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How not to buy into a QR code scam | Scammers are now using WhatsApp to steal money. Find out how you can protect yourself
Selling your products on online marketplaces is easy and can be done in just a few minutes through an app. However, there has always been an elements of risk involved while dealing with strangers and there have been several cases where the buyer takes the product without making the payment.
Now, a new type of scam has surfaced, in which the potential buyer scams the seller and takes their money. it involves the buyer sharing a QR code with the seller on WhatsApp and tricking them into sending them money.
How does the QR code scam work?
The scammers approach sellers listed on online portals and mention that they want to buy products front them. Then, they send a QR code to the seller on WhatsApp and ask them to scan the code to receive money. However, this is a ‘collect’ request and once the seller scans the QR and enters the PIN, the buyer receive money.
How to protect yourself from QR code fraud?
The First thing you need to remember is that when you are receiving money, you do not need to scan any QR code.
Scanning of QR code is required only while making a payment. | https://medium.com/@anukritisaurabh/how-not-to-buy-into-a-qr-code-scam-1db2b4399892 | ['Saurabh Shashwat'] | 2020-02-20 14:34:02.541000+00:00 | ['Scam', 'Security', 'Qr Code', 'Whatsapp Fraud', 'WhatsApp'] |
Loneliness is a special place | All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
You can make a wonderful use out of your loneliness. There are activities, such as writing, creating, painting, or simply thinking, that all require you to be alone — and to feel comfortable while being so. I learned who I was when nobody was around. Some nights I’d lay in bed with my book and think of how nice it would be to have a boyfriend there. Looking back, I realize how nice it was that I didn’t.
Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.
I believe that there was nothing more important to my personal development and growth than my lonely time, solitary travels and quiet evenings all by myself. Rather than view my loneliness as a wound that requires the immediate cure of someone’s attention, I have always tried to fill it with action. With books, art, research, writing. Whatever moves you. Instead of getting sad and thinking that I will end up alone, having a lot of cats and a vegetable garden, I try to embrace my solitude and simply get to work.
You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. — Franz Kafka
Baños, Casa del Arbol, surely my favourite swing in the world
I had learned how to truly like myself, how to turn my loneliness into something productive. I learned to love my solitary routines — aromatic coffee cups in the favourite café around the corner with my pen and notebook, morning runs along the river and quiet evenings with open windows and wonderful books. Those rituals became the perfect expression of my identity, that I learned to discover and embrace all by myself. This was necessary to become a whole me, to feel that I reached an integrity as a human being, and only in this state, I would be potentially able to share my life with somebody else.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
Without a doubt, the times I’ve spent living, travelling, and hiking alone have been the most formative of my life so far. These experiences are a result of immense privilege; a privilege I know many people — women in particular — do not have. But if you do, you should and must embrace the opportunities to be alone. You don’t have to go living in a forest in a self-made house or study insects in the jungle, but you do need to challenge yourself sometimes.
Maybe a lonely hike for few days, or just a quiet day in your secret spot. It’s not about wasting time, it’s about listening to your inner silence, even if only for a second.
And you’ll be surprised how much there is to listen to.
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. ― Aldous Huxley | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/loneliness-is-a-special-place-40641a156068 | ['Daria Krauzo'] | 2018-06-19 01:23:13.825000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Life', 'Creativity', 'Solitude'] |
Connect From Your Local Machine to a PostgreSQL Database in Docker | Connect From Your Local Machine to a PostgreSQL Database in Docker
A simple How To to get you up and running with Docker
Docker makes it very easy to spin up a PostgreSQL database management system. With the following command it is possible to start your PostgreSQL Docker container on your server or local machine:
$ docker run -d -p 5432:5432 --name my-postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword postgres
This command will start a PostgreSQL database and map ports using the following pattern: -p <host_port>:<container_port> .
Port 5432 of our container will be mapped on port 5432 of our host or server.
Access the container on your host or server. We will create a database inside our PostgreSQL container.
$ docker exec -it my-postgres bash
Now you are ‘inside’ your container. We can access postgres and create the database.
root@cb9222b1f718:/# psql -U postgres
psql (10.3 (Debian 10.3-1.pgdg90+1))
Type "help" for help. postgres=# CREATE DATABASE mytestdb;
CREATE DATABASE
postgres=#\q
We are finished. You can exit your container ( \q ) and go to your local machine. Here you need some PostgreSQL Client tool installed:
PSQL (CLI)
PgAdmin
…
My PostgreSQL container is running on my local machine, which explains why I am connecting with localhost. If it is running on a specific server, use your server IP. (For Windows docker-machine you probably need to use 192.168.99.100).
$ psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U postgres -W Password for user postgres:
psql (9.5.5, server 10.3 (Debian 10.3-1.pgdg90+1)) WARNING: psql major version 9.5, server major version 10. Some psql features might not work.
Type "help" for help. postgres=# \l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding | Collate | Ctype |
-----------+----------+----------+------------+------------+
mytestdb | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.utf8 | en_US.utf8 |
postgres | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.utf8 | en_US.utf8 |
template0 | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.utf8 | en_US.utf8 |
| | | | |
template1 | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.utf8 | en_US.utf8 |
| | | | |
(4 rows)
After authenticating you will see the mytestdb is in the list of available databases. Now you can connect with your database using \c .
For a tool like PgAdmin you can define your connection. Also, here you have to replace localhost with your server IP if your container is running elsewhere.
Create a server connection
Define your connection
Save the connection and you can connect to the database which is running in your PostgreSQL Docker container!
This post was based on a popular SO answer I gave. I hope it helps! | https://medium.com/better-programming/connect-from-local-machine-to-postgresql-docker-container-f785f00461a7 | ['Lorenz Vanthillo'] | 2019-07-11 21:28:28.807000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Postgres', 'Postgresql', 'Docker', 'Containers'] |
Best Baby Crappers | Best Baby Potty Seats Under 1000₹ | Best Baby Crappers under 1000 Baby Potty Seat Under 1000 Best Baby potty seat under 1000 Baby stools and potty seat|crappers under 1000
Best Baby Crappers | Best Baby Potty Seats Under 1000₹
A potty or potty chair is a proportionately small chair or enclosure with an opening for seating very young children to “go potty.” It is a variant of the close stool which was used by adults before the widespread adoption of water flushed toilets. There are a variety of designs, some placed directly over the toilet called “Toilet Training Seats” so the egested fecal material drops directly into the toilet bowl thereby eliminating manual removal and disposal of the said waste from a receptacle beneath the hole which is often a bag or receptacle similar to a chamber pot. Potty chairs are used during potty training, a.k.a. toilet training.
Potty Seat vs. Potty Chair
A Potty Chair is a little training potty that sits by itself on the floor. Most of them have a removable basin that you can dump and clean.Unless you’re dealing with a kid over the age of three, I feel that the potty chair is less intimidating for little ones who are dwarfed by the size of an adult potty.
The Potty Seat (below), on the other hand, is a seat that reduces the size of the adult seat to a smaller size such that your kiddo won’t fall into the potty.
If you can get your little one to sit on the real potty, score! No transfer of waste is required, and it’s so much less cleanup. Just keep in mind, your toddler might be intimidated by the sheer height of the potty. You’ll also need a kid’s step stool, unless your toilet happens to be really low to the ground. Or you live at a preschool.
Which kind to get?
In my experience, toddlers less than two or 2 ¼ prefer a potty chair and kids over 2 ¼ or 2 ½ seem to be okay with going on the big potty. At the end of the day, try both and let him decide which is more comfortable.
Generally speaking, a potty chair is the safest bet, but most people end up getting a potty seat (sometimes called a seat reducer) later on when the child becomes a little bigger and more confident.
Best Potty Chairs under ₹1000
Here are our favourite potty chairs. You can also other potty chairs and crappers form other targets like amazon and flipkart.
If your child regrets to seat on the adult potty seat because of its hardness and because of its big size. Try this baby seat which as cool design with a soft plastic cushioned seat which will be very useful for your baby.
Product Description:-
Cushioned potty seat.
Easy to place on top of a standard-sized household toilet.
Easy to use and portable & Excellent for use in public restrooms.
Colorful with printed animated charracter.
A wonderful gift for the mother on the go.
Another best Baby potty seat under 1000. This comes with a back support for both boys and girls. This Sun baby potty trainer is suitable for both boys and girls comes equipped with a comfortable seat so that it is convenient for the baby to use it and does not cause any damage to the baby’s delicate skin. This potty trainer features higher side structure makes baby more comfortable safe and comes with a cover . The comfortable and ergonomic design of this potty trainer makes it convenient for the baby to use it.
Product Description:-
Easy for washing
Has a comfortable anatomical seat
Light and it easy to carry with smooth edges.
Light weight & easy to clean
Portable
Life’s little stories bloom with coming of the little one in your life. It completes your life with many joys of parenthood. Make a splash with baby hygiene products from Luvlap. Because little ones deserve the greatest care, our products are specially made for your baby’s gentle skin. They are guaranteed to help you baby make a splash in comfort and security. At LuvLap, we endeavor to weave the little stories into our products with an emphasis on child safety and enrichment of features. So that your little one gets the comfort that’s next only to the warmth of your lap. Conceived with care and made using the latest marvels of science, all LuvLap products undergo multiple quality checks before they are dispatched to the stores.
Product Description:-
Certified as per European Standards : EN 71
Smooth Edged Comfortable seat with Back rest
Inner detachable bowl with lid for easy removal and wash
Easily attaches to adult toilet seat
Easily detached for convenient storage
Light weight and easy to Carry
Contact_us on: [ 18001207897 ]
Removable tray for easy cleaning.Perfect for kids of age group: 6–36 months. Made from 100% virgin plastic. 100% hygienic. Suitable for both boys and girls, this potty trainer seat is perfect for toilet training. You can easily teach your child to place the seat on the toilet and sit himself or herself down with ease. It greatly helps in developing good clean toilet habits in your child. Easy to clean, this potty trainer seat dries quickly. Compact and easy to carry around, you can take this seat on vacation to enable your child feel comfortable and safe on the toilet anywhere. This attractive potty seat can be conveniently hung anywhere to save space.
Product Description:-
Product dimensions :Total product = Length 36 cm x width 29 cm x 22.5 cm ,Sitting area = sitting height 15.5 cm x length 25 cm x width 29 cm
Western toilet type baby potty seat
Made from virgin plastic, 100% hygenic. Durable and light weight
Removable tray for easy cleaning,Wide comfortable seating area
Perfect for kids of age group: 6–48 months
BABY POTTY TRAINING SEAT :
A soft pad can take the stress out of toilet training.
Curved double-sided Handrail handle, in case they feel scared to sit on the big potty.
A wide step makes them could turn and sit by themselves.
The width of the opening from side to side is 16 cm (6.3 inches),
The length of the opening from front to back is 23 cm (9 inches).
Designed for the little boys and girls who aspire to be like Mom and Dad during potty training time.
Chose an appealing one, great for toddlers learning how to sit on the adult toilet.
Product Description:-
The anti-slip wide step and double handrails design make it safe and convenient for babies to go up and down the ladder
Suitable for most kids, recommended age from 1 to 5 Years Old
Suitable for V-shaped, U-shaped, O-shaped toilets, NOT for Square Shaped
Universally applicable for 99% standard-sized toilets ranging in height from 14" to 16.1"
Can be folded compactly behind the door when not use, save your bathroom more space
Step Stools
Whether getting up to the big potty or getting up to the sink for hand washing, you’re gonna need some step stools. You can use the same one for both if you don’t mind moving it around. I have step stools all around my house, such as in the kitchen and bedroom closet, so the kids can get things for themselves. Very handy. Note: If your child is pretty small (or your sink is rather tall), you may need one of the taller stools for hand washing.
LSARIMO Kids Two Step Stool for Bathroom, Kitchen, Sink Use and Children Toilet Potty Training Stool with Fun Design
The two-step stools are portable, stackable, and built to last with a reinforced plastic base that can hold up to 350 lbs. These versatile, multipurpose Lsarimo stools can be used everywhere in the house and will give your toddlers and children that extra boost they need for many years to come.
Product Description:-
WARRANTY — Product have 90 Day* Warranty Register Your Warranty within 15 Days of Purchase. Warranty Activation is Mandatory
STRONG STRUCTURE — this 2 step stool is designed in such a way that it can hold maximum load without having any distortion in structure. It also has 4 anti slip grip pads with unique rubber at base and anti skid foot pads to have any kind of slipping and thus protect your kid from any injury.
COMPACT SIZE — this step stool is really small in size so that it can be adjusted anywhere in your household arena. It is also light weight so that your child can also handle it with very ease.
UNIQUE DESIGN — for your kids to have fun in their normal activities we have came up with unique creative idea and changed designed from normal to cartoon character.
EASY TO CLEAN — it is easy to clean you just have to clean it with wet cotton cloth and dry it with another cotton cloth that’s it. It will regain its shine and kid will love to use it.
Potty toilet stool” naturally raises your feet for a healthy & perfect potty. It is scientifically designed to give the posture and efficiency of natural squatting while using the modern day western toilet. Hotty potty helps align the rectum with the anal canal, resulting in a more natural elimination position. This position also helps to open colon while supporting the abdominal wall, allowing for natural pressure to assist in completely emptying the bowel. This makes a complete bowel emptying potty, Color: White
Product Description:-
It has anti- slip foot pads, which is safety used in bathroom
It is feel different at first, but the body quickly adjusts and the new healthy way of eliminating quickly becomes second nature
It is proven to improve colon health and will improve symptoms of hemorrhoids, constipation, and bloating
Owing it, you’ll experience a more complete elimination and your bathroom visits will be much, much shorter
EASY ELIMINATION & HEALTHY COLON:
Normal seating position will choked your colon and make the release more difficult. When using our Squatting toilet stool, the colon is released by changing the angle from 90 degrees to 35 degrees. It allows you an easier and more effective elimination, and relieve you from constipation, hemorrhoids, bladder, IBS & Bowel disease etc.
Our unique design includes anti-slip feet, which not only can prevent slips during use, but can also give you a foot massage. We also add anti-slip strips on the bottom of the squatting toilet stool, for a safer and more stable usage.
FOLDABLE FOR EASY STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION:
When you need it, just pull it out and install your feet simply on the bathroom step stool and keep a healthy position. When not in use, it can be FOLDED UP for portable use and space saving.
Product Description:-
Our folding squatting toilet stool allows you an easier and more effective elimination, and relieve you from constipation, hemorrhoids, bladder, IBS & Bowel disease etc.
Adopt a natural, squatted position for quick and easy relief, keeping the hygiene of a modern toilet and having the huge health benefits of a natural squat.
Foldable designed toilet stool can save more space and easier storage. Our toilet foot-rest works with any standard toilet
Our unique foot shaped anti-slip surface design to prevent slipping and also it has function for foot massage. Design of replaceable perfume box when you go to the toilet, you can also feel the fragrance in the air. Multipurpose use as a child step stool and great as a potty training aid
Size: 41Cm Length X 25Cm Width X 17.5Cm Height Approx., With Plastic material, both hardness and flexibility. Adapt to all people, the elderly and children, pregnant women.
The 2 step stools are so helpful for toddlers and kids — in the bathroom, home and kitchen — that owning 1 stool is not enough for most families.
In order to provide you greater value per dollar spent, we priced our 2 pack as a limited time introductory deal! .
two step stools uses our new upgraded slip resistant rubber feet to grip floors, can be used on different floorings such as tiles, woods, and laminates.
Dual height step stool for children are lightweight allowing kids to carry the stool on their own.
It is also stackable and built to last with a reinforced plastic that can hold up to 180 lbs.
HELPS YOUR CHILD LEARN AND GROW:
Keep your growing littles ones perfectly prepare for the future with this step stool!
Great for potty training, the dual height design helps any child reach sinks and countertops to brush their teeth and wash their hands.
Product Description:-
GIVE YOUR CHILD INDEPENDENCE: They may be small, but toddlers are ready to take on the world! Give them the boost they need with our children’s step stool. From reaching the potty seat and brushing their teeth to helping out in the kitchen, kids will love being more independent.
STYLISH, STURDY & VERSATILE : Young kids seem to grow faster than parents can keep up. But thanks to its dual height design, our step stool for toddlers accommodates different ages and heights! Made from lightweight plastic, and measuring 10.3" High x 12.7" Wide x 14" Deep, it’s easy to move yet can hold up to 150lbs.
GREAT FOR POTTY TRAINING: When used in conjunction with our matching toilet training seat, our step stool makes potty training a breeze! Made of the same materials and featuring a neutral gray and white color palette, this set fits seamlessly into any bathroom’s décor.
REFINED SAFETY IN EVERY DETAIL: We care about the safety of your tot just as much as you do! That’s why our kids’ step stool features a slip-resistant design that provides a secure surface on all floor types. It also has soft-grip steps, giving little feet the comfort and support they need.
DURABLE AND LIGHTWEIGHT: The two step stools are portable, stackable, and built to last with a reinforced plastic base that can hold up to 190 lbs. These versatile, multipurpose stools can be used everywhere in the house and will give your toddlers and children that extra boost they need for many years to come.
Conclusion
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Top best products
Author & Editor
Has laoreet percipitur ad. Vide interesset in mei, no his legimus verterem. Et nostrum imperdiet appellantur usu, mnesarchum referrentur id vim. | https://medium.com/@aryanarchana96012/best-baby-crappers-best-baby-potty-seats-under-1000-75a9913de376 | ['Top Productions'] | 2020-07-04 09:48:54.201000+00:00 | ['Best', 'Blog', 'Children', 'Baby Products', 'SEO'] |
Smart Assets. Graphic design. Thats whats on the menu… | Graphic design. Thats whats on the menu today.
Design. It’s everywhere, makes you want to buy things, see things, experience things. It the join table between you, and the company. In my first few days of being a collegiate design student, my teacher told me that the average consumer will see 2000 ads a day but will actually pay attention to around 20, and retain information from 5–10. Ads are everywhere, commercials, billboards, flyers, FB ads. Ads are EVERYWHERE. But what differentiates effective design, and designs that get overlooked. It can all be boiled down to effective use of the principles and elements of design.
People love effective design, even if they don’t quite know why. It’s the same for the applications that we’re creating. the implementation of simple design principles will make your site more engaging, make it easier to use, and make it a more enjoyable experience.
Now, I suggest that everyone reading this do a quick google search on the principles and elements. But theres not enough time for me to cover all of them. In todays blog we’re going to focus on the principles and element… that I feel can help you the most with your future projects.
Color
its a element of design. an Unbelievably important one at that. It’s the first thing people see when viewing logo, website, or any marketing material. If you saw a boxing gym with pink logo and letterhead, what would you think. honestly, probably a boxing gym for women. Obvious example, but the truth is that we subconsciously associate so much with color. Fast food companies usually use red, cause it actually makes people hungry. Colors mean something. Colors mean everything.
Also usually a good tip to only pick two colors and stick to them, black & white. too many colors gets distracting. Also if your unsure if the colors that you chose go together please do a google search. clashing colors, like red and blue, can drive a designer absolutely nuts.
PS. Use white, use black, but (for the most part) STAY CLEAR OF GREY. (unlesss your making a rainy day site)
Emphasis
is directly related to effectiveness. Emphasize the most important or most used parts of your websites by making them EASY TO FIND, and convenient. In websites its important that you organize your site in a way that the user can get to where they want to go in three clicks. Thats a stretch goal, currently, what you need to be paying attention to, is making sure user can easily access the most important/pertinent information . make it clear and functional. thanks. | https://medium.com/@dmsuccar/smart-assets-43ce10bbb845 | ['Daniel Succar'] | 2020-04-22 23:52:43.535000+00:00 | ['Graphic Design', 'Flatiron School', 'Homework', 'Blog'] |
When “Good” Schools Equal “White” Schools, Black Families Have a Real Problem | “Proximity to Whiteness is often both physically and symbolically violent to Black people.”
http://reuther.wayne.edu/ex/Brown/brown4.html
When I was deciding on where I should start my graduate studies, Palo Alto, California seemed to me like a good place to be. At the time, my children were 19 months old and newborn, and it would be years until I enrolled them and their younger brother in school. But my program would take at least seven years and thus it was important to me to understand the stock of “good” schools where we chose to live. On paper, to this new mother, Palo Alto schools looked perfect.
Until they didn’t.
Let’s back up. I grew up in a 95% Black neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia. My local elementary school comprised 99% Black children with 100% of the students low-income. According to a popular school rating site, the school scores at a 2/10, indicating poor metrics about “year-over-year academic improvement … how well it’s serving disadvantaged students … and performance on state tests.” One of my strongest memories of my elementary school experience is not of a poor academic experience, however. It is of a White child showing up at our school one day and me feeling sorry for him. I remember thinking that his family must be pretty down on their luck. I thought this not out of a sense of self-loathing for myself and my Black classmates, but because I understood the racial hierarchy and White privilege. I understood that in our society, he was supposed to get more than we had.
I was not surprised, then, when my mother told me explicitly that if I was to get a “good” middle school and high school education, I needed to be educated around middle-class White people, people who were living the privileged experience of Whiteness. And she wasn’t wrong, as long as we understand what “good” means.
“Good,” for many Black families, means a school that we believe will prepare our children academically to lead prosperous lives. Like all Americans, we want our children to live the proverbial American Dream, to do what they want with their lives without racial roadblocks. We want them to attend college and maybe even graduate school. We want them to be able to financially support themselves, and maybe even buy a home where they can raise their children. We want them to have the white picket fence and all of that. And we believe education to be the great equalizer, the thing that will make our children equal to other children, White children.
Yet academics present only a small slice of what children experience in school. To be sure, schools present lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But they also present intangible lessons in identity, democratic citizenship and national belonging. In Brown v. Board of Education, which decreed unconstitutional laws that enforced racial separation in schools, the Supreme Court suggested its agreement with the 3Rs view of schools, writing, “[I]t is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.” But it also wrote, “[Education] is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment.” In other words, “education” includes lessons on how one fits into society.
While Black children in integrated schools are no longer subject to the physical violence of the desegregation era, today predominately White schools present lessons of second-class citizenship to Black children. For example, at a tony private school I’ve written about previously, Black identity engenders misery. While the school boasts of its graduates attending colleges such as Brown, Columbia, and Yale, its racial climate abuses to Black children. The school subjects Black children to racial abuse on a daily basis, where teachers ask Black students to speak for their race; where guidance college counselors abandon Black athletes; where fellow classmates tell Black children that their success will be because of affirmative action; and where one White “friend” threatened a Black student with a lynching. Indeed, one Black alum wrote, “I have repressed so much from my experience there because a lot of it is too painful to revisit.” My old middle-high school now finds Black students experiencing much of the same pain, and the New York Times recently profiled this exact type of behavior at predominately White schools across the nation, where Black children are subject to a “hostile learning environment.”
Proximity to Whiteness is often both physically and symbolically violent to Black people. By symbolic violence, I mean the means by which powerful groups exert dominance over less powerful groups, and where those means are in part accepted by the powerless. While Whiteness in schools brings things that Black parents want, such material resources, cultural capital and social capital, in exchange Black children endure racialized aggressions. I learned this first-hand as I engaged with my children’s school in Palo Alto. I learned that violence when I had to fight for my 5-year-old Black son to not be labeled as having a disability that he did not have. I learned that violence when I had to fight to remove “angry black women” stereotypes of non-cooperation and aggression in my daughter’s first grade report card. I learned that violence when the high school math department specifically refused to teach a class to the appropriate California standard even if doing so made it more likely that Black kids would be credit-eligible for California public colleges when they graduated from high school.
While admittedly a harsh indictment, Black parents who voluntarily subject their children to these violent environments are partially responsible for its effects. Of course, many Black parents may feel that they have no choice. They see their options as constrained to academically under-performing schools that may be better for their child’s self-identity, and predominately White schools where their children experience better academic curriculum but must also bob and weave to avoid racial jabs and uppercuts. But Black parents must acknowledge that is is actually a choice and honestly interrogate whether their choices are actually so constrained. We often do have good choices, if only we’d seriously consider them.
For myself, I have vowed to never again subject my three Black children to environments where their Blackness makes them feel less than fully and unapologetically themselves. I suspect that many more Black parents if engaged in a true soul-search, can make that same vow. | https://lbaldwinclark.medium.com/when-good-schools-equal-white-schools-black-families-have-a-real-problem-86ed6852dc39 | ['Latoya Baldwin Clark', 'Jd'] | 2020-12-30 16:39:48.995000+00:00 | ['Whiteness', 'Black Children', 'Race', 'Education', 'Violence'] |
Life: A Guided Tour Or A Journey Without A Map? | Life: A Guided Tour Or A Journey Without A Map?
Photo by Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash
Life is scary. It’s twisted, sad, happy, confusing — a little bit of everything wrapped in this beautiful bundle of gift wrappers.
But look at nature — everything is perfectly timed and perfectly directed — the path traced by the stars in the sky, perfect orbits around the sun where planets move according to their different routes set up perfectly, the perfection of the life cycle of a tree — all of them follow a particular pattern religiously. None of them ever show a random occurrence.
But whenever they do, there is a breath-taking eclipse that lights up the whole sky.
Maybe that's why their beauty never ceases. Even when they do not follow the rules, it's only to show the world what they are missing.
Like the perfection of nature, I like my life to be like a perfect guided tour. I like to know what to expect and when to expect. I imagine my life to be a checkered list — where I write down things that I have to do and when to do. Then I check the ones that I have accomplished.
All my life, I have seen my parents follow a particular routine — where my mother runs the household with her set of rules, and my father makes us happy and satisfied with a limited budget. Everything has followed the same ordered routine without any changes whatsoever.
Maybe it's that habitual lifestyle that was drilled inside me from the start that has made it impossible for me to live with uncertainties.
I hate being uncertain.
Even on the days when I have literally nothing to do, deep down I know, it is so because I had made up such a schedule for myself months ago. I like everything being perfect—even life.
But that’s the about life, isn't it?
No matter how hard you try to control it, many things eventually control you. Irrespective of how you think you almost have it all, in the end, you realize that you have nothing.
Some events and moments are out of your control that leaves devastating effects, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Take death, for example. Or failure. How many times do we see it coming?
None.
This fear leaves me messed up each time. I was not trained to expect the unexpected. I never moulded myself that way, either.
During moments like these, life feels as though it has lost its purpose.
But again, you can’t be God, can you?
It’s only during such vulnerable moments I realize that living a life like a journey without a map alone makes life somewhat shareable.
It’s only during such moments I realize that life cannot be lived as a guided tour nor as a journey without a map.
Life had a little bit of both.
Life comes with destinations.
Not directions. | https://medium.com/@fareehabintarshad/life-a-guided-tour-or-a-journey-without-a-map-eeb866482c2a | ['Fareeha Arshad'] | 2020-12-15 12:50:41.856000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Direction', 'Life Lessons', 'Self', 'Maps'] |
What is Anarcho-Syndicalism? | Anarcho-syndicalism (syndicalism for short) is a strategy through which the working class can liberate itself from subordination and exploitation by dominating classes. Why is liberation necessary?
The class structure of society is a system of unfreedom in at least the following ways:
The relative monopoly of ownership of non-human means of production by the capitalists (and government) forces working class people to seek employment from employers (capitalist firms or government).
Workers are subordinated to hierarchical management regimes that control decisions about technologies, allocation of resources, hiring and firing, what products to make, design of jobs and work organization.
Working people are systematically denied self-management of the work and are denied self-management of other decisions in society that affect them.
Due to systematic de-skilling and concentration of decision-making and expertise under the control of fewer numbers of people, and limited opportunities for learning, working people are often denied the opportunity to fully develop their potential.
American capitalist institutions do not in fact create a “free society” but are in reality based on class oppression.
Libertarian (or anarcho-) syndicalists aim to create a society based on workers’ self-management of social production. By production I don’t just mean manufacturing. Cooking meals in a restaurant, repairing computer servers, or moving people around in city buses are all work in the system of social production.
Libertarian syndicalism also advocates ownership in common of the land and means of production. The idea is that places where people work would be “contracted” by the society to the people who work there to run it, and to produce things people want. Libertarian syndicalism is a form of libertarian socialism.
Libertarian socialism is socialist because the means of production would be owned in common by the society, but it is libertarian because (1) means of production are not owned or controlled by the state, and (2) workers have the collective power of management of the places where they work. Workers are not subject to state bureaucrats.
Syndicalism refers to the strategy and libertarian socialism refers to the aim or goal.
Libertarian syndicalism interprets liberty as self-management or control over one’s life, and believes that freedom for the working class requires the elimination of working class subordination to capitalist or state bosses.
Self-management of an industry would mean that the decisions that govern work in that industry would be controlled by the workers there. If there were a hierarchy governing an industry, as there is under capitalism, this would deny the human birth right to control the decisions that affect one’s life. Most decisions in work have a collective or social impact, from what technology to use, to when to start work, to how the work is to be coordinated. Self-management presupposes that there are face-to-face assemblies of workers that would have the ultimate power of control, through discussion and vote of the participants.
Most libertarian syndicalists also believe that self-management should be applied to all forms of decision-making in society, not just to social production. Thus residents of dwellings should be able to self-manage the decisions regarding the places where they live.
The English wordf syndicalism derives from the word for unionism in the Latin languages (syndicalisme in French, sindicalismo in Spanish). At the beginning of the 20th century, the labor movement in many Latin countries had been strongly influenced by the libertarian Left and had a strong emphasis upon mass direct action and a revolutionary conception of the aims of worker unionism. This is how the English word syndicalism came to refer to a revolutionary conception of the potential of the labor movement.
When Karl Marx wrote up a draft of the principles of the first International Workers Association in 1864 he borrowed from Flora Tristan y Moscoso — a Spanish-French printer, writer, and pioneer socialist-feminist — the slogan “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.” Libertarin syndicalists take this principle literally. Although the word syndicalism did not come into common use til the beginning of the 20th century, the libertarian syndicalist political tendency can trace its lineage back to the Left-libertarians in that first International Workers Association.
Libertarian syndicalists do not accept a strategy for achieving a post-capitalist economy through electoral or parliamentary politics or through the building up of a political party to gain control of a state, with the aim of implementing its program top-down through the state. Some syndicalists may believe that voting for pro-labor candidates is acceptable as a tactic, to gain concessions, but not as a strategy for transforming the society. In the early 1900s, for example, “Big Bill” Haywood — an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World before World War 1 — supported the efforts of the American Socialist Party to gain control of local governments.
The state itself is organized as a hierarchical structure, with work of public employees controlled by managers and top professionals, much as in the private corporations. The existence of the state as an apparatus apart from real control by the people is needed to enable the state to defend the interests of the dominating classes. This hierarchical, class nature of the state means it can’t be used to create a new social arrangement in which the working class are in control. Subordination of workers to such a hierarchical apparatus would imply continued subordination and exploitation of the working class.
Libertarian syndicalists propose a strategy for social transformation based on the development of large-scale worker solidarity and mass actions. Actions of this sort help to develop in working people a sense of power and class consciousness — a sense of “us versus them.” The massive national general strike in Russia in 1905 encouraged the development of this strategic vision for social change in the world labor movement in the period between 1906 and World War I. Syndicalists believe that a revolution in which the working class would gain control of society presupposes a process of development of class consciousness, capacity for self-organization and self-confidence within the working class.
Most anarcho-syndicalists advocate ownership of the means of production by the entire society, with a system of grassroots social planning, not a system of privately owned collectives competing in a market economy.
Unionism historically has “two souls”. In periods of struggle workers have at times developed forms of organization of workers themselves, based on things like general meetings of the people in workplaces and elected shop steward committees. At other times, after larger union organizations are formed and gain recognition and contracts with employers, unions have developed hierarchies of paid officials and staff whose conditions of life are not the same as people still working the job, and whose position depends on the continued safety and existence of the union as an institution. This can lead to conflicts between the rank and file of the union and the hierarchy, as the latter act to maintain their longstanding relationships with employers and avoid risks to the union institution.
Worker strength in dealing with the dominating classes grows through wider solidarity and spreading struggles whereas the more bureaucratic, routinized form of unionism tends to limit struggles to particular sectors or unions.
Libertarian syndicalism favors a strategy of broadening struggles, and direct control of struggles and mass organizations by the workers, without subordination to a hierarchical apparatus of paid officials. If the working class is to create a set of new social institutions through which the mass of the people control their own lives, and through which workers run the industries where they work, the process of self-management — collective control by the rank and file — must first emerge in the self-management of struggles in the existing society. The self-managed mass organizations prefigure self-management of social production by workers and the direct self-governance of society by the mass of the people.
In the early 1900s, syndicalism usually was based on organization at the point of production. Later on, extensions of the syndicalist idea have been proposed, such as the “student syndicalism” advocated in the USA in the early ’60s, or extension of the concept to self-organized mass organizations in struggles arising in working class communities outside the workplace, such as struggles of tenants.
Syndicalism in the USA emerged as a labor tendency in opposition to the “business union” ideology and practice of the American Federation of Labor. Labor radicals in the late 19th century USA had begun to talk about building class-wide solidarity of workers. This radical labor vision was opposed by the founders of the AFL. Seeing entrenched racism in the USA, and a flood of immigrants from Europe speaking many languages, the organizers of the AFL viewed the radical strategy of class-wide solidarity as “unrealistic.” The AFL focused on organizing groups of workers in particular occupations that had some element of special leverage, such as the skilled trades, or workers in transportation industries that are choke point in the economy. The idea was to use their superior leverage to obtain a better deal with employers. A layer of paid officials emerged, running AFL unions like a “business,” not a movement inspired by a vision of workers’ liberation. Although the AFL membership quadrupled in the economic boom after 1898, the anti-union “open shop” drive of the employers in 1903 brought this union growth to a halt, and exposed the limits of the AFL approach.
Worker unrest and strikes in the USA between the 1890s and World War I led a number of groups of workers to seek a different form of labor organization that could be more effective as a challenge to employers in the USA than the AFL. The idea was to seek power in numbers, based on the solidarity of all workers, irrespective of craft or race or nationality or gender. This led to the formation in 1905 of the Industrial Workers of the World (called Wobblies), an important expression of syndicalism in the USA in the early 20th century. The IWW developed a significant following among lumber workers in Louisiana and the Pacific Northwest, longshoremen in Philadelphia and maritime workers on the west coast, and farm workers and miners in the western part of the USA. World War I and the anti-radical hysteria after the war led to severe repression of the IWW, including fascist-style vigilante violence, mass arrests for speech against the war, and the passage of “criminal syndicalism” laws by many state legislatures. A failed attempt by the Communist Party to capture control of the IWW in 1924 further depleted the organization.
Syndicalism also took other forms in the USA in the period after 1900, including militant, grassroots unions like the first Auto Workers Union, formed by syndicalist-influenced socialists in 1918. There was also the Syndicalist League, formed as a political syndicalist group in 1912 with the aim of organizing activists for efforts at broader solidarity in the AFL unions.
Italy also saw various approaches by anarcho-syndicalists in the World War I era. Anarchists had formed rank-and-file direct action committees in the Italian labor movement by the early 1900s. In 1910 this movement formed the Unione Sindacale Italiana (Italian Syndicalist Union) on the basis of the IWW platform. At the same time, there were also some anarcho-syndicalist political groups. The Turin Libertarian Group worked with Marxian-syndicalists in the Turin branch of the Italian Socialist Party to develop a shop assembly and stewards’ council movement, independent of the union bureaucracy of the CGL (the Socialist Party-controlled union federation). With the Turin councils’ emphasis upon workers’ management of production and direct democracy of workplace assemblies, the council model was embraced by the USI also. During the mass occupation of the factories by over 600,000 workers in Italy in September, 1920, the anarcho-syndicalists tried to influence the workers movement to transform the occupation into a revolutionary re-organization of Italian society.
The high point of anarcho-syndicalism, thus far, was achieved in the workers’ revolution in Spain in 1936. With the defeat of a repressive right-wing government in elections in February 1936, workers in Spain felt they had an opening to push forward in the development of their movement and pressing for their aims. In the months after February, there were dozens of partial and city-wide general strikes in Spain, many of them initiated by the anarcho-syndicalist Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo (CNT). With about 1.7 million members, the CNT was the majority labor organization in Spain. There were also tens of thousands of farm workers, mostly organized by the Socialist Party’s UGT union federation, participating in mass takeovers of large agricultural operations, creating worker co-operatives to run them. The intense class polarization and politicization of Spain culminated in an attempted military takeover on July 18, 1936.
The military takeover attempt had been anticipated by the CNT, which had armed many of its members and set up a Workers Defense Committee to coordinate the fightback. In street fighting in Barcelona on July 19–20, the defense groups of the CNT defeated the Spanish army, with the aid of rank-and-file police and air force pilots. The CNT union federation then seized the arms and army bases of the Spanish army in the Barcelona area and built its own union militia. Each of the military divisions within the militia was self-managing, with assemblies and election of the commanding officer (chief delegate) of that division. The CNT set up a militia committee to run its army. The CNT metal workers union seized the Spanish motor vehicle manufacturing industry to convert it to the manufacture of armored vehicles for the union army.
With armed power in the hands of the CNT in Catalonia, the CNT unions began seizing the means of production, with the UGT unions coming along in many cases. Initially the union itself took over management of an industry. In the summer of 1936 more than 18,000 enterprises, 14 million acres of farm land, and thousands of urban buildings in Spain were expropriated by the unions. In Catalonia this included hairdressing shops, lumber mills, furniture manufacturing, the plate glass indstry, dairies, bakeries, the national telephone system, railroads, public transit, the motor freight and maritime shipping industries, theaters and film-making. A socialized health care system was created for the first time in Spain, self-managed by people working in health care.
The assets were seized in the name of the people of Spain. The CNT had never advocated that facilities be the collective private property of the workers working there. The CNT’s ultimate aim was to create, “from below,” a democratically planned, socially-owned economy.
In addition to industrial federations to manage the industries, the CNT also proposed the formation of general meetings of residents in villages and neighborhoods, forming “free municipalities.” These would provide the local governance system and provide for input for consumption goods and public services to regional and national planning. Regional and national worker congresses, bringing together delegates from the self-managing industries, would be another part of the planning system.
To counter the efforts of the Communists to rebuild the Republican state, and replace the labor militia with a conventional top-down army, the CNT in early September 1936 proposed replacing the existing Spanish state with a working class government — a system of regional and national Defense Councils and worker congresses, and a unified militia controlled jointly by the two big labor federations in Spain, the CNT and the UGT. After this proposal was rejected by the head of the UGT, who was then prime minister in the Popular Front government, differences emerged over direction inside the CNT and eventually the CNT opted to join the Popular Front government.
With the failure of the CNT to build a union-controlled political power, the armed forces fighting the fascists were re-organized by the Popular Front government into a conventional, hierarchal military. The Communist Party ultimately gained most of the officer positions in the new army. The increasing power of the Communists led to attacks on agricultural and industrial self-management, and demoralization of CNT members who made up a majority of the rank and file in the anti-fascist army. Writers such as George Orwell and Jose Peirats viewed this as a cause of the defeat of the anti-fascist side in the Spanish civil war.
For a more in-depth treatment of the Spanish revolution, see: Workers Power and the Spanish Revolution. | https://medium.com/thedialogues/what-is-anarcho-syndicalism-df374e71224c | ['Editor', 'The Dialogues'] | 2016-10-23 10:02:00.233000+00:00 | ['Articles', 'Politics'] |
Prophecy AMA recap together with Prophecy Team: Hermes (CEO) ,Ares (COO), Apollo (CMO) and Hephaestus (CTO) | The AMA Session had 3 Segments:
Introduction / Questions from The CryptoChainPh Team
Questions from Twitter
Live AMA
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Segment 1: Introduction / Questions from The CryptoChainPh Team
Ren:
TEAM PROPHECY Hermes (Prophecy CEO) | @Defiknight
Ares (Prophecy COO) | @DeFicarbon
Apollo (Prophecy CMO) | @DeFiUtopia
Hep (Prophecy CTO) | @BlessedCTO
Welcome Team Prophecy! Are you ready to answer a bunch of questions? Okay, Let's start! Please introduce yourself to the community and give us an introduction about Prophecy Project?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
Hi everyone, I'm Hermes, CEO of prophecy. Happy to be here!
My background consists of project development team-building with a strong focus in the Blockchain sector. I have been a core team member of multiple top 100 projects and have been working in the space on the project side since 2016.
I like to think of myself as a visionary that dreams big and isn't afraid to take chances when I believe in something. I'm very excited to share our project with you all today!
ARES | Prophecy COO:
Hello everyone, Ares here, I have 5 years of experience in the blockchain space and have worked with numerous projects. Decentralization has always be a huge focus for me and with Prophecy we have a slightly different approach when it comes to decentralized finance. We are community driven, future focused, built to win, build to grow.
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
Hello everyone - so awesome to be here with the incredible CryptoChain PH community! My name is APOLLO and I’m the Chief Marketing Officer for Prophecy.
I got involved in crypto many years ago because I wanted to help develop and shape projects to actually revolutionize and change the way crypto operates. I wanted to give more people chances at success than ever before. And that’s where Prophecy came in - a project that is really ‘Built to Win’ and ‘Community Driven, Future Focused’.
I love what I do, and you’ll usually see me busy typing away a million articles, maintaining community relations, managing our social media pages, and much more! I’m glued to my phone almost 24/7 with Prophecy!
Hephaestus | Prophecy CTO:
Im Heph. Ive been developing on ethereum for 3 years and have been very involved the DeFi Space.
Ive created the prophet pools, yeild farming staking etc.!
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
Prophecy is structured from the ground up to be ‘built to win’, meaning that everyone had the chance to be a winner when they engage with Prophecy.
We’ll have a whole suite of services you’re able to use - from our flagship Prophet Pools, to staking, gamified elements and more!
(We’re also a really chill community - drop in sometime and say hi!)
(Done!)
Ren:
Let's proceed to the next question. What are the products available for the community?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
I'll show an. Infographics of our flagship product ”prophet pools”
This is our main product it's basically a hybrid between flash staking and yield pools.
Ren:
How is this different from the other staking and yield pools offer by other DeFi Projects?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
Because its user driven. Meaning it executes immediately when it’s fills. Also when a participant enters a prophet pool they are buying PRY from uniswap on the backend. This will lead to constant token velocity in upward direction.
We also plan on making the pools customizable with parameters users can decide. They can Create a pool and then share a link in their personal social channels to get their friends to join. We call it GAMEFI! There’s a heavy social implication to this product.
Hephaestus | Prophecy CTO:
We have prophet pools which are community driven. All prophets are given back to PRY holders in terms of staking
We use the prophecy pools profits to buy back PRY on uniswap.(thereby increasing the price)
And PRY using staking can avail these profits.
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
This custom game/ lobby system adds a whole level of gamification and community to core crypto services that’s never been seen before.
Ren:
What are the usecases of $PRY Tokens?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
To be earned, staked, and accumulated and to appreciate in value. To become a true store of value over time
The main reason people are in decentralized finance is to make profit right? I mean let’s not tiptoe around the facts lol
Hephaestus | Prophecy CTO:
You get PRY by yield farming and staking.
The main use case IMO is a way to redistribute profits back to the community.
Ren:
My next question is, why did your team chooses to become anonymous?
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
I got the perfect answer! One second while I type this out
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
While he’s typing make sure you join our community we would love to have you!
https://t.me/prophecyproject
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
(All this is taken from our website, we display this quite prominently on the home/ front page so it’s not a hidden fact!)
The team behind Prophecy
The pinnacle and epitome of ‘decentralization’ is anonymity for the user and anonymity for the team.
As a cryptocurrency project delivering real and significant impact to the financial market, we wholeheartedly believe and follow the principle that this project should remain solely about the project and the incredible community behind that.
Our team comprises of extremely senior and experienced professionals within the crypto-sphere, with combined decades of experience between us. We have worked within Top 100 projects and continue to push to innovate cryptocurrencies and DeFi.
We don’t want to be the focus ourselves, we don’t want to be idolized or looked up to or treated any differently, we just want to be in the background helping push this project and community as far forwards as humanly possible.
Remaining anonymous is the epitome of decentralization, as it’s the project and you - the community - that truly matters.
Ren:
For my last question, what are your plans for 2021? Can you sharw us your roadmap?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
We plan on sparking a new craze in defi. When i say everything about this project is built to win, we really mean it. We have a detailed roadmap on our website prophecyproject.io
To answer the question simply we are going to put a heavy focus on user acquisition, the more people use our platform the bigger we will get so expansion as development is our top priority.
Here is an infographic of our token allocation:
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Segmemt 2: Questions from Twitter
Ren:
Question #1 from @shivani48570451 -
Any small coding error can permanently damage the entire assets of the LPs. This is the biggest risk of Yield Farming . How will you deal with this problem? Has your smart contract been audited by any blockchain system ?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
Simple answer everything is in the process of being audited and will be extra secure
Ren:
Question #2 from @bunny37571465 - I’m a developer, and I’m interested in contributing to your project alongsides earning, Do you have any Bug Bounty to check for vulnerabilities ?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
We’re a community project so we’re always open for people to come on board if they can show value and work ethic.
We don’t have a big bounty planned but it’s definitely something we can consider! Drop us a line in the community
Hephaestus | Prophecy CTO:
True. We first of all try to reuse as much auditable code as possible
On top of that we do an internal audIt and finally an external audit.
Ren:
Question #3 from @Mary47229678 - What incentives are given to people/users who acts as depositors? What do a user need to have to be able to borrow from PRY?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
This question doesn’t relate to us. We don’t do borrowing
It’s possible but not in the immediate future maybe in phase 3
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
Though not exactly applicable to this question since we don’t do borrowing, we have a lot of incentives for our other products
We have a lot of incentives in place with Prophecy!
Give https://link.medium.com/Ip8GgES14bb a read, and check out https://link.medium.com/UcQEHOV14bb as well.
Both outline some of our many incentives in place, such as majority winning every time with Prophet Pools, Second Chance pools, GREAT staking rewards ($PRY AND ETH rewards), as well as special gamified elements solely for our most active and engaged supporters!
We also disincentivize inactivity through a BARE-tax system that fairly taxes completely inactive tokens that remain inactive for a long duration of time. These taxes go towards locked liquidity, the majority of tokens are burned, and some are sent to our Redemption Centre!
We have a lot more in detail on our website, too! Check it out here: http://prophecyproject.io
Ren:
Question #4 from @RahulJayaraj9 - Prophecy is a community driven project. So what are your plans to attract more community into Prophecy?What changes can Community make on Prophecy?
ARES | Prophecy COO:
We have a huge marketing campaign for after our launch on uniswap, we have big communities in other asian countries we will be working with and lots of influencers that are going to be talk about our prophets pools. Community is everything to us, so we make sure to put in extra focus on building and growing our community.
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
Our motto is:
Community Driven - Future Focused.
And everything we do, everything we breathe as a project, we follow that!
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
We’re actually in the middle of our private sale please reach out in our community if you are interested
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
Yep if you’d like to join our Private Sale, head on over to https://t.me/prophecyproject ASAP - it’s the only chance to get a better bonus price on $PRY before we list on Uniswap!
Question #5 from @IPSAmitGoyal - The backbone behind Prophecy and our tokenomics is something called ‘Proof of Committed Decay’. So what is this Proof of Committed Decay?Can you share us with more details about it and how it is the backbone of Prophecy?
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
We even have a graphic for that! Or sec
Prophecy Project: what is ‘Proof of Committed Decay’?
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Segment 3: Live AMA
Community Q1:
How can I participate in the private sale? And when planning to launch on Uniswap?
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
To participate in our Private Sale and take advantage of a MASSIVE bonus 30% tokens per ETH, please join our Telegram (linked below) and ask an admin for help!
Let’s get this bread 🤑🤑🤑
https://t.me/prophecyproject
Community Q2:
I invest in a project last month and it went not well they scam so many investors and I felt like I don’t trust any investment project from now on and It looks like you are anonymous, so how can I trust your projects not to rug pull and scam? @Defiknight
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
There’s always risk with any investment. If you are worried, I would say not to invest in us. Don’t stress yourself out with worry. Maybe just watch is for a while and if the time comes you feel comfortable we will be waiting with open arms! But remember Fortune favors the brave.
Community Q3:
Will we able to stake PRY very soon?
ARES | Prophecy COO:
Yes, early contributors will get first dib but staking will be available on uniswap launch.
Community Q4:
What are your status regarding the audit of your smart contracts and security mechanisms to protect and assure the participants of the ecosystem?
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
We’re going to have ALL our products independently audited!
Once they’re audited, we’ll let everyone know so they’re able to see them for themselves and check them out!
Safety is, to us, as important as community so this project will be as watertight as a can of beer!
We want everyone to succeed with Prophecy and $PRY, so we’re putting heavy focus on all that sort of stuff
Community Q5:
In the future, users will be able to start their own pools with Prophet Yield Pools, how can a user create a pool and how do you ensure it is legit and funded?
HERMES | Prophecy CEO:
Because it will be written into our code and audited before we go live with any products. The user created pools are going to be massive! We feel it’s one of our biggest features!
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Ren:
Do you have anything to add before I wrap this up?
APOLLO - Prophecy CMO:
CryptoChain PH - WOW!!! There’s DOZENS of amazing questions and we could only pick 5, so if we didn’t answer your question, go to our Telegram NOW and ask them and we’ll be happy to answer!
Let’s make Prophecy a gigantic success 🤑🤑🤑
The best way to learn more about Prophecy and join us on this rocket ship of a journey to the moon (and beyond!) is to follow us at all our socials, links below!
Make sure you especially join our Telegram to be kept up-to-date on all our key news, including the launch of our Private Sale within the next 24-hours (be fast, though, we’re expecting to SMASH to our hardcap in record time - the demand has been mindblowing!)
Website | Telegram | Twitter | GitHub | Medium | Instagram | YouTube
End of AMA Session… | https://medium.com/@cryptochainph/prophecy-ama-recap-together-with-prophecy-team-hermes-ceo-ares-coo-apollo-cmo-and-8775d45194ac | ['Cryptochain Ph'] | 2020-12-17 09:45:08.879000+00:00 | ['Pitchup', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptochainph', 'Projects', 'Ama'] |
Ramudroid v1 — Robot design and Operation | Robot “Ramudroid” is an autonomous system to detect litter that can be picked by robot and help clean the roadsides. Powered by solar energy, it uses the WebRTC media stream to identify target litter and uses its unique 3 rotating brush design to lift up litter and garbage.
Follow | https://medium.com/ramudroid/ramudroid-v1-robot-design-and-operation-24bddec3b453 | [] | 2020-10-03 13:41:11.554000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Gps', 'Robotics', 'Arduino', 'Ramudroid'] |
Parker | My sophomore year of high school is something that I work very hard to forget. As it was happening, I did my best to not create any outstanding events that might help me remember what a miserable year it was. Every day was the same. This made it easy to conflate all 365 days into one blurb that I might place in a footnote of my life.
New city, new school. If I tried hard enough, I might be able to remember how scared I was walking to the cafeteria on my first day. Or maybe how it felt the moment I failed my first test and realized I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. But there is one event that stands out from that sophomore year. One that I will let slither through the barriers I’ve built.
The hardest class I took that year was AP World History. It loomed over me the second I stepped into the classroom. When I was signing up for classes in the summer, the counselor warned me that it was a difficult course, the most difficult of all the AP courses and it might benefit me to take the normal world history class so as not to overwhelm me. I had just come off being near the top of my class in my previous school and was actually insulted by the suggestion. I took it to spite her.
I got my ass kicked by that class. The reading was insurmountable, the tests were cumulative, and the teacher was a no nonsense baseball coach who nabbed Assistant Principal the following year.
I skated by all year long doing just enough to pass the class. This teacher was one of those that could spot the cream of the crop from the bumbling twats who were foolish enough to think they could manage the class. I was the latter. He knew I was struggling and would write notes in the margin of my tests that read, “Do the reading.” That was discouraging enough, but imagine if he knew that I was, in fact, doing the reading.
At the end of the year, much to my anguish, the students were to partner up and create a Power Point presentation on one of the final historical events we were studying and present it to the class. This created two problems for me. One: I had not said one word to another student all year long. I had several classes with almost all of them. Saw them every day, all day. I doubt they ever noticed me. Finding a partner was like asking me to fly a plane. I simply did not have the capability. Two: My biggest fear is public speaking. I have made it my life’s objective to fade into the background of every situation I am placed in. Inverting that and placing me at the center of everyone’s attention and eloquently expressing thoughts and opinions was like asking to fly a plane into outer space. Indisputably cruel.
By the grace of god, there was another student in that class who was also an outsider. Because no one else wanted to partner with us, it left her and I, which felt fitting.
Anytime I’ve had to do a group project since then, the same feeling always washes over me. It’s like I learn to be a teenager again or someone who can communicate with their peers. I only talk to adults…mostly my parents. So when I interact with other students and people my age, adrenaline pumps through my veins as I try to “act normal.” My partner ( I forget her name, but it started with a B, so we’ll call her Bee”) surprised me. Most of the other students came from money, were exceptionally smart, or were in a clique that they had no interest in expanding. I could tell she was like me. Forced to slip under the radar and just make it through, one day at a time. After my period of adjustment, it was nice to have someone who saw me.
For this reason, I found myself excited at the possibility that I might now have a partner in future classes Bee and I were in together. There would be this unspoken agreement that in a sea of unfamiliarity, maybe we would gravitate toward each other and make things a little easier for the other.
During one of the few class times when we were working on the project, Bee made a comment that I completely misunderstood. Bee said that she would finish the power point on her own because she was going to be gone and would not be able to help later on. Now, I can’t remember her exact words, but I tried to regurgitate them in such a way that would create enough ambiguity to convey my confusion.
I never saw Bee again after that day. I worked on the Power Point in the next class and wondered where she might be, thinking it awful odd to be missing days so close to the end of term. Near the end of class, the teacher came over to have a chat and said that Bee was not coming back to school and that I would have to give the presentation alone.
I emailed Bee that night to express my anger and frustration at her failure to prepare me for the gladiator arena but it probably ended up going something like this:
Me: Bee! I didn’t know that when you said you weren’t going to be here to help, you meant you were never going to be here again.
Bee: Sorry! I moved so that’s why I wanted to do as much of the power point as possible so that all you had to do was present. Okay bye!
