title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nvidia RTX vs. AMD Big Navi — The Battle For Graphics Performance | The two biggest players in the GPU industry are Nvidia and AMD. It seems that Nvidia is preparing a new RTX card to compete against AMD’s Big Navi, after reports that it is going to be more powerful than competing products. This is a big deal since the market is a niche that doesn’t have many producers. Whoever can release the better product can capture their lion’s share and more. According to reputable leaks, Nvidia is going to answer that with a boost to the RTX 3070 Ti. The flagship the Big Navi (AMD RX 6800 XT) is reportedly beating in performance would be the RTX 3090, but it is not absolute and based more on leaked reports.
Nvidia RTX Series
The RTX series brings Nvidia’s vision of ray tracing to light. This is a rendering platform that brings virtual realism in graphics at a higher cost, but with the best results. It is a premium product that is aimed for serious imaging products ranging from games to simulations. It brings photorealism by using techniques that simulate how light would interact with virtual objects. This is great for creating virtual worlds that mimic reality for gaming and entertainment applications.
The RTX is built from Nvidia’s Ampere GPU microarchitecture and Turing architecture which utilize Tensor and RT cores for ray tracing acceleration. The RTX drivers are available through Optix and DirectX for users. RTX also includes AI integration (Deep Learning Super Sampling DLSS), common asset formats, rasterization (CUDA) support and simulation APIs. The GeForce RTX is Nvidia’s product line, with the high end 30 series being its flagship.
In terms of performance, Nvidia’s DLSS feature boost frame rate using dedicated AI processing Tensor Cores on the GeForce RTX. This also offers lower latency and faster response, so that the rendering is smoother and not jerky, lagging or chopping up. Users can utilize this for the maximum fps (framers per second) to produce the highest quality images.
AMD Big Navi
AMD claims that their Big Navi will be:
‘by far the most powerful gaming GPU we have ever built’.
That raises the bar much higher for Nvidia. The Big Navi is a part of the Radeon graphics card product line marketed as the RX 6000 series. One of its main feature is 4K UHD gaming at over 60 fps. At the moment there has been very little detail of the full technical specifications released about Big Navi, other than reports from AMD and other reviewers. The stories about its alleged performance has been from reputable news leaks. Come October 28, 2020 more news about Big Navi will be officially released by AMD.
I can assume that the Big Navi is based on the RDNA core graphics architecture, which is used in the current Radeon 5000 series. For the RX 6000 series, it will probably be using RDNA 2. For this to be an RTX killer, it would surely have to surpass the performance indicators. Among the applications that can run on AMD’s RDNA 2 include Unreal Engine 5. The RDNA 2 graphics chips will also be used by Sony PS5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, so this has made an impression with game console developers.
According to Tom’s Guide, there is serious indication that the Big Navi will be much better than Nvidia’s RTX.
YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead has uncovered information that claims a Big Navi GPU will deliver 40 to 50 percent more performance over a GeForce RTX 2080 ti, Nvidia’s current top-end graphics card. … two clusters of compute units measuring in at 36CUs each. A total of 72CUs translates to 4,608 stream processors, which when combined with a 384-bit bus, GDDR6 video memory, and a maximum clock speed of 2,510MHz …
The best way to make a comparison at the moment is from the released benchmarks that have resulted from initial testing.
The Benchmarks
Performance on paper tends to differ from actual gaming and rendering, from the user’s perspective. Benchmarks determine this by testing the product with applications. The benchmarks are all initial tests, but do show results to expect from the final product after it will be officially released.
3DMark Benchmark scores for Navi 21 XT (Big Navi) vs. RTX Series (Source Yuko Yoshida)
Another source for a benchmark test can be found at igor’sLAB.
The igor’sLAB 3DMark benchmark results (Source igor’sLAB)
What is interesting in the benchmark results is the 4K test using Firestrike Extreme show consistency in Big Navi beating out the RTX. However, when it comes to ray tracing, the RTX may have the advantage. The scoring also differed between the two benchmark sources, with igor’sLAB metrics using percentage while the Yuko Yoshida testing converted values to benchmark scores. Another difference is that the Yuko benchmark used more RTX series products, while igor’sLAB only tested two RTX (not the RTX 3090).
I won’t say that these benchmarks are a 100% reliable or accurate way of measuring the performance. Until we have the final release of the products, we can come up with more concrete observations. At the moment take these benchmark results as just an idea of the performance. We also have to factor in the type of CPU that was used and the testing environment. That will at least give us more idea of the type of machine that was used and how we can replicate it for our own benchmark testing.
Looking Towards The Future
While the test shows how much higher the Big Navi can reach in 3DMark scores, it doesn’t outperform the RTX in all the tests. Nonetheless, if the data is accurate and verified, it is still significant indicators. Perhaps we need to see more tests using optimized games for ray tracing and 4K to see overall how the Big Navi stacks up to the RTX line.
Another factor that could determine overall performance is the fabrication process for the circuit design. Big Navi will continue using the 7 nm process from the RDNA chip, which increases the transistor count to 21 billion (codename Navi 21). Nvidia also uses a 7 nm process for their Ampere-based GPU, but packed with 54 billion transistors. In terms of thermals, with smaller transistors they may run faster, but also generates more heat. It also consumes more power, as these chips process data. Thermals may be something to watch out for in case issues of overheating begin popping up.
The early benchmarks were not official test results, but based on early testing done independently. I cannot verify the data, but it shows the potential for Big Navi’s performance. There are even reports that Big Navi may not turn out to be the RTX killer. Overall this should enable users to make use of the offerings from advanced AI and ray tracing acceleration in the next generation of graphics intensive applications as the demand grows for compute power. Usually AMD underperforms when compared to Nvidia, but it looks like the gap is closing. | https://medium.com/0xmachina/nvidia-rtx-vs-amd-big-navi-the-battle-for-graphics-performance-d3f87f917156 | ['Vincent Tabora'] | 2020-10-27 01:40:11.004000+00:00 | ['Computers', 'Graphics', 'Gpu', 'Electronics', 'Technology'] |
USDZ共有:ゾウ | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/bs3-3dmodel/usdz%E5%85%B1%E6%9C%89-%E3%82%BE%E3%82%A6-d9b4f0bd7488 | [] | 2020-11-26 09:19:27.055000+00:00 | ['Augmented Reality', '3d Modeling', 'AR'] |
Where should I eat after the pandemic? (Part 2/2) | Where should I eat after the pandemic? (Part 2/2)
In the last article, I trained a model on the ABSA task from the SemEval-2014 dataset and analyzed its performance, speed, and behaviors. This article details how I use this model to choose a restaurant to dine at from the Yelp dataset. Without further delay, let’s get started!
Yelp Dataset
We can download the Yelp dataset in one of two ways:
The first requires signing an agreement with Yelp, after which the dataset can be downloaded as a zip file. The Kaggle method requires an account with a username and API key setup locally at ~/.kaggle/kaggle.json. The following link can help you get set up with Kaggle:
If you use Yelp, you have to download the zip file, then upload it to Google Colab. If you use Kaggle, however, you can avoid the extra step and stream the data into Google Colab directly. For myself, I’ll use the Kaggle method for this tutorial. The following code downloads the dataset from Kaggle:
Polarity
To score each review, we need to map each label to a polarity ranging from [-1, 1].
Polarity Mapping
Instead of taking the classifier’s hard classification, it will be more informative to deal with its soft. The soft classification will be informative on how positive or negative an aspect of a review might be. We can find an aspect's expected polarity over a review by utilizing the probability vector produced by the model and the polarity map we’ve defined above. For example, let’s say we input a review to the model and evaluate along the aspect of food and get the following output:
Example Output
Instead of assigning food to have a polarity of -1, we find the expected polarity over these labels as follows:
As we can see, this method is much more practical because we can get a gradient between positive and negative polarities, rendering a more representative sentiment for each category.
Tips
There is one important thing to note before we run our algorithm. There are two sources of reviews in the dataset: reviews and tips . Tips are more compact than reviews; they’re generally only one sentence. This is helpful because one of our model's shortcomings is classifying larger bodies of text, as we saw in the previous article. Here is a comparison of the cumulative distributions for the number of words found in the text from each type of review:
Distribution Comparison
Clearly, the number of words in a tip is much fewer than in a review. Thus, tips will work well within the bounds of the model. With this in mind, I’m also going to filter for restaurants that aren’t closed down and have greater than or equal to 100 associated tips. This increases the likelihood that there is sufficient information to generate a rating for each aspect. The following code will run batch predictions for all of our filtered tips and write them to a JSON file to be processed in the next step.
Additionally, I’m going to append one more aspect to our set: the restaurant's overall star rating. Instead of using the stars directly, I’ll make an adjusted star system considering each user's average stars.
In assessing the reviews, the bias distribution is skewed left. Meaning, people tend to give more stars, on average, than expected in a proper 1–5 star rating system. | https://towardsdatascience.com/where-should-i-eat-after-the-pandemic-part-2-2-3b3498523757 | ['Matthew Brulhardt'] | 2021-01-16 22:17:14.519000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Transformers', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Decision Making'] |
Walt Disney Company Assigns Luke KANG As Head Of Asia-Pacific, Excluding India | The Banner of The Walt Disney Company Website
Source: Disney, Yahoo, Variety, MSN, Pitchonnet, internet
Luke KANG has been assigned president of the Walt Disney Company for the Asia-Pacific region, as a Disney veteran, he will report to Rebecca Campbell, chairman of international operations and direct-to-consumer, will oversee the company’s business in Australia/New Zealand, Greater China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. A new India head seems will be announced near the new year.
About 2 months ago, the company announced the departure of Uday Shankar, president of Disney Asia-Pacific and chairman of Star and Disney India, which becomes effective from Dec. 31.
Luke KANG
First joined Disney in 2011 as managing director for the company in South Korea, based in Seoul, Luke’s current role includes Disney’s media networks, direct-to-consumer offerings including Disney Plus, media distribution, and motion picture businesses, as well as other operations across Asia-Pacific, excluding Disney theme parks.
At present, he is executive VP and managing director of Disney for the North Asia grouping of Greater China, Japan, and Korea, with direct country management of mainland China and Japan.
Luke has been in his current position since a split of Disney’s Asia business into North and South divisions in April 2017, and then another reshuffle in April 2019 at which time Shankar promoted many of his Fox executives.
Rebecca Campbell
“With his deep understanding of our businesses in the Asia Pacific, Luke is ideally suited to lead our efforts in the region. He has played a critical role in transforming our business in Asia, optimizing operations, developing successful new revenue streams, and rapidly moving to roll out Disney Plus. I’m confident that he and our extended team will deliver even more value as we continue to manage and grow Disney’s DTC and media businesses in the region,” said Campbell in a statement.
At the beginning of 2021, Rebecca Campbell will name a separate India head, she made the announcement to staff. In the interim period, the India business will be headed by K Madhavan, head of Star, and Sunil Ryan, head of Disney Plus Hotstar India, with both reporting directly to her. | https://medium.com/@asiapacific/walt-disney-company-assigns-luke-kang-as-head-of-asia-pacific-excluding-india-481a4061a4f4 | ['Asia Pacific'] | 2020-12-24 02:21:02.912000+00:00 | ['Disney', 'Marketing', 'Asia', 'India', 'China'] |
How a Culture of Conformity Can Diminish Your Organization’s DEI Goals | By Dr. Nika White
President and CEO, Nika White Consulting, Best Selling Author of “The Intentional Inclusionist®” and “Next-Level Inclusionist: Transform Your Work and Yourself for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Success”
“If everyone jumped off a cliff would you jump too?” This priceless advice our parents gave us about staying committed to what is right and authentically true to ourselves somehow gets lost in workplace culture. If an organization conditions its employees to believe success is only capable by behaving and thinking like the majority dominant culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion are diminished. Organizations must work hard to undo this “culture of conformity.”
https://suppliertynews.com/2020/12/17/how-a-culture-of-conformity-can-diminish-your-organizations-dei-goals/ | https://medium.com/supplierty-news/how-a-culture-of-conformity-can-diminish-your-organizations-dei-goals-9c564c72ac83 | ['Jaymie White'] | 2020-12-17 15:22:15.639000+00:00 | ['Diversity And Inclusion', 'Opinion'] |
How to Divide the United States into Two Countries | Author’s note: I was surprised by the amount of attention this Medium post received, which I originally wrote as a quick thought experiment. Of course, I have my own personal biases, which a number of commenters have pointed out. If you have a different opinion, I invite you to share your own vision of a two-state solution in the comments or to write your own Medium post and include a link. I still maintain my overarching point that both red and blue America would be better off without each other.
The US is more divided than ever. According to Pew, 91% of Americans today say that conflicts between Democrats and Republicans are either strong or very strong, a higher number than in 2016 (85%) and 2012 (81%). The political and cultural divide has become so intense that we must seriously consider whether both sides might not be better off if the US were divided into separate countries.
State coalitions have already begun to form. After Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change in June 2017, the US Climate Alliance was formed by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to continue progress toward climate-related policy goals. The US Climate Alliance now includes governors from 24 states. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, several state coalitions have formed to coordinate policies for reopening their economies including the Western States Pact, an East Coast coalition, a coalition of southeast states, and a coalition of midwestern states.
Using the results of the 2016 presidential election, I’ve divided the US into two hypothetical new countries: Blue America and Red America. I’ve tried to remain as politically neutral as possible, trying to capture what I believe would be the most likely scenario for each country. The issue of swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan is a major one that I’ll have to skip over for now. I’ve used Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau data to calculate economic and demographic statistics.
I’ve drawn implicitly on some relevant historical experiences including Brexit and the formation of the EU; the partitions of India, Pakistan, Korea, Germany, and China; the dissolution of the Soviet Union; the independence movements of Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country; and of course the secession of the American South.
The First 5 Years
In the beginning, little would appear to change. Both countries would remain strongly interconnected through policies designed to maintain the status quo, such as free trade agreements and open border policies. A new set of parallel federal institutions would be formed, based in a newly established national capital. Which of the two countries would inherit the old US federal institutions would depend on which party controlled Congress and the White House at the time. Where possible, federal resources would be apportioned by population or economic size, including military assets (including nuclear weapons) and strategic stockpiles. Some matters would need to be negotiated such as overseas military bases and the national debt.
Both countries would begin to enact policies they had long wished for (see extended list below). Blue America would create a universal public healthcare system, raise taxes on the wealthy, and open the country to immigration. Red America would drastically cut personal and corporate taxes, restrict immigration, and shrink government spending. There would be mass protests by people who ended up in the “wrong” country, particularly in swing states.
After 20 Years
Over time, the two countries would diverge significantly. There would be large-scale demographic sorting. People from blue parts of red states and red parts of blue states would eventually move to their country of choice. College-educated Americans, minorities, and immigrants would overwhelmingly shift toward Blue America due to its progressive policies and greater economic opportunities. Foreign researchers and entrepreneurs would flock to Blue America’s universities and cities. Red America’s demographics would increasingly skew white and less educated.
Blue America’s economy would grow to dwarf Red America’s in a milder version of the Civil War-era economic divide between the industrializing American North and the slave-dependent South. Blue America’s economy, which began with an advantage in high-value industries and high-skilled workers, would further benefit from high levels of investment in public goods, such as health care, education, and infrastructure. Red America’s efforts to lure corporations with lower taxes and greater subsidies would not be able to offset the greater appeal of Blue America’s stronger economy, larger market, better infrastructure, and more highly-skilled workforce.
As Blue America became more open to foreign trade and immigration, Red America would eventually close its borders to Blue America, further sealing itself off from the rest of the world in a milder version of the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. Facing stagnation and decline, Red America would increasingly resort to military excursions and efforts to destabilize other countries. Blue America and its allies would form a new NATO to contain Red America as it came to present a threat to global security.
Blue America (19 states + DC)
Photo by Aaron Burson on Unsplash
GDP: $10.7 trillion (2nd largest economy after China)
Population: 140 million
GDP per capita: $76,137
White population: 54%
College or more: 40%
Red America (31 states)
Photo by specphotops on Unsplash
GDP: $10.6 trillion (3nd largest economy after China and Blue America)
Population: 188 million
GDP per capita: $56,525
White population: 65%
College or more: 32%
Blue America vs. Red America: Policies
Healthcare
Blue America: universal public healthcare
Red America: private commercial health insurance, repeal of Obamacare, keep Medicare, cut Medicaid to zero
Higher Education
Blue America: free public universities, federal scholarships for private universities
Red America: status quo with combination of private universities and subsidized public universities
Immigration
Blue America: full amnesty and path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, large increase in visas, green cards, and new citizenships
Red America: deportation of all undocumented immigrants, border wall with Mexico, country-based immigration restrictions
Gun Control
Blue America: full background checks, national registry, ban on assault weapons
Red America: no permit or background check required for firearms purchase
Abortion
Blue America: abortions are legal and covered by public health insurance
Red America: abortions are illegal with no exceptions
Environment
Blue America: large public investment in renewable energy, stricter environmental protection policies, end of subsidies to fossil fuel industries, ban on fracking
Red America: weakening of environmental protection policies, few restrictions on oil & gas extraction including fracking
Federal Reserve and Currency
Blue America: status quo with Federal Reserve as central bank and dollar as national currency
Red America: central bank abolished, new currency issued tied to gold standard
Trade
Blue America: expanded trade agreements with emphasis on labor and environmental protections including trade deal with EU, NAFTA, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Red America: expansion of tariffs on imports from China, EU, Canada, Mexico
Taxes
Blue America: higher personal income tax rates for high earners, wealth tax, capital gains taxed as ordinary income, higher corporate tax rate, campaign against offshore tax havens
Red America: flat personal income tax, zero corporate tax rate
While the transition could be challenging, the final result would be a dream come true for both sides. Democrats and Republicans need to ask themselves: what’s the point of still holding on? | https://medium.com/@kyle.i.chan/how-to-divide-the-united-states-into-two-countries-f388903876b | ['Kyle Chan'] | 2021-02-18 08:43:47.669000+00:00 | ['America', 'Democrats', 'Republicans', 'Trump', 'Politics'] |
The Key | Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
My own shadows have haunted me for years, I have never really understood myself. I tried to dig within the depths of my soul, It was a constant battle of fear rejecting me to see what I held within. I always knew I had this fire within me, just waiting for its catalyst. “Hopefully one day”, I thought to myself.
I carried on with my life, yet everything still had never made sense. I could not find the strength in me to heal the terrors I went through as a child. I knew my shadow of the younger me was too scared to dig deeper. Growing through darkness makes you afraid of actual good things. Pain, tears, end up feeling more like home. That was all I knew. I did not know what it was like to live in the feelings of safety.
I was a seven-year-old kid as he was a teen boy. He took advantage at any moment possible. He would wrap his hands around me as if he owns me. I was always told to never let a guy touch me at such a young age but yet, that did not give me any justice. It still happened. Multiple times.
It was not just barbie dolls and playing house, It was running away from this monster so I could be protected. All I wanted was protection over happiness. I was too young to completely understand the damage it has given me. I grew up and I decided to not care anymore. I decided to absolutely abandon my inner child. I left her more abandoned than she has ever felt.
I found love within relationships as I grew older, they became homes. They became a place where a part of me finally felt love. Finally felt protected. I could never be alone, I was too afraid of what someone in this cruel world could do to me. Relationships were the light through the darkness for me. I finally felt like no one could hurt me. But one after the other, they all proved me wrong. I at least knew that love was the most powerful thing to ever be created. I just have not found that yet. “But I Will,” I said to myself. Through all the ache, through all hatred, I knew there had to be something other than just pain.
I was wrong about it all. I was reaching for something else this whole time, It felt so never-ending. I constantly wanted validation from others. I constantly wanted others to build a home for me. Never once have I thought about building my own home, for myself. To hold my inner childs hand and give her the most love she has ever experienced. I finally reached within me. I loved myself more than I ever have. That self-love was the catalyst to the fire burning inside me. I became secured, understanding of who I am, and not only that but knowing why I exist. That was my key to healing the broken within me. I am the Key. | https://medium.com/@caitlindonnellyy/the-key-72962e1c6f48 | [] | 2020-12-23 04:43:08.991000+00:00 | ['Release It', 'Trauma', 'Inner Child', 'Self Love'] |
Maecenas Launches New Tokenisation Vehicle | Our legal, financial and tech teams have been working very hard behind the scenes, and after many months of conferring with legal and regulatory experts, we are now proud to announce that we are ready to roll out our new tokenisation vehicle.
This is a big moment for us. It gives our team immense satisfaction to continue to be pioneers in the asset tokenisation space. We believe that this new tokenisation vehicle is a major step towards achieving true asset tokenisation. This new vehicle is the result of a full re-think of our tokenisation strategy, and it brings Maecenas one step closer to market democratisation and to our ultimate objective of achieving mass adoption.
Under this new financial structure we are creating a new type of token that is neither utility nor security. We call these new tokens “asset tokens”. With this new framework, each artwork is represented by a unique asset token, which internally is structured similarly to how a stablecoin works. We believe that this is something revolutionary that can transform the art world. It removes the traditional barriers to investing in art as an asset class.
Launching this new token type — the asset token — is a major milestone in realising our vision.
New Tokenisation Vehicle
The new structure is set up to ensure that newly issued tokens are NOT considered securities in the relevant jurisdictions. As sales of securities can be subject to additional compliance requirements, it creates additional overheads and places restrictions when it comes to token promotion and distribution. These effectively block our journey towards realising our vision.
The new token model lifts accessibility restrictions and also allows us to lower the minimum investment amount.
Not only is this model scalable with less incremental cost for each tokenised art piece (thus allowing us to grow and expand more quickly), but it also opens up the market to non-accredited investors, helping us to truly achieve our goal of democratising art investment.
Successfully Disrupting Markets
Cryptocurrencies have seen tremendous growth over the last ten years, since Bitcoin was first launched, because they don’t have the restrictions of traditional capital markets. A market is disrupted when technology changes the rules of the game by creating a new, better and more efficient way of doing things.
Skype achieved success because they allowed people to make phone calls without needing a phone or a phone line (i.e. legacy telco infrastructure). Likewise, cryptocurrencies have been successful because they let people make and receive payments without needing a bank account (i.e. legacy financial infrastructure).
We believe that for art tokenisation to be successful we have to allow people to invest and trade art without having to rely on legacy infrastructure. | https://medium.com/maecenas/maecenas-launches-new-tokenisation-vehicle-9a53de87ba6a | [] | 2019-07-03 08:31:01.241000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Maecenas', 'Asset Tokenization', 'Fine Art'] |
I’ll Expose My Body, but My Pleasure Is Private | I find myself in extremely fortunate circumstances; my man not only loves going down on me, but he does it with gusto—and, if I may say—with excellence. For a long time. As often as he can.
He’s so eager that I occasionally have to turn him down:
—Thank you, but I really can’t handle another orgasm!
If that’s not a luxury problem, I don’t know what is. It wouldn’t even be fair to call it a problem—it’s a straight-up luxury.
While I absolutely love to reciprocate, a lot, he certainly has me beat when it comes to the sheer amount of hours spent offering lip service. Not that I’m keeping track—nor am I complaining!
But, there’s one thing I just can’t let him do.
Apart from when I’ve already had a handful of ecstatic orgasms and desperately need to sleep or start my day, there’s one other occasion where I have to decline:
Cunnilingus in public.
My lover, I’ve come to learn, is quite the exhibitionist. I always thought I was bad, but I have nothing on him when it comes to getting silly in public without giving a damn what people think.
I know he fantasizes about going down on me with an audience. Not only has he told me—and written about it:
We tried.
It all happened when we were out dancing. While not an actual sex joint, the techno club comes equipped with darkrooms and other semi-private areas where people do get down to business. Besides, the majority of the club’s clientele is more naked than clothed. Let’s just say it’s not a prudish atmosphere, and few things will cause anyone there to bat an eye—unless you try to take a photo inside. That will get you thrown out and banned.
Anyway, you get the vibe.
We made our way to a chillout area on the lower floor and found a spot. There were a couple of people around, but they mostly minded their own business and didn’t linger.
I had to tell him to stop.
We started making out and soon, as usual, he made his way south. My skimpy hot pants allowed for easy access without rendering me completely nude. Still, lying there on my back, with him all the way down there, I felt oddly alone—and very naked.
I promptly pulled his arm and made him resurface.
—I can’t do it!
—Why? He didn’t understand.
—I feel too exposed.
—But no one can see anything, I’m covering you with my head, he reassured.
—No, it’s not that…
I asked if he could use his hands instead. That way, he’d be up there with me, and, with his body shielding mine, we could kiss and connect while he was giving me pleasure.
He agreed, of course, and even with the sterilized latex gloves we had brought for hygiene reasons, it was one of the absolute best manual sex experiences I’ve had. Then—with a few people in the background, and one guy, who’d respectfully asked if he was allowed to watch—I came, hard, with my face buried deep in my partner’s neck.
After concluding our performance with a hot doggy-style blow-off—where I suddenly didn’t mind being watched and also got to gaze out on the dancefloor below through a gap in the baluster—we sat down to talk. | https://medium.com/sexography/ill-expose-my-body-but-my-pleasure-is-private-654007f412f6 | ['Ena Dahl'] | 2020-03-11 14:36:08.119000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Sex', 'Oral Sex', 'This Happened To Me', 'Short Story'] |
I’m sorry, baba.. The first dead body I ever saw was my… | The first dead body I ever saw was my father’s. I was 27 years old. “I watched his heart rate go to 0,” I would repeat over and over again to everyone who I loved, everyone who loved him. It was the most heart wrenching experience of my life, one that made me feel like I couldn’t go on living. I knew life would never be the same, that I would always have a hole in my heart that flared with pain to any touch.
For a month I watched my father nearly dead on the bed at the hospital. The ICU staff would tell me to talk to him, that he could hear me. All I could think to say, and whisper and sob and scream, was “I’m sorry.” What I was sorry for I couldn’t exactly pinpoint. Watching someone I love with all my heart suffer tremendously while fighting for his life, and ultimately lose it, has got to be one of the greatest trials of my life. For me, it seemed impossible and unbearable. I knew life had to go on. I just didn’t know how. All I knew was that I was so, so sorry.
For some reason, in the couple years prior to my father’s death, I had read two books — memoirs of two young people who had died from cancer. The past two-three years had been the happiest of my life: I got engaged, fell deeply in love, got married, travelled, and got pregnant. Yet it was these years that my mind was occupied with thoughts about death and dying, and the meaning of life given that fundamental truth. Still, I never imagined that my father would get sick, let alone die.
October 11. My father was diagnosed with cancer.
I have always carried my father’s pain in my body and I did everything in my power to make his life better. Much of my life decisions and plans stemmed back to that goal. He was always so proud of me, so happy to be around me. I carried his pain even when he let it go. I could never let it go; I carry it still. I wish I knew why he cried when he saw me the day after I gave birth, when I walked from the maternity unit to the oncology unit to visit him. I didn’t sleep that night. Even then, I didn’t think his end was near. My mother seems to think he cried because he was worried about me. I had just undergone surgery — an emergency cesarean section.
I had always meditated Imam Ali’s thought, ““Life consists of two days, one for you one against you. So when it’s for you don’t be proud or reckless, and when it’s against you be patient, for both days are test for you.” However, I hadn’t thought of those two days as consecutive calendar days.
Tuesday, December 4. It was a happy day. My water broke. I called my husband calmly and said “We need to go to the hospital.” My father was at home recovering from his latest chemotherapy session. He laid in a twin bed in the corner of the living room. Still. He could barely move from the pain of his cancer, let alone the added misery of chemo. Still. Hope and denial are tightly bound. When the person you love with all of your being is dying, denial often masquerades as hope. I had hope. I had faith that God would save him. For now, he was safe at home in the twin bed in the corner of the living room.
Wednesday, December 5. I was still in labour. Four centimeters. We didn’t tell my mother and father — we didn’t want to stress them out given all they were going through. My mother called me in the morning to tell me that my father had a fever and was on his way to the emergency room. When he arrived, I told my husband to go to check on him. While he was gone my baby’s heart rate dropped for a prolonged period of time. He was in distress and I had to have surgery. I couldn’t reach my husband because of the bad reception in the ER so the nurses called him using the PA system, a call that my father had heard. He said that a few minutes later he heard the music that’s played whenever a baby is born and was relieved. I left the hospital two days later with a new life in my arms. My father left on January 11 without his life.
They say everything happens for a reason, but I was always reluctant to believe that. They say God gives and He takes away. Tell me that God took my father and gave me my son at the same time, but how can my mind accept that when all I can think of when I see him is I wish I my father can see how you’re growing up. I wish he can see me as a mother. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you couldn’t hold him when you met him for the first and only time. I’m sorry that cancer broke your bones in two months and killed you in another. I’m sorry that your body lay still at the hospital on life support, unable to move and speak, unable to respond when I said that I loved you and that you’re okay. I’m sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye, dad, baba.
His absence is like the sky, spread over everything. I want so deeply break down and escape into a bottomless, lonely depression. It calls me all the time, but then I hear my son cry or gurgle, and I have to go.
Nina Riggs, the author of one of the memoirs I had read, wrote, “With such frequent, common examples passing before our eyes, how can we possibly get rid of the thought of death; how can it not seem at every moment to be gripping us by the throat?” I am beginning to feel it gripping me intensely, and to be honest, I am not resisting its grip. When my day comes, be it in youth or frailty, I will welcome it with grace as did my father. He will live forever in my broken heart. | https://medium.com/@almans/im-sorry-dad-c4ed4197583b | ['Salsabel Almanssori'] | 2019-02-01 02:03:26.844000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Grief And Loss', 'Grief', 'Fathers'] |
Trump’s “Chinese Virus” Comments are Simply Trollish | Trump’s “Chinese Virus” Comments are Simply Trollish
Stop feeding the trolls, even if it’s the President.
People have bee quite vocal about the usage of terms like “Chinese Virus.” While I have to admit I find it amusing that people have an issue with such usage. After all there are many other diseases that are named after regions, such as MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) and Zika, which is named after the Zika Forest in Uganda. Does anyone think that MERS is antisemitic or Islamophobic?
Is it Controversial?
It is not uncommon to name a disease after a region, especially a region where it originated or became prominent. Again, numerous pathogens have been named this way, and nobody has seemed to mind, even when the name makes no sense. The Spanish flu, for instance, did not originate in Spain, and yet nobody finds it racist against the Spanish.
However, perhaps that stems from this notion of race. For some reason, “Chinese” is seen as a race, even though China is a massive region with a diverse group of people with different ethnic backgrounds and genetic heritage. Spain is a smaller region, and probably less ethnically diverse, and yet “Spanish” is not seen as a race. And really, the conflation between race, ethnicity, and nationality isn’t really surprising, considering that there is no such thing as biological race.
Regardless, Trump saw the reaction that he was getting from the Democrats, and really anyone who views Trump negatively, and so he decided to up his game. He thrives on trolling. This guy is the Troll-in-Chief. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing. I don’t know if we should have a troll as President, though Churchill is often seen as a good leader, and he was a hell of a troll, and a hell of an asshole in general. But the point is, he’s not using the term because he’s racist. He’s not using it because he’s ignorant. He’s using it to get a rise out of the Democrats, and it is working.
Regardless, Trump saw the reaction that he was getting from the Democrats, and really anyone who views Trump negatively, and so he decided to up his game. He thrives on trolling. This guy is the Troll-in-Chief. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing. I don’t know if we should have a troll as President, though Churchill is often seen as a good leader, and he was a hell of a troll, and a hell of an asshole in general. But the point is, he’s not using the term because he’s racist. He’s not using it because he’s ignorant. He’s using it to get a rise out of the Democrats, and it is working.
Clear Trolling
Recently an image has been floating around. A photographer managed to capture a picture of Trump’s recent speech on SARS-CoV-2. In his script, he crossed out “corona” and replaced it with “Chinese.”
