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Microsofoft 365 Phishing Attack, well-crafted one | In this post i want to share one of the most very well-crafted phishing attack i have seen and certainly one of the most common nowadays that happen on Microsoft 365 platform and it aims to steal the user’s credentials.
First the user receive an email with the subject “Important Service Changes” and a fake display name of Microsoft, the email contain a PDF document with the email address of the victim and the purpose of the email which is applying some Microsoft update to the user account.
The PDF contain the Logo of the victim company and a link to a website.
The link point to the website bellow, it looks and feel like you are on the Microsoft website:
It has an SSL certificate but from Let’s Encrypt, valid and the browsers will not shows any error.
The URL start with “login.microsoftonlineservices….”, sure it is on another domain but it will confuse many users.
It asks you to accept the updated privacy terms which is very common with all the privacy laws around the globe.
The Privacy window has the company logo, Microsoft logo and some very legitimate text.
Once you accept the terms, the next window is to enter your credentials, in the back-end there is a script that will go and try to login to office.com with the user’s credentials and return the wrong password if you put anything there.
The script is using https://logo.clearbit.com/<domain.com> to grab the company logo and insert it into the web app so the user will feel secure and as if it is coming from his company and the webapp will work for any target, as the attacker can change only the domain name. | https://medium.com/@adil-bra/microsofoft-365-phishing-attack-well-crafted-one-f75c9f6eab0 | [] | 2020-12-11 20:06:37.191000+00:00 | ['Microsoft 365', 'Phish', 'Phishing', 'Email', 'Cybersecurity'] |
Why Blockchain is so intriguing | Hi there,
I have always been fascinated by new technological innovations. Especially because I have always been on the hunt for technologies that have immense potential for both businesses and end-users.
The Blockchain Technology is one of those innovations. Since the word “Blockchain” started popping up everywhere around me, I started digging deep into the topic, because I wanted to know every aspect of it.
The Blockchain technology is especially fascinating because it has evolved immensely since its Whitepaper has been published in 2008. Back in 2008, one of the main problems the blockchain addressed, was removing the need for a trusted authority or central server when transferring digital currency. In fact, Bitcoin, the crypto asset most of us have heard by now, became the first digital currency to solve the double spending problem. This problem has always been a flaw in digital cash in which the same token can be used twice — without using a centralized system.
As I mentioned before, Blockchain has evolved rapidly since the publication of its Whitepaper. Blockchain has become something far greater than initially anticipated. It was originally intended for the use of bitcoin and especially to solve the double spending problem. However, today its uses are nearly limitless. In short, the blockchain is a decentralized, incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions, that can be programmed to record anything we find valuable. The ingeniousness of the blockchain is the security and its decentralized nature.
There is an infinite number of uses for blockchain technology, and ICOs are taking advantage of this, by offering a variety of services on the blockchain. It is looking something akin to the beginning of the 2000, where companies were jumping on to utilizing the benefits of the web.
Now we are again in an exciting stage of change. We are in the early adoption period of companies looking to be first to market by utilizing blockchain technology to offer a unique business service.
Most certainly, not all of these services will turn out to be profitable and not all companies will be successful, but it’s easy to see the business value for data to be completely secure, and utilising a decentralized network.
In the following weeks, I want to share my passion about the crypto industry with you. Stay tuned to learn about different areas of the industry, including how to spot a good Blockchain Venture Company, understanding the substantial use of Blockchain, as well as why Blockchain is so important for large companies.
Did you like this post? Tap the clap icon :)
Become a member of the Intrachain community
I will keep you posted on exciting angles of the Blockchain Industry. In the meantime, feel free to contact me on Telegram to chat with me and my Co-Founders. | https://medium.com/intrachain-insights/why-blockchain-is-so-intriguing-ff45e4d7370d | ['Arne Reimann'] | 2018-09-12 11:34:23.380000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'CEO', 'ICO', 'Bitcoin', 'Token Sale'] |
How Many Cryptocurrencies Do We Really Need? | At this point, most people have probably heard of Bitcoin. And maybe Ethereum or Litecoin.
These are by far the most widespread cryptocurrencies, but what many people miss is the fact there are actually over 1300 on the market today according to CoinMarketCap. Now, consider the fact that there are only 180 fiat currencies (government currencies) in the entire world. The crypto universe suddenly starts to become way more intriguing… and confusing.
Right now, very few of these cryptocurrencies have widespread adoption. In fact, less than 15 cryptocurrencies have a market cap that is even 1% of Bitcoin’s market cap. But as blockchain technology becomes more popular and useful in our daily lives, many of these 1300 cryptos, along with plenty of others which have yet to be created, will become absolutely critical in determining the future of finance as well as plenty of other industries.
The Importance of Altcoins
Various Altcoin Logos (source)
An altcoin can be defined as any cryptocurrency that is an alternative to Bitcoin. While some altcoins are essentially just clones of Bitcoin, many others differentiate themselves through their technology and/or purpose.
For example, Litecoin uses a more efficient hashing algorithm (called Scrypt) that allows blocks to be mined in one fourth the time that it takes to mine Bitcoin blocks. By utilizing modern technology, Litecoin has created a faster and more energy-efficient alternative to Bitcoin.
PowerLedger is another interesting altcoin to look at. Supported by the Australian government, PowerLedger has created a peer-to-peer marketplace for renting energy, similar to how AirBnB created a marketplace for home rentals.
And the list goes on and on, from Steem (a reddit-like community that pays users for upvotes) to SALT (cryptocurrency-backed cash loans) to Siacoin (decentralized cloud storage marketplace).
Hundreds of these altcoins have made use of blockchain technology for projects that may ultimately disrupt just about every field we know today. Bitcoin started with finance, but other cryptos are reaching into all sectors including healthcare, supply chains, and even governance. Each coin or token is specially created to serve its purpose, which means you couldn’t just replace something like PowerLedger with Bitcoin, and vice-versa.
The Problem: Too Many Cryptocurrencies
While we may very well need all of these cryptocurrencies in the future, it’s not really reasonable to expect people to own, or even keep track of, more than one or two different cryptos at a time.
As ICOs boom and the market continues expanding, we can expect to see the total number of cryptos reach 2000+ in the next year or two. Compare that to the 180 fiat currencies that exist today, and you can really see how bloated the crypto market is becoming. At this moment, Bitcoin alone has a market cap of over $187 billion and makes up over half of the entire market cap for all cryptocurrencies. This uneven market cap distribution makes it all the more difficult to focus on smaller-cap altcoins whose purposes may still be extremely useful and important.
It makes sense — people don’t want to worry about holding potentially volatile cryptocurrencies they’ve probably never even heard of. So in a future world where we use Dash (instant, cheap transactions) to pay for our food, FunFair (online casino) to legally indulge our gambling needs, and Bitcoin to pay tuition for our childrens’ education, we will need a new solution for storing and keeping track of our various cryptocurrencies.
The Solution: Atomic Swaps
Two Blockchains Intersecting (source)
Imagine you can hold only Bitcoin, but still have access to all the perks and functionalities of every altcoin. That is what atomic swaps intend to make possible by allowing you to hold just one cryptocurrency and instantly exchange it for another whenever you need access to the other coin or token for its specific purpose.
Atomic swaps work by allowing swaps between two different blockchains, enabling you to instantly exchange one crypto for another (eg. swap Bitcoin for Ethereum) with just one blockchain transaction. This works by using hash time-locked contracts (HTLCs), which means that when two people make a transaction both parties must be able to prove they have paid their promised amount by a certain deadline, or any transferred currency will be returned to the original owner.
In an ideal future, a person would hold only one crypto, such as Bitcoin, and would then be able to seamlessly transfer that coin to another such as PowerLedger at the specific time they wanted to buy some energy to power their home. From the outside, it would appear that this transaction took place using only Bitcoin. But technically the user actually transferred their Bitcoin for a precise amount of PowerLedger, and then immediately traded all of that PowerLedger in return for electricity.
In this sense, we could use atomic swaps in a similar way that we use debit cards to pay for things in a different country without the need to withdraw cash in a foreign currency. The transaction is instant and effortless from our end, with the bank (or blockchain network in our case) taking care of everything behind the scenes.
Right now, the Lightning Network, a proposed solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem, serves as the most popular atomic swap solution on the web. As altcoins become more and more relevant, we expect to see the Bitcoin community move towards putting the Lightning Network into action.
The Future of Cryptocurrencies is Wide Open
As with any emerging technology, the most exciting part of blockchain and cryptocurrencies is to see how they will actually be used to impact our lives. One day, every financial transaction you make, and everything you do over the internet might run through blockchains powered by cryptocurrencies. Many of these altcoins are still ahead of their time, but as the communities and the technologies mature, they will begin to disrupt fields like we have never seen before.
Even beyond blockchain, other cryptocurrencies have big plans for the future. IOTA, which uses a blockchain-like variation called “the tangle”, is working with Microsoft and other big-name companies to connect the Internet of Things. Using this network, your car would be able to interact with a smart solar grid along with sensors and devices all around the city that you live in. There are endless possibilities for the impact that this technology will have, and as we watch the battle progress between all these different cryptocurrencies we are also watching our future unfold right in front of our very eyes. | https://medium.com/wolverineblockchain/how-many-cryptocurrencies-do-we-really-need-eac23d8737a9 | ['Andy Walner'] | 2017-12-04 16:45:17.056000+00:00 | ['Atomic Swaps', 'Power Ledger', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Altcoins'] |
Talking About Errors in the QuantConnect Lean Code | This article discusses errors found using a static analyzer in an open source project. There are some simple things that can help you avoid them. For example, the usage of language syntactic constructs starting from C# 8.0. We hope it will be exciting. Have fun reading!
QuantConnect Lean is an open source algorithmic trading engine designed for easy strategy research, backtesting, and live trading. Compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS. Integrates with prevalent data providers and brokerage companies to quickly deploy algorithmic trading strategies.
The check was implemented by using the PVS-Studio static analyzer. PVS-Studio is a tool designed to detect errors and potential vulnerabilities in the source code of programs, written in C, C++, C#, and Java.
Accidents are not accidental.
public virtual DateTime NextDate(....)
{
....
// both are valid dates, so chose one randomly
if ( IsWithinRange(nextDayOfWeek, minDateTime, maxDateTime)
&& IsWithinRange(previousDayOfWeek, minDateTime, maxDateTime))
{
return _random.Next(0, 1) == 0 // <=
? previousDayOfWeek
: nextDayOfWeek;
}
....
}
V3022 Expression ‘_random.Next(0, 1) == 0’ is always true. RandomValueGenerator.cs 142
The bottom line was that either one or the other value was selected with a 50% probability. However, in this case, the Next method will always return 0.
This happens because the second argument is not included in the range of values. That is, the value that the method can return will be in the range [0,1). Let’s fix that:
public virtual DateTime NextDate(....)
{
....
// both are valid dates, so chose one randomly
if ( IsWithinRange(nextDayOfWeek, minDateTime, maxDateTime)
&& IsWithinRange(previousDayOfWeek, minDateTime, maxDateTime))
{
return _random.Next(0, 2) == 0
? previousDayOfWeek
: nextDayOfWeek;
}
....
}
Passing reference-type parameters
Example
/// <summary>
/// Copy contents of the portfolio collection to a new destination.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// IDictionary implementation calling the underlying Securities collection
/// </remarks>
/// <param name="array">Destination array</param>
/// <param name="index">Position in array to start copying</param>
public void CopyTo(KeyValuePair<Symbol, SecurityHolding>[] array, int index)
{
array = new KeyValuePair<Symbol, SecurityHolding>[Securities.Count];
var i = 0;
foreach (var asset in Securities)
{
if (i >= index)
{
array[i] = new KeyValuePair<Symbol,SecurityHolding>(asset.Key,
asset.Value.Holdings);
}
i++;
}
}
V3061 Parameter ‘array’ is always rewritten in method body before being used. SecurityPortfolioManager.cs 192
The method accepts the collection and immediately overwrites its value. Accept that this looks rather suspiciously. So, let’s try to understand what this method must do.
According to the comment and the method’s name, it becomes clear that another array must be copied to the array passed. However, this will not happen, and the value of the array outside the current method will remain unchanged.
It happens because the array argument will be passed to the method by value, not by reference. Thus, when the assign operation is done, the array variable accessible inside the method will store a reference to the new object. The argument value passed to the method will remain unchanged. To fix this, the reference type argument must be passed by reference:
public void CopyTo(KeyValuePair<Symbol, SecurityHolding>[] out array, // <=
int index)
{
array = new KeyValuePair<Symbol, SecurityHolding>[Securities.Count];
....
}
Since we are certainly creating a new array in the method, the out modifier must be used instead of ref. This immediately indicates that the variable inside will be assigned a value.
By the way, this case enlarges the collection of my colleague, Andrey Karpov, you can learn about it from the article “Getting started collecting errors in copy functions”.
Unbinding the resources
public static string ToSHA256(this string data)
{
var crypt = new SHA256Managed();
var hash = new StringBuilder();
var crypto = crypt.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data),
0,
Encoding.UTF8.GetByteCount(data));
foreach (var theByte in crypto)
{
hash.Append(theByte.ToStringInvariant("x2"));
}
return hash.ToString();
}
V3114 IDisposable object ‘crypt’ is not disposed before method returns. Extensions.cs 510
To understand the meaning of this diagnostic, let’s first recall a little bit of theory. If you don’t mind, I will take information from the documentation for this diagnostic:
“The garbage collector automatically unbinds the memory associated with a controlled object if it is no longer in use and there are no visible references to it. However, we can’t say for sure when exactly the garbage collection will occur (unless you call it manually). In addition, the garbage collector does not have information about unmanaged resources such as handles, windows, or open files and threads. The Dispose method is usually used to unbind such unmanaged resources”.
In other words, we have created a crypt variable of the SHA256Managed type, which implements the IDisposable interface. As a result, when we exit the method, the potentially captured resources will not be released.
To prevent this, I recommend choosing using. The Dispose method is activated automatically upon reaching the closing curly bracket associated with the using instruction. Let’s take a look at this:
public static string ToSHA256(this string data)
{
using (var crypt = new SHA256Managed())
{
var hash = new StringBuilder();
....
}
}
But if you don’t like curly brackets, then in C# 8.0 you can write like this:
public static string ToSHA256(this string data)
{
using var crypt = new SHA256Managed();
var hash = new StringBuilder();
....
}
The difference with the previous version is that the Dispose method is activated when the closing curly bracket of the method is reached. This is the end of the piece where crypt is declared.
Real numbers
public bool ShouldPlot
{
get
{
....
if (Time.TimeOfDay.Hours < 10.25) return true;
....
}
} public struct TimeSpan : IComparable,
IComparable<TimeSpan>,
IEquatable<TimeSpan>,
IFormattable
{
....
public double TotalHours { get; }
public int Hours { get; }
....
}
V3040 The ‘10.25’ literal of the ‘double’ type is compared to a value of the ‘int’ type. OpeningBreakoutAlgorithm.cs 426
It looks strange that in the condition the value of an int variable is compared with a double-type literal. This looks odd and another variable is clearly supposed to be here. And, indeed, if you check out which similarly named fields TimeOfDay has, we will find:
public double TotalHours { get; }
The code probably should look like this:
public bool ShouldPlot
{
get
{
....
if (Time.TimeOfDay.TotalHours < 10.25) return true;
....
}
}
Also keep in mind that you mustn’t check floating-point numbers for direct equality (“==”, “!=”). And don’t forget about typecasting.
Switch statement
Tip 1
public IEnumerable<TradingDay> GetDaysByType(TradingDayType type,
DateTime start,
DateTime end)
{
Func<TradingDay, bool> typeFilter = day =>
{
switch (type) // <=
{
case TradingDayType.BusinessDay:
return day.BusinessDay;
case TradingDayType.PublicHoliday:
return day.PublicHoliday;
case TradingDayType.Weekend:
return day.Weekend;
case TradingDayType.OptionExpiration:
return day.OptionExpirations.Any();
case TradingDayType.FutureExpiration:
return day.FutureExpirations.Any();
case TradingDayType.FutureRoll:
return day.FutureRolls.Any();
case TradingDayType.SymbolDelisting:
return day.SymbolDelistings.Any();
case TradingDayType.EquityDividends:
return day.EquityDividends.Any();
};
return false;
};
return GetTradingDays(start, end).Where(typeFilter);
}
V3002 The switch statement does not cover all values of the ‘TradingDayType’ enum: EconomicEvent. TradingCalendar.cs 79
The type of the variable type is TradingDayType, and it is enum:
public enum TradingDayType
{
BusinessDay,
PublicHoliday,
Weekend,
OptionExpiration,
FutureExpiration,
FutureRoll,
SymbolDelisting,
EquityDividends,
EconomicEvent
}
If you count, you will see that there are 9 elements in the enumeration, but only 8 are checked in switch. Such situation could happen due to code extension. To prevent this, I always recommend explicitly using default:
public IEnumerable<TradingDay> GetDaysByType(TradingDayType type,
DateTime start,
DateTime end)
{
Func<TradingDay, bool> typeFilter = day =>
{
switch (type)
{
....
default:
return false;
};
};
return GetTradingDays(start, end).Where(typeFilter);
}
As you may have noticed, the return statement that stood after the switch moved to the default section. In this case, the program’s logic has not changed, but I still recommend writing it this way.
Code extensibility is the reason for it. In the case of the original, it’s possible to safely add some logic before return false, without suspecting that this is the default of the switch statement. Now everything is evident and clear.
However, if you think that only part of the enumeration elements should always be processed in your case, you can throw an exception:
default:
throw new CustomExeption("Invalid enumeration element");
Personally, I got hooked on this syntactic sugar C# 8.0:
Func<TradingDay, bool> typeFilter = day =>
{
return type switch
{
TradingDayType.BusinessDay => day.BusinessDay,
TradingDayType.PublicHoliday => day.PublicHoliday,
TradingDayType.Weekend => day.Weekend,
TradingDayType.OptionExpiration => day.OptionExpirations.Any(),
TradingDayType.FutureExpiration => day.FutureExpirations.Any(),
TradingDayType.FutureRoll => day.FutureRolls.Any(),
TradingDayType.SymbolDelisting => day.SymbolDelistings.Any(),
TradingDayType.EquityDividends => day.EquityDividends.Any(),
_ => false
};
};
Tip 2
public string[] GetPropertiesBy(SecuritySeedData type)
{
switch (type)
{
case SecuritySeedData.None:
return new string[0]; case SecuritySeedData.OpenInterest:
return new[] { "OpenInterest" }; // <= case SecuritySeedData.OpenInterestTick:
return new[] { "OpenInterest" }; // <= case SecuritySeedData.TradeTick:
return new[] {"Price", "Volume"}; .... case SecuritySeedData.Fundamentals:
return new string[0]; default:
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(type), type, null);
}
}
V3139 Two or more case-branches perform the same actions. SecurityCacheTests.cs 510
In two different cases, the same value is returned. It looks very suspicious in such a form. It feels like someone copied, pasted and forgot to change the code. Therefore, here’s my advice: if the same logic must be performed for different values, then combine the case that way:
public string[] GetPropertiesBy(SecuritySeedData type)
{
switch (type)
{
case SecuritySeedData.None:
return new string[0]; case SecuritySeedData.OpenInterest:
case SecuritySeedData.OpenInterestTick:
return new[] { "OpenInterest" }; ....
}
}
This clearly indicates what we want and removes an extra line as well. :)
If statement
Example 1
[TestCaseSource(nameof(DataTypeTestCases))]
public void HandlesAllTypes<T>(....) where T : BaseData, new()
{
....
if ( symbol.SecurityType != SecurityType.Equity
|| resolution != Resolution.Daily
|| resolution != Resolution.Hour)
{
actualPricePointsEnqueued++;
dataPoints.Add(dataPoint);
}
....
}
V3022 Expression ‘symbol.SecurityType != SecurityType.Equity || resolution != Resolution.Daily || resolution != Resolution.Hour’ is always true. LiveTradingDataFeedTests.cs 1431
The condition is always true. After all, in order to have the condition failed, the variable resolution must have the Resolution.Daily value and Resolution.Hour at a time. A possible fixed variant:
[TestCaseSource(nameof(DataTypeTestCases))]
public void HandlesAllTypes<T>(....) where T : BaseData, new()
{
....
if ( symbol.SecurityType != SecurityType.Equity
|| ( resolution != Resolution.Daily
&& resolution != Resolution.Hour))
{
actualPricePointsEnqueued++;
dataPoints.Add(dataPoint);
}
....
}
Some tips for the if statement. When there is a condition that consists entirely of “||” operators, then after writing, verify whether the same variable is checked for inequality to something else several times in a row.
The situation is similar in the condition with the “&&” operator. If a variable is checked for equality to something repeatedly, it is most likely to be a logical error.
Also, if you write a compound condition, and it contains “&&”and “||”, do not hesitate to put parentheses. This can help you either to see an error or to avoid it.
Example 2
public static string SafeSubstring(this string value,
int startIndex,
int length)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
{
return value;
} if (startIndex > value.Length - 1)
{
return string.Empty;
} if (startIndex < -1)
{
startIndex = 0;
} return value.Substring(startIndex,
Math.Min(length, value.Length - startIndex));
}
V3057 The ‘Substring’ function could receive the ‘-1’ value while non-negative value is expected. Inspect the first argument. StringExtensions.cs 311
According to the analyzer the value -1 can be passed as the first argument of the Substring method. This will cause an exception of the type System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException. Let’s see why this value can be obtained. In this example, we take no interest in the first two conditions, so they will be omitted in the reasoning.
The startIndex parameter has the int type, so its values are in the [-2147483648, 2147483647] range. Therefore, to prevent bounds violation, the developer wrote the following condition:
if (startIndex < -1)
{
startIndex = 0;
}
That is, it was assumed that if a negative value was received, we would simply change it to 0. But instead of “<=” they wrote “<”, and now the range’s lower limit of the startIndex variable (from the analyzer’s point of view) is -1.
In these situations, I suggest using a construction like this:
if (variable < value)
{
variable = value;
}
This combination is much easier to read, since it involves one less value. So, I suggest you fix the problem like this:
public static string SafeSubstring(....)
{
....
if (startIndex < 0)
{
startIndex = 0;
} return value.Substring(startIndex,
Math.Min(length, value.Length - startIndex));
}
You can say that we could have just changed the sign in the condition in the initial example:
if (startIndex <= -1)
{
startIndex = 0;
}
The error also disappears. However, the logic will look like this:
if (variable <= value - 1)
{
variable = value;
}
Agree that it looks overloaded.
Example 3
public override void OnEndOfAlgorithm()
{
var buyingPowerModel = Securities[_contractSymbol].BuyingPowerModel;
var futureMarginModel = buyingPowerModel as FutureMarginModel;
if (buyingPowerModel == null)
{
throw new Exception($"Invalid buying power model. " +
$"Found: {buyingPowerModel.GetType().Name}. " +
$"Expected: {nameof(FutureMarginModel)}");
}
....
}
V3080 Possible null dereference. Consider inspecting ‘buyingPowerModel’. BasicTemplateFuturesAlgorithm.cs 107
V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using ‘as’ keyword. Check variables ‘buyingPowerModel’, ‘futureMarginModel’. BasicTemplateFuturesAlgorithm.cs 105
A very interesting fragment. The analyzer issues two warnings at once. And in fact, they contain the problem and its cause. Firstly, let’s see what happens if the condition is met. Since buyingPowerModel will be strictly null inside, dereferencing will occur:
$"Found: {buyingPowerModel.GetType().Name}. "
The reason is that the condition has a wrong variable compared to null. It’s obvious that futureMarginModel should be written instead of buyingPowerModel. A fixed version:
public override void OnEndOfAlgorithm()
{
var buyingPowerModel = Securities[_contractSymbol].BuyingPowerModel;
var futureMarginModel = buyingPowerModel as FutureMarginModel;
if (futureMarginModel == null)
{
throw new Exception($"Invalid buying power model. " +
$"Found: {buyingPowerModel.GetType().Name}. " +
$"Expected: {nameof(FutureMarginModel)}");
}
....
}
However, there is still a problem with dereferencing buyingPowerModel inside the condition. After all, futureMarginModel will be null not only when it is not FutureMarginModel, but also when buyingPowerModel is null. So I suggest this version:
public override void OnEndOfAlgorithm()
{
var buyingPowerModel = Securities[_contractSymbol].BuyingPowerModel;
var futureMarginModel = buyingPowerModel as FutureMarginModel;
if (futureMarginModel == null)
{
string foundType = buyingPowerModel?.GetType().Name
?? "the type was not found because the variable is null";
throw new Exception($"Invalid buying power model. " +
$"Found: {foundType}. " +
$"Expected: {nameof(FutureMarginModel)}");
}
....
}
Personally, I have recently got to like writing such constructions using is. So the code becomes shorter and it is more difficult to make a mistake. This example is completely similar to the example above:
public override void OnEndOfAlgorithm()
{
var buyingPowerModel = Securities[_contractSymbol].BuyingPowerModel;
if (!(buyingPowerModel is FutureMarginModel futureMarginModel))
{
....
}
....
}
Moreover, in C# 9.0 we will be able to write the keyword not:
public override void OnEndOfAlgorithm()
{
var buyingPowerModel = Securities[_contractSymbol].BuyingPowerModel;
if (buyingPowerModel is not FutureMarginModel futureMarginModel)
{
....
}
....
}
Example 4
public static readonly Dictionary<....>
FuturesExpiryDictionary = new Dictionary<....>()
{
....
if (twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth.Month == 2)
{
lastBusinessDay = FuturesExpiryUtilityFunctions
.NthLastBusinessDay(twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth, 1);
}
else
{
lastBusinessDay = FuturesExpiryUtilityFunctions
.NthLastBusinessDay(twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth, 1);
}
....
}
V3004 The ‘then’ statement is equivalent to the ‘else’ statement. FuturesExpiryFunctions.cs 1561
The same logic runs under different conditions. Since one of the arguments is a numeric literal, it is likely that another value may be passed. For example:
public static readonly Dictionary<....>
FuturesExpiryDictionary = new Dictionary<....>()
{
....
if (twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth.Month == 2)
{
lastBusinessDay = FuturesExpiryUtilityFunctions
.NthLastBusinessDay(twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth, 2);
}
else
{
lastBusinessDay = FuturesExpiryUtilityFunctions
.NthLastBusinessDay(twoMonthsPriorToContractMonth, 1);
}
....
}
But this is nothing more than an assumption. Here I would like to draw attention to the fact that the error occurs in the container’s initialization. The size of this initialization is almost 2000 lines:
Also, the code fragments inside are similar in appearance, which is logical, because here the collection is simply filled in. Therefore, be very careful when copying something in large and similar sections. Make changes at once, because then your eyes will get tired and you won’t see the problem.
Example 5
public AuthenticationToken GetAuthenticationToken(IRestRequest request)
{
....
if (request.Method == Method.GET && request.Parameters.Count > 0)
{
var parameters = request.Parameters.Count > 0
? string.Join(....)
: string.Empty;
url = $"{request.Resource}?{parameters}";
}
}
V3022 Expression ‘request.Parameters.Count > 0’ is always true. GDAXBrokerage.Utility.cs 63
The condition in the ternary operator is always true, because this check was already performed above. Now this is either a redundant check, or the “&&” and “||” operators are mixed up in the condition above.
To avoid this, when you are in a condition, always keep in mind at what values you will enter it.
A possible fixed variant:
public AuthenticationToken GetAuthenticationToken(IRestRequest request)
{
....
if (request.Method == Method.GET && request.Parameters.Count > 0)
{
var parameters = string.Join(....);
url = $"{request.Resource}?{parameters}";
}
}
Example 6
public bool Setup(SetupHandlerParameters parameters)
{
....
if (job.UserPlan == UserPlan.Free)
{
MaxOrders = 10000;
}
else
{
MaxOrders = int.MaxValue;
MaximumRuntime += MaximumRuntime;
} MaxOrders = job.Controls.BacktestingMaxOrders; // <=
....
}
V3008 The ‘MaxOrders’ variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake. Check lines: 244, 240. BacktestingSetupHandler.cs 244
Here, the MaxOrders variable is assigned a value twice in a row. In other words, logic with conditions is unnecessary.
To fix this, we have 2 options. We either remove the assignments in the then-else branches, or the assignment after the condition. Most likely, the code is covered by tests, and the program works correctly. Therefore, we will leave only the last assignment. A possible fixed variant:
public bool Setup(SetupHandlerParameters parameters)
{
....
if (job.UserPlan != UserPlan.Free)
{
MaximumRuntime += MaximumRuntime;
} MaxOrders = job.Controls.BacktestingMaxOrders;
....
}
Typical human failings
This section will cover copy-paste errors, accidentally pressed keys, and so on. Basically, the most common problems of human imperfection. We are not robots, so these situations are typical.
General recommendations on them:
When copying something, make changes to the copy as soon as you paste it;
review the code;
use special tools that will look for errors for you.
Case 1
public class FisherTransform : BarIndicator, IIndicatorWarmUpPeriodProvider
{
private readonly Minimum _medianMin;
private readonly Maximum _medianMax;
public override bool IsReady => _medianMax.IsReady && _medianMax.IsReady;
}
V3001 There are identical sub-expressions ‘_medianMax.IsReady’ to the left and to the right of the ‘&&’ operator. FisherTransform.cs 72
In this example, the IsReady field must depend on two conditions, but in fact it depends on one. It’s all the fault of a typo. Most likely, instead of _medianMin, _medianMax was written. A fixed version:
public class FisherTransform : BarIndicator, IIndicatorWarmUpPeriodProvider
{
private readonly Minimum _medianMin;
private readonly Maximum _medianMax;
public override bool IsReady => _medianMin.IsReady && _medianMax.IsReady;
}
Case 2
public BacktestResultPacket(....) : base(PacketType.BacktestResult)
{
try
{
Progress = Math.Round(progress, 3);
SessionId = job.SessionId; // <=
PeriodFinish = endDate;
PeriodStart = startDate;
CompileId = job.CompileId;
Channel = job.Channel;
BacktestId = job.BacktestId;
Results = results;
Name = job.Name;
UserId = job.UserId;
ProjectId = job.ProjectId;
SessionId = job.SessionId; // <=
TradeableDates = job.TradeableDates;
}
catch (Exception err)
{
Log.Error(err);
}
}
V3008 The ‘SessionId’ variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake. Check lines: 182, 172. BacktestResultPacket.cs 182
The class has many fields that must be initialized — many lines in the constructor. Everything is merged, and one field is initialized several times. In this case, there may be an extra initialization, or they forgot to initialize some other field.
If you are interested, you can also check out other errors found by this diagnostic rule.
Case 3
private const string jsonWithScore =
"{" +
"\"id\":\"e02be50f56a8496b9ba995d19a904ada\"," +
"\"group-id\":\"a02be50f56a8496b9ba995d19a904ada\"," +
"\"source-model\":\"mySourceModel-1\"," +
"\"generated-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"created-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"close-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"symbol\":\"BTCUSD XJ\"," +
"\"ticker\":\"BTCUSD\"," +
"\"type\":\"price\"," +
"\"reference\":9143.53," +
"\"reference-final\":9243.53," +
"\"direction\":\"up\"," +
"\"period\":5.0," +
"\"magnitude\":0.025," +
"\"confidence\":null," +
"\"weight\":null," +
"\"score-final\":true," +
"\"score-magnitude\":1.0," +
"\"score-direction\":1.0," +
"\"estimated-value\":1113.2484}"; private const string jsonWithExpectedOutputFromMissingCreatedTimeValue =
"{" +
"\"id\":\"e02be50f56a8496b9ba995d19a904ada\"," +
"\"group-id\":\"a02be50f56a8496b9ba995d19a904ada\"," +
"\"source-model\":\"mySourceModel-1\"," +
"\"generated-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"created-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"close-time\":1520711961.00055," +
"\"symbol\":\"BTCUSD XJ\"," +
"\"ticker\":\"BTCUSD\"," +
"\"type\":\"price\"," +
"\"reference\":9143.53," +
"\"reference-final\":9243.53," +
"\"direction\":\"up\"," +
"\"period\":5.0," +
"\"magnitude\":0.025," +
"\"confidence\":null," +
"\"weight\":null," +
"\"score-final\":true," +
"\"score-magnitude\":1.0," +
"\"score-direction\":1.0," +
"\"estimated-value\":1113.2484}";
V3091 Empirical analysis. It is possible that a typo is present inside the string literal. The ‘score’ word is suspicious. InsightJsonConverterTests.cs 209
Sorry for the large and scary code. Here different fields have the same values. This is a classic error from the copy-paste family. Copied, fell into the muse, forgot to make changes — here’s the error.
Case 4
private void ScanForEntrance()
{
var shares = (int)(allowedDollarLoss/expectedCaptureRange);
....
if (ShouldEnterLong)
{
MarketTicket = MarketOrder(symbol, shares);
....
}
else if (ShouldEnterShort)
{
MarketTicket = MarketOrder(symbol, - -shares); // <=
....
StopLossTicket = StopMarketOrder(symbol, -shares, stopPrice);
....
}
....
}
V3075 The ‘-’ operation is executed 2 or more times in succession. Consider inspecting the ‘- -shares’ expression. OpeningBreakoutAlgorithm.cs 328
The unary operator “-” was used twice in a row. Thus, the value passed to the MarketOrder method remains unchanged. It’s a tricky question how many unary minuses should be left here. Perhaps the prefix decrement operator “ — “ was meant to be here, but the space bar was accidentally pressed. There are so many variants, so one of the possible corrected options is:
private void ScanForEntrance()
{
....
if (ShouldEnterLong)
{
MarketTicket = MarketOrder(symbol, shares);
....
}
else if (ShouldEnterShort)
{
MarketTicket = MarketOrder(symbol, -shares);
....
StopLossTicket = StopMarketOrder(symbol, -shares, stopPrice);
....
}
....
}
Case 5
private readonly SubscriptionDataConfig _config;
private readonly DateTime _date;
private readonly bool _isLiveMode;
private readonly BaseData _factory; public ZipEntryNameSubscriptionDataSourceReader(
SubscriptionDataConfig config,
DateTime date,
bool isLiveMode)
{
_config = config;
_date = date;
_isLiveMode = isLiveMode;
_factory = _factory = config.GetBaseDataInstance(); // <=
}
V3005 The ‘_factory’ variable is assigned to itself. ZipEntryNameSubscriptionDataSourceReader.cs 50
The _factory field is assigned the same value twice. There are only four fields in the class, so it’s probably just a misprint. A fixed version:
public ZipEntryNameSubscriptionDataSourceReader(....)
{
_config = config;
_date = date;
_isLiveMode = isLiveMode;
_factory = config.GetBaseDataInstance();
}
Conclusion
There are many places where you can make a mistake. We notice and fix some of them immediately. Some of them are fixed in a code review, but I recommend assigning some of them to special tools.
Also, if you like such a format, please write about it. I’ll do more like this. Thank you! | https://medium.com/pvs-studio/talking-about-errors-in-the-quantconnect-lean-code-ec2b5a86ce1d | ['Unicorn Developer'] | 2020-12-17 11:41:35.643000+00:00 | ['Static Code Analysis', 'Open Source', 'Csharp', 'Csharp8', 'Programming'] |
The New Covid-19 Strain in Britain, Explained | The New Covid-19 Strain in Britain, Explained
A mutated strain of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in the South-East of the UK is worrying scientists and politicians alike. Here’s why. faceexrtec Dec 26, 2020·5 min read
Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay
December 14th, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock was on his feet in the House of Commons, delivering some sobering news about the ongoing pandemic: the virus had mutated, and the mutated strain was thought to be spreading faster, driving the rise in cases in London and the South-East. London and many parts of the South-East were to be upgraded to Tier 3 restrictions, with all restaurants, pubs, and bars all closed.
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g01.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g02.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g03.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g04.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g05.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g06.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g07.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g08.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g09.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g10.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g11.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g12.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g13.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g14.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g15.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g16.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g17.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g20.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g21.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g22.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g18.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g19.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g23.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu01.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu02.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu03.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu04.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu05.pdf
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/roce-harry-cobden-faces-king-g23.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu01.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu02.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu03.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu04.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/luna-sea-concaret-omu05.pdf
He explained that he was first briefed on the new strain on Friday, December 11th, and was given more information over the weekend between then and his announcement in the House of Commons.
But then, late on the following Friday, December 18th, NERVTAG, the expert committee responsible for identifying and analysing new and emerging respiratory virus threats, delivered their findings to the government, and the report was bleak: the virus was between 65% and 75% more transmissible than the other Sars-CoV-2 variants, and had become the dominant strain in the capital by the end of the November month-long lockdown.
The government acted swiftly, for once at least, agreeing on Saturday morning and announcing in the evening that London and all parts of the South East previously upgraded to Tier 3 would now be upgraded to a new Tier 4 of restrictions, which is very similar to the November lockdown restrictions. They also announced that in these areas, the “Christmas bubbles” plan would be abandoned entirely, with no households allowed to mix indoor at any time, and that the bubbles in the rest of the country would be limited to 3 households for just the 25th itself, not for the 5 day period initially planned and announced on December 2nd, when the lockdown ended.
Much about this mutated strain, which has been memorably named VUI-202012/01, is not yet known. There is no known effect on the efficacy of the various vaccines, nor on the severity of the illnesses which those infected suffer on average, though it is thought that the variant causes an increased viral load, thereby making the infected more infectious. The settled view of epidemiologists and virologists is that higher viral loads worsen the illness, but that has to be confirmed with this new variant before we can be sure of that.
NERVTAG will reconvene again, following further analysis of the possible complications regarding severity, vaccine efficacy, transmissibility, and testing efficacy (both lateral flow and PCR), to advise the government in more detail about the situation and the possible responses to it.
The response will almost certainly involve drastic measures not seen since the severe and lengthy first lockdown from M
variant to below 1, meaning its levels declined in the population, while the new variant’s R rate stayed above 1, leading to a curious pattern, unexplained at the time, of increased transmission in some affected cities such as Milton Keynes.
That is not to say that lockdowns are bad, but more that this particular lockdown suffered from bad luck. The government will now hope that the effective lockdown imposed on the hubs for the new variant will be enough to get the R down, though that seems unlikely.
And if there are still remaining questions about why it took the scientists from the obvious continued upward trend in some areas during the lockdown to December 11th to brief the Health Secretary, that delay can be explained by the combination of the natural incubation period of the virus, the short delay in information caused by the need for testing, and the additional delay caused by the need for sequencing the genetic material of the virus samples from which arose a positive PCR test, to reveal which of the variants each was. As soon as scientists had the worrying data on this at their disposal, the Health Secretary was immediately briefed.
And what does all this mean for the international community and ties with the UK?
In short, chaos. Most European nations have now temporarily shut borders with Britain, including France, which has imposed a 48-hour ban on travel from Britain, except for some limited cargo arrivals. The UK government today held a COBRA meeting, a forum for emergencies, on the possible effects of the new variant and travel bans on food supply.
It is probable, though, that the new variant is already in many other countries, given the timescales we are dealing with: the variant became prevalent enough to make international spread probable in October, and skyrocketed in November and December, with the period between the 2nd and 14th of December likely seeing significant outward international travel from the UK, and particularly from the capital, which is the main hub for the new variant.
France will probably acquiesce upon realising this, but the world is naturally worrying about the spread of this new strain. The sensible move for other countries to make is not to try to prevent the variant entering, because it already has done, but to suppress the new variant with test, trace, and isolate systems, aggressively using backwards tracing methods to find the first few infections before tracing forward. The lesson from the dichotomous levels of success between East Asia and the West is that early testing and tracing of a newly-entered virus is the only effective way of preventing the need for hefty restrictions. That remains the case with this mutated strain.
As for the public health message, it remains the same, but with greater importance and renewed purpose attached: | https://medium.com/@faceexrtec/the-covidcovid-19-strain-in-britain-explained-2a0fb20f2ba7 | [] | 2020-12-26 08:46:13.029000+00:00 | ['Covid', 'Covid 19', 'Explained', 'Politics', 'Strain'] |
I’m Celebrating my Dad’s Birthday with Him for the First Time in Five Years | I’m Celebrating my Dad’s Birthday with Him for the First Time in Five Years
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
October 11th. It’s an important day around the world. For the LGBTQIA community, it’s a day to come out.
For me, it’s not about that at all. It’s about celebrating my dad’s birthday. This past Friday was the first time in about five years. While it wasn’t much, it made me realize how much I missed him when I was away.
The past five years
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, I’d spent the past five, six years in Beijing, China. Whenever I came home for vacation, it was summer. Michigan can get cold in the fall. One never knows when it’s going to snow. Beijing gets disgustingly hot in the summer, so July is the best time to be back in Michigan.
On his birthday month, I traveled. Ticket prices were lower after the October holiday, so I went somewhere all the time.
Every week in China, I made a point to make sure I called him on Skype to catch up on each other’s lives. We never stayed on the phone long. We aren’t the type of people to talk for long on the phone.
When I came home, I’d spend a day with him at the bar. We’d bag food and do any random chores around the bar that needed doing. Sometimes, I’d help him cook if he had a customer. For me, it was a lovely afternoon with my dad.
The time I realized he was proud.
In the fall of 2017, I went to Paris for a college friend’s wedding. I called my dad not long after buying the plane ticket and telling him about it. Out of nowhere, he starts laughing.
“Do you listen to yourself?” he asked, mid-laughter. “You talk about going to weddings in Paris and other stuff. How cool is that? How many people talk like that?”
I’d be surprised if he remembered that conversation. I know I will. My dad’s not the type to come out and say when he’s proud. It’s the subtle things he says and does that show me how proud he is.
On his birthday, 2019
My fiance, his kids, and I went to his house. I had a Home Depot gift card for him. We talked in his house for a while before we walked to the bar. We ate pizza, and we caught up. I occasionally helped my brother out when it looked like he needed it.
It wasn’t much, but it was the first time in a long time I spent time with my dad on his actual birthday.
We didn’t do much. We never do much when we’re hanging out with each other. I still missed it all the same. It’s always time with my dad. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/im-celebrating-my-dad-s-birthday-with-him-for-the-first-time-in-five-years-d31780fd7bde | ['Keara Lou'] | 2019-12-06 02:49:09.444000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Family', 'Love', 'Parents', 'Life'] |
What do you need to be a leader? | So much information has been written about the skills that distinguish good leaders from bad ones…
And among so much information, what seems to be more reliable?
According to the stand out psychologist Daniel Goleman, there are 4 fundamental traits:
1. SELF-AWARENESS
This means a depth-understood of emotions, needs, and impulses of ourselves.
It’s about the way the emotions affect ourselves and others.
Someone who knows their own boundaries and skills also knows when it’s better to get involved or when it’s better to assign the task to the team.
Recognize our own capacities make us less prone to get implicated in situations where we might fail. The key is to build onto our strengths.
2. SELF-REGULATION
Our biological impulses determine our emotions. We can’t put aside them, but we can manage them.
Thus, it’s all about managing our feelings. Those who can do it are able to create an environment full of confidence where people can work in harmony and having a good performance.
That communicates integrity and confidence besides to get a drip-affect: anyone doesn’t want to look like a desperate person when the boss is famous for being quiet and assertive.
3. EMPATHY
They say:
“Empathy means walking in someone else’s shoes”
And it’s half true…
Empathy doesn’t mean to adopt the other’s emotions like own and trying to please everyone. It means to regard the feeling of others so you can make clever decisions.
The leader has to be able to notice and comprehend the points of view of everyone who take decisions with them.
This what makes the difference between a good leader to an excellent one.
4. SOCIAL CAPACITY
Social capacity is not only about a sympathy matter, but a sympathy-goals-oriented: make people move toward the direction we want to.
People with social capacity don’t see the logic behind to arbitrary limit their social relations, what they want is to set strategic connections in a wide social network.
Why is that?
Because they know that in this hyper-connected-world they might need the help of someone who is starting to know right now.
In conclusion…
The two first attributes, self-awareness and self-autoregulation, are abilities of self-management. The rest two, empathy and social-capacity, are related to interpersonal relations.
The application of these 4 qualities will contribute to get you to improve your interpersonal relations in an incredible way.
You remember that nobody lives alone in this world. And although the idea of the “lonely-genius” seems fascinating… is unlikely.
Well… Of course you can go forward by your own, but probably you won’t achieve anything very important.
It’s the knowledge of ourselves and the way we relationed with the world what make us to get far. Take this into account is the first step to stop being seen as a boss… And start to be seen as a leader.
Bibliography: Goleman, D. (2013). Liderazgo (1st ed.). Barcelona. | https://medium.com/@fco-saenz/what-do-you-need-to-be-a-leader-94ff4b985b04 | ['Francisco Sáenz'] | 2020-12-12 22:50:04.856000+00:00 | ['Lidership', 'Personal Development', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Leadership Development'] |
Mod Camera 1.16.3–1.15.2–1.12.2 — Allows you to take pictures in Minecraft | Mod Camera 1.16.4-1.16.3–1.15.2–1.12.2 — Allows you to take pictures in Minecraft
The fact of the matter is that Mod Camera 1.16.4–1.16.3–1.15.2–1.12.2 is a simple tool that allows you to take pictures in minecraft world. Actually, this is different from taking screenshots because then you can view and display those images in Minecraft world. Wminecraft Net ·Sep 23, 2020
Mod Camera 1.16.4–1.16.3–1.15.2–1.12.2
Camera Mod adds a Camera for you to take a photo and a photo frame to cage the photos you have taken in the Minecraft world and then see the photo gallery in the game quite interesting. Camera Mod’s photo taking function is different from the normal screen capture feature and you can only feel it when installing this mod.
If you ever come across a beautiful scene and want to remember it forever, then you definitely need to install this mod. It will take a few minutes to get used to. Once mastered, you will take amazing pictures of the world around you.
Salient features of Camera Mod
Pictures can be included in the frame.
The photos can be displayed by right clicking on the photo.
Photographs can be reproduced by combining it with a piece of paper on a crafting table.
The photographer’s date and name is stored with the photo.
Each picture is a piece of paper.
The photos are saved in the world folder.
The camera uses one piece of paper for each picture taken
The camera has many filters that can be applied
Multi-player compatibility
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s give it a try
Download Camera Mod for Minecraft 1.16.4–1.16.3–1.15.2–1.12.2
Author: EuhDawson, henkelmax — Source: Curseforge
Originally published at https://wminecraft.net on September 23, 2020. | https://medium.com/@wminecraft/mod-camera-in-minecraft-5c49a48877 | ['Wminecraft Net'] | 2020-11-16 04:02:09.054000+00:00 | ['Games', 'Gaming', 'Minecraft Games', 'Live Streaming', 'Minecraft'] |
How a Belgian freelancer found complete freedom with Xolo | Working and invoicing across borders has never been easier for freelancers
Written by Freelance Business Community
Bart worked as an in-house employee in Germany for many years before he thought about becoming a location-independent freelancer. With some research, he found a way to leave his old profession and is now a multi-faceted freelancer in Belgium. We sat down with him and discussed his move to freelancing, his challenges with working in Belgium, and his recommendations to aspiring freelancers.
What do you do for a living?
I’m a Lawyer / UX Designer / Programmer / Data Privacy Specialist.
Do you freelance full-time or part-time in addition to a day job?
I freelance full time. We are currently house sitting as well.
What does your typical workday look like?
I get up around 7am, do an hour of yoga, get some work done or walk the dogs (depending on who’s up for it, me or my wife), have breakfast around 10, work, lunch around 1pm, work, walk the dogs around 5pm, and that’s about it.
Who are the customers you usually work with? Are they businesses, private individuals, which countries are they from?
My activities are currently focused on Belgium based legal tech start-ups/scale-ups.
How easy would you say running a freelance business in Belgium is?
I don’t think it’s very difficult, it’s just expensive in tax and social contributions. And there are a lot of forms to fill and file, and deadlines to keep in mind. (For quick reference see our Doing Freelance Business in Belgium Guide).
What would you say are the biggest challenges when running a business in Belgium (or elsewhere)?
The red tape! The monthly (or quarterly) VAT returns, annual tax returns, local taxes, social contributions, bookkeeping … There’s so much to focus on, besides your core business.
How did you simplify this process?
I started looking into the Estonian e-residency program a while back as a means to become location-independent. Xolo was (and I think is) the most solid service provider in this respect. When it was finally time to start invoicing, I decided Xolo provided even more flexibility and it suits my current needs perfectly.
Why Xolo?
Simply put: as a location independent professional, Xolo was the only service provider that allowed me to invoice clients. At this time, I have no stress whatsoever related to following up on VAT deadlines, bookkeeping requirements… It takes the hassle of VAT compliance and bookkeeping completely off my hands.
If you had one recommendation to give to aspiring freelancers out there, what would that be?
Just freakin’ go for it. Life’s too damn short to be stuck in an office working to fill someone else’s pockets. Go out and explore. And if you need to make money, do it on your own terms. But make sure you don’t forget about health insurance, tax liability and those other practical things. Do your research and you’ll avoid unpleasant surprises. (A good place to start is our list of freelance tips here).
If Bart’s journey is something you’d love to do yourself, you need to have plenty of resiliency and patience. What puts off most people is the admin and tax part, but freelancers can now get help with complicated accounting and invoicing cross-border clients, and choose the solution which best fits their needs. Xolo offers Xolo GO, which is the easy, no strings attached version, for freelancers just starting out. If you’re more serious about your business, then Xolo Leap will give you much more powerful tools and dedicated support — you only need to sign up for Estonian e-Residency.
See a quick demo how to register your account and issue an invoice in 5 mins below and register your free account here. | https://medium.com/@freelancebusiness/how-a-belgian-freelancer-found-complete-freedom-with-xolo-9a1f71369b15 | ['Freelance Business Community'] | 2021-08-23 11:14:45.231000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Xolopreneur', 'Digital Nomads', 'Freelance', 'Solopreneur'] |
Creating a simple Vue.js website for our backend | Let’s make a website
All the important code can be found in the “src” folder. “src/main.js” is the main entry point for our project. “src/views” is where all our web pages can be found. “src/router” is where the logic for the router is initialized. “src/components” houses the something which is referred to as a “component”, Vue.js is very modular in its design and you can use components as a way of building a website with bits and pieces of reusable code. “src/assets” houses the assets, like pictures, of our website.
Now that we know what the important parts are we can start off by deleting the parts that we won’t be using. You can delete “src/components” since our website will be pretty basic. You can delete “src/views/About.vue” and “src/views/Home.vue”, we will be creating different pages altogether.
Next, let’s open “src/App.vue”. You can sort of think of this as the main wrapper of our website. Vue code tends to be structured in three parts. The first part is the “<template></template” part, this is the GUI (Guided User Interface) layout code or the HTML code, the second part is the “<script></script>” part, this is the logic part of our code, the last part is the “<style></style>” part, this is where we store the design part of our webpage. To start off with we will just replace the template part of “src/App.vue”:
<template>
<router-view/>
</template>
We just removed the navigation bar at the top of the screen to make it easier to work with. Next up we need to create three new files in “src/views”. The first file will be called “Login.vue” (“src/views/Login.vue”), the second file will be called “SignUp.vue” (“src/views/SignUp.vue”), the third file will be called “LogOut.vue” (“src/views/LogOut.vue”). Next, we need to create the scaffolding of each file, so let’s start off with “src/views/Login.vue”:
Let’s start off with explaining the template part:
h1: This is a header tag with a value of Login.
Next is the script part:
We need to export this view so that it can be accessed from other parts of our application. Technically speaking all .vue files are considered components, so I will be referring to them as such. We give our Login component a name of “Login”.
Finally the style part:
We give the body of our site a width of 80% so that it will have a bit of white space on both sides, it just makes our website look a bit neater. We state what font family to use, we give it some padding at the top and bottom, we set the font size, and remove the margin. CSS is a very complicated topic and I can’t even pretend to be a pro at it, so I will only be able to explain it to you at face value.
We stipulate the values for inputs, text areas, buttons, paragraphs, div’s, sections, articles and selects as having a display of block, a width of 100%, font-family of sans-serif, the font size of 1em, and a margin of 0.5em.
We also have a special class of “warning” which will be used to turn warning text’s color red.
The CSS will be the same across all the pages, that is why I covered it here.
Next up is “src/views/SignUp.vue” (this will almost be a copy of Login.vue):
The code is a lot similar to that of “src/views/Login.vue”, but with two differences. In the header tag (h1) we changed the text to “Sign Up” and we also changed the name of the component to “SignUp”.
The last page is “src/views/LogOut.vue”:
Again we just changed the header tag to say “Log Out” and we changed the name of the component to “LogOut”. With the foundations laid out before us we need to add these newly created pages (or components) to our router. So let’s edit “src/router/index.js”:
So we imported our Login, SignUp, and LogOut components, and then added a route to each one, and that’s all we changed in this file. The rest of this code was generated by the CLI. Now if you open your website you should see something like this:
If it doesn’t look like this then just check that your development server is still running (npm run serve). | https://javascript.plainenglish.io/creating-a-simple-vue-js-website-for-our-backend-1d1ef8839c27 | ['Nil Madhab'] | 2021-01-03 08:16:32.982000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Programming', 'Frontend', 'Vuejs', 'Web Development'] |
Remembering The Soul | The incredible feeling of connecting with someone’s soul is one of the most treasured experiences we can have as human beings.
Although all human beings share these basic characteristics, we each show up in the world with our own experiences, feelings, and paths to take. Every human being has their own unique story and way of interacting and contributing to the world.
We have all experienced heartbreak, brokenness, loneliness, joy, laughter, connectedness, and love at some point in our lives. In this way, we are all somehow connected.
We all have light and dark within us: the coexistence of masculine and feminine energy, a full range of emotions and feelings, and the choice as to whether or not we will be aware of such a dance and exchange going on inside of us.
Each person we meet is a soul. People are so much more than their egos. It is time we remember to connect with our souls, so we may connect with the soul of another person, not just the surface of them.
The soul is the intangible part of ourselves where we feel connection, we feel purpose, we reach enlightenment. It is the most beautiful part of our essence, that focuses on doing right instead of being right.
Tapping into our soulfulness allows us to set aside ego-based thoughts and behaviors, which would have us focus on being right — instead of doing right.
In understanding the soul and the ego in such a way, we can recognize that we have this incredible dance of light and dark going on within us as well. | https://medium.com/@caitlin-lynch/remembering-the-soul-2da848ce34e2 | ['Caitlin Lynch'] | 2020-12-24 04:24:49.148000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Soul', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Meditation', 'Spirituality'] |
Expo SDK 41 | Today we’re announcing the release of Expo SDK 41. SDK 41 includes React Native 0.63, the same version as in SDK 40. Thank you to everyone that helped with beta testing. Curious why we didn’t include the recently released React Native 0.64? Learn more.)
⚡️ Highlights
Android apps now target Android R (11 / SDK 30) . This comes with some significant changes for location permissions, media library (related to StorageAccessFramework), and constants. Please note that these changes also impact SDK <= 40 projects in Expo Go, but they will not impact SDK <= 40 standalone apps. Refer to expo.fyi/android-r for more information.
. This comes with some significant changes for location permissions, media library (related to StorageAccessFramework), and constants. Please note that these changes also impact SDK <= 40 projects in Expo Go, but they will not impact SDK <= 40 standalone apps. Refer to expo.fyi/android-r for more information. The recommended version of react-native-reanimated has been updated to v2. If you would like to use v2 features in your app, you need to add the Reanimated v2 Babel plugin. You can continue to use v1 features (eg: those used by React Navigation v5) without adding the new Babel plugin. Please note that if you use the new features from v2, you will not be able to use remote JS debugging in your app! If you use v2 APIs, JS debugging is only possible using Flipper and Hermes, which are not yet fully supported in the managed workflow. (We plan to investigate integrating Hermes during the next SDK cycle, but we don't currently expect to have it ready for SDK 42.)
If you would like to use v2 features in your app, you need to add the Reanimated v2 Babel plugin. You can continue to use v1 features (eg: those used by React Navigation v5) without adding the new Babel plugin. Please note that if you use the new features from v2, you will not be able to use remote JS debugging in your app! If you use v2 APIs, JS debugging is only possible using Flipper and Hermes, which are not yet fully supported in the managed workflow. (We plan to investigate integrating Hermes during the next SDK cycle, but we don't currently expect to have it ready for SDK 42.) lottie-react-native has been updated to the latest version (3.5.0) . Your existing animations should continue to work as before, but if you encounter any issues please file an issue and share the animation file.
. Your existing animations should continue to work as before, but if you encounter any issues please file an issue and share the animation file. The new version of react-native-screens (v3) “enables screens” by default. If you encounter any related issues, you can report the issue and opt out with enableScreens(false) . Be sure to update to the latest v4 patch release of React Navigation if you use v4.
If you encounter any related issues, you can report the issue and opt out with . Be sure to update to the latest v4 patch release of React Navigation if you use v4. Improvements were made across the SDK to ensure compatibility with EAS Build. A big part of this SDK has been making the necessary underlying changes to support EAS Build for managed projects. You can now use EAS Build with Expo managed apps to reduce the size of your standalone apps by up to 10x! Learn more about the latest EAS Build updates.
A big part of this SDK has been making the necessary underlying changes to support EAS Build for managed projects. You can now use EAS Build with Expo managed apps to reduce the size of your standalone apps by up to 10x! Learn more about the latest EAS Build updates. The expo package is now 93% smaller in production and better than ever. We've simplified the experience so the .expo extension is no longer needed (and so we removed it), and neither is the --target bare|managed flag — updates will run in either context provided the native runtime is compatible. We've improved consistency across the managed and bare workflow, removed legacy code, and improved tree-shaking on the package using @expo/metro-config .
We've simplified the experience so the extension is no longer needed (and so we removed it), and neither is the flag — updates will run in either context provided the native runtime is compatible. We've improved consistency across the managed and bare workflow, removed legacy code, and improved tree-shaking on the package using . To see the full list of new features and fixes, refer to the changelog!
