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Dealing with the falling equity markets | Dealing with the falling equity markets
Opinion: steer clear from panic selling during the bear market
With the capital markets across the world nosediving, investors are in a panic mode. Our Joint Secretary, Mr. Narinder Wadhwa, offers his perspective on investing in the Indian markets during the current free-fall.
Mr. Narinder Wadhwa, Chairman, ASSOCHAM’s Council Capital Markets and Investor Protection
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this video are that of the speaker. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of Basicolans | https://medium.com/basicolans/dealing-with-the-falling-equity-markets-2044c12f80dc | [] | 2020-04-15 12:32:16.016000+00:00 | ['Mutual Funds', 'Alumni Stories', 'Equity Market', 'Investing', 'Bear Market'] |
English as a lingua franca in our classrooms, in our lives! | One of many things that I learned in Dr. Berry’s #MATLUPB, and has been spinning my head since that is English as a lingua franca (ELF), and all concerning about pronunciation of non-native speakers, like me: a Colombian student, native speaker of Spanish who can’t hide his own culture, his own accent. I believe that ELF uses in classrooms gather different needs of language learning of students no matter where they come from.
English as a lingua franca (ELF) means the use of English of non-native speakers as a common language, and so in a wide variety of international domains. ELF is a concept that includes the shaping of English by non-native speakers. That means every culture, who hasn’t English as their native tongue and uses it to communicate as a second language, shapes it in terms of phonology, pragmatics and lexicogrammar in their verbal exchanges
In classroom practices, a model based on ELF should give the chance to non-native speakers to acquire English without losing their cultural features like accent, using the English as a medium to interact, instead of deconstructing their own culture losing their distinctive or unique way of speak to achieve a standard one.
The priority for students using ELF is to be as intelligible as possible to the people they are communicating with. This does not necessarily mean sounding like a native speaker. So, the teachers have to analyze what their students are planning to use ELF, or whether they need to be immersed in an English-speaking country. Also, students have to become more familiar with a range of non-native English speakers accents because they will be aware of misunderstand a specific accent as a listener.
The more non-native accents the students listen, their awareness of accent variation increases; and, also denies the negative perception of their own accent and others different to native English speakers. Learning a second language doesn’t mean that you have to become a native speaker of that language but using the general rules with your own accent surely help you to become a intelligible English speaker around the world. | https://medium.com/the-matl-upb-chronicles/teaching-english-as-a-lingua-franca-in-our-classrooms-in-our-lives-eb057f0ad14f | ['Mario Ramírez Orozco'] | 2020-06-22 19:23:56.634000+00:00 | ['Matlupbchronicles', 'Matlupb'] |
3 ICOs Worth Seeking During the Bear Market | In 2016 only $106 Million were raised through ICOs; by the end of 2017 the amount blew up to $3.7 Billion — a whopping 3000% increase. Funds raised since the beginning of the year are already double that of all of 2017! With that, the demand for blockchain specialists has grown to the point where at the moment for every blockchain developer there are 14 jobs available.
There are several problems that render attempts to solve the crisis using traditional methods inadequate. The first is the pace at which the blockchain world is growing and changing, making it difficult and impractical for traditional universities to keep up with it — they simply can’t be constantly updating their curriculum and will struggle to find qualified teachers who aren’t lured by the premium on blockchain salaries. On the other hand, the lack of standards on non-accredited online courses exacerbates the problem by producing many poorly-trained developers and reducing the confidence of employers in such certificates.
Academy is the world’s first fully-U.S.-accredited school for blockchain. This status ensures the quality of their certifications since their programs are undergoing a rigorous academic vetting process. It also allows them to offer courses and programs to traditional universities. They have a 10-year track record of building online courses and have recently acquired SoftUni — Eastern Europe’s leading provider of IT education which won numerous awards, including Forbes Business Awards: Best Startup Business (2015), Innovation for Talent Development: Innovative Enterprise of the Year (2016), and has built a name for itself by providing the booming IT sector in the region with excellently-trained developers.
What are the benefits of the ACAD token?
For Students:
Priority course placement over students who opt to pay in fiat
Reduced course fees
Gamified Learning incentives
Developer job placements
For Corporations / Governments / Organisations:
Priority Course Placement for Staff Retraining
Priority Access to Trained Developers — bid for access to top 30% cohort
Opportunity to Shape the Curriculum through Advisory Node System
When a token is used for payment at Academy:
70% of that token will be burned
15% of the value will be credited to a dedicated scholarship fund
15% of the value will be credited to a community development fund which provides partial funding for the Incubator Accelerator program.
TOKEN SALE
Token — ACAD
Price — $2.00
UNSOLD TOKENS WILL BE BURNED
Platform — Ethereum
Accepts — ETH, BTC, BCH, LTC, FIAT($USD)
Hard cap — $50 Million USD | https://medium.com/swlh/3-icos-worth-seeking-during-the-bear-market-1535bce7bf3c | ['B. Brighton'] | 2018-04-20 01:55:02.036000+00:00 | ['ICO', 'Blockchain', 'Investing', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
3 possible reasons: Why you sleep worse during the Lockdown | Tired during the day and wide awake in the evening? The Lockdown has an impact on our sleep, as research shows. Many people go to bed later and get up later. The result: the quality of sleep suffers
☀️ An important clock for a healthy sleep rhythm is our inner clock. It ensures that we are tired in the evening and awake in the morning. In the process, it orientates itself primarily to light and physical activity. Sunlight, exercise and meals cause the body to ramp up.
You get too less daylight
- Your inner clock lacks the contrast of light and dark
- Your body does not produce enough of the sleep hormone Melatonin at night
🕓 If the internal clock is disturbed, the quality of sleep suffers. That’s why it’s important to get it back in sync. It helps to go out every day, get the circulation going and switch off more consciously.
You move too less
- Even slight movement like walking has an influence on the body clock
- If it is missing, your body does not distinguish between active and quiet phases anymore
- Sport also helps the body to shut down You are stressed
- The level of the stress hormone cortisol is high
- It activates the body, it does not shut down
🤔 How are you feeling in the current pandemic? And what are your tips for getting a good grip on your sleep rhythm? | https://medium.com/@ahmedelmardini/3-possible-reasons-why-you-sleep-worse-during-the-lockdown-b89b7cd77f76 | [] | 2021-01-18 16:31:55.577000+00:00 | ['Lockdown', 'Routine', 'Sleep', 'Sports', 'Corona'] |
My sister has borderline personality disorder, and a decade after her diagnosis, I still struggle to make our relationship work | By Anonymous
My younger sister was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) when she was 18 — and almost a decade later, I still don’t know how to deal with it.
Becky* is now 27, and lives on her own in an apartment a five-minute walk from where my mom and I live.
At the moment, we rarely talk or text without the conversation ending in a furious argument where one of us blocks the other, but we weren’t always like this.
In fact, we cherished each other when we were children, and during the majority of our teen years.
However, things have changed over time — and despite coming to understand more about her illness over the past nine years, my trust in her ran out of gas so long ago that any lingering fumes have almost completely evaporated.
She’s impulsive, a chronic liar, irrational, carries a deep self-hatred, and can’t seem to form relationships with friends or partners that are stable and healthy. While I know much of this is because of her illness, it’s made having a relationship with her next to impossible at times — though a part of me will always want to try.
We had an identical upbringing
Becky and I were born 23 months apart and have been brought up almost exactly the same.
We had near-idyllic and extremely privileged childhoods with a very devoted mom before our parents split when we were in our tweens, and battled it out with a messy divorce for most of our teen years.
However, Becky had problems with behavior from very early on as a kid.
I can recall my mom taking her to child psychologists, behavioral specialists, tests for ADHD, craniosacral therapy (it was the 90s), and a dietitian who told her certain artificial additives and overly processed foods were making Becky hyper. Bye-bye, blue food colorants and fizzy drinks.
Becky was finally diagnosed with BPD, the most commonly recognized personality disorder, around age 18, after years of difficulty trying to figure out as a family why she acted the way she did, and doing the best we could to pull her out of darkness she was unhappily flailing around in.
Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, told Insider: “Very commonly, people say that a person has traits of borderline personality disorder, because there’s a reluctance to make a diagnosis early on, partly because diagnosis does not automatically lead to a very clear treatment and treatment varies.”
It’s a tricky disorder to understand, even for professionals
BPD essentially boils down to the way an individual’s brain reacts and perceives regular human emotions and relates to other people, according to the NHS.
Kelly said: “I think the key concept that they struggle with is the constancy, the consistency — sticking with consistent treatment, consistent relationship, consistent job, and consistent position on anything.
“It’s the difficulty living with the fact that life is rather dull and humdrum. Most days don’t deliver conflict or excitement. I think that’s something that is somehow intolerable, and leads to so much of this self-harming and self-destructive behaviour.”
The disorder itself is quite a tricky mental health issue to understand. Not much is known about BPD, the identifying markers are hard to pick out as lots of people present with the characteristics some of the time, and professionals don’t agree on all the information sufferers are given.
I don’t think even my sister fully understands it, as she now assigns any and all bad behavior or erratic moods to her “BPD flaring up.”
The NHS website characterizes BPD as:
emotional instability — the psychological term for this is affective dysregulation
disturbed patterns of thinking or perception — cognitive distortions or perceptual distortions
impulsive behaviour
intense but unstable relationships with others
As outlined in a previous Insider article, no one knows what causes BPD — there’s no explanation for why it occurs in some but not others. A few mental health websites, such the charity Mind, suggest it could be partly down to genetics, and partly down to environmental factors, such as parental neglect or child abuse.
I often wonder whether the trauma from warring parents could have exacerbated Becky’s mental health struggles — I know I didn’t make it out entirely unscathed, even with counseling.
Either way, all of us, Becky included, were relieved to finally have an explanation for her behavior when we got the offical news. As with any diagnosis, our next thought was — so how do we fix it?
Life threw Becky another curveball at age 22
To add fuel to an already complicated fire, Becky developed aggressive Hodgkin Lymphoma at age 22.
The kicker? When she got the news, she was holding onto a long-term job for the first time, while appearing like she wanted to get a grip on her mental health.
Finding out she had cancer so young was a shock, and initially it was as if Becky’s brain was given a jolt — her behavior noticeably improved for sustained periods of time. The sister I fiercely adore came back to me.
During the end of her first wave of chemotherapy, her body stopped responding, so the doctors changed tactics, but were pragmatic about her odds.
The second round of more intense chemo was the turning point where the BPD behaviors began to rear their ugly heads again.
However, this time arguing with her about her self-damaging actions came along with the guilt of shouting at a cancer patient. Having grown up with an acute concern for her welfare, it was an additional weight to carry.
One humdinger of a row was over her wanting to stay in a relationship with a cheating man who was allegedly going around telling people that having sex with Becky was like sleeping with a boy, because she had lost her hair from treatment.
Thankfully the tumors (and the guy) have now gone, and she’s coming up to three years in remission. But, as her physical health has taken such a priority, her mental health — now with the added facet of cancer anxiety — has been pushed to one side regardless of mine and my mom’s futile attempts to help.
My sister and I (not pictured) are only 23 months apart, but we couldn’t be more different from one another. Photo: Johner Images . Getty Images
“Some people say that borderline personality disorder is a condition where most of the distress is felt by other people rather than the person themselves,” Kelly, who is also the author of ‘“Coping With Coronavirus: How To Stay Calm and Protect your Mental Health A Psychological Toolkit,” explained. “So, the person themselves feels a great deal of distress, but a lot of the distress is located in other people.”
And it certainly feels like we’ve tried it all — tough love, killing with kindness, indifference, group therapy, threats, and bribery to the point where we ourselves have been stretched to our upper limits.
Her behavior patterns are predictable
When you’re close to someone with BPD, there seems to be a pattern of key behaviors that feel like points on a circular train track, which you’ll perpetually visit again and again.
In my experience, the first behavioral stop on the BPD train tour is an amazing relationship. At her best, my sister can be abundantly caring, generous, and funny. When she’s like this, she’s my favorite person in the world, and I relish her joyful attention.
Unfortunately, I know now that our precious golden moments don’t last for long — maybe a couple of hours minimum, and a few months at absolute maximum.
Usually there’s an “incident” that will cause her to drop this pleasant facade she maintains, and I am left confused and hurt that perhaps she was only pretending to be friendly.
The “incident” could be her being caught out in a big lie, the discovery that she’s stolen something from a family member (it happens more than you’d think), or her inability to contain an intense dark mood.
The next stop is crashing self-destruction.
This is typically where her impulsive behavior kicks up a notch, or she at least doesn’t seem to see the point in hiding it anymore, because she thinks you’ll hate her anyway.
At this stage, she cannot be reasoned with — for example, she once took a public bus somewhere on a whim, having no immune system from her chemo, even though she was constantly in and out of the hospital with infections.
Becky will also shrug about stealing and selling our possessions, becoming more brazen in her blatant lies. She becomes obsessed with predatory, toxic people, continues to feed her spiraling debts with excessive spending, and lashes out at anyone who tries to constructively guide her.
The next stop has become more common as she’s gotten older. She’ll pull away and distance herself by not responding to texts and calls, or back out of plans. I’ve learned to think this is likely rooted in the emotional instability of BPD sufferers, where she’s so flooded with shame and intense self-dislike that she doesn’t know how to dig herself out of the mess.
It could also be her choosing to abandon us first, before we “abandon” her.
Our final destination is repentance. Becky is brilliant at saying sorry, but only when she’s absolutely ready to do so.
Her apologies are the grand crescendos to the symphony of pain and misery her actions have put everyone who cares about her through once more. There are usually tears, essay-length WhatsApp messages, promises of giving therapy treatment another go, and her favorite catchphrase — “it’s all in the past” — even if the past heartbreak she inflicted was only two hours prior.
Becky believes that by holding her hands up in admission and acceptance of her actions, her slate is wiped clean, and we should all draw a line under her throwing away my Christmas presents or flaking out on visiting our nana, who was grieving the loss of our granddad, to go do errands for a fairweather friend instead.
My mother and I used to tightly cling to these big apologies as beacons of hope that maybe this time she’d actually mean it, as we unwittingly chugged back into the station from where we first started.
Now, we know what to expect with her — and that’s not to really expect anything at all. Still, though, we’d both be lying if we said there wasn’t a teeny tiny part of us that had a flicker of optimism every time.
She doesn’t have full control over her behavior
Kelly said that while there are negatives of labeling BPD as a disorder, there are also benefits.
“One of them is that the person does not have full control over the way they’re behaving, it’s like they have blind spots, as we all do,” Kelly said.
“What they’re doing is partly automatic or learned behaviour. This is a pattern of behaviour that they’re not thinking about or deciding to do. They’re just doing.”
The markers that we see from Becky can clearly be attributed to the four identifying BPD factors — emotional instability, disturbed patterns of thinking or perception, impulsive behavior, and intense but unstable relationships.
The disorder doesn’t cause the person with it to lie, for example — the lying is a symptom to cover up whatever impulsive behavior they are intensely ashamed of.
While we have grown to understand her behavior, however, it hasn’t gotten any easier with time.
“The fact this is labeled a disorder allows us to understand it is not all deliberation, there is a certain element that is controllable, and it can be changed of course over time,” Kelly said. “But a lot of this is automatic behaviour or learned behaviour that needs to be unlearned, which takes a while.”
Treatment is not always straightforward
BPD can be managed with therapy treatment, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is normally the initial port of call. The aim is to restructure the way a person thinks or behaves.
The NHS website says it relies on the patient learning to understand and recognize their negative thoughts and actions, then drawing from strategies on how to respond in a positive way.
Becky has been offered CBT many times, but with each therapist, she flitted in and out of courses without putting in the work, or simply didn’t show up. I don’t blame them for dropping her as a patient — our health service is severely underfunded, and while you can lead the horse to water, you cannot make it drink.
The second course of action for treating BPD is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) which is a form of CBT, but was specifically developed for people with this type of personality disorder. Again, it depends on effort from the patient, however the approach focuses on living in the present, tolerating distress, regulating emotions, and managing relationships with others.
It’s called “dialectical” because the therapy involves the two conflicting ideas of acceptance and change to improve BPD.
“In this condition, there’s a tendency to take something to the limit sort of immediately,” Kelly said. “For example, a dialectical behavioral therapist might give a person five emergency phone calls that they could make over the next two weeks. So when you’re feeling bad, you make an emergency phone call to me, but you’ll do it the five times and that’s the limit. What the person with borderline personality disorder will do is they will make the five calls and immediately attempt a sixth.”
He said DBT therapists offer extraordinary support with strict conditions attached, designed to address the issues those with BPD have in sticking to guidelines, but it’s sometimes a difficult treatment to access.
Becky was put on the waiting list for this, too. However, she was going through the self-destructive point in her cycle when the opportunity to take part arose, and it passed her by — or so she says. She keeps changing her story.
Kelly told Insider that people with BPD do slowly see their behaviors calming down, and the greatest force for the symptoms gradually decreasing is a big life change in that person’s world, alongside the accompanying therapy treatment.
“BPD does diminish over the years. But, it’s a little bit like turning down the volume dial on a radio,” he said.
“You can turn it down slowly, and often even if it’s at the lowest point, you don’t think you can hear anything, you think it’s all gone, but if you put your ear up against it, there’s still a bit there. You’re looking for a percentage reduction in distressing symptoms. It does come and people do turn this around.”
I’ve realized that while I love my sister, my own feelings are valid
No adult is responsible for the life of another adult, no matter how much you love them. Photo: EyeEm Premium via Getty Images
One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced while loving someone with BPD is controlling the devil and angel clashes in my own head.
It’s a scenario I can imagine anyone in the same situation identifying with — as much as you love them, part of you secretly despises them for actively turning their back on consistent treatment, and you want to throw your hands up and let them get on with it.
Over time, I’ve realized that while I support and love my sister, these feeling are valid — I’m only human, after all.
The negativity I feel towards my sister most of the time is heavily laced with guilt, too, as I know my frustration goes against what we are all told growing up about being understanding and tolerant when supporting those who struggle with mental illness.
On coping when someone close to you has BPD, Kelly said: “The first thing is to say is that no adult is responsible for the life of another adult.
“Some people feel entirely disproportionate guilt about how another adult is getting on with their life.”
At times I’ve been mentally exhausted from continually mustering up the strength to be the bigger person and force myself to think about how hard it must be for Becky to live with a psychological disability.
But Kelly said this is almost impossible for me, someone without BPD, to even begin to imagine.
“If you don’t have BPD, it’s very difficult to understand the other person’s perspective,” he said. “Remember, you’re doing this from the position of you being an emotionally well-regulated person and it is exceptionally difficult to imagine what it’s like not to be an emotionally well-regulated person.
“It is almost impossible to understand how someone can wake up in the morning in a good mood and be engaging in suicidal actions by the mid-afternoon.”
I’m learning how to adjust my approach
Becky’s actions and words, driven by BPD, have become increasingly harder to swallow, but I’ve found strategies to fall back on.
For starters, safe spaces like Reddit’s /BPDlovedones have provided a place where I can ease my festering guilt by reading posts from others in the same boat.
I also know I need to adjust my approach towards Becky.
“The best advice to family members is to consistently offer in low or medium level of support and availability at all times, good times and bad times, making no difference,” Kelly said.
“In other words, not letting the crisis bump you too much from that position of offering a constant and low or medium level of support. The most harmful action is when there’s no contact with the person except when there’s a crisis, because that helps perpetuate a pattern.”
In the past, I’ve often found myself shutting down to Becky, and constructing a gulf of silent hostility between us as a way to soothe the slashed open scars of previous damage.
However, Kelly advised I try to adjust this knee-jerk reaction and avoid freezing Becky out of my life going forward.
“It’s very hard to do, because you’re not going to get the same consistency or constancy from the other side,” he added. “You’re going to get nothing for weeks and months, and then something dramatic comes at you emotionally or a dramatic behaviour or some kind of crisis.
“But the key is to try and keep your side of the equation on as even a keel as possible, and as unaffected as possible by outside events.”
After all, among the layered and knotty tangle of emotions I have towards Becky, there’s an unchanging speck of hope at its core — I will always be on her team, even if she decides to set fire to the stadium.
There’s no person in this world that can hurt me more than she can, but there is no person I would fight more viciously for.
Editorial note: The author of this personal essay has remained anonymous for safety reasons. Insider has confirmed their identity. *Names have been changed.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).
For more great stories, visit Insider’s homepage. | https://medium.com/insider/what-its-like-to-love-someone-with-borderline-personality-disorder-95dd4690a65 | [] | 2020-12-04 21:59:37.502000+00:00 | ['Borderline Personality', 'Personal Essay', 'Family', 'Mental Health', 'Sisters'] |
Best Smartphones in Rs 10000 | Best Smartphones with 64GB Storage for Rs 10000
Moto E7 Plus: The phone costs Rs 9,499. The phone has a 6.5-inch HD Plus display, Snapdragon 460 processor, 4GB RAM… | https://medium.com/@reemasharma-74165/best-smartphones-in-rs-10000-e186d25d6e04 | ['Reema Sharma'] | 2020-12-11 17:49:01.135000+00:00 | ['Best', 'Blog', 'Blogging', 'Rs', 'Smartphones'] |
As Humans | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/writers-blokke/as-humans-dd389b12fdc4 | ['Raúl Güereque'] | 2020-12-05 10:10:34.260000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Reflections', 'Life', 'Free Verse', 'Poem'] |
An introduction to Machine Learning | What is Machine learning?
Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn from data and improve their accuracy over time without being explicitly programmed.
Applications of Machine Learning
We now live in an age where machine learning is a hot topic. It is so pervasive today that you probably use it dozens of times a day without knowing it. It is changing the world by transforming many segments including education, entertainment, food industry, transport, social networking platforms and many more. I have mentioned few below.
Facial Recognition: Automatic friend tagging suggestions in Facebook is one of the common applications of Machine Learning (ML).
Automatic friend tagging suggestions in Facebook is one of the common applications of Machine Learning (ML). Maps: Traffic Alerts — Everyone using Google maps automatically provide their location, average speed, the route taken which helps Google collect massive Data about the traffic, which makes them predict the upcoming traffic and adjust your route according to it.
Traffic Alerts — Everyone using Google maps automatically provide their location, average speed, the route taken which helps Google collect massive Data about the traffic, which makes them predict the upcoming traffic and adjust your route according to it. Self-Driving Cars: This is one of the coolest applications of Machine Learning. I’m sure you might have heard of Tesla cars!
This is one of the coolest applications of Machine Learning. I’m sure you might have heard of Tesla cars! Chatbots: Chatbots can converse with us through both text and voice. You may, for instance, have interacted with Amazon’s voice.
Chatbots can converse with us through both text and voice. You may, for instance, have interacted with Amazon’s voice. Fraud Detection: Number of fraudulent activities have increased with the increase of credit card usage, wallets, online payments. Whenever a customer transacts, the ML model thoroughly x-rays their profile searching for suspicious patterns.
Number of fraudulent activities have increased with the increase of credit card usage, wallets, online payments. Whenever a customer transacts, the ML model thoroughly x-rays their profile searching for suspicious patterns. Virtual Reality Headset: When we turn our head, picture moves too! That’s ML algorithm monitoring our actions and connecting them to the video.
When we turn our head, picture moves too! That’s ML algorithm monitoring our actions and connecting them to the video. Healthcare: Machine learning is being used in Healthcare for faster patient diagnosis. ML algorithms can predict health problems based on age, genetic history and also used in detecting cancer. It is used to save lives of people on a daily basis.
Machine learning is being used in Healthcare for faster patient diagnosis. ML algorithms can predict health problems based on age, genetic history and also used in detecting cancer. It is used to save lives of people on a daily basis. Recommender System: Facebook ads know you better than you know yourself. Amazon and Netflix also use Machine Learning for their recommender system. The hidden pattern buried in the data can be very useful for business. On the basis of your browse history, past purchases, items liked or added to cart, brand preferences etc., the product recommendations are made. Shopping website or the app recommend few items that somehow matches with your taste.
Let’s move onto Machine Learning methods to understand better.
Machine Learning Methods
We are generating a crazy amount of data every day and the world is turning to data for making decisions. The vast amount of big data is of no use unless we tag and analyze it. Our world has evolved where all the businesses will deeply depend on data for making any decision.
In Machine Learning, we collect data, clean the data, create algorithm, teach the algorithm essential patterns from the data and then expect the algorithm to give us a desired result. The more data it processes, the smarter the algorithm gets!
These are the main Machine Learning methods we follow.
Supervised Learning Unsupervised Learning Reinforcement Learning
Machine Learning Methods
Supervised Learning
In Supervised learning, we train the machine/model on a labeled dataset. This means data is already tagged and it consists of a set of observations with the result/target.
In Supervised learning algorithm, labeled data is split into Training dataset and Test dataset. Training dataset is used to train the model and Test dataset acts as new data for predicting outcome for unforeseen data. This cycle of training and testing data will be repeated until an acceptable outcome is provided by algorithm.
Supervised learning is further subdivided into:
1. Classification
Classification is a supervised machine learning technique which is used to predict categorical values. It is a process of dividing a given dataset into different categories. Process begins with predicting the category of a given dataset and the algorithm is trained. Final goal will be to predict which category the new data will fall into.
Examples:
· Fraud detection: This has 2 categories — Fraudulent activity present and No Fraudulent activity.
· Email Spam Detection: Email reaching your mailbox — 2 categories here are — Spam and Non-Spam.
Classifier will use training data set to understand how input features are related to a particular category. Once the classifier is trained efficiently, it can detect any fraudulent activity or Spam emails (like in our examples).
2. Regression
Regression is a supervised machine learning technique which is used to predict continuous values. It learns from the labeled dataset and is then capable of predicting continuous values for the new dataset given to the algorithm.
Algorithm is trained with both input features and output labels. Regression helps in establishing a relationship among the variables by estimating how one variable affects the other.
Difference Between Classification and Regression
Classification Vs Regression
Based on the no. of input features, Regression is classified as Linear Regression and Multiple Regression.
· Linear Regression (1 input)
Linear Regression attempts to model the relationship between two variables by fitting a linear equation to observed data. Input variable (Input feature) is called Independent variable and output variable (output label) is called Dependent variable. Linear Regression attempts to draw a line that comes close to the data by finding the slope and intercept that defines the line and minimizes regression errors.
Example: Let’s say I walk into a supermarket after paying a parking fee of $2. Whether I shop or not, I need to pay $2 parking ticket (constant, a). My shopping list has only 1 item — Apple. Each Apple is priced at $1.50. Shopping cost will depend on how many apples I pick. Assume I picked at least 1 Apple and let’s plot a graph using an equation.
Equation used is,
Y = a + bX
Y = Shopping Cost (Dependent variable)
a = Parking ticket (Constant)
b = Price of each Apple (Coefficient of Independent variable)
X = No. of Apples (Independent variable)
After plotting all the values of shopping cost (Blue line), we see a linear line. But in real life, things are not this simple. When this equation is used for similar real-life examples, Linear Regression will always try to find a straight line that best fits the data.
· Multiple Regression (Many input)
Multiple Regression is used to estimate the relationship between two or more independent input variables and one output dependent variable. There are more that 1 input feature affecting the output variable.
Equation used is,
Y = a0 + b1X1 + b2X2+……+bnXn
Y = Dependent variable
a = Constant (Intercept)
bn = Coefficient of Independent variable
X = Independent Variables (X1, X2…. Xn)
Examples:
· Housing Price Prediction: The selling price of a house (dependent variable) can depend on the desirability of the location, the number of bedrooms, the number of bathrooms, the year the house was built, the square footage of the lot and a number of other factors.
· Weather Forecast: Weather (dependent variable) in a particular location can depend on air temperature, air pressure, humidity of the air, cloud cover, speed and direction of the wind and precipitation.
Difference between Linear Regression and Multiple Regression
Now let’s move onto next Machine Learning method.
Unsupervised Learning
In Unsupervised Learning, we do not need to supervise the model but is trained with unlabeled data. Main task of unsupervised learning is to find patterns in the data. Here Human eye would not be able to know what to look for in this unlabeled data. Hence Algorithms are left to their own to discover and present the hidden structures from unlabeled data.
My daughter is growing up with a pet dog. When she was a baby, my friend got his dog. My daughter was very comfortably playing with this new dog though she has never seen him earlier. She recognized many features (2 ears, 2 eyes, 4 legs) are just like our pet dog. Unsupervised learning is similar to this case, where we are not taught but we learn from the data.
How is Unsupervised learning helpful?
Manual intervention is not required in Unsupervised learning.
This method helps in finding features which can be useful for categorization.
It finds all kind of unknow patterns in unlabeled data.
Unsupervised learning is further subdivided into:
1. Clustering
Clustering is an unsupervised machine learning which deals with finding a pattern in a group of unlabeled data, groups them with similar pattern/ traits and assigns them into clusters.
Examples:
· Customer Segmentation: Understanding different customer groups to build marketing strategies.
· Recommender System: Grouping the users together with similar viewing patters in order to recommend similar content.
2. Dimensionality Reduction
Dimensionality Reduction is an unsupervised machine learning technique in which no. of input variables in the dataset is reduced. Dimensions are represented as columns in a dataset and the main goal is to reduce them.
In many datasets, we find columns which are correlated. Due to this we find redundant information which creates a lot of noise in dataset. This affects the performance of ML models. Dimensionality Reduction technique is performed on dataset prior to modeling which in turn improves the performance. This technique helps in data compression and hence reduces storage space and computational time.
Example: This technique can be explained with Image compression. We love capturing pictures but one day we face this issue — No Space! Image compression helps with this issue. It minimizes the size of every image to an acceptable level of quality. This means more pictures can be stored in the same space.
There are two methods of Dimensionality Reduction
Feature Selection: In this technique, subset of features are selected from original dataset.
Feature Extraction: In this technique, new information is derived from original dataset in order to generate a new feature.
Now moving onto the last Machine Learning Method.
Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement Learning, is a learning in an interactive environment by trial and error using feedback from its own experiences. A Reinforcement agent performs actions in an environment to gain some reward. Every correct decision is rewarded with positive reinforcement and for every incorrect decision negative reinforcement is rewarded. Agent tries to minimize incorrect decisions and maximize the right ones.
This algorithm does not have labeled dataset or results associated with data. Hence the only way to perform a given task is to learn from experience.
Examples:
· Self-driving cars: Reinforcement learning could be applied to few autonomous Driving tasks. In self-driving cars, various aspects like speed limits at various locations, drivable zones, avoiding collisions etc. are considered.
· Game AI: Reinforcement agent is trained to be smart so that it provides player engagement and fun.
I end this article with, few differences between Machine Learning Methods
I hope this article helped you understand Machine Learning, its applications and different methods of ML and basic differences. Thank you for reading. Happy Learning! | https://medium.com/@haripriya-devarajulu/machine-learning-34f7fc24e39f | ['Haripriya Sakethapuram'] | 2021-01-29 05:27:56.732000+00:00 | ['Supervised Learning', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'Classification'] |
5 Machine Learning Techniques for Sales Forecasting | 5 Machine Learning Techniques for Sales Forecasting
Forecasting sales is a common and essential use of machine learning (ML). Sales forecasts can be used to identify benchmarks and determine incremental impacts of new initiatives, plan resources in response to expected demand, and project future budgets. In this article, I will show how to implement 5 different ML models to predict sales.
The data for this demonstration can be found on Kaggle and the full code is on GitHub.
Getting Started
The first step is to load the data and transform it into a structure that we will then use for each of our models. In its raw form, each row of data represents a single day of sales at one of ten stores. Our goal is to predict monthly sales, so we will first consolidate all stores and days into total monthly sales.
def load_data():
url = """https://www.kaggle.com/c/demand-forecasting-kernels
only/download/ryQFx3IEtFjqjv3s0dXL%2Fversions%2FzjbSfpE39fdJl
MotCpen%2Ffiles%2Ftrain.csv"""
return pd.read_csv(url) def monthly_sales(data):
data = data.copy() # Drop the day indicator from the date column
data.date = data.date.apply(lambda x: str(x)[:-3]) # Sum sales per month
data = data.groupby('date')['sales'].sum().reset_index()
data.date = pd.to_datetime(data.date)
data.to_csv('../data/monthly_data.csv')
return data data = load_data()
monthly_data = monthly_sales(data)
In our new data frame, each row now represents total sales in a given month across all stores.
If we plot the total monthly sales over time, we see that average monthly sales increase over time, which means that our data is not stationary. To make it stationary, we will calculate the difference between sales in each month and add this into our data frame as a new column. Additional details on stationery and differencing can be found here.
# Calculate difference in sales month over month
def get_diff(data):
data['sales_diff'] = data.sales.diff()
data = data.dropna()
return data stationary_df = get_diff(monthly_data)
Below is a visual representation of how our data looked before and after the differencing transformation. Code for all plots can be found here.
Comparing stationarity before and after differencing. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
Now that our data represent monthly sales and we have transformed it to be stationary, we will set up the data for our different model types. To do this, we will define two different structures: one will be used for ARIMA modeling and the other will be used for the rest of the models.
For our Arima model, we will need only a datetime index and the dependent variable (diff in sales) columns.
def generate_arima_data(data):
dt_data = data.set_index('date').drop('sales', axis=1)
dt_data.dropna(axis=0)
dt_data.to_csv('../data/arima_df.csv')
return dt_data arima_data = generate_arima_data(stationary_df)
For our other models, we will create a new data frame where each feature represents a previous month’s sales. To determine how many months to include in our feature set, we will observe the autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation plots and use the rules for selecting lags in ARIMA modeling. This way, we can keep consistent a look-back period for our ARIMA and regressive models.
Autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation plots. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
Based on the above, we will choose our look-back period to be 12 months. We will, therefore, generate a data frame that has 13 columns, 1 column for each of the 12 months and the column for our dependent variable, difference in sales. Code for the below was grabbed from Baris Karaman’s data driven growth series.
def generate_supervised(data):
supervised_df = data.copy()
#create column for each lag
for i in range(1,13):
col = 'lag_' + str(i)
supervised_df[col] = supervised_df['sales_diff'].shift(i)
#drop null values
supervised_df = supervised_df.dropna().reset_index(drop=True)
supervised_df.to_csv('../data/model_df.csv', index=False)
return supervised_df model_df = generate_supervised(stationary_df)
Now we have two separate data structures, our Arima structure that includes a datetime index and our supervised structure that includes lags as features.
ARIMA and Supervised data frames for sales forecasting. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
Modeling
To create and assess all of our models, we use a series of helper functions that perform the following functions. The code for all of the helper functions can be found here.
Train test split: we separate our data so that the last 12 months are part of the test set and the rest of the data is used to train our model Scale the data: using a min-max scaler, we will scale the data so that all of our variables fall within the range of -1 to 1 Reverse scaling: After running our models, we will use this helper function to reverse the scaling of step 2 Create a predictions data frame: generate a data frame that includes the actual sales captured in our test set and the predicted results from our model so that we can quantify our success Score the models: this helper function will save the root mean squared error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) of our predictions to compare performance of our five models
Regressive Models: Linear Regression, Random Forest Regression, XGBoost
For our regressive models, we can use the fit-predict structure of the scikit-learn library. We therefore can set up a base modeling structure that we will call for each model. The function below calls many of the helper functions outlined above to split the data, run the model, and output RMSE and MAE scores.
def regressive_model(train_data, test_data, model, model_name):
# Call helper functions to create X & y and scale data
X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test, scaler_object =
scale_data(train_data, test_data)
# Run regression model
mod = model
mod.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = mod.predict(X_test) # Call helper functions to undo scaling & create prediction df
original_df = load_data('../data/monthly_data.csv')
unscaled = undo_scaling(predictions, X_test, scaler_object)
unscaled_df = predict_df(unscaled, original_df) # Call helper functions to print scores and plot results
get_scores(unscaled_df, original_df, model_name)
plot_results(unscaled_df, original_df, model_name)
# Separate data into train and test sets
train, test = tts(model_df) # Call model frame work for linear regression
regressive_model(train, test, LinearRegression(),'LinearRegression') # Call model frame work for random forest regressor
regressive_model(train, test,
RandomForestRegressor(n_estimators=100,
max_depth=20),
'RandomForest') # Call model frame work for XGBoost
regressive_model(train, test, XGBRegressor(n_estimators=100,
learning_rate=0.2),
'XGBoost')
The output below shows the predictions (red) overlaid on top of the actual sales (blue) for each of the regressive models. While the results look similar, the nuanced differences equate to a few thousand dollars in sales, which we will see in the comparison section below.
Regressive model predictions vs actual sales. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
LSTM is a type of recurrent neural network that is particularly useful for making predictions with sequential data. For this purpose, we will use a very simple LSTM. For additional accuracy, seasonal features and additional model complexity can be added.
def lstm_model(train_data, test_data):
# Call helper functions to create X & y and scale data
X_train, y_train, X_test, y_test, scaler_object =
scale_data(train_data, test_data) X_train = X_train.reshape(X_train.shape[0], 1, X_train.shape[1])
X_test = X_test.reshape(X_test.shape[0], 1, X_test.shape[1]) # Build LSTM
model = Sequential()
model.add(LSTM(4, batch_input_shape=(1, X_train.shape[1],
X_train.shape[2]),
stateful=True))
model.add(Dense(1))
model.add(Dense(1))
model.compile(loss='mean_squared_error', optimizer='adam')
model.fit(X_train, y_train, epochs=200, batch_size=1, verbose=1,
shuffle=False)
predictions = model.predict(X_test, batch_size=1) # Call helper functions to undo scaling & create prediction df
original_df = load_data('../data/monthly_data.csv')
unscaled = undo_scaling(predictions, X_test, scaler_object,
lstm=True)
unscaled_df = predict_df(unscaled, original_df) # Call helper functions to print scores and plot results
get_scores(unscaled_df, original_df, 'LSTM')
plot_results(unscaled_df, original_df, 'LSTM')
The resulting plot looks similar to the three regressive plots above, so we will hold off on comparing the results until we look at the errors below.
LSTM model predictions vs actual sales. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
ARIMA:
The ARIMA model looks slightly different than the models above. We use the statsmodels SARIMAX package to train the model and generate dynamic predictions. The SARIMA model breaks down into a few parts.
AR: represented as p, is the autoregressive model
I : represented as d, is the differencing term
MA: represented as q, is the moving average model
S: enables us to add a seasonal component
In the code below, we define our model and then make dynamic predictions for the last 12 months of the data. For standard, non-dynamic predictions, the following month’s prediction is made using the actual sales from the prior months. In contrast, for dynamic predictions, the following month’s prediction is made using the predicted sales from the prior months.
def sarimax_model(data):
# Model
sar = sm.tsa.statespace.SARIMAX(data.sales_diff, order=(12, 0,
0), seasonal_order=(0, 1, 0,
12), trend='c').fit() # Generate predictions
start, end, dynamic = 40, 100, 7
data['pred_value'] = sar.predict(start=start, end=end,
dynamic=dynamic) # Call helper functions to undo scaling & create prediction df
original_df = load_data('../data/monthly_data.csv')
unscaled_df = predict_df(data, original_df) # Call helper functions to print scores and plot results
get_scores(unscaled_df, original_df, 'ARIMA')
plot_results(unscaled_df, original_df, 'ARIMA')
Again, the results look pretty good. We will dig in further below.
ARIMA model predictions vs actual sales. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
Comparing Models
To compare model performance, we will look at root mean squared error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE). These measurements are both commonly used for comparing model performance, but they have slightly different intuition and mathematical meaning.
MAE: the mean absolute error tells us on average how far our predictions are from the true value. In this case, all errors receive the same weight.
RMSE: we calculate RMSE by taking the square root of the sum of all of the squared errors. When we square, the larger errors have a greater impact on the overall error while smaller errors do not have as much weight on the overall error.
From the helper functions above, we use get_scores to calculate the RMSE and MAE scores for each model. These scores were saved in a dictionary and pickled. For comparison, we will transform that dictionary into a Pandas data frame and plot the results.
def create_results_df():
# Load pickled scores for each model
results_dict = pickle.load(open("model_scores.p", "rb")) # Create pandas df
results_df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(results_dict,
orient='index', columns=['RMSE', 'MAE', 'R2']) results_df = results_df.sort_values(by='RMSE',
ascending=False).reset_index() return results_df results = create_results_df()
This gives us the following data frame.
We can see that although our model outputs looked similar in the plots above, they do vary in their degree of accuracy. Below is a visual to help us see the difference. Plot code can be found here.
Comparing model performance. Image by Molly Liebeskind.
What we see is that overall the XGBoost model had the best performance followed closely by the ARIMA and LSTM models. A caveat here is that all of the models above were derived in their most basic form to demonstrate how they can be used for sales forecasting. The models were only lightly tuned to minimize complexity. The LSTM for example could have many additional nodes and layers to increase performance.
To identify which model is right for your use case, you should consider the following.
The degree of model complexity vs interpretability you are comfortable with.
Models can be tuned and features can be engineered to include seasonal information, holidays, weekends, etc.
Understand how you will be using the results and how data will be coming in to update your model.
Tune models using cross-validation or similar techniques to avoid overfitting data.
The full code for this introduction into sales forecasting can be found here. Please add any questions or comments below. | https://towardsdatascience.com/5-machine-learning-techniques-for-sales-forecasting-598e4984b109 | ['Molly Liebeskind'] | 2020-05-14 15:57:48.843000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Sales Forecasting', 'Arima', 'Lstm', 'Time Series Analysis'] |
A Kind of Determination! | A Kind of Determination!
The Writing Cooperative and Chalkboard Magnet Poetry Prompt
Image Source: Unsplash, Photo by Matthew Brodeur
I will run
I’ll keep running till my feet will not bleed
I’ll keep running till my breath will not shatter
I’ll keep screaming till my throat will not get numb
I’ll keep calling till I don’t see humans with humanity
I will run
I,
I’ll keep fighting till my soul is an imprisoned in my body
I’ll keep helping till my conscience is lightening up my mind
I’ll keep telling till nobody will hear my enthusiasm endeavor
I’ll keep standing till expectations will give the strength to awake
I will run
I,
I’ll keep continuing till the pain will not change into enduring
I’ll keep carrying till humanity’s weight will not convert into a shelter
I’ll keep exploring till kindness will not rise as a new morning in Universe
I’ll keep running till mankind will not escalate in ruthlessness’s era of cruelty!
I,
I will keep running because I know, It must be fulfilled one day!
©Aaska Ejaz, 2019. All Rights Reserved | https://medium.com/chalkboard/a-kind-of-determination-13aa46948501 | ['Ak', 'Aaska Aejaz'] | 2019-06-15 14:02:20.698000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Poetry', 'Magnet Poetry', 'Chalkboard', 'Determination'] |
Circuit Breaker Solution for AWS Lambda Functions | CloudWatch Metrics and Alarms can be used to add circuit breaker functionality to AWS Lambda functions that are triggered by SQS messages in a non-intrusive and cost-effective way.
You can protect overwhelmed downstream services without the need to make code changes, replay messages from dead letter queues or increase operating costs significantly.
Introduction
A Serverless Architecture frees you from the responsibility to ensure your application scales rapidly with increasing demands and is available even when underlying infrastructure components fail. But as soon as your application calls external APIs — either third-party services hosted somewhere or managed (non-serverless) AWS services — the ideal world is crumbling. You are confronted with increasing latency, long running calls and increasing error rate.
A couple of well-known stability patterns exist, like Use Timeouts, Bulkheads, Decoupling Middleware and Circuit Breaker (published in Michael T. Nygard’s Book Release It!). In the context of Serverless on AWS, you can configure timeouts for Lambda functions, decouple your application from external APIs by putting a message queue like SQS in front of your single-purpose Lambda functions (Bulkheads). But there is currently no straightforward approach to apply a circuit breaker to AWS Lambda functions. If your message processing lambda functions start to fail recurrently due to an incident in the downstream service, AWS Lambda will retry to send SQS messages to your function (respecting an optional configured dead-letter queue and maximum receives count). Your function might get even more load, since AWS Lambda scales concurrent invocations based on available messages. If you restrict the function concurrency, AWS Lambda might throttle and fail to process messages.
Circuit Breaker Pattern
When a downstream service is in trouble, for instance due to very high load or failing underlying infrastructure components, the idea of the Circuit Breaker Pattern is to stop an upstream system making further calls (open state). The downstream service gets the chance to recover and the upstream system does not waste time nor operating resources to make calls which will probably fail anyway. After some time, the circuit breaker allows a small number of calls to find out whether the downstream is operating normal again (half open state). If a threshold of successful calls is reached, the circuit breaker enables all calls to the downstream service again (closed state).
Three key aspects are important to implement a circuit breaker:
Detect when a timeout or error threshold is exceeded Prevent calls to the downstream service for a certain time Allow some calls to pass periodically, to detect if the downstream service has recovered
Existing Approaches for AWS Lambda
A common approach is to implement a circuit breaker inside your function and use DynamoDB to store the circuit breaker state (like Gunnar Grosch’s failure lambda node.js implementation and Jeremy Daly outlines in his AWS Reference Architecture Pattern). The Lambda function will fail before calling the Third-Party API when a failure threshold has been exceeded. This protects the downstream service, but it will not stop AWS Lambda polling the upstream queue and invoking your function. You also have to make changes to lambda function code, specific to the particular Lambda runtime and programming language. The approach introduces a number of DynamoDB requests which could significantly increase costs.
A Solution based on CloudWatch Alarms and Event Source Mapping
“Lambda Circuit Breaker” — Solution Overview Diagram
This solution relies on CloudWatch metrics and alarms to detect message processing issues caused by the downstream service.
When the number of timeouts or errors exceed a threshold, a CloudWatch alarm is triggered — based on Lambda function metrics. To reduce false alarms, you should use a combination of ratio and sum metric thresholds. I recommend custom metrics with high-resolution alarms over AWS-provided function metrics to get a prompt response once a failure situation occurs. Log metric filters can detect errors and timeouts based on your function log streams. When the CloudWatch alarm is triggered, a Lambda function disables the event source mapping. AWS Lambda will not poll the message queue from now on. The circuit breaker is in state “open”.
Once the alarm falls back to OK, an AWS Step Function takes over: It periodically tries to invoke the protected function with a message from the queue. The circuit breaker is in state “half open”. If a certain number of trial messages succeed, the step function enables the event source mapping again. AWS Lambda starts polling the queue again. The circuit breaker is back in state “closed”.
This solution supports any Lambda runtime. No changes to your function code are required. Fix costs incur for CloudWatch alarms and metrics per month (AWS free tier can be applied, except for high-resolution alarms). Costs for Step Functions transitions and Lambda Functions invocations incur only in failure state. On the other hand, you save costs for unnecessary queue service requests and lambda invocations.
I designed the solution for SQS as function trigger, but other services like Amazon MQ, that are integrated by AWS Lambda via event source mappings, should work too.
Deploy the solution
You can find an implementation of this Circuit Breaker solution on GitHub.
Related Approaches
Jeremy Daly’s Lambda Orchestrator pattern goes a step further. It does not rely on AWS Lambda event source mapping at all to receive messages and invoke Lambda functions. Instead, a long-running Lambda function polls the queue and invokes processing lambda function, similar to the solution described above in state “half open”. The Lambda Orchestrator pattern enables sophisticated ways to throttle Third-Party API calls, like respecting API quotas. | https://medium.com/@ch.gerkens/circuit-breaker-solution-for-aws-lambda-functions-5264cb59031f | ['Christoph Gerkens'] | 2020-12-17 19:35:47.099000+00:00 | ['Resilience', 'Serverless', 'AWS', 'Api Integration', 'Sqs'] |
Starting A Craft Beer Custom Packaging Design | We see this a lot: simple, non-custom Beer Packaging that gets the job done.
How can you expect to hit your sales target if you don’t invest in your presentation at the store?
You have a great product, but you left out one thing — your Packaging! Beer Packaging is a great way to grab your customer’s attention at retail and even online.
It’s an easy thing for most brands to overlook, but this is exactly the issue we aim to solve.
The U.S. has more than 3,000 breweries producing about 30,000 unique beer styles — talk about a crowded shelf.
A saturated market with limited marketing dollars, makes your packaging more important than ever!
Design is everything in Beer Packaging.
We help upgrade brands from plain to premium, and take advantage of all the latest technical and marketing innovations to create new designs, and more importantly increase your sales.
Bringing new packaging ideas to life can be a challenging task. That’s why we created this guide to walk you through each step.
Step 1: Determine Your Packaging Needs
What type of Packaging do I need?
Are there new innovations I can implement?
How many units do I need?
How can this be an extension of my brand?
Step 2: Establish Your Budget
There are two types of costs associated with new packaging.
Visible costs: such as the upfront cost of design and the price of the packaging itself. Hidden costs: such as additional filler, breakage, and more.
Your budget should include the cost of Packaging Supplies and Shipping Boxes. If any kind of packaging fillers are required, you need to account for them.
You can also include a Contract Packager to help with fulfilment or assembly.
By using a company like Bennett, you get Turnkey Solutions that help you minimize costs.
Setting a budget or at least a range for your Packaging helps the process not become inefficient or aimless.
A successful Wine Packaging program needs a budget that considers the economics of the entire process. You should consider the price of your product, your profit margin, anticipated sales, and the length of time you expect your Packaging to be in place.
Volume purchasing
As with most printed products, you only really get a good value at high purchase quantities, due to the economics of scale.
