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Vaccine Trial Participants Randomized to Placebo Should Get Vaccine Now | Trying to preserve the integrity of the trial is a fool’s errand.
Jason Santosuosso has been in biotech for decades. He has founded and sold companies in that space. So he knew what he was getting into when he volunteered to be part of Pfizer’s phase 3 coronavirus vaccine trial.
Jason Santuosso, biotech founder, Pfizer trial participant
“At that point I was like, well, you know, I’m really happy to do this more for my family than for anybody I wanted to basically be able to get into the trial so that I could tell them and encourage people to get it, because I knew a lot of people that were afraid of this vaccine.”
So he enrolled. He went to his local medical center and spent hours in the initial visit doing consent, filling out paperwork, and finally — getting that first shot. He had multiple visits as a study participant. Multiple blood draws, nasal swabs. He had to complete an e-diary about his symptoms. It’s onerous. But he figured it was worth it. Yes, because he was contributing to science but also because there was a sense, according to him, that the placebo group would get priority for the vaccine.
“One of the kids that had written on the study, he had said, well, you know … if you didn’t get the vaccine that you’d probably be back in here by January to get it…. If it was earlier, you know, I’d be eligible to actually get vaccinated. And I think that that’s what the study people thought.”
For many clinical trials, patients who are randomized to get placebo are given the option to get the study drug when the trial is over. The Pfizer trial, though, is not over. Yes, there is an emergency use authorization but that’s not full FDA approval. And the trial is supposed to last two years according to the protocol. Nevertheless participants feel slighted that, after what they went through to generate the data that led to the EUA, they may have to wait in line while others benefit from the highly effective vaccine first.
Should individuals randomized to placebo in the vaccine trials be first in line for the vaccine after an EUA?
This question has been bubbling through social media, and has made it all the way to the pages of both the New England Journal of Medicine and the New York Times.
The general sense is that, sure it would be great to give the placebo participants vaccine but it will cost us in terms of answering some key scientific questions.
But is that really the case? I’m actually not so sure. Not because the trial wouldn’t be compromised by giving placebo participants vaccine — but because the trial may be compromised already.
I think the best way to think about this is to imagine a few options — policy choices, call them — and then think through how each would effect a specific unanswered scientific question. I’m going to use the Pfizer trial as an example here, but I think this works for the other vaccine trials as well. So far, the data we have from the Pfizer trial has shown us that the vaccine is highly effective at preventing COVID-19 within a few months of vaccination. We also know that the rate of early side effects is acceptably low.
Here are three big scientific questions we still need answers to.
1) Are there long-term side effects of the vaccine?
2) Does protection wane over time? Will we need yearly boosters?
3) Does the vaccine prevent asymptomatic infections? In other words, does it only protect you or does it protect people around you as well?
Let’s look at the options Pfizer has on the table and how these questions would be affected.
If you really wanted precise answers to these questions, you’d need to force everyone in the placebo group to not get vaccinated no matter what. This is clearly unethical — all trials allow people to drop out at any time. But yes, if you could somehow do this, you could answer those big three questions.
But let’s stay in the realm of reality.
The policy Pfizer seems to be going with looks like this: The trial remains blinded — participants don’t know if they got placebo or not. They are followed over time. When vaccines become available at-large for the risk group of the participant, the participant can get vaccinated within the trial.
For many relatively healthy participants, that may be the early summer or even later. The argument here is that that’s the soonest they could get the vaccine if they hadn’t participated in the trial, so at least they aren’t being harmed by being in the trial. But is our goal really just to make trials not actively harmful to participants? Can’t we do better than that?
Like all ethically-conducted trials, a participant can drop out of the Pfizer trial at any time for any reason. So under this plan, we’d expect a portion of people to drop out of the study whenever they think they could get a vaccine. This is going to happen no matter what — here’s Jason Santosuosso again:
“I think, personally, I would have a moral obligation to drop out, out of rebellion… That leaves 22,000 people vulnerable to getting Covid.”
Now, those people could agree to continue to provide data to Pfizer, about infections and whatnot, but once placebo patients start getting vaccinated, the benefits of randomization are lost. Not just because you lost sample size or something. It’s really because people will not drop out randomly. My guess is that higher risk people would drop out preferentially.
The reality of differential dropout
Moreover, more people are likely to drop out of the placebo group than the vaccinated group, even though this is a blinded trial. Why? We know these vaccines have side effects like fever and myalgias that are pretty common. Participants are trying to use these symptoms to figure out into which group they were randomized. In fact, Jason Santosuosso is pretty sure he knows which group he was in:
“I’m like 90% certain I got the vaccine because I had some pretty serious side effects from it.”
As placebo participants, and especially higher risk placebo participants drop out, weird effects will emerge.
The placebo group remaining will be healthier but may also engage in higher risk activities, you might see the rate of infection going up in the placebo group while the severity of infection goes down.
But how will differential drop-out affect the big three questions?
Well, in terms of long-term side effects, it will be pretty bad. Think of a relatively common bad thing, like a heart attack.
The yearly incidence of MI in the US is 600 per 100,000. That would translate to 264 out of the 44,000 people in the Pfizer vaccine trial who we might expect to have a heart attack in the next 12 months, but be careful. Trial participants are usually healthier than the general population. The true number is likely to be lower. Still — there will be heart attacks. How do we know if they are due to the vaccine or not? We compare the vaccinated group to the placebo group. But once placebo people get vaccinated, they are no longer good controls. Worse, even restricting the analysis to placebo participants who didn’t go and get a vaccine we are still in trouble because people don’t drop out at random. The placebo group will no longer be a random sample of the study population. They’ll be healthier, I think, meaning less heart attacks, which will make it look like the vaccine causes heart attacks. Not good.
The situation is even worse for rare adverse events. Take Guillain-Barre syndrome. That has an annual incidence of 1 in 100,000 people in the US. Even if the vaccine doubles the rate of GBS, we are not going to see it in a trial of 44,000 people even if we did force people to stay in the trial. We can only pick up stuff like this with vaccine surveillance during the large-scale rollout, which is exactly what is happening.
OK so the status quo doesn’t help us with adverse event detection that much.
What about question 2 — durability of protection?
Look at the cumulative case graph from Pfizer. If, like 6 months from now, the infection rate in the vaccinated group starts going up, we know that the vaccine is wearing off.
Or do we?
Remember that as time marches forward, people are dropping out of the study to get the vaccine. Now, if you don’t follow-up with those people, you are left with a population of people who now suspect they were vaccinated or who are healthy enough that they don’t really care about getting vaccinated. That could have weird effects like the people staying in the trial engaging in risky behavior, driving infection rates up. Better to follow-up with the people who drop out to get the vaccine elsewhere. Then you’d see infection rates drop in the placebo group, so your efficacy estimate is off, but at least you can see if they start to increase again at some time point after vaccination, hinting at waning efficacy.
But you know what, you don’t need a randomized trial for that. You can just follow any old group of vaccinated people and we’re about to have tens of millions of them.
What about asymptomatic infections? The way Pfizer is figuring this out is pretty clever.
They look at antibodies to COVID-19 in the blood. Their vaccine only generates antibodies to the spike protein, but true infection generates antibodies to a bunch of other coronavirus proteins as well — so they will know who has been infected (even if they are asymptomatic) over the course of the trial. They almost certainly have enough of this data at this point to tell us if the vaccine prevents asymptomatic infection early — great. But for the same reasons discussed above, due to differential dropout they will not be able to clearly prove that it prevents asymptomatic infections in the long-term.
So what if you just vaccinate everyone right now? Unblind the trial — tell people what they got — and give vaccine to the people in the placebo arm. How does this affect the big 3 questions?
Long-term side effects? Still in trouble.
Not enough people in the trial anyway for rare side-effects. Common side effects will occur in both groups. There’s a chance you might be able to use a time-from-vaccination metric to determine if some events are happening in temporal relationship to the vaccine, but this will work best for early side effects and we already have data on that.
Long term protection? Well, under this mechanism in theory everyone is staying in the trial — a major advantage. So, if efficacy wanes, we’d see infections start to tick up in the vaccine group while they remain really low in the originally placebo-but-just-vaccinated group. This will depend a lot on that time differential in vaccination between the placebo and vaccine groups, but there’s a chance we could pick up on this. Also, since we’d lose blinding, people will know if they just got the vaccine or if they were vaccinated a while ago, and this might lead to differences in behaviors between the groups that would mess up this analysis.
Asymptomatic infection rate? Again, our best data would be from the time before the trial was unblinded, which we already have. After the big reveal, we’ll more or less have to compare asymptomatic infection rates with the rate in the general population.
A third idea has been proposed — a blinded crossover study. In this design, everyone in the study gets two more shots.
The vaccine group gets two placebo shots, the placebo group gets two vaccine shots. But they still don’t know which group they were in (of course, they may have a decent guess). The advantage here is that everyone stays in the study, so you minimize that differential dropout that we discussed.
Let’s go through the questions.
For side-effects, we’re still pretty stuck. Once everyone in the trial receives the vaccine, the rate of long-term side-effects is going to be hard to tease out — sure the vaccine group has a few months of extra time, so you could imagine you could see a difference here, but particularly for rare events you’re unlikely to see anything.
For long-term protection, a crossover design could work. Like the policy of just unblinding and vaccinating everyone, if vaccine efficacy fades over time, we’d see the vaccine group (who were vaccinated early) start developing COVID cases faster than the placebo group (who got vaccinated later). The advantage with blinding is that people’s behaviors will be more similar than in option 2.
Asymptomatic infection? I assume the study would continue to collect blood on everyone, though again you’d basically lose your control asymptomatic infection rate and thus be stuck comparing the whole trial to the general population.
So here’s my point. There are some really critical questions left to be answered about these vaccines. But I’m not sure the randomized trials can answer them. The horse is out of the barn. The genie is out of the bottle. Now that there is an EUA in place, dropout and worse, differential dropout is imminent. Trial participants will get the vaccine one way or another. And under those circumstances, our ability to make good inferences is quickly lost.
Yes, there are statistical tools to deal with stuff like this — inverse probability weighting and whatnot — but I’m not sure they engender the same confidence in results as a solid randomized trial does.
As such, it strikes me that the best option is to do right by these volunteers. They did their part. They deserve to be vaccinated immediately. I’m ok with an open-label or the blinded cross-over design. But it should happen. The benefit to society keeping them unvaccinated is really not that high given that the trial will imminently be compromised by differential dropout.
To answer the outstanding questions we can use large, population-scale data and historical controls and all those imperfect statistical tools. We can also conduct new trials where people consent knowing what they are getting into. They can agree, during the consent process, not to seek out vaccination elsewhere. They can’t be held to that agreement, of course, but a trial designed with that specific aim could recruit people who want to help answer the outstanding questions.
Trial participants, thank you. Take a bow. And take your shot.
A version of this commentary first appeared on medscape.com. | https://medium.com/@methodsmanmd/vaccine-trial-participants-randomized-to-placebo-should-get-vaccine-now-14ba7c0fe091 | ['F. Perry Wilson', 'Md Msce'] | 2020-12-17 21:04:35.332000+00:00 | ['Ethics', 'Coronavirus', 'Medicine', 'Vaccines', 'Safety'] |
E-commerce marketing of today and tomorrow | The marketing channels you “own”
Anyone who’s learned anything about marketing is familiar with the idea of marketing channels you “own” versus those you don’t. Channels you own refers to those where you retain control over what’s sent, when, and in what format.
For example, email marketing gives you every flexibility of true “ownership.” If you use a platform like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, you might be limited in certain formatting options if you use a template. However, the channel is the email itself, not the platform you use to craft it.
If you wanted to, you could send contacts HTML-powered, uniquely programmed email content any time you want. Even if MailChimp or Constant Contact go out of business or change their models, you control the channel because you can still send emails to your leads and clients.
Channels like e-marketplaces and social networks, in contrast, are channels you don’t own. If they go out of business, you lose that channel of contact and even the history of data and content you loaded there.
This is the key reason why Ben points to e-mail and text marketing as the go-to channels that all brands need to include in their marketing strategies.
“Unless you’re getting 20% or more of your sales from email and text marketing,” Ben says, “you’re missing an opportunity.”
Email open rates today across industries average 36%, and 91% of consumers check their e-mail at least once a day. That’s a lot of eyes on your message.
The trick, of course, is getting consumers to opt-in. Ben says that getting users interested enough in what you’re saying that they’ll click “subscribe” is the name of the game in e-commerce marketing.
For that, Ben points to today’s consumer expectations. | https://medium.com/amberengine/e-commerce-marketing-of-today-and-tomorrow-a0431437b055 | ['Alex Borzo'] | 2021-06-16 20:17:04.426000+00:00 | ['Dropshipping', 'Ecommerce', 'Digital Marketing', 'Consumer', 'Podcast'] |
A perspective on intergenerational approach to racial justice | This is a 10 minute talk I gave as part of a My Life, My Stories / Encore.org digital event on how we can address racial justice in 2021.
My name is Frankie Huang. I am a writer, illustrator, and strategist based in the Boston area. I’ve written quite a bit on contemporary Chinese culture, women’s issues, and more recently, about my observations on race in America.
I was born in Beijing, China, and moved to the US when I was 9 years old. Then in 2013 I moved to China for work, and only returned to the US at the beginning of 2020 for Covid-related reasons.
A lot of my understanding about race has been shaped by living in these two very different countries, and having lived both as the ethnic majority as a Han Chinese person in China, and as an ethnic minority in the US, where white supremacy has shaped much of the status quo as we know it.
In terms of identity, I belong to a dominant group as well a marginalized group. In mainland China the government is actively homogenizing the national culture to align with Han Chinese culture which I am familiar with, while minority cultures like Uyghur muslims are being systematically erased through oppressive policies.
When I am in the US I’ve lived with racism all my life and have gotten anti-China slurs flung at me since the onset of the Covid pandemic and the president’s blame-shifting rhetoric.
Why am I bringing this up?
I want to highlight how much our identity profoundly shape the way we experience the world, and how we all exist within one power structure or several of them, and precious few of us are without some form of privilege attached to our identity.
In my opinion, each of us who feel committed to social justice must first look within ourselves and interrogate our own position, our privilege, the harm we cause or are complicit in before we can effectively and earnestly engage in activism and be good allies to those who need our support.
Otherwise, it is easy to say you believe in great causes like Black Lives Matter and reproductive justice, and feel like you mean it, but still make no impact at the end of the day except to signal to others that you are a good person. Worse yet, you could feel so good about having progressive beliefs that you become oblivious to actions you can take to actually realize those progressive beliefs.
So now I’m about to say something that routinely makes a lot of folks uncomfortable: if you are someone who exists in a very privileged position in America, a middle-class straight white man for example, you don’t need to be actively discriminating and hurting marginalized people to perpetrate harm. Your comfortable state of being is quite likely built on the discomfort of others, like when a white-sounding name has a better time finding work, or a white face leads to securing a loan, and for white folks, becoming aware of this is integral to making a real difference in making the future safer and better for all.
I grew from childhood to young adulthood in the US, and my parents made sure I understood that this is a “white people’s country” and that I must be a person that offers a lot of value, and don’t stand out in a foreign way, in order to thrive in it.
This is part of what is known as the “model minority myth”, and for a very long time it felt natural for me to to strive to be more “American”, speak English without an accent, dress in a “mainstream” way, adopt American customs and etiquette, etc.
For a second generation immigrant like me, this is part of a process known as assimilation, and when I first learned the term, I did not think about the amount of erasure of immigrant identity it requires, nor the amount of performance it requires on my part. A simple and imperfect analogy to this is when you’re young, and you’re trying to fit in with the popular crowd, and try to be just like them, it’s all about faking it til you make it, pretending to be someone you are not.
Trying to seem “whiter” is not a full-time thing though. Like so many others I have always code-switched, like when I’m with my parents or around other Chinese people or immigrants, I’d let my Chinese side be more apparent, but in environments where I was surrounded by white people I revert to sound more “white”, sometimes I don’t even notice myself doing this.
But after living in China for the last almost 7 years, I’ve become a little rusty at this, so when I moved in with my white in-laws in February of this year, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was not at the top of my game when it comes to blending in, and it made my in-laws uncomfortable.
A little bit about my husband’s family: they are very nice, middle class New Englanders, they are well-educated, politically liberal, and have never, and probably would never say anything that would be considered overtly racist.
“Racist” is a loaded term these days, because it’s so often narrowly defined as inflammatory, hate-filled expressions. A lot of other types of racially insensitive or abrasive interactions get shuffled into a category called “micro-aggressions”.
I find the term “micro-aggressions” to be a silly term, because it is grounded in the perspective of those who commit them, whose thoughtless words and acts that are not meant to harm. But on the receiving end, these can be bracing, even traumatizing. And when micro-aggressions are committed within an extended family unit like mine, one that brings together a white American family and an immigrant daughter in law, addressing the situation can go directly in opposition with maintaining a friendly, harmonious atmosphere.
Without going into too much detail, over months of living with my in-laws, I’ve come to understand that my fluent English and my ease with a lot of surface level aspects of mainstream American lifestyle gave the impression that I also have American values just like theirs. This makes me think of when I lived in China, and noticed how many Han Chinese people don’t really think about how there are other Chinese people who think and live differently than they do. When you are the mainstream demographic, you can go through your entire life without ever understanding other kinds of people, and not even feel like you’ve missed a thing.
Going back to what I said earlier about how our commitment to social justice must start within, I think if my in-laws were able to acknowledge and anticipate how we may have differences in values and in the the way we communicate and express our feelings, we could have had an easier time understanding one another. I would not place this responsibility solely on them, but like many people of color in this country, I have been watching and imitating white people all of my life, while many white people don’t even know this is going on the whole time.
As our country become increasingly diverse, and as more culturally and ethnically complex families are formed, I ask that each of you think about how conflicts can form from simple misunderstandings, and that those misunderstandings are in fact opportunities to create better understanding. Bridging difference can be hard work, but it’s not impossible.
When someone with a different background as you come into your life, as a colleague, as a friend, as family, there are conversations to be had about what the world is like through their eyes, I think our lives can all be a lot richer when we have more of these conversations, rather than wonder why someone doesn’t behave the way we think they ought to.
Learn more about My Life, My Stories here.
Learn more about Encore.org here. | https://medium.com/@putongwords/a-perspective-on-intergenerational-approach-to-racial-justice-c26a3e2b417d | ['Frankie Huang'] | 2020-12-09 18:14:04.478000+00:00 | ['Intergenerational', 'Racial Justice', 'Asian American', 'Micro Aggression', 'Assimilation'] |
Social Media For Business to Strengthen your Business Root | Social Media For Business to strengthen your business root
Social media networks are incredible assets of all sizes of businesses who are looking to endorse their brands online. The podiums are completely liberated to use, and they have paid advertising due to your business should be on social media, that doesn’t indicate your business should be on all networks. It’s vital that you prefer and cultivate the social platforms that function excellent for your business so that you don’t widen yourself excessively thin.
If you want to craft an unbeaten social approach, you must publicize yourself with how every network works, the types of spectators you can reach and how your business can finest make use of each stage.
Here are few of the most significant tips that can help any entrepreneur looking to spread out their social media existence and their business.
Be Regular
When it considered for your posts, your message and how often you utilize social media, then you should stay uniformity in mind. It is in fact the key to success with any social media movement. Create a plan for what you are going to post and how frequently you continue posting, and just attach with it.
Use entire social networks
If you want to get success with social media, then you must post all over social media networks. This helps business maintaining an account with the entire of the big social media sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
Layout content to optimize for every stage
Retaining accounts all over of the main social media podiums that doesn’t mean posting the similar thing on four diverse sites daily. It means layout the content, particularly destined for every platform. You need to post the photos for Instagram, long posts for LinkedIn, videos and memes for Facebook and small and snappy message to Twitter. All of your posts must be dissimilar, even if they are conveying the alike message.
Use social media to strengthen all of your business and marketing endeavors
You are planning to have business and marketing strategies outside of your social media movement. Eventually, a successful marketing plan is wide-ranging and vigorous. A solid social media plan only affixes to your attempts and build them more thriving. It’s cost-effective, however wholly under-utilized stage that can assist with almost every part of your marketing plan and something that you require to initiate using currently.
We at “Digital Rank” Digital Marketing Agency in Hyderabad. Provide Social Media Marketing (SMO), Social Media Optimization(SMO) Services for your Business Needs. We Promote your Business in All Social Media Networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, Instagram, Youtube . | https://medium.com/@teamdigitalrank/social-media-for-business-to-strengthen-your-business-root-e2e7c6ebcd02 | ['Digitalrank Digital Marketing Solutions'] | 2016-11-15 10:10:02.739000+00:00 | ['Social Media Marketing', 'Digital Marketing Agency'] |
超過截止日期才開始跑流程的法國博士班申請經驗分享 | 因為校方遲遲無法排出面試時間，在九月中我先收到了預先註冊通知，過不久也收到了九月底的面試通知，校方給的面試規則如下：
15 minutes of presentation followed by 15 minutes of questions by all the members of the jury. Given the multidisciplinary composition of the jury, your scientific presentation has to be oriented “consumer”. | https://medium.com/jamie%E7%9A%84%E8%B5%B0%E8%B7%B3%E6%89%8B%E5%B8%B3/%E8%B6%85%E9%81%8E%E6%88%AA%E6%AD%A2%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%9F%E6%89%8D%E9%96%8B%E5%A7%8B%E8%B7%91%E6%B5%81%E7%A8%8B%E7%9A%84%E6%B3%95%E5%9C%8B%E5%8D%9A%E5%A3%AB%E7%8F%AD%E7%94%B3%E8%AB%8B%E7%B6%93%E9%A9%97%E5%88%86%E4%BA%AB-d43dbb208e6b | ['Jamie Lin'] | 2019-10-17 07:16:00.827000+00:00 | ['France', 'PhD', 'Application'] |
“You Have a Place in This Industry”: How Adobe and Treehouse Are Opening Up New Career Opportunities in UX Design | “The creation of a UX Techdegree invites a new and historically oppressed audience into careers in tech. We wanted to send a message: Working in tech isn’t just about writing code. It is important to us to showcase that a technical career doesn’t mean you have to be a developer, but is inclusive of a range of different talents,” said Ryan Carson, CEO and founder of Treehouse.
“If you have an empathetic curiosity and love the products that you interact with all day long, you have a place in this industry.”
TalentPath students, Treehouse, and First Place for Youth teams excitedly enter Adobe’s San Francisco office for the program kick-off event. Image credit: Myleen Hollero Photography.
At an announcement event at Adobe’s San Francisco office, Colleen Showalter, Treehouse’s director of TalentPath, along with several members of the Adobe Design team welcomed six talented young designers. These designers are all enrolled in the UX Techdegree, learning industry-standard skills and tools (like Adobe XD) in the hopes that they can transition to full-time work in UX design, and they will all be considered for internship placements at Adobe. The excitement on their faces, and their devotion to making a difference in this world through design, reflects both where they’ve come from and where they’re heading as they embark on their careers.
From foster care to self-sufficiency in the UX design industry
All of the TalentPath participants are members of First Place for Youth. Based in San Francisco and Oakland, California, the organization helps 18–24-year-olds transition out of the foster care system. The charity places importance on self-sufficiency; while many of these young people have faced adversity and setbacks in their lives, they have worked hard with First Place for Youth to set themselves up for success in adulthood.
Sadly, it often isn’t enough to just work hard to break into tech’s lucrative career paths; Ryan Carson says many of these young people have traditionally been “systematically boxed out of opportunities.” That’s why it’s important for Treehouse, and Adobe, to offer a career pathway to these aspiring designers, however possible. In addition to considering them for apprenticeships within the company, Adobe Design team members will work with the students as mentors throughout their UX Techdegree coursework.
“Diversity means giving opportunity to people with different backgrounds and that includes the socio-economic realm, which people often forget about when discussing diversity,” said Jamie Myrold, Adobe’s vice-president of design, who adds taking part in the program benefits Adobe greatly as well.
Treehouse, First Place for Youth, and Adobe: Coming together to create more opportunities to break into design for those who have faced adversity and challenges in life. Image credit: Myleen Hollero Photography.
“Adobe is committed to diversity. It’s not only the right thing to do, it makes business sense. When you’re developing and designing products that touch hundreds of millions of people every day, having a diverse team helps ensure global impact for your products. I think the apprentices, being mobile and digital natives, will help keep us on the path of delivering products that expand our reach beyond the pro and into the mainstream.”
Treehouse is certain these apprentices will do just that; Ryan says they all come from very unique backgrounds, where they have overcome adversity, and are poised to bring a diverse wealth of personal experience to the projects they’re assigned. In the past, many of Treehouse’s apprentices, assigned to companies through the TalentPath program, have gone on to become full-time employees crafting the products of today and tomorrow.
How the UX Techdegree and TalentPath program reflects the state of modern UX design
As they take part in the UX Techdegree program, the students will learn UX design concepts and skills, like wireframing, prototyping, user research, and more. Over the three-to-six months they take to complete the program, they’ll complete projects that have them applying both hard and soft skills to real-world use cases. At the end of it all, they’ll have a full portfolio of professional-quality projects. “We wanted to provide the education and tools required to learn the skills they need and to create the space for them to thrive,” said Ryan, explaining how Treehouse mentors students throughout their studies and into their apprenticeships through the Talentpath program.
Ian Miller, lead senior experience designer, provides insight on what it’s like to work at Adobe and shares how he found his passion for UX design. Image credit: Myleen Hollero Photography.
For Khoi Vinh, Adobe’s principal designer, the opportunity to play a part in the UX Techdegree’s growth and support its goal of making a well-paying career in UX design accessible to all talented designers is more than just the right thing to do. He says it bodes well for the future of the industry.
“It’s important for where design is going. In order for design as a profession to successfully navigate the massive technological change that we’ll see in the next few decades, we need more diverse voices and teams, different perspectives on how to create the best possible solutions,” he said.
TalentPath students ask a panel of Adobe Design, First Place for Youth, and Treehouse team members questions about what to expect from pursuing a career in tech. Image credit: Myleen Hollero Photography.
“Adobe is uniquely situated to do this because we are creating the tools that the next generation of designers will use to sculpt that future, and so for us it’s both an opportunity and a responsibility.”
More to come from these talented apprentice UX designers
As the TalentPath program progresses, we’ll share some of the students’ stories and their work right here on the Adobe design blog. By showcasing these aspiring designers, the team at Adobe hopes they can contribute to the goals of Treehouse to open up these paths to successful careers in tech, while tapping new talent pipelines for the best new designers from diverse backgrounds.
“We hope that our partnership with Adobe will bring visibility to the UX career path and the UX Techdegree,” said Treehouse’s Ryan Carson.
Nicole Mont and Veda Ogbe say they are thrilled and inspired by the exciting possibilities following their completion of the TalentPath program. Image credit: Myleen Hollero Photography.
“Adobe is the global leader in design. This is our joint first step in a long-term process of building talent and creating opportunities in the design and tech fields for people from all backgrounds. The awareness that is generated by this partnership will lead to more interest and access to historically oppressed groups.” | https://medium.com/thinking-design/you-have-a-place-in-this-industry-how-adobe-and-treehouse-are-opening-up-new-career-17c32ce6db7a | ['Patrick Faller'] | 2019-02-14 00:11:08.760000+00:00 | ['Inclusive Design', 'UX Design', 'Diversity In Tech', 'UX', 'Diversity'] |
Is it Possible to Make Machine Learning Algorithms without Coding? | 5. What tool are we going to use?
Orange is an open-source tool that allows us to perform a wide range of data-manipulation tasks such as data visualization, exploration, preprocessing and modeling creation without the need to use Python, R or any other piece of code. It’s ideal if you’re taking your first steps in this long learning-path.
It’s also suitable for more advanced users as it includes Python widgets to input Python scripts to complement the widgets it has to offer. Go to the following link to proceed with the installation of the program.
1. Open a new file
Initial user interface — Image by Author
2. Drag the File widget to the canvas and browse the dataset in your local server by double clicking in the File widget.
In this case, I’ll be utilizing a dataset containing a sample of 150.000 clients of a financial institution. The column “SeriousDlqin2yrs” will be the target variable upon preparing our model.
You can find the dataset in this link to my GitHub.
Note: Don’t worry about the gray “Apply” button as it’s only used to confirm changes made to the values in each feature, for e.g. after modifying “Role” or “Values” tabs.
File loading interface— Image by Author
3. Visualize default features and distributions of the dataset
Drag the “Feature Statistics” and “Distribution” widgets from the “Data” and “Model” and “Visualize” from the left-side panels. With these tools, you’ll get a better view of the descriptive statistics of each feature in the dataset, such as mean, dispersion, minimum, maximum and missing values.
Feature Statistics Widget — Image by Author
Distributions Widget — Image by Author
4. Select Rows
Filter columns data to avoid incorrect values that interfere in the accuracy of the analysis. We can set conditions for the features such as values below X amount of equal to Y amount.
Select Rows— Image by Author
5. Select Columns
Select important features for your analysis from the original dataset and create a new dataset with only those features utilizing the widget “Select Columns”. This is the widget in which you can determine selected columns and indicate target variable for further analysis.
Select Columns interface— Image by Author
6. Data Sampler
Data Sampler widget is used to split the filtered dataset into train and test subsets. In Orange’s interface we can select a “Sampling Type” to input our desired sampling method. Particularly, I selected 70% of the entire data to be included as “Train sample” leaving the remaining 30% as “Test sample”. As mentioned earlier in the article, data-selection for the subsets is performed randomly and with stratified samples, as Orange’s interface reflects.
Data Sampler interface — Image by Author
7. Imbalanced Dataset Resolution
In order to solve the Imbalanced Dataset problem explained above, I decided to perform the Oversampling technique instead of a SMOTE as I believe that the widget for this feature is not included in Orange.
1 . Select “Default” values, which are the minority class from the training subset, as we want to randomly replicate the observations to balance the dataset. In the visualization, you will see that links or edges between the widgets have legends, in which you must indicate what data you want to pass to the “receiving” widget. In this case, “Select Rows” widget contains a Train subset, from which “Matching data” or “Defaults” will be sent. On the other hand, we find “Unmatched data” , which are “No defaults” from the Train subset, that are directly sent to the “Concatenate ”widget.
An advantage of Oversampling method is that it leads to no information loss in relation to Undersampling. Its disadvantage is that, since it simply adds replicated observations in the original data set, it ends up adding multiple observations of several types, thus leading to overfitting.
2. Data Sample widget randomly replicates a fixed number of observations
3. Concatenate widget joins both new observations with “old” ones, in order to finally obtain a balanced dataset to submit to our model.
Orange Canvas — Image by Author
8. Perform prediction on balanced train dataset with Random Forest
Let’s move on to the fun part: Modeling Random Forest. To perform this task, select the widget “Random Forest” from the “Models” sections and link it to the balanced train dataset.
We will test the “depth ” Hyperparameter in an effort to optimize the model. Hyperparameters are a sort of “setting ” of the model that can be adjusted to enhance performance. In the case of Random Forest, Hyperparameters include:
Number of decision trees in the forest Number of features considered by each tree when splitting a node, also known as “depth” or “growth” of the model.
As it’s shown in the images below, the first model has a 3-tree depth limit and the second has no limit in how “deep” the model will grow in the optimization.
Random Forest with 3-trees depth limit — Image by Author
Random Forest with no depth limit — Image by Author
9. Test & Score widget
This widget is used to evaluate the results of the model based on the training dataset. It will perform cross-validation based on the number of folds defined. These folds are the number of subsets created from the train sample which will run on rounds to evaluate the whole dataset.
The resulting interface is a listing of the utilized models as a comparison of performance with the metrics obtained. In the next step I’ll explain the meaning of each metric.
Test & Score interface — Image by Author
10. Confusion Matrix
To simplify the exercise, I’ll explain using the most effective model from the two we ran. Confusion Matrix is a performance-measurement tool that it’s utilized to evaluate a machine learning model based on predetermined metrics. The output is a table with a combination of values as follows:
Sarang Narkhede, Understanding Confusion Matrix
True Positive results (TP): The model correctly predicted the positive outcome (e.g. It predicted it would “Not Default” and ended not doing so). True Negative results (TN): The model correctly predicted the negative outcome (e.g. It predicted it would “Default” and ended doing so). False Positive results (FP): The model failed to predict the positive outcome (e.g. It predicted it would “Default” and ended not doing so). False Negative results (FN): The model failed to predict the negative outcome (e.g. It predicted it would “Not Default” and ended doing so).
This Matrix is included as a widget in Orange and has the following interface:
Confusion Matrix interface — Image by Author
It is extremely useful for measuring Recall, Precision, F1 Score, Accuracy and AUC-ROC Curve:
Accuracy: Proportion of predictions that the models successfully classified.
Precision: Portion of correctly predicted outcomes among all positive predictions.
Recall: Portion of positive outcomes that the model predicted correctly.
F1 Score: It’s a combination of both precision and recall, also used to measure test’s accuracy.
Conclusion
The motivation of this article was to show how to apply sophisticated Machine Learning algorithms without a single line of code, but I additionally ended up considering it as a theory facilitator that hopefully serves as a motivator for everyone that reads this post.
References | https://towardsdatascience.com/is-it-possible-to-make-machine-learning-algorithms-without-coding-cb1aadf72f5a | ['Julian Herrera'] | 2020-09-25 00:06:30.831000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Random Forest', 'Data Analytics', 'Data Visualization'] |
Learning by doing: My first years as a manager in a tech start-up — Part II: Onboarding | “While organizations recognize the importance of onboarding, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting it right.” (Human Resource Executive)
Following my article on recruiting, with this article, I aim to convince start-up managers to devote sufficient time to designing and executing onboarding procedures. I will share my failures, learnings, and successes in the art of cultivating new team members. The insights I share are a reflection on my first 3 years in a management role at the high-tech start-up NavVis. In the highly dynamic environment of a fast-growing B2B start-up, I built and led a Customer Experience Team of up to 28 people. I hope my insights may help other team leader newbies to circumvent some rocks on the bumpy road of growing and leading a team.
Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash
If recruiting is the bread, onboarding is the butter to successfully build a team. It is a well-spent investment in the future of a functional team. It ensures that a new team member can work independently and productively early on. Nevertheless, the time to set up and execute a successful onboarding procedure is often underestimated by rookie managers. As a newbie, you often spend way more time on getting a new person in (setting up a job ad, reading resumes, interviewing, etc.) than bringing the new hire up to speed. As a result, onboarding procedures turn out to be uncoordinated and not fully thought-through. I recommend rethinking this time distribution. As a manager, you should aim for spending at least as much time on onboarding as on recruiting, both from a strategic as well as from an operational perspective.
As a manager, you should aim for spending at least as much time on onboarding as on recruiting, both from a strategic as well as from an operational perspective.
This advice comes from someone who had profoundly underestimated the effort of onboarding. With my very first hire, I didn’t even think about onboarding until two days before he started. This first onboarding experience was probably as unsatisfying for me as it was for him. What are the objectives for the first weeks? How often do we get together 1:1 to align? Where to find an overview of the running projects? I didn’t have the answers to these questions. I was greatly overwhelmed and at the same time disappointed. We had hired someone to take some workload from me. Instead, these first weeks simply felt like double the work. This experience taught me two important lessons :
1 — Don’t expect from any new joiner — no matter how experienced — to be fully productive in their first weeks. Those first weeks are there to learn and get fully immersed in their new role and environment. As a result, your team’s workload will first increase before it will be reduced. This approach will pay off in the long run. The more thoroughly your new hires understand your business the more likely it is that they will surprise you with own ideas that drive your company success.
2 — How quickly your workload will decrease strongly depends on how effective your onboarding procedures are. From my experience, the most effective onboarding takes place when:
the new hire feels warmly welcomed a clear learning path is laid out for the newbie expectations are explicitly expressed by both sides
Based on these lessons my team and I iteratively built and improved our onboarding procedures over the following three years. It was complex but worthwhile. When I quit my job, my successor told us that he had never been onboarded in such a structured and welcoming manner. It seemed that we had done something right.
Our measures and recommendations on effective onboarding can be summarized as follows: | https://medium.com/@sophiahoefling/learning-by-doing-my-first-3-years-as-a-manager-in-a-tech-start-up-part-ii-onboarding-2be484e2e194 | ['Sophia Höfling'] | 2021-01-31 09:14:11.012000+00:00 | ['Onboarding', 'Startup Lessons', 'Startup', 'Management', 'Leadership'] |
Reinforcement Learning Digest Part 1: Introduction & Finite Markov Decision Process framework | Introduction
Reinforcement learning is an important type of machine learning used in vast range of applications and fields including robotics, genetics, financial applications and recommendation systems to mention a few. In this series of articles, I aim at taking the reader into a journey to learn enough about this topic. The goal is to build knowledge in reinforcement learning starting from basic principles and gradually get to more advanced aspects of reinforcement learning. The articles will have a balance theory and practical demos which can help to practice theory learnt and cement understanding. So let us start the journey…
Definition
Reinforcement learning can be defined as follows:
”Reinforcement learning is an area of machine learning concerned with how software agents ought to take actionsin an environment in order to maximize some notion of cumulative reward.”
- Wikipedia
From this definition, we see that we have a software agent that interacts with an environment by taking actions which results in an immediate reward. it is the goal of the reinforcement learning is for the agent to learn how to maximize cumulative rewards obtained from taking sequence of such actions. One should note that actions with highest immediate rewards will result in optimal overall rewards. Therefore, the goal of reinforcement learning is to learn how to maximize overall rewards.
How reinforcement learning different from other types of machine learning?
Supervised machine learning algorithms receive labeled samples. The label can be class for classification tasks or numeric value for regression tasks. The aim is to learn provide labels for examples they did not see before. The input samples are independent from each other and during training they are sampled with equal probability. For unsupervised learning, the input is unlabeled samples and the aim is identify clusters or association within the sample population.
Reinforcement learning is different from both types of ML in the following ways:
· Input: input to reinforcement learning algorithm is a representation of state of the environment.
· Learning method: learning achieved by receiving numerical signal, reward, for every action taken. Reinforcement learning agents learn from interaction with environment.
· Learning objective: optimal policy to make sequence actions that will maximize cumulative rewards in the long run.
· Active algorithm: given a state the reinforcement agent takes actions that will change the state of the environment; the very same state the agent is trying to learn how interact with.
· State dependency: states are not independent. Probability of ending in a certain states is dependent on previous states.
Reinforcement learning algorithms can be categorized as model based and model-free. In model based algorithms, the agent uses a readily available predictive model for predicting the outcome of actions in specific environment. The models can be used for specific environments and often do not generalize to other environments. The other class of reinforcement learning are model free where the agent does not know much about the environment he is interacting with and learns from trial and error. In this series of articles we will focus on the model free reinforcement learning algorithms.
Reinforcement Learning task types
RL tasks have can be categorized as:
Episodic tasks: interaction between agent and environment, trajectory, can be divided into subsequences, called episode, where every episode has a well defined terminal state.
Continuous tasks: interaction between agent and environment can be divided into subsequence and tend to continue without limit.
Finite Markov Decision Process
Finite Markov Decision Process (MDP)
Finite Markov Decision Process (MDP) provide mathematical framework to formalize representation of reinforcement machine learning. MDP compromises the following components:
• Environment: embodiment of problem agent interacting with through time
• Agent: entity learning actions to maximize overall rewards
• State: representation of environment at specific time step. There is a finite set S of all states.
• Reward: numerical signal agent receives for taking actions
• Action: agent’s decision making. There is a finite set A of all actions.
In this framework, the agent interacts with the environment during time increments or time steps t=0,1,2,… . At each time step t, the agent is presented with the state of the environment. The agent then has to decide on the next action to take. Executing an action on the environment will result in a reward and sate of environment changes to next state in the next time step and the cycle repeats. This interaction leads to a trajectory of S0, A0, R1, S1, A1, R2, S2, … . In MDP framework, probability of state can be determined given current state only:
Similarly, sstate and reward pair have well defined probability the depends only on the state and action in the preceding time step:
This is significant as it means that it is sufficient to have just current state to make determinations on next states without the need to keep track of the full history of state transition leading up to .
This is significant as it means that it is sufficient to have just current state to make determinations on next states without the need to keep track of the full history of state transition leading up to .
As the agent is interacting with the environment, the rewards returned at each time step are accumulated: Gt = Rt+1 + Rt+2 + Rt+3 + …
But expected rewards from future time-steps can be uncertain. For example, the environment can terminate before agent to a certain time step. The further the time step in the future, the higher degree of uncertainty associated with it. This gives the rise for discounting, where future rewards are discounted exponentially. To achieve this, returns at step x, is multiplied by where , discount ratio, is between 0 and 1. Therefore, the expected discounted return can be expressed as follows:
From the last equation, the expected discounted return at step t is expressed as a sum of Rt+1 and discounted expected return of t+1.
Functions of reinforcement learning
Almost all reinforcement learning algorithms involve estimating value and policy functions used to maximize expected cumulative returns.
Policy function
Policy function determines how the agent is going to behave given a any state at any time step. In other words it determines the probability of taking an action for any given state:
Value Function
Value function asses how “good” a given state is for the agent in the long run following policy . The “goodness” of a state is measured in terms of the expected discounted returns:
Q Function
The Q function measures how good taking a certain action in state s and following policy thereafter. Once again the “goodness” of state-action pair is measured in terms expected discounted cumulative returns:
In the next article of this series, I am going to discuss Bellman and Bellman optimality equations, which are fundamental to any RL algorithm, generalized policy iterations and then introduce our first RL algorithm.
Articles in this series:
Reinforcement Learning Digest Part 2: Bellman Equations, Generalized Policy Iteration and Monte Carlo
Reinforcement Learning Digest Part 3: SARSA & Q-learning
Reinforcement Learning Digest Part 4: Deep Q-Network(DQN) and Double Deep Q-Networks(DDQN)
References:
Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, Second Edition by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Bartow http://incompleteideas.net/book/RLbook2020.pdf | https://medium.com/@ahmed-h-elkhouly/journey-in-reinforcement-learning-part1-2104a46bf260 | ['Ahmed El-Khouly'] | 2020-11-23 01:33:50.643000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning'] |
FB AD ANALYSIS STEP BY STEP. KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR! | Facebook
KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR!
Before we dive in,we have to first define the function of FB ads in a funnel and understand that regardless of their object(which is usally sales/leads)
Ads are just 1 out of many elements that have to work together in order to generate a sale/lead.
From this perspective,we look at cold audience ads as the initial contact with (your) brand,and as such — their function is to:
Grab attention relay the message(offer,product etc…) peak the audience interest push the traffic to the landing page
STEP 1:
Is your video ad stopping scrolls?
if it ain’t, that the majority of your reach doesn’t even dedicated the time to view your ad,rendering the rest the funnel
RELEVENT METRICS:
Reach Video Plays Second Video Plays
WHAT IF YOU DONT MEET THESE CRITERIA?
If your ad isn’t stopping scrolls,that points toward the following:
Thumbnail isn’t effective First 3 seconds of the video sucks The offer isn’t relevant to the audience
STEP 2 :
Is your thumbnail effective?
usually, we will test at least 5–10 thumbnails in order to determine this,butif you haven’t conducted an A/B test, here is how you can be more certain that the thumbnails is ineffective
RELEVANT MATRICS:
Reach Video plays 3-second video plays Thumb effectiveness
FORMULA:
3-second video/video plays=Effectiveness%
Anything below 35% is not as optimized as it should be,and it will most likely prove inferior in stopping the scrolls.
THIS DOSEN’T MEAN IT WON’T GENERATE SALES, IT JUST MEANS IT COULD DO BETTER!
THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY! | https://medium.com/@kkamaleshkumar1103/facebook-ads-analysis-step-by-step-cfda54705e0b | ['Kamalesh Kumar'] | 2021-11-30 17:17:10.614000+00:00 | ['Views', 'Adsense', 'Content Marketing', 'Facebook', 'Facebook Marketing'] |
Lily Pads | Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty
Lily Pads #472
gouache paint on Bristol paper
2.5" x 3.5" (6.35 cm x 8.89 cm)
NOT A PRINT OR REPRODUCTION
202112111
© copyright Mike Kraus
To purchase, please visit: https://www.etsy.com/listing/222439508/lily-pads-472-artist-trading-cards-25-x
HEY UPSTATE, NEW YORK! Are shipping delays and empty shelves at big box stores making it impossible to find gifts before the festivities begin? Your local artists have lots of gifts ready for immediate purchase, delivery, and pick-up. We’re here to make sure the holidays are joyful! Join us at: https://www.facebook.com/events/702712117374074/
Having Fun During COVID-19
https://mikekraus.blogspot.com/p/covid-19coronavirus-resources.html
Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree. From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children’s Memorial Foundation. And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative. In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art. Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries. Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.
For more information or custom order, please visit:
Store: MikeKrausArt.etsy.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MikeKrausArt
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/MikeKraus/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikekrausart
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mkraus
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MikeKrausBlog | https://medium.com/@mikekraus-30477/lily-pads-83d9a96b76 | ['Mike Kraus'] | 2021-12-15 13:57:12.572000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Festivals', 'Gifts', 'New York', 'Events'] |
Crowdsourcing the Book Club Connection | Books
Crowdsourcing the Book Club Connection
How one group of Lockdown Authors expanded their reach to readers
Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash
We were falling into despair. Our first sales figures were showing up, and my fellow Lockdown Authors and I kept telling each other the same story: we’d received the best reviews of our careers, yet our 2020 books had reached only a tiny fraction of the readers who’d read our previous books. We were published by major presses and small indies. We were poets and novelists, YA authors, and nonfiction writers. We were getting starred reviews and blurbs to die for. Yet our books were languishing, our Amazon numbers tanking, and the only explanation was COVID. Several of our editors had told us this was the worst year in publishing history. A few of us were on the verge of turning out the lights for good.
But first, I had two thoughts that, combined, might help us all:
1. There’s power in numbers. 2. Book clubs are an author’s best friends.
Photo by Alejandro Barba on Unsplash
The best thing that ever happened to authors was the rise in popularity of book clubs. I’m not just talking about Oprah and Reese Witherspoon’s millions of avid club readers. I’m talking primarily about the small circles of friends who gather every few weeks all over the world to discuss the books they love. Those readers are the life blood of publishing, and we authors revere them. We’d also love to be able to reach out and speak directly with each and every group about our writing. But therein lies the rub.
How can authors find these groups? Most book clubs are private. They self-select their members and the books they choose to read. And some have never considered inviting an author to chat with them — because they never imagined that an author would want to! They may or may not track the latest Reese and Oprah picks. They may or may not pay attention to bestseller or book award lists. They may or may not subscribe to literary journals or magazines and websites that (often as paid promotions) “suggest” titles for book clubs. If they do, they’ll probably end up reading the handful of titles that major publishers have marketed to the moon and back.
But many book groups rely primarily on word-of-mouth to decide what they’ll read each month. And whose word in whose mouth is a personal affair! Unless authors also have a personal connection to a group, there’s no direct way to share the news about their new book or offer to visit the group for a chat. And that’s what gave me the idea. | https://baos.pub/crowdsourcing-the-book-club-connection-ddd809b49774 | ['Aimee Liu'] | 2021-03-09 16:21:35.326000+00:00 | ['Reading Groups', 'Publishing', 'Books And Authors', 'Books Recommendation', 'Book Club'] |
Exploring Machine Learning Algorithms — Simple Linear Regression | Step by Step Linear Regression
A good way to practice linear regression for the first time is to take a dataset having 2 variables, an independent variable and a dependent variable, and test the algorithm.
I will be taking a dataset consisting of 2 columns — “Hours” and “Scores”. The “Hours” depict the number of hours studied by a student for a test and the “Scores” depicts the percentage scored by the student on that test. We can imagine that the more a student studies, the higher scores he/she is likely to get. Of course, there can be other factors that we should be considering, but let's focus on just these two variables for now.
We start off with importing our libraries. This is very important as it helps us perform the various tasks further on.
The pandas library allows us to work with dataframes
The numpy library allows us to work with arrays
matplotlib.pyplot will help us in plotting graphs to visualize our data.
seaborn is a library made on top of matplotlib that also allows us in data visulaization.
2. Now import your data. The data I worked with can be found on this link It was provided to me when I was working on this mini-project as part of a Data Science internship with The Sparks Foundation. I will use pandas to import my data into a dataframe.
3. Explore your data: Before you actually use linear regression to make predictions, you should see if your data actually has a linear relationship or not. We can use many visualization techniques to check this. My favourite is using seaborn’s regplot that not only plots our data, but also shows a regression line. This makes it easy to see if our data is has a linear relationship or not.
We can see an obvious positive linear relationship between the Hours and the Scores. As the Hours are increasing, so are the scores and the increase is linear.
Such a regplot is good if you have less number of independent variables. But it's quite inconvenient to plot this for all variables if you have many of them. In that case, I recommend a Heat Map. Plotting the correlation between each independent variable with the dependent variable using a heatmap gives us information about the whole data in practically just 1 line of code.
The correlation between Hours and Scores is very high, Linear Regression to make predictions seems like a good idea.
4. Making the Model: Now that we know we can use linear regression for this data, we make our model.
Firstly, we store our values for independent and dependent variables in X and Y, respectively.
Now we make use of the sklearn library and using model_selection we import train_test_split. This will allow us to split our data into 2 parts: a training part and a testing part. This is useful as we can train our data on one part and use the other part to test our accuracy. If we were to use all the data for training, we would have no way of knowing if any subsequent predictions made by us are accurate or not.
Now we make the model. From sklearn.linear_model, we import LinearRegression. We then create ‘lm’ which will be used for Linear regression.
We fit and train our data and then store the predictions for the testing data in yhat. The r2_score is a metric that allows us to check the accuracy of our data. Here we can see that our data has a r2 score of about 0.9454, which is a very good accuracy score keeping the kind of data we have. We will explore what r2 score is in the further paragraphs.
If we recall, Linear Regression was about finding a straight line that best fits our data points. Our model does just that. Using the coef_ and intercept_ commands we can access the coefficient of the X values and the intercept for our line.
Let us plot the line using these values of coefficient and intercept to see if it fits our data or not.
Our model has given us a well-fitted line. This line is what is being used for the prediction of our data. For each value of x that we provide, the model calculates the corresponding value of y on this line and that is our predicted value.
Evaluating our Model
We will be using a metric called the R-Squared Value to check the accuracy of our predictions and how well our model works.
The R-Squared value is a statistical measure of how close our data is to the predicted line of best fit. A value close to 1 tells us that our model works well and a value close to 0 means that our dependent variable is not at all dependent on our other variables.
The R-squared value can also be negative. This happens when our prediction is actually worse than just using the mean value. What this means is — using the regression algorithm, our predictions are more inaccurate than just using the mean value for the independent variable.
To calculate the R-squared value, we use the following mathematical formula:
Here, we are calculating the residual error (SSres) as the sum of the squares of the errors for each prediction and the total sum of the squared errors (SStot) as the sum of the squares of the distance between our data points and the mean.
The advantage of splitting our data into training and testing datasets is that now wee can easily compare our predicted values with the already available values of Scores in our test data. We create a datafrane to compare our values:
The predicted values are close to our actual values, we can visualise this using a bar graph where we plot the actual values and the predicted values simultaneously.
We can see from the bar graph that using Linear Regression, the prediction made by us are very close to the actual values! | https://medium.com/swlh/exploring-machine-learning-algorithms-simple-linear-regression-e0a086829106 | ['Eshita Goel'] | 2020-08-27 18:45:49.027000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Linear Regression', 'Data Visualization'] |
Lockdown and Chronic Depression are a Double Jeopardy | The morning after the night before always hurts and I’m not sanguine about my chances of making it to the bathroom without vomiting on myself. Then again, I last had a meal two days ago. This is likely empty nausea, the kind you get after your brain took a beating because depression intensified. I’m teetotal but I still call this a vulnerability hangover, because those three days of despair were brutal.
And they got progressively worse.
I spend too many hours staring at the Dutch suicide prevention website and trying to work up the courage to launch the chat function. Eventually, I realize that if I’m not coherent enough to corral my distress into words in conversation at home or in print, chat will be useless. Besides, there are hardly any trains anymore; lying down on the track isn’t an option. Also, I’ve already eliminated the one pharmaceutical tool I could have used several weeks ago.
I may not have been very rational at the time but I also knew ingesting the whole lot would have been enough to knock me out or worse. I thought it more prudent to remove that possibility immediately before it became more attractive than it already was. To make sure it was gone for good, I took out the trash despite not looking remotely presentable. We have smart card activated trash cans here: Once the container swallows the bag, there’s no retrieving it.
Between 2013 and 2018, this brain kept trying to kill me.
I’ve dedicated the last two years trying to teach it not to do that anymore. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/lockdown-and-chronic-depression-are-a-double-jeopardy-2c2d6cdfba7d | ['A Singular Story'] | 2020-04-17 16:26:03.240000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Mental Health', 'Society', 'Creativity', 'Psychology'] |
To Open This App, You’ll Need To Install Rosetta in your Mac | Afew months back, I purchased a 2013 Mac Pro to be my daily driver while waiting to see what Apple’s plan was for their new ARM computers. I basically picked up the Mac Pro for my computer collection but was surprised that it is still a powerful computer even at 7 years old. On paper, the base M1 Mac Mini with 8 gigs of ram should blow away my 6 core, fully loaded Mac Pro with 128 gigs of ram. To find out if the reviews praising Apple’s ARM chips were accurate, I bought the M1 Mini to set up for Web and game development. My goal was to use only ARM native applications, and as you can imagine, I didn’t get very far.
Just think about this for a second. Humans love alot of things. The way food tastes, the way music sounds, focusing on highly intense movie scenes, driving their cars, playing with their kids, and so on. What allows ANY of it to be possible? The brain.
Here are some of my early thoughts.
What Doesn’t Run Natively
It won’t come as a surprise to find out that almost all of the Apps I use daily, be it for development or productivity, flat out refuse to install on the M1 Mini without Rosetta. Rosetta 2 is the new Intel translation layer Apple created to run legacy Apps during the transition. Perhaps the most shocking failure right away was Apple’s own Xcode. After opening the version currently on the App Store, I was greeted with the following message.
When I hit “not now,” Xcode displayed a blank window, and I couldn’t get rid of it unless I forced quit.
I wasn’t off to a good start. Apparently, someone on Twitter said I should get the Universal build from the developer portal, but I half expected it to work out the gate.
