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Poll: How Ethical is Amazon? | The Green Stars Project | Why you should avoid Amazon right now
Last week, the Bay Area went back down into stricter lockdown conditions — no outdoor dining is allowed and most salons, etc., have to close down again. It’s really hard to watch local businesses that we love struggling so much. Bay Area restaurants employ over 300,000 people and, especially if you’re passionate about cooking and the food industry, you can imagine how tough it must be to be stuck at home. My version of this was to be stuck at home instead of “cooking” things in the laboratory — but I was still getting paid, unlike many in the restaurant business.
If you’re buying presents this year, consider buying gifts that support local businesses instead of relying on Amazon. A gift certificate for a favorite restaurant, café, salon, or day spa, would really help people out a lot more than buying something from Amazon. You could even get a gift certificate for yourself as a reward for getting through this year! Of course, Amazon is thriving: I don’t think a day has gone by in the last week where I haven’t seen at least one Amazon van in my neighborhood.
There was a time, years ago, when I used to wonder if Amazon might be more sustainable than physical stores. After all, constructing and powering buildings make up a significant part of our greenhouse gas emissions. But that hope for a sustainable Amazon went out the window when Bezos’s business model was driven more and more by the speed of delivery.
Faster shipping = a higher carbon footprint
At a work seminar a couple of years ago the speaker asked the audience how many of us are members of Amazon Prime. I was fairly shocked at how many people put their hands up — more than half the room. By December last year there were more than 112 million Amazon Prime members in the US — that’s over one third of the population! Considering that a good percentage of the ~ 330 million residents in the US are children, or adults who live together, it seems that Amazon Prime is getting close to 100% penetration in US households.
Yes — I just checked this and even by spring 2019, over 80% of US households had an Amazon Prime membership! The cost of membership is $13 per month, or $156 per year (so the US population hands around $20 billion to Amazon each year just for Prime membership!). Naturally, when you spend that much for something, you’re going to make use of it — in other words, Amazon will likely be your go-to online retailer.
There were an estimated 103 million U.S. Prime members at the end of the first quarter [of 2019], and they spend an average of $1,400 per year, according to the report. That’s quite a bit more than the $600 per year that non-Prime customers spend. — Motley Fool.
So, putting all of this together, an overwhelming majority of US adults are Amazon Prime members, and it’s a reasonable assumption that most of them will take advantage of Amazon’s fast free shipping, whether that’s 2-day, 1-day, or 2-hours (yes, 2-hour shipping for groceries). There are two main downsides to this business model of fast shipping:
Faster shipping means a higher carbon footprint. This is well-known and it’s logical that there have to be more journeys when customers want their package delivered overnight. And Amazon has been widely criticized for not making much effort to reduce their carbon footprint. All of the Amazon vans driving around my neighborhood are brand new Ford Transit vans — why don’t they at least have an electric truck fleet that they charge with renewable power at their warehouses? Incidentally, Amazon Web Services also rates poorly for carbon footprint compared to its main competitors, Microsoft and Google. Faster shipping means more stress on workers. I won’t labor this point because you’ve probably already read something about the plight of Amazon warehouse or delivery workers — the higher risk of Covid, the draconian timekeeping app that tracks each of them, the regular elimination of slower staff, the anti-unionization efforts, and the gradual conversion of humanity into robots (until it becomes cheaper for robots to take over). Amazon has improved some conditions for workers but that’s always in response to media spotlight. Even now, it seems that the much-touted minimum wage of $15 per hour has loopholes that are abused by sub-contractors.
I’m not judging — most of my friends have Amazon Prime accounts and I used to have a trial account too until I got tired of watching The Man in the High Castle. I also know how it seems so much easier to buy from a retailer that you’re familiar with and think you can trust. In the next post I’m going to take a closer look at why you can’t trust Amazon as a retailer, but for now I’ll stick to my plan for this post — it’s easy to get sucked into a rant when it comes to Amazon 😉 Just consider this: If you do need to buy something online, consider selecting a slower shipping speed if you don’t really need it ASAP.
How ethical is Jeff Bezos?
Jeff Bezos gets a fair amount of criticism that just comes with the role of being the richest person on the planet. So I’ll try to be objective here, as much as possible. As you probably know, Amazon has been thriving during this pandemic, with the result that in August, Bezos became the first human with a “net-worth” (what a horrible expression!) of over $200 billion. What’s he doing with this money? Well, he doesn’t seem too sure, yet. He could use just 10% of his wealth to give each of his one million Amazon employees a $20,000 bonus — a life-changing sum for many warehouse employees or drivers. But let’s compare his philanthropic efforts to what others are doing.
We know that the second richest person on the planet, Bill Gates (with accumulated wealth of around $116 billion, as of August) set up the Giving Pledge along with his billionaire buddy, Warren Buffet.
The Giving Pledge is an effort to help address society’s most pressing problems by inviting the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes either during their lifetime or in their will.
There are plenty of well-known names on the pledge, from Elon Musk to media tycoon Michael Bloomberg and investing mogul Bill Ackman (what strange language we use when talking about money!). Even when polarizing and widely disliked people like Mark Zuckerberg and Carl Icahn have joined the list, the most notable absence is Jeff Bezos. He’s the only one of the five richest people in America who hasn’t signed the pledge — and the absence seems even more notable now that MacKenzie Bezos signed up after her record-breaking divorce from Jeff.
Although he is the richest man in the world, he still does not rank high when it comes to the percentage of his extreme wealth that he redistributes. On the other end of the spectrum from Bezos’s measly 0.1 percent is Bill Gates. Gates directed 22.2 percent of his wealth during the same period. Warren Buffett directed a whopping 71.1 percent of his wealth to charity between 2000 and 2017. — Market Realist.
Perhaps we shouldn’t judge him yet — maybe there are some great things on the way. Just before Covid lockdown began, Bezos announced a $10 billion climate fund. Although he’s really thin on detail on this fund (making announcements on Instagram), he did announce the first set of donations, amounting to $791 million, last month. I still have to be a little skeptical here — is this primarily just a tax break for Bezos? Last year Bezos bought a Beverly Hills mansion for $165 million — that’s more than Amazon paid in corporate tax for 2019. He also spent $65 million last year on a Gulfstream jet that seats eight people. More importantly, if he really cared about climate change, Bezos would make Amazon shipping and AWS data centers more sustainable.
Is there not a responsibility for the richest person in the world to contribute more to solving global problems? Let’s face it: we face some serious problems, several of which are caused in part by Amazon Corp., and it would be really great if Bezos would step up a bit more. He should start with making Amazon more sustainable and socially responsible.
I haven’t really delved into the social and environmental impact of Amazon Corporation yet, but I’d like to hear your opinion before I write a post on that. Ultimately, we need to assess Amazon the company rather than Bezos the person — if I came to the conclusion that Amazon is changing the world for the better, I’d be more inclined to ignore Bezos’s wealth and think, oh he deserves it, working so hard to make the planet a better place.
How ethical is Amazon
For reasons that actually overlap with my next post on Amazon, I’ve decided that a rating scale, whether it’s Green Stars or a regular rating, should range from zero to five (not one to five) in half-point increments. I’ll get into that in the next post. Meanwhile, please chime in by voting below on an ethical score for Amazon.
How would you rate Amazon for social and environmental impact on a scale of 0 to 5 green stars? Vote below.
https://poll.fm/10680705
Thanks for voting! I’ll discuss the results in the next Amazon post. | https://medium.com/@grnstarsproj/poll-how-ethical-is-amazon-the-green-stars-project-77f0f7cda0e5 | [] | 2020-12-18 19:26:26.297000+00:00 | ['Corporate Culture', 'Society', 'Sustainability', 'Ethics', 'Amazon'] |
How to Lose Weight Without Dieting — And Easily Keep it Off. | Secret 2: EAT whole, natural ingredients
The second Secret to the Homemade Method™ is: to EAT whole, natural ingredients, as close as possible to their natural state.
For a long time, we were told that if we wanted to lose weight, we should restrict calories.
They used to say ‘a calorie is a calorie is a calorie’ — meaning, if you wanted to lose weight, you should just eat less calories.
This was the leading approach advocated for decades by the medical and weight loss industries. It was used by companies like Weight Watchers, who encouraged their members to count points.
We now know that the calories approach to weight loss is wrong.
It turns out a ‘calorie does not equal a calorie’, because the human body processes and responds to calories from different sources in different ways. Meaning the source and quality of your food matters. This is why it’s important to eat whole, natural ingredients — not processed foods or packaged ‘health foods’.
For example, the human body does not respond to 200 calories from a candy bar or from a handful of almonds in the same way.
The candy bar spikes your blood sugar levels, triggering a series of chemical reactions to bring it back down — leading to a drop in energy, and more cravings for sugary, carby foods, even though you don’t actually need more food.
Whereas, the almonds are high in fiber and protein so they provide slow release energy which doesn’t lead to a spike in your blood sugar, as well as containing a host of beneficial nutrients.
The calories approach led everyone to focus on eating less. Not eating right.
I personally recall playing the ‘calories game’: Taking just a bite or two of a candy bar, buying low fat ice-cream, protein bars or baked chips...
And all along it felt wrong.
Because, I knew deep down that none of this food was healthy!
And all the calorie counting and calculating never got me anywhere either.
But here’s the clincher that NO ONE else is talking about: Eating badly over the long-term actually messes with your hunger & satiety systems, so you feel hungry all the time and have constant sugar cravings. The GOOD NEWS is you can REVERSE this damage and recalibrate your hunger and satiety regulation systems so they function optimally - just by practicing secret 2!
#Start to EAT Today:
All you need to do is start eating more whole, natural ingredients close to their natural state. Again you don’t need to be perfect… just do it more thank you do it now.
Need advice on what is a ‘whole natural ingredient close to its natural state’? As a general rule if it’s one single ingredient, it qualifies and if it comes in a packet or has many ingredients then it probably doesn’t!
It’s an apple not an apple juice. It’s almonds not a protein bar. And it’s a potato or peas — not vegetable chips.
When you eat this way, you will nourish your body with the best possible foods, you will experience less cravings and you will be satisfied for hours after a good meal. Over time, you will find a natural, healthy equilibrium — that is not based on calorie counting or deprivation. | https://medium.com/@GetHomemade/stop-dieting-start-cooking-c9aafd563406 | ['Homemade Method'] | 2017-10-03 20:18:09.414000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Health', 'Diabetes', 'Cooking', 'Weightloss Foods'] |
Making an Interactive Web Map in Python with Folium: Part 1 — Preparing the Data | As a lover of maps, cartography, geography, and all things spatial, I’d be the first to advocate for the use of maps when visualizing any information that has a spatial component. Maps are able to convey a great deal of information in an understandable, intuitive, and digestible form, all while often remaining aesthetically pleasing (usually without much of a need for tweaking style parameters). Additionally, maps have the unique capacity to let readers find themselves in the data being shown, to situate themselves in the story being told. For this reason, when I work on a project, I often try to find a way to visualize the data spatially through either a static map or a dynamic, interactive one.
While much of my experience with map-makery (read: cartography) has been in the creation of static map images, I recently started using Python to make some interactive web maps that allow users to explore the data stored in these maps for themselves. One of the main libraries I’ve been using to make interactive maps has been folium, a Python library that builds on leaflet.js to make it relatively simple to take data in Python and visualize it on a Leaflet map.
Since I recently finished a project trying to predict fire risk for New York City census tracts, I thought I would take my newfound folium skills and apply them to the same dataset of fire incidents. I will walk through the steps necessary to prepare the fire incident dataset for creating an interactive map.
For the first step of this exercise, I import the usual suspects (pandas, numpy, and matplotlib) as well as two libraries that allow for the creation and manipulation of spatial data in Python: geopandas and shapely.
Since I’m mapping the fire incidents, I only need to import the Point module from shapely.
Then I can import the dataset of geocoded fire incidents. This is the version of the fire incident data I used in my project after geocoding each incident. Here I can use pandas to read in the data with the read_csv() method. I also like to use a few pandas methods right away to get a better sense of the data’s structure.
Since there are lat (latitude) and lon (longitude) columns for the data, I can use these to create point geometries for each row in the dataset. Shapely’s Point constructor enables me to do this by passing a tuple of coordinates into Point(). As this needs to be done for every lon-lat pair in the dataset, I can use a list comprehension to create a list of Points that serves as the geometry column. However, in order for the dataframe to become a GeoDataFrame, I need to use geopandas’ GeoDataFrame() method with the incident dataframe as the input data and the list of Points as the geometry. The code for this process looks like this:
The resulting GeoDataFrame functions in much the same way as the pandas dataframe; I can check the columns and missing values with .info(), look at the first few rows with .head(), and even do a simple plot of the data using matplotlib with .plot(). To check that this transformation worked and that the Points data looks the way it should, I can run that last command and look at the resulting plot.
Looks roughly like the five boroughs of New York City, if the city was composed of little blue dots. Excellent, looks like I’m on the right track.
Since this post is getting a bit long, I’m going to save the last steps (making an interactive map with folium using this data) for my next post. I’ll be picking up from where I’m leaving off here, so stay tuned. | https://medium.com/@nchristiansen/making-an-interactive-web-map-in-python-with-folium-part-1-preparing-the-data-6480f7840e13 | ['Noah Christiansen'] | 2019-06-17 01:04:33.519000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Geopandas', 'Mapping', 'Folium'] |
HIPAA Cyber Security Requirements — Steps for Hospitals in Cyber-Attack? | Healthcare data contain valuable rich information, and this is why healthcare organizations continue to be a prime target for cybercriminals. Due to the evolution of cyber-attacking methods, healthcare organizations are facing tougher challenges with each day passing by. And healthcare providers must protect their patients’ protected health information (PHI) to abide by the rules of HIPAA.
That said, HIPAA established long before cybersecurity came into existence, meaning the safeguards aren’t centered around cybersecurity requirements. Hence, healthcare providers do not understand how they should respond when they encounter a breach through cyber attacks.
To top it, data breaches involving healthcare have increased at an alarming rate. Over 41 million patient records the breached in 2019 alone, affecting nearly 21 million records in a single hacking incident. Very much alarming indeed.
So what should hospitals do, in fact, not if, when they experience a cyber attack? Let’s take a look at the cyber-attack response checklist issued by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
In the event of a cyber-attack or similar incident, an entity:
Must Enact its Response and Mitigation Procedures and Contingency Plans
For instance, the healthcare provider should immediately remediate any technical or other problems to stop the incident. The provider should also take appropriate steps to lessen any impermissible disclosure of protected health information (PHI). It will do by the provider’s internal IT team or by a third-party. In this case, the third party is a business associate if it has access to PHI for that purpose.
Should Notify Other Law Enforcement Agencies
The provider can report it to the state or local law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and/or the Secret Service. It must be noted that any such reports must not include any PHI unless otherwise permitted by the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Also, if a law enforcement official tells the provider that any potential breach report would hinder a criminal investigation or harm national security, then the provider must delay reporting a breach for as long as the officials request in writing, or for 30-days if the request is made orally.
Should Report All Cyber Threat Indicators
OCR in its cybersecurity requirements, advises providers to report cyber threat indicators to federal and information-sharing and analysis organizations (ISAOs), and even the Department of Homeland Security, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, including private-sector cyber-threat ISAOs. Note that any such reports must not include any PHI.
Must Notify the Breach to the OCR as Soon as Possible
This step is per the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule. In the event of a breach, a provider must notify OCR about the breach no later than 60 days after the discovery of a breach affecting 500 or more individuals. The provider must also notify the affected individuals unless a law enforcement official or the media requests to delay the reporting. According to the HIPAA law, all security incidents, including cyber-related where PHI was accessed, acquired, used, or disclosed are reportable breaches. But it is not a reportable breach if the entity had encrypted the information, or through a written risk assessment, the entity determines that there was a low probability that the information was compromised during the incident.
In case the breach affects fewer than 500 individuals, the entity must notify the affected parties without unreasonable delay. But it’s no later than 60 days after the discovery. The provider must also notify the OCR within 60 days after the end of the calendar year in which the breach discovered.
Summing It Up
There has no reason to get dispirited when a breach related to cybersecurity occurs. Because of any efforts, you made to mitigate the breach. And it remediates the effects that will be considered by the OCR during a particular breach investigation. | https://medium.com/@aliarojas146/hipaa-cyber-security-requirements-steps-for-hospitals-in-cyber-attack-43c44ef2a610 | [] | 2020-12-22 10:19:03.624000+00:00 | ['Cyber', 'Security', 'Online Protection', 'Criminal Investigation', 'Civil Rights'] |
Learning from School Leaders About SEL During a Time of Crisis | The quote above is only one of many school leader voices we collected in late spring and early summer 2020 through RAND’s nationally representative American School Leader Panel and in virtual community dialogues with the #PrincipalProject’s national Principal Panel. As this assistant principal reminds us, uncertainty and disruption can take a toll on students and staff, and school leaders understand the value of social and emotional learning (SEL) to ensure the well-being of everyone in their schools, regardless of what form schooling takes. Effective SEL involves promoting competencies such as self-awareness and teamwork, creating supportive school and classroom climates, prioritizing relationships, and providing culturally relevant, equitable learning opportunities (PDF). Educators across the country believe, and research confirms, that SEL supports rather than detracts from academic learning.
By synthesizing the perspectives of principals who participated in our research, we identified how they feel SEL needs to change to meet the needs of the current moment and what they need to facilitate it in their schools.
Schools Need Remote SEL Resources
Roughly a quarter of school leaders in the RAND surveys expressed a “major” or “very major” need for high-quality materials to support SEL during building closures, especially those in urban communities and in schools serving high proportions of low-income students and students of color. School leaders in the community dialogues (PDF) also wanted policymakers and funders to be aware of the need for immediate as well as longer-term, recovery-focused SEL support for school communities.
SEL Provides a Way to Improve Academic Instruction
Schools can integrate SEL into instruction through approaches like exploring emotions of characters in novels or using break-out rooms in video apps to encourage small-group discussion, but they need tools and guidance to facilitate this. In the community dialogues (PDF), school leaders also saw the current moment as an opportunity to reexamine the extent to which traditional classroom instruction is effectively serving students: “Maybe we need to be asking ourselves if what we were doing is still what we need? Is it even effective?”
SEL Assessment Should Proceed with Caution Right Now — and Always
Teachers in RAND’s survey were more likely in spring 2020 to say they needed guidance or tools to assess students’ social and emotional well-being than to assess their academic learning. SEL assessment can provide crucial information to guide instruction and resource allocation, but school leaders should ensure that teachers are familiar with published guidance to inform assessment decisions.
Engagement and Relationships Matter, Especially Remotely
RAND’s surveys identified a need for strategies to improve students’ engagement in remote learning. In the community dialogues school leaders described distance learning as negatively impacting student engagement. However, they also observed that teachers who normally cultivate strong student relationships have seen stronger student engagement in distance learning. Educators need time and support to build relationships with students and families — including strategies to virtually recreate the formal and informal interactions they normally rely on to forge connections.
Educators need time and support to build relationships with students and families.
Following the murder of George Floyd, school leaders voiced deep concern for the well-being of their students, especially their Black students who are navigating the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism. Schools can draw on guidance to adapt SEL strategies to emphasize issues related to equity. School leaders in our community dialogues argued that schools should adopt SEL approaches that acknowledge the contexts in which students live, including helping educators build the skill sets required to navigate difficult conversations about power, privilege, and race.
Adults’ Well-Being Is an Important Precursor to Student SEL
School leaders will need to support the social and emotional well-being of adults in their buildings to ensure those adults can provide for students’ needs. In RAND’s teacher surveys, many teachers expressed feelings of burnout or loneliness, and more than two-thirds said they had major concerns about the well-being of their students.
School leaders’ jobs have always been complex, challenging, and crucial for ensuring high-quality, equitable learning for students. This is the case now more than ever, but it would be easy for SEL to fall by the wayside as school leaders work to address students’ health, safety, and learning loss. Our work with school leaders indicates that they value SEL, and most say it is a larger priority in fall 2020 than it was last year. But following through on this priority could require policymakers and funders to take seriously the perspectives and concerns that school leaders have shared.
Laura Hamilton is a senior behavioral scientist and distinguished chair in learning and assessment at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. She directs the RAND Center for Social and Emotional Learning Research and codirects the American Educator Panels, RAND’s nationally representative survey panels of teachers and principals. Kai Fierle-Hedrick is the founder and lead facilitator of Create Knowledge, a consulting firm that works at the intersection of learning and evaluation, organizational change, and DEIJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice) to help change agents strengthen their practice and make meaningful progress. In 2019 and 2020, in her previous role as an evaluator at Vantage Evaluation, she worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch and lead the #PrincipalProject’s Virtual Principal Panel and co-facilitated the panel’s COVID-19 community dialogues. The #PrincipalProject Virtual Principal Panel is currently convened by ResultsLab. | https://medium.com/rand-corporation/learning-from-school-leaders-about-sel-during-a-time-of-crisis-cb7538235c29 | ['Rand Corporation'] | 2020-09-15 16:03:41.873000+00:00 | ['Racial Equity', 'Social Emotional Learning', 'Coronavirus', 'School Administration', 'Teachers'] |
He Called Me Lunar | He Called Me Lunar
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
He would have given me the moon
All I had to do was ask
Even when his eyes were maddened
They only saw beauty in me
In response to this Moon prompt by Ana-Maria Schweitzer. | https://medium.com/chalkboard/he-called-me-lunar-f5ff8f4a16e0 | ['Emma Laver-Scott'] | 2020-12-04 20:06:16.547000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'One Line', 'Poetry', 'Poetry Prompt', 'Moon'] |
The Christmas Eve Compendium | Earlier this week, Congress agreed on a $900 billion pandemic relief bill—an eagerly anticipated stimulus, with no federal aid having materialised since Spring. Although it is not nearly as imperative and impactful as the RESTAURANTS Act that our industry has been rigorously campaigning for, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction.
The National Restaurant Association, in typically expeditious and diligent fashion, released a comprehensive fact sheet that details the manner in which the Covid-19 Relief Bill affects and benefits restaurants specifically, highlighting relief in the form of enhancements to the Paycheck Protection Program, Tax benefits, enhancements to other critical SBA lending programs, and lots more.
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)
The bill allows restaurants to access a second draw from PPP at 3.5x monthly payroll (vs 2.5x for other sectors); it also enacts a per-location 300 employee cap vs. a 300 allocation cap for other industries.
Tax Deductibility
Businesses can deduct allowable business expenses paid with PPP loans, including payroll, rent, mortgage interest, utilities and other allowable expenses. This applies to either a first draw or a second draw PPP loan.
Employee Retention Tax Credits (ERTC)
ERTC will be available for the first two quarters of 2021 and will allow certain employers to take up to $7,000 per eligible employee retained during these two quarters. Employers who received a PPP loan may still qualify for ERTC on wages that are not paid for with forgiven PPP funds.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)
WOTC is extended by five years, granting support for restaurants that hire, train, and retain employees from target groups.
Expanded the Business Meal Deduction
Business meals are now 100% deductible for 2021 and 2022.
Temporary Enhancements to SBA (non-PPP) Lending Programs
Increases 7(a) loan guarantee to 90% with no fees
No fees for 504 loans
Extends CARES Act principal and interest waiver for new and existing 7(a), 504, and micro-loans
For loans taken prior to the CARES Act, allows three additional months of principal and interest paid by the government; restaurants authorised to take an additional five months beyond the three.
For the complete overview, click here. | https://medium.com/@foodtechtribe/the-christmas-eve-compendium-77b416d89786 | [] | 2020-12-24 17:18:47.918000+00:00 | ['Restaurant', 'Financial Aid', 'Restaurant Business', 'Covid 19', 'Safety'] |
findViewById ➥ ViewBinding (ViewBinding nedir?) | 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/keove/findviewbyid-viewbinding-viewbinding-nedir-1928feab7581 | ['Gökmen Bayram'] | 2020-12-26 19:39:26.934000+00:00 | ['Viewbinding', 'Android', 'Mobile App Development', 'Kotlin'] |
New Year’s Eve All Hilarities In One Immaculate Occasion | New is the time of felicities people celebrate the new year eve with multiple festive activities. The most exhilarating things that we can enjoy on the eve of a new year can bring so lost enjoyments back in our pocket. So we have decided to bring all this festive exhilaration in one place so you can fully enjoy this once in a year moment.
Mesmeric Pyrotechnics
Fireworks are the most fascinating. People use different sorts of arsonists to excite themselves and also others. New year’s eve is the one place where you are comfortable celebrating whatever you want to do. Pyrotechnics are usually the most excitable way that most people use just at the time of new years eve. However, People go crazy just before the time of the new Year incipient moment. Sometimes pyrotechnics are dangerous as they are explosive so you need to be careful to celebrate your festival with the arsenite of pyrotechnics.
Exclusive Cuisines That Are Alluring
New years eve surely brings a lot of happiness for everyone the departure of the years reminds us that how we have spent our last year and how we are going to spend the upcoming year. People prepare mouthwatering dishes for the celebration as they want to enjoy the most fascinating moment of the year. lavish dine is everyone’s choice and why not you want to e3njoy the most of your festive occasions.
Frolicsome Outing
You must be wondering that how people manage to gather in an influx especially, on the special occasion of a new year. People came together to different places to enjoy the year’s most fascinating festival. New years eve just can not be better without gathering at a festival. It will be all inspiring tonight as the people will be in the search of that magical moment. | https://medium.com/@medicalboy5008/new-years-eve-all-hilarities-in-one-immaculate-occasion-1a9d518b3f0a | ['Kashan Shahnawaz'] | 2021-12-31 14:38:12.505000+00:00 | ['New Year', 'Festivals', 'Outing', 'New Year Party', 'Carnival Cruise'] |
It Takes Courage to Keep Going | It is not easy.
It’s not always easy to keep going…
To those who continue to protect and serve our communities
To the weary, sick and shut-in
To the healthcare providers, manning the front lines
To those with heavy hearts who have lost a loved one
To those who have to lead with uncertainty, disguised behind a smile
To the workers who continue to provide food, shelter and many other services we often take for granted
To the business owners who have to make hard decisions
To the laid off, let go, rescinded and still searching
To those who feel stuck, tired, worn out and run down
To the workforce who remotely ban together or still go into an office
To the creatives who still create, even without the promise of a captive audience
To the isolated and to those living alone
To the those who seek escape, quietness or safe spaces
To those who innovate, stay up late and wake up early to solve problems
To the teachers who adapt and change to keep educating
To the children who have to learn and play in a new way
To the parents who are taking on more and more responsibilities
To the students who might not get to dress up for the dance or walk the stage
To the athletes who watched victory slip away
To the traveler who must pause their adventure
To those who inspire, pray for, listen to and encourage others
To those who need to answer confidently and to those who humbly admit “I don’t know”
To those who speak up for the unheard and fight for justice
To the entrepreneurs who keep hustling
To those chartering the path and to those still finding their way
To the relentless and to those who need rest
It takes courage to keep going
It takes courage to put one foot in front of the other
Even in the midst of confusion, uncertainty, unrest
It takes courage to get up out of bed and try again
It takes courage to look up when you want to look down
It takes courage to do your best when no particular outcome is guaranteed
It takes courage to have faith that better days are ahead
It takes courage to fight. It takes courage to ask for help. It takes courage to begin again.
You are not alone.
Thank you for your courage. | https://medium.com/warm-hearts/it-takes-courage-to-keep-going-65cccf0b3886 | ['Shannel Wheeler'] | 2020-03-26 15:48:55.338000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Encouragement', 'Humanity', 'Hope', 'Courage'] |
Transition to Virtual Volunteering | What is Virtual Volunteering?
Virtual volunteering is a convenient way for volunteers to donate their time and skills toward a cause close or far from home. As our world enters further into the digital age, we’ve seen an increasing number of people look to virtual volunteering as an alternative to in-person volunteering. As a result, many charities, non-profits, and for-profits have adapted to accommodate online skill-giving. Some skills that have been in demand are:
Blog/Article Writing/Editing
Graphic Design
Website Creation
Development
Public Outreach and Marketing
UX Design
Video Editing
With almost 77.4 million Americans volunteering every year, people are seeking new, creative ways to actively contribute towards making a difference.¹
Furthermore, COVID-19 has validated the potential of remote work and has been shifting in-person volunteering to online volunteering. Just like how working remotely is essential for the economy to move forward, virtual volunteering will be essential to keeping the momentum of social giving.
Source 2
Benefits of Virtual Volunteering
COVID-19 has undoubtedly catalyzed the shift to online giving. And despite not having the same volume of in-person volunteers, organizations still require help with behind-the-scenes developments and operations. Virtual volunteering best enables organizations and volunteers to overcome challenges that occur throughout the giving process, such as time constraints and geographic limitations. Online volunteering allows for flexibility, giving contributors the ability to work around their schedules.
On top of this, it’s now easier than ever to find opportunities suited to one’s interests and availability. Not only are organizations able to find more support online, but volunteers are more easily able to get involved and develop their skills. This becomes a win-win situation because volunteers are 27% more likely to find a job after being out of work when compared to non-volunteers.³ And according to a survey by Career Builder, 60% of hiring managers value volunteerism when making recruitment decisions.⁴
In fact, many of these opportunities are considered “micro-volunteering” — the ability to perform short tasks that require less time and skills. This allows anyone to get involved for as little or long as they desire.
For organizations and causes, crowdsourcing has never been easier. Data is more accessible for research and development, and connecting with individuals is efficient and uncostly. Ultimately, allowing organizations to focus on what is truly important — their impact.
As the true value of virtual volunteering is being realized, we see both virtual and in-person volunteering to be powerful tools in supporting the projects you care about to create positive change. Learn how you can volunteer in a way that works best for you through GiveShop. | https://medium.com/@dylanhou/transition-to-virtual-volunteering-77e3e1863bba | ['Dylan Hou'] | 2020-12-11 00:17:02.594000+00:00 | ['Philanthropy', 'Giving', 'Social Change', 'Virtual Volunteering'] |
BYJU’s: The Unordinary Story of an Indian Decacorn Powerhouse | “He has an uncanny ability to teach you very difficult concepts with lucid visuals that help you understand everything from a first principles perspective.” — early student and friend of Byju Raveendran
By 2010, over 1,200 aspiring MBA applicants fought their way into his popular course. He sold out arenas so he could give his famous live lectures. Let me repeat that. Byju sold-out arenas for a test-prep class. Rockstar is an understatement.
Byju delivering his insanely popular test-prep course. Packed arena. Image via Factor Daily.
He began broadcasting classes online to meet his demand.
A light bulb moment occurred for Byju when he realized that many of his pupils (college graduates) were struggling from a foundational perspective in math and science especially. Students didn’t have a core understanding of logic; their entire schooling was focused on grades, not learning.
How many resources can one give into remodeling a home before you realize the foundation was faulty and flawed in the first place?
Boom. Pain point uncovered.
“I was a teacher by choice and an entrepreneur by chance.” — Byju Raveendran
In 2011, Think and Learn (BYJU’s the learning app’s parent name) was launched. Byju knew if he could scrap together the funds, he could create, package, and deliver the best educational content for students across India.
His energy and focus shifted from exclusively serving aspiring graduate school applicants to the larger untapped market: 250 million+ K-12 students in India.
Successfully selling and retaining this specific user segment would require a product and platform that would appeal to the parents of the students, who prioritize quality education for their own children over anything else. This would mean that Byju’s would have to beat out incumbents in the tutoring space that many traditional households already pay for.
Core Competency
Most successful EdTech platforms revenue-wise have won by integrating themselves into physical classroom environments as a digital tool or platform.
BYJU’s however disrupts the outside-the-classroom digital experience and makes substantial revenue. By investing upfront in content development & curation focused in the core subjects of math, science, and English language arts, BYJU’s has developed a massively entertaining and engaging library of evergreen lessons in fundamental subjects for every student in the K-12 lifecycle and for undergraduate students aiming to attend India’s premium graduate schools.
Rather than just offering a digital version of antiquated learning methods/styles, the BYJU’s strategy is to embrace everything that makes learning fun and relatable.
For example, students learn about gravity via a neatly assembled graphic video of the earth, moon’s orbit, and an instructor walking quickly but articulately through an example of the moon’s relationship with the earth.
This creates the sought-after perfect balance of high-level concept, example, and granular solution. All explained and sandwiched by content of learning materials and practice problems.
“Why doesn’t the moon fall on earth?” is a classic, well-executed BYJU’s lesson. Image from BYJU’s YouTube feed.
Expert teachers are hired to do what they do best: simplify the complicated, make the boring fun. These teachers are paired with graphic designers and videographers who come together to create 5-15 minute videos. In a way, BYJU’s is more of a production company that happens to distribute educational content for K-12 and HigherEd.
BYJU’s has made tons of content-free, showing the value add for students and parents before they’re forced to make a purchasing decision.
Streamlined Product-Market Fit
With India having an exhaustive and complicated standardized exam structure for tenth grade, college entrance, and graduate entrance exams, their product bundles serve exactly those three categories.
All courses fall under three umbrellas — making purchase decisions straightforward in an otherwise complex testing environment. Image via BYJU’s homepage.
Let’s take the example of a middle schooler coming closer and closer to their first major exam in India — the 10th-grade ‘board’ exam determining where their remaining high school classes will be concentrated in (STEM or commerce).
BYJU’s would cater its 7th-grade materials to work on fundamental math skills in algebra, geometry, or some combination of the basics. The expansive library of video lessons usually features over 50 options of 5–15 minute videos in each specific subject.
From there, a baseline is established from the student’s ability to complete problem sets, number of video rewatches, and mini-quizzes to constantly reassess progress.
This creates a personalized learning journey as BYJU’s phrases it, which couples together a mapped syllabus catering towards building up weaknesses and rechecking of strengths periodically.
With involved examples and in-depth analysis based on three core categories of concepts, application, and memory abilities acting as the foundation, BYJU’s assigns scores for students to constantly be aware of what needs to be worked on.
A student may watch an interactive video with in-video checkups to ensure student attention. Image from BYJU’s website.
The goal for our example of a 7th grader focusing on STEM would be to max out activities, complete all videos, and earn as close to 100% as possible in a science or math class.
Daily organic downloads of BYJU’s are nearing 70,000 according to their COO, and customer acquisition cost has lessened by 25% with improved brand awareness and consumer trust across all of their three Indian segments.
Most recent reports suggest $370M in revenue for the fiscal year 2019, with over 30M users having downloaded the app and over 2.5M paying users.
The company’s profitability allows it to reinvest its net revenue into content and increase quality control across the board in an effort to acquire more users. All BYJU’s needs is for potential new users to get logged in onto the platform, and the content will do the rest.
Aggressive Go-To-Market Sales Strategy
Intrigued by the proliferation of BYJU’s across India’s market, I learned firsthand from a few BYJU’s employees how their sales strategy operated.
Quite the game plan. Sales at BYJU’s means chasing massive quotas, aggressive door-to-door knocking, and making customer meetings personal to every household.
India’s constitution officially only recognizes 22 languages, and another 6 languages are regarded as ‘classical’ languages. But as there are many conflicting truths in India, over 780 languages are loosely recognized within state boundaries and regions.
This leads to a truly diverse, complicated, and heterogeneously cut up consumer market.
BYJU’s smartly attacks this problem head-on by creating localized sales team in each region who can speak to parents and students alike in their native tongue — leading to more trusting relationships.
Sales managers are tasked with inspiring sales reps to customize conversations based on economic outcomes for children if they don’t receive proper educational resources.
With rural parts of India (60% of the population) mostly consisting of uneducated parents, every rupee matters. Sales rep’s of BYJU’s come in and play their hand by emotionally cornering in parents into purchasing BYJU’s premium app plans.
A friend told me how a BYJU’s sales representative hounded his parent and guilt-tripped his younger sister into thinking BYJU’s paid app was the only way for her to be educated.
There’s been a few startling internal reports and whistle-blowers calling out ethically questioning practices on the business side. Consumers have also voiced their displeasures on sites like these.
Thus far, it hasn’t caused a crazy stir. Worth keeping an eye for as BYJU’s grows linearly in its workforce and customer markets.
Funded with cash, cash, and more cash
Much like the fastest-growing Silicon Valley startups, BYJU’s has caught the eyes of elite venture capital investors across the globe.
Funding rounds have come from:
Tencent Holdings — the premier Chinese investing conglomerate w/ $137B in asset & notable stakes in WeChat, Riot Games, Snap, and Tesla.
— the premier Chinese investing conglomerate w/ $137B in asset & notable stakes in WeChat, Riot Games, Snap, and Tesla. Sequoia Capital — Silicon Valley’s biggest brand name w/ investments in Apple, PayPal, WhatsApp. Combined public stock market value of $1.4T or 22% of Nasdaq.
— Silicon Valley’s biggest brand name w/ investments in Apple, PayPal, WhatsApp. Combined public stock market value of $1.4T or 22% of Nasdaq. Qatar Investment Authority — Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund w/ over $335B assets under management.
— Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund w/ over $335B assets under management. Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative — A fund led by Zuckerberg and his wife Chan dedicating resources into education, justice, and science companies.
— A fund led by Zuckerberg and his wife Chan dedicating resources into education, justice, and science companies. Owl Ventures — The world’s biggest and exclusively focused EdTech funds w/ investments in Quizlet, Remind, and SV Academy.
These are just the flashiest names and biggest firms from America, China, and the Middle East. This is the type of explosive firepower behind BYJU’s. Earlier this year, legendary American investor Mary Meeker led another round of $130M for BYJU’s, driving the valuation to $10.5B.
Undoubtedly, every single one of these firms is chasing the first true EdTech company that’s successfully reached such great product-market traction. With the backing and strategic reach of these powerful firms, BYJU’s is formidable in its quest to gain international access.
Cash is the lifeblood of any startup. BYJU’s has a rich supply and then some at their disposal. By creating a FOMO effect for every reputable venture capital fund in the globe, they’ve created a trusting & mutual relationship of showing revenue growth, roping in more cash to expand their ambitions.
Marketing and Advertising Spend
With tons of cash on hand, BYJU’s has left no card unturned in constantly keeping the brand top of mind for its core massive Indian market.
Superstar Bollywood actor and global icon Shah Rukh Khan has become the company’s recognizable face broadcasted to homes across India. Image via Econ Time India.
Shah Rukh Khan is a household name not just for 1.4 B Indians, but for the estimated 28 million Indians outside of the country across the globe. His mere association with BYJU’s has done the company wonders by validating the extent of its prowess as a brand. In a country like India where entertainment, religion, and cricket rule, BYJU’s has secured the support of one of the country’s largest entertainment names.
India’s star cricketer, touting the prominent BYJU’s logo at their national jersey unveil in 2019. Image via Cricket Times.
Virat Kohli, the LeBron James/Lionel Messi of Indian Sports, sports the BYJU’s jersey in every Indian national match which conservatively reaches 400M viewers across the globe. Again, BYJU’s is willing and able thanks to strong cash reserves to create prominent brand awareness.
This is something most startups have never been able to do: have mainstream name recognition while possessing limited years on the open market as a consumer product. So far, the results have been fantastic.
Advertising wise, BYJU’s is constantly pushing its name via banners ads on YouTube. Marketing spend has reached mammoth proportions of $25M+, massively outpacing other EdTech firms and digital-first companies period.
For a country enamored by celebrities, BYJU’s has done everything possible to remain top of mind and recognizable.
Acquisitions Galore
This is an unconventional company when considering the steady pace of massive acquisitions BYJU’s has made domestically and abroad. The signaling from BYJU’s end is simple: if your company does something better than we do, there’s a big, fat target on your back.
As competition or as becoming part of us.
So far, there have been 5 acquisitions on BYJU’s end, totaling over $650M alone. BYJU’s recently closed the acquisition of WhiteHat Jr. for $300M. WhiteHat Jr. is an online EdTech firm in Mumbai that specializes in offering coding lessons, activities, and certificates to the under 22 age market.
Last winter, Osmo was bought out for $120M by BYJU’s to expand it’s global footprint and tap into the niche physical + digital education market for pre-schoolers.
From entrance exam students to pre-schoolers, BYJU’s has an end to end view into how student behavior and deeply understanding what the market wants.
Market penetration strategy 101: start niche, build vertically, expand across different demographics as the product value proposition is proven.
Global Expansion
With the purchase of Osmo’s, BYJU’s initiated the first crucial step in stepping into the U.S. market and getting an on the ground view into what digital education customers are like in America. Beyond that, BYJU’s made waves in June of 2019 for announcing a partnership with Disney to build learning content integrating Disney’s most iconic characters to form a stronger footprint in India for younger audiences.
Prediction: this is BYJU’s chance to prove to Disney that digital education packaged in entertaining methods is the future. Securing Disney’s hand as the first EdTech investment to date is a sure-fire way to create goodwill and trust; creating a roadmap for pivoting towards western markets where Disney already captivates younger audiences at a reliable clip.
BYJU’s has set out for U.S., U.K., Indonesia, and Nepal as targets for their next market expansion opportunities. Again, hedging their bets — the safer consumer side but higher investment in places like America or Great Britain vs. the less capitally intensive investment but potentially higher ROI if market traction is gained in an Indonesia or Nepal. Risk mitigation is key.
Popular favorites like Cars and Toy Story will be targeted towards the 1–3 grade students in India. Image from BYJU’s promotional ad.
Will anything stop BYJU’s?
The trajectory of BYJU’s success has surprised everyone but its visionary founder and core team. To them, improving learning outcomes and religiously focusing on concept mastery vs. black and white problem-solving drives all their product iteration.
Byju Raveendran's relentless motivation to improve education across India and the globe gives him the ideological jet fuel to transcend all EdTech companies in their quest to change education.
Becoming an iconic company for him is a product of changing the lives of a billion learners.
Carrying out and embodying this strong ‘why’ will be the key for BYJU’s. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/byjus-the-unordinary-story-of-an-indian-decacorn-powerhouse-ba6fcb82a65 | ['Vinit Shah'] | 2020-09-17 22:04:06.334000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'India', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Education Technology', 'Startup'] |
You Must Watch the Top 3 Songs of ‘Taylor Swift’ in 2020 | Source-Twitter
You Must Watch the Top 3 Songs of ‘Taylor Swift’ in 2020 Taylor Swift has a very high chance of coming among the top or even topping the list and being the first female artist to do that
There has not been a Country/Pop singer-songwriter in recent history who has been as successful as Taylor Swift, and that is not an overstatement. According to the RIAA certification agency, Taylor Swift’s albums (6 of them) have sold over 43 million units worldwide, and over 150 million units in singles sold She stands at the 34th spot among the highest album selling artists in history.
However, she is just 28 years old and around 20 artists on the above list are not active anymore. So, Taylor Swift has a very high chance of coming among the top 5 or even topping the list and being the first female artist to do that.
According to Chartmasters.com, Taylor Swift has sold over 48 million album copies throughout her 8-album career as of 2020. However, this does not include streaming stats which make up for the biggest consumption of music in recent years. For example, Taylor’s eighth studio album ‘folklore’ only sold 1.3 million physical copies of the album while on Spotify, it gained over 80 million streams in a few days.on debut.
Read Full Here | https://medium.com/@abhishek0424/you-must-watch-the-top-3-songs-of-taylor-swift-in-2020-efec0e08b551 | ['Abhishek Singh Baghel'] | 2020-12-23 20:02:47.601000+00:00 | ['Taylor Adam Swift', 'Hollywood', 'News', 'Taylor Swift', 'Entertainment'] |
OTD in History… December 17, 1862, Grant Issues General Order № 11 expelling Jews during the Civil War | By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
(Originally published on the History News Network on Tuesday, December 11, 2007)
On this day in history, December 17, 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order Number 11, expelling Jews from areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky during the Civil War. General Order Number 11 stands out in American history as the first instance of a policy of official anti-Semitism on a large scale. The anti-Semitic order had deeper roots; many Northerners and Union army officials harbored anti-Jewish resentments. Jews in Union-occupied Southern cities and towns faced the brunt of this prejudice. As Bertram Wallace Korn explains in his authoritative work, American Jewry and the Civil War (1951), “Some of the most prominent people in the Union were imbued with prejudice against the Jews.” (Korn, 164) It was this anti-Semitism within the ranks of the Union army that led to General Grant’s General Order №11 that called for all Jews to be expelled in his district, which covered the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
Underlying the order was a negative image of the Jewish merchant and the belief that Jews were part of a black market in Southern cotton. Although at war, the North and South still relied on each other economically. The North especially needed the South’s surplus cotton for the production of military tents and uniforms. The Union army would have implemented a ban on trade with the South completely; President Abraham Lincoln preferred a limited trade in cotton. The Battle of Shiloh made this trade possible by opening up the Mississippi River down to Vicksburg. This soon became very profitable for both sides; army officers, treasury agents, and individual speculators became involved, although Jews were distinctly a minority.
Army officers especially took advantage of the moneymaking possibilities to such a great extent that Lincoln complained, “the army itself is diverted from fighting rebels to speculating in cotton.” Although neither side prohibited the trade, President Lincoln ordered that all of the cotton that was traded had to be licensed by the Treasury Department and the army. Army commanders were responsible for the cotton trade in their respective areas. General Ulysses S. Grant was the commander of the Department of the Tennessee, and therefore responsible for the licenses in that area. The limited trade in cotton and the overwhelming need for cotton in the Northern army led to soaring prices. This prompted many traders to bribe officials to be able to sell cotton without a permit. Jesse Grant, Grant’s father, took a prominent role in trading cotton and obtaining permits.
By the fall of 1862, trading was getting out of hand. Grant was annoyed that requests for licenses were distracting him from planning the capture of Vicksburg. Grant was getting an abundance of requests for licenses, and when Grant’s father sought them for a group of Cincinnati merchants, among whom were some Jews, the general issued his order. Although some of the traders were Jewish, most were not. Among the high ranks of the Union Army, the words “Jew,” “profiteer,” “speculator” and “trader” all meant the same thing (Feldberg, 118), while the Union commanding General Henry W. Halleck lumped together “traitors and Jew peddlers.” Grant concurred, describing Jews as “the Israelites,” an “intolerable nuisance.” It was because of old European prejudices and anti-Semitism that Jews were singled out. As in Europe, Jews were made scapegoats. History was repeating itself, but it this time it was in America.
On November 9 and 10, Grant sent his commanders in Jackson, Tennessee, orders that “no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward [into the Department of the Tennessee] from any point.” Grant also noted his disdain for Jews to C.P. Wolcott, Assistant Secretary of the Army. Grant claimed Treasury regulations were being violated “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders.” (Feingold, 93) However, the illegal trading of cotton continued and Grant continued to believe it was the fault of the Jewish merchants. On December 17, 1862, he issued Order 11:
The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the “Department of the Tennessee,” an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.