🏡 Expo Go
We changed sign in to use expo-web-browser so we can leverage our existing web auth flow with two-factor-authentication.
so we can leverage our existing web auth flow with two-factor-authentication. You can now see teams and organizations that you are a part of in the Profile tab, and their associated projects show up in your recent projects below.
Notice the “Accounts & Organizations” section and the shared “Recent Projects” list below it.
🌐 Expo CLI
Integrated Developer Tools: Open the developer menu, inspect elements, and monitor performance all from the CLI. Just run expo start then press "m" to toggle the dev menu, and "shift+M" to toggle the performance monitor or element inspector across native apps.
It was either a heavily compressed but still 7mb gif or a YouTube video, so we went for the YouTube video.
Force Reloading: Shaking your devices every few minutes can get exhausting! Now you can reload connected phones, tablets, simulators, and browsers all by pressing “r” in the Terminal UI. This works across iOS, Android, web, and on physical devices.
Automatic TypeScript setup: Setting up TypeScript can be a pain, so we’ve completely automated it! Just create a blank tsconfig.json and run expo start , we'll take care of the rest! Learn more: "TypeScript" in the Expo docs.
Vastly better errors: No one likes errors — that’s why in SDK 41 we’ve refined them to be as concise, and useful as possible! We only surface the most relevant stack traces and point to exactly where the error or warning is. We’ve also improved source maps, and muted generated code traces.
Debug your config: The new expo config command enables you to view the evaluated results of app.config.js or app.json . You can use expo config —-type public to see the app manifest used in expo publish .
The new command enables you to view the evaluated results of or . You can use to see the app manifest used in . Better interactions with Apple Store Connect from your terminal: Faster, smarter authentication, better error handling, and — for the first time ever — get full insight into complex issues right from the console. Where other tools 401 , Expo CLI gives you links to resolve issues in seconds. Need to update your payment or accept a contract? Resolve in a couple clicks, and get back to developing incredible (or at least “good”) apps!
A terminal window showing information about a rejected request from App Store Connect due to an expired Developer Program membership.
The --config is flag deprecated . We suggest using app.config.js instead. The --config flag will continue to be supported for existing use cases for the foreseeable future, but it will not be supported in some situations in bare workflow projects, and it will also not be supported on EAS Build. Learn more: Migrating away from --config in Expo CLI.
. We suggest using instead. The flag will continue to be supported for existing use cases for the foreseeable future, but it will not be supported in some situations in bare workflow projects, and it will also not be supported on EAS Build. Learn more: Migrating away from --config in Expo CLI. The --target flag is deprecated for SDK 41+ . This was used to provide slightly different behavior when in a managed or bare app environment, but it ended up being tricky to use because updates published with the bare target could not run in Expo Go, and updates published with the managed target could not run in a bare app. We now do any necessary adjustments to accommodate the environment at runtime, so an update bundle will work in either context, provided that the native runtime is compatible with the update.
. This was used to provide slightly different behavior when in a managed or bare app environment, but it ended up being tricky to use because updates published with the target could not run in Expo Go, and updates published with the target could not run in a bare app. We now do any necessary adjustments to accommodate the environment at runtime, so an update bundle will work in either context, provided that the native runtime is compatible with the update. Versioned Metro Config: Rather than adding @expo/metro-config to your package.json , you can now import it through the expo package with the vendored expo/metro-config import. This ensures that your project is always using a compatible version of the package. Learn More: Customizing Metro.
Rather than adding to your , you can now import it through the package with the vendored import. This ensures that your project is always using a compatible version of the package. Learn More: Customizing Metro. Introducing Config Plugins (beta): Config plugins are an important step towards making it possible for library authors to make their native modules part of the Expo ecosystem. This system is in beta, with a more stable release planned for SDK 42. Learn more: Config Plugins.
🏗 Deprecations, renamings, and removals
Deprecated globals have been removed from the expo package.
As a result, expo-linear-gradient , expo-linking , expo-location , expo-permissions , and expo-sqlite are no longer automatically installed in every project by default as dependencies of expo . If you were depending on global.expo.LinearGradient or similar, please install the respective package and import the API from there instead, eg: import { LinearGradient } from 'expo-linear-gradient'; . Refer to expo.fyi/deprecated-globals for more information.
Files with the .expo.* extension (eg: MyComponent.expo.js ) are no longer recognized as source files.
If your project source code or dependencies include any files with the .expo.* extension, expo-cli will let you know when you upgrade. Refer to expo.fyi/expo-extension-migration for more information.
We thought the .expo file extension was neat but it ended up not being necessary or particularly useful, and simplicity wins over neat things.
expo-permissions has been deprecated in favor of module-specific permissions methods
You should migrate from using Permissions.askAsync and Permissions.getAsync to the permissions methods exported by modules that require the permissions. For example: you should replace calls to Permissions.askAsync(Permissions.CAMERA) with Camera.requestPermissionsAsync() . There shouldn’t be two ways to do an identical thing in a single SDK, and so we picked our preferred approach and are consolidating around it.
@react-native-community/async-storage is now @react-native-async-storage/async-storage
AsyncStorage is next in the packages that are gradually migrating out of the @react-native-community scope on npm (more context on why this is happening available here). We will take care of switching the packages in your dependencies in package.json when you run expo upgrade , but after that you will need to either manually update your imports in your source code, or run npx expo-codemod sdk41-async-storage [your-source-directory] to update it automatically.
Along with this superficial change in package names comes a fix for an issue that occurs when ejecting your project; more information in this issue and these pull requests.
@expo/metro-config is now vendored by the expo package.
If your metro.config.js uses @expo/metro-config , you should switch over to importing it from the expo package instead.
Remove @expo/metro-config from your package.json dependencies and change your import in. metro.config.js from @expo/metro-config to expo/metro-config . Learn more: Customizing Metro.
Legacy Notifications API has been removed
The legacy Notifications library (imported from the expo package) has been deprecated since SDK 38, and is now fully removed in SDK 41. If you’re still relying on this package, you should upgrade to expo-notifications , which has plenty of improvements and additional features. Learn more: How to migrate from Expo's LegacyNotifications to the new expo-notifications library.
👋 iOS 10 support has been dropped — Expo SDK 41 supports iOS 11+.
More information on this from our SDK 40 release notes:
iOS 10 is the last version of iOS that still supports 32-bit simulator builds (x86), and to keep Expo npm packages smaller, we plan to publish only 64-bit pre-build binaries for simulators (x64 and arm64). This has been past due — the last time we dropped an iOS version was over two years ago, when we dropped support for iOS 9 in September 2018. Apple no longer reports usage statistics for iOS 10 directly, but you can get a rough idea from reading the App Store — iOS and iPadOS usage table — 6% of all devices use iOS 11 or lower at the time of writing.
🟢 Node 10 support will be dropped soon from Expo CLI
It’s not that we have anything against the number 10, but Node 10 is about to be replaced by Node 12 as the Maintenance LTS release.
🧹 Dropped SDK 37; will drop SDK 38 next release
We routinely drop SDK versions that have low usage in order to reduce the number of versions we need to support. This release sees the end of life for SDK 37. As usual, your standalone apps built with SDK 37 will continue to work; however, SDK 37 projects will no longer work within the latest version of Expo Go. If you want to re-run expo build , then you’ll need to upgrade from SDK 37, preferably to SDK 41 so you won’t need to update again for a while (and also because each Expo version is better than the last!).
Our next release is planned for June/July 2021 and, at that time, we’ll be dropping support for SDK 38. If your project is running on SDK 38, consider upgrading to a newer version in the coming months.
➡️ Upgrading your app
Managed workflow
Here’s how to upgrade your app to Expo SDK 41 from 40:
Update to the latest version of Expo CLI: npm i -g expo-cli . [email protected] or greater is required.
. or greater is required. Run expo upgrade in your project directory.
in your project directory. If you are using react-navigation v4, please be sure to update to the latest v4 patch release. This is required due to changes in the version of react-native-screens included in SDK 41.
v4, please be sure to update to the latest v4 patch release. This is required due to changes in the version of included in SDK 41. Refer to the “Deprecations, renamings, and removals” section above for breaking changes that are most likely to impact your app.
Make sure to check the changelog for all other breaking changes!
Update the Expo app on your phones from the App Store / Google Play. expo-cli will automatically update your apps in simulators if you delete the existing apps, or you can run expo client:install:ios and expo client:install:android .
will automatically update your apps in simulators if you delete the existing apps, or you can run and . If you built a standalone app previously, remember that you’ll need to create a new build in order to update the SDK version. Run expo build:ios and/or expo build:android when you are ready to do a new build for submission to stores.
Bare workflow
The Bare workflow lets you operate independently of the Expo SDK cycle, updating RN versions and versions of individual Expo packages however and whenever you want. However, if you do stick roughly to Expo SDK versions, these steps will help you to upgrade to Expo SDK 41 from 40: | https://blog.expo.dev/expo-sdk-41-12cc5232f2ef | ['Brent Vatne'] | 2021-05-10 14:34:31.491000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Web', 'React Native', 'Android', 'Expo'] |
At 17 | At 17
4:17 a.m. on the 19th of July, 2000 was meant to be the final minute of my life
Morning Sun, Edward Hopper
4:17 a.m. on the 19th of July, 2000 was meant to be the final minute of my life — at least, according to the intruder who was already in my home. Instead it was the minute I woke up, in bed, on my belly, under the light I had left on because I had been broken into earlier that day and had been nervous falling asleep.
It was the moment I looked at the clock: 4:17 a.m. “Well,” I thought, “if no one has broken in and tried to kill me by now, I guess I’m ok.”
Click.
I turned out the light. And rolled over, ready to go back to sleep. Except I really had to pee. I mean, really had to pee. And even though I resisted at first, I finally gave in and got out of bed, groggy with sleep, and half-stumbled to the bathroom. Where I met a man who didn’t belong there.
And suddenly, I was fighting for my life.
He lunged at me. I didn’t know how to defend myself, but I didn’t really have any control over my body anyway. I remember feeling that I couldn’t let him get me to the ground, although he finally did knock me down. I remember feeling why are you doing this to me?
I don’t remember screaming, because I lose my hearing when I’m in shock… but I remember the sound rushing back into my ears after he ran off, I believe because he heard the neighbors shouting and running across their floor above to come down and help me. I remember being thrown back into shock when he pulled the front door right open, even though I always kept it locked and chained, realizing even in that moment when I wasn’t realizing anything that he had obviously prepared that exit in advance. I remember shaking so hard I could barely dial 911, and I remember finally, hours later, asking one of the neighbors to accompany me, so I could finally go to the bathroom.
Night Windows, Edward Hopper
Earlier that day, when I had returned home from work, I noticed my back door was open — I lived in a ground-floor apartment in Hollywood. It was still daylight, and Los Angeles was having a terrible heat wave. I actually thought, when I saw the door open, that I had left it open myself when I was rushing out to work that morning, late as usual and particularly stressed out as I was finishing up loose ends at work in my last couple of days before I started a new job. So although I was cautious, I entered my apartment to see what was going on.
Nothing much, it turned out. My linen closet had been gone through, as well as a box on the top shelf of my bedroom closet, and a file cabinet that was kept deep in yet another closet off the kitchen. The bathroom hadn’t been touched — not that I had anything to steal, but no meds had been stolen or sought. My computer, stereo and TV equipment was all intact. Even my 35mm camera was there. I called the cops anyway, and they determined it was just kids on a prank, daring each other to do stupid stuff in weather that makes bored kids stupid. That seemed reasonable enough.
It was the detective who came the next morning, after the attack, who guided me toward the realization that it was the intruder who had broken in that afternoon, preparing his entry for later that night.
But it was only 12 years later, when I was arguing with someone online about gun control in the U.S., that I realized the intruder had been, earlier that day, looking for a gun. Because that is all the places I would have kept one: the linen closet, the bedroom closet, the file cabinet. If I had had one and he had found it, would he have brought it back at 4:17 in the morning to use against me? I will never know.
I do know that 4:17 a.m. on the 19th of July 2000 changed the course of my life forever.
New York Movie, Edward Hopper
One of the things that pissed me off after I was attacked was exactly this fact, the way everything I was about to do had been interrupted, sometimes for good, sometimes just for a while, but I had no way of knowing which. I had planned on stopping smoking the coming Monday, but after the attack that was more than I could handle, on top of dealing with trauma and finding my way back to myself again. So it took me another eight years to finally stop. Eight more years of smoking that I didn’t even want.
I was working on shooting some short films, to help me understand if my screenwriting skills actually played out on a big screen. The scenes were shot, but it took me another two years before I could edit them. The new job I was about to start almost fired me right away for being unfocused, forcing me to tell them what had just happened only a week before my first day.
I had finally moved out of grieving over a long-term relationship and was starting to date again. At 32, I was ready to commit to someone for real, and was thinking a lot about having a family. The desire to have children never came back. I can’t say now, 17 years later, if the desire to have children was even that strong to begin with. There are some sensations I can no longer remember from before that attack. That one is gone forever.
I was angry for awhile, at the same time feeling raw and vulnerable and not at all sure who I was: was my favorite color still red? did I like the same music? what kind of ice cream was I partial to? I was angry that I didn’t know myself anymore, and angry that I had to rebuild. I was angry that the only place I felt safe to sleep was in my car, while I was driving, and how impossible that was. I was really, really angry that even though I logically knew it was misapplied, I couldn’t trust men for a while.
I really missed the company of men for that while. And I was angry about that too.
Automat, Edward Hopper
While I worked on sorting myself out, I learned a martial art — I earned a black belt, and then earned another, and another. I became the first woman in my dojo to become an instructor. I learned how to fight with sword and stick and knife and hand-to-hand. I learned how to be hard while appearing soft. And then I learned to simply be soft. But I’m learning that still.
It took me a couple of years of training to learn, thanks to a persistently annoying roommate, that I actually did hear the intruder enter my apartment that night, even though it was softly, in bare feet, through a window in the living room. I learned that we hear when we sleep, and it’s those little anomalous noises that wake us up, rather than the big bangs. I learned I could sleep soundly, finally, because I could trust myself to hear an anomaly again.
It took me some years after that to understand that there are years when the 19th of July matters, and years when it slips right by. I prefer both, actually, because the degree to which the date matters in any given year tells me something about my life, about where I am with things at that moment. The time, though: that always matters. 4:17.
It took me quite a few years more to learn that having to go to the bathroom that night saved my life; that we have neuro-receptors in our guts, which are located close enough to the bladder, and that sometimes our brains deliver information to us in indirect ways to keep us safe — because I got out of bed, I was on my feet, I had a chance at surviving.
Q Train, Edward Hopper
And it took some more years after that, and after a decade of life not working out, of self-sabotage, of bad relationships and jobs and decisions, of therapy that didn’t provide the keys I needed because my burden was getting heavier and my ability to carry it weaker, and my desire to put it down getting stronger — my desire to put me down was getting stronger — to finally understand that in order to truly forgive myself, I had to apologize to myself first.
It took me a long time to understand that the 32 year old woman who got out of bed and defended me that night, in the best way she knew how, stayed there, defending, frozen in time, never receiving a thank you for her hard work, never receiving an apology for the cognitive split in that moment, at 4:17 a.m. It took me a long time to learn that this 32 year old woman was the one who was tired, and angry, and that her efforts to defend me had long twisted into punishment, for 17 years — via bad decisions and relationships and jobs and dreams that were destined to never work out. That she had been pushing my buttons until I finally saw her, and heard her. And said I’m sorry to her, sorry for not doing better in that moment, explaining I did the best I could, the best I knew how, at 4:17; and simply thanking her, so she could finally stand down.
And I learned, in the end, that if my body will do anything — even beyond my control — to keep me alive, there is a part of me that loves me more than anything ever has or ever will. I owe it to that part of me to fully live. And that’s true for everyone, not just me.
It took me only a little while after that to understand that even though I didn’t “fight back” or do any of the things I teach women now to defend themselves (because I didn’t know how, back then), even though I came out of that moment broken and bloodied and burdened with something I carry for the rest of my life, even though it has been a long, long road full of mistakes and regrets and stumbles and falls; even though all of these things, on that night at 4:17 a.m., on the 19th of July in the year 2000 when I fought for my life, I defended myself perfectly.
Because I didn’t die.
Because I’m still here.
Happy 17.
The Singing Butler, Edward Hopper
This is a true story. If you have suffered aggression or violence, please seek help. No one deserves to handicap her life with the burden of her experience. If you know someone or suspect someone is a victim of violence, please guide them to resources in your local area to help. And when you’re ready, learn self defense! (preferably from someone who has the empathy and/or experience to understand what women face.) | https://medium.com/athena-talks/at-17-974ead99784e | ['Susie Kahlich'] | 2017-07-21 10:09:31.760000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Rape Culture', 'Empowerment', 'Sexual Assault', 'Feminism'] |
Our relationship with consumption — A reflection based on an interview with Vaclav Smil featured on the Guardian | I decided to share this interview here because I felt so enlightened by the wise words of Vaclav Smil. My thinking goes if I could benefit from it, other people could too. Because of this interview, I have begun contemplating on our relationships with consumption.
A key word of the interview, stimulated consumption, deserves our special attention.
My understanding of stimulated consumption is there is no organic need on the consumers’ end, but as a result of psychological manipulation and marketing initiatives, consumption takes place. Our lives are penetrated with adverts all over the place, from old-fashioned TV, radio, to native adverts on WeChat posts, live-streaming sales events, celebrity endorsements, you name it. Phrases such as “buy 2 get 1 free”, or “buy 1 get the 2nd half price” has become out of place. Man-made shopping “festivals”, 11.11, Black Friday, and the likes are all means of consumption stimuli. So much trash are sold on these shopping sprees and lots of which are discarded for they are absolutely useless or of the worst quality possible. Consequently, waste is generated. Why digging out materials from the Earth for something that is of no value?
Screen shot of 11.11 celebration event
Way before I came across this interview, I had long despised these so-called shopping festivals. In my eyes, 11.11 is more of a “waste-generating festival” than it is a shopping “festival” . Behind the glamorous ever-climbing revenue, just how much stuff was purchased for their low price yet ended up being returned as sobriety restored? Double 11 in 2016 generated at least 1 billion delivery boxes to be delivered, which required 2 million trees (or the equivalent of straws or waste paper) to manufacture. Among all the boxes, only 20% was recycled or reused(1). Year 2018 saw e-commerce and express delivery sectors using 9.4 million tons of packaging materials, 95% of the plastic ones was non-recyclable and all ended in landfill or incinerators(2). Prosperity of e-commerce industry, including online takeaway businesses, comes at the expense of planet Earth, and that is a price we cannot afford.
Chucked-away delivery boxes after 11.11
A modern epitome of stimulated consumption has to be fast fashion. The last thing the Earth needs is one more sub-category of garment industry, yet there it is, fast fashion. It brought us brands like H&M, Zara, Forever 21, and those online-only apparel retailers such as boohoo.com, which sells clothes at a jaw-dropping low price — 3-dollar mini-dresses, really? A common characteristic these corporations share is extremely short turnaround time between when a trend or garment is seen on the catwalk, or in celebrity media, and when it hits the shelves, hence the name fast fashion. It is common practice that fast fashion brands introduce new styles on a weekly basis, which means consumers are constantly lured to update their wardrobe. As a result, more garment rubbish gets created. According to Common Objective, a fashion business intelligence network, we buy 60% more clothes than we did in 2000, with life span of the clothes halved. Such shopping behaviour directly contributes at least 39 million tons of textile garbage, among which 25% gets incinerated and over half (57%) dumped in landfills(3). Many years ago, I met a lady who told me she never washed her t-shirts because she’d always throw them away after a few wears. She said that with such entitlement now that I think about it I feel she owed her fair share to our environment and she ought to feel truly guilty about it. Any garment made will bring about damage to us and our environment, including water use, non-renewable energy use, agricultural land occupation, carbon footprint, fresh water toxicity and eutrophication, toxicity, air pollution, acidification, and more(6). Never ever take anything for granted, they all come at a price, a price that cannot be paid by money.
I’ve always thought discarding should only come to our mind when and only when all options are exhausted. I was particularly moved by what Mr. Smil said in the interview: there is a deep tradition both in the eastern and western traditions of frugality,living within your means and a contemplative life. Growing up, I have always been told to save on water and electricity, not to waste any food, wear clothes that were too small for my older sister. However, the reality, at least in China, seems that these virtues have been long forgotten, instead people love to flaunt their materialistic possessions, and it appears being able to throw away things as we please is a way to show off one’s wealth. HOW ABSURD!
It goes without saying drastically lowered prices made such behavioural shift possible. But what made such low prices possible? Turns out those fast fashion retailers have their way. Behind cheap price tags are child labour exploitation, withholding/refusing wages and low quality fabrics. Data published by UNICEF suggests there are at least 120 million children working(4); in 2017, Zara’s customers found in their purchased clothes notes saying:”I made this but I am not paid for it.”(5); as for materials, in order to keep the cost as low as possible, these retailers often opt for low-quality fabrics which directly lead to clothes degrading much faster and getting thrown away after just a few wears. Come to think about, buying fast fashion clothes isn’t getting anyone benefits but those big brands. They make enormous amount of money while we are essentially encouraging exploitation of child labour and involuntarily create more burden to the environment. I say involuntarily because I feel our shopping behaviour is a product of market manipulation. A short yet powerful slogan I once came across really summarises it well: BUY WELL, BUY LESS. We may end up paying a little bit more on good things than we would have on cheaper ones, but good-quality stuff last longer. It really is a simple math problem.
A classic example of irrational consumption would be lipsticks. For some reason in the last 2 to 3 years or so, there was a trend of collecting all possible shades from brands like YSL and Tom Ford. I was so baffled! More than once I witnessed Chinese customers asking for specific lipstick shades and being told they are out of stock. There were even cases where people buy lipsticks by boxes. I was genuinely wondering: wow, are they going to finish them all? or are those lipsticks to be cast aside once there are more popular brands/collections out? We need to own our own lifestyle, not to be owned. | https://medium.com/@bibiennushu/our-relationship-with-consumption-a-reflection-based-on-an-interview-with-vaclav-smil-featured-b8a102551e4a | ['Bibiennu Shu'] | 2019-12-20 07:27:05.397000+00:00 | ['Bill Gates Quotes', 'Consumerism', 'Fast Fashion', 'Climate Change', 'Black Friday'] |
3 Weeks Beginners Guide to Ace Data Science Interview: #Day 19 | 3 Weeks Beginners Guide to Ace Data Science Interview: #Day 19
Interview Question on Ensemble Learning & Stacking
About the Series Data Science field is an exciting career choice and seeing a lot of hiring across fresh, lateral and experienced job positions. It’s one thing to know the concepts and totally another to crack the rigorous interviews for data science positions. If a candidate is aware of the different questions and the interview process, he is on the right path to an excellent career in the evolving Data Science field. This 3-week beginners guide to Ace Data Science Interview will be a useful asset for individuals who are preparing for the Data Science interviews. Every day for the next 21 days, we will talk about the different areas of the Data Science field and cover them elaborately. So sit back and start reading the article to get a finer understanding of the Data Science field and go prepared for the interviews.
Ensemble learning is the process by which multiple models, such as classifiers or experts, are logically combined to solve a particular computational intelligence problem. In simple terms, you can call Ensemble Learning the
“wisdom of the crowd”
The famous Netflix Prize competition took almost 3 years before the goal of a 10% improvement was reached. The winner's used gradient boosted decision trees to combine over 500 models.
Question Time
Question 1: What is the idea behind ensemble learning?
Different models used in ensemble improves overall variance, There are main 3 widely used ensembles learning techniques are:
Bagging Boosting Stacking
So if you have different models built for the same data and the same target variable, you can use one of the above three (bagging, boosting, stacking) methods to build an ensemble model. As every model used in the ensemble has its own performance measures, some of the models may perform better than the ultimate ensemble model and some of them may perform poorer than or equal to the ensemble model. But overall the ensemble methods will improve overall model performance and stability of the model.
Question 2: Explain bagging(stands for Bootstrap Aggregating).
Answer:
Bagging, or Bootstrap Aggregating, is an ensemble method in which the dataset is first divided into multiple subsets through resampling ( method of drawing repeated samples from the original data set to create multiple data subsets).
Then, each subset is used to train a separate model, and the final predictions are made through
Voting(Classification problem)or Averaging(Regression problem)the component models.
Bagging is performed in parallel.
Question 3: What is the difference in bias and variance in respective to the following algorithms. - Random forest - Gradient Boosting
Why this difference?
Answer:
Random Forest: It’s a tree-based algorithm that has Low bias and High Variance .
and . Gradient Boosting: It’s a weak learner(decision tree) based ensemble model that has High bias and Low variance.
Because, Boosting is based on weak learners (high bias, low variance). In terms of decision trees, weak learners are shallow trees, sometimes even as small as decision stumps (trees with two leaves).On the other hand, Random Forest uses fully grown decision trees (low bias, high variance).
Question 4: Why are ensemble methods superior to individual models?
Answer:
They average out biases, reduce variance, and are less likely to overfit.
There’s a common line in machine learning which is:
“Do Ensemble and get 2%” Which means perform ensemble learning and enhance model performance by 2 percent.
Question 5: Explain Stacking and Boosting.
Answer:
Boosting is a two-step approach, where one first uses subsets of the original data to produce a series of averagely performing models and then “boosts” their performance by combining them together using a particular cost function (=majority vote). Unlike bagging, in the classical boosting the subset creation is not random and depends upon the performance of the previous models: every new subset contains the elements that were (likely to be) misclassified by previous models. Stacking is similar to boosting: you also apply several models to your original data. The difference here is, however, that you don’t have just an empirical formula for your weight function, rather you introduce a meta-level and use another model/approach to estimate the input together with outputs of every model to estimate the weights or, in other words, to determine what models perform well and what badly given these input data.
Question 6: Which of the following is/are true about weak learners used in the ensemble model?
This question I recently got in one of my assignment-task.
1. They have low variance and they don’t usually overfit
2. They have a high bias, so they can not solve hard learning problems
3. They have high variance and they don’t usually overfit
Answer:
Solution: (1)
Weak learners basically shallow decision trees and they don’t try to fit every data point. So they usually don’t overfit which means that weak learners have low variance and high bias.
Question:7 What is the bias-variance decomposition of classification error in the ensemble method?
Answer:
The expected error of a learning algorithm can be decomposed into bias and variance. A bias term measures how closely the average classifier produced by the learning algorithm matches the target function. The variance term measures how much the learning algorithm’s prediction fluctuates for different training sets.
Question 8: Which ensemble technique converts a set of weak learners to a strong learner?
Answer:
The term Boosting refers to a family of algorithms which converts weak learner to strong learners. Boosting is an ensemble method for improving the model predictions of any given learning algorithm. The idea of boosting is to train weak learners sequentially, each trying to correct its predecessor.
Question 9: Bagging or Boosting, which of the ensemble model has independent weak learners?
Answer:
In Bagging, each individual trees are independent of each other because they consider the different subset of features and samples operates in parallel to each other.
In boosting tree individual weak learners are not independent of each other because each tree corrects the results of the previous tree. Bagging and boosting both can be considered as improving the base learner's results.
Question 10: Why is the decision tree a weak learner?
Answer:
The classic weak learner is a decision tree. By changing the maximum depth of the tree you can control the model fitting to the data. Decision trees used as weak learners are shallow in depth so they don’t overfit the data. This makes them incredibly popular for boosting. … One simple example is a 1-level decision tree called decision stump applied in bagging or boosting
Question 11: What is the difference between AdaBoost and Gradient Boosting?
Answer:
Both methods use a set of weak learners. They try to boost these weak learners into a strong learner(which is the basic function of boosting algorithm).
Gradient Boosting
Gradient boosting generates learners during the learning process. It build the first learner to predict the values/labels of samples and calculate the loss (the difference between the outcome of the first learner and the real value). It will build a second learner to predict the loss after the first step. The step continues to learn the third, fourth… until a certain threshold.
Read more in detail...
AdaBoost(Adaptive Boosting)
Adaboost requires users specify a set of weak learners (alternatively, it will randomly generate a set of weak learner before the real learning process). It will learn the weights of how to add these learners to be a strong learner. The weight of each learner is learned by whether it predicts a sample correctly or not. If a learner is mispredict a sample, the weight of the learner is reduced a bit. It will repeat such process until converge.
Read more in detail… | https://medium.com/international-school-of-ai-data-science/3-weeks-beginners-guide-to-ace-data-science-interview-day-19-98df65cae491 | ['Vinay Vikram'] | 2020-03-31 05:30:57.229000+00:00 | ['Interview Questions', 'Machine Learning', 'Interview', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Low-Cost Business Setup in the UAE | Dubai Business | #2022 | Low-Cost Business Setup in the UAE
Posted at 10:50h in by Business cost Shuraaindia
Dubai has a unique mix of benefits that help businesses thrive, regardless of their size or scope. Its strategic location helps Indian entrepreneurs to develop their enterprises across borders while enjoying a low-cost business setup in the UAE. Moreover, the excellent living standards make it an ideal local market for investors.
If you follow the appropriate techniques and consult with Dubai business professionals, you can save a lot of money on company registration. The location, trade name, rental space, local sponsors, business activities, and other considerations all play a role in company registration in the UAE.
You can start a low-cost business in Dubai if you have a thorough understanding of how the system works. In addition, you must choose between forming a firm in a free zone and establishing a company on the mainland. It’s because free zones in the UAE have their own jurisdictions that control the businesses. Therefore, if you pick the appropriate one, you can save a lot of money.
How to Save Money on Company Setup Costs in the UAE?
Here’s a list for the Indian investors and other expatriates looking for a low-cost business setup in Dubai:
Mainland or Free Zone — Make a Choice
If your business plan necessitates unrestricted access to the local market as well as markets beyond the UAE, a mainland corporation is a way to go. The DED regulates all enterprises based on the mainland. In addition, there are over 2,000 business activities that are permitted in this region.
When you choose this location, you’ll have the freedom to apply for several visas for low cost, which is good for your wallet. It’s an ideal business zone for Indian investors due to its excellent infrastructure and abundance of business opportunities.
A free zone business setup allows you to have 100 percent control of your company without any required shareholding laws. There are general-purpose free zones that accept all forms of business activities. Moreover, numerous business-specific free zones are tailored to certain business categories.
If you don’t think you’ll need much exposure to the mainland market, a free zone Dubai company registration is a viable option. You can also choose a smart/Flexi workplace, which helps you realize a low-cost business setup in the UAE.
How Much Does it Cost to Launch a Business in Dubai?
There’s no ballpark figure that suggests an accurate cost for company registration in the Emirates. The cost varies depending on the company’s size, nature, operational location, etc. In addition, the legal license that you need also plays a significant role in calculating the estimated costs.
However, you can expect anything between AED 20,000 to AED 30,000 as the expected cost of business formation. The business consultants at Shuraa India offer the most affordable business setup packages for your company. Furthermore, we function as your company setup agent by becoming your company’s sleeping partner.
Therefore, you can enjoy 100% operational ownership, and we’re always there for you if you need any help. Business setup in Dubai may seem a costly affair at first glance. However, when you know the do’s and don’ts for company registration in Dubai, you’ll enjoy a low-cost business setup in Dubai.
Numerous free zones jurisdictions have announced stimulus packages after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to support the investors in this hour of need. Therefore, your decision to choose Dubai as your business location is indeed correct.
How to Start a New Business in Dubai?
1. Finalize Business Activities
Describe the business activities that will be carried out on a daily basis. Certain operations necessitate additional governmental approvals. As a result, always include all activities, regardless of their importance. Failure to do so can result in long-term consequences, including the suspension of your company license.
2. Trade Name Reservation
After you’ve compiled a list of business activities, choose a name for your organization. To minimize delays in registration, make sure you comply with the naming conventions provided by the government. You’re free to use any name that doesn’t sound insulting, impolite, contentious, or derogatory to a person’s religious beliefs or sentiments.
3. Apply for a License
Submit your business application, together with all necessary paperwork and approvals. The Department of Economic Development ( DED) is in charge of licensing businesses that want to establish themselves on the mainland.
When applying for a free zone trading license, the independent regulating organizations of free zones take care of licenses. Copies of the applicant’s passport and visa, an initial approval certificate, colored photographs of the applicant, and other documents are included in the obligatory paperwork.
4. Manage Visas
Once you’ve completed the above steps, apply for visas. Visas can be obtained for your shareholders, relatives, domestic employees, and others, depending on your needs. Furthermore, if you need several visas, forming a firm on the mainland is preferable because the laws are more favorable.
Enjoy Low-Cost Business Setup in the UAE!
Higher business costs can dampen your aspirations. However, with Shuraa India, that’s never the case. We value your investment and ensure that every penny is spent with monitored calculations.
In addition, we offer customized business packages and offer exclusive cost-efficient solutions at the initial stage to provide adequate breathing space. Furthermore, our nominal upfront fees model is the best choice for all business types, be it an up-and-coming startup, a branch office, or a limited liability company.
to book a free consultation with our experts at the Shuraa India branch and know more about Low-Cost Business Setup in Dubai. You can also call us at +91 80109 90022. For email assistance, mail your query at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/@shuraaindia19/low-cost-business-setup-in-the-uae-dubai-business-2022-5cca83379c4f | ['Shuraa India'] | 2021-12-24 06:33:05.237000+00:00 | ['Dubai', 'Low Cost Business Setup', 'Uae', 'Business'] |
What Certifications do I need to work in Cyber Security? Part 2a — Technical | For part two in this series we are going to discuss why it is better to complete Cyber Technical certifications first rather than Cyber Governance certifications. This is part 2 of a series, if you’re interested in starting from the beginning, here is the link to Part 1 so you can follow along.
As I will be discussing my opinion, I think it is relevant to share a little background information of my own life experience here.
When I finished high school, I learned a trade (Refrigeration Mechanic to be specific). This trade certification comprised of three years of trade school and four years being on the tools. Without tooting my own horn too much, I aced the trade school part of my apprenticeship. I have a technical mind, so the concepts (refrigeration chemistry, electrical wiring etc) came easily to me. Unfortunately, I am extremely uncoordinated, and this made applying the trade school skills I learned very difficult. After numerous jobs, I decided I had enough and looked for other career options.
As I’m sure many of you know, not many places will look at your job application without a degree of some sort. Realising this I went off to university to earn a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. Through university, I fell in love with Apple and became an ‘Apple Fan Boy’ (I cant say I care for the title, but it is pretty catchy, damn it).
Back to my point, I chose the most technical subjects in university to hopefully secure a job at Apple (what job at Apple? I didn't care, I could have been a janitor and still been happy!). During my last year at University I secured a job working as a technical consultant. It was here I met people from the Cyber industry, most importantly to my story it was here I met Chris McDonald. Chris is an expert in both the technical and governance sides of cyber, I highly recommend looking him up on Linkedin. While at work I was still enrolled in university and completing various assignments and projects. Chris took an interest and saw that I had some tech skills in coding, databases, software development and other relevant areas. After a few times catching up for beers I worked with Chris to complete a penetration testing engagement on a web application.
It is here that I fell in love with Cyber. Specifically, the challenge of a penetration test, the technical knowledge, searching for vulnerabilities and so many other things I could list. Chris knew he had me hooked on Cyber. After he and my boss confirmed my intent to pursue Cyber as a career path, I was lucky enough for work to pay for me to undertake the OSCP course. I will cover OSCP in other posts (here is a link for some basic information on the course).
Why did they want me to do OSCP first? Why technical first? These are great questions, questions I didn’t think of to ask for months.
While sitting with Chris I asked these questions and he replied with:
“The technical controls are what actually protect your environment and are always necessary. To implement technical controls, you need to understand what your aligning to risk wise and the framework of the business.”
Lets dissect this quote to break down what it really means.
The first half:
“The technical controls are what actually protect your environment and are always necessary.”
Is referring to the technical side of Cyber, how is the business actually protecting itself? Firewalls? Antivirus? To assess these protections you need to understand them, hence technical knowledge is needed.
The second half:
“To implement technical controls, you need to understand what your aligning to risk wise and the framework of the business.”
Cyber protections are useless to the business if it doesn’t align with their risk or frameworks. If the business view’s your cyber controls as useless why would they hire you? The most common mistake I have seen is over protection. For example, a small business wont need to adopt Defence Force cyber security practices.
I think it is important to note here each halve of Cyber is just as important as the other. One could not exist without the other. Some of the brightest people I have worked with are purely Cyber Governance focused. That’s what makes team work great. You have people that are experts in their own field coming together to provide the best product.
When I pressed Chris how doing technical certifications first reflected in a business(consulting) role, he followed up the previous advice with the following:
“You’ll get 10x more respect being able to explain the technical risk as to why you need a governance control”
My response? “huh?”. It took me a little while to realise that this was personal advice from Chris. Our cyber industry is growing, which is a great thing. It means there are more people every day I can talk cyber security about. It also means there are some people that will act like experts in the field when they may not have the background to corroborate their ‘expertise’. These people can create a claim regarding cyber security and when they are asked for evidence or reasoning behind the claim they will crumble. If you have the technical knowledge to support a claim you made, you (and your opinion) will be respected among the industry.
So, there it is, the reason to do tech first summed up in two quotes. If you can disprove the logic Chris was saying please reach out and let me know as I would be very interested in hearing it, as I’m sure he would be too.
For the next article in this series, I will be taking a deep dive into each technical certification listed in the ‘Technical Cert’ pillar from Part 1. Showing which ones should be taken first and why.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will answer it as soon as I can.
Alternatively my contact details are:
linkedin.com/in/bobby-simmonds Profile URL
@bobby_simmonds2 | https://medium.com/@bobbysimmonds471/what-certifications-do-i-need-to-work-in-cyber-security-part-2a-technical-afb7f0a94400 | [] | 2019-02-06 22:37:44.481000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Cyber', 'Information Technology', 'Information Security', 'Cybersecurity'] |
Lists in Java | 10/12/2020
I learnt Lists in Java today. The best part is that after I left my college campus in 2019, it was today that I got a chance to catch up with my roommates. These are the same roommates who’d study for hours while I procrastinated as I admired them from a distance. I scheduled a meeting for us and instead of catching up on all the latest news of who’s getting married and who’s pursuing post-graduation, we decided to start solving Competitive Programming problems together, something we should have done during college, but it’s never too late.
So today, as we worked our way through a problem on HackerRank, we learnt the concept of Lists and some functions that revolve around it. Read to learn with us!
For someone who has only explored Arrays, my first question was, what is the difference between an Array and a List. In Arrays, the memory allocation is fixed. But as it turns out, it is not fixed for Lists. Lists are flexible.
To declare a List, we write:
List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
Here List is the type, <Integer> specifies the nature of elements we will insert in our “list” and ArrayList is a class that implements the interface List which extends the Collection interface. I am sorry if that sounds a bit confusing, but give me a chance to explain. Collection in Java is an interface. Now, we cannot create an object of an interface. So we create an object of ArrayList which implements it. Makes sense?
To add value to a List, we use the function add(). The syntax for that would be:
list.add(5);
Interesting thing is that in the declaration, if you do not specify <Integer>, you can add elements of different types to a List because by default the type is Object. But that would be more of a Collection than List. Let me specify the syntax for better understanding:
Collection list = new ArrayList();
Remember, List extends Collection. So List has some extra features and hence is more customized.
A list doesn’t work on indexing like Arrays do. So, to traverse through a List and to pick the element at a specific position, we use the function get(). As the name suggests, get() “gets” the element in the list. Take a look at the following code:
int element = list.get(i);
Here, i could be a specific integer or an integer traversing through a for loop that runs from 0 to list.size(). Again, as the name suggests, size() gives the size of the List.
For now, I will leave it here and continue as I learn further about it. I promise to bring in examples as well. The point I want to make is that if you look at how much there is to do, you will only end up overwhelming yourself. Do not focus on the entire Collection at once, move from one Generic to another. You know what I mean? | https://medium.com/@saksh28097-sharma/lists-in-java-883a8ca369b7 | ['Sakshi Sharma'] | 2020-12-10 16:55:46.455000+00:00 | ['Beginning', 'Java', 'Collection', 'Progress', 'Lists'] |
My Thoughts On… Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About: Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time by Dorothy Rosby | My Thoughts On… Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About: Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time by Dorothy Rosby
Sometimes when life is too scary, upsetting or confusing — or all three at the same time — you just need to check out for a while.
I was at that stage when I started reading Dorothy Rosby’s Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About: Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time.
And at the risk of sounding like a commercial, oh, what a relief it is!
What a relief to know my sense of humor isn’t totally dulled by a steady diet of news about COVID-19.
What a relief to know that I can still laugh as I read her hilarious take on the dangers of surfing the web, especially since I have fallen victim to the same rabbit holes she describes.
And what a relief to realize that, as bad as it gets — and Lord knows, it’s pretty awful right now — it is still possible to find some bright spot to light the darkness.
In Alexa’s a Spy, Dorothy mines everyday experiences for nuggets and then turns them into golden grins and silver smiles. Nothing escapes her notice, and everything is food for thought — and then humor. And it’s so nice to know that I’m not the only one who treats inanimate objects like they are real or who has grown increasingly more dependent on my cell phone, thanks to the apps I’ve downloaded onto it.
You see, that’s what reading Alexa’s a Spy does for you. You read Dorothy’s words and you think, “See, I’m not the only one!” and for a brief space of time, your mind is off the crisis of the moment and enjoying the human connection with someone who is just like you — and isn’t that reassuring?
The beauty of reading Alexa’s a Spy is that you can open it to any chapter and fall into the rabbit hole of humor that she creates. Read the chapters in order or skip around. Dorothy is such a gifted humor writer that I suspect you could even read the book backwards and still be entertained!
Yes, the world is a dark place and there is plenty to worry about. That makes it all the more necessary, important and even essential that you spend some time each day in Dorothy Rosby’s world. | https://medium.com/@NancyChristie_Author/my-thoughts-on-alexas-a-spy-and-other-things-to-be-ticked-off-about-humorous-essays-on-the-cd66c2a91ce0 | ['Nancy Christie'] | 2020-12-21 11:46:23.529000+00:00 | ['Book Recommendations', 'Book Review', 'Books And Authors'] |
Notes on React | I’m currently teaching myself React.js. Though I built an app using React Native as my final project at Makers, the jump from never having even used React and starting with React Native was huge, not to mention the time pressure of having less than 2 weeks to complete the project. So I’ve gone back to basics to consolidate my understanding of the integral features of React. Hopefully this will set me in good stead for future React projects.
I’m writing this article as part of that consolidation process and so I have a reference point if I need one on React syntax. By explaining to myself in my own words how things work this should I plan to update it as I go along and when I’ve had more practice using React in my own projects. Hopefully it should also be a great marker of how much I’ve learnt.
Components and Props
Components are used to breakdown a website into individual reusable pieces of code. As they can be reused, this is great for adhering to the DRY principle (Do Not Repeat yourself). They are like a Javascript function and what is returned is rendered as part of the UI. In order for components to be truly useful and reusable, props can be used to customise them.
A simple example of using props (taken from this course). The Card component uses props to take a customised name, image and contact details.
A couple of useful things I learnt from this tutorial were defaultProps and PropTypes.
DefaultProps, is pretty self explanatory, it allows you to set a default prop if no prop is given, it is a component property. An example of defaultProps syntax using the Card component above:
PropTypes is a library which will help make your code more robust and will help catch errors. You can use it to set what type your prop will be, for example if if will be a string, an integer or a boolean etc. Though the component will still render, the console will show an error if the incorrect prop type is given. An example of PropTypes syntax:
Hooks — useState
The useState hook enables you to have interactivity in your app, a web application is able to dynamically update. Rather than re-rendering the whole page, when you use the useState hook, only the part of the page that needs to be updated is. The useState hook must be used inside a function component, not a class component.
The useState function outputs an array with a value, the value is the initial state, and a function, the function is used what is used to update the value. for example if you had something like this-
The console log would show an array with two values, the first being the number 2, the initial state we have set, the second value of the array would be a function, in this example it would be nameless as we haven’t set it yet.
Below is a full example of useState. Inside the useState parenthesis is the starting state, in this example it is set to the constant now, which is the current time. time is the state that gets updated, and as it is updated it is displayed in the h1. When the button ‘Get Time’ is clicked, the updateTime function in run. Within the updateTime function, the setTime function is run and the state is set to the newTime constant, which the new updated time. The h1 will therefore update to show the new, current time.
That’s all for now, I’m going to build myself a CV/portfolio website using React, so I’m sure I’ll have some more notes to add to this shortly. I’m also going to take a look at Jest so I can learn how to test React, plus I want to refresh my Javascript too. Always so much to learn! | https://medium.com/@joannabrigham/notes-on-react-32d637b9a612 | ['Joanna Brigham'] | 2021-07-06 14:32:09.246000+00:00 | ['React', 'Props And State', 'Props', 'React Hook', 'Reactjs'] |
Why do Machine Learning Projects Fail? | 1. No one understands what machine learning is (and is not).
Solution: Understand the types of questions you can answer.
Machine learning has built a bit (read: a lot) of mysticism around it. People who are less familiar with what machine learning is tend to believe that it can solve anything. The reality is that this is not the case. One of the best ways to make sure your machine learning project does not fail is to simply understand what it is and is not.
At the highest level machine learning is very simple. Machine learning labels stuff. More specifically, machine learning labels stuff probabilistically. There are two really broad ways that this occurs. In the first way, we know ahead of time what some of our labels are already. We call this supervised learning. In the second way, we don’t know any of our labels yet. We call this unsupervised learning. Each of these methods — supervised and unsupervised learning — are good at asking different types of questions.
Supervised learning is great at answering questions like:
Will my customer churn?
Will a visitor to my website make a purchase?
How likely is the photocopier to jam in the next 10 minutes?
How long will the customer stay on my website?
What is the likelihood of the customer to click on this link?
Is this purchase fraudulent?
Unsupervised learning is great at answering questions like:
What are my customer segments?
Which customers interact with my website in the same way?
Which photocopiers fail the same way?
What papers are likely written by the same person?
Which purchases are similar?
You’ll notice that there is one question stem amongst all of these questions that is not present: why. Machine learning problems cannot solve “why” questions. An analyst may be able to get to build a case for an answer to a specific “why” question, but the algorithm itself will not be able to provide that answer.
2. We fail to begin with the end in mind.
Solution: Focus on outputs.
Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People with the average person in mind. As it turns out, many of his habits could be applied directly to companies trying to implement machine learning models as well.
Often when implementing a machine learning solution for the first time, people and companies tend to get caught up in the technology being used. After all, machine learning is a highly technical topic, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the people looking to implement the solution care deeply about the technical portions of the implementation.
The reality, though, is that the machine learning problems that we select to solve should be deeply driven by the value that the solution could create for the organization. It’s important to grapple with that value outside of a technical context. In particular, it’s worth spending time focusing on the end user of the solution and the actionability of the output.
Selecting the right problem with the right output will help drive significantly more change in an organization than selecting the perfect model to solve that problem.¹ One way to start thinking about this is to use something like the machine learning canvas. This canvas helps you to think through the entire problem — from the value proposition of the task to how the solution will be evaluated and modeled.
3. A failure to trust the process.
Solution: Iterate. Then iterate again.
Machine learning problems, and data science problems more broadly, are solved by following a very specific process. There are a few different ways to think about this. A very popular process is referred to as CRISP-DM (Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining). A slightly simplified version of this is the data exploration model outlined by Hadley Wickham in his book R for Data Science.
The data exploration process
Organizations that are excellent at implementing solutions to machine learning problems have an excellent understanding of this process and how to manage. The typical rule of thumb for data science projects is that 80% of the time on a project is dedicated to data cleaning — the importing, tidying, transforming, and visualizing steps — and only 20% of the time on a project is dedicated to modeling and communication. Prior to any of this happening, though, a significant portion of time will be dedicated to understanding the business needs of the problem.
For a first iteration through the data science process, though, a significantly larger proportion of time should be dedicated to building the business understanding around the problem. This will help to ensure that you are truly solving the right problem and building a solution that will be meaningful for your organization.
4. There’s no measurement for success.
Solution: Build one. Or two. Or three.
Machine learning is inherently an exercise in optimization. In order to optimize anything, there has to be a measurement of what is being optimized. For a machine learning project, there must be at least two measurements for success — one from a technical perspective and one from a business perspective. The technical measurement will help you to understand if a model is worthwhile to be deployed in the first place. The business measurement will help you to understand if the implementation of the model is helping to actually solve the problem.
From a technical perspective, it is important to consider all of the different metrics available to you. Accuracy is rarely the best measurement to utilize, even though it is typically the easiest measurement to understand. In particular, consider the case of an imbalanced dataset.
Here’s a hypothetical machine learning problem — can we classify if an incoming email is spam or not? The vast majority (hopefully for your sake) of emails that you receive are not spam, with only a small minority of emails that we should classify as spam. If we were to simply classify every single incoming email as not being spam, then our accuracy would be extremely high — perhaps 99% or above. However, a model that only outputs a single answer — every email being legitimate — would not be a particularly effective model. Instead, we should consult a confusion matrix and select an appropriate metric based upon what we care the most about.
Based upon the confusion matrix, every one of our predictions can be classified into one of four buckets:
True Positives: I predicted that an email would be spam and it actually was.
False Positives: I predicted that an email would be spam and it was not.
False Negatives: I predicted that an email would not be spam and it was.
True Negatives: I predicted that an email would not be spam and it was not.
There are quite a few metrics that we can derive by considering these four buckets— precision, recall, F-measure, specificity, and sensitivity to name some. Which of these you choose should match the context of the business question that you are answering. For example, in our spam email classification example, you might care most about identifying true positives (emails that we predicted were spam and actually were). In this case, sensitivity would be a great metric to utilize².
From a business perspective, we should be measuring something that will actually move the needle forward for our company. There are a lot of different metrics like this to consider, all of which will be dependent upon your own context. They could include questions such as:
After implementing our model have we:
increased revenue?
increased the number of customers?
decreased customer churn?
reduced the amount of spam our email users receive?
Understanding the business metric that we care most about will help us to evaluate if a model is actually making a difference for your organization. This is likely the most important metric for the project overall. Especially if this is the first (or one of the first) machine learning projects that your organization is undertaking, it will help to demonstrate the value of machine learning for future projects. | https://medium.com/compassred-data-blog/why-do-machine-learning-projects-fail-9d9ec514b2ab | ['Ryan Harrington'] | 2019-03-21 17:37:14.550000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
How to set up a Facebook shop and start selling now | Why small business owners must have a Facebook Shop?
Owning social media pages for your brand is a powerful way to promote and grow your business. Initially, Facebook started as a platform for people to connect over the internet, but it is now a many-folds bigger community. The recent trends of online shops have made Facebook a hub for business owners. The community over the platform can be a focused target for you, you can reach the maximum number of people through these communities. They are a vital part if you want to grow your business. Even if you own a website for your brand, then Facebook can effectively direct the traffic to your website. You get to know your audience better and use your strategies in a better way.
Steps for Setting Up Your Facebook Shop
Even if you are not a digital marketing agency, you can follow the simple steps of setting up a shop on the social media platform.
Step 1: Find and click on the “Add shop link” on the platform. This will show you a pop-up explaining how you can utilize this section. To continue, click on the Add shop button.
Step 2: The next pop-up will ask you to agree to the merchant terms and policies, make sure to read them before you agree. They include information about product selling, returns and refunds, and other crucial details.
Step 3: After you agree to the terms and policies, you will be asked to enter the details of your business and set up a payment processing method along with stripe. If you have an already existing stripe account, then you have to link that account to your shop and if you don’t have a stripe account, then to proceed with linking you have to first set up the stripe account.
After you complete this setup, a “Shop Now” button will be displayed on your profile, through which one can have a sneak peek at your shop.
Step 4: The next step is to describe what you are selling at your shop in 200 characters or less.
Step 5: Now that you are all set to add products to your shop, click on the “Add product button” and start configuring the details of each product on the shop along with an image. Make sure to follow all the guidelines of adding products laid down by Facebook.
After you finish adding the products, they will get under review to see if they meet the merchant terms and policies and product listing guidelines. Once the products are approved, you can find them in your shop. If you wish to add more products, you can find the “Add product” button on your shop.
You can also create collections if your shop has various category products.
Step 6: If you need to update the settings, then click on the shop link on your page and then move on to settings.
Step 7: Once you start receiving orders, you can manage them in the publishing tool given under the shop section. Confirm the pending orders, mark them as shipped and provide a tracking number if applicable. After this, the payment from the customer will be processed and your inventory will get updated as the order moves to pending. Setting up your own shop may require some time and effort, and knowledge about Facebook’s product selling policies. If you want to get help from experts, do connect with us for complete turnkey Facebook shop set up.
NEW Business Features being launched by the Facebook shop to support businesses
As the trend of social media businesses is on the rise, social media platforms are also supporting such businesses in every possible way. These giants are coming up with some of the other features that can prove to be vital for your business. Facebook too has rolled out features like comment moderation for creators that lets you connect on live chat or videos; in-feed controls, both for users and brands that enables you to set preferences and optimize what updates you would like to see more and what you would like to see less. This feature is still in the testing phase, if everything goes well, it will be out soon. Facebook now has expanded the eligibility so that the cryptocurrency brands can run ads on the platform.
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Pic Credits: | https://medium.com/@socializers22/how-to-set-up-a-facebook-shop-and-start-selling-now-10d7976ab28b | [] | 2021-12-25 07:27:08.540000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Facebook', 'Digitalmarketing Services', 'Facebook Marketing', 'Digital Marketing Agency'] |
ZANZIBAR IS BETTING ON STEM TO PROGRESS GIRLS’ FUTURES | Students on the STEM Club at Mikindani Secondary School in Zanzibar. Such clubs across Zanzibar are made possible by the STEM For Success project.
The STEM students are at the height of excitement as they prepare to present their recent science projects.
Farhat, a senior 4 student, is the first to step up. This eighteen-year-old math and chemistry wiz and her partner have built a radio transmitter that allows them to broadcast their school’s radio station at 100.7 MHz.
Farhat is one of the many high-achieving girls that are part of the STEM club at Mikindani Secondary School, a science and technology-focused school on the archipelago of Zanzibar.
The club is the result of a new pilot program, STEM For Success, that aims to improve the underperformance of girls and the underrepresentation of women in STEM-related fields at the tertiary and professional levels here in Zanzibar.
“I decided to join STEM club because I wanted to be more creative in science subjects and I also want to receive a good score,” she said.
But Farhat, and the other girls that excel in STEM club, are not common.
“Evidence shows that girls in primary school are on par with boys [in science subjects], but as they move up they perform less and less,” said Ali Mohamed Abdallah, STEM For Success project coordinator for the Milele Zanzibar Foundation. It is a local organization that works to improve the quality of life for the people of Zanzibar by addressing some of its most persistent development gaps.
“If you take the number of qualified doctors, qualified engineers, or qualified pilots here…you will see the number of women very, very, very low,” he added.
With support from the Ministry of Education, Milele Zanzibar Foundation is working alongside the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) and the Forum for African Women Education (FAWE) to pilot and implement STEM For Success.
For the pilot, each organization brings with them 5 school, with the goal of reaching 300 form 1 to form 3 students. Through competitions, camps and regular career fairs in which the students meet professional women in STEM, the goal is to raise the girls’ interest in the sciences and to show them that they, too, can reach those heights.
Farhat, the student at Mikindani Secondary, says that her interest in becoming a pilot spiked after meeting a female pilot at a STEM For Success event.
“She helped me decide the coursework I need to take to go into aviation,” she said. Other past career presentations have looked at Marine biology and agriculture.
“I want to one day see Zanzibar have an adequate number of female scientists in the STEM-related fields,” said Abdallah. “I want to see a good number of qualified female doctors, not just nurses. I want to see female electricians. I want to see female marine scientists… I want to see women in all these fields.” | https://medium.com/@tina_80612/zanzibar-is-betting-on-stem-to-progress-girls-futures-830b6303c23e | ['The Partnership', 'Psipse'] | 2019-07-10 09:52:37.718000+00:00 | ['Tanzania', 'Sdgs', 'Science', 'Education', 'STEM'] |
The Nature of Racism in America | The Nature of Racism in America
History, Problems and Solutions
There is no easy way to talk about this, but it needs to be talked about now more than ever. Yes, racism has existed for a long time. No, the US is not the only country that is struggling with this problem. However, it is the most powerful nation in the world right not, yet it can’t seem to manage what has always haunted it’s history.
Now, I won’t use the language of original sin, when I talk about slavery, since many Americans seem to forget that that description would fit the Native American genocide better. To indicate that there was no dramatic injustice done to another ethnicity on the continent before slavery is to deny history. And that kind of forgetfulness is exactly the problem! Especially since Natives are still facing immense discrimination, poverty and sickness (corona overwhelmed the tribes’ healthcare systems).
While it’s important to acknowledge the plight of all minorities on the North American continent, it was the brutal murder of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis that sparked nationwide protests, which were well deserved. The death of George Floyd opened the eyes of many people, not just Americans, to the racial injustices and cruelties that are perpetuated by a system of oppression.
Of course that system did not just appear out of nowhere over night. The struggle of Afro-Americans in the US has been long and hard. Many a time politicians failed to remedy a split in the American populus. After the Civil War change could have been enacted, but the Reconstruction Era was severely lacking and ultimately failed. A system of segregation triumphed and laid waste to what could have been a more equal society.
Black people would face racism and brutality (lynchings). Every now and then the divide across racial lines would unload itself in great massacres, such as the above seen Tulsa massacre of 1921, when a white mob burned the district known as ‘black wall street’ to the ground and decimated the cities black population.