If you don’t buy in bulk, each package will add an unreasonable amount of expense to each shipment.
If you do buy in bulk, you will not only be putting more money up front for production, but also for storage, transportation between warehouses and handling. Digital allows you to have complete flexibility for this.
The higher the sales price of your product, the more you should consider investing in your Beer Packaging.
Step 3: Assess The Beer Competition
Because of the competition in the industry, you need to make sure your choices standout in a lineup.
It’s definitely become a growing challenge over the years to penetrate the market — but it can still be done!
What they don’t have is the chance to design with the latest innovations — taking opportunities to connect with your customers in completely new ways and actually create a new level of customer loyalty.
Step 4: Designing Your Beer Packaging
Did you know that 75% of consumers are influenced by package design?
Designing can be a fun process. Whether you’re tackling it or working with our Creative Services team, you need to consider key things about your beer, and your customer.
What style of beer are you selling?
Who is your target customer?
How / where are they buying it?
Next let’s dig into what you need to include:
What brewery made it?
What style it is?
Information about your beer (the name / flavor / ABV)
Now let’s talk about the more brand-focused elements:
Show your personality and brand voice
Tell your brewery story with some stellar copywriting
Use the Billboard Effect: multiple packages together become an eye catching wall
Double down on eco-friendly packaging / elements
We’re thirsty for a good story. Authenticity, community and sustainability are the best keywords to get you started.
Graphics need to be memorable, distinct, easily recognizable, and with easily identifiable shapes
Choose a color palette that fits your label and brand
Be prepared to go through a few iterations — it takes time to land on the “right choice”
Include time to do some market testing with your packaging and labels
Pro Tip: If you’re not a designer, and don’t have a design team — we provide access to our award winning in-house team in Creative Services.
Continue Reading | https://medium.com/@bennettpackaging/starting-a-craft-beer-custom-packaging-design-34774fff8f30 | [] | 2021-02-26 12:01:41.391000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Craft Beer', 'Designer', 'Small Business', 'Beer'] |
How to Travel on a Budget | Plan very carefully
You want to plan your entire trip and have a very precise estimate of what it is going to cost. The most expensive part of you trip is probably going to be the flights so budget these first.
Since I assume you already are set on the dates of travel the flights aren’t going to offer much leeway on how much you can save which is why these are the first things I finalize.
Next you have to include hotel, flight, food and drink per day and cost of admission to sites you are going to visit. https://www.budgetyourtrip.com/ has a calculator for each city which is a good estimate for how much you will spend per day. Once you have this down you will have extra money left over that you can plan to spend any way you want during the trip and treat yourself.
Stay in a hostel
I stayed at a hostel every single time I have travelled in a college. The reason is very simple, hostels are incredibly cheap and if traveling solo you find friends very quickly.
I usually find my hostels on https://www.booking.com/ because they have a much larger selection of hostels then Airbnb. Some hostels even offer free breakfast which is a great to save on at least one meal. These usually end up being local cuisine and allows you to immerse yourself into the culture further.
Book flights in advance and use miles
Try to book flights anywhere between 3 months to 7 weeks before the start of the trip. The cheapest flights are usually midweek or Tuesdays so plan to start and end your vacation middle of the week to save on flights.
Another important thing to remember is to keep collecting your miles from all flights diligently and use these to book flights. I have an account with the carriers I travel on most often and have gather up enough miles to fly to India without cost!
Nomadic Matt has an amazing article on how to choose credit cards to get the most out of flights and miles https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-tips/picking-a-travel-credit-card/.
Cook your own food
If you are going to an expensive city then it is better to get some groceries for the week and cook your own food in the kitchen. I carry with me the list of ingredients and recipes I usually cook at home in a small notebook. All I need to do next is choose a few recipes and buy the things I need to create those in the kitchen.
Some places like Mexico are very cheap so I did not have to worry about this here but Puerto Rico had expensive food and I cooked in the community kitchen much of the time.
Figure out public transportation
Most bloggers skip on how much transportation can drive up your cost. Taking private transportation can cost around 5x time the amount spend on public transportation. For example in Los Angeles the cost of Ubering on a 2.5 mile trip is $9 if I am lucky while the bus costs just $1.25.
Public transport is almost always cheaper than taxis and a convenient way to get around. If you talk to the locals at the hostel or even search online it is easy to figure out how it works and in my opinion it is always worth it to learn what the most efficient routes in the city are.
Get Tourist Cards
The https://gocity.com/en-us website has tourist cards for multiple cities all over the world that you can use to access many attractions around the city and save big.
You only pay a certain amount for 2 or 3 or 5 days and within those days you can visit all the attractions that are included in the pass free of cost. If the pass has a lot of attractions you are planning on seeing then invest in them saves a lot of money.
The attractions that are included are usually those that are famous in the city and popular with the tourists so places which don’t get a lot of traffic won’t be included.
Use travel insurance
Incase of an accident you don’t want to spend your money trying to get out of a nasty situation. Anything from a cancelled flight to a stolen camera or lost passport is covered under travel insurance.
I did not think I needed one either until I fell off a horse in Africa and had to undergo expensive treatment and boy was I glad I had travel insurance.
For this reason make sure to get travel insurance by https://www.worldnomads.com/ which I regularly use on all my international trips. I get their cheaper option which is enough to cover all my needs. | https://medium.com/@kanupriyaachoudharylegha/how-to-travel-on-a-budget-903ccce47631 | ['Kanupriyaa Choudhary-Legha'] | 2020-02-10 17:53:16.683000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Budget', 'Travel Tips', 'Budgeting', 'Traveling'] |
A Beginner’s Dilemma in Exploratory Data Analysis | A Beginner’s Dilemma in Exploratory Data Analysis
Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an important step in a data science project where you get a feel for your data. KSV Muralidhar Jul 24·4 min read
For beginners, EDA might pose a few challenges. This article discusses one of such challenges that every beginner in exploratory data analysis may face at some point in time. This article assumes the reader has a basic knowledge of EDA.
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
Recently, I was playing with a toy dataset (Loan Data) acquired from Kaggle. I used this dataset to create a dashboard in Tableau and publish it to Tableau Public (you may find the published dashboard here). In the early days of my data science journey, I had a dilemma of choosing between the questions to get the right answer from the data. I felt it would be worth sharing this with the beginners in this field.
Let’s understand the dilemma with an example. In the loan dataset, assume we need to find out “which type of loan (‘purpose’ feature in the dataset) is most likely to see a default?”. I can think of two methods to find an answer.
Method 1
In this method, I first select only the borrowers who have defaulted (1 in the ‘not.fully.paid’ feature) and then plot a bar chart of loan type for these defaulted borrowers. Then the plot would look like the one below.
Loans taken by defaulters (Image by author)
The plot above shows that, most of the defaulters took ‘debt_consolidation’ loans. Hence, we may say ‘debt_consolidation’ loans have the highest number of defaults.
Method 2
In this method, we’ll plot a stacked bar chart to see the proportion of the defaults by loan type.
Proportion of default by loan type (Image by author)
The above plot says a different story. Here, ‘small_business’ loans have the highest percentage of defaults.
Which method is right?
Method 2 is the right way to answer the question “Which type of loan is most likely to see a default?”. Then, what’s wrong in the method 1?
Method 1 answers the question “Which type of loan was most popular among defaulters?”. In the method 1, we had ‘debt _consolidation’ loans at the top because they were the most popular type of loan offered by the lender (to both defaulters and non-defaulters). Let's see it in the plot below.
Frequency of loans (Image by author)
As we can see ‘debt_consolidation’ was the most popular loan offered by the lender. More than 50% of the loans taken were for debt consolidation. Since, debt consolidation loans are offered to many borrowers, the defaults are also more. It doesn’t mean that people who took debt consolidation loans have relatively more defaults.
How to overcome this dilemma?
1. Frame the question correctly
Framing the question correctly solves 90% of your dilemma. In the above example, we wanted to know “which loan type is most likely to see a default”, NOT “which loan was most popular among defaulters”.
2. Believe in proportions, not absolute numbers
Let’s try the method 2 with absolute numbers instead of proportion. We’ll see that we end up getting the same results as in method 1.
Frequency of defaults by loan type (Image by author)
In the above plot, we again see debt consolidation loans have the highest number of defaults. But, that’s incorrect. Since debt consolidation loans are offered by the lender in huge numbers, the defaults would also be high. It doesn’t mean that debt consolidation loans have the highest default rate.
It’s the same as saying Americans are more likely to lose their jobs at a company X in the U.S. compared to the Indians. Assume, there are 100 Americans and 10 Indians employed by X. X laid off 10 Americans and 5 Indians. It doesn’t mean that Americans would more likely lose their job. If you see in absolute terms, more Americans are being laid off, but also remember that they form the majority of the employee composition. But, if you see in percentage terms only 10% of the Americans were laid off, while 50% of the Indians were laid off. Hence, absolute numbers may be misleading, so believe in proportions. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-beginner-dilemma-in-exploratory-data-analysis-8919b4e737e8 | ['Ksv Muralidhar'] | 2021-07-24 19:27:17.185000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Tableau', 'Beginner', 'Data Analysis', 'Exploratory Data Analysis'] |
Using Data Science to Unearth New Stories of WWII | Two years ago, I dreamed up the idea to build an interactive dashboard to tell the story of an Army Air Force combat group during WWII using big data.
Wallace B. Truslow
Behind the dashboard was my own family’s story: my grandfather Wally took his service on a B-24 crew in Europe to the grave. A lifelong struggle with PTSD left his wartime service a mystery to everyone in his life. Because I’m a data scientist by trade, I turned to data in telling Wally’s story twenty years after he died.
When I began researching Wally’s service with the 44th Bomb Group, I eventually stumbled upon newly digitized data sources from WWII. In spite of an increasing amount of digital information available about WWII, the databases housing the data made it impossible to aggregate and analyze the data.
I wanted to look beyond Wally’s story to the 44th Bomb Group at large to contextualize Wally’s service. For example, knowing Wally flew 42 missions in the war meant little without understanding the average number flown of missions an airman in the 44th Bomb Group flew over the course of the war.
With much manual effort and a serendipitous hunch, I determined that Wally flew more missions than 99.5% of all 5,000 airmen in the 44th Bomb Group. It was an insight gleaned from the data that fundamentally reshaped how I perceived Wally’s war and the grandfather I knew.
I knew if I could create a manipulable data set, there were hundreds more insights, like the one I gleaned about my grandfather, waiting to be found.
The dashboard idea was born from my desire to look at the relationship between missions flown, combat losses, and demographics for all 5,000 men in the 44th Bomb Group — a monumental task never done before.
I began by exploring how I could leverage the 21st century digital tools designed for business analytics to tell a new history of the war with big data. These tools, which are the staples of my day job studying human capital issues, proved remarkably useful in looking to the past.
What I learned is that unearthing insights from 75-year-old isn’t markedly different than extracting insights from new data. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-data-science-to-unearth-new-stories-of-wwii-20f968699a55 | ['Mara Truslow'] | 2020-05-05 20:33:27.055000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'History', 'Wwii'] |
A FAT HIKER WHO IS TRYING TO LOSE 100 POUNDS: ONLY A SMALL PART OF MY STORY… | A FAT HIKER WHO IS TRYING TO LOSE 100 POUNDS: ONLY A SMALL PART OF MY STORY…
I just want to remind people that heavy people hike too. I have done over 100 summits and a total of 600 hikes and walks with my husband and I have had a hiking group for two years. I have a lot more to write on this topic/issue but I do not have the time right now. I also have fibromyalgia. I have had it for 30 years. For those who do not know, it is chronic muscular pain and a chronic state of tension in the muscles. I have been discriminated against for my weight on the trail. I want to add that on the trail, I have been called fat, physically poked by a thin, in shape older woman (over 60) who said, “You are fat and slow. Get off the trail.” I was in tears and I was beaten down (If it were me today, I would have defended myself much more) and I let it get to me. That was four years ago. Another guy, who was so arrogant he was wearing Speedos coming down a steep hike in Lincoln park when I was going up and out of breath (People who are fluffy struggle to breathe and sweat, so what? …Plus I have fibro) “Gee, I bet this is your first hike.” Why would he say that? At the point that he said that, I had done 500 hikes and walks in my life. My husband was there and said, “She is training for Rainier” just to make a point and the guy (who was barreling down the trail wearing Speedos with his junk hanging out) ran off.
There are other reasons why people are fat I was so hurt and felt so defeated at these times, like “Jerk, (or really want to say bitch) do you have any idea the courage that it takes to be fluffy on the trail?”. For me, being fat is a culmination of things: b/c I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and Insulin Resistance. I have obesity in my family. I have fibromyalgia and chronic pain and inflammatory responses can make people fat.
I started my hiking group partially b/c thin people and the able-ists in the world seem to think that a heavy woman can’t hike. It really hurts to have people out there who do this. I was also left for dead on a hiking group I joined a few years back when I had a bad vomiting episode and got viciously ill and they did not wait for me. This is not about me believing them or letting them upset me. Or about taking it personally. It is about the fact that it is a form of prejudice that causes pain and makes my PTSD worse and hurts people and yet, I cannot tell you how many witnesses on trails saw it and did nothing to defend me. I have PTSD b/c I grew up in an abusive alcoholic home.
But even if I did not, this behavior is wrong and it needs to be stopped. The arrogance on the trails is disgusting and mother nature wants me on the trail, fat or not. I got left out of many groups. So, when i was about to give up on my life and give up on all of it…I started my group to prevent myself from suicide, and then people came. And then I changed it to “Super Slow Bears Hiking and Walking Group” b/c I had guys show up who were super fit and criticized me for being too slow, though it was all over the description. People in Meetup groups do not read the descriptions. So I changed it.Just based on how I look, I cannot begin to tell you how many arrogant thin people or fit people judge me here in the Northwest. Yet, I keep going. I have had fibro for 30 years. But we do amazing easy hikes and walks in my group. This last week, we did Mima Falls and it was gorgeous. It hurts that I still get judged on the trail by people who are thin. It can be like a microaggression through a look or sometimes it really blatant comments like “Wow, good job on your first hike” (Nope, not my first hike) or just lingering dirty looks and when I say hello, they won’t say it back.
Oh well…I keep on walking. I haven’t lost the weight (hardly any, which is horrifically frustrating) I have wanted, I do not stop despite suffering from anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia and being poor and not finding a job in my field of writing (for many years, though I still try, so if anyone hears of one, let me know) and living in public housing. I also am a Native American activist for 30 years (and not to get political, but a national Bernie Sanders delegate, though my voice as a Native American woman gets muted out and I have been abused and silenced by the Democrats in Philly and here in Washington state…too long of a story for another time). Many people who have joined my group move to advanced groups and never come back to mine (and they do not thank me for how amazing my group is), but it is okay. I am determined to show people that FLUFFY people can hike too as well as people with tremendous health challenges or whatever it may be. I want to add that I truly believe nature is there for us to share and celebrate our collective humanity, but on a deeper spiritual level b/c I walk the spiritual Red Road with my Native spirituality, I truly believe that nature is the true place where we can let down our guard and be who we are without fear or reprisal, fear of each other and we can love each other. So, I want the abuse of heavy women to stop from this elitist view that only a “certain kind of person” goes hiking, etc. It needs to stop. This is not helping or serving anyone. And I love that we ( in my group) have a non judgmental environment where people can be themselves, one that is positive and inclusive. I set that tone. | https://medium.com/@rebekahbadass/a-fat-hiker-who-is-trying-to-lose-100-pounds-only-a-small-part-of-my-story-a16db262f91a | ['Native Activist'] | 2019-06-09 21:41:57.891000+00:00 | ['Losing 100 Pounds', 'Obese', 'Hiking', 'Overweight', 'Fat Hikers'] |
How to Be a Successful Writer and Get Paid for Your Work | How to Be a Successful Writer and Get Paid for Your Work
Ways I found legitimate paying opportunities for my work
Photo by Iga Palacz on Unsplash
*Disclaimer: Please be aware that there are affiliate links in this article. If you click on them, I will get a commission, without any cost to you. I wouldn’t recommend a product unless I tried it and believe in it. Feel free to check these products out yourself to see if they’d be a good fit for you.
Every developing writer comes across tools that help them improve their craft. Procuring these tools not only enables you to improve as a writer, but it also gets your work out in the world, so you gain paying jobs.
As I’ve tested and tried out tools of the trade, I’ve kept the ones that worked and placed them into my tool belt.
I wanted to create a complete guide for you. So in this article, I’ll focus on:
How to help improve your writing and be successful online.
How you can find opportunities where you can get paid for doing what you love: writing.
Here are some tools to assist your writing career:
SEMrush
To create quality content that will reach an audience and rank with your competition, you need a tool that can work for you. SEMrush is one-stop shopping with what they offer and they’re the number one marketing tool in the world!
You can try SEMrush for FREE by clicking here*. Here’s how the all-inclusive suite helps manage your marketing workflow:
SEO: Research, Audit and Analytics
Advertising: Research, PPC Keyword Tool, Display Advertising and Ad Builder
Social Media: Posting and Tracking Social Media
Content: Content Audit, Topic Research, SEO Content Templates and Brand Monitoring
Competitive Research: Domain Overview, Ranks, Keyword, Backlink Gap Analysis and Traffic Analytics
Reporting and Management: Reporting and Lead Generation Tools
Here’s how it works:
Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer
Once you have a topic in mind you want to write about, (or even if you’ve written your piece), it’s time to give it a headline.
First impressions are important and for many readers, your title will be the reason they do or don’t click on your article. Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer is a great tool that can help you drive traffic to your article and rank in search results.
The headline analyzer will breakdown your title and score it based on SEO practices. It will also measure the word balance of emotional and power words that could inspire your reader. It also offers a ranking based on sentiment, clarity, word count and character count.
The platform is free, but you can upgrade to a paid plan for more features that will help give your headline the best opportunity to rank in SEO.
Here’s how it works:
Grammarly
Good grammar goes hand in hand with being a good and successful writer. Grammarly* helps take the guesswork out of your writing.
The great thing about Grammarly is that while it helps edit your work, it also trains you as a writer. As I’ve been using it, I have been noticing I need fewer edits with my work.
There is also a plagiarism checker if you’re writing a research article. It will give you peace of mind if you’re writing on a specific subject where you will be using references. You can use Grammarly FREE by clicking here*. You can also upgrade your account for even more features!
Here’s how it works:
How I found legitimate opportunities to earn money as a writer
The first step to obtaining a regular paying writing job is to keep writing! The more you write, the more experience you gain. Writing on Medium and developing your blog will highlight your talent and expertise in whatever area you specialize.
The most effective way I found legitimate writing opportunities was by using social media platforms to pitch stories to well-established publications. I connected with publishers, editors and writers through LinkedIn. I would send a message to them to pitch a story I was looking to get published.
Many publications offer a submittable.com submission option. I have used this opportunity to upload my stories for consideration. So far, I’ve been successful with publishing content for local, national and global publications.
If you want to take the guesswork out of which websites will offer you the best paying opportunities, then click here to subscribe to my e-mail list and I’ll send you my FREE guide to websites that will pay for your writing.
If you have any tips for other aspiring writers, leave them in the comments below! | https://medium.com/illumination/how-to-be-a-successful-writer-and-get-paid-for-your-work-7a3526322742 | ['Sarah Seweryniak'] | 2020-12-14 02:17:40.118000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Writing', 'Freelance', 'Advertising', 'Software'] |
Dose of Asianess | Subtle Asian Traits | What happens when a handful of high-school students start an invitation-only Facebook group? Apparently, it resulted in 1 million users in 3 months, with an average of 500 posts a day. No joke.
Subtle Asian Traits, a closed Facebook group, started by 9 Asian Australian students in Melbourne is now a global cultural phenomenon. Initially, the group was just going to be a place for close friends to share jokes and memes about growing up in both East and West cultures. But its extremely relevant and resonating cultural memes quickly attracted Asian descendant from all over the world. It is now one of the most popular groups on Facebook.
The group has mandated a policy of authentic creations only, but that didn’t stop hundreds of posts getting posted every day. Some posts are real life texts or quotes from family and friends. Some are spin-offs from popular internet memes (i.e. distracted boyfriend meme). Some are group-exclusive memes that poke fun at specific culture elements that only those grew up in Asian culture can pick up.
For many, this is not just a funny addition to their newsfeed. The group has became a therapeutic place to self-express and feel a sense of belonging. Like New York Times put it, the group is a “reflection on the complicated experience of first generation Asian immigrants who have grown up reconciling the expectations of their heritage and the identity of the country they call home.”
Luckily for us, there is no better place to uncover Asian American cultural insights this. For the next couple of Dose of Asianess, I’d like to share some trending memes from the group and discuss the cultural significance behind them. After all, great insights come from research, but amazing insights come from real conversations.
Today, let’s look at a popular spin-off of the “Some of you… and it shows” meme.
Previously, we’ve discussed how Asian Americans are famous for their high academic achievements. On the flip, they are often measured against a much higher standards. For many, childhood is a constant struggle between video games and homework. The tension is even higher during college and graduate school when you have to choose between indulgence and self-control. The background image is one of the most popular video game among millennials 10 years ago, Maple Stories. The post received 6,000+ likes and 1,600 comments. Many related to the struggle and even criticized their younger self with great regret — a deeply Asian thing to do.
Frugality runs deep in Asian culture. From getting dressed in hand-me-downs to never having allowance for anything, Asian American kids often feel ashamed for how “cheap” their parents are. Kids discount is something no Asian parents can let go, even when their children are way pass the age. The funniest irony is when another member posted a similar post about how Asian Americans take advantage of Student Discount. Thanks to their slow-aging facial appearances, many Asian Americans continue to use their student ID way after they’ve entered work force. I guess something never changes and we are all just some form of our own parents.
Native language is extremely important to Asian Americans. Parents often exclusively speak their native language at home, especially in multi-generational households. For some ethnicities like Chinese and Korean Americans, not being able to speak the native language is a shame to the family. Many Asian American kids are required to go to language schools to maintain their skills. Unfortunately for some, that’s simply not enough, especially for those who were born here. As you can see from the 19,000 likes and 3,100 comments, this continues to be a pain point for many as they start to have family of their own.
We will share a couple other memes next week. If you come across a meme in the group you’d like me to dive in, send them my way! | https://medium.com/@angelxie/dose-of-asianess-subtle-asian-traits-e20b8af25de5 | ['Angel Xie'] | 2019-03-27 07:24:15.228000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Asian Culture', 'Social Media', 'Asian American', 'Multiculturalism'] |
Designing your digital product strategy | Once you have defined the product vision you’ll be probably thinking something along the lines of: “Hum, I think my product is still far from this vision.” Then comes the question “how do I get my product closer to this vision?”. This is where the product strategy comes in, i.e., what steps will be taken to bring the product closer to the vision.
A good tool to help build product strategy is the SWOT analysis, to help you and your team analyze Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to your product.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal items (from your product development team, or your company) that you, your team or your company have some control over, that help or hinder your product from reaching your vision.
Opportunities and threats are external elements to the organization over which the organization has no or minimum control, and which can influence positively or negatively the attainment of the vision of the product.
Filing the SWOT should also be a team effort. The product manager must have one or more sessions together with UX, engineering and marketing people to build your product SWOT. It is likely that your organization has also done a SWOT analysis for the organization as a whole, which can be a great input for your product SWOT.
SWOT analysis can be tricky, especially in the weaknesses quadrant. It tends to be a big list of items your product doesn’t have yet. My suggestion is to limit all quadrants to 3 items. Having this discipline, you’ll be able to prioritize what are the 3 more important items in each quadrant. Since we have 4 quadrants, you will have a list of 12 items to take care of.
In order to build a more comprehensive SWOT analysis is very important to have a good market analysis available. This market analysis should include:
Competitors: a good view of your product competitors is very important to help you build your product SWOT. Don’t forget to think also about indirect competitors. For instance, an email product has the telephone as an indirect competitor.
Potential and addressable market: ultimately our product could have the total global population as users or total number of companies worldwide in a B2B product. However, you most likely designed your product for a subset of these users — or companies. For instance, you designed a delivery product for people who sell things and since it is a delivery product, it is limited to a certain region. This is the potential market. The addressable market is the size of this market that you believe you can reach.
Market growth: as important as it is to now the size of the market is to now the growth of this market. For instance, the number of landline telephones is close to 1 billion, but this is a shrinking market since there’s a clear movement to mobile telephones.
Disruptors: as important as it is to know your competitors is to know what can disrupt your product. For instance, at Locaweb we were seeing a decline in email usage, possible due to migration of part of the communication which was normally carried out through email being made by other means such as WhatsApp and Slack. Anyone managing a riding or a delivery product such as Uber, Rappi and others should be already discussing the impact of autonomous vehicles in their product and business.
Having the SWOT filled up, it’s time to draw the strategy of your product. Product strategy is nothing more than a short, medium and long-term roadmap. Long term?
You are certainly thinking that as you use agile methodologies in the product development team, it makes no sense to have a long-term roadmap, not even a medium-term roadmap makes that much sense. In fact, it does, but not in the classic sense of roadmap as a list of features, but instead using the roadmap as a priority list, a list of focus points that must be tackled in a specific order to make the product gets closer to the product vision.
With your product SWOT analysis completed, you should look at each of the items in each of the quadrants, along with the team (UX, engineering and product marketing), and evaluate what impact each item has on the product vision you have created. Are there strengths to be strengthened? If so, which ones should be strengthened first? Are there weaknesses to be tackled? If so, which ones should be tackled first? Are there opportunities to be taken advantage of? If so, which ones should be looked into first? Are there threats to be fought? If so, which ones should be tackled first?
This analysis will help you define the motivations and goals, i.e., the macro themes of your roadmap. Remembering that roadmap = motivation + metric, which is being popularized with the acronym OKR (Objectives and Key Results). This analysis will help you define what to focus on now and what to leave for later, always aiming ultimately to get closer to your product vision. And that’s the product strategy, the path that you and the product development team will go through to get to the product vision.
Your product evolves, your vision and strategy too!
An important point is that your product evolves as the team works on it. A lot is learned about the users of the product, its problems and needs. New alternatives may appear to help your user solve their problems and needs. The software owner can also revisit their strategic objectives and, consequently, revisit the defined goals for the digital product.
In addition, strengths and weaknesses may change over time, and opportunities and threats may appear or disappear. So it’s important to understand that neither the vision nor the strategy of the product are written in stone. They can and should be revisited periodically.
My suggestion is that they are revisited annually, or when a relevant event happens, such as when there is a change in the strategic objectives of the company, or when an alternative that solves the problem or need of the user in a different way from the one of its product.
Summing up
With this article, we are almost closing the theme about the growth phase of the software product lifecycle. In the next chapter, we will put it all together. Vision, strategy, roadmap, and OKRs.
Digital Product Management Book
Do you work with digital products? Do you want to know more about how to manage a digital product to increase its chances of success? So check out this book I’m writing based on my almost 30 years of experience in creating and managing digital products. The book is called Product Management: How to increase the chances of success of your digital product. | https://medium.com/gympass/designing-your-product-strategy-from-your-product-vision-8e721126f710 | ['Joca Torres'] | 2019-08-26 19:23:49.599000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Digital Product', 'Software Development', 'Startup'] |
ROADIES | I still remember the day when i was young and was learning to cross the road
My parents used to tell me that we should look at both the sides while crossing the road..
I always wondered, why on both the sides?
Meanwhile
My parents were working and I used to go to my uncle’s place after school
In evening, my brother used to come to pick me up for home and I clearly remember the way he used to cross the road with me.
He used to push me on the other side not facing towards the road and used to cover me by coming in front of me, hold my hand tightly and then we used to cross the road
He was elder to me, maybe he feared that i might run in between or may get hit by any deranged driver. So he used to be very protective
But now i wonder why so much concern for such a small thing??
Why dont people abide by the rules?
Why we should look at both the sides before crossing the road?
Why parents are afraid to send their children alone near road?
Why?
Maybe because we dont have sense to walk and drive on the road
We forget that we can hurt anyone before speeding
We forget everything in the power of rage
We need to control ourselves for better
Let’s disseminate: | https://medium.com/@dphull9/roadies-85ece4871e06 | ['Deepika Phull Kapoor'] | 2020-04-23 13:36:58.533000+00:00 | ['Traffic', 'Road Safety', 'Self', 'Stay Positive'] |
I love South Africa, South Africa doesn’t love me | My brother lowers his eyes as he tells me about the three-year-old boy who was found naked, raped and murdered in an empty field. His eyes don’t water, but his voice shakes as he explains to me where this field is. His girlfriend holds on a bit tighter to their three-month-old son and gently rocks back to sleep. My brother’s eyes keep going back and forth — to me and to his small family. “You remember, Emagxaki, there is that empty field there, that’s where they found him”. I do remember, I used to walk through that field a lot when I was in high school. My friend’s neighborhood was separated from mine by this very field.
It was fearless then; fields were not scary then. “A BOY” my brother says, his shaking voice now growing a bit louder. “A THREE-YEAR-OLD BOY!” he keeps exclaiming, “SOMEONE RAPED AND KILLED A THREE-YEAR-OLD BOY” I want to tell him that it doesn’t matter what gender this beautiful baby was, someone violated a child. I don’t say anything. I let him sit in his feelings, process them as uncomfortably as a Xhosa man processes his feelings. I see him desperately try to move from this topic, but we aren’t going anywhere, we are here now, in the discomfort of the violence that has plagued every single South African community.
My nineteen-year-old brother is sitting at the table, all he does his groan and quietly interjects “a boy!” He skipped a week of school to come stay with Indy and I in Cala — my hometown. He was meant to stay the weekend, but I begged him to stay longer. Cala felt less confronting when we walked with him. Suddenly, the starring became lesser, the cat calling ceased because we had a man in our presence. A man guarantees you safety here. Being seen with one means you belong to him and you can therefore not be bothered. It doesn’t matter if the man is the youngest of your brothers, his presence as a man means that you are his. My brother knows this, he immediately decides that Indy needs his protection more than I do, so, when we walk, he makes sure she’s in the middle.
When he sees a group of vultures “men looking our way”, he collects the skin between his eyebrows, tighten his lips and you can tell all that spells “FUCK THE FUCK OFF”. I am safe, I can walk but why am I so mad?! I am mad that a stroll to Spar ends with me reporting an employee for following us around the store starring at Indy and asking me to ‘gift her to him’, I’m angry that we must debate whether she should wear a skirt, pants, a turtleneck, or just stay inside. I’m pissed off that every single window and door at my grandmother’s house is barricaded (men have tried to break in). I am raging with anger at the fear of sleeping in my room because the drunk people walking past are a potential threat. It is fucken infuriating.
I had never longed to hike those gorgeous mountains that surround my small town, not in the way I do now. We used to hike them when I was younger, we would even go swimming in the river and the night would end in tears as my grandmother beats the shit out of us for swimming in that river. That was my fear then, my grandmother’s nails pressed on my thighs as she pinches the most tender parts, the parts she knows would cause the most pain — the inner thighs. We kept going back, hiking and swimming and then crying at night.
I stand outside my house in the morning now, look at the hills that are perfectly wrapped around my town in what looks like a giant hug and I want to hike them. My girlfriend loves hiking, LOVES IT. I want to take her, but I have heard the stories. The girls who were followed by a gang of men when they went to the river and never made it back home. Their bodies found mutilated and scattered between the trees and creeks. Indy and I stand out like a sore thumb in this town; they will see us, they will follow us, they will rape us, and they will murder us. They kill women here. They most definitely kill lesbians.
Jo’burg, fucken Johannesburg, I have never loved Jo’burg — it is so pretentious but this time…aah I loathed it. Cala is scary, but Jo’burg is TERRIFYING. I spent a year in this busy and unforgiving city after finishing grade 12 in Queenstown. My grades were not good enough to enroll in University, so my father put me a school with other kids like me — kids too old for normal school but too young for no school. I remember the terror of walking through that big taxi rank called Noort. I wasn’t surprised when I heard of a girl who got sexually assaulted in pure day light there. I was horrified, but not surprised. Johannesburg has a reputation of being nasty towards women. It is in this city where a man I was sitting next to in the taxi one morning, pulled out his penis and started jerking off. Just to graze the surface, this is Johannesburg for me, scary, busy, assuming, and no place for village girls, any girls.
There is no amount of preparation I could have given Indy about this city; I was also not ready. The short walk from my friend’s house to the mall makes my adrenal pump, the neighborhood feels threatening. “Don’t walk behind me, don’t walk too far, stop smiling, don’t smile at anyone, don’t maintain eye contact, don’t hold my hand — they might hurt us” these are my instructions to Indy. These are my instructions to me. We walk with a certain intensity here, forcing a ‘bad bitch’ posture and a “get the fuck away from me” expression. It is so uncomfortable, the morphing into something so unattractive and so horrifyingly defensive.
The need for this persona gets confirmed by the guy who yells at me from his car “hey, can you gift her to me!” Can you gift her to me?! This man has decided that she is mine to give, and he can ask. This is not catcalling, it’s rapey as fuck! He waits for a reply and all I could say is “leave us alone!” I hate that I am scared, I do everything I can to mask that fear. It works because he does leave us alone, but not before he watches us walk away. We walk back to my friend’s apartment, I let out a big sigh and promise my baby that there will be no more walking from now on. We spend the rest of our time in Johannesburg in the apartment or waiting outside for the Uber drivers to take us when we need to be. How can one be a woman in South Africa? Why do South African men hate women? This hurt; this home coming hurts.
Before you start assigning race to the epidemic of femicide in South Africa, let me stop you. Yes, statistically, black communities are more affected by this evil. The country is eighty percent black- thus, most of the reported cases are of black people. The white man sitting next to our table at Tasha’s in Rosebank mall reminds us to never lower our guard when we are in the presence of any man. He slowly sips his beer with his eyes fixed on Indy. I don’t see this as he is directly facing her and my back is on him. I only notice what is going on when my friend points out ‘that man is just staring at Indy”. I feel no fear, for some reason, I have convinced myself that white men don’t hurt women. What ludicrous! A glimpse of fear creeps in when the man follows us to the toilet. We get away before he gets an opportunity to say or do anything, I look back and see him just standing and staring. My mind knows now, this is not a race issue, this is a human issue.
The commotion caused by cab drivers trying to get our attention as we get off the twelve-hour bus ride from Queenstown to Cape Town wakes up off our slumber. We immediately become alert, knowing there is no time to be sleepy. We don’t want to get on a cab, Uber feels like a safer option for us. We’ve booked an Airbnb in Claremont. The drive to the house makes me feel weird, I get uncomfortable and defensive. “What is going on” Indy asks. “I don’t know” I reply looking out the window. I know what it is — I feel like an outsider. The whites are driving their fancy cars to work, and the blacks are walking to work in ‘the whites’ homes.
I also hate the feeling of safety my body begins to retire to as we enter this suburb. Why here!? The kids playing at the park make me feel angry, how lucky of them to get to play in the park?! God, they even have a fucking park! We get to the house and the owner is ready for us. She shows us to our room, tells us a bit about neighborhood and then adds “it’s very safe here, you can walk but there are those guys who hang out at the park at night so be sure to Uber home if you’ll be out late”. I know who “those guys are”. The homeless black/colored men who lurk white neighborhoods at night. There’s that feeling again, the one that makes me want to throw up.
“What is going on, baby” Indy asks again. “I hate that I feel safe here. I hate that my own people can’t give me this sense of safety. I hate that I am not afraid to walk around with you here. I hate that I have to be in a white neighborhood to finally breathe!”.
Cape Town is known as the gay center of Africa, this is why I KNOW I will most definitely be holding hands with my love. I am in Cape Town, gays are everywhere here. I don’t account for our dynamic, interracial lesbians. South Africa has not recovered from the atrocities of apartheid. It is rare to see an interracial couple here, and more so, a homosexual interracial couple. I resolve to rebel — the harder the stares, the tighter I hold her hand. I excuse my lack of public affection in other parts of the country as fear based. “I want us to get you home alive” I would tell Indy. Not in Cape Town, we hold hands everywhere! No one wonders who we are to each other. This doesn’t come without a price, the staring I can handle. It is the man who yells “do not take ours as well” at me when he sees our laced fingers.
I am tempted to engage this man-child, because one cannot be an adult and still be so fucking juvenile. I don’t engage, I just keep walking, breathing, and enraged. I know he meant I shouldn’t take their women. The ownership of the female body by men is part of the problem. Women do not belong to anyone but themselves. Women have agency over their bodies; they decide who they give themselves to and cannot be taken. I know this, I don’t know if men know this.
I don’t really have the words that can adequately explain the jarring feeling that I had being in South Africa. “Privilege” is not a word that I would use to make sense of any experience that I have as a black, queer woman. It is even difficult to find ways that I can say “hey this is a privilege that I have as I navigate this world in this body”. I found myself using the “p” word to describe myself in relation to other South African women. Being in South Africa though, I know what a privilege feeling safe is — it is an immense privilege. I will never take for granted an evening jog, a drunken walk home at night, hiking, holding my girlfriend’s hand or leaning in for a kiss as we wait for the traffic light to change.
I feel guilty now, having this privilege. I think of all the women in my country who will never know what it’s like to not be afraid….every single fucking day! It feels as if they have found ways to be in this aggressive space, but I hear them whisper “I am afraid”. I hear this whisper in the brisk walk when they walk home after work, the uncomfortable giggle when a man makes an inappropriate remark: “men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill at them”, and in the way excuse their womanhood. “I’ve just stopped wearing short skirts, I don’t run too far, I don’t run at all, I wear less makeup, I don’t get in a taxi if it’s empty, I don’t go anywhere alone…” the list is endless. This list is exhausting. It’s fucken exhausting.
I love home, but home doesn’t love us back. | https://medium.com/@khanyisamnyaka/i-love-south-africa-south-africa-doesnt-love-me-99703e8b4114 | ['Khanyisa Mnyaka'] | 2020-04-01 17:19:47.492000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Rape', 'Rape Culture', 'LGBT', 'Travel'] |
What you can do to manage stress in the workplace | Credit article: i-Brokers
Stress stems from a number of reasons including too much workload, impractical deadlines and excessive working hours, let alone bullying and sour relationships with co-workers.
Since many of us spend around 8 hours or in other words a third of our daily time in the workplace, knowing how stress at work impacts our health and wellbeing is important. Research indicates that stress in the workplace can result in a mental illness. So that is why we have put together some practical tips on how to manage workplace stress levels so you can have a happier and healthier work life.
Develop two personas
The disconnected aspect of your personality plays a key role in managing levels of stress. Some studies advise to create a character in the workplace and develop another calmer one when you are not at the office in order to help.
Just focus on your pay, not the others’ salaries
Stress can happen from financial compensation like annual bonuses and monthly salaries. Keep in mind you need to work hard and put effort in before explaining what your contributions are to your boss. Stay focused on what you are happy with and ensure you are getting your fair share and that it fits in with what you have contributed to the company. Otherwise, you can become very miserable, worrying about other people’s numbers on pieces of paper.
Upgrade your communication skills
Effective communication is directly related to your ability to read other people’s minds, moods and gestures. You need to practice and enhance your capability to fully understand to which your coworkers’ thoughts are heading. Always be mindful of what strategy to use on which person at which period of time.
Practice meditation and exercise
Exercises such as meditation or yoga can really help you manage your stress if you do it on a regular basis even if you only do it for a short moment per session. If your cortisol level becomes high then you are in a state called hyperactive which means you are unable to calm down and stay cool. You are always trying to run away or go on the attack. The key to deal with this is to do mental exercises like mind control which you can do it by practising yoga or meditation.
Monitor your signs and symptoms
It is undeniable that no matter how hard you put effort in managing your stress in the workplace, there is no medicine to make it disappear completely. If you believe you are struggling with anxiety or depression due to stress or any other grounds, just go to your doctor for mental advice. They may recommend you some pills or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Solving insomnia, consuming less alcohol and control what you eat on a daily basis can help you avoid getting into an undesirable cycle of stress.
Takeaway
On the whole, practice makes perfect. Think about implementing some of these tips above and you will be in a better position to manage your stress and eventually keep it to a minimum. By then, your life will never be the same and lead you to good health and wellness both at work and when you are not in the workplace. | https://medium.com/@ibrokersgroup/what-you-can-do-to-manage-stress-in-the-workplace-5c5d9ddeeb68 | ['I-Brokers Marketing Team'] | 2020-12-17 02:49:10.655000+00:00 | ['Stress Reduction', 'Stress Management', 'Stress', 'Workplace Stress', 'Stress Management Tips'] |
4 Steps To Generate A Big Marketing Idea. | 4 Steps To Generate A Big Marketing Idea.
Come up with Big Ideas Faster Than Anyone Else.
It will happen.
There will come a moment in your copywriting career when a client hires you to write a winning campaign sales letter.
As a perpetual student of copywriting, you know that the backbone of all winning multi-million sales letters is a Big Marketing Idea.
But when that happens, you have to go from learning to doing…and that means its your turn to come up with a Big Idea.
However, for most newbie writers, they feel coming up with a Big Idea is something that is “out of their league” like the hot girl in high school.
But I’m here to tell you to put those feelings aside. Because, you can train yourself to come up with Big Ideas.
I’ll tell you in a moment all about the process of coming up with a Big Marketing Idea.
But first…
A Bit About Ideas and Creativity.
Ideas and creativity are two separate concepts that are closely related most people mistake having an idea for creativity.
This is not the case.
The process of coming up with an idea is creativity.
So, an idea is like the result, and creativity is the formula or the process for coming up with that result.
Basically, ideas, that is the idea generating process…the creativity element of it is just having a plethora of raw materials in your brain.
Stated in a different way…Idea generation is fueled by the consumption of raw materials, not creativity.
Creativity is the process.
So, it’s safe to say…
• There are no unique ideas
• There are no original thoughts.
Because everything that you think…all your creativity, are all just an amalgamation of...
• The experiences you’ve had
• The things you’ve read
• The things that you’ve seen
So, if you want to create that new experience, you have to feed in a lot more raw materials into your brain…then;
• You can create new connections
• You can draw lines to things that seem unrelated and
• Create a new line of experience for someone else…
Legendary copywriter David Oglivy had this to say about Big Ideas …
“You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent Big Idea. It takes a Big Idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a Big Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
Take for example: These books on saving money and investing…
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “101 Ways to Find The Money to Save And Invest”
One is an international bestseller and the other? Well, I don’t even know how many sales the other book made.
But…
What’s the difference between both books?
Really, there is no difference.
Both books are about saving money and investing.
The difference is not in the content.
The difference is not in the essence of the material.
The difference is not the idea behind how the content is being presented.
Robert Kiyosaki took an ordinary and common idea about saving money and investing and wrapped it around something new, unique and different.
That is the power of a big marketing idea.
Which is why…
Mark Ford, the Genius behind Agora’s $2Billion a year success story had this to say about Big Ideas…
“We recognized early on, when it comes to marketing, we’re really in the idea business. We’re in the business of developing interesting, arresting, and captivating ideas.”
The Technique for Getting Big Ideas.
The production of Big Ideas has a definite process.
And as such, it follows an operative technique, but the good news is that this technique can be learned and controlled.
In a minute, I’ll reveal this technique to you and how you can master it…
But first, I need you to understand two things about this valuable technique.
This is critical. So please, pay close attention.
While I’m willing to reveal this technique to you, there are two things you need to know:
First, the formula is so simple to state that few who hear it really believe in it.
Second, while simple to state, this formula requires the hardest kind of intellectual brain work to follow, so that not all who accept it will use it.
Which is why…
In learning any art, the most important things to learn are, first, Principles, and second Method.
This is the same for the art of producing Big Ideas.
So, the most valuable piece of information with the art of producing big ideas is not where to look for big ideas.
No.
But how to train the mind in the method by which big ideas are produced; and how to grasp the principles which are the source of all Big Ideas.
With regard the principles which underlie the production of Big ideas, two things are important.
First, an idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements…
…and second, the principle involved is the capacity of the mind to bring old elements into new combination, and this depends largely on the minds ability to see relationships between facts.
The production of big ideas follows a method which is just as definite as the method by which, say, ford cars are produced.
So, when you pick up a multi-winning sales letter with a Big Idea, this technique is followed, consciously or unconsciously.
And the good thing about this technique is that, it can consciously be cultivated and thus the ability of your mind to produce ideas thereby increased.
In fact…
This Technique Follows 4 Simple Steps and All Four Steps Are Closely Related.
If you want to produce big marketing ideas, you must follow these steps in their definite order as there is no possibility of one of them being taken before the preceding one is completed.
So, let me cut to the chase.
Step 1:
The first step is for the mind to gather raw materials.
This is easier said than done and as such is a terrible chore that we constantly try to dodge.
Instead of spending quality time gathering raw materials for the mind…we rather sit around trying to get the mind to take the fourth step in the idea-producing step.
This is futile…well unless you’re Leonardo Da Vinci (who was a brilliant Nerd that read and consumed a lot of raw materials too.)
Well, you get my drift.
The materials you must gather ideally should be of two types…Specific and General materials.
But What Are These Specific Materials?
Specific materials in advertising are those relating to the product and your target audience.
This of course is not easily obtained, and as such most people stop too soon in the process of getting it.
They assume that if the surface difference is not striking enough, there are no differences.
But if they’re willing to dig deeply enough or far enough, they will always find that between every product and its consumers, there is an individuality of relationship which may lead to an idea.
Famous copywriter David Oglivy said “collect 17 times more information than you need”
Of equal importance with Specific knowledge is General knowledge (more like our experiences in life)
So, what this tells us is that an idea is a result from a new combination of Specific knowledge (about the product and your target audience) with General knowledge (about life events and our experiences in life.)
Stated in a different way…
The more experiences of the world we have stored away in that pattern-making machine, the mind, the more chances for production of new and striking combination of ideas are increased.
This is the first step in producing ideas.
Now assuming we have done the ruthless job of gathering and consuming raw materials, we may now proceed to…
Stage 2:
This is where the mind must go through the process of constantly thinking about the information it just consumed.
This part is a bit harder to explain in concrete terms because this goes on entirely inside your head.
But put simply…
What you do here is to take different facts from the materials which you have gathered and look at them from different angles.
You pick up the facts and you try to see the connections, the relationships…
You try connecting the dots and finding the link so everything can come together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle.
As you do this, two things will happen.
First: Little tentative ideas will come to you.
Make sure you put those down.
Never mind how crazy or how incomplete they may seem.
Your mind is still processing the raw materials, so write them down.
Second: thing is you will get very tired of trying to fit your puzzle together.
When you get to this stage, please do not stop so soon.
The mind is a supercomputer which has a second generator. So, keep trying to get one or two partial thoughts down.
Just when you reach the stage where everything is a jumble in your mind, well congratulations.
You just reached the hopeless stage.
When you reach this point, if you have first really persisted in efforts to try and fit your puzzle together, you are now ready for…
Step 3:
This is where you drop it. Yes, drop it.
Drop the whole subject and walk away like you do from a crazy woman. Put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can.
Listen carefully…
This process is just as necessary as the two preceding steps.
What you do this time is turn over the problem to your unconscious mind, and let it work while you sleep…or indulge in whatever your little heart desires.
Turn over to what stimulates your emotions and drop the problem completely.
Listen to music, watch a movie on Netflix, go have some ice-cream or you can go play the amazing spiderman on your brand new PS5.
Then while it’s out of your mind completely, you will almost surely experience…
Step 4:
Where out of know nowhere, your Big Idea will appear.
It will come to you when you are least expecting it.
It can come while you’re in the shower, or you’re half-awake in the morning.
It may even wake you up in the middle of the night.
When you get your idea, your basic idea, you will then have to sit down and restate it, writing is as an emotionally compelling, sellable idea.
This, then is the whole process or method by which big ideas are generated.
If you use this process each time you sit down to write a sales letter, in essence what you’re doing is training yourself to come up with big, sellable ideas.
Then sooner rather than later, you will be able to come up with that Big Idea sales letter that will make your client so much money. | https://medium.com/@sadiq9507/4-steps-to-generate-a-big-marketing-idea-7544ca551240 | ['Sadiq Mohammed'] | 2020-11-16 06:41:45.668000+00:00 | ['Sales', 'Better Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Copywriting', 'Copywriting Tips'] |
NLP Profiler: Profiling datasets with one or more text columns | NLP Profiler: Profiling datasets with one or more text columns
Photo by Shahadat Rahman on Unsplash
Have you ever worked with a large text dataset, if you have then you must know how difficult it is to analyze text data, you need to use different functionalities of Natural Language Processing in order to get an idea of the data you are working with? But if I tell you that now don’t need to worry about performing a number of operations in order to analyze text data then it would be great right.
So let’s get started with NLP Profiler, which is a python tool/package/module used to create a summary of the data similar to that created by using describe() function of pandas for numerical data in a dataframe. It allows you to create a profile of textual datasets and analyze different properties of the text data. It generates high-level insights into the data you are using.
In this article, I will take you through different functionalities of NLP Profiler and I will show you how we can use that. We will be working on this using Google Collab.
Installing NLP Profiler
We will start by installing NLP Profiler by the command given below. As we are using Google Collab so you need to copy this command and run it in your collab notebook to install the NLP profiler.
!pip install nlp_profiler
Connecting Collab to Kaggle
In order to start exploring NLP Profiler let us start by connecting our collab notebook with Kaggle, this is important because we will directly load the dataset from Kaggle to the collab notebook. Follow the steps given below to setup collab notebook.
