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SpaceX smashes records with the first ever human rocket launch since the Space Shuttle | NASA, together with SpaceX launched astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. Since 2011. According to NASA, this mission marks the beginning of a new era for human space flight.
SpaceX’s two-stage Falcon 9 rocket with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard blasted off on Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Pad 39A at 3:22 p.m. Eastern Time.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said: “What a great day for NASA, what a great day for SpaceX, and what a great day for the United States of America. It’s been nine years since we’ve launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil, and now we have done it again.”
The SpaceX Demo-2 launch was the first to occur on American astronauts from US soil since the Space Shuttle Program ended in 2011. This launch is also the first crewed flight ever by a private company.
SpaceX chief engineer Elon Musk stated: “I’d like to just acknowledge the incredible work of the people at SpaceX and NASA and everyone who created this technology — what has culminated in this incredible launch today, getting astronauts back to orbit after almost a decade.”
“It’s been 18 years working towards this goal. This is hopefully the first step on a journey towards civilization on Mars,” Musk said.
“We’re not celebrating yet,” Bridenstine admonished. “We will celebrate when they’re home safely.”
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station. Photo credit: Bill Ingalls
The mission, called “Demo-2”, is the final test flight before NASA certifies SpaceX’s capsule for regular crewed missions.
The astronauts Robert Behnken, 49, and Douglas Hurley, 53, former military test pilots who joined NASA in 2000, reached the International Space Station at 10:20 pm Eastern Time on Sunday. They will join US astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner embarked on the ISS for up to four months.
The reusable first booster stage of the Falcon 9 rocket separated flawlessly about 2.5 minutes after lift-off and landed on a drone ship off the Atlantic coast. The second stage also separated cleanly.
The launch had originally been scheduled for Wednesday but was called off because of the wild weather, which also remained uncertain on Saturday right until lift-off.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Photo credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
The Crew Dragon mission is a defining moment for SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002 with the goal of producing a lower-cost alternative to human space flight.
The US space agency paid more than $3 billion for SpaceX to design, build, test and operate its reusable Dragon capsule for future space trips. NASA has had to pay Russia for the Soyuz rockets to take the astronauts to space ever since the shuttle program ended.
SpaceX conducted a successful test flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS in March of 2019. The project has experienced failures — but even so, SpaceX has beaten its giant competitor Boeing to the punch. | https://medium.com/@mallaribrianjimgalima/spacex-smashes-records-with-the-first-ever-human-rocket-launch-since-the-space-shuttle-e33e680517f4 | ['Jim Mallari'] | 2020-06-06 08:43:09.525000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Space Travel', 'NASA', 'Space', 'Spacex'] |
Small Area Rugs to Hang on the Wall | Wall carpets were popular in the 1960s in the United States, and they haven’t altered much since then. There was a simple reason for the carpets on the walls, but it wasn’t attractive. Insulation was given with wall carpets. The practice, on the other hand, was not novel at the time. For ages, if you reside in a Middle Eastern region, you’ve probably seen ornately created tiny area rugs hung on walls. In the 16th century, the tendency expanded throughout the USA. Wall carpets quickly became a symbol of wealth and aristocracy in Concord CA.
Even while many mats manufactured in regions like Persia are regarded as art and have a high price tag, many people enjoy utilizing small pieces of carpet as wall decor. Small Area Rugs are appealing to the eye and are available in a variety of forms, sizes, and colors. Small area rugs are reasonably priced. Why not hang one on the wall to give some color and texture to a blank wall? This is an excellent suggestion. Because a large painting over the bed might be costly, consider adding a fashionable rug as a compliment. If your bed lacks a headboard, a small rug can be used to fill the void. It will also give the room a lot of color and texture.
Using Small Area Rugs to Layer.
The front porch is frequently used as an extension of the living room. On the front porch, a tiny accent rug goes far beyond the typical welcome mat. It can bind the furniture on the porch and the back deck together.
It will assist if you remember that outdoor carpets can be utilized indoors as well. Indoor rugs are not intended for outdoor use. Put an inviting rug under the rockers and a couple of matching pillows to make your front porch look like a postcard. Each season and holiday, change the accent rugs on your patio.
Layering with Small Area Rugs
Layering is a novel approach to embellish, but it may be utilized for a variety of purposes. Maybe you have a tiny rug that you adore, but it isn’t big enough to fit the room. Cover the area with a larger rug before adding the lovely rug on top.
Small Area Rugs Concord CA can be a cost-effective way to give a room a new look without having to replace the entire carpet. With a well-chosen brilliant accent rug, a carpet can hide a lot of things, including grape juice spills and pet accidents!
Rugs, like curtains, provide more than just a warm place to put your feet. They’re capable of much more. Rugs bring life to a room by adding color and texture. Small accent rugs allow you to enjoy your hardwood or tile floors while still having a rug in your home that adds class and sophistication. It’s also attractive because small area rugs complement the space. They’re also inexpensive and enjoyable to participate in. So go ahead and experiment with some of our fun small rug ideas, or find your own special spot for one. | https://medium.com/@ooptech123/small-area-rugs-to-hang-on-the-wall-366b3b22fd54 | [] | 2021-12-20 21:49:22.716000+00:00 | ['Furniture', 'Rugs', 'Lighting'] |
Designing a Good Spider Experience — Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Orb Weavers | Putting Design Back In
I had Caitlin and Cam pop over, and we got down to business.
First, I quizzed them both on their user base. We knew a lot of people on Facebook asked Caitlin about spiders. I asked Caitlin who exactly these people were.
“Worried mums and dads, sometimes kids, people who are just curious, and occasionally arachnologists” was the answer.
OK. Our user base was pretty broad — and the majority of them weren’t spider experts. This meant the app needed to:
Use simple language
Have biggish buttons for those little kiddy fingers
Pander to the spider aficionados out there. (Arachna-nados?)
However, the main focus of the app was to help the average Australian-slash-tourist identify whichever arachnid happened to be making itself comfortable in their bed. (Eep.)
I mapped out a simple user flow, and then asked Caitlin to have a go.
The benefit of mapping out these flows before you start designing is that you can figure out all of the things that need to go in the website or application, and all of the choices that the user needs to make. Then, you can carve off one bit at a time to design.
Here’s my flow:
Delicious boxes
And here is Caitlin’s:
We figured people might ask questions about the terminology — hence the box “What is habitat?” (Note: this is not what we actually put in the app)
We then spent some time on design-y stuff.
Visual hierarchy of information
When you look at any kind of content, it’s important to know which bits are the most important — or, which bits you want your users to look at first.
Let’s take a look at a spider description page. Remember, the aim for the majority of the population is to understand “What is this, and will it kill me?”
Check out the below image. Can you tell at a glance what this spider is — and if it’ll hurt?
There’s a cool Latin phrase there, and some science-y things, but will I die? I’m not sure
The largest text on the page above is the scientific name of the spider — so that’s where most people’s eyes are going to go first. Then, we’re greeted with a large image of the spider, and we don’t come across the spider’s common name — or what most people would call it — until halfway down the page. (A wolf spider — they have lovely reflective eyes!) The scientific name is also repeated, taking up valuable real estate on the screen.
In re-jigging this, I got very used to looking at images of spiders. Almost to the point of feeling…they’re kind of cute?
Anyway, here’s a screenshot of the page as how it looks today. What differences do you notice?
What a cutie!
The common name is now at the top of the page, followed by a key so you can understand how dangerous the spider’s bite is. Then if you’re a keen bean, you can swipe over to read more about the spider and it’s behaviours. So, we’ve catered to the multiple user groups here, while addressing the most important pieces of info first.
Accessibility
We then talked about making the app more accessible, in terms of colours used, language used, and the types of selectors and buttons.
Firstly, identifying and describing spiders sometimes uses language that’s not so common. We needed to think carefully about what words we were using to describe certain items in the flow to identify spiders.
For example, “habitat” might not be a super clear word depending on the age and educational background of the user. We ended up employing light-boxes to explain words like these:
Secondly, I wanted to ensure that the colours we used had enough contrast so that they were legible, and that the buttons and selectors we were using were large enough to be used by all kinds of fingers, and clearly differentiated in their purpose. So — that meant it was time for a style guide!
Creating a visual language
I wanted to ensure the designs had some level of consistency. The designs DO look different now, but here’s what I started off with as a way to explain consistent visual design. (Not the full shebang, but you get the idea):
The menu here has icons + words, as do the buttons. All prompts are explained.
These guidelines incorporated a few tips and tricks I’d picked up:
Putting words and icons together in the menu (not one or the other — the current version of the app does this when you click on the menu item)
Differentiating between checkboxes (to select multiple items) and radio buttons (to select single items)
Changing up the error messaging from red (which can be anxiety-inducing) to orange (less so). Turns out that’s not so easy to read on a white background.So, the error messaging is now white text on a black background. A nice little prompt instead of shouty red, which jumps out of the page.
Increasing the font sizes, and using colour, font weights, and underlines as a means to differentiate items.
A couple of the pages use sliders. The sliders are both tappable and slidable.
It’s important to note that these were very early stage designs — the designs have evolved since, as is normal with most projects.
The tools of the trade
After all that, I took these VERY simple designs that I’d whacked together in Sketch (praise be unto it), and showed Caitlin and Cam how to string them together using InVision. This meant they could then test simple flows without having to go to the effort of building the app. | https://medium.com/seek-blog/designing-a-good-spider-experience-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-orb-weavers-b9ff2d17b009 | ['Caylie Panuccio'] | 2019-06-21 00:40:16.904000+00:00 | ['Ux Design Process', 'UX Design', 'User Experience', 'Apps', 'UX'] |
Liquid Q3 Progress Report | By Mike Kayamori and Mario Gomez Lozada
We have made some monumental strides throughout the third quarter of this year. The company has expanded globally, increasing the number of staff and users worldwide. We completed the consolidation of our brands into Liquid and executed a number of highly anticipated releases. This should serve as a taster for what’s to come in Q4. We’re not even close to being done.
Company growth
At the heart of it all, the Quoine family has grown. We could not have achieved what we have without our growing number of exceptional employees. Quoine has gained 28 employees over the last three months, reaching a total of 319 staff. This number that wasn’t even double digits at the end of last year.
Launch of liquid.com
This was a BOOM moment, what every member of the community was waiting for: the launch of Liquid.com.
Liquid.com (“Liquid”) is our newly revamped our all in one global digital asset platform that provides trading and exchange services for G3 currencies, including Singapore and Australian dollars, to help bridge the worlds of traditional currencies and the exciting new frontier of cryptocurrencies. We aim to provide financial services to all in this new crypto economy, and that means working hand in hand with governments, regulators and other industry stakeholders to grow the crypto ecosystem in a safe and sustainable manner.
We officially launched Liquid on September 5. A little more than 24 hours before the launch, Quoinex and Qryptos were put into maintenance mode. Our developers worked tirelessly to merge the two exchanges and launch Liquid, ensuring all the new features were up and running. Liquid is now live and many more features are coming.
Liquid means liquidity. The World Book and the Multi-Market Orderbook (MMO) come hand in hand with Liquid. Upon launch, the World Book was switched on for select pairs — BTC, ETH and BCH with fiat pairings. We have noticed a significant decrease in spreads on these pairs. The success of the initial World Book stage is promising and allows us to move forward with additional pairs in Q4.
The new Lending app was also released, allowing Liquid users to lend their holdings to margin traders. For doing so, you have the opportunity to earn interest. It’s a great way to put your assets to work.
New deposit feature
Our vision is to facilitate financial inclusion. In July we introduced deposit automation for EUR via our banking partner, Mistertango. If the bank account of the sender is at Mistertango we accept the deposit for 0 fees, and if the account is not at Mistertango the fee is just 0.99 EUR.
ICOs and token listings
Throughout Q3 we continued to innovate and adapt our ICO platform, hosting a number of successful token sales. ICOs were hosted on Qryptos in July and August, moving to Liquid in September.
In July we hosted three private sales: FanChain (FANZ), Mfun (MFUN), and Cosplay (COT).
In August we had two public sales: Cosplay (COT) and Bryllite (BRC). Bryllite was the first ICO to sell out on our platform. It was a proud moment when Bryllite managed to sell all 5 million BRC tokens in less than three weeks. We extend our congratulations to the Bryllite team, and look forward to working together in the future.
Three ICOs began on Liquid in September, two of which are ongoing. XAYA ICO has now successfully concluded, while iCash and Asobi are still active.
We listed a total of 16 tokens in Q3, including our partners LendingBlock (LND), the first ICO on ICO Mission Control Vuulr (VUU), and our first sell-out ICO Bryllite (BRC).
ICO platform development
Towards the end of the quarter we took a big step forward with our ICO platform. The platform was initially created to provide a safe and easy way to invest in vetted ICOs. As a result, we are always exploring ways we can further streamline and improve the process.
Liquid users can now invest in ICOs directly with USD, which further streamlines the ICO process.
Token issuers can set soft caps for all ICOs on Liquid, which adds another blanket of investor protection. If the ICO doesn’t reach the soft cap, you receive your investment back in full.
Token issuers can now choose to enforce a token lock up to ensure nobody can take unfair advantage of their bonuses.
Finally, we give token issuers complete flexibility over the funds they raise, and we have extended this service to include USD settlement. Issuers can choose to convert their funds into BTC, ETH and USD based on their needs.
Showing Liquid to the world
Marketing began ramping up with the launch of Liquid, and we scaled up our brand awareness efforts of Liquid throughout the entire quarter. Team members have been speaking at or attending conferences, and hosting meetups throughout the three months.
Quoine CEO Mike Kayamori was live on CNBC discussing the important topic of cryptocurrency regulation.
Liquid has appeared on numerous crypto news websites, including Coindesk and Cointelegraph, and we’ve been working with a number of influencers to raise the awareness of our Liquid branding, covering everything from exchange reviews on Youtube and autobiographical interviews, to podcasts and blog interviews with CxOs.
We have been making noise at crypto and tech events around the globe, with a number of our CxOs having the honour of contributing to insightful panel discussions. CEO Mike Kayamori spoke at The World Economic Forum and DRW’s Cumberland Summit, Head of CEO Office Katsu Konno was part of a panel discussion at FINSUM, Head of Global Marketing Katherine Ng partook in a panel at The World Blockchain Summit, and Chief Design Officer Jon Myers spoke at Block Hedge Bangkok, to name a few.
Beyond this, we have attended numerous conferences and events. Consensus Singapore was the most notable event, which we followed up with an industry networking event to celebrate the launch of Liquid. Please watch our video below for behind the scenes action!
Liquid Distributed Ledger
Work has begun on the Liquid Distributed Ledger (LDL). Internally we have decided the route the LDL will be taking. Quoine CTO Ray Hennessey is leading the development of the LDL and he will have a significant update on progress to share with the community shortly.
The LDL is going to solve a number of problems to bring our centralized exchange to the next level. Once the Liquid platform is fully integrated with the LDL, our users will continue to experience the speed of a central database, maintaining your current trading experience. Meanwhile, the inherent trust of the public ledger will dramatically increase the transparency of Liquid. | https://medium.com/quoineglobal/liquid-q3-progress-report-f4d3574eb3da | [] | 2019-02-20 12:55:50.589000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Products', 'Blockchain'] |
When You Came Along | When You Came Along
For My Son On Mother’s Day
I wanted you but didn’t expect you.
Nine months dragged, a constant trudge up a neverending steep peak. I wanted to stop. Just let me rest for a second, I can’t catch my breath.
And then you were here and I was dropped into a sharp, sudden abyss. Where was my mountain and why would I have ever thought of complaining?
When you came along, everyone ooohhhh and ahhhhed. Isn’t he beautiful? I couldn’t point out the contorted shape your face made when you screamed loudly into the night. Or the fear and loneliness I felt at two in the morning, when only the devils and monsters were awake. I think you were both of them combined.
I sometimes cried quietly in the gliding motion of our chair. Why did no one warn me? Not one word. How could my life disappear so rapidly? When we left the apartment that September night, I was carefree and light, despite the heaviness of your hidden body. We arrive home with the weight of a family wrapping around my neck and pulling me down.
When you came along, I didn’t realize I would melt at that first glimpse of a smile that only I saw. I didn’t understand how I could abruptly be willing to throw myself in front of a truck for you and yet, feel the boiling rage of a dragon stir when you screamed frantically at three in the morning.
Did I realize my intense hatred for playdoh before you came along? Hours and hours of playing with that unique smelling doughy substance. I worked tirelessly to make you the perfect alligator and felt the bright smile warm my tired body as you screamed happily and reached for him. Could it have really only taken twenty minutes for my beautiful alligator to become a formless gray clump of nothing?
I never knew you’d push me off center stage. It was no longer my show. I would even be skipped over for best-supporting actress and forced to stand behind the curtain. I could watch. Only watch. I did so by myself as you and your sister pranced and performed with your father close by, still the star of his own stage.
I stood alone.
When you came along, random vacations lost their meaning. There were spring breaks and summer vacations and Christmas time. How did I wind up in the Everglades on an airboat and why was it so beautiful to watch your face jump with happiness as the wind rushed through your hair? Late in the evening, you leaned into me as we watched High School Musical for the fifth time and everything was gentle and blue.
I never realized, when you came along, the sharp stab to the heart that came from the words I’d rather go with my friends. My solo performance on stage was being queued up and I didn’t want it anymore. I wanted to ask you to stay. I wanted to help you leave. I cried quietly in the night again, missing that soft-haired little boy who loved me most of all.
When you came along, I’d never thought you’d leave. I wanted you to, I needed you to. I wanted to beg you to stay forever. I didn’t want to be back on center stage. It’s all for you, my baby boy. I didn’t know those new questions would hurt, the inquiries of So, what are you going to do now? How could I say that I didn’t know, I wasn’t ready?
I want you to run out with your little sister in the soft silence of a Christmas Eve night to throw magical food for the reindeers. I want to hold your slick soft body that tries so hard to learn how to dog paddle and soothe you as you cry over the water that snuck up your nose. I want to laugh at your completely inappropriate fourteen-year-old jokes and smile at the hidden beer bottle I found in the garage.
When you came along, I didn’t realize that I was happier as a We until the moment the I knocked at my door.
And now I know that when you came along, magic became possible again and nothing was more beautiful than watching the world through your eyes. | https://medium.com/lit-up/when-you-came-along-c942c5cd7dd1 | ['Emma Poe'] | 2019-05-06 21:40:36.628000+00:00 | ['Motherhood', 'Relationships', 'Family', 'Mothers Day', 'Creative Non Fiction'] |
Building a data pipeline using BeautifulSoup, Apache Kafka, Apache Spark Streaming and MySQL | Here is a little fun side project to help you get your feet wet with Apache Kafka and Apache Streaming and at the same time give you a little overview of how different tools can work together to provide real world value.
We are going to build a simple web scrapper to get products data from amazon.com and push them into Kafka. After that a Spark job is going to read it from Kafka, do some simple processing and then save the result in a MySQL database.
Image by Юрий Коврижных from Pixabay
Before we start it is important to set up the scope of this article. This article will not show how to:
Download and install Apache Kafka, Apache Spark or MySQL
Download and install pyspark, kafka-python or beautifulsoup
All the code used can be found in this repo.
And with that said here we go.
The Scrapper
If you haven’t guess it by now, we are going to use Python for this one. One of the most popular libraries in python used for parsing html is BeautifulSoup.
Imagine for now that we have downloaded the web page and saved it in a variable -we will get to the downloading part later-. we pass the page to the BeautifulSoup function
soup = BeautifulSoup(htmlFile, 'lxml')
I have ran across some problems with the html.parser -it didn’t catch some elements-, that’s is why I used lxml. It is worth mentioning that lxml is also faster that html.parser and other parsers.
If you haven’t inspected the html code of an amazon.com page before, let me tell you that you are in for a treat. divs inside divs, lists inside lists that you would easily feel overwhelmed -at least I did-. After searching through lines of code and with a little help from Google chrome’s inspect element tool. I realized that the title of the product is always placed in a span with the id ‘productTitle’. so if we do this then we will get the title
soup.find("span", attrs={"id":'productTitle'}).string.strip()
similarly, if we searched for div with id ‘productDescription’, we will find a p element inside it with the product description
soup.find('div',attrs={'id':'productDescription'}).find('p').string.strip()
So far so good
For the product rating, we have to get a bit clever. The main rating is an icon of stars, we want to get the alternative text which is the rating in text. But the text is something like ‘4.2 out of 5 stars’. A simple split based on the white spaces will solve that problem for us.
soup.find(attrs={'id':'averageCustomerReviews'}).find("span", attrs={'class':'a-icon-alt'}).string.strip().split()[0]
what about the product categories ?. well there is no single element in the page that list the categories. But up high at the top there are some links used for navigating
Amazon saves the categories of the product in some strange places
This can work for us. I have chose to get all the categories and put all of them in a single string separate by commas. Using chrome’s inspect element tool have lead me to know exactly which element to look for. For better maintainability, I decided to make it a function
def GetCategories(div): categories = ','.join([ e.string.strip() for e in div.find_all(['li','a'],attrs={'class':'a-link-normal'})]) return categories
with the call of the function being
GetCategories(soup.find(attrs={'id':'wayfinding-breadcrumbs_feature_div'}))
Lastly, the product prices. This was a bit tricky as there was two ways Amazon displayed prices. First there was the simple and easy way of displaying it directly on the same page
The price is right under the title. And they are nice enough to display the Fees next to it
And then there is the hard way. you see, for some products there are multiple offers and prices.
Multiple prices are handled differently
These prices are not stored on the same page. They are stored in another page which is loaded when the above link is clicked
Multiple prices to choose from
So we need to write a function to look for the price right under the title, if it isn’t there then follow the link and get the prices from there. And since we already downloaded an extra page I figured I should retrieve all the prices and join them in one string separated by a delimiter.
Note that it is possible that you find both ways in some products. In this case I choose to take the easy way and extract the one on the same page.
I also felt that a good try/except is needed for this function specially.
def GetPrices(soup): try: if soup.find('div',attrs={'id':re.compile('olp-upd-new')}) == None: if soup.find('div',attrs={'id':'price'}) == None: exit return '#'.join([soup.find('div',attrs={'id':'price'}).find('span',attrs={'id':'priceblock_ourprice'}).string]) link = soup.find('div',attrs={'id':re.compile('olp-upd-new')}).find('a',attrs={'class':'a-link-normal'})['href'] webPage = DownloadPage('https://www.amazon.com'+link) miniSoup = BeautifulSoup(webPage,'lxml').body productPrices = [e.find('span',attrs={'class':'olpOfferPrice'}).string.strip() for e in miniSoup.find_all('div',attrs={'class':'olpOffer'})] return '#'.join(productPrices) except Exception as e: print(e)
And how do we exactly download a webpage ?. It is not that hard. We just use the requests package with some header and voila
def DownloadPage(link): header = ({'User-Agent':'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.121 Safari/537.36',\ 'Accept-Language':'en-US, en;q=0.5'}) webPage = requests.get(link,headers=header) return webPage.content
Now our little scrapper is almost finished. Just missing extracting the URLs of the similar products and adding them to a link so that it can go forever. well actually not forever. You see Amazon like any company out there wants to protect its websites from cyber attacks. So after around 50-ish request amazon.com will deny every request you sent saying something like ‘please use our API instead of crawling our website’. So what would we do ?. Nothing. Just lie down and accept your fate. After all this is just a demo.
Where were we ?. ah yes extracting the URLs of the similar products
def GetProducts(soup): links = [] for div in soup.find_all('div',attrs={'id':'similarities_feature_div'}): if div.find('ol',class_='a-carousel') != None: for e in div.find('ol',class_='a-carousel').find_all('a',attrs={'class':'a-link-normal'}): if len(e['class']) == 1: links.append(e['href']) return links
The Kafka Producer
Writing a Kafka producer is really simple all you have to do is just write two three lines
producer = KafkaProducer() producer.send('amazon', pickle.dumps(product))
The first line is the producer deceleration. Usually you pass the list of bootstrap servers as an argument but if you left it empty it will default to localhost:9092 which is exactly what I have.
The second line is the send method which you pass the name of the topic and the array of bytes you want to send. You can pass a key also but I don’t need to.
The topic is ‘amazon’. And for the array of bytes there are plenty of options for us to send all the data we extracted. What I chose is to put everything in a dictionary and serialize it using pickle.
Just a quick note, the send method in the producer is asynchronous. That is good for performance but make sure you flush before closing the program.
The Spark Job
For the streaming part, we will use the new structured streaming API. This has the benefit of using the same functions and methods as the structured batch processing API as you will see.
First lets define the spark session
spark = SparkSession.builder.master('local[2]').appName('StreamingDemo').getOrCreate()
Then we read from our Kafka source
df = spark.readStream.format('kafka')\ .option('kafka.bootstrap.servers','localhost:9092')\ .option('subscribe','amazon')\ .load()
The dataframe read will contain columns like value, key, timestamp …etc. What we care about is the value column. However, there is a problem. The value column carries the serialized data received from the Kafka server. We know that we can use pickle’s load method to deserialize it, but how can we use it on a dataframe ?. The answer is to use it inside a user-defined function.
deser = udf(lambda x: pickle.loads(x),MapType(StringType(),StringType()))
Great. So we add a column to our dataframe with the deserialized value
deserlizedDF = df.withColumn('map',deser(df['value']))
Then we use that dataframe to extract the columns from the deserialized dictionary.
parsedDF = deserlizedDF.withColumn('title',element_at('map','productTitle'))\ .withColumn('Categories',element_at('map','productCategories'))\ .withColumn('Rating',element_at('map','productRating'))\ .withColumn('Description',element_at('map','productDescription'))\ .withColumn('Prices',element_at('map','productPrices'))\
Assume that we want to extract the minimum and maximum prices which a product have. First we would split the prices string, then have to cast all the elements into float so that we can compare between them. Numerical comparison is the correct way of comparison as string comparison will return that 8.99 is larger that 20.99.
.withColumn('Min_Price',array_min(split(element_at('map','productPrices'),r'#*\$').cast(ArrayType(FloatType()))))\ .withColumn('Max_Price',array_max(split(element_at('map','productPrices'),r'#*\$').cast(ArrayType(FloatType()))))
The regular expression used to split may look weird because it is used to both split the string and remove the $ before every price. And that is a good reminder to check the data at the source before sending them to Kafka to save some useless transformations afterwards.
Lastly, we select only the data we care about from the dataframe
projectedDF = parsedDF.select('title','Categories','Rating','Prices','Min_Price','Max_Price')
What is left now is saving the result into the MySQL database. Spark structured streaming support many targets or sinks as they call it directly. But databases are not one of them -I know, shocking !!!-. It still enables you to write the result of your stream to a database but not directly.
Let me explain
Additionally to the many sinks Spark provide directly, it provides two methods to use for other sinks. foreach and foreachBatch. foreach deals with each row appended to the stream, while foreachBatch deals with each batch. We pass a function to both methods to handle the data we receive. In our case using foreach feels like a bit of an overkill, so I chose foreachBatch
result = projectedDF.writeStream.foreachBatch(foreach_jdbc_writer).start()
The function passed to the foreachBatch will receive a dataframe repesenting the batch and a unique id for the batch. It is inside this function that we use the dataframe object to write the data into the MySQL database
def foreach_jdbc_writer(df,epoch_id): df.write.\ jdbc(url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/world",table="amazon_products",mode='append',properties={"driver":"com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver","user":"ahmed"})
Finally we added the one line you should never forget in a Spark streaming job
result.awaitTermination()
Also don’t forget adding
--packages org.apache.spark:spark-sql-kafka-0-10_2.12:3.0.1 --jars mysql-connector-java-8.0.20.jar
to your Spark Application call.
And That’s it. Fire your Spark job and you scrapper and enjoy a cup of coffee while your scrapper indulge on an adventure in the land of amazon.com .But make it instant coffee as it will be a short adventure.
See you Space Cowboy | https://medium.com/@ahmedshaaban1999/building-a-data-pipeline-using-beautifulsoup-apache-kafka-apache-spark-streaming-and-mysql-403cd415d46c | ['Ahmed Shaaban'] | 2020-12-26 08:10:47.293000+00:00 | ['Etl', 'Data Engineering', 'Apache Spark', 'Apache Kafka', 'Beautifulsoup'] |
How I forgave my husband’s cheating | How I forgave my husband’s cheating
And how that helped me move on with my life
Photo by Yingchih on Unsplash
It was April. Two weeks after my mastectomy. My husband’s mom was in hospice. She was dying. Should he fly to Iowa to see her?
He was torn. He wanted to see his mother but didn’t want to leave me. I couldn’t lift my arm or carry anything with it. I needed help dressing, combing my hair…
I told him, “Go. It’s your mother.” Thanks to my own mother, neighbors and friends, I would be fine.
He spent 2 days with his mother, then came home. The day after he was back, she died.
If that was all there was to the story, we wouldn’t have gotten a divorce.
Unfortunately, while he was visiting his mother, they decided to go through old photo albums. Innocuous enough, right?
In those albums he saw pictures of his first wife. His first love. A woman who still had both her breasts.
I don’t think he consciously planned what happened next. But he called her. They shared memories of happier times. Soon he was talking to her for hours each day.
I wasn’t paying much attention since I was dealing with pain and recovery. I’d been prescribed an incredible 160 mg per day of Oxycontin. I needed it for several weeks after my surgery.
As I recovered, I had to wean myself off the drug. That was a challenge. Oxycontin is addictive and I had withdrawal symptoms. I’d get the shakes and chills. So yeah, I wasn’t too focused on what my husband was doing.
Which made it easier for him to have am emotional affair.
It hit me like a bullet when he announced he wanted a divorce. I was devastated. I had thought our marriage was happy. Ironically, he agreed with that assessment.
When he told me he wanted a divorce, I asked, “Aren’t you happy in our marriage? Don’t you love me?”
The words of a confused and sad person.
He replied, “Yes, I do still love you and yes, I have been happy in our marriage. But this is my first love. I need to see if I can make it work with her.”
When I realized he was serious, I told him, “Alright, if that’s what you want, I’m not going to fight it. But please realize, once you walk out that door, I am not taking you back. Once our marriage is over, it’s over.”
He left. Ironically enough, 2 years later he did ask for me to take him back. But it was too late…
However, in the immediate aftermath… I was angry. I was upset. I was sad.
I called friends for support. They comforted me over wine, bruschetta, ice cream. I went through a box of tissues. I yelled at God and cried on my mother and my dog. I did force myself to be sane long enough to call an attorney and a locksmith. I did both those things the day after my ex-husband left.
After about a month, I was ready to move on with my life.
I had worked through a lot of the anger and grief and had pretty much forgiven him. Of course, as another year’s worth of therapy showed me, there was still residual bitterness to work through. But it wasn’t a huge reservoir.
When I started dating again (which I did a month to the day after he left) men remarked how much they appreciated the fact that I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder. Apparently many divorced women are angry and bitter. Who woulda thunk? Well, I hate to break it to the guys — divorced men can be just as bad, if not worse.
But that’s neither here nor there.
The important thing was that I had forgiven my ex. Because I was able to move forward without hatred in my heart towards him, I reaped many benefits.
We paid less than $200 for our divorce. We remained friendly. I was able to start dating again and enjoy it. I’ve moved forward with my life and in many ways it’s better now than it ever was.
So… how did I do it? How did I forgive my ex?
It’s actually both the simplest and also the most difficult thing in the world.
It’s called empathy.
I put myself in his shoes.
I don’t mean just a little bit. I really forced myself to imagine I was him. What had his life been like?
Two years before he left me, we lost our cat. For those who are not animal lovers that might not seem like a big deal, but it was devastating for us. She was a very special part of our lives, having been with us since the early days of our marriage.
8 months later, my ex lost his father.
Then I was re-diagnosed with cancer. I had a tumor the size of a grapefruit and the doctor’s prognosis was grim.
Then his mother got abdominal cancer. It was inoperable. She was admitted to hospice while I scheduled my mastectomy.
During all of this time — he was my rock. I tried to emotionally support him, but, particularly after my cancer came back, he wanted to be there for me and insisted on taking the role of caretaker.
In vain I suggested therapy. He wouldn’t do it.
I tried to imagine what he was going through. I put myself in his shoes.
I cannot justify what he did. I can’t say it’s OK to cheat on your spouse. But… I can understand why he did it. I understand his pain and his struggle.
And that’s enough. | https://shefaliohara.medium.com/how-i-forgave-my-husbands-cheating-c3d09b78e98b | ["Shefali O'Hara"] | 2020-06-15 12:29:58.892000+00:00 | ['Marriage', 'Divorce', 'Relationships', 'Forgiveness', 'Love'] |
Using unsupervised machine learning to uncover hidden scientific knowledge | It has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace at which new scientific literature is published. It might take months for an individual researcher to do an extensive literature review even on a single topic. What if a machine could read all of the papers ever published on the specific topic in minutes and tell the scientists the best way forward? Well, we are still very far from that, but our research described below suggests a novel approach to utilize the scientific literature for materials discovery with minimal human supervision.
In order for a computer algorithm to make use of natural language, words need to be represented in some mathematical form. In 2013, authors of the algorithm called Word2vec [1, 2] found an interesting way to automatically learn such representations from a large body of text. Words that appear in similar contexts in the text often have similar meanings. Hence, if a neural network is trained to predict the neighbouring words of a target word, it will learn similar representations for similar target words. They showed that individual words can be efficiently represented as high dimensional vectors (embeddings), and that semantic relationships between the words can be represented as linear vector operations (See here for a tutorial explaining Word2vec in more detail). One famous example of such a semantic relationship is the expression
“king” - “queen” ≈ “man” - “woman” (1),
where the subtraction is performed between the vectors of the corresponding words. This semantic relationship between the pairs of words on both sides of (1) represents the concept of gender.
Figure 1: Analogies between pairs of words are captured by linear operations between the corresponding embeddings. Figure on the right borrowed from [3].
Naturally, if instead of common text sources such as common crawl or Wikipedia we use purely scientific text, which in our case [3] was several million materials science abstracts, these vector operations embed more specialised knowledge. For instance,
“ZrO2” - “Zr” ≈ “NiO” - “Ni”,
where the above expressions represents the concepts of an oxide.
Another example of a semantic relationship is word similarity, determined by the dot product (projection) of the embeddings. In the original Word2vec model, words “large” and “big” have vectors that are close to each other (have a large dot product) but far from the vector for “Armenia”. In our specialised model, the most similar word to “LiCoO2” is “LiMn2O4” — both of these are lithium-ion battery cathode materials. In fact, if we project ≈12,000 most popular materials (more than 10 mentions in the text) on a 2D plane using t-SNE [4], we find that materials mostly cluster according to their applications and compositional similarity.
Figure 2: Materials used for similar applications as well as with similar chemical compositions cluster together. The most common elements in each “application cluster” match our materials science knowledge. Each chart on the bottom is obtained by counting chemical elements in the compositions of the materials from the corresponding application clusters. Figure borrowed from [3].
Now, we can do something even more fun and colour the “materials map” in the top left corner of Figure 2 according to a particular application. Each dot corresponding to a single material can be coloured according to the similarity of its embedding with the embedding of the application word, e.g. “thermoelectric” (a word used to describe heat to electricity conversion, and vice versa).
Figure 3: Materials “light up” according to their similarity to the application keyword. Figure borrowed from [3].
As many of you might have guessed, the brightest spots in the figure above are well known thermoelectric materials explicitly mentioned in the scientific abstracts alongside the word “thermoelectric”. However, some other bright spots have never been studied as thermoelectrics, so the algorithm is indicating a relationship that is not explicitly written in the text. The question is, can these materials be good thermoelectrics that are yet to be discovered? Surprisingly enough, the answer is YES!
One of the several ways we tested this hypothesis was by training word embeddings as if we were still in the past. We removed scientific abstracts published between years 2000 and 2018 one year at a time, and trained 18 different models. We used each of these models to rank materials according to their similarity† to the word “thermoelectric” (the intensity of the colour in Figure 3), and took the top 50 that were not studied as thermoelectrics as of that year. It turns out, many of these materials were subsequently reported as thermoelectrics in future years, shown in the figure below.
Figure 4: If we went to the past one year at a time and made prediction using only the data available at that time, many of them would have come true by now. Each grey line corresponds to the predictions for a given year, and the solid red and blue lines are averaged across all prediction years. Figure borrowed from [3].
In fact, one of the top 5 predictions in 2009 would have been CuGaTe2, which is considered to be one of the best present day thermoelectrics discovered only in 2012. Interestingly, while our manuscript [3] was in preparation and in review, 3 out of the 50 predictions we made with all of the available abstracts were also reported as good thermoelecrics.
So, how does this all work? We can get some clues by looking at the context words of the predicted materials, and see which of these context words have high similarities both with the material and the application keyword “thermoelectric”. Some of the top contributing context words for 3 of our top 5 predictions are shown below.
Figure 5: Context words for 3 of our top 5 predictions that contribute the most to the predictions. The width of the connect lines is proportional to cosine similarities between the words. Figure borrowed from [3].
Effectively, the algorithm captures context words (or, more precisely, combinations of context words) that are important for a material to be a thermoelectric. As materials scientists, we know that for instance chalcogenides (a class of materials) are often good thermoelectrics and that the presence of a band gap is crucial most of the time. We see how the algorithm has learnt this using co-occurrences of the words. The graph above captures only the first order connections, but higher order connections could also be contributing to the predictions.
For scientific applications, natural language processing (NLP) is almost always used as a tool to extract the already known facts from the literature, rather than to make predictions. This is different from other areas such as stock value predictions, where, for instance, news articles about the company are analysed to predict how the value of its stock will change in the future. But even then, most of the methods feed the features extracted from the text into other, larger models that use additional features from structured databases. We hope that the ideas described here will encourage direct, unsupervised NLP - driven inference methods for scientific discovery. Word2vec is not the most advanced NLP algorithm, so a natural next step could be its substitution with more novel, context aware embeddings such as BERT [5] and ELMo [6]. We also hope that since the methods described here require minimal human supervision, researchers from other scientific disciplines will be able to use them to accelerate machine-assisted scientific discoveries.
Notes
†A crucial step in obtaining good predictions was to use output embeddings (output layer of the Word2vec neural network) for materials and word embedding (hidden layer of the Word2vec neural network) for the application keyword. This effectively translates to predicting co-occurrences of words in the abstracts. Therefore, the algorithm is identifying potential “gaps” in the research literature, such as chemical compositions that researchers should study in the future for functional applications. See the supplementary materials of the original publication for more details.
The code we used for Word2vec training and the pre-trained embeddings are available at https://github.com/materialsintelligence/mat2vec. The default hyperparameters in the code are the ones used in this study. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-unsupervised-machine-learning-to-uncover-hidden-scientific-knowledge-6a3689e1c78d | ['Vahe Tshitoyan'] | 2019-07-03 21:24:02.462000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Materials Science', 'Science', 'Towards Data Science', 'NLP'] |
Must to Do for Lawn Care in All Seasons | As all the seasons begin and end, there is no set time to make your lawn look shiny and bright. The important thing is the health of your yard. The following will offer tips to take care of your garden at all times.
Hire a Top Lawn Service Provider
The hired company will do a proper inspection and will take stock of things about what is happening with your lawn. They will discuss with you on matters like organic and nutrient content, soil PH, etc. If you begin the task, then you will have your lawn stabilized and ready for spring the next year.
Feed the Grass
Grass needs a refill after facing tough and rough summers. Using high nitrogen fertilizer before the snow falls can protect the grass. Your service guy will take care of the fertilizer requirements as they have the expertise and knowledge to make a yard look good.
Use Seeds in Thin Areas of the lawn
When the fall period begins, now is the time to over-seed the park in those areas lacking ground growth. Based on your geographical area, you need to use seedlings. To avoid blunders, recommended is to get the best results. If your location is Toronto, then Landscape Toronto can help you under its grass cutting service Toronto.
Repair Damaged Lawn Areas
As overseeding is necessary, soil inspection plays its part. According to soil problems, you need to take measures.
Dethatch Lawn
Thatching the leftover post grass cutting is necessary. It may be residual for the soil, but when it’s excess, it becomes an obstruction, preventing water and sunlight from reaching the grass. Dethatching creates room for the grass to settle. Remove all sorts of debris from the ground.
Bring Blocked Air to Soil
Air is necessary for the soil. It prevents the earth from clumps with also allowing the land to undergo metabolic activity. Various tools are used to aerate the soil like shovel, rake, garden, powered machines. All these help in handling the aeration tasks well.
Water the Soil
Watering helps prepare the soil. To make the grass fresh, water it after two weeks, and for warm grass, water it every week even if the rain falls.
Cut Grass Regularly
Grass cutting should be done regularly to prevent fungal growth, primarily when winter is arising.
Thrash Out the Grass Weeds
Weeds are a big no in the grass. It hampers the reach of food, space, water, and sunlight. Plants need to be pulled out from their roots or use herbicides for the same.
To ensure your grass survives in every season, you have to prepare in advance. So necessary is to follow the above to make your outer surroundings look beautiful. | https://medium.com/@landscapetoronto980/must-to-do-for-lawn-care-in-all-seasons-91e58e593970 | ['Landscape Toronto'] | 2019-10-24 03:57:41.122000+00:00 | ['Toronto', 'Grass', 'Cutting', 'Brampton'] |
Linux’ta Initramfs Hatası Nasıl Düzeltilir? | 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/asnus/linuxta-initramfs-hatas%C4%B1-nas%C4%B1l-d%C3%BCzeltilir-cc0a89560a | ['İhsan Sunman'] | 2020-12-27 09:28:55.153000+00:00 | ['Initramfs', 'Error', 'Linux'] |
What will be the exact number of deaths due to corona in India? | What will be the exact number of deaths due to corona in India? Mr. GN Jun 1·12 min read
Will we ever know how many people have died due to corona in India. Depending on the different models, the number of people who die from the corona increases to six lakhs instead of three lakhs and also goes up to 42 lakhs. Reporters of different media institutions are going to the villages and checking the death toll, then they are seeing that the government figure is very less. When will the game stop tell six lakh deaths to three lakhs and instead of 40 thousand deaths to four thousand?
Will we ever know how many people have died due to corona in India. Depending on the different models, the number of people who die from the corona increases to six lakhs instead of three lakhs and also goes up to 42 lakhs. Reporters of different media institutions are going to the villages and checking the death toll, then they are seeing that the government figure is very less. When will the game stop tell six lakh deaths to three lakhs and instead of 40 thousand deaths to four thousand? The latest estimate on the website of Washington University’s Institute of health metrics and evaluation is that the death toll from Kovid in India could be more than 9 lakh. Similarly, the New York Times, along with a dozen experts, has presented three estimates. According to this, the number of deaths from covid in India so far will be at least six lakhs, fat maybe 1.5 lakhs and maximum can be up to 42 lakhs. None of the models is close to the government figures, but at least one and a half times or twice that.
Lazaro Gamio and James Glanz have based their data on all three serosurveys in India for this. The official number of infected patients in India is 2 crore 72 lakhs and the official number of deaths is slightly more than 3 lakhs. If the New York Times has estimated on the basis of at least, then the number of infected patients in India is seen to be more than 400 million and the death toll is 6 lakh. According to the newspaper, the number which seems to be fitting is that it seems to be more than 53 crores and then the death toll will be 16 lakhs. Now the third estimate has been made on the basis of worst to worst condition. According to this, more than 70 crores would have been infected and the death toll could be 42 lakhs.
In many countries, there have been questions on the number of people who died from the corona. Regarding the statistics of India, it is being seen not only in the outside university but also with suspicion here. People are also noting that the government figures are low. If the credibility of the official number was the same, then Prime Minister Modi would not be late, it is necessary to say that even if the number is high, the state government should tell it. Ashish Gupta, Ph.D. student of the University of Pennsylvania, and Murad Banaji of Middlesex University London have also done a study on Gujarat. His article has been published in the Hindu newspaper. The official figures of Gujarat are that 9,665 people have died due to Kovid in a year. But Ashish Gupta and Murad Banaji estimate that the total number of people killed by Kovid in the last 71 days can go up to 82,500. Where ten thousand in a year and were more than 82 thousand in 71 days. How much will the government hide the data?
Ashish and Murad have estimated the death toll based on the reporting of Dainik Bhaskar and Divya Bhaskar. Recently, according to Divya Bhaskar, 1 lakh 23 thousand deaths have been registered for death certificates in Gujarat between March 1 and May 10. This number of registrations in these 71 days is much more than the number of the same time last year. Last year between March 1 and May 10, 58000 deaths were registered. Even then there was a wave of Kovid. Along with this number, Ashish and Banaji drew the average number of registration of deaths in Gujarat between 2015 and 2018 and found that 40,000 deaths were more than what was estimated this year. While the government says that only 4200 people died during this period. Divya Bhaskar has told that 20 percent of those who died this year were below 25 years. Ashish and Murad saw that in 2018, the death rate of youth under 25 years was 15. So there is an increase of ten percent in this category. Ashish Gupta is doing a Ph.D. in the Department of Demography and Sociology and Murad Banaji is a lecturer in Mathematics.
Ashish and Murad have written that the death toll from Kovid is also not reliable because many times the doctor of the hospital does not write the Covid reason even after dying from Kovid. The deaths that are happening in homes are not being counted.
How many corpses were shed in the rivers and they were rejected in the name of tradition. These bodies are from Bihar or UP, it was debated but whether they died from Kovid or not, it was not counted. Not only this, it is being investigated as to why the yellow sheets are being removed from the bodies buried on the banks of Prayagraj, Chief Minister Adityanath tweets that they were buried the same three years ago. But no one is telling how many of these have died due to Kovid. If there is a tradition then why three years ago, there can be a picture of every year, has this tradition been seen only in the months of March and April? These pictures should answer the question of whether these bodies are of Kovid or not. Only deaths in hospitals are being counted, questions are also being raised on that.
The New York Times expert has also raised questions about the death count of a Kovid patient in the home. Our colleague Nehal from Bangalore has sent a report. Nehal’s report states that 700 people undergoing treatment in home isolation have died in Karnataka. If the number of such numbers starts counting from every state, then the death toll will be different.
Dainik Bhaskar has published a report regarding the deaths due to Kovid in Rajasthan. 28 bureau heads and 46 correspondents from 25 districts have worked on this report. According to this report, when Dainik Bhaskar’s team has seen the records of 512 villages and blocks and done their own investigation. Where 48 deaths have been reported in Ganganagar, 517 economies have arisen within 50 days in only 28 villages there. In 512 villages and blocks, 14,482 economies have arisen. In the second wave of Corona, the official figure of those who died of Kovid in Rajasthan is 3918. The difference is more than three times. According to this, at the level of the country, the death toll rises from three lakh to twelve lakh. The New York Times estimates don’t seem too far off.
The death toll is not secret. It’s audacity. People are telling and governments are silent. When there is so much doubt on the data, then this battle cannot be won by lies. An anecdote from Bokaro becomes important in this context. Arvind Kumar is in a mask and has gone to his bank branch with a cylinder. Arvind’s son is pulling the cylinder and bringing it along with his wife. Arvind’s coming to the bank in this condition could have been a threat to his life but he has come to tell so that his office can be sure that he is really sick. Arvind says that he has been recovering from a fever for ten days. Even after this, oxygen is in support after a lung infection, but the bank officials call him to work. There is also a tussle regarding payment. Resigned for this too but it was not accepted. So in this condition, the banks have come so that the officer can be sure that Arvind is on oxygen support.
In the time of Kovid, there are also transfers in banks and there is no one to take care of the employees who are dying of Kovid. The Finance Ministry should have told how many bank workers have been infected and died while doing duty in the second wave of Kovid. When UP teachers can get compensation and have been assured to give jobs to dependents, then why is there such a policy for bank personnel or other government servants. With this, I want to present three episodes from UP. In the first week of April, some villagers in Shamli were injected with anti-rabies instead of the corona vaccine. This came to light when 72-year-old Anarkali, after getting vaccinated at the Community Health Center in Kandla, gave her Aadhar card to the ANM and asked them to enter her Aadhaar number. The ANM said to Anarkali that “Aadhaar vaccination does not require Aadhaar.” He then came to know that he had been put on a needle to bite the dog. Now in the Siddharthnagar district of UP, 20 people have been given the first dose of corona vaccine, Covishield, and the second Covaxin.
The district CMO admitted that it was a mistake. The guilty have been identified, action will be taken against them. But what will happen to those who have been vaccinated by different companies? Ramsurat of Oudhikalan village in Siddharthnagar said that he and his associates were put up on April 1 at the Barhni primary health center in the district. On 14 May, they were given the second dose of vaccine. When the ANM ordered more vaccines after their vaccination, the doctor who issued the vaccine told them that they had got the wrong vaccine. The villagers who got the wrong vaccine are now afraid of something untoward. Ram Sundar told NDTV that “It seems that something has gone wrong inside the body. Is there anything wrong with that?”
The third incident is from the Kanpur countryside and the incident is in the first week of April. The injecting ANM was so busy talking on the mobile that she vaccinated a woman twice. When the woman asked him “is now both the doses are taking the same day.” Then she told the woman that “why didn’t you move out of here after getting vaccinated? It was your fault that you got vaccinated twice. The country needs the vaccine, there is a debate going on on Twitter. People kept checking their accounts all night that Twitter has not stopped. What was the need for Twitter to write a lie under the lie? It is the government, proves your truth as a lie, but why call your lie a lie. We are a serious country but someone should do us light work. Can’t stop it. Fighting happens on the border and we start taking revenge from the mobile app. For example, let’s take a flashback. Only then will we know that we taught Tik-Tok a lesson exactly a year ago, did you? What is going to happen with Twitter?
It was the month of June 2020. In the scorching heat, the lockout hit, and the corona pandemic hit the head. The news was coming that the Chinese army has come within the border of eastern Ladakh of India. There has been a clash in which Indian soldiers have been martyred. The Prime Minister said that no one came to our border. He did not even take his name. Everyone understood that no one came, meaning China did not come. The Defense Minister and the Foreign Minister also said the same thing. The nation took seriously that no one came, but then news started coming that both the countries were talking about the land. If soldiers are stationed on the border, then civilians also had to do something. Traders’ body CAIT made a list of 500 goods for a boycott. Started debating. Where does the troubled nation rest? Got tik tok insight. The people of the nation had forgotten that it belongs to China, people locked in their homes in the lockdown were jumping and making videos, we're preparing to upload that tick-talk was closed. Everyone supported the nation. If the decision is tough, then the leader is also big. Local artists going global due to tick-talk became local again. After this, we blew up 267 Chinese apps from mobile phones. The nation found a new way of confrontation. Instead of answering brick with stone, brick was used in development. The policies for importing goods from China started getting stricter. The day of 3 July 2020 was also a historic day for taking tough decisions. Energy Minister RK Singh said that under tension from China, India will not import electrical equipment from there. Also asked the power companies of the state governments not to import from China. The minister said that we cannot tolerate that any country enters our border. We never taught China such a harsh lesson in the matter.
This does not mean that after teaching a lesson to his student, the teacher will not go to the class again. The ministers, who called the decision to curb imports from China a year ago great, have started turning a blind eye to imports from China. Outrage has been replaced by imports. Oxygen concentrators and cylinders are being imported from China.
Delhi government has told that six thousand oxygen cylinders have been imported from China. Nationalist sentiments of the nation were not hurt. A year ago, where we were deleting Chinese-made apps, a year later we were taking oxygen from Chinese cylinders. The dispute over the by-the-way border has not been resolved. You can check with the govt. Karnataka also imported 200 oxygen concentrators from China. Many goods have come from Wuhan where Corona came from. Rajasthan has also said that it will import 6900 oxygen concentrators from China. Sadly, these days those who blow the effigy against these announcements are engaged in a jugaad to make their thinking positive.
Is self-dependent India becoming an import-dependent India? China will also express its applause. It started to tell that different companies of India have ordered the import of forty thousand oxygen constructors. The Ambassador of China posted in India has told the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times. On 29 April, the Chinese ambassador tweeted, ’61 cargo ships have arrived from China within two weeks. More than 5000 oxygen cylinders have been supplied. 21,569 oxygen generators and 3800 tonnes of medicines have been supplied. More than 2 crore masks have also been supplied.
The oxygen concentrator is fine, but after a year of self-reliance, we have to import 20 million masks, which is not good for the soul of dependency. Those opposing Chinese goods are seen to be liberal this year. Global’s global consciousness has awakened.
It is not that only after the second wave, imports started from China and the governments started saying that they are importing from there. If she did last year, the effigy would be burnt by the Chief Ministers. On March 18 this year, the Minister of State for Commerce Hardeep Puri presented a written reply in the Lok Sabha. The question was asked by Trinamool MP Mala Roy. Hardeep Puri said that among the countries from which India has imported between January and December, China remains at the top position. Telecom equipment, computer hardware, fertilizers, electronic equipment and components, medicines, electronic machines, etc. have been imported from China. India has imported $ 58.71 billion from China.
