional responsibilities.
Reluctantly, I had to create a new Facebook profile just for the purpose of managing Facebook pages. For a little over a year, I’ve had a dummy Facebook account. The only activity was posting content on a few Facebook pages. I have no friends on my account, my newsfeed is empty, and I follow no pages. Although ever since I started writing on Medium I’ve opted to share my articles on a few Facebook groups. Now I use the dummy account solely for the purpose of sharing my articles on Medium-focused Facebook groups.
Even WhatsApp proved to be a far more difficult task. While I did find alternatives to sending WhatsApp messages, it was near impossible to keep in touch with everyone I wanted to. For example, I have friends and relatives living in Australia. The only convenient way for me to reach them is via WhatsApp only. Additionally, even local contacts would sometimes prove difficult. I’ve found the hard way that people are more likely to check their WhatsApp messages than an SMS. As such, I had to come back on WhatsApp for a brief period out of necessity.
So, yes. I’ve left Zuckerberg’s empire for the most part. My only current activity being sharing Medium articles on a couple of Facebook groups. Living without Facebook or Instagram in your daily habits was not a walk in the park. But over time you get used to its absence as you divert your time and energy towards other things. For me personally, the only thing I find challenging is not having WhatsApp. But I’m starting to enjoy the peace of mind far too much. So there’s that.
Then again, I’m not in the minority
You might think that being out of social media makes you the odd one out. In reality, there are almost 4 billion (3.95b) people who aren’t on social media. That’s about 51% of the world’s population. Now, there are many reasons why this is so and it’s not always choice that keeps people away. For example, in Sri Lanka where I live, only 47% of the population, which is roughly 10.1 million, have access to the internet. Although, if you take households with children this number is at 34% according to one report.
Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash
In that sense, perhaps it’s time to rethink how we prioritize our digital lives. The internet may very well be a utility at this point. But social media is a luxury, a want than a need. We think social media is important because we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking that it’s a core component of our social structures. My own mother, who wasn’t on any social media channels for a long time got on Facebook about a year ago. Like many, she started using Facebook as an effective means of keeping in touch with her old friends and relatives. After all, you can see most of your daily life in the digital space.
But as time went by, the newsfeed and its algorithm started doing its thing. My mother started coming across misinformation in the guise of memes and seemingly legitimate news. Of course, she didn’t take things to heart. But one can notice how daily behavioral patterns change thanks to Facebook.
The cost of being on Facebook is too high
We crave instant gratification. We want to see more likes on our photos. We want to see people engage with the content we share. Furthermore, our dependency on these apps for our daily operations makes it near impossible to let them go. Take China, for example, the country is heavily dependent on WeChat, not just for communication. But for eCommerce in general. Thereby, tightening the company’s grip with the userbase further.
Facebook understands this and it will do everything in its power to amplify this need in people. For instance, the tech giant is already pushing payments on WhatsApp.
The tech giant already claims ownership for the top two popular messaging platforms in the world [Image credits: datareportal]
In essence, everything about Facebook has turned into an addiction. This addictive drug is hard to get rid of. But once you do, you leave yourself more time in your hands to engage in productive things to do.
My point is, leaving Facebook is probably for the best. But it's understandable that not everybody is in a position to do so. But for me, it's about the much-needed peace of mind and avoiding the cesspool of the internet than anything else. After all, the cost of being a Facebook customer is a far higher price than I’m prepared to pay. | https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/what-its-like-to-leave-facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-c7d4ffb33c05 | ['Neville Lahiru'] | 2020-10-05 15:22:40.990000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Social Media', 'Internet', 'Digital Marketing', 'Facebook'] |
Exploring Workplace Microaggressions and the Path to Improvement | As part of our ongoing Diversity & Inclusion initiatives, the DockYard team hosted a Hallway Talk on Microaggressions. It was a thoughtful discussion between all of our team members to explore what a microaggression is and the ways many of us have experienced them in our own lives.
Defining a Microaggression
First, let’s make sure we understand what this term means. A microaggression is “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).”
When defining the word microaggression we should consider the following:
1.Unconscious Bias: No one is immune to racial, gender, or sexual orientation bias. This is based on the life experiences we have over the course of our lifetimes.
2.Manifestation: Whether verbally, nonverbally, consciously, unconsciously, environmentally, or visually, most are unaware they are exhibiting microaggressions when they occur.
3.Oppression: Microaggression is a social injustice that symbolizes oppression or dehumanization. Philosopher Ann Cudd theorized there are four aspects of oppression to confirm its existence:
a. a harm condition linked to identifiable institutionalized practices
b. consistent and institutionally applied harm to a social group
c. a condition of privilege for a social group that benefits from the institutionalized practice
d. the use of force in order to impose the identified harm associated with the oppression
Components of Microaggressions
Microaggressions can be unpacked by their use and intent in different situations. To better understand how to avoid these phrases, words, and actions, we first need to understand their nuances.
Microinsults
These are defined as verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity. Microinsults convey an underlying insulting message. When reflecting on your own communications with peers, consider where you may have inadvertently used language with these underlying themes.
Ascription of Intelligence
Second-class citizen
Negativity towards cultural values and communication styles
Criminality/Assumption of Criminal Status
Sexual Objectification
Assumption of Abnormality
Microinvalidations
These can be any comment or action that dismisses the experiences of historically disadvantaged group members. This is incredibly damaging to the receiver and groups them unfairly into pre-determined biases.
Research has shown that this type of microaggression can result in internalizing this behavior and one inferring that the cause of a microaggressive behavior is a result of oneself versus other people
To avoid Microinvalidations, ensure your language and actions don’t promote any of the following:
Alien in One‘s Own Land
Color/Gender/Sexual Orientation
Denial of Individual Racism/Sexism/Heterosexism
Myth of Meritocracy: a social system in which success and status in life depend primarily on individual talents, abilities, and effort
Microaffirmations
On the opposite spectrum, we have a positive phrase or action referred to as microaffirmations. These seemingly small acts are when a person uses their position to open doors to opportunity, shows gestures of inclusion and caring and promotes graceful acts of listening to understand.
Some Tangible Acts You Can Try Today:
Active Listening
Recognizing and validating experiences
Affirming emotional experiences
How do Microaggressions affect the workplace?
LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co’s gender-based microaggressions study:
64 percent of the women indicated having experienced microaggressions
Women are twice as likely than men to be mistaken for someone in a more junior position.
Black women are dealing with a greater variety of microaggressions and a larger number of them indicated having their judgment questioned in their area of expertise
71 percent of them indicated having been the recipient of microaggressions.
If left unaddressed microaggressions enforce marginalization, deny equal access to opportunities, and invalidate the way oppressed groups experience their own reality
Microaggressions’ Impact on Inclusion
When looking at your workplace and reviewing ways you can achieve a welcoming and inclusive environment, it’s important to actively find and address instances of the following:
Stereotype Threat: Whether positive or negative, stereotypes observed with microaggressions can have a negative impact on employee performance and well-being.
Uncertainty of Treatment: Why am I being treated this way? This can be distressing as the recipient is forced to use cognitive resources to find reasoning, which can lead to increased stress hormones — similar to the feeling of being bullied.
Underlying Unconscious Bias: Biases can lead to skewed performance reviews, fewer opportunities for mobility or advancement, and ultimately undermine the overall company culture.
Takeaways
Microaggressions are a form of bias whether conscious or unconscious that emulates oppression
Microinsults are often unconsciously relayed messages insulting one’s identity or race
Microinvalidations dismiss the disadvantages of historically marginalized groups
Microaggressions in the Workplace can support the marginalization of groups and create a loss of opportunity. Ultimately, dismissing the experience of these groups.
Impact on Inclusion is a threat to an individual’s physical and mental well-being.
Microaffirmations are acts we can use to create inclusivity and caring. Listen. Learn. Validate. Affirm.
As a next step, please review the “Call to Action” section and think about how you can address microaggressions in the future. Below I have provided a few resources to help guide your journey to continue learning about microaggressions.
Call to Action
When addressing microaggressions in real-life situations, there are three positions to understand:
The Target : Consider the context, take care of yourself emotionally and mentally, do not be fooled by microaggressions parading as opportunities
The Bystander: Be an ally, speak up, do not speak for the targets of microaggressions but speak for yourself
The Microaggressor: Do not be defensive, acknowledge the hurt caused, and apologize. Opportunity to learn from your mistakes and educate yourself
Remember:
Always aim to substitute messages about deficit and exclusion with messages of excellence, openness, understanding, and opportunity to move forward. This is how we all can make a difference. We all have a part to play in advancing our team, eliminating biases, confronting our prior judgments, and reflecting on where we must grow.
Resources
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microaggression https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/microaggressions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309228841_The_moment_of_microaggression_The_experience_of_acts_of_oppression_dehumanization_and_exploitatio https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/socialwork/documents/professional_development/understanding_and_managing_microaggressions.pdf https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/25/workplace-microaggressions-can-kill-your-confidence-heres-what-to-do.html https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cb19-ss-types.microaggressions/microassult-microinsults-and-microinvalidation/#.XsRIxxNKhQI https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/microaggressions-and-micro-affirmations-0 http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/a-point-of-view-the-detrimental-impact-of-microaggressions-in-the-workplace/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2019/03/29/how-microaggressions-can-affect-wellbeing-in-the-workplace/#5d89b3b373cb | https://medium.com/@quincy.louis.deshaun/exploring-workplace-microaggressions-and-the-path-to-improvement-e526e716cfd2 | ['Quincy Louis-Deshaun'] | 2020-12-03 20:49:38.908000+00:00 | ['Diversity', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Diversity Training', 'Microagressions', 'Diversity In Tech'] |
San Francisco Bay Area Restaurant Go Fund Me List | An exhaustive list of restaurants, bars, cafes, coffee shop, breweries and local shops affected by Covid-19. San Francisco GoFundMe List, San Francisco Restaurant Donations, San Francisco Restaurant GoFundMe, Bay Area GoFundMe, Covid-19, Coronavirus, Covid Fundraisers
Updated regularly, for edits contact me directly.
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Restaurant, Cafe, Coffee shop Go Fund Me Pages
20th Century Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-20th-century-cafe
A Mano, Hayes Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-mano-employee-relief
Absinthe, Hayes Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xoir8492o
alaMar, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/alamar-restaurant-workers-covid19-relief-fund
Almare Gelato, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-almare-gelato
Al’s Place: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-fund-for-als-place-staff
Arizmendi Emeryville: https://www.gofundme.com/f/arizmendi
Ashley’s Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-your-coffee-from-covid19
Asiento: https://www.gofundme.com/f/asiento-fundraiser
August15: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-august-1-five039s-staff
Aziza: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mourad-and-aziza-employee-relief-found
Azucar Lounge: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-azucar-lounge-staff
Bacheesos, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bacheesos-family--staff-relief-fund
Bartavelle Coffee & Wine, Berkeley: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8ns22kMJYK
Balboa Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/balboa-cafe
Bar Crudo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bar-crudo-family-support-group
Beauty’s Bagels, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/beauty039s-bagel-shop
Benjamin Cooper, Union Square: https://www.gofundme.com/f/benjamin-cooper-staff-relief-fund
Berber, San Francisco: https://www.gofundme.com/f/berberrelieffund
Bini’s Kitchen: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-bini039s-kitchen-team
Bix: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bix-restaurant-employee-fund?
Blue Willow Tea, Berkeley: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8nYlGUp00P
Bluestem Brasserie: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bluestem-employee-fund
Buckeye, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/buckeye-family-needs-you
Bull Valley Roadhouse: https://www.gofundme.com/f/twdguw-help-the-bull-valley-roadhouse-staff
Bytes Cafe + Coupa Cafe, Stanford: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-bytes-and-coupa-workers
Bungalow 44, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-support-the-bungalow-44-staff
Cafe Bastille: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cafe-bastille-team-support
Cafe Claude: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-cafe-claude-employees-amidst-covid19
Cafe Colucci, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cafe-colucci-staff-support-fund
Café de la Presse: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-the-cafe-de-la-presse-team
Cafe Encina, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cafe-encina-support-fund
Cafe RX: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cafe-rx-staff-support
Cafe Tiramisu: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cafe-tiramisu-employee-fund
Chalos: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Chalossf
Che Fico, Nopa: https://www.gofundme.com/f/che-fico-famiglia
Charlie’s Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-charlies-cafe
Chez Maman: https://www.gofundme.com/f/chez-maman-team
Coffee Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/coffee-bar-staff-relief-fund
Comstock, North Beach: https://www.gofundme.com/f/absinthe-brasserie-amp-bar-employee-relief-fund
Convivo, Sausalito: https://www.gofundme.com/f/poggio-copita-amp-convivo-employee-assistance-fund
Copita, Sausalito: https://www.gofundme.com/f/poggio-copita-amp-convivo-employee-assistance-fund
Corso / Rivoli, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/corsorivoli-employee-relief-fund
Cosecha, Oakand: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cosecha-staff-support-fund
Creighton Bakery: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-creighton039s-bakery
Crenn Group: https://www.gofundme.com/f/atelierbar-crenn-employee-relief-fund-covid-19
Delarosa: https://www.gofundme.com/f/DELAbarTEAM
Delfina, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/DelfinaSF
Doña Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donaoaklandstaffrelief
Dopo, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lend-a-hand-to-dopo-workers
Dosa: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dosa-fillmore-amp-boh
Duende, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/duende-employee-fund
Dyafa, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-hourly-employees-through-this-hard-time
El Buen Comer, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-local-family-owned-restaurant-staff-fund
E&O Kitchen and Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/eampo-kitchen-and-bar-employee-relief-fund
Family Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/family-cafe-reopening
Fino: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fino-staff-support-fund
Fireside: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fireside-bar-relief-fund
Flores: https://www.gofundme.com/f/flores-sf-employee-relief
Foreign Cinema, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/foreign-cinema-employee-fund
Four Barrel / The Mill: https://www.gofundme.com/f/four-barrel-the-mill-employee-relief-fund
Frances: https://www.gofundme.com/f/frances-octavia-amp-mgeorgina-employee-fund
Funky Elephant, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bjpqz-15000
Gather, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/w9gvmu-gather-needs-your-help
Grand Lake Kitchen, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/grand-lake-kitchen
Hayes Street Grill, Hayes Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/hayes-street-grill-relief-fundraiser-for-staff
Heirloom Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/heirloom-cafe-employee-health-fund
Highwire Coffee, Oakland: https://www.highwirecoffee.com/collections/support-highwire-and-our-staff/products/emergency-ensure-our-baristas-make-their-rent
Homeroom, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-out-the-homeroom-team
Insalata, San Anselmo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/insalata039s-relief-fundfuel-the-community
Itani Ramen, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/itani-ramen-employee-fund
Iyasare, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/iyasare-team-relief-fundraiser
Julie’s Kitchen, Alameda: https://www.facebook.com/donate/322055132083741/
Just For You Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-the-just-for-you-crew
Kezar Bar & Restaurant, Cole Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kezar-family-fund
Khamsa: https://www.gofundme.com/f/7u5jge-covid19-relief
Kiku Sushi, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kiku-sushi-berkeley
La Cocina Relief Fund: https://lacocinasf.org/relief-fund
La Mar, Embarcadero: https://www.gofundme.com/f/staff-support-la-mar-cebicheria-peruana
Leo’s Oyster Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-leo039s-oyster-bar-employees-amidst-covid19
Leopolds: https://www.gofundme.com/f/leopolds-restaurant-sf-employee-fund
Little Skillet / Mestiza: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-little-skillet-and-mestiza-staff
Local Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-fund-to-reopen
Local Edition: https://www.gofundme.com/f/local-edition-staff-needs-your-help
Lolinda / El Techo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lolinda-amp-el-techo-staff-relief-fund
Lolo Restaurant, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lolo-restaurant-employee-relief-fund
Longbranch / Paison, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/longbranch-amp-paisan-staff-relief-fund
Lord Stanley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lord-stanley-covid19-relief-fund
M.Georgina: https://www.gofundme.com/f/frances-octavia-amp-mgeorgina-employee-fund
Mademoiselle Colette: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-departing-employees
Madrone Art Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-madrone-staff-survive-the-shutdown
Mägo, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mago-staff-relief-fund
Marinita’s, San Anselmo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/marinitas-staff-fund
Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mario039s-bohemian-cigar-store-cafe-covid19-relief
Martunis: https://www.gofundme.com/f/your-favorite-martunis
Marvin’s, Novato: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-marvins-breakfast-club-novato
Masela y Mas, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/masalaymaiz
Millenium Restaurant, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/millennium-family-relief-fund
Mina Group: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-fund-for-mina-group-restaurant-team-members
Minnie’s Bell, Emeryville: https://www.gofundme.com/f/minniebells
Mister Jiu’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/float-the-jiu-crew
Moonlight Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-moonlight-cafe-during-the-pandemic
Morton’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-morton039s-san-francisco-hourly-employees
Mourad: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mourad-and-aziza-employee-relief-found
Myriad Gastropub, Mission District: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-fund-for-myriad-gastropub-team
Native Twins: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ppwkw-native-twins-coffee-relief-fund
Nob Hill Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nob-hill-cafe-amp-venticello-staff-fundraiser
Noe Valley Baristas: https://www.gofundme.com/f/uqpbjk-20000
Noodle Theory, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-noodle-theory039s-staff
Novy: https://www.gofundme.com/f/novy-restaurant-support-our-staff
Nyum Bai: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nyum-bai-support-fund
Octavia: https://www.gofundme.com/f/frances-octavia-amp-mgeorgina-employee-fund
Outerlands: https://www.gofundme.com/f/outerlands-employee-relief-fund
Padrecito: https://www.gofundme.com/f/padrecito-staff-fund
Palette Tea House: https://www.gofundme.com/f/palette-tea-house-employee-relief-fund
Paisan, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/longbranch-amp-paisan-staff-relief-fund
Pat’s Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-Pats-Cafe-workers-due-to-covid-19
Philz, Castro: https://www.gofundme.com/f/philz-coffee-castro-baristas-fund
Piatti, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/piatti-mill-valley-employee-relief-fund
Piazza, D’angelo, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/piazza-d039angelo-staff
Picante, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/longbranch-amp-paisan-staff-relief-fund
Picco, Larkspur: https://www.gofundme.com/f/PiccoStaffFund
Pizzalina, San Anselmo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/teampizzalina-staff-relief
Planted Workers Table, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/planted-table-workers-support-fund
Playa, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/playa-mill-valley-employee-relief-fund
Poggio, Sausalito: https://www.gofundme.com/f/poggio-copita-amp-convivo-employee-assistance-fund
Portal, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/covid19-portal-employees-struggling-to-survive
Ramenwell: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ramenwell-employee-relief-fund
Ray’s Deli & Taverm, Petaluma: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-petaluma039s-ray039s-deli-tavern
Red Door Coffee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/red-door-coffee-employees
Reem’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/reem039s-fruitvale-upgrade
Reveille Coffee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/barista-and-kitchen-relief-fund
Reverie Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fy42fd-2500000
Rich Table: https://www.gofundme.com/f/rich-table-staff-support-fund
Rigolo Cafe / Artesano: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-laid-off-rigolo-and-artesano-employees
Riva Cucina, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/yn2y3-riva-cucina-staff-support
Rose’s Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/roses-cafe-employee-fund
Saul’s Deli, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/saul039s-restaurant-amp-delicatessen-staff
Scoma, Sausalito: https://www.gofundme.com/f/scomas-sausalito-employee-relief-fund
Scopo Divino: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-scopo-divino-staff
Sea Breeze Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-sea-breeze-cafe-and-restaurant-alive
Shakewell, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/shakewell-staff-relief-fund
Sidebar, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sidebar-oaktown-worker-relief-fund
Sightglass Coffee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sightglass-coffee-staff-support-fund
Sister, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-sisters-employees
Snowbird Coffee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/snowbird-coffee-amp-the-richfield
Soba Ichi: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-soba-ichi-employees
Sobre Mesa, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sobre-mesa-restaurant-workers-covid19-relief-fund
Sorrel, Presidio Heights: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-sorrel-staff
Spike’s Coffee & Tea: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-barista-team-at-spike039s-coffees-san-francisco
SPQR, Lower Pac Heights: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-spqr-staff
SPRO Coffee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-the-coffee-alive-support-your-spro-family
Standard Fare, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/standard-fare-virtual-tip-jar
State Bird / The Progress: https://www.gofundme.com/f/state-bird-and-the-progress-employee-relief-fund
Stonemill Macha, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stonemill-mathca-employee-relief-fund
S+E Cafe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-my-dad039s-restaurant-from-covid19
Tacolicious: https://www.gofundme.com/f/TACOLICIOUS-EMPLOYEE-FAMILY-FUND
Tadich Grill: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tadich-grill-employee-relief-fund
Tartine Union: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tartine-union-hardship-fund
Terzo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/terzo-in-san-francisco-employee-fund
The Cook and Her Farmer, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tcahf-staff-support-fund
The Meat-Up, Emeryville: https://www.gofundme.com/f/smallbusinessesmatter
The Musical Offering Cafe, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-musical-offering