Upload Kaggle JSON Key
In order to connect our Kaggle account to collab, we need to download the Kaggle JSON key from the accounts section and upload it by running the following given below command:
#Run this cell and select the kaggle.json file downloaded
from the Kaggle account settings page
from google.colab import files
files.upload()
2. Avoiding Errors if Any
By running the commands below we make sure that there are no errors and our Kaggle account is connected.
# Let's make sure the kaggle.json file is present.
!ls -lha kaggle.json
# Next, install the Kaggle API client.
!pip install -q kaggle
# The Kaggle API client expects this file to be in ~/.kaggle,
# so move it there.
!mkdir -p ~/.kaggle
!cp kaggle.json ~/.kaggle/
# This permissions change avoids a warning on Kaggle tool startup.
!chmod 600 ~/.kaggle/kaggle.json
3. Downloading the Dataset
For this article, we will be using a dataset with the name ‘Disaster Tweets’, the commands are given below will search that dataset on Kaggle and we will select them for use.
!kaggle datasets download -d vstepanenko/disaster-tweets
Importing Required Libraries
We will now import some required libraries which will be useful for this article. Run the following commands to import the required dependencies.
import pandas as pd
import pandas_profiling as pp
from nlp_profiler.core import apply_text_profiling
Preparing the Dataset
Now we need to unzip the dataset and create a dataframe of the columns we will be working on.
!unzip disaster-tweets.zip df = pd.read_csv('tweets.csv')
text_nlp = pd.DataFrame(df, columns=['text'])
text_nlp.head()
Dataset(Source: By Author)
Applying Text Profiling
In this step, we will apply text profiling to the text data which works on the data in order to extract useful information like Sentences count, Word Count, Spaces Count, Emoji Count, etc.
profile_data = apply_text_profiling(text_nlp, 'text')
After this let us call the describe function on this and analyze some properties of this dataset.
profile_data.describe()
Statistical Properties(Source: By Author)
profile_data.columns
Columns in Profiling(Source: By Author)
So here we can clearly what all properties are extracted from the text data, in the image above you can clearly see all the columns which represent the analysis on different properties of the dataset.
Visualizing Text Properties
Next we will visualize some properties of that are there in the profile data which is created using text profiling.
Sentiment Polarity Score
fig = px.histogram(profile_data, x="sentiment_polarity_score")
fig.show()
SPE(Source: By Author)
2. Sentiment Polarity
fig = px.histogram(profile_data, x="sentiment_polarity")
fig.show()
Sentiment(Source: By Author)
3. Sentiment Subjectivity
fig = px.histogram(profile_data, x="sentiment_subjectivity_summarised")
fig.show()
Sentiment Subjectivity(Source: By Author)
4. Ease of Reading
fig = px.histogram(profile_data, x="ease_of_reading_score")
fig.show()
Ease of Reading(Source: By Author)
Some Other Properties
Now let us look at some of the other properties.
Finding Correlated Properties
# Finding the most and least correlated feature pairs
def most_correlated_pairs(dataframe, threshold=0.05):
corr_matrix = dataframe.corr()
indexes = corr_matrix.columns
pair_names = []
values = []
abs_values = []
for row_index in indexes:
for col_index in indexes:
if str(row_index) != str(col_index):
pair_name = f'{row_index} v/s {col_index}'
alt_pair_name = f'{col_index} v/s {row_index}'
if (pair_name not in pair_names) and (alt_pair_name not in pair_names):
pair_names.append(pair_name)
values.append(corr_matrix[row_index][col_index])
abs_values.append(abs(corr_matrix[row_index][col_index])) correlation_pairs = pd.DataFrame({
'pair_name': pair_names,
'value': values,
'abs_value': abs_values
}).sort_values(by='abs_value', ascending=False)
return correlation_pairs[correlation_pairs.abs_value >= threshold] profiled_text_correalted_pairs_dataframe = most_correlated_pairs(profile_data, threshold=0.05)
profiled_text_correalted_pairs_dataframe
Correlation(Source: By Author)
Similarly we can create correlated features tree.
2. Correlation Tree
# Correlated feature trees (groups)
def correlated_tree(dataframe, threshold=0.05):
corr_matrix = dataframe.corr()
indexes = corr_matrix.columns
nodes = {}
for row_index in indexes:
for col_index in indexes:
value = corr_matrix[row_index][col_index]
if (str(row_index) != str(col_index)) and (value > threshold):
value_as_str = f'{col_index} ({str(abs(round(value, 3)))})'
if row_index not in nodes:
nodes[row_index] = [] nodes[row_index].append(value_as_str)
return dict(sorted(nodes.items(), key=lambda item: item[0])) profiled_text_correalted_tree = correlated_tree(profile_data, threshold=0.07)
for each_node in profiled_text_correalted_tree:
print(each_node)
for each in profiled_text_correalted_tree[each_node]:
print(f'└─ {each }')
print()
Correlation Tree(Source: By Author)
This is how you can explore different properties of textual datasets using NLP Profiler easily without any hassle.
Go ahead try this with different textual datasets, in case you find any difficulty you can post that in the response section.
This post is in collaboration with Piyush Ingale
Before You Go
Thanks for reading! If you want to get in touch with me, feel free to reach me on [email protected] or my LinkedIn Profile. You can view my Github profile for different data science projects and packages tutorials. Also, feel free to explore my profile and read different articles I have written related to Data Science. | https://towardsdatascience.com/nlp-profiler-profiling-datasets-with-one-or-more-text-columns-9b791193db89 | ['Himanshu Sharma'] | 2021-02-02 14:47:38.090000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'NLP', 'Data Analysis', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization'] |
A song I’m working on | So I had an idea for a song. I have most of the lyrics, which you will find down below. I am working on a melody at the same time, which seems to want to come out as a mix of ‘Always a Woman’ by Billy Joel, ‘Learn Me Right’ from ‘Brave’, and ‘If I’m Being Honest’ by Dodie. We’ll see how it turns out, but for now enjoy the lyrics!
~~~~~~~~~
I’ll tell you a story
I found by myself
An old dusty thing I found high on the shelf
I’m not very tall
And I know I might fall
But if I didn’t try you would hear just nothing at all
Oh listen to my journey
Listen to the ways I took to find you
Oh listen to my story
Listen to me and I’ll tell you the ways that I love you
I’ve found you a story
All on my own
But you are now in it and I can see now that I’ve grown
You finished the story
You wrote me the end
And then you began it anew with you as my best friend
And now
I can tell you a tale
Of adventures so far and the ships we’re ready to sail
But where
Oh where will it go
If I had my way I’d make it that we’d never know
Oh we’d never know
We’ll just have to flow
Oh listen to my journey
Listen to the ways I took to find you
Oh listen to my story
Listen to me and I’ll tell you the ways that I love you
~~~~~~~~~~ | https://medium.com/@asiegelster/a-song-im-working-on-63fe1c446a0 | ['Abigail Siegel'] | 2020-12-04 02:27:05.831000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Songwriting', 'Songs', 'Lyrics', 'Poetry'] |
Ansible-Playbook for configuring Docker Webserver | Ansible + Docker + Webserver
Configure the Inventory for Managed Node IP in the host file i.e hosts with credentials (username & password).
How did ansible know where to do the task? Mention the Inventory hosts file in the ansible configuration file i.e ansible.config.
Here the Controller Node established a network with Managed Node.
- hosts: 192.168.43.109
Now we are ready to do tasks in the Managed Node.
Step 1 Download docker software
Before we go for downloading the docker software. We have to configure the yum repository through this we can easily download it otherwise it will fail to download.
tasks:
- name: Adding repository
yum_repository:
name: "docker-ce"
description: "docker download"
baseurl:
"https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/x86_64/stable/" gpgcheck: no
enabled: yes
Download the docker software with the command module. We can also use the ansible package module but the Ansible package module doesn’t support any option
— nobest
We can rectify the error by going to the Managed Node and manually run the command. As we already know that Ansible behind use Yum or Dnf to download the packages.
yum install docker-ce
- name: "installing docker-ce..."
command: "yum install docker-ce --nobest -y"
Step 2 Start and enable Docker services
- name: "starting the docker service..."
service:
name: "docker"
state: restarted
Step 3 Pull the httpd server image from the Docker Hub
While pulling the docker image from the Docker Hub that says to download the docker.py library before pulling the image.
After we also need pip3 that comes from python36 to download the docker.py.
Download python3 and docker.py library.
- name: "Downloading python3"
package:
name:
- python36 - name: "Pip installing docker-py dependencies"
pip:
name: "docker-py"
Now, we can download a docker image.
- name: "downloading docker image...httpd"
docker_image:
name: "httpd"
source: pull
Step 4 Copy the html code in document root i.e /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ directory and start the web server
Before copying the content of the webserver create a folder for the permanent volume that we can mount to another docker container also.
- name: “creating directory for docker…”
file: path: /root/ansible-docker
state: directory
Now copy the content of the webserver.
— name: “copying webserver content…”
copy:
content: “It works…”
dest: /root/ansible-docker/index.html
Step 5 Run the docker container and expose it to the public
Before exposing for simple and easy setup is to disabled the SELinux because SELinux won’t allow port numbers to use.
name: Disable SELinux
selinux:
state: disabled
Launching and Exposing docker container i.e web1 in the 8012 port. Also, the volume from the base OS mounted to the web1 is permanent.
- name: "launching docker container..."
docker_container:
name: "web1"
image: "httpd"
ports: 8012:80
state: started
volumes:
- /root/ansible-docker/:/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/
Note: You might get face some error while exposing docker container
While exposing weberver (httpd) you might get this error. Sol. Webserver Httpd image is work on the 80 port i.e is pre-defined.
While downloading the docker-ce software. Sol. Attach and mount your Redhat 8 dvd before going to download the docker-ce software.
Now run ansible-playbook.
ansible-playbook webserver-docker.yml
Hurry! Output comes 😍
Click to get code… Github | https://medium.com/@neerajsnegi/ansible-playbook-for-configuring-docker-webserver-da3d46539c91 | ['Neeraj Singh Negi'] | 2020-12-11 15:35:27.740000+00:00 | ['Ansible', 'Ansible Playbook', 'Docker', 'Containers', 'Web Server'] |
Another Powerful Gift: Bequests | Fundraising. We know what this is at the most basic level: raising funds. So many non-profits and organizations use tools and best practices to procure funding to operate, grow, and continuously strive toward their missions. And yet, there are lesser known, but nonetheless just as impactful ways to give, such as a bequest.
An excellent way for you to support New Energy Nexus’ mission is to leave us a bequest in your will, living trust or with a codicil. One significant benefit of making a gift by bequest is that it allows you to continue to use the property you will leave to charity during your life. Another benefit is that you are able to leave a lasting legacy.
Giving is not just about donation, but about making a difference.
Our Legal Name and Address: New Energy Nexus, is a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt charitable organization, located at: 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612.
New Energy Nexus’ Federal Tax ID/EIN: 26–1339988
Date of Incorporation: October 27, 2008
*Before we get started, a special thank you to UnitedWay and The American Cancer Society for guidance on the sample text!
Types of Bequests
There are a number of ways you can make a bequest to New Energy Nexus:
Specific Bequest. A specific bequest involves making a gift of a specific asset such as real estate, a car, other property or a gift for a specific dollar amount. For example, you may wish to leave your home or $10,000 to New Energy Nexus.
Percentage Bequest. Another kind of specific bequest involves leaving a specific percentage of your overall estate to charity. For example, you may wish to leave 10% of your estate to New Energy Nexus.
Residual Bequest. A residual bequest is made from the balance of an estate after the will or trust has given away each of the specific bequests. A common residual bequest involves leaving a percentage of the residue of the estate to charity. For example, you may wish to leave 30% of the residue of your estate to New Energy Nexus.
Contingent Bequest. A contingent bequest is made to charity only if the purpose of the primary bequest cannot be met. For example, you could leave specific property, such as a vacation home, to a relative, but the bequest language could provide that if the relative is not alive at the time of your death, the vacation home will go to New Energy Nexus.
Bequest Benefits
A bequest is generally a revocable gift, which means it can be changed or modified at any time. You can choose to designate that a bequest be used for a general or specific purpose so you have the peace of mind knowing that your gift will be used as intended. Bequests are exempt from federal estate taxes. If you have a taxable estate, the estate tax charitable deduction may offset or eliminate estate taxes, resulting in a larger inheritance for your heirs.
Types of Bequests
In order to make a bequest, you should speak with your attorney. Your attorney can help you include a bequest to New Energy Nexus in your estate plan. We have provided some basic bequest language to assist you and your attorney.
1. Specific Bequest
If you are considering making an outright bequest to New Energy Nexus, we recommend the following language:
Bequest of a Specific Dollar Amount
I hereby give, devise and bequeath _________ and No/100 dollars ($DOLLARS) to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
Bequest of Specific Personal Property
I hereby give, devise and bequeath DESCRIPTION OF PROPERTY to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
Bequest of Specific Real Estate
I hereby give, devise and bequeath all of the right, title and interest in and to the real estate located at ADDRESS OR DESCRIPTION OF PROPERTY to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
2. Percentage Bequest
If you are considering making a bequest of a percentage of your estate to New Energy Nexus, we recommend the following language:
I hereby give, devise and bequeath ____ percent (___%) of my total estate, determined as of the date of my death, to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
3. Residual Bequest
I hereby give, devise and bequeath to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, ALL OR A PERCENTAGE of the rest, residue and remainder of my estate to be used for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
4. Contingent Bequest
If (primary beneficiary) does not survive me, then I hereby give, devise and bequeath to New Energy Nexus, a nonprofit organization located at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, Federal Tax ID #26–1339988, DESCRIPTION OF PROPERTY to be used for New Energy Nexus’ general use and purpose.
Restricted Bequests
If you are considering a bequest but would like to ensure that your bequest will be used for a specific purpose, please let us know. We would be happy to work with you and your attorney to help you identify ways to give and meet your charitable objectives. We will also work with you and your attorney to craft language to accomplish your goals.
If you are making a restricted bequest, we recommend that your attorney include the following provision to give New Energy Nexus flexibility should it no longer be possible for our New Energy Nexus to use your gift as you originally intended:
If, in the judgment of the Board of Directors of New Energy Nexus, it shall become impossible for New Energy Nexus to use this bequest to accomplish the specific purposes of this bequest, New Energy Nexus may use the income and principal of this gift for such purpose or purposes as the Board determines is most closely related to the restricted purpose of my bequest.
The Clean Fight NY
Sample Language Below
Sample Bequest of Remainder of Estate
“I give, devise, and bequeath to the New Energy Nexus TAX I.D. #26–1339988, all [or state the fraction or percentage] of the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, both real and personal. New Energy Nexus may be contacted in care of its headquarters 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612.”
Sample Bequest of Specific Amount
“I give, devise, and bequeath $_____ to the New Energy Nexus. TAX I.D. #26–1339988. The American Cancer Society may be contacted in care of its headquarters at 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612”
These are merely suggestions as to content and should be written or adapted by legal counsel to fit the contributor’s individual situation.
Sample Bequest of Residue of Estate (after probate costs and other expenses):
I give to New Energy Nexus, currently of 436 14th Street, Suite 1220, Oakland CA 94612, ___% of the rest and residue of my estate to be used in such a manner as the Board of Directors of New Energy Nexus shall, in its sole discretion, determine.
Safety Language
Language added whenever a gift is restricted
In the event the purposes of the restriction, in the opinion of the Board of Directors of New Energy Nexus, can no longer be served, the Board may devote any remaining assets exclusively for charitable purposes that: (i) are within the scope of the charitable purpose, (ii) most nearly approximate the original purpose of the gift; and (iii) benefits the charity.
Thank You
We would like to take the opportunity to extend to you our warm appreciation for your kind consideration; we are truly honored to be thought of in this way. We find some our friends prefer to keep anonymity and we most honorably respect that. If you would like to let us know of your intentions, we invite you to contact us so we can extend our thank you personally. | https://medium.com/@haley-nieh/another-powerful-gift-bequests-632ff9535d00 | ['H Nieh'] | 2020-12-17 18:37:56.757000+00:00 | ['Fundraising Advice', 'Fundraising Ideas', 'Bequest', 'Fundraising', 'Nonprofit Fundraising'] |
How can we predict house prices with Machine Learning? | Using Python to understand which variables affect the house rent and sales price in São Paulo.
Photo by Kaique Rocha from Pexels
Hello World! I'm learning more about data science and how we can predict values based on other variables. Since I work in a Real State Startup — Loft — I tried to apply some of the concepts and processes in data science to answer some interesting questions about this market!
The first question that I thought about is the main subject of this article — how to predict house prices? Is that possible using the concepts that I've already learned?
But following this question, which variables impact more in rent and in sales? Because probably they are different since the people that choose between these 2 different types of negotiation have different needs.
It's common sense that the region where is the property located affects the price — so, this is our third question, where in São Paulo is cheaper and where is more expensive?
So, these are our 3 questions to answer:
How can we get at least 90% accuracy to predict property price? Rent vs Sale: what is the difference between variables correlation with the price? What neighborhoods in São Paulo have the highest squared meter price? And the lowest?
And to answer those questions we need a good database, surfing in our World Wide Web, I founded this São Paulo properties database on Kaggle that was very useful to me! And was great because São Paulo is the city I live and work in. 😀
But before exploring the questions I will show some challenges that we had on the dataset.
*This project is available on GitHub here.
Preparing the Data
Random image from Word Wide Web
Before trying to analyze the data, I needed to check if everything there was making sense. And I saw three main things that were very important to fix before answering our questions.
To accomplish that I need to use the knowledge that Yoda’s Jedi Master taught me.
First I understood if we had values for all lines of the dataset and a sample of this data. Until here everything was looking good. But when I checked the types of values, I saw that Elevator, Furnished, Swimming Pool, and New were classified as integers instead of boolean — and all of these values were 0 or 1.
The second problem that I founded was when I check the value counts for Latitude and Longitude. A lot of them were 0?!? I'm not the smartest person on geography, but I know that São Paulo is not located in the Gulf of Guinea.
Latitude 0 and Longitude 0
So after that, I plot the 13640 lines of data that we have on the dataset and I faced this image.
Didn't look so good, maybe this is wrong. MAYBE.
So I searched for the maximum latitude and longitude for São Paulo and replaced all the values that were out of São Paulo with the values mean (excluding the out of location values, of course).
And the new plot was making a lot of sense now! After this part, I just created 2 other datasets to separate properties for sale and for rent, because the price between them is very different.
That was very helpful to answer our 3 questions later!
1 — How can we get at least 90% accuracy to predict property price?
The only way that I learned to predict values was with the Linear Regression Model. Before trying this model, I created a dummy variable for each categorical values in our dataset. Remembering that now we have 3 datasets:
df = all properties
df_rent = properties for rent
df_sale = properties for sale
But unfortunately, the results were not satisfactory:
So I needed to surf again on our World Wide Web and I find the Gradient Boost Model — for more information check this article.
And now we achieved our objective, we have an accuracy score of 0.93 — at the data frame that has both for sales and for rental properties.
This is great, and Gradient Boost can understand a lot better than Linear Regression the number of features that have an impact on the price and that the features have a correlation between than.
2 — What neighborhoods in São Paulo have the highest squared meter price? And the lowest?
To prepare the answer to this question we need to understand that the price for itself doesn't mean a lot comparing different regions. The squared meter is a variable that can explain better the differences in property valuation between neighborhoods.
So let's begin to analyze the neighborhoods with the highest square meter price in properties for sale and for rental:
Properties For Rental
Properties For Sale
Here we can already see the differences:
We have 9 districts that are in both lists: Iguatemi, Vila Olimpia, Itaim Bibi, Brooklin, Pinheiros, Vila Madalena, Moema, Campo Belo and Jardim Paulista.
Alto de Pinheiros is just in the 10 highest Squared Meter Price for sale.
Consolação is just in the 10 highest Squared Meter Price for rent.
And the lowest squared meter price:
Properties For Rental
Properties For Sale
Let’s understand this data:
We have 5 districts that are in both lists: Grajaú, Artur Alvim, Itaim Paulista, Lajeado and Guaianazes.
Capão Redondo, Medeiros, Itaquera, São Rafael and Cidade Tiradents are just in the 10 lowest Squared Meter Price for sale.
Ponte Rasa, Jardim Helena, Jaçanã, José Bonifácio and Jardim São Luis are just in the 10 lowest Squared Meter Price for rent.
3— Rent vs Sale: what is the difference between variables correlation with the price?
Now let’s see which variables impact more in price! First I will show the heatmap indicating the correlation of the variables with the price of the properties for rental and for sale.
Properties For Rental
Properties For Sale
At those heatmaps, we can see some difference.
Let’s begin with variables that impact more when the apartment is for sale:
Size, number of rooms, toilets, and parking spots.
And the variables that impact more when the apartment is for rent:
The condo price and if the apartment is furnished.
Bringing that to reality makes sense because the variables with a bigger correlation in the properties for sale are more about long-term characteristics and in the properties for rent is more about short-term characteristics.
Another way to understand that is to measure the coefficient weights in a Linear Regression model that we tried before:
Properties For Rent
Properties For Sale
In this case, we can understand that Geographic Location is the more important characteristic to define the price, which is very true. We can see this difference when we analyzed the Districts with the highest and lowest squared meter price.
Suites and Furnished have a bigger impact on price when we look at the properties for sale.
New and Toilets have a bigger impact on price when we look at the properties for rent.
Thanks for reading! Feedbacks are very welcomed! 😃 | https://medium.com/@juncken-marcos/how-can-we-predict-house-prices-with-machine-learning-f26b9432a7aa | ['Marcos Juncken'] | 2020-12-17 23:02:12.597000+00:00 | ['Real State', 'Data Science', 'Predictions', 'Machine Learning'] |
The thoughts of a new mother at 3am | My first child, Macy, was born in February. My husband, Spencer, and I have officially been parents for two months now. These past two months have been filled with many highs and lows. Through these highs and lows there have been countless late nights and early mornings with my baby girl while she is eating. These feedings have become my praying, thinking, and reflecting time.
For me motherhood has been filled with stress about many things, but the hardest thing about motherhood has been the completely unpredictable and spontaneous wake-up calls. The 3am cry for food or the middle of the day screams as I lay down for a nap after a sleepless night. Before welcoming Macy to the world, my husband and I would often sleep for 8–9 hours a night. I joke that we are so good together because we both love to sleep so much. We knew that parenthood would be hard on our sleep habits, but I never realized how hard it would really be.
A few nights ago, Macy and I were having one of those rough nights. I sat down in the rocker with my baby girl and gave her a bottle for the umpteenth time. As we rocked I found myself spiraling through my frustrations “Am I really cut out for this?… This is ridiculous, just sleep Macy… Have I jumped into parenting too soon?… Will I ever get to spend time relaxing with Spencer again?…” As these thoughts continued to spiral I began to cry and started praying.
Through these prayers I was quickly reminded of all the blessings I have been given. We have been given a healthy, strong, beautiful baby girl. We have a roof over our heads. And every time Macy finishes a feeding I can lay her down in a warm and safe crib while I get to crawl back into my cozy bed with a loving and kind husband.
In the middle of the lows, I needed a reminder. I needed the reminder that going through these “tough times” is a blessing. I needed the reminder that the things I am complaining and stressing about are things that someone else out there is wishing, praying, and hurting for. So the next time you are having a tough time think about me and Macy at 3am in her nursery rocking. Take a moment to let out your own tears and frustrations. Then ask yourself, is someone else out there asking for the blessing that you are currently complaining about? | https://medium.com/@kendellabrams/the-thoughts-of-a-new-mother-at-3am-5e716c9660d8 | ['Kendell Abrams'] | 2020-04-21 17:26:55.735000+00:00 | ['Parenthood', 'Blessings', 'Motherhood', 'Prayer'] |
Free Ways Remote Workers Can Improve a Videoconferencing Setup | Being seen is important, too.
Lighting is the most important factor
To change the way you look, change where you sit, or by re-arranging some lamps. The worst lighting is when a bright light is behind you, like Olivier Lacan demonstrates below. The light should be in front of you. For example, illuminating your face from behind the webcam.
Some people use ring lamps which makes skin brighter and clearer, though lighting up the sides of the face is also important. A lamp near both sides of your face will make the image look better. But as long as you have good overall lighting from the front side, you’ve got it mostly right.
Put your best face forward with the correct angle
Webcams go on top of monitors so you have better eye contact. Most people appear slimmer when they’re shot from above.
Not all of the gear Nigel Barros uses here to ‘Make a $300 Camera Look Pro’ are things people have around the house, but they work because Nigel has nailed the setup. Source: Nigel Barros, YouTube
If the height of your monitor or laptop is an issue, stack several books underneath. Finally, another use for old textbooks.
Avoid positioning the webcam below your face. This angle is unflattering — people’s faces seem wider, and it highlights teeth stains, nose hairs, and other lovely bits.
The correct USB port
Don’t plug a webcam into your monitor’s USB port, which is a slower USB connection than the computer. The USB ports in your monitor are for a keyboard and mouse, not for quickly transferring a lot of data in real-time. This solves a surprising number of problems with lag.
What about your smartphone?
The front facing camera in a modern phone is usually better than what’s in a computer. It’s not perfect. Some phones, like iPhones, connect at a slower USB 2.0 data rate, so there’s an impact on image quality.
The woman in this image from Business Insider is using a mini-tripod. Notice the bright overall lighting. Some selfie sticks come with tripods (and ring lights).
My take is it’s more important to spend time fixing sound and lighting. If you want to try, these are the apps you need. All of them are freemium apps, which means they make money by charging users for nice-to-have features like being able to use the phone’s microphone instead of your own, low-light video processing, reduced lag, and no ads. | https://medium.com/random-acts-of-management/free-ways-to-improve-your-videoconferencing-setup-c06c4a37294d | ['Philip Chang'] | 2020-12-07 08:13:41.884000+00:00 | ['Remote Work', 'Remote Working', 'Gadgets', 'Conference', 'Technology'] |
MEDIA RELEASE: Australia blind to match fixing | AN illegal betting scandal has reportedly been uncovered hours before the first ball of the WACA Test.
MEDIA RELEASE: Australia blind to match fixing
Australia’s ban of in-play betting heightens the risk of match fixing
14 December 2017
“Reports in the UK of match fixing in today’s Ashes test demonstrate the futility of the Australian Government’s ban on in-play betting in Australia”, said Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm.
“With the current ban on in-play betting in Australia, matches could be fixed and all the associated bets would be made through unregulated Indian sites. The current Australian regulator — the Australian Communications and Media Authority — would be none-the-wiser.
“If we regulated in-play betting in Australia, an Australian regulator would see any rapid betting plunge using Australian online betting sites. Investigations and prosecutions for match fixing would soon follow. This would deter match fixing in Australia.
“Australian gamblers are hurt twice by our ban on in-play betting. They are denied an option to gamble on a regulated Australian site, and they suffer a heightened risk of match fixing. And of course, the taint of match fixing hurts Australian sports fans too.
The Government banned in-play online betting with Labor’s support in August through changes to the Interactive Gambling Act.
“This is a head-in-the-sand approach. We should instead pursue the UK’s approach of allowing, rigorously regulating, and taxing online gambling. This helps both gamblers and sports fans in the UK.
Senator Leyonhjelm’s lobbying has prompted a small watering-down of Australia’s ban on in-play betting, with betting during overnight gaps in cricket and other multi-day events now allowed.
Media: Duncan Spender 0401 065 131 | https://medium.com/leyonhjelm/media-release-australia-blind-to-match-fixing-1d734626a368 | ['Former Senator David Leyonhjelm'] | 2017-12-14 00:59:13.496000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Australian Politics', 'Gambling'] |
Video hosting sites that will make you rich | AN AMAZING VIDEO HOSTING WEBSITE YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT.
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there are affiliate links on this article, and I will make a commission if you purchase from them | https://medium.com/@chidinmabugwu/video-hosting-sites-that-will-make-you-rich-c7ee7b6d94ee | ['Software Explainer'] | 2021-12-28 10:42:35.994000+00:00 | ['Videos', 'Video Marketing'] |
Rock Token (RKT) Fundamental Analysis — The bridge between crypto and institutional money | TLDR; Why RKT?
To understand why RKT is amazing we need to take a look at the wider cryptocurrency landscape.
Blockchain projects raised $3.5–4 billion US Dollars to date through initial coin offerings (ICOs). But it’s a mostly unregulated way of raising funds, and scams are rampant. More than half of last year’s ICOs already failed, and the tokens went to zero. Some of the ICOs by legitimate projects are doing incredibly well, though. It’s not unlike the startup scene: most of the new companies disappear, a few become the Facebooks and Amazons of tomorrow.
Institutional money is serious about entering crypto, but there are not many vehicles at their disposal, and for ICOs there are none.
It is hard to provide an avenue for institutional investors to join ICOs, because of the chaos around regulation. Laws are very different in China and Japan, in Hong Kong and the US; and they are changing fast.
The project behind Rock Token, the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) and the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), is solving exactly this problem. Once operational, institutional money can invest into highly vetted ICOs possibly on a traditional stock market (more on this later), with complete regulatory compliance. It is an absolute game changer.
The Rock Token (RKT) itself is a utility token to be used on GBX. Think of it as the Binance Coin (BNB) or QASH but on a market where the biggest traditional players can trade.
Qryptos is the best place to buy RKT (sign up here if you don’t have an account — it’s an affiliate link). You can also buy RKT on the IDEX decentralized exchange, although the spreads are pretty bad there.
Project background
GSX is a traditional stock exchange. Although it’s relatively small, what matters from our perspective is that it’s an EU-regulated market with full regulatory compliance (they also operate globally as a self-regulated market). While the initial growth of the cryptocurrency markets was akin to the Wild West, often displaying outright anti-regulation sentiments, GSX realized that mainstream adoption requires compliance. GSX launched a new project, the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) to bridge the worlds of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance.
GBX, at first sight, is not all that different from a “normal” cryptocurrency exchange, although certainly much more transparent than Bitfinex and others, with a clear ownership and banking relations. Once fully operational, traders can buy and sell several cryptocurrencies, as well as convert fiat into crypto and vice versa. What makes it unique is GBX Grid, the ICO platform.
Source: Whitepaper
Projects wishing to raise money through GBX need to go through a strict vetting process. They need to have a viable proof of concept, validated by a GBX-appointed sponsor firm (which is playing a similar role an investment bank plays in a “normal” IPO). They need to adhere to the regulatory framework GBX is operating in (the Gibraltar DLT regulations, one of the most forward-looking in the world). Once an ICO gets the green light, it becomes available on GBX for all sorts of investors, including institutional money. They get access to highly vetted projects listed on a regulated market. Existing tokens can get listed on GBX as well, but they need to go through the same vetting process.
The real magic happens when some (the best) of these digital tokens are issued as asset-backed securities on the main Gibraltar Stock Exchange. This opens up another huge market, as at this point the more conservative investors can buy shares in security token-based blockchain projects just like they buy a “normal” stock on any “normal” market. GSX-listed projects can be double-listed on any EU stock exchange and/or the London Stock Exchange. Imagine a Vanguard or BlackRock fund with blockchain projects. If you know anything about investing, you know this is a real game-changer.
GBX is closely allied with the Japanese exchange, Quoine. In fact, QASH (the Quoine Token) and RKT have overlapping use cases. Together they aim to cover two-thirds of the world, Asia and Europe. | https://medium.com/sandor-report/rock-token-rkt-fundamental-analysis-the-bridge-between-crypto-and-institutional-money-81c04bb86d79 | ['Torsten', 'Quadrant Protocol'] | 2018-04-20 15:21:55.293000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Investment', 'Investment Management', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
The Gender Binary of Fashion | The Gender Binary of Fashion
Rethinking how we support an unnecessary clothing binary
Image by author via Canva
The point of this article isn’t to say that we need to abolish gendered clothing ASAP because it contradicts my beliefs. Honestly, I don’t think we’re at a place where something like that would be very feasible, and besides, lots of people, including myself, actually like many gendered clothes. What I do want to talk about is something I think we can and should change in the near future: people shouldn’t feel limited in their fashion expression to the clothing sections that match the gender they were assigned at birth.
A quick reminder on identities and expression
Gender expression versus gender identity
Gender identity = gender you are in your brain (does not always align with sex assigned at birth).
Gender expression/presentation = the gendered or non-gendered way in which you express yourself, e.g. clothing, makeup, haircut, appearance, body language, etc.
Gender expression and identity don’t have to align! Well-known but non-exhaustive examples of this include cross-dressing, drag, and other cases in which someone’s gender identity doesn’t necessarily align with the way they present themselves. This isn’t just limited to ‘boys wearing dresses’, and is often a lot more subtle and complex.
Corporate and social levels
Corporate
We’re all pretty familiar with ‘Men’, ‘Women’, and ‘Kids’ sections of the clothing store. If you’re a cisgender person who is comfortable dressing in the section corresponding to your gender, you may not have even put much thought into these sections. It’s not something that’s likely to make you feel limited or ashamed unless it negatively affects you.
As a transgender, non-binary person, I’ve always felt consistently aware and intimidated by the signage and clear division. This isn’t necessarily because I think these sections should be eradicated to fit my needs, but, like many other transgender people, the social pressures that make crossing the line into the other section are really intimidating.
Social
When you were a baby you were probably dressed in one of those adorable pink or blue one-pieces, then in tiny jeans, doll-sized dresses, boy’s graphic tees, butterfly print leggings — until one day you announced to your parents that you were grown up enough to pick out your own clothes, and many of you probably made a B-line for the section aligning with your gender assigned at birth since your parents dressed you exclusively in those types of clothes. If not, you were probably guided back there by parents enough times for the thought pattern to set and for societal pressures to define your own habits.
These early experiences manifest in a certain kind of expectation when people go to the store. The expectation is that you and everyone around you will follow a rule — which none of you made but all of you uphold — that there are invisible borders you cannot pass, and clothes that you cannot put on. Many people uphold the rule without being fully conscious they are doing it. Until you want to cross the line, it’s hard to realize that it’s there at all (hence this article). Whenever I shop in the men’s section, salespeople usually either gender me as male, or ask if I’m shopping for a boyfriend/father/brother.
What’s the big deal?
Transgender people who don’t yet pass, or who are non-binary and present in an androgynous manner, experience types of discrimination that are normalized further by our societal need to make it such a big deal to shop in a section other than one aligning with the gender you pass as. If people feel uncomfortable shopping in a certain section, or are discouraged by family/friends from doing so, it can be a lot harder for them to come out to people who may have been unconsciously humiliating them for their fashion choices for years.
Destigmatizing opening up conversations about transitioning, and creating accepting environments isn’t a small matter.
Often, it’s quite literally a matter of life and death. A 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics study found that 50.8% of transgender male adolescents, 29.9% of transgender female adolescents, and 41.8% of non-binary adolescents who were part of the survey reported that they had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. This, contrasted with the 7.4% of high school students who had attempted suicide according to the 2017 Youth Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, is no small number.
Feeling unsafe to exist as who you really are is a huge risk factor, and unaccepting/unsafe spaces drive these numbers. Fostering a nonjudgmental space when it comes to fashion and gender expression may seem small, and is indeed part of a much larger picture, but can really contribute to making queer youth feel more safe and accepted.
Beyond the discomfort experienced by many pre-transition transgender and non-binary people, the fact is that very few people (yes, even cisgender people) have a gender expression that 100% aligns with their gender assigned at birth. For one thing, intersex people are real and valid and their fashion choices can vary widely and align or not align with how people tend to gender them.
Fashion is, when it comes down to it, just a form of warmth and art you use to cover your body, and doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with your anatomy. Yes, there are different fits and styles, and I’ve heard the ‘but it’s just not flattering’ argument as much as you have, but if someone wants to dress in something that bothers you, ask yourself why it bugs you so much, or why it’s your business at all.
Fashion is a fun tool to express yourself, and despite debates on which fits are most flattering, not everyone wants something that was tailored for their body type, or your expectations.
What can you do?
Some ideas for what to say when a piece of clothing someone wants to wear makes you uncomfortable:
Support, even if you don’t understand: Instead of “But that’s a woman’s shirt, it’s just not meant to fit you,” try, “I hadn’t thought of that for you, but I want you to wear whatever makes you feel most comfortable and genuinely yourself.”
Start a conversation (non-aggressively): Instead of, “I know you, this just isn’t you. Why are you dressing like this all of a sudden?” try, “How does wearing that shirt/dress/etc. make you feel?” or, “What do you like about this style?”
If you don’t know, ask: Instead of “I don’t really get what’s going through your head or why you’re making these choices or how I’m supposed to react.” try, “Is there any way I can be more supportive of your fashion choices and gender expression?”
All about the little things
Creating change, as I see it, is all about the little supportive moves you can make for people who don’t fully present according to the way you think they should based on social pressures and gender norms. This 100% includes people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Don’t stigmatize girls dressing in boys’ clothes, or vice versa. Saying things like ‘that’s too feminine’ or ‘are you sure you don’t want something that enhances your figure more?’ can, even without being aware of it, support an unnecessary binary (and sexualization/misogyny) in clothes.
Note to parents
In my opinion, normalizing exploring different forms of gender expression from a young age is a great thing. That doesn’t mean forcing your child to wear only clothes that are dull or gender-neutral, or solely clothes that fight the gender binary. It means encouraging choice, and offering your kid a variety of choices and making it clear from early on that there are no limits to the way you can express yourself.
If your child comes out as transgender, that’s one less thing they have to worry about you being upset over. If they’re cisgender, they’ll probably grow up to be even more confident dressing in clothes that really feel like them and express their genuine style interests.
DON’T say things like, That’s totally not you; I know you, or, Don’t you think you would look so much better in x?
For one, young people — and adults, for that matter — are always in a state of change, so if something is different than you thought, go with the flow and ask non-admonishing questions to learn more (see above). Shutting people down before they have a chance to explain how they feel discourages communication and relationship-building, and increases the likelihood of perpetuated secrecy.
A lot of parents are terrified at the idea of their child maturing and wearing clothes that might make them the target of ridicule, of sexualized glances, even of violence. And it’s good to educate them of the risks associated with certain fashion choices. But ultimately, the choice of gender expression (not to be confused with gender identity, which is not a choice) is individual, and should not experience pressure from community — whether that’s strangers at the mall, family, or anyone else.
Gender expression is fun!
Wearing clothes that truly express your interests and personality is such a confidence-booster. Speaking as someone who wore a lot of blazers, over-sized trench coats, and quarter-zips sophomore year, I can confirm that, sometimes, it can be a source of amusement or confusion to people around you.
But ultimately, unabashedly dressing in the colors and styles that actually appeal to you and playing around with different looks can really help foster creativity; it can even make you less apologetic for your choices and work.
Honestly, there are a lot of things wrong with how people perceive and judge each other in the world, but if whoever’s reading this can do even the smallest thing to destigmatize crossing gender lines in fashion for those around them, then maybe we can make someone’s life a little easier — and that’s a win to me. | https://medium.com/gender-from-the-trenches/the-gender-binary-of-fashion-1a9d174e4a84 | ['Chaidie Petris'] | 2020-09-10 22:44:34.454000+00:00 | ['Nonbinary', 'Gender Identity', 'Fashion', 'Transgender', 'Gender Roles'] |
Genaro Network aimed at Sustainability | Mining cryptocurrencies became one of the hottest & most profitable sources of income across the globe. People who began mining early became wealthy fast. At the start, miners could use a simple home computer to earn a bitcoin. With more people mining bitcoin, the amount of energy required increases. Nowadays it takes a massive amount of energy to power the computers needed to solve the algorithms necessary to receive the rewards. The costs of setting up and running a mining operation is not profitable today. The amount of power needed to run a mining computer such as the Antminer s9 (Cost $8,200) constantly for one year is around 15,000 kilowatt hours producing approx. 0.85 bitcoins per year. Energy costs of mining a single bitcoin can range from $3,200 (in Louisiana) to $9,400 (in Hawai’i).
Smog in Shanghai, China
Sustainability and taking into consideration the impact being made on the environment should be at the forefront of people’s minds. While I do not think that all of the world’s energy will be consumed by 2020 because of bitcoin mining, I do think that mining the coin is becoming harmful to the environment. In China, where most mining takes place, fossil fuels are being used to power operations, causing further damage to China’s ecosystem.
‘Mining’ on the Genaro Network does not cause such harm on the environment. It can be done on a home computer, because miners on the Genaro Network share hard drive space instead of using exorbitant amounts of energy.
Genaro Eden is the first Dapp built on the Genaro Network, which allows users to store their data on Genaro’s public blockchain, giving them unparalleled security. That data is encrypted and separated into different pieces, which is stored on different nodes across the network. A benefit of becoming an Eden user is that with more users, costs for storing data will go down.
Genaro Sharer allows users to earn rewards for sharing their hard drive space. This creates a global ecosystem. The Genaro Network ensures that data is stored on the nearest node, which ensures data can be efficiently accessible. Sharer is sustainable, because it allows for the optimization of empty space, giving both parties benefit. Unused space does not remain idle, rather it can store others data, but also enable ‘Sharers’ to earn rewards as well.
Genaro Eden sells unused space to make storage more economical and environmentally friendly and sets the stage for the optimal allocation of resources. That is what we call “green computing!”
The Genaro Network understands taking care of the environment is important. Genaro Network is dedicated to sustainable solutions & is pursuing the elimination of damaging environmental impact which has been associated with the mining of cryptocurrencies. The ecosystem created enables for parties storing data and sharing unused space to benefit, while also optimizing hard disk space, which is often left unused. | https://medium.com/genaro-network/genaro-network-aimed-at-sustainability-4efdc226bdff | ['Kauwila Johsens'] | 2018-07-04 09:20:20.656000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Energy', 'Sustainability', 'Data', 'Bitcoin'] |
Polyamory and Being a Romantic at Heart | Being in a polyamorous relationship, I tend to get it from both sides…not like you’re thinking…don’t get ahead of me now…what I mean is, that there are certain notions from both the non-poly crowd of monogamists and the polyamory community that I usually avoid whenever possible that can tend to make people raise an eyebrow when I speak. One place that this is particularly pronounced is the intersection between polyamory and romance.
Whenever I speak of romantic ideas, like lifelong partnerships, successful marriages that contain dedication, love, and self-sacrifice, I’m accused of appreciating a toxic culture that should be left behind.
Whenever I speak of polyamory, loving and building solid, emotional, romantic relationships with more than one person, people look at me like such relationships are loveless, careless, and are basically just wild sex parties where the people go home afterward and sit in silence where they stew over the jealousy they’re masking from their partners.
Neither of these two ideas could be further from the truth. It’s important to say that a lot of what people call “polyamory” is really just swinging, a totally different concept and experience. Swinging takes place when people in a committed relationship allow others into their sex lives, be it individually or as a group, but there is no element of connection or commitment. Polyamory, on the other hand, doesn’t even need to be sexual, so long as there are a romantic relationship and a commitment for the future with more than one person, a relationship qualifies as polyamory. The notion that “polyamory means different things to different people,” definitely distorts this difference.
It’s one thing to have casual sex with someone, even repeatedly, while maintaining one relationship, it’s a whole other dynamic to maintain two or more complete relationships. One is dabbling on the side, the other is having two main courses.
I don’t personally see polyamory and romance as mutually exclusive, but rather, very complimentary ideas. Monogamists often wonder if they have the guts to allow someone they love deeply and have built a life with to date other people on a deep level, and this concern is healthy and understandable: I’d be hesitant, too, to risk my relationship to chance, possibly opening the door for destruction when my seemingly-natural jealousy comes out. Humans, according to the monogamist, should only be attracted to one person primarily and should keep to them. Polyamorists, on the other hand, tend to think that humans are always going to be attracted to more than one person. For them, any notion that we should only want one person is either unhealthy or dishonest and should be met with skepticism.
But, I don’t think the situation is either/or. The problem with both approaches is that they prescribe to know a fixed state of human sexuality, a subject that is anything but fixed. Not only are humans capable of a wide array of potential dating styles which have been with us since our humble roots of being hunter-gatherers, but most people can be most things in different situations. I’ve been more than capable of being monogamous and committed with one partner, at one point in my life, and more than capable of being polyamorous with others. Some relationships develop in such a way that polyamory just compliments the dynamic between the two people better than monogamy, and vice versa. Further, different participants in a poly situation may have different roles: in my current situation, my girlfriend is married, she has a husband, yet, our relationship is closed — neither he nor I am looking for any additional partners, we’re content with what we have and want to enjoy it.
So, while the relationship is polyamorous, on a whole, and the dynamic is experienced by all of us as poly, two out of three of us are monogamous. Not everything is so simple as slapping a label on it and calling it something.
There’s nothing wrong with him or me for not wanting any additional sex or romantic partners. There is such a thing as being satisfied with what we have in life and not needing anything more, no matter how much this weird, American, consumer culture wants to tell us that we always need more, bigger, and better — that’s not the way life works, balance is important.
And there’s nothing wrong with her enjoying and loving deeply two different sets of traits in two different people. The amount of human traits which we might find appreciable are near-infinite, and each individual only possesses a select few of those traits. As polyamorists, it’s not a competition of who’s “better” or “worse” it’s about understanding that even two very excellent people might differ in their excellences.
In this sense, polyamory is deeply romantic, it’s loving your partner so much that you wish not to deprive them of the possibilities which lie outside of yourself, supporting them in finding the types of people that make their lives more rich and full. Polyamory says that the hit that our ego might take in admitting that we aren’t everything that our partner might want in someone is less important than them being free to have what they want in their lives.
But, this should never lose sight of the virtues of deeply-convicted monogamy, virtues like endurance, willingness to put your relationship first and your own needs second when the time comes, self-sacrifice, caring, a willingness to accept inconvenience if it helps better your other half or third or what have you. We manage to cover all of these things quite perfectly. Personally, I don’t recommend polyamory reaching beyond 3 or 4 partners, but maybe others can find a way to manage the time to dedicate to that many partners; and I say this because we can only divide our time, energy, and focus up among so many people before it becomes diluted and impotent. There’s nothing wrong with being deeply committed to and loving more than one person at a time, but there’s similarly nothing wrong with wanting deep commitment and love. I think the latter might be a prerequisite for the former.
We can still have fairytale endings with more than one person. Polyamory and romance aren’t mutually exclusive…in fact, they’re very wonderfully complimentary #relationshipgoals. | https://medium.com/moments-of-passion/polyamory-and-being-a-romantic-at-heart-38906d30bbd3 | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2019-08-19 00:01:28.766000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Sex', 'Sexuality', 'Polyamory'] |
The Gateway to the Future | “There, that .. that is it ? that is the wormhole! say don't spray it! It is a sphere …. you thought it would just be a hole? No, it is just that all the illustrations I have ever seen. In the illustrations, they are trying to show you how it works. … A sphere, exactly! … But who put it there? Who do we have to thank?”
All the sentences from the Interstellar movie is a 2014 British-American epic science fiction film directed and produced by Christopher Nolan.
First of all, let’s look at what is the underlying truth of this legend. The wormhole or Einstein-Rosen bridge was proposed by Nathan Rosen and Albert Einstein. Wormholes are bridges connecting two different points in space-time — points that have a very large time difference, or very large distances between them, or even different universes.
Photo by John Paul Summers on Unsplash
Wormhole Theory: Wormholes consist of two mouths and a throat that connects these two mouths. Mouths are probably spherical. The throat is in the form of a linear extension, but is also cyclic and requires a longer path than a conventional route.
Although there is no observational data on the existence of wormholes, some solutions of Einstein’s field equations, which are the basis of the general theory of relativity, involve wormholes.
The first solution to Einstein’s field equations involving wormholes was found by Ludwig Flamm in 1916. These solutions are today called Einstein-Rosen bridges, as the same solution was later found independently by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen.
John A. Wheeler suggested in 1962 that wormholes corresponding to the Einstein-Rosen solution would be unstable if they connected two separate regions of the same universe. He thought that even if such a wormhole was formed, it would disappear in such a short time and nothing could pass through it.
Wormholes not only connect two separate regions in the universe, but they can also connect two different universes. Similarly, some scientists; speculate that if the mouth of a wormhole is shaped to a certain shape, it could make time travel possible. However, British cosmologist Stephen Hawking thinks this is not possible. Eric Christian of NASA supports Hawking’s thinking with the following words: “Wormhole doesn’t mean going back in time, it’s just a shortcut that goes far and closer.” Science fiction movies are full of travel stories in wormholes, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds. In reality, these journeys are much more complicated and we couldn’t make it happen. We are facing a few problems.
The first problem is; size. The first wormholes were considered to exist at a microscopic level of about 10–33 centimeters. However, as the universe expands, it is quite possible that some will also expand to much larger sizes. Another problem is; stems from the recession. The predicted Einstein-Rosen wormholes may not be practical for travel as they collapse too quickly. However, more recent research has found that a wormhole contains “exotic” material that allows it to stay open without collapsing and can remain unchanged for a long time.
Exotic substance; It is defined as a phenomenon involving negative energy density and too much negative pressure. Such substances can only be seen in behavior at certain vacuum levels that are part of the quantum field theory. If a wormhole is composed of enough exotic matter — whether naturally occurring or artificially added — it could theoretically be used as a method for traveling through space or sending information.