The civil rights era brought progress, no doubt, but Martin Luther King Jr. knew that more needed to be done. He also knew that men who were openly racist were not the movement’s biggest problem. In his letter from Birmingham Jail he wrote:
“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Which brings us to today. I am not here to condone looting or violence against civilians from either side, although notably that violence is overwhelmingly coming from the police force. I am however here to condemn each and everyone who is nitpicking or downright not supporting peaceful protest because of property destruction and violence. As Martin Luther King Jr. stated above, there is NO ‘more convenient season’. The corona pandemic which hit African-American (and Native American) communities the hardest is the perfect time to say ‘No more!’.
I am here to propose solutions. Solutions that are not my own, but that I find would be effective in dealing with the problem of police brutality in the United States. Those are the solutions are the following proposals by campaign zero:
Don’t be mistaken, to end police brutality is only one step towards real equality. In order to achieve a truly equal American society for black people, there needs to also be economic and healthcare reforms. Both of which are areas that show a far more subtle discrimination and racism. As with the police force, the problem is not ‘a few bad apples’, it’s a system of inequality. To reform the police system is only the first step, but other major changes such as Medicare For All need to follow.
Now, I am very much aware that this piece is eventually going to get me in trouble with some people. To that I say: Good! Or in the words of one of the greatest US presidents: “I welcome their hatred.”
I will link some of my sources and some of the resources you can go to below. In all honesty, I could’ve written a whole lot more, but I feel like containing this to a ‘to the point’ sort of article would be most effective. | https://medium.com/follow-your-heart/the-nature-of-racism-in-america-57a4fc534cce | ['Nikolai Quack'] | 2020-06-05 22:03:11.883000+00:00 | ['History', 'George Floyd', 'Racism', 'Police', 'Black Lives Matter'] |
Declaring 2020 a Year of Jubilee | I have heard the year 2020 described in so many ways by friends, colleagues, pundits, and memes. Not surprisingly, none has offered it as a Jubilee year, a “favorable year of our Lord.”
I have always been interested in the concept of Jubilee that the Old Testament outlines. Leviticus, the center book of the Pentateuch, provides a detailed prescriptive of how the Israelites were to live and interact with the land, their animals, each other, and God. The passage of time and the seasons figure prominently in these instructions, including periods of sabbath (rest). God’s people are told to observe a complete sabbath from tilling and planting every seven years and are promised that there will be abundance in the crops of the sixth year to sustain them through the fallow time, a pause that will allow the land to rest so its fertility can be revived and restored. But the divine law does not stop with just that. Leviticus 25 defines another special period of sabbath to occur every 50 years, the Year of Jubilee.
It feels significant that Jesus chose the words that referenced Jubilee for his “opening statement” in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth. Jesus entered there on the Sabbath, which the gospel writer Luke informs us was his custom. We do not know all of the details about how he came to be the reader of scripture that day, but we do know that Jesus stood up to read and was handed a scroll containing the words of the prophet Isaiah. I wonder what it was like as the other men sat in that room and watched Jesus unroll the sacred scroll. Was there anticipation? Was there disinterest? Was there skepticism? Luke says that Jesus intentionally chose the passage we know as the first two verses of Isaiah 61. “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…”
Jesus chose to deliver a message of freedom from all that oppresses and weighs us down: debts, heartaches, and the many forms of imprisonment. With these words, Jesus offered a gospel of deliverance and set the priority of his public ministry toward those marginalized by society and religious institutions. I think my own interest in the idea of Jubilee has come from imagining that kind of relief, a reprieve from all that binds us. What would it be like to have mortgages, medical bills, and student loans forgiven as an act of sabbath and restoration? What would it be like for those who are imprisoned unjustly to be released? How would our society look were it shed of hatred, racism, jealousy, and selfishness?
But proclaiming 2020 as a liberating year of Jubilee, a “favorable year of our Lord,” while we have sequestered ourselves from a relentless virus, probably seems off the mark. Or is it? Since our spring lockdown, I have been thinking and praying about how I could claim that. Could God’s Spirit enable me to live out a Jubilee year even as I remained cloistered from the activities and people I love? I believed that, if possible, this would be a most miraculous kind of journey. The idea reminded me of the words of the great American poet Wendell Berry: “Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts.”¹
In the Old Testament, the occurrence of Jubilee was associated with a specific time, the 50th year. It represented a set calendar event in the rhythms and cycles of their lives. Today, our society has never been more aware of or tied to time. We have devices in our homes, in our pockets, and on our wrists that keep us informed, minute by minute, as to our progress through time. But then 2020 rolled in, drastically altering the rhythms of our lives. Our calendars, with their glaringly empty spaces, no longer held our undivided attention. Even the feel of seconds, minutes, and hours changed. One of the words so many have used is that this year feels surreal. It feels “out of time.” In musical terms, if a performer is out of time, it means that they have lost touch with the beat and the rhythmic integrity of the music. It also means that they have gotten lost in that all-important space between the beats, the most critical element in unifying and syncing. I believe that has happened to us this past year. The beat has changed in unexpected ways and has grown faint at times; and as a result, we have felt adrift, unable to latch on to the security of that strong, regular pulse, unable to make sense of that space between the beats.
Recently, I heard Rev. Dr. Joan Prentice speak on the concept of sacred rhythm. She is the Founder, Executive Director, and Pastor of The Ephesus Project, a nonprofit community ministry in Pittsburgh. She also serves God as a contemplative, meaning that she devotes her days to prayer and worship, and deliberately tracks her time around moments of prayers, Lectio divina, and other spiritual practices. She has learned from the ancient mystics and contemplatives of the early Church that our lives must be governed by a sacred rhythm. God has given us limitations and living beyond these puts us out of harmony and fellowship with God. Dr. Prentice has written a poem about this concept called “Holy Dance.” In it, she equates our lives as being in step with the divine beat and those space between the beats. Her words also describe what happens when we get out of balance, when we fall out of holy time, and the dance becomes clumsy and stilted.
And so as a meditation on the keeping of sacred time and the disrupting forces that interfere with the divine dance, I again revisit the calendar, which now shows only a few more days of 2020 remaining. Collectively, we grieve over the incredible loss and suffering rendered by the pandemic and its resulting collateral damage to livelihoods and relationships. We have no words to truly express that and will have to rely on the power of music to truly lament it, as “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”² But even amid this, though we have considered the facts, I invite us to retroactively declare 2020 a Year of Jubilee, a year where we each have been given an opportunity to be emancipated from old ways of thinking and being that have not served us, or our neighbors, or our Lord.
Prayer: Loving God, as we mourn for losses due to the virus and feel anger over injustices, help us to also see 2020 as “a favorable year,” a Year of Jubilee, where you have offered to rescue us from binding beliefs and actions, so that we can walk into 2021 with new freedoms through you. “The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” Amen
¹from the poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”
²quote of the 19th century French novelist Victor Hugo | https://medium.com/@kelliedbrown/declaring-2020-a-year-of-jubilee-16f16a7b2568 | ['Kellie Brown'] | 2020-12-26 19:15:12.387000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Pandemic', '2020', 'Jubilee'] |
THE SAFEGURDS THAT HELPED ENSURE POLITICES DIDN’T INFLUENCE THE VACCINE PROCESS | Tocoincide with the U.S. vaccine rollout, Elemental has published an extremely thorough guide to Covid-19 vaccines, answering every question we could think of. Elemental will continue to update and add to this FAQ as the rollout and FDA authorization process continues. If you would like to submit a question, leave a response at the end of the story. Here’s a peek at one of the questions inside.
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Q: How can I be sure that the process of the vaccine’s development and approval wasn’t inappropriately influenced by political interests?
After evidence surfaced of the Trump administration’s meddling at the CDC, and given the criticism of the administration pressuring the FDA to grant an EUA to hydroxychloroquine (which was later revoked), it’s reasonable to have concerns about political influence in the Covid vaccine development process. Fortunately, several safeguards in the vaccine approval process — even for an EUA — are reassuring.
“One of the things that I point out is that yes, there have been instances [in the history of vaccine development] where scientists have been unethical, and these safeguards are in place to really limit the ability of any one scientist in being unethical,” said [Michele] Andrasik [PhD, director of social and behavioral sciences and community engagement at the Covid-19 Prevention Network at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center].
Two of the biggest safeguards are the VRBPAC [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] and ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] committees, both of which are made up of independent experts who are not employees of the FDA or the CDC and both of which hold open meetings available to the public. For example, President Trump issued an ultimatum to the FDA on December 11, demanding that the agency approve the Pfizer vaccine or he would fire FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, a move hardly reassuring to those who want the agency to make its decisions without political pressure. However, by that point, the vaccine had already been approved by the U.K.’s regulatory agency and had been reviewed by VRBPAC, which found its data on safety and effectiveness strong enough to recommend the FDA issue an EUA. The FDA nearly always follows VRBPAC recommendations, and the president has no ability to influence VRBPAC’s independent members.
In addition, every vaccine trial has an independent safety monitoring board responsible for overseeing the safety of the trial. You may have heard of some vaccine trials that were paused while an adverse event was investigated. That means the process is working: If someone has a heart attack, the trial stops vaccinating new participants until the study leaders can determine if the heart attack could have been related to the vaccine. Once it’s determined that a serious medical event is not related to the vaccine, the trials resume.
Finally, look to regulatory agencies outside the U.S., [Devon] Greyson [PhD, assistant professor of communication at University of Massachusetts, Amherst], said. “I think something that we in the United States lose sight of is that many, many other countries around the world are also assessing Covid-19 vaccines, and if you’re worried about whether you can trust your own country’s institutions, you can look at other countries to see if they’re also approving those vaccines,” she said. “If they are, you can have more confidence that the approval wasn’t made inappropriately or under political pressure.” | https://medium.com/@foxparvin/the-safegurds-that-helped-ensure-politices-didnt-influence-the-vaccine-process-aafa6431f6d3 | ['Fox Parvin'] | 2020-12-19 17:11:23.779000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Coronavirus', 'Public Health', 'Covid 19', 'Vaccines'] |
The challenges of using real-time epidemiological data in a public health crisis | (Pew Research Center illustration)
Pew Research Center has been documenting shifts in U.S. public opinion during the COVID-19 outbreak using our American Trends Panel, a randomly selected group of adults who take our surveys online. But a number of important questions can’t be answered by survey data alone. For instance: How is someone’s proximity to COVID-19 cases or deaths related to their perceptions of the crisis and the government’s response? Answering this question requires external data about the progression of the outbreak in survey respondents’ area at the time they took a particular survey.
A number of entities have been providing timely, well-organized data on the state of the coronavirus outbreak. But that raised a different question: How could we decide which source to use, especially since all use slightly different methods and report different types of data?
This post will walk through some of the differences in the data available from three widely used sources of information related to the geographic progression of the coronavirus outbreak:
The Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU) tracks confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths and recoveries on a daily basis at the county level in the United States, and at the province level in select countries globally.
The New York Times (NYT) provides data on deaths and confirmed cases on a daily basis at the U.S. county level.
The COVID Tracking Project provides data on tests, hospitalizations, deaths, recoveries and confirmed cases collected daily at the U.S. state level. It also offers data on intensive care unit admissions and ventilator usage.
Note that each of these sources is constantly evolving. The descriptions above are accurate as of the time of this analysis but may change in the future. Also note that we’ll be using the R statistical software program to walk through our analysis of the three sources in greater detail.
Analysis
To work with these datasets, we first had to download them from their respective online repositories and conduct some basic data processing to get the data in a consistent and usable condition. Here’s some example code we used with the Johns Hopkins data:
After performing a similar process for the other two data sources, we compared the results to see how well all three agreed with each other. Ideally, each of these sources would paint a similar picture — especially at the state or county level, since we wanted to see how local conditions might affect public opinion. But when we dug into the underlying numbers, we got a glimpse of some of the challenges of working with multiple sources of independently collected real-time data.
Using the Johns Hopkins dataset as our example, here’s the code we used to calculate cumulative nationwide COVID-19 case counts on a daily basis:
At the national level, all three sources told a similar story about the progression of the outbreak. The chart below shows total national-level reported case counts (displayed using a log scale) from each source, collected roughly in real time. As the outbreak progressed, the reported case count figures from each source began to diverge by as much as several thousand cases on any given day. But in the context of a pandemic with more than a half-million reported cases nationwide by early April, these differences were minimal as a share of overall cases:
Of course, national-level data isn’t especially useful if we’re trying to see how public opinion varies based on local conditions. So let’s see how these three sources compare when evaluating data at the state level instead. (Since only two of our three sources reported data at the county level, we decided to compare their state-level estimates.)
For the Johns Hopkins data, here’s how we aggregated the case counts from the county level up to the state level:
The charts below show the absolute difference in reported case counts in three states hit especially hard by the coronavirus: New York, California and Louisiana.
Several trends are apparent from these charts. First, our three sources consistently provided different numbers of case counts in California and New York, but apart from one brief blip, they showed virtually no divergence in Louisiana. Second, the sources that matched each other most closely were not always consistent across states. The Johns Hopkins and New York Times datasets matched each other relatively closely in California but diverged quite a bit in New York.
The chart below offers a more systematic view of this trend. It shows the proportional difference in daily reported case counts from the New York Times and COVID Tracking datasets at the state level relative to the Johns Hopkins dataset, starting in the first full week after all states had reported positive cases:
Two takeaways are clear from this analysis. First, when differences in case counts are observed, the New York Times dataset tends to report estimates for cases and deaths that are higher than those from the other two sources. The COVID Tracking dataset, on the other hand, tends to report numbers that are lower than the other two. Second, these datasets began to converge in the first two weeks of April, even if they still differed in their totals by several thousand cases. In the earlier weeks of the outbreak, these sources consistently differed around 20% to 40%. By April, these differences narrowed to 10% to 20%.
It wasn’t always easy to understand why we might be seeing these differences, but a few possibilities seemed likely after investigating the data and the different sources and methods being used:
Differences in counting methodology . These sources may define a COVID-19 cases differently. For instance, the JHU dataset counts presumptive cases as positive, while the COVID Tracking project focuses on counting positive cases as a subset of reported tests. At least partially as a result of these decisions, some datasets seem to consistently over- or undercount relative to others.
. These sources may define a COVID-19 cases differently. For instance, the JHU dataset counts presumptive cases as positive, while the COVID Tracking project focuses on counting positive cases as a subset of reported tests. At least partially as a result of these decisions, some datasets seem to consistently over- or undercount relative to others. Idiosyncratic sources of infection . Particularly in the early stages of the outbreak, cruise ships were a prominent source of COVID-19 infections. Some datasets (such as the JHU data) treat cases on cruise ships as their own entry not assigned to a particular state. Others, including The New York Times, assign those cases to the counties where the cruise ships first docked.
. Particularly in the early stages of the outbreak, cruise ships were a prominent source of COVID-19 infections. Some datasets (such as the JHU data) treat cases on cruise ships as their own entry not assigned to a particular state. Others, including The New York Times, assign those cases to the counties where the cruise ships first docked. Tracking delays and real-time errors . Our analysis indicated that case count differences often increased during the early part of the week and then declined through the weekend, before repeating the same cycle the following week. This might point toward recalibration efforts by the different sources over the course of the week.
. Our analysis indicated that case count differences often increased during the early part of the week and then declined through the weekend, before repeating the same cycle the following week. This might point toward recalibration efforts by the different sources over the course of the week. Changes in reporting structure . These sources are continuously adjusting their reporting structure to reflect the rapid developments on the ground. For instance, the JHU dataset alternated between reporting state-level and county-level data for a period of time before settling on its current level of granularity at the county level.
. These sources are continuously adjusting their reporting structure to reflect the rapid developments on the ground. For instance, the JHU dataset alternated between reporting state-level and county-level data for a period of time before settling on its current level of granularity at the county level. Retroactive fixes. Some of these data sources — most prominently the COVID Tracking collection — regularly recalibrate their historical data to match with official reports. One notable feature of some of this data collection effort is that changes are documented. As a result, researchers relying on real-time data and researchers working on retroactive data might get different results in a particular area on a particular day.
Conclusion
So which source did we wind up using in our own reporting? Our first analysis was based on a survey conducted March 10 to 16, relatively early in the outbreak. At that point, all three data sources reported comparable numbers of cases, and case counts nationwide were relatively low. For that study, we used state-level data from the COVID Tracking Project and grouped states into three broad “bins,” based on the number of reported cases.
Our second analysis was based on a survey conducted April 7 to 12. At that point, overall cases were much more prevalent. In order to capture respondents living in hard-hit areas, we decided to use death counts from the virus at the county level using the JHU dataset, and to again “bin” these counties into three broad groupings.
As we continue to track the geographic spread of the outbreak and its impact on public opinion, our choice of external data source will depend on the exact research question we’re striving to answer, as well as the level of geographic specificity needed to analyze our results. The wealth of near-real-time data on the outbreak has certainly been a boon to researchers, but figuring out the right tool for the task at hand is often not a simple one.
This post was written by Regina Widjaya and Aaron Smith of Pew Research Center. Regina Widjaya is a computational social scientist with the Data Labs team. Aaron Smith is director of Data Labs. | https://medium.com/pew-research-center-decoded/the-challenges-of-using-real-time-epidemiological-data-in-a-public-health-crisis-c7a6c2e9c950 | ['Regina Widjaya'] | 2020-05-01 20:04:02.106000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Public Health', 'Coronavirus', 'Data', 'Data Science'] |
A Closer Look At A Dangerous Side Effect of Antidepressants | Content Warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of suicidal ideation. More, the information here is does not oppose antidepressants. Antidepressants have helped many people, including myself. Also, I am not a doctor nor am I a mental health professional.
I’m in an overwater bungalow in Moorea, French Polynesia, clutching my heart, deliberating over ways to kill myself. I’ve been on a new anti-depressant — the fourth I’ve tried this year — for seven days. Despite the hope I’d had that it would help take me out of my misery or at least keep me from wanting to take my own life, it has made me feel even worse than before I started it.
I’m in one of the most beautiful places in the world, with the man I love, but my soul is screaming. It’s being scorched alive. The only way to stop the searing fury is for me to die. I cannot sleep. The overwhelming urge to kill myself devours any part of my spirit that, during these past 10 months of depression, still had the ability to fight.
I’ve been on a new anti-depressant medication, Pristiq for seven days.
When you have done everything to fight, and you realize there are no options left but to kill yourself, the decision to give in should be a relief.
But as desperate as I am to end my suffering, I’m still afraid to do it. And yet — and this is new for me — what overrides my fear is a pervasive and impersonal force that dictates that I need to kill myself. Even though I’m frightened, I am also dispassionate, which again, is not like me.
A 2010 article in CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics, highlights that “Antidepressant-induced suicidality appears to be an uncommon occurrence but also a legitimate phenomenon.” The article goes on to discuss case-reports of antidepressant-induced suicidality, but also points out how, for the most part, the benefits of antidepressants outweigh the risks.
To most people taking antidepressants, this is not new information. All antidepressants list suicidal ideation as a side effect. A black box warning was issued in 2004 and revised in 2007, warning of the increased risk of suicidality for patients under the age of 25 who take antidepressants.
I’d been aware of this side effect every time I’d started a new antidepressant. I’m usually already suicidal before starting any of these drugs, so I feel I have nothing to lose. And some have helped me greatly.
Then, enter Pristiq. Four days before we left on our trip, I was so depressed I did not think I’d be able to travel. In a last ditch effort to save myself, I popped a 25 mg. Pristiq pill from a prescription I’d picked up a week before. And after taking just that one pill, I felt a lift in my mood.
I also experienced a more positive outlook the second day I was on it. I woke up early, running at 6:30 am and relishing the chilly air and sunshine. I enjoyed being around people at my volunteer job, driving home that day thinking, “I’m doing something meaningful.”
But during days three and four on the drug my mood bounced between tolerable and despondent multiple times. I was also plagued with insomnia.
I felt more restless than usual — akathisia, I’ve later learned. Akathisia is a side effect of some psychiatric medications. It involves inner restlessness accompanied by mental distress.
A 2002 NCBI article, “Akathisia: Overlooked At A Cost,” reports,
“It’s often difficult for patients to recognize that they’re experiencing akathisia; it’s often mistaken for anxiety or depression.”
Similarly, I thought I was anxious and depressed, but that I’d push through the discomfort when the Pristiq fully kicked in.
By the time my husband and I were on vacation in Moorea, Pristiq’s side effects were raging. He’d booked this trip to a beautiful place thinking it’d help cure my depression. Both of us had naively hoped that being in paradise with no demands placed on me, and spending time together, would at least curb the malady in my mind.
Fast forward to the overwater bungalow and my impulse to die by suicide at 2 am.
I have never had such strong, unemotional suicidal ideation.
Let me explain: my usual suicidal ideation involved crying, emotional pain, and hopelessness. This time, I did not cry. Agitation bubbled up from under the skin of a flat, detached person. Instead of my standard sadness and desire to end the pain, I felt like I was required to die.
I now believe medication-induced akathisia caused this more depersonalized yet urgent suicidality.
Similarly, a 2017 New York Times article, “Lawsuit Over a Suicide Points to a Risk of Antidepressants”, discusses how one woman successfully sued Glaxo, the makers of the antidepressant Paxil, after her husband jumped in front of a train after starting the drug. This man also experienced akathisia, which his wife reported played a key role in his suicide.
I email my psychiatrist; it’s 2 am and I won’t hear back from her for at least five hours. But maybe we can have a remote session in the morning.
Then I take what’s left of my emergency travel Xanax. I fade into the laconic state between sleeping and waking. It’s not the oblivion I’d hoped for, but at the very least, it stops me from acting on my suicidal urges.
When the Xanax wears off, I consider swimming out to the rough part of the Pacific Ocean and letting the Tahitian currents take control.
I pace the room as my thoughts dart around — would a fishing boat find me first, then put me on a 72-hour hold? Maybe — it’s 5 am and the sun won’t be up for an hour, but an hour isn’t long enough to guarantee the currents or sharks can kill me before someone finds me alive. But how will I get through another day? What if Dr. P. doesn’t email me back? You need to die by suicide. You can’t live anymore.
My psychiatrist emails me back at 7 am. We’ve set a Zoom meeting for 11 am.
“You promised Dr. P. that you’d talk to her before killing yourself. At least wait a few more hours before you do it,” I tell myself.
When we do meet, I robotically tell her, “I know my affect is flat, but I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin. I have a strong urge to kill myself. ”
We come up with two possible interventions while I’m still out of the country: either I go back on a doubled dose of Prozac from what I was taking before, or I double the Pristiq. “You’re not on a therapeutic dose yet; we don’t know if it‘s fully working.”
“What about the black box warning of suicide with this drug?”
“That warning pertains more to people under the age of 25.”
“Hm. Ok.”
My gut still tells me to go back on a stronger dose of Prozac; something about my emotionless suicidality makes me fear the Pristiq, despite her assurances about the black box warning. I love Dr. P. because she lets me make decisions about my medication. She gives me options, but does not try to sway me in one direction or another.
I am very fortunate I chose to double my Prozac and discontinue the Pristiq. I am not here to villianize Pristiq or antidepressants in general. It has worked for many people who suffer from major depression. Other antidepressants, Prozac included, have also caused akathisia and suicidal thinking, often resulting in fatal outcomes.
But these medications have also profoundly helped many who suffer from mental illness.
I am here to point out that the black box warning, especially regarding akathisia, needs to be taken more seriously with both patients under and over age 25.
I took the same risk when doubling my Prozac — that, too, could have caused me akathisia and robotic suicidality. Fortunately, though, it has helped my depression greatly. I haven’t contemplated suicide in over a week. In that respect, the drug has saved my life.
But after having experienced akathisia and a different, more impersonal type of suicidal ideation on Pristiq, I’ve learned that adults and young people alike need to be more aware of this potentially deadly side effect. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/a-closer-look-at-a-dangerous-side-effect-of-antidepressants-2a6666a70423 | ['Kelley Jhung'] | 2020-12-27 08:09:51.595000+00:00 | ['Depression', 'Antidepressants', 'Mental Health', 'Suicide', 'Akathisia'] |
Top CCTV Brands in world — Best CCTV camera Brands | Are you looking for best CCTV camera brand in world. You are in right place. This list about top CCTV camera brand in the world. Here is list of best camera brand around the world and will help you to choose the best camera brand for your premises, so lets come to the point the Top CCTV Brand in world.
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Sony is a significant top 10 CCTV camera marks on the planet, with the best CCTV camera types in the CCTV camera advertise. This organization with the best 10 surveillance cameras frameworks was established in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Maruta. Sony is an anothe brand of top cctv camera brands in world. Sony CCTV cameras are considered in the main 10 surveillance cameras on the planet. Sony company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
6. FLIR systems
An another top cctv brand in world is Flir. FLIR Systems is the world’s biggest business organization spend significant time in the structure and creation of warm imaging cameras, segments and imaging sensors. Situated in Wilsonville, Oregon, United States and established in 1978, the organization makes warm cameras and segments for a wide assortment of business and government applications. FLIR is a part of the S&P 500 list with yearly incomes in overabundance of $1.5 billion every year starting at 2014. In the spring of 2013, Andrew C. Teich turned into FLIR’s CEO and president after the retirement of Earl Lewis. FLIR utilizes 2,741 individuals around the world.
7. AVIGILON
Allegion plc is a Dublin based supplier of security items and answers for homes and organizations. It makes thirty one worldwide brands, including CISA, Interflex, LCN, Schlage and Von Duprin. The $US2 billion organization sells items in excess of 130 nations over the world. David D. Petratis has been declared Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of the organization in August 2013. Allegion spun off from Ingersoll Rand Plc on 1 December 2013, and turned into an independent, traded on an open market organization. This set Allegion on the S&P 500, where it supplanted JC Penney. Listed in the top cctv brands in world.
8. VIVOTEK
VIVOTEK INC. is a Taiwan-based organization essentially occupied with the innovative work, assembling and appropriation of system cameras and system sound and video servers. The organization’s items incorporate system sound and video servers, webcams, remote webcams, revolving webcams, rotating zoom webcams, peed arch webcams and system video recorder. The Company appropriates its items in local market and abroad markets, including America, Mexico and other. One of the major CCTV camera brands in the world.
9. TVT
TVT CCTV Company is a 13-year-old Chinese CCTV gear maker is prepared to get one of the greatest development markets. In a year ago TVT CCTV Company has changed its market procedure, they make three national wholesalers for selling items on the planet. Very trusty brand in the list of top cctv camera brands in world.
10. CP PLUS
CP PLUS is a main worldwide producer of cutting edge security and reconnaissance arrangements with nearness in more than 60 nations over the globe. … Solid R&D, wide assortment of items and arrangements, and client situated way to deal with item advancement are prime drivers of progress for CP PLUS. Mostly used top cctv brand in india from this list of top cctv brands in world.
11. IDIS
IDIS Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Korea-based holding organization essentially occupied with the administration of its auxiliaries. The Company’s primary backups incorporate Intelligent Digital Integrated Security Co., Ltd., which is chiefly occupied with the advancement, production and dispersion of computerized video recorders (DVRs) utilized for video reconnaissance regions; KORTEK CORPORATION, had practical experience in the improvement, assembling and circulation of screens for industry uses, and IDP Corp., Ltd., which is for the most part occupied with the improvement, assembling and conveyance of recognizable proof (ID) card printers. The Company’s associated organizations likewise incorporate Matrix Network Inc, IDIS Europe Limited, Revo America Corporation and HD PRO CO., LTD, which are occupied with the dissemination of DVRs, and assembling of shut circuit TV (CCTV) cameras. This is very good best from the top cctv brand in world.
12. MOBOTIX
Mobotix AG is a Germany-based supplier of Internet convention (IP) video arrangements, just as video the board programming (VMS) and video examination programming. The Company creates and delivers cameras with advanced picture sensors, coordinated (PCs) and system association, and are furnished with capacity, alert and communication capacities. This is one of my favorite in the list of top cctv brand in world. The Company’s item portfolio is isolated into four item gatherings: The Cameras item bunch incorporates indoor and open air cameras, arrange cameras for day and night, high-goals cameras and hemispheric cameras, among others; the product items create video the board programming; the Home Automation item bunch incorporates IP video entryway stations, connectors, and the Accessories item bunch contains links, focal points and sensors. What’s more, it offers different related administrations, and works workplaces in Germany, the United States, Spain, France, Japan and Australia.
13. ACTI
ACTI Corporation is a Taiwan-based company principally engaged in the development, production and sales of digital surveillance systems. The Company’s main products include network video surveillance systems, network cameras, video servers, digital surveillance and management systems, as well as advanced video surveillance and analysis software. The Company also provides intelligent image integration services. Very reliable company in top cctv brands in world. The Company distributes its products in domestic market and to overseas markets, including the United States, Australia, Mexico and others.
14. INFINOVA
Shenzhen Infinova Limited is a China-based company principally engaged in the research, development, design, manufacture and distribution of electronic security products. The Company’s main products include civil security products and professional security products, such as professional security products for banking and chain retailing industries. The Company is also involved in Internet marketing business. The Company distributes its products in domestic market and to overseas markets. Listed among the top cctv brands in the world.
15. OPTEX
OPTEX GROUP Company, Limited, some time ago OPTEX Company, Limited is a Japan-based organization for the most part occupied with the improvement, structure, assembling and clearance of different sensors and related frameworks. The Company has four business sections. The Sensing fragment is associated with the improvement and structuring of different sensors and related frameworks. The Factory Automation (FA) portion is associated with the improvement and structuring FA items. The Contract Manufacturing section is occupied with the contracted assembling and clearance of items created and structured by the Company. The Others fragment is occupied with the advancement and structuring of items for data frameworks, picture process coordinated circuits (ICs) and enormous scale incorporated circuits (LSI) and possess brand ICs, just as the activity of participation sports clubs. The Company sells the items delivered by assembling partnered organizations and temporary workers through wholesalers in household and universal markets. One of best camera brand in top cctv brands in wolrd.
16. COMMAX
COMMAX CO., LTD is a Korea-based organization occupied with the production of electronic interchanges hardware. Best cctv camera brands in the world. The Company’s items portfolio comprises of video telephones including advanced video telephones and shading video telephones; interphones including wired interphones and remote interphones; shut circuit TV (CCTV) frameworks including perception frameworks, CCTV controller frameworks, computerized CCTV frameworks and others, just as open location (PA) frameworks and medical caretaker call frameworks. The Company likewise gives home system frameworks, which are remote control arrangements of systems associating PCs, interphones, TVs and other computerized hardware. The Company appropriates its items inside household advertise and to abroad markets.
17. ALLEGION
Allegion Public Limited Company is a supplier of security items and arrangements. The Company offers an arrangement of mechanical and electronic security items over a scope of brands. Its fragments incorporate Americas; Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA), and Asia Pacific. Its items incorporate entryway closers and controls; entryway and door jambs (steel); electronic security items; electronic and biometric get to control frameworks; leave gadgets; locks, locksets, compact bolts and key frameworks; time, participation and workforce efficiency frameworks, and different extras. It sells a scope of security items and answers for end clients in business, institutional and private offices over the world, including into the training, human services, government, cordiality, business office and single and multi-family private markets. As of December 31, 2016, it made and sold mechanical and electronic security items and arrangements in around 130 nations.One of the best CCTV brands in world.
18. ASSA ABLOY
Allegion Public Limited Company is a supplier of security items and arrangements. The Company offers an arrangement of mechanical and electronic security items over a scope of brands. Its fragments incorporate Americas; Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA), and Asia Pacific. Its items incorporate entryway closers and controls; entryway and door jambs (steel); electronic security items; electronic and biometric get to control frameworks; leave gadgets; locks, locksets, compact bolts and key frameworks; time, participation and workforce efficiency frameworks, and different extras. It sells a scope of security items and answers for end clients in business, institutional and private offices over the world, including into the training, human services, government, cordiality, business office and single and multi-family private markets. As of December 31, 2016, it made and sold mechanical and electronic security items and arrangements in around 130 nations.
19. Zicom
Zicom is another main 10 surveillance cameras frameworks on the planet. This imaginative top 10 CCTV camera brand on the planet started its voyage in 1994 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. Zicom is one of India’s driving surveillance camera organizations with a developing piece of the overall industry.
20. Sanyo
Sanyo is another best 10 CCTV camera brands with different CCTV camera types and the main 10 surveillance cameras frameworks and top 10 surveillance cameras on the planet. The organization was established in 1947 and joined in 1950. This is one of the best 10 CCTV camera organizations that has its base camp in Osaka, Japan. Sanyo electric organization was obtained by Panasonic (half stake) in 2009 for $4.5 billion. One of the top cctv camera brands in world.
21. Honeywell
Honeywell is one of the largest CCTV camera manufacturers in the USA, offering various CCTV camera types in the CCTV camera market. This company was founded in 1906 by Mark C Honeywell and is headquartered in New Jersey, USA. Honeywell is the market leader in the security industry with major brands using its services across the globe.
Conclusion of Top CCTV Brands in world
The worldwide CCTV camera advertise is ready to develop at 13% CAGR from 2017 to 2022 so as to turn into a market of worth more than $25 billion until the finish of 2022. The worldwide CCTV camera showcase is encountering a gigantic measure of shaky development as a result of mergers and acquisitions of top 10 CCTV camera marks on the planet. Another apparent example in the worldwide CCTV camera advertise is the enormous number of CCTV camera makers in USA, Asia, and Pacific district. The vast majority of the main 10 CCTV camera organizations are putting an immense total of cash into the R&D of new and better mechanically propelled items to beat their rivals in the worldwide market.
The interest for first class CCTV cameras is relied upon to increment further at a high rate because of the rising urbanization, change in way of life and requirement for security reconnaissance by the legislatures and open bodies. The worldwide CCTV camera market can be divided dependent on the kind of model into PTZ camera, box camera, arch camera, slug camera. The vault camera section is the market chief in the CCTV camera producers in USA market and it drives the piece of the overall industry with about 45% in Q1 2018. This CCTV camera fragment is additionally expected to develop at an incredible speed remembering about the expanding need and necessities for hello there tech CCTV cameras. | https://medium.com/@arshali/top-cctv-brands-in-world-761f34295d70 | ['Arsh Ali'] | 2019-11-18 10:32:30.151000+00:00 | ['Best Brand', 'Cctv Camera', 'Security Camera', 'Surveillance'] |
Fixing Stuff Around Yourself | Verily Allah loveth those who turn to Him, and loveth those who seek to be clean (The Qur’ran 2;222)
Above written verse explains how cleanliness plays a major role in someone’s life. Cleanliness is not just related to just yourself it’s also related to how you make your surroundings clean and fix everything which makes no sense. Amal gave us a task to fix things around yourself which is a basic trait of self leadership. So here is an example how I fix the things around myself.
Mess created by my younger brother
Coincidentally I went to drawing room just saw this mess created by my little brother. Being a sportsman he changes his clothes almost twice a day so he just threw them here and there. So I just assembled and placed them somewhere else where all the dirty clothes were gathered and packed his bag and put the other things where they belong.
After clearing the mess
After clearing the mess I can say that at least someone can sit on these sofas. From this activity I concluded:
how can someone become self leader i.e, I just decided and made it
2. you should clear mess or the annoying things whether it’s yours or not
3. it will give comfort to someone else | https://medium.com/@rauf-anwar163/fixing-stuff-around-yourself-de63d57f8701 | ['Rauf Anwar'] | 2020-12-25 18:23:18.867000+00:00 | ['Amal Fellowship'] |
Side By Side | Side By Side
Side by side
Same height
Pretty
Focused on the other
Bogosse and Cinderella
Unworried
Before Him and the outside
The promise
Side by side
Sealed and uncovered
No shy
Riding in the light
Day and night
Praises uncontrolled
Burning with the fire
Instilling desire
Convincing on-lookers
Side by side
Revealing the inside
Breeding opinions
Considering the outside
Peeling the onions
Birthing suspicion
Side by side
A fence in the middle
Feigning oblivion
No-name cases to settle
Head below the water
Suffocating with air for two
Mouths firing bubbles
Thoughts they can’t subdue
Side by side
Hearts over-pressured
Unable to give a sound
Forgetting the rhythm
Hushing the roommate’s pulses
Feeling the outside’s
Drinking without rigour
Beating to stupor
Acting and reacting
Fading and pretending
Side by side
Consumed
Destroyed
Heartless
Sleeping in the cold
Too late to save
The outside has gathered
Prayers to say
Side by side
Hand in hand
Right in left or left in right
Too late to matter
Each on their side
Each under their glass
Locked in their boxes
Bogosse and Cinderella
Focused on the white light
Leaving. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/side-by-side-648538eae2c3 | ['Ngansop A. Roy'] | 2019-06-17 10:21:00.753000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'A Cornered Gurl', 'Relationships', 'Love', 'Couples'] |
Why “Mainstream Adoption” is an Unfair Short-Term Success Metric for DApps | This was originally posted on CoinDesk as part of their 2018 Year in Review series.
Blockchain Battle Cries
Two popular refrains by crypto commentators in 2018 (and earlier) were “the herd is coming” and a call for “mainstream adoption.” Prognosticators speculated on the impact to prices caused by a herd of institutional investors adding crypto assets to their portfolios. Although we did see bitcoin futures launch, exploding venture capital activity, and Yale’s endowment dipping its toes in crypto investing, prices have gone down, not up.
We are still waiting for this herd.
When herd?
However, it’s safe to say retail speculation on crypto assets has already reached some level of “mainstream adoption,” as evidenced by constant media coverage by CNBC and Bloomberg and markets like Square Cash, Robinhood, and Coinbase. Depending on which researcher you ask, the run-up in cryptocurrency prices in late 2017 and early 2018 was fueled largely by retail and enthusiast investors.
In the burgeoning decentralized applications space, the conversation about “mainstream adoption” is focused on DAUs and UX improvements.
I have to say — things are not looking good.
Usage numbers remain pitifully low and the user experiences offered are generally terrible. The DApp space has been rife with questionable ICOs, outright scams, and useless tokens that have lost nearly all their value. The prophesied inflection point of “mainstream adoption” for DApps feels incredibly distant.
I would argue that this level of froth is to be expected and that we are way too early for “mainstream adoption” to be a sensible success metric for DApps.
Building Blocks
This was an important year for DApp building. There have been a number of impressive development wins, even if user numbers don’t reflect this.
Origin Protocol development activity
We saw the release of the prediction market Augur, the first ever ICO for a DApp built on Ethereum, after 3 years of development. Although it isn’t a pleasure to use (yet), it represents a remarkable technical achievement. Augur saw a notable amount of users, open interest, and markets opened after launch. This activity dropped quickly, as commentators were eager to point out, but the US midterm elections was a bright spot for Augur. Over $1,000,000 was staked on Augur in this market, compared to around $550,000 on PredictIt, the leading centralized prediction market.
Prominent Ethereum DApps Golem and Aragon also went live on mainnet in 2018. 0x and MakerDAO saw increased adoption and activity, with several successful relayers launching and 1% of all ether locked as collateral to issue Dai stablecoins. Decentralized exchanges like IDEX and ForkDelta saw huge growth in users and trade volume. Gnosis launched its “slow.trade” auction-based DEX. Status, a decentralized messaging platform, moved to beta, enabling mainnet by default. Spankchain, Connext, and Liquidity Network launched state channel payments on Ethereum, providing a path towards cheaper and faster payments for DApps. Loom Network launched Plasma Cash sidechains for its suite of games and DApps. My own company’s peer-to-peer marketplace DApp went live on mainnet as well.
In the bitcoin world, the Lightning Network saw a significant increase in the number of nodes and channels. The list of Lightning apps is growing. Blockstack’s platform now supports dozens of DApps, including Graphite, a decentralized Google Docs alternative.
Bubble Behavior
Many transformative technologies have been accompanied by speculative bubbles, from railroads, petroleum, electricity, to the internet. Frenzied investors have been plowing money into questionable, “oversubscribed” investment schemes for hundreds of years.
The dot-com bubble
Long after these bubbles burst, primordial companies borne from them, such as Union Pacific, the descendants of Standard Oil, (Edison) General Electric, and Amazon, remain giants.
There is a common thread in all of this. Speculators expect too much too quickly, bad actors rush in to take advantage of this, people sour on the technology after market crashes, and this underlying technology does eventually change the world in profound ways — even if it doesn’t make every impatient speculator rich.
I have been exposed to a huge variety of blockchain projects and founders due to my role dealing with partnerships for a blockchain platform company. Earlier this year, the crypto bull market and ICO mania created an environment of perverse incentives. Short-term greed and FOMO ruled. Many projects focused solely on fundraising and marketing.
There were even rumors of some projects acting like unregulated hedge funds, investing company money into their friends’ companies. Extreme price appreciation inflated many egos. Lack of sensible treasury management and a total disregard of securities laws were shockingly common.
We are seeing some of the consequences of our failure to self-regulate now, with SEC enforcement on the rise and once-hyped projects shutting down due to their war chests experiencing 90% drawdowns. All of this is deleterious for long-term growth.
The sooner we rid ourselves of this behavior, the better.
Beyond the Bubble
Something to keep in mind is that we are competing with the legacy internet, computer applications, and financial infrastructure all while trying to launch a grand, fragile economic experiment.
We should remember that it took decades for automobiles and tractors to overtake horses. This may seem surprising today, but if you consider that early drivers had to contend with a complete lack of supporting infrastructure, it becomes easier to understand. I would liken the current state of blockchain to before the beginning of the dot com boom, placing us in the 1980s rather than the 1990s. We are still in an infrastructure building phase.
We are not ready for mainstream adoption.
Everyone knows that the layer 1 of public blockchains badly needs to scale. Developers are running into the current limits of blockchain and shifting focus to layer 2 and off-chain solutions.
I predict we will see the terms “Web3” and “decentralized web” more and more in 2019.
Client-server versus peer-to-peer
Another major long-term challenge in the DApp space is that we don’t yet have a proven economic model for DApp tokens. Many DApp tokens which have been good investments suffer from questionable economic design.
Even the dominant narratives about bitcoin and ether — bitcoin being a store of value akin to digital gold, and ether paying for the gas required to use a decentralized world computer — are not universally accepted by researchers.
It will be an ongoing challenge for projects to demonstrate a model that supports the price of their token that is rooted in utility instead of speculation. A DApp token claiming to be like bitcoin’s digital gold or ether’s gas should face extreme scrutiny. Tokens have tremendous potential to incentivize growth and good behavior. We need to figure this out.
The good news is, there are tons of smart and motivated people quietly working on all of these problems. Testing new economic models and improving the base infrastructure that supports billions of dollars in value takes time.
Be Patient
Finally, we must learn to separate price movements from underlying fundamentals. High prices don’t mean that a blockchain revolution is imminent and low prices don’t mean that the technology is doomed. Things aren’t going to look like what we expected when everyone was drunk off 100x returns, at least not anytime soon. It will take a while for this technology to mature, but the underlying fundamentals are strong.
The amount of smart contract computations on Ethereum is nearly the same as it was during the beginning of the year, when prices were at all-time highs. This year has seen hundreds of thousands of GitHub commits to blockchain projects and developer tool downloads. Blockchain offers open platforms with novel economic incentives for developers, which will win their hearts and minds in the long-run.
A herd of builders is coming, laying the foundation for mainstream adoption in the future. When this inflection point hits, it will be hugely disruptive. There are going to be applications and use cases we never dreamed of. The world will be transformed by blockchain technology and decentralization.
We just need a little patience. | https://medium.com/originprotocol/why-mainstream-adoption-is-an-unfair-short-term-success-metric-for-dapps-6618ece6a23a | ['Coleman Maher'] | 2020-01-17 18:55:43.113000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Open Source', 'Ethereum', 'Dapps'] |
Part of this article is outdated. | Part of this article is outdated. Buttigieg is appointed as Secretary of Transport. He has to create jobs, invest in improvement of the outdated infrastructure of the country, lead the Corps of Engineers, initiate innovation and transition of the fossile transport system.
If you ask me, this is one of the feasible, visible and promising projects of mending wounded America. I am only a European observer from the other side of the Atlantic Plastic Soup, but believe me: this could pay off. | https://medium.com/@chriscoolsma/part-of-this-article-is-outdated-29cec3e25da1 | ['Chris Coolsma'] | 2020-12-17 06:06:04.699000+00:00 | ['Buttigieg', 'Transport', 'Transitions', 'Build Back Better', 'Infrastructure'] |
It’s All in Your Perspective | It’s All in Your Perspective
If you were around in the late 80s you may remember Magic Eye Hidden Pictures. These were images that looked like abstract art, but if you looked at them long enough and opened your mind you would see a hidden image. Once you saw that image it was obvious and you wondered how you didn’t see it before. What can you see in the example above?
As a career coach, I talk to lots of people, many of whom are in a state of career transition (looking for a job) or career frustration (have a job but don’t like it). “Career coach” is a term lacking in a clear definition though (but it’s not as bad as Social Media Ninja). People who call themselves career coaches do everything from punch up your resume to improving your interview skills.
I look at a bigger picture. Ask 10 of your friends or colleagues if they have thought about owning a business of their own, and seven or more will put their hands up. Why haven’t they done so? The perceived challenges of business ownership are many, which is where I come in.
Pre-pandemic it was essentially a job-seekers’ market, with full employment and steady economic growth. Today we have millions out of work, many for months, and many more who have stopped looking after months of tweaking resumes, networking on LinkedIn, and a couple of Zoom interviews with no response.
Speaking of LinkedIn, the consensus response to long-term lookers there seems to be along the lines of “Hang in there — the right job will come along at the right time.” But for many, it hasn’t and likely never will. This is especially true for those in the 50+ set who are increasingly seen as out-of-touch, tech-clueless, and only want something cushy as they coast to retirement.
It’s true that as a member of the 50+ set, I have seen and felt that judgment more times than I can count. That’s why after months of searching, reading, and networking, I finally got tired of being ghosted by recruiters and started my own business (two, actually). My experience in working with many of those members of the disenfranchised is just the opposite of the prevailing assumptions.
Most, if not all, of my clients would be a huge benefit to any corporation. They have skills, experience, drive, energy, and empathy. They know what they’re good at, and where they need to ask for help. They bring perspective and insight that only years on the front lines can provide. Those transferable skills are a gold mine of transferable value, no matter the industry.
My clients bring perspective and insight that only years on the front lines can provide.
The challenge is in the assumptions the world makes. Somehow the typical career plan — even among current college students — is this: graduate, get a job, work up the corporate ladder, retire with a pension, and live the good life. That hasn’t really been possible for more than a generation — if it ever really was — so why is our society still holding onto that vision?
For most people, the corporate ladder is really a treadmill. Or maybe a hamster wheel. Run and run and run and stay right where you are — if you’re lucky. Step out of line and find yourself on the street, replaced by someone younger, cheaper, and more compliant. Or do a great job, grow the business, and drive revenue — and find yourself on the street anyway because (pick all that apply): pandemic, Amazon, recession, robots, offshoring, RIF, new CEO, etc.
For most people, the corporate ladder is really a treadmill.
For those looking for a job, or looking for a better job, know this: no matter what job you get, you will always be expendable and replaceable for nearly any reason. In the meantime, you will be giving your time, effort, and expertise to a company that will kick you to the curb when it suits them, no matter how hard you work or how many deals you close. That’s just the way it is.
If you are in the job market, I wish you the best. But know that viable alternatives to another job exist, no matter what your current role. Don’t just continue to beat your head on the desk, waiting for a reply that isn’t coming, while your LinkedIn connections tell you to hang in there and hope. Take a proactive stance and look for another way — it’s there, right now. But like those Magic Eye Hidden Pictures, you might need a different perspective to see the future that is right in front of you. | https://medium.com/@jweidauer/its-all-in-your-perspective-d2372658f8cb | ['Jeff Weidauer'] | 2020-12-19 16:31:07.459000+00:00 | ['Job Search', 'Perspective', 'Business Ownership'] |
Alone, For Now: A Journal Entry | I am not a bachelorette.
I live alone, technically. Though from one look in my kitchen, you would probably assume there was at least one other person staying with me.
The fridge is always stocked with fresh fruits and greens. Always three cartons of almond milk. Three boxes of cereal to eat. An entire bunch of bananas on the table, along with one loaf of bread that I can never finish before its expiration date. I suppose the only thing giving me away, perhaps, is the single, one-cup sized stainless steel pot I use to heat water on the stove for instant coffee in the mornings. Maybe that and also one glance down at my stomach.
The ultrasound technicians at my doctor appointments always tease me about how small I am, as if I haven’t already gained 16 pounds. Having my blood pressure taken is the most awkward part of my visits, because the automatic blood pressure machine can never read me. I sit and feel the cuff tighten around my arm. We listen together to air being expelled and when the machine finally stops to calculate my heart’s beats-per-minute, it quickly resumes its compression around my arm which results in the technicians having to use the manual blood pressure cuff. Twice a week, I routinely laugh this instance off.
Just four months ago, spending time alone was a choice. I would close myself into my bedroom at my parents home, and spend hours upon hours reading and writing. Sometimes, I’d even drive to some faraway café or park just to get away from everyone. That was by choice. Now, I spend time alone by what feels like force. My family doesn’t visit my apartment because the timing is never quite right. They are always working, or I am working, or it’s just too late for me to comfortably have anyone over- even if they are family. The only company I ever have is the little being growing inside of me. My ex-boyfriend does visit once a week, simply because he has decided to co-parent. If it weren’t for the baby, I would still be living at home, and I don’t think he and I would be in contact anymore.
It’s an honest confession to admit that, most days, I feel lonely. It is everyday that I feel my life is falling apart. As always, it is too easy to think of ways to escape my reality; though none of them feel right anymore, now that I am not only thinking for myself. I had never been selfish in the first place, I suppose.
I’d only ever been selfish with my time, is all. | https://medium.com/@havenhanna/alone-for-now-a-journal-entry-990b81393cbf | ['Haven Hanna'] | 2021-02-09 21:37:09.600000+00:00 | ['Journaling', 'Alone', 'Diary', 'Loneliness', 'Pregnancy'] |
Upper 90 Game of The Day — Liverpool v West Brom | As the festive fixture list continues to fill our weekend, Sunday’s GOTD pick comes from the home of the champions, as Liverpool play host to a struggling West Brom side.
Liverpool are currently top of the table with 9 wins, 4 draws and 31 points from their opening 14 games. Jurgen Klopp’s side have been plagued by injuries, but their strength in depth and commitment to the system have paid dividends, and they are unbeaten in their last 10 league games — scoring in every game so far this season. The Reds are unbeaten at Anfield for over 3 years and are hoping to continue that incredible run into 2021. Their last defeat at home? a 2–1 loss to a Crystal Palace side managed by — you guessed it — Sam Allardyce.
West Brom’s season couldn’t be further away in comparison, with the newly promoted side currently sitting in 19th, with just 1 win, 4 draws and 7 points to their name — already 5 points away from safety. The recent sacking of Slaven Bilic, and subsequent introduction of Allardyce, is yet to improve the Baggies, who are without an away win all season, and recorded an xG of just 0.02 in last week’s 3–0 defeat at home to Aston Villa.
Statistical Analysis
Despite the injuries, Liverpool have been scintillating at times this season, most notably in last weeks 7–0 demolition of Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace. The Reds are averaging a league high of 2.43 goals per game, from an xG/90 of 2.09 — also the highest in the league.
They have scored in every single game this season, with total match goals in their games at 4.00, from an xG/90 of 3.52. Of their 14 league games, 10 have produced over 2.5 goals, 6 have produced over 3.5 goals and 3 have gifted us with 7+ goals (against Leeds, Villa and Palace).
Klopp’s star-man is undoubtedly Mohamed Salah, who has hit 13 goals in his 13 appearances, from an xG of 8.1. The Egyptian is 2 ahead of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Jamie Vardy and Heung-Min Son in the Golden Boot race, after bagging in each of his last 4 league games, including 2 in 3 minutes at Palace.
At the opposite end of the table sit West Brom. With just 1 win all season — at home to Sheffield United — and 7 games without a win on their travels, the outlook is bleak for Allardyce’s side.
They have scored just 10 goals all season, only ahead of Sheffield and Burnley, and have the lowest xG with just 8.4. On their travels, the numbers only get worse. They are conceding an average of 2.00 goals per away game, from an xGA/90 of 1.96, whilst recording just 0.71 goals per game from an xG/90 of 0.51.
The Baggies are yet to record an xG above 1.00 in a single away game this season, with their highest total of just 0.6 coming against Newcastle, Manchester United and Brighton — with those 3 games producing just 2 goals. They have only managed to score more than once on 2 occasions all season against Everton and Chelsea, and have blanked completely in 7 of their 14 games. Last weeks defeat to Villa saw them record a woeful xG of just 0.02 from one shot on target.
Tips
Medium Risk Tip — Liverpool to win to nil @ 4/6: The home side are, once again, in incredible form and seem entirely unstoppable at Anfield. The competition between the front 3 is producing some unbelievable performances, not least at Selhurst Park. Allardyce was the last to win at Anfield, but to get anything with this Albion side is asking a lot of the no-nonsense boss, with West Brom scoring just 5 goals in 7 away games.
High Risk Tip — Over 5 first-half corners @ 13/10: As usual, expect Liverpool to come flying out of the blocks, and create chances from the first minute. Albion will be looking to absorb pressure and sit deep early-doors, reducing Liverpool to minimal clear-cut chances, but plenty of half-chances and space on the edge of the box. The goals might not fly in as easily for Salah and co. but the chances most deifnitely will. Sam Johnstone will be a busy man. | https://medium.com/@kylenewbould/upper-90-game-of-the-day-liverpool-v-west-brom-5ad6cdd7e370 | ['Kyle Newbould'] | 2020-12-26 11:58:07.970000+00:00 | ['West Brom', 'Football', 'Preview', 'Premier League', 'Liverpool'] |
USDC Reserve Attestation Report from Grant Thornton LLP — August 2019 | Today, Circle released the latest attestation report on US dollar reserves backing USDC issued by independent accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP. The report states that as of August 31, 2019 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time:
USD Coin (“USDC”) tokens issued and outstanding = 453,785,690 USDC
US Dollars held in custody accounts = $453,848,516
As of the Report Date and Time, the issued and outstanding USDC tokens do not exceed the balance of the US Dollars held in custody accounts
You can read the full report here. Grant Thornton LLP will provide USDC attestation reports on Circle’s USDC reserves on a monthly basis. | https://medium.com/circle-blog/usdc-reserve-attestation-report-from-grant-thornton-llp-august-2019-3771d6255267 | ['Circle Team'] | 2019-09-16 20:56:51.080000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Investing', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Stable Coin'] |
The Global Compact for Migration , a worthless worthwhile agreement. | © NOTIMEX 2018
About the Compact
The Global Compact for safe, orderly and Regular migration is an agreement with no binding force negotiated between governments and endorsed in a formal manner by the United Nations General Assembly at the end of 2018.
The endorsement to the compact by the international community was outstanding, with some bitter exceptions in some cases expected given their domestic political focus on immigration e.g. United States, Poland or Czech Republic.
As it was established in the beginning of the document, its creation was aimed at improving the cooperation on immigration under the auspices that “international migration unite us, rather than divide us”. Using the words of the agreement, this compact strives for the common understanding, shared responsibilities and unity of purpose regarding migration, making it work for all.
This compact is undoubtedly an ambitious project which could become a gamechanger both in the short and the long-run. With a thorough point by point plan it could be a remarkable guide to follow when confronting migration not just internationally, but domestically. The compact is based on the principle of shared responsibility between all States and it takes into account not only the perspective of countries of origin and transit but also countries of destination.
However, there are some fatal obstacles which could mean, at last, the total futility of the compact. | https://medium.com/@aitanagonzalez/the-global-compact-for-migration-a-worthless-worthwhile-agreement-5892bda2bd0e | ['Aitana González Sainz'] | 2020-12-08 20:13:33.744000+00:00 | ['Critical Analysis', 'Migration', 'United Nations', 'Law'] |
Prisons and profits: legalized extortion of inmates and families | A 2014 survey by a coalition of organizations found that 1 in 3 families with incarcerated members go into debt to pay the costs of staying connected through calls and visits to jails and prisons. (Specifically, the most frequently cited barriers are the cost of phone calls [69%], travel [47%] and other expenses related to visits [46%].) “Families are often forced to choose between supporting their incarcerated loved ones and paying for the basic needs of family members who live outside,” the report concludes.
I am “fortunate” to have served the majority of my time in federal institutions, where the cost of calls and email is not as high as in state prisons or county jails — although it also meant being sent hundreds or thousands of miles away from home. So, I was not prepared for the shock and outrage of the costs when I was transferred from the D.C. jail to Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia, in transit to the U.S. penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.
I have been here barely two weeks and already, I have spent almost $500. When I first arrived, I was given a bed roll (a blanket and two sheets), two inmate jumpers, a hotel-sized bar of soap, a toothbrush, a comb, a small tube of toothpaste, a washcloth and a towel. Anything else — drawers (underwear), socks, even a piece of paper and a pen — you have to buy from the commissary. On my first night, I lay in bed cold and shivering, naked underneath my prison-issued jumper, because I had to wait to buy anything else from the commissary. Since money doesn’t transfer between institutions, you start with zero and that means you’ve got to use the one free call they give you to ask a relative or friend to send some funds. If you don’t have anyone who can do that, you’re really out of luck.
The extortion doesn’t stop there. You’re constantly bombarded from all angles, profit-making is intrinsically woven into the running of the institution. (It’s obvious in the smallest details: For example, you can’t hang up your underclothes to dry after you wash them because they want you to buy more from the store.)
Then there’s the food; you only get small portions of inedible garbage, forcing you to buy, marked way up, from the commissary. Everything costs about three times more than it does in the feds or the D.C. jail. Like, a soup cost 30 cents in D.C., but 95 cents here. It all adds up. Even going to the medical clinic costs a $10 fee, and if you need medicine, like an aspirin, that’s another charge. If you don’t have the money, they’ll watch your account and dock you as soon as you do.