China remained number one in terms of imports. Imports of 62.4 billion dollars in 2019 and 58.71 billion dollars in 2020. Did this decrease come from a self-sufficient India or due to a decline in worldwide import-export due to Corona? If you look at the last year’s headline, then the game of this year’s headline will be understood. The incident that has spread about Twitter can also be seen in this context. The matter is not only about following the guidelines of the government.
As soon as the Prime Minister’s tweet came out on Buddha Purnima today, people worried about Twitter heaved a sigh of relief. Those who were waiting for the ticking clock in the middle of the night must have been disappointed that the condition of Twitter would become tick-tock.
Of course, the matter of guidelines is different. But please take note of the power that is happening under the pretext of Manipat Patra’s manipulated tweet, but do not divert attention from Kovid’s questions. Avoid the jokes. The news is coming that the government has approved the terms of the Pfizer company, which the government had once refused. Pfizer is also an American company and a Twitter too. Is the government really moving towards closure? Let it not happen that the situation in China should happen. After vigorously banning the app, we are importing oxygen cylinders from China. Even after new discussions, no discussion is able to last. Now people have started discussing this, how much discussion is being done to bring it into the discussion. How to Comeback, Re-Make, Re-Launch Etcetera Etcetera. Keep asking questions even if the answer is not coming to any question. The wedding processions are waiting, just like the vegetables of the second round are not coming after the first round. | https://medium.com/@goplay38/what-will-be-the-exact-number-of-deaths-due-to-corona-in-india-7b92d743bada | ['Mr. Gn'] | 2021-06-01 06:54:01.670000+00:00 | ['Covid Deaths In India', 'Government Data', 'Corona', 'Coviddeaths', 'Coronavirus'] |
Pantry Raid | Eight of the Great Traditional Chinese Medicine Foods
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. — Hippocrates
As this year draws to a close, it seems I will be spending more time alone than ever before in my life. My wife will be gone for an indeterminate amount of time, but on the scale of months at least. So it has come down to re-arranging the space in our small home. I have taken over the table for writing and art, but at the same time I respect my wife’s personal space even if she isn’t here, so I don’t touch her stuff. Although she has worked her magic in our small kitchen the time has come to speak of many things of sour bamboo, five-spice powder and black ear fungus. I have been rummaging around the pantry (kitchen cabinets) for a couple months now. I have been making a lot of soups during this pandemic home alone time. So, today I conducted an extensive pantry raid :-)
My wife is the one who taught me some foods are medicine. In the US, there are “Asian Markets” everywhere. They are the place to go for a wide variety of items not found in traditional American supermarkets. After living in China for twelve years, I know some items below are on the shelves in most homes. Here are a few Traditional Chinese Medicine Foods which I am adding to my pandemic mix, and a few (out of fear or ignorance) I am saving for my wife when she returns.
The number one go to medicine food for potency would have to be ginseng. Be careful with the amounts though. Too much of a good thing is bad for your health, especially ginseng. My grandmother used to hunt wild ginseng in the hills of Kentucky as a little girl. This brand of ginseng is sold in every TCM store in the US, and is highly prized in China. When putting in soups, a single piece is enough, and don’t forget to eat it.
Goji is my favorite TCM food. These magical red berries are said to provide many benefits: liver, lung, immune system, nerves, brain,… When I first met my wife she told me to wash a few tablespoons full each day and soak in hot water — drink the “tea” and eat the fruit. Goji is a fantastic addition to your cupboards. Great in oatmeal. Wash them before using.
Star anise is a powerful and cheap anti-viral medicine food. These beauties contain Shikimic acid which is one of the main active ingredients in the Tamiflu, which is used for the treatment of influenza. Although I don’t like the flavor of anise very much (think black jelly beans), I understand it is fighting viruses so into the pot it goes. Watch out for the seeds that fall out, and I do not recommend eating the anise, but that’s up to you.
For authentic Southern Chinese flavored dishes add a dash or two of Five-Spice Powder. The five spices are: anise, fennel, cloves, Sichuan pepper and cinnamon,all of which have antioxidant properties. What Americans put on bakery foods, Chinese put on meat and other dishes for savory flavor. Many Americans love cinnamon, but for my young students in China, cinnamon is a medicine. Each semester I would have two food classes, but I soon learned they refused to eat any dish we made with cinnamon. When you pass a Chinese butcher shop, you will definitely catch a whiff of five-spices powder.
Nothing says medicine food like mushrooms. Mushrooms and fungi are power-packed health foods. The cloud ear fungus, goes by many names, I just call it black fungus. It is an edible jelly fungus bought dried. Because it is dried, it expands three to four times when it re-hydrates in your soups. I have been told it is good for the lungs, liver, immune system and inflammation because of the ant-oxidant qualities. There are dozens and dozens of dried mushrooms varieties for sale in Asian markets, almost as many as there types of noodles. Wash them before using.
Hong Zao is sometimes known as Chinese red date or jujube. According to what I’ve been told, this is especially good for women’s reproductive system. It also aids in the digestion, especially constipation. Wash them thoroughly and plop a few in your soup. Watch out for the seeds.
Dried Lo Han Fruit. Being a lecturer in China, and teaching small children, occasionally I would be stricken with a sore throat. This can be a problem when you talk for a living :-) Dried Lo Han is magical. Break off a piece and make a tea with it. A couple other methods for easing sore throats: boiling ginger with honey, and or boiling pears with sugar.
Sour Bamboo is a southern China and Southeast Asian favorite. I am including it because the smell and taste reminds me of my sweet wife. The first home-cooked meal we ever shared was a local noodle dish which features sour bamboo. Pickled foods have many benefits for the digestion. The strong smell reminds me of the years I lived in tropical southern China. A little of this goes a long way.
While poking about in the pantry, I also found my wife’s medicinal herbs. These are for expert level use only, so I am putting them on the high shelf where they await the return of the master. The one on the left is a very rare medicinal plant. It needs to be infused in 80-proof or higher alcohol for several months before using. I swear it has incredible curative powers for joint and back pains a spoonful at a time. The center one is a massively powerful fungus that in larger doses could prove very harmful. And the one on the right is unknown. And that is half the fun of conducting this pantry raid — the unknown things lurking about in dark recesses of the cupboard. Get Cookin’ Stay Healthy. | https://medium.com/@unbox-your-soul/pantry-raid-28a8ab745095 | ['C.E. Wheeler'] | 2020-12-26 19:46:44.440000+00:00 | ['Food', 'Traditional Chinese', 'Health', 'Cooking', 'Life'] |
Switchmate Case Study: From Separate Smart Lighting Solutions To Multi-device Home Ecosystem | Disruptive technologies of the last decade gave a strong momentum for the development of so many new things, and an updated concept of home automation, also known as smart home, was definitely among them. In 2016 Switchmate — a startup company headquartered in San Francisco — saw which way the cat did a jump and focused on developing solutions for smart home lighting and security. The company endeavored to bring automated lighting and safety to every home removing typical issues of the industry — complexity and cost barriers.
Switchmate Smart Lighting Solutions
Due to strong magnets behind the device you can place it right over any light switch in your house
Following the principle “smart can be simple and practical”, over several years of painstaking efforts, the Switchmate company created a set of compelling products that were fully appreciated by both technology experts and ordinary users. “It aesthetically weaves seamlessly into the architecture of most homes. You don’t even notice it. I absolutely love that I don’t have to hire an electrician to install it, that the app pairs with the device via Bluetooth as quickly as I’ve ever seen a pairing happen,” — admitted Scott Cramer in Forbes describing his own experience of using Switchmate. Devices can be connected to a single central hub and easily controlled via one app. Users can still manipulate them manually by resorting to special wall switches.
The Switchmate team at the TechCrunch event in 2015
The Importance Of Having A Good Software Development Partner
Business is a long distance and if you what to go far, go together. In 2016 the company was looking for a reliable software development partner. However, several attempts to build effective partnerships entirely failed one after another. Three software development teams just couldn’t implement a bunch of critically important features to deliver appropriate mobile apps. When the company contacted BBA for the first time, their team was quite depressed and disappointed. At this stage, our primary mission was to inspire the folks from Switchmate and give them hope for good results in the near future.
We started the collaboration with Switchmate fixing bugs in iOS version and preparing the application for the first release in App Store. But even a quick look at the product revealed some serious defects in the development process. First of all, we faced a problem with team coordination, particularly, in firmware and software departments. Due to a huge mess with tasks the project barely stayed alive.
Also global smart home trends revealed another big issue. From the very beginning, Switchmate invented solutions for smart house lighting. However, in 2016 their product line contained only separate devices that lived their own isolated life. Each new stuff required a new app, but according to the latest smart home trends, it had no sense. Potential customers expected a completely different thing — they wanted to get all-in-one solution. So our next step of collaboration with the Switchmate company was to help them change the general approach and start creating a single ecosystem of connected home products.
A piece of UX design
Creating Smart Lighting Solutions
BrainBeanApps started cooperation by providing two developers to roll out an app for iOS and Android, but when the Switchmate founders realized how professional we are, they were ready to extend the collaboration. As a result, our team engaged in the project grew up to nine specialists including iOS and Android developers as well as QA engineers. In fact, the BBA company turned into a long-term partner as in total we worked together for almost two years — from December’16 to October’18. Over this time we proved that we can meet tight deadlines, complex technical demands, rapid changes of business priorities and market challenges.
Another piece of interface
Here is a whole list of features we implemented into the product to make Switchmate a top provider of a better lifestyle:
easy control of regular switches and power ports via mobile phone,
multiple timers to schedule indoor/outdoor illumination,
wireless update and upgrade of an operating firmware running on devices (firmware over-the-air technology),
voice control without extra hubs,
compatibility with Google Home and Google Assistant app,
cloud communications for storage and monitoring,
multifunctional security system and away mode for long absence,
video recording and playback options,
widgets and push notifications,
device grouping for better user experience,
motion sensor to turn on and off lights automatically.
Typical app layout
Besides pure code writing, we dealt with UI/UX design, project management, quality assurance and staff recruiting. Due to our deep expertise in Bluetooth and location services, we also helped remote teams from Taiwan, US, and India that worked on other pieces of the project with problem researches and bug fixing, suggesting improvements and alternative solutions. Among challenges we have bravely accepted and successfully completed there was an intensive upgrade of documentation related to firmware and cloud technologies. Our team worked hard to create smart home ecosystem that would be friendly for app, cloud, firmware, and devices. We generated only clear and smooth code for simple maintenance and scaling — if folks from Switchmate need to add new device types, they can easily do it in the future.
Ultimate Reason To Develop Smart Home Software with BBA
Together with Switchmate we spent about 16000 hours of super intensive and creative working time designing a simple and actual out-of-hub system of an automated house. Sometimes customers need not that much to reach a new level and the Switchmate company showed it by its own example.
The story of collaboration with Switchmate revealed a really strong advantage of the BBA company. Our team has enough experience and creativity to catch up the product at any stage of its development. It can be extremely important when the process has already been spoiled with bad solutions and the founders are disoriented what to do next. Our critically valuable skill is to consider any device as a piece of a huge smart home eco-system. It helps us to detect the key mistakes made before and effectively fix them.
Our experts are always happy to provide device producers with in-depth consulting service. We help our clients to see their product from the new perspective taking into consideration actual world trends.
Source: https://brainbeanapps.com/best-practices/switchmate-case-study/
Visit Brainbean Apps blog for more insights. | https://medium.com/@brainbeanapps/switchmate-case-study-from-separate-smart-lighting-solutions-to-multi-device-home-ecosystem-605979d7778c | ['Alexey Pelykh'] | 2020-02-21 09:23:48.417000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Strategy', 'Internet of Things', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Growth'] |
10 Configs to Make Your Kafka Producer More Resilient | Acks (acknowledgments)
An ack is an acknowledgment that the producer gets from a Kafka broker to ensure that the message has been successfully committed to that broker. The config acks is the number of acknowledgments the producer needs to receive before considering a successful commit.
Difference between ack=1 and ack=all, Created by Xiaoxu Gao
The default value is 1, which means as long as the producer receives an ack from the leader broker of that topic, it would take it as a successful commit and continue with the next message. It’s not recommended to set acks=0 , because then you don’t get any guarantee on the commit. acks=all would make sure that the producer gets acks from all the in-sync replicas of this topic. It gives the strongest message durability, but it also takes long time which results in higher latency. So, you need to decide what is more important for you.
In-sync replicas
acks=all would get acknowledgments from all the in-sync replicas (ISR), so what is an in-sync replica? When you create a topic, you must define how many replicas you want. A replica is nothing more than a copy of the message in one of the brokers, so the maximum number of replicas is the number of brokers.
Among these replicas, there is a leader and the rest are followers. The leader handles all the read and write requests while the followers passively replicate the leader. An in-sync replica is a replica that fully catches up with the leader in the last 10 seconds. The time period can be configured via replica.lag.time.max.ms . If a broker goes down or has network issues, then it couldn’t follow up with the leader and after 10 seconds, this broker will be removed from ISR.
The default minimum in-sync replica ( min.insync.replicas ) is 1. It means that if all the followers go down, then ISR only consists of the leader. Even if acks is set to all, it actually only commits the message to 1 broker (the leader) which makes the message vulnerable.
Difference between different min.insync.replicas Created by Xiaoxu Gao
The config min.insync.replicas basically defines how many replicas that the producer must receive before considering a successful commit. This config adds on top of acks=all and makes your messages safer. But on the other hand, you have to balance latency and speed.
Retry on failure
Let’s say you set acks=all and min.insync.replicas=2 . For some reason, the follower goes done, then the producer identifies a failed commit because it couldn’t get acks from min.insync.replicas brokers.
You will get an error message from the producer:
KafkaError{code=NOT_ENOUGH_REPLICAS,val=19,str="Broker: Not enough in-sync replicas"}
You will see the following error message from the running broker. It means that even if the broker is running, Kafka will not append the messages to that running broker if the current ISR is not sufficient.
ERROR [ReplicaManager broker=0] Error processing append operation on partition test-2-2-0 (kafka.server.ReplicaManager)
org.apache.kafka.common.errors.NotEnoughReplicasException: The size of the current ISR Set(0) is insufficient to satisfy the min.isr requirement of 2 for partition test-2-2-0
By default, the producer will not act upon this error, so it will lose messages. This is called at-most-once semantics. But you can let the producer resend messages by configuring retries=n . This is basically the maximum number of retries the producer would do if the commit fails. The default value is 0.
Difference between retries=0 and retries>0 Created by Xiaoxu Gao
If you set retries=5 , then the producer will retry maximum 5 times. You will not notice the number of retries from the producer log because it only shows if the commit is successful or not in the end. But you can see retries+1 log messages on the broker side.
Avoid duplicated messages
In some situations where a message has actually been committed to all in-sync replicas, but the broker couldn’t send an ack back due to a network issue (e.g. only allows one-way communication). Meanwhile, we set retries=3 , then the producer will resend the messages 3 times. This could lead to duplicated messages in the topic.
Let’s say we have a producer that sends 1M messages to the topic and the broker fails after the messages have been committed but before the producer receives all the acks. In this case, we will probably end up with more than 1M messages on the topic. This is also called at-lease-once semantics.
The most ideal situation is exactly-once semantics where even if the producer resends the message, the consumer should receive the same message only once.
What we need is an Idempotent Producer. Idempotent means that applying an operation once or applying it multiple times have the same effect. It’s very easy to turn this feature on with config enable.idempotent=true .
How does it work? Messages are sent in batches, and each batch has a sequence number. On the broker side, it keeps track of the largest sequence number for each partition. If a batch with a smaller or equal sequence number comes in, the broker will not write that batch into the topic. In this way, it also ensures the order of the batches.
Difference between disabling idempotent and enabling idempotent Created by Xiaoxu Gao
Send messages in order
Another important config to ensure the order is max.in.flight.requests.per.connection , and the default value is 5. This represents the number of unacknowledged requests that can be buffered on the producer side. If the retries is greater than 1 and the first request fails, but the second request succeeds, then the first request will be resent and messages will be in the wrong order.
According to the documentation:
Note that if this setting is set to be greater than 1 and there are failed sends, there is a risk of message re-ordering due to retries (i.e., if retries are enabled).
If you don’t enable idempotent, but still want to keep messages in order, then you should config this setting to 1.
But if you’ve already enabled idempotent, then you don’t need to explicitly define this config. Kafka will choose suitable values, as stated here. | https://towardsdatascience.com/10-configs-to-make-your-kafka-producer-more-resilient-ec6903c63e3f | ['Xiaoxu Gao'] | 2020-10-05 16:01:45.954000+00:00 | ['Kafka', 'Software Development', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
The story of my first professional app design | I have to admit that it is not my very first design. Since I have changed my career course and started working with different start-ups I was designing quite a lot, but I would not consider myself as a professional UX designer. Things changed and I want to tell you a story of gaining self-confidence and getting my first fully professional project done with the help of online Coursera studies.
It all started with a silly New Year’s resolution. As a staying at home mother of 2 months old I felt like I need something to keep my mind stimulated. As a marketer, I was always interested in product design. It grew into a bigger part of my job and I felt like it was what I wanted to do. After doing some digging into the subject and asking some friends for recommendations, I started studying Interaction Design Specialization by UC San Diego.
I have to admit that even though the course is getting a bit old and some parts are a bit annoying, it was a great journey overall. It was a great experience to gain professional knowledge about the designing process. It was also very interesting to self reflect on how I intuitively was using some of those rules before, not even knowing about their existence. Finally, it was very funny to realize how some of the best practices demanded me to get out of my comfort zone and how fruitful the results of those are.
After all the theoretical part, I was more than ever ready to design my application. This is how Connect Club app was created. The idea of the application came from both business and user needs. People who are exercising need a solution to gain an access to different sports facilities in an easy and effortless way, without carrying around their wallet with cards and ID. Sports clubs want to get new customers and be able to register and manage their customers’ visits easily. The Connect Club app meets all of those needs, I believe.
Home screen
The app design is kept simple and clear, focusing only on the functionalities that are essential for the user. Connect Club is using QR codes as a way for user identification. To keep it useful, yet still good looking I decided to give the QR code a little twist and use some colors and a gradient combined with the user’s photograph in the middle.
Old ‘Explore’ screen design
Even though the ‘Home’ screen went through quite a lot of changes from the initial stage, it was the ‘Explore’ screen that was the most surprising and demanding, yet very insightful part. In my head, I imagined it as a map-based module. Initial tests showed that the users’ needs were far away from my vision. Map module was not understood at all and I feet like it was a total disaster.
New ‘Explore’ screen design
I am extremely happy that I ran some tests before online testing, as it allowed me to avoid some big mistakes and redesign this section. What was obvious in my head, wasn’t intuitive for users. After all, I decided to show filters first and then lead to a search result, showing the facility’s location on the map as a very last stage. It was quite a good idea because tests showed that this setup was very easy to understand and follow. I was extremely happy to hear testers appreciating the big and readable, yet modern looking filter buttons.
Seeing users testing my design online was a great experience and I believe that such tests are a necessary part of any design process if we aim for a really good product. It showed me some small but crucial mistakes and confirmed that other elements functioned well. It is amazing that the Interaction Design specialization allows students to run it for free.
After all, I think that online courses are a great opportunity for everyone looking for self development. In just some months I have managed to come to form a stage of just designing to gaining confidence in both my designs and myself. | https://medium.com/@hello_65383/the-story-of-my-first-professional-app-design-bb21b9a27cc7 | ['Eva Steen'] | 2019-05-25 13:21:06.739000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Coursera', 'Interaction Design'] |
Why Every Company Should Be Developing Internet Of Things Technology — And How To Do It | Why Every Company Should Be Developing Internet Of Things Technology — And How To Do It JC Grubbs Jun 17, 2019·5 min read
The internet of things is here, and it isn’t going away.
For those unfamiliar, IoT is exactly what it sounds like — a network of physical items connected digitally, constantly collecting data and communicating. The term encompasses everything from smart coffee makers to state-of-the-art Boeing jet engines that send operational status back to headquarters every other second.
Right now, we’re only seeing the tip of the IoT iceberg. Early adopters across industries are implementing IoT technology. But soon, IoT is going to drive an entire revolution in the way businesses operate.
And not just in tech industries, or even the industries we think of as “tech savvy.”
IoT is changing waste management, for example. Traditionally, garbage trucks go throughout a city on a regular schedule, emptying every dumpster on their route. But that’s not the most efficient method, because trucks end up emptying dumpsters that are far from full.
Forward-thinking waste management companies are installing weight sensors and even cameras in dumpsters to help optimize their routes. With these sensors, they know exactly which dumpsters are full and which ones aren’t. As a result, they can send out fewer trucks, make fewer stops, and sometimes even skip entire areas.
Agriculture is another great example. There are myriad areas where IoT is changing farming. Digital devices in soil deliver data to farmers about hydration, pH, and nitrogen levels, which helps optimize fertilization, water usage, and seed selection. Other IoT technology can help farmers predict how many ears of corn a field will yield well before harvesting.
So the question is: How might IoT be able to help your business?
As the CEO of a design and technology innovation firm, I’d love to see more companies — from all industries — thinking about this. Because I’m sure they’d be excited and surprised by the many unexpected ways IoT is about to change business operations on a grand scale. And those who embrace the huge potential of IoT devices will stand to gain a serious competitive advantage.
Yet some are hesitant to consider the impact of IoT in their industry. They think it doesn’t apply to their sector (when it’s going to impact every industry), or that the technology is still too new.
Here’s what I tell hesitant clients:
The first thing I tell them is to start small.
There are degrees to implementing this type of tech. You don’t have to take a huge risk or invest millions of dollars to get in on the action. In general, the hardware for IoT devices is generally cheaper than people think, especially because the sensors and components used have become so much cheaper in recent years. While large-scale manufacturing does have up-front capital requirements, the cost of prototyping has decreased dramatically.
Simple, relatively inexpensive IoT devices that fall into this “start small” category can still dramatically streamline business operations. For example, a client of ours, a medical company, makes a pretty simple, mechanical patient monitoring device. It doesn’t have much “smarts” to it. But it interacts with patients, which means keeping track of how that device is used can produce valuable clinical data. That’s where IoT tech comes in. The data the device collects becomes part of the medical record and adds value to the process of care.
But it’s very simple. It doesn’t connect to the open internet, just to the nurses’ smartphones via bluetooth. The client doesn’t have to invest tens of millions of dollars in hardware and software that monitors everything and controls the universe.
Here’s how to identify the areas where IoT could improve your business processes:
I like to think of IoT devices as fitting into two broad categories: data collection and directing action.
Sensors can collect and relay enormous amounts of data, helping you to better understand and optimize your processes and functions. On the action side of things, much of the potential for optimization lies in remote control. IoT-connected devices can unlock doors, adjust thermostats, or turn on sprinklers in greenhouses remotely, for example.
So IoT opens up a world of optimization in many areas, such as:
Anywhere there’s friction in your process, either internally or with clients/customers.
For example, we’re working with the Department of Defense to redesign and optimize the military enlistment process and software. Enlistment centers are a lot like DMVs, with a series of stations and a less-than-streamlined process of bouncing between them.
To logistically improve the process, we’re exploring the use of RFID badges, which log and physically track applicants. That way, with a single click, staff can see that a particular applicant has completed their medical exam and background check and is currently waiting to receive their security clearance.
When there’s an elusive, ideal piece of data that could benefit your business.
Ask yourself: If you could have any single piece of data, what would it be? Because IoT technology may be able to open up access to it.
For example, if you either produce or use cold storage containers, sensors could tell you the exact temperature and humidity of any container, anywhere in the world, anytime.
Any process you could improve with remote control of machinery or technology.
If you could control any part of your business from anywhere in the world, what would it be? Because IoT technology may be able to make that happen.
For example, the press of a button could halt a malfunctioning piece of machinery at a factory thousands of miles away, preventing it from damaging other machines. Or you could connect a series of machines that work together in such a way that if the first machine fails, the second and third stop processing. This could prevent many headaches in factories with complex machinery with high rates of failure or errors.
Some of these solutions seem unrealistic, or too good to be true. But a lot of the time, these possibilities are already very real.
So in order to fully understand the capabilities of IoT — and how it could benefit your business specifically — you have to rethink your whole company and all its processes and parts from a very broad, abstract perspective. In other words, picture a blank slate. Now, draw your ideal company on it, fully optimized and comprehensively controllable.
The IoT could very well make this a reality.
Don’t underestimate the impact IoT is having and will continue to have on the entire business landscape. It will change every industry — including yours — quite drastically in the coming years. So if you’d like to get one step ahead of the game, start researching.
If you’d like to get two steps ahead of the game and begin implementing IoT at your business now, here’s a quick rundown of the steps you should take: | https://medium.com/@jcgrubbs/why-every-company-should-be-developing-internet-of-things-technology-and-how-to-do-it-fa24f33b7a77 | ['Jc Grubbs'] | 2019-06-17 23:48:19.543000+00:00 | ['Internet of Things', 'Hardware', 'IoT', 'Custom Software', 'Technology'] |
How will they remember you? | Years ago, there was a moment that shook me awake.
And it all happened…in a mini van.
This was about 15 years ago. Back then, I was working as a real estate agent. And I was a hard worker. The hardest.
I put in 70-hour weeks and slept with my Blackberry phone next to my bed every night, just in case a client called so I could reply immediately. I checked email 7 days a week and replied instantaneously. I was glued to my career. I put work first and everything else came second. My marriage, my kids, my health, joy, pleasure, fun? All second tier.
One day, I picked up the kids up from school.
Cora and Ryan were really little at the time. I strapped them into the back of the mini van. We got in, started driving home, and then…my phone rang.
It was a contractor telling me about a termite issue at a house I was trying to sell.
He promised me the issue would be handled by a certain date, but it wasn’t.
I was so tense, so exhausted, and so overworked that I completely lost my cool.
I’m driving along, with the call on speaker phone, and I raised my voice and started barking orders and raging at this poor guy. My face was flushed, and I probably sounded like a complete psycho.
That’s when I happened to glance into the rearview mirror…
…and I saw my sweet little kids’ faces.
And they both looked terrified.
They both had this expression on their faces like, “Uh oh. Mom is in a REALLY bad mood today.”
Seeing the horror on their faces, my heart sank into my stomach.
After we got out of the van, I had a moment of reckoning.
All I could think was:
“This is not how I want my kids to remember their mom.”
Raving like a lunatic and screaming at a colleague about termites. What have I become?
It was a wake-up call.
I realized, “I’ve been hustling so hard, and working so much, that I am losing myself. I am turning into a person I don’t want to be.”
Dear person reading this right now, whether you are a parent or not…
Is this story resonating with you?
Maybe lately you’ve been feeling like, “I am working way too much. My priorities all are out of whack. Something is not right.”
Maybe you’re having health issues. Feeling disconnected from your kids. Or just feeling exhausted all the time.
Maybe this post is the wake-up call that you need.
Make a change.
The calm, joyful, successful (but not workaholic) woman that you aspire to be?
The woman who prioritizes pleasure and self-care?
The woman who takes excellent care of herself?
The woman who works smarter, not harder?
How do you want to be remembered?
Be that woman today. | https://medium.com/@susanhyatt/how-will-they-remember-you-c60ad737e65a | ['Susan Hyatt'] | 2020-12-02 18:14:30.499000+00:00 | ['Women Ceo', 'Women In Business', 'Life Coach', 'Female Ceo', 'Business Coaching'] |
Mongolia’s Economic Future is Chained to China | Mongolia’s Economic Future is Chained to China
That is, unless Mongolia’s export partners diversify
It’s a rather gloomy title, but it is appropriate. There has been much discussion about diversifying the Mongolian economy to avoid the boom and bust cycle that has become common (see here, here, and here to name a few). Less has been discussed regarding diversifying trading partners.
For those familiar with the Mongolian economy, it is clear that China plays a big role in imports to the country. Yet I believe it is less known by the average Mongolian how closely exports are tied to China as well.
With all of the efforts of diversification, is the economy safer if nearly all of Mongolia’s exports go to one trading partner? Now factor in Chinese government whims to close the border whenever it fancys. This seems to be a recipe for economic uncertainty.
To understand just how closely Mongolia’s exports are tied to China I gathered data from the National Statistical Office and dug in. These data show Mongolia’s export value from 2005–2017 and is broken down by country.
Mapping Exports
First I wanted to visually see where Mongolia’s products and services are going around the world. I animated a global map, showing a new image for each year, and shaded the countries by the amount of exports going to that country. The darker the higher the value.
China remains dark throughout the period while other trading partners get significantly lighter. There is only one country that ends darker than it started, the United Kingdom. Interestingly enough back in 2005 the United States was number two, yet was still far away from the export value of China.
Charting Exports
Let’s take a look at real numbers now. But I warn you, they aren’t any prettier. | https://medium.com/mongolian-data-stories/mongolias-economic-future-is-chained-to-china-da37a175d0a4 | ['Robert Ritz'] | 2018-05-22 04:12:29.540000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Data Analysis', 'Tableau', 'Mongolia', 'Data Visualization'] |
Surge in REVOLUT business after integrating Cryptocurrency | TransferWise a fintech company based in Europe dominating the market by transferring the money with cheap fee and shorter verification period since a long time. Revolut surpassed TransferWise this month after integrating cryptocurrencies in its platform and become a $1.7 billion and now taking lead in the market.
Earlier this week Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman also hinted that cryptocurrency exchanges becoming the worlds second biggest market and was very optimistic about the future of cryptocurrency.
She said “Certainly Nasdaq would consider becoming a crypto exchange over time. If we do look at it and say ‘it’s time, people are ready for a more regulated market,’ for something that provides a fair experience for investors. I believe that digital currencies will continue to persist it’s just a matter of how long it will take for that space to mature. Once you look at it and say, ‘do we want to provide a regulated market for this?’ Certainly, Nasdaq would consider it.”
At present the market is of nearly $400 billion which relatively small but if we see the pace through which market is growing is incredible and now giving tough competitions to banks too. Binance biggest cryptocurrency exchange surpassed the profit Deutsche bank, Germany’s largest financial institution. Cryptocurrency centered startups giving competition directly to banks and institutions giving financial services. The primary reason for this is the manifold increase in buyers of cryptocurrencies.
If we compare TransferWise and Revolut a year ago then there will be no logic you find it because Revolut based in London was valued less than a billion and user base is also very less compare to TransferWise but in late 2017 company made some transforms and integrated cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for its users and find a surge in the business and profit later company also added a debit card related to Cryptocurrency for purchase.
A 70 percent surge has been seen In the company’s user base and now company’s value is around $1.7 billion compared to TransferWise which is valued $1.6 billion and all this happen after integrating cryptocurrencies to its platform.
Apart from Coinbase, Revolut remains as the only bank-like network in Europe that allows users to spend, store, send, and receive payments from both bank accounts and cryptocurrencies.
Featured image from Revolut. | https://medium.com/koinalert/surge-in-revolut-business-after-integrating-cryptocurrency-b978ba169399 | [] | 2018-04-29 15:00:03.728000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Revolut'] |
HashMap Implementation for Java | HashMap is a dictionary data structure provided by java. It’s a Map-based collection class that is used to store data in Key & Value pairs. In this article, we’ll be creating our own hashmap implementation.
The benefit of using this data structure is faster data retrieval. It has data access complexity of O(1) in the best case.
In layman’s terms, a for each key we get the associated value.
To implement this structure,
We need a list to store all the keys Key — Value relationship to get value based on key
We can have a list containing all the key, values and to access we need to search all of it.
But the main point of hash map is to access the keys faster in 0(1) access time.
Here, hashing comes into play. We can hash the key and relate it with the index to retrieve data faster.
Hash comes with a problem too, collision. It is always recommended to use a better hash function that can reduce chances of collision.
Multiple hash can have same hash key. For that reason, there is a bucket or container for each key where all the values are store if collision occurs.
Let’s dive into a basic implementation of our hashmap.
Firstly, we need an array to store all the keys, a bucket model to store all the entry and a wrapper for our key, value pair.
public class MyKeyValueEntry<K, V> {
private K key;
private V value;
public MyKeyValueEntry(K key, V value) {
this.key = key;
this.value = value;
} // getters & setters
// hashCode & equals
}
Bucket to store all the key values
public class MyMapBucket {
private List<MyKeyValueEntry> entries;
public MyMapBucket() {
if(entries == null) {
entries = new LinkedList<>();
}
}
public List<MyKeyValueEntry> getEntries() {
return entries;
}
public void addEntry(MyKeyValueEntry entry) {
this.entries.add(entry);
}
public void removeEntry(MyKeyValueEntry entry) {
this.entries.remove(entry);
}
}
Lastly, implementation of our hashmap
public class MyHashMap<K, V> {
private int CAPACITY = 10;
private MyMapBucket[] bucket;
private int size = 0;
public MyHashMap() {
this.bucket = new MyMapBucket[CAPACITY];
}
private int getHash(K key) {
return (key.hashCode() & 0xfffffff) % CAPACITY;
}
private MyKeyValueEntry getEntry(K key) {
int hash = getHash(key);
for (int i = 0; i < bucket[hash].getEntries().size(); i++) {
MyKeyValueEntry myKeyValueEntry = bucket[hash].getEntries().get(i);
if(myKeyValueEntry.getKey().equals(key)) {
return myKeyValueEntry;
}
}
return null;
} public void put(K key, V value) {
if(containsKey(key)) {
MyKeyValueEntry entry = getEntry(key);
entry.setValue(value);
} else {
int hash = getHash(key);
if(bucket[hash] == null) {
bucket[hash] = new MyMapBucket();
}
bucket[hash].addEntry(new MyKeyValueEntry<>(key, value));
size++;
}
}
public V get(K key) {
return containsKey(key) ? (V) getEntry(key).getValue() : null;
}
public boolean containsKey(K key) {
int hash = getHash(key);
return !(Objects.isNull(bucket[hash]) || Objects.isNull(getEntry(key)));
}
public void delete(K key) {
if(containsKey(key)) {
int hash = getHash(key);
bucket[hash].removeEntry(getEntry(key));
size--;
}
}
public int size() {
return size;
}
}
Put into map:
If key already exists, then update value of that key. Otherwise, add an entry to the bucket.
Get from map:
Check if the key exists, and return data.
Contains:
Check if the bucket is null If not, then the bucket contains the key.
Performance:
It has the performance of O(1) in best case and O(n) in worst case.
Java Improvement:
From Java version 8, All of the hashing based Map implementations: HashMap, Hashtable, LinkedHashMap, WeakHashMap and ConcurrentHashMap are modified to use an enhanced hashing algorithm for string keys when the capacity of the hash table has ever grown beyond 512 entries. The enhanced hashing implementation uses the murmur3 hashing algorithm along with random hash seeds and index masks. These enhancements mitigate cases where colliding String hash values could result in a performance bottleneck. Alternative String hashing implementation From Java version 8, once the number of items in a hash bucket grows beyond a certain threshold, that bucket will switch from using a linked list of entries to a balanced tree. In the case of high hash collisions, this will improve worst-case performance from O(n) to O(log n). Handle Frequent HashMap Collisions with Balanced Trees.
Java Hashmap features:
The default initial capacity is 16
static final int DEFAULT_INITIAL_CAPACITY = 1 << 4;
The load factor used when none specified in constructor.
static final float DEFAULT_LOAD_FACTOR = 0.75f;
The bin count threshold for using a tree rather than list for a bin. Bins are converted to trees when adding an element to a bin with at least this many nodes.
static final int TREEIFY_THRESHOLD = 8;
The bin count threshold for untreeifying a (split) bin during a resize operation.
static final int UNTREEIFY_THRESHOLD = 6;
An instance of HashMap has two parameters that affect its performance: initial capacity and load factor.
* The capacity is the number of buckets in the hash table, and
* the initial capacity is simply the capacity at the time the hash table is created.
The load factors a measure of how full the hash table is allowed to get before its capacity is automatically increased.
When the number of entries in the hash table exceeds the product of the load factor and the current capacity, the hash table is rehashed (that is, internal data structures are rebuilt) so that the hash table has approximately twice the number of buckets.
* The capacity is the number of buckets in the hash table, and * the initial capacity is simply the capacity at the time the hash table is created. The load factors a measure of how full the hash table is allowed to get before its capacity is automatically increased. When the number of entries in the hash table exceeds the product of the load factor and the current capacity, the hash table is rehashed (that is, internal data structures are rebuilt) so that the hash table has approximately twice the number of buckets. As a general rule, the default load factor (.75) offers a good tradeoff between time and space costs.
* Higher values decrease the space overhead but increase the lookup cost (reflected in most of the operations of the HashMap class, including get and put).
The expected number of entries in the map and its load factor should be taken into account when setting its initial capacity, so as to minimize the number of rehash operations.
* If the initial capacity is greater than the maximum number of entries divided by the load factor, no rehash operations will ever occur.
This article is also posted in my personal blog. | https://medium.com/swlh/hashmap-implementation-for-java-90a5f58d4a5b | ['Mahfuzur Rahman'] | 2020-11-11 06:31:20.237000+00:00 | ['Hashmap', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Software Development'] |
Swipe right on Motion Layout | Stack of cards
Showing a swipeable card
We will start by defining a Motion Layout in our layout directory containing the single top card for now.
Pay attention to the following line: app:motionDebug=”SHOW_ALL”
It allows us to draw debug information on the screen along with the paths of the motions, the state containing our current start and end animation, and our progress. It comes in really handy when debugging, but don’t forget to remove it before it hits production as there is no reminder to do so.
You can see that we don’t define any constraint on the views in this layout. They will be taken from the layout scene which we will be now defining.
We will start by defining our initial, rested state which consists of a single card in the middle of the screen with added margins on the sides.
Let’s add the pass and like constraint set. They will represent the state of the top card when fully swiped to the left or the right. We want the card to stop before going out of screen, to then, have another nice automated animation to confirm the decision.
We add both constraint sets to our previous Motion Scene. They are almost the same but differ only in the fact that they mirror each other on each side of the screen.
We have three ConstraintSet defining the start, the like and pass state. We now need to define how we want to transition between these states.
To do so, we add transitions to our Motion Scene, one to swipe left and one to swipe right.
We specify both animation, one on our top card, on swiping left on the left side of the card, and mirrored for the other side.
Some arguments that makes our animations react nicely:
touchRegionId: since we are adding margin on the side of our card, we only want the top card area to intercept touch and not the whole Motion Layout. Adding this flag lets us do so.
onTouchUp: what will happen to the animation after we release the card. We want the card to either continue animating or settle back, so we use autoComplete.
Let’s see how this goes:
Make the card automatically fly off the screen
Let’s work on the animation triggered after the state we defined before. It will effectively make the card disappear by flying off the screen.
We are going to add two more ConstraintSet as before, for each end state of our animations: one off the screen to the left and one to the right.
In the next examples I will only show how to do the like state, the pass one is always going to be the mirrored state. Please refer to this repository to see the full working example.
We now, like before, need to define the transition to go from our swiped state to this end state. In this case, we want it to trigger automatically as soon as the swipe animation is done. We can do this by specifying an autoTransition on our transitions like this:
We now have one swipeable card that flies off the screen!
Animate the bottom card
Let’s now define our bottom card to create the illusion that the stack is infinite.
We define another card in our layout, similarly to the first one:
We changed our xml to specify the constraints applied to this card for each stage of our animation:
We can take advantage of a neat feature of the Constraint Set to do so.
By default each new constraint set take the attributes, if not otherwise specified, from the parent Motion Layout. We can change this behaviour by defining a parent to our constraint set with the flag deriveConstraintsFrom. One thing to keep in mind is that if we define our constraints in the constraint tag, we override every constraint in the derived set. To avoid this we can define specific attributes in defined tags that will only override the attributes affected by the tag.
In our example, it means that in the pass constraint set we don’t define the Layout tag so we copy it from our parents. But we do override Transform, so we dismiss every attribute defined in the Transform tag with our own, in this case, a change of scale.
And that’s how easy it is with Motion Layout to add a new element and seamlessly integrate it into our animation flow.
Make it infinite
After the animation, our top card is not swipeable anymore since it’s now the bottom card that is taking its place. We need to swap the cards over in order to achieve an infinite animation.
My first instinct was to do this with a new transition like so:
It looks like it’s working as expected with the animation executing right through to the end.
We have now an infinite swipeable deck of cards!
By playing a bit with it, I realized something. The jump-to-end animation freezes if we touch the card. Even if nothing can be done, and the animation duration is zero seconds, we still end up freezing it, and that’s not good.
The only way I got it to work as we wanted was to change instantly the active transition on the Motion Layout, programmatically.
For this, we define a listener that has a callback when the animation is finished. Once both offScreenLike and offScreenPass finishes we just reset the transition back to rest and reset the progress to zero.
It doesn’t matter which transition we define, pass or like, when swiping we will switch to the correct one.
It leaves us with the same result as before, avoiding the animation stopping! Onto the next bit!
Bind the cards
Let’s create some dummy data to show on the cards. We will just add a different background colour for each card for now.
We create a ViewModel with a swipe method that will just shift the data. We bind it in our Activity like below:
We just have to let our ViewModel know when the swipe animation is finished and it will update the data being shown at that moment.
Popout views
Let’s add the two views that pop out from each side when we swipe (only showing one, the other is mirrored).
We create both views in our layout file and for the cards we need to define the animation states for them.
We don’t have to define the constraints in the animations that fly off the screen since they will maintain the same states as the set they derived from, which in this case will be swiping.
That’s all we need to do. Now adding components to our animation chains is really easy.
Triggering animation programmatically
We can define two buttons on our cards that the user could directly click on to interact with the cards along with the swiping mechanic.
Either of these buttons will trigger the same animation that would be otherwise triggered by the swiping gesture.
We register our click listener in our Activity as usual and trigger the animation directly on the Motion Layout:
We need to define both buttons on our top and bottom card so that the animation runs continuously. There is no need to define any listener on our bottom card though, because if they are being clicked, the first card is still animating.
It’s also another great example of how motion layout handles the changes of state for us. Let’s slow down the animation a bit to check this out more closely.
You can see the transition the Motion Layout makes when going from the like directly to the pass state. Pretty cool!
Curve the card path
Let’s say that curving the path of the card would be nicer. (to be honest, I just wanted to give it a try)
To do that we need to define a KeyPosition in our motion for both sides of the card so as to ‘bend’ the path of the card into an arc shape.
By adding it to our motion scene:
We get this nice curvature of the card path. Pretty neat! | https://medium.com/bumble-tech/swipe-right-on-motion-layout-641c1452d6a5 | [] | 2019-07-04 09:19:40.396000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Animation', 'Motionlayout', 'Programming', 'Kotlin'] |
Iced coffee | poem by emily
o gather of tims iced coffee, eliminator of caffeine addictions, my lovely cravings before me, in your heavy temptations.
how many iced coffees have entered your life? it’s amazing taste of love and desperation, does the taste satisfy your needs?
what happens when i don’t have my morning iced coffee? may i have difficulties functioning.
aha.. you foolish animals, i’ll NEVER! forget my morning iced coffee. is it refreshing for you aswell ? does it smoothly make its way to your stomach.
you look like a thoughtful person, as you’re there for me when i need you the most.
o source of excitement in my chest, providing me with what i love most! such happiness as i take a sip and collect my needs of caffeine, provided energy.
you remind me of my simplest times when everything was calm and well. Emily.. would you like an iced coffee? | https://medium.com/@emilynagy_27841/iced-coffee-c7a8ca12eaf4 | ['Emily Nagy'] | 2020-12-19 10:00:24.095000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Coffee'] |
Breaking up is hard to do | I really, really, really want to cancel my home delivery of the Denver Post newspaper.
I can’t justify the environmental costs of the ink, paper, printing machines and the paper’s transportation to my porch. I can still get all of the Post’s local news, sports coverage, comics and crossword puzzles online for $18.34 less per month. And I’d relieve my wife of the need to remind me to take out the recycling bin so often.
But I haven’t been able to do it. It feels like I’d be signing a death warrant for an old friend.
I’m sharing this angst to remind environmental activists (myself included) how painful it can be for people — especially those of us who are no longer young — to give up long-time environmentally-unfriendly habits, no matter how obvious the tradeoffs are.
Breaking up really is hard to do. The more we recognize that, the more likely we are to craft proposals that can win enough support to be enacted and to make progress on issues we care about.
Conversely, the more we shut our minds to others’ distress, the more likely we are to continue experiencing the debilitating gridlock that has crippled our society’s ability to adapt and respond to changing times.
For a relatively trivial example, take my lifelong addiction to newspapers.
According to my parents, I started learning to read when I was three years old by trying to make sense of my hometown paper’s comics section. Some of my strongest childhood memories are reading the morning paper with my mother and the evening paper with my father.
When I went to college, I read the Boston Globe, New York Times and Wall Street Journal from front page to back every day, along with several weekly papers. I spent 30–40 hours a week working on the student newspaper, doing everything from writing to driving the final copy to the printer in a blizzard. And when I started working for The Public Interest Network and had less time for media, I learned the fine art of reading while walking, without running into people or light poles.
For 40-some years, my day has usually been kick-started by checking out headlines on a newspaper’s Page One.
So, it was with no small fear of dislocation that I went to the Denver Post’s circulation website to consider canceling home delivery.
Knowing that my action — combined with many other cancellations — will result in loggers, paper mill workers, printers, ink makers and delivery girls and boys losing their jobs makes it more painful. So does the thought of my increased use of my smartphone and laptop which, despite the solar panels on our roof, still get about 15 percent of their power from fossil fuel-generated electricity.
My rational brain tells me that, as even newspaper writers have long admitted, getting news via the Internet is environmentally superior to delivered newspapers — even if one religiously recycles.
And the fact that home delivery of the Denver Post costs $220 per year more than a digital subscription is a sure sign I’ve been paying for a lot of stuff I don’t really need.
But inertia is a powerful force. (The Post understands that well. I can’t cancel the service via their website; I have to do so via a phone call.)
It’s hard to bid farewell to the familiar sensation of a broadsheet in my hands; to say goodbye to the smell of wet newsprint and scrubbing ink off my hands; and to give up the joy of my daughter tossing the rolled-up paper to me in bed while I’m still waking up.
Of course, giving up a print newspaper is small potatoes compared to the changes we all need to make to protect our environment and our health.
That’s why it’s good to keep in mind the difficulty of taking this one small step, when preparing for campaigns asking for far bigger changes — much less fending off the wild and crazy allegations made by our opponents.
Now, about that plane flight to Europe I’ve been thinking about… | https://medium.com/the-public-interest-network/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-36586c0fc1db | ['Kirk Weinert'] | 2019-11-15 17:28:41.281000+00:00 | ['Recycling', 'Newspapers', 'Environmentalism', 'Journalism', 'Environment'] |
Gradient Descent, Normal Equation, and the Math Story. | In a world where data is becoming more valuable than gold, machine learning is trying to use these data for marketing, customer satisfaction, problem-solving and many many other reasons. However, the question arises, how we extract the maximum possible value from a given dataset? This is a question that I will attempt to tackle in this article.
# Import the required libraries
#
# import pandas
import pandas as pd
# import numpy
import numpy as np
np.seterr(all='warn')
# import matplotlib for visualization
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Read your collected data
data = pd.read_csv("car_pricing.csv")
# Project the first 5 rows of your data
data.head()
Let’s make a hypothesis, shall we?
Suppose we have a magic empty box. The way that magic box works is the following. We put a paper with a written value inside, and once we open it again, a new paper appears with a prediction. And that’s the idea behind it.
The hypothesis is a formal way to describe our prediction function. It’s a Greek word “υπόθεση”, and it means “idea or explanation for something that is based on known facts but has not yet been proven”. Therefore, our goal is, given a training set, to learn a function h: X → Y so that h(x) is a “good” predictor for the corresponding value of y.
When the variable that we want to estimate is continuous, such as car pricing, which will be our example for this article, we tend to call this learning problem a regression problem.
Enter the cost function
In the previous section, we said that “… h(x) is a “good” predictor…”. However, we haven’t defined yet a way to calculate the accuracy of our hypothesis function. This measurement is calculated from the cost function. How we do that?
To make our prediction, we have a given set of data; it’s called the training set. This dataset contains price samples from the automotive industry. The idea is to try to predict these values again using our hypothesis function and to calculate how far the prediction is from the real one.
There are plenty of metrics that measures how well our model performs. It will be the next article so stay tuned!
The metric that we will use is the MSE or Mean Squared Error. It’s the most popular among the others for regression algorithms, and it looks like the following equation:
where:
i — index of sample,
ŷ — predicted value,
y — expected value,
n — number of samples in the dataset.
As shown in the equation, the smaller the difference between the actual and predicted values of y, the lower the MSE. And that is the goal, to have the lowest possible MSE because of the fact that the cost function uses the MSE as a metric to estimate an average difference of all the results of the hypothesis with inputs from x’s and the actual output y’s.
Finally, the last piece to assemble the cost function is the regression line. We try to make a straight line (defined by hθ (x)) that passes through the data points. Since we are trying to draw a straight line, our formula will be:
We are now ready to assemble the cost function by replacing y_hat with our hypothesis.
Normal Equation
At this point in the article, I want to introduce the vectorization of the functions. The reason that we do such a thing is about the computational efficiency from programming libraries and make our formulas shorter and easier to read. Let’s say that we have four cars whose prices we want to predict.
Our target variable(dependent variable) will be price, and the independent variable will be the horsepower of the car.
Convert our features and target variables into matrixes, vectors:
Multiply our features by our parameters:
Eh voila! This method will allow us to make a massive prediction of our data set and make our cost function:
to be more like:
To simplify more the equation, we will use one of the matrix transpose identities (AB)^T = B^T A^T and then we will use associative multiplication.
Due to the second term and the third term are the same, we can add them:
Then the question arises, how do we minimize this equation? The answer lies in graph analysis and Fermat’s Theorem. The Extreme Value Theorem tells us that the minimum and maximum of a function must be where the derivative is either zero or non-existent. So, we need to find the derivative of the new J(θ) to be equal to 0.
Find the derivative of A:
Therefore for each parameter n:
And if we convert all of these derivates into vectors then:
Find the derivative of B:
Therefore for each parameter n:
And if we convert all of these derivates into vectors then:
The third term does not contain any θ parameter and therefore the derivate of,
will be zero:
All the pieces are ready. Let’s assemble the puzzle from equation (1),(2) and (3):
This is the theory of the normal equation. However, we must test the method to prove that it works properly. It’s time to apply it to our car pricing problem. First, we will initialize some variables and data.
Tip: Using this formula does not require any feature scaling, and you will get an exact solution in one calculation: there is no “loop until convergence”.
# Initialize target variable
y = data['price'].to_numpy()
# initialize number of training examples
m = y.size
# Get your feautures
X = data
X = X[["horsepower"]].to_numpy()
# Add a column of intercept point
X = np.hstack((np.ones((m,1)), X))
Next, we will move on to the implementation of the normal equation:
def normalEquation(X, y):
"""
Computes the solution to linear regression using the normal equation formula.
Parameters
----------
X : array_like
The dataset of shape (m x n+1).
y : array_like
The value at each data point. A vector of shape (m, ).
theta : array_like
A vector of shape (n+1, ) which represents the parameters.
"""
# Initialize theta
theta = np.zeros(X.shape[1])
# Apply the formula
theta = np.dot((np.linalg.inv(np.dot(X.T,X))),np.dot(X.T,y))
# Return the theta parameters
return theta # Apply the normal equation
theta = normalEquation(X,y)
# print theta to screen
print('Theta found by normal equation: {0}, {1}'.format(theta[0], theta[1])) Theta found by normal equation: -3721.7614943227672, 163.263060969648 plt.scatter(data["horsepower"], data["price"])
plt.title("Our hypothesis fit")
plt.xlabel("horsepower")
plt.ylabel("price")
plt.plot(data["horsepower"], X.dot(theta), '-', label='Linear regression', color='red')
plt.legend(loc='upper right', shadow=True, fontsize='small', numpoints=1)
plt.show()
Finally, we will make prediction price for the Yaris which cost around 10,000 euros.
predict = np.dot([1, 72], theta)
print('For horsepower = 72, we predict that Yaris ACTIVE 2020 should cost: {:.2f} euros/dollars
'.format(predict)) For horsepower = 72, we predict that Yaris ACTIVE 2020 should cost: 8033.18 euros/dollars
Gradient descent
Αnother way to find out the parameters that make our hypothesis perform well with our data is Gradient descent. I will use the example of my previous post to give you the idea of the method. Imagine standing on top of a valley with a ball in your hand. To find out how far this ball can go, we let it roll to the deepest part of the valley. Since at the beginning of the movement of the ball, the valley is steeper, the ball descent faster. However, as soon as it is about to reach the bottom, the surface will become more vertical, and the ball will slow down. We know that we have succeeded when our cost function is at the very bottom of the pits in our graph, i.e. when its value is the minimum.
Mathematically the method depends on the tangent created by the ball and the cost function. When the slope is negative, the value of θᵢ increases and when it is positive, the value of θᵢ decreases. So let’s create the function based on this theory.
From the calculus, we know that its derivative calculates the slope of a function. Therefore our function will be as follows:
where,
The scientists have gone one step further and add it one more variable to the derivate of the cost function J to accelerate the formula. This scalar makes the gradient more or less steep to coverage faster to the minimum point, and it’s called learning rate.