The final day of class was my day to present. I was consumed by my anxiety and couldn’t even breathe when I got to school that day. Everything around me was spiraling into a black hole with me at the center. It had to be a sick joke. Why me? The more I thought about standing alone in front of 20 kids who probably thought less of me than their book bag, the more unfathomable it seemed. I convinced myself that it was more likely that Bee would burst through the door and save me from this nightmare than it was for me to give the presentation alone and live to tell the tale. Delusion was my savior from reality.
The teacher called up the partners two at a time and they presented effortlessly, the way a model probably takes a drivers license photo.
And then he called me.
Maybe I looked like I was on the verge of unconsciousness or maybe I looked so pathetic and perhaps this was the first time people were seeing me at all and that’s why it happened. Nervous, woeful, and alone. The teacher did his best to communicate that I did have a partner at one point and wasn’t isolated on a remote island, partnerless, apart from the class and the other students.
This was supposed to make me feel better, I think. But it only compounded my isolation; drew attention to it. I pulled up the Power Point, took a shaky breath, and started to take my place near the front of the room when a boy in the class stood up and made his way across from me on the other side of the projector screen. He said nothing to me. He looked at his classmates and motioned his arms around the screen like a magician would at his grand finale, somehow knowing that all I wanted was not to be alone, for people’s eyes to be drawn away from me. He stood there during my entire presentation, beginning to end, nodding his head and gesturing as if he were my partner all along. I made it through.
I don’t know if that boy, Parker, knew how much that small act of kindness did for me. But I will remember him for the rest of my life. | https://medium.com/@britny-rodriguez/parker-e2a058cee867 | ['Britny Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-20 16:12:16.903000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'High School', 'Coming Of Age', 'Short Story', 'Public Speaking'] |
Outcomes of/&, Your Time | Outcomes of/&, Your Time
Thinking about what we’re doing and not doing during a time of plague can be a daunting prospect, IMO Terry Trueman Follow Dec 19, 2020 · 2 min read
Image courtesy of Deborah Cole, Photographer
We want
Good things to happen
To and for good people
And bad things to happen
To and for bad people
In the books we read, the movies we watch etc.
I think this is mostly because in RL
(Real Life)
There is very little certainty that
Things will work out this way.
Sometimes good people get shit on
And bad people get great outcomes
And this “sometimes” happens
All the fuckin’ time.
Now,
If you wanna think
god and baby jesus
are sorting all of this out on some big
white board in the sky,
keeping score
with a master plan
that’s gonna be sure
to set it all right in the end,
knock yourself out, there’re worse things
to do with your time.
Or,
come to think of it,
I’m not sure about that.
But hey
It IS
Your time.
***************************************
Wikipedia & Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Trueman
Most all my books can be found on Amazon, of course, and in some other places as well like Latahbooks.com
This particular poem, titled Outcomes is from: | https://medium.com/the-haven/outcomes-of-your-time-f4c61337503 | ['Terry Trueman'] | 2020-12-20 03:04:40.004000+00:00 | ['Time', 'Religion', 'Humor', 'Poetry', 'Perspective'] |
A Halloween Murder Came Knocking | Doreen Erbert courtesy of Oxygen.com
Santa Clara California, nicknamed the mission city due to churches being scattered along the California coast of San Diego to Sonoma, in the 1700’s. It is the home of many high tech companies, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Nvidia and Intel. It is also the birthplace of Doreen Rae Hitchens, who was born on November 29th, 1952 to Franklin and Catherine Hitchens and was the fourth of five children The family was tight knit and loving, enjoying family activities such as fishing and camping. Doreen was described as an angel, who had a cheery attitude and generous spirit. Her husband Charles said of Doreen, “When she smiled and laughed, you couldn’t help not loving her. She was always giving.” These qualities lead her to pursue a career in the medical field and she went on to become a physical therapist. In 1975, she met William Michael Dennis, called Mike for short, a technician at the Lockhead factory, an aerospace manufacturing plant. Mike suffered significant hearing loss as a child which caused him to stutter, he also wore a hearing aid which back in those days, was wired and a component of it sat in your pocket. Due to these reasons, Mike was a depressive type, he was described by some as confrontational and unhappy. It seems that he and Doreen were on opposite sides of the personality spectrum, but despite this, they got married in 1975 after only a few months of dating. Mike felt he had found the one in Doreen. In 1976, the couple gave birth to a son they named Paul Dennis. Mike relished his role as a father, but the marriage didn’t hold up well with the added stress of parenthood and Mike was being treated for depression. When Doreen didn’t want to live with Mike’s moodiness any longer she filed for divorce in 1977. Doreen was given full custody of Paul and Mike regularly visited his son, but was bitter about the divorce.
In 1978, Doreen was still working as a physical therapist, on her way home from work one afternoon, her car broke down and she pulled off to the side of the road. Charles Ebert, a cheery looking man with curly, red hair stopped to help Doreen. The two conversed under the hood of Doreen’s car and they hit it off. Later that week, they had dinner together and Doreen was impressed with Charles’ stable life. He owned his own home and a successful carpet business and soon, the two were a couple. They went on to marry later that year and Doreen gave birth to a daughter, Deanna, in 1979. Soon after, Doreen quit her job as a physical therapist and became a secretary for Charles’ carpet business and by all outward appearances, they were a happy family. Mike continued to visit Paul on the weekends as he lived close by. It is said that Mike was still bitter about the divorce.
One sunny California day in February of 1980, Doreen was doing household chores while 3 year old Paul was playing in the backyard. Doreen would periodically check out the window to make sure that he was in sight and doing alright. One such time, she peered out the window and could not see him. Feeling panicked, she hurried outside and frantically searched for him. Those of us with kids are familiar with this overwhelming feeling of dread. Looking across the yard, she noticed a hole in the fence that led to the family swimming pool. As she approached the pool, she realized a nightmare that no parent wants to live, She saw her beloved, 3 year old son Paul, floating in the pool. Paul was transported to the hospital where he was placed on life support for a week. After three days of being removed from life support, he died. He was born on April 17th, 1976 and died just short of his 4th birthday, February 13th, 1980. As to be expected, this was such a tragic loss for Doreen. Mike, Paul’s father, was also devastated. He blamed Doreen and Charles for Paul’s death, making the wild accusation that they did it on purpose so that they could erase Mike from their lives. He filed a wrongful death suit against Doreen and Charles. The case went to trial in March of 1982 and the jury ruled in favor of the Erbert’s. After the trial was over, they asked Mike to never come to their house again. Doreen saw him once after this, at a shopping center.
In 1984, Doreen discovered that she was pregnant again, this was good news as she had suffered two miscarriages since the death of Paul. As the pregnancy progressed, they found out that she was going to have a boy. The Erbert family was ecstatic.
After the lawsuit against Doreen and Charles, Mike’s life took a downward spiral. He lost his position as a technician at Lockhead and had to take a lower paying job in order to remain employed there. The bitterness of the divorce from Doreen and the grief over the loss of Paul, continued eating at him. Because he lived near Doreen and Charles, he was able to keep tabs on what was happening in their lives and it soon became apparent that she was pregnant again.
Doreen was a petite woman, she stood about 5 feet tall. Once she became far along into the pregnancy, her sister teased her saying that she was as far out as she was high.
On Halloween night of 1984, Doreen was almost 9 months pregnant by that time so she stayed home and handed out candy while Charles took Deanna trick or treating. Charles saved a few houses for Doreen to take Deanna to for a visit and some Halloween candy. After the two got home, Charles went to the liquor store and claimed he was gone for about 15 minutes. He asked Doreen to lock the door after he left. Some time around 9pm, there was a sharp knock on the front door of the Erbert house. Deanna, who was 5 at the time, has since described it as aggressive. The two proceeded to answer the door together and Deanna heard the man say, I’m going to kill you. Doreen screamed at Deanna to hide before the man at the door in a wolf mask began stabbing Doreen with a machete. Once he was done, the man walked through the house in search of Deanna. As panicked and as frightened as she was, she stayed quiet and hidden, moving only to get her blanket for comfort. Eventually, the man got spooked by something and fled the house through the front door. Once outside, he threw the wolf mask into the yard, near the porch.
Charles arrived home after not being gone long and noticed the front door was unlocked . Once he stepped inside, he saw Doreen lying bleeding on the entry room floor. He saw the baby on the living room floor. Thinking at first she had miscarried, he saw a hand lying in the living room near the baby, it was Doreen’s. He tried to stop her bleeding by holding her arm tight, but noted she had severe cuts to her stomach and neck. At some point, Charles slipped and fell in Doreen’s blood, getting her blood all over his clothes. He attempted to call 911, but for some unknown reason, was unable to get through. He ended up calling the fire department and a neighbor. After this, Charles found Deanna hiding in the living room. He pulled her away to the kitchen so that she couldn’t see any more than she already had . He continued to try and stop Doreen’s bleeding until help arrived.
The police and paramedics responded to the fire department dispatch and arrived at the Erbert home around 9:15. Charles was bloody and his breath smelled of alcohol and the police were immediately suspicious that he was involved. Deanna was placed with the neighbor while the police and paramedics conducted their work. Charles was hysterical and the police handcuffed him and put him in a patrol car. Reserve San Jose Police Officer Glen Sutfin was one of the responding officers. He and some of the others searched the house just in case the perpetrator was still there. Paramedics noted that Doreen was still alive and she was placed in an ambulance to be transported to the hospital. Doreen was pronounced dead upon arrival to the hospital. Inside the home, the crime scene was extremely bloody. Officers noted a severed hand lying in a pool of blood near the body of the baby. The wolf mask worn by the perpetrator was found in the front yard near the porch. Charles was later questioned as to whether he recognized and he claimed that he did not.
During the course of the investigation that night, the police learned that Doreen had been married previously and that it was a contentious split. Sergeant James Morin and four other officers went to Mike Dennis’s house around 12:30am and rang his doorbell several times. It was obvious somebody was home as they heard water running and lights were on. The officers surmised that he may be cleaning up bloodied clothes or wounds. Finally, dispatch called Mike at his home and informed him that police were at his door and to answer it. Mike answered the door, he was wearing a robe and didn’t look as if he had been asleep. Sergeant Morin explained that his ex wife Doreen had been attacked and that they wanted to question him. Mike let the officers into his home. They went into the kitchen and the officers informed Mike that Doreen had been murdered to which he responded, you’re kidding. It was noted that Mike had an injury on his right hand wrapped in gauze that had obviously been bleeding profusely. The officers asked Mike for some identification and he told them that it was upstairs. Not wanting him to go alone in case he tried to escape or get a weapon, they followed him. They reached the master bedroom where it appeared that Mike was confused as to where his identification was. He kept glancing towards his headboard, which made the officers suspicious. Finally, one of the officers found his wallet and Mike removed his identification from it. Mike consented to a search of his home and officers located a loaded revolver behind his headboard. Sergeant Morin went into the garage where the washer and dryer was located and found blood drops. There were blood drops in the kitchen, a pair of bloodstained jeans on Mike’s bed, bloody gauze in the bathroom garbage and various blood drops in his truck. Mike’s mother lived in an apartment in the rear of his house and she was located in her bedroom, asleep. Mike was taken to the station and waived his rights to an attorney and agreed to a taped interview. He denied killing Doreen. Mike was asked about any costumes he may have worn for Halloween in previous years, he mentioned several, but did not mention the wolf mask. When asked about how he cut his hand, he stated that he had done so by throwing a knife into the air and catching it by the blade. During the ongoing investigation, police were able to obtain a photograph of Mike wearing a wolf mask that was identical to the one found in the Ebert’s yard.
A week later, an official search warrant was served and police found a label belonging to a Stanley eighteen inch machete along with a receipt for a purchase of a machete from a local hardware store. No machete was ever found at the house. A machete would be purchased at the hardware store that matched the label found at Mike’s home and used in the trial. In the garage, the police found what looked like two coffins and two anchors, it would come out later in the trial that Mike had originally planned on placing Charles and Doreen in these coffins and drowning them in the ocean, like his son Paul drowned.
William Michael Dennis went to trial in July of 1988, he was charged with first degree murder for Doreen and second degree murder for the killing of the unborn baby.
In Deputy District Attorney Paula Kuty’s opening statement she told jurors that the wolf mask found on the scene is identical to the one the defendant wore the previous year to a Halloween party. She also said, quote, you will recognize the mask and you will recognize him for what he is, a murderer. Unquote. She went on to tell the jury another detail, quote, He took it off, so she would see him. He wanted her to know who was doing this. unquote
Deanna Erbert was the first to testify for the prosecution. She was only 4 years old when her mother Doreen was murdered in front of her. She was 8 years of age when she testified. When asked what happened on that Halloween night, Deanna told her story in a quiet, clear voice. She and her mother, Doreen answered a knock at the door together. In front of them stood a man wearing a wolf mask who uttered the words, I’m going to kill you. Doreen told the man to get out of her house and Deanna said that quote her mommy told her to get behind the couch, so I did. Unquote
Several of Erbert’s neighbors testified to seeing a man in a wolf mask hanging around the Erbert home that Halloween. Questions had been raised about whether or not it was obvious that Doreen was pregnant and witnesses testified to the fact that it was. The direction the defense was going with this is that Mike didn’t know Doreen was pregnant so therefore he didn’t purposely murder her unborn baby.
The following is the medical examiners testimony regarding the injuries to Doreen and her unborn baby. This is graphic and may be disturbing to some. Dr John Hauser performed the autopsy on Doreen and baby Ebert on November 1st. Doreen died of severe chopping wounds that resulted in exsanguination, which is severe blood loss. The wounds would have been inflicted by a heavy, bladed weapon, much like a Stanly 18” machete. Doreen suffered many cuts to the back and sides of her head, with some cuts penetrating the skull. The wounds on the right side of her head were particularly brutal, some fractured the skull, one penetrated two inches into the brain. Her left hand was severed above the wrist, this hand was found near the baby’s body in the living room. Her back and shoulders received severe wounds that penetrated bone, her right breast had been cut three times and stabbed. Her legs and thighs sustained chopping wounds resulting in gaping cuts and a broken femur. Her abdomen had a nine inch gaping wound, she had also suffered many other cuts while her unborn baby was still inside of her. Her stomach and large bowel were cut open and her uterine wall and placenta also had cuts to it. The umbilical cord was cut near where it had been attached to the baby.
The baby was separated from Doreen’s body due to her abdominal wounds. Little four year old Deanna was a witness to some degree to all of this. Charles told police that Deanna told him that she heard the baby crying during this attack. It is true that the baby was old enough to live outside the womb, but there was a dispute as to whether the baby actually took a breath or not.
The baby suffered some severe wounds, he had a cut on his head that penetrated into the bone. His left shoulder blade was cut through, his right thigh area including the penis, scrotum and perineum were cut. His left leg was severed below the knee. The medical examiner also stated, quote, A large, five-inch wound cut through half of his body. This wound extended from his upper right abdomen through his left chest to his left armpit, cutting through the shoulder blade, the second thoracic vertebra, the liver, and one lung, and transecting the heart. This wound stopped his heart and circulation. Examination of his lungs demonstrated they had never been expanded, and there was no air in them. The fetus never breathed or lived independently of Doreen. The injuries to Doreen and her fetus prevented the fetus from ever breathing.
The defense called friends of Mike who testified that he was compassionate and a good natured person who was proud of his son. That the drowning of his son Paul affected his job performance and he became withdrawn afterwards. Psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Benson interviewed the defendant five times previous to trial. He recounted the fact that Mike was hearing impaired and wasn’t able to get any girlfriends. He then met and married Doreen and he claimed she had affairs and smoked pot. He also claimed that Paul didn’t ever want to return to Doreen’s home after the visitation with his dad was over. It was clear to Dr. Benson that Mike blamed Doreen for the death of Paul. He felt that she should have jumped in the pool after him instead of running to the neighbor’s house. He felt that Doreen wasn’t sad about the death of Paul and that she had done it on purpose to get Mike out of hers and Charles’s lives. Dr. Benson felt that Mike wanted retribution for Paul’s death and became fixated on killing Doreen. He said he was suffering from a mental illness and delusions. Mike admitted to Dr. Benson to killing Doreen but claims he did not know she was pregnant. He also confided in the doctor that he had planned on drowning Doreen and Charles by placing them in body bags, putting them in those boxes found in his garage and weighing them down with anchors. He would then take them out to sea in his boat and throw them overboard. Mike’s mother got on the stand and recounted details of Mike’s life, including awards he had received. She also stated that the two ate dinner together that night at around 6:15 and she retired to her separate apartment in the home at 8:15. A neighbor of the defendant, claimed that Mike gave her some misdelivered mail at around 6:30 and told her he was going to a Halloween party. The defendant didn’t testify in the guilt or penalty phase of his trial.
In August of 1988, the jury returned with a guilty verdict for first degree murder of Doreen and second degree murder of the unborn baby. Before the sentence was passed, Mike sobbed and said that “if his death could bring back his son Paul, then take me now.” He was sentenced to death by gas chamber in the San Quentin prison in San Quentin California.
Epilogue:
In 2019, California governer Gavin Newsome, signed an executive order to put an indefinite moratorium on executions, saying that the death penalty is a failure. The death chamber has been closed, no inmates have been executed in California since 2006.
Mike Dennis has been a model prisoner, so much so that he spends six hours a day outside of his cell on death row, he and other inmates can play basketball, watch sports on tv and run around the prison yard.
The defendant has filed several appeals and petitions over the years, the latest one being in 2017. Some of the points brought up are: whether or not he knew Doreen was pregnant, the definition of murder for a baby who never who an independent breath, Mike’s different mental illness diagnoses, ineffective counsel, there were several other points introduced by the defendal, all have been denied.
It is said that Mike has never shown remorse for killing Doreen and her unborn baby.
Officers that responded to the Erbert house that Halloween night, say it was straight out of a Stephen King movie. There was blood covering the foyer and a jack o lantern that was displayed in the house. The blood on the floor was thick and stuck to the shoes of the officers. Some paramedics and officers needed counseling and some even quit after what they witnessed in the Erbert house.
Mike still has friends that believe he just went insane for a brief period of time and should not be in prison. That his character was strong and he was pushed over the edge.In an interview in 2016 Mike stated to reporters that he is appealing his death sentence because he believes he should have been charged with manslaughter, not first-degree murder. He said he was blinded by grief over the drowning death of his 4-year-old son when he killed his ex-wife. “I lost a son, and I have to live every day with that knowledge,” Dennis said. “I want a new trial. If people knew what I’d been through, the verdict would have been different.” William Michael Dennis sits on death row at the San Quentin Prison. Since the death penalty has been put on hold indefinitely, it is unlikely that he will be executed as he is 70 years old now.
Doreens father, Frank Hitchens died in 2007, he stated in an interview that Doreen’s murder had ruined his life and that if he ever saw Mike Dennis outside of prison, he would kill him. Doreen’s mother, who by all accounts is still alive, echoed her husband’s sentiment.
Charles Erbert sued the city of San Jose for being arrested falsely in front of the neighbors, I was unable to find what became of this suit. | https://medium.com/crimeatorium/doreen-erbert-a-grieving-father-in-wolfs-clothing-f11d194f9229 | ["Madeline O'Brien"] | 2021-01-28 19:47:08.315000+00:00 | ['Murder', 'Halloween', 'Death Penalty'] |
I Will Survive . . . | Dedicated to Oscar Wilde And Gloria Gaynor
Image courtesy of Laura Chouette, Unsplash
Imprisoned
and sentenced to hard labor
for being a homosexual,
Wilde’s Portrait of Dorian Grey
captured,
as well as any work ever,
the costs of having to live
a secret life.
As our species moves
towards understanding
that being gay
is no more a choice
than being straight,
we must accept heroes
of other cultures
and remember
Wilde’s final words,
spoken from his deathbed:
“Either that wallpaper goes,
or I do.”
Image courtesy of Laura Chouette, Unsplash
You’ve got to admit,
that maybe this
could be a fighting anthem
for every brave
drag-queen to ever
strut onto a stage . . .
Image courtesy of Alejandro Cartagena, Unsplash
. . . lip-syncing
Gloria Gaynor’s
“I Will Survive.”
************************************************
Wikipedia & Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Trueman
Most all my books can be found on Amazon.com, of course and in some other places too, like LatahBooks.com.
Oscar Wilde and Gloria Gaynor is from this book: | https://medium.com/the-haven/i-will-survive-3abec5fff442 | ['Terry Trueman'] | 2020-12-23 23:30:10.556000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Courage', 'Gaylife', 'Poetry', 'Humor'] |
We Now Watch TV the Way We Used to Play Music | Flashback sequence to 20 years ago:
She was a model with long flowing hair and piercing eyes, so I agreed to whatever she suggested. We rented a movie and went to her place.
We picked a film that looked great to me and very date-worthy (a Pierce Brosnan non-James Bond movie called The Tailor of Panama). As soon as the credits rolled, she started a two-hour conversation:
We “watched” the entire two-hour film as she chatted away. But we both missed every detail of the story. I never figured out what the film was about, and never saw it again because technically, we did “see” it.
I don’t remember much about the conversation either. Months passed before we tried a second date. The TV and chat definitely drowned each other out. What didn’t work then is normal 20 years later.
Today, people talk all they want: TV’s turned into “background noise’’
We now watch TV the way we used to listen to records. We play one channel with its “music,’’ theme or white noise just there in the background to break up the silence. TV is now more like elevator music used to be.
Eighty-eight percent of Americans look at “second screens’’ like a phone or tablet while watching TV, new Nielsen research shows. Modern shows are getting more simplistic to accommodate the lack of attention.
Less of a story leaves more room for commercials, after all.
After more than five years of having news channels on while writing or doing online searches, I found my “two-screen habit’’ didn’t work when I changed channels to watch 50-year-old “Adam-12” reruns or old Westerns.
Sure, I could type and watch TV simultaneously, but I’d miss most of the story, unlike the hours of cable news chatter where the same stories and issues are repeated again and again with few new details.
Cable news is kind of like a hockey game: the two sides slide around each other, but we only really start to pay attention when a big fight or comparable emotional explosions erupt on screen.
We can either focus closely on listening or half-tune-out, turning the TV into a source of “ambient noise” and “background music.’’
Not so long ago, we were transfixed by watching television
Decades ago, bars would have one TV so customers could watch “the game’’ or “the fight.” Today restaurants and bars have dozens of TVs running all sorts of shows simultaneously with the sound turned way down.
Few pay much attention. It’s just there in the background.
In 1990-96, the HBO series “Dream On,’’ told the story of Martin Tupper, a writer/editor “weaned’’ during the golden age of television when Americans stared obsessively at TV sets.
The ongoing “gag” of “Dream On’’ was that the TV had all of Martin’s attention growing up, and he would constantly “tune out’’ of his, picturing flashback scenes from TV shows he’d seen decades earlier.
In the old days, people would turn off the lights (like you do when watching a movie at the theater), and the light of the black and white set would seem to hypnotize the viewers who stared in rapt attention.
My nephew in the 1990s couldn’t sleep unless the television was kept on all night. My generation may have been the first to get “portable TV sets’’ in our bedrooms (the sets were like babysitters there to comfort and entertain us).
When there were three main networks (and a handful of local UHF stations), the competition was fierce, with each channel competing with the other. The early days of cable seemed like we’d have even more quality choices.
Somehow we went from watching three to five channels when that’s all there was to mainly decide to watch one or two channels when we had hundreds of channels to choose from. Because searching too long is too stressful?
What happens to TV post-pandemic?
Recent research by London Business School professors concludes TV viewing fills psychological needs, relaxing people and helping them escape.
Nielsen argues TV viewing had been fairly constant over the past 25 years. But interest in online options (and lockdowns) actually helped our viewership grow about 15 percent.
TV ratings went up overall during the 2020 lockdowns (mainly from people watching more news). Still, after restrictions eased, TV ratings mostly went back to normal, with higher numbers for streaming services.
And it turns out a third of Americans tell researchers the nation is now in an existential crisis because of the anxiety-driving 24/7 news cycle. So Americans fled the news channels after the election, turning to more comforting programming like binging on TV Westerns.
So TV is now like old-fashioned record players and stereos
Our old TVs had simple knobs allowing us to flip quickly between two or three choices. Modern TVs are like our old record album collections: hundreds of choices, but we instead settle on pulling one channel (or collection of content) out to “binge-watch.’’
So we watched hours (or years) of news the way we played Beatle songs back-to-back. Then we decide to binge on something totally different until we’ve heard so much of it that it can just play in the background, freeing us up to maybe even talk to each other? | https://medium.com/narrative/we-now-watch-tv-the-way-we-used-to-play-music-6e46cd43e948 | ['Joseph Serwach'] | 2020-12-23 04:40:49.210000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Television', 'Art', 'Life Lessons', 'Music'] |
Demon Slayer is a Masterpeice | One thing that keeps me coming back to the Shonen genre of Anime and Manga (Demon Slayer) is the fact even if the titles with the most subtle names and storyline the manga and the anime does so many wonders. For e.g.: Naruto, a series about a kid trying to become the head of the village, My Hero Academia, a story about heroes in the making studying in a hero school. You get what we are trying to portray. Simple names and objectives with deep stories and characters.
Demon Slayer, one of the new age manga Written and Illustrated by Koyoharu Gotoge and made into anime by the company Ufotable. Demon Slayer is a show which started as another series of manga and anime in Japan. But has certainly grown bigger than any of its competitors. With topping the charts of Japan manga selling community. Demon slayer became the most sold Manga across japan defeating the unsolicited champion One Piece which has been the number one selling manga for more than 10 years.
Demon Slayer is a story about the protagonist Kamado Tanjirou, who comes back from work and finds his whole family slaughtered by demons, the only survivor is his younger sister Nezuko which turns into a demon herself. Hence Tanjirou becomes a demon slayer to find a cure for his sister.
Most Protagonists in Shonen, are pure-hearted with a sense of naivety. But Tanjirou stands different from all, having a pure heart and lacking that naivety. Other than being a regular Shonen protagonist who runs behind his goals, Tanjiou became a demon slayer not to take revenge from demons, not defeat the demons but to make the world a better place so that the same tragedy that fell on him should never fell on anyone else.
At first, watching the anime felt like it uses the same process to progress through the story. Crow tells Tanjirou where to go, a demon appears, demons get slain. For the first few fights feels like it’s the same and will be the same throughout the series. But as the story progresses, we realize that every demon has a different power and cannot be slain through sheer power but with a different strategy.
There is this sense of satisfaction in watching the characters figuring out a way to defeat the demons in a different way every time. Resulting in no fight being fought in the same way. When the demons get slain, there is always shown a sense of liberation among them, with portraying their backstories at the time they are dying. Which makes you feel sad about them and we see the reason why they became this way. Whether the world never treated them right or the fact that they were all alone since childhood. They are slain in such a way you will that they were like this due to the things that happened to them and at the same time, you feel their sins of killing humans and eating them are not justified. Which in result makes you happy seeing those demons getting liberated from their life of misery.
Coming to music, unlike anime music in today’s world with guitars and rock themes. Demon Slayer has soft mellow emotional music with vocals and flute. The Characters the=at are made beside Tanjirou do not gets dependent on the main protagonist to save them. They are independent with powers matching that of the protagonist.
Enough of the constructive analyses. The real reason that pushed me to write this article is the ending of Episode 19. There always comes a time when the anime becomes much larger than just an animated feature. Like the time when Demon Slayer became no. 1 twitter trending in America for a week and streamers like Ninja with millions of followers tweeting about it.
If I see a scene like this, I usually think of the elements that make the scene so emotionally heavy. But in this scene, it feels like its everything, it’s the execution done by Ufotable. Whether it is the beautiful fight choreography or the color contrast that fills the screen like fire. Whether it is the beautiful voice acting or the incredible visuals and animation and even the music was hard-hitting and heavy with emotions.
Every frame of the 4-minute scene is filled with emotions. When I first saw it my body didn’t know the proper way to react to it. Some of you might felt goosebumps. Some of you have felt a chill down your spine and some of you may also have cried like me. This Scene is a symphony of sound, music, voice acting, action, and emotion. These things put together made the scene so beautiful to comprehend, to perfectly constructed. There is no other way I can describe it other than saying it felt like I was watching a Masterpiece. God, I love Anime. | https://medium.com/@pd-purudhawan-pd/demon-slayer-is-a-masterpeice-5c5e1731022b | ['Puru Dhawan'] | 2020-12-21 09:43:57.116000+00:00 | ['Masterpiece', 'Demon Slayer', 'Anime'] |
Winter Solstice | Photo by Author
Rain falls in tireless ribbons
drifting down from a silver sky
like wet tinsel on a sodden tree.
The cold hides inside my clothing
clings to my skin in thin, icy layers
draws its fingers at last into my bones.
And yet I cannot stop looking
cannot help but raise my face to the mist
for a last kiss before going indoors.
There I will throw more wood on the fire
and huddle close enough to combust.
The cold does not easily let go; it beckons me
to walk farther from home
down to the shoreline where grey gulls
roll the wind from wingtip to wingtip
cycling back and forth, circling, crying.
It wants me to gaze up at the hawk
standing motionless in the sky
seeing all.
I know these things, have seen the empty
shells of crabs the gulls pick clean
the hapless feathers of small birds caught out
in death’s lightning: there, then gone.
Today I study the rose hips full to bursting
with bitter seeds, the cargo of spring.
I lick drops of rain from their red bellies
and tap sly fingers against thorns
as if to remind the sleeping flowers: soon
the sun will be reborn.
For now I heft another armload of wood
to build up the fire against the dark. | https://kbimle.medium.com/winter-solstice-3d415e434d2a | ['Kara B. Imle'] | 2020-12-20 06:38:18.351000+00:00 | ['Winter', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry', 'Winter Solstice', 'Solitude'] |
3 quotes for Dec 25 | We are constantly consuming our thoughts. Cows, goats, and buffalo chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate and rechew it multiple times. We may not be cows or buffalo, but we ruminate just the same on our thoughts — unfortunately, primarily negative thoughts. We eat them, and then we bring them up to chew again and again, like a cow chewing its cud.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Yeah, that’s me. The past year, I’ve become a bit more aware of this and tried to work on it. It is interesting and frustrating. But I think I’ve made tiny forward progress with this.
This is not just about overthinking, which I do. This is about constant buzzing in the head, repetitive thoughts that just never seem to go away. What a waste of time!
I had the opportunity to connect with a couple of my students who are extremely knowledgeable in these affairs and they were able to point me in a couple of directions.
I stumble along. I’ve caught myself making progress. It is slow. It is work. But it feels good. Most times. | https://medium.com/@arvindashok/3-quotes-for-dec-25-b70baf84bbd7 | ['Arvind Ashok'] | 2020-12-25 13:29:54.028000+00:00 | ['Discussion', 'Quotes', 'Questions'] |
How I automatically deployed Typescript to Elastic Beanstalk to speed up server-side development | How I automatically deployed Typescript to Elastic Beanstalk to speed up server-side development
Speed up your development process by auto-deploying Typescript code to EB!
A demo of Booktogether, an online publishing platform that I created the back-end for.
For my most recent team project Booktogether — an online publishing platform in Korean for book curations and reviews — I was responsible for server-side development using Typescript and Express, as well as deployment using AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
As I soon found out, manual deployment to EB was a tedious process. I was constantly compiling Typescript code to Javascript, compressing all the files into a .zip file, and uploading the compressed file to AWS.
That’s when I thought to myself, “is there any way I can speed up deployment, so I can just focus on writing working code?” After doing some digging online, I found this walkthrough by Aaron White that helped me set up AWS CodePipeline to send my code straight from Github to EB.
Side Note: A Common Error
Although I won’t go through configuration details of CodePipeline too deeply in this article, I would like to specify a problem that I encountered while setting up this auto-deployment system. When I originally pushed the server-side code (along with a build spec file) from Github to AWS, the EB console responded with the following error:
[Instance: i-12345] Command failed on instance. Return code: 1 Output: (TRUNCATED)…/opt/elasticbeanstalk/containerfiles/ebnode.py”, line 180, in npm_install raise e subprocess.CalledProcessError (TRUNCATED)
As I later realized, this error happened because of the npm install command that EB runs when code is deployed to the EC2 instance. Specifically, the installation of some packages trigger the node-gyp process, which is run by the default EC2 user.
The default user does not have permission to access some of the packages in the node_modules directory that npm install creates, which is why one needs to create a file called .npmrc in the project root and add the following:
# Forces node-gyp process to be run as root user, not ec2 default
unsafe-perm=true
Auto-deploying Typescript code to EB
Now back to the heart of the matter. When code is deployed to a Node.js environment in Elastic Beanstalk, node app is automatically called in order to initialize the server. However, because Node.js is a Javascript runtime environment, the Typescript code that I had written for my server would not run by default. I needed to compile my Typescript code first.
In order to accomplish this without having to manually upload my code as a .zip file, I had two options. The first was to simply compile Typescript code on my local machine using a command like npm run build , and then upload both Javascript and Typescript to my Github repository. This option, however, had two main drawbacks:
An extra step (executing npm run build ) would be added to the deployment process I would have to manage changes in both .js and .ts files in Github
Given these issues, I resorted to another option — specifically, the use of the .ebextensions directory. Files in this directory are used for advanced custom configuration of an Elastic Beanstalk environment. .ebextensions files are written in YAML or JSON format, with a .config file extension.
The config file I used in this case configured EB in such a way that the instance would compile all Typescript code to Javascript right after running npm install . Referencing the following article on Typescript compilation using .ebextensions, I created a file called source_compile.config in the .ebextensions directory and included the following script:
# source_compile.config
container_commands:
compile:
command: "./node_modules/.bin/tsc -p tsconfig.json"
env:
PATH: /opt/elasticbeanstalk/node-install/node-v10.15.3-linuxT-x64/bin/
The command tsc -p tsconfig.json tells EB to compile the Typescript project to Javascript given the configuration file tsconfig.json . If there is no outdir key specified in tsconfig.json , the compiled .js files will be located in the same locations as the corresponding .ts files.
Additionally, I needed to ensure the version of node specified in the PATH key was compatible with the node version used by my EB environment. If needed, one should change the node version (currently written as v10.15.3) and OS name used in the PATH key of the source_compile.config script above.
Having gone through all these steps, I once again merged changes into my main Github branch — and voilà! The server was up and running. | https://medium.com/quick-code/how-i-automatically-deployed-typescript-to-elastic-beanstalk-to-speed-up-server-development-22b89870e159 | ['Andrew Chung'] | 2019-12-21 16:17:11.979000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'Deployment', 'Elastic Beanstalk', 'Nodejs', 'Servers'] |
你的 onscroll 不是你的 onscroll | 接著我去追查了這個酷酷的名詞（Window-reflecting body element event handler set），發現在講 body 的頁面提到：
The body element exposes as event handler content attributes a number of the event handlers of the Window object. It also mirrors their event handler IDL attributes.
The event handlers of the Window object named by the Window-reflecting body element event handler set, exposed on the body element, replace the generic event handlers with the same names normally supported by HTML elements. | https://medium.com/@mingjunlu/window-onscroll-vs-document-body-onscroll-9c331bb8d298 | [] | 2020-12-27 06:12:56.149000+00:00 | ['Onevent', 'Frontend', '前端', '中文', 'Event Handlers'] |
My RCE PoC walkthrough for (CVE-2021–21974) VMware ESXi OpenSLP heap-overflow vulnerability | Introduction
During a recent engagement, I discovered a machine that is running VMware ESXi 6.7.0. Upon inspecting any known vulnerabilities associated with this version of the software, I identified it may be vulnerable to ESXi OpenSLP heap-overflow (CVE-2021–21974). Through googling, I found a blog post by Lucas Leong (@_wmliang_) of Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, who is the security researcher that found this bug. Lucas wrote a brief overview on how to exploit the vulnerability but share no reference to a PoC. Since I couldn’t find any existing PoC on the internet, I thought it would be neat to develop an exploit based on Lucas’ approach. Before proceeding, I highly encourage fellow readers to review Lucas’ blog to get an overview of the bug and exploitation strategy from the founder’s perspective.
Setup
To setup a test environment, I need a vulnerable copy of VMware ESXi for testing and debugging. VMware offers trial version of ESXi for download. Setup is straight forward by deploying the image through VMware Fusion or similar tool. Once installation is completed, I used the web interface to enable SSH. To debug the ‘slpd’ binary on the server, I used gdbserver that comes with the image. To talk to the gdbserver, I used SSH local port forwarding:
ssh -L 1337:localhost:1337 root@<esxi-ip-address> 22
On the ESXi server, I attached gdbserver to ‘slpd’ as follow:
/etc/init.d/slpd restart ; sleep 1 ; gdbserver — attach localhost:1337 `ps | grep slpd | awk ‘{print $1}’`
Lastly, on my local gdb client, I connected to the gdbserver with the following command:
target remote localhost:1337
Service Location Protocol
The Service Location Protocol is a service discovery protocol that allows connecting devices to identify services that are available within the local area network by querying a directory server. This is similar to a person walking into a shopping center and looking at the directory listing to see what stores is in the mall. To keep this brief, a device can query about a service and its location by making a ‘service request’ and specifying the type of service it wants to look up with an URL.
For example, to look up the VMInfrastructure service from the directory server, the device will make a request with ‘service:VMwareInfrastructure’ as the URL. The server will respond back with something like ‘service:VMwareInfrastructure://localhost.localdomain’.
A device can also collect additional attributes and meta-data about a service by making an ‘attribute request’ supplying the same URL. Devices that want to be added to the directory can submit a ‘service registration’. This request will include information such as the IP of the device that is making the announcement, the type of service, and any meta-data that it wants to share. There are more functions the SLP can do, but the last message type I am interested in is the ‘directory agent advertisement’ because this is where the vulnerability is at. The ‘directory agent advertisement’ is a broadcast message sent by the server to let devices on the network know who to reach out if they wanted to query about a service and its location. To learn more about SLP, please see this and that.
SLP Packet Structure
While the layout of the SLP structure will be slightly different between different SLP message types, they generally follow a header + body format.
A ‘service request’ packet looks like this:
An ‘attribute request’ packet looks like this:
A ‘service registration’ packet looks like this:
Lastly, a ‘directory agent advertisement’ packet looks like this:
The Bug
As noted in Lucas’ blog, the bug is in the ‘SLPParseSrvURL’ function, which gets called when a ‘directory agent advertisement’ message is being process.
On line 18, the length of the URL is added with the number 0x1d to form the final size to ‘calloc’ from memory. On line 22, the ‘strstr’ function is called to seek the position of the substring “:/” within the URL. On line 28, the content of the URL before the substring “:/” will be copied into the newly ‘calloced’ memory from line 18.
Another thing to note is that the ‘strstr’ function will return 0 if the substring “:/” does not exists or if the function hits a null character.
I speculated VMware test case only tried ‘scopes’ with a length size below 256. If we look at the following ‘directory agent advertisement’ layout snippet, we see sample 1’s length of ‘scopes’ includes a null byte. This null byte accidentally acted as the string terminator for ‘URL’ since it sits right after it. If the length of ‘scopes’ is above 256, the hex representation of the length will not have a null byte (as in sample 2), and therefore the ‘strstr’ function will read passed the ‘URL’ and continue seeking the substring “:/” in ‘scopes’.
Therefore, the ‘memcpy’ call will lead to a heap overflow because the source contains content from‘URL’ + part of ‘scopes’ while the destination only have spaces to fit ‘URL’.
SLP Objects
Here I will go over the relevant SLP components as they serve as the building blocks for exploitation.
_SLPDSocket
All client that connects to the ‘slpd’ daemon will create a ‘slpd-socket’ object on the heap. This object contains information on the current state of the connection, such as whether it is in a reading state or writing state. Other important information stored in this object includes the client’s IP address, the socket file descriptor in-use for the connection, pointers to ‘recv-buffer’ and ‘send-buffer’ for this specific connection, and pointers to ‘slpd-socket’ object created from prior and future established connections. The size of this object is fixed at 0xd0, and cannot be changed.
_SLPDSocket structure from OpenSLP source code
memory layout for a _SLPDSocket object
_SLPBuffer
All SLP message types received from the server will create at least two SLPBuffer objects. One is called ‘recv-buffer’, which stores the data received by the server from the client. Since I can control the size of the data I send from the client, I can control the size of the ‘recv-buffer’. The other SLPBuffer object is called ‘send-buffer’. This buffer stores the data that will be send from the server to client. The ‘send-buffer’ have a fixed size of 0x598 and I cannot control its size. Furthermore, the SLPBuffer have meta-data properties that points to the starting, current, and ending position of said data.
_SLPBuffer from OpenSLP source code
memory layout for a _SLPBuffer object
SLP Socket State
The SLP Socket State defines the status for a particular connection. The state value is set in the _SLPSocket object. A connection will either be calling ‘recv’ or ‘send’ depending on the state of the socket.
Socket states constants defined in OpenSLP source code
It is important to understand the properties of _SLPSocket, _SLPBuffer and Socket States because the exploitation process requires modifying those values.
Objectives, Expectations and Limitations
This section goes over objectives required to land a successful exploitation.
Objective 1
Achieve remote code execution by leveraging the heap overflow to overwrite the ‘__free_hook’ to point to shellcode or ROP chain.
Expectation 1
If I can overwrite the ‘position’ pointers in a _SLPBuffer ‘recv-buffer’ object, I can force incoming data to the server to be written to arbitrary memory location.
Objective 2
In order to know the address of ‘__free_hook’, I have to leak an address referencing the libc library.
Expectation 2
If I can overwrite the ‘position’ pointers in a _SLPBuffer ‘send-buffer’ object, I can force outgoing data from the server to read from arbitrary memory location.
Now that I defined goals and objectives, I have to identify any limitations with the heap overflow vector and memory allocation in general.
Limitations
‘URL’ data stored in the “Directory Agent Advertisement’s URL” object cannot contain null bytes (due to the ‘strstr’ function). This limitation prevents me from directly overwriting meta-data within an adjacent ‘_SLPDSocket’ or ‘_SLPBuffer’ object because I would have to supply an invalid size value for the objects’ heap header before reaching those properties. The ‘slpd’ binary allocates ‘_SLPDSocket’ and ‘_SLPBuffer’ objects with ‘calloc’. The ‘calloc’ call will zero out the allocated memory slot. This limitation removes all past data of a memory slot which could contain interesting pointers or stack addresses. This looks like a show stopper because if I was to overwrite a ‘position’ pointer in a _SLPBuffer, I would need to know a valid address value. Since I don’t know such value, the next best thing I can do is partially overwrite a ‘position’ pointer to at least get me in a valid address range that could be meaningful. With ‘calloc’ zeroing everything out, I lose that opportunity.
Fortunately, not all is lost. As shared in Lucas’ blog post, I can still get around the limitations.
Limitations Bypass
Use the heap overflow to partially overwrite the adjacent free memory chunk’s size to extend it. By extending the free chunk, I can have it position to overlap with its neighbor ‘_SLPDSocket’ or ‘_SLPBuffer’ object. When I allocate memory that occupies the extended free space, I can overwrite the object’s properties. The ‘calloc’ call will retain past data of a memory slot if it was previously marked as ‘IS_MAPPED’ when it was still freed. The key thing is the ‘calloc’ call must request a chunk size that is an exact size as the freed slot with ‘IS_MAPPED’ flag enabled to preserve its old data. If a ‘IS_MAPPED’ freed chunk is splitted up by a ‘calloc’ request, the ‘calloc’ will service a chunk without the ‘IS_MAPPED’ flag and zero out the slot’s content.
There is still one more catch. Even if I can mark arbitrary position to store or read data for the _SLPBuffer, the ‘slpd’ binary will not comply unless associated socket state is set to the proper status. Therefore, the heap overflow will also have to overwrite the associated _SLPDSocket object’s meta-data in order to get arbitrary read and write primitive to work.
Heap Grooming
This sections goes over the heap grooming strategy to achieve the following:
The Building Blocks
Before I go over the heap grooming design, I want to say a few words about the purpose of the SLP messages mentioned earlier in fitting into the exploitation process.
service request — primarily use for creating a consecutive heap layout and holes.
directory agent advertisement — use to trigger the heap overflow vector to overwrite into the next neighbor memory block.
service registration — store user controlled data into the memory database which will be retrieved through the ‘attribute request’ message. This message is solely to set up ‘attribute request’ and is not used for the purpose of heap grooming.
attribute request — pull user controlled data from the memory database. Its purpose is to create a ‘marker’ that can be used to identify current position during the information leak stage. Also, the dynamic memory use to store the user controlled data can be a good stack pivot spot with complete user controllable content.
Overwrite _SLPBuffer ‘send-buffer’ object (Arbitrary Read Primitive) | https://medium.com/@straightblast/my-poc-walkthrough-for-cve-2021-21974-a266bcad14b9 | ['Johnny Yu', 'Straight_Blast'] | 2021-05-25 03:47:00.102000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Vulnerability', 'Exploit Development', 'Information Security', 'Cve'] |
Roadmap to Becoming a Successful Data Scientist | 1) Python Basics
In order to become a data scientist, you need to understand the basics of Python first. Because Python is the favored language for data science.
By going through this course of edX “Introduction to Python for Data Science” you will have some basic understanding of python.
2) Statistics & Probability
Stats is a key part of Data Science. If I am not wrong Data Science is all about statistics. This course of KhanAcademy will help you to understand the basic concepts of statistics and probability.
3) Data Analysis
Data preprocessing and visualization of data is one of the main components of data science. This course will teach you how computing and mathematics come together. The data analysis involves the collection of data preprocessing and interactive visualization of data. If you want to master this key component, click here.
4) Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics
Now its time to learn some Machine learning stuff. After taking this course
“Machine Learning For Data Science & Analytics” you will be able to understand algorithms and how to create ML models.
5) Deep Learning
This is a complete book of Deep Learning in which you will have got clear and very precise knowledge about deep learning.
6) Intro to Relational Databases (SQL, DB-API & More..)
If you have learned python completely, this course will help you a lot to understand this course, because it is all about SQL queries and how you will use the relational database from your code using python example. You will learn the basics of SQL along with Python API for connecting python code to the database.
7) Intro to Hadoop and MapReduce
For the handling of Big Data, Apache Hadoop develops open-source software for the manipulation of Big Data. This course will make you understand the basics of Hadoop and the principles behind it.
8) Data Storytelling
To be a data scientist is not enough, you have to learn the way of representing data and its insights to the management, executives and other stakeholders. So, it is necessary to learn the data storytelling skill so that you wouldn’t get confused at the time of data representation. Click here.
*Important*
Learning is not enough if you don’t practice what you have learned. So I urged you to do at least 2 to 3 Kaggle projects to polish your data science skills.
This roadmap is enough for you to start your career as a data scientist. You don’t need to go anywhere or enrolled $1000 of courses to become a data scientist. You can do it on your own. You just need to start once with passion! | https://medium.com/dataseries/roadmap-to-becoming-a-successful-data-scientist-7daf4d2b0e11 | ['Mustufa Ansari'] | 2020-08-28 09:10:51.156000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
Does the EU do enough to prevent racism towards the Roma? LSE discusses | LSE IDEAS has hosted a panel discussion on the EU and the Roma, exploring criticisms of the European Union and its alleged failures to tackle discrimination towards Romani people.
Hosted by LSE IDEAS (The London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank), the discussion was chaired by Jennifer Jackson-Preece, an Associate Professor in Nationalism at the London School of Economics, and featured the speakers Romeo Franz MEP, the first Sinto elected from Germany to the European Parliament, and Angéla Kóczé, Assistant Professor, Chair of Romani Studies, and Academic Director of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.
This discussion was the inaugural event for the Racism and International Politics webinar Series, launched by LSE IDEAS amidst global calls for change in response to the longstanding racial inequality, exposed by COVID-19 and the killing of George Floyd earlier this year.
Discussing the relationship between the Romani communities in Europe, and their treatment within society, Jennifer Jackson-Preece, London School of Economics and chair of the discussion, said:
“The Roma, or Romani people, are Europe’s largest ethnic minority, with an estimated population of between 10 and 12 million, of whom approximately six million are citizens or residents of the EU. Many are still victims of prejudice and social exclusion despite the discrimination ban across EU member states.”
Romeo Franz, Member of the European Parliament, said:
“The discrimination, social exclusion and segregation that the Romani people face is mutually reinforcing. They are confronted with limited access to quality education and difficulties in integrating into the labour market… Romani people face greater exposure to unemployment and employment precariousness, decreasing opportunities for poverty reduction and social inclusion through the labour market.
“We have to be honest with ourselves, without a greater commitment from EU governments, little will change for our (Romani) people. I’m glad that we currently have a large majority in the European parliament that is in favour of European equality law for Romani people and a rule of law mechanism that ensures respect for fundamental rights as a precondition for the member states to gain access to EU funding. Only with legislative action, will we enable Romani people to exercise their rights as equal citizens.”
Angéla Kóczé, Central European University, said:
“One thing is very clear, there is a huge gap, what I would call ‘a racial gap’, between the Roma and non-Roma in Europe. Europe’s Fundamental Right Agency, in 2016, revealed that some 80% of Romani people, in the nine EU member states with the largest Romani populations, live below their country’s poverty threshold… meanwhile we’re talking about things like ‘human rights’ and ‘a bottom-up approach’.
“There has long been an assertion that the Roma have been instrumental in creating their own poverty. These are the kind of narratives that have been coming up again and again, and then we’re citing the statistics, but we’re not going beyond those numbers. We’re not looking at how these kind of disadvantages have accumulated through history.”
You can view the panel discussion here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/podcasts/eu-romani-people
To learn more about the Racism and International Politics series, visit the LSE IDEAS website: https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/projects/racism-and-international-politics-series | https://medium.com/@olivia-n/does-the-eu-do-enough-to-prevent-racism-towards-the-roma-lse-discusses-97fb0563b799 | ['Olivia Nieberg'] | 2020-12-07 11:36:07.181000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'International Relations', 'European Union', 'Politics', 'Eu'] |
Time | Time is making me sick. It feels like it is pulling me into a parallel univers. And I cannot let go of the thought, that whatever we do to capture the greatest moments of our lives, they will never really last. The pictures we take die. They do not disappear, but their meaning does, their true potential. The certain feelings we felt in that exact moment are dead from the moment we move on, from the moment time forces us to move on. When something bad happens to you, it feels like things will never get better. It feels like the world is ending, as if time is not a thing anymore. But suddenly a year has passed, friends have become enemies, boyfriends exes and that shirt you really used to love suddenly disgust you. “Why did I ever wear that?” “How could I ever love him?” Questions you keep asking yourself. And why? Because of time. Because the truth hurts you so bad. Because, when you think back at those moments you shared with those people, it makes you so sad that time forced you to move on. The pain is stuck in your body as a virus, and it is eating you up. You really try to forget. Forget time, and those people that have hurt you doing it. But you can never escape time.
Liva 25.12.2020 | https://medium.com/@musling/time-248ee438a511 | ['Liva Markvard Hansen'] | 2020-12-25 21:18:28.121000+00:00 | ['Feelings', 'Time', 'Love'] |
How to Be a Successful Background Performer in the Film Industry | How to Be a Successful Background Performer in the Film Industry
Or, as the crew calls us, a prop that eats.
When a shoulder and wrist injury, followed by two failed surgeries, forced to me give up my thirty-seven-year long career as a physiotherapist, I began writing full time.
But, as many of you are probably aware, writing is a somewhat less than lucrative career. Especially at the beginning. I had to put in my time honing my craft and sending my work out to small publications for little or no pay. I remained hopeful that eventually higher paying ones would accept it, and one day, I’d land an agent and a book deal.
Until that happened, though, I needed to find a way make some money. As a self-employed professional, I had no pension to fall back on. I desperately wanted to bring at least a little money into the family coffers.
I live in Greater Vancouver, affectionately known as Hollywood North. Every day there are countless productions being filmed here, most of which require a significant number of background performers.
Photo by Martin Jernberg on Unsplash
A writing compatriot of mine had mentioned that she worked as a background performer and how it was the perfect gig for a writer. Typically, there are hours and hours of down time. She told me this provides the perfect opportunity to work on her manuscripts, and better yet, she gets paid by the production company to do so.
Seemed like a win-win situation to me, so I signed up. I now work for a casting agency and for a background performer agency.
In the past year and a half, between the two of them, I’ve worked on over thirty different productions, including: The Art of Racing in the Rain, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Supergirl, Batwoman, Nancy Drew, Snowpiercer, The Good Doctor, Travellers, The Twilight Zone, The 100, and A Million Little Things.
I’ve worked with James Marsden, Kristin Chenoweth, Amanda Seyfried, Milo Ventimiglia (the dad from This is Us,) John Larroquette, Keegan-Michael Key, John Corbett, John Sena, Aidan Gillen, Jennifer Connelly, Wayne Brady, Sarah Wayne Callies ( from The Walking Dead,) to name but a few.
I’ve been a dog walker, patient, doctor, Tai chi practitioner, teacher, professor, wedding guest, funeral guest, concerned citizen, senator, refugee from an alien invasion, victim of a hostile take over, FBI agent, woman from the 1950’s, a presidential campaign donor, gambler from the 1980’s, millionaire, and a person at a Christmas carnival. That was by far the most challenging. The day we filmed it was 99 degrees, and I was wearing wearing a down parka, hat, gloves, and scarf. Yikes.
I’ve run from aliens, zombie, and terrorists, and danced at weddings, cried at funerals, watched pretend car races, played with dogs, and chanted at a trial.
Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash
And I’ve had fun doing it all.
Days can be long, though, 16 and a half hours on one show this week. Occasionally, I’m on set for pretty much that entire time time with only a few short breaks. Other times, I sit in background for hours, waiting to be called to set. And during that time, I write.
I had one job where I worked, and I use that term rather loosely, fourteen hours, for three days straight. But I only made it to set for 15 minutes on the last day. The rest of the time I waited to see if they would need me. And during that time I wrote a short story, edited seven chapters of my novel, read two books, napped, ate, (and the food is usually fantastic,) and chatted with my fellow background performers.
Not a bad deal.
The pay isn’t great, but when you work overtime it adds up. Those three days of reading, writing and editing, eating, and napping netted me over $600 Canadian. Considering I wouldn’t normally be paid to do any of those things, I’d say that was a pretty sweet deal.