Forget about anyone sending you a newspaper, book or magazine. They run a monopoly on that too. That kind of material has to be bought from the institution’s own vendor, which means you’ll end up paying twice the price you’d pay otherwise. A book that normally costs $20 will cost $40.
Then there’s communication with your friends and family. Want to use the phone? It costs 25 cents a minute, and if you are unfortunate enough not to have money in your account, then you must call your people collect at a cost of $8. Sure, you can email, using the system the institution contracts with, but that will cost 50 cents. Twenty-minute video visits, since COVID-19 has eliminated personal meetings, cost $7 each. It’s just one big cash machine, fueled by people who are already poor. (County jails in particular are all about money because they often are run by sheriffs or judges who have a vested interest.)
It is family members, mostly women in the family, who must shoulder the financial burden of maintaining contact, since inmates normally have no way to earn sufficient funds. Eighty-two percent of the participants in the 2014 survey reported that family members were primarily responsible for phone and visitation costs. In a similar survey of visitors to San Quentin State Prison in California, the majority of women reported spending as much as one-third of their annual income to maintain contact. As a result, nearly 2 in 3 families (65%) with an incarcerated member say they are unable to pay for all of their basic needs. But the cost is greater than that; family members who are not able to talk or visit with their loved ones regularly are much more likely to report physical and mental health problems.
As the Prison Policy Institute observes, counties and states have plenty of negotiating power with their telecom providers and could insist that rates go down — as demonstrated by Dallas’s new cent-a-minute jail phone rates and Denton County, Texas’s dime-a-minute video calls. What we need are long-term changes, with institutions renegotiating their contracts with telecom providers to secure lower rates and refusing kickbacks from the companies. State legislatures and local governments also can act by passing bills to make phone calls from prison and jail cheaper or free. In California and Massachusetts, such legislation is currently being considered.
Prison already takes away our freedom, separates us from our families and puts on hold so much of our personal development. But it seems that is not enough. The goal is to bankrupt our families as well. It’s a short-term gain for companies and facility administrations, but a long-term loss for communities that has ripple effects well beyond the individuals. We need to take the profit out of prisons. | https://medium.com/@morethanourcrimes/prisons-and-profits-legalized-extortion-of-inmates-and-families-9a7312b6e5be | ['More Than Our Crimes'] | 2020-09-14 04:07:49.702000+00:00 | ['Justice', 'Criminal Justice', 'Prison', 'Criminal Justice Reform', 'Capitalism'] |
The Offer Sheet: NHL Bets for December 14th | Picks & preview for Tuesday’s slate
After a short layoff thanks to the weekend and the only game of the slate being wiped out on Monday we’re finally back with some more NHL picks on this monster Tuesday schedule. I’m getting my odds and lines from FanDuel for tonight’s games. If you haven’t signed up with them yet you can do so HERE and get a risk-free bet up to $1,000.
Panthers 1st Period ML (+104) vs Senators and Alt. Over 7.0 Goals (+142)
First bets of the day and we’re getting weird right off the bat. I really wanted to find a way to bet this game with some value, but with Florida being at home there was really only opportunities if I got creative, so that’s what we’re doing here. The Panthers’ last 3 home games have at least pushed this total; 2 have gone over 7, 1 pushed. The Panthers are scoring 4.40 goals per game at home and have been pretty dominant in Sunrise all season. At plus money on both bets, I love looking for a quick start and a whole lot of goals. While Ottawa has struggled at times offensively this season, they’re averaging 4.00 goals per game in their last 4 outings.
Islanders vs Red Wings OVER 5.5 (+110)
This might be a little bit of a contrarian side with these two teams (ok, well the Islanders) but if there’s a spot to take a chance on a plus money Islanders over it might be here. The Islanders have really struggled to score all season, but they’ve started to turn a corner as of late. 12 goals scored in their last 3 games while allowing close to 3 goals per game in that span. The Red Wings average just over 3 goals per game at home this year, and their last 7 games have seen the total hit 7 or higher. Feels weird taking an Islanders over, but I think at +110 this might be the spot to do it.
Avalanche -1.5 (+125) and Reg. Team Total OVER 3.5 (-102) vs Rangers
Hi, my name is Matt and I can’t stop betting Avalanche games. The Avs have gone over 3.5 in 6 of their last 8 games. They’re fresh off dropping 7 goals on the Rangers in Madison Square Garden. Colorado leads the NHL with a whopping 4.75 goals per game on home ice. The offense has completely rounded out into the group we thought they’d be: the best in the NHL. Igor Shesterkin is still out for the Rangers who’s been really good for them in net this year. They depth behind him has just been ok. Let’s ride with the Avs.
Maple Leafs Reg. Team Total OVER 3.5 (+124) vs Oilers
The Oilers are flat out STRUGGLING. They’re a bit banged up with Kris Russell and Duncan Keith on IR. Zach Hyman is day-to-day and a toss up to suit up against his former team. I wanted to take the OVER 6.5, but the Oilers have scored just 5 goals in their last 4 games and while they’ll break out of that slump eventually I didn’t feel comfortable banking on it against a team as good as Toronto. The Leafs have scored 13 goals in their last 3 games, and while overall they’ve been a better offense at home than on the road this season, they’re still as dangerous offensively as anyone. Now that Edmonton’s goaltending has come back down to earth in a big way, I like taking my chances on the Leafs over with that value. | https://blog.fantasylifeapp.com/the-offer-sheet-nhl-bets-for-december-14th-50f25ef70a9f | ['Matt Rooney'] | 2021-12-14 17:41:46.695000+00:00 | ['Sports Betting', 'NHL'] |
How To Become Financially Free | Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
I’ve been a HR practitioner for over 20 years. Hiring and firing is what I do as part of my job. I love the part about hiring. But I always hate the firing part.
Behind each person I let go, I know it has ripple effects on not just that person financially and psychologically, but also on their families.
Over time, firing people has started to really grate on me.
It forced me to reflect if I really wanted to live my life at the mercy of another person and company. After all, I could be one of those who got fired.
I decided no.
I decided I never want to be completely dependent on one source of income. In April 2016, I made the decision that I would start working on creating multiple streams of income.
I still love being in a corporate job. I like the idea of having a regular paycheck and working with colleagues. But I also knew that I never wanted to place my entire family’s lives and well-being in the hands of another person or company.
To do this, I had to become financially free.
But first, let’s understand what financial freedom means.
The Definition of Financial Freedom
Everyone’s definition of financial freedom is different.
Some want to work like they don’t need a job, others want to travel frequently, some want to be able to finance their children’s education, still, others want to retire by 30 or be in a position to provide for their loved ones generously.
One thing’s for sure however, becoming financially free is not about having an unlimited supply of money. Anyone who harbors that hope will never see it materialize, no matter how rich you are.
Even if you made more money than you know how to spend it, you’ll lose it in a heartbeat if you don’t know how to handle it. Just take a look at these 18 celebrities who were rich and famous once but lost it all.
So I started on my journey to figure out what this financial freedom business was all about. What I found were other like-minded people living financially free lives. They weren’t necessarily the richest people materially, but they sure were living a rich life.
And I noticed 3 things they did differently.
How to Become Financially Free
#1. Get the Right Mindset
What I learned from people who were financially free was their mindset and their relationship with money.
The number of personal finance blogs on the internet is between a few thousand to tens of thousands — depending on which statistic you look at. The fact is, there are A LOT of personal finance blogs and columns out there.
But, the fact remains — money is one of the top 3 topics, next to sex and weight loss, that people continue to be fascinated about.
Why?
I like Brad and Ted Klontz’s explanation on the topic of money. They call it financial psychology.
The idea behind financial psychology is that financial advice alone is not enough to change destructive financial behaviour. If it were, more people would be debt free and have happy marriages.
Instead, consumer debt is at an all time high and money and financial issues continue to be a number one reason for divorce.
Brad and Ted Klontz talk about financial flashpoints and money scripts playing a key role in our relationship with money in their book Mind Over Money. It’s these money scripts that cause us to have unhealthy behaviours towards money which prevent us from achieving financial freedom.
Financial Flashpoints, Money Scripts & Money Disorders
Financial flashpoints are critical experiences or influences related to money, like our family. Our family pass on messages, intended or unintended, about money. Our impressions about money are also influenced by economic events and our culture.
These financial flashpoints shape our assumptions and beliefs about money, what money means and how it works, which become our money scripts — the self-talk we have in our heads about money.
The result is, some of us develop money disorders, or unhealthy behaviours towards money.
People who are financially free have managed to identify their financial flashpoints, money scripts and address the unhealthy behaviours they have towards money.
In their book, Brad and Ted Klontz go through exercises to help you identify and deal with your money scripts and destructive financial behaviours.
In a nutshell, the key steps are first to have an awareness of your money scripts and money disorders. Then rewrite your money scripts and gradually change your unhealthy money behaviours. To do this, you need to develop strategies to rewrite your reality.
A Personal Example To Illustrate
I grew up with the money script that men were supposed to provide for their wives. Being a stay at home mom was the ultimate status symbol for the man and herself as the woman.
What this meant also was that the women were completely dependent on their husbands. It meant that they could also be trapped in an unhappy marriage since they did not have financial independence.
While I broke free from being financially dependent on my husband, I still held on to the money script where I expected him to provide fully or at least more than I did, for the family. When I started earning more than my husband, I resented him and this put strain on our marriage.
It wasn’t until I had an awareness of my money script and reframed my concept of what was really important to me in a husband that we managed to work on making our marriage stronger.
#2. Put In The Hard Work
I’ve been following and studying successful people for some time now.
People who have achieved success did not get there overnight.
Besides learning about the fundamentals of finance, investing and savings, I also explored how to create other streams of income that went beyond my 9 to 5 job.
To earn multiple income streams, I had to offer value to people to the extent that they would gladly and willingly part with their hard-earned money to pay me for my products and services.
To do that, I needed to research and learn about the people I serve, speak to and reach out to them, develop relationships with influencers, ensure whatever I put out is of the highest quality and continuously think of how else I can serve my target audience, etc.
In other words, lots and lots of hard work.
Hard Work Beats Lazy Talent Any Day
I love the way Alex Kouts describes the notion of how hard work beats having talent but being lazy every time with his Rudy Chart, as discussed on The Jordan Harbinger Show.
Alex Kout’s Rudy Chart from The Jordan Harbinger Show
Those of you who are put off by the amount of intense, hard work it takes to succeed in whatever you choose to do, probably should stop reading now.
The good news for those of us willing to put in the hard work is, even if you have little talent, you still significantly outrank those with talent but who are lazy.
#3. Understand there are ‘Trade-Offs’, Also Known As ‘Choices’
Some people say you can have anything you want in life. Others say you can’t have everything you want in life.
To live a financially free life, I start from a position of abundance and choice instead of scarcity and victim thinking — that life ‘happens’ to me rather than me ‘making’ out my life as I want it to be.
It’s a matter of perspective rather than a question of glass half empty or half full. ‘Half’ doesn’t even factor into my equation as I’d rather think of my glass as completely full.
That’s the abundance mindset that I’ve chosen to adopt. To start cultivating such as mindset, I practice mindful gratitude journaling.
Having a regular paycheck is important for me now as I work towards paying off my debts. But that doesn’t stop me from working on my multiple streams of income on the side.
The trade-off?
Start my day at 5 am to work on my side business before starting my day job at 6.30 am.
I make time to put in the hard work, research and validate ideas, build up my credibility and social proof through writing, meeting and speaking to people. This is hard for me as I’m more introverted.
Like many other people, I’m also pressed for time as a full-time working wife and mother to 2 young children.
But I eek out whatever time I can find — early mornings, lunch breaks, my daily commute, etc. to do what I can to work on my other income streams.
I continuously push myself out of my own comfort zone. These are the choices I make to create the lifestyle I want.
Most of us forget the privilege and freedom we have to make choices. Instead, we give this power away when we adopt a victim mindset and say we have ‘no choice but to…’. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say that, it would create another income stream in and of itself!
Conclusion
Financial freedom is about having the lifestyle you want.
This doesn’t happen from wishing or hoping for it, but getting into the right mindset, putting in the hard work (LOTS of it), and making the choices that will get you to where you want.
These choices may involve trade-offs in the short term so that you can achieve that lifestyle you seek in the long run.
Patience and hard work are basic requirements since there really is no such thing as overnight get-rich-quick success and wealth, unless you inherit, which most of us don’t.
So do you want to live a financially free life or spend the rest of your life telling yourself you have ‘no choice’ but be stuck in the rut of the daily grind that you’re in?
The choice is yours. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-to-become-financially-free-1b486d4c45aa | ['Sharon Singh Sidhu'] | 2019-12-19 08:27:02.881000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Psychology', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Finance', 'Careers'] |
Arabic Case Insensitive In Database Systems: How To Solve Alef With and Without Hamza Problem | When I first started learning database systems, I ran into problems dealing with Arabic text in databases. Since these problems were specific to the Arabic language, I couldn’t easily find solutions on the internet. I try in this post to summarize the solutions I know to a common Arabic text problem in database systems, hoping it will help someone struggling to deal with Arabic text in databases.
You have characters which are considered the same in Arabic (like Alef 'ا' and Alef with Hamza 'أ' ), but these are two different characters in database systems. When you try to make a search function in your website, for example, you want to ignore the differences between these characters. The use of case-insensitive collation like utf8_unicode_ci won’t solve the problem. The 'ا' and 'أ' aren’t considered equal in the character mapping of utf8_unicode_ci .
There are three solutions for this problem:
Create a custom collation in your database system
Add a normalized field to your table
Use regular expressions in queries
I will show you how to apply these solutions for MySQL. For other database systems, search the documentation for similar solutions. Each solution will be applied to the following example table:
+----+--------------+
| id | name |
+----+--------------+
| 1 | احمد |
| 2 | أحمد |
| 3 | أسامه |
| 4 | أسامة |
| 5 | اسامه |
| 6 | اسَامه |
+----+--------------+
6 rows in set
1. Create a custom collation
This is the recommended solution for most cases. You won’t change any data in your database. All you are going to do is simply telling the DBS to treat these characters as one. The steps we will use here are based on MySQL documentation Adding a UCA Collation to a Unicode Character Set.
First, we will need to modify a special MySQL file which contains the character sets and add our new collation there. The file name is Index.xml . The location of the file varies from one system to another. We will get the location of the file from information_schema database. This is the database where MySQL stores databases metadata and information. Run the following query on information_schema database:
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_sets_dir';
You should get a result like the following:
+--------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------+----------------------------+
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------+----------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
On my Debian Linux system, the file path is /usr/share/mysql/charsets/Index.xml . Backup the file, open it, and go to the element <charset name="utf8"> . We will add our collation under it.
We need an id and a name for our collation, the range of IDs from 1024 to 2047 is reserved for user-defined collations, so choose a number in this range. I chose the name to be utf8_arabic_ci .
Let’s add the collation to the Index.xml file and then explain what the collation rules mean. Add the following:
<collation name="utf8_arabic_ci" id="1029">
<rules>
<reset>\u0627</reset> <!-- Alef 'ا' -->
<i>\u0623</i> <!-- Alef With Hamza Above 'أ' -->
<i>\u0625</i> <!-- Alef With Hamza Below 'إ' -->
<i>\u0622</i> <!-- Alef With Madda Above 'آ' -->
</rules>
<rules>
<reset>\u0629</reset> <!-- Teh Marbuta 'ة' -->
<i>\u0647</i> <!-- Heh 'ه' -->
</rules>
<rules>
<reset>\u0000</reset> <!-- Unicode value of NULL -->
<i>\u064E</i> <!-- Fatha 'َ' -->
<i>\u064F</i> <!-- Damma 'ُ' -->
<i>\u0650</i> <!-- Kasra 'ِ' -->
<i>\u0651</i> <!-- Shadda 'ّ' -->
<i>\u064F</i> <!-- Sukun 'ْ' -->
<i>\u064B</i> <!-- Fathatan 'ً' -->
<i>\u064C</i> <!-- Dammatan 'ٌ' -->
<i>\u064D</i> <!-- Kasratan 'ٍ' -->
</rules>
</collation>
This added part tells MySQL that utf8_arabic_ci (or whatever you name it) is a child of the utf8 character set, adding the following rules:
'أ','إ','آ' is the same character as 'ا' (All the Alef forms are one character)
is the same character as (All the Alef forms are one character) 'ه' is the same character as 'ة' (so "نسمة" is the same as "نسمه" )
is the same character as (so is the same as ) Tashkil characters are ignored completely as if they aren’t there
You can add more rules as you like. After saving the file, restart MySQL server to use our collation, on my Debian I use:
sudo service mysql restart
Now, go to the table with Arabic text and change the column collation to our new collation. I will do this to my example table using the following query:
ALTER TABLE persons
MODIFY name VARCHAR(50)
CHARACTER SET 'utf8'
COLLATE 'utf8_arabic_ci';
Note: If you are using PHPMyAdmin or some similar interface, don’t expect to find the custom collation in the dropdown list of collations. You will have to write a query like the above to change the column to our new collation.
If the query succeeded, then everything should be set. Let’s make a search query and see if it is working as it should:
SELECT * FROM persons WHERE name = "اسامة"; +----+--------------+
| id | name |
+----+--------------+
| 3 | أسامه |
| 4 | أسامة |
| 5 | اسامه |
| 6 | اسَامه |
+----+--------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Sure enough, the variations of Alef are shown, also the Teh and the Heh, and the Tashkil is ignored (Notice the last name has Tashkil in it).
This was the first solution. We didn’t touch the data itself here. All the change were made to the DBS itself. But what about if you can’t access the character sets files (like when you are using a shared hosting for example), or when you are using SQLite and you don’t have an option to add a new collation, the second solution will do the job in these cases.
2. Add a normalized field
This solution doesn’t require editing configuration files, and it is independent of the database system. It should work even if you changed the DBS for any reason. However, it will require adding an additional column to our table and some data processing. The idea is simple, add a new column and fill it with the Arabic text in a “normalized form”, then use the normalized column in your queries. Let’s see how we can do this.
I will use some PHP code in this example to add the normalized column to our table. You can make similar functions in any language once you get the idea. Consider this PHP function:
function normalize_name($name) {
$patterns = array( "/إ|أ|آ/" ,"/ة/", "/َ|ً|ُ|ِ|ٍ|ٌ|ّ/" );
$replacements = array( "ا" , "ه" , "" );
return preg_replace($patterns, $replacements, $name);
}
What this function does is pretty simple, it replaces all occurrences of 'ة' with 'ه' , all forms of Alef with Alef without Hamza 'ا' , and removes the Tashkil. Let’s see it in action:
normalize_name("أحمد"); // return: احمد
normalize_name("آمنة"); // return: امنه
normalize_name("أسامه"); // return: اسامه
normalize_name("مٌحَمَّد"); // return: محمد
OK, now we got our normalize function. The next step will be adding a new column to our table and filling it with the normalized name. A simple program should fill the column data, I will leave this to you to avoid adding unnecessary details. After that, we should have a table with the following data:
1 احمد احمد
2 أحمد احمد
3 أسامه اسامه
4 أسامة اسامه
5 اسامه اسامه
6 اسَامه اسامه
The second column in the previous layout is the normalized name field. Now we got our normalized data. How do we use it to solve our problem?
If the user searches for the name "آسامة" , we will pass this name to the normalize function first, which will return the normalized name "اسامه" , then we will query our normazlized_name column and display the original name column in our search results:
SELECT id, name FROM persons WHERE normalized_name = "اسامه"; +----+--------------+
| id | name |
+----+--------------+
| 3 | أسامه |
| 4 | أسامة |
| 5 | اسامه |
| 6 | اسَامه |
+----+--------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
That’s it. The search for "آسامة" resulted in all variations of the name.
So in short, we added the normalized field to the table, passed the search string to our normalize function, searched for the normalized name, and displayed the original name. This is a more modular solution but it requires more work. This was the second method.
3. Use Regular Expressions in queries
In this solution, we won’t change any configuration files, nor add extra data to our database. However, Regexp search is slower than regular search, and you will lose the advantage of using indices which could affect the performance badly. I don’t know a way in regular expressions to ignore Tashkil in the database field. I don’t recommend using Regular Expressions for search functions except in tiny databases, but you might find it useful for special kind of queries.
Regex isn’t in the standard SQL, but most database systems will provide it with a different syntax. To apply this solution, we will replace our search string with a ‘regexp’ pattern.
Regular expressions in MySQL is done using REGEXP or its synonym RLIKE . You can browse MySQL documentation for regexp to find out more about its syntax. To search for all occurrences of “اسامة”, we will use the following pattern:
"[ا|أ|إ|آ]سام[ه|ة]"
This pattern simply means “Look for any form of Alef as the first character, and look for Teh or Heh at the end”. Let’s try it out on our example table:
SELECT id, name FROM persons WHERE name REGEXP "[ا|أ|إ|آ]سام[ه|ة]"; +----+------------+
| id | name |
+----+------------+
| 3 | أسامه |
| 4 | أسامة |
| 5 | اسامه |
+----+------------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)
Sure enough, all occurrences of "اسامة" are shown (except the one with the Tashkil as mentioned before). We will have to write a function to generate this pattern if we want to use this method in search fields. I will give you an example to do this in PHP, but this is just an example and most likely you will need a different approach:
function generate_pattern($search_string) {
$patterns = array( "/(ا|إ|أ|آ)/", "/(ه|ة)/" );
$replacements = array( "[ا|إ|أ|آ]", "[ه|ة]" );
return preg_replace($patterns, $replacements, $search_string);
}
This function will generate patterns like the following:
generate_pattern("أسامة"); // return '[ا|إ|أ|آ]س[ا|إ|أ|آ]م[ة|ه]'
generate_pattern("أسامه"); // return '[ا|إ|أ|آ]س[ا|إ|أ|آ]م[ة|ه]'
generate_pattern("احمد"); // return '[ا|إ|أ|آ]حمد'
Notice in the first and the second line, the function replaced the Alef in the middle of 'اسامة' as well. You will need to strict it to only replace Alef at the beginning of the word, and replace Heh and Teh Marbota at the end of the word only. I will leave it to you to adjust the patterns.
Conclusion
That will be it for all the methods I know to accomplish Arabic insensitive search. Arabic is a great and a very rich language, this requires special handling in layouts, programming and databases, creating challenges we have to deal with as Arab programmers. Sharing our experiences is the key to create a strong and helpful community. And to add our contribution to the worldwide community of developers. Hope you found this article useful. | https://medium.com/@ahmedessamdev/arabic-case-insensitive-in-database-systems-how-to-solve-alef-with-and-without-hamza-problem-c54ee6d40bed | ['Ahmed Essam'] | 2021-01-07 11:25:00.968000+00:00 | ['MySQL', 'Database', 'Problem Solving', 'Arabic', 'Arabic Database'] |
The 9 Least Sexy Parts of Starting a Tech Startup | The 9 Least Sexy Parts of Starting a Tech Startup
Starting a business is all fun and games until the IRS and legal work get involved. Then it sucks. Best know what you’re getting into.
In the summer of my second year of college, I started an IT consulting business with a good friend. Given we were both IT experts, it seemed like a great idea.
Problem was, neither of us had started a business like this from scratch. It was an eventful ride, but the TLDR version is due to our inexperience, the IRS believed we owed $60k in taxes.
It took 2 extremely painful years to convince them we didn’t (the business went belly up, and we lost money).
The entire debacle could have been avoided if we’d only know what we were getting ourselves in to. The ugliest parts of starting a startup are by far the legal and tax aspects. But people rarely talk about them, and nobody hands you a “how-to” guide when you decide to start your business.
Get this part right, and nobody will ever know or think twice about it. You’ll never get a pat on the back or an “atta-boy” (or girl). Get it wrong, and people will curse your name for generations. You’ll create years of headache for you, your founders, your investors, and just about everyone involved in the business.
So get it right.
This document is for anyone planning to launch, or in the process of launching their first startup. Think of this article as a guide on what must happen in order for you to cut the first paycheck for your first employee — even if that employee is yourself.
It takes much, much longer than you’d anticipate, so best get going.
1. Naming your business
This is more than making sure you check all the marketing requirements (great domain, memorable, on-brand, etc.). You need to figure out the legal entity name of your organization, and it doesn’t have to correlate with the name that you do business under.
While it’s great if it does, it definitely isn’t required. What it does need to be is unique, particularly in the state where you file as a domestic entity (more on that shortly).
This is kind of a big deal, so I’m going to reiterate this in different words in case you missed the real message.
Don’t hold up the legal formation of your business just because you haven’t figured out the perfect name for your company.
Finding the right marketing name can take months, especially if you’re hell-bent on finding a great “.com” domain to go with it. Instead of waiting for celestial inspiration, figure out something good enough you can do business under right now (do a quick entity search with the USPTO and your filing state’s division of corporations), and register it.
If the legal entity name is not the same one you ultimately do business under, you’ll want to register as a DBA (Doing Business As) in the states where you conduct business.
2. Determining the type of legal entity
There are many legal entity types to choose from, but only 3 that make sense for most people.
As mentioned, I’m not an attorney, I won’t get into the details of each entity. But from an entrepreneurs perspective, selecting a legal entity boils down to 2 factors: taxes and fundraising.
LLC
Taxes: Profits and losses flow straight through to the owners. You will claim profits as income, and losses as, well, losses.
Fundraising: Not investable by venture capital, for a lot of reasons. The tax implications for many VC’s will deter, if not outright prevent them from being able to invest in LLC’s. There’s also the non-legal issues, like the inability to create different classes of stock and how to handle liquidity events like an IPO. It gets complicated.
When to choose this structure?: If you don’t plan to take on venture funding and you want to get something simple up and running quickly, it’s a good choice.
C-Corp
Taxes: Lots of them. C-Corps get hit with taxes both coming and going. When the company turns a profit, the company has to pay taxes on it. When it disburses profits to shareholders, those profits get taxed. When it pays employees, the employees pay income tax and the C-Corp matches payroll taxes.
Fundraising: Basically if you’re planning to take venture capital, you’ll need to convert to a C-Corp. Not only can C-Corps create different classes of stock (i.e. preferred v. common), they can do option pools and other incentive plans. Lots of options here.
When to choose this structure?: If you’re planning to raise venture capital, choose this structure. However, if you have some time before that happens, you can always start with an S-Corp…
S-Corp
Taxes: Taxed similarly to an LLC, where profits and losses pass through to the shareholders. When the company makes a profit, the corporation doesn’t need to pay taxes on it — only the shareholders.
Fundraising: S-Corp’s have a lot more options when it comes to fundraising compared to an LLC, however, there are some limitations that if violated, will automatically revoke an S-Corp election. For instance, if there are more than 100 shareholders, more than 1 class of stock, or an ineligible shareholder, such as another corporation. Any single one of these conditions will revoke the S-Corp status.
When to choose this structure?: If you’re planning to raise funding in the future and you have at least one tax season before doing so, it can be helpful for founders to start as an S-Corp. Revoking an S-Corp election is quite simple, you just need to make sure the IRS recognizes the change in status
PRO TIP: always communicate with the IRS via certified mail so you have a paper trail. And then file it away and don’t lose it. The IRS is notorious for losing paperwork. Just assume you’re going to have to prove to the IRS you sent every document you actually send them.
3. Designing your cap table
There are so many great resources already written on this, I won’t dwell on this one long. I include this section mainly because it is required for you to file your Articles of Incorporation, and it’s a meaty conversation you need to start thinking about now. A couple of excellent resources to help facilitate the conversation.
If you’ve never dealt with a cap table before, this article is a great resource explaining the fundamentals of what a cap table is and the terminology/concepts associated with how they work. It’s also pretty technical, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
The next question to consider is how you are going to split equity with your cofounders. There are strong opinions on how to approach this, ranging from split it equally and make sure everyone is equally yoked to proportional to the value a person brings to the team.
I tend to lean toward 50/50 in ventures with 2 founding partners and proportional in teams with more.
Finally, consider the optics and narrative your cap table is sending to the world. It’s important to think about these issues from the beginning so you make sure your company is in the best possible position of where you want to be when you reach your future milestones.
4. Generating your Articles of Incorporation
Now that you’ve determined the legal name of your company, what type you want to create, and how you want to split your cap table, it’s time to formalize everything.
There are handful of ways to go about doing this — utilizing free services like Cooley Go’s online document generator, services like Clerky or Gust, or find a lawyer/firm to work with (many of them have startup packages) — are pros and cons to each.
Once you have your attorney, treat them like a member of your team. CC them when you send out company updates or when you’re discussing terms with investors, bcc them when you’re negotiating partner contracts to help keep them up to date, invite them to your board meetings and go to lunch (odds are they’ll pick up the tab). The right attorney won’t bill you for many of these things, and in the end, will thank you because it helps them have context when it’s time to move.
One step I skipped here is selecting which state to incorporate in. Yes, there are actually legitimate reasons to incorporate in states other than Delaware — like Nevada doesn’t have a corporate income tax or annual franchise tax. But most likely you’re going to incorporate in Delaware.
Whatever route you go to generate your founding package, the respective path will help guide your next steps. Except maybe the free ones — you’re likely going to stumble a bit as you figure it out, and you’ll learn a lot in the process.
5. Filing an SS-4
This is the equivalent of getting a Social Security number for your business, and it’s called an Employer Identification Number (EIN). You’re going to need this for everything. There’s an online application where you can apply for and receive your electronic EIN on the same day.
It’s fairly painless and pretty quick to do — so just get it done as soon as you’re ready.
6. Registering as a foreign entity
I rewrote this section 5 times, trying to figure out how to make it most helpful — and ultimately, it came down to this.
Get a great accountant to go along with your awesome lawyer.
Here’s the deal. You’ll incorporate your company with a specific state, but then you have to register as a foreign entity in the states where you’re doing business for three key things: 1) Income tax 2) sales tax and 3) payroll tax. Your attorney and accountant can help you navigate all of these — the attorney on the legal side, the accountant on the regulation side.
The most important thing for you to know is — you need to register as a foreign entity in states where you have W2 employees as soon as you possibly can. Registering will provide you with an Account ID and a Withholding Account ID, both of which will be required for you to run payroll and handle payroll taxes.
It can take weeks, even months for some states to get this information, so if you anticipate paying salaried employees, this will be your bottleneck.
7. Filing your 83b
The IRS is like a hawk — they watch your every move, waiting for you to make a mistake so they can swoop in and eat you for lunch. More than anything, they want to make sure Uncle Sam gets his cut of anything that could potentially be considered income.
Your founder shares fall squarely in that category, and the 83b is how you protect yourself.
Basically, the 83b declares to the IRS that you received shares at the foundation of the company and they shouldn’t be seen as regular income, but rather an investment (and should be treated as such). You shouldn’t have to pay taxes on them until you cash out.
However, if you fail to file an 83b, the IRS will see your shares as income as they vest, and you will be taxed under the appropriate tax bracket. In reality, it’s not like the IRS will track you down and make you pay taxes as they vest, but when a conversion event comes into play or you realize the 83b election hasn’t been made and you declare it to the IRS, you’re going to get a hefty tax bill, whether or not you’ve actually made any money from your shares.
I always find examples helpful, so consider the following.
Assume you start a company, you own 50% of the shares in the business, are on standard vesting terms (12-month cliff, 48-month vesting period), and you forget to file your 83b.
2 years later, you raise a seed round with the company valued at $10MM, and you now own 40% of that business. Technically, your position is valued at $4MM, and since you’re 2 years in, half of your shares have vested.
If the IRS were to find out, you’d owe them taxes on $2MM of ordinary income — even though you haven’t actually made a dime. On a startup founders' salary, owing hundreds of thousands in back taxes on money you haven’t actually made yet is going to put you into a world of hurt.
File your 83b (via certified mail, of course!). You have 30 days after the initial grant to do so.
8. Setting up a bank account
You can get a business bank account just about anywhere, and depending on the nature of your business, you may have specific considerations in what you’re looking for.
Initially, the factors I’ve found are most important are:
How fast you can get started/approved/moving How much it costs Ability to move money (checks, ACH, wire transfer, etc.)
There are other factors you may want to consider later on like bill pay, API access, access to capital and banking advice, business loans, etc.
Two great options for startups are SVB and Mercury.
Ultimately, you may end up going with SVB — they have excellent services for startups and can help you grow all the way to exit. SVB gets involved much more than just being a bank, they have connections everywhere, and their team can help provide financial guidance as you grow. I’ve found them to be extremely helpful.
However, if you’re just getting started and need to move quickly, I can’t recommend Mercury enough. You can open an account completely online without having to speak with a person in minutes, and they provide exactly the right services you need as a startup, and nothing more. They’re fantastic.
They have money movement features available immediately, but you can create new accounts dynamically, issue and cancel debit cards to everyone on your team, track expenses, transfer money between internal and external accounts, and they have a great user experience.
Oh yeah, did I mention it’s free, with no minimum balance required?
Start with Mercury.
9. Setting up payroll software
Payroll is a joy. When you bring new employees on, not only will you have to collect I-9 and W4 information from them (and yourself), you’ll also have to file forms 940, 941, 944, and anything else the IRS and state departments come up with.
Instead of waiting for the penalties to roll in before learning what needs to be done, do yourself a favor and just sign up for payroll software. It’ll make your life much easier — unless you make the wrong choice.
Quickbooks and ADP are two common choices/big players in the space. Quickbooks does a good job for early stage companies until you have to start streamlining your HR/onboarding processes further, and it breaks down around integrating benefits (I think they’ve recently addressed this, but I don’t have any experience I can speak to).
That’s where ADP supposedly shines. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the HR space and can do just about anything and everything you can dream of for your corporation of thousands of employees. But honestly — I hate it. I’ve never had a worse user experience than I have had in trying to administer ADP, and it’s way more than you need with a small company. Avoid ADP like the plague.
My suggestion? Go with Gusto. They have a phenomenal user experience, they’ll handle collecting and filing all the forms I mentioned above, and their benefits platform continues to grow. Your employees will love you.
I’m a huge fan of their platform, and I recommend them to everyone who will listen.
The final word
Starting a business is hard enough without having the figure out the administrative legal side of things. My experience in every step of this document only came through me literally tripping through each stage.
Learn from my missteps, and hopefully, it can help you get up and running even faster.
Remember, do it right, and nobody will ever thank you for it :D | https://medium.com/startup-grind/the-9-least-sexy-parts-of-starting-a-tech-startup-e9f70049c211 | ['Jonathan Woahn'] | 2020-09-16 15:09:43.105000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Life Lessons', 'Founders', 'Startup Lessons', 'Startup'] |
THE CHRISTMAS MACHINE | MIDI
If you’re not familiar with MIDI, it stands for “Musical Instrument Digital Interface.” It’s a pretty straightforward system of sending data between compatible systems. For example, it lets you hook keyboards (music keyboards, not PC keyboards) up to synthesizers and control them. In its simplest form, it does so by sending encoded messages over a serial connection with timestamp, musical note information, and “note on/ note off” data. So if you put your finger on a middle-C note on a keyboard, your synthesizer will know to play a middle-C. And when you take your finger off that note, your synth will know to stop playing.
Monitor showing real-time MIDI data, captured in MIDI-OX
While MIDI is technically intended for music and not hardware control, it’s not hard to see that it has everything you might want for hardware control. By mapping notes to devices you’d like binary (on/off) control over, MIDI gives you a simple, low latency control protocol that can be quickly adapted to control lights.
Now, astute readers might be thinking that DMX is better suited for this, as DMX is a similar standard used specifically for lighting. Well, if you’ve noticed that, you’re not wrong. It’d probably be really easy to do this using DMX. I don’t know anything about DMX though, and I know and absolute shit ton about MIDI, so here we are. More importantly, my goal 12 years ago was to be able to sequence lights in time with WAV/MP3 audio, and using MIDI seemed like the most intuitive way to do that with software I already had. For this build of THE CHRISTMAS MACHINE, I’ve been using a music production software suite called Reason to sequence lights, and it looks something like this when I do so:
Light sequencing in Reason
In this image, you can see how I sequence the lights: each ‘note’ corresponds to a GPIO pin on the Raspberry Pi. There’s a WAV file of “Jingle Bells” in the top lane, and I basically just draw blocks in time to align with changes in the song. It’s a little bit tedious, but it’s better than coding time delays by hand in python. Also it’s an interface that I’m pretty comfortable with, so I could just have a few beers and get at it.
When I initially imagined using MIDI 12 years ago, my plan was to do it over a wired MIDI connection, basically taking MIDI output from my laptop (using a USB to 5 pin MIDI interface) to a hacked serial connection on something like an Arduino. It can be done that way, but then you have even more cabling that you need.
RTP-MIDI to the rescue
So like I’ve mentioned, it’s been 12 years. A lot has changed since then. We recently bought a house that has a lot of exterior decorating area. Also, if I start any fires with shoddy AC wiring, that’s my problem. I decided to revisit this project.
One thing that’s really nice about picking a nerdy technology project up after over a decade is that a lot of bottlenecks and constraints sort of solve themselves with the passage of time. When I first put this approach together, I was assuming I’d need to run a hardwired serial connection to handle MIDI, knowing full well that MIDI-over-network (RTP-MIDI) was a better choice. Back then, it would not have been cost effective to receive MIDI over network, and would basically need a dedicated computer to receive the signals. When I decided to pick this project back up again, I figured I’d poke around to see if there was an RTP-MIDI implementation for Raspberry Pi. Much to my delight, there was: pymidi. Being a super straightforward RTP-MIDI server implementation in python written specifically for Raspberry Pi, pymidi was exactly what I was looking for. It’s got a sample event handler packaged into that, and with a bit of sketchy python and gpiozero for pin control, I was able to map incoming note on / note off messages to pin on / pin off control.
From there, I installed rtpMIDI, a virtual MIDI driver that allows you to pipe any MIDI output from any Windows software MIDI-out to anything on your network with low latency. pymidi sits on the Raspberry Pi listening for MIDI data, and rtpMIDI sits on a Windows computer to route MIDI data to pymidi. It’s a nice coupling.
rtpMIDI — pipes your light sequences right to your Raspberry Pi
Note: Macs support network MIDI out of the box, so you don’t need to install rtpMIDI if you’re a Mac user. I’ve been trying to find and test a linux-compatible solution too, because I’d like to be able to get an end-to-end free solution going.
Hardware
I get some real heebie-jeebies when I work with AC power because I am fully aware that I am not very bright and have no attention span. To this end, I will suggest that you do not do anything that I did nor assume that anything I did is safe or reasonable. Making mistakes with AC power can kill you and burn down your house. Shit, even if you do everything correctly you can still kill yourself with AC power.
I doubt anything I did is to code or even legal.
But since you’ve made it this far, I’ll point out that I found this pretty detailed writeup that I used as a starting point:
Basically, I started with a Raspberry Pi 3b, a couple 8-relay boards, a ton of wire, and a box of AC receptacles and wired up the hardware side of this.
The first half of my build, eight channels.
The one difference between my build and those in the writeup I linked to is that I used terminal blocks for most of the wire connections, which reduced the number of sketchy wire nut connections I had to use and arguably make this easier to expand. I bought a couple sets of these blocks and jumpers from Amazon and basically used them to create a ground bus, a neutral bus, and a “hot” bus, making the AC connections a bit easier to manage and distribute to the various individual contacts they needed to hit:
Shot of my neutral bus — the four connectors on the left go to the neutral connectors on four of the receptacles. The red one on the right goes to the neutral line on the AC cord. The black jumper on top connects them all together.
Putting it all together
So basically I run Reason off of my desktop computer along with rtpMIDI. My Raspberry Pi picks up the MIDI data over wifi and fires off the relays to turn the outlets on and off. I got this working yesterday to individually control eight receptacles and I’m currently finishing up the expansion that will bring it up to sixteen receptacles. The way I built it using the terminal block buses, expanding from eight to 16 is pretty much just attaching three AC wires to a second set of receptacles / buses and then wiring the low voltage DC for the new relays to pins on the Raspberry Pi.
Here’s a short video of the near-finished product, firing off relays to test the low voltage parts right before I plugged the AC in:
Here’s another short video of the relays firing outside with some lights in the sockets to test the AC switching. It works, much to my surprise:
After I get the expansion done (hopefully), I’m going to mount it to boards and put it in a weather-sealed tub.
For the next couple nights I’ll be hanging lights around the house and sequencing lights to sync with WAV/MP3 audio. Then I’m going to pipe the audio through an FM transmitter and become a neighborhood nuisance.
Feel free to ask any questions! | https://itnext.io/the-christmas-machine-fca7184cbe50 | ['Christopher Wm'] | 2020-12-18 10:11:37.136000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Python', 'Automation', 'Christmas', 'Makers'] |
The gas war part 2: The Australian gas industry and their anti-electrification campaign | In part 1 of this series, I explored the smattering of local, city-level battles being fought between those seeking to electrify their homes and the fossil gas industry in America. As the gas industry truly loses the fight to become a ‘transition fuel’, they’re retreating to homes and buildings as a place to make their stand, and in many instances in the US, they’re winning.
In Australia, ‘existential threats’ are already emerging. Recently, Canberra lifted the legislation that made it mandatory to connect new gas to homes. It’s not quite a gas ban, but it’s significant, and signals the start of a bigger shift.
Prior to this, the Australian gas industry has made a pre-emptive strike at the “existential” threat of electrification. It is the heart of the next big fight on climate: a fight that will be more personal, more heated and more diffuse than the policy-and-technology issues of power generation.
Anxiety about electrification is real, and it manifested in Australia in the form of a report released by a conglomerate of Australia’s gas industry entitled ‘Gas Vision 2050’.
It claims to find that “net-zero emissions can be reached with hydrogen at half the cost of electrification”. The acting CEO of Energy Networks Australia, Tamatha Smith, said that “policy settings aimed at reducing emissions should recognise that continuing to use gas infrastructure is the lowest cost option to reach net-zero emissions from the energy sector by 2050”. The report was published by:
Energy Networks Australia (ENA),
Australian Gas Infrastructure Trust (AGIT),
Australian Pipelines and Gas Association (APGA),
Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA),
Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association of Australia (GAMAA),
Gas Energy Australia
In the 2010s, the fossil fuel industry’s core line of argument against renewable energy was that it was too costly. They intentionally ignored the question of the impact of emissions, and focused aggressively and solely on dollar figures. This report, engaging in precisely the same approach, is an unambiguous warning shot to any city, region, government or community considering enforcing or incentivising electrification.
It is careful in what it omits, and specific in what it includes. It is an important laying down of the gauntlet for the fossil fuel industry’s vision of climate action: slowed down, defused, disconnected and disempowered.
This decade’s modelling wars
The gas industry’s 2050 vision specifically targets “net zero” by 2050, in all of its modelled scenarios. Frontier Economics were engaged to model three different scenarios to hit a 2050 net zero target: electrification, ‘renewable fuels’ (hydrogen made from renewables), and ‘zero carbon fuels’ (hydrogen made from fossil fuels, paired with carbon capture).
As you might expect, the scenario finds that fossil-fuelled hydrogen is cheapest, and that electrification is most expensive. That is music to the ears of people who either own gas pipelines, sell gas, or both:
“The finding that both the blue and green hydrogen scenarios are lower cost than electrification suggests that there is value in continuing to make use of Australia’s gas infrastructure and Australia’s natural gas resources to deliver gaseous fuels to end-use customers”
I read the modelling, and it’s confusing. There is no detail on the mix of technologies used to supply power in their ‘electrification’ model; nor any clear explanation of how grid integration options are chosen. “Many debatable assumptions are made about details of industrial heat demand, efficiencies of gas and electricity use, demand profiles and trends, and other issues. No sensitivity studies are provided, so we don’t know the size of the ‘error bands’”, wrote energy expert Alan Pears, in a review. As Pears points out, the “costs” presented here are relative to a secret, unmentioned ‘baseline’ figure that is never at any point declared. “So the estimated additional $27.3 billion cost of the electrification scenario relative to the baseline scenario, and $14.3 billion relative to the zero carbon fuels scenario, may be very modest in the overall energy investment picture”, he wrote.
The most significant thing about this report is that it doesn’t talk about the emissions footprint of the various plans. As I wrote previously in LobbyWatch, there are many pathways to net zero by 2050. Fast, incremental and slow all result in very different quantities of emissions released between now and 2050. To illustrate:
Here’s the absolute key message that you cannot ever, ever forget: getting to net zero slower and later releases three times the cumulative amount of emissions by 2050 as getting to net zero faster, and sooner.
It is the cumulative amount drives climate harm, not the amount in a single year, thirty years in the future. Those tri-coloured columns above reveal exactly why Australia’s gas lobby leaves emissions out of their modelling.
The report’s gas-fuelled scenarios lean heavily on technologies that won’t be operational at scale for decades (particularly carbon capture for gas), so it’s safe to assume that this is why emissions were left out of the report and price was the only information provided for the scenarios.
There are a range of oddities in this report. In another instance, they insist that “Gas clearly plays a diverse and important role in Australia’s energy mix”, and illustrate it with the following graphic:
Wow, gas has climbed to the top! Pretty great, hey? Actually, there are some chart crimes going on here: coal has been given its own axis on the left, and renewables and gas are on the right. There is absolutely no reason to do this other than to make gas look like it’s leading the pack, and the 2020 update has been left out. This is what it actually looks like:
Yep, that’s right: in the financial year 2018–19, renewable energy came only a few mere gigajoules short of overtaking gas power generation in the grid. That’s all but certain to happen in the next report, and by a decent margin too. To visualise it a different way: gas’s growing days are done. Since 2008, every renewable technology has grown by a larger percentage (compared to the previous year) than gas has:
Renewables have grown consistently for the past four years, increasing by between 3,000 to 8,000 new gigawatt hours each year. Gas decreased for three of those four years.
Though this refers to the ‘old’ argument of whether gas belongs as a ‘bridge fuel’ in the power sector (it doesn’t), it becomes directly relevant when you discover the other key argument for preserving gas infrastructure instead of electrification, as used frequently by Australia’s gas industry in a range of reports, websites and social media posts: The claim is that heating or cooking in your home using gas is cleaner than using grid electricity.
“In your home, using natural gas appliances for your heating, hot water and cooking are even more efficient, with emissions 83% lower than brown coal”
It is sort of correct. Australia’s grids remain incredibly emissions intensive, because the fossil fuel lobby was partially successful in slowing down the growth of renewables, in the 2010s. But if you glance at the Australian grid operator’s various scenarios, a high-decarbonisation future actually results in grid emissions lower than those from household fossil gas within thirteen years:
In fact, a few months prior, a billboard for Australian Gas Networks was removed after the ad industry’s regulatory body, ‘Ad Standards’, pinged them for misleading claims about the emissions footprint of household gas. “The Panel considered that this claim is misleading as there are other energy sources which would be considered cleaner and greener than gas”, the standards body said.
It is extremely likely that renewable growth will exceed even the best-case scenario. Recent announcements in NSW and Victoria make this very likely. But ignoring that, the lifespan of gas infrastructure of all kinds — including pipelines, household gas stoves and heating and gas mining projects — all exceed the point at which it will be far cleaner to run your home on the grid, rather than gas supply. So the lobbying by gas networks to lock in new gas infrastructure actively sets Australia on a course to blow past climate goals:
The carbon decarbonisation promise is distant
It has become very clear that the gas industry understands that attacking electrification alone is insufficient: it needs to present an alternative pathway. In their new vision, that alternative is ‘renewable gas’ — a vague term used interchangeably for a wide range of gas fuels with differing emissions and differing risks.
The plan here is that these alternative “decarbonised” gas fuels will be pumped through existing gas pipelines, purportedly reducing emissions while avoiding the major losses the gas industry would face is electric alternatives were used.
Each of these alternatives can, to differing degrees, be blended with fossil fuels. The temptation is incredible: this creates a very murky grey area in which an only partially decarbonised fuel can be presented as ‘progress’, while the overall rate of emissions reductions is pushed into the ‘too slow, too late’ category I explained above.
Of the options they present, hydrogen and “renewable methane” are the least-bad. Hydrogen can be produced using sources like wind and solar, and then used in industrial processes, transport and other sectors that are tricky to electrify (“indirect electrification”). This is close to full decarbonisation. But the existing gas pipelines can’t handle more than 10 % hydrogen without costly upgrades, and the report admits as much, and downplays it accordingly.
Things become even more complicated for “biogas” or “biomethane”, in which waste methane from processes like dairy farms is captured and used, instead of being released into the atmosphere. The details are buried in the fine print, but ENA’s modelling actually excludes this: “Including these other gases in the scenarios would increase the complexity of the modelling task as the cost and availability of those fuels would differ significantly by region”. The cost of interconnection and energy storage also varies wildly by region, but they decided to include those costs in their ‘electrification’ scenarios. So why did they leave these gases out?
Including biogas in their scenarios would have very significantly increased the costs of their ‘gas network’ scenarios. We know this because America’s gas industry is presenting precisely the same alternative as a decarbonisation pathway:
“In the next five years, California is on track to have 120–140 dairy farm methane digesters capturing and harnessing fugitive, climate-warming methane — with the help of significant state grant funding. “Dairy biogas is way too expensive” to use in homes or businesses, said Boccadoro — five to 10 times more expensive than fossil gas.”
California’s government modelling agency looked at this precise question, and found that ‘decarbonised gas’ is wildly expensive, compared to using heat pumps (ASHP):
This modelling found precisely the opposite results of Australia’s gas industry modelling, in that electrification creates significant savings
The other problem? Cows just don’t fart out enough methane to meet the needs of the existing network of fossil fuel pipelines and high-emissions homes. California again serves as a perfect example of this:
If they had includes watse biogas in their scenarios, they would have had to admit the dual problems of high costs and low supply. Of course, America’s gas industry has a solution:
“In an interview, however, Switalski called Boccadoro’s conclusions “just one individual’s opinion”. Switalski suggested that renewable gas could be subsidized like solar energy”
Turns out Australia’s industry is thinking the same thing.
A push for subsidies (after years of opposing subsidies for renewables)
Subsidies for fossil gas have been on the cards for quite some time, but it’s clear in this document that a big, expensive new subsidy scheme will be a major priority. It directly contradicts the core message — that a fossil-heavy system is the most inexpensive way forward — but it’s suggested, regardless, in a report for the group on how to move ‘gas blending’ forward:
“A certificate scheme for renewable gas blending mimics the existing Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme, hence the existing suite of governance and institutional arrangements should be able to be utilised (or require minimal change to be used)”
This is progressing as desired. The gas industry lobby group APPEA submitted to the Finkel Review in 2017 that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation ought to be changed to allowed the government body to fund fossil fuels. “Such investments may act as a catalyst to expedite gas industry investments and address access to capital and financing challenges facing the industry”, they wrote. They got their wish. In 2020, the Australian government has moved to change the CEFC’s mandate so it can fund fossil fuel projects. The gas industry likely has no real chance without significant subsidies and government intervention.
Reading that brought up plenty of memories. It really wasn’t all that long ago that Australia’s gas industry was passionately and aggressively opposed to the Renewable Energy Target:
The Australian peak oil and gas lobby claimed the RET “inhibits the natural gas industry’s capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” (true; renewables do it better), and that “ the RET substantially increases the cost of abatement” (renewables are now the main driver of downward pressure on prices). In every breathless press release, APPEA pleaded with the government to scrap the entire thing: “The APPEA submission finds the RET is an economically inefficient policy operation that should be discontinued”.
Of course, in addition to bringing bills down, the RET has become the sole engine of emissions reductions in the country. Since 2011, the RET has abated a total of 233 megatonnes of CO2-e. In a few years, the annual emissions saved by the RET will be equivalent to taking all of Australia’s cars off the road.
LRET = ‘large scale renewable energy target’ (big wind and solar) and SRES= “small scale renewable energy scheme” (mostly small-scale solar), the two sub-components of the RET.
If the gas lobby had been successful in their efforts in 2013 and 2014, cumulative emissions would be around 186 MTCO2-e higher. It is a very simple and telling illustration of the priorities here. Attempts to muddle branding and terminology (like ‘renewable gas’), alongside a very telling revisionism about the industry’s attitudes towards renewable energy, reveals the goal. | https://medium.com/lobbywatch/the-gas-war-part-2-the-australian-gas-industry-and-their-anti-electrification-campaign-5b8702d8d6a1 | ['Ketan Joshi'] | 2020-11-15 09:48:29.281000+00:00 | ['Global Warming', 'Climate', 'Gas', 'Lobbying', 'Fossil Gas'] |
How We Work: Github Labels Are Awesome | This article was originally posted on November 10th, 2015
For us at Refinery29, Github Pull Requests are where most of our team’s action happens. Even QA happens there. But with 40+ engineers all delivering code at the same time it’s important to keep the work queue organized… which is why our team loves Github labels.
Even with work spread across multiple repositories, the labels remain more of less consistent for all. At a quick glance these labels tells us which team owns what and the status.
Chapters — Chapters are what we call our platform teams, a group of people with specific domain expertise. These labels are most helpful when doing peer code review.
— Chapters are what we call our platform teams, a group of people with specific domain expertise. These labels are most helpful when doing peer code review. Squads — These are our feature development teams. Squad labels are helpful to filter work for the multiple teams who are working in a single repository. It also gives our Product Managers another way to view their teams progress. (We also have JIRA for that though.)
— These are our feature development teams. Squad labels are helpful to filter work for the multiple teams who are working in a single repository. It also gives our Product Managers another way to view their teams progress. (We also have JIRA for that though.) Status — Possibly the most helpful, status labels tell us what stage of the cycle any given Pull Request is at. Pretty straightforward.
— Possibly the most helpful, status labels tell us what stage of the cycle any given Pull Request is at. Pretty straightforward. Situational — This is the group of optional labels that can be applied to things as needed. The red labels we use to flag work that is either blocked or urgent are efficient attention getters.
Here’s what all of this looks like in action.
– Refinery29 Product & Engineering | https://medium.com/refinery29-pe/how-we-work-github-labels-are-awesome-91674fec1455 | ['P E'] | 2017-02-02 18:10:13.502000+00:00 | ['Github', 'Software Development'] |
Caveat Venditor: 5 Reasons Car Buying Is Moving Online | Cadillac’s president, Johan de Nysschen, recently echoed a sentiment a growing number in the auto industry espouse when he answered that “respond[ing] to changing consumer preferences” is the greatest challenge facing the auto industry. He added, “the business model of having fixed stores and demanding that customers come to us is ready for disruption.”1 Indeed, Britta Seeger, a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, predicts that 25% of all Mercedes used and new car sales will take place online within the next five years. In China, 23% of consumers aged 18–24 already purchase their cars online.
The writing isn’t just on the wall; it’s in all caps and neon. But this shift doesn’t necessarily spell doom and gloom for traditional dealerships. On the contrary, many traditional dealerships will learn to succeed in this new economy — they’ll simply help redefine what “traditional” means. Understanding why the purchasing process has changed is the first step in understanding how to prepare and, ultimately, flourish. With that in mind, here are five reasons why this change is here to stay:
1. It’s Part of a Larger Trend.
In September of 2006, online retail sales accounted for 3% of total retail sales. In 2017, that percentage had tripled to 9%.2 Online sales are growing at an annual rate of nearly 16%.3 According to Forrester’s latest Online Retail Forecast, the research firm predicts that online sales will account for 17% of all US retail sales by 2022. The report also expects US online sales to grow five times faster than offline sales. And, according to the National Retail Federation, in-store purchases have declined steadily in recent quarters, while online purchases have increased steadily over that same period.
Consumers are being conditioned to make purchases online and there’s no reason to believe that those purchases will not extend to automobiles. There are many empty storefronts that used to house bustling retailers who assumed the same about their own inventory. On top of that, in its 2016 Consumer Automotive Index , Beepi, Inc. found that 87% of Americans dislike something about purchasing a vehicle at a traditional car dealership and well over half of the respondents feel they’re taken advantage of while shopping at a dealership.
2. Most Car Buyers Begin Online.
Car buyers already begin their searches online. In fact, they spend nearly 60% of their time researching and shopping online. SEO and mobile-friendly sites would appear to be the price of entry at this point, as nearly half of those used a smartphone during the process for that purpose. The good news for dealerships here is that a lot of information about prospective buyers can be captured early. More than basic contact information, buyers will often disclose preferences and purchase history, which can help make the sales process even more streamlined.
3. Manufacturers Are on Board.
People like shopping for cars, but they don’t like the transaction process. And “that process has to be made easier,” according to Matt Jones, a senior consumer advice editor with Edmunds. Not surprisingly, automakers have attempted to help solve the problem. Ford Motor Credit Co. is partnering with AutoFi to give customers the ability to buy a vehicle directly from a dealer’s website. And Hyundai recently launched its “Shopper Assurance” program, which enables prospective buyers to work directly with dealerships and find out which dealers have which cars. Importantly, it also lets them know exact prices online. They can also fill out a lot of the paperwork online. Some dealerships will even deliver a car for a test drive. Lincoln Motors is also experimenting with at-home test drives, as well as other ways of reducing the time customers spend at dealerships. Kumar Galhotra, Lincoln’s President, believes that dealerships “need to make the car purchasing process faster and easier,” while noting that “every other kind of shopping is already effortless.”4
4. It Saves Time.
When asked to rate their satisfaction, 81% of car buyers gave the test-driving process a rating of eight or above (with ten being the highest). However, satisfaction declined sharply elsewhere. Of the 3-hours average time spent at the dealer during the purchase process, more than half of that time is spent negotiating or doing paperwork, resulting in a 56% satisfaction rate for the process.