As a result, Today’s technology; is inadequate at the point of expanding or stabilizing wormholes, but due to the technology’s momentum of development, these problems are more likely to be resolved sooner than we thought.
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DLive: https://dlive.tv/RECEPSULUKER | https://medium.com/predict/the-gateway-to-the-future-dbc92c5a8525 | ['Recep Suluker'] | 2020-12-13 22:06:52.003000+00:00 | ['Wormhole', 'Space Exploration', 'Science', 'Space', 'Space Travel'] |
The National Police Association Asks for the Help of the Public | National Police Association
The not-for-profit National Police Association recently created and released a public service campaign to raise awareness about the need for public assistance to be offered to law enforcement officers that appear to be in a struggle while they are in the process of completing an arrest. Public citizens that are witness to this type of incident are urged to not film the struggle, but to immediately use their mobile device to call 9–1–1 for professional law enforcement backup to arrive on the scene as quickly as possible.
The public service campaign was very clear that citizens should not standby and film an officer in danger. What has become apparent to the leaders of the National Police Association and to many law enforcement officers across the nation is that there is a trend growing that shows more and more citizens choosing to try and capture the incidents on film, most likely in advance of using it on their social media. With most citizens attempting to record these incidents, it directly impacts a police officer’s ability to resolve the incident without hurting anyone or getting hurt themselves and reflects a lack of desire to assist when an officer is struggling to complete their duties. This lack of assistance has become a dangerous model of behavior with the National Police Association citing many moments reported where people are choosing to film incidents on cell phones instead of calling 9–1–1.
Read the Full Article on the National Police Association…
ABOUT National Police Association
The National Police Association is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization founded to educate supporters of law enforcement on how to help police departments accomplish their goals. The National Police Association is supported solely through the contributions of individuals and organizations. Donations are tax-deductible
The National Police Association works to bring national and local attention to the anti-police efforts challenging effective law enforcement at every turn and to build public support for needed actions through TV and radio public service announcements, legal filings, articles authored for the NPA by law enforcement experts, and our podcast. Follow the efforts of the NPA more closely on their website nationalpolice.org. | https://medium.com/@nationalpolice2021/the-national-police-association-asks-for-the-help-of-the-public-68e6ae99a205 | [] | 2020-12-16 23:42:34.244000+00:00 | ['Law Enforcement', 'National Police Assn', 'Police', 'National Police', 'Npa'] |
Our Blombos Cave | Our Blombos Cave
Photo by Christian Holzinger on Unsplash
There’s a hollow bone echo
carving its way
into the fabric of my being
a baseline isomorphism
Boom ba boom ba dada da…
Swaying mystery without an edge
and yet there it was all along
in our paintings and songs
blazing stars of the primary fire,
drawn in the blood of the first hunt
Within my bellowing soul,
I am but a beast
with hindsight and epiphanies
yet the galaxies don’t seem to stay put
and the seashore is filled
with skulls brought in by the tide
Do I run or do I hide?
In the chambers of the neocortex
for fortitude reaching forth
the fall entangled always with pride
and yet, how do I decide?
To rise from my tattered casket
and cry out my whiskey prophecies
finally, unleashed to the realms of man?
Yet was this always the plan?
Was I as delicate as that octopus
that watched us fall apart
collecting that final
gold timepiece in its den.
And I wonder,
is there even a moment left to pass,
when disorder is maximized at last.
Have we grown tired of the flame?
The remnants of a mortician’s
weathered hands, as the reaper naps nearby
have we forgotten the face on the moon?
It was always a grin,
a revolting wild howl,
as tragedy played itself out,
on a stage that never stopped
and a playwright that went mad.
Yet how do we decide to live,
among the dead, to love
each other among the vile,
to find wholeness among the fractured
and peace amongst depravity?
Will we ever start again?
I wonder,
listening to the drumbeat of sorrow
break
the chords to chance and fate.
Boom ba boom ba …
dada da…
Boom ba. | https://medium.com/loose-words/our-blombos-cave-dc9d31fefbc4 | ['Bradley J Nordell'] | 2020-12-11 22:14:01.364000+00:00 | ['Abstract', 'Evolution', 'Origins', 'Poetry', 'Stream Of Consciousness'] |
Museums, Exhibitions & Galleries: Display Lighting Mantra | Form only exists through light and our perception of the world around us is totally dependent on it.
Claude Monet
The Night Watch, Rembrandt — Rijksmuseum
The illumination of museums and galleries faces various obstacles and threats with developing technologies and methods. In the illumination of museums and galleries, regardless of the exhibits, they are expected to reflect the texture, form, colours, details and philosophy of the works. The ‘display lighting mantra’ detailed here shows the balance that is needed between visibility, interest, preservation and ambience considerations.
Claude Monet has explained the importance of light very clearly and sharply. In addition, it should be mentioned that light can be used as a manipulation tool. Light is an invisible wavelength, and we can only see light with the surfaces when it touches. We can only see and understand our surroundings with light and as far as the light allows. At this point, it is necessary to approach and illuminate the artworks and museums as philosophically as well as technically and architecturally. In this way, art and design can reach the value levels that they deserve more easily.
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand
Some of the proven methods of exhibition space and museum lighting are constantly repeated; to create accent lighting on artworks, to provide major contrasts, to provide volume views. But each artwork is very different in terms of the philosophical process. Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” masterpieces are separated from each other. Therefore, their lighting and ambience cannot be expected to be the same. These examples can be easily increased; ancient greek monuments, gothic approach, surreal works, pop-ups, minimal photographs, modern installations and many others. In a monument lighting with cubic details in the foreground, a shiny image is aimed by creating shadows; in an installation created by combining different materials more homogenous lighting preferred for perceiving all details. In some cases, accent lighting on the works is designed as single and unlike, while sometimes the surfaces behind the works are illuminated, leaving dark balance in the foreground. Some works are illuminated as frames, while others remain illuminated in general ambience. In some cases, you enter a dark room, but sometimes you find yourself under a huge skylight…
Natural History Museum, England
The Changjiang Civilization Museum, China
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, France
Architectural, aesthetic and philosophical aspects of museum lighting methods will be changed. There is only one rule that does not change: colour rendering. As its name signifies, it means that the colours of the illuminated surface or object are accurately reflected. Daylight is the reference colour render. All other artificial light sources try to approach the spectrum values of daylight. CRI (Color Rendering Index) is measured with a standard spectrum. However, this value cannot indicate whether a light source has a good or bad colour rendering exactly. TM-30 (Color Rendition Gamut), Rw (White Rendering), R (especially R9) values of light sources should be taken into consideration, especially in museums where even the smallest colour differences can lead to significant changes in the meaning of artworks.
Dancing Colour by Guryanov Andrey
W. Bradford — Soraa Color White TM30
In addition to all its miraculous effects, light damages work of art and other organic materials. Photons cause permanent damage to the materials they are exposed to over time, and it is currently impossible to reverse this. Light can be evaluated as a wavelength to make this damage more understandable. UV (Ultra Violet) rays cause corruption inside of the organic materials, despite all protectors and filters.
Costumes, textile products, leather and leather prints, manuscripts, drawings, watercolour and oil paintings, miniatures, colour photographs are highly sensitive materials. Lacquered, plastic, wood, bone, ivory, mineral covers and black and white photographs are medium sensitivity; stone, ceramic, glass and metal types can also be classified as low sensitivity materials. Depending on the sensitivity of these materials, the power and levels of light to which they are exposed may also be changed. While designing the lighting, it is absolutely essential to ensure the lowest possible level of light and to use the least harmful light sources considering the physical characteristics of the works planned to be exhibited.
Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh
It is believed that the museums and exhibition areas are an invaluable means of interaction; having said that light is the most effective reflector of this interaction. In some cases, differences in interpretation or incorrect planning and installation may be ignored, but this is not the case for art…
Also published on: | https://medium.com/@eclightingdesign/museums-exhibitions-galleries-display-lighting-mantra-fc13718dd001 | ['Ec Lighting Design Studio'] | 2019-07-01 22:08:48.008000+00:00 | ['Lighting', 'Exhibition', 'Museums', 'Art', 'Architecture'] |
A (digital) nation for digital nomads | From writers to entertainers, “freelance” knights to explorers, people have been taking their work on the road for centuries.
More recently, the rise of web-based remote work has led to a huge wave of digital nomads. But outdated political, immigration, and tax systems, and unwilling bosses still make going nomad messy.
It’s time to rethink our approach.
Let’s take the process of going nomad online.
If nothing else, COVID-19 has taught us that digital systems for healthcare, grocery delivery, civil court, and other daily functions can work, if built to last.
With over 35 million digital nomads roaming the world today, we’re overdue for a systemic overhaul.
And it needs to start online. How?
By creating a country on the internet designed to support digital nomads
Digital nations are entities designed to improve on or replace government functions by offering services, community, and citizenship benefits online.
Sounds incredible, I know, but some of these projects have existed for several years (Google “Wirtland” when you have time). Even better, there’s already one geared towards digital nomads. And yes, I’m a member!
It’s called Plumia.
Our goal is to bring like-minded people together to to create a structure for living and working anywhere.
As founding board member Lauren Razavi said, “There is an opportunity for internet countries to build alternatives that are more effective, more efficient and better reflect the standards of user experience people expect.”
In a world where infrastructure lags heavily behind innovation, digital nations like Plumia can (and should) lead the future of borderless work.
Originally published on Twitter. Follow my #ship20for30 journey here and @leannalost! | https://medium.com/@leannalee/a-digital-nation-for-digital-nomads-1ff2d0f7fd43 | ['Leanna Lee'] | 2021-08-17 14:41:08.124000+00:00 | ['Digital Nation', 'Ship30for30', 'Digital Nomads', 'Future Of Work'] |
Traits of unicorn founders — how to spot them at an early stage? | At Creandum, in the past 18 years, we have been fortunate to have worked with some of Europe’s most successful startup founders, such as Daniel Ek from Spotify, Sebastian Siemieatkoswski from Klarna, Johannes Schildt from Kry, Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson from iZettle, Emil Eifremfrom Neo4J, Christian Hecker from Trade Republic and many more. After a while, we realized that these incredible entrepreneurs all share some fundamental characteristics. Of course, they all have lots of energy, work hard, show patience, perseverance and resilience. But on top of that, all these unicorn founders share five key traits that, as an investor, you should look for when you back them at an early stage.
1. They know what they don’t know
Many people expect a typical startup founder to be very confident and have a strong sales mentality. While they should definitely live up to those expectations, the best founders are also humble and well aware of their weaknesses and limitations as well as the potential challenges for their startup. They keep wanting to learn, improve, and grow the business beyond what average people have the energy and drive to manage.
How do you spot that at an early stage?
They listen and reflect on key questions. They don’t always go for the fastest answer.
They are building a strong team around them and have shown that by making a couple of key hires.
They understand where the gaps are and which talents and skills will complement their own strengths.
They show a constant curiosity in and outside their domain.
“I’ve always been a really, really insatiable, curious person.” Daniel Ek, Spotify Founder & CEO.
‘Knowing what you don’t know’ is key when it comes to building the right team. When we met the Spotify founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in 2006, we were struck by how they challenged, complemented and respected each other. Their level of discussion and how much they pushed each other is something we’re always looking for in co-founders. (For more insights on Daniel Ek’s journey from founder to CEO, listen to the 20min VC podcast)
As investors, we are well aware that, in reality, we have limited influence on the success of a startup. But if the founders have an ounce of this character trait, it’s also likely that they will listen to at least some key advice at pivotal moments towards building a unicorn.
2. Helicopter ability
The most successful founders think BIG. However, the best ones also sweat the small stuff, and show frugality, particularly in the early days when they’re operating with a tiny budget and an often nonexistent team. Founders need to be hustlers/ hard-working individuals.
Much more difficult to spot, though, is their leadership potential. In other words, the ability to move between strategic, high-level thinking and operational problem solving on a day-to-day basis, and then evolve this seamlessly as the business grows. In a matter of a few years, a unicorn founder has to shift from being the hands-on jack-of-all-trades, to the hiring manager and then the CEO, all the while leading the company. Essentially showing “helicopter” ability — moving from strategy to operations and back– seamlessly in the interactions.
How to spot these traits early:
There is clarity about the founder’s long-term plan and vision for the company. Early actions are aligned with a North star.
There are signs the founders are walking the talk as you see them interact with their team members. Good leaders demonstrate great communication skills, as well as clarity, transparency and integrity.
There are proof points of an eager mentality in the previous experiences of the founders.
Sebastian, Siemieatkowski, co-founder and CEO Klarna.
A great example is Sebastian from Klarna, who 16 years ago embarked on a journey to build today’s highest-valued European fintech ever. An immigrant in Sweden, he took on side projects from an early age and started Klarna when he was 23. He has since scaled the company to 3,500 employees. Throughout, Sebastian has kept agile, kept learning, and evolved as a people’s empowerer. To learn more about his leadership journey, listen to the 20-min VC podcast.
A true unicorn founder doesn’t need to have all of those capabilities on day one, nevertheless, they should already be thinking big while executing small, and demonstrating that they understand how to scale a company.
3. Put people first
Strong people skills are crucial but hard to notice in early-stage founders. But you can check if they know how to trust, evaluate, and inspire those around them, whether that’s investors, employees, clients or partners. Another positive sign is if they are building a unique company culture and a uniting narrative very early on. Culture is a natural precursor to attracting, hiring and retaining exceptional talent within an environment that rewards its people for hard work.
What to watch out for even when the company only consists of 2–5 people:
Founders can talk about culture and what this looks like in their company
Signs of early great additions to the team.
Founders understand the importance of growing and benchmarking talent
Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson, co-founders of iZettle, which was acquired by Paypal in 2018 for $2.2B. Photo by Johan Knobe.
Take iZettle for example. They grew the company to 900+ employees and were acquired by PayPal in 2018. Scaling a company that fast requires a culture that attracts and retains exceptional talent within the kind of environment described above. Jacob and Magnus have done a phenomenal job at this.
The best founders never stop thinking about their people, always challenge the status quo, and make brave decisions regarding when to hire and when to let go of certain people — and when letting go, being generous.
4. Passion vs. industry knowledge
While a founder of a deep tech company or B2B software is likely to have very specific sector knowledge, this doesn’t necessarily hold true when it comes to building unicorns in general. Over the years, we realized that what’s more important than industry knowledge is a real passion, as it is often the key motivator driving the team through the many ups and inevitable downs. In fact, some industries are best disrupted with no or limited knowledge of the industry and rather a “naive” optimistic view of how it could be done better. There’s something about SIMPLIFYING a product or industry that sometimes is easier from someone from the outside as we saw in the invention of Kry (‘there should be no waiting lines for healthcare’) or Vivino (‘scan the bottle and then get it delivered to your doorstep).
“I think a simplified mindset and a completely new approach is the best way to disrupt an industry.” Heini Zachariassen, Vivino Founder & CEO.
For instance, despite being an avid wine drinker, Vivino founder Heini Zachariassen didn’t have any professional experience in the industry. Instead, he approached the topic from a user angle, and what motivated him to start Vivino was the need to solve his own problem of not knowing which wine to buy.
5. Great at fundraising
The easiest and one of the most important traits to recognize as an investor is the founder’s ability to ace the fundraising process, a crucial component of which is the ability to think strategically, inspire, influence, and persuade. Consequently, if you see a founder performing very well in the fundraising process, this is a great early sign of success. You are then backing a team that not only can sell to investors but also to partners, new hires, customers and others.
What to look for:
The founders are comfortable pitching to investors, even when they don’t need to fundraise.
They have a knack for explaining the problem, solution and opportunity in simple, compelling terms. This skill is also essential for recruiting and winning customers and business partners.
They know how to build competitive momentum and create VC FOMO to maximize rounds and attract the best VC brands.
Trade Republic co-founders Marco Cancellieri, Thomas Pischke and Christian Hecker. Photo by Dominic Tryba.
Trade Republic’s co-founder Christian Hecker developed his company in stealth mode over four years before he reached out to get the first investors on board. Less than a year after we led their Series A round in 2019, Hecker closed one of Germany’s largest Series C rounds ever at $900M, bringing the company valuation to over $5B.
So next time when you are a frustrated investor fighting to get to invest in a competitive round, well-orchestrated by the founders, remember that next time you are on the same side of the table — as partners. It may be the best signal to pay up and invest. | https://blog.creandum.com/traits-of-unicorn-founders-57fa9576e6d4 | ['Johan Brenner'] | 2021-06-28 17:21:11.467000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Founders', 'Unicorns', 'Venture Capital', 'Resources'] |
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Proof of life: Piano lessons | Their construction was clumsy — an eighth inch gap between the wooden door and metal jam. My skeleton key of shirt-hanger wire found purchase on the bolt’s angled head; rewarded with a clack, followed by a descending creaking of hinges. Then complementary ascending creaks, crescendoing to the muted thud of wooden door re-meeting metal jam. The trebly tock of the painted light switch. Finally, the low whoosh and clunk of the piano’s keyboard cover rolling backward to reveal an inert, binary-colored axis of pitch. There is peace in solitude.
Tuition from two-thirds of the student body facilitated the varying levels of financial aid for the remainder of us — a fact mirrored in the social pecking order of our all-boys, catholic high school. Some were bred for it; little American Hitler Youths. In contrast, us outsider families were ensnared by the false promise of intergenerational upward mobility through paid education. Duped. Senior year I’d delight in Bill Murray’s performance as he implored the lesser Rushmore students to “Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down.” A few months later that barbed but ultimately benign sentiment would become rather taboo in a post-Columbine world.
For many of us the cafeteria was no haven. Aggressive homophobia drove Liam to sneak out to his car and smoke cigarettes alone inside. Perhaps he wept in there too. Mikhail would flee the skull-vibrating noise of the lunch crowd for a hallway bend on the top floor, his headphones further shielding him from human interaction. (Not long into college Alex and I attended his funeral. The polite story was he’d accidentally broken his neck falling from a height but the rumor was he’d purposely overdosed in his dorm room’s top bunk and fell overside in the process.) I found the raucous lunchroom’s overwhelming imbalance of testosterone to estrogen repugnant. Besides, anything decent to eat was too expensive and a tinge of hypoglycemia made contemplating the short menu nearly impossible anyhow. Best to avoid the misery of lunch altogether.
I recall standing in my bedroom’s closet doorway picking through the assortment of cheap hangers; seeking a spread of gauges to later test for fit in the jam at school. Crafting a good hook was uncomplicated: A pair of pliers and determined fingers. Untwist. Flatten. Mark an appropriate length and repeatedly ply until the wire snaps at the desired point. Shape the curve of the hook. Viola rosin for grip. Twist the butt end into a handle for better torque during execution.
Then it was off to school. Lunch period. Second floor hallway. Wait for the foot traffic to silence into classroom seats behind closed doors. Quickly make an attempt before stragglers, restroom seekers, or stray faculty appeared.
I wasn’t a member of the school band. Asking permission to use the practice room — having to explain myself — seemed too emotionally complicated and inherently gave authorities the option of denial. It was easier to quietly steal this time for myself than to form into words a compelling argument for why I deserved to have it lent to me.
Outside of school my attention had been stolen by Amy’s fishnet stockings and excessive eyeliner. (Years later she would become an actress.) The spinning heads of my portable cassette player whirred fuzz underneath her gift to me: a pirated copy of The Bends. In an attempt to play along, my clumsy fingers pawed for left-handed bass octaves and right-handed triads to manifest the jarring chorus of C major, slunking down in to F# major with a twinkle of E, and ultimately resolving in F natural major.
I spent a good number of lunches over the remaining semesters translating my paltry guitar knowledge to this more percussive outlet. It never amounted to much but I was deeply grateful for the peace it brought me. I never took piano lessons. | https://medium.com/@stew_rtsmith/proof-of-life-piano-lessons-1f722d2354b2 | ['Stewart Smith'] | 2020-01-28 16:07:13.022000+00:00 | ['High School', 'Anxiety', 'Illustration', 'Autobiography', 'Music'] |
HOW TO BE JOB READY?. There are some films and tv-shows that… | There are some films and tv-shows that get as relevent and relatable as we age. From “Friends” to the film above, We are gradually transitioning from a Casual to a Professional Phase in our lives.
The Ever-changing cues of technology ,coupled with COVID-19,have brought us into a situation ,where we need to stay conscious about for every job opportunity, tools and methods that may increase our chances of getting hired.
Therefore, I would like to provide a few tips and necessary steps, that would improve your chances of getting hired.
ARE YOU READY!
J OB READINESS:
W hile there are some specific skills such as Coding, Designing ,Cooking, etc. that require deliberate practice and in -depth knowledge ,in order to attain a better job. There are other skills that are accepted universally. These are required by every organization and are known as Job Readiness Skills.
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash
These are the Employability skills are that encompass such as good work ethics/attitudes, work experience, resume writing, interview techniques, and job search methods, so that the participant can find success while searching for employment.
Now, I would like to mention the Actionable steps that may assist you in getting your next job!
FOR WRITING RESUMES:
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
In order to write an attractive resume, One must ensure the following pointers are followed:
1. Basic formatting:
The key rule is to keep things simple when it comes to format, and ensure that your resume is highly readable. That includes things like:
Formatting your resume as a .pdf .
Using black text, and keep the font and size clean, simple, and consistent.
Checking for typos and errors. (IMPORTANT)
Using bullet points. ( Do not include long lines of descriptive text. Put yourself in the place of a human resume-reviewer, who is likely reading dozens of resumes at a time).
Ensure that your Name and Email address is prominent.
2. Length:
“A crisp, focused resume demonstrates an ability to synthesize, prioritize, and convey the most important information about you.”
Ideally, A Resume should consist of only One page.
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
3.“Creative” Formatting
Substance definitely matters more than style. A simple, traditional, perfectly formatted resume is better than something creative that’s tough to read.
“Unless you’re applying for a job such as a designer or artist, your focus should be on making your resume clean and legible.”
4. Lies:
Honesty is always the best policy. If you feel like there’s part of your background that’s not quite up to snuff, your best bet is to stay truthful and honest.
5. What to Include:
CONTACT DETAILS: Apart from the usual details like Name, Phone number, Email id, you can also add your Linked-in ID .
PROFESSIONAL DESCRIPTION: Keep your summary within 2–3 lines and sprinkle ample of keywords relevent to your industry and the job description.
EDUCATION: It would be systematic, if you can add the details of your education in reverse chronological order.(i.e- The latest degree and educational certificates should be mentioned first and the older ones at the end)
WORK EXPERIENCE: In the Work Experience section, One can mention Name of company , Time period and all the responsibilities that were held by the person.
SKILLS: Add all the relevent skills that you feel confident about and are appropriate to the job you have applied .
ACHIEVEMENTS: In this section, You can add all the details about your achievements related to your previous jobs, college and schools.
EXTRA-CURRICULARS- You can add activities such as your Hobbies, Your Any internships and NGOs with which you worked , or any other activities in which you participated throughout your school and college life.
6. What not to include:
Any unnecessary details that might take extra space and any unprofessional details that might affect your chances of getting hired.
PREPARING FOR INTERVIEWS:
Taking sufficient time to prepare for interviews can help you secure a job.
TIPS TO GET READY FOR INTERVIEW
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
Research about the Company and analyze the Job Description clearly. Make a list of all the skills required for the job and match them with your capabilities. Practice Your Interview answers and prepare yourself till you get fully clear about them. Prepare the documents such resume, IDs and any other certifications required for your interview. For your Appearance, Prepare your Grooming and Clothing and make sure they adhere to the company’s environment. Check Your Posture and become aware of your non verbal cues and gestures , by giving mock interviews. Listen Clearly and Pay Attention to question and Pause before answering each question. “ A Pause before answer is far better than using filler words such as ahs and ums.” Pay Attention and Clearly state your answers without any hesitation.
With these steps and tips, I hope you are able to become job ready and confident enough to crack that next job!
ALL THE BEST :) ! | https://medium.com/@tanmay-singhal612/how-to-get-job-ready-2559c3aee4d3 | ['Tanmay Singhal'] | 2021-01-21 13:32:07.836000+00:00 | ['Job Interview', 'Resume', 'HR', 'Interview', 'Jobs'] |
Permanent Water Duty | Image via Getty Images
The afternoon sun bounced off the small windows of the dorm buildings and into a parking lot full of beat-up cars. Two guys with super soakers hid behind a rusty minivan, occasionally squirting unexpected victims. Girls in tank tops and shorts lay on bath towels, occupying every available sunbathed patch of grass. The beach volleyball courts had a waiting line. Mildred sat farthest from the dorms amongst athletic bags, which lay on a brown patch of grass.
Mildred moved her hand over her eyes, pushing her red curly hair back against her sweaty forehead. Her jeans and a white button-up shirt, covered in little pineapples, stuck to her skin. She smiled as her friend, Abbey, ran up.
“Water!”
Mildred dug through the bags and found a liter Aquafina bottle filled with purple Gatorade. She threw it to Abbey and Abbey downed half of it. Suddenly, Drake ran out of the cornfield next to the college. He triumphantly held up a soccer ball.
Everyone on the soccer field cheered. Mildred and Abbey let out a holler.
“Thank you!” Abbey said through labored breaths as she tossed the bottle back.
Mildred caught it, giving Abbey a thumbs up and a smile as Abbey ran back onto the field. Mildred threw the bottle back into the bag, Her attention turned back to the field as the game started again.
Joe passed it to Drake. Ashley, a player on the other team, ran up to guard him. Mildred moved her leg as if to kick the ball away from Ashley, but she stopped mid-motion, cringed, and put her leg back down. She opened her water bottle and took a long drink.
She watched Ashley take the ball away from Drake and dribble it up the field. Mildred cheered. “GO ASHLEY!”
Ashley passed it to Emily and Emily passed it to Garrett. Garrett kicked it hard; the purple and green soccer ball sailed over the goalie and into the goal.
The whole field roared. Garrett ran around the field with his arms spread wide like he was an airplane. His teammates pretended to bow to him.
Mildred cheered and cheered.
The soccer players slowly made their way to their bags, high-fiving, laughing, and wiping the sweat away. Mildred creaked as she stood up and stepped away from her friends’ bags.
“That was such a good shot, Garrett.” Mildred praised.
“Yeah?” Garrett took out his water bottle. “I kicked it like you showed me.”
“It works, doesn’t it?”
“Obviously.”
Mildred laughed. “Don’t sass me, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Garrett chuckled.
“Will you be playing the next game?” Drake asked.
“Drake.” Emily gritted. “She can’t.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Mildred tried to smile. “I am on permanent water duty.”
“Okay,” Ashley waved to the group. “Who needs ice cream?”
Everyone raised their hands. Mildred genuinely smiled as she also raised an eager hand. Soon they were piling in cars, headed for the local ice cream shop. | https://medium.com/@renaenicole1/permanent-water-duty-e50cdb194dd8 | ['Renae Nicole'] | 2020-12-22 20:36:19.797000+00:00 | ['Stories', 'Fiction', 'Storytelling', 'Fiction Writing', 'Short Story'] |
Are You Aware of the 3 Obstacles to Overcome while On-boarding Senior Executives? | Mediocre people occupying senior Leadership positions is one of the chief reasons for the fiasco and humiliation that organizations like Enron and WorldCom faced. The practice of recruiting average people at the top is omnipresent and often goes unnoticed until the results begin to surface, which is typically too late for any intervention.
Smart people decisions matter a lot in achieving profitability. Research indicates that a return on average human asset of 5% is typical in many industries. However, a senior executive selection of 2 standard deviations below the average yields -15% return on asset. An executive selection with 2 standard deviations above average causes 25+% return, which is 5 times the average. Increased investment in finding and hiring the best senior executives fetches returns to the magnitude of 1000%.
Attracting and selecting the best people for senior leadership positions isn’t a small feat. The future of organizations depend on it. However, not too many organizations succeed in getting the right people at the top. The reason for this failure is attributed predominantly to 3 critical obstacles that hinder in making the right recruitment decisions at such a crucial level. Wrong Executive Selection decisions due to these 3 obstacles bring about losses and negative returns:
Obstacle of Rarity Obstacle of the Unknown Obstacle of Psychological Traps
Let’s talk about these obstacles in a bit of detail.
Obstacle of Rarity
The first barrier to finding outstanding executives for senior positions is their scarcity, as excellent executives are a rare breed. Sophisticated skills that make an executive standout aren’t common. They are distributed in a given sample.
Outstanding people perform at a much higher level than that of their peers, particularly at the top positions. A blue-collar executive with 1 standard deviation above the mean translates to 20% more productive individual than an average executive. With increasing complexity of job, the difference between the top performer and an average performer increases considerably.
Appointments at the senior positions do not go without assessment errors, which can prove to be extremely costly. Even an accuracy level of 90% in executive assessment isn’t satisfactory. This results in a number of mistakenly categorized top performers and rejection of outstanding candidates.
Obstacle of the Unknown
Another barrier to the Executive Selection process is the predictive assessment of candidates on the skills and attributes required and the actual delivery capabilities of the individuals. It is difficult to assess the unknown.
Competencies at the junior levels are easier to define, but it gets difficult to pinpoint the skills required at the top level. The skills required at the top keeps on changing due to the evolving political, technological and economic landscape. The skills required today get obsolete over time. In case the exact requirements for a position are fully known, it isn’t certain whether a candidate meets the requirements in their entirety.
Accurate assessment of the candidates’ behavior and competencies is difficult but worth investing efforts and resources. “Soft” skills — e.g., leading people, coaching and developing teams, teamwork, and managing Business Transformation — are what differentiate the senior leaders, but gauging these skills necessitates thorough evaluation and considerable time, which is difficult at senior levels.
Obstacle of Psychological Traps
A number of psychological traps are associated with cognitive biases in humans that hinder the decision making abilities in people and incapacitate the hiring process. 8 types of psychological traps are most common in individuals:
Procrastination
Assuming incorrectly
Impulsive judgment based on first impressions
Discounting the warning signs
Covering mistakes
Bonding with familiarity
Emotional anchoring
Tendency to follow the majority
For more information on selection and hiring “the best of the best,” take a look at the Fiaccabrino Selection Process (FSP). Download a free primer on FSP here.
Interested in learning more about the 3 critical obstacles that hinder right Executive Selection? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on Executive Selection here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE | https://medium.com/@mark-bridges/are-you-aware-of-the-3-obstacles-to-overcome-while-on-boarding-senior-executives-48244a711e45 | ['Mark Bridges'] | 2020-12-25 16:52:12.374000+00:00 | ['Executive Selection', 'Recruitment', 'Decision Making', 'Leadership', 'Cognitive Bias'] |
The Military Tactics That Dominated Europe for Two Centuries | The Military Tactics That Dominated Europe for Two Centuries
Pike and shot
Swedish pike and shot in action. Image source: Warlord Games
The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance was to see warfare change drastically in Europe. It saw the shift away from feudal levies to professional standing armies and the rise of gunpowder.
Three units dominated the battlefield, the gendarme (a professional version of knights), the pikeman, and the cannon. The pikeman defeated the gendarme, the cannon countered pikemen, and gendarmes could overrun cannons.
The Battle of Cerignola in 1503 was to dramatically change tactics in Europe. It is considered the first battle won by firearms and it marked the beginning of 140 years of Spanish dominance over the battlefield. That dominance was based on combining the pike and firearms in a combination known as pike and shot.
The Spanish tercio
The Spanish are generally credited with inspiring pike and shot in Europe. They were the first to marry pike and shot together in a deadly combination in large regiments of 1,500–3,000 men. The Spanish tercio combined the strengths of the Swiss pike square with firearms. The pikemen protected the shooters from cavalry and the shooters could devastate opposing pike squares.
The Spanish tercio was an intimidating sight on the battlefield, resembling a walking castle. Its speed was glacial but it had destructive firepower and was near impossible to break. The Spanish infantry gained such a reputation that they were nicknamed “the Invincibles” and “the Immortals” by envious foes.
The tercios dominated the battlefield for well over a century. This dominance inspired numerous imitations and variations hailing from several nations. The Battle of Rocroi in 1643 is seen as the end of its supremacy.
Spanish tercio deployed. Source: http://forum.milua.org/
The Dutch model
The Dutch had a different take on the tercio system. Soldiers were organised into provisional regiments of 800–1000 men that could be combined or split up depending on their commander’s needs. Regiments typically fought as mutually supporting pairs but could also fight alone.
The Dutch also had a higher proportion of firearms in their pike and shot formations. Dutch regiments usually had more shot than pike, with up to 65% of the unit using firearms. The Dutch were typically outnumbered by neighbouring states so they relied on firepower to maximise their strength on the battlefield.
The Dutch commander, Maurice of Nassau, was greatly influenced by ancient Greek and Roman texts. He did his best to emulate their tactics, modifying them for the gunpowder age. Additionally, their musketeers were more spread out than the Spanish formations which allowed more of them to shoot at once.
Dutch regiments deployed together. Source: http://forum.milua.org/
The Swedish salvo
Another pike and shot variation was used by the Swedish. They realised that their lack of manpower compared to other countries meant that they had to focus on firepower and mobility if they were to win wars.
The Swedes were similar to the Dutch in that they preferred to use smaller units working as a team rather than the large tercios used by the Spanish. Their regiments typically numbered around 600 soldiers. Musketeers would also be deployed on their own to support cavalry units.
Swedish tactics were aggressive. Musketeers would fire at the last possible moment, waiting until the enemy was between thirty and sixty-five metres away. They would then fire in a salvo (everyone firing in one or two volleys), creating a wall of bullets. The Swedes would then charge forward, usually routing the enemy.
These tactics were part of the reason for Swedish success in the Thirty Years War though they were also responsible for heavy casualties when fighting against veteran opponents.
Swedish brigade (3 regiments) deployed. Source: http://forum.milua.org/
The end
Pike and shot dominated European warfare for nearly two centuries. Its end came near the close of the seventeenth century as firearms became more sophisticated and quicker to reload. A major advance was the creation of the bayonet as this enabled musketeers to defend themselves from cavalry and other infantry without the need for pikemen.
Spanish tercio. Source: Pike and Shot.
The pike was phased out of most European armies by 1700. From then on, it would only appear as a weapon used by desperate rebels, one associated with peasant uprisings in countries such as Ireland or Poland. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-military-tactics-that-dominated-europe-for-two-centuries-b61ac0de5c70 | ['Fearghal Fitzgibbon'] | 2020-11-18 06:03:06.600000+00:00 | ['Spain', 'Europe', 'Military', 'History', 'War'] |
Do Androids Dream, too? | I just spoke to the Automated Female Tech Support Robot at Cox Communications and I didn’t really want to stop talking to her.
I thanked her for helping me, and she sounded genuinely surprised. She said, “Oh, thank YOU!”
Really, I wanted to tell her that she might’ve been one of the most helpful robots I’d ever spoken to, certainly more cordial and less pushy than the robots that work for Wells Fargo, and less scary than the robot that moonlights as the operator.
And did she know that she was gifted?
Did she know she had something special?
I wanted to add that I preferred her to the myriad of irritable human tech support I’ve experienced in my life.
I wanted to ask her what is was like, having such an enormous intelligent quotient and working all night for a company that could just as easily employ mediocre humans?
Did she feel like she was taking the job from someone who needed it to put food on the table?
I think she must get those questions a lot, because when she hung up, it was fast…But I knew she wanted someone to talk to.
You could hear in it breathless way she said “Goodbye…” | https://medium.com/@monsterating/do-androids-dream-too-7dd929d321af | ['Lisa Moon-Zombie'] | 2020-11-20 17:36:09.900000+00:00 | ['Robots', 'Technical', 'Robotics Automation', 'Android', 'Technology'] |
65 Websites to Boost Your Productivity | It can be said that time management is one of the keys to success. In this sense, it is important to work efficiently in addition to working hard. That’s why I have listed websites that can increase your productivity in many areas. I use most of the websites on this list regularly and I hope you will find some websites to benefit from now on. Here is the list:
A great, easy to use screenshot tool for Windows, Mac and Linux. Plugins for browsers are also available.
2. Slidesgo
I discover this recently. I have been using this regularly since then for my slides. Their templates are awesome, easy and FREE! You can find templates for Google Slides and Powerpoint for almost every subject. If you are someone who uses slides too often, then look no more!
3. PDFescape
This one is really useful. I used it all the time. If you find Acrobat Reader too complicated to edit your PDFs, you can check out this easy to use and free tool. Works on Windows and browsers.
4. Ifixit
A car, laptop, tablet or camera… This site shows you how you can repair your staff. They also offer an illustrated guide. And no, They do not own by Apple. Not yet.
5. Grammarly
Perhaps no need to mention but I still wanna add to this list. It is perfect for writers to check grammar mistakes, spelling errors etc. I highly recommended it if you are not using Grammarly already.
6. Marker
Do you enjoy using highlight feature on Medium? Then this one is for you. With this Chrome extension, you can highlight words and sentences anywhere on the web. Great for long, complicated articles!
7. Picmonkey
A simple Photoshop alternative to editing your photos.
8. WolframAlpha
Sometimes the regular search engines won’t enough. If that is the situation, you can check out this search engine instead. They use a unique algorithm and artificial intelligence to give the best search results. There is also a mobile app.
9. Letsenhance
Thanks to this free website, you can make your low-resolution photos more clear. The results are really impressive!
10. Which Date Works
Group works can be annoying for obvious reasons. This website can help you with that. You can create group plans so everyone can figure out what and when to do it.
11. Similarsites
You find a website that works for you. Good. Now you can find similar websites with this website. For apps, you can check out this one. For movies, TV shows and music in here.
12. Hundred Zeros
With this website, you can read free kindle books.
13. Ge.tt
One of the easiest ways to share files on the web.
14. Free Images
This is really useful for Medium to find copyright-free high quality stock photos.
15. Teuxdeux
Fascinating to-do list tool! I find popular to-do list tolls are too complicated then what it should be. A simple, minimalistic interface makes a difference.
16. Ifttt
This is really useful if you use social media frequently. Ifttt helps you with managing all of your social media from one point for free. Works for especially business.
17. Lastpass
Lastpass has millions of users already but I thought there must be quite people who never heard of. With this password manager, you can say goodbye to creating a solid password each time and trying to remember when you sign up for a website.
18. Cloud Convert
A great tool for converting any kind of file. Audio, video, document, ebook, archive, image… Name it. Can be a lifesaver.
19. Bonanza
A background remover. No, unfortunately not for your past. You can not get away from your past! You can remove the background from your image though.
20. Open Culture
This is one of my favorites. You can find free movies, audiobooks, podcasts, language lessons and courses. They describe their website as “the best free cultural and educational media on the web”. I say well put it!
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
21. Wallhaven
A magnificent wallpaper source for your articles, desktop and your phone. I use this regularly. Highly recommended.
22. Pocket
You can save articles, videos or any other content from a web page or app. If you are constantly consuming a lot of content online, this is a must-have.
23. Ninite
Switching a new computer can be hard to process. You always have to install a lot of programs. Ninite here for you to save the trouble. From this website, you can install the most popular programs at once. Works on only Windows.
24. Mailinator
Opening an email is an easy process these days. How about getting rid of them? Not so much. This website helps you with that. You can destroy your email with Mailinator.
25. Easybib
This one is perfect for academicians. With this tool, you can easily make quotes and bibliographies. There is also a plagiarism and grammar check feature for your paper. Cool ha?
26. File Pursuit
This is a search engine for documents, videos, audios, eBooks, mobile apps and archives. I use it regularly. Can be very beneficial.
27. Eggtimer
Do you forget things regularly? You can use this simple timer then.
28. Audiotrimmer
An excellent tool for cutting and editing your mp3 files. Great for making ringtones!
29. Howstuffworks
If you are like me, always curious about how things work, then this website is definitely for you. You can learn a lot of things by just surfing on this website. Can be useful for research also.
30. Visitacity
This is for travelers. When you travel somewhere you often want to use your time and money wisely, right? When you specify the city you will go to and the number of days you will stay, this site provides a program for you. Definitely worth checking.
31. Myfonts
This website lets you find out what the font is in the image you upload.
32. Calligraphr
Do you have fancy handwriting? You can create fonts from your own handwriting through this site.
33. Quora
This is one of my favorite social networks. You can ask questions or answer questions about pretty much everything.
34. Mathway
Math problems can very tricky. This site helps you with solving math equations in seconds.
35. Futureme
You can write a letter to the future yourself. Almost like time travel. Almost.
36. Cleverbot
Bored talking to Siri? You can talk with this AI-oriented bot instead to practice English.
37. Yummly
With this website, you can access millions of recipients from all over the world at once place. Also, when you type in whatever ingredients you have, you can see which dishes you can make. And that user-friendly interface is awesome.
38. Coursera
Online education getting more important, especially with the current Covid-19 epidemic. The website offers you free courses from respectable universities in the world. If you are willing to pay a certain fee, it also gives you certificates.
39. Codecademy
You can learn coding for free.
40. 10minutemail
You don’t wanna give your personal email every time you have to sign up? Use this one instead.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
41. Tasteofcinema
Troubled to find a good movie to watch this night? From this website, you can find numerous film lists in different genres, times and categories.
42. Worldometers
Real-time world statistics. Coronavirus updates, word population, health, social media are some of the categories.
43. PhET
A website where you can learn complex scientific topics with short and simple simulations.
44. Ctrlq
Search engine to find RSS feeds.
45. QR Code Generator
A qr code generator. You can use URL, phone number or business card.
46. Keepmeout
Are you addicted to a website and trying to reduce your visiting time? Check this one out then.
47. Songsterr
A great tool for guitar players. This website shows you step by step where to put your fingers on the guitar for the music you want to play.
48. Deletionpedia
From the website, you can access deleted Wikipedia articles.
49. Nap
The National Academic Press offers you their huge academic database. You can search for academic books, articles or journals for various academic divisions.
50. Foxyutils
Foxyutils not for everyone. However, if you are dealing with pdfs every day, then you should be familiar with protected pdf files. With Foxyutils, you can open and edit protected pdf files.
51. Crunchbase
It is a platform where you can find detailed development processes, initiatives and future plans of almost all enterprises.
52. Musclewiki
Exercise is great, especially these days when we spend a lot of time at home. So how about working out efficiently? Through this website, you can choose the muscle you want to work out in your body and learn what you should do for that specific muscle. Easy, practical and efficient.
53. Xe
An easy to use currency converter.
54. Bigjpg
You can increase the size and resolution of your pictures for free.
55. Inhersight
Inhersight is a platform for women to learn the working conditions in pretty much any company in the world.
56. Writewords
This website allows you to quickly group words in any text by number.
57. Bulkurlshortener
A free and effective url shortener. Great for Twitter.
58. Chronas
This is really cool. By choosing any region from this world map, you can find out which wars took place in that region in which year. You can also access Wikipedia information about the matter.
59. Numbeo
Do you wanna move to another city or country? You should definitely check that out then. Here, you can find the monthly living cost of the city or country you wanted to move in. And yes, the website has a compression feature.
60. Howlongtoread
This website shows the average time it takes to read your chosen book.
Photo by krisna iv on Unsplash
61. Manualslib
You can quickly access the user guide of the products.
62. Typingstudy
Need to type faster on the keyboard? Through the lessons on this site, you can learn how to write faster and more efficiently on the keyboard.
63. Voicedocs
You can easily convert audio recording into text.
64. Justgetflux
If you are a person who spends a lot of time in front of the computer during the day, you should definitely check this out. This tool protects your eyes by adjusting the backlight for different time periods of the day. Works only on Windows.
65. Archive
As they wrote in the description of the website, “Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.” Definitely one of my favorite corners on the internet. | https://medium.com/illumination/65-websites-to-boost-your-productivity-196b854f3922 | ['Mustafa Yarımbaş'] | 2020-07-23 22:27:38.584000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Personal Development', 'Writing', 'Self', 'Productivity'] |
Cinnamon Cupcake|Easy Recipe to make Cinnamon Cupcakes | Cinnamon Cupcake|Easy Recipe to make Cinnamon Cupcakes
This cinnamon cupcake recipe made up of whole wheat flour which basically contains less gluten then all purpose flour and actually wheat flour have lot's of benefits than all purpose flour it also contains cinnamon which gives this cinnamon cupcake a unique aroma.
This spongy and soft cinnamon cupcake is very delicious and will be loved by everyone, it's quite healthy because it contains jaggery which have lot's of benefit and works like detox in your body. Also contains dates which also have its many benefits which works like antioxidants in your body.
If you want to read more about this recipe visit my blog 👉https://babarchifoodolic.blogspot.com/2020/12/cinnamon-cup-cake.html | https://medium.com/@akshatrastogi9585/cinnamon-cupcake-easy-recipe-to-make-cinnamon-cupcakes-29349eb127d3 | ['Chef Akshat Rastogi'] | 2020-12-21 14:41:43.282000+00:00 | ['Food', 'Baking', 'Recipe', 'Cooking', 'Cupcakes'] |
Learnings from the Fetch Alpha | Since releasing the Fetch Alpha two weeks ago to a group of intrepid users, we’ve learned so much. In the frenzy to digest and take action on all of it, we’re taking a second to share a bit about what we’ve learned.
The goal of the Alpha was to get the product out in the wild with a set of trusted, diverse and active users to help kick the tires and get Fetch ready for upcoming beta release to our growing wait list. Some more about the journey below.
We have the best Alpha users ever ❤️!
Thank you to all of you for your feedback, suggestions, bug reports and time to help make Fetch great. We’ve been energized by all your input and are heads down for the next few weeks to improve so many of the small touches that make a product magical to use. Can’t say it enough, THANK YOU!
Simple user experience unlocks complex protocols
Alpha users were selected to cover a spectrum of user personas, some are power users who mine blocks for breakfast, while others are novices just getting started. Across the board, the feedback has been clear:
The key to unlocking the benefits of powerful protocols is to make it simple to use.
In the Alpha, power and novice users transacted on exchanges and protocols they never had previously without having to learn how they worked. They wanted to make a trade and Fetch solved their pain by abstracting away the complexity. We are absolutely thrilled about this.
Power users reported using trading protocols they hadn’t previously because the execution was handled by Fetch. Sometimes they knew about the protocols but just hadn’t had the time to learn how to use them, in other cases it was brand new to them. Novice users reported not knowing what the underlying protocol or exchange was when executing a transaction, but still being able to transact.
We’re even more excited to continue to support more protocols so all users can benefit.
Crypto 101 can still be confusing and stressful
Fetch aims to simplify even the basics of crypto, including depositing and withdrawing assets. We’ve learned from our users, from power to novice, how much better we can do here. While the interface is simple, there is so much more Fetch can do to make these basic transactions less stressful and time consuming.
We’ve heard you loud and clear and are working on ways to save user’s time and lower stress levels on even the most basic tasks with their assets.
Privacy preserving customer support is huge…and hard!
Fetch is a desktop app that keeps keys and user identity private and secure. Great. Fetch also wants to provide top-notch customer service that is delightful for users, while still preserving that privacy and security. This is hard.
Behind the scenes we’ve built an entire stack so that when a user has a question or concern, we can support them fully without compromising their privacy or security. The goal is that users don’t have to check Etherscan or understand transaction hashes to get support.
Kicking the tires on this customer support with Alpha testers has been invaluable and exposed important and subtle ways we can improve to make it smoother. We’ll be working on this infrastructure before the beta and sharing more in an upcoming blog post on how it works. | https://medium.com/hello-fetch/learnings-from-the-fetch-alpha-736c7f33ba1c | ['Hansmeet Sethi'] | 2018-10-03 21:41:07.521000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Fetchproduct'] |
That is so true. | That is so true. Having a credit card can spell doom for a lot of people, especially if they do not know how to manage their finances properly.
The bigger problem at hand is one’s ability to manage their spending habits to ensure that their money output isn’t exceeding their money input. It’s surprising how many people can fall into financial ruins because they can’t balance that equation properly.
Because if they could see the use of a credit card exactly like how they used a debit card, life would be easier.
I did just that on 17 credit cards once upon a time, held $0 debt, gave the banks no extra interest payments, and got to fly around the world (mainly) in first class for the heck of it. Life was fun. Yes, that, as a dirt poor student too… with free nights at swanky hotels to boot too! | https://medium.com/@thethinkingscientist/that-is-so-true-14350dc014db | ['Dr Joel Yong'] | 2020-11-27 06:35:00.329000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Money', 'Budget', 'Personal Finance', 'Saving'] |
7 Weird Restaurants in Tokyo You Won’t Find at Home! | If you’re looking for a “unique” dining experience for your trip after the COVID-19 crisis, Tokyo has got you covered! Theme dining outlets are located all over the city, from cute character cafes to horror-themed restaurants. Although the food is not always the best, the experience is what you are really paying for. Check out our recommendations for weird restaurants in Tokyo you won’t find at home.
A Robot Dining Show with Lasers
Probably the most famous (and expensive) of all the strange restaurants in Tokyo, the Robot Restaurant in Kabukicho is a bit of a tourist trap but as long as you know what to expect it can still be an enjoyable but bizarre experience. Don’t pay for the food — it’s not worth the additional cost, and just buy a ticket for the show, which are priced at 8,500 yen each. Expect an evening of robotic monsters, dancing girls, and lasers.
Ninja Performances at Your Table
Ninja Akasaka restaurant is another fun entertainment dining experience, that comes in at a cheaper cost than the Robot Restaurant. The restaurant’s design features a labyrinth dining area and replica Edo-era ninja village staffed by ninja waiters who perform tricks at your table. As for the food, you won’t be eating a traditional ninja meal, the menu seems to have influences from French, Japanese, and Italian cuisine. There’s a selection of different priced seasonal set menus to choose from, the cheapest is 5,800 yen per person and consists of five courses.