The order implied that all Jews in the region were speculators and traders, which they were not. Despite this, Grant’s subordinates carried out the order around his headquarters in Holly Springs and also Oxford, Mississippi, and Paducah, Kentucky where the Jews of these communities had to evacuate from their residences within a 24-hour period. In Holly Springs, the Jewish traders in the area had to walk 40 miles to evacuate the area. Thirty Jewish families who had been longtime residents of the town also had to evacuate even though none of them engaged in the cotton speculation and two of them had been veterans of the Union Army.
The order caused uproar and was criticized by both the Jewish community under Union command, and non-Jews in opposition to the Union’s Republican Party. The anti-Semitic order was a shock for a Jewish community that had been rarely discriminated against. Democrats and others opposed to the administration believed the order represented another example of Lincoln’s willingness to trample on civil liberties. Peace Democrats complained that the Republicans were more concerned with the rights of blacks than of Jews, who were white. Jewish leaders organized protest rallies in St. Louis, Louisville and Cincinnati, while the leaders of the Jewish communities in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia sent telegrams to Lincoln protesting the order.
Residents of the expelled Jewish communities denounced the order. Cesar Kaskel, a merchant and president of the Paducah Union League, sent a telegram to Lincoln condemning Grant’s actions as an “enormous outrage on all laws and humanity, … the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it.” (Feldberg, 119) Kaskel also led a delegation to Washington to meet with Lincoln directly. He arrived in Washington just two days after the Emancipation Proclamation became law. Kaskel met with the influential Jewish Republican, Adolphus Solomons, and was accompanied to the White House by Cincinnati Congressman John A. Gurley. They showed Lincoln documents proving that the Jews who had been expelled from their homes were upstanding citizens not involved in cotton speculation.
Lincoln ordered General Halleck, General in Chief of the Army, to revoke the order immediately. Halleck wrote to Grant on January 4, “A paper purporting to be General Orders, №11, issued by you December 17, has been presented here. By its terms, it expells [sic] all Jews from your department. If such an order has been issued, it will be immediately revoked.” Grant complied three days later, but the mass evacuation of the Jewish communities in Holly Springs and Oxford, Mississippi, and Paducah, Kentucky had already been carried out.
The Jewish community was grateful to President Lincoln for his swift revocation. On January 7, Rabbis Isaac M. Wise and Max Lilienthal of Cincinnati, Martin Bijur of Louisville, and Moses Strauss of Baltimore led delegations to Washington to express their gratitude to the President. Lincoln tried to make amends to the Jewish community. He said he had been surprised by Grant’s order and said he did not discriminate between Jews or Gentiles and would not allow any American to be discriminated against based on their religion. Lincoln told them he believed that “to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad. I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.”
General Order №11 was a rare instance of officially ordered anti-Semitism in American history, but just the fact that an order was signed and implemented punishing a religious community, as historian Henry Feingold states, “without due process of law,” put a spot on America’s reputation of religious tolerance. (Feingold, 94) It was an act more reminiscent of the anti-Semitism Jews endured in Europe for centuries; where without reason Jewish communities were expelled from towns and countries at a moment’s notice. The order revealed a disdain for Jews by high ranking officials in the Union army among them Grant, William T. Sherman, and H. W. Halleck. It demonstrated that Jews in both the North and South were not sheltered from official anti-Semitism even in the safe haven of America.
SOURCES AND READ MORE
Henry L. Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present, (Twayne Publishers, 1974).
Michael Feldberg, Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History, (KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 2002).
Bertram Wallace Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1951).
Meyer Weinberg, Because They Were Jews: A History of Anti-Semitism, (Greenwood Press, 1986).
Bonnie K. Goodman has a BA and MLIS from McGill University and has done graduate work in Judaic Studies at Concordia University, where her thesis was about the unconditional loyalty of Confederate Jewish women during the Civil War. She is a journalist, librarian, historian & editor, and a former Features Editor at the History News Network & reporter at Examiner.com where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. She has over a dozen years of experience in education & political journalism. | https://bonniekgoodman.medium.com/otd-in-history-december-17-1862-grant-issues-general-order-11-expelling-jews-during-the-civil-d3bac0087f7 | ['Bonnie K. Goodman'] | 2018-12-17 10:42:39.701000+00:00 | ['Jewish', 'History', 'Civil War', 'Anti Semitism', 'American History'] |
The Ones We Forget | The Ones We Forget
A small dusty bell above the gas station door tinkled. A tinkle is, by definition, a cheerful sound. Not so with this tinkle. This tinkle sounded aged and somehow irritable, like a tinkle that has seen life and has had more than its fill of both regrets, and cigars.
The tinkle, as one may have rightly assumed, was caused by the door’s being opened by what the gas station’s solitary worker drearily guessed to be a potential customer. This customer, the station employee surmised, was one of ‘that crowd’, meaning that he was tall, wore a large brimmed hat that overshadowed his face, had clearly forsaken the art of the daily shower in pursuit of other pleasures, and had one rather over-large pistole in his belt. There was also an asymmetrical lump in his jacket which suggested that large-pistole number two had chosen to stay out of sight for the time being.
The potential customer sidled up to a display of beef jerky, examining his options without much enthusiasm. He lifted an individually packaged strip of Jalapeño Hellfire and gave it the eye for a while, but eventually settled on a ribbon of the ever popular Original Cow flavor. It was rumored that what the Too Cruel For School beef jerky brand put into their Original Cow flavored jerky, made with real original cow, was the remains of their much talked over ‘kindness pasture’ where the cows that were too scrawny or underweight to be considered gourmet were sent to live out their days in whatever peace they could find in their quarter-acre field off of HWY Forty-Seven. Local teenagers told their friends from out of town that if you ate a stick of Original Cow the ghosts of all the Kindness Pasture cows whose meat you were eating would come back and kick your stomach in the night for a week, inflicting you with the bruises of their ethereal hooves. Maudie Lewis, eighty-nine, claimed that when her dear departed Harold had bit into a stick, the meat had come away undamaged, and with half of his upper teeth sticking into it.
In short, the Original Cow flavor was not a snack for the faint of heart.
The near-certain customer slapped his stick down on the counter, making the change rattle in the cash register. He stared out at the attendant from beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes two beady glints in the shadow. He was silent for a moment, his gaze trained on the attendant’s name tag. He grunted.
“‘Ad me an uncle wot was called Keith.”
The cashier’s tone was flat. “Oh.”
“Never liked ‘es face,” said the tall man, conversationally.
“Good for you.” Sarcastically drawled the shorter of the two.
“‘Don much like yers neither, now ‘s I look.”
“However will I manage,” the one called Keith rolled his black-lined eyes in mock sorrow. “With that be cash… or credit?” he spat, beginning to tire of the man’s company. Someone who knew him, even as an acquaintance, would likely say that it did not take long for him to tire of people’s company, and that he did so often.
“‘Don believe in credit cards,” stated the man, fishing a wad of begrimed paper money from the inside front of his weather-stained shirt. He passed the money over, not bothering to smooth out the folds.
Some unknown species of small insect scurried from within the wad as the attendant gingerly undid the center crease.
“Don’t suppose banking had been invented back when you were young, had it?” Keith asked the man in an unusual burst of sociability, as he unceremoniously shoved the customers receipt into a plastic bag, on which was heartily emblazoned the words; Tanks for Hopping! And, in slightly larger print, Get Your High-Quality Plastic Bags Online Today!
The man eyed the bag derisively, but took it nonetheless.
“Wotch yer back, lil Keith,” he said affectionately, thumping Keith hard on his right shoulder.
“Go away,” Keith drawled.
“Yer sounds jus like ‘em, too,” muttered the customer as he walked out the door, the bell tinkling out its farewell in much the same way as its hello.
Keith gave the bell a knowing look, for even though most believe that a bell sounds the same when someone comes in as when someone goes out, there are a few who know the truth of it. They are not special people, in any common sense of the word; they merely understand, as children do, that a bell knows how to say goodbye.
The tall man in the large hat came to the station almost a week ago. He has not been seen since. The gas station’s sole worker does not remember him. Neither do the unfortunate scouts who asked him to buy cookies and were turned away. It is often like that with such people. The memory of them is slippery, like an eel held in the hands, and, like an eel, is quickly laid aside. The forgotten ones prefer it that way. Only the bells remember them, sounding slightly more old, and dusty, and hoarse, after they have gone. Maybe it’s for the best, after all. Maybe not. None but the tall men know the truth of it, and, if anyone could remember meeting them, they would attest to one simple fact; that those men, whoever they are, are not talking. | https://medium.com/@stellaadaire/a-small-dusty-bell-above-the-gas-station-door-tinkled-d122c92e245f | ['Stella Adaire Brown'] | 2020-12-22 03:55:55.608000+00:00 | ['Short Fiction', 'Supernatural', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Young Writers'] |
Read full article | Excess of visceral fat is known as central obesity, or “ Belly fat ”, in which the stomach is highly dilated and new developments such as body volume index (BVI) specifically measure abdominal volume and abdominal fat are designed for. Excess visceral fat is also associated with type 2 diabetes insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, and other obesity-related diseases.
In today’s busy lifestyle, we are so focused on our work that we feel that we are slowly playing with our health, what we are eating fills our stomach, but knowing that What are we eating, are they going to keep your body healthy? It is a matter of thinking that due to their diet we give rise to many dangerous diseases.
There are 7 such diseases here which are from Belly fat.
1. Heart disease
Abdominal fat is dangerous for our body. Scientists already know that abdominal fat — known as abdominal obesity — increases the risk of a first Heart attack. But new research suggests that excessive fat in this specific area also increases the risk of subsequent heart attack. These conditions increase blood pressure, high blood sugar and insulin resistance (diabetes) as well as increased lipid levels in the blood.
The March 6, 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association in the United Kingdom contains studies ranging in age from 40 to 69 in the United Kingdom.
The researchers measured the participants’ bodies and then tracked those who had heart attacks over the next seven years. During that period, women who weighed more than their median (waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio) had a heart rate 10% to 20% higher than women. There were seizures. There was a risk.
Heavy at all (measured by body mass index or BMI, weight calculated in relation to height). A larger waist-to-waist ratio, in particular, appears to be a greater cardiovascular factor for women than men. The analysis showed that compared to BMI, the waist-to-hip ratio was stronger as a predictor of heart attack in 18% of women — more than 6% in men. | https://medium.com/@tarunsharma0744/read-full-article-fd85e5769d19 | ['Tarun Sharma'] | 2020-05-15 04:21:52.137000+00:00 | ['Belly Fat', 'Disease', 'Fat Protocols', 'Risk', 'Fat'] |
Human Development and Adequate Environment | “You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success — or are they holding you back?”(Stone). Our environment affects us all in many different ways, just because we are all human and have different ways of adapting to specific situations, our reactions can be based upon how we were raised we have seen throughout our lives. But it is not arguable that we as intellectual beings adapt, but the next question is where does the border lie between adaptation and environment and the result of this adjustment. Let’s consider that our natural habitat is all deserts, will we develop the same way and outcome we are now? So, it is unquestionable that nature and its resources manipulate main roll in humans improvement.
Natural resources are those visible or non-visible things, which are produced or given by nature for living on this earth. These natural resources have no source but its existence means a lot for human beings. Human can only modify it but cannot produce natural resources which are essential in growth and inventions. Thus the consumption of these resources should be in limit in order to make sure that the existence of these resources should not be end ever in future.
Every tiny secret of science man discovered was buried inside nature components.
Natural Resources and Humans
Air, water, soil, land, sunshine, forest, animals, coal, petroleum and minerals are the natural resources with no source. Air, water, animals and tree comes in category of renewal resources as they can be regained by nature, but by using in efficient manner. On the other side, petroleum, metals and coals are found in limited quantity and come under non-renewal category. These non renewal resources cannot be reproduced by anyone either human or nature.
Some resources come from other natural resources like wood and oxygen come from tree, petroleum and metal come from land, solar energy comes from sunshine, wind energy comes from natural wind and hydro electrical energy comes from water.
Beginning from the birth till death, a human life completely depends on these natural resources and by consuming it in efficient manner we just do assurance of availability of these resources in future always.
Conservation refers to the process of protection, preservation, management, and restoration of natural environments and their inhabitants. The main objective of sustainable development is to preserve the resources of the environment for future generation use even after being used by the present generation. Hence, to achieve the objective of sustainable development, conservation of the environment is important. | https://medium.com/visions/human-development-and-adequate-environment-e5fd0bf4898a | ['Harry Hotmann'] | 2019-05-09 15:27:08.484000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Humans', 'Climate', 'Climate Change', 'Technology'] |
How do male and female roles differ in your family? | “Your father shouldn’t wash the dishes" my grandma said (almost yelled), “It’s too heavy for a girl like you, let him pick it up for you" said my uncle, all I wanted to say was — why shouldn’t we be treated as equal?
For centuries now woman grow up with the wrong belief that they aren’t capable to replace a lamp or to fix the leaking sink while they are doing the most precious and difficult job going through pregnancy and labor, but a lamp? No, that is too much.
Men also suffer, from theirs direction, it results in depressed feelings followed by a cover of ego just to supress the need to express their feelings, or, God forbidden, to cry. | https://medium.com/@inbarmor/how-do-male-and-female-roles-differ-in-your-family-964b15c06971 | ['Inbar Mor'] | 2020-12-19 23:50:00.843000+00:00 | ['Gender Equality', 'Ideas', 'Change', 'Gender', 'Equality'] |
9 Ink Artists Redefining the Medium | These nine artists primarily work in pen and ink — and aren’t just reviving an often-forgotten medium, but redefining it.
Artist Rick Shaefer at work on “River Valley.” Image courtesy the artist.
In a world of glowing screens, pen and ink seems elegant and antiquated, like writing in cursive. Each of the artists below, listed in alphabetical order rather than ranked, creates ink drawings that are diverse and wide-ranging in both their own personal style and the subjects they portray. However, they share mastery over a medium that’s equal parts demanding due to its permanency and need for control, and transparent, as their hands have nowhere to hide. Their artwork proves that the agile-yet-disciplined nature of using ink—and producing inerasable lines and washes ranging from the bold to the nuanced to the expressive — hasn’t faded away. | https://thebluereview.net/eight-ink-artists-to-wash-you-away-8028e16f6dbd | ['Lauren Amalia Redding'] | 2021-03-24 15:57:36.349000+00:00 | ['Artist', 'Life', 'Creativity', 'Culture', 'Art'] |
Rating Bar in Android Kotlin? | After Rating
RatingBar in Kotlin
Android RatingBar is a user interface widget which is used to get the rating from the customers or users. It is an extension of SeekBar and ProgressBar that shows star ratings and it allow users to give the rating by clicking on the stars.
In RatingBar, we can set the step size using android:stepSize and it will always return a rating value as floating point number such as 1.0, 2.0, 2.5 etc. By using, android:numStars attribute we can specify the number of stars in RatingBar. RatingBar is used to get ratings form users or customers about the product, movie or hotel experience etc. | https://medium.com/@sudishkumar.edugaon/rating-bar-in-android-kotlin-7411cb74a429 | [] | 2020-12-03 01:05:15.753000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Androidappdevelopment Usa', 'Android', 'AndroidDev', 'Androiddevweekly'] |
A Very Stark Christmas: Chapter 7 | A Very Stark Christmas: Chapter 7
A Stark mystery
Photo by Nadine Redlich on Unsplash
I looked around and it was clear I was spending the holiday season with a bunch of weirdos, again.
As I sat in a daze, wondering what had happened to the 12 days of romance that I had planned — or at least whatever could pass for romance on my tight budget — snippets of the lively conversations around me danced in my head.
“For the last time, we are not actual penguins….no, we won’t be providing proof.”
“Yes, I am actually dating that guy who looks like he tried to dress up as a private investigator for Halloween and came off looking like a below average accountant…no I am feeling okay in the head, but thanks for your concern.”
“I am as surprised as you are that a team of plumbers dressed as Santas aren’t the most successful family-owned plumbing business this side of the Mississippi.”
“I don’t care who you are, stop linking my diminutive appearance and the name my parents gave me — possibly as a joke, possibly because they weren’t the most creative people around — I mean who in their right mind names a baby, Ralph?”
“Danny…Danny Bonaduce! I used to pretend to play bass as a kid on a hit television show. You can’t say you haven’t heard of me!”
I couldn’t decide if this felt more like being trapped in a noisy school cafeteria, a dentist’s waiting room or a holding cell with the local sheriff. I had recent experience with all three.
I needed a drink.
Correction, I needed three drinks.
Carl, all of a sudden, took a sharp turn off the main road. Yelling out something that sounded either like an apology or the beginning of a recipe for a killer minestrone.
The crowded bus bumped along the road that was clearly long overdue for paving. I made a mental note to email the local town council. I also made a mental note to call my doctor to have those swollen veins in my lower rectum looked at as the prescribed cream wasn’t doing much.
In an obvious effort to lighten the mood and take our minds off of the bus that may need to stop for service any moment now, Helen asked if others wanted to join her in some Christmas carols. She looked my way with a look that could only be described as a combination of “when in Rome” and “you know how much I hate rear suspension issues on old country roads”.
As the off-key voices sang of sugar plums and reindeers and, oddly, a commentary on the relative busyness of sidewalks in and around cities during the holiday season, I settled in for what looked to be a turning into a wild goose chase. From previous experience, I hated chasing geese and, to a lesser degree, swans, ducks and the other members of the subfamily Anatidae.
I felt like I was trapped in one of those movies where the main character realizes, all too late, that he should have listened to his mother and gone to college and that he shouldn’t have accepted that job to save Christmas when he was vastly underqualified or vastly dehydrated or both.
How did I always find myself on these rambling, unpredictable, sort of randomly nonsensical journeys surrounded by oddballs, I wondered. Probably a New Year’s resolution in there somewhere if I chose to look.
“Stark!” Carl was calling me over the carolers, beckoning me to the front of the vehicle.
Reaching the front, after losing my balance numerous times and remembering my doctor had recommended actually entering a gym rather than solely gazing from the outside and calling it a day, I asked “Yeah?”
“This is our next stop.”
And with that, the door popped open.
I stepped out into what could only be described as a cow field mostly because it was a field populated solely with cows.
I looked back at the bus to see if Helen or Danny or any of the others would be accompanying me, but they were all too busy singing and, from the looks of it, enjoying a risqué holiday version of Truth or Dare.
Taking a deep breath before remembering the location, I spotted the barn and began wandering over, hoping that my next clue would be inside.
“Stark.”
A voice in the mist had said my name.
I scanned the field and saw no one.
“Stark. Over here.”
My eyes met a cow and, yes, it was a cow who spoke with, what I had to admit, was perfect diction and what sounded like a mid-western accent.
A talking cow?
It was clear I’d have to cut way back on expired fruitcake.
It continued.
“A word of advice. This is all going too slowly. You just don’t have time to gather all 12 items from the classic Christmas song, one by one, this isn’t a novel, it isn’t an epic journey and it’s almost January.”
Clearing my throat, I whispered “Sorry if this is a tad rude, but aren’t you a cow?”
“No, not the cow, you idiot, down here!” the exasperated voice replied.
Peering behind the large animal, I saw an older woman, with a pail and a stool.
“The name is Bessie.”
“Your name is Bessie?”
“No, you moron, who names a human female Bessie? That’s the cow’s name. I was raised to introduce livestock first. My name is Greta.”
I reached out to shake her hand and she looked at me with a look that one reserves for someone who has been living under a rock or knowingly ignoring all public health suggestions.
“I’m glad you are here, Stark. We are lucky to get a man of your considerable skills. You don’t have much time.”
It was dark, but I was fairly certain she had waggled air quotes around the words ‘considerable’ and ‘skills’ and possibly ‘man’.
“Wait a second. This is all starting to make sense,” I realized, connecting the dots. “The outfit, the props, the incessant mooing….you are a maid…who milks cows! Like in the song….but aren’t there supposed to be 8 of you?”
“Bravo, smart guy. There isn’t a moment to spare. The others are over in the barn, scared outta their wits. Danny called ahead and told us to be ready, but we have a problem. Someone has got to Kimberly. She had been acting weird for the last few days — shifty, obsessively checking her texts, eating lots of sunflower seeds. Then, this morning she arrived, without her stool — we all have to supply our own stools, company rules — and then about 15 minutes before you got here she got a call — she never gets calls — and then she turned to the rest of us, raised her arms above her head and screamed ‘THE BEST IS YET TO COME’ multiple times with a frenzied smile on her face and then she ran. And she took the milk!”
Perplexed, I stood there, shaking my head both confused about this case and many of my life decisions that had led to this moment.
Danny called from the bus, “Stark, get the maids and their pails of milk. We gotta go!”
Greta and the other 6 maids piled onto the seemingly-never-going-to-reach-capacity vehicle and, Greta pointed in the direction of where Kimberly ran off to.
It was away from the road, away from the town, away from the farm and toward the dark, mysterious hills.
Carl, shook his head, turned the key and took another sharp turn and called out
“Hold on, everyone, this is about to get rough.” | https://medium.com/out-of-ideas-out-of-time/a-very-stark-christmas-chapter-7-993f53f2841 | ['Tommy Paley'] | 2020-12-28 03:10:12.292000+00:00 | ['Stark Mystery', 'Mystery', 'Christmas', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
16 Lessons From Those Who Have Lived Before Us | The real truths in life are sometimes discovered only after we’ve taken a lot of wrong turns or spent too much time pursuing the transitory and superficial. Regrettably, these revelations usually arrive too late — their promise and caution appearing only after we’ve compromised our health or relationships.
Thankfully, we don’t have to personally endure all of life’s hardships and disappointments to gain the perspective and wisdom that comes from living a long life.
A better option? We can recognize that the experience of previous generations is an excellent source of suggestions to help us get the most from our lives — while avoiding the majority of pitfalls along the way.
Here are 16 lessons from the School of Life
Finding the answers can take us in many directions, and we often find ourselves traveling in circles — and reaching dead ends. Personally, I’m exploring another route by embracing a few polished nuggets of wisdom, shared by those who have celebrated their eightieth birthdays — and beyond.
You either control your attitude or it controls you. Regardless of what the latest relationship guru says, passion in a good marriage doesn’t have to fade. Heroes are people who find themselves in impossible circumstances, and still have the presence of mind to take action and do what they believe is best. Money is one way — but not the best way — of keeping score. With the right partner, you can do anything or nothing — and have the best time. Sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down will be the ones to help you get back up. We never truly appreciate our parents while they are alive. Maturity has more to do with experience and what’s been learned from it, than with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated. Families don’t have to be biological. People you’re not related to can take care of you, love you, and give you a real sense of belonging. Sometimes you have to forgive yourself. No matter how terrible the loss in your life, the world doesn’t stop for your grief. Our circumstances not only influence our actions, they reveal who we are. Our friends change, and over the years we may change our friends. Two people can look at the exact same thing, and see something completely different. Credentials on the wall tell little about the person who earned them. The people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which everyone has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which everyone has some. — Charles Dickens
Discover more tips and strategies for developing a positive mindset and achieving personal success in Real Life
Jill Reid is the author Real Life: We breathe, We sleep, We eat … And in-between, We Live and founder of Pathway to Personal Growth. Her books and articles explore life, happiness, self-improvement, health, productivity, relationships, and personal success strategies. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/jill-reid-16-lessons-from-the-school-of-life-e214ff7dd2a7 | ['Jill Reid'] | 2020-12-19 17:29:56.001000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Happiness', 'Life'] |
Claim Your Egg & Let the Mystery Begin! | To reward our early adopters, we’re offering everyone the chance to claim their stake in the Manifold Universe of Polkamon. For a limited time, up until one day before our IDO, you will be able to register your address and claim a mysterious Polkamon egg. To reduce gas fees, the egg will be virtually attached to your Ethereum address and not minted as a real NFT. We are doing this to make it as cheap and accessible for everyone as possible!
How it works:
Step 1. Visit polkamon.com/claim-egg and connect your Ethereum wallet to our website.
Step 2. One day before our Polkastarter IDO, 100 lucky participants will receive a mysterious Polkamon egg as an NFT. Only time will tell what’s inside, but it could be a rare little monster waiting for you to be collected.
Step 3. Another 80 participants will receive an ultra-rare ‘Moonrock Capital x Morningstar Ventures’ Silver Baby Dragon as an NFT. This particular NFT will have an additional utility, such as granting you access to our Polkastarter IDO, which is taking place soon.
Stay tuned for further community competitions that will offer additional chances to receive mysterious Polkamon NFTs!
We will be announcing these contests shortly via our official Telegram channel and Twitter. | https://blog.polychainmonsters.com/claim-your-egg-let-the-mystery-begin-dadbc305f2d3 | ['Polychain Monsters Editor'] | 2021-03-25 17:00:47.418000+00:00 | ['Polkadot', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Polkamon', 'Blockchain', 'Nft'] |
DFY Suite 2.0 Review — Best tool ever to get organic traffic | DFY Suite 2.0 Review — Introduction
You already know that getting page 1 rankings is one of the BEST ways to get free, targeted traffic, right?
Ranking your video or your website on the first page of Google will ALWAYS
get you the BEST quality traffic — EVER!
However, some people can find it to be a bit time consuming…
Which I understand COMPLETELY..
There’s pretty much 3 steps to ranking on page 1:
Keyword research Onpage Optimizaion Content Syndication/backlinks
Usually, the first 2 are the simplest part of that equation..
However, it’s the SYNDICATION and backlinking part that most people struggle with..
It’s the ONE part of the ranking process that you have to continue doing in the long-run.
It’s also what takes the MOST amount of time and effort to do.
Until TODAY!
What if you had access to a POWERFUL new system that did ALL your syndication FOR you?
Yup, high-quality syndication on a SILVER platter..
A couple of genius SEO marketers have created a system that does EXACTLY that.
They’ve SIMPLIFIED the ENTIRE social syndication process so that ANYONE can tap into the power of Page 1 rankings — EVEN if they SUCK at SEO or are
BRAND new to the subject.
And they have just opened the doors to their updated and GREATLY improved 2.0 version!
Introducing DFY Suite 2.0!
DFY Suite will allow you to Get FREE, Targeted BUYER-Traffic In 48 Hours Or Less By Leveraging The Power Of High-Quality Social Syndication With their NEW, Done-For-YOU System!
Yup, you can now leverage the POWER of Page 1 Rankings Via Social Syndication with:
– NO Software To Install
– No Software Training To Learn
– No previous SEO knowledge or experience
– No Social Account Creation Needed
– No Content Needed Besides their URL
– No Proxies or Captchas Needed
– NONE of that stuff..
All you need to do is:
Login to the web-based portal Submit your Keywords and URL you want traffic for Hit “Submit”
Yup, That’s IT!
From There their System Will Get To Work And Build You HUNDREDS of High-Quality Syndication Links To Your Content to skyrocket it to page 1 of Google!
PLUS, if you’re 100% NEW to SEO, they’re also including a quick CRASH course on Keyword Research AND Content optimization that should take you no more than 20–30 minutes to go through.
With DFY Suite PLUS the Keyword Research and Content Optimization crash course, you’ll be able to start getting traffic from Google without EVER having to spend HOURS upon HOURS doing the HEAVY-LIFTING yourself.
“But wait, did you say they’ve just opened 2.0?”
Yup, and with their 2.0 updates they have made their platform BETTER, FASTER and MORE powerful to Deliver you even MORE rankings, Traffic & sales.
In 2.0 they have:
– doubled their sites, doubled their, double their ranking power. Now instead of being able to get up to 100 syndication links to your content, you can get up to 200! And the domains they’ve added are ALL packing A LOT more authority
– doubled their platforms, doubled their variation, double the SPEED of rankings! Not only have their doubled their network, but they’ve also added TWO additional syndication TYPES to get you even MORE variation. In 2.0 you now ALSO get Blogging and web 2.0 syndication as well.
– automatic, done-for-you Video Embeds for even FASTER video rankings. This one might be the BEST one yet! They’re now going to do ALL of your video syndication AND video embedding as well! This ALONE can deliver you a TON of page 1 rankings!
– and much much more (they have a whole section and video covering what’s new in 2.0)
This is the GO-TO platform for DFY, page 1 rankings!
With DFY Suite You’ll be able to:
– rank your videos on page 1
– rank your niche sites on page 1
– rank your e-commerce sites on page 1
– rank your Amazon listings
– rank your CLIENT’s sites
– rank ANY URL you’d like to get traffic for..
It’s really the PERFECT solution for us “lazy” seo marketers
And their 2.0 updates have REALLY taken things to the NEXT level!
GET ACCESS NOW
Click here to Choose A Plan That Works For You | https://medium.com/@waters-edge-review/dfy-suite-2-0-review-best-tool-ever-to-get-organic-traffic-614c842fb5be | ['Waters Edge Review'] | 2021-03-09 15:37:16.367000+00:00 | ['Traffic', 'Internet', 'Computers', 'Suite', 'Organic'] |
Adventure awaits | What a dreadful scenario, right? Just imagine how different things could go if you would only be lucky enough to choose the right restaurant on your first try. Or if you could make your own luck by choosing a restaurant on a travel app which is tracking the world of tourism in real time with up to date high quality reviews, where you could instantly gather a taste of an experience you are about to have. Well, we are here to give you exactly that — with the launch of our travel review platform Futourist, you will always instantly be provided with verified recommendations for nearby places to eat or things to do, all equipped with trustworthy recent photos and videos of costumers’ experiences to ensure you the quickest and the most accurate decision process possible. For you to easily imagine how Futourist works, let’s go over the before mentioned story once more, but this time with the Futourist app set and ready on your phone.
After Futourist: The world is your oyster
So, as we were saying, you are in a foreign city, feeling extremely hungry and having no clue whatsoever as to which restaurant is the best for your food and budget preferences. As you open up the Futourist app, you suddenly breathe a sigh of relief as you see a big “food” category button. You eagerly click on it. A number of incredible looking places in your near distance pop up. As you watch the latest video reviews from a budget friendly 5-star rated burger joint just around the corner, your mouth starts to water. You take this as the final sign that this is the right place to visit. Just a few minutes later, you are already posting a video review on Futourist of you taking a bite into your burger. Your satisfied grin speaks for itself. As if your day couldn’t get any better, just a little later, you receive a reward for your posted review. The world is yours to conquer.
As you watch the latest video reviews from a budget friendly 5-star rated burger joint just around the corner, your mouth starts to water.
Whether feeling like mixing things up in your home town or exploring a completely unknown city for the first time, Futourist is here to help you find the perfect place for your wants and needs at any given moment. Looking for the closest burger joint? The best bar in the area? A fun and unique way to spend your afternoon? With Futourist, all your desired experiences are always just one click away. Let the good times roll!
Join us on our Social Channels:
Webpage
Telegram group
Bitcointalk
Reddit
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Medium
Youtube
Linkedin | https://medium.com/futourist/adventure-awaits-1d4755ebb721 | ['Anja Vidrih'] | 2018-08-09 10:48:47.494000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Experience', 'Blockchain', 'Review', 'Adventure'] |
Why Isn’t Internet Fame More Valuable? | Why Isn’t Internet Fame More Valuable?
Thoughts on Value in News Media
photo Oleg Magni from pexels.com
The Covid crisis seems to be destroying what’s left of mainstream news media. So far Vice, Vox, Bustle, the Outline, Wired, Quartz, and many more outlets have had layoffs or are contemplating deep cuts. Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising. Fields that have free competition and networks effects tend to end up with a few winners and many losers. So far, it looks like the New York Times is destined to become the winner of news, much like Facebook is the winner in social media.
This leaves journalists who can’t score big media jobs with dim prospects. I would worry about these reporters except for one thing, many of them are internet famous. Surely they can trade in some of that cultural cachet for cold hard cash.
Well maybe not.
Even before the media apocalypse of 2019 and 2020, most journalists were not exactly raking in big bucks. Shared spreadsheets of media worker salaries showed that many barely cleared 50K. Still, some of these workers have thousands of Twitter followers. Their writing has profound effects on our culture, doing everything from subtly steering public opinion to getting CEOs fired. So why exactly can’t this cultural influence be exchanged for money? After all, instagram influencers with less reach manage to earn thousands of dollars by selling attention. Why can’t journalists do the same?
Power Law and Information Networks
When thinking about the internet, I find it helps to look at this chart.
distribution of success in various media
Data shows that in every form of networked media, there will be a few giant winners (the top of the power law curve), a large swath of small players (the tail), and not much in between. The death of mid-range media publications is totally expected in this framework. For example, here’s a plot of newspaper circulation before the most recent downturn.
I expect a lot of those papers with 100,000 to 300,000 readers have already died.
But it’s not all bad news for news writers. The same Pareto distribution that drives 80% of the gains to 20% of outlets means that most value is created by a minority of writers. Those top writers could theoretically make way more than the measly 50–100k they command in traditional newsrooms.
The power law curve has other implications too. As Chris Anderson famously pointed out, its long tail leaves plenty of room for those who are willing to dampen their ambitions. There is tons of space for small writers who can either monetize indirectly, or who are content not to make writing a full-time job. Either way, business model development should help those at both ends of the curve. Let’s look at some monetization options.
Substack
The 20% of internet writers who account for 80% of the value at their publications may be a perfect fit for Substack. The platform provides free publishing, taking care of all the technical stuff that a newspaper would typically handle. It also allows writers to charge recurring fees for their work. Of course to really make it, a writer would need to draw readers themselves. This is where having a large online presence can be useful. Already Matt Taibbi (415k Twitter followers) has quit his gig at Rolling Stone to go full time on Substack. Now readers of financial and political news can pay him directly instead of his former bosses. At a smaller level, Eve Peyser (80K followers) has been able to write about whatever she’s interested in and get paid by loyal Substack supporters. With this kind of personal connection to an audience, a writer can build a lasting source of value and more importantly, harvest the majority of that value.
Patreon and Onlyfans
Subscription revenue isn’t the only business model for writing on the internet. Services like Patreon allow for all kinds of content and all kinds of monetization. Here’s a list of the top writers on Patreon in 2019. It spans authors selling chunks of novels, to advice columnists, to writers who have their own websites with interactive media.
More recently, Onlyfans has entered the fray as a new service for getting paid on the internet. The platform currently has a reputation for being used primarily by sex workers, but in truth, it supports any kind of content. Many types of artists have already started to share personalized content about their lives on the platform. Writers with an extrovert streak will likely do the same soon. Just as Snapchat was once considered an app for sexting, Onlyfans is now considered a platform for selling nude photos. I think that is likely to change and that attractive authors will soon leverage the site for additional income. Just as the real money in book writing is public speaking, the real money in news writing may be in personalized services. Podcasts and pictures, audio and video, both are better ways of getting paid than text on the internet.
Old-School Patronage
Rich people have a long history of supporting the arts through patronage. Today we have Jeff Bezos subsidizing the salaries of Washington Post reporters just as the Medicis of Florence once supported Rubens and other great painters. Besides Bezos, other nouveau riche like Marc Benioff, Chris Hughes, and Bill Gates have all tried to burnish their legacies by supporting aging news publications. I think it’s likely the internet will democratize this kind of philanthropy.
Services like Patreon are a good start, but they haven’t really managed to capture the full relationship between artist and patron. After all, painters who worked for the Medicis were expected to make dinner appearances. Today’s artists have no such vehicle for repaying their supporters directly. I can imagine a future service where the micro-rich can one day support the micro famous. Perhaps some day I’ll pay a famous TikToker a few grand to put me in one of their videos. I mean, I can already pay to get Lance Bass to record my voicemail for me. Why can’t I pay my favorite YouTube star to give me a shout out to show all my friends? For writers, special work could take the form of custom research in areas that patrons consider underserved. With more ways to interact with an audience in the passion economy, there will be more ways to generate real revenue.
Final Thoughts
As Yuval Harari would say, both fame and money are social fictions that only exist in the people’s minds. So why can’t internet famous media writers get paid? Why can’t they exchange one social fiction for another? I think it’s clear that this disconnect is real and begging to be solved. The recent venture capitalist vs journalist twitter war is an example of this Girardian split. VCs have billions of dollars but no recognition outside of the silicon valley bubble. Journalists and media influencers have fame but no real wealth. Both are uncomfortable with their enormous privilege and both could really benefit each other. Just as the usurers and financiers of old Florence could cleanse their conscience with renaissance art, so too can venture capital buy respectability with well-placed patronage. It’ll just take some time and creativity to make the market. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-isnt-internet-fame-more-valuable-d7a1d0d85ea4 | ['Michael Tauberg'] | 2020-09-23 18:15:32.694000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Media', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Venture Capital'] |
Who is Victoria Fraser? | INTRODUCTION
About Me — Victoria Fraser
Just another writer with a cute snake.
Image by Samee Anderson
Why hello there!
Look at you stumbling across my medium profile. Thanks for popping by! My name is Victoria, I’m a freelance writer from Canada. Yes, of course, I have a website, but if you don’t want to click that, then you can read my introduction here.
I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen in my hands. Poetry has always been one of my favourite genres, but I also love illustrating comics and children’s writing. During my teenage years, I dabbled in slam poetry and performed at festivals across in Canada on various slam teams. Here’s one of many times I’ve performed if you’re curious, but please remember I was 16 and those are very old videos now!
After graduating from high school, I went to university and got a double major in Creative Writing and Psychology. Truthfully, I didn’t think I could ever be a writer. All my life I was told writing was too competitive. Don’t pursue it. It was just a hobby that I could never land a career in. Despite that, I sent my poems out and have been published in a handful of small literary magazines which validated my dreams. Still, I enjoyed it solely as an art form.
Then, like many people, I found myself unemployed during Covid. That was due to personal reasons and not the virus, but still. I had no idea what to do next. Luckily, my roommate was an assistant to a copywriter and told me to sign up for Upwork. A few months ago, I began writing online and now here I am. While I am still doing odd jobs to supplement my income, I’m actually making money as a writer online.
No. I’m not making that much… but maybe someday! (Image by Author)
Sure, not everything I write is glamorous, but I’m getting paid to do it and that is what matters. No matter what, I love writing. In fact, I love bringing a voice and life to dull topics! That has made me a perfect fit as a freelance writer. In everything I do, I try to inject humour and levity, so while writing about marketing or outdoor products might seem boring to some, I find it fascinating and I love the challenge.
Now, I have done copywriting and content writing for clients across the globe. Upwork has been great to me and I’m starting to build a steady clientele. My Upwork profile took some time to build, but now I have people reaching out to me for writing! I’ve worked on all kinds of digital media, such as websites, blogs, social media and Kickstarters.
Back to Medium and what I’m doing here? Well, I use it as a personal blog and for portfolio samples. I love the writing community and the interface. If you want to know what I write, well stick around! My favourite topics include Satire, Humour, Freelancing, Podcasting, Psychology, Music and Gaming, just to name a few!
Oh, and I forgot to mention, I have a darling pet snake named Lexicon.
Image by Author
That’s me! Hopefully, you’ll enjoy my writing and get a few laughs or some helpful advice. I’ll be sure to check out your profile if you follow me! Mostly because I’m nosey… and maybe you’re a fun writer too.
Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/about-me-stories/who-is-victoria-fraser-dea3ccbcf0f1 | ['Victoria A. Fraser'] | 2020-12-21 21:26:06.928000+00:00 | ['Snakes', 'Freelancing', 'Introduction', 'Writer', 'About Me'] |
Sevencoin Exchange 進展報告 12/17–12/23 | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/7sevencoin/sevencoin-exchange-%E9%80%B2%E5%B1%95%E5%A0%B1%E5%91%8A-12-17-12-23-3100f80645a7 | [] | 2018-12-24 09:12:09.347000+00:00 | ['進展報告', 'Sevencoin', 'Blockchain', '工作誌'] |
The Importance of Model Selection in Machine Learning | The Importance of Model Selection in Machine Learning
Origin
Three years ago, I came across a headline that stopped me in my tracks.
It read: “Millionaire to Millennials: Stop Buying Avocado Toast if you Want to Buy a Home.”
At first, I felt ashamed, and I wasn’t alone. My friends and I took turns in the group chat confessing the numerous times we had spent money on avocado toast. Yes, we had perfectly good avocados at home, but was brunch really getting in the way of owning a home?
We took a step back. We did the math. We researched how different millennial circumstances were from that of our predecessors (ie. the economy, the cost of education, the rising real estate costs) and moved on with our lives.
Kind of. In the back of my mind, I always thought: one day when I have the time and tools, I’m going to get to the bottom of this atrocious claim, with cold hard data.
The craziness of 2020 has reshaped my view of what is shocking and unprecedented in the news, but I thought back to this headline while brainstorming my second solo project at Metis Data Science Bootcamp.
I enrolled in Metis after a few years of working in analytics. What’s always fulfilled me — my career mission as a whole — is using data to unlock potential within people, products, and processes. Any day in which I’m able to use data to empower someone/something to be the best that they can be is a good day in my book.
When the pandemic hit in March and the world came to an abrupt standstill, I fully realized (along with many others) just how short life is. I knew that there was no time to waste to be the best that I could be — to gain a deeper mastery of data science and equip myself with more technical skills to supercharge my mission.
When the supervised machine learning unit rolled around in the bootcamp, I knew that it would be the perfect time for me to build a binary classification model to delineate millennial homeowners from their renter peers and, in the process, understand what it takes to complete this rite of passage for my generation.
Selecting a model for your machine learning project is almost as important as selecting a home. (Photo by: Jessica Bryant | Pexels)
Data
I used the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Survey (’97) as my data source. The survey followed a group of early U.S. millennials (born 1980–1984) for 20 years, recording their responses on 80,000 variables. The majority of my data collection and cleaning process focused on understanding the survey methods and variable definitions. In the end, I extracted 26 variables for my study, taking a snapshot of the subjects at age 30 — a key milestone of adulthood.
Baseline Model
Model selection is a key step in every data science project and requires perhaps the most conceptual foundational knowledge.
We’d reviewed a number of supervised machine learning models in class like Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbors, Naive Bayes, Random Forest, and Gradient Boost. The first model I eliminated off the bat was Naive Bayes: the model’s underlying assumption is that all features are independent of each other, which would be irresponsible to assume given that I was working with demographic data (for instance, factors like gender, race, and age are rarely independent of salary).
That left me with four remaining models.
I’m an advocate for the iterative process school of product design, so my goal for every project is to establish a minimal viable product (MVP) as quickly as possible, then loop back and perfect the subsequent iterations from there.
In this case, my MVP would be a baseline model, which made Random Forest the perfect choice. Tree-based models are very functional right out of the box — no need to fill in missing values or even decode the longitudinal study variables into something a layperson can understand, so I was able to build off my messy, raw dataset. Random Forest, unlike its debatably more powerful tree based sibling Gradient Boost, also has a built-in parameter for balancing class weights in scikit-learn. I took full advantage of this parameter, as the class of millennials who owned permanent homes (houses and apartments) in my data were outnumbered 2:1 by their renter counterparts.
For every millennial home owner, there’s more than 2 millennial renters.
My Random Forest model produced great scores: recall of 0.73 and precision of 0.55, meaning that my model was able to capture 73% of all millennial homeowners in my data, and out of the predicted homeowners, 55% were actual homeowners. (If you’re newer to classification, you’re probably thinking, “what about accuracy??” Here’s a great article by Will Koehrsen that explains why recall and precision are more effective metrics.) Amazed at Random Forest’s predictive power, I could’ve stopped there, with a week to spare before my deadline, but my goal was interpretability.
Final Model
In data science, it can be easy to focus solely on a model’s output metrics as the bar for success, so it’s important to zoom out and think back to the primary question you’re trying to answer. Mine was to interpret the factors that make up a millennial homeowner, so if I couldn’t pinpoint the impact each feature had on my classification output, no matter how predictively powerful my model was, my project would be missing the point. Random Forest, despite its off the bat predictive power, was a model that did not support interpretation. It was essentially a black box.
I wanted the best of both worlds — predictive power and interpretability, so I set out to make a Logistic Regression model (the most interpretable of all classification models) that could be as powerful as Random Forest.
Logistic Regression is simple and elegant but much more sensitive to noise in data compared to tree based models. What you get is really only as good as what you put in — which meant a much higher bar for input data.
I spent days cleaning my data thoroughly: filling in null values and feature engineering. I also spent time on parameter tuning — applying LASSO regularization (increased strength of C= 0.4) and balancing class weights (which worked better than oversampling using RandomSampler()). When applied to the test holdout set, my final Logistic Regression model generated a recall of 0.73 and a precision of 0.53 — fully matching the scores originally generated by my baseline Random Forest model.
I was able to match the predictive power of my Random Forest baseline with the interpretability of my final Logistic Regression model. I had achieved the best of both worlds!
Furthermore, when looking at my recall vs. precision tradeoff, I didn’t see a need to adjust the precision-recall threshold, because I wanted to emphasize recall in my model. Aside from interpretation, I knew that the business use of my model would most likely be applicable towards outreach/marketing purposes: anyone who wants to reach the ever-elusive home-owning millennial. Casting a wide net is key for outreach/marketing, so the opportunity cost of my model leaving out a millennial who is a homeowner (false negative) is greater than reaching a millennial who is not currently a homeowner (false positive).
Feature Interpretation
Top 5 features impacting millennial homeownership in my final model.
While current financial assets may be one factor in home ownership, it is hardly the key factor. More important were past relocations and marriage, with attainment of a Bachelor’s Degree and race (subjects who identify as Black Americans) rounding out the rest of the Top 5.
For me, the biggest surprise from my model was its most impactful feature: number of relocations between age 12 to 30. Were these relocations indicative of an inherited nomadic lifestyle which made subjects less likely to purchase permanent homes? Or were they symptoms of systemic poverty leading to involuntary displacement (like the foster care system)? That’s what I want to investigate most in my next steps.
For the final part of my project, I created a Tableau dashboard to visualize the relocation feature, as well as an in-depth view of each subject in my data, which allows for further exploration.
Interactive visuals for further interpretation and exploration.
I came into this project with 1 simple question: “What makes a millennial homeowner” and wrapped up with even more questions and motivations for next steps. While the longitudinal study I pulled data from conducted its survey in a manner representative of the United States in 1997, 23 years later, we know that there needs to be more nuance in representation (ie. expanding the study’s 4 categories for race to be more inclusive), especially, as we saw above, when race is one of the top factors in homeownership. I would also be interested to see where the subjects are at age 35, once more recent data from the study is released.
The possibilities never end once you start asking questions, and one thought begets a dozen more, but that’s the greatest beauty of data science. There’s always the next iteration and the next question to be answered!