The Snug, Pacific Heights: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-snug039s-staff
Tipsy Pig: https://www.gofundme.com/f/murphys-pub-employee-relief-fund
True Laurel: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-team-true
Union Street Coffee Roaster: https://www.gofundme.com/f/union-street-coffee-roastery-breakin-recovery
Vasco, Mill Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/vasco-mill-valley-employee-relief-fund
West of Pecos, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-west-of-pecos-staff
Wildseed: https://www.gofundme.com/f/wildseed-employee-relief
Wooden Coffee House, Cole Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/wooden-coffeehouse-employee-relief
Yalis Cafe, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/yalis-cafe-employee-relief-fund?pc=wd_md_campimage_r
Zazie, Cole Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zazie-staff-family-fund
Zuni Cafe, Hayes Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/yzfnyr-restaurant-worker-relief-fund
— —
Bar, Clubs, Venues & Brewery Go Fund Me Pages
15 Romolo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/15-romolo-staff-relief-fund
19 Broadway, Fairfax: https://www.gofundme.com/f/19-broadway-family
620 Jones: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-620jones-team-to-keep-it-inside
83 Proof: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xqf2ievqo
ABV: https://www.gofundme.com/f/abv-staff-april-health-insurance
Albatross Club, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-the-albatross-pub
Ale Industries, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ale-industries-covid19-support-fund
Amelie: https://www.gofundme.com/f/famelie-wine-bar-team-support
Asiento: https://www.gofundme.com/f/asiento-fundraiser
Bar 355, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bar-355-staff-relief-fund
Bar Fluxus: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bar-fluxus-staff-relief-fund-during-shutdown
Bar Shiru, Oakland: https://www.barshiru.com/
Beauty Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-beauty-bar-staff-survive-this-shutdown
Beaux: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-morton039s-san-francisco-hourly-employees
Beehive: https://www.gofundme.com/f/beehive-and-treasury-employee-covid19-relief-fund
Beerhall, SF: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-beer-hall-fund-for-our-amazing-bartenders
Beer Revolution, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/beer-revolution-covid-shutdown-staff-relief-fund
Big Rec Taproom, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-staff-of-the-big-rec-taproom
Blackbird: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-blackbird-staff-during-the-closure
Bloodhound: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bloodhound-staff-needs-you-help
Bloom’s Saloon: https://www.gofundme.com/f/blooms-saloon-bar-staff
Bon Voyage: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bon-voyage-staff-fundraise
Bourbon & Branch: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bourbon-and-branch-relief-fund
Brass Tacks / Anina’s:https://www.gofundme.com/f/brass-tacks-staff-relief-fund
Cafe Du Nord: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xvr5gqdyo
California Gold, San Rafael: https://www.gofundme.com/f/california-gold-staff-covid19-relief-fund
Caps & Taps, Dublin: https://www.gofundme.com/f/caps-amp-taps-covid19-employee-relief-fund
Churchward Bar, Alameda: https://www.gofundme.com/f/alameda-bar-staff-fundraiser
Clooney’s Bar, Mission District: https://www.gofundme.com/f/clooney039s-bartender-fundraiser
Club Deluxe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/club-deluxe
Comstock: https://www.gofundme.com/f/absinthe-brasserie-amp-bar-employee-relief-fund
Copper Spoon, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cbgh8-copper-spoon-employee-funds
Destino: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-support-for-destino-staff
District Wine Bars: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-district-staff
Doc’s Clock: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-staff-at-doc039s-clock-survive-the-shutdown
Donahue’s Marina Lounge: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donahue039s-marina-lounge-bartender-relief-fund
Dogpatch Saloon: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-dogpatch-saloon-staff-through-the-shutdown
Drake’s Dealership: https://www.gofundme.com/f/drake039s-brewing-employee-relief-fund
Drexl, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tch2m-support-our-staff
Elixir, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/elixir-staff-relief-fund
El Rio: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-el-rio-staff
Eli’s Bar, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/93ewqv-elis-employee-apocalypse-fund
Emporium: https://www.gofundme.com/f/emporium-sf-empolyee-relief-fund
ERA Art Bar & Lounge, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/era-art-bar-and-lounge
Etcetera Wine Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/etcetera-wine-bar-family-fund
Evil Eye: https://www.gofundme.com/f/evil-eye-relief-fund
Finnegan’s Wake: https://www.gofundme.com/f/8jt2k-finnegans-wake-bartender-fund
FishBowl: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fishbowl-staff-assistance
Fly Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fishbowl-bartenders
Freight & Salvage, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-for-freight-folks
Geo (George) Kaye’s, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/george-kayes
Ginger’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tips-for-ginger039s-staff-relief-fund
Gino & Carlo’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-gino-amp-carlo-staff
Glen Park Station Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1yqcs6psqo
Harper & Rye: https://www.gofundme.com/f/harper-amp-ryepeacekeeper-staff-fund
Hi Lo Club: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-out-the-sf-hilo-club-employees
High Treason: https://www.gofundme.com/f/high-treason-employee-relief-fund
Hockey Haven: https://www.gofundme.com/f/hockey-haven-employee-relief-fund
House of Shields: https://www.gofundme.com/f/house-of-shields-employees-covid19-relief-fund
Holy Water, Bernal Heights: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-holy-water-staff
Hotel Utah: https://www.gofundme.com/f/hotel-utah-saloon-family-fund
Ivy Room, Albany: https://www.ivyroom.com/
Jolene’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/jolene039s-family-support-fund
Last Call: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-last-call-bartenders
Last Rites: https://givebutter.com/drinklastrites
Long Branch Saloon, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/longbranch-amp-paisan-staff-relief-fund
Lucky 13, Castro: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-bar-staff-at-lucky-13
Lucky 13, Alameda: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lucky-13-alameda-bartender-fund
Maggie McGarry’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/maggie-mcgarrys-staff-relief-fund
Makeout Room. Latin America Club: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-make-out-room-and-latin-american-club
Manhattan Zodiac’s Bar Consultancy: https://www.manhattanzodiac.com/
Martuni’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/your-favorite-martunis
Milk Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-milk-bar-staff
Minibar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/minibar-sf-staff-relief-fund
Mint Karaoke: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-mint-karaoke-staff-during-the-closure
Mission Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-the-mission-bar-staff
Missouri Lounge, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/missouri-lounge-staff-relief-fund
Moby Dick: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xmj4zj8hc
Monarch: https://www.gofundme.com/f/monarch-amp-great-northern-staff-appreciation
Murphy’s Pub: https://www.gofundme.com/f/murphys-pub-employee-relief-fund
Nightingale: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xgpdr0e9c
Nite Cap: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-for-the-nite-cap-bar-staff
Novela: https://www.gofundme.com/f/novela-bar-staff-team-support
OMG: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-omg-staff-during-coronavirus
Pacific Cocktail Haven: https://www.gofundme.com/f/pch-staff-relief
Pagan Idol: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nfmr2n-pagan-idol-staff-relief-fund
Palmer’s Tavern: https://www.gofundme.com/f/palmers-tavern-in-san-francisco-employee-fund
Peaks Bar, Noe Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/helpthepeaksbar
Philosopher’s Club: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-philosophers-club-bartender-relief-fund
PianoFight: https://www.pianofight.com/crowdfunding-for-covid-19-shut-down/
Playland Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/playland-bar-team-fundraiser
Pop’s Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/pops-bar-emergency-fund
Prizefighter, Emeryville: https://www.gofundme.com/f/prizefighter-staff-covid19-relief-fund
Punchline, Financial District: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-the-punch-line-san-francisco-family
Richmond Republic Draught House: https://www.gofundme.com/f/richmond-republic-draught-house-employee-relief
Rickhouse: https://www.gofundme.com/f/rickhouse-relief-fund
Ritual Coffee: https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?u=9d3345078d16a2568c9ee5070&id=7f24f2358c
Rock’s Den: https://www.gofundme.com/f/rocks-den-staff-fund
Room 389: https://www.gofundme.com/f/room-389-crew-fundraiser-covid-19
Royal Cuckoo: https://www.gofundme.com/f/43stf7
Shakewell, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/shakewell-staff-relief-fund
Sobre Mesa, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sobre-mesa-restaurant-workers-covid19-relief-fund
Specs: https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-specs-afloat
Starline Social Club, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/starine-family-survival-fund
Stud Bar, SOMA: https://www.gofundme.com/f/studsf
Swig: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-devil039s-acre-staff-relief-fund
Sycamore, Mission: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-bar-staff-at-the-sycamore-need-your-help
Telegraph Beer Garden, Oakland: https://www.gofundme.com/f/telegraph-beer-garden-hourly-staff-relief-fund
The Crafty Fox, Mission: gf.me/u/xr4umr
The Devil’s Acre: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-devil039s-acre-staff-relief-fund
The Good Hop, Oakland: https://thegoodhop.square.site/product/donation-towards-staff/2306
The Lark Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-larks-staff-relief-funds
The Lister Bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-lister-bar-staff
The Lookout: https://www.giftrocker.com/secure/Order/
The Midway: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-midway-staff-support-fund
The Riddler, Hayes Valley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-riddler-employee-assistance-program-eap
The Royale: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-royale-employee-fund
The Starry Plough, Berekely: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-starry-plough-stay-open
The Willows, SOMA: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-out-the-bar-staff-at-the-willows
Theatre Flamenco: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/theatre-flamenco-relief-fund
Thee Parkside: https://fundly.com/thee-lockdown
Third Rail: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zcdua-third-rail-staff-fund
Tope: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-the-staff-tope
Topsy’s: https://www.gofundme.com/f/topsy039s-bar-team-fundraiser
Toronado: https://www.gofundme.com/f/toronadosf
Trick Dog: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-paw-for-trick-dog
Tupper Reed, Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1xhsrczdao?utm_source=customerI
Vesuvio: https://www.gofundme.com/f/vesuvio-staff
Virgil’s Sea Room: https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-support-the-virgil039s-crew
Whitechapel: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-staff-that-takes-care-of-you
Zam Zam, Haight-Ashbury: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zam-zam-support-fund
Zombie Village: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zombie-village-team-relief-fund | https://medium.com/@eddiehernandez/san-francisco-bay-area-restaurant-go-fund-me-list-85320a9913f5 | ['Eddie Hernandez'] | 2020-12-29 18:31:46.324000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'San Francisco', 'Food', 'Bay Area', 'Restaurant'] |
You Can Be Selfish and Still Save the World | In June 2017, The United States quit the Paris agreement, perhaps the most important attempt to save our planet. Although it is indeed frustrating, Donald Trump, the “America First” president, shouldn’t be blamed entirely for not cooperating.
Not cooperating means not only to walk away from an international agreement, but also to lie on our time sheets, to freeride in our group projects, or to take all the money in the Golden Balls TV show. Trump’s action is just one of these luring decisions that are selfish but understandable. Life is after all a game that we are all trying to win right?
The problem behind our failure to cooperate is a myth that is present within even the best of us, a myth derived from a misconception about cooperation. So, what exactly is this myth, and more importantly, how can debunking it help us save the planet?
The Rational Betrayal: Prisoner’s dilemma
With Game Theory we may rationalize this eagerness to not cooperate, or in the theory ’s jargon, to “betray”. Let’s examine a classic Game Theory scenario called the prisoner’s dilemma: two suspects, kept in separate cells, are each confronted with a choice: to confess or not to confess, to cooperate together or to betray each other.
If a suspect agrees to confess (betray), he will be rewarded with a shorter sentence regardless of the choice of his fellow suspect. On the other hand, if he refuses to confess (cooperate), but the other suspect agrees, a double cross will cause the naive non-confessor a bitter 10-year sentence while the confessor enjoys his sweet freedom.
So, if both suspects attempt to minimize their individual prison time, they are then expected to confess, to betray each other. As a result, both of them will receive a punitive 8-year sentence. Their self-preserving decisions ironically lead them to the worst outcome in terms of collective interests.
In the Paris agreement, relevant countries face similar situations to the prisoners’. They can either reduce their pollution to save the planet, or they can quit and enjoy the economic benefits. Unsurprisingly, Trump quit, and the consequences are looming over all of us.
The Myth of Rational Betrayal
There are some people who do value something more than their individual interests. Compared to the selfish people who only value their own interests, selfless people also value the interests of other people. Although few people are selfless to the extreme that makes them indifferent about themselves, those moderately selfless people are still willing to cooperate for the benefit of collective interests.
Unfortunately, even these selflessly cooperative people may fall into a myth generated by our previous (incomplete) analysis of the prisoner’s dilemma. I call it the myth of rational betrayal.
The myth goes like this: Because the sole reason to cooperate is selflessness, the only rational choice for selfish people is to betray. Therefore, in a conflict between interest, there will only be selfless cooperators and selfish betrayers. This simply is not true.
The myth of rational betrayal doesn’t stop selfless people from cooperating, but it does limit the argument for cooperation. If we fall into this myth, the only way to make selfish betrayers cooperate is to urge them to be selfless.
So can we simply urge Trump to abandon his selfishness and instead cooperate to save the planet? Probably not. At the core of this myth is the idea that the only way to persuade people to cooperate is to persuade them that it is morally right, but this rarely works.
Luckily, there’s another argument.
An Objective Argument for Cooperation
The origin of the myth of rational betrayal stems from the prisoner’s dilemma, but our analysis is incomplete. By looking at the full picture of the prisoner’s dilemma, we can debunk this betrayal-inducing myth. When the game comes to a longer time span, “iterated prisoner’s dilemma”, cooperation is rational not only to the selfless but also to the selfish.
In the 1980s, scientists held a contest among different computer programs. In the contest programs competed with each other in iterated prisoner’s dilemma scenarios. The winner was a program named “tit for tat” with only two principles. Surprisingly, the principles were based on cooperation.
Nice : default on cooperation unless betrayed
: default on cooperation unless betrayed Retaliating: betray only when betrayed last round
The reason for this surprise was that the potential of retaliation in iterated scenarios made betrayal unsustainable.
In the one-off prisoner’s dilemma, players can betray and get away with the benefit of betrayal. But in long-term scenarios like the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, the retaliation from the opponent is very likely to put both players into the mud of endless mutual betrayal. Without the luring yet unsustainable reward of betrayal, cooperation becomes the go-to option in the long run. Betrayal is just bad, objectively bad.
The champion among the computer programs, the cooperation-based “tit for tat” is the selfish cooperator we seek. Indeed its success relies on the long-term nature of the game, but most of the real-life scenarios like reducing carbon emissions are inherently long-term as well. With the success of “tit for tat”, we can consider the myth of rational betrayal debunked: Selfish people can also be rationally cooperative.
We can create more cooperation, not by hoping selfish people magically become selfless, but by realizing cooperation does maximize the individual interests. Therefore, we can use this new rationale to make a better argument for cooperation, one that’s more objective.
So Here’s What to Tell Mr. Trump…
By examining the prisoner’s’ dilemma, we found a common but incomplete view of the scenario that leads to a dangerous conclusion, the myth of rational betrayal. This myth lures selfish people to betray based on their interests and limits selfless people to cooperate based on only their morality.
However, by debunking this myth with a more thorough view of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, we discovered another argument for cooperation, the objective interest-based argument. With this argument, we can persuade even the most selfish people to cooperate because cooperation is in fact in their best interest.
To create more cooperation (and maybe save the planet as well), what we need to do is to share this vision of cooperation and exclaim that: betrayal may be good for individuals in the short run, but it is utterly bad in the long run. We don’t need to turn people into selfless saints, we just need them to be rational enough to not be lured by the short-term benefit of betrayal.
So if we want to convince Trump probably not to quit the Paris agreement, an argument based on just saving the planet is not going to work, but if we show him how cooperation is actually putting America first, he might just agree. | https://candleinthecave.medium.com/you-can-be-selfish-and-still-save-the-world-121b8f828205 | [] | 2019-03-22 05:44:02.980000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Cooperation', 'Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Game Theory'] |
Pointers on Losing Weight Safely | Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash
People who want to reduce commonly, and first of all, believe reducing the quantity of food they eat. This may be quite a solution but not precisely the best there’s. In fact, counting on the quantity you reduce in your food intake, it’s going to even be dangerous to one’s health. So how do I reduce effectively and safely? Here are some points one should consider when trying to lose weight:
Beware of the Crash Diets
Most people think that trimming down the calories can alone shed off their unwanted excess. Probably this is often due to the fad there’s in advertising about low-calorie food products and beverages. What people do not know is that this might be dangerous because once they decrease their calorie intake thanks to below the specified levels, the body begins to digest the fats. Sounds good but it doesn’t actually. Burning fat requires a lot of energy. Since there’s not much energy within the body to facilitate the metabolism of fat, it’ll run at a really slow pace leading to fatigue, illness and weak immune system.
A reducing diet is additionally compensated for by the body by burning muscle. People on this sort of diet who revert back to their old eating habits find yourself gaining back some if not all the load they need shed off. This would consist mainly of fats. And since fats have more volume per mass than muscle, they find yourself having an equivalent weight as before but bulkier. In losing weight, one should confine mind that they ought to lose excess body fats only.
However, one can try eating small meals at more frequent intervals. This way the body won’t think that it’s being starved and can not store food as fat.
Read More | https://medium.com/@chakrak.cr/pointers-on-losing-weight-safely-190656104a14 | ['Chak Rak'] | 2020-03-03 16:46:08.929000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'Diet', 'Workout', 'Routine'] |
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America Needs The People’s New Deal | The American Dream Has Become The American Nightmare. Decades of GOP Policies And Corporate Greed Have Devastated American Lives — We Need to Rebuild Infrastructure And The Social Safety Net
Back in 1933, in the wake of the most severe financial depression the U.S. had ever known, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt architected a set of major policy reforms meant to get struggling Americans back on track while investing heavily in infrastructure projects, regulatory oversight, business/farms, conservation and civil works, and the social safety net in the form of the Social Security Administration. The idea was to get Americans back to work, while simultaneously making large investments in efforts to rebuild America.
A New Deal is currently being proposed in the form of the ‘Green New Deal’, championed by freshman Congresswoman, Alexandria Otasio-Cortez. It’s a great effort to combat climate change, increase climate and environmental justice, and create new ‘green’ jobs, but it doesn’t go far enough. The social safety net is crumbling, many Americans struggle to get the medical care and disability insurance payments they deserve, and there is a widespread problem of only being able to make ends meet by working two or three jobs. In most places no one can rent a two-bedroom apartment (a necessity with children) on their own by working for minimum wage.
We’re confronted daily by horrible stories about hardworking Americans who can’t pay for life-saving medicine and medical treatment (and are drug out of wheelchairs and arrested when they protest), who can’t afford childcare, who invest in educational opportunities, stack up student debt in the trillions, and then can’t get a reasonably paying job after all of that. We hear about teachers sleeping in cars, highly educated academics turning to sex work, and all sorts of other heart-wrenching stories about valuable contributors being left to fend for themselves, no matter what the circumstances.
My sister-in-law couldn’t afford her $2500 monthly copay for her weekly infusions so she started rationing her meds. She had pulmonary infections for 8 weeks, broke out in sores all over her body and nearly died. (Twitter)
For older and disabled people, the problems are even worse. It’s what I call ‘Living In A Designed Dystopia’ and it’s a big part of the reason why I resist on a daily basis. For one thing we need to stop throwing away and marginalizing our talent and give people ways to contribute and benefit throughout their lives. I am personally in the midst of several battles for disability payments and accessing critical care I need to get back to work. The small amount of benefits I do receive will be cut if I don’t either get SSI/SSDI approved (they insist I can work) or if I don’t return to work, which is difficult as a mobility-challenged person with PTSD. I’m also in a years-long dispute with the VA about compensation for service-connected injuries. Deny and delay is now the policy and they will insist people work for even the most basic benefits.
I’m not alone in this regard as we waste mature, amazing talent and refuse to focus on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, including Natives, migrants, and refugees/asylum seekers. We need to acknowledge that our fellow Americans are suffering and do what we can to ease the burdens for everyone. To do so creates a stronger and more prosperous America. How do we approach these problems?
I’d like to propose a grassroots effort called ‘The People’s New Deal’ and I am currently collecting data on what issues people feel are important and what could be done to have a tangible impact on their lives. We will share this data with this petition, reaching out to the Democratic National Committee, campaigns, and Congress.How will we pay for it? We have a financial model for that, involving a 1% tax on the 1%.
You can complete the short survey here:
Please complete the survey and share! The plan is to share this data with various Democratic campaigns in order to encourage them to enact this policy direction and reforms that are both fundamental human rights and what’s smart. You can sign and share the petition here:
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. We need to learn to love all of our fellow Americans, and that means understanding that love is about acknowledgement, solidarity, and action. Stay tuned!
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=5Zb_i2c2ZQQ
Link to survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DXCBVJH
Link to petition: https://www.change.org/p/democratic-national-committee-america-needs-the-people-s-new-deal
Link to tweet: https://twitter.com/lisaga/status/1127238738126360576
Thanks for your support!
About Me: I am an anthropologist, futurist, veteran, activist, Resistance leader, and Mom to a transgender teen. I am also disabled and now must rely on donations to fund my work. You can support me with a small donation via PayPal or you can donate on a monthly basis via Patreon. Thank you!
More Reading: | https://medium.com/planetary-liberation-front/america-needs-the-peoples-new-deal-c0ac4ae54576 | ['Dr. Lisa Galarneau'] | 2019-09-22 23:44:09.864000+00:00 | ['Social Justice', 'Politics', 'Green Energy', 'Social Change', 'Future'] |
Bedroom Furniture | Bring Your Dream Bedroom to Life with Fabdeal Bedroom Furniture Sets
You need beautiful bedroom furniture that takes care of your space needs and fits your style, and we’ve got you covered. We offer affordable bedroom furniture that creates a calm, supportive foundation for your deeper rest. You can create an inviting atmosphere in your bedroom with our quality crafted, bestselling furniture sets.
At Fabdeal, our wide range of products offers a selection of amazing options to add comfort and style to your home. From stylish wooden side tables to lavish dressers, luxury ottomans and storage benches, we help you create a comfortable and stylish bedroom that reflects your taste and personality.