Might be something to check out if you’re looking for a way to supplement your writing income.
If you’re considering signing up, here are a few things you should know:
Ten Rules for background performers— aka, props that eat.
Keep you calendar updated daily. You can block off any days that you don’t want to work, but if your calendar is green, you better be prepared to work. Nothing pisses casting directors off more than if they try to book you and you say no. That’s a perfect way to be sure you won’t be called again. Always respond immediately to your agent’s texts, or as soon as humanly possible. If they can’t get hold of you to confirm, they will move on to the next person. Always bring three complete changes of clothing. You will get an email with suggestions, colours to avoid, styles of clothing, era, ie: 1980s, 1990’s etc, but wardrobe will expect you to show up with three complete outfits, clean and tidy, for them to choose from. Do not talk to the cast. Unless, of course, they speak to you first. Sure, you can fan-girl all you want, but for goodness sakes, do so discretely. I’m quite certain I made John Corbett more than a little uncomfortable when I stared at him, mouth agape, thinking, “OMG, he’s SO TALL and SO GORGEOUS!” Listen to your wranglers, assistant directors, and directors. Do what they say. Exactly what they say. Not following directions can slow the production and lead to very testy assistant directors and wranglers. Never a good thing, trust me. Be quiet. You may be on set for hours at a time, and it can be boring. But if you insist on talking, do so very quietly. 150 BG all talking at once can be overwhelming, and again, make for very testy AD’s and wranglers. You will be asked to mime conversations and emotional reactions. But remember…that means no sound! Get used to faking it, no need to use real words. I know someone who repeats, silently, of course, watermelon, hamburger, tornado, over and over. Bring something to do while you wait. One poor man showed up to a production, his first, with nothing. No books, no games, and a phone that died hours before our fourteen-hour-day was over. That’s a lot of time to contemplate life. Bring a handheld fan. Winter or summer. You may be in a studio, and studios can be notoriously hot. Bring Hot Shots. These are little packages that heat up via an exothermic reaction when you shake them. Buy a case and always bring a handful with you to set. If you don’t know what they are, google them. A BG performer’s best friend in the winter. They’re life savers on cold, wet, and windy days.
Next week I might be doing something a little different. My picture has been put forward for a life cast of my head and shoulders, followed by make up and prosthetic tests. I don’t actually know what it’s for, they haven’t told me that yet, but it sounds fascinating. and I can’t help but think it’s great research for a future story.
Although, after watching a video on the hour-long process, where your face is covered, first with silicone, and then plaster, leaving only two small holes to breathe through, one for each nostril, I might need to reconsider my willingness to try this. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/how-to-be-a-successful-background-performer-in-the-film-industry-20b34e0f65b7 | ['Leslie Wibberley'] | 2019-10-21 00:46:29.645000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Acting', 'Jobs', 'Film', 'Writing'] |
Wow! Backtest RSI Crossover Strategy in Elasticsearch | Sometimes, you may have some crazy ideas and want to test your trading strategy. By using historical market data for backtesting, you can assess risk, profit, and measure performance to gain confidence to use the trading strategy in the future. Of course, you have no problem if you are a skilled programmer. However, you need to write a complex and heavy-loaded program to handle data analysis after the data is retrieved. Due to the powerful capabilities of Elasticsearch in search, data analysis, and machine learning, it is worth writing a series of articles about Elasticsearch backtesting different trading strategies for your reference.
In my previous article, RSI BB or RSI & BB? Easy, let’s test it with Elasticsearch, we have introduced how to use Elasticsearch to implement Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator. This article will continue to make a simple tool to backtest the RSI trading Strategy in Elasticsearch. Since most of the work is done in the Elasticsearch cluster, the client will not have a heavy workload. Elasticsearch will provide buy or sell signals and then integrated them with a simple Python program to further analyze the signals and generate a report. Readers are advised to take a quick look at my previous article to understand RSI and the implementation details of using Elasticsearch.
RSI is a momentum indicator that provides information about price changes to support opportunities for buying and selling assets. The price changes are converted into two types of data, the recent total gains, and the recent total losses, usually with a period of 14. The RSI equation can be written as follows, where SMAgain,n,1 and SMAloss,n,1 are the total recent moving average of gains and the total recent moving average of losses. Corresponding to Elasticsearch SMA function with window n, it needs to shift 1 data to the right to include the current data.
The RSI crossover strategy defines the crossover of RSI at a specified value to indicate overbought (>= 70) and oversold (<= 30) signals. For other RSI values, be patient and wait for the buy or sell signal. It is much easier to use graphs to observe changes in values. In this article, we try to apply backtesting to commission-free exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and focus on Elasticsearch as an analysis tool. The following example randomly selects “Fidelity International Multifactor ETF”. Its ticker symbol is FDEV. 10 more ETFs randomly selected will be run, and the final results will be shown later. The data is selected from the time range between 2021–01–15 and 2021–05–31 provided by IEX, Investors Exchange. In the chart below, the RSI is plotted together with the daily closing price. In the daily price curve, the RSI values over 70 are marked in red, and the RSI values less than 30 are marked in blue.
Here, we present a simple RSI crossover strategy and use Elasticsearch to show the implementation details.
◆ Assuming that it is restricted to buy and hold 1 share at a time, no transaction will occur until the held share is sold.
◆ Buy 1 share when RSI value <= 30.
◆ Sell 1 share when RSI value >= 70.
◆ At the end of the testing period, a hold share is cashed with the current price.
There are 4 blue dots and 10 red dots, but only two buy and two sell transactions are allowed based on the strategy. Let’s describe the implementation using Elasticsearch. Suppose there is an Elasticsearch index populated with data, and its data mapping used is the same as described in the previous paper. The following steps demonstrate the code of the REST API request body.
Collect all relevant documents through the search operation
Use a “bool” query with a “must” clause to collect documents with the symbol FDEV and the date between 2021–01–15 and 2021–05–31. Due to the computation of 14-trading days moving average, additional data is adjusted for 1 month (from 2020–12–15 to 2021–01–14).
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{"range": {"date": {"gte": "2020-12-15", "lte": "2021-05-31"}}},
{"term": {"symbol": "FDEV"}}
]
}
},
Extract the close value of the fund
Use a “date_histogram” aggregation, named Backtest_RSI, with the parameter “field” as “date” and the parameter “interval” as “1d” to extract the prices of the fund each day. Then followed by an “average” aggregation, named Daily, to retrieve the closing price since the subsequent pipeline aggregation cannot directly use the document fields.
"aggs": {
"Backtest_RSI": {
"date_histogram": {
"field": "date",
"interval": "1d",
"format": "yyyy-MM-dd"
},
"aggs": {
"Daily": {
"avg": {"field": "close"}
},
Extract the date of the bucket
Because of the additional data, subsequent operations need to filter out the out-of-range portion later. A “min” aggregation named “DateStr” is to get the date of the bucket. In the Elasticsearch server, the date field is stored in Epoch time. The time unit is milliseconds, and the time zone is UTC.
"DateStr": {
"min": {"field": "date"}
},
Select the buckets with more than 1 document
To filter out the empty buckets (non-trading days), a “bucket_selector” aggregation, named SDaily, is used to select buckets with its document count greater than 0.
"SDaily": {
"bucket_selector": {
"buckets_path": {"count":"_count"},
"script": "params.count > 0"
}
},
Calculate Daily difference
Use a “derivative” aggregation, named Price_Diff, and use the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the daily closing value to calculate the difference from the previous value.
"Price_Diff": {
"derivative": {
"buckets_path": "Daily"
}
},
Determine the daily value is a gain or a loss relative to the previous data
Use two “bucket_script” aggregations, named Gain and Loss, and use the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the result of Diff aggregation to determine value. Both values are positive.
"Gain": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"Price_Diff": "Price_Diff"},
"script": "(params.Price_Diff > 0) ? params.Price_Diff : 0"
}
},
"Loss": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"Price_Diff": "Price_Diff"},
"script": "(params.Price_Diff < 0) ? -params.Price_Diff : 0"
}
},
Calculate the daily simple moving average of the total Gain and the total Loss
Use two “moving_fn” aggregations, named GainSMA and LossSMA, with the parameter window as 14 and the parameter “buckets_path” as Gain and Loss respectively. The parameter “shift” is set to 1 to include data for the current day and the past 13 trading days. SMA is calculated by using the unweighted average function (MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg).
"GainSMA": {
"moving_fn": {
"script": "MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg(values)", "window": 14, "buckets_path": "Gain", "shift":1
}
},
"LossSMA": {
"moving_fn": {
"script": "MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg(values)", "window": 14, "buckets_path": "Loss", "shift":1
}
},
Calculate RSI
Use a “bucket_script” aggregation, named RSI, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the results from GainSMA and LossSMA. Then the RSI indicator is calculated according to the equation in the script.
"RSI": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"GainSMA": "GainSMA", "LossSMA": "LossSMA"},
"script": "100 - 100/(1+params.GainSMA/params.LossSMA)"
}
},
Identify the type of the RSI value
Use a “bucket_script” aggregation named, RSI_Type, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the RSI value to determine the type. Set the type to 2 if RSI value >= 70. Set the type to 1 if RSI value <= 30. Set the type to 0 for other RSI values.
"RSI_Type": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"RSI": "RSI"}, "script": "params.RSI >= 70 ? 2 : params.RSI <= 30 ? 1 : 0"
}
},
Filter out the additional documents for output
Use a “bucket_selector” aggregation, named Buy_Sell_Signal, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify “DateStr” and “RSI_Type” to select the correct buckets. The selection criteria are those buckets having the date on or after 2021–01–15 (the epoch time 1612137600000 in milliseconds) and RSI_Type = 1 (RSI >= 70) or RSI_Type = 2 (RSI <= 30).
"Buy_Sell_Signal": {
"bucket_selector": {
"buckets_path": {"DateStr": "DateStr", "RSI_Type": "RSI_Type"},
"script": "params.DateStr >= 1610697600000L && (params.RSI_Type == 1 || params.RSI_Type == 2)"
}
} | https://medium.com/geekculture/wow-backtest-rsi-crossover-strategy-in-elasticsearch-1cdf837a72a1 | ['Wai Tak Wong'] | 2021-07-21 07:38:01.942000+00:00 | ['Dataanalys', 'Python Programming', 'Data Science', 'Finance', 'Elasticsearch'] |
Coach Profiles: Introducing Justin Gupta | At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you.
Justin is a management consultant and educator with deep experience in social entrepreneurship. He has advised or grown social enterprises in such sectors as financial inclusion, health care, affordable housing, and more. He has also served as a mentor and coach to a diverse set of aspiring entrepreneurs, including students at the high school and college levels. Justin is passionate about language and culture; he has lived, worked, or studied in 5 countries and is fluent in Spanish. He is originally from Massachusetts and now resides in Brooklyn, NY.
1) Why did you become a coach with The Spike Lab?
I became a coach for The Spike Lab to help young people use entrepreneurial approaches to make a positive impact on the world. I’ve worked extensively in the social sector, in areas that are critical for the wellbeing of society, such as education, health care, and agriculture. I’ve seen firsthand how an individual can begin with an innovative idea and, by pursuing their passion, grow that idea into a project that truly improves the lives of others. As both a consultant to social sector leaders and a social entrepreneur myself, I know how entrepreneurs need guidance, advice, and coaching to help see the work through. As a Spike Lab coach, I am excited to help bring world-class entrepreneurial coaching, typically reserved for senior business leaders, to passionate students looking to make a difference.
2) What is your proudest professional achievement?
Early in my career, I spent 3 years in Washington D.C. as a management consultant to national organizations. Towards the end of those 3 years, I decided to return to international development, the sector where I began my career via a research position in India. I came to focus on Latin America, specifically Mexico, due to its strong conditions for social entrepreneurs to have success. However, I had no connections in Mexico and spoke only basic Spanish. Despite that, I was able to secure a position in Mexico City as a corporate strategy lead with a high-growth health care startup. In this role, I established the system by which the company measured its overall business health, and helped to launch and grow new lines of service. Over the course of just 6 months, I reached full professional fluency in Spanish and successfully built a life in the city, including a long-term apartment and a network of friends. Being able to create so much out of nothing has given me the pride and confidence that powers me in my entrepreneurial work to this day.
3) If you could give one piece of advice to your high school self, what would it be?
Worry less. High school was a stressful time for me because I was scared that if I didn’t do everything perfectly, my future would be jeopardized. In reality, the anxiety that I applied to my schoolwork and college resume-building were counterproductive. For example, worrying about my AP Biology final exam grade — after I had taken the final — only served to distract me from the work I had coming up afterwards. I thought that I had to participate in the Junior Statesmen of America, but it probably didn’t help my college applications (it was one extracurricular of mine among many) and just gave me less time to spend with friends. Worrying less would’ve allowed me to enjoy my time in high school, which I now realize is truly a once in a lifetime experience.
4) How did you choose Georgetown for undergrad?
I was first able to narrow my list via a few filters. I knew I wanted to go to school on the East Coast, in order to stay relatively close to my family in Massachusetts. With a few exceptions, I prioritized universities in urban areas, as I was ready to move on from the type of small town I had grown up in. With these filters in mind, I applied. After admission letters came through, my list was down to Georgetown and Amherst. Visiting Amherst left me with the sense that it was a small school with a tight-knit community that would leave me wanting for greater diversity. My Georgetown visit showed me that it had the mix of an authentic college campus and proximity to a large city that I craved. Finally, Georgetown’s strong international affairs program, which was my planned major, sealed the deal. | https://medium.com/the-spike-lab-english/coach-profiles-introducing-justin-gupta-974211960368 | ['Xueying Chen'] | 2020-12-21 09:55:43.122000+00:00 | ['Mentorship', 'Social Entrepreneurship', 'Business Advice', 'Startup'] |
8 Miraculous Ways to Bolster Your React Apps | 1. Love Your Identities
The first way to bolster your React apps is to love your identities.
It’s important to remember that you can wrap variables and functions with React.useMemo as you can grant them the ability to memoize themselves so that React knows they remain identical for future renders.
Otherwise, if you don’t memoize them, their references will disappear from future renders. This might hurt their feelings, so you can show them that you love them and would like to keep them by memoizing them.
If you love them, they’ll love you back by making sure they take care of you and your app by helping to avoid wasteful operations for the situations they’re in.
For example, let’s pretend that we are making a custom Hook that takes in a list of urls as arguments so that it can accumulate them into an array of promises to be resolved with Promise.all .
The results will be inserted to the state and passed to the App component as soon as it's finished. Our promises list will map over the urls array which contains four different URLs to fetch:
Our task was to fetch data from these four links, so, ideally, only four requests should be sent out.
But, if we take a look at the network tab inside Chrome, the truth is that it sent out eight requests.
This is because the urls argument does not retain the same identity as previously because, when App re-renders, it's instantiating a new array every time, so React treats it as a changed value.
Computer programs sometimes think they can outsmart us and get away with this lousy behavior.
To fix this, we can use React.useMemo so that the array of promises doesn't recompute itself on every render as long as the array containing the URLs does not change.
Let’s refactor our code to apply this concept:
If we run this now, it will still send eight requests. That’s because, although we memoized the urls array, we also need to memoize the promises variables inside our Hook because it also instantiates itself whenever the Hook runs:
Our code should now only send four requests when we run it. | https://medium.com/better-programming/8-miraculous-ways-to-bolster-your-react-apps-80a5040143a3 | [] | 2019-08-27 02:58:09.820000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Nodejs', 'React'] |
Decentralized category intro: NEAR and IPFS | I know this comes out quite late as we’re close to the end of the competition already, but it’s better late than never, right? There’s still some time left if you’d like to try adding the decentralized ingredient to your compo entry.
This should give you a good intro as to how you can start with both NEAR and IPFS if you haven’t researched it already, as I know this was a bit of a struggle for those who are unfamiliar with the tech. After reading the contents below you should be able to explore the topic further on your own.
NEAR
The NEAR Protocol offers a JavaScript API. You can link to the file itself from your entry’s index.html file to use it (yes, in the Decentralized category external resources are allowed) - could be either any of the CDN instances:
Or our hosted version, up to you:
After getting the file loaded, the nearApi object in the window scope will be available for us already. The first thing to do with the NEAR API is to connect to the blockchain:
In this example we’re connecting to a testnet (a network where doing stuff is free). After establishing a successful connection, we can proceed with getting a user’s wallet containing their info:
const walletConnection = new nearApi.WalletConnection(near, ‘triska’)
if(walletConnection.isSignedIn()) {
let account = walletConnection.account();
}
If a user is already signed in, we will get their details in the account object: a username, balance, etc.
From now on you can proceed with your own logic: for example create smart contracts that will enable you to save highscores or user generated levels on the blockchain. You can implement global highscores, NFT prizes, or even an old school arcades using coins. Here are the resources you can follow:
- Near 101
- How to use NEAR in a game
- How to build a Play To Earn game on Near
- Examples and Docs
- NEAR Lands game
- BerryClub game
This should give you a good overview of what’s possible.
IPFS
While NEAR have a single JavaScript API, Protocol Labs offers a whole lot of tools and technologies for you to use. The most known are:
- IPFS - peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol
- Filecoin - decentralized storage network
- libp2p - modular networking stack
- Drand - distributed randomness beacon
- IPLD - decentralized data structure
- Web3 Storage and NFT Storage
And much more. As long as you use any of their tech, like host a game on IPFS, implement FIL coins, communicate using libp2p or add randomness with Drand you will be eligible to join the Protocol Labs challenge in the Decentralized category. All needed code and libraries can be referenced and linked from your entry the same way we did with near-api.js . The most creative implementations will get the most points and the highest chance of winning the challenge.
Make sure to start with this list, where you’ll find intros to IPFS, Filecoin, and more. Notable articles to check first:
- JavaScript IPFS
- Using IPFS in gaming
- Building peer-to-peer games on IPFS - a look at Interplanetary Tag
- Using IPFS distributed file storage for game asset metadata
The easiest thing to do would be to publish your game on IPFS through a service like Pinata, but there are so many other things you could do - see how others implemented decentralized features in the Gamedev.js Jam that happened a few months ago.
Examples from Gamedev.js Jam
Both NEAR and IPFS were implemented in some of the entries submitted to the Decentralized category of the Gamedev.js Jam 2021 in April. Notable examples include:
The game is decentralized, offering the option to log in with your NEAR Protocol wallet, and is being hosted on Protocol Labs’s IPFS.
This game is a multi-user virtual world in which players compete to become owners of the pixel art canvas (which is an actual NFT).
This game is more of a proof-of-concept for a project where players can create their own levels, publish them using NEAR and IPFS, and play others’ levels.
Full list can be found here.
There’s also the collection of games submitted to the ETH Global hackathon which you can look into as well - each and every one have their source code available on GitHub.
Next steps
I know this might be difficult to grasp at first, but we had similar situation with Web Monetization API introduced a few years ago, and now it feels like adding extra features for Coil-enabled users is rather a simple task to most of you. I do hope this will evolve in a similar way and we’ll be getting more and more cool and brilliantly creative entries utilizing decentralized technologies in the future.
Due to unforseen circumstances I wasn’t able to deliver a complete tutorial myself, but I hope the materials above will be enough for you to at least dip your toes in the topic. I do promise I’ll be exploring this further and you can expect more content coming from me in the next weeks.
Don’t hesitate to join our Slack - folks are more than happy to answer all your questions and help you with any issues you might have with your entry! | https://medium.com/js13kgames/decentralized-category-intro-near-and-ipfs-7857e5f9631d | ['Andrzej Mazur'] | 2021-09-07 14:37:45.427000+00:00 | ['Decentralized', 'Introduction', 'Ipfs', 'Near', 'Js13k'] |
Re-visit JavaScript Iterations (using Iterators and Generators) | Introduction
After coming to Uber, I am having a lot of fun with JavaScript lately. While I am still learning, I wanted to share with you some fun stuffs around loops and iterations.
Iterations are a fundamental part of any Algorithmic design. Now there are many ways to learn loops and conditionals (or such fundamentals as such), but here, I wanted to take a particular way of thinking about Iterations and generalizing the same idea over a wide variety of day to day use cases. So, without further due let’s begin.
If you simply console.log() the Array.prototype , expand on it and go little down, you will find a Symbol.iterator function. like this, where the Symbol is nothing but a key to get a reference to the function.
Array.prototype
Now, with this property, we can get hold of an iterator which can loop through the array.
Array Iterator
Note: The Iterator function when called should be bound to the Array in context, else it will fail to create the iterator. For example, in the above example instead of getting funItr If we just get a reference to funActs[Symbol.iterator] and call it later to get a reference. It won’t work as expected. In this case, we can do what we want by expressing the function to be something like this const createIterator = funActs[Symbol.iterator].bind(funActs)
Default Array Iterator
By definition, Iterators has a special .next() function associated with them. Which when called returns a value from the collection (Array). Each time .next() is called, it returns the consecutive items from the array one at a time, till the end of the array. Something like this,
Using .next() on default Iterator
Please note that return value of .next() produces a result (Object) which has two keys to it. First, is the key called value which can be present or absent depending on whether there are more items to be looped over in the collection. Second, it has a mandatory done boolean variable which indicates whether there are more values to be found in the collection, or we are done iterating over the collection.
Iterable Interface
We can summarize what we learned so far with the following interface for an Iterable (Array is a Iterable element). Basically, it needs to have a Symbol.iterator function which returns an Iterator which basically is nothing but a Object with a .next() function attached to it. The next function when called returns the result of this format {value: any, done: boolean} .
Iterable Interface
In JavaScript, we have a special iteration syntax called for..of which abide by this iterable contract. This makes iterating over objects using a for..of loop a breeze. Take a look,
For..of loop with array iterators
Creating a Custom Array Iterator
We have gone through the hard work of learning all the details around iterables because now we can start to play with it, and modify it to create our own custom iterator.
So, let’s say someone asks you to iterate over the Array in a reverse fashion. Without arguing about an index based for loops which definitely can achieve this, let’s see how we can do the same by creating our own very first custom iterator. First, let’s just start with .next() function, when we try to get the iterator,
creating a reverseLookup
For making it work with for..of loop, we will just decorate this with a Symbol.iterator function so that it looks like an array an Iterable, then we can use for..of loop as usual and it will print the values in reverse order.
complete reverseLookup
Generators for Iterations
While custom iterators are a useful tool, their creation requires careful programming due to the need to explicitly maintain their internal state. Generator functions provide a powerful alternative: they allow you to define an iterative algorithm by writing a single function whose execution is not continuous. Generator functions are written using the function* syntax (which allows us to use the magic yield keyword to pause execution)
Function Generators
Generators allow us to write iterators with a much more concise syntax and give us more flexibility with each iteration.
let’s refactor this using a generator. We’ll just go ahead and take all the pieces from above and use them inside of our reverseGen, which is the generator function this time,
Taking Control over Iterations
Please note that while discussing the Iterables specially around Generators, we only focused on having the .next() function as it will be used most often. But there are other methods which allows you to control the behavior of the iterator. For example, if we use the .return() method anytime in an iterator, the iterator will immediately complete and any further call to .next() will be ignored. Take a look,
iterator .return() effect
We can also customize the logic inside the generator however we want which can automatically affect how the iteration works out overall. For example, here say when the length of the array is left is one, we don’t want to loop anymore. So, in our example, we simply return from the generator when the length is one. This will not loop over the last item and skip it. Take a look,
short circuiting iteration logic with return
Yielding over nested Iterables (yield*)
One tremendous benefit of function generators is the ability to iterate over other nested generators. If the value we are yielding itself is another generator then we can use the special syntax yield* which will ensure to loop over all the values for the nested generator inside the yield and then will move on to executing other yields. Let’s take a simple example, to clarify what I mean,
In this example, as you can see clearly, our someOtherGen() is an independent generator which generates “Hello” as the first value. Then as it needs to get all values from reverseGen() one at a time so we used the syntax yield* and lastly, after its completion the outer generator continues as usual and produces last value independent of reverseGen() as “World”. So, you can see the benefits of using Generators within generators for handling complex execution scenarios.
Generators for generating Data
We can cleverly leverage the way generators work, to gnerate custom data very easily. Let’s take an example of a range operator which takes on a format like range(start, end, inc) and produces all values from start to finish with an increment (inc). It doesn’t exist in JS language as such, but let’s see how we can easily add a functionality like range() in JS with the help of generators.
range() operator in JS
This comes also very handy when you want to generate a Array prefilled with some data (based on custom logic), like this,
Generating prefilled Arrays with Generators
Generators for managing State
The last aspect we will explore about Generators in this post, is their ability hold and manage internal state for an application/variable. Because we can trap state inside of our generator functions and also a way to pause and execute when needed, we can do things like create state machines without any external library or code.
Here is a simple example of a Increment/Decrement counter based State Machine implemented using Generators,
State Machine with Generators
Conclusion
Well if you are with me so far, we covered some good stuffs, we started off with a simple Iterable interface and the contract which holds true for many Iterable Data Structures. We then looked at Custom Iterators and how you can create any type of loops you wish. Then we looked at Generators giving you a natural iterable interface which yields values everything .next() is called on it. We re-implemented our custom Iterator using function generators. Lastly, we looked at the benefits of using generators, nested loops, data generation and state machine kind of applications which we can achieve very easily.
Bonus: I believe having this foundational knowledge is very useful for dealing with various kinds of task at hand. At times, you can get creative as develop some patterns which are unique and useful. So, to conclude, I leave you with one last example of creative use of generators for working with collections with methods like of .map(), .filter() | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/re-visit-javascript-iterations-using-iterators-and-generators-1cbcfd042d82 | ['Arindam Paul'] | 2021-05-06 00:18:37.903000+00:00 | ['ES6', 'Web Development', 'Coding', 'JavaScript', 'Arrays'] |
Bill Simmons of American Leprosy Missions: “Always Honor Your Word In Order to Rise Through… | Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I was born in a mid-size town in the middle of Tennessee. We lived in a town of less than 400 people 15 minutes away, called Wartrace. All but one member of my entire extended family lived within an hour of our home. My mom was a school teacher, and my dad was a serial entrepreneur. When I was 12, we moved to Africa and settled in the Congo. That pretty much shook my world.
I spent all of my teen years in the Congo and graduated high school in the capital of Kinshasa. The experience of growing up in Africa, as shocking a change as it sounds and in fact was, changed me forever in so many ways. My life was richer for having grown up in two so very different worlds, and I wouldn’t trade it.
I came back to the US for college and met my wife of 31 years during my freshman year. We were married our junior year, and while still in school and living as newlyweds, I started working in a bookstore. I stumbled into my career of running business and haven’t left since.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career?
In 2006, I was part of a group who bought out the company I was working for with the help of venture capital in Boston. Two years later, I became CEO of that company. It was 2008, and the financial crisis hit. Amazon was at its peak of eating into brick and mortar book businesses. We had a loan from a bank in Manhattan, and I paid them a visit in November 2008.
Lehman Brothers had just folded in Manhattan about one month before that visit, and banks were on edge. I flew to Manhattan and met with our lender. I was informed if we missed even one jot or tittle of our agreement in February 2009, the bank would liquidate our business. It was a shocking wake up call.
We immediately moved to close a few of our stores and liquidate the assets. Since it was the peak of the holiday season, we were able to sell everything quickly. As a result, we paid the bank off and prevented them from shutting our business down.
The downside of having to make this decision was that we were not able to pay our suppliers, and they were hurting at the same time. I recorded a video appeal and sent it out to suppliers, inviting them to come to terms on paying back our balances. Ultimately, there were too many suppliers who didn’t understand what we were trying to do and that course of action failed.
When it became clear that we would need to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, I called a meeting in Nashville where we invited the 12 suppliers who represented 80 percent of our unpaid balances. I sat in a room, face-to-face with the people who had sent us inventory on the trust that we would pay for our merchandise. I had to sit in front of the room of people and tell them that we would not be able to do that. I wanted them to know that we had no other choice but to take the ensuing course of action. And I wanted them to hear it from me.
2009 was a year when people in the US were showing up to work and finding the doors locked and the lights turned off. Many people had no warning. They were just out of a job. I was determined that we would walk boldly into the difficulty we faced. We had weekly calls with our national leaders who managed over 500 staff people around the country. We took questions and gave responses, and I don’t think we had one store manager quit during that time, even though they knew the company might not survive a Chapter 11.
We also had weekly calls with our creditors and kept them informed about the process. Ultimately, in June of 2009 we filed Chapter 11 in Cincinnati. Less than 90 days later, in August, we exited Chapter 11 with a new ownership group and restructured debt. The stores would stay open, employees still had their jobs and suppliers would not lose a valuable channel of distribution for their products in a tight market. That business survived for another ten years.
Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
I will never forget sitting in front of the federal bankruptcy judge at the end of proceedings when he called me out by name, “Mr. Simmons, in all my years on the bench of this court, I have never had a proceeding go so smoothly and be run with such integrity. You sir are to be commended.” That statement is seared in my mind. We met with our creditors so often and openly that every time we went before the judge we had already come to an agreement and he only had to approve our joint conclusion. The judge never had to make a decision for one side over another. The attorneys, many of whom had been doing cases for decades, stood in the lobby afterward and couldn’t stop expressing their shock.
I learned that when you face the most difficult circumstances you can conceive of in business, you can still walk that road with integrity. Not everyone appreciated that we did all we could in a difficult circumstance, but we couldn’t control that. What should have been a dark hour, I look back on as a bright spot of learning and growth. I learned you could pierce the veil — the black curtain of bankruptcy — and still come out on the other side a survivor and a better person. I also learned you could walk that dark road with your head held high and still deal with people with integrity.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
After over two decades in retail, I left the private sector and took on the job of President and CEO of a 110-year-old international non-profit, American Leprosy Missions. I brought my experience in business and world view from my days in the Congo to the global mission of this organization. In the past nine years, we have built a team of people who are tackling some of the world’s most stubborn public health problems that affect some of the most marginalized people in the world. But that isn’t what makes us stand out. What makes us stand out is that we have become an organization who wants to change the way innovation is approached in the sector.
We adopted a lean approach to innovation which means we invest in a lot of early stage experimental learnings at low cost to understand if an intervention will work. When our team has an idea that might change the situation in a disease among a population, they ask themselves the following question, “How cheaply and how quickly can we test our hypothesis?” We are convinced that some of the toughest challenges facing neglected people can be solved by investing in an innovation cycle focused on solutions.
An example of this in action is the beginning of a program we now call the AIM Initiative. For most of the diseases known as Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), there were no maps showing where people who lived with ongoing morbidity from these diseases were living. How could good health service be provided if countries didn’t know where the people who needed help were?
We decided to try to do this in Ghana first. We had put in several grant applications to the Gates Foundation and others for about 18 months to no avail. So, we took a step back and asked ourselves the question, “Instead of a $200,000 grant, how could we do this project ourselves quickly and cheaply?” We spent $10,000 and invited a graduate student from the United Kingdom to come to Ghana. In about 6 weeks, we had a map of Ghana showing where all the people with co-morbidity in NTDs lived. That led to the creation of the AIM Initiative which is seeking to do the same thing in over 74 countries around the world.
Our learning from that one experiment changed the course of how we approach health challenges and is shaping the future of our organization.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Les Dietzman, my predecessor at the company I led through Chapter 11, was my greatest career mentor. In fact, I left a job as President and CEO of another company and took a step back into a role of Vice President just so I could work with him. Les had been an executive at Wal-Mart in the early days, and he routinely flew around to visit stores with Sam Walton, with Sam piloting his own plane for their trips! Les declares he learned how to treat people by watching Sam interact with store staff all over the country. While that may be true, I think Les was wired to treat people well at birth, and Sam Walton just poured fuel onto an already burning fire. Les invited me to come work with him, and I took him up on the offer.
I learned how to appreciate people well; I also learned the value of a handwritten note. Les always listened and asked better questions than I ever will. But now, ten years after I last worked with Les, writing handwritten notes to people on my team is a habit I don’t intend to break. Sometimes, I will be on a Skype call with a team member somewhere in the world and in the background, I can see my stationery sitting on a shelf. That’s when I know that it matters. Telling people you care about them and doing it in your own handwriting is a lesson that will never go out of style.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
I am wary of creating a recipe for success and resilience. I’m not convinced that there is a “one size fits all” answer to these sorts of questions. Whether it is facing adversity or life’s changes, I think bouncing back and not losing the shape of who you are in the process can vary from person to person.
To me, resilience means returning something to its original shape or form, being able to recover quickly when life surprises you. For a leader to be resilient often requires being able to brave the fire and heat head on. I had the opportunity to leave my role as CEO during our bankruptcy process. I didn’t have to stay; I could have moved on and gotten out of the storm. I elected to stay and face all the heat and awkwardness of the entire process, and I came out the other side a better person. Did that make me resilient? Perhaps. It certainly gave me the capacity to adapt and change, but I still haven’t recovered from running an organization through Chapter 11, and I hope I never do.
For me, resilience is more about allowing oneself to be shaped by adversity as opposed to resisting the change that adversity brings. Leaders who face adversity and incorporate that adversity into their leadership demonstrate their capacity to learn and execute new ideas that will benefit them and their organization in the future.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
When I think about resilience, I think about a woman I met in Nepal named Thamini Majini. She had gotten leprosy in her community and had lost all feeling in her feet. She had also developed awful ulcers on one of her feet. Her community had kicked her out, afraid of her and her disease.
Distraught at the loss of her home and family, she grabbed a large knife one day and did the unthinkable. She cut off the part of her unfeeling foot that was infected, packed it with ash and returned home to her village. Thamini was willing to do whatever it took to get back to the people she loved. When I met Thamini she had the determination and will in her face of a person who had weathered hardship. She possessed her life with a grit I couldn’t fully comprehend. Resilience, sure, that describes Thamini. She faced an incredible obstacle, and undauntedly adapted to her circumstances. She had counted the cost, measured out what valued and had acted. She was a different person in the end, and that to me shows the resilience of the human spirit. When you can see beauty in life in the midst of adversity, that is resilience to me.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
As I mentioned earlier, going through Chapter 11 was really tough. As a family, we lost all our retirement, lost all our home equity, added to our personal debt and owed the IRS a tremendous tax bill. There is a steep price to being an entrepreneur and business owner, the price can sometimes be everything you own.
But I also learned you can gain it all back too. In the nine years since leaving the company that sold in Chapter 11, my family and I have slowly built our savings back, we built our home equity back and paid off our consumer debt. It was a long slow process, and we did it while working for a non-profit. Despite all of that, the past nine years have been the most rewarding years of my life.
Today, I am more focused and more optimistic about the years ahead than ever before. I am thankful for the scars.
Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?
My mom always said, “When you grow up in the Congo, you learn how to adapt.” I think she is right. Every day was a bombardment of obstacles: three languages in one day, living between the extreme poverty to extreme wealth that exists in the Congo, facing the absence of law and the tyranny of a dictatorship. All of these served to galvanize me as a young person. It’s difficult to know just how influential being in Africa for those formative years was to who I have become today, but I know it put the rest of my life into perspective. It is a perspective I’ve never lost. When you have seen people face depravity day after day, and many times do it with a sense of joy that seems counterintuitive, obstacles of life here in the West never quite seem to compare. I have tried to never lose that awareness of what extreme poverty and sadness can look like, and it helps me remain thankful for all that I have, holding it in hands that don’t deserve any of it.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
Well, I know you won’t face adversity if you never take on a challenge that is bigger than yourself. What have you tried lately that you are sure may be too difficult? Go do that thing today. You will never develop strength without opposition. That’s the first step.
Second, I am always pushing myself in some way. For me personally, it is in the weight room. I have to have an outlet where I can measure my progress against an obstacle. The objectivity of knowing that you either lifted a certain amount of weight off the floor or you didn’t has a way of humbling a person. I like engaging in things that have clear wins and losses. Not everyone is competitive like that, but if you want to be resilient, I think you have to find a way to know where you stand.
The third step in becoming resilient is to always honor your word, especially during the toughest of times. We are all human, and no man or woman has ever lived up to every promise they have ever made. When it counts, when others are fleeing the fire, the person who honors their word in spite of the flames will come through the fire and be better for it.
The fourth key to resilience is to let it all go. You cannot possibly be resilient if you live your life holding onto things with clenched fists. When you lose everything, you have nothing to lose in life and all things are gain.
Finally, read. I don’t think a person who is not growing their mind and learning can remain resilient throughout life. I look forward to the future every day because I still have so much to learn and so much more to grow. If one approaches life that way, I think one can become more and more like a tree with deep roots. Isn’t a tree the greatest picture of resilience, bending and swaying and yet remaining tall?
You are a person of great influence. 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. :-)
I would do what I am doing. I am convinced that we can bring new ideas and innovation to stubborn diseases and neglected tropical diseases. I want others to know the truth about the millions of people who are impacted by these diseases, and I want to bring an end to them, or at least put the tools in place in my lifetime to know that it will become reality.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders 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, especially if we tag them :-)
Melinda Gates, hands down. Melinda has really taken on the issue of women around the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are on the front end of many global health issues. We have a project we have tested that creates lasting change in communities using women as the key change agent in their villages. Combining public health with women’s rights is a way to change the world forever. It is built on the idea that every mother wants the best for her family and her home. I would love to share this idea with Melinda over lunch. She could help fuel a women’s empowerment movement using a structure we have tested that can deliver sustainable, grassroots change in communities across the world.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I use LinkedIn as my social media channel. My linked in is: http://linkedin.com/in/almandaim | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/bill-simmons-of-american-leprosy-missions-always-honor-your-word-in-order-to-rise-through-a92c9308cc34 | ['Tyler Gallagher'] | 2020-03-20 15:52:27.075000+00:00 | ['Social Impact'] |
Economic Development | UNIDO supports training of trainers on health and safety of workers | MOGADISHU, November 18th 2020 — Keeping workers in various Somali industries and sectors healthy and safe is crucial to protect public health and help businesses to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic — this is especially so as the cost of preparing the workplace and workforce for COVID-19 prevention is often lower than responding when infections and outbreaks occur.
In this context, UNIDO designed a three-day programme on COVID-19 occupational health and safety training for Somali trainers, with a particular emphasis on the risks in Somalia’s most critical economic sectors — fisheries, agriculture and livestock.
The training was aimed at experts from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Somali Chamber of Commerce, at both federal and state levels, the Enterprise Development Units in various regional cities, and the Federation of Somali Trade Unions. The experts will transfer the knowledge gained from the training to the Somali workforce in different organizations.
The training was funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and involved the collaboration of Notre Dame University (NDU) in Lebanon.
Original story on: https://unsom.unmissions.org/round-activities-un-system-somalia-november-2020 | https://medium.com/@unidosomalia/economic-development-unido-supports-training-of-trainers-on-health-and-safety-of-workers-6cefee7ba37c | ['Unido Somalia Programme'] | 2020-12-15 19:48:13.045000+00:00 | ['United Nations', 'Covid 19', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Occupational Health', 'Somalia'] |
What Your Business Needs To Dominate Your Market | What Your Business Needs To Dominate Your Market Snehajaiswal Follow Jul 5 · 4 min read
A n assortment of inside and outside powers can influence the life span of products and services your business offers. Seeing how your business dominates where your opposition doesn’t is a pivotal component in dominating your market. Fusing these procedures into your promoting plan can drive your association into turning into an industry chief.
1. CREATE YOUR OWN NICHE:
Maybe the best technique for market control is to make your own niche market. You’re bound to prevail at market domination in case you’re working in the periphery with practically zero contest. At the point when Bakon Vodka delivered its handmade bacon-injected Vodka in 2009, it was the first of its sort available and turned into a moment’s achievement. Discovering a niche where you can bridle your energy for your work improves the probability of your business turning into an industry chief.
2. DEVELOP YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICES:
Since your business is effective now doesn’t mean it has the versatility important to make due in the long haul. This is particularly evident in case you’re working in an exceptionally aggressive market. Offering adjusted or new products to your present market sections keeps your business applicable in a powerful industry. Expanding your item draws in new specialties to your business too. For instance, Starbucks utilized new item improvement by offering cakes and sandwiches and expanded its item determination with Disc deals.
3. IDENTIFY EXTERNAL SOURCES:
An assortment of outer powers influences your market, including natural, socio-social, segment, monetary, science, innovation, legitimate and political powers. These elements influence market drifts and may hold the way to dominating your market. For instance, the condition of the economy during and after a downturn generally affects both shopper and corporate spending the same, while shrewd gadgets have provoked a bigger interest for wellbeing and wellness information following.
4. PROVIDE VALUE AND SOLUTIONS:
What worth would you say you are making? What issue would you say you are settling? The response to these inquiries is pivotal to dominating the market. Your products or services ought to make an answer or offer some incentive in where your rivals are deficient. Feature the motivating force you’re offering so your possibilities see precisely why they need to work with you, or even better — why they need to work with you. Recognizing prime shopper sparks can assist you with understanding your business’ actual worth.
5. COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR MARKET:
While you might be offering business services to the majority, you can make more prominent progress by getting what draws in explicit specialties to your business. Making discussion with your clients gives understanding into where clients track down the most worth from your business — and where they don’t.
You can carry out input methodologies and incite discussion with your clients through an assortment of stages, including client assistance, site gatherings, web-based media and study structures. Customizing email interchanges with your clients is an extraordinary technique for building worth and trust on the web.
6. ESTABLISH CREDIBLE TALENT:
As well as speaking with your clients, you can build up validity for your business through the cognizant acquisition of ability. On the off chance that your representatives are cheerful, it is reflected in the work they perform.
Showing photographs of colleagues on your organization site and web-based media profiles upgrades your validity while causing your business to seem affable and congenial. Employing composing staff to compose blog entries on organization or industry news is an extraordinary strategy for conjuring ethos from planned clients. It additionally urges your peruses to share your substance and is an incredible asset with the expectation of complimentary advertising and effort.
7. EXECUTE COST — LEADERSHIP STRATEGY:
Created by Michael Watchman, cost administration includes offering the most minimal expense in the business on products or services. To effectively carry out this technique, your deals should in any case procure your business an adequate benefit after costs. You may cut the consumer pace of your business by merging activities or recruiting independent laborers and self-employed entities. While carrying out an expense authority technique isn’t workable for each business, it’s demonstrated to be a profoundly fruitful procedure for some enormous organizations, like Walmart.
8. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS:
Understanding the shortcomings of your opposition is pivotal to keeping up with the upper hand. Carry out a cutthroat investigation in your showcasing plan to all the more likely get where your business needs to contend most. When you recognize how to give a more grounded advantage than the opposition, you need to build up this upper hand obviously to really rule the market. In the cutting-edge period of innovation, numerous organizations are advancing products and services to give an extraordinary blend of significant worth to purchasers.
LAST THOUGHTS:
While dominating your market can make your business more fruitful today, you should keep on fostering your business to keep up with the upper hand. Work on your products and services before your rivals do. Try not to fear some solid contest — rivalry drives advancement. | https://medium.com/velozityglobalsolutions/what-your-business-needs-to-dominate-your-market-5a936a8fe622 | [] | 2021-07-05 13:25:59.600000+00:00 | ['Marketplaces', 'Business Development', 'Business', 'Business Strategy', 'Market'] |
Creating a vision for change | Chaka Bachmann, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant to the Code Steering Group
Major social and political events over the past decade, and in particular over the last year, have shone a spotlight on questions of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Communities are looking to the charities that seek to serve them; they are searching for the places in which they are represented, and they are grappling with how their needs are understood and prioritised at every level, especially at board level.
Prioritising equality, diversity and inclusion and taking active steps to address power imbalances is crucial for organisations in the third sector, not only to stay relevant, but more so to be accountable to the communities they are in the service of.
The role of trustees
The board of trustees has an important role in driving EDI objectives forward and leading courageously by demonstrating commitment and actions to address current inequalities and barriers in their own organisations and governance approaches. When the board owns EDI and becomes part of the EDI management process, they set the tone for the rest of the organisation so everyone can embrace the cultural change with confidence. Part of good governance is to drive this much needed change forward and to hold themselves and the wider organisation accountable to execute good practice, even if it is not always easy.
Establishing goals and vision
In order to embody an inclusive and equitable approach to governance, the board needs to set goals, collect data and examine change over time. Developing and committing to an EDI vision is an important step in this often slow and intimidating process.
Creating an EDI vision serves a number of functions: imagining the full, inclusive potential of the board and organisation, providing a focused road map to progress the cultural change we want to achieve and creating a shared understanding and an organisation wide approach to EDI, as well as highlighting governance structures to enable the same.
Through an inclusive consultative process involving trustees, senior leadership, employees and in some cases service users or members, the organisational ambition for equality, diversity and inclusion for the next 10, 5 or 3 years is captured, alongside key objectives that build the foundation of a new EDI vision. This can then be translated into sets of practical actions. The new EDI Principle can support this process in providing insight into some areas that could be explored and contextualised in the vision. In this process, it can help to reflect on the following questions amongst others:
What EDI challenges, barriers or opportunities are we facing?
What aspects of equity, diversity and inclusion are most relevant to our work and what would great practice in those areas look like?
Who are we trying to serve and are they represented in our programmes, on our board and in our organisation?
While creating an EDI vision can feel overwhelming at first, it will make a lasting and significant impact at every level of your work and practice. This change will enhance the experience of internal and external stakeholders. Change can be hard, and more often than not, effective change is hard, but if we want to stand for the values we believe in, leading this essential and brave process is a non-negotiable step in that direction.
You can view the new EDI principle of the code through the code website. | https://medium.com/@charitygovernancecode/creating-a-vision-for-change-f0dd6265863f | ['Charity Governance Code'] | 2020-12-09 09:01:55.654000+00:00 | ['Governance', 'Not For Profit', 'Charity', 'Diversity', 'Equality'] |
Instagram Features Roundup: What New We Saw in 2020 | Notwithstanding that this year was tough, Instagram rolled out many features that opened new opportunities for brands, businesses and regular users alike. Reels, Guides, and IGTV Monetisation are just a few to name.
In this blog, let’s round-up together which new features Instagram has rolled out in 2020.
Instagram Reels
Technically, Instagram started to test Reels in 2019, but this year the feature became available to larger audiences in the US, some European countries, Australia and India.
On August 5th, Facebook announced the launch of short-video service within Instagram — Reels. This is a direct competitor of the Chinese TikTok app developed by Bytedance.
Reels is about the new way of creating and discovering short entertaining videos, Instagram claims. Now, if you post such a video in a public Instagram account, many other users are able to find you.
The service enables you to shoot and edit 15-second videos on Instagram. You can apply various AR effects, use audio from an Instagram music library or use original backtracks, and change the speed of your clip. This is somewhat similar to Instagram Stories, but unlike them, Reels has more advanced editing features.
Guides
Instagram Guides are a totally new feature on Instagram launched this year. It was initially available for a limited number of users but recently, Instagram has expanded the Guide functionality to all Instagrammers.
Instagram Guides are basically articles within Instagram written to give users a tool of useful and quality content using blog posts across Instagram.
You can find Guides in the tab section on the main page of accounts which have already started using the feature.
If you’re a creator, business owner or an influencer, Guides are a great opportunity to improve your Instagram marketing and engagement. Content most suitable for Guides is recommendations, useful tips, opinion, reviews and alike.
Keyword Search
Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri announced the keyword search launch in a very short announcement on his Twitter.
So far, the update isn’t available worldwide and functions only in English but it will be soon expanded to more countries and languages.
Such an update means that Instagram analyses what our photos and even captions have, which objects and keywords we use in them. Just like Google.
With the keyword search, you can search for keywords or keyphrases (not just usernames and hashtags as it used to be) and get results of the posts that have the keyword, even if they don’t contain the hashtag.
This feature might be a game-changer for Instagram marketing since this will allow users to optimise their profiles for Instagram ‘SEO’ like they do with their websites and blogs on the Internet and get discovered by more users.
Who knows, maybe this will lead us to Instagram PPC ads later?
Facebook announced bringing the best Messenger features to Instagram by connecting the Messenger app and Instagram Direct. This update will allow users to communicate across these two apps without the need to download another app if they already have either Instagram or Messenger on their smartphones.
Together with the Messenger and Instagram Direct integration, we saw another messaging update this year — Facebook Messenger Rooms. The update implies users now can create and join group calls of up to 50 users on Instagram.
Watch Together is yet another feature that aims to streamline your communication experience on Instagram. With Watch Together, you and your friends can watch IGTV, Reels, and other videos online on a video chat.
Facebook and Instagram Shops
Major updates this year concern eCommerce, and the biggest move is Facebook Shops.
The name might sound confusing though: the Facebook Shops feature lets businesses develop online stores on Facebook and Instagram alike. This feature also allows small business and shop owners to tag products during live broadcasts on Instagram, but we’ll touch on this a bit later.
Instagram Shop in turn unlocks a whole new shopping experience on Instagram.
The Shop tab is now on the Explore tab and on the main page of an account.
According to Facebook’s press release, you’ll be able to ‘browse selections from your favourite brands and creators, filter by categories like beauty and home, and purchase the looks you love all in one place.’
Other eCommerce Instagram updates touch on IGTV, Reels and influencer shopping.
Businesses and creators can tag their products when they create Reels and IGTV. So, when users watch a Reel or an IGTV video, they can tap a ‘View Products‘ button to buy, save, or just learn more about the featured products.
With the new Commerce Eligibility Requirements, more types of businesses (including creators) can now access Instagram Shopping.
IGTV Monetisation
This year, Instagram rolled out a monetisation program for IGTV creators thus motivating them to make more content for the Instagram TV. Creators will be able to make revenue with their content and share more ideas on IGTV.
Users will see the IGTV ads when they watch the IGTV videos from previews within their Instagram feeds. These video ads will be mobile optimized and last up to 15 seconds.
Live Shopping
Instagram will soon allow creators and brands to sell products from their Facebook Shop or a catalogue right on the live broadcasts. All you will need to do to sell online is to tag your product before starting a live stream, and the products will be shown at the bottom of the video.
Your viewers can tap on them to learn more or buy.
This is a useful update for small businesses and big brands alike: now users will be able to ask questions about the products and get answers from a seller/manufacturer real-time!
And sellers can use this opportunity for making live demos of their products selling them right away, without making users go to third-party websites and stores.
Facebook Rights Manager on Instagram
Facebook’s Rights Manager is a tool that helps you find any of your copyrighted images that you’ve submitted for protection on the platform and notifies you if there was a copyright violation.
Now, the tool is extended to Instagram, as well.
Vanish Mode
Another great messaging update from Instagram realised this year is the option to make your messages vanish some time after you or a user you’re dming with sending it.
This feature is called Vanish Mode: it makes your messages disappear after you leave the chat.
Note that only people who follow each other on Instagram can use the Vanish Mode in direct chats.
To turn on the Vanish Mode, swipe up in an existing chat thread, and you’re automatically in the Vanish Mode. To return to a regular chat, swipe up again.
New ‘Suggested Posts’ feature after ‘You’re All Caught Up’
A few years ago, Instagram rolled up the ‘You’re All Caught Up’ feature to help users avoid endless feed scrolling. The feature showed that a user has seen all content from his feed.
Suggested Posts feature’s goal, however, is not just to increase user engagement and time spent on the app but also to give advertisers a new space to show more ads.
Automated IGTV Captions
With many users choosing to watch videos with the sound off, Instagram decides to roll out automatic closed captions on IGTV videos.
When a creator uploads a video to IGTV, users will be able to choose ‘auto-generated captions’, which will only be visible when the video is being watched sound off. For now, the feature is available in 16 languages, but this number will grow later on.
Instagram has rolled out an update that allows users to pin comments on a certain post.
By doing this, brands, social media managers or influencers can highlight a relevant comment either their own or left by their follower and thus get rid of spammy comments.
To pin a comment, swipe to the left, and tap on the pin icon.
Instagram Direct from Desktop
The long-awaited update brands and social media managers have been waiting for is finally rolled out.
Instagram’s direct messages are now available on the desktop version of Instagram.
Instagram Badges
Instagram badges work similarly to YouTube Super Chat — viewer buys a badge during the live broadcast and their comment stands out in the comments section. Thus viewers help their favourite creators monetise the content.
Currently, Instagram is working on expanding Instagram badges in the US, but soon they will be available in France, Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Australia, and Japan.
Badges will be available in 3 different levels, based on the number of hearts they have. Viewers can buy one heart for $0.99, two for $1.99, or 3 for $4.99. Viewers will only be able to buy one badge during a live video.
Supporting small businesses stickers on Instagram
Now you can not only add a sticker to your stories but also add Gift Cards, Order Food or Donate options as clickable buttons on your Instagram account next to the Contact button.
The main goal of these updates is to help small businesses during these hard times and also customers to streamline the buying experience.
The Donation sticker has a different purpose, however. It is to help nonprofit organizations increase their fundraising campaign awareness by asking supporters and followers to donate.
Brands Collabs Manager
Branded content allows creators and influencers to monetise their Instagram accounts and helps businesses reach the right audience.
To make this possible for both sides, Facebook launched Brand Collabs Manager that is to help creators connect with brands which are looking to advertise their products and services.
Influencers and creators can apply to be on the platform, but their accounts need to meet some specific criteria.
These are probably not every update Instagram rolled out this year. If you know more, let us know in comments!
To get all Combin updates and new social media marketing tips, follow us on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok! | https://blog.combin.com/instagram-features-roundup-2020-d07f0b3d5d0c | [] | 2020-12-28 10:22:25+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'See all 9 posts\n →'] |
Alone Doesn’t Have to Feel Lonely | Many of us are spending the holidays — and more — alone this year. As a veteran of solo celebrations, here are five ways to navigate these distanced times without feeling isolated if you’re spending it single.
Often, I’ve felt (or just imagined?) the glare of staring, inquisitive eyes in the back of my head while taking my seat at a restaurant, alone, on Christmas day.
Or had well-meaning friends ask — incredulous- why I wasn’t spending the holidays with my family.
Coming from a family well-steeped in narcissism and disconnection, for whom nothing I did ever seemed like it was enough, particularly as I grew older, I came to recognize that the times I truly felt utterly alone were those times when I was surrounded by others, specifically, people who did not see me, did not understand me, and did not have the ability to connect to me on any kind of emotional level.
And so, much of my childhood was spent in a kind of undercover desperation — leaving myself behind in order to find scraps of validation or love.