Hyundai’s new approach (Shopper Assurance) was a result of customers telling brand researchers that they weren’t buying a car “because the process was so bad.”5 Their research also showed that buyers spent an average of five hours in the dealership in order to complete a purchase. And much of that time, according to the study, was spent worrying that they were being taken advantage of. Notably, it also indicated that many would pay extra to avoid the time spent sitting in dealerships.6
As they say, time is money. But time isn’t only money for customers; It can mean money for dealerships, too. Jones, the aforementioned editor, sold cars in California for more than decade before joining Edmunds, and claims that tedious paperwork is a large part of the problem. He concludes that a streamlined process would make it possible for dealers to ultimately sell more cars.7
5. New Business Are Embracing the Model.
New companies like Carvana and Tred allow buyers to skip the dealership experience altogether and make used car purchases entirely online. New Tesla purchases are also made online directly from the manufacturer. However, because of contracts between manufacturers and dealerships, purchasing new vehicles online outside of the traditional dealership’s website has been a challenge.
But new business models are emerging that work with dealerships to respond to consumers’ preferences. Joydrive, for example, sells new and used cars online through partnerships with established dealerships. Vehicles are sold for the lowest price that the dealer is offering online, which eliminates the negotiating process many buyers loathe. While the company is still in the early stages of growth, is has been successful thus far and has plans to expand from the Northwest into other parts of the United States.
Evolve or Die?
The internet has changed how we all interact, transact and, generally, live. There is no going back. There is no amount of advertising that will prevent the inevitable shift to online sales of automobiles. That doesn’t mean traditional dealerships will go the way of traditional bookstores. It simply means those dealers must embrace the new way of doing business, find ways to capitalize on new technologies and set themselves apart from those dealerships that remain stuck in the past.
At DOM360 we helping our dealership clients embrace the opportunities that are here with digital retailing and online transaction. Partnering with firms like GoGoCar we are building marketing solutions that encompass the entire transaction from real-time trade appraisal to banks competing for the best rates on financing. There are a lot of players entering the space and not all solutions are created equal. We would welcome the opportunity to share our latest solutions with you.
1 http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-auto-show-five-minutes-de-nysschen-20171203-story.html
2 https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf
3 Ibid
4 http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-online-new-car-buying-20171202-story.html
5 Ibid
6 Ibid
7 Ibid | https://medium.com/shifting-gears-dom360/caveat-venditor-5-reasons-car-buying-is-moving-online-dbeb021379f | [] | 2018-03-21 13:16:27.446000+00:00 | ['Automotive Marketing', 'Car Dealers', 'Dealership'] |
Bruce make-over part 1: Luccico edition | 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/this-is-digital-experience/bruce-make-over-part-1-luccico-edition-887bf2d8c0e4 | ['Mr. Bruce'] | 2021-02-14 23:14:39.746000+00:00 | ['Mascotte', 'Mrbruce', 'Illustration', 'Makeover', 'Tide'] |
Prelude: Making Mess 3.0 | Mess Phase 2 (2010–2016)
Prelude: Making Mess 3.0
In 2010, we declared our independence from a holding company and moved into our current spot on the Wicker Park/West Town border at Division and Ashland. It served us real well- all the partners could walk to work, there was ample stuff like bars and restaurants around, and it was right next to a train and multiple bus lines. There was even a cute little grocery on the first floor.
Things change. The grocery became an upscale sushi joint. Partners get married, buy cars, a house. The makeup of the business grows- we’re older, and drinking less. The neighborhood morphs into something barely recognizable, with corresponding annual rent increases to match.
The business has grown at a steady 20% or so year over year. A producer turns into two, a production department. Projects turn into Accounts, which are starting to need Account Management. As our capabilities and portfolio grows, so does our desire to take a little more control over shaping our new business pipeline. This is going to require more people, more bodies in the office. An office with only one single stall restroom, and, thanks to the gigantic wall of apartments across the street, a conference room without workable wifi.
It’s time to go.
Oh, and since our website is real old and out of date, so we’re redoing that as well. Let’s just call it collectively “Mess 3.0”
I’ll miss this place tremendously. We built it out ourselves, hauling plywood upstairs, testing ethernet cables, the whole place a labor of love. Hell, I brought my wife here to hangout on our very first date. So yeah, it’s sad to close this chapter, but man, I am really excited for what comes next.
My plan with “Making Mess” is to publish a short series of articles about going from rough idea to working studio, with some thoughts and musings along the way. I hope you find it entertaining, or at least useful. Writing it is proving to be handy for me at least.
Making Mess is a series of posts documenting the leveling up of Mess, a design and development firm I run with my partner and best friend Jack Shedd. We’re fortunate to have the help of a dozen really great people (plus a bow-tie wearing chihuahua named Rocky Balboa) and we’re determined to give them an awesome place to spend eight hours a day.
Chapters
Prelude: Making Mess 3.0
Part One: The Floor Plan Game Plan
Part Two: On Benching Systems
Part Three: Getting the tech out of the way
Part Four: Soon | https://medium.com/@robrob/prelude-making-mess-3-0-6198185f484 | ['Rob Robinson'] | 2016-12-19 15:17:08.764000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing Agency', 'Web Design', 'Web Development', 'Chicago', 'Small Business'] |
What Covid is Confirming About Our (un)Wellness | I have spent much of my career working on interventions that improve the performance of elite athletes and general population clients. My new found purpose is to distill what I have learned over the last 23 years and apply it to a framework that improves people’s day-to-day wellness habits. The intention of this post is to highlight the big picture obstacles we face and set the table for an on-going conversation about what we can do collectively and individually to maximize our wellness potential.
Human nature has repeatedly shown a tendency to overreact in the short term while under-reacting in the long term. It’s a characteristic that has delayed and/or diminished sound policy in many areas. Healthcare, food production and urban planning may be the policy poster children for this claim. As a society we have:
Systematically degraded our food supply
De-coupled our daily activities from our natural, circadian rhythms
Organized our lives to move as little as possible
Worn chronic sleep deprivation as a badge of honor
Sought pharmaceutical cures as first courses of treatment instead of measures of last resort
Created a social media ecosystem that values “likes” over meaningful human connection.
And as we know, this is just a short list of lifestyle changes we have adopted in the name of progress. Pages could be filled with similarly destructive trends that have taken hold in 21st century living. And what is the price for decades of under-reacting to these “anti-wellness” trends? Among others:
Obesity rates over 39%
Diabetes rates over 10%
Hypertension rates over 40%
70+ million US adults with diagnosed sleep disorders
Compromised immunity for large demographic swaths of our under served populations
What do you recognize about these conditions? These are the serious health problems that have made us more vulnerable as a society to Covid 19 and worsened the severity of this pandemic. And many, if not most of these conditions are controllable with better education, more enlightened policies, and the necessary investment to make them stick. Medical advancement and healthy lifestyles that reduce the need for those medical innovations should never be an either or proposition, but that appears to be the trade off we have unconsciously made as a society.
To be sure, there are legitimate debates to be had about what could have been done differently over the last 10 months to mitigate the impact of Covid-19, debates for another article. What I am urging now is a step back to re-assess what has been happening for decades and what it is costing us. Would a better wellness infrastructure have made us more resilient to the impacts of Covid -19? Fewer people with co-morbidities would likely have done four important things:
Have made the relatively low mortality rate of Covid 19 even lower Decreased hospitalizations Have simplified the debate about who gets vaccines first Have left far less economic destruction in its wake
I believe it’s time to start redirecting the resources used to create our massive acute care system towards proactive wellness strategies that we know help people live healthier, more productive lives. Let us now learn the lessons of how decades of under-reaction have left us more vulnerable to this virus. Let us start thinking about our wellness like our lives depend on it, because they do. | https://medium.com/@edlippie/what-covid-is-confirming-about-our-un-wellness-301db3ab3a59 | ['Ed Lippie'] | 2020-12-27 23:16:21.552000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'Health', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Wellness', 'Covid 19'] |
Recommendation Engine — with a twist of flavour | Written by Niladri Banerjee
Introduction
Food, such a wonderful delight!
Food, such a delightful sight!
Food that makes an imagination take flight,
Food that lightens up the day bright!
Our lives are all about food. Good, timely, nutritious food is vital not only to us as humans for survival, but it is also essential for our well-being! Here at LMK Group, food is what we do! On a daily basis!
And not just provide food. That many people and indeed businesses worldwide are involved in.
Our mission, however, is to make everyday lives simpler. By making it easier to plan, obtain and cook delicious meals loved by everyone in the family while at the same time making sustainable production a non-negotiable priority.
It is precisely for these reasons developing an AI-driven recommendation engine for our customers was no mean task! There is no plug-n’-play system out there that considers the unique business model of our meal kit system and is ready to deploy out of the box!
So, in this blog, we will go through some of the salient features of our recommendation engine that make it so unique and that helps fulfil our goal of making everybody’s daily lives, a little bit simpler and enjoyable!
P.S If a general introduction to recommendation engines is what you are looking for, there are plenty of great resources, e.g., check out here, here and here
Materials & methods
Like many recommendation engines out there, the first and foremost priority is to ‘know thy customer’. Because indeed we wanted to make personalisation a top priority- to recommend dishes and meals based on what we personally like and prefer! So how did we go about it?
Well, we did this by making a taste profile for every active customer based on past orders. This involved a fair amount of data munging and wrangling.
There were complex business rules to adhere to, intricate JOINS to perform and a good measure of Pythonic magic to whip into shape the data that forms the base for our recommendation engine.
The real matrix is what you are staring at…
While the business rules might be boring to write much about, they actually acted as useful constraints. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!
We at LMK Group are all about sustainability and planning. Thus, our weekly menus take into account the seasonal fresh produce, availability of ingredients and various logistics measures to minimise food wastage. Additionally, there are rules pertaining to the specific variety of dishes to provide for the customer each week. Thus, our recommendation engine deviates from the classic e-commerce-based recommendation engines.
At its core however, the overall principle follows a content-based approach to recommending dishes to each customer for each week using past orders data, ingredients and taxonomies of each dish in addition to the seasonal recipes available. The end result is not that different than chopping, cutting and grinding the raw materials needed to make a lip-smacking dish!
Without going into too much technical details, the overall flow of steps can be summarised into the following steps:
From a distance…everything looks so simple!
Thus, every week each of our customers get 8 dishes to choose from. Why this number one may ask? Well again it comes down to business rules such as basket sizes and a trade-off between drowning a customer with a flood of options, in which case it would not be personalised at all or the other extreme- giving way too few options!
The above flow chart however is just on the model side, which consists of many matrix operations. Getting the recommendations out to the customer while he/she browses on the website/app is a whole different ball game. That is where the dark art of productionising machine-learning models comes into the picture! Speaking of pictures, take a look below to get a bird’s eye view of the various steps and interconnected pathways involved in serving the recommendations!
The flow
As we can see, delivering a machine-learning end product to the masses, i.e., the ‘consumable’ requires an orchestration of considerable number of processes across various systems in both backend and frontend infrastructures. And this will vary from company to company and use-case to use-case of course!
In our case, the broad route basically involves delivering the recommendations to the customer on the website through Segment, which is a customer data platform that is a pretty powerful tool for coordinating the final display of items to the customer. This data is pumped from a PostgreSQL database that obtains its data in a JSON format from our Azure SQL Database. All of this coordinated through pipelines and stored procedures triggered from Azure Data Factory.
Workform
The way we like to work with Data & AI products in LMK Group is to “Nail it, then scale it”. Get the minimum viable product to production as fast as possible and learn. When you are sewing data components in a data product together is when one really exposes the faults in the solution. This pushes the platform team to orchestrate everything with precision, the frontend team to make smooth customer facing UI and it forces the digital experience team to think about UX from the customers perspective. Especially for recommendation engine products the UI really influences the results of the data product.
This approach is one of many approaches we have tried and tested. We also work with person-based approaches, association rules, ML ++. We also have different types of products we can recommend spread across 4 brands in 3 countries. In other words, this blogpost highlights a small amount of work we are doing across our company, but also a very nice introduction of our ways of work.
Results
Okay, enough talk about the technical implementation, does our recommendation engine work? Does it help push the needle when it comes to tempting customers with dishes customised to each and every one of them? Preliminary analysis says YES!
The following is a graph from one of the cohorts we tested the recommendation engine on, and we were quite pleased that customers receiving the personalised recommendations not only purchased more recommendations, but more customers were purchasing! This was a very welcome news from the viewpoint of customer engagement and satisfaction!
Some very interesting results!
Discussion & Conclusion
So, what can we conclude about the recommendation engine? Well for starters, the good news is that it is working! The plan going forward would then be to expand to all the companies under the umbrella of LMK Group.
The other big advantage is that this application supports our chefs. With the recommendation engine, one part of their workload gets automated leaving them free to focus on doing what they know best….making delicious lip-smacking dishes for all of us to savour upon! | https://medium.com/godtlevert/recommendation-engine-with-a-twist-of-flavour-463dd6e2f09e | ['Navdeep Singh'] | 2021-09-02 08:06:18.327000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Foodtech', 'Data Science', 'Recommendation System', 'UI'] |
Children of a Narcissistic Parent Suffer Long-Term Psychological Consequences | It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I began to give concerted thought to what was wrong with my mom. She had always been depressed, sure, but her behavior over the years went so far beyond what a depressive disorder would sufficiently explain.
And so, perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve gone in search of an explanation — a diagnosis and corresponding label that I could attach to her. Not that she would ever go get a diagnosis herself, but some part of me has thought that if I could settle on one, some weight would somehow be lifted.
Some of the tendencies my mom displays are, well, narcissistic, and so looking at Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) makes sense.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
According to the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, someone with NPD displays “[a] pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:”
“Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).” “Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.” “Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).” “Requires excessive admiration.” “Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations) “Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).” “Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.” “Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.” “Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.”
Numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 all sound like my mom, although, I need to emphasize the wording of number 7. She can be empathetic, but she very frequently, as it says, is “unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.”
Confusion and Contradictions for Children of Narcissists
Growing up with a narcissistic parent is difficult and inherently confusing according to psychotherapist Amy Launder, whose article on the subject I found to be a shockingly accurate representation of my experiences both as a child and now as an adult.
Contributing to the confusion the child of a narcissist experiences are the alternating giving and rescinding of affection, unpredictability in terms of the parent’s emotional state, and a lack of separation between the identities of parent and child.
Later on, the adult children of narcissists are likely to confuse love and control, be unclear on boundaries, and have distorted perceptions of their value and their abilities.
One of the biggest things the child of a narcissistic parent will take away from their upbringing is the belief that they are “not enough.”
I’ve certainly seen this to greater and lesser extents within myself and my mother's other children, along with all of the other factors listed above.
However, a damagingly narcissistic parent doesn’t necessarily look or act like a movie villain. Many times, they play the good guy, and sometimes, they even can be the good guy, particularly when interests align.
My mother is a smart, creative, and charismatic person, and she’ll charm the pants off you when she’s at her best. As a child, it felt good being at the center of her attention, and I loved it when it felt as though she and I were a team.
Launder notes that “[n]arcissists aren’t always cruel. They can very often be kind, but this kindness almost always comes with conditions.”
These conditions are often that the child be exactly what the parent wants them to be, and this is an anxiety that the children of narcissists bear from a very young age.
“Generally, narcissistic parents are possessively close to their young children. Their children are seen as an extension of themselves, and become a source of self-esteem for the parent; “look at how perfect my children are, didn’t I do a good job!” The children become a means to gain attention from others.” — Amy Launder
My mom basked in the praise that her children received. She knew that we were the best dancers, the best actors, the best whatever-the-case-might-have-been, and she was thrilled to relay to use and others how she’d heard just this sort of feedback from someone else.
There are even things my brothers and I did or accomplished many years ago — things that received a lot of attention and praise from the parents of our peers or our teachers and coaches — that my mom holds as important and relevant some twenty years later.
Launders notes that when you fit the mold that your narcissistic parent has prescribed for you, then you can expect praise, attention, and expressions of affection.
It’s when you don’t fit that mold that you experience more of the overt unkindness and lack of empathy from the narcissistic parent.
I remember coming back from a summer camp when I was about sixteen, excited about my new friends and the ability to connect with them online. I was also wearing more makeup and doing more swearing than I’d done before.
None of this was acceptable to my mom, and she told me very clearly that she didn’t like the version of me that had returned that fall.
To have a stable life with a narcissistic parent requires meeting their expectations. Don’t rock the boat; it isn’t fun.
“Asserting [the child’s] own feelings or thoughts can lead to problems with the parent that might include anger, tears, or punishment. Through this, the child learns that their feelings and thoughts are unimportant, invalid, and inconsequential, and will often stifle their own feelings in order to keep the peace at home.” — Amy Launder
Differences in opinion were the first source of trouble with my mom when I was small. They were, and to this day are, completely unacceptable, and will result in huffiness from her in the very least.
There was a middle time in my youth when I disagreed with my mom very rarely. I sort of merged with her and took on many of her opinions, likes, and dislikes as my own. Still today, I’m entangling some of those — even small things like whether I really prefer white lights on the Christmas tree, or if I only think I do because that’s what she liked best.
In my teens, I had an increasingly difficult time agreeing with her or feeling happy with her decisions. Still, her happiness was of the utmost importance, if for no other reason than that it made my own life less difficult.
Stepping out of line, even unintentionally, would result in my mom’s yelling and tears and my ongoing feelings of guilt. I had to shut down my own feelings to a certain extent to make it through my last few years with her before I escaped to school on the other side of the continent.
But the one “mistake” could never avoid making was to speak up when I felt she was treating my brothers unfairly. This always resulted in a tidal wave of intensely-expressed feelings on her part followed by punitive pouting.
“Narcissists have trouble handling anything that is perceived as a criticism or penetrates this image that they have cultivated of themselves. When this happens they can become angry, belittle others, have difficulty regulating their emotions, and experience covert feelings of shame, vulnerability, and humiliation.” — Amy Launder
Impact on Decision-Making
Narcissists tend to believe that they are always right, and thus if their child does something that does not align with those beliefs, then the child is doing something wrong. (The same applies to anyone else — it’s the narcissist’s way or the highway.)
If the child is rarely allowed to make their own decisions or is punished for making the “wrong” ones, then it should be no surprise that later, adult children of narcissistic parents have trouble with decision-making.
This was once a major problem in my life. My partner will attest that I have gone so far as to cry over an extensive sundae menu because there were too many options and I didn’t know what to choose. On that occasion, I made him choose for me.
In addition to trouble with indecision, the child, as they grow up, may develop a form of internalized gaslighting that causes them to doubt their feelings, memories, skills, and judgment. Imposter syndrome in the face of success is also very common in these now-adult children.
The Parentified Child
Launders points out that the child of the narcissist will often become a “parentified child.” That is, they will have spent so much of their lives feeling responsible for and taking care of their parents’ feelings, that they will go on to “grow up organizing their life around the happiness of others.”
I wish that wasn’t true of me, but it is. I have an extraordinarily hard time not considering others first and putting their needs above my own. I will go far out of my way to make sure that people are taken care of.
Is some part of that kindness? Of course. But is it also a habit created out of self-preservation? Yes.
It’s been noted that the children of narcissists may be extra tuned into the feelings of those around them and may also be less able to protect themselves from those emotions.
I, at least, am hypersensitive to how others are feeling. I see it, I feel it, and I’ll obsess over it. Usually, I’ll feel a deep need to fix whatever is wrong.
Impact on Love and Attachment
I’ve written previously that I have an insecure attachment style, which Launder notes are typical of the children of narcissists. Because love, as the child learns it, is conditional, the child can never be certain that the love they find later on in life is truly safe.
Ironically, the children of narcissistic parents are high in love and loyalty. They often have difficulty stepping back from the narcissistic parent or creating appropriate boundaries.
It’s taken years for me to step back from my mother, and even though I’m now far from her sphere of influence, it isn’t hard to get sucked back in, particularly in those moments when it feels like we’re on the same side again as we so often were when I was a child.
Even today, I still feel guilty when I know I’ve upset her, even when I know that I’ve done the right thing or when I know she’s been manipulative.
I’ve been aware that she’s been going through a tough time this past year, but I’ve kept my distance for my own emotional health. To engage always ends in some sort of heartbreak.
While I believe that most of her struggles are self-created, I still feel sad. She is, after all, my mom (regardless of the fact that she once sent a letter of abdication).
I used to think my relationship with my mom could possibly change when I got older. I thought the distance would help the relationship. I’ve realized, of course, that I was wrong.
My younger brother still hopes for reconciliation with her — some sort of closure. Even though part of him knows it’s useless, he continues to feel this deep need for his mother to accept him or at least acknowledge the hurt she’s caused.
I get it. It would be nice. But that’s just not how this cookie crumbles.
The Path Forward
Several studies have suggested that adult children of narcissists experience ongoing mental health issues. One study concluded, among other things, that “[t]he total indirect effect of maternal narcissism (via rearing scales) was significant both on depression…and on anxiety…”
Another study which included interviews indicated that “perceived parental narcissism can have a significant impact on adult children’s understanding of their self-esteem in adulthood,” with “parental lack of empathy, grandiosity, tendency to exploit others, and critical or patronizing behaviors” as having the largest impact on “development of a self-concept or identity, essential components of self-esteem.”
Despite experiences of improved self-esteem, nearly all participants…believed they were suffering, and would continue to suffer, from the effects of their parent’s narcissistic traits. Many described needing external support or validation from others to feel competent or worthy, and some reported feeling as if their entire sense of self was based on how “successful” they felt in terms of their physical appearance, social life, or educational or career achievements. — Brittany N. Bach
In my life, having to fight through perceived failure, exploring more of the world, experiencing success in unexpected areas, and getting to see myself through the eyes of others whom I like and respect, have all made a difference when it comes to my self-esteem as an adult.
In terms of dealing with all the effects of a narcissistic parent, Launders believes that there are opportunities to move forward and begin to heal. Recognition and self-education, recounting of experiences, and identifying trauma with the help of a counselor can all be beneficial.
These adults will need to grieve, perhaps go through developmental milestones they may have missed, and come to understand and accept that the narcissistic parent will not change.
My brothers and I are all at different points in this process, but I hope that in time, we’ll all be able to let go of the need for approval, see ourselves as we really are, get through that lingering sadness, and go on to live happy, authentic, and unentangled lives. | https://medium.com/preoccupy-negative-thoughts/children-of-a-narcissistic-parent-suffer-long-term-psychological-consequences-52142a9dd56a | ['Elan Cassandra'] | 2020-12-11 16:04:01.118000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Mental Health', 'Narcissism', 'Psychology', 'Childhood'] |
UK Local Authority Heraldic Logos (A Totally Objective Ranking) | Freelance graphic designer Robin Wilde recently published an article on this website ranking the United Kingdom’s local authority logos (all 399 of them!) based on their graphic design. It’s an impressive feat, but I do have a minor gripe: Wilde seems to have it in for heraldry (or “crests” as he consistently refers to them as), and penalises logos in his ranking simply for using them.
When I finally build my clockwork time machine I’m going to go back to the 1800s and intimidate whoever came up with using medieval heraldry for municipal identity work until they stop. — Robin Wilde
That’s quite harsh by any standards, and is a sad misunderstanding of heraldry’s purpose. It may be a “medieval” artform but it was developed to solve a very modern problem: visual identity. While we may not need to be able to spot the chairman of, say, Mendip District Council, in the heat of battle against their cruel overlords at the Somerset County Council, identity is just as important now as it was in the middle ages. Heraldry contains a lot of visual information which represents a person or institution, in a succinct but easily usable format: the blazon, a few lines of mangled Norman French which describes what a coat of arms looks like. How it’s then presented is down to the artist, or today the graphic designer. Institutions which use heraldic logos like to assume a sense of gravitas, importance, and history (even when they haven’t got any), see my article on university logos for some examples of venerable old institutions using heraldry in the modern world.
Wilde has unfairly treated some impressive pieces of graphic design because of his aversion to the use of a coat of arms for governmental purposes. And to right this wrong I have taken all (or at least most) of the heraldic local authority logos and divided them up by design type, and found some interesting trends.
Full Colour Arms
It is unfortunate that I have to start with some of these logos, as they do prove Wilde’s points. Many of these logos are clunky and badly designed, consisting of some decades-old painting vectorised and put against text that doesn’t exactly compliment it. The worst offender would be Blackburn and Darwen, which is using an emblazonment of its arms so florid it would only not look out of place on an 18th century bookplate. The others wander around at different levels of mediocrity, with only the last five standing out as anything particularly special. Leeds, Watford, Dacorum, Ceredigion, and Rutland all show an attention to detail and graphic design ability closer to the full colour university logos I reviewed previously. Leeds has stylishly simplified just enough; Rutland, Dacorum, and Watford have all taken fairly similar routes with bold colours and black outlines. Ceredigion has, as Wilde noted, a very complicated but competent vectorisation which works very effectively. Some of these are truly terrible and perhaps a stereotype of what council logos look like, but that’s by no means the only application of heraldry in council branding, as we shall see…
2. Complicated Simplified Arms
Oxymoron? Probably, but it makes sense. These logos all centre around a simplified coat of arms, generally down to a smooth vector in one or two colours, but which are still quite complex in design. I’ve grouped them roughly into categories. The first line have overdone it, the second are very neat but perhaps have too much flare to be stuck on a wheelie bin, and the third look like Oxford University, or Royal Holloway, but on the whole work well. The final line is where this style really comes into its own, with a selection of beautifully vectorised logos (often let down by their accompanying text) which present all of the symbolism of a coat of arms while retaining the necessary minimalism for a modern logo. The City of London uses its arms everywhere to great success, but I’d say that Manchester has been the best design — on that row. I have sorted Bristol away from the rest because, well, it’s just gorgeous. A slight deviation from its actual arms, but hey, look at it. That’s what you can do with heraldry, you can put it in a circle in two colours and make it look like the Bayeux Tapestry was done for the 21st century.
3. Simple Simplified Arms
As with the universities, simple arms are popular, and don’t they look good? There’s a spread here, from the top row (along with Hampshire and Essex) where the shield has been simplified out of existence but the arms retained (New Forest District Council being the best of these). The final four on the page are my favourite, with Islington and Oxfordshire probably taking the top spots, and a special commendation for the City of York. Both look very modern, the coats of arms alone have a great secondary application as social media icons, and are recognisable on their own without the text. Most of these are good designs though, and proof that heraldry can be simplified into a nice, modern, logo, without becoming just a blob that people associate with the local council. Yes, Belfast looks appalling, as does South Ribble, and Norfolk isn’t that good, but for every terrible logo there’s an Oxfordshire or Islington, a cleanly vectorised Somerset, and York, which even Wilde concedes is “rakish.”
4. Aspects
I imagine that I have missed a great deal of logos here, but I chose a representative sample of the uses of heraldic logos without even the ‘crest’ shape which Wilde disliked so. These retain a part of the symbolism of the arms, and can be connected to the arms when the full achievement is seen carved inevitably on some grand 19th century council building. I prefer to see the whole coat of arms simplified as in category three, but there’s nothing wrong with these. In a way, they actually become ‘correct’ when printed on the high visibility jackets of council employees. The heraldic badge is a smaller device than the shield, which was worn by the retinue of an armigerous knight in the middle ages, showing them to be his people but not bearing his arms. I doubt any of the councils’ graphic designers were thinking of that, however, and most of these are good enough.
Hopefully in showcasing a few of the successful heraldic logos from each category of local authorities, Robin Wilde’s unfair slating of heraldry can be disproven, and the artform’s rightful place in the world of graphic design can be upheld. | https://medium.com/@edwardteather/uk-local-authority-heraldic-logos-a-totally-objective-ranking-dff63e184320 | ['Edward Teather'] | 2021-11-25 21:30:26.745000+00:00 | ['Council', 'UK Politics', 'Graphic Design', 'Logo Design', 'Local Government'] |
The Augmented Reality Industry is Shooting Itself in the Foot. | That’s a bold statement from a small AR firm in rural Canada — but from our perspective, 2019 and 2020 have been a race to consistently name drop, one-up, and discredit our collective competition with very little evidence to back up the bold claims made by individuals and companies vying for control and clout within the augmented reality space. What’s worse, is the position this places the consumer in; there’s widespread discussion and repetition from industry leaders that says the goal is to ‘democratize the tech’ and make it available for all — yet, very few companies out there seem to make any effort whatsoever to do just that. At this rate, the AR landscape will be reduced to chasing its tail, endlessly circling around the possibility of mass user adoption.
Here’s the rub: isn’t that what democratization stands for? We want the global population to accept and integrate AR tech into their daily lives, yet we’re changing and confusing the masses to a state where they want little to do with mainstream AR experiences. So who’s responsible? In short, we are.
We’re taking a deep dive into our personal organizational experiences to present what we feel is nothing short of a massive play to undermine what’s possible, what’s ethical, and what’s around the bend. The kicker is, we believe the industry doesn’t stand to gain anything from this play. This should be an era of collaboration, support, experimentation, and sharing. Instead, we’re collectively racing to a finish line that the AR community can’t seem to define for itself.
The Big Buy-In
For many tech startups, knowledge and innovation are rooted in a strong desire to disrupt and make positive change — sometimes without a clear road map.
“Making something a reality sometimes, is challenging when you don’t have the blueprint to go off of, so I feel that these companies were equally inspired by movies and pop culture and had a passion to build that technology,” says KP9 Interactive CEO, Wil McReynolds. Wil has been innovating in the AR space since 2011. That’s long enough to see countless ideas, companies, and personalities come and go, each with their own individual merits and promising ideas. As 2020 approached, a shift happened in the AR sphere.
“A lot of them were acquired by bigger companies. At the other end of the spectrum, some of these companies have become too big for their own good. They’ve got to that point where there’s a lot of internal bureaucracy and too many managers. Innovation takes a bit longer because it takes a lot longer to work its way up from R&D. Whereas small, agile companies can really pivot in real-time and make very disruptive things that sometimes end up being acquired by big companies. Sometimes when they’re acquired you don’t see that tech emerge for another couple of years. That sucks too.”
Pump the brakes for a second. An acquisition can be phenomenal news for a small company making big innovations. Being acquired by the right group can mean an injection of funds that saves the company, allows it to expand and grow their team or stack, and gifts them time to flesh out the ideas that helped them secure that trust from a big company or VC. An acquisition can also mean support; it can mean access to consultants, experts, marketing help, behind-the-scenes tech that unlocks new doorways, and even the simple psychological boost of being validated by the industry. Make no mistake, acquisition — by the right company — can be a lifesaver. More often than not, it can also have the opposite effect.
Take, for example, the acquisition of Metaio by Apple in 2015. Metaio was a growing team of bright engineers and developers that laid the groundwork of what would eventually become Arkit. Full disclosure, Wil was at one time a Preferred Developer with Metaio.
At the time of the acquisition, Metaio was creating virtual showrooms for the likes of IKEA and was being adopted by the automotive and industrial sectors in the creation of complex visual repair manuals. Apple sat on that tech for an approximate two years and issued a very dismissive statement deflecting questions, noting “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans.”
Hey, that’s show-biz, baby. But it sure doesn’t advance the technology, or aid in its democratization — Apple took what Metaio had built, a cross-platform solution, and reduced it to iOS functionality, staunchly limiting what was possible. Our colleagues shot us all in the foot.
“Metaio was huge, man,” says McReynolds. “They would let you compile to Android and iOS. Apple bought it and they garden-walled it. They made it proprietary on their phone, period… Apple goes on a buying blitz and then brings out its vision of what it should be on top of what the innovators were doing. They’re trying to bring their tried-and-true tropes that they believe are the standard.”
With Apple’s big, burly tease of a release for an AR headset slated for sometime in 2021 or 2022, Patently Apple, a website dedicated to closely monitoring Apple’s published patents via the US Patent & Trademark Office suggests we’re being pushed, yet again, towards a tech medium that’s not anywhere near ready for mainstream adoption.
Dice Insights writes in a March 2019 article discussing the future of augmented reality and Apple’s pending headset release. “This is not what we want from augmented reality. In fact, this will earn AR a ‘hard pass’ from many consumers… and might hint that the AR future we’ve all been expecting is nowhere close to fruition.”
When we take a step back and look at where the industry came from, there were a handful of SDK’s available for developing augmented reality apps. Other pioneering companies, rightfully so, had their own visions of how best to do it. Acquisition accomplished two key things: one, it largely validated the idea that AR tech was a powerful force that held serious potential. Two, it created an arms race that’s as much about marketing and selling the next big thing as it was about pioneering a transformative technology that has the ability to change the world.
Industry Thought Leaders & Influencers
We believe a key pillar of AR’s failure to build mainstream adaptability lies in the way our industry actually talks about and promotes augmented reality.
“A lot of futurists and influencers are people who have in’s in the industry, so they get to see things maybe a year or two years out from the general public even knowing about it in many ways. There are two scenarios, either they’re so hyped on what they see to a point where everything else pales in comparison so they can only go on about that thing — and that’s why they’re always on about the next shiny thing. Two, is the fact many of them don’t have the vision to see all of the pieces and they’re just promoting whatever’s around them to stay relevant without actually understanding the underlying structure of the system. Many of these influencers talking about technology [can’t] talk about the tech — it’s all bling and no delivery.”
AR is a form of media; media is not an authentic representation of reality, so all media is a carefully crafted construction. To a degree, when we see the media jump on the bandwagon and preach the gospel of the next shiny thing, what we’re seeing may not be an accurate representation of AR technology. It may very well be a very doctored representation of who’s got the most friends in high places. The marketing sells. The idea is there. The words are punchy, but — and we’ve witnessed this time and time again — the building blocks and underlying foundation of the tech itself are often inflated or misrepresented, and the user experience is easily neglected.
Having connections in high places does not make an expert.
Having a large audience does not make a thought leader.
Having a revered platform publish an opinion does not make an influencer.
“Unfortunately, it is who you know in a lot of ways, and some of these people and companies have these brands on board because of historic work — but then again, some of these people at the top probably shouldn’t be at the top anymore,” says McReynolds. “There’s a lot of people that hinder the growth of the technology in many ways because they listen to their friend’s friend who works with an AR company and that person jumps on the bandwagon and writes something because they see an opportunity. That creates its own problems…
They’re misleading in their marketing. They’re misleading in what they’re actually selling, and they mislead the user.”
Of course, we’re guilty of making blingy tech demonstrations as well. Our beginnings aren’t unlike many other companies in the AR sphere in that we sought to inspire creativity in our audience, our clients, and prospective investors and customers. We stopped doing flashy demos and fixating on the future of AR when we noticed the competition using advanced showings as a tool to sell clients. At the end of the day, our initial demos and the demos of others were the possibilities of tomorrow. Nothing more.
Now, to the credit of advanced tech demos: we do see them work, albeit in controlled environments constructed exclusively by the companies promoting them. Yes — they’re awe-inspiring and impressive, but they do not — and cannot — scale. Everyone in this industry is seemingly trying to step on everyone else in an effort to get their product out the door — that’s business, after all. But when good tech and practical ideas are drowned in an ocean of contradictory and confusing content, we all lose. We lose potential sales, we lose audiences, and we lose the ability to hook new users interested in exploring the possibilities of AR.
Consider a popular WebAR demo released by L’Oreal that was supposed to allow people to try out “countless” hairstyles and colours by applying a type of filter-based AR overlay. “Countless” was a perplexing choice of wording because the experience only delivered 50 some-odd options.
Strategy & Business writer Linda Rodriguez McRobbie says in an article discussing the “long nose” of AR, “I mostly buy into the bright future predicted by experts — but this isn’t the only unsatisfying experience I’ve had… In its current incarnation, AR is, frankly, disappointing. It’s at best a solution to problems that aren’t really problems, and at worst, insufficient in meeting what could be actual needs (like my fringe question). So why am I sure that AR is still going to be the next big thing? Because it will be a really useful idea — when we get it right.”
We need creative and inspired people to keep innovating; there is nothing wrong with future conceptual POC’s. Modern movies and games are the primers in many ways and we’re all products of our environments, as it were, but how we talk about and market our collective technology matters. Our media authorities need to better investigate the functionality, operation, and validity of marketing claims prior to giving underperforming and misleading platforms and software engines the spotlight.
Unvalidated articles and reviews from thought leaders can potentially create content virality that heavily damages the validity of the industry. They ultimately undermine the efforts of true innovators poised to offer scalable solutions by presenting these flashy demos as market-ready. They’re not.
The Whale & Perceived Failure
Would investment be awesome? Yes. It definitely wouldn’t suck. But you know what does suck? Having the very industry you work in actively sabotage widespread progress by neglecting the user experience and misleading audiences to the point they feel the tech was all hype, or just doesn’t work at all. Is investment important? Yes, absolutely. Is investment necessary? No, absolutely not.
We’ve all seen The Whale. It’s an MR experience created by now for-sale Florida startup, Magic Leap, that showcased an incredible 3D display of a whale breaching a gymnasium floor. Was it sick? Damn right it was. Was it an accurate representation of what Magic Leap was capable of? Many would say unequivocally, no.
In a March 2020 article published by Input Magazine, journalist Raymond Wong recounts trying the Magic Leap 1 AR headset after referencing years of hype and excitement, spurred in part by doctored content like the Whale experience.
“It was hardly the kind of killer experience that merged virtual objects and physical space that I was expecting from the hyped AR headset. [It] certainly didn’t convince me the $2,300 headset was worth the money, early adopter premium or not. I left the hotel disappointed and didn’t publish any story on it.”
Here’s a company that accepted billions in investment from the likes of giants like Google, Disney, and Alibaba, who collectively threw $2.6 billion at the startup with the optimistic goal of commercializing its groundbreaking AR headset. Now, Magic Leap is for sale, a move that Wong says has “rattled some confidence in the AR space.” He’s not alone in that sentiment.
Bloomberg published an article in September of 2020, with a subheadline that blatantly stated “the augmented reality startup was undone by profligate spending and its own hype. Investors finally lost patience…”
What does this say about the state of the AR industry? What good did that hype train do for the adoption of wearables, or AR tech as a whole? How do we make it as a collective technology when arguably the biggest name in the game tanks and inspires distrust in AR? It says the all-bling-no-system methodology is killing us as innovators in the space, and the more our thought leaders, influencers, and media networks place misleading AR experiences on a pedestal, the more likely we are to struggle — together.
The same overarching concept applies to other known industry firms sharing legacy projects. Each are impressive and make waves in their own right, but neglect the importance of building the basement to support the hype. Whether it be falsely touted true webAR capabilities, or neglecting to make experiences accessible to as many users via iOS and Android as possible, these impressive experiences being churned out are wishy-washy at best. They don’t work as advertised, and straight-up don’t work if you don’t have a certain device in your hand.
“I know how to use augmented reality,” says McReynolds. “When I can’t make it work, then there’s a real problem for the user and that’s leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths. It’s not the technology — it’s the implementation and delivery… Who suffers? The businesses that want to use [the tech] because when the consumer goes to use it, it just doesn’t work as expected.”
Perhaps the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and prompted the production of this article, for us anyway, was an industry-leading CEO reaching out — directly — asking for help making their platform work. Let’s face it, if a prominent AR company that sponsors globally-recognized expo’s and speaker series’ is asking the little guy for help, there’s trouble in paradise. If a company is advertising true #WebAR and a tech firm like ours can’t get their experiences to work as advertised on 5 or 6 different testing devices, they need to straight-up get their shit together.
“We’re in an era that’s all about investment in tech. Magic Leap set that precedent years ago with the fucking whale video,” laughs McReynolds. “Groups are misleading in their advertising. It’s not accessible on all devices and it’s not true #ARforall, but they’re also thinking so far ahead. If you keep on showing the next big thing, the expectations of the people who want to use it are limited to the higher end devices or those who can afford to invest in them.”
How on earth does that reflect #Arforall?
When these experiences consistently disappoint and confuse audiences and investors, guess what gets blamed? We’ve boiled down our perceived failures of AR. They stem from misleading people, being complacent, and not having an engine that works. All that failure, at the end of the day, is evidently coming down on augmented reality as a whole. It’s not going to come down on an individual company or the person who coded it. It’s not going to come down on the content creator or the brand that’s marketing it; it’s going to come down on the tech. Influencers, thought leaders, and companies trying to run before they can walk are building a myth that allows the tech to take the fall for what they’re doing.
The Solution (from our perspective)
Look, we’re not saying the WorldCAST engine we built at KP9 Interactive is the be-all-end-all solution for the collective AR consumer experience. We’re one of many, certainly. But what we’ve done is seemingly the opposite of what some of our competitors have done: we assessed the need for a truly democratized webAR platform with as few friction points as possible and built a web-based studio and portal environment that allows everyone to create, publish, and share augmented reality content. Full stop.
Our platform needs no development knowledge. It requires no coding experience. It offers a free option. It does not discriminate between Android and iOS devices. Last but certainly not least, it does exactly what we say it does. We’ve built a platform we feel is right for the current market, but we always have our eyes on the horizon line — we strategically position our company so we can grow and adapt to the world of wearables when they’re inevitably democratized and made available to the public. We think we have a great grasp on what’s coming, what could be, and what could emerge from those changes down the road. What we’re sure of, is that we’re serving what’s realistically available today — not advertising what we want to be available someday.
In order to democratize AR, companies must build and sell AR engines that can serve the content that actually works today. How should people access AR? Not through expensive wearables and headsets that promise the moon — not yet, anyway. Instead, what does everyone engaged with modern consumer technologies have access to today? Mobile devices and desktop computers. Thus, create platforms that are accessible via those means and a portal from which to serve AR content. What won’t work is constantly showing off. C’est la vie.
The solution is building accessible, useful, practical, and accurate platforms that do what their respective creators say they can. The solution is putting AR in a position where it can provide opportunities to educate, inform, and entertain global audiences, regardless of how much cash they have wrapped up in the latest device. The goal is to inspire, isn’t it?
We chose to build the basement first because without a fully functional and ironclad engine, there is no car, there is no stairway to heaven, and there is no ethical chance in hell of mass user adoption by which to seek comprehensive investment. We cannot put the cart before the horse, and we strongly feel the biggest thorn in the side of the augmented reality landscape is our competition and the so-called influencers and thought leaders who do exactly that.
Look, we’re not trying to discredit, put down, or ridicule any person, company, or sector of the augmented reality industry. We’re all doing what we can to succeed in an unprecedented time in human history, and there’s a nobility in that which we tip our hat to. The failures of our industry, and there are many, are just part of the process and don’t represent the whisper of an untimely death. An emerging industry worth an estimated $1.5 trillion doesn’t go away overnight thanks to a few shitty demo experiences that didn’t pan out with the public.
“You can’t run businesses like you used to,” concludes McReynolds. “You can’t segregate transformative technology. You can’t compartmentalize a form of media, that for the first time in history has access to all information in so many different ways. You can’t take that away from the masses… We’re reaching a digital evolution. We’re reaching a societal evolution… All that stuff has shifted.” | https://medium.com/@kp9/the-augmented-reality-industry-is-shooting-itself-in-the-foot-ef19a1245ff | [] | 2021-02-03 14:08:50.715000+00:00 | ['AR', 'Augmented Reality', 'Technology', 'Webar', 'Mixed Reality'] |
Package & deploy Microservices | We had another successfully Docker Rosenheim Meetup yesterday evening. This time in cooperation with Azure Rosenheim Meetup. We had two talks, one from Daniel Meixner, who gave an introduction to Kubernetes, and the second from me talking about packaging and deployment of Microservices.
My talk was intended to show the different possibilities using three examples:
How Kaniko can help you improve your automated docker image pipeline?
How Compose and Helm can help you roll out and/or deploy your application?
What can you expect in the future? A brief look at Helm 3.0 and CNAB.
The code of my demos is available in this public repository. My slides are available on Slideshare.
Thanks again to our sponsors panagenda and white duck.
For all of you who are interested in this topic but are not located near Rosenheim and therefore are not able to join our last meetup, we (panagenda) decided to also schedule a webinar on February 21. You can signup here. | https://medium.com/01001101/package-deploy-microservices-6a3203c847b3 | ['Nico Meisenzahl'] | 2019-01-30 09:44:26.152000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Docker', 'Kubernetes', 'Containers', 'Microservices'] |
Flying Solo: Freelancing Pros and Cons | Originally published at fashionpotluck.com.
Freelancing — a term many people link to being at the beach in Bali and sipping your 3rd Mojito while doing some casual, enjoyable work from your laptop. Unfortunately, the reality is a bit different and although the following content might crush your dreams, you will at least be equipped with insights into the pros and cons of freelancing. If you are a complete newbie and would like to start looking for freelance jobs, check these sites: Freelancer, Sologig and Upwork. Also, make sure to join Slack Community for Growth-Minded Freelancers.
Freelancing undoubtedly gives you freedom, however good self-discipline, risk-taking, and persistence are necessary. Before suddenly quitting your full-time job and rushing into a freelance career, read the following pros and cons to find out whether it is really what you’re looking for.
You get the freedom everyone keeps talking about
Pros: Long gone are the days when you would find a company, get a desk, and stay at the same spot for the next 25 years. Nowadays, more than ever, young people are not afraid of job hopping and are regularly seeking new challenges, environments, and experiences. Some studies show that ‘45% of newly hired college grads remain with a company for under two years’ and by the age of 35, about 25% of young employees have had five jobs.
Freelancing is becoming more popular every year: currently, 57.3 million Americans are doing freelance jobs. One of the main reasons people choose this lifestyle is that it gives them more freedom to organize themselves and set their schedule. Indeed, when working as a freelancer, you are the one setting the schedule of your work and you have much more flexibility. You don’t have to wake up and start working at a specific time, and if you prefer working overnight, you are completely free to do so.
Cons: Although you are your own boss, you still have to respect your client’s deadlines. To help you manage your time wisely, check this article to find out the 9 Rules for Successful Management.
You can work from your bed
Pros: How many times have you wished to stay in your pajama and work from bed? Being a freelancer, you can actually do so! The casual work attire indeed sounds great, not to mention saving money on fancy work clothes.
Although being a freelancer does not guarantee you a stable salary, it, however, helps cut some costs. One of the biggest expenses when working for a company is the cost of transport. Working as a freelancer, you can finally quit your daily, annoying commute and can move to the cozy spot in the coffee place around the corner. If you feel like talking to other people and exchanging your insights and ideas, joining a co-working shared space is also a good idea. Check these sites to find shared spaces and offices around the world: Sharedesk, Share My Space and LiquidSpace.
Cons: Working from home might be nice in the beginning, however, you can easily become lazy. If you work from home, you need to organize your schedule and stick to it, otherwise, you can lose both your time and motivation!
You can finally unleash your creativity
Pros: Being a freelancer, you can finally use your own approach to get work done! Although you have less guidance, you do have more creative freedom and can fully realize a project in your own way. As a freelancer, you can indeed reach your full potential and do stuff you actually love. If you mess up, you take responsibility and learn from it. And, you appreciate your effort more than someone else ever will.
Cons: Working by yourself is…
Continue reading here: https://fashionpotluck.com/lifestyle/flying-solo-freelancing-pros-and-cons | https://medium.com/@FashionPotluck/flying-solo-freelancing-pros-and-cons-384f94be7ac7 | ['Fashion Potluck'] | 2019-02-27 16:51:52.172000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Freelancers', 'Freelance', 'Employment', 'Freelance Writing'] |
From Pile to Smile | From Pile to Smile
Insights from transforming a friend’s big stack of medical records into a visual story
I recently worked with a friend to help her put together a visual health history. That’s what I do as part of the company I’ve started, Pictal Health, and she was the 21st person I’ve worked with thus far.
Bonnie came to me with a request. After about 30 years of ongoing health issues, some of which were mystifying and for which she felt she had no answers, she was in the process of gathering her medical records (both from traditional medical systems and alternative practitioners) into one place. She asked me to help her make sense of this vast amount of information so that she could start preparing for yet another upcoming new doctor visit.
Let’s take a look at what we did and the many things we learned. | https://medium.com/pictal-health/turning-a-pile-of-health-records-into-a-story-e96d5544d187 | ['Katie Mccurdy'] | 2019-01-23 13:41:08.009000+00:00 | ['Patient Experience', 'Design', 'Design Process', 'Data Visualization', 'Healthcare'] |
5 Annoying Things Job Seekers Do That Employers Hate. | About a week ago, I was speaking with Ben Bassey, the new Editor-in-Chief of Pulse Nigeria. We spoke about a recent hire I made for the Social Media team. He asked me about a candidate he had referred for the role; the young man had been hounding him for an opportunity to work at Pulse. Unfortunately for him, I did not invite him to interview.
To be honest, during shortlisting; I actually don’t pay that much attention to the names of candidates. I review the experiences in their CVs; the content of their emails; and their cover letter, if attached.
In the last 4 years, in my role as a Marketing lead for Pulse, I have shortlisted several candidates, held many interviews, and hired some really really amazing guys; both for full time and Internship roles. I have also seen, emails from some lazy, careless, and downright annoying candidates. Below are my top five annoying reasons for not interviewing or giving jobs to any candidate.
1) Emails without Subject!
Like seriously???? How do you EVER send emails for job applications without ‘subject’? HOW? Despite how annoying and as unethical as this is, it’s very common amongst a lot of job seekers. I see this happen very frequently. If you’ve done this before, or are currently still doing this, please stop it; you can’t get invited to interview for any serious job.
Hiring managers and HRs get a lot of emails; they’re very busy people. They won’t open your email. They won’t invite you for the interview. They won’t give you the job. So please, add subjects to your emails; make sure it’s simple, clear, and very related to the position you’re applying for.
2) Emails without an impressive Body.
Most of the time, job seekers think the only thing hiring managers /HRs are interested in is their CVs. This is wrong. Actually, your interview begins from your first application email. Your email subject and body gives a fair idea of the quality of the candidate you are. It’s a major factor that determines whether the hiring manager would go ahead download your CVs for review or not.
The body of the email does not necessarily need to be too elaborate with many flashy grammars and buzz words. Simply state how you found out about the opening, and why you think you’re a good fit for the job.
3) Forwarding CVs in previously sent emails
Okay, I’m sure some of you would be wondering if this is actually happening; 100% Yes! I’ve seen this happen with every batch of applications I receive.
To me, this takes the cake as the most annoying things job applicants do. The only logical reason conclusion I can come up with for behaviors like this is: sheer laziness, and or disregard for the hiring managers. You will never get a serious by doing this.
4) Applying for the wrong job or position.
Let me clarify what I mean: The wrong job, is a job that you have no skill or experience for whatsoever. Even if you’re applying to be an intern, having zero skills or experience makes you an unqualified candidate in my opinion. The only reason I would take an inexperienced candidate for an internship roll is: if he or she has shown a lot of interest and passion for that position of job. By this, the candidate should have taken, or should be currently taking a course related to the position or job; have a fairly strong understanding of what the job entails; from studying and listening to influencers and experts other experts in that field/industry .
The pressure of unemployment can sometimes lead us to apply for anything, and everything that’s available out there. I would strongly discourage you from doing this. Be deliberate about the kind of job you’re interested, and apply for those. It’s better to be unemployed, for a little while, than to be engaged in something that makes you bitter and unhappy.
5) Misplacing being confident, with being arrogant.
Being confident, it’s a key factor for landing that dream job. However, you must be very careful to know when you’re crossing that line, as anything beyond confidence, could imply, or make you come off as being rude and arrogant.
A few months ago, Twitter was on fire; remember the job applicant who was complementing the HR manager who interviewed him on how she smelled? See screen-shot.
I once received an application from a candidate who was logically threatening me to give him the job. In one of the paragraphs of his email, the candidate wrote; “Mr. George, I will pay you N100,000 if you’re not satisfied with my job after the first month.” Do you see anything wrong with this? Or is it just me? I’d really like to know your thoughts; share in the comment section below.
The first step to getting that job of your dreams, begins with getting the interview. Your first impression for the job starts with your application email; your CV, and what you say to the hiring manager in the body of your email.
Before applying for any job, make sure it’s a job you really want. If it is, make sure your application count. Put all the necessary efforts it would take to convince the hiring manager that you truly want the job, and that you’re a good fit for the vacant position.
Are there other annoying errors/mistakes you've seen job seekers make? Let me know in the comment section below. | https://medium.com/@georgembam/5-annoying-things-job-seekers-do-that-employers-hate-dc1bae3027a | ['George Mbam'] | 2019-06-17 23:58:05.546000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Hiring', 'Job Search', 'Job Interview', 'Mistakes'] |
I Got Rejected from News Break | Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
Everyone is raving about the new writing platform News Break.
For those who don’t know what News Break is, it is the multiple Number #1 rated app in the “News” category in America (currently Number #3) founded by Jeff Zheung in 2015. It currently has 23 million users and lord knows how many viewers per day (source).
What has captured people’s attention recently is their new Creator Programme; $1,000 a month for twelve pieces of writing, three to be published a week, and 500 followers in the month.
This offer goes on for three months and then I am not too sure what happens after. No one has been writing for it long enough to know.
What do you write about? Turns out you can copy and paste your Medium stories and not just write about local news. Yes, copy and pasting for $1000 a month. Creators have openly admitted to doing this and not been sent to the naughty step as of yet.
Screenshot by author.
How do you become a Creator? Simply go and follow the link below and fill in a small application form. I actually signed up via a Facebook group referral link, thinking it would give me a little boost. I even signed up with a second email address just in case my first application got lost in the world wide web.
A confirmation email was sent stating that I would receive a response in 5–7 days. Within this time, a Facebook group had been set up for those that were fresh out of Medium and looking to jump ship or manage two ships at a time. The vast majority of members were waiting for responses.
Four days went by. Seven days. I chased by responding directly to the confirmation email, I chased via the help links on their website and I chased via Facebook Messenger. Members of the Facebook group were also waiting a while and I had no heard of anyone being rejected yet so there was hope.
Two nights ago, I received an email from them stating my rejection. Rejected? Why? I need that $1000! For me it’s not even 1000, it’s around 750 when converted to my currency.
The email didn’t state why I was rejected. Instantly I thought it was because I lived in the United Kingdom. This website very much seems like a USA based thing and the app isn’t even available in my country.
I went onto the Facebook group and it seems a few others got rejected the same time as well. Some had been writing for Medium for a while, some a short while like me. Some members did not even get a rejection email, they received nothing at all. Who cares, we are all in the same boat. Or should I say lost at sea because the boat rejected us.
It turns out that 50+ of us who signed up through the referral link got rejected. There was no reason why. I can confirm the application from my second email address did get lost in the world wide web as I have heard nothing back.
Am I pissed? Hell yeah, I’m pissed! No one likes rejection. I reapplied yesterday and I am still waiting for a response. I won’t chase this one as I am already expecting to be rejected. Again. Maybe they won’t bother to respond this time.
At the end of the day, the only incentive that grabbed people’s attention for News Break is the money incentive. If Quora and Vocal Media and however many other platforms there are, offered us a similar incentive, I’m sure there would be a surge in applications and hype about them too.
I am still waiting to find out if it’s all too good to be true. A lot of creators have not been paid yet as their month is not up, but if you abide by a contract I guess they have no choice but to pay you.
To all those who got accepted and are currently within their first month, I wish you the best of luck on your journey.
Just in case you were wondering, I left that Facebook group pretty quickly. Damn it! I really could have done with that money… | https://medium.com/writers-blokke/i-got-rejected-from-news-break-98452968af6e | ['Shamar M'] | 2020-12-08 12:47:28.402000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Self-awareness', 'Rejection', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
Back In The Day: Summer Pranking Island Style | For students, summer this year is not filled with that characteristic longing for school to end and thoughts of late nights, putting away the alarm clock and trips abroad before the “free paper” (as we love to call it in Jamaica) ends and it’s back to school. The pandemic brought a premature end to school activities. So students had an unexpected early vacation. Albeit online classes meant that class was still in session, though I’m quite sure classes in your “jammies” from home is way different from the formal schoolroom.
Millenium summer holidays are so very different from back in the days when us Islanders were kids. Back in those days, we didn’t have the myriad of activities to keep us from literally dying from boredom. It was reflecting on those lazy days that brought back memories of my mischievous neighbour and the things he used to do to relieve his boredom during the listless summer days at home.
Meet Stephen, your average red-blooded Jamaican ten-year-old; an only child of the Bascombes of the Beverley Hills Bascombes. The Bascombes operated a large store in the Mall (back in the days — plazas) and spent most of their day there. This meant that poor Stephen was left in the care of the housekeeper and his maternal grandmother. Translation: Stephen had a lot of time on his hands to devote to finding ways to amuse himself. His mind was always awash with ways to play tricks and pranks on any poor unsuspecting person who crossed his path. He derived a certain amount of pleasure from being a mastermind prankster.
One particular morning, he sat on the verandah in his grandmother’s old rocking chair, his mind abuzz with what prank he would play that day. Of course, now, your little “old playing a trick on someone” has not only undergone a name change but has morphed into television reality shows. Who remembers PUNKED? “Punking” was really what Stephen was doing minus TV crew, cameras and Ashton Kutcher.
superiorwallpapers.com
As boredom overtook him he heard the calls of “Fudge, Icicle, Ice Cream Cake”, coming from a tired, sun-soaked Fudge Man. Now, back in the day, the Fudge Man was a child’s delight. These were men who rode bicycles or motorbikes with a wooden box strapped to the back or front and a horn attached to the bike. They would honk and call out “Fudge” to let you know they were in the area. In the box was a world of fudges (a sort of frozen ice cream delight but on a stick like an icicle), icicles, ice cream cakes (a type of cake that consists of a layer or layers of ice cream, yum yum) and ice cream cones — a multiplicity of frozen delectables kept frozen by chunks of dry ice. The Fudge Man or “Fudgie” as he was loving called sold only frozen ice desserts and absolutely nothing else….only ice cream!
On hearing the calls Stephen sprung into action, his eyes lighting up. He rushed to the gate to observe the progress of the Fudge Man down the avenue. The poor vendor was pedalling laboriously, completely oblivious to the fact that he was going to be “punked” by well, a master prankster.
Soon he reached the house with the boy behind the gate. He looked at the boy with a look of longing, the anticipation of a sale written all over his face. But Stephen showed no interest — he had other things on his mind. Fudgie rode away in disappointment.
classifieds.usatoday.com
Stephen hurriedly climbed to the top of the gate to get a good view of his departure watching patiently as Fudgie neared the end of the avenue.