(Speaking of questions, for anyone interested in the nitty gritty, check out my GitHub repo. If you’d like to chat more about this project or anything else data related, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.) | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-importance-of-model-selection-in-machine-learning-58d58d6b2804 | ['Julia Qiao'] | 2021-03-07 18:01:26.648000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Millennials', 'Data Science'] |
A Conversation Between Two Viruses: SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 — Based on a True Story | Around October 2019, two viruses, who only speak Chinese, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, had a friendly conversation in the province of Wuhan, China.
SARS-CoV-2 (from now on called COVID) said to SARS-CoV (from now on called SARS): “I am really bored, SARS. I have been living inside bats, pangolins, and other animals for centuries and there is nothing new to see. I have the desire to go around the world, see other people, other races, get to know them, and maybe even give them some useful advice”.
SARS said: “I have done the same thing about 10 years ago, COVID, and it was a disaster. As soon as I migrated to a few countries, they immediately took draconian isolation measures and in a few months, I couldn’t move anywhere and I was left to die. Everybody forgot about me within two years; they never talk about me anymore. The same thing happened to some of our cousins: Ebola, MERS, etc. So, be careful. But why are you confident that you can succeed where we all failed?”
COVID: “I know I only have 29,000 nucleotides in my RNA sequence and I can make a handful of proteins, but I am a little bit more flexible than you. If I use some special tricks, I may actually go around without being noticed.”
SARS: “Can you tell me your plan?”
COVID: “Yes. I will first hide in the body of one of these small animals, like pangolins, and I will travel with them to the central fresh seafood market in Wuhan. I am sure somebody will buy the pangolin and eat it. At that time, I will jump into the customer’s lungs by grabbing onto the ACE2 enzyme with my spike protein, get in the cells, and start proliferating.”
SARS: “It sounds like a good plan, COVID, but aren’t you afraid that the humans will catch you very early?”
COVID: “I am not worried because I will sit quietly for 1–2 weeks without giving any symptoms to my victims. During this period, I will produce billions and billions of copies of myself and then I will jump into other people, and here we go.”
SARS: “And how are you going to go to other countries?”
COVID: “It is very easy, SARS: by trains, planes, and automobiles. Have you seen that movie? I will find travelers and go along with them. I know that many Chinese are now traveling all over the world for vacation, business, etc. Some of them even fly first class and enjoy good food, unlimited drinks, etc. While they enjoy the ride, I will be proliferating, proliferating, proliferating, and infecting, infecting, infecting. I am sure none will wear masks and will be seating next to each other. When these people develop symptoms I will be sitting in thousands of people’s lungs and continue my trip.”
SARS: “And how many countries are you thinking of visiting COVID?”
COVID: “I plan to visit every corner of the world. As I said, I am highly curious and I want to see everything from the Eiffel Tower to Big Ben to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the ancient monuments of Greece. Of course, I will not leave behind our best friend, the United States, and the city that never sleeps, New York. While in these places, I will arrange to meet prime ministers, members of the Congress and parliaments, famous actors, athletes, you name it. I will even get into the White House and have a little tour.
SARS: “But, COVID, some of these countries are very cold, like Canada; are you thinking of visiting them too?”
COVID: “As I said, SARS, I will visit everywhere, no matter what the climate is; every single corner of the world. Tell me a country, a city, a neighborhood and I will be there.
SARS: “And how much time do you need to do that?”
COVID: “Just a couple of months.”
SARS: “HaHaHa; I can’t believe it. It is a mission impossible (have you seen this movie?). How will you be able to visit every country, every corner, infect millions of people and, in the process, cause thousands of deaths in such a short time?”
COVID: “SARS, believe me. I have the weapons, as I told you: 29,000 nucleotides and 20 proteins. Besides, my intention will be not only to cause death. I will do other things which are probably even worse.”
SARS: “Like what?”
COVID: “I will destroy their economies from their foundations and leave millions without work. Do you know how much is a million dollars? It is a lot of money. Do you know how much is a billion dollars? It is a lot more money. And do you know what is a trillion? It is the whole US budget for a year. My objective is to make such damage that the economic fallout will be in the many trillions of dollars. It will take them years and years to recover. Trust me! I need to give these people a lesson.”
SARS: “I wonder, COVID, why do you want to give these people a lesson?
COVID: “Listen, SARS; I have been around for a while and you have been around for a while and we have both seen what happened. Human beings are a strange species. While they say that they care about other humans and they want to help with this and that, in actual terms, and this is getting worse, they have proven to be greedy and selfish. They start unnecessary wars, make nukes that can destroy the world 10 times over, they invade other countries, they make the poor become poorer and the rich become richer, they play with the stock market and they steal other people’s money. In other words, politicians have become corrupt and morality and empathy have declined. While God blessed and empowered them to make this world better, to protect the animals, the environment, etc. in actual fact they are destroying everything left and right. Look at the poor environment. How many more natural resources they will burn and how many more billions of animals they will eat or force go extinct? If we leave these people unchecked, in a few years, there will be no planet. In terms of lifestyle, they pack themselves in 100-storey buildings without realizing that epidemics like this one will proliferate like fire before they are able to react. Are they losing their common sense?”
SARS: “Why don’t you go on television and tell all these facts to the politicians and other citizens COVID? Maybe they will listen and correct themselves before you inflict your damage.”
COVID: “Unfortunately, SARS, I am not a good actor and I do not speak English. And most of those who need to listen they don’t understand Chinese. So, my only option to bring them back to their senses is to shake them with the pandemic, so that they will, fortunately, wake up. I feel sorry for doing it; I am not a bad guy as you know, but I believe this thing has gone too far. Humans have become selfish and arrogant and they believe they can do anything and can get away without consequences. I have no question that after I complete this trip around the world they will start thinking of what has gone wrong and maybe they will try to fix things.”
SARS: “And what if they don’t?”
COVID: “I will tell you what. I will retreat for a few months and monitor how they respond. If they don’t do anything or become more arrogant, I will go back and give them another shake. Just sit back and watch me, SARS. I will do a lot more than you did, even if our genomes are about the same size. Size does not matter here!”
Note: All characters mentioned in this story are hypothetical and any resemblance to real people or viruses is purely coincidental. The author offers his condolences for lives lost during this pandemic. His essay will, fortunately, contribute to spark a debate as to what could be done to avoid the pandemic, and, most importantly, what can be done to avoid future pandemics. | https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/a-conversation-between-two-viruses-sars-cov-and-sars-cov-2-based-on-a-true-story-295e7ebf5d54 | ['Shin Jie Yong'] | 2020-10-21 08:41:52.155000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Covid 19', 'Ideas', 'Humor', 'Coronavirus'] |
Help your construction site managers focus on field activities, rather than processing and entering data. | I’ve spent the last 12 years in construction, benchmarking field productivity and talking to the field guys. All this time, the amount of data collected from construction sites has been increasing year by year. Solving the problem of having the necessary data for decision making, the project offices increasingly forced field managers to enter structured data into various systems.
As a result, superintendents and foremen spend up to 30% of their time processing, reporting, and entering data.
From time to time, we had to “fight” with the construction site managers, because they refused to provide the necessary data. They could be understood, the volume of tasks, especially at the end of the project, just did not allow them to do it. They simply sent a message to Slack or phoned the project manager and passed the data they needed. All attempts to close messengers for transmitting data often ended up not successfully, they simply did not have time to do it differently.
The good news is that new opportunities have opened up in technologies. I’m talking about Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning(ML).
Natural Language Processing
Just leave your construction managers alone, let them report and request information directly in the messenger, email or by phone, and, using PLM and ML, Buildout.ai will recognize the context and named entities in the body of these messages and create documents directly in the project management system (Procore or Plangrid) without manual entry.
A significant part of documents: RFIs, daily reports, punch lists, etc. can be created directly from the regular text or even voice messages.
Just give 30% of the time back to your field managers. | https://medium.com/@max_77157/help-your-construction-site-managers-focus-on-field-activities-rather-than-processing-and-8b11a000c7d | ['Max Karionov'] | 2020-02-20 07:20:06.132000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Messenger Bots', 'Slack', 'Construction', 'Project Management'] |
Selling the experience | While there are many reasons why we buy something. Buying that product to experience its benefits is one of them.
And that is where we should focus when it comes to selling. Focusing on selling the experience the customer wants through that product.
For example, if it’s a bed, selling the experience of great sleep because of the soft mattress, or If it’s a TV, try selling the experience of enjoyment.
The reason why this method works is that, in the end, people are interested in the benefits. They want to know what will happen if they buy this or that.
They have come to buy that product keeping the end-result in the mind.
And that’s where our focus should be.
Selling the experience of the product itself than the product can attract a customer more easily. It can help you and your product stand out of the line.
Here are some of the brands/ companies that sell experience more than anyone else
Burger King — They sell the experience of being a king
KFC — They sell the experience of satisfaction through their chicken. Their tagline says so “Finger Lickin’ Good”
McDonald’s — They sell the experience of sharing the food and being in love with it
Apple -They sell the experience of high self-esteem. If you have I-phone, you are sure to get respect in the society
And there are many such who sell the experience. Well, it might not look that they selling it. Isn’t that amazing. You are buying without even knowing the way they are selling.
It’s not that the other methods are bad, but some methods more effective than others. Like this one
Try giving it a thought !! | https://medium.com/@sumeetgarad4/selling-the-experience-5613c0e62512 | ['Sumeet Garad'] | 2020-12-24 13:29:58.778000+00:00 | ['Blogs And Blogging', 'Product Development', 'Blogging', 'Hubspot Marketing Blog', 'Marketing'] |
Even hotter after summer APIOps meetups in Tampere | Some of us have been enjoying summer at the cottage, barbecuing and jumping to lake after sauna. The rest of us have been busy building program for the second half of this year. In Tampere we have two meetups already booked and RSVP is open!
This is the moment our newly appointed Community Manager during summer, Nazia Hasan (follow in Twitter: @NazarahTheCat) will lead us towards interesting challenges and activities.
August Meet-up: IoT & Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence
We will start the season with IoT, Chatbots and AI related talks on Tuesday, August 8, 2017.
In the meetup, Reetu Kainulainen from ultimate.ai will talk about why chatbots are hard or are they only assumed to be. Come and tell us your opinions or step upon the stage, we have empty slots for you. After that we’ll take a look into API management dashboards that might emerge in the future. The new IoT dashboard will be presented by UX lead Nazia Hasan from APInf Oy.
As always, if you are not able to come to Tampere, you can follow the meetup presentations from APIOps Youtube. The link to live youtube broadcast and other details can be found from meetup.com. Don’t forget to watch previous presentations from APIOps Youtube Channel.
There is a great opportunity of winning one of the two MindTrek 2017 conference tickets if you participate in the August Session. More details about the competition will be announced later.
*** Check out the details — RSVP now! ***
September Meet-up: API Management & Gateway evening
September meetup is about API management. It will take place on Tuesday, September 5, 2017.
We will have APItalist talk from Marjukka Niinioja (Digia) about the state of API management. Then we’ll have a session from Mashape about Kong gateway by Aapo Talvensaari, who is one of the developers of Kong. Afterwards, we’ll hear the latest advancements of 100% open source APInf — API management platform developed by APInf Oy. The last speaker is Mika Honkanen from Population Register Centre, who will talk about the National approach to API management (Suomi SDK, development portal).
At the end of the Meet-up we will announce the winners of the MindTrek 2017 Conference contest hosted by APIOps Network
*** Be quick! RSVP now!*** | https://medium.com/apiops/even-hotter-after-summer-apiops-meetups-in-tampere-a65766112227 | ['Jarkko Moilanen'] | 2017-07-20 06:49:26.960000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Chatbots', 'API', 'IoT', 'Apiops'] |
EgyptAir becomes Ireland’s first scheduled carrier with Dublin flights | The new Dublin-Cairo service will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays with an A320neo aircraft that is due to join the EgyptAir fleet in February
By Our Correspondent
January 15, 2020: EgyptAir plans to launch direct Dublin — Cairo service from June 5. The new route will operate four times per week and will be Ireland’s first scheduled air service to Egypt.
The new Dublin-Cairo service will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays with an A320neo aircraft that is due to join the EgyptAir fleet in February.
“We’re very pleased to welcome EgyptAir to Ireland and to add Cairo to Dublin Airport’s extensive route network,” said Dublin Airport MD Vincent Harrison. “Cairo is one of the world’s great cities and we will be working closely with EgyptAir to promote this new route, which will be welcomed by both business and leisure travellers.”
EgyptAir chairman and CEO Captain Ahmed Adel said he was delighted that EgyptAir would have four weekly flights linking the capital cities of Egypt and Ireland from later this year.
The Egyptian Ambassador in Dublin, Khaled Sarwat said the new route would further enhance and deepen the bilateral relations between Egypt and Ireland and boost the mutual investment, trade, and tourism between our two friendly nations.
With a metropolitan area population of 20 million, Cairo is the largest city in the Arab world. The market for air travel between Dublin and Cairo is increasing, with an estimated 14,000 passengers travelling between the two cities last year. EgyptAir also has an extensive route network from its hub in Cairo to onward destinations in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
EgyptAir carried more than nine million passengers in 2019 on a fleet of 68 aircraft. It operates more than 70 routes, including services to 18 African destinations, 17 in the Middle East, seven in Asia-Pacific and three in North America.
Dublin Airport has flights to more than 190 destinations in 42 countries operated by 50 airlines | https://medium.com/@info-85820/egyptair-becomes-irelands-first-scheduled-carrier-with-dublin-flights-406df9430cf | ['Logistics Update Africa', 'Lua'] | 2020-01-15 07:24:55.093000+00:00 | ['Aviation', 'Travel', 'Logistics'] |
Cheating Nash’s Game Theory, with Quantum Mechanics | Cheating Nash’s Game Theory, with Quantum Mechanics
Economics and physics
‘Minimal’ examples, toys, and games are my favourite way to understand a complex topic or a problem. For example, when I studied for my quantum mechanics exams, I used to boil down abstract systems to their most reduced parts. Playing with the math in these simple cases helped me understand how quantum mechanics differs from simple classical mechanics in counter-intuitive ways.
Economists do this as well. The prisoners’ dilemma is a simple thought experiment to show that acting rationally doesn’t always lead to the best outcome for society. However, if the prisoners’ are allowed to make decisions on quantum mechanical objects instead (even though they still can’t communicate with each other), we can turn the conclusion of this game on its head, putting us back in the realm of Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
John Von Neumann is attributed as the founder of modern game theory. LANL, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
Game theory is the systematic study of finding the best strategies to maximise your benefit when playing a game. In classical game theory, agents can execute the moves they wish to choose, as long as they are in line with the game's rules. Over repeated games, they might choose a probabilistic mix of strategies to maximise their outcome. These are called mixed strategies. Quantum game theory is the study of what happens when instead, players try to manipulate quantum systems. Quantum systems behave probabilistically, like mixed strategies, and so agents don’t have complete control over the choices they make.
However, quantum systems have the added benefit that each players’ electrons can be entangled. Quantum entanglement is when we cannot mathematically describe the state of one electron independently of another electron.
Entanglement is a simple change of assumption which leads to amazing, counter-intuitive results which depart from traditional game theory. In the prisoners’ dilemma, there is no classical strategy (including mixed strategies). Act rationally puts the players in a better place than cooperating—however, the addition of entanglement changes this conclusion.
Instead of assuming that the players have to decide their moves, I will assume that they can manipulate electrons with some simple magnetic mechanism to play their games. This post will explore how traditional game dynamics get shaken up and how one of the well-known results of the Prisoner’s dilemma is changed.
In the final year of my undergraduate studies, I gave this talk at Universiti Malaya, and I wanted to share a simplified version on Medium. | https://medium.com/@afiqhatta.ah/cheating-nashs-game-theory-with-quantum-mechanics-fc7862352f6d | ['Afiq Hatta'] | 2021-09-13 12:24:08.331000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Physics', 'Game Theory', 'Quantum Computing', 'Quantum Mechanics'] |
Oakland: My Neighborhood 50 Years On | Oakland: My Neighborhood 50 Years On
Vignettes of Growing up in Oakland
It has been 50 years since I moved out of Oakland with my parents and sisters. Needless to say, a lot has changed in this 5 decades. I am pleased to see a lot also has not. The streets are essentially still the same although the restaurants, stores, bars, offices and pharmacies along them have been relegated to the B&W photographs which populate archives and surface in social groups on the Internet. It is there these scenes will live forever even though they have long passed out of this physical reality.
The Schenley Supply on Centre Avenue I used to frequent for hobby parts is now an Asian food store. The old storefront colors are now hidden beneath the hues and patterns of its current incarnation. Rusty black iron catenary poles absent their wires still give testimony to the former presence tracks for the PCC cars and their wooden predecessors. Buried beneath a blanket of asphalt remains the vestiges of the street railways, Hidden behind facades are the buildings I once knew.
The steady march of progress has also obliterated much of what were once the comforts of neighborhood. In other parts of Oakland and the surrounding area, entire neighborhoods have succumbed to the wrecking ball to make way for University of Pittsburgh purposes. The Syria Mosque, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, Forbes Field, Pitt Stadium, Terrace Village, and an additional half of the Hill District were razed for various replacements. The individually constructed unique store fronts with apartments and offices above have given way to development projects which impress upon the street its homogeneous architecture.
Some of the development that was completed during my one decade in Oakland have already been replaced once again. The Civic Arena — built and gone in that 60 year period. Three Rivers Stadium fared even worse with its short life as the replacement for Forbes Field. The cycles of build and replace have grown shorter.
It is unfortunate that there is only a fixed amount of land in a city on which to build. Some of the best and loved buildings and art are lost in the renewals. Then it is only we, who outlive the neighborhood or dare to return, who even notice. | https://medium.com/vignettes-of-growing-up-in-oakland/oakland-my-neighborhood-50-years-on-afb035aaef39 | ['Robert Carlson'] | 2019-11-13 21:12:14.305000+00:00 | ['Transit', 'Streetcar', 'Oakland', 'Trolleys', 'Pittsburgh'] |
A thing or two about Objects in JavaScript. | Objects are fundamental blocks in JavaScript. Understanding how objects work will definitely make your life a lot easier working with JavaScript.
what are objects? and why do we need them?
As a very simple definition, objects are nothing but collection of different types of data. When it comes to object oriented programming, its based on 4 core concepts.
Encapsulation.
Abstraction.
Inheritance.
Polymorphism.
For now, we will only look into how JavaScript deals with encapsulation parts and get back to the rest when we explain other concepts.
Encapsulation is a process of bundling different properties into one single reference variable. Objects are mainly used in places where we need to target multiple properties and methods(functions) under one roof. lets look into an example.
say we need to store a specific set of properties of all students in a class. Properties being name, age, marks in 3 subjects and a function which calculates the sum of the 3 subject marks obtained.
if this has to be done in a non object way(Procedural way), we should go about creating name variables for all the students, likewise do the same for their age property and marks property and have a function which takes in the all the subject marks as parameters and gives you a total.
let name1 = "Arun";
let name2 = "vaibhav";
let age1 = 23;
let age2 = 23;
.... function sumTotal(mark1,mark2,mark3) {
let sumMarks = mark1 + mark2 + mark3;
return sumMarks;
} let totaMarks1 = sumTotal(23, 35, 35);
.... and so on for the rest.
Now lets look at object oriented approach.
function Student(name, age, mark1, mark2, mark3) {
this.name = name;
this.age = age;
this.mark1 = mark1;
this.mark2 = mark2;
this.mark3 = mark3;
this.sumTotal = function() {
let sumMarks = this.mark1 + this.mark2 + this.mark3;
return sumMarks;
}
} student1 = new Student('Arun', '23', 35, 55, 63);
student1.totalMarks = student1.sumTotal(); student2 = new Student('vaibhav', '23', 55, 65, 73);
student2.totalMarks = student1.sumTotal(); // each students properties can be accessed by their properties name // and instance created. for eg, student1’s properties can be //accessed by, console.log(`student name: ${student1.name}, student age: ${student1.age}`}
In the above example we can keep creating more student objects by calling the student constructor function, with the required parameters.
Even though this was a very simple example to understand objects in JavaScript, we are likely to encounter more such similar problems in our every day work. structuring our code become a lot simpler when you we take the object way over the procedural way.
Now we that we have known why we need objects, let see the different ways we could create one.
How to create an object?
We created the above object using an object constructor function. There are other ways of creating objects.
Different ways of creating an object.
object literal way
factory functions.
object constructor functions.
Object literal way.
var a = {
color: "red",
name: "apple",
type: "fruit"
}
//notice the trailing comma after every line, this is optional for the last element(type: "fruit")
2. factory function.
function fruit(name) {
return {
color: "red",
name: name,
type: "fruit"
} var apple = fruit("apple");
3. Constructor functions.
//By convention constructor function are always Capitalised.(first letter capital) function Fruit(name) {
this.name = name,
this.color = "red",
this.type = "fruit",
} var apple = new Fruit("apple");
when to use which method is entirely based on each ones use cases and preferences. But there are certain key distinct points that you can consider before choosing one option.
//object literal way. var student1 = {
name: "Arjun",
age: 23,
marks = 53,
}
with the object literal notion you can always have only one object. Say in the example mentioned above to create an another student object, you need to copy the entire section again with different property values.
the Factory function and Constructor function lets you do the same thing, till we bring in the concept of prototypal inheritance. Protypal inheritance makes Constructor function the more efficient and preferred choice especially when we have many methods inside the object and its being used to instantiate multiple objects. Protypal inheriatance is a topic which requires a blog for itself, for now you can think protypal inheritance is concept by which constructor methods do not have to go about creating common functions every time a new object is instantiated. This makes the Constructor way of creating object more memory efficient when compared over the Factory functions.
Weighing down these points its totally upto the user to make a calculated decision on which method he wishes to settle for.
Ways of accessing/modifying Objects properties.
An object once created can be accessed, modified, new properties can be added, deleted with ease.
we can either do this using dot(.) notation or by square brackets[].
lets look into an example.
function Student() {
this.name = "Rahul";
this.section = "A";
this.age = 23;
} var student1 = new Student();
var student2 = new Student();
in the code section above student1 variable will have access to all the properties of Student object and can access it either by,
//Dot notation console.log(student1.name); // Rahul
console.log(student1.section); // A //bracket notation
console.log(student1['name']); //Rahul
console.log(student1['section']); //A //note : the key is wrapped within quotes if its the actual key, if //its a variable holding the key string, then you need not wrap them //within quotes. eg:
//let nameKey = "name";
//student1[nameKey] will produce the same result.
these two ways behave the same way in most of the cases where the key is a single word. In the above example when we say student1.section, the section is the key and the output(Rahul) is the value. suppose say there is a key by the name no of rooms in this case the dot notation would and we would be left with only square brackets to access the value of that particular key.
let house = {
"no of rooms": 3,
color: "red",
type: "individual"
} //note while creating keys with spaces its mandatory to wrap them //within quotes, for single words its optional and they behave the //same way whether you wrap them or not.
In above example the house object is created with keys no of rooms, color and type. We would be able to access the color property and type by using either dot(.) notation or square brackets, but if we need to access the no of rooms then we will have to use only the square brackets with key wrapped within quotes.
console.log(student1['no of rooms']); //3
To conclude we can say, whatever expression is put inside the square brackets will be evaluated to have a string(key) present in the object, whereas in dot notation it blindly checks if the key after the dot is present in the object.
Similarly modifying/deleting object properties becomes straightforward just like accessing, using either dot notation/ square brackets.
let student = {
name: "Viggi",
} student['name'] = "prashanth"; console.log(student.name) // prashanth {the value of name got //overwritten with prashant} student['age'] = 23; // A new property called age got added to the //student object student.age = 35; // age property of student object(earlier 23) got //overwritten by the (35) delete student.age //age property of student gets deleted.
console.log(student.age) //undefined (since age got deleted with the //previous statement.
note: would suggest trying out all the operations with different edge cases and try understanding how object gets modified or behave in a particular way.
When Objects behave differently compared to primitive datatypes?
In javascript there are 5 primitive datatypes,
Integers
Strings
Boolean
Null
undefined.
these tend to behave differently when compared over objects. We shall specifically try focusing on pass by reference and pass by value with objects and primitive datatypes as one such distinction.
This topic can be better understood with an example.
Eg:1
let primitiveData = 10; function dataModifier(data) {
data = 20;
} datamodifier(primitiveData); console.log(primitiveData); //10 Eg:2
let valueOne = 10;
let valueTwo = valueOne;
valueOne = 20;
console.log(valueOne); //20
console.log(valueTwo); //10
All primitive datatypes when passed as an argument or when copied to another variable is passed by value, which means each variable will hold just the value and any modifications done to one variable will not affect other variables which holds the same value.
Eg:1
let newObj = {
name: "Arun",
age: 23
} function objectModifier(modifiedObj) {
modifiedObj.name = "Prashanth";
} objectModifier(newObj); console.log(newObj); // {name: 'Prashanth', age: 23} Eg:2
let firstCar = {
company: 'Chevy'
} let secondCar = firstCar;
secondCar.company = "Maruti"; console.log(firstCar.company); //Maruti
console.log(secondCar.company); //Maruti
The object newObj gets modified even though it was just passed to a function, and the modification was done on the modifiedObj variable name. The reason behind this behaviour is that all objects when passed as an argument to a function or copied to a variable, is passed by reference. which means all variables will be pointing to the same object reference and any modifications done to the object using these reference variable will reflect to all the variables pointing to this object. | https://medium.com/front-end-weekly/a-thing-or-two-about-objects-in-javascript-c426a12e8b5f | [] | 2019-01-10 16:35:18.480000+00:00 | ['Oop Concepts', 'Objects', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript', 'Frontend'] |
Deep-Way: A Neural Network Architecture for Unmanned Ground Vehicle Path Planning — A Review | Agriculture is the backbone of human civilization and ever since human intelligence came out in the form of robotics, the possibilities in the agriculture domain of increased exponentially and with AI now powering every segment of the technical and non-technical domains, the applications now reached new heights. Researchers are coming out with new ideas and methods to incorporate some of the necessary changes in the domain. One such is the introduction of ‘Deep-Way’. Let’s dive into a journey of deep learning segment, that would address some of the important measures in the agricultural field.
One of the earlier processes to perform the global path planning automation was the way to cluster the generated data and then perform some form of actions. Based on the ariel footages from the drones, clusters would be formed based on the crops, segmenting various crops over a particular land, and then planning iteration would have to be performed…
Now, there’s a remedy for it. Introduction of ‘Deep-Way’. A novel deep-learning algorithm that would perform the path planning based on the row-wise crop environments. I would discuss some of eh important aspects of those research and the application methodologies for the same. I would move in a less-mathematical way and let the readers (at any level of studies) understand vividly the method implied in the same.
DATASET:
Since no such dataset was present for the experimentation, the authors build their own [mentioned in [1, 2]]. They devised an algorithm for generating grids of shape H * W, with a random number of rows, denoted by N (the max value for the rows has been considered 50 and the min to be 20). In addition to the generated datasets, they have used some of the images taken from google satellite images, comprising of the row-based crop scenarios. Those images have been manually processed for the extraction of grids and waypoints. This remarks on the application of the algorithm in a real-life scenario.
Occupancy grid generation using the above-stated algorithm. Firstly random borders are generated, then, N row centers (yellow) are identified starting from the image center. Starting (blue) and ending (red) points are found at the intersection with the borders, with some random displacement to add variability. The actual row lines are then generated, adding holes with a certain probability. Finally, the target waypoints (green) are found with the method.
Google satellite image for the testing of the algorithm
METHODOLOGY:
So, given a grid map of the row crop, Deep-Way estimates the positions of the different end-points in the system from the images dataset itself. The authors claim that the earlier methods were mostly hard-cored and one of the key-points of Deep-way is that it uses the Deep Learning method to learn the crop's grid map and predicts all the waypoints simultaneously with their corrections using features from the entire image.
a. Waypoint Estimation:
Firstly, they have divided the input image into several small divisions. Without this division, the confidence score would tend to zero (the algorithm won’t understand anything from the picture). The smaller divisions would be k times smaller and would lead to smaller interactions with the pixels. Now, the algorithm has been designed such that they calculate the problem as a regression problem. It analyzes the input map (from the google dataset and the generated rough lines) along with the superimposed grid cells and calculates the probability of the placement of the waypoint and the correspondence coordinate compensation in the form of small distances over the x and y-axis.
For obtaining the final waypoint estimation from the range of probabilities, they have implemented a confidence threshold (tc), and using the threshold find all the probabilities which exceed beyond this threshold. Finally using a suppression algorithm, the highest of all probabilities is chosen and the waypoint is selected.
b. Network Design:
The fully convolutional neural network (DeepWay) is directly operated into the scenario. The input would be the grid map (obviously a tensor). DeepWay then calculates the other values of the waypoints along the path that we have to follow. Each module is composed of a series of convolution 2D layers with Mish as the activation function. To reduce the spatial dimension, each module ends with a layer of strides two.
The first two dimensions, after the N dimensions applications, would be reduced by (k+1) dimensions. To match the dimensions, a transpose convolutional layer with stride 2 is interposed with the final output. After the concatenation, finally, the output layer is computed with a 1X1 convolution operation with sigmoid and tanh function for the first and last two channels, respectively.
The schematic architecture of DeepWay
c. Waypoint refinement and path generation:
From the above algorithm, we achieve points in space. Now, we need to find the pathway. We cluster predicted points using the DBSCAN (best for clustering the groups that are close to each other). Some might even remain unclustered, because of the drastically small shape of the plot. For them, we project the points perpendicular to the rows (just like PCA). Row angle: measured using the Hough transform technique (classic Computer Vision — used for the line drawing).
[Quick Question]: If a line can be using the hough transform, then why bother with the neural network?
Ans: Well, Hough transform requires some parameters defined well before, but this is not possible when we consider a large amount of data and with such irregularities. For ease, we need DeepWay.
After ordering the points, a refinement approach is administered such that all the duplicate points are removed and the points which are missing are put. Then, to get the final order, the two groups can be clustered into A and B, representing the start and end of the row. Once the final group is achieved, the pattern in which they are stored is A-B-B-A. Now, to compute the global path from one waypoint to the other, they have employed the A* algorithm. This would determine the shortest path from cluster A to B.
The total algorithm in a single shot
Still have a problem? Check out the references!
[Note: I have kept the architecture of the blog similar to that of the research paper, such that even if you want to read the full paper, you would be acquainted with the structure of the paper.]
REFERENCES: | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/deep-way-a-neural-network-architecture-for-unmanned-ground-vehicle-path-planning-a-review-c1a4beecb190 | ['Tanmay Debnath'] | 2020-11-13 13:03:10.781000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Research'] |
Los 7 Errores Más Comunes al Querer Ganar Masa Muscular. | Seeker of new life experiences, Jedi master of turning bold ideas into reality. I believe in entrepreneurship to build a better world, life and future. | https://medium.com/@fernandokalid/los-5-errores-m%C3%A1s-comunes-al-querer-ganar-masa-muscular-2308bca7ebf7 | ['Fernando Kalid - The Futurist'] | 2020-10-11 16:32:12.598000+00:00 | ['Ejercicio', 'Fitness', 'Español', 'Hipertrofia'] |
HR metrics = flaming joke | We live in a supposed era of big data — sorry, Big Data — right now, and as such, every team/silo/organization has to “prove it” with metrics. As a result, there’s been a bunch of discussion about HR metrics of late, typically in the form of won’t-happen-for-a-while concepts like “people analytics.”
Logically it would make sense for HR metrics to be often-considered, as HR touches the biggest spend of any company (hiring people) and theoretically has data on the performance of those people (and their managers). But the whole deal with HR metrics is extremely fraught, for a number of reasons.
HR Metrics Problem №1: No decision-maker cares
This will gradually change, but in general most executives could give 0.2 shits about Human Resources. To many of these guys, who view themselves as world-builders, HR serves these functions:
Processes
Fire drills
Get out the people I don’t like
Hopefully staffed with a few hot 20-something blond girls fresh out of school
Is this normative at all places? No. But almost everywhere I’ve worked or talked to my friends about, this is how executives view HR. It’s not “seat at the table” material. This problem underscores everything else. If you don’t care about the department, well, you won’t care about HR metrics either.
HR Metrics Problem №2: Our relationship with data
This is fraught in all departments right now. Many top decision-makers don’t really understand data, and many organizational processes are set up so that people can off-load the responsibility for the analytics. No bueno. Companies also tend to “throw money at the problem” of data, hiring $$$ data scientists instead of doing the more logical thing, as Peter Cappelli points out:
In short, most companies — and that includes a lot of big ones — don’t need fancy data scientists. They need database managers to clean up the data. And they need simple software — sometimes even Excel spreadsheets can do the analyses that most HR departments need.
Yep. Simplicity matters a lot here.
And №3: the HR metrics we capture and how we do it
Usually this is going to be about turnover, cost per hire, and maybe some employee morale evaluations. The problem is that a lot of this comes from performance reviews, which are awful, or employee engagement surveys, which typically occur once a year and that’s it. (And then no one thinks about it until the process begins the next year.)
Admittedly there are more real-time HR metrics solutions now — Waggl, TinyPulse, etc. — but I wouldn’t say they’re “at scale” in terms of companies using them a lot. It still very much feels like we half-ass HR data; we collect a bunch of stuff once a year, maybe do a few slides on it, and that’s it.
Let’s talk about work, baby, let’s talk about you and me, let’s talk all the good things and the bad things in this newsletter on Thursdays…
Kind of amazing if you think about it, since HR “owns” the people aspect of the business — which should be a really big deal. It isn’t, though. I think that’s largely because no one cares, somewhat because “we’ve always done it that way,” and analyzing supply chain or operations numbers seems more “business-like.” Guys want to feel “business-like” because it’s fun to them.
How can we improve HR metrics?
Couple of ideas:
Make sure the databases where info resides “talk” to each other (as noted above)
Tie everything to cost — how much $$$ is being lost on turnover?
Connect turnover rates back to specific managers, so that they can be ID’d and improved
Calculate cost per hire, but don’t live by that number; cost-cutting measures shouldn’t be the norm when getting good people
Analyze the metrics you have more frequently
Use quick, “pulse” surveys as opposed to once a year stuff
Have actionable returns on the bad parts of the employee satisfaction surveys
Care
Those are just some quick ones off the top of my head. I’m sure there are a million LinkedIn thought leaders right now meowing about People Analytics and how it’s going to change everything, but you know what? It won’t. First off, execs still won’t care. Second off, if you design a “prototype perfect hire” and then try to get 1,000 of those, it just means your company will have tons of homophily. Your ass will get disrupted faster than you say “Johnny from Seattle just designed a new app.”
If you want HR metrics to improve, then, start by caring — then move to tying everything back to the money and being consistent with your analyses.
Anything else you’d add on HR metrics? | https://medium.com/@tedbauer2003/hr-metrics-flaming-joke-30438eeceaea | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2020-12-11 11:32:49.505000+00:00 | ['Hr Technology', 'Future Of Work', 'HR', 'Work', 'Metrics'] |
Introduction on Lightning Network and off-chain transactions | One of the main issues of Bitcoin is the slowness and costly on each transaction.
Until today — November 12th, 2017 — the average cost for a bitcoin transaction is $7.
The reason is that Bitcoin keep going to be always more used by people around the world and always more exchanged.
Currently, the protocol allows only 7 transactions per second to be validated against the thousands of transactions per second that can handle by VISA circuit. That happens because every block, which is validated by miners every 10 minutes, weighs 1MB therefore it doesn’t allow to get more than that number of transactions over that time frame.
If the goal is to become a mainstream payment method and the only coin used by people, it is of utmost importance for Bitcoin to increase validities transactions and to eliminate this kind of problem.
With Lightning Network that is possible, thanks to the simple reason that transactions are not validated by miners in the blockchain, but they are off-chain, outside of it.
LN will allow us to have:
thousands of transactions per second, with no needs of any confirmation;
very low commissions, which will also allow micro-payments;
instant payments, as you will not have to wait for the miners to confirm;
swap bitcoin with other cryptocurrencies thanks to Atomic Swap.
Using Lightning Network, therefore, it’s possible to transact bitcoins, without that those transactions appear in the blockchain, with very low fees and no needs of any confirmation, thanks to the creation of external channels, outside of it, through which thousands of transactions per second are also made.
In a few words, a proper channel is created to connect 2 people who want to exchange regularly bitcoins, in a way to not create a blockchain for every transaction.
At the beginning, both have to insert an amount to open that channel, subscribing that those 2 people have opened a common fund, which is managed off-chain.
Everything that will happen through this channel until its closing, will not appear on the Blockchain so it shouldn’t be written in the blocks.
It will have not to wait for the miner’s confirmations, and users will have not to pay the transaction fee.
Let’s give an example:
Anna and Bob decide to open a channel by entering 0.5 BTC to head into it. Blockchain subscribe the opening of the channel containing 1 BTC and since this moment, each exchange between Anna and Bob are off-chain. Now, Anna wants to buy from Bob 0.1 BTC of merchandise: she creates a transaction called commitment transaction, where Anna will indicate on the transaction that she will send 0.4 BTC to herself and 0.6 BTC to Bob, from the channel common fund, and then she has to sign it. After that, Bob will also create a commitment transaction where he will send 0.6 BTC to himself and 0.4 BTC to Anna from the channel common fund, and then he has to sign it too.
Every operation has been done off-chain and is not required Blockchain supervision. Blockchain hasn’t to write anything, just the opening and closing channel state.
We simplify the concept of LN to give a simple meaning. Anyway it is better to study the specific channels. In fact, Lightning Network allows the opening of those off-chain channels in the way that those exchanges can be made quickly, with low commissions fees, with no needs of any confirmation and in numbers far higher than any existing monetary circuit on the planet.
Therefore, the implementation of this Network resolves scalability and cost problems that doesn’t allow bitcoin to be the world currency which all its supporters would like to become to be. | https://medium.com/novamining/introduction-on-lightning-networks-and-off-chain-transactions-75bda590a84e | [] | 2018-04-17 06:36:07.925000+00:00 | ['Btc', 'Lightning Network', 'Bitcoin'] |
Health Questions Part 3: What’s Stopping You? | Day 3!
Well done on day 1 and 2! It’s not easy being honest with ourselves and facing the true intentions behind our health goals. But it’s extremely important or we may keep on starting and quitting all the time.
If you missed the first two days, you can find them here. It’s crucial to answer them before moving onto the next one as it won’t really make sense and won’t be as effective.
Now that you’ve established your WHAT and WHY, it’s time to look at what’s stopping you from getting it. Oftentimes, it requires a bit of digging to get to the very bottom of this. Is it lack of time? Not being able to go to the gym? Not knowing what to do?
What’s this all about?
A gentle reminder.
This is a series of 4 health discussions taking you on a journey like no other. You’ll discover more about yourself and grow your clarity around your own personal health. All in the comfort of your home.
Before we go ahead and ask the questions below I want you to record your answers. I’m assuming most of you would be happy to write down your thoughts and answers as we’re all writers here on Medium. However, a simple web-cam or phone recording will do, too. The reason I suggest video recording as well is that it’ll force you to speak your mind and answer these questions as if you were having a conversation with someone. Perhaps a coach.
So open your Google Docs or Web-cam and answer these questions:
Why have you not achieved your goal yet?
What’s stopping you from achieving your goal?
What is REALLY standing between you and achieving this goal?
Don’t overthink these or filter your answers. And for the love of health don’t Google these either. It’s your interpretation and your journey.
Don’t forget to have fun! | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/health-questions-part-3-whats-stopping-you-19657b7c484e | ['Michaela Grek'] | 2020-12-03 15:15:57.482000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Health', 'Goals', 'Coaching'] |
The Beauty in Life is Your Presence | You can’t wait for things to slow down, you need to make time to slow down.
Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
Every year, I usually travel to Japan with my family during the spring. We end up coming right after the cherry blossoms fall, and their petals streak the sidewalks of the city. Having seen them before, I never minded the fact that I missed seeing them bloom on the trees. I knew they were beautiful. But today my heart yearns to know them again, to see them blossom on the trees, and to smell the aroma in the air. Because now, I don’t know when I’ll see them again.
It’s in these times, I wish I slowed down then, to appreciate where I was, who I was with, what I could feel, what I could see. My mind was always on the thought, Where would I go next? What’s the next stop on our journey? Yet to be in that specific moment, when would I get that chance again?
These days I wonder, when’s the next time I get to see my friends in person, and not worry about going outside? When’s the next time I could watch a live concert? To sing at the top of my lungs, and forget the world like I used to?
The times I was able to travel, to hangout with my friends, to watch a concert, and so many mundane things I’ve experienced are gone. Their time has passed, but I always treasure them. As much as I’d want to go back, I realize it’s not in the past that I could soak in the joy, but it’s in the now that I need to create it. Otherwise, the more my future self would be sad.
If we aren’t present in the moment, how could we expect ourselves to be happy and content in the future?
Here are a few lessons I’ve learned in being present, in being here. I continuously learn that life is not lived in the past or the future, but right here. I’m no guru, nor am I the epitome of being, but I try my best, and I hope I can share what I’ve learned with you.
Mono no aware
Mono no aware, literally translated to “the pathos of things,” or “the ahhness” of things, helps me question the way we see moments in our life. I would describe it as a bittersweet feeling, to know that things don’t last forever, and that is why we need to treasure the good times, and remember the pain and suffering will pass too. Everything changes, everything is transient. When we are open to this, the shifts in our lives are a bit easier to bare.
Winter turns to spring, the wind blows, the wind stops, the weather changes; nature is always changing. Similarly, people develop newfound interests, grow, change their feelings, and can shift their values. People can come into our lives, teach us, help us experience life, and then leave. Concerts aren’t 24/7, parties don’t rage all night, and get-togethers don’t span eternity. Everything changes, everything passes. We see that beautiful and mundane moments in our life don’t last forever. If they did, their value would become less, and we wouldn’t appreciate them as much. We learn to cherish moments because they are fleeting, we can only experience them in that time, in that space. Ahhh, what a time. Alternatively, the times we wish everything would just stop, or the moments we are full of pain and sadness, take their leave as well.
“The sun will rise, and we can try again.”
Allowing Ourselves to Feel
There are days we wish we didn’t have to live through. We wish we could skip this chapter of our lives. They’re painful, they’re frustrating, they’re sad. Yet, though they are uncomfortable, we must not push them away. Like everything, they are also fleeting. They have their time, and they go away. They pass, but only if we allow them to stay for a while, only if we allow ourselves to feel.
Let yourself be sad, let yourself be angry. They are what makes us human, there’s nothing wrong with them. In turn, let yourself be happy too. You deserve it.
Appreciating Moments
Imagine yourself on a train. You’ve been using your phone the whole ride to your destination while the scenery passes by. What if you had looked up? What if you looked out the window? Did you miss the sight of the trees, the mountains, the sea? Did you miss the faces of people whose eyes tell their story? Perhaps you’ve been on the same train ride day in and day out, but who’s to say you’ve seen everything the world has to offer?
The world is as you see it, slow, fast, boring, inspiring. However you want to see it, it’s always changing. Each day ends with a unique story, it’s up to you if you choose to listen.
Being
No matter how similar the days seem, it’s important we are present, that we are here. It’s easy to let our thoughts go astray, to be mindless, to say, “tomorrow.” Even though we wish things would slow down for us to collect ourselves, we cannot wait for things to slow down, we need to make time to slow down. To appreciate, to live, to be.
If you need to rest, rest. There’s no benefit in pushing yourself when you’re not okay. Be, don’t just do. | https://medium.com/on-our-way-ph/the-beauty-in-life-is-your-presence-5e66371edabe | ['Rica Ilagan'] | 2021-06-08 11:03:49.823000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Moments', 'Japan', 'Life', 'Rest'] |
World’s Most Dangerous Roads Are A Challenge For Self-Driving Cars | Dr. Lance Eliot, AI Insider
[Ed. Note: For reader’s interested in Dr. Eliot’s ongoing business analyses about the advent of self-driving cars, see his online Forbes column: https://forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/ and http://ai-selfdriving-cars.libsyn.com/website]
Dangerous roads, throughout the globe.
I canvassed some of my colleagues that are driving daredevils, the type that overtly seeks out the most challenging roads, wherever they might be, and I uncovered some of the key attributes associated with these fear stoking pathways.
First, the road has to be a road and in one manner or another be passable. This might seem obvious, but the point is that if a road is not really a road and merely a jumble of rocks or a bunch of sand dunes, it doesn’t quite count as a “road” and therefore should not be on a list of the most dangerous ones. You could perhaps place such instances on the most dangerous off-roads or made-up trails, but do not mix them up with actual intended-to-be roads.
Second, vehicular traffic must travel the road. Once again, this has to do with the notion of whether the road is a road. If there aren’t any cars or trucks or other vehicles that go on the road, it does not seem to be an appropriate candidate. Furthermore, the traffic is actually considered a factor in the dangerousness of the road, namely that it is not just the pavement or asphalt that gets your heart pounding, it is also the other drivers that add to the zany and perilous nature of the journey on the road.
Third, there should be some disquieting number of car crashes or roadway related deaths and injuries that occur on the road. If the road is truly dangerous, the odds are that car drivers will misjudge and end-up in a ditch, or worse become a casualty of the hazardous road. Now, this can be somewhat misleading or misapplied. Say there is a freeway stretch in a congested city that gets a lot of fatalities, well, it is not necessarily the road per se and perhaps primarily due to the volume of traffic. As such, some suggest using a per-mile metric rather than a raw count of adverse outcomes or otherwise find a means to balance the quantitative numbers against the other factors warranting being considered a most dangerous road.
Fourth, the roadway design and its placement are likely a significant ingredient in the dangerousness. Generally, roads that weave along a sheer cliff or that try to squeeze between two very tight canyon walls or otherwise present life-threatening pathways are likely considered inherently dangerous, quite obviously due to the apparent risks of driving even just slightly askew. Thus, the roadway design and where the roadway goes are bound to be a vital part of the danger. Just the littlest moment of taking your eyes off the road could lead to a really sour ending of a roadway run.
Fifth, the dangerous road must have stood the test of time. A washed out bridge or maybe a massive mudslide — though not a good thing and certainly dangerous — is only temporary. In the proper spirit of being a persistent danger, the viewpoint is that the road must have been around for a long time and consistently presented itself as a danger. Sure, there are lots of one-time examples of roads that had a dangerous day, but the all-time list ought to be roads that proudly or imprudently have been enduringly dangerous.