The learning rate makes our equation powerful, but it comes with a bit of a risk. The value of α can make gradient descent to convergence or not convergence at all.
Andrew Ng — Coursera
In the first graph, α is too small, that makes our method slow. On the other hand, in case that α is too large, the steps of each iteration will be that big that it will overshoot the minimum over and over. Therefore, it is suggested to try different values of α between -1 and 1 to find the sweet spot. Usually, the machine learning engineers use α=0.01 or α=0.1 and increase or decrease the learning rate from there.
As a result, our gradient descent algorithm for two parameters will be:
That was the theory of gradient descent. It’s about time to translate it into code!
Tip: Normalize your data: z= (xᵢ — μ)/σ
# Initialize target variable
y = data['price'].to_numpy()
# initialize number of training examples
m = y.size
# Reshape y or transpose it
y = y.reshape(m, 1)
# Get your feautures
X = data
X = X[["horsepower"]].to_numpy()
# Normalize your data
X_norm = X.copy()
mu = np.zeros(X.shape[1])
sigma = np.zeros(X.shape[1])
mu = np.mean(X, axis = 0)
sigma = np.std(X, axis = 0)
X_norm = (X - mu) / sigma
X = X_norm
# Add a column of intercept
X = np.hstack((np.ones((m,1)), X))
# Initialize fitting parameters
theta = np.zeros((2,1))
# Initialize gradient descent settings
iterations = 2000;
alpha = 0.001; def computeCost(X, y, theta):
"""
Compute cost for linear regression.
Parameters
----------
X : array_like
The values that represents the input features + the intercept point
of shape (m x n+1), where m is the number of examples, and n is the
number of features.
y : array_like
The target variable. It is a vector of shape (m, ).
theta : array_like
A vector of shape (n+1, ) which represents the parameters.
Returns
-------
J : float - The value of the cost function.
"""
# number of training examples
m = np.size(y, axis=0)
# Initialize cost variable
J = 0
# initialize hypothesis
h_theta = np.dot(X, theta)
# Calculate the cost
J = (1/(2 * m)) * np.sum(np.square(np.dot(X, theta) - y))
# Return Cost
return J
def gradientDescent(X, y, theta, alpha, num_iters):
"""
Performs gradient descent to learn theta
Parameters
----------
X : array_like
The values that represents the input features + the intercept point
of shape (m x n+1), where m is the number of examples, and n is the
number of features.
y : array_like
The target variable. It is a vector of shape (m, ).
theta : array_like
A vector of shape (n+1, ) which represents the parameters.
Returns
-------
theta: array_like - The optimal parameters
J_history : array_like - The history of the cost.
"""
# number of training examples
m = np.size(y, axis=0)
# Initialize some useful values
J_history = []
# are passed by reference to functions
theta = theta.copy()
for iter in range(num_iters):
# initialize hypothesis
h_theta = np.dot(X, theta)
# calculate the thetas
# (2,1) = (2,1) - ( 2, 1454 ).dot(1454x1 )
theta = theta - (alpha / m) * (X.T).dot(h_theta - y)
# Save the cost J in every iteration
J_history.append(computeCost(X, y, theta))
return theta, J_history
Print the theta cost and theta and compare the results with the normal equation.
# run gradient descent
theta, J_history = gradientDescent(X, y, theta, alpha, iterations)
# print theta to screen
print('Theta found by gradient descent: {0}, {1}'.format(theta[0], theta[1])) Theta found by gradient descent: [11481.70029204], [5569.60294698]
Always plot a Cost over iteration graph to make sure that the cost decreasing.
plt.title("Cost over iterations")
plt.plot(J_history, label='Cost function', color='red') [<matplotlib.lines.Line2D at 0x11b80238>]
plt.scatter(data["horsepower"], data["price"])
plt.title("Our hypothesis fit")
plt.xlabel("horsepower")
plt.ylabel("price")
plt.plot(data["horsepower"], X.dot(theta), '-', label='Linear regression', color='red')
plt.legend(loc='upper right', shadow=True, fontsize='small', numpoints=1)
plt.show()
X_yaris = (72 - mu) / sigma
X_yaris = np.array([1, X_yaris[0]])
predict = X_yaris.dot(theta)
print('For horsepower = 72, we predict that Yaris ACTIVE 2020 should cost: {:.2f} euros/dollars
'.format(predict[0])) For horsepower = 72, we predict that Yaris ACTIVE 2020 should cost: 6947.09 euros/dollars
Conclusion
It’s cheaper to get a Yaris ACTIVE by using gradient descent, so consider to suggest it to your car dealer! Besides that, the normal equation is an accurate method that finds the global minimum but the inversion term make the calculation hard. Therefore if your dataset it’s too large you will need to much computer power to make it happen. On the other hand, gradient descent, it’s a simple concept that can be applied regardless of the size of your dataset.
Hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did! You can also find the Jyputer notebook on Github, thank you! | https://medium.com/swlh/gradient-descent-normal-equation-and-the-math-story-3c136cbc941d | ['Evangelos Patsourakos'] | 2020-11-04 14:00:01.120000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Gradient Descent', 'Normal Equation', 'Mathematics'] |
Before we go into winter, first a few hot stories on banking! | Our apologies for neglecting the newsletter a little bit. For two months you didn’t get a Medium update. We were too busy setting up our website. I know, this should not be an excuse.
On the other hand, this occasion does allow us to provide you with lots of new items to share! And it includes two pieces of Brad Van Leeuwen, Head of Partnerships at Railsbank! Hooray!
So here we go:
Frictionless Payments and its 5 levels of intrusiveness
By Rik Coeckelbergs, November 21, 5min. read
“ With technology and its endless possibilities, the human factor remains the crucial element to make an innovative project a success or not. With a society that is increasingly conscious of privacy issues, and the new business models are getting closer to your inner circle every, it is crucial to properly understand how far you can go.” [read more]
Thoughts on the Copernican Revolution in Banking
By Brad Van Leeuwen, November 13, 4min. read
“If it costs several orders of magnitude less to launch a financial product, then financial products no longer have to be designed like the one-size-fits-nobody mass-market products we have today. The total addressable market needed to make these new financial products viable, sustainable and profitable is a lot smaller.
This will create an environment where financial products can target niches. Niche products tend to have stronger Product Market Fit, making for greater Net Promoter Score and products that for the first time genuinely help the customer.” [read more]
Uber Money and the Fintechification of Everything
By Brad Van Leeuwen, November 13, 3 min. read
“ Putting banking inside the Uber driver app is just the beginning. Eventually, banking and payments will be embedded in everything because companies that are not banks will want to give a great experience on that part of the journey as well.” [read more]
The Open Banking Interviews: Marc Lauwers (CEO) and Inge Ampe (CCO), Argenta
By Rik Coeckelbergs, November 12, 11 min. read
“ I don’t agree with that, I have built over 60 years of systems to lock in, to understand the data of my customers and to deliver appropriate services related to that. So if I have to share these data, I would like a quid pro quo.” [read more]
Why the mortgage business is so hard to disrupt
By Rik Coeckelbergs, October 28, 4 min. read
“Banks must find the right position IN the customer journey of finding a house. That comes with a lot of possible scenarios.
The journey is more than just selling mortgages. It also includes a reflection on insurance products, maybe even additional services like moving services, providing a network of handyman services, reflect on possibilities to ‘green up’ your house solar energy etc…” [read more]
Bye-bye Instant Payments, welcome Instant Mortgages
By Rik Coeckelbergs, October 15, 5 min. read
“Suddenly this nearly instant loan approval is a highly valued USP for the bank, and a key differentiator for consumers, for sure in the coming weeks, but probably also in the years to come.” [read more]
Open Banking Interviews: Karel Van Eetvelt, CEO, Febelfin
By Rik Coeckelbergs, October 4, 12 min. read
“Before moving as an industry to the next phase, from PSD2 to Open Banking beyond payments, we need some time for reflection. Focus is needed on properly managing the risks that come with a more open banking environment.” [read more]
Open Banking: An open door to a new way of banking (part 2)
By Rik Coeckelbergs, October 7, 12 min. read
“That makes Open Banking so interesting: no one really knows the future, everyone has an idea and at the end… the future will be determined by the customer. He decides how to do banking in the near future.
Well… near future… already today you can find many examples of how new companies and new services are providing superior financial services.” [read more]
The Open Banking Interviews: Jasper Nienhuijs, Head of Market Management, de Volksbank
By Rik Coeckelbergs, September 29, 9 min. read
“PSD2 is just the starting point. I think more products will follow, whether that is pushed by the regulator or by the market. Customers will be getting used to new (non-banking) features that are created by the rules and regulations of PSD2. That will likely create a similar demand with savings accounts etcetera.” [read more]
The rise of the Dragon… or is it a lizard? PSD2 got into force last week
By Rik Coeckelbergs, September 24, 4 min. read
10 days after the entry into force of PSD2, we made an evaluation. The first impression was not really impressive… perhaps the time is right to re-evaluate (more on that soon ;)) [read more] | https://medium.com/the-banking-scene/before-we-go-into-winter-first-a-few-hot-stories-on-banking-ec6c7555df2b | ['Rik Coeckelbergs'] | 2019-11-21 15:58:35.207000+00:00 | ['Financial Services', 'Fintech', 'Innovation', 'Open Banking', 'Banking'] |
Narcissism | Narcissistic personality disorder - Symptoms and causes
Narcissistic personality disorder - one of several types of personality disorders - is a mental condition in which… | https://medium.com/@voicing-freedom/narcissism-b92e2ffd53ab | ['Voicing Freedom'] | 2020-12-20 20:47:47.265000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Narcopathy', 'Personality Disorders', 'Narcissism', 'Npd'] |
Pastéis De Nata — Your Next Crowd-Pleasing Sweet Treat | (Pronounced Past-eesh de Nada)
Have you ever been to Portugal? If not — add it to the top of your “post-covid travel plans” list.
It is one of the most incredible countries I have ever visited. The people are incredibly kind and patient if you can’t speak fluent Portuguese (or any Portuguese at all, really). Definitely try to speak it though — it’s so beautiful, and when in Rome (er, Portugal), right?
They have really amazing food and stellar wines that you really can’t get outside of the country. The wines themselves will have to be a different blog post, though many different blog posts. There is so much history and variety there!
Okay — back to the food. My first day in Portugal was an adventure — this is related, I promise — my (now) husband and I were traveling together, and we decided to purchase the car insurance when we picked up the rental (American drivers in Europe, it just made sense) — so of course, they decided to upgrade us.
They upgraded us to this brand spanking new Mercedes C Class. We were expecting the smart car from 2006. Naturally, it was quite exciting, and well… nerve-wracking. As a result of this new car, we knew we couldn’t park it half-on the street and half on the side-walk like everyone else. We had to find a garage. Well, the garage we found didn’t tell us that the next day would be a holiday — so it was closed. Like big-solid-metal-gate-around-the-entry-way-closed. And our Air BnB was booked the next night, so we had to be out of there ASAP.
Long story short — we found this wonderful man named Louis, and he actually used to date a girl from Minnesota, where we were from! He was able to sort it all out, called a guy from the garage, and asked him to come up and open it up for us. These are the types of people you want to be around, am I right? Talk about good samaritans! Well — the guy from the garage (Ricardo) wasn’t going to be there for about an hour, so Louis showed us the best cafe, a block away, to get Pastéis De Nata and espressos. We spent the next hour chatting and learning all about Lisbon and Portugal!
Not only was my faith in humanity re-ignited, but also my faith in desserts, making any situation better. The Pastéis de Nata — a classic dessert from Portugal. It was heaven. It was better than that. Vanilla beans, cinnamon, a hint of lemon, custard, and a crunchy crust?! I was so hooked. I could have eaten ten right then and there. I only ate 1 to be polite, and then proceeded to stop at, at least 1 cafe per town we visited (which was many in a single day often-times) for the next 13 days we were there.
THAT’S how good they are. So good. So, so, good. It also didn’t help that everywhere we went knew how to attract tourists with them. All the bakeries would have windows with large sheet pans containing row upon row of Pastéis De Nata. They had other things, of course too, but who could pay attention to a croissant with a million layers next to one of these bad boys lined up in perfect rows??
Naturally, as any human would, when I came back, I went through serious withdrawals—no other sweet satisfied. Creme brulée was just brulée; creme-filled doughnuts were just… too creamy. Creme Anglais was… exactly that, Anglais, not Portuguese! Not custard and crunch. Where was the spice with bright hints of lemon? So I found a Portuguese cookbook (in English, of course) and practiced a few different recipes before creating this one.
This is my favorite dessert/snack/brunch item/sweet treat/breakfast of all time. It’s great when you need to feed a crowd, and in my experience (personal and restaurant), it’s a crowd-pleaser.
Even better, I have a hack to make it easier to make. Suppose you’re a professional baker and know how to make your own puff pastry — job well done. For the rest of us, use the store-bought. It will save you a lot of grief!
I also learned a fool-proof way of thickening the eggs just enough for this recipe. Instead of trying to put them back into the pot and cooking over the stove until thickened (and making sure the eggs don’t scramble on you), wait until your milk cools to a point where it is hot but not burning to add in the eggs and whisk very well — off the heat.
So here it is! My recipe of Pastéis De Nata
Prep Time: 15–20 minutes
Baking time: 15–20 minutes
Yield: A lot of filling — make as much as you want with puff pastry and freeze the rest.
500 g Sugar (2 1/2 cups)
8.33 oz Water (1 1/3 cups)
17 oz Milk (just over 2 Cups)
75 g Flour (2/3 Cup)
5 egg yolks
1 Whole Egg
1 Vanilla Pod
2 Cinnamon Sticks
Zest of 1 Lemon
1 Thawed Box of Puff Pastry
Method:
1. Heat the water and sugar in a small pot and bring it to a boil for 3 minutes until syrupy.
2. In another small pot, heat 1/2 milk with lemon zest and cinnamon sticks.
3. Meanwhile, mix the flour with the other 1/2 of the cold milk. Get it as smooth and possible with no lumps.
4. Once the milk is at a heavy simmer (scalding), add the flour/milk mixture to the pot. Whisk well for 1–2 minutes, keeping the pot on medium-low heat. It will thicken slightly.
5. Add the syrup mixture to the pot with the milk mixture, whisking well.
6. Take off heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes before adding in eggs; frequently stir to help cool faster. (This is so that the eggs don’t over-cook, the ideal temperature is about 90 F or very warm but not uncomfortable to the touch).
7. While your mixture is cooling, grease two muffin tins and roll out puff pastry sheets to 1/8″ thick (if you like a lot of crust, keep just as is, and roll only to smooth out the seams).
8. Using a biscuit cutter or a clean juice cup, cut circles slightly smaller than your muffin tins. The dough should just barely reach 2/3 of the way up the molds when pressed into the tin. Depending on how thick you like your pastry and how many sheets are in your box, you may not be able to get all 24 with one box.
9. Once your liquid mixture is very warm to the touch but not burning, whisk in your egg yolk and egg very well until completely smooth.
10. Fill the molds with filling (fill just to the edge of the puff pastry ~ 2 Tbsp/mold) and bake at 375 F until the egg mixture is firm and browning just slightly and the puff pastry is fully cooked and flakey. About 15–20 minutes.
You may notice some browning on the custard — this is totally normal! Some bakeries in Portugal like that more than others — it’s more the caramelization of the sugar than the burning of the eggs. However, if you don’t want them so brown, cover the top for the first 5 minutes of cooking.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Flip muffin tin over to remove the pastéis de Nata. Sprinkle some cinnamon over them and enjoy as is, or with a shot of espresso.
Happy Cooking! | https://medium.com/the-cookbook-for-all/past%C3%A9is-de-nata-6d1568a928b8 | ['Sydney Eliason'] | 2020-12-16 00:50:28.046000+00:00 | ['European', 'Baking', 'Travel Writing', 'Recipes For Cooking', 'Recipe'] |
How Blockchain Will Transform the Manufacturing Industry | “AI, Blockchain and IoT will be meaningless tech unless they can promote the transformation of the manufacturing industry” — Jack Ma, CEO Alibaba
One of China’s richest men, Jack Ma, didn’t go into too much detail about why blockchain should transform manufacturing. He only briefly mentioned blockchain and claimed that it needs to help promote a more inclusive and greener society.
This article will focus more on how blockchain will transform manufacturing. We will explore three areas where blockchain is poised to transform the manufacturing industry. Blockchain will directly facilitate better supply chains, play a key role in automation, and assist in combating a growing global counterfeit trade problem.
The biggest area of benefit will be on the supply chain side.
How Blockchain Will Help Build Better Supply Chains
Gartner predicts that the market for supply chain management will grow to $19 billion by 2021. With such an established and growing industry, why would we consider adding something as young as blockchain?
Consider this global survey on supply chain from McKinsey. The biggest takeaway was the apparent disconnect between data and decision making. According to McKinsey, “companies seem to collect and use much less detailed information than our experience suggests is prudent in making astute supply chain decisions.” McKinsey illustrates this well in the following image:
Only 12% of companies had collected full detailed information across their supply chain for all of their customers. 70% don’t even track all prudent details across their supply chain. Only 35% of companies are properly keeping track of incremental costs for their supply chain, and less than a third of those who do keep track of incremental costs use this data for business planning and to manage trade-offs.
Why are so few companies taking full advantage of supply chain management analytics? Is it possible that it simply doesn’t matter that much?
A survey from Deloitte shares a few interesting statistics here. Supply chain management can make or break your business. 79% of companies with high-performing supply chains reported higher revenue growth than their industry average. Only 8% of businesses with ‘less-capable supply chains’ report above average growth. A big factor is how the supply chain side of things can be quite expensive. In fact, if a company has a global supply chain, up to 90% of their base costs can be attributed to supply chain expenditure.
A high-performing supply chain will do a lot of good for your company. A survey by PwC showed that businesses with optimal supply chains “have 15% lower supply chain costs, less than 50% of the inventory holdings and cash-to-cash cycles at least three times faster than those not focused on supply chain optimisation.”
So how is blockchain going to help?
The first area is in the audit trail. There currently exists no proper universal and uniform standard for companies to aggregate and share data. Supply chains need a system that unbiasedly enforces standards and rules to allow all relevant parties to access the full set of data they require. This is basically the whole purpose of a blockchain. If there are defective products in a supply chain, it could be easily tracked across entities in a way that has never been done before. Instead of shuffling through hundreds of papers, bills, receipts, files, data, emails, etc., businesses could rely on a blockchain-based system to track goods with certainty throughout their entire journey.
When everyone’s data is aggregated and uniform, businesses will be able to perform higher levels of predictive analytics. The hard part about the supply chain is getting all of the data in the right place and in the same framework. Blockchain would force that to happen. They would allow that data to be used in conjunction with artificial intelligence to maximize efficiencies. This data could also be sold, allowing companies an extra stream of revenue. Compliance is another big thing to be tracked. For example, how do you know your product is actually free-trade or approved by a certificate authority?
Let’s imagine a supply chain involving 4 people: Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Dave. Alice mines the raw materials, Bob repurposes the raw materials into a new product, Charlie certifies that they are up to standard, and then Dave sells the new product to consumers. Through a shared cryptographic ledger, any consumer could see that Alice cryptographically signed that this product indeed contains her particular raw materials. Consumers could also see that Charlie cryptographically signed that this product was up to code.
Because of smart contracts, you can also automate several functions in your supply chain. If Alice is late on delivering raw materials past a certain deadline, it can trigger the software to automatically send an email to Dave letting him know that the raw material manufacturer is running behind. Any ensuing next steps could also be triggered. This will allow for greater handling of crisis management.
Tracking inventory in your network could also be linked to your supply chain network. Sensors could fully automate your inventory process. As inventory runs low, the system could automatically ping a supplier to request more materials. The efficiencies could mean parts to arrive just in time to be used. This would allow companies to always carry the most efficient levels of inventory.
In fact, automation in general is a great area where blockchain can help.
Blockchain’s Role in Automation
The World Economic Forum ‘2018 Future of Jobs’ report sheds some great light on the role of automation in our economy. They covered 12 different industries and found that on average in 2018, 71% of total task hours were done by humans, while 29% were done by machines. The WEF expects that by 2022, these numbers will change to 58% of task hours performed by humans and 42% by machines.
Automation is already here and it’s going to continue spreading. Actions like enforcing contracts with middlemen, transaction verification, and background checks will be some of the first to get displaced, and we’re already seeing it happen. So how will blockchain help automation?
Blockchain provides a trustless way to have transparency and strict rule enforcement in a network. If your automation process requires several different players, there needs to be a composer orchestrating all the processes. To put it another way, blockchains can function as a “government” for computers.
Let’s use an example to flesh this out. Tesla is famously known for its use of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence in manufacturing. They have general purpose machinery that has been programmed to build Tesla vehicles with great efficiency. These general purpose machines can almost be likened to 3D printers. The future of manufacturing will likely be outsourced to automated factories. One factory that can build 100 different products is much more effective than a factory who’s assembly line fulfills only one purpose.
For starters, this automation will need it’s own self-sufficient supply chain. Sure, blockchain will be able to help these factories receive all the materials they need. But how can you trust that a factory run by ‘robots’ will build your product correctly? How can you trust that it won’t simply be a lemon factory? Blockchain will allow you to interact with these factories in a uniform standard. The guidelines for what you submit to the factory could all be clear and public on the blockchain. The specifications that you provided and the resulting actions that the machines took could be clearly and precisely documented. This would allow you to verify that everything was done properly, while also pinpointing exactly if and where things went wrong.
But let’s also consider another example. Maybe sometime in the future all fast food restaurants will be automated. All the different McDonald’s could be connected to each other, sharing data with each other, and working together. If there needs to be changes to the system, blockchain could help do so in a uniform manner. This would also allow for no central point of failure. If one store went down or failed, the others would be fine. Blockchain will allow for automation to work between different networks with greater reliability. The orchestration of automation will be greatly improved by blockchain but on a level that most people won’t directly notice.
Blockchain’s role in counterfeit trade, however, is an area that will likely to be closer the surface.
How Blockchain Will Help Combat Counterfeit Trade
According to a report issued by OECD/EU IPO, from 2008 to 2013 global counterfeit trade increased by 80%. But just how big is that 80% increase?
In 2017, a report by the ICC and the INTA (done in partnership with Frontier Economics), estimated the global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy of consumer goods could reach $2.3 trillion by 2022. That’s larger than the GDP of all but 7 countries.
Counterfeit trade is a huge and pervasive problem. Simple fixes like serial numbers, QR codes, UPC codes, and barcode systems are fine for low value tracking but they are also all easily cloned and copied. So how can blockchain help?
Let’s flesh this out in another example. Let’s say Alice makes purses. They are luxury designer purses that are in high demand, but her business is getting bled out by counterfeit versions of her purse. In fact, she suspects that someone at her company has been assisting in the piracy of these knock-off purses. So Alice decides to use the blockchain. First she decides to track her purses with strong, embedded cryptography. Thanks to recent developments in microcontroller technology, strong unforgeability is fairly easy and cost effective.
When Alice makes a new line of purses, she creates exactly 500. She put a unique microcontroller in each of the 500 purposes, and publishes these onto a blockchain. Anyone could then use their phone to power the microcontroller and check the blockchain to verify that the purse is indeed authentic. Only Alice has the power to publish new products to the blockchain. Unlike forging a seal or barcode, no one at her company could add a product’s authenticity stamp to the blockchain without her permission. No one could feasibly copy the contents of one of the microcontrollers and then apply it to a counterfeit purse because the chip would be using asymmetric cryptography. When a product is sold, ownership is transferred to the consumer. Consumers can then resell the product infinite times, and they would always be able to check and verify on the blockchain that the purse was indeed verified by Alice herself. This creates an instant way for anyone to verify if a product is authentic, while also making a perfect forgery economically infeasible to create.
Conclusion
Whether it’s behind the scenes or on the surface, blockchain will play a large role in manufacturing. Blockchain will bring great efficiency to the supply chain side of things, better coordination in automation, and maximum transparency when dealing with counterfeit trade.
If your business relies heavily on manufacturing, staying up to date with what this technology can do for you is in your best interest. If you decide you want to use blockchain technology, send us an email. We’ll help design and build your secure cryptographic systems. We even offer a free consultation.
You can reach our team at [email protected] or contact me personally at [email protected]
You can also review our consulting offerings and submit a contact form directly on our website at mimirblockchain.solutions | https://medium.com/mimir-blockchain/how-blockchain-will-transform-the-manufacturing-industry-2429516a1760 | ['Mustafa Inamullah'] | 2018-09-26 14:27:11.440000+00:00 | ['Counterfeit', 'Automation', 'Blockchain', 'Supply Chain', 'Manufacturing'] |
A Newbie’s Chronicles on Distributed Data Processing — S01E02: Optimizations Galore! | Optimizations, Optimizations & Optimizations
It’s usually tough to find out scopes of optimization in Spark-esque code, especially if you’re new to it — however, the trick is to pay attention to the important aspects like Memory Optimizations & Minimizing Data Shuffling.
So, we called upon one of the experts in our team to suggest scopes in improvement. Enter, Sanket Sahu. Within an hour of setting the context and running him through the POC code, he had a couple of suggestions that apply to Spark jobs in general:
Use of better memory configs:
The memory configs usually follow a bell-curve. If you provide fewer executors and more memory per executor, data shuffling is minimal; but the garbage collection becomes an overhead and parallelism reduces. On the other hand, if you provide more executors and less memory, though you utilise parallelism, there would be a lot of data shuffling as each executor has lesser memory.
It’s about finding a balance/trade-off between these 2 cases!
Minimize data shuffling:
Almost all of the heavy-lifting takes place in the executors, and very minimal auxiliary steps run on the driver. Due to this distributed nature, there’s a lot of scope for data shuffling: ie, chunks of data being sent to-and-fro within the cluster.
Wait, hold up. I got lost. Driver, Executor & Shuffling?
Oukay. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. In a nutshell:
Driver: Process that mainly handles reading our code, splitting it into stages/tasks, splitting and delegating them onto executors, etc. Somewhat similar to a dedicated Scrum Master.
Executor: As the name suggests, executors are processes that run in the Data/Worker nodes — they work on the tasks delegated to them by the Driver. Which is probably analogous to the folks picking up tickets in a sprint.
The Driver-Executor Architecture ft. Cluster Manager
Data shuffling: Now we know that chunks of DataFrames are stored in the Distributed File System across the cluster. So, any time we use an action like df1.join(df2), chunks of df1 and df2 have to be joined first and then all these resultant chunks have to be logically merged to give the final result. To facilitate this, data needs to flow across the cluster.
Sooooo why is Data Shuffling bad again?
Hmm, with the usual scale of data we have to process with Spark jobs, unnecessary data shuffling would result in unnecessary network calls within the cluster to make the data flow. As this may indeed end affect the performance, it’s usually desirable to have the least amount of data shuffle.
For example, let’s consider the JOIN operations we were executing:
The JOIN operations from our POC
To remove existing DELETE & UPSERT entries from our existing data, there’s no need to join entire DataFrames. It’s very much enough if we just join the column(s) that’s considered as the primary key(s) — and then we can just retain those non-matching primary keys from our existing data.
In similar lines, the optimized changes would look something like this: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/a-newbies-chronicles-on-distributed-data-processing-s01e02-optimizations-galore-a91eff7cdb02 | ['Athitya Kumar'] | 2021-02-18 17:13:24.683000+00:00 | ['Scalability', 'Experience', 'Data', 'Distributed Systems', 'Learning'] |
Artificial Intelligence on Blockchain | Artificial intelligence and blockchain are impacting the future of virtually every industry. Both Artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain deal with data; AI on the blockchain can provide more value as data can be analyzed, and more insight can be generated.
One of the most promising applications of blockchain technology is smart contracts.
A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol which is intended to automatically execute, control or document legally relevant events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement.
Smart contracts have many benefits and applications but one of the limitations is; they follow strict rules making it almost impossible to integrate an AI model in a smart contract.
Introducing Oraichain; Oraichain is a data oracle platform that aggregates and connects Artificial Intelligence APIs to smart contracts and regular applications. Oraichain enhances smart contracts by allowing them to securely access external AI APIs. While, currently, blockchain platforms focus on price oracles, with Oraichain, smart contracts are able to utilize reliable AI data; This provides dApp users with new and valuable functionalities.
The Oraichain mechanism seems similar to Band Protocol and Chainlink, but it focuses more on AI APIs and the quality of the provided AI models.
The Oraichain mainnet is planned to launch in early 2021. Oraichain Testnet Validator Program was recently launched, and it is a key milestone for Oraichain ahead of its mainnet.
The Oraichain network has a native token ORAI with a supply of just 86 million. On December 25th, 2020 Oraichain burned 63 million ORAI tokens, that is 73% of the total supply as part of the new Oraichain tokenomics.
After the burn, the new total ORAI supply is roughly 23 million as seen in the table below:
The future of the world’s first AI-powered data oracle looks promising. It is a low market cap in comparison to Band Protocol and Chainlink.
I am looking forward to a successful launch of the Oraichain mainnet in early 2021.
Website: https://orai.io
Telegram: https://t.me/oraichain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oraichain
Medium: https://medium.com/oraichain
Disclaimer: Information shared in this article are my personal opinions and should not be taken as investment advice, always do your own research before making any decision.
Twitter: @roberttoriyama | https://medium.com/@roberttoriyama/artificial-intelligence-on-blockchain-f04a8d48e029 | ['Robert Toriyama'] | 2020-12-26 04:43:06.742000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Smart Contracts', 'Data', 'Oraichain', 'Blockchain'] |
8th grade math | Math was never my strong suit in school. I was able to get straight A’s until I hit 4th grade and the multiplication tables got above x11. I was able still able to get B’s and C’s in math until I hit 10th grade and they expected me to start adding together letters. Algebra brought my GPA down considerably and I ended up failing 10th grade math completely.
It didn’t matter how much help I got with homework after school or the tutor my parents spent a lot of money on, I just wasn’t ever going to be good at math. Luckily there were things I was good at, like art and writing so I was able to focus my studies on those subjects and I passed by the skin of my teeth with a D+ in math class.
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash
High school math class was the bane of my existence at the time. I remember crying during tests and ripping up my homework out of frustration. I would come home after school and get my homework done in about 40 minutes. I was a good kid, I didn’t even have to be asked.
I was interested in what kids hated about school in todays age, so I asked my 13 year old niece. She didn’t hesitate to say she thought she had way too much homework. I asked her how much time she spent on homework per night and she said right around two hours unless she had a larger project that took even more time.
I thought that was a ridiculous number of time to expect a child to do work after they get home from school all day. My research uncovered this map from the team at playgroundequipment.com and it shows how much time kids are spending on homework these days across the US as well as outside the US.
Judging by the data my niece is either exaggerating or she is closer to the homework times kids are getting in Russia per week. Studies also show that the more homework students get per night does not directly correlate with how well kids do in school. There is a fine line between too little and too much homework. Some child experts say kids shouldn’t have any homework at all.
My thoughts are they should have the same amount that I had in school, 40 minutes and not a second more. That would leave time for chores, dinner with the family and time to relax and unwind with the newest social media craze kids these days are all about. | https://medium.com/@raleigh-lawrence97/8th-grade-math-16b246ea0fb7 | ['Raleigh Lawrence'] | 2021-08-17 01:00:26.270000+00:00 | ['Math', 'Homework', 'Students', 'United States', 'Maps'] |
Solving Common Vue Problems — Child to Parent Communication, and Computed Properties vs Methods | Solving Common Vue Problems — Child to Parent Communication, and Computed Properties vs Methods John Au-Yeung Follow Jun 26 · 4 min read
Photo by Tara Raye on Unsplash
Vue.js makes developing front end apps easy. However, there are still chances that we’ll run into problems.
In this article, we’ll look at some common issues and see how to solve them.
Force Vue to Reload
We can use the this.$forceUpdate(); to force reload a Vue component.
However, this isn’t a good solution to solve most problems.
The data on our component should be updated with other methods.
Method vs Computed Properties
Methods are computed properties are different, even though they’re both functions.
Computed properties are functions that return a value that is derived from other values.
For example, if we have a message state that is a string, we can return the revered version in a computed property:
computed: {
reversedMessage() {
return this.message.split('').reverse().join('')
}
}
Then it can be accessed in the component as this.reveresedMessage .
And in the template, we can write:
{{ reversedMessage }}
to access it.
It’s a getter only function and so we can’t set a new value to it directly.
A method is a function that can be called in other parts of a component or access method in the template.
For instance, we can write a method by writing:
methods:{
search(keyword){
return this.names.filter(n => n.includes(keyword))
}
}
Then we can call that in a component by writing:
this.search('foo');
or we can call it in the template by writing:
search('foo')
Call a Function in a Child Component on Parent Events
We can call a function on a child component by assigning a ref on a child component and then calling a function in it.
For instance, if our child component is the following:
const ChildComponent = {
template: '<div>{{value}}</div>',
data: function () {
return {
value: 0
};
},
methods: {
setValue(value) {
this.value = value;
}
}
}
Then we can call it from the parent by writing:
new Vue({
el: '#app',
components: {
'child-component': ChildComponent
},
methods: {
click() {
this.$refs.childComponent.setValue(5);
}
}
})
given that we have:
<div id="app">
<child-component ref="childComponent"></child-component>
<button @click="click">Click</button>
</div>
We assigned the childComponent ref to the child-component .
Then can access the child’s methods via the ref as we did in setValue .
Deploy a Vue App
We can deploy a Vue app with the npm run build command.
This will build the app.
‘[Vue warn]: Property or method is not defined on the instance but referenced during render’ Error
This error occurs because the state or method isn’t present in the component code, but it’s defined in the template.
If we reference a method in the template, then we have to have it in the methods section.
For instance, if we have:
const app = new Vue({
el: "#settings",
data,
methods: {
setValue(index) {
//...
}
}
});
Then we can reference it in the template:
<button @click=' setValue (index)'> set value </button>
If we access a state, then we have to include it in the object we return in the data method.
For instance, if we have:
const app = new Vue({
el: "#settings",
data(){
return {
prop: 'foo'
}
}
});
Then we can access it in the template by writing:
{{ prop }}
Otherwise, we’ll get an error.
Display Unescaped HTML in Vue.js
We can display unescaped HTML in Vue.js with the v-html directive.
For example, we can write:
<div v-html="htmlContent"> </div>
Then assuming that htmlContent is a string with HTML code in it, it’ll be displayed directly.
Access Child Data from Parent
We can emit an event with the data to send from the child to the parent.
For example, in the child, we can write:
this.$emit('event', 'foo');
'foo' is the data to emit, and 'event' is the event name.
Then in the parent, we can listen to it by writing:
<chilld-component @event='doSomething($event)'></child-component>
Assuming the child component is called child-component , we can listen to the event event emitted by it.
We can then get the data by using the $event object which has the data.
In this case, $event is 'foo' .
We can then do something with it like passing it into the doSomething method as we did above.
Photo by Jordan Rowland on Unsplash
Conclusion
We can force reload on our page by using the this.$forceUpdate() method.
To display HTML as-is, we can use the v-html directive. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/solving-common-vue-problems-child-to-parent-communication-and-computed-properties-vs-methods-d16fd840f6c3 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-06-26 16:09:03.400000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'Software Development', 'Technology', 'Programming'] |
Help! I’m a CEO & I’ve a Zoom thing! | What to do when the future joins your company.
Photo by Alexis Fauvet on Unsplash
It’s 9:05am, the prep for the board meeting at XEN2.5 Inc. is late in getting underway. Three people, Jerome Kahntwright, Leslie Foxmaiden and April Teasdale are in the virtual lobby and several other execs are having problems getting on the call. Bob Smithers, the CEO of XEN2.5 is staring at his iMac screen like a cat looking at a moth out a window. He’s already spilled his coffee and mopped up the wet with a printout of the deck he’s reviewing.
Things are not going well.
Bob zeroes in on some red text on screen, clicks ‘start meeting’ and it looks like he is underway. A few awkward moments of ‘hi’ and ‘wait a sec’ and ‘can you hear me!?’ signal a sketchy start …yet no one is using live video. This doesn’t work for Bob. He tells the team ‘folks, turn on video …please’ and a minute later the faces fill the screen. Suddenly loud, distorted vocal noises constipate the meeting, it’s Jason Chassuer, the new operations guy who can’t help but speak-yell at anything or anyone he works with. Now the audio is a garbled barrage of noise, video stutters and images of degrading faces. It looks like there is a connection problem.
This zoomy-video thing might have been bad idea, thinks Bob.
9:15, Bob texts the CIO’s right hand, Jeff Wilikers. Bob, in a slightly irritated voice, calls Joe and tells him of his predicament.
Jeff: “Are you using your WIFI or Ethernet connection?”
Bob: “No. I mean …I don’t know?!”
Jeff: “Ok, what kinds of cables are plugged into your computer?”
Bob: “Um…power, and a little black plug with no cable …and that’s it.”
Jeff: “Ok, you’re using WIFI”
Bob: (semi-calmly) “Ok…? Does that matter?”
Jeff: “That’s not important now, a few more things…”
Jeff proceeds to take Bob through a series of system screens to run analysis of his baud rate and connectivity. It’s 9:22 and Bob has delayed a very important meeting.
It’s time think about plan B.
Meanwhile, Kahntwright, craning his neck to check out CNBC in the next room, is allowing the gnawing sounds of market commentators to be heard through his laptop mic.
Foxmaiden, notices her hair in the reflection of her art print by her desk. It’s a fallback mirror in her home office and its clear her hair ‘isn’t working’ today. Little does she know, while she preens, everyone is watching…her video is the only one that’s working.
Teasdale is typing away, ‘clackity-clack-click-clack-clack-clack…’ on her laptop, as a stream of buzzes from texts are heard while rushing to get the last few pages of her document posted for this call.
Chassuer, is now breathing into his mic heavily. Soft rushes, like a moist wind on beachgrass, flood in at 5 second intervals. It’s always a comfort to have a serial killer in attendance.
Bob: “Everyone get off video …we’ll do this as a call.” | https://medium.com/the-kickstarter/help-im-a-ceo-and-i-have-a-zoom-thing-5fe2e31ae2b9 | ['Dorian Sweet'] | 2020-06-29 15:59:33.281000+00:00 | ['CEO', 'Technology Strategy', 'Culture Change', 'Transformation', 'Video Conferencing'] |
Look before you leap - Know how and why exploring data might be crucial for your success in modeling | Look before you leap - Know how and why exploring data might be crucial for your success in modeling Viswanatha Krishnamurthy Follow Jun 8 · 8 min read
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” — Mark Twain
A tendency to believe what we think is fact and acting on it can go spectacularly wrong, especially when our belief turns out to be not only opinion but wrong.
Solving complex business problems necessitates a thorough understanding of the data and such in-depth analysis would require more than just the basic techniques.
The Modeling process can be broadly classified into 5 major phases. Though feature engineering, hyper parameter tuning, algorithm selections are some of the intrinsic concepts to deal with, it’s the phase of Exploratory Data Analysis that would demand significant time and attention of an analyst.
Did you know that Collecting Datasets, Cleaning, and organizing data account for almost 80% of the work for Data Scientists? *source -https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/03/23/data-preparation-most-time-consuming-least-enjoyable-data-science-task-survey-says/#46ac962f6f63
Deducing latent patterns from the data is the cornerstone of any modeling activity or any analysis. It’s imperative to identify and isolate noise from signals in the data.
In this article, we would take a peek into the strategies applied through the EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis).
Exploratory data analysis is a set of actions or analysis which are performed to familiarize oneself with the data and ensure its in expected shape and form to be processed further for consumption.
Data Extraction:
Once we have analyzed the business case and have drafted all possible hypotheses, It is time for us to gather data to either approve or reject the hypothesis.
Sources of data can be multiple therefore during the Data Extraction phase, we would tap into relevant systems to glean necessary information. During the process, we might come out with some new hypotheses, which will need to be added to the list of hypotheses we are considering.
Data Exploration:
In-depth knowledge of the data being considered for analysis ensues efficient and accurate modeling.Clarity on the data enables the analyst in deciding techniques to be adopted to tune the data to suit the business requirement.
Following are the steps in the course of Data Exploration -
Before we delve deep into the process, let’s have a quick look at the metrics evaluated -
For the sake of explanation, we would be using the datasets from Mobility Analytics — Analytics Vidhya Hackathon.
First things first - Lets get acquainted with the data.
Business Context - A cab aggregator service operates in multiple cities. Their model of operation is to collaborate with locally available car service vendors to provide most appropriate option available, considering customer demographics. They have been in the play for about an year and have gleaned sufficient data about surge_pricing_type from vendors.
Problem Statement - Predict surge_pricing_type in order to help cab service provider arrange appropriate cab (considering demographics) timely and efficiently.
A quick look at the attributes and its context
Note: I would be using dataprep package to better represent the variables we intend to analyze. Dataprep lets you prepare your data using a single library with a few lines of code. Refer to https://pypi.org/project/dataprep/ for further details.
Step 1- Variable Type Identification — Raw data can consist of either numeric / string or can be a good mix of both. However, the input to the model should always be numeric, therefore we will need to preprocess the data to make it suitable for the model to learn.
Following visual would help you to –
A) Understand % of missing values in each attribute
B) Identify attribute type
C) Visualize the distribution of the data points in an attribute
Charts highlighted in darker shade are categorical and the rest are numeric
Also, describe method can be used populate measures of central tendency and dispersion metrics
Step 2 - Uni variate Analysis — Evaluating the significance of attributes in isolation
Let’s discover Trip_Distance. Below plots would reveal the distribution of data points
Step 3 - Bi-variate Analysis — Permutation combination of attributes to explore latent patterns or behaviors. It can be done at three levels –
For instance, let’s explore Trip_Distance and Customer_Rating as a combination.
Categorical & Categorical
Could there be some interesting pattern if you analyze Destination_Type from a Gender perspective?
Numeric & Categorical — will Cancellation_Last_1Month have any to do with Destination_type? Let’s find out.
Step 4 - Missing Value Treatment
It is improbable not to have attributes with missing records. Having enough data in each attribute does influence the efficacy of the model, therefore its imperative for us to know the degree of absent data and decide whether to retain or to impute.
The reasons for such scenarios depend on the nature of the data. For e.g.: in certain instances, gather data about Gender, Salary, Religion may be a challenge. Else, the subject may refuse to divulge certain details citing privacy issues (during the survey)
Did you know — even missing data can reveal a certain pattern in the data?
Types of missing data –
Identify missing values in each attribute –
Strategies to deal with missing data –
A) Dropping null values from data set — identify and delete rows or columns which has null values. dropna() function can be utilized to drop null values from all rows and columns. Also,you can utilize “any” or “all” parameter to option available in dropna() function to prune the data to suit your needs.
Note: Deleting records (row-wise or column-wise) ensues loss of information which may be critical therefore its recommended to try out imputation techniques before dropping
Imputation Techniques –
A) Imputation with mean or median — The below example uses the average of the rest of the values in the “Var1” attribute to impute for the missing values. Similar imputation can be done using the Median as well.
B) Simple Imputer — Another most frequently used imputation technique from sklearn. Mean or Median can be used for continuous variable and “most frequent” or “constant” can be used for Categorical variables. Please refer to the sklearn documentation for details.
You might also want to explore the below two imputation techniques which are based on regression models
C) KNN Imputer
D)Iterative Imputer
Step 5 - Outlier Treatment - Any data point which stands distinct or does not conform to the pattern of the majority are deemed to be outliers.
What causes outliers?
A) Data entry errors — For e.g.: adding one extra “0” to remuneration number does cause considerable
B) Measurement errors — For e.g.: Some of the data points in Height Attribute (ideal scale of measurement — Feet) populated in meters
C) Processing errors — Instances of the file was not read accurately from the source file. E.g.: alphanumeric numbers or text messages
Type of outliers?
A) Uni-variate outliers
B) Bi-variate outliers
How to Identify outliers?
A) Uni-variate Outliers — Box plot
B) Bi-variate outliers — scatter plot
Formula –
< Q1–1.5 * IQR or > Q3 + 1.5* IQR
Where IQR = Q3 — Q1
Q3 = Value at 3rd quartile
Q1 = Value at 2nd quartile
Different methods to deal with outliers?
A) Exclusion - Delete the observations from the data set
B) Transforming and binning outliers - Adopt techniques such as Logarithmic, square root, cube root transformation to transform the data
C) Impute outliers - Treat them like missing values and impute them using the imputation techniques discussed in the earlier section
D) Treat them in isolation - Consider them as a separate set of data. Try applying different algorithms and techniques on it as compared to the other set of data. Later, you can club it to the main part of the data set.
Variable transformation -
Primary reasons to use transformation -
A) Change the scale of the variable Ensures consistency in measuring the scale of an attribute. For e.g.: weight recorded in both Kilo grams and pounds.
B) Transform non-linear relationships into Linear relationships - Makes it easy to comprehend the linear relationship compared to a non-linear relationship
D) Create symmetric distribution whenever there is skewed distribution- easier to interpret and generate inferences. It also facilitates the normal distribution.
Techniques available -
Apart from the techniques mentioned above, you may want to try out “Pandas profiling”. Output from profiling report host most of the critical information such as correlation matrix, information on missing values, interactions etc. in a single frame. Its findings are exhaustive and appropriate.
Concepts and techniques mentioned in this article should definitely get you started in discovering data. However, there is potential to delve deeper, for e.g: Identifying outliers is a complex process and box plot or IQR formula. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/look-before-you-leap-know-how-and-why-exploring-data-might-be-crucial-for-your-sucess-in-modeling-1749be3a2fe1 | ['Viswanatha Krishnamurthy'] | 2020-06-10 09:31:19.546000+00:00 | ['Eda', 'Data Science', 'Exploration', 'Profiler'] |
Getting Started With Trees 🌲 | 🌳 TYPES OF TREES 🌴
1. BINARY TREE —
Binary Tree Representation— only two children allowed, left and right.
A binary tree is a tree in which each node consists of at most two children. They can further be classified into :
Full Binary Tree — A binary tree where every node has exactly 2 children (except the leaf nodes, ofcourse !) .
A binary tree where every node has exactly 2 children (except the leaf nodes, ofcourse !) . Complete Binary Tree — A binary tree which is completely filled with a possible exception made only at the bottom-most level.
A binary tree which is completely filled with a possible exception made only at the bottom-most level. Perfect Binary Tree — A binary tree where each interior node has exactly two child nodes and each leaf node is at the same level.
The following illustration will make the difference clear.
Binary Trees are the most important and commonly used trees. We have just looked at the terminology of Trees and the types of binary trees. But once we have constructed our tree, we do it with the intent to reuse the data stored in the Tree later on for some purpose. Let’s see how we can access the the data stored in a binary Tree.
Binary Tree Traversals
Pre-Order Traversal : In this type of traversal, we visit the root node first, then the left sub-tree and lastly the right sub-tree. This happens recursively for all nodes in the Tree.
preorder(node)
if (node == null)
return
visit(node) // visit the root node at first
preorder(node.left) // then traverse left subtree first
preorder(node.right) // lastly traverse the right subtree
Here’s an visualization to make it clear on how the traversal functions —
Preorder traversal by Issac
In-Order Traversal : Here, we traverse the left sub-tree, then visit the root node and lastly move on to the right sub-tree.
inorder(node)
if (node == null)
return
inorder(node.left) // traverse left subtree first
visit(node) // visit the root node
inorder(node.right) // traverse the right subtree
Here’s the visualization —
Inorder traversal by Issac
Post-Order Traversal : Here, we start from the left sub-tree and move on traversing the right sub-tree and at last visit the root node.
postorder(node)
if (node == null)
return
postorder(node.left) // first traverse left subtree first
postorder(node.right) // then traverse the right subtree
visit(node) // lastly visit the root node at first
Visualization for post-order traversal —
Postorder traversal by Issac
There are other traversal techniques as well like the level-order traversal ( also known as BFS ) in which we visit each node according to their level that they appear in the Tree. There’s also an iterative version of these traversal which is slightly more difficult to implement. The recursion makes everything easier in Trees. Trees are themselves also known as recursive data structure since they involve sub-tree which recursively make up the tree as a whole
2. BINARY SEARCH TREE —
A Binary Search Tree (BST) is binary tree in which —
All nodes in the left sub-tree of root node are less than or equal to the root node
of root node are to the root node All nodes in the right sub-tree of root node are greater than the root node.
Sometimes, the right sub-tree might hold the value which is equal to the root node but that’s implementation dependent and both can be considered correct.
A BST is used mainly for the purpose of optimizing the search of a node in the Tree. The time complexity of search in BST is O(logN) as compared to O(N) in a normal Tree, where N is the number of nodes.
We can easily eliminate one sub-tree of BST while searching for a value by just comparing the given value with root node value. If the value to be searched is greater than root value, we go to right sub-tree, else we go into the left sub-tree. For this, we must also maintain the BST property while insertion as well as deletion from the Tree.
Insertion Visualization —
BST insertion, source — codesdope
Search Visualization —
BST searching, source — penjee
Lets look at other types of trees in short…
3. AVL TREES —
AVL Trees are just Binary Search Trees which are well balanced. A simple BST can get unbalanced and in the worst case, we may have a tree which has all its nodes on only the left or right side. To ensure that this case does not occur, we use AVL Trees which use different rules to keep a BST balanced.
4. RED-BLACK TREE —
Red-Black Tree are another type of self-balancing tree. It is given the name Red-Black because each node is either painted Red or Black according to properties of Red-Black Tree. Whenever new nodes are added, the nodes are rotated and painted again to maintain the property.
5. TRIE —
Trie is an N-ary search Tree which is based on prefix of a string. They are used to store associative data structure and for efficient retrieval of data and hence the name Trie. They are also called digital tree or a prefix tree.
The most common ones are Binary Tree and Binary Search Tree and constitute the majority of use cases. There are other types of Trees as well like Splay Trees, Segment Trees, Suffix Trees, B-Tree, B+ Tree etc. which are advanced data-structures used for various applications. | https://medium.com/swlh/getting-started-with-trees-890889c4a38a | [] | 2020-06-15 12:20:52.676000+00:00 | ['Data Structures', 'Programming', 'Computer Science', 'Trees', 'Technology'] |
Pelagios in the Indian Subcontinent: | With such a large number of annotations, we decided to focus disambiguation on the Carnatic and Coromandel coasts on the south east of the subcontinent. 335 toponyms that could not be assigned automatically using Recogito’s in-built gazetteers were investigated manually, primarily using Google Maps and mapmyindia.com. Of these, 232 were successfully disambiguated and identified, extending the gazetteer for the subcontinent.
Map showing all automatically and manually assigned placenames from all annotated historic maps.
The full gazetteer created by the project is available here. Metadata is provided on the second sheet for the eight spreadsheet columns. The gazetteer includes a transcription of the toponyms as they appear on the map, universally unique identifier, latitude, longitude and tags assigned to describe annotated entity (e.g. settlement, italics, underlined). Time-management required a limit to be set for each disambiguation. A maximum of 15 minutes was spent assigning co-ordinates for toponyms. A designation of confidence for the disambiguated toponyms is provided, 1 for definite and 0 to indicate a degree of uncertainty. Colonial contexts present considerable complexity for disambiguation; some toponyms were untraceable. Around 1000 settlement toponyms could not be assigned locations either using Geonames or through disambiguation due to both the complexity of the corpus, and time constraints. As the database develops through different projects, it is hoped that coordinates can be assigned for many of these toponyms in the future.
A range of additional associated place-names were identified for 207 of the 232 disambiguated toponyms. These associated place names illustrate the complexity and potential of place name analysis. Some of the place names were similar, varying only due to transliteration. The associated names for Pedapalli, now the name of a district of northern Telangana, were clearly variations of the same root Petapouli, Peetapolee, Pettapoli, Pettepole and Peddapalli. Others showed far greater variation in nomenclature. The place located as Caliatur, for example, had six associated place-named: Krishnapatnam, Kistnapatnam, Caleture, Caletur, Calitore and Calletur. The Hill Fortress at Kondaveedu appeared on three maps and was associated with different names on each.
Kondaveedu Fort as it appears on three of the maps: ‘Condavera’; ‘Kondehuir’; ‘Condavir’
This preliminary work indicates the importance for smaller-scale explorations of place names that will map nomenclatures at the local level and trace their relationship to changes in government, administrative, urban growth and environmental transformations. | https://medium.com/pelagios/pelagios-in-the-indian-subcontinent-94fef92ad4a5 | ['Katherine Bellamy'] | 2020-03-11 10:31:14.176000+00:00 | ['Annotation', 'Maps', 'Linked Data'] |
Borrowing Using Digital Assets | Many have found themselves in a situation where they’re in dire need of money that they know they will be able to pay back at a future date, but would rather not sell anything of value that they own. Borrowing money seems like the perfect solution: you have the funds you need now, you’ll pay them back later (with interest, most likely), and you don’t have to sell anything — only maybe promise the lender that they can have it in case you’re unable to pay them back. Cryptocurrencies can also be one of the things you borrow against. Read on to learn more about using cryptocurrencies as collateral.