Up next were some of my game development tools. Unity announced early that there would be native support for Apple Silicon, but I couldn’t actually find an M1 build of the IDE. Unity is a bit odd in that it now forces you to install their HUB to download and manage the different IDE versions. Of course, the Unity HUB is not native.
After poking around on Google, I came across a forum post talking about a special build of Unity 2020 that I couldn’t find. The closest I could find to a direct download still asked me to install Rosetta.
Trying to skip installing Rosetta presents you with the following message and forces you out of the installer.
During my initial hours using the M1 Mini, I was stuck manually entering my passwords because 1Password wasn’t native yet on the Appstore. There is a beta build, but you need to install Rosetta to get the installer to work since you can only download the M1 compatible build through a special in-app option.
I usually use a Pomodoro timer, but Workflow Timer wasn’t native yet, which didn’t surprise me since it was created by a sole developer.
Even writing this blog post is a challenge because while I was able to install Grammarly’s Safari plugin from the App Store, it also requires Rosetta to work.
What’s frustrating is that Apple does little to help distinguish which Apps are M1 compatible right now. Instead, I am forced to make a lot of trial and error installs to find it out myself. Also, none of my .NET tools would work. Visual Studio for the Mac needs Rosetta.
Then I found out that none of my .NET tools would work since Visual Studio for the Mac also needs Rosetta.
The latest .NET 5.0 SDK installer, which I’m still not clear on if it actually works on Apple Silicon, refused to install.
Finally, the latest Visual Studio Code build was not compatible, but there was a new beta, which I’ll talk about in a little bit.
These apps and SDKs represent the core collection of tools I use to make games. From Xcode to Unity and even directly coding in .NET are not possible without Rosetta. So let’s take a look at what works.
What Works
While all the apps I couldn’t install natively would paint a bad picture, there were still enough Universal apps to be quasi productive out of the box. While it’s a given that Apple’s own consumer apps work, such as Safari, iMovie, Pages, and Keynote, there are a few others.
Affinity Photo, which I’ve used to replace Photoshop, is native and on the App Store. Even better, it’s a fraction of the cost of a yearly subscription to Adobe’s Photoshop only subscription.
While Google has a Chrome version optimized for Apple Silicon, you can only get it from their beta channel. Honestly, I’ve been sick of how bloated Chrome has become over the years, so I’m using Safari now, which is native and incredibly fast on the M1, as my default browser. No surprise that none of my plugins work yet, so there is no option for Ad blocking or password management in Safari right now.
Bear, which is an excellent markdown note-taking app, works natively from the App Store.
For the past few months, I’ve been using Typora, which is by far the best markdown note-taking app I have ever used. Unfortunately, there is no M1 compatible build, and the Mac version is still in beta.
Much to my surprise, my favorite backup app, Carbon Copy Cloner works natively.
While I use Time Machine as my set it and forget it backup plans, I have some more advanced scripts in Carbon Copy that sync files to my NAS and an online code storage backup in daily, weekly, and monthly intervals. Right now, the only limitation is that you can’t create a bootable backup of a Big Sir computer, which is fine for me because I have never needed to use that feature.
There is work being done on some of the other developer SDKs I use, like NodeJS. It isn’t clear if there is a publicly available native build; it looks like you have to compile it on your own Apple Silicon computer.
I was able to find a working native installer for Visual Studio Code. Without any native SDKs to install, however, there isn’t much I can do with it.
Finally, while Spotify is not native yet, I went back to my MP3 collection a few months ago when I was rebuilding iPods. I’ve been trying to give Apple’s Music App a try, which is native but is the most unstable App on the M1 Mini. It’s locked up or crashed on me several times already, but that’s a story for another time.
Other Issues
While I haven’t really pushed this M1 Mini in the past few days since I set it up, I have seen some issues. I’ve had the Finder lock up on me several times requiring me to force quit it or restart the computer.
I think this may have more to do with the Finder trying to access my NAS than anything else. Along similar lines, I’ve noticed my external thunderbolt drive also hangs the Mini while it wakes up from sleep. There is a delay of a few seconds until I hear the external drive spin up.
The last thing I’ve noticed, which has more to do with my unique set up than the M1 Mini itself, is that I have to disconnect my USB keyboard and reconnect it to wake it up from sleep. My keyboard is connected to a USB switcher since I share it with several other computers at my desk, yet the M1 Mini appears to be the only one with this issue.
Luckily, none of these are deal-breakers since I expect some hardware quirks while Apple fine-tunes the OS and hardware over the new few months.
What’s Next?
While Apple’s new M1 chips have only been available to the public for a few weeks, developers have had 6 months leading up to the release to start preparing. While I expected more prominent companies to be ready for the release, I predicted this will be a painful transition for the next few years while Apple and software developers figure things out.
The good news is that all of the reviews I’ve read so far say Intel apps running under Rosetta are fast. Microsoft wasn’t able to pull off an x86 emulation layer for the ARM version of Windows, so if this is true, Apple will help ease developers into the new chip transition. Now that I have seen what works and what doesn’t, I plan to install Rosetta and test out all my dev tools to see how they work for me. | https://medium.com/@dhamody/to-open-this-app-youll-need-to-install-rosetta-in-your-mac-a88b3b8a7477 | [] | 2020-12-05 09:31:53.933000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Mac', 'Development', 'Rosetta', 'Technology'] |
Virtual Inheritance | Nov. 23. 2015
In this post, after introducing two preliminary concepts, I explain what virtual inheritance is, and how it is implemented, then introduce two applications of virtual inheritance. One involves multiple inheritance, and the other involves implementation of non-inheritability. For each case, one example demonstrating how virtual inheritance works is presented.
Some Preliminaries
Before discussing virtual inheritance, it is necessary to explain two very important concepts in OOP (Object Oriented Programming) concepts, static and dynamic binding.
Roughly speaking, static binding occurs at compile time, and dynamic binding occurs at run time. In C++, the two kinds of polymorphism (see Appendix for Classification of Polymorphism), overloading and overriding are two typical examples of these two concepts. For function overloading, when an overloaded function is called, during compile time, the compiler determines which version is actually called by matching their parameter type patterns. Whereas, for function overriding, C++ implements virtual function call resolution with a vtable data structure [4]. In C++, virtual inheritance is also implemented with vtable. Next, we explain what virtual inheritance is, and how it is implemented.
What is “virtual inheritance”? why we need it?
According to Wikipedia [1], “virtual inheritance is a technique used in C++, where a particular base class in an inheritance hierarchy is declared to share its member data instances with any other inclusions of that same base in further derived classes.”
It is well-known that, different from other OOP languages such as Java and C#, C++ supports multiple inheritance, which is complicated, and its necessity is controversial [2]. Virtual inheritance may be required when multiple inheritance is used. For example, diamond problem, which may cause name ambiguity, needs virtual inheritance to be solved when some member function(s) of the common base class is(are) not pure virtual. Next, we explain how virtual inheritance is implemented in C++.
vtable — How “virtual inheritance” is implemented?
Just similar to function overriding, C++ implement virtual inheritance with a vtable data structure. However, it is necessary to notice that different compilers may implement virtual inheritance with vtable in different ways.
For g++ compiler, both virtual functions and virtual base classes share one single vtable. Every instance of a class with virtual inheritance begins with a virtual pointer to the corresponding class.
For MSVC compiler, virtual functions and virtual base classes are stored in separate vtables, and the table for virtual functions is named as vftbl, and the table for virtual base classes is called vbtbl.
“Diamond Problem” and Virtual Inheritance
“Diamond Problem”
class Employee
{
public:
int e_id;
string e_name;
virtual int eSalary() const;
}; class Manager: public Employee
{
public:
int eSalary() const;
}; class Contractor: public Employee
{
public:
int eSalary() const;
}; class TempManager: public Manager, public Contractor
{
public:
int eSalary() const;
};
Appendix: Classification of Polymorphism
Following Cardelli and Wegner [3], Polymorphism can be classified into two categories and four different kinds:
Ad-hoc Polymorphism (a.k.a non-universal polymorphism): ad-hoc polymorphic functions work on a finite set of different and potentially unrelated types. There are two kinds of ad-hoc polymorphism: overloading and coercion.
Overloading: the same name is used to denote different functions, and the context is used to decide which function is denoted by a particular instance of the name. In C++, overloading occurs in the same class, and at compile time (this is why it is called static binding or early binding). Coercion (a.k.a casting): a coercion is a semantic operation which is needed to convert an argument to the type expected by a function. Coercions can be provided statically, by automatically inserting them between arguments and functions at compile time, or may have to be determined dynamically by run-time tests on the arguments.
Universal Polymorphism: universally polymorphic functions work on an infinite number of types with a given common structure. There are two kinds of universal polymorphism: parametric and subtyping.
Parametric: a polymorphic function has an implicit or explicit type parameter, which determines the type of the argument for each application of that function. This kind of polymorphism lets us to define codes that are generic: they can be instantiated to handle different types, and the functions that exhibit parametric polymorphism are also called generic functions. In C++, this kind of polymorphism is implemented with templates. Subtyping (a.k.a Inclusion Polymorphism, Dynamic Polymorphism or Runtime Polymorphism): an object can be viewed as belonging to many different classes which need not be disjoint, i.e. there may be inclusion of classes. In this polymorphism, elements of a subrange type also belong to superrange types, and this is the well-known Liskov’s Substitution Principle, which says that in any situation in which the left-hand-side of an assignment expects a type T, it can also receive a type S, as long as S is subtype of T. In C++, if we have a class D inherits from another class B, then any function accepting an argument of type B (either variable of type B, or reference or pointer to B) will also accept an argument of type D (variable of type D, or reference or pointer to D).
References
[1]. Wikipedia: Virtual Inheritance
[2]. Marc Gregoire, Nicholas A. Solter & Scott J. Kleper (2011) Professional C++. 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana. </p>
[3]. Cardelli, L. & Wegner, P. (1985) On Understanding Types, Data Abstraction, and Polymorphism. Computing Surveys Vol. 17(4), pp 471–522
Webber, A (2010) Moder Programming Languages: A Practical Introduction. Franklin, Beedle & Associates Inc.
WikiBooks: (2014) Introcution to Programming Languages
[4]. WikiPedia: Virtual Method Table (vtable) | https://medium.com/swlh/virtual-inheritance-d83f7873180e | ['Chuan Zhang'] | 2020-08-27 08:54:20.463000+00:00 | ['Oops Concepts', 'Cpp'] |
The Eternal Quest For Emptiness | One year ago, I began an experiment. I had learned about Human Design some time ago, and this interesting system that feels more like science than any other New-Age-y philosophy quickly became a major obsession.
At some point, I found out that my digestive system, per my shockingly layered body graph, is the most primitive of them all. Dating back to caveman times, when the only food and information humans consumed were those directly in front of them, “Consecutive Appetite” people’s brains only work as they should when they are given one ingredient at a time. Hunters eat their fill when they have it. There is no variety. No cooking — if any, a roast over the fire. Eating everything there is until nothing is left, then waiting until the next thing appears, or is killed through great physical effort.
At first, I was deeply annoyed by this information. I’m a trained chef, for fuck’s sake, and these fuckers were trying to tell me there would be no more cooking for me? No more pasta, no sushi, no pastries and ice cream and all the amazing things I have been obsessed with most of my life?
What a strange way to prescribe eating habits.
So I ignored it. But my thoughts percolated around this new idea.
I caved.
My stomach rejoiced. A new kind of hunger emerged. A joyous yes! from somewhere deep within. Three apples in a row? Mmmm-hm. The entire salad spinner full of lamb’s lettuce? Oh, my. Half a pot of plain, cooked carrots? My goodness, my body craved these foods like nothing else before, and it was satisfied so much sooner every time, so completely, in a way the fullest of stomachs never did.
When I let myself ponder it, memories surfaced: Eating all the peas out of the pasta salad. Then, the corn, afterward the pickles, and at last — finally — only the pasta. One thing at a time. It had always felt weird and unsatisfying to eat these chaotic foods. I didn’t know why, of course. I just didn’t like the “bits”. I abhor ice cream with mix-ins. Everything that has discernible parts, I always thought, would be strangely bettered if its admittedly delicious extras were stripped away, the dish pared down to its most basic form.
Classic three-component dishes were always eaten in order, not at once. When plain lettuce, no dressing, was available and lying on the counter, I would devour it. It was too good.
I remembered gorging myself on buffets. Fearing I would burst. Worrying about my eating habits — at age eight. Why could I never stop?
In this new context, I mused that my body wasn’t getting enough of one-thing-at-a-time, so it was doing the next best thing, intelligently, stupidly, squeezing in so much of everything that perhaps, enough of one may come together in the end. | https://medium.com/fairy-food/the-eternal-quest-for-emptiness-1604fefb0a23 | ['Esther Patrizia'] | 2019-12-16 21:56:45.515000+00:00 | ['Human Design', 'Personal Growth', 'Mental Health', 'Writing', 'Self-awareness'] |
The Right to Vote for Top Officers: UAW’s One-Member-One-Vote | by Jane Slaughter & Chris Viola, UAW Local 22, Detroit DSA Member
UAWD Chair Scott Houldieson, Dianne Feeley, UAWD Recording Secretary Chris Budnick, Judy Wraight, Darius Shannon, UAWD Financial Secretary Eric Truss, Wendy Thompson, Jane Slaughter, Sean Cristofori
When huge scandals came to light in the UAW, with top leaders stealing millions of dollars, what was the remedy? In addition to jail time for union officials and a few management counterparts, the U.S. Department of Justice decided to monitor the union for six years. But a structural solution was needed. The government looked back to the 1980s, when the Teamsters were under investigation by the Feds. The parties arrived at a consent decree that gave Teamster members, for the first time, the right to vote on their top officers. The idea — which was proposed by the Teamsters for a Democratic Union reform movement — was that member control could lead to a cleaner union.
In December, the Justice Department reached a similar consent decree with the UAW, although they stuck in an extra step. This fall, members and retirees will vote, by mail, on whether to have the right to vote for their top officers: one-member-one-vote. If they vote yes, candidates can run for those jobs in 2022.
The UAW has been run by one political group, the Administration Caucus, since the days of Walter Reuther. The Caucus demands loyalty from local officers for whatever policies it puts forward, and that loyalty is the ticket to a coveted job out of the factory, out of the local, and onto the International staff. It is difficult to find a UAW local whose officers are willing to buck the Administration Caucus, which in recent decades has become almost openly pro-management. In 2007, it negotiated the hated two-tier-wage system at the Big Three, which is still in effect today — though moderated because of member revolt.
DSA member Chris Viola works at GM’s Hamtramck plant making electric Hummers. While laid off earlier this year he organized full-time with Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the rank-and-file group that has been pushing for one-member-one-vote since 2019. He talked about the campaign to win this fall’s vote.
How are UAW officers chosen now, and what is wrong with that system?
Right now we have a delegate system in which the membership of each local votes for delegates to the convention every four years. Those people are tasked with voting for things on the convention agenda, including the executive board members that are presented to them. There are really no options given, no real elections happening, no Candidate A vs. Candidate B. It’s just Candidate A. The executive board says, “Here’s who we want to be president or vice president or treasurer. Vote for them.”
Another problem with the delegate system is that not every local sends their delegates to the convention. There doesn’t seem to be much business being done there, so they’d rather save their money.
How is UAWD getting out the word about this fall’s referendum? What is happening here in the Detroit area?
The Detroit area has the largest concentration of UAW locals, and we’ve been flyering at many plants. People are handing out flyers to people walking into or out of work. We’ve been doing that since May, starting at the Ford Rouge plant. We decided to do it on the 86th anniversary of the Battle of the Overpass to commemorate where union organizers got attacked by company guards for flyering. Luckily we were not attacked and it was enjoyable to interact with other UAW members.
We’ve also been engaging people online. We created a website going over our arguments for why the referendum would be good to pass. There are various unofficial Facebook groups made by groups of UAW members. We are getting the word out, because it’s not happening by the locals.
We have a page where people can sign a pledge to vote for one-member-one-vote, and we’re making phone calls to everyone who signs. We ask them if they’ll talk to friends, come to one of our texting events, hand out flyers inside the plant or outside, put out a resolution in their local.
What kind of response do you get from those calls?
Most are willing to at least do something. It’s a matter of getting people to realize nobody else is going to do it for them. Nobody else can organize the people you know like you can. If you gave me the phone numbers of everybody in the UAW, if I could call them all, I wouldn’t be as persuasive as someone they know personally.
How are members reacting to the idea of one-member-one-vote?
It’s new information for a lot of people. It depends on the local. At the Stellantis Mack Avenue plant , it seemed like new info. At other places people may have already been talking about it. It’s good if you have time to actually talk to people one-on-one.
How are UAW officers reacting? We know they want to keep the current delegate system, and that the Federal monitor has said that they are not allowed to use union funds to campaign on one side or the other.
They say the corruption didn’t have to do with the voting system, it happened because people violated their oaths of office. So I say, “Then why are there so many?” If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, why do you think the same system will work this time?
Either they’re comfy with their positions or the positions they’ve been able to get their family members into. And some, even if it’s not self-serving, are afraid of what happens when people are democratically elected. What happens when the people weigh in, finally? There’s a fear there.
They would like to campaign against one-member-one-vote, and it would be on our time, potentially during work hours. They would argue it’s their fiduciary duty to make sure the membership sticks with the delegate system, which in their eyes has been perfect.
Fortunately, I think they have a bit more of a lift than us. One-member-one-vote is a way to hold people to some kind of standard. The people that were in the Administration Caucus, the ones who were guilty of corruption, there’s no checks and balances, they could just do it. They probably felt they deserved it.
What are your chances of winning?
I think that if we didn’t engage people, it’s fairly possible it could go the other way, but when people are made aware of it and having persuasive conversations with their co-workers, it’s pretty easy to get people on board.
What are next steps after winning the referendum? Besides a clean union, what else do you want?
I think we need a level of member engagement that we don’t currently have, and I don’t see how we can get it without direct elections of top leadership positions. If we can’t even be trusted to have a vote on our leadership, which I would say is the bare minimum for civic engagement, how can anyone say that the membership is trusted to educate each other and prepare for strikes?
If we’re getting serious about engaging the membership, we’re also going to need open bargaining. I didn’t even know it was a thing until I got more involved in DSA. Fellow DSAer, Craig Regester, would occasionally invite folks from the Labor Working Group to LEO’s bargaining sessions over Zoom (and one time just outside of the building in which it was happening).
I remember pacing back and forth during the GM strike in 2019, wondering what the hell was the hold-up. We’d get bargaining updates daily that more or less amounted to “It’s still happening.” I did not imagine the possibility of many of the 49,000 UAW GM workers, and others, being able to listen in on a bargaining session. I’m willing to bet something would’ve happened a lot sooner and a lot more in our favor were that to be the case!
I think once the membership started seeing some wins under our belt, we’d start wondering what else we could influence. Right now DSA has been working alongside other unions on passing the PRO Act and a Green New Deal for Public Schools. Imagine adding the UAW to either of those efforts, or initiating something similar.
After we win the right to vote, we’ll have to prepare for the convention next year. We’ll have to be able to put forth a list of candidates and also amendments and other proposals for people to vote on.
Are there things that give you hope for the future of the union?
The fact that people are engaging with this, that UAWD came to fruition, the conversations about the fact that we need full democracy in the union. I think the labor movement in general is on an upswing, coming from very very low, close to bottoming out. You see news every day that people are caring, sharing about things like the Nabisco strike.
What can DSA members do?
Give money to UAWD. We’re up against the big bags of money of the Administration Caucus and the people who work for them.
Talk to friends and neighbors who are in the UAW. Ask what’s important to them. Point them in our direction. Share 1m1v.org with any UAW member you know.
Get involved in your DSA labor working group or attend organizing workshops that help teach you skills that have been dormant for many years.
The author with Ron Lare, Judy Wraight, and UAWD Treasurer Eric Truss
***
Keep your eyes peeled for a Labor Notes Troublemakers School to be held November 20, where those dormant skills will be taught, and also for DSA’s Organizing 101 series, ditto.
The Detroit Socialist is produced and run by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective. Interested in becoming a member of Detroit DSA? Go to dsausa.org/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: [email protected] in order to get plugged in to our activities! Detroit DSA’s Labor Working Group meets the 1st and 3rd on Tuesdays at 5PM. | https://medium.com/dsa-detroit-newspaper/the-right-to-vote-for-top-officers-uaws-one-member-one-vote-9e7ba686dc7f | ['Detroit Democratic Socialists Of America'] | 2021-09-05 17:12:58.593000+00:00 | ['Unions', 'Detroit', 'Uaw', 'Labor', 'Socialism'] |
Learn to say NO to almost every vulnerability (intro to vPrioritizer) | As reflected, on a daily basis, approximately 50 new vulnerabilities become known to industry and even if an organization considers the impact rate of 10%, it’s still very challenging to manage it effectively. So we have a huge number of vulnerabilities to assess and remediate and it’s safe to assume that count is going to increase furthermore. So with this amount organization is focusing (or should focus) on reducing the risk rather than eliminating it.
In today’s time, vulnerability management is (almost) equal to risk prioritisation because
Resources (skillset and time) is limited in every organisation Environment is changing too fast and too frequently (there is no point of doing analysis and remediation of a vulnerability if affected asset is not going to be active for a longer time — small attack surface) Attack surface is increasing exponentially (which again comes down to prioritisation) Remember the 80/20 rule — 20% of vulnerabilities bring 80% of risk
So what is risk? How do we calculate it? What are the factors contributing to risk?
CVSS (historically used) — No
Asset Criticality — No
Asset Accessibility — No
Exploit Availability — No
Ease of Exploitation — No
Threat/Attack Surface (am I target now) — No
All of the Above — Yes
This list is not exhaustive, consider it as living list, which I will keep updating.
Theoretically, the above approach looks appropriate to adopt but it’s not practically possible to do it manually for every vulnerability affecting every asset by every organisation.
To overcome the above challenges I have developed an open-source framework — vPrioritizer, with primary objectives as below:
Centralized — must serve as single-pane-of-glass for vulnerability management Automated — any and every task which can be automated, must be automated Community Analytics — utilization of community analytics to mature the prioritization algorithm over the period of time
vPrioritizer (demo) gives us ability to assess the risk on different layers such as (and hence comprehensive control on granularity of each of risk as described above in risk calculation section):
We can assign significance on per asset basis
We can assess severity on per vulnerability basis
At the same time, we can adjust both factors at asset & vulnerability relationship level
On top of that, community analytics provides insights as suggested risk
Conclusion
vPrioritizer enables us to understand the contextualized risk pertaining to each asset by each vulnerability across organization. It’s community based analytics provides a suggested risk for each vulnerability identified by vulnerability scanners and further strengthens risk prioritization process. So at any point of time teams can make an effective and more informed decision, based on unified and standardize data, about what (vulnerability/ties) they should remediate (or can afford not to) on which (asset/s).
Takeaways
1. Risk is a variable, function of multiple parameters
2. Prioritize correctly — Fix first, what matters most
3. Share with community — that’s the only way to scale
4. Fix fast, test fast, fail fast, adjust fast | https://medium.com/@rana.miet/learn-to-say-no-to-almost-every-vulnerability-intro-to-vprioritizer-9b2aa15369a1 | ['Pramod Rana', 'Iamvarchashva'] | 2020-09-03 09:34:50.688000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability Management', 'Information Security', 'Risk Management', 'Infosec', 'Open Source'] |
How To Set Current Time As A Password | Published On: https://pakinform92.blogspot.com/
Article Link: https://pakinform92.blogspot.com/2020/12/set-current-time-as-password.html
Asslam Ao Alikum
In today’s article, I will tell you about an app that allows you to keep your mobile time as a password.
Guys, many of us have set our mobile password, but sometimes we forget our mobile password so there is nothing to worry about. Today I will tell you about an app that allows you to use the current time of your mobile as a password. And whenever the time changes, your password will also change, so you will not be able to forget the password and no one will be able to open your mobile.
1- Download Screen Lock — Time Password
First, You Have To Download This App. There is a very easy way to download. You can either download it from the Play Store or you can download it from the download button below.
For Download Visit: https://pak92inform.blogspot.com/2020/12/set-time-as-a-password.html
2- Open The App
After downloading, you have to open it. When you open the app, you will see an interface like the image above.
3- Change Security Type:
When you open this app, you will see a lot of options. In all these options, you will see an option. “ Change Security Type “. If you click on it, you will see a list of some options. Then click on the “ Current Time “ option.
4- Select Recovery Passcode
When you click on the “ Current Time option “ , a page will open in front of you. In this page it will ask you for “ Recovery Passcode “. So you have to enter “ Recovery Passcode “.
5- Save And Done!!!!
After giving “ Recovery Passcode “, you have to click on “ Save “ button. As soon as you click on the “ Save “ button, your work will be finished and whatever your mobile time is, it will be your password.
Jazakallah!😊
Thank You!😊
For More Details You Can Visit: https://pak92inform.blogspot.com/2020/12/set-time-as-a-password.html | https://medium.com/@pkinform/how-to-set-current-time-as-a-password-cd542685c569 | [] | 2021-01-01 04:21:13.821000+00:00 | ['Passwords', 'Android Tips', 'One Time Password', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Android'] |
The importance of being self-sufficient as a musician | After many interviews for my podcast, members of the audience have asked me several times to question guests about the path towards “professionalisation”, although such a term can be questionable in such a poorly-regulated sector. The reality is that there is no one path, but rather there are people who have reached a point that they can live off music, solely by playing or working in the industry (teaching, music shops, etc.) or any hybrid between those two things. And yet, because of the real nature of music, nothing is forever, and you can as easily get to the top as you can drop to the bottom, and many times without seeing it coming, as is the case now. While it’s true that everyone carves their own path and it’s hard to extrapolate to the specific experiences of our favourite musician, I have seen common elements that I think may be helpful to all of us. And one of them is to be self-sufficient as a musician and a human being. For me, it’s an element of the so-called “professionalisation” process that I am often asked about. Part of wanting to get serious about music no one needing to be on top of you.
First of all, I want to explain what I understand by being self-sufficient. For me, it’s the quality of feeling safe and satisfied with yourself, a deeply ingrained feeling of internal integrity and stability. That is, to be at peace with yourself and to know that you are capable of overcoming the problems that present to you. Related to self-esteem, and linked to a strong self-awareness.
As an instrumentalist, self-sufficiency at least implies for me a collection of skills that go beyond knowing different styles and working on coordination and independence, although I am not saying those are not essential. When it comes to work, when work means playing on stage or in the studio in exchange for financial compensation, some of the aspects that play a major part are knowing the style you are playing thoroughly to make the appropriate musical decisions, being technically proficient on your instrument, having a superior command of your gear and owning what is necessary to carry out the work you are going to do, and possessing the technical knowledge of the environment in which you work to be able to communicate with who you work with, as well as a passion and genuine curiosity about art as a whole. In short: repertoire, equipment ready, and the necessary musical preparation. To learn many of these things, of course, you need hours of dedicated study, but also to share musical moments with other people, even if the style is not your favorite, the bassist is not particularly your best friend or there is no financial reward, as Toni Mateos, seasoned session musician from Spain who has played in stages worldwide and tracks for producers and artists across the globe, mentioned to me in an interview:
“For those who want to become professional drummers one day, my recommendation is to diversify. If you want to be a session drummer, that’s perfect, but try to play with different artists, tours, clubs, recording … also learn and study something else to have a plan B. In a world as uncertain as it is today, you need options.”
As for the characteristics of any professional musician, we drag the concepts discussed in the previous paragraph and apply them to a larger context. When I started working, it became clear to me that I needed more tools in my arsenal than just to be prepared as a drummer. The ability to be mobile and be able to be where you are asked to is always a plus. In many cases, especially as a session musician, you are first asked not to create problems and not to be someone who detracts from the group but adds, because, as it is often mentioned in my podcast, you are hired for the travel and time away from home, to play for many is the reward or to rest after what I just mentioned. This is why, in my opinion, one has to remain flexible, and has to learn to navigate change, as different and unexpected situations arise constantly in the life of a musician. Additionally, of course you have to be punctual and knowing how to communicate with others, which I believe is a strongly underrated trait to have.
As someone who strives to be completely self-sufficient, you need to consider two areas that are always present outside of music, whether we like it or not: finances and emotions. For the firstly-mentioned, I will be brief since I understand that it can be tiring to talk about money. Basically you have to consider tax regulations and keep some money aside for darker days, sometimes by keeping our ego and pride aside and working non-music jobs if we have to. When it comes to emotions, I’ll leave a fragment from an interview with Pablo Díez, a proficient producer and drummer:
“I think it is very important to start by accepting who you are in the instrument, to say “look, I’m play how I play and that’s enough, I’m going to play a show in five minutes, I can’t get overwhelmed because I have not studied something very complicated and specific for enough hours this week, because there is nothing I can do right now, I can only be calm because I am going to do well tonight”. It took me a long time to get into that mindset, and I can’t just change anyone’s thinking right now, but it (the work on the emotional side of music) is a job that each of us must do.”
Being at peace with yourself seems essential to our work as a musician. As artists, our work relies, to a greater or lesser extent, on the ability to convey a certain emotion through our medium, in this case, music. I note that if there is no certain peace and control over our emotions, it is not impossible, but I think it is very difficult to accurately express a message. My worst days on the drums are almost always linked to periods of, let’s say, emotional bump for one reason or another. In the same way that we need to worry about being in shape, having an optimal attitude, and understanding rest as a restorative tool, it is mandatory to take care of what is happening in our mind. It can be very difficult to be focused on what you need to be when there are problems creating noise inside your head, which causes mental clarity to be particularly absent. I do not mean that we should ignore our problems, regardless of their size, but rather the opposite. We shall rely on professionals as well as proven mental health strategies (exercise, meditation, socializing, socializing …) to simply ‘be better’ with ourselves.
Nonetheless, the risk of being too self-sufficient is also there. Pulling the blinds down, trying to control everything, being so perfectionists that we reject everything we do not do on our own… These are sins that many of us have committed, but it is very important to know that it is impossible to conceive our work without collaboration and teamwork, elements implied in the nature of being a musician. No one gets anywhere by themselves. Being a musician depends on you. Whether many people listen to you depends on many factors and not all depend on you. Trying to control everything would be extremely exhausting.
Lastly, self-sufficiency is an aspect that we need to know about and work on in the short, medium and long term. According to people who are self-sufficient, they have the ability and desire to determine their own path, to make their own decisions before others decide for them. They trust their own instincts and are willing to go their own way, even if it is opposed to someone else’s view. According to this definition, the recommendation is to pay close attention to the details that make us autonomous and independent in our work, and those in which we are dependent on others. If we need help or external collaboration, fully embrace it, but always be aware of adding something to the equation, be that musically or professionally. | https://medium.com/@carloscoronadodr/the-importance-of-being-self-sufficient-as-a-musician-6477ccbd72a4 | ['Carlos Coronado'] | 2020-12-17 18:33:35.210000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Musician', 'Drummers', 'Self Sufficiency'] |
Update from AiFinTek | The team has spend a lot of time on the AI platform integration in the last few weeks. We have a new project for Game development that has been draining our resources. Another firm has asked us to look at Coin integration in their platform. We have also placed some resources into mining and developing mining pools.
And yes, We are also working with an exchange to list our AFTK coin.
In summary, we have been very very busy.
On the Airdrop. We used our AI platform to delete multiple forms, multiple addresses, and multiple scams. In the end we were able to shorten the list of Airdrop members to about 11,400 unique members.
Out of this 11,400 members, about 2,100 have already received their AFTK coins. All remaining members will be receiving their coins. Stay tuned.
Several Apps were used in our testing for Airdrop. We generally found Ethereum to be somewhat dependable but 99.999% quality was missing. Working around various limitation of Ethereum, it has become quite clear to us that better platforms will evolve. Or Ethereum would need to get better by a considerable level.
We have been slightly offtrack with our Airdrop and ICO time line. But at the same time we have invested in our business development and to place the company on a stable path to growth and we are close to a critical project milestone.
As you receive your AFTK tokens — I would just advise — hold them and don’t go sell them for pennies.
A guy sold 10,000 bitcoin back in 2009 to buy two pizzas. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2013/12/23/the-bitcoin-pizza-purchase-thats-worth-7-million-today/#647d06862509.
Hold the AFTK — these are not going to be minted any more. Only 25 million were issued to fund our company AiFinTek. At the right time, we will decide if and how we can allocate some of the shares of the AiFinTek firm to the AFTK token holders.
Welcome Aboard. | https://medium.com/aifintek/update-from-aifintek-22f0bbee3476 | ['Oscar Wilde'] | 2018-06-09 05:15:10.875000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'AI', 'Fintech'] |
The Visible Spectrum | The Visible Spectrum
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
You are the sun,
Radiant, a
Yellowness unmatched
Pouring through the breaks
In everything, the
Greenness of the
Trees reaches
For you as for
Home, your warmth
A distant mountain
Peak, your laugh
Reflections
Dancing on the
Lake
I am a blacklight,
I shine darker
Than a whisper,
Everything I touch
Distorted, sick
With half truths
That shrivel in the
Daylight
And as we lie together in the
Whiteness of your
Sheets you see
Beams of brilliant
Crystal promise,
I see the
Glow of blood stains
On our
Skin | https://medium.com/genius-in-a-bottle/the-visible-spectrum-c6582ef14b06 | ['Bradon Matthews'] | 2020-12-20 20:27:47.843000+00:00 | ['Reflections', 'Romance', 'Poetry', 'Free Verse', 'Poem'] |
ON NEW INSIGHTS FROM SEARCH TERMS | 22 November 2021|Insight, Search, Search trends, Share of Search
We have just released a major upgrade to the Similar Terms module in Share-Of-Searching, using new methodology to deliver terrific insights into related Google search trends that are associated with a search term (for example a brand name) in any country. The similar terms are automatically retrieved from Google.
Users can now input a brand name (or other search term) and select a country and date period (back to 2004) to discover search trends for associated search terms — the interests, intent, and questions that people make related to a brand (or other term). This reveals interesting, often unexpected, insights into search terms that are directly related to a brand. The new ‘narrow search’ option filters to similar terms that include the input search term, while the ‘wide search’ option extends to a broader set of associated search terms. Both result in fascinating charts of search trends around brands and any other search term.
Here is an example, in this case for ‘Tesla’ in the UK. The chart below, based on a ‘narrow search’ shows the trends in relative search volumes for search terms that are closely related to Tesla:
The chart shows rapid growth in search interest for many Tesla terms in the UK since 2015, with peaks in searching when new models are released. It also shows that since February 2020 the greatest interest has been in ‘Tesla price’, ‘Tesla share’, ‘Tesla share price’, and ‘Tesla stock’ — all trending highest during the pandemic. This compares with relatively low interest in these terms pre-2020. Since the UK removed Covid restrictions in July this year there has been a large increase in Tesla-related searching.
Using the ‘wide search’ option extends the data to a broader set of search terms that are related to ‘Tesla’ as shown in this chart:
The chart shows the dramatic growth in interest in ‘Tesla’, close to a tenfold increase over the last seven years. There has also been a big rise in searching for ‘electric car’. Although there was a drop in car interest generally in March 2020 when UK Covid restrictions were introduced, levels of interest returned to pre-pandemic levels by the summer.
While the Similar Terms module is great for exploring search trends for terms related to any brand, it also reveals related terms, and the trends for those terms, for any search term — for example, take a look at celebrities, events, politicians, topics, influencers, brand purpose, travel destinations, companies… you name it.
Share-Of-Searching generates charts of Google search trends, comparing up to 40 search terms at a time by country, region, or metro area, and within category or sub-category, for any period from today back to 2004. Trends in search volumes and % share of search can be seen by day, week, or month. The ‘Similar Terms’ module shows trends for related search terms that are associated with a search term. The data can be exported to Excel and the charts to PowerPoint.
Use Share-Of-Searching free for two weeks by creating your own account for instant access without any obligation here — https://www.shareofsearching.com
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
By Frank Harrison, Croft Analytics | https://medium.com/scientific-advertising/on-new-insights-from-search-terms-5e44fa51b4da | ['Frank Harrison'] | 2021-11-22 11:20:37.705000+00:00 | ['Search Trends', 'Marketing', 'Brands', 'Share Of Search', 'Search'] |
What’s it like to be a BioTech Scientist in the Silicon Valley? | Nelda Vazquez, Senior Scientist at OmniVis
Please tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Nelda Vázquez-Portalatín and I am a Senior Scientist at OmniVis. I grew up knowing that I wanted to study something that connected science to people and thought that meant going to Med school. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I decided I wanted to go into the biotech industry to help develop tools to improve people’s lives and pursued a BS in Industrial Biotechnology. While in college, I realized that I wanted to gain more experience and skills to make me a well-rounded professional which led me to pursue a graduate degree in Biomedical Engineering and my current position.
How did you first hear about OmniVis and why did you want to join the team?
I heard about OmniVis while I was in grad school. At that time, Dr. Katherine Clayton was developing the technology behind the start-up and I thought it was an interesting and innovative technique to detect pathogens. I wanted to join the team because I believe in the end goal and mission of the company. I believe everyone should have access to healthcare and I want to help different communities around the world so they can receive proper and rapid diagnostic tools and treatments.
What does your day-to-day look like? What are your key responsibilities for OmniVis?
My day-to-day varies depending on the project I’m working on, but it mostly consists of running experiments in the lab and participating in meetings with the team and outside companies and vendors. My key responsibilities are to develop and improve the assays responsible for the pathogen detection and to help integrate the assays into the detection device.
What is your favorite thing about working at OmniVis and what do you think makes OmniVis special from other biotech startups?
I really enjoy working at OmniVis, but one of my favorite things has to be the camaraderie. Everyone on the team is doing their best to move our products forward so we can grow as a company. OmniVis is not only different from other biotech startups because of the great team we have, but because of our mission to provide communities around the world, particularly in developing countries, with the knowledge to protect their own health.
What are your thoughts on OmniVis’s Team Culture?
I love the team culture at OmniVis. As soon as I started my new position, I felt as if I had been part of the team for months if not longer. Everyone was very welcoming, and I never felt out of place. I also appreciate that we can have discussions with people from other teams and all perspectives and opinions are welcome.
What has been your favorite project you have been working on and why?
When you work at a biotech startup you have to be flexible and able to take on many projects and wear many hats. I’ve worked on several projects that range from research to regulatory to administrative, but I would have to say that my favorite project so far has been developing an assay for SARS-CoV-2 detection. The current pandemic has had a big impact on how people live and has highlighted the importance of rapid and accessible diagnostic tools. Our SARS-CoV-2 assay and detection platform is a rapid, portable, and cost-effective alternative to current tests available in the market.
Is there anything unexpected you’ve learned while working in the Biotech industry?
I think something I didn’t expect or wasn’t used to is how fast things move and change. The biotech industry is a fast-paced environment and you have to keep up or you will be left behind.
What would you recommend for anyone who would be interested in a similar career or industry?
I would recommend participating in internships, summer programs, volunteer positions, informational interviews, or any other opportunity that will give you a glimpse of a particular career or position of interest and what it means to take on that role.
Is there anything else you would like the readers to know?
One piece of advice I have for readers is to be confident in yourself and believe that you can achieve your goals. If you don’t believe in yourself, people won’t believe in you either.
Fun Fact About Yourself!
I grew up in a small coastal town in Puerto Rico and love being in the water. I also love reading, learning, traveling, and listening to true crime podcasts!
Want to learn more about OmniVis? Visit us: https://www.omnivistech.com/ | https://medium.com/@omnivistech/whats-it-like-to-be-a-biotech-scientist-in-the-silicon-valley-64815b6bdce0 | [] | 2020-12-11 17:40:03.392000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Biotechnology', 'Silicon Valley', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Global Health'] |
[Insight] PlusToken, China’s Biggest Scam Project, Finally Comes to An End | “Defendant Chen Bo will be sentenced to 11 years in prison with a fine of CNY 6 million.”
“The Rest of the 14 defendants will be sentenced to at least 4 years and 10 months in prison with a fine at least CNY 600 thousand.”
At the second trial held on November 19, the court made their judgment for the principal offenders of Project PlusToken, the biggest pyramid scheme in China’s history. The court passed the judgment that had been made at the first trial held in September, so the dependents are about to receive heavy penalties. Thus the PlusToken affair, which inflicted damage more than KRW 4 trillion not only in China, but in entire world, comes to a conclusion.
PlusToken, An Unparalleled Pyramid Scheme Happened In China
As a cryptocurrency wallet project, PlusToken used not only their storage system, but also by investing cryptocurrencies to global exchanges through bots to expand their business. If users store their cryptocurrencies in PlusToken wallet, bots will make some benefits through a contract for difference and compensate the users with PlusToken. PlusToken have gathered users by guaranteeing 9~18% monthly benefits. The investment gathered through this were 310 thousand Bitcoin, 9.17 million Ethereum, 51 million EOS, etc., which worth around USD 3.9 billion. However, the problem was that the bot running the business was not making actual benefits through contracts for difference, but by paying monies deposited by new users to the existing investors. In other words, it was a very typical pyramid scheme.
Such scams will rot and fester, causing a disastrous situation eventually. And last June, PlusToken suddenly ceased the withdrawal by all users. The administrators used all of their excuses, claiming that the withdrawal will begin soon. However, the closed accounts are never to be opened again, and users have suffered heavy losses. But the key executives of PlusToken can be seen from nowhere.
The users started to protest to get their money back, and the Chinese police in the city of Yancheng launched a full-scale investigation of the case. As a result, they have arrested 27 key individuals who have escaped abroad in last July, and other 82 participants in this March, sweeping out all the suspects.
Chinese Authorities Have Seized and Confiscated the Money
According to the local media, the Chinese police have seized all the cryptocurrencies they possessed. The exact amount was 190 thousand Bitcoin, 830 thousand Ethereum, and 27.24 million EOS, etc. That means they have seized about half the amount PlusToken has gathered. It is said that the defendants have reduced their punishment by requesting a change of cryptocurrencies into cash to the cryptocurrency tech firm located in Beijing. The sentencing says that the seized monies will be confiscated to their national treasury. In fact, Jian Zhuoer, CEO of a cryptocurrency mining pool platform BTC.TOP, presumed on his Weibo that, “Most of Bitcoins seized during the period from the end of last year to the middle of the year seemed to be sold at the price range between USD 7,000 to USD 12,000.”If so, that means a considerable amount of money had already been confiscated. The local media also added that the authority is still tracking down the amount that has not been seized yet.
“Fortunately There Will Be No Consequences to the Market”
The flow of the money related to PlusToken is an issue that the cryptocurrency business is monitoring closely. Since the amount is quite large, it will cause heavy consequences to the market if they are about to be released at once. But fortunately, the amount that has been confiscated by the Chinese authority will not cause any significant impact to the market. That is because they have been sold in a large volume before the recent strong gains. That is to say a great relief for the market.
But the problem is the compensation for the victims. Unfortunately, since the money has been confiscated, there will be little possibility for the victims to receive any indemnity. According to the local law, the confiscated money will belong to the local finances. Though if the local government will use the money for relieving victims is uncertain.
However, since the pyramid scheme blurs the definition between the assailant and victim, the local industry forecasts that even if there will be some compensation, it will be only around 20% of the entire amount. Even if the government is willing to pay for the compensation, there is no technical basis to investigate all the damage the 2 million individuals have suffered, so the possibility of proper compensation is very scarce. Furthermore, since the Chinese government is retaining critical opinion towards the cryptocurrencies, it is unclear whether they will come forward for relieving victims willingly and actively. In the meantime, the Chinese government has emphasized that all investors should take responsibility by themselves for individual investment decisions.
In summary, the recent PlusToken affair leaves much to be desired in many ways. Of course, it is fortunate that the main culprits have all been arrested and brought to justice, but considering the victims left behind, it still remains in question whether the Chinese government’s decision to confiscate all the funds for their national treasury was wise or not. It comes to mind it would be good to have a standard for international cooperation or international compensation related to these kinds of a global-scale pyramid scheme. But for now, we can only hope that scams such as PlusToken never happen again. | https://medium.com/bithumb-official-blog/insight-plustoken-chinas-biggest-scam-project-finally-comes-to-an-end-869c54f09204 | [] | 2020-12-08 00:49:28.748000+00:00 | ['Scam', 'Bithumb', 'Project', 'Insight', 'China'] |
How Crypto Thieves Affect the Financial Security Crypto Should Avail | How Crypto Thieves Affect the Financial Security Crypto Should Avail
Originally published at https://ckogan.com
Crypto assets have slowly assumed the reputation of being the next poster boy for the financial industry. However, throughout its long and tedious ascent to global reckoning, cryptocurrency still continues to beg the question of whether its eventual adoption is near anytime soon. I can’t help but notice issues that have continued to question its heralded status as a viable alternative to conventional financial systems.
So, where has digital currency security failed and how has it affected the community as a whole?
Crypto’s Once-Heralded Invulnerability
At its first go at global prominence, crypto enthusiasts would argue that crypto was the ultimate alternative to fiat. More so, security was naturally one of the major talking points used to back up this argument, as it is a technology that claims to enable immutability and topnotch encryption. In a way, this argument is valid considering how crypto has found a way around the drawbacks of decentralization (a feature that detaches the network from bureaucratic control).
To ensure that decentralization would not give individuals the license to spend a coin multiple times, developers have made consensus-based verification, core functionality of its underlying technology. Also, the immutable nature of the Blockchain establishes transparency that often evades traditional financial institutions. Similarly, state-of-the-art cryptography offers encryption; therefore, only holders of sets of keys can access digital assets.
To simply put, these security measures make it almost impossible to hack a distributed network.
Why Does Security Continue to Plague the Viability of Digital Currency?
It all boils down to a series of flaws attributable to human error. From the known and documented cases of cryptocurrency theft, such as recent Binance hack or The DAO, Mt. Gox, Bitfinex hack, etc. These human factors are security loopholes. Needless to say, human inputs to the development and maintenance of blockchain networks are some of the flaws enabling this security wrath.
Also, remember that crypto owners have the responsibility of keeping their private keys safe. Consequently, our inability to keep these keys away from prying eyes is a major stumbling block.
It wasn’t until the explosion of cryptocurrency to the mainstream in 2017, that analysts began to record a disturbing increase in crypto crimes which isn’t decreasing in 2019. The exponential increase of crypto crime suggests that the last bull run also ushered in fraudsters and hackers en masse into the digital asset space.
Staggering Statistics
According to a June 2018 report by Carbon Black, in the first half of 2018, $1.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was lost to various crypto theft schemes. More importantly, crypto exchange hacks contributed to a large chunk of this figure. In January 2019, CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Intelligence noted that crypto thieves had carted away with a total of $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2018.
In the aftermath of CipherTrace’s another report by Chainalysis went on with crypto theft activities in 2018. According to the report, two entities, dubbed, “Alpha” and “Beta,” were responsible for many of these hacks, in what they describe as talented teams of computer scientists backed by organized crime syndicates. Consequently, it was becoming more clear that the average crypto owner stood very little chance against the evolving scope of the crypto crime world.
Shifting to the first quarter of 2019, reports show that the value of stolen crypto in this timeframe had already hit $1.2 billion. This alarming revelation could suggest that s nefarious entities have stolen 70% of the total amount lost last year. Interestingly enough, unlike the high-profile crypto exchange hacks that made up the bulk of last year’s figure, crypto thieves are finding new ways in our digital age to steal crypto.
How Does Security Vulnerability Translate to Adoption?
Ordinarily, cryptocurrency is meant to afford users financial independence from centralized entities that charge ridiculous fees for transferring or storing money. In this new system, everyone has a say in the operation of the network. Decentralization is the buzzword as crypto gradually emerged as a disruptive force.
Nevertheless, it is known that crypto’s ascendance up the echelon of mainstream acceptance stalled in 2018 as the prices slumped. It’s possible for one to assume that security issues had contributed to this situation, which is not far-fetched. The crypto was unable to escape the unrelenting battering, dished out by popular media platforms with security featuring prominently as a yardstick to determine its viability. Fortunately, the revamp of the market in 2019 is slowly sidelining this sentiment, as institutions are finding more reasons to have faith in the viability of cryptocurrency.
In 2018, however, this narrative played a pivotal role in how much enterprises were willing to risk in their quest to explore crypto. These powerhouses did not show the sort of commitment I expect from innovation-driven enterprises. Moreover, the validity of this argument lies in the fact that similar disruptive technologies, such as the internet of things, or IoT and artificial intelligence (“A.I.”), commanded more funds, bloated initiatives, and unmatched manpower.
Take Goldman Sachs for example. Its contemplative interest in the market was a major talking point last year, which never came to fruition.
Instead of massively banning cryptocurrencies, the majority of the regulators actually provided a clear framework on digital assets/virtual currencies. Some regions, however, decided to completely ban crypto, while others are setting up restrictions that are stifling its growth. To be fair there are other reasons for such bans, one simple summary can be described as a fear of losing control.
Another challenge this situation poses is determining who or what gets blamed for security breaches. Just as Michael Terpin, who lost his crypto holdings to SIM swapping, had won his lawsuit against AT&T for sending security codes to malefactors, there are countless victims out there searching for answers. In addition, not all crypto exchanges have an insurance fund lying around to pay affected users after a crypto hack as Binance did. In most cases, a lost private key means that the digital asset assigned to it is lost forever.
What You Should Be Thinking About
Crypto assets should avail of financial security. Nonetheless, these vulnerabilities are slowly chipping off its security integrity. The question remains as to whether industry players are making the right conclusion from these events and investing more funds and efforts to secure the cybersecurity aspect of the business.
Let us not forget that crypto is still an emerging technology, and there is still time to work out solutions that would eliminate these threats. A lot of great minds are tirelessly working on building the infrastructure of the future. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-crypto-thieves-affect-the-financial-security-crypto-should-avail-f58d53f9b148 | ['Constantin Kogan'] | 2020-04-09 03:12:24.138000+00:00 | ['Digital Asset', 'Crytocurrency', 'Hacking', 'Cryptoasset', 'Cybersecurity'] |
Six Things ‘I May Destroy You’ Artfully Teaches About Survivors of Sexual Assault | Michaela Coel’s HBO series demonstrates realistic and relatable portrayals of survivors dealing with the aftermath of rape (Content Warning: Contains Spoilers)
Photo by HBO
A stranger drugs and rapes a woman on a night out at the bar. There is no rush to apprehend the offender, there is no CSI-style investigation, there is no resolution. All that’s left is a woman who has to learn how to continue living her life in a world that will never quite feel the same again, a world unwilling to wait for her to find her footing on this new, uneven territory.
What makes I May Destroy You so unique is that it takes viewers down the lengthy path of what happens in the psyche and day-to-day life of survivors of rape after they are assaulted. The story is not premised around the rapist and his lack of consequences, leaving the focus instead on the survivor. The series provides an authentic and realistic portrayal of how survivors learn to go on in a life that is suddenly very different than it used to be, riddled with the nuances of trauma, destruction, survival, and hope, all stuck on a never-ending loop.
I May Destroy You teaches viewers that the narrative of what a survivor looks and acts like differs from person to person, and all responses to sexual trauma are valid and legitimate, despite what our culture often tells us. It does so with humor and humanity that anyone can relate to. Finally, it also teaches viewers that although each survivor is different, there are some relatable and universal truths that come with surviving the aftermath of rape.
1- Everyone reacts to rape and trauma differently.
Arabella, the main character portrayed by Michaela Coel, is the first character to be assaulted on a night when a man drugs her. We see her dancing, falling over, and then cut to her typing the end of her latest novel that she needed to finish by the morning. She is still drugged and dazed. In spite of this, she still goes to work, because she has to. She does not have the luxury of time to sprint off to the hospital to get a forensic exam or stop by the police station to explain what happened. In fact, it takes her several hours and days to recover from the fog of being drugged, come out of denial about the situation, tell a trusted friend, walk through the night with someone else who had been there, and make a decision to report even though she was unclear on most of the details.
It is refreshing to watch an accurate depiction of the first steps survivors take after being assaulted, particularly when a predatory drug is involved. Unlike unhelpful caricatures of rape victims written into the scripts of crime shows, many of whom are meant to legitimize their experience by immediately weeping and falling apart, Coel’s character brings reality back to what it means to be a “real” rape victim and helps to weaken harmful stereotypes of how people process trauma. She processes her trauma slowly and realistically. She speaks of it calmly and rationally, even though she is confused and hurt.
What’s so artful about this show, however, is that it demonstrates how others react to being victimized as well. Arabella’s friend, Kwame, is also raped. He is not drugged, and immediately reacts with emotional pain. However, like many rape survivors, he is not sure if what happened could actually be legally defined as rape. Partially because of this, he does not report to authorities for weeks. When he does report the crime, he is so deeply humiliated and retraumatized by the police that he does not even want to speak of it again, and does not tell his friends or anyone else for a long time afterwards. He keeps everything to himself.
So we see Arabella, who needs to process and speak of her rape again and again, and we see Kwame, who initially survives his experience by not speaking about it at all. Both of these reactions are equally valid. Survivors of rape all react to trauma differently, and these characters demonstrate two common reactions. And of course, some survivors can immediately process what happened and miss work and go to the hospital and report to the police and do all of the things that society tells us a “real” rape victim would do, but that uncommon scenario is left out of the show.
2- Everyone copes with rape and trauma differently.
Understanding and processing trauma is a complicated and individual process. Coping with rape and trauma is equally so.
Arabella has the support of good friends who know what happened to her. She tries new things like yoga and painting, stops using drugs, stays relatively positive, seeks therapy, attends a support group, becomes an activist, and grows a network of support on social media. She also becomes a little obsessed with trying to figure out who raped her, as at the end it is revealed she goes to the same bar every week to try to find the rapist.
Kwame copes completely differently. He acts out with hypersexualization, is cold and distant with people, especially intimate partners, has a bit of an identity crisis, and seems to drink more than we used to see him drink.
Our culture pushes a narrative about how “real” rape victims should cope, but the reality is that whatever a survivor does to cope, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Arabella could be interpreted as a strong survivor for the “healthier” coping mechanisms she finds, but in the eyes of the legal system, she could also be interpreted as a liar since she is able to carry on with her daily tasks and seems to be doing quite well from the outside looking in. We only know that she is not, in fact, doing well and is indeed harmed by the trauma because we see her struggling to stay afloat at work, internally suffering from flashbacks, and needing to be around others at all times.