Below is what you will find in the closet of Fabdeal in the form of bedroom furniture.
Bedside Tables:
Our beautiful bedside tables are designed to support your bedtime activities at night and to reflect your style throughout the day. No matter the style of your bedroom or bed, our range of bedside tables is sure to meet your needs.
You can choose your nightstand from plenty of options such as LED bedside tables, glossy mirror-styled side tables, wooden tables, leather tables and even fabric tables. Designs range from modern, classic and contemporary to vintage and retro. You can choose from side tables with two drawers, three drawers, and even four drawers, based on their functionality.
Dressing Tables:
Dress up your bedroom with this functional accessory that adds storage, space, and style to any décor. Designed with enough surface area for all your cosmetics and a spacious interior, our dressing tables are perfect for knocking out the daily grooming routine. Be it a mirror dressing table or a storage dressing table, you will find a variety of styles and sizes to choose from.
Available in multiple colours and styles, you can choose the perfect table based on your bedroom theme. Some dressing tables come with a comfy stool that allows you to effortlessly groom yourself.
Ottomans & Storage Benches
Ottomans & storage benches are an excellent way to maximize your storage space in a small bedroom or living room. Our Ottomans are designed to offer additional seating in a room and are a particularly great piece for getting up from the floor. Storage benches are built with additional storage features that come in handy for your bedroom or living room. Fabdeal offers all of the popular sizes and styles at competitive prices that won’t hurt your wallet. Check out the luxury collection today!!!
Choosing bedroom furniture is easy with us! We know what you need to make your bedroom more comfortable and stylish and that’s why we offer quality bedroom furniture. Not least, we offer Buy Now Pay Later options, so you buy your furniture now and pay it off later in instalments based on your preference.
Why Us?
● Shop Bedroom Furniture Now & Pay Later
● 1 Year Warranty on All Bedroom Furniture Products
● Delivery Right at Your Doorstep; 3–5 Days
● Quality & Branded Furniture at Most Affordable Prices | https://medium.com/@fabdealaustralia/bedroom-furniture-38989e897adb | [] | 2021-12-14 10:07:16.449000+00:00 | ['Dressing Table', 'Bedroom Furniture', 'Bedroom Furniture Sets', 'Furniture', 'Bedside Table'] |
See Things Through | Microblog #13
I’m the kind of person who always has to have a project to work on. I think I get that from my grandma. Her house was always filled with half-finished projects that she didn’t care if we messed with. I loved that about her. As a kid, it made visits to her house magical.
As a creative, though, I recognize the folly of that pattern of behavior. If you’re always starting new things and never finishing what you start, you end up with a room (or a hard drive) of unfinished things.
It’s something I’ve had to learn to overcome. Like my grandma, I have plenty of unfinished things. Understanding how to stay committed and see things through is why I also have plenty of finished things. | https://medium.com/@benjaminlgrange/see-things-through-52e6e7ffb3d6 | ['Ben Grange'] | 2020-12-17 17:49:01.412000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Projects', 'UX Design', 'Design'] |
The Day After | Courtesy embracerefugees.org
Friends and family
Step away from yesterday
The world is hurting
We baked in the sun
Nothing today to run from
No plan to escape
Sixty-five million
Displaced and seeking refuge
POTUS promised bans
Lady Liberty
Open his mind and his heart
Our prayer for the world | https://medium.com/haiku-hub/the-day-after-7f5c6529b117 | ['Harper Thorpe'] | 2017-07-06 02:43:36.091000+00:00 | ['Haiku Hub', 'Independence Day', 'Haiku This', 'Poetry', 'Refugees'] |
The Greener Pastures Crew | The Greener Pastures Crew
Meet the writers, founders and funny people behind Greener Pastures
Aggie our mascot and funniest writer
Teresa Douglas writes primarily about business and parenting from her home in Vancouver B.C. The pandemic radicalized her, turning her into a comedic writer (a.k.a. extremist). Her work has appeared in Robot Butt and Humor Outcasts.
She has an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and MBA from The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She has studied satire with The Second City. This makes her a professional B.S.er, which comes in handy when convincing her kids to go to bed.
Ash Jurberg is a humor writer from Melbourne, Australia.
His work has been published in Slackjaw, Robot Butt, LOL Comedy, his mom’s Xmas card, a few bathroom walls and soon in (INSERT YOUR PUBLICATION NAME here).
In addition to writing, he has done stand up and improv in which he was described as “that guy on stage”. His writing skills have been honed while studying at Second City.
He has been to 105 countries and is welcome back to many of them.
Amy Currul is a comedy and satire writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared on Weekly Humorist, Robot Butt, and Little Old Lady Comedy, which is a miracle because she enjoys watching TV much more than she does writing. She has studied comedy and satire at The Second City and the Magnet Theater. You can check out her website http://www.amycurrul.com or follow her on Twitter for updates on her daily shenanigans.
Brett Shollenberger is a comedy writer whose work has run in McSweeney’s, UCNTNY, Points in Case, and more. He is a satirist and sketch writer/performer.
Kegan Witzki is a writer, actor, and musician from Chicago now based in New York City. He has an M.A. in Classical Acting from LAMDA, has studied all over Chicago’s comedy scene (writing and improvisation), and is an expert in homemade smoothies. It’s a great joy to be working with friends he’s met. www.keganwitzki.com
Michael Leonetti is a humor writer in Philadelphia who is hell bent on making you think he is as funny as he thinks he is. Some of his words can be seen online at Weekly Humorist, Points in Case, Little Old Lady Comedy, and sometimes being spoken by him or others onstage. Michael is the head writer, co-director, and performer for the Philadelphia sketch comedy team Baby Science. He has taken comedy writing courses at Second City Online, and improv and sketch comedy courses at the Philadelphia Improv Theater. Follow him on Twitter @MLeonetti89 or look at his website for fun. www.michaelleonetti.com.
Cassie Soliday is a humor writer and cartoonist, based in Los Angeles. Currently, she sunlights as a staff writer in the animation industry and moonlights as someone who can have an existential crisis almost on cue. www.casassy.com
Kate Chrisman is a writer and editor in Berlin, Germany. She writes about parenting, the environment, and politics. Her work has appeared in the Belladonna and Points in Case. Kate has studied at Second City, Comedy Café Berlin, and the London School of Economics. As one internet commenter articulately put it, Kate is an easily wounded, hideous millennial. Find her at www.katerchrisman.com.
Megan Sarnacki is a humor writer, who has written for Points in Case and Weekly Humorist. You may spot her carrying a bowl of pasta and walking through a screen door — or at least, that’s what she did yesterday. | https://medium.com/greener-pastures-magazine/the-greener-pastures-crew-cb3678e2cda3 | ['Ash Jurberg'] | 2020-11-28 00:29:13.185000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Humor', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Life'] |
Notes and photos as pitchers and catchers hold their first 2021 workout | (Photo by Sue Jo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
by Rowan Kavner
Manager Dave Roberts gathered his pitchers and catchers before their first Spring Training workout on Thursday not within the normal confines of the building at Camelback Ranch-Glendale but out near the batting cages, with players spread out and masked. As the Dodgers start a new season looking to defend their crown, many of the obstacles of a pandemic they navigated en route to a World Series title still remain.
But the biggest difference for Roberts was not the location of the team meeting, or the separate clubhouses used to spread players out or any of the protocols teams must adhere to again 2021.
“The biggest difference is no fans,” Roberts said after the first workout from Arizona. “I think the energy was good internally, but you just don’t have that player-fan interaction, which was certainly missed. But guys got their work in. Saw some good (bullpen sessions) today.”
One of the themes of Roberts’ message to his group was how he liked the way the Dodgers handled whatever was thrown their way in 2020 and handled their business in a year unlike any other.
“Now when you look out to 2021, to be mindful of the things that we did very well, that’ll aid in giving us the best chance to get another championship,” Roberts said. “Also the fact that you can’t win a championship in February. Couple things like that.”
Roberts said he’ll be mindful of not keeping his players on the field too long as Spring Training begins. He wants them to work smartly and efficiently in an effort to keep everyone as healthy as possible.
The early portion of spring will be spent primarily getting the players back into the swing of things. He said he doesn’t want to push them too hard, too fast.
All teams are undergoing intake testing as they arrive at Spring Training. Roberts said none of the Dodgers who reported have tested positive for the coronavirus. A couple players, however, were unable to participate on day one.
Pitchers Mitchell White and Joe Kelly are dealing with soreness, while Roberts said Venezuelan catcher Keibert Ruiz is “hung up with his visa,” and the Dodgers are working on getting him to Spring Training.
Here’s more from Roberts after Day 1:
On the challenge moving from a 60-game season back to 162 games: “I think it’s certainly unprecedented for any team to go from 60 games to 162. How players respond, time will tell. But I do think the depth that we have, managing innings as far as on the field playing, managing usage, innings pitched is really important.”
On having seven qualified starters for five spots in the rotation: “You can add Jimmy Nelson to that mix, too, so that makes eight. And I think that’s a good thing. Right now, we’re going to look at it as we have eight viable starters.”
On whether he’d consider using a six-man rotation at some point: “To think about that at the outset, probably unlikely. But it’s not crazy, certainly, given that we really don’t know what to expect from playing 162 vs. 60 games. It is nice to have those eight viable starters. At some point in time, I would expect all those guys to make a start for us.”
On if Walker Buehler will be slow-played during spring again: “He will be more ready than in springs in the past, because he kept throwing throughout the offseason. Appreciating last year, where it was a shortened season, Walker just felt there were a lot of bullets left out there, left on the table. For him to continue to throw in the winter, keep his arm moving, will prepare him best for 2021. He’s done that. Threw a bullpen today and looked very sharp — considerably more crisp than he has in years past in bullpen №1.”
On the bullpen and if there’s a defined closer role: “I believe we’re at our best if Kenley (Jansen) is closing for us. But with that said, we have a lot of great, viable options to finish a game. Right now, that’s kind of where it’s at. Kenley looks fantastic. As I sit here right now, I expect him to close that first game of the season.” | https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/notes-and-photos-as-pitchers-and-catchers-hold-their-first-2021-workout-b4eb39e60011 | ['Rowan Kavner'] | 2021-02-19 03:11:56.242000+00:00 | ['Photos', 'Dodgers', 'Spring Training', 'Dave Roberts', 'Notes'] |
Turning Habits into Lasting Lifestyle Changes | Turning Habits into Lasting Lifestyle Changes
It is that time of the year when one reviews the current year and makes plans for the next. We set goals and strive to keep up our resolutions. Forming lasting habits is nirvana. Here is how I make my habits stick:
Deciding My Why: For each habit, the reason was something meaningful to me. It should yield a positive lifestyle impact. And it should last lifelong.
For each habit, the reason was something meaningful to me. It should yield a positive lifestyle impact. And it should last lifelong. Postponing the Unnecessary: I like keeping lists. It is a great way for me to do a brain dump. Most of my lists are for the future. Because I do only one thing at a time. It allows me to go deep within that habit. And helps establish an unbreakable foundation for life.
I like keeping lists. It is a great way for me to do a brain dump. Most of my lists are for the future. Because I do only one thing at a time. It allows me to go deep within that habit. And helps establish an unbreakable foundation for life. Designing a Tracker: I’ve tried many different types of tracking. Here’s what has worked best so far:
(a) Daily tracking beats weekly, monthly and quarterly. This forces me to break the execution process into super small tasks.
(b) Spreadsheets have worked better than paper and other forms of digital tracking. They let me build formulae for analyzing progress.
(c) A dedicated habit board on a wall works wonders. I look at it many times during the day. Out of sight is out of mind. As of now, I’ve eight boards up on my walls. These boards are my version of the command center or the situation room.
Avoiding all Pressure: I’ve used two ways to achieve this. A good way is to not tell anyone for a while. Achieve some initial success. Then seek inputs. The opposite of this is to make public resolutions. And find a set of partners in crime. To each their own. Another way is to avoid the new year’s day. I choose one of these two days:
(a) One is my birthday.
(b) The other is any day I decide to go forward with something. No need to wait for the “perfect” day.
Overcoming Distracting Thoughts: Our thoughts and distractions provide reasons to justify skipping a day. Or a week. These reasons are logical only in the short-term. But they are like cancer in the long-term. Once I start the process of adopting a habit, I avoid rethink. I execute. And work on making my execution process better. I guess my defense background upbringing and a special forces mindset is to blame. Special forces don’t question the mission. They make a plan to execute well.
Our thoughts and distractions provide reasons to justify skipping a day. Or a week. These reasons are logical only in the short-term. But they are like cancer in the long-term. Once I start the process of adopting a habit, I avoid rethink. I execute. And work on making my execution process better. I guess my defense background upbringing and a special forces mindset is to blame. Special forces don’t question the mission. They make a plan to execute well. Trading Perfection for Progress: Not being perfect used to bother me. Two things helped. Accept irregular achievement in the short-term. And embracing improvement in the long-term. Making the next month better than the last one. This is hard. But it has a compounding effect.
Not being perfect used to bother me. Two things helped. Accept irregular achievement in the short-term. And embracing improvement in the long-term. Making the next month better than the last one. This is hard. But it has a compounding effect. Finding Support: Small tips from many people add up. I like talking to people. Friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers, and everyone I can reach out to. I go outside my usual circle to build the relevant circle for that particular habit.
Small tips from many people add up. I like talking to people. Friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers, and everyone I can reach out to. I go outside my usual circle to build the relevant circle for that particular habit. Experimenting Continuously: I keep studying and trying small things. And a few work. These become part of my execution toolkit. Finding a good reason to rule out something has opened my thinking. And my mind feels light.
I’ve been using this process for many years now. And it works. Real well. Results are transformative from a lifestyle standpoint. Both at work and in personal life.
Related Notes:
Let’s Talk: If you have a true experience that resonates, please send me an email.
Original: https://www.visionpassage.com/turning-habits-into-lasting-lifestyle-changes.html
VisionPassage Newsletter: https://www.visionpassage.com
#startup #founders #startupfounders #startupjourney #startupstories #startupsuccess #lessonslearnt #startupideas #habits #lasting change #lifestyle | https://medium.com/@VisionPassage/turning-habits-into-lasting-lifestyle-changes-ad3ad0db767 | [] | 2020-12-08 05:56:12.943000+00:00 | ['Startup Lessons', 'Startup Life', 'Startup', 'Founders', 'Habits'] |
Raspberry PI 4 with encrypted root partition, LVM and remote unlock | This how-to describes the necessary steps to set up a Raspberry PI 4 with a LUKS encrypted root partition, LVM and remote unlock via Dropbear SSH server in initramfs.
I’ve compiled this from various other tutorials, most notably Secure Kali PI 2018 and Raspberry Pi Encrypt Root Patition. The main differences are:
Device UUIDs instead of paths in fstab , crypttab and kernel command line.
, and kernel command line. LVM inside the encrypted partition.
cryptroot-unlock as Dropbear command.
as Dropbear command. No modification of /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-premount/dropbear .
Note: because of a problem when creating the initramfs for the first time and the encrypted root partition is no yet fully set up, a screen and keyboard need to be connected to the Raspberry PI for one step.
Prepare storage device
The following steps are executed on another computer, rather the Raspberry PI.
Download the image from the Raspberry PI website.
Connect your storage device (either a SD card or a USB storage device) and run lsblk to determine the device path. Be absolutely sure about this because you might destroy your system when picking the wrong one. I’ll write /dev/sdX for the rest of this how-to.
Copy the downloaded image onto the storage device:
dd if=raspios.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
Run fdisk to get some information about the storage device:
fdisk -l /dev/sdX Disk /dev/sdX: 1.73 GiB, 1858076672 bytes, 3629056 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x067e19d7 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdX1 8192 532479 524288 256M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdX2 532480 3629055 3096576 1.5G 83 Linux
The important values are the sector size (512) and the total number of sectors (3629056).
The goal is to have a partition of 2 GB at the end of the device for a temporary unencrypted root and use all the space in between for the encrypted LVM partition.
Calculate the first sector of the new partition 2 GB from the end:
$NUMBER_OF_SECTORS - 2 * 1024^3 / $SECTOR_SIZE
Run fdisk again and create the partition:
fdisk /dev/sdX n # create new partition
p # primary partition
<enter> # use default partition number
XXX # the calculated start sector from above
<enter> # use suggested end sector
w # write
Now copy the data from partition 2 to partition 3 and resize it to use the full 2 GB:
dd if=/dev/sdX2 of=/dev/sdX3 bs=4M status=progress resize2fs /dev/sdX3
Run fdisk again and recreate the second partition.
fdisk /dev/sdX p # note start sector of partition 2
d # delete partition
2 # select partition 2
n # create new partition
p # primary partition
2 # partition number 2
XXX # start sector from original partition 2
<enter> # use suggested end sector
w # write
Run blkid /dev/sdX3 and copy the UUID.
Mount the boot partition, edit cmdline.txt and replace the value of the root parameter with the UUID from above. E. g. replace root=PARTUUID=XXXX-2 with root=UUID=XXX-XXX .
mkdir -p /mnt/rpi/boot mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/rpi/boot vim /mnt/rpi/boot/cmdline.txt
If you want SSH to be enabled right from the start, create a file named ssh in the boot directory:
touch /mnt/rpi/boot/ssh
Unmount and clean up
umount /dev/sdX1
rm -r /mnt/rpi
Create the encrypted volume. I’ll use the cipher aes-xts with a key size of 256 and sha256 for the best performance on the Raspberry PI. Once it becomes available in the default Raspberry PI OS, aes-adiantum might be an interesting choice.
cryptsetup luksFormat \
--type=luks2 \
--pbkdf=pbkdf2 \
--cipher=aes-xts-plain64 \
--key-size=256 \
--hash=sha256 \
/dev/sdX2
Open the encrypted volume and setup LVM. I’ll use 50G for the root file system. Adapt this to your needs and the size of your storage medium.
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 rpi pvcreate /dev/mapper/rpi vgcreate vgrpi /dev/mapper/rpi lvcreate -L 50G vgrpi -n root mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root lvchange -an vgrpi cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/rpi
Raspberry PI configuration
Now connect your storage device with the Raspberry PI and power up.
Update and install the required software
apt-get update
apt-get install \
dropbear \
lvm2 \
cryptsetup \
busybox \
dropbear-initramfs \
cryptsetup-initramfs
Open the encrypted volume
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 crypt
Run blkid and note the UUID of /dev/sdX2 and /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root . They will be required in the next steps.
Edit /etc/fstab and replace the file system for / with the UUID of /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root . It should look like this:
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
UUID=XXXXXX /boot vfat defaults 0 2
UUID=XXXXXX / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
Edit /etc/crypttab and add an entry with the UUID of /dev/sdX2 . Make sure to use tabs as separator between the values.
crypt UUID=XXXXXX none luks
Open /boot/cmdline.txt in an editor. Change the value of the root parameter to the UUID of /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root and add a new parameter cryptdevice with the UUID from /dev/sdX2 followed by :crypt . Append rootdelay=2 at the very end.
[...] root=UUID=XXXXXX cryptdevice=UUID=XXXXXX:crypt [...] rootdelay=2
Uncomment and change the following line in /etc/cryptsetup-initramfs/conf-hook :
CRYPTSETUP=y
Create /etc/dropbear-initramfs/authorized_keys and insert your SSH public key (usually from ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on your other machine).
Uncomment and edit the following line in /etc/dropbear-initramfs/config :
DROPBEAR_OPTIONS="-sgjkc cryptroot-unlock"
The options here mean:
-s Disable password logins
-g Disable password logins for root
-j Disable local port forwarding
-k Disable remote port forwarding
-c Force command to be executed
Add the following line at the end of /boot/config.txt :
initramfs initramfs.gz followkernel
Create the initramfs. This might show some errors from cryptsetup you can ignore for the moment.
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initramfs.gz
Copy root file system to encrypted volume
Power off your Raspberry PI and connect the storage device to your other computer again.
Mount the unencrypted temporary root partition, the encrypted root partition and copy the data.
mkdir -p /mnt/rpi/{default,crypt} mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/rpi/default cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 rpi mount /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root /mnt/rpi/crypt rsync -avh /mnt/rpi/default/* /mnt/rpi/crypt/ umount /mnt/rpi/crypt umount /mnt/rpi/default lvchange -an vgrpi cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/rpi rm -r /mnt/rpi
Boot Raspberry PI from encrypted volume
The first boot from the encrypted volume will probably fail, so you need to connect a screen and keyboard to fix it manually. I’m happy for any hints how to solve this in a more elegant way.
Wait until the errors stop and you are dropped into the initramfs shell
Enter the following commands and hit CTRL-D afterwards:
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 crypt
vgchange -ay
Now the boot process should continue and you can login.
As a final step, recreate the initramfs to fix the errors from above. It should now execute without any errors.
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initramfs.gz
Now that everything is set up, you can erase the temporary root file system on partition 3 or keep it as a recovery system.
Please note that you have to recreate the initramfs after every kernel upgrade!
Resources | https://medium.com/@andreashug/raspberry-pi-4-with-encrypted-root-partition-lvm-and-remote-unlock-457e680fc8d5 | ['Andreas Hug'] | 2020-12-22 10:14:20.119000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Tutorial', 'Encryption'] |
Hybrid Mobile App Development And Framework Services Company | Cross Platform
Easier Maintenance
Hybrid Apps Are Lighter
Compatibility With Variant Of Mobiles
Hybrid App Development
Hybrid apps are Webpages (Application) in native browser such as UI web view in IOS or Web view in Hybrid (to mention not in Safari or Chrome). Hybrid apps are amalgamated using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then stacked in Native Applications using platforms like Cordova.