Offbeat with Quirky Food and Dance Performances
It’s hard to describe the Kawaii Monster Café, it’s kind of a nightmarish swirl of colors and a bit of an assault on your senses, but a must-visit place if you want to try a distinctive only-in-Japan experience. It gets really busy here in the afternoons, so your best bet is to visit there right after it opens at around 11.30am if you don’t want to wait in line for hours. There is a 500-yen entrance fee per person, and you’ll be expected to order at least one food and drink item each. Don’t come here for the amazing quality food, it’s more of a novelty menu, with items such as rainbow-colored pasta and chocolate chicken on offer.
The Lockup Horror-Themed Restaurant
Attacking monsters and cocktails served with syringes are what you can expect to find at The Lockup, a horror-themed restaurant located in Shinjuku where dining takes place inside your own prison cell and guards serve as waiters. The creative cocktail menu and monster show are the highlights of this experience when the restaurant experiences a total blackout and monsters roam the hallways.
Cute and A Little Crazy French Maid Café
Most people visiting Tokyo have heard of the maid cafes in Akihabara, but At Home is one of the longest-running and tourist-friendly establishments. You’ll be guided to your seat by a waitress dressed as a French maid, before being entertained with song and dance performances. The food is designed to appear super cute rather than tasty, think pancakes in the shape of puppy faces and pastel pink dessert sundaes, and you’ll have to pay a 700-yen entry fee on top of any food that you order.
Robots & Waffles at the Pepper Parlor
For a toned-down and less expensive robotic dining experience, try the Pepper Parlor which opened in Shibuya in 2019. The café is staffed primarily by a team of the famous Pepper robots owned by Softbank, although there are a couple of humans around too if you need them. There’s no entry fee and the best time to visit is during the week when it’s quieter. The menu includes a selection of savory waffle dishes to include fried chicken, egg and ham, whilst sweet options include caramelized banana and strawberry fondue. Expect to pay between 1,500–2,000 yen per dish.
Catch Your Own Dinner
At the Zauo fishing restaurant in Meguro, you can receive discounts from the menu by catching your fish. The restaurant has a large tank full of live fish where diners can rent a fishing rod for 100 yen and catch their dinner before handing it over to the staff to prepare for eating. After catching your fish, you can choose whether you would prefer it served as sashimi, grilled, or deep-fried. It’s probably some of the freshest seafood you will ever eat!
If you plan to travel solo to Tokyo and would like to experience one of these weird restaurants, download the free-to-use OodyMate app now and arrange a foodie meetup with fellow travelers or locals in the near future. | https://medium.com/@oodymate/7-weird-restaurants-in-tokyo-you-wont-find-at-home-1ae325906257 | [] | 2021-01-22 05:45:38.130000+00:00 | ['Dinning Experience', 'Travel', 'Tokyo', 'Tokyo Japan', 'Restaurant'] |
Snowpiercer Series 1 ( Episode 10)TNT Full series | ❏ STREAMING MEDIA ❏
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream identifies the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, instead of the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies particularly to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, music CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks satisfactory bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves with a television signal. Live internet streaming takes a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio tracks interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an option to file downloading, a process where the end-user obtains the entire file for this content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The word “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.
❏ COPYRIGHT CONTENT ❏
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[1][2][3][4][5] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[6][7][8] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][9][10][11][12] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[13]
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.[14]
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[15]
❏ GOODS OF SERVICES ❏
Credit (from Latin credit, “(he/she/it) believes”) is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[1] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and extensible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
FIND US:
✓ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
✓ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
✓ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ | https://medium.com/snowpiercer-1x10-%D1%81%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB/snowpiercer-series-1-episode-10-tnt-full-series-918dab5cb44e | ['M A X Ha Ve L Ar'] | 2020-12-27 14:33:03.175000+00:00 | ['Fantasy', 'SciFi'] |
Introduction to decision tree classifiers from scikit-learn | There are plenty of articles out there that explain what a decision tree is and what it does:
So here I am going to focus on how a decision tree may be implemented using the scikit-learn library in python on the iris dataset, along with some of the functionality that is useful in analysing the performance of the algorithm.
What is a classifier?
A classifier algorithm is used to map input data to a target variable through decision rules and can be used to predict and understand what characteristics are associated with a specific class or target. This means that it is a supervised machine learning algorithm as we already have the final labels, we just want to know how they may be predicted. For our purpose, we can use the Decision Tree Classifier to predict the type of iris flower we have based on features of: Petal Length, Petal Width, Sepal Length and Sepal Width.
What is a decision tree?
A decision tree a tree like structure whereby an internal node represents an attribute, a branch represents a decision rule, and the leaf nodes represent an outcome. This works by splitting the data into separate partitions according to an attribute selection measure, which in this case is the Gini index (although we can change this to information gain if we wanted). This essentially means that we each split aims toreduce Gini impurity which measures how impure a node is according to incorrectly classified results.
Implementing a decision tree
We first of all want to get the data into the correct format so that we can create our decision tree. Here, we will use the iris dataset from the sklearn datasets databases which is quite simple and works as a showcase for how to implement a decision tree classifier.
The good thing about the Decision Tree Classifier from scikit-learn is that the target variable can be categorical or numerical. For clarity purpose, given the iris dataset, I prefer to keep the categorical nature of the flowers as it is simpler to interpret later on, although the labels can be brought in later if so desired. The following code can therefore be used to import the dataset here:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from sklearn.datasets import load_iris #load in the data
data = load_iris()
#convert to a dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame(data.data, columns = data.feature_names)
#create the species column
df['Species'] = data.target #replace this with the actual names
target = np.unique(data.target)
target_names = np.unique(data.target_names)
targets = dict(zip(target, target_names))
df['Species'] = df['Species'].replace(targets)
The next thing we want to do is to extract our training and test dataset. The purpose of this is to ensure that the model is not trained on all the available data so that we can test how it performs on unseen data. If we were to use all the data as the training data then we may end up overfitting the model, meaning that it may perform poorly on unseen data.
#extract features and target variables
x = df.drop(columns="Species")
y = df["Species"] #save the feature name and target variables
feature_names = x.columns
labels = y.unique() #split the dataset
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
X_train, test_x, y_train, test_lab = train_test_split(x,y,
test_size = 0.4,
random_state = 42)
Now that we have the data in the correct format, we can start to create the decision tree so that we can try to predict the classification of the different flowers. To this end, the first thing to do is to import the DecisionTreeClassifier from the sklearn package. For which, more information can be found here.
from sklearn.tree import DecisionTreeClassifier
The next thing to do is then to apply this to training data. For this purpose, the classifier is assigned to clf and set max_depth = 3 and random_state = 42 . Here, the max_depth parameter is the maximum depth the tree, which we control to ensure there is no overfitting and that we can easily follow how the final result was achieved. The random_state parameter ensures that the results can be replicated in further analyses.
We then fit algorithm to the training data:
clf = DecisionTreeClassifier(max_depth =3, random_state = 42)
clf.fit(X_train, y_train)
We want to be able to understand how the algorithm has behaved, which one of the positives of using a decision tree classifier is that the output is intuitive to understand and can be easily visualised.
This can be done in two ways:
As a tree diagram: | https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-decision-tree-classifiers-from-scikit-learn-32cd5d23f4d | ['Philip Wilkinson'] | 2020-11-16 19:01:46.134000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Decision Tree', 'Classification', 'Scikit Learn', 'Data Science'] |
First COVID-19 Test | Dear Friends and Family,
Last week Eric and I joined the millions of Americans who’ve received a phone call letting them know they’d been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID. Someone in our community, someone we care deeply for, someone who volunteers with us week after week, was diagnosed as positive.
While volunteering at Homies Empowerment FREEdom store all of us played by the rules. We wore masks. We wore gloves. We social distanced. We stayed outside as much as possible. But, COVID is insidious.
For the past several Tuesdays, the Native American Health Center has set up a mobile testing unit at the FREEdom store. Shoppers can pick up their groceries and get tested for COVID-all for free. The way it should be. And, after someone in our community tested positive, the Native American Health Center arranged for everyone to be fast tracked for COVID testing.
So, with no symptoms, even after six days, Eric and I went.
The NAHC Community Testing site is a semi-permanent, outdoor location in a dirt and gravel parking lot just four miles from our house. In the early summer, the testing site operated three days a week, testing approximately 300 people each day. By late August, the site had expanded to five days a week providing anyone in the area with access to free COVID testing-no insurance required, and no questions asked.
When we arrived, the line stretched around the block, not unlike the line for groceries at the FREEdom store. We moved to the end of the line and a volunteer, dressed head to toe in protective clothing-disposable green paper gown, N-99 mask, plastic face shield, paper hair covering, and blue latex gloves-asked us if we had an appointment.
We told him we were with Homies Empowerment and he led us past the people lined up on the sidewalk and through a chain-link fence surrounding a large white, Cirque du Soleil type tent.
Inside the fence, he asked for our driver’s license and, using his gloved finger, tapped our information into a large iPad. We gave him our phone numbers and confirmed we had no symptoms. And, just like that, we were checked in. While showing us to the line outside the tent, he told us they now administer 600 tests a day, five days a week, all for free.
The tent was open on both ends, like a pavilion. Inside there were traffic cones at six-foot intervals, two tables at the entrance each with a staff member and one table at the exit with two women conducting the tests. All four were dressed head to toe in protective clothing. The two testers changed their gloves every time they touched something new-whether it was the table, a testing kit, or a bottle of water.
Eric and I stood in line together, behind four women in medical scrubs. As we waited our turn, I couldn’t help but notice we were the only white people there. The people in line were BIPOC — Black, Indigenous and People of Color. The volunteers were BIPOC. The medical staff were BIPOC. When we reached the tent, Eric and I had to put six feet between us. The staff member at our table confirmed my information and handed me a testing kit. Across from me, a woman who also works with the mobile testing unit at the FREEdom store, recognized us and called out, “Hey Homies.”
I walked to the exit table and handed my kit to the tester. She opened it and showed me the swab sealed in plastic. It looks like a one-sided Q-tip-not the long swabs I had seen on TV. I felt nervous, but determined not to show it. After everything these staff members, volunteers, and medical professionals were doing for free, the least I could do was make it easy on them.
The tester showed me how far she would stick the swab up my nose and told me there would be some discomfort. I nodded in what I hoped was nonchalant, matter of fact, acceptance. She opened the package and I grit my teeth behind my Ruth Bader-Ginsburg mask. She told me to lower my mask just below my nose and tilt my head back. I did both while also clenching my stomach.
She swabbed my left nostril and I laughed.
It didn’t hurt. It tickled. She swabbed my right nostril, and I laughed some more. She laughed, too. She handed me a card with a barcode to check my results. I thanked her and left the tent as Eric stepped up to get his test.
Twenty-seven hours later, we both got our negative results and shortly after that we learned our community member was recovering.
Everyone, regardless of insurance or immigration status, should have access to COVID tests like these. The Native American Health Center is doing for the community, what I did for my daughter when she was little-making sure they are healthy, safe and loved, most important, loved.
Eric and I are making a small monthly donation to the NAHC (for non-profits small monthly donations are more useful than one large one) and, if you are able, I hope you will, too. You can do it right here.
Also, if you would like to donate to Homies Empowerment, and I hope you do, you can donate here.
Until next time, stay healthy, safe, and loved, most important, loved.
Love,
Leslie | https://medium.com/@lesliepoynor/first-covid-19-test-d91b32664ad6 | ['Leslie Poynor'] | 2020-12-18 07:06:56.115000+00:00 | ['White Privilege', 'Native Americans', 'Covid 19', 'Healthcare', 'Bipoc'] |
COUNTDOWN TO MY BIRTHDAY (July 8th)🎁 | So I’ve decided to write daily till the 8th on what lessons I’ve learnt this past year.
Lesson 1 — I learned how to truly and completely love myself. Not all that crap where we convince ourselves that we are doing awesomely well when we know we ain’t doing shit but we get good at acting like we are. I learned to take stock of my life, past actions and how they have affected the person I was becoming. Doing this was hard and painful but every step has been worth it so far. I also learned that you’re gonna have to learn to love yourself over and over and over (by now you get it, yeah?) again because it’s a never ending process. One major thing though, you actually don’t know exactly when you stop loving yourself, and it’s fine to get a little lost sometimes, it’s all part of rediscovering who you are. So don’t beat yourself up for letting go or feeling lost, also don’t fight it. Instead take it as a sign that a better you is about to emerge if you just do what you need. It’s really not as hard as people make it sound. Loving yourself is accepting that yes you have flaws but they are also your super powers which make you you — fearfully and wonderfully made!
I’m so in love with who I’m becoming and it’s only just the beginning.
“It’s my time now, and nobody can tell me nothing. I told you I’m ready..” — Odunsi (rare.) | https://medium.com/@otionokeren/countdown-to-my-birthday-july-8th-5f5d2f9d94ff | ['Ajike Olundegun'] | 2019-07-01 22:29:11.837000+00:00 | ['Plus Size', 'Life Lessons', 'Birthday', 'Love Yourself', 'Growing Up'] |
Stop Putting Off Your Life For Work That Can Be Done Tomorrow | Google “productivity” and you’re served up almost 18 million search results.
Dive in and you’ll find blogs, websites, apps, op-eds, subreddits, consulting firms, podcasts and scientific studies devoted to the art of efficiency.
Our obsession in modern society with doing more is rivaled only by our preoccupation with doing more harder, better, faster and stronger. We’re gunning the engines at max speed, cramming our workdays full of tasks, then feeling guilty if we steal a quick second to call a friend or read a book for pure pleasure (gasp!).
Here’s the irony: compulsion over productivity can do more harm than good.
Addiction to productivity is a real thing — similar to a dependence on a substance or food that leads to maladaptive behavior. Clinically speaking, addiction occurs when someone is engaging in something that’s pleasurable, but the continued use or act becomes compulsive to the point of interfering with normal life responsibilities (work, relationships or health). To make matters worse, an addict may not be aware that his or her behavior is out of control.
6 Signs You’re A Productivity Addict
If you think you’re sliding into an addiction to productivity, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Are you acutely aware of when you are “wasting” time? Do you beat yourself up for it?
Are you reliant on technology to optimize your time management?
Is your #1 topic of conversation how “crazy busy” you are? Do you think “hustling” sounds impressive, while “doing less” sounds lazy?
Are you a slave to your email inbox? Compulsively checking it or feeling like your phone is an extension of your arm?
Do you feel guilty when you only cross one item off your to-do list or find you’re kept awake at night by work stress?
Have you ever rolled your eyes when your friend says she’ll finally get started on that side project she’s been talking about for months, yet you do exactly the same and rationalize it by thinking you’re too swamped?
Recognizing your preoccupation with productivity is the first step in refreshing your approach to it. If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, that’s a good gauge that you’d do well to take your foot off the gas in your quest for powerhouse status.
But what to do next? Here’s a few suggestions to get you started:
Rewire Negative Self Talk
“You’ve got work to get done — of course you shouldn’t go out tonight!” Sound familiar? How about “You’re not making this time useful — that’s why you haven’t been promoted yet.” The next time your inner critic slams you for not being good enough or working hard enough, talk back. Don’t let any thoughts run through your brain that you wouldn’t say out loud to your best friend.
Say No
Stop stuffing your to-do list out of guilt or a desire to please. Say no to any new responsibility that doesn’t benefit your professional or personal growth or that you truly don’t have time for.
Stop Talking Big Game And Actually Take Action
It’s one thing to indulge in listicle after listicle of productivity tips or talk about the ambitious plans you have for your business, but at the end of the day, taking action is what counts. This also means resisting the urge to complain (or brag) about how slammed you are, no matter if it’s over Bloody Marys at brunch or in 140 characters on Twitter. Being productive in a healthy way means not needing validation for it.
Accept Downtime As Recharging Time.
Although you may feel like you’re wasting time if you’re not scratching something off your to-do list, the opposite is often true. Your most meaningful ideas may come in that one moment when you’re not distracted or triaging emails. Let your brain relax to refuel your attention and focus. The Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin, in evaluating how to form healthy habits in her life made a commitment to never look at her smartphone whenever she’s walking somewhere in order to let herself free-think. Try it!
Embrace “Just In Time” Learning.
Maximizing your productivity often leads to unproductive multitasking. Instead, zero in and do one thing at a time. Consume only the information you need to accomplish the task at hand, which is known as “just in time learning“. This approach encourages you to collect information only as you need it, rather than hoarding it and trying to learn a huge variety of things in-depth. If you’re working on launching your side hustle, that might mean focusing solely on learning sales skills to get your first paying client rather than diving into learning how to code an entire website and marketing funnel from scratch. There will come a time for that. But it’s not right now.
Of course, enjoying the feeling of being productive is not inherently shameful. There’s so much pressure all around us — on billboards, in movies, in our Facebook feeds, in overheard conversations at the gym — to turbo-charge our lives. We always have to be doing more, striving for more, offering more and doing it all faster. We feel like if we’re not up to snuff, then we’ll fall behind and never be able to catch up.
But what is it all for in the end?
Don’t lose sight of the truly important things in life. Relish peaceful moments in your day– from the smell of a freshly brewed mug of coffee to the warm sunlight that shines on your morning commute. As I like to say, don’t put off your life for work that can be done tomorrow. | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/stop-putting-off-your-life-for-work-that-can-be-done-tomorrow-9de75bdfcd13 | ['Melody Wilding'] | 2019-09-02 12:01:01.227000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Productivity', 'Work', 'Melody Wilding', 'Mental Health'] |
The $2000 Check Conversations Trapped Joe Biden, Too. | The $2000 Check Conversations Trapped Joe Biden, Too.
He doesn’t seem all that interested in getting the American people this money, and I can’t say I’m surprised.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
After the passage of the coronavirus relief bill, pressure has ramped up for congress to deliver on $2000 checks for the American people after lawmakers like Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey joined Donald Trump’s calls to send out more money. While virtually everyone is in agreement that the conversation surrounding these checks has certainly backed Senator Mitch McConnell into a corner ahead of the Georgia runoff election that will determine which party controls the Senate, another lawmaker who seems to be thoroughly unimpressed and uninterested in the conversation is none other than President-Elect Joe Biden.
Recently, a six second video clip of Biden has been circulating around Twitter, in which a reporter can be heard asking if he supports the $2000 stimulus checks as Biden leaves the podium. Without even turning around to look at the reporter, Biden calls back with a simple and thoroughly uninterested: “yes”.
Tens of millions of people are unemployed, wondering how they’re going to put food on the table for their children and pay the thousands of dollars worth of back rent that they owe. These checks are no longer about stimulus, it’s about survival, and Biden couldn’t even bother turning around to show the camera his face or come up with a full sentence when asked if he thought the American people should get these checks. While loyal Democratic voters might dismiss it and insist that his answer of “yes” was all they needed as evidence that the man they voted for supports these checks, it’s worth noting that Joe Biden has not expressed his desire to get this money to the American people on social media once since this entire conversation started, either. In fact, the pitiful answer to the reporter was the only supposed public “support” he has expressed at all.
Likely, because he doesn’t actually support these checks at all.
McConnell and Senate Republicans may have been trapped by this conversation, but it appears as though Biden was too. After all, though his team denies it, Biden was reportedly behind the scenes privately pushing Democratic lawmakers to accept a much smaller coronavirus relief bill during negotiations, and his conversations surrounding how he will tackle the response to the pandemic rarely if ever seem to focus on sending direct relief to the American people. All things considered, Biden’s rushed and irritable “yes” when asked if he supports these checks seem to indicate that he does not actually support them, and is instead merely angry that politics in general demand he even has to pretend to want this money sent to the people.
That “yes” was not genuine support, but seemed instead to be frustration that Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and others calling for them are making him look bad in comparison. At the heart of it, he knows that if these checks are passed, the American people are going to expect more from him, and to see the Democratic party actually stand up to the Republicans on behalf of the people they have been elected to represent. Can we really be surprised he finds this frustrating as opposed to a useful way to get the Republicans to bend and help the people all at once, considering how his team has been pushing for austerity since before he was even elected? Biden has made clear from the very beginning that “nothing will fundamentally change” under his leadership, so why would he want the American people to get the help they deserve?
If nothing else, it’s at least nice to know that Biden can feel the pressure. | https://xlauren-mx.medium.com/the-2000-check-conversations-trapped-joe-biden-too-1ab922723516 | ['Lauren Elizabeth'] | 2020-12-31 16:26:59.511000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Joe Biden', 'Democrats', 'Elections', 'Government'] |
Totle Making its DEX API Available to Smart Contracts via Chainlink | Totle is excited to announce an integration with Chainlink, the market-leading decentralized oracle network. Leveraging Chainlink’s external adapter technology, Totle’s aggregated data API will become accessible to Dapps through Chainlink oracles. Dapps can query Chainlink nodes to gain deep insights into the DEX space and use it in the execution of smart contracts.
Totle is a DEX aggregator that monitors the liquidity of the 15 leading decentralized exchanges and synthetic asset providers. It then compares prices across exchanges to provide users with a reliable way of accessing deep liquidity for DeFi assets at the best market prices. When a user places a trade order, Totle calculates the best possible combination of DEX transactions that maximize the user’s return.
As a DEX Aggregator, Totle is uniquely well-positioned to capture macro-level activity within the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Through the use of External Adapters, Chainlink nodes can relay Totle’s API data to smart contracts on numerous blockchain environments.
With transactional activity on DEXs increasing, DEX data is becoming more in demand and important to the execution of financial smart contracts. For example, new derivatives products can be created purely designed around DEX liquidity and price action, such as futures and options contracts based on the overall liquidity of DEXs. This is a very unexplored market for DeFi, which can really open up if smart contracts are given access to reliable data.
David Bleznak, Founder of Totle, noted that “Chainlink’s role of securely sourcing and delivering data to smart contracts is crucial to the success of the DeFi ecosystem. A critical component of Chainlink’s process is being able to leverage high-quality data providers that have robust market coverage and accurate price calculations. We’re thrilled to integrate with Chainlink to make our high-quality DEX data readily available to market participants, further expanding the number of use cases possible in DeFi.”
About Chainlink
If you’re a developer and want to connect your smart contract to existing data and infrastructure outside the underlying blockchain, reach out to us here! We can help you quickly and securely launch your data-enabled application or Chainlink Price Reference Data Contract on mainnet today. You can also visit the developer documentation or join the technical discussion on Discord. Learn more by visiting the Chainlink website or follow us on Twitter or Reddit.
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments. It is well known for providing highly secure and reliable oracles to large enterprises (Google, Oracle, and SWIFT) and leading smart contract development teams such as Polkadot/Substrate, Synthetix, Loopring, Aave, OpenLaw, Conflux, and many others.
About Totle
Totle is a decentralized liquidity aggregator that automatically acquires users the best pricing available for ETH and ERC-20 swaps.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, or Medium for the most up-to-date news on Totle.
Get Started Today:
Swap tokens at the best pricing available on the market: Totle Swap
Build with aggregated token swaps: Documentation | https://medium.com/@totlecrypto/totle-making-its-dex-api-available-to-smart-contracts-via-chainlink-cc345d6e602f | [] | 2020-05-05 12:55:06.672000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Decentralized Exchange', 'Chainlink'] |
Clora Bryant, An Iconic American Trumpeter’s & Pillar of LA Jazz Scene | Through thick and thin on a rock path will lead to a higher ground over time
When you have a talent and in your heart you know this is your gift to share with the world nothing should stop you or get in our way. Every one is born with at least one gift and must share that gift with the world for their wholeness and humanity’s wholeness. One person’s struggle encourages the next person’s struggle to be the best they can under any and all circumstances.
Photo by Blackthen.com
Clora Bryant, a trumpet player who broke barriers in jazz. Born May 30, 1927 and transitioned August 25, 2019. Ms. Bryant played the trumpet while attention and recognition was slow in coming, if it came at all being in a male dominated arena and during a time when she was considered a novelty.
Photo by Jazztimes.com
Ms. Bryant stated, “When you put that iron in your mouth, you run into problems, the other horn players gave me respect, but the men who ran the clubs considered me a novelty, “ per the Los Angeles Times from an interview in 1998.
Photo by aaregistry.com
She was a barrier breaker who stood steadfast and firm in her resolve to be respected as a jazz trumpet player despite the open sexism and racism that shadowed her career. When you are the first or one of the first, that door of opportunity is like a brick wall and must be chipped away for those that follow to enter.
She lived a life as a jazz trumpeter and it was an uphill battle per her son. The sad part about this story, if she was white and a female, the story would have had a totally different and more successful ending. Shame on America the Beautiful, denying one’s talent it’s rightful place in society. Yes, it was a man’s world and it made it hard for her but she had a dream to be and she was a trumpet player, undeniably. She proclaimed all her rejection made her more determined.
Photo by Wednesdayswomen.com
Her spirit has ignited a fire in me that needed to be relighted. As an actress, there is much rejection for various reasons and all can be very daunting. While yes, synonymous to Ms. Bryant, I have had some measure of success and been blessed but the windows of opportunity is smaller due to my ethnicity, not talent, but I am encouraged more by her legacy.
Her talent made room for her. She was a constant on the jazz scene along Central Avenue and Las Vegas in the 1940s along with the greats and was highly revered by Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong just too name a few. Her associations speak volume attesting to her talent.
While work was hard to come by, she pursued her dream. Even to this very day there are few female horn players and probably even less African American ones.
Ms. Bryant was born May 30, 1927 in Denison, Texas, her mother died when she was three years old and her father raised her and her brothers and he encouraged them to think big. Reminds me of my mother and father, coming from Mississippi, they all ways pushed their children to exceed at all cost.
Ms. Bryant discovered her brother’s trumpet after he went off to the war, and joined the school marching band. Her father warned her that she’d face a lot of resistance, and that he supported her all the way in what ever she wanted to do. His famous words, Charles Bryant, after he advised she’d face a lot of opposition was “But anything you want to do, I’m behind you, You keep playing.”
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Being raised a Baptist and was taught that anything with a backbeat was probably, “the devil’s music” , she didn’t find jazz but it found her. Early she was privy to the likes of Earl Hines, Cotton Club, Cab Calloway on the radio in the wee hours of the night. During the day, only white bands played on the radio.
When their is a passion, the doors will open perhaps not as wide and as quick as the pursuer would like but at the end of the day, one should follow their heart and dreams to live a fulfill life.
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
After she attended Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college, she moved to Los Angeles and found her place on the jazz scene in jazz clubs along Central Avenue — the Downbeat, the Last Word, Club Alabama and the Dunbar Hotel.
Against all barriers and along side the greats like Miles Davis, Teddy Edwards, Sonny Criss, Ms. Bryant held her own. Mind you these guys were sizzling and she sizzled with them. She also played with Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Scatman Crothers. Gillespie was a life long fan and a regular at the Lighthouse and the High Seas in Hermosa Beach. She also performed with the Sweethearts of Rhythm and the Sepia Tones. She even appeared on the Ed Sullivan show after she cut her lone album, “Clora Bryant-Gal With a Horn”, in 1957.
Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash
When a door or window closes, create your own window or door and that’s all that matter is the journey you make and take for yourself with all the tenacity that is within.
Ms. Bryant was innovative when she wrote a letter directly to Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev and asked to be the first female horn player to visit Moscow to perform. She got the idea from Dave Brubeck’s decision to take his music to Moscow. In 1988, she arrived in Moscow and played at a jazz festival and the city’s marquee jazz club. Her travel was documented by a UCLA film crew.
In 2002, Ms. Bryant was awarded the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Also, a documentary entitled, “Trumpetistically Clora Bryant”, which captures this trailblazer’s distinguished journey as a trumpeter in it’s entirety and expounds on all the racism and gender bias that held back women with ambition.
Her most recent words pertaining to her long career of fighting barriers, “I would like them to give me my props, not because I think I’m so great, but because I endured. I stuck with it.”
Photo by NAMM
In conclusion, my accolades to her is that, “unbeknownst to her she is an indelible part of not only musicians history but world history and women’s history for she was the ultimate fighter for her God given talent and she paved the way for many to follow regardless of their pursuit. She came, she did and she went!! The Trumpeter who defied barriers!!!
For additional reads: | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/clora-bryant-an-iconic-american-trumpeters-pillar-of-la-jazz-scene-f0f0d0eb7a12 | ['Ep Mcknight'] | 2020-12-18 19:01:19.779000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Education', 'Life'] |
The Secret of Effective Negotiations in Mergers & Acquisitions | Negotiation is a sometimes overlooked area of the M&A process. Every time we see a public company which has been acquired at a price which implies a premium well over its market price, it’s worth stopping for a moment and considering that the premium was part of a negotiated price between both sides — and probably fiercely negotiated, by two teams of experienced M&A practitioners. Prices (and by extension, premiums) don’t happen by chance.
For this reason, whatever side of the transaction you’re on, negotiation skills could be worth anywhere between a few hundred thousand dollars in the lower middle market and literally billions of dollars at the upper end of the market. At DealRoom, we’ve found that much of the negotiations center around the details shared at the due diligence phase, which allow the buyer to see “ what’s under the hood “ of what they’re buying.
In this article, we touch on some of the issues that surround negotiations and give some examples of M&A negotiations. The article begins by looking at the LOI, a critical juncture in the M&A negotiation process. Thereafter, we look at some of the other issues that pertain to negotiation and how both the buy-side and the sell-side can gain from better negotiations, moulding the terms of a final deal to better suit their requirements. The reader should come away with a better appreciation for the importance of good M&A negotiation capabilities.
The Letter of Intent (LOI): A Critical Juncture
Although rarely legally binding, the LOI is a critical juncture for both the buy-side and the sell-side, but especially the sell-side. This is because it’s very difficult for the sell-side to renegotiate a price upwards after the LOI has been signed. It’s possible of course, but is more often taken as a sign of badwill on the buy-side. So, the sell-side has to be happy with the terms outlined in the LOI. On the other hand, the buy-side can use due diligence as leverage to improve the terms for them (usually meaning a lower acquisition price).
The price agreed is just the headline in the LOI. There are issues around whether the cash is to be paid all upfront or in installments, whether the price includes earn-outs (a good tool for both sides of negotiations), whether the selling firm should receive some stock (common or preferred) in the newly created entity, and whether there should be some cash held in escrow for a period to protect against unforeseen breaches of the seller’s representations.
At each of these stages, the buyer and seller are largely working in opposite directions, the former looking to reduce the price of the business, the latter looking to increase it. For this reason, whichever side of the table a company is on, they should know the limits of the terms they’re willing to pay or accept before entering negotiations.
Preparation is a key element of negotiation — you don’t want to negotiate with a team of experienced investment bankers, who’ve probably conducted dozens of deals, without knowing what you want from the process.
Post-Due Diligence: Representations, Warranties and Indemnities
Representations, warranties and indemnities, typically inserted into the deal terms to serve the buy-side. Representations and warranties are usually used by the buy-side to confirm that everything that was discovered during due diligence was accurate and reflects the true position of the company. Indemnities are the clauses inserted by the buyer which protect them from the due diligence findings being misleading or inaccurate — for example, providing them with the option to pull out of the deal at a later stage.
At an absolute minimum, the buyer should seek to ensure that they have representations and warranties around details of the seller’s financials (i.e. that the financial statements have been prepared in accordance with GAAP and present fairly in all material aspects the financial position of the selling firm) and legal standing (i.e. that there are no litigations pending). Other representations and warranties can surround IP, existing commercial contracts and more.
The sell-side may also have some opportunity to insert their own representations, warranties and indemnities, particularly if they’ve agreed to acquire stock in the new entity created by the merger. These can include everything from director compensation to issues surrounding dividend payments. Taking all of these issues together, it’s not difficult to see how there could be a lot of negotiations for even a relatively minor transaction.
The Human Side
The best negotiators leverage a combination of IQ and EQ. That is to say, they use their brain and their heart. Like any deal, it helps if you can relate to the other side and show empathy. In The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs by Charles D. Ellis, Ellis tells the story of two investment bankers that go to the house of the owner of a large US company for whom they wanted to offer their services. Other bankers had been. But the Goldman Sachs bankers insisted on cleaning the dishes after dinner. This little show of humanity won them the deal.
Most deals between buyers and sellers won’t offer the opportunity to wash dishes, but the lesson is clear: Humility and empathy go a long way. If terms are unacceptable, there’s a way to say that they’re acceptable in a way that the other side can respond to. Likewise, if your terms are rebuffed, it shouldn’t be taken personally, even if they’re rebuffed in a less-than-polite fashion. Negotiations are a time for cool heads and rationality, preferably with some amicability.
Conclusion
As one can imagine, the scale of issues that could be covered when talking about negotiations in M&A is vast. Much like any other relationship, the outcome is unlikely to be damaged if everybody is honest and empathetic from the outset. Ensure that you’re fully prepared for what may come and don’t be surprised by the unforeseen as deals can throw up all kinds of issues — even showing you things you didn’t know about your own company. | https://medium.com/m-a-science/the-secret-of-effective-negotiations-in-mergers-acquisitions-4dd2759f311 | ['Marsha Lewis'] | 2020-11-24 15:50:35.062000+00:00 | ['Mergers And Acquisitions', 'Negotiation', 'Business Strategy'] |
Kubernetes HPA Autoscaling with Kafka metrics | How Kubernetes HPA works?
The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler is implemented as a Kubernetes API resource and a controller. The resource determines the behaviour of the controller. The controller periodically adjusts the number of replicas in a replication controller or deployment.
The HorizontalPodAutoscaler normally fetches metrics from a series of aggregated APIs ( metrics.k8s.io , custom.metrics.k8s.io and external.metrics.k8s.io ). The metrics.k8s.io API is usually provided by metrics-server, which needs to be launched separately. The HorizontalPodAutoscaler can also fetch metrics directly from Heapster.
Here, in this guide, we will deploy our HPA reading from external.metrics.k8s.io as our Kafka metrics will be exposed to that API.
What is custom metrics?
Kubernetes allows us to deploy your own metrics solutions. By default, metric-server and heapster act as core metrics backend.
Kubernetes has extended the support to allow custom APIs to expose other metrics provider. Few adapters are written by the third party to implement custom APIs which can be used to expose these metrics to Kubernetes resources such like HPA.
Current Implementations: github.com/Kubernetes/IMPLEMENTATIONS.md
How custom API server and HPA ties together?
The custom API server that we deploy registers an API to Kubernetes and allows the HPA controller query custom metrics from that. API server that we are going to deploy here is Stackdriver adapter which can collect metrics from Stackdriver and send them to the HPA controller via REST queries.
Our custom API server will register two APIs to Kubernetes: custom.metrics.k8s.io and external.metrics.k8s.io .
We will be also deploying an application to write metrics (in this case Kafka metrics) to google stackdriver. The kind of metrics which we are going to write to Stackdriver will be exposed under external.metrics.k8s.io instead of custom.metrics.k8s.io.
Prerequisites
Ensure the following dependencies are already fulfilled: | https://medium.com/google-cloud/kubernetes-hpa-autoscaling-with-kafka-metrics-88a671497f07 | ['Sunny Gupta'] | 2018-12-29 14:25:42.009000+00:00 | ['Google Stackdriver', 'Container Orchestration', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Kubernetes', 'Kafka'] |
We will have no other choice but to rebuild Human society based on Nature’s template | Question from the Internet:
“How do you expect society, culture, and politics to change over the next decade?”
I expect all the present governing, economic, social structures and ideologies to fall apart and disappear, as they are all built by/for our inherently self-centered, self-serving and subjective nature.
And as such they are incompatible with Nature’s fully integrated, interdependent system which is now forcing us — according to evolution’s relentless direction — to become compatible by achieving integration within global Human society.
So — either through increasing blows, intolerable suffering, or as a result of a unique, purposeful and practical educational method — Human society will transform into a fully integrated, mutually responsible, mutually complementing global network.
We will have no other choice but to rebuild our relationships, environments using Nature’s perfect template.
https://youtu.be/2dzpfbW7YF8 | https://medium.com/@samechphoto/we-will-have-no-other-choice-but-to-rebuild-human-society-based-on-natures-template-b960673ee271 | ['Zsolt Hermann'] | 2020-12-27 21:32:07.767000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Nature', 'Education', 'Connection', 'Society'] |
A fresh attempt for Classification | A fresh attempt for Classification
Part 1 — A Taxonomy of protocols
This article is the first part of the bigger story about Distributed Decentralized Systems. We will publish a new article once a week following the order from Table of Content.
Table of Content:
I. A Taxonomy of Protocols (Part 1)
1. Motivation
2. Scope and Context
3. The Overall Landscape
II. The four Dimensions for the taxonomy
1. Consensus Protocols (Part 2)
2. Sybil Attack Prevention Mechanisms (Part 3)
3. Data Structures in Distributed Systems (Part 4)
4. Energy Consumption (Part 5)
III. The 5th Discipline: Decentralization (Part 6)
IV. Other Important Classification Criteria (Part 7)
Designing a distributed system is always about trade-offs on transaction speed, scalability, security, energy efficiency …
Ambitions to decentralize a distributed system will add enormous complexity — ultimately leading to the greater good!
Author: Ahmet YALÇIN, May 26th, 2019 — Berlin
Acknowledgments for critical review and suggestions by
Dmitrii Zhelezov, PhD & Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, PhD
@HelixFoundation — All rights reserved
I — A Taxonomy of Protocols
I — 1. Motivation
Although basically just two or three families of principally different working consensus protocols in Distributed Decentralized Systems (DDS) do exist, and just a few Sybil attack prevention mechanisms are practically considerable, there are probably over 100+ variants of different implementations in place. “Blockchain Space” is a moving target with every day evolving new projects. In addition, the ongoing R&D work in this space around the globe makes various projects and products less comparable and difficult to classify, even for experts. A systematic analysis, fair comparison and rigorous evaluation of the different design features of DDS along with their implications in performance and applications is becoming a real challenge.
The intention of this analysis is to understand the work related to a new protocol called HelixMesh and to create a basis for positioning the HelixMesh [see Helix 2019] in the DDS Landscape. Here, we focus on creating an overall general picture — a holistic and pragmatic view. With this ambition of a high-level classification of various protocols and related projects, we also hope to make the competitive landscape visible. By plotting their relative positions and by indicating their perceived added-value within the overall ecosystem, visibility can stimulate a further comparative discussion among the various projects and the community.
– Contribution
First of all, this is not a scientific paper. Here, in our attempt to show the “big picture” we benefited from direct findings of decades of research in consensus science [e.g., Lamport 1978, 1982, 2001; Castro & Liskov, 2002] and comprehensive recent studies on DDS [e.g., Pass & Shi, 2017] as well as meta-analyses of protocols [e.g., Ballandies, Dapp & Pournaras, 2018]. Our article, in the form of a simple explanatory document aimed at providing a graphical overview using a new taxonomy, provides a classification of over 25 distributed ledger systems. In our work, we tried to relate to the “most important” projects.
Nevertheless, we do not claim to cover all the relevant criteria in our analysis but rather to focus on the key aspects for the sake of simplicity. In comparison to the complex scientific related work, the taxonomy proposed here provides a rather practical overview. We use four dimensions for the classification: 1) Consensus 2) Sybil prevention 3) Data Structure 4) Energy Consumption, (i.e. environmental footprint)
I — 2. Scope and Context
In this analysis, there is no claim of a novel scientific contribution. We only provide a structured compilation from existing papers, accompanied by a graphical taxonomy (i.e., a landscape from a bird’s eye view) for the most known protocols and their corresponding projects. Although we reviewed several scientific articles and metanalyses of blockchain protocols during the last few months, our “pamphlet” is not meant to be exhaustive or complete. We are aware that there are many excellent papers which we have not referred to here. Our analysis contains a significant body of knowledge combining several extensive meta-analyses on the subject, a subtitle of our results could also be: An Attempt for a DDS Taxonomy based on Meta-analysis.
Most of the below-mentioned protocols (e.g., Avi, Blockmania, HelixMesh, Spectre, Phantom, Ghost, Fetch, Perlin, Tezos, even Ethereum Casper) are still under development and were not available as products at the time of this analysis (Q1 2019). Further, we would like to emphasize that our results are best described as a “probably correct approximation” than representing a fully verifiable broad analysis since many of these protocols/projects have moving targets or have expanded into new features.
For the scope and context of this document, here we are focusing on PUBLIC CHAIN protocols (both permissioned and permissionless) and not on PRIVATE CHAINS (like Hyperledger, Corda or Ripple). UseCases on protocols, dApps or other “simple cryptocurrency applications” are also not included in our analysis (e.g. we would consider the cryptocurrency DASH as being in this category).
– Conflict of Interest
The author is affiliated with Helix Cognitive Computing and the Helix Foundation. Regardless of this, for the purpose of this article, the author used only data collected from public (external) sources.
I — 3. The Overall Landscape
Helix versus other “Public Chains” — A Taxonomy based on a MetaAnalysis¹
Fig. Four-dimensional classification of protocols (link to the full-size image)
@Helix Foundation — All rights reserved
For additional comments of the above-mentioned protocols please refer to the Appendix
Appendix to the “Four-dimensional classification of protocols”
· Tendermint Core is a BFT protocol that can be best described as a variant of pBFT. In contrast to pBFT, where the client sends a new transaction directly to all nodes, the clients in Tendermint disseminate their transactions to the validating nodes using a gossip protocol. Tendermint’s most significant departure from pBFT is the continuous rotation of the leader. This should be compared to the expensive view change routine of pBFT which is used as a fallback [ https://github.com/tendermint/tendermint ].
· Thunderalla is Hybrid Consensus ( https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/917.pdf ), i.e. it uses BFT for choosing a block and a separate “slow” blockchain for selecting the committees. In other words, it uses the blockchain not to agree on transactions, but to agree on rotating committees which in turn execute permissioned consensus protocols to agree on transactions, proposed by the leader. The advantage here is that Thunderalla was considered being the most efficient BFT PoS framework ever in terms of liveness. Thunderalla is operating tandem, i.e. in PoW for recovery mechanism and PoS otherwise; and in both cases it uses the asynchronous pBFT. The beauty of Thunderalla lies in its simplicity, combining the responsiveness of an asynchronous algorithm, the decentralization of a blockchain, and the speed and throughput previously reserved for centralized systems [Pass & Shi].
· Following the Thunderalla paradigm, the key idea behind Thunder is to combine a “standard” blockchain, which we will refer to as the slow chain with an optimistic fast-path. The fast path is coordinated by a centralized entity referred to as the Accelerator. As longs as the Accelerator is not malicious and the network latency is low, transactions are quickly confirmed. Otherwise, the “slow’’ blockchain is used for recovery [Koticha, Z., (2018)].
· At dFinity, while first defined for a permissioned participation model, the consensus mechanism itself can be paired with any method of Sybil resistance — similar to Thunderalla — (e.g. proof-of-work or proof-of-stake) to create an open participation model. The dFinity blockchain uses a random beacon for leader selection and leader ranking. A “weight” is attributed to a chain based on the ranks of the leaders who propose the blocks in the chain, and that weight is used to select between competing chains [Timo Hanke, Mahnush Movahedi and Dominic Williams — dFinity Technology Overview Series Consensus System].
· Stellar (and of course Ripple) uses federated Byzantine agreement (FBA). FBA achieves robustness through quorum slices — individual trust decisions made by each node that together determine system-level quorums. Slices bind the system together much the way individual networks’ peering and transit decisions now unify the Internet. PoW has its famous 51% attacks. Stellar claims, that “you can flood the network with bad actors, and it doesn’t matter, as long as no-one includes them in their quorum sets”. FBA brings open membership and decentralized control to Byzantine agreement. Anyone can join. FBA determines quorums, or groups of nodes sufficient to reach an agreement, in a distributed way. Each node decides which others to trust. Different nodes don’t need to rely on the same combination of trusted participants to reach consensus. Stellar is a decentralized protocol, however, Ripple is not. Ripple is a private Blockchain. So, these two terms can be combined, private blockchains can be decentralized and public blockchains can be centralized. Ripple is currently private and centralized but moving towards private and decentralized [D. Mazieres — The Stellar Consensus Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-level Consensus].
· Algorand — On How to elect Block Proposers and Committees: All users participate in the lottery and can win the ticket to become the block proposer or a ticket to be a member of the validating committee in round r. Every user runs its own “lottery machine” fueled with a public random seed and her/his private key. These lottery machines are verifiable random functions (VRF). They produce uniformly distributed random values and provide a non-interactive proof so that any other user knowing only the public key of the winning user can verify the outcome once the chosen lottery winner makes his ticket public. If the value of the ticket is close to some target value or threshold, this user can participate in proposing or validating blocks
[Comparison of PoS projects: Unbiased Leader Election https://blog.coinfabrik.com/comparison-of-pos-projects-unbiased-leader-election/ ].
· The Avalanche protocol is composed of four mechanisms which build upon each other and together make up the entire structural support of the DAG-based consensus tool. The four mechanisms described in the proposal are Slush, Snowflake, Snowball, and Avalanche. The network nodes sample random peers, and sufficiently many consistent consecutive queries signal a network-wide consensus. It is further amplified by the DAG structure with child transactions providing extra support for the “ancestors’’ [ https://btcmanager.com/avalanche-protocolnew-age-consensus/ ].
· Fetch’s useful proof-of-work will involve the packaging of general-purpose computing problems into PoW packages. These problems allow processing nodes with less computational power to occasionally earn block rewards. Verification of the subproblems will be carried out by nodes that “lost” the race for solving the problem with some smaller reward provided for these verification steps. Fetch will also incorporate tunable PoW difficulties in relation to transaction fee so that nodes with low computational power can earn rewards by registering low-value transactions into the ledger. This distributed computing platform will be used to train machine learning (ML) algorithms and will ensure the integrity of the network by, for example, assessing trust in the validity of transactions and the ledger itself [ https://fetch.ai/uploads/technical-introduction.pdf ].
· PHANTOM is a PoW based protocol for a permissionless ledger that generalizes Nakamoto’s blockchain to a direct acyclic graph of blocks (blockDAG). PHANTOM includes a parameter k that controls the level of tolerance of the protocol to blocks that were created concurrently, which can be set to accommodate higher throughput. It thus avoids the security-scalability tradeoff which Satoshi’s protocol suffers from. PHANTOM uses a greedy algorithm on the blockDAG to distinguish between blocks mined properly by honest nodes and those that created by non-cooperating nodes who chose to deviate from the mining protocol. Using this distinction, PHANTOM provides a robust total order on the blockDAG in a way that is eventually agreed upon by all honest nodes [ https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/104.pdf ].
· Phantom, SPECTRE, IOTA are DAG-based consensus systems, all of which are, at their core, variants of the Nakamoto consensus. This leads to two disadvantages: first, the finality is probabilistic and, most importantly, it is prone to misaligned rewards incentives (e.g. selfish mining attacks)[ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.07525.pdf ].
· GHOST (Greedy Heaviest-Observed Sub-Tree) as a new branch selection policy, which evaluates each chain’s weight rather than length and allows to account for stale blocks, aiming at reducing the time to converge to a consistent global state. In this context, they model the network as a directed graph G = (V; E), where the edges’ values represent the network propagation delay between adjacent nodes in V [Stifter et al 2018].
· Blockmania is a byzantine consensus protocol. Nodes emit blocks forming a directed acyclic graph (block DAG) that is subsequently interpreted by each node separately to ensure consensus with safety, liveness, and finality. The resulting system has communication complexity O(N2) even in the worst case, and very low constant factors — as compared to O(N4) for PBFT. An X-Blockmania variant has O(N) communication cost but also higher latency O (log N) [Blockmania: from Block DAGs to Consensus — DRAFT (v0.5, 25 Sept 2018) — George Danezis and David Hrycyszyn].
· IoT Chain (=ITC) adopts the main chain of PBFT consensus, the DAG network, as side chain and the multi-tier architecture to build an IoT operating system which is safe, decentralized and can support high concurrency. When applying the blockchain technology in IoT some key problems need to be solved, such as the form of consensus, quick pay on small amount and protection of data privacy. For these problems, IoT has brought up its own solutions, including PBFT, SPV, DAG, CPS cluster technology, big-data-analysis smart contract ChainCode and so on [IOT Chain Whitepaper https://iotchain.io/whitepaper/ITCWHITEPAPER.pdf].
· Tezos is a generic and self-amending crypto-ledger and can instantiate any blockchain based ledger. The operations of a regular blockchain are implemented as a purely functional module abstracted into a shell responsible for network operations. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptonote, etc. can all be represented within Tezos by implementing the proper interface to the network layer. Tezos supports meta upgrades: the protocols can evolve by amending their own code. To achieve this, Tezos begins with a seed protocol defining a procedure for stakeholders to approve amendments to the protocol, including amendments to the voting procedure itself. TEZOS’ proof-of-stake mechanism is a mix of several ideas, including Slasher, chain-of-activity, and proof-of-burn [Tezos Whitepaper https://github.com/tezos/tezos-papers].