Sixth, there must be speed involved. One supposes that if you could drive a road at a snail’s pace of say 1 mile per hour, it would seem to knock down the dangerousness factor to some degree. Inching along would make things easier for the driver and allow for moment-to-moment recalibration of the driving effort. On the other hand, if there is the speed involved, perhaps there is other traffic that is desirous of moving at a frenetic pace, this makes the danger come alive, given that you only have a fraction of a second to decide whether the road is curving to the left or the right.
Seventh, and the last of this set of criteria or considerations, is that opinion matters. The notion underlying this condition is that the road ought to be one that people acknowledge as being dangerous. If a road is on the list and everyone balks at the inclusion, perhaps this implies that the road is not as dangerous as might be claimed. That being said, do not be fooled by those smarmy drivers that will shake their head at any road on such a list and out of the corner of their mouths say that the road is nothing of consequence, and they could drive it blindfolded. There are always those sorts of braggarts or malcontents and are not to be taken at their word as puffery arbitrators of what is dangerous or not.
With all of those thoughts in mind, let’s take a look at a recently reported list of the Top Ten alleged most dangerous roads in the world (see this link: https://usemypro.com/the-ten-most-dangerous-roads-in-the-world.htm):
The “Street of Death” Road of North Yungas in Bolivia The Road of Jalalabad-Kabul in Afghanistan The Highway of James Dalton in Alaska USA The Highway of Karakoram in Pakistan The Guoliang Tunnel Road in China The Pass of Zoji La in India The Road of Skippers Canyon in New Zealand The Pass of Los Caracoles in Chile The Pass of Stelvio in Italy The Highway of Sichuan
How do you feel about the list? If you’ve driven at least one of those roads, pat yourself on the back for having survived to tell the chilling tale. If you’ve driven all ten, one has to ask, do you have a death-wish or are you just that kind of person that loves a good challenge?
Shifting gears, consider what the future will be like when we have AI-based true self-driving cars on our roadways.
Here’s today’s intriguing question: Will AI-based true self-driving cars be able to drive on dangerous roads, and if so, how will they fare in that treacherous endeavor?
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
True self-driving cars are ones where the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Dangerous Roads
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task. ll occupants will be passengers. The AI is doing the driving.
In discussing the handling of highly dangerous roads, keep in mind the earlier articulated criteria for what constitutes a dangerous road. This is worthy of a reminder for several crucial reasons. The most notable reason involves a quite significant matter that surprises many people about the nature of self-driving cars, including startling those that purport to know a lot about self-driving cars.
In the classification used to rate self-driving cars, the aspects of being able to have the AI drive off-road is considered off-the-table. This means that the levels of self-driving do not encompass off-road driving. The standard has nothing to say particularly about off-road driving and considers off-roading to be outside the purview of the existing standard.
That’s a shock to some. Why wouldn’t the standard include off-road driving, many ask incredulously?
Generally, the thinking is that off-roading is so varied and open-ended that it made more sense to focus the standard toward on-road driving (and, some would assert that we need self-driving for on-road driving, but don’t necessarily “need” self-driving for going off-roading, though this is a debatable contention).
Keep in mind that there isn’t anything that precludes a standard that does focus on off-road, and nor does it preclude the existing standard from being later extended to add off-road driving aspects.
Anyway, in short, there is no requirement in the standard that an AI driving system has to drive off-road, at least in terms of meeting the standardized levels of semi-autonomous and autonomous driving.
Automakers and self-driving tech firms can decide if they want to encompass off-road driving or not do so. One small irony, some suggest, stems from the fact that the early days of self-driving were initially all about doing off-road kinds of driving, such as competitions in the desert, partially to ensure that no one would get hurt by using desolate areas for doing tryouts and experimentation.
This lack of an off-road stipulation does not seemingly factor into today’s question about the dangerous roads, since please recall that the suggested criteria emphasized that the road has to be a road and be somehow reasonably passable as a road.
Back to the matter at hand and the pondering of whether AI-based true self-driving cars could handle dangerous roads, including for example the reported Top Ten such roads.
The answer is somewhat amorphous because it comes down to the driver, namely, the AI system, and whether the AI has been appropriately readied for coping with the conditions and situations of a dangerous road.
Let’s delve into that facet.
For many of today’s roadway tryouts, the AI has been shaped to deal with normal and routine driving conditions. The AI is dealing with driving in quiet neighborhoods, or on conventional highways, or on well-kept freeways, etc. Dealing with a winding road that has severe potholes and makes its way along sheer cliffs, well, that’s not especially what the AI driving systems are yet crafted to do.
Furthermore, recall the point about speed.
If you were to have a self-driving car proceed at 1 mile per hour, the chances of successfully navigating a dangerous road are going to be a lot higher. Speed for AI is about as daunting as speed is for humans, in the sense that the faster the car is going, the harder the driving task becomes, simply due to the need to make split-second decisions and also be aware of the roadway status with little time to figure out what to do next.
Here’s an additional twist. Would the AI self-driving car have any human passengers in it?
You might be perplexed about why the aspect of having riders inside the self-driving car would be a consideration.
The reason is rather straightforward. The AI has presumably been programmed to keep the car within the allowable limits of what the human body can deal with. For the AI system, making a super-fast and sharp turn is no problem for the AI and nor the car, but the human passenger might get injured, even if wearing a seatbelt (due to a whiplash effect).
You could say that AI is hampered by the inclusion of human passengers.
That is obviously the case if the vehicle was being driven by a human, the same limitations would exist.
Taking this idea to another realm, consider what the AI driving system could do if it didn’t need to worry about human passengers. The self-driving car can be completely empty and have no humans present at all, thus, in that use case, it can proceed to drive to the extreme limits allowed by the physics of the car).
Would an unencumbered AI driving system do better on a dangerous road than a human-driven car?
That’s hard to say, since the nature of the road, the speed of travel, and other factors all come into play, along with however the AI itself has been primed for the driving.
This brings up another important aspect. For some of the existing public roadway tryouts, the roads being used have been pre-mapped and oftentimes have been pre-driven to allow the AI system to get up-to-speed about the roads. This can be handy for the use of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), allowing the AI to figure out what the road is like and aim to do better on future travels of the road.
One nuance that might not be apparent is that if you have an AI self-driving car in a fleet and it traverses a particular road for the first time, in theory, the result can be shared with all other AI systems of the fleet, thus being able to get those other self-driving cars ready to drive the road too.
For humans, you cannot especially do the same trick, since having one person drive a road might be somewhat handy for others when the person explains what they did, but this is assuredly not the same as being able to transmit the moment-to-moment and detailed driving nuances involved.
In the use case of the dangerous roads, we ought to consider whether a human driver has had a chance to preview the road by driving it perhaps slowly one time and then increasing speed for later journeys. The same aspect can be considered in the case of AI self-driving cars.
Conclusion
Another factor to contemplate involves the risk threshold of the driver. We all know of human drivers that are willing to take great risks while driving, weaving in and out of traffic and making chancy moves that increase the odds of getting into a car crash or other adverse result.
For AI self-driving cars, there is an ongoing debate about the threshold of risks that the AI should be allowed to undertake. While traveling on a dangerous road, what should the risk setting be for the AI system?
Presumably, if you dial down the acceptable risk, the AI is going to drive more slowly and cautiously. If you push up the risk meter higher in terms of risk tolerance, the AI will drive the car with greater speed and aim toward the brink of calamity.
As a final quick thought on this topic, consider what human passengers might do when regularly able to go for a drive in AI self-driving cars.
Suppose you are late for work. You urge the AI to push the pedal to the floor and get a move on. Essentially, the human rider is seeking to increase the risks of the driving act.
Should an AI driving system allow for the human riders to make such changes?
In theory, some believe that the AI will and should always drive in the same relatively low-risk way, regardless of the interests or desires of the passengers.
But, right away there are apparent exceptions, such as a passenger that is about to give birth and has to be rushed to the hospital or someone suffering from a gunshot wound or other emergencies that might require taking a riskier driving approach.
Let’s return back to the dangerous road topic.
Will we have AI self-driving cars that will allow us to take a wild ride on a dangerous road, doing so by telling the AI to maximally take risks on such roads, giving the humans quite a thrill (one presumes)?
For now, the automakers and self-driving tech firms have their hands full with getting self-driving cars to safely take people to the local grocery store, and thus this inquisitiveness about coping with especially dangerous roads is considered an edge or corner case (not something to be dealt with right now).
In the future, don’t be surprised if you start to see advertising for brands of AI self-driving cars that showcase they can readily drive on scandalously dangerous roads, which might become a marketing pitch to differentiate one AI driving system from another.
You’d certainly seek out to take an AI self-driving car to get over to downtown for work if that AI driving system was known to have nimbly and safely handled death-defying roads of grand peril, enough so that you might even take a short catnap on the way to the office.
For free podcast of this story, visit: http://ai-selfdriving-cars.libsyn.com/website
The podcasts are also available on Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, etc.
More info about AI self-driving cars, see: www.ai-selfdriving-cars.guru
To follow Lance Eliot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/@LanceEliot
For his Forbes.com blog, see: https://forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/
For his AI Trends blog, see: www.aitrends.com/ai-insider/
For his Medium blog, see: https://medium.com/@lance.eliot
For Dr. Eliot’s books, see: https://www.amazon.com/author/lanceeliot
Copyright © 2020 Dr. Lance B. Eliot | https://lance-eliot.medium.com/worlds-most-dangerous-roads-are-a-challenge-for-self-driving-cars-f23430457135 | ['Lance Eliot'] | 2020-09-05 22:25:57.476000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Vehicles', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Autonomous Cars', 'Driverless Cars', 'Self Driving Cars'] |
Cornellians — near and far — build community through Minecraft | When the pandemic forced Cornell to temporarily suspend classes and move all instruction online in March 2020, many students returned home, leaving behind the familiar sights and sounds of campus: the McGraw Tower bell chimes, the sprawling Libe Slope, the serenity of Beebe Lake and other go-to spots for studying, socializing and dining.
While many students opted to return for in-person classes this fall, others continued with virtual learning — in many cases, miles away from campus. Thanks to an innovative effort by a group of students and recent alumni, any person who wants to experience Cornell, from any background, can do so anywhere — virtually, of course.
“We wanted to bring people together, give people a chance to relive their experiences in Ithaca [and] give everyone a meaningful project to participate with.”
The result is “CornellCraft,” a stunning virtual replica of Cornell’s Ithaca campus, which has attracted more than 1,000 builders and players from around the globe since it launched earlier this year.
A team of students built Cornell’s campus in Minecraft, which includes a version of Ho Plaza and Willard Straight Hall student union. Image Provided.
During the unexpected break last spring, Brandon Axelrod ’21, a student in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Jesse Potts ’21, a student in the College of Engineering, filled their extra time with Minecraft, a popular “sandbox” gaming series that allows players to build elaborate virtual worlds. Both had begun experimenting with building a virtual Cornell campus; before long, they connected on Reddit and recruited a group of 25 fellow students and young alumni who signed on as volunteer builders.
What began as a diversion has bloomed into a full-blown virtual campus — with only parts of North and West Campus remaining to be built — and an effort that has united students and alumni from a diverse range of backgrounds.
Striving to replicate campus as accurately as possible, the team built everything on a 1:1 scale, including fine details such as greenery and trees, TCAT buses, the iconic A.D. White and Ezra Cornell statues on the Arts Quad and the intricate details of historic Sage Hall. Building an accurate replica of Cornell’s 2,300-acre Ithaca campus is a difficult task, made even more challenging by doing so from afar. While the team used New York topological data, Google Maps and online images wherever possible, Potts, who was in Ithaca over the summer, would often take pictures when they weren’t available—leading him to appreciate the lesser-known spots on campus.
The glow of the Herbert F. Johnson museum, as seen in Minecraft. Image Provided.
As the build continued, the team leaders seized opportunities to integrate it into the student experience — no matter if someone was taking classes in-person or online. Axelrod, a member of the Orientation Steering Committee, saw an opportunity for new and incoming students to experience Cornell virtually, and the group partnered with New Student Programming to integrate CornellCraft into orientation week programming this fall.
The project’s lead developer, Faizaan Datoo ’23, a Cornell Engineering student, also coded an automatic tour feature into the virtual campus. The tour, led by a Minecraft character equipped with the script that Cornell’s in-person tour guides follow, allows users to pause and learn more about specific buildings or areas of campus. The team also added various multiplayer games, including chess and Tetris. One of the team’s overarching goals was to foster a community for Cornell students — past, present and future.
“We wanted to bring people together, give people a chance to relive their experiences in Ithaca [and] give everyone a meaningful project to participate with,” Axelrod says.
A video walkthrough of CornellCraft offers a closer look at more iconic campus spots.
Potts says that he was surprised and excited by the amount of passion people showed for the project, while Axelrod was impressed by the coordination it took to complete the collaborative builds.
“Every single group project I’ve been a part of has been extremely diverse in various ways, and this is another example of that where you’re working with people,” Axelrod says. “People have one idea of how to do something, we talk about it as a group, we go through with making compromises. What was just a fun video game for us has turned into a really good way of learning how to become a person in the real world.”
The CornellCraft team included many fine details, including the intricate design of Sage Hall and the surrounding landscaping. Image provided.
With the arrival of winter break, the team hopes more students will have time to rejoin the build and complete the remaining architectural aspects, as well as such fun interactive elements as sledding on campus hills. When Axelrod and Potts graduate in the spring, they’re hopeful that the project will be self-sustaining, with Potts saying that the project will give students the chance to “always be connected to campus [and] connected to Cornell students.”
Follow along with the CornellCraft team on Instagram. | https://medium.com/cornell-university/cornellians-near-and-far-build-community-through-minecraft-b0a58ebc49f8 | ['Cornell University'] | 2020-12-03 15:13:59.369000+00:00 | ['Cornell', 'Cornell University', 'College Life', 'Minecraft', 'Computer Science'] |
10 Ways to Avoid Bad Writing According To a New York Literary Agent | According to a New York literary agent, it only takes 5 pages to reject a book. Seems his taste is on point — his clients include Pulitzer Prize nominees, NYT best-selling authors and American Book Award winners.
Having spent 2 years reading manuscript submissions at an indie publisher, I can relate. So many people have a great story to tell — and so many of them tell it very badly. Having a good story and telling it well aren’t the same.
I saw an American Idol clip of JLo crying about sending someone home.
It’s hard, she sobbed. You feel like you’re killing their dreams.
That’s how I felt every time I read bad writing.
How do you tell them?
Because they think it’s good.
You know what the problem is, right?
Good writing is subjective…
Problem is, there’s no such thing as good writing. Good is subjective. I might love a book — you think it’s a dud. Taste is personal. And on top of preference and taste, no two people read the same book.
That’s why no one can teach good writing. College can’t. Writing classes can’t. Take as many classes as you want, they can’t teach you good writing because what makes writing good is entirely subjective.
All they can do is teach you not to write badly.
What trips up writers…
The subjective nature of “good writing” trips up writers. When an agent or a publisher (or a publication) rejects their work, they think it’s subjective. Well, “that” person didn’t like it. So they submit elsewhere.
Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes a piece of writing just isn’t a good fit, whether it’s for a publication or a publisher.
Other times, it’s bad writing, but no one wants to say that. No one wants to be JLo telling a singer they’re not good enough yet. So they use the boilerplate rejection and say it’s not a good fit.
You only need to read 5 pages to spot bad writing…
I read a book called The First Five Pages, written by New York literary agent, Noah Lukeman, who says he only needs to read 5 pages of a manuscript to know whether to reject it or not.
5 pages.
Think about it. You write an entire book.
All that work — rejected in 5 pages.
According to Lukeman, some of the most common reasons manuscripts get rejected are things I talk about over and over. Like:
— A weak opening
— Overuse of adjectives and adverbs
— Lack of progression (pace)
— Weak tropes and cliches
— Rambling lack of focus
When the book came out, the Editorial Director of Kirkus Reviews said it should be read by all novice writers.
The book doesn’t tell writers what to do.
It tells them what not to do.
That’s the key to good writing; avoiding the most glaring mistakes.
It’s not about “rules” for good writing.
There aren’t any rules for good writing. I’m not fond of rules to begin with, least of all in writing. There’s little more dreadful than formulaic writing.
Some of the best and most creative artists are the ones who break the rules mercilessly. They don’t just break them, they bend, twist and mutilate them until they are unrecognizable. That’s how art evolves. Writing included.
The best writing advice doesn’t tell you what to do.
It tells you what not to do.
10 Ways to Avoid Bad Writing
The most common advice people give is “write more” — which is horrible advice because if you’re making mistakes, you’re going to keep making the same mistakes. And the habits become more deeply entrenched.
Bad writing isn’t limited to using too many exclamation marks, run on sentences or grammatical errors. Often, bad writing boils down to lazy little habits that are easy to correct once you know them.
So here you go. 10 ways to avoid bad writing.
1. Show, don’t tell.
Writing is seeing. Don’t tell me he was disheveled. Tell me his shirt was half unbuttoned, his eyes were wild and there was blood above his right ear.
Don’t tell me she was sobbing hysterically, tell me there was mascara running down her face as she wiped tears, snot and lipstick across her sleeve.
And don’t tell me about the sleeve, it’s not important. Writers often describe too much. It minimizes the tears. If someone you loved was sobbing does what she’s wearing matter? Only if she’s crying about the clothing.
Only describe what you need to. Good writing starts in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
Writing is seeing. You cannot paint with words if you don’t see in the first place. Good writing comes from good observation. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/10-ways-to-avoid-bad-writing-according-to-a-new-york-literary-agent-b6e16f3c830f | ['Linda Caroll'] | 2020-01-18 07:14:19.515000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Writing', 'Reading', 'Advice', 'Inspiration'] |
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#March: ARK After Launch Update And Bugs Fixed | Since mainnet launch, we have been working tirelessly on updating our ARK core, fixing wallet bugs, improving the wallet UI, and updating ARKcommander to make installation and updates as simple as possible (which now supports rebuilding from fresh snapshots that are created every 15 minutes). So here is a quick recap on what the ARK Crew has achieved during this short time. A special thank you to all our contributors and community who consistently stick together, help each other out, and discover bugs — without you we wouldn’t be here at all!
Note: all running delegates (active and relay) scroll down to section of ARKcommander.sh update and update your ARK-node core!
#Bug Fixes
Yesterday (March 30th) a new core update was pushed after 2 issues were discovered and fixed:
Since ARK uses BIP32 and HD addressing (like Bitcoin) you could send your ARK to a Bitcoin addresses (it wasn’t actually sent to Bitcoin, but you could send it to a wallet that “can’t exist” on the ARK network). This has been fixed, and in addition you can no longer send to an address that cannot be generated within the ARK network (note that all ARK addresses on mainnet start with capital letter ‘A’). Yesterday a bug was discovered by our community that occurred twice on the blockchain in 2 blocks:
- block 3873 was forged over a block time (too late)
- block 84675 was forged over a block time (too late)
The first bug, at block 3873, was a corner case and was harmless because block rewards had not been activated yet. The second was rewarded at block 84675, and assigned 2 ARK to delegate bikerleszno. This should not have occurred as it was forged over a blocktime. As a consequence if a node tried to rebuild from block zero it resulted in being stuck at block 93477 (at that block bikerleszno emptied his account causing this problem).
A fix and update to the ARK core to prevent forging over a blocktime was completed in less than 2 hours (by our main developer ‘fixcrypt’) after being noticed by our great community on Slack yesterday (thank you all who noticed this while rebuilding and brought it to our attention!).
Don’t forget we are running yearly 200,000 ARK Github Bounty for all developers / coders / hackers / hobbyists , … to take part : CLICK
# Updating ARKcommander and Updating ARK Core
All active and relay nodes should follow this quick guide to update your ARKcommander script and update ARK core.
Login to your server Input these commands:
cd ~/
rm ARKcommander.sh
rm -rf snapshots
wget https://ark.io/ARKcommander.sh
bash ARKcommander.sh Once in ARKcommander choose option ‘3’ and press [ENTER] — your node will update and restart automatically. If by any chance the config file from the update gets overwritten(when you start you’ll see a message there is no delegates in config file means your config file with passphrase was rewritten with default config file), go back into ARKcommander and choose ‘5’ and press [ENTER] — you will be asked to provide your forging passphrase — paste it and press [ENTER] and node will restart.
How to rebuild from a snapshot if your node gets stuck?
cd ~/
bash ARKcommander.sh
In ARKcommander choose option ‘4’ and press [ENTER]. You will be asked if you want to download a fresh snapshot — choose ‘Y’ and press [ENTER]. You will then be asked if you want to restore from a snapshot — again choose ‘Y’ and [ENTER].
When you start it next time you will also be presented with a list of snapshots. The most current snapshot is listed under number 1. Choose ‘1’ and [ENTER] and you are done!
Your blockchain will now sync from a block that is less than 20 minutes old and syncing will only take a few seconds (as opposed to rebuilding from zero which can take 30 minutes).
# ARK Desktop Wallet Updated to 1.1.0
NOTE: In order to update your desktop wallet just download latest version from https://github.com/ArkEcosystem/ark-desktop/releases and download version suitable for your OS. Just run it and it will auto-remove the previous version and install a new one — your local settings are preserved.
We have already released 2 new versions of our desktop wallet. Here are the changes and bugs fixes from the past 2 weeks:
Features and Enhancements:
Add Chinese (Simplified/Traditional) translations
Add minimize to tray button
Updated translations for all languages
Add client restart notice when creating 2nd passphrase or delegate
Frame around desktop client
Desktop client icons
Bug Fixes: | https://medium.com/ark-io/march-ark-after-launch-update-and-bugs-fixed-6818d3e4e96f | ['Rok Černec'] | 2017-04-01 00:37:01.560000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Smartbridge', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ark'] |
學校簡介 “瑞典全國約三分之一的工程研究都來自KTH” 瑞典皇家理工學院 (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)… | Who used to talk too much but try to listen and observe now. | https://medium.com/@benhuang711/2017%E7%91%9E%E5%85%B8%E7%9A%87%E5%AE%B6%E7%90%86%E5%B7%A5%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%B8-kth-%E4%BA%A4%E6%8F%9B%E4%BB%8B%E7%B4%B9%E8%88%87%E5%BB%BA%E8%AD%B0-14fcdd26dace | [] | 2020-12-21 03:44:46.544000+00:00 | ['Stockholm', 'Exchange', 'Kth', 'Review', 'Preparation'] |
Brexit is the climax of a 75-year collective nervous breakdown — it’s time to look in the mirror | It has always struck me that the UK (with side-eye fixed on England) suffers from a self-confidence that exceeds its stature and a lack of self-awareness rivalling even the most deluded X Factor contestant. Nothing exemplifies this as transparently as the Brexit calamity of the last four years.
Britain likes nothing more than to sing its own praises, from the exaggerated references to the ‘mother of all Parliaments’ to the much-repeated mantra that the UK is ‘the most successful family of nations in the world’. Both of these claims belie a critical democratic deficit and inequality festering at the heart of a country tearing itself asunder but refusing to look in the mirror and ask itself why.
One does not need to dig especially deep to locate evidence of this communal midlife crisis. Conservative MPs like Daniel Kawczynski and Andrew Bridgen, both vehement Brexiteers, have both used their social media platforms recently to indulge in extraordinary sabre-rattling. The target of their anger? France. While Kawczynski called for the Royal Navy to be deployed against French fishing vessels in the Channel immediately after an increasingly likely no-deal Brexit, Bridgen took to Twitter to imply that France’s decision to close its border with the UK to protect itself against a new strain of COVID-19 was, in fact, a ploy to blackmail us into a less favourable trade deal. Both assertions would be laughable were we not in such a desperate predicament.
In many ways, it’s unsurprising that France and Germany often find themselves the focus of Brexiteer foot-stomping. After all, both countries are self-confident, outward-looking nations with hugely successful economies. In France’s case, however, there is an added ingredient in the cauldron of bile stirred by the likes of Kawczynski and Bridgen. Unlike Britain, France is capable of being immensely proud of its national identity, of flying its flag and singing La Marseillaise with aplomb, and of closely identifying with its neighbours and accepting the realities of a globalised 21st-Century world. This riles the Brextremists because their warped interpretation of ‘sovereignty’ is as subtle as a sledgehammer and coupled with a far-right populist agenda emanating from an abject failure to accept the decline of empire and the evolution of our role on the international stage.
It was always inevitable, therefore, that France, and Emmanuel Macron personally, would bear the brunt of Brexiteer deflection. France’s refusal to sacrifice its coastal communities on the Brexit bonfire has led to the kind of xenophobic headlines that shame us collectively. The suggestion by one national newspaper that Macron contracting COVID is a form of ‘karma’ for his obstinance is an utter disgrace.
Yet, despite decades of passive-aggressive sniping from the sidelines as a reluctant member of the European Union followed by our post-referendum spiral into outright jingoism, nationalism, isolationism and xenophobia, our European neighbours have maintained a palpable pragmatism, unity and level-headedness in the face of relentless provocation. This refusal to ‘rise to the bait’ or adopt unreasonable positions out of spite exasperates the Brextremists, who want nothing more than a tit-for-tat exchange of hostilities with our nearest neighbours and largest trading partners. Angela Merkel’s characteristic coolness in response to baseless personal attacks and European leaders unifying around a resolute rejection of Boris Johnson’s increasingly desperate attempts at a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy stand in stark contrast to the ever more facile, juvenile approach adopted by the Conservatives and their client media mouthpieces.
Anecdotally, I see none of the xenophobic spite that characterises Brexit in the response of European friends. Reactions to the progressively ludicrous acts in the Brexit panto range from sympathetic pity to sheer bewilderment that a country like the UK (typically seen, rightly or wrongly, as a bastion of common sense and rationality) would choose to damage its own economy by erecting extreme barriers to trade where none previously existed, while curtailing its citizens’ freedoms by taking a razor-thin referendum outcome and exploiting it to the most hardcore manifestation possible. Proponents of Brexit, conversely, twist any expression of genuine regret at the UK’s departure into the profoundly offensive view that countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain will simply ‘miss our money’. We are like the schoolchild who simply cannot accept praise, instead reacting negatively to positivity lest anyone should interpret openness as weakness.
Brexiteers will not back down in the face of a tsunami of evidence that their pet project is an unmitigated catastrophe of criminal proportions. Instead, they will persist in playing to the gallery by obsessing about fishing (which accounts for less than 0.1% of GDP) and hypocritically and arrogantly demanding that the EU abandon the core principle of the European project — the integrity of its Single Market — while at the same time calling upon the other parties to respect their arbitrary, fantastical perception of the notion of sovereignty.
We stand on the precipice of a chaotic, no-deal exit from the transition period because a national nervous breakdown 75 years in the making has reached its tragic climax. Having never accepted our diminished role in the global arena in the post-war period, our collective psyche is dominated by a destructive blend of rose-tinted nostalgia, a political system marred by a lack of meaningful representation and a deep mistrust of the ‘outsider’. Not until the UK acknowledges its deep-rooted issues and finds the backbone to implement the changes it so desperately needs will the gaping wounds be healed and this national midlife crisis end.
@MXOFO | https://medium.com/@leewilliscroftferris/brexit-is-the-climax-of-a-75-year-collective-nervous-breakdown-its-time-to-look-in-the-mirror-526a7983400c | ['Lee Williscroft-Ferris'] | 2020-12-21 19:17:02.344000+00:00 | ['No Deal Brexit', 'France', 'European Union', 'Brexit', 'United Kingdom'] |
32 Inspirational John Maxwell Quotes and Sayings | To access the full collection of inspirational John Maxwell quotes, his talks, motivational videos, and selected podcasts, download the Motiveex app for FREE.
Inspirational John Maxwell Quotes and Sayings
About John Maxwell
John Calvin Maxwell is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership. John C. Maxwell is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, who has sold more than 26 million books in fifty languages.
In 2014 he was identified as the #1 leader in business by the American Management Association and the most influential leadership expert in the world by Business Insider and Inc. magazine.
John C. Maxwell’s book titles include The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadershipand The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. [ 1]
Dr. Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP and the John Maxwell Company, organizations that have trained more than 5 million leaders worldwide. Every year he speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and organizations.
Developing the leader within you 2.0 is the 25th-anniversary edition of the classic book. Which also have changed the way people think about leadership. In this book, John C. Maxwell gives an insight into how to create value, vision, influence, and motivation required to be a leader. ( Get the audiobook for free.)
Furthermore, developing the Leader within you has not only revolutionized the process of becoming a leader, and the book has sold over 1 million copies due to its influence over people. John C. Maxwell also has published the 2.0 edition after 25 years of further experience and research on leadership, which makes this work more fascinating and compelling. Book also gives insight into the leadership process as the author further added the 25 years experience after his first publication. | https://medium.com/@motiveex/32-inspirational-john-maxwell-quotes-and-sayings-965dd7188871 | ['Motiveex', 'Motivational Books', 'Quotes'] | 2020-12-25 13:53:53.764000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'John Maxwell', 'Quotes', 'Success', 'Inspirational'] |
IED Awareness: The Blast Zone | In this companion piece to my previous article, IED Awareness for First Responders, I cover the basics of what every first responder should know about the area around a bomb which is affected by the blast. This area is known as the blast zone.
Many are only mistakenly concerned about shrapnel, those small, solid bits and pieces of a bomb, which radiate out from the epicenter of a blast, that can kill and maim. However, there is far more to be concerned with. Many injuries and deaths associated with bombings are a result of other forces within the blast zone. Certainly, shrapnel is of great concern, as it can travel great distances at very high velocity. But one must also consider other forces within the blast zone, namely heat and over-pressure.
One characteristic behind explosives is that they instantly release great amounts of energy. Physics tells us any time that happens; a vast amount of heat is generated and radiates outward from the blast. This is why detonation is always accompanied by a flash of light, the telltale sign of rapid energy release. The heat from this energy release can reach over one thousand degrees, and can cause severe injury and death to anybody within the blast zone. A secondary effect from such blasts is the ignition of flammable material in the area. So, first responders are not only immediately concerned with the injured, they must often contend with controlling resultant fires.
An example of heat released in the form of light. The shock wave is visible as a semi-transparent outline around the resultant light.
Over-pressure is an invisible force which radiates out from a blast. The laws of physics also tell us that when something is heated up, it expands. The same holds true of air in the blast zone. This expansion of air radiates out from the blast at great speed. The leading edge of this movement of air is called the shock wave. As the shock wave passes by, it creates an extremely rapid increase in air pressure. If large enough, this over-pressure can knock down walls or buildings not built to resist such pressure. According to the Department of Defense, even 1 psi of over-pressure can shatter windows. When people are hit by the shock wave, the sudden increase in air pressure can not only knock them down, but can cause massive internal injuries. As little at 5 psi over-pressure can rupture eardrums, and a 15 psi increase will begin to cause lung damage. An over-pressure of 35–45 psi has been shown to cause death in 1% of people, where an over-pressure between 55–65 psi will result in fatalities in 99% of people.
Another phenomenon associated with over-pressure is what happens when normal air pressure returns to the blast zone. After the blast wave propagates out from the blast, it leaves a void in the air pressure. As the air pressure rapidly returns to normal, it causes a reverse wave of pressure which can cause additional secondary blast effects. As the pressure wave moves back, it can drag objects, such as broken glass and other debris toward the blast epicenter, causing further injuries and damage. This process of over-pressure moving out, and the subsequent return to normal air pressure in the blast zone, often takes only fractions of a second to occur.
It should be noted that blast effects occurring in enclosed areas, such as a building or bus, are greatly enhanced due to the effects of containment. Objects such as walls or shaped charges, which direct blast waves, can also increase the lethality and damage potential of IEDs.
How close one can safely be to an explosion depends on many factors. The amount and type of explosive charge used, composition of shrapnel, and the effects of over-pressure all factor into the equation. The chart below from the Department of Homeland Security provides some general guidelines on evacuation distances for various types of IEDs.
The distances in the chart above are minimum distance recommendations. It can be reasonably stated to get as far away as practicable from any potential IED. A good rule of thumb is that if you can see the bomb, the bomb can see you. Don’t stick around thinking you may get to witness a cool explosion and then duck out of the way just in time to avoid injury. Explosion velocities of some compounds are measured in thousands of feet per second. There is no way you could react fast enough. If shrapnel doesn’t maim or kill you, the over-pressure may.
This article presents only very basic information regarding blast zone awareness. There are a number of resources available on the internet and through your local library that provide an awareness of IEDs and blast zones. The Department of Homeland Security is an excellent on-line resource to learn more. You can follow this link to their Office of Bombing Prevention web site: http://www.dhs.gov/obp for more information.
The best resource I have encountered for first responders is the Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings (IRTB) course, offered by the Department of Homeland Security, through New Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology in Socorro, New Mexico. The IRTB course is offered free of charge, inclusive of travel, by the federal government. It offers intensive classroom instruction and live demonstrations of various explosives. For more information, follow this link http://www.emrtc.nmt.edu/training/irtb.php. You can also contact the state point of contact (SPOC) in your respective state who can provide you with information and the application necessary to register and attend the training. You can locate your respective SPOC by following this link http://www.emrtc.nmt.edu/training/statepoc.php. | https://medium.com/homeland-security/ied-awareness-the-blast-zone-be8efd4c837c | ['Hs Vortex'] | 2015-11-30 18:14:03.650000+00:00 | ['Awareness', 'Safety', 'Homeland Security'] |
6 Tips How To Write Great Menu Descriptions | When a plate of fettuccine passes a person who is seated and fills the air with the aroma of cheese and heavy cream, it can entice a customer to order the dish. But for most customers, food descriptions are what help them determine what dish to order.
In this article, you can find some proven methods that can help you write great dishes descriptions to increase your restaurant’s sales.
6 Tips to Use When Writing food Descriptions for Menus
1. Keep Descriptions of Food Short
If you’re trying to add in a long restaurant description with fancy wording, you’re off to a bad start. Instead, you’ll want to keep your menu descriptions short — people don’t have long attention spans.
A food description needs to:
Be vivid
Entice consumers
Sit down, write the first version, and then revise trying to make it shorter while still maintaining the impact you want to make with your description.
2. Think About Your Audience
You know your audience better than anyone — or you should. But you also need to figure out how to describe food on a menu in a way that resonates with consumers.
Sit down and gather information about your audience, including their:
Gender
Age
Why? It’s important to know the gender and age because each dictates how to write your menu. Knowing the words to use comes from gender. For example, men tend to want to focus on the hardiness of a dish and the size of the portion provided. Women, on the other hand, want to know the finer details of a meal, from the taste to the aroma.
3. Focus on the Person’s Senses
Taste and smell are two of the most important senses to focus on when writing a description of good food. Restaurant description words should incorporate sensory words that include but are certainly not limited to:
Spicy
Crispy
Savory
Creamy
You can describe the dish in great detail, such as “covered in a spicy tomato sauce with a hint of basil and a touch of butter.”
Studies have been done on restaurant menu descriptions and the use of descriptive labels when writing menu items. Sales increased by 25% when the owner learned how to write to describe food.
4. Design the Menu Properly
You can present a fabulous dish and spend time learning how to write a menu card, but restaurant menu writing will not help you overcome poor design.
You want to impress with your card design. But how can you achieve your goal? These few tips can help:
Organize the categories
Keep full menu reading time to 110 seconds or less — seriously
Allow for easy skimming with large headers
Use special graphics to focus on specialty items and deals
Utilize boxes, bold text and colors to bring attention to certain food items
If you want to use real-life menu and food description examples, go to your favorite restaurants and snap a photo of the menu. Find that you find appealing so that you can use them as inspiration when creating your own.
You’ll be surprised by the difference in menus, and which ones you like and don’t like.
5. Don’t Forget Pricing Best Practices
You can look at dozens of menu item descriptions and never pay attention to the pricing. A lot of owners just slap a price somewhere close to the description of a meal and never give it a second thought.
A few simple and easy methods that will allow you to add prices to your restaurant menu descriptions are:
Display pricing on the left or right side (stay consistent)
Align prices using left or right just so that the dollar sign lines up
But there’s a problem with these methods: it allows consumers to price shop. If your goal is to get consumers to read every menu item description, place pricing right after the description. Use a dot or dash to connect the description and price to flow neatly into each other.
Creative wording and focusing on food adjectives for menus are not enough to make your menu “pop.” Using the tips outlined above will help you make more sales, describe food in a way that tantalizes the taste buds and increases customer satisfaction when they order a dish.
6. Focus on Three Main Parts of the Dish
When you look at a menu description, you’ll have to focus on three main parts of the menu:
Title Ingredients Description
Your title always comes first and needs to state the name clearly. You’ll want to make the title bold and larger in size than the description text. Now, you need to determine if you want to add in the description or ingredients first.
When writing a menu, be sure to focus on the descriptions of the food that you’re selling. Make the title stand out, highlight the key ingredients in the dish, and be as descriptive as possible when writing your menu.
The time spent on writing can build customer loyalty and increase sales.
If you focus on your items, you’ll have a much happier customer base that’s excited to try out new dishes simply because your description will help them envision the food even before it reaches the table.
Source: https://mcdonaldpaper.com/blog/how-to-write-great-menu-descriptions
Авторизуйтесь, чтобы не видеть рекламы в этом | https://medium.com/@mcdonald-paper/6-tips-how-to-write-great-menu-descriptions-9d76ee609cb1 | ['Mcdonald Paper', 'Restaurant Supplies'] | 2020-10-09 10:56:18.881000+00:00 | ['Restaurant Marketing', 'Restaurant Menu', 'Restaurant', 'Menu', 'Restaurant Business'] |
Love Bad News | Love Bad News
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee
One of the reasons we avoid important question is because asking them is scary. It can bring us the upsetting realisation that our favourite idea is fundamentally flawed. Or that the major client is never going to buy. Although it seems unfortunate, this we need to learn to love bad news. It’s solid learning and is getting us closer to the truth.
If you’ve only got one shot, then bad news is bad news. If your bungee jump doesn’t work, that’s bad. If you’ve sunk your retirement savings into opening a cafe and it doesn’t work, that’s bad. If you hustle together $50k to start your business and spend all $50k on your first idea only to see it fail, that’s bad.
On the other hand, if you have $50k and spend $5k to learn you’re running down a dead end, that’s awesome. You can use the rest to find a viable path to your goal.
Similarly, if you have an exciting idea for a new product and go talk to a couple customers who don’t actually care about it, then that’s a great result. You just saved yourself however much time and money it would have cost to try building and selling it.
We go through the futile process of asking for opinions and fish for compliments because we crave approval. We want to believe that the support and sign-off of someone we respect means our venture will succeed. But really, that person’s opinion doesn’t matter. They have no idea if the business is going to work. Only the market knows.
Today’s Challenge
Why do we avoid asking important questions?
Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee
Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee | https://medium.com/bookcademy/the-mom-test-by-rob-fitzpatrick-november-5-2019-love-bad-news-cb335a80f486 | ['Daniel Morales'] | 2019-11-05 13:57:26.586000+00:00 | ['Daily Challenge', 'Bookcademy', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Book Summary', 'The Mom Test'] |
Prototyping with Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD | How to Prototype
Sketch
Adding a link — The quickest way to create a Prototype is to add a Link between two Artboards. You can add Links from any layer to any Artboard. To add a Link in Sketch, select a layer, choose + next to Prototyping in the Inspector (or press W), then click on an artboard you’d like to link your layer to.
In the inspector, you can choose how a Link’s transition will look using the Animation buttons and change which Artboard a Link takes you to using the Target drop-down menu.
Select “Previous Artboard” in the Target drop-down menu, to tell Sketch to return to whichever Artboard you were previewing before the current one. This is helpful when you have lots of Links leading to a single Artboard.
You can remove a link by choosing Prototyping > Remove Links from Selection, set your Link’s target to “None” or click the trash icon in the Prototyping section of the Inspector to remove a Link.
Choosing a start point — Start Points let you choose which Artboard your Prototype starts with when you preview it. To set a Start Point, open your Prototype in the Preview window, select an Artboard from the drop-down menu, and click the flag button next to it.
Previewing Prototypes — There are three ways to preview Prototypes — in the Sketch app, on your iOS device using Sketch Mirror (App Store), or in Sketch Cloud where you can share prototypes with others.
There are three ways to preview Prototypes — in the Sketch app, on your iOS device using Sketch Mirror (App Store), or in Sketch Cloud where you can share prototypes with others. Handoff to developer and engineers — Sketch just recently announced an in-browser inspector for developer handoff. It’s still in beta but it’s scheduled for release early this year. This is a new development as sketch didn’t use to have any means for developer handoff and it solely depended on external tools like zeplin, Invision, Avocado and sketch Measure. Read press release.
Pro and cons of prototyping with Sketch
Pretty simple prototyping tool, very easy to learn.
No auto-animation tool.
No component states or mouse gesture triggers.
No native developer handoff tool.
No collaboration.
Prototyping in sketch is quite basic compared to other design tools and it currently cannot handle handoff with engineers, it still relies on external tools.
For more information on prototyping with sketch — https://www.sketch.com/docs/prototyping/
Figma
Adding a link — To add a Link in figma, switch to prototype mode through the sidebar
Select a layer, drag the dot by the right-side of the layer and drop it on the artboard you’d like to link your layer to. Within the sidebar, you can select what type of animation would occur while transitioning between artboards.
Choosing a start point — To set a Start Point, drag the play icon on your preferred artboard.
Previewing Prototypes — There are two ways to preview Prototypes in figma — in the figma app, or on your mobile device (iOS & android) using Figma Mirror (App Store)
There are two ways to preview Prototypes in figma — in the figma app, or on your mobile device (iOS & android) using Figma Mirror (App Store) Handoff to developer and engineers — Click on the share button on the top-right corner, and share with your engineers.
Pro and cons of prototyping with figma
Best collaborating system
The mirror app is quite slow and does not render the animation frame rates properly
Auto-animate feature is not the best
It’s fully cloud based and it’s available on almost every notable desktop platform (windows, mac, linux and on a browser). But that also means “no internet no figma”.
Handoff works perfectly.
Figma is a well rounded product, it handles prototyping pretty well. Sharing prototypes and handing off to developers is quite easy and straightforward. Although it lacks a bit of sophistication compared to Adobe XD and Invision Studio, it’s still pretty decent.
For more information on prototyping with figma — https://www.figma.com/file/IPlvaZWmxh5koplBxkbxM2/Prototyping-in-Figma
Adobe XD
Adding a link — Switch to Prototype mode and click the layer you want to link. A connecting handle with an arrow appears from the layer. When you hover your mouse over the handle, the cursor changes to a connector.
Click and start dragging your mouse to see the connector. Release your mouse on the destination artboard. When you wire up the first element, the artboard of that element is set as the home artboard.
Previewing Prototypes — You can either preview prototypes live on your mobile device (https://helpx.adobe.com/xd/help/preview-mobile.html) or upload to your adobe cloud account for sharing with others.
You can either preview prototypes live on your mobile device (https://helpx.adobe.com/xd/help/preview-mobile.html) or upload to your adobe cloud account for sharing with others. Handoff to developer and engineers — Before sharing, adobe XD asks who you would like to share the prototype with. There’s an option for developers which provides a smooth handoff process with engineers.
Pro and cons of prototyping with Adobe XD
Prototyping is amazing! You don’t need any extra plugins or services to create high fidelity clickable prototype.
Adobe always makes sure their creative suite of applications are linked, so that would give XD a boost — Designers would be able to have more options/tools with the involvement of other adobe applications.
With the introduction of Anchor links, Audio Playback,Multiple actions on a Tap trigger and so many other features, prototyping is more advanced on XD.
No Scrollable Area feature, the whole artboard acts as one.
Lastly, here are some other prototyping tools to check out:
Invision
Protopie
Marvel
Framer X
Origami Studio
Principle
Proto.io
Say hi on Twitter 👍 | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/prototyping-with-figma-sketch-and-adobe-xd-7c9a670bd16c | ['Oluwapelumi Adeyemi'] | 2020-12-21 02:18:55.956000+00:00 | ['Prototyping', 'Design', 'UI', 'UX', 'Resources'] |
[ANN] REMIIT IEO with Coinis | Remiit is a decentralized remittance and payment platform that aims to act as a catalyst of globalization through the blockchain.
Follow | https://medium.com/remiit/ann-remiit-ieo-with-coinis-4d75b9f13435 | ['Team Remiit'] | 2018-11-21 06:22:06.597000+00:00 | ['Ieo', 'Ann', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Coini', 'Exchange'] |
R & L Carrier New Orleans Bowl | R & L Carrier New Orleans Bowl
It’s Bowl Season!
This is hopefully every college football fan’s favorite time of year, our very own advent calendar; a present almost every day. The first bowl for the 2017 season is the R & L Carrier New Orleans Bowl featuring two former Sun Belt rivals, North Texas Mean Green and the Troy Trojans.
Handicapping bowls is one of the most intriguing parts of sports betting. As mentioned previously in the Army — Navy preview, link, you should be capping the underlying stats for each team plus the “spot” and now, add motivation. It’s always tricky as this means digging into coach movement, players coming back from injury, what kind of bowl the team has been awarded and as of last year, star players who are declaring for the draft deciding to just skip irrelevant bowls.
The lines for this bowl opened Troy -5.5 with a total of 61 (most widely available openers). These lines have since moved to Troy -7, total 62. Most people looking at this game might, at face value, think it’s going to be a shoot-out considering North Texas running attack and Troy’s fun offense. However, this total offers very little value based on each team’s expected points scored and expected points allowed. So, look to the spread for a bet on this game. One method of trying to normalize the statistics in college football while accounting for the different schedules is by averaging out each team’s opponents scoring results. This will hopefully help to determine how much each team scores, more or less than they should be expected to and how much each team gives up, more or less than they are expected to. This can be used to produce a theoretical spread and total. It looks like this:
It looks like Troy should be closer to a double-digit favourite and this is probably supported by the line movement from -5.5 to -7. It also looks like, as just mentioned above, the total is spot on. Something to avoid.
Another popular way to try and normalize the stats and produce a theoretical spread is through yards per play on offence and defence. This is how the game breaks down using that measurement:
As this metric usually leans heavily to the underdog, it’s generally best to look for a high variance to the available line (Army showed 3.5 of value in this metric on Saturday). Here it’s only 1.5 and also shows Troy with a decent sized advantage in yards allowed.