I honestly have to wonder if he thought that the “correction” would be captured in a photograph. Contrary to what people think, he’s not dumb, even if he is a jackass.
Missed Opportunity
I will say that there was a missed opportunity here, even though I don’t think Trump would have taken it, even if it was suggested to him. Trolling the Democrats is probably just too important to him. He could have called it the “Communist Virus” or “PRC Virus.” After all, the communist regime in the PRC repeatedly suppressed information about the threat of this disease.
It advised the WHO that there was no human-to-human spread. It suppressed doctors who spoke out warning people of the dangers of this disease. It is very possible that this epidemic could have been halted, before it ever left China, if its government simply acted properly.
Don’t Feed the Trolls
However someone feels about the term “Chinese Virus” I think we need to stop feeding the trolls, even if that troll is the President. He’ll keep doing what he’s doing, so long as he continues to get a response from the Democrats. He lives on this stuff. It’s a problem, but it’s the nature of the beast.
I can pretty much guarantee that if people stopped reacting to his usage of the term, he’d get bored and stop using it. That’s how trolls operate.
Further Reading
Navigation: Master Index | Cultural Politics | Political Theory | Coronavirus
This article was originally published on Vocal.Media, because Medium refuses to curate any article that is even ancillary related to COVID-19. | https://medium.com/politicoid/trumps-chinese-virus-comments-are-simply-trollish-94b1f0c7c5cd | ['Daniel Goldman'] | 2020-03-30 10:56:16.973000+00:00 | ['Trump', 'Controversy', 'Trolls', 'China', 'Politics'] |
The Winklevoss twins prepared rally for Zcash | New York Stock Exchange Gemini created a springboard for anonymous cryptocurrency Zcach — the rally began immediately after the announcement of adding to the listing, for 24 hours the rate increased by 40% and reached $ 350.
Thus, traders showed that they are ready to fully trust the opinion of the owners of the exchange and the first crypto currency billionaires of the twins of the Winklewos who directly advertised Zcach in their message on Twitter. The Gemini exchanger is considered one of the most conservative in the world in compliance with the financial regulation legislation.
Since May 22, three pairs will be traded on Gemini — ZEC / USD, ZEC / BTC and ZEC / ETH, deposits can be placed since May 19. The receipt of approval by the Financial Services Department (NYSDFS) was published by the Winklevoss at 9:30 am, after which the course went up only for an hour.
According to NYSDFS, the Gemini exchanger also applied for approval of the listing for Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. Official information on the beginning of trading in these currencies from the owners of the exchange was not received. Until now, only Bitcoin and Ethereum were traded on Gemini.
Join our Telegram channel & subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to read the latest news of blockchain and crypto industries. | https://medium.com/ico-crypto-news/the-winklevoss-twins-prepared-rally-for-zcash-aa329101d4f2 | ['Ico', 'Crypto News'] | 2018-05-16 11:14:38.359000+00:00 | ['Stock Exchange', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Zcash', 'Bitcoin'] |
Financial Future Tips For Young Adults | Student loans, credit cards, saving for retirement, and being properly insured are common concerns that face millennials today. To combat these issues, it’s important that young people have the financial literacy necessary for a secure financial future. This article will be going over important tips that, when started at an early age, can make a significant impact in your financial future.
Conquer Your Student Loans
Regarding student loans, the ideal would be to not have any at all — and although this is possible for some people, it’s not for all. Working while in college and attending community colleges for general education requirements can greatly reduce the cost of education, and make any student loans that need to be taken out more manageable. There are a plethora of student loan repayment plans, most commonly the 10-year standard repayment plan, which may not be suitable for all re-payers. For those entering public services, income-based repayment plans can greatly reduce the total amount of loans paid, forgiving entire loan balances over 10 years of qualifying service. In addition, simple things like setting up your student loans for automatic withdrawal can earn you a slight savings percentage of your total balance. Student loan planning varies from person to person, and the complexity of the many different repayment options available can be intimidating — finding professional help, such as rebel Financial’s student loan repayment service, can be crucial.
Learn Self-Control
One of the hardest things for us to do is exhibit self-control — we’re being advertised today more than ever before and taught a “spend more” mentality. A major reason for this is credit cards: the trillion dollar credit card industry is growing each day and more people, especially younger, are wanting to borrow more money. It’s better to spend money that we do have, rather than what we don’t. Having one credit card and paying it off every month can be an excellent way to increase your credit while simultaneously keeping your debt-to-income ratio low.
Pay Your Bills — On Time
It’s also important to stay current with dues. For current bills, utilizing features such as auto-pay can ensure that you don’t miss a bill payment, and even simple things like putting reminders on your phone can ensure you pay dues that may not have an auto-pay. Reminders can also help ensure you don’t miss timings for important financial events, such as filing tax returns. Lastly, it’s your responsibility to do everything in your power to prevent identity theft — scammers like to target a younger audience because of perceived susceptibility. It’s important that you carefully research any financial products offered to you for both legitimacy and necessity. Insurance agents, as an example, may try to take advantage of you and sell you products that you may not necessarily need — if you’re going to get financial advice, it’s important to find a financial planner that is a fiduciary all of the time.
Pay Yourself First
Do you have an emergency fund? Financial experts suggest saving 3–6 months of expenses in an emergency fund, for various reasons such as a job loss or an unexpected major expense (car breaking down, etc). One of the best strategies to build an emergency fund and also save for retirement is to pay yourself first: take the same amount every month and before everything else, put that into your savings. Consistency is key to building your emergency fund efficiently, as well as putting the funds into the right account. High-interest savings and money market accounts — slightly less liquid accounts that yield a higher rate of return — are best, because you shouldn’t be withdrawing from your emergency fund often, but still need the funds available should a major emergency occur.
Start Retirement Savings Early
In addition to emergency savings, retirement savings are one of the most important things we save for in our working lives, and starting early can have a significant impact. For example, investing the maximum $6,000/year in a Roth IRA from age 25 to 65 with a 7% rate of return yields $1,197,811, while waiting just 5 years until age 30 and investing the same amount yields $829,421 — a difference of $368,390! The reason the difference is so significant is because of the compound interest being accumulated. With “traditional” interest, only your principal amount would earn interest; but with compound interest, both your principal amount and your interest would earn interest (hence the term “compounding”). This is also why credit card balances can increase so quickly: compound interest is accumulating on the balance you owe. Additionally, the above example is just for a Roth IRA account and not including any additional employer plans, which have much higher contribution limits. Maxing out your work retirement accounts up to the employer match (if applicable), then funding traditional and Roth IRAs after is one of the most important things you can do for your financial future. Roth accounts are also especially useful for younger individuals because you pay the taxes upfront, and withdrawals are tax-free, meaning you pay taxes when you’re in a lower tax bracket now and don’t when you’re in a higher tax bracket later.
Insure Your Health
Even if you do everything mentioned here, all the wealth in the world won’t matter if you don’t have the health to enjoy it — this is where insurance comes into play. Most young adults will be covered under their parents’ health insurance until age 26, as long as their parents are working. If this is not the case, ACA health insurance (also known as Obamacare) is still an affordable option for many, and can give tax breaks for younger individuals who don’t earn as much income. Another option can be short-term health insurance, which covers shorter interims than traditional health insurance, making it more affordable. Those attending graduate school and becoming ineligible for the parents’ health insurance, but not needing a permanent insurance solution just yet would be good candidates for short-term health insurance. If you’re not covered under your parents’ plan, this is not something to be overlooked, as one wrong accident can be devastating financially. Lastly, renter’s insurance is also important (and mandated by many apartment complexes) in case of a theft or burglary. Being prepared for the unexpected and having an appropriate amount of coverage can be crucial should you ever become a victim.
Conclusion
To summarize, paying off student loans and credit cards is the most efficient way to reduce debt and boost credit, while saving for emergencies and retirement can be vital to ensuring financial longevity. Ensuring you have the proper insurance coverage, and avoiding sales pressure for insurance products you don’t need, can keep you protected without overpaying. By managing your money well, and helping other young adults do the same, you can impact not only your own generation, but future generations to come.
Sources:
Dave Ramsey
Money.com
USA today | https://medium.com/rebel-financial/financial-future-tips-for-young-adults-2c86819c1b96 | ['Kristy Mattix'] | 2019-09-05 13:35:50.765000+00:00 | ['Saving Money', 'Financial Planning', 'Financial Tips', 'Money Management'] |
Catalyst Programme Week 3 | The Catalyst Programme is a six-week training hosted by The Shortcut to prepare Finnish immigrants for starting or joining startups. This blog follows the October 2018 participants to show what the program is about, what they are learning, and who they are. In Week 3, former Catalyst participants mentored us on the A through Z of startups.
Week 3 was a unique week for the Catalyst Programme. Rahul and Hanna handed over the reins to several graduates of the summer program cohort to lead us through founding a startup, from idea to legalese. As part of their Catalyst Programme, they distilled Y Combinator’s Startup School into a one-week curriculum, then tested the program on us!
The experience was unlike other schooling I have received. There were no rules, no formulas, no if-then situations presented. Rather, the startup lessons were mostly colloquial; just founders sharing stories of their businesses at different stages. I shouldn’t be surprised, given what we have learned about startups. This isn’t math. There is no one path to success, or even a single definition of success. It all depends on you!
As exciting and empowering that this realization is, it is also distressing. As Y Combinator founder Paul Graham points out, being a student, which has been most of my life, involves a lot of “gaming the system.” But, it doesn’t work like that in startups. What makes startups successful (and potentially transformative) is the fact that they expressly operate to disrupt existing systems. An exciting approach, but one that requires a different way of thinking.
Thanks to Pedro Cunha for his artistic vision!
Mentors are one of the most effective tools to help figure out this approach. Though your path is ultimately your responsibility, a mentor is someone who can relate to your position and reflect on the feelings, thoughts, and decisions that led to their next steps. A mentor, much like the Y Combinator curriculum, doesn’t give you the answer — there is no answer. But, they have the experience and insight that can contextualize your impending decision.
To better understand mentorship, I reached out to the previous Catalyst participants who prepared the Startup School curriculum. As people who completed the same program, they stood where my cohort and I stand today, so they are the perfect resources to understand the relationship between the Programme and mentorship. I also asked a founder experienced in mentoring startups to complement their insight. Here is what each had to say:
Shila:
Originally from Nepal, Shila is an accountant by trade pivoting to working in startups. Shila’s advice is to engage mentors by telling a story. It is not enough to come ask questions; cultivating meaningful relationships requires vulnerability and honesty to share your journey and the challenges you are grappling with now. The nature of your relationship and engagement should serve as the guide for determining what is relevant or not. Personal topics like relationship issues are not necessarily off-limits, but should be avoided if you’re meeting someone for the first time or asked for the meeting under different pretenses.
Shila’s advice for Catalyst participants is not to underestimate how those they meet may help them. There are many types of participants with varied backgrounds, but embracing this diversity, and taking advantage of as many events as possible, opens your perspective to new approaches. This wisdom is indicative of Sheila’s broader understanding of a mentor’s role: though a mentor-mentee relationship can be strictly confined to a professional context, it does not have to be and, indeed, the most powerful relationships are those that become more elaborate over time.
Tasos:
Tasos is a passionate learner and conversationalist who has lived in Finland for 8 years. He understands mentors as more strictly confined to a professional relationship; that is, a mentor is someone with more experience in a given field that has “been there done that” and can share wisdom on how to get where you want to go. Therefore, a person should have many mentors. Tasos, for example, found mentorship in the collective wisdom of The Shortcut, which connected him to different events, people, and resources to revamp (or catalyze) his career search. The guidance Tasos sought was given by the entire network, a sort of communal mentorship, rather than any one individual.
Of course, the mentor-mentee relationship isn’t a one-way street. Though mentee’s must be humble and curious, they can’t leave their values at the door. Challenge, prod, and ask during conversations. This shows you think critically, but also gives the mentor an opportunity to re-think their perspective and embrace different viewpoints. A mentee does not have the sole responsibility to learn.
Anne:
Anne Wanjuku Fagerstrom is a Kenyan born mother of three that loves to bring calm to chaos at home and at work. She agrees that mentors are responsible for the mentor-mentee relationship, but stresses that this is in making a mentee feel comfortable and supported. As the experienced party, mentors should identify individuals who are in a similar position they once were and offer their help. The extent of this help varies, but at its core it is an earnest and unique interest in the mentee. Mentees, on the other hand, must be proactive and clear: initiate meetings, implement the advice you receive, and seize any opportunities your mentor presents.
Though the Catalyst introduces you many potential mentors, Anne did not cultivate any relationships directly. She wasn’t ready. The program opened her eyes to an entirely new world called startups and turned her understanding of work, and herself, on its head. She has to understand her own motivations, skills, and challenges before seeking guidance from others. Her advice for participants, therefore, is to embrace change wholeheartedly. Say yes, be uncomfortable, and embrace new directions!
Valentina:
From snowy St. Petersburg, Valentina is a quadrilingual customer service professional. She, like Tasos, understands mentors in a more strictly professional sense. Having aligned professional interests is paramount to a mentor opening the “correct” doors, which is one of the main ways a mentor can help their mentee. Valentina believes the key to success is transparency and purpose. Being precise in your asks, proactive in your preparation, and diligent in your communication are all important strategies for helping the mentor help you and gives clear direction to the relationship. If the relationship isn’t mutually beneficial anymore, then there is no harm in not continuing. It is all about clear expectations and clear communication.
Tomi:
Tomi Kaukinen is a formal investment manager turned serial entrepreneur that has built several global media companies. Now on a much needed sabbatical, he is spending his time-off mentoring startups and founders.
Credit to Wasim Al-Nasser
Tomi shared that mentorship wasn’t something he set out to do after ending his latest venture; indeed, he had no idea what to do. A conversation with a mentor (thank you Anne Badan of The Shortcut) made him realize that all his years grinding away at his ventures have taught him valuable lessons and insights about entrepreneurship, startups, and professional paths. He’d always loved teaching, so he agreed to mentor at The Shortcut Lab, working to demystify the romanticized world of startups. There is a lot of idealization of the startup founder, but few people speak about how difficult and isolating the experience can be. When Tomi quit his secure asset management job to build mobile apps, he felt alone and directionless, unable to find a network that could relate to the stress of starting a personal venture. A veteran of the industry now, Tomi is an open book about his experience, hoping his honesty and enthusiasm make people feel comfortable using him as a source of wisdom and guidance.
Tomi says that he hasn’t just taught as a mentor, but learned as well. Never has he had to listen so much in his life, to pause and relate to others’ viewpoints. As a founder, he didn’t have the luxury to listen; he had to pitch, sell, and lead. Tomi already knows this experience will make him a better entrepreneur in the future by increasing his willingness to search for talent or opportunity that may require more patience to discover. | https://medium.com/the-shortcut/catalyst-programme-week-3-a61b06ec473a | ['Thomas Rocca'] | 2018-11-21 10:37:53.002000+00:00 | ['Mentorship', 'Event', 'The Shortcut', 'Professional Development', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
How Do I Use Azure API in Object Detection? | This blog is the first in a series. We will cover some parts of Object Detection in each blog. For other parts click here:
Wondering what’s all this hype about deep learning about? How can you as a practitioner use it to add value to your organization? These series of blog posts will help you understand what object detection is in general. What are the key performance metrics to keep an eye on? How you can leverage state of the art methods to get the job done succinctly in less time.
Outline:
1. Understanding the Problem
2. Using Azure API for Object Detection
3. Overview of Deep Learning Models
Prerequisites:
1. Knowledge of Machine Learning services
2. Knowledge about Web APIs and their working
3. Introductory knowledge about Performance Metrics
What is Object Detection?
Object Detection, in a nutshell, is about outputting bounding boxes along with class labels signifying objects enclosed within these bounding boxes. There can be multiple objects in a single image like a chair, handbag, desk, laptop, etc. Multiple objects could be of the same type say two bottles or different types. They may also overlap with each other.
Object Detection vs Image Segmentation:
Object Detection is different from the Image segmentation in the sense that, in Image Segmentation, we try to get or mark the exact pixels. Typically, we want to mark each pixel which signifies that it is part of the object say handbag. Hence, in Object Detection, we care more about bounding boxes and in Image Segmentation, we care more about pixels. Algorithms which work on pixel level like UNets are time-consuming in nature. Such algorithms try to build a pixel map such as to say that all these pixels belong to the laptop. And as we want object detection to be faster, we are working here with bounding boxes.
Now, we know what is the input and what is the output, right? Simply, image is the input and output is the bounding box. There are multiple ways of representing a Bounding Box: say using height and width. And for each Bounding Box, we wanna know what’s the object enclosed within it.
Using Azure API for Object Detection:
We will work our way with the help of Azure API as it doesn’t charge you for one weekend while Google Compute does charge you with a credit card and a lot of readers might not have one. Keep in mind, here I am assuming that, you know the basics of Web-APIs and how they work. I am not going to explain how they work from the underlying details.
If you just do a google search saying “azure object detection python”. The very first search result you get is a code set on how to do it.
Image URL: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/computer-vision/images/windows-kitchen.jpg
If you will go through the documentation, you will see, that there is an image that works as input, and JSON is returned as output which is pretty much the same format used by each and every API these days.
<pre>
<code>
{
“objects”:[
{
“rectangle”:{
“x”:730,
“y”:66,
“w”:135,
“h”:85
},
“object”:”kitchen appliance”,
“confidence”:0.501
},
{
“rectangle”:{
“x”:523,
“y”:377,
“w”:185,
“h”:46
},
“object”:”computer keyboard”,
“confidence”:0.51
},
{
“rectangle”:{
“x”:471,
“y”:218,
“w”:289,
“h”:226
},
“object”:”Laptop”,
“confidence”:0.85,
“parent”:{
“object”:”computer”,
“confidence”:0.851
}
},
{
“rectangle”:{
“x”:654,
“y”:0,
“w”:584,
“h”:473
},
“object”:”person”,
“confidence”:0.855
}
],
“requestId”:”a7fde8fd-cc18–4f5f-99d3–897dcd07b308",
“metadata”:{
“width”:1260,
“height”:473,
“format”:”Jpeg”
}
}
</code>
</pre>
Let’s try to make sense of the JSON output: we can see that the object returned is, in fact, an array comprising of several sub-objects within it. These parts signify what are the possible objects detected by the model from the input picture. We can see for bounding boxes (which are mostly rectangle in shape), we are returned central coordinates, height, and width. Also, for a prediction being made, it returns the confidence value which is a probability explaining how much confidence the model has in that prediction to be correct. The confidence value ranges from 0–1. You may even get to see, the hierarchy of objects such as a laptop being also predicted further being a computer which is true when considering the real world.
Limitations of the Azure API:
If you’ll go through some of the limitations:
1) It cannot detect objects which are less than 5% of the total area of the image.
2) Also, objects which are stacked together are a bit difficult to be identified.
3) It can’t differentiate brand or product names.
For the final point, there is a different API altogether from Microsoft
dynamics 365 consultants , let’s pay it a visit.
Computer Vision API-2.0
Our Object Detection feature is part of Analyze Image API. Now, assuming that you know about Web-based APIs, and how localhost sends some requests to the server and it returns some output based on some request variables/parameters. If you ask only for an object, it will give you that only else when not specified, other valid feature types like adult content, brands, colors, faces, celebrities, landmarks, etc. will be returned as well. You can also specify the language you want the output to be in. Say, for example, English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, etc.
You can also look at the JSON given below and can see similar to what we had seen above, this one is describing several types of objects present in the input image and making predictions for it with some confidence value. Also, we can see the bounding box for the object present in the input image at last.
<pre>
<code>
{
“categories”: [
{
“name”: “abstract_”,
“score”: 0.00390625
},
{
“name”: “people_”,
“score”: 0.83984375,
“detail”: {
“celebrities”: [
{
“name”: “Satya Nadella”,
“faceRectangle”: {
“left”: 597,
“top”: 162,
“width”: 248,
“height”: 248
},
“confidence”: 0.999028444
}
],
“landmarks”:[
{
“name”:”Forbidden City”,
“confidence”: 0.9978346
}
]
}
}
],
“adult”: {
“isAdultContent”: false,
“isRacyContent”: false,
“adultScore”: 0.0934349000453949,
“racyScore”: 0.068613491952419281
},
“tags”: [
{
“name”: “person”,
“confidence”: 0.98979085683822632
},
{
“name”: “man”,
“confidence”: 0.94493889808654785
},
{
“name”: “outdoor”,
“confidence”: 0.938492476940155
},
{
“name”: “window”,
“confidence”: 0.89513939619064331
}
],
“description”: {
“tags”: [
“person”,
“man”,
“outdoor”,
“window”,
“glasses”
],
“captions”: [
{
“text”: “Satya Nadella sitting on a bench”,
“confidence”: 0.48293603002174407
}
]
},
“requestId”: “0dbec5ad-a3d3–4f7e-96b4-dfd57efe967d”,
“metadata”: {
“width”: 1500,
“height”: 1000,
“format”: “Jpeg”
},
“faces”: [
{
“age”: 44,
“gender”: “Male”,
“faceRectangle”: {
“left”: 593,
“top”: 160,
“width”: 250,
“height”: 250
}
}
],
“color”: {
“dominantColorForeground”: “Brown”,
“dominantColorBackground”: “Brown”,
“dominantColors”: [
“Brown”,
“Black”
],
“accentColor”: “873B59”,
“isBWImg”: false
},
“imageType”: {
“clipArtType”: 0,
“lineDrawingType”: 0
},
“objects”: [
{
“rectangle”: {
“x”: 25,
“y”: 43,
“w”: 172,
“h”: 140
},
“object”: “person”,
“confidence”: 0.931
}
]
}
</code></pre>
Big Giants like FAANG, provide code in their documentation. You can see, in the code section with Python Language, that we are providing Subscription Key as part of the request headers. You can also see several parameters that we discussed to be part of the request. You have to specify in the visual features part it to be either an object, face, or something else. Then comes another code snippet, saying that we first establish an HTTPS connection. You will be returned the byte stream data. If you wanna print it, you can use: print(json.dumps(response.json()))
<pre><code>
########### Python 2.7 #############
import httplib, urllib, base64
headers = {
# Request headers
‘Content-Type’: ‘application/json’,
‘Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key’: ‘{subscription key}’,
}
params = urllib.urlencode({
# Request parameters
‘visualFeatures’: ‘Objects’,
‘details’: ‘{string}’,
‘language’: ‘en’,
})
try:
conn = httplib.HTTPSConnection(‘westcentralus.api.cognitive.microsoft.com’)
conn.request(“POST”, “/vision/v2.0/analyze?%s” % params, “{body}”, headers)
response = conn.getresponse()
data = response.read()
print(data)
conn.close()
except Exception as e:
print(“[Errno {0}] {1}”.format(e.errno, e.strerror))
####################################
########### Python 3.2 #############
import http.client, urllib.request, urllib.parse, urllib.error, base64
headers = {
# Request headers
‘Content-Type’: ‘application/json’,
‘Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key’: ‘{subscription key}’,
}
params = urllib.parse.urlencode({
# Request parameters
‘visualFeatures’: ‘Categories’,
‘details’: ‘{string}’,
‘language’: ‘en’,
})
try:
conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection(‘westcentralus.api.cognitive.microsoft.com’)
conn.request(“POST”, “/vision/v2.0/analyze?%s” % params, “{body}”, headers)
response = conn.getresponse()
data = response.read()
print(data)
conn.close()
except Exception as e:
print(“[Errno {0}] {1}”.format(e.errno, e.strerror))
####################################
</code>
</pre>
If you’re interested in looking at the complete code, visit this.
Performance Metrics:
How do we measure if an algorithm is good or not? There are a couple of terms you should be comfortable using:
1) Ground Truth: It is absolute truth; generally labeled or given by a human. It will be a bounded box drawn by a human when asked to do so. In Machine Learning lingo, represented by…
2) Predictions: It is the prediction made by machine/model. In Machine Learning lingo, represented by…
You want to see how close is the machine prediction to the human annotation. What you will do? We will take both rectangles aka bounding boxes, and will compute something called Intersection over Union or IoU.
Now, what should be the ideal case? When both bounding boxes are completely overlapping over each other, the value of will be 1. What is the worst case? When both bounding boxes don’t overlap at all i.e. intersection = 0. Resultingly, IoU will be 0. The common threshold which is used is that, if , then your prediction is referred to as positive (in case of a binary classification setup). It is also sometimes called as 50% . Now, this is a performance for one bounding box. When we have multiple objects in the same image, there will be many bounding boxes as well. So?
We were saying that whether the predicted rectangle overlaps 50% or more with ground truth rectangle or not. A rectangle overlap problem is converted to a binary classification problem. But for multiple objects, we have a multi-class classification problem. Now, for each class (chair, person,..), we will compute average precision from all the objects of the same class which can be calculated using the Area Under Precision Curve.
Once you have computed average precision for each of the classes, take the mean/average of all of them, and you will get mean-average-precision (). Many research papers have notation signifying that we are calculating with. Don’t confuse it with MAP(maximum a-posteriori) which is there in statistics.
Overview of Deep Learning Models:
As of now, we have covered how a non-deep learning person can make use of available APIs without worrying about algorithmic stuff to perform object detection. Now, we will move towards the algorithmic section. As you had seen, our input is image or video. We can break the video in a sequence of images and can give it to the model and it will be perfectly all right. Now, what is the output? We want bounding boxes and associated object class labels. We will make use of the COCO dataset for our understanding. It contains 80 class labels and a few thousands of images. Hence, a fairly large dataset and is well-curated for tasks such as Image Segmentation and Object Detection.
Now, the main trade-off is Speed vs. Speed here basically means that given an image to the input algorithm, how fast it can give you the output. It can be measured in milliseconds or frames per second. So, if the speed of the algorithm to process an image comes out to be 50ms, it is roughly equal to 20 fps. As, 1sec = 1000ms, hence 20 images/sec. Humans see the world in 24 fps. For systems like self-driving cars where there is a little time to identify other vehicles and lane, real-time face detection systems where there is only a little time to identify the entrant, speed is very critical. There are other places where or average precision is very important. Say, medical diagnosis and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) where we cannot afford to make too many mistakes at the expense of faster results.
For good we have, algorithms like R-CNN, Fast R-CNN and faster R-CNNs, Feature pyramid network-based FRCN. Faster versions of these algorithms are available to do tasks faster as fundamentally they are not designed for that. Then, we have algorithms like single-shot detection and RetinaNet. Also, algorithms like YOLO v1 (2015), YOLO v2/ YOLO 9000 (called so as it can recognize 9000 objects on Imagenet Dataset) and the recent one in the lineup is YOLO v3 (Apr 2018). There are other 30+ odd algorithms for the same purpose.
Now, looking at the benchmarks image, we can see that YOLO v3, has three variants as per the sizes of the image that it works with. YOLO-320 -basically says the sizes of the input images are 320x320. Our objective is to get higher and less time. We can see that, YOLO v3 is super fast and has very good. When the input image is smaller in size, it takes less time to process. While, when the input image is larger in size, it takes more time but there are more chances of correctly detecting smaller objects. So, the choice of the variants among those provided by the YOLO v3, depends on how small objects you wish to detect. YOLO v3 is a really great architecture that is aggregating good things from various other models.
In the next blog post, we will take a look at the architecture and tweaks which make YOLOv3 to be one of the best models in object detection space. Until then, happy learning!
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-do-i-use-azure-api-in-object-detection-ac8b6d34c7d8 | ['Divyesh Dharaiya'] | 2020-09-12 20:12:42.791000+00:00 | ['API', 'Amazon Machine Images', 'Object Detection', 'Microsoft Azure'] |
Want To Earn Free Bitcoin?. This web browser pays you in bitcoin to… | According to Crypto Tab’s description, it is “CryptoTab is the world’s first browser with a built-in mining function. With CryptoTab you earn cryptocurrency just by visiting your favorite sites, watching videos, and chatting online”. That is actually a very accurate description. What it does is, when the tab is open, it auto generates bitcoin from your web browser. Unfortunately, that is not a very fast method, only pulling in around three to five dollars per month. The real money comes from inviting people. I have been using Crypto Tab for several months and have made around $1000 thanks to this method that I have found for inviting people. What I do is I go on Snapchat or Instagram SFS (shoutout for shoutout) and advertise the product there, where I can pull anywhere between ten to twenty people per day. Unfortunately, not everyone uses the browser, meaning they don’t generate you money. Around 3 in 10 of the people you invite actually use the browser. That is, unless you have them set it to their default browser, which then forces it to open before chrome or whatever browser they like. Then they end up getting used to it and making you the money without them knowing. Download link here.
Check us out on Instagram for updates on our site.
As you can see, they also offer a long list of ways to help you. They even give you website advertisements (I didn’t use one) and YouTube advertisements! Some of the best affiliates make several thousand a month! That’s insane! There is also the chance to win awards from inviting a lot of people, which is really good for the average user. The person who invites the most people each month gets a $10,000!
There are affiliate links that are meant to help me money in this article. | https://medium.com/@lukebrunson8/want-to-generate-free-bitcoin-e77d04b25d03 | ['Supreme Scorpion'] | 2020-12-13 18:22:36.376000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Teens'] |
Life of every YOU-TH in a Nutshell! | Life of every YOU-TH in a Nutshell!
So this is my first time writing, why have I decided to write?
Let me tell you upfront I am not a writer or a reader just one of The YOU-TH confused with life and looking for purpose and wanting to put forward thoughts in my head outloud.
So every child starting from his tender age is always told study hard finish school and your all set to get into a good college and then a good job and finally it’s all fun.
but the fun fact is there is no fun and there is no end to this journey, every man has ambitions and passion per say but I dont see people with any. They seem just like a societal defined strategy to keep people in check to me.
Some people are happy earning money, some travelling and some struggle to earn bread why the disparity? Why is rice precious for some and plenty for few?
Well I suppose these thoughts have crossed many people but wait only for a few and only in times when they are sad or may be when they feel betrayed and some socially driven who feel the inequality and respond to people while other’s just live their life like it be.
Well I suppose some people respond to such feelings try to make a change. Yey!! sounds fun? But let me tell you it’s like a game which looks cool but hard to win without some cheat codes. You might succeed or may be not, just because your intentions are right you don’t always get the result.
So you think to yourself why bother? And live a lie ignoring what seems unfair and illogical whilst pursuing material satisfaction and societal norms.
Did all the above just seems like what you have faced at some point? Let me tell you! Everyone has thought of it, your not alone.
So will you try to be the change or will you live a lie only YOU and your THought can decide. | https://medium.com/@gahan.narayan93/life-of-every-you-th-in-a-nutshell-e7d0d2b023af | ['Wandering Soul'] | 2020-11-27 17:04:24.423000+00:00 | ['Ambition', 'Society', 'Inequality'] |
What the Success of Shadowlands Means for the Future of Warcraft | The third factor here is that Blizzard themselves undertook a pretty significant rework of what modern World of Warcraft looks like ahead in 2020. The pre-patch for Shadowlands reduced the level cap from 120 to 50, introduced the new Exile’s Reach starting area and recalibrated the relationship between the content introduced by each of the game’s seven major expansions.
Rather than pressure new or returning players to play through everything to catch up, Blizzard gave them a newfound degree of choice of which region they wanted to experience. New players were fast-forwarded into the latest and greatest Battle for Azeroth quest-line. Older players got the option of reliving older eras of the game through their alts.
These recent changes have made World of Warcraft a much more approachable game than it previously was and the role that this likely played in the success of Shadowlands shouldn’t be discounted because it is so clearly reflected in the data we have about the game’s present popularity.
Ahead of the launch of Shadowlands, Activison-Blizzard says that total player time in game this year to date has nearly doubled compared to the same period last year and that players have spent more time in Azeroth this year to date than in the same period of any of the last 10 years. According to the company:
In the months leading up to the expansion’s release and the time since launch, the game reached and has sustained its highest number of players on monthly or longer-term subscriptions compared to the same period ahead of and following any WoW expansion in the past decade, in both the West and the East.