He scampered down the gate, opened it and stepped out onto the street and shouted, “Fudgie, Fudgie, Fudgie”, beckoning with his hands that he wanted the man to come back.
Fudgie turned. “A sale!” he must have said to himself. His pedalling became rapid. As he approached Stephen, the boy moved back into his yard and locked the gate behind him.
Fudgie looked at him and said, “What do you want son — cone, ice cream cake?”
Stephen stared directly at him and said, “Do you have any peanut butter sandwiches?”
Remember now, Fudgie sold only frozen delights. Stephen was in stitches as an angry Fudgie rode off. He made his way back to the verandah and the rocking chair, his mind in overdrive thinking about his next prank.
A very rotten trick to play on poor Fudgie. After that day, like The Boy who Cried Wolf, Stephen had a very difficult time getting Fudgie to sell him anything.
Originally published at https://womenwholiveonrocks.com on July 8, 2020. | https://medium.com/@donna-mattis/back-in-the-day-summer-pranking-island-style-702658498786 | ['Donna Mattis'] | 2020-07-18 22:44:00.497000+00:00 | ['Vacation', 'Kids Activities', 'Summer', 'Pranks', 'Humor'] |
6 Tips on the Future of Learning from Actual Teenage Exponential Thinkers | by Libby Falck ✍️
1. Make it about ME 🙇
The first thing that became very clear during our conversation was that our group of “Generation Me” millennials expect their learning to be highly personalized. It should be “my choice” to pursue “my interests” at “my pace,” they argued. Although this may at first sound childish, these demands are far from selfish. Why? Because personalization is necessary to compete in today’s intricately specialized world.
The “factory model” system used in many schools was first introduced in America in 1852. At that time, most people encountered 50 books in a lifetime. With limited access to information, it made sense that a narrow set of generalized skills could sufficiently educate a population.
The “factory model” system used in many schools was first introduced in America in 1852.
Even by 1910, less than 30% of Americans pursued advanced professional degrees; the remaining 70% worked as laborers. The degree of specialization that was once considered a privilege has become essential to succeed in the modern economy.
Personalized learning enables members of the “Me” generation to prioritize interests and explore identities that lead to those eventual career specializations.
2. Let’s DO things 👩🔬
As Peter Diamandis likes to remind us, “a Masai warrior on a cellphone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communications than President Reagan did 25 years ago.” Memorization matters, but it’s far less important when 73% of American teens have access to smartphones.
With 4.7 billion pages of information available on the web, the biggest challenge to students today is in developing the skills to navigate, assess, and synthesize information.
Many great teachers use methods like project-based learning (PBL) to help students build 21st century skills like creative problem solving and team collaboration. As defined by the Buck Institute of Education:
Project-based learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.
The idea isn’t new, but it’s gaining popularity.
Nonetheless, our teens told us they are looking for more than hands-on practice in the classroom; they want opportunities to work on projects in the real world as well. For them, contributing to the local community sparked engagement and motivation in a way that classroom work couldn’t match.
Furthermore, the teens told us that most tests “just don’t make sense.”
They were aware that testing fails to cater to different learning styles, and they’ll likely forget what they’re memorizing. According to The Council of Great City Schools, “The average student in America’s big-city public schools will take roughly 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and high school graduation.”
The council further concluded that many of these tests are filled with redundancies. Across the board, our teens wanted opportunities to demonstrate knowledge through real-world application, not scantrons.
Sketch notes by Kate Rutter
3. Don’t ditch me in an online course 💻
We expected excitement when we asked the group about online learning. Instead we heard this: “online Learning is NOT the answer.” The teens told us online courses are “great for educated specialists” but don’t cater to beginners. They cited a lack of time to complete online coursework and internet connectivity issues faced by many schools as additional issues.
We expected excitement when we asked the group about online learning. Instead we heard this: “online Learning is NOT the answer.”
Mostly, the teens didn’t like the idea of “going it alone.” The problem wasn’t that online learning content was bad, the students simply desired guidance in navigating the material. Which brings us to Tip #4…
4. Be my coach 👩🏫
Students still want great teachers.
The role of the educator, however, is shifting from an individual who delivers facts to that of a guide who can help learners navigate a vast maze of information. Our teens wanted to interact with adults who are relatable, knowledgeable and inspiring. Their favorite teachers were those who asked questions, not those who gave answers.
5. Teach me relevant skills 🙇
The teens told us they value traditional subject matter, but opportunities to build more practical skills were lacking. Interest in learning more about money management and soft skill development — like teamwork, problem solving and conflict resolution — was mentioned multiple times.
6. Foster a growth mindset 📈
Finally, we landed on our biggest question: What is the purpose of all this learning, anyway? Their answer: education should “make people confident in their ability to learn anything.”
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls this a “growth mindset.” In her words, this is “the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems.” A student with a growth mindset understands her intelligence is only partially determined by genetics — there are always actions she can take to build new proficiencies that contribute to a rich intellectual life. | https://medium.com/singularityu/6-tips-on-the-future-of-learning-from-actual-teenage-exponential-thinkers-6231c4ec2dd2 | ['Singularity University'] | 2017-03-17 15:58:02.128000+00:00 | ['Growth Mindset', 'Teaching', 'Future Of Learning', 'Personalized Learning', 'Education'] |
Visiting Cleanshelf’s new Ljubljana offices | Two weeks ago our team was invited to spend an afternoon at an exciting Slovenian tech start-up called Cleanshelf. We were warmly welcomed by the VP of engineering Jošt Novljan and the CEO Dušan Omerčević at their brand new Ljubljana offices and then kicked off the tour with a short presentation of Cleanshelf’s product. The latter tackles the issue of managing a large number of SaaS (software as a service) subscriptions by optimising spend and ROI through identification of inactive subscriptions & accounts, overlapping licenses, and providing a central hub for all your SaaS applications through their app, so that your company can make informed decisions and get the most for their buck. As you can imagine employees nowadays use a large variety of different tools so their product comes in quite handy. And since they were the OG innovator in the space, they’ve now become the go-to SaaS management solution with their comprehensive list of integrations with leading financial, HR and single sign-on systems. Their product is currently being used by a variety of large companies such as AT&T, Harry’s, Prezi, Avant2Go and many more. | https://medium.com/fri-usa-tour/visiting-cleanshelfs-new-ljubljana-offices-25ae188b3523 | ['Damjan Kalšan'] | 2021-04-06 07:42:19.930000+00:00 | ['Company', 'SaaS', 'Technology'] |
Weekly update #10 | Another week has passed and it is time to share the results with our community.
For the few last weeks we have been mostly focused on creation of Live Stars platform. We have stress-tested the MediaSoup server implementation. It works perfectly on Chrome-based browsers, and now we are making sure that Mozilla Firefox client is also supporting our new server.
Meanwhile, we have also started working on our referral system. Visual bugs and glitches on the website are almost completely gone now. We expect to be able to make our beta test public again after we make sure that the broadcast is working on all of the browsers.
We have seen several complaints concerning the fact administartion has been not that active on social channels lately. This is due to the fact the whole team is now busy with the platform, as it is our main goal at the moment. | https://medium.com/live-stars/weekly-update-10-42a3bbcde70 | ['Live Stars'] | 2018-06-14 14:00:31.240000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Development', 'Bitcoin'] |
Awake Security Acquired By Arista Networks: Simplifying Network Security In A Complex World | When I started working in the security industry 30 years ago — and all through my decade-long tenure as CEO of Symantec — a corporate network was simple, easy to manage, and secure. Today, the network is anything but simple. With cloud computing, the proliferation of IoT, and an increasingly remote workforce connecting through mobile and personal devices, the network has become a vast and amorphous entity requiring sophisticated security protocols to protect corporate data from breaches, leaks, and hacks. Security professionals are faced with the daunting task of monitoring vast amounts of data, processes, and users flowing over complex networks encompassing campus-based and virtual data centers, SaaS and on-premise software, and private and public clouds.
To try to stay ahead of hackers, most security professionals use SIEM platforms to get alerted to potential threats and breaches. The problem is, they’ve become buried under an avalanche of daily alerts, constantly reacting to potential threats that often turn out to be false alarms. They spend so much time responding to alerts they have little time to hunt for more serious or nefarious potential threats, leading to many of the massive security breaches we’ve seen at large companies over the past few years.
Back in 2015, I was having coffee with Michael Callahan, who had previously worked for me at AskJeeves, and he told me about a company he had just co-founded called Awake. His co-founders were a group of phenomenal security and networking industry veterans, Keith Amidon, Gary Golomb, and Debabrata Dash, each with a different skill set. The Awake team had a crystal-clear vision: create an AI-enabled analytics platform that could help security analysts spot and respond to real threats, instead of wasting time responding to mostly inaccurate alerts. They planned to solve a pressing problem facing just about every security team on the planet.
Following Awake’s progress over the next two years, I watched as the founding team worked closely with security professionals across small and large companies to understand their worst pain points, all the while improving their product to help overcome these obstacles. I was impressed by the founders’ vision and desire to simplify the security operations center, spurring Bain Capital Ventures to lead Awake’s Series B in 2017 and then participate in its subsequent Series C earlier this year. Awake’s network detection and response (NDR) platform is now the world’s most advanced network traffic analysis platform, combining AI with human expertise to enable security professionals quickly find and remediate sophisticated cyber-attacks that would otherwise go undetected by traditional security solutions.
Today, as Arista announces its acquisition of Awake, I’m thrilled for both parties. It’s a perfect match to simplify network security and offer threat detection. Arista is the leader in cognitive cloud networking solutions for large data center and campus environments. By integrating Awake’s NDR platform into its cognitive network infrastructure, Arista can now offer its customers threat detection as a proactive tool rather than a reactive alert system. Awake will become an integral part of Arista’s security ecosystem that already leverages technology from Forescout, Okta, Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, VMware, and Zscaler. Both Arista and Awake share the vision that security analysts should be able to quickly spot malicious intent amongst seemingly normal activity, using nimble tools to do their job more effectively.
I’ve had the good fortune to work closely with the founding team at Awake since I joined the board in 2017, and since 2018, have had the privilege to work alongside Awake’s passionate CEO Rahul Kashyap. He is the kind of CEO who is tireless and sets a high bar. As a security professional himself, Rahul deeply understands what vexes security analysts and what keeps CISOs up at night. Once he sets his mind to a goal, he doesn’t give up until he achieves it. For example, he asked the board who the most experienced and visionary security professionals were and someone mentioned Kevin Mandia, CEO of FireEye. Rahul contacted Kevin and asked him to join the Awake board. At first Kevin said he was too busy, but after many long walks with Rahul, Kevin eventually agreed and has been a tremendous asset to the board ever since.
Working hand-in-hand with the Awake team as they’ve continued to refine their vision to protect countless customers networks has been an incredible journey. The company grew annual recurring revenue (ARR) by nearly 700 percent and doubled its employee headcount in just the past year alone. Since BCV invested in 2017, Awake has quickly evolved into the market leader for network detection and response, shadow IT, remote worker and contractor security, digital network packet forensics, and threat hunting. And they achieved their ultimate goal: making security analysts’ jobs infinitely easier.
I’m thrilled for Awake to join Jayshree Ullal and the Arista family, and grateful for the opportunity to work alongside an amazing group of co-investors and board members: Asheem Chandna, Sarah Guo, Karthik Subramanian, Kevin Mandia, Juan Muldoon, Ankur Prakash, and Katie Gray. On behalf of BCV, we can’t wait to see what this partnership brings to customers in the years to come. | https://medium.com/ideas-from-bain-capital-ventures/awake-security-acquired-by-arista-networks-simplifying-network-security-in-a-complex-world-11a2ded37675 | ['Enrique Salem'] | 2020-09-28 20:37:50.369000+00:00 | ['Mergers And Acquisitions', 'Portfolio News', 'Network Security', 'Cybersecurity'] |
My Top 5 lessons on Test Automation | I published a story recently:
These lessons are my personal favorites from the book “Lessons Learned in Software Testing” and I discuss why they are of particular importance, but I deliberately left out lessons from Chapter 5: Automating Testing.
There are two reasons for this:
It’s a huge chapter with 40 lessons
I’m an automation engineer, so issues and challenges in automation are of particular importance to me
So I couldn’t resist but write a separate story discussing the most important lessons on automation. I like and agree with most of those 40 lessons, so it was a challenge to pick the top ones. I applied two criteria to do so:
Lessons that reflect the most frequent issues I encountered throughout my career or heard from others
issues I encountered throughout my career or heard from others Lessons that highlight high-impact issues
1. Don’t automate a mess
Lesson #107
Frequency: medium
Impact: very high
You’ve read some documentation about the System Under Test (SUT), you’ve had several sessions with your colleagues who explained the SUT to you, and now you’re tempted to get started, automate some tests, and show others how you add value to the project!
But you’re probably not ready yet! Before you write your first line of automation code, please invest more time into gaining a greater understanding of what you’re dealing with. Be curious, ask for greater detail. A single innocent fact might significantly alter your understanding and impact your course of action.
You may have heard this classic quote by Bill Gates:
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
Or as the authors of the book put it even more succinctly:
If you have bad tests, automation can help you do bad testing faster.
Indeed, the universal Garbage-In-Garbage-Out (GIGO) law applies to automation as well.
Did you receive a suite of tests created by manual testers and your job is to convert them to code? I’ve never seen this work well. Manual testers create tests to suit their needs (that’s OK) without understanding the challenges of automation. The resulting automated tests are clunky at best, unmaintainable at worst.
Also, are you knowledgeable enough to challenge some of the tests done by others? Perhaps they’re wrong, or there is a gap, or there is an overlap, or many scenarios verify multiple things, or the suite is poorly structured? If you don’t know the SUT well enough, you will miss these flaws and “migrate” them right into your codebase.
As an Automation Engineer, it is absolutely your job to gain an understanding of the domain and the SUT that is deep and broad enough to create robust, valuable test scenarios yourself!
Tests and the testing process are directly under your control and as a QA professional, you should ensure high quality of what you do.
Of course, other factors may be less under your control, such as a large, complex, and unstable testing environment or developers not writing unit tests, but those are separate matters.
2. Avoid complex logic in your scripts
Lesson #125
Frequency: high
Impact: medium
OK, so you have ensured that you understand the SUT and the tests you are automating are of good quality.
But good input may still result in poor output!
Good test scenarios converted to bad scripts
There are dozens of ways to make your scripts worse than they could be, but one that occurs all too frequently is the presence of unnecessary complex logic. Sure, complex systems may require a fair amount of support or utility code to handle API calls and other actions and computations.
But those should not be present in the body of your tests. All such code should be wrapped into helper methods and moved out. These evolve into class structures and entire Test Automation Frameworks (TAFs).
Here are the top two signals that indicate your scripts are more complex than they should be:
if-else or another kind of branching, looping
Branching is frequently a hint that (a) your test is not making use of a parametrization or (b) it is verifying several things and it should be split.
(a) In Java, the TestNG framework gives us Dataproviders. JUnit has something very similar.
(b) “With input A, we verify one kind of behavior, and with input B we verify another”? That’s two tests, not one, so please split it.
2. Any kind of nesting
Your tests should be completely flat and thus read like a story. Can you draw a straight vertical arrow on the side of your script from top to bottom?
Some nesting in production or test frameworks is OK but should be minimized anyway via standard refactoring practices.
But in tests, I advocate for (near) zero tolerance towards nested code. Wrap all helper code into utility code and move it elsewhere for later reuse.
When tests get too complicated, they tend to become buggy. Keep it simple. Keep your tests linear.
Naturally, nesting should not be confused with indentation to improve readability, especially in case of libraries such as AssertJ that make use of Fluent Interface:
3. Don’t mandate 100 percent automation
Lesson # 105
Frequency: very high
Impact: medium
You and your team have written dozens or hundreds of tests this month. They pass, they are stable and they even caught a regression bug. Great job!
But they only cover a fraction of all possible test scenarios, right? And so the inevitable question arrives (from management, no doubt) — what is the coverage? When will we achieve 100%?
Forcing 100% coverage in unit tests is a bad idea. Some debate this by adjusting the definition of coverage. There’s also a difference between “code coverage” (poor) and “branch coverage” (better).
From Vladimir Khorikov’s excellent book “Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns”:
[…] relying on coverage metrics to determine the quality of your test suite is not enough. It can also lead to dangerous territory if you start making a specific coverage number a target, be it 100%, 90%, or even a moderate 70%. The best way to view a coverage metric is as an indicator, not a goal in and of itself.
Mandating 100% coverage for higher-level tests is even worse!
Why? Because it solely depends on the test scenarios you came up with!
Here’s how it goes:
You thought of 10 tests for a feature and you automated them You said that you have 100% coverage. Management inevitably interprets that to 100% safety. A bug is discovered in production because you didn’t think of that 11th case. Or it was a complex integration issue. Good luck explaining yourself.
Managers want and need numbers to gauge performance. You won’t change that. But never promise 100% coverage. Instead, communicate what you could and could not achieve with the time and resources you had.
4. Beware of automators who don’t understand testing
Lesson #134
Frequency: medium
Impact: high
You surely know that good Test Automation Engineers are a balanced blend of testing skills and programming skills, right?
Sometimes programmers are tasked with test automation. Their testing knowledge is nearly non-existent and their attitude may be even worse (“it’s not real programming”). At best, you will have clean, well-programmed tests that don’t verify much beyond the happy path.
Too much focus on programming and too little focus on testing is not a good thing.
The Testing Techniques section on guru99.com is a good start.
Chapter 3: Testing Techniques from the very book this article is based on is even better.
5. Test automation is a software development process
Lesson #118
Frequency: high
Impact: very high
The previous point stated that programmers underestimated the skill of testing and it results in (maybe) clean but low-value test automation.
This point is the opposite — good testers who learn some scripting, but otherwise copy-paste their way forward without applying clean code basics and other principles until the codebase reaches critical mass and the project is abandoned because it’s just unmaintainable.
In other words, testers who shift to automation don’t learn “real” programming. Everyone has an opinion on what“real” programming is.
As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to implement classic sorting algorithms on a whiteboard or understand low-level memory management stuff of C++ (unless your job directly requires you to).
But here’s a list of skills and principles that I’d want my teammate to have and know:
It takes years to master these topics, but as long as the individual and the team keep striving — they should be fine. But without them, any long-term test automation endeavor is doomed to fail.
Honorable mention: Encourage the development of unit test suites
Lesson #133
Frequency: rare
Impact: unknown, but probably highly beneficial
Have you ever caught a bug with a higher-level functional test and thought to yourself “This really could’ve been caught by a simple unit test. Don’t they have one?”
I certainly did. But I only got as far as notifying developers and suggesting they add a unit test for something. I would never know if they did.
Everywhere I look, I see developers doing their own thing (writing unit tests) and Software Developers in Test (SDETs) doing their own (writing higher-level tests). Neither has a clue about the test suite of the other. I think this is hugely inefficient.
There is a lot of talk around “shifting left” — testing as early as possible and thus preventing bugs instead of reacting to them. I firmly believe that capable Automation Engineers can and should contribute to unit test suites.
No, not take over full responsibility and rid the developers of this laborious task, but contribute.
But as of 2020, this practice is anything but widespread. In fact, I only know of one company that does something like this — Google. In their book, “How Google Tests Software”, the authors explain that their SDETs are pretty much normal developers who sit and code with the rest of the team, but they also focus on, promote and enforce all possible quality standards and test automation principles.
Only time will tell if the rest of the IT world will follow their example.
Conclusion | https://medium.com/javarevisited/my-top-5-lessons-on-test-automation-ad4dec93ae2f | ['Andrejs Doronins'] | 2021-01-10 19:24:33.280000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Testing', 'Test Automation', 'Programming', 'Quality Assurance'] |
A Week For Love In December | Artwork by V. Vaveikin, on Etsy, by LanaPicArt / Svetlana Vaveikin — https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/893336520/original-oil-painting-of-clementinesfine
May the holidays refresh you and make you smile a lot.
Use this time on what you need: a lucky break from routines, the opportunity to spend time on something that restores you or with good people, to observe the sacred in the land (post solstice), in the collective consciousness (festivities), in the generosity of December (communal life). Imagine how our communities could be, if the seasonal good will and caring that people get a break, are fed, have a positive memory were an every day attitude.
Merry Christmas.
As usual, juicy music from my home out into the world, heaps of gratitude to the blessings in my life.
Also thanks and respect to the Palestinian Jew whose birth is observed in this time, who grew up to embody a love that was like water in the desert, who healed many by laying on his hands, by commanding the problem to go, by using words like “Stand up!”, directed at a person who would then stand up and go back to their tasks as if they had never been ill or suffered. Thanks and respect to his parents too for raising Jesus and giving him what he needed as a child to become the adult he was. The tone of love that Mary and Joseph set in their home is what nurtured the young Jesus (although this piece of wisdom had been omitted and forgotten by many, since the reflections on Jesus were not written down by people who parented children and had no way of knowing what it means to raise the young with skill).
May the love of the moment catch you too.
Santosha and a friendly end of the year.
25 December 2018
…
Also shared on my blog: | https://medium.com/@nandajurela/a-week-for-love-in-december-1302b70b4049 | ['Nanda Jurela'] | 2020-12-26 23:53:50.499000+00:00 | ['Jesus', 'Christmas', 'Love', 'Gratefulness', 'Gratitude'] |
“Top 5 programming language in 2020” | “Top 5 programming language in 2020”
·Language is an essential feature of software development. Learning any language is not an easy task and it takes lots of effort to learn and implement any programming language to develop software products.
·In today’s environment, there are tons of programming languages were available but still, you should know which language does what and which language is perfectly soothing for which scenario.
In this blog, I will tell you the top 5 languages you should learn in 2020.
JavaScript
· JavaScript is the most loved language by programmers. In today’s time, JavaScript has grown its popularity in the developer’s community. But why is it so? there are various factors responsible for.
· As per Github stats, javaScript has the highest no. of repositories today. In Top MNC’s javascript developers has greater demand.
· Like it is very handy to use.
· You don’t need any prior language knowledge of any programming language just need the basics of javascript concepts.
· This language simplifies some complex concepts in other languages.
· It is a client-side scripting language that speeding up the execution of the program as it saves time to connect to the server.
· JavaScript also provided some useful libraries that help your project for the front-end as well as the backend process. In the front-end, you have ReactJS, AngularJS and in the back-end, you have NodeJS for server-side scripting. It also has an excellent tech support community so anytime you are stuck somewhere you can easily ask a question there and rectify your doubts.
Python
· Python has become the highest learning Programming language in 2020. Python is a minified version of C. If you have prior knowledge of C then it is a piece of cake to learn python.
· Python has become many developers first twice as python provides web assistance in a Django framework. As a student to understand basics programming you must learn python. In top MNC python developers were in demand.
· In Scientific Research & Development python is used. Top Trending fields like Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence also uses python as their programming languages. In Data Science python is the primary language.
· With all these applications on python in near future, I think that it will become no.1 in near future.
PHP
· PHP is a server-side scripting language. As a student who wants to become a Web Developer PHP language is a good option to start with. Most of the website in today date is build on PHP and maintenance is build on PHP and maintenance also quite easy in PHP.
The popularity of PHP is based on various factors.
· PHP runs on various platforms( Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc).
· PHP provides all manipulations on the database. The most important thing is to encrypt data. It provides a secure platform to pass through the server in an encrypted format.
· There are various frameworks were available for website development like WordPress, Codeigniter, and Laravel. As a student who wants to start his carrier as a Web Developer and Full Stack Developer PHP is the best choice to begin.
JAVA Language
· Java is the most trusted and veteran language in the IT industry. Like C, Java also has a vast following in the IT industry now. But why is it so, in the market but still people use Java as their priority language to start learning?
· As an early student in programming java is the mother language to learn, it covers all concepts in programming with advanced concepts as well. Java also uses for competitive programming. Most of the top coders use java as their main language in competitive language.
C Language
· C is a veteran language that is developed by language in programming. According to my, every student must start with the C language which is developed by Dennis Richie in 1972.
· It gained popularity and it is used as the most widely used programming language. Various computer architecture and operating systems were build on C. As of Sept 2020, C is the most popular programming language.
· As it is the first programming language it has some drawbacks as well, this leads to the develop upgraded languages such as C++, C#, etc? | https://medium.com/@sahilbansod905/top-5-programming-language-in-2020-cf29614f8f5e | ['Code Karo Yaaro'] | 2020-12-11 07:17:13.338000+00:00 | ['Code', 'JavaScript', 'Python', 'Programming Languages', 'Programming'] |
Winning the new normal: Armando Mann | A few weeks after Covid19 was declared a pandemic, as part of the SaaSBOOMi initiative, some of India’s top SaaS entrepreneurs got together to discuss strategies for companies to steer through the crisis. A few weeks further in, at the SaaSBOOMi growth summit, we got together to discuss how to thrive in the new world, notwithstanding the pandemic.
“SaaS companies need not play defense. We can go on the offense. In fact, we’re better off than most others,” Armando Mann, formerly of Salesforce, Dropbox, Google, and an investor in several startups said during his keynote at the SaaSBOOMi growth summit.
Edited excerpts from the keynote.
The world is changing very rapidly and every week we’re learning new things. The only thing we know for certain is absolutely nothing. We don’t know when the pandemic will finish. We don’t know how deep the economy is going to be hit in different countries. We don’t know how to recover. We know we don’t know which sectors and which way things are going to go. We’re deep into a health crisis. We’re nowhere close to the end of the crisis. In the US, for instance, one out of five is unemployed. In India 120 million are unemployed.
So the main skills that we need to develop and exercise is to be fast at learning and decisive as leaders. In practice, this means adapting in three areas. Firstly, adapt your product to the current environment. The second is your customers and how we engage with your customers. And the third is your team.
Before we dive into those three areas: what are the constraints of the new normal? As many of you know we’re working from home. There are social distancing norms. We’re only going to travel when it is truly necessary. Schools are closed around the world. Events are being canceled or going online. Budgets are tighter.
The good part is that several tech companies enabling people in the new environment are doing well. Zoom, for example, has gone from 10 million daily participants to over 300 million daily participants since the crisis erupted. That’s a 30 X growth.
Doximity, a telehealth company that used to take 1 million calls a month now takes a million calls a day. E-learning is also growing tremendously. Collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams are doubling in numbers. And of course, Netflix, Disney Hotstar and Prime usage is exploding.
SaaS companies don’t necessarily need to play defense. We are in a position to play offense. And let me walk you through why I think that’s true. Our privileged position comes from our business model in contrast to a lot of other sectors. For example, last month, some of the largest chains in the world had negative revenue. That means they had to reimburse their customers more money than the money they made from bookings. In our case, we get recurring revenue. Many of us have collected payments for services in advance.
Airlines, of course, cannot get rid of their planes. We know their demand is going to change. But there’s nothing they can do about their capacity. We can turn servers on and off. We’re very asset-light and that’s a fantastic characteristic of our business.
Hair salons, movie theaters, all sorts of businesses can not go remote whereas most of our employees can go back home and do their jobs from home.
The auto industry is not only getting decimated in demand, but they don’t have margins to play with. As a software business, our margins are between 50 and 80%. That gives us a lot of wiggle room.
Office rentals: Think of WeWork. They are empty. There’s nobody there. Complete ghost towns. In comparison, our apps are still being used.
And lastly, you’re all aware of what’s happening in the oil industry. Demand is collapsing. There’s a massive surplus such that they can pump out oil but have to pay people to take it off their hands. At the same time, demand for SaaS businesses is going up because they’re enabling digital transformation.
We have this incredible opportunity. But we need to adapt. We cannot continue to do things the way we’re doing them a month or two ago. So let me start with your products. The customer used to have a problem that you’re trying to solve. But that might have changed in the last few months. So you have to listen very carefully. Let me give an example. I was talking to a CIO of a Fortune 500 company. It used to be that his whole priority was how to enable innovation. Now his priority is cost reduction, driving efficiency, and rationalizing spend. Your tool might still be the right solution for that CIO. But you have to listen carefully to what is it that they are prioritizing now and how you frame the conversation. And how you show your product to address today’s concerns.
That also goes to talk about the ideal customer profile. So we all know what our perfect customer is like. But that will also be changing. I was talking to a few companies that do the bottoms up adoption of the products. That’s all good when you have time to deploy the product, people try it out, and then eventually you go upmarket. Now some of these companies are saying we’re changing our roadmap and moving upmarket sooner because those are real revenues. So you might want to think on similar lines.
Once you understand your target customer’s needs, think about your roadmap. You might have to shift things back and forth. That doesn’t mean you have to change your mission. But just reprioritize things based on what their new reality is. For instance, Ford and GM — not your typical tech companies — realized they were not going to be selling cars anytime soon. But there is a huge demand for respirators. So they are opening abandoned plants to build respirators. Something closer to where many of you are is Reduct, a startup in Mountain View, California. Their main goal was to create tools to edit videos that came from user research interviews. With the explosion of online events like this one, they realized that their technology can be used to transcribe and edit. They’re doing really well with that. So they haven’t changed the product but they changed the use case and the framing and they’re having success with that.
You also want to adapt your go to market. The reality of your buyer has changed. And they need you to sell them in a different way. So let me tell you how reality has changed. To talk about a new initiative, your customer earlier would have gone to the office, gotten the team together, explained why they wanted to implement your product and worked with your team to implement it. Now, this is her reality: She’s at home with the kids and it’s total and utter chaos. At least that’s my case in the day. So think about how you can adapt to your buyer’s reality with a new buying process.
So how should the sales motion adapt? We’re in the early days of this crisis but I’m seeing that lead volume is actually stable. SaaS companies are still getting leads coming in the door, but the sales cycles are longer. We’re seeing lower close rates, especially for new logos. The best companies I know are investing in product-led sales motions. So we used to go and talk about the value prop and about proof of concept and a bunch of things. But now companies are saying let’s make our demos and pre-trials exceptionally good so people can get value and see value from our products really quickly. I’m seeing a lot of sales teams become best friends with customer success. Not that they weren’t before. But customer success right now is in dire need of help to prevent churn. That’s where a lot of the sales teams are finding their best opportunities to expand. Your customers will thank you. Because right now, they have to decide if they want to be solving problems going after an unknown new vendor or with you, who they already know. So if you can say, hey, we’re doing this for you but we can also do this thing for you in a relevant context, that’s going to be really powerful. I’m seeing a lot of folks reducing the number of tools to consolidate around fewer vendors.
Sales teams that realize sales cycles are longer so in some cases they have more time than they had before for that follow-up. They are not commuting, they are at home all day and in some cases are working all day. So they’re using that extra time they have with customers to build deeper customer relationships and that will pay off in the future. So if you’re seeing your sales cycle extend and taking more conversations, make that investment and build those stronger relationships that will deliver exponentially in the long term.
Now this applies to most companies in different sales motions. But there are nuances whether you are an inside sales team or you’re an outside sales mid-market enterprise team. The inside sales teams are lucky. You have the right tools, you have the right processes, you’re used to selling over Zoom, you’re used to never meeting folks. You’re in a great place in terms of processes and tools. Now think about the buyer at home. Give them more flexibility when scheduling. Meetings don’t need to be an hour. Don’t need to be exactly 30 minutes or exactly when it’s scheduled. Because right now they don’t have total control of their agenda as they were when they were at the office. They have other unexpected events during the day. Also, address the elephant in the room. Talk to your customers about what has changed. Is there a different decision-making process? Have there been layoffs? Is there a new person to make decisions? Is the CFO now lowering the threshold for purchases? Like, how are things changing inside your company due to the environment? Assume change. So if you’ve done a discovery call in February and you think you understand what the customer needs because of the conversation had in February, redo that discovery call. You will learn new things and be open to that change.
For mid-market and enterprise, the core of the job is still the same. The best practices are still the same. You need to do deep discoveries, account planning, value selling, you need to be thoughtful about the deal and the deal process. What’s new to enterprise teams in many cases is the tech stack the Inside Sales uses. So get familiar with how the Inside Sales teams use tech to do things better. You’ll have to do more follow-ups. It’s much harder to build relationships over video than in person. With many of you, I’ll never meet in person. And that five-minute conversation during a coffee break is hard to replicate it over Zoom. You need to figure out how to do that over video. More than that, in many enterprise buying situations, you have a group that has to make a decision. You get them in a room and you’ve mastered managing the room and have that conversation. But now the dynamic of a Zoom meeting with a bunch of participants is very different. So you need to develop a playbook and figure out how to run effective group meetings over video.
The superpower that you need to defeat this crisis is an incredible clarity in your message. So marketing is to clarify what’s the messaging, positioning, who you’re going after, and your segmentation. If you’re changing that, spend the time to clarify that. And then rethink pricing. If your pricing was geared towards all or nothing big deals, this is a good time to rethink your pricing so you can start small and grow over time with accounts that you never spend time with.
So the second thing that marketing needs to deliver today is leads. It was always important but sales have always the opportunity to go on cold calls, go to events, work the room, and some conferences. Now that is gone. So we rely completely on leads from marketing. Paid media is now surprisingly cheaper than ever because a lot of companies are not spending on advertising. So figure out if this is the time for you to go in when everybody’s going away.
Your content strategy is key. People are at home, consuming tons of content. If you make things that are relevant to the new context of your buyer you might have better success than you would have in the past. And then social media is a tool also that SaaS founders don’t necessarily invest as much energy on. Because the buyers are not necessarily there searching for their products. But now they are. If you were talking about how you helped Burger King expand, now you have to talk about how you helped them become more efficient.
The interview playbooks are also changing if you’re going into an industry with a certain mindset and you’re sending your reps with a mindset. Now, that has to change. It has to be updated at a minimum. And the other thing is that many of the ROI calculators that are out there were based on how much more you were going to sell. It was all tied to revenue. But now cost savings are also a factor. Great marketing teams are stepping up at a time when sales teams fewer resources and material.
The last area where you need to challenge yourself is your team. Your team is going through a hard time and it’s hard to share over Zoom in every conversation. But people are nervous about their health, their family’s health, their parents, their grandparents their uncles and aunties. With kids at home, you’re also homeschooling. Some people are by themselves at home. They are bored and restless. And that’s also a tricky place to be in if you are a social person. Many of you have never seen people getting laid off for no reason other than the company had to lay of. They’re worried about their job. There’s no more funding. I know we lose money. What’s going on? I haven’t heard what the plan is? Should I be looking for a job? Care genuinely about your team, but also communicate clearly and often. What that means is when you have those conversations try to get to how they’re truly feeling. And make sure you listen to the same way you listen to your customers to understand how their life has changed.
It is harder because you’re not in the office anymore. You cannot have the one on one conversation. You cannot feel the room. Some people are also extremely lonely. Say I’m an engineer. I have my work, I know what I need to do for the week I had my stand up at the beginning of the week and then I joined some group calls where I don’t participate. I don’t talk to anybody, maybe for a whole week. So I’m not forced to talk to people in the office because I don’t have to go to lunch with them. So some people are extremely lonely. So thought. Think about each of your employees and your teammates.
Team meetings have also changed. Now folks that were shy in meetings in person. They can hide in a Zoom call. The whole meeting can go through without them speaking up. So be cognizant of that dynamic and go and look for those opinions of people that don’t participate as proactive as others in those Zoom meetings.
If you used to have all hands every quarter make them once a month. If you used to have them once a month, make it once a week. People need to hear from you and the leadership about what’s happening because things are changing dramatically. Things are completely different from seven days ago. Amp the frequency of all-hands meetings.
Lastly, focus on written communication. It’s harder to communicate over Zoom. A lot gets lost. So get in the habit of writing things down and sending things in writing for your team to read and read again. And that’s something we didn’t have to do before.
Hiring and onboarding have changed as well. Prepare to hire over Zoom. There are no more dinners to convince the candidate that you’re the best startup in Chennai. Onboarding also needs to be highly documented. Zapier is a great example. They’ve been fully remote with over 300 employees. And they’re onboarding documentation is at least 10 times what it is we do. They write everything down.
There’s an opportunity for you to raise the bar with respect to hiring. There are a lot of companies that are firing great talent. Not because they’re not good. Just because they don’t have worked for them. So this is an opportunity for you if you’re hiring. Go for the best possible talent.
So lastly, collaboration is very different when you’re working from home and you were working at the office. A lot of the dysfunction comes from how decisions are made. So to avoid this function codify how decisions are being made. Once you make a decision, share the decision clearly and in writing and also explain the reasoning behind it.
And last, Slack is great. But it doesn’t cut it for all types of collaboration. So think about what tools you have for asynchronous communication. Where decisions need to be made. People need to comment throughout the day and they are not there live on Slack and they’re going to get to the document at different points in time.
Above all, you have to reinforce your culture and value. Now you need to find ways to reinvigorate and reinforce your values and the culture that you want for your company, even if you’re not in the office. It’s hard to do, but many great companies are doing it successfully. So think hard about keeping those core values and culture front and center. | https://medium.com/saasboomi/winning-the-new-normal-armando-mann-130b6b18c247 | [] | 2020-06-20 05:03:44.968000+00:00 | ['Saasboomi', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Saas Ecosystem', 'Saas Marketing'] |
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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/fountain-house-3b1798070d05 | [] | 2021-03-20 20:00:59.089000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Mental Illness Awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Peer To Peer'] |
Finding the Smallest Number of an Array with Quantum Computer | Photo by Nick Hillier on Unsplash
One of the fundamental problems of Computer Science algorithms is to find the smallest or largest number (Real) from an array of different elements. There are a lot of classical approaches which are available these days and also provides enormous power to sorting methods (like merge sort, bubble sort, quick sort etc). Now the question is, can we solve the same problem with a Quantum computer available these days. Our aim here is to provide a solution to the problem of finding the smallest or largest number from an array of real numbers. In this article, we’ll try to formulate the problem suitable for a quantum processing unit, then discuss the implementation on a real quantum processor and then finally discuss the results and conclusions.
The complete article is structured like this -
* Problem definition
* Ising model
* Quantum formulation of the problem
* Algorithm description
* Experiment
* Result & Analysis
* Conclusions
Problem Definition
Let us assume we have an array of 3 real numbers. i.e N = [17,3,49]. Now we can easily say that the 2nd element of the array is the smallest number we have in the array, and that is 3. Now we’ll take another bit string (bit array) X of the same length. The mapping will be like,
N = [17,3,49] — — — — — — — — — — — — — - — → X₀ = [1,0,0] N = [17,3,49] — — — — — — — — — — —— — — - → X₁ = [0,1,0] N = [17,3,49] — — — — — — — — — — —— — — - → X₂ = [0,0,1]
Here 2³=8 bit-strings are possible for a 3-bit array and only 3 arrays map the elements of N to 3 distinct numbers. Here the bit-array X₁ will be our required answer, as it maps to the 2nd element of N, which is 3 and it’s the smallest among others numbers present in the array N.
Other bits arrays like [1,1,0], [1,1,1], [0,1,1], [1,0,1] and [0,0,0] are of no direct importance as they do not map to any distinct number of our primary array N.
So now we know, if we have an array of “n” elements and we are interested in finding the smallest element of the array, then we will try to find the best bit-string or bit-array Xᵢ among 2ⁿ possible bit-arrays (without bothering about (2ⁿ-n) bit-arrays), which maps itself to any distinct element of the “n” elements.
Quantum Formulation of the Problem
Here we will try to reformulate the problem in the form of a Combinatorial Optimisation problem. We know that quantum computers are good at solving combinatorial optimisation problems, and we can solve this with Quantum Approximate Optimisation Algorithm (QAOA), Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) or Quantum annealing. To convert our problem of interest into a combinatorial optimisation problem we have to write the hamiltonian in the form of Ising type. (For more details on the Ising model click here)
The Ising Model
Ising model is a classical model of magnetism given by Lenz in the year 1920, and later in 1925, it was solved by Ernst Ising (1-dimensional problem). This mathematical model incorporates the nearest neighbour interaction between atomic spin variables (sᵢ ∈ [-1,+1]). The general form of Ising hamiltonian is,
Figure 1: The general form of Ising hamiltonian
where hᵢ is the bias and Jᵢⱼ is the coupling strength. The sᵢ and sⱼ are the interacting spin variables in the material. This hamiltonian can be converted into a square symmetric matrix called QUBO (Quadratic Unconstriant Optimisation problem). The QUBO objective looks like this,
Figure 2: The general form of QUBO
where xᵢ ∈ X is a binary variable having a value of either 0 or 1 and Q is the QUBO matrix. Although QUBOs are native to Annealing machines but one can interchangeably use QUBO or Ising model just by replacing xᵢ=(sᵢ+1)/2.
The Objective Function
Assume we have an array of 3 real numbers (we could have taken a large array of real numbers. But for the sake of simplicity we’ll restrict ourselves to 3 only), N=[n₀,n₁,n₂] and a corresponding boolean bit array X=[x₀,x₁,x₂]. We can define a function f(N,X),
Figure 3
If the element nᵢ is the smallest element, then f(N,X) will have the minimum value for a specific Xᵢ. Hence, a quadratic cost hamiltonian can be written as,
Figure 4
As one of the numbers in the array (N) will always be minimum, the sum of all the bits in a valid Xᵢ will always be equals to unity. This helps us to write our constraint (xᵢ ∈ X),
Hence we can construct a penalty function P(X) just squaring up the above equation and simplifying it with xᵢ²=xᵢ,
Figure 5: Penalty function for the constraint
We can add H(N, X) and P(X) with a scaling factor λ and obtain a global cost function Q(N, X). Where λ will be the square of the sum of all the elements in the sequence.
Figure 6: Complete Objective Function
The above Q(N, X) is our final Quadratic objective function or QUBO, which is solvable by Gate based quantum computer or quantum annealer.
Algorithm Description
Although the algorithmic approach is versatile enough to solve minimisation and maximisation problems interchangeably by putting a negation in the global hamiltonian,
To find the largest element of an array use -H(N,X)
If there are any negative numbers as well as positive numbers then some classical preprocessing techniques will be required. There is no requirement for preprocessing if the elements of the sequence are all positive or all negative.
The classical preprocessing steps follow,
1. Sum up the absolute of all the elements in the sequence, Sum=∑ᵢ|nᵢ|
2. Now, add this Sum with every element of the sequence irrespective of signs and values. These new numbers nᵢ will be taken as the input of the actual algorithm as they are all positive.
This scaling method is essential when there are both positive and negative numbers are present in the sequence. The whole steps of the algorithm are distributed into some CPU and QPU. Encoding of the problem into QPU specific tasks and the result extraction process is entirely classical, where the main solution part is quantum and it is sandwiched between classical processes.
Still, a high-level pseudocode approach can be expressed as,
1. Preprocess the inputs using the above equation, if required.
2. Construct the cost hamiltonian Q(N, X) using all the input elements.
3. Find the best X using Quantum Computer.
4. Extract the smallest number using f(N,Xᵢ).
Experiment
Let us do an experiment. As we have mentioned already, our problem of interest is N = [17,3,49]. So, our Q(N, X) or QUBO matrix will be,
Figure 7: Left: Circuit from QUBO, Center: Problem QUBO, Right: The Graph on the right side is for an array of 10 elements (NOT FOR THE PROBLEM OF 3 ELEMENTS IN THE ARRAY MENTIONED ABOVE)
Here the QUBO for this problem will be an N node complete graph. As we know already that a combinatorial optimisation problem can be solved on both Quantum Annealer and Gate model Quantum computer. QUBO is native to Quantum Annealer, but to solve this problem on a Gate based QPU (IBM, Rigetti etc) we need to convert this as a Quadratic program. Then we will be able to solve it via QAOA or VQE. As we are using IBM Qiskit so we have constructed a Quadratic Program (doCPLEX) using the “qiskit.optimisation” module. | https://medium.com/@aniruddha.connect/finding-smallest-number-of-an-array-with-quantum-computer-824386348fe0 | ['Aniruddha Biswas'] | 2021-09-03 07:38:42.480000+00:00 | ['Quantum Computer', 'Algorithms', 'Quantum Computing', 'Optimization'] |
Wordpress Security Enhancement on Server End | WordPress security is a topic of huge importance. Google blacklists thousands websites every day for malware and phishing every week. It is very important to pay attention to the WordPress security best practices.
A hacked WordPress site can cause serious damage to your business revenue and reputation. Hackers can steal user information, passwords, install malicious software or may be worse you may be paying a hacker to regain you access to your website.
To accomplish the security best practices keep updating wordpress regularly, keeping a strong password, using security plugins etc. Hosting wordpress also plays an important role in securing websites.
$$ What to do?
Secure wordpress’s “wp-config” file and hosting it securely using Apache web server is illustrated below
#Securing Config File
wp-config is a key file which stores credentials, keys, authentication tokens etc. If an intruder will able to gain access to this file, it can gain access to several things in infrastructure. As a best practice, Config files should not be accessible over the hosted domain.
To protect config or any other php file containing vulnerable information:
Firstly, Never commit this file to our source code management system (Git, SVN, Bitbucket etc). These files should not be accessible by your webserver directly. Only specified server users should have permission to gain access to the file that to read only. The config should always be accessed from a distinct directory which is not accessible publicly. Now, the question is how? because wp-config is a necessary file.
To accomplish, simply include the below piece of code to access files from a distinct and secure directory.
** remove the entire data from the file first. The file should only contain below piece of code
<?php
include(‘/Path-to-non-accessible-directory/<name_of_file>.php’);
?>
“<name_of_file>.php” will contain the actual content of wp-config file. Let’s assume name as config.php
5. Use variables to access credentials in a config file to make the entire setup more robust, secure and to effectuate the credentials during DR
a) Create the distinct or secure directory for the config file.
b) Now, Install a php composer to the corresponding directory. ((“https://getcomposer.org/download/"))
c) Run “composer init” (This will create a composer.json file)
d) Run “ composer require vlucas/phpdotenv “ (This will install the required package)
e) Add below lines at the top of the config.php file, it will allow the php to read credentials from env file.
/ Load .ENV Support Library /
require_once(__DIR__ . ‘/vendor/autoload.php’);
$dotenv = Dotenv\Dotenv::createMutable(__DIR__);
$dotenv->load();
f) Create an .env file and save the credentials to it.
g) Now, use a variable to call these credentials. Example as below
/ *MySQL database username* /
define(‘DB_USER’, getenv(‘DB_USER’));
/* MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, getenv(‘DB_PASSWORD’));
DB details, credentials, tokens etc can be accessed using this mechanism.
This mechanism will avail more security to the config files. To secure admin-panel, always choose strong range password and rotate it in specified or required intervals
#Webserver security
Webserver security and harding plays an important role, below illustrated are few things to enhance Apache security and robustness. The exemplified steps will differ according to specified organizational requirements
Disabling server tokens: It will not expose the web server version details over the internet.
Eg:
TraceEnable off
ServerSignature Off
ServerTokens Prod Enable XSS protection: Helps to prevent Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
Eg: Header set X-XSS-Protection “1; mode=block” Protect X-Frame (one can deny the use of frame if needed) it will help to prevent Clickjacking Attack
Eg: Header always append X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN Setting Max age and Transport security header. The Strict Transport Security feature lets a web site inform the browser that it should never load the site using HTTP and use secure HTTPS layer only
Eg: Header set Strict-Transport-Security “max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload” Allowing CORS rules, specified methods and headers in accordance with specified requirements. SetTimeout and put a limit on request size, this will also help to prevent DOS/DDOS kind of attacks. By default Apache has no limit on the size of requests. SSL is an additional layer of security you are adding into Web Application.It secures communication in an encrypted manner over the Internet Restricting directory access and Indexing or browsing. By default Apache list all the content of Document root directory in the absence of index file Restricting direct access via IP, always use DNS names.
Preventing SQL injections, Cross site-scripting,Server Side Includes, CGI Execution, USer groups changes etc can be applied to make the web server more robust from attackers
Hope this will be helpful. | https://medium.com/@namanvyas86/wordpress-security-enhancement-on-server-end-d6a657318435 | ['Naman Vyas'] | 2020-06-01 15:52:13.621000+00:00 | ['WordPress', 'Devops Practice', 'Best Practices', 'DevOps', 'Security'] |
What Is Kryptex? How Can We Mine Bitcoin and any Cryptocurrency with it? | What Is Kryptex? How Can We Mine Bitcoin and any Cryptocurrency with it?
Kryptex is a Windows app that pays you for the computing power of your PC. Krunal Joshi May 16·2 min read
According to their website, Kryptex mines cryptocurrency and pays you bitcoins or real-world money, be it dollars or any other currency.
What is Kryptex?
Kryptex is an application that helps you to mine cryptocurrency and allows you to pay dollars or bitcoins or Ethereum. This application also works when your PC is idle.
Mining is easy with Kryptex Source: Kryptex YT
How to start mining with Kryptex?
It takes only a few minutes to follow these simple steps 👇
Sign up 👉🏻 here! Just an email required;
Download Kryptex 👉🏻 here; Install the app and complete the benchmark; Let Kryptex do it’s job.
Done! While your PC is on, Kryptex will be earning you money. Mine 0.0002BTC and you will be able to withdraw immediately!
What’s required to launch? 🚀
Kryptex runs on any PC operating 64-bit Windows 7, 8, or 10.
After the first launch, Kryptex will benchmark your hardware to determine whether it is suitable for mining, or not. After this, you will receive a Status about your GPU & CPU whether your computer is Ready or not
Source: Kryptex | https://medium.com/@joshiikrunall/what-is-kryptex-how-can-we-mine-bitcoin-and-any-cryptocurrency-with-it-244f6128121 | ['Krunal Joshi'] | 2021-05-16 09:01:39.750000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Kryptex', 'Bitcoin Mining', 'Ethereum', 'Mining'] |
Oracle Database — more value for money and more value for free | Oracle Database — more value for money and more value for free Lucas Jellema Follow Feb 14 · 3 min read
Oracle is not known for low prices or free products. However, when it comes to the Oracle Database there are some developments that might be of interest to you. Either when your organization has existing Oracle Database licenses — or when you do not. In short: three powerful and until recently expensive database options are now available to anyone with an SE2 or EE license. And anyone who does not have a license but would like to use the Oracle Database without paying any money, can do so. Not just to play with, but to put into production.
The facts:
The options Spatial, Graph and Advanced Analytics are now included for on premises and cloud databases SE2 and EE — the latest (19c, 20c) as well as earlier versions — without the need to purchase additional licenses
Oracle Database 18c XE is free for usage on premises and on any cloud — for R&D, development, training and production usage and even embedded in 3rd party applications; this edition is restricted in physical resources (2 CPU threads, 12 GB of user data, 2GB of Database assigned RAM); it contains almost the full range of Oracle Database features — including extra cost options In Memory, Partitioning and Advanced Security as well as Advanced Analytics, Spatial and Graph. Note: Oracle Database 18c XE can also be run as Docker Container. Oracle Database 18c is available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure — free of charge as part of the always free tier; you can create 2 database instances, each with 1 OCPU and 20 GB storage. Automated backups and patching are included. No support is offered and no availability guarantees are given. Some interesting features with Oracle Database that were already and still are available free of charge in all these three offerings:
Oracle APEX — low code, data first application development framework — design time and run time contained in the database
Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) — provides REST APIs (HTTP interfaces) on top of database schemas
Flashback Query and (basic) Flashback Data Archive — history at your fingertips
Multi-model: JSON, Relational, Graph/Semantic (RDF), Spatial, XML, csv/xls (external table)
tools: SQLDeveloper, SQLcl, Oracle Developer tools for VS COde,
many more obviously
5. And free with cloud database is Data Safe: Oracle Data Safe lets you assess database security configurations and database users, audit user activity, as well as discover and mask sensitive data in your Oracle Cloud databases. With Oracle Data Safe, you can protect sensitive and regulated data in those databases. For more information, see Using Oracle Data Safe.
In Summary
You can create solutions on top of Oracle Database platform that are completely free (with XE or always free Autonomous Database). If you already have Oracle Database licensed (SE2 or EE, 11g, 12c, 18c, …) you can now get so much more value from the existing license, your existing database and most of all: your existing data.
Resources
Details and FAQ on Oracle Database XE — https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/appdev/xe.html
Download Oracle Database 18c XE — https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/xe-downloads.html
Announcement: Machine Learning, Spatial and Graph — No License Required! — https://blogs.oracle.com/database/machine-learning,-spatial-and-graph-no-license-required-v2
Announcement: Spatial now free with all editions of Oracle Database https://blogs.oracle.com/oraclespatial/spatial-now-free-with-all-editions-of-oracle-database
Announcement: Graph Database and Analytics for everyone https://blogs.oracle.com/oraclespatial/graph-database-and-analytics-for-everyone
Announcement: Machine Learning in Oracle Database — https://blogs.oracle.com/machinelearning/machine-learning-in-oracle-database
Oracle Cloud Free Tier — Always Free Service including two Oracle Autonomous Database instances — https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ | https://medium.com/oracledevs/oracle-database-more-value-for-money-and-more-value-for-free-69f83ba35e2a | ['Lucas Jellema'] | 2020-05-01 09:21:46.320000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Oracle Database', 'Spatial', 'Free', 'Oracle Cloud'] |
Why Art makes the ideal gift this season for family, friends or especially for you. | Why Art makes the ideal gift this season for family, friends or especially for you.
One of the most enduring qualities of art is its power to transport the viewer to another time and place.
Looking at a picture can take you to a pristine wilderness, a fantastical dreamscape or into the outer reaches of the cosmos. Like portals into other people’s world, lives and minds, art affords us a unique opportunity to step outside of our familiar surroundings and into new worlds.
Art helps increase our capacity for empathy and understanding of other cultural practices, as well as a deepening our own sense of cultural identity.
Art is often considered the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities
I would say art is a visual representation or expression of feelings evoking the viewer, you to create music that touches the soul
Its a human exchange and how we communicate without words.
We are developing a wellness course around Art and how it calms the mind and heals the soul. We can’t control the external and whats going on around the world but we can control our thoughts and actions and how we respond.
Eclectic Art keeps your creativity interesting and exciting when served more of the same same. Take action today and find out which Art in particular connects at a subconsious level to surround your world with love, peace, joy and motivation.
Go to our gallery page which has been updated with some cool animation from the journey diaries of a past seafarer traveling the world.
www.lavegallery.net/shop
Feel free to follow and recommend for genuine authentic connection through Art | https://medium.com/@angeliichoo77/why-art-makes-the-ideal-gift-this-season-for-family-friends-or-especially-for-you-51b3e1b81ba6 | [] | 2020-12-21 08:46:50.449000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Art', 'Small Business', 'Family', 'Gifts'] |
Multi-label Text Classification with Scikit-learn and Tensorflow | Multi-label models
There exists multiple ways how to transform a multi-label classification, but I chose two approaches:
Binary classification transformation — This strategy divides the problem into several independent binary classification tasks. It resembles the one-vs-rest method, but each classifier deals with a single label, which means the algorithm assumes they are mutually exclusive.
— This strategy divides the problem into several independent binary classification tasks. It resembles the one-vs-rest method, but each classifier deals with a single label, which means the algorithm assumes they are mutually exclusive. Multi-class classification transformation — The labels are combined into one big binary classifier called powerset. For instance, having the targets A, B, and C, with 0 or 1 as outputs, we have A B C -> [0 1 0], while the binary classification transformation treats it as A B C -> [0] [1] [0].
The evaluation metric to measure the performance of the models is the AUC measure, which stands for “Area Under the ROC Curve.” A ROC curve is a graph showing the performance of a classification model at all classification thresholds.
Figure 8 — AUC (Area Under the Curve)
This curve plots two parameters:
True Positive Rate
TPR = TP/(TP+FN)
False Positive Rate
FPR = FP/(FP +TN)
TP = True Positive; FP = False Positive; FP = False Positive; FN = False Negative
A model’s performance is assessed after running it with 5 different seeds to try to mitigate any bias.
Scikit-learn
First of all, it is necessary to vectorize the words before training the model, and here we are going to use the tf-idf vectorizer.
Tf-idf stands for term frequency-inverse document frequency, and the tf-idf weight is a weight often used in information retrieval and text mining. This weight is a statistical measure used to evaluate how important a word is to a document in a collection or corpus.
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import TfidfVectorizer vectorizer = TfidfVectorizer(strip_accents='unicode', analyzer='word', ngram_range=(1,3), norm='l2')
vectorizer.fit(X_train) X_train = vectorizer.transform(X_train)
X_test = vectorizer.transform(X_test)
1. OneVsRestClassifier
The estimator used was RandomForestClassifier, and since the labels are analyzed separately, the result is the average of the AUC score of the categories.
from sklearn.multiclass import OneVsRestClassifier
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
Figure 9 — AUC score per category
AUC score: 0.517097
2. BinaryRelevanceClassifier
This method is very similar to the OneVsAll, but not the same. If there are x labels, the binary relevance method creates x new datasets, one for each label, and trains single-label classifiers on each new data set. One classifier may answer yes/no, thus the “binary relevance.” This is a simple approach but does not work well when there are dependencies between the labels.
The estimator used is GaussianNB (Gaussian Naive Bayes).
from skmultilearn.problem_transform import BinaryRelevance
from sklearn.naive_bayes import GaussianNB classifier = BinaryRelevance(GaussianNB())
classifier.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = classifier.predict(X_test)
print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions.toarray())))
AUC score: 0.544241
3. ClassifierChain
This approach combines the computational efficiency of the Binary Relevance method while still being able to take the label dependencies into account for classification. On the other hand, that makes this method more expensive computationally speaking.
The estimator used is LogisticRegression.
from skmultilearn.problem_transform import ClassifierChain
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression classifier = ClassifierChain(LogisticRegression())
classifier.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = classifier.predict(X_test) print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions.toarray())))
AUC score: 0.519823
4. MultiOutputClassifier
This strategy consists of fitting one classifier per target(A B C -> [0 1 0]). This is a simple strategy for extending classifiers that do not natively support multi-target classification.