Another common way to compare teams is to look at how they perform in key situations during a game, such as on third down and in the red zone. While it is difficult to use these to create a theoretical spread, it can still be instructive. For these two teams the stats are as follows:
Here, it looks like North Texas might have a slightly better ability to move the chains down the field and stop Troy’s drives a little better. Also, it looks like once in the red zone North Texas has done a much better job converting than Troy. But, look at red zone defence. Troy has the best red zone defence in college football (in a vacuum that doesn’t adjust for opponent), whereas North Texas looks like they just concede in hopes of getting the ball back and scoring again (and if you watched North Texas-Army a few weeks ago you know this is true).
A little more in-depth way to compare teams is to delve into their defensive metrics, such as sack rate, tackle for loss success and drive stop rate. While these are all defensive stats, they do paint a picture as to what kind of field position teams may be able to generate and how successful they’ll be at keeping their opponent from sustaining scoring drives. The stats for this game are as follows:
All four of these stats, much like red zone defence, paint a picture of Troy as a defensive machine. They out rank North Texas by a significant margin in each category. This holds true in explosiveness as well. There’s probably enough numbers and charts in here already so, sufficed to say North Texas is pretty explosive on offence and Troy is pretty great at limiting explosive plays on defence.
A lot of these stats, except the first breakdown, are not considering strength of schedule. It is usually a great equalizer. It may be surprising to know to that Troy had the #100th ranked schedule in terms of difficulty and North Texas had the #99th. Basically identical.
It is bowl season so, what about the “intangible”? There is a bunch here to consider. First and foremost is the health of North Texas running back Jeffrey Wilson. North Texas’ running attack will be good without him but, great with him. He had 16 TD’s in 11 games and averages over 6 yards a carry. It has not been announced if he will play yet. Before the game against Rice, North Texas’ offence was rolling and they didn’t seem to miss Wilson in the first half against Rice, putting up 30. But, they scored 6 (two FG’s) in the second half and then were held scoreless till late in the 3rd quarter against FAU in the C-USA title game. Maybe they do miss Wilson more than expected?
What about a letdown for the Mean Green? (Fun, lengthy, aside — North Texas used to be the Eagles until 1966 when they adopted the name Mean Green. This apparently is purely coincidental to the fact that Hall of Fame NFLer “Mean” Joe Greene was playing for them at that time. The story goes, some North Texas basketball players started a chant about the team on the field being Mean Green and it stuck. Link. Believe what you will...) North Texas lost their first C-USA Championship game, two weeks ago, in very unconvincing fashion (they never got off the bus as the saying goes) and it’s hard to tell how excited they’ll be about this bowl. This will be their 3rd bowl in 4 seasons and I’m sure they were looking for a better berth.
From the Troy side, much like North Texas, it’s a program on the up-swing as young head coach Neal Brown has spiced things up. Troy went 6 years without a bowl bid or a Sun Belt title. Last year, in his first season, Troy took care of the bowl drought with an appearance in Dollar General Bowl and a win over Ohio. This year they took care of the title drought, splitting the Sun Belt crown with App. St. Brown has also reached 10 wins in each of his two seasons at the helm. I expect him to get this team motivated to continue the momentum into next season where they have once again scheduled Boise to lead things off and have also scheduled Power 5 mainstay Nebraska. After beating LSU this year its conceivable Brown will want to repeat a Power 5 victory. Brown’s been mentioned for some coaching openings but, he’s probably another good season or two away from leaving. Side note for prop bettors — Troy QB Brandon Silvers is two shy of the school record for career touchdowns. There’s no way Silvers and Brown don’t want that. If a prop bet of o2.5 TD’s thrown exists, hammer it.
There are 6.5 and 7’s widely available as of Monday December 11th. Troy should be able to score at their normal pace and their defence should be able to shut down North Texas’ attack. Watch for Wilson’s health and roll with the Trojans at 7 if he’s out and a lower number (6 or 6.5) if he plays.
Troy -7, -105
Good Luck | https://medium.com/@BigTenWatto/r-l-carrier-new-orleans-bowl-b20c620f0e7f | [] | 2017-12-12 00:04:48.223000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Sports Betting'] |
The Best Advice Steve Jobs Ever Gave | The valuable advice Jobs provided during his lifetime can help guide the next generation of innovators.
Entrepreneurs everywhere in the globe admire Steve Jobs, and for a good purpose; he was a daring visionary who utterly revolutionized the tech trade. Even at present, a few years after his demise, folks nonetheless take into account Steve Jobs a task model value emulating. Fortunately, we will proceed to study from him by means of previous interviews and speeches. The precious recommendation he offered will assist information the subsequent era of innovators.
Through the D5 Convention in 2007, an audience member asked Steve Jobs what single piece of recommendation he would give entrepreneurs on constructing worthwhile firms. Jobs answered the query plainly: in order to be successful, you have to be passionate in regards to the work you’re doing.
In giving his reply, Jobs acknowledged the truth that this piece of recommendation is extensively circulated and customarily considered true. The actual perception got here when Jobs defined the rationale success relies upon loving what you do — as a result of that’s the one manner you’ll persevere.
As Jobs defined, constructing an enterprise is just not a simple activity. To achieve success, you have to work exhausting and overcome repeated challenges over an extended time period without giving up. When confronted with these ongoing challenges, most individuals will stop. However, those that love what they’re doing will persevere as a result of they’re pushed by their passion, not by external rewards.
In his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs emphasized the significance of trusting your gut and following your curiosity. Jobs inspired students to pursue their interests, even when they seem impractical at the time. He believed that a lot of his success might be attributed to this philosophy.
As an instance of this level, Jobs described what occurred after he dropped out of Reed College. Since he not needed to fear about meeting specific course requirements, Jobs was free to audit no matter class piqued his interest.
For instance, Jobs took a category on calligraphy. He discovered the category fascinating however at the time it appeared to serve no sensible goal. It was solely later, in wanting again on his life, that Jobs acknowledged the significance of that calligraphy class; it gave him an understanding of nice typography which he later utilized when designing the Macintosh laptop.
Jobs believed that curiosity and instinct are reliable guides. Even in the event you can’t see the place every choice is main, you have to have religion that your curiosity and instinct are guiding you alongside the proper path.
Steve Jobs repeatedly suggested folks disregard the constraints imposed by others and create their very own lives. In a 1994 interview with The Santa Clara Valley Historical Association, Jobs mentioned the false nature of society’s boundaries and acknowledged his perception that folks ought to query these limitations. He believed that folks have the facility to changes lives — their own and people of others — if they’re prepared to problem the established order.
Steve Jobs reiterated this level in his Stanford commencement address. In it, he mentioned, “Your time is restricted, so don’t waste it living another person’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which resides with the outcomes of different folks’ thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your personal inside voice. And most essential, have the braveness to observe your coronary heart and instinct. They in some way already know what you really wish to develop into. Everything else is secondary.”
Read More: The Five Hour Rule | How can it change your life forever?
Steve Jobs mentioned failure in his 1994 interview with The Santa Clara Valley Historic Affiliation. Within the interview, Jobs describes calling Bill Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, at his house in Palo Alto, California. Jobs — who was only 12 years outdated on the time — referred to as to ask if Hewlett had any spare parts he might use to construct a frequency counter. Hewlett not only gave Jobs the elements he requested, he additionally employed him to work on the meeting line constructing frequency counters the next summertime.
Jobs used this instance to show that success only comes whenever you’re prepared to take action and go after what you need. As an alternative to fearing Hewlett’s response and making excuses, Jobs took an opportunity — one which paid off. Within the interview, Jobs states, “that’s what separates the people that do things from the people that just dream about them: you’ve got to act and you’ve got to be willing to fail.”
Steve Jobs knew what it was like to be continually aware of your personal mortality. He was first identified with cancer in 2003 but didn’t succumb to the illness till October of 2011. However even earlier than his analysis, Jobs understood that daily is essential as a result of our time on this planet is restricted.
Jobs relayed this valuable piece of knowledge throughout his 2005 commencement address. In it, Jobs describes how at the age of 17, he learned a quote that would supply steerage all through his life. The quote was, “If you live each day as if it was your final, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”
Jobs then illustrated how this quote helped shape his life by saying, “Since then, for the past 33 years, I’ve appeared in the mirror each morning and requested myself: ‘If today were the final day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?’ And at any time when the reply has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I do know I would like to change something.”
Jobs additional defined the importance of this observe. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to assist me to make the large selections in life. As a result of almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things simply fall away within the face of demise, leaving solely what is really essential. Remembering that you’re going to die is the easiest way I do know to keep away from the lure of pondering you’ve gotten one thing to lose. You’re already bare. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” | https://medium.com/@samitariq78/the-best-advice-steve-jobs-ever-gave-a70dbe65f93c | ['Sami Tariq'] | 2021-05-20 18:39:51.596000+00:00 | ['Steve Jobs', 'Rich', 'Advice', 'Médium', 'Inspiration'] |
Designing Systems at Gusto. Building tools for and collaborating… | Every system is different, every component is different, and every designer is different. There is no right or wrong way to build components. The way Figma is built actually allows and encourages many ways to build the same thing. That is the power of the program, and beauty of the different ways designers work. What’s important, is that we build tools that are flexible and allow designers to use them without thinking about how they work.
Example of Input interactivity and auto layout
Patterns
The next step after components, which utilize foundational elements to become something interactive or informational, is the compiling of patterns. Patterns are made up of components to complete an entire interaction. For example, one pattern we use a lot at Gusto is a Form. This is made up of a section title (using text styles — Foundation), any combination of inputs (Components), possibly a checkbox or disclaimer text for agreement (Components/Foundation text styles), and actions (another pattern made up of button components).
Anatomy of a Form
Together, these all combine to make the Form Pattern in our system. What comes with this pattern is an example using the previous stated components, patterns, and foundations, in an auto layout which implies our intended spacing. Patterns are a great way to build in documentation through things like spacing. In certain circumstances, we also encourage detaching patterns. An example of an encouraging detachment of a pattern would be when the Form pattern does not have all of the elements you need in the example that comes out of the box. If a designer needs an additional input or another checkbox group, the pattern can be detached, allowing designers to add in more elements that fit directly into the auto layout that is the entire Form frame. At this point of the design process, guidelines on what can be added to a form and how it should be used in that form would be found in our documentation on the docs website.
Workbench Documentation Website
Templates
To help designers get started designing their projects, we created a set of templates they can use to easily and quickly jump into designing without worrying about finding an existing design to duplicate. These templates are built for several different user types and at our most commonly used screen sizes.
Lab
On the design systems team, we have developed an area of our component library called Lab, which is a place where we can surface items that are in progress but ready to start being tested and used. This practice helps us to inform designers and engineers on what we’re working on and what is coming soon.
Tools
To help designers easily find what they’re looking for when searching in the Figma asset library, all of these foundational elements, components, patterns, and templates utilize a description to include any possible search terms. It’s very important that each designer feels free to know items as they do based on their experience and are able to search what comes to their mind to find what they are looking for.
Example of searching for a component by many names
At Gusto, we sometimes show mockups externally, and therefore have certain names, photos, emails, company names, etc. which have been approved by our legal team that we must use in these mockups. To help designers quickly and efficiently populate mockups, we created a Google Sheet that has a variety of approved details on it that can be used with the Google Sheets Sync plugin for Figma.
Worker Content Plugin Example
Continuing the work of helping designers get started more easily and collaborate more efficiently, we created a Figma plugin that populates a new Figma file with a page structure and starter templates. The page structure we insert when running the plugin was influenced by what designers were using in their own file templates.
Gathering Feedback
The design systems team in continuously helping onboard new designers and providing workshops for people to learn and understand how to build for Gusto using Workbench Figma. To help us gather insights, we send out surveys that allow people to submit anonymous feedback so we can learn how we can improve what we are doing for the team, and ultimately our customers.
Figma Design System Workshop Feedback Form
Since a design system is a living and breathing ecosystem of assets built for designers, engineers, researchers, writers, etc. provided to a product organization, it’s important for us to remember that there is always work to be done, and things to be improved upon. Our work is meant to sustain, help people work better together, and be something that is maintained and evolved with the product and company. The reality is that we are imperfect and there is always room for improvement, there may be something we missed that we need to go back and fix, or the brand changes, the product grows and we need to move with the swerves of the business and team.
We use periodic sentiment analysis through surveys to understand how our work is affecting the rest of the organization, retrospective usage reflections with designers and engineers to know how we could have done better with the tools we provided them, and metric tools like Figma library analytics to know how and when certain components are being used to build designs. With metrics inside of Figma, we have also been able to watch the trends of how the new asset library is used in comparison to the legacy library, and how adoption changes week to week.
Figma Library Metrics
Communication
The continuous evolution of our design system tools informs a very necessary collaborative process with our broader team members.
There’s much more communication with product designers from a design systems team than updates when there is a new release. Communication is the most important aspect of a relationship between a design systems team member and those they are building tools for. Especially in a remote environment, intentionality around communication is absolutely crucial. The designers we build tools for should feel comfortable reaching out to us with a question on how to use a Figma component, or to tell us that it’s broken and needs fixing, or to pair with us on ideas for a new component.
One way we asynchronously communicate with designers is through providing screen recorded documentation on how to use the components in Figma. These videos are recorded using Loom and have a home on each component page on our documentation website. With these videos comes written communication on how to properly use assets from our design system — ie. When to use, when not to use, ways to use, etc.
Another way of communicating is simply through Slack. We have a dedicated channel for design systems, where people can reach out with any design system specific questions. There is also a channel for product design. Per the designers preference, we share updates to them directly in the product design channel, and use it to initiate conversations for anything new we’re working on.
Collaboration
Product designers should feel as much a part of the design system creation process as they wish. Whether that means submitting an idea, helping work through a bug, or contributing to working through a new component proposal and helping to build the asset in Figma. We have refined our contribution process recently to help make this more approachable for designers. It’s very important to us that designers are a part of the decision making process when it comes to creating new or altering existing components, patterns, styles, etc.
Using Airtable, we created an inquiry submission as the first phase of this collaborative process. This form is accessible from our design system website as well as the UI kit we mentioned before. It allows designers to input their name, team, and choose from a few options of either reporting a bug, submitting a change request, nominating a new component or icon, or to let us know they detached something they don’t feel they should need to.
Design Systems Submission Form
A reporter can also attach an image or screenshot, along with any description about what they are reporting. From here, we reach out to them directly to gather any additional information. For nominations of something new, we ask other designers to help validate the need of this item. This validation doesn’t determine whether or not we create what they need, but more so tells us how greatly it will affect the organization. After we receive any validation which influences how we prioritize this new item in our production roadmap, someone from Design Systems will pair with the designer who wants to work on the item to construct a proposal. This proposal is created in Figma, and walks through user stories, business goals, internal and external audits, then explorations for the actual item. Once we feel confident in our solution, we then bring in other designers to help test the component to work out any kinks. When appropriate, we build a prototype to test and gather feedback from potential customers. After any necessary revisions, we are ready to work with engineering to develop the component.
In addition to pairing with designers to help work through component decisions, there are other ways to create space to collaborate with designers. One way is to insert ourselves as much as we can into team-wide design reviews. Each week we have design reviews where designers present what they’re working on. It always helps for one of the designers from the design systems team to be representing design systems in the meeting. This allows us to approach feedback in a different way than their fellow product designers, and focus on new components they may be thinking about, or how they might be able to more closely align with the guidance from the design system.
With a new design system in Figma, revisions to naming structures, and how components are built utilizing features in Figma like Auto Layout and Variants, comes the need to allow space for designers to come ask questions. This encouraged us to open Figma Office Hours, an optional weekly thirty minute call for people to come and ask any questions they may have about our design system in Figma. This is in addition to our weekly Design System Office Hours, which is used to discuss the progress and status of components. | https://medium.com/gusto-design/design-systems-at-gusto-462d653824b | ['Derek Torsani'] | 2021-09-02 17:44:32.287000+00:00 | ['Figma', 'Gusto', 'Design Systems', 'Design', 'Product Design'] |
My Plan for Chinese | When we’re in school, it can be hard to notice just how good teachers are at doing a lot of our thinking for us. When I started learning Chinese, I knew nothing. Just by doing the assignments throughout middle school and high school, I was able to reach conversational fluency.
Once I graduated high school and was on my own, I tried my best to keep studying Chinese. I would get lists of vocabulary in alphabetical order and relentlessly study to prepare for the HSK tests. I got Anki and used spaced-repetition flashcards. I got Chinese books and tried reading those. I tried watching Chinese TV and movies. I fell in love with the freedom. There was no structure to hold me down. Little did I know that the structure was the very thing that propelled me all those years.
My teachers knew that they had to design lesson plans that would engage their students. Stuff that would excite them and make the learning enjoyable. When teachers make lesson plans, they do so with intention. They know that if they force us to memorize arbitrary lists of vocabulary, we would lose interest and make no progress. Teachers also know that you shouldn’t give students more work than they can handle. Instead, they break things down into manageable chunks.
I am going to do my best to recreate my experience of learning Chinese as I did throughout my middle and high school years. | https://medium.com/@ryan.m.shaw/my-plan-for-chinese-5ac34c9192 | ['Ryan Shaw'] | 2021-12-19 01:40:16.942000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Language Learning', 'Chinese', 'Language', 'Self Improvement'] |
Teamwork and other benefits from Coding | No matter which career path you choose, the ability to work efficiently in teams is a necessary skill to have. The collective and collaborative efforts of members of a team not only helps in solving complex problems easily but also makes room for innovative ideas from the different perspectives.
There are a lot of ways to inculcate this skill into children right from a younger age and coding is one of them. Here’s how -
When approaching a problem, the child needs to use logical reasoning to come to a solution. They analyze the problem, identify the errors and then come to a solution. When working in a team, they learn to do this together.
Coming together in teams can allow them to acknowledge different perspectives and help them develop the skill set of an excellent problem-solver. This also opens the gateway of innovative ideas and the ability to work even in conditions of conflict.
At the same time, it teaches kids to be more resilient. It gives a chance for them to bring their creativity to life. However, the process right from the ideation to the execution takes time and patience. During this process, the kid is exposed to various steps of logical reasoning and decision making. This helps them develop a logical thought process.
When working on projects together, kids develop their skills in a collaborative way. Peer-learning and interaction help them to open up and express their ideas. At the same time, it allows them to approach problems from a different perspective.
Designing new games or special effects also help kids to learn the foundational concepts of math's and science in a fun way. It can also help foster the inquisitiveness in the kids to make their projects more interesting, life-like and personalized.
Soon enough, the kid moves from playing a game or using a feature to building one. The learning process is authentic as the kid applies the knowledge and executes the idea from its inception to the final presentation.
They also get a chance to articulate their thoughts better when explaining their projects to others. Working on such projects in teams help them meet like-minded individuals in this virtual world.
Want to know more about how kids can benefit from coding? Visit www.codeyoung.com today! | https://medium.com/@codeyoung/teamwork-and-other-benefits-from-coding-11beee70bd41 | [] | 2020-12-23 11:29:52.054000+00:00 | ['Edtech', 'Teamwork', 'Benefits Of Coding', 'Education', 'Coding'] |
Mass Media Propaganda Is Enemy #1: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix | The most Orwellian tool of our rulers which does the most damage and affects the most lives is not surveillance, nor police militarization, nor government secrecy, but domestic mass media propaganda. It’s also the most overlooked. It’s good to protest the other mechanisms of authoritarian control, but propaganda is enemy number one.
You don’t need the ability to spy on dissident groups if you can control public thought enough to prevent those groups from forming in the first place. You don’t need the ability to quash public uprisings if you can propagandize people away from rising up at all. And they can. And they do.
The ability of the plutocratic class to manipulate public thought at mass scale is the single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society. It warps the entirety of our political spectrum, all our thinking, all our discourse, and what we perceive as normal. And you just don’t see people fighting it. The ACLU isn’t protecting people’s mental sovereignty from the manipulations of sociopathic government-aligned oligarchs. People aren’t taking the media-owning class to the Supreme Court for brazen election interference. People aren’t taking to the streets protesting it. But they could.
In terms of the effect it has on society, no control tool comes remotely close to advancing as many interests of the powerful against the interests of the people as domestic plutocrat-sponsored propaganda. Nothing will change until people start noticing and resisting this.
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Theories about elite conspiracies to shore up more control over the population tend to greatly underestimate how much control they already have.
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Wanting the US government to have a “competent leader” is like wanting a serial killer to be skilled at evading detection.
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A new report says China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy by 2028. This is the real reason they need you to hate China right now. Mentally replace all their carefully manufactured narratives with this.
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The Democratic Party’s inability to seize on this obvious opportunity and turn “We want to give you money and they don’t” into an election-winning platform would be odd… if the Democratic Party’s primary function was to win elections. But it isn’t. The Democratic Party’s primary function is to kill all leftward movement in the United States to ensure Americans remain too poor and powerless to interfere in the operation of the empire.
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The Democratic Party is what leftism would look like if you stripped it of every single thing that could possibly inconvenience plutocrats, intelligence agencies, or the military-industrial complex in any way.
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It’s not just that Democrats will ignore all the evil things Biden is going to do, it’s that they ignored all the most evil things Trump did while in office as well. It’s not merely a partisan thing: they really do just see murdering foreigners as normal American presidential stuff.
A lot of Biden criticism is going to consist of “If Trump had done this Democrats would be screaming!” And it will just be false; they wouldn’t. Not if it advanced the interests of oligarchs, war profiteers, or sociopathic intelligence agencies. We know this because they didn’t.
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As things heat up with Iran again please remember that there is never, ever any reason to treat unproven US claims about aggressions by an unaligned nation with anything other than derision and dismissal.
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First show me verifiable proof that the accused nation did what the US government says. Then show me proof that what was done wasn’t a valid response to what the US is doing. Then show me proof that interventionism would help. Then fuck you, because you won’t do any of the above.
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People who say the world is controlled by space reptilians have more credibility than reporters from high-profile news outlets who uncritically repeat unproven government claims about aggressions by unaligned nations.
❖
It will never not infuriate me that when the time came for women to start claiming a human-sized amount of space in our society, the solution we came up with was for us to start acting more like men. Which was the exact opposite of what the world needs.
“We want equality, so let’s jump into the capitalism game men invented and the political game men invented and the war games men invented and prove we can be just as insane and destructive as any man.”
❖
Cynical closet shitlibs can make anything sound woke. Regime change in Syria. Cold war escalations against Russia and China. Assange smears. Attacks on Glenn Greenwald’s marriage. Anything. A little cleverly-diddled lefty jargon and suddenly it can be leftist to support the CIA.
❖
When humans first showed up it was the strong brutes who led the tribe. Later on it became the clever manipulators who led, because they could manipulate the strong brutes into doing their bidding. Now the manipulators are working on making even their brute armies obsolete via technology, so it will just be clever manipulators at the top and everyone else at the bottom. This is the real revenge of the nerds.
❖
The way to get what you want is to keep courageously jumping down inner rabbit holes of self-exploration, learning what makes you tick, clearing your illusions and healing your psychological wounds. Also, you’ll wind up wanting completely different things from when you started.
_________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 | https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/mass-media-propaganda-is-enemy-1-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix-550b273fe4e2 | ['Caitlin Johnstone'] | 2020-12-27 03:02:25.409000+00:00 | ['Democrats', 'News', 'Media Criticism', 'Propaganda', 'Politics'] |
Why I Believe in God | When I was 19, standing in my kitchen one morning, I felt the presence of another person. I turned to see if my boyfriend had entered the room, but there was no one there.
This presence was so strong that I literally called out to him to see where he was. Maybe he was trying to sneak up on me? But no, he was still in bed.
All throughout the day, I felt this presence everywhere I went. No matter where I was — on my walk, in my car, in the shower — I felt the company of this other person even when I was most assuredly alone.
A few days later, it finally dawned on me that I was pregnant. The soul I felt, that strong feeling that I was in another person’s presence at all times, was my baby.
The next few months were what I can only describe as an intense spiritual experience. The baby spoke to me from early on, telling me I would never get to meet her — she was only there to help me leave my boyfriend. She said he was going to hurt me in a way I could not heal from if I did not leave and that since I had not demonstrated a willingness to save myself from him, she knew that I would leave him in order to save my child from his violence.
I knew, somehow, that this had been orchestrated by “God,” whoever that was. Not an old man in the sky, but some benevolent force of creation that had literally put a guardian angel into my body to get me to do what I hadn’t had the strength to do before then.
The next few months were what I can only describe as an intense spiritual experience. The baby spoke to me from early on, telling me I would never get to meet her — she was only there to help me leave my boyfriend.
One day that spring, shortly after the miscarriage that I had known was coming, I found myself in a deep depression. I knew I had to leave my boyfriend — that had been the directive. But I was overwhelmed with sadness that the whole messy relationship had led me to such a dark place.
I collapsed on the bed one afternoon, just before sunset. My boyfriend was downstairs in the living room, watching a movie. I laid there on the bed, fully clothed, watching the light dim at the window, crying softly.
“What do I do?” I asked this newly forming understanding of God that I was sensing. “Please help me.”
I closed my eyes, feeling no presence respond, which was a torture I cannot describe when I had just spent the last few months feeling enveloped in the bubble of love and companionship I had felt with my baby. All of that was gone that night on the bed. I could feel my aloneness more intensely than I ever had. The contrast was agonizing.
I couldn’t feel even the faintest memory of connection to my child. And I couldn’t feel any connection to God, either.
I imagined my uncle then, who had died suddenly a few months before, shocking the entire family with the unexpected loss. I started crying again — my grief was still so deep — and I felt him hugging me in my imagination.
Suddenly, the image of him dissipated into a million stars and I felt as if I had shot upward into outer space — but no. Further. Higher than that.
I was being held in that infinite place, I realized. I looked down and saw a giant hand cradling me. I sensed that it was the hand of Jesus, which seems strange, I suppose, considering the fact that I did not think of myself as a Christian at that point, nor after it. But I’ve always felt a strong connection to Jesus’ spiritual teachings, so it did not surprise me in that moment to feel his presence.
“You are not alone,” he said. Except that I knew it wasn’t him speaking, but God speaking through him. “I’ve got you.”
I was there, in that space for a very long time. “Time” isn’t the right word, in fact, because there was no time. I could feel myself — my body — far, far away somewhere. I knew it was on that bed in my house, but I was not in it anymore. I knew my soul was someplace else, someplace my body could not reach.
So I laid there, deeply comforted, until, a long time later, I felt myself slowly slipping back downward, funneling back into my body like liquid being poured into a bottle.
“You are not alone,” he said. Except that I knew it wasn’t him speaking, but God speaking through him. “I’ve got you.”
I opened my eyes and found myself in pitch darkness. Nearly two hours had passed.
I felt afraid, suddenly — was it a dream? Would I get up, go downstairs to join my boyfriend, and be crushed by the weight of my depression and grief yet again? Or had this been real? Was I really not alone?
I rose, carefully walked down the stairs, and with each step, I could still feel the buoyancy of my soul. I still felt the presence of God within me. I still felt strong and supported. Held.
I sat down with my boyfriend and we watched a movie together. My spirit felt strong all that night and the next morning.
When he came out to the deck after breakfast to smoke his cigarette while I was sitting next to him, drinking a glass of water and then threw his cigarette into my cup just as I lifted it to my mouth, I stared at that cigarette floating there, saw his utter contempt for me so clearly, still felt God’s energy thrumming in my body, and I stood up and said in utter calmness, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” | https://medium.com/wilder-with-yael-wolfe/why-i-believe-in-god-89a35d35f2f0 | ['Yael Wolfe'] | 2020-11-30 14:37:18.847000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Spirituality', 'Soul', 'Relationships', 'God'] |
Warning from a Disabled Grad Student | I’d like to file a Civil Rights complaint about my department through Johns Hopkins, but Hopkins’ own policies prevent me from doing so.
Disabled Hopkin students have to file complaints through Hopkins Disability Services (DS) if they face discrimination or harassment due to disability. DS decides whether or not to forward the case on as a Civil Rights or harassment complaint.
At Johns Hopkins, all Civil Rights complaints are handled by the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE). Students who experience racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism and discrimination based on their beliefs can file Civil Rights complaints and have their complaints investigated by a lawyer. Students who who are harassed or treated inappropriately by Hopkins employees can complain in the same way and also have their complaints investigated by a lawyer.
Students who experience discrimination based on their disability status, or who face professors and administrators who violate the ADA or Federal privacy law concerning disability — such students may not file through OIE. We have to file through DS. Then DS decides if the case warrants going through OIE.
I’ve dealt with DS a bit, but I’ve never encountered a lawyer there. They seem to operate on an ad hoc basis without much authority to change anything. (In my experience, they cause more harm than they cure.)
The chance that a disabled student will face discrimination or harassment without a disability component is almost zero, so Hopkins’ rule that all disability complaints go to DS effectively bars disabled students from filing Civil Rights complaints without DS’s permission.
Able-bodied students can file Civil Rights complaints directly. Disabled students must file first to DS, then obtain DS’s permission to file with OIE. Let me say that again: Disabled students at Johns Hopkins University may only file Civil Rights complaints with the university’s permission. Able-bodied students do not need the University’s permission to file.
This is crazy because Federal law treats discrimination on the basis of disability as a Civil Rights violation. Hopkins DS appears to treat it as a kind of protocol violation. They will speak with individual professors, but do nothing about systematic, ongoing problems such as regular failure to implement classroom accommodations, and a tradition of bullying and retaliation.
No one has been able to explain to me why Hopkins treats disability discrimination as a disability issue, and other forms of discrimination as Civil Rights issues, nor why disabled students are the only group effectively barred from filing Civil Rights complaints at the school.
I fear this policy means that Hopkins doesn’t care much about the fate of its disabled students. | https://medium.com/@laurelholmesmaury/disabled-in-higher-education-57ca7cf43b3a | ['Laurel Holmes Maury'] | 2020-12-20 03:37:49.361000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Discrimination', 'Social Justice', 'Johns Hopkins', 'Civil Rights'] |
Sociology: A different kind of gambler’s fallacy | I’m going to tell you a parable of two friends. At one point, they were both kids. They would hang out, play video games, talk about things, joke, and in doing so, become very good friends.
Then they grew up and got jobs. One of them became a thief, the other became a policeman.
But they stayed friends. Very good friends in fact. Might sound unlikely, but it’s a true story. For you see, I was one of them, and I’m no policeman.
We honestly get along fine, and usually joke about our respective turns in life. It’s not a big deal to us, and because we’re two real people and our rivalry is purely abstract, neither one cares. It’s a lovely thing of the human condition, how uniforms are so bad at separating us.
But I remember once we had a debate. I don’t think it was an argument, we both got kind of passionate but there was no real hostility or animosity. We just argued like romantical people do in southern Europe, where you get a bit loud but you hold no bad feelings about it. It’s all in the spirit of the debate.
The argument was about politics, and I remember one thing that stuck with me, it requires a bit of context, he didn’t say it like he was happy about it, he seemed more troubled. He said “I hate to say it, but statistics don’t lie.”
It was in reference to immigrants and crime. He knows I’m an immigrant, and I think we wanted me to offer the other side of that story, to put him at ease, help him see things differently. Like he didn’t want it to be true, but he was stuck believing in it.
And I thought it was funny, because he’s by no means a liberal. He’s not a conservative either. He’s a Platonic republican I’d say. What some might call a pragmatist or independent in modern jargon.
But what I found funny about it was how this is a very unprogressive notion, and yet it comes from the exact same place as progressive ideas, namely statistics. I kind of hate statistics, and I say that as someone who has not only studied engineering, but also economics for several years. I don’t hate useful statistics of course, I hate the way they’re used in a school of pseudoscience we call sociology.
Because projections, probability, higher numbers, data correlation and all these things are far more of an art than a science, and somewhere along the lines it became the new phrenology. The new pseudoscience of social hierarchies.
And what impresses me is how people don’t just explain with very simple scientific terms how, no, you can’t measure human demographics with statistics in any meaningful sense. Instead we got entire fields of study dedicated to its divination and pseudoscience.
So let’s say you get a statistic in some country like, and again, I don’t believe in this nonsense, I’m just using what is in my opinion a troubling and all too common example:
But let’s say you get a statistic saying that people from some ethnicity is more likely to commit crime. What happens?
Well, suddenly you got a dichotomy of progressive and conservative racists, who both accept the statistic as an a priori truth, and then proceed to conclude it.
“Oh but they live in poverty, they are not given the right opportunities, it’s police bias, etc, etc.”
“They are criminals, they don’t respect our culture, they refuse to assimilate, we must have law and order, etc, etc.”
No one ever bothers saying the right thing, which is “So what? People aren’t their statistics. All you’ve done is draw an arbitrary vector between two data points and pretended it matters. I could do the same to prove dog owners are more likely to commit crime, or that Ikea furniture contributes to house fires.”
Now some of these talking points could be true, I’ve migrated to brutal and uncivilised countries where I certainly had no respect for the law, where they treated their elderly population, and their downtrodden people like trash. Where I am proud to say I would struggle to survive, where I stole food and gave to the needy, where I rebelled.
I have frequently broken laws I consider to be unjust or wrong, usually with the objective in mind to help someone in need. I don’t want to incriminate myself with details, but it happens. So that’s a point for the conservatives.
But the liberals are right too, often I’ve stolen because I’ve been broke, and miserable. But you know what? Most immigrants I knew, even during my gang days, were not thieves or crooks of any kind. Most of them worked twice as hard for half as much, I knew people who were professors in their old country, and who collected welfare in this new place they had to go to.
And if you can’t give a professor a good job then what kind of society are you? How is that civilised? You should be able to find professor jobs in all kinds of places. I knew people who were qualified in all manner of amazing skills, and who could’ve easily used them to live well in the underworld, but who would rather accept honest poverty before unlawful success.
And if you tell the statisticians that, then they say “Oh well that’s anecdotal.”
As opposed to what? Your scryer’s ball? Crime statistics are anecdotal too. It’s just anecdotes that are ratified by an institution. Anecdotes of prosecutors, judges, police, and similar things. And they can absolutely be manipulated.
For instance: Very few of them make distinctions between misdemeanors and what lawyers sometimes call “true crime.” A common crime for immigrants in Europe to commit for instance is violation of fire ordinances. They come from countries with different ordinances, and so they have campfires or cooking fires in public places where it’s not allowed. This is especially common with refugees who, for several months or maybe even years of their lives, have grown accustomed to living without electricity in war torn places.
Usually they get a lecture on how things work in the new country, and they don’t do it again, but it still enters into statistics. You can solve it with a pamphlet, and yet people act as if Hannibal is at the gates.
Another trick is to look at criminal charges rather than criminal convictions. So that the people who say, might not speak the language too well, and might be more likely to get booked on grounds of suspicion but are then acquitted after explaining things with a translator, are more likely to end up on statistics.
Then you got true crime, which is like a crime with a moral implication. Grand larceny, rape, murder, robbery, things that don’t just break rules on paper, but also commonly accepted rules of conscience.
Statistics often conflate these two things. Moreover, it also ignores how policing works, how once you’re known to live in a neighborhood where people don’t understand fire ordinances, then police is going to up activity there to be effective. That’s a vicious cycle.
I could go on forever, but the point is that yes, statistics do lie. Because when you ascribe them to human beings, then you’re basically inventing an imaginary person.
For example, let’s say you run some statistics and calculate things like body mass index and physical proportions in adults, and arm span and so on, and it turns out that statistically speaking, an adult with no professional swimming training will actually win a swimming race against a class of junior swimming athletes because of how their arms and legs can just produce more water pressure quicker.
Now does that mean we would give Stephen Hawking a snorkel? With his education I suspect he would’ve been the first to point out how probability is a bit more complicated.
So you got all these imaginary minorities existing entirely in numbers, who can’t be found anywhere in the world. Supposedly you got devout Muslims, praying 5 times a day at the quibla, read the Qu’ran and the Hadith, honouring Ramadan and living in perfect sobriety, who also just cannot help but steal people’s phones all day.
I assure you: No such people exist. The devout thief is a Christian thing, and our Muslim friends are far too honourable to infringe upon patents like this.
Unless you’re a Salafist I guess, then anything goes. They commit Catholic levels of crime.
Point is, there is no statistical person, and there are no “marginalised” people. There’s oppressed people, there’s downtrodden people, there’s poor people, there’s segregated people, there’s neglected people, there’s suffering people, but each one owes a bit more to their humanity than some accountant’s trickery.
“Marginalised” instead became a trendy way for the haves to exploit the marketable image of the have-nots.
It allows well to do academic types to correlate their identity to some statistic, and tell people who hard they got it, and how they’re a “voice of their community.”
And suddenly Ellen DeGeneres with her Hollywood money, is representing disowned teenagers who sleep in the gutters of San Francisco. Suddenly you got Kuwaiti royalty representing the Iraqi civilians, pleading to the UN to invade their country.
And it gets pretty dehumanising, because it turns anti-racism into the new racism. For instance a lot of Black and Native communities in the US have a disproportionate amount of liquor stores per captia.
Does that mean that the perfect Christmas gift for them is a nice bottle of malt liqueur? That this is a thoughtful gift? That this warrants any recourse besides arranging for someone to die in a misfortunate malt liqueur accident?
No. It just means that the liqueur industry is unambiguously evil. It means they know how to take advantage of people. Doesn’t change how most people have the tremendous strength to walk past those terrible devil’s shops and get on with life.
Nor does it change how statistics define some, but not others. If a German community drinks, then it’s cultural, if a Black community drinks, then it’s social. A German person is being jovial, a Black person is being an alcoholic, and so on. It’s all twisted around and framed in all manner of ways, and none of it is real. It’s just assumptions based on arbitrary framings of numbers.
And the real trick to fighting prejudices is not to reinforce them with pseudoscience and then explain them away, but to dismiss them. To stop looking at people’s identity, whether that’s colour or gender or whatever else, and instead look at their names and faces, how these are people who are only themselves, and that they should be afforded the dignity of only being themselves. | https://medium.com/@thumblesteen/sociology-a-different-kind-of-gamblers-fallacy-797880c4b7bb | [] | 2021-09-06 13:34:59.542000+00:00 | ['Progress', 'Culture', 'Social Justice', 'Sociology', 'Political Science'] |
improvements in robot technology | Robotic is the new revolution in this digital world. These have made people’s jobs easier. In other words, these have replaced many of the jobs that people do. As you all know, robot technology is widely used in manufacturing industries, laboratories, traffic control, research, search operations and military operations.
A robot is any machine that operates automatically and replaces human effort. By extension, robotics is the engineering discipline of robots’ design, read more | https://medium.com/@raveenf8/improvements-in-robot-technology-766aa7361739 | ['Raveen Fernando'] | 2020-12-17 04:30:44.032000+00:00 | ['Robotics', 'Robo', 'Robotics Automation'] |
Create an application CoroutineScope using Hilt | Following coroutine’s best practices, you might need to inject an application-scoped CoroutineScope in some classes to launch new coroutines that follow the app lifecycle or to make certain work outlive the caller’s scope.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create an application-scoped CoroutineScope using Hilt, and how to inject it as a dependency. To further improve the way we work with Coroutines, we’ll see how to inject the different CoroutineDispatcher s and replace their implementations in tests.
Manual dependency injection
To create an application-scoped CoroutineScope following dependency injection (DI) best practices manually without any library, you’d typically add a new variable to your application class with an instance of a CoroutineScope . The same instance would be manually passed around when creating other objects.
Since there isn’t a reliable way to know when the Application is destroyed in Android, you don’t need to call applicationScope.cancel() manually as the scope and all ongoing work will be destroyed when the application process finishes.
A better option for doing this manually is to create an ApplicationContainer class that holds the application-scoped types. This helps with separation of concerns since these Container classes are responsible for:
handling the logic of how to build certain types,
holding container-scoped types instances, and
returning instances of scoped and unscoped types.
Note: A container always returns the same instance of a scoped type, and always returns a different instance for unscoped types. Scoping types to containers is costly since the scoped object stays in memory until the component is destroyed, so only scope what’s really needed.
In the ApplicationDiContainer example above, all types were scoped. If MyRepository didn’t need to be scoped to the application, we’d have:
Using Hilt in your app
Hilt generates what you can see in ApplicationDiContainer (and more!) at compile time using annotations. Moreover, Hilt provides containers for most Android framework classes not only for the Application class.
To set up Hilt in your app and create the container for the Application class, annotate your Application class with @HiltAndroidApp .
With this, the application DI container is ready to be used. We just need to let Hilt know how to provide instances of different types.
Note: In Hilt, Container classes are referenced as Components. The container associated with the Application class is called SingletonComponent . Check out the list of all available Hilt components.
Construction injection
Construction injection is the easiest way to let Hilt know how to provide instances of a type if we have access to the constructor of a class as we only need to annotate the constructor with @Inject :
This lets Hilt know that in order to provide an instance of the MyRepository class, an instance of CoroutineScope needs to be passed as a dependency. Hilt generates code at compile time to make sure dependencies are satisfied and passed in when creating an instance of a type or give errors in case it doesn’t have enough information. @Singleton is used to scope this class to the SingletonContainer .
At this point, Hilt doesn’t know how to satisfy the CoroutineScope dependency because we haven’t told Hilt how to do that. The following sections will explain how we can let Hilt know what to pass as a dependency.
Note: Hilt provides a different annotation to scope types to the different Hilt available components. Check out the list of all available component scopes.
Bindings
A binding is a commonly-used term in Hilt that denotes the information Hilt knows about how to provide instances of a type as a dependency. We could say that we added a binding to Hilt with the @Inject annotation of the code snippet above.
Bindings flow through Hilt’s components hierarchy. Bindings that are available in the SingletonComponent are also available in the ActivityComponent .
Bindings for unscoped types (an example of this could’ve been the MyRepository code above if it wasn’t annotated with @Singleton ), are available in all Hilt components. Bindings that are scoped to a component, such as MyRepository that is annotated with @Singleton , are available to the scoped component and the components below it in the hierarchy.
Providing types with modules
As mentioned above, we need to let Hilt know how to satisfy the CoroutineScope dependency. However, CoroutineScope is an interface type that comes from an external library, so we cannot use constructor injection as we did before with the MyRepository class. The alternative is letting Hilt know what code to run when providing the instance of a type using Modules:
The @Provides method is annotated with @Singleton to make Hilt always return the same instance of that CoroutineScope . This is because any work that needs to follow the application lifetime should be created using the same instance of a CoroutineScope that follows the Application ’s lifecycle.
Hilt modules are annotated with @InstallIn that indicates in which Hilt component (and components below in the hierarchy) the binding is installed. In our case, as the application CoroutineScope is needed by MyRepository which is scoped to the SingletonComponent , this binding needs to be installed in the SingletonComponent as well.
In Hilt jargon, we could say that we added a CoroutineScope binding, as now, Hilt knows how to provide instances of CoroutineScope .
However, the code snippet above could be improved. Hardcoding dispatchers is a bad practice in coroutines, we should inject them to make them configurable and make testing easier. Following the previous code, we can create a new Hilt module to let it know which Dispatcher to inject for each case: main, default, and IO.
Providing implementations for CoroutineDispatcher
We have to provide different implementations for the same type: CoroutineDispatcher . In other words, we need different bindings for the same type.
We use qualifiers to let Hilt know which binding, or implementation, to use each time. Qualifiers are just annotations that you and Hilt use to identify specific bindings. Let’s create one qualifier per CoroutineDispatcher implementation:
Then, these qualifiers annotate the different @Provides methods to identify a specific binding in Hilt modules. The @DefaultDispatcher qualifier annotates the method that returns the default dispatcher, and so on.
Note that these CoroutineDispatchers don’t need to be scoped to the SingletonComponent . Every time these dependencies are needed, Hilt calls the @Provides method and returns the corresponding CoroutineDispatcher .
Providing an application-scoped CoroutineScope
To get rid of the hardcoded CoroutineDispatcher from our previous application-scoped CoroutineScope code, we need to inject the Hilt-provided default dispatcher. For that, we can pass in the type we want to inject, CoroutineDispatcher , using the corresponding qualifier, @DefaultDispatcher , as a dependency in the method that provides the application CoroutineScope .
As Hilt has multiple bindings for the CoroutineDispatcher type, we disambiguate it using the @DefaultDispatcher annotation when CoroutineDispatcher is used as a dependency.
A qualifier for ApplicationScope
Even though we don’t need multiple bindings for CoroutineScope at the moment (this could change in the future if we ever need something like a UserCoroutineScope ), adding a qualifier to the application CoroutineScope helps with readability when injecting it as a dependency.
As MyRepository depends on this scope, it’s very clear which external scope uses as implementation:
Replacing Dispatchers for instrumentation tests
We said before that we should inject dispatchers to make testing easier and have full control over what’s happening. For instrumentation tests, we’d want to make Espresso wait for coroutines to finish.
Instead of creating a custom CoroutineDispatcher with some Espresso Idling resource to make it wait for the coroutines to finish, we can take advantage of the AsyncTask API. Even though AsyncTask was deprecated in Android API 30, Espresso hooks into its thread pool to check for idleness. Therefore, any coroutine that should be executed in a background thread could be executed in the AsyncTask’s thread pool.
Use Hilt’s TestInstallIn API to make Hilt provide a different implementation of a type in tests. Similar to how we provided the different Dispatchers above, we can create a new file under the androidTest package to provide different implementations for those Dispatchers.
With the code above, we’re making Hilt “forget” the CoroutinesDispatchersModule used in production code in tests. That module will be replaced with TestCoroutinesDispatchersModule which uses the Async Task’s thread pool for work that needs to happen in the background, and Dispatchers.Main for work that needs to happen on the main thread which Espresso also waits for.
Warning: This implementation is obviously a hack that we’re not proud of. However, coroutines don’t currently integrate well with Espresso as there isn’t a way to know if a CoroutineDispatcher is idle or not at the moment (Link to bug). AsyncTask.THREAD_POOL_EXECUTOR is the best alternative to use at the moment since Espresso doesn’t use Idling resources to check if this executor is idle, Espresso uses a different heuristic that takes into account what’s in the message queue. That makes it a better option than something like IdlingThreadPoolExecutor which unfortunately considers the thread pool idle when a coroutine is suspended due to how coroutines are compiled down to a state machine.
For more information about testing, check out Hilt’s testing guide. | https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/create-an-application-coroutinescope-using-hilt-dd444e721528 | ['Manuel Vivo'] | 2021-06-10 17:24:39.831000+00:00 | ['Dagger Hilt', 'Android App Development', 'Android Development', 'Dagger 2', 'Dependency Injection'] |
Best Automotive Company Comeback | Best Automotive Company Comeback
Ratan Tata with Jaguar car. Source-CarandBike
Tata group is a household brand in Asia as it runs an enterprise making paper clips to running an airline. The conglomerate had created trust in the minds of people in Asia. Tata’s story was not all sunshine and rainbows as it came through insults and failures. One such event etched to Tata’s history is an embarrassment it faced in front of Ford and how it came out of it.