Understanding Loans
While there are many types of loans, they have a basic definition in common: a certain sum of money is given to the borrower from the lender, with the promise of repaying them at a later date. The lender may also choose to add a certain percentage of interest on the sum being paid back, as a payback for the inconvenience of the loan and any other charges incurred in the meantime.
However, the lender does not necessarily know that they will get their money back, so they’re risking losing everything if they just give the money away. This is where collateral comes in: defined as an asset that is used as a security for a loan, it is promised to the lender in the case the borrower is unable to fully repay their debt. In this case, the lender will seize the asset and sell it to recoup at least some of their losses. In case the borrower pays back their debt in full, they receive their collateral back. In many cases, not using collateral incurs much higher interest rates than usual.
Cryptocurrency Use Case: Collateral
Since cryptocurrencies are rarely used as collateral (due to a number of reasons that we will consider shortly), they are often considered underutilized as a legitimate financial instrument. However, this is rapidly changing: since many cryptocurrencies already have a set price on the market (even if it’s volatile), many are deflationary, and the best-known coins have enough trading volume that liquidity is not an issue, there is no reason for a lender to not accept cryptocurrencies as collateral.
Additionally, this gives a new use case to cryptocurrencies. Owners can rest easy knowing they can borrow fiat money against it without the need to sell their crypto outright, while lenders are incentivized by the possibility of rising prices, with which they would not only recoup their losses, but also potentially make a profit. Losses are also a possibility, but this is a risk that lenders accepting crypto are willing to take.
The profiting potential is another factor for the borrower as well. For example, imagine it is August 2017 and you just had to sell your Bitcoin because you needed money for rent. Had you been able to take out a loan with Bitcoin as the collateral, you might have received it back just in time to profit from the all-time high in December of that same year, possibly even using that to offset the interest rates you had to pay on your loan. This makes the borrower’s reluctance to part with their collateral much easier to understand.
Smart Contracts for Smart Security
An ever-present concern, especially when it comes to loans in an unregulated space, is the security of both parties. It is in the borrower’s interest to not be taken advantage of while repaying their debt, while the lender wants to receive their money back with minimal issues. In financial institutions, this is solved through legal documents like contracts. But in the case of cryptocurrencies, the most logical solution is also much more elegant: smart contracts.
Smart contracts offer several advantages compared to their older, more established cousins. Perhaps most importantly, they’re trustless: both parties can review the terms and there is no need for a middleman as the contract itself handles the collateral. The lack of a third party also eliminates the need for fees. The concept is simple: a smart contract with a timelock takes the collateral and effectively locks it away during a period that was previously agreed upon, during which the borrower has to repay the lender. Once this time runs out, the contract checks the situation: if the borrower has cleared their debt, it gives them their collateral back — otherwise, it sends it to the lender.
While the theory behind this is simple enough, the question of how to get a secure loan online remains for many users. However, there is only one sure answer: do your research and only use a platform you fully trust to get in touch with the other party and use their smart contracts. Be aware of the risks you take when borrowing or lending, and always make sure you read the fine print. | https://medium.com/@acquanaut/borrowing-using-digital-assets-4e206ece0802 | [] | 2020-09-04 14:04:57.121000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Quantum Computing', 'Digital Asset Management', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Crypto'] |
Here’s What Fox News Won’t Tell You About NYSRPA v. City of New York | Here’s What Fox News Won’t Tell You About NYSRPA v. City of New York
Our brief reflects Americans’ growing frustration with a Court that, increasingly, seems more beholden to partisan donor interests than to the rule of law.
Photo by Claire Anderson on Unsplash
This is the brief the far right is freaking out about. That is usually a good sign. Anything that might unhinge their decades-long campaign to capture the Court unhinges them as well.
The last time they got this freaked out was when I suggested that DOJ should investigate whether the fossil fuel industry was lying about climate change as culpably as the tobacco industry lied about the dangers of its product (DOJ won that tobacco case, btw).
Here’s what Fox News won’t tell you about this case or my brief, which lays out the practical, political, and historical context of the case.
The NRA, the Federalist Society, and their dark money backers spent millions to keep Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court. They spent millions more to confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to “break the tie” in second amendment cases. Those are their words.
Then, like magic, the Supreme Court took its first gun case in a decade, a challenge to New York gun safety regulations. But New York repealed its law, giving the NRA plaintiffs everything they supposedly wanted. The case should have ended there — courts don’t resolve hypothetical disputes. Nevertheless, the NRA pressed on, telling the Court it must continue its Second Amendment “project,” and it mobilized an industrialized armada of anonymously funded vectors of influence targeting the Court.
As our brief details, NRA presumes the Supreme Court is a willing partner in its political “project.” Sadly, the Court is giving them every indication they’re right. One clear indication: The Roberts Court’s regrettable record of partisan, 5–4 decisions advancing Republican donor interests. Very often, these decisions hand victories to anonymously funded litigants and amici, or “friends of the court,” whose true identities and funding sources are impossible to ascertain.
A parallel hazard is the whole armada of these “amici” and strategic litigants who bring faux litigation before the Court to push their agenda. Very likely, the funders of these groups are the same funders behind the Federalist Society’s effort to select judges, and the Judicial Crisis Network’s political campaigns for them. That’s not a pretty picture.
Republicans have been working for decades to create a Court that will reliably rule for their partisan policy agenda. And increasingly it looks like that’s exactly what they’ve got. That is bad for the country, and bad for the Court.
Our brief reflects Americans’ growing frustration with a Court that, increasingly, seems more beholden to partisan donor interests than to the rule of law. That suggestion has sparked a wave of vitriolic reaction from Fox News and the far right, likely spurred by those very same donor interests. It’s telling that Republicans have interpreted a sincere warning about the Court’s rapidly declining public credibility as a nefarious threat to seize power. This reveals a lot about how Republicans fundamentally view the Court as a political prize, further evidenced by the extraordinary measures they’ve taken to seize it.
We think this fight over the independence of our courts is one well worth having, and we hope you will join us in it. | https://medium.com/senator-sheldon-whitehouse/heres-what-fox-news-won-t-tell-you-about-nysrpa-v-city-of-new-york-cf565de60b42 | ['Sheldon Whitehouse'] | 2019-08-15 20:48:29.882000+00:00 | ['Supreme Court', 'Judiciary', 'Justice'] |
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This brings me around to discussing us, a motion picture release of the Christian religio us faith-based . As almost customary, Hollywood usually generates two (maybe three) films of the variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring us and fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was first aounced (probably got buried underneath all of the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer was released, which looked somewhat interesting if you ask me. Yes, it looked the movie was goa be the normal “faith-based” vibe, nonetheless it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I Can Only Imagine (a film that I did so like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for a relatively good us, so I continued seeing it a lot of us when I went to my local cinema. You can sort of say that it was a bit “engrained in my own brain”. Thus, I was a lttle bit thinking about seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it prior to the COVID-9 outbreak closed the concert halls down (saw it during its opening night), but, due to work scheduling, I haven’t had the united states to accomplish my review for it…. until now. And what did I think of it? Well, it had been pretty “meh”. While its heart is obviously in the right place and quite sincere, us is a little too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is obviously there, but takes too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation.
As stated, I Still Believe is directed by the Erwin Brothers (Andrew and Jon), whose previous directorial works include such films like Moms’ PARTICULAR DATE, Woodlawn, and I COULD Only Imagine. Given their affinity attraction religious based Christian movies, the Erwin Brothers seem just like a suitable choice in bringing Jeremy Camp’s story to a cinematic representation; approaching the material with a particular type of gentBookmark this siteleness and sincerity to the proceedings. Much like I Can Only Imagine, the Erwin Brothers shape the feature around the life span of a popular Christian singer; presenting his humble begiings and all of the trials and tribulations that he must face on the way, while musical songs / performaBookmark this sitence taking importance into account of the film’s narrative story progression. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t without its heavier moments, with the Erwin, who (again) are familiar with religious overtones themes in their endeavors, frame I Still Believe compelling messages of love, loss, and redemption, which (as always) are very fundamental to watch and experience throBookmark this siteugh tragedy. This even speaks to the film’s script, which was peed by Erwin brothers playing double duty on the project, which has lots of heartfelt dramatic moments which will certainly tug on the heartstrings of some viewers out there together with provide to be quite an engaging tale of going right through tragedy and hardship and finding a redemption arc to get out of it. That is especially made abundantly clear when working with a fatal illness that’s similar from what Melissa undergoes in the film, which is very universal and reflective in everyone’s world, with the Erwin Brothers painting the painful journey that Melissa takes along with Jeremy by her side, who must learn to cope with pain of someone you care about. You will find a “double edge” sword to the film’s script, but I’ll mention that below. Suffice to say, the movie settles quickly into the familiar pattern of a religious faith-based feature that, while not specifically polished or original, can be quite the “comfort food” for some; projecting a healthy message of faith, hope, and love. Personally, I didn’t know of Jeremy Camp and the story of he and Melissa Heing, so that it was a significant poignant journey that was invested unfolding throughout the film’s proceedings. As a side-note, the movie is a lttle bit a “tear jerker”, so for those who prone to crying of these dramatic heartfelt movies….get your tissues out.
In terms of presentation, I Still Believe meets the indusry standard of a religious faith-based motion pictures. Of course, theatrical endeavors like these don’t really have big budged production money to invest in the film’s creation. Thus, filmmakers need to spend their money wisely in bringing their cinematic tales alive on the big screen. Compared to that effect, the Erwin Brothers smartly utilized this knowledge in the movie’s creation; budgeting the various aspects of the background and genetic theatrical make-up that feel appropriate and genuine in the film’s narrative. So, all of the various “behind the scenes” team / areas that I mention (i.e. production designs, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography, etc.) are relatively good as I must say i don’t have much to complain (whether good or bad) about them. Again, they meet up with the industry standard for a faith-based movie. Additionally, the musical song parts are pretty good as well. As mentioned, I really didn’t know anything about Jeremy Camp, therefore i couldn’t say what songs of his were good, but the songs that are presented in the film were pretty decent enough to certain highlight points through the entire movie. Though they are somewhat short (assuming not the whole song has been played), but still effectively good and nice to listen to. Might have to have a look at some of the real songs one day. Lastly, the film’s score, which was done by John Debney, fits perfect with this movie; projecting the proper amount of heartfelt tenderness in a few scenes and inspirational melodies of enlightenment in others.
Unfortunately, not all is available to be pure and religiously cinematic in the movie as I Still Believe gets weighed down with several major points of criticism and execution in the feature. How so? For starters, the movie feels somewhat incomplete in Jeremy Camp’s journey. What’s presented works (somewhat), but it doesn’t hold up, especially becausae the Erwin Brothers have a hard us in nailing down the proper narrative path for the film to take. Of course, the thread of Jeremy and Melissa are the primary central focus (and justly so), but pretty much everything else gets completely pushed aside, including Jeremy’s musical career rise to stardom and several of the various characters and their importance (more on that below). This also causes the film to have a particular pacing issues through the entire movie, with I Still Believe run us of 6 minutes (one hour and fifty-six minutes) feeling longer than it ought to be, especially with how much narrative that the Erwin Brothers skip from (i.e. several plot chunks / fragments are left unanswered or missing).
Additionally, regardless if a viewer doesn’t know of Jeremy Camp’s story, us does, for better or worse, follow a reasonably predictable path that’s quite customary for faith-based movie. Without even reading anything about the real lives of Jeremy and Melissa ahead of seeing the feature, it’s quite evidently as to where the story is heading and what will ultimately play out (i.e. plot beats and theatrical narrative act Bookmark this siteprogression). Basically, if you’ve seeing one or two Christian faith-based film, you’ll know what to expect from us. Thus, the Erwin Brothers don’t really try to creatively do something different with the film…. instead they reinforce the idealisms of Christian and of faith in a formulaic narrative way that becomes quite conventional and almoBookmark this sitest a little lazy. Addititionally there is the moBookmark this sitevie’s dialogue and script handling, which does become problematic in the movie’s execution, which is hampered by some wooden / forced dialogue at certain scenes (becoming very preachy and cheesy at us) plus the feeling of the movie’s story being rather incomplete. There’s a stopping point where the Erwin Brothers settle on, but I felt that there could’ve more added, including more expansion on his musaic career and many other characters. Then there may be the notion of the film being quite secular in its appeal, which is pretty understandable, but relies too heavy on its religious thematic messages that can be a bit “off-putting” for some. It didn’t bother me as much, but after seeing several other faith-based movies just before this (i.e. I COULD Only Imagine, Overcomer, Indivisible, etc.), this specific movie doesn’t really rise to Cursed in Love and falls prey to being rather generic and flat for the majority of its run us. Obviously, us, while certainly sincere and meaningful in its storytelling, strules to discover a happy balance in its narrative and execution presentation; proving to be difficult in conveying the complete “big picture” of its message and Jeremey Camp’s journey.
The cast in us is a mixed bag. To me,none of the acting talents are relatively bad (some are better than others…. I admit), but their characterizations and / or involvement in the film’s story is problematic to say the least. Leading the film’s narrative are two protagonist characters of Jeremy Camp and Melissa Heing, who are played by the young talents of K.J. Apa and Britt Robertson respectfully. Of the two, Apa, known for his roles in Riverdale, The Last Summer, and The Hate U Give, may be the better equipped in character development and performance as the young and aspiring musical talent of Jeremy Camp. From the get-go, Apa includes a likeable charm / swaer to him, which make his portrayal of Jeremy immediately endearing from onset to conclusion. All the scenes he does are well-represented (be it character-based or dramatic) and certainly sells the journey that Jeremy undergoes in the movie. Plus, Apa may also sing, which does lend credence to numerous of the scene’s musical performance. For Robertson, known on her behalf roles in Tomorrowland, Ask Me Anything, and The Space Between us, she gets hampered by a number of the film’s wooden / cheesy dialogue. True, Robertson’s performance is well-placed and well-maered in projecting a feeling of youthful and dewy-eyed admiration in Mellissa, especially since the hardships here character undergoes in the feature, but it’s hard to get passed the cringeworthy dialogue written for her. Thus, Robertson’s Melissa ends up being the weaker of the two. That being said, both Apa and Robertson do have good on-screen chemistry with each other, which certainly does sell the likeable / loving young relationship of Jeremy and Melissa.
In more supporting roles, seasoned talents like actor Gary Sinise (Forest Gump and Apollo ) and musician singer Shania Twain play Jeremey’s parents, Tom and Terry Camp. While both Sinise and Twain are well suited for their roles as a sort of small town / Midwest couple vibe, their characters are bit more than window dressing for the feature’s story. Their screen occurrence / star power lends weigh to the project, but that’s just about it; offering up a few nuets to bolster a few particular scenes here and there, which is disappointing. Everybody else, including actor Nathan Parsons (General Hospital and Nadia: THE TRICK of Blue Water) as musical talent and mutual friend to both Jeremy and Melissa, Jean-Luc Lajoie, young actor Reuben Dodd (The Bridge and Teachers) as Jeremy’s handicapped younger brother, Joshua Camp, and his other younger brother, Jared Camp (though I can’t find out who played him the movie), are relatively made up in smaller minor roles that, while acted fine, are reduced to little more than just underdeveloped caricatures in the film, which is a shame and disappointing.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live tv broadcasts content over the airwaves with a television set signal. Live internet streaming requires a sort of source media (e.g. a video camera, an sound interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming doesn’t need to be recorded at the origination point, though it frequently is.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for this content before watching or hearing it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start out playing digital video or digital audio tracks content before the complete file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can connect with media apart from video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.
⭐ 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 63, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 3-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.
⭐ STREAMING MEDIA ⭐
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, Do you remember when YouTube wasn’t the YouTube you know today? In 5005, when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim activated the domain “www.youtube.com" they had a vision.a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.
✓ COPYRIGHT CONTENT ✓
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 500 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration Millet and Van Gogh. | https://medium.com/@rachelford45/123-movies-the-croods-a-new-age-2020-full-stream-online-e9739e7c4381 | [] | 2020-12-23 02:00:20.543000+00:00 | ['Cartoon', 'Animation', 'Covid 19'] |
Announcing rLandsat, an R Package for Landsat 8 Data | Landsat is without a doubt one of the best sources of free satellite data today. Managed by NASA and the United States Geological Survey, the Landsat satellites have been capturing multi-spectral imagery for over 40 years. The latest satellite, Landsat 8, orbits the Earth every 16 days and captures more than 700 satellite images per day across 9 spectral bands and 2 thermal bands. Its imagery has been used for everything from finding drought-prone areas and monitoring coastal erosion to analyzing an area’s fire probability and setting the best routes for electricity lines.
When we first started using Landsat 8 data, we were a bit overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge it took to find and download the images that we wanted. There are different types of data and data products, different APIs to figure out, data requests to be filled, differing data structures… it’s all a bit intimidating!
To make this data more accessible to everyone in our data team, we built an open-source R package (called rLandsat) to handle every step of finding, requesting, and downloading Landsat 8 data. Now we’re excited to release rLandsat to the public to help anyone unlock the mysteries within Landsat 8 data! Check out the rLandsat repository here.
About Landsat 8 data
The Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) images cover 9 spectral bands and 2 thermal bands with a spatial resolution ranging from 15 to 100 meters.
USGS gives access to both its raw and processed satellite images. Raw images are available on AWS S3 and Google Cloud Storage, where they can be downloaded immediately. Processed images are available with the EROS Science Processing Architecture (ESPA). Images are also available through a variety of data products, such as SR (Surface Reflectance), TOA (Top of Atmosphere) and BR (Brightness Temperature).
Accessing the processed data can be tricky. There are two different APIs — one by Development Seed for searching (called sat-api) and one by USGS for downloading (called espa-api). Download requests have to include the product ID, row and/or path for the data, then they must be approved by USGS, which can take anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple days. To make matters worse, the APIs input and output data with different structures.
Here are some additional resources you might want to read:
Read about the Landsat Collection (Pre Collection and Collection 1) here.
Watch this video to understand the difference between the data on ESPA and that on AWS S3/Google Cloud Storage, and why using ESPA is preferred over AWS’ Digital Numbers (DN).
Watch how the data is captured here.
Read about over 120 applications of Landsat 8 data here.
Overview of rLandsat
rLandsat is an R package that handles every step of finding and getting Landsat 8 data — no Python or API knowledge needed! It makes it easy to search for Landsat8 product IDs, place an order on USGS-ESPA and download the data along with the meta information in the perfect format from R.
Internally, it uses a combination of sat-api, espa-api and AWS S3 Landsat 8 metadata.
To run any of the functions starting with espa_ , you need valid login credentials from ESPA-LSRD and you need to input them in your environment with espa_creds(username, password) for the functions to work properly.
You should also check the demo script (which downloads all the Landsat 8 data for India for January 2018) in the demo folder, or run demo("india_landsat") in R after loading this library.
What can you do on rLandsat?
landsat_search : Get Landsat 8 product IDs for certain time periods and countries (or define your own path and row). This search uses sat-api(developed by DevelopmentSeed, this also gives the download URLs for AWS S3) or the AWS Landsat master meta file, based on your input.
: Get Landsat 8 product IDs for certain time periods and countries (or define your own path and row). This search uses sat-api(developed by DevelopmentSeed, this also gives the download URLs for AWS S3) or the AWS Landsat master meta file, based on your input. espa_product : For the specified Landsat 8 product IDs, get the products available from ESPA. This uses espa-api.
: For the specified Landsat 8 product IDs, get the products available from ESPA. This uses espa-api. espa_order : Place an order to get the download links for the specified product IDs and the corresponding products. You can also specify the projection (AEA and Lon/Lat), the resampling method and the file format. This is better than downloading the data from AWS as this gives data from advanced products (like Surface Reflectance), which is necessary for creating most of the indices.
: Place an order to get the download links for the specified product IDs and the corresponding products. You can also specify the projection (AEA and Lon/Lat), the resampling method and the file format. This is better than downloading the data from AWS as this gives data from advanced products (like Surface Reflectance), which is necessary for creating most of the indices. espa_status : Get the status of the order placed using espa_order . If the status is complete, the download URLs for each tile will also be available.
: Get the status of the order placed using . If the status is complete, the download URLs for each tile will also be available. landsat_download : A small function to download multiple URLs using the download.file function. If each band is being downloaded individually from AWS, this function will create a folder (instead of a zip file) for each tile, grouping the bands.
How to install rLandsat
Note: rLandsat was removed from CRAN as it wasn’t functional while the U.S. government was shut down. Until rLandsat is back up on CRAN, please install a dev version from Github using the code above.
If you find a bug, please file an issue with steps to reproduce it on GitHub. Please use the same for any feature requests, enhancements or suggestions. | https://medium.com/humans-of-data/announcing-rlandsat-an-r-package-for-landsat-8-data-ec7e4c095a94 | [] | 2019-07-01 20:23:27.735000+00:00 | ['Rstats', 'Satellite Technology', 'Open Source', 'Data Acquisition', 'GIS'] |
LingoDeer: Can I Learn a Language? | Recently, I started to search for an app to help me learn a new language: Korean. I tried DuoLingo, and it just didn’t cut it for me because I was trying to learn a whole new alphabet, and the way the platform was set up didn’t work for me. I decided I needed something that would ease me into it. After a little bit of research, I ended up finding LingoDeer, an app to help people learn different languages. I thought I’d give it a try since the reviews were all pretty good. I downloaded it, and I was just really happy with the atmosphere and layout of the app.
I really enjoy learning through LingoDeer because of a few reasons:
The repetition makes it easier for me to remember what I learned. Ads are not in your face (I really like how even though it promotes itself for upgrades or other apps, it’s subtle and not aggressive like some other apps). The layout makes it easy to navigate and choose a new lesson that you want to learn. Last but not least, one of my favorite things about this app is the courses for each language each have different levels. For example, Introductory and beginner lessons, Pre-intermediate lessons, Improving conversation skills, and a travel phrasebook for trips.
The app itself is very simple in the way it teaches, and I appreciate it since I’m not a fan of complicated things, especially when I’m trying to learn something as difficult as a new language. It’s easy to just say you’re going to learn a new language and choose a random app or platform to get started, but most people end up forgetting about it and later on just delete the app. LingoDeer is different in the sense that it doesn’t force you. It eases you into the lessons and languages you are learning and goes in-depth without confusing you. I was engaged with its simplicity and the way it didn’t confuse me right away like other apps did.
It was a really lucky find on my end since I was really struggling because some apps and platforms are really good for learning one language, and not as good for another. LingoDeer not only has many language options but also little cards and quizzes for reviewing a language.
They have a 5-minute quiz, all of vocabulary and grammar, and also knowledge cards. After you do a few lessons, you can also take a test to try to see how much you know. I really like this because I have access to all of this even without being a LingoDeer PLUS member. Something really nice is that it tracks your progress, day streaks, and achievements.
Overall, just a lovely app that’s very easy to use and navigate, and I’ve had a wonderful experience learning from it. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an app that would really help them learn a language, and to anyone who has commitment issues when it comes to learning. | https://medium.com/@yamenasai/lingodeer-can-i-learn-a-language-1e9e85588f4a | ['S M'] | 2020-12-27 04:57:13.583000+00:00 | ['Language Learning', 'Language'] |
Changing the 10:90 World We Live In | Changing the 10:90 World We Live In
Living in interdependent worlds with opposing priorities
Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash
We live in a world defined by the interplay of capitalism and consumption. No matter how you look at that interplay, though, it’s not happening on a level playing field.
The game is rigged in the interest of the capitalists — the 10 percent of the population that controls the wealth generating means of production and most other levers of power.
However, we’re all consumers. Even the members of the 10 percent. The problem is most of us making up the 90 percent are only consumers. We own nothing of economic or wealth generating value, apart from our labour — and we need to hire ourselves out in exchange for money in order to survive as consumers.
We can summarise the interplay between our worlds like this. They control. We consume. They control the means of production. We need to make a living. They control the politicians. We vote. They control the media. We want to be informed.
The 10 percent only get away with what they’re doing because we let them.
Most of us don’t even understand the basic rules of the game, which, I suspect, is the desired outcome. After all, one of the hallmarks of the wealthy 10 percent is they know how to hold onto their wealth and influence.
Let’s get one thing clear, though. Despite our shortcomings, the 10 percent depend on the rest of us. We’re the people they treat as resources when it comes to making things and providing services, and we’re the people that buy the goods and services they provide.
Trouble is, though, the interplay is not a fair exchange, which is why we’ve seen the rise of billionaires during a period of prolonged wage stagnation. The benefits of the last twenty years or so of increased productivity are clearly flowing one way — and, its not to us.
Clearly, the current arrangements are not a level playing field — it’s tilted in favour of the 10 percent. Obviously, if things are to change, the impetus is not going to come from 10 percent. It’s going to have to come from us.
Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash
No one person has power on their own. Not even an absolute monarch or authoritarian dictator. Power is a group thing. No despot can put down a revolution if the security forces stay in their barracks or side with the people. No business survives if we stop buying its goods and services.
We’re the ones with the real power — if only we’d realize it and act collectively.
Any one of us can join in the capitalist game. All you need is an understanding of the mechanisms of wealth creation and the self-discipline to not spend all the money you earn on consumption.
But, if we’re going to tackle the inequalities built into our economic and political systems, it’s going to take more than individual conversions to capitalism. What’s needed is a revolution, not so much in the streets, though I suspect there will be a role for that, but in the way we’re prepared to act to ensure a fair go for all.
What will it look like? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it will require the creation of new political parties and a reinvigorated labour movement. It will require people demanding justice for all and not just for the privileged few. And, it’s going to require a willingness for individuals to speak truth to power and demand political accountability.
The one thing I know for sure is, it’s going to require political activism by a lot more of us. The 10 percent only get away with what they’re doing because we let them. We don’t ask questions. We believe what the media’s talking heads tell us. We tolerate politicians that lie and bosses that exploit us.
The only way to change the dynamics of the game where you are is to get involved. What you do is up to you — but don’t expect things to change if you don’t do anything different. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/changing-the-10-90-world-we-live-in-b6b84db587af | ['Peter Mulraney'] | 2020-11-27 17:42:29.980000+00:00 | ['Rethinking', 'Politics', 'Social Change', 'Life', 'Economics'] |
When Your Regression Model’s Errors Contain Two Peaks | The regression model
We’ll build a regression model in which the dependent variable is registered_user_count, and explanatory variables or the covariates as they are called, are the following:
season, mnth, holiday, weekday, workingday, weathersit, temp, atemp, hum, windspeed.
Since we are modeling counts, we will use the Poisson regression model from the Python statsmodels library.
Let’s begin by importing all the required packages:
import pandas as pd
from patsy import dmatrices
import numpy as np
import statsmodels.api as sm
import statsmodels.stats.stattools as st
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
Load the dataset into a Pandas data frame:
df = pd.read_csv('bike_sharing_dataset_daywise.csv', header=0, parse_dates=['dteday'], infer_datetime_format=True)
Create the training and test data sets:
mask = np.random.rand(len(df)) < 0.8 df_train = df[mask] df_test = df[~mask] print('Training data set length='+str(len(df_train))) print('Testing data set length='+str(len(df_test)))
Create the regression expression in Patsy syntax. We are saying that registered_user_count is the dependent variable and it depends on all the variables mentioned on the right side of ~.
expr = 'registered_user_count ~ season + mnth + holiday + weekday + workingday + weathersit + temp + atemp + hum + windspeed'
Set up the X, y matrices:
y_train, X_train = dmatrices(expr, df_train, return_type='dataframe') y_test, X_test = dmatrices(expr, df_test, return_type='dataframe')
Build and train the Poisson regression model:
poisson_training_results = sm.GLM(y_train, X_train, family=sm.families.Poisson()).fit()
poisson_training_results is an object of type GLMResults. Print the model summary:
print(poisson_training_results.summary())
This prints out the following:
Output of the fitted Poisson regression model (Image by Author)
It’s good to see that all model coefficients are statistically significant at a p-value of < 0.001 i.e. at 99.999% confidence level.
As against linear regression models, models in which the dependent variable is a count, rarely produce normally distributed residual error distributions.
So we have to normalize the raw-residuals using other means. Three popular transformations are:
The Pearson residual
The Anscombe residual
The Deviance residual
Statsmodels makes all three kinds of residual errors available to us via GLMResults.resid_pearson, GLMResults.resid_anscombe, and GLMResults.resid_deviance variables
The raw residuals are available in GLMResults.resid_response.
We’ll print out the Skewness and the Kurtosis of all 4 kinds of residuals to see which kind is the most normally distributed. A perfectly normal distribution has a Skewness of zero, and a Kurtosis of 3.0.
raw_residual_skewness = st.robust_skewness(poisson_training_results.resid_response)[0] pearson_residual_skewness = st.robust_skewness(poisson_training_results.resid_pearson)[0] anscobe_residual_skewness = st.robust_skewness(poisson_training_results.resid_anscombe)[0] deviance_residual_skewness = st.robust_skewness(poisson_training_results.resid_deviance)[0]
raw_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_response)[0] pearson_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_pearson)[0] anscobe_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_anscombe)[0] deviance_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_deviance)[0]
residual_stats = [
['Raw residual', raw_residual_skewness, raw_residual_kurtosis],['Pearson\'s residual', pearson_residual_skewness, pearson_residual_kurtosis],
['Anscombe residual', anscobe_residual_skewness, anscobe_residual_kurtosis],
['Deviance residual', deviance_residual_skewness, deviance_residual_kurtosis]
]
residual_stats_df = pd.DataFrame(residual_stats, columns=['Residual', 'Skewness', 'Kurtosis'])
print(residual_stats_df)
This prints out the following table:
We are looking for the residual type with Skewness that closest to zero, and Kurtosis that is closest to 3.0. Given how close all the values are in this table, it’s hard to make a good choice of residual type from this table. We’ll choose the Pearson’s residual as it’s Skewness is closest to zero.
Let’s plot the frequency distribution of the Pearson’s residuals:
poisson_training_results.resid_pearson.hist(bins=50) plt.show()
We see the following bimodal distribution!
Regression errors (Pearson’s residuals) appear to have a bimodal distribution (Image by Author)
What could be going on here that caused the regression errors to be bimodal?
When regression errors are bimodal, there can be a couple of things going on:
The dependent variable is a binary variable such as Won/Lost, Dead/Alive, Up/Down etc. But your regression model may be generating as predictions, a continuously varying real valued values. So if you have encoded (Won=1, Lost=0), or (Dead=0, Alive=1) etc. and your regression model generates predicted values in a narrow range around 0.5, for e.g. 0.55, 0.58, 0.6, 0.61, etc, then the regression errors will peak either on one side of zero (when the true value is 0), or on the other side of zero (when the true value is 1). This in turn can happen if you have not chosen the right kind of regression model for the data set, and/or you are missing key explanatory variables without which most of the predictions are hovering around 0.5.
In our example, the dependent variable is a count, and we have used a model that is appropriate for counts, namely the Poisson model, so the above situation can be ruled out.
Another reason for bimodal residuals is that one may have left out a binary regression variable which influences the output value in the following way: When the variable’s value is 0, the output ranges within a certain range. When the variable’s value is 1, the output takes on a whole new range of values that are not there in the earlier range.
It turns out, that is indeed the case in our example! We have left out the binary variable yr (year of observation) which takes on two values: 0=year 2011, and 1=year 2012.
Let’s see how yr influences the dependent variable registered_user_count. We’ll plot registered_user_count against yr:
df.plot.scatter('yr', 'registered_user_count') plt.show()
Registered user count versus year (Image by Author)
All the values of registered_user_count lying in the red circle occur only when year=1 i.e. 2012. Since we left out yr in our model, our model couldn’t explain the presence of higher valued counts. It made a systematic error each time the actual value was in the 5000–7000 range, leading to the second peak developing in the residuals plot.
If this theory is correct, adding yr into the model should resolve the bimodality of residuals. So let’s add yr into the regression expression and build and train the model again:
#Set up the regression expression. This time, include yr.
expr = 'registered_user_count ~ yr + season + mnth + holiday + weekday + workingday + weathersit + temp + atemp + hum + windspeed'
#Set up the X and y matrices for the training and testing data sets
y_train, X_train = dmatrices(expr, df_train, return_type='dataframe') y_test, X_test = dmatrices(expr, df_test, return_type='dataframe')
#Using the statsmodels GLM class, train the Poisson regression model on the training data set
poisson_training_results = sm.GLM(y_train, X_train, family=sm.families.Poisson()).fit()
#print out the training summary
print(poisson_training_results.summary())
This yields the following output:
Poisson regression model results (Image by Author)
This time, notice that yr is one of the regression variables and its coefficient is statistically significant at 99.999% confidence level.
Also, the Log-likelihood of this model is -52683, which is considerably greater than the Log-likelihood (-114530) of the previous model without yr. Log-Likelihood is a measure of goodness-of-fit. In this case, it indicates that adding yr has considerably improved the model’s goodness of fit. This is consistent with our theory that the absence of yr was preventing our model from explaining all those high-value counts.
So far so good.
Let’s inspect all 4 kinds of residuals of the revised model containing yr:
deviance_residual_skewness = st.robust_skewness(poisson_training_results.resid_deviance)[0]
raw_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_response)[0] pearson_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_pearson)[0] anscobe_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_anscombe)[0] deviance_residual_kurtosis = st.robust_kurtosis(poisson_training_results.resid_deviance)[0]
residual_stats = [
['Raw residual', raw_residual_skewness, raw_residual_kurtosis],['Pearson\'s residual', pearson_residual_skewness, pearson_residual_kurtosis],
['Anscombe residual', anscobe_residual_skewness, anscobe_residual_kurtosis],
['Deviance residual', deviance_residual_skewness, deviance_residual_kurtosis]
]
residual_stats_df = pd.DataFrame(residual_stats, columns=['Residual', 'Skewness', 'Kurtosis'])
print(residual_stats_df)
(Image by Author)
Once again, the Pearson’s residual shines among the lot with a Skewness that is closest to zero. Although, the Kurtosis of the raw residual is closest to 3.0.
Let’s plot the frequency distribution of the Pearson’s residual of the revised model:
df.plot.scatter('yr', 'registered_user_count') plt.show()
Frequency distribution of model’s Pearson’s residuals (Image by Author)
This time, the bimodality has been extinguished to a large extent with the addition of the yr variable.
Let’s look at the two plots side by side, without yr on the left, and with yr on the right:
Regression residuals (left=model without yr, right=model with yr) (Image by Author)
We have successfully fixed most of the bimodality in the residuals by including an important binary regression variable. Adding the missing variable has also increased the model’s goodness-of-fit score by a considerable amount.
Let’s fetch the model’s predictions on the test data set and we’ll also plot the predicted versus actual counts:
#fetch the predictions
poisson_predictions = poisson_training_results.get_prediction(X_test) #.summary_frame() returns a pandas DataFrame
predictions_summary_frame = poisson_predictions.summary_frame() #print the predictions
print(predictions_summary_frame) #The mean column contains the predicted count
predicted_counts=predictions_summary_frame['mean'] #get the actual count from y_test
actual_counts = y_test['registered_user_count']
#Plot the predicted counts versus the actual counts for the test data.
fig = plt.figure() fig.suptitle('Predicted versus actual user counts') predicted, = plt.plot(X_test.index, predicted_counts, 'go-', label='Predicted counts') actual, = plt.plot(X_test.index, actual_counts, 'ro-', label='Actual counts') plt.legend(handles=[predicted, actual]) plt.show()
We get the following plot:
Predicted versus actual counts (Image by Author)
Here is the complete source code used in this article:
Source code
You can download the data set from here. | https://towardsdatascience.com/when-your-regression-models-errors-contain-two-peaks-13d835686ca | ['Sachin Date'] | 2020-11-21 13:58:43.603000+00:00 | ['Regression', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Programming', 'Residual'] |
MTN Empowers 2000 Young People with ICT & Business Skills | MTN Empowers 2000 Young People with ICT & Business Skills BHM ·Dec 15, 2020
The fourth phase of the MTN ICT & Business Skills Training, implemented by the MTN Foundation alongside its partners — Google, Cisco and Oracle — was wrapped up with a virtual closing ceremony on Friday, December 11, 2020.
The training which held virtually for four weeks brought together over 2,000 participants from across five states in Nigeria including Abia, Kaduna, Borno, Katsina and Akwa Ibom, who were taught by seasoned facilitators on entrepreneurship, cybersecurity and deploying data and insights to grow their businesses.
“The MTN ICT and Business Skills Training is an initiative formed under the Foundation’s youth development cause and it is aimed at building the capacity of young people between the ages of 18–35 years in the areas of ICT to contribute to their employability and entrepreneurial abilities.” The Executive Secretary, MTN Foundation, Nonny Ugboma stated. | https://medium.com/@bhmblog/mtn-empowers-2000-young-people-with-ict-business-skills-8b94f7543fd6 | [] | 2020-12-15 14:40:55.967000+00:00 | ['Mtn Nigeria', 'Mtn', 'Ict', 'Youth', 'Business Skills'] |
UK BEST PERSONAL LOAN | When you get the search results for Us witch personal loans you will be shown a representative APR. This is not necessarily the rate that you will pay. The final rate you pay are going to be decided once you’ve got made a private application and it’s been approved. The representative APR figure is just a guide. | https://medium.com/@ramdhenu2050/uk-best-personal-loan-a7e8571a054b | [] | 2021-01-28 03:23:59.888000+00:00 | ['Google', 'Blog', 'UK', 'Loans', 'Blogger'] |
Is Alternative medicine Still an option?My personal story | Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash
It was last year in the month of June, my 6-year-old got infected with a stye called Chalazion. These are red or pink bumps that occur on the lower or upper eyelid. My daughter had it in her lower eyelid of the left eye. These bumps appear due to blocked gland. They usually do not hurt but are very itchy and can be painful, nevertheless, it’s a significant cosmetic problem. My daughter was more troubled with how it looked on her eye, a popped-up pimple on her lower eyelid.
Between June to September, it was visible as a tiny bump occasionally itchy and bothersome. For two months, we waited for it to go on its own, as suggested by doctors and our research on the internet.
However, between September to October, this bump had become more visible prominent due to constant itching and rubbing that any six-year-old would do. Naturally, the Chalazion did not accept this behavior from the little kid and decided to punish my little and innocent daughter. The bump kept getting bigger and bigger.
At this point, we decided to seek medical help and approached numerous eye doctors and specialists within our reach. Everyone came with the same solution, dab it with some warm water and wait for six months and it should go away.
Well, nothing productive happened with all our dedicated efforts of torturing my little kid with dabbing her eye with warm cloth 2–3 times a day! Finally, she got frustrated, and we approached an Optometrist in Toronto, working in a well-established medical institution, private practitioner with exceptional service. However, this service comes with a membership fee, which is not cheap, but worth spending for what is offered.
In Canada, we have a publicly funded universal health care system which is a blessing, but there is a big waitlist for the specialists, which goes through a referral system, and a referral from a family doctor’s office is a must.
Anyway, to cut it short, we did see an optometrist at this institution, by the name of “Medcan” located in Toronto. She recommended doing the same thing that four doctors before her had suggested. However, seeing our worried look, she decided to provide a referral for an ophthalmologist (eye specialist) at Sick Kids of Toronto.It was a relief to get a specialist’s referral, but the posibility of “minor incision or surgery” got us really scared and worried. The doctor had quickly conveyed the next steps, putting the onus on us to proceed, but the very thought of anything even remotely close to surgery gave me jitters. thinking of an incision on those big and beautiful eyes. At this point, as much as I was relieved that the stye would be gone, I was just scared of this procedure, but the experts expressed it as the only treatment available through the traditional medicine. Anyway, I gathered a lot of strength and controlled my urge to ask several questions I had from the specialist. We got back home, sad and nervous.
We knew that due to the waitlists in Canada, we have some time to review this “Recommendation” and look for other options.
All this time that we were debating and discussing other alternatives, my beautiful daughter had the same question” Can this be fixed, or do I need a surgery. Not getting any answer from a “Google Mom” was making her more anxious.
That brings me to the crux of this long story, I had to find a solution and we sought alternative medicine. For years, in India “Homeopathy” is used as a non-conventional way to treat medical issues, especially for people who have 1.Faith in Homeopathy and Alternative medicines. 2. People, who, for some reasons, cannot use conventional medical treatment due to allergies, problems of taking medicines, ingredients used, chemicals, etc.
I, myself in childhood, was given homeopathy medicines for minor problems such as upset stomach, cough and cold, diarrhea, etc. In India, a place where I grew up, before migrating to Canada, Homeopathy is the third popular method of medical treatment after Allopathy and Ayurveda. There are over 250,000 registered Homeopathic doctors currently in India, and more and more gets added every year. Many family members in India had advised the same for my daughter too.
There were two issues, although I grew up on Homeopathy medicines in India, I was not very convinced with the science behind it and the effectiveness of its outcomes.
Well! Being a mother with a resolve to fight this out, I started my research, and trust me, I have been complimented on my research skills an infinite number of times (Just being modest!)
I took a month researching homeopathy medicines, the problems that can be best treated, and the most difficult part, “finding the best and trustworthy homeopathy practitioner”, in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Going through the Google search results and reviews, we shortlisted a few. We finally went with the one we perceived to be the best for us, Mr. Harmeet Suri, and clearly, we went through a lot of factors such as Google reviews, proximity to our house, and the fee. He is slightly expensive compared to an average practitioner, but don’t we all pay a premium for the best things in our lives? We did the same, and this comes very organically to us, for example for last few years we have shifted to eating everything organic. Comes at a premium but hopefully is helpful in the longer run.
We met the practitioner; I keep using this phrase as they are not allowed to call themselves “ Doctors. “ However, they make a massive difference in the lives of people seeking alternate medicines, people wishing to avoid medical interventions for little things, just like me.
Though it was tough to get my daughter to see a practitioner in a non-medical setting, she did get excited knowing that this would save her from the “incision” in her eyes.
He examined her eyes and shortlisted two medicines based on medical history, family background, personality, and the “cure” suggested by the book of homeopathy, the book with the origin of homeopathy in Germany, and the types made on characteristics of the problem.
We came back with the medicines, not knowing for sure if it can do the magic! We started in December 2019, and by May 2020, her stye had become smaller over time, and the cosmetic concern slowly faded. By June end, her stye had vanished! The magic had happened, and my daughter’s beautiful eyes were sparkling and shinning again, what a relief for a mother!!
Amidst all the pain and suffering that Covid19 has inflicted on us, this came as the best news. Hopefully, my story can spread some positivity amidst so much of negativity surrounding us. We all can bring change individually or collectively, but by being patient, positive, and practicing goodness.
It has been my mantra, and I hope you relate to it.
We all need to pause; the world is moving too fast, old age sayings, and practices still work, we need to instill faith in ourselves.
Key resources on this alternative treatment!
Homeopathy
wikipedia | https://medium.com/@durgajha_89253/how-we-saved-our-daughter-from-a-medical-intervention-8806fe179fdd | ['Durga Jha'] | 2020-08-05 19:59:42.189000+00:00 | ['Daughters', 'Mothers', 'Health', 'Storytelling', 'Médical'] |
The Case for Humanitarian AI: Using data to proactively address complex problems | People are tired of hearing that technology is “saving the world” when they know it’s just marketing-speak. And yet, we all know humanity needs to be proactive and pragmatic in addressing urgent global crises. Data-driven, AI-enabled philanthropy is a powerful, untapped tool to address humanitarian problems. Not only can the right tech make philanthropy more effective, it can also bring transparency and accountability to a famously fragmented sector.
Information technology, used everyday to increase efficiencies in the private sector, is tragically under-utilized in addressing social challenges. We need to take a data-drive approach. Practical usage in AI can bring together stakeholders, funders and nonprofits from all walks of life to solve complex humanitarian problems.
AI for Philanthropy: Turning Vision Into Reality
Just as “software is eating the world” across different sectors, so too will technology enable the philanthropic community to be more effective and efficient. This is great news for the sector.
The organization AI4Giving has been a significant driver in the discussion about using AI for philanthropic giving. We can use machine learning to analyze and aggregate large amounts of data sets across different players in the humanitarian sector in order to:
Provide philanthropists with an evidence-based understanding of where help is needed.
Efficiently evaluate the impact of charitable giving.
Impact organizations’ mission by allowing them to make informed decisions and continuously adapt to realities on the ground.
Foster the relationship between donors and causes.
Help researchers better understand donors.
Automate internal reporting and other administrative tasks.
Data-Driven Philanthropy is the Future of Giving
Data-driven philanthropy will enable more effective giving. The old philanthropic system is top-down, biased, and siloed. AI offers us the possibility of a data-based understanding of the nonprofit world. This has never existed before!
AI creates scalable data collection capabilities that harness information from nonprofits in real time. This creates possibilities for a grassroots data collection effort that tells donors exactly where funds need to go. We can do more to empower small nonprofits by knowing more about them — knowing where they are, who they serve, and what they need.
Oftentimes, small grassroots nonprofits are the best knowledge bases on their local community. They understand the needs facing their specific community and are first responders to crisis situations. Through AI, it fosters the possibility to not only give to major organizations, but to connect with and hone in on hyperlocal organizations right in your backyard.
Though technology isn’t a quick fix for the world’s problems, it can help us go a long way toward improving life for millions of people. Rather than maintaining the current fragmented giving landscape, having a connected network can bring stakeholders together.
You Can Be the Future of Giving
As it stands, donors don’t currently leverage data in their philanthropic activities. Now that we’re in the midst of a prolonged crisis, we have an opportunity to do things differently. Donors have begun to realize, much to their chagrin, that the money they donate to causes online could take at least a month to reach its destination.
We invite you to join a new movement–- one that gives donors a real-time look at the nonprofits that need funding, and that enables them to get money to its destination right away. We’re opening the door to next-level pragmatism and problem solving that will improve life for so many people, including you.
Are you ready to be part of the future of giving? Join us at DANDI. Reach out to us here to learn more. [email protected] | https://medium.com/@dandi4good/the-case-for-humanitarian-ai-using-data-to-proactively-address-complex-problems-69e829120927 | [] | 2020-12-10 15:10:34.849000+00:00 | ['Philanthropy', 'AI', 'Startup', 'Humanity', 'Data'] |
Findex branch Crowe Horwath announces national initiative to support regional startups | Crowe Horwath, the regionally-focused arm of accounting and financial advisory firm Findex, has announced that it will be launching FoundX, a new initiative to support regional startups and small businesses.
FoundX will look to facilitate meetups for startup communities across regional Australia, where they will have the opportunity to access mentoring and information designed to help them grow their businesses.
Crowe Horwath said the initiative was formed to help empower regional startups by leveraging the firm’s national regional network.
With over 110 offices spread across Australia, Crowe Horwath has a number located in regional and rural towns, which connect customers to the firm’s 3000-strong financial advisor network.
The firm also offers a service tailored to agribusinesses, with a portion of its advisory network coming from agricultural backgrounds; it also acts as an advisory partner to the National Farmers Federation (NFF), an organisation supporting Australian farming businesses.
Focusing on networking opportunities will be key to each event, with the firm saying that FoundX will aim to connect entrepreneurs to “valuable networks” across Australia.
Planned to be rolled out nationally, Geelong will be the space for FoundX’s first “regional hub”, with a launch event set to kick off the initiative in the city next Thursday.
Mark Whelan, executive managing partner at Crowe Horwath, said Geelong’s strong local startup community makes it the ideal location for the launch.
“Geelong is one of Australia’s largest regional centres and was selected as the first regional hub in the national roll-out of FoundX due to its thriving startup and small business community. We have seen Crowe Horwath grow as part of that community and this is a great opportunity to give back,” he said.
Speaking at the launch event will be Con Raso, founder of Turned Global, and Tim Heasley of venture capital firm Artesian, who will provide insight into what VC firms look for when investing in Australian startups.
FoundX marks the latest supportive initiative Findex has developed to support regional startups and small businesses, with last year seeing the firm work beside the NFF to launch national agtech accelerator SproutX.
The first agtech-focused accelerator within Australia, SproutX was created to help spur on Australia’s agtech boom, with the program first offering an online pre-accelerator program to 100 startups across Australia.
SproutX also recently announced the first cohort of startups to be accepted into the program.
Out of a pool of 100 applicants, 11 startups were selected, with each set to recieve mentoring from agtech industry experts, as well as $40,000 in capital in exchange for eight percent equity.
The program will run in SproutX’s Melbourne coworking space over a six month period.
Image: Crowe Horwath Team. Source: Linkedin. | https://medium.com/startup-daily/findex-branch-crowe-horwath-announces-national-initiative-to-support-regional-startups-44b443477795 | ['Mat Beeche'] | 2017-07-25 09:01:31.145000+00:00 | ['Findex', 'Farmers', 'Crowe Horwath', 'Australia', 'Businesses'] |
Trusting yourself gives you a lot of power back | “The more disciplined your environment is, the less discipline you need to be, don’t swim upstream”- James Clear
(Source: Instagram, @elena.masci_illustrations)
There are so many pieces of life advice that are contradicting, but one that I struggle with most is choosing between spending time with people you love whose values and lifestyles you may not resonate with, and spending time with those that inspire you to be better.
I am a believer of the fact that ’you become the average of the top 5 people you surround yourself with’. I believe that whom you spend your time with matters.
The question that arises is, what if some people make you happy, but there are some values they have which don’t resonate with you, or they prefer not to take risks and are happy to settle for what they have? As a person who treasures my relationships, I don’t believe in ending a relationship based on the mere fact that the person does not have similar values and goals.
Though I am still figuring out how reconcile these two values, I always tell myself to listen to my intuition. There are some people whom, you know may not influence you positively in terms of lifestyle, who nonetheless make you feel valued and happy. It’s about knowing how to draw the line, and also trusting yourself. Trusting that you are responsible for your own actions and lifestyle.
Trusting yourself gives you a lot of power back. When you trust yourself, you don’t need to only spend time with everyone who resonates with your values, because you know that even when you spend time with those who don’t, you still have the internal motivation and discipline to stay grounded and driven, regardless of how others live their lives. | https://medium.com/@claudia1ee/trusting-yourself-gives-you-a-lot-of-power-back-c135e4996551 | ['Claudia Lee'] | 2020-12-11 16:41:19.072000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Intuition', 'Life Lessons', 'Trust', 'Self-awareness'] |
“It’s a Set up for Failure” | An interesting modern Rorschach test is to simply say the words “multi-level marketing” (MLM) to someone. You are sure to elicit some form of annoyance, curiosity, or maybe even defensiveness. There will be no shortage of opinions, but your conversation will probably be based on anecdotes and emotion, not expansive reporting or facts. This is because as an industry, MLM companies — or direct sales as they label themselves — go out of their way to obscure any data about how their business model works.
This is where The Dream comes in. The first season’s 11-episode examination of the history of pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing, is, as a whole, completely satisfying, and it will likely maximize the amount of cynicism you can hold towards a business model.
We recommended The Dream in our 100 Outstanding Podcasts of 2018, and it was among the most recommended shows overall of last year (including by Time and The Atlantic). The show is a production of Stitcher and Little Everywhere, and is the type of deep but human reporting that podcasts can excel at.
The reporting on The Dream is done by a team of three. Jane Marie (of This American Life and DTR) is the host, expertly weaving a narrative of deeply flawed business practices with more nuanced stories from family and friends in her hometown of Owosso, Michigan. MacKenzie Kassab (The Wall Street Journal, Jezebel, The Hairpin) is a writer who goes undercover to join the ranks of an MLM company called Limelight. Dann Gallucci is a podcast producer (Bullseye with Jesse Thorn) and musician (Modest Mouse, Cold War Kids) who digs deep into and reports on the historical and political side of MLMs.
I had the pleasure of speaking with all three of them shortly before the release of their season finale in the late fall of last year.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity).
THE INITIAL PITCH
I would love to know how you all met and how The Dream ultimately came to be?
Jane: People always ask where The Dream came from, and honestly it was Laura Mayer at Stitcher. She called us up a year and a half ago at Little Everywhere to see if we wanted to produce the show. But all she had at the time was “MLMs!” And we were like “OK!” And then because we had personal experiences with them and feelings about it, we ended up coming back to her being like, “Well, let’s just take it and host it, not just produce it.”
PERSONAL HISTORY WITH MLMs
I’m so glad you guys did this show because as you mention early on, there’s just not a lot of information about MLMs in academia or in journalism. And I know, Jane, you talk quite a bit about your background with your hometown in the series. Now for MacKenzie and Dann, did you guys have any kind of strong connection with MLMs prior?
MacKenzie: No. I mean, I had a cousin that was involved, but I honestly didn’t really even understand how the business worked, which made it even more surprising and eye opening as Jane was explaining to me how her family was involved. And then as we started doing a little bit of research it was kind of like, “Oh my god, I didn’t realize this has existed under my nose this whole time.” So that made it exciting for me in a very different way. But equally interesting.
Dann: I had none. I went on the internet the day after we had our first meeting.
Jane: He opened a door that no one would ever want to open and Dann had to jump in.