On the flip side, Kwame’s actions are also very common for survivors who may try to regain a sense of power and control from casual sexual relationships, and who may cope with unwanted memories and emotional pain by abusing substances. Even though these are common coping reactions to rape, in the eyes of the legal system, Kwame could be deemed unreliable, overly sexual, and basically victim-blamed for his rape even though he did not truly change until after the assault. His character brings forth old victim-shaming narratives that measure the integrity of a victim by their chastity.
Neither Arabella or Kwame are right or wrong in how they cope. They simply act in a way that works for them at the time. Whatever coping mechanisms survivors pick up, “good” or “bad”, more on the healthy end of the spectrum or less so — and most survivors will likely have some of each — these acts are are keeping that person alive for the time being. Even “healthier” coping skills can become unhealthy if they take over a person’s life, like Arabella’s brief social media obsession. I May Destroy You not only humanizes and legitimizes all kinds of coping behaviors, but also does not place judgment on them, which we could benefit from as a society to learn how to truly believe and support survivors.
3- Survivors of rape often need assistance to get their basic needs met.
Arabella’s book deal falls apart as she finds it increasingly difficult to focus enough to write. Her mind is constantly replaying details about her assault. She eventually runs out of money. While she still has a place to live and has friends to borrow from for food and other expenses, many survivors do not have that safety net.
Trauma often impacts the mind in a way that causes problems with memory and focusing, and working under those conditions is a very difficult task. Especially considering that survivors often have PTSD or experience many symptoms of PTSD, including being unable to sleep well and suffering debilitating flashbacks, it is easy to understand that productivity and trauma do not easily co-exist. For survivors who have been assaulted by intimate or domestic partners, additional layers of difficulty in stable housing and finances often emerge. Student survivors often struggle to keep up in school, and working survivors often experience hardship on the job.
Most researchers and advocates will say that the most important needs for survivors are their basic needs. More than a grueling legal trial in the spirit of attaining “justice”, more than yoga or painting (although often very helpful), survivors need food, shelter, and cash assistance. This series gives us a glimpse into the domino effect of why that happens.
4- Learning how to heal is a bit of a mystery.
Healing comes from friends, from “people who affirm you” (as Arabella’s friend Terry frequently repeats), from new experiences like painting, yoga, exercise classes, therapy, and many other relaxing and healthy yet time-consuming activities. Healing comes from replacing negative memories with positive memories. Not every activity that could be considered healing works for every survivor. Arabella seeks therapy, but Kwame does not. Not every option will resonate with everyone. And there is no end date to healing.
Additionally, accessibility to healing adds an extra layer of difficulty when trying to overcome trauma. In the United States, therapy is often afforded to those who have health insurance, the wealthy, and those who receive assistance through victim compensation programs after reporting rape. Therapy is not always accessible to all financially, and even so, transportation and cultural barriers compound the possibility of or willingness to receive therapy at all. The same is true for many other therapeutic activities.
Why is there not more support for survivors to access ways to heal? Why do survivors fortunate enough to have friends and to be able to easily get around need to go to countless locations to participate in activities that could be helpful for them, often surrounded by strangers who are not on the same path? Why do so many survivors need to rely on running into that random girl from high school who just so happened to start a support group in order to find a group of people they can speak with who understand?
The reality that healing is not straightforward, that it’s messy, non-linear, sometimes inaccessible, culturally-specific, and somewhat of a ridiculous scavenger hunt resonated throughout this series. We also follow Arabella’s quest to heal during an entire year and at the end are still left with an understanding that despite her best efforts, and despite how far she has come, she still has not fully healed from her experience. Can anyone?
5- Reporting rape compounds the pain of being raped.
Reporting rape is a process that never leaves you alone. You can never find peace and healing simultaneously while seeking the allusion of “justice”.
Arabella and Kwame are both harmed in different ways by reporting to the criminal system. As previously mentioned, Kwame is treated so poorly by detectives that it prevents him from even speaking of the rape again or seeking help from anyone else for a long time. This sequence of events is unfortunately incredibly common. A survivor recently told me that when she decided to report, the detective who took her initial call said that he would take her statement, but he would immediately call the perpetrator and find out what she is lying about- so did she really want to follow through? The first person a survivor tells about the assault is crucial to their recovery. The police are very frequently not good first people if the survivor wants to stand a solid chance at surviving.
Arabella’s relationship to her case is more akin to a torturous rollercoaster ride with the highs of feeling like her case is moving forward, and then sudden and dramatic setbacks that makes her stomach drop. While her detectives are empathetic and kind, they ultimately fail her and her case closes in a random and devastating blow that she did not see coming, right before needing to attend an important work meeting.
Nothing in a show has ever felt more true to reality. Survivors who report are constantly navigating a chaotic system outside of their control. Detectives disappear and then reappear at always seemingly the least convenient moment with the worst possible news. The criminal system is an emotional tug of war that does not stop because the survivor has work or school or an important event to attend. It builds you up just enough to give you hope, and then breaks you, over and over again.
And then you have to go on with your day like nothing happened, because you have to survive.
6- Moving forward does not happen because we heal, it happens because we have no other choice than to keep going.
At the end of the series in a powerful final episode, Arabella is deciding how to spend her night. We learn that she has been going back to the same bar on the same night each week in hopes of finding the rapist. What does she hope to do upon finding him? We see a few versions of what closure would look like for her.
First, she imagines drugging him and making him feel as victimized and powerless as he made her feel. Revenge. Next, she imagines that he breaks down, dissociates, and reveals that he does this as the result of his own trauma. In this scenario, she seems to land on forgiveness by way of understanding why he does the things he does. Finally, she imagines consensually sleeping with him and then telling him to leave. Control. Many survivors imagine confronting the person who raped them, and this game of scenarios feels relatable. What makes it even more human is wondering what we would actually do.
None of these endings feel right to her, none of them feel complete. None of them make the rape not have happened, none of them fix what he broke inside of her that she has spent a year trying to repair. None of them give her any more power to move forward than she already has. His damage has been done, and his life is no longer relevant to her. She ultimately decides not to go, and for the first time in over a year, stops her quest to find what she is looking for by turning towards the assailant. She decides that it is time to attempt to forgive and let go for the sake of herself.
The ending of the series cannot quite be described as happy, or whole, or complete. Each character continues on with their lives with an unparalleled wake of devastation behind them and still somewhat within them. Arabella publishes her own book and seems to find success. One character notes that her new book is written with equal talent to her last book, but so different it feels like could have been written by a different person.
Arabella feels different to the viewer as she opens it to read it- she is quieter, calmer, and devoid of the same level of carefree joy she radiated at the beginning of the series. It is quite clear that the rape changed her. But the message seems to be that she has found a way to live and do what she loves to do, even as a person changed by the course of life events that she never asked for. Because, after all, she still is a person, and being a survivor means that she has chosen to live. The world did not give her time to keep going on in the same way, but she found her own way on a new path more reflective of who she is now- a changed and brilliant person with a new story to tell. | https://katechis.medium.com/six-things-i-may-destroy-you-artfully-teaches-about-survivors-of-sexual-assault-f7bf47f8b291 | ['Kate Chisholm', 'Mph'] | 2020-10-27 23:00:08.280000+00:00 | ['I May Destroy You', 'Television', 'Trauma', 'Resilience', 'Rape'] |
Web Scraping with Python and Object-Oriented Programming | Web Scraping with Python and Object-Oriented Programming NafadAlJawad Follow Oct 17 · 4 min read
Web Scraping termed as Web data extraction, Web harvesting, Screen Scraping, is a vital mechanism in today’s world. Through Web-Scraping you can extract useful public information from your targeted websites and put together for data analysis, product comparison, making statistical reports, and many more. Python is undoubtedly the most popular language for web scraping and today I am going to give an example of extracting data from IMDB’s website. We are going to get the top 250 movie rankings from all time and display any random 10 movies to the user.
So, let's dive in without spending any more time! At the end, I am going to elaborate the reason for choosing the chosen coding structure. I am assuming you have a basic understanding of Python and HTML. We need the package BeautifulSoup or bs4 in python to do this tutorial.
Firstly, in the terminal write the following command and press enter to install BeautifulSoup package:
pip install bs4
then import the following modules at the top of the file
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup import requests import re import random
Now we are going to write a class named ExtractMovies, you can, of course, choose any other name if you want to!
#Python class for declaring movie attributes.
class ExtractMovies(object):
def __init__(self, title, year, star, ratings ): self.position = position self.title = title self.year = year self.star = star self.ratings = ratings #function to make ratings to two decimal places
def first2(s): return s[:4]
Here, we are declaring the attributes related to a single movie and storing it as an object. Later on, we are going to populate the movie object with their unique characteristics or attributes. We are going to see the use of the function first2 later on, so chill for now!
url = 'https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/' response = requests.get(url) soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser') movies = soup.select('td.titleColumn') links = [a.attrs.get('href') for a in soup.select('td.titleColumn a')] crew = [a.attrs.get('title') for a in soup.select('td.titleColumn a')] ratings = [b.attrs.get('data-value') for b in soup.select('td.posterColumn span[name=ir]')] years = soup.select('span.secondaryInfo') #Temoporary array to store class instances
_temp_ = []
In the above part:
first-line: We are declaring the url as a variable, this is the URL to IMDB top movies chart: https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/
second-line: Declaring a variable to send an HTTP request to the given url and receive the HTML response in text format.
third-line: Beautifulsouping the elements! Means, we will be selecting and processing the text with this variable.
fourth-line to onwards: With “soup.select” we are selecting the elements of the HTML object in the requested url.
One more thing, are you thinking of what these “td.tableColumn”, “href” , “title” or “posterColumn” doing? Okay, these are the descriptions of the elements of the html page we are working. You can follow the url and inspect the page in the developer mode to understand more. You can also follow this link to view the detailed documentation on different ways of using BeautifulSoap.
for index in range(0, len(movies)): movie_string = movies[index].get_text() movie = (' '.join(movie_string.split()).replace('.', '')) movie_title = movie[len(str(index))+1:-7] year = years[index].get_text() position = index+1 movie_instances = ExtractMovies( movie_title, year, crew[index], first2(ratings[index]) ) _temp_.append(movie_instances)
Here, yes we are looping through the range of the object movies that we got earlier and storing each of the data to its required fields, later we are assigning those fields to the class instance and appending it to the _temp_ array that we created earlier. And now the first2 function, we are using to make the ratings to two decimal places. Ratings here is a string object, you may use any other algorithm to convert it to Float if required.
random.shuffle(_temp_) i=1 for obj in _temp_: print(i,"|", obj.title,'
',obj.year,'
',obj.star,'
',obj.ratings,'
'
) i=i+1 if(i==11) break
In this last part, at the beginning, we are shuffling the array to get random movies, and then we are printing the output in a decorated format. We keep checking for the iteration to become 10, whenever it reaches 10, we are breaking out of the for loop.
The reason for choosing this class instance method is because it gives you more freedom and you can easily call this class anytime in your code if you want to extend your code further! You can also do this by putting the movies in Dictionary. I am going to explain the differences between Dictionary, List, and Class objects in one of my future blogs.
Oh! I forgot to mention, this is my first ever blog online!😊 I am so excited to write this article and publish it here on medium! I appreciate your reviews and feedbacks, or on anything you recommend me to write on! 🤞🤞
The entire code of this tutorial is as follows:
https://gist.github.com/jawad-nafad/065ea5795139c6c7942cc8f116cd2e11 | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/web-scraping-with-python-and-object-oriented-programming-14638a231f14 | [] | 2020-10-20 12:45:38.147000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Extraction', 'Object Oriented', 'Web Scraping', 'Tutorial'] |
‘Hell Bent Heaven Sent’ A Novel | Chapter three: The Dream
“I had a dream last night.”
“Go on.”
“I was the protagonist. I was absolutely in my element.”
“In your element…what exactly does that mean?”
Allie struggled to explain. She knew he wouldn’t understand. Much as she loved him, she recognized that Brad just lacked the empathy, and the imagination that she sometimes craved. To him, her thinking was like a complicated algorithm that he just couldn’t crack. What was that quote about opposites attracting?
“Go on, I’m waiting.”
“I was a fortune-teller,” she blurted out, and rushed on before Brad had time to collect his thoughts. “And to be honest, I’ve never been so happy. I felt that I was truly helping people. They came to me looking for hope, and they left totally inspired. When I woke up, I realized that this was something I would be good at!”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?”
“I’m presuming that there’s more to this.”
“Well, I’m just telling you I’m convinced I’ve found my calling. I was happier than I’ve been in a long time. It seemed…appropriate, something I could do…something I was MEANT to do and be…something…something that aligns perfectly with my personality.”
“Fortune-telling…well, that certainly is ‘something’, as you keep saying. Now why didn’t I think of that? That’ll keep the wolves from the door.”
“No need to be sarcastic.”
“Why do I have the distinct notion that you’re trying to break some earth-shattering news to me Allie? It was no more than a dream after all.”
“It pays better than you would imagine Brad.”
“Oh come on! You’re not really SERIOUS about this! Are you?”
The ominous silence held yet another story. It was the kind of silence that he knew in time, maybe much later, that he’d learn from. The hush had a scary force to it, a strength that might be enough to split them apart, given the right setting.
In time and with reflection, he might come to realize he could have left it there, but right now, common sense eluded him.
For the first time in their marriage, Brad embraced a creative side she could never have imagined, as he strode dramatically onto his pretend stage.
“Ah I can picture the two of us now, at our annual Board of Architects’ dinner, if you’ll be able to drag yourself away to spend an evening with me, that is. Let me see. Maybe it would go something like this. ‘Dear colleagues, allow me to introduce my lovely wife Allie. These days she works as a fortune-teller. She used to be a top sales executive, but you know how it is, working seven days a week, never having any time off. It got to her, and to me, if truth be known, so eventually she gave it all up to pursue her passion. Yes, she truly is a fortune-teller now. It’s been a life-long dream of hers, a career that will most certainly help others understand and be buoyed along by the promising futures she can offer them.
‘But don’t all line up at once ladies and gentlemen. If you need her advice you will have to wait for it. She can’t possibly fit you in right now. My lovely wife is way too busy, too sought-after for that. You see she’s a specialist psychic. She’s no fly-by-night clairvoyant. No no! She can and will make ALL your dreams come true.
‘Let me assure each and every one of you that her skills take time and patience, so, if by chance any among you would like a consultation, and I’m sure there are many, any time after the next six months would be just perfect’.”
“Good one Brad! I loathe sarcasm. It’s a cheap come back.”
“Oh fair crack o’ the whip Allie. I just can’t see you're doing such a job and feeling good about it. Besides, it’s a pseudo science.”
“Says who?”
“I just know. There’s absolutely no scientific underpinning for it. And because a person often reacts to whatever they’re told, or sees a connection they can relate to, psychics use that as proof.”
“Well, you seem to know an amazing lot about this non-science. But you know what? I just realized something too. You’re a bleeding snob Brad. You’re supposed to love me for better or worse.”
“Ah yes, but I never imagined worse being this bad.”
“This bad…is that how you view it? So, let’s see. What would happen if I were to pursue another avenue for making money? What about if I became a check-out chick, a factory worker…or…or…or a domestic? Would any of those be ‘THIS BAD’?”
Brad opened his mouth to respond but she cut straight through his first effort to inhale.
“PLEASE! Don’t even answer. I already know! You’d be ashamed, wouldn’t you? And again, don’t waste your energy thinking about it. It was nothing more than a rhetorical question.”
Brad’s body language was enough to convince her that she was right. Jaw stiffly set, torso as tense as a newly-coiled spring, his eyes held tightly shut, she was suddenly aware that this was a battle that could augur badly for each of them, but she was on fire, she was more angry than she’d been in a long time, so like a locomotive gathering steam she continued her relentless attack.
“Great! Now I have just discovered that my husband of three years is little more than an elitist pig!”
“That’s unfair. I was just trying to…”
“Don’t even try to justify yourself Brad. I get your point. You know what upsets me about your attitude?”
“No! Fill me in.”
“You’re not even prepared to hear me out…to give me a chance to explain. And guess what again? I anticipated your reaction to this. I could have said nothing about my feelings and gone on being your super sales executive partner, miserable but ‘successful’. I know where that would have led each of us. Sadly, you don’t! You just don’t get it.
“But just hear me out. Whether you believe it or not, let me tell you this. LOTS of people’s lives have been turned around by the hope that fortune-tellers have given them, and all you can do, Mr. Middle-Class Know-It-All is spit on the idea.
“You know what’s really behind your reaction? It’s your mother, your snobbish middle-class mom. You always were in her shadow. I bet right now you’re wondering how you’d explain your wife’s career change. What words would ever convince her that she doesn’t really need to be affronted, that she will be able to raise her head again in society…one day…when I’m earning enough money to plaster the façade of her house in hundred dollar bills?”
She watched with satisfaction as Brad withdrew from the conversation. His face, grim and taut, told her she was on the money.
“See, I know you better than you know yourself. Am I right? Is that your biggest hurdle? She’s only managed to temper her disapproval of me over the years because I’m successful. When she first met me all she could concern herself with was that I was a little office girl working in real estate, going out with her son.
“And then, when she realized how wrong she was, that you and I could actually team up with each other in business, if we wanted to, she’s spent the last couple of years trying to sweeten the pill to her friends. She IS your biggest hurdle isn’t she?”
“No, I don’t agree. I know my mother gave you a rough trot when we first met, but she ultimately became your greatest admirer. AND I think she learned from that. It doesn’t make it right of course, but we can’t go back and replay our lives, and our reactions, however much we’d like to.
“I would NEVER allow Mom to do what she did before, no matter your choice of profession. I love you for who you are. Becoming a fortune-teller is NOT the reason I am against it. What would worry me more than anything is that you’d be giving people false hope Allie, and you know that. Worse still, you’d be charging for it! From where I’m standing that’s pure and utter deception.”
“Hey! What gives? I already do that. Every damned, bloody day I do it! What are all those magical house makeovers about? If you’re looking at deception, that’s where you will find it, pure and utter trickery at its worst. And yet, here you are, conscience-stricken about my earning money by reading people’s futures…and just maybe giving them hope and the strength to move on.
“And, even if it is chicanery in a way, it’s also true that through psychic readings, many people have been able to pick up the pieces in their lives, bind them together with some anticipation and hope that they might not otherwise have had. I’ve even read about people whose terminal cancer has been cured, purely because their belief systems were changed.”
“Oh for god’s sake! Read about them did you? In ‘Woman’s Day’ or ‘Mama Mia’, or some other reputable source? Sorry, I’m not convinced.”
“Listen to yourself! It’s not FOR you to be convinced. Fortune-telling is not for people like you. The cynics of this world tread their own lonely paths. Good luck to them and YOU! But whether you believe it or not, it DOES meet a NEED. People ELECT to have their fortunes told. Besides,” she said, looking at him challengingly, “sometimes they do it just for fun too. I sure could use a slice of that right now!”
Brad stood motionless, caught up in the dilemma of where to from here, but then quickly reasoned that the whole idea could blow over in a day or so if he could change the tone of the discussion.
“Anyway, what would YOU know about fortune-telling?” he asked in an effort to be flippant.
“More than you might imagine.”
“You realize you need a license, don’t you!”
“I have one!”
“What?”
“Well, all those afternoons when you thought I was having coffee with friends or whatever else, I was studying online. I’ve learned so much about palmistry, dabbled in astrology, and I can read faces, tarot cards, crystal balls and, my favorite, the one I love most, tasseography!”
“Tasse what?”
“Tasse — it’s French for cup. It’s to do with teacup reading.”
Brad recognized a renewed animation in her voice. He knew this wasn’t going to blow over as easily as he’d thought, but before he had time to worry about that, Allie forged on.
“Of course it doesn’t work with tea bags, so you have to make real tea for your clients. Then you read the person’s fortune through the dregs left in their cup. I found a formation of the Eiffel Tower in a woman’s tea leaves a few weeks ago. She was so excited because she was flying to Paris the next week. She’s booked me for another session when she comes home AND she’s referred a number of her friends to me. In many ways this is a word-of-mouth business.”
“Oh my God Allie…you’re serious about this aren’t you!”
“Never been more so but I’d like to think you might support me.”
“I’m just not comfortable with it on several counts. For a start, everybody would know you were doing it, I’m not convinced that you can make money, and…well it’s just downright embarrassing. Not in a million years would I have…”
“Would you have what? Married a fortune-teller? And neither would I have wed a class-conscious, pompous swine had I known. See, I haven’t changed, but you’re not the person I thought I married. The only difference between the one YOU married and the one you see NOW is that once I was a fortune CHASER. Now I just want to be a fortune TELLER. There’s only a subtle difference when you think about it.”
“Now you’re playing with words. The concepts are poles apart and you know it!”
“Bull dust! I knew I’d come up with some stiff opposition from you Brad, so that’s why I had to go this alone.”
“What do you mean, ‘go this alone’?”
“I’m not sure we should continue the conversation right now.”
“Believe me, it won’t be any easier tomorrow or the next day…might as well spit it out.”
Chapters one and two below. | https://medium.com/illumination/hell-bent-heaven-sent-a-novel-8da7177b4f8 | ['Maria Rattray'] | 2020-12-23 02:52:32.498000+00:00 | ['Husband Wife Problem', 'Fiction', 'Conflict Resolution', 'Career Change', 'Fortune Telling'] |
let or var in Swift, and why it absolutely matters | Making a variable
We can have a constant anywhere in our code
var width = 5
width = 6
So after the second command, width will store the value of 6. Great!
Making a constant
We can have a constant anywhere in our code
let height = 5
This constant cannot be changed afterwards. If we try to, like making the height 6 like:
height = 6
will produce a rather upsetting message from the Swift compiler.
Which is not a great. Yet this is what Swift declares when you try to change a constant. Read on: | https://stevenpcurtis.medium.com/let-or-var-in-swift-and-why-it-absolutely-matters-568d819a09cc | ['Steven Curtis'] | 2019-12-11 12:15:02.370000+00:00 | ['Swift'] |
Environmental Policy in the Heart of Europe | About the author: Benek Robertson ’20 is an FSI The Europe Center Undergraduate Intern at the Centre for European Policy and LICOS, in Brussels Belgium. Benek is currently a Political Science major at Stanford University.
On a sunny day in Brussels, the scene is striking. When I arrived in the city on a Friday afternoon, it was a sight to take in. Sitting at a café at eight in the evening, with the summer light streaking into the center of Ixelles, groups of threes and fours sit cross-legged in the square. A buzz of French conversation hangs over the crowd sitting elbow to elbow at red metal tables. From time to time, a spurt of English comes filtering through the crowd, then bits of Spanish, German, or something else I can’t quite place. Just past the pavement, swans glide across a large pond ringed by trees and a packed walking path. Brussels feels welcoming, vibrant, and international.
It’s an appropriate setting for my internship, which is focused on problems that cross borders, like air pollution, wastewater management, and carbon emissions. I am working on environmental policy research this summer, and the beginning stages of this summer have focused on learning more about the European Union’s leadership in the area. European environmental policy is an exciting new topic for me because of the region’s reputation for leadership in the field. Reading research papers about the negotiations behind the EU’s ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emissions — a 40% cut by 2030 and a climate-neutral economy by 2050 — helps me better understand the politics behind this progress. While nations like Germany and Sweden push forward with ambitious goals that can even extend beyond EU legislation, places like Poland seek to defend their heavily coal-focused energy portfolio by opposing EU directives. Many debates surrounding the EU’s environmental policy are complex and less straightforward, but the region’s overall efforts are inspiring.
Brussels is the heart of Europe and a great setting to learn more about the region’s environmental ambitions. As a Political Science major, I’ve spent a lot of time studying American politics. In the turbid atmosphere of the United States, there has been no shortage of interesting coursework about our own government’s systems. After three years filled with debates on the electoral college and the nuclear option in the Senate, it is a new challenge to understand the different bodies of the European Union. I’m familiarizing myself with the different decision-making bodies, the differences between regulations and directives, and so much more. Sitting on crowded trains full of Eurocrats only adds to the experience.
Brussels is a varied city, and it has been a treat to learn the ins and outs of a new city in a new country. I’m a Californian who still marvels at the options for public transportation in the region, hopping from train to bus to scooter. My Belgian housemates let me pepper them with questions over coffee; they’ve taught me a lot about the country’s education systems and the best spots to try waffles downtown. And after four years without French classes, I’m slowly picking the language back up. The experience of living in Belgium and researching European environmental policy has been a treat so far, and I’m looking forward to progressing forward in my research. | https://medium.com/freeman-spogli-institute-for-international-studies/environmental-policy-in-the-heart-of-europe-9b8f9fda64dd | ['Fsi Student Programs'] | 2019-07-09 16:16:44.936000+00:00 | ['Tecfsi', 'Fsi Students', 'European Union', 'Climate Change', 'Brussels'] |
Panorama — Lightroom — Photoshop. Panorama is one of the best technique… | youtube.com/c/mano2010
Panorama is one of the best technique to use in photography if you don’t have wider lens to capture the scene. Now a days mobile phones have ability to any kind of images in few seconds 😅
I have been using Sony a7iii since 2019. I don’t have any fancy lens and using kit lens which is 28–70mm. To capture the beauty of this sunrise 🌅 so i decided to capture panorama technique.
I took 6 different images with same image settings. Stitched them together in LightRoom. To know more about editing, visit my youtube channel.
Image Settings:
1/800 sec, ISO 80 , f/3.5. also remember these setting might differ from the locations and situations you are in.
I upload videos on youtube how i process images in light room. If you are interested please visit my channel and subscribe youtube.com/c/mano2010
Also to see my images visit my IG and Facebook
Hope you enjoyed here! Have a great day and stay safe 😷!!! | https://medium.com/@manosanthan/panorama-lightroom-photoshop-aaff75781b6e | ['Mano Santhan'] | 2020-12-02 14:42:40.193000+00:00 | ['Editing', 'Photography', 'Finland', 'Sony', 'Nature'] |
The Day My Spirit Died | The day my spirit died was like every normal day. I woke up in the morning and joined my family for morning devotion. Papa had already left for work at the construction site, so it was my mum, my two younger sisters and I that attended devotion. We sang worship songs, took our Bible reading from the book of Job and prayed for God’s intervention on the day’s path. Funny how seriously I took the prayers that day. Funnier how God “intervened".
After the prayers, I carried my bread pan and margarine sachets and headed for the bakery. I hawk, or rather, used to hawk 'agege' bread for a living. Definitely was not the best of jobs, but combined with Papa’s work at the construction site and Mama’s work as a cleaner in a well established bank, it paid the bills.
When I got to the bakery, there was a long queue. I just knew that Mama taking morning prayers would make me late. I later got in, quite late I must add, and collected the bread. Now the bad luck begins.
As I got out of the bakery, a heavy downpour of rain began. I couldn’t find shelter fast enough and I soon became drenched, my clothes fast becoming revealing. I ran and ran, but it just seemed as though I was in an open field.
At lal0st, I saw what seemed to be like a 'keke maruwa' or tricycle. I was grateful to the driver and told him my destination. He continued to drive, and then I noticed that he was taking an unusual route from what I am used to. He kicked the accelerator and kept on driving. I shouted and pleaded for him to stop, but nobody was on the streets due to the downpour.
After what seemed like an eternity, we got to a large white building. I was tied up and gagged. Five giant, able bodied men came out and carried me into the building. They took me into a room, filled with calabashes, knives, horse whips and native charms.
Then an elderly man came, and together with the five men, took the whips and the knives and whipped and stabbed me continuously. To the point of losing my conscientiousness.
When I finally came back, I was by the roadside, naked and alone. I could tell that it was night time because the skies were already dark. People surrounded and stared at me as though I was some masquerade in the village square. None of them helped me. They must have probably felt that I was an “aje" or witch.
Even to this day, I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to find a nearby clinic. They took me in and treated my wounds, but later informed me that I was severely raped and may not be able to ever give birth. | https://medium.com/@chiamakadike/the-day-my-spirit-died-df9b7376026e | ['Chiamaka Dike'] | 2020-11-22 18:03:19.758000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Suffering', 'Poverty', 'Fiction Writing', 'Witchcraft'] |
GraphQL January | As 2020 draws to a close, everyone at Hasura finds themselves preparing for 2021. For some, last minute holiday plans, for others budgets and hiring, for all of us…a series of lengthy conversations about you, our users (or those yet to become).
We believe, strongly, that GraphQL will continue to become a key skill for developers (of all types) to learn, understand, and explore over the next year.
With that in mind, we are pleased to announce:
GraphQL January with Hasura — #GraphQLJanuary
Beginning 11 January 2021, the team at Hasura will be providing you with a wide variety of content, tutorials, streams, and more with which you can expand your GraphQL familiarity and start your adoption journey. This will include:
Daily blogs
Daily blog posts on the general theme of learning GraphQL. We know that we are all at different stages in our journey of understanding. Posts will range from a discussion of recorded talks, treatise on the future of GraphQL, beginner content, intermediate deep-dives, and more.
Live-streams
Once weekly we will host language specific livestreams on our Twitch channel. We will build a full stack app with a variety of frameworks and keep your ears open for some special guests joining us.
Tutorial Videos
We all learn differently. Once a week we will take one of the front-end GraphQL tutorials hosted on our learning portal and walk you through it in 30 minutes. These will be, initially, delivered by email but later hosted for future reference on the learning portal and YouTube.
Live Q&A
Come join the team from Hasura in a once a week live (text) chat in our community Discord. Bring your questions…we will bring engineers and answers. The schedule will be shared via email to all registrants and, as the dates draw closer, promoted on our social media.
Office Hours
Are you familiar with our Hasura Office Hours? If you have questions about how Hasura applies to the GraphQL journey in your company register for this weekly, live (but still informal) Zoom chat with members of the Hasura team.
Are you interested?
Do you want to know what content is coming…and when? Register here for us to keep you up to date.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hasura event without an eye towards interestingly designed swag. More to come on this as the month progresses. But, trust me, you will want to be signed up. | https://medium.com/@hasurahq/graphql-january-a15798060d44 | [] | 2020-12-21 16:05:02.903000+00:00 | ['Hasura', 'GraphQL', 'Announcements'] |
Instead of Watching NBC’s “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”, I Thought Of 50 Other Actors Better Suited To Play The Grinch | I truly cannot wrap my head around this casting choice.
Who thinks, “Yes. The Grinch. An iconic Christmas character with a distinct personality and hatred of the Yuletide season” and then casts Mr. Schuester from Glee? Anyways, here are literally fifty other actors who are better fits for this part. | https://medium.com/@masonkmadeleine/i-tried-to-watch-nbcs-how-the-grinch-stole-christmas-8fca453d0fab | ['Madeleine Mason'] | 2020-12-11 00:04:34.814000+00:00 | ['The Grinch', 'Christmas', 'Lists', 'Musicals', 'Comedy'] |
Building Pin stats | Challenges
There were two main problems we wanted to solve with Pin stats.
Near-real-time insights: Businesses have told us they’d like to see how well their Pins are doing within the first few hours of publishing them. One of the biggest challenges in building Pin stats was processing tens of billions of events in a way that would allow us to cut down the analytics delivery time to two hours, an 18x decrease. Canonicalization: Every time someone saves a Pin to Pinterest, we log it as a separate instance. Before, we only gave businesses analytics for their instance of that Pin. This meant businesses never got the full view of how their content was performing. With Pin stats, now all the different instances of a Pin are aggregated into a canonical stat so businesses can see the full impact of their content on Pinterest.
Implementation
Logging
The first part of the project involved real-time logging of all events on Pins originally owned by businesses and sending them to Apache Kafka — the log transport layer used at Pinterest. This was challenging because we get hundreds of thousands of events of all kinds every second.
In our case, we only wanted to log events pertaining to businesses (i.e. only log impressions on a Pin originally created by a business). Due to our strict requirement of surfacing Pin stats in under two hours, we not only had to log events in real-time but also filter them before logging. We couldn’t afford to filter events offline, because it would take hours to sift all events and extract only those related to businesses.
At the same time, online filtering is extremely expensive because it can involve various network calls and increase the latency of the front-end logging endpoint. We implemented various optimizations and heuristics to minimize the number of network calls necessary. This ensured we only made network calls after we were fairly positive the event belonged to a Pin originally created by a business. This reduced the burden on our front-end logging endpoint by several factors.
Processing
The high volume of events meant we also needed to process them in an extremely efficient way. That’s why we segment the new Pin stats by three different time range aggregations — hourly (sliding 24 hour window), last seven days and last 30 days.
For the hourly segment, we needed to process the data separately in order to surface it to businesses as soon as possible. We achieved this by having two different pipelines emanating from our Kafka topic, one handling hourly data and and the other handling daily data. At the same time, we ensure both pipelines are reliable and consistent with each other through various rules to avoid data inconsistencies. The former is a data ingestion pipeline that creates hourly tables of logged events in the past hour (approximately four billion events/hour), which we then process and aggregate using efficient MapReduce jobs. This means we’re able to persist data to our storage every hour and have data workflows that run by the hour to aggregate analytics on a very granular time-level. The latter pipeline generates a daily table (approximately 100 billion events/day) that’s processed and verified more thoroughly due to the longer SLA.
Storage
After logging, processing, verifying and aggregating tens of billions of events in a short span of time, we needed a low-latency storage solution capable of handling our extremely large data sets. We decided to use Terrapin — our in-house low-latency serving system for handling large data sets. It met our requirements of being elastic, fault tolerant and able to ingest data directly from Amazon S3.
Lessons
During the process, we learned many invaluable lessons. One of the main challenges was to build a data pipeline that can support a real-time stream of hundreds of thousands of events every second in a way that’s reliable and scalable as Pinterest grows. Particularly, it was difficult to have our divergent pipelines work in a way that they are both consistent with data and reliable.
Another big challenge was filtering the high volume of events each second so we don’t populate our pipelines with data we’ll never process. This was complicated, because any sort of filtering usually requires network calls that ultimately slow down logging. To solve for this, we use various signals beforehand to ensure a network call is necessary.
Finally, we learned a lot while choosing the approach — whether to spend months building a truly real-time pipeline or creating a system that can serve data in a under two hours. We prototyped a real-time analytics service to see if it was possible given the current infrastructure, and ultimately decided on a near-real time system in to order to ship the experience more quickly.
Next steps
Our next steps will be to build a truly real-time system that surfaces Pin stats within seconds of a Pin being uploaded. We also hope to provide additional metrics so that businesses can create better and more actionable Pins.
Acknowledgements: This project would not have been possible without the help and support of engineers across different teams at Pinterest. In particular, I would like to extend special thanks to Ryan Shih, Andrew Chun, Derek Tia, David West, Daniel Mejia, David Temple, Gordon Chen, Jian Fang, Jon Parise, Rajesh Bhatia, Sam Meder, Shawn Nguyen, Shirley Gaw, Tamara Louie, Tian Li, Tiffany Black, Weiran Liu, and Yining Wang. | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/building-pin-stats-25ec8460e924 | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2018-05-08 22:50:15.320000+00:00 | ['Infrastructure', 'Data', 'Engineering', 'Analytics', 'Apache Kafka'] |
Anyon’s Solution For Traditional Banking Problems | Traditional banking operations are devoted to the commercial management of money that is deposited by its clients. But, it has not been able to engage its customers. Customer satisfaction can never be a thing for a traditional banking system. It has a global acceptance and recognition, but due to its volatile nature, it has discouraged financial protection. Getting a loan is not as easy as pie. They have arduous rules and regulations, specific working hours and days, no transparency, high operating expenses, and much more. You have to go through this all, and still, there is no guarantee that you will get the loan. Due to these predicaments, customers go through mental agony.
Personal Financial planning cuts across the strenuous protocols of traditional banking and offers a basket of services. Due to the absence of a broad-spectrum ecosystem, traditional banking can’t balance out in multiple systems.
A blockchain-based project- Altro Capital AG’s Anyon offers a financial ecosystem marinated with the ease of the entire range of banking activities. These are its prime objectives:
Metamorphosing the standards of Anyon project by providing and holding legal rights of a tokenized umbrella of crypto services
Giving the authority to the Anyon token holders for free P2P movement, automatic generation of dividend receipts in a blockchain environment on the Anyon platform and app.
Anyon is a far-stretching established body that aspires to offer an exceptional customer experience with an adequate infusion of tools procured from blockchain technology. Altro Capital AG has decided to overcome all the stumbling blocks of the traditional banking system with three explicit pillars of Anyon in financial operations (bank) with blockchain instruments (cryptocurrency exchange) to active wealth management (Anyon).
Anyon’s Alternatives For Traditional Banking Operations:
ANYON BANK: It is the central pillar of the Anyon project. It uses robust blockchain technology to offer renewed banking services to the customers. It aims at providing an exclusive umbrella of banking services with financial stability and global acceptability.
CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGE: Anyon Cryptocurrency exchange offers a smooth P2P transaction. It is an entirely decentralized platform that offers secure and speedy transactions along with multisig crypto wallet. Apart from supporting Anyon tokens, it also supports all the leading cryptocurrencies in the world. It excites crypto enthusiasts on a global level, as euros facilitate trading, has the smart matching engine, automated verification process, ability to trade in fiat currencies and a dedicated escrow system. ANYON APP: The Anyon app connects you to the Anyon crypto exchange. Investors can register themselves at the Anyon customer support and verify themselves to get access to the Anyon app. The Anyon app is integrated with features such as Anyon token wallet and its functioning, transaction status of tokens and wallets, enables traders to use algorithms, enables traders to use advanced trading functions, and Anyon trading functionality.
Anyon is an entirely tokenized bank in the decentralized crypto exchange sphere. It has some excellent plans that are worth investing. Give your best shot to get over the hurdles of the traditional banking system and terraform your usual business avenues into a lucrative one through Anyon. | https://medium.com/@ANYON/anyons-solution-for-traditional-banking-problems-423912aa34ea | [] | 2020-12-23 07:48:45.026000+00:00 | ['Digital Banking', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Sto', 'Token', 'Blockchain'] |
Search Algorithms | A search algorithm is an algorithm which searches for an element in a data structure. Suppose you have an array, and you want to find the index location of an element within the array. There are two main ways that you can find the index of the element: linear search and binary search.
Linear Search
This is the method that most people would use when searching for an element. As the name suggests, this method involves iterating through every element in an array until you find the target element. This takes O(n) time in the worst case, where n is the length of the array.
Linear search algorithm, via GeeksForGeeks
The usual implementation of a linear search algorithm checks every element beginning with the first element, at index 0. It then proceeds right, or through the array, until the target element is found. Once the element is found, it returns the index position of the element.
If the element is not in the array, then -1 is returned.
This method of searching an array is one of the least efficient methods. The time taken to search through the elements of an array using linear search does not matter much when you are using small data structures (<100,000 elements). However, if you are using larger data structures, or when the time taken needs to be as low as possible, linear search is an extremely inefficient search algorithm.
The Python implementation of a linear search algorithm is below.
def linearSearch(arr, x):
length = len(arr)
for i in range(length):
if arr[i] == x:
return i
return -1
This algorithm looks at every index position in the array, and checks whether it matches with the target element (x). If it does, the index position is returned, and if the whole array is checked and the target element is not present in the array, -1 is returned.
We can slightly improve the runtime of this algorithm by moving inwards to the middle of the array instead of moving from left to right. This still takes O(n) time in the worst case (x is in the middle of the array/not in the array), but this takes a lesser amount of time if the target element is close to the end of the array.
def linearSearch(arr, x):
left = 0
right = len(arr) - 1
while left <= right:
if arr[left] == x:
return left
if arr[right] == x:
return right
left += 1
right -= 1
return -1
Interval Search
If the array that you are searching for an element in is unsorted, then you have to use linear search or one of its variants to find an element. If the array is sorted, however, you can use an interval search algorithm for finding an element.
There are many types of interval search, but none of them are as popular and ubiquitous as binary search. The “binary” in binary search does not refer to the counting system (look at my post on number systems here), but to splitting items in two.
Binary search works by repeatedly cutting an array in half. The first element it checks is not the first or last element in the array, but the one in the middle (rounded down if there are an even number of elements). If the target element is larger than the element in the middle, then it takes the end half of the array to the next stage, and if the target element is smaller than the element in the middle, it takes the first half of the array. This process is continued until the element in the middle of a subarray is the target element.
Binary search algorithm, via GeeksForGeeks
Below is the Python implementation of the binary search algorithm.
def binarySearch(arr, x):
low = 0
high = len(arr) - 1
while low <= high:
mid = (high + low) // 2
if arr[mid] < x:
low = mid + 1
elif arr[mid] > x:
high = mid - 1
else:
return mid
return -1
There are other types of interval search algorithms as well. One of my personal favorites is jump search, where you split the array into subarrays of length y, and check the last element of each subarray to see whether or not it is larger than the target element x. Once you find the subarray where the last element is equal to or larger than the target element, you can search the much smaller subarray with another search algorithm(s) of your choice for the target element.
import math
def jumpSearch(arr, x):
step = math.floor(math.sqrt(len(arr)))
prev = 0
while prev < len(arr) - 1:
if x <= arr[prev]:
break
else:
prev += step
index = 0
for i in arr[prev - step:prev + 1]:
if i == x:
return index + (prev - step)
else:
index += 1
return -1
The jump search algorithm above uses jump search once through the array to get a smaller subarray, and then uses linear search to find the target element within the subarray. However, you can use any other searching algorithm once you have the subarray, and if the subarray is large enough, you can use jump search again.
Those are the three main algorithms that can be used to find an element in an array. However, these are by no means the only algorithms available. There are many, many searching algorithms, such as Fibonacci Search, Interpolation Search, Exponential Search, and Ternary Search. Building another searching algorithm is not difficult. You just have to see things from a new perspective.
To demonstrate that creating a searching algorithm is not hard, I coded a simple middle-out linear search algorithm. This algorithm favors elements on the upper 4/6ths of the array. For example, if arr had a length of 6, the elements from arr[2] onwards would be found quicker than if you used traditional linear search.
def middle_out(arr, x):
if len(arr) % 2 == 0:
right = int(len(arr)/2)
left = right - 1
else:
mid = int((len(arr) - 1)/2)
if arr[mid] == x:
return mid
else:
left = mid - 1
right = mid + 1
while left >= 0:
if arr[left] == x:
return left
elif arr[right] == x:
return right
else:
left -= 1
right += 1
return -1
— — — — — -
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends, family, and anyone else you think will be interested in this! I am a small blogger, and I rely on your support to grow my blog. Thank you so much!
My name is Sid, and I post an article every few weeks on interesting topics related to Computer Science, Science, and Mathematics! Thank you for reading this post! | https://medium.com/@routsiddharth/search-algorithms-60303e038d46 | ['Siddharth Rout'] | 2020-12-19 09:46:40.652000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Coding', 'Python', 'Teens', 'Data Science'] |
Overcoming Material Design. | Overcoming Material Design.
Why I’ve developed a negative relationship with the design language, and why you soon will too — that is if it hasn’t happened to you yet.
Okay, I’m going to start this off with one statement; Material Design is great. It has helped unify user interfaces across platforms, and it provides designers with awesome resources (the icons especially 🙏🏽). And while some of you may use Material Design as your UI-North-Star (why are you doing that to yourself), I am not that big of a fan.
Let me give you some background on the short-lived friendship between Material Design and I: It all started in the FABulous Summer of 2014, I was about to enter the 6th grade and my passion in graphic design kick-started. There to help me learn about it, was Google — wo just unveiled their brand new design language, which within the next few months was going to become so overused that you could rename it to any song played on a pop-music radio station. Better yet was the fact that my father and I had just created our startup, which I was the designer for (By the way, you should totally check out the company). Of course, since I was beginning, I used dribbble to guide me through the many upcoming trends of design, including the embarrassing throwback to long-shadows 😷, and one of the up and coming trends was Material Design. I was intrigued; as far as I was concerned, Material Design was the easiest way to design interfaces. I mean everything was figured out for you; the color palettes were from a selection of colors, the interface-structures were given, the components all have instruction, they even tell you what the shadows should look like. It was like one of those fill in the blank stories, where you replace certain blank spaces with words — but in this case, you’re replacing given fields with ones pertaining to your application. Of course, being a sixth grader I couldn’t resist filling all those blanks, and with that, I was hooked.
I’ve always seen Material Design as if Google took the style from Google Now illustrations and just ran with it.
Material Design has designers in a chokehold
How many of you followed a design template or language blindly?
Let’s be honest here, by a show of hands, how many of you have tried Material Design or any other super-specific design language and just stuck with it. ✋ Don’t be ashamed, it’s become normal at this point.
Let’s try another show of hands question; How many of you have seen an app which followed the Material Spec so much that if it had a “G” in the logo it could pass as a Google app. ✋✋✋✋✋ Okay, so all the hands went up.
I was guilty of the horrible crime that is conforming to every single standard the folks at Google Design showed us. And by the end of my designing process, my app looked like if Google made an app and just turned the primary color to teal. And that’s my fault. I’m not blaming Google, I’m not even blaming the spec, I’m blaming myself and others who are like that. The kind of people who blindly follow any design language because they think they have to. I was there, and I see many others (not naming names) who do the same thing. And while it is important to have standards for design quality, and even for usability, the problems begin when there is so much to follow, that personalizing a design language gets you an award from Google.
Fixing the issues; Material edition
There a screen, here a screen, everywhere the same screen.
Now what? After a few hundred words of ranting and explaining why I don’t think it works, where do we go?
I understand that I’m not solving any issues by ranting about things I do not like, so the question is; how do we solve them? We need to make sure that we learn how to infuse our brand into everything we do. Whether it’s adding your own style of illustration, or replacing Material Icons with those of your brand. And another big component is messaging; whether it is through colors, navigation, or just messages.
I like to look to these two apps for inspiration on what to do when it comes to following design languages:
A perfect example of this is Dropbox. I’ve always admired Dropbox in their design inside and out of Material Design. Through clean minimalism and delightful illustrations, Dropbox has mastered the art of making the most of Material Design. Here’s what we can learn from their app.
Despite following the spec, Dropbox was able to customize Material Design to showcase their brand values, which is very important for anyone’s app. By using special elements like illustrations, you are able to maintain your personality even if you decide to use UX-cues from a design language.
Keep your styles consistent Use the same personality throughout platforms Have fun with it, and remember that deviation from the spec is not a bad thing.
Airbnb is pretty amazing when it comes to their use of Material Design, mostly because they deviate the most from it.
Material design who?
Airbnb has, in my opinion, nailed the art of showcasing brand within design languages. Through the use of custom icons, fresh imagery, custom elements, and some pretty awesome typography, Airbnb was able to get a really nice aesthetic in their apps. Somehow, they do all of this while remaining on spec. So let’s see what we can learn from them:
Airbnb uses a lot of aspects from other platforms, especially web, and this creates an uber-cohesive experience which can be enjoyed by users. So here’s what they did right!
Typography is important, make sure to make it different. Icons don’t have to be from the icon pack! Use colors! Lots and lots of colors!
Final thoughts after an article full of rambling
First of all, congratulations on making it this far. This is my first design article and the fact that you dragged yourself to the end shows me immense support. Also, I’m not writing this as a way to shoot down a group of designers, but to offer insight on mistakes I made when I started. I truly believe that design languages like Material provide new designers a great way to learn more about the realm of design, and they also offer opportunities to experiment for the more experienced.
I would love to hear your thoughts (the negatives as well) and I also wouldn’t mind a recommend 😉.
Thank you for reading, and keep up to date with my work on dribbble! | https://uxdesign.cc/ive-grown-to-hate-material-design-5a6d9fc9bc00 | ['Nikhil Vootkur'] | 2017-03-02 17:12:29.580000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Design', 'Graphic Design', 'UX', 'Material Design'] |
Daily analysis of cryptocurrencies 20190910(Market index 41 — Fear state) | [Digital currency mining pool ViaBTC online cloud mining contract]
According to the official website news, ViaBTC launched a cloud mining contract, its cloud mining section was officially launched on August 30, 2019. The first phase of the online product is a 360-day BTC cloud mining spot contract. At the same time, ViaBTC launched a new user to send computing activities, and opened a one-month 10% off the first activity.
[Thai Bond Market Association issues its own cryptocurrency]
On September 10th, the Thai Bond Market Association (TBMA) announced that it will issue its own cryptocurrency to increase the efficiency of the Thai bond market.
[Economist Preston Pysh: Bitcoin is the legal debt solution]
Economist Preston Pysh said that inflation is a phenomenon of money supply, not a collapse of demand. He cited Venezuela as an example and asserted that citizens of the country did not suddenly reduce their demand for their own currency, further emphasizing that supply is the root cause. He believes that Bitcoin is a “technical solution to the political disaster of statutory debt.” He said that the value or demand of the dollar will not collapse soon because people still have to pay taxes and bills. However, he believes that once people start holding bitcoin and use it as a value store, they don’t have to rely on debt to live because they will no longer be without money.
Encrypted project calendar（September 10, 2019）
BTC/Bitcoin: The DeFi Summit (London) will be held at Imperial College London from September 10th to 11th. TNS/Transcodium: Transcodium (TNS) WirePurse will be available on September 10th for AT tokens and will air-drop $3,000 worth of AT tokens to all WirePurse users. KICK/KickCoin: KickCoin (KICK) The KICK team extended the SWAP bonus event deadline to September 10 and added additional bonuses to encourage trading.
Encrypted project calendar（September 11, 2019）
BTC/Bitcoin: Invest: Asia 2019 Summit will be held in Singapore from September 11th to 12th. CLOAK/CloakCoin: CloakCoin (CLOAK) CloakCoin ENIGMA trading competition will end on September 11th, the second round will continue, with a prize of US$10,000 for CLOAK. PHR/Phore: The Phore (PHR) community needs to vote for the September core development budget proposal for Phore and the Marketplace and Synapse proposals by September 11.
Encrypted project calendar（September 12, 2019）
BNB/Binance Coin: Coin Security will stop providing services to US users on Binance.com on September 12th BCN/Bytecoin: Bytecoin (BCN) will release Copper v3.6.0 on September 12t HBT/Hubii Network: Hubii Network (HBT) hubii’s “Blockchain in Practice” campaign with Microsoft will be held on September 12th at the Microsoft office in Oslo.
Encrypted project calendar（September 13, 2019）
ETC/Ethereum Classic: ETC or will perform Atlantis hard fork on September 13th
Encrypted project calendar（September 14, 2019）
BTC/Bitcoin: The European Union will launch its name, Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), which will take effect on September 14. The new law includes banks implementing “strong customer certification”. In addition, according to previous news, PSD2 can obtain some of the functions of the banking industry, providing new payment solutions for encryption products.
Encrypted project calendar（September 15, 2019）
TRX/TRON: Wave field TRON launches side chain plan Sun Network network three-phase release WAN/Wanchain: Wanchain (WAN) will hold a 3Q community conference call in mid-September
Encrypted project calendar（September 16, 2019）
LINK/ChainLink: Chainlink (LINK) Oracle will host the Oracle Code One conference from September 16th to September 19th, at which it will announce the launch of 50 startups with Chainlink. MANA/Decentraland: The Decentraland (MANA) community will host the SDK hackathon on September 16.
Encrypted project calendar（September 20, 2019）
NULS / NULS: The NULS 2.0 Beta hackathon will be held from September 20th to September 21st, 2019. AE/Aeternity: Aeternity (AE) will hold “Cosmos One” conference in Prague, Czech Republic on September 20th
Encrypted project calendar（September 23, 2019）
BTC/Bitcoin: Bakkt, the digital asset platform led by ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and the world’s second largest trading group, will launch a bitcoin physical delivery futures contract on September 23. EOS/EOS: EOS main network is expected to upgrade version 1.8 on September 23
BTC shocks to build momentum, the follow-up may rise above 14,000 US dollars：
At present, the BTC’s high probability is in the stage of absorbing the expected increase before the halving. Compared with the previous two halving trends, it can be seen that after each round of bear market hits the Botto, the BTC opens the next stage of the big bull market. And has been rising to the last round of the bull market, Fibonacci, 0.618 points and then fall back. The main support at the lower weekly level is near the 0.382 point in Fibonacci. It can be seen that the first two rounds of BTC are in Fibonacci Then, the two points are in a shocking trend, and after a halving, the BTC washing action is completed and the upper edge of the interval is broken upwards. The rapid increase of the big bull market is expected. It is expected that the BTC will continue for a while. In the large range of $9,500 to $13,500, the current structure is likely to be a relay stage for a large triangle. After the chip is fully replaced, the BTC will have a strong chance to break through the box, which may be directly Attacked $20,000.
Review previous articles: https://medium.com/@to.liuwen
Telegram： https://t.me/Lay126
Twitter：https://twitter.com/mianhuai8
Facebook：https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100022246432745
Reddi：https://www.reddit.com/user/liuidaxmn
LinkedIn：https://www.linkedin.com/in/liu-wei-294a12176/ | https://medium.com/@kyle8/daily-analysis-of-cryptocurrencies-20190910-market-index-41-fear-state-38b5fa6a3ea | [] | 2019-09-10 00:00:00 | ['Binance', 'Bitcoin', 'Cloak', 'Transcodium', 'Kickcoin'] |
Diving Into The Australian Outback | Rainbow Dive | Buddhism, mixed with my current interests in economics, privilege, immigration, etc. Email <my username>@gmail.com | https://medium.com/@kalensk/diving-into-the-australian-outback-rainbow-dive-717401449595 | [] | 2020-12-19 20:01:21.284000+00:00 | ['Australia', 'Diving', 'Aboriginal', 'Cliff Diving'] |
How would I learn to code, if it's for now — Part 1 | What comes to your mind when you hear the word Programming?
Please, don't ever say it's HTML (or) CSS neither both isn't a programming language. But still, we would have at least came across things like,
Java
Python
Javascript and the list go on…
Before jumping into the blog, I am gonna cut out technical jargon as usual. This is not a blog from a technical perspective rather, one that would help you fix the learning better.
If you started to learn a Programming language, or even after learning you somewhere felt lost then this could be the blog might fix you.
Why I am writing this?
You could ask me what made me write this? Well, simple, I am a self-taught Machine Learning Practitioner, I learned to code like everyone from the internet.
But I went in through difficulties and some roadblocks through the way, which even at times made me quit the idea of coding itself or somewhere it felt this isn’t for me. I have been there and I assume even people might felt that at some point isn't?
Disclaimer: Everything you read here is absolutely out from my experience and my learnings. Some may disagree with it at times and take things as a grain of salt.