None of the above trends can individually explain the resurgence of popularity around World of Warcraft. Nevertheless, together they provide an explanation of sorts for why Shadowlands has been as popular as it is.
What does this mean?
Well, the most basic takeaway here is that World of Warcraft still has an audience. As old as it is, it’s probably not going away any time soon.
The high sales of Shadowlands validate Blizzard’s strategy of providing not only ongoing support for the 14-year old MMORPG but also continuing to invest resources into developing new content for it. At this stage, it is extremely likely that this will continue. It’s probably safe to predict that there will be a ninth expansion for World of Warcraft in about 18–24 months time.
The other thing that’s being validated here is the specific direction that Blizzard have taken the game with Shadowlands. As opposed to the last few expansions for the game, it represents an injection of genuinely new lore, characters and locations for the wider Warcraft franchise. | https://medium.com/super-jump/what-the-success-of-shadowlands-means-for-the-future-of-warcraft-4766abac73ff | ['Fergus Halliday'] | 2020-12-20 10:16:15.199000+00:00 | ['Videogames', 'Mmorpg', 'Gaming', 'Features', 'Business'] |
How I Learned To Stop Hating the Sound of My Own Voice | How I Learned To Stop Hating the Sound of My Own Voice
Why recordings of your voice sound so different, and what you can do if you cringe when you hear yourself Amardeep Parmar Mar 12·10 min read
Image credit: golfcphoto.
The sound of my own voice has been a source of insecurity for my whole adult life. Then one day, I decided to do something about it.
I am a native English speaker despite the assumptions some readers may make from my name. I was born and raised in England, but not in one of the areas where people speak how you see on any exaggerated Netflix series.
My high school’s student population was 90% ethnic minority and a melting pot of different language influences. Slang and intentional distortions of speech were the norms. There definitely wasn’t any bowing or curtsying going on in our school corridors. We used words like:
“bare,” “nang,” “choong,” “kotch,” and “blad”
“jam,” “bare,” “switch,” and “safe” (had different meanings)
“dis” for “this” and “dat” for “that”
I’ve completely wiped all evidence from my Facebook history, but if you’re interested, you can find the meanings in the Urban Dictionary. My knowledge of East London vernacular is completely out of date with what people use today because that’s the nature of the beast.
I spoke this way because it’s how a kid adapts to fit in with everyone around them. The last thing you want to do is stand out. It was fine as long as everyone spoke this way because we all understood each other.
That all changed when I went to university. My rather lazy way of speaking made me incomprehensible to other more refined students. No one was ever rude to me but a thick accent plus a tendency to talk fast meant I often saw blank faces looking back at me.
I adapted, graduated, and I’ve worked as a professional for seven years where I’m regularly talking to clients. I have no problem talking without worrying about whether I can be understood. It’s been rare for me to hear any criticism, and I hope you are in the same position.
Yet whenever I had to listen to my own voice back then, I felt ashamed and couldn’t bear the sound of it. My hyper-awareness of my self-perceived weakness made me want to slam my hands over my ears.
Over the last year, I’ve appeared in many online interviews but never watched more than a minute because I couldn’t take it. As my presence has grown, I realized I needed to confront my fear sooner or later. It’s probably not the smartest idea to have recordings of me talking for the world to see and I don’t even know if I’ve said anything stupid to be edited out!
Lots of people want to improve their public speaking or come across more assertively, but it’s impossible if you can’t even listen to yourself speak. In the past month, I’ve listened to myself for over 100 hours and gained immeasurable confidence.
I feel the difference in my own psyche by shedding the burden of shame, and I want to guide you through how I did it.
Step 1: What Is Wrong With My Voice
Like me, you probably have no problem with hearing your voice as it comes out of your mouth because it’s your baseline. It’s only when listening back to a recording that you sound like a Disney cartoon.
To kick off my mission, I first needed to understand why there was this discrepancy. Part of me worried that I was delusional or something was wrong with my hearing. Does my brain normally trick me into thinking I have a deep and manly voice? Maybe it was a coping mechanism my mind created for my own sanity? With these questions in mind, I decided that it’s better to follow the science rather than guess.
It turns out there are multiple effects at play.
Vibrations travel through your skull
This BBC video permanently changed the way I think about my voice and it’s fascinating to learn the way the body works.
From BBC Earth Lab: Why does your voice sound different on a recording?
The good news is — we aren’t imagining our voices are deeper when we talk; our ears are working correctly. What happens is we hear ourselves in two ways: one regularly through the air and the other where vibrations from the voice box travel through the bones in the face and hit the eardrum. When sound travels in the second way, it spreads out and this lowers the tone!
The bad news for me was the way I hear myself on a recording is the way the rest of the world hears me! So only I hear the voice I think I sound like — and everyone else hears the version I can’t stand. This was a disappointing revelation, but it’s a truth I needed to accept.
Our brain rejects us
The difference in tone doesn’t explain everything though. So what if my actual pitch is higher than what I normally hear? Surely it shouldn’t be such a big deal that I can’t stand listening to myself for more than a minute.
Here is where psychology comes into play. Let’s run through the five senses and their relationship with our sense of self:
Sight — We only see ourselves in the mirror or in photos.
— We only see ourselves in the mirror or in photos. Smell — We’re generally pretty immune to our own scent.
— We’re generally pretty immune to our own scent. Taste —Not applicable. I don’t lick myself regularly. No judgment if you do.
—Not applicable. I don’t lick myself regularly. No judgment if you do. Feel — We’d realize the absence of our body reacting to our own touch, but it’s more functional.
— We’d realize the absence of our body reacting to our own touch, but it’s more functional. Hearing — We hear our own voices whenever we speak throughout the day.
Our voice forms a significant part of our identity because it’s the only thing we experience at the same time as the others around us. When our voices sound different on a recording, it makes us feel vulnerable. We question who we are and our own perceptions.
Our brain doesn’t like this idea that the information it’s been receiving isn’t reflective of reality. This explains why bilingual people find it harder to listen to their voice in their mother tongue.
We naturally judge others based on their speech and the cues it gives us. When we analyze ourselves, we realize we might assess someone else as lesser if they had our voice. This triggers a cycle of putting ourselves down and the accompanying shame.
Cheap equipment doesn’t help
There is some silver lining to believe the gulf between my live voice and the recorded version isn’t as great as I think it is.
Most of the audio I’ve heard of myself was recorded through my laptop's in-built microphone. It didn’t take much research to realize this was awful quality. The poor quality distorted my voice to some extent.
You might have noticed during the pandemic that some of your colleagues sounded a bit different from what you’re used to. It could well be the same effect where it’s simply a hardware problem. For me, this was a relief and made me feel better about myself instantly.
The circle of control
The three effects mentioned so far are all beyond our control. Yet we don’t get away with not having to work on the character of our performances. Some of the disdain will come from factors within our control, such as how fast we speak or whether we vary our cadence.
There’s no escaping this, unfortunately, but once we’ve accounted for the other issues, it becomes much easier to listen to yourself and identify the specific issues you have. This is a big step in fixing the problems for good.
Step 2: Rationalize
Now the first step was great for my understanding — but part of it was me delaying actually listening back to myself again and attempting to overcome the mental roadblock.
I used a simple trick to help summon the courage. I thought about how many conversations I’ve had in the last year. Some with family, some with friends or colleagues, and some with complete strangers.
They all understood me. I never had an instance where I ordered fish and chips and had a pizza delivered. Yes, my discussions with strangers have been pretty limited in the pandemic.
But I took this a step further. The voice I hate to hear is the same one I had when I met most of my friends and acquaintances. My voice wasn’t a problem for any of them, and it can’t be so unbearable if they are still around.
Whilst it’s not the way I would like to portray myself, it is the voice all the people who love me associate with me. My public voice has done quite a lot for me, so it feels unreasonable to pour so much disdain on it when I should be grateful instead.
Step 3: Use the Two Folders Cheat
I now needed to get used to hearing how my voice sounded to others — despite every fiber of my body wanting to press stop as soon as I started listening to a recording. So I did what we all do: I procrastinated and tried to find a shortcut.
In this procrastination, I stumbled upon a hack from vocal coach Chris Beatty. You can block the sound coming through your bones if you use two empty folders (or magazines) and place them vertically in front of your ears. I felt like a fool — but I tried it, and it works.
I could now get real-time feedback of how I sounded, and I could keep some control because I could close my mouth whenever I wanted. This felt much less intimidating than playing a recording of the unchangeable past. Think of it like using a helium balloon, even though your voice is distorted, it’s fun because you’re making the decisions.
I read some of my articles out loud and messed around with changing my voice and using different accents. I don’t recommend doing this in public if you don’t want people moving two meters away from you — even after social distancing ends.
Every day, I committed to reading one article out loud until the novelty wore off, and my voice no longer shocked me. This took less time than I expected, and after a week I could move onto step 4.
Step 4: Invest in a Microphone
Now I can’t do all my interviews with two folders held next to my head for obvious reasons, so I needed to move on to recording and playing myself back.
The first thing I wanted to do is ensure I was playing on the right field. There was no point in forcing myself to get accustomed to a recording version of my voice that didn’t reflect reality at all.
If you look online, you’ll see podcasters regularly recommending the same microphones with eye-watering prices. We don’t want to create a podcast with 10 million monthly downloads, we just want a more accurate reflection of our own voice.
I went for the Tonor TC-777, but the Blue Snowball is also a good choice for those like me on a budget. There are many better mics out there if you’re willing to spend the money but these two do the job we need them for.
When my microphone arrived, it made me feel more professional just by the nature of having a fancy-looking piece of kit. I wasn’t ready to record myself reciting War and Peace yet so waited for an organic call and tested it out. Unfortunately, the person on the other side wasn’t blown away by the change in my voice in the first few seconds.
Yet over the next couple of weeks, I received a couple of comments that my voice sounded much clearer than usual. A small win, but I was happy to take it. It seemed like I’d made some progress without having to do anything difficult yet!
Step 5: Start Small
Some of my interviews have been well over an hour-long, but I knew I definitely didn’t want to start at this length.
Taking the principle of kaizen and tiny improvements, I chose to record for a minute at a time. I wanted this to be something I could make a natural part of my day, so I chose to read out my to-do list at night for the following day. It was doubly useful as a reminder to myself of what I needed to do.
For me, this became painless within a few days, so I upgraded to reading my own articles again. These would generally take around 10–15 minutes to read out loud — though I’d often spot typos! This was a big escalation in pain, so I dialed back down to five minutes at a time.
After doing this for a while, I’d conquered the issues of being unaccustomed to my voice and the higher pitch. I recorded a long conversation between myself and a friend, and I managed to listen to the entire thing! A big milestone for me.
Step 6: Identify Exactly What You Want To Change
I’d done enough now to analyze without being deafened by self-loathing. I wasn’t in the clear but could focus on what was in my control to change. Whenever I felt uncomfortable listening, I tried to pinpoint exactly what made me feel this way.
Here was what I found, and you may find similar faults:
Saying “yeah,” “like,” “umm,” “erm”
Speaking too fast
Changing volume
Mispronouncing certain sounds
Lack of enthusiasm
I didn’t try to go from disinterested university professor — to Obama overnight. I ranked each of the faults in the order I thought it would be easiest to fix. Now, when I did my daily practice, I thought only about addressing one thing at a time.
I still have parts I don’t like but I’ve gained the self-confidence to believe I can keep working my way through my list. If I focussed on the biggest problem first, I would have been disheartened and given up!
Step 7: Experiment
Step six can go on forever, but it’s important to rotate between it and experimentation. This is meant to be enjoyable!
I listen to podcasts all the time and decided to try to mimic my favorite hosts. I was playing a character rather than being myself, and this distanced my mind from being too critical. I’m unlikely to ever sound like Guy Raz or Rangan Chatterjee — but it’s fun to try!
Depending on the situation, I don’t need to sound like me on every interview or recording, and I can test out different personas. Now that we can listen to ourselves, we’ve opened up a whole new world for us to explore. Many people love trying out new styles to change their appearance, why shouldn’t we enjoy doing the same for how people hear us? | https://betterhumans.pub/how-i-learned-to-stop-hating-the-sound-of-my-own-voice-325f123c5bc3 | ['Amardeep Parmar'] | 2021-03-12 22:27:06.087000+00:00 | ['Podcasting', 'Voice', 'Vocal', 'Public Speaking', 'Communication'] |
363 scientists and students register for the Frankl airdrop in its first week | On Tuesday last week, we launched the Frankl token airdrop — a way for the global science community to access cryptocurrency created for research.
Thanks to overwhelming support from the community and media, including Blockchain News, Coin News Telegraph, Finder, Lab & Life Scientist, the Australian Institute of Medical Scientists, Top ICO list, Science Distributed and Bitcoin Exchange Guide, we’ve had 363 unique registrations in the first week alone.
Our airdrop recipients hail from 33 different countries including the United States, France, India, Nigeria, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, New Zealand, and of course our home country — Australia!
The majority are undergraduate and postgraduate science students, with 39 PhD’s and PhD Candidates also in the mix. Research areas cover biochemistry, psychology, physics, biology and computer science among others.
The airdrop will be open for another three weeks at frankl.io/airdrop, and there is a handy beginner’s guide to the airdrop available here.
We look forward to further updates as the community grows!
Are you on Telegram?
Telegram is our favourite place for chatting about all things blockchain, science and Frankl — and the quickest way for us to respond to questions from our community. If you’re not already part of the group, you can download the Telegram app here and find us at t.me/franklcommunity.
If you’d like to know more about Frankl, read our whitepaper, check out ourwebsite, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter @FranklOpenSci. | https://medium.com/franklopenscience/363-scientists-and-students-register-for-the-frankl-airdrop-in-its-first-week-d2d12e65ce76 | ['Elise Roberts'] | 2018-05-07 02:28:31.555000+00:00 | ['News', 'Airdrop', 'Universities', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Pandemic Made the Rich a Lot Richer | Pandemic Made the Rich a Lot Richer
While 40 million Americans filed for unemployment, the world’s billionaires combined wealth increased to $10.2tn. Nothing is fair if the system genuinely favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Aravind Sanjeev Follow Dec 21, 2020 · 5 min read
An illustration in protest to capitalism. Image for representational purpose only.
Read the original post in humaneer.org
Earlier this year, UK-based charity group Oxfam put together a study that came to some eye-opening conclusions. 22 richest people in the entire world have more wealth than the entire women in Africa. In the entire globe, women and girls put 12.5 billion hours of unpaid work each day. This “unpaid” work contributes to over $10.8 trillion every year to the global economy. That’s more than three times the size of the global technology industry.
This study came out in Jan 2020 and ever since then, it has been an upward rollercoaster for the world’s richest while a big spiraling down for the common and poor. During the height of the pandemic from April to July, billionaires’ net worth increased by over 27.5%. By the end of July, billionaires’ net worth has peaked at over $10.2 trillion. The previous peak was $8.9 trillion reached at the end of 2017. Tens of millions of people across the world lost their job filed for unemployment during the same period. In America alone, billionaires’ wealth increased by $637 billion while over 40 million Americans filed for unemployment.
The richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos’ net worth rose by over $48 billion. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s net worth increased by over $17.2 billion. Elon Musk increased his net worth by $17.2 billion.
Although this might look like lucky people going through lucky times, that is only partially true. The world’s capitalist system allows the richest to thrive on the top floor and deliberately as a matter of policies. Between 2009–2012 in the United States, income gains of the bottom 99% only grew by 0.4% while that of the top 1% grew by over 31.4%. This is after the 2008 financial crisis. Govt spend over $700bn to buy non-performing assets from banks and corporations while only $75bn was spent on homeowners to reduce interest payment.
When the stock market finally bounced back, the wealthy had a lot more fortune to invest in. Their wealth allowed them to take much bigger risks. While the commoners were stuck with bad loans and interests. The top 1% reinvested their amount to buy out stocks which were skyrocketing after the 2008 downfall.
This created a strong upward trend in stock price that lasted until the pandemic hit in 2020. Now the cycle is repeating. The government is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and corporates to ease their troubled assets. The rock bottom stock prices that have been hit during the pandemic have allowed the riches to acquire it on a massive scale. Now the economy is back on track, their wealth will grow disproportionately high while the people at the bottom will struggle for ages to even recover back to normalcy.
But if we don’t bail out multi-billion-dollar companies, wouldn’t it bring down the whole economy? First of all, no. Second of all, if that is the case, then the capitalist system doesn’t seem to be so reassuring. Multi-billion dollar establishments take more share of the pie mostly because of their resources to lobby with the government. They are well connected to people on the top, they can afford to hire expensive lobby firms, and they can afford to pay the most intelligent lawyers. These are the machinery they use to receive favors from the govt. Common people’s ways to lobby with the top is at best a well-coordinated protest, the chance of it happening is pretty low.
The same Oxfam study also estimates that just taxing 0.5 percent extra on the world’s richest for the next 10 years would equal an investment that is required to create 117 million jobs in sectors such as elderly and childcare, education, and health. A 0.5 extra tax sounds like a measly sum, and it is. This proves that the richest can be taxed way more while still being handsomely rewarded for any kind of success they have achieved.
A study put together by economists in IMF and other institutions found that an individual from the 75th percentile of wealth distribution who invested $1 in 2004 will earn $1.50 by end of 2015. But if an individual from the top 0.1% of wealth distribution invests the same amount, it will yield about $2.40. The top 0.1% gets 90% more return than the bottom 75% on the same invested amount. These high returns allow the rich to grow richer while also preventing them from leaving the top.
This doesn’t stop here. Over $12 trillion of the world’s wealth is hidden off-shore by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. These come through investments in empty corporate shells. Citizens of unstable oil-producing countries make the most of this with about $7tn of personal wealth stashed in tax havens. This figure is larger than the net worth of all the billionaires combined which is currently at $10.8 trillion.
A lot of ordinary people tend to think that life is not fair. Yes, life is definitely not fair. But there is a difference in fairness affected by the nature of life compared to deliberate unfairness that is instilled in us by the system. Capitalism might help lead innovation and generally improve the quality of life for everyone. But it is only fair when everyone can compete on the same level. Every single person should have the same access to govt programs. Every single person should get the same risk-adjusted rate of return. Every single person should receive impartial access to financial data. Yes, large investors get better and more lively access to financial data with their institutions.
Currently, we are in a system where the rich is stuck in the top 1%. If large companies fall dramatically, it will affect the entire economy. So the government is forced to lend billions of dollars because these corporates are too big to fail. Then this cycle continues. The people on the bottom receive next to nothing and are told to be self-made. Even worse, we are asked to sympathize with the richest for the path they have traveled.
Like what you read? visit humaneer.org/blog to see all the latest posts. | https://medium.com/humaneer/pandemic-made-the-rich-a-lot-richer-a04a0988a0aa | ['Aravind Sanjeev'] | 2020-12-21 13:09:34.774000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Wealth', 'Inequality', 'Corporate Culture', 'Capitalism'] |
3 Reasons Why You Should Get AWS Certified This Year | 1. AWS is Quickly Becoming the Gold Standard of the Cloud
AWS is leading the pack in almost every aspect. According to Gartner, Amazon’s cloud is 10 times bigger than its next 14 competitors, combined! This is bad news for the folks at Azure and Google Cloud Platform but it is great news for you.
Whether you’re a web developer, a database admin, a system admin, an IoT developer, a Big Data analyst, an AI developer (and the list goes on and on), your life will be made much easier if you take advantage of Amazon’s platform. Their offerings touch almost every aspect of technology, and discussing them would be outside the scope of this article. They are constantly adding more offerings and innovating in a way that is leaving the competition in the dust.
Gartner’s famous Magic Quadrant report has this handy graph, that shows AWS leading in every aspect of innovation and execution:
2. AWS Certifications Are Feasible and Within Reach
Unlike other vendors, Amazon offers a realistic certification path that does not require highly specialized (and expensive) training to start. I am not saying that it is very easy to get certified, but you won’t have to quit your job and pay for expensive training to get your first AWS certification.
As of early 2017, AWS offers 3 tiers:
Associate tier:
Certified Solutions Architect Associate
Certified Developer Associate
Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
2. Professional tier:
Certified Solutions Architect Professional
DevOps Professional
3. Specialty tier:
Security
Advanced Networking
Big Data
The most common approach is to start with the Certified Solutions Architect Associate. It is a great way to get familiar with the AWS ecosystem and core services. You are required to have an associate certificate before you can sit for the professional or specialty exams. Furthermore, AWS requires that you have your Solutions Architect associate certificate before you can take the Solutions Architect professional test, or that you have your Developer or SysOps Associate certificate before you can sit for the DevOps Professional test.
As far as training, the best resource by far is A Cloud Guru. I passed all three associate certificates by relying mainly on their excellent courses. Ryan Kroonenburg and the rest of the A Cloud Guru team provide excellent training for AWS, Docker, and other cloud technologies and their courses are very affordable and unmatched in quality and content: https://acloud.guru
Self-learners rejoice! With a bit of effort and discipline, you can become very proficient. Amazon also offers a free tier account so you can use most of their services for a year for free. The hands-on experience is crucial in your learning journey.
3. AWS Skills Are in High Demand and Pay Top Money
According to Forbes, these are the top paying certifications for 2016:
Need I say more?
With that being said, please remember that simply getting the AWS Solutions Architect certification DOES NOT automatically mean that you will be making the annual salary indicated in the table above. Many other factors are at play here, including your other skills, experience, geographic location, etc. The point is, proving to potential (or existing) employers that you are competent in using Amazon’s cloud offerings will have a great positive impact on your career. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/3-reasons-why-you-should-get-aws-certified-this-year-7e44dbc51519 | ['Moneer Rifai'] | 2017-07-19 09:45:13.050000+00:00 | ['Career Change', 'Cloud Computing', 'AWS', 'Certification', 'Careers'] |
Do Not Read | Do Not Read
A poem about me before I found poetry
Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash
I thought I'd write a poem,
About how I used to be.
Before I started reading,
And writing poetry.
At school, I was a rebel,
And didn't do very well.
Studying English language,
And literature was hell.
After school, it was a godsend,
I didn't have to read.
Video games and television,
Would be all I really need.
It wasn't because I'm lazy,
But I struggled in that area.
Words on paper got mixed up,
I suffered from dyslexia.
In a house with over 200 books,
Five of which are mine.
I still can't bare to pick them up,
Even though I have the time.
In lockdown I found poetry,
Reading was now fun.
And now it doesn't feel like,
Against my head, there is a gun.
So now I've taken up a pen,
And scribbled down some verse.
The rhymes just seem to flow right out,
Dyslexia may reverse.
So to everyone that reads this,
And gives me 50 claps.
Encourages me to write some more,
And a chapbook could be, perhaps. | https://medium.com/illumination/do-not-read-817644904bb1 | ['Martin Rushton'] | 2020-06-13 10:16:04.902000+00:00 | ['Overcoming Obstacles', 'Writing', 'Dyslexia', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
On EQT Ventures’ investment in Reworks, developing games that spark creativity and imagination | If you grew up in the early 2000s playing computer games, chances are that you probably tried out one version or another of The Sims. Still going strong with a passionate fan base to this day, the franchise became pretty popular with its sandbox video game series, selling more than 200 million copies over the last two decades.
A big part of that success came from how it enabled players to design and decorate their virtual houses as if they were IRL. People would (and still do to this day — see below) spend countless hours playing the game just to achieve the perfect look and feel of their dream homes.
Taking this interior design micro-genre to the next level, Reworks has recently released its first game — Redecor — which offers people a place to play, explore designs, find inspiration and connect with others who share their passion for home design.
A hybrid between a mobile game and home design app, Redecor is built on top of Reworks’ Replay platform, a unique mobile 3D engine and content platform, which enables photo-realistic quality and next-gen 3D customisation for their games.
When Ilkka (CEO/co-founder) — a serial entrepreneur with a track record of assembling great teams — reached out to show us Redecor in 2019 during the soft launch phase, we immediately saw the potential in what Reworks was working on and how unique it felt compared to other games in the market. The combination of the team’s strong development culture and mission, with really impressive engagement numbers from their beta had us hooked, both on the game Redecor and the company Reworks.
And today we’re very happy and proud to announce that EQT Ventures led the seed round in the company. We are confident that Reworks will be yet another mobile gaming phenomenon coming out of Finland following the Sisu tradition of creating super strong, lean game studios that can create global hit games.
Time to explore our inner interior designers… game on! | https://medium.com/eqtventures/eqt-ventures-leads-4m-seed-investment-in-reworks-63f2ae6a51a3 | ['Lars Jörnow'] | 2020-04-23 08:38:37.187000+00:00 | ['Finland', 'Mobile Games', 'Eqt Ventures', 'Interior Design', 'Venture Capital'] |
{Episodio 5} Manner of Death (2020) L’Italia subì | Episode 5 | Dr. Bahnjit is a medical examiner who works at the provincial hospital. One day, the body of a woman who died as a result of hanging comes in and after carrying out the autopsy, Dr. Bahnjit concludes that it not suicide but in fact a murder case. This suddenly makes him a target of someone powerful. As a result of his statement, Dr. Bahnjit has an anonymous man break into his house and threatens him to change the report to suicide. Dr. Bahnjit doesn’t take this man’s threat seriously, until one day one of his friends, who is a prosecutor disappears. He begins to secretly conduct an investigation of his own in order to get to the truth — and somehow all clues lead to a man called Tan as the main suspect. Tan, however, denies everything and instead convinces Dr. Banjit to work together in order to get to the bottom of this and find the real murderer together.
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/384432/1/5
Manner of Death
Manner of Death 1x5
Manner of Death S1E5
Manner of Death Cast
Manner of Death #Episode 5
Manner of Death Tencent Video
Manner of Death Eps. 5
Manner of Death Season 1
Manner of Death Episode 5
Manner of Death Premiere
Manner of Death New Season
Manner of Death Full Episodes
Manner of Death Watch Online
Manner of Death Season 1 Episode 5
Watch Manner of Death Season 1 Episode 5 Online
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 00s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 444545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 174. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/episodio-5-manner-of-death-2020-litalia-sub%C3%AC/manner-of-death-wetvs-2020-episodio-5-sub-ita-l-italia-sub%C3%AC-ac319e495d6c | ['Christina T. Cochrane'] | 2020-12-22 01:56:25.469000+00:00 | ['Romance', 'Drama', 'Gay'] |
About Mercy Corps Ventures | About Us
Entrepreneurs around the world are deploying disruptive business models and transformative technologies to solve the biggest challenges of our time. Simultaneously, we believe that the next generation of highly-scalable and commercially successful startups will evolve in emerging markets to confront these challenges. However, they are often undercapitalised and don’t have access to the resources they need for their ventures to survive.
We’re an impact-first, early-stage investor, using catalytic capital and targeted support to fuel startups growth and help them realize their vision. Founded in 2016 as the venture capital arm of global development agency, Mercy Corps, we’ve supported 30+ ventures to scale and raise over $100 million in follow-on capital. Our portfolio centers around solutions that build climate resilience and financial resilience, so that people living in frontier markets can withstand disruption, plan for the future, and thrive. Through targeted support, strategic collaborations, and insight sharing, we further catalyze the ecosystem towards smarter, more impactful investments.
We’re relentlessly focused on accelerating a future where people and communities are resilient in the face of climate change and have agency over their own financial future. | https://medium.com/mercy-corps-social-venture-fund/about-mercy-corps-ventures-790ec7d65a9f | ['Mercy Corps Ventures'] | 2021-09-09 11:53:35.942000+00:00 | ['Impact Investing', 'Climate Resilience', 'Financial Inclusion', 'About Us', 'Venture Capital'] |
Thoughts and Prayers and Guns. Again. | While our elected officials stand solemnly before flags and cameras and issue invective about not politicizing tragedy and “disrespecting the victims’ families” by making the aftermath of a mass shooting about the gun control debate, Australian comedian Jim Jefferies deftly took down American hypocrisy in less than 10 minutes on a comedy special a while back. He can do that because he actually wants a solution. Politicians don’t want to search for what they know does not exist, cannot coexist — a unicorn who leaves in its rainbow-cloaked wake innocent civilians unriddled with bullets, gun owners armed to the teeth and lobbyists relieved that regulation will only decrease — all singing John Lennon together. Poly couples on dating apps have more luck finding actual unicorns.
Because this cartoonishly absurd Venn diagram is impossible politicians offer magic that no one asked for and not everyone believes in — thoughts and prayers. And that ad nauseam looped reel needs to roll to a stop. Not least because thoughts and prayers are both comprised of words. But politicians never regurgitate anything more specific than “thoughts and prayers”. Like policy change. Words mean something. So if they say anything more specific than empty condolences they might be called to action. And they do not want to be held accountable for anything too specific.
So if you’re able to hear anything over the din of anachronistic Americans raging about the Second Amendment after every mass shooting, you might have caught the Australian’s Netflix special called Bare a few shootings ago. I am not trying to be flippant about the victims of each shooting. But I am trying to be flippant about the absurdity of politicians posing in mournful camaraderie after each mass shooting, the frequency of which is unconscionable, gathered in hand-wringing solidarity about the impossibility of preventing another such tragedy. How could this happen???Each one of them poses in sanctimonious ceremony within their constituency. Silent as votive candles. They are trying to emote and evoke the same sacred glow of invocation and intention that actual votive candles do. If they do speak, they increasingly seem to prefer minister-like roles, holding hands with their congregation to comfort them during these difficult times. Except that their sworn (and overpaid) duty is not to spiritually advise. It is to legislate. This is an active verb. They forget that they are not paid to bow their heads and quietly pray with the faithful — not to seek healing with the seekers. They are elected to be the doers, the agents of change — our public servants need to serve us, not themselves.
All rights © Netflix
Jim Jefferies has no time or patience for “bullshit arguments and lies” when it comes to changing gun regulation. He does give the obligatory disclaimer about believing in everyone’s Second Amendment rights because it’s in our Constitution. A statement which must be made before anyone, especially a foreigner, (gasp!), dares to suggest that 200-year-old legislation about muskets and regulated militias might be ripe for modernizing.
After genuflecting before this, one of those most hallowed of Americanisms, Jefferies allows himself to get to his point — that the only honest argument for guns is just simply that you like them. That’s it. Although his bit is hilarious and worth watching just for the comedic value, his succinct points are solid. The transcript reads like an amiable think piece.
All rights © Netflix
**Spoiler Alert**
He swiftly debunks the protection/home security argument. If you are a “responsible gun owner”, as most gun owners will proudly boast, you keep your guns locked in a safe. But if you are using guns to protect yourself and your family how are you supposed to access those guns in time if someone does break in? He further goes on to remind people that most break-ins are attempted robberies, not premeditated attempted murders. But if you are anticipating murderers who are targeting you specifically, he wonders what kind of person you are. “How many fucking enemies do you have?!” Good question. Acts of random violence, as far as I’m aware, are far less common than targeted attacks among people known to each other.
And if home security and protecting the family were what truly amped people up they’d be reading Padlock Monthly and posting enthusiastic pictures of themselves posing in front of secure doors, posturing like they’re bad-asses. To hear him say this in a flawless American accent is even funnier.
Joking aside, civilians simply do not need military-grade tactical weapons.Ever. Literally for anything. Except that people think they’re cool. Which is all Jim Jefferies is asking people to acknowledge — their true motivation.
Here. I’ll go first. I think guns are a lot of fun to shoot. I like shooting a pistol more than a shotgun. And I like shooting rifles even more than pistols — I especially dislike the hand cannons that feel like a reckoning. I like plinking bolt action .22s as much as bearing down on a target with an AR-15 or zeroing in on clay pigeons with the old AK. But I do not need to own them to define myself.