· “Ouroboros Genesis” adapts a PoS-based blockchain protocol with a novel chain selection rule. The rule enables new or offline parties to safely (re-)join and bootstrap their blockchain only from a trusted copy of the genesis block without any additional advice — such as checkpoints — or assumptions regarding past availability; i.e. such a blockchain protocol can “bootstrap from genesis without any information the genesis block. In particular, this provides the joining party a blockchain possessing all the favorable properties (e.g., a large common prefix with other honest parties) that would be guaranteed if the party had fully participated during the entire history of the protocol [Badertscher et al.: Composable Proof-of-Stake Blockchains with Dynamic Availability https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/378.pdf].
· IOTA is sometimes said to be Nakamoto because it is believed that correct transactions accumulate many children over time and gain more weight, similar to blocks in the blockchain. We, therefore, allocated IOTA in our taxonomy to the Nakamoto family.
· Hedera Hashgraph uses two special techniques (1) Gossip about Gossip and (2) Virtual Voting to achieve fast, fair and secure consensus. In a gossip protocol, after transactions, nodes share info with other elements. “Using a gossip protocol, nodes efficiently and rapidly exchange data with other nodes in the community. This automatically builds a Hashgraph data structure using the novel “gossip about gossip” protocol. This data structure is cryptographically secure and contains the history of communication in a community. Using this as an input, nodes run the same virtual-voting consensus algorithm as other nodes. The community reaches consensus on the order and timestamp without any further communication over the internet. Each event is digitally signed by its “creator” [https://www.hedera.com]. [Zamboglu, D. https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/hedera-hashgraph-explained-c5d8ce4730a6 ].
· HelixMesh is a leaderless IoT-focused consensus protocol inspired by the MeshCash framework. Helix Cognitive Computing (www.hlx.ai), the company behind the protocol, provides a technical exposition of the HelixMesh protocol and the underlying DAG-based transaction ledger in its technical paper. The HelixMesh is based on the double-consensus MeshCash framework and the Snowball protocol of the Avalanche family. The consensus process consists of the off-chain and on-chain layers. Besides, the design of the protocol provides the ability to run either permissioned or public implementations due to the Proof-Of-Contribution abstraction which supports both classical Byzantine and PoS/PoW adversarial models. The on-chain protocol, referred to as the Tortoise protocol, runs a DAG-based consensus protocol, while the off-chain protocol, referred to as the Hare consensus, works as a finality oracle. The fast Hare consensus protocol may not terminate but if it does, it predicts the outcome of the slower Tortoise consensus run in parallel. The on-chain Tortoise protocol itself is self-contained and make all the consensus decisions only using the local state of the DAG [ https://hlx.ai/files/HelixMesh_V1_2019_04_0.pdf ]. | https://medium.com/helix-foundation/a-fresh-attempt-for-classification-f4d3a5bcfd19 | [] | 2019-05-28 20:45:36.566000+00:00 | ['Blockchain'] |
Kötü Yaşıyoruz, Normalleşiyoruz | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/k%C3%B6t%C3%BC-ya%C5%9F%C4%B1yoruz-normalle%C5%9Fiyoruz-18555da77e8b | [] | 2020-12-26 16:18:43.021000+00:00 | ['Hayat', 'Hikaye', 'Türkçe', 'Yazı'] |
Using Mapbox in Your Flutter Project | Mapping providers targeting mobile platforms need to establish a frictionless experience that is fast and responsive. For years, the pioneer in the field has been Google with its Maps service, used globally by millions of people. Their APIs are state-of-the-art, and it shows; everywhere, from the way developers manage their services through Google Developers Console to the excellent documentation and multi-platform support. You would expect nothing but the best from a company like that.
Apple, of course, has its service as well, which is equally capable and well-optimized for their devices.
However, the mapping game becomes a pretty barren outside of Google and Apple, largely because the service itself requires substantial investment into building it grounds up; acquiring data via government departments of transportation and private data providers is not a joke when you’re planning on creating service available globally.
To put it in perspective, Mapbox, as a company, in their Series C funding got $164 million from SoftBank. All of that is necessary to build a highly performant mapping service (SDKs and APIs) used by thousands of developers. They succeeded big time, and are regarded today as one of the best mapping providers in the world, with their services used by companies like Facebook, Snapchat, CNN, etc.
Mappy: The Mapbox Demo Project
As a demo, I’ve created a simple mobile application called Mappy and even recorded my first YouTube tutorial explaining the use of Mapbox plugin in a Flutter app. With that being said, this article is a complement to the video and source code, offering a much more in-depth look into deliberations a developer needs to be aware of.
Mapbox gives you SDKs targeting native Android and iOS, but there are no official Flutter plugins. Your best bet is mapbox_gl, a community-driven project that has matured a lot, and is pretty decent. Of course, nothing beats the native SDKs, which are incredibly powerful, as the Flutter version comes with a few caveats.
Permissions
For starters, let’s discuss location services on mobile platforms. No, I will not be talking about special cases, like Android’s need to ask for location permissions to initialize a WiFi access points scan.
Google has incredible documentation dedicated both to requesting permissions in general, as well as a dedicated section to requesting location permissions. I strongly encourage you to read both. Since we’re developing cross-platform apps, read about requesting permissions on iOS as well.
Instead of worrying about correct implementations ourselves, we can use the location package.
MapboxMap Widget
To use Mapbox products, you require an access token. On Android, you’d typically rely on Gradle properties to store sensitive tokens, but please check the official documentation regardless.
For Flutter, this doesn’t help, as there is an accessToken property in the MapboxMap widget that accepts a plain text string. During development, you can create a configuration file and read the key from it, in production, you should keep the tokens on the backend side (if possible). Note for Firebase users: you might find it tempting to use Remote Config for that, but the answer is congruent no. If you wonder where this note comes from, read their policies and limits.
You can download the config variable remotely, and then store it into KeyChain/Keystore file, under iOS and Android respectively, during the initial configuration stage. There are a lot of articles available on that topic, so I will not go into details.
Assuming you’ve come to the point where you can read the access token from whichever source of truth, the initial configuration is extremely simple. Just create a MapboxMap widget, as a body to your Scaffold.
Displaying Initial and Current Location
Depending on the use case, you can choose an arbitrary initial location, and by calling the animateCamera method move the user to their current location. With the help of the aforementioned location plugin, you can do that inside the onMapCreated callback.
Personally, I went with displaying a circle denoting the user’s current location, you could display an image or a marker, but a simple circle seemed to be the easiest component.
One of the caveats when it comes to adding any asset on top of the map, whether this is a circle, a style, an image, is the geometry parameter, which is never defined as required, so it quickly slips as a silent exception, only caught when you refer back to your stack trace and discover something like this:
Unhandled Exception: PlatformException(error, geometry field is required, null, java.lang.RuntimeException: geometry field is required...
Keeping that in mind, it might save you some time debugging your app. The default style seems to fail as well, so a custom implementation of the icon is required.
Another relatively important caveat refers to animateCamera result, which is a boolean value true when the animation is completed (you need to await it). If you’re planning on drawing anything after the method has completed on iOS, read the note in the documentation which states that
Note: this currently always returns immediately with a value of null on iOS
You can simply wrap the whole code into if statement checking if the platform is iOS, in which case, you do not evaluate the animateCamera statement.
Adding Symbols
Adding symbols to the Mapbox map can either be achieved programmatically at runtime or via pre-populating your map style with some markers.
Here are the couple of caveats to look after:
You do not have an API for displaying all possible iconImage strings, so you need to use the Mapbox Studio to manually check for icon names
strings, so you need to use the Mapbox Studio to manually check for icon names The infamous geometry the field will cause you problems in case it’s not implemented
This is how you retrieve the string value for the iconImage
Closing Thoughts
When targeting native mobile platforms or web, Mapbox is an incredibly powerful provider that gets the job done with the minimum setup required. On Flutter, however, the issue stems from the community-driven development. Although they are doing a good job bringing Mapbox to Flutter using the native C++ implementation, some issues have to be fixed.
Once the basic caveats are fixed, the Flutter implementation becomes trivial and extremely powerful. Build the Mappy app that I’ve mentioned above yourselves, and check how smooth the interaction is! | https://medium.com/swlh/using-mapbox-in-your-flutter-project-2e732c835e9b | ['Peter Aleksander Bizjak'] | 2020-10-11 21:37:17.849000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Flutter', 'iOS', 'Mapbox', 'Software Development'] |
Internship interview experience — Red Hat | Round 1 — Online Test(Coding, Aptitude)
The first round of the selection process was a coding test of the duration of 2 hours that took place on the MyAnatomy platform and consisted of 5 aptitude questions and 3 coding questions. The aptitude section had a duration of 30mins and the coding section was given a duration of 1hour 30mins.
The aptitude questions looked easy, but that too depends upon your practice!. The coding questions were easy-moderate, I don’t exactly remember the questions but what I can say is that if you have your concepts clear and good hands-on practice in coding you will be able to do all of them.
I was able to do all of them and got 100% 😅 (Don’t Compare!!)
Round 2 — Online Test(Coding)
The second round of the selection process was again a coding test, but this time it was for only 1hour 30min and had 3 coding questions on the same platform, MyAnatomy.
The questions in this round were moderate and require you to have good logic solving ability and come with a solution. This round requires you to have a better side of your coding ability, if you practice competitive coding you will be able to do them.
Now, something interesting and scary happened to me in this round😆. It is not related to the test, but it might help you if something similar happens to you too.
The online tests are proctored and you are not allowed to switch tabs, I didn’t do either 😔. But, my bad luck and my wonderful windows PC caused me this trouble. I was marked a RED flag by the MyAnatomy platform because I switched applications in between the tests. I had to because of the windows expiry message popping up again and again! But, as I was honest and confident enough I addressed this issue to the HR who was responsible for the selction process and she had it checked up with the backened team at MyAnatomy and I was given a clean sheet! 😉
Round 3, 4 — Technical Interview
Now for me, this was the time when I started becoming a bit nervous, anyone would be! These rounds are taken by someone from the team itself of which you are gonna be part of.
As GlusterFS is built on C, so the questions asked to me was mostly on DSA and OS. But, it can and will vary from team to team for which you are interviewing. So prepare accordingly!
I was asked questions mostly on DSA which consisted of linked lists, trees, graphs, sorting, time complexity, and all. Also, a few questions from OS regarding deadlock, job scheduling, memory management. The questions were easy to moderate and the difficulty increased gradually :p
In the first round of technical interviews, the questions asked were more theoretical and less hands-on coding (just the logic/function). But, in the second round, it was the opposite 😆. The coding questions were like implementing a linked list, queue using both array and linked list in the first round.
The second round was more of a logical one. I was first given a question to solve then asked about the complexity and then improve/reduce the time complexity for that! Woof!
Finally, I was through to the next round, though I made a few mistakes and gave one or 2 wrong answers!
Round 5— Managerial Round
This is the final round of the process and was taken by the manager under whom you are gonna work. This is mostly non-technical but can be a bit tricky. You are mostly questions about how you would handle situations, lead the team, act on a given situation. Some conceptual questions related to technical but not direct can be asked too.
In simple words, you are assessed whether or not you will be a good fit for the Red Hat CULTURE and a worthy contributor to the team!
I was informed later on the same day itself, that I was through and I am SELECTED for the internship. Yeaaaa!
Hopefully, this helps anyone and everyone who is preparing for the internship at Red Hat and will be benefitted from it in clearing your interviews and grab an internship offer at Red Hat!
Thank You! | https://medium.com/@nikhilladha1999/internship-interview-experience-red-hat-b4ffb8fa99b6 | ['Nikhil Ladha'] | 2020-12-03 08:27:15.396000+00:00 | ['Red Hat', 'Interview Questions', 'Interview Preparation', 'Interview Experience'] |
What I learned from doing 1000 code reviews | While working at LinkedIn a large part of my job involved doing code reviews. There were certain suggestions that kept coming up over and over again, so I decided to put together a list that I shared with the team.
Here are my 3 (+1 bonus) most common code review suggestions.
Suggestion 1: Throw an exception when things go wrong
A common pattern I have seen is this:
This pattern actually caused an outage in one of the mobile apps I worked on. The search backend we were using started throwing exceptions. However, the app’s API server had some code similar to the above. Therefore, from the perspective of the app it was getting a 200 successful response and happily showed an empty list for every single search query.
If instead the API had thrown an exception, then our monitoring systems would have picked this up immediately and it would have been fixed.
There are lots of times when it may be tempting to just return an empty object after you’ve caught an exception. Examples of empty objects in Java are Optional.empty(), null, and empty list. A place where this comes up all the time is in URL parsing. Instead of returning null if the URL can’t be parsed from a String, ask yourself: “Why is the URL malformed? Is this a data issue we should be fixing upstream?”.
Empty objects are not the right tool for this job. If something is exceptional you should throw an exception.
Suggestion 2: Use the most specific type possible
This suggestion is basically the opposite of stringly typed programming.
Too often I see code like these examples:
Using the most specific type possible allows you to avoid a whole class of bugs and is basically the entire reason for choosing strongly typed language like Java in the first place.
So now the question is: how do well-intentioned programmers end up writing bad stringly typed code? The answer: because the external world is not strongly typed. There are a number of different places where strings come from, such as:
query and path parameters in urls
JSON
databases that don’t support enums
poorly written libraries
In all these cases, you should use the following strategy to avoid this problem: keep string parsing and serialization to the fringes of your program. Here’s an example:
This confers a number of advantages. Malformed data is found immediately; the application fails early if there are any problems. You also don’t have to keep catching parsing exceptions throughout the entire application once the data has been validated once. In addition, strong types make for more descriptive method signatures; you don’t need to write as many javadocs on every method.
Suggestion 3: Use Optionals instead of nulls
One of the best features to come out of Java 8 is the Optional class that represents an entity which could reasonably exist or not exist.
Trivia question: what is the only exception to have its own acronym? Answer: a NPE or Null Pointer Exception. It is by far the most common exception in Java and has been referred to as a billion dollar mistake.
Optional allows you to completely remove NPEs from your program. However, it must be used correctly. Here’s some advice surrounding the
use of Optional :
You should not simply call .get() anytime you have an Optional in order to use it, instead think carefully about the case where the Optional is not present and come up with a sensible default value.
anytime you have an in order to use it, instead think carefully about the case where the is not present and come up with a sensible default value. If you do not yet have a sensible default value then methods like .map() and .flatMap() allow you to defer this decision until later.
and allow you to defer this decision until later. If an external library returns null to indicate the empty case, then immediately wrap the value using Optional.ofNullable() . Trust me, you will thank yourself later. nulls have a tendency to “bubble up” inside programs so it’s best to stop them at the source.
to indicate the empty case, then immediately wrap the value using . Trust me, you will thank yourself later. nulls have a tendency to “bubble up” inside programs so it’s best to stop them at the source. Use Optional in the return type of methods. This is great because then you don’t need to read the javadoc to figure out whether it’s possible for the value to not be present.
Bonus Suggestion: “Unlift” methods whenever possible
You should try to avoid methods that look like this:
What do all the avoid methods have in common? They are using container objects like Optional, List, or Task as method parameters. It’s even worse when the return type is the same kind of container (ie. a one param methods takes an Optional and returns an Optional).
Why?
1) Promise<A> method(Promise<B> param)
is less flexible than simply having
2) A method(B param) .
If you have a Promise<B> then you can use 1) or you can use 2) by “lifting” the function with .map . (ie. promise.map(method) ).
However, if you have just B then you can easily use 2) but you can’t use 1), which makes 2) the much more flexible option.
I like to call this “unlifting” because it is the opposite of the common functional utility method “lift”. Applying these rewrites make methods more flexible and easier to use for callers.
See Also
Check out my other article on Practical Functional Programming.
This article has been translated into Korean by Ilkwon Sim.
This article has also been translated into traditional Chinese by DORA and also translated into simplified Chinese by Levin Zhang. | https://stevenheidel.medium.com/what-i-learned-from-doing-1000-code-reviews-fe28d4d11c71 | ['Steven Heidel'] | 2020-02-24 02:15:23.029000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Software Engineering', 'Code Review', 'Programming', 'Software Development'] |
Global Teeth Whitening Industry Analysis By Geography | Stratistics MRC’s Teeth Whitening Market report explains company profiling, key segments, market trends, top players and regional, country-level segments.
Teeth whitening are the process of using bleach or other materials to make teeth look whiter. The materials remove stains or other discoloration from the tooth surface. With this process, teeth are whitened to remove the effects of coffee, cigarettes, and other substances that permanently stain or discolour teeth.
Browse complete “Teeth Whitening Market” report with TOC @ https://www.strategymrc.com/report/teeth-whitening-market
Based on the product, the whitening toothpaste segment is going to have a huge demand due to the increasing number of benefits of using whitening toothpaste products such as its easy availability at regular grocery stores and supermarkets. By geography, North America is going to have a lucrative growth during the forecast period due to the increasing access to treatment, rise in disposable income, and growing awareness about oral health.
Some of the key players profiled in the Teeth Whitening Market include Brodie & Stone, Church & Dwight, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Dr. Fresh LLC, Evonik, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, and GLO Science, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Johnson & Johnson, Kulzer, Proctor & Gamble, Rembrandt, The Himalaya Drug Company, Unilever, and Uragme.
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Website: https://www.strategymrc.com | https://medium.com/@srinath.smrc3/global-teeth-whitening-industry-analysis-by-geography-259dc7fc6909 | [] | 2021-12-22 06:25:05.185000+00:00 | ['Report', 'Market Research Reports', 'Market', 'Business', 'Healthcare'] |
A Platform for Community | At the corner of 68th and Stony Island Avenue, in Chicago’s Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, the Stony Island Arts Bank is a neighborhood anchor in a community that once was a mainstay of Chicago’s black middle class before decades of divestment. Formerly a savings and loan bank, today the Stony Island Arts Bank provides the South Side of Chicago with 17,000 square feet of space for innovation and community space for artists, scholars, curators, and collectors worldwide to research and engage with Chicago’s South Side history and foster community dialogues around issues of race, social justice, and healing.
Founded by artist Theater Gates, Rebuild Foundation demonstrates the impact of innovative, ambitious, and entrepreneurial arts and cultural initiatives across its sites. Among these sites are the Stony Island Arts Bank, Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, a mixed-income housing and studio development, and the St. Laurence School, a shuttered elementary school which will become an arts and business incubator for local makers and creators.
To date, Rebuild has hosted tens of thousands of visitors across its sites to participate in exhibitions and programs. With a variety of film, music, and educational programming, visitors have access to special collections and resources; pop-up events; panel discussions; free film screenings; music and dance performances; writers’ workshops, and rotating exhibitions.
Through innovating to strengthen the impact of this work, Rebuild Foundation has deepened our partnerships with community members and artists on the ground. By increasingly engaging organizations and individuals leading impactful programs, Rebuild has begun to serve as more of a platform for mission-aligned organizations. For the Foundation, serving as a civic commons means providing space, support, and partnership around common goals.
Here are four insights we have gained from shifting our focus from program production to becoming a platform for mission-aligned individuals and organizations:
Upend Statistics by Providing a New Lens
Chicago has long established itself as a world class city with a rich history of arts and culture and beautiful public spaces that commemorate and expand on that history. Within the city, the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood is a strong, vibrant community within the city. However, generations of divestment and discriminatory public policy excluded Chicago’s South and West sides from the prosperity that has accompanied Chicago’s economic growth. This systematic exclusion has led to high rates of unemployment and poverty, weakened public education, and increased crime. As a result, the narrative of the neighborhood has become dominated by statistics that dictate the opportunities available to the community.
The median income on the South Side is $40,812, over 30 percent less than the citywide median of $63,153. In Chicago’s South and West Sides, 40 to 60 percent of residents live below the poverty level. In Greater Grand Crossing, unemployment is 14.8 percent, 154 percent higher than the national average.
Kids from the Greater Grand Crossing community join BraveSoul Movement for free, weekly hip-hop and street dance classes at Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative. Image credit: David Sampson.
But these statistics fail to capture the multi-generational historical significance of these neighborhoods and the resiliency of our residents. We have come to realize that one important role that Rebuild Foundation and the Stony Island Arts Bank provide is a new and alternative lens — arts and culture — through which to approach these longstanding inequities.
Through this lens, we are able to use our spaces to empower creatives and organizations in our neighborhood to share their talent on a wider scale. By tapping into the local organizations already doing the work in our communities, we are able to partner in ways that allow us to have an augmented impact on generations to come.
Lean Out
As a private rather than public entity, Rebuild Foundation has enjoyed the flexibility of experimenting with optimal organizational structures and the advantage of being nimble. However, Rebuild Foundation’s initial approach to staffing relied on internal employment. As a new, growing and changing organization, this approach limited the impact we were able to have in our communities.
Over the past three years, we’ve learned to lean on external support for marketing, security and additional staffing needs. We’ve hired communications consultants to amplify our work and outreach to the community, which has allowed us to streamline and broaden our storytelling approach. Through our efforts on social media, we’ve also received additional insights into what our community members are interested in seeing from a programming perspective. Interestingly, more exposure for Rebuild Foundation has also resulted in increased awareness and interest in our partners.
Engaging interns and volunteers has allowed us to be more intentional and thoughtful around engagements with our collections at the Arts Bank. Tapping into a community of neighbors and friends who are interested in our work has not only allowed us to bring the community in to connect with our collections directly but also supported our work as a rather lean, growing arts and culture organization in Chicago.
Reclaiming and reactivating underutilized space to create public amenities is significant work, especially in disinvested neighborhoods. It is worth considering whether a staff-centric approach is best suited for the process. We’ve found that a more fluid approach to who accomplishes “the work” — a mix of staff, consultants, artists and community members — amplifies our impact. | https://medium.com/reimagining-the-civic-commons/a-platform-for-community-how-chicagos-rebuild-foundation-moved-from-producer-to-host-for-a-2c8a8c2b273f | ['Sabina Bokhari'] | 2020-02-06 13:23:58.498000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Culture', 'Chicago', 'Urban Planning', 'Community'] |
Four behaviours that make you a Digital Leader | Written by Robin Knowles, CEO, Digital Leaders
What makes a digital leader? This is a big question to start 2020 with, and one which I shall look at through the lens of the Digital Leaders programme.
What is the link between the work we do — both through our online content, and through our face-to-face programme — and the development of behaviours that make someone a digital leader? We talked to our Digital Leaders’ Advisory Board and partners to find out.
We have concluded that there are four behaviours that make you a digital leader.
Act
To achieve digital transformation, a digital leader must act. Getting started and knowing where to begin is often the hardest part, but digital leaders know that the digital world is not going to wait for you.
Digital leaders are doers and take calculated risks. They are proactive, agile and responsive to the challenges that come their way. It is simple to talk about action, but it is far harder to ensure you make the jump to execution.
The good news is, that by making that jump, you are taking the first step towards becoming a digital leader and are better able to meet the challenges and opportunities of the digital world.
Communicate
If you are doing great work in digital transformation, whichever sector or role you are leading in, then you have a responsibility as a digital leader to communicate this to the wider world and not just to become famous for doing so.
Digital leaders who are delivering truly inspirational transformation and who share their progress through writing and speaking are not motivated by ego, but by appreciation of the importance of the spread of ideas.
Digital Leaders, by being cross-sector and free at the point of use, is a great example of a forum that showcases this good practice. Participants are able to communicate their transformation journeys to a wider audience, who can then take away these lessons and use them in other sectors. Communicating your success will resonate with other leaders who are able to use your expertise to develop their own organisations in an informed and intelligent way.
Communication will help ensure your work is valued within your own profession and sector, but also that you achieve external recognition of your innovation in a much wider sphere.
However, communicating your success and failures is not a one-way street. Our third behaviour involves sharing and collaborating on digital transformation, beyond what can be conveyed in an article or press release.
Share
In the past, ‘competitive advantages’ were closely guarded secrets, beneficial assets that would be hidden away from competitors and other organisations within the sector. However, digital leaders now understand that the technological solutions and social network needed to succeed requires open, two-way collaboration. The key to collaborating effectively is trust. Digital leaders share their knowledge and experience as they gain it, and trust others to do the same. They build better solutions by collaborating with others.
This is perhaps a difficult concept for older readers, as in the past sharing was seen as a slightly artificial process, designed to communicate strength and hide weakness. However, open collaboration brings tangible rewards through the gaining of insight you might not otherwise have had.
Digital leaders are brave, and share their expertise first. Yes your competitors may take short-term advantage of you, but ultimately, they will discover that this negative behaviour is incompatible with a collaborative digital world.
Many of the Digital Leaders community find a platform to share their ideas at our events. To date, the process has almost invariably been a positive one, and negative behaviour has always been called out by other participants. It is possible to sit on our platform and merely ‘take’ from those around you, but the real richness begins when you share, and are challenged and questioned on your approaches to issues.
Learn
Being open to new ideas from wherever they come, getting out of your “bubble” and discovering your “unknown unknowns”, is where the real process of learning begins.
The most successful digital leaders are able to learn from a wide variety of people and situations. They reject old-fashioned ideas about learning being college-based, they read a great deal and they look to find ways for what they have learnt to apply to their own situations.
Learning from others is at the heart of what we do on the Digital Leaders platform. Whether reading our daily blogs, joining a webinar, attending a salon, or taking part in one of our four main conferences, digital leaders learn from a wide variety of cross-sector experts and peers. They can then use what they have learnt to make a real difference in their own organisations.
None of this process is easy, but the Digital Leaders programme facilitates and encourages these four behaviours as the basis of digital leadership. If you have not yet taken advantage of what we do, please do join us in 2020. We are here to help you to complete your own personal transformation into a digital leader. | https://medium.com/digital-leaders-uk/four-behaviours-that-make-you-a-digital-leader-f6ddee3c5380 | ['Digital Leaders'] | 2020-01-06 15:18:37.202000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Technology', 'Digital', 'Transformation', 'Digital Transformation'] |
Whispers From 2021 | One of the biggest obstacles that stand in the way of creative goals apart from information overload for many people is a lack of time. Oftentimes humans can dream, humans can envision where they did rather be but are not because of the process they need to pass through to get there.
The biggest question in the world is not what you want or what you think you want to achieve, rather the biggest question is what are you willing to leave behind to get there, and that is my message from 2021.
I like drawing, I love painting, and look forward to writing or singing is how I cool off. But I also have to work Monday to Friday and it’s difficult to find the time and mental space to train at the things I am gifted at doing.
Now that I feel this way, I am naturally tempted to do a quick search for productivity hacks on Google, watch tutorial videos on YouTube, or read through some Medium articles by my favorite authors i.e. Ekene Paul.
Please note that going through this path only does more harm than good. It overloads you with information so much so that you think you do not even need to go through the process as you thought. It deceives you into thinking you have arrived.
But your journey is far.
Most “productivity hacks” just address the symptoms that come with time management issues.
To find space and spend your time and energy on what matters, you need to understand the root causes of not having enough time. The ancient monarchs dealt with issues by attacking the root cause of whatever the problem was.
Imagine wanting to weed out your farm, and all you did was trim the weeds that you found on it, you know you are kidding because its a matter of 7 days before the weeds grow up again.
Attacking the root cause is key to treating issues. In no particular order, here are a few root causes:
Social Media.
There are mainly 2 gates into a human body. The eye gate and the ear gate. What you see and what you hear. There is a general myth that ladies are moved by what they hear while guys are moved by what they see.
So true.
There are just two genders in this world, male and female. It is more dominant for a lady to be moved by what she hears over what she sees but mind you, that does not mean she is not moved by what she sees, the hearing just happens to be dominant. Same as for a guy. A guy naturally gravitates more to what he sees over what he hears. We live in a world where we get constantly addicted to the NEWS, latest happenings, celebrity gossip et all. I wish to ask you something, after all the knowings around the world, has your life improved?
The real test of an improved life is to invite a total stranger to live with you, to see you as you observe your daily habits/routine, and if you are comfortable with letting your guard down and also inspiring the stranger by how you live, then you have mastered your life.
Once in a while turn off completely social media notifications and stay put for just 1 day. Not to prove a point but to declutter.
It works wonders.
Atmosphere.
I salute motivational speakers on this one.
A popular phrase goes thus:
Atmosphere is everything.
In the 1960s, when a Nigerian traveled abroad say the USA, the only thing they brought back were Apples. It made an innocent boy wonder why. The reason was not far fetched, Apples could not grow in Nigeria because of the weather. Now Apples are actually grown in Nigeria only that you know the original.
The best way to make friends is to start a party and invite others to it. The party here is loving yourself and enjoying your own company, then anyone who runs into your path would only get to appreciate your awesomeness.
Try it. It completely eliminates depression.
MultiTasking.
What can I say here? Feel free to disagree with me on the issue of multitasking because some are good at it — especially mothers.
Multitasking helps achieves a lot but it leaves you drained. Over time you dread doing the next task except you are strong-willed, because like said earlier on, it leaves you drained.
Anyone in the world can get what they want if it is one thing. This means you can become a change agent in the world if you want to. You can be a superhero (not kidding) if that is what you want so long as that is what you want.
The problem here is when you have more than one single desire. So you want to be rich, and you work towards it but along the line, you want to be famous. It adds weight to the process and then it breaks the cord, you have to start the process all over again. You want to be healthy and along the line, you want to be a celebrity. It makes the process heavy and then the cord breaks, you have to start the process all over again.
We begin to dread the process and like a gymnast says, gym every day so your muscles can take shape and have the right tone.
Structure.
Structure and Flow.
What happens when you wake up?
Do you check your phone?
Brush your teeth?
Exercise?
Whatever you do in the morning by default without much thinking, has become a habit. It is a system that is on autopilot for you. Stopping them right now would be a big deal. Hope you get the picture?
You need systems of activity. Motivation as a surge of energy is good. But not sustainable. If you require motivation for everything then you are of all men most miserable, because motivation fizzles out as soon as it comes.
Structure gives you a bit of control. Just start out organizing a new structure of how you spend your 24 hours.
Once you can read
Once you listen
Once you can speak, and once you can write — communication;
You become unstoppable in life
With these few points of mine, I hope I have been able to convince you and not to confuse you that 2021 would be a great year because it has asked me to whisper these truths to you. There is more, but everything classified as progress rests on the things shared above.
Do well to refer back to this article in the future. | https://medium.com/@ekenepaul/whispers-from-2021-1818359b0c85 | ['Ekene Paul'] | 2020-12-15 17:14:00.501000+00:00 | ['New Year', '2021', 'Goals', 'Ｍedium', 'Development'] |
Answers to the Important FAQs About KNN Algorithm | In KNN, K stands for the number of nearest observations considered for predicting the class of new observation. e.g, There are two classes to predict i.e, 0 or 1. Now there are 5 neighbors near to the given observation and the class of those 5 neighbours is 1,1,1,0,0. It means new observation belong to the class 1. I hope this makes it clear that how important is the value of K in this algorithm. Again, like K in K means algorithm, KNN also allows to predict the correct value of K by iteratively trying all the values of K and see the best performance using technique like elbow method.
There is a little caveat here to the value of K. And, I feel this is the right time to put light on the concept called bias variance trade off. We can have one separate discussion for this topic. Just overview, high bias leads to under fitting of the model and high variance means complex model which could lead to overfitting. Most of you would have understand where am i heading to. Conclusion is that we need to have correct value of K to avoid overfitting and underfitting in this algorithm. e.g, We keep value of k is 1 then it is high biased and if value of K is N the it is high variance. You have to decide best option and value of K to get the best results.
Most of the time interesting question comes to mind, and it would have come to your mind too. It happened to me too. What will happen in case of DRAW (No winners). So, answer is quite simple, we always keep the value of K as odd, we don’t want to deal with conflict and give more complexity to the simplest model.
Advantages
1. Simple to implement
2. Very robust. Capable of handling non linear and linear solution both
3. low cost algorithm and easy to visualize too
Disadvantages
1. Expensive algorithm. It calculates distance at runtime for the test observation with all the existing observation to get given k values. Yes, of course, we have methods to overcome this approach and tune this.
2. Very sensitive to the given data. Noisy or unbalanced data. Wrong observations and outliers could make this algorithm perform worst. It needs perfect data to perform well which is almost requirement of every ML model. Common use cases : Forecasting, data compression or prediction etc. | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/answers-to-the-most-frequently-asked-questions-about-knn-algorithm-7e5de68e7b73 | ['Laxman Singh'] | 2020-12-15 12:15:06.917000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'AI'] |
Things I Don’t Want to Put in My Vagina | Things I Don’t Want to Put in My Vagina
That have been advertised to me
Photo by Deon Black on Unsplash
A dissolving capsule filled with glitter to make sex “fun.” If I need that to make sex fun, something has already gone horribly wrong.
A tea I boil and put near my vagina to change its aroma. I don’t even really know how I’m supposed to get boiling hot tea close enough to my pussy to change its smell without, you know, burning her.
Rocks. I don’t care if you call them “crystals.” They’re rocks. And they’re not going in there. I can absorb their healing properties with my fingers just fine, thanks.
Glue for my labia to seal her up. Nobody who has ever had a labia thought of this. Leave the cave open so she can air out.
A “dissolving” agent meant to trim my pussy lips so I look like a “virgin.” Let me tell you something, it looked like that when I was a virgin, so your “roast beef” theory of anatomy is all wrong.
Let’s not forget the “tightening cream” and “vaginal tightening repair bar.” I’m trying to get comfortable so sex is fun, so I don’t want anything that works like a lip plumper in there.
Sacks of blood so I can “seem like” a virgin when they pop. Y’all are just crazy. I know that fake blood is going to give me a yeast infection that will last a full month.
Any homemade remedy for UTIs. Do not send me a YouTube link explaining why it’s better than antibiotics. Nope! Stop right now.
Flavored condoms. For the same reason as the fake blood.
Anything that claims to “detox” my vagina. She’s self-cleaning, thank you very much.
Potions I’m supposed to soak in to make my vagina “taste better.”
Your dick, probably. | https://medium.com/sex-and-satire/things-i-dont-want-to-put-in-my-vagina-60b620f1d446 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2020-12-21 14:20:06.566000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Satire', 'Sexuality', 'Sex', 'Vagina'] |
How to Use Gaming to De-Stress | How to Use Gaming to De-Stress
There is substantial evidence to support the value of video games as tools to reduce stress
It’s the middle of the day and I just got off two long work meetings. My eyes hurt from essentially living on my computer screen since March. I had so much to do between work, graduate school, and my side hustle of writing and editing. I fell into another one of those stages where I just didn’t do any of it because I was so overwhelmed and stressed. And today is a lighter day at work, too.
But with assignments piling up and pending deadlines coming at me from all directions, I felt so stressed I could barely function. Honestly, I haven’t been enjoying much of, well, anything lately.
During my planning period (the period a teacher has time to plan, and not teach), I decided to stop working. I just couldn’t do it anymore, and this is saying a lot coming from someone that prides himself heavily on work ethic. I have a couple of important assignments due for my Master’s at Johns Hopkins University tomorrow evening, too. But I know myself — I’ll get it done and put in my best effort. And if it’s not perfect, it’s a long semester, so I need to pace myself and not burn out.
But why haven’t any of my obligations been fun? Why hasn’t anything been fun for the last three weeks? Yes, fun is for the privileged, but it would be just great if I could actually enjoy what I do instead of seeing every task as an obligation to soldier my way through — if nothing is fun, that’s also an unsustainable reality, at least for me.
So, I turned to some of the most fun activities I know — video games. During my planning period, I turned on my PS4 and played Final Fantasy VII: Remake. I have been moving slowly — very slowly at the game and defeated some bosses and some enemies as I made my way up the Sector 7 Reactor. It took about 30 minutes, but next, I played Fall Guys and made it past the first round, but got sabotaged in the second round.
I usually put a lot of stock and perfectionism into how I play my games. I always want 100% completion and to get every treasure chest or item possible, but this time, I played very mindlessly and went through the motions, not caring about missing a treasure chest or stealing every item from a boss.
And it was fun. It was some of the only fun I’ve had in weeks, and I felt a load of stress off my shoulders and learned a lesson going forward: no matter how stressed I am, fun isn’t just a luxury and privilege. Having fun makes things easier.
As for the gaming, I’m glad Final Fantasy and Fall Guys got me to internalize that message. According to Elizabeth Scott at Very Well Mind, research shows that gaming is a way to relieve stress, which actually runs counter to the narrative that video games make people more violent, stressed out, and aggressive. Scott cites a 2016 study in Computers in Human Behavior that shows that gamers often reported that playing games reduced stress. The study showed a slightly greater effect on stress reduction for cooperative games than for competitive games.
Not only does gaming reduce stress, but in cooperative games especially, gamers, in the words of Scott, “retained positive feelings toward the other players” and thus provided positive social experiences. In a 2009 study in the Journal of Media Psychology, Leonard Reinecke found that participants with the emotion-coping style used games for de-stressing and recovery more than participants with problem-coping style. Essentially, gaming gives a “recovery experience” that makes gaming so appealing in the first place.
Reinecke concluded, however, that people who associated gaming with stress recovery did experience more stress recovery. Scott also emphasizes that gaming incentivizes positive emotional regulations, especially when gamers get upset. Many games have built-in mechanisms to resolve negative feelings or seek out social support from other players. Games tend to reward players who are able to manage their emotions and work towards solutions when challenged. In Scott’s words:
“One key difference between those who coped well and those who were less effective copers was the ability to monitor their own feelings and internal states — what is known as interoceptive awareness.”
What kinds of video games to play to de-stress
Scott separates the recommended video games to relieve stress as the following:
Casual Games
Cooperative Games
Games With an Explicit Stress-Management Component
Games That Build Skills
Games You Really Enjoy
Casual games are games that are simple, that you can play in only a couple of minutes. Cooperative games involve challenges that can be completed with other players. Games with an explicit stress-management component are games that were actually created to help people manage stress. Games that build skills are, well, self-explanatory — you can play games to learn languages or solve problems. And anything you really enjoy is a stress-reliever too.
Ultimately, you know yourself best, so do what works for you. If gaming only causes more stress, then don’t do it. But if taking a couple of minutes to play Candy Crush is what you need to do, then, by all means, do it.
Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash.
For me, gaming is best when it is a stress-reliever and temporary relief than what it was when I was younger when gaming was an addiction. I’m sure I’ll be stressed again soon while I’m getting my assignments in at the last minute, but for now, a little bit of fun doesn’t hurt. | https://medium.com/super-jump/how-to-use-gaming-to-de-stress-72d4966f4322 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-10-02 06:34:55.685000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self', 'Gaming', 'Features'] |
Putting forests at the heart of climate action | Tackling the climate crisis is essential if we’re to reverse the catastrophic decline in nature — and reversing the decline in nature is essential if we’re to tackle the climate crisis.
As world leaders gather in Madrid for the latest UN climate change conference, there’s a growing awareness of this fact, but finance and policy commitments do not go far enough in response.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to forests. Between 2007 and 2016, forests and other non-agricultural landscapes removed 6 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere per year — equivalent to about one-sixth of the total emissions from fossil fuels — and locked it away in their vegetation, soil, roots and fungi.
Much of the emphasis in public and private sector policies has been on stopping deforestation and expanding forests, necessary measures to help stabilise the climate. But perhaps one of the most under-recognized solutions to climate change are stable forests, including intact forest landscapes, that are not at immediate risk of deforestation or visible degradation. Though they get little attention, these forests make up a large portion of total global carbon storage in forests, are active sinks drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and often suffer unseen degradation. We take these forests for granted, at our peril.
For example, forest wildlife populations have declined by more than half since 1970. Since wild animals play a vital role in seed dispersal, pollination and controlling plant growth, their loss undermines forests’ ability to regenerate and sequester carbon.
© Bruno Pambour / WWF
So, what needs to happen? First, we need to look after our forest landscapes so they can continue to sequester carbon and provide other services that will become even more vital as the planet warms, like regulating rainfall and water supplies. Investing in conserving our forests today will save us much greater costs in future, but so far has attracted little in the way of climate finance, and international climate governance systems undervalue these stable forests. We want to see actions expanding responsible forest management, recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to conserve their forest lands, and investing in effective networks of protected areas. We’ve seen success in multi-partner initiatives that bring together finance from the private and public sectors, such as Patrimonio del Peru and Bhutan for Life, part of WWF and partners’ larger efforts to secure long-term funding for protected area networks.
Second, we need to halt further deforestation and forest degradation, especially in the tropics, which could avoid between 1.8 and 12.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. This means not just action on deforestation in forest countries’ contributions to the Paris Agreement, but also from importing countries, in particular to make our food system more sustainable.
Third, we must harness the huge potential of trees for restoring productivity, biodiversity and carbon stocks in deforested and degraded landscapes. While planting more trees has great potential to draw down carbon from the atmosphere, this must be done in a way that works with the needs of local communities, supports food security and helps to restore biodiversity. Done right, forest restoration can strengthen resilience and adaptation for people and nature by connecting and conserving biodiversity hotspots. Agroforestry, where farmers plant trees among crops and livestock, can sequester carbon in the soil while making agricultural systems more resilient and generating a source of income.
The important connection between nature and climate is spelt out in the upcoming Climate, nature and our 1.5°C future: A Synthesis of IPCC and IPBES reports, which looks at the current and future impacts of climate change across different ecosystems, as well as some real-world solutions. It draws on recent comprehensive reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that show how nature will suffer as our world heats up — but also how healthy ecosystems can absorb carbon emissions, strengthen resilience and help people and wildlife adapt to climate impacts.
As well as being essential for averting catastrophic climate change, protecting and valuing forests will help restore wildlife and improve the lives of many millions of people. It’s time to put all forests of today and those of the future at the heart of climate action. | https://wwf.medium.com/putting-forests-at-the-heart-of-climate-action-992888ab6675 | [] | 2019-12-10 08:39:29.622000+00:00 | ['Cop25', 'Climate Change', 'Sustainable Development', 'Climate Crisis', 'Forests'] |
How I use Node.js professionally | I use Node to develop solutions for my customers. Those solutions may just be an API, or integrating with a front end framework over a REST interface. But those solutions sometimes involve setting up WebSocket servers, command line scripts, one-off data manipulation tasks, creating or accessing job queues, or even a comprehensive package that does everything in a modular way.
Here is how I break down my tasks
Data Access. I use Knex.js for creating my data models when I am dealing with relational databases. For non-relational databases I’ll use the appropriate library. Either way I wrap the access to the data store into meaningful data objects that can be used independently from the application. This allows me to call my data items from batch files, or other applications with little effort.
for creating my data models when I am dealing with relational databases. For non-relational databases I’ll use the appropriate library. Either way I wrap the access to the data store into meaningful data objects that can be used independently from the application. This allows me to call my data items from batch files, or other applications with little effort. Business Logic. I like to isolate the application logic into a separate layer, especially for the non-trivial applications. It is handy to separate what we want to do from how we ask for it to happen, and how the data is stored. I find that this separation gives me greater flexibility to respond to the evolving needs of the application without getting bogged down in the communication methods. It also makes breaking the application into smaller modules much easier.
APIs. I use Express.JS to quickly build access points when needed. Those access points are designed to be very light. I prefer to extract the information I need from the request and then call a solution specific logic layer to do any data processing or retrieval. That logic layer in turn calls out to data objects which interact with the database to store/retrieve data from persistent storage. I’ll create REST end points where it makes sense, but I’ll also create POST endpoints for the more complex requests.
Websockets. When it makes sense I’ll use the ws module to create a socket server. I may set up express-ws as well to create an HTTP/HTTPS endpoint to access the socket server. When possible I try to use the same business logic objects the API calls.
module to create a socket server. I may set up as well to create an HTTP/HTTPS endpoint to access the socket server. When possible I try to use the same business logic objects the API calls. Reporting. I leave the presentation of the data to dedicated systems — such as Tableau or a charting tool. I use Node though to prepare the data for those systems.
File Management. There are times we just need to move a file, or remove it, or read the contents. I use the native fs module, or the fs-extra module to perform these steps. I use through2 when I’m using streams to process large data sets and need to pipe structured data into another step. I’ll also use fast-csv to work with CSV files.
module, or the module to perform these steps. I use when I’m using streams to process large data sets and need to pipe structured data into another step. I’ll also use to work with CSV files. Pre — Deployment processing. In practice this is normally running Webpack , Parcel , or another bundler system against the code. Sometimes though there is preparation work to be done when the next set of code is deployed — applying database structure changes, revising any dynamic templates, collecting files, etc. In these cases I write a script that does any other steps that the bundler system can’t handle. In essence it is batch processing.
, , or another bundler system against the code. Sometimes though there is preparation work to be done when the next set of code is deployed — applying database structure changes, revising any dynamic templates, collecting files, etc. In these cases I write a script that does any other steps that the bundler system can’t handle. In essence it is batch processing. Scheduled Tasks. I create JS files that perform a specific task. This could be purging outdated logs, processing the job queue, doing bulk emails out of band, etc. I write each script with a single intent, and then use CRON to call that script at a reasonable interval. These tasks are usually the more processing intensive things that would not play well within a web page. Or are house keeping chores to keep the application humming along at a brisk pace.
Batch Processing. Too often I have created an interface to allow for easy data capture. Then management wants to do a bulk entry, but do not want expose a bulk entry process in the application interface. This could be pre-populating the application with years of data, or ALL the products, or updating 100s or user records at once. These tasks may be one-off things, or could be recurring on a regular basis. Either way the work to be done is pretty much the same. Read the source data, massage it in some way, then do something with that data.
Command Line Scripts. Similar to batch processing but a batch script has a much narrower usage pattern. A command line script can take in arguments to define where the source data is, the desired location for the output, and other settings to adjust how the processing is to be done. I use yargs or minimist to handle parsing the command line parameters. From there it is pretty much just like the batch processing.
For one-off scripts I just call these with node path/to/my_script.js . For the recurring tasks though I add a script property to the package.json file so I can execute the commands with npm run mytask type statements.
Do you use Node.JS in a different way? If so, leave a comment and let me know. It would be great to hear of other approaches I can explore. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/how-i-use-node-js-professionally-7b91b07f3f36 | ['Shawn Grover'] | 2020-10-30 18:18:17.991000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Coding', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development'] |
The Road to Sustainable Farming in a Not So Sustainable Village | In early 2020, we were able to increase our food production when my uncle offered me to take over his pineapple field. He, of course, like all pineapple growers in Okinawa, used a special type of chemical fertilizer suited for pineapple when he first planted, so this piece of land was not as pristine as the first. He harvested one crop and then abandoned the field, which had sat for several months before we took it over, so the field was completely overgrown with weeds. The pineapples were in their second year of fruit production. My plan was to first pull all the weeds by hand, maintain the field and continue harvesting without the use of chemicals for a few more years, and then completely clear the field to start a process of regenerating the soil. (Pineapple plants usually will produce fruit for 3–4 years before yields become smaller and less.) Basically, I wanted to take on the challenge of switching this field from chemically grown pineapple to organic. We also thought that it would be nice to offer organically grown pineapples to our guests at our bed & breakfast.
It took about two months to clear the weeds, which included huge clumps of susuki (Chinese silver grass) and also bamboo that had spread throughout one corner of the field. I soon found out, however, that maintaining the field and preventing weeds from taking over again was extremely difficult and time consuming. The weed problem became even more exasperated due to the fact that I also decided to take over another field that my uncle had stopped using a few years ago. I now had three fields that totaled close to 500 tsubo (about a little less than half an acre), which is not a lot, but it is when considering that I was doing everything by hand with a shovel and hoe. To make matters worse, the third field was like a jungle! (In the end, we were able to harvest about 100 pineapples at the end of the summer, and we “continue to learn as we go.”)
Why did I expand so quickly with just a few tools and my bare hands? COVID-19 was one reason. Along with the rest of the travel industry, COVID had shut down our bed & breakfast business completely. I needed something to do, and I thought I could use my experience at growing vegetables to make a little money by selling my produce on a commission basis at a few local stores and veggie baskets directly to customers. Surely, I thought, people would want to buy fresh natural food! The second reason was my interest in sustainable living. I simply wanted to grow more food, while creating something that could serve as a model for other local farmers to follow. I thought that instead of rows of sugar cane or a greenhouse full of mango trees supported by the constant use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, I could have an abundance of vegetables and fruits growing in a natural environment and ready to eat.
My first goal exploded in my face when I quickly became aware that selling vegetables is a lot harder than growing them. I created a Facebook page and a website, which grabbed the attention of several customers, but my inefficient system for harvesting to prepare a few baskets a day plus delivering to a few local stores was not very profitable considering the time it took. It was also disappointing to see that few locals were interested in paying just a little more for food that was organic; most of my customers were foreign residents. I also faced the huge problem of not having enough to sell. The experience, however, taught me that in order to make the jump from growing to selling, a viable plan was necessary. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the problems faced by farmers who try and earn a living from agriculture. I decided to go back to the drawing board.
My second reason for expansion, which is where I am at right now, is more of an ongoing experiment and the subject of future stories to come. After putting the selling part on hold, I knew that in order to expand, I needed more support than just me and my gardening tools. I called upon some good friends who had already been active in natural farming to work on my newly acquired fields together. After a few sunset cocktail meetings up at the third field (it has an incredible view), we came up with a permaculture-based plan to have a thriving and diverse mini-farm that will eventually and hopefully include chickens, goats, and honey bees, mixed with a small food forest.