That was until I discovered that I didn’t NEED anyone else to feel happy— that I could depend on myself, validate myself, and comfort myself. And as an artist and introvert, being alone is a necessity. So from a proud loner, here are my suggestions on spending, and even enjoying, time alone this year.
1. Accept that being alone is ok: It has taken me sometime to be “ok” with my alone-ness in life: the comfort of it, the necessity of it. Popular culture has us all believe that relationships are the be-all, end-all of life and though they certainly are valuable and very important — the reality is that the relationship with ourselves is the deepest, and longest-lasting, relationship we’ll have in our lives. And particularly when circumstances call for it — whether because of a pandemic or when we leave an abusive situation, being alone is, at times, a definite necessity. In shirt, we need to normalize being alone.
So drop the shame around being alone. It’s perfectly natural, and perfectly ok.
2. Become your own best friend: One of the best things you can learn from being alone is how to be your own best friend.
Deepening your relationship to yourself, and increasing your self-understanding is a gift that will greatly benefit you in life — as well as in your relationships.
When you’re alone, you get to find out more about the fascinating, completely unique, and complex person you are. You get to explore sides of yourself that social pressures or conditioning might have made it easy to repress. You get to be as weird, wacky, or silly as you want.
Being alone, and befriending neglected parts of yourself can help you get to know and express more of who you truly are — and in turn — bring a more authentic version of you into the world.
And the world needs your authenticity — not your catering to what everybody else thinks. Being alone can be key to the door that is your true self, waiting to get out.
3. Take it as self-care time: If you’re someone who feels constant pressure to cater to the needs and desires of others, being alone and letting go of these demands can be a very important aspect of self-care. And even if you don’t — self-care is something that so many of us can improve.
Look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and ask yourself: What can I do for you today?
4. Have fun in ways that only you can: Without the obligation of having to cater to another person’s desires or expectations, what would you like to do? You have the freedom to design your own adventures and do whatever pleases you. Has there been a hike you’ve always wanted to take? A certain place you’ve been interested in visiting? A movie you’ve always wanted to see? Although many places are now closed due to COVID, figure out where you’d like to have an adventure and dive in. After all — you don’t have anybody to wait for!
5. Create your own new habits or traditions: Perhaps you’ve always wanted to go ice skating, or learn the guitar, or start a blog. When you don’t have the distraction of other people and their expectations, it can become much easier to focus on creating new traditions or habits for yourself. And you don’t need anyone else’s permission to do it. You can start new, better habits and become well-grounded in them, so when the world does open up more and increased social interaction IS allowed, you won’t be as easily influenced if others are unsupportive.
Of course, even the most introverted among us do need regular social interaction — and the social isolation we’ve all endured this past year has been difficult on many levels. But by accepting the situation, and even recognizing some of its gifts, we can move through these challenges more smoothly, into a future when we can, hopefully, be more connected than ever. | https://medium.com/@claire-boyce24/alone-doesnt-have-to-feel-lonely-6f4df55c44da | ['Claire Boyce'] | 2020-12-27 04:10:08.621000+00:00 | ['Loneliness', 'Self Love', 'Alone', 'Self Improvement', 'Holidays'] |
This is an AI-generated artwork of a person who doesn’t exist | This, that you see right here, is an artwork I produced using AI. First creating a person that doesn’t exist at all, with a GAN model (check https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ to get one yourself!). Then, creating the painting artwork by using a styling model.
An AI-generated person for the creation of the artwork
Recently, I got the unluck of running into an artwork that reminds me of the famous “Banana on the wall” piece. Only that this time, it was eluding animal abuse, actually using the hashtag for it.
The reason I came across that image was that recently I been reminded about the huge problem in social platforms related to abusive and violent content. Especially towards animals, who sadly don’t have the same rights in all countries. Like for example, Hungary, Finland, Romania, and even some states of the United States. I consider leaving that topic about animal rights and social media, for another time.
When I saw that image I was outraged, I only thought about the millions of animals that are oppressed by our society in the dairy industry, meat industry, leisure industry with bullfights, and now in the art field.
I called out the situation, speaking my mind and opinion in a, maybe for some, exaggerated way. One of the responses I got, from one of the artist’s friend, was that I didn’t understand art, and if I considered this not to be art is because I don’t have a brain. The rest of the “arguing” in the responses was mainly about how I look, and other of my physical characteristics. They wouldn't reply whether or not they are supporting/promoting animal abuse through this type of “art”. But instead, every time I asked about it, this person only changed the topic back to my looks and content, complaining that what I do and this field is useless and no one sees value from it.
I thought about it, while I was doing endless homework for university and work. And I thought how different some people can see automation, technology, and their inevitable influence in the future.
Perhaps some people thought that algorithms could never be better than them as artists, as painters, sculptors, or scriptwriters. And perhaps they are right.
Or maybe one day AI will be able to recreate a "Banana on the wall", and understand art without the need of having a human brain.
What I can be sure about, is that there is still a long long way for tech to continue surprising us in all the professional and non-professional fields known by men, today.
Try yourself!
I would love to share with you some free, online tools for you to try to generate art using AI:
Runway ML — An easy, code-free tool that makes it simple to experiment with machine learning models in creative ways. Our overall staff pick.
— An easy, code-free tool that makes it simple to experiment with machine learning models in creative ways. Our overall staff pick. GANBreeder — Breed two images to create novel new ones using GANBreeder. (Note that GANbreeder was renamed ArtBreeder, with several AI models to manipulate photos).
— Breed two images to create novel new ones using GANBreeder. (Note that GANbreeder was renamed ArtBreeder, with several AI models to manipulate photos). Magenta — An open-source research project exploring the role of machine learning as a tool in the creative process. (Coding skills required).
— An open-source research project exploring the role of machine learning as a tool in the creative process. (Coding skills required). Processing — A flexible software sketchbook and language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. Includes p5js (Processing for JavaScript) and Processing.py (Processing for Python). [Processing does not use AI, but is a great tool for generative visual art].
— A flexible software sketchbook and language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. Includes p5js (Processing for JavaScript) and Processing.py (Processing for Python). [Processing does not use AI, but is a great tool for generative visual art]. ml5.js — ml5.js aims to make machine learning approachable for a broad audience of artists, creative coders, and students through the web.
AI-Generated Music/Sound:
Magenta Studio — A collection of music plugins built on Magenta’s open-source tools and models.
— A collection of music plugins built on Magenta’s open-source tools and models. AI Duet — Play with a piano that responds to you.
— Play with a piano that responds to you. NSynth Sound Maker — Create your own hybrid sounds and instruments.
— Create your own hybrid sounds and instruments. MuseNet — Generate 4-minute musical compositions with 10 instruments, and combine styles from country to Mozart with MuseNet (also available on GitHub).
— Generate 4-minute musical compositions with 10 instruments, and combine styles from country to Mozart with MuseNet (also available on GitHub). Pitch Detection — Use a pre-trained pitch detection model to estimate the pitch of sound files through a computer mic.
AI Generated Images / Pictures:
Deep Dream Generator — Stylize your images using enhanced versions of Google Deep Dream with the Deep Dream Generator.
— Stylize your images using enhanced versions of Google Deep Dream with the Deep Dream Generator. DeepArt.io — Upload a photo and apply different art styles with this AI image generator, or turn a picture into an AI portrait of yourself (also check out DreamScope ).
— Upload a photo and apply different art styles with this AI image generator, or turn a picture into an AI portrait of yourself (also check out DreamScope ). Visionist : Upload and apply AI Art styles to your photos, including abstract filters, cutout portraits, and more (iOS. Made by 3DTOPO Inc.).
: Upload and apply AI Art styles to your photos, including abstract filters, cutout portraits, and more (iOS. Made by 3DTOPO Inc.). GoArt — Create AI photo effects that make your photos look like famous portrait paintings with this AI image generator. (Web, Android and iOS. Made by Fotor).
— Create AI photo effects that make your photos look like famous portrait paintings with this AI image generator. (Web, Android and iOS. Made by Fotor). Deep Angel — Automatically remove objects or people from images. (Web. Made at MIT).
— Automatically remove objects or people from images. (Web. Made at MIT). Google Deep Dream — GitHub repository for implementing Google Deep Dream.
— GitHub repository for implementing Google Deep Dream. GANBreeder — Merge images together to create new pictures, make hybrid AI portrals and create wild new forms that have never been seen before. (GANbreeder is now called ArtBreeder).
AI artwork sells for $432,500
Portrait of Edmond Belamy, 2018, created by GAN (Generative Adversarial Network). Sold for $432,500 on 25 October at Christie’s in New York. Image © Obvious
The portrait in its gilt frame depicts a portly gentleman, possibly French and — to judge by his dark frockcoat and plain white collar — a man of the church. The work appears unfinished: the facial features are somewhat indistinct and there are blank areas of the canvas. Oddly, the whole composition is displaced slightly to the north-west. A label on the wall states that a sitter is a man named Edmond Belamy, but the giveaway clue as to the origins of the work is the artist’s signature at the bottom right. In cursive Gallic script it reads:
Image © Obvious
This portrait is not the product of the human mind. It was created by an algorithm defined by that algebraic formula with its many parentheses. And when it went under the hammer in the Prints & Multiples sale at Christie’s on 23–25 October, Portrait of Edmond Belamy sold for an incredible $432,500, signaling the arrival of AI art on the world auction stage.
The team collected a set of 15,000 portraits from the online art encyclopedia WikiArt, spanning the 14th to the 19th century, and fed them into the GAN algorithm. GAN algorithms have two parts: the generator and the discriminator. The generator learned the ‘rules’ of the portraits, “for example, everything has two eyes and a nose,” Caselles-Dupré says, describing a process that takes about two days. Then it starts to create new images based on those rules. Meanwhile, the discriminator’s job is to review the images and guess which are ‘real’ ones from the dataset and which are ‘fake ones’ from the generator.
It’s hard for us to naturally think that AI can be our ally, instead of our enemy. But that’s why we all should take part in this new, modern revolution.
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/this-is-an-ai-generated-artwork-from-a-person-who-doesnt-exist-f81b224984f0 | ['Rebeca Sarai G. G.'] | 2020-09-25 13:45:18.102000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'AI', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Art'] |
80s Tamil Movie Directors | Cochin Haneefa | You would have hated him in Vaname Ellai for marrying his son’s lover’s mom and in Mahanadhi for ruining Kamal’s life, you would have laughed when he played Vikatanandha in Kadhala Kadhala but you wouldn’t even guess that this guy was a playwright, writer and director of more than 30 movies in Tamil and Malayalam.
Born as Salim Ahmed Ghouse, he took his stage name Haneefa after a famous play of Cochin Kalabhavan Group. He started his movie career as a writer to RS Srineevasan, RS Manohar’s brother, who ran a production company. He began acting in tiny roles but moved on to make a mark as a villain.
His acting talent is well known, but we are here to discuss his writing/directorial career. Although he started writing dialogues and screenplay in 1977, his first directorial venture was Oru Sandesam Koodi. His first Tamil movie was Paasa Paravaigal (1987), a remake of his Malayalam movie, Moonu Masangalukku Pinpu and he got Kalaignar Karunanidhi to write the dialogues for the film. He became the 80s “Pa” varisai director as all his movies started with the word “Pa” or “Paa”. Bhimsingh was considered the original Pa Varisai director.
Although he mostly made family drama, he surprised everyone with Pagalil Pournami, a true-blue horror movie in Tamil cinema. I still remember watching the film on videocassette and didn’t sleep for few days. I couldn’t find the movie online. Sadly, out of 7 Tamil movies that were directed by Cochin Haneefa, there are only two movies of Cochin Haneefa that are available online, I will write about it. If I am not wrong, his last Tamil directorial venture, Naalai Engal Kalyanam didn’t even release (it has some beautiful songs from Ilaiyaraaja)
Breakout movie: Paasa Paravaigal
Although I would have loved to discuss Pagalil Pournami (if you get it somewhere, please watch it), I have to write about Paasa Paravaigal because that brought Cochin Haneefa into Tamil movies. Paasa Paravaigal is a movie about the emotional struggle between a brother and sister. The brother (played by Sivakumar) is accused of murdering his Sister’s (played by Radhika) husband (played by Mohan). While all evidence point to him, his wife (played by Lakshmi), takes the indomitable task of defending him in the court against the sister who is the prosecutor.
I haven’t watched the original, but the Tamil version should have been different because of two reasons — the dialogues were penned by Kalaignar Karunanidhi, and the lead actors were perfect in their roles. I would give it to Cochin Haneefa for bringing out the best in Radhika and Lakshmi especially during the court sequences. The scenes are over dramatic, but it was a treat to watch two talented actors trying to outscore the other.
Cochin Haneefa has worked mostly with Sivakumar in Tamil, and when he passed a few years back due to cancer, Kalaignar Karunanidhi gave a personal obituary as he was so fond of Haneefa. The movie was produced by Murasoli Selvam, brother of Murasoli Maran under the Poompuhar Productions.
YouTube link to the movie
Movies to watch
Paasa Paravaigal Padatha Thenikkal Pagalil Pournami
I haven’t watched his Malayalam movies, so I will refrain from recommending anything.
References | https://medium.com/sylvianism/a-z-challenge-80s-tamil-movie-directors-c-for-cochin-haneefa-88efb9e87a43 | ['Sylvian Patrick'] | 2020-01-19 23:55:35.207000+00:00 | ['80s Tamil Directors', 'Tamil Movies', 'Tamil Movie Directors', 'Ilaiyaraaja', 'Cochin Haneefa'] |
Why The World Is In Distress | If you look around you, many people are full of fear. Eye contact seems to have become a crime for many.
Since you can’t see many peoples facial expressions anymore, the only place left to see is the eyes. They tell enough.
Why is the world in distress?
Not because of the virus.
Because of the world's reaction to the information received.
What does your daily information diet consist of?
Is it full of crap?
What’s considered crap, you may ask?
In my opinion, anything that doesn't bring you closer to your desired emotional state.
How many pieces of information do you consume per day make you feel good?
Please give it a good thought.
Many people reading this may say, “But I have to know what’s going on in this world, otherwise, I will not be informed enough to make correct decisions.”
Really?
Since when are decisions taken out of fear good?
Because 99% of popular news is based on fear.
It’s a crap information diet.
The problem is that it’s so damn frequent.
But so is McDonald's and Burger King. You'll find them on every corner. But do you consume them just because they are everywhere?
If you want to focus on moving forward, the first thing you have to do is upgrade your information diet.
Trust me. You’ll hear bad news from enough people around you—no need to consume it yourself too.
What will happen when you start consuming empowering information that moves you closer to your desired emotional state and closer to your goals?
I’ll let you guess.
Events in the world and the news will occur whether you listen to them or not. Not listening to them DOES NOT make you a bad person.
Whatever is happening out there will keep happening.
FOMO will kick in. But guess what. You’ll get over it. The withdrawal symptoms will disappear.
Try it for yourself, and watch your mood change. Watch your thoughts become more positive, watch your creativity level increase, watch your motivation grow. Watch your goals come closer.
This is the power of changing your “information diet.”
Good Luck! | https://medium.com/@vincentjoewerner/why-the-world-is-in-distress-3acd2fc8b4fd | ['Vincent Werner'] | 2020-12-18 17:02:43.940000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Mindset', 'Thoughts And Feelings', 'Depression', 'Mind'] |
The Three Things Everyone Writing on Medium Has Wrong About Curation | Everyone starts off in curation jail
It doesn’t matter how good your articles are the first month. If they’re not in the right topic they’re probably not even processed by the algorithm. Medium wants to humble you.
Image author.
Five months later I’m still toiling in relative obscurity. Medium is not the right place for Hogan Torah I’ve come to find out. So I write as myself now. But kept the name because my real name is Logan Paul. Really.
Medium knows more about you than you know about yourself before you write anything
Medium has strong ties to Twitter. If you don’t know why Google it. Speaking of, Google plays a part in it as well. They are all part of an ecosystem that includes Facebook and Amazon among others. These corporations are businesses that sell things for profit. What does Facebook sell?
The product is you.
Your data. What you like. What you want. What you don’t have so they can sell it to you.
Medium already knows what categories it wants you to write in before you make an account. What do they want you to write? They don’t say. You need to figure it out.
Your first curation
Maybe you will get lucky and the first thing you write will be in the category that Medium has chosen for you, but probably not.
You can write anything you want on Medium. But if you want anyone to see it, it needs to be in one of their preferred 30+ categories.
To know what you should be aiming for look at the Customize your interests when you click on your avatar.
This picture will increase your read time for some reason. Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels
Your topic probably isn’t what you think it is
My topic is Culture and Movies. I suspect most men between 25 and 45 is also culture.
Your topic is probably not going to be a popular one. From my observations and correct me if I’m wrong, but no one starts off being able to curate in fiction, nonfiction, humor, writing, poetry, and politics. There’s likely more.
It’s possible to get curated in these things your first curation but not as the main focus of your article.
The right publication for your story
I wrote about movies and culture for other pubs. It wasn’t until I published in a pub for culture and movies that I was curated.
Publications like Illumination and The Innovation are a good place to start getting some eyes on your work and experience writing. But their tagged categories aren’t clear. Start there. Try a few different topics. Tags are important but the main focus of your story is what really matters.
It can happen if you self publish, but you are better off in a publication. Here’s why:
Auto Curation Publications
No publication advertises that it auto curates, but they absolutely exist. It’s not just the big publications.
It’s often the ones that are hard to find. They don’t publish 50 stories a day. They’re not on Facebook advertising for new members, but they’re out there.
It’s not only a publication with auto curation but in the topic Medium has pigeonholed you in. It’s a guessing game. If a pub you have never heard of pops up in your feed sparsely but regularly with different authors, that maybe the one.
You are probably all wondering what pub it was I found that auto curates. If I told you the editor will be inundated with requests and he wants to keep it small. It’s very nichey and he’s not accepting anyone who isn’t genuinely into the theme. If you do some digging it’s not hard to figure out.
After you publish a few times in an auto curation publication, you will notice you are curated more often in other places as well. Once you get to that level you have a chance at being curated in the tags that you weren’t before.
Auto Curation Writer
This is where you want to be and the level I might have finally reached. Ever see something that’s not that great get curated by a popular author? Or something that doesn’t follow the rules of curation curated? Or why no one gets curated from a certain pub except Ryan Fan who gets almost everything curated? That’s why. | https://medium.com/wreader/the-three-things-everyone-writing-on-medium-has-wrong-about-curation-cddd218163bd | ['Hogan Torah'] | 2020-11-19 18:59:50.932000+00:00 | ['Curation', 'Writing', 'Data Science', 'Digital Life', 'Social Media'] |
Political Intentions Behind Farmer Protests | Political Intentions Behind Farmer Protests
Protests in India. That’s all many of us are hearing today. Farmer’s protests, farmer’s strike, hungry farmers. But misinformation has spread to an extent that we are all sympathising for the farmers when this new farmer’s bill is in fact beneficial for the people and nation.
Some Indians are protesting a bill that has nothing to do with the actual farmer’s bill rather these protests are being used as a disguise for political incentives.
As per the new bill, farmers are not restricted to one area when selling crops and can now sell nation-wide which is beneficial for farmers as they gain more profit, and they are therefore able to earn more. They would also not have to pay commission to middlemen. Previously middlemen would sell farmer’s crops at low prices and then exploit these farmers. This new bill would remove middlemen and allow farmers to seek crops for fair prices and consequentially gain them more income.
Additionally, the minimum support price or MSP has been rumoured to ‘end’ or change. However, this is incorrect as opposition is duping the farmers. It has been clearly stated by the government that there will not be any change to this system.
Furthermore, misinformation has been circulating that private companies will force farmers to sell their crop and take their land which is again incorrect. The rumour regarding the selling of land is to mislead farmers. The farmers have the right to decide whether they would like to sell their crops to companies through a contract which is also not forced upon them.
There is nothing wrong with these bills. Then why are there protests?
These protests act as a hidden agenda for the politically inclined Indians influenced by the opposition party and anti-nationals. People around the world joining these protests do not understand that these protests act as propaganda and have nothing to do with the farmer’s bill. The farmer’s bill poses no harm to the farmers or the nation. Rather, they create a united front and assist those farmers in need.
A number of people who are part of these protests are not even real farmers, for example middlemen and some anti-nationals who are pretending they are farmers and protesting. Farmer strikes and protests are all part of their tactic to gain sympathy and support from general public and to destroy government reputation. | https://medium.com/@shivangikakkar/political-intentions-behind-farmer-protests-8156335e964f | ['Shivangi Kakkar'] | 2020-12-21 07:55:47.499000+00:00 | ['Farmers Protest', 'Indian Politics', 'India', 'Politics', 'Protest'] |
An Unusual Sky | It was the most beautiful view you could ever imagine.
That evening, my daughter and I were having an insightful discussion about the many different colors of the sun.
“Some say that if you look at the sun just a little longer than is well-advised, you will see that there are two more suns hiding in there,” I said. The sun was still safely peeking through the voids in the palms as we walked the garden path toward the sea.
It twinkled through in slivers above. She stopped and let go of my hand and just looked through the natural filter from the shade.
“I see it!” she said. “It flashed from white to silvery pink. And there is a black one, too.”
Morgan had been lucky to catch the sun in its full glory. It must’ve been taking a break from hiding beneath sheets of dark rainless clouds…
The palms rubbed in the gentle air. I took her hand and smiled on our way. The soil was getting a little sandier now.
The plum trees marked the end of the garden walk. Ripe fruits bowed over the corner of a burgundy picket fence, their color reminding me of my wife. | https://medium.com/illumination/an-unusual-sky-357bdcce7006 | ['Jay Horne'] | 2020-12-10 10:05:55.870000+00:00 | ['Garden', 'Beach', 'Van Gogh', 'Sun', 'Colors'] |
Creative Healthcare Mobile Apps Ideas for Development | Healthcare applications are high in demand; therefore, you have made the right decision to build a healthcare mobile app. Now, check out any of these creative healthcare app ideas that have come to mind after I read your question.
· Medical training app- Fuel it up with augmented reality to deliver an immersive experience. This type of app can help medical professionals to train the interns on various procedures without performing them on a human.
· AI personal trainer app- An app that provides personalized fitness training to individuals where AI will help to check their posture.
· Diet planner app- You can develop a diet planner app so that people can get a personalized diet chart to meet their nutrition requirements.
· Healthcare app only for women- You can think of developing a healthcare app dedicated only to women.
· Hospital finder app- This type of app can help people to find specialized hospitals for the treatment of various diseases.
· Run and earn- Developing an app where people will get money by doing exercise is definitely a motivation for those who cannot stick to the fitness routine.
· Health recordkeeping app- With this app, you can help people to keep a record of their medical history.
Choose any of these ideas and build your app today. I wish you all the luck!
you may contact us to convert your idea into reality.
Email: [email protected] | https://medium.com/@apptechblogs/creative-healthcare-mobile-apps-ideas-for-development-6413367cc8ab | ['App Tech Blogs'] | 2021-02-02 12:23:20.353000+00:00 | ['App Development', 'Healthcare', 'Healthcare Technology', 'App Development Company'] |
10 Grants Available for Investigative Data-Driven Journalism in Africa | Africa’s largest fund for data-driven investigative storytelling launches its second call for proposals today, seeking investigative story pitches by journalists in six countries.
Journalists with digital storytelling ideas that go beyond ordinary reporting to expose new or under-reported issues in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia stand to win cash grants, technology support, and editorial mentoring on their projects.
The initiative is part of impactAFRICA, a $500,000 programme to provide support for pioneering African journalism that uses data or digital tools to tackle development issues, such as public healthcare, water, sanitation, the effects of air and water pollution on African communities, climate change, and other development issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The deadline for pitches is 11 November 2016.
“The first round produced over 350 story pitches, ranging from investigations into water hygiene to unscrupulous funeral industries. Our independent jury is currently selecting the ten best ideas for support”, says impactAFRICA programme manager Haji Mohamed Dawjee.
The ten semi-finalists will all attend a StoryCamp to refine their project plans, and will then receive cash grants up to a maximum of $20,000 along with additional support from technologists and editorial experts to help produce their projects.
The full details and guidelines are here.
“We will help the resulting stories get syndicated both in Africa and the wider world,” Dawjee adds. “The best of these published stories will be eligible for three additional prizes.”
The additional impactAFRICA prizes will recognise the best investigative report, the best data-driven story and the best service journalism project.
“Development issues are important, but are often reported in a boring way. What we’re looking for is compelling storytelling, told in an original way, that uses digital technologies for improved audience engagement,” says impactAFRICA director, Justin Arenstein. “You could also use data to personalise or localise stories but, most importantly, we’re looking for journalism that creates impact.”
impactAFRICA will host a series of online StoryLab workshops and webinars ahead of the application deadline, with global experts and mentors, to help prospective applicants explore possible topics and to brainstorm solutions to technical challenges. Details about the skills programme, which is open to all Africans who want to participate, can be found here.
The initiative is run through a partnership between Code for Africa (CfAfrica) and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). Arenstein founded CfAfrica in 2012 as an ICFJ initiative and continues to manage it as part of an ICFJ Knight Fellowship. A consortium of donors led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and including the World Bank is funding impactAFRICA.
BMGF’s support has also enabled CfAfrica and ICFJ to recruit some of the continent’s most innovative digital news pioneers as ICFJ Knight Fellows, including the former editors-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian in South Africa (Chris Roper), the Star newspaper in Kenya (Catherine Gicheru), and Quartz Africa’s correspondent in Tanzania (Omar Mohammed). In Nigeria, pioneering civic technologist Temi Adeoye manages CfAfrica’s local CitizenLab, while Adi Eyal manages a similar lab at Code for South Africa and David Lemayian manages an umbrella pan-African tech lab out of Kenya.
impactAFRICA will also leverage its international partnerships, through ICFJ, to connect African innovators with their counterparts elsewhere in the Global South. | https://medium.com/code-for-africa/10-grants-available-for-investigative-data-driven-journalism-in-africa-e92d828c3ce5 | ['Haji Mohamed Dawjee'] | 2016-08-31 10:01:56.366000+00:00 | ['Investigative Journalism', 'Data Visualization', 'Journalism', 'Data Journalism', 'Open Data'] |
The Dust Formerly Known as Earth | The Dust Formerly Known as Earth
Photo by Usukhbayar Gankhuyag on Unsplash
and so it seems on course
that the prediction of the
Great Meteor
has leaked
and even though
the story is being hushed,
it said, “the great slingshot is complete,
and we all know the earthlings are
the loudest beings in the universe, so
at long last, we’ll shut them up.”
straight for us
gone is the evolution
of humans
in a flash
history is at the end,
nothing
progress of thought,
no matter
friendships, alliances, grievances, corruptions, religions
all of it obsolete
and what is left, even if
truly the laws of physics
are proven
and even if those proofs,
destroyed
could we keep the light
of love?
the great cover-up
in the pandemic
is the rock in the sky
when not even your neighbors’
germs actually matter
was this part of the plan?
not even knowing the plan
and who knew what when
will matter
your aim to save my soul
the aim of your poisoned mind
your aim at the target,
nothing
no movements
no words staying
unfamous
will matter
what else could matter more
than love?
but brain cells, language, facial expressions, memory
nostalgia, academia, psychology, your work out plan,
astrology, and anything else
your home and debt
your wishes and lists
your journal
your losses
no human construct
or understanding of society
can exist when our planet is gone
that’s it.
you can keep your eyes open
to witness the end of the world
post it quick to your network of choice
but no one will know that you are there
when the dust formerly known as earth
settles and is gone. | https://medium.com/assemblage/the-dust-formerly-known-as-earth-abb3be03d053 | ['Samantha Lazar'] | 2020-12-18 13:06:53.569000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Earth', 'Poetry', 'Society', 'Humanity'] |
Reading: The Fake Shock Over Trump | Frank Bruni in Sunday’s NYTimes has a great piece on the feigned shock from Republicans:
Listening to the 2005 recording of Donald Trump’s comments to Billy Bush, I had many reactions. Disgust was one. Amazement was another: I still struggle to comprehend how Americans let Trump get this far.
Which has been my response as well. Surely, the “Family Values” party of a decade ago would never nominate Trump. And I’ve wondered if this final straw for so many Republicans is that there is a truth they can’t escape in the video footage.
Bruni:
But surprise at what he actually said? Please. And I don’t believe for a nanosecond that it’s what the Republicans now denouncing and even fleeing him felt. The biggest shock is their charade of it, because the recording revealed nothing new.
Finally, I agree, as do so many of those I follow on Twitter, with this point:
Any Republicans who are discovering and proclaiming moral outrage only now aren’t entitled to it. They should have found it on any number of previous occasions.
The Fake Shock Over Trump | https://medium.com/blurb-o-mat/the-fake-shock-over-trump-809cce058a0b | ['Jon Armstrong'] | 2016-10-09 20:02:03.019000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Link', 'Trump', '2016 Election'] |
Using Logistic Regression to detect if a feature is Numerical or Categorical | You read the title and you might wonder why someone would want to automatically detect if a given feature is either numerical or categorical. This will come in handy for a greater task because it is just a step to handle missing values in a dataset(for a general machine learning problem). The end goal is to be able to replace every empty cell with an ensemble method(Random Forest for example) by taking into account every variable type. But first, let’s focus on how we can actually achieve that aim.
What characteristics can we use to make a distinction between a numerical and a categorical variable?
In the subsequent sections, we will discuss and dissect every chunk of code that has been written in Python for the occasion. The full code is available here.
Categorical vs Numerical variable
A categorical variable is one that can have multiple classes or modalities(with or without order) whereas a numerical variable measures some quantity on every individual in a population.
Examples of categorical variables:
Hungry : Yes, No, Yes, Yes, No
: Yes, No, Yes, Yes, No Gender : 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1
: 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1 Pain: 1, 5, 2, 7, 1, 10
Examples of numerical variables:
Age : 15, 30, 26, 74, 25, 12
: 15, 30, 26, 74, 25, 12 Salary ($): 5000, 1000, 3000, 25000, 1500, 7500
Unique Values, Floating Numbers and Sequentiality
A categorical variable tends to have less unique values than a numerical one. It also presents no floating numbers compared to what we can observe in a numerical one.
We will consider a feature to be categorical if:
it has very few unique values (but not only)
it contains a character or a string
it contains integers (but not only)
We will consider a feature to be numerical if:
it has a significant amount of unique values
it contains floating numbers
it contains integers (but not only)
When a categorical variable is comprised of integers, the unique values are naturally sequential. A numerical variable will contain non sequential modalities.
Architecture of the repository
Repository
We have two main modules:
In data_type_identifier.py , we wrote a class for preprocessing the data, building our model and our prediction method.
, we wrote a class for preprocessing the data, building our model and our prediction method. In run.py we instantiate our class and execute everything.
At each step, we will be showing what has been written in the class DataTypeIdentifer and its execution in run.py.
Data Preprocessing
The following dataset has been entirely made up for the circumstance. Let’s have a look at it. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/using-a-logistic-regression-to-detect-if-a-feature-is-numerical-or-categorical-825eaf49f1a2 | ['Yann Avok'] | 2020-10-28 21:25:35.083000+00:00 | ['Feature Engineering', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Logistic Regression', 'Features'] |
An Open Letter to Joe Biden from a Former Trump Supporter | Photo by Josh Willink from Pexels
Dear President-Elect Biden,
May I call you Joe? I’m gonna call you Joe.
It pains me to say this Joe, but congratulations. You were not my first choice of people to lead my country, but I’ve decided to put on my big-girl pants, accept reality, and get on board. I’ve always considered myself a patriot, and in my book, that includes respecting the constitutional institutions in place that elevated you to this position. The American people have spoken, and I sincerely hope you will listen.
Despite not being a fan of yours, I was moved by your acceptance speech in November when you promised to represent all of us, not just your loyal supporters. But accepting you as my president doesn’t mean that we’re all clear. I, like other responsible citizens, will have sharp eyes on you to make sure you honor your promises and commit yourself to operating this office with integrity. Which brings me to a painful concession speech of my own.
I’m quiet about it now, but I was on the Trump train when it left the station in 2015. I always considered myself a practical conservative, concerned about protecting civil liberties, and where the nation is heading both morally and financially. Looking back, my interest in Trump was emotion…trumping reason. There were plenty of red flags signifying the type of person he is. But I saw what I wanted to see in Trump: a winner, obsessed with winning, telling Americans that he wanted to see us all win. I became wrapped up in the feeling Trump created, most importantly, the way he made the men in my life feel. They are the reason I am reaching out to you today.
I’m a single woman in my 20s, and I’ve been scraping by financially for my entire adult life. The ball-and-chain of college debt is heavy around my ankle, but at least I got the privilege of attending college, which has made my struggle feel like it will have an endpoint. I’m computer-literate and I have “BSc.” on my resume. If I work hard, my future has potential for stability and perhaps even success. My sisters and I were the first in our family to attend college, but our brothers stayed behind to pursue quicker money in the trades: the construction site, the garage, the farm. My father, brothers, and many uncles and male cousins see nothing but struggle both ahead and behind them, and not just because they are rapidly being replaced by robots. They are members of the working class, laborers and blue-collar small business owners. Politicians both red and blue call them the “backbone of our country,” and yet they continue to turn a blind eye while they are pushed to the economic edge.
I’m writing to you Joe, because I am worried about my men. I need you to see them, hear them. After decades of being sold out, mocked, and vilified by the political and economic establishment, they now have to endure the humiliation of betting on a winner and losing. And as Trump viciously grapples with his loss, it’s only getting more embarrassing for everyone involved. Needless to say, they are not coping well.
I became wrapped up in the feeling Trump created, most importantly, the way he made the men in my life feel. They are the reason I am reaching out to you today.
The “Feeling”
Back in summer 2015, the men in my family seemed to come to life in a way I had never seen before. The bitter and unsettled chatter at the Sunday dinner table suddenly changed from grievanced to hopeful. Banners and flags with Trump’s name in bold white and red letters rose from our lawns and pickup trucks. “Trump is going to bring this country back,” they thundered. “Bring us back.” I only know this twinkle in their eyes was reminiscent of some phantom glory, long before I was born, by the way they spoke of it. The younger ones who never experienced this bygone “golden age” seemed to be the most fervent about getting back to it.
Back from what? Where had they been, and where were they now? What do they believe has been taken from them? As I listened to their words and sifted through their fearful outrage, I could decipher the source of their bitterness. They have been stripped of something, something simple yet sacred to them. It has been chipped away over a generation, maybe more. It is the bar to which they hold themselves as men: their ability to provide for their families.
The passing comment I made about replacement robots is very real. This tech-driven, globalized world has left the American blue-collar worker grasping for a sense of purpose and stability. Trump made hefty promises to this group, and was met with sincere excitement and relief. “Finally, someone who sees me.”
And I know how the average liberal American views the Trump voter: morally reprehensible, often unforgivable. I get it. But from my own experience, I’ve seen that scarcity can make a person selfishly nearsighted. “Climate change? Refugees? Sorry, don’t care. Just want to keep the last forty dollars in my bank account and a roof over my baby’s head, thank you.”
Regardless of the changing times, I’ve come to accept that the men around my dinner table, and many of the men in this country, are so desperate because deep down they still believe that the responsibility of “provide and protect“ ultimately rests in their hands. And judging from the kitchen chatter before Sunday meals were served, my family’s women seem to default to that belief too.
I realize I’m leaving out half of the American workforce with my concerns. The women in my life have been mostly silent in the wake of all this turmoil, carrying a stoicism that seems to waver between courageous resilience and vague helplessness. The men are suffering loudly and emotionally, stubbornly refusing to give up their last shred of pride. I’m speaking up on their behalf, Joe, because I’m becoming afraid. Some of them are entering a strain of conspiratorial toxicity where I believe they may endanger themselves or someone else.
Your Big Shot
I believe that, on a deeply emotional and psychological level, my men simply can’t handle another loss in the form of Trump’s loss. In the last four years, Trump has become a mirror into which they gaze and see themselves. Once an unflappable winner, but now? Where do they go from here?
This is where I need you to listen to me carefully, President-Elect Joe. This is where I beg you not to mock, ignore, or vilify. Please look below the surface to see these men through what they feel: disenfranchised, hopeless, and afraid that a future America doesn’t want or need them.
In the midst of the worst economic crisis in our history, our response to previous crises can provide clues as to how to recover. When he enacted the New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt added two essential American rights to what he called the “Four Freedoms”: freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He used investment in national infrastructure to put the nation’s people back to work, which provided America’s workers that sacred sense of purpose, contribution, and ability to provide to their loved ones. In a 1936 speech to the nation, FDR said, “What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear…they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.”
We just so happen to have a climate crisis barreling toward us that requires a rapid transition of our national infrastructure, else we will suffer even greater economic losses than that of the coronavirus. The workers of this country also happen to be among the most vulnerable to its effects. Do you see where I am going with this?
This is my plea to you, Joe. This is your big shot to bring this nation back together, and to bring dignity back to my family and millions like them. Invest in them. Put them to work, give them a fair shot at providing for their families, and enable them to rebuild our country into a new golden age for all Americans.
Sincerely,
Nina D’Strella | https://medium.com/@ninadstrella/an-open-letter-to-joe-biden-from-a-former-trump-supporter-dbcb8130b847 | ["Nina D'Strella"] | 2020-12-21 18:35:14.886000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Politics', 'Trump', 'Men', 'Economic Development'] |
WIPP Monthly: August 2021 | WIPP Monthly: August 2021
Greetings, citizens of the world! Work in Progress Publishing has been hard at work for another month, and we have more exciting news for you. Not only has work continued on the NFTBook Bazaar, a project we hope to have live as a beta by September 1, 2021… we have launched our own cryptocurrency: the PAGE token. View our liquidity mining guide here.
The PAGE Token
PAGE is live on Uniswap v2 but will not be fully functional until the DAO Drop has been completed. In fact, the function of this article will be to explain why we’re giving all the tokens away and what a DAO-as-product model of DAO creation could do for DAOs in general.
First, the high-level stuff. We’ve created 10,000,000 PAGEs to release to the market on Ethereum. This is all of the PAGE we intend to ever create on ETH, as an ERC-20 token. We have plans to release 100,000,000 PAGEs on Cosmos soon, however, as the staking and governance available via Cosmos SDK appears to be the most advanced available. So the plan is to run a tentative launch in which PAGE becomes available on Ethereum and we build out proof-of-concept using grants of PAGE.
When we have arrived at a functional proof-of-concept, the intention of WIP Publishing is to build the first IBC-compatible library and launch it as a freestanding DAO governed by various mechanisms including PAGE tokens, NFTBooks, and participatory governance. The more involved people are, the more rewards and incentives they can accumulate. It is the intention of the nascent PAGE DAO to eventually put every book onto the PAGE chain, minimize transactional costs, and by so doing make all of the books available to all of the world’s people while incentivizing translations and other collaborative enterprises in the written word.
Legally, the DAO-as-product model is a rather ironclad way for an organization to release a cryptocurrency. It is important for WIPP to give up control as soon as the technology required for governance becomes functional, as market manipulation and over-reserved tokens do not play well with the SEC. So instead, the company will give rise to an organization which will soon tower above its humble beginnings and recruit other startups and groups to work beside WIPP to earn PAGEs by assisting in the mission: bring all the books to the blockchain in a way which facilitates compliance with all applicable legal statutes both American and otherwise.
The financial power of DeFi is only increasing as the algorithms become more widely used; it is now possible, therefore, to launch a technology startup without major VC interest or even much traction with angel investors because the need in the market that these folks used to fill can now be accomplished via airdrops and liquidity pools. Typical startup investors see a return on their money (which they lose access to upon investment) in 4–9 years. Providers in a liquidity pool can pull their funds, lower or raise the amount of ETH/PAGE they hold, and take profit any time they like. The value is two-way: WIPP doesn’t have so many legal hurdles to jump, which diminishes the risk and lowers expenses, and liquidity providers aren’t really investors in the traditional sense so they are able to remain more liquid themselves than investors in startup companies.
LIVE: the PAGE token on Uniswap
Though the PAGE token is already live on Uniswap, WIPP does not have sufficient Ethereum to make it liquid enough to be tradeable by the masses just yet. What this means in practice is that even small trades cause a dramatic shift in terms of the market-set value of the token, i.e., its price. Since a trade for PAGE adds ETH to the liquidity pool and takes PAGE out, and a trade for ETH does the same thing in reverse, a healthy pool needs plenty of tokens to go around so that people can buy and sell them at will.
Right now, almost nobody has any PAGE tokens. This is by design; as WIPP intends to create liquidity mining incentives to encourage others to participate in PAGE token distribution by supplying liquid Ethereum to the pool. 30% of the total PAGE supply is going to Ethereum liquidity miners, and the smart contract to distribute the rules has not yet been written. So instead of releasing the tokens to the DAO Drop Recipients who will be named in the next section of this newsletter only to see extreme volatility in a new market which could potentially represent risk for liquidity providers, the PAGE DAO founding team has chosen to wait to send the grants until liquidity mining incentives are enabled at 12:00 AM EST on August 11.
The token has virtually no circulating supply and hence is essentially frozen in time for the moment, but the initial grants will be distributed as they’re accepted by participating organizations and we hope to have them all out by September 1, 2021.
The DAO Drop
The PAGE token launch strategy reserves 15% of total PAGE supply for distribution to participating organizations from around the metaverse. This would not be possible without the social genius of founder Ezra Levinger, aka Ezincrypto. EZ has a far-reaching network of friends and allies around the metaverse, an ability which has enabled his projects to grow rapidly by contributing to a community larger than themselves. Many prominent Metaverse Communities and DAOs have members who started off at Cent (beta.cent.co) and have gone on to do remarkable things. PAGE DAO recognizes the importance of the original Cent mission; to enable creators to earn a living by creating what they love to create, and aims to take it one step further by elevating the standards of living for online creators even higher.
Creative thought and action have few limits. It is important to focus on multiple avenues if the intention is to develop technologies capable of benefiting everyone. As such, PAGE DAO’s founding team has been in touch with dozens of DAOs and other organizations throughout the metaverse. The DAO Drop strategy involves three “drops” of 550,000, 500,000, and 450,000 PAGE tokens each over a sixteen month timeframe. The initial drop will involve 10 organizations, all of whom have voiced interest in participation and will be free to participate in any way they choose. The second drop will feature five large organizations and the final drop will feature as many individual creators as possible.
The 10 organizations to receive unconditional PAGE grants of 50,000–100,000 tokens are as follows:
1. (100,000 PAGE) Cryptowriter
Cryptowriter is the first publication to pick me up and run with my writing, so thanks to them for that! Also, Cryptowriter has been a supporter of the project that led to PAGE longer than anyone else. As a thank-you to these community leaders and as a gesture of support for the important mission of getting the word out about crypto, the top grant goes straight to Cryptowriter.
2. (50,000 PAGE) Tokensmart
Tokensmart is a Discord server where people can hang out and have fun, while also learning new things about cryptocurrency and NFT projects. WIP Publishing has had a show in Tokensmart for several months at this point — Wednesdays at 10:30AM PST, be there or be square!
3. (50,000 PAGE) Cipher
Cipher is a lot like WIPP. We even share a cofounder, EZincrypto! The Cipher mission is to do for hip hop what WIPP wants to do for books. That is, create and refine Web3.0 technologies to provide these content forms for audiences everywhere.
4. (50,000 PAGE) VR Graffiti Battles
VR Graffiti Battles needs no introduction! A metaverse art guild, VR Graffiti Battles is a visual art project PAGE DAO is proud to support.
5. (50,000 PAGE) RaidGuild
Talented developers, designers, businesspeople… RaidGuild has it all. They’re launching their own token soon, and PAGE DAO intends to work with RaidGuild to build technology. A decentralized Web3.0 skunkworks, RaidGuild is worth a look if you have a strong idea that’s ready for prime time.
6. (50,000 PAGE) LADz City
LADz City is an organization with a massive membership base and a never-ending stream of killer events all backed up by Web3.0 technologies. PAGE DAO looks forward to the partnership with LADz, and a token swap is in the works even beyond the DAO Drop in the immediate future.
7. (50,000 PAGE) MaskDAO
MaskDAO is the community side of the famous Hashmasks art project. The Hashmasks themselves are undergoing development and can now be named, so why not longer content blocks? We may find out soon!
8. (50,000 PAGE) TosDis
TosDis is the provider which is enabling the Liquidity Mining Incentive program, so our hat is off to this team! Smart contracts are difficult to work with, but an audited contract often has more than one potential application. We’re thrilled that TosDis has made their contract available to the public.
9. (50,000 PAGE) Charged Particles
Charged Particles is a revolutionary new smart contract platform for NFTs that enables users to lock things (tokens, other NFTs, be creative!) into NFTs for users to claim after they purchase.
10. (50,000 PAGE) TrustSwap
TrustSwap has served over 7500 different crypto projects over time, and we are no different at PAGE DAO. The PAGE ERC-20 token was minted with TrustSwap and while the 50,000 PAGEs that went to TrustSwap are already out, the tokens are earmarked for the TrustSwap community and we couldn’t be happier about it.
Coming Soon: Liquidity Mining Incentives
The PAGE Token will be released upon the successful automation of Liquidity Mining Incentives, powered by TosDis and Uniswap v2.
When the contract launches at Midnight EST on August 11, 3,000,000 PAGEs will be staked into it as rewards to be paid out over time to liquidity providers who choose to stake their liquidity pool tokens into the incentive pool. Simply stake ETH & PAGE into the Uniswap pool at this address and then navigate to the PAGE + ETH LP Token Staking page here. This incentive will run for 18 months from the date of launch, and will continue to incentivize Ethereum liquidity provision until it runs out.
Another 100M tokens may be launched on Cosmos at a later time, and the best thing to do will likely be to allow people to burn ERC-20 tokens to receive Cosmos versions which will enable staking and liquidity on Cosmos-native platforms while continuing to provide rewards on the Ethereum blockchain which started it all.
In the coming weeks, the organizations receiving PAGE grants will be receiving their tokens and deciding what to do with them. Some will sell, some will HODL, and some will provide liquidity. Some may institute programs to drop their tokens to DAO and/or community members, and some will devise even more complicated strategies to maximize the mutual benefit created by the unique strategy behind the PAGE token. To read more about the inspiration for this strategy, have a look at Osmosis.
As a result of this process, it may be the case that some organizations receive their tokens before others. Nothing beyond liquidity mining incentives can be done to stabilize the price of the PAGE token at this early stage, but with community-assisted price discovery, it is likely that a reasonably stable token launch is in store.
Eventually, users will be able to use PAGE tokens to trade for NFTBooks and perhaps earn rewards for certain behaviors that benefit the network as volume mining incentives are developed. PAGE DAO is an open organization and will be looking to continue to create mutually beneficial relationships with other organizations in the crypto/NFT space.
Follow us on Twitter @pagedao and @wippublishing and @thomasdylandan2 and @booksonchain to keep up with the latest, and we’ll continue to work on the Web3.0 standard for books. Everything we do will be open source, and it is impossible to even attempt to speculate about the ultimate market size and/or value of what is being created by this collaborative group of organizations working together to create a new game-theoretical model of economics: mutually assured benefit. | https://medium.com/work-in-progress-publishing/wipp-monthly-august-2021-55f4354c48c2 | ['Thomas Dylan Daniel'] | 2021-08-11 03:56:00.617000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Nftbooks', 'Ethereum', 'Nft', 'Bitcoin'] |
Discovering the Sustainable Development Goals with Polyup | The Polyup team is committed to creating a new generation of creative problem solvers through math and computer science. To accomplish this goal, we encourage students to create Poly Machines around the Sustainable Development Goals, so that they can learn how to approach these challenges in an analytical and mathematical way.
What are the Sustainable Development Goals?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) consist of 17 goals defined by the UN as a universal call to action for all countries and individuals to collaborate on ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring peace and equality for everyone all over the world. All the goals are interconnected, so it's necessary to have all of them in mind when trying to solve any one of them.
Creating the machine
Here are some guidelines that will help you create a good and complete machine on an SDG. (If you are new at authoring, you can also check this useful article on how to create good Poly Machines!).
Choosing the goal.
Before you start creating the machine, you have to decide what SDG you want to tackle, and do some research on it to give real data and practical solutions. A great resource for the SDGs is here. Naming the machine.
Make sure your machine has a clear and attracting name. It doesn't have to be the particular sustainable development goal’s title, but something that presents properly the content of your machine. The first chip: Introducing the goal
It's important for your first chip to give an introduction on the problem that you are going to confront, so this chip may give some facts and data for the player to understand the gravity of the problem. You can have an extra chip on introduction and meaningful data, but remember to keep the length of your machine between 3 and 7 chips! Proposing solutions
After introducing the goal you should have 2 or 3 chips where you suggest an impactful solution to contribute on achieving the goal. You can make all the chips on different aspects of the same solution, or propose different solutions for the chosen goal. Also remember to make the difficulty of the math in your chips grow as students progress in solving your machine! The conclusion
No matter the length of your machine, the last chip should give a conclusion to your investigation and proposal to help the player understand the impact of your solutions.
Learning impact for students
Creating machines on specific topics like the SDGs help students on various aspects.
Awareness of the SDGs. Students will get to know the purpose of the SDGs plan, the main goal of each, and the common threads that relate them. Research on the meaningful data of a certain SDG. Before creating a Poly Machine, students will have to look for significant information and meaningful data in order to make their Poly Machine as realistic as possible. This is a fun and bite-sized microcosm of the research process. Solutions proposal using the data found. Students will have to propose a set of math problems related with the chosen SDG, in which they suggest an impactful solution to contribute with the goal of the SDG. Measurable Impact of the solution. As the solution of the created problems is shown in numerical terms, its impact will be directly measurable. Two disruptive ways of learning:
- By teaching: When creating the machines, the students need to go a step forward and think of the best way to set up the problem so a future player can understand the machine and learn from it. This requires emotional maturity.
- By playing: When playing other’s machines students will also learn about a certain SDG in an entertaining way.
Now, it's time to use all these tips to create your own Poly Machine on one of the SDGs and show the Polyup community your ideas! To ignite some ideas, you can see some examples of machines we made here. | https://medium.com/polyup/discovering-the-sustainable-development-goals-with-polyup-600b026ca5bb | ['Júlia Barrufet'] | 2019-08-10 00:04:18.781000+00:00 | ['Computational Thinking', 'Math', 'Edtech', 'Sustainable Development'] |
OCC National Payments Charter: The Way Forward? | Brian Brooks, the acting Comptroller of the Currency took over the role from Joseph Otting on May 29, 2020, and wasted no time in making his mark on the regulatory agency, announcing his intentions to bring FinTech to the forefront of the agency’s priorities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) primarily serves to supervise, regulate, and charter national banks, including financial institutions such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase. With Brooks at the helm, the agency not only proposed the “true lender” rule, which clarifies relationships between banks and third-parties, such as a marketplace lender, but also a “payments charter”, a special purpose national bank charter for payments companies.
Photo by CardMapr on Unsplash
The Payments Charter has the ability to bring FinTechs into the consumer mainstream. Payment companies would have the prestige of a national charter under the supervision of the OCC, giving consumer confidence in their services. So for Version 1.0 of the Payments Charter, Brooks laid out a national version of a state money transmission license that provides the advantage of a national platform with pre-emption from the states. There are significant advantages for payment companies to operate under a federal charter rather than a smattering of state money transmitter licenses. Operating under a state-by-state basis, a payments company would need to handle varying requirements, resulting in consequential operational challenges.
Brooks’ experience in the FinTech industry, having recently held the role of Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase and sat on the board of directors of Avant, Inc., a marketplace lending and technology platform company, bodes well for the FinTech industry. In his initial statement since becoming acting Comptroller of the Currency, Brooks said “we should support banks’ use of new technology, products, and models that safely and fairly accelerate the velocity of money, create greater financial inclusion and empower consumers and businesses with more control over their financial affairs.”
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
As innovation is a “personal passion” of his, it will be fascinating to see how the OCC leads the way in financial innovation and digital technology in the banking industry. According to an Accenture study, with $500 billion in incremental revenue from the payments industry up for grabs over the next 6 years, the payments industry is increasingly competitive. Recent acquisitions from Visa and Mastercard, two incumbent players in the payments market, further highlight this cutthroat nature.
With the pandemic accelerating the digital first nature of banking, it is important that FinTech’s continue to innovate and are appropriately regulated in order to best serve the American consumer. | https://medium.com/@lamtimothy/occ-national-payments-charter-the-way-forward-8215f731b40c | ['Timothy Lam'] | 2020-11-12 14:37:39.791000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Regulation', 'Payments', 'Technology', 'Banking'] |
Coffee Shop Site Selection in Paris using Clustering Algorithm | B. Methodology
1. Acquiring Data
In this study, we have three data resources which permit to build all the datasets and run the required analyses.
Geographic Data
From the open plateforme of public data in France, I downloaded two json files to build Paris boroughs and neighborhoods dataframes.
The figure below shows 5 neighborhoods in Paris and their features: PostalCode, Borough, Borough Surface, Neighborhood, Latitude, Longitude.
Paris Neighborhood Dataframe
Paris consists of 20 boroughs and each borough is divided into 4 neighborhoods. In total, we have 80 neighborhoods. The figure below shows a map of Paris boroughs and neighborhoods.
Paris Map
Venue Data
Foursquare API is used to get venues at each neighborhood. The figure hereafter shows the corresponding dataframe.
Paris Venues
Demographic Data
Now that we built neighborhood and venue dataframes, we will focus on getting demographic data from INSEE website:
- Median household income
- Population density
- Employee base
- Employment status
INSEE website provides data per borough. Therefore, I will scrape data for each borough, then, assign borough values to the neighborhoods composing it. Scraping process was performed using BeautifulSoup python library.
The figure below shows the demographic dataframe.
Paris Demographic Data per Borough
The Column Preferred Section Employees contains the number of jobs in industry, administrative and service sectors at each borough. The more employees in these sectors the more we can consider that the borough is an employee base.
2. Exploring and Data Processing
Paris Coffee Shops and Competitiveness
As we are interested only by coffee shops, we need to extract from Paris venues those shops based on the category. Coffee shops belong to the categories Café or Coffee Shop.