Why you should read this?
Well, because I don't want you to waste your time looking for the right course or scratching your head at times waiting for the right thing. And even as a friend (if you consider).
I had a hard time choosing the courses or materials that could teach me the whole thing. But looking back, I was depending on courses and putting my faith in them. Courses are good, but at times we hit the tutorial hell.
Read my blog here to know more about whats Tutorial hell.
For now, it's like a loop where we will be just finishing the course. Trust me, just because you did some course on Python, doesn't mean you know it well.
Somehow people think the only way to learn to code is just by the means of taking different courses. Even I was there jumping from one course to another but it never improved my progress.
Note: I will be leaving up some links which helped me in my learning and eventually will do a favor for you too.
Don't fall into the prey of Frameworks
When I was learning python for the first time, the motto was to get into Machine Learning for sure that’s obvious why most people choose python.
There were these frameworks popping out and it was the center of attraction, as tech enthusiasts I always wanted to equip myself with the best tools and especially the new ones.
This is where my shiny syndrome for frameworks started, I forget about learning python the way it should be (including OOP’s), most courses where I learned, the OOP’s concept was ignored.
But when I took the path of Experimenting Learning dumping down the tutorials, I was keen on working on my foundations. Learn things from documentation and more of research kinda way. I found it quite progressing when I tried on Pytorch, but this is where I felt like a complete noob.
While I was surfing through documentation and stuffs certain Python code doesn’t make sense to me, meaning hard to decode what’s written on there.
It was a complete noob-like feeling, I thought I knew python but things were not what I thought.
A fix in need is a fix indeed
I said above already, many people opt for the idea of learning from courses. There is no issue in doing that so, but it is when you fall into the loop.
How could we fix this?
Recently, I framed a thing called Experimental Learning, I watched video’s of other people on Youtube and observed how they did it.
Learning can be of two ways, one is we learn by Consuming something (courses, books, etc…) and another way is by Creating (trying to solve a problem, etc...).
When we mix these two wonderful components our learnings get better 10X times, but the problem is, we always spend more time on Consuming things. We should keep the balance 50–50 rather than weighing one side more.
Consuming
This is where you will be in the act of taking courses and reading books related to what programming langue you want to learn. But I see only fewer people opt for books, but I think books are really a good substitute for courses.
Stick with one course rather than too many, your goal should not be finishing the course and acquiring the certificate. Your purpose should be clear, you want to acquire this skill, not the certificate.
Creating
This is the fun part, where you will practice whatever you learned. Whatever I learn from the course at times couldn't help me to solve real-world projects.
I end up hitting google and StackOverflow reading tons and tons of blogs and tutorials, read other's code to find how others did it, and try reverse engineer them. You see there’s a lot of learning that goes in here.
In this way, we learn what we actually need to solve the problem rather than watching hours of tutorials with no clue whats the purpose.
The eye shrinks for you, which means you know what you want and your intent will be on finding just your need.
So now you might have an idea of whats Creating and Consuming really means, as I said by mixing them we could do wonders in our learning.
In the next part of this blog, will look into how we could mix these two pieces of stuff for enhancing our learning and useful courses and tidbits that could uplift your learning journey. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-learn-a-programming-language-from-scratch-part-1-476a8cb36108 | ['Ashik Shaffi'] | 2021-03-25 07:47:20.546000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Programming', 'Learning', 'Tutorial', 'Lessons Learned'] |
Friday Evening Musings | artwork by Pearl Dsouza
They talk about body positivity,
Then subtly call you a fatty,
Oh come on don’t such a senti,
You know it’s all in fun,
I am just joking son.
Oh look at those moobs,
No ya not insulting they are actually cute,
Would 38B fit you?
Come on it’s chill,
Don’t be such a buzzkill,
After all it’s all in fun,
I am just joking son.
Omg look at her,
She’s got that deadly beard,
Her mustache is thicker than the hair on my scalp,
Tell me do you get discount,
At that restaurant,
Who celebrate hairy men?
Oh come on don’t be so tense,
Don’t you know it’s all in fun,
I am just joking son.
Hey do you know that guy?
Yeah that one who is skinnier than a snake,
PSA for you it’s windy outside just carry some paper weights,
And stop with that depressive state,
You better understand it’s all in fun,
I am just joking son.
Check out that bald chick,
Thank God at least your booty is thick,
Who would date you with that shiny head?
On a sunny day I am sure I can toast a bread.
Can you please not give that sad look?
Haven’t you seen my stand-up book?
It’s really all in fun,
I am just joking son.
What’s wrong with the world you ask me?
Not one I can give you reason umpteen,
So many hypocrites fluttering everywhere,
Something on social media, in real life nothing but despair.
Would talk about inclusivity while demanding exclusivity,
Raising slogans and preaching about caring for your mental health,
While hitting about the same, of course below the belt.
Hiding behind the facade of ludicrity,
Asking you to not take a joke seriously.
Not knowing where to draw the line,
Being the very reason for you not feeling fine.
Oh but you know,
You ought to know,
That it’s all in fun,
After all they were only joking son. | https://medium.com/@moulikhulbe_63476/they-talk-about-body-positivity-then-subtly-call-you-a-fatty-oh-come-on-dont-such-a-senti-you-9483fee2cb47 | ['Mouli Khulbe'] | 2019-05-17 13:43:29.703000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Satire', 'Body Positivity', 'Body Positive', 'Body Image'] |
3 Questions for Your Credit Card Debt Plan | Credit card debt is a major issue in America. The convenience of portable credit cannot be overstated, but it’s also a slippery slope to developing a serious debt problem. If you’ve found yourself in debt, you should understand the importance of planning yourself out of it. Formulating a plan for debt freedom is commendable, but once you have planned out your debts and repayments, it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself a few questions about your plan.
Is your Debt Manageable or Unmanageable?
If you’ve got an easy plan in place with just a few years until the final payment, then that’s perfect. A manageable debt repayment plan is what you need for continuing with confidence. However, if your plan has you making payments for decades, then it might be time to look at other options for your debt management plan — debt consolidation, credit counseling (nonprofit options exist!), or even filing for bankruptcy.
When Is Debt Consolidation the Choice?
Debt consolidation can be a difficult process but is sometimes the best choice for your debt. This is when you take several credit cards and condense them into a single payment. This can sometimes be a very good choice but isn’t right for everyone. For starters, it often costs a bit of money to have your debt moved around into a single payment, which can be difficult to manage if you’re already in debt. This also takes the debt off of your cards — which might open them up for more debt. But for convenience and streamlining, consolidation can be a very worthwhile addition to your plan.
What Consolidation Options are Available?
If you think consolidation is a good choice, then you’ll want to consider where to go for consolidation. Essentially, consolidation involves taking out a single larger loan which you use to pay off the multiple smaller loans. A personal loan from friends or family can be very good for this, as there are no fees, kinder interest rates, more flexibility — the benefits are not small. But it’s absolutely understandable if this isn’t something you are comfortable with, as it can impact the relationship.
More officially there are personal loans available through banks and credit unions, or even lenders that are built around credit card debt consolidation. Each of these options will vary wildly, and it’s best to do your due diligence and examine each option. Even peer-to-peer lending options like Lending Tree could be helpful.
Originally published to www.financialfiduciariesllc.net | https://medium.com/@financialfiduciariesllc/3-questions-for-your-credit-card-debt-plan-f5f15a52981e | ['Financial Fiduciaries'] | 2020-10-13 19:30:03.327000+00:00 | ['Finances', 'Debt', 'Financial Fiduciaries Llc'] |
Comparison Sucks | I had a Beer with Sean Connery
“You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice
“I think it was an inside job.”
— Sean Connery to Steve
Some years ago, I had a beer with Sean Connery. It was an unremarkable beer — a Heineken, I think. Or maybe a Becks. And, if you think Sean is, actually James Bondish in “real life” …um…he is not. If this is crushes you, do not, under any circumstances, read any further.
The Sean I had a beer with was, well, rather like your old uncle who moved to Boca, has that old man emblematic and weird super high belt line (like 4 inches below the nipples), and a button-down plaid (not Scottish Tartan — jus plaid) shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned almost down to the hiked-up belt. Apparently to show off the kitschy gold chain. I suppose I can’t legitimately criticize the Morty Seinfeld yellow tinted glasses — he had just had cataract surgery. But I can criticize his car. What? An Aston Martin? Almost. Actually, a Pontiac Aztek. Think Walter White in Breaking Bad. That one. Yep. 007 in the flesh.
Yeah, this story is from the archives, but it’s a perfect one to dust off — it provides me with some perspective when I begin to undermine my own feelings of fulfillment and contentment by ruminating on what I ‘should’ be doing rather than being content with what I am doing. Or stated differently, I make assumptions about how other people are living their lives (always at a higher more interesting level than I am living my own) and then go on to make myself unhappy because I resolve to live like these other, much more successful people (apparently everyone) and then inevitably revert (or more likely I never progressed) to my mundane routine anyway. I like my routine…it’s predictable, comforting, reassuring — albeit boring — but it’s exactly what anxious people like me need! Minimize all the uncertainty you can! But what about that dude free climbing El Cap? Or my buddy off storm chasing? Or that couple who perched their Airstream on the side of a mountain and are off white water kayaking before grilling Elk burgers over a fire they made with two sticks and a magnifying glass? Or pretty much any camper within a 50 ft radius of me? All having more fun, better experiences (except maybe Rehab Guy — who BTW was arrested and kicked out, thus depriving me of stories) What about those people Steve? Why aren’t you living like that? But I am not and apparently my compulsion to constantly compare myself with others, and to assume that others are actually living as I imagine them to be living, really undermines my ability to just be content with my own place on the planet.
Some years ago, I had a beer with Sean Connery. It was an unremarkable beer — a Heineken, I think. Or maybe a Becks. And, if you think Sean is, actually James Bondish in “real life” …um…he is not. If this is crushes you, do not, under any circumstances, read any further.
The Sean I had a beer with was, well, rather like your old uncle who moved to Boca, has that old man emblematic and weird super high belt line (like 4 inches below the nipples), and a button-down plaid (not Scottish Tartan — jus plaid) shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned almost down to the hiked-up belt. Apparently to show off the kitschy gold chain. I suppose I can’t legitimately criticize the Morty Seinfeld yellow tinted glasses — he had just had cataract surgery. But I can criticize his car. What? An Aston Martin? Almost. Actually, a Pontiac Aztek. Think Walter White in Breaking Bad. That one. Yep. 007 in the flesh.
Yeah, this story is from the archives, but it’s a perfect one to dust off — it provides me with some perspective when I begin to undermine my own feelings of fulfillment and contentment by ruminating on what I ‘should’ be doing rather than being content with what I am doing. Or stated differently, I make assumptions about how other people are living their lives (always at a higher more interesting level than I am living my own) and then go on to make myself unhappy because I resolve to live like these other, much more successful people (apparently everyone) and then inevitably revert (or more likely I never progressed) to my mundane routine anyway. I like my routine…it’s predictable, comforting, reassuring — albeit boring — but it’s exactly what anxious people like me need! Minimize all the uncertainty you can! But what about that dude free climbing El Cap? Or my buddy off storm chasing? Or that couple who perched their Airstream on the side of a mountain and are off white water kayaking before grilling Elk burgers over a fire they made with two sticks and a magnifying glass? Or pretty much any camper within a 50 ft radius of me? All having more fun, better experiences (except maybe Rehab Guy — who BTW was arrested and kicked out, thus depriving me of stories) What about those people Steve? Why aren’t you living like that? But I am not and apparently my compulsion to constantly compare myself with others, and to assume that others are actually living as I imagine them to be living, really undermines my ability to just be content with my own place on the planet.
So, back to Sean, AKA, ”Bond. James Bond.” And a needed shot of perspective.
In the early oughts’ I was stationed (some of you may know I spent some time in the Coast Guard) in The Bahamas. Mr. Connery (sorry — Sean) was, at the time, a local…. or better stated a Scottish Nationalist and tax exile all at the same time. New Providence Island (Nassau) is the most populated island in the archipelago, but still small. You run into people. Including Sean. Yes, as expected he lived in a gated community…but even the elite have to come out and forage from time to time. On at least two occasions I saw him out dining with his wife. At the very same restaurant I had chosen. Wow…we frequent the same places! I suspect this would not have happened in Manhattan…but again, Nassau is small.
Now Vanilla Steve would never have actually met Sean if it had not been for a brand new, young, female Foreign Service Officer who just arrived — her first posting following initial training. And while never acceptable, I guess at this point in the excruciatingly slow evolution (maturation?) of human male behavior, a wealthy neighbor of Sean’s took a liking to this new much younger Foreign Service Officer (let’s call her Lolita — although fortunately she was much older and never had to go through the hell Lolita went through) …and began, for lack of a better way to put it, to pimp Sean out to extract ‘dates’ from her. I must note that 1) She played this well and was able to interact with Sean without ever giving the old lecher (let’s call him Humbert) what he was after and 2) Based on my interaction with Sean, I doubt he had a clue he was being pimped.
In the middle of the ‘seduction’ period, I was at home and got a call from Lolita who invited me to her small State Department provided home — Sean and Humbert were going out to a movie and decided to stop by her place enroute. Bullshit I thought. Sean Connery is going to come hang at your tiny house? I’m not gonna waste my time. Ok, fine Lo says to me. Hangs up. I proceeded to shower and prep as if I was going on a date and jetted over ‘just in case’. And guess what…. soon after I arrived, Lo gets a phone call. It’s Humbert. He is at her door. Sean is with them. They have a half hour or so. She opens the door — Humbert is pretty much filling it up….but I can see the goatee behind him…and the Aztek…and the open shirt and hiked up pants…and of course the big yellow glasses…the only proof I have that this is Sean is the iconic goatee and the Scottish brogue when he says “Hello Lolita…thanks for inviting us.” They shuffle into the tiny (charming) cottage, and we all congregate in the kitchen. A very small kitchen. Maybe 10 x 10 ft. We were absolutely Corona virus close. Lo and Humbert exit to the even smaller living room. That leaves Vanilla Steve and Sean in the kitchen. I ask if he wants a beer. He accepts. I pull one of Lo’s beers out of the fridge for him (can you move Sean so I can get the fridge open?) and one for me. I open both. I hand one to Sean. He takes a sip. Then he remarks on the fine quality of the cabinetry. I agree. They are certainly nicely made cabinets. This is surreal. I’d agree with anything he said at that point. Is this really happening? I ask him how he like living in the gated community (let’s call it Beardsley Estates). “It’s ok” replies Sean. “There has been some crime recently. Mrs. Pratt a few homes down was burglarized. Lost a lot of stuff. All her CDs. I think it was an inside job.” Holy Shit! Did Sean Connery just tell me — and only me — that a burglary in his gated community for the elite had been an “…inside job”? it’s like I am in a scene on The Untouchables. Well not really, but it’s still pretty cool. Lo then sticks her head in and invites us to the living room…god damn it…I give her the eye…I am having a pleasant chat with Sean Fucking Connery…. don’t screw it up. She doesn’t get the eye. We all sit down in the living room. I am still thinking about the “inside job.” But then the image falls apart. Lo grabs the glasses off of Sean’s head and puts the obscenely oversized yellow old man makers on…looks around…ask Sean why he has these ugly glasses…then asks Sean if George Clooney is gay…Sean is looking a little confused at this point. Humbert leans over and reminds Sean that he was in The Untouchableswith George. “Um, no I don’t think he is gay.” Boy The Untouchables in about 5 minutes time went from being a high point of my life with the “inside job” comment…to a testament to Sean’s age…
It was time for them to leave. They wanted to make the movie (I don’t know why but its weirdly reassuring to me that a movie star still liked going to the movies). We said our good byes and that was it. Yes, I “ran into” Sean again — I was at a restaurant with Lo…he came over to say hello. To Lo. Not to Vanilla Steve. Not sure he even recalled seeing me prior to that…but that isn’t the point of my blather. Not at all. My point is that if even Sean Connery drives an Aztek, dresses like an old man, goes to an occasional movie and just hangs out at his place…maybe my boring, unsophisticated, mundane existence isn’t that far off the norm. Maybe all the Instagram and Facebook fake happiness is — well, mostly fake. I am not celebrating that — I’d prefer people to be content in their lives — but I do take solace in the fact that I have some evidence that even the most elite among us lead lives that are, perhaps, on balance not much more exciting than mine. At least, unlike J. Peterman, I don’t have all the cable channels memorized. I think we all do a little comparing…and it’s nice to know that our assumptions about the exciting lives of, well, everyone else, is mostly a distortion we create in our heads. Maybe this realization will prevent some of the contentment from ebbing…
Lots of alliterative titles came to mind for this piece — The Cancer of Comparison…. The Consequences of Comparison…Compelled to Compare…Corrosive Comparison…it’s an alliterative bonanza…. but it boils down to this: Comparison Sucks. It seems to be part of my psychology though. So, despite my best efforts, I continue to do it. Thus, the story of Vanilla Steve and Vanilla (at least that evening) Sean help blunt the impact.
I’m a so-so writer, publishing a so-so travel blog: www.steve-nomad.com
After spending a career as a Coast Guard Officer and then spending a few years in the wine industry in Sonoma, CA. I decided to break from convention and spend some time living as a Nomad in my Airstream. Check it out! Pretty cool huh? | https://medium.com/@stephenchamberlin/comparison-sucks-e61ecefe2eee | ['Stephen Chamberlin'] | 2020-12-10 00:34:03.069000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Essay', 'Storytelling', 'Travel', 'Celebrity'] |
Weekly Roundup: Magic show, shredding event, Assemblyman Joe Howarth | Weekly Roundup: Magic show, shredding event, Assemblyman Joe Howarth
Catch up on what happened this week in Medford.
The magic of giving back
Do you believe in magic?
Shawnee High School senior and magician Jake Strong invites you to his performance at the high school on March 15 at 7 p.m., showcasing the magic of giving back.
The show costs $10 to attend, with all proceeds benefiting Make-A-Wish New Jersey.
The full story can be found here.
Free shredding events for Burlington County residents
The Burlington County Board of Chosen Freeholders is hosting two shredding events this spring where residents of Burlington County can safely dispose of confidential documents.
“Spring is a great time to clear out confidential files. The Freeholder Board is here to help with two free county shredding events. Please mark your calendar now to take advantage of this great county service,” said Freeholder Director Tom Pullion.
The events will take place Sunday, March 24 and Sunday, April 28 at the Burlington County Resource Recovery Complex, 22000 Burlington-Columbus Road in Florence, NJ.
Burlington County Republican Committee drops support for Eighth District Assemblyman Joe Howarth
It’s another political shocker regarding one of the elected officials representing Shamong Township at the state level.
About a week and a half after state Sen. Dawn Addiego (NJ-8) announced she was switching from Republican to Democrat, the Burlington County Republican Committee announced the organization would not be endorsing incumbent Republican Assemblyman Joe Howarth (NJ-8) for re-election later this year.
In a Feb. 8 statement from Burlington County Republican Chairman Sean Earlen, Erlen said he and other party officials believed Howarth had made an “apparent attempt” to join Addiego in “defecting” when Earlen said Howarth cut off contact with Republican leaders in the days following Addiego’s announcement.
The full story can be found here. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/weekly-roundup-magic-show-shredding-event-assemblyman-joe-howarth-86b81260af2f | ['Melissa Riker'] | 2019-02-17 15:31:00.924000+00:00 | ['Magic', 'Community', 'New Jersey', 'Education'] |
The Mistakes I made as a beginner Product Manager | In the following paragraphs, I list down the key mistakes I made. If you too are making any of these mistakes, I advise you to course correct instead of learning it the hard way.
#1: I was not proactive in communicating critical information
The team would agree on a deadline.
The deadline would come and go. The project would still not be done. The boss would ask for an update. I would either give a vague response or sometimes not respond at all.
Result: It pissed of my boss and a general feeling settled that I was not serious about my responsibilities.
Key Takeaways
As a PM, you need to be on top of all projects which you are driving. Start making noise well in advance if you see something getting delayed.(Pissed engineers or pissed boss — you make the choice)
Keep a channel for constant communication open with your boss. Even if its bad news, convey it in advance. Also specify what you are going to do to fix it.
Be guilty of over-communicating rather than under-communicating.
#2: I focused only on execution and never provided new ideas
I generally busied myself in solving bugs and other minor issues.
I used to pick something new only when instructions came from top. Neither did I proactively ask for work, nor did I have many interesting ideas.
Any ideas that I had usually fizzled out because I was unable to make a strong case for them.
Key Takeaways
Be Proactive and not reactive : If you are given a system or a feature to manage, always keep racking up your brains on what improvements can be done. Talk to customers. Look up the competition. Be creative. Whatever good ideas you get, make sure to convey it to the higher-ups.
: If you are given a system or a feature to manage, always keep racking up your brains on what improvements can be done. Talk to customers. Look up the competition. Be creative. Whatever good ideas you get, make sure to convey it to the higher-ups. Always ground your ideas in something concrete: It could be something quantitative (data) or qualitative (customer anecdotes).
It could be something quantitative (data) or qualitative (customer anecdotes). Seek continuous improvement: Whether its processes, analytics, delivery timeline or user experience, always focus on making things better.
#3: I did not build empathy for my engineers
I used to see engineers as people who missed deadlines and didn’t get things done on time. I didn’t try to understand their needs, desires and challenges.
Result: We ended up in an antagonistic relationship, playing the blame game on multiple occasions.
Key Takeaways
Involve the Tech Leads at the time of project ideation. During every step, take them into confidence on what’s feasible and what’s not.
Schedule regular 1:1 meetings with engineers to understand how you can help them do better.
Support engineering in prioritising infrastructure improvements, integrating new code tools and resolving non-critical bug fixes.
#4: I did not focus on high leverage tasks
I was a sincere employee. I used to come on time. I used to stay till late. But there was one problem. I was mostly working on non-impactful things.
90% of my time was spent on fixing bugs, conveying information and running after people. Thus, I was almost left with no time for deep work.
Result: I did not create any impact as a product manager.
Key Takeaways
You will be solely judged on the basis of the impact you make on your product/feature. Never forget that.
Make sure you are mostly working on things which help your product/feature become significantly better than what it currently is.
While bugs/issues are unavoidable, make sure you are not caught in a vicious web where it become impossible for you to work on strategic items.
#5: I didn’t cultivate a good relationship with my boss
I never made an attempt to be in the good books of my boss.
In fact, I was making every effort to get into the bad books.
I would not respond to their queries quick enough. I would never show any proactiveness. I never took initiative. I never spoke up.
Key Takeaways
Exceed the expectations of your boss : If you have to do X, try doing X + a, instead of just doing X - a. This will help build trust with your boss and convince them that you can deliver.
: If you have to do X, try doing X + a, instead of just doing X - a. This will help build trust with your boss and convince them that you can deliver. Don’t take it personally: Your boss will say things at times which might be unpleasant to hear. If you make everything an ego battle, you would always be frustrated.
Your boss will say things at times which might be unpleasant to hear. If you make everything an ego battle, you would always be frustrated. When your boss tells you to do something, take it on very high priority. Show them that this is as important to you as it is to them.
#6: I didn’t focus on improving my product management skills
During my first year, I barely read any blogs/newsletters/books on product management, strategy or business. I rarely made any effort to implement the good stuff I read about.
I didn’t bother to have conversations with experienced Product Managers on how to improve in my craft.
Result: I never consciously improved my skills or abilities as a PM. I remained where I had begun.
Key Takeaways | https://medium.com/agileinsider/six-mistakes-i-made-as-a-beginner-product-manager-470554ed8457 | ['Vikram Goyal'] | 2021-06-06 11:38:28.589000+00:00 | ['Product Manager', 'Product Management', 'Career Advice', 'Career Development', 'Startup'] |
2019 Biggest BYOD Concerns: Answered | The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy is not a stranger to today’s business: back in 2009, the term entered everyday use, when Intel recognized the expanding tendency among its employees. They brought their smartphones, tablets, and laptops to the workplace and connected them to the enterprise network to use them for work purposes.
A decade later, this movement became mainstream. According to the Global Market Insights statistics, the BYOD market is to reach almost $367 billion by 2022, up from just $30 billion in 2014.
The biggest reason for such an increase lies in the onrush of personal devices: ten years ago, people undeniably possessed fewer smartphones, laptops, and tablets, not to speak of wearables like smart wristbands and watches. It didn’t take much time for businesses all around the world to put two and two together: if employees use their own devices at work, employers will be able to save on company-provided gear. So, they were not far from the truth: as Cisco states in its report, BYOD-favoring companies annually save $350 per employee.
Overall, it is the BYOD flexibility that attracts both managers and their staff. Personal devices can be used for work at any time and in any place. They save the employer’s money and make young employees more productive — a win-win situation.
However, it is also this flexibility that makes BYOD so hazardous: when employees freely possess enterprise data on their tablets and smartphones, it may lead to severe consequences, still actual today. Below we name the biggest 2019 concerns on BYOD implementation together with some ideas on how to address them.
Concern #1. How Should Enterprises Protect Their Data?
As long as there is a BYOD movement, the problem of enterprise data security remains a headache for many companies. Probably, this is the reason why only 31% of respondents participating in Samsung’s research, rely on BYOD entirely.
Every time an employee turns to enterprise data using an unclassified network, the company faces malware risks: such a connection may turn to be hacker-occupied and can become the cause for data leakage or misuse.
The so-called physical risks of BYOD is another reason for some companies to steer clear of it. In case an employee loses his or her smartphone or falls victim to a thief, business information stored on the device may get into the wrong hands.
How to Address: MDM Protects Enterprise Data
A lot has been said about Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. It has been around almost as long as mobile devices have — such tools seem to be a good bargain.
MDM is a central platform to which employees can link their personal devices. The platform delivers employers access to staff’s tech so that they can provide in-time software update, data encryption, virus testing, and, in case of lost or stolen devices, data wiping.
Concern #2. BYOD Undermines Privacy of Employee Data, Doesn’t it?
As employers need to control valuable enterprise data on employees’ devices, they inevitably get access to the staff’s personal information. At the same time, most of the American states severely punish employers if they intrude into employee data. As for Europe, there is the General Data Protection Regulation that came into effect in May 2018 and made employees’ personal data protection a business priority.
As it turned out during the Bitglass experiment, in an attempt to guard business data on employees’ devices, hirers may receive visibility into a real user’s browsing history, their location, and personal communication via Gmail or Messenger. Such results raise questions about the employee’s personal information safety.
How to Address: EMM Protects Employee Data
MDM is a time-honored tool for enterprise data protection that undoubtedly saved more than one company from data loss. Though, it unsurprisingly causes some doubts in employees, as far as such tools allow supervisors to wipe data from their own devices and, as stated above, watch their personal information.
So, when the issue of an employee’s privacy steps forward, an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution may become no less in place. Such tools enclose enterprise apps in a protected container and isolate personal content and applications from it. The employer has access only to the enterprise container, so they don’t limit the employee’s ability to use their devices and personal data. As enterprise mobility experts from Iflexion state, such tools help businesses to ensure encrypted and safe data transfer between devices and enterprise systems, all in line with BYOD security policies.
Concern #3. How Should Businesses Deal with BYOD-Related Legal Pitfalls?
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay extra non-exempt workers for any time spent on work beyond 40 regular hours. So, if your staff member decides to check their corporate email before going to bed and draws into a work-related task for an hour, you may turn to have to pay for overtime.
Harassment and discrimination issues are somewhat disputed points in BYOD implementation as well. If an employee uses their personal device to bully coworkers, their work providers may become responsible for these actions.
How to Address: Precise Policies for Legal Disputes Bypassing
Unfortunately, there is no tool invented for legal disputes prevention. It’s tough, if not impossible, to predict people’s actions. So, the only way for businesses to protect themselves and their employees from legal disputes is not to shy away from creating accurate and detailed policies. For instance:
Businesses should require their employees to track all hours spent working inside and outside the office.
Employers can limit “off-the-clock” work and set some guidelines such as no remote working outside of employee’s norm or no remote work during an unpaid leave.
As for the discrimination issue, a good policy is again a comprehensive solution. Good judgment in communication should be another policy point. It’s also useful to remind employees that the company’s policies prohibiting harassment and discrimination apply to all the devices under the BYOD policy.
What Does the Future Hold for BYOD?
As the statistics above show, BYOD is still alive and, even more important, rather kicking. However, it seems that companies are more likely to use BYOD as an augmentation, not a substitute, of their traditional working way. The already cited Samsung study suggests that 52% of the surveyed companies use a kind of hybrid BYOD approach, in which some staff members still rely on the enterprise-provided tech.
Probably, a clever combination of the brightest of the two worlds may become the best bet: it would help companies to join the growing BYOD movement and, at the same time, partially avoid the problems mentioned above. Though, if you are not about implementing something halfway, you already know how to address the major BYOD concerns of today. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/2019-biggest-byod-concerns-answered-aea616d3e177 | [] | 2019-04-26 12:56:00.802000+00:00 | ['Data Security', 'Byod', 'Byod Concerns', 'Data Privacy', 'Data Protection'] |
ForLikeMinds Community | 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/psychwardgreetingcards/forlikeminds-community-248dd3cc60f4 | [] | 2020-12-26 18:12:57.323000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Mental Illness Awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Peer To Peer'] |
EU leaders agree to cut carbon emissions at least 55% by 2030 | Good News Notes:
“European Union leaders have agreed to cut net carbon emissions at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030, European Council President Charles Michel announced on Friday.
The big picture: The agreement eased concerns among Eastern European countries, including Poland, that rely heavily on coal, while putting the EU on a path toward its goal to be climate-neutral by 2050.
Many details of the agreement, which came after an all-night negotiating session, still need to be worked out by the European Commission.
But leaders ‘decided the target has to be reached by the bloc collectively — effectively giving coal-depended countries more time to transition their energy consumption,’ theNew York Times noted.
What they’re saying saying: ‘Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change,’ Michel tweeted in announcing the agreement.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that the agreement ‘puts us on a clear path towards climate neutrality in 2050.’
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a news conference on Friday that the decision was ‘worth losing a night’s sleep,’ per NYT. ‘I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been able to achieve such a result.’
Michal Kurtyka, Poland’s minister of climate and environment, said the deal ‘on the one hand allows us to realize the E.U. target, and on the other creates conditions for a just transition of the Polish economy and the energy sector,’ the NYT reported.
Yes, but: Many environmental and climate groups and activists said Friday’s agreement falls shorts.”
View the whole story here: https://www.axios.com/eu-carbon-emissions-target-cut-2030-climate-063fa943-1af8-471f-a798-590bba10c7c4.html | https://medium.com/@tonycowger/eu-leaders-agree-to-cut-carbon-emissions-at-least-55-by-2030-67a78e14846b | ['Tony Cowger'] | 2020-12-18 05:49:36.008000+00:00 | ['Europe', 'News', 'Climate Change', 'Carbon Emissions', 'European Union'] |
Where do you belong? | Devotional based upon 1 Peter 1:1–2
“To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”
Follower of Christ, where do you belong?
The pioneer and perfecter of faith, Jesus well understood where He belonged and to whom. He told one follower that He had not a place to lay His head (Luke 9:58). He told Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). If His place is not in this world, and if we belong to Him, then neither is our place in this world. As soon as we sign our lives over to Christ and he adopts us as heirs, we become refugees — travelers and aliens on this Earth.
Yet, it is easy to lose sight of this fact and expend enormous amounts of time, energy and resources on earthly things that do not matter in the heavenly realms. Jesus pointed out this error in the parable about the man who had been blessed with such abundance that he decided to build bigger barns in which to hoard his wealth. “You fool!” God said, “This very night your life will be demanded from you!” (Luke 12:20). For those who are secure and wealthy, the idea of losing earthly treasure is uncomfortable and unwanted. Who wants to be poor? Who wants to be persecuted and rejected? But Jesus said that blessed are those who are poor, who mourn, who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed!!
On the other hand, for those who do not enjoy security or wealth, our heavenly position as strangers is a blessed reassurance that our worldly home is not intended to be heaven on earth. It is imperfect and fleeting. Peter reminded the recipients of this letter of both realities. To those who had been expelled from their homes due to persecution, Peter reminded them that they were chosen by God and have a home in Him. To those still resident and comfortable in their communities, Peter reminded them that their true status is not as citizens of this earth, but as aliens with a home yet to come.
It is important to point out that some of the persecution of the early Christian communities came not from Rome, but from God’s Holy people who had misunderstood or forgotten these points. Israel’s leaders had a comfortable, though tenuous existence despite being under the dominion of the Roman Empire. Israel enjoyed a level of autonomy that the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law were terrified they would lose. Israel’s leaders were also terrified that they would lose their comfortable lifestyles and places of honor among the people should Rome take more of their rights and freedoms away. The foundation of their faith was no longer God Himself, but rather their ability to hold onto their national existence. This led the collective leadership to firmly squash any potential upheaval or uprising which could bring the ire and attention of the Empire. High Priest Caiaphas stated in reference to the uproar caused by Jesus that it was “better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” (John 11:50), and so they began to strive to kill Jesus in order to save their security. They lost sight of their status as sojourners and aliens in this land, and would resort to conspiracy and murder to keep hold of their earthly treasure. The Chosen People through whom God intended to bless the nations of the world, were suddenly by and large no earthly good.
But are we Christians in the 21st century any better?
Christian, are you expending all your energy on your earthly home, status and wealth at the expense of your heavenly inheritance? Are your sheep malnourished for the sake of your pride? Have you forgotten that nothing you have on this earth truly belongs to you, but rather is gifted to you from the Father in order to do good works that He has planned for you to do? Have you even gone so far from the truth that you are willing to commit ungodly acts in order to maintain hold of your “rights” and your comfortable lifestyle? Will you lie and bear false witness? Will you tear down others — at times in God’s own Name — to protect your “freedoms”? Heaven forbid! For “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and pride in possessions — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15–17)
For what is the purpose of the saving sprinkling of the blood of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit, if not obedience to God for His purposes? For we are chosen for obedience — not to the law, but to Jesus who fulfilled the law and gave us the new commandment to love one another. Peter prayed for an overabundance of grace and peace to be given through the work of the Spirit to the Christian itinerants in these regions . . . all for obedience to Him. And what is this obedience? To love our brothers, yes — and to care for the orphan and widow and keep ourselves from the world’s defilement. If our focus is on maintaining our comfortable lifestyle, it is difficult to demonstrate love to our brother who is in need, much less the widow or orphan unknown to us (but known to God) whom God has placed in our paths in order for us to bless them with the gifts God has given us for just that purpose! Indeed, the world strives for possessions, pride and places of honor. If we Christians do the same, we are defiled. We become bland salt and dim light that is good for very little.
Christian, in accordance with how you are living your life — where do you belong? Are you working to store up treasures in heaven or here on earth where rust, moth and fire destroy? Have you become defiled by the ways of the world? If so, fall to your knees before God and ask for His forgiveness and His power to cleanse your lamp so that His light will shine forth strong and true.
Questions for meditation / discussion:
For what treasure have you been striving? Heavenly or worldly? On what do you spend most of your money? And your time? If God came to you in a dream and told you to move to a third world country, or an inner city, or rural America to be a missionary, what would be the most difficult things for you to give up? Why?
Heavenly Father, thank You for the great many gifts you give us, and the even greater eternal promises on which we can rely! Thank You that we can rest, trusting in Your security and Your providence. Please, Father, forgive us for losing focus and becoming preoccupied with our earthly treasures, cares and struggles. Forgive our lack of trust in You. Draw us nearer to You, we pray. Let our eyes and efforts remain in You all of our days. Amen. | https://medium.com/@johnmalachi/where-do-you-belong-e9c6f11fc563 | [] | 2020-12-09 19:58:11.176000+00:00 | ['Security', 'Jesus', 'Devotional', 'Christian', 'Aliens'] |
What is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle? | The uncertainty principle is one of the most famous (and probably misunderstood) ideas in physics. It tells us that there is a fuzziness in nature, a fundamental limit to what we can know about the behaviour of quantum particles and, therefore, the smallest scales of nature. Of these scales, the most we can hope for is to calculate probabilities for where things are and how they will behave. Unlike Isaac Newton’s clockwork universe, where everything follows clear-cut laws on how to move and prediction is easy if you know the starting conditions, the uncertainty principle enshrines a level of fuzziness into quantum theory.
Werner Heisenberg’s simple idea tells us why atoms don’t implode, how the sun manages to shine and, strangely, that the vacuum of space is not actually empty.
An early incarnation of the uncertainty principle appeared in a 1927 paper by Heisenberg, a German physicist who was working at Niels Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen at the time, titled “On the Perceptual Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics”. The more familiar form of the equation came a few years later when he had further refined his thoughts in subsequent lectures and papers.
Heisenberg was working through the implications of quantum theory, a strange new way of explaining how atoms behaved that had been developed by physicists, including Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger, over the previous decade. Among its many counter-intuitive ideas, quantum theory proposed that energy was not continuous but instead came in discrete packets (quanta) and that light could be described as both a wave and a stream of these quanta. In fleshing out this radical worldview, Heisenberg discovered a problem in the way that the basic physical properties of a particle in a quantum system could be measured. In one of his regular letters to a colleague, Wolfgang Pauli, he presented the inklings of an idea that has since became a fundamental part of the quantum description of the world.
The uncertainty principle says that we cannot measure the position (x) and the momentum (p) of a particle with absolute precision. The more accurately we know one of these values, the less accurately we know the other. Multiplying together the errors in the measurements of these values (the errors are represented by the triangle symbol in front of each property, the Greek letter “delta”) has to give a number greater than or equal to half of a constant called “h-bar”. This is equal to Planck’s constant (usually written as h) divided by 2π. Planck’s constant is an important number in quantum theory, a way to measure the granularity of the world at its smallest scales and it has the value 6.626 x 10–34 joule seconds.
One way to think about the uncertainty principle is as an extension of how we see and measure things in the everyday world. You can read these words because particles of light, photons, have bounced off the screen or paper and reached your eyes. Each photon on that path carries with it some information about the surface it has bounced from, at the speed of light. Seeing a subatomic particle, such as an electron, is not so simple. You might similarly bounce a photon off it and then hope to detect that photon with an instrument. But chances are that the photon will impart some momentum to the electron as it hits it and change the path of the particle you are trying to measure. Or else, given that quantum particles often move so fast, the electron may no longer be in the place it was when the photon originally bounced off it. Either way, your observation of either position or momentum will be inaccurate and, more important, the act of observation affects the particle being observed.
The uncertainty principle is at the heart of many things that we observe but cannot explain using classical (non-quantum) physics. Take atoms, for example, where negatively-charged electrons orbit a positively-charged nucleus. By classical logic, we might expect the two opposite charges to attract each other, leading everything to collapse into a ball of particles. The uncertainty principle explains why this doesn’t happen: if an electron got too close to the nucleus, then its position in space would be precisely known and, therefore, the error in measuring its position would be minuscule. This means that the error in measuring its momentum (and, by inference, its velocity) would be enormous. In that case, the electron could be moving fast enough to fly out of the atom altogether.
Heisenberg’s idea can also explain a type of nuclear radiation called alpha decay. Alpha particles are two protons and two neutrons emitted by some heavy nuclei, such as uranium-238. Usually these are bound inside the heavy nucleus and would need lots of energy to break the bonds keeping them in place. But, because an alpha particle inside a nucleus has a very well-defined velocity, its position is not so well-defined. That means there is a small, but non-zero, chance that the particle could, at some point, find itself outside the nucleus, even though it technically does not have enough energy to escape. When this happens — a process metaphorically known as “quantum tunneling” because the escaping particle has to somehow dig its way through an energy barrier that it cannot leap over — the alpha particle escapes and we see radioactivity.
A similar quantum tunnelling process happens, in reverse, at the centre of our sun, where protons fuse together and release the energy that allows our star to shine. The temperatures at the core of the sun are not high enough for the protons to have enough energy to overcome their mutual electric repulsion. But, thanks to the uncertainty principle, they can tunnel their way through the energy barrier.
Perhaps the strangest result of the uncertainty principle is what it says about vacuums. Vacuums are often defined as the absence of everything. But not so in quantum theory. There is an inherent uncertainty in the amount of energy involved in quantum processes and in the time it takes for those processes to happen. Instead of position and momentum, Heisenberg’s equation can also be expressed in terms of energy and time. Again, the more constrained one variable is, the less constrained the other is. It is therefore possible that, for very, very short periods of time, a quantum system’s energy can be highly uncertain, so much that particles can appear out of the vacuum. These “virtual particles” appear in pairs — an electron and its antimatter pair, the positron, say — for a short while and then annihilate each other. This is well within the laws of quantum physics, as long as the particles only exist fleetingly and disappear when their time is up. Uncertainty, then, is nothing to worry about in quantum physics and, in fact, we wouldn’t be here if this principle didn’t exist. | https://medium.com/thedialogues/what-is-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-7d8b44e39b07 | ['Editor', 'The Dialogues'] | 2016-11-06 16:34:57.079000+00:00 | ['Articles', 'Science', 'Physics', 'Uncertainty'] |
Chaos and destruction (part 3/3). Threats | Threats
We talked very little about my miscarriage. He thought it was better that way. And the chaos that was our daily life took over within a few days. I wrapped my pain in a handkerchief, tied it in a knot and never mentioned it again.
I can’t remember what happened next. My memories are confused. My daily life consisted only of managing this chaotic family, trying to prevent A’s crises, coping with them when they occurred and working. Some days I couldn’t even do that. I was pondering whether I should give up everything. But the fear of being alone, of losing a family, the shame I felt at the idea of abandoning them when things were so hard, made me stay. And in the midst of this chaos, I don’t think I could think clearly or know what was good for me.
In a desperate effort to save our couple, we spent a weekend holiday in Brittany. I was expecting a lot from it. I wanted to have time to talk to him, to laugh, to recapture those light and joyful moments that had been ours at the beginning. We spent a day walking around. A few pleasant hours. Then the same implacable mechanics played out. He started drinking at lunch, and did not stop. In the evening, after a couple of hours spent at a friend’s house during which he had ignored me, he started screaming as we drove to the restaurant. He was angry at the world, at his family, he was angry at me. He blamed me for things which I don’t even remember. I stopped twice to catch my breath. When we arrived at the apartment we had rented, he refused to let me go to bed. He looked at me, cold, mean, sarcastic. My back was pressed against the window. I was silent, hoping he would stop. He looked me in the eyes and came closer to me, his face a few centimetres from mine: “Do you know that I can be a monster? Do you know what I am capable of? “He repeated it until he fell asleep, knocked out by the alcohol.
A year ends
We headed back to Bordeaux. He immediately went to see some friends. He would do this after every crisis, which is characteristic of violent men. Specialists call this the organisation of impunity: after each episode of violence, they act good, sympathetic, generous, funny… they make it hard for people to believe the violence which they are guilty of. I spent those few hours crying and thinking. When he came back, I told him I wouldn’t be going home. I will stay at my place, alone. I calmly told him that I was getting sick from the situation: I was crying uncontrollably, I had lost weight, I was living in constant stress and fear, taking care of his chaotic family and suffering his violent outbursts. I was exhausted.
He made one last effort to hold me back, prepared a fabulous Christmas dinner and covered me with gifts. He dragged me into the bedroom to make love. He said he wanted to make up for his mistakes, asked for forgiveness, kissed me. We started to make love. But my heart wasn’t into it. It all felt wrong. I asked him to stop. He didn’t. As he got dressed, he threw these words at me: “Oh, it’s all right, don’t play the victim”.
The next day I left to see my family for Christmas. I was stunned by what had just happened. When I came back, he left me. He had, in a surge of lucidity, realised the harm he was doing to me. I cried at first, clinging to a relationship I no longer wanted in some irrational and masochistic way. It took me a month to realise the reality of the relationship I had been in, the violence he had inflicted on me.
I threw myself assiduously into a work of redevelopment, made up of psychotherapy, emotional therapy, meditation. I tried a thousand treatments to heal from what I had just suffered. I delved into the past and the reasons why I had once again remained in a destructive relationship. Because I had already done it before. | https://medium.com/@anaissimone/chaos-and-destruction-part-2-3-33f4fd62d60a | ['Anaïs Simone'] | 2021-02-22 18:17:45.004000+00:00 | ['Narcissistic Abuse', 'Abuse', 'Lovestory', 'Life Lessons', 'Abuse Survivors'] |
How to Trim String in JavaScript | It’s super simple to remove whitespace from a string. To remove just the leading whitespace, you can use trimStart() . To remove trailing whitespace, use trimEnd() . Or remove it all with trim() 🙌
const string = " hi "; string.trimStart(); // "hi "
string.trimEnd(); // " hi"
string.trim(); // "hi"
Trim Return Value
All trim methods, will return a new string. That means your original string will be left intact.
const string = " hi "; string.trimStart(); // "hi "
string.trimEnd(); // " hi"
string.trim(); // "hi" string; // " hi "
What is Whitespace
So trim removes whitespace. So that is the white space created by:
space
tab
no-break space
line terminator characters
Trimming Line Terminator Characters
You might be wondering what are line terminator characters. Well, let’s take a look at some examples.
'hi
'.trim(); // "hi" 'hi \t'.trim(); // "hi" 'hi \r'.trim(); // "hi"
Multi-line String
In JavaScript, you can easily create multi-line strings using the Template Literals. So if you’re wondering if trim works with that, you bet it does 👍
const multiLine = `
hi
`; multiline.trim(); // "hi"
Trimming Multiple Words
Remember trim only works for whitespace at the start and end. So it doesn't trim the space in between words.
' hi there '.trim(); // "hi there"
Multi-Line of Multiple Words
Same with multi-line, it only trims the beginning of the first word and the ending of the last word.
const multiLine = `
hi there
`; // Returns "hi there"
Trim Aliases
trimStart vs trimLeft
trimStart removes the leading white space. So all the whitespace from the beginning of a string to the first non-whitespace character will be gone.
You might also see people using trimLeft() . Well, that's because it's an alias. It does the same thing.
const string = " hi "; string.trimStart(); // "hi "
string.trimLeft(); // "hi "
trimEnd vs trimRight
trimEnd removes the trailing white space. So all the whitespace from the end of a string will be gone. The alias of this method is trimRight() . Again, they do the same thing.
const string = " hi "; string.trimEnd(); // " hi"
string.trimRight(); // " hi"
Which one should I use?
So which one should you use? Well, let’s see what the ECMAScript Specification says:
The property trimStart nad trimEnd are preferred. The trimLeft and trimRight property are provided principally for compatibility with old code. It is recommended that the trimStart property be used in new ECMAScript code.
trimStart and trimEnd for the win 👑
Why are there aliases?
So trimLeft and trimRight were introduced first. However, the committee decided to propose a word change to trimStart and trimEnd instead. That's because it's more consistent to their other built-in methods, padStart and padEnd . Which makes sense to me, I think consistency is key and using the same language helps lessen confusion.
But for web compatibility reasons, they’re keeping the old terms ( trimLeft and trimRight ) as aliases. So if your code is using the older methods, no problem, they will still work 👍 However if you have the capacity, I'd recommend you changing it to use the official ones instead of the alias so you don't have two different methods floating around in your codebase. Remember it's all about that consistency 😎
Trim Methods Use Case
trim
I mostly used trim() . Very handy to remove whitespace for a form input 👍
<input type="text" id="search" /> const inputValue = document.getElementById('search').value.trim();
You can also use it to remove odd whitespaces in a sentence and format it properly. Essentially creating your very own sentence prettier 💅
const uglySentence = "One Two Three Four "; const prettySentence = uglySentence
.split(' ') // ["One", "", "Two", "", "", "Three", "Four", "", "", ""]
.filter(word => word) // ["One", "Two", "Three", "Four"]
.join(' '); // "One Two Three Four" // ✅ Result
console.log(prettySentence); // "One Two Three Four"
trimStart
I haven’t used this before. But I can see where this can be handy. Take a markdown file. You would want to preserve the leading whitespaces. But with the trailing whitespaces, you might want to automatically get rid of it so it doesn’t render out a confusing or unexpected result for your user.
- List Item
- Sub List Item
- Sub List Item
trimEnd
I don’t have a great example for this one. But if I stayed with the markdown file example. We might want to prohibit nested listed items. However, we still want to preserve trailing whitespace. In markdown, if you use insert two whitespaces, it will create a line break. I’m going to denote whitespaces with a dot · , so you can see what's going on.
Markdown won’t create a line break here
hi
there // Result
hi there
To force a line break, you can add 2 spaces.
hi··
there // Result
hi
there
So knowing this, you might not want to remove the trailing space. However, you still want to get rid of a nested list. In that case, then trimStart might be the one for you.
Browser Support
Support for trim() is pretty awesome! However, it's a bit limited for trimStart and trimEnd , that's because they were introduced later on.
BrowsertrimtrimStarttrimEndChrome✅✅✅Firefox✅✅✅Safari✅✅✅Edge✅✅✅Internet Explorer✅❌❌
Community Input
@ArtesEveni:
const string = ' hi ';
string.replace(/ /g, ''); // "hi"
Resources | https://medium.com/dailyjs/how-to-trim-string-in-javascript-43a898befce9 | ['Samantha Ming'] | 2020-04-27 13:32:02.318000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Front End Development'] |
Power up your Spatial Data Science workflow with CARTOframes. | In this tutorial, we will construe the ways we can use CARTOframes with python to build dashboards and share your insights with your audience.
A little bit about the CARTO platform,
CARTO is one of the leaders in the Location Intelligence domain. It's beneficial for solve location intelligence problems of many industries including,
1. Telecommunication
2. Transport
3. Logistics, and many more.
There are few main components of the CARTO platform.
Dashboard
Builder
Platform APIs and libraries
Data Observatory
CARTOframes
In this article, we are going to explore the basic capabilities of CARTOframes by building an interactive dashboard. For that, we will use gun-violence-data from Kaggle.
Account creation, Install and basic authentication setup
Account Creation
NOTE: This step is optional if you will use CARTOframes to visualize your local data, but If you want to share it with the audience or need to use some advanced features, you definitely need a CART account to process further.
If you are a student or educator, you can use your academic email to get a student account using Github Education Pack.
After account creation, you can access your API key from your CARTO dashboard. Now you are ready to set up authentication for your local application. All you need is to get your API key and username and save it as a JSON file in the following format. Name it as creds.jon and save it in your current working directory.
creds.json
2. Install
CARTOframes requires Shapely and Fiona libraries already in your system. Hence, use the following commands to install it correctly,
pip install shapely
conda install -c conda-forge fiona
pip install cartoframes
3. Setup Authentication
Now you have installed CARTOframes in your machine and saved your credentials. Then, you can set the Authentication using the following lines of code.
from cartoframes.auth import set_default_credentials
set_default_credentials(‘creds.json’)
Alright! Now we can move to the next stage.
Import data and pre-processing
You can see the description of the data using the Kaggle site. It contains 239,677 incidents for the year 2013 to 2018.
Sample of the dataset.
sample
Afterward, we select incidents that occurred in the year 2018 and few columns only.
Now we have the following data frame,
Now we need clear participant gender columns according to our use case. We will get participants' male count and female count separately.
cleaned data
Visualization
To visualize and spatial data frame with CARTOframes the source data frame geometry’s CRS must be WGS 84 (EPSG:4326).
The easiest way is converting our pandas.DataFrame to geopandas.GeoDataFrame.
Now we can visualize our data.
Another useful component of CARTOframes is widgets, styles, and popups. We can select an appropriate widget based on our use case. In this visualization, we will use,
Click and hover popups -Display a popup triggered by a hover event Histogram widget -Create a widget to represent categorical, numeric, and date values in a histogram Category widget -Create a widget to represent categorical values Formula widget -Display the result of a count, avg, max, min, or sum operation in a numeric Animation style -To be able to play, pause and change an animated visualization through animation controls
let's see how to implement it using python,
Before that, we need to create a new column called weekday
incidents_2018_gdf['weekday'] = (incidents_2018_gdf['date']
.dt.day_name())
Next, we will create another layer containing an animation style for the date column,
Now our main dashboard ready to use, additionally you can publish it using the following way. You have to set default credentials before doing this.
map_viz.publish('viz_name',password='letmein',if_exists='replace')
Also don't forget to visit the documentation, in case you got stucked😉
Thanks! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/power-up-your-spatial-data-science-workflow-with-cartoframes-8fd1022127a9 | ['Ransaka Ravihara'] | 2021-05-21 17:54:52.878000+00:00 | ['GIS', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Spatialdatascience', 'Data Analysis'] |
Elliptic Curve Cryptography | A look into the cryptography that protects your cryptocurrencies
This article will look to into Elliptic Curve cryptography the math behind it to generate the private keys which keep are bitcoins safe.
Private Keys
First I want to talk about private keys. A large number of people have no idea what a private key is, they may know what is does but they don’t know what it represents. I think a large part of this is to do with the format it is often presented in. Most private keys are presented like this,
0xA0DC65FFCA799873CBEA0AC274015B9526505DAAAED385155425F7337704883E
This is hexadecimal and often leads people to think that private keys are written in some foreign language that they cannot comprehend. In actuality the text above simply represents a decimal number that you and I encounter everyday. In this case the hexadecimal above represents,
72759466100064397073952777052424474334519735946222029294952053344302920927294
As you can see this is quite a big number and it’s the size of this number that protects cryptocurrencies from brute force attacks. Now would be a good time to take a look at this article on base systems to understand how hexadecimal, binary and decimal all relate to each other.
The range of possible numbers a private key is dictated by the private key size. The size refers to the number of bits in the private key. In bitcoin the secp256k1 standard is used, note the 256 refers to the size of the private key in this case 256 bits. The corresponding 256 bit key to the number above is shown below,
1010000011011100011001011111111111001010011110011001100001110011110010111110101000001010110000100111010000000001010110111001010100100110010100000101110110101010101011101101001110000101000101010101010000100101111101110011001101110111000001001000100000111110
This is ultimately what the private key is. 256 1’s and 0’s that enable it to be interpreted by a computer. For us it simply represents a number, a very large number that is virtually impossible to guess. To put how in context how many possible private keys there are out there have a read of this quote,
Create a new Earth for every grain of sand on Earth, and there are 26 billion unique Bitcoin addresses for each grain of sand on each of those Earths.
Whats cool is that now that you understand what a private key actually is you can generate one yourself offline with coin. Heads equals 1, tails equals 0 grab a piece of paper and flip the coin 256 times. Note down the numbers and there you have it your own private key.