I will be explaining my dear fellow readers about Cordova but first let me introduce you to the abundant uses of Hybrid Applications in Today’s business. So what makes hybrid Mobile App so lucrative for Business, Industries, startups, least find out!
Tritan solutions private limited is an expert in its field. Compatibility of, the app with different platform Images, text, videos, etc could be uploaded with the Support system available Hence, to sum up, everything is possible with Tritan hybrid Mobile App Solution.
Our Expertise
Being A Top-Notch Hybrid App Development Company In India, We Always try To Integrate Highly Advanced And Trending Technologies To Our Hybrid App Development Services.
_______________
Hire Hybrid Developers From Top Hybrid Development Company In India
Got An Idea ? We Will Make It Work
Hybrid App Development Cycle
Being A Top-Notch Hybrid App Development Company In India, We Always try To Integrate Highly Advanced And Trending Technologies To Our Hybrid App Development Services.
Why TritanSolutions For 3rdParty API Development?
Here is some basic mastery decoded by Tritan Solutions:
Excellent Merits of Hybrid Applications:
1. Hybrid Applications gives user the liberty to deploy a single code base to create mobile apps for iOS/the Android platform.
2. Hybrid apps are lighter, simpler, posses innovative user interface, comes with Rapid installation and requires easier maintenance.
3. Business Now a day’s adopted the strategy reaching maximum target audience to increase their sales, market capitalization, Higher revenue-generating more leverage growth of their brand, industries, Startup. Small organizations opt for Hybrid Applications because they are affordable and can easily fit in the budget of organizations. Also, Hybrid apps increase their brand awareness and product sales. As hybrid apps allows easy user interface through which products such as clothes, accessories, eatables etc can be displayed over a wide variety.
4. Hybrid apps combine both media and web world and thus helps users in getting a authentic, unique, and exquisite experience while accessing the hybrid application.
5. Native alike User Experience : Hybrid Applications developed with the framework like Flutter and Native which is capable of delivering a better user experience like that found in Native apps,Its allows easy editing too thus generating hefty revenues for larger-scaled and mid mid-size startups.
6. Offline Support in Hybrid Applications: Hybrid Applications also additionally provide offline support too. Users can access hybrid apps even without Internet connection. Users can also view there saved data in offline mode. The best example of hybrid apps in offline mode would be Gmail and Instagram with which we all are familiar with and I will also be explaining about it on later stage of our blog.
7. Wider Market Penetration: Hybrid Applications can also capable on refining and operating on multiple user-friendly forms. Thus enabling business to reach more audience globally, not just in their home grown countries. Today people living in developed economies of the world mostly do window shopping and breathed now a day’s started there hybrid applications to endorse their products thus enabling companies to generate hefty revenues.
Importance of Cordova in Hybrid Applications:
Cordova allows easier and exuberance innovation by adding just one script of code.
Cordova mainly wraps your HTML/ JavaScript into a native container which can easily access the device directions of several platforms. These functions are made to be exposed via a JavaScript, allowing user to quickly and calmly write one set of code to target every phone/PC/tablet/Smart device. The market today and publish to their respective app stores I.e. Google play store or Apple iOS.
Cordova Tools: They are mainly diverse and variegated ecosystem of man line tools, JavaScript Frameworks and cloud services amalgamated along Cordova.
Here are few that I have mentioned:
1. Adobe Phone gap: I is a widely popular, authentic and highly used distribution of Apache Cordova. It can very well turn your HTML, CSS and JavaScript an app on your device in a fraction of seconds using your personal computer and developers applications.
2. Ionic Frameworks: is a front end SDK mainly deployed do building cross-platform applications. Built on top no angular, Ionic also offers platforms for integrating services like push notifications and analytics.
3. Monaca: it is a comprehensive cloud powered along with framework-agnostic of tools Monaca supports both offline and online mode of development, debugging with line reloaded feature and cloud built experience for the user.
4. Onsen UI: it is mainly a custom elemented HTML 5 framework offer’s a large selection of components and responsive layout support. Onsen UI provides you the with opportunity and platform to create your professional design on multiplatform applications without acquiring additional dexterity of skill set.
5. Visual Studio: I is a prolific IDE for building cross-platform Applications for Android, iOS and Windows, completed with Highly advanced build and debugging support .
6. Framework 7: It is a free of cost and an open-source of framework for developing hybrid mobile applications or web applications with iOS and along with Android native innovation and user interface.
7. Everything studio : It provides Cordova with a smart and amazing development workflow and examples of various applications listed on its platform for mainly Internet of things, support for Bluetooth low energy (BLE) and other IOT related technologies.
8. NSB/App Studio: It is an IDE built mainly for web Applications and Native applications. One at includes complete phone gap integration, plus Bootstrap, jquery Mobile and Jq widgets. Also Al with Drag and Drop designer. Easy programming in Java script and Basic windows also in Macos.
8. NSB/App Studio: It is an IDE built mainly for web Applications and Native applications. One at includes complete phone gap integration, plus Bootstrap, jquery Mobile and Jq widgets. Also Al with Drag and Drop designer. Easy programming in Java script and Basic windows also in Macos.
Hybrid applications Market examples:
1. Market watch ( Built with Ionic )
2. Sworkit (Built with phonegap )
3. Untapped ( Built with phonegap)
4. Off our gold ( built with Onsen UI)
5. Tripline (built with framework 7 )
Other less known Hybrid Applications developments: Xamarin , Rho, Mosyne,Corona .
Excellent Applications of Hybrid that have fostered Growth Across the Globe :
Baskin Robbins : It a multinational ice cream giant founded in United State of America in the year 1952. The company gained world wide success with its exotic ice creams flavours and Cakes. Baskin Robbins is a name which has become synonymous with confectionery industry. The company has built its own Hybrid Application with latest HTML 5 and Native features. The app can also run in offline mode. It helps the user to locate Location of vendors, nearby Baskin Robbins store and even allows payment gateway using credit,debit and Digital wallet.
The app offers multiple coupons codes, saving offers and latest updates too. The app as excellent user interface and can even send gifts via monetary exchange in Baskin Robbins application.
UBER : It a world renowned taxi sharing and ride sharing companyn founded in year 2010 by Travis K. In a small town of Paris, France. The name Uber has become synonymous among the public. The Uber app runs onm.uber.com . It is also built on Hybrid. The app allows easy navigation ,user friendly Application. It mainly connects driver and users. The app has Google maps in it to locate Locations m we can even save driver pictures in it. The Uber hybrid application has got terrific payment gateway too via credit,debit cards.
Instagram : The distinguished social media Application founded in U.S now brought by Facebook Inc.is most used globally. It is intriguing to note that Instagram also works on Hybrid Application Which is powered by HTML 5 and it easily saved offline date too.
This hybrid app has picture sharing platform, reel’s and direct messages system allows users to tag location, objects,things, as give opportunities to users for following there loved ones.
GMAIL — Google mail box amalgamated with HTML 5 allows users to send important text,images, video’s,via mail. It’s saved data on offline mode too but it needs internet connection to remain active.
Hybrid applications will rightly remain in fashion no matter how hard economic growth becomes but the potential to tap revenues from the hybrid application will always be in demand or I should say will now be at Its peak. Today as coronavirus has started gripping in almost every corner of the world, Although developed economies suffered the most and this pandemic forced the millennials to stay at home and almost each and every mainted tmaintainedma of social distancing and thus our penetration in virtual world began.
The statistics says thats almost 9 hours spent by an individual in Covid-19 pandemic and every company start-ups, business, switched to work from home jargon forcing their employees, staffs to turn to the virtual world. Almost 85 percent of employees of daily reported to there Manager details on the companies Application provided to them. And here comes the fact which needs to be magnified that These applications are downloaded from the hybrid platform so you can imagine the extent to which hybrid Application is penetrated in Today’s Organization.
Most industries like IT, software, hardware, digital app design booked during the pandemic as now Information Technology is the new Gold mine. Forget the days when petroleum was the diamantaire revenue generator for Countries. Nowadays a country is considered more civilized and economical by how much it’s has spent and the contribution it has provided to its digital Revolution.
Conclusion:
No one can absolutely deny the power of smart phones especially for the business sector. There are many ways to reach out to potential and loyal customers when you make your products and services available through mobile phones. The finest and the brightest way to bridge the gap between a company and customer is to build mobile app. Through the app, you can allow customers to access your products and services. It is the quickest and smartest way to market your products/brand without the involvement of third person.
Now, the question that arises is which kind of mobile app is best for businesses. Well, mobile apps are divided into three categories — native, HTML5 (web) and hybrid mobile apps. It’s is the high time for you, as an hybrid mobile app developers, to think about it. Of the three hybrid mobile applications are considered the best and effective as they combine the performance and Robust speed of native apps into the web containers to leverage the best of both kinds of apps. Hence, mobile apps are the best for any business and it is an intelligent and lucrative decision to invest in Tritan mobile app development
FAQ’s.
Software Development Company in Delhi India : Tritan Solutions is having experience of more than 8+ Years in different types of software and applications like ERP MLM Ecommerce Algo Software products. We have offices in India and USA with a team of experts working round the clock. We are having good experience in MLM, ERP, E-commerce, CRM Software’s, Website designing, Content writing, Digital Marketing like SEO, SMO, SEM, PPC, Onpage Offpage Optimization.
We have the privilege to work with some of the largest Solutions company in the business and we have established a reputation for always bringing innovation on to the table. For any questions, concerns
Click here for more FAQ’s
Answer: Hybrid applications will rightly remain in fashion no matter how hard economic growth becomes but the potential to tap revenues from the hybrid application will always be in demand or I should say will now be at Its peak.
Answer: Hybrid Applications developed with the framework like Flutter and Native which is capable of delivering a better user experience like that found in Native apps, Its allows easy editing too thus generating hefty revenues for larger-scaled and mid mid-size startups.
Answer: Hybrid applications has picture sharing platform, reel’s and direct messages system allows users to tag location, objects, things, as give opportunities to users for following there loved ones. Example- Instagram
About Us:
We at Tritan Solutions India Private Limited started in 2013 in Danville ( California) furnish you a 15x velocity which helps you to commence your Digital Transformation jaunt. We are a Global company from Web Designing to Mobile App solutions from Business exploration to financial recommendation you name it and Tritan will give it. Our charges and packages are designed in such a way that comes at the comfort and within the Budget of the company. The final payment has to be made once the product has been delivered to our esteemed clients although a token amount has to be given in the beginning to ensure word of mouth and Business ethics.
Tritan solutions also deliver extraordinary business solutions, financial, and industry communication.
At Tritan solution’s we are always driven by high impetus to deliver the business innovation to our clients we promise to provide you with the best Web Portal Development and its easier registration on Google platform. Our work says it’s all. We remain bullish on our promises and our vision for long term growth prospects and we are confident and Tritan emerges stronger than ever after this COVID Pandemic
With over a decade 8+ Years of long experience in Software Industry, Tritan Solutions is having offices in multiple locations in India and Abroad with experience of more than a decade dealing in different types of ERP MLM Ecommerce Algo Software products. We have a team of experts having good experience in Services Like ERP, MLM, CRM Implementations, Website designing, E-commerce website development, Web Application, Email Marketing, Content writing, Web Application, Digital Marketing like SEO, SMO, SEM, PPC, Onpage Offpage Optimization etc. | https://medium.com/@tritanerp/hybrid-mobile-app-development-and-framework-services-company-8188c5ab7332 | ['Tritan Solutions Pvt Ltd'] | 2020-12-19 04:32:56.685000+00:00 | ['Hybrid App Development', 'Framework', 'Hybrid Apps', 'Application Development', 'App Development'] |
How to Ditch Emotional Baggage Once and For All | Bam. He figured out the source of all those subsequent years of baggage. More importantly, he understood what meaning he attached to those experiences. He believed that they confirmed his negative view of himself. The relationships convinced him he wasn’t worthy. He really believed it.
Ask yourself, what meaning have you given to your experiences? To the stuff you have in that icky suitcase? Is it true?
If what you believe is not actually true (and I bet a million homemade oatmeal cookies it isn’t) get a pen and paper and LITERALLY rewrite it into something that is true, and that is much better for you (like replacing liver and onions with oatmeal cookies). Joe wrote down these words: “I am worthy. I am loveable.” By reframing his beliefs — which included saying those words to himself every day, many times a day — Joe was changing his beliefs.
Here are some more ideas about how to reframe your beliefs so that your emotions and thoughts change to create different actions. Your actions, of course, are what affect outcomes.
Focus on the good. Reflect on past relationships with an eye to seeing the good. There is something good to be found. What is it? What were your strengths within that partnership? For Joe, he realized he was loving, kind, and supportive as a partner. What did you contribute to your former relationships? Let that stuff inform your belief system, instead of all the bad memories.
Check your self-talk. We all have an inner gremlin who loves nothing more than to label us, criticize us, and put us down. Shut that guy up — the one who says “I’m an idiot” or “God I’m ugly today” or “I’ll die alone.” Instead, find the inner truth, and if you can’t find one, create one. This truth reminds you every day, every minute even, that there is hope, you are worthy, life is good. Forgive. Yourself and those who have wronged you. If that is hard to do with your heart, going through the motions can help regardless. Try this: write a letter to that person saying the words, “I FORGIVE YOU” even if you don’t feel it all the way yet. Seal it. Burn it.
Journal. Write down all the negative stuff — that baggage-inducing anger and hurt. Feel it, let it pass through you, release it.
Meditate. If at first, you cannot quiet your mind, just fake it till you make it. Giving yourself permission to be still, to nurture your inner quiet, is half the battle.
Affirm. State what you want to believe, even before you believe it. As with Joe, who repeated to himself every hour — I am worthy — this is how you create new neural pathways in your brain (literally — this is science) so that what you want to be true, becomes true.
Explore self-hypnosis. Working with a licensed hypnotist you learn to use the techniques on yourself with the result that you retrain your subconscious mind, much the same way affirmations work. This strategy can go even deeper for those with more stubborn limiting beliefs. By freeing yourself from hurtful patterns you can replace them with beliefs that affirm.
Pray. This means different things to different people. Speaking to your higher source (God, the universe, divine source) is also very affirming because it keeps you focused on what you want, not on what you fear.
Ho’opnonpono. Or explore other spiritual practices that help release baggage. This one — Ho’opnonpono — is an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. It involves repetition of a mantra/prayer: “I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, and thank you.” Release….
Seek coaching. A relationship or life coach can guide you through this releasing process in a safe, supported environment.
It works. We can let go of old, useless, heavy, icky baggage that serves us not one bit. Seeing clearly what is hidden away inside that baggage is the first, biggest step. After that, practice one, some, or all of the above suggestions, now and then, every day, however, and whenever you can, until you feel that lightness and realize, it’s gone. Then, love and prosper, my friend.
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.
—
About Betty Russell
Betty Russell, BCC is a Dating & Relationship Specialist dedicated to providing Singles with solid information, proven dating skills and an attraction plan to find the right partner. She is your guide to being a smart, savvy, effective satisfied single while dating well, and ultimately finding your true love. | https://medium.com/hello-love/how-to-ditch-emotional-baggage-once-and-for-all-a838a025158c | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-15 21:52:36.484000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Forgiveness', 'Self Love', 'Love'] |
Performance Optimization — API and fast Laravel Web Application for High Performance ? | API and fast Laravel Web Application for High Performance?
Problems-
slow API and web response on laravel project there are lots of dependency like DBMS and other code related also like autoload classes and other thread party libraries. its must required to optimized class autoload and removing other unused autoload file and thread party libraries.
Solutions:-
Improvement of fast loading our web site and api Response .
we have to work on listed action and other step ups.
Enhance Artisan Command Uses :- Laravel comes with a very useful and unique tool named Artisan command and this is very helpful to boost performance. See our common setup here:
php artisan config:clear
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:clear
Artician code This is very useful, especially when your Laravel developer is creating a lot of routes and configuration, and he just simply creates a cache as a plain array, and then Laravel becomes faster to load cache instead of loading the real object.
But don’t forget to re-run this command after you’ve changed config or your routes file. If you don’t, Laravel will not handle your changes because it already loaded from cache.
Also, we cache user data, settings, and locations. This limits the number of SQL queries. Make sure you invalidate the cache when the data changes. Also, make sure you have good indexes for your database Cache your configs, routes, and views. Add these commands to your Forge deploy script.
Remove Unused Service
Sometimes, it is better that you don’t load all services in your config, and disable unused service inside the config file. Add a comment to the unused service provider in config/app.php. However, make sure after commenting, you don’t break the whole functionality of your app.
Minimize Use of Plugins Laravel Developer
There are a wide variety of plugins for Laravel that allow you to easily add more functionality. With that increased functionality comes more libraries and files to load, which can slow you down. Make sure to take take a look at which providers you are loading through your config/app.php file and cut down unnecessary ones. Moreover, Laravel uses Composer to manage its components, so cutting down your composer.json file will reduce the dependencies that are loading.
Precompile Assets
For development, having all of your assets in separate files (such as routes and configuration files) is helpful for code maintenance. For production, this isn’t necessary. To help with this, Laravel has a few artisan commands available that you can run before deploying your site.
For developers -
These commands will compile your frequently used classes into a single file for quick reference. They will also combine your configuration files and routes into single files for faster loading. You can also add your own classes into the optimization that might not be added by default. The performance increase will vary, but every little bit helps.
php artisan optimize
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
Assets Minifying
Compiling all assets in a single place might end up with a huge size file. As a result, this practice will not allow our application to benefit from the proposed compilation. Therefore to resolve this issue, we can minify our assets using Laravel Mix
npm run production
Configure web server
Your web server needs to be configured properly to improve the speed of the web application. What a web server does? It controls gzip and cache settings that are required for a high ranking score. What to do for web server configuration?
For caching, enable caching on JS/CSS/Images for at least 7 days.
For gziping, you need to gziped all your files to improve the page speed score. Hire Laravel developers from a leading Laravel development company who have in-depth knowledge and experience of configuring web servers.
Laravel configuration :-
For Laravel application configuration, you need to do the following things.
Minify CSS/JS
It is very easy and can be done by using tools such as Elixir. You can also do it by manually minifying and combining your CSS/JS.
Minify HTML
There are different packages available for minifying HTML automatically.
Reduce Packages Usage
Laravel is quite famous among the open-source community and almost every day we see a new package is released. You can use these packages to add some functionality directly in your code.
You just need to add the package in the composer.json file, and Laravel will take care of downloading it as well its dependency.
But here is one Laravel Performance Optimization tips to remember before adding any package. You should always check the dependencies of the package you are going to install.
If the package you are going to add has multiple dependencies, then the size of your application will increase drastically.
Fast Cache and Session driver
Most of the HTTP driven applications are stateless. You can use sessions to store information about the user across the requests. It’s an awesome Laravel Performance Optimization trick.
Laravel supports multiple backends such as Memcached, Redis, and other databases inherently built-in bundled in the framework.
The sessions are stored in the config/session.php file. Also, the drivers are stored in the same file. You can also select the cache driver and specify it in the config/cache.php file.
CONCLUSION:
Hence, now you know how to improve the performance of your Laravel developer while developing a web app. However, to do this a vast technical knowledge is required from your end and ample amount of time as well. | https://medium.com/@mrashish75/performance-optimization-api-and-fast-laravel-web-application-for-high-performance-aae0c6ba3d12 | [] | 2020-12-26 12:39:49.224000+00:00 | ['Laravel Development', 'Php Developers', 'Laravel Framework', 'Web Development', 'Laravel'] |
Как насчет хоровой музыки? Барочной, а? | (оглядывается) Детей нет поблизости? А то тут PG17…
(Spoken:) Maid Mary having broke the handle of her hair broom and hearing that (Manservant John) had a long stick that would fit it, desired him to put it in for her.
1. My man John had a thing that was long,
My maid Mary had a thing that was hairy,
My man John put his thing that was long,
Into my maid Mary’s thing that was hairy.
2. My maid Mary then stirr’d it about,
till with stirring and stirring at length it came out,
but then my man John, thrust it in once again,
and knock’d it most stoutly to make it remain.
3. But John with much knocking so widen’d the hole,
that his long thing slip’d out still in spight of his soul,
till weary’d and vex’d and with knocking grown sore,
cry’d a Pox take the Hole for I’ll knock it no more.
Послушать
Тут вот
Чего, переводить надо? :)
Композитор Джон Экклз, XVII век, Англия | https://medium.com/livejournal-archives/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%82-%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%B0-2a495fb17c93 | ['Orion Nebula'] | 2017-07-02 21:18:13.390000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Pieces'] |
Hopeless | Hopeless
I am having too many Emotions and thoughts today and even so that the Musings are Contradicting, The shock of emotions it is bringing in my life is pretty much constant and identical.