Dann: Yeah, I think it allowed me to have a slightly different take on it because I started looking into people who are anti-MLM activists, and then I went down a path of “How does this stuff exist? Why hasn’t the government looked into this? Or if they have, what’s going on with that?” That thread was kind of the thread I ended up landing on.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MLM COMPANIES
The MLM industry likes to label itself as direct sales, which has a more legitimate ring to it. Did you end up finding any companies that do follow the MLM model that you feel are good businesses, and it’s all on the up and up?
Dann: We were specifically looking into companies that fit the term multi-level marketing, but that was something we did not see.
Jane: I think what we fundamentally have an issue with is the business model, and we have come to the conclusion — and I think we have reached a consensus — that this business model is bad.
Dann: It’s a set up for failure unless you get in early and you’re one of the people at the top. I mean, any model where you need to keep recruiting people in order to keep money flowing to the top is dangerous.
THE LOPSIDED POWER STRUCTURES OF MLMs
One of most fascinating things I’ve learned from the show is how power structures can work. The way multi-level marketing has inserted itself within the power structure of Washington was just fascinating to me. I feel like it’s easy to be smug towards people who join MLMs, but in reality we should be angry towards the politicians and the people on top. Is this something you were aware of before starting your reporting and research?
Jane: [laughs] Our walls have been covered with various post it note maps. Like, here’s what’s going to happen, and pfft forget that. Now here’s what’s going to happen, and then all right forget that. I think we have the last version and it’s still in the kitchen on the wall. We should frame it because it’s nothing like the first a year ago.
Dann: We talked in an earlier episode about the way the FTC had gone after these companies in the 60’s and 70’s as though they were an actual threat to society and that they were presented as a consumer protection issue. But then there was the emergence of political power specifically from the Amway folks. Then that would just continue to grow and keep going for the next four decades until now, with President Trump having lent his name and having been weirdly involved with the industry, including one called The Trump Network. The whole thing was surprising to me.
Jane: Yeah, that surprised all of us, just how far up to the top of the powers that run the world it reaches.
The goal of these companies is getting people to leverage trust with the closest people to them, their family members, their best friends, their coworkers.
MacKenzie: I was sort of expecting to go into this with a better understanding of how people operating the MLMs worked. Like, I would go to the conference and see the kind of language they used or how they’re running the meetings. I did see that. But, I think I was much more touched on a personal level with the stories of the people that were there.
I really thought I was just going to have a better understanding of the business. What I got instead was something that affected me on a very intimate level with normal women who I could see myself being friends with, outside of this conference room. I mean, I don’t want to say that I had preconceived notions of who would join an MLM because — like I said I have a cousin who’s in one and I’m friendly with her — but they’re just nice average women.
Jane: There wasn’t like a rah rah session.
MacKenzie: Not at all.
Dann: Like what you were saying about trying not to be smug. We definitely went into the season with that in mind. We did not want to either create victims or to be cruel or mean.
MacKenzie: Or condescending.
Dann: Yeah, or condescending to the people involved for a number of reasons. Jane’s obviously…
Jane: Because that’s my Grandma! [laughs].
Dann: I could be susceptible to this. I know that. Absolutely. So that was a goal. I was pulling clips two nights ago, and there was a woman speaking on YouTube that was working with Limelight, and it was perfect. It was exactly what I needed as far as what she was saying, but I felt terrible. I felt terrible for this person who obviously seemed like a really nice person that was trying so hard and was stuck in the middle of this thing. That’s condescending on its own and I realize that but…we mean to say that we have a lot of heart for the people who are doing this.
I think that comes across really well, too.
MacKenzie: We had some meetings at Stitcher where a bunch of us were sitting around, and I think most of us were like, “I can see the point in my life where this really would have appealed to me.” When I was right out of college or when I was moving into an apartment, I could see how this would be super appealing with the language that they’re using. So I don’t think any of us are like, “Oh those idiots.” We all see how easy it is to want to believe it.
Dann: The goal of these companies is getting people to leverage trust with the closest people to them, their family members, their best friends, their coworkers, whatever it may be like. That is how you get people into this network. They’re good at it.
Dann: The industry is exceptionally adaptable at all things, including getting around laws and getting around compliance. But also they’ve learned how to adapt their language for a modern era. Limelight in particular is really good at that.
MACKENZIE GOING UNDERCOVER WITH LIMELIGHT
Mackenzie, I would love to ask you a few questions about your experience going undercover with Limelight. So first of all, how did it feel in the middle of it when you couldn’t reveal anything to your friends and family?
MacKenzie: I think it was kind of disappointing because everyone ignored me, too. They were all just kind of like, “What are you doing?” I asked them after the fact, “Why didn’t you come to this party that I was hosting?” And they said, “Why would I pay to come and hang out with you?” or, “You know, I didn’t understand why you keep posting those makeup messages, but I just muted you on Facebook.” So it was just alienating people without even really realizing it. But no one really said anything to me, which is interesting. And I think that’s part of the psychology of it. Like, no one was saying to me, to my face, “This is so weird. Why are you doing this?” Instead they were just ignoring my messages or not showing up to my party.
And that’s the insidious thing about what they do psychologically. I’ve seen people lash out on Facebook, saying things like, “Oh, now I’ll know who my real friends are, the ones who support me,” and it just drags people away further.
MacKenzie: Right, definitely.
Dann: You gotta stay away from stinking thinking. Let’s not associate with people who are skeptical about this business model. Otherwise you will not succeed. [Sarcastic, as something an MLM sales trainer might say.]
Jane: That might be my favorite thing from Robert [Fitzpatrick]. When he was at some conference for one of these MLMs in Canada he started doing some math about how long it would take to recruit everyone on Earth. And he told the guy on stage, and the guy was like, “Look at this guy with a calculator, he needs numbers!” [mocking voice].
Dann: Look at the loser and his calculator. If that’s what you think you need to succeed then…
Jane: You have no vision. [laughs]
REACTIONS FROM HOMETOWN OF OWOSSO, MICHIGAN
Now that this season is almost over, Jane, how has the reaction been from your hometown, or MacKenzie, even your friends after the fact, now that they know what’s happened?
Jane: Well, my grandma and my aunt are wondering when their next episode is going to be [laughs]. I’m not kidding. My aunt texted me the other day like “Is that it for me and grandma’s parts on the show?” and I just said, “I don’t know. I’ll know later.”
My friend Danielle who works for Thirty-One, she’s the one that makes $42,000 a year….fucking looooved it. I mean, her upline emailed her and said, “Wow you did such a great job representing the company. You were so professional. We’re so proud of you.” And she still texts me all the time.
MacKenzie: I do our social media stuff because we’re a small operation. And so I’m looking at what people are saying about us and so many people have said, “Jane’s burning bridges with everyone in her town” and “You know that Danielle must have put her on her shit list.” But no.
Jane: Yeah, no. Like every other day she’s texting me things like, “Want to do a give away? Maybe your listeners would want some bags.”
Dann: I think that goes back again to the approach that you specifically took in your writing around those episodes.
Jane: Yeah, I never lied to her. I mean, there’s no way she would have thought I was coming in to, you know, do some fluff piece. She’s known I was the girl with the shaved head on the bus. I wasn’t about to be on board with Thirty-One.
THE CAREFUL TONE OF THE WRITING
How did you approach how to walk the line on the tone you took? You did a really good job with the writing in explaining everything, but also not being too generous to MLMs, but also not making the people within them ostracized.
Jane: That’s just who I am. [sarcastically] [laughs] I’m joking, but my last big endeavor besides Tinder was this kind of intersectional inclusive beauty blog over at Jezebel where you got a lot of practice just giving people respect, and trying to be kind and critical at the same time. I just wanted to be honest and not be a dick.
Dann: It was a hard process to try and walk that line between telling a story that we felt very much needed to be told and included people that you were close to without alienating them.
Jane: Or the listener.
Dann: And it wasn’t just about the individuals. It’s about the town and also the class structure.
Jane: About women in general. I mean, there was a lot to consider. I got started in public radio right out of college. I went to college late, so I was a little bit older [laughs] but I was just out of undergrad. Most people in that world at that time were people of privilege. People who went to really good colleges and all this stuff. I’ve felt that since I started working in journalism I have always been a little bit of an outsider and wanted people to treat me and my people with respect. And that didn’t always happen.
And so you know what that feels like.
Jane: So that’s something I think I’m hyper aware of.
Dann: I’m endlessly grateful to Jane for being able to pull this off. MacKenzie and I did a lot of reporting, but Jane did the writing. And she was able to strike a tone that I think was really special. I don’t think the show could have been that way if anyone else had written it.
THE MLM CULTURE OF SECRECY
Why do you think there is so little about MLMs out there? Besides the forums and blogs of people venting and within certain sub-Reddits.
Jane: It’s by design. Well, first, almost all of them are privately owned companies. They don’t have to divulge any information about how their business works, or money, or numbers, or anything. They don’t encourage their workforce to keep their books.
Wait a second, now I get why 99% of people either lose money or break even.
Dann: One of the things that we started talking about a couple months ago is okay, imagine an MLM recruitment pitch based entirely on numbers. No rhetoric whatsoever. Just numbers, like someone came up to you while you were in college and said to sell these knives. I’m gonna lay it out here. Here’s the numbers. This is how you get paid. This is what you’re going to need to spend in your cost, and on and on. That’s never happened before, and it couldn’t happen because if you looked at those numbers you’d be like, “Wait a second now, I get why 99% of people either lose money or break even.”
Jane: It’s a pillar of their business model. It’s to not talk about numbers. Do not talk about dollars. Do not talk about the data.
Dann: That’s one of the reasons why they have what is called an independent distributor as opposed to an employee or a franchisee. They’ve worked really hard to get underneath the franchise laws, mainly for disclosure. We spoke with a woman named Christine Richard, and she’s been trying to get sued by Herbalife for years because if they sued then she could request disclosure from them and could finally see their numbers. This is a woman who’s a financial analyst and a financial journalist who spent almost a decade working on this, and she doesn’t know all that she needs to know because they’re so good at hiding it.
MacKenzie: What’s also interesting to an outsider — people who are not involved in MLMs and with uplines or downlines or anything — is that the companies do a really good job of making themselves look like regular old companies. So if you go on the websites for Limelight or a lot of the other beauty ones, they look like legit companies. If I’m someone who doesn’t know a lot about MLMs — for example, Beautycounter is one that keeps coming up on our social media a lot. People are like, “Wait, Beautycounter is in Target. It’s an MLM?” Yes, they have some sort of deal with Target, and they have deals with bloggers also.
The websites of every single one of these companies have some sort of foundation or NGO type organization. They have the most random things to try to let you know they are stand up citizens.
Jane: But you just look a little closer and you’ll see the ‘join the opportunity’ button.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PEOPLE WHO START OR JOIN AN MLM COMPANY
I know all the MLMs have slightly different products and ideologies, but do you see any common themes for the psychology of the people who start them or who join them?
Jane: I don’t want to disparage my own mother, but she bought The Secret, you know? It’s people that bought The Secret and want their families to read The Secret, or they give The Secret to people in their stocking at Christmas.
Dann: There are people who for at first gravitate towards this idea of entrepreneurship and prosperity thinking, the precursor to the human potential movement and all that stuff, but then they recognize very quickly that it is so exploitable because that is a network created by trust. It is a lot like when you start getting into going to Carnegie meetings and EST (Erhard Seminars Training). That’s a whole group of people who are sitting in a room that need that thrive on trying to trust each other. If they are going to give something to this group awareness training, then they are going to have to trust the people around them, and they exploited that over and over and over again.
Jane: It’s the idea that you’ll be rewarded for hard work, and that you deserve and could possibly achieve great wealth, and that’s a measure of your goodness as a human being. I don’t have that gene. [laughs]
I mean I’m being an asshole right now, but there should be a cap. I mean, no one needs a billion dollars, you know what I mean? But it’s people that have the attitude of, “Well, I would like a billion dollars” that either start the company or sign up for the company. It’s a world view.
It’s almost like MLM founders take the American Dream rhetoric and just put it on steroids. Maybe they get some success so they believe it, but I also get the sense from your reporting that they know what they’re doing [taking advantage of the business model].
Dann: Yeah, they know exactly what they’re doing. They have been able to exploit the American dream for a long time.
Jane: They must know there’s no other reason to set up a business that way. There is no other reason, and you can make more money being a regular makeup company.
Dann: It’s predatory.
Mackenzie: Well, I always wanted to give the founders of Limelight — as I was so entrenched in it — the benefit of the doubt. We had lots of conversations where I was saying, “But they seem like such nice people, surely they don’t know what they’re doing.” But if I had any tinge in the last month or so, it was absolutely eliminated when Michele started sending her emails saying, “Guess how much money we make? I don’t have to tell you numbers.” If you’re a legitimate company, and if you believe that you’re doing the right thing, why would you not just answer the questions? You are hiding something.
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
Subscribe to the Bello Collective fortnightly newsletter for more stories, podcast recommendations, audio industry news, and more. Support our work and join our community by becoming a member. | https://bellocollective.com/how-does-this-stuff-exist-cd9ceb22d25a | ['Erik Jones'] | 2019-01-22 18:44:58.437000+00:00 | ['Podcasting', 'MLM', 'Podcast', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Interview'] |
Launching Unlock Discount Tokens | Unlock: The Web’s new business model | Unlock is a protocol. Like any other protocol, it should not belong to anyone but its community of users and adopters. Today, we’re very excited to introduce Unlock Discount Tokens and start the journey toward a fully decentralized protocol, where users co-own the protocol, as well as earn rewards for their use!
Don’t forget to check the step-by-step upgrades and deployments as documented on our wiki!
The Unlock Discount Token (UDT) is an optional ERC20 token that exists to add incentives to actors who are willing to grow and use the Unlock Protocol and network as well as progressively give them control of future upgrades. The smart contract which mints UDT has been deployed to the Ethereum main network and can be found at 0x90de74265... .
Unlock Discount Tokens are minted and granted as rewards upon key purchases to an address designated in the key purchase call, as shown on this transaction for example. Like all of our contracts, it is fully verified on Etherscan and you can access the full source code on GitHub!
We pre-mined 1,000,000 tokens and we’ll distribute some of them to early investors and adopters soon, but this pre-mine will also quickly become a minority stake as the supply of tokens will grow as the network grows, since new tokens can be minted for every new key purchase.
As of now, the Unlock and UDT contracts are upgradable using OpenZeppelin and “owned” by a Gnosis multisig wallets whose signers are Unlock employees. Our goal is to soon decentralize that mechanism so that upgrades can only be triggered by UDT holders, after a voting process through a DAO, where votes are weighted by UDT ownership!
Additionally, the first upgrade that we will then submit will add a mechanism that lets UDT holders claim discounts on their key purchases!
Our wiki provides a long description of how UDT works.
From now on, there is only a single way to create (and earn) new tokens: making key purchases. The number of tokens minted is based on the value of the purchase relative to the size of the overall network. This means that when the network is small, the number of tokens minted will be relatively larger than when the network is getting large. This rewards early adopters more!
The number of tokens minted is also capped to the gas spent by the transaction, so that it is always cheaper to purchase UDT from an exchange such as Uniswap than it would be to purchase keys for yourself and earn tokens doing it.
It’s important to note that even though the supply of tokens will grow forever as the network grows, the growth of the supply will slow down forever as well, which means that it is much easier to accumulate tokens in the early days of the network than once it will be larger.
The next step toward a fully decentralized Unlock Protocol is to start working on moving away from our multi-signature based upgrades to upgrades driven by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. This will be our focus in the next few months.
We will also work on allowing token holders to claim discounts on their purchases as we think it is important to add financial rewards to stakeholders.
Do you want to learn more? Are you interested in joining us? Reach out on Telegram! | https://medium.com/unlock-protocol/launching-unlock-discount-tokens-unlock-the-webs-new-business-model-8fd2f59bd33a | ['Julien Genestoux'] | 2020-12-22 20:41:24.365000+00:00 | ['Publishing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Protocol', 'Open Web'] |
Become a pdb power-user | This is an explanatory article related to my talk at MUPy — Become a pdb power-user.
What’s pdb?
pdb is a module from Python’s standard library that allows us to do things like:
Stepping through source code
Setting conditional breakpoints
Inspecting stack trace
Viewing source code
Running Python code in a context
Post-mortem debugging
Why pdb?
It is not necessary to use pdb all the time, sometimes we can get away with simple print statements or logging.
But these other approaches are most of the time not good enough and don’t give us enough control while debugging. Plus after debugging we also have to take care of removing the print statements that we had added to our program just for debugging purpose, this isn’t true for logging though as we can filter out logs easily. But at the end both of these approaches clutter our code and don’t give us enough debugging power either.
How to start pdb?
There are multiple ways to start pdb depending on your use case.
1. Starting program under debugger control
We can start a script itself under debugger’s control by executing the script using -m pdb argument. Let’s run script.py :
$ python -m pdb script.py
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
(Pdb)
In this mode Python will stop the program on first line and you are going to be inside debugger( (Pdb) is pdb’s prompt). At this point you can either set breakpoints or continue executing your program.
Another special thing about it is that after the program completion if no exception occurred then your program will restart in same mode otherwise it will start in post-mortem mode. After post-mortem mode you can restart the program again.
2. Running code under debugger control
Instead of running the whole code under debugger control we can run particular code under using pdb.run , pdb.runeval and pdb.runcall .
>>> import pdb
>>> import script
>>> pdb.run('script.divide(10, 5)')
> <string>(1)<module>()->None
(Pdb) s # we can run any pdb command here
--Call--
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(6)divide()
-> def divide(numerator, denominator):
(Pdb) n
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb) p numerator, denominator
(10, 5)
(Pdb) c
>>>
Here <string>(1)<module>() means that we are at the start of string passed to run() and no code has executed yet. In the above example we stepped into the divide function using s (don’t worry about s , n , c etc, we will be covering them in detail).
runeval() does the same thing as run() except that it also returns the value of executed code.
runcall() allows us to pass a Python callable itself instead of a string.
>>> pdb.runcall(script.divide, 10, 5)
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb)
3. Set a hardcoded breakpoint
This is the most common way to debug programs, it basically involves adding the line pdb.set_trace() in the source code wherever we want our program to stop.
4. Post-mortem debugging
Post-mortem debugging allows us to debug a dead program using its traceback object. In post-mortem debugging we can inspect the state of the program at the time it died. But apart from inspecting the state we can’t do much here(like stepping through the code) because like the name suggests we are performing post-mortem of a dead program.
By default the -m pdb we had discussed earlier puts us in post-mortem mode if an exception occurs. Other ways are using: pdb.pm() and pdm.post_mortem() .
pdb.pm() will take us to the post-mortem mode for the exception found in sys.last_traceback.
On the other hand pdb.post_mortem() excepts an optional traceback object otherwise will try to handle the exception currently being handled.
>>> import pdb
>>> import script
>>> script.divide(10, 0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<ipython-input-8-fe270324adad>", line 1, in <module>
script.divide(10, 0)
File "script.py", line 7, in divide
return numerator / denominator
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero
Now to inspect the state at the time this above exception occurred usign pdb.pm() .
>>> pdb.pm()
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb) args # Arguments passed to the function at that time
numerator = 10
denominator = 0
We could have done something similar using pdb.post_mortem() with the traceback object:
>>> import sys
>>> pdb.post_mortem(sys.last_traceback)
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb)
Similarly we can handle the current exception being handled using pdb.post_mortem() without any argument:
>>> try:
... script.divide(10, 0)
... except Exception:
... pdb.post_mortem()
...
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb)
Basic pdb commands
(Pdb) prompt we have seen so far is pdb’s own shell and it has its own set of commands that makes debugging even easier. In this section we will go through some of the basic commands.
Before starting with the commands it is important to understand the notation we use for commands, for example a command like c(ont(inue)) means we can either use c , cont or continue for this command. The square brackets( [] ) followed by a command are its optional arguments, without square brackets it is a compulsory argument.
h(elp) [command]
help or simply h provides help related to a pdb command. Without arguments it lists all of the pdb commands available.
or simply provides help related to a pdb command. Without arguments it lists all of the pdb commands available. (Pdb) help
EOF bt cont enable jump pp run unt a c continue exit l q s until alias cl d h list quit step up args clear debug help n r tbreak w b commands disable ignore next restart u whatis break condition down j p return unalias where
Get help related to args command:
(Pdb) help args
a(rgs)
Print the arguments of the current function.
This command can save your time related to visiting Python documentation in case you forgot about a command.
Note: ! command is the only exception here as help only works with valid Python identifiers. Alternative is to use help exec .
p or pp
To print variable inside debugger we can use p for normal printing and pp for pretty-printing. We can use simple Python print as well but it is not a pdb command.
a(rgs)
args prints the arguments with their values of the current function.
>>> pdb.runcall(script.divide, 10 , 15)
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(7)divide()
-> return numerator / denominator
(Pdb) args
numerator = 10
denominator = 15
q(uit)
To exit the debugger we can use q or quit .
! statement
To run Python code in debugger we can use ! followed by the code we want to run. Without ! the code can fail if it collides with any pdb command, hence it is recommended to always use ! to run Python code.
$ python -m pdb script.py
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
(Pdb) !c = 2 # Define a variable named c
(Pdb) p c
2
Without ! it fails because pdb thinks we are trying to run pdb’s c command.
(Pdb) c = 2
2
The program finished and will be restarted:
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
(Pdb)
run [args ...]
run allows us to restart a program. This is helpful if we want to restart the programs with different argument without exiting the debugger.
$ python -m pdb script.py 10 5
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
(Pdb) !import sys
(Pdb) p sys.argv
['script.py', '10', '5']
Let’s restart this program with different arguments:
(Pdb) run 30 40
Restarting script.py with arguments:
30 40
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
(Pdb) !import sys
(Pdb) p sys.argv
['script.py', '30', '40']
l(ist) [first[, last]]
l or list command can be used to list the source code.
Without any argument it lists the 11 lines around the current line. With one argument 11 lines around the specified line number. With two argument it lists the lines in that range, if second argument is less that first then it is taken as count.
$ python -m pdb script.py
> /pdb-mupy/script.py(1)<module>()
-> """I am the first script in this demo"""
List 11 lines around the current line:
(Pdb) list
1 -> """I am the first script in this demo"""
2
3 import sys
4
5
6 def divide(numerator, denominator):
7 return numerator / denominator
8
9
10 if __name__ == '__main__':
11 numerator = int(sys.argv[1])
List lines 5 to 8:
(Pdb) list 5, 8
5
6 def divide(numerator, denominator):
7 return numerator / denominator
8
alias [name [command]] or unalias
alias command can be used to set aliases for commands in debugger, similarly unalias can be used to unset an already existing alias.
Let’s say we want to create an alias that returns a list of squares.
(Pdb) alias squares [i**2 for i in xrange(%1)]
(Pdb) squares 5
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16]
Here %1 is the argument that our alias expects(5 in the above example), if it expects more then we can use %2 , %3 etc
We can also create aliases using existing aliases:
(Pdb) alias squares_7 squares 7
Now squares_7 is equivalent to running squares 7
(Pdb) squares_7
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36]
To remove an alias use unalias command followed by the command name.
Stepping through code
One of the strongest feature of pdb is that we can move through our code in various ways:
- Line by line
- Jumping inside a function
- Skip a loop
- Skip function
In this section we will learn about the commands that allow us to step through the code. The code that we will be use in this section is next_and_step_until.py . These are the commands that you will be using the most, hence it is important to have a clear understanding here.
n(ext)
n or simply next command runs the code on current line at full-speed and takes us to the next line in the current function.
s(tep)
s or step is similar to next but they vary when a callable(function etc) is involved. If a callable is there then it will step us inside that callable instead of taking us to next line in the current function. If no callable is involved then it is same as next .
unt(il)
until command tells the debugger to continue executing until we have reached a line number greater than the current line number. This command is helpful in exiting a loop.
r(eturn)
r or return takes us to the end of the current function. At global level it takes us to the last line in the module. This command is helpful you want to step through the whole function body at once.
c(ont(inue))
c or cont or continue command lets us run the whole code at full-speed when we are done with our debugging. If there’s another breakpoint in your program then it will stop at that next breakpoint.
Let’s debug through our script next_and_step_until.py while making use of the above commands. We have set a breakpoint on line #19 in that script and debugger will stop on next valid line: #21.
$ python next_and_step_until.py
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(21)<module>()
-> knights() # Just want to run this function and move on to next line? Use n(ext).
(Pdb)
Now to run the knights() function at full-speed use n(ext) . As you can see it printed the statements we have inside the knights() function and stopped on the next line in the current function.
(Pdb) n
We are the Knights who say ni!
Get us a shrubbery.
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(22)<module>()
-> credits() # Want to step inside this function? Use s(tep).
(Pdb)
Now let’s say we want to debug something inside credits() call, for that we can use s(tep) .
(Pdb) s
--Call--
> /pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(11)credits()
-> def credits():
(Pdb) n
> /pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(12)credits()
-> print "A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli!"
(Pdb) n
A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli!
> /pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(13)credits()
-> print "We apologise for the fault in the print statements."
(Pdb)
Now that we are done with this function we can use r(eturn) to go to its end and then use n to exit:
(Pdb) r
We apologise for the fault in the print statements.
Those responsible have been sacked.
--Return--
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(15)credits()->'M\xc3\xb8\xc...pretti nasti.'
-> return "Møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti."
(Pdb) n
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(24)<module>()
-> for i in range(1, 5):
Now we are in a loop and both n(ext) and s(tep) can’t be used to complete it in a single step. To skip the loop we can go its last line and use unt(il) .
-> for i in range(1, 5):
(Pdb) n
> /pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(26)<module>()
-> print "Shrubbery #{}".format(i)
(Pdb) until
Shrubbery #1
Shrubbery #2
Shrubbery #3
Shrubbery #4
> /pdb-mupy/next_and_step_until.py(28)<module>()
-> print "We have found the Holy Grail."
(Pdb)
Now we can continue executing the program using c(ont(inue)) .
(Pdb) cont
We have found the Holy Grail.
Jumping between stacks
So far we have only seen how to move forward in code by moving line by line and jumping inside a function call. But pdb also provides us functionality to jump up and down in the current stack.
Best way to demonstrate this is to use a recursive function as an example, its code can be found at recursive.py .
The three commands we will be going through in this section are u(p) , d(own) and w(here) .
w(here)
w or where prints the whole track till the most recent frame and current frame is represented using an arrow.
Let’s run our program and when it stops at the breakpoint we will use w(here) to view the whole stack trace
$ python recursive.py
> /pdb-mupy/recursive.py(10)func()
-> return 0 (Pdb) where
/pdb-mupy/recursive.py(14)<module>()
-> print (func(4))
/pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
/pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
/pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
/pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
> /pdb-mupy/recursive.py(10)func() # Current frame
-> return 0
(Pdb)
Here > represents the current frame.
Now we can go up and down in the stack using u(p) and (down) . Let’s move up twice and then check the argument value using a(rgs) . The breakpoint was set at n = 0, now when we moved up twice we have n = 2.
(Pdb) u
> /pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
(Pdb) u
> /pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
(Pdb) args
n = 2
(Pdb)
Similarly we can go back down using d(own) :
(Pdb) d
> /pdb-mupy/recursive.py(7)func()
-> return func(n - 1)
(Pdb) args
n = 1
u(p) is also useful when you stepped( s(tep) )inside a function accidentally and want to go back.
Breakpoints
So far we have only seen how to set a break-point by updating the code and adding pdb.set_trace() wherever we want to stop our program. But, pdb also provides us a way to set dynamic conditional breakpoints without updating the source code. In this section we will be using code from breakpoints.py file.
b(reak) [[filename:]lineno | function[, condition]]
We can set a breakpoint in the current file by specifying the line number or function name in the current file. Or we can also set breakpoint in some other file(this file should be present in module search path) by specifying the file name followed by a line number.
Each number is assigned a number and this number can be used later with other commands to access the breakpoint.
condition is a Python statement that should be True to stop at the breakpoint. This condition is executed in the scope at which we have set the breakpoint.
Few examples of setting breakpoints.
break 13 # Set breakpoint on line number 13
break divide # Set breakpoint on divide function
break divide, denominator == 0 # Set breakpoint in divide function only if denominator is 0
$ python -m pdb breakpoints.py 10 0
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) break divide, denominator == 0
Breakpoint 1 at /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
Get list of breakpoints using b(break) . Here Num = 1 is the number assigned to the breakpoint. Disp == keep means it is a permanent breakpoint and End = yes means this breakpoint is right now enabled.
(Pdb) break
Num Type Disp Enb Where
1 breakpoint keep yes at /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
stop only if denominator == 0
(Pdb) c
As denominator is program our program stopped under debugger control:
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(8)divide()
-> print "Calculating {}/{}".format(numerator, denominator)
(Pdb) args
numerator = 10.0
denominator = 0.0
Let’s restart the program using different arguments:
(Pdb) run 10 5
Restarting breakpoints.py with arguments:
10 5
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) c
Calculating 10.0/5.0
2.0
The program finished and will be restarted
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
As the denominator wasn’t zero this time the program didn’t stop at the breakpoint.
(Pdb) break
Num Type Disp Enb Where
1 breakpoint keep yes at /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
stop only if denominator == 0
breakpoint already hit 2 times
Note: Breakpoints persist even after the auto restart or forced restart(using run ) in -m pdb mode.
tbreak [[filename:]lineno | function[, condition]] :
tbreak allows us to set a temporary breakpoint. This breakpoint goes away as soon as it is hit once. Can be pretty useful if you want to set a breakpoint only once, say inside a loop or for the first time a function is invoked.
$ python -m pdb breakpoints.py 10 5
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) tbreak divide, denominator == 0
Breakpoint 1 at/pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
(Pdb) break
Num Type Disp Enb Where
1 breakpoint del yes at /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
stop only if denominator == 0
Notice the value of Disp this time. It is del instead of keep , means it is a temporary breakpoint.
(Pdb) c
Calculating 10.0/5.0
2.0
The program finished and will be restarted
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
Programs simply restarted because the breakpoint condition wasn’t true, now let’s make it true by restarting it with different arguments.
(Pdb) run 10 0
Restarting breakpoints.py with arguments:
10 0
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) c
Deleted breakpoint 1
> /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(8)divide()
-> print "Calculating {}/{}".format(numerator, denominator)
(Pdb) break
(Pdb)
This time it did hit the breakpoint and was deleted as well.
cl(ear) [filename:lineno | bpnumber [bpnumber ...]]
We can permanently remove breakpoints using cl(ear) command.
disable [bpnumber [bpnumber ...]] or enable [bpnumber [bpnumber ...]]
To temporary disable a breakpoint use disable and to re-enable a breakpoint use enable . Unlike clear breakpoints are not removed permanently in this case.
ignore bpnumber [count]
We can also ignore a breakpoint count number of times using ignore command. Breakpoint is re-activated when the count becomes 0.
condition bpnumber [condition]
To update or add condition to a breakpoint we can use the condition command.
Note: If the condition is an invalid Python code then it will be evaluated as True but in case the breakpoint was a temporary one then it won’t be deleted and if the breakpoint had an ignore count then it won’t be decremented. This is done to notify the user that something’s wrong.
commands [bpnumber] :
commands is a pretty useful command related to breakpoints. If used in a certain way then it can be equivalent to adding print statements in our code.
This command allows us to run multiple commands when a breakpoint is hit.
Let’s add a breakpoint on divide function and now we will print some stuff as well using commands .
$ python -m pdb breakpoints.py 10 5
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) break divide
Breakpoint 1 at /Users/ashwini/work/instamojo/pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
In commands mode the prompt is (com) . To end the commands use end .
(Pdb) commands 1
(com) args
(com) p "Inside divide()"
(com) end
(Pdb) c
numerator = 10.0
denominator = 5.0
'Inside divide()'
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(8)divide()
-> print "Calculating {}/{}".format(numerator, denominator)
Now as you can see our program printed few things on hitting the breakpoint.
We can also use commands like cont , next etc. But these commands will also act as end because these commands can lead us to next breakpoint which may have its own set of commands and then debugger will be confused about whose commands to run next.
Another commands is silent , when this command is part of commands list then you won’t see the message we get at a breakpoint.
$ python -m pdb breakpoints.py 10 5
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb) break divide
Breakpoint 1 at /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py:5
(Pdb) commands 1
(com) args
(com) p "Inside divide()"
(com) silent
(com) cont
(Pdb) c
numerator = 10.0
denominator = 5.0
'Inside divide()'
Calculating 10.0/5.0
2.0
The program finished and will be restarted
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(2)<module>()
-> import sys
(Pdb)
As you can see above the program didn’t stop at the breakpoint this time due to cont command and we didn’t see the lines(shown below) related to breakpoint either due to silent command:
> /pdb-mupy/breakpoints.py(8)divide()
-> print "Calculating {}/{}".format(numerator, denominator)
Tips and tricks
.pdbrc file: If present the commands present in this file are ran at the start of debugger session. This file can be added to your home directory and/or current directory.
file: If present the commands present in this file are ran at the start of debugger session. This file can be added to your home directory and/or current directory. Plain enter repeats the last command( list command is an exception).
command is an exception). To enter multiple commands on a single line use ;; as separator.
What’s new in Python 3
Python 3.3+
Tab-completion via the readline module is available for commands and command arguments.
Python 3.2+ | https://medium.com/instamojo-matters/become-a-pdb-power-user-e3fc4e2774b2 | ['Ashwini Chaudhary'] | 2016-11-12 20:38:02.631000+00:00 | ['Debugging', 'Python', 'Programming'] |
How to Create Animations With UIKit and Core Animations | How to Create Animations With UIKit and Core Animations
Different ways to animate your app to bring it to life
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash
We, developers, have a lot of options when it comes to animations nowadays. There are plenty of libraries that can be used to easily integrate an animation prepared by a designer into our applications.
The most popular (probably) is Lottie, which is available for both iOS and Android. It’s also possible to use Lottie for many multi-platform solutions like Flutter or React Native which makes it super convenient.
There is also Rive, a great web-based tool for animations that has a plugin for Flutter as well as an iOS framework (it hasn’t been updated in a while but should still work as far as I know).
Those tools are great but most developers are not designers and do not know or do not want to play with graphics outside of the code.
We have also libraries like Hero or Spring that can help you make simple transitions and animations without using any external tools for designers.
However, it is pretty often that we have to implement something completely custom and can’t use an already-created framework. Or, maybe you are like me and do not like to add too many dependencies to your projects and rather want to implement such things yourself. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-create-animations-with-uikit-and-core-animations-2ad2ac9758c9 | ['Artur Rymarz'] | 2020-03-18 23:55:05.016000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'iOS', 'Animation', 'Xcode', 'Swift'] |
2025 Climate Action Plan of the City of Newcastle | The City of Newcastle has a strong history of environmental and sustainability action. It hosted the Pathways to Sustainability Conference in 1997 and participated in the Cities for Climate Protection program, which has supported the implementation of local government climate programs in Australia and New Zealand.
At a global level, the Paris Climate Agreement committed international governments, including Australia, to take and encourage action to address climate change through reducing greenhouse gas emissions and undertaking climate change adaptation. City of Newcastle has formally committed to the principles and targets of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Council started embracing solar power in 2012 and by mid2019, it has installed half a megawatt of onsite solar. Last year witnessed the installation of four more council facilities, thus reaching a total installed capacity of 685KW.
In 2019, Council became successful in sourcing 100 per cent renewables for the City’s operational electricity requirements. Commissioning of Council’s five-megawatt solar farm in Summer Hill Waste Management last year made this transition easier. Besides slashing emissions, Summer Hill Solar Farm is expected to save around $9million over its 25-year operational lifespan.
Next in the list is Newcastle 2020 Carbon and Water Management Action Plan (CWMAP), proposed in 2011, with the aim of positioning Newcastle as a leader in carbon and water management solutions. To avoid the dangerous climate change, the plan focused on minimizing carbon emissions within the council’s operation and to use water more wisely across Newcastle community to assist in future water security. The CWMAP aims to address the global challenge of climate change and provide resource security for current and future generations.
The CWMAP helped cut carbon emissions through the construction of a five-megawatt solar farm, installation of more than half a megawatt in rooftop solar panels on council facilities across the city and suburbs, significant streetlight LED upgrades and a power purchase agreement that sees the City is running on 100 percent renewables.
The city of Newcastle recognizes an urgent need for real action on climate change. The impacts of a changing climate affect our everyday lives and have major consequences like widespread bushfires, flooding, extreme heat, and increased risk of disease and pandemics.
The increase of these events will have far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society and this clearly highlights the vulnerabilities that Australians will face. Globally, 2019 was the second hottest year on record,
Though the City has achieved 100% renewable electricity, the City still sees many new renewables-related opportunities for its operations. The City is targeting net-zero emissions from electricity across the community by 2030.
A detailed analysis of CN’s operational emissions profile, combined with best-practice actions from around the world and strong local engagement has helped in the creation of a Climate Action Plan. It underlays focused, practical actions that can achieve a Net Zero Emissions organization.
The 2025 Climate Action Plan (CAP) can be viewed as a prequel to the net-zero emissions from electricity across the community by 2030. Continuing the work of reducing emissions in the City, this Climate Action Plan (CAP) is separated into two parts — an action plan to reduce CN’s operational emissions and an action plan to reduce emissions from the City as a whole.
The Plan sets new targets and shape Newcastle’s goals and priorities for the next five years,2021–2025, as a roadmap for clean energy, resource efficiency, emissions reduction across the Council’s supply chain, and sustainable transport.
Climate Action Plan is structured around four key themes for reducing emissions across City of Newcastle Operations:
1. 100% renewable energy supply — Aims to use 100% renewable energy supply for the City of Newcastle Operations.
2. Sustainable supply chain — To identify and implement actions to reduce emissions in products and procedures across CN Operations.
3. Best practice of energy, water and waste efficiency — To ensure best practice use of resources across all CN facilities and operations
4. Zero emissions transport — To Support the transition to clean, efficient, emissions-free transport across City of Newcastle
The 2025 plan will work towards 2030 goals that include:
• Continuing to source 100% renewable electricity, which will be achieved through a combination of onsite solar energy generation, battery storage and renewable electricity power purchasing agreements (PPAs).
• Transitioning plant and equipment, including vehicles, to electric and battery-powered options or other zero-emission alternatives.
• Eliminating the use of fossil-based gas across Council operations. Where gas needs to be used in the absence of electric alternatives, renewable gas will be considered.
• Investigating and installing megawatt-scale battery storage in order to firm renewable supply and build resilience across Council’s operations.
By 2025 Newcastle aims for:
• A 30% reduction in electricity use, based on FY2019/20consumption
• 100% of all installed lighting to be LED or best practice equivalent
• A 50% reduction in liquid fuel use, based on FY2019/20 consumption
• A 50% reduction in carbon emissions from operations including Summer hill Waste Management Centre.
• 30% reduction in city-wide emissions
• 100 MW of new renewable generation capacity
• 1 MW of new community renewable energy projects
• 500 GWh of new renewables-based Power Purchase Agreements
• 10,000 registered electric vehicles
City of Newcastle operates a large number of buildings, facilities, vehicles, plant,s and equipment which all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions across its operations. Achieving net-zero emissions is both technologically and economically feasible, with much of the required technology and solutions readily available.
“Through strong and consistent actions to reduce our emissions, City of Newcastle is now recognized as one of Australia’s leading local governments in terms of addressing climate change,” Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said.
This Climate of Action Plan is built on the City’s past successes and strengths in other planning and implementation efforts. It sets new targets of 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and 80% reduction by 2050, with the aim of protecting the wellbeing of its residents for decades to come. As a vulnerable coastal community, addressing the challenges of a changing climate is vital for the future wellbeing of their residents and economy. | https://medium.com/@solarbatteryperth/2025-climate-action-plan-of-the-city-of-newcastle-af710accd69b | ['Solar Australia'] | 2021-06-08 08:00:42.709000+00:00 | ['Australian Solar', 'Solar Power'] |
Success Fee Portfolios at Tokenbox. Now Live! | Success Fee at Tokenbox now Live!
Hello Tokenboxers!
What characterizes a good portfolio manager? Not only high performance and yields. Of course, his interest in the long-term success of his investors is also important.
One of the best ways to motivate a manager is to get a share of the profits — a Success Fee.
We are pleased to announce that now the Tokenbox platform allows to create portfolios with a Success Fee model.
Here is some important information about our new feature.
Only new Portfolios can be created with a Success Fee model. Portfolios that are already working can change the fee model. When creating the Portfolio you can set only 2 kinds of fees. For example, Entry + Exit, Entry + Success, Exit + Success. Success fee is charged only in case when the investor earned more than 10 USD (or equivalent in other reference currency) as a profit holding Portfolio tokens. So Success Fee is a share of the profit that will be transferred to the manager in the form of Portfolio tokens.
For example, investor bought 100 portfolio tokens for 1000 USD (10 USD per token). After that token price increased and became 12 USD. In this case investor’s profit is: (12 * 100) — (10 * 100) = 200 USD.
If success fee is set as 20% rate than 200 * 20% = 40 USD is a share of profit that has to be transferred to the manager. If assets will be transferred from the portfolio directly this impacts the token price. To prevent such a situation Success Fee is deducted in the form of portfolio tokens that will be transferred from investor to manager.
4. The calculation of Success fee will be conducted in 2 cases. First, success fee will be calculated when the investor decides to sell portfolio tokens. The second case, it’s so-called Monthly Success Fee Deduction, when possible profit will be calculated for investors of all Portfolios (with a Success Fee model) on the Tokenbox platform.
5. After the Success Fee calculation next deduction is only possible if token price will break the level of previous calculation and deduction.
6. Success Fee calculations counts all operations with the tokens — purchases, redemptions and previous Success Fee deductions. So Investors can be sure that they will not pay twice.
Success Fee is the most popular type of rewards, which serves both the interest of managers and additionally provides investors with confidence that the manager will do his best to achieve excellent results! | https://medium.com/tokenbox/success-fee-portfolios-at-tokenbox-now-live-d404a5d48149 | [] | 2020-11-16 16:50:51.686000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Tbxnews', 'Tokenbox', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
物理攻撃力を高めてPCとPS4でボイチャしてみる方法 | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/%E3%81%A8%E3%82%8A%E3%81%A8%E3%82%81%E3%81%AA%E3%81%8F%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A8%E3%82%81%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8A%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%E3%82%84%E3%83%BC%E3%81%A4/%E7%89%A9%E7%90%86%E6%94%BB%E6%92%83%E5%8A%9B%E3%82%92%E9%AB%98%E3%82%81%E3%81%A6pc%E3%81%A8ps4%E3%81%A7%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A4%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6%E3%81%BF%E3%82%8B%E6%96%B9%E6%B3%95-301d9a7b7f17 | [] | 2020-02-10 07:23:56.991000+00:00 | ['ゲーム', '日記', 'PS4', 'PC'] |
Building An Observability Strategy | Building An Observability Strategy
Tired of looking for errors and exceptions? Invest in some tools that monitor each aspect of your software, so that you don’t have to. Laurena Dehlouz Follow Sep 18, 2019 · 3 min read
Simply put, observability tools speed up debugging time. They show you what is happening in your software so that you can drastically reduce the time it takes to troubleshoot bugs that affect your users. So it’s no surprise that digital companies use a lot.
But before you overflow your stack with many different tools, you need to understand what you need keep an eye on and how.
1. Focus on what matters
Companies often use more tools than they need. And they end up using only a small part of every tool they have.
In the long run this can be a serious cost. Instead of purchasing every new gadget, you need to find out what problems you want to solve, and what you need to solve them. Keep an eye only on what matters to deal with real issues.
Session Replays: They allow you to see exactly what your users are doing when they encounter issues on your website, every click, every scroll, as if it were happening on your own browser — it’s a no-brainer to reproduce issues . Back-end & Front-end Logs: They alert you of exceptions and errors so that you know where problems occur and why. Performance Metrics: They help you monitor the speed of you app so that you can uncover anything that is slowing it down and impacting your users’ experience.
2. Gather everything within a single platform
All these elements taken together give you a complete picture of everything that happens in your software when users browse your web app.
But having too many separate tools leads to what Gartner calls “disconnected islands”: when everyone uses their own specialized tools, it becomes difficult for teams to work together. Because of that, teams work in silos, often disconnected from what others are doing or working on.
Instead, you want to gather everything you need for debugging within a single platform so the information is easily accessible, and easy to collaborate on. Asayer, for example, allows you to integrate all your logging and performance reporting tools into its session replayer, so that you can understand and solve every issue easily.
Gathering everything you need to identify and solve issues within a single platform makes it much easier to quickly detect and act upon issues.
Instead of going back and forth between different observability tools trying to make sense of what is going on, you need complete visibility over your entire stack, for each user session. | https://medium.com/asayer/how-to-troubleshoot-more-effectively-7c38178f49a7 | ['Laurena Dehlouz'] | 2019-09-27 13:34:54.180000+00:00 | ['Developer Tools', 'Monitoring', 'Software Development', 'Debugging', 'Web Development'] |
ITC Progress Update 2018/5/19–2018/5/25 | IoT Chain
A secure, lite OS for the Internet of Things | https://medium.com/iot-chain/itc-progress-update-2018-5-19-2018-5-25-63cb4401e47c | ['Iot Chain'] | 2018-05-19 00:00:00 | ['Itc', 'Blockchain', 'Weekly Update'] |
Life assistant | Story translated from Yi Shu’s novel
Year 2035. In a metropolis.
Wu Qi came home and was as tired as a thief. She felt that her face was swollen, just like the rest of her life.
She opened the door and called, “Hans, Hans.”
Grateful to have Hans, otherwise how would she live.
“Hans,” Wu Qi kicked off her shoes. “Whiskey on the rocks, quick.”
She fell on the sofa.
After seeing that Hans hadn’t come out after a while, she cried and shouted, “Hans, where are you! I don’t want to tear down your bones. I spent seven digits to buy you. You dare to laze!
At this moment, the kitchen door opened, Wu Qi smelled a barbecue smell, and Hans came out.
It is a drum-shaped computer robot, sliding on four wheels, very flexible.
It held the whiskey on the rocks Wu Qi wanted, and quickly walked to Wu Qi’s side: “Master, I’ve rushed here.”
Wu Qi smiled, took the wine, and exhaled, “Hans, what would you do without you?”
“Without me, there are other mechanical assistants.”
“But I love you.”
“Master, you don’t love me, you just love enslaving me.”
“Look, this sense of humour alone is already valuable, money can’t buy that.”
Hans sighed, “Master, dinner will be ready within ten minutes. Please take a shower, water temperature is adjusted to 28 degrees Celsius.”
“Thank you.”
Without Hans, Wu Qi really doesn’t know how to continute living her life.
Every fashionable family now has a robot helper.
Wu Qi’s financial situation is ordinary. She spends all her money on fashion and eating out. She has no savings. But for Hans, she has saved up for six months.
Proved to be worth it.
Hans is second-hand goods.
This means that, before Wu Qi, it had a master.
Of course, Wu Qi wanted to buy a brand new robot, but this will do.
There are several classes of second-hand goods.
Hans belongs to the top class.
Wu Qi told her request to the agent: “It must be able to do housework, cook good dishes, wash and iron, and clean. It needs to have independent thinking. It is good in playing chess and poker. Be eloquent and have a sense of humour … “
The agent blinked. This is a difficult business. With such high demands on robots, agent wonder how she would choose her husband.
But now he is full of smiles, “Not that we don’t have, but …”
Wu Qi snapped him up angrily: “But it’s more expensive.”
The agent laughed, “Yes, Miss Wu.”
Wu Qi looked at the price and was a bit unhappy.
“Miss Wu, the price is worth it, and you can try it for one month first. If you are not satisfied, you can return or exchange it. Only a small service fee will be charged. The company’s long-established brand is the very reliable.”
Wu Qi thought to herself, the agent’s tone is also like a robot.
Forget it, it ’s okay to indulge yourself. If I don’t love myself, who would love me. I worked hard to deserve this.
Wu Qi told the agent, “Let me say a few words to it. “
The businessman pressed the intercom: “Call Hans to come out to see the master.”
When Wu Qi heard that, she smiled, such a nice feeling to be called the master.
The warehouse door opened and Hans slowly came out.
Wu Qi saw that it had a round head and a round body. A very lovely look, she had decided to spend the money.
She asked it, “Hans, how are you? I’m Wu Qi.”
“Hello, Miss Wu.”
“Hans, who is your last master?”
“Confidential information is not allowed to be disclosed. Please forgive me.”
“Did he treat you badly and hurt you?”
“No, he is a good master.”
“Why did he sell you?”
“He has to travel far away.”
Wu Qi raised her head and looked at the agent, “Try it for a month?”
A month later, Wu Qi has been inseparable with it.
Hans is a caring genius robot. He has taken care of Wu Qi very meticulously in her life.
He does good dishes with all the flavours and fragrances. Playing poker cards and knowing how to let Wu Qi win, Wu Qi can talk to it as much as possible. even getting a conclusion……
After the trial period is up, Wu Qi asked it, “Hans, would you like to stay with me?”
Hans replied: “I will be proud to stay with the beautiful hostess.”
Wu Qi bargained with the agent: “I should get a 10% discount.”
The agent said: “Miss Wu, I have at least three customers who want to try out Hans.”
“Ok fine, please send someone to pick up the check.”
Since then, she has been dependent on Hans.
After coming out of the bath, Wu Qi enjoyed her dinner.
Hans was serving her by the side.
Wu Qi said, “Hans, I really appreciate you.”
“Master, you never invite your friends to dinner.”
Wu Qi lowered her head, “I have no friends.”
“Master, don’t be too harsh on your friends.”
“There are too many strange people around.”
“Master, don’t you want to get married?” Hans reminded her.
“Many girlfriends said: Husband is not as good as a mechanical body.”
“Master, such cynicism doesn’t help.”
Wu Qi laughed, “Good Hans, open a bottle of red wine for me.”
“Unwilling to obey, you should not drink too much.”
Wu Qi was helpless, “I will do it myself.”
“Master, you don’t know where the wine are.”
This is true, after Hans has been serving her for a year, Wu Qi has not done any housework.
With this assistant in life, it has indeed been very comfortable.
After dinner, she was watching TV in the study. Hans packed up the table and quietly lingered in the corner.
After a while, Wu Qi suddenly heard a beep.
She responded casually, “What are you talking about, Hans?”
Wu Qi immediately heard Hans say: “My generosity is as vast as the sea, and my love is as deep as the sea. The more I give you, the more I have, because both are endless …
Wu Qi froze.
Who wrote this love poem? So beautiful.
“Hans, Hans.”
Hans came into the study, “Master, what did you tell me?”
“What did you say?”
Master, I didn’t say anything.”
“You were reciting a love poem.”
Hans said nothing for a while.
“Hans, what are you hiding from me?”
“Master, I’m sorry, the weather is too humid. My parts are affected. That’s a recording of my last master. I didn’t intend to play it.”
Oh, Wu Qi nodded.
Second-hand merchandise is second-hand merchandise, with too much past and memories.
“Is poetry his creation?”
“I don’t know, master.”
“Does he often recite poetry to you?”
“I don’t remember, master.”
Hans kept his mouth shut, and Wu Qi raised her hand and told him to leave.
She was gradually dozing on the sofa, waking up in the middle of the night, she felt confused and a bit lonesome. She thought of asking Hans to make a cup of hot tea, so she turned on the light.
Again she heard Hans muttering to himself: “Love tells me to listen to this place. It offers me an idea. I borrow it from my eyes. I won’t be at the helm, but even if you are on the farthest and farthest seashore, brave the storm to search. “
Wu Qi listened to the poetry and and was stunned.
Who? Who is the former owner of Hans?
How did that person write such beautiful sentences?
Wu Qi memorised it secretly and wrote it down.
The next day, she borrowed the company’s computer, entered the verse into the system, and ordered it: “Please search, please find the source.”
The computer operates silently.
Thirty minutes later, it indicated that it has searched on more than three thousand books, and the result was: “Love poems come from Romeo and Juliet, the famous love story of William Shakespeare, a famous British 16th century creator.”
Ah, that’s how it is.
Wu Qi heard from her mother that the more backward the technology, the more human beings yearn for love, which is a matter of nothingness.
Emotion has long been out of fashion.
Did not expect such a backward thing to be so beautiful.
The poetry were unknowingly recorded in Hans’ system.
Its predecessor must be an unrealistic, idle, and romantically unacceptable society.
Such people do not exist anymore.
That night, Wu Qi called Hans to her.
Hans seemed to know that something was amiss, and his actions seems slightly sheepish.
“Stand properly,” Wu Qi said, “I have something to ask you.”
“Yes, master.”
“You must tell me the information of your former owner.”
“I have completely forgotten him.”
“Hans, don’t you believe me? You treat me like a villain? Quickly confess your history.”
“I don’t want to be an unfaithful robot.”
“Be careful, if you are not obedient, I’ll sell you.”
“Robots often have a very tragic fate. We are obedient to others. We are loyal to our masters all our lives, but the end is often unbearable. In the end, the body is dismantled and discarded, and the computer is partially modified.
“Hans,” Wu Qi sighed, “Do you think I am going to do that to you? Impossible.”
“Master, why do you threaten me and provoke my mind?”