Note while this is cool it’s still best to use a private key generator online if you get a 0 on you first coin toss you lose half of the potential numbers available to you get another and suddenly you’ve lost half of that half. Since the vast size of the domain space is what protects your private key from brute force attacks this is something to keep in mind
Note the valid key range is from 1 to 115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494336 which is governed by the secp256k1 ECDSA standard.
Elliptic Curve
The elliptic curve provides an equalivalent level of security with a smaller key size which reduces the computation miners have to complete to verify them. ECC 256 bit equal to RSA 3072 bit
symmertric about the x axis, draw straight line through curve will intersect the curve at no more than 3 points
Starting from a generator point you draw a tangential line and note where it intersects the curve. From this point you mirror it on the x axis to get a new point. You then draw a line from the generator point to the new point, this will intersect the curve at one other point, you then mirror that point on the x axis and again draw a line from the generator point to the new point you do this N times where N is your private key. The resultant point after completing this process N times is your public key in the form (x, y). In reality you only need to know the x value as you can determine the y value from the curve, this is know as a compressed public key and is prepended with a 02 or 03 depending on the polarity of the y corrdinate (+/-). The curve has a domain space based on its key size if a point falls outside of the domain the delta between the max and the point is used as the new value.
y² = x³ + ax + b
assymetric vs symmetric diffhelmen is an emphermal shared secret rather than a rsa private key which tends to last much longer this means that if someone has our history of encrypted messages and somehow discovers the rsa private key they have access to the entire history whereas with an empheral diffy helman key if they discover what that shared secret is they will only be able to decrypt information in that session.
Thanks to james deangelo | https://medium.com/blockchaintechnologies/elliptic-curve-cryptography-c93ac123be69 | ['Ciaran Mcveigh'] | 2019-07-11 15:51:58.906000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Crypto', 'Security'] |
Hi Jill Kelley, you’ve been added as a writer. Our latest prompt is below — deadline is roundabout Thursday 7 PM CEST. https://medium.com/microcosm/weekly-writing-prompt-revolution-303959b5e6e3 Word… | Welcome to Microcosm!
Hi Jill Kelley, you’ve been added as a writer.
Our latest prompt is below — deadline is roundabout Thursday 7 PM CEST.
Word limit is a strict 100 this week. Good luck — looking forward to your stories! | https://medium.com/@zanedickens/welcome-to-microcosm-259a503abb16 | ['Zane Dickens'] | 2020-12-22 14:11:14.659000+00:00 | ['Flash Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Writing', 'Microcosm', 'Writing Prompts'] |
ZeroBank scores 9.3/10 on Icomarks | Icomarks.com — one of the most trustworthy ICO rating agencies — gave ZeroBank an excellent score of 9.3/10, with two absolute 10/10 scores for Team Proof and Social Activity.
ZeroBank utilizes the power of Blockchain and Smart Contract technologies, along with the application of sharing economy, to create a location-based non-commercial money transfer and exchange platform. The model fits the current stage of the world economy. ZeroBank’s model makes money transfer and exchange transactions much faster and more reachable to end-users such as migrants, international students, international tourists, etc. Also, the platform creates opportunities to get side income for other community worker groups when they become ZeroBank’s agents.
ZeroBank is deemed a highly promising project to achieve success in the near future.
Icomarks doesn’t hesitate to give us a 10/10 for Team Proof criteria.
Thanks to Icomark raters’ comprehensive examination, an absolute 10/10 score on Team Proof was given to ZeroBank.
ZeroBank’s team consists of 14 MBAs, Ph.D., MSc with extensive work experience in the Banking & Finance Industry across Europe and Asia Pacific. Every core team member had made substantial contribution to successful projects in the Fintech industry.
ZeroBank’s vision is to disrupt the current money transfer and exchange service markets worldwide. The project deserves a top score on Icomarks.com.
That’s not all! ZeroBank also got impressive reviews from other experts:
4.6/5 score on TrackICO and ICObest
4,5/5 score on ICObench .
. 4.38/5 score on COINcheckup
These ratings are the huge motivation for ZeroBank to strive harder to achieve our goal as the leading remittance & money exchange provider in the world.
Do you want to participate in ZeroBank Whitelist to get up to 50% bonus?
Whitelist registration will close on July 10th, 2018. Join HERE
Stay updated on our channels: | https://medium.com/zerobank-cash/zerobank-scores-9-3-10-on-icomarks-f95e6b58e3ad | ['Zerobank - Your Local Currency'] | 2018-07-23 02:55:42.582000+00:00 | ['Rating', 'Fintech', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Remittances', 'Zerobank'] |
Game Theory, Cryptography, and Artificial Intelligence: A Comprehensive Guide | Navein Suresh & Keshav Shah
Introduction
Machine Learning and all of its incredible capabilities stand stagnantly on their own, but what if there was a way to connect the way we secure personal data with machine learning architectures. Through this article we want to explore the intersection between the fields of cryptography and game theory and how they can be used in the world of machine learning. We first introduce game theory and cryptography and then delve into a summary of machine learning and how it can be used for predictions and labeling of complex data.
Brief Overview of Game Theory
Let’s begin by understanding what game theory is. Game theory is a branch of mathematics which is all centered around the study of strategic interactions during a “game”. We make a couple of key assumptions about this “game”:
There is a certain structure and established set of rules
Individuals participating in the game make rational decisions (pursue the best possible strategy)
For the most part, at least for our purposes, games can either be categorized as sequential or simultaneous. Sequential games are when players make their decision at the same time and the results are represented using a pay-off matrix. On the other hand, simultaneous games involve players making their decisions at the same time and possible results are portrayed using a decision tree. There are a vast variety of executable strategies depending on the specific problem, prominent examples including Pure and Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibriums, Dominant Strategies, and more.
A dominant strategy in game theory is where regardless of what other players in the game choose, your decision will prevail and lead to a better outcome. There are not necessarily dominant strategies for every game.
Nash Equilibrium is another particular area of interest when in Game Theory. Nash Equilibrium for a particular provides a set of strategies such that no player has any incentive to switch his/her strategy. John Nash proved that every finite game (Finite number of strategies and finite number of players) has at least one Nash Equilibrium. Each outcome must be checked (in a pay-off matrix) to ensure that each individual is satisfied with his/her choice. Nash Equilibriums come in two forms: Pure Strategy N.E. and Mixed Strategy N.E. One of these two strategies must exist.
Nash Equilibrium situation demonstrated using a table
Pure Strategy Nash Equilibrium is where an individual has a 100% chance (definite) of choosing a particular strategy such that the individual has no regrets after other players make a decision Rather, in a Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium, an individual is presenting probability distributions of specific courses of actions, ensuring that the situation is stable and the other player can choose a strategy without 100% certainty of loss.
One important term that’s introduced in game theory is the “zero-sum” game. Zero-sum games are defined in a way such that whenever an individual wins, the rest of the individuals (whether that be 1 more person or a 100 more) lose. The net change is 0 in this case. Nash Equilibrium Strategies are one way to solve “zero-sum” games. Real-life examples of “zero-sum” games include chess and rock-paper-scissors-shoot. When one individual tries to maximize his or her reward, the other player’s reward is necessarily minimized.
The Minimax theorem is closely linked with zero-sum games. The idea behind the minimax theorem deals with maximizing the utility/gain that when dealt with the worst possible scenario. The formal definition mathematically is stated below:
Minimax Formula
When applying to zero-sum games, it is the equivalent of establishing a Nash Equilibrium (in order to create a stable situation without any regret associated with any of the players).
Introduction to Cryptography
We can now move onto Cryptography. First, let us understand, what is cryptography in the broad sense? Well, cryptography is simply a method of protecting data and information by using specific codes so that information can only be accessed by the person it is meant to be accessed by.
Indistinguishability
The process of using ciphertext indistinguishability is used in the backgrounds of many encryption systems in the real world to prevent cyberattacks from occurring. The idea behind these systems is that an external source cannot encrypt ciphertexts even if they contain specific key words or text within a message. Now let us discuss what this truly means in the broad sense of encryption.
Encryption
Encryption itself is a subsection of cryptography that involves the scrambling of data in order to give information in a safe manner where only authorized personnel can decrypt data and uncover the message behind the encryption. Encryption itself is done with something called an encryption key: a mathematical relationship used between the sender and receiver of the data that is unusable by external sources so that they can safely encrypt methods in a one-way path.
Encryption keys cannot be cracked unless a brute-force (guessing) method can calculate the encryption key using guess and check methods. This is very unlikely as there are millions of combinations of encryption keys which would render it nearly impossible for brute-force methods to accurately guess.
Types of Encryption
Symmetric Encryption: Only one key is used for both encryption and decryption. This obviously depends on both parties having access to the key, and both parties must keep enough security so that there cannot be a third party who can rendezvous with the encryption key and take a hold of the transfer of data between the intended 2 parties.
Asymmetric Encryption: This type of encryption involves distinct keys by both the sender and the receiver in order for data to both be encrypted and decrypted. This means the sender and receiver both use 2 different types of keys in order for this process to occur. This type of encryption is also known as public key encryption as this involves the usage of public key private key pairings which basically deliberates that data encrypted by private key can only be decrypted by a public key and vice versa.
Zero Knowledge Encryption
Zero knowledge encryption involves using mathematical techniques in order to verify attributes of data or knowledge without having to reveal the underlying data or sources used for this verification. This encryption can be heavily implemented into the real world as monetary transactions commonly use this technique as they simply can’t access the balance of someone’s credit card and complete a payment without having to access other related information connected to one’s credit card. Zero knowledge encryption is a completely probabilistic assessment so that means it does not have certainty, but rather it analyzes small pieces of unlinked data in order to prove what can be probable.
A.I. In a Nutshell
Artificial Intelligence can be defined by the notion of giving computers characteristics of humans that cannot be replicated with normal computer science techniques. These include but are not limited to, logical reasoning, creativity, decision-making, language, and social skills. These attributes are passed on to computers using machine learning.
Machine Learning
Machine Learning is a pipeline in which data (both inputs and outputs) is combined with a specific algorithm in order to create many inferences on the data that can be in the form of predictions (supervised ML), patterns (unsupervised ML), or decisions (RL)
Supervised Learning: Given data that is labeled, the goal is to predict the labels of unlabeled data. In other words, it is machine learning with a known outcome, where the best algorithm to reach that outcome is being determined. (Regressions)
Unsupervised Learning: Given a data set, find structures and patterns. The outcome or end goal is not known, and algorithms are created to summarize and group data.(Clustering)
Reinforcement Learning: Here the agent learns from its environment. Through trials it explores the full range of possibilities to determine the ideal behavior to maximize the reward and minimize risk. Input state is observed by the agent.
Decision making function is used by an agent to perform an action. Agent receives reward or reinforcement/feedback from the environment. The action and state information regarding the reward is saved.
Leading from the types of ML, we get into features, labels, and models. Features are simply the input x variables in our data, labels are our output or y variables from the data, and models are simply the relationship that is formed between both x and y. This leads to the difference between classification and regression, two basic types of relationships that can be made between x and y.
Classification vs Regression
Regression is used for supervised machine learning models where the data is prelabeled, so for instance predictions of future house prices based on how old a house is would be a proper application of using regression. On the other hand, classification is putting data into a certain category based on probability. Classification uses logistic regression curves in order to classify data of 2 or more classes so that the model can best match it to where it belongs on a sigmoid curve. Classification simply outputs a categorical style of output, an example being to check if an email is spam. Obviously, every email on the internet cannot be labeled as spam or not, so emails can be classified using some of the words used within each email, and then the machine learning model can create a probability curve based on the likelihood of a specific email being spam or not.
Summary
These basics of the machine learning pipeline express how data is not only used for input and output, but it can be used in the broad sense in order to make justifications based off of the patterns that surround the data. This allows computers to make inferences that are at a much higher level then a simple computer program returning an output that is pre-programmed, hence the name artificial intelligence is justified.
How to These Fields Intersect?
GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), reinforcement learning, multi-agent AI systems, etc.… have vast applications of Game Theory. In fact, a lot of the online games played today are heavily influenced by both these areas of study. Regulating Traffic with AI-powered self driving cars. When these cars are thought of and represented using game theory tools, the situation becomes manageable. However, without game theory representation, each car makes a decision that is not necessarily beneficial for the entire traffic congestion, causing potential problems. Thus, when employing tools such as Nash Equilibrium we are able to find a solution where each player (in this case cars) has a pathway out of the traffic jam where that car would not otherwise decide to change its decision. In doing so, the optimal algorithm can be employed, eventually dispersing the traffic.
Conclusion
Fields that traditionally were considered highly abstract and isolated are now being brought together to solve modern-day problems. What’s even more inspiring and amazing is that there is active research going on in all these areas, bringing us closer and closer to making our lives better and safer.
“The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart” — John Nash
John Nash, American Mathematician and Nobel Prize Recipient
Sources:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-encryption/
https://sectigo.com/resource-library/public-key-vs-private-key
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.javatpoint.com%2Fregression-vs-classification-in-machine-learning&psig=AOvVaw34H2l2QXrgZchHQMMOwucg&ust=1604194027443000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCJC35MrW3ewCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fswlh%2Ftypes-of-machine-learning-algorithms-62608e83d709&psig=AOvVaw1JoiDiPuU-Xryb57DJ-qvR&ust=1604193979176000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCKCh97PW3ewCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsaylordotorg.github.io%2Ftext_introduction-to-economic-analysis%2Fs17-02-nash-equilibrium.html&psig=AOvVaw1hTrRXFXUndHhsO26OTRfB&ust=1604935392837000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKjM8dag8-wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO | https://medium.com/@naveinsuresh/game-theory-cryptography-and-artificial-intelligence-a-comprehensive-guide-c0d2fd0f138 | ['Navein Suresh'] | 2021-06-26 22:14:19.460000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Cryptography', 'Game Theory'] |
I’m here to tell you, I’m sorry. | Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash
My dearest,
For many years I have overlooked you and your pain. I have blamed you for everything. How could do such a thing? Why would you say that? You were so irresponsible. It’s because of you that I am suffering.
I’ve have been watching you from afar. Any mistake you made no matter the size, I turned my back on you while shaking my head in embarrassment and shame. I know it’s hard to hear. When I realized my actions were causing you pain, I too, wished for silence. Now that my ignorance has washed out to sea, I am left standing here stripped of all judgment and ready to meet.
Many years have passed and while I sit here gritting my teeth, muscles twitching and mind racing through all the track meets of trauma -always winning first place- I think of you.
I don’t grit my teeth because I’m ashamed of you anymore, it’s to hold back the tsunami from drowning me again because goddammit, I’ve finally come up to breathe. My muscles are twitching because I crave to embrace you and I want so desperately to tell you how proud I am of you.
You were left alone to survive, hunting for crumbs that would feed your desire for love and in return your bones played peek-a-boo with that which was holding you together. You hopped from one abuser to the next differentiating them by type of abuse, filing them away in cabinets, and labeling them from one to ten as if you were explaining your level of pain. And you were.
My heart aches for you and I can finally feel my fury raging inside. I lost fury a long time ago when sorrow took control. I couldn’t remember how to protect you and I lost my self in the mix. Things have changed, fury wants to come out and play again.
There is more to say and I understand if you need time. But after all these years, all that really needs to be said is — I am truly, undeniably sorry. I was blindly following in the footsteps of those that were dragging me along by a thread of guilt, and in the process I abandoned you when you needed me the most. I am so sorry.
When you are ready, I am here. It’s safe now and I’ve put on my armor to hold your hand and make sure they can’t hurt you anymore.
I love you, forever and always.
Truly yours,
Edie Grace | https://medium.com/@ediegrace/im-here-to-tell-you-i-m-sorry-ab66c238a7ad | ['Edie Grace'] | 2020-12-18 19:56:10.585000+00:00 | ['Connection', 'Kindness', 'Forgiveness', 'Healing From Trauma', 'Childhood'] |
2: The Never Healing Injury | At the age of 25 I had a young and restless boyfriend who asked me to quit my office job, jump into my car, and strike out across the country with him, on an uncharted and meandering expedition into the great unknown. Being that I had no savings to support this journey, and he had no job, I naturally did the reasonable thing…and became a stripper. Although I prefer the term ‘exotic dancer’, because stripping is a miniscule portion of what we do on stage, and the majority of strippers actually dance.
I, for one, danced wholeheartedly and reveled in having found my artistic niche, regardless of the social hardships that occur in dressing rooms filled with hateful, narcissistic, competitive young women. I would continue to ignore my way through the petty torments of one dressing room after another, as my boyfriend and I hopped from state to state, until eventually we landed back in our home state of Iowa…where I promptly did not go back to my desk job. Instead I danced there, for years, and years, and…suddenly I was 38 and still very much enjoying the stage, and looking forward to all the ways I could capitalize on my age in my 40’s and keep business rolling in. Meanwhile I had become certified at a wonderfully gratifying type of equine bodywork, called Masterson Method, and was eager to get it into my monthly work calendar.
In late spring 2014, after deciding to switch things up and try a new workout in my living room, I suddenly found myself with what seemed to be a deep core muscle injury. I’d never had an injury in my life, other than that one time I sprained my ankle for a few weeks, and the time I had too-much-yoga induced back troubles when I was around 30. So I proceeded as usual…by ignoring it and trying to stretch and ‘work it out’. This seemed to alleviate the pain on some days and exacerbate it on others, depending on exactly what I did. But after a couple weeks of this, the pain progressed to the point of giving me a slight hobble and that stopped me in my tracks.
With some advanced knowledge of core muscle groups, I (with considerable concern) identified the aggravated muscle as my right psoas, the single most fundamental and critical muscle of our entire body in terms of being able to stand, sit, and walk. For most of summer I would be off of dancing and all workouts, and only able to take moderately paced walks without incurring pain in that area.
By late August I was back to work for just one short weekly shift, and not doing stage dancing at all…due to my propensity for going into a dance-induced trance that renders me incapable of reigning my body away from whatever wild movements my thoughtfully selected music sets compel it to execute. This moderation seemed to be working! By September my long term boyfriend, Jeremy, and I were practicing hiking with backpacks on our backs, preparing to head out to Colorado and hike the gorgeous Maroon Bells, which he had set his sights on many months before.
On days when I overdid anything, the pain would well back up. I had to have frank talks with Jeremy about how I might not be able to hike The Bells. He continually reassured me that everything would be fine by then. At that point he was used to my athleticism and resilience. He did not want to examine the possible implications of this injury.
But he was correct. With minimal physical preparation or conditioning on my part, we headed to Colorado later that month and backpacked for three days, traversing over 20 miles of spectacular vistas and trudging over 4 passes above 12,000 feet in altitude. Physically it was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. Placing one foot in front of the other was so difficult at times that I didn’t even know how I was doing it. I just knew I had to.
Luckily, Jeremy and I took turns at getting altitude sickness. Had we both been struck on the same day, we may have made the collective decision to just roll off the side of a mountain and be done with it. But throughout this beautiful, glorious, triumphant, agonizing week, my injury didn’t say a word to me. Not one word. Even three months out of shape, I was strong as an ox.
Back in Iowa, one lazy afternoon a couple weeks later, I skipped through the apartment in my usual ducky mood and flung myself onto the bed as humans are apt to do. In the instant my body bounced upwards from the initial mattress impact, in that fraction of a moment where the legs yank away from the core due to bounce momentum, I felt a sharp pain deep in my right psoas area. This time it was different, not the dull muscle ache it had been before. It was thinner, sharper, and slightly longer. When I told Jeremy the injury was back, I never explained the moment that had caused it. It seemed too simple, too stupid, too tragic, too careless. How could it be that I could hike with the best of them, but would have to monitor my everyday, ordinary, mindless movements and gestures like a hawk?
A couple weeks later, in October, I returned to the club to do my work once more, feeling recovered from the mattress incident. That would be the last time I was to go to work as a dancer. | https://medium.com/@rachaelwendell/2-the-never-healing-injury-5f954aa4427 | ['Rachael Wendell'] | 2021-01-28 19:22:13.810000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Hiking', 'Strippers', 'Psoas', 'Injury'] |
Why I Don’t Say I’m Divorced | I don’t always feel like taking the time and energy to make sure everyone has the current 411 on my relationship status.
Often I just don’t want to be bothered with having to bare my dirty laundry to every single person I hardly know. Bare myself online, sure. That’s on my terms, when I’m in the mood, and I get to control the conversation. Really, it’s not a conversation; it’s a monologue. Odd as that may seem, it’s easier to write about my divorce for strangers than it is to be honest about it to acquaintances. This is nothing new. I think a lot of writers find it easier to publish their bloodiest truths than to talk about them with people they know in real life.
I don’t always feel like taking the time and energy to make sure everyone has the current 411 on my relationship status — especially with people I barely know, and that goes for the drivers of app-based ride services such as Uber and Lyft, which is exactly what happened recently.
Last month, I had just flown home from the East Coast. It was a long flight with a stopover. Add to the stress, I had flown with my two sons. We were back on the ground, but we weren’t home yet. We still had forty-five minutes on a jam-packed freeway until we finally arrived home. Ride service secured, I was looking forward to staring numbly out the window to wonder at the smog and all the traffic and maybe to have some deep epiphany about why the hell I still live in Los Angeles.
My youngest son had a different plan. He wanted to talk to the driver. While it was cute that my nine-year-old son was chatting up a storm with this woman, he was also sharing too much information about our family.
He referred a lot to his dad, and that prompted the driver to ask questions of me. If I thought I was going to have some revelation about why I continue to live in this big, ugly city, that was not going to happen.
The driver kept referring to my kids’ father as “your husband.” What does your husband do? Does your son look more like you or like your husband? Et cetera.
Because I didn’t feel like getting into the gritty details of my personal life with someone I would probably never see again once this ride was over, I didn’t correct her. That’s when my son decided to bring up how the driver looked a lot like my ex-husband’s current girlfriend.
“What a mess,” the driver said. “Oh, did I say that?” She giggled.
“I’m actually not with their father anymore,” I said.
“Mmmmm-hmmmm.”
Whatever. I didn’t appreciate her judgment, but it was also my fault for not correcting her from the get-go.
Sue me if I hadn’t felt like getting into my divorce with my kids in the car.
What can I say? I was tired. I wanted to get through rush-hour traffic after a long flight, now crammed in the backseat of a compact car with my two kids, without having to discuss my personal life. It really wasn’t any of the driver’s business anyhow, but here my son had spoken up. How can I blame him? He’s just a kid, and I’m proud of how outgoing and confident he is talking with adults.
But I wonder: is the takeaway that I should start immediately telling every single person I come into contact with: I’m divorced!
Because this confusion thing is getting old.
So let this be your warning: I’m divorced! | https://medium.com/eros-is-everywhere/why-i-dont-say-i-m-divorced-1ef020e24a41 | ['Elle Silver'] | 2019-09-10 19:04:58.307000+00:00 | ['Divorce', 'Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Love'] |
Words from Ernesto Guevara on his visit to Korea 1960 | From all the socialist countries that we have personally visited, Korea is one of the most extraordinary. This country might be the one that impressed us the most. It only has 10 million inhabitants and has the size of Cuba, a bit less, like 110 000 km. The same territory as the south of Korea but half the people, it was isolated by a war so incredibly destructive that nothing was left from their cities and when i say nothing i mean nothing. Its like the small guano villages that Merob Sosa and Sánchez Mosquera ( military men from Batista’s dictatorship) and those kind of people used to burn here, from which nothing remained but ashes. That’s how it was, for example, Pyongyang, which is a city of a million citizens. Today you can’t see any trace of all that destruction, everything is new. The only memories left are, in all roads, all streets and all train lines, the holes from the bombs that fell one close to each other.
They showed me many of the factories, all of them rebuilt and others built from scratch, and every single one of them had endured between 30 and 50 thousand bombs. If we think about what 10 or 12 bombs dropped on the Sierra were , they were a terrible bombardment, one would have to have a doses of courage to withstand those bombs, what 30 thousand bombs is when dropped on a surface of land, sometimes smaller than an infantry?!
North Korea left the war with not a single industry standing, not a single house standing, without animals even. In an age in which the air superiority of the north Americans was so big, that they had nothing left to destroy, aviators had fun killing oxen, killing what they could find. It was then, a true orgy of death what was upon North Korea in just 2 years. In the third year the Mig-15 were introduced and things changed. But those 2 years of war might be the most barbaric systematic destruction ever committed.
Everything we can say about Korea is unbelievable. For example, in pictures you can see people with hate, that people’s hate when it gets to one’s core, you can see it in the pictures of the caves were 200,300 and 400 three or four year old children hide, were they got murdered by fire or gas. The disembowelment of people. Killing pregnant women through bayonet stabbings to make their children come out their wombs, burning the wounded with flamethrowers…the most inhumane things that one could imagine were committed by the north american army occupation. And they almost got to the border of Korea with China, almost all the country at one moment. Also counting that they destroyed everything during the withdrawal, we can say that North Korea is a country built over deaths. Naturally it received help from socialist nations, specially help from the soviet union in a very generous and vast way. But what impresses me the most is the spirit of that people. They are people who went through Japanese domination for 30 years, from a violent struggle against Japanese dominance, without an alphabet. It was one of the most underdeveloped countries of the world in that aspect. Now they have literature and national culture, and a national order and a practically unlimited development of culture. They have secondary education, which last until ninth grade, its obligatory for everyone.
They now have a problem in all industries that we wished we had today- that we will have in 2 or 3 years-, its the problem of a lack of work force. Korea is quickly mechanizing its agriculture to achieve workforce and fulfill its plans, they are also preparing themselves to bring products from their cloth factories and others to their brothers in South Korea so they can overcome the burden of north american colonialist dominance.
It, truly is, the example of a country which thanks to its system and extraordinary leaders, like Marshall Kim Il Sung, has been able to overcome the biggest misfortunes to become an industrialized country now. North Korea could be for anyone here in Cuba, the symbol of one of the many underdeveloped countries of Asia. However we sell them semi refined sugar like raw sugar, and other raw products, like henequen and they sell us lathe-mill machines, all kinds of machinery, mine machinery, in other words, products that require high technical capacity to produce. That’s why it is one of the countries that we are the most enthusiastic about. | https://medium.com/@redalert13121959/words-from-ernesto-guevara-on-his-visit-to-korea-1960-66c743c41dd | ['Revolución Internacional'] | 2020-12-17 20:27:05.800000+00:00 | ['Marxism', 'Socialism', 'Cuba', 'North Korea', 'Dprk'] |
Elizabeth Thacher Kent discusses her Suffrage Activities in Washington D.C. and London | Laurie Thompson
In 1911, the William Kent family moved to Washington D.C. after Mr. Kent was elected to serve his first term in Congress. While there, his wife -Elizabeth Thacher Kent- became involved in the Woman’s Suffrage movement.
Elizabeth Thacher Kent, circa 1912. Anne T. Kent California Room Collection.
On a visit to her home town of Kentfield in 1912, Elizabeth addressed a meeting of the Tamalpais Centre’s Woman’s Club recounting memorable experiences from her time in Washington D.C. and of a family tour of Europe during the summer.
Included are several interesting accounts of her suffrage activities:
Elizabeth Thacher Kent at the Suffrage Pickets, Washington D.C., 1917. Anne T. Kent California Room Collection.
I was in the big suffrage parade in New York, and wore the green and white suffrage hat; it cost thirty-eight cents and was a very pretty, becoming and useful chapeau. My two boys came up from college to witness the parade, and teased and joked their mother for marching in line. When the great crowd filed into Carnegie Hall, elder boy remarked to the younger, ‘A spectacle like that makes you think,’ the other gravely responded, ‘it does make one think.’
William Kent Family portrait, circa 1912. Anne T. Kent California Room Collection.
On her experiences in London, Mrs. Kent remarks:
“Notwithstanding the earnest disapproval of my children, I went to a suffrage meeting. The speaker’s stand was a wagon drawn by the most pitiful specimen of a horse. The stand was prettily decorated in white and green, and a small woman….commenced to speak. Two men in the audience who were professional disturbers, hooted and jeered at every utterance, and did all that they could to create disorder and annoy the speaker. They asked me to tell something about suffrage in this country, and I did. Recognizing in me an American and a foreigner, they listened with respectful attention, not even the trained rioters offering to interrupt. The children were much relieved when I got home alive and sound.
Extracted from: Tamalpais Centre Woman’s Club, Marin Journal, 10 October 1912. | https://medium.com/anne-t-kent-california-room-community-newsletter/elizabeth-thacher-kent-discusses-her-suffrage-activities-in-washington-d-c-and-london-610f56ec4af5 | ['Anne T. Kent California Room'] | 2020-09-11 18:58:50.877000+00:00 | ['Local History', 'Suffrage', 'Suffrage Movement', 'Marin County', 'Voting Rights'] |
Vice Presidential and Presidential Debate Analysis using Data Science | Vice Presidential and Presidential Debate Analysis using Data Science
Debate Analysis using Data Science: Using YouTube Comments to find the true intent of voters
I ntroduction
I believe Data Science allows me to express my curiosity in ways I’d never imagine. The coolest thing in Data Science is that I see data not as numbers but as an opportunity (business problem), insights(predictive modeling, stats, and data wrangling), and improvement (metrics). With this thought in mind, I decided to analyze the YouTube Comments of VP and Presidential debates.
After getting mixed results from the news sources, I thought to analyze the Vice Presidential and Presidential debates using Data Science.
The idea is to use YouTube comments as a medium to get the sentiment regarding the debate and getting insights from the data. In this analysis, we plot common phrases, common words, we also analyze sentiment and in the end for all my data science practitioners I present them a full-fledged dataset containing YouTube Comments of VP and Presidential debates.
How and Why
Why: After getting mixed results from the news sources about the outcome of the debate, I decided to use data science to help me see the outcome of the result. With the elections around the corner, technology or to be precise analytics plays a key role in shaping our thoughts and supporting our hypothesis.
How: To Analyze YouTube Comments we use Python and various other NLP Libraries followed by some data visualization tools. We will use the wonders of the awesome data wrangling library known as Pandas and we hope to find some interesting insights.
Requirements
For this project we require:
Python 3.8
Pandas
Scikit-Learn
Numpy
Seaborn
NLTK
Wordcloud
TextBlob
Creation of the Dataset
The dataset contains YouTube comments on the most popular/watched VP and Presidential debates. We use the YouTube Data API to get all comments (Due to the size limitation, we only get 100 comments per video). The videos have been selected through careful examination by the author, to be precise we focused on the highest number of views and the highest number of YouTube comments.
def clean_text(string):
string = re.sub(r'[^\w\s]', '', string)
return ''.join(i for i in string if ord(i) < 128) def remove_stopwords(string):
stop_words = set(stopwords.words('english'))
word_tokens = word_tokenize(string)
filtered_sentence = [w for w in word_tokens if not w in stop_words]
filtered_sentence = []
for w in word_tokens:
if w not in stop_words:
filtered_sentence.append(w) return ' '.join(filtered_sentence)
These functions define the cleaning of the text and removing stopwords.
YouTube Comments Extraction
The following function defines the video_ids we scrap and some basic extraction code. We get our data in the form of JSON, then we perform preprocessing and ultimately combine all comments followed by the sentiment score (using TextBlob) into a DataFrame.
video_ids = {"vp_debate":['65twkjiwD90','t_G0ia3JOVs','xXE6I3gWiMc'], "prez_debate":[
'yW8nIA33-zY','wW1lY5jFNcQ','K8Z9Kqhrh5c']} video_id = "&videoId="
content = None def extract_comments(resp):
"""
Get comments from the resp (json) yt comment
"""
com = []
for i in resp['items']:
com.append(i['snippet']['topLevelComment']['snippet']['textOriginal'].lower())
return com def get_videos_comments():
"""
Extract video comments and store in the arrays
"""
vp_debate_data = []
prez_debate_data = []
for i,j in video_ids.items():
print("Getting for: ",i)
for id in j:
video_id = "&videoId=" + id
resp = requests.get(URL+video_id)
print("Length: ",len(resp.content))
content = resp.json()
comments = extract_comments(content)
if i == "vp_debate":
vp_debate_data.extend(comments)
else:
prez_debate_data.extend(comments)
return vp_debate_data, prez_debate_data
class Comment:
def __init__(self, text):
self.text = remove_stopwords(clean_text(text))
# set threshold as 0.5
self.sentiment = 0 if TextBlob(self.text).sentiment.subjectivity <= 0.5 else 1
def return_comment(self):
return self class DataGenerator:
def __init__(self, vp_debate_data, prez_debate_data):
self.vp_data = {"comments":[], "sentiment":[]}
self.prez_data = {"comments":[], "sentiment":[]}
for i in vp_debate_data:
c = Comment(i)
self.vp_data['comments'].append(c.text)
self.vp_data['sentiment'].append(c.sentiment)
for i in prez_debate_data:
c = Comment(i)
self.prez_data['comments'].append(c.text)
self.prez_data['sentiment'].append(c.sentiment)
self.df_vp = pd.DataFrame(self.vp_data)
self.df_prez = pd.DataFrame(self.prez_data)
def return_df(self):
print("Loaded dataframe.")
return self.df_vp, self.df_prez
# return corpus given the debate key
# to be used for getting the commonkeywords and plotting
def get_corpus(self, key="vp_debate"):
corpus = []
if key == "vp_debate":
corpus = [i for i in self.vp_data['comments']]
else:
corpus = [i for i in self.prez_data['comments']]
return corpus
A preview of our data
Analysis
Upon examining the data, we first lowercase the words, then remove all punctuations, and then we remove all the stopwords. We use the popular TextBlob (https://textblob.readthedocs.io/en/dev/) to perform quick sentiment analysis.
A bar plot representing the sentiment analysis of the comments.
This data does not provide much information but if we try categorizing or grouping by specific words then we can get a better understanding.
Most Common Words
We find the most common words in each of the debates (i.e df_vp and df_prez). We use the popular package known as NLTK to get the most common words (after preprocessing)
def most_common(corpus):
fd = nltk.FreqDist(corpus)
print(fd)
fd_t10=fd.most_common(10)
counter = dict(fd_t10)
# pd.Dataframe from dict to show bar plot
df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(counter, orient='index')
names, values = zip(*fd_t10)
# plot method 1
fd.plot(10)
# plot method two
print("Bar Plot")
df.plot(kind='bar')
Frequency distribution of words in the VP debate video
Frequency distribution of words in the Presidential debate video
As you can see in the Presidential debate video the most common words are ‘trump’ and ‘biden’.
WordCloud
Word clouds or tag clouds are graphical representations of word frequency that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a source text. The larger the word in the visual the more common the word was in the document(s).
def plot_wordcloud(kind="vp_debate"):
words = get_word_list(kind)
wordcloud = WordCloud(width = 800, height = 800,
background_color ='white',
min_font_size = 10).generate(' '.join(words))
plt.imshow(wordcloud)
plt.axis("off")
plt.tight_layout(pad = 0)
plt.show()
A WordCloud representation of vp_debate and prez_debate
Find Keywords: A unique way to search specific words.
This feature finds the specified keyword (most prob top 10 words). It acts on each sentence.
"""
Find the specified keyword (most prob top 10 words)
Acts on each sentence
Add to the corresponding dataframe
Returns: DataFrame
Used inconjunction with get_most_common_words()
"""
for i in df.comments:
if word in i.split():
c = Counter(i.split())
if c[word] >= 2:
print(f'Word is {word} that occured {c[word]} times where sentence is {i}
')
(keyword="biden", debates=['vp_debate','prez_debate'])
def run(keyword, debates):
df = None
if debates == "vp_debate":
df = df_vp
else:
df = df_prez
find_keywords(keyword,df) def find_keywords(word, df):"""Find the specified keyword (most prob top 10 words)Acts on each sentenceAdd to the corresponding dataframeReturns: DataFrameUsed inconjunction with get_most_common_words()"""for i in df.comments:if word in i.split():c = Counter(i.split())if c[word] >= 2:print(f'Word is {word} that occured {c[word]} times where sentence is {i}
') @interact (keyword="biden", debates=['vp_debate','prez_debate'])def run(keyword, debates):df = Noneif debates == "vp_debate":df = df_vpelse:df = df_prezfind_keywords(keyword,df)
A glimpse of the output. (Demo available)
Conclusion
We see that by using Data Science we were able to gather interesting insights about the data. We can certainly improve our work by using a better sentiment classifier and testing for the different hypotheses. We can also use n-grams and compare their frequency.
Try here: https://gesis.mybinder.org/binder/v2/gh/aaditkapoor/DebateAnalysis/mainDataset here: http://www.kaggle.com/dataset/43532333d82042a1287e00672b86a2c76e76ffbc4d85569715309714635172b0 | https://towardsdatascience.com/vice-presidential-and-presidential-debate-analysis-using-data-science-61d542f0c974 | ['Aadit Kapoor'] | 2020-10-24 16:57:37.798000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Politics'] |
Database Transaction and ACID Revisit | Traditional DBMS processing is build among transactions. Transaction is a crucial and useful abstraction provided by DBMS to model communication procedure. Database users depend on standard sets of properties that guarantee database transactions are processed reliably. These standard properties is a widely used acronym as ACID, which stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability. Inspired by Martin Kleppmann’s book “Designing Data-Intensive Application”, I want to share some of my thoughts on transaction and ACID properties.
Transaction
A transaction is a coherent and reliable unit of work performed on a database and should be independent of other transactions. The purpose of transaction abstraction is to deal with two problems
To provide a reliable way to recover from error and keep system integrity in case of system fault. To provide isolation among programmers accessing database concurrently. Without the isolation, concurrency usually cause erroneous, sometimes indeterministic outcome.
A transaction is only a logic abstraction, but it can be made up by multiple operations. For example, in MySQL system, we can use BEGIN/END to compound multiple statements into a single commit. If there are multiple operations within one transaction, they must be executed or cancelled together. In a database system, a transaction should be executed in an atomic, consistent, isolated and durable manner.
Atomicity
Atomicity is designed for error handling purpose. Atomicity guarantees that one transaction can be fully committed, aborted or roll backed. In other words, the process of a transaction can not be partially accomplished. Additionally, atomicity also make sure that system can roll back a transaction without side-effect, which can be considered as abortability. If the execution of a transaction has some side effect, such as sending external request to downstream application and cannot be reverted, the transaction is not considered as atomic since it does not guarantee abortability.
Consistency
In the context of ACID, consistency makes sure that a transaction can only bring database from one valid state to another, maintaining database invariant.The legitimacy of data is usually not a database concern, which is usually defined by the application logic. In other words, consistency should be considered as a handy feature offered by some databases rather than a hard requirement for database transaction.
For example, when people create their user profile on a social network, they usually need to choose a user name that is not be used by others. The uniqueness of the user name is not a concern for the database, which is necessary for the social network application.
In fact, there are quite a few common use cases, such as uniquenss, anti-orphan data etc, among database users. Therefore, database provides some tools, such as primary key, foreign keys etc to enforce some constrains on transactions. Consistency feature therefore free users from low level integrity check.
Isolation
The isolation property guarantees that the processing of a transaction will not be interrupted by other transactions. With strong isolation level, every transaction can consider itself as the only one in the system. In other words, each transaction is independent and even invisible to others. If there are multiple transactions running concurrently, database system should handle it as they are running sequentially. This isolation level is called as serializability, which is usually considered as the strongest isolation level. However, serializability comes with expensive performance penalty, therefore some system also provides weak isolation level to achieve better performance. Some weak isolation levels are read committed, snapshot isolation.
To design a proper isolation level and handle concurrency is one of the most complicated challenge for database design especially for distributed database with multi-leader or leaderless architecture. Most database builds their solution based on two phase locking(2PL). In the design of 2PL, there are 2 kinds of locks, shared locks for read operation and exclusive locks for write operations. A operation must acquire the lock for the object before process the transaction. Depending on the access operation type, acquiring the lock may be blocked and postponed, if another transaction is holding a lock for that object.
Durability
The durability means committed transactions will survive permanently. We can consider it as a guarantee against fault tolerance. We can consider it from two perspective. From hardware perspective, it usually means the the transaction has been stored on a persistent storage, such hard disk. On the other hand, people looks at the durability problem from a system perspective and claim the transaction is durable if it is properly replicated.
There are pros and cons for either solution. For examples, the annual failure rate for hard disk drive (HDD) is around 1% while 20% of SSD suffers various reliability issues over a four year period. Therefore, it is possible for a system to lose some transactions data due to hardware failure. On the other hand, during network partition, the replicated data may be inaccessible as well. In reality, system architecture usually combines both solutions to achieve SLA for durability.
Example
Let us review these concepts through a real life example. In a banking application, a common use case is fund transfer. Assuming Bob wants to transfer $100 from his checking account to his saving account. Before the transfer, there are $500 balance in his checking account and $300 in saving account. After he issues the fund transfer in the portal, there is a transaction issue to underlying database. There is a fund subtraction from checking account and a fund addition to the saving account.
Two operations must be either succeed or failed together. Otherwise, there may be some fund missing. This is guaranteed by atomicity. In any time during the transaction, there are $800 total fund belong to Bob. This is guaranteed by consistency. If during the transaction is being executed, Bob is checking his balance of two accounts. He can see either $500/$300 or $400/$400 since the transfer operation is not independent and will not be interrupted by the balance checking operation. This is guaranteed by isolation. After the transaction is committed, there will be $400/$400 balance in Bob’s two account accordingly before other transactions committed. System fault will not roll it back. This is called Durability.
Some banking system sends email or SMS notification after the transaction committed. However, we cannot consider the notification as part of the transactions since
The execution is not in the context of database and therefore it is not the semantic of database transaction. Even we extent the transaction to overall banking system, the SMS and notification can not be retracted easily. Therefore it breaks the abortability.
What is next
This wraps up our initial discussion about ACID. Since 2000s, large scale distributed database gains more popularity among the industry. It is not easy to achieve ACID with performance in consideration. Therefore some relaxed alternatives have been proposed. In the next article, we will discuss some other popular concepts in the distributed data system community.
Reference
Designing Data-Intensive Application Martin Kleppmann’s, O’Relly, 2017
2. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2020/ | https://medium.com/@humbo/database-transaction-and-acid-revisit-192d350d590e | [] | 2020-11-15 00:07:44.955000+00:00 | ['Distributed Systems', 'Software Engineering', 'Database'] |
Transphobia in the UK | Many of you may not know that we recently celebrated international Transgender Awareness Week, culminating on Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) on the 20th November. The event takes place close to the anniversary of the death of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in her own home in 1998.
Observed annually, Transgender Awareness Week is a time to remember and honour those who have lost their lives in violent and horrendous transphobic hate-crimes and raise awareness for the plight of trans individuals in our society.
Trans issues may not be something that you think about very often and you may never have even met a transgender person or anyone who does not conform to the traditional perspectives of the gender binary. As such, the prevalence of transphobia and its associated hate-crimes may never have been apparent to you.
In the diverse LGBTQ+ community, trans individuals are, quite possibly, one of the most consistently oppressed and misunderstood minorities. It is not uncommon for public figures, such as Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, to publish openly anti-transgender opinions without even a fraction of the backlash that would be received for homophobic or sexist hate-speech. For some reason, the world’s media and large swathes of society simply do not seem to recognise transphobia as the urgent civil rights issue that it is.
WHY WE NEED TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
According to the BBC, transphobic hate crimes in the UK have quadrupled in the last five years, with trans individuals being verbally, physically and sexually abused just because of who they are. In England and Wales alone, from 2019 to 2020, almost two and a half thousand transphobic hate crimes were recorded, that that’s just the ones that were reported to the police.
A 2015 report by the Human Rights Commission and the University of Leicester found that many LGBTQ+ individuals would not report verbal hate crimes due to the normalisation of these experiences as ‘part of the parcel’ of being LBGTQ+. Furthermore, participants in the study expressed a fear that they would be wasting police time if they reported individual, non-violent incidents of abuse.
A further, and perhaps lest often though of, concern for some participants was being officially recorded by law enforcement as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. For individuals who are not out, or are only out to a select few people, the prospect of having their sexual or gender identity on an official record is daunting. This fear of information falling into the wrong hands is also indicative of a lack of trust between the LGBTQ+ community and the police.
In 2018, the government estimated that there were between 200,000 and 500,000 transgender individuals in the UK. In the same year, a Stonewall report found that 41% of trans people and 31% of non-binary people had experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity within 12 months of the survey being taken. A further 28% of trans people had experienced domestic abuse from a partner in the preceding year, and 25% had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives.
To put that into perspective, even taking the governments lowest estimate for the number of trans people in the UK, that means that at least 82,000 trans people had been the target of a hate crime. To put it another way, that is a group of people about twice the population of Dover, every single one of whom has been the victim of a hate crime, just during a 12 month period. And yet, a shocking 79% of trans individuals told Stonewall that they still would not, or have not, reported a hate-crime to the police.
And things don’t seem to be getting better. The National LGBT Survey, published in 2019, found that only 34% of trans men and 37% of trans women felt comfortable being LGBTQ+ in the UK. This number plummeted amongst young trans people aged under 25, of whom only 5% felt comfortable in the UK. For a nation that is supposed to be at the forefront of equality and civil rights, this is simply unacceptable.
The fact of the matter is that our society is simply not as equal as we all like to believe. Tens of thousands of trans people are abused and mistreated, and their plight is largely ignored by the wider population and the national media.
In fact, much of the UK’s mainstream media has not even bothered to report on Transgender Awareness Week, with the notable exception of Wales Online. However, as yet, major players like the BBC have neglected to so much as mention the fact that this event is currently underway.
TRANS RIGHTS ARE NOT A ‘DEBATE’
Clearly, transphobia is rife in the UK and beyond. The fact that the UK is still one of the safest places in the world for LGBTQ+ individuals, despite all of the statistics that appear in this article, is horrifying. It is unacceptable in a ‘civilised’ liberal democracy to have tens of thousands of people living in fear and being treated like second-class citizens just because of who they are and how they identify.
Key to the problem is the behaviour of public figures and the national media towards transgender individuals. J. K. Rowling’s infamous tweets are just the tip of the iceberg, with many news outlets and television shows still holding debates about LGBTQ+ issues in which they, in the name of ‘balance’, invite individuals with damaging and archaic opinions to speak to the nation.
To be clear, healthy debate is a vital part of any democracy, and it is the right of any individual to hold and defend any opinions they may have, however heinous or misguided they may seem. The issue here is not one of censorship, but one of responsibility. If someone wants to argue against transgenderism in a non-violent and rational manner, then that is their prerogative. Their opinion may be wrong, but it is their right to hold it and argue for it.
It is not their absolute right, however, to be given public platforms on which to espouse these views. It is the responsibility of TV shows and news outlets to deliver valuable information and insight whilst doing their utmost to avoid damaging or defaming any individual or group in society. In fact, journalists and presenters are bound by a whole collection of slander and defamation laws to avoid just that situation.
Why, then, is it acceptable for a show like Good Morning Britain, for example, to invite speakers onto their broadcast who, during the course of their debate, undermine and attack the identities and characters of trans individuals?
To reiterate, these people are entitled to their opinions, but must we give them such a public platform from which to preach intolerance and hate?
Private broadcasting institutions may, within the confines of the law, invite whoever they see fit onto their programmes. Again, this right is protected by free speech and the basic principles of liberal democracy.
However, I would argue that such institutions should utilise their right to freedom of the press only after having truly considered what affect their broadcasting or journalism may have on individuals or groups in society.
After all, what value, apart from views and paper sales, do bigoted contributors add to public content? Consumers who already disagree with bigotry are unlikely to be persuaded by any argument to the contrary, so there is little value gained there. People who agree with intolerant standpoints will gain vindication from such content and will therefore be more staunchly intolerant going forward, a net negative for society. And finally, the minority group being discussed, in this case transgender individuals, will likely feel attacked and oppressed by such content, lowering their quality of life and making them unlikely to support the purveyors of said content.
So, whilst outlets are fully within their rights to give a voice to anti-trans advocates, it is likely that they will lose moral authority and business from doing so, which seems like it might be a bad idea.
WE NEED CHANGE, NOW
Given all of this, Transgender Awareness Week is just an important now as it ever was. Though things may have improved somewhat since the late 90s, when the murder of Rita Hester sparked the movement that led us to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the living situation of trans people in the UK is far from being acceptable.
The ridiculous thing is that many people have seen the small improvements that have been made and have convinced themselves that through those tiny steps forward, equality has been achieved.
It has not. Not even close.
There is so much work still to be done by charities like Stonewall, but also by individuals like you and me, to help lift the trans community out from under years of abuse and oppression. And we can start by taking time this week, during Transgender Awareness Week, to educate ourselves and make ourselves more aware of what is going on around us with regards to our trans neighbours, colleagues, friends and family.
A society cannot in good faith call itself free and equal until those adjectives apply to all of its citizens, without exception. As it stands, the UK is not a free and equal country. In fact, to my knowledge, there are as yet no truly free and equal countries in the world.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be the first? | https://medium.com/the-political-abyss/transphobia-in-the-uk-ba9dd5252897 | ['Sean Bennett'] | 2020-11-25 18:00:18.602000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Transphobia', 'Transgender', 'LGBT Rights', 'Civil Rights'] |
Multibagger Stocks In India — Definition, Examples, Risks And Future | Source:<a href=”https://www.freepik.com/vectors/business">Business vector created by pikisuperstar — www.freepik.com</a>
By definition, multibagger is an equity stock that gives you a return of more than 100%
The stock whose price has appreciated multiple times the initial investment value would be termed as a multibagger stock
By: Tavaga Research
“Make Rs. 20,000 by investing Rs. 20”. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, Eicher Motors has done it. The equity share of Eicher Motors was trading at Rs. 22 in the year 2000, was quoting at Rs. 20,830 in July 2020. This is a 950x return in 20 years. The share price of Eicher Motors currently is Rs. 2500 after the Eicher Motor stock split which happened in FY21 in the ratio of 1:10.
20-Year Performance of Eicher Motors Ltd.
For an investor in equity markets, finding such companies has been a dream. Such stocks are called “multibagger stocks” as what Peter Lynch described in his book “One Up on Wall Street” in 1988.
Multibagger stocks are equity shares of a company that gives returns that are several times their costs. Such stocks are found in high-growth industries and only a few multibagger stocks can improve your equity portfolio returns. Companies with good fundamentals, sound management, strong on governance, and those whose stock prices are undervalued tend to fall in this category of multibagger stocks.
What is a 10 bagger in stocks?
A stock that increases by at least 900% or at least 10 times its initial purchase price, is called a 10 bagger.
What is the Myth associated with Multibagger Stocks and the Precautions one must take?
There is a misconception that low priced / penny stocks can deliver huge returns in the future while stocks with a high price cannot. This can be explained better with some examples.
1.The equity share of MRF (Madras Rubber Factory) which was trading at Rs. 6,000 in the year 2010, is today quoting at Rs. 81,500. The company has become a 10-bagger in 10 years with a total return of more than 4000% since 2000. On the other hand, 3i Infotech Ltd. which was trading at Rs. 70 in 2010, is today quoting at Rs. 8.50. The stock price has depreciated 83% since it was listed, delivering consistent negative returns in the last 8 years.
Performance of MRF Ltd. and 3i Infotech Ltd.
2.Page industries became a 20-bagger (2000% return) by growing from Rs. 1000 in the year 2010 to Rs. 29,500 in 2021. Suzlon, on the other hand, depreciated more than 70% in the last 9 years. The share price dropped from Rs. 19 in 2011 to Rs. 5.1 in 2021
Performance of Page Industries Ltd. and Suzlon Ltd.
In both instances, MRF and Page Industries performed well than the other two companies because of the strong fundamentals and corporate governance. The management of both the companies was highly successful in creating it a well-known brand by expanding the business operations and thus growing the company multi-fold, bringing it to the leading position.
On the other hand, the stocks of 3i Infotech and Suzlon performed miserably because of large debt in their books, poor execution of expansion plans, and weak management.
Before investing the hard-earned money in stocks with high expectations of the share price growing multi-fold, one must always get well versed with the fundamentals of the company. The investor must also have the patience and conviction to hold on to the stocks until the hidden value is discovered by the market. Finally, one must consider diversification by not investing all the money in a single stock expected to give high returns as it can lead to unsystematic or idiosyncratic risk.
It is important for investors to not get caught in any kind of value trap as the stock price appreciation can be a result of the economic bubble in a particular sector / individual stock.
How do you know if a Stock is Multibagger?
Identify Future Multibagger Stocks in India
There are ways and means with which one can identify a bunch of stocks that have the potential to become a multibagger in India and abroad. However, the most important the ways is to analyse the future earnings growth . History doesn’t always repeat itself and hence the future of the company must be taken under consideration primarily with the guidance of historical growth.
All Multibagger companies in the past depict some similar properties in terms of the company and financial characteristics. Below are some guiding principles which can help the investor to identify future multibagger stock:
Pick an industry with strong tailwinds : It is very important to find an industry that can grow multi-fold in the next 5–10 years. It will be very difficult for the company to grow if the industry fails to grow
: It is very important to find an industry that can grow multi-fold in the next 5–10 years. It will be very difficult for the company to grow if the industry fails to grow Low or no debt : Borrowings of the company must also be taken under consideration before investing. Financial leverage can be best defined by the debt to equity ratio which is calculated by dividing the company’s liabilities by shareholder’s equity. The optimal debt to equity ratio should not go beyond 2.0. A ratio of 2.0 indicates that a company finances its capital from 67% debt and 33% equity
: Borrowings of the company must also be taken under consideration before investing. Financial leverage can be best defined by the debt to equity ratio which is calculated by dividing the company’s liabilities by shareholder’s equity. The optimal debt to equity ratio should not go beyond 2.0. A ratio of 2.0 indicates that a company finances its capital from 67% debt and 33% equity Look for a company with a competitive advantage or a wide moat: Along with earning above-average profits, its sustainability is equally important for a company. The driving factor behind sustainable high-profit growth is a competitive advantage.
A company can enjoy a competitive advantage over other companies with the help of high market share, by creating a strong brand, lower input costs, and a unique product line
Strong and visionary management : Corporate governance is often underestimated while investors choose the stocks to buy. A potential multibagger stock must possess capable management with high integrity. The strength of the management can be determined with key features like the independence of auditors and the board of directors, the value of the shares pledged, related party transactions, etc.