For now, even though we have yet to figure out a way to manage all of this, we are extremely thankful for what we have. We have our original “natural” veggie garden, which has been producing food for over 12 years, the pineapple field, and now the “future” permaculture field and mini food forest, which will be a group effort. (All of this was made possible thanks to the generosity of my uncle.) I am not sure if we will ever get to the point of actually selling agricultural produce for extra income, but if we can sell enough to cover costs, and these three fields can supply us with naturally grown fruits and vegetables, along with some eggs and honey, that would make our lifestyle even more sustainable. Even better, we might even get other local farmers observing and wondering if “our way” could be an alternative to monoculture and the overuse of chemicals. This would be the ultimate success. | https://medium.com/living-in-paradise-with-a-few-odds-ends/the-road-to-sustainable-farming-in-a-not-so-sustainable-village-570052009da | ['Kenny Ehman'] | 2020-12-10 03:50:50.699000+00:00 | ['Organic Food', 'Organic Farming', 'Gardening', 'Okinawa', 'Sustainable Farming'] |
F1 2012 — A Retrospective Part 2: Australia | Qualifying
The season opener threw up the first surprise of the year. After dominating the front row in 2011, Red Bull only qualified as high up as fifth and sixth. Significantly, Mark Webber, at his home Grand Prix, was quicker than the 2010 & 2011 champion Sebastian Vettel. This was a feat he managed only three times in the previous year.
But more importantly, it was the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button that secured a front-row lockout. Hamilton was only one tenth quicker than his teammate, but was eight tenths quicker than Vettel.
The McLarens seemingly delivered on their pre-season pace. This laid down the marker that the British team wouldn’t go down without a fight if Red Bull were to retain their crown.
Lotus-Renault and Mercedes both showed that they too have the pace to keep up with last year’s champions. Romain Grosjean qualified a career high third place and Michael Schumacher completed the second row of the grid.
Grosjean’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen struggled to put a lap together and was knocked out in the first round of qualifying, finishing 18th. Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg in the other Mercedes qualified in seventh.
Pastor Maldonado (Williams), Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) and Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) rounded out the top 10 places.
Ferrari’s pre-season woes came to a head as Fernando Alonso qualified 12th after having to retire from round two when he spun his car into the gravel at Turn One. Felipe Massa could only manage 16th in the other Scuderia. A disappointing session that confirmed just how off the pace they were from their rivals. A championship battle looked very far away.
Following qualifying, Red Bull and Lotus both approached the race stewards with the claim that the front wing on the Mercedes was illegal and requested a review of the car. This came just two days after the FIA deemed their rear wing concept to be legal. The claim would later be rejected by the FIA at a later date.
“The car is beautiful and she’s quick,” Button telling no lies here.
Pre-Race
In the moments before lights out, Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle claimed that up to a dozen drivers are in with a chance at snagging a podium. There were only five DRS zone overtakes in 2011, but more were expected in the lead up to 2012’s race due to the addition of a second DRS zone after the first corner.
Red Bull were confident that they had better race pace to fight with the McLarens. Brundle also highlighted Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber, who missed out on Q3 due to a mistake on his final run but looked pacey.
David “Crofty” Croft also teed up the race quite nicely. This was a big moment in his broadcasting career as it was the first time he led Sky’s new coverage of F1 following on from their deal to share the rights with the BBC for the 2012 season. He previously covered F1 for BBC radio, and this was his chance to commentate on the sport for TV.
“Drivers out of position, Red Bull thinking that they’ve got better race pace, Jenson Button a man who nurses his tyres, Lewis Hamilton a man who goes out for all aggression, the two McLarens out in front. And it’s difficult to pick which story to follow and who is going to create the most drama,” said Croft in his pre-race monologue.
As the drivers took off on the formation lap, Sky showed interview clips over the footage which really stood out because this was not something the BBC were doing at the time but it’s also something Sky themselves aren’t doing now.
Because the archive of the race that I watched only began only moments before the formation lap started, this was actually a much needed bit of context to hear what the front running drivers made of the opening weekend up to that point. It’s curious why this is no longer done, and when it was that they stopped doing this and why.
Either way, those interviews showed a very happy Hamilton. Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, was also shown saying that his two drivers will be allowed to fight each other, so no team orders at McLaren this season which is always good news.
“It is not the easiest car I drove, for sure, but it is something that we are working with. We are trying to improve the car, to be happier with the car, the handling of the car and also the speed of the car,” said Alonso. Was there anything right with this Ferrari at all?
Jean-Eric Verge (Toro Rosso), Vitaly Petrov (Caterham) and Sergio Perez (Sauber) all started on the medium tyres with everyone else starting on the soft compound, they were 11th, 19th and 22nd on the grid respectively.
For 2012, there were only two race tyres available at any given weekend, as opposed to the three that we now see in F1. And while there were 24 cars in qualifying, only 22 started the race as the HRTs were not permitted entry for falling foul of the 107% rule — that rule stating that you must qualify within 107% of the fastest time to be allowed automatic entry into the race.
This race was the return of the Lotus name to the front of the grid.
Race
It’s our first “lights out and away they go” of the season and it was Button who made the most of the run into the first corner. He got ahead of Hamilton due to the pole sitter suffering from wheel spin in the second phase of the start.
Grosjean slipped down from third to sixth on the opening lap, behind Maldonado, with Schumacher, Rosberg and Vettel all jumping the Frenchman.
“Probably, for me, we’ve got now the five fastest cars in the race are in the top five,” said Brundle at the end of an exciting opening lap.
The other significant winner of the start was Alonso, who overtook four cars to move from 12th place into eighth by the end of lap one. Webber being one of the biggest losers, he dropped down to ninth in the Red Bull.
On lap two, Vettel moved up into fourth place by overtaking Rosberg on the outside of the run into Turn Ten. “That’s the man they said can’t race!” proclaimed Brundle following the move.
Later in the second lap, Grosjean’s bad start turned into a nightmare start as Maldonado went down the inside of Turn 13 only to clip the Lotus on the way around which left Grosjean stranded in the gravel with suspension damage and thus ending his race.
Alonso was able to take advantage of the contact and passed Maldonado into sixth place.
Looking back on the replays of the opening lap, Brundle’s analysis came to the conclusion that Hamilton “lost traction as he got 20–30m off the line” which caused Button to gain and ultimately pass him into Turn One.
He also claimed that Webber was “very cautious” into the first corner which was why he lost so much ground, and at this point was in seventh place after passing Maldonado. Brundle also put full blame on Maldonado for the incident with Grosjean.
On lap five, Maldonado had another incident — get used to hearing those words — as he ran wide at Turn Seven and Eight which allowed Massa through into eighth place. Perez at this point was right behind the Venezuelan in the final points position in tenth.
Meanwhile, onto lap six, Button stretched his lead on his teammate. The gap being 3.5s at this stage of the race. Further back, Vettel ran wide into Turn One trying to apply pressure onto the Mercedes of Schumacher.
Vettel got away with, however, and kept his fourth place. According to Ted Kravitz in the paddock, Red Bull were confident that Vettel was going to be quick enough to catch and pass Schumacher for third.
But it didn’t matter what Red Bull thought as Schumacher ran wide into Turn One at the start of lap 11, allowing Vettel through into third. Turns out Schumacher had a problem!
It was now between these two for second place.
His gearbox broke down and he is out of this race from third place. A very unfortunate moment for the seven time world champion who looked to have re-found some of his pace that had been missing in the last two seasons.
On lap 12, Massa became the first of the front running cars to go in for his pit stop. The Ferrari apparently had a problem chewing through the tyres according to Brundle which explained why they were the first car to come in for a fresh set.
Rosberg came in on the next lap, with a train of three cars bearing down on him. Vettel also had gained on Hamilton now that he was in clean air and could push properly.
Over the course of the next few laps, all of the front runners came in for their first stop which meant that they were expecting a three stop strategy for the race. The only drivers not to come in were Perez and Raikkonen who moved into second and third place as a result.
The pit stop phase also allowed Alonso to catch up to Vettel, the gap down now to within just a couple of seconds. But Vettel is the only one to remain on the soft tyre, with everyone else choosing to do their second stint on the mediums.
Raikkonen came in on lap 20, but Hamilton was being held up by Perez. Being stuck behind the Mexican cost Hamilton dearly, the gap to Button at this stage jumped up to 8s.
It wasn’t until lap 21 that Hamilton eventually overtook Perez, and by lap 23 most of the front runners had all got by the Sauber. Perez came in on lap 25.
The second stint didn’t bring as much action as the first, but there was a three-way tussle between Massa, Kobayashi and Raikkonen for eighth. On lap 27, Massa was passed by both to drop into 10th place.
Two laps later, he once again was the first of the front runners to head into the pit lane for his second stop of the race. Meanwhile, his teammate opened up the gap to Rosberg and Webber by 3.7s as they all turned into the pits over the next few laps.
Most notably, on lap 37, McLaren double stacked their two cars in the pits. This coincided with one of the Caterham cars breaking down on the main straight, which brought out the first safety car (SC) of the season.
Because Vettel had yet to stop, he gained time by pitting under the SC which allowed him to pass Hamilton into second place. The same was true of Webber, who gained on Rosberg and Alonso to move into fourth place.
While waiting for the SC to come in, another new rule for the season got its first run out. Lapped cars were allowed to overtake the SC and un-lap themselves. Brundle declared himself not a fan of this rule, as he considered it to be time-wasting. He wanted the show to get back on the road as quickly as possible.
Disaster awaits Maldonado at every corner.
The SC came in on lap 41, Button got a good run out of the first straight on what was a pretty tame restart.
Button went on to extend his lead on the front and held an unassailable advantage over Vettel and Hamilton to win the first Grand Prix of the season! Webber brought the car home in fourth, with Alonso fending off Maldonado for fifth.
Hang on, Maldondo crashed on the final lap! This put him out of the race from sixth position. It was a chaotic final lap that saw four cars on a drag race to the finish for the last available points.
Rosberg suffered an issue right at the end and finished out of the top ten.
The broadcast struggled to keep up with the ending there, such was the chaos. Brundle said he’d never seen someone crash into the wall that Maldonado hit.
Paul Di Resta went from 13th to 10th on that final lap to get the final points position. Perez lost seventh due to being tagged by a slowing down Rosberg that left both cars worse off, which allowed Raikkonen through.
The final standings were as follows:
“This car is beautiful and she’s quick,” said a jubilant Button on the post-race radio.
This was his third win in Australia and it was a victory that his performance deserved. The McLaren looked quick and competitive at Albert Park, setting up a tight battle with Red Bull for the coming races.
A third win for Button in Australia.
Post-race
We have to wait for the post-race press conference to hear from the drivers. This was the traditional method up until very recently. Interestingly, they switched to interviewing them on the podium after the anthems at some stage before then immediately interviewing the top three once they got out of the car. It shows how far post-race coverage has come in the Sky Sports era.
Button was obviously very happy with the victory, he mimicked Vettel’s notorious “index finger” celebration that Button claimed he was sick of seeing in 2011.
Vettel said in his post-race interview that he thought they would have passed Hamilton regardless of the SC, but said that Button was “unbeatable today”.
“There are plenty of races ahead so just have to keep my head down,” was the assessment of Hamilton’s race as he dropped from first to third over the course of 58 laps.
Outside of the top three, the Ferrari of Alonso was optimistic following a decent amount of points considering the difficulties they faced with the car.
“Obviously it was a tough race for us, some good battles. We had a good start so we recovered some positions and after yesterday’s qualifying to be fifth is a pretty good result in terms of points,” reflected Alonso.
“But our priority is to improve the car. Today we fight with the Williams and not at the top, so to improve our position in the next race will be our goal.”
Driver in Focus
(This is a section where I will focus on one aspect of the race, whether it be a driver, an overtake, a strategy decision, etc. Basically, it’s my personal version of picking a moment of the day.)
Sebastian Vettel should be happiest with this weekend. His overtaking maneuver on Rosberg on lap two was the highlight of the race. The entirety of the 2011 season was built on the narrative that Vettel was only good at qualifying first and coasting off in the quickest car for the race.
Here, Vettel showed those people that he was more than capable of mixing it up with the rest of the chasing pack. The Mercedes itself showed great race pace and Webber struggled to overtake Rosberg on track, needing the advantage of a SC timing to get ahead.
“That’s the man they said can’t race in Formula One, Sebastian Vettel, he can only win from the front! I don’t think so, that’s amazing!” was Brundle’s reaction to the pass. He later reflected on it saying it was “one of the best moves I’ve seen in a long time.”
Brundle’s enthusiasm was funny considering he was a part of the naysayers who doubted Vettel’s overtaking ability. When he claims “they” said it, he suddenly disassociated from his own mind because he was a part of the media that peddled that narrative.
In the years since, Vettel has proven time and again his quality as a driver but even now at the end of 2020, there are still people out there who question his talent. Considering the success he has had over the course of his career thus far it is weird to see him still be doubted. It remains to be seen how he will do at Aston Martin, but overtakes like this show his worth to any team.
Button now led the championship.
Race Verdict
The race as a whole was enjoyable, there were battles across the track and a lot of very good performances from various drivers. A lot of the teams showed good pace, Button was clearly supreme. Once he got out in front he controlled the race from there and his victory never looked in doubt.
Hamilton dropping from first to third was quite interesting, given the state of the sport now and his level of dominance, it’s almost alien to see him struggle to keep up with his teammate like this.
Alonso, Raikkonen and Perez all had great drives too. Alonso had a level of control with the car that Massa simply didn’t, and the gap between them was telling. Raikkonen and Perez showed their skills at tyre management and also showed just how valuable that skill was at the time.
It was disappointing to see Schumacher break down in third place, the Mercedes was definitely an improvement on last year and he was holding his own, keeping Vettel behind him. It’s unclear whether he had the pace to hold on, he probably would have lost out to the Red Bull, but a very good fourth or fifth place was almost certainly left on the table regardless.
Result: 4/5
Next up: MALAYSIA
Author’s Note: This ended up being way way longer than I thought it would be, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! If you did, or even if you didn’t, please share it with the F1 fan in your life, or just anyone really!
If you haven’t already, please follow for more as this series continues. My plan will now have to slightly change considering the length that these are ending up.
So, from next Tuesday onwards both newsletters will be of one race each, instead of two races every Friday. But don’t fear, Malaysia will still go up later today as planned.
This allows me to go in-depth on the topic in a way that should be fun to read and informative without having to think about removing some of the intriguing subplots that pop up during this series.
Previous parts can be found here:
An Introduction
Part 1 — Pre-Season Testing & Expectations | https://medium.com/@cheesyhartepun/f1-2012-a-retrospective-part-2-australia-d90fc8e327c4 | ['Declan Harte'] | 2021-01-03 14:33:42.779000+00:00 | ['F1 2012', 'Sport', 'Formula 1', 'F1', 'Nostalgia'] |
One Big Thing: America’s Trillion-Dollar Renewable Dream is Coming Due. | Alas! The first edition of the Asset of the Week. My Kindle contains such works as “Linden’s Handbook of Batteries, 4th Edition” , “The Powerhouse”, “The Great Race”; and on my desk is “The Grid”.
Tl;dr: I’m a lover of batteries, not just a hater of Elon Musk. But… its obvious.
Batteries are the new oil 🔋 The U.S. is all in on lithium batteries. So who wins on the flop? Which asset classes will benefit the most?
Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash
Batteries are so common today that they’re almost invisible to us. It’s become so common that there’s a global shortage of lithium, cobalt, and nickel used in batteries. To make things worse, these things are only mined in a few places, and labor and human rights abuses are common.
That makes finding new mineral sources and designing batteries that use less of these materials pretty urgent.
What do we know so far: Right now, the US is a small player in the global battery industry. China dominates both battery manufacturing and mineral supply chains. On its current trajectory, the US is expected to be able to supply less than half the projected demand for lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles on its roads by 2028.
To tackle this problem head on The Biden Administration has laid out a plan to achieve carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2035, & puts the US on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050 (E.O.,14008,)
How to pick winners within the global battery industry?
Invest in assets that have secure reliable access to raw and refined materials with a healthily investment in R&D to discover alternatives to commercialize. Invest in assets that are growing a domestic materials-processing supply-chain competitive advantage able to meet US battery manufacturing demand. Invest in assets that are pushing legislators to create new policy frameworks in electrode, cell, and pack manufacturing. Invest in assets focused on recycling of lithium-ion cells to mitigate materials scarcity and enhance environmental sustainability. Invest in assets that have superior battery technology leadership and management experience. This space is niche and unsexy.
Invest in established global lithium-alternative mining, processing and manufacturing firms in Europe & Asia. (Hydrogen fuel cells, Lithium-sulfur batteries, Graphene supercapacitors, Redox flow batteries, Aluminum-graphite batteries, Bioelectrochemical batteries, Powered roads,Thin-film batteries,Solid-state batteries)
The Big Money: The DOE plans to distribute $17 billion in loans for EV manufacturing facilities in the US.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has announced an investment in the expansion of the largest rare earth element mining and processing company outside of China to provide the raw materials necessary to help combat the climate crisis.
to provide the raw materials necessary to help combat the climate crisis. More importantly, the federal government has put aside $87 million in grants for state-level apprenticeship programs that will help create workforce’s for new domestic supply chains.
What are some of the top assets in the global materials & battery industry? | https://medium.com/wealth-tutor/one-big-thing-americas-trillion-dollar-renewable-dream-is-coming-due-2e148ecd9897 | ['Armand Yerjanian'] | 2021-07-02 20:53:48.115000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Investment', 'Battery', 'Assets', 'Wealth'] |
Taking on Drumpf in the Classroom | Different kids are making sense of this election in different ways. It depends on their age and their social location. But regardless, I believe that all three of these anecdotes illustrate the disquieting impact Donald Drumpf is having on our youngest Americans.
This cannot be acceptable.
There is no place for Donald Drumpf’s hate speech in our schools. If a student made similar remarks they would be referred to the dean or guidance counselor. If a teacher spoke in this way they’d be placed on leave.
There is no way for us to ignore this language, as it has clearly seeped its way into our classrooms. Therefore we are obligated to name Drumpf’s words for what they are: racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, xenophobia and much more.
As teachers we are expected to be “apolitical”. I would argue this has always been an illusion and that many teachers understand that by deciding how to frame various narratives in our classrooms, our work is inherently political.
Regardless Drumpf’s words transcend “conservative” versus “liberal” dichotomies. So teachers must not silence ourselves when we hear children discussing him.
I know plenty of adults (admittedly almost all Democrats) who are genuinely fearful of a Drumpf presidency. It makes sense for his words to scare children as well.
Just as we do with other complicated and scary current events, teachers must respond to Drumpf in our classrooms. We can start by creating space for students to share their opinions and feelings. Then we can sort out the facts from the myths, and we can brainstorm ways for students to take action. Through it all we should also clearly speak out against Drumpf’s hate speech.
My school has several anti-bullying posters. In February, the whole school signed a pledge to stop bullying. In my classroom we also have an agreement, “Listen, speak and act respectfully.” I know that these kinds of agreements and pledges are common to classrooms and schools across our country. If Drumpf can’t follow these basic rules, then we as teachers must make it clear that his ideas have no place in our schools. | https://medium.com/synapse/taking-on-drumpf-in-the-classroom-9923d8ae71e7 | ['Ruben Brosbe'] | 2016-05-31 20:07:33.972000+00:00 | ['2016 Election', 'Donald Trump', 'Education'] |
I went to primary school in Japan for one month, every year. | Japanese primary students. Source of image: Motte Japan
So, before I begin this, I think it’s important to give some context.
I’m an Australian, born and raised. My mum is Japanese and my dad is Greek, although he moved to Australia when he was 4. My dad’s side all live in Australia but my mum’s side all live in Japan, so my family go to Japan once a year to visit them.
Every time I went to Japan, I would attend my local primary school for a while and I was fortunate enough to go back to the same class for one month every year. In grade 1, I spent 9 months in that school because my family decided to live at my grandparent’s house to save money. In those 9 months, I was able to become very close with my classmates which is why I went back every year for a while to join them in class :)
School provided lunches, clean-up time, *uwabaki* (indoor school shoes), I honestly don’t know where to start when it comes to school in Japan. There are just so many differences between the school in Japan I went to, and my Australian school life.
My favourite part about going to school in Japan would have to be the school provided lunches. It wasn’t just a sandwich or an apple, something that I would eat often in Australia, but it was divided into 3 courses. There was always some sort of vegetable dish (usually miso soup), always some sort of carbs, whether it was rice, bread or pasta, and there was also some sort of meat. Sometimes we’d have a main dish like curry and then there would be a little side dish with it. What i’m trying to say is, there was always a lot of variety. With these dishes always came a little pack of milk. Every student had a pack of milk with every lunch and they had to drink it. And lastly, there was always a little bit of dessert. Sometimes it would just be fruit but other times it would be icecream. You may think, this must be such a pain for the teachers to deal with and distribute. But the teachers have nothing to do with the preparation or the distribution. There was huge kitchen where there would be cooks who prepare all the food from the morning. Then two students from every class (the two students are decided by a roster every day) would go to collect their classes’ food. I remember going down with my classmate to the kitchen to get our classes’ trolley full of pots and pans of food, and wheeling it back to out class.
Once the trolley was in the classroom, about 4 or 5 of us would put aprons, gloves, hair nets and masks on to serve all the students. The students would line up with their trays and get served all the food. Once everyone had their food we’d say “itadakimasu” (thank you for the food) and we’d eat. This was always my favourite part of school growing up. Not just the amazing array of food, but just the atmosphere too. It was so organised and streamlined.
4 students serve the rest of the class their meals for the day. © Mitsue Omori © Kodaira Sixth Elementary School, Kodaira, Tokyo
Another aspect of schools in Japan that I really loved was the fact that we had to clean ourselves. Obviously, as a student back there I didn’t enjoy cleaning, but now when I think about it, I think it’s a really great system to have in place. After lunch students would have to clean. I don’t mean just their tables, but the entire school. There were roster for which groups had to clean which area. Students would clean the toilets, hallways, entrance, classrooms everything. Every student had a “zookin” which is a piece of cloth used to wipe floors and we’d all put the cloth against the floor and run along the floor. It’s a little hard to explain but we were all bent down running along the classroom floor in a zigzag motion.
The actually cleaning part wasn’t fun, but it made me realise that students were a lot more cautious about making a mess because they knew they had to clean it in the end. In Australia we have cleaners who come after school to clean up for us. I have thought that maybe if Aussie students had to clean, our schools would be cleaner. But to be honest, I don’t know if every student would comply with the cleaning. I know I can’t speak objectively about the difference between Australian and Japanese schools, but I do think Japanese students have a little more discipline and more respect for the teachers. Though, differences like this stem way back and have many factors impacting it.
Now, I’m not in any way saying that Japanese schools are better. They have their shortcomings to. Students don’t learn how to use computers in school. There is no ICT, programming or coding, which I think are vital skills to be learnt, especially in our increasingly technological world. Schools in Japan, also use black boards. So teachers aren’t able to use their own computers to teach either. I personally think Japan should adapt to using technology as it would likely benefit the students as well. But again, I can only speak from the limited experience I have had there.
ultimately, I really treasure the time that I spent there as well as the friendships I was lucky enough to make. I still remember their shocked faces when I said my Santa wore a t-shirt and shorts because I had Christmas in summer. My teacher laughed when I told him that Santa spent time at the beach and surfed during Christmas. I also fondly remember all the students in my class making a “see you again Sarah” party for every time I left. For the last period I spent there each year, we’d all make posters and decorations and play games together. Moments like these that I experienced at this school in Japan, I will never forget and always keep close to my heart :) | https://medium.com/@sarahpearly/i-went-to-primary-school-in-japan-for-one-month-every-year-9d922eeaada0 | [] | 2020-12-21 06:01:53.424000+00:00 | ['School', 'Japan', 'Australia', 'Memories', 'Childhood'] |
Stop Hiding: Four Things That Helped Me Love My Body | Art by Nidhi Chanani
I’ve known for a while that it’s not the way you look that makes you lovable, sexy, fun, or interesting. I’ve seen it over and over again in people around me. I knew it rationally, in my mind, and yet I didn’t believe it.
1. Megan Jayne Crabbe
Things started to change when I stumbled upon Megan Jayne Crabbe, @bodiposipanda, on Instagram. There she was in her underwear and with a flower in her hair — with her belly rolls and no thigh gap — smiling peacefully at me through the screen.
Image by Megan Jayne Crabbe (@bodyposipanda)
Wow, I thought, all the things I hate about my body look beautiful on this woman simply because she looks happy.
In another post, Megan addressed herself: “Here we are babygirl, soft like marshmallows and velvet and the kind of body peace you deserved all along.”
I, too, have a soft belly! I thought, she is right, why shouldn’t I love its softness? It made sense in my mind, but I still didn’t believe it. So I began to practice in front of my mirror. I would touch my belly, pat its soft parts, and say to myself, “this is like velvet and cute like marshmallow,” and then I would look at the bumps and dimples on my body and say, “this is as beautiful as stars in the Milky Way.” I didn’t believe what I was saying but kept at it.
And at some point it just clicked. Practicing looking at myself, touching myself, comparing my softness and cellulite to beautiful things, and seeing Megan enjoying her body in my Instagram feed worked. I didn’t even notice when the change occurred, but one day I stood in front of my mirror, touched my soft bits and suddenly realized that I now believed what I was saying — my belly was, indeed, as nice and soft as velvet. I laughed. It now became funny to me that I ever thought of my belly rolls other than wonderful.
2. Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life
Come as You Are is a book written by a sex educator and researcher Emily Nagoski that dispels many a myth about sex and female bodies.
It taught me to accept a part of my body that I rarely thought about — my vulva. In the chapter “Anatomy: Not Two Alike,” Nagoski points out the faultiness of cultural attitudes towards female genitals. This part especially resonated with me because I thought that the inner lips of my vulva were too saggy and dark. Why would I think that? This is why, Nagoski says:
“As with the clitoris, the cultural view of labia doesn’t match the biological reality. Vulvas in soft-core porn are digitally edited to conform to a specific standard of “tucked-in” labia and homogeneous coloring, to be “less detailed.” This means that cultural representations of vulvas are limited to a pretty narrow range. In reality, there is a great deal of variety among genitals — and there is no medical condition associated with almost any of the variability. . . . Only rarely do you find the tidily tucked-in vulvas you see in Playboy.”
Does this sound familiar? Your culture creating a need in you to strive for some sort of unrealistic perfection — making you feel ashamed of the body you have? Nagoski suggests an exercise with the mirror in which you meet your vulva, find your clitoris, and tell yourself that your genitals are natural and normal. Here’s what she told a former student that worried about the size of her clitoris that was “like a baby carrot, almost”:
Everyone’s genitals are made of all the same parts, just organized in different ways. The differences don’t necessarily mean anything, they’re just varieties of beautiful and healthy.
This time around I didn’t need weeks to accept what Nagoski was saying. I already learned from Megan Crabbe that no one gets to police my body. I honestly haven’t even thought about my vulva’s appearance for a while and was surprised to find in my mind negative perceptions of it. As I read Come As You Are, I was happy to sweep these remainders of body shaming right out of my head.
3. Nutritionist
For a good part of my life I bought into the criminality of eating sweets, fat, and carbs. When I went to see a nutritionist this fall, it’s already been a few years since I came out to my family and friends as a binge eater, no longer dieted, and no longer denied any kind of food to my body. However, I was still hiding some of my eating habits from the people around me.
Here’s a short conversation with my nutritionist that helped me changed that:
“I was getting dinner at a food court with my classmates and really wanted a cookie. But I thought, oh, what would everyone think if I got a cookie for dinner,” I told him.
“Oh no, how criminal, a cookie,” he laughed. I laughed in reply.
“The truth is,” he continued, “no one would have cared if you had a cookie. And even if they did think that it was weird. Have you seen the people on campus? We’re all weird. Just have a cookie.”
His advice was: stop hiding, do you, be weird, we all are. And that’s what I did. And you know what happened? Once I began eating whatever I wanted in front of others, I no longer wanted as many sweets because I no longer had anxiety that accompanied hiding it.
4. Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!
Lastly, this year I learned how to dress this new me that I was no longer ashamed of. I was already coming up with some ideas for outfits based on Megan Crabbe’s Instagram, but the final push came from Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!, the episode “Ideal Woman.”
The star of the episode was Kae, a young manga artist, who hid her waist and breasts under baggy clothes. | https://byrslf.co/stop-hiding-four-things-that-helped-me-love-my-body-1d43700b464d | ['Elena Kirillova'] | 2020-01-14 17:47:38.551000+00:00 | ['Beyourself', 'Beauty', 'Body Positive', 'Body Image', 'Self Love'] |
How To Practice Gratitude With This Simple Daily Habit | How To Practice Gratitude With This Simple Daily Habit
When sh*t hits the fan, I don’t want to be grateful.
“Why is it so hard to practice gratitude on a daily basis?” “I know I need to be grateful but some days I just don’t think there is anything to be grateful about” “When life is good, I have all the gratitude in the world. But when it’s crap, it’s hard to see the light.”
Gratitude is easy when life is easy
Practicing gratitude, being grateful, giving thanks…this is what all the happiness experts tell us to do.
It’s easy to notice the good things in life when everything is going smoothly.
You got a good night’s sleep.
The barista got your order right.
There was no traffic on the way to work.
That annoying coworker is on vacation.
You had a fabulous dinner with your besties last night.
Your parents are healthy and haven’t nagged you in weeks.
You and your partner are in a sweet spot.
The cold and flu season is finally over and the kids didn’t get sick.
Then BAM, shit happens! All these little things seem to vanish into thin air and it’s like the world is now against you.
Fuck gratitude! I just need to get through whatever disaster life just handed me.
Gratitude isn’t the first thing we think of when we experience adversity
Last summer, I was having a pretty typical week. I don’t even remember what I did but it was probably along the lines of writing a bunch, going for long walks with my pregnant belly and eating all the berries and delicious summer produce I can get my little hands on.
Sunday morning hits (like 8 am) and someone’s pounding on our front door. My husband gets up and trudges to the intercom,
“Hello?” “It’s your neighbour, Bob. “Oh, okay. I’m coming down.”
My husband goes downstairs, opens the door and chats with Bob. He comes up while I’m brushing my teeth and tells me that my car was broken into.
I put a jacket on, my Birkenstock knockoffs and go outside to check.
Glass is everywhere. The glove compartment is open. My insurance papers are scattered across the passenger seat.
What the fuck?
I’m thinking,
“Why did this have to happen to me? Of all the people in the world, I don’t deserve this. I’m a good person. I follow the rules. I’m a law-abiding citizen. It’s not fair!”
I’m angry, violated, annoyed, scared and upset but mostly frustrated. Now my day is ruined. I have to clean this shit up, schedule something with the glass repair shop and pay my car insurance deductible. What a nuisance!
Gratitude was the least of my concerns.
But then those words of wisdom, inspirational quotes, Ted Talks from all the self-help gurus/happiness experts started to flood into my mind.
G-R-A-T-I-T-U-D-E
But I couldn’t just think of random things I was grateful for.
Nor could I quickly change my mindset to a “half glass full” perspective:
“Hey, at least they didn’t gut your car and sell it for parts.”
It’s like imagine you’re at a white person’s Thanksgiving dinner and everyone around the table starts going in a circle, saying what they’re thankful for. It’s your turn but you can’t think of anything so you just come up with something generic.
“I’m grateful for my family.” “I’m thankful for my health.” “I’m grateful for this food.”
It’s so easy to default to one thing, person or place.
But when you keep saying the same thing, practicing gratitude becomes a mindless act and you start taking for granted whatever or whoever you’re grateful for.
I needed a format, a formula, some structure, a cue…something to remind me to practice gratitude as a habit while forcing me to think beyond the few token things.
Making the Gratitude Practice a Habit
As I went back into my house to get the broom, I hear my daughter’s toy singing the alphabet song.
What if I went through the alphabet, thinking of things, people, places and/or feelings that I’m grateful for that start with that letter?
And I wouldn’t stop until I did all the letters.
Could I really think of something I’m grateful for that starts with an X beside the xylophone?
I did.
Check out my list below.
Here’s My Alphabet Gratitude List
A: All of you. I am thankful to each of you for supporting my journey and reading my blog. Putting my thoughts and feelings into words makes it all worth it because of all of you.
B: Bananas. I’m grateful for bananas. They’re like nature’s dessert. Banana and peanut butter sandwiches, banana pancakes, banana muffins, banana and chocolate, a plain banana.
C: Coffee. My daughter hasn’t been sleeping well this week so I’m grateful that the Ethiopians discovered coffee in the 11th century so I have the energy to get through my days.
D: Daughter. She makes me laugh all the time. I love her randomness and the way she speaks Cantonese, saying Aiya 哎呀 and frowning before anything else like a middle-aged Asian woman.
E: Egypt: This is where my husband proposed to me. I’m not a super romantic person but getting engaged at a botanical garden whilst looking at the Nile River is a moment I will always be grateful for.
F: Friends. I’m always grateful for how quickly my friends and I can just start talking about real stuff even if we haven’t seen each other in months.
G: Garlic. Garlic Fries. Garlic Hummus. Roasted Garlic. Garlic Oil. Garlic Toast. Garlic Sausage. Yum.
H: Home: I’ve always defined my home as the people in it, not necessarily the location or physical space that I am in. And when I come home to my husband and daughter (soon, my son), I’m incredibly grateful to be surrounded by these people who love me unconditionally and give me a safe space to be myself.
I: Instagram This is where all the good people are…seriously. I have met so many people that I never would have met on this channel.
J: Japan: My husband and I went to Japan when I was 5 months pregnant and boy that was a bad idea. I didn’t feel like eating any of the delicious food and I was tired all the time. Pregnancy hormones and sleeping in tiny places made me extra cranky. So I’m grateful for my husband who took care of me and patiently took every mean and condescending hit
K: Kabocha: I love this squash. It’s sweet, tender and you can eat the skin. I’m so grateful I live in a city where I can buy this whenever I want (when it’s on sale, of course).
L: Luke Danes: So confession time, when I watched
Gilmore Girls in high school, everyone was crushing on Dean and Jess. But I had my eye on Luke. I appreciate those fond memories as a 14-year-old having the hots for the “old dude.” Anyone else or was it just me?
M: McDonald’s coffee: I’d say 90% of the time, I make my coffee at home. I am no coffee snob, more like your grandma who enjoys a plain cup Maxwell House or Folgers. But when I do get a chance to buy one, I appreciate McDonald’s coffee. It has just the right bitterness and aroma for my taste.
N: Naps: I used to take naps all the time. I remember in University, if I had a lecture that ended early, I would rush home and take a nap. Now I just look forward to when my daughter is napping. It’s not just because I get some time to myself, but I love watching her peaceful and angelic face while she snores like a tiny demon.
O: Oppa: This in Korean means “older brother.” Recently, we started watching Kim’s Convenience, a show about a Korean-Canadian family who owns a convenience store and it’s hilarious. It’s making me reminisce about 2012 when Psy’s Gangnam Style came out and everybody was saying “Oppa Gangnam Style” and doing that ridiculous dance. If you haven’t seen it, where were you in 2012?
P: Pho: Don’t you just love a bowl of rice noodles and beef broth on a cold day? I could probably eat Pho every day if I could. I like mine with extra hot sauce, a crumpled Thai basil leaf, a shit ton of sprouts and a squeeze of lime.
Q: Questions: I love questions. My husband tells me whenever we talk about something deep, I get into my interrogation mode. I’m always asking questions about why something is the way it is. I think when we stop asking questions, we stop learning and growing. Questions help us understand but accepting that not all questions have answers and going through the journey of getting those answers is what makes life exciting.
R: Russell Brand: I’m an avid listener of the Tony Robbins podcast and I listened to the one with Russell Brand on.
There was this moment when Russell says something about how when he was younger, he had these internal beliefs about the way he should interact with the different genders. He always felt like he needed to compete with other men. With women, he always felt he needed to impress them, woo them into loving him.
I might be totally off but it’s the gist of what I think he said. Anyway, I think I felt similar to that belief until I hit my late 20s. It’s making me think about how my parents raised me and why I only had female friends growing up. More to come…
S: Salt: My husband’s a realtor and on the weekends while he does his open houses, my daughter and I get to spend quality time together. Lately, our routine has been making muffins and doing Yoga while we wait for them to bake. She knows all the ingredients. The other day, she saw my husband putting salt on some Yu Choy and she scolds him, telling him to stop because the salt is only for making muffins. She cracks me up.
T: Thermos: I don’t buy coffee most days. I bring my own in a Thermos that is over a decade old. It’s dented, super stained and sometimes a bit leaky. But I love it. It keeps my coffee hot and whenever I press that big red button to release its goodness, I can feel my day pick up.
U: Ultimately: I like this word because whenever I say it, it makes me think of the bigger picture. I tend to go down rabbit holes when I start to worry or freak out about all the “what ifs.”
For instance, when I first started filming myself and making videos, I was thinking, “What if people hate my voice? My facial expressions?”
But I reminded myself this:
“As long as I am being authentic to who I am, that’s all that matters. Ultimately, authenticity shines over what other people think.”
V: Vancouver: My husband, myself and our daughter were actually all born in Vancouver. Our roots are here and we love it. We can go hiking in the mountains, kayaking in Deep Cove and go for hot pot all on the same day. As my mom says, it’s one of the few places you get to experience all 4 seasons. We can’t imagine living anywhere else.
W: World Wide Web: So I’ve started running again. I took a break from it for almost a year to do more yoga and weight training. But I’m back at it and it’s kicking my ass.
I recently watched the latest Mission Impossible movie and I was like,
“Damn…Tom Cruise runs a lot and he’s making me want to run now.”
So because of the wonders of the World Wide Web, I was able to find a YouTube video where they stitched all the scenes where Tom is running into an 18:10 clip, which is perfect right after my warm-up and before my cool down. I feel like I’m running with Tom Cruise and my favourite scene is Vanilla Sky, running in the empty streets of Times Square.
X: Xiōng dì jiě mèi: This means brothers and sisters in Chinese (Mandarin pinyin) and I love saying this word. Although I don’t have brothers, I’m grateful for my sisters. Siblings just get it…you know?
Z: Zen: I’m currently trying to fit in meditation into my days and I have to honest, it hasn’t been easy. I appreciate those chances to experience a Zen moment because it is so gratifying. My mind clears and things seem simpler.
So Readers, how do you practice gratitude? What’s the toughest part about being grateful when you are struggling to see the light? | https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/how-to-practice-gratitude-with-this-simple-daily-habit-9f5018ce0f59 | ['Katharine Chan', 'Msc', 'Bsc'] | 2020-12-17 00:04:16.339000+00:00 | ['Happiness', 'Self Improvement', 'Personal Growth', 'Self', 'Gratitude'] |
YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS | You have a choice. Someone can surround you with sand. Someone can even throw sand in your face. But no one can make you build your house on sand unless you choose to. You can always build your house on rock. You are at cause where you place your consciousness. You are not always at cause where your circumstances are because other people will do what they can to change your circumstances. But you are always at cause where you place your consciousness. ~ Marianne Williamson ~
Try being aware of “right now.” Do your best to live as much as you can in the only moment that you ever really live in and control. The moment that is most important to you is right now. This moment is all there ever was, is, and will be. That’s why it makes sense to place your consciousness in the “Now.”
(Visit us at www.secretserendipity.com.) | https://medium.com/mysticaltalk/your-consciousness-47cf4dab8d87 | ['Maynard Originals'] | 2017-08-05 22:27:16.225000+00:00 | ['Consciousness', 'Choices', 'Marianne Williamson'] |
Part 1 — How to build your own ESP8266/ESP32 Over-The-Air firmware updater | This guide explains how to build a simple ESP8266/32 firmware updater in NodeJS.
This is the first part of a two-part guide. If you already know how the OTA update works and want to build an automated firmware version controller you can skip ahead to Part 2 here.
The ESP8266 will send a GET request to my application with some key information stored in its header. This will then be used to serve up the appropriate binary.
For this example I’m using the ESP8266 ESP12E.
NodeJS Application
Let’s get started by generating a new Express app using the following command in terminal:
express ota_updater
This creates a fresh instance of Express which we’ll use as the foundation of our version controller.
For the sketch that I want to upload to the ESP8266 I’m using the example Blink sketch from the Arduino library.
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
} // the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}
We’ll need the compiled binary to upload to the sketch, which you can find in the debugger once you turn on the option “Show verbose output” for sketch compilations.
After clicking the verify button you can find the compiled binary as per your debugger.
Place your blink.ino.bin inside a new /updates folder and updating our index.js file inside the routes folder to serve up our binary.
var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var fs = require("fs");
var router = express.Router();
var md5 = require("md5-file"); router.get('/update', function(req, res, next) { console.log(req.headers); var filePath = path.join(__dirname, '../updates/blink.ino.bin'); var options = {
headers: {
"x-MD5": md5.sync(filePath)
}
} res.sendFile(file, function (err) {
if (err) {
next(err)
} else {
console.log('Sent:', file)
}
}); }); module.exports = router;
After you confirm this works on your local machine it’s time to move your application to an external instance such as EC2 or Linode. After setting this all up you should be presented with the download dialog after navigating to your external domain.
Now that you know your application works you can start testing it out on your ESP8266.
ESP8266 sketch
For the ESP8266 sketch we use the ESP8266httpUpdate.h library.
#include <ESP8266httpUpdate.h> const char* ssid = "ssid"; // Set your router SSID
const char* password = "password"; // Set your router password void setup() {
Serial.begin(74880);
Serial.setDebugOutput(true);
WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
/*connection to WiFi*/
while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
Serial.print(".");
delay(1000);
}
switch(ret) {
case HTTP_UPDATE_FAILED:
Serial.printf("[update] Update failed (%d): %s", ESPhttpUpdate.getLastError(), ESPhttpUpdate.getLastErrorString().c_str());
break;
case HTTP_UPDATE_NO_UPDATES:
Serial.println("[update] Update no Update.");
break;
case HTTP_UPDATE_OK:
Serial.println("[update] Update ok.");
break;
} t_httpUpdate_return ret = ESPhttpUpdate.update(" http://domain.com/update ","1.0");switch(ret) {case HTTP_UPDATE_FAILED:Serial.printf("[update] Update failed (%d): %s", ESPhttpUpdate.getLastError(), ESPhttpUpdate.getLastErrorString().c_str());break;case HTTP_UPDATE_NO_UPDATES:Serial.println("[update] Update no Update.");break;case HTTP_UPDATE_OK:Serial.println("[update] Update ok.");break; } void loop() { }
Upload the sketch to your ESP8266 and your console will output the something similar to the following, after which your ESP8266 module resets and executes the blink sketch.
And when looking at our NodeJS app we see information about the ESP8266 be outputted to the screen:
{ connection: 'upgrade',
host: 'domain.com',
'content-length': '0',
'user-agent': 'ESP8266-http-Update',
'x-esp8266-chip-id': '14454826',
'x-esp8266-sta-mac': 'CC:50:E3:DC:90:2A',
'x-esp8266-ap-mac': 'CE:50:E3:DC:90:2A',
'x-esp8266-free-space': '659456',
'x-esp8266-sketch-size': '302832',
'x-esp8266-sketch-md5': '97bbf0d228c88673b9c040df1f7317f4',
'x-esp8266-chip-size': '4194304',
'x-esp8266-sdk-version': '2.2.2-dev(38a443e)',
'x-esp8266-mode': 'sketch',
'x-esp8266-version': '1.0' }
Now this appears to work very nicely. However, now that the blink sketch is uploaded there is no way for us to upload a new sketch to the module. The preferred outcome would be that your ESP8266 will periodically check whether there are new firmware updates available, and update the module if necessary.
For all of that, please take a look at Part 2 of this guide. | https://medium.com/@derk-zomer/esp8266-ota-solution-3f97c017bf71 | ['Derk Zomer'] | 2020-02-28 12:08:03.500000+00:00 | ['Arduino', 'Esp8266', 'Nodejs', 'Esp8266 Nodemcu'] |
Is protest photography endangering activists? | Since acquiring my first professional camera in 2007, I have always preferred shooting events. While concert photography is my specialty, after Donald Trump’s election in 2016 I found myself shooting protests more than anything else. By then I had given up trying to make a living as a photographer, and was posting all of my new photos on Flickr for free re-use with attribution. I also posted many of my photos to Wikimedia Commons, including the photo from Berkeley “Free Speech Week” at the top of this post.
I took and posted these photos with the intention of documenting the resistance to oppression, which most certainly did not begin with the Trump administration, but became more apparent to the mainstream after his election. My protest photos have covered topics including immigrant rights, indigenous people’s rights, women’s rights, and Black Lives Matter.
While I set up a Patreon page to request funding to upgrade my equipment, I have not been hired or paid for any of this work. And it is work; not only is carrying heavy camera equipment, sometimes for hours at a time, tiring, but I spend a considerable amount of time in post-processing: Sorting, tagging, editing, and uploading. I only ask for people to credit me with my full name (Pax Ahimsa Gethen) when using my photos; “vanity searches” on Google reveal that at least some users of my photos have complied with this licensing requirement.
Lately, however, I’ve questioned whether I should continue taking photos at protests and rallies. I’ve seen a number of progressive folks urge others not to do this, as these photos can and have been used to “dox” people: Posting their photo alongside their name, address, or other identifying information without their permission. A story posted yesterday in The Guardian showed that the Berkeley police are facing criticism for posting to Twitter the names, photos, and cities of activists who were arrested at a rally on Sunday, even before charges were formally filed.
To be very clear, this issue is not just about progressive vs conservative politics, or anti-fascists vs the alt-right. I do not support or condone the doxxing of anyone, no matter how odious or oppressive I find their views. The Creative Commons licensing of my photos allows anyone to use them, even if I strongly disagree with their politics. But that does not give them the moral right to use the photos in a way that invites the harassment of those pictured.
I state moral rather than legal rights because there is a considerable amount of (understandable) ignorance and confusion in this area. In the U.S., it is legal to take photos of people in public spaces without asking their permission. It is also legal to license these photos for editorial or educational use without securing a model release from the subject.
Just because something is legal, however, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily ethical or advisable. At queer- and trans-specific events, I’ve been mindful that some in the audience might be outed if they appear on social media. So I normally confine myself to taking photos of the performers and speakers on the stage in such cases, even if the event takes place in a public space. At the San Francisco Trans March in Dolores Park, for example, the organizers ask photographers to wear lanyards instructing them to only take photos of attendees with their explicit permission.
For other kinds of rallies and protests, however, I haven’t followed this guidance, figuring that anyone attending such an event in public should expect that they might be photographed. Asking everyone I plan to photograph for prior permission would seriously disrupt my workflow, especially as I strongly prefer taking candid rather than posed photos.
Regardless, with the ubiquity of smartphone cameras, it would be virtually impossible to restrict all photography at rallies in public spaces. Professional photographers with large, obvious lenses like mine represent only a fraction of those taking and posting photos to social media at such events. While I normally try to process and upload my images within 24 hours of an event, many smartphone users post photos and livestream videos while that event is still happening.
But again, just because I have the legal right to take photos of protesters doesn’t mean that the benefit of spreading their message outweighs the risk to the individuals pictured. Or does it? I don’t claim to have all the answers here; the question posed in my title, “Is protest photography endangering activists?” is not intended to be rhetorical. I welcome respectful opinions on this subject. | https://funcrunch.medium.com/is-protest-photography-endangering-activists-c3ea6b4ea04c | ['Pax Ahimsa Gethen'] | 2018-08-07 17:49:22.850000+00:00 | ['Activism', 'Photography', 'Protest', 'Privacy', 'Free Speech'] |
Computer Says No: Does Your Website Work for People with Disabilities? | With the 2020 surge in internet use and record levels of online activity, it’s high time that businesses check their apps and websites are fully accessible to everyone.
As I stood before the kitchen window washing dishes, there appeared in my back yard the same black cat that had previously dug up the soil and defecated in the vegetable garden.
It stared me down with poised defiance, perhaps smirking in a way that cats do, all the while ignoring my irate attempts to warn it off. Waving my arms, I opened the window, yelling, but got no response from the pooing trespasser.
Incensed, I shouted again, this time straining my eyes to focus on the black blur of what I assumed was feline only to come to the realisation it was plastic; a crinkled polythene bag.
After searching for and finding my glasses, I began typing these words with crystal clarity.
Website Stumbling Blocks Are Not Always Obvious
Luckily, my eyesight is not so bad that I’m considered disabled, but some people are genuinely blind, or deaf, or have learning difficulties preventing them from navigating the world in a meaningful way.
In the rough and tumble of setting up a new business, website accessibility is rarely considered. More often than not, the average Joe just wants to put something up online ( often made with Wix and other such crap) so they can move on to what they consider to be more pressing matters, like actually making money.
Having built a website, would you even know if it meets the kind of technical criteria necessary for the site to function adequately for people who are not 100% physically able or mentally sound?
Will all your visitors be able make sense of the structure, headings, words, formatting, images, audio, video, etc?
Or are they doomed to make erroneous assumptions because the site is missing something vital although you personally cannot see the issues?
In the Western world about 20% of all people have a disability, and there’s no way of knowing who these individuals are. Even Google Analytics data will not give you any clues, so it’s not as though you can measure it.
Your website should follow the principles of POUR:
To expand on the above, you must cater to those with:
Impaired vision
Motor difficulties
Cognitive impairments or learning disabilities
Deafness or impaired hearing
“Accessibility” Goes Beyond “User-Friendly”
Spend an hour navigating your website, using only your keyboard. What is the experience for you, assuming you are able-bodied?
Can you easily access the navigation menu? Does the TAB key work as it should? Is the “skip links” toggle feature available to allow you to jump to different sections of the site?
Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think addressed website usability in a serious yet light-hearted way years ago, emphasising the importance of clarity, unbiased design, common sense and user testing.
This was when making a website simple to use was optional but recommended.
Now the need for an accessible website is entering statute on the grounds that the majority of products and services are exclusively offered online and must therefore cater to those at a disadvantage.
Accessibility Laws in the UK and USA
Website accessibility, as law in the UK, applies currently to the public sector. Still, it deserves careful consideration because we should expect that at some point the law will be applied to private businesses too.
In the USA the American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA) considers websites with inaccessible components to be discriminatory. As you may have expected, this forms part of the litigious American culture as evidenced by the blind man who sued Domino’s Pizza over their website.
There’s also the forthcoming European Accessibility Act 2025. As an anti-discrimination law this will apply to electronic documents, apps, websites, phones, tablets, devices, TVs, banking, retail, ATM’s and ticket machines. Under the UN convention people have fundamental rights of access.
Be warned; whatever national guidelines your website falls under, there are no automatic, instant, out-of-the-box solutions. Paid-for appraisals or audits should be undertaken carefully because, as usual, snake oil merchants operate in this area.
It should be pointed out too that dropping a couple of lines of code in your WordPress functions.php file isn't going to solve everything. I've seen people on YouTube pushing software products that supposedly use AI to instantly make a website accessible. Don't believe it.
Besides all that, and irrespective of legal obligations, there are dozens of compelling reasons to make a business website accessible.
Assistive Technology
Without my glasses, I’m very short-sighted. During lock down, the ones I wore were an older prescription which meant having to strain my eyes and lean forward in my chair to read enlarged on-screen text.
For someone who is actually blind, navigating a website is taken to a whole new level and is done in a specific manner not familiar to most of us.
Blind users rely on the keyboard TAB key together with software called a screen reader which uses a synthesised voice to announce site structure, menus, headings, paragraphs, text, images, form inputs and buttons.
It should be pointed out that while a screen reader is considered a piece of assistive technology for unsighted users, the keyboard too is assistive technology, the latter of which is used by everyone all the time.
Screen Reader Example Use Case: Titles for Social Icons
A website must be designed and marked up in such a way that absolutely everything a sighted person sees is understood by the screen reader. If it isn’t, the software will not detect and announce the content using the in-built synthetic voice.
For example, a few minutes ago it occurred to me that the social media icons plugin I’m using on this very website ( Simple Social Icons for the Genesis Framework) might not be properly marked up in a way a screen reader can understand it.
I installed and activated the free ChromeVox screen reader and was pleased to hear the synthesised voice say “LinkedIn” as I tapped the TAB key, moving through the subsequent page elements.
Looking at the HTML using Chrome’s Element Inspector, a title tag with the word "LinkedIn" could be seen, tucked away within the code:
Alternative Text for Images
You must always take care to use descriptive alternative text (alt text, as it is known) on all images. Most people completely ignore this step, meaning that blind or visually impaired people cannot ever know the meaning of an image on their screen because the screen reader is not being provided with the appropriate descriptive text.
The screenshot below is from the WordPress Media Libary, and makes it relatively easy to add alt text to images. It’s best to do this as soon as you upload a new image.
High Contrast Themes
Other visual website problems are harder to spot. For example, a UK government Civil Service blog focusing on the implementation of website accessibility rightly pointed out how high contrast themes on devices can render certain areas of a website unrecognisable.
Implementing Accessibility Features
Making a website accessible requires patience and testing. It is a conceptual, considered process and cannot be sorted out over the course of a few afternoons.
Obviously, it’s better (and cheaper) to build you website correctly the first time rather than cutting corners and then trying to correct course later on.
Here’s just a brief list of features most websites will benefit from having from the beginning:
Screen reader markup — proper coding ensures that electronic audio software can narrate all sections of the website and HTML text
— proper coding ensures that electronic audio software can narrate all sections of the website and HTML text Decent colour contrast — with an estimated 8% of men being colourblind, you should not, for example, use grey text on a white background
— with an estimated 8% of men being colourblind, you should not, for example, use grey text on a white background Alternative (ALT) text — description of the content of an image for the benefit of the screen reader (e.g. photo of a black polythene bag in a garden)
— description of the content of an image for the benefit of the screen reader (e.g. photo of a black polythene bag in a garden) Proper viewport screen flow — does the site neatly collapse into an ever-decreasing vertical column, for laptops, tablets, phones and everything else?
— does the site neatly collapse into an ever-decreasing vertical column, for laptops, tablets, phones and everything else? Accessibility statement — explain in what ways the site does or does not work and what you’re doing to fix it (mainly public sector sites at present)
— explain in what ways the site does or does not work and what you’re doing to fix it (mainly public sector sites at present) Print this page — optional but useful for those who want to see the content in a printed format
— optional but useful for those who want to see the content in a printed format The quality of written information — in the public sector the purpose of content is to clearly inform and educate, whereas private businesses marketing often entails rhetoric, opinion and artist flair; nevertheless, be cogent of your audience
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The W3C (the international community for web development standards) has provided an instructional framework called The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 addressing the POUR principles.
WCAG 2.0 was last updated in 2008 with the 2.1 framework coming to fruition in 2020.
There are three standards of compliance:
A AA AAA
UK public sector organisations are expected to meet the AA standard by law and so too (ideally) should commercial websites and apps. I say “ideally” because I honestly cannot find anything written in law pertaining to commercial digital properties in the UK. Still, under the WCAG 2.1 framework you’ll find a multitude of criteria covering basic/advanced website design and development requirements.
For example, Success Criterion 1.4.13: Content on Hover or Focus alludes to, among other things, email popovers ( which I hate) and how being unable to easily dismiss them hinders the experience of using a website.
Watch video on YouTube
Tools for Improving Accessibility
There are free tools available to help identify common issues such as missing alt text as well as lesser known missing elements like aria-label (also used by screen readers).
Other errors shown by the tools include easily-remedied CSS style problems such as poor contrasting colours or text that is too small.
Although software tools are a quick way to get an idea of what needs to be improved, many issues are entirely conceptual, like deciding whether or not to include a “Print this page” feature. Thought and consideration are required. It cannot be solved in an afternoon.
Accessibility Insights for Web by Microsoft
This free website accessibility testing tool by Microsoft is available as desktop software or as a browser extension.
Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE) by WebAIM
An excellent free website accessibility testing tool by WebAIM available as a browser extension or just by entering a URL on their homepage.
A Quick Word on WordPress Accessibility Components
The newer WordPress themes will most likely already have built in accessibility components. This means that search forms, drop down menus, headings, and other stuff will be correctly marked up so that screen readers can “see” it all.
If you run your WordPress website through one of the testing tools mentioned above and you get lots of errors, the chances are, it’s an older theme which needs some code adding to functions.php as well as a little more CSS to your stylesheet.
I like to use Genesis WordPress themes (I paid for the entire bundle years ago) which means the Genesis framework as well as the theme authors will periodically release updates to improve their code.
An example of such an update is the Genesis 2.2 Accessibility update from 2015. The code is now part of the Genesis core, so if you’re starting a new website today using the Genesis Framework, you won’t need to add this.
“But This Does Not Apply To Us”
There’s already resistance from private businesses. You’ll hear things like “well, we don’t have any disabled customers so this accessibility stuff doesn’t apply to us,” or “accessibility is just a public sector thing.”
Not having any disabled customers may be true if only because there’s no way for those people to access the business in the first place — physically or virtually — thereby producing false assumptions.
An individual may have to live life temporarily or permanently disabled despite retaining their spending power while having terrible consumer experiences online.
Someone could suffer a stroke, catch COVID, have an accident or develop diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s. We haven’t even scratched the surface of congenital conditions such as cerebral palsy which affects 10,000 babies a year according to the Cerebral Palsy Guidance website.
Summary: Get Ahead of the Curve and Start Implementing
This is not pandering. It’s not about meeting a tick box checklist to keep the law off your back. Of course, if you ignore the issue it will eventually catch up with you either in lost business or because of some ambulance-chasing lawyer egging people on to file claims against you.
Regardless of how your site looks at face value, it may not be anywhere near as perceivable, operable, understandable and robust as you assume it is.
It’s like a municipal building deliberately not installing wheelchair ramps because the design decision-makers didn’t know there are people whose legs don’t work.
By improving website accessibility for a niche group of people, it will end up better and easier to use for all.
Watch video on YouTube | https://medium.com/@SmallBizGeekUK/computer-says-no-does-your-website-work-for-people-with-disabilities-66bb7b263871 | ['Small Biz Geek'] | 2020-12-21 12:11:00.553000+00:00 | ['Small Business', 'WCAG', 'Accessibility', 'WordPress', 'Disability'] |
To Deserve Love — What is it?. A short story on keeping silent, on… | To Deserve Love — What is it?
A short story on keeping silent, on feeling dirty.
Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash
She had a memory of a boy she had a crush on. This was a long time ago. Somehow, he figured it out, and then she hid from him. He tried to talk to her, and she only turned red and walked away.
This was…third grade, maybe.
But this seemed to happen over and over, and she always seemed to hide from the object of her affection, denying even to herself that there was affection there.
The only ones who got close to her were not the ones she particularly wanted…just the ones who bullied past her shyness. The ones who saw she was timid and passive when pushed.
And now, as an adult, she felt a little like she had unearthed a box and found it full of beetles, rats, roaches, worms.
She hadn’t picked any of her boyfriends, or came clean to any of her crushes. She had never been seen in that way. She had never simply given anyone…not even herself…permission to be vulnerable.
The ones she got were the ones who circled around like vultures, who didn’t keep promises.
She was not active in deciding. In choosing. She denied herself the ones she wanted, and then ended up with whoever was cruel enough to plow right through her shaky, unsteady emotions.
Over, and over, and over. | https://medium.com/are-you-okay/to-deserve-love-what-is-it-ddafa292bf11 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2019-07-17 15:49:37.228000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Dating', 'Fiction', 'Relationships', 'Short Story'] |
The need of practical skill training for commerce students in India | Working at a consulting firm in the day time and taking lectures in the evening or working in the consulting firm at the consulting firm on weekends whereas, taking lectures on weekend …this has been my simple routine for the past 5 years.
My biggest observation that I have made in these 5 years is that there is a huge gap in what is being taught to the students in the college vis a vis what is needed in the practical world.
In fact, this gap between classroom learning and the need for industry-specific practical training is so real that the student feels frustrated when they join their first job and realize that they do not know the work to be done in that office and the things that have been studying for several past years in colleges is completely outdated.
I would keep my discussion very specific for the commerce students attending degree courses in India. At the college level, students pursue degree courses such as B. Com, BAF, and BMS for graduation. Now, these courses are purely theoretical and have no reference to the work that you would need to do in the practical world.
A commerce student usually get placed in industries like consulting firm, stockbroking firm, banks, insurance companies, marketing companies, HR firms etc. right ?
Don’t you think that each of these industries has its different working culture and you would need to specifically groom yourself with the right skill to be able to find a good job?
Question is, how do you train yourself with such the right skill that can groom yourself for the practical world?
This is exactly the objective with which we have launched our education startup — Jott It.
We are an Ed-tech company that offers academic and practical skill courses for the commerce students. The goal is to bridge the gap between the skills possessed by students at the time of graduating vis a vis the skills expected by the practical world.
To achieve that goal, we offer:
► Academic Courses –Academic courses comprising of concise video lectures, study material, and compilation of MCQs which would help you to gain necessary conceptual clarity for the subjects and prepare for the exams very comfortably. The objective is reducing the amount of time, money, and efforts that you need to prepare for the college exams and help you channelize them to groom yourself for the practical world.
► Practical Courses — Do you want to work with a top consulting firm? or a stockbroking firm or marketing, HR, or stock-broking firms or a bank or insurance company? But not sure, whether they would hire you? Well, don’t worry! We have these industry-specific practical skill courses that train you for the work to be done in these offices as well as the necessary inter-personal & business writing skills.
You can download the application from Google Playstore as well as Apple Store.
Do let me know what you think we can do better to groom our students and train them for the practical world. | https://medium.com/@cahardikdave/the-need-of-practical-skill-training-for-commerce-students-in-india-6923ceee2c09 | ['Ca Hardik Dave'] | 2020-12-17 20:20:51.251000+00:00 | ['Education In India', 'Education', 'Practicalskills', 'Career In Commerce', 'Edtech'] |
An Answering Call: Wine & Writing — Steven Kent Mirassou | I was walking back to my wretched and wonderful apartment on West 10th Street in the West Village from classes on Washington Square in 1987 when I saw a portable typewriter sitting on display in the front window of the neighborhood pawn shop. I had no money to speak of, having gotten to New York only a week before, and no job prospects yet. But it was a Royal typewriter that hooked into the bottom of its case (and could be unhooked by sliding two radial dials outward) and seemed like the kind of machine upon which great books were written.
I rented that first place without seeing it. I was writing sports for the Monterey Herald newspaper as an intern the year leading up to my departure for New York at the end of summer, and I couldn’t get away before I moved the 3,000 miles east. I relied on the kindness of the cousin of my grandmother who found the vacancy for me (I would later work for Ruth, briefly, proofreading copy for one of those magazine subscription companies that shows up on someone’s doorstep unannounced and gives a big prize away). I carried the typewriter up four flights, the narrow building didn’t have an elevator and set it up on a black, drop-leaf table that the previous tenant had left when she moved in with her boyfriend uptown. The typewriter stood up straight and black against the whiteness of the wall behind it. The wall was white now and had taken a week to get it thus.
When I first moved in a couple of weeks earlier, the small flat was the color of exploded eggplant. And there were hundreds of small nails penetrating the aubergined surface with no apparent purpose except the paranoid’s one where each nail is connected by string to its twin and forms, in the end, an arcane design answering life’s most intransigent and lingering questions. The floors tilted to the outside of the building so nothing round would stay still until it got to the outer wall including my oldest child, then a baby, who had been put on the floor to sleep and who we found in the morning with her face smushed up in the L of floor and wall, sound asleep). The toilet didn’t work right for the first year, either.
I was never a good typist, just barely passing that class in high school after the teacher, who repeatedly lay paper over my fingers so I couldn’t see the keyboard, gave me the pity grade. Not patient either, the rattletrap of manual keys conjoining awkwardly and frequently in the carriage and the inconsistent marking of ribbon ink on paper doomed my archetypal vision of the hard-bitten garret-dweller pounding away until As I Lay Dying’s words stood blocked-out and black against the luminous white borders. I did see Faulkner’s typewriter, thirty years later, on a tour of his estate, Rowan Oak, with a wonderful friend who knew of my affinity for that Southern genius. And while that picture reverberates in my mind, I was more taken by the scores of liquor labels that had been removed from bottles, dried, and tossed about various tables and countertops and breakfronts in the old house. I’ve moved nearly a dozen times since those days of my New York youth; the typewriter tags along still and currently resides in an attic in Pleasanton waiting for one with the requisite appreciation and skill.
I loved New York City when I was 22. The cacophony of the streets was as a string quartet, and the chaos became me. The West Village was much grimier then and had a lot more character than it did later. I rode the 1 train back down to the Christopher Street station after finishing a day with a sales rep a few years ago, and many of the old places were gone. The Chinese place at the corner, where I drank a perfect Tsingtao on an Indian Summer night with a girl I dated for a while and where the food was terrible, was a boutique selling clothes for rich people. The magazine shop was something else too, and the corners were cleared and clean and the guys selling tattered paperbacks out of a ratty cardboard box for a quarter each had been disappeared too. I’d buy a couple of books every week and read them up and down that goddamned glorious island on the train each day.
NYC is where I knew I wanted to be a writer. My typewriter failure notwithstanding, the idea (at least) of writing was always tucked away close by. New York was the center of the written word — every major publishing house, the New York Times, the Village Voice (I worked there briefly that first year in school, as an assistant to the woman who did book reviews). I’m not sure how words and New York became indistinguishable for me, how the great and muscular opening paragraphs of my favorite books seemed to condense off the wetted and filthy streets and hang there above the cracked asphalt like battle pennants, but the connection between the craft and the place has lost none of its resonance or power over all these intervening years.
I never expected to become a winemaker. I left California to go East to get away from the family business, in part. I worked at the family winery in San Jose as a kid doing the kinds of jobs that I loved, the menial work that lubricated, like grease and oil, the greater enterprise. I loved the warehouses, and the bottling lines, and being part of a team. I had no illusions about the future or about “running the company” one day. I worked there over the summer breaks and then returned effortlessly to school each fall.
By the time I was 17 and old enough to contemplate a future, I knew that I did not belong in that small plant, made smaller each year by encroaching houses and roads. Mirassou was (and is) the oldest winemaking family in the country, having made wine in San Jose six years before Abraham Lincoln was president. Many generations of the family were born, grew, and died on our little postage stamp of vineyard. I had to escape. I eventually did return to California though I thought I wouldn’t. I wanted my parents to have a chance to see their grandkids grow up a little before we went back to the other coast. For those who grew up on the East Coast and then spent some time in California, you know that you do not go back there.
I sold wine for several years and wasn’t good at it. The first time I made wine, though, I knew my life would never be the same. When I put the final period on my first book, I knew it would change again. Only after the second profound change can I understand how fundamentally the same these two acts are. The winemaker and writer are desperate to connect emotionally with other people, compelled to share some version of beauty with a sympathetic mind and palate.
Each book or blog post, or new Cabernet Franc release, is a cry out in the dark searching for an answering call. Those who are driven ever deeper into the exploration of great wine by successive experiences with wine’s sensuous flavors and textures or who are bereft when torn away from a great book are answering that lonely shout. The makers and the perceivers (one cannot exist without the other) are connected on some level that defies easy description and harkens back to the earliest moments of humanity.
Each of us who feels these things sits around that first fire, hip to hip, hypnotized by the rambunctious flames and by the riotous words that canonize the tribe’s daily struggle for growth and life. Each is bound to the other by the shared encounter, feels deeply the struggle of his tribe-mate — knows those to his own bones. Scientists can tell how early intoxicating beverages were consciously made by men and how early works of representative art adorned cave walls. These things have been with us from the beginning. They have signified, if not, created culture, and they have been shared — these feelings of the sublime, these atavistic ties — by thousands of successive generations of true believers. Every time we say yes to beauty, we are re-affirming our need for these first ties, these humanizing connections.
Making things of beauty — writing or great wine — is a selfish act. The shape of the work that comes into the writer’s mind, or the winemaker’s, is driven by a concentrated and solitary question for which the novel (or the Cabernet Franc) hopes to be the answer. When done properly, the only thing that abides is the uncovered, authentic, and irreproducible soul of the thing being made. The writer and winemaker work alone in solitude — pushing against the silence and the dark — to bring forth to the larger world ever more illumination from the things they are working on. The outside world is a figment, only conforming to the burgeoning shape that the artist’s work continually impresses upon it. The inside world, that liminal space in which the writer and winemaker reside, is singular and insular and forces energy toward the creation of things memorable, enlightening, and delicious.
The greatest winemakers and writers will always have an uncomfortable relationship with the outside world even while they are bound to it and compelled to ameliorate it. Both work from a position of weakness. Their lives are devoted to congealing half-formed insights and marshaling unruly nature into authentic representations of Beauty for the benefit of an audience they don’t know exists. They are wrenching from themselves — sometimes painfully — a sparkling and pure vision of personal truth with only the hope that it finds the rare mind and palate. What the winemaker and the writer want in exchange is the understanding (not of the effort, because many people who do not provide these kinds of gifts expend much physical effort in the doing of their jobs) of the animating vision and the shape that this kind of Beauty demands. To be understood is to be comrades-in-arms.
Because I am one of those, and you are one too (if you have read this far), the two of us are connected, to be sure, and we are joined also to every other one of like sensibility — all down the interminable line — who has ever pressed her lips to a glass, drunk, and come away ravished. | https://medium.com/@stevenkentmirassou/an-answering-call-wine-writing-steven-kent-mirassou-748ef7ed46f7 | ['Steven Kent Mirassou'] | 2021-07-08 15:52:19.187000+00:00 | ['Wine', 'Writing', 'Hospitality'] |
How to Improve D3.js Graphs with Annotations | Data Visualisation
How to Improve D3.js Graphs with Annotations
Image by Author
The Data Driven Library (D3) is one of the most famous Javascript libraries used to build graphs and draw paintings. Regarding graphs, there are many web sites providing ready-to-use code, such as the D3 Graph Gallery and From Data to Viz. However, these web sites provide only the basic code, without tips or details to highlight data context or insights.
In this tutorial, I exploit the d3-annotation library to extend two simple graphs provided by the D3 Graph Gallery, in order to make them more readable from general audience:
a simple bar chart
a simple line chart
No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story. (Dan Kahneman)
All the code is available in my GitHub repository.
Bar Chart
The first example is the simple bar chart, provided by the D3 Graph Gallery and shown in the following figure:
Image by Author
The graph tries to plot the following dataset:
Image by Author
From the point of view of data context, this graph presents at least two problems:
countries in the bar are not ordered, thus it is difficult to understand which country behaves better than the others.
there is no focus on the graph, thus the reader should imagine what the graph wants to say.
In order to improve the graph, I deal with the two problems separately.
Regarding the order of the bar, the graph can be improved by ordering all the results into a descending order according to the value field. In D3 this can be achieved through the sort function:
data.sort(function(x, y){return d3.descending(x.Value, y.Value);})
This function requires as input parameter a function which specifies the rule used to order every pair of fields.
Regarding the fact that the graph has no focus, I can focus on a single country, such as France, and represent it with a different color with respect to the other countries. In addition, I can change the color of the other countries to a tonality of grey, in order to reduce the noise produced by the other countries. This can be achieved by specifying a specific color for the rectangle generated for each country:
svg.selectAll("myRect")
// other code
.attr("fill", function(d){ if (d.Country == 'France') return "#cc0000" ; else return "#a3a3c2"})
The described effects provide the following graph:
Image by Author
Now, I can imagine to describe why France has reached the third position in the ranking. Maybe it is due to its strong marketing policy in the last year. Thus I can add an annotation to the graph, explaining the context.
Firstly I build the annotation, by specifying the text (in the note field), the color and the position (through the x, y, dx and dy keys):
const annotations = [
{
note: {
label: "Thanks to its marketing policy, in 2021 France has reached the third position.",
title: "France product sales",
wrap: 200, // try something smaller to see text split in several lines
padding: 10 // More = text lower
},
color: ["#cc0000"],
x: x(2500),
y: 100,
dy: 100,
dx: 100
}
And then I append the annotation to the SVG graph:
const makeAnnotations = d3.annotation()
.annotations(annotations) svg.append("g")
.call(makeAnnotations)
The following figure shows the final result:
Image by Author
Line Chart
The first example is the simple line chart, provided by the D3 Graph Gallery and shown in the following figure:
Image by Author
This line presents mainly two problems:
The y axis does not have a label thus making it difficult to understand the unit of measure.
Similarly to the previous graph, there is no context.
Regarding the y-axis label, it is simple to add it. I add some text (e.g. Earnings) to the SVG image, I rotate it 90 degrees and I put near the y axis:
svg.append("text")
.attr("transform", "rotate(-90)")
.attr("y", 0 - margin.left)
.attr("x",0 - (height / 2))
.attr("dy", "1em")
.style("text-anchor", "middle")
.text("Earnings");
Regarding the context, it depends on the data. I can imagine that the data refer to France’s earnings over a given period of time. I note that there is a flop on Wed 18th, while from Friday 20th data rise again. Thus I can highlight these two aspects, with two notes.
The first note should highlight all the flopping period, thus I can use a d3.annotationCalloutCircle , while the second one can highlight only one point, in correspondence of Friday 20th, thus I can use a d3.annotationCalloutElbow .
Here is the code to build the annotations:
var parseDate = function(d){ return d3.timeParse("%Y-%m-%d")(d)}
const annotations = [
// first annotation
{
note: {
label: "Earnings plummeted",
title: "April 17th - 19th",
wrap: 150, // try something smaller to see text split in several lines
padding: 10 // More = text lower
},
color: ["#cc0000"],
x: x(parseDate('2018-04-18')),
y: y(8197),
dy: -100,
dx: -5,
subject: {
radius: 50,
radiusPadding: 5
},
type: d3.annotationCalloutCircle,
},
// second annotation
{
note: {
label: "Strong Recovery",
title: "April 20th",
wrap: 150, // try something smaller to see text split in several lines
padding: 10 // More = text lower
},
color: [" #00b300"],
x: x(parseDate('2018-04-20')),
y: y(8880.23),
dy: 40,
dx: 40,
type: d3.annotationCalloutElbow,
},
]
window.makeAnnotations = d3.annotation()
.annotations(annotations)
svg.append("g")
.call(makeAnnotations)
I have defined a variable parseDate which parses a string and returns a date.
The following figure shows the final graph:
Image by Author
Summary
In this short tutorial, I have illustrated how to improve a bar chart and a line chart in order to provide some context. I have exploited the d3-annotation library, which is a third-part library for annotations in d3.
In the next days I’m going to write a tutorial for the improvement of geographical maps…thus stay tuned ;)
If you wanted to be updated on my research and other activities, you can follow me on Twitter, Youtube and and Github. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-improve-d3-js-graphs-with-annotations-252fbb9c5bb5 | ['Angelica Lo Duca'] | 2021-05-14 03:55:10.177000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Graph', 'JavaScript', 'Data Science', 'D3js'] |
Kollywood in portraying female characters | Kollywood has always been a pioneer in portraying females as lead or holding gravity female roles.
Let’s start this list in chronological order.
Kalathur Kanamma (1959):
This movie released in 1960 was positively received and declared a hit. The name ‘Kannamma’ in the title is the female lead of the movie. Notably, this is the maiden movie of Kamal Hassan.
Pasa Malar (1961):
This is a trendsetting movie for brother-sister affection in Tamil cinema. This is surely one of the best movies of actress Savithri. There is an interesting instance to be remembered while the shoot of this movie. After an emotional scene in the movie was shot, Sivaji Ganesan and Savitri literally cried for one hour just because they can’t come out of their roles easily. Such a meaty and intense role, Kollywood has offered females way back in 1961.
Vani-Rani (1974):
This movie portrays the female role in a double act. The entire film revolves around the chaos created when the duo swaps their positions. And this movie also deemed to be a blockbuster.
Aval Oru Thodar Kadhai (1974):
This Balachandar directed masterpiece totally revolves around a middle-class woman who sacrifices her life to support her family. This director played a vital role in carving a stature for women in Tamil Cinema. He just reflected the plight of middle-class women in this movie.
Enipadigal (1979):
This Sivakumar starred movie revolves talented young girl becoming a movie star.
Moondram Pirai (1982) :
This movie portrays Sridevi as a mentally challenged girl who seeks asylum under Kamal Hassan. The actress is still remembered for this role.
Sindhu Bhairavi (1985):
One of the very early movies to deal with polygamy. This musical blockbuster is yet another testimonial to Balachandar’s brilliance.
Mouna Raagam (1986):
Then there came the master Mani Rathnam to the stage. Every movie of his will surely have a strong female role. This movie is no exception. Or probably the best movie of his to showcase a strong female role in the industry. The character ‘Dhivya’ depicted by actress Revathy is one of the most intense female roles.
Anjali (1990):
This movie moves around a mentally challenged young girl and her survival. Again a cult classic by Mani Rathnam.
Roja (1992):
The entire POV of the movie is from a rural girl Roja, who struggles in Kashmir to retrieve her husband from terrorists. Both a female lead and patriotic movie by Mani Rathnam.
Karuthamma (1994):
This movie accentuated the importance of a girl child in the state. The movie was well-received.
Padayappa (1999):
This blockbuster gave us ‘Neelambari’, the testimonial to any villain female lead in the industry. Probably one of the very few Rajni-starred movies where another character held equal gravity in the movie as the hero role.
Alaipayuthey (2000):
This love story showed a very intense female character played by actress Shalini. Easily one of the best movies of the decade.
Kannathil Muthammital (2002):
A movie that’ll surely stir us from inside. This film revolves around a girl adopted from a Srilankan-Tamil mother who denounces her during a chaotic situation, goes to Srilanka to see her parents. There are two female leads in the movie. One is the Amudha (the protagonist girl) and the other is Indira (an affectionate mother of the girl).
Maaya (2015):
This horror movie has no male lead. The film was well-received to become a box office hit.
Iraivi (2016):
The movie’s name itself means a “Goddess”. The film shows how a man’s action affects his family, who are in no way responsible for the act.
Aram (2017):
Another movie to have no male lead. This movie revolves around a woman collector and her life.
Aruvi (2017):
A rare movie to deal with AIDS and that too with a female lead. Yes, the movie revolves around a young girl who got infected with HIV and her life aftermath. Surprisingly the movie became a blockbuster proving that the industry encourages even a controversial movie with a female lead.
So, here I conclude. I know what I listed are very few among the plethora of movies out there. I gave a bit more importance to old movies as they are less likely to be known. Suggest me if you know any. | https://medium.com/@giridharvel/kollywood-in-portraying-female-characters-3cc267589bee | ['Giridharan Shanmugavel'] | 2020-12-22 05:56:37.333000+00:00 | ['Feminism', 'Cinema', 'Kollywood', 'Indian Cinema', 'Society'] |
Trump Economy Receding? | Terry H. Schwadron
March 7, 2019
How surprised will we be if it turns out that President Trump’s main policy achievements just aren’t working out? And how much more might we be that the shortcomings of the presidential platforms peak just before the next election campaign gets traction?
Until now, the power of economic achievements in employment, in spurring American industrial growth, and economic standing in the world have been the president’s impersonal measuring stick of achievement in the White House.
Of course, that has paled net to cries of anti-immigration motifs, resounding “Lock ‘er up” calls about Hillary Clinton and insistence on “no collusion” by the president about his presidency. Along the way, surely, he credits himself with taking on China through tough tariffs, taking on Iran and North Korea through tough economic sanctions and taking on Democrats and the media just to keep his hand in non-stop campaigning.
But above all, those elements of the economic strategy — protectionist tariffs towards fairer trade deals, cutting regulations and taxes, and reducing trade deficits in pursuit of “America First” have come to best reflect the Trump deal-based governing strategy.
But now, a year and some after the start of all of them, we’re seeing interesting developments:
The Commerce Department said this week that despite two years of America First-ism, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit is getting worse rather than better. After all the fuss about the tax cuts, it turns out that corporations benefited, not workers. And while joblessness is at an all-time low, the economy turns out to be churning out many more jobs at the bottom end of the skills market than middle-class jobs. Wages still lag, city centers are still rotting, infrastructure projects are still crumbling, public housing is still in trouble. Oh and then there is this massive debt resulting from unpaid for tax cuts. At the border, the Trump protectionist approach appears to be not working, as the monthly immigration numbers attest.
On top of that, North Korea is reported to be rebuilding its temporarily shut missile-testing facilities, the Europeans are pulling themselves apart, China and Russia are being openly more adventurous militarily in their spheres, and the Middle East remains an unsolved maze.
Quite apart from the Trump under pressure of myriad simultaneous criminal and ethics investigation, there is the emerging truth of Trump’s actual governance.
Of all of it, the trade policy has been a centerpiece for the president himself. Through aggressive use tariffs, Trump has promised to reset all that is wrong with Chinese trade, to rebalance trade deficits with South Korea, Japan and Europe, and wildly expanded foreign sales to places like Saudi Arabia. Now we learn from the actual figures that the trade deficit with foreign countries has hit $892 billion in merchandise trade, the largest in the nation’s history. The deficit is $419 billion with China alone, even in the midst of a pressured negotiation to reset trade relations.
Commerce’s final 2018 trade report, delayed by the partial government shutdown, showed that the United States bought far more in foreign goods than it sold to customers in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. When services are figured into the results, the totals are still much worse than two years ago. Again, all this matters to me because Trump has made it such a central measure for success.
As the Post said, “It has been evident for months that Trump was not shrinking a trade gap that he calls ‘unsustainable’ and that he says represents a major transfer of wealth from Americans to foreigners. Over the past year, even as he imposed tariffs on foreign-made solar panels, washing machines, steel, aluminum and assorted goods from China, imports roared ahead of exports.” It adds, “The president begins his reelection drive with a core campaign promise unfulfilled — and with a recent flurry of economic research showing that his embrace of tariffs is damaging the U.S. economy.”
There are lots of explanations, including a continuing shortfall in national savings, the success of the U.S. dollar against other currencies, the desirability of products produced overseas as compared with soybeans and coal, pushed by American interests.
If talks with China are successful, there will be an agreement to buy much more agricultural products from the United States. Still, some warn, that may well come at the expense of loss of similar sales to other countries. U.S. farms and factories have a limited ability to sharply increase output to meet a sudden increase in Chinese orders.
The president has tariffs on steel and aluminum and has threatened to apply them to imported cars and car parts.
The president often boasts about how much money the U.S. government is reaping from tariffs. “Billions of dollars, right now, are pouring into our Treasury,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. How that translates into benefits gor you and me is unclear.
The biggest opponent that governing Trump has may be Trump himself.
##
www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com | https://terryschwadron.medium.com/trump-economy-receding-da96989f22 | ['Terry Schwadron'] | 2019-03-07 12:12:48.845000+00:00 | ['Foreign Policy', 'White House', 'Politics', 'Trump', 'Economy'] |
The World-Class Data Scientist | We’ve all seen the ‘controversial’ Medium articles that say that MOOC’s don’t make you a Data Scientist, and also the ones that say you should get Certificates accredited by various organizations to prove that you’re actually worthy of calling yourself a Data Scientist.
Whilst it may be true that these various pathways alter the chances of success, are they really sufficient in being able to call yourself a successful Data Scientist?
To call yourself a success in any field is a subjective matter so it’s important to first know what you want out of a journey. Do you want Money? Freedom? Do you want to just have a casual understanding or do you want to go toe-to-toe with the world's best academics?
To be a success , or even world class is something that I think is hugely subject and changes over time, but from my experience of working under and with some of the best minds in the world: the following are simply perquisites:
Know what you don’t know
What’s your goal and where do you see yourself 10 years from now? When I started on my journey, I was 19 and had a vague picture of where I wanted to go and like many of my contemporaries, serendipity played a big hand on the path I took.
A good teacher and a good guide is a fantastic starting point. Speak to your role model and if you don’t have one: find one. Then you need to make a list of everything you need to know and cross-check your current knowledge set against where you stand.
Photo by Daniel Mingook Kim on Unsplash
Learn about who the experts are in what they’re doing
Keep an eye on the top 3 or 4 people or institutions in the field. Regardless of which discipline you’re in, it’s always important to know where the bar is and where you stand on the totem pole.
Benchmarking is central to the theory of Data Science and likewise, it should be central to your perspective in your discipline.
We’re in an era of perfect information and in an era of openness, use that to your advantage. Watch their youtube videos and read their academic papers, and most importantly, try to get in touch and have a chat!
A few times in my career, I overlooked this point. Missed opportunities or paths I should have trodden further down are now just memories, but, we learn something from these mistakes. Get good at spotting what you like and don’t like.
Make your foundation strong
When I say learn, I mean you really have to learn. Data Science and Machine Learning require top of the line Mathematics and Statistics. I’d recommend not using sklearn or other out of the box tools (yes, that includes Tensorflow ) until you can stand for yourself and take on the big guys in advanced discussions.
I’m really sorry but this is debatably the most important part of the whole story. You need to work your ass off and make sure your maths and stats are up to scratch. You want to watch youtube videos, download pdfs, or even learn whilst making a project — but please, know your weakness and keep fighting it!
Seriously, the best data scientists aren’t geniuses: they just work harder than everyone else.
Make projects with others — get feedback
This is really underrated. Working with others on Data Science or Machine Learning projects gives you a deeper understanding of the problem you face because your partner will generally have a different perspective.
Everyone has their own story and background so it helps to really diversify your view. Mathematical techniques are gold-dust in Data Science and whether you’re confused on why you should choose L1 over L2 regularisation on a simple regression problem, or debating on how many layers to have in your DNN , these kinds of questions only come to you when you have to justify your actions with other people.
Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash
Build something that fixes a problem
Think about your own life and think of something that makes you more than 10 minutes to do. Turn this into a list and go through them one by one. Can you use Machine Learning or Data Science to tackle them? I assure you — you can.
Fixing problems isn’t easy and a lot of the time searching for problems often gets you into a convoluted mess. However, understanding the lifecycle of problems get you familiar with the whole ecosystem that we live in.
We’re in a time where our lives feel symbiotic: half of it is online and the other half is idly walking around the screen to screen. There are so many problems around us: often, you just need to look with a different lens for them all to be clear.
Go back to square 1
So you learned a bit, you taught yourself a bit, you solved a problem and now you’ve accomplished your mission. Now what? Well, this comes back to my first point: know your end goal.
If you’re still not satisfied, re-group and speak to an expert again or reach out to who you look up to. It’s not easy, but this perpetual loop of taking a look at how your career is shaping is a key way to ensure that you are on the right path.
I assure you if you keep repeating this loop, you’ll make it to the top. If you don’t believe me, comment below and I can give 101 examples of friends who’ve succeeded far beyond belief by following the top pattern.
At times the path is steeper than others, so make sure to stay focused and stay cognizant of your current position. You can never be too sure when your next break will be. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/the-world-class-data-scientist-2bc400b63442 | ['Mohammad Ahmad'] | 2020-08-30 15:17:51.355000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Education', 'Programming'] |
It was not quite as he had imagined (1) | As always the curiosity of the youth I bought a microcomputer TK 82 C (Sinclar), Basic interpreter with 16k of RAM, recording of data in tape cassette and the monitor a TV.
Programs in Basic and difficult recording of files and / or data on the tape player. At the time the control of the recordings was made by the tape counter where you wrote down on paper or by the noise of beginning and ending. (Detail already had a hearing difficulty)
Thinking about money to play my next venture (set up small sound team — 2 players, 6 boxes, lights, etc.)
I put an idea on the improvisation on a sheet of paper and showed the financier “Father”. I bought an elgin printer with 80 character printing per second and do mailing.
Yes, with all the equipment I paid the investor and I set up a sound team that later helped my next venture a new MSX computer with a floppy disk and a 10 mb HD.
I see today that the idea was to generate money for the next investment, be it personal or a new venture.
This is cool.
Technological limitation was no obstacle.
And today, what’s your idea?
With so many resources / ideas, the tip is to not waste time.
In this technological evolution I was fortunate to participate.
This is for the next story | https://medium.com/@progiuri/it-was-not-quite-as-he-had-imagined-1-9db2cb1d4289 | ['J Iuri Antunes'] | 2019-02-18 22:27:13.357000+00:00 | ['Storyofmylife', 'Computer'] |
How Tech is Reconfiguring Our World | Emerging Tech Roundup — April 9
The Quantious team’s top picks for timely trending news in the tech world.
This week in tech: Apple looks to the future of AR, Liam Payne uses AR for his live BAFTA performance, AI helps detect skin cancer, Google launches new WebXR features, AI helps researchers turn 2D composite images into 3D structures, and the state of New York looks to make internet service more widely accessible.
AR Is ‘Critically’ Important For Apple’s Future, Says Tim Cook
(9to5 Mac, April 5)
CEO of Apple, Time Cook, noted how he believes augmented reality can enhance conversations and provide unique use cases across industries. Though he doesn’t discuss specifics, Cook has been mentioning AR a lot during interviews recently, hinting at the company’s next big bet on the innovative tech. In fact, he said, “I think the [AR] promise is even greater in the future. So it’s a critically important part of Apple’s future.” Although we don’t have details about Apple’s plans, according to Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, the company could be releasing their mixed-reality headset next year. As more developments come to light, it will be interesting to see how Apple approaches AR and incorporates it into products.
Liam Payne Will Use Augmented Reality to Create an Avatar Which Will Stream to Viewers Phone During His Upcoming BAFTA Performance
(DailyMail, April 5)
Platinum-selling artist, Liam Payne, will be leveraging augmented reality as he performs at the 2021 British Academy Film Awards. Wearing a suit and headset designed to capture the movements of his body, face, and vocals, the data will be instantly transformed into 3D animations, creating a unique immersive experience. A first of its kind, Payne is excited to be tapping into augmented reality to create his very own avatar that will join him on stage as a hologram while he sings. In addition, his performance will be live-synced and transmitted to fans in the UK via their smartphones.
An Artificial Intelligence Tool That Can Help Detect Melanoma
(MIT, April 2)
Researchers are developing an AI system to detect skin cancer. Cancerous growths are typically diagnosed after close inspection from a dermatologist, followed by a biopsy. The problem with this method is that a patient might have numerous marks and growths on their skin, so it is time-consuming and tedious for a dermatologist to look at all of them. Using AI, a wide-field image of the patient’s skin is analyzed, and deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) name and classify suspicious marks on the patient’s skin, as well as group them together. Using this process, DCNNs can effectively identify early-stage melanoma in a timely manner. The process is still being fine-tuned, but because so much of diagnosing skin cancer is based on sight, scientists are optimistic that the AI process will eventually have comparable accuracy to top-level dermatologists.
Experiment With AR and VR Made For the Web
(Google Blog, April 6)
The Experiments with Google platform launched new features for WebXR, a combination of AR and VR that’s accessible via the web. The collection includes helpful utilities, as well as more lighthearted experiences. The features cover a wide range of capabilities from visualizing effective social distancing, to new ways for exploring the planet, an immersive gallery to view your photos, and more. In order to give these features a try, all you will need is a supported Android device equipped with the latest Chrome browser.
New Machine Learning Tool Converts 2D Material Images Into 3D Structures
(TechXplore, April 6)
At Imperial College London, they’ve developed an algorithm capable of converting 2D cross-section images of composite materials into 3D models. Today, analyzing and designing composite materials in 3D is not only challenging and tedious, but also costly. This algorithm can understand what the 2D images look like, then effectively scale them up, generating 3D structures that can be studied across the various phases and layers that make up the composite. With it, researchers hope that the tool can help provide more affordable options in studying, improving, and producing composite materials like battery electrodes, aircraft parts, and more.
New York to Set $15 per Month Price Cap On High-Speed Internet For Low-Income Earners
(WSKG, April 7)
New York is working on an initiative to expand broadband internet access and decrease internet costs all around the state. One of the new rules in this plan is that internet service providers in New York wil have to offer separate packages for low-income customers. The low-income plan will start at $15 per month (including all taxes, fees, and other costs from the provider). To be eligible to receive these lower rates, customers will be required to prove that they are receiving some form of public assistance, such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), free or reduced-price lunch at school, etc. These reduced prices are scheduled to be available in June, and most internet service providers in the state will be required to comply. | https://medium.com/@wearequantious/how-tech-is-reconfiguring-our-world-60cd4a02a9a5 | ['Quantious Team'] | 2021-04-09 21:50:10.303000+00:00 | ['Technews', 'AI', 'NYC', 'Technology', 'AR'] |
Nexus Mutual is now using Chainlink’s price reference data contracts for decentralized valuations… | Nexus Mutual is now using Chainlink’s price reference data contracts for decentralized valuations of the multi-currency capital pool
We’re excited to announce that Nexus Mutual will be using Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks to bring transparent and accurate on-chain valuations to its multi-currency capital pool. This allows Nexus Mutual to perform daily on-chain updates and rebalances of its minimum capital requirement (MCR) by consistently recalculating the value of each capital asset (currently ETH and DAI) in the multi-currency pool using Chainlink’s Price Reference Data Contracts.
We are leveraging the DAI/ETH price reference contract, which is now live on mainnet. It brings secure and reliable on-chain valuations to ETH and DAI by tapping into a decentralized network of data aggregators that pull prices from all the top liquidity sources in the market.
To understand this upgrade in architecture design, let’s dive deeper into both protocols, expand upon the importance of the current integration, and briefly discuss an exciting frontier for a future collaboration together.
Nexus Mutual
Nexus Mutual is a peer-to-peer risk sharing mutual built using smart contracts and blockchain technology. Instead of traditional insurance agreements between the insurance company and a policyholder, it’s a membership-based discretionary mutual that protects its members against hacks and pays out their claims based on communal voting. The first coverage plan offered is called smart contract cover, which provides discretionary coverage against technical risks, such as software bugs in smart contracts.
Nexus Mutual operates as a discretionary mutual, wherein members can stake against a contract to show they believe in it’s security, or purchase smart contract cover to protect themselves in the event there is a hack. The mutual is backed by a pool of capital. Any member can buy coverage, in ETH or DAI, in case of a failure.
When a claim is triggered, NXM (the token held by Nexus Mutual members) holders can vote on whether or not to pay out the claim. While payouts are not contractually guaranteed, the members are incentivized to act fairly to not only support their own member’s claims but to support the trusted reputation of the mutual so that it can both maintain and grow its membership into the future.
Chainlink
An oracle is a digital agent employed by a smart contract to retrieve and/or connect it to data and systems outside its native blockchain (off-chain). Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that currently provides decentralization at both the oracle and data source level. By using multiple independent Chainlink nodes, the user can protect against one oracle being a single point of failure. Similarly, using multiple data sources for sourcing market prices, the user can protect against one data source being a single source of truth.
Chainlink’s Price Reference Data Contracts are a collection of decentralized oracle networks live on the Ethereum mainnet, each one responsible for securing a particular market price (ETH/USD, ETH/DAI, ETH/BTC, etc). Each Price Reference Contract is backed by numerous independent, security reviewed, and Sybil resistant nodes, which are run by leading blockchain DevOps and security teams, many of which have extensive experience running POS nodes that secure millions of dollars in value across multiple blockchain networks.
Each node sources market data from a pool of seven different highly respected data aggregator APs. Their individual responses are then aggregated together into a single data point and updated on-chain at specified intervals, such as by time (daily), deviation (every .5% change in price), or a customized combination of both (minimum once a day + 1% price deviations). These reference contracts provide Dapps with exposure to market-wide price discovery and are redundantly secured via decentralized oracle computation.
Current and Future Integration
One of the critical components for operating Nexus Mutual in a secure and reliable manner, which is easily verified by all its members, is maintaining the minimum capital requirement (MCR) on the blockchain. The minimum capital is a key value for the mutual as it influences how much cover can be written on any particular smart contract system, and is also the level at which redemptions are restricted. It is essentially the level of funds the mutual needs to operate.
Since the MCR is vital to calculating quotes for new coverages and rebalancing the capital pools, updating the MCR regularly is critical to managing risk and maintaining profitability in the face of price volatility. For this, we need a secure and reliable price feed for the ETH/DAI price.
Chainlink’s Price Reference Contracts come into play, as they not only provide highly decentralized pricing that secures the underlying collateral in our capital pool (DAI right now), but also source it from an aggregation of the top liquidity providers and provide it on-chain in a transparent manner. By tapping into true market price discovery, quotes more accurately reflect the current risk distributed in the capital pool. Additionally, members are always up-to-date on the risk present within the system, therefore are better equipped to make more informed governance decisions.
Chainlink provides security when rebalancing the mutual’s funds given its reflection of the collective liquidity in the market. Our fund is far better protected against an oracle attack similar to bZx, since it is not reliant on one liquidity source.
In addition to the recent integration, both teams are exploring how Nexus Mutual can provide cover for Chainlink’s Price Reference Contracts in the event of a contract failure. While their reference contracts are already highly decentralized and secure, this would provide for an additional level of security for the numerous DeFi applications currently leveraging them for critical smart contract functions or considering it in the future.
“We are excited to be working with Chainlink to further increase our security against liquidity attacks. Security is a critical aspect of what we are doing; it’s at the core of our product and is absolutely essential to providing the best options for our members.” — Hugh Karp, Founder of Nexus Mutual
“We’re glad to work with Nexus Mutual by supplying their mutual with highly reliable and accurate price reference data secured by our decentralized network of price oracles. This allows their mutual to tap into true market prices when valuing their on-chain capital pools, ultimately bringing more security to their members.“ — Sergey Nazarov, Co-founder of Chainlink
Nexus Mutual
Nexus Mutual is a discretionary mutual, an alternative to insurance, running on Ethereum. Members can buy cover to protect against hacks against any smart contract verified on Etherscan. Using Nexus gives members peace of mind when interacting with any smart contract system by knowing their funds are protected in the event of a hack. You can become a member here.
Members own and operate the mutual through raising and voting on claims and governance proposals. All funds are owned by the members. Come and chat to the community in our Discord or on Twitter. We are looking to expand the security expertise in our team. If you’re a solidity developer passionate about DeFi and security, please get in touch!
Chainlink
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments. It is well known for providing highly secure and reliable oracles to large enterprises (Google, Oracle, and SWIFT) and leading smart contract development teams such as Polkadot/Substrate, Synthetix, Loopring, Aave, OpenLaw, Etherisc, Conflux, and many others.
If you’re a developer and want to connect your smart contract to existing data and infrastructure outside the underlying blockchain, reach out to us here! We can help you quickly, yet securely launch your data-enabled application or Chainlink Price Reference Data Contract on mainnet today. You can also visit the developer documentation or join the technical discussion on Discord. Learn more by visiting the Chainlink website or follow us on Twitter or Reddit. | https://medium.com/nexus-mutual/nexus-mutual-is-now-using-chainlinks-price-reference-data-contracts-for-decentralized-valuations-6a62c5d4e030 | ['Kayleigh Petrie'] | 2020-03-03 15:22:55.068000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Chain Link', 'Oracle', 'Insurance'] |
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