The estimator used is KNeighborsClassifier.
from sklearn.multioutput import MultiOutputClassifier
from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier clf = MultiOutputClassifier(KNeighborsClassifier()).fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = clf.predict(X_test) print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions)))
AUC score: 0.564452
Tensorflow
Text classification has benefited from the deep learning architectures’ trend due to their potential to reach high accuracy. There are different libraries available for deep learning, but we chose to use here Tensorflow because, alongside with PyTorch, they have become the most popular libraries for the topic.
On the other hand, word embeddings are low dimensional as they represent tokens as dense floating-point vectors and thus pack more information into fewer dimensions. This technique normally gives a performance boost in NLP tasks, for instance, syntactic parsing and sentiment analysis. It is possible to either train the WordEmbedding layer or use a pre-trained one through transfer learning, such as word2vec and GloVe.
For the following models, the vectorization used was texts_to_sequences, which transforms the words in numbers, and the pad_sequences ensures all the vectors have the same length.
from keras.preprocessing.text import Tokenizer
from keras.preprocessing.sequence import pad_sequences tokenizer = Tokenizer(num_words=5000, lower=True)
tokenizer.fit_on_texts(data['description'])
sequences = tokenizer.texts_to_sequences(data['description'])
x = pad_sequences(sequences, maxlen=200)
Class weights were calculated to address the imbalance problem in the categories.
most_common_cat['class_weight'] = len(most_common_cat) / most_common_cat['count']
class_weight = {}
for index, label in enumerate(categories):
class_weight[index] = most_common_cat[most_common_cat['cat'] == categories]['class_weight'].values[0]
most_common_cat.head()
Figure 10 — Class weights
1.DNN with WordEmbedding
We started with a simple model which only consists of an embedding layer, a dropout layer to reduce the size and prevent overfitting, a max-pooling layer, and one dense layer with a sigmoid activation to produce probabilities for each of the categories that we want to predict.
from keras.models import Sequential
from keras.layers import Dense, Embedding, GlobalMaxPool1D
from keras.optimizers import Adam
import tensorflow as tf model = Sequential()
model.add(Embedding(max_words, 20, input_length=maxlen))
model.add(GlobalMaxPool1D())
model.add(Dense(num_classes, activation='sigmoid')) model.compile(optimizer=Adam(0.015), loss='binary_crossentropy', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 11 — DNN architecture
AUC score: 0.890245
2. CNN with WordEmbedding
Convolutional Neural Networks recognize local patterns in a sequence by processing multiple words at the same time, and 1D convolutional networks are suitable for text processing tasks. In this case, the convolutional layer uses a window size of 3 and learns word sequences that can later be recognized in any position of a text.
from keras.layers import Dense, Activation, Embedding, Flatten, GlobalMaxPool1D, Dropout, Conv1D filter_length = 300 model = Sequential()
model.add(Embedding(max_words, 20, input_length=maxlen))
model.add(Conv1D(filter_length, 3, padding='valid', activation='relu', strides=1))
model.add(GlobalMaxPool1D())
model.add(Dense(num_classes))
model.add(Activation('sigmoid')) model.compile(optimizer='adam', loss='binary_crossentropy', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 12 — CNN architecture
AUC score: 0.886286
3. LSTM with GloVe WordEmbedding
In this model, we will use GloVe word embedding to convert text inputs to their numeric counterparts, which is a different approach because this is a pre-trained layer. The model will have one input layer, one embedding layer, one LSTM layer with 128 neurons, and one output layer with 21 neurons (the number of targets.)
from keras.layers import Flatten, LSTM
from keras.models import Model deep_inputs = Input(shape=(maxlen,))
embedding_layer = Embedding(max_words, 100, weights=[embedding_matrix], trainable=False)(deep_inputs)
LSTM_Layer_1 = LSTM(128)(embedding_layer)
dense_layer_1 = Dense(21, activation='sigmoid')(LSTM_Layer_1)
model = Model(inputs=deep_inputs, outputs=dense_layer_1) model.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy', optimizer='adam', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 13 — LSTM architecture
AUC score: 0.887574 | https://medium.com/swlh/multi-label-text-classification-with-scikit-learn-and-tensorflow-257f9ee30536 | ['Rodolfo Saldanha'] | 2020-05-08 21:21:33.333000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Towards Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Here’s why it doesn’t make sense to pay 8.33% fee for your next hire. | Finding and attracting excellent candidates is never simple. Tech recruitment, especially, represents a challenging task. Talking about hiring mid-level tech talent, it is largely a function of funnel and filtering. Having hired over 50+ engineers, I have consolidated my observations on the nuances of tech hiring over time and I’ll take you through a summary of these observations in this article.
As we go along, I’ll highlight two crucial problems affiliated with this. If you wish to draw tech talent, first, you have to look for them in the right places i.e build your talent pipeline. Secondly, you need a tech hiring process that is efficient enough to filter the right candidates from this talent pool.
1) How do you find a list of candidates: (Cost: 1–2%)
There’s no doubt that finding candidates is the starting point of your recruiting process. Your filter will most certainly fail if you don’t have the right funnel to start with. While most companies pay 8.33% fee for junior level roles and over 12% for senior roles to get this optimised, you can also find some cheap alternatives to get this done by leveraging the right portals by using:
1) Professional Networks.
2) Job Boards
Looking for niche job boards that are specialised in one industry or business function is a way to find the right candidates. Another important thing is Employer Branding. It’s simple: A players love working with other A players. What you need to do is get the word about your engineering team, work culture and candidate experience.
Here are some things that you can do to shape your employer branding (3-hour effort):
1) Create an amazing landing page
2) Talk more about your tech and culture
3) State the mission and vision of your company
4) Talk about the founding team
Alternatively, you can also use databases from different platforms to get a list of candidates if you have efficient filtering. On an average, you need to have about 100 candidates per role so that your filter can have a critical threshold to have an efficient hiring pipeline.
2) How do you filter candidates: (Cost: 1%)
Once you have a talent pipeline, now you need a tool to filter candidates accurately and with speed. If you have an efficient filtering tool and an even greater talent pool, you will still be able to find the right candidate.
I’ve often come across people who’d show their apprehension towards having a tool to filter candidates. One of the big worries is that if there is a filtering tool, their candidates run away. But wait, won’t your candidates run away even after if they get your offer? All that a filtering tool will do is that it will do away with candidates who would anyway not take your offer before you get your engineering team to interview them.
When it comes to understanding how you want to filter this tech talent, you want to keep it short and progressive. While it’s important to hire someone who understands fundamental algorithms and data structures, it does not demonstrate the candidate’s ability to solve real product challenges.
There are 3 levels for filtering- MCQs, Programming questions, Project-based assessments.
For early-stage companies, I would recommend the first 2 levels so that the companies can get rid of the candidates that have zero coding experience. For later-stage companies, we recommend the third level that is Project-Based Filtering.
The usual hire ratio after filtering with the assessment will be 10–20 candidates with high intent. Moreover, there will be less need to do tech screening which is better than any candidates that the recruiters will source. Unfortunately, this is the secret sauce used by recruitment companies to run their business, charge you 8.33% hiring fees and you’d still not be equipped enough to gauge a candidate’s skills until the candidate has started working.
The solution lies in building a recruiting system that goes beyond brokerage fees and enables companies to build a tech hiring system that empowers recruiting to make powerful hiring decisions faster and with more accuracy at lower costs.
The answer can be found in the automated use of modern SaaS-based platforms to find and filter tech talent. Discover how you can transition into automated tech hiring with Codejudge. | https://medium.com/codejudge/heres-why-it-doesn-t-make-sense-to-pay-8-33-fee-for-your-next-hire-f6fb1a5ddddb | ['Nilesh Agarwal'] | 2020-12-18 07:05:47.949000+00:00 | ['Recruitment', 'Hiring', 'Techhire'] |
Is it time for a virtual reality check when it comes to our data? | We’re over half way through 2016 which, according to just about everybody, is “the year of virtual reality”. The number of caveats has crept up as launch dates slip, but whether it’s this year, next year or the one after, we can be sure that VR is going to be big business.
How big is up for debate. Digi-Capital says $30billion by 2020. Goldman Sachs forecasts revenues of $80billion within the next ten years. SuperData Research predicts sales of hardware and software to hit $2.8billion this year — which is DOWN from a forecast it made in March. Deloitte reckon 2016 will be VR’s first billion dollar year — $700million in hardware sales and the rest coming from software. Whoever calls it right on the numbers, it doesn’t really matter. VR’s moment is here.
With Google’s cheap-as-chips Cardboard, through to Samsung’s GearVR and on up to the market-leading Oculus Rift, it’s possible to step into VR irrespective of how deep your pockets are. Offerings from Playstation and Xbox One will add to a growing field that broadly breaks down into devices that are powered by a smartphone or by a dedicated headset.
Without doubt, we are going to see new tech that will be on a scale from amazing to mind-blowing. As well as the whizz-bang experiential dimension, VR offers us a whole new way of doing things. It is an alternative user interface limited only by the imagination of developers. And whatever we do in our virtual worlds, our data will play a vital part in making it real. Here is where we might find an elephant in our virtual room — and one that is very much of the real world variety.
So much to play for
Gaming is obviously where there’s the biggest VR buzz and the highest anticipated revenue — $300million according to Deloitte. It will drive uptake and grab headlines, but VR has a lot more to offer and will touch our lives in many different ways.
In the social sphere, AltspaceVR offers a virtual environment to meet people, host events, play games, explore and even make VR calls — with Slack integration — although for now the graphics tend a little towards Minecraft. Similarly, vTime is the “the first VR sociable network that allows anyone, anywhere to socialise with friends and family in virtual reality”. It runs on smartphones fitted into headsets or more sophisticated kit such as the Oculus Rift.
Then there is the way we buy things, from shoes to homes. Among its suite of hardware, applications and platforms for the VR industry, Sixense offers vRetail, which can create a virtual shop or allow consumers to try out ‘products’ at home. Matterport, which has raised over $61million in funding, creates 3D representations of real places, specialising in applications for real estate, tourism and retail. It is adding virtual reality to its offer so a user could, for example, look round a property without setting foot inside it. Engineers and emergency workers can explore hostile environments in safety, such as going inside a nuclear reactor. In education, VR will offer new ways to see, learn and understand.
But perhaps one of the most exciting areas of VR innovation is healthcare. Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT) is a growing area of psychotherapy where immersive digital environments are used to treat anxiety disorders and phobias. Two UK psychologists have set up Virtual Exposure Therapy to do just that, making it into the BBC’s New Year report into how 2016 was VR’s ‘big year’. In the US, the Psious platform does something very similar, allowing patients to confront fears and problems under clinical control and supervision. Doctors and medical students can dive into the body to explore anatomy and practice surgical procedures without making an incision with platforms such as zSpace. There are any number of medical and wellbeing applications. Who knows, one day we might not have to drag ourselves from our sickbed to see a doctor.
Privacy is a real thing
Progress might not be all plain sailing, though. As well as the bountiful picture the Goldman Sachs VR report places at the centre of its forecast, its analysts offer two alternative scenarios for revenue growth. The more optimistic one has “accelerated uptake” pushing revenue to $182billion, but this could be a comparatively meagre $23billion if there is “delayed uptake” with privacy among the technological issues that might cause difficulties. Privacy is an issue facing any company using our personal data, and it is here that we might encounter that elephant. The need to get the privacy piece right will be vital across all VR applications, but the pressure will be greatest in the most sensitive areas such as patient health information.
Back in April, the terms of Oculus Rift’s privacy policy came under heavy scrutiny over fears user data could be shared with parent company Facebook and other firms that it owns. Much of the concern was over location data from IP addresses and, potentially, GPS data from smartphones — Oculus and Samsung have collaborated on the Gear VR headset. Then there is usage data detailing the position of the headset and other information about the user’s actions and behaviour. Facebook responded by insisting its primary motives were about improving experience and service, but critics say the door has been left open to pass personal data on to third parties. And that means advertisers.
As it is, almost everything we do online is monitored and tracked unless we take steps to shield ourselves. In a virtual world we will be able to express ourselves in so many more ways. We won’t simply be clicking, liking, scrolling and swiping. The range of gestures will match those we use all the time in real streets, real shops and in our real homes. What we look at, where we go, what we touch, the things that catch our attention. The potential to gather even greater quantities of detailed behavioural data will continue to grow. The opportunity will exist to slap a targeted advert on anything, from the Taj Mahal to the summit of Mount Everest. Or even your living room wall. If the ‘free’ internet is actually one in which we are the product, virtual reality offers unlimited grazing pastures on which to fatten up consumers.
None of this is to say that the impending explosion in virtual and augmented reality is not cause for real excitement and wonder. What’s already on offer and the glimpses of the future offered by the likes of Magic Leap are enough to make it almost irresistible to cast aside such concerns. There is, though, a feeling that as we grow increasingly aware of both the value of our personal data and the way it is exploited by others some might pause before diving headlong into a virtual world. Similar issues exist with the explosion of connected devices in the Internet of Things. A certain amount of data exchange is necessary for services to operate and evolve. How much is necessary is where the arguments over privacy, fairness and transparency will rage.
It’s clear there are not many things we already do online that can’t be done in a virtual environment. It might be that VR — or aspects of it — become our preferred interface for everything from social media to online shopping. Could this immersive experience lull us into forgetting the we might actually be staring down a pipe — albeit a beautifully-rendered, hyper-real one — along which who knows what data might be channelled to who knows where?
With virtual reality still in its infancy, the technology’s pioneers have a real opportunity to establish trust with their users in a way that would differentiate them in a growing market. To ignore issues such as privacy could create uptake barriers as serious as any technological shortcomings.
It is easier to understand the consequences of our actions and interactions in the real, physical world. We take for granted that our privacy is a right that should be respected and protected. As users, consumers — as human beings, — we should expect to enjoy those same fundamental rights whether we are going about our lives in a virtual world or the real one.
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More from Internet of Me: | https://medium.com/the-internet-of-me/is-it-time-for-a-virtual-reality-check-when-it-comes-to-our-data-4f33f7ee130 | ['Simon Carroll'] | 2016-07-13 13:23:04.592000+00:00 | ['Oculus Rift', 'Virtual Reality', 'Personal Data', 'Privacy', 'Internet Of Me'] |
Best web hosting services 2022 | It might take a lot of effort and money to choose a suitable web hosting service for your website. There are various types of web hosting available, with prices ranging from $0.99 per month to $999 per month.
However, how can you determine which hosting plan is ideal for your business?
Types Of Web Hosting?
When looking for a web hosting provider, you’ll encounter several terms that you may not be familiar with. Here are some of the most common alternatives you’ll come across and whether or not they’re right for you.
Cloud-based hosting:
If you need a lot of storage space and wish to leverage cloud computing, cloud-based hosting is a beautiful alternative. Cloud-based hosting offers several benefits, including assured server resources, redundant data storage, and limitless website expansion.
E-commerce hosting:
For many internet firms, e-commerce hosting is a popular choice. Many web-hosting service providers may supply you with a web server, as well as an email server and other essential web-hosting services, in addition to assisting you with the operation of an e-commerce site.
Reseller hosting:
Reseller hosting is perfect for those who want to use their allocated hard drive space and bandwidth to host websites for other people. To do so, the reseller will need to buy the host’s services wholesale and then offer them individually to users at retail pricing for a profit.
WordPress hosting:
WordPress hosting is an excellent choice for anyone looking to create a personalized website. Customers like the website hosting company because it allows them to create a professional bespoke WordPress website utilizing a selection of themes, plug-ins, and widgets.
Shared Hosting:
Shared hosting is the most simple and least priced hosting option. While a shared hosting service should supply all you need for a personal or small company website, you will be sharing resources with other users on the same server, so if your site expands, you may need to upgrade to a different plan.
Virtual private server hosting:
Virtual private server hosting is a step up from shared hosting, allowing you to achieve equivalent features and performance for your sites without upgrading to a dedicated server. A managed VPS hosting service is generally more expensive, but it is ideal for individuals with less technical backgrounds since it allows the company to handle your software and system upgrades. An unmanaged VPS hosting service means that the hosting company is solely responsible for the physical server and ensuring that it is available; maintenance, updates, and software installation are your responsibility.
Dedicated server:
For websites with a significant number of visitors, dedicated server hosting is an alternative. You’ll receive a real server (or several servers) with this more costly plan, giving you complete control over the computer and far more resources to host your website.
How Did We Select The Best Web Hosting Provider?
It’s crucial to note that the web hosting provider choices on this list were not specifically “tested” by us. Instead, we developed a comparative summary based on several variables, including third-party reviews and each web hosting business and shared hosting provider’s services.
Best Web Hosting Provider 2022:
When selecting a web hosting provider, the essential aspect is their performance — Speed and Uptime.
Your website will benefit more from a faster hosting provider. In 2022, and most likely beyond, web performance will become increasingly crucial.
Bluehost — Great Choice for New Websites:
Bluehost has been around since 2007, and they now host over 3 million websites. For new websites, they are the most popular and affordable hosting choice.
Because of their high Uptime and Speed — 99.96 percent and 641 milliseconds, respectively — are a top-rated web hosting company.
Their initial pricing of $2.95/mo (renews $8.99) includes a free domain name, website builder, and one-click install for WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal through their control panel. So, if you’re starting (and don’t have a website), this is the best option. The base package includes unlimited bandwidth and 50 GB of Storage.
Because WordPress.org officially suggests it, it’s a fantastic match for WordPress websites.
All Bluehost plans include free email accounts, live customer service, and SSL (security layer). It’s highly user-friendly, and it’s arguably the most exemplary entry-level web hosting service in terms of reliability and security. For higher-traffic websites, the company offers dedicated, VPS, and managed WordPress hosting services in addition to standard shared hosting.
All of their hosting plans come with a 30-days money-back guarantee and are enabled quickly, allowing you to get started right away.
Bluehost Pros
Uptime is good (99.96 percent)
a rapid speed (641 MS)
WordPress One-Click-Install
Beginner-friendly and easy to use
Domain and website builder for free
Support is available 24/7 (Live Chat and Phone)
Bluehost Cons
Discounts are only available for more extended plans.
Conclusion
The hosting service you pick will most likely be your partner for a long time. So carefully consider each option that has piqued your interest, and choose the one that best meets your requirements.
All of the hosting companies on the list above are reputable companies with a track record of providing excellent service. Use the strategies and best practices we discussed to make an informed selection, whether you choose one of the top suggestions or scout out your own.
In today’s environment, having a dependable web host is essential. Make this decision as though your company’s future depended on it. | https://medium.com/@niloysblog/best-web-hosting-service-2022-19423aa81401 | ['Niloy Sarkar'] | 2021-12-14 14:00:42.617000+00:00 | ['Web Hosting Services', 'Web Hosting', 'Hosting Service', 'Bluehost', 'Hosting Service Provider'] |
Editing The Expectations Out Of Christmas | Okay, so, Christmas. The holidaze.
I was trying to think of some good, raunchy stories that have happened around the holidays. I was racking my brain. I thought of some times where I got really drunk on Christmas and did something wacky or inappropriate, like the time my cousin Siobhan beat me at Tetris and was gloating and I was acting like a sore loser and her sister-in-law called me a sore loser and I said, “I don’t even know you.”
But like, that’s not funny, and it made everyone really uncomfortable, and later that night I got blackout wasted and sang along to a Fergie song in the car with my friend and my sister and my cousin Charlie who dropped me off at my friend’s apartment and went out to a club without me because I puked in the hallway.
That’s also not funny, and is just a part of why I don’t drink anymore.
I want to talk about Christmas, and what it has meant to me over the years. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday: because it’s about acknowledging death and accepting it and celebrating being alive—in its essence. It’s what you make it, and all I ever expect for Halloween is putting on the costume I spent months conceptualizing and going out with friends.
Christmas is about love and family and generosity, but it’s really easy to forget that with how the holiday has been commercialized and stripped of its meaning with department store sales and discount TVs and the pressures that so many people feel to spend outside their means to make the people they love happy.
The capitalist aspects of the holidays has always repelled me. Even when I believed in Santa, which I did up until age 10, my letters to the North Pole were asking for world peace, which my parents thought was admirable and gave me a peace sign patch for my backpack. I looked up to Lisa Simpson, and I wanted to be altruistic like her. Opening up presents and giving gifts felt empty to me. A saying my dad uses often around the holidays is, “Christmas is about two things: expectations and disappointments.” It’ pretty true, when you think about it. I guess if you’re focusing on the giving and receiving of gifts as the point of Christmas it’s easy to get wrapped up in the anticipation and the inevitable anti-climax.
I just used the word “climax.” That’s about as sexy as this essay gets. Whatever.
My favorite part of the holidays are the little traditions, the simple yet special celebrations that take place only during this time of year. I would get emotional while singing Christmas carols. I was in the choir in school and in church because I love singing, but the holiday songs felt more special to sing, and I was usually pretty excited when winter rolled around every year. I remember tearing up while doing “Carol of the Bells” in the 6th grade. A girl standing next to me on the auditorium stage said, “Wow you really got into that.”
A photo that my sister posted on Instagram the other day. This looks like Christmas 1994. I’m on the left, Bridget is on the right. Taken at the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey.
My family is big into the holidays. A little less so these days, at least with the decorations, but it’s tradition in our family to make a ton of food and invite every family member over to celebrate. We would usually spread the parties out over several weeks, hosting dinners and traveling by car to see relatives and friends who lived further away and were hosting their own parties.
My dad says, “Christmas is about two things: expectations and disappointments.”
I remember watching A Nightmare Before Christmas at my Uncle PJ’s house followed by a dance party after dinner and my sister Bridget and I performing a dance from the musical Cats where Bridget accidentally did a backroll into the Christmas tree during our routine and then sleeping over and making my Aunt Stella tell us stories about Christmas when she was little until the wee hours and driving to a church nearby the next morning to look at a lifesize nativity scene that was still up even though it was a week or two after Christmas.
We had a lot of fun traditions surrounding Christmas when I was growing up. We would decorate the house together — just breaking out the box of ornaments for the tree and doodads and garlands to string up the bannister and archways was exciting. We would select a Christmas mixtape that my dad made on cassette to listen to while decorating the tree, taking turns to pick out ornaments, my sister and I competing over who got to pick which one.
We would go out on drives around different neighborhoods in South Philly to look at the lights people put on their houses and communities that got together to decorate thematically. Our parties at home were always a good time, as well, at least before the adults got too intoxicated. There are too many fun things we did as a family to get into too much detail here, but we were always playing games like charades, singing karaoke, getting mad at my dad who would walk through the room where we were playing Trivial Pursuit and say the answer to whatever question even though he wasn’t playing the game.
In my senior year of high-school my Halloween costume was “a 1950s housewife hosting a Christmas party.” That was my costume. No one really understood, definitely no one knew what I was, but I thought I looked amazing. I wore a vintage cocktail dress and an apron and I carried around a cookie tray with cookies on it all day. In a way, it was a subversive Halloween costume, like a lot of my Halloween costumes tend to be.
I enjoy dressing up in a type of drag, illustrating a certain kind of idealized femininity without commentary. Without any irony. I was a nun for Halloween in the 9th grade. Not a pregnant nun or a slutty nun, just a nun.
But without getting too off topic, I was excited for Christmas that year. My boyfriend at the time really loved Christmas and his excitement rubbed off on me. I dug out the old mix-tapes that my dad made of holiday music, and created my own mix of songs on a cassette as a gift for my boyfriend at the time. I made a fruitcake from scratch that year, a good one, with dried mango and dried pineapple. I partook in a Festivus event, with a pole and everything, with an airing of grievances and a feats of strength and everything. It felt fun to participate in the traditions and make new ones.
Then I was in college. And then nine years ago I moved out here. I wasn’t around my family. I haven’t celebrated Christmas with my mom and dad and sister in years. I’ve gone to other family member’s celebrations: my cousin Siobhan lives in Los Angeles now and the past few years I’ve gone down there to spend the holiday with her and other family, and we would do fun things like bake cookies and cook food and take walks to look at the lights on other people’s houses, but it wasn’t the same.
It felt weird for me to sit around the tree on Christmas morning and watch my relatives give each other gifts and see the disappointment when they got something close to what they wanted but not exactly what they wanted. Especially when I had so little to give. I make handmade gifts, like collages or cards or mixtapes or cakes that I bake. It’s not a lot, but I do try to put thought into it.
I’m trying to figure out my disconnect, why I started feeling so Scroogely about Christmas. I feel like writing this piece has been this huge soul-searching journey, and this is something I just figured out because I was asked to do this storytelling thing about the holidays. To be honest, I haven’t given much thought to Christmas for a very long time, but I think what happened is I got older.
I became an adult, and becoming an adult did not turn out like I thought it would. I thought I would have more by now. I didn’t think I would still be struggling this much. I felt inferior because of what I don’t have. I compared myself to others, and everyone else seemed to have it better. They seemed to be having more fun. They were able to fly back to visit their families. They were able to buy things I wasn’t able to buy, and because of that they had people to make memories with and share traditions with. Is this making sense. I mean, it doesn’t really make sense, it’s my own personal neurosis and I’m trying to explain it. I isolated myself and let myself get wrapped up in insecurities and feeling overwhelmed by things that at my core I do not care about.
I didn’t think I would still be struggling this much. I felt inferior because of what I don’t have.
I’m going home for Christmas this year and I am excited about it. I’m excited to hang out in my childhood home and bake cookies with my mom and watch movies with my dad and get dressed up with my sister and spend time with family and friends and just relax. I lost my job in November and it actually has been a blessing in disguise. Because of that job I was never able to take a real vacation, I was constantly on-call. Even if I wasn’t in the office, even if I did travel cross-country to see my folks, I would still have to take calls from my boss and drop whatever I was doing to placate him.
I’m moving back with my folks soon, actually, at the end of January, and I couldn’t be happier about the decision. It’s not like I ever forget, but writing this out made me realize how much I appreciate my family.
I guess I never really lost the spirit of Christmas. It was in me the whole time! I have love and kindness in me, and I enjoy doing things to make my friends and family happy, even if it’s something as little as making a homemade card or constructing a playlist or keeping the party going with a David Bowie singalong.
Christmas, like everything, is what you make it, and it can be fun, it can be wonderful, you’ve just got to bypass the expectations and disappointments. | https://medium.com/intimates/editing-the-expectations-out-of-christmas-1566b61e6a25 | ['Alexandra Naughton'] | 2017-12-21 17:01:03.281000+00:00 | ['Capitalism', 'Christmas', 'Consumerism', 'Family', 'Tradition'] |
Memory | Istanbul, 2017
Last week, during a conversation about languages, this paragraph came back to me:
“Home, they say, is where the heart is. I’m not so sure. I’ve had lots of homes and I don’t consider my heart to be attached very firmly to any of them. What is meant, of course, is that home is wherever you choose to place it — in which case I suppose I’ve always been homeless: many decades ago I left my heart on a Swiss mountainside, but the rest of me has foolishly failed to follow. Still, among my deracinated roots there is one that protrudes a little above the heap and may even constitute a grounding of sorts. From 1952 until 1958 my family lived in the southwest London district of Putney and I recall it with affection.”
Tony Judt is the writer, and that paragraph comes from his 2010 collection The Memory Chalet. There’s much to admire about the writing itself, which, before I leap too far ahead, I must at least mark: how he plays with two clichés, breaking one, accepting another; how he creates a melody of the word home, using it in triplicate before slapping the reader with homeless; how he dances from foolishly to failed to follow; how deracinated acts as the hinge for which the entire passage swings; his subtle ending, the choice of a noun with a Latin root, which reveals a sense of emotion yet keeps its distance, antithetical to the first instinct of most writers.
Yet those aren’t the reasons this paragraph came back to me. What happened, instead, is that a discussion of memory — in particular, on how to better recall vocabulary words in a foreign language — reminded me of Judt.
The Memory Chalet is a book that I’ve returned to several times over the years, partly for its poignant writing, a little for its cogent analysis of social themes, but primarily for something that’s a little more intangible.
“At the time of writing (May 2010) I have completed since the onset of my disease a small political book, a public lecture, some twenty feuilletons reflecting on my life, and a considerable body of interviews directed toward a full-scale study of the twentieth century. All of these rest on little more than nocturnal visits to my memory chalet and subsequent efforts to recapture in sequence and in detail the content of those visits. Some look inward — beginning with a house or a bus or a man; others look out, spanning decades of political observation and engagement and continents of travel, teaching, and commentary.”
A better description for The Memory Chalet is that it was dictated rather than written, as Judt had lost the ability to use a pen because of symptoms related to ALS. The memoir doesn’t, however, come across as gloomy, mawkish, or overwrought. His words always had a light touch without losing any thrust even when he wrote about grand events — his tome on Postwar Europe, most notably — and that lively pace persists in The Memory Chalet. His essay Words shows the root of that dexterity:
“I was raised on words. They tumbled off the kitchen table onto the floor where I sat: grandfather, uncles, and refugees flung Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French, and what passed for English at one another in a competitive cascade of assertion and interrogation.”
The essay meanders, encircling the subject of language — from his early German instruction, to a discussion on rhetoric, some thoughts about the false dichotomy between style and substance, before he ends, after a lifetime of words, “more conscious of these considerations now than at any time in the past.” His writing has become limited to dictating; any exploration of subjects is constrained by what he already knows.
Language acquisition can be envisioned as an expansive act: you’re attempting to augment what’s already on the hard drive. What’s conjured is an image of growth. Although it’s understandable that Judt’s nightly journeys into his past and feats of memory came back to me because of a conversation on memory, flipping through the pages once again was startling. At first glance, and in my recollection, he’s exploring memory, his associations, thoughts, revealing meditations on the page. But the subject is actually, in his state, more closely associated with forgetting than remembering.
“My latest writings have a far more inductive quality to them. Their value rests on an essentially impressionistic effect: the success with which I have related and interwoven the private and the public, the reasoned and the intuited, the recalled and the felt.”
A glib reading finds sadness in these short meditations. It’s easy to detect, as every page reveals the hard truth of his predicament. You can surely set the book down and walk away with that response, yet most readers discover, instead, a clear sense of consolation. So what makes the melancholic somehow redeeming?
“If you must suffer thus, better to have a well-stocked head: full of recyclable and multipurpose pieces of serviceable recollection, readily available to an analytically disposed mind.”
Nothing about his fate is comforting. Nothing about his position is defensible. But the vividness of his mediations — on Paris, marriage, Cambridge, political philosophy — comes across as an active, engaged state, an utter denial of pity, in a retelling that’s redemptive in its equanimity, in its relentless engagement, far beyond the norm.
His technique of using a Memory Palace, or Method of loci, dates to at least ancient Greece, and is still commonly used today. The basic method is to envision a space — a former home is common — and to associate what you need to remember with particular objects. By linking each memory item with a specific object, an emotional salience is more likely to occur, which helps you to solidify the new memory. I haven’t tried or really even considered the technique myself, though I find the mechanics of the method intriguing.
For readers of The Memory Chalet, however, Judt’s description of this technique reveals something else, an implicit yet quite clear lesson. He imparts each recollection with evident delight, leaving you with an abrupt understanding of how urgent it is to crowd the objects of your envisioned room. | https://medium.com/@charles-schifano/memory-ce229cf9b40a | ['Charles Schifano'] | 2020-12-07 16:04:27.581000+00:00 | ['History', 'Life', 'Writing', 'Philosophy', 'Mind'] |
*A miracle is born* | *A miracle is born*
Happily married to a loving and doting husband since 5 years and blessed with an affectionate and adorable son, aged 4 years, my life was perfect…
Too perfect!!
But like they say you have to pay a price for everything.
So did I.
Never in my wildest dreams had I dreamt about what lay ahead of me.
2008
We had bought our own home in the city of dreams and were planning on having our second child. But, my dream world collapsed one afternoon while playing hide and seek with my son.
I fainted.
He stood next to me innocently, thinking it was an act and that I was joking with him.
What followed were numerous visits to the doctor accompanied by never ending tests and scans. I was referred to the top pulmonologist of my city and finally, I was diagnosed with Systemic Sclerosis which is an auto immune disorder( When the body’s immune system turns against itself and attacks healthy cells by mistake ).It had attacked my lungs and around 35% of my lungs had become stoned. I had Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD).My entire family and me were in shock. It was unimaginable.
All that came to my mind was – What?? How??When??
Till today I don’t have all the answers. And the one question that still haunts me is…why me?
My story is definitely about my struggle to accept this phase of my life and how life changed afterit . But, it’s not solely about that, it’s much more.
I was put on steroids immediately ( still take them and will have to continue lifelong). I had always been slim but I started gaining weight gradually (it’s very difficult to shed it even now). I was always breathless, couldn’t climb stairs, couldn’t brisk walk, forget running and playing around with my son. All of this and taking 10/12 tablets a day used to make me choke on my tears . I was also on an immuno-suppressant because of which my immunity was always low, leading to many infections. The gradual effect of steroids on my bones led to osteopenia(onset of osteoporosis) . The intake of so many medicines made me very irritable.
It was arduous and stressful but I managed because I had my husband right beside me. His sole aim in life seemed like taking appointments and getting my tests/scans done every 3 months. He had by then consulted almost every pulmonologist , rheumatologist and cardiologist in town. He cared so much for me that words fall short. Him, working in one of the best hospitals in India made things much easier to organise. But the agony of going through the pricks and tests every 3 months was painful and difficult.
Every time I headed towards the hospital, I would be overwhelmed and uncontrollable tears would roll down my face.
Days turned into months and months turned into years. 5 years down the line, I had somehow accepted the situation and my life became normal (with weekends, shopping, movies, malls, holidays, weddings and family gatherings) but there was one thing which lingered constantly on my mind and in my heart…
The urge to have a second baby.
One thing my dear doctor had repeatedly emphasised was about not conceiving again, as it would put more burden on my lungs and could also worsen my disease. When I was diagnosed, we had been planning our second child, so being told that I should not consider conceiving, shattered me completely. At every consultation with my doctor, I would eagerly wait for the magical words
“ Yes “..
Alas, I would be heart broken each time.
After 5 years of Systemic Sclerosis and ILD , along with all the persuasion possible, in 2013 my doctor finally said the golden words “Lungwise I think you can handle a pregnancy”.
His words still echo in my mind till today.
The prescription on which he wrote this was the ticket to my dream being fulfilled.
Although he was cautious, he atleast gave me a go ahead. I was completely over the moon. From that very moment all I ever prayed for ( though I had been praying for it since forever) imagined, hoped, visualised, thought, envisaged, dreamt, daydreamt about was my pregnancy…
Holding my baby in my arms!
Being on steroids for so many years, made conceiving a complicated task and so began another round of doctors, tests, scans and a whole lot more. The struggle went on for almost 2 years.
After going through a small procedure, finally the day I had been waiting and wishing for since the past years arrived in August 2015.
I was pregnant …Gosh….it had actually happened !! I would have danced all day and all night if my lungs gave me the liberty to do so. God had heard me…
I was carrying my baby….
As expected, I had a very difficult pregnancy.Even after being forewarned by my doctors, each day was a struggle. I was on bedrest after a surgery (cervical stitch)coupled by pregnancy induced cough which kept me awake throughout my 2nd and 3rd trimester
( which had its side effects of severe incontinence and imagine having diaper rashes).
Later, I was on oxygen support since my oxygen saturation dropped to 85% in contrast to a normal saturation of 98%. Using the washroom became a task. Taking a bath would wait. With an extended oxygen wire along with the support of my husband/son/my help I would still struggle to use the washroom. Nights became a nightmare as I would only cough. I could not lie down completely on my back for almost 25 days as that aggravated the cough. I tried allopathic , homeopathy , naturopathy and everything else that came my way but it just didn’t get any better. Naturally, my diet suffered as I could not have any form of milk, curd or whatsoever .
Even a simple sonography scared me as the minute I would lie down the infamous cough would return. The doctors were very wary of whether I would be able to carry till the last month. Thankfully, all sono’s suggested that the baby was absolutely fine and fighting well. Here I would thank my lungs for carrying my baby and me through till 7 months. I was hospitalised after just entering my 8th month as my condition deteriorated.
Thoughts of whether it was a wise decision and whether I would be off-oxygen-support-ever did run through my mind. Those days were very daunting and I felt very selfish and extremely concerned about my son. Hospitalisation didn’t cure the cough but my oxygen and other important parameters were monitored well. The care I got there is something I will always carry in my heart.
1 March, 2016
That day I was uneasy since morning and the doctor said “ your baby is ready but we are concerned about you “.
I was sent for a heart examination and all my doctors gathered to take a decision.I had to undergo emergency C-sec as my heart readings were all over the place and it was being negatively effected. It had developed pulmonary hypertension.
1 March 2016, 19.10 pm
Surrounded by 5 brilliant doctors and their team….
My princess was born…
Everybody in the OT said
“A miracle is born”.
Weighing just 1.75 kgs her doctor said “she is a fighter”. I barely got to see her.
She was smiling as she was taken into the NICU which would be her home for the next 23 days. As I was wheeled into the ICU, I took along with me the power and strength to fight which I had drawn from my newly born daughter. Just like her, I smiled at my parents too, who stood by me like my backbone. They were so relieved.
Finally.!!
All they wished for was to see thier daughter normal again.
What followed in the ICU were moments of pain, agony, frustration, desperation and some more pain. But, then came the tears of joy, love and fulfilment.
In the next few days, my husband became a zombie running between the ICU and NICU along with single-handedly taking care of my son , my parents and managing his office.
5th March 2016, 19.25 pm
I saw my angel properly for the first time ( Since I was in the ICU for 3 days and later had a catheter, I was not allowed in the NICU ). Looking at her, was such a surreal moment, she was so tiny and had so many tubes attached to her. But when I saw an oxygen tube intubated in her, I could not bear it and I sank into my wheelchair. The nurses saw me and said “no tears allowed…your daughter is a smiling diva”.
I was assured that the air tube was just for support so that she would not stress while breathing.
I was discharged after a few days. I came home alone without my bundle of joy but I had left my heart, mind and soul behind with my precious baby.
I was still on oxygen but I would visit the hospital daily just to see her for 20/25 minutes. It was so painful to return home empty handed each day.
Time passed slowly but time also healed. I was finally off oxygen support a few days after I brought my little angel home on the auspicious day of Holi…
One could say, I had taken a risk or gamble with my life but it paid off beautifully. It also freed my family from the agony of seeing me go through all the pain and struggle. My husband’s sister touched my heart when she said “Thank you for giving us this gift”.
From being a delicate darling I had now become an incredible fighter!!
Each day, I silently thank the almighty, my parents, my husband and my doctor who understood my plight and supported me .The team of doctors who helped me bring my daughter into this world.Also, my son and all my wonderful friends who lived each and every moment of my journey along with me.
My daughter is 2 years old now. She is hale and hearty, beautiful and always smiling. By god’s grace both of us are doing well .
I am happily living along with Systemic Sclerosis as it has now taken a backseat in my life .
My husband and son are absolutely head over heels in love with her.
My dream has finally been realised..
Yes, miracles do happen!!
She has inspired me to write and here are a few lines for her…
I fought for our chance
You fought along too
The day you were born
I was born too…
You came into my life
My heart skipped a beat
You gave me hope and joy
So now I’m complete…
When I held you in my arms
I knew what was heaven
You peeked from your eye
And I saw my reflection…
As each day passes
I love you more and more
Your smile and your love
So true and so pure…
Hiding my pain and burying my fear
Smiling all along and fighting the tear…
The moment you cried
I cried with you
I had won the race and
My prize was YOU…. | https://medium.com/@nidhisk/a-miracle-is-born-8a72d95e8afc | ['Nidhi Singh'] | 2020-12-01 08:37:57.691000+00:00 | ['Moms', 'Motherhood', 'Daughters', 'Pregnancy', 'Momlife'] |
5 Ways To Talk About Pride Month With Kids | June is Pride Month in the United States and we here at Xyza: News for Kids are celebrating Pride by sharing 5 ways for how you can talk to kids about this significant event.
1. Talk About The History Of Pride
Why is June Pride Month? In the United States, Pride Month is celebrated in the month of June to remember the Stonewall riots, a series of riots that erupted throughout New York City in June and July of 1969. These riots were a response to the police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village, a popular gathering place for the young LGBT community during the early hours of June 28th, 1969. The police arrested employees for selling liquor without a license and roughed up the many patrons inside the inn. As police dragged patrons out of the bar and into police vans, people outside the bar watched and grew increasingly enraged. A riot soon ensued and continued for the next five days. Historians mark the Stonewall riots as a turning point in the gay rights movement.
2. Test Your Pride Trivia: Learning = Winning
How many countries have legalized same-sex marriage? Why is the rainbow flag a symbol of LGBTQ pride? What do the colors in the Pride flag mean? Which country hosts the largest Pride parade in the world? Which U.S. Presidents have acknowledged Pride month in the past? Answer trivia questions and learn a little more about Pride Month here.
3. Learn About How LGBTQ Rights Have Shifted Around The World
In 2019, Ecuador became the fifth South American country to legalize same-sex marriage, Taiwan the first in Asia, and Northern Ireland the last of the countries of the United Kingdom to do the same. In 2020, Nepal announced that residents will have the option of declaring themselves female, male, or other gender in the next census. This was a big step towards acknowledging the fact that the LGBTQ community exists and that resources should be allocated to this minority population. These are just a few stories about the ongoing fight for LGBTQ equality happening around the world. For more news about LGBTQ rights, click here.
4. Get To Know The People Of Pride
Denise Ho is the first mainstream female singer from Hong Kong to declare herself lesbian, almost twenty years after she gained popularity.
Kasha Nabagesera is a gay rights activist who continues to lead the fight for LGBTQ rights in Uganda.
Did you know that New Zealand’s parliament is the queerest in the world, with twelve out of 120 members identifying as LGBTQ? Read about the people of Pride here.
5. Stay Informed: Changing Laws, Change Lives
What does the law have to do with the LGBTQ community? A lot! With one signature, the governor of Florida brought a new law into effect that barred transgender females (or those assigned male at birth who later transition to being female) from playing on girls’ teams in public schools. Read more here.
When President Biden took office, one of the first things that he did was to overturn a ban that would no longer allow transgender Americans to serve in the military. Read about why he overturned the ban here.
In February, the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act. This act would make it illegal for businesses to discriminate against people who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Now, it’s up to the Senate to review and vote on the act. Read more here. | https://medium.com/@xyzanewsforkids/5-ways-to-talk-about-pride-month-with-kids-9aa5bb7bbe0b | ['Xyza', 'News For Kids'] | 2021-06-11 15:05:45.720000+00:00 | ['Pride', 'Parenting', 'News', 'Education', 'Kids'] |
The most overlooked opportunity for Excel users is visual design | When you think of Excel, you probably think of spreadsheets with rows and rows of data. Maybe you imagine a few fields for inputs and outputs. If you’re feeling fancy, you might even have a couple charts in there.
Something like this:
It’s functional. It shows your metrics. But it’s nothing particularly exciting.
What a lot of Excel users don’t realize is that with a bit of finagling and a basic understanding of Excel’s built-in design features, you can have something that looks a lot more like a custom dashboard:
This one is built using Excel’s standard features (no fancy add-ins or scripting). It uses the exact same set of data used in the “before” pic. But it has a very different impact on the user.
Now this isn’t a class in building dashboards in Excel but I still want to illustrate how many visual design features are available and remain unused by 98% of Excel users.
Obviously not everyone has a design background but almost everyone can improve the visual design of their Excel sheets simply by getting familiarized with the tool’s design features — the short version is that almost anything you do in Powerpoint can be done in Excel. You can insert shapes and images, use gradients and transparent layers, customize charts and so much more.
In the wild world of spreadsheets, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking functionality is the only thing that matters. But humans are irrational creatures and will judge a book by its cover. Spending a few extra hours to polish up the design of your spreadsheet can be a big factor in your project’s success.
If you’re making a living using Excel then this becomes even more important. One of the easiest ways to differentiate your work is to add an element of visual design. 90% of your competition is probably using the same basic style and layout with zero visual impact. With just a bit of time dedicated to visual design you can instantly stand out from the crowd and give your work a feeling of credibility and customization. On many projects that means changing your scope by <5% and will likely have a disproportionately big impact on your business.
This is one of those low barrier opportunities that gets overlooked far too often. Take the time to learn about these design features in Excel or have a designer on your team get familiar with them. Add an extra hour or two when you’re estimating scope for your next project. Then deliver something that looks great. If you notice that folks get more excited about the spreadsheets you build then do it again. My guess is that you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results. | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/the-most-overlooked-opportunity-for-excel-users-is-visual-design-5c29f6e9b4a2 | ['Josh Cottrell-Schloemer'] | 2021-09-08 04:42:19.070000+00:00 | ['Spreadsheets', 'Data', 'Design', 'Excel', 'Model'] |
Things To Look For When Choosing Your Web Hosting Price | Things To Look For When Choosing Your Web Hosting Price Hardyalex Jun 17·4 min read
Web hosting in Pakistan is no different to what it costs in the West. The cost of hosting is based on what kind of services you need, such as virtual, dedicated, or shared hosting. Virtual hosting is when your website has a custom design, which requires a large amount of memory and processing power. You can rent this kind of web hosting in Pakistan at a very affordable price. If you are a business, you may even get discounts from web hosting companies.
Dedicated web hosting requires an entire server to be set aside for your site. This type of hosting is very costly, but the cost can be reduced if you choose a hosting company that offers VPS or virtual private server plans. Virtual private servers allow a dedicated server to be hosted on a part of hardware which is not accessible by other web hosts. This is an excellent way to reduce the cost of web hosting.
Shared web hosting happens when a website to share the same server with hundreds of other websites. A website will make more money when they get more traffic. Shared web hosting companies often charge less money than dedicated web hosting companies. The more traffic your website gets, the more money you can make.
The most important thing you can do when getting a web hosting service in Pakistan is to make sure you know what you are getting. Many web hosting companies do not tell you about space limitations, or the speed of their servers, until you sign up for their service. They may also charge you for things that you would never have to pay for otherwise.
If you have a small business website, it is imperative that you find out the cost of web hosting as soon as possible. The last thing you want is to find out that you will be paying thousands of dollars every month for server price. This could be devastating, especially if you are just starting your business. It is important to shop around and find the best deal for your needs.
It is very important to do your homework when it comes to shopping for web hosting services in Pakistan. You must make sure you understand the cost of the service as well as what features you will receive. You should make a list of things that are important to you and that you cannot do without. This will help you narrow down the choices of web hosting companies that you are interested in as well as making it easier for you to compare the prices.
When looking for a web host in Pakistan, make sure you look into the various plans they offer. This will allow you to make an informed decision on which plan is the best one for your needs. Always make sure you get a price quote before signing up for any service. This will give you a good idea on how much the Server Price in Pakistan will be. Do not be afraid to ask for a free trial account as well. This will allow you to see what their servers can do for you.
Saving money on your web hosting is a great idea. However, you have to make sure you are getting the best deal possible. Take your time and compare several companies. Once you find a reliable web host, you will be able to start creating your own websites.
Before you choose a company, you have to make sure that the server price includes everything that you need. The price should include software, time, space, etc. If a company does not include any of these things in the package, you should be wary of it. It is important that you are able to use all the features that the company offers.
The price that you pay for hosting is a big factor when you are choosing your host. However, it is not the only thing that you need to consider. Different companies offer different services. Be sure to get a full package that includes all of the services you are going to need.
There are a lot of different companies out there that offer hosting services. To make the best decision for your business, make sure you are taking your time and comparing the costs. As long as you are getting a good deal and making sure your customers can communicate effectively through the web, you will be happy with your hosting company. | https://medium.com/@hardyalex801/things-to-look-for-when-choosing-your-web-hosting-price-603cfa7e20ae | [] | 2021-06-17 12:03:37.065000+00:00 | ['Best', 'Price', 'Server', 'Pakistan'] |
The Price of Fame | Why does nobody want to hang out with me? (Incorrect answers only)
https://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/1101/ | https://medium.com/@rstevens/the-price-of-fame-491b9b6883e4 | [] | 2020-11-20 03:21:28.022000+00:00 | ['Friendship', 'Robots', 'Comics', 'Social', 'Humor'] |
What No One Tells You about Hearing Loss | No one tells you that people will get mad at you if you can’t hear them. They will get exasperated, roll their eyes, and shake their heads because they think they’re talking plenty loud and you ought to be able to understand what they’re saying.
You’re just not trying hard enough. You can feel their judgment like sandpaper across your face. And, sometimes, because you know they’re yelling at you, you start to absorb the judgment. You aren’t trying hard enough to hear. You need to concentrate, focus, screen out the distractions. So you try harder, but it doesn’t work and, pretty soon, people just give up on you.
No one tells you that most hearing loss isn’t about loudness at all. If you have sensorineural hearing loss, like I do, making things louder only makes matters worse. That’s because the issue isn’t about decibels, it’s about the inability of the nerves in the cochlea to accurately transmit sounds to the brain. In other words, people can talk as loud as they want to a person with this kind of hearing loss but often what they are saying just simply will not compute. It’s almost impossible for a hearing-impaired person to explain: I hear you but I don’t know what you’re saying.
There are other things no one tells you. Audiologists deal with the intricate mechanics of hearing, both biological and technical. But they don’t say much about what will happen to your life — how serious hearing loss will diminish your confidence, damage your work and personal life, and make hash of your ego. Eventually, though, hearing loss makes you tougher than you ever thought you could be. It’s a long journey to that point.
Here are some of consequences of serious hearing loss. These aren’t hypothetical. I experienced all of them. I’ve had serious hearing loss for 15 years, mitigated three years ago by a cochlear implant.
You avoid people you can’t hear. In my case, this meant a lot of men friends got dumped; male voices were extremely hard for me to hear and men were most likely to get annoyed. I walked around them to get to the nearest woman to talk to.
You stop using the telephone. With serious hearing loss, it becomes almost impossible to discern disembodied speech, meaning no lips visible to read. You miss a lot if you never use the phone. I didn’t talk on the phone to my grown daughter living across the country for at least seven years. Maybe I’ll leave it to her to explain the impact of that. I can’t do it.
You dummy up in groups. This is one thing in a restaurant where you can sit quietly nursing a drink, it’s another thing in a meeting or a group where there’s something serious going on. You will miss whole, huge bags of important things. Where I sat at the end of our family table across from my husband meant that I heard none of the dialogue amongst our children or our guests. Nothing. I would take cues from him as to whether I should smile or frown.
You start to live in your own head. Because so much of the world is indecipherable, you just check out. You think your own thoughts, converse with yourself, live within a tiny, confined space where no one expects you to understand anything. And, this is the really bad part, you start to live there, in your own head, all of the time. You convince yourself that it’s comfy in there, cozy, safe, so you stay there. It’s kind of creepy when you think about it.
You feel immensely sorry for yourself. I remember walking out of meetings screaming in my head, “I AM SO DISABLED!” I looked fine, though. No one would ever know I had a disability unless I told them. Or they tried to talk to me. Even then, hearing loss isn’t a big sympathy magnet. Because, as you remember, people figure if they shout at you, they’re doing their part. You just need to try harder.
You put an enormous burden on the one person who loves you the most. That person, in my case my husband, is on constant interpretation duty. He or she becomes the translator of the world’s goings-on and is expected to never get upset or tired when constantly asked “what?” “what did he say?” But the translator can be resented if he or she oversteps, tells people that you’re deaf and to direct their questions to him or her. It’s a razor’s edge being a deaf person’s person.
The cochlear implant I received three years ago put me back on the planet of talking and hearing people. But even before it did, the long years of coping with hearing loss had made me very tough — strong if silent — and remarkably more compassionate about other people and their disabilities. I know what it is to be marginalized. I can sense it now like a vague natural gas smell in the air — people being left out, passed over, walked around. So I head right toward them. They see my cochlear implant receiver on my head and know I’m one of them. We’ve all suffered heartbreak, loss, loneliness, and survived. And we’re here to tell the tale of our triumph. | https://jwilberg.medium.com/what-no-one-tells-you-about-hearing-loss-f875bd5531d4 | ['Jan Wilberg'] | 2019-01-11 18:39:47.650000+00:00 | ['Cochlear Implant', 'Disability', 'Disabilitystories', 'Deaf', 'Hearing Loss'] |
HD-JA]]>劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限列車編 「2020-HD」 フルバージョンをオンラインで見る そして 無料 | ジャンル: アニメーション, アドベンチャー, サイエンスフィクション
出演者: Wasabi Mizuta, Megumi Oohara, Yumi Kakazu, Tomokazu Seki, Subaru Kimura, Kotono Mitsuishi
クルー: Genki Kawamura (Screenplay), Fujiko F. Fujio (Writer), Kazuaki Imai (Director)
国: Japan
言語: 日本語
スタジオ: Fujiko Productions, Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, tv asahi, Shin-Ei Animation, ADK
スタジオ:
鬼ごっこ
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THE STORY
After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) forgoes the standard opportunities of seeking employment from big and lucrative law firms; deciding to head to Alabama to defend those wrongfully commended, with the support of local advocate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most poignant, case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx, who, in 62, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 2-year-old girl in the community, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and one singular testimony against him by an individual that doesn’t quite seem to add up. Bryan begins to unravel the tangled threads of McMillian’s case, which becomes embroiled in a relentless labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt unabashed racism of the community as he fights for Walter’s name and others like him.
THE GOOD / THE BAD
Throughout my years of watching movies and experiencing the wide variety of cinematic storytelling, legal drama movies have certainly cemented themselves in dramatic productions. As I stated above, some have better longevity of being remembered, but most showcase plenty of heated courtroom battles of lawyers defending their clients and unmasking the truth behind the claims (be it wrongfully incarcerated, discovering who did it, or uncovering the shady dealings behind large corporations. Perhaps my first one legal drama was 624’s The Client (I was little young to get all the legality in the movie, but was still managed to get the gist of it all). My second one, which I loved, was probably Primal Fear, with Norton delivering my favorite character role. Of course, I did see To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in the sixth grade for English class. Definitely quite a powerful film. And, of course, let’s not forget Philadelphia and want it meant / stand for. Plus, Hanks and Washington were great in the film. All in all, while not the most popular genre out there, legal drama films still provide a plethora of dramatic storytelling to capture the attention of moviegoers of truth and lies within a dubious justice.
Just Mercy is the latest legal crime drama feature and the whole purpose of this movie review. To be honest, I really didn’t much “buzz” about this movie when it was first announced (circa 206) when Broad Green Productions hired the film’s director (Cretton) and actor Michael B. Jordan in the lead role. It was then eventually bought by Warner Bros (the films rights) when Broad Green Productions went Bankrupt. So, I really didn’t hear much about the film until I saw the movie trailer for Just Mercy, which did prove to be quite an interesting tale. Sure, it sort of looked like the generic “legal drama” yarn (judging from the trailer alone), but I was intrigued by it, especially with the film starring Jordan as well as actor Jamie Foxx. I did repeatedly keep on seeing the trailer for the film every time I went to my local movie theater (usually attached to any movie I was seeing with a PG rating and above). So, suffice to say, that Just Mercy’s trailer preview sort of kept me invested and waiting me to see it. Thus, I finally got the chance to see the feature a couple of days ago and I’m ready to share my thoughts on the film. And what are they? Well, good ones….to say the least. While the movie does struggle within the standard framework of similar projects, Just Mercy is a solid legal drama that has plenty of fine cinematic nuances and great performances from its leads. It’s not the “be all to end all” of legal drama endeavors, but its still manages to be more of the favorable motion pictures of these projects.
Just Mercy is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous directorial works includes such movies like Short Term 6, I Am Not a Hipster, and Glass Castle. Given his past projects (consisting of shorts, documentaries, and a few theatrical motion pictures), Cretton makes Just Mercy is most ambitious endeavor, with the director getting the chance to flex his directorial muscles on a legal drama film, which (like I said above) can manage to evoke plenty of human emotions within its undertaking. Thankfully, Cretton is up to the task and never feels overwhelmed with the movie; approaching (and shaping) the film with respect and a touch of sincerity by speaking to the humanity within its characters, especially within lead characters of Stevenson and McMillian. Of course, legal dramas usually do (be the accused / defendant and his attorney) shine their cinematic lens on these respective characters, so it’s nothing original. However, Cretton does make for a compelling drama within the feature; speaking to some great character drama within its two main lead characters; staging plenty of moments of these twos individuals that ultimately work, including some of the heated courtroom sequences.
Like other recent movies (i.e. Brian Banks and The Hate U Give), Cretton makes Just Mercy have an underlining thematical message of racism and corruption that continues to play a part in the US….to this day (incredibly sad, but true). So, of course, the correlation and overall relatively between the movie’s narrative and today’s world is quite crystal-clear right from the get-go, but Cretton never gets overzealous / preachy within its context; allowing the feature to present the subject matter in a timely manner and doesn’t feel like unnecessary or intentionally a “sign of the times” motif. Additionally, the movie also highlights the frustration (almost harsh) injustice of the underprivileged face on a regular basis (most notable those looking to overturn their cases on death row due to negligence and wrongfully accused). Naturally, as somewhat expected (yet still palpable), Just Mercy is a movie about seeking the truth and uncovering corruption in the face of a broken system and ignorant prejudice, with Cretton never shying away from some of the ugly truths that Stevenson faced during the film’s story.
Plus, as a side-note, it’s quite admirable for what Bryan Stevenson (the real-life individual) did for his career, with him as well as others that have supported him (and the Equal Justice Initiative) over the years and how he fought for and freed many wrongfully incarcerated individuals that our justice system has failed (again, the poignancy behind the film’s themes / message). It’s great to see humanity being shined and showcased to seek the rights of the wronged and to dispel a flawed system. Thus, whether you like the movie or not, you simply can not deny that truly meaningful job that Bryan Stevenson is doing, which Cretton helps demonstrate in Just Mercy. From the bottom of my heart…. thank you, Mr. Stevenson.