I’ll leave it to the experts to further probe and diagnose the masculinity crisis in this country. But I will say that both the quietest gun owners and vehement second amendmentists (is that a word?) seem to self-identify as “proud” gun owners. Guns aren’t just something they have, it is who they are. So why is this particular item an identity? There is something so profoundly defining that they are unwilling to part with it. Even those perplexing gun owners who are neither hunters nor skeet-shooters.
All I have to say about the latest shooting is that it seems like labeling gun violence a mental health problem is just the latest way that those financed by the gun lobby compartmentalize another mass shooting so they can disregard it each time. It’s a sidestep. The last few times (because of course it happens enough to create a shooter profile) we’ve heard the “mental health issue” explanation it is only applied to the oxymoronic “lone wolves” — the disgruntled white guys who never get labeled as terrorists, domestic or otherwise. And it is never followed up with, and that’s why we’re introducing this $10B mental health care package for work in specialized prevention and treatment.
The media coverage of mass shooters is predictably disparate when the shooter is foreign, Arab, Muslim or any of the above. For an excellent dissection of this unfortunate phenomenon and how it reflects even deeper systemic inequality throughout our culture read Rebecca Traister’s “Why Do We Humanize White Guys Who Kill People?” She wrote this two years ago and its continued relevance is lamentable.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon. So I’ll leave you with another quote from Jim Jefferies preempting predictable backlash against a foreigner daring to suggest gun control: “If you don’t like it, go home! If you don’t like it, go home!” And my answer to that is, | https://medium.com/with-liberty/thoughts-and-prayers-and-guns-again-2ac3ad4719ed | ['Heather M. Edwards'] | 2019-07-30 19:36:19.205000+00:00 | ['Guns', 'Terrorism', 'Politics', 'Culture', 'Media'] |
Analysis of the TITAN fall | Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash
Introduction
This is an analysis of an incident that happened to Iron.Finance on June 16, 2021. As a result of the incident, the price of TITAN token has collapsed to 0 and the IRON stablecoin has lost its peg to USD and hasn’t regained it yet.
There are already multple reports on the incident ( one, two, three ). While these are good attempts, they didn’t answer the only question that inerested me: what part of the design has failed? And if it wasn’t a deisgn flaw, then why was it possible?
An official post-portem was published by Iron.Finance. While it gave some overview of what was happening on the market, it didn’t assume there were any problems in the design of the service. The team has called an unexpected bank-run the only culprit of the collapse:
We never thought it would happen, but it just did. We just experienced the world’s first large-scale crypto bank run.
I managed to collect some on-chain data and get a better picture of what has happened. Here’s my analysis and conclusions.
TL;DR This was a design flaw. Iron.Finance was designed for growth only, the stabilizing mechanism couldn’t work when TITAN was falling. TITAN prices provided by a price oracle were delayed and the gap between these prices and real-time prices made arbitraging unprofitable.
A brief introduction into Iron.Finance
Iron.Finance introduced a new type of stablecoins: a partially collateralized token, soft pegged to USD. On the Polygon network, the token was named IRON and it was partially collateralized by USDC; the other part was collateralized by TITAN, another token created by Iron.Finance. TITAN’s only utility was to be used as a collateral when minting IRON, it had no other uses and it had an infinite supply: there were no supply cap or minting rate limiting.
It’s worth noting that Iron Finance didn’t invent that new type of stablecoins. It was invented by Frax Finance. Iron Finance simply copied their smart contracts and modified them according to their vision.
Any user can issue IRON baked by their USDC and TITAN (which they bought from the market). The amount of issued IRONs was calculated as:
So, we can say that IRON was backed by a basket of USDC+TITAN and every issued IRON equaled to $1 worth of USDC+TITAN. Their proportion in the basket was determined by:
Where values are amounts multiplied by prices and TCR is Target Collateral Ratio. This ratio determined how much of USDC and TITAN you need to deposit to get IRON. On the day of the incident it was 70%, which meant you needed to provide 70 cents of USDC and 30 cents of TITAN to mint 1 IRON.
Burning IRON is also an option, it was called redeeming: you burn some amount of IRON in exchange for USDC+TITAN. This time, however, a different ratio was used to determine how much of USDC and TITAN you get: Effective Collateral Ratio (ECR), which was calculated as:
Where totalValueUSDC is the total value of USDC deposited in exchange for IRON tokens during minting and totalSupplyIRON is the total number of issued IRONs. ECR determines what percentage of issued IRON tokens is backed by USDC. On the day of the incident ECR was 75%.
To sum it up, both TCR and ECR determine ratios of USDC+TITAN when minting or redeeming IRON. TCR is used when minting, ECR is used when redeeming.
IRON stabilization mechanism
It’s not uncommon for a stablecoin to lose its peg. This usually happens when there’s a selling or buying pressure on the market. Thus, every stablecoin needs a mechanism of protection from such fluctuations. And IRON had one such mechanism.
Arbitrageurs were expected to stabilize the price of IRON because there was an incentive. If price goes down, they can buy cheap IRON from the market, redeem it for USDC+TITAN (1 IRON produces $1 worth of USDC+TITAN when redeeming) and sell TITAN for some profit. Such buying from the market would eventually rise the price of IRON.
On the other hand, if price goes up, they would mint new IRON (1 IRON requires $1 worth of USDC+TITAN when minting) and sell them on the market to get the difference as a profit. Selling would eventually drop the price of IRON.
This stabilization mechanism worked. And it worked (once) on the day when the incident happened.
Incident timeline
This is the on-chain data that I collected and that helped to find the flaw:
Incident timeline
Columns are:
(index) — block numbers. Date, when the block was produced. IRON price — IRON prices obtained from a price oracle. These prices weren’t delayed by TWAP. TITAN price — TITAN prices obtained from a price oracle. These prices were delayed by a 60-minute TWAP (Time Weighted Average Price). TWAP was used here to protect from price manipulations caused by flash loan attacks. TITAN price, AMM — TITAN prices obtained from an Automated Market Maker (Sushi Swap). These are real-time prices, they go ‘before’ the prices in the TITAN price column. Arb profit — the profit arbitrageurs would get from trying to bump the price of IRON, i.e. buying IRON on the market, redeeming USDC+TITAN, and selling redeemed TITAN on the market. Fees are not included. Values in this column are only calculated when IRON price is below $1. This is the most important column. ECR — ECR is used in the arbitraging scheme explained above.
Everything looked good until around 7:14 AM: at this time, TITAN reached its peak price but IRON has gone a little below $1.
At around 10:46 AM, TITAN has reached its local bottom at $31.82. Before this moment, Arb profit stayed negative, which means there was no incentive for arbitrageurs to stabilize the price of IRON and it remained below $1.
At around 12:49 PM, IRON has returned to $1, which was caused the few positive arbitraging profits preceding this moment.
By around 1:48 PM, TITAN has bounced and reached its local top; IRON was also slightly above $1. What has happened from 7:14 AM until this moment looked like a big selling pressure which dropped the price of TITAN and caused IRON to lose its peg. Luckily, both TITAN and IRON seemed to recover after the sell-off. The stabilization mechanism has worked. However, those negative arbitraging profits looked worrisome.
What happened next was a catastrophe.
After 2 PM, TITAN was failing and eventually reached 0. IRON lost its peg and landed at around $0.94, which is a huge drop for a stablecoin. The Iron.Finance team had to pause minting and redeeming.
What happened to the stabilization mechanism? It had worked earlier on that day but somehow failed to save the tokens from collapsing during a new sell-off.
If you look at the Arb profit column, you will know the answer: arbitraging couldn’t provide profit consistently. Even though the price stayed below $1, profit wasn’t consistent during the sell-off. This means that arbitraging, which is a part of the stabiliziation mechanism, wasn’t always possible. As a result, there was not enough of buying pressure to bump the price.
There were two reasons why this happened.
The first reason is the delayed TITAN price oracle: because of the delay, TITAN prices obtained from the oracle and used to calculate the amount of TITAN tokens redeemed for IRON, were higher than those on AMM (real-time prices). That price gap made arbitraging unprofitable.
The other reason is low ECR. ECR is used in redeeming to determine the portion of TITAN you get. During the second sell-off, it equaled to 74%, which means 1 IRON was redeemed for 74 cents worth of USDC and 26 cents worth of TITAN. And this portion of TITAN was too big due to the price gap (the more TITAN you get the more money you lose selling it on the external market).
I ran a simulation which showed that an ECR increased by 15% would’ve made arbitraging profitable:
ECR increased by 15% made arbitraging profitable
However, ECR is not designed to react to market changes, it only reflects the percentage of IRON tokens backed by USDC.
How arbitraging could save it
When IRON price goes below $1 there’s an incentive to buy it from the market. Remember minting and redeeming? They can be seen as an internal market. On this market, the price of IRON is always $1 and it can be bought only by a combination of USDC and TITAN.
Buying IRON from this internal market is minting: you deposit $1 worth of USDC+TITAN to get 1 IRON (which is always $1 in the internal market). Selling IRON to the internal market is redeeming: you burn some amount of IRON to get $1 worth of USDC+TITAN for every IRON burnt. When there are two markets with different prices, there are arbitraging opportunities. And there were, in fact, two markets: that internal one and an external one, which was an automated market maker (IRON was traded to WMATIC on SushiSwap).
So, it was expected that when IRON price goes below $1 on the external market, it would be profitable to buy it on it (because it’s cheaper there) and redeem it on the internal market (because it’s more expensive there). The profit would come from selling TITAN. And this expectation had played out during the first sell-off on that day.
However, it couldn’t kick-start during the second sell-off. There was not enough buying pressure on IRON to bump the price. And we now know the cause: arbitraging wasn’t profitable. Since TITAN was falling for a longer period and oracle prices was delayed, the actual value of TITAN tokens redeemed for IRON was lower than expected. Or in other words, the value of USDC+TITAN redeemed for IRON was lower than $1 (with fees it was even lower).
The full picture
I’ve managed to reconstruct the full picture of the incident. Here are historical values of some key metrics collected since the launch of IRON and until the collapse:
Full history of Iron Finance
Key patterns on this graph are:
ECR and TCR were close to 100 when the project had launched. Both ECR and TCR were lowering during the lifetime of the project. IRON price had almost always been above $1 (green dots at the bottom).
As I explained earlier, by the time TITAN started falling on June 16, ECR was too low for arbitraging to be profitable. On top of that, a price gap caused by delayed oracle prices made it even less profitable. ECR is TCR averaged over time or minting events: ECR reflects accumulated amount of USDC, which is deposited in amounts defined by TCR. So, ECR followed TCR.
TCR, in its turn, is tied to IRON prices: if IRON costs more than $1 on the market, TCR lowers, reducing the amount of USDC required to mint IRON. And the opposite: if IRON costs less than $1, TCR grows increasing the amount of USDC required to mint IRON. The meaning of such connection is that when the demand for IRON rises (its price is growing) it should become less collateralized, which eventually reduces its price. On the other hand, when the demand for IRON lowers (its price is falling), it should have more collateral to have higher value.
Now, as you can see, IRON prices was almost constantly above $1 and TCR was almost always lowering. Why did it happen?
Remember how TWAP caused a price gap: while TITAN was falling, oracle prices were higher? Well, it turns out it works in the opposite direction as well: when TITAN is rising, oracle prices are lower than market ones. What this means is that when TITAN is growing, redeeming becomes profitable even if IRON costs more than $1. Since oracle prices are lower than market ones, redeeming results in a slightly bigger amount of TITAN tokens, which can be sold on the markets for profit.
So, this is what happened:
TWAP and rising TITAN prices caused a prices gap: oracle prices were lower than market ones. Arbitraging bots were buying IRON from the market (for $1 or slightly more), redeeming it for TITAN, and selling TITAN for profit. TITAN price kept rising, bots kept arbitraging, IRON price stayed at or above $1. TCR was lowering and ECR was following it. Eventually, ECR got too low to make arbitraging profitable when TITAN started dropping and IRON went below $1.
Conclusion
While many called Iron.Finance a scam project, it doesn’t look like that to me. The timeline I built based on on-chain data has shown that the stabilization algorithm they built had worked — it managed to stabilize the price of IRON during the first sell-off. However, it failed during the second sell-off due to a design flaw: there were no incentive for arbitrageurs when TITAN token price was falling rapidly. I’d like to emphasize this: it wasn’t a code bug, it was a design flaw. The stabilization mechanism based on arbitraging they described on their website and implemented in smart contracts has failed because it couldn’t handle rapid price dropping of TITAN.
Was this an attack that abused the stabilization mechanism? To me, it doesn’t look so. There was no sole beneficiary from the incident besides those who sold TITAN on its all-time-high price. Price speculations are the nature of the markets and for DeFi project to be sustainable to speculations they have to design and implement solid mechanism, which wasn’t a case for Iron.Finance.
Related links
Huge thanks to Moralis, the analysis wouldn’t have been possible without them. It was hard to believe, but they provide access to Polygon archive nodes for free!
Check out my blog to learn more about blockchains, smart contracts, and DeFi.
Join Coinmonks Telegram Channel and learn about crypto trading and investing
Also, Read | https://medium.com/coinmonks/analysis-of-the-titan-fall-be747ab6b841 | ['Ivan Kuznetsov'] | 2021-06-29 16:40:43.854000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Smart Contracts', 'Defi', 'Ethereum'] |
How To Deliver Construction Projects on Time | One challenge that is common in the construction industry is delay in delivery of projects, either residential or commercial. Though the factors responsible for this challenge vary from place to place, the major ones are:
· improper planning of cost, duration of projects;
· underestimation;
· lack of materials;
· lack of proper tools and equipment;
· bad design;
· absenteeism;
· supervision delay;
· repetitive work;
· physical site conditions; and
· safety concerns.
Construction workers working on a site
Construction projects are often complicated as they involve a lot of tasks and stakeholders. Most times, the more agents involved, the tougher it is for everyone to work towards achieving the main goal — delivering the project on time and within budget. This is because agents have different timeframe to deliver on their tasks depending on their specializations. This known factor, however, does not mean that a project should not be delivered on time. Adherence to the following tips will help ensure timely completion and delivery of the project as planned.
Set a Clear Expectation in the Contract.
The contract is a very important document in the construction process as it contains the project timeline, the budget, and defines extensively the project expectations. Other information found in a contract includes definition of roles and responsibilities based on the categories of the experts involved. Hence, your expectation should be clear to all the participants and the timeframe should be precise. Each participant should have a clear understanding of their responsibilities from the planning stage to closure. When everybody is fully aware of their responsibilities, they will act prompt and accordingly whenever bottlenecks arise. Also, if the contract is solid and void of ambiguity, your work will be much easier even in areas where delays or budget overruns arise.
Establish and Review your Schedule.
A schedule should be established by the project manager appointed at the beginning of the project, in collaboration with all members of the team. The schedule will include the timeframe needed to complete the project, the number of people required, who should be on the site, and the deliveries. The schedule should, however, be flexible and be reviewed on a regular basis. The project manager should work with the contractors and the subcontractors to identify and understand where the project is on the timeline set. This will help monitor the progress of the project on site and identify any potential delay and develop a plan to mitigate it.
Engage in Early and Regular Communication.
A construction project requires high level of team work. Once you have established a schedule with constant review, document the process and communicate early, regularly and effectively with everyone. This will keep them informed and aware of the completion rate of the project at each given time. Every team member should know the time certain building activities are occurring and the timeframe set for completion. If builders and contractors, for instance, are not aware of when and how some tasks are happening, this could cause a setback. Everyone should know each other’s plans and timelines so that they will keep the construction in order and moving.
Keep Updates Short and Precise.
As you review your schedule and document the updates, keep the information gathered from the field very short and precise. Then share it with your team in a very simple and clear manner. Be clear on what you need from everyone in order to boost efficiency.
Use the Right Technology.
Project managers have many technology and digital tools which can help them to deal with complex tasks often associated with construction projects. Hence, the project manager should choose and use specific technology and software products. Digital tools help all team members — site managers, superintendents, or construction workers to share updates with other members timely and without any stress. | https://medium.com/@johnlaw4art/how-to-deliver-construction-projects-on-time-c5bfaaa3022a | ['John Odeyemi'] | 2020-12-23 09:47:19.384000+00:00 | ['Construction', 'Construction Industry', 'Construction Company', 'Construction Management', 'Project Management'] |
The “To-Don’t” List | The “To-Don’t” List
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
It’s the time of year when people start to dig deeper into list-making. They purchase planners and journals and make vision boards with pretty pictures of what they want their tomorrow to look like. They write of what they want to accomplish, places they want to visit, things they want “to-do” in the year ahead.
Now, don’t get me wrong — I love a good list. I love a good journal, too. I am a big believer in writing things down, and as much as I utilize my Google calendar, nothing will ever replace my paper planner. There’s something incredibly satisfying about crossing items off my list with a pen or pencil.
You could say that “To-Do” lists are one of my love languages.
But I recently was chatting with a friend who rejected the idea of her “To-Do” list and spoke of her “To-Don’t” list, instead. She was done doing the things that she didn’t want to do, just because other people thought she should be doing those things. Things like folding laundry. Making her children’s bed once they’re out of a crib. Cooking dinner on the weekends. Saying yes to tomatoes in a salad. Eating the cheese when her pants were too tight. Guilt about hiring help. Guilt about getting her hair cut. Carrying guilt, in general. No longer would she feel bad about having her alone time while her kids were sleeping or taking five minutes to wash the day off her face at the end of the night. No longer would she listen when the onlookers would tell her, “you need to________________” fill in the blank with whatever your brain imagines.
The “To-Don’t” List — something I had never thought of until that very moment.
Naturally, it got me thinking about my own list — what was on it? What should be on it? Was there something to add to it? Are there universal things that could be on a “To-Don’t” list? Maybe there could be.
Here’s what I came up with thus far: | https://psiloveyou.xyz/the-to-dont-list-aaa6c971b0d9 | ['Megan Minutillo'] | 2020-12-12 17:25:03.832000+00:00 | ['Self Discovery', 'Life Lessons', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Boundaries', 'Self-awareness'] |
Infographic example — poor info / great graphic | Infographics can look great, but can do a poor job in getting data across. This data could have been brought out better with simple bar charts. I am still struggling to get the point (15+ years of chart-decoding-experience as a strategy consultant is not enough in this case).
Original on Good Magazine. Click the image for a bigger picture. | https://medium.com/slidemagic/infographic-example-poor-info-great-graphic-57cf03bb67db | ['Jan Schultink'] | 2016-12-27 08:44:33.494000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization'] |
Night of Philosophy | Of the few times I have struggled to succumb sleep, I was running in a philosophy marathon, attending lectures the entire night, from evening to next morning. I remembered of a conversation I had with a law professor, discussing the implications of thought crimes and the ethics of pornography after midnight. The entire night was one of the greatest moments of gathering. An ode to the grace of night, that I could expand my capacity to discuss on concepts that have been haunting my sleep (questioning the nature of the mind, the experience of an object, or reality in regards the filters of our perception?).
Rather the library this time, we ran the same marathon in the New School. It was slightly different; lectures were reduced to 20 mins and there weren’t any discussion rooms on thought experiments. I wasn’t very much engaged with their monotonous reading of philosophy papers, except for topics on color perception and critical theory. Ideally we would just go to each lecture all night, but it’s exhausting despite any modes of caffeination.
I focus more when I close my eyes into a meditation state, shutting off my visual stimuli and listen to the tone first, the content second.
But there were also a lot of explorations need to be done, like flaneuring on the vertical floors, going into empty classrooms of course. We would just stumble upon one and look down at the room where the lectures are, voyeuring and imagining the experience of those who are being watched. It is easy that our attention is scattered amidst of lectures; but I realized that I focus more when I close my eyes into a meditation state, shutting off my visual stimuli and listen to the tone first, the content second. And then I open my eyes sometimes; we walked a bit more, to the terrace where conversations foster.
Ignorance sometimes struck us like we don’t know what we ought to say.
Once in a while, you go on and bother a person who is reading a tome of some sorts. Was it Proust, Dostoevsky, or Joyce? No it was Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Then we pretend ourselves to be ignorant, to attend to what one has to say about their reading experience. Though it occurs to me that conversation likes to take place in wrong premises, like that time I tried to invite a drunk person to join our table, but he just goes on confusing himself and leading us nowhere. Ignorance sometimes struck us like we don’t know what we ought to say. So we ascends in the elevator to regain our train of thoughts, going on from pre-cognition to self-identity.
Sometimes later they were playing Bowie in the reading room. You go in and dance a bit because there’s a crowd and everybody is singing the same lyrics. The night however, eventually turns down after the last song. Going back again few hours before sunrise, the reading of John Cage’s poetry and the fusion of abstract Hip Hop. Very few do turn their hips, but I was too tired to either dance or think. Except that I ascend again, to sleep for a few while listening to Raga, to tune away from the fainting voice of a Barcelonian. I was promised sunrises, but like many gray nights, who were shrouded by clouds. | https://medium.com/@nocturnal.diary/night-of-philosophy-d4e87ad58e6d | [] | 2019-10-13 21:13:14.049000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Philosophy', 'Life', 'Night', 'Conversations'] |
Diversity Is More Than Skin Deep | Image courtesy of the Goldfarb School of Nursing
President-elect Joe Biden has already been garnering praise for some of the historical nominations and appointments to his cabinet and administration. He has also been under mounting pressure to continue to supposedly “diversify” his cabinet simply by nominating women and people of color. The big problem with this kind of approach to “diversity” is that while you may end up with a group of people who may look different from one another, they do not necessarily think differently and represent different interests.
Diversity needs to be more than just skin deep. Mainly advocated for historically by white liberals through policies like affirmative action and quotas, this normative sort of valorization of racial and ethnic diversity above all else merely treats the symptoms of structural racism and inequities rather than fixing or dismantling the underlying structures themselves that have perpetuated these racial and socioeconomic disparities. Instead of prioritizing “diversity” as such, those who are interested in racial justice and equity should focus on addressing and correcting the ongoing systemic root causes of underrepresentation and marginalization.
Furthermore, what (typically white) advocates of “diversity” don’t often realize is that people of different races and ethnicities can have similar educations, interests, goals, and worldviews, despite their different lived experiences. And while, to a certain degree, it may be better to see people in prominent positions who are not all white, straight men, it is ultimately not very productive if they all think alike, talk alike, and share the same values.
Just seeing “Black faces in higher places,” as the expression goes, is not enough if those same Black people who managed to get to those higher places betray the interests of their fellow Black folk and the communities they came from. Activists and intellectuals like Malcolm X, Cornel West, Angela Davis, and Nina Turner have all been critical of this phenomenon. What happens is that when people from underrepresented groups attain a position of power, they are likely to become more interested in maintaining and furthering their newfound power — along with the wealth and class privileges that come with that power — rather than empowering and championing the people in their communities that did not have the same opportunities.
These interests are usually in conflict, and instead of taking an intersectional approach, many of them fall into a false trap and choose class over race. In other words, just because you have some Black faces in higher places does not mean that they are going to change anything if they have sold out (which is more often the case than not). What proponents of “diversity” lose sight of — and this is perpetuated by the media and those in power — is that the Black and Brown working class have more in common with the white working class than they do with the Black and Brown bourgeoisie.
“Diversity” is harmful — violent, even — if the only criterion for this diversity is skin color or last name alone. It tends to flatten the complexity and humanity of people in favor of a single, usually visible, attribute as standing in for a group of people who are erroneously understood as a monolith by the very same people championing “diversity.”
When Joe Biden is lauded for simply picking a person of color or a woman for a prominent position, then he can get away with choosing people who are deeply embedded within the political swamp of DC or the military industrial complex, are architects of neoliberal trade policies and advocates of globalization, are cozy with Wall Street, and are beneficiaries of and invested in the status quo (these qualifiers apply to nearly all of Biden’s picks, regardless of race or gender). Just because we have some “diversity” in terms of how these people look does not mean that we can give them a pass on their records and values.
So even though Joe Biden may have a Black and South Asian female vice president and has nominated and hired a handful of Black, Latinx, South Asian, and East Asian Americans for his team, it does not mean that he has a diverse circle around him. Most of these people went to the same elite schools, know the same people, see the world through shared lenses, have white-collar careers, are Washington insiders, and are extremely well-connected.
Real diversity is not just racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual difference. It is a multiplicity of viewpoints, backgrounds, experiences, tribulations, values, and classes. To a certain extent, these details are more important than race or gender alone.
For example, let’s take two groups of people. The first group is all white, straight men, and the second group represents a mix of genders, races, and sexualities. The first group consists of working poor, blue collar, and white collar people who span political and economic spectra and come from all over the US with various levels of eduction; the second group are all white-collar people from big cities who attended the top-ranked schools in the world and hold a college degree or higher. Which group is really the diverse one? Would you even consider the second group diverse compared to the first one? The second group is the one that Biden is assembling, and while I would hate for his senior officials to be as racially and gender homogenous as those in the Trump administration, I would champion a team like that of the first hypothetical group far more enthusiastically than I would a team like the second group.
It is imperative that Biden and others in all kinds of leadership positions think more deeply about what diversity really is if they are to reap its proven rewards and do the best work they possibly can. More than easy virtue signaling or simply placating identitarians through “diversity,” smart leaders must work harder to assemble their teams to represent a plurality of thought and interests so that they can be challenged, confronted, and better informed. Unfortunately, nearly all of the “diverse” appointments by Biden have little diversity of ideas, beliefs, and values, and many of them worked with Biden in the Obama administration. Trump was the outcome of how these people led the country, so if Biden is not more careful this time around, then we should not be surprised when Trump — or someone even worse than him who is smarter and more dangerous — returns to power in 2024. | https://medium.com/illumination/diversity-is-more-than-skin-deep-eec019aa570d | ['Riad Kherdeen'] | 2020-12-12 23:51:54.786000+00:00 | ['Race', 'Culture', 'Diversity', 'Ideas', 'Politics'] |
Communication Mediums: Arduino WiFi, RN-42 Bluetooth, Netduino Ethernet | This blog was written back in 2012, hope you enjoy it.
Hello, I have gotten my hands on a couple of communication devices which could be used for android and Arduino/ Netduino communication, first RN-42 SMD bought from robotics.pk — link, Arduino WiFi Shield also bought from robotics.pk — link and third Netduino itself which comes with Ethernet shield built-in, and Netduino is given to me by my teacher for educational purposes only, sad cant keep it.
Anyways let us start off with, RN-42 SMD is fairly cheap compared to others available for sale on spark fun and is very easy to use you just need 4 connections VCC(3.3v), GND, RX and TX and you are done and by default, RN-42 runs on 115200 baud rate, I found this to be very cheap and easy to use although for making connections on the SMD, could be stressing, you would need small and steady hands, after making connections and connecting it to my Arduino Mega 2560, I used my serial Bluetooth android app and data transfer was done perfectly and fast, and the range was acceptable about 50 to 60 feet. it is a perfect fit for the short-range, battery-powered application.
The second device is WiFi Shield, which lets Arduino board connect to the internet using the 802.11 wireless specifications and comes with a micro-SD card socket for saving of HTML pages and data logging, we could either use the WiFi Shield as Server or Client and in my case I use it as a server, although Arduino can't process anything above HTML and JavaScript we can do with these all so well, with WiFi Shield, we use Get and Post methods — (which I will explain in next post how?) to send and receive data from Arduino, from then on its same as serial monitor or Bluetooth. So from my android I send a request on the IP which is assigned to WiFi Shield through DHCP, the request could be Get or Post and Arduino executes that request.
Arduino and WiFi Shield: Controlling my room lights from Kazi Murtaza on Vimeo.
The third device which is Netduino in-built Ethernet Shield, I have not gotten around to configure it yet, but will do it next. I feel the results will be the same as Arduino WiFi Shield.
So in end I realized one thing, WiFi Shield is a bit buggy, sometimes requests in the buffer of Arduino don’t really execute and if they do its 4–5 sec delay, I guess it takes time to process the request and it is fairly new so needs a firmware update, so WiFi shield is not recommended for on second execution for example like WiFi controlled car, for such projects Bluetooth should be preferred, and for projects such as Home Automation and such WiFi is ideal. | https://medium.com/@kazimurtaza/communication-mediums-arduino-wifi-rn-42-bluetooth-netduino-ethernet-d3febb4a9678 | ['Kazi Murtaza Ahmed'] | 2020-12-08 03:50:20.573000+00:00 | ['IoT', 'Internet of Things', 'Embedded Systems', 'Netduino', 'Arduino'] |
How Fixing A Little Thing In Your Surroundings Is An Act Of Leadership | Growing up I’ve been told about the archetype of leaders a lot that they make an impact and they have a huge fan following. Leadership seemed to be something so huge and out of reach. Just like a vast majority of people, I have conditioned it with fame, money, and fan following.
Recently, I have been asked to look around myself and pick one thing that I can make better. It could be any small thing. I decided to fix the small study table area in my room because that’s where I spend most of my time. It took me 10 minutes to arrange everything.
before arranging vs after arranging
If I hadn’t asked to fix something in my room, I would have never done it because I love to sit around and waste time doing nothing but, it is often accompanied by regret and guilt.
This small activity made me think about a different aspect of leadership. A person can be a leader without authority. Leadership is not always about having a lot of people following you, or about changing the whole world. It could be about any small thing, a personal win, a thing that helped others through their rough time.
If you are humble, willing to improve yourself, KUDOS TO YOU because you are already a leader and you will inspire others throughout your journey. | https://medium.com/@fatima-imran165/how-fixing-a-little-thing-in-your-surroundings-is-an-act-of-leadership-b4d3b04e29df | ['Fatima Imran'] | 2020-12-19 06:37:09.306000+00:00 | ['Fixing Stuff Around You', 'Leaders Without Authority', 'Leadership Development'] |
Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Expecting Baby №4: It’s a Girl! | Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
There’s another little girl on the way for Kobe Bryant and Vanessa Bryant.
On New Year’s Day, the retired basketball living legend and his longtime wife announced they are expecting their fourth child together. “New year, new baby! Baby Mamba on the way 2019,” posts on both the parents’ Instagram accounts read.
The expectant mama added, “Kobe and I are so happy to add another baby blessing to our family! Bianka will have a new baby sibling to play with and Natalia and Gianna are super excited to welcome another little baby sister to love.”
Kobe also commented on his expanding family of daughters. “Vanessa and I are beyond excited to announce that we are expecting another #mambacita to go along with Natalia, Gianna and Bianka #blessed #bryantbunch#daddyspricesses #love #2019.”
The couple, who wed in 2001 and reconciled in 2013 after Vanessa’s 2011 divorce filing, are parents to daughters Natalia, 15, Gianna, 12, and Bianka, 2.
Congratulations to the soon-to-be family of six! | https://medium.com/newsflash-one/kobe-and-vanessa-bryant-expecting-baby-4-its-a-girl-3a42b715a6b4 | [] | 2019-01-02 05:58:07.233000+00:00 | ['2', 'Basketball', 'Family', 'I', 'Entertainment'] |
For the cows | For the cows
I like all animals. I like that they’re alive, that they have feelings and desires and that they still know what these are, unlike me that was trained out of them. I’m just so glad that they’re here, wandering the world with me, giving it warmth and constant unexpected beauty. So the world is not just 39 feet up and 30 feet across filled with static colored things.
I need the wooly dogs snuffling everything including your hand, the frighteningly big black crows hopping sideways, the tiny birds throwing themselves out of primrose bushes.
I just didn’t know.
I thought cows just had milk. Stored in their udders. I didn’t even think about it. Until Joaquin Phoenix’ Oscar speech.
So here’s the thing. I love dairy. Most days, I need my macaroni and cheese, my muesli soaked in milk, my Saint Andre on crackers, my Late July chips and onion dip, just to not sit gritting my teeth and angry at everybody. Milk is how I relax. It’s how I feel good.