Paris Coffee Shops per Neighborhood
The number of coffee shops is an important information to check whether the neighborhood includes many competitors. Based on this data, we can set the competitiveness level at each neighborhood. To do that, let’s look at the distribution of coffee shops shown in the figure below.
Neighborhood Coffee Shops Distribution
Based on the bar chart above, number of coffee shops per neighborhood, we can classify neighborhoods in 3 categories.
- low competitiveness: number of coffee shops less than 2
- medium competitiveness: number of coffee shops is between 2 and 4
- high competitiveness: number of coffee shops greater than 4
Now, the neighborhood dataframe is having a new column to label competitiveness level as shown in the figure below.
Neighborhood Data Frame — Competitiveness
Preferred Sector Employee Density
If we consider all borough demographic data, except Preferred Sector Employees, we can apply them to the neighborhoods forming the borough because they are normalized with respect to surface or population. I calculated Preferred Sector Employee Density to be able to use it for the neighborhoods.
Preferred Sector Employee Density=Preferred Sector Employees/Borough Surface
The final neighborhood dataframe will look as the figure below.
Paris Neighborhood DataFrame — Competitiveness and Demographic Data
3. Cluster Paris Neighborhoods
Now that I have the final dataset, I can proceed to clustering Paris neighborhoods in order to recommend, to a business starter, a neighborhood where it is better to open his own coffee shop.
Before running clustering algorithm, I transformed Competitiveness column using the one hot encoding function in order to obtain numerical data. Then, I used StandardScaler to normalize all the features.
I used k-means algorithm to segment Paris neighborhoods. To choose the optimal k value, I applied the elbow method as shown in the figure below.
KMeans Algorithm — Elbow Method
We can see on the plot that the mean distance drops down at the k value 5 and gives the graph an elbow shape. Therefore, we can conclude that our optimal value is: k = 5. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/coffee-shop-site-selection-in-paris-a69065fffb41 | ['Chayeb Khaled'] | 2020-06-03 16:11:31.116000+00:00 | ['Paris', 'Data Science', 'Clustering', 'K Means', 'Machine Learning'] |
Should you get a Master’s Degree in Data Science? A faculty perspective. | Should you get a Master’s Degree in Data Science? A faculty perspective.
Photo by Chichi Onyekanne on Unsplash
I’ve seen quite a few posts on Medium (and other platforms) giving a perspective on how to gain the necessary skills to be successful in Data Science. The typical contrast is a university degree vs. a bespoke collection of online credentials (via MOOCs, boot camps, etc.). As a faculty member at Vanderbilt’s Data Science Institute, I think I have a perspective on this decision that is less often heard online.
My background, in brief: In addition to three university degrees, I’ve also taken several online courses and have several credentials from a popular online coding school. I also now have about 20 years of (diverse) work experience, and so I know a fair amount about getting jobs, getting promoted, and being successful. Importantly, I’ve not been a lifetime academic cloistered in an ivory tower — I’ve had deliverables and hired and fired people. If you want more on my background, go here:
Is a Master’s Degree in Data Science worth it for you? Read on and decide. Here is what you’ll get to do in a degree program that makes it worth it:
Develop amazing relationships.
The data science community is large and growing. It happens when you’ve been deemed the “sexiest job of the 21st century.” How can you find your place in the crowd?
Master’s programs work especially well here. You will become a part of a curated cohort of like-minded peers. As you go to class, work on group projects and such, you will begin to develop a valuable network of friends and professional contacts. These peers will help either in the future when they can help you get a contact for a new job, or next year when you are both in new jobs and you need help solving a problem you’re stuck on.
These relationships do not end at graduation, nor are they limited to your contemporaneous classmates.
These relationships do not end at graduation, nor are they limited to your current peers in school. Upon graduation, you will becomes a part of a broader community of alumni. Granted, this is presently somewhat limited as data science programs are still young — there are not many alumni. But this is a benefit that grows with time. I have seen this at work at the Owen Graduate School of Management. The alumni base is active and engaged with the school and ready and willing to help current students and new grads navigate the business world. Step 1 in job hunting is connecting with willing and well-placed alumni.
Even better, you may not realize this now, but there will likely be graduates from your program 10 years from now (or more) that are likely to be great contacts for you down the road, either because you need to hire your next great employee or they are doing something amazing at another firm and you see a possible partnership. You have an automatic bridge to reach out to them through you common school connection.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Learn from your talented classmates.
Don’t underestimate the importance of learning from peers. This is one of the most important parts of education, really. There is significant research that shows how effective peer learning can be. Here is the basic explanation: a peer who has just recently understood a concept is much closer to her peer who is still confused. Thus, this person is more likely to use specific words, concepts, or metaphors that aid understanding. Teachers, who are experts, can sometimes be at a loss to explain something in a new and fresh way that will work for some students.
Further, teaching someone else is an excellent way to build expertise in a topic. Hearing and understanding is very basic. Applying that knowledge to a project or problem is a deeper level of understanding. Teaching others to do the same takes you even further.
Working in a community of learners/scholars produces much deeper understanding than studying on your own.
Also, the faculty are amazing. I don’t mean this as self-aggrandizement — I’m talking about my peers. They are amazing, talented people who are fully engaged with students and care a great deal about student success. So peer learning is awesome, but you are never left on your own.
Stand out in the crowd.
One of the most relevant reasons to get a university degree is that you really stand out. Online courses often have thousands of participants. Web-based platforms to learn coding likely have hundreds of thousands of learners. This is great! I’m thrilled that there are so many who want to learn more and I fully support these platforms (a topic for another post). As I noted above, I’ve used these platforms myself and benefited from them.
However, once you finish, you are among thousands that have just done the same thing. In a year or more, you are one among perhaps a hundred thousand. How will you stand out to a recruiter or a hiring manager?
Graduate programs, by necessity, have screening built in. It is called admissions. While this process feels arduous when you are entering it, once you are admitted, it is rather helpful. This process is what helps you stand out as a part of a school and also helps generate an amazing peer group of talented classmates.
Practice working on a team.
I often say this in my own courses at Vanderbilt, but data science is a team sport. One of the things you will definitely experience in a degree program is working in teams. This kind of experience is vital because virtually all work you’ll need to do professionally will be as part of a team. You will have your own individual work, of course, but unless you are a one-person company, you’ll be working with others eventually. It is better to practice that sooner rather than later.
How do you divide the work? What do you do if someone is not doing their part? How do you avoid duplicating effort? How do you effectively communicate specifically what needs to be done? How do you do all of that with time pressure and a deadline? How do you work on a team?
These are all things you will experience in a degree program first hand. These are also things you will experience in the real world of work and deliverables and deadlines. It is good to start now.
Prioritize deadlines and work tasks.
Yes, deadlines are a thing. To be clear, I don’t just mean making sure you finish your work by a certain deadline. I also mean managing multiple project or problems and multiple deadlines all at the same time. I mean managing your own individual deadlines along with your team’s deadlines in a different class.
In the work world, you can’t always just power through everything and get it all done. Sometimes, you need to ‘manage upward’ with your supervisor to let them know that some due dates for deliverables need to shift. How do you have that conversation? What is the right way to discuss this? How do you prioritize with your supervisor?
I regularly talk with students who are managing a lot — not just classes but interviews (job hunting takes a lot of time and happens concurrently with your classes), case competitions, and other commitments. I do my best to be flexible. Something I can deal with is a student who emails me asking about a project deadline in a week that corresponds to a midterm in another class. I often do not know about conflicts like this. If my project was due on Friday, I can often move the deadline to Sunday with very little impact on my schedule, and students can now focus on their Friday exam, then pivot to the project conclusion on the weekend.
Practicing this kind of advanced planning and time/workload management is a part of being a graduate student. It is a vital skill in the world of work. You get these kinds of situations when you are studying on your own.
Develop a deeper understanding of…everything.
Rigor is probably my biggest concern with respect to automated learning. Let me define that: by “automated” learning, I specifically mean self-paced learning where there is no personalized interaction or feedback. This is primarily found in online MOOCs with thousands of students and the automated platforms that teach coding through self-paced videos and simple exercises.
I have found it impossible to combine rigor with automated learning, at least with current tools and technologies. I have many automated assignments in my classes — readings, videos, and auto-graded quizzes and feedback. They are an important part of my class…for basic introductory concepts. My students do these as prep work. The in-depth learning comes in class via discussion, group problem solving, and the like.
Rigor comes in (at least) two forms. First, it is simply dealing with harder problems. You cannot automate harder problems because too many students will get stuck and automated feedback is impossible unless you know the error. Right now, it takes a human to see what the student is doing wrong and customize the help to move them closer to the answer without giving it away. Automated platforms also always err on the side of ‘easy’ because nothing is more frustrating for users than not being able to solve a problem and not having anyone to ask for help.
Rigor is not just harder problems. It is open-ended problems.
The more important form of rigor is open-ended problems and projects. For example, as a final project in my Survey of Data Science Applications class, my students are writing their own case study on an application of data science. This assignment does a lot. First, it tests their understand of specific uses of data science in real life, forcing them to research how firms or organizations are using data science. Second, it puts them into the role of “teacher” because they have to identify learning objectives and class discussion questions. This pushes them to a higher level of understanding as I noted above. Third, it also tests their communication and writing skills because they have to bring all of their ideas together in a concise document. There is no way this kind of assignment would work in any automated learning platform. It pushes my students in ways that those programs simply cannot do, and thus engenders a deeper mastery of those topics.
Photo by Fatos Bytyqi on Unsplash
Work on unique, interesting, and important projects
If you read for about one minute about “how to be a data scientist” you will come upon advice that you should work on projects.
Shortly after that advice, you’ll find more advice that you need to stand out from the crowd, so your MOOC final project (also done by 10,000 other students) won’t work. Your slight variation on a Kaggle competition isn’t likely to draw attention either. And you definitely shouldn’t use any data set you’ve ever seen in a tutorial online.
Most Master’s programs will include working on interesting projects in conjunction with faculty or local businesses. Often, they already have interesting data and an array of real questions or problems they are interested in solving.
A Master’s degree should get you working on real projects with real data and real obstacles. But you also have real support and the resources you need to succeed. This kind of experience is exactly what you need.
These are the types of projects that help you stand out. These are the types of projects that help you build your skills as you deal with messy data, badly named database columns, and the disappointment of realizing that what you thought was your key variable is missing in 75% of your data because it wasn’t a required field.
Engage in meaningful conversations about ethics and bias
Most programs have a required ethics course. You can (and should!) read about the ethical issues in data science. There are quite a few and I won’t go into them here (e.g., racial bias, data privacy, etc.). Engaging in difficult conversations about ethics is best done in person and repeatedly through time. They are also best had within a broader context, not in isolation.
The ethical use of data and ethical application of algorithms (for example) are the responsibility of everyone in the field. We can’t push ethics off to the side as the specialty of a few.
Ethics is something that is easily omitted from a self-curated set of certificates. It is also virtually impossible to do in an automated learning environment. My peers at Owen that teach ethics were particularly distraught at the move to online with the pandemic because of the loss of these conversations.
Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
Much of ethics is understanding how your own seemingly innocuous choices can badly impact others. Unintended consequences. Without others to help you see your own blind spots or tell their stories, it is hard to grow your ethical imagination. | https://towardsdatascience.com/should-you-get-a-masters-degree-in-data-science-a-faculty-perspective-e25c0e0d3adc | ['Jesse Blocher'] | 2020-12-15 22:05:47.318000+00:00 | ['Masters Degree', 'Editors Pick', 'Data Science Training', 'Office Hours', 'Data Science'] |
Why Marvel Doesn’t Actually Have a Villain Problem | Why Marvel Doesn’t Actually Have a Villain Problem
A good villain doesn’t have to be a well-rounded character.
When Marvel Studios released Black Panther earlier this year, it was widely acclaimed for good reason. The film is a milestone for representation in the largely white-men-centric superhero genre. However, it was also praised for another reason. Marvel had “fixed their villain problem” with Michael B. Jordan’s Erik Killmonger.
Don’t get me wrong, Killmonger is a great character, and a great villain; there’s no doubt about that. The audience can empathize with him while still recognizing that his actions are morally repugnant. Jordan’s performance is incredible, one of his best. He is one of the better MCU villains. Killmonger challenges Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa’s views, and invokes real growth in him, the trademark of a great villain. That being said, I take issue with the viewpoint that villains can only be good if they are good characters. The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t (and never had) a villain problem.
A good villain or antagonist only has to spark a change in the protagonist. They themselves do not have to be a good character. Take a look at the 1977 film Star Wars. Darth Vader is considered one of the greatest villains of all time, and is he a very fleshed out character? No. He’s evil for the sake of evil, but he makes for a menacing obstacle for our heroes to overcome. He incites change in Luke, the hero of the story. It doesn’t matter that we don’t know his backstory or his motivations. In fact, when he was given a backstory years later in George Lucas’s prequel trilogy, his villainy was greatly diminished. He was reduced to a whiny, entitled young man. The excessive explanation of character’s backstories and motivations is an issue that has plagued the Star Wars Universe since. Marvel, however, does not have this issue.
Just so it’s clear, Marvel does have a few villains that don’t do their respective film justice. Look no further back than this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. Ava Starr, a.k.a. Ghost, is a wonderful character brought to life by Hannah John-Kamen. Her quest to cure her life-threatening disease is easily able to be sympathized with, and the audience truly feels her pain. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do much besides mildly inconvenience our heroic duo, and no changes are made to their views or character due to her presence. In this case, the villain is weak, but the character is strong. Because of the weak villain, the stakes in Ant-Man and the Wasp seem extremely low, which doesn’t necessarily make it a bad film, just a lightweight one.
Marvel’s biggest villain misstep is undoubtedly in Thor: The Dark World with Malekith the Accursed. Malekith is not only a poor character, but a poor villain as well. He is evil just because, and doesn’t evoke any meaningful growth in Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. He isn’t particularly menacing or memorable. From the start of the movie, you know he is just an object for Thor to punch. Thor, of course, actually ends up dropping a spaceship on him, but that’s beside the point. Due to its poorly conceived antagonist (and a few other problems), Thor: The Dark World suffers, arguably being the worst installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
My examples of any “villain problem” end there, though. Perhaps the film that best illustrates my point is Iron Man, the film that kickstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe and originated its “villain problem.” At the beginning of the film, Tony Stark is an arrogant billionaire who could care less where his money comes from. By the end of the film, Tony Stark is an arrogant billionaire who decides to be more responsible with his company. This is largely because of Obediah Stane, a.k.a. Iron Monger. Yes, he is basically just an evil Iron Man, but his actions show Tony Stark the error of his ways. Stane is a typical villain, a greedy business man who just wants more money, but in this particular story, he serves his purpose well. He is a perfect foil to Tony Stark, and Marvel has been following this template since.
One of the more baffling villains accused of being disposable is Cate Blanchett’s Hela from Thor: Ragnarok. There’s nothing disposable about the Goddess of Death, who poses a severe threat to Asgard and its people. She brings the truth of Odin’s rule to light, making Thor reassess who he is and where he comes from. In the end, he accepts that he is to be king of his people. She also pushes him physically to the brink, to the point that Thor must destroy Asgard and set Surtur upon her in order to defeat her. As if that’s not enough, Blanchett chews the scenery in a delightful way in her Hot Topic bodysuit and smudged eyeshadow. Taika Waititi’s film is zany exuberance from start to finish, and Hela is a huge part of the fun. She is anything but disposable.
Does Marvel Studios tend to give their villains the same powersets as their respective heroes? For sure. In most cases though, this makes for a compelling character foil. Each film, with very few exceptions, takes the hero on a journey in which their views and morals change, largely due to the villain. Take the villain out of the story of any MCU film (save the exceptions listed earlier), and the hero’s journey is diminished significantly.
You could accuse Marvel of sticking to a formula, and that would be a well-founded accusation. They certainly do. However, they have yet to make a movie with that green splat on Rotten Tomatoes. Their films are guaranteed to be box office successes; sometimes they are even record breakers. They are still considered the gold standard in modern superhero cinema. With growing diversity both behind and in front of the camera, future installments look to be just as successful. They have changed the face of cinema, creating a series of films that play like episodes in a television season, and people are consistently lining up for the next installment. Let’s face it, Marvel doesn’t have a villain problem. Marvel doesn’t have any problem at all. | https://medium.com/@thesamlenz/why-marvel-doesnt-actually-have-a-villain-problem-4c4f5db948ab | ['Sam Lenz'] | 2019-01-06 05:00:12.160000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Film', 'Marvel', 'Marvel Cinematic Universe', 'Black Panther'] |
Why Do You Read? | Why Do You Read?
Plus: 10 of my favorite Medium writers right now
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
It would be a lie to say I read for a living, but it’s fair to say I make a living because I love to read and am good at it.
Why do you read? When you ask people this, a lot of them say they read to consume information or to escape. No offense to me, but this blog post will likely contain very little information! And surely no escape, unless you are procrastinating. But it contains thought and opinion, and you may get a sense of how sentences form in my head because I write how I think, and you’ll learn who I’m reading lately, and why.
I think we read to connect with ideas and people. I have an always-growing list of people who I will read no matter what. I’ll read their tweets, their replies to other people’s tweets, their deep captions on IG, their blogs, their longform, their newsletters, their books, their texts, if I am lucky enough to call them a friend. Some of these writers I love for their voice, others for the way they think, for their spare (or weird!) use of language, for their ideas, or how they change my mind. And they all connect.
So I’m going to salute them here. Here are 10 writers I read for different reasons. Feel free to share your own list. (If you do, please tag me so I see your post — it’s an occupational requirement for me to fall in love with new writers on an ongoing basis 🤗.)
So that’s my list for now. Who’s on yours? | https://siobhan.medium.com/why-do-you-read-9f0e2a88383c | ["Siobhan O'Connor"] | 2020-11-12 01:20:39.899000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Reading', 'Blogging'] |
How to Wear a Bodycon Dress | How to Wear a Bodycon Dress
Bodycon is defined as brief for the body. Be sure to understand your physique and get bodycon on your own. Fret not; they are available in all shapes, sizes, lengths, prints, and colours. Before picking it up to try it on is your key. The bodycon can help emphasize the best of you personally.
They’re not for everyone, while those Bodycon Dresses can be everywhere. Angelina Jolie seems fantastic in black leather. And style icon Diane Kruger stones a dress like nobody else. But for a woman the trimming needs to be perfect along with also the silhouette must be slimming — only then will the result will be, balanced perfection that is sexy. Hence, we intend to help, however, think they don’t have the body to take off it.
Wear Bodycon Dress Like a Pro!
A bodycon dress is a dress which is a one-piece, and it clings to the body. Consequently, if it is a knee-length dress, then it will detract to the knee from shoulders; a bodycon dress isn’t supposed to be fitting in almost any place at all.
Bodycon dresses are often either small length, knee-length, or mid-calf span, so you may readily locate an extent that you are comfortable with; if you’re not the body convinced of individuals, a mid-calf span bodycon apparel will likely cause you to feel more comfortable. These dresses may also have they can have long sleeves — bodycon is essentially extremely versatile, so by missing out on this fashion, you are missing out on style flexibility.
If it’s the bodycon outfit is a success or not, doesn’t just depend upon assurance to put on it, but it also hinges on how your accessories it. About chilled out days too A bodycon doesn’t have to worry about evenings out, it can be; a bodycon dress can be made casual with a pair of trainers or heels because it can be dressed up with a pair of heels.
Go for the ones that fall to prevent that pulling and yanking fight, if you aren’t comfortable with winy lengths. High heels can allow you to take the bodycon with elan and mindset until you take a dip in a maximum of your heels if you’re a first-timer practice.
If you aren’t in best of your eyeglasses, attempt without sulking on your entire body firmers to dancing away. Hand block printing layout provides a look, so give it a go through days. Have a look at bodycon gowns here.
Pick an ideal clutch/bag and the accessories to accompany your dress. Do not forget on accessories as the highlight while sporting the bodycon apparel is YOU!!
Once you have made your mind about wearing it, then stick to that. Believe that you can pull it off just like Ali Levine states,”… conscious body dress, should not leave you feeling self-conscious in your body,” | https://medium.com/@priyanshudigital98/how-to-wear-a-bodycon-dress-1cf684be0fca | ['Priyanshu Khandelwal'] | 2020-01-15 05:01:38.057000+00:00 | ['Fashion', 'Clothing', 'Style', 'Trends', 'Designer'] |
New Tokens Added to Bitfinex | We are pleased to announce support for RLC, RCN, REP, TRX, ELF, AID & SNGLS, tradable against BTC, ETH and USD.
Deposits have been enabled with trading set to commence at 15.30pm UTC today.
To learn more about these projects, please visit Bitfinex Support. We are excited to provide a platform of support for these unique projects and to contribute to the the long-term development of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Margin trading for all pairs will be enabled as and when the Bitfinex order books develop the required liquidity. All ERC20 trading pairs will eventually be migrated to trade only on Ethfinex. | https://medium.com/bitfinex/new-tokens-added-to-bitfinex-f00391305214 | [] | 2018-04-26 07:21:37.848000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Bitfinex'] |
Ethereum’s Painful 2.0 Transition has a Solution, According to Uniris | Uniris’ Solution to Ethereum’s Painful 2.0 Transition
Today most of the governance mechanisms in cryptocurrencies such as in Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc… are informal (off-chain). These governance models are designed or improved based on Satoshi Nakomoto’s original whitepaper. Improvement proposals to the blockchain are initially submitted by developers and then the core group involved with the blockchain, mostly consisting of developers, are responsible for coordinating and achieving consensus between stakeholders.
In any blockchain protocol, the stakeholders are mainly:
miners (operate nodes)
developers (build the blockchain)
users (use/invest the cryptocurrency of the blockchain)
In this article we will discuss ‘On-Chain Governance’ and especially the on-chain governance model by Uniris, where any modifications on the blockchain will be quick, formal, and work solely online.
In layman terms, on-chain governance vs off-chain governance is more like ‘Soft Brexit vs Hard Brexit’.
What is the problem with Off-Chain Governance?
Let us take the example of Ethereum, which adopted an off-chain governance model. Usually when improvement proposals to Ethereum are submitted by the developers, the core Ethereum dev team is responsible for the approval or disapproval of the improvement proposal. All the approval process is offline and once approved, the code will be online.
Currently Ethereum is switching from its original 1.0 version to Ethereum 2.0. The transition is quite risky, complex, and protracted. The main motive for this transition is to achieve scalability and hence have higher TPS than Visa, Mastercard etc… (>45000 TPS). Ethereum expects to continue its growth, hence all its node operators are indirectly ordered to work on computers with more processing power and storage, which will easily lead to some form of centralization. Ultimately, support for such a network will decrease! (Especially in the decentralized world.)
For this transition to be successful all the existing smart contracts need to be moved to another network. The new Ethereum 2.0 network would slowly add all the smart contracts (all these smart contracts must be created again), hence, we call it the most painful long term process in the history of blockchain.
Solution: Uniris’ Onchain Governance Model
On-chain governance models are simply where any change with respect to code is proposed online, validated online, accepted online and implemented online. All changes to the blockchain are proposed through code updates and the respective nodes involved with that part of the code/logic can vote to accept or decline the change.
Once the code is accepted, it will automatically be included in the blockchain!
Note: Depending on the blockchain protocol and on-chain governance model used, not all nodes have the same voting power. For instance, preference can be given to:
Nodes with a history of code proposals & acceptances
Nodes with more coins
Eg: Tezos uses a similar form of on-chain governance called self-amending ledger. All the proposed changes are first implemented on a test version of the blockchain. If the results are successful the code will be put online on the real blockchain.
Uniris’ Edge
The code used by the nodes is hosted by the Blockchain itself, so the network is certain that all the nodes will immediately apply the decided updates (via Elixir hot-reload modules and from the information stored in the “smart-contract content” area). The Uniris Blockchain is also equipped with the ability to test the impact of a new feature in real time.
Governance of the Uniris network is based on 8 distinct groups:
Users: Anyone with the ability to prove their uniqueness (via biometric devices or other processes).
Miners: Owners of the mining nodes which constitute the network itself.
Application & Services: Application providers with a weightage based on usage generated.
Foundation: Their role is to lead the community and organize governance.
Technical Council: Composed of the “core developers” with a weightage based on importance of their code contribution.
Uniris: As the creator of the network.
Ethics Council: Whose members will be proposed/elected by the community and who will have a veto right over all technical features that would impact the privacy of users.
Blockchain: The Blockchain itself, in particular, through its ability to test a full-scale functionality before deploying it on the network. For example, the maximum size of transactions is not linked to a point of view, rather it can be directly tested to determine the actual impact on the network with respect to the need considered.
Planned Governance by the Community
Uniris, a Humanitarian and Community Project
Once the risk of fork is removed, all the patents will be transferred to the heritage of the open source technologies, most likely this heritage would be assigned to the OIN (Open Invention Network). The entire source code will be AGPL licensed.
– Written By Nilesh Patankar, COO and Co-founder, Uniris, and Akshay Kumar Kandhi, Chief Product Officer, Uniris
For any questions or more information on Uniris do check out: https://uniris.io or follow them on social media: | https://medium.com/@yourprstrategist/ethereums-painful-2-0-transition-has-a-solution-according-to-uniris-53a785d1d1c3 | [] | 2020-12-07 13:36:45.387000+00:00 | ['Governance', 'Biometric Solutions', 'Uniris', 'Ethereum Blockchain', 'Ethereum 2'] |
04 — thoughtful gifts. today was monday, and it was a good… | today was monday, and it was a good one! i am thoroughly enjoying my lack of school at the moment. today was a pretty relaxed, yet also pretty productive day. i got to see a few of my friends (from a distance and outside, of course) and we did part of our christmas gift exchange. one of my friends made each of us a personalized playlist and even burned it on a cd and included a card that explained why she chose each song. yeah, she definitely wins gifts this year. i’ve really been struggling to find gifts for a few of my friends this year. i always tend to get really anxious about gifts; i want everything to be perfect and really make sure people see how much i love them and care about them through the gift. i put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure it’s something that the person will actually like, and i really beat myself up if i perceive any slight indication of subtle distaste from the receiver. this year i’ve been working on my anxiety a lot in general, so i’m doing my best to do the same with christmas gifts. i need to remind myself how small gifts are and how they do not determine nor affect my worth, and 99% of the time, they won’t affect the other person’s opinion of me. and besides, i shouldn’t be so hung up on other people’s opinions of me in the first place! i’m feeling a bit down since i was really hoping to make this christmas super magical for all of my friends since it’s our last high school christmas, but some of my closest friends i haven’t been able to see for months. breathe, kat. everything is okay. work today was fun — a few of my coworkers got me little gifts and it was so sweet! i’m the youngest at the firm and most of my close coworkers are parents and grandparents, and i always love the creative things they find for me. i’m feeling really scatterbrained and excited to get organized and gain some clarity next week for new years. i smiled big today — i’ve been trying to do that more. it helps to calm me down when i breathe and smile. the week is already somehow flying by and it’s only monday. time to do a little tidying up in my room before heading to bed :) | https://medium.com/@katdiercks/04-thoughtful-gifts-61e97c58d7a8 | ['Kat Diercks'] | 2020-12-22 04:56:36.905000+00:00 | ['Diary', 'High School', 'Christmas', 'Journal', 'Teens'] |
Who’s leading the next breakthrough? The current landscape of Central Bank Digital Currencies | 6. The US’s approach — slower but with more prudency
While other countries are actively rolling out piloting projects, the United State, who had been one of the leading country in terms of technological advancement, seems to be a little bit behind on its progress towards issuing a CBDC. One of the reason is that for domestic consumers, the existing digital payment system in the US is already very convenient, most consumers are not willing to change their payment methods and adapt to a new digital payment system. A survey conducted by Genesis Mining consisting of 400 participants, revealed that less than 25% of participants agreed to the proposition of a Dollar CBDC. Most respondents have associated the concept of CBDC with crime activities fostered by cryptocurrencies, which could be the major reason why the general public in the US are pushing themselves against the idea of CBDC.
The US Federal Reserve is being exceptionally prudent on the issuance of US CBDC. In contrast with most of the countries focusing on the benefits of a CBDC, the US have identified many potential challenges and issues that would arise with the issuance of a CBDC, mainly concerning the security challenges, such as cyber attack, fraud and implementation of anti-money laundering laws in CBDC.
image source: Unsplash
The Deputy Treasury Secretary Justin Muzinich also said that “ finding a balance between preventing illicit activity and respecting consumer privacy will be a challenge.” The dilemma between security and privacy is a major challenge for US CBDC, as US citizens are more sensitive to cyber privacy issues.
“We do think it’s more important to get it right than to be first and getting it right means that we not only look at the potential benefits of a CBDC, but also the potential risks, and also recognize the important trade-offs that have to be thought through carefully,” — U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
The US have been researching and developing a hypothetical CBDC with researchers at MIT, but the feasibility and the progress has been much slower than other countries such as China, Japan and Singapore. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/whos-leading-the-next-breakthrough-the-current-landscape-of-central-bank-digital-currencies-6b08ec94d044 | ['Americana Chen'] | 2020-12-27 04:54:27.940000+00:00 | ['Digital Transformation', 'Finance', 'Technology', 'Banking', 'Blockchain'] |
My Christmas Story | “I was born and raised in the sweltering hell of Phoenix Arizona.” That’s how I began all my college entrance essays. Growing up in the Grand Canyon state during the 60s and 70s had its pluses, but broad-mindedness and toleration for gawky, bookish, closeted gay kids wasn’t among them. I realized much later in life that my Goldwaterish center of “States Rights” was a fearsome, late-blooming Confederate territory — indeed, they had a Civil War battle just outside Tucson, fighting for Arizona slave cotton plantations.
In 1980, when given the chance to flee and head to Stanford University, I ran. California then had everything: excellent schools, humane weather, deep-green plants along freeways, and San Francisco: that otherworldly mecca teaming with bright, courageous, gorgeous gay men.
I came out slowly, lots of side stories there. But come out (at least to close friends) I did, and in the fall of 1983, I moved with 3 friends to a dreamy top-floor Victorian flat along Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle in the Haight Ashbury. Our landlord, nodding to Tales of the City, left us a mantle gift bag of pot brownies. I finally felt, if not free, at least on my way. AIDS of course was a new, growing menace, but my young mind didn’t really grok that yet. Afternoon cocktail parties at friends’ swanky Russian Hill apartments, kooky drag-enfused soirées, and Sunday Tea Dances at the I-Beam beckoned and enthralled.
It was my senior year and I only had that fall quarter in San Francisco. It was a luscious urban gay appetizer, for my suddenly nomadic life. I was leaving after Christmas Break to Berlin, the nexus of all things outré and gay. Bowie, Brian Eno, Hegel and Cabaret: a city on the edge of everything and nothing, trapped in the heart of Soviet East Germany, the wild intellectual heartbeat of Europe: I had to get there. Stanford had (and has) an amazingly wide-flung program of international campuses. Other friends were heading to England and Paris; but I knew the moment I matriculated that I had to get to Berlin. I could not wait.
And so, there I was home in Phoenix for Christmas, packing and fretting and dreaming about a vast new life. The Saturday morning of Christmas Eve, 1983, exactly 37 years ago today, I woke up early to a bustling kitchen just outside my door, my mother hurrying to make everything just so for the annual big family Christmas dinner. In a move that I still ponder at in its odd Freudian-ness, I slipped through the house to my mother’s side of my parent’s bed, to slumber off the rest of the morning.
Our mail always came punctually at 10:30 am.
At about 10:35, I was startled by my mother’s stricken face, tremblingly gripping a Christmas card and envelope, asking me: “Wayne, who sent us this??”
In her hands was the sort of bawdy holiday card available in any of Castro’s adult sex shops/card stores and, given its San Francisco post office date stamp two days prior, probably was. It was addressed to “The Sobons”. The sender knew my family’s home address.
The cover was what would have then been called a “cross-dressing” or “transvestite” hirsute, bearish man, drenched in tinsel and Christmas Tree wig, a gay sexy Santa Claus, surrounded by huge holiday packages. Entirely pedestrian for San Francisco 1984; a freakish, scary alien landing in Phoenix.
The inside had a set of check-off boxes. “’Tis the season to be — ” ( and I have remembered for 37 years exactly which boxes were checked)…“depressed”, “gay”, and “morbid”.
On the facing page, my heart rate now exploding, my face hot and ashamed, in an over-the-top, florid script, the writer addressed my family:
“I just want you to know your son is a despicable, slutty, evil, faggott [sic], snob. He stole my boyfriend and now I’m all alone. I hate him forever.” [emphasis in original…]
No signature. No return address.
I may have inhaled and betrayed the feeling of my face caving inward, but in a flash I replied: “Oh, I think I know who wrote this. He’s this crazy guy from school who’s been following me around and I don’t know what he has out for me, but I’ll handle this. I’m sorry.”
My thoughts were already tail-spinning down that familiar incandescent drain at the bottom of the closet, where a decade of bullying and fear, the screamed voices of Reagan, Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schlaffly, and so-called churches churned along with the sting of local rich ranch boys lassoing me for fun on my afternoon paper route; kids hiding around school building corners, just waiting to jump me and brand me a “faggot” (or “faggott”…); and most nauseating of all: the imagined horrified rejection of my parents, should they ever, ever find out. All of this collapsed onto and into me at 10:35 am that crisp, Phoenix Christmas Eve morning.
Adrenaline pumping, leaping out of bed, thrashing from one wrong task to another, I felt caged and helpless. I called some friends back at their homes. We pondered who might have done this to me. There was one improbable incident at a late-night party in Mira Loma (a thoroughly sleepy middle-class neighborhood just over the hill from where I now live), where two guys went at each other in the street, each claiming me as their boyfriend. A weird, crazy nightmare at the time, but maybe it was one of them? I had no idea.
What I did know is that I had to focus on my upcoming trip. I was leaving for Berlin in just a few days. But focusing was not something my reptile brain, riveted now on mere survival, could handle. One simple task, like packing clothes, lay out of reach. Sick to my stomach, mind racing, I used every sort of “fake it till you make it” trick I could muster just to get through our Christmas meals, exchanging presents, and family pictures.
Trying to shop calmly with my sister Sandy at the mall, I couldn’t stay in my body.
I felt my young, hidden, ashamed life falling apart just when I thought I was getting it together. All because some hateful man-boy sent my family (and me) a tawdry, angry, misspelled Christmas card. How did I bring this down on myself? What do I do? Rudderless in those early 80’s, I had no adequate guidebook, and no wise mentors.
I spent the rest of the week before flight darkly ruminating and talking to myself. I don’t remember how I exactly reached the conclusion, but I somehow decided that I had to come clean. I had to at least tell my mother the truth about me. I couldn’t bear to leave this unresolved and just go. I felt trapped between two boulders of easy lie and hard truth. So, I decided to write a coming-out letter that I would leave for her. Drafted in long-hand it was several pages.
But then, in a decision I still marvel at, I figured that I would actually hand it to her directly. One night my parents had gone to a dinner party. I stayed up waiting for them. I fixed myself the biggest, tallest Johnny Walker Black-and-soda of my life, in a super-sized orange plastic cup used mostly for iced sun tea. The more I drank the more sober and scared I grew — and they came home much later than I had planned.
It was now or never.
I asked my mother to come to my bedroom, that I had something to talk with her about.
She followed, clearly nervous. None of this was like me. We sat down on my bed (still blue fake fur — I had decorated my entire room red, white, and blue for the ’76 Bicentennial). Maniacally sipping my stiff drink, I handed her the letter and watched her slowly read. When she got to the critical sentence, I watched her gulp, stop, look again, and then continue reading. I lost sensation in my body. She finished, and wiping a tear or two away, looked up at me and said: “oh honey, of course I love you. I’ll always love you.” I think she asked me some questions (about my general safety given the hatred even she knew about (let alone AIDS…), and other motherly, tender concerns) and then just as quickly said: “Don’t tell any of this to Daddy or your sisters. They might not know how to deal with this.” I said “Ok” (what else was I going to say?). We hugged and I thanked her so much and she kissed me goodnight. I slept well for the first time since the card arrived.
I left for Berlin a day or two later. Just as I had envisioned, it became one of the peak experiences of my life, changing me forever. But a week or so after I arrived, I got a heart-stopping blue thin aero-post from my mother: she wrote that she had shown my coming-out letter to my father, and in words that chilled, said she had never seen him this way. That he cried non-stop for days. And in that long-ago time of wispy-thin letters, hyper-expensive international calls and no such thing as text or emails, I just had to absorb that news. And wait.
Sometime later, I got a similar blue aero-post from my dad. I shook when I opened it. But what it said inside changed everything. He told me the news came as both shock and also somehow already known. But that seeing it in print was something else (perhaps a bit like me too, seeing it all in that lurid script in that Christmas card…). That it was hard for him to take. But that he read my words and when I said I was actually happy, and that I loved my life, he supported me and was just happy I was happy, and loved me no matter what. Waiting for the bus, I remember just crying and crying on a wintry Berlin cobblestone road. My worst nightmare had come true: I had told my parents my darkest truth.
And they still loved me.
37 years have gone by, to this very Christmas Eve day. I’ve made a life for myself beyond any wildest dream I dared to dream as that scared, young man back then. I have thought about that Christmas card from time to time. And would tell certain friends about it. A few weeks ago, when I was looking in my storage locker for my ski boots to get ready for this season, I didn’t find them, but I did spy my banker’s box of college mementos. The thought of that card hit me. I sat on the concrete floor carefully pulling out each layer from the box (majoring in physics, I am always concerned about entropy…), pictures of the time in San Francisco, postcards from long-gone bars, amazing flotsam and jetsam from my life.
And then, there it was. I recognized the script on the address. Envelope and card. Kept and preserved.
I sat there, reading it over and over again. Studying it. And then a wave of joy swept over me. I just gazed at it, wonderfully happy and contented.
Look at me! Look what became of me!
I got home and texted the pictures to some close friends. They marveled.
I then got online to order some things that I had seen in my mind’s eye, and immediately found them: two large, magnetically coupled Lucite 8"x10” block frames — -so I could protect and display the card and the envelope, and they could be picked up and examined on all sides.
I put the two artifacts on the mantle in my living room.
And I put a candle in front of them. An altar to my transformation. A memorial to that strong, sensitive young man who somehow had the courage and the thought to do what I had done.
A memorial to whoever sent that card to my family. I now know a lot more than I did then. I know that the same internalized hatred that afflicted me, afflicted him then as well. That the card was a wild stab and cry in the dark. That it was intended to fling whatever pain he had at me and my family, hoping to throw his inner sting at and into us.
But poisons can also be potions. And that strange medicine thrown my way did its magic. And instead of hobbling me under morbid, depressed gay-ness, his Christmas message had set me free. Free to traverse life and continue shedding old shame and taking on new love. Free to be my essential self.
That card is the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received.
Thank you, whoever you are. I hope you now understand that you, me and all of us deserve love and are loved.
Namaste, my friend. And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone. | https://medium.com/@wayne-sobon/my-christmas-story-8c0f09789064 | ['Wayne Sobon'] | 2020-12-25 03:01:43.295000+00:00 | ['Gay', 'Christmas', 'Transformation', 'Coming Out', 'Nonfiction'] |
This is How I Store Nostalgia. | 1. The Background
As it is already hard enough to have a strong bond in the place that I’m residing, I realised how low the bar is to get into bonding if I were to compare to my high school bonds. A quite stupid attempt to bond, if I could say.
I keep on getting and thinking why I can’t build the same relationship I had before. But, the thing is, it’s just not the same.
Not that I’m not aware of this, but because of my awareness of this issue, it’s either, stepping out of my comfort zone or just be on my own cave. I’d say I did both of them.
I caved for about a year, and letting myself open and really push through for the next semester, until now where I don’t really have the choice to phantomize myself.
And the relationship that was built? Not so much.
2. The History
I am not a hang out person, most of my high school relationship is a low maintenanced one. Meaning, we only use the chat feature only on our birthdays, and that’s it.
This, however, doesn’t work well with everyone, in fact, not in my university environment where I have more time in bed than school, and the fact that almost none of us would relate to the same thing because of difference of major.
However, I did store most of the events, virtually, on my phone.
3. The Impromptu
I love everything that is related to videography and documentation even though I don’t have any background skills. I do store memories for my own, considering that I, too, aware fully of my short-termed memory that won’t make me last if I wasn’t on engineering degree due to many memorising stuffs.
The impromptu idea of documenting is just built on, to the point I documentate almost all things that I do, merely just for storage and for me to look back.
This year, however, I decided to do a year recap, and as I scroll the videos and pictures that I took, I do realise something
4. The Epiphany
I wouldn’t expect myself to be growing, after a Jan-Aug 2021 with full of memories of me staying in my bedroom, and a drastic gallery change of friends from around September until now.
In the videos, however, before I began to watch the captured moments, I expected it for me being quiet and just a silent observer. But I was wrong.
I was completely there, there was a breaking in the four walls where they really know that I’m there, that I’m with them.
5. The Conclusion
If it wasn’t from the impromptu attempt of taking videos/photos over everything, I wouldn’t have the realisation that I grew up, and the fact that I’m able to pat myself in the head and say, “Good job,” to myself, that I’ve made valuable friends. Not that 3 months of university friendship would ever be compared to 3 years of relationship from my high school, but there are lots and lots events and years to come through, and I’m so ready for it.
So, for those of you who had a hard time adapting in new environment and extremely a self-judging person, you might want to try and realising how valuable you are. | https://medium.com/@syldeborah/this-is-how-i-store-nostalgia-662becd50bc1 | ['데보라'] | 2021-12-20 03:44:41.887000+00:00 | ['University', 'Nostalgia', 'Photo', 'Friends', 'Adapting'] |
Addressing the “Closeness” of Information for Student Research | Addressing the “Closeness” of Information for Student Research
May 12, 2014
From 1945–1957, my father went to grades 1–12 in rural Alabama. He was born to parents with a high school education who had amazing work ethics, a desire to be the best they could be, loads of common sense but limited “book smarts.” For my father, to gain knowledge beyond his parents, he had to go to school. The youngest child of 5, he was the only one that went on to college and then graduate school because he saw the benefit of “more information.”
From 1975–1987, I went to K-12 grades in both Alabama and Tennessee. I was born the daughter of the above father with a masters degree in Education and a mother who didn’t quite finish her undergraduate degree in education. It was instilled in me that anything other than a college degree was not an option. I went to school to learn, I received some “book knowledge” from my parents as well as at school. In 1978 my “information world” was expanded. A man knocked on our door to sell us a burgundy set (with gold leaf) of Worldbook Encyclopedias. My parents bought them and they were placed in a prominent spot in our den. I would often pull one out and flip through the pages (while laying on our shag carpet in my bell bottom jeans). All of a sudden, as an elementary student, I no longer had to go to school or watch a National Geographic special to learn something about the big world I lived in. “Information” had come to my home. Mom and dad no longer had to take me to Northgate library for research. I had a source always at my fingertips.
From 2000–2014, my daughter went to PreK-12 grades in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was born the daughter of a mother with an undergraduate degree in Accounting and a father with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration. Her mother went back to school when this daughter was in first grade to earn a licensure to teach Business Education and then almost immediately worked to earn a Master’s degree in Instructional Technology. This girl saw constantly that education was deemed important to her family. In her lifetime, the worldwide web has exploded. She has no remembrance of a time when there was not a computer in her home. She only remembers cell phones being a part of everyday life. For her, information has always been readily available to be known. At age 18, she has an iPhone 5C in her pocket at all times, her own iPad, and access to laptops at home whenever she needs them. She is a digital native. When she wants to learn something hands-on, she searches YouTube for a video (for example: when she replaced her iPhone’s cracked screen by herself, or when she taught herself to knit). When she has a research paper, she googles for sources. Information is always at the end of her fingertips ready to be had. She is a digital native but right on the cusp of knowing it’s there but not really knowing how best to utilize it for her advantage.
I struggle with the fact that we, as educators, have not equipped her as well as we should have to prepare her to be a lifelong learner with the tools at her fingertips. Students 3 years younger than her will have a better understanding of the power of the Internet and how to navigate, but for Jessica, she is in a limbo group. As an instructional technologist, I will share with her some tools and tips to help her in college. I will set up an Evernote account for her even though she prefers and learns better by “writing” her notes. I will teach her the benefits of how to take photos of her notes and upload them to Evernote to help her become a more organized student. I will tell her about apps to help her make flashcards, graphic organizers to help her gather her thoughts before writing a paper, citation devices that will help take the angst of incorrect MLA citing away. She struggles with math, therefore she will have a Khan academy account to help her when she struggles. I will put tools in her toolbox that will aid her for her future. She will pick and choose which of these tools truly help her and she will use the ones that do.
We, as educators, have a responsibility to equip all our students for success. Technology often alleviates so much of the burdens and angst in the education process. We have to teach good digital citizenship skills. We have to show students how to look for good resources, where to look for good resources, and beyond that, how to cite them easily without issues. The ease of closeness to information has opened the door quickly to us, but we must respond in kind. We cannot drag our feet as educators. We must prepare our students to see this as a tool and not just an overwhelming struggle.
I love the following quote from a TED talk attributed to Diane Laufenberg in the book “Getting Smart” by Tom Vander Ark, “Our new closeness to information forces schools to think of themselves not simply as places to get information but as places where children will be challenged and guided in new ways to use information. As more skill-building and content-sharing activities are offered automatically, schools and teachers can increasingly focus on the important stuff: critical thinking (what does this mean?), coherence (where does this fit?), and application (what could I do with this knowledge?)” | https://medium.com/voiceedu/addressing-the-closeness-of-information-for-student-research-fd67e2537d17 | ['Julie Daniel Davis'] | 2019-07-17 01:09:49.805000+00:00 | ['Student Research', 'Education', 'Edtech'] |
3D Printing Service | Pan India Supply Delivery Of Small Batch Production Part
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Our PRECISE3DM Digital manufacturing service transforms the Indian manufacturing industry to produce low-volume end-use plastic parts without making any tool or mold using 3d printing technology. Complex function parts are 3D Printed directly from CAD design with fine geometries and complex features at a significantly lower cost. Our process also significantly reduces the lead time for production from months to days or hours in a short timeframe. Unlike traditional manufacturing methods, which need dedicated tooling and molds, The 3d printed parts made are superior in strength, finish, smoothness, weight, repeatability, accuracy, and execution over manually fabricated components.
KEY FEATURES
Our DM service is Ultra-Fast & Affordable, with same-day prototyping and low volume production without making any tool.
An alternative to traditional injection molding that enables designs to go straight from CAD to manufacturing without tooling or delay
We use 3Dsdsystems resin materials that are production and indirect production-grade and certified biocompatible and rapid prototyping materials.
The 3D printer is installed at technology partner locations in more than five places to cater to low volume production 3D printing service to pan India customers.
Traditional design restrictions do not apply anymore. Design complexity does not come at an additional cost during the production process with additive manufacturing techniques.
MATERIALS
We use only 3dsystems resin to 3D print parts that are segmented into production-grade, indirect Production, and prototype materials.
We use Direct production materials to produce long-term end-use parts like typical thermoplastic and rubber, with six sigma certifications. We have industry-best Indirect production castable materials that are unique and appropriate for master prototype wax patterns from which we produce direct end parts. Our prototype materials offer versatile properties required in functional testing, fitments, and other prototyping applications.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Know More | https://medium.com/@neha.precise3dm/3d-printing-service-b362aa0fff0c | ['Neha Malhotra'] | 2021-12-17 11:32:48.516000+00:00 | ['3D Printing', '3d Printing Service'] |
Newland ,a new token farming platform ready to launch | Newland, a launchpool where users can farm their digital tokens and assets in a safe way , will be launched by Fish.Pro on June 18,2021 in order to meet user’s diverse needs. The era of “Zero Cost for Yields” is around the corner.
As an elite platform in decentralized field, Fish.Pro is built by a group of International talents with high caliber. Most of its senior executives, after years of practice in International futures business and top fund management, have rich experience in traditional finance and crypto markets .It is committed to provide best experience for its users.
The launch of Newland not only provides more opportunities for users to farm new tokens in a safe way, but also greatly simplifies the mining process, which is bound to attract more users to enter the crypto market.
Liquid swap distributes token to wider user groups in a fairer and more friendly way. Strict in examining and selecting token type , the team offers best token projects with broad application and huge value potential. New projects will be launched successively in the future.
As our slogan says, Fish.Pro will lead you to explore boundless treasure islands in fantastic crypto world. | https://medium.com/@fishpro/newland-a-new-token-farming-platform-ready-to-launch-6da0de000471 | [] | 2021-06-17 06:25:25.498000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Yield Farming', 'Launchpool', 'Fishpro', 'Mining'] |
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/my-illumination-fiction-writers-bio-b565b5e99232 | 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/illumination-curated/weve-been-encouraging-our-writers-to-create-biographies-33e341fd599d | ['Tree Langdon'] | 2020-12-23 19:44:31.653000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Biography', 'Fiction', 'Writing', 'Business'] |
Theory U, Prototyping: Integrating Past, Present, and Emerging Future | By integrating my past and my present I can offer a unique service to my stakeholders because I now act, not from what I need from the future, but from what the future needs from me. HB
Six Prototyping Principles
I listened carefully when Otto Scharmer explained the 6 Prototyping Principles in the third live session of “u.lab. Leading From the Emerging Future” 2016, which was about the right side of the U — Crystallizing and Prototyping.
Crystallize Vision and Intention. You have to be aware of your connection to Source and lean into what is beginning to emerge from that connection. “Staying with” means to have patience, because you shouldn’t expect results immediately, allowing yourself to wait and not jumping to premature actions. Core Teams. Five people can change the world as Margaret Mead said. However, they are not connected only around their heads; they are connected to the energy of the heart. A core team is really the people who are holding the whole. There has to be a certain level of energy and commitment that you can feel together. There has to be competence, the members have to have knowledge of the subject they are going to work on. In u.lab you organize around what is emerging — what wasn’t known before. At some junction some people leave, others try to join. 0.8 Iterate, Iterate, Iterate. Move into action very quickly, learning by doing, learning from your mistakes. The core team is going to make mistakes and learn from them together. The feedback that you are getting leads you to the next step of your journey. Hold the space. There has to be a space (physical or virtual) where you meet and get together once in a while to experiment safely on your prototype. There is a core team and there is an extended team around that — a network team. Listening to the universe. It is not following your intuition. It is paying attention to all the voices that aren’t you, to anyone that you are interacting with. It is not your expectations, although sometimes, there are inner voices that we can notice. Generally, in U work, and especially in prototyping work, you have to go into the particulars over the acquisition of the general. Integrating the intelligence of Head, Heart, and Hand. Open Mind, Heart, and Will are moving from operating inside your own boundaries and reaching out to that intelligence that is outside of those boundaries.
“The foundation for all prototyping is to connect your intention with the intelligence of the heart. You have to place that feature in your heart first.”
Watching one of those live sessions is quite an experience in itself. Afterward, you go about developing your own prototype while trying to juggle all of those variables.
Caracas u.lab Hub. Watching the Prototyping session 2016.
The Leader’s Need for Integration
One of the interviews that resonated the most with me when I was studying my first u.lab was Isabel Guerrero’s, who was in a life transition at the time, after having been VP of the World Bank for more than twenty years. She portraits in words the leader’s need for integrating the different parts of him/herself, underlying two key aspects: first, integration is a life journey, second, it is not a joyful voyage because to experience the satisfaction associated with change and growth, he/she has to face fear and pain. Here is an excerpt.
I think life is about integrating different parts of yourself. And eventually finding your authentic self. And that authentic self has a lot of dimensions. The spiritual is one. For me, integrating the feminine and the masculine has been another. The masculine gave me the results, and the feminine the strength, the appreciation of beauty and the caring of others. Life is a long journey where you actually integrate different parts. To become a leader and be part of a transformation, you have to go through an integration. That is the leadership voyage for me. Like Gandhi said, “You have to be the change that you want to see in the world”, even though sometimes it seems difficult and you have to step out of your comfort zone and there is pain — because the first reaction people have when they leave the familiar, is sadness or fear. The first reaction is well, maybe I shouldn’t be here. And no, that’s the door. That’s the door through which you have to walk if you really want that new. Don’t get afraid of the pain. Don’t get afraid of the unknown. Step out of your comfort zone so you can continue growing. And this is a lifelong thing.
Integrating My Past and Present With u.lab
The Unintegrated Me Burned mySelf Out
I developed a corporate career mainly in Finance, Change Leader, and Systems implementation, areas that demanded lots of effort from my part because my brain was not wired for that. Late in my life, I discovered that I had to work twice as hard as most of my colleagues because I had chosen a profession that required Analytical, Concrete, Convergent, and Sequential types of thinking. Whereas I am a natural Creative, Abstract, Divergent, and Holistic thinker.
Nevertheless, that was my responsibility and I was successful at my job, doing it to the best of my ability. However, sustaining that effort for 25 years eventually sucked all energy out of me, spiritually and physically because the person who was facing the day to day responsibilities of my job, was not my real Self, who remained hidden in the shadows. At the end of my career, at age 55, I was emotionally depleted and physically sick due to the stress I had to endure for so long. Slowly, but surely I had burned myself out. Contrarily, my family life had been an oasis of love and peace. It was that space of love and understanding which eventually allowed me to recover and to start again in another field, but that is another story.
Finding Meaning
I have a product! I thought to myself when I was leaving the house of my coach and friend Santiago José Porras. He had been a key factor in my concreting a 48 hours part-time course with virtual support that integrated “Theory U” and the “Well-Being Theory” of Positive Psychology. I had visualized the prototype during u.lab 2015. However, I didn’t complete it in the duration of the course. As a matter of fact, that prototype took me a whole year to develop from the time I came up with the idea to the moment the final product came about.
I could hardly believe my journey up to that moment. After ten years in search of meaning in my life, I studied a Diplomate in Positive Psychology in 2013. Afterward, I obtained a Certificate of Ontological Coach after finishing a 7-month program in August of 2015. Nevertheless, I sensed that my formation had not finished yet, and due to a serendipitous course of events, I stumbled upon u.lab: Leading from the Emerging Future, a course of MIT’s Sloan School of Management that his creator, Otto Scharmer, had turned into a MOOC in January of that year. It was love at first sight. At 65 years of age, this had been my longest study streak since I got my MBA in 1980. What kind of force pushed me to do that? For the first time in my life, I loved what I was doing and I was feeling passionate about it, and that feeling kept me riding the wave. That effort was my maneuver to shift my life focus to the areas about which I felt more passionate.