Today, while I was on my daily routine of walking 5000 steps I had 2 options from which I had to choose one. I chose the one with harsh heat because somehow I often take the harder roads and I would tell Robert Frost that the road not taken is frequently the easier one in my case. But, The good news being, I was blessed as the Universe itself bestowed me with its Mighty majestic aka Holy Sun, in all its glory. I was taken aback with the view, and the most talkative person You would have ever met was at loss of words. The sunset was enthralling and Attention gripping. I wanted to capture its shadows in my eye lids and wanted to engross it deep in my heart. It felt larger than life and for once I felt lucky to be there at the exact same moment, at The exact same coordinates where The sunset was trying its best not to overdo itself. The rays were penetrating the Fluffy ball of Clouds and while they were coming from the other side of it, I felt a stabbing pain of yearning in my heart, How I should actually live a thriving and chaotic life at 22 and not spend it like a nun, How I had a life planned out for when I leave my home for good after Graduation, Wistful on how I wanted to try so many new things and create a newer, Better personality with a fresh start But the Hankering went as soon as it came, I was again fixate on the view. While I tried my best to seize these Infinite rays in my Phone’s camera but somehow no matter how much I bent over (Pun,Intended) I was not able to Apprehend the Power of the Holy mighty as I’d like to title The Sun. Nonethess I tried and Fail, I noticed that there are certain things which Destiny doesn’t wants you to Reciprocate and reproduce and this view and its sheer sheen was one of those things. I looked at the view for as long as my eyes served, I have very high power of Diopter in both my eyes and looking directly at the holy Gift of the Universe was not doing me any more favours, I quickly went ahead to another terrace where huge buildings and human habitation created hindrances between The sun and Myself, But I firmly trust that, When in true love the smallest distance is great and the greatest distance can be bridged. (A lot of poetic liberty granted)
I was on the other side of the same expanse and The sky was as clear as It should be with very little dramatic effect and very less clouds, I allowed myself to linger and observe what my fellow species were doing because that’s what I do when I go for my routine. I check out other humans and Imagine their stories and Personalities. Since, My human interaction apart from my family of 3 is nil and While my communication skills and Vocabulary has taken a serious hit and back-fall, I’d desperately like to believe that it is just a phase and the more I stay close to other humans (Even from a distance) The more I can imagine what My life used to be before this pandemic hit us.
I saw 2 sets of individuals, all of them grown ups and a couple of babies, One in each set. These sets in question were on 2 different sides of my vision and that makes it true to believe because they were so different and The emotions I felt for both were hypnotizing. One of them consists of a couple with their tiny baby of over 2 years, riding a little bike. Reasons for why I had a staggering pain in my chest when I saw this little family of 3 is unspeakable and cannot be disclosed to people who are complete strangers to me in this blog, The point being, I was envious of this family and I had a feeling that will I be missing out on such contentment and completeness But the moment I came out of my self righteous bubble I noticed that The father in the set was completely aloof of his family, Arrested in phone while the mother was running after the baby and its bike for its well being. THE father was a little over or around 30. Young age. Huge responsibility. I wondered whether this is how It is going to be for our generation? This absence of involvement when People of my age someday become parents? My father even today and In my growing up years always gave me his undivided attention and I have never seen him so absorbed in his phone when He was with his family. This feeling that We might miss out and lose precious little moments of freedom with our families because of our little obsession with our phone which seems so harmless at the moment but might not be in future was Like a time ticking bomb in my nerves. Before today, I had never even considered that how This irresistible impulse we have for our phone will become so fixate that we might miss beautiful sunsets with our future families. It took a lot of baby tears and a bumpy fall of his child for the father to come out of his daydream and then he Went to cradle the baby in his arms. For an observant and third party like myself, I think It should not be the sad times when you should pour love and attention to your child but also when The child no matter what Age Is happy and is afraid of something New. Child is always going to need your support whether it is Excited,Giddy but scared at the same time. She/He needs a parent even then to share some of the burden, And Pain/Fear. I might would have been carried away for a moment with my own Bias, and Even It might so happen that The father was a good dad and Was little distracted in that moment, After all I know none of them , I am just a street passer who likes to know stories of strangers to suppress the memories I have in my mind waiting for my consciousness. While you might say That even I was Sticken to my phone on the terrace and that noted how can I pass judgement on others,Let me remind you I am not a parent. I was alone and did not and would never have a child running around me just so that it can capture my lingered attention.
The another set and I promise this is the last thing I saw before I hit 5000 steps was that a little girl over 5 was in her living room close to her balcony and A house-Help of over 40 years was in another penthouse, In front of her apartment and was looking at this girl and making faces to capture her eye and attention. She came out and started Playing Peek a boo with a complete stranger or an acquaintance you might say but both of them were doing it with so much concentration and reciprocated comfort and love that I could not stop and look at them from a distance afar and see how contradicting and puzzling we creatures are.
One of them a father and cannot find time for his own Blood but another, man with loads of Errands to run was giving all his attentiveness for someone else’s daughter . This gave me hope for myself and the envy was reduced to nothing but aspiration and appreciation that you tune yourself to be kind, You don’t have to use the trick of repeating something until you start beleiving it, You CAN have faith from the very start, You can have fondness and feel protective For a mini version of you with all your heart whether or not they are your own blood. You can love someone just like your own even if their seeds were not yours to sow. You can embrace them just like yours and Love the fruits it will bear you some day. Birthing doesn’t necessarily make you a mother or even a parent,The effort and dedication thereafter does. | https://medium.com/@nupur-tbt17/hopeless-a830904af989 | [] | 2021-06-08 18:16:23.750000+00:00 | ['Mothers', 'Hope', 'Fatherhood', 'Desire', 'Attention'] |
Why Did I Stay/Why Did I Join? | Welcome to the first article (after my Welcome and introduction) in the course Reclaim Your Life: Rebuild Your Identity.
If you prefer to listen to me talk in the video then please feel free to follow along. Otherwise, I have condensed and transcribed the points discussed in this video for those who prefer to read.
So, understanding the reasons for involvement (joining or remaining) in an authoritarian type of religion can help you know yourself better.
Knowing yourself can help you in future decision making.
The reasons for why we do things or become involved in something are usually complex and multi-faceted.
It is easy to judge ourselves when we look back, but it helps to realise that usually, we were doing the best we could with the information we had available at the time.
There usually are a number of reasons why someone becomes involved in an authoritarian or fundamentalist religion; OR why they stay.
We will take a look in more depth at each of these reasons in articles following this one. | https://medium.com/recovery-from-harmful-religion/why-did-i-stay-why-did-i-join-bbd062c0c6b5 | ['Deborah Christensen'] | 2019-11-12 06:32:16.948000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Self-awareness', 'Religious Trauma Syndrome', 'Course', 'Religion'] |
Blockchain Technology is Shaping the Art World through Non-Fungible Tokens | To learn more about Auctionity, please visit auctionity.com.
To stay tuned for real-time updates from the Auctionity team, explore the links below:
Twitter | Medium | Youtube | Linkedin | WeChat | Github | https://medium.com/auctionity/blockchain-technology-is-shaping-the-art-world-with-non-fungible-tokens-a1bd2b8fb9c | ['Domraider Team'] | 2019-05-09 12:38:26.645000+00:00 | ['Digital Art', 'Non Fungible Tokens', 'Art Market', 'Blockchain', 'Nft'] |
Two Hundred Percent with Ni/Co | Two Hundred Percent with Ni/Co
This Nashville-based pop duo is challenging others to feel something more.
Ni/Co performing at The High Watt, January 22nd, 2018
When most people think of live music in Nashville, they picture country music played at the crowded honky tonks of Broadway. In contrast, what I automatically picture is the growing pop music scene.
At shows such as those put on by Housequake, the people who show up are usually there to support one person. Instead of struggling against drunken tourists for a spot by the stage or at a table, the crowd shifts easily between sets as the next artist’s friends move to the foot of the stage. Frequently, people hang back and talk or surf on their phones while artists they don’t know are on the stage. But when Ni/Co took the stage for their set on Monday the 22nd at The High Watt, they quickly grabbed and held the attention of everyone in the venue.
Clearly having a blast while still hitting every note like pros, Ni/Co’s presence was a crowd pleaser. They brought the energy of the room to a crescendo with their cover of Rockstar 101, and as they left the stage, I heard a guy in the crowd behind me yell “That was BADASS!” to his friends, who enthusiastically agreed.
Colton Jones & Dani Brillhart of Ni/Co
Earlier in the night, I stood with Dani Brillhart and Colton Jones in the lobby, discussing how Ni/Co came to be. As Colton told the story of how they met as students at Belmont University, I quickly began to wish I were recording on a camera instead of a voice recorder, just to capture his hilarious storytelling emphases.
“One day, we were at a party and she was talking about some songs she had written, and I was like ‘oh you write music? What kind of music?’ and she was like ‘R&B’ — and I was like ‘lit lit lit’-” here he emphasizes his point by moving his head and shoulders in time to his words, then continues, “so we wrote together. It wasn’t until two years after that that we decided to be a duo. We wrote a couple songs after [the party] and we both wrote the same way and clicked really well…”
“And we took the leap!” Dani finishes.
When asked about deciding on their name, Dani jokes that they “went down a very dark path” before settling on Ni/Co. “We went through a lot of really weird names. One was Zenith. That was almost our name.”
“Why might you have gone with Zenith?”
“It got to the point where we were just Googling names or words for things, phrases that we liked. I think Zenith is the ultimate pinnacle of something — do I have that right?” Dani looks to Colton, and he nods.
“It’s the pinnacle. And when we first started the duo, we wanted it to be to where we’re not just 50% and 50%, we wanted to be two one hundred percents coming together. So if Zenith is the pinnacle, so it’s like 100 and 100.”
“We both want to bring 100% of ourselves so that when we’re together we’re at 200%. Being together, we don’t want to let the other person down, so we push our hardest and tap into something within ourself that allows us to keep pushing and take risks that get us to where we want to be.”
Spending time with these two, it’s obvious that they provide balance to each other and the work that they are doing. I ask them what they want others to get from their music, and they answer in unison that they want people to feel something — anything.
Dani elaborates further. “We want them to leave the show and be listening to our album and feel something, think, be challenged a little bit. We’re going to make a lot of people uncomfortable with the way we look, the things we say, and the songs that we sing… but we want it to be a good challenge. We want to make people uncomfortable, but we want to make them think outside of where they usually think.”
“Whether it’s good or bad, we want them to go through a range of emotions. We don’t want to be shallow.” Colton says.
And while their goals are big, they’re also reasonable, and it seems they don’t mind taking their time. “Ultimately we’d like our music to be more generally accessible, selling out arenas… we haven’t released anything yet, but in a year or so we’d like to have several songs out, have something people can experience with us.”
Expanding on that, Dani says, “My one year goal is to be on a tour as the opening act by the end of the year — like a tour that we know and love and are super proud to be a part of, and see the world that way, as an opening act.”
Ni/Co hasn’t released anything other than covers on YouTube yet, but they are very excited about an upcoming Instagram promotion they have been hard at work on. Starting in February, they will be releasing 6 one-minute videos that intertwine into one story, all featuring original music.
image via Ni/Co
“Our aesthetic, looking at the two of us, we are challenging… but we want it to be a good challenge.”
Out of the music you listen to, who are your influences when you’re writing your music?”
“Beyonce, definitely!” Dani replies instantly, “But she’s more of an influence just for the Goddess I want to be. For writing, JoJo has to be my biggest one. I think we both like JoJo. Our writing lines up a lot with hers.”
“Yeah, I love the female vocals. I’ll write entire choruses for Dani that I could never have done myself.”
“But side note — he can sing higher than me.”
Colton continues, “Our sound that we love, at the core it’s pop music, but it leans urban. It has an R&B lean to it. Like she said, Jojo’s latest album, Kehlani’s record, even Justin Bieber. Early Chris Brown, early Rihanna…”
“We love our good throwback music.” Dani explains. “You know the song that comes on in the club and everyone’s freaking out — ‘this was my jam in middle school!’ — we’d love to have a song that makes people feel like that.”
“We build on each other. Where I’m weak, she’s strong, and vice versa. We’re very yin yang.”
If you had to sum up your experience working together so far in one word, what would you say?”
“Liberating.” Colton’s response is instantaneous. After a moment, Dani says, “Strength.”
“If you two weren’t musicians, what would you be doing career-wise?”
Both Dani and Colton are stumped by this. “Just… sad.”
“Whatever it was, it’d have to be creative.”
“Well, then, is there an art form that you admire and might be interested in learning at some point?”
“True painting and drawing — visual art.” Dani says, “That is something that blows my mind, when I look at paintings. I don’t know how they do it! I’d love to spend some time in Italy or France, taking an art class. I think that would be super out of my comfort zone, but I have so much respect for that kind of art.”
“If I could get myself to not burn out on focusing, I would definitely do some sort of creative writing or poetry.” This sparks a discussion on how funny it is that most people see poetry and lyrics as similar, but many poets frequently feel daunted by the thought of adding music to their words, while songwriters feel daunted by the idea of leaving music out of their words.
It’s all about personal perspective — and Dani and Colton are already living up to their goal of challenging others to think outside their boxes.
A good challenge, indeed.
Interested in seeing Ni/Co live in Nashville? They’re opening for Spazz Cardigan’s show on February 26th — get tickets here! Otherwise, stay tuned by following Ni/Co on Facebook & Instagram.
Enjoy what you just read?
Learn more about Meridian Creators here, give us a like on Facebook, & consider supporting our growth with a one-time donation through PayPal or a monthly one through Patreon! | https://medium.com/meridian-creators/two-hundred-percent-with-ni-co-87d3ee2a4148 | ['Taralei Griffin'] | 2018-01-25 16:33:30.351000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Interview', 'Journalism', 'Pop', 'Art'] |
What is the best IDE for developing in Dart and Flutter? | According to The State of the Octoverse report put out by GitHub based on data from users of its site, Dart — a client-optimized language developed by Google for mobile, desktop, backend, and web applications — experienced a 532% increase from 2018 to 2019, which was the highest jump overall (Rust came in second at a very respectable 235%).
With Dart (sometimes called Dartlang) being such a language on the rise with hoards of developers trying it out, the question arises: what is the best IDE for developing in Dart? For that matter, what about Flutter, which is Google’s UI development kit that uses the Dart language?
In this article, we will seek to answer these questions by presenting facts about each IDE (and text editor) as well as opinions from real users online; it will not be a comprehensive and complete look, but it will cover the basics. | https://medium.com/cloud-native-the-gathering/what-is-the-best-ide-for-developing-in-dart-and-flutter-1d9e6ec50343 | ['Tremaine Eto'] | 2020-07-02 16:59:21.415000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Coding'] |
Cleer bows the Crescent smart speaker and Enduro ANC noise-cancelling headphones | Cleer bows the Crescent smart speaker and Enduro ANC noise-cancelling headphones Larkeese Jan 15·2 min read
Cleer is a relative newcomer to the portable-audio market, but it has a well-regarded lineup that it’s looking to expand with two new products announced during CES: the Crescent smart speaker and the Enduro ANC headphone.
Let’s start with the Crescent smart speaker. The first thing you notice is its striking design, which clearly inspired its name. Eight 40mm full-range drivers and two 3.3-inch woofers sit within a sleek cabinet that’s reinforced with glass-fiber ribs to reduce vibrations and resonance.
[ Further reading: The best smart speakers and digital assistants ]Advanced beamforming technology offers a variety of listening experiences. For example, Wide Stereo Mode presents a wide soundstage that Cleer compares to sitting in a room with a hi-fi audio setup. Room Filling Mode disperses sound throughout the room when it’s time to party, while 3D Immersive Mode focuses the sound toward a single location, creating “the ultimate sweet spot.”
Cleer The Cleer Crescent smart speaker is powered by Google Assistant.
The Crescent supports high-res audio streaming in formats such as AAC, FLAC, WMA, and Apple Lossless, and it’s compatible with Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, and Chromecast. In addition to Wi-Fi, this speaker also offers 3.5mm, optical, and RJ25 inputs. You can control the Crescent using Google Assistant, and an optimized microphone array with noise rejection offers great far-field voice recognition.
The Crescent will carry a list price of $699.99 when it becomes available in late January 2021.
Next up is the Enduro ANC headphone. As its name clearly indicates, this over-the-ear Bluetooth headphone offers active noise cancellation (ANC) that attenuates extraneous noise by up to 25dB. New this year is an astounding battery life—60 hours of playback with ANC on between charges. According to Cleer, that’s double the industry-average battery life. Such advanced power-management capabilities are made possible by Qualcomm’s QCC5126 chip and the company’s software team.
In addition, the new Cleer Connect app lets you customize the Enduro’s noise cancellation. According to the company, you can adjust the balance between audio performance and limiting unwanted noise for different situations, such as traveling by airplane, train, or car; sitting in a cafe; or strolling outdoors.
Cleer The new Cleer Enduro headphones offer active noise cancellation and an astounding 60 hours of battery life.
The Enduro ANC features Cleer’s 40mm Ironless Driver, which is also used in the Flow II, reviewed here. The lightweight housing is made from high-grade molded plastic with ergonomically designed memory-foam earpads. Its slim, adjustable headband flexes without weakening, so the out-of-box pressure on the ears and head is just right.
The Enduro ANC will be available starting in February for a list price of $149.99.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@larkees59941640/cleer-bows-the-crescent-smart-speaker-and-enduro-anc-noise-cancelling-headphones-451322fc020e | [] | 2021-01-15 14:47:05.613000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Headphones', 'Connected Home', 'Lighting'] |
Burlington County Freeholders to recognize military veterans | Burlington County Freeholder director Bruce Garganio announced that 50 military veterans will participate in the Burlington County Military Service Medal Ceremony on Friday, April 25 at 11 a.m. at Burlington County College, Laurel Hall, Mt. Laurel Campus.
“This is an important event that recognizes county residents who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces and have not yet received their county medal,” Garganio said. “Approximately 10,000 County Service Medals have been awarded since the program began in 2002, but we continue to identify and reach out to those who have not been honored.”
“The ceremonies in and of themselves are emotional, uplifting events,” Garganio continued. “But the medals program also enables us to better identify veterans in the county, and make sure they have information regarding benefits and programs to which they may be entitled.”
“With thousands of Veteran Administration programs and benefits available to veterans, the Division of Military and Veterans’ Services aids residents in acquiring assistance and benefits such as pensions, education, job search support, unemployment, Dependent Indemnity Compensation, VA Health Care, VA Home Loans, vocational rehabilitation, and disability compensation and survivor benefits,” Garganio said.
“Our folks have helped county veterans and their families secure more than $18 million in new disability claims this year alone, and we average about $171 million in benefits county-wide annually,” Garganio said. “The number of claims we process for veterans is a true indication that this program has been successful.’’
Requirements for receiving a medal are current residency in the county and having been honorably discharged from U.S. military service. Veterans must register and be approved to receive a medal through the County Department of Military and Veterans Services. For more information, please call (609) 265–5008. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/burlington-county-freeholders-to-recognize-military-veterans-b00e95dc2f8d | [] | 2016-12-19 15:34:15.946000+00:00 | ['Bcc', 'Burlington County College', 'Burlington County', 'All News'] |
{Day 5} Old Habits Are Hard To Break - Accountability Is Key To Beating Procrastination. | Hello,
Yesterday we talked about dealing with people and things that try to derail our efforts to beat procrastination. Today I’m back with another tool for your toolbox. Accountability can help you stick to the plan and start making new habits. Here’s how having someone hold you accountable can help beat procrastination.
https://eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com/2020/08/bpc-day-5-old-habits-are-hard-to-break.html?m=1
To Your Success,
Kamharidah.
P.S.: Do you know someone that would like to get email tipsand join the challenge? Send them over to Eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com to Subscribe and Follow.
Don’t Miss A Post
In case you missed one of the emails and posts, here is what I’ve shared so far:
Day 1: https://eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com/2020/08/bpc-day-1-forgive-yourself-for.html?m=1
Day 2 : https://eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com/2020/08/bpc-day-2-set-goal-write-it-down-get.html?m=1
Day 3; https://eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com/2020/08/bpc-day-3-7-hacks-to-motivate-yourself.html?m=1
Day 4 - http://eccentricperceptions.blogspot.com/2020/08/bpc-day-4-dont-let-things-or-people.html?m=1 | https://medium.com/@kamharida/day-5-old-habits-are-hard-to-break-accountability-is-key-to-beating-procrastination-254a9f0a970e | [] | 2020-08-07 08:41:32.221000+00:00 | ['Self Help', 'Challenge', 'Self Development', 'Procrastination', 'Life Hacks'] |
10 Ideas To Improve Organic Traffic On Your Website– Stuff That Really Works | People often think if they have just built a website then people will going to come and visit their website but unfortunately, this is not how it works. They think that Google will be going to serve them in some magical way and help them get organic traffic on their website.
Building traffic takes a lot of time and energy and a proper SEO strategy for your website. This is a hard truth one needs to learn that you will not be going to get leads if you are not getting any traffic on your website.
So let’s dig down a bit to know what are the best ways in which you can improve organic traffic to your website.
Invite Guest Bloggers
You can invite other people to guest blog on your website this is a good way of building organic traffic onto your website by leveraging the power of the traffic of the audience of the other website.
So you want to invite other people to guest blog on your website and the chances are they are going to share and promote it and be driving traffic onto your website and also create awesome backlinks for Google. Only post high quality original content without any spammy links. Because Google has all the ways and methods to crack down low quality content on your website. So make sure that you post high quality original content on your website.
Start Creating Referral Links
You need to create content that begs to be linked to and then you want to network and cross share so that other people will link to your blog articles. Find articles on the web that are on a similar topic as yours and ask them to link to. Sometimes it involves a lot of hard work as there may be a lot of emailing involved back and forth and you need to take regular follow-ups. It might be a little tedious but the hard work really pays off if you are successful at getting some quality links from those websites. This will definitely help you to get quality backlinks and bring organic traffic to your website.