Plus I have a very picky palate and oh, I do not like soy milk. But fuck and damn, I am not going to be responsible for separating one more calf from one more cow. So this is my quest: vegan food that really tastes good and requires no blending, super stirring or a kilogram scale. Vegan food I can deal with. So I can live to be inherently grouchy yet surprised by beauty another day. | https://medium.com/@thepenley/for-the-cows-111dc3fc6c93 | ['Karen Penley'] | 2020-02-12 20:41:30.851000+00:00 | ['Vegan', 'Joaquin Phoenix', 'Dairy Free', 'Foodies', 'Animal Rights'] |
Good summary of all the things that can get in the way of a writing project. | Good summary of all the things that can get in the way of a writing project. I’m in the process of writing my book while working on Covid research. Life and work definitely gets in the way. But I wrote in the morning. And have learnt to forgive myself for the days I don’t. | https://medium.com/@ranjaniwriter/good-summary-of-all-the-things-that-can-get-in-the-way-of-a-writing-project-cf074694f2aa | ['Ranjani Rao'] | 2020-12-18 14:04:38.270000+00:00 | ['Books And Authors', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing Life'] |
Engagement Journalism | Engagement Journalism
A pathbreaking program’s new name underscores how its novel approaches can be game changing — for both audiences and journalists Melissa DiPento Follow Mar 30 · 16 min read
Michaela Román and Jake Wasserman (both far right) are 2020 Engagement Journalism alums.
By Elizabeth Mehren
He had a snappy title for his internship at the Mountain State Spotlight: Inaugural Engagement Reporting Fellow. But what exactly did that mean?
In a hefty document that might serve as a roadmap for this emerging discipline, Jake Wasserman explained how he sought to make engagement an element of every aspect of a startup news outlet in Charleston, W. Va. The news site says “sustained outrage” is part of its core mission.
Point-by-point, in his final report to his colleagues at Mountain State, Wasserman described a kind of journalism premised on being with its audience, not merely for them:
“Nothing about us without us,” wrote Wasserman. Put the audience or citizen at the center of every effort.
“Meet people where they are”: To have full impact, journalism must make itself accessible to its audience.
Listen without judgment and with empathy.
Worry less about objectivity than transparency.
“Speak truth to empower”: Expose abuses of power, recommend solutions and help achieve them.
Jake Wasserman visits West Virginia.
“The idea is to keep after a story until reforms are made,” said Wasserman. He earned his master’s degree in December 2020 from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY) in what was known until recently as Social Journalism. This pioneering program is six years old, and as of April 2021, the degree will carry a new name: Engagement Journalism.
Though the concept is not new and other institutions have taught the subject in bits and pieces, Newmark J-School became the country’s first journalism graduate program in 2015 to offer a dedicated program in this new approach to journalism. With its sixth cohort expected to graduate next December, the program now has 67 alumni. They have landed jobs around the globe in news organizations such as ProPublica, the Miami Herald, The Intercept, CNN Brasil, The Atlantic, and CBS Sports.
Putting a priority on public needs and service
In its essence, the program is “putting a focus on what it is that the public needs — journalism more as a service than a product — putting the audience or the citizen at the center of everything we do,” said the program’s director, Dr. Carrie Brown.
Dr. Carrie Brown speaks to the audience at the Class of 2019’s final presentation event.
Brown said that so many alums working in so many different settings speaks to the degree’s versatility, noting: “It’s not the type of degree that prepares you in a narrow sense for one exact job.”
Engagement Journalism is a hybrid. With its emphasis on technology, its approach to reporting is a product of the 21st century. But it also is rooted in the earliest days of muckraking, searching for and exposing corruption and scandal, especially in government. Engagement Journalism draws heavily on social sciences such as anthropology and ethnography. It emphasizes data analysis. It also envelops aspects of what has traditionally been termed service journalism, producing stories that both inform and recommend action. In that way, it shares traits with solutions journalism, another twist in traditional reporting.
But the distinguishing feature is the very word engagement — so much so that the program’s full new name is Engagement Journalism — Community, Conversation, Collaboration. The three C’s more fully describe the program’s focus on interacting with communities. And while social media are important elements, in the past they had often been seen mistakenly as the crux of the degree.
Conventional journalism — as preached, if not always as practiced — advocates a hands-off protocol. Officially, excess chumminess with sources or subjects is verboten. Empathy, in some cases, is viewed as a sign of weakness, of caring so much about a subject that reporters can’t keep their heads straight. As for taking action, well, that’s up to the story subjects after the journalist files or airs the story.
Engagement Journalism is the opposite of the old-fashioned helicopter-in, helicopter-out model, where a reporter gains “expertise” — or in any case, quotes and maybe adds some details for color — from a quick dive into the subject matter. Rather, Engagement Journalism shares qualities with immersion reporting, gathering information that conveys authority based on extended face-to-face contact and ears attuned to a multitude of voices.
Seeing beyond the rats all around
This occurred with Michaela Román, a classmate of Wasserman’s who also graduated in December 2020. She was struck by how the Prospect Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn teemed with rats, and turned the community concerns with its vermin invasion into a first-semester project for her master’s. She did not merely report about residents’ concerns about the rats. She also took the complaints to “the hierarchy” — building owners and city agencies. Román and another classmate also made a short documentary about the infestation.
“My role would be to collect as many concerns as possible and then take them to the (NYC) Department of Sanitation, push those people, ask them questions and then bring the answers back,” Román said. “I don’t think of this as this noble act. I just think it as being responsible.”
Choosing a community in which to embed in the 16 months of the Newmark J-School program is a cornerstone of the Engagement Journalism degree. The word community is defined broadly, extending beyond geography to encompass individuals, groups, social movements, and even organizations. Román first chose advocates who serve as liaisons between governments and residents as her community. She then switched to “neighborhoods organizing around rat infestation.” When the COVID-19 pandemic curbed opportunities for in-person reporting on the rat problem, Román chose a new community among journalists frustrated by the lack of diversity in their newsrooms.
Román’s research included a survey asking Latinx journalists questions such as “What advice would you give yourself if it was your first day in the newsroom all over again?” Or, “Do you have a support team you can count on in your newsroom?” She described her methods and outcomes in an article posted on Medium. Like Wasserman’s final report to his West Virginia colleagues, her article presents a solid case for engagement as a vital tool for 21st century journalists.
Michaela Román, Class of 2020, created “What I Wish I Had Known – By and for Latinx entry-level journalists.”
A conversation, a sketch, and start-up funding
This is probably as good a moment as any to note that Newmark J-School’s Engagement Journalism program was born on the back of a cocktail napkin.
Sarah Bartlett, the school’s dean and a former reporter and editor at the New York Times and Business Week, had recently read the book “Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Strategies for News.”
The author? He was the school’s first faculty member: Jeff Jarvis, who carries the impressive title of director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and Leonard Tow Professor of Entrepreneurial Journalism. In February 2014, Bartlett and Jarvis were headed West to meet with tech executives. Then, as Jarvis tells it, Bartlett wondered aloud if any of the new strategies described in his book were currently being taught in the classroom.
In minutes, Jarvis recalled, he outlined a curriculum on a cocktail napkin and Bartlett envisioned a new degree program focusing on “needs-based, values-based, service-based journalism.”
The dean was not the only one intrigued by the idea. She and Jarvis pitched it to Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. He provided $200,000 in start-up funds. Next, Bartlett and Jarvis headed to Florida, where the Knight Foundation matched that gift with another $200,000.
Things moved fast. From the day that Bartlett green-lighted the program to the day students enrolled in Engagement Journalism classes, just nine months elapsed. As anyone who has spent time in academia can attest, this speedy trajectory ranks right alongside lightning.
A generation at ease with tech, public confession
It is hardly a coincidence that a 21st-century iteration of the ancient craft of journalism arrives just as many students may be more comfortable with technology than even some of their professors.
Wasserman was 12 years old when he first signed on to Facebook. By then, he noted, he was already a veteran of MySpace. The TikTok generation, as he calls his age group, is unfazed by tech’s terms, let alone its applications. A comfort with a spirit of mass public confessionalism makes it easier for young journalists now to delve into their subjects’ lives and souls, another hallmark of Engagement Journalism.
Wasserman, 24, spent all of four days in West Virginia before the double whammy of the pandemic and a shortage of rental housing in Charleston sent him to his parents’ house in New Jersey. His ease with social media and his tech skills meant that distance was no obstacle in establishing himself as part of and covering a community 554 miles away.
He heard over and over that West Virginians lacking internet service were not receiving absentee ballots for the November election. He responded not just with a remote story on a snafu in the election process but by building a chat bot that helped voters get in touch with county clerks, so election officials could track missing absentee ballots. “I was telling people about the problem and then said, ‘Here’s what you can do about it,’” he said.
His audience appreciated his journalism. Betty Rivard, a Mountain State Spotlight reader, expressed surprise in an email to Wasserman that he worked from far away. She and he had been in such frequent contact that she assumed he was on the scene. But what Rivard really wanted him to know was that his reporting had made an impact on the community.
Betty Rivard, a Mountain State Spotlight reader, told Wasserman his work made an impact on her community.
“A small state like ours can be a bit of a fishbowl, where everyone is very tuned in to what everyone else is doing and who’s connected to who, etc.,” Rivard wrote from West Virginia. “So, in this environment, having a reporter interested in an issue or a story can make a difference in and of itself.”
She added: “I think an awareness of your presence and your interest helped in being able to win a couple of impacting local fights as we got closer to the election. There was also a kind of feedback loop where my involvement led to my getting more calls to help where I was able to develop a bit of a track record in getting things done.”
Specifically, Rivard cited her discovery of a wrinkle in her county’s method of counting absentee ballots. “Knowing that I could have gone to the press” — meaning Wasserman — “brought another level of accountability that I’m sure contributed to this getting taken care of,” Rivard said.
As Wasserman observed, “Sometimes things are beyond measure through traditional quantitative metrics. I thought this was a good testimony to the success of Engagement Journalism.”
Wasserman was not thinking about journalism when he finished his bachelor’s in public health at Rutgers University. He was considering a doctorate in anthropology. But through his father, Wasserman met Jarvis. Wasserman told him he didn’t like the way news stories were presented, and the professor told Wasserman about this new thing — Social (now Engagement) Journalism.
“I became fixated on the idea that your journalism can do work, that it can provide information that people need,” Wasserman said.
Reassessing the dynamics of power
He also liked the potential of this new paradigm, shifting the once-distant role of the reporter from observer to participant.
“I believe that Engagement Journalism reassesses the power dynamic between the journalists and the people they are writing about,” Wasserman said.
In what he calls the “before times,” pre-pandemic, “I would have coffee with someone, not write anything down, just listen,” he said. His reasoning was “start with empathy, listening and then reporting is what comes later.”
In one Newmark J-School class, “we actually did ethnographic listening, going into this place, noticing what people are wearing, what they are talking about, what the weather is like, descriptions of everything around.” This training came in handy, Wasserman said, doing work in the South Bronx in his first semester. “Getting to know people by listening” is how he characterizes this strategy.
Another class brought another breakthrough. “I didn’t know how to code before I went to journalism school,” Wasserman said. The Newmark professor who taught him this skill was John Keefe, a graphics and multimedia editor at The New York Times. Wasserman ended up taking three courses involving coding, partly because “I just thought it was really cool,” and also because, in the early days of the pandemic, “it was a distraction from the fact that outside there were freezer trucks full of dead bodies.” Coding, unlike the virus that was coursing through America and the rest of the world, “was rigid. It made sense,” Wasserman said.
Like many others in a field centered so firmly on the use of language, Michaela Román said she was an admitted math-phobe when she started graduate school. She grew up on the Texas-Mexico border. Her multicultural upbringing made her want to document the social discrepancies and contradictions that she witnessed first-hand.
To her surprise, Román said her favorite course at Newmark J-School was Metrics and Outcomes, focusing on “how we measure impact.” Among the questions this class addressed: “What kind of feedback did we get? And what happened after the story?” Román said she learned the value of “going to the community and listening to find out if it actually worked for them. Did the story provide information they were lacking?”
These were concerns Román, 25, had not always considered in her work as a photojournalist after earning a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Texas-El Paso.
Román worked as a photojournalist after graduating from the University of Texas-El Paso.
She, too, was not persuaded she needed a graduate degree in journalism. Then she received a “full ride” scholarship offer from Newmark J-School, followed by a fellowship funded by the Knight Foundation as part of CUNY’s diversity initiative. Though she still was unconvinced she needed a master’s, Román said she changed her mind after talking to Carrie Brown. She was sold by learning about the idea at the core of Engagement Journalism — of “working with people, especially people who are often left out” of traditional news coverage.
Román said she is “so happy” about the program’s name change. “Social Journalism” always required an explanation, she said. “But even the dailies are hiring Engagement reporters.” For Román, the term engagement means “you report solely based off what a community wants you to report on.”
The importance of skepticism and independence
If that tactic means blurring journalism’s traditional lines, so be it, Román said: “Pushing that space, that is what this program really is. We’re kind of breaking down the idea that you can’t work together in a community.”
Brown, the program’s founding director, said students in the program have focused on communities “that have historically been overlooked and people who are oppressed.”
She also agreed that the partnerships between the journalists and their communities “really does push some of those boundaries.” But she said there is still a reliance on “a lot of the fundamentals, like verification of reporting.”
Both Brown and Jarvis said that instilling skepticism in students — young and often inexperienced in the field — is vital to teaching Engagement Journalism.
“It takes a lot of time,” Brown said. “We have so many conversations about the nuances around understanding what kind of narrative we believe, and why.” The program directs students to “interrogate their own assumptions,” and invites discussion about “power and how to look at it,” Brown said. To promote the critical thinking that makes students less likely to swallow information without fully assessing it first, “we do a lot of exercises around examining our own inherent biases.”
Developing the wariness that helps shield journalists from accepting false material at face value comes partly with experience, Jarvis said. The skill is crucial when journalists form close relationships with subjects — the crux of Engagement Journalism.
“The students have to learn first to trust themselves,” Jarvis said. “The way we do it is by presenting ‘uh-oh’ cases, cases where things have gone wrong.”
Another risk in aligning closely with a community is its potential manipulation of journalists. Starting with the notion of objectivity, journalism is rife with implicit challenges. Engagement journalism demands a balance between advocacy and independence.
“Oh yes,” Jarvis agreed. “On the one hand, we tell the students to help the communities tell their stories. But we stress: You are not their mouthpiece … What we emphasize here is independence.”
Learning to recognize one’s own inherent biases is another pillar of the program, even if this may not be the easiest lesson to absorb, Carrie Brown said.
Training students to avoid becoming too close is “obviously not something we can just automatically do, and guarantee, beyond asking them to engage in critical thinking,” she said.
Wasserman said that when he started the Engagement Journalism program, he had challenges with this distinction.
“At first I thought what Social Journalism was about was advocating for my community to do the work for the community,” he said. With time, he grasped that “what it’s really about is recognizing the abuses of power within social communities and describing them. I think it’s important to give people the tools that they can act upon themselves.”
An approach to meet with troubled times
No one who is not living under a large rock could argue that journalism, as a practice and profession, is not in flux — or in real trouble. Local news, in particular, is in jeopardy, numerous studies show. The conventional, advertising-based business model has not adapted well to a news universe driven by technology.
Engagement Journalism may or may not save journalism, but Jarvis predicts its gospel will spread. He recalls trading emails with Stephen B. Shepard, the J-School’s Founding Dean Emeritus, in winter 2005, when the school was in its infancy. Shepard told Jarvis that he envisioned CUNY’s first graduate program in journalism in its 174-year history as “an agent of change” with no less a mission than to “change the field of journalism.”
“So, yes,” Jarvis said, “we hope that by example we inspire other schools to bring in these programs — and they are doing that.”
The University of Oregon’s Agora Journalism Center endorses “relational journalism” and lists “transforming how journalists inform and relate to their local community” as a goal. The Engagement Lab at Emerson College in Boston summons various disciplines to focus on “studying and designing media and technology that is transforming civic life.”
These new, community-based models may be transformational to local reporting — which has its major challenges. A recent report from the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Journalism found that the United States has lost more than 2,100 local print outlets since 2004. Rural counties are among those most impacted, the report added.
Another report, in 2019 from PEN America, addressed the “decimation of local news” by proposing “a major reimagining of local news space, in which local reporting is re-conceptualized as a public good.”
In Massachusetts and Hawaii, commissions have been proposed to study journalism in underserved communities, or to examine the implications for democracy of the disappearance of so many local news outlets.
The editor-in-chief of an Italian media startup called Will Media Italia declared that 2021 should be the year when “we start listening to our audiences’ needs.” Francesco Zaffarno continued: “The best way to meet (this) demand is to ask people what kind of information they need.”
In other words, Engagement Journalism may have emerged just when it is needed most.
Transforming journalism
In the meantime, as curricula expand elsewhere, graduates of Newmark J-School’s Engagement Journalism program are getting jobs. “Engagement” — as in “Engagement Editor” or “Engagement Manager” or “Engagement Reporter” or “Audience Engagement Producer” — crops up as a job title more often now as the school’s graduates enter the workplace.
Allen Arthur, ’16 recalled that when he “walked through the door on 40th Street” as an incoming student, “I’d never really written a story or requested a record.”
The program taught him to branch out and find creative reporting techniques. Arthur chose formerly incarcerated people as his community. As part of his research, he set up a “listening station” at the birthday party of a young woman killed in the crossfire in a shooting in Harlem public housing. Today, Arthur is Online Engagement Manager for the Solutions Journalism Network.
Wasserman said his dream job may not even exist at this time. For now, he said he could imagine working as Engagement Editor at a national or local news outlet. “It might be at ProPublica, it might be at the Charleston Gazette-Mail,” he said.
Before she completed her Engagement Journalism master’s, Román said she assumed she would follow a traditional path, climbing the career ladder until she reached a prime spot like The New York Times.
Now, “I don’t think that’s true at all,” she said. “You can have a lot of impact at smaller places — not even necessarily a legacy daily. Ten years from now, I might be editor at some place that does not exist right now.”
But even as the Engagement Journalism graduates launch careers as what Jarvis calls “apostles” of this discipline, he playfully cautions that they may be journalistic Trojan Horses: “They come in and say, ‘Sure, I can do this,’ and then they start changing attitudes.”
He mentioned an alum who went to work for The Marshall Project and “just wowed them” with her Engagement Journalism strategies. The next year, on her model, The Marshall Project made an Engagement Journalism intern part of its staff. | https://medium.com/social-journalism-socialj/engagement-journalism-ed673760c97d | ['Melissa Dipento'] | 2021-04-02 16:09:07.165000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Engagement', 'Higher Education', 'Journalism', 'News'] |
Odin Worship & Anti-LGBTQ Courts Threaten American Pluralism | The rise of white supremacist religion in the United States
Did you know gangs of racist white men gather in prisons across the country to practice a white supremacist religion? They meet in chapels, celebrate holidays together, and eat special meals — all despite the fact that prison authorities say the gatherings facilitate violence and pose a threat to general populations. Prison staff want to keep the men apart, but they don’t have a choice. Courts have ruled staff must let racist gangs practice their religion.
Did you know that outside prisons, many of the white nationalists, Proud Boys, and neo-fascists who have risen to such prominence in the Trump era say they practice the same Odin-worshipping religion as the men in those racist prison gangs?
It’s called Ásatrú, related to but not affiliated with an organized religion of the same name founded in Iceland in 1972. Racists and white supremacists in the United States have increasingly co-opted Ásatrú, incorporating elements of the 19th-century Völkisch movement that praised white, Aryan supremacy and served as the ideological foundation of the Nazi Party.
White nationalist street violence — so common it’s reported almost daily on national news broadcasts, — often features protestors carrying flags embossed with a black sun, a symbol of Odinism now widely adopted by neo-Nazi and white-supremacist groups.
The rise of religious privilege in the United States
White supremacist religion is on the rise just as the Supreme Court moves to grant religious institutions unprecedented privileges. Conservative Christians appear hell bent on leveraging the judiciary to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and analysts like Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern say the hyper-conservative high court looks ready to hand them almost everything they want.
Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently told Ronald Brownstein of the The Atlantic, “What we are seeing today is this effort to turn religious freedom into religious privilege.” She was commenting on the Supreme Court’s “sustained drive” to grant religious institutions exemptions from neutral civil laws.
She says the Supreme Court is handing conservative Christians “the right to wield religious freedom as a sword to harm others, and frankly to dial back social progress in light of our changing demographics and progress toward greater equality.”
Laser, along with many other analysts, notes the high court seems intent on privileging conservative Christian institutions even as populations of religious-identifying Americans fall — and as white, self-identified Christians find themselves in a minority for the first time.
A brief diversion into paganism and alternative spirituality
Before continuing, I want to make clear that nothing in this article should be taken to imply that Ásatrú or any other neopagan faith system is necessarily toxic or racist.
Icelandic farmer Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson founded the Asatru Fellowship in Iceland in 1972, incorporating worship of old Norse gods with surviving traditions like Moot Horn blasts and Mead Horn gulps. Practices were not based on indigenous or racist claims. Michael Nielsen, a professor of Viking History at Copenhagen University, told Vice Magazine that Ásatrú as practiced in Iceland, “has a holistic, environmental touch — and they feel very closely connected to Mother Earth. All are welcome, no matter your heritage or color.”
Modern depiction of Celtic Earth Mother
Pagan is a word first used by 4th-century Christians of the Roman empire to describe anyone who practiced a polytheistic faith. While they reserved the word primarily for those who worshipped the old Greco-Roman, Zeus-Jupiter pantheon, they did occasionally apply it to Gauls/Celts who practiced a religion that centered around (we think, given the scarcity of written records) a matriarchal Earth deity who was numinous, meaning not conceptualized in human form as Greco-Roman gods were.
Scholars debate the matter but mostly agree that a common Proto-Indo-European mythology gave rise to the Vedic-Hindu, Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons, while the Earth-mother religion of the Celtic world represented a separate, probably older belief tradition.
They will exclude Black and Jewish people exactly the way Christians want to exclude LGBTQ people. We’ll all be saying hello to a new, religious Jim Crow.
Even 1,500 years ago at the height of the Odinist Norse traditions, syncretic processes facilitated the melding of Celtic religious beliefs with Norse ones. Self-identified neopagans today have continued that tradition as they revive older faiths. Some neopagans focus on the sacred feminine to the exclusion of Norse traditions. Others emphasize the Norse pantheon and Odin.
Only a subset of the latter are racist.
As Dr. Nielsen notes, the form of Ásatrú that originated in Iceland in 1972 is highly syncretic and very compatible with forms of paganism that honor the sacred feminine. As practiced in Iceland, Scandinavia and even in the U.S., Icelandic Ásatrú is not racist or ethnically exclusive. It should not be confused with the religion of the same name that is popular among white supremacists.
The racist form of Ásatrú popular in the U.S. was founded in 1976 by American Stephen McNallen who adopted the term “Asatru” independently to replace the moniker of his former “Viking Brotherhood.” His American version adopted the Völkisch style of the 19th-century version of Odinism that gave rise to Aryan purity beliefs.
McNallen’s Ásatrú is the explicitly anti-Semitic, anti-Black, pro-segregation religion popular in U.S. prisons and among white supremacists on the street. It’s important not to conflate that version with neopagans in general.
Why racist versions of Ásatrú pose a threat to American pluralism
White supremacists in prisons organize around Ásatrú because it gains them privileges and helps them game the system. Prison staff would never allow them to hold explicit racist gatherings, but staff are mostly powerless to stop them from meeting to worship Odin.
Prison inmates have learned to leverage religious freedom to gain privileges they would ordinarily be denied. Racists outside of prison are learning valuable lessons from them.
The Minnesota town of Murdock, for example, recently found itself powerless to deny a permit to a white supremacist organization to take over an old church and use it for regular meetings. The mayor and the town council objected to racists setting up shop in town, but religious-freedom legal principles all but mandated they do so.
Religious freedom problems are already difficult
Arguably, putting up with racists in prisons and small towns like Murdoch is an acceptable price for ensuring all Americans have the right to practice religion. No court should be in the business of evaluating theology or judging sincerity. That would be an impossible task.
I’m not arguing religious freedom is not a important American value. All Americans should have the right to practice the religion of their choice, even if that religion is unpopular.
But we are on a collision course.
The religious freedom pendulum has swung too far, and racists aren’t stupid
Ira Lupu, a George Washington University Law School professor, says the Supreme Court is going too far to privilege conservative Christian institutions. He notes the justices have great leeway in choosing which cases to accept — and that the new conservative majority is choosing very specific ones. He told Atlantic Magazine that “I have never seen such a spurt of religious-liberty cases in such a short time, especially where over and over again there is a victory for religious-liberty claims.”
If, as expected, the high court allows Catholic Charities of Philadelphia to exclude LGBTQ people while executing a neutral municipal contract to provide adoption and foster care services, the court will have crossed a liberty Rubicon. They will call into question decades of case law requiring religious people and institutions to follow neutral civil laws.
Conservative Christians are asking the courts to let them exclude LGBTQ people in employment, education, housing, access to medical services, and public accommodation on religious grounds. An increasingly conservative judiciary is increasingly finding in their favor.
If the trend continues, LGBTQ people will be faced with shopping around for equality, seeking services based on who chooses or doesn’t choose to provide them — by religious whim rather than the dictates of neutral civil law.
Racists won’t fail to notice. Legal principles that apply to conservative Christian institutions apply equally to other religions, as racist gangs in prisons have learned so well.
The U.S. stands at a crossroads of equality
The next two or three years of Supreme Court decisions will decide what we become. If the courts exempt powerful conservative Christian institutions from laws that protect gender and sexual minorities, then pluralism and equality will have been sacrificed on a Christian altar.
Racists and white supremacists aren’t stupid. They’ll leverage the same religious privilege the courts grant to Christians. Racist forms of Ásatrú will continue to grow and gain popularity. Other religions may well get in on the act.
They will exclude Black and Jewish people exactly the way Christians want to exclude LGBTQ people. We’ll all be saying hello to a new, religious Jim Crow.
The nine justices of the Supreme Court need to decide who they are and what they stand for. They can’t privilege Christianity without privileging Ásatrú. They can’t exempt one religion from neutral civil laws without exempting all religions from neutral civil laws.
They’re flirting with racist disaster, and they need to take a step back.
All Americans should be free to practice the religion of their choice. No American should be exempt from neutral laws as as result of that freedom. | https://medium.com/james-finn/odin-worship-anti-lgbtq-courts-threaten-american-pluralism-c62bcd6430fc | ['James Finn'] | 2020-12-14 22:39:41.637000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'History', 'Equality', 'Religion', 'Racism'] |
Positionality and Identity | Positionality and Identity
Becoming me!
I aim to reflect and reflexively explore factors within my personal and professional development which have influenced not only who I am, but furthermore my positionality and world view (Takacs, 2003). In doing this, I intend to draw forth suppositions and presumptions influencing my subjectivity and core value.
Photo by Jason Zhao on Unsplash
Having been born in and spending all of my primary school years in newly independent Zimbabwe, I had a middle-class upbringing, even attending private school. Even from a young age, the significant economic divide within the nation was evident; there was a disproportionate number of young people to whom the quality of education I had received was inaccessible (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2018). In a bid to support me in having an appreciation towards the role education could play in further keeping me from becoming a victim of the socio-economic climate, but rather be the one to shape my future. The teaching within my primary school seemed didactic and traditional, contextually speaking. Whilst differing to the traditional approaches to teaching in the UK, it provided a curriculum which drew on the economic, political and cultural needs of the society within which it was set (Higgs, 2012). Although the government had initially made a significant investment towards education during this time from 12 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 1990 to 44 per cent by 1994; low attendance levels of 50 per cent at secondary school nationally fuelled an understanding that education had become a commodity for those who could afford it and it was not a right for all. Academic success within this society which had commodified education was significantly revered. Corporal punishment, as a socially acceptable method of discipline, was utilised within schools to reinforce the importance of educational compliance. There was a bid to instil behaviour, and educational prowess which could be deemed socially acceptable through varying efforts from the regimental approaches used by educators here seemed to significantly align Foucauldian concepts of thought (Foucault, 2012).
Arguably my primary school experience was a crucial factor to actively shape my ontological security whilst seemingly being at odds with the nature of physical security (Mitzen, 2006). Reflecting on the use of negative reinforcement methods for discipline and getting students to learn, factual recall was highly regarded, though seemingly, this was not the case for knowledge understanding and application. This was particularly noticeable when deadlines would come around, as there was an understanding that missing deadlines would mean sanctions. The relationship between students and teachers seemed unilateral, aligning with the banking concept in which Freire (1970) explains professional authority as being mistakenly taken as the authority of knowledge. Retrospectively, the power dynamic above suggested the teacher be an oppressor, who would impose his worldview on the students and further utilising corporate punishment to exert conformity. Whilst the primary schooling and its use of corporal punishment did not initially instil an intrinsic love for learning and education, had they approached the teaching and discipline technique differently, I may have developed a passion for learning much earlier in my life.
When my family relocated to England in 2001, this profoundly affected my epistemology; much in that, it provided a contrasting educational and socio-economic to that which I had experienced to this point. During 2001 a mere 0.8 per cent of the United Kingdom’s (UK) population and further Bhattacharyya, Ison and Blair (2003) outline the poor academic attainment from black African males during these times. My academic achievements, once I had started education in the UK, differed from the findings of their study. While I had barely been above average as a primary school student, I found myself as one of the highest attainers during my first few years, at the West Midlands secondary school I attended. A growing passion for sports overshadowed my academic success; this came particularly as I feel I had never really had the opportunity to pursue sport when I was still back home.
Photo by Alyssa Ledesma on Unsplash
My foci as I developed as a teen started shifting towards sports and my social interactions (social acceptance). These passions had a somewhat detrimental effect on my education. I believed I had been successfully attaining acceptable grades; this came in spite of neglecting studies to focus on other priorities. I feel that individuals such as Osbourne (2002) had articulated quite well the identity struggles young black males had been facing within the educational system. Osbourne (2002) had shown, how like me, a lot of other things young black males had become disidentified with the educational system though they identified well with sport. My perceptions at the time, viewed the society within which I was living held a differing socio-economic divide to that of my preteens; political instability had been replaced by an ethnocultural divide.
Tensions within my life at these times had been shifting away from education towards sports. It took the completion of my GCSEs to realise that whilst the grades I had attained were significantly above the national average; I had not performed to my full potential. This resulted in the epiphany prompting me to focus more on my education. The attainment of good grades had stopped being the main aim of my studies but rather the development of myself as an individual. This aligned with the notion portrayed by Maslow (1954) regarding the importance of basic gratification in self-actualisation.
Social research, in this case, educational research utilises reflective practice as an essential facet. Inquirers such as Dewey, Schön, Brookfield and Freire have spent some time exploring these notions. Reflective practice provides the possibility not only to learn how roles or a task could be done better based on past and present events. It further provides a means by which to explore where I may position myself reflexively. Further to his discussions regarding the contrast between purposeful reflection and causal thought, Dewey (1938) explains the role experience plays in shaping my understanding of the world. The suggestion from Dewey is that while I must take time to reflect in and on action actively; I can never know truth instead only interpretations of my experiences. In alignment with this, Lynch (2017, quoted in Shieber, J. H., 2019) expresses,
‘There just is no way of escaping your perspective or biases. Every time you try to get outside of your own perspective, you just get more information filtered through your own perspective.’ (Pg. 14).
Understanding that it would be particularly challenging to unburden myself of biases which I hold. An essential factor in embarking on any research effort is a greater understanding of what these biases might be. The purpose, as mentioned above, is not only for myself; but also, for those who would explore research which I may produce, to have a clear understanding of influences underpinning my thoughts during the research. The development of my ontological and epistemological position hinged initially on my interpretation of experiences which had transpired during my early childhood, especially those pertaining to my social and educational upbringing.