Awareness What?
u.lab is a highly experiential course that capacitates change agents with Awareness Based Systems Change methods and tools to bring change, first, in the leader within you, and second, in the organization or the institution of which you are part. At u.lab, I felt for the first time in my life that I was doing what I had been wired for. I flowed so effortlessly through the U process that I could not believe it. I was being myself for the first time in my professional life, so much that now I smile when I picture an imaginary conversation between my past colleagues and me:
— Helio, what do you do for a living?
— Awareness Based Systems Change!, and after a silence,
— Awareness what?
Integrating mySelf Thanks to a Coaching Circle
I wanted to develop these new capacities at their full potential, but I did not realize that I was relegating my corporate past as a bad dream — leaving out 25 years of professional experience. My intention for the program that I created later, was to facilitate it to individuals, workgroups in corporations, and social organizations. New ideas came to me all the time and I had them juggling in my mind, motivating me to continue advancing in that direction. I thought in my mind that I had all the pieces together and that all I had to do was to order them coherently. However, I had the feeling that something was missing, but I could not figure out what was it.
La Estancia Coaching Circle
I continued working on my project after the course ended; constantly facing my Voices of Judgement, Cynicism, and Fear, but fortunately, I had a space of trust and understanding in which I met with people facing challenges like my own. That space was the Coaching Circle, which continued to meet up to six months after the course had ended. In one of those meetings, I had my AHA! Moment. We were doing a Canvas analysis for one of the participants and without me realizing it, my corporate past resurfaced in the form of a business strategy for that startup that revealed itself clearly to me, it just emerged before my eyes. At that moment, I realized that the element missing from my project was my 25 years of business experience. I had been so impressed with these new capacities that somehow I had neglected to integrate my experience leading change in organizations into it. At that moment I realized that during 25 years I had unknowingly been developing my Analytical, Concrete, Convergent, and Sequential thinking capacities. The time to integrate had finally arrived.
The “safe space” held by the Coaching Circle allowed mySelf to slowly emerge, letting go of the old trauma associated with my past burnout, keeping the essence of my experience, blending it with my new competencies, and letting that blend mature until its time had come.
When I realized that I was integrating my passion and knowledge with my past experience, a whole new world of possibilities opened up before me. I felt energetic and optimistic about what I was doing because independently of my country’s ongoing crisis, I somehow believe that my future is in my hands.
By integrating my past and my present I can offer a unique service to my stakeholders because I now act, not from what I need from the future, but from what the future needs from me.
The Road Less Traveled
U School for Transformation Annual Cycle. Image: Presencing Institute
After 5 years of immersing myself in the year-round Theory U cycle, first as a curious learner, and later as a facilitator, change-maker, and passionate activist, I can testify that developing prototypes might be a long and winding road. Nonetheless, every minute that you invest in that process is worth it because it is going to direct you to a path of meaning and achievement, as Robert Frost said,
“…I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.
You are invited to register in the life-changing program, “u.lab. Leading from the Emerging Future”, it is free and self-paced. In addition, if you are interested in deepening and enriching the u.lab learning and growth experience for yourself or your team, please contact me at [email protected] to have a generative conversation.
This is a two articles series, the second one, “Theory U, Co-Evolving: The Prototype is U” will soon be published. | https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/theory-u-prototyping-integrating-past-present-and-emerging-future-370bd1383aef | ['Helio Borges'] | 2020-11-25 14:41:20.554000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Theory U', 'Prototyping', 'Innovation', 'Otto Scharmer'] |
The new normal for online shopping is saving the planet | Our responsibility for bio-friendly E-Commerce
Here are some suggestions if you are trying to contribute to a more sustainable environment.
Make sure your packages are not returned
With the rise in online shopping, the numbers of returned deliveries are increasing too. In 2019, the Asia Pacific region had return deliveries worth 256.4 billion U.S. dollars. Imagine the global amount of returned deliveries.
With every return delivery, the extra traveling adds to the carbon footprint. You might be responsible for it because your little negligence costs a single delivery for two to three trips. This is how important it is to ensure the timely receiving of your parcel. With the advancement in telecommunication, nowadays courier services inform the customer with a text message for the delivery to be made. This is a good way to ensure the timely receiving of packages.
Express deliveries are a big, fat NO
Express deliveries are generally preferred with a little bit of added investment. You get your delivery instantly without having to wait for 7 working days. Your little impatience is actually causing damage to the environment. The delivery rider had to deliver your single parcel on a single trip though he could have easily delivered along with the other packages. Express delivery burns off the same amount of fuel for a single package as the fuel consumed by multiple packages in a go. It adds to the carbon footprint. Be a little wiser when ordering will not only help this sustainability cause but also will make you feel like a responsible citizen.
Buy from a vendor with eco-friendly packaging
Packaging material is crucial for the environment. Try buying from a vendor aiming to reduce the packaging material and introducing some bio-friendly packages. Your little contribution will have a larger impact on the sustainability of the environment.
Try to get your slips via email
When you can get your slips digitally, and then avoid asking for a hard copy. It may be trivial but is added trash for the environment. Your little responsibility will offer more to the environment. | https://medium.com/@natureclothing/the-new-normal-for-online-shopping-is-saving-the-planet-a2cf06947849 | ['Nature Clothing'] | 2020-12-24 09:54:17.492000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Positive Thinking', 'Online Shopping', 'Plants', 'Earth'] |
The best smart lock for a keyless home | While traditional lock-and-key systems have improved over time, the basic mechanism hasn’t really changed since the first lock was invented more than a thousand years ago: A piece of metal that is just the right shape pushes pins inside a lock into the proper position, allowing the lock mechanism to turn. As a society, it’s been tough to replace a system that has worked reasonably reliably for literally a millennium.
Updated December 29, 2020 to add our BrillLock Fingerprint Door Lock review. Unlike most of the products in this roundup, the BrillLock is an entry handle lockset, not a deadbolt. It doesn’t come with an app, can’t connect to your smartphone, and Wi-Fi and it can’t be integrated into a broader smart home system, but its relatively inexpensive at $75.
Are smart locks really better?You can thank the hospitality industry for finally pushing locks into the digital age. Hotels learned long ago that keys are easily lost, expensive to replace, and simple to bypass, as thieves can pick locks or simply make copies of a key to allow for unfettered future access. On the flipside, hotel guests have readily accepted key cards (and in some cases, smartphone-based solutions) as the primary means of getting into their room. The electronic solution is just so much simpler. Lost hotel key card? Replacing it is no big deal.
But the biggest benefit of electronic entry systems is that they are highly configurable. Digital locks can be changed at a moment’s notice (which is why that old hotel key card in your wallet isn’t good for anything), and the property owner can generate a record of when each door was opened. In a more advanced setting, different keys can be generated for the same lock, so a homeowner can tell when each member of the family came in, or when the housekeeper arrived.
Whether you have a teenager who tends to break curfew or merely want to give temporary access to houseguests, service providers, or Airbnbers, smart locks are an incredible upgrade over the old way of doing things. Ready to make the jump to smart lock technology? Here are our top picks of the market at the moment.
[ Further reading: A smart home guide for beginners ]Best smart lock overall Kwikset Halo Touch Read TechHive's reviewSee itOut with the keypad, in with the fingerprint scanner—and a few other welcome changes to make this lock a winner.
Some will argue that we should have named the Level Touch our top pick in this category—it earned a higher score, after all—but Level treats iOS users better than it does Android users. Kwikset also ditches the old familiar keypad in favor of a fingerprint reader on its latest smart losck. This enabled the company to dramatically shrink the footprint the lock presents on the exterior side of your door. Kwikset also gives you the option of opening the lock with a conventional key, in the event the reader won’t recognize an authorized fingerprint (should your skin prune up after a dip in the pool, for instance).
Runner-up Level Touch Read TechHive's review$329.00MSRP $329.00See iton Level HomeLevel gets external hardware, touch-sensitive opening, and more features in a compelling—but expensive—smart lock system.
The minimalist Level Touch looks as good as it operates and is our highest-rated smart lock. The reason we’ve named it runner-up, versus best-of-the-best in this category, is that it can be remotely controlled only with an iOS device. The Android version of the Level app includes every feature the iOS app does, with that one important exception.
Best retrofit smart lock Level Bolt Read TechHive's review$229.00MSRP $229.00See iton Level HomeLevel’s “invisible” lock lives up to its promise, giving any deadbolt smart features with no change to your exterior hardware.
The August Smart Lock Pro has been deposed. Level Home’s Level Bolt is our new favorite retrofit smart lock, thanks in large measure to its ability to disappear. The smart components of the Bolt hide inside your door, where they replace the interior mechanical elements of your existing deadbolt. You re-attach your existing interior and exterior components, so that your door’s overall aesthetic doesn’t change in the least.
Runner-up August Wi-Fi Smart Lock Read TechHive's reviewSee itAugust adds Wi-Fi while shrinking the overall size of its hardware considerably, making this a better retrofit option than ever.
Weighing the convenience of Wi-Fi versus the visual appeal of the zero footprint that the Bluetooth-only Level Lock offers was tough, but Level Lock won out in the end. Hey, achieving runner-up status in TechHive’s coverage is no easy accomplishment, and if the convenience of Wi-Fi outweighs aesthetics in your mind, then this is the retrofit smart lock to buy.
Best budget smart lock Wyze Lock Read TechHive's review$99.99MSRP $99.99See iton Wyze LabsWyze continues to rule the budget smart home world with this good-enough lock that’s half the price of some competitors.
Wyze Labs has a well-earned reputation for produce bang-for-the-buck smart home products, and its new Wyze Lock deadbolt converter is certainly no exception. Fit this device to your existing deadbolt, plug in the included Wi-Fi bridge, and you’ll convert your dumb deadbolt into a modern smart home device that can be opened with your existing key, and you can’t argue with its less-than-$100 asking price.
Most innovative smart lock Lockly Vision Read TechHive's review$399.99MSRP $399.99See iton Home DepotLockly Vision successfully integrates two complex smart home devices—a deadbolt lock and a video doorbell—into a single, compelling security device.
The Lockly Vision reduces the number of security devices you’ll need to deploy on your porch by combining a powerful smart lock with a great video doorbell. It’s not perfect—its big, bulky, and not very very attractive—but there’s nothing else like it on the market.
What to consider when shoppingHow do you pick a smart lock? (No pun intended.) This is a young and wildly immature space, and many products on the market are still extremely rough around the edges. Even top products can balk when dealing with old or stiff deadbolts, doors that don’t shut well, or environments where non-standard fixtures are in use. The bottom line is that it’s tough to declare that any product is universally perfect for every home. That said, here are some key considerations to take into account to help you narrow down your shopping list.
Bluetooth Special Interest GroupHow smart is it? An important caveat to consider first: Some “smart locks” don’t work with a smartphone app or any smart home networking hubs at all; they’re really just electronic locks that use a code instead of a key to open up. One step up from that, you’ll find Bluetooth-only locks. These work with a smartphone app, but can’t be monitored remotely or via a smart home system. That’s fine if you’re looking to get rid of the keys in your pocket, but less impressive if you want to make your entrance portals a true part of your home network.
Replace or retrofit? You’re forgiven if you don’t want to replace your antique doorknob on your vintage Victorian with a metallic device that looks like it would be more at home keeping people out of a strip mall bank branch. A sizeable number of smart lock products don’t require you to replace all your existing hardware. Instead, they are installed on the inside of the door only, replacing only the interior part of the deadbolt. You can continue to use a standard key from the outside or open the lock via a smartphone app.
SamsungSmart home hub integration If you have an existing hub like the Wink Hub 2, Samsung SmartThings, or an Apple TV, you’ll want to ensure your chosen smart lock is compatible from the start. Many smart locks support Bluetooth, so they work with your phone, but lack the technology needed to connect with your home network. Some Bluetooth locks, like the Yale Assure system and the August Smart Lock, offer a radio module as an add-on to connect to your home network. If you’re using a smart home hub like the Samsung SmartThings or Wink Hub, look for a lock that supports Z-Wave or ZigBee, instead.
Alternate entry means Forgot your phone at the office? How will you get in the house? Physical key? Numeric keypad? Wait for your spouse to arrive? Myriad different approaches are available.
Power backup What do you do if the batteries inside the lock die—and you’re stuck outside? Some locks allow for emergency power to be applied should this happen. Yale’s Real Living locks feature external posts to which you can connect a 9-volt battery, giving you enough juice to get the door open. Other models retain the traditional key cylinder for backup.
Geofencing Bad about manually locking the door when you leave? A geofencing system automatically locks the door when it detects your phone has left the vicinity, and can be set to automatically open up when it finds you’ve come home.
Guest access features Most smart locks let you set up temporary keys for houseguests, which you can delete when they’ve returned home. Smarter systems even let you set time restrictions around when each access code can be used.
Our smart lock reviews Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@sofia27996322/the-best-smart-lock-for-a-keyless-home-57785acbe1d6 | [] | 2021-01-16 04:14:40.602000+00:00 | ['Cutting', 'Gear', 'Music', 'Streaming'] |
Hey Kathy. | Hey Kathy. Your prompt is perfect at this inflection point in your life — the bridge from past to new — a segue. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to respond to your introspective prompt, but here’s where I landed. I hope it works for you and is especially meaningful as you begin the next chapter in your life. ❤️ | https://medium.com/@harperthorpe/hey-kathy-76faa5e411d1 | ['Harper Thorpe'] | 2020-12-11 23:52:26.465000+00:00 | ['Ending', 'Beginning', 'Advent', 'Poetry'] |
AYS Daily Digest 22/04/20 ~300 people protest in Moria for safety against COVID-19 | Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PRO ASYL released a report on Malakasa camp and the government’s lack of a response to COVID-19:
“Over 1,600 refugees and asylum-seekers are locked-up in Malakasa refugee camp during Covid-19 quarantine with more than half of the residents unregistered [1] and near 250 of them living in common areas and make-shift shelters.
Throughout last year, the refugee camp in Malakasa, has been extensively used by homeless refugees to find emergency shelter — most of them newcomers from the Evros region. As of February 2020, near 250 people resided in common areas and makes-shift shelters in dire conditions and more than half of the camp’s population were not registered as residents by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. In the midst of this situation, on 5 April 2020, the first Covid-19 case was detected in Malakasa and the camp has been locked down for a 14-day quarantine. Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PRO ASYL have documented 27 cases of asylum-seekers who sought shelter in the camp without official referral. The vast majority of the interviewees arrived from the Evros region and some from the islands. They described vividly the harsh living conditions and the challenges they face during the pandemic. The failure of the Greek authorities to refer those arriving in the Evros region to a shelter following their release from detention means that many remain unregistered and in precarious accommodation for some time and face more risks for their mental and physical welfare particularly at the time of the pandemic.” | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-22-04-20-300-people-protest-in-moria-for-safety-against-covid-19-f90461d3fe37 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-04-23 11:58:16.119000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Coronavirus', 'Italy', 'Digest', 'Greece'] |
Speed up your workflow with Sketch Runner | What is Sketch Runner?
Runner helps you to get around Sketch quicker by giving you an intuitive interface to supercharge your daily workflow. Stop searching through your menu & start running commands directly from your keyboard.
You can refer to Runner as your extremely powerful spotlight search for your Sketch. Whether you’re building a design system, cleaning up a messy sketch file or simply looking for ways how to speed up your workflow — this plugin might be a perfect fit.
When and why should you use Sketch Runner?
If you’re working with a prominent symbol library
Working with an extensive symbol library could be tedious at times. Luckily for you, Runner gives you the ability to preview the symbols you’re looking for. Take this example — you’re working with the Material Design base kit, and you’re looking for a specific one line row — how convenient would it be if you could just write down “one line row” and get all the one line components you currently have as symbols. Well, you can:
Runner gives you a preview of the symbols you’re scrolling through
If you’re a keyboard ninja
If you’re like me and you mainly work with your keyboard, then this is the plugin for you. Probably half of my workflow goes through Runner, from going to or importing symbols to creating and applying styles around design files, with a bit of practice Runner can take you to new heights regarding work speed.
How do you use Sketch Runner
Sketch Runner is a pretty straight forward plugin, even though it’s the plugin of all plugins. Here we’ll go through its essential functions.
run — Run allows you to run a menu item or a plugin. In this menu is where you can excel as a user, especially if you use a lot of plugins more on this topic in the section below.
goto — Go to is pretty self-explanatory, yet extremely useful, especially if working in a big design file.
insert — Your bread and butter if you’re working with a design system. Insert allows you to interact with your symbol library allowing you to preview the symbol before you import it — just like the Spotlight search on MacOS
create — A quick way to create both symbols and styles.
Creating & inserting the newly created symbols
Creating a shared style
apply — Great way to apply the styles you’ve previously created. The positive thing is that they’re already saved, so you’re just a key away from applying them
install — Why bother going outside of Sketch to go to Github when you have almost every Sketch plugin one click away from being installed? In the example
Installing and quicky de-installing with ⌘ + delete combination
Awesome plugin combinations with Sketch Runner
Sketch Runner + Stark
There is no better plugin for contrast accessibility testing than Stark. This plugin’s main idea is to check two colours against WCAG 2.0 standards, to make sure that your designs are accessible and easy to view all users. On top of that Stark could simulate Colorblindness. Through Runner, you could just “run” the Stark’s “Protanopia” command, and you’ll get a generated preview of how your artboard looks to people with such vision deficiency.
Sketch Runner + Automate
Automate is one of the most powerful Sketch plugins. It gives you control over almost every imaginable aspect of Sketch — from arrangement to layer, symbol, library, artboard, text, style options and more; you can do almost everything. In the current example, you’re able to see one of the standard patterns that prove just how powerful Automate & Runner are together. We wouldn’t go too in-depth on how Automate works, in order to leave the exploration process to you.
Selecting text layers by the same name then fixing their names by the content that’s written in them
Some honourable mentions
Sketch Runner combines well with these plugins: | https://medium.com/sketch-tricks/speed-up-your-workflow-with-sketch-runner-e3584d4dbe93 | ['Alexander Traykov'] | 2019-01-23 11:25:44.229000+00:00 | ['Plugins', 'Design', 'Guide', 'Sketch', 'Workflow'] |
Creating a Cross-Platform Toolchain for Raspberry Pi 4 | Creating a Cross-Platform Toolchain for Raspberry Pi 4
Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash
I have a Raspberry Pi 4B running a 64-bit Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS. I would like to compile some C++ applications on my local PC and run them on the RPi. To do so, I need a cross-platform toolchain, that helps me transform the source code into executables compatible with the RPi.
A toolchain is the set of C/C++ run-time libraries and the tools (mainly the compiler, assemble, and linker) that turns the source code into binaries that the target hardware can run. Cross-platform means the tools run on one platform while building applications for another [1].
In this story, I will show you how I created one!
Crosstool-NG
One of the favorite and easy-to-use tools to create stand-alone toolchains on the embedded Linux domain is Crosstool-NG [2]. It’s an open-source utility that supports different architectures including ARM, x86, PowerPC, and MPIC, and has a menuconfig-style interface similar to the one of Linux kernel.
1. To use it, first install the dependencies:
~$ sudo apt-get update
~$ sudo apt-get install automake bison chrpath flex g++ git gperf gawk help2man libexpat1-dev libncurses5-dev libsdl1.2-dev libtool libtool-bin libtool-doc python2.7-dev texinfo
2. Get the source code:
~$ cd crosstool-ng/
~/crosstool-ng$ git checkout crosstool-ng-1.24.0 ~$ git clone https://github.com/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng.git ~$ cd crosstool-ng/~/crosstool-ng$ git checkout crosstool-ng-1.24.0
3. Build and install:
~/crosstool-ng$ ./bootstrap
~/crosstool-ng$ ./configure --enable-local
~/crosstool-ng$ make
~/crosstool-ng$ sudo make install
Creating the toolchain for RPi 4
After building Crosstool-NG, the next step is to create the toolchain for RPi 4.
Selecting a base-line configuration
By default, Crosstool-NG comes with a few ready-to-use configurations. You can see the full list by typing:
~/crosstool-ng$ ./ct-ng list-samples
At the time of writing, there are no configurations for RPi 4. To avoid creating one from scratch, we can use an existing configuration of RPi 3 and modify it to match RPi 4.
The one from the list that is close to our target is aarch64-rpi3-linux-gnu. To get more details about it, run:
~/crosstool-ng$ ./ct-ng show-aarch64-rpi3-linux-gnu
You will see something like:
[L...] aarch64-rpi3-linux-gnu
Languages : C,C++
OS : linux-4.20.8
Binutils : binutils-2.32
Compiler : gcc-8.3.0
C library : glibc-2.29
Debug tools : gdb-8.2.1
Companion libs : expat-2.2.6 gettext-0.19.8.1 gmp-6.1.2 isl-0.20 libiconv-1.15 mpc-1.1.0 mpfr-4.0.2 ncurses-6.1 zlib-1.2.11
Companion tools :
Select aarch64-rpi3-linux-gnu as a base-line configuration by typing:
~/w/crosstool-ng$ ./ct-ng aarch64-rpi3-linux-gnu
Customization
Before we do adjustments to the base-line configuration, we need information about the CPU being utilized on the RPi 4 board. From the specifications, we can read that the processor being used is:
Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz
To start the customization, open menuconfig:
~/w/crosstool-ng$ ./ct-ng menuconfig
Crosstool-NG interactive menu.
Make 3 changes:
1. Allow extending the toolchain after it is created (by default, it is created as read-only):
Paths and misc options -> Render the toolchain read-only -> false
2. Change the ARM Cortex core:
Target options -> Emit assembly for CPU: Change cortex-a53 to cortex-a72
3. Chane the tuple’s vendor string:
Toolchain options -> Tuple’s vendor string: Change rpi3 to rpi4
Build
To create the toolchain, type:
~/crosstool-ng$ ./ct-ng build
The toolchain will be named aarch64-rpi4-linux-gnu and created in ${HOME}/x-tools/aarch64-rpi4-linux-gnu.
Using the toolchain
Hello world!
To test the toolchain, I created a simple hello world program. If we can compile and run it on target, we can say that the toolchain works.
The code is as simple as:
In order to compile it using our toolchain, first, we need to add the bin dir to PATH so that we can use the tools:
$ PATH=$PATH:~/x-tools/aarch64-rpi4-linux-gnu/bin
Compile using the following command:
~/$ aarch64-rpi4-linux-gnu-g++ hello_world.cpp -o hello_world
There should be no build errors and a file named hello_world is created.
Note: For compiling C files, you can use aarch64-rpi4-linux-gnu-gcc instead.
Testing on target
Copy hello_world to the target (running Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS), and execute it. You should see the following output:
This is a sign that the program is working! The toolchain can be used to compile other libraries and tools! | https://medium.com/@ilyas-hamadouche/creating-a-cross-platform-toolchain-for-raspberry-pi-4-5c626d908b9d | ['Ilyas Hamadouche'] | 2021-01-01 18:54:13.245000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'DIY', 'Embedded Systems', 'Open Source', 'Linux'] |
Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies | I was visiting with an ex-student who’s now the CFO of a large public tech company. The company is still one of the hottest places to work in tech. They make hardware with a large part of their innovation in embedded software and services.
The CFO asked me to stay as one of the engineering directors came in for a meeting.
I wish I hadn’t…
The director was there to protest the forced relocation of his entire 70-person team from Palo Alto to the East Bay. “Today most of my team walks to work or takes the train there. The move will have them commuting for another 45 minutes. We’re going to lose a lot of them.”
The director had complained to his boss, the VP of Engineering, who admitted his hands were tied, as this was a “facilities matter,” and the VP of facilities reported to the CFO. So, this was a meeting of last resort, as the engineering director was making one last appeal to the CFO to keep his team in town.
While a significant part of the headcount of this tech company was in manufacturing, the director’s group was made up of experienced software engineers. Given they could get new jobs by just showing up at the local coffee shop, I was stunned by the CFO’s reply: “Too bad, but we need the space. They’re lucky they work here. If they leave at least they’ll have ‘name of our company’ on their resume.”
WTF? I wasn’t sure who was more shocked, the director or me.
After the director left, I must have looked pretty surprised as the CFO explained, “We have tens of thousands of employees, and at the rate we’re growing it’s almost impossible to keep up with our space needs in the Bay Area. You know for our CEO, ‘love us or leave us’ has been his policy from day one.” (By coincidence, the CEO was an intern at one of my startups more than two decades ago.) I asked, “Now that the company is public and has grown so large, has the policy changed?” The CFO replied, “No, our CEO believes we are on a mission to change the world, and you really have to want to work here or you ought to leave. And because we’re inundated with resumes from people who want to work for us, he sees no reason to change.”
I don’t know what was more sobering, thinking that the policy which might have made sense as a scrappy startup, was now being applied to a company with 10,000+ employees or that the phrase, “…we are on a mission to change the world, and you really have to want to work here or you ought to leave…” was the exact same line I used when the now-CEO was my intern.
Adult Supervision
Before the rapid rise of Unicorns (startups with a valuation over a billion dollars), when boards were still in control, they “encouraged” the hiring of “adult supervision” of the founders after they found product/market fit.
The belief then was that most founders couldn’t acquire the HR, finance, sales, and board governance skills rapidly enough to steer the company to a liquidity event, so they hired professional managers. These new CEOs would also act as a brake to temper the founder’s excesses.
In the last decade, technology investors realized that these professional CEOs were effective at maximizing, but not finding, product cycles. Yet technology cycles have become a treadmill, and to survive startups need to be on a continuous innovation cycle. This requires retaining a startup culture for years — and who is best to do that? The founders.
Founders are comfortable in the chaos and disorder. In contrast, professional managers attempt to bring order to chaos and often kill the startup culture in the process. Venture firms realized that teaching a founding CEO how to grow a company is easier than teaching the professional CEO how to find the new innovation for the next product cycle. And they were right. It was true in the company I was visiting — and in the last five years over 200 other Unicorns have emerged, and most still have their founders at the helm.
And so, this startup found itself with a “founder friendly” board that believed that the company could grow at a greater rate if the founding CEO continued to run the company. This founder’s reality distortion field attracted a large number of employees who shared his vision. It was so compelling, everyone worked extremely long hours, for little pay and some stock. They were lucky, they got the timing right, and after a painful couple of years figured out product/market fit, and went public. And those early employees got rewarded as their stock turned into cash.
The problem was that at some point past employee 1000, the big payoffs ended from pre-public stock and the stock’s subsequent run-up from their IPO. But the CEO never noticed that the payoff had ended for the other 95% of his company. Flying to his remote company locations in his private jet, and surrounded by his early employees who were now worth tens of millions of dollars, the mantra of “you really have to want to work here or you ought to leave” rang hollow for the latest employees.
The company was now attracting interns who did want the name of this hot company on their resume. But since compensation was way below average, they stayed just long enough to pump up their resumes and left for much better paying jobs — often in a startup.
And because fewer senior engineers considered it a great place to work, the company’s initial technology advantage has started to erode.
Wakeup Call
The downside of founders running large companies is that there are no written best practices, no classes, no standard model at all. And given that in the past, founders as a group were rarely in charge as startups became large companies, it’s no surprise.
Reprogramming founders who grew their business by being agile, relentless, tenacious, often aggressive, and even irrational and at times, into CEOs that can drive organizational growth, is tough.
This means quickly learning a new set of skills — sublimating large egos, working through direct reports when their span of control can no longer encompass the entire company, and building repeatable processes that enable scale. At times this comes only after a crisis that provides a wakeup call. As a startup scales into a company, founders and the board need to realize that the most important transitions are not about systems, buildings or hardware. They’re about the company’s most valuable asset — its employees.
Founders of great companies figure out how the keep their passion, but put people before process.
Postscript
I can tell this story now, as the director left the company and founded his own startup in a different market segment. Over the next six months, 55 of the 70 employees in his group that were asked to relocate left. 25 of them joined his new startup. And of the other 30 who left? Six new startups were formed.
Lessons Learned
Be careful of unintended consequences when you grow
Recognize the transition boundaries in company size
Recognize that what drove an Innovation Culture when you were small may no longer apply when you’re large
Learned something? Click the 💚 to say “thanks!” and help others find this article.
Steve Blank writes about entrepreneurship at www.steveblank.com. | https://thinkgrowth.org/why-good-people-leave-large-tech-companies-af2b6fea4ee | ['Steve Blank'] | 2020-03-13 19:58:06.026000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Tech', 'Leadership', 'Life Lessons', 'Startup'] |
Creating Ground Rules and Boundaries in Non-Monogamy | Creating Boundaries in Non-Monogamy
The world of non-monogamy is as vast as it is wondrous. Filled with an expansive amount of relationship variations, sexual fantasies, and experiences to explore it can be difficult to know where to begin or how to get started. And while rushing head first into all these new experiences may sound exciting, let me be the first to say, trial and error is completely overrated. That is where creating boundaries and general ground rules can help before you start meeting people, and get to the sexy fun.
If you read my first piece on bringing up non-monogamy for the first time with a partner, you should have a clearer picture of what you and your partner want. But what about what you don’t want? Figuring out your ground rules and boundaries before you dip your toes into any non-monogamous situation will help keep you safer, happier, and make taking the next step, actually putting yourself out there easier. Had I known this before my first experience nearly 10 years ago, it would have saved me many tears, heartache, and prevented a great deal of the general uncertainty and ambiguity I experienced. If you’re not quite convinced this is necessary, let us ask, why not just use the trial and error method?
Why Talk About it?
Monogamous relationships very rarely have conversations about boundaries or ground rules. Instead, societal assumptions are the primary foundation of monogamy, and rarely do we see cracks until it is too late. For example, we don’t ask what is permissible in the way of emotional or physical connections with people outside of your relationship, until a partner has cheated or had an indiscretion. Further to this, our natural tendency is not to discuss what level of emotional intimacy is acceptable with people you work with, or socialize with, until a boundary is broken. Making relationship assumptions is a norm of the mainstream monogamous community so please do not feel guilty if you have fallen into this same trap, I know I did. These areas seem clear, based on how you were raised, and your own experiences, but as you well know when comforting a friend who has been the victim of infidelity, it rarely occurs to us to ask the all important question of “did you have a clear conversation about what cheating looks like in your relationship?” The answer will almost equivocally be, no. This is a monogamous assumption, and is one of the key components that makes non-monogamy different.
Point of fact is, when you are about to explore non-monogamy, you are purposefully crossing the lines of monogamy, and it is important to set clear yes, and no’s. With that open level of communication, you will be better equipped to start handling the good, bad, and ugly when necessary. Which, in of itself is a valuable tool, and one that many in non-monogamy use to validate why their own relationships are now stronger than ever. So, let us look at what setting those initial boundaries looks like, and share some tools that are proven useful in having that discussion.
Setting Initial Boundaries
“True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know” Confucius
Having the initial conversation about boundaries is going to be the first of many, and if I am honest, the sometimes uncomfortable discussions. As your relationship evolves, and the experiences increase, you will have to revisit and re-negotiate these points many times over. But, how do you know what boundaries to set, when you don’t fully know what you are getting into? Below, I have broken down the initial conversation into 5 simple talking points. The aim is provide the foundation so that you and your partner, or if entering into a solo non-monogamous situation, can revisit and adapt to all the new and exciting adventures with these key points in mind.
5 Key Boundary Setting Talking Points
First: Safety
What are your expectations when it comes to protection, regular testing, and birth control? This is often the best place to start, because it is one of the few that monogamous couples have experience with and is a little more black and white. With the exception of STD/STI testing, you have probably discussed condom usage during your initial dating experiences, and how you want to proceed with ongoing birth control. It is critical to understand what your own personal limits are, be it condoms every single time with outside partners, or setting a reminder to get a blood panel done every 3 months. Your safety, and that of your partner should always be your first priority.
This is also a great time to ensure you both remember your safe word, or to create one. This can be handy not only during sexual play, but also when interacting and socializing with new people. The safe word should be something you both instantly recognize, stop, and if necessary, remove yourselves to a private place to discuss what further action needs to be taken if any.
Second: Physical Limits
Regardless of your gender, sexual orientation, kinks, or fetishes, non-monogamous situations will push your boundaries at one time or another. If you are using the trial and error method to experience life outside of monogamy, you could end up in a very uncomfortable situation. I have even witnessed a physical altercation when a male pushed the physical limits of another couple simply by brushing up against another male in a club. For him, male on male contact was something he had never encountered and he experienced and extreme emotional response. So, taking the time to really assess your limits can prevent a great time from turning into a whirlwind of emotion.
Ask yourself honestly, what are your own hard no’s. Then ask the same of your partner. It’s tougher than you may realize, and I encourage you to try and visualize a few scenarios with both yourself and your partner. Listen to your gut reaction when you envision your partner with another person for the first time, and be realistic about it. What might you feel if you saw your partner hug or touch someone? Over time you may re-negotiate and expand your comfort level, but, in the onset, try and be realistic. If the idea of your partner kissing someone else gives you anxiety, don’t just assume you will get over it. Talk about that being an initial boundary, and set a time to revisit if that is something your partner wants in the future. Set yourself up for success by knowing your physical limits!
Third: Emotional Boundaries
This will be one of the hardest conversations for most couples to have, and likewise, if you are solo, to admit to yourself. What is the emotional line that would ruin what you currently have it were to be crossed? For swingers, this is usually called “catching the feels”, and if any feelings develop, the general consensus is to immediately stop having sex with that person. For many who are polyamorous, the idea of sleeping with someone who treats them as nothing more than a sex object is a complete deal breaker. Wherever you lie in this, chances are very high that your partner and you will not be 100 percent on the same page. Negotiation, communication, and having an ongoing open dialogue will be key to success.
From a personal perspective, when my partner and I date couples, we go into it with knowing our boundaries are with regard to openness. So we only communicate via group messages, especially in the beginning. If feelings progress and we want to branch off into one-on-one conversations we discuss that, with ourselves, and the other couple, always with the clear understanding that a no, for any reason will be respected. Another example of setting emotional boundaries would be when we were first starting out in our open relationship, the only thing I wanted was disclosure whenever either of us had sex. I had requested that he keep all his feelings to himself, as I processed this new lifestyle, to protect my emotional boundaries. Which is a great Segway into my next key talking point, what are your limits in talking to others about this new lifestyle?
Fourth: Who to Tell
When you first open up your relationship, it can be such a challenge to keep your incredible and sexy tales to yourself. But as we all know, bragging about your sexual conquests is not typically best office water cooler practice. And of course, your partner may be uncomfortable with everyone knowing the ins and outs of your relationship. Which is why I recommend having a frank discussion about who it is permissible to tell, be it family members, co-workers, friends, or just keeping a tight lid on the whole thing. As well, it is important to make decisions together on what to tell or not tell your children. Many families choose to wait until their children are grown adults, or never to talk about anything related to relationships outside of the marriage. Whereas some, have an open and honest conversation about non-monogamy just as you would have the sex, or puberty discussion. Whatever you decide, it is important to be on the same page, because this is one topic that you cannot take back.
If you are incredibly private or have concerns with this lifestyle impacting your career, church, or social circle’s one outlet many find solace in, is by creating a secret social media account. This allows you to discuss, get or give support, even meet new people! Creating a sense of community is imperative to a healthy relationship, and there are ways to do it both in secret, and out in the open. Wherever you and your partner fall on this, make sure you discuss this before you accidentally announce your extra curricular activities during a thanksgiving dinner.
Fifth: Who Not to See
The final boundary that I encourage you to discuss is who would be off limits to pursue. While, I cannot deny that the heart and libido have a mind of their own, the general rule of thumb is to not pursue anything with co-workers or close friends. While it may be tempting to go with what you know, you are going to make mistakes, especially in that first little while, so understanding where the limits are when it comes to friendships or your financial livelihood are vital. And more importantly to the initial discussion with your partner, is understanding who would be a complete deal breaker. Such rules come to mind as no exes, no one night stands, or no one that your partner has not met.
The reality is finding new sexual partner, a date, or even just meeting a like minded person for coffee can be incredibly challenging (and the next topic in this series), so it is the only key point to approach from the hard no’s side only. Rarely, would this be renegotiated at a later date. A no, is a no and discussing who is completely off limits from the onset is crucial.
Take Away
The creation of boundaries is not only to mitigate some of the emotions that arise in non-monogamy, but also to build up those expert level communication skills. Boundaries are here to help guide you, and as your experiences grow, so will the desire to re-negotiate what is working for you as an individual and also as a couple. Making assumptions puts you onto the path of failure. With these 5 key talking points you can avoid a substantial amount of guesswork. Having clear intentions and wants goes hand in hand with knowing where your boundaries and ground rules are. And on an exciting and very sexy side note, if you are clear, open, and ethical in what your hard no’s and limits lie, it makes it so much easier to share all the maybe’s and YES’s with your partner. I highly recommend trying it!
If you have any additional key initial communication points you think should be included in this list, please comment below. | https://ghislaine9999.medium.com/creating-ground-rules-and-boundaries-in-non-monogamy-f9fb0eed739f | ['Krys Ghislaine'] | 2019-09-16 18:09:01.976000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Setting Boundaries', 'Relationship Building', 'Non Monogamy', 'Polyamory'] |
To the Karen of My Life — Your Silence is Loud | After weeks of revolutionary moments igniting this nation, I take a moment and submerge into the hell of last summer’s past. I cry. Deservingly. Grievingly. Painfully. I swim in the pool of rejection of the ones I fought tirelessly to be seen, to be heard, and to be believed when I spoke up about my sexual assault.
As New Yorkers were walking into Summer Fridays, I was walking into the aftermath of publicly condemning my perpetrator. My worst fears came to life — a breakup, betrayal, rejection, character assassination, and an unfollowing parade of my Instagram account. My quickly turned ex’s narcissistic rage drove these painful events after shedding light on the character of his best friend.
There was one woman who crushed my heart when she unfollowed my Instagram. She was someone in my ex’s inner circle that I was always drawn to. It was her energy, her strength, and her kindness that made me believe she could take down my oppressor.
On the day I exposed her friend, she and her husband reached out to my ex instead of me, the victim. They had no idea that they sought out information from a man that victim-blamed me back into silence for years after confronting him about his best friend. The convenience of protecting his bromance was brought to him on a silver platter, as his friends and family only chose to reach out to him.
To this day, I occasionally creep on her Instagram account in hopes she’ll miraculously wake up to the false narrative fed to her. A few weeks ago, I peeked at her account again, and as I read her recent post in support of Black Lives Matter, my inner dragon summoned from her hypocrisy.
Captioned under her photo was a list of white privileges formulating the ultimate composure of white guilt and performative allyship:
“My privilege is being able to own a fancy bike/car/home without people thinking twice how I got it. My privilege is being able to walk in the woods or a store without being watched closely. My privilege was showing up to work this week and not having people look to me for my response or how to help while I was still processing traumatic events. My privilege is being able to embrace so many beautiful things in Black culture without any downsides. I’m sick of only seeing my Black friends and role models speaking up. Black Lives Matter. My Black friends matter! I’m sorry it took so long for me to use my voice. I plan to keep doing so moving forward.”
As my mind began racing with questions and comments backed with my well-deserved rage, I realized who this woman was. She was the Karen of my life.
She failed to mention these additional privileges:
Her privilege was turning her back on a woman who sought justice. Her privilege was siding with two oppressors: a white man accused of sexual assault, and a white man that throws victim-blame daggers left and right. Her privilege was neglecting the victim’s side of the story. Her privilege was her complicity. Her privilege was her silence.
Her silence was deafening.
Her public support of the Black Lives Matter movement contradicts her complicity towards my sexual assault allegations. By her convert abandoning of intersectionality, she threatens the momentum of this movement. Her continued silence of her friend’s unjust behavior perpetuates a system that fails to protect victims of sexual assault, especially when the oppressor is a white male.
According to RAINN:
39% of sexual assault victims know the perpetrator.
Her friend was my perpetrator and my ex-boyfriend’s best friend.
50% of perpetrators are 30 or older. 25% of perpetrators are 21–29.
Her friend was 27. Now he is over 30.
57% of perpetrators are white. 27% are black.
Her friend was white.
These statistics are from reported cases. Unreported cases like mine and many other women would drive these numbers up. I now understand why women fear speaking up about their perpetrators. The fear of rejection and not being believed is a women’s worst nightmare. My nightmare came to life after I exposed my perpetrator and was faced with heart-wrenching silence by people who were friends with him. I am one of many victims that have experienced the silence that frees our oppressors from the chains of accountability.
If Karen wants to be a faithful ally to the Black community, it starts with acknowledging her biases that allowed a white man to walk free from acts of sexual assault. Breaking down systemic oppression starts with disempowering men who benefit from it, including the ones in her inner circle.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love does not hate; it’s indifference.” — Elie Wiesel
Karen’s silence protects my tormentor.
Karen’s silence justifies victim-blaming.
Karen’s silence makes her no ally to the Black community.
I hope she can someday bring awareness to why she felt more comfortable asking my ex, a white male, about my sexual assault, rather than me, the victim, and a person of color? I am aware that my ex can win an Oscar in calculated storytelling and withholding of information to continue his walk of victim shame. Still, I often wonder why she never reached out to me.
I hope she builds the courage to ask me what happened that summer night in 2014. A crucial detail that I am confident my ex neglected to tell her was I was one of two women sexually assaulted. The act itself was without hesitation or remorse. I am haunted to this day because I know down to my bones, this was not his first time, and it will not be his last. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/to-the-karen-of-my-life-your-silence-is-loud-e509b0b0db8a | ['Maryann Samreth'] | 2020-08-11 22:41:52.043000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Feminism', 'Black Lives Mater', 'Intersectionality', 'Sexual Assault'] |
CodeChain Foundry | CodeChain Foundry is a blockchain engine based on a composable module system. Users can write their own modules in addition to bringing in those written by others in order to construct an arbitrary blockchain application. Foundry is under active development and going to release its first working version soon. In this article we briefly introduce the core idea of the project.
Consensus
As Foundry started from CodeChain, we took advantage of such verified implementation of blockchain. Both CodeChain and Foundry use Tendermint, a Byzantine fault tolerant PoS consensus. The CodeChain team has successfully developed its own Rust implementation of Tendermint, and thoroughly tested it over a couple of years. It is working well with the mainnet of CodeChain even as we speak. Foundry is incorporating such well implemented and verified works, including other essential components such as P2P networking and DB.
Module System
Upon execution of a transaction that is essentially a state transition, the module system will be told to execute the transaction from the underlying consensus engine. Transactions will be delivered to the responsible modules, and those modules will handle the execution of the transactions, which might also involve communications with other modules.
Foundry provides a powerful and general module system that supports:
Multiple runtimes for multiple kinds of modules : each module can be written in various languages requiring different runtime environments. Thus, languages compiled to executables or WASM modules can be supported, as well as those requiring an interpreter or virtual machine like Python and JavaScript.
: each module can be written in various languages requiring different runtime environments. Thus, languages compiled to executables or WASM modules can be supported, as well as those requiring an interpreter or virtual machine like Python and JavaScript. General communication system based on services : details are explained in this article.
: details are explained in this article. Configurability by the app-descriptor : Users can compose an application from various modules, specifying how to exchange services between each module and the consensus engine. It is human readable, declarative, and easily auditable.
: Users can compose an application from various modules, specifying how to exchange services between each module and the consensus engine. It is human readable, declarative, and easily auditable. Reusability by well-defined and targeted interfaces between each module and the consensus engine : this makes modules independent, decoupled, and clear in one’s responsibilities. Each module can be easily adapted and reused.
: this makes modules independent, decoupled, and clear in one’s responsibilities. Each module can be easily adapted and reused. Security by sandbox and services. Modules will be sandboxed and can affect the outside world only via services explicitly specified by the app-descriptor. Each module exposes its interface exactly as the user allowed in the app-descriptor.
Module
Modules are independent components that make up an application. They cooperate to function as a blockchain application along with the consensus engine. Each module has its own state, and may define its own transactions. Imagine a really simple cryptocurrency application. Typical implementations would consist of the following modules:
Account module : manages sequences and balances for accounts. It defines a payment transaction to transfer tokens. It will, at the very least, provide an interface for other modules to access accounts’ sequences, because other modules’ transactions will likely depend on sequences anyway.
: manages sequences and balances for accounts. It defines a payment transaction to transfer tokens. It will, at the very least, provide an interface for other modules to access accounts’ sequences, because other modules’ transactions will likely depend on sequences anyway. Staking module : provides the validator set of Tendermint to the consensus engine. It might query balances of accounts to determine the stake of each.
: provides the validator set of Tendermint to the consensus engine. It might query balances of accounts to determine the stake of each. Sorting module: Sorts transactions in the mempool by priority and excludes those made invalid by recent transactions. The sorting module is consulted when proposing a block to pick transactions for inclusion. It is also consulted when evicting invalid or lower priority transactions when the mempool is full.
IBC and Lightclient
Besides the module system, Foundry has some useful built-in modules: the IBC modules. IBC stands for Inter-Blockchain Communication, and the IBC modules function as a connection end of verifiable chain-to-chain communication. You can communicate with other blockchains built with Foundry, and with completely different chains too as long as they meet the IBC requirements. See this article to learn more about what IBC is and how we implemented it.
Light client is a special algorithm to cryptographically verify the state or transactions in blockchain without using the whole state. It is key in constructing a truly decentralized (where you do not need to trust anybody) and practically utilizable network made possible by light-weight nodes. We have implemented and tested the light client of Foundry while implementing IBC (see this article to know how IBC and a light client are related). Foundry will eventually have a stand-alone light client for its users that can be used for all chains built with Foundry.
Future
One of Foundry’s ultimate goals is to have an active and rich ecosystem of diverse modules. Since we have already established a general module system and its communication protocol, we can add more types of module runtimes continuously. Users will be able to easily write their own business logic in whatever language they want, especially simple scripting languages. Users can easily compose such custom modules with other common popular modules to construct their own applications. | https://medium.com/codechain/codechain-foundry-8c6df5e08c82 | ['Junha Yang'] | 2020-08-31 08:34:25.355000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Codechain', 'Foundry'] |
What no one talks about when leaving a job | What no one talks about when leaving a job
In June 2020, I gave my resignation at a company I poured myself into for the prior six years. In the two months of ‘closing up shop’ that followed, I observed many thoughts and feelings around leaving a professional setting. Of course, I couldn’t really muse out loud, yet.
While continuing to give our ‘all’ to jobs we’re planning to leave, we can’t be public about so many things… Even the period between letter-to-leaving is an awkward time to indulge in out-loud introspection.
Now I want to share some insights, because if you’re going through it too, I’d love to hear about your experience and — as it’s pretty lonely — you may want to hear about mine. Here are four sentiments from the months between alerting my team and finally closing my corporate email account.
Professional ‘eulogies’: the importance of feedback
Why is it that it takes leaving for people to reflect on their relationship with you, or what you’ve taught them, or what they’ve received from you?
Why are we all so shy to offer feedback on a random Tuesday?
Do you feel like it’s rare you actually get constructive, helpful and actionable feedback throughout your lifecycle at a tenure, that only seem to happen as you are moving on?
It shouldn’t be this way. This is something I will take with me forward. We should be expressing our appreciation and gratitude for each other throughout our working relationships. It would make for a better experience while we’re in the trenches together. Doing that is hard — but it’s a muscle to exercise.
Keep a journal to track ups and downs
The day I handed in my notice, I opened a Google Doc and wrote down my reactions to that intense day. And then I kept going. Knowing myself, I knew I’d entered a period of very severe ups and downs, self doubt and elation, skepticism and optimism…
Self awareness at how you handle life change is critical in these situations. Having it written down as you process can be really helpful — for example, I had what to look back on during the down days when I found myself grasping to remember why I decided to leave in the first place, or why I should absolutely be believing in myself going forward.
Do yourself a favor and give yourself a parting gift — a personal record of your experiences in leaving your job, saying goodbye to your team, and the introspection around finding what you want next. It’s valuable for your next time leaving a job, too.
‘What are you looking for?’ This question is hard
I’m curious and I like to learn. Just about everything sounds interesting to me; I can be too open minded. So pinning down an area of focus with which to answer people trying to help is sometimes a challenge.
But it’s not just interests, or what the career trajectory should look like. We are so many things. And we have so many priorities to consider in this search - how we want to grow; what is our ideal work-life balance. Does team come before upward mobility? Does salary come before flexibility?
Six months later, I can say I spent a good deal of this time trying to figure out my priorities for my next job; and even at the end when I had choices to make about which job to accept, I found myself losing focus on this. It’s easy to get distracted. That’s why writing it out is important — keeping that journal mentioned before. Or reflecting with people who know you and can actively listen to you and parrot back what they’ve heard you say at various points in your search.
Karma is the currency that should keep you going
Sure, I always knew this, but as I packed up, I saw it reflected back to me: When you’re in a management role, or you play a very visible part at a company, people are always watching. They’ve been watching you the whole time.
And it comes back. Have you been compassionate and caring? Have you been cold or unappreciative? Were you helpful and constructive? Did the people around you grow by being in your orbit?
I wondered if my downfall someday would be caring too much; putting others first at work; being too available. This isn’t false modesty; I know one of my strengths is truly enjoying being a team player and helpful, while one of my damaging weaknesses is putting the big picture/larger team ahead of myself too much of the time.
But in the weeks of making my exit, I understood that the examples I worked hard to set paid off. I could see the people who really grew from knowing me. That feels big, and really special. | https://medium.com/@eliesheva/what-no-one-talks-about-when-leaving-a-job-4d972a9a2c93 | ['Liz Cohen'] | 2020-12-20 08:10:36.551000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Jobs', 'Professional Development', 'Careers', 'Job Hunting'] |
Meshack Kipkorir: Every day is learning. | By Mwaniki Nyaga, KamiLimu Management Committee Member
In March this year, 10 days after he started his new role as a junior full-stack engineer at MediaPal, a programmatic advertising company, Meshack conducted a session on preparing for technical interviews alongside his new employer and MediaPal’s Co-Founder, Eric Wesonga. Impressed by his ease in delivery of technical content to an audience of KamiLimu mentees, I decided to prod him further on his experience applying for the role as well as how he had been coping with the government-mandated lockdown and its repercussions.
Meshack recently completed his coursework towards a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at JKUAT. He grew up fascinated by the internal workings of things, and, true to form, has gone on to explore and learn the saxophone and clarinet. Aside from his day job, he is a music tutor and performer.
In this interview, he explores the ease with which his attitude to learning has manifested huge leaps of progress in his life and the achievements he continues to accumulate. Meshack also reflects on the lessons he has gleaned from mentorship while at KamiLimu.
Meshack Kipkorir, Cohort 4.0 Mentee.
Hi Meshack. Thank you for joining me on this call. Speaking of which, I remember interviewing you for last year’s KamiLimu video, and you talked about your interest in Cybersecurity. I am interested in knowing how you transitioned from Cybersecurity to web development?
Thank you for the opportunity, Mwaniki. I was not sure where I was going to land. Ideally, my aim was to be a Cybersecurity Engineer, but then, again, I was open to any opportunity. So, I used to split my time between Cybersecurity concepts, such as ethical hacking and penetration testing, and web development. In this way, I could take up a job in either field. However, I still apply my cybersecurity skills in my present job, as I can now build secure systems.
I am glad things are working well for you. Did KamiLimu impact your application process?
Yes, pretty much in every way: from creating my CV and cover letter to preparing for the interview. First, one of the peer mentorship tasks during last year’s cohort involved preparing our CVs for job applications. From the exercises, I learned to tailor mine to the current opportunity to which I am applying. Second, my Peer Mentor then, Allan, went through my cover letter, and he corrected me regarding what to include or remove. Additionally, the program helped me to shape my online portfolio, especially LinkedIn, which increased my visibility.
Which of the lessons at KamiLimu did you find most helpful in the application process?
I’d say cover letter writing. Before KamiLimu, I did not even have a cover letter but this changed by the time I was graduating. Also, I revamped my CV significantly, thanks to KamiLimu: Initially, I thought a CV should contain everything that one has done, but I realized this was a wrong approach. Again, the interview preparation sessions helped me a lot as I knew that I had to conduct prior research on a company before an interview, which I did because I looked up MediaPal to learn about what the company does. From this investigation, I learned about digital marketing, which was a completely new concept to me, but with this knowledge, I shone in the interview.
That is great! What else do you think you can improve on based on the lessons you learned during the selection process?
First, I did not have a very impactful online portfolio. So, I first want to work on improving my portfolio to showcase my work.
Aaah! That is ironic as you were telling us about the online portfolio today. Or was that the first task on the job? Haha.
Haha. Actually, my first task on the job was to customize a website the company is working on using HTML and CSS. I was tasked with converting the webpage into an Android app. Presently, I am working on an iOS app. I actually learned Heroku during my first week on the job, so the experience has been an amazing one.
(Heroku is a service that enables developers to build, run, and operate applications entirely in the cloud. Meshack demonstrated how to host a project or portfolio on Heroku during the joint session on preparing for technical interviews.)
Oh, that is amazing! What are you looking forward to doing or learning in your new role?
I look forward to being a full-stack engineer and learning various technologies, such as Laravel which is popular within the company. So I hope to enhance my skills as I progress. I also want to fight my impostor syndrome more, as I realized people actually learn at work. I’ve come to see that one does not have to know everything going in. For example, one does not have to be a master programmer to land a job. What they should have is a strong foundation in the basics and a willingness to learn while at work.
How was your impostor syndrome while starting your new role?
The first three days were tough! I remember chatting with one of my new colleagues regarding what technologies I am confident working in and I listed Python Django and a bit of Java. Then he exclaimed, “I do not know what Eric told you, but we do not use Python here.” That set me back as I was most comfortable using the language. But, over time, I have learned to be confident in my skills. For instance, I converted the website I mentioned earlier from web to Android successfully, which has contributed to diminishing my impostor syndrome.
That is really impressive. Are you using Swift for the iOS app you are currently building?
Yes, which is amazing as I had to learn the language from scratch. Every day we are learning.
Ahaha. Every day seems to be a learning day because, wow, you have been there for less than 10 days.
Yes! And, presently, I actually know a lot more than I did coming in.