: Corporate governance is often underestimated while investors choose the stocks to buy. A potential multibagger stock must possess capable management with high integrity. The strength of the management can be determined with key features like the independence of auditors and the board of directors, the value of the shares pledged, related party transactions, etc. Decent and reasonable valuations : A good company may not necessarily be a good stock. For example, Wipro, which is considered one of the best companies from the IT sector has only given a CAGR of 0.4% in the last 20 years. PE ratio growing at a faster pace than the stock price can be considered as one of the indicators to identify a potential multibagger stock
: A good company may not necessarily be a good stock. For example, Wipro, which is considered one of the best companies from the IT sector has only given a CAGR of 0.4% in the last 20 years. PE ratio growing at a faster pace than the stock price can be considered as one of the indicators to identify a potential multibagger stock Strong earnings growth: Earnings growth of a company can be best gauged by the Earnings per Share (EPS). EPS indicates the share of a company’s profit attributed to each share and is calculated by dividing the company’s net profit by the shares outstanding
Multibagger Stocks of last 2 Decades:
1.Dixon Technologies 3-Year Performance of Dixon Technologies Ltd.
A leader in the Electronic Manufacturing Services space, Dixon Technologies has shot up 5x in the last 3 year and has delivered a return of 558%.
2.Bajaj Finance 5-Year Performance of Bajaj Finance Ltd.
Bajaj Finance Ltd., a diversified NBFC engaged in consumer, SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) and commercial lending, has shot up almost 6x in the last 5 years delivering a return of 600%.
3.Asian Paints Ltd. 20-Year Performance of Asian Paints Ltd.
Engaged in the business of manufacturing, selling, and distribution of paints, Asian Paints Ltd. has shot up more than 100x in the last 20 years delivering a return of 21000%.
4.Marico Ltd. 20-Year Performance of Marico Ltd.
Provider of consumer products in the areas of health and beauty, Marico Ltd. has shot up 175x in the last 20 years, delivering a return of 14,150%.
If we can about the last 6 months and the multibaggers of 2020, SBI has emerged as the leader with 87% return over the last 6 months and a strong financial performance amidst the tough times. Further, Ultratech Cement Ltd. and Bajaj Finserv also outperformed the market with 68% and 61% returns over the past 6 months.
20-Year Performance of SBI
Risks Associated with Investing in Potential Multibagger Stocks:
Lower levels of liquidity: Sometimes, the lack of information and quick money attitude can lead to investor bearing liquidity risks which are seldom higher in stocks whose price has not been discovered by markets
Sometimes, the lack of information and quick money attitude can lead to investor bearing liquidity risks which are seldom higher in stocks whose price has not been discovered by markets Relying on stock tips and recommendations: While it is advisable to take guidance from authentic research reports before investing in stocks, one must not depend on them. One’s own analysis must be preferred over stock tips and recommendations from anonymous sources
While it is advisable to take guidance from authentic research reports before investing in stocks, one must not depend on them. One’s own analysis must be preferred over stock tips and recommendations from anonymous sources Uncertainty of rewards: There is a lower probability of higher rewards from all the potential multibagger stocks and a greater chance of markets failing to discover the expected price of the chosen scrips.
The most important aspect post investing in a potential multibagger stock is one’s patience and ability to hold the stock through thick and thin times as the company itself takes many years to establish as the leader in the sector. Sometimes, the ability to hold the stock is more difficult than identifying a potential multibagger
The idea of multibagger stocks sound very fascinating at first, but identifying the potential ones and holding on to them during their good and bad times both, is a hard task. This is true especially for retail investors who find it difficult to do proper research all the time. Hence, a better idea is to track the index by investing in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).
30-Year Performance of Sensex
Nifty 50 and Sensex, India’s most-followed indices, have delivered multi-fold returns in the past. While it is true that the returns generated by both indices have comparatively taken a longer time horizon than the individual stocks, investors have benefitted from higher liquidity and diversification by investing in ETFs. Also, the investor doesn’t even need to time the markets all the time or do any fundamental analysis, unlike individual stocks.
Tavaga is everything you need to start saving for your goals, stay on track, and achieve them in time. Download Now: | https://medium.com/@tavaga-invest/multibagger-stocks-in-india-definition-examples-risks-and-future-52c84644c84b | ['Tavaga Invest'] | 2021-04-15 05:24:30.765000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Saving Money', 'Research', 'Multibagger Stocks', 'Stock Market'] |
How Music Changed My Life in a Year! | Originally written by Pratiti Jain.
Music! This last one year of musical experience has changed me for better. Now, music has become an inseparable part of my life. It is like an escape from reality, from this otherwise boring life, where you do what you love. Yes, it makes me happy. Well, I am still a newbie and there is a lot to learn.
This is a story of finding my love for music in the midst of a regular life.
A still from my recent music video.
The introduction
It all started when I was in school. My mother and school teachers always told me that I can sing well and asked me to join vocal classes. As a result, I completed my first year in classical music (vocal). Just like any other maths student, went to Kota for JEE preparation. I discontinued the classes after one year for no solid reason.
Realization:
Right before the board exams, I realized, sitting in a single room with FM radio that singing is the one thing that I loved the most. Then, I started recording my own voice after listening to the songs. At that point, I decided that I want to take this further.
The later and the better part
I joined the college with a hope. I wished for more like-minded people who could help me to learn and grow together. I was amazed to meet many talented people in the college, this small group gave me the opportunity to be heard.
In the very first event, I got that stage which I was in search of. I sang for the first time in college and got a little recognition. There onwards I participated in every college event. This year our club secured the first position in an inter-college competition at DAIICT (Gandhinagar). As a reward, our club got a chance to record a song in a recording studio!
What I’ve learned?
Practice; this is all it takes to stick to your interest. People with the similar interest, a stage, and opportunities act as a catalyst in the process.
I have learned and experienced a lot of new things and I am looking forward to more such interesting events to come and eventually keeping growing as music is something that makes me smile.
Cheers!
Our our first music video by the Music Club of IIITV — | https://medium.com/hapramp/how-music-changed-my-life-in-a-year-bf624d3827fb | ['Rajat Dangi'] | 2017-11-26 14:01:54.955000+00:00 | ['Stories', 'Music', 'Hobbies', 'Singing', 'Storyofmylife'] |
What Coronavirus Could Mean for the Global Economy | by Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Martin Reeves, Paul Swartz
Having largely ignored Covid-19 as it spread across China, global financial markets reacted strongly last week when the virus spread to Europe and the Middle East, stoking fears of a global pandemic. Since then, Covid-19 risks have been priced so aggressively across various asset classes that some fear a recession in the global economy may be a foregone conclusion.
In our conversations, business leaders are asking whether the market drawdown truly signals a recession, how bad a Covid-19 recession would be, what the scenarios are for growth and recovery, and whether there will be any lasting structural impact from the unfolding crisis.
In truth, projections and indices won’t answer these questions. Hardly reliable in the calmest of times, a GDP forecast is dubious when the virus trajectory is unknowable, as are the effectiveness of containment efforts, and consumers’ and firms’ reactions. There is no single number that credibly captures or foresees Covid-19’s economic impact.
Instead, we must take a careful look at market signals across asset classes, recession and recovery patterns, as well as the history of epidemics and shocks, to glean insights into the path ahead.
Continue reading on HBR.org
(Editor’s Note, March 6): This piece has been updated to reflect the subtypes of the historic flu outbreaks.) | https://bcghendersoninstitute.com/what-coronavirus-could-mean-for-the-global-economy-76a2d079b0f1 | ['Bcg Henderson Institute'] | 2020-03-11 17:20:15.134000+00:00 | ['Crisis', 'Economy', 'Strategy', 'Coronavirus', 'Macroeconomics'] |
My Data Science Journey | I was about completing national service so, I started telling friends and relatives that I needed to find a job. A friend called Rexford Nkansah then asked me what kind of job I wanted. My background is Finance but looking at the situation in the country and how difficult it is to find a job I was prepared to accept any job offer even if it was not in my area of study.
He then sent me a link to Udacity online learning platform where they were offering a Scholarship. I was so much of doubts whether I could make it I gathered courage and filed the application. Yes! I got selected can you believe it? We started the course and I met a lot of enthusiast who were helpful we even created an all women group where we helped each other to learn.
After the first stage I didn’t make it to the next but it didn’t stop me I kept taking free online courses and I am currently on a Scholarship with DataCamp which I got through their partnership with Developers in Vogue a Ghanaian Social Enterprise that teaches young women how to code.
I am excited about my new transition process and as you read look forward to me sharing my achievements, progress, challenges with you. | https://medium.com/data-guru/my-data-science-journey-4a3a85d16945 | ['Felicia Esperanza Yakubu'] | 2019-04-01 15:45:17.243000+00:00 | ['Data Science'] |
A Family of Volunteers: Spreading the Love of Reading with the Tongs | You’ve both been active volunteers at NLB for almost six years now. How did the library become your chosen place to volunteer at?
Sharon: My daughter and I first started volunteering at the care corner (a daycare centre for the elderly) near her school when she was in lower primary. She accompanied the elderly by playing games and engaging them in fun activities. During the school holidays, Sabrina also organised song and game sessions and helped out during their tea break. In Primary 4, she was accepted into the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) at Nanyang Primary School. The new school was unfortunately too far away from the daycare centre, so she had to stop her volunteering commitments. I began looking for volunteering opportunities that took place during the weekends, and found that the library had a need for storytellers, which looked interesting.
That is the library’s good fortune. But why volunteer in the first place?
Sharon: My main goal was to provide opportunities for Sabrina to grow up to be caring, loving and empathetic towards those around her. I also wanted her to be independent and responsible. In fact, we started with a music concert. Together with some friends, I set up a group called Little Musical Gems back in 2014 and 2015 at library@esplanade to gather all our children who loved sharing music. I remember the many practices and rehearsals we had. We even trained the children to be emcees and rehearsed at each other’s homes. We performed for the patients at Tan Tock Seng and Raffles Hospitals as part of their Art of Healing programme. We’ve been active in community work for many, many years.
Sabrina performing at the library@esplanade during the Little Musical Gems Recital in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
How about you, Sabrina, why have you been volunteering?
Sabrina: I love reading, thanks to my mum. She inculcated a love of reading in me from a very young age when she taught me phonics and other skills. I wanted to share this with younger children even though I was inexperienced and still young then. I want to be like an older sister who shares with others that reading is fantastic. Many people are addicted to their phones and electronic devices, but it doesn’t have to be this way for children.
Sabrina guiding participants as they identify healthy food on a poster at Serangoon Public Library in 2019.
You have found a great way to engage your young audience with more than just stories. What kind of activities do you plan for them?
Sharon: We include origami folding, competitions and games in our sessions. These activities help to get them active and engaged in the story. Children get bored very easily if it’s just storytelling. So, when we see them getting restless, we ask them to stand up, run or dance a little.
Sabrina: I remember when I was a child, I was like that too and lost interest easily. My mum would think of different activities for me. Now, we prepare fun tasks for them, such as quizzes, to lead them to the moral of the story that we’re telling.
Sharon helping Sabrina with a visual matching game during a storytelling session in 2017.
You volunteer more often during the school holidays, as often as twice a month. How long do you take to prepare for each session?
Sabrina: In the beginning, it took about a week. I start choosing the stories for the sessions in advance. My mum and I would start thinking of the morals behind the stories and come up with the activities. At first, my mum would think of the activities. As I grew more experienced, I would go online to research, then prepare them. I would also think back to when I was at that age and recall what I liked. These days, I take three days.
Sharon: She would practise, and I would also monitor her and select the stories for the first few sessions. But she was able to handle it soon enough, and I would leave her to do the preparation work.
Sabrina: My mum still screens my book choices. Sometimes, if the book is too long or confusing, I’ll need to change it.
Sharon: Depending on the activity, we may buy the materials. Then she will cut out the shapes for the children to paste onto larger pieces of paper, and also learn how to fold the origami models from YouTube videos.
Sabrina researching and rehearsing a story before a storytelling session.
That’s a lot of dedication! What else do you do before the session?
Sharon: We also select 20 books from the library to prepare a book display. We make the effort to come early to choose the books and go through them. Then we will give a presentation and encourage the children to borrow the books.
Sabrina going through the books at the book display.
After the hard work spent preparing, what challenges do you sometimes face on the day of the storytelling session?
Sharon: Her first solo storytelling session was in an open space in a public area, not an enclosed room!
Sabrina: On that day, there was an event in the programme room, so the storytelling session had to be held in the open at the children’s section. I was nervous at first as there were many people looking at me. I tend to talk too softly and sometimes too quickly when I’m nervous. But it was a good thing that the children listened and answered my questions!
Sharon: As a parent, I was worried that other people would say that a young child was not good enough to be a storyteller. However, I was very proud of her performance that day. Other parents came by to praise Sabrina’s storytelling as they enjoyed the session! They asked how old she was and even asked how their own children could become volunteers. I’m happy that as a young child she is engaging other children and gaining experience at the same time.
How else have you benefited from your experiences as a storyteller?
Sabrina: As an introvert, I had to pluck up the courage to speak to an audience and make eye contact. I was just reading at first, then I stepped out of my comfort zone, and now, I tell the story. I like seeing the children smile at me and understand that storytelling was a time to just enjoy the story together and have fun.
Sharon: She has become more confident. She doesn’t just make the children happy, she’s also learning to present better. I do encourage her to not just read from the book but add to it, to turn it into a journey and to invite her audience to interact and engage with the storytelling. I’m proud of her and how far she has come in planning the games, crafts and activities, and doing the research before each session.
Do you have any advice for those who are considering volunteering?
Sabrina: It’s okay to be scared. No one is going to judge you, we can all learn together, and don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. It’s great to share the love of reading with everyone. If you don’t have the courage to do it, just think about how you might find something unexpected out of it.
Sharon: Just go ahead to volunteer, and be inspired to help others. Parents have felt inspired to encourage their children to become storytellers after attending Sabrina’s storytelling sessions.
Thank you very much for your time, Sharon and Sabrina — both for this interview, and for volunteering at our libraries!
-
Text by
Reena Kandoth
National Library Board | https://medium.com/publiclibrarysg/a-family-of-volunteers-spreading-the-love-of-reading-with-the-tongs-1e35d9d48c86 | ['Public Libraries Singapore'] | 2021-04-15 04:09:07.872000+00:00 | ['Volunteering', 'Life', 'Books', 'Reading', 'Self Improvement'] |
NEW DAWN, NEW YEAR, AND ALL THAT SH*T. | New York, London, Dublin, Glengormley. (Wink-Wink)
Over the last few years my career in Graphic Design has been slightly turbulent to say the least.
Being laid off, job-searching then taking on positions where I knew deep down I was going through the motions, not learning and not developing.
So! Taking this on board I’ve decided to set up on my own. I don’t know what this entails. Whether it’s a side-hustle, freelance, or who knows, starting an agency maybe.*
A case of just getting the ‘word out’ and seeing what happens?
SKILL-SET
Coming from a ‘Design for Print’ background my skills include Design for Print - Brochures, Booklets, etc. Presentation Design, Branding and some moving image.
If anyone thinks my skills can be of use, or if anyone has any advice on starting up their own design gig, please feel free to reach out.
Thanks for reading.
C.
*(I am always open to the right recruitment opportunities). | https://medium.com/@ciaranmckendry-748/new-dawn-new-year-and-all-that-sh-t-3ed7bec5322f | ['Ciaran Mckendry'] | 2020-12-16 17:06:13.836000+00:00 | ['Graphic Design Services', 'Freelance', 'Job Hunting', 'Belfast', 'Agency'] |
Defining Qlik’s (design) principles | When it comes to design principles, deciding on what they are is only one part of the challenge. How you frame them for the various audiences and get them embedded into everyday decisions is just as important. A lot of that depends on how they fit with your other design artefacts and how the design team works with other parts of the organisation. Our goal for Qlik’s Product Design Principles is to help connect the design decisions to the overall vision by essentially describing how we (at Qlik) approach designing our products. To essentially define the values and activities that matter most to us and that we believe create great products. So that through them we can enable teams to make confident (and often autonomous) decisions, whilst ensuring that how we go about the implementation of those decisions reflects a shared ethos and approach.
But we didn’t get to this overnight.
When it comes to defining and articulating our design principles, we in the product design team have been through a number of iterations. During this journey we discovered that there are several levels that design principles can communicate at. When we first set off (back when Qlik Sense was still a mere twinkle in our collective eye) we were keen to avoid the lofty and purely aspirational principles that, as Jared Spool puts it “[do not] help designers learn more about their design [or] make critical decisions about what they’re building”. We were a small team with a big challenge and we needed tools that helped ground and consolidate our ideas. As such our first set of 7 design principles were focussed on assisting the designers and product managers in solving the challenges that came with designing a new version of an existing product. Each described a characteristic of what we wanted the new experience to be and were supplemented by some simple guiding statements. Here’s an example of one of them:
Natural — Reflect people’s natural understanding of what they are doing and what they need to do next.
Use progressive disclosure to surface the advanced options as needed.
Match tools to contexts.
Group by context and task as well as similarity.
Support actions taken over different timeframes.
We were pretty happy with these at first. But as the team, product and the organisation grew, we found that these didn’t scale well as they focussed too much on the thing not the activity, which meant they didn’t help communicate the overall vision. We tried to address this by introducing what (at the time) we called ‘philosophies’. These were 4 values that could be held in mind whenever you started thinking about a new design challenge, product area or user journey.
Keep it natural — The best tools fit us, extending and enhancing our skills in ways we understand instinctively. Encourage flow — When we are focused and in a ‘flow state’: we are at our most effective and creative. Embrace dialogue — Debate and discussion brings us together and adds energy to our actions, nuancing our understanding. Consider context — The time, the place, the situation and the participants change how we interact and experience things.
Each of these had a fairly lengthy write up and a series of questions and examples to help people work with them (you can still read about them on the Qlik blog). These worked well inside the design team but their conceptual nature meant that not everyone was comfortable working with them. They helped us describe the vision for the experience, but didn’t really help us address the how it should manifest. But most importantly they didn’t directly reflect the users. They were our philosophies.
This issue of being either conceptual or too practical problem was something that we discovered others were also struggling with. The core of the problem lays in understanding who the ‘customers’ of your design principles are. We were coming at things from both ends and missing the middle, and we realised we needed to find ways to communicate with multiple customer groups across the full range.
Once we realised that a single list of design principles wasn’t go to talk to everyone, we started to get a better understanding of why they weren’t getting the traction across the organisation we had hoped for. So we went out to talked to our stakeholders/customers, ran some voice of the customer research to understand what they thought about us (and mattered to them), did some design team workshops to understand what we were about. From this we ended up defining 7 design principles that we believe reflect both who we are and what our customers expect from us. In doing so we also created a fresh approach for how we work with them.
It’s a four tier model that includes the design principles but positions them in relation to other artefacts. The top tier is the company/product mission (what we want to achieve), the second tier is where our design principles sit (how we act to achieve this), the third tier is where the user experiences are defined (which experiences and qualities best support our users in a particular activity), and finally in the fourth tier, we have the UI patterns and guidelines or the design language system (how experiences manifest in the product UI in a unified and consistently ‘Qlik’ way).
For us and our audience, the design principles sit at the design strategy level. They are about shaping the product. Below is an example of how one of our principles; “Don’t waste their time” connects across the different tiers.
This approach has helped us find the best way to talk to the different parts of our audience. It allows the design team to communicate at the strategic level and the granular level, but most importantly it helps us connect the two.
The Qlik Product Design Principles
So that brings us to our 7 design principles. They were created to reflect both who we are and what we aspire to. Here is each of them with a little about what they mean to us:
Simplify — This is how we innovate, by removing unnecessary complexity yet retaining all the power. It’s how we enable customers to focus on the what rather than the how.
This is how we innovate, by removing unnecessary complexity yet retaining all the power. It’s how we enable customers to focus on the what rather than the how. Don’t Discriminate — Is how we touch a billion lives, broaden analytics, and simplify decision making for everyone, everywhere. It’s about being accessible and fit for context. For our customers it means anyone can get value from our products.
Is how we touch a billion lives, broaden analytics, and simplify decision making for everyone, everywhere. It’s about being accessible and fit for context. For our customers it means anyone can get value from our products. Create Confidence — This is about execution, growth and building skills. It’s delivering robust engineering and design that’s scalable and high quality. For our customers confidence builds trust and make us the go to product.
This is about execution, growth and building skills. It’s delivering robust engineering and design that’s scalable and high quality. For our customers confidence builds trust and make us the go to product. Focus on Value — This helps us prioritise, ensuring everything we create is well thought through. For our customers it results in experiences that satisfy their needs and expectations.
This helps us prioritise, ensuring everything we create is well thought through. For our customers it results in experiences that satisfy their needs and expectations. Bring Joy — It’s the Qlik smile and those details that create the stickiness in our products. For our customers this is how we capture their attention and make them happy, lifetime fans.
It’s the Qlik smile and those details that create the stickiness in our products. For our customers this is how we capture their attention and make them happy, lifetime fans. Don’t waste their time — It’s all about performance and efficiency, helping us innovate in ways that have measurable impact with our customers. Their time and attention is valuable. We should make every second worth it.
It’s all about performance and efficiency, helping us innovate in ways that have measurable impact with our customers. Their time and attention is valuable. We should make every second worth it. Take it further — This drives our ambition to improve and build upon what we have, to innovate and think about what’s that extra touch that will make our products stand out. For our customers, this is when they say “wow!”
I’ll be detailing each of these over the coming weeks and talking more about how we work with them. In the meantime here’s an example of how we share them internally, using flash cards (and of course we have stickers for everyone’s laptops): | https://medium.com/design-strategy-data-people/defining-our-design-principles-2fac7f2bfe67 | [] | 2019-07-24 20:42:39.446000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Design Thinking', 'Design Process', 'UX', 'Design Principles'] |
A Quick Guide to Rails System Tests in RSpec | Just this week, RSpec 3.7 was released with support for the Rails system tests added in Rails 5.1.
(If you’d like to read more about system tests and see examples of them in action, my book Rails 5 Test Prescriptions is now avaiable for purchase)
What are System tests?
System tests were added to Rails core in Rails 5.1 as the core team’s preferred way to test client-side interactions using Capybara and a browser driver. This is in addition to the Rails core integration tests, which don’t use Capybara, but which do test against server-side generated DOM elements.
Okay, but I already use Capybara in my RSpec tests, why is this better?
Even if you are already using RSpec feature tests with Capybara, the system tests still offer some benefits:
Configuring the Capybara browser is easier, especially in the default case.
If you’ve used Capybara to drive JavaScript testing in an external browser, you may have run into issues where the database did not clean up as expected. Or if you were using SQL lite, the database would sometimes lock in Capybara JavaScript testing. These problems would happen because the external driver would run in a separate process and would not have access to the database transactions or locks being used by the Rails app. You may have used the Database cleaner gem to mitigate this problem. Rails system tests run the driver in the Rails process, so that these problems go away.
So, should I use System Tests?
The RSpec team is recommending using system tests instead of feature tests for integration testing, whether or not you are using a JavaScript driver.
How do I use system tests?
In RSpec, you can define a system test using metadata and the :type keyword, as in
RSpec.describe "add to cart", type: :system do
If you have the infer_spec_type_from_file_location! configuration turned on, then any spec in the spec/system directory is a system test.
How do I set up System tests?
System tests use a method called driven_by , which is part of Rails core, and which manages the Capybara driver configuration.
The argument to driven_by is the Capybara driver. The default is :selenium , but you can also use :rack_test , :selenium_chrome , or :selenium_chrome_headless .
The rack_test driver is the normal Capybara default, it uses an internal DOM tree and does not support JavaScript. System tests use the non-headless :selenium as a default to give JavaScript support and to allow the tester to see the browser going though the tests.
The driven_by method takes three optional keyword arguments, :using , which specifies the browser for selenium, as in driven_by :selenium, using: :firefox , and :screen_size , which specifies the size of the browser window as a two-element array: driven_by :selenium, screen_size: [640, 480] . There’s also an :options keyword which is passed to the driver if the driver requires other options.
You can call driven_by as part of each test in a before block, but in RSpec you can also make that part of the suite-wide configuration. Here’s the setup I’ve been using:
Using selenium_chrome_headless requires the selenium-webdriver gem, which is installed by default in Rails 5.1.
I’m pretty sure that using the selenium_chrome_headless driver also requires having Chromium installed on your system, but honestly, at this point, I’m not 100% sure beyond the fact that I have it installed on my system and system tests work…
You can install other drivers if you want you’d just require them in the same file that has the driven_by setup and then use driven_by :poltergeist or :webkit (if you use capybara-webkit ).
How hard is the transition?
Pretty easy so far, if you are on Rails 5.1… I’ve moved two small projects by just changing their directory and type, and adding the setup above. Since everything is going back to the same Capybara functionality, everything just worked (though Circle CI had to be coaxed, more on that in a second).
Update: One transition bit that I forgot. If you are using Devise’s integration test helpers like sign_in you need to add configration to include them, such as: config.include Devise::Test::IntegrationHelpers, type: :system . Or maybe Devise::Test::ControllerHelpers depending on which one you are using.
If you are doing something unusual with your Capybara driver, you may need to translate the driver configuration, but the existing Capybara driver creators should work.
That said, I’m not sure that you all need to run out and do this to existing projects unless you are having issues. Getting rid of Database Cleaner does seem like a positive step in making tests less confusing.
If you are using Circle CI 2.0
As far as I can tell (the official docs are lacking), the preferred way to do Selenium in Circle CI 2.0 is via a separate Docker image.
In the spirit of “I spent two hours on this so you don’t have to”, here’s the configuration that works for me.
In my CircleCI config.yml file, the docker setup looks like this:
The RSpec step is as normal, using the syntax that Circle seems to prefer:
That sets up a SELENIUM_DRIVER_URL environment variable, which we can then use to force a remote driver in that environment. My actual driver setup looks like this:
So for JavaScript tests, if I am in the Circle environment, as specified by ENV["SELENIUM_DRIVER_URL"].present? , I use a regular selenium driver, setting the options to mark it as remote, and using the external URL.
It’s still simpler than the Capybara config was before I switched to system testing…
Hope this helps, happy testing!
(If you’d like to read more about system tests and see examples of them in action, my book Rails 5 Test Prescriptions is now avaiable for purchase) | https://medium.com/table-xi/a-quick-guide-to-rails-system-tests-in-rspec-b6e9e8a8b5f6 | ['Noel Rappin'] | 2017-11-22 17:18:21.871000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Test Driven Development', 'Rspec', 'Ruby on Rails'] |
Watson Speech-To-Text: How to Train Your Own Speech “Dragon” — Part 2: Training with Data | Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
In Part 1, I walked you through the different components in Watson STT available for adaptation. I also covered the important step of data collection and preparation. In this article, we will see how we use this data to configure and train Watson STT, then conduct experiments to measure its accuracy.
Establish Your Baseline
In order to see how Watson STT performs and how we measure improvements, we go through multiple iterations of teach, test and calibrate (ITTC).
The first thing we must do is to set our baseline by using the Test Set we built earlier (see “Building Your Training Set and Your Test Set” in Part 1,). My friend and colleague Andrew Freed wrote a great article on how to conduct experiments for speech applications, using the sclite tool — read it for more information on experimentation. The first experiment is run against the STT Base Model with no adaptation. This becomes your baseline. Not only you will get a Word Error Rate (WER) and a Sentence Error Rate (SER) but it will give you the areas where you need to improve.
The obvious gaps that we usually observe at this point are:
Out-Of-Vocabulary words — domain-specific terms, acronyms
Technical terminology and jargons — product names, technical expressions, unknown domain context
Take note of your weak areas. They will indicate where Watson STT training is required and what to validate as you go through your multiple iterations.
Create a Language Model Adaptation/Customization
Out of the 3 components available for model adaptation, the Language Model Adaption is the one who delivers the biggest bang for the buck. Watson STT is a probabilistic and contextual service, so training can include repetitive words and phrases to ‘weight’ the chance of the word being transcribed. The focus of training text data should be on ‘out-of-vocabulary’ words, and known words that the solution struggles with. Additional emphasis can also be put on high frequency in-vocabulary words.
To create a Language Model Adaptation/Customization, the steps are the following:
Create a new custom model by running the “curl” command below:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/json”
— data “{\”name\”: \”Example model\”,
\”base_model_name\”: \”en-US_BroadbandModel\”,
\”description\”: \”Example custom language model\”}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations"
You will get a customization id similar to:
{
“customization_id”: “74f4807e-b5ff-4866–824e-6bba1a84fe96”
}
This ID is your placeholder that you will use to add training data and “recognize” API calls. There is no limit in the number of custom models you can create within a Watson STT service but you can only use one custom model at a time in API calls.
Create a UTF-8 text file with utterances and add it to the new custom model
Here’s an example — “healthcare.txt” — that contains gaps identified during the first experiment.
To add the file to your newly created custom model with the customization ID, run the following “curl” command:
You can add as many text files as you want within a single custom model, as long as you do not exceed the maximum number of total words of 10 millions.
Add custom words to the custom model
You can use custom words to handle specific pronunciations of acronyms within your domain. One example in our healthcare domain example is the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS). A common pronunciation we see for it is “hick picks”. You can configure a custom word when a caller says “hick picks”, Watson STT transcribes “HCPCS” instead. To add this custom word to your existing custom model, you run the following “curl” command:
curl -X PUT -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/json”
— data “{\”sounds_like\”: [\”H. C. P. C. S.\”, \”hick picks\”]}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/words/HCPCS"
For more details, check the documentation on how to add multiple words.
Train the custom model
Every time you add, update or delete training data to your custom model, you must train it with the following command:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/train"
You can check the status of the custom model by running this command:
curl -X GET -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}"
When you create the custom model, the status is “pending”. When you add data to it, after the processing is complete, it moves to “ready”. When you issue the train command, the status changes to “training”. When the training is done, it shows “available” and your custom model is ready to use.
New Experiment with The New Language Model Adaptation
Run experiments, review, analyze, adjust then re-test | Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash
Now that we have a new custom model, let’s re-run the same previous experiment against it and review the results. Check the gaps you have identified from your baseline and validate your improvements. It does not need to be perfect. As long as you have the correct Watson STT transcription with high confidence scoring (0.8 or more), you are good to go.
Also, make sure you are not experiencing any regression on good results you already had in your baseline.
Keep iterating your experiments, identify gaps and improve your training, using ONLY the Language Model Adaptation for now. Based on past project experiences, I got the best results and improvements with it at first. In discussions, I use the 80/20 rule: 80% of your improvements will be with the Language Model Adaptation, 20% with your Acoustic Model Adaptation.
Create an Acoustic Model Adaptation / Customization — If Needed
Wait a minute! What do you mean by “If needed”?
I have heard in numerous discussions and meetings that the Acoustic Model Adaptation will solve ALL the Watson STT issues. Like any feature and functionality, you have to be smart. Keep in mind that the Base Model already contains some great audio training data that can handle light accents and some light noise.
From my past experiences, the only time I have ever needed it is when I dealt with heavy thick English accents or a specific noisy environment. I refer to these as “edge cases”, when something cannot be resolved with Language Model training data.
Listen carefully to the audio and make sure you can clearly hear what is being said | Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash
The first thing to do before we ever consider using an Acoustic Model Adaptation is to identify reproducible patterns. It’s not because it failed once that you have to fix it. Can you consistently reproduce this issue with the same person? Or different persons with the same accent or the same environment? If you answer yes, you have a pattern. Start collecting audio from them using your scripts. I recommend you collect at least 10 hrs of this pattern.
Now, listen to these audio files and make sure you can actually hear what is being said. If you do not understand what is being said, Watson STT will not do better. Discard these bad audio files.
Collect these audio files and transcribe them. Create a separate “pattern” training set with 8 hrs of audio and a “pattern” test set with the remaining 2 hrs (80/20 rule). As explained in Part 1, make sure you randomize properly and balance both sets with accents, devices, etc.
There are 2 ways to train a custom acoustic model:
Semi-supervised — training the custom acoustic model with a custom language model containing the human transcription of the audio files used in it
Unsupervised — training the custom acoustic model on its own. In this case, it’s trained with the Base Model.
For optimal results, we will do it semi-supervised. That’s why we transcribed the pattern audio files we collected.
Follow the instructions above to create another custom language model. Create a text file with the human transcriptions, then add it to the custom language model. Finally, train it and check until it’s “available”. This custom language model “helper” should ONLY be used to train your custom acoustic model. You should never use it for anything other purpose. As you wish to add more audio data, you will add their transcription to this “helper” and re-train.
To create a custom acoustic model, here are the instructions:
Create a new custom acoustic model by running the “curl” command below:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/json”
— data “{\”name\”: \”Example acoustic model\”,
\”base_model_name\”: \”en-US_BroadbandModel\”,
\”description\”: \”Example custom acoustic model\”}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/acoustic_customizations"
You will get an acoustic customization id similar to:
{
“customization_id”: “74f4807e-b5ff-4866–824e-6bba1a84fe96”
}
Just like for the custom language model, you will use this ID to add audio training data and “recognize” API calls. There is no limit in the number of acoustic custom models you can create within a Watson STT service but you can only use one custom acoustic model at a time in API calls.
Create a zip file with the pattern audio files from your training set, and add it to the new custom acoustic model
Here’s an example — “audio2.zip” — that would contains your pattern audio files. Run the following “curl” command to add the zip file to your newly created custom acoustic model with the customization ID :
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/zip”
— header “Contained-Content-Type: audio/l16;rate=16000”
— data-binary @audio2.zip
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/acoustic_customizations/{customization_id}/audio/audio2"
The amount of audio data has to be at least 10 minutes but cannot exceed 200 hours. The maximum file size but be less than 100 Mb. For more information, see Guidelines for adding audio resources.
Train the custom acoustic model, referencing the custom language model containing the transcriptions (semi-supervised)
To train the acoustic custom model using the custom language model with the transcriptions, you run the following “curl” command:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/acoustic_customizations/{customization_id}/train?custom_language_model_id={customization_id}"
You can check the status of the custom model :
curl -X GET -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/acoustic_customizations/{customization_id}"
New Pattern Experiment with The New Acoustic and Language Model Adaptation / Customization
Experiment with audio matching your “pattern” (accents, environment, etc) | Photo by Antenna on Unsplash
Using the pattern audio files from your test set, run an experiment against you new custom acoustic model and the very first custom language model you created earlier— do not use the custom language model “helper” in any experiment.
Here’s a “curl” command showing how to use both custom acoustic model and custom language model:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: audio/flac”
— data-binary @audio-file1.flac
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?acoustic_customization_id={customization_id}&language_customization_id={customization_id}"
Compare your results and make sure you have corrected the “pattern” issue.
Enhance your original test set by adding the “pattern” test set audio and transcription data. The more data you have in your test set, the more accurate the results will be.
Using the Grammar Feature for Data Inputs
For general utterances to identify intents and entities, training your Watson STT with a custom language model and custom acoustic model will do the trick. But what about when you handle specific data inputs like a part number, a member ID, a policy number or a healthcare code?
In speech recognition, you encounter certain characters that get misrecognized or confused with others. I personally call these “speech confusion matrix”. Here are some examples below:
A. vs H. vs 8
F. vs S.
D. vs T.
B. vs D.
M. vs N.
2 vs to vs too
4 vs for
There are multiple factors that can cause this confusion like accent or audio quality. Watson STT Grammar is a feature we can use to improve accuracy for these data inputs, and mitigate this confusion. It supports grammars that are defined in the following standard formats:
Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF): Plain-text similar to traditional BNF grammar.
XML Form: XML elements used to represent the grammar.
For more information on creating a grammar configuration, check the Watson STT Grammar documentation and the W3C Speech Recognition Grammar Specification Version 1.0.
To train Watson STT with a grammar configuration, you will need a custom language model. The steps are :
Create a new custom model or use an existing one
I recommend that you create a separate custom language model dedicated to all your grammar configuration. This is purely for ease of administration and maintenance purposes only. You can use an existing custom language model if you want. See the section “Create a Language Model Adaptation/Customization” for more information.
Add the grammar configuration to the custom language model
If you grammar configuration is in ABNF format, run this “curl” command:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/srgs”
— data-binary @confirm.abnf
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/grammars/confirm-abnf?allow_overwrite=true”
If you grammar configuration is in XML format, execute the following “curl” command:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: application/srgs+xml”
— data-binary @confirm.xml
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/grammars/confirm-xml?allow_overwrite=true"
Note: I frequently use the “allow_overwrite” query parameter as it allows to overwrite the existing grammar configuration as you update it.
Validate your grammar configuration
Once your grammar configuration uploaded in your custom language model, I find this command very useful to validate it and identify issues :
If no error, you should see the OOV results:
{ “results”: [ { “OOV_words”: [] } ], “result_index”: 0 }
Here’s an example of an error you can see during the validation. It will give you an indication where the error is located in your grammar file:
{ “code_description”: “Bad Request”, “code”: 400, “error”: “Invalid grammar. LMtools getOOV grammar — syntax error in RAPI configure: compiler msg: Syntax error, line number: 10, position: 21: “ }
Check the status of your grammar
This “curl” command will show you the status of all your grammar configurations in your custom language model:
curl -X GET -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/grammars"
You should be getting a response similar to the following:
{“grammars”: [{ “out_of_vocabulary_words”: 0, “name”: “confirm.xml.xml”, “status”: “analyzed” }]}
Note: The “status” may be “being_processed” (still processing the grammar), “undetermined” (see below) or “analyzed” (completed and valid).
Train the custom model
As mentioned previoously, every time you update a custom language model, you have to train it:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}/train"
… then check check the status :
curl -X GET -u “apikey:{apikey}”
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/customizations/{customization_id}"
When the training status is “available”, you are ready to use the grammar.
Using a grammar in your “recognize” request
As part of each “recognize” request, you can only use one custom language model, one acoustic custom model and one grammar configuration. The example below shows the use of a custom language model and a grammar configuration:
curl -X POST -u “apikey:{apikey}”
— header “Content-Type: audio/flac”
— data-binary @audio-file.flac
“https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?language_customization_id={customization_id}&grammar_name={grammar_name}"
Re-run Experiments with New Updated Test Set and Establish a New Baseline
Re-run the same experiments you first ran against the Base Model but now using the new custom acoustic model, new custom language model and new grammar configuration where applicable. Review your results and compare. Make sure you are showing improvements and not regressing in any other areas.
Identify new gaps, rinse and repeat.
When your results are optimal, this will become your new baseline.
In Part 3 of this series, I will show you how to configure and train STT with a Grammar to handle specific data input strings. | https://medium.com/ibm-data-ai/watson-speech-to-text-how-to-train-your-own-speech-dragon-part-2-training-with-data-5116dac3f774 | ['Marco Noel'] | 2019-11-22 13:48:56.985000+00:00 | ['Ibm Watson', 'Methodology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Speech Recognition'] |
Lessons from The Economist’s essay contest on climate change | Lessons from The Economist’s essay contest on climate change
Reading a zillion essays numbs the mind. But poring over the vast volume teaches you a few things about how to write an article that stands out.
The Economist’s Open Future essay competition asked people between 16 and 25 years old to answer the question: “What fundamental economic and political change, if any, is needed for an effective response to climate change?”
Entrants had 1,000 words. (The shortest essay took just two: “Abolish capitalism”.) Nearly 2,400 people from 130 countries and territories participated. You can read the winning essay here, quotes from finalists’ essays here and excerpts from other essays here.
Overall the quality was high. The essays educated us, entertained us and occasionally moved us. However at other times, a special spark was missing. We cannot give feedback on individual essays, but several judges shared their thoughts on what it takes to stand out, and what to avoid.
Where essays fell short
Answer the question. Early. Clearly. In this case: what is the change you are advocating? Is it “fundamental?” Is it “economic and political?” The reader shouldn’t have to hunt to find it.
Don’t bother explaining what climate change is and why it’s bad — we probably know that already. No need to “clear your throat,” so to speak. Read our description of the essay question — but certainly don’t repeat it back to us.
Edit, edit, edit. Cut, cut, cut. “There is no such thing as writing, only rewriting,” an old adage goes. Some long paragraphs could have been written as a single, short sentence.
Will your answer work? Creativity and ambition are good, but so is pragmatism. Hypotheticals are fun, but realism gets you further.
Thou shalt not steal. It’s obvious when one plagiarises. It’s even more obvious when it’s from Wikipedia.
We asked for your ideas, not a summary of others’. Cite experts only if it’s relevant to your point; don’t try to impress by name-dropping. If you’re proposing something that already exists, tell us why it hasn’t worked in the past and why it would now.
Avoid lists. Take a single idea and support it with arguments. If you feel you must put forward more than one answer, go for a few (not 20!) and be sure to tie them together.
Don’t be trite. Avoid cliches like the devil. Don’t generalise if you can be specific or cite a fact.
Climate change is a global problem, so it needs a global solution. It’s great to use a local or national solution, but explain how it can be applied more globally. Though America is an important actor, it’s not alone.
Balance ideas with their expression. An essay can’t rely exclusively on good writing or good argumentation; it needs both.
The ending is important and should follow from what preceded it. In many entries, the conclusion took a different turn or adopted a new voice. This confuses rather than impresses.
Where essays stood out
Be original. Consider how others may answer the question — and do something else. Strive for a novel idea. Let us hear your unique voice. Within reason and with care, experiment with the format and style.
Catch us with the first sentence. A gripping introduction will keep readers in.
Identify what’s wrong with common thinking. Find something overlooked. Undermine something that’s overrated. Defend something with a bad reputation. Tell us what you see that others don’t, and we’ll be inclined to trust you to tell us what will work.
Personal stories make the ideas come alive. They blend the analytical with the emotional, for memorable prose. But be sure they are directly related to your argument.
Know your audience. The archetypal reader isn’t a teacher or fellow student, but a thoughtful generalist. Essays that advanced through the rounds were positioned this way.
Research. Familiarise yourself with the issue before commenting on it. It was a problem when old ideas were presented as if new. The best essays built on past ideas to speak more convincingly about the future.
When citing experts, be distinctive. Choose extraordinary ones we may not have heard of, or say something new about the ones we have. But don’t be the 800th person to evoke the Green New Deal or Greta Thunberg unless you’re saying something unmissably shrewd.
Good essays take the reader from one place to another. As with a film, elegant cuts between close-ups and long shots give more depth and texture, and keep the audience interested, curious for more.
After reading hundreds of essays over six weeks, the judges’ minds were not entirely numbed; they were also enriched. A jury of 16 people evaluated the entries in four phases: initial review; agreeing on a long-list of 20 finalists; choosing a shortlist of six essays and picking a winner. Discovering young people’s ideas on how to solve a crucial global problem was inspiring. All the judges want to thank the participants for that. | https://medium.economist.com/lessons-from-the-economists-essay-contest-on-climate-change-e3e2a81b32f8 | ['The Economist'] | 2019-09-25 15:53:28.163000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Essay Writing', 'Climate Change', 'Journalism'] |
String-of-Pearls — All About Watering Them, or Not | When I moved into my first apartment, my foster mother gave me 10 plants. They all died. That was 63 years ago, but I still remember the feelings of failure and frustration their death triggered. I’d killed the plants and let my foster mother down.
When I told her I’d killed them, she brought me two new plants and said she’d bring more when I kept those alive. One of the two was senecio rowleyanus, which she called the string-of-pearls.
The string-of-pearls was the first houseplant I kept alive and of all my plants, I’m asked for starts of her more than any other. When giving plants away, I give some care instructions which include how to water.
One of my collection of moses-in-the-basket plants and a string-of-pearls. Photo by Katie Michaelson.
Sometimes, I still kill plants. But when I do, I know why. Like the one I put in a room I seldom use and forgot about it.
Here is a picture of my string-of-pearls plant — the oldest one.
Photo by Katie Michaelson
The plant in the above photo lives in a south-facing window in my laundry room. From her, I make baby plants for myself and as gifts.
What my string-of-pearl has taught me about watering her.
She does not like to be watered very often. She likes the soil to be completely dry before she’s given a drink. And when she drinks, she drinks a lot! Can you believe a friend told me plants weren’t people? The nerve.
You’ll read that you should stick your fingers in the soil two inches. That will get your fingers dirty and I don’t think this plant likes it. Her roots are delicate and close to the surface. When you stick a finger in, you just feel roots.
Things to know about watering her:
Let your plant dry out completely before watering. Get your finger dirty if it helps at first. The roots damaged will re-root. It’s better to wait too long. Watch the pearls. If they are shriveling the plant is too dry so next time don’t wait so long. Don’t worry, she will bounce back. Examine the beads at the end of the string. Are they shiny? Compare them to the beads at the soil line. Those at the soil line should be duller than those at the end of the string because they are older. If you look at my cover photo, you can see what I mean. The dullness is best seen in the middle pot. Water very well. Be sure the soil is saturated. No one can tell you exactly when to water because there are too many variables like the type of soil, the kind of pot, and the temperature and humidity of the room. You will learn, and this plant is forgiving.
How I water my large string-of-pearls.
In the photo below, you’ll see a dollar store bowl under a hanging plant. Ignore the fly swatter. It makes me guilty just to look at it. I was thinking about what I wanted to show you, not staging the photo. I’ll learn.
Photo by Katie Michaelson
I pour water on the top of the plant, about 3/4 cup at first, and let it soak into the soil. I just use tap water.
This plant is in my laundry room so I usually do laundry when I water, so I put a load of clothes in the washing machine after I give her her first drink. After I get the load in, I finish watering her.
At this point I water slowly until water drips into the watering bowl. This gives a deep watering. If I just water until the water dripped without the pre-soak, it would not be enough water as dry soil does not soak up water — it runs through.
Watering an overly dried out plant.
If the pearls are shriveled, the plant is far too dry. This happens to my plant if I’m away from home or just crazy busy. Don’t be hard on yourself if this happens. Learning to tend plants is a process and no matter how much you learn, stuff happens. Remember, I killed all my first plants!
A shriveled plant needs time to rehydrate. Just like you would.
To rehydrate a plant, I put the watering bowl on a flat surface and put the plant in the bowl. Then I water liberally, totally soaking it and being sure water remains in the bottom of the bowl. I let the plant sit in the bowl for a few hours. Then I hang it back up.
They need no more special attention.
How I water a small string-of-pearls sitting in a water saucer.
In the photo below, you see a plant with a saucer under the pot. This is a great thing to do with all your plants, as quick watering is easy.
Give the plant a little water to pre-wet the soil. This is a good time to enjoy your plant or check on her needs. Or, be thankful she lives.
I have lots of plants so I go around giving a little drink to all of them in a given area of the room. Then I go back to the first plant and finish watering.
Don’t let the plant sit in water. If you’ve watered slowly enough, there will only be a little, say one tablespoon in the tray. That’s okay and you can leave it. If you’ve rushed, there will be too much water. It’s okay, I rush sometimes. But if you rush, you’ll need to empty the water into the sink.
Photo by Katie Michaelson
How I water plants in a shallow saucer pot.
I love cute containers. The photo below shows plants I potted this year in some quaint antique pots. Sweet, aren’t they?
Photo by Katie Michaelson
These have a drainage saucer built-in but they're not going to catch much water. The trick with these is to water slowly. More slowly than with a plant in a larger water saucer.
Rather than one big pre-soak I give multiple tiny sips. This gives the soil time to soak up the water but prevents water dripping all over.
I take those in the photo off the window to the counter below. I give them a bit of water. I go get a cup of tea. I go back and give them a bit more water. If there is no water in the little saucer, I give them a bit more.
That sounds like a lot, but it isn’t, really. You could stick the pot in a bowl and water like crazy, dump out extra water, and dry the pot off.
How I water pots with no drainage.
The plant in the photo below is potted in an antique brass pot. It has no drainage. She has been in that pot for five years and I’ve trimmed her twice each year. So she’s fine.
When potting string-of-pearls in a container with no drainage you just have to be extra careful not to put in too much water. Be sure the soil is very dry.
If not using as a hanging plant in a special container, I put a layer of rocks in the pot's bottom to allow for extra water. This works well because the roots are so shallow they will not reach down into the soil.
How to water in a clay pot.
I don’t have a photo of one in a clay pot. A short clay pot is the best type of pot to use, so say the experts. I love clay pots but they are too heavy if hanging and too large if putting on a multilayer shelf.
To water a string-of-pearls in a clay pot, I put it in a bowl of water until it’s saturated.
One advantage of a clay pot is you can feel by the outside how dry it is. So you may want to start with one. All my first plants were in clay pots.
How to tell if you over-watered her.
In writing this, I noticed one photo looks exactly like over-watering. Notice the yellow beads? This is what an over-watered plant looks like.
Bad me, I just checked and you’re in luck. I clearly over-watered that plant. It is only minor over-watering, so I just need to be sure she dries out extra well. Most of the pearls are healthy, so I know there is no root rot. She’s just a little drunk.
It’s not the end of the world if you over-water once. However, if your plant shows signs of root rot, you need to address the problem. Wish I had a photo for ya, but your plant would clearly look sick.
This plant is so easy to root that if your plant looks weak, yellowed, stringy or has a high temp — sorry. My friend’s right, plants aren’t really people, they don’t get temperatures. But they do get sick and there are three options.
Pour hydrogen peroxide 3% on the soil. It will kill any bacteria causing root rot, and it turns into water. Easy peasy. Pick off all the good-looking pearls and put in new potting soil. Sprinkle some soil over the top and water. It will root itself in about two weeks, depending on the temperature. If there are any long strands that are green, cut them off and stick into new soil about 2 inches deep.
I consider the string-of-pearls to be a good starting plant for beginners because it’s undemanding and if you do make a mistake, you can just start a new one.
It’s been 63 years since I killed my first string-of-pearls but I still remember the feelings of failure and frustration. My second one lived and I’m still growing and finding pleasure in them.
The delicate strings flowing from the pot add beauty to complement any room. | https://medium.com/welcome-to-my-not-so-fancy-garden/string-of-pearls-all-about-watering-yours-or-not-4e9bc7c7bd9b | ['Katie Michaelson'] | 2020-12-20 18:43:20.115000+00:00 | ['Watering Plants', 'Houseplants', 'Sustainability', 'String Of Pearls Plant', 'Gardening'] |
The Best Film and TV of 2020 | Perhaps the theatrical cinema experience did die in 2020 (and we hold our breath for its grand resurrection), but film certainly didn’t.
I saw less than ten new releases in a theatrical setting this year, but the best of the releases offered at home were as high a calibre as in almost any year.
What has emerged is a further blurring of the line between what is film and what is television, as when everything is watched on a TV either way it’s hard to differentiate.
Thus, for the first time in my now nine years compiling my Best Films of the Year lists, I have combined feature-length and episodic releases into a single list, though it’s heavily skewed towards the former. The TV that impressed this year was certainly as filmic as you can imagine: miniseries with a single creative vision and aspiration far beyond standard serialised offerings.
Some film/TV I have not yet seen that may or may not have made this list if I had: Nomadland, Minari, The Father, Another Round, Promising Young Woman, Soul, The Queen’s Gambit, Small Axe, Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Disappointments that I saw, but didn’t make the list: I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, Rialto, Palm Springs, The Nest, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge On The Run, On The Rocks
Alright, it’s time to jump into my list, in descending order, here are the 15 best film and miniseries of 2020…. | https://medium.com/luwd-media/the-best-film-and-tv-of-2020-2170712c573d | ['Lucien Wd'] | 2020-12-05 23:58:15.378000+00:00 | ['Shithouse', 'Kajillionaire', 'Normal People', 'Movies', 'Best Films Of 2020'] |
Amazon Web Services vs Google Cloud | Both Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are mature hosting platforms with buck-loads of services and features to offer.
What is Amazon Web Services?
Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments, on a paid subscription basis. It was launched in 2006 thus having more experience in cloud computing than Google or any other cloud computing providers and is successfully the on demands needs of enterprises in regards to cloud computing platform.
Talking about number of availability zones Amazon has 55 availability zones world-wide with 8 more on its way.
Now let us consider one more factor that in market share, Amazon Web Services is leading with 40% of public cloud market share.
Amazon Web Services covers ups like 200 of services. Services which it covers are storage, database, analytical, networking, mobile, developer, management tools, IoT, security and many more.
The maximum downtime faced by it was in 2015 was of 2 hours and 30 minutes. It takes 10–12 minutes for launching an instance in it and the process of launching is quite difficult.
When we talk about pricing models, in Amazon Web Services the very basic instance which includes 2 virtual CPUs + 8 GB RAM costs 69$/month whereas the larger instance offered by Amazon Web Services which include 3.84 TB RAM + 128 virtual CPUs is $3.97/hour.
What is Google Cloud?
Google Cloud is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its user products, such as Google Search and YouTube. It was launched in 2011 and is quite a cheat and reliable cloud computing platform for businesses.
Google has 18 availability zones world-wide with 3 more on go which are no doubt very less in number as compared to Amazon. Google Cloud comes on third place according to the market share with 10% of public cloud market share.
Google Cloud covers up with 60+ services. . Services which it covers are storage, database, networking, big data services, machine learning services, etc.
The maximum downtime faced by it was in 2015 was of 11 hours and 34 minutes which is a lot but in case of speed it takes the lead. In Google Cloud launching an instance is quite easier and quick as compared to Amazon Web Services so we can say that it is a way faster than Amazon Web Services in terms of speed of operating system.
When we talk about pricing models, in Google Cloud the very basic instance which includes 2 virtual CPUs + 8 GB RAM costs $52/month whereas the larger instance offered by Google Cloud which include 3.75 TB RAM + 160 virtual CPUs is $5.32/hour.
AWS is for now the market leader and offers more services, but when it comes to pricing and speed, Google Cloud Platform is definitely one you want to check out!. Which one would you prefer for your application? Please let me know in the comments … | https://medium.com/batteries-included/amazon-web-services-vs-google-cloud-a065225a479a | ['Rahul Sood'] | 2020-12-23 08:05:17.045000+00:00 | ['Cloud Services', 'AWS', 'Google', 'Cloud', 'Cloud Computing'] |
Senior Underwriter Jobs in London | Our client, a global leading player within the insurance field, is seeking a Senior Underwriter on a contract basis for the next 6 months and the role will be in Bristol.
The Role
The senior underwriter works with Account Management/Business Development colleagues to build, maintain and develop relationships with select brokers to optimize profitable growth.
The focus is to move the relationship with brokers from a trusted relationship to a trading partnership and secure profitable renewals and generate new business in line with the strategy and within agreed processes and risk appetite.
You will apply a range of underwriting, and relationship management techniques to optimize sustainable profitable business growth.