Conclusion
Photo by Victor Garcia on Unsplash
The path into teaching was not a straight forward one for me; however, it was one which depicted a development in my positioning and the values I regarded highly. Though having studied a degree in architectural visualisation, sport had drawn me in as a socio-economic bridge. I initially embarked on working in varying social and economic settings. I worked as a; sports coach in local schools; project worker in a gang deterrent unit; safeguarding ambassador, with a particular focus on gangs; and youth violence before finally becoming a teacher. This decision had been inspired by my own experiences within the educational system, and I have a great deal of appreciation for the incalculable influence that my educational experience played on my lives. There were vast amounts of skills and a great depth of understanding which I gained while at school and go on to use throughout life. In a similar fashion to that expressed by Osterman and Kottkamp (1993), in order to develop a higher level of self-awareness within my teaching capacity, I have had to engage in reflective practice. In a bid to aid young people to understand better, as well as overcome social and cultural barriers, I have strived to be a mentor to the young people. Having risen through some adversity, I believe I my for some students, provide a source of inspiration. I work towards supporting students in unlocking the potential within their young minds to have a love for learning through having a creative and understanding outlook of the world.
My experiences and the exploration of literature have consolidated my belief that the works of some theories better resonates with me than others. Particularly Foucault (2012) who challenges us to consider how power operates through dominant ideologies and how truth is often significantly influenced by this. Regimes of truth, expressed in Foucauldian philosophy, discusses implications of authority in determining what is deemed to be ‘truth’. There are several dominant ideologies in education. These belief systems influence a range of practices including policymakers, governing bodies, institutional leadership and educators. The dominant ideologies influence an assortment of elements within education including, policy, pedagogical approach and practical approaches. I believe as, with other industries, education is not immune to ideologies and policymakers. In my own settings, I have observed pedagogical approaches and ‘best practice’ being blindly implemented without any exploration into how it fits our unique sector. I would, therefore, like to conduct an investigation into how technologies available within my setting might be utilised to mitigate barriers to learning.
As part of my proposed study, I intend on employing a range of methodological viewpoints. This will be done in order to explore complexities found in schools, along with those surrounding technology use. The study will find its grounding on notions surrounding digital sociology as it approaches technologies as being problematic, especially; the potential imbalances which may be influenced by power differentials, Ideologies advocating use of digital technologies in education as a precursor future societal, technological developments; the role the ‘human experience’ plays in shaping schools and digital technologies (Selwyn, Nemorin, Bulfin and Johnson, 2016). The study will seek out to draw meaning from the experience of the participant, thereby, utilising socio-cultural tenets (Asch, 1952; Vygotsky, 1978). Methodological approaches that may be used within this research will be those best cohering with connectivism, along with, interpretivisim or transformative theories (Siemens, 2004). The study may utilise the transformative worldview principles in order to draw on the thread of political entanglement through which the research may be influenced (Creswell, 2014).
I have through this paper, attempted to express the notion that all knowledge is underpinned by a set of beliefs through which it may be demonstrated during the enquiry. Interestingly as with other social research, we are all influenced by experiences which shape our values and beliefs. Therefore, articulating your positioning prior to, inferring, the influence your viewpoint will have on the beliefs. Sheiber posits the notion that | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/positionality-and-identity-c020b73ec352 | ['T W Chirara', 'Bsc Hons', 'Pgce Ma'] | 2020-08-06 19:08:52.677000+00:00 | ['Teachers', 'Growth', 'Development', 'Identity', 'Education'] |
Are you creating usability reports no one’s reading? Consider rainbow spreadsheets instead | Are you creating usability reports no one’s reading? Consider rainbow spreadsheets instead
Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash
Few things are more depressing as a designer than creating something that people will not read or use. This is why, after a long day of user testing and debriefing, it can be a little disheartening to jump into compiling your usability findings.
Part of the reason for this is that you’re often asked to create a formal usability report. The formal report compiles all your usability findings in a document or presentation, and it often becomes a doorstop. Nobody wants to read it, but they want to have it evidence user testing with a project.
But what if I told you there was a better way to compile your user research findings to your stakeholders a high-level overview of your findings?
That’s where the rainbow spreadsheet, developed by Google UX Researcher Tomer Sharon, can come into play. This tool outputs your user findings in an easier to read format. Also, it can address many issues around notetaking and debriefing that might occur during user research. And it does this by standardizing responses with colors.
How the rainbow spreadsheet works
A rainbow spreadsheet is a tool for user testing that makes collaboration easier through shared notetaking. It does this by planning and standardizing many observations ahead of time. Doing this can address many common issues that slow down research, including:
Inconsistent quality of notes from different notetakers
Debriefs that don’t seem to reach the key findings
Keeping track of a high-level overview across all participants
Understanding how many participants had similar issues
Here’s how it works.
The Rainbow spreadsheet starts by assigning colors to individual participants. For example, P1 might be Red, P2, Yellow, etc. These not only help things organized, but they also help in the final view.
Demographic information for participants, categorized by color
We can also define some UX metrics to pay attention to, such as Satisfaction or Time on Task. That way, if we care about a specific UX metric, we can assign a particular notetaker to pay attention to that.
A page of metrics broken down by task and participant
Then, the last step before conducting the study is to write a list of predetermined observations.
The observations list where notetakers will record
Creating observations when you haven’t user-tested may seem strange, but it should be easy to develop general observations for your tasks.
For example, if your research plan goals are to examine how users checkout, some example observations may include:
Users clicking the add to cart button
A user clicking on an image instead of text to access the product page
User clicks the shopping cart icon
Don’t worry if you don’t catch all the observations before the study. The purpose is to give a basic template and framework for the notetakers during the user interview session.
How the notes might look after recording a single participant
During the user interview, notetakers then mark down if a particular observation occurred. If a particular observation happens many times, you can mark down the frequency in the notes section. If the notetakers observe something that doesn’t fit within the list, they can add the observation.
This approach can work especially well with many notetakers. Maintaining a single notes sheet across many notetakers can result in them reaching a consensus. Doing this also shifts the purpose of the debrief. Instead of spending time leafing through notes, we can instead look at this list of observations and refine it.
Perhaps a new observation fits better with an existing one, or maybe you need to change the wording of observations. In either case, having a preset list of observations provides an agenda for debriefs. It also helps guide notetakers who may not be too familiar with notetaking. As a result, by the time you’ve done your last user interview, you have more than a gut feeling on the most important user findings.
You have a visualization that can quickly make sense of the data and show which observations apply to participants. This allows you to have a summary meeting where you can talk about several key things:
The most common observations across your participants
Suggested answers or action items to your research questions
Key findings backed up by a visualization of users affected
The summary page for hte spreadsheet
Doing things instead of a long-form summary document can be more beneficial for your team and reduce unnecessary reports.
An alternative to reports
To tell the truth, I didn’t stumble upon this framework accidentally: I found it when I was searching for a way to avoid creating reports. Formal reports are often overused, and it’s not always to the team's benefit to create them. But breaking those habits requires replacing them with something better. Reports are a useful piece of evidence to show that UX was part of the process.
If you want to make sure that your team understands your findings, though, you have to take an extra step in making them accessible. The rainbow spreadsheet won’t work for every team, but it’s one of the ways of planning your user research to make your findings easier to digest.
So if you’ve ever dreaded creating a usability findings report, consider using a rainbow spreadsheet to make it easier to digest.
Kai Wong is a UX Specialist, Author, and Data Visualization advocate. His latest book, Data Persuasion, talks about learning Data Visualization from a Designer’s perspective and how UX can benefit Data Visualization. | https://uxdesign.cc/are-you-creating-usability-reports-no-ones-reading-consider-rainbow-spreadsheets-instead-bf26425db02e | ['Kai Wong'] | 2021-08-27 10:53:04.969000+00:00 | ['UX Research', 'Usability', 'Design', 'UX', 'User Research'] |
Record Hauls of Illegal Shark Fins — But Can They Help Save Species on the Brink? | Last World Oceans Day, WCS focused on the global crisis sharks face, and the urgency of action to save them. Some of the issues are longstanding problems, with sharks still widely either unmanaged or poorly managed, and declining. However, in a positive step over the last year, the listings via the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that we supported were adopted.
Today, fully one quarter of the shark fin trade is now regulated under the world’s premier wildlife conservation convention, though much of the shark fin trade is unsustainable and often illegal. Nevertheless, the importance of maintaining enforcement pressure for shark conservation remains high.
Shark fins and meat dry before export in Bangladesh. Credit: Luke Warwick/WCS.
To take just one example, in Hong Kong this March, Customs officials confiscated a record-smashing 26 tonnes of illegally traded shark fins, estimated to have come from about 38,500 sharks.
This news reminded us that many illegally traded sharks continue to be removed from the world’s oceans, as their remaining populations dwindle.
Yet in the midst of the escalating crises that make us question our approaches to all aspects of our lives, what at first might seem to be a negative story on wide-scale illegal shark and ray exploitation and trade upon closer scrutiny also contains a positive message of hope for the future.
It’s worth thinking about where shark conservation has come from in its fairly young history.
Until 2013, the global trade in shark fins was almost completely unregulated and busts like the one in Hong Kong were impossible, because the trade was almost always legal. Shark conservation was low on almost every Government’s radar.
“Though fully one quarter of the shark fin trade is now regulated under the world’s premier wildlife conservation convention, the importance of maintaining enforcement pressure remains high.”
Now however, momentum is building in trade hubs such as Hong Kong to enforce the CITES listings of over 35 species that have been adopted over the past seven years, and enhanced enforcement by many countries and territories. The result: record-breaking fin confiscations.
Inspecting landings in Indonesia of Critically Endangered wedgefish, species that were CITES listed in late 2019. Credit: Luke Warwick/WCS.
This alone would still be sad news, but the impact of enforcement actions in these trade hubs also has a ripple effect in the countries where sharks and rays are still often unmanaged and caught in unsustainable or illegal fisheries.
Countries where WCS works, and governments are working to implement and enforce it, include Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, which catch and trade large quantities of sharks and rays.
WCS staff help train customs officials at identification workshops in Hong Kong in January 2020. Credit: Luke Warwick/WCS.
They urgently need technical and scientific assistance in understanding and managing their fisheries, ways to protect and avoid catching the most threatened species, all in a manner that doesn’t adversely impact isolated and vulnerable local communities who rely on the ocean for food.
This is where WCS is focusing — ensuring that these high- level policy measures, and the impact they have in trade hubs and markets, lead to the right action where sharks are being most heavily impacted, in a way that is equitable but also generates critical conservation action in a timely manner.
“Sharks and rays are still species on the brink, but increasingly we have the tools and the momentum to prevent the extinction of threatened and endangered species.”
We have been joined by a range of funding partners, and are rapidly growing the scope and scale of our shark conservation work around the world. This is what it looks like in reality, via a video produced by WCS Bangladesh, showing the challenges and opportunities for progress on shark conservation in locations where it matters most:
Sharks and rays are still species on the brink, but increasingly we have the tools and the momentum to prevent the extinction of threatened and endangered species, and to ensure that more common species do not become endangered. While the world continues to slowly emerge from the shutdown that has slowed both conservation action and shark fisheries, there is hope.
Luke Warwick is Associate Director for Sharks and Rays at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). | https://medium.com/wcs-marine-conservation-program/record-hauls-of-illegal-shark-fins-but-can-they-help-save-species-on-the-brink-95e47585e76c | ['Wildlife Conservation Society'] | 2020-06-08 20:20:58.823000+00:00 | ['Oceans', 'Environment', 'Sharks', 'World Oceans Day', 'Conservation'] |
IBTimes Interview with Victor Zhang | 1. Please give a brief introduction to your company
The Web that we have lived with for the last 30years brings information to everyone. Web 2.0 has overlaid it with web-applications, but the model is entirely based on the original Web, which is a one-on-one conversation between the user and a website. The users’ needs are complex, but the user can interact with only one site a time. This dilemma creates centralisation and monopoly.
The Web was the antithesis of ‘information aristocracy’, but with Web 2.0, it has grown into its own aristocracy. However, the new Web 2.0 also makes a “Tokenised Web” conceivable, where a SmartToken layer serves as the integration point that allows web users to use services provided in an unrestricted manner, one that is fully integrated across multiple entities. Blockchain serves as the backbone of this new Web 2.0. We at AlphaWallet have invented TokenScript, which was designed to realise SmartToken use on top of Blockchain technology, similar to how TCP/IP was the Internet’s backbone while HTML enabled the web. AlphaWallet is the carrier of the new technology and the first apps platform to allow for a fully functional tokenised internet.
For the past 2.5 years, We have been building the programmable blockchain apps platform, AlphaWallet and the technology framework, TokenScript. They have already been used by tokenisation projects like FIFA’s blockchain tickets, Bartercard’s Qoin E-commerce ecosystem, Automobile’s car ownership portal, and others use cases.
2. Explain which industries you consider best for tokenization and (if applicable) how your company has built or is building something in these areas
All tradeable rights can benefit from tokenization. Tokenized rights can be integrated across systems and traded on the market, allowing limitless integration (Integrating the Web) and forming a Frictionless Market.
For token issuers:
Tokenised rights integrated across systems, allowing limitless integration, increasing the utility of the rights.
Tokenised rights can be traded on the market with less friction, increasing the liquidity of the rights.
Increase the core value of rights through increased utility and liquidity
For service providers:
Each token is an open API for any system to use.
Services/Products connect directly with users instead of going through any platforms.
Open and fair market, Free integration, Efficient, Cost saving
For users:
It allows unlimited integration of services through tokens which are controlled by users.
It provides the best services at the best price in a frictionless market.
Convenient, Efficient, Lower cost, Privacy-preserving
The first tokenization project we did in early 2018 was tokenizing the VIP Tickets for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Tickets and vouchers are really good candidates for tokenization, as they are already tokens, just not in blockchain format. To learn more about how tokenization can help these industries, you can check out this report. After that, we did many other tokenization projects with different business partners from different industries like Currency tokens, DeFi token, Book token, Car Ownership token, Collectables/Digital Merchandise token, Property Token, Music Rights token, Physical Merchandise token and others.
3. What are your plans for the next 12 months? What are you working on at the moment? Any big things coming up?
Recently we have been working with our partner Bartercard to launch their Qoin E-commerce ecosystem, which is the world’s largest cashless trade exchange. Wielding TokenScript and white label AlphaWallet, the partnership between AlphaWallet and Bartercard is designed to bolster the global SME community’s access to a wide range of services from tokenizing dollars, invoices to services and products — effectively creating an open market of exchange for businesses and consumers.
We are currently still in the first stage of our growth Trilogy, B2B2C stage. The main goal is to deliver several large scale consumer-facing blockchain applications with top brands in different industries. These applications will be used as showcases for encouraging other businesses and developers to use our technologies: TokenScript and AlphaWallet. We are growing fast in this B2B2C stage with around 1 mil USD ARR now, and we will move to the next stage (B2D2C) within 12 months.
We are also working on the launch a PoC Blockchain Grants Program soon, which will give away over $100,000 worth of grants to companies that are accepted into our Proof-of-Concept Building Program.
Learn More about AlphaWallet | https://medium.com/alphawallet/ibtimes-interview-with-victor-zhang-8f3183e358fc | ['Victor Zhang'] | 2020-06-04 09:04:21.386000+00:00 | ['Tokenisation', 'Tokenization', 'Blockchain', 'Tokenscript', 'Ethereum'] |
Help lower cholesterol with this nut | Help lower cholesterol with this nut
High cholesterol levels within individuals are unfortunately very common in the western diet today. It leads to plaque buildup within the inner lining of the blood vessels that over time can lead to an increase of buildup inside the arteries, narrowing the path for blood flow which restricts blood circulation to the heart.
Maybe your cholesterol is okay right now, but perhaps you have found yourself eating out a few too many times this month.. which we can all be a culprit of, especially right now as we are trying to support local business’s out there! I know I cant resist some good sweet potato fries and vegan cheese cake when I see one!
But sometimes the worst can happen, and the accumulation of blocked arteries and insufficient blood flow can result in a heart attack that ends up damaging or killing part of the heart. i.e. coronary heart disease.
High cholesterol levels stem from a diet high in trans fats. Saturated fats; found in animal and junk food products, and dietary cholesterol; found exclusively in animals, especially in eggs. All this sounds frightening but…
the silver lining is that it CAN be reversed
Start including BRAZIL NUTS into your diet!
Yes, its true that a whole food plant-based diet is optimal in reversing high cholesterol, but just one serving of Brazil Nuts has shown almost immediate improvements in cholesterol levels.
A study out of Brazil, gave 10 men and women a single meal that had between one and ten brazil nuts in it, the results;
These individuals who ate one serving of four brazil nuts almost immediately improved their cholesterol levels
After 9 hours of eating the nuts, their LDL levels (bad cholesterol) were 20 points lower
Even thirty days after the study was completed, from consuming that one serving of 4 Brazil nuts, their cholesterol levels continued to stay down
Include one Brazil Nut to your day and your body will love you for it!
Of course when choosing nuts, always try to go for the unsalted. Whole or chopped Brazil nuts are both great and can be a perfect addition to your breakfast bowl. | https://medium.com/@chelsea-robidoux/help-lower-cholesterol-with-this-nut-4b0856ea4936 | ['Chelsea Robidoux'] | 2020-12-20 19:29:00.861000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Vegan', 'Food', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Nutrition'] |
Are transparent solar panels the future. | Are transparent solar panels the future.
This new technology wants to upend the way we power the society by harvesting solar energy from the windows on your home, the windscreen of your car and even from the screen of your smartphone. Transparent solar panels offer a clear solution to the problem problem of where to put new photovoltaic cells.
The plan is architects going forward can simply coat the next generation of skyscrapers with high-tech panes of the groovy generative glass.
Can it really be that simple?
Hang on a second, you’re probably thinking. A window’s job is to let light pass through it, right? But how can it do that and simultaneously harvest our sun’s bountiful energy?
Well, there’s a lot more to sunlight than the parts you and I can see. Indeed, the so-called visible spectrum of light is a comparatively small subset of all electromagnetic frequencies. Transparent solar cells typically rely on devices known as transparent luminescent solar concentrators or TLSC.
Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash
TLSCs are composed of clever organic salts which absorb invisible portions of natural light — infra-red and ultraviolet, basically. These salts proceed to ‘glow’, in a manner of speaking, and this glow powers narrow photovoltaic strips which are discreetly situated at the very edge of the windowpane. The resulting power is then converted into electricity and fed into the local building or grid.
These nifty see-through cells are capable of operating at an efficiency of around 10%, which is roughly half that of a regular opaque solar cell. And even though that might sound, a bit rubbish, researches are at pains to point out what matters with transparent solar isn’t the efficiency but instead the potential scale for deployment.
Right now, experts reckon, the USA alone has between five and seven billion square meters of glass. One-tenth of that is still a pretty big deal- capable according to some estimates, of meeting 40% of the nation’s annual energy requirements.
And okay, fair enough, its not as if every single existing window is about to get retrofitted to work with see-through solar. But when you remember some two-and-a-half billion square meters of new architectural glasses is installed on office blocks and shopfronts around the world each and every year, the potential for growth in this sector is crystal clear.
Several startups across the globe are vying for a slice of this new-minded industry. Ubiquitous energy, which began life as an academic project at MIT, has received millions of dollars in grants from the California Energy Commission for its patented UE power technology. By scooping up power in the infra-red spectrum, Ubiquitous’s solar coating can not only generate electricity but can help block solar heat and save air-conditioning costs, paving the way for the dream of net-zero buildings.
The firm has already partnered with leading glass manufacturer NSG Group, who were so impresses with the technology on display, they installed it in the lobby of their own headquarters in Northwood, Ohio.
Photo by Freddie Martyn on Unsplash
ClearVue, a soar company based in western Australia, uses a slightly different technique. Its transparent luminescent solar concentrator takes the the form of a spectrally selective polyvinyl butyral interlayer sandwiched between two panes of glass.
Infra-red light is still transmitted to photovoltaic cells in the frame, the only difference is it isn’t a coating on the exterior. So far ClearVue’s tech has been successfully installed in the glass atrium of a suburban Perth shopping mall.
Solar Gaps, a European team, take a slightly different track too, installing solar blinds inside or just outside of the office windows. The great advantage of blinds is they can be mechanically oriented to make the most of whatever sunlight is around. And for every square meter installed they claimed they can give 100 watts of power or roughly enough power to power three laptops.
Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis on Unsplash
The most innovative use of clear solar is on, of all places, a Swiss strawberry farm. A new four-year pilot project has replaced plastic poly tunnels commonly used in agriculture with a bank of THEIA’s, or Translucency and High Efficiency in Agrivoltaics. These panels not only hoover up vital photons for power generation but can alter the extent of their tint to optimise the level of light getting through the precious plants inside. This should, if it works at least, help those delicious crops photosynthesise and produce better yields, crucially using the same land footprint.
One particularly intriguing potential day-to-day application of this technology is in smartphone screens. A team led by Professor Joondong Kim at South Korea’s Incheon National University has demonstrated that their tech, harnessing a clever blend of titanium dioxide and nickel oxide, could create power at phone-sized scales. Maybe not enough for a full charge for a full charge, for now at least, but sufficient for a helpful battery boost in the middle of a busy working day.
Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash
Transparent solar is not without its critics, many of whom claim the technology has been supposedly forthcoming for the better part of two decades now with precious little commercial success. Such skepticism is healthy, so as long as regulators and investors are well-informed enough to spot doggy transparent solar projects and see right through them if you will.
It’s pretty unlikely to be a panacea for the energy crisis, let’s say. But working alongside other clean energy sources, transparent solar could help drive out towns and cities towards carbon neutrality without sacrificing the all-important aesthetics of 21st-century architecture. | https://medium.com/new-era/are-transparent-solar-panels-the-future-5b15f0ab7e28 | ['Randomly Useful'] | 2021-09-10 01:11:22.696000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Sustainable Development', 'Solar Energy', 'Solar Power', 'Green Energy'] |
How “prezzo sito web” can help you scale your business online! (Medium) | If you are relying on free website builders, you may save costs for now, but end up jeopardizing your business’s growth in the long-run.
Only a professional web design agency with the relevant experience can build an efficient website capable of turning visitors into customers. Such a website should be SEO optimized, rank on Google’s SERP, and provide ease of use to the visitor.
Prezzo sito web isn’t just a web design agency — it offers more than that. Its experts carry a multi-faceted experience in the areas of SEO, graphics, UI/UX, and offer combined expertise of essential components of any digital marketing strategy. Its designers don’t just design websites; they go a step ahead.
Prezzo’s team holds a thorough understanding of what makes the user “click,” and utilizes data and proven techniques to trigger conversions instead of adopting the cliched “if it looks nice, they will convert” approach.
Prezzo sito web focuses on creating websites that enable customers to find you and your services 24/7 resulting in sales that never stop. A professionally designed website by Prezzo sito web could easily mean the difference between a conversion and a lost sale. | https://medium.com/@ahsanzafeerkhan/how-prezzo-sito-web-can-help-you-scale-your-business-online-medium-3197854724e6 | ['Ahsan Zafeer'] | 2020-09-02 08:19:50.661000+00:00 | ['Web Design Services', 'Web Design Agency', 'Web Design', 'Web Design Company', 'Website Development'] |
This Will Make You Airbnb in Boston Efficiently. | Which neighbourhood to pick while in Boston?
Mission Hill is the most popular neighbourhood in Boston among Airbnb rentees, while the least popular area is Leather District, which has only 50 reviews against 400 of Mission Hill, having an average price of $250 per night versus $120 at Mission Hill.
There are three features we will use to examine whether the given area in Boston is popular among the visitors or not: average price, number of reviews left, and the annual availability of properties in each neighbourhood.
Figure 4. Number of reviews by neighbourhood
According to the fig. 4, the Mission Hill area has the maximum numbers of reviews, over 400. Following by East Boston and Back Bay areas with 350 and 310 reviews, respectively.
It is important to note that the number of reviews was not split for negative and positive, according to Trustpilot research (2018) the top three reasons customers write reviews are:
· to help others make a better buying decision
· to share an experience, or
· to reward a company for good performance.
Given the research outcome above, it was decided that both negative and positive reviews would be beneficial for our analysis.
Figure 5. Annual availability by neighbourhood
The fig.5 gives us more evidence to support our initial findings of Mission Hill, as the properties in that particular area available on average 50 days a year, which is the lowest availability ratio among other areas in Boston.
While the Leather District neighbourhood is the least popular according to the number of reviews and the availability ratio, with 50 reviews and is available 365 days a year.
The price wise: the Leather District (over $250) is one of the highest charging neighbourhood among the South Boston Waterfront (over $300) and Bay Village($270). The high price can evidence the lack of demand in these areas among rentees and this is also evidenced by the small number of reviews.
While Mission Hill has an average price of $120, which is more than twice less than the areas mentioned above, making the area attractive among visitors. | https://medium.com/swlh/this-will-make-you-airbnb-in-boston-efficiently-d9ec76e6dfb0 | ['Gyuzala Muzafarova'] | 2020-12-24 22:34:53.306000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Airbnb Data', 'Programming'] |
Perfectly Imperfect: The Reckoning of 2020 | Photo by iMattSmart on Unsplash
My offering to you today is to give yourself permission to be perfectly imperfect.
This post was going to be about practical support with bullet points and suggestions. But as I pondered last night, I felt a pull to send out a different message today.
This post is directly from my heart.
For so many of us this year, perfection and predictability and pursuing goals have radically changed, if not been thrown out of the window altogether. We’ve pivoted, juggled, re-prioritized, and adjusted a thousand times, and we’re having to do it again this week (another lock-down here in England).
It’s okay to be doing it all imperfectly, making the best of bad situations.
In fact, I believe that getting more comfortable with imperfection and trusting ourselves mid-juggle might be a gift of 2020.
We can’t pretend perfection exists anymore. We can’t pretend to have it all figured out because none of us have it all figured out.
Instead, we can be in the process, an active, ongoing process of understanding ourselves and trusting ourselves, no matter what’s going on around us.
You cannot run the perfect business. You cannot expect yourself to anticipate everything or be prepared for every outcome.
Instead, you can believe in your own abilities. You can discover what works for you and build on it. You can practice kindness and determination. Yes, both when things don’t go as planned.
My creative dreams are evolving.
Perhaps it’s going through the current 2 year-round of cancer maintenance treatment. Perhaps it’s living through a pandemic. Perhaps it’s something about the way the stars are aligning. But this year I’ve been thinking a lot about the dream I had for my creative practice back in 2017 and 2018, when I completely changed creative direction started this journey I’m on right now as an artist and writer.
And what I’m seeing is that my creative dreams and goals are evolving. It’s hard to look back at that time when nothing really felt possible when I wasn't sure if I could make things work. For context, I’d closed a bigger business down that I founded, loved, and had run for 10 years, received a blood cancer diagnosis, and at the same time had a nervous breakdown. My confidence in my creative capabilities was shot to bits and I was very very sad.
I love my deeper wisdom now: that I know what really matters, like integrity is more important than turnover to me, and how I spend my time directly relates to my happiness.
I also love my understanding of how I want to support not only my buyers and readers but also a wider community and society. I’m called to act against racial injustice, for protecting and healing the environment, for human rights. I want to build a creative practice that does all those things.
And I want to build it in a way that allows me to love my family, care for our children* and care for myself & the love of my life Jason.
The great reckoning
I think 2020 (and perhaps 2021) is a big reckoning for all of us. And as we come into this busy time of year, perhaps you’re reflecting on it too. (And if you’re not, that’s okay.)
My offering to you today is to give yourself permission to be perfectly imperfect. To let go of the expectation that you should be smashing it. To decide instead to learn to trust yourself, to ask for help, to discover what works for you.
Your job right now is to build strong foundations through the busy Christmas period.
And if you need support with the great reckoning, or even with your to-do list for today, just ask for it.
*Blended family here of 7 kids, a dog, 3 cats & 4 chickens. Very happy, never boring! | https://medium.com/illumination/perfectly-imperfect-the-reckoning-of-2020-cb23135e6195 | ['Joanna Myles'] | 2020-11-10 17:21:32.810000+00:00 | ['Change', 'Wisdom', 'Imperfection', '2020', 'Pandemic'] |
Overflowing with Gratitude | I am grateful for a never-ending list of people in my life, who fully support me, and want to see me be who I truly am. All the close friends who are basically family, my actual family, all the friends who’ve reached out to me even though I was terrible at keeping in touch with them over the years, and even the people I’ve basically never meet that messaged me with affirmations. I am immersed in love. Life hasn’t been easy of late, but I am aware of how privileged I am to be on this life journey with so much love. I am thankful to all the people who never gave up on me, and picked me up when I wanted to give up on myself. A few of you have been there at my worst. I’m especially grateful for you.
What I’m most grateful for is myself. That probably sounds selfish, but I think it’s true. I’m grateful for this moment, and this day, where I don’t understand why, but I just feel full of gratitude. I survived. I’m still surviving, and dare I say it, I think I seek a future where I could be thriving. Maybe I already am. Maybe it’s all perspective. All I know is that today, I feel grateful to be here. I have no regrets, nor sadness about the moments I didn’t get to live. I’m just happy for this opportunity. I’m grateful for the choice I have given myself, the opportunity to move forward. Through gratitude I feel forgiveness, acceptance, and more at peace. I’m still afraid, but I’m grateful to be on the journey, knowing that the fear is what tells me I’m heading the right direction.
This morning, I ventured into the mountains with some friends. It was hard. It was tiring. And, I would have been fine with giving up and going home. We basically walked our bikes through an uphill slog in fluffy unpacked snow. I wanted to stop, but at the same time, I didn’t. I needed to literally push through the morning. I needed a reset. I needed time to check-in with myself. By the end of the trip, in addition to feeling thankful for all the loving people in my life, I felt grateful for what I now realize was self-love creeping back into heart. | https://medium.com/@lifesahighheeledadventure/overflowing-with-gratitude-ded2319d5a59 | ['Justin Dickens'] | 2020-11-27 00:30:06.005000+00:00 | ['Thanksgiving', 'Self Love', 'Nonbinary', 'Divorce', 'Gratitude'] |
5 basic coding concepts 5-year-old can understand | So what does programming language for a five-year-old kid resemble? We use coding in day-to-day activities unknowingly. You would be shocked how nearly anything you do in your day to day schedule can be utilized as an example while clarifying computer programming ideas to kids. Brushing your teeth, getting dressed, and making breakfast are all these algorithms we use in our daily routines. However, if you hope to present the fundamental ideas of coding language to a kindergarten kid, here are some simple approaches to do it.
What is Loop? How does the Loop help us?
The word loop to kids or students may have imaginary ideas about it. Loop is something that goes round and round again. It forms a repeated circle. A basic kid or students will have such simple knowledge to understand this concept. Every kid needs to be given an example before explaining a complex formula. Because it’s valuable for kids to know the deep root behind every formula, they learn about programming language. The computer programming language is easy if you know the basics of languages. We use loops in every minute like enjoy only on weekends, not on weekdays, and this is the way of programming a computer. When kids learn loops, they additionally become quicker and intelligent.
What is Branching in Programming Language?
Branching fundamentally implies checking conditions that decide the decision being made. However, settling the choices relies upon what’s going on or what has occurred. We can explain kids by taking easy examples of their day to day activities. An ordinary school day: wake up early, get dressed, have breakfast, brush your teeth, go to class, return home from school, play, eat, read a book, go to sleep. Sometimes during Wednesdays, the kids will have some training after school, or on Thursday, the kid is going out for a football match with their team members to return home late, and there is no time to read the book. Explaining such examples and comparing variations in normal routine makes them understand the “Branching concept” and simultaneously teaches them the basics of programming language.
Algorithm coding concept
Algorithm coding concepts to a five-year-old kid will be more complicated, and it doesn’t mean anything to them. However, we all use algorithms daily, but we are unaware of it. An algorithm is a guidance or a series of guidelines to finish a specific task and get the desired outcome. Thus, a computer programmer will program an algorithm to instruct the computer to perform the tasks to get the ideal results. We should explain programming languages to kids in simple language that they do every day regularly. Algorithms are all about deciding what to do next and periodically completing the task effectively.