Wu Qi was afraid of it and raised her hand, “Go.”
Hans was amnestic and wisely moved to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Wu Qi heard it recite gently and emotionally: “Don’t swear, if you want, take the lovely you, the god in my heart, swear, I will believe you.”
Wu Qi was deeply moved.
How does this guy make a living and look?
Wu Qi felt eager to see Hans’s former owner.
She pushed open the kitchen door. “At least you can tell me if he is a good person.”
Hans blurted out, “Of course he is a good person, all my masters are good people.”
“Thank you.” Wu Qi was satisfied.
After dinner, Wu Qi lay on her couch and listened to music.
Suddenly another sound came from the living room.
Wu Qi leaned back inexplicably, realising that Hans was embarrassingly trying to turn off the sound of the music, and several of them flickered together, but it seemed unable to control his own mechanical parts.
Wu Qi babbled, “Hans, you are old.”
Hans was discouraged, “You are right, master.”
“Are you hiding your age, how old are you?”
Hans was flustered, “I’m not a lying robot.”
Slowly, Wu Qi looked up. She had heard this music before. When she was young, her mother held her in her arms and told her that it was a song by the Austrian composer Mahler.
“Hush.” Wu Qi turned off the jazz she was listening to.
Hans suddenly increased the volume of music.
Wu Qi murmured, “Beautiful, beautiful.”
Hans said softly, “Master, the first song is” When my loved one gets married. “
Wu Qi was drunk in music.
“This song describes the beauty of nature and the composer ’s pain at the wedding of another person in strong contrast. Mahler fell in love with a singer at the age of 24. Later this love affair failed and inspired him to write a song for a traveler . “
Wu Qi’s heart moved.
What does Hans want to tell her?
Is this exactly what happened to his former master?
Hans continued gently: “The second song, called” I Walked Through the Fields This Morning “, the composer once again contrasted the joy around him with the sadness inside him. “
Wu Qi suddenly bursted into tears.
She has also suffered a little bit emotionally. She used her will to suppress the grief. She tried hard to forget herself. Today, she was hooked by a tune and couldn’t help herself.
Could it be that Hans’s other owner is also feeling miserable?
Hans said again: “The third song” I have a glowing dagger “describes the composer’s heart-felt sadness. Finally, her” blue eyes “made him crazy, and the song was desperate. The funeral march in the minor minor began and ended with the purest lullaby, as if he could only find peace in a dream or even death. “
Wu Qi finally shed tears.
Hans handed her a white handkerchief.
Wu Qi wiped away her tears.
Slowly, she suddenly raised her head and looked at Hans, “Isn’t something wrong with your parts, looks like it’s not likely so.”
Hans was startled, and immediately said, “I don’t know what to do, it seems to be fine now.”
At this moment, the machine beeped and cracked, interrupting the music, Hans said again: “Oh, my parts seem bad again, and I don’t know what to do.”
This mischievous robot, this is a show directed by it from beginning to end. Not a machine malfunction situation for sure.
It escaped into the studio.
“Hans, Hans.”
It no longer answered Wu Qi.
Wu Qi suffered from insomnia that night.
Of course, with science progression, there is nothing that cannot be controlled artificially. Just a pill can make Wu Qi sleep until dawn.
But Wu Qi didn’t do that.
For a long time, she deliberately did not think about personal emotional issues, pretending that there is no such thing in the world, and avoiding reality.
It was a night that the old account was turned over by the music, and it was awkward.
At dawn she had breakfast with dark circles.
Hans said in surprise: “Master, you look haggard.”
Wu Qi glared at it, it was all its culprit.
Hans asked, “Is it in a bad mood? Insomnia?”
“Shut your mouth.”
Hans was not happy “Why do you take it upon me.”
Wu Qi looked at Hans, “Tell me who he is.”
“There are rules, you know that the rules of second-hand robots cannot reveal the privacy of the previous owner, otherwise, I will go out from you and publicise what colour your nightgown and underwear are, and whether you can keep your looks and appearance after removing makeup Wait, I’m afraid you won’t be able to take it. “
This is real.
“I know almost all your secrets. Think about it. My mouth must be tightly closed.”
“Okay, you are a man with principles.”
“Master, you are understanding.”
“However, Hans, the weather in this city is so humid, your machine parts are so precise, if the gears are stuck, or if they fail temporarily, you can’t blame anyone.”
Hans said nothing.
“Second-hand robots might malfunction too.”
Hans nodded in favor.
Wu Qi laughed, “So, let’s talk again after work tonight.”
Hans has revealed a lot to her.
It is absolutely good-hearted, this lovely robot, it dare to intent to attract the two lonely single masters before and after.
That night, Hans made steamed crayfish for the owner to enjoy.
Wu Qi couldn’t help but admire, “Hans, your skills are truly top rated.”
“Master, I just learned from others.”
Others? Who are they? Wu Qi’s heart moved again, she already knew who they were.
She talked up and said, “Such a talent, I did not meet.”
Hans gritted his teeth, “It can be seen that bright blind people have existed since ancient times.”
Wu Qi tweeted: “It’s also difficult to say, it’s not someone’s fault if they aren’t fate, they can’t get together.”
“Hey, who are you helping?”
“I’m talking about facts.”
Hans was indeed loyal to the old Lord.
Suddenly it said, “Master, look, the flowers are so good, the moon is so round, happiness and sorrow need someone to share, right?”
Wu Qi laughed, “Forget it.”
Hans squeezed his eyebrows, his mouth ticking out a note with a number printed on it.
Wu Qi’s eyes were fast and she grabbed them immediately.
Hans said regretfully: “I’m sorry, my old man’s memory system has another obstacle.”
It hurried away.
Wu Qi spread out the paper with Liu Zhiliang printed on it, and the communication number is three three seven eight six nine nine.
This is the old owner of Hans.
Wu Qi was a little hesitant. It was not unfeasible to venture to meet others, but what should I say?
Simply say: “Hans deliberately brought us together, its computer has calculated, we will get together”?
I’m just afraid to meet each other, and I don’t like his looks.
Wu Qi admits that she is superficial. In her mind, the appearance of the ideal object is also very important. It is best that Hans can help and print a photo of the old master.
Who knows that Hans was more thoughtful than her.
It called Wu Qi: “Master, master, you better ask the agent to take me back for repair.”
Wu Qi was taken aback, “Why, you are not ok?”
“I am about to die.”
Wu Qi ran to the living room and saw it fell onto the ground, its eyes glowing with colourful lights. “My God, don’t worry.” Wu Qi lifted it, when she was about to dial the phone, she suddenly noticed that Hans’ eyes were playing a video.
The image fell on a white wall, just like a movie, Wu Qi glanced at Hans, and his acting became more realistic.
The show was a family-style movie. I saw a young man sitting by his desk and working hard. Suddenly he looked up and smiled.
Such a rare good looking face, and his eyebrows look melancholy. His smile is still cheerful though, a handsome man.
She only heard him laugh: “Hans, what are you doing, secretly filming? Don’t mess up, I still have a lot of handouts to prepare, go away.
The movie is interrupted during this time.
Wu Qi looked at Hans, “You don’t need to repair, you are too ill .”
Hans murmured: “It is human nature to know what you are not appreciative.”
The next day, in the office, Wu Qi took out her phone. +33 means it’s a UK number. She dialed it.
A blonde communicator appeared first on the communication screen.
Wu Qi said: “Please connect me with Mr. Liu Zhiliang, my name is Wu Qi, please tell him that I am the new owner of Hans.”
The communicator asked to hold with a smile.
In less than three seconds, the image was taken over.
It was the handsome man, “Miss Wu? I am Liu Zhiliang, how is that guy Hans doing?”
Liu Jun’s melancholy had disappeared. Obviously, he had started a new life, and Wu Qi was glad for him.
She smiled and said, “Hans is very good, thank you.”
“How does Miss Wu know that I am the ex owner of Hans?”
“I inquired from somewhere.”
“I miss it a lot.”
“It can be seen.” Wu Qi smiled.
“Miss Wu, I will be back on business next month. Could you let me see Hans?”
“Of course, otherwise I won’t contact you. Please come down and have a cup of coffee. “
“Excellent, I will contact you then.”
“Yes, have you noticed that Hans is good, but there is a small flaw?”
Liu Zhiliang laughed, “It sometimes becomes overzealous.”
There will be no shortage of topics, and both of them laugh.
One year later.
When everything went smoothly, Wu Qi and Liu Zhiliang knew that they were meant to be. After a few months, they decided to get married.
Another year later.
They moved to a more spacious apartment, Liu Zhiliang has transferred back to work in this city for his wife. Hans is still their life assistant.
Another year has gone by.
Wu Qi gave birth to a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. She insisted on adopting natural birth methods. After she became a mother, she worked as usual, and her family’s affairs were handed over to Hans.
Today, Liu Zhai has a happy family of four.
No one complained, except Hans.
In the morning, he was reluctant to take care of daily housework, and he complained to the master: “The other robots are all one-on-one, or one-on-two, but I am especially desperate and serve four.”
Wu Qi’s treated those words like the wind by her ears, just told her husband: “Today I can come home by seven.”
Liu Zhiliang replied: “Then I will come back earlier to take care of the children.”
Hans murmured, “Easy for you to say, bathing and breastfeeding are all done by me, you just give them hugs and tell story.”
Liu Zhiliang laughed, “Hans, you are getting naggier every day.”
“Really,” Wu Qi also said, “Hans, human endurance is limited, you have to be careful.”
Hans was annoyed. The two babies cried again, he hurried to appease them.
Liu Zhiliang said to his wife: “Hans is starting to sound like my mother-in-law.”
Wu Qi glared at him, “How dare you.”
Liu Zhiliang laughed, “I think you should tell himthe good news.”
“No, I want to surprise him.”
“Tomorrow’s new life assistant Hannah will come to help lighten his workload.”
Hans did not know.
He stared at the twins in the small bed, and said, “I have never seen such a stubborn child like you. Why can’t you come one by one but in a pair to torture me.
The pair of babies could hear Hans’ sulky tone, and wept bitterly. He had to hug one in one hand and coax them.
“I know today,” Hans said haggardly. “Why did I matchmade the two of them, as the saying goes: don’t be a guarantee, don’t be a matchmaker, and you will be well for three generations. That’s for real.”
These words were overheard by Liu Zhiliang and Wu Qi, and they secretly laughed till they flipped.
The two couples agreed on their way to work: “Really, no Hans, no us.”
“After the new assistant came, he will be able to resume the more leisure days in the past.”
“Yes, it can also play poker and chess. We have to treat him well and let him die old in Liu’s home” | https://medium.com/@junesee/life-assistant-ce6b09063f39 | [] | 2020-12-15 21:39:45.233000+00:00 | ['Housekeepers', 'Robots', 'Novel'] |
Stakenet Wallet — Multi-Currency, Masternodes, Lightning Network, DEX, TOR and more | The new Stakenet Multi-Currency Wallet will be an integral component helping to fulfil our vision of an Interchain Economy. It will be the default gateway for many to access their digital assets and as such it needs to be simple to use for everyone. We are utilising the latest technologies to create a wallet that fixes many of the issues with Multi-Currency wallets of the past and bringing a host of new features able to be accessed all from one single place. There are many different components all working together to bring our wallet to life such as Masternodes, Lightning Network, TOR and dApps.
Blockchains
Usually with Multi-Currency wallets you are required to download and sync the full blockchains of any assets you wish to hold if they are non-custodial. This as you can imagine is a very slow and cumbersome way of doing things. It also requires a lot of space to hold all of the blockchains, Bitcoin alone is over 200GB!!
Our solution to this is to utilise our existing Masternode network to host the various blockchains supported by our wallet. Doing this means the blockchains are always updated and synced. With that in place the wallet just connects to the Masternode network to get the latest data from the synced blockchains. This keeps the wallet client lightweight, fast and able to be used on any device as it does not require huge amounts of storage so fully featured mobile clients for iOS and Android will be available.
Lightning Swaps
Another feature of the wallet will be it’s “1 Click Lightning Swaps”. What is a Lightning Swap and how does it differ to an Atomic Swap?
Atomic Swap — On-chain, limited by respective blockchain confirmation times, fees and blocksize.
Lightning Swap — Off-chain, Instant Transaction, potentially feeless, infinitely scalable.
Using Lightning Swaps users will be able to instantly convert assets within the wallet. This will be particularly useful at retail for payments and means any asset supported within the wallet can be used as payment anywhere Bitcoin is accepted as an example. We see this as a vital feature especially with the ever growing acceptance of “Stable Coins” for retail adoption.
Retailers accepting digital variants of fiat assets is the next logical step and as such with this tech we are well prepared. As a simple use case a user would be able to go into a shop and get $10 worth of products, they could pay in any asset they wish from the wallet such as LTC and the retailer would receive 10 USDT as the LTC would be converted during payment into USDT. This solves one of the biggest hurdles for retailer adoption, cryptocurrency volatility.
Volatility has been a roadblock for retail adoption since it’s inception as no retailer wants to take the chance of accepting $10 worth of an asset that could be worth $9 or less a hour later. By using a “Stable Coin” paired to their fiat counterparts this eliminates this risk. Another advantage of this is you can move stable coins across borders and in countries where the fiat counterparts are expensive and difficult to get hold of. In countries that are fighting hyper inflation of their local currency maybe utilising something like USDT would be beneficial to ensure their net worth isn’t being devalued with the collapse of their own currency.
Privacy through TOR
TOR (The Onion Router) has been a bastion of privacy since 2002. The Stakenet Multi-Currency Wallet provides users native TOR support as a privacy option with a simple 1 Click activation. It uses our Masternode Network as the trusted exit relay nodes which solves one of the issues that projects had in the past of being able to have a trusted network to ensure privacy and IP obfuscation.
In simple words, when a user connects the Stakenet Wallet with the TOR network, their traffic is then routed through a number of global Masternode servers, each of which removes information of the previous server, so the last exit node server gets no information where the network originated from.
We are also going to be implementing further privacy technologies in the near future to give users even more options for privacy and security.
Lightning DEX
The word DEX (Decentralised Exchange) gets thrown around a lot lately but many of the claimed DEX’s out there are not a true DEX and have centralised points of weakness.
CEX — Centralised Exchange, you are trusting a 3rd party to hold your assets for you and handle the trades.
DEX — Decentralised Exchange, you hold on to your assets and trades are done directly from user to user in a P2P fashion.
Our Lightning DEX is not only a true DEX, hosted entirely on our Masternode Network to ensure decentralisation but it also contains many advances over what a DEX currently is.
Using our very own Lightning Swap technology as a foundation building a DEX is the next logical step by merging it together with an orderbook to connect users automatically and instantly to perform direct P2P trades all from within the wallet. There are many advantages to this such as:
The coins which the users hold never leaves them unless the transaction is completed giving them unlimited access to their coins.
With coin in their wallets, they also benefit from all the utilities, features and staking rewards of the coin.
The user remains anonymous as he doesn’t have to provide any Know Your Customer (KYC) details to anyone providing the user with complete anonymity and freedom to trade fearlessly.
Not being in hands of central authorities, the Stakenet dx cannot be shut down by anyone, not even Stakenet.
All transactions are done on a peer to peer basis without the involvement of a central authority, making the transaction more secure and less expensive as the fees are lower.
The Lightning DEX is our first showcase of what powerful dApps and services can be run on our Masternode network.
Lightning Network
Lightning Network is a scaling solution that allows assets to utilise off-chain transactions to free up capacity on-chain. In layman's terms as an example it’s like opening a tab at a bar. You get drinks all night and then at the end of the night you use just 1 transaction to pay for them all as opposed to paying each time individually creating multiple transactions. Lightning Network works in a similar way allowing you to bundle multiple transactions all together making it cheaper and faster.
There have been two main criticisms of Lightning Network so far:
Decentralisation Liquidity
We have managed to solve both of these issues by using our Masternodes network. Our network comprises of currently over 2000 Masternodes all over the world which is more than enough to ensure decentralisation. Each Masternode is backed by 15,000 XSN as a collateral. We are going to allow Masternode owners to put their collateral to work by letting them use it as liquidity for the Lightning Network. This combination of Masternodes and utilising the Masternode collateral solves the biggest issues in Lightning Network so far and means XSN will have one of the biggest, most liquid, decentralised Lightning Networks in the industry.
We also have innovations on Lightning Network like our Auto-Pilot system which manages your channels and routing for you automatically to ensure smooth and fast payments.
Masternodes +
Lots of projects have Masternodes but how many actually do anything? What is the point in having a huge decentralised network with huge amounts of computing power at your disposal if you don’t use it? At Stakenet we are putting our Masternodes to work, allowing them to be the centerpiece of our Interchain Economy. Masternode owners will be able to use their nodes to generate additional fees for themselves by providing services such as routing Lightning payments, becoming Watchtowers, holding other blockchains, liquidity for Lightning Network, hosting dApps and much much more.
To learn more about Masternodes check out our dedicated Masternode article here.
Passive income from Masternodes
The End Result
We are taking all of this amazing technology and putting it all together into one simple to use interface to make it all easy and accessible by the masses. It is a true technical achievement on every level. By giving users unrestricted access to trading markets, dApps, privacy and more on their devices it gives them financial freedom the likes of which has never been seen before on a global scale. A large area of focus for us is accessibility for the masses, this means taking complicated technology and making it really easy to use for everyone. Things like 1 Click Lightning Swaps, 1 Click TOR Privacy, Auto-Pilot for Lightning Network and even our Auto Wallet Updater are all fruitions of this directive to help people transition into the cryptocurrency industry as seamlessly as possible.
At Stakenet we are dedicated to building the best decentralised platform for users to access whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. The Stakenet Multi-Currency Wallet is the first giant leap towards that and we will continue to build upon the base it sets adding even more innovative and exciting features in the near future.
Beta Testing
Community Beta Testing is currently underway, if you would like to join to help test the latest builds of the new Stakenet Wallet then just join our Discord channel and let a team member know. Currently test versions are for Windows and Linux, other platforms will be added as we continue testing:
DISCORD LINK | https://medium.com/stakenet/stakenetwallet-66015344427d | ['Stakenet Team'] | 2020-07-02 00:26:33.979000+00:00 | ['Xsn News', 'Masternodes', 'Xsn Articles', 'Lightning Network', 'Bitcoin'] |
Shortform: A Helpful Update Before You Jump the Bandwagon | Here is how it looks on desktop
The secret sauce;
it will be truncated in a way that encourages readers to click through to its story page.
Now readers have to click to read your shortform story.
But look at what I discovered, if I use a GIF on my shortform, it becomes visually appealing, and it is the final hook that will make readers click through to its story page. | https://medium.com/illumination/shortform-a-helpful-update-before-you-jump-the-bandwagon-c0345170b409 | ['Xin Xin'] | 2020-12-17 16:23:42.588000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Productivity', 'Social Media', 'Médium', 'Short Form'] |
git — Rebase vs Merge | Rebasing and merging are both designed to integrate changes from one branch into another branch but in different ways.
For ex. let’s say we have commits like below, the merge will result as a combination of commits, whereas rebase will add all the changes in feature branch starting from the last commit of the master branch:
When you do rebase a feature branch onto master, you move the base of the feature branch to master branch’s ending point.
Merging takes the contents of the feature branch and integrates it with the master branch. As a result, only the master branch is changed. The feature branch history remains same.
Merging adds a new commit to your history.
Commits will look like :
When to rebase? When to Merge?
If the feature branch you are getting changes from is shared with other developers, rebasing is not recommended, because the rebasing process will create inconsistent repositories. For individuals, rebasing makes a lot of sense.
If you want to see the history completely same as it happened, you should use merge. Merge preserves history whereas rebase rewrites it.
Rebasing is better to streamline a complex history, you are able to change the commit history by interactive rebase. You can remove undesired commits, squash two or more commits into one or edit the commit message.
Rebase will present conflicts one commit at a time whereas merge will present them all at once. It is better and much easier to handle the conflicts but you shouldn’t forget that reverting a rebase is much more difficult than reverting a merge if there are many conflicts. You can find details of a basic rebase process from git — Basic Rebase . | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/git-rebase-vs-merge-cc5199edd77c | ['Filiz Senyuzluler'] | 2019-02-08 14:01:42.838000+00:00 | ['Git', 'Rebase'] |
Can Blockchain convert Mega-watts to Mega-bucks? Blockchain in Energy Trading | In October 2020, Wildpoldsried in the Bavarian Allgäu region became the first German municipality to try out blockchain-based electricity trading platform, intending to enable a local energy market. The platform enables local energy producers to sell energy directly to consumers bypassing grid operators and energy markets. Named pebbles, this platform envisioned by Siemens, the regional utility Allgäuer Überlandwerk (AÜW) and other partners connects producers, consumers, and storage facilities so they can optimise the way they locally trade energy with each other.
This demo could open a world of possibility in this niche yet the fast-developing field of blockchain-enabled energy trading that could help Europe attain its 2050 carbon-reduction goals.
Blockchain Solutions for the Energy Industry
Blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) is not new but could become a disruptor for the conventional system of energy intermediaries or brokers. By relying on cryptographic proof of ownership, it could effectively cut the middle person out of the energy trading equation.
Through standardisation and smart contracts, blockchain in energy trading will reduce transaction costs, which will allow a dramatic increase in smaller lot sizes. This will enable the prosumer to participate in the markets directly to buy and sell energy.
Smart contracts application within the blockchain technology will enable automatic execution of preset codes that will help maintain price or volume conditions.
With the rising need for a decentralized electricity system, blockchain technology will help to provide better reporting, transparency, and secure dissemination of data.
Can Blockchain convert Mega-watts to Mega-bucks?
For a decentralized, renewable grid, there exists the need to record securely a ledger of activities and transactions between the various participants — e.g., homeowners with Renewable Energy Sources can sell their excess renewable energy back into their grid, regulators can easily monitor and maintain energy quality, and local utilities can efficiently aggregate customers into virtual power plants.
A simulation of a block-chain based Local Energy Market that allowed consumers and prosumers to trade energy without the need for a third party demonstrated optimized consumption and a significant reduction in electricity costs. Money saved is indeed money gained.
Overall, there is increasing trust towards blockchain energy trading as it provides better efficiency and clear traceability from energy generation to coin issuance to redemption.
Blockchain: A Power and Utilities (P&U) Perspective
Though blockchain was initially embraced in the finance sector, it has many interesting use cases in the energy sector. It would deliver a much more seamless countrywide scale of interoperability and payment mechanism for charging EVs.
Blockchain will facilitate a peer-to-peer, market to consumer, and consumer to market trading. With a well-distributed system and energy optimization, there could real-time asset and commodity management and supply chain tracking.
The European P&U industry is engaging in collaborative pilot programs to explore blockchain technology, especially in energy trading.
The Swedish power company Vattenfall has come out with Enerchain that focuses on the execution of bilateral trade of physical electricity and gas within Europe.
Originally featuring 23 participants, the project now includes most big names in Europe including RWE, Eon, Uniper, EnBW, Wien Energie and Enel.
Blockchain in the Electricity Grid
The electricity grids in Europe are becoming more volatile with the growing share of renewable energy and maintaining grid stability is of prime importance. It was one of the reasons TenneT, Sonnen, and Vandebron joined forces with IBM for two pilot projects in blockchain technology for managing the electricity grid in the Netherlands and Germany. The projects aim to enable decentralized flexible energy sources to play a bigger role in the grid.
Blocks Awaiting Blockchain Technology
Some industry experts opine that the market is immature for adopting blockchain technology. In a survey conducted by EY, 70% of an entrepreneurial target group responded that they could not secure all the funding required for their blockchain projects. 17% did not receive any funding. Some large-scale project implementations are also said to be taking a backseat due to the lack of strong, supportive business cases.
The road ahead for blockchain-enabled applications could see these challenges:
An immature technology : The immaturity of blockchain as a technology is one of the biggest hurdles in front of innovators to implement pilots.
: The immaturity of blockchain as a technology is one of the biggest hurdles in front of innovators to implement pilots. Regulatory and legal concerns : The lack of clarity around the legal and regulatory aspects of using blockchain technology is a deterrent for big organisations that want to be sure-footed.
: The lack of clarity around the legal and regulatory aspects of using blockchain technology is a deterrent for big organisations that want to be sure-footed. Skill gaps : Shortage of talent to implement blockchain projects is an obstacle for most big energy companies.
: Shortage of talent to implement blockchain projects is an obstacle for most big energy companies. Real Business Cases : The expectations are high, and blockchain technology is being experimented upon in multiple verticals within organisations. However, which of these can solve real and create enough traction to overcome legacy hurdles?
Unlocking Blockchain Technology
Blockchain’s full potential is yet to be unlocked and many startups and some P&Us are spending a lot of time and energy to win over sceptics — a mammoth task considering there are few and far use-case scenarios and small-scale tactical innovations to quote.
With distributed energy resources and renewables poised to grow exponentially, it would make sense for energy companies to invest more in R&D to develop the blockchain technology to democratize participation in the electricity grid. And to overcome existing hurdles, and prove its mettle, blockchain-enabled energy trading should deliver tangible monetary or time benefits that can overshadow legacy hurdles.
Dagny Osk Ragnarsdottir, business analyst at Landsvirkjun, Iceland will be speaking in detail about the traceability of PPAs and Green Certificates and Blockchain technologies for Direct Electricity trading at the 9th Annual Electricity Price Forecasting & Advanced Modelling 2021, on 16th-17th February.
Join us online for the longest average minutes of direct peer-to-peer interaction with experts in the European electricity pricing & trading. | https://medium.com/@prosperoeventsgroup/can-blockchain-convert-mega-watts-to-mega-bucks-blockchain-in-energy-trading-bb94ea10d489 | ['Prospero Events Group'] | 2020-12-21 08:33:58.439000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Utilities', 'Renewable Energy', 'Distributed Energy'] |
Striving for the Moving Pictures | I’m Aidan Callari, I’m 18 years old, and I’m majoring in Filmmaking at Montclair State University. I am looking to graduate with a GPA around 3.7, which will require me to score only As and Bs in all of my classes. More generally, I would like to learn as much as I possibly can about the craft of filmmaking in my four years here. Currently, I am working on building a personal brand for myself. This includes working on a lot of photography with film cameras, and publishing them online. This also includes working on films in my filmmaking classes, and promoting them online once they’re finished. I also work on fleshing out film ideas in my spare time, and I’d like to have a few finished and fully developed screenplays by the time I graduate, so that I can use those to establish myself and get work. I’m not a huge internet personality, but I enjoy publishing my work, and having it out there on the internet.
My main passion is film, and I’ve had this passion for just about my entire life. I love watching films, I love analyzing them, and I have more recently begun to love making them. I love to write both film criticism and films themselves, and I especially enjoy creating those films that I write. The feeling I get when I see the words I’ve put on a page come to life in front of me is truly incomparable, and all the work I put into it is worth it for those moments. These overlap, in that I both love filmmaking, and I am apparently good at it.
This is the final project my group created for our Filmmaking I class this semester, written by and starring yours truly.
10 to 15 years from now, I would love to be a working writer-director who has made at least one of my features with an indie studio, like A24 or NEON. Currently, in trying to one day reach this goal, I am refining my filmmaking skills in my college classes, and I am applying the knowledge I’ve learned in my Film Story Analysis class to the scripts I am working on. I am also trying to use photography to enhance my ability with creating an image; ever since I’ve taken up photography this summer, I’ve noticed improvements in how I frame images. In my future at MSU, I am aiming to take part in internships during my junior and senior year, so that I can meet people in the industry and make a bit of a name for myself.
This is a photo roman (a story told through images) that I created out of images I took this fall.
Grit defines a person’s perseverance of effort combined with their motivation to complete an objective. While I’d like for my grit to be better in some areas, when it comes to filmmaking, I am decently gritty. When I work on a project, I like to see it through, and when I get the opportunity to make a film, I make it. In order to get my dream job, I am willing to put in the work, make it through the lulls that will no doubt come, and work hard to create a name for myself and get the opportunity to create films and stories that I love. I know the film industry is a tough and competitive industry, but I am prepared to put in hard work, make a good impression, and do the best I can with the opportunities I am given. | https://medium.com/@aidan-callari/striving-for-the-moving-pictures-3e0899ad1671 | ['Aidan Callari'] | 2020-12-09 16:18:05.697000+00:00 | ['Filmmaking', 'Film Studies', 'Film Student'] |
How to become an Instagram Influencer? | Nowadays lots of brands and businesses want to work with Instagram influencers and bloggers to create content for their products, services, or Instagram accounts. So if you can showcase the best work on your Instagram account, it can become an awesome portfolio for your skills and can open up opportunities to work with great brands, collaborate on social media projects, and get paid for your Instagram content!
To become and Influencer you definitely have to have a strategy to do that and here are the main tips for you to succeed:
Tip #1: Identify your Niche
Picture this: you’re scrolling through Instagram’s Explore page and you come across a beautiful travel image. Since you love to travel and are always looking for more inspiration to jet set, you visit the profile.
The likelihood of you following a page that is filled with equally stunning travel imagery is much higher than if the page was filled with random images of a dog, a family, selfies, beauty products, and flowers.
When people come to your page, they want to know what they can expect by following you and feel confident that they will consistently receive that type of content. Because of this, niching down is absolutely vital because it will help you grow your audience faster.
identifying one specific topic to post about can oftentimes be really difficult, though. We are all multi-faceted with many interests, so it can be strange to post only about travel, fashion, or wellness, for example.
Here are some questions to ask yourself that will lead you to your niche:
What am I most passionate about?
What am I most knowledgeable about?
What could I happily create consistent content about for a year without making a dime?
Once you have your overall niche established, you’ll need to nail down 3–4 content pillars to get more clear on the type of content you’ll post on your Instagram. These content pillars are smaller, more specific topics that fall under your broader niche.
Here are examples of other influencers’ content pillars:
Beauty, street style, and luxury fashion:
Tip #2: Stay Consistent
A few years ago, it was possible to post sporadically and grow consistently. But in 2020, it’s a different story.
If you want to see growth on Instagram and stay top of mind with your followers, it is vital to be consistent.
As far as feed posts go, pick a schedule. Whether it’s posting every day of the week or just Monday through Friday, set a posting schedule and commit to it. Your audience will want to know when they can expect to see new content from you.
Regardless of what schedule you commit to for feed posts, I recommend showing up on Instagram Stories every single day.
Instagram Stories are becoming increasingly more important and it’s become the norm to spend more time watching stories rather than scrolling the Instagram feed!
One of the hardest parts about staying consistent and showing up every day is that you may not have enough content or may not take the time to plan ahead.
Solution? Batching.
Dedicate 1–2 days of the week to head out with a friend, photographer, or tripod and shoot the next week of content!
Prior to shoot day, I recommend making a list of all the shots you want to get and any outfits or props you’ll need to bring for them. Remember to take photos for all of your content pillars.
Tip #3: Write Meaningful Captions
The data from Fohr and Later’s recent study shows that average caption length has more than doubled since 2016.
And it’s no wonder: Users are wanting more out of the influencers they follow than a pretty photo and a cute 4-word caption.
Captions are a great opportunity to spark conversation and start forming meaningful connections with your community. They’re also a perfect place to provide value and inspiration to your audience.
Becoming a successful Instagram influencer isn’t easy, and it’s no secret that Instagram is a very different platform in 2020 than it was just a few years ago.
Long gone are the days when getting featured on a larger profile would grant you hundreds of thousands of new followers.
Posting a 3-word caption and seeing consistent growth? It doesn’t fly anymore. The old follow-unfollow “hack”? We don’t know her. 👋
Tip #4: Focus on Building Community
While follower growth and engagement rate are important metrics to be mindful of, influencers should be focusing equally — if not more — on the quality of the community they are cultivating with their audience.
In other words, strike a balance between focusing on depth and breadth.
When you’re hyper-focused on breadth, you might have a very large audience, but one that doesn’t necessarily trust your advice because you haven’t spent the time building it.
When you’re hyper-focused on depth, you’ll have an audience that trusts your recommendations, buys the products you recommend, and follows you to other platforms.
No matter what stage you’re at in your Instagram influencer career, building relationships within your community is the single most important thing you can do.
Get Conversational:
After posting on your feed, stick around on the app for at least 30 minutes after you’ve posted responding to comments and go back later in the day to respond to the rest.
When you receive DMs, always be sure to respond and strike up a genuine conversation. Sending voice notes adds a personal touch too (and saves your fingers!).
Get Your Audience Talking To Each Other
One way to do this is by asking your audience to engage with one another in the comments of a post.
Tip #5: Learn About Your Audience
Do you know more about your audience than basic demographic information? Do you know the kinds of brands your followers love, the jobs they have, their struggles & goals?
To succeed as an Instagram influencer, you truly need to know everything about the people following you because it will help you create content that they resonate with and that therefore performs well.
It will help you ensure that you take on the right kind of collaborations with brands that resonate with your audience and that your followers might buy from.
If you want to create a product of your own one day (an online course, a clothing line, a digital product), knowing what your audience’s interests, desires, and struggles are will be incredibly helpful in ensuring you won’t launch to crickets.
Spark conversation in comments:
Use your captions as an opportunity to ask your followers to tell you about themselves in the comments!
Post Polls on Instagram Stories:
The poll feature is one of my favorites because it’s quick and simple for someone to vote and participate.
Some questions you might ask (that, of course, should be tweaked to your profile and niche specifically):
Do you live in the U.S.?
Are you older or younger than 25?
Do you have a 9 to 5 job?
Do you travel more or less than 3x a year?
Do you like it when I post scenery or hotels more?
Become an Instagram Influencer Tip #6: Set Yourself up for Brands to Approach You
One of the most common complaints I hear from new Instagram influencers is that brands aren’t coming to them and, most of the time, it’s because their page isn’t set up in a way that will attract them!
Here are some things you can do to make sure that potential brand partners know that you’re open for business:
Make sure you have a business profile:
This is vital not only for brands to see you as a potential partner but also because it will open up vital features like Instagram Analytics.
Analytics help you see what is and isn’t working to improve future content and share stats with brands.
You can switch your profile by going to Settings -> Account -> Switch to Business Account.
Tip #7: Use Aiboost App
To reduce your efforts and make the way of becoming an Influencer shorter try the Aiboost app. It will save you a lot of time building engagement, and you could simply cross out tips #2 and #4, as Aiboost will help you to stay consistent as you no longer have to think about an engagement after posting a post to make it visible, and there will be simply no need to engage with your audience to build community as Aiboost will do it for you. Try it Now for Free! | https://medium.com/@info_75282/how-to-become-an-instagram-influencer-e0aceb632844 | [] | 2020-12-21 14:31:48.849000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Influencers', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Influencer Marketing', 'Influencer Marketing Tips'] |
Uber and public transport interaction: An analysis of empirical evidence | Public transport is at the heart of most well designed urban mobility systems. In recent years, ride-hail has provided a valuable on-demand transportation layer on top. Understanding how the two interact with each other is an important policy question and vital to reducing dependence on the private car, the dominant mode of transportation in most cities. Given the high stakes for livable cities, the environment, and access to mobility, opinions on the topic can be fraught and cover the entire spectrum from “ride-hail is a boon for public transport” to “ride-hail is destroying public transport”. But what does the data say?
In a new research collaboration with the Smart Public Transport Lab at TU Delft, we study this topic by looking at empirical data on Uber trips and overlaying public transport trip data on top. We focus on three European and three American cities in October 2018 — Amsterdam, Warsaw, Stockholm, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Houston. We compare the travel time and cost of the two modes to assess the overall improvement in service accessibility across the city. In addition, we look at rider demand data to understand how riders choose between the two modes.
Our findings show that ride-hail and public transport combine to provide improved accessibility (as measured by travel times) in urban areas and that the interaction between the two alternatives depends on the relative quality of service provided. These findings are explained below.
When looking at travel times, we find that travel times for rides with Uber on average are shorter than public transport travel time. This is predominantly due to much shorter out-of-vehicle times (walk and wait times) on Uber trips. Less than 2% of the Uber trips experience an out-of-vehicle time longer than 15 minutes. The corresponding number for public transport is between 42% in Amsterdam and 65% in New York City.
By comparing travel times, we also find that between 1 out of 5 (Amsterdam) and 2 out of 5 (Houston) Uber trips have no viable public transport alternative (the fastest public transport alternative would be at least twice the travel time of the Uber trip). We can safely infer that there is no minimal competition between rides with Uber and public transport for these trips.
Unsurprisingly, rides with Uber are more expensive than public transport. The cost difference is on average larger than the time difference when converting the latter using the local value of time. In other words, on average, the travel time savings alone do not make up for the additional cost. However, all observations in our sample pertain to cases where individuals opted for the ride-hailing alternative; by only looking at Uber data, we don’t observe cases where individuals opted to take public transport instead. This choice to take a ride with Uber rather than public transport can potentially be explained by these riders having a higher than average value of time for that trip, valuing more than just travel time savings by attributing value to factors not considered in this study such as safety, reliability and comfort or never considering public transport as an alternative.
We use Uber and public transport demand data in Washington, D.C. to understand behavior in cases where a viable public transport alternative is available. We find a strong negative correlation between the travel time competitiveness of public transport and the share of rides taken with Uber. In other words, more riders choose public transport over Uber in areas and time periods where public transport travel times are more competitive. This is clearly illustrated in the map below where the relative demand for rides with Uber is low along metro corridors.
Heatmap of the share of rides with Uber (relative to public transport) in Washington DC. Blue lines are metro lines.
Finally, we study the added value of Uber to the service accessibility offered by public transport. We find, in general, that the Uber platform helps improve service accessibility across the entire city by offering an additional transportation option. The biggest increase in service accessibility is in areas which are not well served by urban rail.
This new research shows that the two alternatives together improve and expand accessibility in urban areas. Though riders occasionally choose between public transport and ride hail, the former is generally the superior option in areas and times when service is fast, frequent and reliable. This is consistent with recent findings in a TRB report that suggest improvements in quality of transit result in higher transit ridership.The high proportion — between 1 out of 5 and 2 out of 5 — of ride hail trips with no viable public transport alternative suggest that this option, despite higher fares, is helpful to cover the spatial and temporal gaps in public transport service. Importantly, these two modes are working together to enable a multimodal lifestyle by strengthening the basket of transportation options vigorously competing against the private car.
You can read the full working paper here | https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/uber-and-public-transport-interaction-an-analysis-of-empirical-evidence-8514302f166f | ['Santosh Rao'] | 2021-09-15 20:36:54.878000+00:00 | ['Transportation', 'Research', 'Uber', 'Public Transit', 'Ridesharing'] |
Tackle Uncertainty | Tackle uncertainty
And make friends with those you don’t know
To learn the nature of the world outside
To learn, and so, to grow
Fight the doubt inside your mind
Fight it hard, and let it age
Burn the wicked pit inside
Inside your stomach, in your cave
Keep your back held straight despite
The endless burning of the fire
Take the time you need to think
But hold your thinking so you’ll smile
And let whatever images
That burn within your skull
Fall prey to sight of present day.
And let whatever words
that leave your mouth
depart
and so their memory will fade
For if the past becomes your present
And the future leads today
You’ll stay within a house of solitude
You’ll live within
a cave
of pain.
But if you let the shining sun
Sting upon your back
And sit without a blanket
On the wetted fields of grass
Soon the wind will get you there
Wherever you are going
Yes, some push,
Some twists and turns
But still,
that’s really something! | https://medium.com/@tcocco/tackle-uncertainty-258a7bf25e92 | ['Tom Cocco'] | 2020-12-15 20:18:36.222000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry In Form', 'Poetry'] |
Dealing With Depression In Fatherhood | Dealing With Depression In Fatherhood
Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash
Let’s get something out in the open. I am a male who has dealt with depression, anxiety, anger issues, disordered eating, and some pretty gnarly self-talk in my past. If you take a look at the life I present online, you might make the assumption that I’ve got my shit together and always have. You may think that living a healthy and well-rounded life comes naturally to me. You might even think I make it look easy. I want to clear that up… it’s not.
It started in my teenage years with some basic teenage angst manifested in the form of a negative self-perception which evolved into disordered eating and ultimately diagnosed depression. I was sent to see a psychiatrist who put me on meds. I then reluctantly attended therapy well into college. The problem was that at the time, I was riddled with the perceptions of what a true male should look like. I can say that therapy and anti-depressants did not fit the bill in my mind’s eye of what a dude’s dude should be. So, I attended my therapy sessions reluctantly and unwillingly all while washing my anti-depressants down with a few domestic light beers every night.
Eventually (somewhere in my twenties), I decided I wasn’t depressed anymore. This ‘decision’ was ill-founded and arbitrary at best. I stopped all treatment. What I didn’t realize was that in lieu of professional treatment I was about to walk down a path of self-medication through alcohol for the better part of my twenties. This came at a price… a few bouts with the law (which, at the time, I played off as poor decisions based on jager-bombs), some very strained relationships with friends and family, and most importantly I completely lost touch with the type of man I wanted to be. But I played all this off as being A-Okay because I was fun to hang out with at happy hour… even though I was dying a little bit inside both literally and figuratively every day.
The mask of this lifestyle made worked until I got married and had a couple kids. I carried on with this lifestyle for a few years into parenthood, but those of you who are parents out there know that parenthood comes with an entirely new set of social pressures. Having never really coped with my depression in the first place, these pressures built up pretty quickly. This all came to a head a number of years ago when my wife sat me down for an intervention about my anger issues. By this point anger and aggression had become massive symptoms of my underlying depression. She told me that I either needed to deal with this via professional help or that she and I were going to have bigger problems.
I ultimately had to realize and confront a simple truth: I have depression and anxiety and until I deal with it, I’ll never be the parent, husband, or man I want to be.
This was a wake-up call for me. So, I went to work. Here are a few tips I have for any man out there dealing with depression or who has concern for their mental health.
Get therapy, it’s the manliest thing you can do
As a twenty-something year old I was mortified at the prospect of going to see a therapist. During my sessions, I put every effort into outsmarting the counselor by making light of the issues I was dealing with. I now realize that thinking this way was stupid. I just wish I’d realized how stupid it was way was back then. If I had, I would probably be much further along in my journey to living my best life.
Any working father out there knows the pressures. On a day-to-day basis we have lunches to pack, homework to help with, kids to get from A to B, extracurriculars to attend, a career to attend to, a boss or customer who needs that email answered now not later, groceries to buy, bills to pay, financial futures to think about, and much more. Even for a completely sound of mind man… this is a lot.
That being said… It’s OK to get upset, it’s OK to feel overwhelmed, it’s OK to not have every answer, It’s OK to want to talk it out, and most importantly it’s OK to need help.
I have no shame in asking for help from a personal trainer for my fitness, or a mechanic when my car is broken down, or an air conditioner repairman to fix my air conditioner when it breaks on a 100+ degree day. I have no problem asking for help from these individuals, because they are trained professionals skilled in the exact thing, I need help with at that moment. A therapist is no different. They are a highly skilled professional, trained to help you sort through the exact things that seem like a muddy mess in your head.
Since starting therapy back up 3+ years ago, with a more open mind, I have learned tools to sort through the muddiness of life’s challenges. Every session is like having a sounding board who is there just to hear your problems and help you come up with reasonable and actionable solutions for them. Why would we shun that? We shouldn’t. I now truly believe that if we all went to therapy a couple times a month, the world would be a happier place and our family structures would become more sound too.
Take Care of Yourself Physically
It’s a cliché but it’s worth saying… in case of emergency put your own oxygen mask on first. I know that if you’re a parent, you’re busy. I know that the thought of fitting a workout in sounds daunting. I know that just having something on the table for dinner some nights is a victory.
But I also know that you can’t give your best self to those who matter most to you if you aren’t your best self. This truth holds up in most aspects of our life… professionally, emotionally, athletically, and so on. I encourage you to look at your schedule and find ways to fit even just 5 minutes of self-care into your day.
The next time you are thinking things like “there’s no possible way I can fit a workout in today” I encourage you to flip the script… look at it like this “there’s no possible way I can afford NOT to take care of myself physically if I’m going to deliver my best self to those I love”.
Cutting back on alcohol, cleaning up my diet, and making physical fitness normal and non-negotiable parts of my week have exponentially improved my ability to deliver for my family when it matters most.
Communicate with those you love
I fancy myself a decent writer and I have no issue posting well thought out blog posts on social media which communicate a clear and concise idea. You would think that skill might be bred from having stellar interpersonal communication skills with my loved ones. You would be wrong. I have a terribly difficult time conveying emotions and cohesive thoughts about how I’m feeling to my wife, kids, and friends. I don’t like to do it.
The issue is that, for a relationship, poor communication is toxic. Your family is your team and if you can’t communicate with your team, then you are setting yourself up for failure. And in the game, I’m talking about here, the stakes are pretty high.
One of the things I work with my therapist on weekly is how to be a better communicator. This means learning how to speak up meaningfully and non-aggressively when I’m upset and equally importantly how to acknowledge my partner and children when they need to share something.
Some who are close to me might argue that this skill is still not one of my strengths, but I’m working on it and honestly believe you should too.
So why am I sharing this?
This piece has been incredibly challenging to write. There are some truths about me in here that I don’t share lightly. In fact, these are the corners of my mind that I usually try to keep quiet and hidden from the world.
So why am I sharing this? It’s simple… the world would be a better place if more of us were willing to share our experiences in an effort to open up tough conversations. Mental health is stigmatized but I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I see more men being willing to have these conversations. I want you to know that you’re not on your own and that it is ok to have this discussion.
And trust me, if it feels a little ‘un-manly’ to talk about the stigmatized topic of our emotions, worry not, we can go hit a punching bag or shred a trail on a bike together afterwards. I bet your striking power might just feel stronger once you’re not carrying the load of depression, anxiety, and un-checked anger that comes from a world where we don’t talk about this stuff.
Joey Szolowicz is a Lifestyle, Nutrition and Health Blogger and Vlogger. For weekly tips join, his community here. | https://medium.com/a-parent-is-born/dealing-with-depression-in-fatherhood-9ad94f3816fa | ['Joey Szolowicz'] | 2020-12-15 18:52:37.971000+00:00 | ['Depression', 'Fatherhood', 'Mindset', 'Therapy', 'Mental Health'] |
Mysterium Network Partners with AVADO | As Mysterium grows, we want to find the many new and exciting ways you can both be a part of our network, and take advantage of the token economy. Check out our article on 14 ways to earn crypto online.
There are countless projects out there building the foundation of the decentralised world, and AVADO is one pioneer helping to drive the evolution of the Web3.
Who is AVADO?
AVADO enables you to be a part of your favourite decentralised projects, like Mysterium. The team created an amazingly simple plug and play hardware device that connects you to many different kinds of blockchains.
Using the AVADO Box, anyone can become a node to help power decentralised networks and earn cryptocurrency in the process.
[For those who need to know — How does a node work?
In a distributed peer-to-peer network, a node represents a single device, such as a computer or hardware device, which helps power and maintain that network. Through these transparent, secure and community-run systems, value can easily be digitised and shared. People are incentivised to contribute their resources, such as bandwidth or processing power, sharing it directly with the entire network without any kind of official host or authority needed. Nodes are paid for contributing their resources.]
Running your own node is usually very resource-intensive, requiring complex software as well as a lot of computer storage and bandwidth. AVADO makes it easy to be a node as it is designed to handle the CPU and disk-intensive aspects of running one. It provides a huge amount of RAM, ample Disk space, Internet access, and more.
There’s a lot of information floating around that running a node is very expensive. With AVADO, it only costs roughly $50 dollars per year to run. These low operational costs invite everyone to join.
The Box has its own operating system, so you can choose between various blockchains, like Bitcoin, Ethereum or Monero. The best part is you can run these multiple blockchain nodes at once, so Mysterium is just one of the many networks you can be a part of.
AVADO now offers smart mining, which is where we come in. Mysterium is the first smart mining application, so the AVADO community can install our node software, start sharing their bandwidth to help power our decentralised VPN and earn up $600 worth of ETH in a year! Find out how you can earn in our network.
You can use the AVADO Wizard which helps you get started. The Wizard walks you through the entire process.
Howdy, partner
Mysterium and AVADO met last year, and the synergy between the two teams was obvious.
AVADO is decentralisation in a box. It’s agnostic, open-source and wants to put blockchains in the hands of everyday people. We’re both working towards a greater vision where users reclaim the internet. Our teams believe in the potential of residential nodes to power the Web3, independently of Web2 ISP and servers.
On a technical level, our projects also compliment each other. Mysterium’s software can easily be installed onto their hardware, so AVADO users have more blockchain magic to play with.
Collaboration is one of our industry’s biggest strengths and secret weapons. Other technology sectors and companies want to keep their research, insights and code private to remain competitive. They want to outperform, rather than lift up, other projects to maximise their profit.
This has been the opposite for decentralised communities. By partnering, collaborating and learning together, the development of our ecosystem accelerates. We are open-source and transparent so we can learn from each other’s mistakes or innovations. When other developers and teams know where we got it right, they can build on top of our own work and research.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Now it’s over to you
Blockchains need people power.
While teams like Mysterium and AVADO provide the infrastructure and tools, our communities are the fuel which ignites decentralization. The more people running a node at home, the stronger, faster and more stable these global networks become, and the faster we can achieve true decentralization.
An open internet also offers both digital and economic freedom. Running a personal node means that you are in control of your own data and your privacy. Your personal information and online activity cannot be logged or stored in private servers, so your data cannot be commoditized or sold to businesses.
How to set up Mysterium on your AVADO
Check out this step by step instructional video by the amazing team at Avado. We’re super excited about this partnership and hope you are too!
Like the progress you’re seeing? Show us some love by sharing this article with your friends. Or join the Mysterium node pilot program today.
Original article on Mysterium Network’s blog. | https://medium.com/mysterium-network/mysterium-network-partners-with-avado-71dfd123ff78 | ['Roberto Vis'] | 2019-12-31 14:46:20.538000+00:00 | ['Earn Money Online', 'Cryptocurrency', 'VPN', 'Partnerships', 'Blockchain'] |
20 Things I Learnt In 2020. By Cynthia Aralu | By Cynthia Aralu
Lessons, Lessons..
2020 has been a heck of a ride. It has seemed like a long, drawn-out, horror movie. Yet, here we are, a week to its end and I’m inspired by a YouTuber to write about 20 lessons I have picked up all through the year. Let me know if any resonates with you.
Taking time out to practice self-care is a key source of nourishment for your external and inner being. It could in fact be a form of meditation. Ooommmm…. Don’t feel uncomfortable about speaking up for yourself. It’s a jungle out in this here world and people are aware of the aggression they give off. If they are shameless about their actions towards you, then, by all means, be shameless about telling them it is not acceptable or telling them ‘No’. And honestly, why should you be the one made to feel discomfort or uncomfortable. They should be uncomfortable and ashamed. Give yourself a chance to be happy. That stuck feeling is really a thing of the mind. Life is full of endless possibilities but you’ve got to be ready to create opportunities and endless options for yourself. Just remember to be selfish about picking what is best for you. Discovering new sounds and music is truly an amazing feeling. The less you can understand the lyrics the better. This is coming from the point of view of an empath. Sometimes, it can be a bit much to understand and feel the lyrics. Plus, you get to really enjoy and understand that good music, which has the ability to move you, transcends tongue and race. Go for it. Engage in things you’ve never done before, without overthinking that you’re going to be bad or you’re going to fail. I mean, what is the worst that could happen? You’re not going to die and at least you can say that with this life, you tried your best. Save. It really does add up. I’ve heard people say some people don’t even have enough money to save after expenses. If that’s you, this might not work. However, I’ve learnt to live really minimally and cut down on expenses, to enable me to save a particular amount of money every month. It takes a lot of sacrifice. Some might say, you might make all of that sacrifice and then die without spending the money, but how I see it is, even with the sacrifices I have made, do I have any regrets? If I have done the best I can, what is the point of regret? Perhaps, it helps that I don’t derive much pleasure from a lot of material things and so, I can’t really say, I want this or I want that. For me, money is the equivalent of security in a capitalist world and so, it is wise to have it. I do not need anybody’s approval. Only mine. It would be nice if the people I love got on board with my decisions but ultimately, I don’t need their approval. I’m going to make my decisions and if I make mistakes, I’ll learn from them. That’s just a part of living. The idea of somebody else seeming smart to me is a function of how much their ideas resonates with mine and how much of a higher awakening their ideas birth within me. When you say you love someone, what you love is the reflection of yourself within that person, which you unconsciously gravitate towards. A mirror effect. Love should not be hard. If it is, question it or make some evaluations. I understand there will be kinks and whatnots but if effort and consistency is lacking, then something is wrong. Maybe I should rephrase that first line. Love should not feel like hell. It should feel like home. Comfort. Acceptance. Value. Understanding. Respect. Mutual. Give yourself unlimited breaks. You are living your first life. You don’t get cheat sheets. You don’t know where each decision would lead to. Besides, there is no straight path anyway. Don’t be afraid to let go of what does not serve you anymore to give enough room for what aligns with you. Let go. Trust God. Hand over all activities carried out to Him so he takes care of them and watches over you and the work you do. “It’s all in your hands now, Father.” That way, you do less worrying and more living. Gratitude. Infuse a gratitude culture into your daily life. Tell yourself things you are grateful for. By the time you are halfway into listing, you will feel uplifted and full of appreciation for the little things. Be appreciative of every part of your journey through life. Even the annoying or upsetting or hurtful parts. It will be make you even more appreciative when you have moved away from them and give you a more wholesome view of your journey, like an unfolding story. Walking is therapeutic. It gives you time to meditate. And meditation isn’t necessary silence. It is also leaving the mind room to run off in any direction it wants to go. Walking could also be the time for your private concerts, you know, music, headphones, pure bliss. It is surprising how the time goes by so fast when I’m walking, without me even realising. I once told someone that my 30 minute walk took a duration of 13 to 15 minutes until I checked. Taking time to be alone and away from everyone can be necessary to refuel on energy. Don’t be afraid to go off and shut off all communication. In my case, it was deleting my social media apps for weeks. I felt better by the time I got back. Every now and then, I still find ways to limit the interactions I have with people. This is to avoid expending too much energy. That way, I can show up, be happy, lighter and give 100 percent when I have to. Stop waiting for things to be “perfect” before doing what you want to do. For ages, I did not attempt to personalise my space because I have moved a lot in the past and this home always felt temporary to me. I imagined if I got a more permanent place, I would do something about the place to make it mine. It was so fulfilling when I said, “fuck it”, and ordered a bunch of things off of Amazon to transform my space into what it is now. At present, my space has a personality and a vibe to it. Plus, it was a healing process for me as well. Absolutely worth it. Take charge of your health. This year, I have done a lot in that department which I will be going in-depth into in future posts. I had this behaviour of, “what you don’t know, won’t harm you.” It was borne out of a crashing fear of the unknown and not wanting to deal with potentially life-altering, bad news. This year, I have been able to break a lot of barriers in that department. There are so many complications that can be prevented from early diagnosis. Not knowing can literally kill you. I have been fortunate enough to take charge of my sexual health using my health insurance and I had the chance to do a medical exam recently. It is very empowering to make these decisions for myself. I feel it is a part of reclaiming my body. “My body is mine”. I’ve still got a ways to go but I have come a long way. Examining past trauma can help you understand why you are the way you are and help you figure out ways to be less reactive to certain situations or even more reactive. Never underestimate the power of a good therapy session. Certain behaviours are learnt from our family unit, whether or not this is realised. They are usually hard to unlearn but not impossible. Realisation is usually the first step to unlearning anything. So, good luck to everyone out there actively trying to be better versions of themselves.