You will spend the majority of your time working with brokers identifying, discussing, negotiating and seeking to convert new and existing business opportunities and making effective underwriting decisions.
Using your well-developed relationship management and communication skills you will establish effective business relationships with your select broker partners and manage the underwriting of a portfolio of accounts.
You will be respected internally and externally for your trading, relationship management, and technical skills.
You will hold a senior underwriting license which you will maintain and you will be responsible for coaching others and act as a referral point.
You will be the expert in your particular class of business, and meet governance and compliance standards within your area of expertise.
The Responsibilities:
* Reviewing large, complex or specialist cases and delivering underwriting decisions within agreed timeframes, in order to secure profitable business within authority level and risk appetite
* Work with account managers to input into segment and local business development plans which identify existing and regular flow of new business opportunities
* Establishing an effective relationship with Account Management colleagues and others to have common goals and act as one team
* Actively managing and developing a portfolio of accounts to maximise profitable revenue potential from new and renewal business
* Supports Account Managers in identifying, prioritising, negotiating and winning of new Account relationships in line with strategy
* Accessing and applying all appropriate sources of information and insight in order to meet the needs of selected brokers and clients, whilst balancing business requirements
* Clearly and positively articulating proposition and risk appetite internally and externally
* Reviewing allocated existing business and following up on new business cases through working with Account Management colleagues
* Effectively negotiating and delivering underwriting decisions through following agreed processes at designated authority levels
* Developing a trusted, deep and long term relationship with colleagues and select brokers to generate, progress and close new, up selling and cross selling business opportunities
* Working with Account Managers and managing others to take responsibility for effectively and promptly resolving broker and/or client complaints to maintain quality and continuity of relationships
* Adhering to our regulatory framework at all times
* Support the Technical Underwriting and Pricing team to providing guidance to the production of new policy wordings to ensure policy documentation is current and accurate
* Providing expert guidance and coaching to less qualified/experienced colleagues and support them in their license progression through the creation of development plans
* Contributing to the wider development of effective business strategies, priorities and market propositions, drawing on own knowledge, understanding and interpretation of local markets, competitors and Accounts
* Leading and/or contributing to technical audits and peer review processes as required to support and enable the maintenance of an effective control environment
* Leading or contributing to the development and monitoring of Account plans, gaining agreement to and implementing them in order to secure renewals and optimise profitable new business growth potential at individual account level
* Capturing and recording of data in timely and accurate fashion
The Criteria
* Experience underwriting commercial combined mono property and liability cases
* Experience in working cases of premiums between £15,000-£100,000
* Experience working across functions / matrix organisation to collaborate and build strong relationships
* Proven record of successfully trading in the insurance marketplace
Alexander Mann Solutions, a Recruitment Process Outsourcing Company, may in the delivery of some of its services be deemed to operate as an Employment Agency or an Employment Business
Apply Now https://www.propertyjobs.net/job/senior-underwriter/ | https://medium.com/@propertyjobs/senior-underwriter-jobs-in-london-4843c33b20a1 | ['Property Jobs London'] | 2019-07-01 13:55:23.610000+00:00 | ['London', 'Jobs', 'UK', 'Recruiting', 'Recruitment'] |
Meet the team behind VectorZilla | Here is a quick introduction to the core team of VectorZilla Project
We have been extremely busy over the last few weeks with the preparation of VectorZilla Token Sale. (Read our blog post on Token Presale to know more)
Now our presale is live, so we thought to share a brief introduction to the team behind VectorZilla Project.
The team behind VectorZilla comprises over 40 industry professionals from diverse fields, including technology, management, creative, operations, sales, and marketing. The operations are backed by Allies Interactive Services Pvt. Ltd, one of the world’s largest vector stock graphics creation and distribution company, and a leading contributor to sites like shutterstock.com, depositphotos.com, storyblocks.com and other stock graphics marketplaces. Allies Interactive Services carries over 18 years of experience in software technology and microstock graphics industry. Team members carry decades of experience in UI/UX, creative graphic design, software development, IT consulting, business management and entrepreneurship, with some members working on blockchain technologies since its early days.
He is an entrepreneur, focussing on strategy, management, development and also taking care of various products/platforms developed over the time. With over 19 years of experience in technology & creative design. As CEO & Creative Director of Allies Interactive, he led and bring the company among leading Stock Graphics content creators & contributors in the world.
A geek, blockchain enthusiast since early days, passionate developer, web technologist with experience over 18 years. He loves to build meaningful products, helped start-ups as their engineering research and implementation partner. IndieReign (VoD portal) is one of those, where he have lead end-to-end technical architecture, implementation and strategy since it’s inception. He also helped in Shift72 (evolved from IndieReign) with modular Widevine DRM (encryption and delivery), and Chromecast App. He also worked with Yahoo, Macromedia/Adobe & Mixercast.
Max Garza (COO & Partner) | LinkedIn
Blockchain R&D and ICO Advisor. He currently is focused on decentralized platforms that allow any user to issue, transfer, swap and trade custom tokens directly on the blockchain.
Manages multi-system integration and specialises in getting startups ready for ICO launch. He studies Blockchain trends for exciting developments and ICO Marketing Automation.
Joseph Gallo (Chief Financial Officer) | LinkedIn
High performing hands-on finance professional with a wide breadth of international experience gained through varied roles in financial accounting, control and business partnering. Proven track record of success in leading teams, driving value added analysis for the business, management reporting, commercial contract review, financial statement / cash flow modeling, forecasting and M&A work. Expertise in all aspects of the financial close process including consolidations, regulatory reporting and the design and implementation of effective internal controls. Proven ability to drive key change initiatives that positively impact the bottom line and in implementing IT solutions and process improvements that streamline operations.
He holds a bachelors in Technology, young and motivated researcher in strategy, planning & implementation. | https://medium.com/vectorzilla/core-team-8bb6ab7044aa | ['Vector Zilla Pr'] | 2018-01-20 17:30:31.870000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'ICO', 'Vectorzilla', 'Blockchain', 'Token Sale'] |
The Fear of Losing Control | A lack of control over our life and future instils us with fear. For if we don’t know what will happen, how do we know how to act? The concept of free-will, that we have agency over our actions and decisions is a central tenant in western culture. Except, we have a strange way of showing it. The majority of us spend one third of our lives in jobs we hate and spend money on things we don’t really want or need (that’s on you advertising). Worryingly, while half of the world’s children complain about being forced into education, the other half would, and do, walk to the ends of the Earth to go to school.
Rewind a year and half. We all attended the world premiere of the shitstorm that was 2020, where uncertainty ran rampant, and control was handed over to COVID-19 and the arguably incompetent hands of the government. “Stay indoors”, “Protect the NHS” were plastered across TVs, radio stations and even traffic signs. This accentuated level of restriction sparked an initial minority to complain about their human rights, or lack thereof in this instance, claiming that: “we do not live in a dictatorship and cannot be forced to stay at home.”
Newsflash, we certainly can.
In fact, the frustration some felt against their governments mimicked the seemingly eternal frustration people living in a dictatorship actually feel for their entire lives. Women unable to leave the house without their husband’s permission, girls prohibited from going to school and homosexuals still stoned to death, or hung is the harsh reality for those in certain countries. The people don’t agree with it, nor do they want to choose to obey, but they have to. Or else, it’ll be their execution made public.
In a liberal society, we control our lives. And some control it to the very last detail. You must get all A*. You must go to Cambridge University. You must get a job as a lawyer by age 26, a swanky house by age 28 and married with a supermodel partner by 30. This is only achieved by studying 8 hours a day, going to the gym at 6 o clock in the morning, only eating raw foods (except on Christmas, because even control freaks deserve a break) and ultimately living a fairly miserable and monotonous life to achieve a goal which may or may not be accomplished not due to your own incapability’s but external factors. You also don’t even know if being a lawyer, having a fancy house and marrying a supermodel will even make you happy. Given the statistics, you probably won’t.
We are the authoritarian government in our own lives. We set rules, regulations, often unfair ones which limit rather than enable. We get frustrated at ourselves for them and get even more frustrated when we almost inevitably fail at some point because people aren’t perfect. And that is the crux of certainty. Nothing can ever be perfect; there will always be someone or something that appears to be better. While striving for happiness and contentment is not a crime, burning yourself out in the pointless quest for perfection is a crime to yourself. And unlike the people living under dictators who can’t escape their situation, we can. We must learn how to escape the dictator within our minds to allow us to give up a certain amount of control, make mistakes and learn. In this article I will cover how to accept that we can’t control every aspect of our lives to try and give an insight into what life could be like without Kim Jong Un in your mind.
How much are we really in control?
Every decision you make is within your control, from what time you get out of bed to the house you live in. But if we control our decisions, how come we are often so dissatisfied with them? This is because as we make decisions, we are contemplating the pros and cons, the right and wrong, legal, or illegal. You can’t simply decide to do whatever you want simply because you want to. You may want to have a lie-in but if you don’t get up at 7, you’ll be late for work, so you decide to get up at 7 anyway. You may want to live in a beach house in Bali but because you can’t afford to you chose to live in a 2-bed townhouse. You may want to kill your co-worker for chewing loudly but you can’t, because the law says so. These are all 100% your decisions. You could be late for work, you could rob a bank to live in Bali and you could strangle your co-worker so they can never chew again. But you don’t. Because thankfully we are more rational than we are instinctive.
However, some people are more inclined to simply ‘follow the crowd’ and go along with the decisions of others. Clinical psychologist Julian Rotter coined the theory of Locus of control in the 1950s. He suggested that people have either an internal locus of control, in which you believe you are responsible for your actions and their consequences, or an external, which is when you believe that your actions and their consequences are largely out of your control. Everyone falls somewhere on this scale, residing perhaps at highly internal or somewhere fairly in the middle. Those with an external locus of control blame fate or external factors for their actions and behaviours, making them more susceptible to social influence and peer pressure. In other words, they don’t believe they are in control of their life so are fine with letting others control it. After all, if you’re not in control of your actions then it’s not your fault if someone insists you rob a bank with them to buy a house in Bali. Therefore, we still need to believe we have control over our lives to some degree, or else a real-life purge would be the movie of 2022. Perhaps that’s what control is: an illusion constructed to make (or at least try to make) humans behave.
We have all, at some point in our lives, thanked an invisible being for something. Whether it be making you slightly late leaving the house which meant you narrowly escaped a car crash, to more important matters of thanking God, no matter your religious status, that a sick loved one gets better. The entity to whom you are grateful may be a type of God, fate, simple coincidence or ‘someone watching over you’, but they are still someone we blame for consequences that we don’t feel we have control over. This could be a lack of self-esteem, self-awareness, or numerous other factors. The truth is within a modern society, while we have control over the majority of our decisions, many are still left up to chance. We simply cannot control everything which can make life pretty scary. We can’t just do whatever we instinctively want because we have financial, social, and legal restraints. Some people are in the right place at the right time, and it’s still proven that in the world of work rich white men are significantly more successful. Not because of aptitude but luck of their race and gender. We can’t control that. But it might be to the detriment (or help, you lucky bastards) us and our prospects. We are all puppets to the media, clicking and clicking because we just can’t help ourselves because bloody advertisers and influencers are just too good at their jobs. The government controls a large part of our lives and the people around us do too. In fact, only a marginal amount of our lives is wholly controlled by us, which we tend to overdo and micromanage to make up for the lack of control in other areas. And we have to learn to live in an imperfect society and know that not everything will plan out to how we expect it.
And that’s okay.
Why too much control can be bad for you
Atychiphobia, the severe fear of losing control, is when controlling behaviour goes too far and really impacts on one’s life. It is often part of another mood disorder such as an anxiety or eating disorder, or if you’re a perfectionist. The phobia is normally obtained through trauma or vicariously, for example seeing your parent lose their shit over not being able to control the election of the orange man from across the pond….
While not everyone’s fears grow to fully fledged phobias, controlling behaviour over oneself or others still greatly impacts one’s quality of life. They can experience anxiety, sever self-criticism and troubled relationships due to their tendency to micromanage everything. They have cognitive distortions of ‘having to’ do something. Normally, the outcome of tasks have negative elements, frustrating the controller and keeping them in a vicious cycle of control and obsess as they feel consistently driven to get everything ‘just right’.
No matter where we resign on the spectrum of Locus of Control, we are all controlling about something. For most of us, this involves the future. What job you will get and when, or even what you’re going to have for dinner. What if the supermarket runs out of broccoli? Well, your entire diets fucked, of course! Or maybe, you should learn to enjoy green beans when life doesn’t go your way. Maybe that’s the important thing.
This may not sound like you yet, but if some part of you mirrors one or more of these tendencies you must quit while your ahead. The less control you inflict upon yourself the easier it is to surrender to control, or lack thereof.
How to deal with a lack of control
Influencers and society declare that if we all ‘meditate, sleep well and eat healthy’ then we’ll all be happy, mentally stable and singing kumbaya in the middle of a field holding hands. This, of course, is all crap spouted to get more money and doesn’t actually make you content if you’re not already mentally stable. Another suggestion from these omniscient influencers is to, get this, form a contingency plan for if things go wrong. Plan ahead *insert face palm*. Do not, I repeat, do not, do this if you are already controlling. It will simply manifest your need for more control and make you feel even more of a failure when things go awry. As George and Lenny found out: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” Which in English means, the more you plan the more you fuck up. Which makes sense really as you’ve got more to go wrong. People think it’s good to deal with an obsession with control by making people more controlling is beyond me, and really highlights the dyer state of our society. It’s like saying to an alcoholic, “You want to drink less then here, make a chart of the drinks you can have in different situations! Bloody Mary at breakfast and scotch in the evening, but if you’ve run out of scotch, whisky will have to suffice.” No, you idiots! The best cure of obsession and addiction is to go cold turkey. Completely surrender to it and never look back.
We live in a heightened state of fear with an unrealistic demand for certainty in an uncertain world where plans and strategies are paramount, and God help those who don’t have plans at all! Therefore, the logical way to oppose certainty is to face inherent and unavoidable uncertainty. The formidable task of moving forward without having a clue what the future holds. “But that’s crazy! I Can’t simply not look ahead and not plan, how do I know how to save money?” you exclaim to me through the paper. Sure, maybe it does seem a little crazy but that’s only because I’m asking you to face one of your biggest fears. I’m metaphorically asking you to jump of a cliff without a parachute. But I’m not. Epictetus is.
Stoic thinker ‘Epictetus’ said mental attitudes and desires are in your control. External matters however, such as approval from others, is not. It is the external control that we attempt to micromanage and fail marvellously at is what we need to stop. Existentialists call this ‘confronting your angst’, accepting that we are responsible for our choices about the future but not the future itself. Therefore, we can say that “I would like to be a lawyer”, but we cannot and should not say “I will be a lawyer because xyz will happen”. Because the likelihood is that there will be many different unexpected curve balls thrown at you, like a global pandemic, which you can’t plan for. All you can do is work hard in the present, make rational choices that you genuinely agree with and are happy about. Those choices don’t always have to benefit future you, because you’re not there yet, but as long as you’re not burning out your present self and taking away the life you live now then you will get there and learn what actually makes you happy instead of forcing yourself to do things that make you miserable.
It’s important to remember that we all have choices. There are often two types of people when it comes to choices which I will explain with your standard road metaphor. Blind fearlessness will just cross a road without looking both ways and the consequence is that they will likely get runover. They align more so with the Donald Trump’s and Peirce Morgan’s who don’t think before they spout a load of offensive, ignorant bullshit. Cowardice, however, will look both ways for an agonisingly long time so by the time they decide to cross the road they’ve missed what they were crossing the road for and wasted precious time on the side-lines. Both are unsustainable ways of living, but finding a middle ground, cultivating a rational courage that knows to look both ways before crossing the proverbial streets of life, knowing that they’ve done what they can but if a car is going 100mph and hits them it was the car’s fault not theirs: that is life’s Shangri-La. Courage requires finding this delicate balance between still being tentative and contemplative but not so much that you allow life to pass you by. To cultivate courage and overcome the fear of losing control a starting point is to:
1) Act on evidence, without demanding certainty. Evidence as we all know can still be disastrously wrong but it’s a good starting point for choice making and far better than often incorrect assumptions that are normally fed to us by the media, which we all know is just as reliable a source as Dominic Cummings.
2) Live by probabilities as nothing is a guarantee. Again, nothing is a given, and in a constantly changing society anything and everything could be thrown at you. You must simply take the challenges and use them as a means to grow and learn, not as personal failures. “I might be a lawyer” allows for flexibility and personal growth and change in decisions if you find that actually being a journalist is more for you.
3) Accept that you are imperfect and as a race we are inherently subject to mistakes. As a dancer, I know full well that nothing is ever perfect, but that doesn’t make me a bad dancer it simply makes me a dancer; someone who is lucky to always having something to work towards and improve. Otherwise, life would be pretty boring. Failing not the villain it is often depicted as, but a gift to help us learn and grow.
4) Strop ruminating now. Don’t put off surrendering to pointless controlling behaviour, because the longer it goes one for, the deeper you get and the harder it is swim to shore. Plus, it will give you weeks, months or years more time living a freer life that won’t be dictated by unnecessary goalposts in a world that’s often determined to set you off-course.
Try to make these things a habit, but accept that sometimes you need a bit of a routine to get you up in the morning. As long as you know that life is not the rose-tinted picture that the media portrays it to be and its more than normal to fail and go off course, then you’re already doing better than millions of others. Be grateful for what you have and don’t compare to the success of others. We all have different metric systems for success, so it’s another maladaptive way of making you feel unnecessarily bad. Life’s curveballs are to be expected and embraced as they are what we learn from the most, provide us with the best experiences and morph us into (hopefully) good people. Those spontaneous events where we’ve randomly ditched our plans and said ‘yes’ to something a little different are the times that stick out the most, and shouldn’t be neglected because of strict routines (unless it’s illegal, I don’t want to be sued). The world will not stop being tricky to navigate and life will never be simpler, which is why it’s so important to master courage and embrace failure now, before your siting in a nursing home at 85 saying: “if only”. | https://medium.com/@myagrace03/the-fear-of-losing-control-8f49417cc7ab | ['Mya Grace Gurrin'] | 2021-06-17 17:07:08.718000+00:00 | ['Control', 'Fear Of Failure', 'Social Commentary', 'Psychology', 'Sociology'] |
Buy a Private Second Line with Bitcoin on Coincards.com | FreeRange gives you the ability to add a secondary line to your phone without the need for a sim card. The secondary line can be used for phone calls and SMS as long as your phone is connected to a mobile data network or Wi-Fi.
FreeRange is the perfect solution for bitcoiners looking to seperate their personal phone number from their bitcoin services. Use FreeRange mobile for your services that require SMS 2FA and avoid the dreaded sim-swap attack vector.
In this Demo, we are going to assume you have already purchased a FreeRange top-up code from Coincards.com.
Note — Although only purchasable in CAD, these vouchers can be used to purchase USA phone numbers and therefore is perfect for ALL customers.
Start off by downloading the FreeRange Mobile app from either Google Play or the App Store.
Once installed, open the app and select I have a code to redeem. Enter the Code that Coincards.com emailed to you upon payment of your purchase and Submit Code.
You will also be asked for an email address. We suggest using an email address not associated with you, such as a ProtonMail address.
Once you have entered your code and email, you now can pick a new number. For this demo, we allowed FreeRange to pick one for us by clicking I don’t care, pick for me!
FreeRange will assign your phone number and ask to confirm your email address associated with the number, use the one you just entered as they will send a confirmation code later on. Click Create Account, then click Let’s Go to finish the setup process.
FreeRange mobile will email you a 4 digit passcode, this is needed to activate your account. Check your email and Enter The Passcode then hit the Verify button.
Your account setup will finalize and your number will be created. You will be asked to confirm your code redemption.
Finally, you will need to agree to the End User License Agreement.
Once you click Agree, you will be brought to the main app where you can now make Phone Calls, Send SMS Messages and check your account days remaining.
Congrats, you are now using your private second line! | https://medium.com/coincards/buy-a-private-second-line-with-bitcoin-on-coincards-com-8dee8506f8b7 | ['Mike Olthoff'] | 2019-09-24 21:44:43.161000+00:00 | ['Burner Phone', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Hacking', 'Privacy'] |
🇺🇸Half a year old: Reflecting on DeFiChain’s development | Today, on the 11/11/2020, DeFiChain is turning exactly half a year old! That may not sound like a long time, but DeFiChain has evolved a lot since then.
Let’s reflect on the last 6 months:
On the 11.05.2020, DeFiChain went live and launched on MainNet just 7 months after the release of the Whitepaper. For comparison: It took Uniswap over 2 years to go live on MainNet.
With the launch, DeFiChain’s coin (DFI) was distributed fairly and decentralized via an Airdrop that every Bitcoin hodler was eligible to participate in.
In June, this coin — DFI — was already listed and started trading on LaToken, at a starting price of about $0.16. That price was determined by the free market — there was no ICO with a certain starting price or anything like that.
After trading started on LaToken, a lot of coin listing sites picked up DFI as well. DeFiChain would soon be listed on CoinPaprika, CoinGecko, IndoEx and even CoinMarketCap by the beginning of July.
That same month, the DeFiChain Desktop app launched — allowing users to easily & securely store and transfer DFI.
Screenshot of the DeFiChain Desktop app
By August, DFI was already listed on a second Exchange as well: Hotbit, which allowed the lucrative staking of DFI.
The DeFiChain Foundation also shut off all of its own nodes later that month, further improving decentralization and giving all the voting rights to the community.
Shortly after, the DeFiChain Foundation announced DeFiChain Improvement Proposal 1 and 2 — addressing the source of DFI for the Bitcoin anchoring rewards and the DeFi incentive funding.
By September, DeFiChain Improvement Proposal 1 & 2 were both approved by the community. DeFiChain also saw very high user growth — especially in the social channels.
This is partly also due to DeFiChain announcing its second Airdrop. As usual, all DFI were distributed fairly and decentralized with every Bitcoin hodler eligible to participate.
The following October was a really eventful month for DeFiChain.
The DeFi Blockchain had its first planned hardfork called Ang Mo Kio, which implemented the approved changes from DFIP 1 & 2 and brought asset tokenization support to DeFiChain.
Hardfork Ang Mo Kio went through successfully and without any complications
Also, The DFI coin got listed on two more exchanges: Bitrue, and a tier 1 exchange: Bittrex. This greatly improved availability, liquidity and ease of access to DeFiChain’s native coin DFI.
Later in October, the DeFiChain Foundation also hosted the DeFiChain Q3 Transparency Report, reflecting on the third quarter and what’s happening in the near future.
Then, from the first day of November up until today — The 11/11/2020 — there was a DFI Trading Competition on Bittrex and the DeFi Blockchain had a second hardfork named “Bayfront” that laid the foundation for liquidity mining and tokenization on the blockchain, which DeFiChain’s trusted partner Cake will offer by the end of November.
Where DeFiChain is going
In the next weeks and months, DeFiChain’s main focus is on continuous development as laid out in the Whitepaper & Roadmap, to prepare and be ready for mass adoption.
This November, we will start with Liquidity Mining. This may cause a major increase in DFI price, since the Market Cap of DFI has to rise as the size of the liquidity pool increases accordingly.
In the months after that, we will add more DeFi building blocks for a DApp Integration, enable a Decentralized cross-chain Asset Bridge via an atomic swap, as well as the first ever decentralized lending built on Bitcoin! By Q3 2021, we will also have decentralized native stablecoins enabled on the DeFi Blockchain.
And here we are
6 months after the launch on MainNet and so much has happened already, with so many more exciting things to come.
A big thank you from the DeFiChain Foundation to all developers contributing to the open source code, to all supporters spreading the word about DeFiChain on social channels, to the whole community for supporting each other and riding with us together on this amazing journey.
Links & Resources
Official Website: https://defichain.com
Whitepaper: https://www.defichain.io/white-paper/
Blockexplorer: http://explorer.defichain.io/
GitHub / Source Code: https://github.com/DeFiCh/ain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/defichain
Medium/Blog: https://medium.com/@defiblockchain
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/defichain.foundation
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL635AjCJe6gNOD7Awlv4ug/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/defichain/
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/defiblockchain
Telegram: https://t.me/defiblockchain
Current DFI price: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/defichain/
DFI facts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c-unHPPFKiAMSGRQu3A_RDO8JBplJonwQWT_6g5Lfcc/edit#
Media resources: https://www.defichain.io/media/
For media inquiries, please contact: [email protected]
Work inquiries: We work with C++ and JavaScript and would like to have you on our team! Contact us on [email protected] | https://medium.com/@defiblockchain/half-a-year-old-reflecting-on-defichains-development-aed315a7af41 | ['Defi Blockchain'] | 2020-11-11 15:33:00.668000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Blockchain Startup', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain Development', 'Defichain'] |
Can You Explain What is God Consciousness And Individual Self-soul As Stated in The Scriptures For Authenticity? | Can You Explain What is God Consciousness And Individual Self-soul As Stated in The Scriptures For Authenticity?
It is difficult to explain something which we cannot see with our eyes. There are five elements of nature earth, water, fire, air and Akasha or space. — Can you see or measure the parameters of space? Ajay Gupta Follow Dec 24, 2020 · 3 min read
Bhagavad Gita explains the concept of God-consciousness in very clear and lucid verses. I give here excerpt from my book: ‘Word of God Bhagavad Gita.’ ….Ajay Gupta: Amazon.in: Kindle Store : — Word of God Bhagavad Gita by Ajay Gupta यथाऽऽकाशस्थितो नित्यं वायुः सर्वत्रगो महान्। तथा सर्वाणि भूतानि मत्स्थानीत्युपधारय।।9.6।। Just as the mighty wind moving everywhere, always exists in the Space (Akasha); by the same example know that all beings and the entire Creation exists in My all pervading Spirit of God. (Book: Word of God Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9 verse 6) Swami Ramakrishna Paramhansa in his lifetime used to say to his followers, “What is God-consciousness or ‘Brahman’ like? It cannot be defined in words. It cannot be perceived with the human senses. Defining ‘Brahman’ or God-consciousness is much more difficult after experiencing God-consciousness, as one simply becomes silent, and it is unthinkable and beyond words.” The four basic elements of earth, water, fire and air have their own characteristics. The gross elements like earth, water and air can be weighed and their quality can be assessed. — The quality and purity of air and the pollution in air can be scientifically measured. The temperature of fire can also be measured.
The fifth element Akasha or space undergoes no modifications and remains changeless. — The element of Akasha is insentient while the consciousness is sentient.
The above verse gives the analogy of the wind which although moving everywhere always exists in Akasha. — Similarly all beings and the entire creation exists in the all-pervading Spirit of God at all times.
अवजानन्ति मां मूढा मानुषीं तनुमाश्रितम्।
परं भावमजानन्तो मम भूतमहेश्वरम्।।9.11।।
The difficulty arises when we imagine the existence of God in human forms like Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, Jeusu Christ and others. — For this reason there is no picture of Allah in Islam to remove this confusion.
We cannot bring the Spirit of God to the human form but yet different incarnations of God came into existence to explain the message of God to the humanity. | https://medium.com/life-lessons-of-bhagavad-gita/can-you-explain-what-is-god-consciousness-and-individual-self-soul-as-stated-in-the-scriptures-for-efc8d0fcc457 | ['Ajay Gupta'] | 2020-12-24 07:02:47.406000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Life Lessons', 'Spirituality', 'Religion', 'God'] |
The Fallacy of Truth | Introduction
Truth and fact, two terms that are notoriously, and unfortunately, commonly interchanged, carry with them the greatest of differences. In this essay I aim to further observe the glaring differences between the two terms, the weight they hold, and how society has intentionally blurred the distinctions between the two.
In writing this, I must admit I had begun off of a hypothetical groundwork. My earliest thought of this notion of fact vs. truth had been through conversation in working with a mutual aid network, in which communists and liberals were participating. My varying discussions with different members had led me to find that within each context there were different truths we had found, depending on the parties present. With the liberals, I found the framework of analysis to be greater lacking in analytical methods, mirroring the bourgeois academia of capitalist nations. As such, their truths were simply incomparable to the communists, with whom I had further conversed with about Marxism and its implications on the human truth.
And yet, my disagreement with the liberal self-truth was a truth of my own. And perhaps my own truth, while historically closer to the absolute plane of fact, was not universal, but the closest thing to it.
I had had these conversations in passing, and never gave thought to the implications of varying truths, and their relation to fact; this was something that I had begun to observe later on, at which point I wanted to qualify each term for itself, and I obtained the following denotations, as defined by my observations and further analysis¹:
Fact
A fact refers to a phenomenon that, if repeatedly carried out, shall reap the same results. Take the simplest example of the theory of gravity. If I were to jump from a 2 meter distance in the vertical direction, I shall inevitably fall to the ground, 2 meters below. If I repeat this process, now with a 5 meter drop, I shall still fall to the ground, now 5 meters below. This repeatability then can be designated as fact. Gravity acting on a mass is a fact.
A fact, in the context of an event, shall refer to an indisputable occurrence, like perhaps someone falling. A witnessed event cannot be disputed at face value, only afterwards can the intent and reasoning of the fact be disputed.
Truth
A truth refers to a phenomenon that, if repeatedly carried out, shall reap different results. Let us qualify the fact above. Such fact only holds true for an object on a mass large enough to develop a gravitational field, like the Earth. But if I were to jump off the same 2 meter ledge in the middle of a vacuum (i.e. space), then I would in fact not fall.
A truth cannot be considered a single event, but a subjective conclusion that can be subject to change, given its subjective nature.
However, even fact itself, if non-universal, can be subjected to alteration, and so the relationship between fact and truth can be simplified to the following statement:
A fact is a truth whose constraints are explicitly qualified, whose bases and conditions are maintained to ensure repeatability.
Truth, as Interpreted by Society
To better determine what the truth represents, it is essential that we observe it through the lens of value in society. Similarly to how value is placed on goods and services that otherwise lend themselves to no inherent purpose, simply for being collectively determined as having value by the structured society, the same can be said about the conception of truth.
Truth is, in itself, inconsistent, and found through the present parties. However, there lies above the truth, the subjective plane, the fact, within the absolutist plane. While we may subject ourselves to the truth through contextual compromise, such compromise is still subservient to the hierarchical superior of fact. Of course to say that truth is then false is in itself subject to this hierarchy as well.
Capitalist society has deemed the truth to be fact. Through the grotesque being of bourgeois academia, the analytical methods of obtaining the truth and fact have been dismantled, the lines blurred between the two. Thus, this academia then forces upon the people a method devoid of critical analysis, of analyzation through dialectics, rather treating the truth as something fed to the student through the means of text. In fact, what is read to us as accepted fact is peddled as truth, and thus the lines further disappear.
So then, truth must be at the center of revolutionary academia. The critical methods of determining the truth, and placing said truth into the context of the greater hierarchy, beneath fact, must become the new learning. The self-indulgence of authority teachings must be rejected, as must the benign force-feeding of fact, the lack of distinction between the scientific fact and the philosophical truth.
It is of course no accident that capitalist bourgeois academia shies from involving the students with the world. The greatest theoreticians are those who interact with the world, for they alone can properly determine the truth. How then can the capitalists live, knowing they have bred the greatest thinkers to overthrow the dictatorship of capital? With such information at our disposal, the education of the masses through community involvement then becomes paramount. Rejecting stationary reactionism must be at the forefront of revolutionary education; instead, we must replace it with the action, the praxis, of the apprentice. Only through material interaction with the world can we become privy to the greatest of educations.
Only then can we begin to determine the humane truth.
Dialectics and the Truth
Through the method of verbal argumentation, the truth, as subjective inferior to fact, can be determined in the specific context of present parties. As previously mentioned, the truth may vary, depending on the individuals calculating it. Take a truth in group A, and present it to group B; it may be completely unfathomable to the second group, and thus immediate conflict of ideas is the only determinant of truth. To better understand this, let us observe the following hypothetical.
Assume two individuals are debating what the best sport is. The first individual claims it is football, and the second individual firmly believes it to be baseball. They compromise, determining that as they both enjoy basketball, that shall be the best sport within the context of their presence. Imagine this truth is now presented to a second group with two individuals, who have decided the best sport in their context is volleyball. The groups’ truths are in direct conflict, and thus the groups can be merged to now determine the truth amongst the collective four individuals.
Let us further complicate this, for the sake of hypothesis. Perhaps the first group is comprised of two individuals from the United States, and the best sport for them is still basketball. Now imagine the individuals from the second group are from South America, a region where futbol is extremely popular. The context of geographical location and culture have now further warped these truths, and thus presented a greater factor, culture, and its inevitable impact on truth.
This scenario can of course be expanded. Groups can continually be added to the context, and thus get us closer to a better understanding the process of truth determination in the population of the collective humanity, in which the varying cultures act as overarching groups, and within them, the subcultures, the smaller groups.
Now perhaps we shift the first hypothetical. Within the first group we change the circumstances, and reject the second group; rather than shifting the truth from one group to another, we alter the first group after it has determined its truth, thus changing the process. Observe the scenario below.
Assume the same two individuals are now in the process of deciding what the best color is. The first individual claims the best color is red, whilst the second individual sharply disagrees, insisting that it is in fact blue that is the greatest. Through argumentation and the approach to compromise, they must then determine a feasible common ground, a color in which both parties can agree is the best, for both individuals. They decide the best color is green, as they both view it favorably.
Now, a third individual has approached the other two. This third party insists that green, the color of compromise, is not truly a good color, and thus the process of argumentation must reset itself, and a new compromise must be found. This process, much like the first hypothetical, can continually be amplified, adding individuals as necessary, until we approach humanity as a whole. The entirety of humanity becomes the overarching case study of dialectical resolution, as it must take up the daunting task of finding its universal truth.
While the dialectic of the idealists takes heavily the form of argumentative, and thus more subjective, truth determination, the dialectic of the materialists (e.g. the Marxists) takes the form of a more objective truth, the truth of humanity, and the pursuit of said truth. The materialist argument lies in the basis that the human truth is to achieve liberation and freedom, from individual rule and the rule of capital. Through historical conflicts and their resolutions, humanity takes one step towards this truth with each societal overturn. The resolution of such conflict is often left to the end goals of struggle, and thus through individual power, a more objective truth is obtained, one which closely approaches the absolute plane of fact.
Those who stand in the way of this progression of history simply stand on the tracks of the train that cannot be stopped. Thus, whilst the societal progression towards the universal truth shall become objectively collective in struggle, the individual may then place themselves into the context of this larger objective, and determine the subjective truths within their smaller parties.
And so, the ideologies of liberation are then born.
Truth and Morality
Truth, as a subjective being, then also takes the form of morality, and moral decision. The universality of morality is too inconsistent to maintain, and thus we might conclude that as a relative, it is more easily justifiable as a facet of human life.
To say, for example, that murder is a moral wrong rejects the dialectical process of the approach to the murder itself. What led to this occurring? What parties were involved. The lack of observation of the path leading to the synthesis of the murder itself is inconsistent, and stands in the way of the fact, that being the occurrence of the murder itself. The truth in this context would refer to perhaps the disagreement, the sequence of events that justified the event taking place.
Using the determined denotations of fact and truth (see introduction), we may conclude that the event having taken place is fact, while the path leading up to the event can be disputed as varying truths, which shall inevitably vary between witnesses and those absent. Of course an array of factors shall impact one’s ability to determine the truth in a moral sense. The clouding of one’s judgement, for example through conflict of interest or proximity to those involved in an event, may have an impact on the determination of the truth in the context of those present.
So, in the context of moral arbitering, it is justified to have unbiased parties determine the truth, as their own personal judgements cannot heavily factor into the pursuit of the truth². Herein lies the process of determining the truth and its effect on the the relativism of moral decisions.
The Pursuit of Societal Truth Through Struggle — The Materialist Dialectic
The human truth of liberation is no simple endpoint to achieve. History has clearly mapped a path ridden with misery and violence, bloodshed and revolution. But to avoid this inevitability is to stand in the face of human truth, to disrespect the endless struggle of the oppressed.
Let us observe the fact. Violence has historically been unavoidable, and through it society has been overturned, a new order of power implemented. This cannot be debated through any means of argumentation, as its occurrence is unchallenged, documented and historically accepted. Using this fact, we can determine the current subjective truth.
Violence amongst the masses is simply reaction, a blowback of the systematic violence of the slavery to capital, the widespread exploitation of the global proletariat. It is the subjective truth of the toiling masses that they must respond to their oppression through any means necessary. The pacifists may hold different truths, of course, and must then observe said truths in perspective to history, the observation of struggles of the past, and how such struggles have been overcome.
An inconvenient fact leads us to the conclusion that violent struggle has historically, and repeatedly, liberated the oppressed. Again, as this process has repeatedly reaped the same end result, it can be more confidently accepted as fact, and so those who shy from physical conflict only deny the truth, given their incomplete framework of pacifism and personal life lacking of conflict.
The oppressed peoples of the world, through their material interaction with the world in the most negative of ways, have a further complete framework through which to determine the truth of their struggle. As such, pacifism is often absent in the circles of the oppressed. The notion of non-violence is to them a bourgeois farce meant to placate them into the acceptance of their destitute and harsh conditions.
We might then conclude that the greatest determiners of the truth are those who have adequately interacted with the material world through varying degrees of praxis, as they have attempted, and perhaps succeeded at, materially altering the world around them to reap specific results (in the case of struggle, liberation).
As such, the greatest philosophical minds are perhaps simply of those whose work is influenced by their results of the scientific method applied in a societal and analytical manner. The self-pleasuring of dejected western thinkers, who take pleasure in the mere analysis of a world in which they have seldom participated, must be replaced by the thinkers whose works are direct results of their actions. The closest we might approach to the truth is through the insight of the analysis of the social scientists, building off of the framework they provide, and further approaching humanity to an accurate and pseudo-factual truth, almost fully reaching this absolute.
What the Truth Looks Like: The Endpoint of Human History
Though human history is in progress, using the analytical methods of the materialist dialectic, we may forge the path ahead, to allow humanity to finally calculate its truth of universal liberation from the tyrants of capital.
History itself may only take any semblance of form through its change. If such movement is absent, then history itself is a fallacy. Its movement then is fact, and within such fact there have been the shifts in truth, pushing humanity closer and closer towards a universal truth, rather than a qualified one. If the truth of liberation applies to select members of society, to a ruling class (in the case of capitalism, a bourgeois class), then the universal truth has not been achieved.
Utilizing a Marxist analysis, it is then concluded that whilst the truth forges ahead through conflict and resolution, it cannot be found until the conflicts to the existing truths are then resolved. As such, Marx’s proposal of the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, then provide humanity with the means to take action, to dissolve the conflicts that exist, that stand in the way of achieving the final human truth.
Once the categorical conflicts of capitalism are abolished, humanity then has its final contradiction standing in the way of its liberation: the state. Utilizing a scientific descriptor of the state, as provided by Lenin and Engels, having done away with the systematic contradictions of class and private property then render the final contradiction itself obsolete, as the state itself is simply the violent expression of class conflict, of a tyranny of the minority. Such a tyranny has no purpose so long as the barriers to the truth are absent.
Thus, the state withers away, leaving humanity with its final truth of liberation. Thus, history reaches its endpoint. Motion is no longer viable, and the world can finally be stable.
Conclusion
While it can be considered documented event or phenomenon, the societal misconstruing of fact with truth can only do harm to the analytical methods applied to history and the future.
It seems my criticism of stationary western philosophers may be seen as somewhat ironic, considering my documenting of this personal analysis. And perhaps it might be, though I myself shall at least consider it reaction to observations of argumentation and historical study.
Fact itself is often only seen as static, eventual. Reality shows us that it can be used as a descriptor of phenomenon, and more often is so. In this sense, the progression of human history is riddled with the conflicts of truths, with the victory of more widespread truths over the minority. In fact, the periods in human history in which the truth of the minority attempts to overpower the truth of the majority are riddled with violence, barbarism and fascism.
Truth itself operates on its own hierarchy, and those who claim their truth to be more universal, even in the face of minority determination, are subject to the will of human truth, of collective decision making. The overall relevance of truth is an essential factor to its sustainability. Those who artificially elevate their unpopular truths shall inevitably be crushed under the ever-moving cogs of human history. Only in a society with no history can truth become systematically obsolete, leaving only the truths of human liberation and individual pursuit.
In writing this I myself am making an effort to further understand truth, and how its relativist nature affects human society and the direction in which it moves. My many hours pondering this question has led to me to conclude that nothing is false, only varying degrees of true. Simply due to the existence of a plane of idealism and materialism, we can claim that every existing phrase and event is true, but incomplete. The true platonic ideal of truth is fact, and humanity must strive to achieve as close to such an ideal as we might possibly be able to. To achieve as close to universal liberation as is humanly feasible.
With no curiosity, there is no new world waiting for us. With no pursuit of the universal truth, there is no liberation. And so, we must fight, not just with the truths that oppose our own, but with those that oppose the collective truths of humanity.
Let us find the truth, together. History can only move forward, we the arbiters of truth.
¹Important to note is the the definitions I have provided for fact and truth are based off of my own baseline assumption that, rather than concrete statement, fact and truth refer to event, or non-stationary statements, which are subject to fluidity, variation and growth/regression.
²Take note that I have intentionally referred to this as truth, rather than fact, as a “jury of one’s peers” can never truly determine the entire truth, an unfortunate reality that must be considered in the process of obtaining a complete image. However, an unbiased decision is the closest one may approach to the fact of the path leading up to the event. | https://medium.com/@fantondrozdov/the-fallacy-of-truth-b170b1574138 | ['F. Anton Drozdov'] | 2021-07-22 17:09:38.065000+00:00 | ['Marxism', 'Socialism', 'Communism', 'Dialectics', 'Truth'] |
AYS Daily Digest 10/3/21: Evictions, deportations and outsourced securitisation | GREECE
Three victims of a fire in Thessaloniki
3 people have been found dead following a fire in an abandoned building in the center of Thessaloniki, reported the fire department. The three men, believed to have been from Algeria, had been living on the third floor of the abandoned building, say media reports. Firefighters said the men appeared to have died of smoke inhalation. A fourth person, who told authorities he was from Morocco, survived the accident. Reportedly, it was not immediately clear what caused the blaze. However, such accidents are recurring events along the Route, where people reside to using unsafe spaces as shelters due to a lack of accommodation and living structures where they could support themselves.
SERBIA
An increase in the numbers of unaccompanied and separated children
Info Park regularly distributes the information leaflets in Pashto, Persian, Arabic and English languages with the SOS phone number
Info Park noted an increase in the numbers of unaccompanied and separated children residing outside official centers in the Belgrade area. Last week, their team provided information, translation, referrals to the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migration and the Belgrade Center for Social Work for support after being pushed-back and inclusion in age-appropriate activities for over 45 unaccompanied boys.
Most of the boys were from Afghanistan, who are constantly trying the “game” and sleeping rough in Belgrade and the border area. During the interviews, it was clear that they lack correct and timely information on their rights and the institutions providing child-safeguarding services.
CROATIA
borders: none are organising a new beginners programming course. Lasting 3 months in total, the initial workshops will take place over the next two weeks.
If you’d like to come and hear more about the course, contact us in inbox or on Whatsapp +385 97 700 1652! Application is mandatory!
The requirements are:
- that you’re a refugee or asylum seeker in Croatia;
- a migrant with lower socio-economic status;
- speak English at the level needed to follow the class;
- highly motivated to learn technology on a daily basis.
FRANCE
Community action for Madama
The already fabled trust held by people on the move—as well as those under international protection—in any of the systems they find themselves in along the way is often shattered nowadays by the very representatives of that system.
One such story comes from Puy-de-Dôme, central France.
A boy from Mali, who had arrived to there two years ago, when he was barely 16, lives with a local family who had been asked by the authorities to take care of him, and were glad to do so. When he was summoned to renew his documents, the young man was detained and was put in a detention centre, reportedly under the accusation that he’d falsified his birth certificate.
“If he returns to Mali, he will find himself in extreme poverty and there are Islamists at the gates of his village. It is his life that will be destroyed, and ours too”, said the family with whom he has been living all this time. They also say it was they who communicated with Mali to retrieve his documents, not the boy who was a minor at the time.
For more than two years, they have been hosting and accompanying the young Malian. A judge placed him in their home when he was only 16. Since then, Madama has been in school, he has learned French, he has made friends, and a master is waiting for him to get his papers in order to find him a job.
Very quickly, the community where this young apprentice baker, Madama, lives organised a support action and created a petition that gathered more than 35,000 signatures.
The locals are determined to do everything they can to keep their friend, fellow citizen—a young person who had escaped dangers in what happens to be his country of origin and could have been anyone else’s.
SPAIN
Outsourced destruction and violent returns
After mass-crossing yesterday to Melilla (as reported in yesterday’s Daily News Digest), Moroccan police have arrested hundreds and will deport them.
Among the arrested are many women and children, reported Alarm Phone.
39 women, 12 children and over 100 men were arrested. Sources on the ground say that the men will be deported to their countries of origin, while the women and children will be pushed away from the border.
The Canary Islands: return orders enforceable at any time?
Dozens of people have been detained in recent weeks in the Canary Islands as they await the return orders to be executed that were issued against them when they arrived in the Canary Islands by boat.
Details: The court recognizes that the Aliens Act determines that it is not necessary to process an expulsion file for a person who has entered Spain irregularly; in such cases the person is formally “returned” to his or her country of origin, not expelled. But, when the return cannot be carried out within 72 hours, the judicial authority requests the internment measure provided for the expulsion files.
In a currently ongoing case, it is emphasized that the Government Delegation intends to deport the person in question to his country even though almost three months have passed since his return was ordered, that is, “after the 72-hour period established by the norm has elapsed and after the foreigner has been at liberty after being detained for return.”
Lawyers in the Canary Islands have complained that their clients were frequently detained to be expelled immediately on a deportation flight scheduled for the following days as part of the execution of the return order issued against them upon arrival in the archipelago. Some have been arrested and deported after going to the airport with their passport in order to fly to the peninsula.
The order of the Hearing of Santa Cruz de Tenerife that establishes this precedent and this interpretation on how to apply the return and expulsion mechanisms is firm, as the resolution itself clarifies in its operative section.
Activists opposing the deportation policies, such as Stop Deportación, have noted that these developments might especially affect those from Morocco and people from Senegal, often without translators and legal support.
GERMANY
Deportations continue, although some courts oppose them
While some of the charter flights to Kabul deporting people from the EU are organized by the EU border agency Frontex, Germany has continued organising their own deportation flights.
In their recent release, Pro Asyl warned that in spite of the pandemic and evidence for the situation in Afghanistan, a considerable number of interior ministers are still pushing for deportations to Afghanistan. The group has recently called out the Robert Koch Institute to disclose why and how they came to a drastic change in assessment of the current conditions and safety situation of Afghanistan in such a short time since their last estimate that stated it was by no means a safe place.
The interior ministers of some federal states push through deportations with stoic indifference regardless of the situation.
Some deportations are stopped at the last minute by the courts, but many others aren’t, they say, explaining that it often depends on chance whether an Afghan who is arrested in a raid with the purpose of deportation can find legal support within such a short time. In that case, they should be lucky enough to end up at a court that has the courage to withstand pressure from the interior ministers and to re-open the case to stop the deportation at the last minute.
989 people have been deported to Afghanistan since 2016. Read more on deportations from Germany here. In our “worth reading” section, read more on how the pandemic affected people in search for international protection.
Deportation from the almost empty Hanover airport on March 9, 2021. Photo: SaschaSchiessl / via Twitter, via: Afghanistan Zhaghdablai — Thomas Ruttig über Afghanistan
DENMARK
An alarming reminder
As we reported earlier, Denmark has taken a very wrong–right (wing) turn in their migration policies. Danish authorities ruled that the security situation around Damascus has improved, despite all the apparent evidence of ongoing suffering, dire living conditions, the fact that half of the country’s children have spent their lives in a war, and continued persecution by the regime.
As a result of such a decision, the country has recently stripped
94 people under international protection of their right to stay in the country. They have also recently introduced a proposal that would aim to move all asylum applicants outside Denmark.
Syria is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a returns context:
WORTH READING
‘It’s the poverty and inequality that kills people, not the virus.’
Journalists in Greece say censorship, intimidation and restrictions on access are getting worse under the ruling conservatives.
Along with this, it is good to be reminded of some of the images that are hard to watch, coming with first-hand information about the reality (updated before this News Digest was published): | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-10-3-21-evictions-deportations-and-outsourced-securitisation-1188ea483b27 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2021-03-11 18:16:57.346000+00:00 | ['Migration', 'Germany', 'Digest', 'Europe', 'Refugees'] |
Joe Biden's Foreign Policy and National Security nominees & the implications for our country | President-elect Joe Biden unveiling his national security and foreign policy nominees.
President-elect Joe Biden’s nominees for key foreign policy and national security positions offer a return to multilateralism after four years of isolationism under the Trump administration.
President-elect Joe Biden has begun the task of selecting individuals to fill core positions in his foreign policy and national security apparatus, revealing a slate of consummate individuals with years and decades of experience in national security and foreign policy circles. Biden´s cabinet picks reaffirm his chief foreign policy ambition — restoring American credibility and stoutness after four years of norm-busting and isolationism under the Trump administration.
¨It’s a team that will keep our country and our people safe and secure,” Biden said, introducing his nominees. “And it’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back.¨
A sundry of Biden´s nominees have long-standing ties to the president-elect, for instance, long time confidant Fmr. Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, whom Biden has nominated for Secretary of State. Many of the nominees have built their careers working in central roles in the administrations of past presidents, particularly the Obama administration, including but not limited to Avril Haines, a former deputy CIA director who has been nominated as the first female director of National Intelligence; and Jake Sullivan, an erstwhile State Department official and advisor to Hillary Clinton who also toiled for a time as national security advisor to then-Vice President Biden.
The current assortment of Biden nominees reflects his campaign pledge to craft an administration that reflects the diversity of America, nominating career diplomat Linda Thomas Greenfield, a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under the Obama administration and former United States ambassador to Liberia under President George W. Bush. Furthermore, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, a former deputy at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama who if confirmed by the Senate would be the first Cuban-American to serve as Secretary of that department. Biden also handpicked former Secretary of State and long-time ally John F. Kerry for a new role within the national security community — Climate envoy, another gesticulation to the country, cynics on the political left — and global community of President-elect Biden’s appetency to morph his administration into one that puts the climate crisis at the forefront. Internal domestic predicaments from the ongoing pandemic to the weakened economy are likely to consume Biden’s first months in office.
The President-elect’s decision to nominate trusted advisers and virtuoso officials for these climacteric foreign policy roles shows that the President-elect is committed to crafting a foreign policy team that he knows can carry out the taxing task of rebuilding America’s global concordats and prominence. | https://medium.com/@mhambi-m/joe-bidens-foreign-policy-and-national-security-nominees-the-implications-for-our-country-2305be8edf8a | ['Mhambi Musonda'] | 2020-12-19 21:42:12.971000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Foreign Policy'] |
Picking stocks for long term investment that WIN | Everyone knows that investing is one of the ways to passive income. That being said, it is possible to lose your entire capital if you blindly invest in a company without sufficient planning and knowledge. Some people choose to be copycat investors, replicating investments made by others. However, if you prefer to have a better idea of just what you’re putting your hard-earned money into, you would want to do a bit more research into the company first.
So here’s the question — how do you pick stocks for long term investment out of the many available in the market?
Here are some key criteria’s to look out for in a business before investing in their stocks:
Sustainable competitive advantage
The keyword here is sustainable: this is especially important if you are investing in a company for the long term as you want the company to have the ability to last for the long haul and still be here in 5 or 10 years time. Some factors which show sustainable competitive advantage include strong branding and long history. It is also a bonus if the company is a market leader in the industry. However, this is not always necessary as we have companies that are not market leader but yet are able to generate good profits for their investors.
Another important thing to look out for are good products and services as well as having future plans for expansion or new products. This can be seen from the downfall of Toys R Us, a company which had an extremely strong branding in the toys industry. I am pretty sure some of you have vivid memories of visiting this magical kingdom as a child, especially during special occasions such as Christmas or on your birthday. However, the company suffered huge financial losses and was unable to pay its creditors, thus eventually filling for bankruptcy. This goes to show the importance of being able to keep up with changing trends and consumers as many companies in the past few years have gone bust due to their lack of adaptability.
Other key examples include companies which have gone bust almost overnight as they have failed to go digital. E-commerce is a huge market nowadays and not adapting to the changing world will be the downfall of many companies.
Competent management team
Relevant experience is something else to look out for in the leaders of the company. Having the insights of a seasoned executive brings valuable experience to guide the company through its various different stages.
Another factor worth considering is whether management are compensated based on their performance. Having employees being paid a fixed salary only means that they will be paid the same regardless of whether or not they work hard. This doesn’t give them incentive for them put in the extra effort to grow the company. Thus, you might want to look for a company that rewards management with performance based compensation. Having an incentivized team will almost inevitably result in a growing company, thus also leading to the the growth in value of your stocks.
Most importantly, the management should have good character and integrity. No amount of experience, certificates and compensation can make up for lousy character.
Sufficient insider holding of shares
The people who know most about a company are not analysts, brokers. Instead, they are those running the company. Are the shareholders holding, buying more or selling their shares? It is a good sign if the top management team such as the directors and CEOs are buying more shares in the company. In contrast, if you see huge chunks of shares are being sold, this might be a cause for concern as they might know certain information you don’t. This information can be obtained from the company’s annual report.
Healthy figures
Here we are looking at the more technical aspect of things and arguably the most important as in the end, numbers don’t lie. There is no point investing in a company with factors such as fantastic management and branding if it is not profitable.
To ensure the company has a healthy growth in earnings, the first thing you should be looking at is the company’s income statement - Is there an increase in sales or revenue over the years over the last 5 years? Another number to look at is the net income of the company. If the company is spending more than they are generating in sales, this shows they are not earning money which is also not good for you as an investor. An increase of 10% for both figures is ideal for a healthy company.