What is Debugging in Programming Language?
Debugging is one of the concepts in a programming language used to fix the problem occurring in between to get the desired result. To explain to the kids about debugging in the programming language, they need to understand that debug is basically fixing the potential problems to get effective results. Debugging is an important concept in a programming language to teach kids to make them understand it clearly inside the classroom; these skills will make you more creative and intelligent and use them in other sources. There are many benefits in teaching debugging for kids or students, and due to these skills, kids learn problem-solving skills, and facing challenges frequently is essential to their future growth. It is an important programming language to learn in light of problem-solving skills and has a huge impact on computer programming.
What is Sequence? How does it work?
Sequencing is the easiest concept in the programming language for kids. Teaching kids is easy, and they can easily understand the concept. It is all about the idea of an arrangement in a genuinely simple way. Introduction to Coding for kids is to learn about sequencing first. This is the core concept in programming languages for kids to know to code. You can easily say the story by breaking it into smaller parts and clearing all the concepts in the book’s sequencing order.
Conclusion
These programming languages for kids are significant to learn when figuring out how to code. However, they can use it as an everyday skill for their shelter. We must start them to teach at an early stage so that they can update more skills simultaneously. This is the reason we should begin with kids. Coding isn’t only for computer engineers; coding for school children and kids are similarly important. The more they learn while they are young, the better they are set up for success later on in programming languages.
We Make Your Kids Future Ready to know more visit our website https://srisharoboticsacademy.in/ | https://medium.com/@codingkids95/5-basic-coding-concepts-5-year-old-can-understand-4822499dec00 | [] | 2020-12-17 08:02:13.256000+00:00 | ['Coding For Beginners', 'Top Programming Languages', 'Programming Languages', 'Coding For Kids', 'Coding'] |
Morehouse’s Faculty Ends Planned Walkout | Morehouse’s Faculty Ends Planned Walkout
The staff at Morehouse votes to not walk out and gain benefits back.
Eight days after a mass email was sent out to students explaining how the faculty and staff of Morehouse were going to start taking furlough days because of financial reasons, President David Thomas of Morehouse College sent out his own email Oct. 28. In the letter sent by Dr. Thomas, it explains faculty and staff taking a furlough day has been discontinued and to temporarily discontinue the College’s 403(b) plan, which means the faculty who are close to retirement will not lose out on any money for the moment as it is temporarily.
The faculty planning the walkout affected President Thomas’ decision to stop the furlough days and retirement plan from continuing. Thomas’ plan will start on Nov. 1. The reaction to the plan is positive for faculty as they voted to stop the walkout in conjunction with Morehouse to stop taking benefits away from their employees. Dr. Adria Welcher, a sociology professor at Morehouse, believes in what President Thomas is doing is right for the college.
“I can speak to my own personal response and a few conversations I’ve had with other faculty,” Dr. Welcher sad. “I was very pleased with the email and with the consideration of what faculty had been exercising. I felt heard and I felt included.”
The walkout plan worked for the faculty and in return, they maintain the benefits that were due for them. But on a bigger scale, the Men of Morehouse do not have to suffer by losing their professors. The professors are the people that most students come in contact with daily, not the deans nor President Thomas.
Yes, the plan giving faculty and staff their benefits back is great for Morehouse College, but there is still a problem, other than finances. Communication is that problem. Like before, the email that was sent out to students by Morehouse’s hierarchy did not notify the staff first. Instead, some professors had to find out by students that these problems and solutions were occurring.
“I would appreciate a heads up,” Dr. Welcher said. “I may not be prepared to respond to students.”
Communication is key. Notifying the professors would be the ideal thing to do so they can be prepared to answer any concerns or questions that students may have with the email. Other than that, the overall feeling for Morehouse looks to be in better shape than it was a week ago. President Thomas wants to progress as a college and not have problems with professors.
“A planned walkout would have done irreparable harm to the College,” President Thomas wrote in the email. “At a time when we are gaining positive momentum to place ourselves on an accelerated upward trajectory.”
Morehouse’s money troubles may have not gone away, but their faculty not planning a walkout anymore is a win for the school. | https://medium.com/morehouse-advanced-news-writing-fall-2019/morehouses-faculty-ends-planned-walkout-7a430bc8ed9f | ['Shakim Muhafiz'] | 2019-11-01 18:02:35.352000+00:00 | ['Education'] |
One Quick Mental Trick To Combat Stress | Stressors are all around us and at each stage of our lives, we worry roughly the same amount just with different things.
As a child, you might have to worry about making friends, having high grades and getting accepted into your dream college.
As a young adult, you have to worry about which career route to take, finding a job, and finding a suitable romantic partner.
As a middle-aged person, you have to worry about paying for your mortgage, making sure your children are safe and well, and keeping your job.
As an elderly person, you have to worry about your failing health, whether you saved up enough for retirement, and how your family is doing.
We are stressed about different things at different stages of our lives. We can’t outrun stress, they are a part of human existence.
Inevitably we may fall victim to stress and we start to lose sleep and become anxious over little things. Anything can trigger us into a downward spiral of depression.
What if I told you there is a simple way to combat stress? Whenever you feel overwhelmed with stress think this,
“It’s going to be alright in the end”
I know it sounds simple but you really have to believe it.
Stress comes from thinking of the worst-case scenario and we strive to do as much as we could as best as we could now without concern over our mental state.
Breathe. Take it slow. It’s going to be alright in the end.
Some of you need the constant reminder of the ultimate resolution and that’s is, it’s going to be okay.
Sometimes it can be hard to believe that everything will be alright. We have good reasons to not believe that sometimes. However, it’s really not about the probability of things turning out the way we want to but knowing that whatever happens, we’ll be able to deal with it.
Bad times just like good times are temporary. When it is good, we should cherish it and experience it as much as we could. When there’s bad, we should trust that it’ll pass. Sometimes its impact can persist long after the main event has ended. However, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
While you’re in the dark, it’s hard to trust that it’ll get any better and it does. You just have to believe that.
We often stress because we imagine the worst, we also stress because we think it won’t get easier, or we stress because we think it makes us look busy, as though we had tried.
A busy person doesn’t have to look busy. An efficient person doesn’t have to stress to get things done.
Remember that whenever you are stressed you should remind yourself that you’ll be able to take on whatever comes your way. You can only control so much so you should leave the rest to the hands of god or fate.
What you are able to control as I guess you’ve already realized is how you respond to the stimuli. You can choose to stress out over it and let it take over your life. Or, you could take one small step at a time. Any small step is the progress made. Don’t worry about the long-term outcome, just focus on the now. Just focus on what you can control right at that moment. Tell yourself “it’s going to be okay in the end”. I hope we can all practice telling ourselves this whenever we feel stressed. Cheers! | https://medium.com/the-ultimate-student-handbook/one-quick-mental-trick-to-combat-stress-9b9995182362 | [] | 2020-12-20 19:50:04.620000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Self', 'Self Love', 'Self Improvement', 'Stress'] |
5 Tips for Finding Freedom | Photo by: Nita on pexels
Hi there Freedom Finders! We are Natalie and Liam, and we are Future Freedom Finders. We share tips and tricks towards achieving a wholesome financial wellbeing. We tackle how we are setting ourselves up for financial independence through a sustainable lifestyle and making healthy financial decisions everyday. In this post, we share our top 5 tips for achieving sustainable freedom.
1. Financial Freedom
Let’s go ahead and get this one out of the way because yes, money is important, but it isn’t everything and is only a piece of how we are achieving freedom. We are believers in saving, investing, and living frugally, but the caveat being that we still believe you should still enjoy your life RIGHT NOW and believe there should be a balance with the amount of money you save and invest while still being able to take that summer holiday or enjoy that winter escape. A lot of those who have achieved financial independence will advise saving up to 70% of your income, but the reality is, that is not sustainable for most people; instead, we believe you should be able to reap some of the rewards of your hard work RIGHT NOW. There are plenty of ways to travel on a budget so stay tuned as we will circle back to our tips and tricks for traveling on a budget!
2. Time Management
Time management is not something most people think of when they think about freedom. For us, we treasure a healthy work-life balance, but that does not mean we are not working hard to achieve our freedom. Although it can be very tempting at times to sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix, we work very hard at managing our time, setting realistic goals, and taking small steps towards finding our future freedom. We will expand on this more later, but a few quick tips for achieving time management is to make a list of your goals, prioritize those goals, stay organized, accomplish your most important goals at the beginning of the day, and then reward yourself at the end of the day with that new Netflix show you’ve been dying to watch. By prioritizing your goals and tackling them first thing in the day, you will feel very accomplished and will enjoy that long awaited show so much more!
3. Avoid Excess
This is a challenging concept for many people, especially here in America where the mentality is the bigger the better and where promotions mean bigger houses and more expensive cars. Things we have been working on a lot the past couple of years are downsizing our material things, not buying in excess, and working towards living small and sustainably. Once you start to purge your material things, you start to feel a weight lifted and you realize how much money you have been wasting! So instead of dumping that bonus or pay raise into a bigger house or more expensive car, you can save or invest that money so that you can find your freedom!
4. Declutter the Mind
This may be the hardest step towards achieving freedom. People often associate freedom with time and money, but we think in order to really maximize your freedom, you need to declutter the mind, as well. Stop worrying about the end goal of when you will finally reach financial freedom or when you can finally live a life of travel. You will end up wishing away these precious moments right now. Manage your time and make realistic goals towards the end goal that you can accomplish right now so that you can feel yourself getting close to that milestone without wishing away your life. Avoid excess and material things that do not mean anything at the end of the day and things that are prohibiting you from reaching your goals. The more things we possess, the more we crave, and the more occupied our minds are on the material world. Get outside and take steps towards letting go of the material world.
5. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
You are on your journey and your journey alone. Finding freedom is not one size fits all and your experience is yours and yours alone. Find a balance that works for you and give yourself room for trial and error. Consider reducing your presence on social media. Excessive use of social media can often times give us false expectations that leads to serious FOMO and comparing our lives to the photo somebody just posted (remember that photo is a teeny fraction of their whole story). Welcome advice from others but recognize that those are simply tools to help you along your journey as you find your freedom. | https://medium.com/@futurefreedomfinders/5-tips-for-finding-freedom-7ec4cd245cc | ['Future Freedom Finders'] | 2020-12-28 21:43:19.651000+00:00 | ['Minimalism', 'Budget Travel', 'Financial Freedom', 'Sustainable Living', 'Financial Independence'] |
Keep buggering on | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/an-idea/keep-buggering-on-9eeecac43453 | ['Maruti Naik'] | 2020-12-24 03:00:59.983000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Dreams', 'Life', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
My journey with AWS Serverless | Async architecture with AWS Lambda
Split your logic
The tricky part is to proper organise architecture — split logic into multiple functions and transfer data between them. That splitting makes sense especially if one part of logic is invoked more often than other, or if one part is more complicated, takes more time / memory to compute. Another reason could be, that for one function you would like to have concurrency limit— for example to avoid too many requests to external API or DB (throttling issues).
Keep in mind, that Lambda initialisation can take some time (not so much as compiled languages, though), so it might not be necessary to split logic into Lambdas, which computation time takes less < 1s.
Know the difference between sync and async Lambda
You can invoke Lambda synchronously or asynchronously. If your logic is simple and you expect direct response from your function, invoke Lambda synchronously (InvocationType = RequestResponse). For example Lambda calls via API Gateway or Elastic Load Balancer are synchronous, as you expect response.
For more complicated logic it’s recommend to split it between functions and invoke them asynchronously (InvocationType = Event). If you would like to call Lambda from other Lambda synchronously — keep in mind, that you may pay twice, as time of both Lambdas will be billed separately.
Example of async / event driven architecture: one Lambda sends message to topic (SNS), or Event Bus (EventBridge), or for example updates record in database, and another Lambda is subscribed to that specific event / stream. Communication in that case is event driven - there is no other Lambda waiting for response as it could be in sync model.
You can orchestrate logic using AWS Step Functions, so your event driven application will be easier to maintain. If you would like to orchestrate async workflow, but expect sync response after workflow will be finished (eg. by API Gateway) — consider Synchronous Express Workflow. For some applications AWS Step Functions might be too costly because of double-billing issue, so use it carefully. Sometimes it might be better to stick with EventBridge or Lambda destinations instead.
Within AWS Step Functions you can orchestrate event driven application // source: AWS
Async Lambda has its own event queue (don’t confuse with SQS), so you can implement retry logic in case event won’t be delivered (max 2 retries) and it can keep events for max. 6 hours, eg. when function doesn’t have enough capacity to handle all incoming requests (throttling errors). Keep in mind that event queue is eventually consistent (event can be sometimes delivered more than once). If you expect throttling issues, consider implementing SQS queue (instead of relying on event queue) to have guaranteed, that all events will be delivered.
Do not forget about handling errors — you can set SQS queue or SNS topic as dead letter queue or as an on failure destination. In first case you will have access to all discarded events, in second case you will have access to events, but also to errors responses.
On failure destination gives a bit more option than dead-letter queue // source: AWS
Think about multiple ways of triggering Lambda
You can trigger Lambdas by events emitted from different sources. List of possible event sources is long.
Apart from AWS services you can integrate your lambda with partners event sources (via EventBridge) // source: AWS
The most popular ways to trigger Lambda are:
SNS — pub/sub (push) functionality; one or many Lambdas send message to topic, which others Lambdas/services can be subscribed to;
— pub/sub (push) functionality; one or many Lambdas send message to topic, which others Lambdas/services can be subscribed to; SQS — queues (pull) are ideal solution when you expect throttling problem — for example if your traffic is very dynamic and you would like to avoid to lose any messages, or if you want to optimize Lambda autoscaling (60 additional instances per minute to a maximum of 1,000 concurrent invocations);
— queues (pull) are ideal solution when you expect throttling problem — for example if your traffic is very dynamic and you would like to avoid to lose any messages, or if you want to optimize Lambda autoscaling (60 additional instances per minute to a maximum of 1,000 concurrent invocations); EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) — used for more complex events management, where you can filter by event patterns, subscribe to scheduled job (cron), 3rd party emitters and more — such as communication between accounts;
(CloudWatch Events) — used for more complex events management, where you can filter by event patterns, subscribe to scheduled job (cron), 3rd party emitters and more — such as communication between accounts; Kinesis — dedicated for streaming or data driven applications;
— dedicated for streaming or data driven applications; S3 — you can trigger Lambda based on changes in S3 bucket eg. one service upload file, other service does some operation on it;
— you can trigger Lambda based on changes in S3 bucket eg. one service upload file, other service does some operation on it; DynamoDB — Lambda can read records from DB stream, so you can react each time, when data changes;
By default SNS and SQS don’t guarantee, that messages will be delivered in the same order, as they were published. Occasionally there could be situation that messages will be delivered more than once, so you might need deduplication mechanism. If you would like to prevent duplicate messages from delivered and need order to be guaranteed, think about SNS FIFO or SQS FIFO.
Cheatsheet for choosing async event sources for Lambda // source: @theburningmonk
Get some inspirations from others
There are many different ways to deal with events in AWS, so I encourage you to read about how others build theirs async architecture. Great source of patterns and solutions is AWS Solutions Reference Architectures and cdkpatterns.com.
The Big Fan is a popular pattern based on SNS and SQS (filtering to fan out events to different consumers) // source: cdkpatterns.com
Understand Lambda execution to improve speed
When you are Node.js developer, cold starts (increased invocation latency) might not be your main issue. If Lambda does a lot of work eg. soon after invocation (making connection to DB, retrieving data from SSM or so), you might want to improve that speed — especially if that could improve UX.
Good idea is to cache some data in memory, so it can be used in another invocation within the same execution environment (runtime) later. You can play with Middy middleware (cache, ssm packages) or memoize some pure functions eg. with Memoizee.
Think about provisioned concurrency (requested number of execution environments will be always prepared to respond to your function’s invocations), but be careful — it might be too much costly for some cases. If your traffic is very dynamic, you can manage your provision concurrency within Application Auto Scaling.
Learn about Lambda execution environment lifecycle. It might be good idea to run some logic in Init phase — out of the handler, so it can be run after starting runtime, eg. by provisioned concurrency, so before invocation. You can put into Init phase synchronous code, up to 10 seconds to compute. Async code in Node.js (such us loading SSM by SDK) might not be finished in Init phase (will be frozen and resume in first invocation). If you would like to finish loading data (eg. from SSM or DB) in Init phase, try Python.
The lifecycle of the execution environment — there could be many invocations within the same runtime, so you might cache some data in global Node.js scope // source: AWS
Problem of async code in Node.js is not limited do Init phase only. If you run async code in Lambda, make sure that it’s finished before you will return response / resolve handler. The best way is to always keep async logic in async-await promises instead of callbacks. Callback pattern (such as using setTimeout) can lead to execution leaks (problem, when executing code runs in a different invocation than the original execution context).
Use Lambda layers
You might be in situation, that one service share a lot of code with others. In Node.js you can have some common node_modules and it might not be good idea to include all of them in each bundle, or to deploy to each Lambda container separately. Think about deploy common code as AWS Lambda layer. It could be useful also if some part of your Lambdas code is heavy, and you would like to avoid deploying it each time, when you change something. | https://medium.com/@machnicki/my-journey-with-aws-serverless-7db5d91ecfc4 | ['Miron Machnicki'] | 2020-12-30 20:28:28.732000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'AWS', 'Serverless', 'AWS Lambda', 'Dynamodb'] |
Risky Business: What Wattpad’s Business Model Means for Writers | Wattpad launched in December 2006. That’s four years after fanfiction.net’s great NC-17 Purge of 2002 and six years before the follow-up Purge of 2012.
Since its inception, Wattpad has blossomed into a community 70 million strong with over 565 million story uploads. It’s still growing. In 2010, they solicited and secured funding from private investors — their angel investors. Additional rounds followed in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2018. So far they’ve raised $117.8 million (US) in seed money and venture capital.
According to MySiteWealth, Wattpad’s domain is worth approximately $14 million (US), and it produces a daily income of about $4,248, which amounts to $1,550,520 per year. Notice, this is the domain’s estimated ad revenue based on traffic and Alexa rank and does not include app ad revenues, subscriptions, rights sales, etc. PitchBook places Wattpad’s current value at around $398 million (US).
Stop and stew over those numbers for a minute.
Done?
Good. Now, take a moment and wrap your head around the key difference between Wattpad and a site like Archive of Our Own.
Both built their reputations on user-generated content. Both allow users to grow and interact with communities of readers. Both encourage writers to post original works and fanfiction.
Archive of Our Own is a non-profit; Wattpad isn’t.
Wattpad is a business. Period.
Every action they undertake is designed to:
increase their revenues, cut costs, build their corporate brand, and broaden their user base.
Businesses take risks. Whether you consider yourself a dabbler, writer, or author, you need to know if Wattpad’s business model puts your work at risk.
These include
a fanfiction.net-style story purge,
Wattpad shutting down,
account deletion, and
the lost value of your first publication rights.
Throughout this series, I’ll discuss the risks and propose a few ways you can stop these issues from biting you in the butt.
I know I’m not the only person thinking about this. If you would like to guest post on this series, leave a comment here on Medium or contact me via the email address on my website.
Should Wattpad Be a For-Profit Business?
Yes.
In my opinion, Wattpad has the potential to disrupt publishing on the same scale as the Amazon Kindle did. Their success over the last decade speaks well of their innovative publishing model and their founders’ work ethics. Harper Collins, Tor, Amazon, all profit off their e-book divisions, and I see no reason why Wattpad shouldn’t be a for-profit entity.
However, with each year that their disruptive potential goes unrealized, the chances they’ll become the Kindle’s successor dwindle. It’s still present. If you take a long view and think of Wattpad’s consumption model as a generational shift, this potential may actually grow as Generation Z reaches adulthood.
Despite their massive potential, if they held an IPO today, I wouldn’t invest. Their current business model includes two massive, potential liabilities as part of their core business.
The first big ticket problem: national obscenity laws.
Let me preface this with I’m not a lawyer. I’m a policy wonk/business analyst turned copywriter with an MA in International Commerce and Policy. Based on a review of the publishing industry as a whole, I created a list of risks and ranked them using what I’ve personally observed on Wattpad. What I discovered left me cringing, cursing, and shaking my head in sheer disbelief at both Wattpad’s audacity and the (sometimes) stupid risks they’ve elected to take.
Obscenity laws?! What the f***!
As I write this, the most read books on Wattpad all have one thing in common. Sex. Although a few authors adhere to Wattpad’s terms of service and imply rather than show, most favor explicit sex. Some even venture into PWP territory, which clearly violates Wattpad’s terms of service. As the saying goes, sex sells.
Is Wattpad Enforcing the M-Rating?
Wattpad’s content guidelines require an M-rating for anything with “explicit sex scenes”. These stories are supposedly not discoverable to any user under the age of 17. However, there are reports that Wattpad’s M-rating enforcement is haphazard at best. Malleable’s Wattpad — Where Children Read Porn gives a disturbing overview of the problem. Seriously, don’t eat before you read this.
Although I don’t know the full scope of the problem, opening a private browser tab, googling Wattpad romance, and opening the category’s hot list suggests that the above criticisms are fact-based.
Misrated? You Be the Judge.
Take MaliaReeds’ Unwanted, which is currently #17 on Wattpad’s romance hot list and presently has 2.7 million reads Here’s a snapshot of Chapter 84 in all its smexy glory.
Notice, that I’m using a private browser window with all previous logins and cookies cleared. As Wattpad so generously reminds me, I’m not logged in. Anyone can access this chapter regardless of age.
For an adult reader, this is an enjoyable read with a pleasant balance of mystery, adventure, and romance. It also includes heavy petting, references to torture, an actual torture scene, what may be an off-screen rape or attempted rape, and the previously mentioned adult naked time.
How would you react if you discovered your 13-year-old daughter reading this?
Now imagine that you’re a conservative judge in a country with strong obscenity laws. Do you think this will end well for Wattpad? Probably not.
Isn’t Entering a Birthdate Enough?
Birthdates are user-entered and not verified by Wattpad before users are allowed to access M-rated material.
I doubt saying the user lied will be an adequate defense in some jurisdictions.
There’s another problem. Wattpad’s content guidelines specify 17. Now, I’m about to point out a fact that will tick some of you off.
In most countries, including Wattpad’s home country Canada, 17 is still a child. Only 16 countries disagree with this. They include Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, which all practice internet censorship.
So based on Wattpad’s terms of service and their most popular books, it’s fair to say Wattpad allows minors to access explicit fiction. (I pray its fiction. If it’s not, inhumanely flexible aliens are gradually taking over our world and likely killing their lovers via dehydration.)
Why is Wattpad’s Recommendation System a Potential Problem?
In 2016, a class-action lawsuit against Snapchat alleged that they were violating the Communications Decency Act by
intentionally exposing minors to harmful, offensive, prurient, and sexually offensive content.
Snapchat updated their guidelines and added an age-gating tool for their publishers. Although Snapchat swears this was always their plan, some analysts point to the lawsuit and their 2 March 2017 IPO as the real reasons behind these changes.
We don’t know how the court would have ruled in the Snapchat case, but Snapchat’s actions suggest they didn’t want to find out.
Every time Wattpad recommends a misrated explicit book to someone underage, they are arguably marketing obscene content to children!
When Wattpad inserts a book recommendation between chapters, they are acting as a content curator. If its tagged
r18, possessive, romance, mature, badboy, alpha
would a reasonable jury think that Wattpad should know this content is inappropriate for an audience under 18? YES!
In the US alone, the penalty for violating the Communications Decency Act is $50,000 per violation per day.
They’re not alone. Most countries have laws designed to protect minor children from explicit material. Typically, they are enforceable regardless of a country’s free speech beliefs.
Obscenity Laws and Wattpad
Actual obscenity, the sort that gets your website and app added to a country’s banned list, works a little differently. Some countries like Iran operate under extremely strict obscenity and morality laws. Violating them is punishable by death. Others employ ban lists and fines.
Although the US and its states have obscenity laws on the books, the First Amendment renders many of these unenforceable. Canada’s obscenity laws — remember, this is Wattpad’s home country — are enforceable because of their reasonable limits clause. In other words, Canada can and does reasonably limit free speech.
I cannot say if a given story is obscene. I cannot say if it qualifies as pornography. Neither can Wattpad. These are questions for a judge. Different countries have different obscenity and pornography standards. Some ban it outright. Unfortunately, if you end up standing in front of a judge arguing that you didn’t know about an erotic BDSM novel with 1 million reads posted on your site, it’s likely too late.
Bottom Line
Given Wattpad’s explosive growth in Asian markets — many of whom practice internet censorship — and the history of countries like Malaysia banning books on moral grounds, it’s not a stretch to think that Wattpad will run afoul of these laws. If they have prior knowledge — for instance, a user reported the disputed story as mature — and didn’t act to prevent minors from accessing the work, they are liable.
The Fifty Shades of Grey Example
Here’s a relatively recent example involving obscenity laws and erotic fiction.
In 2013, a Brazilian judge ordered bookstores to shrink wrap Fifty Shades of Grey, emblazon it with adult content warnings, and place it out of reach of minors because it violated Brazil’s obscenity laws.
Think about all the adult content on Wattpad, including some written by Wattpad Stars, and ask yourself how do you shrink wrap a website.
You pull the plug.
Conclusion
Wattpad’s user base is 90% Millennial and Gen Z. Millennials aren’t a concern. The eldest members of Gen Z are 24, the youngest 4. Given these demographics, we will wake up one morning and learn that Wattpad has either purged all adult content from their site or moved it to an adult-only site.
This is a matter of when, which judge, and which country, not if. The sole question if whether Wattpad will survive the potential fines and bad press. That said, don’t expect this lawsuit to hit a US court.
In this scenario, purging anything questionable is a good business decision and may be the only way Wattpad stays in business.
Unfortunately, their business comes before your writing. If your story contains mature or borderline mature content, back it up. (I have a tutorial in the works for this. I’m sometimes a little too geeky for my own good, so I’m looking for a few test subjects if you’re interested.) Then start working on Wattpad-proofing your publishing strategy.
Begin by
Researching other self-publishing opportunities,
Building connections with your readers on other social media platforms, and
Starting a personal blog.
Up Next …
Obscenity laws are not Wattpad’s only potential liability. Next up, “The Wattpad Fanfiction Conundrum.” | https://kchester.medium.com/risky-business-what-wattpads-business-model-means-for-writers-fa895c37e33e | ['Kristle Chester'] | 2019-02-18 15:45:57.543000+00:00 | ['Publishing', 'Fiction', 'Self Publishing', 'Writing', 'Wattpad'] |
Solarpunk is also about a world where we simply live together in harmony and in a communal manner. | Solarpunk is also about a world where we simply live together in harmony and in a communal manner. No longer are people forced to enslave themselves to pay for the rent of a building that an authority claims to control, as everyone is cared for.
In such a world, the ecological niche we inhabit and humanity itself are the main focuses; with the concept of ‘wealth creation' no longer being a concern. After all, we’ve seen what it does so why would we seek to perpetuate the very system that Solarpunk seeks to dismantle and replace with a self-sustaining one?
Many values that Solarpunk holds are also found in recent political movements such as Democratic Confederationalism, where authority in a society is built from the bottom UP, rather than the top DOWN.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolarPunk
https://solarpunkanarchists.com/2016/05/27/what-is-solarpunk/ | https://medium.com/@legacyfireplay/solarpunk-is-also-about-a-world-where-we-simply-live-together-in-harmony-and-in-a-communal-manner-fa51c9f98dde | [] | 2020-12-20 09:01:38.582000+00:00 | ['Anarchism', 'Ecology', 'Renewable Energy', 'Solarpunk', 'Communalism'] |
Selecting for Kindness | I’m too dumb to be a Real Scientist, but have always challenged myself with personal social experiments. It’s how I test my values or study other people & I’ve done it all my life, from the time I chose to stop shaving at 15, to embracing the uncertainty of the road as a “digital nomad” three years ago. I’ve gone through massive shifts in perspective & lifestyles over the last 16 years, but my most meaningful choice was a small, simple one: selecting my company based on Kindness.
I used to value honesty above everything else, having been raised by brutally honest working class parents & eventually working in industries where feelings were seen as a weakness. But “logic vs feelings” has always been an irrational dichotomy because everyone contains both & feels their feelings are logical & their logic is devoid of emotion. Humans are silly creatures.
I also used to pride myself in finding smarter & stranger rooms. Cue the eye rolling, I know. But smart people can be cruel. Cruelty & arrogance have got to be the worst personality traits no matter how intelligent someone is — don’t get me started on “geniuses” either. The more geniuses I met, the less impressed I was, unless they were also Kind.
My obsession with Total Honesty honestly made me miserable. I sat with those Harsh Truths & internalized a lot of things that seemed true but weren’t. Or were true & weren’t useful. Oftentimes my most cynical predictions were correct, but there’s no joy in being correct about shitty things. Being Technically Correct yet alone is no victory.
Depressive Realism
I also struggle with clinical depression, which paints a more realistic view of reality that isn’t super helpful when one needs the motivation you get from higher self esteem. Depressive realism might make you right, but it won’t make you happy.
By 2016, I was more depressed than I’d ever been. So many things in my life had fallen apart & I couldn’t see a way forward. Each day felt like something to merely survive. I lost the ability to imagine a long term future as I had during other low points. Everything I used to care about didn’t matter, even politics, which I had been (unhealthily) obsessed with my whole life.
I was a ghost in my own life & the tough love approach I always had towards my stumbles no longer worked. There were no bootstraps left to pull up.
My fixation with ethics & politics had made me more ideologically rigid than expected. I had to disentangle myself from the toxic political worlds I was in. So, I hit the reset button, or rather, my brain did it for me during a painful dissociative episode that erased a lot of data. This extremely frustrating, stress-induced experience forced me to re-evaluate everything I believed. With the help of some friends & family, I was able to get back on my feet, but I had to find healthier social outlets.
Midway through 2016, I made the conscious decision to connect with others based on Kindness instead of how funny, honest, or smart they were. My core relationships didn’t change much, but I deprioritized labels entirely in favor of…well, Vibes. Vibes are counter to a lot of belief systems I’d held, not at all scientific, but very useful in sorting out who is truly Kind over who is Nice.
Kindness vs Niceness
Kindness is not the same as niceness — being nice is a performative gesture for others. Niceness resembles Kindness. Anyone can be nice: appearing to do & say the right things at the right time, but a lot of otherwise nice people won’t really be there for you when shit really hits the fan. There are traumas one can go through that alienate the nice people in their lives because the nice people don’t want to look at another person falling apart. Or get covered in shit.
Kindness is a deeper gentleness that yields when necessary, but sometimes counters social niceties. Not-so-nice appearing people can be quite kind. Kindness is the ability to sit with those who are suffering instead of running away — it’s rooted in empathy not sympathy. Kindness means putting aside ego to directly help someone because it’s the right thing to do, not because someone has the right views on [insert opinion/belief here].
Kindness sometimes means getting burned by others, but getting right back up & doing it again because Fuck ’Em, you’re not defined by what they do. Sometimes you are defined by what you won’t or don’t do.
A statue isn’t built from the ground up — it’s chiseled out of a block of marble — and I often wonder if we aren’t likewise shaped by the qualities we lack, outlined by the empty space where the marble used to be. I’ll be sitting on a train. I’ll be lying awake in bed. I’ll be watching a movie; I’ll be laughing. And then, all of a sudden, I’ll be struck by the paralyzing truth: It’s not what we do that makes us who we are. It’s what we don’t do that defines us. Bob-Waksberg, Raphael. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory (p. 60).