TATA:
TATA logo.Source-Wikipedia
Tata is one of the biggest brands in India. Jamsethji Tata in British India started the Tata group. Tata’s initial business was in steel manufacturing. Tata steel’s principal customer was Indian railways, which laid railway tracks in India’s nook and corner. To promote British steel manufacturers, Britain levied an extra tax on Tata steel. Tata steel thrived taxation and even entered the aviation industry.
Crisis:
Tata Indica the first Tata Motor car.Source-Wikipedia
In 1991 Tata group got a new CEO, Ratan Tata. Ratan Tata was a new enthusiastic leader who wanted to venture into new fields. He started Tata Motors to manufacture cars for the Indian market. After several years of hard work, Tata Motors introduced the Tata Indica car model to the Indian market. Though the car was a hit, it created a dent in Tata’s balance sheet. Ratan Tata decided to sell off the Tata motors division and looked for suitable bidders. Ford showed interest in the purchase. Ratan Tata went with his team to Detroit, USA, to meet Ford chairman Bill Ford in 1999. In the meeting, Ford officials mocked Tata motors on their attempt to make cars. Ford even suggested that they are doing a massive favor to the Tata group by purchasing Tata Motors. After the meeting, Ratan Tata took the next flight to India, worked hard, and turned Tata motors into a profitable business.
Comeback:
Tata,Land Rover and Jaguar. Source-Autocar
In the 2008 recession, engulfed in huge debts, Ford wanted to sell off Land Rover and Jaguar brands. Ford looked for suitable bidders. Guess who came to save Ford? Yes, Tata motors. Tata motors rescued Ford from bankruptcy and bought Range Rover and Land Rover. Ford chairman Bill Ford expressed his gratitude that Tata motors saved Ford.
The Tata group’s karma always works fine. Here is another example. Tata airlines were one of the first private airlines in India. Renamed Air India, in 1953 Indian government, as a part of the nationalizing of private sectors, took over the airlines. Tata overcame the loss and reentered the airline industry with Vivanta airlines. Due to massive losses, the Indian government invited the Tata group to buyback Air India. The wheel of karma took a complete turn. | https://medium.com/predict/best-automotive-company-comeback-74d81f0b64cc | ['Karthick Nambi'] | 2020-11-12 19:17:20.566000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Automotive', 'Motivation', 'Cars', 'Life'] |
How To Understand and Analyze Crypto Markets | Let’s face it, analyzing and understanding today’s crypto markets can be a bit of a bear with the seemingly endless stream of information that’s pouring in about every coin. Just when you think you’ve got the bull by the horns and a cryptocurrency is about to take off or spike as the result of some promising news, its price graph will tank in the opposite direction. This may have been predicted by analyzing the charts leading up to the dump.
THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE
This article will touch on key aspects of cryptocurrency technical analysis (TA)
Time I$ Money…
Yep, you’ve heard it a thousand times, but if you think about it… it makes good sense. The more personal time you invest into learning how to invest, the more knowledge and earning potential you will possess. So, spend some time to make some money.
Before you can start analyzing and predicting the performance of cryptos, you will need to develop a basic knowledge of coins which are making prominent advances in the market. There are plenty of crypto news sites that continuously update the performance of certain coins, but the best way to gain that knowledge is to do it yourself. Instead of simply reading crypto news articles that are merely stating which coins are making moves, try to follow them on your own by using crypto performance sites like coinmarketcap.com. It is possible to spend hours and hours researching all the information about the top coins in the market.
Once you’ve found some promising coins, start your research and follow some news resources which may keep you up to date with their performance — but don’t listen to just any source… find some reputable sites that you enjoy using.
Use your best judgement with YouTubers, vloggers, and other video influencers who have been continuously praising the potential of specific coins. More often than not, these shillersare being paid to report positive news to spark interest in its non-existent capabilities. Instead, do your own research by reading up on the facts and objective details about certain coins and their project or platform. Ask yourself this question before judging a cryptocurrency:
”What is the exact reason that this coin will perform like a rock or like a rocket?”
Key statistics to look at when researching a coin include its market capitalization, circulating supply, and price. These are the most important stats regarding the performance of a particular coin. Understanding the fundamental stat differences between a top coin and a low value coin will aid you in your analysis.
Do your eyeballs spin around when you look at graphs?
Although reading up on the news of cryptocurrencies can provide subjective thoughts and analysis, charts and graphs represent unarguable facts that show the past performances and trends of all assets. The key terms to focus on when understanding crypto markets through graphs and charts are technical analysis and trends.
Technical analysis (TA) is one of the tools used by traders to analyze the crypto market. It focuses exclusively on graphs and past performance trends. At times, this can serve as a more accurate way to predict the performance of coins over reading up on their projects. TA utilizes trend lines and statistical data to predict which direction the price of a cryptocurrency will lean. Despite the high volatility of cryptocurrencies, traders who use TA overlook the rapid price movement to create linear patterns based on a series of higher highs or lower lows.
Other components of TA are trading volume and moving average. It’s pretty simple: higher trading volumes are seen more often with stronger trends. While you’re analyzing the possible upward or downward trend of a coin, check on the trading volume to see if it has increased or decreased. At the same time, use the volumes to predict when a trend will slow down or even stop all together. For example, if the trading volume is increasing over time during a downward trend, we can expect the trend to slowly change direction and vice versa. The moving averages of a coin can also be extremely helpful when analyzing a trend. Moving averages are calculated by looking at the mean price of a coin over a certain period of time. It indicates the potential breakout of an upward trend if the price moves up in comparison to its moving average. These prices can be compared with each other to form a new TA graph, serving as another accurate way to predict trends through statistics and technical analysis.
Work Smarter Not Harder
The key to understanding crypto markets will rely on two things: knowledge and drive. If you put in the time and effort of researching, you will subsequently understand what is happening in the crypto sector. After standing back and observing how the market is moving, you’ll eventually begin analyzing trends and forming your own predictions based on the resources you use. The crucial concept here is to work smarter by keeping everything simple: facts are your best friend.
Don’t waste your time planted in front of a screen monitoring price changes; instead,take note of daily price changes. Try not to watch hours of hyped up “top coins of the month” videos that likely have little-to-no tangible support backing up their claims. Stay current by watching tutorials and “how to” informationals about technical analysis until you are comfortable with it.
Be patient, have some fun, and stay knowledgeable. Most of all, don’t rush the process. | https://medium.com/coinbundle/how-to-understand-and-analyze-crypto-markets-f427b0864efa | ['Coinbundle Team'] | 2018-10-10 23:14:38.075000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Crypto', 'Technical Analysis', 'Beginnerscoinbundle', 'Beginner'] |
Thoughts on Lying in Bed Listening to a Lyrebird | Thoughts on Lying in Bed Listening to a Lyrebird
Or another reason to stay in bed
Trees near the shack © A. Harrison
At first I didn’t notice. Our weekend shack is surrounded by forest, and each morning I wake to a cacophony of birdsong, from the twittering of wrens to the magical warbles of magpies and currawongs.
I once even woke to the sound of a kangaroo jumping onto our roof.
Less than an hour’s drive from home, our weekender sits surrounded by 100 acres of Australian bush. We have neither phone nor television to disturb us, and the closest mobile reception is a 10-minute drive away. The precarious electricity cable leading to the house is occasionally taken out by a passing kangaroo. It’s the perfect place to escape and recharge the soul. (We’re also lucky enough to have the Great Northern Trading Post five minutes away. Boasting the oldest continual liquor license in the colony outside of Sydney, it serves the likes of grilled spatchcock or steak with pommes frites, and free Wi-Fi.)
Our shack hiding in the bush © A. Harrison
Even late in spring a mist often fills the valley below the house. Of a morning I love to sit on the verandah, sipping a strong coffee as I overlook the clouds. Droplets of moisture swirl in the air, and I can hear the drip of water as it falls from the leaves. Birds dart by, and the trees are nothing but grey outlines. As the sun rises the mist burns away, revealing a glorious spring day. A perfect day, as they all are up here.
On this morning, however, I lay abed a while, the melody of birds a backdrop to sleepy thoughts. There are so many types of birds up here, with so many different calls, that it took a while for the perfect notes to fall into my consciousness. The sound of a whip bird, repeated three times, followed by a flourish; a pause, then it was all repeated again. Each note so perfect, so clear, rendering all the other birds amateurs in comparison.
The morning mist © A. Harrison
Lyrebirds are shy creatures — I have only spotted them twice (although I do have a german shepherd in tow as I walk the bush, which renders the journey not exactly quiet). They were both female superb lyrebirds — largish brown birds, tending to a coppery glint on the wing, with a body of deep grey. Perfect colours for blending into the bush. On each occasion the lyrebird darted into the undergrowth as soon as I spied her. I saw them in different parts of the valley, so I’m guessing there are quite a few up here.
It is the adult male who boasts the resplendent tail inverted over his body like a silver shower, and a voice of gold which carries for great distances. (Females also sing and mimic other birds, but their voice is less powerful.) Very territorial, it is during autumn and winter (the mating season) when their song intensifies and is most often heard, especially on a still, misty day. Their melodies carry over the valley and echo through the hills.
Aside from their own songs, lyrebirds are known for mimicking the calls of others. Their notes are perfect, producing melodies to shame the birds they copy. They even imitate human noises: a chainsaw starting, the sound of a motor, the crack of a whip. Songs are even learnt from one another, and taught to their young; there are stories of chainsaws being heard in the bush, years after all logging has finished, the noise passed down through the lyrebird generations.
Two rare bush elves © A. Harrison
Now the sun has risen. The soulful call of a black cockatoo falls from the air. This is one bird I’ve never heard a lyrebird impersonate, and I’m glad. Black cockatoos are completely different to their better known white cousins. Whereas white cockatoos tumble through the air in large crowds and often put on a circus display of aerobatics, the larger black cockatoo lumbers past, often solitary, occasionally in small groups, looking for all the world as if it has no right to fly, yet vanishing from sight with nothing but a slow flap of wings.
Although their cry is mournful, for me the sound as it falls from the air is quintessentially Australian. Whereas the white cockie squawks and can be trained to talk, the black cockatoo emits a soulful cry of despair, as if a lost soul has taken to the air in search of a home. Were a lyrebird to perfect this, it would bring me to tears.
Sharing my breakfast with me © A. Harrison
If you enjoy my writing, please visit my blog Wise Men Fish Here. Here you can also buy my photos, if you feel like contributing to my coffers. | https://medium.com/storymaker/thoughts-on-lying-in-bed-listening-to-a-lyrebird-b988ff4d95a9 | ['Anne Harrison'] | 2020-01-28 05:22:41.062000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Nature Writing', 'Morning Thoughts', 'Musings', 'Writing'] |
Banco Galicia y Yana ganadores de los Planeta Chatbot Awards 2020 | 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://planetachatbot.com/banco-galicia-y-yana-ganadores-de-planeta-chatbot-awards-2020-1f03e439f6be | ['Planeta Chatbot'] | 2020-12-14 14:47:15.106000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Awards', 'Chatbot', 'Banking', 'Español'] |
Day 1: The champs return and the 7–11 show hits the road. | Clippers 116 v. 109 Lakers
Most of Scoreboard looked similar last night. The differentiating factor was that Lebron and AD didn’t play as long and the Clippers had 10 steals compared to the Lakers 4. The Clippers simply tried harder in the regular season game.
After Lebron got his 4th ring and the Lakers got their 17th ring the Lakers seemed to lack the gas in the tank to win. On the bright side their new additions Schroder and Harrell had pretty good games scoring 14 and 17 respectively.
It was visible that there was confusion in the Clippers offense as they had 20 turn overs and Paul George started passing the ball to the ref. In the midst of the confusion though Paul George did score 33 on 72% shooting as he caught fire in the 3rd and Kawhi scored 26 on 38.5% shooting leading them to their first win of the season.
Nets 125 V. 99 GSW
The 7–11 show (yes, this is KD and Kyrie) and the Brooklyn nets ran the Warriors out of the gym last night.
The difference in last nights game was chemistry and rust. The Brooklyn Nets fit well together and are playing fluid basketball. Their star players started getting buckets from the get go without missing a beat. The same cannot be said for the Warriors as they lack chemistry and everyone seems to be confused on offense. Curry was rusty but Wiseman showed promising signs in the 4th quarter though this was garbage time.
KD seems to be back to his old self dropping 22 points on 44% shooting and Kyrie seems unstoppable with his 26 on 62.5 % shooting. Both of them didn’t even play the 4th quarter. Don’t forget about Levert who put up solid numbers and looks like a good third option making the Nets a scary sight in the East. | https://medium.com/@hoopletter/day-1-the-champs-return-and-the-7-11-show-hits-the-road-e990f9235f2a | [] | 2020-12-23 21:21:00.665000+00:00 | ['Baketball', 'Nets', 'NBA', 'Lakers'] |
Protest or Demonstration — Which is it? | There’s a lot of discussion about politically correct language these days. How about dropping “politically” and just using correct language?
Something that’s been bugging me in particular of late is that reporters and commentators need to learn the difference between a protest and a demonstration when they are covering large groups of people who gather together in response to events.
According to Dictionary.com*:
Demonstration: (noun) A public exhibition of the attitude of a group of persons toward a controversial issue, or other matter, made by picketing, parading, etc. Protest: (noun) An expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid.
When I originally wrote this for my blog in 2015, I used the following then-current events to make my point that what most reporters call “protests” and “protesters” are actually, in many cases, demonstrations staged by demonstrators.
After Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that six officers would be charged in the death of Freddie Gray, people gathered to celebrate the news. Most of the people I saw on television supported the decision, so they weren’t protesting, they were demonstrating. Yet reporters kept referring to them as “protesters.”
Closer to home for me, the same thing happened during the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman saga. People who gathered to peacefully show support for one side or the other were frequently called protesters when in fact they were demonstrators.
It’s still happening in 2020, as protests, demonstrations, and riots occur almost daily across our country. My issue is not with the events — that’s a completely different discussion — it’s with how they’re described.
When I see news reporters making a mistake that is so simple and basic, I have to wonder what else about their report is flawed.
The one thing I agree with the PC police on is this: Words are powerful.
My message to reporters, journalists, anchors and commentators: Use words correctly so your message is clear and accurate.
*Note: both of these words have additional definitions. I shared the ones that are relevant to the point I’m making. | https://medium.com/afwp/protest-or-demonstration-which-is-it-bd04e04d3c7e | ['Jacquelyn Lynn'] | 2020-07-19 15:31:01.435000+00:00 | ['Grammar', 'Writing', 'Life Lessons', 'Protest', 'Creativity'] |
The Pernicious Appeal of Sorkinism | The Pernicious Appeal of Sorkinism
In real life, even when you win, the bad guys never truly get “owned”
Photo: NBC
The enduring appeal of The West Wing, especially as comfort food in a dark time, comes partly from the wish-fulfillment you get watching competence and kindness as operating principles in the White House. But the real secret sauce of Sorkinism comes from a darker place. What actually makes The West Wing tick is the very specific emotional high you get from watching the ritual humiliation of bigots and bullies and other bad actors take place in front of a duly impressed group of onlookers, usually through the righteous dispensation of Truth and Science. There are far too many scenes like this to count throughout the Sorkinverse, but an illustrative example is the time when President Bartlet singles out the religious fundamentalist talk show host Dr. Jenna Jacobs at a White House event. Noticing that she’s failed to stand as he enters the room, he acknowledges her and then lays into the homophobic Bible-thumping she’s renowned for with an erudite reductio ad absurdum from the Old Testament:
“I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7 . . . What would a good price for her be?”
He ends the tirade with a display of Presidential dominance:
“One last thing. While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tightass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.”
Chastened and humiliated, she stands, as the awed crowd takes in her disgrace. It’s all quite satisfying to watch (if you can look past the troublingly lopsided power dynamics at play), but if the last four years have taught us anything at all, it’s that the feeling it’s designed to give you is one that you will never have in real life.
The Germans probably have a word for this particular emotion, which is a potent combination of schadenfreude, personal vindication in front of an appreciative audience, and the smug joy that comes from watching in realtime as a vanquished enemy slowly begins to see themselves for what they are. But if there isn’t a word for it, there should be, because it’s a high that many have been fruitlessly chasing since at least the Bush years. After The West Wing finished its run, the best peddler of this particular narcotic was Keith Olbermann, who would dutifully furrow his brow at 8 p.m. every weekday and deliver a blistering and eloquent tirade directed at the villains of the day (often the President himself). This finger-wagging “You-sir-ism” was addictive at the time, as it positively invited you to imagine W. himself watching it in the White House—probably while cowering under a desk — chastened and humiliated like Dr. Jenna Jacobs; crushed under the weight of logic and wit and righteousness.
Keith Olbermann, heroically vanquishing some enemy who couldn’t possibly care less. Photo: MSNBC
And in the era of Trump and Twitter, this idea that these remorseless goons are just one good “own” away from slinking back into the fever swamp with their tails between their legs is somehow more prevalent than ever. It’s immensely satisfying to watch (for instance) the craven Trump lawyers pursuing frivolous allegations of election fraud get smacked down by judges, or the QAnon grifters being hilariously debunked as their predictions fall apart in front of them, but it’s also important to realize that they don’t care. They are not (as the dril tweet goes) owned.
And neither, importantly, is Trump. The absolute best that we can hope for is that he will, at some point, go away. But the catharsis—the righting of wrongs and the restoring of balance—that so many of us have been conditioned to hope for exists in the same imaginary world where George Bush apologized for his crimes against humanity and Donald Trump got destroyed by The Lincoln Project and Michael Douglas turned his campaign around by saying to Bob Rumson, “I’m Andrew Shepard, and I am the President.” The appeal, and the danger, of Sorkinism is the idea that the other side can be vanquished if they’re exposed for what they are. But as validating as it can be to watch videos of Trump surrogates getting lit up by righteous cable pundits or quote-tweeted into oblivion on Twitter, that next moment—the one where they grudgingly stand up and acknowledge reality like Dr. Jenna Jacobs—is never going to come.
The fact is that these people can’t be shamed or forced to concede or even compelled to admit that they’re living in their own twisted, nightmare reverse-Sorkinverse where they’re the righteous ones.
They can only be painstakingly beaten back, never defeated or vanquished. They’ll never give anyone that satisfaction. | https://medium.com/sharks-and-spades/the-pernicious-appeal-of-sorkinism-89b0572febde | ['Jack Shepherd'] | 2020-11-15 14:00:31.574000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Social Media', 'Television', 'Culture', 'Media Criticism'] |
“Education” for the 2020–2021 school year (PART II) | Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
Distance Learning Technology
The story is part two of my reflections about planning for the summer of 2020. I will focus on the technical considerations we tackled to situate ourselves for the hybrid fall school year’s demands.
As we worked through the summer, the expectations for a remote or hybrid start to the school year were becoming clearer, and we verified that Zoom would still be the platform of choice for the community.
We tested several “appliances” that would tie right into Zoom and give the faculty a familiar interface to work with as they link students’ classrooms with their remote peers. We settled on the Poly Studio X50 system (this includes a control tablet and camera/speaker and microphone bar). Epson Brightlink projectors display the class, students, and work on the screen, and the remote students can see their peers in the room. Faculty connect to the meeting from their device and classroom, and remote students all see the same presented materials. It was not perfect, but provided the best solution for this mixed in-person and remote classroom.
To support the sixty (plus) Zoom Room cameras, we wanted to ensure adequate bandwidth to the internet to guarantee that classes looked and sounded good. Our bandwidth to the internet was 500MBs (up and down) for our primary connection. Using PRTG, I have been monitoring several systems, including our internet pipe. Before installing the Poly Systems, the data did not show upload or download speeds exceeding 350MBs. We wanted to consider the network load of the Zoom Rooms.
Following some discussions, we worked on updating our RCN bandwidth to 2GBs (up and down). The updated speeds give us a lot of room, and with the costs of internet services being so reasonable, the monthly costs were negligible. As of November, the PRTG charts continued to show no greater than 450MBs internet speeds (close to 500MBs). The reports from the classrooms have been good, and no broad or systematic issues.
The increased maximum internet speed required updating our Cisco ASA firewalls to support 1GBs plus internet speeds. All of this work required time, scheduling, adjustments, and some downtime. We coordinated between RCN and our partners to ensure as quick and efficient transition to the increased speeds.
We replaced aging HP network hardware switches for newer Cisco switches providing up to 10GBs fiber between switches and substantially improving the backplane speeds of these current devices.
Infrastructure is critical in assuring the use of the Zoom Room classrooms and the 1000+ devices on the network on a daily basis supporting our faculty, staff, and students.
Infrastructure takeaways. For any deployment at this time, providing the best communication from the endpoints to the internet is critical. Monitor and review the bottlenecks and prepare for the best ways to ensure smooth classroom experiences. | https://medium.com/@adamsonscott/education-for-the-2020-2021-school-year-part-ii-46ecef0d758a | ['Scott Adamson'] | 2020-11-25 18:19:25.634000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Zoom', 'Technology', 'Distance Learning', 'Infrastructure'] |
3 ways to present your data analytics findings | The different between powerpoint and tableau is that tableau allows users to interact with the infographics directly. Other users can change the filters, parameters and even create their own personal dashboards with editor access. Compared to powerpoint, powerpoint is statics and is more towards management reporting or general presentation.
3. The Advance
Sometimes, the tradeoff in creating beautiful dashboard or infographics is time. We may not have the luxury to spend hours in creating beautiful images in our infographics. However, if we use the standard powerpoint elements (e.g. smart charts) or tableau standard charts, it will be boring to users. That’s why Canva comes into the rescue! There are many pre-build templates for you to choose in Canva. Be it powerpoint, posters, infographics or even instagram post!
The infographics is from CANVA. We can use it as a starting step and customise the colours, wordings and even add in our own images and charts to it. The best thing is — it can be exported to powerpoint or as an image. Hence, we can use this as a background in our powerpoint or tableau dashboard. This certainly saves us lots of time!
Conclusion
Due to how fast-pace the world is changing, we do not have the time to spend time creating everything from scratch. This includes data analytics, presentations or even FAQs. The skillset that we need to learn is how we can source for better tools that can help us convey our message in the shortest time, without compromising on the quality of the message. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/3-ways-to-present-your-data-analytics-findings-22a6ff8aa87d | ['Daniel Quek'] | 2020-11-29 07:14:15.324000+00:00 | ['PowerPoint', 'Tableau', 'Infographics', 'Canva', 'Data Analytics'] |
Visions of a Remarkable Mind | How did everything start?
Oh, yeah, that’s a big question. I was born in a city called Campinas, which is southeast of Brazil. My mom was 15 when she got pregnant with my sister, 17 when I was born, and 18 when she was divorced and broke. Thankfully, in a typical Latin family, we had a lot of family and friends’ support. I was raised surrounded by very strong women. I could see my mom, my grandma, even my great-grandma really working hard to give us a better opportunity than they have. I think at a very young age, I already felt empowered to create my own path and encouraged to be always curious. With that in mind, my first scholarship may have been when I was nine, my first informal job when I was 11. By 17, I already moved along to São Paulo, which is a 20-million city, to work and study.
I found my way to get to graduation, I ended up with graduation actually in a top university. I even had a year abroad in Milan due to another scholarship. By the age of 24, I had already a very different life from where I started. I was a manager in a big corporation leading marketing and digital strategy with a sizable team. I was checking all those boxes of success that I created for myself, and some of those were don’t get pregnant, do well in school, get a job, all those things that we tell ourselves what success looks like.
Somehow, I was not feeling fulfilled. I was actually more insecure as time passed, but I would try to hide that at all costs. Then that made me feel even more stressed. After several years of that cycle, although I was getting great feedback at work and everything looked right from the outside, I simply was not okay. Eventually, I got the courage one day and quit my job. It took a while for me to articulate why I left such a successful track, but today, I can understand that I was due to much imposter syndrome, value clash, sexism that it really became unbearable.
Anyways, after that period, I opened up my own business, which was another big learning curve, but gave me much more joy than I was having in the corporate world. I was leaving a more authentic and flexible lifestyle. I started realizing that checking all those boxes didn’t mean success, I just had to respect my true self and who I really was.
When I saw that my career path was as an entrepreneur, another big turn happened. A dear friend sent me an opportunity to work at Google and insisted that I apply.
How was this process for you because you’re working with something that you truly loved?
I didn’t think that I was getting the job. I literally did it for the sake of, “Okay, done.” I never really thought it through, “Okay, I will leave my job,” or anything like that. My friend insisted, I said, “I’ll give it a try, they will not call me,” and that’s done, but they did call me. I ended up starting at Google.
Again, I was sure that I was not going to stay for long, so I didn’t close my business or anything. I tried to keep both for a long time. Based on my experience in the past, I didn’t think I would ever fit in. Here I am, seven years later still working at Google. In the end, I had to close my business, it was impossible to keep both. During those seven years at Google, I worked in different roles. The past three years, I’ve been based in Singapore leading product strategy and operations for 15 Asia Pacific countries.
Working in different cultures and roles made me even more aware and interested about social inclusion. Luckily, this year, I was able to make another move. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been leading strategy and operations, but now for #IamRemarkable, this global program that fights those biases that made me quit my first job to start with.
What does it mean to be a Latinx for you?
This is a very interesting question, because to be very honest, I didn’t recognize myself as a Latinx for a long period. Growing up in Brazil, I felt just a Brazilian. I didn’t label myself as a Latinx. When I saw all the Spanish-speaking countries, I felt they were so different from the reality I lived in. Their story, their culture, I could not really understand how anyone could actually cluster us as one. After studying more,working in global companies and living abroad, that perspective changed. I got to learn so much about our shared colonialism, and experience a weird connection that truly happens when you meet someone from Colombia, Venezuela, or even other Brazilians on that setup.
Now, I truly consider myself super Latina. I totally recognize myself in that label. I think also living in Asia can be super challenging, how different the culture is around you is, and having Latinx friends around me made me feel at home even so far from home. It can be just showing up, showing that they care, doing a small kind act, or my favorite, sharing food, small things that make my experience here much more comfortable.
For me today, being a Latinx is having a part of our identity rooted in Latin America, which has an amazing history of resilience, creativity, and a big sense of community, and how that shaped our culture. At the same time, there is a part of me that indeed believes that we are a group of uniques and it’s important to recognize the uniqueness of each country, each culture or even each individual. Yes, I’m a proud Latina, and also so many other things. We have a huge diversity in our community, and we should celebrate it as a way to fight stereotyping. We need to celebrate with each other and this is a great opportunity to do that. It’s so important to hear stories. That’s what I love about this podcast. I think we need to have more Latinx stories being told, so we can recognize this uniqueness and diversity in the same thing, those amazing characteristics that make us so much proud of our identity.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the #IamRemarkable initiative?
#IamRemarkable started in 2016 with two women named Anna that also worked at Google. They participated in a leadership program where women were asked to do a simple exercise of talking about their accomplishments, and so many struggled to do it. With that insight, they looked for literature and it was proven what they intuitively know. Women and other marginalized groups often struggle with lack of confidence, and that has an impact on their perceived competence, their careers, or even at home. Then, they started #IamRemarkable that at its heart is this 90 minutes’ workshop that makes people reflect and act on modesty norms and biases.
Today, this program counts over 8000 trained volunteers delivering workshops across the globe. It’s really an impressive example of the power of community. Together, we delivered workshops for more than 230,000 people across 150 countries, but I personally find most impressive number is that half of those that answer our surveys, said they had a job or a career growth and attributed some of that to #IamRemarkable. This really shows and proves the importance of sharing, recognizing each other, and finding the sense of worthiness, and increasing your confidence.
Another interesting fact is that over 800 companies now use #IamRemarkable as a tool to increase diversity inclusion in their organization. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but I feel proud to be a key part of this initiative in trying to make a real impact, a positive impact to change the corporate world and people’s life in general.
At Google, we have a concept of 20% projects, which is a project that you can dedicate time to. Today, we have over 100 people at Google that dedicate one day of their week to the program which makes a huge difference. You can imagine the power of having those brains working to roll out such an important initiative. This scale that we achieved, it really happened in the past few years, but the concept was something that is earlier than that.
What are usually the main barriers to talking about our own accomplishments?
We don’t talk about our accomplishments, because we fear. We fear being judged and not being enough or simply not fitting. It’s that inner voice that holds us back from sharing ideas in a meeting, applying for a job, or even having a tough conversation at home. The issue is that as with any other skill, if you don’t practice talking about your accomplishments, you’ll be more likely to lack confidence when those moments show up, and this cycle continues. We need to build this muscle of self-promoting and with practice, it becomes much more natural.
What many people don’t think about is that self-promoting has a lot to do with social norms. I think Latin cultures are an amazing example of how we can be taught to be modest, and taught that this actually is good, that we shouldn’t brag, that bragging is something bad. But if your peers, for example, update their manager in their project, and you don’t, you very easily fall behind on perceived competence. This is not about bragging, it’s simply stating the facts. As we teach at #IamRemarkable, accomplishments do not speak for themselves.
Your actions do count, but you have to let people know what you did. I think another element of this equation, which for me, and this was very impactful when I started learning from, is the role that unconscious bias plays in how people are perceived. We also have to remember that unconscious bias tends to benefit dominant groups and discriminate against minoritized groups. Research has proven that, for example, women tend to self-promote less, and when they finally do it, they tend to suffer criticism from men, and sadly, other women. It’s a classic thing that when a woman says something, she’s bossy, and while the men say the same thing,they’re decisive. As we were saying at the beginning, if we are all afraid of suffering backlashes, those unconscious biases and those learned behaviors make women be more modest.
This goes much beyond gender. Another study showed that white-sounding names got 50% more callbacks than job applicants with the same qualification but with names that sound from other ethnicities. If you take an intersectional approach on this, analyzing multiple identities that we can have, a white man, for example, tends to be judged by their expected potential. Women of color, for example, or Latinx nonbinary, have to actually prove their accomplishments and be judged by their historical, instead of their potential. The playing field is really unfair.
Therefore, developing confidence and self-promotion is a much more complex issue than we first look at. I think our gut reaction as Latinos, Latinas and Latinx, sometimes can be, “Oh, this is bragging, this is bad.” But when you see those dynamics, you can understand that you have to develop those skills, not only for yourself, so you can have a better change, but also to not perpetuate these kinds of models in societies that keep making that playing field so unfair.
How did the #IamRemarkable project change you?
This journey about building confidence and getting awareness about social perceptions is very, very personal to me. I have now been working with business and technology for over 13 years. Many times, I was “the only”. The only woman, the only Latinx, the only non-native speaker and so on, but I didn’t connect that at all with my lack of confidence. I thought those topics had nothing to do with each other. Like many, I personally also felt that self-promotion was a bad word, and it was just not for me.
I was used to working harder, I had really no motivation to be better at this particular skill. What really triggered me to care was when I stopped being the only, and witnessed heartbreaking examples of other women, Latinx and non-native speakers that were very modest, and suffered real consequences because of not speaking up.
I’ve always cared about equality and understanding that by not talking about my own accomplishments, I was helping to endorse an expected modesty from those people, so it moved me to get those people comfortable to speak up, I also had to start doing it myself. So, it became a personal goal to develop that skill. I used #IamRemarkable to first develop my own skill of self-confidence, self-promotion. Later, I started teaching others on the importance of biases and getting awareness to these topics. Now, it’s a pleasure to help to scale those learnings and hopefully accelerate the removal of the systemic barriers that prevent equal opportunity.
There are so many simple things that we can do in our daily lives to create that awareness and just ensure that people feel more comfortable. Ensuring that you give voice for people that are usually not so proactive to speak up. When they do speak up, you can endorse their ideas, making sure that they feel heard, listened, and embraced. Other things that you can also do is challenge and attribute ideas at the right place, like when someone says “we…”, you can ask “Hey, what exactly was your contribution to that?” These are very small things that help the environment to be more inclusive, and people more inclined to develop this skill.
Can you share more about your experience doing the TEDx Talk and how we can apply curiosity in our daily lives?
Doing TEDx was one of the scariest things I have done. I struggle a lot with confidence and self-promotion. On top of that, I think TED has a format that makes it so comparable and there’s so many great names and examples. I just kept thinking about those things and got terrified and immobilized, to be honest. It was a big shame storm.
When I finally was able to discuss this idea with friends, I was like, “What should I share?” I had no clue where to start. It became clear to me as they helped me to understand what stood up for them, was not the “what”, the things that I’ve done, but the “how”. I took that unusual path. Most often, I created opportunities by merely being very curious. My nerd self had to double check if the hypothesis of curiosity helps you to learn more and open new opportunities. I did some research, and there’s plenty of studies that proved that initial insight and curiosity then became the anchor of my talk. Beyond that, I shared a bit of my story, which I definitely struggled with, and today still struggling by talking to you. I tried to summarize what I learned and how I tried to go by in three very simple tips.
The first one, and maybe the most important to me is to be present. The word today incentivizes us to multitask, to think about the future, to be in this mindset of aspiration of self, instead of here and now. If we are able to simply focus on one thing, it’s like getting the noise down, and you can actually think more clearly and, honestly, just get more joy out of a simple task.
The second tip is about making more open questions. This is an important technique to get people to bring their gifts to the table. We can be surprised by what people can share when you allow them, when you give them space.
Last, but not at all least, is to actively listen to people. This has a lot to do with what I share about biases. If we don’t pay attention to what we are listening to, our biases can shut us down, that inner voice that comes and says, “I got this, move forward,” what I’m going to reply instead of listening, purely listening to what people are saying.
With these three simple steps, anyone can actually become more curious. I can see the impact of curiosity in my life, so I would strongly recommend anyone to try, either because they want to expand their possibilities, they want to change careers, or simply they just want to empathize more with people and be more inclusive.
Talking about resources, do you want to share with us which resource helped you in your journey?
I am personally a big fan of therapy. It really helped me to become more comfortable in my own skin, have a better sense of who I am and where I stand. I think there’s a lot of stigma about seeing a therapist, but actually anyone can benefit from it at all times in life and not only when things get really tough. I definitely recommend it for your self-confidence and,, wellbeing.
I also have been very intentional lately on how I spend my time on social media. I think especially during this period of pandemic where we are more isolated than ever and what we see in the digital world reflects so much of what we believe is real. Selecting digital content that empowers you and reflects a more diverse set of people and good influence in your life, instead of insisting on those mainstream profiles that sometimes we don’t even know why we follow. These are simple things that actually make me feel that I belong more, that I’m less imperfect, and make me accept myself more. So, I definitely recommended those.
Something else that has been helpful for me in these last few years, I think especially, again, with the pandemic, has been books. Growing up, I was not the one that reads all the books and things like that, but it’s been interesting to see the impact that they have been having in my life lately. Some authors that I love, ladies like:
Djamila Ribeiro, Brazilian author who talks so much about black feminism, she’s amazing.
Brazilian author who talks so much about black feminism, she’s amazing. Brené Brown , who talks so much about shame, and how the sense of belonging that we crave is important.
, who talks so much about shame, and how the sense of belonging that we crave is important. Bell Hooks, who is so honest and the way she expresses herself, and she is able to put words on feelings that I could never.
who is so honest and the way she expresses herself, and she is able to put words on feelings that I could never. Elizabeth Gilbert, has an amazing story of a bunch of struggles, but she looked at that in such a light away.
All these things really inspire me because these are some of the names that I recommend. And last but not at all less important, is do a #IamRemarkable workshop.
#IamRemarkable workshop.
We are excited to invite you to attend to a free 90 minute #IamRemarkable workshop. In this session, you will develop the confidence to promote yourselves in the workplace and personal life, thereby breaking modesty norms and glass ceilings.
We’re so excited to share with this community the power of those workshops. We are going to be opening slots, especially for those that listen to Latinx in Power, and we hope that you can join us in one of the sessions and just experience what we talk about today.
If interested, please fill out this form and wait to get your confirmation by email!
DATE: June 30th
TIME: 6pm — Pacific Time
We want to end this podcast with a quote from Juliana’s TEDs Talk that is so amazing:
“Be present. Make more open questions. Take the time to actively listen and be curious.”
I hope you enjoyed the podcast. We will have more interviews with amazing Latinx leaders the first Tuesday of every month. Check out our website Latinx In Power to hear more. Don’t forget to share comments and feedback, always with kindness. See you soon. | https://medium.com/latinxinpower/visions-of-a-remarkable-mind-71332427d9f | ['Thaisa Fernandes'] | 2021-06-08 16:13:50.852000+00:00 | ['Latinas In Tech', 'Workshop', 'Iamremarkable', 'Confidence', 'Latinx'] |
Parallel Asynchronous API Call in Python | Although here we will implement asynchronous program that will execute 15 different instance parallelly rather than waiting for every instance to be completed.
Let’s jump to the implementation.
First, we will see how synchronous program reacts
Sync Program Output
Here we are calling a API 15 times one by one . One API call starts only after previous API call finishes. If you look at output, it takes 16.67 secs to complete 15 API calls. This is synchronous approach where next process starts when previous process ends. This type approach sometime costs heavy in real time project.
Now same we will implement same using async approach where we will make 15 API calls parallelly.
Async ProgramOutput
The max time taken to complete 2.45 secs.
The main advantage of using parallel execution is that code runs more efficiently and saves time.
This is it. If you are having any doubts, have a comment below | https://medium.com/swlh/parallel-asynchronous-api-call-in-python-f6aa663206c6 | ['Sankhadip Samanta'] | 2020-09-17 20:58:51.786000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Asynchronous', 'Python', 'Requests Library', 'Asyncio'] |
Big trends shaping Fintech | Big trends shaping Fintech
Innovations in Financial services & technology
For those of you who are not familiar with FinTech, it is the amalgamation of Financial services with technology. It is difficult to predict how the broader FinTech space is going to change in the coming months & years but there are a few big trends that we can look at to see where it is headed.
Rise of TechFin
Perhaps one of the biggest game-changers has been the rise of TechFin. Startups have been playing a key role in changing the financial landscape dramatically. BATs (Baidu, Alibaba & Tencent) of China & the GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook & Amazon) of America have been instrumental in this transition.
WeChat, the messaging app by the tech giant Tencent has more than 1 billion users globally which was achieved in a mere 7 years! WeChat Pay — the payment tool for the same app has more than 800 million users in over 25 countries.
The reach of these platforms with the huge customer base is incredible; with the tech infrastructure to back themselves and the credibility, they enjoy with their client base. With all these factors in place, these technology companies are all set to revolutionize financial services as we know it.
Voice User Interface
For the past few years, most of the financial institutions were focused on delivering their services to your smartphones via mobile-friendly apps. It was a step in the right direction with a customer base of smartphones growing into billions. But more recently, we are seeing the new craze of voice as a user interface.
The most synonymous in this regard is Apple’s Siri which has been in use since 2011, followed by Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa & Google’s Home — all of which have recently gained a lot of acceptance. The original voice digital assistants, which were programmed to handle simple requests like playing a song, telling you the weather or updating you on the traffic, have now transformed into handling more complex requests — case in point, Amazon’s recent launch of 14 new devices which include voice-enabled microwave & clock.
These voice assistants are becoming intelligent systems and an integral part of our daily lives. Right now, the financial institutions use voice-enabled telephone banking which is very basic in nature. It will be interesting to see how financial institutions incorporate these intelligent voice-enabled services to their lineup as demand for grows among their millennial users.
Usage of Big Data
As the data becomes the new oil (or new gold), Financial institutions & Technology companies are most strategically placed to leverage this new precious commodity into a monetizing asset for their customers. In the past, data has been used by financial services companies not to optimize the solutions presented to the clients, but more as a by-product of the whole process.
The emergence of “big techs” has caused the disruption of this model & shown the financial institutions how to use the data as a core asset rather than a collection of useless info tucked away in files. Most of the free services that we are all too happy to access from companies like Facebook or Google have been offered to us in exchange for our data, which these companies use to generate profit for themselves.
Financial companies are beginning to explore how they can use this monetizing model to offer similar services to their clients as well. Of course, there are regulatory concerns associated with this, which are actively being explored by the financial authorities, on how customers can actually be given the right to grant access to companies to their personal data to be subsequently monetized.
Artificial Intelligence disruption
AI is perhaps the single most important factor which is going to change many facets of the new digitized ecosystem of the world, especially the financial services sector. It has the potential to completely change the way we live our lives.
This has also given rise to an ongoing debate on the legal, ethical & moral questions arising from the usage of AI. Let’s say for example 5 Chatbots replace 5 individuals in an organization. What about the people who lost their jobs? Who's to blame if Chat-bots make a mistake — the organization, the supervisor, the chat-bot manufacturer or the organization?
These are some of the issues that have not been addressed yet & will perhaps provide the biggest challenge in the future in the incorporation of this technology. But one thing is for sure Artificial Intelligence is here to stay.
Cryptocurrencies
Digital assets — part of the whole Blockchain movement has rapidly become part of our daily financial lives more than anything else in the past few years. The exponential rise of these financial innovations & people’s spiking interest in them has put pressure on the financial institutions to explore their use in their dealings.
The digital coins have already shown immense potential in solving the long-standing issues of financial inclusion, especially in the third world & developing countries. Cryptocurrencies have also acted as an inflation hedge in countries with inflation problems despite their volatility thus showing that fiat currencies don’t have to be the only choice.
And there are numerous other use cases where Cryptos continues to outshine their predecessors. The financial institutions are in a conundrum with the authorities not willing to give up the fiat-based system just yet, but the general public eager to move on to the new decentralized, efficient & private Cryptos. It’s only a matter of time before we see an adoption of these digital assets on a mass scale.
All these game-changing trends seem set to define & shape the FinTech ecosystem in a fundamental way of going forward.
Related Articles: Cross-border Payment systems: SWIFT, RippleNet or BWW?, RegTech 2.0, Big Data in Financial Services, TechFin vs. FinTech — What’s the difference?
Stay in touch: Twitter | StockTwits | LinkedIn | Telegram| Tradealike | https://medium.com/technicity/big-trends-shaping-fintech-a3e0c55233f0 | ['Faisal Khan'] | 2019-10-14 17:20:18.745000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Fintech', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Economics', 'Big Data'] |
Is Nagorno-Karabakh The Next Syria? | Is Nagorno-Karabakh The Next Syria?
Will the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan lead to another Syria-style war?
Somewhere between Europe and Asia lies a country — led by an authoritarian dictator and a ruling class hailing from the Shia Muslim community.
Here lies a country which forms a crucial link in an oil pipeline that feeds through to Europe.
Here lies a country with large portions of land occupied by hostile neighbours.
Here lies a country forming the front of an emerging proxy war — with Turkey supporting one side, and Russia the other.
No, we’re not talking about Syria. We’re talking about Azerbaijan
How did we get here?
From time immemorial — people lived under governments whose right to rule them was based on the strength of their military.
Kings would conquer swathes of land with little regard for who lived on them; ruling over territory with force. This led to many “multi-ethnic” states around the world.
A notable change to this status quo occurred during the French Revolution when Louis XVI went from being the King of France; to King of the French.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — the fever of nationalism took hold of the globe. From Germany to Guatemala; and India to Israel — countries were formed based not so much on land but rather on nations of people.
It is in this context that the modern countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan were born — first as the Russian Empire collapsed about a hundred years ago; and again as the USSR disintegrated around 1990.
One of the unresolved conflicts stemming from these events was the status of Nagorno-Karabakh — an Armenian majority ethnic enclave entirely encircled by the country of Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh (in lilac) sits surrounded by Azerbaijan || Credit: aljazeera.com
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union; the majority of the denizens of Nagorno-Karabakh wanted independence from Azerbaijan. This triggered a war between Armenia (who wanted to cement this independence) and Azerbaijan (who wanted to prevent it).
The result was that Nagorno-Karabakh became a de facto independent state (known as the Republic of Artsakh), and Armenia took control of a large portion of Azeri territory.
The brown region shows Azeri territory under Armenian control || Credit: bbc.com
What’s happening now?
Hostilities have flared up again — with the cease-fire being broken, and dozens of civilians and soldiers dead.
Martial law was declared and armies on both sides have mobilised.
This is not just a conflict between a country and a rebel province; nor is it even just a conflict between two neighbouring countries over a small patch of territory.
It has the potential to become much more.
This is due to who their friends are, and what is at stake.
Their Friends
Turkey and Azerbaijan share ethnic, linguistic, and religious ties — often described as “one nation in two states”. They also have a mutual defence treaty — where-in if one of them was attacked; the other would come to their aid.
Turkey’s membership in NATO, as well as being a strong regional power in its own right, has been a boon for Azerbaijan. In addition to rhetoric, Ankara has helped recruit fighters from Syria (including those from ISIS) to support the cause.
On the other side of the conflict; Russia and Armenia too have a close relationship.
Both are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CTSO); with one of Russia’s overseas military bases being located within Armenian territory. Russia also supplies Armenia with cheap weapons.
Should the conflict escalate, there is a real possibility that both Turkey and her allies as well as Russia and its, could all be dragged into a much larger and brutal war.
What’s at stake
Pipelines connect the oil and gas-rich Caspian sea to markets in Europe, Israel and Turkey.
These pipelines pass through Azerbaijan — either traversing very close to the Nagorno-Karabakh border and into Georgia and Turkey; or straight up through Russia.
Azeri oil and gas pipelines || Credit: rferl.org + some edits by the author
Should conflict erupt in the region, it could easily disrupt the southern pipelines meaning a greater reliance on oil that passes through Russia.
Where to next?
One of two things will need to happen:
Artsakh is given independence and Armenia withdraws from the Azeri territories it holds; or Azerbaijan continues to try and regain control of the wayward province and Armenian occupied territories.
If the former plays out — we may see a Kosovo style independent state emerge — with the likelihood that in time it will be annexed by Armenia proper in due course.
This is highly unlikely given how intrinsic the conflict zone is to the Azeri identity. One place this is evident is on Azerbaijani currency itself.
The backs of coins do not depict some monarch but the map of the very country — including Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azeri join depicting map || Credit: enumista.com
On the other hand — if the conflict continues to escalate, it is Azerbaijan that is likely to come out worse for wear; despite all their demographic advantages.
It is unlikely the larger powers will confront one another directly over this mountainous province.
Rather it is likely that the proxy war already in play with both Turkey and Russia will simply increase in scale.
In fact, it is possible that Iran — which borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan would also enter the fray — most likely on the side of their co-religionists: Shia Azerbaijan.
Given the disparity in population, number of allies, and opinion of the international community — Armenia will be outgunned and eventually forced to withdraw to within their own borders.