Some key financial ratios and numbers you should be looking at include:
Return on Equity (ROE) — A healthy figure should be about 12% Operating and net profit margin P/E ratio
It is also important that the company has healthy debt levels. One of my favourite quotes from Robert Kiyosaki is good debt helps you get rich, while bad debt makes you poor. This also applies to companies — good debt should spur the company forward and allow them to make necessary purchases they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to in order to give them a competitive edge. Companies with a good level of solvency indicate healthy debt levels. This can be seen from its financial statements where you can find the company’s long term debt and equity figures in the balance sheet. | https://medium.com/@chloeswy/picking-stocks-for-long-term-investment-that-win-2b9b2d6d6091 | [] | 2020-12-26 16:41:20.617000+00:00 | ['Investing Tips', 'Stocks'] |
The Art Of Setting Boundaries | I diagnosed my lack of boundaries in college upon feeling exhausted from constantly playing therapist to a friend. Not knowing that compassion-fatigue is a common experience in relationships, I felt cruel for wanting to avoid this person. After all, they said they needed me. How could I be their best friend if I put a limit on what they shared with me? I encouraged such thoughts, berated my own trepidation and kept a ‘friendship’ going while simultaneously running myself down.
I never blamed this friend. Their feelings were valid. However, in those moments, it dampened my own ability to be happy and sometimes even helpful. I felt drained and irritable after listening to them go on for hours.
The problem with not being honest about your boundaries is that you grow resentful of yourself and of others. My doubts about our friendship turned into expectations-
“Why won’t they reciprocate the time and attention I give them? Why do they not realize (from my obvious body-language) that I need a break?”
Even if my body-language might’ve been shouting ‘NO’ from a rooftop, I would speak in ‘yes’ and ‘of course’. I would actively make time for this person. I would continue to nod as they kept talking. I would even nudge them to share more!
The fact is that I felt obligated to. I believed these were the conditions upon which our friendship was based. On days I knew I couldn't handle their energy, I went far enough to look for excuses instead of admitting the real reason behind not seeing them.
This went on for months before I could no longer carry this pressure of being friends. Eventually, I stopped spending time with this person completely. I had finally lost my ability to rationalize a relationship that wasn’t healthy. I felt horrible for cutting contact suddenly. However, I was in a much better place.
Looking back, it would’ve been a lot less misleading had I said, “I care about you but I feel run down if we discuss things I believe I’m not equipped to handle, so I’m gonna draw the line. I hope you understand.”
The Progression
Towards the middle of my college term, I found a personality research paper that confirmed my worst suspicions. Politeness as a trait is negatively correlated with one’s wellbeing.
Yes, being polite means you suffer more than those who aren’t. So a ‘too nice’ approach -that aims to elicit friendliness and validation from others by being overly kind and forgiving- pretty much sucks for your mental health. The world just takes advantage of you.
Discovering this felt like the curse of knowledge. I wouldn’t be lying when I admit I felt a little helpless. Soon enough, however, I was rewarded with a desire for renewal. I finally had a reason to let go of my autonomous and unhelpful “yes” reflex; not to survive but to thrive.
I watched YouTube videos on assertiveness-training. I practiced saying no in the mirror. I read about why humans need boundaries. I asked my therapist to help me phrase what a boundary sounds like. I began to set them with people in my life.
At first, it was extremely difficult to hear myself say the phrases “draw the line” or “take a break.” Over time, though, I began to enjoy them. I realized that by saying these words I was respecting my own feelings. I felt more in tune with my body. I felt better about my ability to accomplish tasks. I didn’t have that before and it was addictive.
The Recovery | https://byrslf.co/https-byrslf-co-story-guide-the-art-of-setting-boundaries-32e179755c73 | ['Trisha Malhotra'] | 2019-10-03 12:18:20.293000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Beyourself', 'Storytelling', 'Boundaries'] |
How Much Value Has Amazon Created for the World? | “If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn’t create value for those it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn’t long for this world. It’s on the way out.” So wrote Jeff Bezos in his final letter to shareholders, released last week. It’s a great sentiment, one I heartily agree with and wish that more companies embraced. But how well does he practice what he preaches? And why is practicing this so hard by the rules of today’s economy?
Bezos started out by acknowledging the wealth that Amazon has created for shareholders — $1.6 trillion is the number he cites in the second paragraph. That’s Amazon’s current market capitalization. Bezos himself now owns only about 11% of Amazon stock, and that’s enough to make him the richest person in the world. But while his Amazon stock is worth over $160 billion, that means that over $1.4 trillion is owned by others.
“I’m proud of the wealth we’ve created for shareowners,” Bezos continued. “It’s significant, and it improves their lives. But I also know something else: it’s not the largest part of the value we’ve created.” That’s when he went on to make the statement with which I opened this essay. He went on from there to calculate the value created for employees, third-party merchants, and Amazon customers as well as to explain the company’s Climate Pledge.
Bezos’ embrace of stakeholder capitalism is meaningful and important. Ever since Milton Friedman penned the 1970 op-ed in which he argued that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits,” other constituencies — workers, suppliers, society at large, and even customers — have too often been sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Today’s economy, rife with inequality, is the result.
While I applaud the goal of understanding “who gets what and why” (which in many ways is the central question of economics), I struggle a bit with Bezos’ math. Let’s walk through those of his assertions that deserve deeper scrutiny.
How much went to shareholders?
Our net income in 2020 was $21.3 billion. If, instead of being a publicly traded company with thousands of owners, Amazon were a sole proprietorship with a single owner, that’s how much the owner would have earned in 2020.
Writing in The Information, Martin Peers made what seems to be an obvious catch: “Instead of calculating value by looking at the increase in Amazon’s market cap last year — $679 billion — Bezos uses the company’s net income of $21 billion. That hides the fact that shareholders got the most value out of Amazon last year, far more than any other group.”
But while Peers has put his finger on an important point, he is wrong. The amount earned by shareholders from Amazon is indeed only the company’s $21.3 billion net income. The difference between that number and the $679 billion increase in market cap didn’t come from Amazon. It came from “the market,” that is from other people trading Amazon’s stock and placing bets on its future value. Understanding this difference is crucial because it undercuts so many facile criticisms of Bezos’ wealth, in which he is pictured as a robber baron hoarding the wealth accumulated from his company at the expense of his employees.
The state of “the market” has become a very bad proxy for prosperity. Those lucky enough to own stocks are enjoying boom times; those who do not are left out in the cold.
The fact that Bezos is the world’s richest person makes him an easy target. What we really need to come to grips with is the way that our financial system has been hijacked to make the rich richer. Low interest rates, meant to prop up business investment and hiring, have instead been diverted to driving up the price of stocks beyond reasonable bounds. Surging corporate profits have been used not to fuel hiring or build new factories or bring new products to market but on stock buybacks designed to artificially boost the price of stocks. The state of “the market” has become a very bad proxy for prosperity. Those lucky enough to own stocks are enjoying boom times; those who do not are left out in the cold.
Financial markets, in effect, give owners of stocks the value of future earnings and cash flow today — in Amazon’s case, about 79 years’ worth. But that’s nothing. Elon Musk is the world’s second-richest person because the market values Tesla at over 1,000 years of its present earnings.
The genius of this system is that it allows investors and entrepreneurs to bet on the future, bootstrapping companies like Amazon and Tesla long before they are able to demonstrate their worth. But once a company has become established, it often no longer needs money from investors. Someone who buys a share of a hugely profitable company like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft isn’t investing in these companies. They are simply betting on the future of their stock price, with the profits and losses coming from others around the gaming table.
In my 2017 book, WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us, I wrote a chapter on this betting economy, which I called “supermoney” after the brilliant 1972 book with that title by finance writer George Goodman (alias Adam Smith). Stock prices are not the only form of supermoney. Real estate is another. Both are rife with what economists call “rents” — that is, income that comes not from what you do but from what you own. And government policy seems designed to prop up the rentier class at the expense of job creation and real investment. Until we come to grips with this two-track economy, we will never tame inequality.
The fact that in the second paragraph of his letter, Bezos cites Amazon’s market cap as the value created for shareholders but uses the company’s net income when comparing gains by shareholders to those received by other stakeholders is a kind of sleight of hand. Because of course corporate profits — especially the prospect of growth of corporate profits — and market capitalization are related. If Amazon gets $79 of market cap for every dollar of profit (which is what that price-earnings ratio of 79 means), then if Amazon were to raise wages for employees or give a better deal to its third-party merchants (many of them small businesses), that would lower its profits, and presumably its market cap, by an enormous ratio.
Every dollar given up to these other groups isn’t just a dollar out of the pocket of shareholders. It is many times that. This of course does provide a very powerful incentive for public companies to squeeze these other parties for every last dollar of profit, encouraging lower wages, outsourcing to eliminate benefits, and many other ills that contribute to our two-tier economy. It may not be Amazon’s motivation — Bezos has always been a long-term thinker and was able to persuade financial markets to go along for the ride even when the company’s profits were small — but it is most certainly the motivation for much of the extractive behavior by many companies today. The pressure to increase earnings and keep stock prices high is enormous.
These issues are complex and difficult. Stock prices are reflexive, as financier George Soros likes to observe. That is, they are based on what people believe about the future. Amazon’s current stock price is based on the collective belief that its profits will be even higher in the future. Were people to believe instead that they would be meaningfully lower, the valuation might fall precipitously. To understand the role of expectations of future increases in earnings and cash flow, you have only to compare Amazon with Apple. Apple’s profits are three times Amazon’s, and free cash flow is four times, yet it is valued at only 36 times earnings and has a market capitalization less than 50% higher than Amazon’s. As expectations and reality converge, multiples tend to come down.
How did Amazon’s third-party sellers fare?
[We] estimate that, in 2020, third-party seller profits from selling on Amazon were between $25 billion and $39 billion, and to be conservative here I’ll go with $25 billion.
That sounds pretty impressive, but how much of a profit margin is it really?
Amazon doesn’t explicitly disclose the gross merchandise volume of those third-party sellers, but there is enough information in the letter and in the company’s 2020 annual report to make a back-of-the-napkin estimate. The letter says that Amazon’s third-party sales represent “close to 60%” of its online sales. If the 40% delivered by Amazon’s first-party sales come out to $197 billion, that would imply that sales in the third-party marketplace were almost $300 billion, and $25 to $39 billion in profit on $300 billion works out to a profit margin between 8% and 13%.
But is Amazon calculating operating income, EBITDA, or net income? “Profit” could refer to any of the three, yet they have very different values.
Let’s generously assume that Amazon is calculating net income. In that case, small retailers and manufacturers selling on Amazon are doing quite well since net income from U.S. retailers’ and manufacturers’ overall operations are typically between 5% and 8%. Without knowing which profit number Amazon’s team is estimating, though, and the methodology they use to arrive at it, it is difficult to be sure whether these numbers are better or worse than what these sellers achieve through other channels.
One question that’s also worth asking is whether selling on Amazon in 2020 was more or less profitable than it was in 2019. While Amazon didn’t report a profit number for its third-party sellers in 2019, it did report how much its sellers paid for the services Amazon provided to them. In 2019, that number was about $53.8 billion; in 2020, it was $80.5 billion, which represents a 50% growth rate. Net of these fees, income to Amazon but a cost to sellers, we estimate that seller revenue grew 44%. Since fees appear to be growing faster than revenues, that would suggest that in 2020, Amazon took a larger share of the pie and sellers got less. Of course, without clearer information from Amazon, it is difficult to tell for sure.
Meanwhile, Amazon took in another $21.5 billion in “other income,” which is primarily from advertising by sellers on Amazon’s platform. That grew by 52% from 2019’s $14 billion, again suggesting that Amazon’s share of the net is growing. And unlike some forms of advertising that bring in new customers, much of Amazon’s ad business represents a zero-sum competition between merchants bidding for top position, a position that in Amazon’s earlier years was granted on the basis of factors such as price, popularity, and user ratings.
How about employees?
In 2020, employees earned $80 billion, plus another $11 billion to include benefits and various payroll taxes, for a total of $91 billion.
There’s no question that the $91 billion that Amazon paid out in wages and benefits in 2020 is meaningful. Some of those employees were very well compensated, others not so well, but all of them have jobs. Amazon is now one of the largest employers in the country. It is an exception to the tech industry in that it creates a large number of jobs—and not just high-end professional jobs—and that some of the jobs it creates are in locations where work is scarce.
That being said, Bezos’ description of the amount earned by employees is misleading. In every other case, he makes an effort to estimate the profit earned by a particular group. For employees, he treats the gross earnings of employees as if it were profit, writing, “If each group had an income statement representing their interactions with Amazon, the numbers above would be the ‘bottom lines’ from those income statements.”
No, Bezos, employee earnings are their top line. Just as a company has gross income before expenses, so do employees. The bottom line is what’s leftover after all those expenses have been met. And for many of Amazon’s lower-paid employees — as is the case for lower-paid workers all over the modern economy — that true bottom line is negative, that is, less than they need to survive. Like workers at other giant profitable companies like Walmart and McDonald’s, a significant fraction of Amazon warehouse employees require government assistance. So, in effect, taxpayers are subsidizing Amazon because the share of the enterprise’s profits allocated to its lowest-paid employees was not enough for them to pay their bills.
Amazon was the “worst offender” among a rogues’ gallery of high-tech companies that use aggressive tax avoidance strategies.
That points to a major omission from the list of Amazon’s stakeholders: society at large. How does Amazon do when it comes to paying its fair share? According to a 2019 study, Amazon was the “worst offender” among a rogues’ gallery of high-tech companies that use aggressive tax avoidance strategies. As noted in The Guardian, “Fair Tax Mark said this means Amazon’s effective tax rate was 12.7% over the decade when the headline tax rate in the U.S. has been 35% for most of that period.” In 2020, Amazon made a provision for taxes of $2.863 billion on pretax income of $24,178 billion, or about 11.8%. This may be legal, but it isn’t right.
Amazon is clearly moving in the right direction with employees. It introduced a $15 minimum wage in 2018, ahead of many of its peers. And given the genius of the company, the commitment to workplace safety and other initiatives to make Amazon a better employer that Bezos highlighted in his letter are likely to have a big payoff. When Amazon sets out to do something, it usually invents and learns a great deal along the way.
“We have always wanted to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company,” Bezos wrote. “We won’t change that. It’s what got us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. In my upcoming role as Executive Chair, I’m going to focus on new initiatives. I’m an inventor. It’s what I enjoy the most and what I do best. It’s where I create the most value. … We have never failed when we set our minds to something, and we’re not going to fail at this either.”
I find that to be an extremely heartening statement. At Amazon’s current stage of development, it has the opportunity and is beginning to make a commitment to put its remarkable capabilities to work on new challenges.
Stakeholder value means solving multiple equations simultaneously
I was very taken with Bezos’ statement that “if any shareowners are concerned that Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work might dilute our focus on Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, let me set your mind at ease. Think of it this way. If we can operate two businesses as different as consumer ecommerce and AWS, and do both at the highest level, we can certainly do the same with these two vision statements. In fact, I’m confident they will reinforce each other.”
One of my criticisms of today’s financial-market-driven economy is that by focusing on a single objective, it misses the great opportunity of today’s technology, summed up by Paul Cohen, the former DARPA program manager for A.I. and now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, when he said, “The opportunity of A.I. is to help humans model and manage complex interacting systems.” If any company has the skills to do that, I suspect it will be Amazon. And as Bezos wrote elsewhere in his letter, “When we lead, others follow.”
Amazon is also considering environmental impact. “Not long ago, most people believed that it would be good to address climate change, but they also thought it would cost a lot and would threaten jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth. We now know better,” Bezos wrote. “Smart action on climate change will not only stop bad things from happening, it will also make our economy more efficient, help drive technological change, and reduce risks. Combined, these can lead to more and better jobs, healthier and happier children, more productive workers, and a more prosperous future.” Amen to that!
In short, despite my questions and criticisms, there is a great deal to like about the directions Bezos set forth for Amazon in his final shareholder letter. In addition to the commitment to work more deeply on behalf of other stakeholders beyond customers and shareholders, I was taken with his concluding advice to the company: “The world will always try to make Amazon more typical — to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.”
It is in the spirit of that aspiration that I offer the critiques found in this essay. | https://marker.medium.com/how-much-value-has-amazon-created-for-the-world-9016fc6d8180 | ["Tim O'Reilly"] | 2021-04-30 18:09:30.392000+00:00 | ['Company', 'Economy', 'Amazon', 'Jeff Bezos'] |
In professional writing, we call this a “phatic” approach to communication. | In professional writing, we call this a “phatic” approach to communication. It’s all about building and maintaining networks through goodwill. The challenge is developing these long term connections in a digital (remote?) work world, where many people are overwhelmed by information flow. | https://medium.com/@lancecummings/in-professional-writing-we-call-this-a-phatic-approach-to-communication-5974812a352c | ['Lance Cummings Phd'] | 2020-12-22 20:43:02.250000+00:00 | ['Networking', 'Goodwill'] |
Configure GRE-IPSec to create secured private network between public hosts | In previous article, I was talking about using OpenVPN to create similar setup. Despite of automated process of creating users/certs/etc. It is still a hassle if we want to add new node since we need to distribute those certificates. Moreover, the connection seems much slower.
Because of that reason, let’s try another protocol. In this article, we will be talking about using GRE tunnelling protocol with IPSec-PSK encryption. PSK refers to “Pre-shared key”. In which, encryption key is being set up between hosts. We will be using OpenVSwitch for doing this.
Reference: https://docs.openvswitch.org/en/latest/tutorials/ipsec/
Installation
This script is primarily tested on recent debian based system (Debian 10, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04).
Btw, I’m directly using its master branch, because of, none of the release version supports the latest version of the strongswan config. You will see an error related on its generated config with release version. This is based on my own experiment installing some particular version.
Please correct me if I’m wrong about my statement above
Topology
Here is the topology for our setup right now
Btw, based on my experiment again, we cannot create any topology other than star topology. “star” refers to only 1 node that connected to every node. If you are confused, then check this reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_network
Setup
Now let’s go into action, let’s configure node 161.97.158.40 first. SSH login to root user and follow these steps
Configure bridge
Add br-ipsec bridge by issuing this command. And also, set the bridge IP to 192.168.1.1/24. This IP will be this host’s IP too.
ovs-vsctl add-br br-ipsec
ip addr add 192.168.1.1/24 dev br-ipsec
ip link set br-ipsec up
Add port that will connect to node 2 (161.97.158.38)
Add port interface tun1-2 and set that interface to GRE protocol with its PSK swordF1sh. You can set the port’s name to anything.
ovs-vsctl add-port br-ipsec tun1-2
ovs-vsctl set interface tun1-2 type=gre options:remote_ip=161.97.158.38 options:psk=swordF1sh
Add port that will connect to node 3 (161.97.158.37)
ovs-vsctl add-port br-ipsec tun1-3
ovs-vsctl set interface tun1-3 type=gre options:remote_ip=161.97.158.37 options:psk=swordF1sh
Set MTU
You need to configure the correct MTU. Let’s try to set it to 1420 and see that later
ovs-vsctl set int br-ipsec mtu_request=1420
Setup on this node is finished! | https://medium.com/@habibiefaried/configure-gre-ipsec-to-create-secured-private-network-between-public-hosts-118edaf3fc51 | ['Habibie Faried'] | 2020-12-21 05:57:40.615000+00:00 | ['Network', 'Security', 'Ipsec', 'Network Security', 'Infrastructure'] |
What can neural networks reason about? | paper, my implementation
Recently, a lot of research has focused on building neural networks that can learn to reason. Some examples include simulating particle physics [1], coming up with mathematical equations from data [2].
Figure 1: What are the colors of the furthest pair of objects?
Figure 1, shows an example of a reasoning task. In these tasks, we have to learn the fundamental properties of the environment given some data. In this example, the model has to first learn the meaning of the words furthest, color, pair.
Many reasoning tasks can be formalized as graph problems and message passing [3] has been shown to be a key component to modern graph neural networks. But why can GNNs solve these problems and MLPs cannot, even though they have the same expressive power? The failure of MLPs to solve these reasoning tasks can further be stated as, why do MLPs fail to generalize to these reasoning tasks?
Formally, we will be trying to answer the following question
When does a network structure generalize better than other, even if they have same expressive power?
Algorithm point of view
Let us begin with an observation that the reasoning process resembles algorithms. To solve the reasoning problem of Figure 1, we can come up with the following solution
Find the location of all pairs of objects. Determine the pair that is furthest (this is just a heuristic that you decide). Return the color of the object.
The above three steps resemble an algorithm, where we are defining a step-by-step procedure to solve a problem.
From the paper,
We will build on this observation and study how well a reasoning algorithm aligns with the computation graph of the network. Intuitively, if they align well, the network only needs to learn simple algorithm steps to simulate the reasoning process, which leads to better efficiency.
The authors of the paper formalize the above as algorithm alignment.
Algorithm alignment
Every neural network architecture that we build has an underlying computation structure. MLPs resemble a for loop kind of computation structure as they are applied to vector inputs. In the case of GNNs, we aggregate information from the neighbors implying a dynamic programming (DP) type of computation (shown in the paper).
How GNNs relate to DP
Bellman-Ford algorithm [4] is an algorithm used to solve the shortest path problem. The main step of the algorithm is
for u in Nodes:
d[k][u] = min_v d[k-1][v] + cost(v,u)
where, k = iteration number (1,2,…,num_nodes-1)
Now let’s see how we will do the same use GNN. The message passing algorithm is
Now let
UPDATE = identity function
In most cases FUNC is MLP.
AGGREGATE = minimum
Using this information the message passing equation becomes
The above equation now resembles closely the Bellman-Ford algorithm. If we had used MLP to solve this problem then MLP would have to learn the structure of the entire for-loop as its computation structure resembles a for loop which is expensive.
This is the main point of the paper. If we can find a suitable underlying reasoning algorithm for the reasoning task, then we can use neural network structures that better align with the underlying algorithm structure. This will make the task easy to learn and improve generalization.
Maximum value difference
In the paper, they do experiments on four reasoning tasks
Maximum value difference
Furthest pair
Monster trainer
Subset sum
I try to reproduce the results of the maximum value difference task. The task is simple, given a vector find the difference between the maximum and minimum value. But why is it important?
In a lot of reasoning tasks, we are required to answer questions related to summary statistics (like count, min, max). For example, “How many objects are either small cylinders or red things?”. In the case of GNNs, we can simulate the reasoning algorithm by using MLP to extract features from nodes and then use aggregation to come up with the answer. In this case, MLP has to only learn to extract local features. On the other hand, if we only used MLPs to solve this problem. Then the MLP must learn a complex for-loop and therefore needs more data to converge.
The maximum value difference task is stated as:
A training sample consists of 25 treasures (X). For each treasure (X_i), we have X_i = [h_i,h_2,h_3] where
h_1 is 8-dim location vector sampled uniformly from [0,20]
h_2 is value sampled uniformly from [0,100]
h_3 is color sampled uniformly from [1,6]
For the maximum value difference task, we have to find the difference between the maximum value and the minimum value for each training sample.
MLP
To input the training sample, we simply concatenate the vector representation of all 25 treasures and then feed them into a MLP. We solve this problem as a classification problem where the task is to predict a value from 0 to 100 i.e. 101 classes.
The code to generate the data is in min_max_mlp_data.py. A quick summary of data generation process is shown below
The code to create MLP is in model_mlp.py.
The code to test the model is in mlp.ipynb. MLP achieves around 8% accuracy on the validation data. This is the expected result.
GNN
Construct a fully connected graph with 25 nodes (each node representing a treasure). I use pytorch_geometric to implement the GNN.
The code to generate the data is in min_max_graph_data.py and the code to construct GNN is in model_gnn.py.
The best GNN model got to 98.5% accuracy (maybe with hyperparameter search 100% accuracy can be achieved). But it demonstrates the idea that GNN can easily learn summary statistics which are a key component of reasoning problems.
Conclusion
The concept of algorithm alignment can be applied to any reasoning algorithm. If we can come up with a suitable algorithm to solve the reasoning problem, then we can design a network with a similar structure to learn it. If we have no prior knowledge about the structure of the reasoning algorithm then neural architecture search over algorithm structures will be needed.
If you want to read more about Graph Deep Learning, see my other posts, or follow me on twitter. | https://kushaj.medium.com/what-can-neural-networks-reason-about-5d4e4d2d669a | ['Kushajveer Singh'] | 2020-11-08 13:32:59.394000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Computer Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Creating a billion-dollar African startup — Insider view | Disclaimer: After being asked numerous times to share my thoughts on what I believe makes startups successful in Africa, I have finally acceded. But some things to note. The thoughts shared here are mine and do not reflect any of my current or previous employers. Further, I have shied away from sharing Material Non-Public Information on any companies I have mentioned and only used their names for demonstration purposes. The thoughts shared in this piece are not investment or business advice but a way to encourage conversation around what key markers make a startup successful in Africa, particularly fintech. And, of course, this article is neither a complete nor an exhaustive analysis of what makes startups in Africa successful. I was among the first team members of ChipperCash in Africa.
Recently, the African startup ecosystem has been ablaze with unprecedented mega-round financing. Exactly 3 days ago, Wave (a spin-off from SendWave) announced they had raised a $200 million series A monster round for a valuation of $1.7 billion, fast setting the pace for the emergence of a Francophone West Africa unicorn. Not long ago, OPay had raised $400 million from some of the biggest funds in the game including SoftBank, making it a $2 billion venture overnight. ChipperCash, on the other hand, accelerated into the coveted billion-dollar club (B-Club or Tres-Comas Club going by Russ ‘effing’ Hanneman) after raising a whopping $100 million, less than three years since its launch. If you are a small startup, financial analyst or industry pundit you might be wondering what the secret sauce is with these startups.
A little surprise first — when you are deep in the murk building a billion-dollar company, you actually have no idea how and that things will pan out. You are lost in the moment and seeing all the metrics flying up and to the right, great, but you typically have no idea whether what you are building will eventually turn out to be a juggernaut.
Russ Hanneman, a character in Hollywood startup blockbuster Silicon Valley
To build a billion-dollar startup requires bringing the right elements together, especially for African founders. Here’s the scoop.
Grand vision
A billion-dollar club startup (BCS) must have a grand vision. A BCS cannot play around with a run-of-the-mill vision and expect to excite potential investors and customers. It must portray an image so exalting that its world of users finds its daily meaning and lifestyle around it. One way to showcase this vision is via snappy statements that encapsulate powerful stories.
A few examples are instructive. ChipperCash claims to “Move Your Money Freely”. Behind this simple yet memorable catchphrase is the story of the founders themselves facing problems sending money back home to Ghana and Uganda when they were pursuing their undergrad studies at Grinnell. What makes Chipper’s vision so grand is that they are doing free transfers anywhere you are in Africa, and potentially, hopefully, they have the plans and guts to do this globally. Given over 500 million mobile money accounts in Africa, investors salivate at this kind of market opportunity cloaked in a grand vision. On the other hand, Wave is promising to make Africa a cashless continent. How cool. And they are doing that by disrupting decades-old business models that have vice-gripped customers to costs and tedium from banks and telcos. More on that under business innovation below.
As an aspiring BCS, you have to paint the picture, but you have to get the job done. The key differentiator with BCSs is that they clearly understand what jobs need to be done for their customers and are doggedly focused on delivering those jobs. Only well-delivered jobs realize visions.
Founder combo
A potential BCS has co-founders who complement each other. These can be twin co-founders or a number of them, but they must cover the needs of the business from engineering to operations. A perfect combo is one in which one of the co-founders is great at business and the other can cover engineering. The business co-founder ensures the startup can operate day-to-day while the engineer co-founder ensures the startup has a product that works. In between, they can find design, product management, growth hacking, marketing, customer support, compliance and finance teams to further oil the engine of growth.
Something interesting I have seen to oddly work in the case of twin co-founders is where the co-founders are so different in their personalities to expect a successful working relationship. On the one hand, one of them is charismatic and draws people to the vision of the startup while the other is almost boorish, curt and asocial but always gets the job done. I would say you need both, especially where the CEO has a magnetic aura that draws great hires and investors to the company and the technical co-founder can build a solid engineering team that delivers a quality product.
But the thing that cannot be compromised with both co-founders is a high IQ for their market. Both must have their fingers at the pulse of the market they are serving, understand and empathize with their customers, and be willing to roll up their sleeves at a moment’s notice and serve customers in whichever capacity. When I led ChipperCash in East Africa, there were moments when we had an overwhelming amount of outstanding customer support and onboarding tickets. With a lean team, the practical thing to do was to conquer and divide work that ordinarily was outside my purvey. Doing that moved us a notch step up to completed tickets in record time, good customer reviews, sustained growth, and eventually a series A. Great founding teams do what it takes to move the needle for the company in the early days.
But a little more about a magnetic CEO. The one defining characteristic I see with magnetic CEOs is that they are what you would call charismatic competitive. They are smart, in fact extremely smart, but they play it cool. And they have high EQ for people. One clear instance of this was with Ham, ChipperCash’s CEO. We met back in 2014 doing a mini-MBA accelerated winter program in Cambridge. For the two weeks that we spent in the program I only got to know him toward the end of the program when after weeks of hacking research and creating hypothetical products, we bumped into each during an in-house presentation. All along I had imagined that our team — comprising a Brown university Asian whiz kid, the student president of Occidental College, and a super sharp South Korean lady — would carry the day, only for Ham’s team to emerge out of nowhere and scoop the overall presentation prize. Particularly, his part of the presentation was simple and cogent. I sat there gobsmacked. Of course, my team and I being A-listers recalibrated and eventually took the best team prize at the final investor presentation in downtown Boston, but the lesson was clear. Years later, it is this ability to move people that sold me to working with Ham at a time when I had a fine career in consulting as well as building my own startup.
Teams
You can have a great founder combo, huge ripe market, investors willing to pump cash, and a grand vision, but it takes a dedicated, disciplined team to deliver a startup from 0 to 1. The kind of team you bring onboard in the early days can make or break a startup. The early team informs the culture of the company, and that culture becomes indelible and pervasive for all incoming employees.
When we started Chipper operations in Nairobi, I was a first-time managing director with only a few years of experience managing teams and processes. But what really helped was an intentional approach to building teams that could deliver jobs to customers effectively and efficiently. We were deliberate about being inbox zero for any customer complaints such that even on a Sunday afternoon when customers would call, we would strive to find a solution to their issues. My personal line was open to customers, and I would not have had it any other way. The focus on ruthless efficiency and customer-first approach was and is still a driving force for success at Chipper.
You want teams that can deliver not teams that have credentials or are entirely recruited because of experience. If experience was what mattered the most then we wouldn’t have fintechs or edtechs, because then these companies would have to be founded and run by bankers or professors. And we know few bankers and professors running fintechs and edtechs. I see a lot of wannabe BCSs recruiting heavily on experience and credentials. At some point when I tried to get a short-term job to help a fledgling edtech company build a product and get to product-market fit, I nailed every bit of the interview and painted a picture of what the edtech could achieve with my kind of abilities and past successes, only to be told later that the reason I would not make it to lead their teams was because they wanted someone who had scaled a company before. Here was a pre-seed company worrying about scaling instead of product-market fit and getting their team right for performance.
BCSs thrive because their teams understand the work at hand and can sacrifice to deliver that work even deep at 2am. They are completely sold to the mission of serving their customers, are well compensated for their sacrifices (I was fast in bumping up employee salaries within three months if they demonstrated massive potential and delivered beyond expectations), and are continuously appreciated for their role in achieving the company’s mission.
Credentials are simply market signals for perceived ability, not the ability itself. Experiences that work are those that are adaptable and applicable, not those that worked five years ago and are erroneously expected to work under rapidly changing circumstances that startups operate in.
Market
Of course, it’s a no-brainer that to have a BCS, you have to have a billion-dollar market. A billion-dollar market is either a market with a billion users each willing to pay a dollar for your product, or a million users each willing and able to pay $1,000 for your product or service. The second option is a tough sell for most startups and even mature companies and is usually reserved for luxury brands like Apple and Hermès. In any case, what is the fat chance that you are going to create a luxury brand as a startup? Your guess is as good as mine. Onto option one.
Option one is essentially you finding millions of customers and delivering a delightful product experience that solves their pain points. The product, however, has to kayak on a scalable low-cost distribution network, and this is where digital becomes a useful channel. The reason Chipper and Wave work is because they represent next-generation ideas for how we should be transacting our money. Chipper is providing a low-cost cross-border payments solution for users in a huge mobile money African market. Wave is targeting the same market with a different offering. Wave is essentially positing that customers do not need legacy telcos and banks that have stifled their personal financial freedom by charging ridiculous amounts for transactions; so they are coming into the market to build a different infrastructure and drive the prices for transacting on mobile money to unprecedented lows. Personally, I am excited about these developments and cannot wait to see how these two upstarts and many others are going to revolutionize the way we transact.
Business model innovation
There is nothing inherently revolutionary in what ChipperCash or Wave is doing regarding their products. Social-like peer-to-peer payments have been with us for some time now, including Mpesa. In fact, the idea of requesting or sending money among peers and showing that in a transaction feed is a Venmo-esque innovation that preceded the two. What these two B-clubbers are doing different is that they are innovating around key business processes and pricing.
Take Chipper for instance. Within three years, atypical, the company has rapidly expanded into seven African countries with more to come. And in each of these countries, Chipper’s dominant strategy has been to offer zero-rated peer-to-peer transactions for transactions happening within a specific country, and low rates for cross-border payments. Just three or four years ago, one would spend $2 to move $10 across East Africa. The idea to launch rapidly in several markets allows a BCS to test, court and dominate those markets if they turn out to be a fit. As customers are realizing that they have more choices on the platforms they can use to transact, they are demanding stronger value propositions on key pain points like pricing. ChipperCash realized this and decided to be the leader in driving prices towards zero. Incumbents like Mpesa may have to revisit their defence strategy because infrastructure is no longer a moat. Enter Wave.
Wave is planning to build a different mobile money infrastructure away from core banking and GSM towers. Mobile technology has improved to a point that players like Wave can set up independent agent networks (though they do not need to do this because most mobile money agent networks are already fungible) and connect transactions via mobile applications, USSD and QR cards. Their model is significantly cheaper and replicable. Already, Wave has secured the Senegalese mobile money market and is seeking rapid expansion across Africa turbocharged by a $200 million VC financial war chest. Beat that.
I believe that players that seek to sincerely give customers financial freedom, that is reduced charges so customers can enjoy their hard-earned cash, transparency on how customer money is moving or where it is being held in the case of limbo transactions, and seamless transactions between wallets, will win the billion-dollar African mobile money market. Players who are looking to build onto legacy infrastructure will win in the short-term but lose in the long-haul. The game is changing to favor users. And it has to change. We are onto mobile money 3.0.
Finally…
To be a contender for BCS is to be strategic about how you position the vision of what you are building, who you co-found with, who you hire, fire and promote, what market you are targeting, and the fresh ideas you inject to change how things are being done. The future of BCS belongs to those startups that can sense the tsunami of customer expectations and either ride the wave or create a higher ground for outsized performance. | https://wire.insiderfinance.io/how-to-create-a-billion-dollar-african-startup-insider-view-fb0fe1d47f4a | ['Ed Magema'] | 2021-09-15 15:59:44.896000+00:00 | ['Founder Stories', 'African Startup', 'Fintech Startups', 'Startups Africa', 'Unicorns'] |
Can Consistency Become the Basis of Poor Service? | If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.
Here’s an easy way to make your company stand out from the rest.
It’s called consistency.
But not all companies understand the difference between consistency and foolish consistency.
In my town, there’s a grocery store that exemplifies this. It’s a nice grocery store. They offer quality products, friendly staff, decent prices, and the store is clean and well maintained. I do 95% of my grocery shopping there.
But they’re not perfect. Not even close. Every time I go there, I get asked the same question:
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
This seems like a good question to ask. But it’s not. The person who asks this question is the cashier. They ask me as I roll my cart up to their cash register and get ready to checkout. What they seem to miss is, when I walk up to the cash register, it means I’m done shopping.
So, why ask me if I found everything?
If I didn’t find everything, it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to take the time now to go get it. Besides, does the cashier really want to delay everyone in their line to go find something I couldn’t? I doubt it.
If I did find everything I was looking for, then the question is irrelevant. Either way, it’s a useless question, the way it’s asked.
The time to ask this question is when people are STILL SHOPPING. That’s when you can actually help them. Once they’re done shopping, you’re not helping them.
Why do they ask this question at the cash register?
Probably some consultant said they should. Since they heard it from a highly paid consultant, they do it. Worse, they continue to do it without thinking.
Actually, they do think about it. I have asked several of their employees why they always ask the same question. They told me they have secret shoppers. They lose points if they don’t ask the question. | https://medium.com/@mikeschoultz/can-consistency-become-the-basis-of-poor-service-328e81d24d4 | ['Mike Schoultz'] | 2020-12-17 14:05:23.462000+00:00 | ['Service Design', 'Customer Service', 'Consistency'] |
Managed Secure Messaging | Wickr | Secure Messaging (SM) platforms are an increasingly vital tool for both individuals and entire organizations to protect themselves from a wide variety of threats. In this post, I’ll discuss what I believe to be an important, yet sometimes overlooked, distinction to be made between Managed SM (MSM) platforms and (the much more common) Unmanaged ones (USM). I’ll explain what distinguishes the two from each other and, more importantly, why I believe that those differences make Managed SMs fundamentally more suitable, secure, and powerful for protecting organizations’ communications than their unmanaged counterparts.
Unmanaged vs. Managed Secure Messaging
Messaging Platforms: For the purpose of this post, a “message platform” is any distributed system which facilitates asynchronous real-time communication between its users. By “asynchronous,” I mean that when a user goes offline, all of their incoming messages are buffered by the system until they come online again. On the other hand, if both sender and receiver(s) are online at the same time, then the system provides a (near) real-time communication channel. Think: Wickr Messenger, Pro, and Enterprise, etc. Traditionally, we would expect such a platform to provide (at the very least) for text comms. Though more powerful and modern platforms may also enable other methods of communication such as file transfers, voice & video (even conference) calling, and screen sharing.
Secure Messaging: In restricting this discussion to “Secure” messaging platforms, I’m focusing my attention on those that provide (at the very least) for what has recently emerged as the industry gold standard in terms of protecting user’s communication; namely platforms that provide end-to-end security, Forward Security, and some variant of Post-Compromise Security (a.k.a. “future security,” “backwards security,” or “channel healing”). The exact nature of these security notions is an interesting (and rather extensive) topic in its own right but remains outside the scope of this blog post. Suffice it to say that a key aspect is their focus on protecting a user’s ongoing comms both from adversarial infrastructure in the distributed system as well as from past and future compromise of the users’ (and their contacts’) devices. Put simply, the goal is, above all, to empower and protect the end users.
It’s fair to say that this security goal does represent a fairly high bar. For example, it rules out such widely deployed platforms as Slack, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Threema, PGP Encrypted Email, S/MIME, and many others. However, given the growing number, flexibility, and availability of platforms that do meet this security goal, I think it is quite reasonable to demand such a high standard from our tools.
Unmanaged SM: Put simply, an unmanaged SM is a single global network managed centrally by a single service provider; e.g. Wickr Messenger. Intuitively, in a USM there are only two types of non-adversarial actors; users (which make up the end-points in the communication network) and the service provider, whose most important job is to maintain the infrastructure (and, usually, the code base/protocol) upon which the distributed system relies.
Managed SM: In a Managed SM platform, there is a third type of actor; namely, the administrator. Rather than being a single global network like a USM, an MSM is really a collection of distinct sub-networks. Each subnet belongs to, and is managed by, its own admin, while each user belongs to a particular home subnet. In other words, Alice@Net1 is a different user than Alice@Net2. In a federated MSM, users on different subnets can, in general, still communicate with each other across subnet boundaries.
The role of the service provider in an MSM is diminished compared to that in a USM. They are now primarily responsible only for maintaining the system’s specification and code base, providing customer support, and (in the federated case) maintaining the infrastructure required to enable federation.
The real difference between an MSM and a USM is the introduction of administrators, who are in charge of managing their subnets. Which precise capabilities and responsibilities this entails will vary from platform to platform. However, an almost universal feature is that admins have control over creating and deleting user accounts on their subnet. More generally, the role of the admin is to set security policies across their subnet. For example, in Wickr Pro (which is a federated MSM), an admin can determine things like:
Network Segmentation; that is, the admin controls with which accounts any given user is able to communicate. For example, the admin can decide which types of users can communicate with other specific types. Similarly, the admin decides for each user (type), which other subnets are available via federation.
The admin also decides what the permitted minimum and maximum Time-To-Live and Burn-On-Read can be for each user (type).
The admin controls the home network’s authentications policy. E.g. the admin may opt to integrate an external single-sign-on system.
The admin determines how the subnet’s infrastructure should be deployed. E.g. for ease of use, the infrastructure can be hosted in the Amazon cloud. Alternatively, it can be self-hosted a.k.a. “On Prem,” which affords the admin greater control and (potentially) greater security.
The key point here is that all of this is decided upon by the admin and is specific to the subnet under their control. In contrast, in a USM, this type of control (if at all possible) is almost exclusively the purview of the service provider and applies globally to all users on the platform.
It is important to note that, despite the admin’s relative power, the security model for the actual comms transported by an MSM remains very user-oriented, just as in a USM. For example, even a rogue admin should not have the capability of reading any users’ messages, nor modifying/forging messages on their behalf.
Managed Secure Messaging for Organizations
With these differences in mind, I think it’s safe to say that these fundamental differences between USMs and MSMs will matter to almost any user deciding on how to protect their communication. In a nutshell, this all stems from the fact that these two classes of platform are designed to reflect two quite different kinds of power and control structures in their user base.
Reflecting Real-World Power Structures and Relationships in Messaging Platforms.
On the one hand, USMs focus exclusively on the individual that exists, to some extent, in a vacuum. Thus, they model the relationship between any pair of individuals in the system as being (a priori) equivalent to the relationship between any other pair of individuals. When I join Wickr Messenger, I can add any other Wickr Messenger user as a contact and start chatting to them. We all have the same powers, functionality, and security needs in a USM. For example, in a USM it is up to me, and me alone, when to create and delete my accounts.
On the other hand, MSMs make explicit the existence of a more complex power structure, in that they allow users to be collected into related groups. After all, even before we ever actually talk to each other, my relationship with my coworker is quite different from a relationship with a total stranger who just so happens to use the same SM platform as I do. Moreover, MSMs account for some amount of hierarchy in the structures they model. A user is subject to some control by an admin just as an employee might be subject to the decisions of their boss.
What this all boils down to is that when people decide on which SM to use, it is important for them to consider the difference between USMs and MSMs in order to understand which type of system will best fit their needs. And fundamental to that choice is to consider which type of real-world power structures and control structures they want to have reflected in their communication tools.
Why Managed Messaging Makes Sense for Almost Any Organization.
The more people communicate within the context of some centralized, hierarchical, and/or closed group, the more appropriate an MSM becomes. Here are just a few examples of how natural power and relationship structures in an organization are reflected in an MSM.
Membership: In almost all organizations (be they government, business, NGOs, etc.), membership of a given individual is not (exclusively) up to that individual. Rather, it is decided upon by the organization itself. How should this be reflected in the organization’s communication system? Suppose, for example, a company ends its employment of an employee. Then it is very much in the interest of the company to have the capability to immediately and unilaterally (i.e. at their own discretion) remove the former employee from any and all company internal communications channels. This need is directly reflected by the capability of an MSM admin to de-provision user accounts.
In almost all organizations (be they government, business, NGOs, etc.), membership of a given individual is not (exclusively) up to that individual. Rather, it is decided upon by the organization itself. How should this be reflected in the organization’s communication system? Suppose, for example, a company ends its employment of an employee. Then it is very much in the interest of the company to have the capability to immediately and unilaterally (i.e. at their own discretion) remove the former employee from any and all company internal communications channels. This need is directly reflected by the capability of an MSM admin to de-provision user accounts. Controlled Information Flows: Another example of structures arising naturally in most organizations (that should be reflected in the secure messaging platform) are information boundaries. Typically, membership in an organization confers new information access and communication privileges upon the member compared to non-members. For example, employees could be privy to secret business intel which they need to discuss with each other that should not leak to non-employees. An MSM can be a useful tool for reflecting and enforcing such natural boundaries via network segmentation. For example, users that have no legitimate need to communicate with external individuals can simply have that capability removed by the admin. In fact, beyond protecting against adversaries, I think the biggest concrete benefit of network segmentation of comms is the reduction of the risk of unintentional information leakage. For example, with appropriate segmentation in place, there is no more risk of, say, mistakenly CC’ing outside parties on sensitive comms or sending messages to the wrong “Mike”. More generally, having a trained admin set security policy rather than leaving such choices up to each user helps avoid unintentional security lapses due to poor configuration by untrained users. It is as unreasonable to expect every last member of your organization to have sufficient security knowledge to make policy decisions correctly as it is to hope that a one-size-fits-all security policy decided upon by a global service provider of a USM will be the right choice for your particular organization.
Another example of structures arising naturally in most organizations (that should be reflected in the secure messaging platform) are information boundaries. Typically, membership in an organization confers new information access and communication privileges upon the member compared to non-members. For example, employees could be privy to secret business intel which they need to discuss with each other that should not leak to non-employees. An MSM can be a useful tool for reflecting and enforcing such natural boundaries via network segmentation. For example, users that have no legitimate need to communicate with external individuals can simply have that capability removed by the admin. In fact, beyond protecting against adversaries, I think the biggest concrete benefit of network segmentation of comms is the reduction of the risk of unintentional information leakage. For example, with appropriate segmentation in place, there is no more risk of, say, mistakenly CC’ing outside parties on sensitive comms or sending messages to the wrong “Mike”. More generally, having a trained admin set security policy rather than leaving such choices up to each user helps avoid unintentional security lapses due to poor configuration by untrained users. It is as unreasonable to expect every last member of your organization to have sufficient security knowledge to make policy decisions correctly as it is to hope that a one-size-fits-all security policy decided upon by a global service provider of a USM will be the right choice for your particular organization. Private Infrastructure: Finally, for organizations with extremely sensitive comms, it can be worthwhile to invest in a communication system which allows explicitly routing all internal comms exclusively via an organization-owned and controlled infrastructure. For example, this can be particularly useful in defending against government surveillance and traffic analysis, as well as to limit exposure to upstream ISPs and the SM platform’s service provider. Here too, MSMs (at least those with On Prem. capabilities) will be of particular interest to achieve these security goals.
These are just a few examples of why managed SMs, like Wickr Pro and Wickr Enterprise, are more aligned with the needs of organizations than unmanaged ones like Wickr ME. And this list goes on: maintaining a unified and centrally managed security policy, implementing an organization-wide compliance policy, integrating with the organization’s other IT infrastructure, customizing the UI of the messaging apps to fit the organization branding, etc. With this in mind, I think it’s fair to say that Managed and Unmanaged messaging platforms are truly different beasts. As such, as a user of secure messaging it is worth it to spend a moment reflecting on the differences in order to choose the best tool for our communication needs. | https://medium.com/@wickr/managed-secure-messaging-wickr-56e1a6daaa7a | [] | 2019-06-20 19:51:00.989000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Secure Messaging', 'Messaging', 'Security', 'Wickr'] |
Rethink the Growth Mindset Part II | Sometime in April 2020, I wrote on the subject of the growth mindset and how it’s related to learning from others which by far, is the fastest route to learning.
If you want to read up on what happened, left click and follow link here Rethink the Growth Mindset Part I
A few other points were raised but the purpose of this article touches on how an individual who possesses a growth mindset generally interacts with others in the workplace as we encounter many persons with varying personas and attitudes.
To reiterate, “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success — without effort. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work — brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” (Dweck, 2015)
I do believe that people are actually a mixture of a fixed and growth mindset and an exclusive growth mindset does not exist in real world. Why? Because we can’t mentally and physically run down and develop every learning opportunity that comes to us. We make decisions as business partners based on an assessment and we prioritize what we learn. The decision made will always be at the expense of other decisions and especially so if you consider time, urgency and energy constraints.
I have 4 simple points explaining how interacting with others is related to learning:
1. We need to be more supportive of our teams and the abundance mindset really captures this point well. The abundance mentality is the philosophy that there is enough in this world for everybody, and that we can all prosper. It is the opposite of the scarcity principle which pervades certain societies. If you grew up in a capitalist society (as have I), you’d know that the scarcity principle is one of the first principles we learn at a young age in business and this is compounded even further, as finance professionals are close to the business. Its drilled into us over and over that everything is scarce (and rightfully, many things are and forever will be), so it’s no wonder some leaders apply this mentality when dealing with their teams. It stems from the principle that there isn’t enough for everybody and we must constantly be in a state of competition or give in to hoarding. This principle is not only tiring to enforce but some leaders thrive here because there is the belief that being more supportive of our teams is giving something away which goes against the scarcity principle or what we’ve learnt.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, clearly explains the difference between the scarcity mentality and the abundance mentality.
He states that “Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit — even with those who help in the production. They also have a hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people……The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth or security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in the sharing of prestige, recognition, profits, and decision-making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.”
We may have encountered leaders with these 2 very contrasting mentalities, however in my experience, the abundance mindset (in leaders) and by extension the growth mindset seems to prevail as they encourage teamwork and creates a more positive space where healthy competition and humane sportsmanship can still prevail. This type of mindset also calls for rewarding effort within teams. For leaders who have the scarcity mindset, these leaders change over time due to the unsustainability in having this belief. Some critics have even stated that being appreciative and supportive does not apply to having a growth mindset but if its anything we’ve seen this year amidst the pandemic and leading teams virtually, we need leaders to show praise and give credit where due. Even if you reflect and think back for a second in your own life, then you’d see that the persons we learn the most from were actually in many ways supportive!
2 — Linked to a growth mindset is having a sense of community because individuals know they can’t work effectively without others.
Years ago, I remember a very good friend chatting with me. This individual was very well accomplished and had put their career above everything else (e.g. relationships, family, etc), but because of their successes and their continuous growth in their field, they were misunderstood by their peers who did not pursue this field for as long as my friend did. Basically, their dilemma was that they did not stop learning as we are encouraged to do under the growth mindset but their peers did (in the workplace). I do remember going home and thinking about them, as they had difficulty in leading but I decided at the time, that the issue pretty much boiled down to self-construction.
Once you have some sort of self-construction (and self-awareness) on your side, it becomes easier to find something to relate to your peers and to your teams who are different from you, because you are now willing to do so. If you aren’t willing to do so or your ego is too large then this isn’t going to be important to you and so you won’t exactly make the effort. Think how you can solve a need for them instead. A growth mindset individual knows that each person, whether they have a fixed mindset or not has a purpose to being here and recognise the opportunities for some sort of positive impact. Why? Because as mentioned earlier, the limitation of the growth mindset is that we can’t possibly expect that everyone will make the same decisions we make. Realistically speaking, our teams will forever make different choices. The real challenge is in managing. Being open minded and rising above biases is crucial to developing new relationships.
3 — It takes a certain level of skill and intelligence to apply a message (even a complex one) into something simple for a target audience to conceptualize, understand and accept. This part of the growth mindset relates to effective communication
To illustrate, one of the instructions I remember receiving as a junior finance professional in my first year in the industry was to ‘follow up on outstanding receivables’ and while this is something easy to do, let’s picture the scenario as the main culprits being members in a group. The situation was made even more complicated because the feedback from these group companies were to hold off on payments due to a well known and top level strategic decision. I remember going to my senior at the time and asking, so tell me exactly what I need to do to ensure receivables are collected? My senior, only later understood that the instruction did not add up. Its just a simple example of how important it is to break down strategic options into easily digestible and desired behaviors for a team because it promotes job efficiency and enables them to learn as well or they’d simply not take you seriously.
4 — In applying the growth mindset to teams, consider idea generation. Failure is all around us and as the more complex systems become, the more unpredictable leading will be. Accidents, system failures, inexplicable events would occur, but we can change how we navigate within them and some sort of reverse or creative thinking will help.
An example of this is changing a positive statement into a negative one or flipping something over. Instead of doing things in the regular, logical way, a growth mindset individual would want a different spin. New ideas come by doing the exact opposite of what would normally be expected . It leads to creativity and innovation and honestly, the fresh perspectives are actually really inspiring and motivating.
Throughout my social sciences studies at university we’d call these individuals devil advocates because they always had a great perspective. They’d think, well, what could happen if this plan of yours goes wrong, then what should we look for?
Reverse thinking sounds great on paper so to illustrate even further, in March of 2013, Target attempted to set up a branch in Canada by opening 124 stores in the country in about 9 months in every province, even in the tiny Prince Edward Island. 2 years later and Target closed all of its branches. What happened?
“Target’s plans were big and complex and by no means considered easy. Moving to Canada required a set up of a massive supply chain management system. The system had to keep track of every single product and produce reliable data to help Target forecast demand, replenish stocks and manage its distribution centers. So Target chose a system that was labelled best in class to work with. It was fancy and cutting edge but only a few people at Target really understood it. To set it up, employees entered data for all 75,000 products. There were many fields to populate and because it had to be entered quickly, errors occurred e.g. typos, missing fields, product dimensions. The inventory system therefore did not work properly but what happened was products didn’t flow to stores, demand was overestimated and warehouses were overflowing with demand. Target then rented other stores to store these goods but lost track of what they were. Attempts were made to try and fix it but because there were stores in every province, the errors were just too much and so the business ultimately had to close down”. (Source: Joe Castaldo, The Last Days of Target, 2016)
If you’d ever work in supply chain then these are the stuff for nightmares but its easy to be smart in hindsight even though Target’s plans were ambitious.
In Meltdown (2019), Gary Klein calls reverse thinking as a premortem which diagnoses potential problems before. All it entails is using hindsight that occurs from events that could go wrong. It’s a trick to make hindsight work for us and not against us. As Gary says, ‘The logic is that instead of showing people you can come up with a good plan, you think of all the insightful reasons why this project might go south’. So we say, instead of planning Target’s expansion, let’s imagine that this has failed, what’s going to happen then? It will surely help with risk management, looking at concrete obstacles, so we know what we can do to address and seal loopholes in a strategic plan. Aside from encouraging reverse thinking in teams, finance professionals could also model and simulate. And you can read up on that in Anders Liu-Lindberg’s article here What-if A New Black Swan Event Happens Next Year.
Leveraging and using the growth mindset is therefore pertinent and spread across these very 4 dimensions to promote learning and create successful teams.
Feel free to share your thoughts on the article! | https://medium.com/@aliyyah-abdullah/rethink-the-growth-mindset-part-ii-8a1caca7cc1 | ['Aliyyah Abdullah'] | 2020-12-25 01:06:11.889000+00:00 | ['Growth Mindset', 'Thinking', '2021', 'Growth', 'Mindfulness'] |
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