That being said, cheers to us. We’ve made it this far. I am hopeful for blessings the New year bears, asking God to take control of the outcome of every move and every decision we make.
“Watch over us, Father.” | https://medium.com/@katmira/20-things-ive-learnt-in-2020-64a65f6216bb | ['Cynthia Aralu'] | 2020-12-24 09:02:17.539000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Year In Review', 'Living', 'Prayer', 'Love'] |
Timeless With a Fresh Twist: The Hip Hop Nutcracker | There are certain things our brains automatically think of around the holidays. Yes, Mariah Carey. That’s a given. We’re also thinking about other classics too like, The Nutcracker.
This year, experience The Nutcracker like you’ve never seen it before. The Hip Hop Nutcracker is a fresh, holiday mash-up the entire family will enjoy.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker
The Hip Hop Nutcracker is a contemporary dance spectacle set to Tchaikovsky’s timeless music. Directed and choreographed by Jennifer Weber, this unique, evening-length production is performed by a supercharged cast. Vibe and feel the energy and holiday spirit from a dozen all-star dancers, a DJ, a violinist, and, last but not least, MC Kurtis Blow — one of hip hop’s founding fathers, will open the show with a short set.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker
Sticking loosely to the original story, in The Hip Hop Nutcracker, Maria-Clara and the Nutcracker Prince go on a dream adventure battling a gang of mice, visiting the land of sweets and learning the lessons the holiday season brings. Innovative, colorful digital graffiti and visuals transform the landscape of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s beloved story from traditional 19th Century Germany to the vibrant, diverse sights and sounds of contemporary New York City.
The dynamic performers of The Hip Hop Nutcracker take us on a journey that celebrates love, community and the magic of the holiday season.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker
The Hip Hop Nutcracker is a re-imagined, re-mixed version of a classic that’s fun for the whole family. So we thought of a perfect snack pairing for the show that fits with that idea.
First, a fun, classic, homemade Chex Mix fit for the holidays. Next, the re-mixed Chex Mix snack: Puppy Chow.
Whichever snack you choose (or make both!), we hope you tune in and veg out in the coolest way possible.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker was recorded live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and is available to stream from December 19th-20th.
Learn more and purchase tickets on Towwn.
Learn more about the new (and free!) Towwn iPhone app. With 300+ livestreams, virtual events, podcasts, films and classes, Towwn puts the best Art & Culture experiences in the palm of your hand. | https://medium.com/towwn/timeless-with-a-fresh-twist-the-hip-hop-nutcracker-faebd7f437d5 | [] | 2020-12-19 04:08:27.496000+00:00 | ['Nutcracker', 'Christmas', 'Dance', 'The Nutcracker', 'Hip Hop'] |
The DriveSales™ | Super awesome sales strategies for makeup artists to attract more customers! | The DriveSales™ | Super awesome sales strategies for makeup artists to attract more customers!
Makeup can often be one of the most difficult yet the most glorious things to do. Enhancing one’s core personalities and showing up edges that exhilarate those curves. It often makes women proud and more confident about themselves. And with the increasing awareness about makeup, the need for makeup artists has steadily been growing.
From occasional wedding functions to seasonal parties, makeup has become a part of people’s day to day lives, from daily formal parties to casual weekends. And as a make-up artist, it is not just your duty to educate people about the do’s and don’ts of makeup, but also live out your journey in this industry.
Here are the proven and highly recommended sales practices for makeup artists to make more sales:
1) Make videos — Makeup is all about the essence and the way the output looks. And for you to make more appealing content for the people, it’s necessary to use videos as a form of communication. You can set up your own Instagram handles and put videos of your own or the models you have tried on. And set up YouTube channels that can help you reach a wider audience. By putting in tutorials and ideas that people might like. 2) Build Portfolio — Portfolios are the representation of your experience in the field. More popular testimonials you could bring and have satisfied customers, more people would like to visit you. You can often collaborate with famous personalities or join local people to stand up for a good cause. More work exposure would involve getting more opportunities, enhancing your image as an influencing artist in the market. 3) Add value — Value proves to be one goal that everyone must focus their efforts and put it across various platforms or impart through your sources. The aim of your output should be to reveal stories through your masterpiece. And get the most results and reach through them. You must learn to entertain customer’s wishes and work on providing them with their best wishes through your well-established ways and knowledge. As the customers, clients would be more satisfied fulfilling their ideals than checking out your own. 4) Master your elevator pitch — The first impression of your meetings with clients can be the determiner of your image on them. To be punctual and disciplined for people, you must arrive on time and carry out your required necessities before their arrival. While creating content, you can draft your first 30 seconds of the video in such a way that they resonate with your ideas and represent your brand. Helping you reach more clients and get more sales. 5) Network — Reach out to people and make them aware of your work. It can help in expanding your work to various circles and getting clients from different places. You can use referral offers or insist on your friends and colleagues to help you by recommending your channel to others so you could pitch in more work. You can often start by providing your work for free or at least prices around and get in more customers.
Now, as an effective SALESPERSON! We can do three things from here.
1. Not ignoring the opportunity and blaming the situation for revenue loss. 2. Taking necessary notes and revisiting your sales strategy with a growth mindset. 3. Reach out to The DriveSales™ in case you need any specialized help.
To conclude, what you believe also provides some idea of your development as a consultative salesperson. It is something like Coco Chanel’s quote, “How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”
#thedrivesales | https://medium.com/@thedrivesales/the-drivesales-super-awesome-sales-strategies-for-makeup-artists-to-attract-more-customers-f55eb391635e | ['The Drivesales', 'Making Sales Stories Promising'] | 2020-12-26 17:52:02.405000+00:00 | ['Cosmetics', 'Artist', 'Marketing', 'Makeup', 'Sales'] |
エミリーちゃんのお話 | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/kotoba/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%9F%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8A%E8%A9%B1-555c5715f79f | [] | 2018-04-30 03:59:50.422000+00:00 | ['Japanese', '日本', '日本語', 'Stories', 'Japan'] |
ReiBoot Pro Download for Windows | Is your iDevice causing problems? Then you must use a boot repair tool on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Speaking of which, ReiBoot Pro Download for Windows is the ideal boot repair tool comes to all iDevices. It allows you to overcome many issues on the iDevices such as stuck in Apple logo, black screen, recovery mode, freezing iDevice, etc. If you are bothered with any of these issues on your iDevice and searching for a boot repair tool for your iDevice, get ReiBoot Pro Download for Windows from our official website.
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If your iDevice is stuck on Apple logo, you can fix it by using the ReiBoot Pro Download for Windows .
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Read More about ReiBoot from https://www.tenorshare.com/products/reiboot.html | https://medium.com/@mobileapps2020/reiboot-pro-download-for-windows-2744e963811a | ['Randi Minick'] | 2019-02-06 10:31:15.707000+00:00 | ['Windows', 'Reiboot', 'Phone Boot Repair', 'Apple', 'Reiboot Download'] |
How will PACE center racial equity in our philanthropic laboratory? | Retrieved via creative commons search
Earlier this year, PACE stepped further into our identity as a philanthropic laboratory by sharing the specifics of where we will focus our energy in the months ahead. In the ways we serve our members and the areas we make learning and experimentation participatory and actionable, we are weaving together a story about the power and potential of civic engagement in America today.
A philanthropic laboratory is a concept without many models to look to, and as an organization committed to learning, we have been reflecting on our learnings about what this identity means as we live it into reality.
Reality is a funny word, isn’t it? We acknowledge that reality has never meant the same thing for all of us. We also acknowledge that what was real life for many people 12–15 months ago looks nothing like real life today. We have lived — and are still living — a historic moment. A global pandemic, a polarized electorate, a struggling economy, a burdened healthcare system — these are just a few of the realities that have drastically shifted.
But one reality that we have been spending a lot of time sitting in is the reality of racial injustice in America. This reality, unfortunately, is not new, and the events over the last year — including the murder of George Floyd to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 — seem to have created a tipping point for acknowledgement, conversation, and action, especially in the philanthropic sector.
As a philanthropy-serving organization, PACE also experienced its own tipping point, and we made a commitment to center racial equity in our work as a community and through our engagement in the civic philanthropy field. In some ways, this was not new for the organization. In fact, we recently found some documents from PACE’s founding, over 15 years ago. What struck us in reviewing these words is how many of the same questions and values the organization experiences today were considerations at the time of its founding — including about race. We know racial equity was part of the very conversations that established PACE and part of its organizational DNA. And over the years, PACE has worked on projects and research that touched on it as well. It’s fair to say that we were making efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work. But we were not centering it or naming it as an explicit piece of our work. We have arrived at an understanding that for racial equity to be truly achieved, we have to be far more intentional.
Over the last year, we have been working with a dedicated consultant (Danielle Marshall of Culture Principles) to help us center racial equity in our strategy as a philanthropic laboratory. Danielle has been an important guide to our leadership and community, which resulted in the development of PACE’s racial equity commitment and an accompanying internal framework. The way we see it: the commitment outlines our intent and the framework holds us accountable to doing the work.
We wanted to share our commitment with our community, and perhaps as importantly, we wanted to share what we are learning so far about what it means to us to center racial equity in our philanthropic laboratory. Below, we offer a few reflections and learnings based on our journey to get to this point.
Before we begin, we think it’s important to say three things upfront. First, what we offer below are our reflective learnings. They are our takeaways coming out of our recent experiences in our process of centering racial equity in our work. We are saying the word “our” a lot because we want to underscore the personal nature of this work and that we are only speaking for one experience — ours. Second, and related, the resources we link to throughout this piece are ones that we leaned on in our process. We know there are a lot of important resources from great organizations in the world, and we share these resources simply to provide further insight into what informed our experience. We also spent a lot of time discussing and contextualizing these resources as a team, so we share them with that caveat as well. Third, we are certainly not the first people to know or learn these lessons. In fact, we’ve heard them before, and in sharing them, we hope to join the chorus affirming and amplifying them.
What we understand today about centering racial equity in our philanthropic laboratory
Learning 1: “We don’t do that” is not an option.
One of the core and frequent questions PACE asks itself is “What is our work to do?” This question has served as a strategic filter for almost anything we do — it helps us discern where we are uniquely positioned to advance our mission and make contributions to the broader field. We knew we had to get more serious about centering racial equity, so we asked ourselves this question again, and very quickly, it got complicated. PACE is a philanthropy-serving organization focused on civic engagement and strengthening democracy, which led us to ask questions like: When we are simultaneously an independent organization and a community of funders, what is the appropriate way to use our voice? When our mission is not explicitly focused on racial equity and we cannot achieve our mission without racial equity, what work do we do? And shouldn’t we get out of the way of the many organizations that exist to serve that role much better than us? At times, it felt compelling (perhaps, convenient?) to say “we don’t do racial equity,” but we knew that would be the easy way out. We believed we had a role to play in advancing racial equity, and in setting out to explore what that role was, we came to realize it was less about being an organization focused on racial equity and more about being an organization that centered it in our mission and leaned into it intentionally. So we moved forward with a commitment to center it as a practice, to be as pragmatic as we could be, and think about where we could be uniquely contributive.
Questions we are considering/grappling with:
What feels authentic? Who can we influence? Where would we be noise?
What does a commitment to racial equity look like for a philanthropy-serving organization that is both a community of funders and an independent organization?
Learning 2: Centering racial equity is a practice.
Over the last many years, it was not uncommon to hear about a company or organization that was “doing DEI.” We have learned centering racial equity is quite different. We need to let go of seeing it as a program in order to see it as a lens or practice that permeates how we do everything. “Doing DEI” creates the sense that it is something you can check-off a list or something that you can say is “done” at some point. Centering racial equity means we’re embedding racial equity into our daily practices; it’s part of our being as an organization. It’s a lot harder to see on the surface, but you can feel the difference in practice. For example, we have always considered ourselves an organization that asks questions, and we have shifted to include questions about racial equity in a more intentional way. We now use an “equity lens” as a practice, which shapes everything we do — from the questions we ask ourselves as we begin to develop a new program, to the people we engage and rely on, even to the ways we relate to each other as teammates and members of a community. As with any practice, we are getting better at it each day, and most importantly, we stay vigilant to avoid the temptation of complacency.
Questions we are considering/grappling with:
Where is racial equity showing up in our work already? Does it feel centered or an afterthought?
What changes can we make this [week/month/quarter] to deepen our practice?
Learning 3: It’s about systems, and people make up systems.
We acknowledge that many of the obstacles to achieving racial equity today are baked into the very systems and cultures we operate in. We have grown to understand racism and the privileging of dominant culture as “the water we don’t even know we’re swimming in.” An important part of our journey was to embrace this truth while also acknowledging that people make up systems and cultures. To that end, we cannot overlook the importance of doing the hard, inner work that begins to “re-wire” us as individuals to a culture of racial equity. We need to prioritize this in our budget, our weekly to-do lists, and our head/heart space. This isn’t professional development so we could do our work better; it is the work.
Questions we are considering/grappling with:
Where are we, as individuals, on our journey to understand and dismantle dominant culture?
How do we understand racial equity in our personal and professional lives?
Learning 4: There is a lot we need to unlearn so that we can learn.
As we took steps to understand what it means to dismantle dominant culture for us as individuals, we quickly identified many things we had to unlearn. For example, throughout this journey (especially early on) we felt like we were hearing paradoxical messages. We were hearing that we should be comfortable making mistakes, but also that the impact of mistakes could cause harm. We were hearing that it’s important to use our voice, but also that it was the time to just listen. On our journey over the last year, we have begun to see “either/or” thinking as a manifestation of dominant culture norms and have made efforts to unlearn this mentality. We now understand that embracing paradoxes, learning to live in “multiple truths,” and adopting a “both/and” mentality are core practices in striving for racial equity. This does not mean it was easy for us, and as was the case with the examples mentioned, the paradoxes make it hard to know how to tactically and strategically move forward. We are still figuring this out and learning how to get more comfortable in its complexity. And while we acknowledge that unlearning these things is about awareness and dismantling them is about doing the actual work, we have found that the process of unlearning is foundational to our ability to move forward.
Questions we are considering/grappling with:
In what ways has dominant culture shaped our worldview?
Where we are making changes to consider/adopt another perspective, how do we stay vigilant against muscle memory?
Learning 5: Language matters.
In our process of unlearning and learning, we found it critical to dig deeper into the language we were using. We were saying the same words, but we could detect that perhaps we were not fully aligned on the same meanings. Were we talking past each other without even noticing? We were only hearing certain voices or understanding certain perspectives? Were there gaps between what we were trying to communicate that filled with misunderstanding or even distrust? On our journey to develop our racial equity commitment, we spent time aligning on definitions — both about what we mean when we say our words as well as how they operate in various contexts of our work.
Questions we are considering/grappling with: | https://medium.com/office-of-citizen/how-will-pace-center-racial-equity-in-our-philanthropic-laboratory-fc241f08de76 | ['Philanthropy For Active Civic Engagement', 'Pace'] | 2021-04-27 13:45:30.193000+00:00 | ['Philanthropy', 'Civic Engagement', 'Racial Equity', 'Democracy', 'Pace Updates'] |
How to feature your GitHub repositories on LinkedIn | Bonus Step) Learn from my mistake!
When I originally featured my projects on my LinkedIn profile, I had neglected to set the social media preview images on GitHub beforehand. The result? My GitHub profile avatar was shown for every…single…project. How repetitive, boring, and non-informative!
Of course, I wanted to fix this ASAP, so I rushed back to my GitHub and added social media preview images. I checked my LinkedIn profile, and…nothing! I refreshed the webpage and saw…the same old boring avatar instead of my thoughtfully chosen image that perfectly represented my work.
Over It Ugh GIF By BBC
Thankfully, there was a quick fix (thanks, Google)! I needed to clear the image cache on LinkedIn.
I went to the LinkedIn Post Inspector, entered the URL of my repository, and clicked Inspect. This cleared the image cache, and my snazzy new image was displayed on my profile!
And now you know an easy way to feature your GitHub repos on your LinkedIn profile! Please share if you’ve found this useful, and feel free to let me know if this has helped you. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-feature-your-github-repositories-on-linkedin-56078e1ffddb | ['Leah Pope'] | 2021-02-18 17:05:58.400000+00:00 | ['Portfolio', 'LinkedIn', 'Github', 'Linkedin Profile', 'Github Repositories'] |
“From Avocation To Vocation: How We Turned Our Hobby Into A Career,” With Ben Frohlichstein and Stacey Marcellus of Cappello’s | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
Both: As friends and Co-Founders, we have always shared a love for cooking and feeding people. After we had parallel experiences working on small organic farms, we both developed a passion for cooking with real, unmodified food ingredients and being able to feed ourselves and our families with nutrient-dense, delicious foods.
Stacey: My mom was a voracious chef. She’d take us to restaurants and if she loved a dish she would recreate it and make it a staple in our home. She’d make minor tweaks each time until it was perfected. She also was into natural health long before it was mainstream. She used food as a tool for better health and continues to do so. She found out she was gluten intolerant over a decade ago which was the impetuous for my brother and I to get tested. There is no doubt that my mom’s love for cooking and better health influenced me and lead me in the direction of creating food for others.
What was the catalyst from transforming your hobby or something you love into a business? Can you share the story of your “ah ha” moment with us?
Both : When we both returned to Colorado, we caught up and discovered that we had both had the realization that there were amazing benefits of following a grain-free diet, but there weren’t any nutritionally relevant options for those who wanted to enjoy pasta regardless of dietary restrictions. We reconnected at a pivotal point in our lives when we were both on a mission to do something new and something that could be really meaningful for ourselves and others. It was then, we started formulating the first almond-flour pasta on the market, from there our product line grew as did our business.
There are no shortage of good ideas out there, but people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How did you overcome this challenge?
Both: Our team are big believers in accountability. We are committed to being responsible and setting clear expectations for ourselves and the Cappello’s Crew. Ensuring that we are both accountable to each other and our team members has been a big driver in making our business a success. We knew that there was a need in the market for grain-free options that were delicious and our consumers really inspired us to stay on track and keep creating.
What advice would you give someone who has a hobby or pastime that they absolutely love but is reluctant to do it for a living?
Both: Sometimes you need to give up your conventional job to pursue your passion. If that means moving across the world to live and work on an organic farm in Argentina for a while then you can’t be scared of the adversity that the situation may present.
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
We think this Joseph Campbell quote really shows just how powerful following your passion can be and what can await if you do. Things always take longer than you think. Staying with it and staying positive is the key to success.
When a door closes, a window opens. Be open to things not going your way and looking for the silver lining. You’d be surprised how many things don’t work out the way you anticipated but ultimately lead you to a better outcome.
It’s said that the quickest way to take the fun out of doing something is to do it for a living. How do you keep from changing something you love into something you dread? How do you keep it fresh and enjoyable?
Both: We have an extremely supportive and inclusive environment that we have built that incorporates all of the things that we love in life, surrounded by people who inspire us everyday. We think that choosing to interact with people that are equally as passionate as we are and hold our list of CREW values, which are Collaboration, Responsibility, Excellence, Well-being and Mutuality, are integral to avoiding burnout.
Ben: At Cappello’s we’re big believers in personal well-being and development. Yoga which we offer weekly at our office, is just one of the many tools our CREW uses to help reduce stress and bring more mindfulness into our work.
What is it that you enjoy most about running your own business? What are the downsides of running your own business? Can you share what you did to overcome these drawbacks?
Both: We are so inspired by our customers. Seeing the difference that having grain-free options can make in people’s lives is an absolute joy that we can’t get enough of. We’ve seen the health benefits of taking grains out of your diet first-hand and through our customer’s testimonials, we are blown away by how cutting out grains truly can have a healing effect on some people’s bodies. One of our Cappello’s community members, Diane “V” Capaldi aka Paleo Boss Lady, suffered from the effects of MS (Multiple Sclerosis) which left her legally disabled for a time, until she began fueling her body at a cellular level, cutting out all grains. Through her newfound diet, she has been able to manage the symptoms of MS 100% without the help of western medicine.
Ben: It takes a lot of persistence and dedication to grow a business. Things always take longer than you want and just like any skill, repetition and practice come into play. It can be very challenging to “turn off” the work mode, especially if you’re passionate about what you’re working on. You really have to be ready for the business to consume you. It’s important to know this so that you can go in eyes wide open and be aware that it’s going to take all your energy to grow and push the business forward. A tip to overcoming the all-consuming nature of running your own business is remembering to keep stoking your creative mind and be sure to keep having fun outside of work too.
Can you share what was the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?
Both: When we started the business we had a passion for food, cooking and eating, but we had no clue on how to translate that to a branded food product. Since neither of us came from the food industry, we didn’t have a sense of what to expect… In many ways I believe that was a gift because perhaps we wouldn’t have made the leap if we knew how all encompassing this journey would be. At the beginning, we were very naive about how long it would take to be able to start paying ourselves, which is an important factor in starting any business.
Has there ever been a moment when you thought to yourself “I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to get a “real” job? If so how did you overcome it?
Both: Nope. Can’t imagine doing anything else. That said, of course there are times where you’re wondering why am I doing all this, it’s so stressful and hard. But then you get these little wins and moments to celebrate. Sometimes it’s a consumer reaching out via email and telling you how you’ve created a product that has had a big positive impact on their lives, and it gives you the motivation to keep pushing and moving forward.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Both: I don’t know if there is just one story. However, we’ve really been so fortunate to meet so many amazing people along this journey, from former CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, to consumers who are living better lives by having access to tasty, grain-free products. For us it’s all about the people. Sharing an energetic exchange through the products we’re making, the CREW we’re working with and ultimately consumers being excited about the convergence of all our work.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Ben: When we first started out I had no clue how to say Gnocchi (pronounced Know-Key). I would literally be popping into the back of restaurants trying to sell Chefs our Fettuccine and Gnocchi, saying things like you should really try our (Ga-No-Chee) and they would just look at me like I was a crazy person, which, at the time I was.
Who has inspired or continues to inspire you to be a great leader? Why?
Both: All the people that work at Cappello’s and all the people who chose to support this brand by buying our products. It pushes us each day to show up and be our best selves and continue to foster an environment where people can create and share their passions with the world, which ultimately leads to the best consumer experience and a memorable brand impression.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Both: We absolutely think that creating dishes that can be enjoyed by all, is an extremely important way that we are making the world a better place. Having options can be life-changing for those who suffer from auto-immune diseases such as Celiac Disease, Crohn’s Disease, Diabetes and gluten-sensitivities. Knowing that we are providing some sense of normalcy for these folks is amazing, from being able to sit down and eat a pizza with their family members to giving them quick and easy foods that aren’t a hassle to prepare. We believe that the work we’re doing is fulfilling a responsibility to the human race to provide foods that are nutrient rich, which means absolutely no modified starches, wheat, corn, rice, legumes or soy.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
Everything takes longer than you think.
Even in the beginning, we started during the summer. All farmer’s markets were already booked with Vendors. We just assumed you showed up and that was that. Well, it wasn’t! We had to do drop in and fill last minute cancelations which meant lumpy sales during the first season. The next Summer, we followed the application process and did it right, but that meant we were not setup properly to be in the Farmer’s Markets fulltime until the following year from when we launched.
Stay focused. It’s easy to chase the shiny new thing.
There will always be opportunities to divert focus, these can be exciting and fun, but ultimately the business and your team needs to focus.
Get mentorship. Find folks who have been there done it before. This will save you lot’s headaches.
No one does it alone. Get involved in industry events, network and find a mentor or mentors. One of our mentors helped us establish a Value Driver System which gives the business and those within the organization focused and clear objectives. This system is limited to just a few key business objectives that are designed to move the needle significantly, cutting out pet projects and distractions. Our mentor used this system to re-jigger a multi-billion dollar P&L for his company’s Latin American operation, rallying thousands of employees around just 7 key business initiatives.
Stay positive. You’ll likely face more no’s than yes’s, especially in the beginning.
When you’re selling a new idea or product there can be a lot of resistance to it, even if you know it’s the greatest thing EVER! Stay the course, and know that businesses are built on incremental wins over the course of many years. Cappello’s was rejected from a lot of grocery stores before we finally broke through. Then, once we got one store and some sales, we were able to share that win with other potential retailers which helped to show a proof of concept and ultimately helped us achieve further growth in additional retailers.
Be real with how long it will take to build your business. Have some basic projections built around sales, Cost of Goods Sold and time.
It’s easy to think you’ll make a million dollars the first day you launch your website, or get your finished product ready for sale. In all reality it won’t be this way. Having a realistic idea of what sales might be, coupled by the Cost Of Goods Sold to produce the product can help you better understand what you’ll need in terms of time and resources to grow your business. You might want to wait to quit your day job when you finally realize you’ll have to sell a heck of a lot of whatever it is you’re selling in order to even pay yourself a living wage.
What person wouldn’t want to work doing something they absolutely love. You are an incredible inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Both: Our team of creators and foodies want to inspire a food revolution for the grain-free industry. We want to be able to show every consumer that having a grain-free diet doesn’t have to mean that they are ever compromising on texture or taste and that there are truly delicious offerings for all.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Stacey: My favorite life lesson quote is a saying Permaculturalists use: The problem is the solution.
“You don’t have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency!” Bill Mollison
If you see yourself confronted with a perceived problem, why not try and look at the situation from a different angle? Is there any way to use it to your advantage?
This is relevant to me because I believe deeply that we can change our experience in the world through our minds and the way in which we look at things. Challenges are gifts as they are the teachers in our lives. If we can shift the way we look and interact with problems then we can do incredible things. Knowing there is a problem gives us the keys to the solution. The absence of awareness is what’s most damaging.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Paul Stamets. Paul is a mycologist and a true visionary. Paul’s extensive research on fungi and fungi’s diverse uses, from its ability to be used as a medicine to combat cancer, to providing pollinating bees defense against mites that are arratidacting the species. His research extends well beyond just these topics and he is a true champion of holistic health care practices and environmental stewardship. https://www.instagram.com/fungiperfecti/ | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/from-avocation-to-vocation-how-we-turned-our-hobby-into-a-career-with-ben-frohlichstein-and-1b1d51758afc | ['Carly Martinetti'] | 2020-11-16 19:10:03.017000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Leadership'] |
Buddhist Philosophy in Pixar’s ‘Soul’ | Buddhist Philosophy in Pixar’s ‘Soul’
Being in a world of doing.
Pixar’s Soul was released on Christmas Day, 2020, exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service. It’s a masterpiece. The visuals are stunning, the music was soothing, and the story felt actually meaningful. IMBD describes the plot of Soul in this way:
A musician who has lost his passion for music is transported out of his body and must find his way back with the help of an infant soul learning about herself.
This is a film equally focused on death and life, metaphysics, and the spiritual. Instead of focusing on the classic dualistic model that pits ‘good’ and ‘evil’ against one another, Soul is more concerned with understanding oneself and practicing compassion than almost any other film I’ve seen this year.
The film has fingerprints of Eastern Philosophical traditions all over it, namely Buddhism, but also Taoism. This article will be examining a handful of such examples, but by no means will it be an exhaustive list. I will mostly be focused on the character of Joe.
Warning! Spoilers ahead. Don’t bother reading if you haven’t seen the film yet.
The Three Unwholesome Roots
The most negative actions one can take in Buddhism are greed (passionate attachment or lust), hatred (passionate aversion), and delusion (or disorientation).
In Soul, the main character, Joe, is obsessive. While alive, Joe puts his responsibilities on the backburner while he passionately pursues his dream of becoming a jazz musician. This lust for success negatively impacts those closest to him in life, including his mother and even his barber (who he has never taken a true interest in).
When dead, Joe actively pursues his own life, totally averse to his annihilation. In Buddhism, the desire to live forever is just as unwholesome as the desire to annihilate oneself. This obsession causes him to totally dismiss the rules of the universe, and see all other people as means, not ends. Joe exists in a completely imbalanced, self-centered state.
In Western contemporary philosophy, Joe’s insatiability might be celebrated. He is passionate. He has found his ‘purpose’ — his so-called spark. This movie challenges this fruitless desire to control one's life and become something ‘important.’
The Middle Way
Buddhism does not advocate for extremes. Being too passionate about something can be seen as negative, as can being passionless. Peace can only come by living the ‘Middle Way’ — somewhere in-between the two extremes.
The symbol of the ‘path’ connecting the ‘Great Beyond’ and the ‘Great Before’ figures prominently in the film. Those on this path have largely accepted their fate and move toward their next stage willingly. But not Joe, at least not until the end of the film.
In line with his personality, Joe resists following the Middle Way. He pushes himself off it, putting himself further in harm's way. His passionate journey to return to life causes adversaries to passionately pursue him; he gets what was coming for him.
At the end of the film, Joe is back on the path. He has decided to put 22’s needs ahead of his own, exhibiting compassion. He does not try to run from death but accepts it. It is in this acceptance that he is offered another chance at life.
Souls
Ironically, Buddhism doesn’t buy into the notion of an unchanging soul at all. The term for ‘self’ is anatman, literally means ‘no-self.’ So why bother drawing parallels between the film Soul and Buddhism at all?
I think that the film Soul is hugely critiquing our culturally embedded belief of an unchanging soul. To believe in a soul that never changes, we must also believe that we were pre-programmed with personalities and ‘purposes.’ Such thinking puts us on the brink of fatalism, which flies in the face of many of our beliefs that our fruits are the product of our own efforts. We can’t change.
But Joe does change. Although he loves music, he begins to understand that loving something does not mean becoming that one thing, just like his barber is not entirely defined by a previous desire to become a veterinarian. The film challenges our assumptions of what a successful life should look like. It rejects the Hellenist notions of ‘soul’ many of us have grown up with in the West.
Soul begins entirely fixated on Joe and his unsatisfied career as a musician. The film ends without the focus being on Joe’s career at all. In the end, Joe has fundamentally changed. He is no longer defined by what he does but by how he is. He feels the breeze; he breathes deeply.
Instead of obsessively fixating on changing the world around him to serve his own needs, Joe learns to accept the world as it is and finds peace in it.
Rebirth
Buddhism believes that all sentient beings have a ‘no-self’ (anatman). The lifeform one is born in depends on one karma. At the top of the chain is being born as a god; at the bottom, being born in one of several hells. Being born as a human is seen as a preferable lifeform because we experience a perfect balance of pain and pleasure that can push us toward nirvana.
Animals are seen as a form us life just below humans. One could be born as a cow or cat or goat if they followed delusions in their previous life.
When Joe originally comes back to Earth, he is returned to the body of a cat. This is perhaps a subtle nod to Joe’s delusional, obsessive state throughout the film thus far. He really thinks he can cheat death. He really also thinks that playing the gig he was running after would somehow fulfill him. He was wrong.
Compassion & Samsara
Samsara is the endless cycle of rebirths we are each in until we reach samsara. If we are still living, by definition, we are still suffering, caught in the cycles of samsara.
Because we are endlessly spiraling in rebirths, practically every combination of existence has existed at one point or another. At one point, your dog may have been your sister, mother, or husband. At one point, the fly you swatted may have been your cat, your father, or grandparent. At one point, you were the same.
To remember this and swear to reduce suffering towards sentient beings is the supreme form of compassion. This is another way of saying, “treat others how you’d like to be treated.”
In Soul, Joe struggles to exhibit compassion toward others. He is in a prime position to die and continue the cycle of rebirths that will prevent him from reaching nirvana.
When he talks to his mother, he is concerned only about himself. When he talks to his barber, he only talks about jazz. When he meets 22, he is only concerned with escaping the ‘Great Before.’ Once 22 and himself are back in the world, he is only fixated on his own goals. In doing so, he totally ignores the spiritual revelations 22 goes through. 22 is satisfied with walking and enjoying a slice of pizza. Joe will not stop until he is successful in his music.
When Joe returns to the ‘Great Before’ by entering a trance, he finally internalizes the true message of compassion. He exchanges his life for that of another — one who hasn’t even quite materialized yet, one who may feel insignificant to the outer world.
In doing so, he changes the karmic trajectory of his life. He will not be reborn a cat — but rather as himself anew.
Taoism & Being
Buddhism and Taoism have experienced much syncretism throughout the ages, so an analysis of Buddhist thought in Soul would not be complete without it.
In essence, Taoism encourages individuals to not overly concern themselves with action. We perform so many actions as it is: walking, sleeping, eating. To concern ourselves with more is to prevent the world from existing in harmony. This blocks the Tao (the Way) from manifesting.
Instead of doing things to become someone, Taoism says it is best to be. Instead of pursuing gigs left and right in an attempt to become a financially successful jazz musician, Taoism would encourage Joe to step back, accept each moment for what it is, and seamlessly fall into the natural order of things.
This is a path of non-action. This is a path that prefers peace over existential anxiety, passion, and greed.
The Philosophy of Pixar’s ‘Soul’
Soul acknowledges that most of Joe’s problems in life come from his insatiability and self-centeredness. The path forward does not live in extremes, but an acceptance of reality as it is while accepting one’s personal duty to spread compassion to all life forms. Life is not about doing something or playing out a pre-programmed identity. Life is about being and “living each minute” (as Joe says at the end of the film).
The fact that 22 ends of being born in North India cannot be a coincidence. The themes of the whole film are in total opposite to the world that Joe sees when he looks down at the earth from the ‘Great Before’ (the view is North America). To find a healthy balance in the future of our world, we must look to other forms of wisdom. The current ones aren’t cutting it.
Make no mistake; this is an incredibly religious film. Almost every scene is centered on some religious principle, which is refreshing in a cultural period of cynicism. Soul also is a great reminder that secularism will only get us so far. We cannot only look to ourselves and our own desires to lead a fulfilling life. Life can only be well-lived in the context of compassion and peace. It is not about running the furthest or for the longest amount of time. Soul presents the importance of spirituality in a 21st-century context, unlike any children's film I’ve seen from Pixar. | https://medium.com/interfaith-now/buddhist-philosophy-in-pixars-soul-18f8662183fd | ['Allison J. Van Tilborgh'] | 2020-12-26 15:07:57.725000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Religion', 'Spirituality', 'Self', 'Philosophy'] |
Your Fear Means Nothing! | You think it matters that you are afraid…
You think there is some deep meaningful thing that you need to dig into, until the fear goes…
And you are mistaken.
Fear is just a natural emotion to feel when you are stretching, when you are expanding, when you are considering going after more than you have been conditioned to believe is possible for you.
It is just a sign of the stretch you are experiencing.
Embrace it.
Do not try to figure it out.
See it…
Maybe even dance with it
And then move.
Move.
MOVE!
It matters nothing that you feel afraid.
Do you want the goal or not?
And have you tapped into your intuition for guidance on what to do next?
Good, now just do it.
Step out into the unknown…
Your fear will come for the ride.
Just smile at it and keep moving forward.
yes, you do have a choice.
Yes, you do have a say over whether fear stops you or not…
YOu are the one in the driving seat though at times, you may feel too emotional to see it.
YOu have a calling…
you want a life of fulfilment and wealth?
So look the fear in the eye and KEEP MOVING FORWARD anyway!
There will be many distractions on the path to your goal…
Debt and fear that you will create more debt
Fear that people will misunderstand your motivation
Fear that ‘little old you’ is not capable of getting everything you desire and that you are a fool for trying…
Fear that your higher power does not want you to do it
Fear that you will be laughed at
Fear that you will be scammed
Fear that you will lose what you have already fought so hard to achieve
Fear that you will lose your friends and family
Fear that you are simply greedy…
Fear that you will make mistakes and never recover
Yes, your fears are plentiful…
But they still do not need to control you.
Keep your eyes firmly on the goal.
Keep your eyes firmly on the life you choose now to deliberately design…
And ask “What is the best thing I can do next to create my chosen life?”
And then act.
ACT.
ACT!
It is that simple.
Though yes, you can make it complicated by trying to be completely fearless first.
Accept that you won’t be.
And in fact, start to appreciate the fear as it shows you that you are expanding.
Then move.
Simply move.
Regardless of the anxiety.
JUST KEEP MOVING FORWARD
You are worthy of your amazing big life…
You are here to make a difference…
And you can create wealth while doing it
So why the heck not?!
I am giving away my book, for free, at the moment. The Amazon Bestselling ‘Deliberate Millionaire’s FREEDOM book: Live free, wealthy and on purpose — Stop living for the weekend and start doing what you want when you want…deliberately’ Let this book help you release old ways of thinking that keep you trapped on a lower level than what is possible for you. — Pop over to http://RosemaryNonnyKnight.com/bookfree
Much Amazing Love | https://medium.com/the-deliberate-millionaire/your-fear-means-nothing-14c69423b977 | ['Rosemary Nonny Knight'] | 2020-12-26 13:22:10.730000+00:00 | ['Spiritual Growth', 'Personal Growth', 'Spirituality', 'Inspiration', 'Self Love'] |
Employment Solicitors in London — Sharma Solicitors | Sharma Solicitors is a boutique, young legal firm specializing in all things about employment law. That’s it. Nothing else.
Paul Sharma is head of the firm. All matters will be either undertaken by or under the close supervision of Paul Sharma. Paul is a University College London law graduate and a Grade A solicitor (over eight years post qualification experience).
Sharma Solicitors Services.
For Employee
Sharma Solicitors have acted for hundreds of employees over the years from junior to every senior six figure earning executives.
Sharma Solicitors can protect you from bullying or harassment in the workplace.
Where the employee decides to leave, we can negotiate the exit package enabling the employee to seek work elsewhere, without post termination restrictions and with the maximum exit package.
Negotiate a settlement agreement with the employer. We have acted for hundreds of employees for settlement agreement. If you are looking for settlement agreement lawyer in London then you can highly rely on Sharma Solicitors.
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Litigate for unfair dismissal, discrimination or any other employment right.
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Our specialist team can effectively deal with all employment law related matters irrespective of organizational size, including:
Advice on pre-recruitment processes that will ensure employers do not offend laws protecting would-be employees from pre-entry discrimination.
The drafting of tailored and robust contracts of employment that will protect employers in all the important areas of concern to them such as restrictive covenants and data protection.
The defense of actions from employees in the Employment Tribunal. We have an extensive experience and knowledge of the Employment Rules of Procedure. We have secured the strike-out of actions based on non-compliance with procedural rules. Sharma Solicitors have defended every type of employment claim made by employees. The trick is not just knowing the law but the strategy and tactics to defeat the claim.
Contact Sharma Solicitors, Employment Lawyers in London on 0345 430 0145 or contact us online. | https://medium.com/@sharmasolicitorsmark/employment-solicitors-in-london-sharma-solicitors-8f555d7ab3cf | ['Paul Sharma'] | 2019-12-14 07:00:32.012000+00:00 | ['Lawyers', 'Attorney', 'Legal Services'] |
VC Corner Q&A: Tess Hatch of Bessemer Venture Partners | Tess Hatch is a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners primarily focused on frontier tech, specifically commercial space, drones, and autonomous vehicles. She currently serves as board director for Phantom Auto and Spire Global and board observer for DroneDeploy, Impossible Aerospace, Iris Automation, Rocket Lab, Velo3D, Forever Oceans, Crosschq, and Smule.
Previously, Tess was a mission manager at SpaceX where she worked with the government on integrating its payloads with the Falcon9 rocket. She also worked at Fictiv, a startup using 3D printing and CNC machining to democratize access to manufacturing.
Tess earned a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford. She is passionate about space exploration and imagines a future where we all travel to space. She hopes to make the trip herself soon.
— What is Bessemer Venture Partners’ mission?
Bessemer helps visionary entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to create companies that matter, and supports them through every stage of their growth. As for my personal mission in investing, I believe we need to be a multi-planet species in order to survive. When I say this I am not giving up on Earth, rather, I believe that space exploration and development will help us fix Earth’s problems. For example, the development of MRI and CT scanning technologies, which save lives every day, were an unintended side benefit of the Apollo Mission.
I want to invest in technology and people who believe as strongly as I do that deep tech will help society in ways (perhaps some unbeknownst) such as this. Imagine drones delivering emergency medical supplies like AED devices or EpiPens that can save a person’s life during a heart attack or allergic reaction. Imagine clean meat decreasing carbon emissions dramatically and allow us to sustainably feed our population using a fraction of the water that we now use. Imagine all of the other deeply technical industries that we need to invest in to develop solutions for societal problems.
— What is one thing you are excited about right now?
The stratosphere. We have airplanes and drones in our airspace and satellites in space, but what about the space in between: the Stratosphere? Imagine if one wants to loiter over a single point on the Earth for an extended period of time, either to maintain situational awareness and consistent surveillance over an area of interest or to maintain communications with that particular area, for example, during or after a natural disaster. Drones and satellites aren’t optimized for this particular mission. I believe that platforms like balloons, blimps and high-altitude-long-endurance (HALE) fixed wing aircraft are more capable of being able to loiter at 60,000 feet over an area of interest, and if outfitted with various sensors, they can accomplish these important missions in a more effective and efficient manner than airplanes, drones, or satellites.
— Who is one founder you think we should watch?
Peter Beck, CEO/founder of Rocket Lab, is opening space for business with the Electron Rocket, a small rocket designed to take CubeSat satellites to low-earth orbit. He has successfully launched 10 (out of 10) rockets to space deploying 47 satellites and expects to launch at a weekly, if not more, cadence in the near-term future.
— What are the 3 top qualities of every great leader?
1. Passion
2. Growth mindset
3. Grit/Resilience
— What was your very first investment/when? And what struck you about them?
Iris Automation in 2015. The current bottleneck in the drone industry is flying beyond the pilot’s visual line of sight. Imagine if you want to inspect hundreds of miles of oil pipeline or railroad tracks, or hundreds of acres of agriculture. It defeats the point of the drone if the drone pilot has to run after the drone during its mission. Iris has invented a detect and avoid system, analogous to a pilot’s eyes, that helps the drone avoid other objects in the airspace and making evasive maneuvers when needed. I believe Iris’s technology will release the inhibitor of the industry, which is restricting the industry from growing into the massive market some analysts forecast. This catalyst technology is a good illustration of how technology can change and improve society.
— What is one question you ask yourself before investing in a company?
I ask myself a lot of questions before an investment. Why now? Why this team? What are the future exits for the company? But the most important question that I ask (and that the company should be asking) is why Tess? I believe an entrepreneur should do as much due diligence on the VC as I am doing in the company (which is a lot). Please call up every CEO/founder/person with whom I have worked (I usually give a long list of names and encourage the entrepreneur to find people who are not on that list) and ask how it is working with me and whether I support founders and companies through the highs and especially the lows.
— What is one thing every founder should ask themselves before walking into a meeting with a potential investor?
Why am I meeting with this specific person, not firm, and what can she do to help me? I love when entrepreneurs have done their homework and researched more about me so that we can have a deeper level of conversation. I write about and publish my thoughts on my sectors (space, drones, AV) and am humbled and delighted when they have read the articles about their industry and have opinions or questions about what I have written, especially when they disagree with me. Furthermore, I like when an entrepreneur has a question or request for me to follow-up on after the meeting, it shows a sign that she is doing her due diligence on me to see how I would be as a board member and partner and I surely follow through on my homework!
— What do you think should be in a CEO’s top 3 company priorities?
1. Culture/Diversity
2. Building a Competitive Moat
3. Knowing your north star but being lean enough to pivot and change paths when needed
— Favorite business book, blog or podcast?
I love reading Heidi Roizen’s “Help Me Heidi” blog where she answers VC101 questions in a tongue and cheek way like “Dear Prudence.” I shamelessly sent her a ton of questions when she was first getting it started and love reading her responses. They are very informative but also entertaining, a hard combination to have when answering questions involving stock options and data rooms.
—What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?
Biking. I am training for a team half ironman with two of my Bessemer colleagues and I am doing the biking portion. I also hope to bike from Carmel to Hearst Castle (100 miles) in September for the Best Buddies bike ride, a great organization that promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities.
— Who is one leader you admire?
Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX, is an excellent role model for everyone, but especially young females in engineering. When I was working as a mission manager at SpaceX, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to her on a number of occasions. I loved when she would walk down the main rocket aisle floor in her red sole Louboutin heels, proving that style and substance are not mutually exclusive concepts.
— What is one interesting thing most people won’t know about you?
I didn’t know that venture capital was a career when I was an undergrad studying aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. My younger self would have been shocked but delighted that this career exists where I’m able to use my passion for engineering and partner with a variety of deeply technical founders with brilliant ideas and help them grow into market leading businesses.
— What is one piece of advice you’d give every founder?
Diversity is incredibly important and should always be top of mind from the very creation of the company. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/vc-corner-q-a-tess-hatch-a2a505da4917 | ['The Startup Grind Team'] | 2020-08-13 16:58:35.963000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Venture Capital', 'Vc Corner', 'Funding', 'Startup'] |
I Want but I Can’t | “It’s too late to play football professionally,” or “my career won’t be going anywhere if I try to be a professional footballer,” or “it’s a hard and long process to get signed by a professional team,” etc. The narrative inside your mind is full of resistance and fighting (I want but I can’t).
If you have one of those thoughts, you should think about whether you play football for the right reason? Because with that way of thinking, it means that you only want to play if you can get a reward. If not, you won’t.
And at the same time, if you keep on improving without achieving anything, you might feel stuck without a reward. Then, you will lack in serotonin levels and the function of that chemical is to boost your confident and pride.
“Quality without results is pointless. Results without quality is boring” — Johan Cruyff
This is quote is about playing football for the right reason.
2 footballers play football in a high-level football league. The first player, plays football because they have to find a job so that player is stuck in football. The second player plays football because football has meaning for that player. Which one do you think will get more achievements in his/her career? The first player will play football if there is money involved, so he/she will not play if there is no money. There second player will play football with or without the money. The more you play football, the faster you will get better and push to the highest limit of yourself. So, eventually you will get more achievements.
The point of having meaning in your life is to lead you to your highest potential. Without meaning, everything in life will feel the same, empty, flat, passionless, emotionless. If you live without meaning, you will struggle to survive and improve.
Author Zaya Mardika
Editor Charalambos Elias | https://medium.com/folition/i-want-but-i-cant-72eb15e394f1 | ['Zaya Mardika'] | 2020-12-20 12:28:18.421000+00:00 | ['Football', 'Womens Soccer', 'Girls Soccer', 'Womens Football', 'Soccer'] |
Create TestNG XML File & Execute Parallel Testing | In the previous article, we learned about creating a TestNG project in Eclipse and how to run our first ever Selenium Test Script. Now that you know how to run a TestNG project Eclipse, it is time to dig deeper into TestNG. So far, you’ve run only a single test script, but in practical scenarios, that simply won’t do. When it comes to Selenium test automation, running one test at a time will not be very beneficial. You will have to run multiple test cases to make the most of a Selenium Grid. In this tutorial, let’s dive deep into how we can execute multiple test files from a single file known as the TestNG XML file. We will also see how we can create and execute a parallel testing suite using a TestNG XML file.
In case you are late to the TestNG tutorial series, here’s a step-by-step guide to install TestNG in Eclipse.
What’s the purpose of a TestNG XML File?
The entire point of using a TestNG framework is to run tests in parallel, i.e. run multiple tests simultaneously. In Java, you have to create test cases separately and then define the test later in the primary method. On the other hand, TestNG allows you to create multiple test cases simultaneously, and that is where the TestNG XML file comes in. A TestNG XML file eases this task, and we can write various test cases all within single or multiple classes using annotations.
Uses of TestNG XML file:
Seamless parallel execution
Executing multiple test cases for various Java class files
Group execution of test cases
Supports Parameterisation in TestNG and data-driven testing
Including or excluding a particular test method
Includes names of class, folders, and methods
Clearer test summary with separate HTML and extent reports
TestNG listeners automatically create logs
Creating a TestNG XML File
Now that you understand how vital a TestNG XML file is for running parallel tests in a Selenium Grid, it is time to learn how to create a TestNG XML file. Before we begin, let us go back to the first test we created using TestNG in the previous article and perform the following steps. There are two methods to create a TestNG XML file, feel free to use either of them-
Method 1-
Right-click on the project folder & towards the bottom of the list, select TestNG and then “Convert to TestNG.”
A screen like below would appear. Click on Next.
The next window that pops up will have the refactored source code, which would be applicable after you click Finish.
A new addition to your project directory would be displayed named as testng.xml.
Double click on testng.xml to open the xml file which looks like below-
Method 2-
Right-click on Project, then New, and finally select File.
Next, enter the following file name “testng.xml” and then click on Finish.
In this step, you will have to enter the XML code manually. That is how the two methods differ from each other. After entering the XML code, you can select a name for your liking suite and class.
This is what a basic XML file looks like-
Now you can copy the above code (with your choice of names) on the TestNG XML file we’ve created above.
Voila! You have your very first TestNG XML file ready. That is all you have to do to create a TestNG XML file on a Selenium Grid or for Selenium test automation.
Running a TestNG XML File
The hierarchy of an XML file is quite straightforward. It goes something like this- first < suite > tag, second < test > tag and lastly, < classes > tag. As mentioned above, you can give any name to the suite and test tag, but you have to be careful while naming classes since it is a combination of the Package name and Test name.
Since suite is the topmost hierarchy, this is where multiple test classes can be placed. For example, we have three test classes, one for opening Google, another for searching on Google, and one to open Gmail. All these three classes can be defined under the same test tag for execution.
This example will help you understand it better.
Here, I have created two Java classes- one that opens up Google & verifies its title and another one which again opens Google & searches for a string.
First Class File-
Second Class File-
Next, we will create the TestNG XML file that uses both the above-defined test cases.
In the XML above, you can see two class names are written under the test name tag. These are the classes that I would want to run using the TestNG XML file. Also, note that I named my test “Google Test” and suite “Test Suite” respectively. Go ahead and choose any name as per your convenience for these two.
The next step is to run the project using the XML file. Right-click on the testng.xml file and navigate to “Run As >> TestNG Suite.”
By doing this, you would not have to run the classes individually; instead, we will be executing both the classes by a simple click. The output after the execution would look like below-
You can see for yourself that the test classes mentioned in the XML ran successfully, and with it, you can now create your own test suite and run multiple tests all in one go and subsequently get the results.
Parallel Testing Using TestNG.XML File On Selenium Grid Cloud
Now that you have executed your TestNG.xml file successfully. It is pivotal to note the changes you need to make into the TestNG.xml for Selenium test automation over a cloud-based Grid. Because at the end of the day you want a more practical approach and configuring hundreds of browsers and operating systems in your nodes doesn’t look feasible enough.
You can leverage a cloud Selenium Grid such as LambdaTest which provides 2000+ real browsers and operating systems online. That way, you only need to focus on writing better Selenium automation scripts.
So let me show you how you can leverage testng.xml to run parallel testing with Selenium on LambdaTest.