What advice would you give people who are afraid of applying for a job based on the conception that they do not meet all the job description requirements?
I would say just be really good in the basics, such as the basics of computer programming for a software development role. Also, know how things work: for example, I moved from PHP to Python to Java, and I found commonalities among them, such as loops, functions, or classes being similar throughout. Also, complete one or two projects to polish your skills, and just apply for that role! People learn every day on the job. So just be really good at the basics and do not be afraid of making that application.
Are you working from home?
Partially. I go to the office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Okay, Do you perceive any differences between working from home and in the office?
Personally, I prefer working from the office because of fewer distractions: there are children at home. Nonetheless, even while at home, I still manage to deliver on my responsibilities.
Haha. That is an interesting one. Are you done with school?
No. I have not done my final year’s final semester exams.
(Update: Meshack recently completed his undergraduate coursework at JKUAT.)
Okay. How did you feel about school closures following the discovery of instances of the new coronavirus in Kenya?
I looked at it as an opportunity for me to advance my skills, haha. We have had almost four months of free time in which one can work on their side projects without worrying about assignments and CATs. So I viewed it as an opportunity to polish my skills. For example, during the first two months of lockdown, I signed up for some courses on Udemy, which I have been working towards completing.
Would you say that this work during the two months gave you an edge in getting the job?
Definitely. In that time, I understood Python Django deeply, which assisted me during the interview in which I was asked related questions, such as why use the framework?
You also mentioned that Allan was your Peer Mentor. How was your relationship?
Let me talk of my peer mentorship group as a whole, then get back to Allan. We still meet occasionally as a group and we still talk a lot. Allan has also been with us all the way: even today, he is still available in case we need him to review our applications or cover letters. The peer mentorship group turned out really great for me, and I thank KamiLimu for it.
Aah, cool. So a sense of community?
Oh yes! Very much so.
Asante Sana, Meshack. I will let you have your dinner now, haha.
Thank you. All in all, it has been a great experience. I have amazing and supportive colleagues who are always ready to assist. Which reminds me that one should not be afraid of applying for a job as they will find help within their workplaces.
Do you see yourself coming back to KamiLimu or giving back to your community?
Of course. I did not apply to be a Peer Mentor at KamiLimu this year as I wanted to focus on building my technical skills. However, I hope to do so next year to support other students.
Interview transcribed by Allan Wasega. | https://medium.com/@kamilimu/meshack-kipkorir-every-day-is-learning-6380acfbe352 | [] | 2020-12-20 10:13:40.650000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Kamilimu Ict Track', 'Mentorship', 'Recruitment', 'Kamilimu'] |
Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Director Rylee Ebsen Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I grew up in an eccentric family, kinda like The Royal Tenenbaums meets The Beverly Hillbillies. Both of my grandfathers were in the biz. Buddy Ebsen, my paternal grandpa, was an actor and comedian most known for his role as ‘Jed Clampett.’ Stan Freberg, my maternal grandfather, was a writer, comedian, and director who was best friends with Ray Bradbury and opened for Frank Sinatra (my Grandmother was Sinatra’s Girl Friday and that’s how she met Stan). My dad’s an editor, mom’s a writer, and we were always writing, laughing, and making things.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Because of my family, I knew I would end up in front of or behind the camera so I decided to go to NYU Tisch film school to focus on directing. While at school, an old friend from high school, Evan Spiegel, reached out because he had seen a short I posted and wanted to ask if I would direct the first commercial for his new startup, Snapchat. CUT TO… working at Snap for several years, directing hundreds of pieces of content, seeing it grow to thousands of employees, building Snap’s consumer brands, and helping to take the company public by directing their documentary IPO film (the youngest and first female to do so for a company of that stature). So, that’s how I ended up working in film AND in tech. Now I’m focused on filmmaking — directing commercials for brands like Zillow, Facebook, State Farm, ESPN, & Disney. I’m currently involved with a few startups on the creative side and marketing consulting. Excited to see what the future brings with them.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I don’t know if there is just one story but without a doubt one of the most thrilling things for me so far is to have been standing on the stock exchange floor as Evan [Spiegel] rang the bell when Snap went public. I had worked harder on that IPO video than anything else in my career up to that point, pouring my heart and soul and talent into every inch of it. I will never forget how that felt.
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?
I was one of hundreds of production assistants on The Dark Knight Rises with 1100 extras when it filmed a big battle scene in NYC. I reported to the second assistant director and I was in charge of locking up a busy apartment building while Batman and Bane dueled in the middle of the cobble stone street. I watched Christopher Nolan as he navigated the chaos. New Yorkers being New Yorkers, they didn’t listen and would push right past me, often causing “bogies” in the shot. They yelled at me over the walkie, they yelled at me in the building. At one point I tried to physically hold the doors of the building, not letting people out, but quickly realized it was insane to hold people hostage to make a movie. Having that job for a few weeks gave me incredible empathy for every role on a movie set. There are no small jobs. It takes a village. And I guess I don’t really believe in ‘mistakes’ because you have to try things in order to learn and grow.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
First and foremost, I would have to say Evan Spiegel. We believed in each other before all of the craziness, and I’m so grateful for his trust in me and our incredible rocket-ship journey.
Also, Rob Reiner. In 8th grade I played Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. As a theater kid, I tended to play the crazy character roles (i.e. crazy townswoman with old makeup). In this instance, I was a girl playing a guy playing a girl, with a deep voice in a fat suit and a huge wig. I grew up with Rob Reiner’s son Jake, who played Corny Collins in the show — we did Groundlings Improv together too. Rob saw me go from a kooky theater nerd to a working commercial director. When the time came to join the Directors Guild, he endorsed my application. He told me the story of when Steven Spielberg signed his application and how special it was. It was a surreal and full circle moment, and it meant a lot that he signed mine.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
Don’t give up. Have a plan, but also don’t be too rigid. Be open to all kinds of opportunities — there’s strength in diverse experiences. Don’t absorb unnecessary negativity, it should be like water off a duck’s back. If you fail, shake the dust off and keep going. “Failures” are valuable lessons. Sometimes I feel like we should have a failure resume to accompany the ‘normal’ one. I’m equally interested in what you’ve overcome as I am in your accomplishments.
What drives you to get up everyday and work in TV and Film? What change do you want to see in the industry going forward?
I love telling stories. I love being on set and creating with others. I love the collaboration, combustion and compromise. It is a very powerful thing to make something out of nothing. It’s a privilege, and I don’t take it for granted.
In regard to change I’d like to see, I’d have to say that would be diversity and inclusion. We’ve made incredible progress but I would like to see even more women in positions of power, on boards, and in charge of financial resources. Film & TV has seen many major changes, but they still have a long way to go. We can’t forget about diversity in the advertising industry. It can be challenging to navigate gender bias, but the best way to overcome it is to not absorb it, find great people who support you, and to not give up. I like to say… here’s to women in film! May we be them, may we know them, may we give them funding.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
I’d love to continue directing funny, thoughtful, and culturally relevant spots for brands that move the needle. There are not many female comedy directors in the ad space and I’m excited to be one.
I directed a few original Snap series and I’m looking forward to doing more film and TV. I’m writing an original buddy comedy about a retirement home for ex-entertainers called Sunset Towers. I’m also writing a new take on one of my grandfather’s beloved films. With my background directing successful, big-budget creative projects within a corporate environment, I think I’m well suited to take on a Disney project. That would be a dream!
We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?
Diversity and inclusion is imperative in every area of life. We need more women and people of color producing content, directing, creating video games, making technology, and putting out mobile apps. These are things we consume and use everyday to help us learn about the world, communicate with loved ones, and self actualize. I hope one day we don’t even need diversity and inclusion programs, that it will just be our way of life. But the numbers just aren’t there yet which means we need to keep doing our part to change the landscape. It should be a daily conversation at studios, tech companies and beyond.
Decision makers and people in positions of power need to go outside of their referral pool when hiring (even if it takes more time), think outside the box, and take more chances on people. There’s a chicken or egg problem, you can’t get an opportunity without having experience and you can’t get experience without having an opportunity. Every successful working director was a first-time director at some point, and who gave them their first chance? Be that person who gives someone a first chance.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
I’m struggling with this one because I feel like I was warned about it all by my family, ha! So not a lot phases me. But as I said before, don’t absorb other people’s bad attitudes or negative energy. You will never regret being kind.
Can you share with our readers any self care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.
Accessing my parasympathetic nervous system by being in nature and getting exercise. I find it’s the best way to process my anxiety — which is even more important these days!
Putting my phone away for quiet time in the morning. I’m too impatient for meditation, so I do my own version. Listening to my favorite podcast, getting a massage, or watching my favorite comedies like ‘What About Bob’ or ‘Private Benjamin.’
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I’m grateful to be a team leader and I enjoy encouraging others to make their best work. One of my favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes is, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I directed the first voter registration campaign for Snapchat in 2018 and it helped register 400,000 new voters during the midterms. Conceptualizing and directing that campaign sparked a passion in me and in 2019, when I left Snap, I joined a truly inspiring group of women who created I Am A Voter helping to conceptualize, direct, and edit content. Our system isn’t perfect but it’s all we got, and we can’t complain if we don’t show up. The I Am A Voter tagline is ‘Democracy works best when we all participate.” I Am A Voter has an innovative text platform and puts social first, reaching people in fun ways with important deadlines, ways to register, and track your ballot. I was so inspired by the historic voter turnout this year, and I Am A Voter’s campaigns certainly played a role. [I Am A Voter was co-founded by former lawyer and fashion executive Mandana Dayani; CAA Foundation Executive Director Natalie Tran; actresses Debra Messing and Sophia Bush; April Uchitel, chief executive of beauty retailer Onda; and Tiffany Bensley of consulting firm Type Navy].
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Ron Howard! I’ve never met him. He wanted to cast my grandpa in Cocoon as Don Ameche’s role, but sadly my Buddy couldn’t get out of his contract. I think they did some TV episodes together too. I recently watched a zoom Q&A that Rob did with the Directors Guild and I loved everything he said. He’s an icon but he’s also thoughtful, kind, and generous with his wisdom. Would be fun to continue the conversation, share old stories, and talk about projects.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
@DirectorRylee on IG, Twitter and Facebook.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success! | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/inspirational-women-in-hollywood-how-director-rylee-ebsen-is-helping-to-shake-up-the-entertainment-786ccf04a89b | ['Karina Michel Feld'] | 2020-12-27 16:53:33.606000+00:00 | ['Pop Culture'] |
Tensorflow 2 YOLOv3-Tiny object detection implementation | In this tutorial, you will learn how to utilize YOLOv3-Tiny the same as we did for YOLOv3 for near real-time object detection.
The YOLO object detector is often cited as being one of the fastest deep learning-based object detectors, achieving a higher FPS rate than computationally expensive two-stage detectors (ex. Faster R-CNN) and some single-stage detectors (ex. RetinaNet and some, but not all, variations of SSDs).
However, even with all that speed, YOLOv3 is still not fast enough to run on some specific tasks or embedded devices such as the Raspberry Pi.
To help make YOLOv3 even faster, Redmon et al. (the creators of YOLO), defined a variation of the YOLO architecture called YOLOv3-Tiny.
Looking at the results from pjreddie.com (image below) the YOLOv3-Tiny architecture is approximately 6 times faster than it’s larger big brothers, achieving upwards of 220 FPS on a single GPU.
The small model size and fast inference speed make the YOLOv3-Tiny object detector naturally suited for embedded computer vision/deep learning devices such as the Raspberry Pi, Google Coral, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, or desktop CPU computer where your task requires higher FPS rate than you can get with YOLOv3 model.
In this post, you’ll learn how to use and train YOLOv3-Tiny the same way as we used in my previous tutorials.
The downside, of course, is that YOLOv3-Tiny tends to be less accurate because it is a smaller version of its big brother.
For reference, Redmon et al. report ~51–58% mAP for YOLOv3 on the COCO benchmark dataset while YOLOv3-Tiny is only 33.1% mAP — almost less than half of the accuracy of its bigger brothers.
That said, 33% mAP is still reasonable enough for some applications.
As I said, on a standard computer with a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), it is easy for YOLOv3 to achieve real‐time performance. However, in the miniaturized embedded devices, such as Raspberry PI, the conventional YOLOv3 algorithm runs slowly. The YOLOv3‐Tiny network can basically satisfy real‐time requirements based on limited hardware resources. Therefore, in this tutorial, I will show you, how to run the YOLOv3‐Tiny algorithm. YOLOv3‐Tiny instead of Darknet53 has a backbone of the Darknet19, the structure of it is shown in the following image:
You Only Look Once v3‐Tiny (YOLOv3‐Tiny) network structure
This above structure enables the YOLOv3‐Tiny network to achieve the desired effect in miniaturized devices.
Same as in the YOLOv3 tutorial, seeing Darknet-19 and above YOLOv3-Tiny structure, we can’t fully understand all layers and how to implement it. This is why I have one more figure with the overall architecture of the YOLOv3-Tiny network. In the picture below, we can see that the input picture of size 416x416 gets 2 branches after entering the Darknet-19 network. These branches undergo a series of convolutions, upsampling, merging, and other operations. Two feature maps with different sizes are finally obtained, with shapes of [13, 13, 255] and [26, 26, 255]: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/tensorflow-2-yolov3-tiny-object-detection-implementation-c3ea5d4d0510 | ['Rokas Balsys'] | 2020-10-05 19:18:06.678000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Computer Vision', 'Computer Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
Why You Need a Social Media Goal | Although social networking tools are widely used to incite action, the people who use them most effectively have one thing in common: a laser-like focus. A single focused goal provides direction, motivation, and operational guidance. As big, daunting, and impressive as some social media campaigns seem, each started small, with a few people and a goal.
There are five elements that comprise a focused goal:
Humanistic: Focus on who you want to help rather than jumping to solutions. Empathize with your audience to develop Points of View (POV): [USER] needs to [USER’S NEEDS] because [SURPRISING INSIGHT]. Questions to ask about your audience to cultivate a human-centered approach: What is she like? What keeps her up at night? What do you want her to do? How might she resist?
Actionable: Use tactical micro goals to achieve long-term macro goals. At the beginning, don’t focus on that long-term goal. Research shows that imagining the process of reaching a goal is more effective than envisioning the outcome.
Testable: Identify metrics that will inform your actions and help evaluate success. Run low-cost trials to test your assumptions. Set performance metrics to measure progress, and plan how to solicit feedback from your audience before you launch. Surveys are a great tool. As Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0
says, “The best surveys ask three simple questions: why are you here? Were you able to complete your task? If not, why?” Establish deadlines, and celebrate small wins along the way.
Clarity: Keep your goals clealy focused to increase your odds of success and generate momentum. Research shows that the reason why many don’t achieve their goals is not that they don’t try hard enough or think strategically enough, but simply because the embarked on too many goals or set conflicting goals. Start with the simplest behavior you can change at a low cost.
Happiness: Ensure that your goal is personally meaningful such that the thought of achieving the goal would bring happiness to you and your audience–in some way.
Social media, when used effectively, is incredibly powerful. But your social media efforts will only accomplish what you set out to accomplish with them. So before you post your next Facebook status ask yourself: what is my goal? | https://medium.com/the-dragonfly-effect/why-you-need-a-social-media-goal-f8db481f6641 | ['Andy Smith'] | 2017-02-02 21:14:25.452000+00:00 | ['Happiness', 'Metrics', 'Focus', 'Design Thinking', 'Goals'] |
My Four Year Anniversary as a Software Engineer — Quick Recap | Today’s my four year anniversary as a software engineer!
I still remember calling my dad back in April 2016 to tell him my plan to quit my job in June, teach myself to code full-time until October, and get a job by December 2016, latest.
Can’t believe I met those crazy deadlines. And these past four years have been just as crazy.
My first engineering job, I was the sole software engineer at a startup with a Black CEO. Even more amazing, the startup got into the Techstars 2017 accelerator and I got to experience that with him.
The next startup I went to ended up getting on Shark Tank and we made a deal with one of the Sharks!
It was amazing being part of that experience and helping lead the engineering effort to keep our site up when we aired.
Then, I moved to DC and ended up working at a company where I had a solid group of Black co-workers for the first time.
Even the engineering team started out all Black, except the manager. My tech lead was Nigerian. He’s like an older brother to me now.
Oh yeah, built my own startup.
Then, Covid.
Now I’m back in Texas at another startup while building my own business on the side.
The past four years have been fun, but I know I didn’t come this far just to come this far…
2021 👀👀👀 | https://medium.com/@tjoye20/my-four-year-anniversary-as-a-software-engineer-quick-recap-ff82681e286 | ['Tj Oyeniyi'] | 2020-12-20 08:06:51.808000+00:00 | ['Startup Lessons', 'Learning To Code', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Software Engineering', 'Learn To Code'] |
Co-Sleeping: Should Your Child Sleep In Your Bed? | Co-sleeping is the practice where the child sleeps in bed with his parents. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most hotly debated and controversial topics related to pediatric sleep. Let’s see why.
Some people argue that co-sleeping is the right and natural way to raise a child because the practice fosters a stronger bond and a more secure attachment.
Conversely, others will tell you that co-sleeping is risky, ridiculous, or even dangerous and they don’t want it for their family.
So, which approach holds the truth?
First, it’s important to understand that co-sleeping is not magic. Although some proponents of the family bed would disagree, numerous couples have reported that their babies did not necessarily sleep deeper or longer because their parents were close by. In fact, some parents found that their child slept longer and woke less frequently when they stopped co-sleeping and moved him into his own crib.
However, whether families choose to co-sleep or have their children sleep independently is a personal decision, and if both parents and child are safe, rested, and fulfilled, then co-sleeping is nothing to worry about.
If you decide do co-sleep, this commitment requires some very careful thinking about what you and your spouse feel is right for you as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.
Ask yourselves the following questions:
• Is it nice to think about enjoying the coziness of sleeping in close proximity, or does one or more of us tend to stay active during sleeping — potentially disrupting the others?
• Does everyone in our family want to co-sleep, or are we leaning toward it because one of us feels strongly?
• Are we willing to commit to being quiet after our child falls asleep, or do we like to watch TV or talk in bed?
• Will we enjoy being able to feed our baby more often throughout the night, or will having him next to us make it tougher to wean nighttime feeds?
• Are we agreeable to getting into bed when our child does, to ensure his safety?
• For working parents, does sleeping next to our child allow us to feel more connected to him?
As expected, co-sleeping has both advantages and disadvantages.
Let’s take a closer look at them.
Advantages:
• Constant closeness whenever the child is awake. Many children and parents enjoy this feeling.
• Immediate action and support for any sleep-related problem
• The ability to nurse and respond to other nighttime wakings without getting up
• More time to spend with the child
• Possibly better sleep for both the child and the parents, if the child was sleeping poorly to begin with
Disadvantages:
• Parents may sleep poorly if their children are restless sleepers
• Parents may end up sleeping in separate rooms, and they may become angry at their child or with each other
• Children’s and adults’ sleep cycles do not coincide
• Parents may have to go to bed at a very early hour with their children and be left with little time for their own evening activities
• Parents have little privacy
• There may be a slight increase in the risk to the infant from SIDS and related causes.
The decision to co-sleep should be yours, made by the parent — or parents — and based on your own personal philosophies, not on pressure from your child or anyone else. Another family’s good or bad experience with co-sleeping should not influence your decision: your child is unique and your family is not the same. | https://medium.com/@hussainaleid/co-sleeping-should-your-child-sleep-in-your-bed-5a8729ecbf2e | ['Light Master'] | 2020-07-07 10:09:36.667000+00:00 | ['Child', 'Sleep', 'Bed', 'Co Sleeping', 'Baby'] |
4 Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform For The Telecommunication Industry | The global telecommunications industry has around 800+ service providers spread over 6 continents, out of which 80 rakes in over 1 Billion USD each annually[1]. Each country has dozens of regional service providers, making it one of the most competitive industries in the world.
In such a market, it becomes imperative for telecommunication enterprises to establish a strong connection with their customers in order to drive acquisition and retention goals. To increase brand awareness, organisations spend heavily on marketing and advertising through traditional channels and platforms. However, this doesn’t necessarily lead to an increase in sales.
With the explosion in media and technology, telecommunication companies are now faced with the challenge of interacting with customers through various modes and platforms. Either via email, Social Media, SMS, postal, voice calls or video-chat, the industry has been shoved into an era of cross-functional marketing and outreach. Every touchpoint comes with its own set of exclusive customer-oriented datasets. If utilised intelligently, this data can be used to create targeted campaigns and services for customers.
In today’s world, customers tend to side with brands and services that offer stellar customer experiences. In a global case study by Wunderman Thompson, it was observed that 76% of individuals choose to purchase from brands that demonstrate awareness and concern about its customers [2].
Retention of existing customers is also a pressing need. An Accenture study shows that more than 80% of organisations spend less than 30% of their total marketing budget on customer retention and engagement based initiatives [3]. It has also been observed that the total cost of acquiring a new customer is 5x more than the total cost of retaining existing ones. Hence, holding onto existing customers becomes a profitable exercise.
So, what can a Customer Data Platform (CDP) do in this context?
A CDP provides the ability to create a consolidated view of each and every customer. Telecommunication service providers are able to flesh out the requirements, concerns and motivations of each of its subscribers in a nuanced manner, at a level of detail that was not possible through traditional ways of managing data.
Here are 4 different ways through which telecommunication enterprises are leveraging CDPs.
User Monetization through content data
Marketing experts have become familiar with the concept of targeted content marketing over the last couple of decades. Experts have highlighted the fact that since the overall consumption of digital content has increased exponentially over time, the way people now consume content has changed as well. Up until the year 2000, an average human lost interest in 12 seconds. Today, marketing content and visuals need to be able to grab a customer’s attention in just 8 seconds. [4] Most Telecommunication companies offer the quintessential services that are similar and familiar to the average subscriber. Therefore, to stand out from competitors, these companies need to realise that the term ‘average subscriber’ doesn’t exist anymore and that each subscriber comes with their own unique preferences. Hence, specific content is targeted to each and every subscriber.
Telecommunications giant Telefonica had partnered with multiple retailers and fashion brands to provide subscribers with customized offers and deals. Yet, it was difficult to measure the ROI. Hence, in 2017, they purchased the geolocation data startup Statiq. Statiq had the ability to process billions of location data signals, which allowed Telefonica to monitor the places visited by subscribers and track if or not the subscriber visited a store after seeing a targeted advertisement. [5]
2. Capturing of cross-selling/up-selling opportunities
Telecommunication companies possess a multitude of avenues to either upsell existing products or cross-sell their services. CDPs harness crucial insights about the customer from their location data, network data, Social Media data, browsing actions, Registration Information (BSS) and other such interactions. These insights are then used to create opportunities to either upsell existing products or cross-sell with the help of affiliate partners.
Imagine a customer, who is using a 4G handset, is searching for 5G devices on various online sites or eCommerce portals. A CDP is able to successfully marry the data associated with the device at hand and the risen demand, and subsequently trigger a response that offers a 5G device that comes bundled with 5G services.
3. Hyper-Personalization
Most telecommunication enterprises either store customer data in individual silos or disconnected data storage systems. The absence of a unified data software system makes it difficult to consider diverse datasets in order to produce critical insight. This has also been a leading cause of friction between telecommunication companies and subscribers.
CDPs enable telecom companies to merge data from different interactions, taking into account metrics related to brand affinity, campaign uptake and multichannel adoption rates. This provides them with the ability to create hyper-personalised outreach initiatives for better impact. It was observed that emails with personalized content led to a 20% direct increase in sales. [6]
4. AI-assisted campaign discovery
One of the many roadblocks on the journey towards creating a campaign is discovering what works and what doesn’t. Timing is everything. With the arrival of the digital age, the total volume of content consumption through various channels has increased 10x, making it imperative for telecommunication service providers to create marketing campaigns for subscribers in real-time. This could be using a relevant piece of news, media or trending content to help sell better.
On a similar note, FMCG giant Unilever was able to harness the power of AI to create slogans and ad-jingles based on what they believed to be the most frequently consumed content: movie songs. Their AI-platform was able to isolate as many as 50 songs that referenced the idea of ‘eating ice-cream for breakfast’, which helped them produce noteworthy slogans, campaigns and jingles for their ice-cream vertical, Ben & Jerry’s.[7]
These are just a few of the many applications of intelligent CDPs.
Cadenz, an intelligent CDP, uses Artificial Intelligence to equip telecommunication service providers with all the necessary data and insights to create a 360-degree view of every single customer.
Built by TheDataTeam, Cadenz understands customer behaviours and purchase patterns to give intelligent recommendations for business excellence. A leading telecommunication company in the ASEAN market managed to track over 500+ behaviour based attributes of over 90 million customers, thereby simplifying their customer retention endeavours.
Visit http://cadenz.ai/ to learn more about how we can help your business achieve the same output through an intelligent CDP. | https://medium.com/@cadenz/4-benefits-of-a-customer-data-platform-for-the-telecommunication-industry-b8b34d4e9927 | [] | 2020-12-24 12:41:45.525000+00:00 | ['Telecom', 'Customer Success', 'Customer Experience', 'Customer Service', 'Customer Data Platform'] |
Google officially explains what caused Monday’s 47 minutes outage. | Google officially explains what caused Monday’s 47 minutes outage. The cause was “an internal storage quota issue.”
I haven’t the faintest clue about what that means in layman's terms. However, thank goodness! I can now assume that the incident wasn’t prompted by a solar plasma outflow originated from Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), causing a massive geomagnetic storm that ionized Earth’s atmosphere. Similar to a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) warhead, being detonated far above the Earth’s surface.
For a minute there, I thought somebody forgot to pay the internet bill.
You can read Google’s official statement here. | https://medium.com/technology-hits/google-officially-explains-what-caused-mondays-47-minutes-outage-3758a0bba01f | ['Rui Alves'] | 2020-12-27 16:33:38.479000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Google', 'Internet', 'Digital Life', 'Data Science'] |
The Struggle is Real. I thought I was beyond this. | The Struggle is Real
myself
I thought I had overcome my addiction to gambling. For a few weeks there was little to no desire to gamble. I even told my gamblers anonymous group that I didn’t think I needed them anymore.
They laughed. They called me foolish.
That’s alright. I’ll show you, I thought.
I’m never going to gamble again.
Forget trading. Forget poker. Scratch offs, no way.
I had figured it out. I will work on my hobbies. My passions.
I’ll just write everyday. And play my guitar.
Gambling was so 2020.
I was ready to move on.
Only, the moment I feel depressed, or hopeless, my mind goes to, making a bet.
For me, it’s not about the money. It’s about being in action. It’s about the escape. I don’t need to bet a whole lot, but you can bet if I lose my initial deposit, I will be buying in again.
I would definitely be chasing my losses. That’s something that I’ve proven over time.
In that way, losses can add up quickly. Soon, I have barely enough to pay bills. I’ll usually leave myself with just enough room, to squeak by.
I’ll be broke.
I could’ve spent the money on myself, or on loved ones. Instead I gambled it away.
So, what’s going on right now?
I’m fighting the urge to gamble low stakes online poker. You know, grind up my account in a couple weeks and keep increasing stakes until I’m playing with the big boys again.
Once again, it’s not about the money. It’s about the action, and the escape.
Whenever I win, it’s never enough.
Whenever I win, it’s simply more ammunition for the next bet.
Higher stakes. And still higher stakes. Until, I inevitably lose it all.
Then I’ll start again.
But this time, I aim to not even gamble. I am not going to go through with it. I could. It’s so easy.
Instant deposit. Instant action.
But I won’t.
I will continue writing. I will pick up my guitar again.
Yes, I am depressed. But I have been depressed before, and I have overcome.
And I know, where gambling leads. It leads to even deeper depression, and suicidal thoughts. It leads to risky behavior. It leads to destruction. It leads to death.
I will not step through that door.
I will choose life.
I will seek to enjoy my life. And be content with what I have.
I wrote this article to clear my mind, and get clear about not gambling. If you’ve taken the time to read the is article, thank you, and I hope it helped you. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/on-fighting-the-urge-to-gamble-855f32f166d4 | ['M.X. Christopher'] | 2020-12-27 17:02:02.192000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Addiction', 'Self', 'Gambling', 'Mental Illness'] |
No Laws Were Broken | No Laws Were Broken
Disclaimer — -The following is not a news report. This is opinion developed from many sources, some of which are included for clarity, transparency and rebuttal, and is the Free Speech that shares ideas.
No Laws Were Broken…..
No laws have been broken but our democratic (small d) Constitutional republic has been occupied by capitalists. What’s up with that?
https://www.laprogressive.com/american-socialism/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=6fd6af97ac-LAP_News_4_15_April_17_PC4_15_2017_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-6fd6af97ac-286972237&mc_cid=6fd6af97ac&mc_eid=e213faa886-----The lie that they’re “foreign ideologies” starts with the fascist assault Woodrow Wilson waged against them during and after World War 1.
Their marginalization today by corporate Democrats and Trump Republicans is itself profoundly unAmerican. — -end of laprogressive info — -
They wanted female suffrage, direct election of Senators, referendum and recall. But in 1896 the Populists were sabotaged by wimp Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who begged their support, then back-stabbed them in a presidential election he lost (of course) to the corporate Republican, William McKinley. — — end of laprogressives info — —
Woodrow Wilson simultaneously denigrated socialists and seems to have been undermining and harming the rights of Suffragettes — — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_q2Aw464KI Suffragists: The Fight to Vote “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity” — In 2019, Feminists are still too often labeled as in some level of insanity. Denigration of Feminists continues.
The same derogatory campaigns are waged routinely — --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pou2s1ENXMM
Bernie Viral Video Creator: What the media misses about Sen. Sanders
No laws broken, but the practice of meritocracy surely seems implicated in dazzling wealth and success of kids of politicians.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/10/13/hunter-biden-steps-down-from-chinese-private-equity-board-promises-no-foreign-work-if-dad-joe-elected-in-2020/23835988/---The younger Biden also laid out ground rules for his career moves if his father is elected, including keeping the former VP “personally uninvolved in his business affairs.” — -end of aol info — -
Privilege as governmental policy isn’t a sound principle, even when “no laws have been broken”.
Big-money interests and corporate control own governmental policy, due to the illegitimate Supreme Court ruling called Citizens United that legalized corruption in our electoral process — — -https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-11/coal-industry-pushed-state-regulators-to-lobby-for-power-rescue----A series of letters from state energy regulators asking the Trump administration to act on coal plant closures was orchestrated by a coal lobbying group, emails show, raising questions about the independence of the public service commissioners.
Utility commissioners in six states pressed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act on an inquiry into whether coal plant retirements are threatening the electric grid. The state officials sent letters to FERC at the request of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, according to the emails and Jon McKinney, a consultant for the coal group working on the effort. — end of bloomberg info — -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKjaogdw5fQ&t=104s
NYS anti-fracking advocates are only too aware of the rubberstamp FERC, that seems to be a branch of corporate process in its actions. NYS and specifically ground zero of the anti-fracking actions over the last decade, is the site of law enforcement warnings toward public-safety advocates that they could be labeled as domestic terrorists for using the phrase “bomb truck” in referring to explosive contents on trucks on our common roadways.
The topic of privilege over safety pertaining to commercial incursion into local neighborhoods is crucial, timely, and relevant.
Local community members who are serious about environmental protection stand together in solidarity to address a government/commerce that violates environmental, human and civil rights — -https://www.lakotalaw.org/our-actions/congress-kxl
To participate in Solidarity, one may consider sending a letter to the UN and your Representatives — --https://www.facebook.com/rema.loeb/posts/3008228802527100 — Thanks to Rema for sharing
In the same region a law enforcement officer warned a local public-safety advocate that his words could label him as a domestic terrorist, conscientious expression on this Columbus Day should be welcomed in order to provide a fair and balanced view of that which we are celebrating — --https://wnbf.com/protesters-turn-out-for-binghamton-columbus-day-events/
Officials estimated around 25 demonstrators protesting Christopher Columbus’ landing in the Americas and the impact of European civilization on indigenous peoples. — — -end of wnbf info — -
This is the same Binghamton that restricted the Veterans from Veterans For Peace from marching in the Memorial Day Parade some years ago — --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV3TK_mZpYY&t=367s
://www.lakotalaw.org/-----Dedicated to reversing the slow genocide of the Lakota People and destruction of their culture, the Lakota People’s Law Project partners with Native communities to protect sacred lands, safeguard human rights, promote sustainability, reunite indigenous families, and much more. — end of lakotalaw info — -
Insist that legislators make laws to protect We The People, rather than to promote the greed and privilege of commercial interests.
Rural people in general are treated with incomprehensible disrespect by the Capitalist Party D&R — --https://portside.org/2019-10-13/land-reform-and-green-new-deal----Today’s challenges are strikingly similar. Climate change poses an even greater existential threat to human life than unchecked soil erosion did in the era of the Dust Bowl. In both moments, unchecked corporate power over land and other resources — whether the railroad monopolies of the early twentieth century or the fossil fuel industry today — is a root cause of the problem. — -end of portside info — -
Solidarity is recognized as crucial to maintain autonomy. Grassroots groups are working toward this end — — https://mailchi.mp/transitionus/this-saturday-building-bridges-healing-dialogue-series?e=0d02132bed
Assault against the American public is greater in 2019 than has been the case since the time of King George — —
https://portside.org/2019-10-13/how-housing-wealth-transferred-families-corporations----But more than 12 million single-family homes are currently being rented in the United States. Those homes, valued at more than $2.3 trillion, make up 35 percent of all rental housing around the country. In the past, the great majority of single-family homes that were rented out were done so by their owners or small real-estate companies. But today, a large and growing share of single-family rental homes are owned and managed by large corporations, real-estate firms, and financial institutions. The percentage of home owners is at its lowest level since the 1960s. — -end of portside info —
It bears reminding — — Eric Trump speaks of his nice real estate family. He speaks of the development projects across the nation — -https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2019/10/12/trump-organization-evp-eric-trump-on-his-upbringing-we-were-a-nice-real-estate-family/23835253/---Several observations — -
*The illegitimate Supreme Court decision called Citizens United permits big-money interests to buy politicians who are beholden to enact legislation that may be favorable to big-money interests rather than for We The People
*Real estate projects may be a prime example
*Limited Partnerships are investments sold to wealthy individuals
*This transfers investment cash to developers for their project, with time horizons of normally 10 years
*A return may or may not occur to the investor, because the investor is a silent partner
*As a silent partner, any losses from the project can pass through to the investor
*Many wealthy investors use this vehicle because each year, a percentage dependent on income tax returns are deductible which deduction may amount to more than an expected investment ROR in a more traditional investment vehicle
*The impact of reduced taxes due to these deductions are often multiplied across an income tax return
A thoughtful person may consider this tax strategy to be legislated specifically to transfer cash to real estate developers for projects that may add to gentrification projects in a neighborhood. Tax deduction for investors are an encouragement to so invest, but also has the overall effect of transferring taxes from the public sector, which could be used to pay down our national debt, and removes such tax payments for use for public projects, and transfers this money specifically to private sector wealth creation.
Another layer of this tax legislation that specifically seems to transfer national wealth out of the tax base and into the pockets of land developers is that the excuse used by municipalities for supporting the ensuing gentrification of neighborhoods by such projects that local bureaucrats encourage because it will expand their tax base. A serious discussion and transparency would investigate the wisdom of moving money out of the general income tax base into the pockets of land developers, which income tax money could have been used to upgrade and support long-established local communities in the first place.
This is only one example of capitalism that is called “good for the economy”. But a closer look tells a different story. Meritocracy will justify this as projects put forth by the worthiest people among us, but corrupt campaign contribution legislation may have resulted in unfair laws for the public that in effect legislates who will be the meritocracy while undermining the economy that belongs to the 100% in their many facets, to give cash to the 1% privileged meritocracy…..AKA networking.
This happy-horsefeathers system is called capitalism. Both Democrats and Republicans have given us this system of capitalism that they have superimposed over principles of our democratic (small d) Constitutional republic, in the 1-Party Capitalistic Party D&R system. The joke is on us.
— — — end of perspective about laws that transfer profits to corporation and risks to the public — —
C-Span was relevant in its discussions today — --https://www.c-span.org/video/?465163-4/washington-journal-amy-mackinnon-discusses-origins-impeachment-inquiry
8:56AM — paraphrase — -guest — -speaks to the return of Crimea to Russia.
No reason exists for Americans to have an in depth knowledge about Russian history, but that so many speak with authority against Russia shouldn’t continue from positions of ignorance or convenient lack of interest — --https://www.britannica.com/place/khanate-of-Crimea
https://www.britannica.com/place/Mongol-empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Crimea
Eastern Europeans were enslaved by Khans often from Crimea. The imperialist tendencies of Western Europe during the 1400’s — 1700’s also included wars that included Russia. Ire of Russian response toward enslavement of its population ended in annexation of Crimea to Russia. Those who disregard the history of enslavement as an encouragement by Russia to annex Crimea, seem quite self-serving. Self-preoccupation with atrocity blinds to the reality of others.
As “Western values” are an excuse for US involvement in Ukraine, (the euphemism of “spreading democracy” rather than imperialism) that surely must be recognized as the capitalism that has been superimposed over American democratic (small d) Constitutional republicanism (small r), could be recognized by nations with histories that seem beyond the interest or comprehension of said capitalists, as a reason for suspicion by Ukraine. Eastern Ukrainians seemed to respond negatively to the “Westernization” that was welcomed by capitalist-leaning Western Ukrainians. This is of course over-simplification by one who isn’t personally effected; but no more uninformed than many of the state-run/corporate-owned mainstream media wonks who pretend to report facts. Do some research to develop your own view of this timely current event. It’s usually never black and white.
Colonialism and imperialism is an atrocity that seems to continue — — -https://www.laprogressive.com/congo-forgotten-war/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=c7cd7e1295-LAP_News_4_15_April_17_PC4_15_2017_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-c7cd7e1295-286972237&mc_cid=c7cd7e1295&mc_eid=e213faa886----With at least $24 trillion in gold, diamonds, tin, coltan, copper, cobalt, and other natural resources beneath the ground, it’s often assumed that Congo’s violence is intimately connected with the desire to control its mineral wealth. — -end of laprogressives info — -
The nations change but not the motivation. Follow the money. To be anti-capitalism doesn’t mean being pro-Russian. Consider the association between US capitalists and Russian capitalists.
To link socialism to communism to Russia is a slight-of-hand to capture simplicity, which our world surely isn’t — -https://www.laprogressive.com/communism-or-freedom/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=c7cd7e1295-LAP_News_4_15_April_17_PC4_15_2017_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-c7cd7e1295286972237&mc_cid=c7cd7e1295&mc_eid=e213faa886-----If communism means what Sessions and the other reactionary Republicans say it means, most Americans must be communists, for they define freedom in some way other than as a synonym for free enterprise. — — — -end of laprogressive info —
We would do best to support principles of our democratic (small d) Constitutional republic that isn’t about any of socialism, communism, or capitalism.
C-Span — -9:00AM — Guest — -paraphrase — -Biden interfering in Ukraine to protect his son is wrong perspective.
Anyone interested in governance of, by and for The People in America’s democratic (small d) Constitutional republic will have questions about the imperialism by our government over recent decades, advertised as the progress of globalism, but in reality a seeming throw-back to the 1400’s — 1700’s, and with an end game of capitalistic profiteering. That this behavior is legal is attributable to the illegitimate Supreme Court decision called Citizens United that legalized corruption in elections with the result of a government currently “run like a business”, and enriching politicians inordinately, when they should consider their Oath of Office to the US Constitution and public service to We The People.
These are a few reasons many people support Bernie Sanders for President in 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Saagar Enjeti: The debate already is rigged against Gabbard, Sanders, and Yang
Kryastal Ball suggests that anyone bringing up ideas to promote the US public (paraphrase), is reported by state-run/corporate-owned mainstream media talking heads as being pro-Russia. One concurs with her assumption.
If we are afflicted with Biden kids and Trump kids, we should be capable of tolerating Matt — --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QyXjVsoF9E
Creator Of Viral Bernie Sanders Video Succumbs To Hysterical Assault
(commentator says, it’s my video and I can say whatever I want)…..absolutely…. (“if you run they’ll chase you for the rest of your life”)
That’s a reason I, for one, stand firm and solid as a White Militant ‘70’s Feminist…..how do you like me now?
“Don’t let your enemies define your perspective”, says commentator. to which one agrees.
Having not seen the expose’s, one doesn’t know the MLK references spoken of, but one believes those “howling” about it, are the same capitalist characters wrapping themselves in the MLK flag while promoting the capitalism that MLK didn’t support.
Attempts to censor Bernie Sanders are ongoing. If Bernie Sanders voters are again disenfranchised of rights to free, clean, and fair elections in 2020 as was true in the DNC Primary for 2016, one will confidently cast a vote for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins — — https://www.gp.org/howie_hawkins
https://www.gp.org/2020
**************************************************************************************************************************************************
Some voters in the US were disenfranchised due to Capitalist Party D&R election rigging that is controlled by political Parties. The Capitalist Party R&D, have as their objective, putting in place rules that ensure the candidate choice of a particular Establishment Party is put into office, even against the wishes of the voters.
Please remember political Parties have no standing under the US Constitution, but voters do have standing under the US Constitution. Due to disenfranchisement of 3rd-Party candidates, Bernie Sanders who is an Independent, chooses to run as a Democrat for President. If a voter is a member of a 3rd-Party, and wishes to vote for 3rd-Party politician Bernie Sanders, in the Democratic Primary, that voter may be disenfranchised of his/her Constitutional right of a free and fair election, as happened to a large number of voters in NYS in 2016.
One suspects these disenfranchised voters who may have felt defrauded of their right to vote in the 2016 Democratic Primary, voted for Trump in the 2016 general election. One believes this will happen again, because needless to say, the Capitalist Party R&D prefer chaos in the election system, which is a control mechanism for political Parties with no standing under the US Constitution, while the voters do have standing under the US Constitution. This is an interesting red-herring to wield a control that is not Constitutional.
*****Each state is different as to their voter registration guidelines. Anyone wishing to vote for Bernie Sanders for President in the Democratic Primary, should check to be sure they will not be disenfranchised at the polls, once again in 2020, as in 2016. A voter can easily switch between political Parties, rather than functioning as a captive Party loyalist, to a political Party that is not loyal to the voter. *****
Or one can be registered to vote, without being affiliated to a particular political Party. Please remember, the US Constitution supports free and fair elections for voters, but is blissfully unconcerned about political Parties. That some Americans believe “we are a 2-Party system”, is nothing but propaganda.
*****Be sure to check with your state to register to vote in the Primary according to your wish and by exercising your US Constitutional right to vote.*****
*****One may also advocate for ranked-choice voting, that will expand choices for voters, and provide a greater possibility of free and fair elections.*****
*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
We can do better — — -Credit for this phrase belongs to a fellow financial planner, name to remain private, who expressed this opinion about 30 years ago, and which phrase was so non-threatening, sensible and meaningful, that it has echoed through one’s thoughts ever since. Any similarity of words used currently by public characters is coincidence. The English language has a limited number of words, which generally aren’t patented.
https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/influence-on-democracy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pIDtvTydkU&t=638s
In Solidarity With People And Nature —
www.mothersoutfront.org
www.facebook.com/gpnjbc ;; — Green Black Caucus
www.greenpeaceusa.org
www.economichumanrights.org
www.draftbernie.org
www.psr.org
www.blackyouthproject.com
www.riverkeeper.org
www.catskillmountainkeeper.org
www.celdf.org
www.wearesenecalake.com
www.democracynow.org
www.gp.org
https://www.greenparty.org/Platform.php
www.freepress.net
www.codepink.org
www.m4bl.net
www.starhawk.org
www.openthebooks.org
www.nyipl.org
www.pogo.org
www.opensecrets.org
A Resource — www.7song.com | https://medium.com/@jeanhhricik/no-laws-were-broken-74bd2b0d7c3e | ['Jean Hhricik'] | 2019-10-14 16:59:11.502000+00:00 | ['Veterans', 'Peace', 'Howie Hawkins', 'Feminism', 'Bernie Sanders'] |
Ne ola ki bu Polymorphism(Çok Biçimlilik)? | 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/baakademi/ne-ola-ki-bu-polymorphism-%C3%A7ok-bi%C3%A7imlilik-6980e947efb4 | ['Hakan Yavuz'] | 2021-01-12 18:44:53.139000+00:00 | ['Runtime Polymorphism', 'Polymorphism Nedir', 'Object Oriented', 'Compile Time Polymorphism', 'C Sharp Programming'] |
#KatanaTalks on Twitter Live: Holiday Marketing Overview | Yesterday, we kicked off our new series #KatanaTalks on Twitter Live, where we sit down with the experts to talk about all things marketing: from tips and tricks to industry news and insights. With the holidays right around the corner, Executive chairman Andreas Roell spoke with Laura Wustoff, Katana’s Associate Media Director and Chris Dyer, Director of Client Services, about best practices for optimizing holiday marketing campaigns with programmatic.
The holiday season is typically quite saturated with ad campaigns from brands trying to capture new customers for one-time holiday shopping deals. Marketers have a limited window of only two months to make an impression, and face two prominent challenges: how to optimize campaigns considering timeline and budget, and crafting effective creative strategy to use for paid media and paid search campaigns. Lauren and Chris had some helpful recommendations for retailers and agencies gearing up for the holiday season, here’s our live session and a quick recap of the main points below:
Highlights: Budgeting and Planning with Chris Dyer
Don’t underestimate the holiday rush; your employees are likely to take PTO right when campaigns are under heightened pressure to succeed. We recommend beginning your planning months ahead of the season — by planning early, you won’t be scrambling to figure out your campaign strategy, and you’ll also have ample time to build and automate your retargeting pool.
Use Gantt charts in Excel to maintain an organized project timeline. What we love about this tool: it automatically changes dates of all deliverables in your project plan, so that you don’t have to do it manually each time. Great time-saver!
During the holidays, there is a higher overall demand for e-commerce, so we take this into consideration before we finalize the budget. If the demand increases, so does our budget.
Don’t skimp on budget; if you are not funneling as much money into your advertising budget as your competitors, you will be forgotten!
Before you finalize your strategy, make sure your holiday budget also accommodates testing different ad copy and keyword bids. This will definitely raise your budget, but it’s not a step we recommend skipping, as it could be the difference of a significant profit margin.
Highlights: Media Strategy with Laura Wusthoff (follow along @10:00)
Use testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Run different versions of your ads, sampling different fonts and visuals for effectiveness. Also, use A/B testing and PPC testing to test the effectiveness of both your landing pages and keywords in your paid search campaign.
Example: Katana had a high-end client that used low-funnel keywords (i.e. keywords used to target customers who are on the brink of buying) like “discount” in their promotion packages. This tactic works best for brands with customers that need an extra incentivized push before converting — but it doesn’t work as well for a higher-end brand that has customers with disposable income. Those customers aren’t as likely to be enticed by incentives. So in this case, testing their ad copy with and without the word “discount” revealed that offering a lower price was not only ineffective, but it reduced the prestige of their products. This testing was an extra step, but a necessary one.
E-commerce shopping typically peaks during the first week of December, so give your ads a boost during this time by using low- and mid-funnel keywords.
Good keyword examples: discount, coupon, buy now, promo code
Do a demographic analysis of your consumer base and increase your bids according to your strongest targets.
Prime your audience before Thanksgiving. Run ads for upcoming products launches so that they are more prepared to purchase when the time comes.
Main Takeaways:
Build an organized and detailed timeline of your ad campaigns specifically for the holidays, at least two months ahead of Thanksgiving.
Use good project management tools to ensure deadlines/deadline adjustments flow seamlessly.
Increase your holiday budget to maintain a strong, competitive online presence.
Test, test, test. Try out different keywords, landing pages, images, ad copy, and targeting categories. Include this into your budget so that you are ready to execute to your key audience by the time it is November-December.
Peak traffic time is the first week of December, though this varies depending on your brand.
Do thorough research on your audience demographics.
Audience exclusion: Do research into the audience you don’t want to target as well, so that you can differentiate messages you craft for your past customers vs. new customers.
Do you have questions for the experts about your upcoming holiday campaigns? Mention us on Twitter @katana_media and we’ll get back to you! | https://medium.com/katana-media/katanatalks-on-twitter-live-holiday-marketing-overview-848e332a7228 | [] | 2018-05-02 00:17:16.542000+00:00 | ['Online Advertising', 'Ecommerce', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Optimization', 'Digital Advertising'] |
Surviving your Coding Bootcamp: Three Steps | Use your resources
This is the most important step to follow. If your bootcamp is anything like General Assembly (GA), you will have (what seems like) unlimited resources to reference.
As the pandemic turns classrooms into classZooms, there are obvious negatives. However, each class was recorded and markdowns were saved for students to go back to as they please.
From my personal experience, instructors would go out of their way to assist you if you were stuck. Don’t forget they are doing what they do because they enjoy it. The two instructors I had were senior engineers, so money was not their motivating factor. Remember this.
The previously stated resources will only get you so far. The last and most important resource at your disposal is your classmates. Who better reach out to than someone going through the exact same experiences as you? There will undoubtedly be times where they are able to teach you. Believe it or not, there will be times you can help them as well. Plus, it’s great to begin learning how to work with others, as most jobs “out in the wild” will require this.
Growth Mindset
To me, a growth mindset is setting a goal, and working towards that goal each day. When you hit that goal, make another one. Rinse and repeat.
Were there days I doubted my choice to join an immersive bootcamp? Of course. Did the thought go through my head I could never learn everything I needed to know? Yes.
But, that mindset doesn’t help me or anyone else. When I started to feel overwhelmed, I’d ask myself, “Are you better than you were yesterday? Do you know more about the subject now than you did last week?” Again, the answer was yes.
In today’s world, everyone wants instant gratification. However, you don’t get to the finish line without taking thousands of steps along the way. Each step is integral to getting to your destination
Time Management
Immersive bootcamps should feel overwhelming. Over half the day was spent learning complicated, new material. There were homework assignments I could have worked on all night until class started the next day.
Each day seems like a sprint, but a course like this is more of a marathon. Don’t get caught up in feeling like you need to get everything done, at all costs. | https://medium.com/@freeman.neil92/surviving-your-coding-bootcamp-three-steps-e86aca1e2c47 | ['Freeman Neil'] | 2020-11-23 17:48:42.736000+00:00 | ['Bootcamp', 'Coding', 'Codingbootcamp'] |
10 Novels That Will Teach You More Than You Realise | Jurassic Park
While the film is widely regarded as one of the best ever made, the novel that formed the basis for the blockbuster is just as good. Jurassic Park is a tome on what happens when we create systems that are too complex to be controlled.
The novel takes place on Isla Nublar, where an intrepid entrepreneur, John Hammond has brought dinosaurs back from the dead after 65 million years. Wielding the immense potential of genetic engineering, the author, Michael Crichton looks at the implications of this for mankind.
Photo by Katya Khromova on Reshot
The scientists behind the park have created so many dinosaurs they are unable to name all of them. Jurassic Park echoes Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in this regard, where Victor Frankenstein does know what to call his creation. Hammond’s and the scientists disregard for their creations has severe repercussions for all of those present on the island.
We are in thrall to the scientific community and the progress that they make, but we must also consider the ethical implications of that progress. To echo Jeff Goldblum’s character, Ian Malcolm from the film adaption in regards to pushing the boundaries of science, we must consider whether we should instead of if we could.
Alone in Berlin
Alone in Berlin is a novel that I have recently read and it is one that I thoroughly enjoyed. It tells the story of several characters caught up in an intricate web of events in Nazi Germany.
The story focuses on the Quangels who are disillusioned with the Nazi regime and begin their own form of protest by dropping postcards across the city. They have varying success while their exploits put themselves and others in grave danger in the face of the Nazi machine.
Remarkably, Alone in Berlin is based on a true story of a couple, who acting alone, became part of the German Resistance during the Second World War.
Their story shows that no matter how small, resistance in the face of evil is a necessity. The novel asks the question of whether it is better to risk your life to do what you know is right or go along with the regime to save your skin.
With populism on this rise, the message in Hans Follada’s novel is more relevant than ever.
A Clockwork Orange
Much like Jurrasic Park, the film version of A Clockwork Orange is much more well-known than the book. However, that does not diminish the novel in any way, it is an interesting read on whether it is better to choose to be bad or be forced to be good.
The story looks at the life of Alex, a fifteen-year-old boy who regularly commits acts of mindless violence. Eventually, his acts catch up with him and he falls into the hands of the dystopian government.
A Clockwork Orange focuses on one of the fundamental elements of humanity, that of free will. Alex freely chooses to commit acts of violence, but would society be better served if he were made into a law-abiding citizen, even if it was against his will?
The book poses ethical and philosophical questions which are still relevant today, namely whether it is better to sacrifice free will in favour of a stable state. It is a thought-provoking and essential read for anyone interested in deep philosophical questions and their implications for society.
The Road
The Road is a fantastic novel by the great American author Cormac McCarthy. It details the journey of a man and a boy, whose names are not revealed, in post-apocalyptic America.
The story is gruesome as the man and the boy try to survive amidst the carnage and avoid cannibals that have become commonplace in the world. One of the overriding themes of the book is that of love.
Despite the horrors that are all around them, the love between the man and the boy remains strong. The boy’s mother commits suicide before the events of the book and wants the man and the boy to do so too, but they refuse.
This raises questions of what love means to different people. Did the mother want the man and the boy to commit suicide because she loved them and didn’t want them to suffer in this desolate world? Or does the man love the boy so much that he cannot bring himself to do this, even though they will likely suffer sometime in the future?
The Road is an examination of life and its various facets in times of adversity and one that is worth reading if you want a deeper appreciation of the will of the human mind.
Nod
Nod is an unusual novel set in Vancouver where a global event causes the majority of the population to be unable to sleep. The book explores what happens to society when apocalyptic events hit.
Around one in ten thousand people can still sleep after the event, including several children. After six days of sleep deprivation, psychosis sets in and after four weeks the body will die.
The book explores how quickly society can break down in the event of a catastrophe. From things being normal a week earlier to chaos reigning a week later, Nod shows us how we are balancing on the precipice constantly without realising it.