Leverage LinkedIn Platform
Over the years LinkedIn has really become a viable and valuable platform and it can really boost organic traffic onto your website. Try to make a following on LinkedIn and try to put really valuable content on LinkedIn in the form of articles and make sure you backlink traffic from those articles onto your website and make sure to add URL of your website at the footer of every article that you put on LinkedIn. Everything you put on LinkedIn should have to refer link back to your website.
Interview Market Leaders or Influencers
Interview industry thought leaders on your domain by having great names on your website will surely increase the organic traffic onto your website. People you are going to interview will share the links to those interviews with their audience on various social platforms. It will definitely help build the reputation of your website as the name of your website will get associated with the industry influencers. It’s a great way to build a network on the internet and get in touch with other famous personalities.
Work On Technical SEO
This is one of the most obvious things to look for from an SEO perspective but still some people tend to ignore it. Always make sure that your website is fast, responsive, and works on mobile. Google downgrades sites that are not responsive so your website needs to be responsive. There is a whole lot of traffic coming from mobile so your website being mobile-friendly is a must. Also, if you have heavy images or video files on your website then the site pages will take more time to load. A website that takes time to respond leads to a bad user experience so you need to optimize the speed of your website for a great user experience. These small things can make a huge difference to improve the SEO of your website.
Update and add content to your site regularly so that Google can see that it is an active website and it will upgrade it in its search results.
Use Lead Magnets
Make sure you give some freebies and sharable stuff that can act as a lead magnet for your audience. You need to create social media teaser posts to drive traffic to your landing pages to download a pdf, checklist, or a free webinar and make sure that your brand, URL, Contact information should be there on your lead magnets. Because if your lead magnet is being shared far and wide it will help you reach out to a wider audience.
Stay On Top Of The Things
It makes a lot of sense to speak or write what people out there want to listen to or read and stay updated with the latest trends in the industry. You can use Google Trends or Buzzsumo to get familiar with the latest trends and to know what is resonating with people and what is being talked about. This is a great way to stay on top of the competition if you are posting your content related to that.
Have Online Visibility
You need to increase your visibility by attending digital conferences, webinars, getting interviewed on podcasts, and attending physical conferences. You need to be seen on the network to introduce yourself. If you are out of sight you are out of people’s minds. You can also leverage other people’s audiences by getting interviews on podcasts and other people’s YouTube channels.
Write Great Headlines
There is so much competition out there so in order to get noticed you need to learn how to write irresistible headlines. Research the subject lines that are very successful and use the same principles to grab the eyeballs of the audience on the social media platforms using numbers, secrets, or little-known words.
Deep Analyze Your Traffic Sources
People tend to ignore the source of their traffic. You need to analyze the traffic where it is coming from, whether it is coming from social media, backlinks, or any other source. What is it where you are putting energy into it but not getting the necessary results? From all sources, your competitor is driving traffic, and Where he is doing better than you. You need to put a thorough strategy in place in order to drive organic traffic to your website. | https://medium.com/@heavengoldinfotech/10-ideas-to-improve-organic-traffic-on-your-website-stuff-that-really-works-78b8d5ea2c42 | ['Harry Mont'] | 2021-12-31 11:55:37.030000+00:00 | ['Smm Services', 'Website Design', 'Seo Services', 'Seo Traffic Website', 'Digital Marketing Agency'] |
Some developing stories… | Case count: There are over 16.9 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and over 74.3 million confirmed cases worldwide. So far over 307,512 Americans have died from Covid-19. There are surely more.
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VP Mike Pence will be vaccinated publicly: Vice President Mike Pence and his wife will receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on Friday, according to the White House, in order to “promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and build confidence among the American people.”
Vice President Mike Pence and his wife will receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on Friday, according to the White House, in order to “promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and build confidence among the American people.” The French president tests positive for the coronavirus: President Emmanuel Macron of France has tested positive for Covid-19 and will work in isolation for the next seven days. Mr. Macron, 42, is not known to suffer from any medical problems.
President Emmanuel Macron of France has tested positive for Covid-19 and will work in isolation for the next seven days. Mr. Macron, 42, is not known to suffer from any medical problems. FDA says Pfizer vaccine vials hold extra doses: The Pfizer Covid-19 vials are supposed to hold five doses, but pharmacists are finding there’s enough for a sixth or even a seventh dose. The FDA says these doses can be used. Read more.
The Pfizer Covid-19 vials are supposed to hold five doses, but pharmacists are finding there’s enough for a sixth or even a seventh dose. The FDA says these doses can be used. Read more. FDA intends to grant emergency authorization for Moderna vaccine: The Covid-19 vaccine made by Moderna could receive emergency-use authorization as early as Thursday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci told CNBC on Wednesday.
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Have a Covid-19 question? Check out our Q&A page. | https://medium.com/@snpranto75/some-developing-stories-2b219802d2d6 | [] | 2020-12-17 22:25:36.744000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Updates'] |
‘Moon Over’ Alert: Racing to the Rescue | Russian teen Dima and his American lover Ian are hiding out on Santorini, unaware Dima’s Soviet-general father is rushing to find them. All the characters are coming together. Get set for a thrilling conclusion!
Click here to read the chapter —
Author’s Notes:
Borin probably won’t notice, being a fighter pilot and necessarily resistant to motion sickness, but the Mediterranean is not always a pleasant place to journey by yacht. Wind and waves are often fierce, and my own experiences have sometimes involved hanging over rails and praying my stomach would stop turning inside out.
The huge inter-island ferries are one thing. They’re big enough that rolling over waves is less pronounced. But once you board a smaller craft on the Med, you face an important question. Are you a sea person or not? I am not!
Oh, and on to more pleasant subjects, have you ever woken up and suddenly just KNEW the solution to a problem you’ve been chewing on? That’s a fairly common phenomenon. Looks like Juliette is going through it. Interestingly, I have been very unhappy with the last sentence of this novel. I woke up a couple days ago, and a perfect sentence popped into my head. I think it works. Before long, you can let me know if I’m right! | https://medium.com/@jfinn6511/moon-over-alert-racing-to-the-rescue-7760dbbeb36e | ['James Finn'] | 2020-03-07 16:44:41.273000+00:00 | ['Gay', 'Military', 'Greece', 'LGBTQ', 'Fiction'] |
Is the Pandemic Setting Women Back to the 1950s? | Is the Pandemic Setting Women Back to the 1950s?
Previously published on Forbes
Now that we are over nine months into the global pandemic, it’s time to take stock and get more creative. It’s time to pay attention to the women leaders you work with, because they have been singularly derailed with small people clamoring for their attention as they have tried to balance working from home and life at home.
For most working mothers, it’s an untenable situation, and we’re already seeing the fallout.
“The year 2020, marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, was intended to be ground-breaking for gender equality,” a UN Policy brief about the impact of the pandemic on women notes. “Instead, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, even the limited gains made in the past decades are at risk of being rolled back. The pandemic is deepening pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic.”
Women in every kind of work are being adversely impacted. Female academics are submitting far fewer papers for academic journals, as Caroline Kitchener details at The Lily, a publication for women produced by The Washington Post. In her New York Times article They Go to Mommy First, Jessica Grose writes, “Moms are the emotional barometers for the household, and they’re managing an unseen amount of extra work, thinking about child care, dentist appointments and the happiness of their children, even when men are making an effort.”
Grose points out that women are still the default caregivers for young children and aging parents, and as a result, a disproportionate number of women might end up staying at home while men go back to work.
These trends are disheartening, but I’ve always said, never waste a good crisis.
In an ideal world, recovery from the global pandemic could lead to a more equitable workplace environment, one that is more resilient in future crises.
With all of this in mind, let’s focus on what can be done in this extraordinary time to shore up the working moms.
Relate to the Issue as Your Problem to Solve
If you are a leader in an organization, whether you are a woman or a mom or not, relate to this issue as if it is your problem. Don’t leave it to the moms to figure out. Take responsibility for designing creative solutions with the moms who work with you.
Slow down or postpone work and sales growth expectations. Slow everything down and lead by example. Stop working all weekend. Reduce your working hours, which will reduce the hours your team has to respond to you.
Ask the Women What They Need
Get personal. Ask the women what challenges they are facing. Don’t assume that one size fits all. Instead, involve them in the solutions. In our small firm, we have two moms who are now reluctant home-school teachers. We asked them what they need to create more workability in their lives. One team member took a paid six-week leave of absence to sort herself and her family situation out in the early days of lockdown and schools being canceled. After that, she determined that going part-time was the right answer — for now. The other woman on our team scaled back her client work by 40% to make time for her health and her two young boys who are at home full time. Most importantly, neither of these women will be judged harshly for their decisions. We are in full support of them.
Mom: Stop Doing it All
Here’s the kicker: We’ve earned the freedom to have children and a successful career, but it’s still us doing a lot of the housework and cooking and cleaning.
We need to ask for more help at home.
Our partners have to step up and step in. Sit down with your partner and kids and negotiate the household tasks. Create consequences if family members don’t do their chores. And make sure it’s on everyone. You can’t become the family nag. That takes too much energy, and then you might as well do it yourself.
Get Creative with Schooling
We just never imagined our lives without teachers for our children. And no matter our complaints about the education system, not having school at all is untenable. But the longer schools are closed, the more women will be forced to leave work. We have to think bigger. One mom on our team has engaged in a pod of four children and their families. They have hired a teacher to work with the students three days a week — observing social distancing and mask-wearing.
These are just a few ideas to get you to focus on an important issue — women and work. I know you can get even more creative. | https://medium.com/swlh/is-the-pandemic-setting-women-back-to-the-1950s-bdf4c6651791 | ['Dede Henley'] | 2020-12-04 17:06:27.807000+00:00 | ['WFH', 'Women In Business', 'Leadership Skills', 'Gender Equality', 'Leadership Coaching'] |
Netflix Movie Review: Mank | A NETFLIX MOVIE REVIEW
Netflix Movie Review: Mank
I chose to watch this film, not from a desire to learn more about Citizen Kane or the character Herman Mankiewicz, but initially to learn more about my craft, writing. Stephen Dalton Dec 10, 2020·5 min read
Mank & Marion Davies from the Daily Mail Source
Though the movie is not for everyone, the writer can take a lot from the many adages or “zingers” delivered by notable writers, directors, producers, and other movie personalities portrayed in the film.
One of those is when Houseman tells Mank, “Tell the story, you know,” to which Mank replies, “I don’t know that writer.”
Coincidentally, after watching, I read Joel Eisenberg’s Why “Write What You Know” is Meaningless Advice For Content Creators. Which, by the way, was really hard to read without your brain wanting to read it in Rod Serling’s (The Twilight Zone) voice.
Another adage I found funny was, “I don’t mind the heat; it’s the humanity.”
Since reading The Storm of the Century, Stephen King’s screenplay, I’ve wanted to write one. I think it would give me a chance to “show” the audience what I am seeing.
Yeah, I’m probably a little delusional, but that’s what ran through my mind as I considered a screenplay and why I wanted to see this movie. I hoped to get a better feel for writing a movie script. It didn’t work out that way, but I enjoyed the movie.
An Introduction
If you’re not familiar with Herman Mankiewicz, he was a screenplay writer in Depression-era Hollywood. Citizen Kane was about the millionaire William Randolph Hearst, or WR as LB, Louis B. Mayer calls him in the movie.
In WR’s youth, he shared his Socialist political philosophy with Upton Sinclair, but as a grown-up, wealthy newspaper owner, his mindset is totally different.
The film’s introduction, “1930’s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing wit and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish ‘Citizen Kane.’ ”
We’re pulled into the movie by onscreen dialogue, “In 1940, at the tender age of 24, Orson Welles was lured to Hollywood by a struggling RKO Pictures with a contract befitting his formidable storytelling talent.
He was given absolute creative autonomy, would suffer no oversight, and could make any movie, about any subject, with any collaboration he wished…”
The Protagonist
The protagonist is Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz, played by Gary Oldman, a screenwriter hired by Orson Welles to “ghostwrite” a screenplay for an epic movie.
Although the terms of the contract are never stated outright, Mank gets $2500 per week to write the script within 60 days, but the credit for the writing will go to Orson Welles, which is standard for a ghostwriting contract. Nowadays, writers typically have to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA), probably because of some of what you will see in this movie.
Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) desperately needs a blockbuster movie to compete with MGM and Warner Brothers, so they gave that chore to Orson Welles, who hires Mank.
The Plot
The plot, according to Rotten Tomatoes, “Sharply written and brilliantly performed, Mank peers behind the scenes of Citizen Kane to tell an old Hollywood story that could end up being a classic in its own right.”
Mank, a trailer:
YouTube Video Source Netflix
Since it’s not mine, if you enjoy the trailer, “like” or subscribe.
John Houseman, who will produce the movie, sets Mank up in an alcohol-free house with a nurse and a stenographer, Rita, to write while he recovered from a broken leg. Rita soon sees the similarities between the character in the script and Hearst.
One of the substories is the California Governor’s race between Sinclair, a Democratic Socialist, and Frank Merriam, a Republican. MGM runs several smear ads or spots against Sinclair. Mank realizes that many of the people who get interviewed by reporters are actors reading a script, not actual voters at all.
The Characters
The characters beyond Mank include Marion Davies (Hearst’s mistress, excellently portrayed by Amanda Seyfried), William Randolph Hearst (played by Charles Dance, Lord Tywin Lannister of GoT fame), “Poor Sara” (Tuppence Middleton), who’s “back east,” Orson Welles (Tom Burke), Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), Rita, the stenographer (played by Lily Jane Collins, daughter of Phil Collins), Mank’s brother Joe, and a host of others. It’s a marvelous cast of characters who play their parts very well. IMO.
My Recommendation
As I stated earlier, although I really enjoyed it, this movie is not for everyone. In fact, one YouTube trailer and review by Cinema Blend is based on that premise, Mank Review: David Fincher’s New Netflix Movie Isn’t for Everyone.
However, I think “cinephiles” and writers will like it.
And Sara Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com Top Critic says, “Fincher’s latest is a disappointing slice of Hollywood hooey.” But, Wenlei Ma, News.com.au Top Critic, says, “More than a magnificent technical achievement, Mank is hypnotically entertaining.” So, expect something in between these extremes.
YouTube Video Source CinemaBlend
Once again, this is not my trailer or review, so if you like it, subscribe or otherwise show your appreciation.
Mark my words, Mank will receive as many (nine) Oscar nominations as Citizen Kane, but I believe it will win more than the one (Best Original Screenplay) that Kane did.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure statement for additional information.
About the Author Photo by Jean Springs from Pexels
Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Top Writer in Fiction, Short Story, VR, Design, & Creativity. Editor of Pop Off, Top Dalton’s Blog, 100WordStory, B.O.S.S., and SportsShorts100WordsOnly
You can see his portfolio here. Email [email protected]
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Reddit | Ko-fi | https://popoff.us/netflix-movie-review-mank-d4ff46cc0da | ['Stephen Dalton'] | 2020-12-10 03:59:39.853000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Filmmaking', 'Movie Review', 'Mank', 'Citizen Kane'] |
You Mean Your Holiday Cards Aren’t Personalized? | You Mean Your Holiday Cards Aren’t Personalized?
Photo credit: Shutterstock
By Gavin Lodge
You mean your holiday cards aren’t personalized? That’s cool. No judgment.
So…the following conversation took place between my blogging bestie and me. It started out innocently enough. I mentioned my feeling that people should sign Christmas cards…even if it’s just writing the recipient’s name and “xo”.
But my friend (blogger Keeper of the Fruit Loops) says, “ain’t nobody got time for that.” Keep in mind, she’s a Christmas over-achiever to the Martha Stewart degree.
We quickly devolved into sarcastic hilarity. No hard feelings for anyone (including readers). But I thought it was post-worthy. Feel free to weigh in on the debate. If we agree, you get a gold star. If we disagree, well…you’re wrong. But we are still friends, and I’ll still send you a Christmas card (personalized).
ECKnox: I need to do my Christmas cards.
Keeper of the Fruit Loops: That’s on my list, too. Ugh.
ECK: I know. It’s so much work. Does anyone care?
KFL: I like getting them.gn r
ECK: Yeah. It’s nice.
KFL: I’m getting mine out tomorrow.
ECK: Shut up.
KFL: Suck it. I got them the other day.
ECK: I’m trying to figure out if I can blog about my annoyance with people who don’t personalize and sign their cards…without offending my few friends who do this. And no one wants to read some sanctimonious soapbox diatribe.
KFL: <unseals ECK Christmas card and writes trite note>
ECK: LOL. Seriously suppressing laughter in Starbucks.
KLF: LMAO
ECK: I KNOW you don’t pull this. You’re Xmas overachiever. But if you do — you DESERVE to read my soapbox diatribe.
KLF: Wait. Are you talking about photo cards, too? I am so guilty, then.
ECK: ABSOLUTELY!!! YOU HAVE TO SIGN THEM AND AT LEAST PERSONALIZE IT BY WRITING MY NAME. YOU MEAN YOUR HOLIDAY CARDS AREN’T PERSONALIZED? WHAT IS THE F’ING POINT OF SENDING GLAMOUR SHOTS OF FAUX FAMILY HAPPY MOMENTS WITHOUT AT LEAST LETTING THE PERSON KNOW YOU TOOK 30 F’ING SECONDS TO THINK ABOUT THEM. TO REALLY REFLECT AND WRITE OUT THE LETTER OF THEIR NAME?
Omg. I cannot believe I’m yelling at you about this. You’re kidding, right? Just call me Mr. Manners. I know. Gays. So belligerent about shit that doesn’t matter.
KLF: Your anger is palpable. I’m peeing I’m laughing so hard.
ECK: I know. My anger is real. Clearly, this requires a liquor-fueled debate. Come to NYC tomorrow.
KLF: I can’t. I have 125 CARDS TO PERSONALIZE!
ECK: I have 143. It’s called double-tasking “Homeland” after the kids are asleep.
KLF: Double-tasking? How is that any more personal?
ECK: I’m not hand-writing 100 letters like my mom did, 20 years ago. But it’s the act of taking time and thinking about your close friends.
KLF: I handwrite the addresses. Is that enough?
ECK: Uhhh…slight consolation prize. Literally the most impersonal part of the card process. Omg, is this our first fight? We’ll get over it. Are you weeping?
KLF: Weeping, yes. From laughing at you.
ECK: Writing on the envelope? Well, barely. It’s something. But it should be on the card.
KLF: Your outrage is palpable and it’s making me pee my pants.
ECK: It’s unjust. UNJUST I tell you. Just, “here’s a card of my famulous life that’s so full of fun and I’m so rich and have tons of passion in my life and I travel to the Mediterranean thrice yearly and I’m ust going to make a robot rub all my success in your facewithout reaching out to show I actually care by WRITING A SIMPLE X AND O DIRECTED TO YOU, JUST YOU.”
KFL: i even used the two gay guys for your stamp. THATS PERSONALIZATION.
KFL (continued): But when will you actually send your cards? February? That’s offensive. MINE GO OUT TOMORROW, BUDDY.
ECK: Mine might arrive before Christmas. Sometimes the 24th. But THEY WILL BE
P
E
R
S
O
N
A
L
I
Z
E
D
That took forever to write.
KFL: Mine better not suck.
ECK: Gay stamp is hilarious. Fine.
KFL: Don’t be a gay stamp hater.
ECK: Peppermint Patty would have been gayer.
KFL: But riddle me this? Xmas letters?
ECK: I’ll write them.
KFL: WHAT? I loathe them. So help me, if you send me one…
ECK: No, no, no. Not for you. Or people I’m close to. Or even regular Facebook friends.
KFL: Why bother?
ECK: For people I’m really out of contact w? And 70-year-olds?
KFL: But what do you write?
ECK: Sometimes just their names and x and o and my name.
KFL: How on earth is that PERSONAL?
ECK: Because I took the time! Once a year, our relationship meant enough to me to take 30 seconds to write directly to you. I thought about you, your face was in my mind, I took a moment to reflect on us; on you. So even if it’s “x” and “o”, it was for you. And that’s important.
KFL: I can’t even believe I’m saying this: I’m taking every GD card out and singing our GD names. I CANNOT BE AN UNDERACHIEVER. DAMN YOU.
Clearly, ECKnox won this debate. Making the world one righteous soapbox at a time. Wait. You mean your holiday cards aren’t personalized?
Epilogue…
A few more choice texting tid-bits
And finally…
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.
—
About Gavin Lodge
Gavin Lodge is a father/writer/designer/actor trying not to fall short on all simultaneous fronts. He lives in New York City with his partner and two children and co-chairs his kids’ PTA while auditioning for TV, film and Broadway. He is the founder of E.C.Knox, baby gear for stylish dads, a company empowering proud fathers who want to maintain their sense of style along with their pride in parenting. | https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/you-mean-your-holiday-cards-arent-personalized-546ec7ade423 | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-24 14:36:00.626000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Friendship', 'Life Lessons', 'Holidays', 'Stress'] |
JavaScript without “this” looks like a better functional programming language | this is of course the source of much confusion in JavaScript. The reason being that this depends on how the function was invoked, not where the function was defined.
JavaScript without this looks like a better functional programming language.
this losing context
Methods are functions that are stored in objects. In order for a function to know on which object to work, this is used. this represents the function’s context.
this loses context in many situations. It loses context inside nested functions, it loses context in callbacks.