In terms of presentation, Just Mercy is a solidly made feature film. Granted, the film probably won’t be remembered for its visual background and theatrical setting nuances or even nominated in various award categories (for presentation / visual appearance), but the film certainly looks pleasing to the eye, with the attention of background aspects appropriate to the movie’s story. Thus, all the usual areas that I mention in this section (i.e. production design, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography) are all good and meet the industry standard for legal drama motion pictures. That being said, the film’s score, which was done by Joel P. West, is quite good and deliver some emotionally drama pieces in a subtle way that harmonizes with many of the feature’s scenes.
There are a few problems that I noticed with Just Mercy that, while not completely derailing, just seem to hold the feature back from reaching its full creative cinematic potential. Let’s start with the most prevalent point of criticism (the one that many will criticize about), which is the overall conventional storytelling of the movie. What do I mean? Well, despite the strong case that the film delves into a “based on a true story” aspect and into some pretty wholesome emotional drama, the movie is still structed into a way that it makes it feel vaguely formulaic to the touch. That’s not to say that Just Mercy is a generic tale to be told as the film’s narrative is still quite engaging (with some great acting), but the story being told follows quite a predictable path from start to finish. Granted, I never really read Stevenson’s memoir nor read anything about McMillian’s case, but then I still could easily figure out how the movie was presumably gonna end…. even if the there were narrative problems / setbacks along the way. Basically, if you’ve seeing any legal drama endeavor out there, you’ll get that same formulaic touch with this movie. I kind of wanted see something a little bit different from the film’s structure, but the movie just ends up following the standard narrative beats (and progressions) of the genre. That being said, I still think that this movie is definitely probably one of the better legal dramas out there.
This also applies to the film’s script, which was penned by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, which does give plenty of solid entertainment narrative pieces throughout, but lacks the finesse of breaking the mold of the standard legal drama. There are also a couple parts of the movie’s script handling where you can tell that what was true and what fictional. Of course, this is somewhat a customary point of criticism with cinematic tales taking a certain “poetic license” when adapting a “based on a true story” narrative, so it’s not super heavily critical point with me as I expect this to happen. However, there were a few times I could certainly tell what actually happen and what was a tad bit fabricated for the movie. Plus, they were certain parts of the narrative that could’ve easily fleshed out, including what Morrison’s parents felt (and actually show them) during this whole process. Again, not a big deal-breaker, but it did take me out of the movie a few times. Lastly, the film’s script also focuses its light on a supporting character in the movie and, while this made with well-intention to flesh out the character, the camera spotlight on this character sort of goes off on a slight tangent during the feature’s second act. Basically, this storyline could’ve been removed from Just Mercy and still achieve the same palpability in the emotional department. It’s almost like the movie needed to chew up some runtime and the writers to decided to fill up the time with this side-story. Again, it’s good, but a bit slightly unnecessary.
What does help overlook (and elevate) some of these criticisms is the film’s cast, which are really good and definitely helps bring these various characters to life in a theatrical /dramatic way. Leading the charge in Just Mercy is actor Michael B. Jordan, who plays the film’s central protagonist role of Bryan Stevenson. Known for his roles in Creed, Fruitvale Station, and Black Panther, Jordan has certain prove himself to be quite a capable actor, with the actor rising to stardom over the past few years. This is most apparent in this movie, with Jordan making a strong characteristically portrayal as Bryan; showcasing plenty of underlining determination and compelling humanity in his character as he (as Bryan Stevenson) fights for the injustice of those who’s voices have been silenced or dismissed because of the circumstances. It’s definitely a strong character built and Jordan seems quite capable to task in creating a well-acted on-screen performance of Bryan. Behind Jordan is actor Jamie Foxx, who plays the other main lead in the role, Walter McMillian. Foxx, known for his roles in Baby Driver, Django Unchained, and Ray, has certainly been recognized as a talented actor, with plenty of credible roles under his belt. His participation in Just Mercy is another well-acted performance that deserve much praise as its getting (even receiving an Oscar nod for it), with Foxx portraying Walter with enough remorseful grit and humility that makes the character quite compelling to watch. Plus, seeing him and Jordan together in a scene is quite palpable and a joy to watch.
The last of the three marquee main leads of the movie is the character of Eva Ansley, the director of operations for EJI (i.e. Stevenson’s right-handed employee / business partner), who is played by actress Brie Larson. Up against the characters of Stevenson and McMillian, Ansley is the weaker of the three main lead; presented as supporting player in the movie, which is perfectly fine as the characters gets the job done (sort of speak) throughout the film’s narrative. However, Larson, known for her roles in Room, 6 Jump Street, and Captain Marvel, makes less of an impact in the role. Her acting is fine and everything works in her portrayal of Eva, but nothing really stands in her performance (again, considering Jordan and Foxx’s performances) and really could’ve been played by another actress and achieved the same goal.
The rest of the cast, including actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk and O Brother, Where Art Thou) as incarcerated inmate Ralph Meyers, actor Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Big Short) as legal attorney Tommy Champan, actress Karan Kendrick (The Hate U Give and Family) as Minnie McMillan, Walter’s wife, actor C.J. LeBlanc (Arsenal and School Spirts) as Walter’s son, John McMillian, actor Rob Morgan (Stranger Things and Mudbound) as death role inmate Herbert Richardson, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Long Shot and Straight Outta Compton) as death role inmate Anthony “Ray” Hinton, actor Michael Harding (Triple 2 and The Young and the Restless) as Sheriff Tate, and actor Hayes Mercure (The Red Road and Mercy Street) as a prison guard named Jeremy, are in the small supporting cast variety. Of course, some have bigger roles than others, but all of these players, which are all acted well, bolster the film’s story within the performances and involvement in Just Mercy’s narrative.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s never too late to fight for justice as Bryan Stevenson fights for the injustice of Walter McMillian’s cast against a legal system that is flawed in the movie Just Mercy. Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest film takes a stance on a poignant case; demonstrating the injustice of one (and by extension those wrongfully incarcerated) and wrapping it up in a compelling cinematic story. While the movie does struggle within its standard structure framework (a sort of usual problem with “based on a true story” narrations) as well as some formulaic beats, the movie still manages to rise above those challenges (for the most part), especially thanks to Cretton’s direction (shaping and storytelling) and some great performances all around (most notable in Jordan and Foxx). Personally, I liked this movie. Sure, it definitely had its problem, but those didn’t distract me much from thoroughly enjoying this legal drama feature. Thus, my recommendation for the film is a solid “recommended”, especially those who liked the cast and poignant narratives of legality struggles and the injustice of a failed system / racism. In the end, while the movie isn’t the quintessential legal drama motion picture and doesn’t push the envelope in cinematic innovation, Just Mercy still is able to manage to be a compelling drama that’s powerful in its story, meaningful in its journey, and strong within its statement. Just like Bryan Stevenson says in the movie….” If we could look at ourselves closely…. we can change this world for the better”. Amen to that! | https://medium.com/@anakojol33/hd-ja-%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E7%89%88-%E9%AC%BC%E6%BB%85%E3%81%AE%E5%88%83-%E7%84%A1%E9%99%90%E5%88%97%E8%BB%8A%E7%B7%A8-2020-hd-%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3%E3%82%92%E3%82%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%81%A7%E8%A6%8B%E3%82%8B-%E3%81%9D%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6-%E7%84%A1%E6%96%99-396dc569af20 | ['Anak Ojol'] | 2020-12-26 07:27:50.811000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Japan', 'Stream', 'Anime', 'Action'] |
Does data hold the key to reproducibility? | Elucidata | by Swetabh Pathak, Avi Ma’ayan, and Shruti Srinivasan
Managing data FAIRly to get to 100% reproducibility.
In 1907, the American Journal of Psychology described a peculiar phenomenon. The authors identified that looking at a string of words or a phrase, for too long, can often render it meaningless to the reader. In his doctoral thesis published in 1962 at McGill, Leon James coined the phrase “Semantic Satiation” to describe this phenomenon. He explained it as a process where meaningful words fall prey to irrelevance upon repetition. Working in the drug-target discovery space, we cannot help but wonder if the conversation around reproducible research is heading the same way.
The concerns around research reproducibility have long been a constant fixture in conversations involving academia, industry, and funding bodies. The earliest discussions on reproducibility were focused on refining protocols and techniques used in low-throughput bench experiments across labs. Despite the valuable empirical findings of many of these studies, these studies tested hypotheses using a mix of intuition and hit-and-miss trials, heavily relying on a priori knowledge of the known molecular mechanisms of the disease context. Notably many of these studies also suffered from a lack of reproducibility across different research settings.
Increasingly, the data revolution triggered by the human genome project, and later by high-throughput next-generation sequencing, has propelled us towards a big data-driven discovery paradigm dominated by diverse R&D teams made of experimental biologists, bioinformaticians, and data scientists. The exponential growth in data comes with a real opportunity to tie down the molecular underpinnings of disease to phenotypic traits and patient outcomes. Notably, our increasing ability to rapidly mine the data is hailed to be the panacea for declining R&D productivity.
Unsurprisingly, this opportunity comes with its own set of challenges. A single experiment in pre-clinical research today can produce TBs of data. This data continues to accumulate an ever-growing public data repositories. The data explosion has reignited the conversation on establishing rigorous standards for the reproducibility of computational pipelines in biomedical sciences. As data continues to grow in volume and complexity, it has been widely acknowledged that data access, use, and management are not isolated goals, rather a critical requirement for enabling innovation and discovery.
Are you playing FAIR?
A small but growing collection of voices are advocating for a move away from traditional data management practices to focus on providing the data and its curation in machine-readable formats. The implementation of the findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) principles of data management and stewardship 2have emerged as an important practice for organizations aspiring to innovate in biomedical research. This shift towards FAIR data management is being driven by a myriad of organizations including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA.
Introduction to the FAIR Principles
“The FAIR principles put the onus on organizations that own and publish data to make it “machine-actionable”, i.e. a machine can read the metadata that describes the data, and this enables the machine to access and utilize the data for various applications.” Overarchingly, implementation of FAIR principles will be critical to organizations that aim to holistically reuse legacy and newly generated data for tackling high-value health care challenges. The NIH and Elixir have been key supporters of the efforts to establish standards for data curation and metadata annotation for reuse and integration of Big Data based on the FAIR principals. Recently, the Ma’ayan Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai developed FAIRshake 3. FAIRshake’s platform can be used to assess the FAIR compliance of datasets, tools, repositories, and other digital biomedical objects. By scoring digital resources for FAIRness, data, and tool producers can become informed about standards. This can enhance the utility of the resources they generate.
The quest for the holy grail: Achieving reproducibility in computational biology.
A significant bottleneck for reproducible computational analysis of biomedical data is the fragmented manner that we currently access data, analysis, and insights. This status quo is partly driven by the way research results are typically communicated, through paper printed journals. Additionally, despite the meticulous standards that apply to data generation, there is a culture of adopting home-brewed or community sourced DIY solutions for data analysis among researchers. There have been stellar efforts to bring together data and analysis into singular computational environments, for example, Galaxy 4, GenePattern 5, and the more recent BioJupies 6developed at the Ma’ayan Lab at Mount Sinai. The elementary ways that users can interact with the data and the tools they encapsulate using these platforms reiterate that reproducibility will ultimately be achieved by comprehensive, interactive environments as opposed to an ad-hoc mishmash of datasets and tools.
Closer to home, at Elucidata, we have been working on our own efforts to create a comprehensive environment that brings data and computation together. Our platform Polly now has diversified offerings that target specific challenges in harnessing data for asset discovery. Whether it is building high throughput workflows with independent modules, or creating cloud infrastructure that enables scalable data analysis, our vision is to create computing environments that interact effectively with FAIRified data to generate insights. At its core, data analytics on Polly is powered by Jupyter notebooks 7with multi-language capabilities. Jupyter notebooks are also a critical part of our research and innovation efforts enabling unprecedented reproducibility of analysis. Every analysis made on a Polly Jupyter notebook can be used to generate a proprietary git repo on Polly — Knowledge Book. Using a continuous integration pipeline for Knowledge repos, we also make sure that reproducibility is not a limited end goal but an evolving solution constantly evaluating every analysis and insight for impeccable standards. The Polly platform also allows you to host these to be shared easily with collaborators.
Whilst, there has been a push towards increasing FAIRness of publicly-funded data, private players have also been sensitized to this challenge. There have been misconceptions that FAIR data has to be open access. Experts, however, agree that FAIR data can be private whilst firmly adhering to the guidelines. Equally critical is the establishment of an in-house computational infrastructure that lets you store, analyze, and generate data in accordance with FAIR guidelines. As a managed cloud platform, Polly is hosted in-house for industries to enable diverse biological discovery teams. The Polly infrastructure allows teams to seamlessly run the reproducible computation, build R GUI applications, and share insights with different stakeholders. More importantly, Polly makes attaining FAIR, not a chore, but an opportunity. In line with this, our most recent efforts have been to create data lakes that can be host proprietary and context-dependent public data on Polly for faster insight and discovery. The unparalleled ease of programmatic access to data in a Polly data lake is key to making the data in your organization “FAIR” and valuable to multiple stakeholders.
In follow-up blogs, we will delve into the details of Pollyglot (Multi-Language Jupyter notebooks on Polly) and innovations with R GUI (Shiny) infrastructure.
Citations
E. Severance and M.F. Washburn in The American Journal of PsychologyWilkinson,
Mark D., et al. “ The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. “ Scientific data 3 (2016).
Clark, Daniel JB, et al. “FAIRshake: a toolkit to evaluate the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of research digital resources.” BioRxiv (2019): 657676.
Zhou, Shuigeng, Ruiqi Liao, and Jihong Guan. “When cloud computing meets bioinformatics: a review.” Journal of bioinformatics and computational biology 11.05 (2013): 1330002.
Reich, Michael, et al. “ The GenePattern Notebook environment.” Cell Systems 5.2 (2017): 149–151.
Torre, Denis, Alexander Lachmann, and Avi Ma’ayan. “BioJupies: automated generation of interactive notebooks for RNA-Seq data analysis in the cloud.” Cell Systems 7.5 (2018): 556–561.
Kluyver, Thomas, et al. “Jupyter Notebooks-a publishing format for reproducible computational workflows.” ELPUB. 2016. | https://medium.com/elucidata/does-data-hold-the-key-to-reproducibility-elucidata-3394ce01ad37 | [] | 2020-04-24 10:11:29.509000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Big Data', 'Bioinformatics'] |
Dealing With Our Anger | Anger is an emotion that can cause a lot of harm and get people into a lot of trouble, but anger in itself isn’t bad sometimes. In fact, experiencing righteous anger towards injustice can be positive for change. There are times that we should be angry about injustice.
Us as believers are always used to hearing the saying that we should be slow to anger for (Numbers 14:18) says “ The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion.”
But what about (Psalms 7:11) when it says “God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked everyday.”
We all experience anger , and it is a regular emotion for us to have sometimes. But the problem with anger is when it nots dealt with in a healthy way or you know , because we was angry we go out and do something foolish that we regret… That is the anger we are here to talk about today
We definitely don’t want to be living our days suffering from angry thoughts and actions.
We want to find peace and maintain the peace right?
Plus when we live in peace we no longer have to experience anger, not as only an emotion but also physically as well. Anger causes a lot of wear and tear on our bodies because of stress, and feeling stressed can cause us to feel other emotions like depressed , and we don’t want to be feeling all of that right?
Now if you are like me , or how I used to be, and was in denial about having anger issues here are some signs that you may have anger in you:
A) You get aggressive: if you get physically or emotionally aggressive and start punching walls, putting your hands on people, verbally abusing someone, taking physical measures to get even that could be a sign.
B) You become passive aggressive: meaning you may not show your anger in a way of blowing up or shouting, but you may become sarcastic, mean, or bitter towards the other person. You might even start to shut the other person out.
C) You can stay angry for days: you may take up to days or weeks or sometimes months to get over a a problem between you and a person . in other words, holding grudges.
D) You get angry quickly and often: you might get angry at a drop of a dime, and experience more anger more than any other emotion in your life.
E) You blame others: you blame others for your anger and repeatley tell them that if they stopped certain behaviors, you wouldn’t be the way you are.
So if you realized that you might suffer with one or more of those signs and have might have a chance of having anger issues, what can you personally do to solve it ? don’t worry I got ya!
A) Learn to control your anger-: in (Proverbs 29:11) it says “ Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back”. This isn’t saying to bury your anger or not to deal with it , but it means that we should control our anger and how we express it.
B) Another way is to re-evaluate your anger: communication when you feel a way can be hard sometimes, sometimes we can be selfish or prideful, because we only want to get our side out. We as humans find ourselves always wanting to be right. But sometimes we have to stop and put ourselves in the other persons shoes. Sometimes we have to think what If I did, what I did to them, to me.
( James 1:19–20) says “ Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: Yu must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20) Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.” Gods way of dealing with anger is to be slow to anger.
There was a time where I couldn’t understand my own anger and I had to take time to reflect on myself to see if maybe I was the problem. That is when I found out that I used to be quick to anger about a lot of things that was unnecessary . That’s when I realized that I had anger problems. there are some things that you need to just let roll off of your shoulders or somethings you need to sit back and think to yourself is this worth getting mad at? When you re-evaluate a persons words or actions, you often find that there is no need to get angry.
Maybe that person was truly trying to help you out for your benefit , or thier actions wasn’t truly to hurt you. But even if that persons intention was to harm you. Is what they are trying to rise out of you , that anger, worth it ? is it worth ruining your peace?
Yelling and fighting with the other is not going to allow you to see each others side of things and help bridge that gap to understanding. I encourage you all to practice re-evaluation the next time you find yourself starting to get angry.(Proverbs 15:1) says “ A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.”
C) Another way for dealing with your anger is to release it: Now when I say release it I don’t mean cause a crazy roc-us, When you deal with anger the way that God intends you to , you feel the emotion , vent it out in a safe way ( like maybe talking to one of your loved ones about it, talking to a therapist or preacher, or who knows maybe even throwing some old plates out on the concrete, Ive been there!) either way do it in a safe way where you are not harming nobody, and then release the feeling. Release anger from your body , heart and mind. (Colossians 3:8) says “ But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language”.
D) Another thing is if you are feeling constantly in a state of rage or always blowing up this could mean that maybe something else is going on. Maybe its not just anger maybe there is some past hurts and grudges that you have to let go of, maybe there is some childhood trama in there. Whatever the case may be , finding the source of your anger is an opportunity to learn how to manage your anger better.
Forgiveness is also a big thing that I feel goes along with anger. When I was super angry, I found that it wasn’t just the problems that I was facing at the moment that was quick to make me feel angry but I also realized that it was apart of my childhoof trauma of feeling abandoned that triggered inside me. And I needed to find time to forgive those past hurts and wounds. I had to forgive the person for the trauma they caused me ( even if they didn’t realize the pain that they caused) and because sometimes I didn’t get the closure that I needed , I had to forgive the pain that the person caused me. Not to make that person valid of their actions or approving what they did to me, But forgiving them so that I could have a peace of mind. Along with all of that forgiving and building up my peace I learned that I also became more wise to not put myself back into certain situations. I became more wise to choose what Is worth being angry at and what is not. The more times that I found myself being angry was the more I found myself making foolish decisions. In (Proverbs 14:29) says “ People with understanding control their anger, a hot temper shows great foolishness”.
What does it look like when you have mastered the skill of controlling anger? :
A) Somethings that I felt when I started to control my anger is the beauty of life. I started to see that the less I was angry the more I could be more happy about life and enjoy life more .To know that the things, people , or lessons that came in my life was all a blessing to either make me stronger or see that there were better things out there to not disturb my journey of peace.
B) When you eliminate anger you start to be more self aware and would first try to understand the true souce of your anger before you react. You are gaining more self control when you are doing that, and self control is listed in the bible as one of the fruits of the Spirit, which is a sign that Christ is in us (Galations 5:22–23) reads “ But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23) gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” so once we we own these fruits in our body , God’s Spirit is with us and in us, and we have the authority to keep those fruits !
C) When you have mastered the skill of controlling your anger the way that God wants you to: you start to find yourself curious and you start to explore your feelings. You start to question before you react if you are misplacing blame, or harboring any untrue belief about yourself or others, you are quick to show compassion and grace.
Controlling your anger is a process so do not beat yourself in the head if you get it wrong a couple times. That also doesn’t mean to take your time on the process, if you know that you might have a problem, try your best to fix It. It is not about if you are right or wrong this is about YOUR peace. strive to be better in whatever you do.
If you are battling anger, here is a good prayer to pray to our Father : “ God protect me from sin when I feel angry. Lord , bless me and keep me, make your face shine upon me. Turn your face towards me and give me peace. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen”
If you liked what you read try listening to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/sacora-george
Follow me / dm me on instagram: @faith_fullygrowing , or twitter: @fullygrowing | https://medium.com/@faith-fullygrowing/dealing-with-our-anger-e1ae6f8837d9 | ['Sacora George'] | 2020-12-19 20:16:58.283000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'God', 'Anger', 'Growth', 'Mind'] |
The Path of Five Ranks | The Path of Five Ranks
Lake Tahoe
Seeing Two is our First wrong View
Can I be wrong about this Me and You?
So we sit and we bow and finally break thru
Rearranging this Life there is much to do
Then comes the day when all One is wrong Too!
Like a Box and its Lid this One and Two
At Peace with our Nature now we feel True | https://medium.com/@monkeno/the-path-of-five-ranks-97caa327cf4 | ['Monk Enō'] | 2021-02-28 04:43:19.287000+00:00 | ['Rhymes', 'Zendorhymes', 'Buddhism', 'Poetry', 'Dharma'] |
Javascript 복수형자료 다루기 | 안녕하세요 Humanscape 개발자 Jake입니다.
Javascript 개발시 복수형 자료를 다루시나요? 복수형 자료를 다룰때 효율적으로 사용할 수 있는 함수 몇가지( for, for in, for of, forEach, filter, reduce)에 대해서 알아보도록 하겠습니다.
for
for 문은 세미콜론으로 구분한 초기화, 조건문, 증감식과 반복 수행문으로 이루어져 있습니다.
for in
for in 문은 객체의 enumerable properties, object inherits from its constructor’s prototype를 반복합니다.
for in 은 객체반복에 적합하며 배열 반복에는 적합하지 않습니다. 배열의 반복순서는 구현에 따라 다르기 때문에 for in 을 사용할시에 순차적으로 index에 접근한다는 보장이 없습니다.
for in 사용시 object inherits from its constructor’s prototype 에 접근할 수 있는데 객채 스스로 정의한 프로퍼티만를 확인하고 싶다면obj.hasOwnProperty(value)를 사용합니다.
for of
for of 문은 반복가능한 객체(Array, Map, Set, String, TypedArray 등)에 대해서 반복하고 각 개별 속성 값을 다룹니다.
forEach
forEach는 함수형태로 배열요소에 대해 순환합니다.
forEach 구문 callback은 각 요소에 대해 오름차순으로 한번씩 실행되며 삭제되거나 초기화하지 않은 인덱스 속성에 대해서는 실행하지 않습니다.
callback은 요소값, 요소 인덱스, 순회중인 배열과 함께 호출되며 callback은 배열을 변경할 수 있습니다. ( forEach 구문은 배열을 변경할 수 없고 return 또한 undefined를 반환합니다 )
array전체를 순회한다고 했을때 for구문을 작성하는것 보다 심플하고 가독성이 좋다는 점이 있습니다.
filter
filter는 사용자가 정의한 조건을 만족하는 요소를 반환합니다.
filter는 호출되는 배열을 변화시키지 않으며 조건에 만족하는 요소들로 새로운 배열을 반환합니다. 만약 조건을 만족하지 못한다면 빈배열을 return 합니다.
map
map은 배열 내의 모든 요소 각각에 대하여 주어진 함수를 호출한 결과를 모아 새로운 배열을 반환합니다.
reduce
reduce는 호출되는 배열에서 callback(리듀서함수)을 수행하며 accumulator(누산값)을 반환합니다.
지금까지 Javascript에서 복수형 자료를 다루는 방법에 대해서 알아보았습니다. 소개드린 내용외에도 문법, 성능등에 대해서도 공부해보시면 좋을것 같습니다. 감사합니다.
참고: https://developer.mozilla.org/ko/docs/Web/JavaScript
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Email : [email protected] | https://medium.com/humanscape-tech/javascript-%EB%B0%98%EB%B3%B5%EB%AC%B8-%EC%82%AC%EC%9A%A9%ED%95%98%EA%B8%B0-8e0f0e6b74bb | [] | 2020-06-22 08:26:56.955000+00:00 | ['Foreach', 'Map', 'Filter', 'For', 'JavaScript'] |
Secondhand Sweaters, Siamese Cats on Leashes, Best Microphone Ever | Fall, secondhand sweaters, siamese cats on leashes, best microphone ever.
Late August already… How’d that happen? How are you doing? I wrote earlier this week about the shift in seasons, including what to eat and why we should rest from choice. Get that post here.
LingXu, resting from choice
Personally, I love edging towards colder months and have been relishing the hint of fall on recent mornings. I do feel spoiled this summer, having escaped hot days in Nelson with my move to Victoria (though I sure do miss that mountain tree line at dusk).
LingDao, never resting
The hood
My rental apartment has been quite noisy lately, which is unfortunate — construction across the street during the day, and loud visitors above during the night. Sigh. My entire being thrives on quiet.
In lighter neighbourhood news, there’s a man who walks his very large, male siamese cat on a leash around the block and past my house each morning, afternoon and evening. He’s often smoking a joint (the man, not the cat), sometimes drinking a beer, and occasionally engaging in pleasant conversation (with the cat, not me). In view of my own crazed (un-leashable) siamese companions, watching this is a beautiful, calming, miraculous thing.
Also, a woman dropped off a $15 pile of used sweaters the other day. They were her daughter’s, aren’t really my style, and will find their way to a donation box shortly. But I wanted to wrap myself in someone else’s clothes for a minute. Sweaters. At home. Like a no-strings-attached hug (which, turns out, was just what I needed). Is this weird? I’m okay with that.
Home recording studio, Alchemist apprentices included
Microphone magic
After weeks of audio recording for Alchemist Academy’s first course — Roots + Shoots: An Alchemist Guide to Chinese Herbs — I chose to scratch the tracks and start over. In brief, my piece-of-shit headset was not cutting it.
So I broke down, walked to Best Buy, and bought a Yeti Blackout. OMG what a difference. I am in love. This is one of those purchases I will be grateful for with each and every use. Makes starting back at the beginning worth it (did I mention I have a perfectionism problem?).
If you want more details on the first course, find them here. And stay tuned by signing up here.
Not a Chinese Med student but still interested? Contact me and we’ll chat! Also, sign up at the same link to receive word on coming eating and lifestyle courses.
Meanwhile, some consciously curated…
Oh that the whole household were this quiet…
Recipes + Links
Lemon olive oil sorbet for a father’s birthday. Plus a deeply resonate story of relationship.
Simple, beautiful tomato eggs. I’d sub out the canola and rice, but this looks lovely.
Might even add Magic Green Sauce. Another simply delightful creation.
A listen on wishing well for difficult people. After all, we are someone’s difficult people!
A listen on things you can do for depression. Psst…it starts with food.
P.S., Are you ready for fall? What’s your favourite part? xo. | https://medium.com/@dana-leigh-lyons/secondhand-sweaters-siamese-cats-on-leashes-best-microphone-ever-46a83ed12cf7 | ['Dana Leigh Lyons'] | 2019-08-23 14:52:22.502000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Simplicity', 'Digital Nomads', 'Fall', 'Holistic Health'] |
How to Taste Wine | The Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Taste | Cellar.Asia | The capacity to sniff out and unwind the inconspicuous strings that mesh into complex wine aromas is fundamental for tasting. Have a go at holding your nose while you sip a significant piece of wine; you will find that the vast majority of the flavor is muted. Your nose is the way into your palate. When you figure out how to give the wine a decent sniff, you’ll start to build up the capacity to disconnect flavors — to see the manner in which they unfurl and cooperate — and, somewhat, appoint language to depict them.
When it comes to how to taste wine, as a matter of first importance, you should be systematic and centered. Locate your own approach and reliably tail it. Only one out of every odd single glass or jug of wine must be dissected right now, of course. Be that as it may if you truly need to find out about wine, a specific measure of devotion is required. At whatever point you have a glass of wine in your grasp, make it a propensity to pause for a moment to stop all discussion, shut out all interruption and concentrate on the wine’s appearance, scents, flavors and finish. If you are looking for ways how to taste wine, learn more at Cellar.Asia.
Cellar.asia is the new online Wine & Spirits platform for wine lovers of any level, from beginners to connoisseurs and professionals, within the Asia-Pacific region. | https://medium.com/@cellar.asia/how-to-taste-wine-the-ultimate-guide-to-improving-your-taste-cellar-asia-98b15cdd8256 | [] | 2020-04-23 05:35:45.351000+00:00 | ['Wine', 'Asia', 'Wine Tasting', 'Wine Industry', 'Singapore'] |
Biggest Employee Engagement Trends of 2020 | As a keynote speaker and an executive coach I’ve been closely monitoring the changes taking place concerning employee engagement in our new world.
As you think about your company’s own engagement standards and company culture are you thinking about ways to make improvements?
Why not pause for a moment to consider what employee engagement looks like overall?
Here are a few significant employee engagement trends that I have found to be interesting period it’s the big picture of what my virtual workshops have been focusing on going into 2021.
Employee Engagement Records an Historic Drop
In 2017 I shared the most recent Gallup data regarding employee engagement it showed about 33% of the workforce was engaged. This year in early May employee engagement hit an all-time high of 38%. This is the highest it has been since Gallup began tracking the data in 2000.
When the new measurements were taken this past June with the pandemic and the political and social situations facing the US, only 31% of the working population were engaged. Because employee engagement is directly related to positive performance outcomes, this drops in engagement may have serious consequences.
Just think about this, the remaining 59% of workers are not engaged and are basically doing time!
Technology and Communication Play a Key Role
With the growing use of Zoom meetings to deliver virtual presentations to communicate with employees is critical. Between March and early April of this year many employees and teams that I work with express that their managers and supervisors had increased their communication an improved their engagement with teams.
Consistency and communication are key and by June many of the teams I work with expressed that communication from leadership was sporadic. This could be due to some of the burnout people were feeling due to the pandemic.
The bottom line is that unclear communication causes employees to disconnect with management and ultimately the company.
Last week I delivered a virtual workshop solely focused on how to improve employee engagement through clear and transparent communication. I was engaged by a major Corporation after it became apparent to them why employees were leaving in waves.
After all, teams go where you go! In addition, if they don’t know where they’re going, they’re going to eventually give up and quit.
It’s Time to Develop a Game Plan for Success
In my first book titled “Living a Championship Life a Game Plan for Success”, Have I shared how the Saint Louis Rams of the National Football League went from worst to 1st to win the Super Bowl. There were two keys to the team success that can be applied to your workplace and I would like to share them with you.
Two Keys to The St. Louis Rams Success Story
The head coach Dick Vermeil and his assistant coaches of the Saint Louis Rams, had clear and concise communication with the whole team about the specific goals and objectives for every aspect of each game. The team also had the highest level of employee engagement, interaction, and love for one another. The bottom line it all came from the top! The head coach. Dick Vermeil and his entire staff were communicators and cheerleaders of everyone’s success. The single most important factor that brought the team together focused on success was the leadership focusing on what was important to the players.
If we as leaders provide the game plan and tools for our employees to succeed, we will be developing future leaders.
That that is what true transformation leadership looks like at its best! | https://medium.com/@drrickgoodman/biggest-employee-engagement-trends-of-2020-a9153f138c0a | ['Dr Rick Goodman'] | 2020-12-14 13:16:25.012000+00:00 | ['Employee Engagement', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Communication', 'HR', 'Leadership'] |
The Open Letter | Forgiveness
The smear: “I forgave you. I still do…There’s a lot of things I’ve wanted to say publicly. Things that would shame you and display me as a victim, kind of what I understand you’re doing now, and it might even make me feel vindicated for a few minutes. But therein lies the problem. I totally forgive you.”
The truth: Wow, this is a big one to unravel, and I will share most of it in another story.
I will be the first to admit that I’m not a perfect person, but I am really curious what he “forgave” me for. Was it for causing him to have legal consequences for kicking one of our children in the ribs and back, and strangling him while screaming obscenities at him? Was it for calling the police on him when he tackled me to the ground and sat on my chest, almost suffocating me?
Was it because less than a year after our divorce two of his girlfriends contacted me for closure after he duped them out of hundreds of dollars and put them through an emotional wringer — and I chose to give them advice about recovering from emotional abuse?
I struggle with forgiving my ex. After we divorced, I had to re-learn the meaning of the word forgiveness. I learned that forgiveness is not about releasing someone from justice, but releasing myself from bitterness. Forgiveness is letting go of the pain so it doesn’t rot and destroy you from the inside out.
The things he did and still does to me are easier and easier to let go of, but the things he did and still does to our children are becoming increasingly harder to let go of. Right now, it is an almost daily process of letting go of the pain and hurt, using meditation, breathing exercises, and other relaxation methods so I don’t become physically ill from the stress of his continued and methodical abuse, and from the anxiety and sometimes panic attacks my physical body automatically triggers when my mind is reminded of past traumatic incidents.
Support
The smear: “I am your supporter…I still hurt when you hurt…I pray for you to be blessed…you matter to me…[our children] matter to me.”
The truth: Just a couple weeks before my ex posted these statements publicly, he and I were in mediation. When the mediator asked my ex-husband why he hadn’t paid child support in three months, he looked over at me with a smirk on his face and said, “Spite.”
I could write a whole book on the reason we were in mediation. Let’s just say the inflated ego of a covert predatory abuser tends to think things like court orders and state laws don’t apply to them because they know what is best.
If you are a survivor of domestic violence and you are in the midst of a custody dispute, you are your child’s best advocate. Even if you have a lawyer, research the custody laws in your state. Know the abuse statutes. Review custody case law until the words spill out of your ears. Document, document, document.
Apologies
The smear: “I will always be sorry and ashamed for the way we treated each other and long ago I apologized to you directly on multiple occasions and took full responsibility for my unloving actions.”
The truth: Towards the end of our marriage, I constantly heard apologies, quickly followed by another incident of abuse. Again, actions speak louder than words, and apologies are meaningless unless actions support a true change of heart. Our children and I still experience emotional and verbal abuse from my ex-husband. He also still refuses to acknowledge the truth that he was convicted of child abuse against one of our children — he continues to say that is a lie and it never happened.
Our two oldest children refuse to go to his house. The second oldest simply stated, “I feel uncomfortable in that angry atmosphere.” Our oldest, the child who bore the brunt of the worst of the emotional abuse, has disowned his father, blocking him on social media and phone calls and texts.
“Society would do well to remember that in an abusive relationship, there is no such thing as a “bad break-up” or successful co-parenting. In an abusive relationship such as this one, the break up is either usually staged by the abuser to maximize his or her cruelty in the shortest amount of time, is part of an abusive tactic in itself known as the “discard” phase, and the abuser rarely leaves the victim alone even if he or she does break up with the victim. In the cases where victims leave their abusers first, it is common for abusers to retaliate in ways that retraumatize their victims — from stalking and harassing them to threatening to release their personal information and/or staging a smear campaign.” — Shahida Arabi, ‘Why Survivors of Malignant Narcissists Don’t Get the Justice They Deserve’
Friends
The smear: “Even though you said you would never be my friend, I am your friend.”
The truth: Merriam-Webster says a friend is “a person who has a strong liking for and trust in another person…one that is not hostile.” The Urban Dictionary says, “A friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone whom you trust and who trusts you. A friend is honest and makes you want to be honest, too. A friend is loyal.”
Again, actions speak louder than words. There was and still is a reason we are not friends. I take better care of myself now, and I choose to surround myself with people who truly do care about me, not only in words, but in actions.
The Fans
Fans in response to The Smear: “This is beautiful! [Your ex-wife] is very fortunate to have you in her life as a the father of [your children]!”
“Like MLK said, fight hate with love.”
“This is fantastic, [abusive ex-husband]. Thanks for sharing.”
The truth: Hoo, boy. Where do I start? This is probably the most demoralizing part of the smear campaign — the believers of the facade — however, I learned a long time ago that I can’t try to persuade his fans to see the truth. They believe the persona he shows the world, and honestly, I am the “crazy ex” because of his smear campaign. My consolation is that time tells them the truth of who he is so much better than I ever could.
Once again — actions speak louder than words.
My ex changes his circle of supporters frequently. He shares superficially. He gives generously when it benefits him. He charms and deflects. He is all about image. He is smoke and mirrors, a true magician. He even wears a wizard costume for Halloween.
When someone gets a peak behind the curtain, they see a frantic and frustrated man losing control of the slipping threads of the masterful web he weaves. He barks at them to get away, and if they don’t, he focuses his violent attentions on them until they are a shell of who they were before.
He moves often, because it’s hard work to keep the web of lies intact and afloat after a while. It gets heavy and starts breaking down, sometimes catching him unaware. So he finds a new base, a new group of fans, and starts all over, often reinventing himself.
If he has a shallow enough relationship with one of his supporters, he keeps them as a fan, spinning his stories of why this happened that way, why he is moving and changing jobs.
One of his supporters, our last remaining mutual friend from before we divorced, is actually a survivor of domestic violence herself, and she put up a post on Facebook that if any of her friends were to tell her to unfriend their abuser, she would. I told her to please unfriend my abuser, and told her a bit about my experiences. She wouldn’t, and wished me all the best. I told her she was hypocritical and I unfriended her.
This is actually all pretty common for a covert predatory abuser. It is formulaic, really. I know where he is at with his love life because of how “nice” he is towards me and our children. He is easygoing and agreeable when he is wooing his new prospect. He showers the children with gifts as they establish their relationship. He’s such a “good dad.” He showers the new woman with gifts and food and trips. He’s so “attentive.”
Then he starts the slow rot. Once the new woman is hooked by his overwhelming attention, he starts shaping her into exactly who he wants her to be. There will be suggestions and confusing comments that could be insults, but he’s so “kind” she must have misunderstood.
He will start asking for things from her more and more, financially, personally, sexually. He will start trying to control her by getting his fingers into every good thing she has. And she is a good woman, understanding and forgiving, and desiring more of the attention he has given her so far.
At this stage, he will start becoming more and more controlling of me and our children, too. There will be ultimatums and threats, and like our second oldest said — his house will have an angry atmosphere.
After a period of walking on eggshells, there will eventually be an explosion of some sort. The truth will come to light.
Over the course of the three years since we were divorced, six of his ex-girlfriends have sought me out for closure. One of them lost her job and her relationship with her immediate family because of his smear campaign against her. One of them has a restraining order against him for stalking and harassment. He used all of them for money, coercing them out of thousands of dollars collectively. All of them have scars from his emotional abuse and manipulation. How do you trust again after that?
The only thing I would say to a supporter of a covert predatory abuser is something I would say to a victim, a survivor, to anyone: actions speak louder than words.
When something doesn’t add up, don’t disregard it. When someone makes you uncomfortable, even if you don’t know why, don’t disregard it. Observe, listen, be aware. Look into the Power and Control Wheel — a tool for understanding the dynamics of power and control in an abusive relationship. Know the red flags of domestic violence. Learn what healthy and unhealthy behavior is in a relationship. Listen to your gut.
Abusers give off warning signals. There is always, always, something that indicates they are abusive. If you find out that you are a “supporter” of a covert predatory abuser, or any type of abuser, don’t turn away from their victims.
I read a quote recently from the Facebook page Living With Emotional Abuse: “I’m at the age where if a guy says that his EX is crazy, I kind of want to talk to her to see exactly what he did to make her that way.”
Beware the person with a plethora of “crazy” exes. | https://medium.com/memoirs-of-a-survivor/the-open-letter-438b490cdde5 | ['A'] | 2019-08-01 00:55:01.879000+00:00 | ['Abuser', 'Open Letter', 'Domestic Violence', 'Abuse', 'Survivor'] |
As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to share my annual lists of favorites. | As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to share my annual lists of favorites. I’ll start by sharing my favorite books this year, deliberately omitting what I think is a pretty good book — A Promised Land — by a certain 44th president. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did.
Homeland Elegies — Ayad Akhtar
Jack — Marilynne Robinson
Caste — Isabel Wilkerson
The Splendid and the Vile — Erik Larson
Luster — Raven Leilani
How Much Of These Hills Is Gold — C Pam Zhang
Long Bright River — Liz Moore
Memorial Drive — Natasha Trethewey
Twilight of Democracy — Anne Applebaum
Deacon King Kong — James McBride
The Undocumented Americans — Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
The Vanishing Half — Brit Bennett
The Glass Hotel — Emmy St. John Mandel
Hidden Valley Road — Robert Kolker
The Ministry for the Future — Kim Stanley Robinson
Sharks in the Time of Saviors — Kawai Strong Washburn
Missionaries — Phil Klay | https://medium.com/@0warda-ce/as-2020-comes-to-a-close-i-wanted-to-share-my-annual-lists-of-favorites-d264bd8ea3f2 | ['Warda Ce'] | 2020-12-26 18:43:54.565000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Movies', 'Artist', 'Music', 'TV Series'] |
I’m the Local Freak | I’m the Local Freak
And I’m Not Freaking Out About It. Nor Should You.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long, Bethany! You are welcome here!”
That’s the greeting I received from a truly beautiful person to whose holiday gathering I was invited. Her motherly welcome was genuine, and the festivities, the meal, and the people did not disappoint. ❤
At the local dental office, the dentist herself took me aside and said, “You don’t have to worry about being trans here. I can’t imagine what you go through with some people.” Her dental care was excellent and made good on her open-door promise to me. ❤
I know, I know—you probably think I’m gonna bitch about how awkward “woke” people can be in their embrace of my trans identity. Not at all. I am affirmed by people’s embrace of me and their sincere follow-through.
It Don’t Come Easy
That doesn’t mean such experiences are easy for me. I’d like to be welcomed for my simple presence as who I am, with no preamble as to why I’m so welcome, other than my having come to the party.
Yet … my presence isn’t simple. My other articles and upcoming memoir make clear that I neither apologize for being trans nor give cis folk a free pass. I’m also not glossing over the vilification and violence that we trans persons get from transphobes, TERFs, and other hateful assholes. Last, I’m not saying that all trans and non-binary folks ought to adopt my response as proscriptive.
Avoiding Me
Growing up, I did everything in my power to hide my self-perceived freakishness. Part of that chameleon motivation was self-preservation, but a large portion of it was simply the attempt to avoid being who I am.
Now I embrace the exhilaration of being me. Oh, the joy of realizing that what I mistook for freakishness is my one true liberty.
Embracing Me
Amid that exhilaration though, even my happy social interactions show that who I am freaks out cis people. I’m ironically now the novelty, the oddity, the carney-show exhibit that I’d previously, desperately avoided.
I am simply Bethany.
For me, being trans means not just embracing me as I am but also embracing everyone else’s encounter with the odd, the different. What we fear about ourselves as hideous, unclean, untouchable is dissipated with a simple “Yes! You and I are one. As I welcome you, I welcome me.”
A Condition of Complete Simplicity
Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean we easily do it.
I didn’t welcome this role for myself. Then again, I didn’t welcome being the Bethany I am until I’d exhausted every other alternative and nearly my life.
So I’m the local freak. And I’m okay with that.
Coda: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
It’s as simple as the pub I have the joy of going to multiple times a week, not just ’cuz it’s in my apartment building but because its owner, staff, and patrons welcome me in a way that, for decades, I simply found impossible.
As me.
To The Laureate Publick House in Loveland, Colorado, I love you.❤ | https://medium.com/the-transition-transmission/im-the-local-freak-7f3d768fd336 | ['Bethany Beeler', 'Author Artist'] | 2020-01-20 02:14:54.850000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Transphobia', 'LGBTQ', 'Transgender', 'Self Love'] |
DeFi Decrypted: What the hell is CEL? — AAX Academy | Interested in lending or borrowing crypto?
In our journey into DeFi, we have explored many decentralized lending projects, such as Compound and Aave.
Now, it’s time to take a look at Celsius Network, a crypto lending and wallet app that uses a centralized structure to operate the project.
What Is Celsius Network?
Founded in 2018 by CEO Alex Mashinsky and COO Daniel Leon, Celsius Network is a cryptocurrency solution that incorporates digital asset lending, borrowing, wallet, and instant payment services under a single ecosystem.
Interestingly, the project was co-founded by the same Mashinsky, who has been involved in multiple telecommunication initiatives and projects.
Examples of such include being the early developer of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and installing wireless cellphones and free WiFi services in the NYC subway system (one of his companies was also offering free WiFi on US flights).
It’s important to highlight that, unlike most DeFi projects where the community is responsible for maintaining the network, Celsius Network is managed by a company via a centralized model.
With that said, Celsius features a sleek, convenient, and beginner-friendly platform where users can access the following products via a mobile app:
Crypto borrowing: Celsius allows users to borrow fiat currency or stablecoins against over 30 different coins. Interestingly, in addition to setting the terms and the amount, the project also enables users to customize the Loan to Value (LTV) rate to reduce the interests or the collateral needed for the loan.
Celsius allows users to borrow fiat currency or stablecoins against over 30 different coins. Interestingly, in addition to setting the terms and the amount, the project also enables users to customize the Loan to Value (LTV) rate to reduce the interests or the collateral needed for the loan. Digital asset lending: In addition to borrowing, Celsius users can also earn interest on the coins they lend on the platform. There is no minimum amount or time required to lock up cryptocurrencies in Celsius’ lending product.
In addition to borrowing, Celsius users can also earn interest on the coins they lend on the platform. There is no minimum amount or time required to lock up cryptocurrencies in Celsius’ lending product. Crypto wallet: All of Celsius’ features are incorporated in the project’s wallet application, which can be downloaded to iOS and Android.
All of Celsius’ features are incorporated in the project’s wallet application, which can be downloaded to iOS and Android. CelPay: Similarly to some fintech firms and neobanks, Celsius users can send and receive funds from other customers instantly and without fees. However, the difference here is that users can transact cryptocurrency instead of fiat assets. Interestingly, unlike standard crypto transactions, CelPay doesn’t require clients to paste the recipient’s wallet address (public key). Instead, users can utilize their phone contacts and initiate crypto transactions via a secure link or text.
What’s interesting about Celsius is that the project distributes up to 80% of its revenue to users, which allows the company to increase its APRs for crypto lending.
What Is CEL and How Did it Perform in Terms of Price?
CEL is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, which serves as the native cryptocurrency of the Celsius Network.
CEL functions as a utility token with its main functions including:
Increased interest rates when lending crypto on the platform and choosing to earn rewards in CEL tokens
Decreased Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) when users borrow funds against their digital assets and pay back the interest in CEL
In addition to consumers, Celsius’ institutional clients can also select to pay back the interests of their loans in CEL to receive an up to 30% discount on APRs
Celsius also has a rewards program, in which users can get bonuses and loan interest discounts based on the proportion of their CEL holdings to other tokens they hold
CEL has a total supply of nearly 696 million tokens, with 508 million coins circulating while the remaining 27% being locked.
Now let’s see how the CEL price has been performing since the coin’s launch.
After collecting $50 million during the project’s token sale in March 2018, CEL hit exchanges in October with the price of $0.0567. Until the end of the year, the coin was only subject to minor market movements.
However, in 2019, CEL surged from $0.033 to $0.151 by December 31. But even after an over 350% increase, the token entered into an even more significant bull run in 2020.
After realizing a 168% growth between January 1 and September 8, CEL started an even more extreme uptrend in which the digital asset increased its value to $3.21 (as of December 23).
As a result, CEL generated a nearly 2,150% ROI for investors in 2020.
Trade CEL With AAX
With the goal to democratize banking solutions, Celsius Network provides users access to financial services, such as crypto lending, borrowing, and instant payments, via a sleek, easy-to-use smartphone application.
Simultaneously, the CEL token allows users to get bonus rewards, discounts on interest rates, and increased yields when lending and borrowing cryptocurrency.
Users can trade CEL and 40+ other coins on the institutional-grade digital asset exchange AAX, which leverages LSEG technology to facilitate low-cost and lightning-fast transactions on the platform.
Check out AAX’s web platform or download the app to start trading! | https://medium.com/aaxexchange/defi-decrypted-what-the-hell-is-cel-aax-academy-e760b359a84b | [] | 2021-01-05 07:02:35.029000+00:00 | ['Btc', 'Cel', 'Crypto'] |
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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/%E7%A2%B0%E5%B7%A7%E9%81%87%E8%A6%8B%E8%A8%AD%E8%A8%88%E6%9C%9F%E5%88%8A/%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E7%AD%86%E8%A8%AD%E8%A8%88%E6%A1%88%E4%BB%B6%E6%B2%92%E6%9C%89%E9%8C%A2-d304c8a186ad | ['蔡點點 Dotty'] | 2021-03-11 07:17:39.596000+00:00 | ['Startup', '心路歷程', '創業', '設計', 'Freelance'] |
So you want to find stuff online? | Last week, I wrote a piece answering a question I’m frequently asked — how to do something about a football club owner that one is unhappy with. While the feedback from the piece was good, it raised an ancillary question. How does one go about finding specific information online?
Anyone who knows the work I’ve done regarding Birmingham City FC will tell you a lot of it has been based on online research. Some people are a bit sniffy about that; after all, anyone can use Google, right?
The truth is that while anyone can use Google, some people can find stuff online better than others. Good online research is an art form — and in this piece I want to teach you some of the tricks.
Sign up for alerts
It seems obvious, but the most obvious thing to do first is to have information come directly to you. Signing up for alerts and notifications are really useful when you have a set criteria which you know will always be of interest.
There are two kinds of alerts I set up.
The first are Google Alerts. These are easy to set up, providing one has a Google / Gmail account. Simply navigate to https://www.google.com/alerts, and set up what you would like to be alerted to news about.
It’s key here to use search terms which are definite and specific. I use a few tricks to ensure I only get alerted to what I’m interested in.
For example, if I wanted to receive alerts on Birmingham City, but not about Birmingham City University, or Birmingham City Council, and nothing from the Birmingham Mail, I’d use the following string as my search:
“Birmingham City” -university -council -birminghammail
If I only wanted to receive alerts when two specific things are named together, I’d use the plus symbol, to get something like:
“Birmingham City” + “Jude Bellingham”
When alerts are set up, email notifications are set up which email you with new results. This is why it’s important to make these as specific as possible otherwise you’ll be bombarded with irrelevant stuff.
The other kind of alerts I set up are with specific websites, which issue regulatory notices.
In my case, two good examples are Companies House and the HKSE. I’ve set up accounts with each which allow me to set up monitoring alerts for companies I’m interested in. This way, when a new announcement is made I receive an email to let me know that something has happened.
It’s definitely worth thinking about which regulatory bodies oversee the specific things you want to keep an eye on, and looking to see if they offer an alert system.
Sometimes, you might have to pay for it. I’m lucky in that I have access to a credit reference checker, which I use to notify me when changes in credit records happen. This is useful for dealing with UK companies which might be struggling with debts or similar.
Keep Notes and Documents
Again, this might seem like something obvious to mention but it’s a really important thing to do if one is conducting online research.
Whenever I’m looking into new things, I use the notes app on my Mac to make notes of people’s names that crop up when reading documents and information. I also copy down URLs so I can find stuff quickly again, along with things I want to think about in connection with what I’ve read.
I’ve found that by making notes like this, it helps me to remember names of people and companies. Then, when something new comes out that refers to a name I’ve come across, I’ve got more chance of being able to quickly cross reference it.
I do the same with documents.
I’ve got a file of maybe 100 or so company documents that I’ve built up. Some are absolutely relevant to what I’m working on, and some are more tangential documents I’ve downloaded to try and build a bigger picture.
Again, this has helped me with cross referencing new names and companies when new information comes out. It also helps me to cite research which I’ve published on my blog — which is important if you want credibility to be seen as factual.
A good thing to think about here is disaster recovery. I know that computers can get broken, that things can get wiped and for that reason, I keep my documents and notes in three separate locations. As well as keeping them on my PC, I also have them stored on a USB stick I keep in a secure location and on cloud drives secured with encryption. That might seem paranoid but I’m conscious that most stuff does until things go wrong.
Search in Multiple Languages
One of the biggest problems people have found when looking for information into Birmingham City is the fact that the owners are Chinese. Google Translate is a useful tool for reading documents, but how does one find information when it’s often not in English.
The first piece of advice I would offer is that while searching in English is the easiest thing to do, one should not rely on English results when looking for stuff in other languages because often most documentation and information isn’t translated.
It’s also key to understand that second and third party sources like business registers aren’t perfect for companies in locations such as the People’s Republic of China. The closer you can get to the original source, the better — something that is true with any documentation.
Before searching for something in a language which is not English, have a look to see if Google is the right search engine to be using. While Google is predominant in the English-speaking world, other languages do use other search engines. Examples of this are Yandex, which is very useful for Russian, and Baidu which is best for Chinese.
So now you know where to look, how do you look?
The easiest way is to use a direct translation of what you are searching for. For example, if I want to search for “Birmingham City” in Chinese, one might think to put “Birmingham City” into Google Translate, which would give you “伯明翰市”. This doesn’t work for what we want — and is where context is important.
“伯明翰市” literally means “the city of Birmingham”, which isn’t what we are looking for in this instance. So how do we find the proper translation of Birmingham City?
The easiest way I have for doing this is using Wikipedia. I navigate to the Birmingham City page, and then using the language tab on the left click the one for Chinese (which looks like 中文). I know the title of the page is “Birmingham City FC”, so I can leave the page in the original language and copy the title to get the correct Chinese transcription 伯明翰足球會.
This method of translation works for anyone or anything that is well known enough to have a page in both English and Chinese on Wikipedia. If you’re looking for someone who doesn’t have a page on both of these, it gets a little bit harder.
In this case, the next thing I do is to look if there are English and Chinese copies of the same documentation, which I can then put side by side. This works well for documents from the HKSE, as when there are English documents there are ALWAYS Chinese versions too.
An example of this was the recent piece I wrote about the new shareholders in Birmingham Sports Holdings. I wanted to search for the two new people in Chinese, but I only had the English versions of their names. I know enough Chinese to know that every syllable has many different pictograms associated with it, making it important to make sure I have the right ones.
English Version
Chinese Version
As you can see from these screenshots, I’m looking for the Chinese version of the name Jia Yuchuan.
I’ve matched up these two sections as being the same from the little bits of English available. I know that the name Jia Yuchuan appears in the paragraph which starts “Global Mineral”, so now I will copy that into Google Translate
Google Translate is useful because below the pictograms, I can see the text transliterated into English, in what is called “pinyin”.
I can see “jiayuchuan” in the pinyin, so I now delete the text slowly until I just have that showing
Because I know this is from the official document, I know that these are the correct pictograms for Jia Yuchuan. I can now use the copy/paste tool to add this to my notes, and to paste it into search bars to look for more information on this person.
A bigger problem occurs when you have a PDF which doesn’t allow you to copy paste the text. This requires a bit more thinking outside the box.
From a HK Company registry document
The above screenshot is from a HK Company registry document. I know that the name in Chinese is a transliteration of what it is in English, but it’s an image. I can’t copy the text — so what do I do now?
Luckily there are several tools online which can help. Using a pinyin to Simplified Chinese character converter such as this one, I can input the pinyin “Wang Feng” and then compare the characters it offers to the ones I’ve got.
pinyin to simplified Chinese
As shown above, I can see when I input “feng” the fifth character generated is the right one. I did this for both characters and quickly got “王蜂” which I can then use to search.
The worst situation to be in is if you have a Chinese name with no literal transliteration.
From HK Company registry
I know that the Chinese name for the business is not the same as the English one; these names do not transliterate and in this case I need those exact characters. How do I input them when I don’t speak Chinese very well and don’t know the Pinyin for them.
This is when you need a tool where you can draw the Chinese characters, such as this one.
“Wang”
My Chinese calligraphy leaves a lot to desired with a pen, let alone using a mouse, so this is extraordinarily hard and requires a lot of patience. However, as you can see, my version of the character for “wang” has shown up as the first character below. I can then copy paste that to my notes, and once I’ve got everything I’m ready to go with searching for stuff.
This is an example of how I do it in Chinese, and the logic process I used to find the search terms. While the tools might not be the same, the same logic process could be used to find stuff in other alphabets too.
Context
I’ve mentioned this before, but context is the absolute killer.
For example, in China there are 1.3billion people, but what feels like about 100 family names. There are about 92million people with the family name 王 (Wang), so you can imagine if you’re searching for a Mr Wang you have to properly check your info before assuming you have the right one.
This is why notes on peripheral people and businesses around your main target is important, as that will help to confirm that you’ve got the right person. Likewise, autobiographical data such as date of birth or passport numbers are excellent tools.
Businesses are the same. I’ve found so many Chinese businesses with the same name or partial name that I’ve given up in frustration when I’ve been looking for things. Using Chinese business reference sites like qcc.com helps because they delineate businesses by their registration numbers, helping you to make sure you’ve got the right one.
Conclusion
As I said at the start, online research is an absolute art form. It’s taken me more than ten years of practice and learning to get to the point I’m at now, and I’m still finding new tricks and ways of doing things.
If you are serious about looking for stuff online, take it seriously. Don’t assume that the first thing you’ve found is correct, and back up everything. I reckon for every one hour I spend writing, I’ve done three hours worth of research; for every one piece of research I’ve cited I’ve got another ten that are in the background.
I’ve not put this piece behind the Medium paywall, but if you’ve found it useful and want to donate you can use https://ko-fi.com/almajir to do so, or sign up to my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/almajir | https://medium.com/@almajir/so-you-want-to-find-stuff-online-fa651f033221 | [] | 2021-01-21 13:23:26.385000+00:00 | ['Birmingham City', 'Blogging Tips', 'Blogging', 'Online Research'] |
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