We may think we are civilised, but when disaster strikes, it is not so easy to cling to these notions any more. How we react reveals more about our species than we realise.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood is a fantastic novel by the great Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The book details the student life of Toru Watanabe from his perspective.
Throughout the novel, he is tormented by the death of those closest to him and his ability to deal with this as time progresses. The novel looks at how we process grief and its lingering effects long after it has occurred.
Watanabe spends the novel looking for some form of meaning in his life, unable to find it in relationships or in the student protests prevalent at the time, he stumbles from place to place to find his place in the world.
The book is a rumination of the struggle of maintaining the will to live while coming face to face with the inevitability of death. It tells us that despite this inevitability, we should make the most of our time on Earth, otherwise, we waste the precious gift that we have given.
Jaws
Similar to Jurassic Park and A Clockwork Orange, Jaws is a novel that was later adapted into a famous film. While the book may not be as well-known as the film, it is still a good read.
The novel takes place in a town called Amity, a seaside resort town on Long Island. During one summer, the town becomes beseeched by a Great White Shark that attacks and kills humans with increasing frequencies.
During the story, we look at how the town deals with the events. The mayor wants to keep the beaches open despite the protestations of the Chief of Police because it will be bad for business.
The shark is built up into this grotesque and unstoppable monster, but the actions of some of those in the town are no better. The book calls into question whether it is the man-eating shark that is the biggest threat or the predatory humans that populate the island such as the mayor and reporters.
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is a brilliant novel, written by Alice Walker, which details the life of Celie, a poor, half-literate, black woman in rural Georgia in the early 1900s.
Her life at the beginning of the novel is torrid. Her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her constantly, while Celie’s mother dies, cursing her on her deathbed in her dying moments.
Throughout the novel, we see how Celie progresses from the seeming inevitability of her awful life continuing, to living a life full of contentment at the end of the novel. This is portrayed in how her writing progresses from phonetic spellings to a more accomplished grasp of the English language
The Color Purple shows us that despite the cards we are dealt with in life, we always have the ability to change them and improve our situation.
The Beach
The Beach is a famous novel, which again, was turned into a popular movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
The book tells the story of Richard, a young British backpacker who learns of a beautiful island that is inaccessible to tourists. The story details Richard’s quest to find the island and his life on it once he does.
Photo by Savet on Reshot
Richard discovers a group of travellers living on the island. Initially reluctant to accept him, he eventually integrates himself in the group. However, the island does not turn out to be the paradise he imagined.
The novel is a riveting story of how our expectations often do not match up to reality. We also explore the realities of a utopian society and learn that in an imperfect world such an ideal may not be attainable.
Prey
Prey is another novel by Michael Crichton. Although it is not as famous as Jurassic Park, it is still an enthralling read.
The novel explores how advancements in technology do not always turn out for the best and that we should be cautious when it comes to scientific progress.
Prey specifically looks at nanotechnology, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence and the impacts it could have upon human society if it is not handled in the right manner.
In an age where we are struggling to keep up with the rapid of scientific achievement, this book is a timely reminder that we should consider the implications of our progress before it’s too late. | https://tom-stevenson.medium.com/10-novels-that-will-teach-you-more-than-you-realise-cdd204e78230 | ['Tom Stevenson'] | 2020-09-07 20:16:23.376000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Reading', 'Books'] |
The Big Issue: Discrimination | Definition
Discrimination is when a individual is treated unfairly, based off a person’s race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability. Or in other terms, partaking in the act of being prejudiced. It occurs in your workplace, school, clubs, and around you in society. When you hear this term, you mainly think about and refer to it racially and/or in a sexually oriented way. This is because they’re the most common types of discrimination, according to the United States Equal Opportunity Commission. Additionally, when hearing the two words “gender” and “discrimination,” they mainly reference the unequal treatment of women.
A simple example of racial discrimination is when African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus or use different restrooms and facilities than white people, just because the color of their skin. It’s really harming the African-American community, McWhorter argues.
In line with gender discrimination, the industry still has quite a while until it stabilizes gender equality, according to Forbes.com. In the music industry women make up 21.7 percent of artists, 12.3 percent of songwriters and 2.1 percent of producers. According to the data, men make up most of the industry. For instance, the ratio between male and female producers is 47:1 the same report said. We really lack women voices; however, as we progress in the world, we are starting to see more and more females take a role in the music industry. | https://medium.com/music-culture-irl/the-big-issue-discrimination-be7d69cd6452 | ['Jeremy De La Riva'] | 2020-12-17 18:46:43.869000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Music', 'Hip Hop', 'Discrimination'] |
How Humans helping each turned a Subverted situation into the birth of a new payment network | How Humans helping each turned a Subverted situation into the birth of a new payment network Paxful Follow May 24, 2016 · 5 min read
Six months ago I got a call that changed me as an entrepreneur.
Her name was Rose. Her three young children were screaming in the background. Rose herself was in shock as her rent was overdue and her family was facing eviction. For twenty minutes I calmly listened as Rose insulted my entire generation, all of technology and humanity in general in a fit of unadulterated frustration. It was worth it because I saw a problem I never knew existed.
In Rose’s profession it was all possible to earn a months rent within a single night. All she needed to do was to post up an advertisement. The problem was she needed bitcoin to do it and buying bitcoin online without a bank account and instantly was nearly impossible even for the most stalwart geeks let alone an unbanked and non technical person with just an old smart phone and $25 of cash in hand.
Bitcoin entered the scene when a sheriff in Illinois decided to make morality a part of his political future and sent a letter to Visa and Mastercard asking them to cease operations with a classifieds ads site called Backpage.com known for their adult ads. Visa and Mastercard caved into pressure and Backpage lost their ability to process any debit or credit cards. Bitcoin was their only option so it became mandatory for their users but bitcoin was nearly impossible to acquire and use for their unbanked non technical user base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi1rMnDINz4
In Fin Tech everyones loves talking about solving the problems of the unbanked in Africa and Asia but no one ever talks about the unbanked in our own back yard. Over 40% of Americans are unbanked and sex workers remain a part of an invisible class within society, shunned by the mainstream and banks alike. As an entrepreneur I had to do what is often the hardest thing there is. I had to listen to the user. This was the first call of many I got from people like Rose and as I listened I was shocked by what I learned. Rose did not have a bank account or laptop and had no desire for either. She just wanted to post her ad, meet a client, get paid, pay her rent and buy diapers. BackPage told her they only took bitcoins now. So she found our number after searching for hours. What could I do for rose?
http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/unbanked-households-fdic.png
The problem now is that the merchants could only collect bitcoins, Rose only had cash and no way to turn it to bitcoin. I asked her how she paid for ads with a debit card when she had no bank account. Turns out she simply bought Visa gift cards from the local drugstore with cash and paid that way, so did most of this community. I finally made a connection.
Could we some how turn her gift card code into bitcoins and send them to Backpage? We as a company couldn’t because Visa and Mastercard would quickly shut down our merchant account but an army of our peers could. Imagine if the Transportation Office forbid any taxi in the city from giving Rose a ride, Rose wouldn’t be able to get anywhere but if normal folks all chipped in to help get her around you’d have… Uber. Peers working together to help each other can overcome nearly any limitation in transportation housing and now payments.
So we built a peer to peer marketplace and invited a bunch of folks with bitcoin to sell it to folks like Rose for Visa gift cards. Normal folks laughed at the thought of helping escorts but the bitcoin community thought they were doing “God’s work” as one Redditor put it. Overnight more and more peers joined to help people like Rose out. We called them vendors because they operated like any marketplace would. They simply sold “bitcoin, which is still considered a commodity by the US government.” As the vendor base grew they began offering other ways to pay them. Everything from Amazon gift cards to Walmart, to Western Union to PayPal. It grew until there were over 250 different ways to pay them. Visa and Mastercard were not the only game in town anymore, the people themselves actually rose up to create an entirely new industry.
What was so amazing here, besides the technical aspect was the social dynamics. A invisible and shunned community, sex workers were being helped by another invisible and shunned community, bitcoin people. There was no judgement passed only “How can we help you?”. We just listened to both sides to give them the ease of use and tools they needed to work with each other. The result was astonishing.
Using the power of a peer to peer network and the versatility of the blockchain two communities united to help each other. Merchants saw that losing Visa and Mastercard was not a death sentence but rather a new beginning, one free of chargebacks and fraud. Rose got her bitcoins and posted her ad. Rose paid her rent and bought her diapers. She literally screamed Hallelujah when it first worked and I so did we.
Escorts are only the tip of the approaching iceberg. The gaming industry continues to grow beyond all expectations and legislative pressure has already cost the two biggest NFL fantasy sports companies one of their merchant processors. NFL fantasy sports alone is a 98 billion dollar industry dwarfing even the NFL itself. It is estimated that one in three Americans wagers on fantasy sports. This is a massive community for Mastercard and Visa to pariah but should this trend continue they will be met with open arms.
An even bigger opportunity is now growing in the legal cannabis industry. Already a 14 billion dollar industry many believe it will grow to eclipse the tobacco industry. A major dispensary in Denver grosses over a million dollars a day in cash. They pay BlackWater mercenaries twice a day to haul away the cash to undisclosed safe houses. Banks refuse to deal with them until it is legal on a federal level yet they still need to pay the utility bills for their growing operations and other non cash bills. The opportunity for a peer to peer community to solve this industries problems is massive and the banks will finally be beaten to the punch. How many other opportunities like this are there out there?
Where the swift banking system had failed the people had succeeded in building their own payment logistics network. Any form of value could be absorbed and converted into any other form of value by the people using the financial instruments they had at hand. There were no limits or obstacles anymore, any account that could be shared by another human could be used to move money around the world for another human. The vital link here is the human element.
Bitcoin and other decentralized technologies try to remove the trust and thus the human element as a requirement but as we often see humans need each other no matter what technology may be available. The evolution of a network is more than just a gathering of nodes it is towards the logistics that make it smart enough to make things happen. The bitcoin blockchain is only one component in this. The humans that are driven by altruism, profit or simply the urge to defy the powers that be is the secret sauce that no technology can ever replace.
R | https://medium.com/the-paxful-blog/the-bitcoin-bailout-that-worked-28077e70540f | [] | 2019-10-30 15:48:52.318000+00:00 | ['Payments', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
Remote development and debugging on the cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) for Deep Learning / Computer Vision using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) | Remote development and debugging on the cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) for Deep Learning / Computer Vision using Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
Photo by heylagostechie on Unsplash
Before joining the industry, when I was working as a Graduate Researcher in the Vision and Image Processing Lab at the University of Waterloo, I had access to the beast NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 Ti locally. So I was able to train models locally without needing to use compute instances on the cloud. (Sadly I didn’t work on models that required multi GPU training.) However, after joining Fugro as a Deep Learning/ Computer Vision Engineer, I was exposed to AWS EC2 instances and S3.
Development on the cloud is a completely different experience compared to just using a laptop/desktop. I’ve learnt a lot about it from my experience and want to share it so that you may benefit from it too. Remote development is an essential skill to have and is all the more invaluable in today’s world when most of us (who work in remote work compatible jobs) are working from home. I hope after reading this article you feel motivated to try using this remote development approach in your workflow to make your life a bit easier.
Tip: I’ve thoroughly tested and evaluated both AWS SageMaker Studio (based on Jupyter Lab) and the Databricks platform (surprisingly based on the older Jupyter Notebook). I found the remote development using Visual Studio to be the most productive, flexible, and time-saving. For Computer Vision/Deep Learning researchers/engineers, I absolutely recommend using VS Code Remote Development.
Introduction
Let us start by looking at a few differences between remote and local development.
Source: By the author
I used to use Remote Desktop Software for development. (I personally preferred AnyDesk over TeamViewer.) But setting these up on Linux compute instances may be challenging. More importantly, since they stream video, you need a mighty powerful broadband connection at both ends. This approach can become sluggish really quickly. Finally, although this kind of software is usually free for individual/personal use, you need to purchase a license for commercial usage.
For this article, I am using the lifetime free compute instance from Oracle. (Note: You get 100 GB free lifetime storage which can be easily used as a backup drive for your documents or other files. This is what motivated me to create an account in the first place.) One of my colleagues had shared this with me and one good gesture deserves another, so here I am, sharing this with you.
For these cloud instances typically SSH is installed, configured and enabled by default. I won’t be covering server setup and configuration, SSH key generation and your public key addition to the server, since that is well beyond the scope of this article. However, if you find yourself wanting to set it up for your own machine, you can refer the following guides.
No matter which cloud platform you decide to use, you’ll require the following information to remotely connect to your machine.
Public IP Address: This is the IP address which we will use to connect to the instance. (Note: You can use a private IP with a subnet group, however, you’ll have to ensure that you are connected to the necessary VPN to be able to access your machine.) e.g. 123.123.123.123 Username: The username for your instance would be required for login. SSH private key: This is the SSH key that is normally generated during the instance creation. It would be something like oracle-ssh-key, aws-ssh-key.pem etc.
Let us now look at remote development on VS Code.
Remote Development on Visual Studio Code (VS Code) [1]
For those of you that do not know about the VS Code, it is a cross-platform open-source code editor by Microsoft. I have tried Eclipse, PyCharm, Sublime, Spyder, Notepad++, Atom and Microsoft Visual Studio, but none of them came close to VS Code. ( This is my personal choice, you may have a different opinion and I respect that. )
Local Machine Software Installation
Please download and install the following software on your local machine.
VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ Miniconda: https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html ( This is a much smaller installation compared to Anaconda. As a result this leads to lesser bloat on your system. )
VS Code Extensions
After opening VS Code please install the following extensions. ( [Required] — Means required for this article, [Recommended] — Extension that I recommend for your setup. )
Visual Studio Code Remote Development Extension Pack: This will install the extensions required for remote development. [Required] This includes the following three extensions.
Remote-SSH - Work with source code in any location by opening folders on a remote machine/VM using SSH. Supports x86_64, ARMv7l (AArch32), and ARMv8l (AArch64) glibc-based Linux, Windows 10/Server (1803+), and macOS 10.14+ (Mojave) SSH hosts.
Remote-Containers - Work with a sandboxed toolchain or container-based application by opening any folder mounted into or inside a container.
Remote-WSL - Get a Linux-powered development experience from the comfort of Windows by opening any folder in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Note: You can choose to install only Remote — SSH if you know you won’t be working with containers or WSL.
After installation, your VS Code will have a new icon in the left panel called the Activity Bar.
Source: By the author
2. Python extension for Visual Studio Code: A must-have Python extension for Visual Studio. [Required]
3. Pylance: Great for python static type checking. [Recommended]
4. Jupyter: Extension for basic notebook support. [Recommended]
5. Visual Studio IntelliCode: Good for code suggestions. [Recommended]
6. Git Graph: This extension allows you to view Git Graph of your repository, and to easily perform Git actions from the graph. [Recommended]
7. Python Docstring Generator: For quickly generating properly formatted docstrings for python functions. [Recommended]
8. Python Test Explorer for Visual Studio Code: For running Python Unittest or Pytest tests with the Test Explorer UI. [Recommended]
9. GitHub VS Code theme: Simple dark and light GitHub themes. [Recommended]
10. Markdown Preview Enhanced: Great utility if you work with markdowns or for readme files. [Recommended]
11. VS Code Icons: Brings icons for your file explorer. [Recommended]
Now that we have our local software setup, let us briefly look at how the VS Code Remote Development works.
How VS Code Remote Development Works
VS Code Remote Development allows you to use a container, remote machine, or the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as a full-featured development environment. Few highlights include:
Develop on the same operating system you deploy to or use larger or more specialized hardware.
you deploy to or use hardware. Sandbox your development environment to avoid impacting your local machine configuration .
your development environment to avoid impacting your local . Make it easy for new contributors to get started and keep everyone on a consistent environment .
and keep everyone on a . Use tools or runtimes not available on your local OS or manage multiple versions of them.
on your local OS or manage of them. Develop your Linux-deployed applications using the Windows Subsystem for Linux .
. Access an existing development environment from multiple machines or locations .
development environment from . Debug an application running somewhere else such as a customer site or in the cloud.
No source code needs to be on your local machine to get these benefits. Each extension in the Remote Development extension pack can run commands and other extensions directly inside a container, in WSL, or on a remote machine so that everything feels like it does when you run locally.
VS Code sets up a server on your remote machine during the first initialization/setup. This server is then used for executing all your commands and extension functionalities directly on the remote instance. All it needs is an SSH connection to the server. So you don’t need to keep multiple copies of the code. Instead, you can do direct development on the remote machine with all the VS Code functionalities.
Now, we look at how to connect to the remote host using VS Code.
Connecting to a Remote Host using SSH
You will need to use the information that I asked you to get in the Introduction. We construct an SSH command as follows. [Note: You may need to create the .ssh folder in your system. The Username and the Public IP Address can be found from the instances section in your console. The key would be generated during the instance creation.
Source: By the author
ssh -i “C:\Users\janedoe\.ssh\oracle-ssh-key” username@your-public-ip-address
The -i flag selects a file from which the identity (private key) for public key authentication is read. Note: Put the key path in double-quotes for Windows.
Now we’ll use this command to create a connection to our remote instance. In the video, I show how to edit and run a python script on your remote instance. However, the connection steps are also shown below.
Source: By the author
Connection Instructions for VS Code using SSH
Once you have installed the remote extension, a new indicator would be visible at the bottom left corner of the status bar. This indicator tells you in which context the VS Code is running (local or remote).
Click on the indicator to bring up a list of Remote extension commands.
Source: By the author
2. Choose the Remote-SSH: Connect to Host… command and connect to the host by entering ssh -i “C:\Users\janedoe\.ssh\oracle-ssh-key” username@your-public-ip-address.
Source: By the author
VS Code will now open a new window (instance). You’ll then see a notification that the “VS Code Server” is initializing on the SSH Host. Once the VS Code Server is installed on the remote host, it can run extensions and talk to your local instance of VS Code.
You will know you’re connected to your remote instance by looking at the indicator in the Status bar. It shows the hostname of your Virtual Machine.
Source: By the author
You are now connected to your host at this point!
The Remote — SSH extension also contributes a new icon on your Activity bar, and clicking on it will open the Remote Explorer. From the dropdown, select SSH Targets, where you can configure your SSH connections. For instance, you can save the hosts you connect to the most and access them from here instead of entering the user and hostname.
Source: By the author
Once you’re connected to your SSH host, you can interact with files and open folders on the remote machine. If you open the integrated terminal (Ctrl+`), you’ll see you’re working inside a bash shell while you’re on Windows.
Source: By the author
You can use the bash shell to browse the file system on the VM. You can also browse and open folders on the remote home directory with File > Open Folder.
Source: By the author
A more in-depth tutorial can be found here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh-tutorial
Finally, let us look at how to use the VS Code debugger on the remote machine.
Debugging on a Remote Instance using VS Code
Debugging in a remote session is exactly the same as a local connection. You can inspect variables, add watch variables, add breakpoints, have access to the call stack if an Exception is thrown. In the following video, I demonstrate the key debugging functionalities that you may commonly use in your development process.
Source: By the author
For a more in-depth dive please read the official documentation here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/debugging
Conclusion
In this post, I covered how to use VS Code for Remote Development on any Virtual Machine or Remote Instance via SSH. We also looked at how to do remote debugging. I have tried and tested SageMaker Studio and Databricks, but none of them will offer such flexibility. You can set up your own custom images, environments and work as if you are on a local machine. If you are working on Deep Learning and working on research then this would prove to be an invaluable capability. And the beautiful thing about this is that VS Code is free (open source). I hope this helps you in your work and that you enjoyed reading my article as much as I loved writing it! Thank you for reading the article!
References
[1] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote-overview | https://towardsdatascience.com/remote-development-and-debugging-on-the-cloud-aws-azure-gcp-for-deep-learning-computer-vision-5333fc698769 | ['Manpreet Singh Minhas'] | 2020-12-26 19:17:36.711000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Remote Working', 'Cloud Computing', 'Editors Pick', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
You are my Hero | Ian and Bunty were walking home together after a night out together. They had been to the cinema and been for a pizza. Ian is smitten by Bunty; they have known each other since they started school twelve years ago. Now they had started going out together seriously.
‘I am very fond of you, Bunty,’ said Ian.
‘I know,’ replied Bunty, smiling to herself and thinking about when she started becoming attracted to Ian. It was great that day last week when Ian asked her out tonight. He went ever so red asking her. But Bunty just smiled and replied, ‘of course I would love to.’
They took a short cut home through the park, it was quite dark in places in the park, the path went between two large bushes, on reaching the bushes a man jumped out at Ian, he grabbed Ian, but Ian fought back, shouting, ‘run Bunty don’t let him get you.’
Bunty ran as fast as she could, then thought, I need to help Ian. She turned around and ran back towards where she could see Ian fighting with the bigger person. Ian used his fists, feet, knees, and teeth to good effect; the man had not expected Ian to fight back; he had thought it would have been over in seconds. The man took a deep breath as Ian’s teeth sank into his hand again. This time instead of jumping, the man grabbed Ian’s head and threw him to the ground.
Bunty saw Ian fall and was worried about his safety; she ran harder to get back to Ian, wondering at the same time, how am I going to deal with this man. Before she reached Ian, the man picked up Ian and was walking down the path and heading out of the park with Ian over his shoulder. Bunty followed at a safe distance until the man reached a house, opened the gate, and then the front door. Bunty ran to the house, saw the number, ran to the nearest phone box, and dialled 999 and asked for the police.
Bunty explained to the police what had happened, slowly without panicking. The police told her to stay where she was, and they would meet her at the phone box. Bunty waited outside the phone box impatiently; after five minutes, a police car appeared, there was no siren.
The two policemen got out of the car, one was in uniform and the other in jeans, tee-shirt and trainers and spoke to Bunty, ‘Hi, my name is Peter. Where is this house that Ian is in, please?’
‘It’s just around the corner number 23; it has a blue gate and a red front door. Number 23 is on the wall next to the red door,’ replied Bunty.
Peter said, ‘Bunty sit in the police car and wait for us; it does not sound too safe for you.’
Bunty climbed into the police car and watched the two policemen walking towards the corner then vanishing around the corner.
Peter said, ‘Tim, go down that alleyway and watch the back gate in case he makes a run for it.’ Tim vanished down the alleyway between two houses and waited, watching the back door gate to number 23.
The other policeman Peter opened the front gate, walked up to the front door, took a deep breath, and then rang the bell. At first, there was no sound from the house, so he rang the bell again. This time a voice inside shouted, coming hold your horses.
The door opened, and a tall man stared at the person on the doorstep and asked. ‘Yes, how can I help you?’
Peter replied, ‘I am looking for Ian, he is about 5 foot 6 inches, wearing a blue jacket and grey trousers.’
‘Never heard or seen him mate,’ replied the man at the door.
‘Well. his girlfriend saw you carry him into your house.’
With that, the man tried to slam the door in Peter’s face, but he had moved his foot to jam the door open. The man turned around and ran back through his house towards the back door. The back door was flung open, and he ran to the back gate, yanked it open straight into the arms of Tim waiting by the back entrance.
Peter walked into the house and found Ian gagged and tied up in an upstairs bedroom. He removed Ian’s gag; his first words were, ‘is Bunty okay?’
‘Yes, Bunty is fine; she is in our police car, she phoned us,’ replied Peter as he untied the ropes holding Ian.
They went downstairs; Peter closed the back gate and back door and shut the front door as they left. Ian walked with Peter, but he wanted to run to see Bunty. They reached the police car to find the tall man sat in the back of the vehicle with his hands handcuffed. Bunty ran up to Ian, kissed him on the lips, and said, ‘ you are my hero.’ | https://medium.com/@georgewallace-34871/you-are-my-hero-76183be9352f | ['George Wallace'] | 2020-12-25 19:40:29.075000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Freelance Writer', 'Fiction', 'Authors'] |
Let Compiler Vectorize Our Code! | TL;DR: Modern compilers feature very strong capability of auto-vectorization. So just write loops and let the compiler optimize them! (with an appropriate optimization level)
Why We Need to Vectorize Our Code
In many cases, we need to perform the same operations on a huge amount of data. For example, if I need to calculate a single value of the probability density function of the Cauchy distribution, I will write:
float dcauchy_single(float x, float location, float scale) {
const float fct = M_1_PI / scale;
const float frc = (x - location) / scale;
const float y = fct / (1.0f + frc * frc);
return y;
}
The PDF of the Cauchy distribution
That works fine for a single x :
dcauchy_single(0, 0, 1);
# x=0, x0=0, γ=1, the result should be 0.3183
But what if I want to plot the PDF on a interval? A naive method is to write a loop:
void dcauchy_inplace(
float* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
vs[i] = dcauchy_single(vs[i], location, scale);
}
}
Then in the main program: (it’s just some glue)
// generate a sequence
void frange(float* dest, float lower, float by, size_t n) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
dest[i] = lower + i * by;
}
} int main() {
constexpr size_t n = 1000;
constexpr float lower = -10;
constexpr float by = 0.02;
constexpr float location = 0;
constexpr float scale = 1;
float vs[n]; // generate one thousand "x"
frange(vs, lower, by, n);
// calculate the function values at multiple x
dcauchy_inplace(vs, n, location, scale); // output
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
printf("%f ", vs[i]);
}
}
This is a SISD (single instruction stream, single data stream) strategy: the loop iterates over the array, taking the element and calculating the value one by one. The process of the calculation is the same (I use the same formula). Only the data changes in each iteration.
There is certainly a better strategy: SIMD (single instruction, multiple data). In each iteration, we do not take and calculate a single element, but multiple elements, simultaneously!
What Is Vectorization
“Vectorization” is to perform operations on a vector (one-dimensional array) instead of one single element. Suppose there is a data type vec4f that consists of four float and supports arithmetic operations, we can then vectorize our code:
vec4f dcauchy_vec4f(vec4f x, float location, float scale) {
const float fct = M_1_PI / scale;
const vec4f frc = (x - location) / scale;
const vec4f y = fct / (1.0f + frc * frc);
return y;
} void dcauchy_inplace_vec4f(
vec4f* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
vs[i] = dcauchy_vec4f(vs[i], location, scale);
}
}
Here, in each iteration, we take a vec4f (four float ) and calculate the value of the PDF. Four x in, four values out, in a single iteration. Theoretically, we will archive 4x performance!
We may wonder why in the real world there is no vec4f . In fact, there is! The floating-point unit of x86 CPU, actually uses wider registers — that is, 128 bits ( xmm ), the equivalent of four float or two double . Even when we operate on a single float, it is put into this wide register, with unused space. That is also another reason why C/C++ uses 64 bit double by default rather than 32 bit float — the registers are wide enough.
Vector units have been added to the x86 CPU since the last century, along with new instruction sets. MMX features 64 bit mm registers for SIMD with integers. SSE adds 128 bit xmm registers for SIMD with both integers and floating-point numbers, and meanwhile, replaces old x87 instructions. Then it is AVX. AVX2, introduced in Intel’s Haswell, adds 256 bit ymm registers. AVX-512 adds 512 bit zmm registers.
We can use these wider registers directly by using assembly or __m128 and __m256 with intrinsic functions. But it is the modern era, what we need is just a modern compiler!
Let the Compiler Help!
Modern compilers feature the capability of auto-vectorization. We just need to tweak some options! In this section, I use gcc 10.2 as the compiler. Compiler Explorer offers online assembly inspection.
We will use the exactly same code:
float dcauchy_single(float x, float location, float scale) {
const float fct = M_1_PI / scale;
const float frc = (x - location) / scale;
const float y = fct / (1.0f + frc * frc);
return y;
} void dcauchy_inplace(
float* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
vs[i] = dcauchy_single(vs[i], location, scale);
}
}
First, tell gcc to enable auto-vectorization:
-ftree-vectorize
-ftree-vectorize is not included in -O2 . But it is turned on under -O3 and -Ofast . I recommend not to use -ftree-vectorize explicitly, but to use -Ofast , because -Ofast does other useful optimization like -ffast-math , which let gcc use a faster floating-point model that does not conform to IEEE 754. -Ofast may be too aggressive for common code, so it’s better to put the arithmetic part of code in a separated compilation unit using special optimization options.
Because not all the CPUs have the same instruction sets, and gcc fallbacks to a “generic x86_64” by default, we need to tell gcc which CPU we are targeting:
-march=haswell
Here I ask gcc to target Intel’s Haswell and later CPUs. Haswell came out in 2013. We can hardly find an older CPU, so I think it’s safe to target it. And, Haswell introduced AVX2, which adds 256 bit registers. In this way, gcc will generate binary that uses AVX2 instruction set.
(It’s weird that even if I specify -march=icelake-client , gcc doesn’t generate AVX-512 instructions.)
Finally we can add
-fopt-info
to see what is optimized.
We’re done! Compiling with these options, gcc will automatically vectorize our code using AVX2, with the unmodified code! Here is the assembly generated by gcc:
dcauchy_inplace(float*, unsigned long, float, float):
vmovaps %xmm0, %xmm3
testq %rsi, %rsi
je .L12
vmovsd .LC0(%rip), %xmm5
vcvtss2sd %xmm1, %xmm1, %xmm0
vmovss .LC1(%rip), %xmm4
leaq -1(%rsi), %rcx
vdivsd %xmm0, %xmm5, %xmm5
vdivss %xmm1, %xmm4, %xmm2
vcvtsd2ss %xmm5, %xmm5, %xmm5
cmpq $6, %rcx
jbe .L10
movq %rsi, %rdx
vbroadcastss %xmm3, %ymm9
vbroadcastss %xmm2, %ymm8
movq %rdi, %rax
shrq $3, %rdx
vmovaps .LC2(%rip), %ymm6
vbroadcastss %xmm5, %ymm7
salq $5, %rdx
addq %rdi, %rdx
.L5:
vmovups (%rax), %ymm1
addq $32, %rax
vsubps %ymm9, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm8, %ymm0, %ymm0
vfmadd132ps %ymm0, %ymm6, %ymm0
vrcpps %ymm0, %ymm1
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vaddps %ymm1, %ymm1, %ymm1
vsubps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm7, %ymm0
vmovups %ymm0, -32(%rax)
cmpq %rax, %rdx
jne .L5
movq %rsi, %rax
andq $-8, %rax
testb $7, %sil
je .L14
vzeroupper
.L3:
movq %rsi, %r8
subq %rax, %rcx
subq %rax, %r8
cmpq $2, %rcx
jbe .L8
leaq (%rdi,%rax,4), %rdx
vshufps $0, %xmm3, %xmm3, %xmm0
vshufps $0, %xmm2, %xmm2, %xmm1
vshufps $0, %xmm5, %xmm5, %xmm6
vmovups (%rdx), %xmm7
vsubps %xmm0, %xmm7, %xmm0
vmulps %xmm1, %xmm0, %xmm0
vfmadd213ps .LC3(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
vrcpps %xmm0, %xmm1
vmulps %xmm0, %xmm1, %xmm0
vmulps %xmm0, %xmm1, %xmm0
vaddps %xmm1, %xmm1, %xmm1
vsubps %xmm0, %xmm1, %xmm0
vmulps %xmm0, %xmm6, %xmm0
vmovups %xmm0, (%rdx)
movq %r8, %rdx
andq $-4, %rdx
addq %rdx, %rax
cmpq %rdx, %r8
je .L12
.L8:
leaq (%rdi,%rax,4), %rdx
vmovss (%rdx), %xmm0
vsubss %xmm3, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss %xmm2, %xmm0, %xmm0
vfmadd132ss %xmm0, %xmm4, %xmm0
vdivss %xmm0, %xmm5, %xmm0
vmovss %xmm0, (%rdx)
leaq 1(%rax), %rdx
cmpq %rdx, %rsi
jbe .L12
leaq (%rdi,%rdx,4), %rdx
addq $2, %rax
vmovss (%rdx), %xmm0
vsubss %xmm3, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss %xmm2, %xmm0, %xmm0
vfmadd132ss %xmm0, %xmm4, %xmm0
vdivss %xmm0, %xmm5, %xmm0
vmovss %xmm0, (%rdx)
cmpq %rax, %rsi
jbe .L12
leaq (%rdi,%rax,4), %rax
vmovss (%rax), %xmm0
vsubss %xmm3, %xmm0, %xmm3
vmulss %xmm2, %xmm3, %xmm2
vfmadd132ss %xmm2, %xmm4, %xmm2
vdivss %xmm2, %xmm5, %xmm5
vmovss %xmm5, (%rax)
.L12:
ret
.L14:
vzeroupper
ret
.L10:
xorl %eax, %eax
jmp .L3
gcc inlines dcauchy_single into dcauchy_inplace , uses AVX2 instructions to vectorize the code, and unrolls 6 iteraions. The core part of the assembly is:
.L5:
vmovups (%rax), %ymm1
addq $32, %rax
vsubps %ymm9, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm8, %ymm0, %ymm0
vfmadd132ps %ymm0, %ymm6, %ymm0
vrcpps %ymm0, %ymm1
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vaddps %ymm1, %ymm1, %ymm1
vsubps %ymm0, %ymm1, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm7, %ymm0
vmovups %ymm0, -32(%rax)
cmpq %rax, %rdx
jne .L5
This is one iteration. We can see a lot of instructions starting with “v” — these are VEX-encoded instructions used by AVX. The instructions operate on ymm registers, which is 256 bit wide. In each iteration, %rax —the current position, increased by 32 bytes. 8 float are taken from memory and calculated simultaneously.
But the length of the array is not always a multiple of 8. So gcc processes the extra elements (if any) after the loop using a 4+1+1+1 scheme: fisrt uses the 128 bit xmm to process 4 float , then one by one.
We can understand the control flow better using a graph
AVX-SSE Transition Penalties
We may notice vzeroupper in the assembly. This instruction is to avoid AVX-SSE transition penalties. AVX instructions are VEX-encoded but the old SSE instructions are not VEX-encoded. AVX instructions zero the unused upper bits of registers but SSE has no knowledge of the upper bits. So if AVX and SSE instructions are mixed, CPU has to save and restore the upper bits of registers during the transitions, which causes performance penalties. vzeroupper zero the upper bits to avoid the penalties. So gcc generate a vzeroupper following AVX instructions. See also
Memory Alignment
If we benchmark our AVX2-optimized code, we will be surprised to find that it won’t be faster than SSE2-optimized code. Why? The bit width of ymm registers in AVX2 is twice as xmm in SSE!
This is because the memory that AVX2 instructions operate on is unaligned, which causes performance penalty.
The ymm registers in AVX2 is 256 bits wide. To achieve the maximum performance, the memory address should be aligned to 32 bytes. By default, the memory allocated will be aligned to 16 bytes in gcc. So we need to explicitly allocate 32-byte-aligned memory.
In C11, we can use aligned_alloc . In Windows, we can use _aligned_malloc .
float* aligned_float_alloc(size_t n) {
#ifdef _ISOC11_SOURCE
void* p = aligned_alloc(32, n * sizeof(float));
#else
void* p = _aligned_malloc(n * sizeof(float), 32);
#endif
assert(p);
return reinterpret_cast<float*>(p);
}
Do we need to add __attribute__ ((__aligned__(32))) in the arguments for a aligned float array?
typedef float afloat __attribute__ ((__aligned__(32))); void dcauchy_inplace(
afloat* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
)
In fact, it is not necessary — the assembly generated is the same.
__restrict__
When a function accepts multiple pointers as arguments, the compiler cannot tell if these pointers are pointing to the same memory. So some optimizations are suppressed. Adding __restrict__ will tell the compiler that they are independent of each other.
void zip(
float* __restrict__ dest,
float* __restrict__ a,
float* __restrict__ b,
size_t n
) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
dest[i * 2] = a[i];
}
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
dest[i * 2 + 1] = b[i];
}
}
STL Algorithm
gcc can vectorize STL algorithms, despite whether the execution policy std::execution::unseq is specified or not.
void dcauchy_inplace(
float* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
) {
std::for_each_n(vs, n, [=](float& v) {
v = dcauchy_single(v, location, scale);
});
}
The above code using STL algorithms will still be vectorized.
Math Functions
We often use math functions in <math.h> . Suppose now we need to plot the normal distribution:
float dnorm_single(float x, float location, float scale) {
const float fct = 1 / sqrtf(2 * M_PI);
const float frc = (x - location) / scale;
return fct / scale * powf(M_E, -0.5f * frc * frc);
} void dnorm_inplace(
float* vs,
size_t n,
float location,
float scale
) {
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
vs[i] = dnorm_single(vs[i], location, scale);
}
}
The PDF of the normal distribution
In the code, we call powf , which is a math function in <math.h> . powf only accepts one single argument. How can it be vectorized?
gcc generates:
dnorm_inplace(float*, unsigned long, float, float):
leaq 8(%rsp), %r10
andq $-32, %rsp
pushq -8(%r10)
pushq %rbp
movq %rsp, %rbp
pushq %r15
pushq %r14
pushq %r13
pushq %r12
pushq %r10
pushq %rbx
addq $-128, %rsp
vmovss %xmm0, -148(%rbp)
testq %rsi, %rsi
je .L12
vmovaps %xmm0, %xmm7
leaq -1(%rsi), %r14
movq %rdi, %r13
movq %rsi, %r12
vmovss .LC0(%rip), %xmm0
vdivss %xmm1, %xmm0, %xmm6
vmovss .LC1(%rip), %xmm0
vdivss %xmm1, %xmm0, %xmm2
vmovss %xmm6, -152(%rbp)
vmovss %xmm2, -156(%rbp)
cmpq $6, %r14
jbe .L10
vbroadcastss %xmm7, %ymm7
movq %rsi, %r15
movq %rdi, %rbx
vmovaps %ymm7, -80(%rbp)
shrq $3, %r15
vbroadcastss %xmm6, %ymm7
vmovaps %ymm7, -112(%rbp)
salq $5, %r15
vbroadcastss %xmm2, %ymm7
vmovaps %ymm7, -144(%rbp)
addq %rdi, %r15
.L5:
vmovups (%rbx), %ymm2
vsubps -80(%rbp), %ymm2, %ymm0
addq $32, %rbx
vmulps -112(%rbp), %ymm0, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm0, %ymm0
vmulps .LC2(%rip), %ymm0, %ymm0
call _ZGVdN8v_expf
vmulps -144(%rbp), %ymm0, %ymm0
vmovups %ymm0, -32(%rbx)
cmpq %r15, %rbx
jne .L5
movq %r12, %rbx
andq $-8, %rbx
testb $7, %r12b
je .L15
vzeroupper
.L3:
movq %r12, %r15
subq %rbx, %r14
subq %rbx, %r15
cmpq $2, %r14
jbe .L8
vbroadcastss -148(%rbp), %xmm0
leaq 0(%r13,%rbx,4), %r14
vbroadcastss -152(%rbp), %xmm1
vmovups (%r14), %xmm6
vsubps %xmm0, %xmm6, %xmm0
vmulps %xmm1, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulps %xmm0, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulps .LC3(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
call _ZGVbN4v_expf
movq %r15, %rax
vbroadcastss -156(%rbp), %xmm1
andq $-4, %rax
vmulps %xmm1, %xmm0, %xmm0
addq %rax, %rbx
vmovups %xmm0, (%r14)
cmpq %rax, %r15
je .L12
.L8:
leaq 0(%r13,%rbx,4), %r14
vmovss (%r14), %xmm0
vsubss -148(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss -152(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss %xmm0, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC4(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC5(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
call expf
vmulss -156(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
leaq 1(%rbx), %rax
vmovss %xmm0, (%r14)
cmpq %rax, %r12
jbe .L12
leaq 0(%r13,%rax,4), %r14
addq $2, %rbx
vmovss (%r14), %xmm0
vsubss -148(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss -152(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss %xmm0, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC4(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC5(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
call expf
vmulss -156(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmovss %xmm0, (%r14)
cmpq %rbx, %r12
jbe .L12
leaq 0(%r13,%rbx,4), %rbx
vmovss (%rbx), %xmm0
vsubss -148(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss -152(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss %xmm0, %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC4(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmulss .LC5(%rip), %xmm0, %xmm0
call expf
vmulss -156(%rbp), %xmm0, %xmm0
vmovss %xmm0, (%rbx)
.L12:
subq $-128, %rsp
popq %rbx
popq %r10
popq %r12
popq %r13
popq %r14
popq %r15
popq %rbp
leaq -8(%r10), %rsp
ret
.L15:
vzeroupper
jmp .L12
.L10:
xorl %ebx, %ebx
jmp .L3
The core part is:
.L5:
vmovups (%rbx), %ymm2
vsubps -80(%rbp), %ymm2, %ymm0
addq $32, %rbx
vmulps -112(%rbp), %ymm0, %ymm0
vmulps %ymm0, %ymm0, %ymm0
vmulps .LC2(%rip), %ymm0, %ymm0
call _ZGVdN8v_expf
vmulps -144(%rbp), %ymm0, %ymm0
vmovups %ymm0, -32(%rbx)
cmpq %r15, %rbx
jne .L5
The assembly calls _ZGVdN8v_expf . It is a AVX2-optimized powf in glibc, taking ymm0 as its argument, processing 8 float simultaneously. With the help of glibc, gcc can vectorize code using math functions. | https://misakikasumi.medium.com/let-compiler-vectorize-our-code-2ee2bded8610 | ['Misaki Kasumi'] | 2020-11-01 17:18:07.162000+00:00 | ['C Programming', 'Avx', 'Simd', 'Programming', 'Cpu'] |
Arrays in BigQuery — How to improve query performance and optimise storage | Through this post, I want to illustrate advantages of using Bigquery arrays to harness the power of BigQuery for analytical use cases over traditional data models.
DataModel options for Warehouses
Typically data warehouses are an extension of databases purpose-built with OLAP features to suit analytical and reporting needs. From a data model perspective, they still mimic RDBMS in the underlying table structures. For performance, tables are de-normalised in the warehouse to reduce the overhead of table joins. This is a proven best practice to reduce cost of joins at the cost storing redundant data.
Motivation
With BigQuery Arrays we can take this advantage to the next level by tweaking the data model to reduce redundant storage. With cloud based data warehouses where every byte stored and processed contributes to the cost, efficiency of queries is a key factor to save costs.
To illustrate this concept, lets evaluate the efficiency of different data models by exploring the following three data models of an ordering system of a fictional soccer sports store.
A Normalised Data Model where order and order lines are stored as two different tables A De-Normalised Data Model where order and order lines are stored in the same table where order data is repeated at the line level A De-Normalised Data Model leveraging BigQuery arrays where order and order lines are stored in the same table, but order data is not repeated
Arrays in BigQuery
Arrays are multi-value columns in BigQuery, where an array field contains more than one value (of the same data type)
Each row can have varying multi-value columns
This table structure with arrays maintains a relation between the value in species_group (Mammals) with each value in the array species_list without repeating its value. Thus storing data using arrays minimises storage (Mammals is stored only once instead of 3 times). But this structure does not support typical SQL style analysis. To convert this structure into a SQL style result set, use UNNEST, which unpacks the array and replicates the value of species_group for each species_list just like a cross join.
SQL style result set, fit for applying any SQL type of analysis
Note: By storing Mammals (16 bytes) and Reptiles (18 bytes) once, we saved (2*16 + 3 *18 = 86) bytes of storage (72%) on just one column. Project this for a terabyte scale table with multiple columns, this immediately translates to storage cost savings.
Refer BigQuery Storage pricing for calculating storage size for datatypes and more on arrays here
Sample Data
By using the magic of arrays and random numbers, this query simulates an ordering system by creating an order for every 5 seconds, giving us approximately 518K orders a month. Extending to a year, the query generates 6.3M random orders with a total of 22M order lines, creating sufficient order volume to test the performance of the three data models.
Data Setup
Download this github repo and run setup.sh The scripts populate data for 3 data models.
Data Model
Normalised Data Model
Typical Master Detail relation between order and lines
De-Normalised Data Model
De-Normalised model with order, customer ids and order date repeated for each line
De-Normalised with BigQuery Arrays
Order and lines saved in the same row, but not repeated for each line
Performance Test
Lets run some reporting queries to put these data models to test by finding
Order total by Customer Order total by Month Order total by Item
analysis_queries.sql
Here is a comparison of the key query metrics captured for each query
De-Normalised models have fared better on all metrics with BQ Arrays Model consuming least Bytes Processed and Time Taken
Comparing size of the tables by data model
Query Metrics
Bytes Processed — Amount of data read from tables, directly contributes to the cost of query processing
Bytes Shuffled — Amount of data or intermediate results moved between parallel processing nodes. This is a measure of the amount of processing power dedicated to move data which increases wait time and limits parallelism
and Time Taken — Elapsed time to execute the query
Slot Uses (Seconds) — Cumulative amount of time spent by parallel nodes to process the query
Design of data model and queries should be aimed at minimising these metrics
Observations
Normalised model consumed highest amount of bytes and took longer to provide a result. The queries had the highest amount of bytes shuffled ( orders of magnitude higher than normalised model), a result of the join between tables. Proves prohibitively expensive.
higher than normalised model), a result of the join between tables. Proves prohibitively expensive. Both De-Normalised models consumed minimum bytes shuffled, as data is within the same row, no joins required
Model with BigQuery Arrays had the best metrics in bytes processed and time taken
Recommendations
When defining data models consider the following for optimal performance
Use Arrays to store tables with parent/child relations. Higher the cardinality, higher the benefits Use De-Normalised form if using Arrays complicates queries either for developers or it involves a steep learning curve for end users/analysts who use BigQuery Optimise datatypes: Determine appropriate datatypes when defining tables. Consider alternatives where applicable.
* Consider differences and limitations between FLOAT64 and NUMERIC
These small design time decisions can quickly add up to savings as each additional byte adds to storage cost and query cost every time it is retrieved and processed.
Further Reading/Practice | https://medium.com/@vmnamburu/arrays-in-bigquery-how-to-improve-query-performance-and-optimise-storage-96bbf691beab | ['Vamsi Namburu'] | 2020-04-06 12:47:59.762000+00:00 | ['Storage', 'Data Model', 'Arrays', 'Bigquery', 'Performance'] |
How digital money will include the unbanked | ‘The Streets — Colourful Miraflores’ by Geraint Rowland available here under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
How digital money will include the unbanked
Basic financial services are more expensive and exclusive than they need to be. If we can strip digital finance down into a lightweight, near-free service, we can offer it to everybody, including those currently excluded from the sector.
Approximately half of the adult world does not have a bank account. Billions rely on cash and informal credit arrangements to manage their finance, arrangements which tend to be slow, expensive, and unreliable. Given that we are finally making progress on the basic challenges in development, such as those in the Millennium Development Goals, it is not unreasonable to put some focus on second-order obstacles like connectivity, energy, and banking. Interestingly the Gates Foundation, which has long focused on public health, sanitation, and education, signalled this month it was shifting some of its focus to financial inclusion.
So how bad is it? Access to banking is minimal in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Many middle-income countries also fare poorly, according to the World Bank four fifths of Indonesians, two thirds of Indians, and one third of Chinese have no formal banking services.
Account at a formal financial institution (% age 15+), World Bank Financial Inclusion Database 2011
The problem is not exclusive to the developing world, an astonishing 12% of Americans do not have bank accounts. While Europe and Australia fare relatively better, across the developed world there are millions classed as unbanked or underbanked. The reasons some residents of rich countries remain excluded from banking are complex, but are closely linked with poverty and other forms of exclusion. Citizen’s Advice Scotland found in its 2010 research that among its unbanked clients, almost half had been denied a bank account because of poor credit history and a further one fifth because of current or historic debt with the bank.
Many of those were initially pushed out of the banking system because of bankruptcy proceedings. Thus the very people struggling to get back on their feet are the ones being locked out of our financial infrastructure. The same research found that one third of unbanked clients had been denied a bank account “due to lack of appropriate identity documents”.
“Thus the very people struggling to get back on their feet are the ones being locked out of our financial infrastructure.”
In this part of the world most people excluded from banking end up using a family member’s bank account by proxy, so people are forced into informal banking arrangements by the very measures designed to ensure that the name on an account matches the person using it. This is part of wider problem of how restrictions designed to target wealthy criminals create a financial burden that falls largely on the poor, a topic which financial thinker Dave Birch has written on in more detail.
There is also a non-trivial number of people living in rich countries who are “unbanked by choice”, a result of mistrust, suspicion, alienation, concerns about unresolved debt, or a general sense of a bank account not being for them. The reason the banks themselves allow this to continue is that the cost of servicing these prospective customers would generally outweigh the economic benefit they may bring. In other words, it is very difficult to make money out of somebody living on the fringes of society.
A source at a UK high-street bank tells us that for a bank to profit from a customer it needs them to hold about £1,000 at any time in their current account. For anything below that, the marginal cost to the business, from running a network of branches and so on, outweighs the benefit of an additional customer.
“The reason the banks themselves allow this to continue is that the cost of servicing these prospective customers would generally outweigh the economic benefit they may bring.”
The impact of digital money and digital banking
A number of companies are racing to resolve this conundrum by building the first truly digital bank, a lightweight service without the overheads of traditional high-street banking. One of the more prominent contenders in the UK is Atom Bank, though others exist. If that goal is achievable, a digital bank will quite suddenly be in a position to target populations that are currently underbanked, providing them with near-free banking services while still turning a profit.
At CoinJar our focus is on digital tokens rather than traditional monetary forms, but the question of unbanked populations goes to the core of what we do. Our goal is to take the efficiencies of Bitcoin, port them to a platform that is safe, simple, and secure, and push them out to the market at near-free prices. We do not believe in tiered pricing or access, every customer gets the same rates and support, regardless of the numbers involved when they want to buy bitcoin and other digital currencies.
“…the question of unbanked populations goes to the core of what we do”
As a company we are betting on two broad trends in finance. The first is the unbundling of consumer finance products. In a world of bricks-and-mortar banks it makes sense to get your current account, mortgage, payment card, and insurance via the same relationship. In a digital world, it should be much easier to shop around for each of those services separately, and have them seamlessly interact with each other where necessary.
Our second expectation is that people will get used to interacting with a much richer variety of digital tokens. These might include air miles, loyalty card points, tokens for various corporate and community schemes, in-game currencies, tokens on social networks, kilowatt hours, carbon credits, contracts, and various other forms that don’t even have names yet. Such an ecosystem would allow rich and nuanced social and economic activity, and has interesting echoes in the past. To quote political economist Benjamin J Cohen, this would be a return to the “heterogeneous multiform mosaic that existed prior to the era of territorial money”.
Among these digital tokens is of course Bitcoin, the first big proposition in this latest round of monetary debate. One of the easiest ways to understand how Bitcoin behaves is to think of it as digital cash, albeit cash denominated in the currency of a distant, imagined country. While most discussion of Bitcoin focuses on the technical and socio-political aspects of the protocol (open and distributed security, a transparent but noisy ledger, a volatile market value, and a governance method modelled on open source software schemes), the very mundane functionality of a digital currency has massive implications for the underbanked. The creation of an account (or digital “wallet”) is effectively free and instant, largely unrestricted, and serves rich and poor with equal speed.
Indeed it is this detachment of the service from a bank-customer relationship, this unbundling, that may allow digital currencies to thrive among communities currently neglected by finance. As anthropologist Bill Maurer described:
“The un- and underbanked traditionally haven’t been served by traditional banking institutions. They’re the ones who are going to check-cashing outlets and pawn shops. They’re the ones where there really are pain points associated with checks and cash, for whom prepaid cards or prepaid wallets on a phone might actually be very attractive.”
The ability to store and transfer value is ultimately an informational good, so the sector likely faces a transformation comparable to what we’ve seen in music, publishing, and the visual arts. Some of those changes will be good (services get cheaper and faster) and some will be bad (services fall under oligarchic control and lose the human touch). Research by digital agency Heist indicates this transition has already commenced, with young adults having an increasingly “transactional” relationship with their bank rather than something more personal or advisory.
Making finance competitive is a hugely complex problem, the sector serves as a unique form of infrastructure which supplies us with money (created via fractional reserve lending) and the facilities needed to move that money around. The importance of appearance and legitimacy mean that much of the sector’s cost structure resembles that of a luxury goods company, with glass-and-steel skyscrapers, oak-panelled lobbies, and a general air of largesse which assures the client that everyone in the room knows what they’re doing.
You can’t run a bank like a budget airline when your customers still expect you to operate out of a city-centre building with Roman columns and reassuringly lush reception. Add to these peculiarities a few decades of overlapping regulation, uniquely powerful entrenched stakeholders, widespread misconceptions about how the sector works, and the shadow of both national politics and class politics, and it becomes clear that it will take more than a Napster-style disruption to shake up the sector.
“You can’t run a bank like a budget airline when your customers still expect you to operate out of a city-centre building with Roman columns and reassuringly lush reception.”
Nonetheless, banking is steadily evolving into a digital service, and in the process it should become easier to ensure that those who need it most have access. Nobody needs a credit check to start using a physical wallet, a digital wallet should be no different.
If we want this infrastructure to be truly inclusive and competitive it should be built around an open platform with open standards. We want to see the Email of Money, not the Facebook of Money. And finally, we want this platform to undermine the imbalances between developed and developing worlds, rich and poor, not reinforce them.
—
Article by Lui Smyth — UK Lead at CoinJar. Tweet him @yablochko | https://medium.com/coinjar-blog/how-digital-money-will-include-the-unbanked-cf98fda1cfc7 | [] | 2020-02-26 16:33:06.592000+00:00 | ['Social Justice', 'Unbanked', 'Bitcoin'] |
Foggy Turn of the Road | Foggy Turn of the Road
photo by William J Spirdione
It is time to slow down a little now.
Not sure who or what lies around the bend.
To move as fast as conditions allow.
Alert, aware, on all senses depend.
The fog it rolls off hills of melting snow.
Wet blackened trunks of trees create rhythm.
A gentle curve completes the peaceful flow.
No problems here, at least that’s our theorem.
If lulled to sleep, might wake to find trouble.
Someone or something was crossing the road.
A broken down truck, a tree, some rubble.
From the woods to the road a deer has strode.
The road was clear, no smashing of metal.
Safe passage now, a little unsettled. | https://medium.com/@wjspirdione/foggy-turn-of-the-road-b393dcb903d8 | ['William J Spirdione'] | 2020-12-14 14:16:39.120000+00:00 | ['Sonnet', 'Poetry', 'Society', 'Weather', 'Travel'] |
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