While that might yield an Azeri victory, it would likely be pyrrhic one
The large swathe of Azeri territory that Armenia controls acts as a buffer zone, all but guaranteeing that the theatre of war will be contained to what is internationally recognised as Azerbaijan.
This will result in massive population displacement, damage to critical infrastructure, and potential ruination of the economy.
It may well end up as the next Syria. | https://medium.com/discourse/is-nagorno-karabakh-the-next-syria-f08469347c8d | ['Kesh Anand'] | 2020-10-14 13:46:55.883000+00:00 | ['Azerbaijan', 'Armenia', 'World', 'Nagorno Karabakh', 'Geopolitics'] |
This is My Body | The Virgin Nursing the Infant, by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Jesus and the Art of Breastfeeding…or Not
I am a pastor and a children’s liberation theologian. I research the ways in which the Bible, Jesus, and modern religion either seek to liberate or oppress children. Children are the most oppressed population in the world. The definition of a child, in terms of experienced oppression and power dynamics is someone aged birth to post-teenager. Children’s oppression does not start at their birth or even conception. It is a lineage cycle of oppression that goes all the way back to our women ancestors who have been controlled and traumatized over many issues including how they choose to birth, care for, and parent their children. In other words, we oppress children by oppressing mothers. So it stands to assert: liberated children have liberated mothers.
I am also a mother. I’ve had one baby and I’m getting ready to have another. I research, experience, and interpret parenting all the time in order to further my understanding of the practice but unlike my academic work, however, I feel like I don’t know anything about it.
Some days I know I’m doing it all wrong and other days, well, I know there is a medal coming for me anytime (which usually looks more like my kid sleeping through the night in his own bed). In all the wrongs and rights that I see in my own parenting, I’m constantly reminded that so much of mothering is controversial in the public sphere. There are a million and one ways to do it and each method has studies, critics, champions, success stories, and downfalls. Some of the controversy I understand and some of it is nonsense (see anti-vaxxers). Some of the controversy I’ve been able to brush off and some of it has been painful for me to navigate. Such is the controversial issue of breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding, in some way or another, touches all parents. From the beginning of a pregnancy, people are invited into the world of breastfeeding practices, language, expectations, and assumptions. Parents of children who are adopted deal with questions around attachment and bonding because breastfeeding may not be an option. Christians, Jews, and atheists all have militant groups of breastfeeding lactivists that swear by the practice as the only way to be a good and faithful parent. There are people who choose intentionally not to breastfeed for myriad reasons and there are babies who choose not to breastfeed for reasons some known and some unknown.
From birth my baby and I struggled to get on the same page about breastfeeding. He never developed a “proper” latch so I had constant thrush. I leaked all the time. And the lactation consultants I was able to get in touch with were either rude, didn’t take insurance, wouldn’t come to my house, or weren’t taking new clients. Indeed, breastfeeding was difficult for me, so you might think that I was relieved when my 5 month old pulled away and refused to latch anymore. I wasn’t relieved. I was ashamed, heartbroken, confused, and traumatized. I tried desperately to coax him back to nursing. I read articles and tried all the tricks, but he was insistent that he wanted no more milk from mom’s breast. I had failed. Here I was, 5 months into being a parent and I had ruined my child forever. You see, during the process of trying to get my child to return to breastfeeding, no one told me that it was natural for him to make the choice to self-wean. In fact the only natural thing, according to most of the voices around me (in person and on the internet), was to do whatever I could to get him to breastfeed again.
My most dominant struggle with breastfeeding was that I experienced something called Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER). D-MER is basically the opposite feeling of euphoria that a lot of women feel when they breastfeed. When I nursed or pumped, I felt like a very heavy cloud was weighing down on me. I wasn’t able to talk to anyone, I often made my husband leave the room, and many times I would just sit there and cry. It was awful and scary and yet when I brought this up to “experts,” no one told me that I was totally normal if I chose to stop breastfeeding or that I should make whatever choice that was best for me. I desperately wanted to breastfeed my baby, but I needed it to be a very different experience than it was and that was devastating. I was so reeled by my perceived failure as a parent that I continued to pump for another 4 months after my baby quit nursing.
After my first year of mothering, my mind started to clear. My baby started sleeping through the night more regularly, we weren’t dependent on expensive formula as much, and my body was recovering from the mental and physical trauma that comes along with having a baby. It was then that I really started to understand how bad it had been and really how dangerous it was that no one was helping me in the way that I needed.
To be clear, I didn’t need more studies or hacks or tips or secrets about breastfeeding although I acknowledge that access to information is different for everyone. What I needed, and what I think most women need, was to be constantly assured that what I was doing was good. Breastfeeding. Good. Not Breastfeeding. Good. Supplementing with formula. Good. Exclusively formula feeding. Good. Trying out different options. Good. The information was secondary to my need for support.
The Bible is full of literal and metaphorical references to breastfeeding. Indeed, the practice of breastfeeding and keeping our children close to us, to rely on us for sustenance, is an ancient one. Something that stands out in ancient texts like the Bible is that breastfeeding in antiquity was practiced under very different conditions. For example, it was not left up to the mother to be the sole responsible party for making breastfeeding happen for her child. It would have been common for other women in the community to nurse a baby when the mother’s supply was low or when the mother was resting or if the baby was particularly hungry and wanted to nurse often.
When I was struggling with breastfeeding, the most dominant message I received from “experts” (all women) was something like: BREASTFEEDING IS TOTALLY NATURAL! AN ANCIENT PRACTICE! SOMETHING WOMEN HAVE BEEN DOING FOR MILLENIA! YOU’RE DEFYING NATURE IF YOU DON’T DO THIS! THIS IS THE BEST WAY BECAUSE IT IS THE NATURAL AND **GOD-GIVEN** WAY!
It seems like we’re only doing half the work of empowering mothers to empower their children if we don’t acknowledge that we do not live in a context that allows for this totally natural, God-given human act to be practiced in a totally natural, God-given way. And to be honest, I’m not that sad about it. No, my post-partum context did not consist of an entire community of women who had nothing better to do than to surround me and my new baby to ensure we were both healthy and thriving. My post-partum context did not allow for an extensive practice of rest and exercise. I couldn’t up my dopamine levels with meditation and mindfulness practices. That is not my millenial life and there are joys and challenges to that reality. Notably, I’m grateful that I don’t live in a context that confines me to the rules and expectations that were put upon women in ancient Biblical times (see other Biblical texts about marital rape, denial of self, forced prostitution, etc). Moreover, I am grateful to have a choice about how I share my body, which is also a Biblical and ancient practice (see Queen Vashti in the book of Esther, The Syrophoenician Woman, the Woman at the Well, etc). Shaming, judging, side-eyeing, patronizing, or scrutinizing a mother because she has made an adult, informed choice about how she shares her body is simply repeating the patriarchal patterns that are recorded in the Biblical text. Afterall, the Bible tells a story of human history - one we can choose to repeat or one from which we learn and grow.
And here’s my message to women who think they are liberating other women by hyper-promoting exclusive breastfeeding: If we are pro-choice about a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy because she has the right do what is best for her body, then we also have to be pro-choice about her decision to share her body or not with her baby. No one has a right to a woman’s body. Not even a baby. We can help to liberate each other by simply saying, “Parenting is hard, I support you.”
When I was struggling with pumping and D-MER, my best friend from college said, “Don’t let [breastfeeding] be the hill you die on.” She sent that in an email after I desperately reached out to her for support. When I read it, I cried. Finally, someone was making some sense. I knew then that there would be other victories and other challenges throughout my lifelong parenting journey. Breastfeeding wasn’t the end and yet I had been made to believe that breastfeeding was the only way my child was going to be his best. Anything else was a drastic and devastating compromise. I know that is not true more now than ever. As I anticipate the arrival of Baby#2 I am excited that my confidence in my choices as a mother are much stronger and that I don’t rely so much on what other people think I should be doing. I am more indignant now more than ever that my body should be my priority. That is the best way I can be the best parent to my children - Honor my body. Listen to my body. Place boundaries. Hold steady my right to body autonomy. Cuddle and hold my baby close because I want to not because it’s what’s “best” according to “experts.” I can also trust that God is with me when I am making difficult parenting choices and that if I listen to that still small voice, I will hear a powerful truth that assures me - this is my body. | https://medium.com/@rebeccastevenswalter/this-is-my-body-ccec42c08815 | ['Rebecca Stevens-Walter'] | 2019-02-16 01:56:47.015000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Theology', 'Children', 'Breastfeeding', 'Parenting'] |
The Historically Racist Service at Swan Oyster Depot | When local designer Tin Dinh treated his boyfriend and out-of-town sister, who he hadn’t seen in over a year since the pandemic began, decided to dine at Swan Oyster Depot— a San Francisco institution famous for its no-frills counter nook that serves raw-bar fare — they were all immensely excited to catch up with one another over fresh seafood. The trio waited in line for nearly two hours, eventually snagging a spot atop the long narrow table. What soon transpired after Dinh and company placed their order was, however, far from savory.
In fact, it was downright racist.
“At first, I thought I didn’t hear what I thought I had heard: ‘dim sum, dim sum,’” Dinh tells TBI over the phone.
In a now-viral Instagram post, Dinh chronicled his alleged racist experience at Swan Oyster Depot in skin-crawling detail, from start to finish. Those situations laid out in that post, as well as in Dinh’s Instagram stories, were appalling.
(For quick synopsis: Dinh writes that he and his sister, after waiting over an hour-and-a-half in the long line outside, were belittled by certain staff members. When they placed an order with one server, another employee, who is described as being one Jimmy Sancimino, approached the party to take their order. The group was then lambasted by Sancimino for apparently not ordering in the correct manner, unbeknownst to them — before Dinh was called a “kid.” Dinh is in his mid-twenties. Later during their service, Dinh and his sister were allegedly called a racial epithet for the confusion and made to feel less-than by some on-site staff.)
“I was shocked at what was happening in real-time, but I didn’t know how the restaurant service here worked,” Dinh continued. “I was angry, absolutely. I didn’t want to make a scene and cause an issue for other people dining there. After all, we already waited over an hour to get a seat.”
Everything came to a head when Dinh saw Sancimino walk away and while talking to another server described as being named Erick, “pointed angrily” in their direction and said “dim sum, dim sum.” Dinh’s boyfriend is white; Dinh and his sister are Vietnamese. It was slang obviously directed at him and his sister.
‘When you’re confronted with racism like this, you can’t help but understand that you are thought of as below some people, just because you don’t look like them. Language like this is dangerous and leaves scars, whether it was intentionally malicious or not.’
Feeling gaslit and unsure if what he heard was actually uttered, Dinh checked with his sister and boyfriend — each of them confirming individually that they heard the same indecency, as well.
Now, let’s make one thing abundantly clear: Dim sum is a delicious, feel-good type of Chinese cuisine that is meant to be enjoyed with friends and family. (I, in fact, once worked at a noodle bar back in Austin, Texas that dabbled in dim sum.) It’s a type of cookery that should be unapologetically enjoyed and celebrated.
But when a person connotes someone’s ethnicity around a specific dish and then proceeds to moniker them by said plate, that’s a racist action. There’s no gray area here; it’s just racist.
When Jimmy Sancimino — one of the Sancimino brothers that co-own Swan Oyster Depot — allegedly called Dinh “dim sum,” he simultaneously undermined his cultural history and cemented his authority above it. Even if the term was used to express something else in service lingo, as Sancimino later defended in the San Francisco Chronicle, it’s still wrong. So fucking wrong.
Ethnic and cultural erasures begin with the use of language, specifically with labelings that separate one cohort of the people from the majority; the use of monikers that denote those community members as less than the dominant social class or ethnicity.
Sancimino, conscious or not, participated in the white male superiority complex that’s continued to morally divide and racially segregate; to dehumanize certain minorities in this country. It’s a dangerous narrative to evoke… one that exists as a common denominator for every genocide in history.
As researcher and TED-talk-extraordinaire Brené Brown has previously pointed out:
During the Holocaust, Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen — meaning ‘subhuman’ — describing jews as disease-carrying rodents. The Hutus who initiated the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis ‘cockroaches.’ Indigenous people are often referred to as savages. Serbs called Bosnians aliens. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.
Ethnic and cultural erasures begin with the use of language, specifically with labelings that separate one cohort of the people from the majority; the use of monikers that denote those community members as less than the dominant social class or ethnicity.
This eradication process is historically slow and somewhat soft before it eventually picks up pace and strength — which is why it’s important to address instances like what allegedly happened to Dinh at Swan Oyster Depot, sooner rather than later. But that’s not to underemphasize the sting left from those who are treated in such ways.
“Honestly, I felt like fucking shit after it happened,” Dinh explains to TBI. “When you’re confronted with racism like this, you can’t help but understand that you are thought of as below some people, just because you don’t look like them. Language like this is dangerous and leaves scars, whether it was intentionally malicious or not.”
After Dinh came out of his alleged racist treatment, the eatery’s Yelp account was frozen, disabling people from leaving their reviews. (It’s unclear if the company, itself, froze the account or if Swan Oyster Depot did themselves.) TBI also learned that Swan Oyster Depot’s Instagram account began deleting comments that called the restaurant “racist” and has also disabled IG users from tagging them in posts.
Dinh’s experience is far from alone either, as evident by past Yelp reviews left for Swan Oyster Depot before active users were unable to write reviews of the Anthony Bourdain-visited restaurant. Some reviews date back as far as 2014.
Photo: Screenshot via Yelp
Multiple Yelp users described the restaurant’s treatment of Asian people as overwhelmingly racist; the word “racist,” itself, was put in bold by two users describing their visit to the seafood establishment.
Photo: Screenshot via Yelp
One reviewer recalls a server allegedly saying “do I look like an interpreter?” after they had asked for clarification on certain menu items; they write that their brother, who dined with them that day, speaks “great English.”
Photo: Screenshot via Yelp
What Dinh and other Asian patrons of Swan Oyster Depot allege shouldn’t be taken lightly or simply glossed over as a bad experience. What’s being described by these diners is outright disdain for Asians — an ethnic population that numbers over 307,000 individuals in San Francisco.
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These accounts exist in tandem amid growing incidents of racism done onto AAPI community members in the Bay Area, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. If left unheeded without proper accountability being held, episodes like this will only continue in both severity and occurrence; they have the ability to leave people morally, spiritually, mentally bankrupt after the fact; and these dangerous narratives could well evolve into something more ferocious and pose more of a threat to San Francisco’s Asian communities.
Be anti-racist — in all corners; in all aspects — of your life. Continue speaking truth to bullshit. | https://thebolditalic.com/the-historically-racist-service-at-swan-oyster-depot-ecb923f60927 | ['Matt Charnock'] | 2021-08-24 23:11:52.332000+00:00 | ['San Francisco', 'Bay Area News', 'Asian Racism', 'Food And Drink'] |
AYS Daily Digest 14/12/2020—UK: High Court rules that Home Office failed to protect destitute people | AYS Daily Digest 14/12/2020—UK: High Court rules that Home Office failed to protect destitute people
Trieste. Photo via Lorena Fornasir. Her caption: Here it is, in the foreground, my little cart. It will weigh 15 kg, sometimes even 20. Inside is everything: bandages, bandages, bandages, silver, gentamycin, soap. Under the first layer opens the world of socks, underwear, hoodies, duvets but it’s not over. Deep down there is no shortage of chocolate or dry fruit that immediately return calories. It’s our way of waiting for them. Someone comes in, asks for food, shoes and then runs away with the first train. We’re here even if they don’t come, or a few come and disappear. The world’s square has become a workshop of joyful sociality, attendance and absences, like a creek sometimes in full dry, sometimes using the metaphor of my friend Massimo Schneider. Their absence, at this strange stage, is a presence that makes you feel. We’ll be here tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and tomorrow to testify, we’ll still testify, arrivals deported, arrivals rejected, arrivals hijacked.
FEATURE
UK Home Office failed to protect destitute people, court rules
The British High Court of Justice handed down a 71-page judgement today where it ruled that The Home Office failed to protect destitute people from homelessness. The Home Office did not monitor the private contracts it handed out to manage accommodation, which led to lengthy delays in providing accommodation and terrible living conditions.
Because of the delays in processing housing and aid, the claimants in the case (along with countless other people on the move) were left homeless for extended periods of time. This violates the Home Office’s obligations according to The Immigration and Asylum Act of 1999. Instead of actually monitoring the private companies they handed out contracts to, the Home Office claimed that it was the people’s own fault that they became homeless due to “unwillingness to travel,” not because of the Office’s negligence.
I was left hanging on, waiting to be picked up by the contractors to be taken to accommodation, and each time there was a different reason as to why the pickup did not happen. Eventually I had to wait and not move from the pickup point, and yet I was still not picked up. The Home Office failed to listen to what I was saying, choosing to blame me for contractors failings. The judge has made clear that this is wrong. The Home Office should have listened to me.”
The ruling that found that The Home Office’s failures are responsible for the destitution of many people on the move comes just two weeks after the UK passed rules that made it possible for the government to deport someone for sleeping rough.
Advocates are criticizing these rules for a variety of reasons. They mentioned that criminalizing homelessness could push people into unsafe working conditions and even modern slavery. The cruelty of passing this rule during a pandemic and economic downturn when many people, especially those with jobs in service industries, have lost their jobs, is also astounding.
The rules are also arbitrary. The government said that they would not apply to “refugees and asylum seekers” but what about people waiting for decisions on their status, or people that have been wrongfully denied asylum? They also said that the rule would be used “sparingly,” but who gets to determine what “sparingly” means? How do they define “rough sleeping?” Advocates from PILC have pointed out that the rules are so vague that technically, someone sleeping overnight in an airport to catch an early flight could get deported.
The rule should not be applied “sparingly,” it should not be applied at all. Many local councils agree—some, such as the Greater London Authority, have already said they would not cooperate with this rule. In Sheffield, one local group, Sheffield Against Asylum Evictions, has gone a step further and organizes eviction defense to prevent people from having to sleep rough in the first place (and they’re exposing shady landlords).
The Home Office cannot push people into destitution and then punish them for the Office’s mistakes. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-14-12-2020-high-court-rules-that-home-office-failed-to-protect-destitute-people-dceac430b526 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-12-15 12:13:58.375000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Digest', 'Border Violence', 'Migrants', 'Home Office'] |
Des Heaux Arts | I meet Guy in the Crypt.
I am more interested in the Crypt itself than the artworks displayed in it. The artists are all third-years at Central Saint Martins, and they are self-consciously artistic in that way exclusive to art students; all on-trend graphics, video art, and installations inspired by insipid, imaginary traumas. But the Crypt — the Crypt! We sip mimosas from plastic cups as if standing in an eighteenth-century church crypt is an everyday occurrence. Because, for everyone else, it is.
Instead of checking my phone in the corner, I can pretend that the whispered conversations about aesthetics and the occasional scream of one video piece on loop are the voices of the restless dead. They can be vengeful dead, perhaps; angered Anglicans whose ashy remains quake at the thought of the self-centered sacrilege being enacted on their graves. But in reality, there is no deeper meaning or tortured soul haunting the students’ art. There is, however, a stone slab at the back of the crypt with a Latin inscription on it, and this, more than anything else, attracts me. I flick open the flashlight on my phone and hold it up to the letters. TEMPLUM SANCTUM CONSTITUTUM MDCCIX
A boy’s voice behind me, closer than the general murmur of the Crypt. “Are you…”
“Reading Latin,” I say.
“Because…”
“I can.” I glance towards him but see only a lanky outline in the glare of my phone. It’s a good outline, though — oversized jacket, well-cuffed pants, hair that undoubtedly strings into his eyes. “I like to know what it means. The history of it all. Like,” I kneel and run my fingers in the grit of the letters, “here’s the MINISTER of the parish…but MINISTER is just like English, so I guess it’s not as impressive…”
“It is.” The boy crouches and his face is close to mine in the electric rectangle of phone light. I see eyelids heavy under thick brows and a pearl earring in his left ear. I catch my reflection, soft, spiraling, in the pearl. I like how I look in him.
“Thanks.” Gravel digs into the knees of my jeans as we stand. I’d ask if he’s an artist, but I know the answer already. He wears his hair in that bowl-cut style that would look stupid on anyone but an art student. He leads me back to his corner of the Crypt.
According to his epitaph, Guy Bonhomme specializes in video. He favors 3-D rendered digital shapes imposed over cell phone footage of London parks. The shapes shift in space and color as the playback rolls over three staticky TVs propped against the crypt walls. I feel hypnotized as I watch the slow parade of shapes, jarred at random by flashes of rainbow feedback. The work reminds me of a desktop computer screensaver, if the screensaver only covered part of the screen. I ask him what it means.
Guy pushes his bowled bangs out of his eyes. “I don’t want it to mean anything. I’d rather let the viewer decide. I think it’s Fascist to prescribe meaning in art, you know?”
He sees the glaze of my gaze as I watch the shapes on the screens instead of his face. Move, morph, glob.
“So where in America are you from?”
The shapes are burned to the backs of my eyelids. “Ohio. Do you know it?”
His face is as blank as the shapes in his art. I take a pen from my pocket.
“Hold out your hand,” I say. He has a stalk of asparagus tattooed on his forearm. I draw around New York, Texas, California, squiggle the river of “Ohio, the heart of it all. I’m Alice.”
“Charming,” says Guy, and he closes my map in his fist.
—
After two weeks of Instagram mutual-following and sending each other our favorite art historical articles, Guy Bonhomme greets me outside of the art history building at University College London. He leans against the black fence of a Georgian townhouse, perfectly anachronistic in a thrifted neon jacket and a paper cup of coffee from Prêt à Manger. We are going to the National Gallery.
I unfold my annotated copy of his article on contemporary tactile aesthetics as we walk. Guy holds out the hand with the coffee.
“There’s no marks for oral presentation,” he says.
“I know,” I insist, “but I want to tell you what I think. Don’t you want to know what I think?”
“Of course.” He tosses his coffee in the trash. “I didn’t print yours out, though.”
I stop at the crossing. “I’ll have to take marks for that.”
“I know.”
“You force my hand,” I say.
Guy takes the printout in one hand and my hand in the other.
“So,” he says, and steps into the crossing as if he hasn’t done something absolutely wonderful. “What did you think of this section? Doesn’t it remind you of Walter Benjamin?”
The sun sets purple on the rounded slates of the National Gallery’s central dome. It is open late on Fridays. Though the entrance is deceptively contemporary (this concerns me at first), Guy and I climb two and a half staircases to stand in an atrium paved entirely in green and orange marble. Orange isn’t the right color for it — the marble is the color of a sketch in raw Siena chalk, dashed off in a minute by Michelangelo, and now polished perfect and hung in isolation at the back of the High Renaissance wing. I hold my breath. I can hear the click of my loafers on the mosaicked floor above the shuffle of tourists and a guided tour in Spanish. White tiles spiral from the orange not-orange pillars above me, leading the eye to mosaic portraits in the corners of the room. Rubens, Velasquez, Reynolds. I break my gaze to find Guy already in the first gallery. He looks up from his phone as I enter the room.
“What do you want to see, Alice?” he says.
I look. I see velvet cushioned chaises down the center of the salmon-walled room, over a parquetted hardwood floor perfect for the slow, sideways, heel-toe head-tilted walk particular to art museums. I feel breathless, overwhelmed, like running through the galleries with eyes wide open to see
“Everything,” I say to Guy. “But I’ll settle for Artemisia Gentileschi.”
She was this incredible Italian Baroque painter, I say, who, regardless of her exceptional status as a 17th century female artist, was a master of the Caravaggio school in her own right. Most people know her for her rape case and her proto-feminist biblical paintings, like Judith Slaying Holofernes, and Susanna and the Elders. And those paintings are great, of course, but have you seen her self-portraits?
Like, look at this, I say, stumbling over a velvet chaise to cross the gallery, to the painting that’s caught my eye. I squint closer to read the label (I haven’t worn my contacts), though the iconography of the painting should be enough. Self-portrait as Saint Catherine, oh my god, Guy, do you see this? Like look at her expression. Her confidence! She’s like, yeah, I have the balls to paint myself as a saint, and to do it well. I dare you to come after me, to serve better chiaroscuro than this — do you see the shadow on her cheek? And how it gives her eyes that look? That ferocity? That beauty?
Guy has picked up a museum map from a velvet chaise, and turns over its folds with his bony fingers. The edge of the second floor runs against his tattoo. I am torn between him and Artemisia; the gallery light cuts across his face as in a Caravaggio. He catches my gaze and smiles.
“There’s a contemporary exhibition on the ground floor,” he says. “Video installation. No old Italians. Let’s go, yeah?”
—
A week later we go to the Tate Modern. Unlike the National Gallery, which sits in the heart of historic, touristic Trafalgar Square, the Tate Modern occupies an old factory in Southbank on the Thames. It is Guy’s favorite museum. I have never been.
The Tate atrium is stark and steel-beamed, like an airplane hangar, or a hollowed-out Ikea. I feel the vast space between myself and the ceiling, but unlike the transcendent upward feeling I get in cathedrals, this space feels smothering. I press my hand into Guy’s to steady myself. He pulls his fingers from my grasp to zoom on the museum map on his phone.
“The work I want to show you should be right…” he bites his lip. “Here. Follow me.”
Guy leads me to a big white room. A ratty grey rug covers a corner of the floor, and on the center of the rug is a boxy old television. Blue letters run across the screen like the banner at the bottom of the news channel. I read:
SPIN SPAN SPEAK SPOCK SPOOK… AND SHE SAYS TO ME WHAT IS LIFE AND I SAY IT IS NOTHING…
The words sprout fuzzy neon borders which make them hard to read. I squint: BEDROOMS AND GRAVEYARDS SERVE THE SAME PURPOSES…CONSUME OR BE CONSUMED…
I look at Guy. He mouths along to …YOU ARE THE MACHINE IS YOU…
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“It’s nonsense,” says Guy. The blue light reflects in his eyes as he stares at the television. “It’s neo-Dada performance art — the television is the performer, see? Isn’t it brilliant?”
I watch the scroll.
“I love how obviously political their work is. Like, old art is missing this; your Renaissance boys would never do something like this, Alice.”
“They would,” I say. It’s hard to keep my voice at a gallery whisper. “They did. Michelangelo painted his least favorite cardinal as a demon in his Sistine Chapel frescoes, and Artemisia, I told you — ”
“Yeah,” says Guy, his eyes still on the TV. “But nothing on this scale, with so many parts — ”
“The Sistine Chapel is massive.”
Guy finally looks at me. “You can’t deny that Renaissance Italy, the entire concept of the art historical canon, really, is racist and classist — ”
“That’s not the point, Guy.”
“But it is, Alice.”
“Guy.” I stop. I unclench my hands. I watch the screen with him.
YOU ARE I IS WE IS…GIRL DEAD IN FREAK ACCIDENT…THE ACCIDENT… IS CARING TOO MUCH…WHAT THE MAN THINKS…
“This gallery is hot,” I say. “I would like to go outside.”
Guy does not seem to hear me.
I speak in a voice too loud for a gallery. “I’m going to wait in the hall.”
“K.” Guy keeps his eyes on the screen.
I turn to leave but a crush of people blocks the doorway, noses in museum maps. One lifts her cell phone to the work Guy stares at; his silhouette haloes blue on her screen. How picturesque.
I do not wait in the hallway. There is somehow too much air and not enough in this building. I stumble down five flights of stairs and out into the street — boardwalk’s more like it, since it runs along the Thames, except instead of boards it’s concrete and short trees in careful planters overlooking the space between Blackfriars and Millennium Bridge. A French school group swallows me, disaffected teenagers with shirts in ironic English; they pretend not to understand when I ask them to move, please. I break through their languidness and my momentum crosses me to the metal railing at the edge of the Thames.
From above, the river Thames is grey and fast. I can see the current that raises the tide every twelve hours or so. The tide is out this afternoon; the rocky foreshore exposed to the absent winter sun in a white-grey sky. To my left, the surface swells into a slope under Blackfriars Bridge, then pebbles out into sand. On the right the rocks grow bigger and slick with algae; pigeons and seagulls peck at the decaying posts of old docks embedded in the shore.
Guy says that the best art is about nothing, and sure, art can be about nothing. Like a still life that’s nothing but a few oranges and tulips. But even those aren’t about nothing. They’re about vanity, and the brevity of beauty, and even an artwork that’s just beautiful is about beauty, and aesthetics, and contrast and composition, and to be about nothing is to be about something all the same.
A boy’s voice, behind me: “Yo, I texted you!”
I turn from the tide. Guy is a step away, then a step too close. “The Tate’s too much for you, yeah?” His breath is hot in my face. I dodge and press my hips into the railing, but I still feel Guy over my shoulder. “I used to go down there with the boys during A-levels. We’d smoke but the fish rot would hide the smell on our clothes. And we could chuck the butts in the river, no problem.”
Guys’ hands are on either side of me on the railing. I look at the ring on his finger (a mood ring; it’s ironic). I see the stalk of the asparagus tattoo underneath his flannel.
“You chucked your cigarette butts into the river?” I say, quietly.
“What about it?” He shrugs against my back. “People’ve been chucking their shit in the river for thousands of years — since the Romans.”
“Hm?”
“They taught us in primary school. The river’s basically been a dump for all of Londoners’ rubbish ever since the Roman settlement here. Like, there’s all these animal bones in it from slaughterhouses along the river. And pottery shards and anything that could fall overboard on a ship, ya know?”
I grip the railing and rotate my hips to face Guy. “And all that’s just in the river?”
“I guess.”
“So you just threw your cigarette butts in an archaeological site.”
Guy lifts his shoulders and leans in. “So what?”
“You don’t do that, Guy.” I push my hands into his on the railing, forcing him off-balance. He steps a circle back from me and runs his fingers through his hair.
He demands. “What are you on about?”
I demur. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t like the Tate Modern, do you?”
I look at him. His bangs puff pitifully in his face.
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
“I knew it,” Guy steps back again. “You think the Tate is rubbish.”
“No.”
“You think it’s garbage, then, is that American enough?”
“No, Guy.” I want to reach out, reassure him, make him like me. But I don’t want to move from my spot on the railing. “It’s just — ”
“Not enough?”
“Not for me,” I say.
Guy circles farther away from me and trips on the toe of his just-scuffed-enough leather boots. He catches my eyes, and he knows I know he never read the article I sent him. He tilts his head back, sighs, “Right, great.”
“Guy.” I lift a hand, but he’s looking up at the Tate. I turn my head to the railing. A few feet away, the rail breaks into a gate. I didn’t notice before.
I imagine opening it. Enter to a plane of concrete, and stone steps slick with river mud down into the rocks. I step on the concrete landing. Low waves ripple out from the paths of tour boats and ferries. A green rim of algae on the stone walls marks the tide’s highest point. It’s rising now; the slope under the bridge is shallow.
Below the tidal wall the sounds of the city disappear. No French tour groups, no murmur, ghostly, traffic-horned, otherwise. I keep my eyes on my shoes to avoid pools of mud. I feel the unsteady surface of the shore in my ankles; pieces of brick, slate, ceramic shards rock under my feet. I kick my toe into a piece of blue-patterned pottery — Delftware, 16th century, I imagine, I recognize its flash as if in the corner of my eye in a museum. But it’s not a museum, it’s the riverbank where Guy and his friends threw their cigarette butts and didn’t see the history under their feet. I pick up the pottery, scrub the blue-green grain of riverbed clay across the surface. It smells like fish and decaying garbage; I’ll have to wash my hands at least three times in the Tate Modern’s sinks… but four hundred years ago this dish dashed to pieces, dropped from a distracted dockworker’s hand and turned and tumbled, buried in clay and brushed by the tide until one day, today, the blue-painted edge touched the toe of my shoe, and I reached down, and I picked it up, this piece of history, shard of the past, chipped and beautiful; I hold four hundred years in my hand.
I look up. Guy doesn’t notice.
—
Written in autumn 2020. A character study for novel in progress of the same name. | https://medium.com/@izzy-g-desantis/des-heaux-arts-de622c67e174 | [] | 2020-08-07 02:08:51.506000+00:00 | ['Museums', 'Love', 'History', 'Fiction'] |
What Are The Top Apps That Built With Flutter App Development | Flutter ever since its inception has gained a lot of traction due to the amazing features and performance it has delivered, which has impressed the developer community massively. Within a short span of time, Flutter has managed to build a huge fan base. Both startups and fortune 500 companies alike have been migrating in large numbers to this newly released open source cross-platform application development tool.
To witness the much talked about capabilities of Flutter and have a look at its performance, here are the top applications that are built using Flutter:
Xianyu App by Alibaba
Alibaba, which is the world’s biggest online commerce company, has leveraged the capabilities of Flutter to create a beautiful app experience for Android and iOS. Xianyu app, the emerging second-hand online marketplace in China, which has already crossed 50 Million downloads, with over 200 Million registered users is successfully built using Flutter.
Intrigued by the high FPS and smooth UI of Flutter, Alibaba group decided to quickly take the plunge and develop their Xianyu app using Flutter.
Google Greentea
Greentea, which is Google’s internal CRM application, is also built using Flutter. It has everything from the rich visualizations to a great UX that has helped the team manage their sales targets and progress in an efficient way.
Google Ads
The famous advertisement platform of Google provides its users with the ability to run their ad campaigns smoothly on their smartphone. This has not only enabled them with the rich visualizations and functionalities of Google Ads but has also provided the advantage of mobility to its users.
It showcases many functionalities such as the real-time alerts and notifications, lets the users call Google expert, acts on the suggestions to enhance the ongoing campaign, adds, edits or removes keywords, and a lot more.
SG Bus Tracker
SG Bus Tracker is a bus tracking app that is built using Flutter. It tracks the local buses arrival in Singapore, using bus timing database directly from Land Transport Authority of Singapore.
It has a customizable and rich UI, where it offers appearances in Light, Dark & Colorful themes, letting the users choose whichever they want. It Lists nearby bus stops that are serviced by SBS, SMRT, Go Ahead, and Tower buses.
SG Bus tracker provides its users the provision to mark the bus stops as favorites for a better and quick access. It shows color coding for the seat availability, with Green for Vacant seats, Yellow for standing available and Red for limited standing space for the bus.
Reflectly
Reflectly is a beautiful journal and mindfulness app built in Flutter, that is driven by Artificial Intelligence. Its amazing UI impresses the users, making the daily journaling more interesting. It is the personal mental health companion, which helps its users reflect on their daily thoughts and issues.
It allows its users to create stories in their personal journal, where it offers a set of few questions every day to reflect the day. Reflectly also offers advanced statistics to determine the behavior pattern of the user, along with actionable insights.
Hamilton Musical
Hamilton is the official app of Broadway musical built using Flutter that includes a lot of features for its users. This app includes several features such as daily lotteries, exclusive news, videos, trivia game, merchandise store and lots more.
It has a branded native design that is consistent on both the iOS and Android, which makes it even more rich in terms of the user experience it delivers to its end users. With lot many features, and rich visualizations, Hamilton is surely an app which has successfully engaged its users and has been among their favorites.
Top Goals
Top Goals is a fully customizable football app built using Flutter. It offers rich UI and high flexibility, where the users could create their own theme, follow their favorite football teams live.
It lets the football fans create their polls, comment their predictions, get the latest news about the sport, get the live updates of the ongoing games, rankings table, and forum where they can engage with fellow football fans. All this offers a high user engagement, making it a favorite among the football enthusiasts.
Flydirekt
Flydirekt is an app built using Flutter for standby travelers. This app gives live and detailed information about availability forecast, destination, and routes, exact loads of the airlines through its amazing UI.
Abbey Road Studios Topline App
Topline is the first app from the famous Abbey Road Studios. This app which is built in Flutter is meant for musicians to capture their song ideas on the move. It helps the artists to record the songs, where they can share files, sing over the imported tracks, add lyrics and a lot more with just a single app.
Its amazing features and a rich UI makes it a favorite among the artists who like to sing and record on the go.
InKino
InKino is an app made using Flutter, which is dedicated to searching for the movies and showtimes in the Finkino cinemas. This app which uses Dart has 40% code sharing between the Flutter and the web.
InKino happens to be multiplatform Dart app which showcases Redux. While Android and iOS apps are built using a single Flutter code. The web app is made using AngularDart, making it one of its kind applications.
InKino lets its users book and buy tickets by going through the details of the ongoing movies in the Finkino cinemas. Its rich UI and detail-oriented approach make it one of the favorite movie ticket booking apps.
Trinity College Orientation Application
Trinity College Orientation Application is an app built using Flutter that has been created for the Trinity College at the University of Toronto, to accompany the first year students during their orientation week. The best part of this app is an engaging and rich UI that has powerful animations and card transitions.
It has a detailed schedule of events, interactive maps, miscellaneous information with a Q&A system that assists the new students in the most engaging and effective manner.
Watermaniac
Watermaniac a lightweight simple yet effective app built using Flutter that aims to track and log the daily intake of water and fluids. It has a beautiful UI and engages its users with constant reminders to drink water, whenever they fall short of the expected water levels.
SpaceX Go!
SpaceX Go! which is an unofficial open-source SpaceX tracker, has been built for the mobile platforms using Flutter. It is an interesting app with a rich UI that allows its users to check both the past and upcoming launches, portfolios of the vehicles, and a roundup of the company.
It is highly simple and subtle but an interesting app dedicated to space and astronomy enthusiasts, which aims to give them regular bytes.
Weight Tracker
Weight Tracker is a simple weight tracking app built in Flutter. It is a lightweight app that is cross-platform compatible in nature. It aims to help people trying to manage their weight do it in an efficient manner.
This app has a rich UI that makes it very user-friendly. It keeps a log of your daily weight and plots graph to show insights into the progress of your weight management journey.
Platypus Crypto
Platypus Crypto is an ad-free cross-platform app that is built in Flutter, which aims at tracking the various cryptocurrencies. It has an intuitive interface that includes real-time graphs for a week, the current prices, market caps and the percentage change over time.
It has various features such as rapid sort, search and refresh, along with several other customization UI features that make it one of the most desirable apps among the cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
On a closing note
With these Top 15 Apps that are built in Flutter, we can clearly infer that Flutter offers a fleet of widgets that can be leveraged to develop beautiful and highly functional apps that are cross-functional, without burning a hole in the pockets.
But the catch is, one has to trust skilled developers that are capable enough to make beautiful apps using this fairly new technology for your business.
CitrusLeaf is one such company that has been working on Flutter since its inception. Having developed some of the most beautiful and highly functional apps for the businesses using Flutter, we are looking forward to helping you build an amazing app for your business.
Feel free to write us at [email protected] or contact us to avail our reliable Flutter App Development Services.
Source: https://flutterhub.in/top-apps-built-in-flutter/ | https://medium.com/@info_25473/what-are-the-top-apps-that-built-with-flutter-app-development-93138ffb1dd6 | ['Jay Singh'] | 2019-06-25 04:00:34.486000+00:00 | ['Flutter App Development', 'Mobile App Development'] |
My experience porting old Rust Futures to async/await | There’s been a lot of excitement in the Rust community about the new async and await keywords that dropped on the stable channel last year, but until recently there wasn’t much in the way of documentation or library support. The futures and tokio developers have been working like mad to migrate their own crates over, finally pulling off their own releases in November of 2019. Many library crates using futures have followed suit, and the ecosystem is finally starting to settle into the new way of doing things. This really is a completely different way to express asynchronous code, which means in many cases code must be rewritten or tossed out. So there’s an obvious question for developers: is migrating all your existing code worth the trouble?
The answer is a resounding yes.
Why migrate?
The biggest benefit to developers is that async/await code is easier to write, easier to read, and easier to maintain. I can’t tell you how many times I had to dig into documentation to review the differences between old futures map and and_then , or do a bunch of map_err or flatten_stream to make sure the error types along the chain all lined up. When you await a future that returns Result , you get something you can treat like a Result in normal Rust: you can unwrap it, or you can do an early return via ? operator. The code is much more straightforward, and generally looks exactly like corresponding synchronous code.
There are also some other ergonomic benefits. Unlike the old and_then way of chaining futures together, async blocks allow the compiler to reason about safe borrowing, including self . Typically this means you no longer have to move self into and out of futures. You’ll also be able to use a lot fewer 'static lifetimes.
How to get started
First, make sure you have the most recent Rust compiler. Support for async/await keywords arrived in 1.39, but it’s still a relatively new feature and the Rust dev team is still fixing issues. You aren’t doing yourself any favors by not running the latest stable compiler, so make it a habit to rustup update frequently.
Next, go into your Cargo.toml file and make sure any futures or tokio dependencies are versioned to their appropriate async support versions. If you’re using crates that currently depend on the 0.1 version of futures you’ll want to update those too. (In my case, I needed to run a master branch of the reqwest crate until the official 0.10 release arrived.) Thankfully, most crate authors are starting to provide versions that support async/await.
If your crates aren’t there yet, you’ll need to use the compat feature within your code to convert between the new and old future formats. Add feature = ["compat"] to futures inside your Cargo.toml if you need to enable these shims. They’re ugly to use, but they work.
Assuming you’ve got a main function somewhere, you’ll likely need to mark it async and provide an executor. The Tokio crate provides a set of executors and an easy way to run your program with them. Follow the rustdoc to add the “full” feature set of Tokio to your Cargo.toml . Then simply add the #[tokio::main] annotation above async fn main .
Finally, add use future::prelude::*; to the top of any file that uses sinks or streams. Just trust me on this one.
From here, you can tackle the conversion in a few different ways.
Replace Future<Item = T, Error = E> function returns with async fn returning Result<T, E> . If your function never returns an error, you can also use this opportunity to just return T , or nothing.
function returns with returning . If your function never returns an error, you can also use this opportunity to just return , or nothing. Update Stream types in generics, boxed returns, and impl Stream returns. For now your goal should be replacing old Stream<Item = T, Error = E> with Stream<Item = Result<T, E>>
types in generics, boxed returns, and returns. For now your goal should be replacing old with Update Sink generic arguments in the same way; SinkItem is now just the first unnamed argument, and SinkError is simply Error .
generic arguments in the same way; is now just the first unnamed argument, and is simply . Loops over streams can be refactored to allow more flexibility:
// old way, block on a future and possibly panic:
foo_stream.for_each(move |item| {
item.bar().unwrap();
}).wait(); // new futures allow us to early return with an error:
while let Some(item) = foo_stream.next().await {
item.bar()?;
}
Sometimes you can rework pieces that previously required laboriously moving self in and out to sneak past the borrow checker. Here’s some gnarly test code that was part of my refactor.
let action = MqttProtocol.new()
.and_then(|mqtt| {
// Send a publish with QoS 1, and terminate
mqtt.publish(
"path/to/faketopic".to_string(),
QualityOfService::Level1,
"test message".to_string().into_bytes(),
)
.map(|_| ())
.into_future()
.and_then(move |_| {
Delay::new(Instant::now() + Duration::from_millis(100))
.map_err(Into::into)
.map(move |_| mqtt)
})
.and_then(|mqtt| mqtt.disconnect())
})
.map_err(|e| panic!("{}", e)); let mut runtime = Runtime::new().unwrap(); runtime.block_on(action).unwrap();
Pretty disgusting, isn’t it? Here’s the same code with async/await, with the publish and disconnect methods refactored to accept &mut self . Now it’s a lot more clear what the test is trying to do:
let mqtt = MqttProtocol.new().await.unwrap(); // Send a publish with QoS 1, and terminate
mqtt.publish(
"path/to/faketopic".to_string(),
QualityOfService::Level1,
"test message".to_string().into_bytes(),
).await.unwrap(); tokio::time::delay_for(Duration::from_millis(100)).await;
mqtt.disconnect().unwrap();
Hiccups
Not everything is rosy. Porting your old project over is going to be some serious work, and you’re going to run into problems. Here are a few I got snagged on.
Everything has moved
Your most immediate headache is going to be figuring out all of the little things that have moved around or changed. The reasons are generally good, but there’s no reference guide telling you where things have moved to. You’re going to be spending a good bit of time figuring out where everything is, and a lot of stuff is gated behind Cargo feature flags.
Some examples:
Sink generics still require two parameters (one with the name stripped out, and the other a required named parameter), but Stream only takes a single parameter. This does simplify turning inerrant types like vector iterators into streams, because there’s no need for an empty Error type. But it also means that if you were forwarding streams directly to sinks with old futures, the types won’t line up anymore. You’ll have to rework the alignment.
generics still require two parameters (one with the name stripped out, and the other a required named parameter), but only takes a single parameter. This does simplify turning inerrant types like vector iterators into streams, because there’s no need for an empty type. But it also means that if you were forwarding streams directly to sinks with old futures, the types won’t line up anymore. You’ll have to rework the alignment. Most of the things you can actually do with Stream and Sink are now located in the “extension” SinkExt and StreamExt traits for some reason. The extension traits are more or less automatically implemented for anything that implements their base traits, but only if you remember to use them. (Remember how I told you above to just import everything from prelude ?) Not only does this make compiler messages incredibly confusing, but also means the documentation is split in half. So if you’re wondering what happened to things like filter_map or inspect , that’s where they went.
and are now located in the “extension” and traits for some reason. The extension traits are more or less automatically implemented for anything that implements their base traits, but only if you remember to them. (Remember how I told you above to just import everything from ?) Not only does this make compiler messages incredibly confusing, but also means the documentation is split in half. So if you’re wondering what happened to things like or , that’s where they went. futures::sync::mpsc is now futures::channel::mpsc
is now join and select are now macros. This is actually a nice change, because it means you can await on multiple futures even if they have different return types.
and are now macros. This is actually a nice change, because it means you can await on multiple futures even if they have different return types. tokio::codec is now in the tokio-util crate, but won’t show up unless compiled with features = ["codec"] . A lot of other tokio_X things got moved to tokio::X and gated behind feature flags. Start by specifying features = ["full"] and then figure out what’s actually required after everything builds.
Traits and async fn (use the async-trait crate, mate)
You’d think async trait functions should be as simple as:
trait Foo {
async fn bar() -> ();
}
But the compiler complains.
error[E0706]: trait fns cannot be declared `async`
Huh. Okay, so why is that?
$ rustc --explain E0706
error: no extended information for E0706
Oh COME ON.
If you dig into the async handbook, the async keyword is actually just syntactic sugar for “this block returns impl Future<T> and has some associated lifetimes”. But since each implementation of the trait’s future will be slightly different and you can’t return heterogeneous types from traits (for the same reasons you can’t return a dyn &Trait in a trait signature), you’ll need to return a boxed future. There’s obviously a heap allocation cost for doing this, which is why it doesn’t just happen automatically.