Let’s take the case of a timer object. The timer objects waits for the previous call to finish before making a new call. It implements the recursive setTimeout pattern. In the next example, in nested functions and callbacks, this loses context:
class Timer {
constructor(callback, interval){
this.callback = callback;
this.interval = interval;
this.timerId = 0;
}
executeAndStartTimer(){
this.callback().then(function startNewTimer(){
this.timerId =
setTimeout(this.executeAndStartTimer, this.interval);
});
}
start(){
if(this.timerId === 0){
this.executeAndStartTimer();
}
} stop(){
if(this.timerId !== 0){
clearTimeout(this.timerId);
this.timerId = 0;
}
}
} const timer = new Timer(getTodos, 2000);
timer.start();
console.log("call");
return fetch("
} function getTodos(){console.log("call");return fetch(" https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos ");
this loses context when the method is used as an event handler. Let’s take the case of a React component that builds a search query. In both methods, used as event handlers, this loses context:
class SearchForm extends React.Component {
handleChange(event) {
const newQuery = Object.freeze({ text: event.target.value });
this.setState(newQuery);
} search() {
const newQuery = Object.freeze({ text: this.state.text });
if (this.props.onSearch) this.props.onSearch(newQuery);
} render() {
return (
<form>
<input onChange={this.handleChange} value={this.state.text} />
<button onClick={this.search} type="button">Search</button>
</form>
);
}
}
There are many solutions for these issues : the bind() method, the that/self pattern, the arrow function.
For more on how to fix this related issue issues, take a look at What to do when “this” loses context.
this has no encapsulation
this creates security problems. All members declared on this are public.
class Timer {
constructor(callback, interval){
this.timerId = "secret";
}
} const timer = new Timer();
timer.timerId; //secret
No this, no custom prototypes
What if, instead of trying to fix this losing context and security problems, we get rid of it all together?
Removing this has a set of implications.
No this basically means no class , no function constructor, no new , no Object.create() .
Removing this means no custom prototypes in general.
A Better Language
JavaScript is both a functional programming language and a prototype-based language. If we get rid of this , we are left with JavaScript as a functional programming language. That is even better.
At the same time, without this , JavaScript offers a new, unique way, of doing Object Oriented Programming without classes and inheritance.
Object Oriented Programming without this
The questions is how to build objects without this .
There will be two kind of objects:
pure data objects
behavior objects
Pure Data Objects
Pure data objects contain only data and have no behavior.
Any computed field will be fill-in at creation.
Pure data objects should be immutable. We need to Object.freeze() them at creation .
Behavior Objects
Behavior objects will be collections of closures sharing the same private state.
Let’s create the Timer object in a this -less approach.
function Timer(callback, interval){
let timerId; function executeAndStartTimer(){
callback().then(function makeNewCall(){
timerId = setTimeout(executeAndStartTimer, interval);
});
} function stop(){
if(timerId){
clearTimeout(timerId);
timerId = 0;
}
} function start(){
if(!timerId){
executeAndStartTimer();
}
} return Object.freeze({
start,
stop
});
} const timer = Timer(getTodos, 2000);
timer.start();
The timer object has two public methods: start and stop . Everything else is private. There are no this losing context problems as there is no this .
For more on why to favor a this -less approach when building behavior objects take a look at Class vs Factory function: exploring the way forward.
Memory
The prototype system is better at memory conservation. All methods are created only once in the prototype object and shared by all instances.
The memory cost of building behavior objects using closures is noticeable when creating thousands of the same object. In an application we have a few behavior objects. If we take for example a store behavior object, there will be only one instance of it in the application, so there’s no extra memory cost when using closures to built it.
In an application there may be hundreds or thousand of pure data objects. The pure data objects don’t use closures, so no memory cost.
Components without this
this may be required by many components’ frameworks, like React or Vue for example.
In React, we can create stateless functional components, without this , as pure functions.
function ListItem({ todo }){
return (
<li>
<div>{ todo.title}</div>
<div>{ todo.userName }</div>
</li>
);
}
We can also create stateful components without this with React Hooks. Take a look at the next example:
import React, { useState } from "react"; function SearchForm({ onSearch }) {
const [query, setQuery] = useState({ text: "" }); function handleChange(event) {
const newQuery = Object.freeze({ text: event.target.value });
setQuery(newQuery);
} function search() {
const newQuery = Object.freeze({ text: query.text });
if (onSearch) onSearch(newQuery);
} return (
<form>
<input type="text" onChange={handleChange} />
<button onClick={search} type="button">Search</button>
</form>
);
};
Removing arguments
If we get rid of this , we should also get rid of arguments as they have the same dynamic binding behavior.
Getting rid of arguments is pretty simple. We just use the new rest parameter syntax. This time the rest parameter is an array object:
function addNumber(total, value){
return total + value;
} function sum(...args){
return args.reduce(addNumber, 0);
} sum(1,2,3); //6
Conclusion
The best way to avoid this related problems is to not use this at all.
JavaScript without this can be a better functional programming language.
We can build encapsulated objects, without using this , as collections of closures.
With React Hooks we can create this -less stateful components. | https://medium.com/programming-essentials/removing-javascripts-this-keyword-makes-it-a-better-language-here-s-why-db28060cc086 | ['Cristian Salcescu'] | 2020-07-16 05:22:51.900000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript', 'Technology'] |
Show Your Expectations, Who’s The Boss | “How To Handle My Expectations Which Pull Me Down To Dark and Dead-end Road”
Photo by Matt Sclarandis on Unsplash
I read something nice about expectations on Psychologies by Eleanor Tucker:
Alexia Leachman, life coach and part of the Head Trash team, thinks that when we are affected like this by expectations, it’s because of how we choose to interpret what’s happened. ‘It’s common in relationships. If our other half gets us a practical birthday present, like a new set of saucepans, instead of a nice piece of jewelry, we immediately assume that they don’t love us. Whereas, in their head, they might be thinking, “She likes cooking and she’s always talking about how rubbish our saucepans are. I’ll get her a new set, she’ll love that.” They are thinking about your needs and what would make your life better — so it’s the interpretation that’s causing the issue. Once we focus on what we are grateful for — a fabulous new set of saucepans and a partner who has recognized your love of cooking — the lack of jewelry becomes less relevant.’
In this story, there is an important lesson that we can take with us all through all parts of our life. Expectations should be avoided, else they can cause anguish for all gatherings included. I have told about my story related to high expectations, haven’t read it yet? Check it out on here!
So, do you ever have the same experience as mine? Feel like you were high on hope, and then realized that you and “that person” are not on the same boat.
I believe at least once in a lifetime, you have felt it. Regardless of whether we understood at the time that expectations were the culprit. Yet, we can deal with the expectations that could emerge in our life, so we aren’t influenced by their outcomes.
So I began by expressing that there are two different ways that desires can shackle you, it’s an ideal opportunity to dig further into every one of them!
The main kind of expectation is the point at which you have expectations for other people. And the second, is the point at which others store expectations upon you.
Knowing every one of these expected traps, and all the more significantly how you can dodge them, is a fundamental ability that will work well for you as you experience your day, from business to family and everything in the middle. When you being to remember them, you’ll be astounded at how regularly during your time expectations are having an effect on everything.
So, how to deal with your own expectations?
Photo by Yasin Yusuf on Unsplash
Well, I’m still learning tho. When we comprehend that our own expectations are nothing more than our best guesses sculpted into theory. These best speculations are truly at their center our profoundly held feelings stirred up with a major scramble of expectation. And you know what? I found these ways to avoid having unrealistic expectations (I need to imply these ways in my own life), shout out to Alli Worthington for these amazing ways!
The first one is, never assume, just ask. If all else fails, inquire. Ask your companion, associate, youngster, ask what it is they need or need in a specific circumstance. It’s so natural to accept that your mate will need their number one feast for their birthday supper. However they may very well need to clean up.
It’s anything but difficult to expect your associate knows precisely to whom you need your reminder messaged; yet they may send it to some unacceptable division. Spare yourself time and exertion; ask ahead of time.
And then, understand that eliminating expectations from your connections, both personally and professionally, isn’t just wise, but also kind. Being misjudged never feels better. People, even the most anti-social one among us, truly blossom with feeling that they are associated with others.
At the point when expectations are extended onto others, the results can be entirely awkward when the suppositions come up short and they feel that they’ve not satisfied.
Last but not least, appreciate what your life resembles today. This isn’t about expectations for other people; this is tied in with having expectations for yourself.
All around very regularly we contrast ourselves with others and miss the mark somehow. At that point move in those dreams a lot that truly are only expectations in camouflage like,
“When I get that raise, I’ll be cheerful.” “Whenever we’re hitched, I’ll feel substance and like my life has truly started.” “All I require to be satisfied is x, y, z.”
Probably not. Revel in the day you have today. Try not to confuse expectations with goals. Goals are astounding and as a guidance, I’m supportive of them; conversely, expectations simply cause people to feel terrible.
Okay, we already learn about how to control or manage our expectations. Lesson learned. Noted!
But, can we manage other people’s expectations toward us?
Somewhat it would be more troublesome than dealing with our own expectations is overseeing others’ expectations for us. Yet, you can do it, and it is totally worth putting your time and energy into.
How? By being proactive in key territories.
First, you can try to impart, try to communicate. In business, try to over-impart, talk more. Impart repetitively. Impart like there’s no tomorrow. Tell others precisely what your limits are, the point at which you’re accessible or not, your firm limits, where you are a lot not adaptable, your schedule, and so forth, try not to surrender anything to risk.
In life, it is similarly as critical to over-speak with others outside of work as inside. Much the same as you need to tell others what your limits are, what your arrangements are and your inclinations, it is essential to impart every one of these things and more to your loved ones. On the off chance that nobody realizes how to satisfy you, they everybody loses.
For example, you want to visit your friend. In the event that your friend knows when you are dropping by and precisely how long you will remain, at that point she/he is more averse to envision you remaining longer and feeling hurt when you leave.
The second one, foresee the problems. In business, for large undertakings, some of the time it merits putting shortly “catastrophizing.” That is, envisioning about six most pessimistic scenario situations and how you they could happen. At that point eloquent to your group a couple of central issues that guarantee those situations don’t occur.
In life, this means non-business circumstances too, for example, a family excursion or home redesign. My better half is the ruler of foreseeing each conceivable result and being ready for everything and settling on choices to guarantee things work out in a good way.
And last, know the predispositions of others. In business, think about any regular history or relationship you may have had with them; do they give you any hints regarding their point of view? This probably addresses how they are going to the circumstance with previously established inclinations; assumptions oil the wheels for desires. In this situation, you can utilize desires as circumstances. Not exclusively would you be able to envision what they may expect, you can under-guarantee and over-convey. Shared benefit!
In life, knowing where your loved ones remain on specific issues and their center convictions can assist you with having empathy for and discuss better with them.
That’s it!
Exercise your authority over your expectations, don’t ever let your expectations sit behind the wheel, steering you through life! And DO NOT EVER equate goals and expectations. Goals are not the same as expectations! Goals are concrete based upon reality and facts, expectations are beliefs based upon hope and opinions.
You’ll feel enabled once you being executing the procedures, for both taking out expectations for other people, and for not permitting others to have expectations for you.
As what I said before, I am still learning to handle these expectations of mine and other’s expectations toward me. It’s not easy, I know. But it’s also not impossible. So, expect moderately! | https://medium.com/@marthaagustina/show-your-expectations-whos-the-boss-6b510e2f6663 | ['Martha Agustine'] | 2020-12-09 12:02:32.669000+00:00 | ['Life Hacking', 'Advice', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Expectations'] |
Two Years in a Snap — RAPIDS Release 0.16 | RAPIDS cuGRAPH
In release 0.16, cuGraph kicked off three major long-term themes. The first is to go big. We have shifted to a new 2D data model that removes the 2 billion vertex limitation and offers better performance and scaling into the 100TB+ graph range. The first multi-node multi-GPU (MNMG) algorithms updated to use the new data model are PageRank, SSSP, BFS, and Louvain.
The second theme is to go wide, by expanding our supported input data models. In 0.16, we are happy to announce that NetworkX graph objects are now valid data types into our algorithms. We are still expanding interoperability between cuGraph and NetworkX and moving to support CuPy and other data types. The last theme is to go small and develop a collection of graph primitives. The primitives support both single GPU and multi-GPU workflows and allow us to have a single code base for both.
RAPIDS Memory Manager (RMM)
RMM 0.16 focused on reduced fragmentation for multithreaded usage, and CMake improvements. This release includes a ton of CMake improvements from contributor Kai Germaschewski that make it easier to use RMM in other CMake-based projects (and more improvements to come!). It also includes a new arena memory resource that reduces fragmentation when many threads share a single GPU, as well as improvements to the pool memory resource to reduce the impact of fragmentation. Another new memory resource is the `limiting_resource_adaptor`, which allows you to impose a maximum memory usage on any `device_memory_resource`. We have improved diagnostics with debug and trace logging, currently supported in the pool_memory_resource. A new simulated memory resource allows running the RMM log replayer benchmark with a simulated larger memory, which can help with diagnosing out-of-memory errors and fragmentation problems. And last, but definitely not least, by removing previously deprecated functionality, librmm is now a header-only library.
RAPIDS Dask-cuDF
For the 0.16 release, Dask-cuDF added an optimized groupby aggregation path when applying many aggregations. Previously, for each aggregation operation, dask-cudf would run serially against the groupby object. Now, Dask-cuDF will call the aggregation operations in parallel on the GPU. This is a big step forward for performance.
RAPIDS cuSignal
cuSignal 0.16 focuses on benchmarking, testing, and performance. We now have 100% API coverage within our PyTest suite — ensuring that deployed features are numerically comparable to SciPy Signal. Further, via our performance studies, we found multiple functions that were better suited to ElementWise CuPy CUDA kernels versus standard CuPy functions — resulting in 2–4x performance gains over cuSignal 0.15.
BlazingSQL
It’s now easier than ever to get started with RAPIDS and BlazingSQL. You can now find BlazingSQL containers on the RAPIDS Getting Started Selector, and we have expanded Blazing Notebooks to include more RAPIDS packages (CLX and cuXfilter) with a multi-GPU private beta slated for public release in early November.
For version 0.16, we have been working hard closing out dozens of user-submitted issues. At the same time, we have been working on a major overhaul of the communications layer in BlazingSQL. SQL queries are shuffle-heavy operations; this new communication layer, (soon to be merged into the 0.17 nightlies) increases performance across 95% of workloads while setting us up to utilize UCX, enabling the technologies of NVIDIA’s NVLink, Mellanox Infiniband, etc. for even greater performance.
NVTabular
NVTabular provides fast on GPU feature engineering and preprocessing and faster GPU based data loading to PyTorch, Tensorflow, HugeCTR, and Fast.ai, speeding up tabular deep learning workflows by 5–20x when used in conjunction with NVIDIA AMP. Since its inception, it has relied on RAPIDS cuDF to provide core IO and dataframe functionality.
With the recent 0.2 release, NVTabular is now even more integrated with the RAPIDS ecosystem, switching from a custom iteration back end to one built entirely on Dask-cuDF. This means users can now pass Dask-cuDF or cuDF dataframes as input in addition to the many file formats already supported by cuIO and can mix and match between NVTabular and Dask-cuDF seamlessly, writing custom ops for NVTabular directly in Dask-cuDF. It also allows for easy scaling across multiple GPUs or even multiple nodes; In a recent benchmark, we were able to preprocess the 1.2TB — 4 Billion row Criteo Ads dataset in under 2 minutes on a DGX A100.
RAPIDS version 0.16 introduces list support in cuDF which allows for the addition of NVTabular’s most requested feature, Multi-hot categorical columns, and the team is hard at work on that for NVTabular version 0.3.
CLX
While there were multiple performance improvements and tweaks to the example notebooks in CLX, making them more performant and easier to use, the big enhancements come to cyBERT. In addition to the on-demand batched mode previously supported, cyBERT can now utilize a streaming pipeline for continuous, inline log parsing. In addition, cyBERT has been modified to support ELECTRA models in addition to the previously supported BERT models. While BERT is still preferred for the log types we’ve observed thus far (providing higher parsing accuracy albeit at a slightly slower speed), ELECTRA support will allow others using cyBERT greater flexibility in choosing a model that works for them in their network environments. cyBERT also got a few more tweaks and improvements, including a new data loader that helps keep up with larger streaming pipelines.
RAPIDS Community
We’re starting a podcast called RAPIDS Fire. The first episode releases in early November, so keep your eyes out for the announcement. We’d love to have your feedback on topics and invite the community to join the dialogue. The format is going to be unique like RAPIDS is unique. There’s going to be a host, Paul Mahler, and rotating co-hosts. I’m up first. The two hosts will interview a guest on anything and everything related to accelerated data science and the RAPIDS Community. We’re really pumped about this, so expect a blog announcing the first episode. We expect the podcast to be available anywhere podcasts are found.
Wrap Up
RAPIDS has made so much progress in two years I almost can’t believe it myself. We have a lot of exciting new things on the way in version 0.17, more improvements to SHAP, more MNMG algorithms in cuGraph, and nested type support in cuDF will continue to improve. As always, find us on GitHub, follow us on Twitter, and check out our documentation and getting started resources. We’re excited to have you join us, and we’re looking forward to another great year of RAPIDS.
And Vote! | https://medium.com/rapids-ai/two-years-in-a-snap-rapids-0-16-ae797795a5c4 | ['Josh Patterson'] | 2020-11-02 17:36:47.407000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Rapids Ai', 'Gpu', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Xiaomi Redmi 9 Power officially unveiled | Xiaomi today unveiled a new phone, called the Redmi 9 Power. However, it is not entirely a new phone — it is a rebranded Redmi Note 9 4G, which was released in China last month, with the Redmi 9 Power having an additional 2MP camera.
The Redmi 9 Power uses the Snapdragon 662 chipset and runs on Android 10 with MIUI 12. The phone has 4GB of RAM and two storage options: 64GB (UFS 2.1) and 128GB (UFS 2.2). There’s also a microSD card slot to expand storage up to 512GB.
The phone has a 6.53 “FullHD + LCD screen, with a cutout for an 8MP selfie camera. On the back is a system with four cameras, which make up a 48MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensor.
There is an option for AI Face Unlock, a fingerprint sensor on the side of the frame, and everything is powered by a 6000mAh battery, which charges at a speed of 18W via the USB-C port. Interestingly, a 22.5W charger arrives in the package.
The Redmi 9 Power arrives in Blazing Blue, Electric Green, Fiery Red, and Might Black variants, priced at around $ 150 for the 64GB variant. | https://medium.com/@jazzyk83/xiaomi-redmi-9-power-officially-unveiled-9b17d2c20c02 | [] | 2020-12-17 16:35:48.762000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Xiaomi', 'Technology', 'Smartphones', 'Android'] |
Why You Should Invest In Female Artists Now | Jenny Saville’s Propped (1992) sold at Sotheby’s for $12.4 million; Sotheby’s
Female artists are the biggest bargain on the market! What will your art collection be worth?
That there are gender disparities, and a gender (pay) gap in the art market has been widely reported. The most expensive work ever sold by a female artist is Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower №1 (1932), which sold for $44.4 million at Sotheby’s in 2014. This amount is less than a tenth compared to the $450.3 million paid for Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. Da Vinci’s painting in November 2017 shattered the record for the highest known price ever paid for a painting. With $44.4 million, O’Keefe’s art does not yet make it in the list of the 160 most expensive paintings, even when adjusted for inflation. Similarly, the highest price for a living female artist paid was set in 2018 by Jenny Saville’s Propped (1992), with $12.4 million. This price was a fraction of the $91.1 million paid for Jeff Koon’s Rabbit (1986), which sold at Christie’s in May last year.
Adams et al. wrote a joint paper in 2017 analysing 1.5 million auction transactions in 45 countries, documented a 47.6% discount for female artists in auction prices for paintings. Even when they adjusted the data set for outliers by removing the ‘superstar artists’ — works that sell above 1 million dollars — a discount factor of 28.8% remains (Adams, Kräussl, Navone, & Verwijmeren, 2017). Also, the Art Market Report 2019 highlights gender disparities all over the art market. Despite more women entering arts education and working as a visual artist, they are still vastly underrepresented in global exhibitions, as well as in galleries, collections, and at auctions. A recent study of artist diversity in museums in the U.S. concludes that out of over 10,000 artists, 87% are men, and of that total are 85% white (Topaz, et al., 2019).
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower №1 (1932) sold for $44.4 million at Sotheby’s in 2014; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2014.35
What explains the prevailing inequality that is demonstrated in the prices that artworks created by women can achieve? One hypothesis could be that art created by women is altogether of lesser quality. Therefore, these works sell at a lower price. Tylor Cowen calls this the genetic theory (Cowen, 1996). To make a comparison, this is similar to the biological belief that genetic gender differences are the primary factor influencing the top performances. The consequence being gaps in world records we observe between women and men in many competitive sports disciplines (Thibault, et al., 2010).
Cowen does not see the genetic hypothesis in the arts as entirely refuted. Moreover, he seriously doubts its validity as he observes artistic areas, such as in the needlework and embroidery arts, where the “achievements of women exceed the achievements of men”.
A more recent look at the genetic hypothesis comes from the same study that documented a 47.6% discount factor for a female artist. Setting up a simple experiment, Adams et al. showed survey participants paintings, asked them to guess the artist’s gender, and rate how much they liked the art on a scale from 1 to 10. As expected, participants were not able to systematically correctly infer the artist’s gender from the paintings. However, when they thought a female artist produced an art piece, they appreciated it less. This study makes it difficult to consider the genetic hypothesis as a possible explanation for the difference in prices we observe in the art market. Instead, this gives credibility to what Cowen calls the discrimination hypothesis. In this theory, social norms, gender bias, and culturally determined gender roles explain the different outcomes we observe in the art market.