We will take a sample to-do application for the demo. The Selenium testing script will go to the Sample to-do application and click on the checkboxes to indicate the items are done and will add them to the list. After adding it would verify if the items are added.
Let us have a look at our Java test file.
To make your Selenium test script run over LambdaTest Selenium Grid, you will need to declare a few changes to the script. This would involve specifying your LambdaTest username, your LambdaTest access key and the HubURL in the remote webdriver, for routing your test script to LambdaTest Selenium Grid.
driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(“https://” + username + “:” + accesskey + gridURL), capabilities);
All of these details can be found on your LambdaTest automation dashboard.
By far I am sure you’ve realized the importance of using TestNG.xml for running scripts on cloud Selenium Grid. It is simple really, you don’t want to write down hundreds of test files to test the same scenario over hundreds of browser drivers. Which is why you will need a TestNG.xml file which will allow you to run a single test file over numerous combinations of parameters and values specified in it.
For this purpose, you invoked the Parameters annotations in TestNG. — @org.testng.annotations.Parameters(value={“browser”,”version”,”platform”})
Now you need to provide values to these parameters in your testng.xml file. Then you will be able to run a single test across several browsers, simultaneously.
If you go to your LambdaTest platform now. You will notice that the same test has been triggered over multiple browsers + operating systems combinations. Just as we specified in our TestNG.xml file.
This is the reason why Parallel testing is one of the most in-demand features of Selenium test automation.
A Selenium Grid would really boost up your test build practices. Instead of creating new test cases for individual environments, you can leverage testng.xml to define those environments as parameters and simply run a test on various parameters.
Why break your back when you can run parallel tests on a Selenium Grid cloud?
LambdaTest provides a cloud Selenium Grid where you can run your Selenium test scripts over 2000+ real browsers in parallel.
In our upcoming posts, we will learn about TestNG reports and how we can use the different types provided by the framework. Stay tuned and Happy TestNG! 😉
Author Praveen Mishra
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/create-testng-xml-file-execute-parallel-testing-d806aea04100 | ['Sarah Elson'] | 2020-09-01 19:31:39.771000+00:00 | ['Xml', 'Parallel Testing', 'Automation', 'Testng', 'Testing'] |
The Week in Mobility News — 18 December 2020 | I know nothing about Gen Z
The average rider of an electric scooter is a 37 year old male. In Silicon Valley, the birthplace of the electric scooter, the average age of a CEO is 42. Whilst these represent two, as yet unlinked, statistics the point is that products, policies and services often reflect the values and assumptions of their creator.
What does this mean for Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s? Most boards don’t employ Gen Z. In fact, the average age of a board member is 63, most MPs in the UK are between 50–59 whilst in the House of Lords the average age is 70.
Can we claim to be adequately creating a world that accommodates this Tik-tok loving, morally serious, digital native generation? A quick turn to Buzzfeed news and the article, “Gen Z Is Making Fun Of Millennials And Honestly We Deserve It” would indicate that we probably can make no such claim.
Recently I have been on a number of roundtable discussions with representatives from the House of Lords, House of Commons and various board members from automotive OEMs. Most will own a car, possibly two. Many will have exchanged a few desperate WhatsApp messages asking their children for Zoom assistance this year. None of them would dare set foot on an electric scooter.
These groups are actively making decisions about future transportation and yet the generation who will have to live with it are conspicuously absent.
This is a generation who are entering a covid transformed workplace that will continue to shift increasingly online. This will likely change their outlook on where and how to live in ways that their 9–5 parents may not fully understand. The very fabric of cities, their dynamics and therefore mobility needs could stand to change as a consequence. It’s already happening, in New York, some offices are transforming into apartments which will change journey patterns.
However, including different generations in conversations alone isn’t sufficient to create future proof solutions. Transportation impacts how you move around a city, urban planning impacts the design of transportation, environmental policy determines the form of transport and infrastructure, logistics determines our access to goods and services and smart city initiatives tie everything together. Having strategic conversations without all parties present is increasingly nonsensical.
Transportation and Urban Infrastructure are ubiquitous so should be designed to cater for as many perspectives, values and needs as possible. How can we do this with authenticity if our teams don’t represent everyone? How can we identify genuine opportunities with only a singular perspective? We can’t.
We need Gen Z as much as we need the 70 year old baby boomers. We need people with reduced mobility, BIPOC, parents, nonparents, rich and poor, digital nomads and office workers and everyone in between.
Critically, we need ubiquity not to mean uniformity but empathy and inclusivity. Perhaps then we’ll welcome in a new era of mobility that won’t look like this….
Elsewhere in the Industry
Canoo unveils its delivery vehicle — The Verge
Walmart will trial autonomous trucks in 2021 — The Verge
Some offices in NYC may be turned into apartments — The New York Times
Chinese search engine, Baidu is looking to manufacture vehicles — electrive.com
Why most electric trucks will charge overnight — McKinsey
FedEx steps into e-commerce following its acquisition of ShopRunner — PYMNTS.com
Rivian Design VP on starting fresh and brand identity — formtrends.com
Pollution inequality is already here — NYTimes
LivingPackets have created reusable packaging for e-commerce — springwise.com
There is a shortage of public bathrooms which has been made worse by Covid — Axios
Lion’s electric school bus has launched a vehicle-2-grid pilot — Cision.com
Rivian is deploying its own charging network — TechCrunch
Volta to supply Petit Forestier with 1000 electric refrigerated trucks — The Energyst
Yandex robots start delivering meals in Moscow — Reuters
The Trans African Highway system will revolutionise mobility in Africa — Global Fleet
Electric Last Mile Solutions will go public via a SPAC — electriclastmile.com
Miscellaneous
Alternative mobility….
Imogen Pierce — Head of Experience Strategy | https://medium.com/@imogenpierce/the-week-in-mobility-18-december-2020-c96c55356786 | ['Imogen Pierce'] | 2021-01-08 17:50:51.395000+00:00 | ['Electric Vehicles', 'Future', 'Urban Planning', 'Future Mobility', 'Startup'] |
Landmark Auction: Chrysler Building | Uplanders! Thursday, April 8th, at 12pm PT we will begin auctioning off one of the most prominent and classically styled members of the NYC skyline. There are few buildings that embody the spirit of Upland more than the Chrysler building.
“The Chrysler Building, a stunning statement in the Art Deco style by architect William Van Alen, embodies the romantic essence of the New York City skyscraper. Built in 1928–30 for Walter P. Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation, it was “dedicated to world commerce and industry.”! The tallest building in the world when completed in 1930, it stood proudly on the New York skyline as a personal symbol of Walter Chrysler and the strength of his corporation. “ -NYC.GOV
Some fascinating facts about the Chrysler building:
It is currently the second tallest building in New York.
Contrary to popular belief, the Chrysler Corporation was never involved in the construction or ownership of the Chrysler Building.
The exterior of the building has about fifty ornaments protruding from the building’s corners on five different floors in a way similar to the gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals.
The lobby ceiling contains a 110-by-67-foot mural named “Transport and Human Endeavor”, commissioned by Edward Trumbull in 1930.
Price Analysis
Located at 405 Lexington Ave in Manhattan, the Chrysler Building property is 402 UP2 in size. It is located in Midtown East and is a part of the rare NYC Skyscraper collection, which offers a boost of 2.64X on earnings. Were it not a landmark, it would have a minting price of 2,291,400 UPX. As one of the most beautiful and iconic buildings in all of NYC (and thus the world), owning the Chrysler Building is like owning a unique piece of iconic art. Additionally, the history and story of the Chrysler Building makes it a classic structure that is unlike any other in the Upland metaverse, and it will certainly stand the test of time in this respect.
Previous landmarks sold at a premium much higher than their initial estimated value, with the New York Stock Exchange selling for 23,000,000 UPX and Grand Central selling for 21,000,000 UPX. On average, we have seen a premium of 300% or more over base mint price for Landmarks at auction, leading us to a suggested minimum mint price of 6,874,200 UPX.
Auction Details
As with the New York Stock Exchange and Grand Central auctions, we’re utilizing a reverse auction process. The auction will be live in the app:
Just send your explorer to 405 Lexington Ave. in Manhattan and you’ll see the property ready for minting, after the auction start time.
The price will start high and is reduced over time. As we decrease the price, any player can mint the property live in Upland. We will still announce the price updates in our Discord #Auction channel.
The auction will go on for over 3 days, starting April 8th at 12pm PT, and ending April 11th at 9pm PT.
We will start the bidding at 25,000,000 UPX.
Each price reduction will be by 2,000,000 UPX.
Price reduction Schedule.
-Thursday we will reduce the price at 7pm (23 million)
-Friday we will reduce the price at 8am (21 million), 12pm (19 million), 4pm (17 million), and 8pm (15 million).
-Saturday we will reduce the price at 8am (13 million), 12pm (11 million), 4pm (9 million), and one last time at 8pm to the minimum suggested mint price of 6,874,200 UPX.
If the minimum mint price of 6,874,200 UPX is not met, we will close the auction without selling the Landmark and it will remain on the market for minting at the suggested price. But don’t hold your breath for the price to go this low, because this is a highly coveted piece of real estate.
Remember, the returns from the property are based on the initial mint price, so the higher the auction price, the more you can earn!
Future Auctions
As Upland continues to grow, more and more players are requesting the opportunity to claim one of Upland’s most prized properties. To support this, we will be holding Landmark auctions on a more regular basis. After the current auction has completed, we will start to queue up another Landmark auction for launch. Next up we are preparing a Brooklyn Landmark, and another wonderful San Francisco Landmark.
Additionally, in the near future we will also begin to feature the Landmark auctions (upcoming and past) directly on the Upland website. | https://medium.com/upland/landmark-auction-chrysler-building-293a65922f1a | [] | 2021-04-16 18:54:28.854000+00:00 | ['Upland', 'Eos', 'Blockchain', 'NYC'] |
Integrity is Being True to Your Self | Depositphotos
INTEGRITY IS THE most crucial thing in my life.
When I think of its meaning, I think of persistence — being steady — whole — integrated — living one way in all situations and that the choices I make will not harm another person as I live my life the way I want to live.
Human integrity is about purpose and being true to my self in all I do — always and in all ways.
Recently I was told I do too much, give more than is expected, and that how I show up might make other people feel they do not do enough.
> Why must I reel in my work ethic, skills, spirit, and love for what I do and shine less?
> Why must I turn my self down to be adequate and less than who I am?
That is not integrity to me.
Complete integrity is sustained love for life (with all the flaws in me and the world) without cutting back, dumbing, and dulling down.
Other people make themselves feel less, not me.
It’s how they see the world — the choices they make in how they show up.
I’m not in competition. I am part of a team and an event. I am not looking to beat out or shame others. If you win, I win. We work together.
Champions show up to do their best every single day, whether they win or not. Integrity is a state of mind, heart, and body.
Thanks — Michael | https://medium.com/@mf-63953/integrity-is-being-true-to-your-self-28c1ebbc7493 | ['Michael Feeley'] | 2021-05-07 14:55:52.206000+00:00 | ['Truth', 'Life Coaching', 'Integrity', 'Self Improvement', 'Authenticity'] |
Day 19: How to free yourself from the garlic stank | Garlic is a crucial ingredient in many savory dishes. I also love the fact that garlic gets rid of the gamey taste from the meat. I like to use fresh garlic since it tastes better than the pre-minced ones at the store. However, after working with garlic, your hands are left with an unpleasant garlic order for hours.
Why can’t soap and water wash off the odor?
When you cut open a piece of garlic, a sulfur-containing amino acid is release and it comes into contact with an enzyme called alliinase. The reaction between the two produces allicin which is responsible for the smell. Adding water into this mix actually heightens the reaction so washing your hands make things worse.
What can I do? I can’t stand the smell!!!
There is a simple solution to this problem. You can rub your hands with stainless steel!
What?? how does that work?
When you touch stainless steel, the sulfur modules bind to the steel. The sulfur molecules are transferred from your hands to the steel, taking the odor away from your hands.
Where can I find stainless steel?
If you have stainless steel pots/pans you can use them. I personally use my cast iron cleaning stainless steel chain since it’s flexible to reach all the area on my hands. | https://medium.com/@comc49/day-19-how-to-free-yourself-from-the-garlic-stank-9b3161d3f5be | [] | 2019-02-23 15:23:09.090000+00:00 | ['Free', 'Cooking', 'How To', 'Cutting', 'Garlic'] |
ARTIS now listed on OctaEx | Hi Everyone, we are excited to announce that ARTIS has officially been listed on @octaex with ARTIS/BTC, ARTIS/LTC and ARTIS/USD pairs available. OctaEx is a new and growing exchange and we are excited to gain increasing exposure of ARTIS into new Markets.
ARTIS/BTC: https://octaex.com/trade/depth/market/artis_btc
ARTIS/LTC: https://octaex.com/trade/index/market/artis_ltc
ARTIS/USD: https://octaex.com/trade/depth/market/artis_usd | https://medium.com/artisturba/artis-now-listed-on-octaex-e53fd0ea0729 | ['Artis Turba'] | 2018-03-26 18:59:25.094000+00:00 | ['Altcoins', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Ethereum Wallet', 'Bitcoin'] |
Case study: Advancing UX Research at Elli | What we introduced
1. User research as a shared team activity
We work closer with product managers and product owners at the early stages of product design to integrate user requirements early in the development process and to motivate product teams to perform user research more often and iteratively. Everyone at Elli, regardless of role and responsibilities, is encouraged to plan and conduct user research.
Now we always set assumptions before planning research and get back to them after analyzing the findings to learn. For example, we found how important it is to write down what we think users are going to tell us before we start interviews: what could be their goals? pain points? needs? This also helps involve the entire team in research planning early on.
2. Defined which methods we want to use for which purposes
We realized the three key goals which Elli seeks to fulfil with user research:
to understand who early adopters of our solutions are, to learn about their motivations and needs (e.g. early discovery research for new products). Methods: interviews, observation, contextual enquiry
to test new flows or design explorations (e.g. at the early stage of digital product design or when developing new features). Methods: moderated testing
to quickly test updated designs before handing them over to development (e.g. when re-designing existing flows). Methods: unmoderated testing, A/B testing
Later I found out that Nielsen Norman Group classifies research methods in the same way — so we went on to see which methods are missing in Elli UX research. The first two goals we generally covered with the methods we used. We introduced A/B testing to quickly test designs and inform our design decisions with quantitative data — here you can read a case study about how it worked.
3. Visualizing user research findings
We turned Elli’s internal Design Wiki page into a discoverable user research repository to make sure employees always have a chance to read through some exciting insights presented in a playful form. We present text- and quote-based reports visually, e.g. as affinity maps or exciting user stories.
As user research advanced at Elli and became a more natural ongoing activity, we felt like there was a need to link all the findings. We wanted to make it easier for teams to incorporate those findings in their design process as well as build upon existing research — that is how we identified the need of a full-scale user research repository, which Elli plans to set up soon.
Advanced research process
Methods used: a combination of qualitative (e.g. interviews, usability tests) and quantitative methods (e.g. A/B testing) | https://medium.com/swlh/advancing-ux-research-at-elli-42f9fdb480d5 | ['Myroslava Domanitska'] | 2020-12-31 13:37:57.297000+00:00 | ['UX Research', 'Startup', 'UX Design', 'Product Design', 'Strategy'] |
Why birds fly in the sky easily! You will be surprised to know .. | Soft, feather-covered, colorful animal bird is a symbol of absolute peace and freedom. Seeing free birds flying in the sky, everyone wants to fly in the sky. Let’s not know some unknown facts about the amazing animal birds:
The oldest bird on earth lived in the Jurassic era 150 million years ago. Whose name was Archeopteryx and its shape was like that of a crow.
Birds like pigeons, pheasants and lovebirds can be domesticated. They like to be in pairs. Flamingos or swans mate for a lifetime and some of them live together with their mates for more than 50 years.
● Scientists believe that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
Birds have a pair of complex and efficient lungs that occupy much more space than humans and other mammals.
There are about 10,000 species of birds all over the world. Scientists have divided them into 30 categories.
● Favorite cartoon character Road Runner lives in the deserts of southwestern America. These are birds of the cuckoo family. They can rarely fly but can run.
Some birds such as crows and baboons are very smart. They can make a home very nicely. The crow has a large cerebral hemisphere.
The bird’s heart beats 400 times a minute when it is at rest. And when a bird flies, its heart beats more than 1000 times per minute.
● Male birds have shiny feathers, they dance and sing. The female bird chooses the male bird that she is attracted to as her mate.
The bones in the bird’s body are very hollow. That is why they are easy to fly.
Many migratory birds can travel thousands of miles without a break. Many birds migrate to higher ground for breeding in spring and summer.
● The smallest bird is the humming bird which is 5 cm in size and weighs 3 grams. These tiny birds can fly in the opposite direction.
There are some birds that cannot fly, such as ostriches, penguins and dodos.
Birds eat twice as much body weight each day. They need to eat more because they need a lot of energy to fly.
The best known species of bird is the chicken. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird.
Remember Alfred Hitchcock’s movie ‘The Bird’? The picture showed the horrible behavior of seagulls. We think seagulls are fish-eating species. But not Kelp Seagull’s target is giant whales that are 50 feet long.
We all know that parrots can talk. But the African gray parrot is the most talkative bird in the world. Most parrots can say a total of 50 words. On the other hand, the gray parrot of Africa can learn more than 600 words!
● The hawk can grab at a speed of 200 miles.
The only venomous bird in the world is the Hooded Pituhai of Papua New Guinea. Their feathers and skin are poisonous.
The American Turkey Vulture helps engineers identify cracks in underground fuel pipes. Since the vulture eats rotten meat, the smell of fuel feels like food to him. Cluster birds can also show where the line needs to be repaired.
● Hummingbird eggs are about the size of a pea. The largest bird, the ostrich, on the other hand, is about the size of a foot or a watermelon.
Owls can rotate their heads up to 360 degrees but cannot rotate their eyes.
Kiwi birds are blind so they prey by sniffing.
Some species of chickens lay colored eggs like Ameraukana and Araukana lay green or blue eggs. | https://medium.com/@sgytcontent/why-birds-fly-in-the-sky-easily-you-will-be-surprised-to-know-43332c965ba8 | [] | 2020-12-13 14:51:28.574000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Aviation', 'Birds', 'Wings', 'Flying'] |
What Is GDPR? A Simple Overview for Businesses and Users | What Is GDPR? A Simple Overview for Businesses and Users Permission.io Follow Nov 30 · 11 min read
GDPR took the internet by storm in 2018. You may remember that day when your entire inbox was flooded with privacy policy updates, or perhaps your business decided to expand its reach to the EU, and you were reminded that GDPR compliance had to be sound before beginning.
GDPR is the most impactful modern internet privacy law to pass in recent history. At its core, it is designed to protect internet users from exploitative data collection and breaches, and GDPR aims to give users more control over their information while forcing companies to adopt proactive data security and transparency habits.
We’re going to cover what any business owner, user, or marketer needs to know about GDPR. Consider this piece your foundation. Whether or not you choose to dig deeper will be determined by your needs.
Let’s get right to it.
What Is GDPR?
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a data protection law from the EU, and it’s dense — there are over eleven chapters and 99 articles. This can make it difficult for companies and users to understand, but its goal is to protect the personal data of users, modernize data collection, establish clear directives for data transparency, and give people more choice over what personal data they share.
GDPR is a replacement for the EU’s previous law, the Data Protection Directive (DPD), which was passed over two decades earlier in 1995. Think of GDPR as the modernization and expansion of DPD. DPD couldn’t have predicted the intricate and expansive ways data is used today, and it badly needed updating.
What Countries Does GDPR Apply To?
The law applies to any companies operating in or out of all EU member states and Ireland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
Who Does GDPR Protect?
GDPR protects any of the users in the member states and additional countries. What’s important to note is that it protects those users regardless of whether the company targeting them is based in the protection zone or not. In other words, it protects users from any company worldwide that decides to do business with the users of those states.
Let’s look at that a bit more.
Who Has to Follow GDPR?
Any company that targets EU citizens must adhere to GDPR. That goes for companies based in EU countries but also any other company (including U.S. companies) who target or work with EU citizens in any internet-based capacity.
Let’s look at a few examples of companies that have to follow GDPR standards:
A U.S. eCommerce company using ads to retarget users from France.
A digital clothing company based in Brussels that collects information for shipping and fitting.
A digital subscription newsletter collecting email addresses in the EU.
Now, let’s look at a few examples of companies that wouldn’t have to follow GDPR standards.
A Brazilian coffee distributor selling bags on its own website, which is in Portuguese. Even if someone from the EU found it and bought from it, because the company isn’t actively pursuing EU citizens, it shouldn’t apply unless they were using advertising to bring EU users to their site.
A U.S. landscaping service that merely has their contact information on the site and doesn’t do any business in the EU. Because they aren’t collecting any EU user information, GDPR doesn’t apply. Any business that isn’t collecting or processing information in any form or fashion is exempt, although that is extremely rare.
Even though GDPR passed in May of 2018, companies have had since 2016 to prepare for GDPR. But even with that runway, following GDPR at first proved to be confusing and nebulous. Many companies struggled to understand exactly what was demanded of them, and many are still at risk of GDPR non-compliance.
Does Brexit Impact GDPR?
No. The UK government has decided to continue operating under GDPR law even after leaving the EU. In other words, treat the UK just like you would any other country protected by GDPR.
Now that we know the scope of GDPR, let’s talk more about what it protects: personal data.
What Personal Data Actually Means
Directly from the source, here is what GDPR means by “personal data”:
The data subjects are identifiable if they can be directly or indirectly identified, especially by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or one of several special characteristics, which expresses the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, commercial, cultural or social identity of these natural persons. In practice, these also include all data which are or can be assigned to a person in any kind of way. For example, the telephone, credit card, or personnel number of a person, account data, number plate, appearance, customer number, or address are all personal data.
That’s a complex way of saying any type of data that can be used to trace back to an identity is considered personal. This is purposefully broad — that way the law doesn’t need to be updated as often.
In modern practice, this includes data like:
Shipping information
Billing information
User behavior
Cookie data
Pixel Data
Purchase behavior
Name
Phone Number
Geographic data and history
Demographic identifiers
And more.
What Rights Do Users Have Because of GDPR?
GDPR gives additional privacy rights to users, and when these rights are violated companies can be held liable.
Here are the main rights users are guaranteed and that serve as the basis for GDPR compliance:
1. The Right to Be Informed
Users have the right to know what is and what will be collected by companies before the data is processed (collected).
2. The Right of Access
Users have the right to see any data that a company collects. This service must be delivered within a month and must be free.
3. The Right to Rectify (Correct) Information
Users have the right to submit a request to fix inaccurate data.
4. The Right to be Forgotten
Users have the right to withdraw their data consent and request that all data about them be deleted.
5. The Right to Restrict Data Processing
Users have the right to object to data processing and limit how their data is used.
6. The Right to Data Portability
Users have the right to collect their own data and have it delivered to them in a readable format that can easily be transferred to a different company.
7. The Right to Object
Users always have the right to object to specific data collection and marketing mechanisms that use that data.
8. The Right to Breach Disclosure
Users must be informed if their data has been breached within 72 hours.
For a complete list of user rights, here’s a direct link to the appropriate GDPR chapter.
It is the duty of the company to honor these rights effectively. The processes and practices companies have in place to honor these rights are the basis for GDPR compliance evaluation.
And as a user, you have these rights, so if a company is taking advantage of them, you have the full power to report them. Although in many cases a company (especially a small business) may not be aware, so reaching out to them first to talk about it before lawyering up is usually the best first step.
If it’s a major beach and you are whistleblowing, then you can file a complaint here.
What Happens if You Break GDPR?
GDPR stipulates that national authorities have the power to issue fines and limit data processing when GDPR regulations are breached.
According to the fines and penalties section of GDPR, severe violations can result in fines of up to 20 million euros OR up to 4% of the total global turnover of the preceding fiscal year, and smaller violations can still reach 10 million euros or 2% of global turnover.
The six biggest GDPR fines issued so far have been:
British Airways — 204.6m Euros Marriott International Hotels — 110.3m Euros Google Inc. — 50m Euros Austrian Post — 18.5m Euros Deutsche Wohnen SE — 14.5m Euros 1&1 Telecom GmbH — 9.5m Euros
Many of these fines were a result of breaches or failing to disclose exactly how companies would use user data when onboarding users.
And while GDPR fines tend to only make headlines when targeting big businesses, GDPR applies to all businesses, both small and large.
The point is, the EU is devoted to making GDPR a standard, and they have shown that they will hold businesses accountable to it.
How Are the Levels of Fines Determined?
There is a multitude of factors that determine how a fine is calculated, and the GDPR text outlines a few factors:
How widespread the damage is
What kind of personal information was released (in the context of a breach)
How quickly the company fixed it
The fidelity of the fix
The Intention of the violation
How prepared the company was for the violation
Was the company proactive in data protection practices?
Did the company cooperate effectively and quickly with all parties?
Did the company notify users of the damages as quickly as possible?
There are more specifics than these, but essentially the data protection board and officers in charge of issuing fines will be looking at how honest and proactive companies were before, during, and after a breach or violation. If at every step in the process a company was doing their best and had proof of that, then the fines will be lower. If the company clearly exhibited negligence, then the fines will likely be steeper.
In Practice: How to Approach GDPR Compliance
Companies must show good faith by achieving initial data compliance and then by incorporating GDPR principles into every part of their operation.
If you own or are in charge of GDPR for your business, then you need to make sure data collection is transparent, legal, and secure in every part of your business.
GDPR compliance must become a fundamental part of your operation. With every new product, you need to make sure data is being collected appropriately. GDPR compliance is about having a plan and devoting resources to actualizing that plan. If you are familiar with the world of PCI compliance in payment processing, GDPR compliance is somewhat similar.
In order to become officially compliant with GDPR, you may have to request a DPO (data protection officer) to oversee your data collection practices, although this is only necessary for companies processing large amounts of data OR if your company’s core business model relies on data collection.
Here’s what the legislation says on that directly:
Contrary to popular belief, decisive for the legal obligation to appoint a Data Protection Officer is not the size of the company but the core processing activities which are defined as those essential to achieving the company’s goals. If these core activities consist of processing sensitive personal data on a large scale or a form of data processing which is particularly far-reaching for the rights of the data subjects, the company has to appoint a DPO.
In other words, most businesses are fine simply following best practices for compliance, but if you fall under the definition above then you need to reach out and request a DPO.
GDPR compliance is ongoing and can only be the result of consistent effort. It is not a short checklist you can complete and move on. It must become fundamental and be a result of consistent, recurring tasks, and effort.
With this in mind, here are actionable guidelines you can incorporate to maintain GDPR compliance.
Core Guidelines of GDPR Compliance for Businesses
There is no perfect guide for GDPR compliance. It is a collection of efforts unique to each company designed to protect the privacy rights enshrined in GDPR. That being said, there are guidelines and best practices that are standardized across modern businesses.
Here are the major ideas of GDPR compliance, and then we will cover specific steps in the following section.
Data transparency, fairness, and lawfulness. Are you actively open and lawful with your data collection and storage?
Are you actively open and lawful with your data collection and storage? Put limits on how and why you collect data. Do you have scheduled processes to remove old and unused data? How can you build the best product using the most specific and least demanding data collection practices?
Do you have scheduled processes to remove old and unused data? How can you build the best product using the most specific and least demanding data collection practices? Only collect the minimum necessary for your operation. If you don’t need it, then don’t collect it.
If you don’t need it, then don’t collect it. Devotion to data accuracy. How are you ensuring your data is clean and accurate for each individual?
How are you ensuring your data is clean and accurate for each individual? Data security. How are you protecting against breaches? How does encryption play into your strategy?
How are you protecting against breaches? How does encryption play into your strategy? Data deletion and portability. Can users easily delete their data? Can they request their data and then give it to someone else?
Can users easily delete their data? Can they request their data and then give it to someone else? Data consent. Is your consent for data accessible and easy for users to understand? Is your service still usable without it? Are you transparent on what you collect and easily give users the ability to opt-out?
Is your consent for data accessible and easy for users to understand? Is your service still usable without it? Are you transparent on what you collect and easily give users the ability to opt-out? Privacy by design. Are safety and design fundamentally built into your product?
Are safety and design fundamentally built into your product? Data simplicity. Is it easy for users to understand what data you’re collecting? Can they collect for themselves and understand it?
These are the questions that make up a unique and effective GDPR compliance plan. The burden is on companies to build them into their own workflows.
6 Steps to Start Your GDPR Compliance Journey
It’s easy for GDPR to feel overwhelming. Here are a few ways for you to take action today.
Step 1: Start With an Analysis
Outline every aspect of your business that uses data and why. Examine how it’s collected and where it’s stored, and then make sure user rights are protected at every step. Clear opportunities to consent and opt-out must be present at every point.
Step 2: Create a Breach Contingency Plan
Your company must report a breach within 72 hours, and every minute that goes by after a breach will be scrutinized by officials. Make sure you have a specific plan to stop and disclose a breach.
Step 3: Log Everything You Do Around GDPR Compliance
As we said earlier, proof of ongoing effort toward GDPR compliance is critical to remain compliant and reduce fines. Create a centralized location for your efforts and log everything you do in detail.
Step 4: Ensure Partners Are Actively Working Toward Compliance
Even if a breach happens through third-party software, your business could be liable. It is your responsibility to evaluate the trustworthiness and security of your partners. Choose wisely!
Step 5: Create a Checklist for New Products, Operations, and Decisions
Anytime your business grows, makes a new product, or collects new data, it needs to be incorporated into your GDPR efforts. Make sure GDPR is in every conversation.
Step 6: Schedule Ongoing GDPR Training by Department
Make sure your tech teams, marketing teams, security teams, product development teams, and anyone else involved with data has scheduled GDPR training. This is one of the best bits of proof you can hand to data officers to show you have been proactive.
The Bottom Line on GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation is the biggest modern user privacy law in existence. It is designed to make data security and fidelity the norm in companies and give users more agency over what data they give up and why — while also giving them protected rights to opt-out, remove, and object to any sort of data collection by internet companies.
While the GDPR can seem like a burden on businesses, it gets easier as you develop your own systems and is crucial to creating an internet ecosystem that users can rely on safely.
GDPR is an important step for user privacy, but there is so much more we can do.
GDPR is a good start, but it’s a band-aid for a flawed system. The best kind of internet is one where users have complete control over data and are compensated for it directly (and automatically). Companies make money from your data — why shouldn’t you?
See how Permission.io is making that dream a reality. | https://medium.com/permissionio/what-is-gdpr-a-simple-overview-for-businesses-and-users-77f6b60e41ad | [] | 2020-12-18 21:57:49.838000+00:00 | ['direct link', 'Gdpr', 'Gdpr Compliance', 'Personal Data'] |
What can the public do now to have a sustainable future? | It is an old saying by our elders that ‘if you want to have a bright future then you have to start working for now.’ In the case of bringing sustainable development, we should start working from now itself. The United Nations integrated with other countries has agreed to come up with a sustainable society by solving the global level issues that are refraining the present to get developed. Organizations and individuals of other countries have also taken active participation in this noble agenda by the united nation that should be achieved by 2020. The social ripples are inspired by the United Nations agenda of developing and changing the world for a better future, advocates that government and organizations can never help completely in bringing sustainability till every individual takes personal efforts to change the things in the surrounding.
What does it mean to have a sustainable future?
The process of having a sustainable future is all about using the resources to meet the present needs of the people, by ensuring the ability of future generations to use them in the future. It means that the resources should be conserved by using them mindfully and making sure that their present use is not leading the resources to be depleted in the coming future. The concept of sustainable development is not limited only to the environment, but it is altogether about the social, economical, and ecological development of an individual. To make the future sustainable, every individual should start working from now. Nearly 40 percent of the population in the world lives under the poverty line. The United Nations aims to create an environment with which their social and economic well-being is raised.
The following are some measures that can be done by the public to have a sustainable future.
Limited use of resources:
Charity begins at home; if we want to have a sustainable future, we need to use the path of energy conservation so that future generations can use them at best.
Installing energy-efficient appliances such as solar panels can help you to conserve electricity and use solar energy effectively. In addition to it, turning off the electrical appliances whenever not in use will help to preserve electricity for the future.
Go green:
Many of the health issues are caused by the toxins released from the trash. The diseases are fatal for the health and well-being of the population. Using disposable products and disposing of the disposables will help us with a clean, clear, and hygienic environment.
Less reliance on transport:
Fossil fuels will be extinct and will make the environment unhealthy for the people living on earth. Hence, the social ripples promote the effects of using public transport instead of private cars that will help with a clean environment and the perseverance of fossil fuels for future generations.
Save water:
Water scarcity is one of the important issues faced by the populations in most of the countries. Sometimes, the reason is a lack of natural resources. Global warming is also one of the reasons behind the scarcity of water. Conserving water outdoors, using water-saving water heads, planting trees, and changing the irrigation system are some of the smaller steps common people can take to save water.
Depending less on bottled water:
Depending on bottled water is the cause of increasing plastic pollution. Plastic is neither reusable nor disposable. Hence, we should make less use of the bottles water and prefer tap water to quench our thirst. It will help us to reduce pollution due to plastic.
Taking small steps towards a healthy environment will help the present generation to create a sustainable future for further generations. | https://medium.com/@thesocialripples/it-is-an-old-saying-by-our-elders-that-if-you-want-to-have-a-bright-future-then-you-have-to-start-dd18188a06c3 | [] | 2020-10-09 09:43:29.856000+00:00 | ['Social Development Goals', 'Social Development', 'Sustainability', 'Sustainable Development', 'Social'] |
All Aboard The Polar Express – A Review | A modern classic, the Polar Express is by far the oddest Christmas film we’ve had this century. What makes it bizarre is not it’s story line, but it’s awful and creepy animations. It still scares me.
This movie is so creative in many ways! The plot was so thought out with tonnes of unsuspected twists, like the ghost for example. Also the little musical number at the beginning of the train journey (I think that song will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life).
If there’s one thing I don’t like about the film, is the god-awful ‘Know It All’. I always wanted him to get pushed off the train, but no one ever falls off. Contradictory to this, I absolutely love the conductor. He was so sweet and pure in the way he loved stamping tickets. Personally I believe he carried the film on his back!
There was a theory that the hero boy was the ghost and the conductor as well, which at first thought I can somewhat make sense of it, but in all honesty I haven’t looked into it and I don’t plan on doing so. I believe it’ll ruin the spirit of the movie, I’d rather go on unknowing.
The Polar Express will never stop loving on, a truly timeless film. | https://medium.com/@rosewesterman/all-aboard-the-polar-express-a-review-382aa465ddb6 | ['Rose Westerman'] | 2020-12-14 21:04:05.781000+00:00 | ['Movie', 'Producer', 'Film', 'Film Review', 'Movie Review'] |
Enteral Feeding Formulas Market Size Worth $8.72 Billion By 2027 | The global enteral feeding formulas market size is expected to reach USD 8.72 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 6.0% from 2020 to 2027. Increasing prevalence of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, dementia, multiple sclerosis, chronic liver disease and COPD is expected to boost the demand for enteral products that aid patients having trouble in oral intake. As per a study published by Cancer Research U.K., approximately 17.0 million new cancer cases were reported in 2018 across the globe. Incidence of cancer is projected to increase by 62% between 2018 and 2040.
In addition, growing deficiency of macro and micro nutrients among the patients in hospitals during pre and post-surgery drives the demand for enteral feeding formulas. Furthermore, increasing product offerings aimed at specific indications are delivering targeted nutritional needs, which is a key driver of this market. These enteral tube feeds usually contain polysaccharides and proteins for patients capable of digesting and absorbing nutrients without any difficulty. Availability of wide varieties of enteral formulas, along with increased demand for low-cost nutrient formulations among consumers, is boosting the market growth. Moreover, favorable reimbursement scenario supports high adoption of tube feeds among hospital patients as the enteral nutrition is usually covered under Medicare claims.
Moreover, the market is consolidated with presence of few leading players, including Nestle Health Science, Abbott, and Danone. These players are constantly investing in the R&D activities for development of enhanced products that cater to the niche therapeutic areas having high growth potential in the industry in order to gain a competitive edge. Market entry has proved to be challenging for new entrants as the industry is dominated by few major MNCs with high brand recognitions.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/enteral-feeding-formulas-market
Further key findings from the report suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/enteral-feeding-formulas-market-2426d8d10005 | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-12-22 07:10:26.304000+00:00 | ['Brazil', 'Australia', 'Singapore', 'Pharmaceutical', 'Russia'] |
[EPUB]-The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality | [EPUB]-The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality Victoriaflores Dec 13, 2021·4 min read
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The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality
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A holistic, practical guide to help support women through post-partum healing on the physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual levels. Pregnancy, childbirth, and post-partum offer women some of the most emotionally enriching and satisfying experiences of their life. But many women entering motherhood are shocked at their lack of preparation or awareness about what that actually means for their bodies, minds, spirits, and relationships. Kimberly Johnson, a doula, post-partum recovery expert, and yoga instructor has created a wise and supportive illustrated guide that offers women a roadmap to this very important transition that can last a few months — or even a few years. She draws from her vast professional experience, as well as her own personal experience, and also a number of disciplines including Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, yoga, herbal medicine, energetics, and traditional (folk) remedies, among others, to create a truly rich and holistic guide. The book offers advice for pregnant women on how to prepare their body for birth how to organize themselves and their households for the best possible transition to motherhood simple practices to facilitate healing and restore energy and how to strengthen relationships and aid the return to sex. Johnson also explores the complex and often conflicting emotions that arise post-partum, and explores the profound nature of childbirth and new motherhood. She helps women contextualize their experience and tap into the spiritual opportunities it can provide.
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“Millions of books have been published over the years and they continue to be an integral aspect of people’s lives around the globe.
From making it easier to understand different aspects of life to serve as worthwhile companions that take you through challenging times, books have proven to be precious commodities.
Books are essential in a variety of ways that go beyond enriching your mind or entertaining you. They have stood the test of time as reliable references for centuries. They stimulate your senses and promote good mental health. Other benefits include enhancing your vocabulary, allowing you to travel through words, and inspiring positivity through motivational literature.
While the internet and television are useful in their own ways, nothing can compare to a great book. Books ignite your imagination, give you new ideas, challenge your perspectives, provide solutions, and share wisdom. At every stage of your existence, you can find a relevant book that will add value to your personal and professional life.
Books are filled with knowledge and they teach you valuable lessons about life. They give you insight into how to navigate aspects of fear, love, challenges, and virtually every part of life. Books have been in existence since time immemorial and they hold secrets of the past while providing a glimpse of the cultures of previous civilizations.
A book has the power to change or reinforce how you feel about your surroundings. It is a therapeutic resource that can equip you with the tools you need to stay on track and maintain a good attitude. Whether you want to learn a new language or delve into the intrigues of nature, there is a book for every situation.
There are numerous reasons why books are important. Reading books is a popular hobby as people around the world rely on them for relief and entertainment. Books contain records of history and are used to spread vital information. Reading books helps to improve your communication skills and learn new things. It can be useful for easing anxiety among students and professionals.
Other reasons that highlight how important books are in their positive impact on intelligence, writing abilities, and analytical skills. Books give people a great way to escape into another dimension. They are packed with endless possibilities for adventure and experiences that would be difficult to access in reality.
It is essential for people to strive to include books in their daily lives aside from using them for academic or professional purposes. They aid emotional and mental growth, boost confidence, and sharpen your memory. It is natural for people to be curious and want to learn more, which is why books are still significant today.
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“ | https://medium.com/@victoriaflores_29693/download-http-co-readingbooks-host-book-1611804000-405f1b6fc481 | [] | 2021-12-13 00:56:45.345000+00:00 | ['Ebook Publishing', 'Download', 'Reading', 'Book', 'Read'] |
Artificial Intelligence driven Workflows | Since a couple of years, Artificial Intelligence has entered every nook and corner of the IT Industry. How many of you understand the term Artificial Intelligence? I am sure in pure English it is pretty easy to understand, but when Technology meet English what happens??
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
AI is a multidisciplinary science, but advances in machine learning and in-depth learning to create paradigm shifts in almost every field of technology.
Why are AI services required?
Enterprise users are placed with power of fully trained machine learning models. AI bridges the gap between data scientists and business users, making it easy for the organizations to leverage critical information to AI services.
Can workflows be driven by Artificial Intelligence?
Yes, of course! AI and Workflows are converging in the most valuable ways to drive better outcome. Let’s consider a way in which information get ingested and subsequently consumed during a business process. Many process are initiated by the customer or owner — lets consider an example of an insurance claim for underwriting. The primary thing we have to verify is the claim form entered correctly, with all the required information and signatures. Then the application has to be processed, extracted, and verified the required details both from the insurance company and the customer to initiate underwriting process. During the process, the claim is put on hold waiting for documents to be received from the hospital. Again, once the medical documents are received, the workflow can proceed and, ultimately the claim can be issued.
This is the worth that AI brings to workflows, ingesting critical information leading to proper deciding.
If we envision deep-learning driven processes, they can automate decision making process intelligently. Let’s assume there are conditions derived for workflows to run, can it not comply with dynamic business conditions? Yes, it can. It only takes the business owner to change the business conditions in the workflows and it is all up and running. As an easy example, if based on the applicants income “x%” of the loan is approved today, due to market conditions business owner wants to change “x% to y%” can be done without the help of the IT team and the change in the workflow is running within a couple of hours. Workflow processes are easy to manage dynamic changes and helps reduce the cost to a greater extend.
Conclusion
AI driven workflows should be more than just a useful new addition to your enterprise; it should be at the forefront of your organization’s informational operations. We can train an ML model fast and at scale to deliver results that are nearly instantaneous and as accurate as a human.
Disconnects between your IT and Business teams of your business no longer jeopardize progress toward organizational goals; instead, they are being bridged with intelligent, enterprise AI services.
The goal of better workflows begin AI and ML. | https://medium.com/@nairankita10/artificial-intelligence-driven-workflows-fea69472581a | ['Ankita Nair'] | 2021-06-08 10:20:41.532000+00:00 | ['Workflow Management', 'Intelligence Analysis', 'Workflow', 'Workflow Automation', 'Artificalintelligence'] |
Qui je suis | I’m serial entrepreneur in France.
My services : to allow to entreneurs to develop theirs businesses. How ? In giving a service of networking.
YOU WORK HERE it is the possibility to expand his business and to be less alone.
Youworkhere.biz | https://medium.com/@youworkhere/im-serial-entrepreneur-in-france-e5e2d21e0af7 | ['Michael Capgras'] | 2020-12-21 10:48:13.995000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneur', 'Networking'] |
Smarter Ways to Shop Style (And Still Get What You Want) | Photo from Pinterest.com
The days of going to the mall and spending your entire paycheck on two shirts from Urban Outfitters (or whatever) are long over by now. And in 2020, the world of thrifting/second-handing, online consignment, and resell markets have flourished in its wake. If you aren’t a second-hand master yet, it’s high time to get involved in the world of thrifting and online consignment- start taking advantage of the resell shopping world by exploring the options near you.
There is (almost) no reason that we should pay the original price for anything anymore, since there are many other ways to get what we want at a better bargain. Here are 7 tips (tried and true) for finding what you need and getting what you want at an affordable price, so you don’t break the bank while busting ass- and if you’re in college like I am, hoping to graduate and be debt free (someday).
*Those of you who don’t like second-hand shopping, thrifting, or purchasing anything not directly from the store at full price (lame), these tips are not for you*
Check your local TJX stores- Marshalls and TjMaxx- for the contemporary section. This is where the most reliable selection of nicer discount finds are, and they carry brands like Free People, Lucky, Anthropologie, and Cloth and Stone (etc., etc.). Look for the section labeled “Contemporary”, rather than shuffling through the racks of endless polyester short sleeve tops in the women’s section. Keep your eye out for one of a kind items that are sold individually on these racks, since TJX gets items that are discarded by the manufacturers for whatever reason — maybe they got a stitch wrong on the inside seam, or it was just the last item in it’s group that was unsold at the end of the day. (I have worked in 2 different Marshalls locations on the sales floor with the clothes day-to-day, and I promise it’s worth it to check it out once in awhile) Go to thrift stores in wealthier neighborhoods. The selection is drastically different at Goodwill from town-to-town. This is how I do the majority of all my clothes shopping. I buy almost all of my clothes at Goodwill, and I actually resell a lot of it once I am done with it because I choose name brand items that are worth much more than I’m paying for them (that’s the secret, obviously). Typically, towns near a shoreline or beach area, and areas in or surrounding cities have the highest quality and quantity of clothing to pick from. Shop consignment. Open an account with your local consignment stores, or if you can, open up your business to multiple consignment stores. Many of them will give you money back when (if) your items sell, but some offer store credit which can also benefit you, so long as you like the selection of stuff in the store. It works out great if you really like shopping at the store you’re selling stuff with, because using your store credit feels like getting new shit for free. I like to shop around and sell at local consignments but my personal favorite to use store credit with is Plato’s Closet- they are picky with items they take, but honestly they have a great selection because of it. I don’t think I will ever not want that money to go towards my next (inevitable) purchase...of shoes. Find out what day of the week your favorite second hand stores re-stock their supplies with the newest stuff and make sure you go to get the very first pick. Also, see what kind of sales are happening throughout the week, because many of them do hold sales towards the end of the clothes cycle in order to push stuff out and bring in the new. Shop second-hand online. Online consignment sites like Poshmark and Depop are known to be great for selling, but they are also great resources for making your next big purchase. Shopping on these sites is perfect if you are looking for a specific item, or to buy a certain brand of stuff you really like. I shop Goodwill for the most part but if I want something in particular, like a new pair of black Vans or an oversized jean jacket, I go to Poshmark or Depop and I almost always find what I’m looking for at a price that I like. Do a closet cleanout with your roommates and friends around the same time during the year and look through each other’s piles for clothes to swap or take before they donate them, or throw them away (which lots of people do regularly). A sweater that looked tight on them in the wrong places might fit perfectly on you and look great with your new boyfriend jeans from Goodwill. True story. Recycle old clothes- AKA modify, AKA cut and tie that shit. Old t-shirts can be turned into sleeveless or strappy tops, and sweatshirts can be made into cute cropped hoodies (which look great with high waisted pants or shorts). Your dad’s old shirt you’ve been wearing to clean in can become an off the shoulder slouchy top to wear with skinny jeans and a fat ass necklace. Whatever. Do what you gotta do to make something old into something new.
That’s it, happy shopping! The End. | https://medium.com/@laurennicole180/smarter-ways-to-shop-style-and-still-get-what-you-want-ce8cbc3cc23 | [] | 2020-04-09 05:47:28.075000+00:00 | ['Reseller', 'Saving Money', 'Thrift', 'Clothing', 'Second Hand'] |
How to Identify Frequently Dropped and Constant Offline Devices among 50,000 Devices | Monitor the Device Status Change Using the Rule Engine
1) Online and Offline Status Messages
When a device connecting to the IoT platform goes offline, a message of a specific topic is generated to signify the device status change. Easily learn about the device status change by subscribing to this topic on the server.
1.1 Format of the Online/Offline Status Change
The following table shows the Payload Data Format Parameter description.
2) Configure the Rule Engine to Change the Device Status
2.1 Configure SQL
Next, configure SQL to retrieve the device status, currentTime, and lastTime from the message body. The following snapshot shows the data processing interface of the rule engine.
2.2 Configure Data Transmission RDS
The following snapshot shows how to configure the Data Transmission RDS in a data transmission interface of the rule engine.
In the device_status_history table , run SQL statements to display the online and offline statistics about the device:
2.3 Configure Data Transmission OTS
Now, configure the Data Transmission OTS as shown below.
When a device goes online, transmits service data, and then goes offline, the following records are generated in the table. The Status column indicates the device status, lastTime indicates the last communication time, and currentTime indicates the time when this message is generated, which equals to the online or offline time.
Conclusion
Tracking the status change of IoT devices in real-time helps to ensure hassle-free functioning of IoT devices. This article comprehensively outlines the steps to effectively monitor whether the IoT device is online or offline using the rule engine. For more details, visit https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/iot .
Original Source: | https://medium.com/@alibaba-cloud/how-to-identify-frequently-dropped-and-constant-offline-devices-among-50-000-devices-7b2f9d2647c2 | ['Alibaba Cloud'] | 2020-04-23 06:13:58.382000+00:00 | ['Internet of Things', 'IoT', 'Database', 'Trends', 'Alibabacloud'] |
Gardening in Costa Rica Yields Inspiration During Quarantine | María Suarez in her garden.
By Izzy Lopez
When the coronavirus pandemic began in March, María Suarez, junior in bioengineering, left Penn’s campus and returned home to Costa Rica. What should have been the final weeks of club activities, social events and end-of-year celebrations shifted to months spent at home, far away from Philadelphia. But Suarez, like many others, wanted to do something productive with her time in quarantine. Drawing on her bucolic roots, she decided to start a garden.
“I was born and raised in a very rural area,” Suarez says. “There is a huge river in my backyard where I learned how to count by throwing pebbles in the river with my mother and sister. Nature is a big part of my life, and it’s really shaped my personality. As a child, I planted herbs, like basil, mint and oregano, with my parents. When you are close to the land like this, gardening was something that grew naturally out of our lifestyle.”
As the spring semester shifted into summer, Suarez returned to her love of planting and embarked on an ambitious project to grow a vegetable garden in her backyard. Unlike the smaller herb gardens she had grown as a child, this vegetable garden required deeper horticultural knowledge as well as intense work under the hot sun.
“To begin the garden, I had to clear the land I wanted to use and remove all the grass and stones from the soil,” Suarez shares. “It was the dry season in Costa Rica and the ground was very difficult to work with.”
After clearing the land, Suarez had to bring nutrients back into the soil of her garden plot. Luckily, her family has been maintaining a natural compost pile for many years.
“Basically, the compost pile is a hole in the ground where we put our natural food waste. There are worms and animals there that help us naturally decompose the waste and they produce a very nutrient rich soil.” Suarez explains. “The compost is a five-minute walk from my garden, and I had to take at least ten trips with a wheelbarrow to bring enough back. It was a great arm workout.”
Once the soil was placed and watered, Suarez was finally able to plant her seeds. After a few days, she saw celery and zucchini plants beginning to sprout. Throughout the summer, Suarez’s crops grew well, and she was able to harvest the vegetables and share them with her family.
“It was very fulfilling to see the products of my efforts,” Suarez says.
While growing her vegetable garden has reaped many rewards — such as fresh herbs and produce to share with her family — it also came with challenges. In August, Suarez noticed that her garden’s production decreased, so she consulted local farmers for advice.
“They brought to my attention that if I kept planting on the same soil, it would run out of nutrients,” says Suarez. “To solve this, I took soil from my personal compost bin and added it to my garden. I also changed the type of vegetables I was planting to allow different nutrients in the soil to regenerate.”
While Suarez is still learning the best practices for tending her garden, she has even bigger plans for her plants in the coming months. In Costa Rica, many crops fail as a result of weeds or diseases that live in the natural soil. Suarez believes that hydroponic planting — a method of growing plants in pools of water and nutrients instead of soil — could be the future of Costa Rican agriculture. She is testing her theory with her own garden. Last winter, while home on break from Penn, Suarez and her father built a small hydroponic garden using PVC pipes. Now, Suarez is scaling up to build a hydroponic greenhouse. It’s still under construction, but Suarez is excited about the project.
“I’m working on finishing the structure of the greenhouse and developing a water circulation system,” Suarez says. “Currently, my garden doesn’t have access to electricity for an automatic system. That is a big challenge, but I believe that my Penn Engineering knowledge will help me create something pretty cool.”
Suarez argues that hydroponic gardening offers the opportunity for vertical planting which would minimize land use and maximizes the efficiency of each square foot of planting.
“Costa Rica is a place that depends heavily on agriculture but, as it is now, crops die from soil-borne diseases and people depending on the crops suffer through very difficult times as a result,” she notes. Suarez hopes that her experiments in hydroponics can help others like her who are interested in growing gardens in difficult terrain.
All this time spent in the garden has given Suarez a new perspective on the meaning of hard work.
“My mother often says, ‘If you plant in fertile soil, you will get results,’” Suarez shares. “Usually, when she says this, I complain. But after growing this garden, I see what she means. Something I like about planting is that I get to see that if I put in the hard work, I am going to get good results. It’s a very tangible reward for my efforts, and that feels great.”
Throughout the summer, Suarez has been able to enjoy some of her harvest, such as cilantro, green beans and cucumbers. Like many other Penn Engineering students, Suarez will be participating in virtual classes this semester from her home in Costa Rica. While this isn’t what she anticipated for Fall 2020, Suarez says tending her garden has been an enriching experience during a difficult time.
“This garden has been a great experience so far,” Suarez shares. “I would recommend it to anyone who has the space to plant something right now. It’s so fulfilling and you learn a lot from it.” | https://medium.com/penn-engineering/gardening-in-costa-rica-yields-inspiration-during-quarantine-c5be750b676 | ['Penn Engineering'] | 2020-09-10 19:22:57.983000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Gardening', 'Pennengshares', 'Costa Rica'] |
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