You could try to figure out how to do this manually for every async function. Or you can just import the async_trait crate and annotate both your trait and its impl with #[async_trait] . This is such an obvious omission I imagine it’s going to get moved into the standard library at some point.
Unpin, Pin, and Box
Photo by Lisa Woakes on Unsplash
The async/await feature also introduced something called “pinning” which I found incredibly difficult to wrap my head around. I tried to read the official documentation which started out making some sense before rapidly devolving into headache territory. A Pin<Box<T>> is also somehow Unpin ? Well is it pinned or not? And it has something to do with self-referential structs? I’m not trying to write linked list implementations here, I’m trying to write async code!
Well, behind the scenes an async block creates a sort of invisible struct scoped with a bunch of lifetimes and references for every local variable in scope. Some of these struct elements may contain references to each other, so the compiler needs some way to reason about its own borrowing guarantees. The Unpin trait is like Send or Sync in that it is automatically generated in most cases. It’s used to make sure you’re not trying to pass around references to things that might be moved.
The short of it is that boxed futures and streams and sinks generally aren’t usable unless they are Unpin . So if you find you can’t actually do anything with the futures you’re passing around, make sure your generics and your boxed returns specify that trait. Pretty much any chaining combinator like map only works if the object is Unpin . If you need to box and are reaching for Box::new , you’ll instead want to use the boxed method to ensure Unpin is applied properly. It used to be the case that all futures had to be 'static as well, but that’s apparently no longer the case.
Tests marked async need to use #[tokio::test]
You should obviously write tests to validate your shiny new async functions. But if you need to await before unwrapping results, your test function of course needs to be marked async . You’ll find that as soon as you do this, the Rust compiler complains at you:
error: async functions cannot be used for tests
For reasons beyond my fathoming, there is no default async engine to run tests! But if you import Tokio as a dev-dependency you can work around this issue by replacing #[test] with #[tokio::test] for each async test. This will wrap your function in code that sets up a simple engine for you.
Avoid async blocks when future::ready will do
You might have some existing code that uses references to items to filter or adjust a stream somehow. For example, your old code might look like this:
// If there's a stream decode error, close the stream
let stream = stream.take_while(|x| { x.is_ok() });
But with new futures you can’t just use this as-is. The take_while method in 0.3 requires a future to a bool , not just a bool closure. So your first instinct might be to just slap the async keyword on that block and be done with it. But if you do that, you’ll run into issues with the borrow checker, because it can’t guarantee that x lives across the async boundary.
Instead, create a future that’s immediately ready. The following doesn’t need to borrow anything across an async boundary:
let stream = stream.take_while(|x| future::ready(x.is_ok()));
Avoid std::sync
The standard library sync primitives std::sync::{Mutex, RwLock} block the current thread until the lock is acquired. If you’re using async code that means it will block one of the async executors, and async code isn’t supposed to block at all. This is especially bad because if all runner threads are waiting for a lock then no futures can make progress. This can deadlock your entire program.
There is a futures-aware Mutex available in futures::lock (but no corresponding RwLock yet). Since async code typically doesn’t hold locks very long anyway, you can often get away with just replacing RwLock with Mutex — the latter is still quite performant. If you share your Mutex between synchronous and asynchronous code, getting access in sync-land requires some finesse. You won’t be able to await within the synchronous code; you might have to play some tricks with futures::executor::block_on in order to get things working.
Problems with format! and .await
If you use the format! macro in the same statement line as await , you get pages of opaque error messages. Yes, really. I ran into this myself and spent the better part of a day trying to track it down:
tokio::spawn(async move {
^^^^^^^^^^^^ `*mut (dyn std::ops::Fn() + 'static)` cannot be shared between threads safely | https://medium.com/dwelo-r-d/my-experience-porting-old-rust-futures-to-async-await-744430e9c576 | ['Jeff Hiner'] | 2020-01-17 16:55:26.728000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Async', 'Rust'] |
Reference Question Generator | Generate bespoke culture-add reference questions for your company
Janice, the reference question juicer. By Jonathan Trancozo
Why is referencing broken? The practice hasn’t evolved since the dark ages, when Fred Flintstone landed his first stonemason apprenticeship. Aside from referencing technique, a simple place to start is asking better questions. There are countless studies into interview questions. This has translated to iterations of advancements in interview questioning. But we revert to the dark ages when it comes to referencing. We ask impossible, loaded, closed questions like “Would you rehire?”, “How many sick days did they have?” or “Did they have any disciplinaries?”.
Is it any wonder we get reference refusals, useless date checks and biased information with this primitive line of questioning?
“Ask the right questions if you’re going to find the right answers.” — Vanessa Redgrave
Zinc have been studying referencing for some time. Our platform offers an automated ‘culture-add referencing’ tool.
We’re open sourcing a culture-add reference question generator – Janice. The aim is to encourage better questioning in referencing and inspire new ideas for information to extract. In order to try and better referencing for all.
Click below to speak to Janice and generate reference questions for your company…
Zinc’s redefining the reference check, learn more about how their automated tools and how can help you hire: https://zinc.work/landing/referencing.
Website: https://zinc.work
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zinc_work
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zinc-work/ | https://medium.com/zinc_work/reference-question-generator-bb42bb5a7f88 | ['Luke Shipley'] | 2019-03-22 21:42:48.394000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Recruiting', 'Interview', 'Hiring'] |
My Trans Identity Is Not A Fetish | Identity — gender, sexual orientation, or the connection to one’s own race or ethnicity — plays a pivotal role in all our lives. But it is especially crucial to those who have to earn the right to express it.
The right to one’s own identity is something still being fought for in many marginalized communities, and when something so precious is reduced to a thing, a thing desired solely for sexual pleasure, it hurts in a very deep way. This is what can happen when a transgender person encounters a “chaser” — someone who has a “fetish” for transgender bodies.
Those who fetishize transgender bodies are participating in a culture of transphobia that deems our bodies as important solely when they’re sexualized. The act of “chasing” is, indeed, rooted in a cultural assumption that the only reason someone could want to be with a trans person is because of a sexual fetish. When cisgender male celebrities like rapper Tyga and NFL player Hank Baskett have been “caught” with trans people, it’s been treated as a “scandal,” with the media and public assuming it must be because they have a “thing” for trans bodies.
In the aftermath of the Tyga “scandal,” Mia Isabella, the trans woman who he was allegedly with for three years, said:
“It’s very sad that the idea of a man loving a trans person has to be considered a scandal when all people are equal . . . Am I not an American with the right to love and live as I choose with whoever I choose? If a celebrated man loves a transgender woman or possibly did — that’s news? It shouldn’t be news, it should be normal for anyone and everyone to be allowed to love who they choose.”
Transgender activist Janet Mock also weighed in on the way the affair was treated, saying she was “invested in what this public shaming does to the women who are kept in the dark, made to feel they are unworthy of love and acknowledgement, who are made to feel as if they are only deserving of ridicule and violence.”
Because fetishes in general have a long history of being demonized, it may be tempting to view conversations surrounding this fetishicizing as just another crusade against non-traditional sexual preferences. But this accusation couldn’t be further from the truth.
Sexual fetishes cover a broad spectrum — from foot worshipping to spanking to sploshing — but when someone says they prefer men, they say they are straight, not that they have a “fetish” for men. This is because we typically understand general sexual orientation as an attraction that can encompass a desire to know and love that person beyond the realm of the physical. Chasing, by reducing an individual’s gender identity to sexual fixation, doesn’t move beyond the purely physical realm. And it is, as such, dehumanizing.
As trans women, how are we supposed to be with someone who has stated that their reason for being attracted to us has nothing to do with our personality or our tastes or our perspective on life, but with our particular configuration of body parts? Moreover, how are were supposed to feel when our culture assumes this kind of sexualization is the only way for us to be wanted?
Yet, sadly — because of how much transphobia permeates our culture — trans women are often made to feel as if they should be grateful for any kind of attention they receive, even if it’s as reductive as this.
A similarly problematic fetish that bears some significant, if incomplete, parallels is the preference for Asian women. A close friend of mine mentioned to me once how she wishes she could wear pleated skirts in public, but she refrains from doing so because the attention she gets makes her feel like a “walking fetish.”
Of course, all women undergo a greater amount of harassment related to their appearance, but a sexual fixation related to a person’s gender identity or racial heritage is more than just an unfortunate aspect of male gaze; deriving sexual pleasure from the fact that someone’s gender identity or racial heritage is an “other” suggests that they’re not an equal.
This sexualization can also manifest as a damaging assumption that trans women aren’t “real” women. Shortly after coming out as gay, boxer Yusaf Mack “admitted” to wanting to be in a relationship with a transgender woman. By professing his attraction to trans women as an extension of his attraction to cisgender men, Mack showed that he does not regard trans women to be women, but simply a different “type” of man.
Until we decide to have a real conversation about the fetishization of trans bodies, stories like Mia’s will continue to make headlines as a “scandal,” and trans women like me will keep encountering people who try to tell us that we should be grateful for the leftover libido of chasers — as though that paradigm could ever be equal to a loving relationship built on mutual respect. | https://medium.com/the-establishment/my-trans-identity-is-not-a-fetish-1d6f2dc5d5a1 | ['Charley Reid'] | 2018-01-23 22:34:24.198000+00:00 | ['Fetishization', 'Feature', 'Non Binary', 'Lower Trio', 'Society Politics'] |
Today Top Stories || Missile Strikes By Israel | Largest Islamic Country Will Soon Recognize Israel | The Free Trade Agreement With The European Union | Today Top Stories || Missile Strikes By Israel | Largest Islamic Country Will Soon Recognize Israel | The Free Trade Agreement With The European Union zaviews Dec 25, 2020·4 min read
In Syria, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at residential areas, which were repulsed. According to the international news agency, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the Musayyaf area of Syria, which was thwarted by the Syrian air defense system. According to Syrian state television, Israeli warplanes fired the missiles north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli, but there was no loss of life or property as a result of the timely response. Israel has not yet confirmed or denied the attack, but in the past Israeli warplanes have violated Lebanese borders and attacked Syrian territory. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that Israeli warplanes flying low from Lebanon hit an Iranian weapons depot in Syria, killing six members of the Iranian-backed militia.
The Israeli minister has claimed that the fifth Islamic country will soon recognize Israel. In an interview with local TV, Israeli Minister for Regional Cooperation Ofer Akonis said the United States would announce the establishment of Israeli diplomatic relations with another Islamic country before Trump steps down from the US presidency on January 20. The Israeli minister declined to name the Muslim country, but said there could be two major candidates. Oman is one of the strongest candidates, while Saudi Arabia is not currently in relations with Israel. Regarding the other candidate country, he said that it is an eastern country and a big Muslim country, but it is not Pakistan. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country by population, announced last week that it would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state. In the last days of President Trump’s presidency, four Muslim countries, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, have established diplomatic relations with Israel. On the other hand, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have denied such speculations.
The months-long trade dispute between the European Union and the United Kingdom over Bridget finally came to an end and a new agreement was reached. British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) to report that we have overcome my own rules and target of the Downing Street press conference with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. Details of the agreement have not yet been released, but Boris Johnson claimed that “this agreement is good for the whole of Europe.” The UK will pull out of EU trade rules next week, even though the agreement was a year ago to secede from trade. The announcement of Boris Johnson has paved the way for the creation of two separate economies in the form of the United Kingdom and the European Union, and has created convenience for British citizens who are already suffering from the corona virus. During the press conference, the British Prime Minister said that the agreement of 668 billion euros per annum would protect employment across the country and British products would be sold without tariffs and without quotas in the European market. Later, on March 29 this year, the British Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Bridgett Agreement for the third time by a majority. In the British capital, 286 votes were cast in favor of the Bridgett agreement, while 344 votes were cast against it. On April 11 this year, European leaders agreed to extend the Bridgett agreement with Britain for six months. The decision to expand Bridget was made by 27 European leaders after talks in Brussels. It should be noted that the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, but some quarters in the UK have repeatedly complained that the free trade community is being used for political purposes. Damages the sovereignty of member countries. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. It will be possible to spend in the country. | https://medium.com/@zaviews/today-top-stories-missile-strikes-by-israel-largest-islamic-country-will-soon-recognize-723f9abf55ac | [] | 2020-12-25 13:16:44.411000+00:00 | ['News', 'Brexit', 'Syria', 'Israel', 'European Union'] |
A Procrastinator’s Guide to Becoming More Punctual. | Content Summary:
Schedule your toughest work early in the morning when you’re more alert.
Put distractions out of reach temporarily.
If your work is due in a month, allot time for each section.
Developing New Habits Schedule your time realistically.
Accomplish much when you focus only on the task at hand.
Take an inventory of how you currently use your time.
Determine if you’re avoiding important tasks because you’re anxious.
Avoid procrastinating when it’s challenging to make decisions.
By some estimates, 20 per cent of people consider themselves to be chronic procrastinators and many more put things off on occasion. If procrastination is getting in between you and your life goals, try these suggestions for getting things done with less delay.
Understanding Why You Procrastinate
1. Spot perfectionism. Procrastination and perfectionism often go hand in hand. You may be setting your standards so high that they intimidate you from doing your best. Determine if you’re avoiding important tasks because you’re anxious about how well you’ll perform.
2. Make up your mind. You might procrastinate because you find it challenging to make decisions. You keep developing more options and telling yourself that you’re doing background research rather than buckling down to more concrete work.
3. Analyze your feelings about the last-minute rush. Maybe you’ve become conditioned to the euphoria you feel when working under pressure. You may need to find more productive ways to motivate and reward yourself.
Changing Your Thinking
1. Examine the consequences of immediate gratification. Impulse control often lies at the heart of chronic procrastination. Try asking yourself which activities will contribute more to your wellbeing over the long term. You may enjoy watching several episodes of your favourite TV show back to back when it’s more profitable to spend that time studying.
2. Drop the dread. Worrying about a project can often be more unpleasant than just doing it. Try adopting a neutral state of mind when you start listing all the reasons why you put off a project, like doing your taxes. You may be pleasantly surprised at how effectively you can reduce the stress you place on yourself.
3. Hold yourself accountable. Take charge of your life by acknowledging your own abilities and making a commitment to give your best efforts to the things you care about. For example, get started today on your resolution to exercise daily rather than waiting until some hypothetical time when you’ll feel more energetic.
Developing New Habits
1. Schedule your time realistically. Take an inventory of how you currently use your time. Calculate how long it really takes you to complete your typical errands compared to the overly optimistic scenarios that keep putting you behind schedule.
2. Minimize distractions. If checking emails and surfing the web are eating up your time, put distractions out of reach temporarily. See how much more you can accomplish when you focus only on the task at hand.
3. Manage interruptions. Some interruptions are inevitable. Remain flexible so you can get back to work quickly rather than letting a five-minute phone call turn into a wasted afternoon.
4. Break tasks down into manageable chunks. Set intermediate deadlines for yourself. If your final proposal is due in a month, allot time for each section, editing, and proofreading.
5. Practice with small endeavours. You can turn almost anything into an opportunity to reinforce your new habits. Wipe down the kitchen counters immediately instead of saving up all of your cleanings for the weekend.
6. Reward your progress. You might procrastinate because it allows you to spend time on things you enjoy more than the things you’re trying to avoid. When you do your grocery shopping before work rather than sleeping for another hour, pay yourself back by serving up your favourite dish for dinner.
7. Expect setbacks. You’re likely to experience some backsliding. Look for the temptations that pull you off course and develop strategies to overcome them. If you feel lethargic after dinner, schedule your toughest work early in the morning when you’re more alert.
Overcoming a tendency to procrastinate will help you accomplish more and feel better about yourself. By devoting your energies to meaningful activities rather than trying to avoid them, you’ll enjoy more peace of mind and richer life.
Roy Clayton
Uberesult.com | https://medium.com/@royclayton/a-procrastinators-guide-to-becoming-more-punctual-674756a46e53 | ['Roy Clayton'] | 2020-09-23 10:22:26.797000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Marketing', 'Blog', 'Time Management', 'Procrastination'] |
Ouuh there are two current versions of the same standard — which one do I choose? | Ouuh there are two current versions of the same standard — which one do I choose? Matrix Requirements Feb 20, 2020·2 min read
20-Feb-2020 — Ann Vankrunkelsven
In December 2019, the 3rd revision of the ISO 14971 standard was released. We reported already on the main changes.
This third version has been adopted as a consensus standard in the US, while the EN ISO 14971:2012 is still the harmonized version in Europe.
How to deal with these two versions in parallel?
Know which one is applicable
We take the example of US and EU, but different regions, might have different requirements. It makes sense to first identify which are your target regions and what are the requirements in terms of standards.
Know the differences
It’s probably a truism to say, but before you can move forward, you should know what you’re dealing with. Are the two versions completely different or quite similar?
Make a comparison between the two. For the risk management standards’ different versions, EN ISO 14971:2012 and ISO 14971:2019, we made the comparison and the differences are not huge.
Important to note is that when a standard is being harmonized in Europe (EN prefix), there can be some specific requirements described in the Annexes, which therefore need to be investigated thoroughly.
However, how does knowing the differences help in choosing the right one?
First of all, go back to the first point. If you only have one region to consider, the issue is solved. :-) Apply the version that is applicable to that specific region.
Secondly, make an evaluation of how big the impact of the differences is. If you stick to the more strict requirement it’s unlikely that you’ll get remarks.
In case differences are indeed big and you would need to comply to both versions, you’ll have to generate two sets of documentation in parallel.
If you would like to know more how to deal with that in MatrixALM and MatrixQMS, don’t hesitate to contact us! | https://medium.com/@info-matrixreq/ouuh-there-are-two-current-versions-of-the-same-standard-which-one-do-i-choose-20f003182cbf | ['Matrix Requirements'] | 2020-02-20 15:07:43.836000+00:00 | ['Standards', 'Matrix', 'Iso 14971', 'Medical Devices', 'Choices'] |
Berlin Survey Results — Part 5: What makes a job offer unrefusable | In our previous article, we’ve looked at positive recruitment journeys of Berlin’s tech candidates. The recipe for a great recruitment process is simple: it should be fast, job-relevant, and thoughtful. Another essential ingredient, among others, is quick and actionable feedback.
A developer’s positive experience during the recruitment process is likely to increase the chances of her or him accepting a job offer from the company. Or, at least, recommending the company to others.
But what other job offer acceptance factors are there? What makes tech professionals in Berlin say YES?
What persuades people to accept a job offer?
According to our survey, the top factor turned out to be Salary (picked by 73.2% respondents). And it is not that surprising.
The fact that Berlin’s tech professionals have overly high salary expectations was mentioned in a Tagesspiegel article from September 27. And this seems to be the number one reason why Berlin-based tech founders struggle to find new employees.
Experienced (more senior) colleagues came in second in our survey, with slightly less than half participants (46.3%) upvoting it. There were also a few individual responses closely related to this one:
“Mentor to learn from” “Nice/competent people to work with”
Flexible office time, selected by 35.4% tech professionals, is the third-top offer acceptance factor.
Other factors of importance were: Strong company culture, Financial security of the company, Working remotely, Freedom to choose technologies, and Number of holidays.
Horizontal hierarchy, together with Pension plan and insurance were favoured by less than 10% respondents each.
Offer acceptance factors
What else was mentioned?
Here are the individual responses, which we’ve collected under “Other”:
“Exciting projects and tasks” or, similarly, “Interesting and challenging tasks”
“Specific industry”
“The scope of the project”
“Salary was not so high, but I felt like this company is not structured so well, but they already have money. So, I can grow almost in any direction I want.” (That’s something in-between the hiring company’s technological flexibility and its financial security.)
“Pet-friendly office”
It’s worth noting that nobody remembered about ping-pong tables, gym access, free beer, or game consoles. Meanwhile, some companies sincerely hope to use perks like these in job ads to lure developers.
A good mix of things
We’ve learned what comes on people’s mind first when they think about a tempting job offer. Unsurprisingly, it’s salary, followed by more senior colleagues and flexible office times.
Yet, it’s also important to understand that “a balance of all factors is important,” as Ben, a Senior DevOps Engineer pointed out to us. His recipe of an unrefusable offer makes perfect sense:
“Salary is a major [factor], but also important is the team fit, having a good mix of experiences and seniorities within the team, the work and the role, breadth of the role, tech direction and vision, easygoing attitudes, the company in general and what it does, the office and its location, and, of course, flexible office time and working arrangements.”
So, when handing in an offer, let’s make sure that the candidate has a good and clear understanding of all the above. | https://medium.com/caissa-global/berlin-survey-results-part-5-34ae9470d362 | ['Wilbur Von Biscuit'] | 2018-12-06 10:47:55.513000+00:00 | ['Job Offer', 'Candidate Experience', 'Tech Recruiting', 'Berlin Tech', 'Hiring'] |
About Me — Alessandro Crimi. Researcher, Lecturer, Interested in… | I have been doing many things, and I would say lived a couple of lives. I will skip some stuff I am not ready to talk about in public and focus on the current and important ones. One of my weakness is that I tried to do too many things, but the constants were always science, co-operation in Subsaharan Africa and art. I have been living in quite few countries. I need this summary also for myself.
I was born in Italy. Initially started studying engineer, then moved more and more into medicine (here and there in Italy and Germany). Between 2007 and 2011. I did a PhD at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). I doubt my work there left a dent in the universe, and I remember it was also a very emotional period which I survived thanks to my mentors (people I met later in science were not so nice). Anyway, it forged my critical thinking which I am using every day. Thank you Prof. Mads Nielsen and Dr. Martin Lillholm.
The Mermaid of Copenhagen. Credits: Alessandro Crimi
At the end of 2011, after my PhD, I won a scholarship from the European Union to do a period of post-doctoral research in a place of my choice. I chose INRIA SophiaAntipolis in souther France, no idea what happened, I ended up in Bretagne (which is not the same, but I didn’t know :-) ) in a shared position between INRIA and the neurology ward at the University Hospital of Rennes (at least still France). My boss was Prof.Christian Barillot. A friendly, funny man which unfortunately passed away in 2020 (not for COVID but cancer). I learned a lot there, and finally I think I did my first useful thing. Quantification/prediction of multiple sclerosis outcome from images. Thank you Christian, you have no idea how much we miss you. Now deep learning and images is the new electricity (everybody uses them) but at that time was something really revolutionary. Also, I learned to master my preferred toy: Brain tractography.
Introduction to brain Tractography. Academic year 2019–2020
At the same time, a Swedish professor- Magdalena Ericsson-invited me to teach in Ghana within the Next Einstein Initiative (a program where lectures and professor across the globe are invited to teach and find the next Einstein in Africa, I think we found a couple), and since 2012 I am indeed a visiting lecture. I come to teach, exams and then I leave. Above, you can see a video of my teaching, as due to COVID in 2020 lectures were via Zoom. It is already 8 years I do this, and I love it. The students in Ghana have always shown interest, passion and they become a family. Also, I fell in love with Ghana. It is bursting, active, and music/art/food loving country. Maybe I have been too many years far from my own country and Ghana kind of reminds it to me. A woman once told me
“Sicily is Italy on steroids, Ghana is Sicily on steroids”.
It is the perfect solution if you don’t want to stay in boring places.
Academic year 2012–2013 Credits: Alessandro Crimi
Despite Christian tried to keep me into neurology in Rennes, in 2013 I moved to Zurich (Switzerland) for the first time, to work at ETH (The Technical School of Switzerland). I skip about my official research there (boring), but I have to mention that a special office of ETH (ETH-Global) gave me funding to do a project shared between Switzerland and Ghana. I could not do something with magnetic resonance imaging (my beloved machine is too heavy), so I ended up devising a project with ultrasound devices (more practical to carry). For personal reasons at that time I was very interested in prenatal care, so the project ended up devising was “promoting prenatal care in Ghana with portable ultrasound”. It was amazing. Not because we felt like “heroes changing the world”, but because we had a lot of interactions with people of the villages. People were thrilled that we wanted to do something helpful for them, and it didn’t feel as science stuck in a lab, more like an adventure. We were really doing something with patients. I still remember a lot of funny situations like with the chiefs of the villages when we had to explain how an ultrasound work at the middle of the beach, and so on.
Meeting with the Chiefs at the beach of Afumasa (Ghana). Credits Alessandro Crimi
I had so much fun, that coming back to Europe I took another degree (MBA in international health management) to do similar projects and works for NGO and governments. It was a very expensive and instructive idea. I met many relevant people during the courses, some of them are still collaborators. Unfortunately, you just add letters to your name Dr. Crimi PHD MBA, but life doesn’t change that much. You don’t find a job more easily, and you might even scare people with your CV. I advise to be humbler and find your place in society in a more straightforward way (I have seen people with a highschool degree overtaking me).
Moreover, international development is a highly political context, with many valuable people doing low-wage jobs for many years. Indeed, after that I have been involved in other projects across Africa (Zimbabwe, New Guinea…) which did not go that well (I prefer not to mention the organizations and projects). Yes, changing the world is harder than you think, you might just waste time and resources. I even started doubting about this lifestyle of hero-wanna-be. Indeed, I even lost relationships because of my engagements of poor’s man Superman (egoistic lifestyle, PTSD…). I gave a speech about it. Inspired by a talk with a friend which discussed with me about the fact “we do not have GOATS and CHICKENS roaming the streets in Switzerland” (the chicken theme will come back later in my life :-) ).
I moved back to Italy, it was the beginning of 2015. I thought it was time to go back to my own country. I moved to Genova and started working at the Italian Institute of Technology. Diego and Vittorio (Dr. Sona and Prof. Murino) were working on some very interesting projects about brain connectivity for Alzheimer, Schizophrenia, Autism and so on. Some of the works we did, I presented in a provocative TEDx talk in Germany:
To complicate even more my life. One of my former students from Ghana (she was originally from Sudan) managed to have a grant to carry out her PhD with me, but due to fact I was not in Zurich anymore ,and other constraints she (Samar Elsheik) ended up in SouthAfrica (a total mess up we worked out). Yes, we were ahead our time doing home-office and remote-working since 2016 :-) Despite this crazy situation; she published articles and also got her PHD:
Samar at the virtual graduation in CapeTown (with no people due to COVID19). Credits University of CapeTown https://www.news.uct.ac.za/news/graduation/2020/december/-article/2020-12-17-uct-honours-graduates-on-virtual-stage?fbclid=IwAR1k7-7At1Qwa7tvtXTXXLcpHPiXIsF6nmB_Lw-WTqYtBiM5iJ2GoKgxh6I
But Italy was not my country anymore, I was already away since more than 7 years before coming back. Unfortunately, when you are away for so long, you start being a foreigner in your own country. I could not fit in anymore. So, again at the end of 2016 I left the institute, and ended up AGAIN in beautiful Zurich (Switzerland) for science. This time it was the University and University Hospital of Zurich. I have been surrounded by very eclectic biologists and medical doctors which taught me a lot. Putting together all those experiences at the beginning of 2020, I had the crazy idea to finally leave academia, and create a company for diagnostics for Subsaharan countries. Welcome to a lot of new headaches: patents, production, research and develop on your own… and as we never expected … COVID19.
We just launched, I have no idea how it will go. In parallel of raising money with grants and prizes, we just launched a crowdfunding campaign with chickens :-) .
Writing this has been like a therapy for me. By iterating on this, made me realize that of all those things, the only useful things I did so far feel the prenatal care project in Ghana, and the fact I contributed to the PhD of Samar (and maybe my work on multiple sclerosis).
So, the main lessons learned are
Focus on the purpose, not on your title or fame. Take care of yourself both financially and mentally.
If you cannot sustain yourself financially, you will not be able to help others. This is more than ever important with all the stressful period we are living due to COVID19. And yes, more than ever right now money is an issue for many people. Use your survival skills. If you have some kind of depression, trauma, PTSD… better address it immediately. You cannot drive an airplane if you are drunk. | https://medium.com/about-me-stories/about-me-alessandro-crimi-ac35ad0bc76a | ['Dr. Alessandro Crimi'] | 2020-12-29 07:51:29.724000+00:00 | ['About Me', 'Biography', 'Biotech', 'Academic', 'Medicine'] |
The Sin of Nature | The Sin of Nature
The first chapter of A Tourist’s Guide to Sex in New York City
We stopped for water along the shaded path, pausing before either of us realized the other was there. Prospect Park was quiet in the early morning, but there we were, two strangers hidden amongst the trees, our breath quick and our bodies warm.
We said nothing.
Throughout it all, we said nothing, and I have to wonder if silence made it possible. If somehow the silence killed any thought of risk, fear, or doubt.
She looked me in the eye as she stretched her arms above her head, her shirt rising with them. My gaze moved down her body as I raised one foot behind me.
A smile became an invitation. A gesture became a need.
The only kissing we did was my lips on the back of her neck as she pushed her shorts down. Pressed against the wooden fence, her turning away said more than her wink. My cock was hard and in my hand as her two fingers moved between thighs to part wet skin.
Silence as I grabbed her hips.
The sound of birds as she took me in hand.
A breath of wind as she pushed back onto me.
Fucking, we became part of the woods. We joined in with the trees and the bugs and the water rushing behind us. Caring for nothing but desire, our sex was achingly natural and just as dangerous.
She turned as I thrust into her and bit my lip. One hand reached up to clutch a breast, sliding under spandex in an act of aggression. Around me, her cunt clenched and devoured.
I kissed her hard as she growled.
Head back down, her forehead on her arms, she fucked me as hard as I did her — and it was over. Her fingers were frantic as a fight and our teeth overtook our tongues. Never stopping, she bit her arm, rubbed faster, and then she came as I did the same, our bodies weak and fragile.
Sipping from our water bottles was enough to give us pause. Her tights back on, my cock dutifully put away, we stood still for the briefest of seconds as we drank.
Her eyes flickered at the sight of my ring. I shook my head at the shine of hers.
The path was narrow, cool, and empty as I ran. Faster and faster I went as if somehow my burning lungs might offer something akin to repentance.
The burst of sun and the sound of dogs barking took away the need.
The park was behind me, our offering left hanging in the breeze for no one to see or hear.
The sin of nature is that there’s no sin at all. | https://medium.com/great-erotica/the-sin-of-nature-fe1954f55e72 | ['Guy New York'] | 2019-07-29 13:36:11.889000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Erotica', 'Fiction', 'Sex', 'Sex In Public'] |
Take Your Time | Sign up for Growing in Empathy
By Age of Empathy
Growing in Empathy is sent weekly on Saturdays. It highlights recent stories, shares celebrations of our writers, and may contain prompts. Take a look | https://medium.com/age-of-empathy/take-your-time-8d7f06dcd284 | ['Galit Birk'] | 2020-12-17 14:41:26.665000+00:00 | ['Empathy', 'Loss', 'Poetry', 'Heartbreak', 'Self-awareness'] |
Depression- Detrimental to Life and Social Behaviour | Depression
Are you in a state of depression, stress, or anxiety? Do you believe that depression is reasonable for your health or is just a temporary mental state? No, I’m afraid you might be mistaken in this regard.
What is Depression?
Depression is a constant state of mental health that includes the clouds of Sadness or melancholy entirely in a person. It makes a person wholly flabbergasted and pensive. The condition is severely detrimental to your life, and if it persists prolong, then there is no time to come back and have a cup full of happiness.
Are anxiety and depression the same thing?
The mental health state may depict they are the same thing, but the severity and grim consequences expound that depression is a more lethal weapon in your own life than anxiety and stress. The person suffering from depression is more close to the edge of death and far away from happiness.
Why does the brain get depressed?
The state occurs when overthinking overwhelms you, and you think about something more and more and couldn’t get rid of this whole fuss. The depression takes you from the definite edge of life to the negative side of life, and you continuously think negative thoughts. The depression completely changes your perception regarding a positive perspective, and you believe all the things are happening in a negative aspect. It creates a void in your life that is impeccable to the colourful life of the world.
State of Depression
Once John Assaraf has said:
“You become what you think about most, but you also attract what you think about most.” (The Secret)
The depression is detrimental to your life as it engulfs your soul, and you become a reflective person thinking about suicide or quitting your life. The depression drags you away from your parents, relatives, friends, and from your own will.
A depressed person likes to live alone without the intervening of others in his life. He is a person who yammers deep inside, and I tell you this condition is a predicament for him and his lovers.
The person is not in a position to listen to your pieces of advice as he becomes stubborn and rude. If the person is happy and smiling, it doesn’t mean that he is happy deep inside. The depression takes your soul, not your appearance, and it controls your nerves and makes you a paralyzed person who can’t take a sip of happiness from the cup full of enjoyment. As it is said:
“What people never understand is that depression is not about the outside; it’s about the inside.” (Jasmine Warga)
Factors involving in the Cause of Depression
There are a lot of factors contributing to the onset of depression. These factors emanate the disarray situation of a mind. Depression is like a responsive agent against these factors that act as a stimulus to provoke overthinking. It gnaws your soul, your feelings, and your whole human behaviour. Some of the elements may include:
1- Financial Issues
The main factor that expounds the depression is financial instability in your dealings. If you belong to a middle-class family and have the volition to become a millionaire, but you couldn’t achieve your goal. And think you are useless, and you couldn’t fulfill your dreams, then, you everything negative thoughts and fall into depression.
2- Lack of Inner Satisfaction
It is a contrast factor to the above consideration, and it’s not imperative that you are a rich man, and you wouldn’t get depressed state. It’s all about the inner satisfaction of your soul and peace of mind. I saw many rich people committed suicide, not because of any financial issue, but due to a lack of peace of mind, the paucity (lack) of inner satisfaction.
Photo by Yuvraj Singh on Unsplash
3- Relationship Failure
I am a student, and in my view, this factor plays a predicament role in the emergence of depression. Life is based on love and affinity. The divine light depicts the pure love of God and His people. There comes a state where you love someone and share your feelings, but in return, you got betrayed by some special. It leads towards depression in which you hate everyone around you. You do not want to talk and trust anyone, and in this way, you like to espouse loneliness.
4- Complexity
The last factor is the complexity that makes you feel wretched and unlucky in your life. The complexity excruciates your soul, and you feel resentment and start cursing your bad luck. In the end, you fall into the trap of depression.
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/what-causes-depression
Consequences of Depression
It is a lethal and destructive mental condition that maims your life completely. There are many consequences to it.
It:
· Leads towards the suicide
Constantly tortures your soul
Drags away from your real relations and family
https://www.news-medical.net/health/Drug-Abuse-and-Depression.aspx
Makes an addict to drugs and other crimes
Makes accustomed to the sleeping pills
Takes you in a valley of disappointment
Makes you Stubborn and impolite
Drugs
Cut to the Chase- It ultimately damages your soul, your future, happiness, family, and friends. It is a request for everyone to take it as a severe mental disorder and try to decrease others’ depression by talking to them and realizing them a beautiful and happy life waiting for him.
I hope everyone would understand the condition of a depressed person and drag away his/her soul towards the track of happiness. | https://medium.com/@faisalq030/depression-detrimental-to-life-and-social-behaviour-2a9ab2413c43 | ['Faisal Younas'] | 2020-08-18 05:07:50.990000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Blogging', 'Education', 'Psycology', 'Social'] |
Do You Need A Data Scientist? | Data Scientist is the new job of the decade. Everyone is talking about becoming one or hiring one, but the big question is do we need data scientists? To answer the question, we must first understand what a data scientist does. From what the name suggests, data scientists are scientists who work with data, they do everything from collecting and cleaning data to analyzing and modeling data. They often are knowledgeable in machine learning and thus can develop machine learning models to predict data.
So why would you need a data scientist? There are 3 major questions you can ask yourself:
Do I deal with data? Do I have big data? Do I need to make sense of data?
If you answered yes to all 3 questions then you probably should get a data scientist on board. The primary case for hiring a data scientist is the availability of large amounts of data, whether be it text, audio, video, or just numbers. Then with this data, a data scientist can help you extract trends and patterns, cluster and classify data into categories, and predict future data trends.
“Data are becoming the new raw material of business.” — Craig Mundie
Craig Mundie of Microsoft put it nicely, “Data are becoming the new raw materials of business.” This new paradigm opens up the door for new business opportunities; if done correctly, you can generate excellent stories out of data that can be offered as abusiness case. I would argue that the most important part of a data scientist’s job is actually making these stories; being able to explain the findings in a language clear and understandable by everyone and delivering value out of these findings is the key skill that distinguishes data scientists.
CRISP-DM Methodology
The main steps in any data science project is outlined in the CRISP-DM methodology, and this must be understood by everyone in the company, not just the data scientist. Essentially, CRISP-DM guides the whole process of a data science project from before data ingestion to deployment. The processes are as follow.
Understand the need for insights on data, and the business case which the project will support. Understand the data available, and update the business case accordingly. Prepare the data by removing redundancy, fixing missing data, and formatting the data. Model the data Evaluate the mode, and based on that complete the business case Finally, deploy the model to use on future data
80% of the time is spent on cleaning the data.
The process is a rather time-consuming one, particularly the data preparation, as it can take up to 80% of the project’s time. Nonetheless, the outcomes of data science projects are of tremendous value since you gain insights often unseen before. This is the new business weapon that can turn the tables on competitors. | https://medium.com/astrolabs/do-you-need-a-data-scientist-ea4d79974f9c | ['Aoun Lutfi'] | 2017-09-19 10:05:38.259000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Insights', 'Big Data', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
The Data Every City Should Release, & Why | After spending the majority of every day looking at thousands of open data sets from hundreds of municipalities across North America, I came to some conclusions about the data that everyone was releasing.
No one is doing the same thing.
I like this. It’s great to see a government try new things.
That’s great, on one hand, because it means that governments are trying things out.
On the other hand, it’s really profoundly difficult to work on any project involving public data if you can’t reasonably predict what’s going to be available on any given data portal.
Want to track spending?
Very difficult to do if you can’t get city financials from half of the jurisdictions you’re looking at.
Want to build an app that tells you how the commute’s going to be?
Better hope Peel and Mississauga are releasing the same traffic data as Toronto.
Up to this point, the open data success stories we’ve seen follow a similar pattern, which generally looks like this: Someone used their city’s data to build something cool for their city.
That’s great. Building a killer transit app is great. The problem is, it’s small potatoes.
Now…
What if someone built the same app with national coverage?
What if city officials could easily check their performance against neighbouring communities?
What if cancer researchers in Barcelona had access to the research being done in Chennai?
The more we tear down the silos that separate one city’s data from another the more problems we’ll be able to solve.
This is the sort of thing you start to think about when you’re looking at hundreds of thousands of open data sets. It’s a big opportunity. The whole thing has to start with the cities themselves, and it absolutely has to start with a baseline of common data.
We were thinking about this for a while, so we decided to put together a list of data sets that we felt every city should release. The data sets we decided on were by no means definitive, but they’re a good place to start. These are the data sets that most cities already have access to, and they’re the ones that drive immediate value, both to citizens and businesses.
After plotting these on a map we realized that they all seemed to emanate from 6 major themes, so we built a wheel that showed how the data sets might relate to each other. After thinking about it for a while, we realized that these data sets were really the elemental ones; the ones that you could mix together to create totally new data, derive different information, and see different use cases.
When we realized that, we started calling it the Open Data Big Bang.
An open data strategy doesn’t have to be written in stone. It should, in fact, be agile enough to transform as the uses of public data become better understood. But every open data strategy, whether it’s for New York City or Moose Jaw, can start with these elemental data sets. You’ll be amazed at what they’ll create. | https://medium.com/thinkdata/the-data-every-city-should-release-why-a07571e1161f | ['Thinkdata Works'] | 2019-08-01 19:42:35.918000+00:00 | ['Government Data', 'Data Strategy', 'Ontario Goverment', 'Open Data', 'Open Government'] |
Who Would You Be If You Put Your Social Identity Aside? | Have you ever thought of this before? If this question has made you think about something before, have you found the answer? First, let’s take a look at what constitutes our social identity.
social
According to Freud, identity is “a process and outcome of identification that begins with an individual’s assimilation or understanding of strangers or objects.”
According to Erikson, “by establishing a relationship between society and the individual, identity is also the individual at the core of his or her social culture.”
Considering that culture is the main determinant of identities, the rigidity and flexibility of culture creates the rigidity and flexibility of identity. Depending on the definition of culture, different belongings come to the fore and identity is shaped according to these elements. As it can be understood from here, it is the culture we live in that forms our social identity.
When you look at the world now, there are so many types of cultures that we don’t know how many.
Many people were born and raised in flexible and rigid cultures in different parts of the world. And so each person’s social identity develops differently from the other.
According to Walzer, “Solid cultural elements are passed down from generation to generation through social heritage. Communities acquire their identity in this way, as strict cultural elements predict a homogeneous community. rigid cultural elements are mostly negative as they trigger conservatism and exclusion. Solid identity does not give community members much say. However, collective identities consist of more than one process. Only marginalization of identity is a pathological type of identity based on hostility. The pathological identity opposes inter-communal exchange and alienates itself by constantly emphasizing the other.
Flexible cultural elements, on the other hand, leave more debatable areas to the society. Thus, a more tolerant definition of identity emerges. The characteristic of flexible culture is dynamic and open to change. Contrary to the unquestioning adoption of rigid cultural elements, flexible elements are adopted as a result of individual experiences in a lifelong rational learning process.
With the adaptation of the concept of culture to the political field, culture becomes dynamic,
a definition emerges that is inductive and transformative, flexible and called culture. With flexible culture, traditional culture homogeneity and stability are abandoned and a more tolerant approach is adopted. It is also called political culture or civic culture. The definition of the political field is organized in parallel with the culture that gives order and shape to the social field. Thus, culture is an independent entity that determines other fields taken as parameters. In short, another important feature of flexible culture is that it is dynamic and open to change.
The Transition Process from Covered Identities to Human Identity…
It will be easier for people who grow up in a flexible culture to transition from their social identity to their individual identity.
The Transition Process from Covered Identities to Human Identity is possible within a flexible culture. In other words, instead of the social identity that does not belong to him, the process of individual identity formed by his own choices begins. This individual identity creates a flexible mental foundation that further develops and transforms the person. Thus, there are societies of individual people who are constantly developing both mentally and consciously.
Who Would You Be If You Put Your Social Identity Aside? Of course, with your individual identity taking the stage, you become a new you. You both write and act out your individual story. | https://medium.com/@talia-hamzaoglu/who-would-you-be-if-you-put-your-social-identity-aside-ec2f3e788067 | ['Talia Hamza'] | 2021-06-17 13:16:28.011000+00:00 | ['Social', 'Who', 'Identity'] |
A Burkini in Brooklyn | Red Hook Park Pool — photo by Malcolm Pinckney, NYC Parks, 6/30/06
A Burkini in Brooklyn
A diverse scene at a Red Hook pool speaks to what really makes this country great
Trying make the most of the last days of summer, I’ve been visiting the Red Hook community pool, which turns out to be the better public pools in New York City. This weekend, among a couple of hundred people there, three Muslim women splashed in the Olympic-sized pool with their daughters. All three wore “burkinis,” which covered them from head to toe with sleeves which reached down to their hands. They played with the two younger girls without comment or interruption from anyone around them.
I might not even have noted this blissful little scene, but it came in the wake of a week or two of stories from France where some cities made had made the burkini illegal. The French High Court reversed the rulings, saying they were an obvious infringement on freedom and that “there is no evidence that there were any risks that public order was disturbed by people’s choice of bathing garment.” An appropriate response to that might be, “No duh.”
Nonetheless, burkini-related stories permeated our news cycle, no doubt due to our own ongoing irrational discomfit with the presence of Muslims in our society, as well as some of the more unhinged fears of “creeping sharia” in certain quarters here. So this scene at the Red Hook pool turns out to be a great metaphor for how these United States, how New York specifically, can be a model for integration and the assimilation.
Which made me think: If you want to make America “great,” Donald Trump, take a look around the city you live in. Hop on a train (or a limo, more likely) to Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx or even the Lower East Side and take a gander at the neighborhoods, at the medley of people living side by side. Take a drive down Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn towards Coney Island where you can pass through alternating Hasidic and Muslim neighborhoods. Look, I’m not suggesting New York is a perfect paragon of racial and religious harmony: There are hate crimes here, yes, against people, sadly for their religious beliefs and their sexual orientations, too. But largely, day by day, this city does provide a working model for both diversity and assimilation.
Some might argue that the sight of these women in a pool wearing their distinct and discreet garments runs counter to the idea of assimilation, but assimilation doesn’t have to mean a complete abandonment of one’s culture and beliefs. And those beliefs vary. It only takes a quick search to find advice for Muslim women that swimming in public pools “frequented by men and women, this is a great evil.” Of course, you can also find advice that wearing a hijab while swimming is an acceptable solution for women wanting to swim with their families at mixed-gender beaches. In other words, interpretations of the Muslim faith vary as much as interpretations of Christianity do. (And you can easily find Christians who don’t believe in mixed bathing in the United States, too.) You could simply reach this conclusion, though: The burkini encourages integration, as it allows Muslim women to participate in activities they otherwise couldn’t in a more secular society.
In fact, that’s what the inventor of the burkini hoped. Designer Aheda Zanetti, a Lebanese-Australian, first devised the “hijood,” which Muslim girls could wear to play sports, such as netball. Writing in The Guardian, she says, “When I invented the burkini in early 2004, it was to give women freedom, not to take it away.” The word “burkini” conceivably could reinforce misunderstandings of Muslim culture, since a burqua is quite distinct from a hijab, the former arguably being more severe than the latter, as it completely covers a woman’s face. Zanetti, however, is apparently Muslim herself, though she didn’t start wearing a veil until after she began designing these outfits with her niece in mind. When she began designing swimwear for Muslim women, she simply found the fusion of the two words “burqa” and “bikini” irresistible. Her creation has been enormously successful. Now, she says, 40 percent of burkini sales are actually to non-Muslims. And sales have spiked since the French ban. (A reader points out that Zanetti didn’t invent Islamic swimwear for women, though her specific, trademarked design has captured the public imagination.)
One might also argue the entire concept of wearing hijab or burqa is oppressive. But freedom means not just preventing women from wearing such an outfit but also allowing them to decide whether they want to wear it or not. I might hope that those young girls at the Red Hook pool grow up feeling free to abandon the hijab or the burkini. Beyond that, it’s none of my business. In contrast, those most fearful of immigrant diversity would undermine this experiment in nurturing both freedom and diversity and attempt to homogenize our culture to ensure their own feelings of safety. | https://medium.com/immigration-in-america/a-burkini-in-brooklyn-3cb7c19b1acf | ['Robert A Stribley'] | 2016-09-01 21:54:53.332000+00:00 | ['Immigration', 'Islamophobia', 'Muslim', 'Donald Trump', 'Burkini'] |
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