That the discrimination hypothesis is more plausible is not a new idea. This premise has not only been highlighted in several papers (Nochlin, 1971) (Cowen, 1996) (Miller, 2016) but also by the National Museums of Women in the Arts, the feminist activist group Guerrilla Girls, or the #5WomenArtists social media campaign. Further evidence comes from a second experiment conducted by Adams et al., where they used the neural network algorithm of deepart.io to create computer-generated paintings. After randomly assigning those artificially generated paintings to fake female and male artists using phoney male and female names, they asked participants to rate the pictures. As before, the participants appreciated works less that were attributed with a fake female name. The authors see this as evidence that price differences are the outcome of a culture determined by gender roles and not biology.
Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #21 (1978). Cindy Sherman is the highest-ranking female artist and ranks number 6 on Artfacts.net Top 100 Artists Alive; Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York
From this analysis, we can conclude that the difference in prices we observe for female artists stems not from biological factors. On the contrary, it can mainly be attributed to discrimination against women in our society and especially in this instance against the female artist in the art market. This conclusion in itself is very lamentable. While it is imperative to overcome such differences, it can be used, at least in theory, to guide the decision to invest in art successfully.
In a perfect world, i.e., a world where there is no gender bias and no discrimination exists, the art of equal quality should, on average, sell at the same price. In their research Adams et al. look at how gender inequality is related to gender discount factors. They conclude that the discount factor is higher in countries with greater gender inequality as measured by the United Nations Gender Inequality Index and the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index. This conclusion suggests that in the real world, the higher the discrimination against women/female artists and the higher inequality between men and women in our society/art market, the higher the price difference should be.
One of the oldest and probably most famous pieces of advice for making money states “buy low, sell high”, and it applies to all kinds of investment. There seems to exist the possibility of buying art by female artists that are of equal, or of at least indiscernible quality as the art by male artists. However, at a considerably discounted price due to the gender gap. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Iwan Wirth, owner of one of the world’s most prominent art galleries Hauser and Wirth, called female artistic works the “biggest bargain of the century”. At the same time, we can observe all over the world and especially in the art market, a trend towards higher gender equality. The four most influential countries in terms of art sales volume — the U.S., the U.K., China, and France — show a clear downward trend in the UN’s Gender Inequality Index indicating that differences between men and women become smaller over the last decades and will most likely continue to decrease in the future.
Copyright © Guerrilla Girls, courtesy guerrillagirls.com
In recent years there has been a trend towards a more excellent representation of women and greater gender equality in the art world. The 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 achieved for the first time gender parity with 53% women artists, while in 2017, only 35% of solo participants were female, and in 2015 only 33%. In 2018, 40 of the 100 most influential people in the contemporary art world, according to ArtReview’s Power 100 list were women, compared to 38 in 2017 and 32 in 2016. Similarly, the Art Market Report 2019 using data from Artfacts.net shows substantial progress over time of women in global exhibitions, which grew from 4% in 1900 to 25% in 2000, and up to 33% in 2018. All these numbers show a clear trend towards higher gender equality, not to mention the increased awareness for gender discrimination in the art market thanks to ever more exhibitions and galleries focusing on female artists and to activist movements like the Guerrilla Girls. As it seems very likely that those trends will continue, the gender pay gap should diminish over the next years. Therefore, as long as the prices are considerably low, we can make use of those gender equalizing forces to invest now in female artists at a low price and sell high in the future.
Source: Art Agency, Partners Where Women Outpace Men in the Market
To the conclusion that investing in female artists is a smart thing to do also comes Sotheby’s Mei Moses Art Index. They state that works by female artists bought in 2012 and then sold in 2018 would, on average, have increased in value by 72.9%, clearly outperforming male artists.
Apart from the possibility of making sizeable profits, and increasing the worth of your art collection, when investing in female artists, there is another reason why you should invest now. You not only make use of the current gender gap to have higher returns. Also, investing sends a signal that supporting the female artist is the right thing to do. These circumstances will reinforce the confidence of investing in female artists, increasing the prices. This confidence should not only decrease the gender pay gap and but also help to make the art world an equal one. And to be honest it’s about time. | https://medium.com/art-direct/why-you-should-invest-in-female-artists-now-8bfd7a031e27 | ['Tristan Post'] | 2020-07-18 14:53:32.464000+00:00 | ['Female Artists', 'Art Market', 'Art Investment', 'Art', 'Feminism'] |
Travis Scott Announces Agave Spiked Seltzer Brand Launching 2021 | Image via CACTI x Anheuser-Busch
2020 forced millions of people to completely halt their lives due to COVID-19. Those in the music industry especially took a heavy hit. Musical artist who brought in the bulk of their income from touring and in-person appearances were forced to slow down their fast paced lifestlyes and get creative at home. One artist that didn’t seem to slow down at all, is Grammy-nominated rapper and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 “brand whisperer”, Travis Scott.
The Houston rapper scored collaborations with some of the biggest brands on the planet this year including Nike, McDonalds, Playstation, and Fortnite, but he is not stopping there.
Scott recently took to his Instagram to share his newest project Cacti, a tequila inspired Agave Spiked Seltzer in collaboration with Anheuser-Busch. Cacti is the first of its kind, but that comes at no surprise considering Scott is known for his innovation in and out of the recording studio.
Scott shared in a press release, “CACTI is something I’m really proud of and have put a ton of work into. Me and the team really went in, not only on getting the flavor right, but on thousands of creative protos on everything from the actual beverage, to the can concept, to the packaging and how it is presented to the world. We always try to convey a feeling in our products. I’m a big fan of tequila so I came at it from that angle, too. I’m really excited to put this out in 2021 and see other people be able to enjoy it.”
Fans 21 and older are not only invited to drink responsibly but to also take this journey with Scott and AB as the drink is set to hit shelves March of 2021.
To keep up with Cacti you can follow their Instagram @cacti or check out their website at drinkcacti.com | https://medium.com/@robinson-arial/travis-scott-announces-agave-spiked-seltzer-brand-launching-2021-e03c8ca88dd9 | ['Arial Robinson'] | 2020-12-17 18:43:05.040000+00:00 | ['Cacti', 'Alchol', 'Seltzer', 'Travis Scott', 'Hip Hop'] |
Productivity tips from ‘Game of Thrones’ | Okay, now to the lessons!
Lesson number 1: Delegate
Arya managed to check off some items in her to-do list by herself but relied on others to get some of them done for her. One good example is The Hound killing The Mountain. Probably, The Hound was more suited for the job than Arya trying to do it herself.
This tells us that we do not have to do things ourselves all the time. Delegate things! Probably you can delegate the work that is not so important but urgent. By delegating these tasks, you can spend more time on the things that matter the most.
Lesson number 2: Ignore
Arya’s kill list had been evolving. A task that was super important to you once can eventually become a task that you can ignore. The Red Woman and Beric Dondarion getting removed from Arya’s kill-list shows exactly that.
Priorities change! If it is something that is not important and not urgent, it’s probably the best that you ignore it for now and park it until it becomes either important or urgent again.
Lesson number 3: Invest
Killing Walder Frey required Arya to practice and train for a very long time. She had to invest herself in it physically and emotionally. You have to do the same if you need to get the most important things done!
Prioritize the tasks and focus on what is most important to you even if they are not very urgent. It can be about learning a new skill, preparing to find a better job, or anything that is super important to you.
Lesson number 4: Do Now
But Arya’s biggest achievement was not even on her list! Killing The Night King and the entire race of White Walkers!
There are things that come up which can be super important and extremely urgent! Don’t think too much about planning these. Consider these as the tasks that you should be doing right now. Think on your feet! Kill the Night King!
But most importantly, do not treat all the tasks as super important and urgent, otherwise, you will burn out and end up getting killed by the Night King. Keep the ‘Do Now’ list of tasks short and simple!
Lesson number 5: Visualize
Keep remembering and recalling the tasks you have to do. This is why Arya repeats and recalls the kill-list every night before she goes to sleep. As the list gets shorter, the satisfaction increases and she gets more motivated to try harder.
Arya kept the list in her head. But unlike Arya, most of us have books, mobile phones, or whiteboards. Use those to visualize the tasks that we need to get done. Use a to-do list! Refer to it every morning and evening to see how you are progressing. Go to sleep feeling satisfied and also motivated! | https://medium.com/@gayanjith/productivity-tips-from-game-of-thrones-b10ae072052b | ['Gayanjith Loku Pathirage'] | 2020-10-01 14:12:37.562000+00:00 | ['Game of Thrones', 'Productivity', 'Eisenhower Matrix', 'Time Management', 'To Do List'] |
Tips For Selecting the Appropriate CNC Machining Supplier | CNC machining is a process which involves the manufacturing of software for preprogrammed computers so that it can detect the mov.ement of tools and machines. You can easily derive that definition from the fact that CNC is a short form which happens to stand for computerised numerical control. The CNC machining services are more common in the industries which manufacture the precision tools. You will know that is makes one of the crucial aspects that no ordinary person can carry out unless they understand the sector better. When you work in a precision tool production company, you have to ensure that you get the right CNC machining suppliers that will provide the facilities that the company needs. Read more great facts, click here .
That is an implication that you have to deal with making choices that are not relatable to choosing other general manufacturers. That is because it is a complex process. In this case, you have to take note that the services that the machining supplier will provide have customisation to the machines that you use given that they create precision parts depending on your drawing sample. For you to accomplish the manufacturing company’s objectives, make sure that you choose a dependable CNC machining supplier for that particular department. For more useful reference regarding cymanufacturing, have a peek here.
In that case, you can use the following guidelines to distinguish between the best and those that are unreliable in the CNC machining supplies. When you need the most competitive forces that you can rely on, find out how long the CNC machining company has been working in that particular industry. With a minimum n of ten years in experience, it means that the supplier has been working long enough to master all the required expertise. In addition to professionalism, they also need to show the capabilities that the company has when it comes to CNC machining. Take a look at this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_(machining) for more information.
Make sure that you inquire about the supplier’s machining quality control so that you can tell if they test and measure the precision equipment. It becomes essential to have the assurance that the CNC machining has a relationship to the design works given and that you can be able to have the improvement of the same for machining- in that case, checking out the machinability of the supplier that you are dealing with becomes a prerequisite. Ensure that the CNC machining suppliers have a mechanical engineering background so that they can save you with dealing with most of the parts of the machine. | https://medium.com/@bellwanda62nw/tips-for-selecting-the-appropriate-cnc-machining-supplier-babf43a6cca0 | [] | 2019-07-16 14:30:36.230000+00:00 | ['Manufacturing'] |
Detecting Idle Listener In Kafka | Noticing idle consumer is an important aspect of asynchronous messaging. There are many scenarios where you may want to take some action in case of a message consumer is inactive for a period of time.
You can achieve this via Spring framework through @EventListener.
Below I will demonstrate how to achieve this for Kafka Messaging.
I have Kafka and Zookeeper running on my local docker conatiner. I am using IntelliJ Idea as my editor.
First thing first, need to create a topic in Kafka instance running on docker through command line.
NOTE: You can create the topic through java code using NewTopic class or let Spring auto create for you if you have enable auto create as true in your broker config.
2. I have created a Springboot project from start.spring.io with proper dependencies.
3. Below is how my Kafka Listener Config looks like.
@Configuration
@EnableKafka
public class KafkaListenerConfig {
private KafkaProperties kafkaProperties;
@Autowired
public KafkaListenerConfig(KafkaProperties kafkaProperties){
this.kafkaProperties=kafkaProperties;
}
@Bean
public ConsumerFactory<String,String> consumerFactory(){
return new DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory(kafkaProperties.buildConsumerProperties());
}
@Bean
public ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String,String> kafkaListenerContainerFactory(){
ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String,String> container=
new ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<>();
container.setConsumerFactory(consumerFactory());
container.getContainerProperties().setPollTimeout(100);
/**
* Here we are setting idle interval. When the listener is idle for below mentioned idle
* time interval in milliseconds an event will
* be published.
*/
container.getContainerProperties().setIdleEventInterval(60000L);
return container;
}
}
4. Below is my Kafka Message listener and Idle Event Listener. As suggested by Spring documentation, it is a good idea to distinguish your Event Listener container via some condition.
@Slf4j
@Component
public class KafkaMessageListener {
@KafkaListener(id = "idle-listener-test", topics = "idlelistener-test", containerFactory = "kafkaListenerContainerFactory")
public void listenMessage(ConsumerRecord<String,String> consumerRecord){
log.info("Listener message received @ ::"+LocalDateTime.now() + " Message as :: "+consumerRecord.value());
}
@EventListener(condition = "event.listenerId.startsWith('idle-listener-test')")
public void idleEventHandler(ListenerContainerIdleEvent event){
log.info("Idle Event Handler received message @ :: "+ LocalDateTime.now());
}
}
5. Consumer config details are supplied through application.yml.
6. Now it’s time to build and start the Springboot application.
7. Once application is started and consumer is active, I will send some messages into application through kafka-console-producer and observe the application console.
NOTE: You can choose to produce message through any alternate way you may choose.
Application Console shows below how the Idle Event Handler receives the Idle notification and does it’s intended job.
Conclusion: This is a handy and very convenient way of detecting Idle consumers and take action on them. | https://medium.com/@debashisamo/detecting-idle-listener-in-kafka-ce8a0959d1d3 | ['Debashisa Mohanty'] | 2020-11-17 00:36:05.676000+00:00 | ['Cosumer', 'Event Listener', 'Idle', 'Spring Boot', 'Kafka'] |
Feature Selection Techniques in Machine Learning with Python | With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts — Eleanor Roosevelt
We all may have faced this problem of identifying the related features from a set of data and removing the irrelevant or less important features with do not contribute much to our target variable in order to achieve better accuracy for our model.
Feature Selection is one of the core concepts in machine learning which hugely impacts the performance of your model. The data features that you use to train your machine learning models have a huge influence on the performance you can achieve.
Irrelevant or partially relevant features can negatively impact model performance.
Feature selection and Data cleaning should be the first and most important step of your model designing.
In this post, you will discover feature selection techniques that you can use in Machine Learning.
Feature Selection is the process where you automatically or manually select those features which contribute most to your prediction variable or output in which you are interested in.
Having irrelevant features in your data can decrease the accuracy of the models and make your model learn based on irrelevant features.
How to select features and what are Benefits of performing feature selection before modeling your data?
· Reduces Overfitting: Less redundant data means less opportunity to make decisions based on noise.
· Improves Accuracy: Less misleading data means modeling accuracy improves.
· Reduces Training Time: fewer data points reduce algorithm complexity and algorithms train faster.
I want to share my personal experience with this.
I prepared a model by selecting all the features and I got an accuracy of around 65% which is not pretty good for a predictive model and after doing some feature selection and feature engineering without doing any logical changes in my model code my accuracy jumped to 81% which is quite impressive
Now you know why I say feature selection should be the first and most important step of your model design.
Feature Selection Methods:
I will share 3 Feature selection techniques that are easy to use and also gives good results.
1. Univariate Selection
2. Feature Importance
3.Correlation Matrix with Heatmap
Let’s have a look at these techniques one by one with an example
You can download the dataset from here https://www.kaggle.com/iabhishekofficial/mobile-price-classification#train.csv
Description of variables in the above file
battery_power: Total energy a battery can store in one time measured in mAh
blue: Has Bluetooth or not
clock_speed: the speed at which microprocessor executes instructions
dual_sim: Has dual sim support or not
fc: Front Camera megapixels
four_g: Has 4G or not
int_memory: Internal Memory in Gigabytes
m_dep: Mobile Depth in cm
mobile_wt: Weight of mobile phone
n_cores: Number of cores of the processor
pc: Primary Camera megapixels
px_height
Pixel Resolution Height
px_width: Pixel Resolution Width
ram: Random Access Memory in MegaBytes
sc_h: Screen Height of mobile in cm
sc_w: Screen Width of mobile in cm
talk_time: the longest time that a single battery charge will last when you are
three_g: Has 3G or not
touch_screen: Has touch screen or not
wifi: Has wifi or not
price_range: This is the target variable with a value of 0(low cost), 1(medium cost), 2(high cost) and 3(very high cost).
1. Univariate Selection
Statistical tests can be used to select those features that have the strongest relationship with the output variable.
The scikit-learn library provides the SelectKBest class that can be used with a suite of different statistical tests to select a specific number of features.
The example below uses the chi-squared (chi²) statistical test for non-negative features to select 10 of the best features from the Mobile Price Range Prediction Dataset.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from sklearn.feature_selection import SelectKBest
from sklearn.feature_selection import chi2 data = pd.read_csv("D://Blogs//train.csv")
X = data.iloc[:,0:20] #independent columns
y = data.iloc[:,-1] #target column i.e price range #apply SelectKBest class to extract top 10 best features
bestfeatures = SelectKBest(score_func=chi2, k=10)
fit = bestfeatures.fit(X,y)
dfscores = pd.DataFrame(fit.scores_)
dfcolumns = pd.DataFrame(X.columns)
#concat two dataframes for better visualization
featureScores = pd.concat([dfcolumns,dfscores],axis=1)
featureScores.columns = ['Specs','Score'] #naming the dataframe columns
print(featureScores.nlargest(10,'Score')) #print 10 best features
Top 10 Best Features using SelectKBest class
2. Feature Importance
You can get the feature importance of each feature of your dataset by using the feature importance property of the model.
Feature importance gives you a score for each feature of your data, the higher the score more important or relevant is the feature towards your output variable.
Feature importance is an inbuilt class that comes with Tree Based Classifiers, we will be using Extra Tree Classifier for extracting the top 10 features for the dataset.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
data = pd.read_csv("D://Blogs//train.csv")
X = data.iloc[:,0:20] #independent columns
y = data.iloc[:,-1] #target column i.e price range
from sklearn.ensemble import ExtraTreesClassifier
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
model = ExtraTreesClassifier()
model.fit(X,y)
print(model.feature_importances_) #use inbuilt class feature_importances of tree based classifiers
#plot graph of feature importances for better visualization
feat_importances = pd.Series(model.feature_importances_, index=X.columns)
feat_importances.nlargest(10).plot(kind='barh')
plt.show()
top 10 most important features in data
3.Correlation Matrix with Heatmap
Correlation states how the features are related to each other or the target variable.
Correlation can be positive (increase in one value of feature increases the value of the target variable) or negative (increase in one value of feature decreases the value of the target variable)
Heatmap makes it easy to identify which features are most related to the target variable, we will plot heatmap of correlated features using the seaborn library. | https://towardsdatascience.com/feature-selection-techniques-in-machine-learning-with-python-f24e7da3f36e | ['Raheel Shaikh'] | 2018-10-28 12:23:39.641000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization'] |
Web Scraping — Part 2. Simultaneously scraping multiple web… | This short tutorial will be on how to scrape multiple pages on a webpage simultaneously. This tutorial assumes you can use the google chrome css selector gadget. If not, see the first part here.
Due to the fact that some web pages contains large chunks of data (or text) e.g a comment section, comments usually spills to the next page. It could also be for sorting, whatever case it may be, it would be very difficult scraping each of these pages individually. For this reason, I thought of creating a function that easily scrapes multiple pages.
I will be attempting to scrape the lyrics of an artist (Travis Greene), since artists usually have quite a number of songs in their portfolios, it would be extremely tasking and strenuous attempting to scrape individual pages. So lets find out how to make it easy to scrape these pages. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/web-scraping-part-2-2ccdd145e8cb | ['Kafaru Simmie'] | 2019-12-12 09:14:22.602000+00:00 | ['R Programming', 'Web Scraping', 'Data Science'] |
Molly McPherson: Digital Crisis Management | When a company finds itself in hot water with a media crisis, Molly McPherson should be their first call. She is a recognized expert in crisis management.
McPherson came into the FEMA office of External Affairs post-Hurricane Katrina and helped the agency launch its first social media program.
“FEMA took such a massive reputational blow because of the reaction to Katrina,” acknowledges McPherson. “When I was there, I noticed we were losing traction somewhere, because we were helping so many people on the ground. Yet the press was killing us. Now so much has changed.”
Leadership has a lot to do with crisis communications. If there is a crisis preparedness plan, something that provides a guideline to staff, it lessens the chances of having a full-out crisis. These leaders understand the cadence of a news cycle, the expectations of their customers, of their members, and whoever their external stakeholder is.
“You have to look at crisis management like marketing,” adds McPherson. Understand marketing because the two have converged. So many of these PR fails, especially coming out of 2020 in the pandemic, came from culture and from cultures that were toxic or unfair or where employees felt marginalized.”
Leaders should understand how to harness the power of all digital platforms, and know it’s another channel to reach the public, their internal stakeholders, and their employees.
Companies are having so many staffing issues. While they are looking for employees, so much of this hiring is being run through a computer system. It doesn’t read a photo, and with resumes it looks for average keywords.
“If you’re a 47 or 59 year old looking for work, you’re not going to know how to write a resume and fill it with keywords. That’s part of this whole AI. It makes hiring difficult.”
For more: https://www.debbieelicksen.com/crisis-management/
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The Locker Room for Growth web show plants seeds of inspiration and features interviews with dynamic notable individuals to see the human side of various topics. Debbie Elicksen helps others humanize their brand and create a thriving presence out of nothing but an idea.
lockerroomforgrowth.com | https://medium.com/@debbieelicksen/molly-mcpherson-digital-crisis-management-35e13d0348e3 | ['Debbie Elicksen'] | 2021-12-27 20:18:24.016000+00:00 | ['Public Relations', 'Crisis Communications', 'Communication', 'Crisis Management'] |
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