We all look away to a degree because we have to to survive, but whatever people believe are political solutions to social problems will be useless if they ignore that most people don’t want to look at suffering & are okay with whatever measures need to be taken to remove it from their view. This results in cold social services & the deeper problems we’re seeing under the pandemic, but the problems have been there all along due to a historically anti-human, cruel hierarchy of priorities. Comparisons to other countries will rob you of any joy one could have under this distinctly ‘Merican capitalist system. It’s becoming harder for people to look away.
The broader lack of both empathy & sympathy often comes from reactions to trauma — some people get kinder under hardship, but many people don’t. We’re seeing reactionary terror management on a massive scale this year as it’s been shocking who has chosen to fight back against cruelty, who has viciously attacked the suffering, or who simply tries to keep looking away.
No one tells you that you’re too difficult to talk to or look at when things are severe. Mostly, you start to hear nothing. Silence settles in around you & can abandon you with your own thoughts. Or, people talk to you in very delicate tones. The gradients of concern in the way someone asks, “Are you okay?” can be disturbing.
People worrying about you is embarrassing if you’re a type that has prided yourself on being so tough for so long. Asking for help is even harder — it’s been more humiliating to me to ask for assistance when I’ve needed it than all the embarrassing things I’ve done as a result of flailing while trying to do things completely on my own.
Being kind to yourself is one of the hardest skills to learn & also means setting aside ego. I still struggle with self love & it’s nigh impossible to not crack a joke as I write this, but practicing Kindness for others has helped. Kindness is an action not only a value & actions reveal character better than all the proper rhetoric.
The Kind people were the ones who stuck around & kept reaching out even when things got quiet on my end. They didn’t say, “Let me know if you need help,” they said, “Here’s how I can help, take it or leave it, no judgment.” These were folks who had been there & knew what it felt like to be in a hole with seemingly no way out.
Kind people don’t fall along expected metrics. My Trump voting landlord allowed me to go off lease without fear of eviction after a family tragedy uprooted everything in 2017. People who claimed to have the same values as me disappeared or even became hostile when I refused certain labels that no longer fit or boxed me in.
Who helps you when you’re at your lowest is surprising & the correct labels mean very little when it comes down to who you can count on. You don’t have to sacrifice honesty for Kindness either — those who care can find a way to be real with you without being an asshole.
By allowing myself to be surprised & receptive to Kindness rather than Brutal Total Honesty, I was able to heal from a lot of trauma. In every crisis, the only thing that matters is who shows up.
The Broader Implications
We’re seeing this deeply powerful showing up on a global scale right now. People have had to find out the hard way who matters in their lives — who has their back when things get quiet regardless of political beliefs or all of the ways disinformation warps minds. Political beliefs have affected what people prioritize in this specific crisis & it’s been shocking how low some have stooped, but equally revealing who has not allowed themselves to fall into a selfish, cruel, petty nihilism.
“Fuck You I’ve Got Mine” is a 14 year old boy’s desperate, sad attempt to organize the chaos in his life, not something to base an economic system on.
Selecting for Kindness has enriched every part of my life. It’s helped me clarify my goals & manage my time based on which people choose me.
I know the “truth” of how meaningless everything is & I’m bored by it.
It’s easy to become hardened by hardship. I’ve let it happen before & it’s the default state of many people when faced with certain circumstances. I don’t even blame people for taking the default route — we’re all struggling with outdated programming that kicks in unexpectedly.
But what separates the resilient long term is choosing empathy when the worst parts of you are telling you to choose cruelty. You have to fight for Kindness.
As the year has progressed down an increasingly catastrophic, dystopian path I feel strangely prepared (despite in no way being materially prepared HAHA). It’s not that I don’t have my bad days where I rage about how selfish & petty people are acting, but because I made the choice to seek out allies who prioritize & practice Kindness, I am faring relatively well. I’ve also let go of those who would rather engage in human sacrifice than be slightly inconvenienced. Who & what matters have become even clearer as this virus takes so much away.
And I can remind myself that even those who chose cruelty can become better if they decide to one day make the harder choice for Kindness. My Trump supporting landlord withdrew her support for the aspiring dictator shortly after he took office because she was horrified by the cruelty exhibited by his administration & followers. She chose Kindness over cruelty because she correctly foresaw it as the true divide years before it became painfully clear how far some are willing to go to signal disvirtue.
It sounds too simple to be true & maybe it is, but I don’t care. I was wrong about Honesty being more important than Kindness & I’m glad I was wrong. If my own life has been made so significantly better by applying this experiment, I imagine how much better the world would be if more people elevated Kindness above other priorities, or at least chose their company with the virtue in mind.
The Kind people I’ve found have inspired enough faith to be able to imagine the future again & I wish that for everyone who grapples with the mindkiller of depression. I don’t know how to make people care about those other than themselves & part of me thinks it isn’t possible. So instead of banging my head against the wall trying to get people to Give A Damn, I intentionally sought out people who already do, Bigly. It made this Hell Year a hell of a lot easier.
My deepest appreciation in 2020 is for the Kind Folks who retained their Kindness during one of the largest, longest, demoralizing tests of empathy-driven values in recent history. It’s not over by a long shot.
As we head to another year of extreme suffering caused by callousness & cruelty, I hope to retain some softness by the end of it. I can’t say I’m as Kind as I wish I was, but have found peace in the chaos of this year through my Kind friends who didn’t let tragedy turn them into tyrants. | https://medium.com/@mklords/selecting-for-kindness-9de692b08685 | ['Mk Lords'] | 2020-12-23 00:39:10.716000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Kindness', 'Personal Development', 'Social Change', 'Depression'] |
A Step By Step Guide to Make Money on Your Vacation | Make taxes work for you and not against you
“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin
As Ben Franklin said, there are only two things that are certain in life. Since I knew taxes were a pain, I did my best to learn how the rich make taxes work for them and not against them. No matter what a politician says, taxes are not going away. They may go lower one year over another. In the end, you still have to pay the I.R.S. or tax agency their share.
One year, I read how billionaire Warren Buffett paid less in taxes than his secretary. For Buffett, he owns several businesses and makes his charitable donations. The business and donations allow him to write off his taxes.
Too many people think the rich are using loopholes but the loopholes are available to everyone including you. You just have to take the extra steps, educate yourself and work with smart tax advisors.
If you use a popular tax company such as H and R Block, you most likely won’t get the best tax advice. If you think you can save money by doing your own taxes, you also are not getting the best advice. You need to hire a knowledgeable person to handle your taxes especially if you own a business. They do this full time so they know what tax changes are implemented each year. Then there are better tax advisors compared to others, so make sure you do your due diligence finding someone who is knowledgable to help you.
When I attended a Kiyosaki event in Dallas years ago, I attended a tax seminar. The organizer talked about how to save money on your taxes. At the end of his presentation, I bought the $1,000 course he offered, and it has made me ten times the purchase of the course.
Each year, I have found deductions to lower my tax bill. One of the main reasons is because of my investment in real estate and as a business owner. | https://medium.com/illumination/a-step-by-step-guide-to-make-money-on-your-vacation-4fe4b883bf98 | ['Tom Handy'] | 2020-12-26 21:15:45.060000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Money', 'Life Lessons', 'Real Estate', 'Self Improvement'] |
Muscularity doesn’t mean masculinity: empowerment in female ‘fitspo’ | The gym has always been intrinsically linked to gender and identity. But with the age of new media we have seen this transfer online, with the emergence of female fitness influencers. Second-wave feminists argue that fitness influencer’s sexualised self-promotion is undermining the long progression of eliminating female objectification in the media. While post-feminist perspectives counter that while female Instagram influencers do capitalise on the monetisation of their body, the overarching message promoted is one of female empowerment. Where muscularity does not equate to masculinity, and women should not have to choose between conservatism or sex appeal; confidence or humility. However, there is a substantial flaw in this concept of empowerment — it is directly based on the idealised version of the female body — continually promoted through mass media by these impossibly toned or tiny fitness influencers.
Academics agree the gym has always been a gendered space, perceived as predominantly male. As a venue for identity construction, where male and female body culture supposedly co-exist, there is still heavy social stereotyping that takes place. The weights room itself acts a physical gender barrier, as a male-dominated space that most women are too intimidated to approach. This gendered stereotyping of the fitness industry extends online, as females who have broken the barriers of weight training are becoming recognised on social media platforms as fitness influencers.
Image: Fitness Influencer Tammy Hembrow on her Instagram page @tammyhembrow
At first glance, a ‘fitspo’ influencer’s Instagram imagery could be considered sexist, positioning femininity to appeal purely to men’s ideals of a ‘perfect’ woman. Take for example, the onslaught of comments from middle-aged men on the image above posted by fitness star Tammy Hembrow. In this sense, academics argue that we live in a masculine-centred culture where women are consistently evaluated on their physical appearance, and female influencers have become a symbol of gendered, sexualised labour.
While feminist scholars have always raised awareness about the way in which women embody gender and sexuality, some scholars attempt to argue that this form of sexualised self-promotion is merely an expression of female empowerment.
Take Kelsey Wells as an example. Her Instagram is littered with comments from men about her sexuality, looks and body. Yet her message to women is that fitness is not about looking a certain way to please others, is it about feeling a certain way within yourself. Rather than working out rigorously to adhere to society’s accepted version of a ‘perfect-body’, Wells promotes a post-feminist perspective, where fitness is a tool for crafting female empowerment:
“You do not have to choose between being strong OR vulnerable. Humble OR confident. Muscular OR feminine. Conservative OR sexy…Cease struggling to fit into the mould the world set forth for you made from the opinions of others and the ever fluctuating standards of society. In fact, take that mould and SHATTER IT.”
Image: Instagram fitness sensation Kelsey Wells @kelseywells
It is messages from social media stars like this that are encouraging women to break the socially constructed boundaries of body-image ‘perfection’ that social platforms love to promote. But this is an easy message to promote when you have the figure of Kelsey Wells — unlike the majority of us who are struggling to hit the gym once a week, and certainly don’t have a six pack that rivals Schwarzenegger’s.
The idea that physical activity can empower women is not new; with scholars accepting it is a phenomenon dating back to women and aerobics in the 80s. However, what is new is the affordances of digital media providing a platform for fitness influencers to share their perfect bodies and messages of empowerment with the world. But it turns out a major flaw exists in the argument of female empowerment. As academic Bradshaw argues, it is still based on the premise of comparing oneself to socially conditioned beauty ideals, essentially undermining the entire concept of ‘empowerment’. Further, the majority of women agree that the opposite is true, with provocative imagery posted by fitness media stars actually leading to feelings of disempowerment.
If empowerment in the context of fitness and physical activity is supposedly allowing women the ability to resist societal pressures to conform to the ideal female body, how come we see fitness influencers promoting this message alongside images of their perfectly shaped, toned and youthful bodies? Sure, it can be argued that female fitness influencers validate a clear relationship between power and sexuality, promoting strength and femininity all within one frame. But the argument of ‘empowerment’ remains an illusion, because at the core, females are still basing their notions of empowerment around socially constructed, pre-existing standards of the idealised ‘female’ body. | https://medium.com/the-public-ear/muscularity-doesnt-mean-masculinity-empowerment-in-female-fitspo-70418faaa556 | ['Caitlin Strong'] | 2019-11-13 12:45:19.722000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'Female Fitness', 'Feminism'] |
My Experience Contributing Towards Open Source Software | Story time
I’ve been learning about TypeScript and progressive web applications(PWA) a lot the past year. As I was creating and PWA I was trying to use auto completion and realized there were no types for an open source project I’ve grown fond of. I saw an opportunity to add some new utility to an open source project 🎉 This project is written in JavaScript and bundled using Babel. Converting a project from JavaScript to TypeScript can be difficult depending on how large the code base is.
To learn how to convert a project try reading Migrating from JavaScript to TypeScript(from scratch).
Luckily for me this repository only had a few files and was a great opportunity to test my skills. I submitted my pull request(PR) and I was excited about it!
Contributors started to give me positive feedback and things were progressing, but there were other priority requests in the maintainer’s backlog. My contribution was overlooked for a bit, as expected. A rewrite from JavaScript to TypeScript can be a lot to review. Most of these people aren’t getting paid to maintain a project. They do it as a courtesy and a way to give back to the community that has done it for them in the past.
The other PR’s were approved and merged into master and I realized there were many conflicts (after all it was a complete TypeScript rewrite). I wanted to resolve them quickly but ran into a new case I have yet to need to know until now. Someone else could learn from this so here's my quick take on it including some context.
Why should we contribute to open source projects?
If you haven’t contributed to any open source projects I would encourage you to do so. Even the simplest things such as a typo in documentation will change the way you consume as a JavaScript developer.
Avoid giving up on a project
I’ve heard many people complain about how a library isn’t working for their use case so they give up on it. Some of these abandonments are warranted, many are not. It is often complaints that continue person to person until someone is courteous enough to report an issue to the maintainer.
Relieving some duties of the maintainer(s)
The next adventure is addressing and prioritizing the work so someone can start. You can imagine being a maintainer would be stressful if it all fell to you. By writing up the issue and contributing some code these maintainers should be ecstatic to see the community engaged in their work and wanting to improve on it.
Changing your outlook
I often run into people that don’t grasp how the open source repositories get updated. For some reason it’s easy to assume these are well funded organizations that will tackle every and all issues in a short time.
Getting into the code and contributing will show you how it all works! All the effort put in by everyone to build something useable is fascinating to me, and I love the idea of helping to benefit more than yourself.
It’s great for resume building and networking
I’m currently still in a work from home status and haven’t been networking as much lately. By reaching out and offering your help you may make a new friend or gain a new connection that could lead to other opportunities.
My guess is that most developers aren’t contributing to open source projects often, despite a common expectation in the job market.
If you do it’s great for opportunities both in job searches and freelance connections.
How
Prerequisites
You’ve already forked the repository. You’ve created a branch and PR to go into the original maintainer project. You have conflicts or an out of date forked repository. You’re tired of reading leading in information and want to see what to do.
Configure git remote for the forked repository
For my example I’ll be contributing to the react iOS PWA prompt. If you haven’t seen it and enjoy the idea of PWA’s check it out! iOS users don’t have the generic google PWA prompt so this creates a react component to handle that case.
git remote add upstream https://github.com/chrisdancee/react-ios-pwa-prompt.git
If you’d like to validate it worked you can run
git remote -v
You should see it listed as one of the remote repositories
Checkout master
git checkout master
Merge upstream remote to master
git merge upstream/master
Push it to your forked repo
git push
Checkout your branch that is currently under review
git checkout {name-of-branch}
Resolve the conflicts
Make sure you test and do all you can to catch the errors that could have been introduced by the new code. 🤞
Push that out
git push
If you have to notify appropriate maintainers
I typically just tag the maintainer in the PR to let them know it’s good to go
You’re done! 🎉
I’m new to contributing to open source projects so I’d love to hear other benefits in the comments. Thank you for reading! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/my-experience-contributing-towards-open-source-software-3f48214ff057 | ['John Fay'] | 2020-11-05 14:03:18.968000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'JavaScript', 'Github', 'Programming', 'Git'] |
The Web Of Life | Photo by Declan Lopez on Unsplash
The Web Of Life
A 50-word story
Night falls. My work begins.
I will pick my spot well.
Somewhere teeming. Somewhere secure.
The light fixture will suffice.
I lay down a silk thread.
Then another. And another.
My work is meticulous.
I build to feed.
I build to survive.
But in the end, I build to destroy. | https://medium.com/the-friday-fix/the-web-of-life-6d0b22675d | ['Jl Matthews'] | 2020-08-14 11:01:31.591000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Microfiction', 'Creativity', 'Outdoors'] |
Consent and the six year old | Consent and the six year old
It was Charlie’s birthday party, there were 20 something mini Ninjas in our backyard. Loud and free they are screaming, jumping and laughing. So much wild laughter and the sound is like balm to the soul. Children’s laughter is pure joy and comes as a gentle reminder that innocence is not always lost.
There were tears of course. The untimely, unfortunate demise of a balloon animal made by the ninja party entertainer who we hired because, like I said, there were 20 of them and we knew we would need reinforcements.
Nearing the end, we’d just sung Happy Birthday and I was pre-occupied by how I was going to cut up the ninja cake whilst 15 of the 20 kids were shrieking orders at me, the bossy little things can barely use their own cutlery but here they were shouting advice at me on how I was to cut the cake. Sheesh.
In the background I could hear the coaxing and coercing of boys telling Charlie to kiss the little girl beside him. You know the tradition, if you touch the bottom of the cake with your knife you must kiss the nearest person. My generation spent our childhood growing up, singing to songs about kissing in trees so my initial thought being it was funny. Cute. But Charlie was standing right beside me, my child, whose body nestles right into the curve of my own and because he is me, my bat signal went off and I sensed he felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to have a disproportionate reaction to a nothing situation but in that tiny pocket of time the thought crossed my mind that this was a moment I was probably required to parent my way through. I turned to Charlie on my right and whispered to him he didn’t have to do anything and I turned to the match makers on my left and handed them both a giant piece of ninja cake and told them whoever ate the fastest could have a second piece.
My little boy is only 6 and suddenly I’m dealing with beginnings of consent and I do not know how this bit of parenting is meant to go.
Party over, the thought lingered on, but I didn’t give it too much energy, I put my head back in the sandpit, he’s six, not sixteen after all.
That is, until a week later, The Hunting on SBS aired the first of a 4 part series. If you haven’t already watched it then never mind the brilliant content, it has Richard Roxburgh and Asher Keddie in it so there’s a clue right there.
It was compelling to watch. As a parent to a small person who knows nothing of social media it would be easy to pretend it’s not something I have to worry about it. It’s not our current reality but the unrelenting evolution of technology means it will most definitely be our future one. That’s a terrifying thought.
My experience of parenting so far has been many things. Tiring, messy, humbling, terrifying, frustrating, chaotic and buckets of fun. But it has recently dawned on me that it hasn’t yet really been complex and complicated. The consequences of a poor parenting decisions (and there have been many) haven’t really surfaced and nothing dire has happened.
At least not yet.
Reflecting on Charlie’s party and watching The Hunting, I realised I had so much more to learn, to figure out and to navigate though. How then can we be certain that we are doing the right thing, do the “experts” even agree on what this is, and should I be studying child psychology because what if my mothering instincts aren’t enough? Even if we do our best, it might not ever be enough. What then?
This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night.
The Hunting really explores the subtle and not so subtle pressures that young people face at school and online but what is even more troubling to watch was the parents, the behaviour they modelled and the influence it had on their children. It’s a cautionary tale, a confronting truth and worth pointing out that this series was based on true events.
It’s a privilege to be a parent and to raise a good human is important and meaningful work but it is also hard, and it feels like this infinite task where the goal posts change, and the stakes are high. I’ve previously written my thoughts on raising a son when I wrote Raising a feminist son when the t shirt says “The Future is Female” and Don’t tell me boys will be boys. It is all we can do other than teach our children about kindness and respect and know that this is the one bit of parenting we have to get right.
There’s no bloody chapter on any of this in “What to expect when you are expecting.”
Every minute of The Hunting was superb to watch but in the final 10 minutes there is a classroom scene that is powerful and it flawlessly summarises the disconnect between the genders and the issues surrounding sexual violence. The boys are asked what they do to avoid sexual violence and judging by their reactions it was a question they had never considered; they were genuinely perplexed. When the girls were asked the same question, their reaction was in direct contrast. The responses (carry our keys in our hand, don’t go out alone, don’t wear certain types of clothes) came effortlessly and steadily because it is a lived experience.
I know it’s a big leap to bridge the gap between 6 year old’s kissing at a birthday party to worrying about consent. But from the time Charlie was born to where we are now, it’s been but a blink of the eye so when I blink again, he’ll be 12, then 16. Today he is a little boy who sleeps with a rabbit called Pink Cherry, so it is difficult to imagine having a conversation with him about online sexual violence and consent. The obligatory “birds and bees” lesson will extend into much darker terrain it seems. It makes me feel a combination of sadness and of fear. It makes me want to press pause and it reminds me that I only have a limited time before things get real.
When I woke up the morning of Charlie’s birthday party, I knew it would be a day of happiness and delight, what I didn’t expect was that a bunch ninjas would offer up a lesson and give me pause. | https://traceymontgomery.medium.com/consent-and-the-six-year-old-e78fd198a9c0 | ['Tracey Montgomery'] | 2019-11-22 01:35:05.702000+00:00 | ['Children', 'Consent', 'Boyhood', 'Parenting'] |
Face masks and hand hygiene. | Not one or the other.
While lockdowns and curfews are extended across the continent, so is the enforcement of face mask requirements for all as a protective measure. Today wearing a face mask is no longer a choice, it’s a requirement by the Kenyan government, with anyone not abiding by the rule liable for a fine not exceeding Sh20,000 or imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months or both. And it comes without surprise, as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its policy within the last week and is now advising everyone, whether or not they are showing symptoms of COVID-19, to cover their face with a mask or cloth whenever social distancing is difficult to maintain.
Social distancing is particularly impossible to millions of individuals across African countries. Millions who are living in informal settlements, often less than a meter away from each other. Two week ago, I wrote about the challenges millions will be facing and need for local solutions for protective measures. To urgency rises to surpass the curve of the virus when cases numbered over nine thousand; today in total, there are over 21,000 cases, where testing still has not reached the mass scale needed.
As we see the rationale for face masks and the rise of mandatory face masks, there is little that is being said about the undeniable must of hand washing — essential to the potential protection while using face masks. Have we forgotten the handwashing challenge already? Or have we remembered the missing ingredients? Without access to clean water, the protective benefits of a face mask are not so simple.
Clean water and soap are necessary to wash hands before and after touching your face mask
Clean water and soap are also necessary to wash your cloth face mask to be able to reuse it
Local production of reusable face masks
To support access to face masks for those not in cities or without access to surgical mask distribution due to curfews and lockdown constraints, local tailors and clothing designers have stepped up. The production of cotton face masks, which we have seen being done in homes across Europe, is being done at a local level.
Examples:
Tanzania
On 9 April a group of women came together inTanzania to produce masks for the community. They are also supporting local women at food markets by fundraising to produce masks that can be given to these women for free. Check out Women Empowered Tanzania on Instagram with a link to their go fund me campaign.
Malawi
Mayamiko nourishes the livelihood of a number of communities in Malawi through its projects. One of which has been through sustainable fashion and in response to COVID-19 they have done a few things gearing up the tailor expertise:
initially converted the workshop to mask making facility to donate to the community
then asked the teams to work from home and carry on from the safety of their house / porch — making about 500 face masks a week.
created a series of simple and clear flashcards in English and Chichewa with key prevention messages that can be shared through WhatsApp, FB Messenger or any other channel people are already using. All of which can be found on their website here: https://lnkd.in/dPJgAxX
Ethiopia
A sustainable fashion brand designed and produced in Ethiopia, Mafi Mafi, re-purposes its resources as of 1 April to enable producing and distributing face masks. It’s first 1000 masks were given away for free to Addis Ababa city administration, Setawit movement and Minibas taxi drivers around Lideta.
Face masks must be used with proper hand hygiene.
Now take these great solutions of reusable face masks and add access to soap or hand sanitizer — this is where the local flattening of the curve can happen. Enabling local production of these goods can help in preventing the spread of the virus, create an accessible supply chain based on realistic needs as well as add financial security to communities. Everyone’s safety matters so access to basic measures of protection — face masks, sanitizers, hand soap etc, is a must. By using already available materials, communities can make adequate personal protection, and also ensure that essential basic needs to protect their families against a virus are met.
While with Innovate for Africa (I for Africa), we are supporting families and communities to utilise the local knowledge, skills and resources available to stop the spread of the virus, we have seen some exemplary solutions which are worth spreading:
Cameroon Youth
In Cameroon, youth are stepping up to help make sanitizers, bottle them and distribute and ship to local communities in need. The growth of the work has been endorsed and supported by civil society and the Ministry of Youth Affairs.
Niger Entrepreneurship
As part of an ongoing effort of capacity building, UNHCR in Niger has been expanding the learning platform during COVID-19 response and teaching women how to make soap from local ingredients.
Community washing stations
When supplies are short, water access limited, the strength of supporting each other through communal efforts are one of the best ways. A great example is setting up a Tippy Tap, a water and soap station that can be used by many and all without touching and keeping social distancing.
#StrongerTogether with face masks and hand hygiene
These efforts must come together — face masks and hand hygiene — to make the necessary impact in protecting people from coronavirus, create employment for local producers of face masks, sanitizers and hand soap but also enable the recipients to have access to face mask and hand sanitizers and soap now and in the long run. These joint forces can shift the paradigm of west production and import, contribute to a future of continued local production without external help and securing a more sustainable approach.
Through I for Africa, we are gathering information about locally available materials, identifying local producers, sharing aggregated knowledge through manuals and enabling the local productions of both face masks and hand hygiene products in poorly serviced informal settings or remote places with no access to health services and clean water.
Help us connect the dots of local efforts and support locally based solutions, by following and sharing on @ifor.africa | https://medium.com/@annateresakopacz/face-masks-and-hand-hygiene-f7ac9a5cfd40 | ['Anna K'] | 2020-04-20 13:29:40.831000+00:00 | ['Covid Diaries', 'Hand Washing', 'Africa', 'Innovate', 'Local Business'] |
Creates Social Impacts- Biometric Technology | Anything that affects a large population eventually affects society and the same is true about technology. Society is made by people and their persistent social interaction. This interaction forms the basis of social structure. Societies largely affect human lives and individual actions.
Main Technologies in Professional industry
arya college.in
In the large modern world, technologies have become the mainstream for survival. Everything is running fast than usual. Biometric technology has become a huge part in everyone’s life especially the professional areas, as it is no longer the realm of fiction.
Anything that affects a large population eventually affects society. The same criteria work for the technologies as well. The society and the technology share an inseparable relationship of cyclical co-dependence, co-influence, and co-production. The introduction of new technologies requires the recognition of both people and society. Students must have a clear understanding of these technologies from the learning given by Arya College.
Core places for Biometrics
In recent years, Biometric technology has challenged the traditional methods of personal identification. Biometrics support personally identifiable biological patterns of human being in order to identify them uniquely. There are different forms of recognition that are used in law enforcement and forensics for more hundred years. In the past, the fingerprints and biological patterns only limited to anti-social elements and criminals. On the other hand, people are getting aware of the strengths and risk associated with the technology.
A large number of biological characteristics like finger and palm vein patterns, voice recognition, fingerprints, and iris are useful in the evolution of biometric identification capabilities are becoming standard on many devices we use each day. Despite this, the technology is treated differently in different societies..
Positive Impact & Negative Impact You can Read on Our Website : Arya College
Thanks for reading our blog readers. You can check out full blog on our official Arya College Website. Arya College is one of the Best Engineering College in Jaipur. Arya College provides higher education with best placements in top companies. | https://medium.com/@aryacollegejaipur/creates-social-impacts-biometric-technology-a15733be03df | ['Arya College'] | 2019-02-25 06:07:54.193000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Technology News', 'Technology', 'Biometrics Technologies', 'Biometrics'] |
Are things falling apart for Libra? | Are things falling apart for Libra?
The proposed digital coin by the social media giant is losing support as the big-name initial supporters quit
There is absolutely no doubt that Facebook’s proposed digital payment coin got more than its fair share of attention ever since its launch in June of this year. The proposed project raised so many eyebrows since it was being backed by the biggest social media platform of the World, with a following of over 2.4 billion.
While the decentralized crypto projects criticized it for being an equivalent of an extremely centralized corporate entity encroaching on the Defi space with its monopolistic tendencies, regulators were worried about the disruption it might bring to the current “tried & tested” monetary system.
Regulatory Concerns
The regulators have been extremely critical of the project citing security concerns, especially considering the pathetic data privacy record of the social media giant. FB had immediately tried to tone down the enthusiasm around the launch of the Libra coin by saying that it won’t launch the digital coin till the regulators give it the go-ahead, no matter how long it takes.
Unfortunately for FB, the criticism continued to mount as the European regulators took an even harsher stance against the proposed coin — going as far as saying that they can block Libra to operate in Europe. It was dealt another blow with a recent report from the Group of Seven Nations (G7). The report outlined nine major risks posed by such digital currencies, which need to be addressed adequately before regulators can give the green signal.
High Profile Exits
The biggest setback, however, was yet to come. The governing council of the project, Libra Association, which originally had 28 members lost six of its high profile members as the latest casualties of this regulatory battle. PayPal which had pulled the plug on the relationship a couple of weeks ago was followed by Mastercard, Visa, digital auction company eBay, payments firm Stripe and Mercado Pago. All of them cited regulatory pushback as the main reason for their pullout.
The association that was supposed to expand to 100 members eventually with the responsibility of running Libra on the private blockchain network has now shrunk to 22 members. Considering each partner was to invest $10 million in the project, the $60 million might not seem that much as compared to the big-name exits. These defections might very well encourage others to leave as well with the project already on shaky grounds.
OpenLibra
While there is a very real possibility that Libra may never launch, it has certainly given impetus to other such projects in the digital payment space. Co-founder of blockchain infrastructure startup Wireline announced OpenLibra — a blockchain technology platform intended to build on Libra’s strengths with emphasis on financial inclusion, open governance & economic decentralization.
The developers of the proposed permissionless fork to Libra have released the first version — dubbed as MoveMint. Running on top of Tendermint blockchain software the virtual machine can be found on GitHub.
Libra ‘Prediction Futures’
And then there are others who are not waiting around to see the actual use case of Libra or if it launches or not — crypto derivatives exchange CoinFlex is launching physically delivered futures contracts which will be settled based on whether Libra launches in 2020 or not. Based on the Initial Futures Offering (IFO) concept, the new offering will be offered on Oct. 24 and the initial price of a futures contract will be set to $0.30 — reflecting a 30% chance that Libra would launch by Dec. 2020.
If Libra is to ever launch, Facebook will not only need to address the extreme skepticism of the regulators but also convince its skittish partners to hold the ground. But before that, it has a huge image problem to fix. For now, the project seems to be sliding down a slippery slope. | https://medium.com/technicity/are-things-falling-apart-for-libra-7f855f557207 | ['Faisal Khan'] | 2019-10-15 21:21:37.801000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Technology', 'Finance', 'Economics', 'Bitcoin'] |
Why Your I.T. Strategy is Ineffective | Photo by ahmad gunnaivi on Unsplash
An I.T. strategy is more than just a plan for upgrading your technology. Yet, it lays out how your business will use I.T. for overall growth and development.
Think about it this way. Technology plays a role in every aspect of your business. From HR, Marketing, R&D, Operations, Strategy, Accounting, Customer Satisfaction/Interaction, and so on.
With all of the overlap, it’s important to have an effective I.T. strategy to see that success across the board. Without one, growth can be halted because needs are not met and visions are misaligned.
Alright, let’s dive into five reasons why your I.T. strategy may be ineffective.
I.T. and Business Leaders are Disconnected
When there is a disconnect anywhere, things don’t go as planned. And oftentimes, the leadership team and I.T. department are not on the same page.
This could be caused by communication barriers, not sharing the same vision, misunderstandings, and unrealistic expectations. For example, the way I.T. professionals talk and communicate is much different than the CEO. Your tech pros are going to communicate in a technical way, using jargon, which could be unclear to the CEO who thinks in terms of revenue, cost, and necessities.
Another example of the disconnect comes when business leaders make decisions without including I.T. Without insight from your I.T. department, setting goals and making plans could be unrealistic. Is your current technology able to support and scale what you have planned? Not sure? Your I.T. department would know. While you don’t have to include I.T. in all your strategy meetings, it’s important to regularly check-in to ensure you’re on the same page, working towards the right goals.
No Defined Strategy or Objectives
A key component of business planning is having defined goals and objectives. From there you can determine your key performance indicators (KPIs), which are quantifiable measurements to gauge performance. When KPIs are hit, you know what’s working or what led you to success. When KPIs are not met, you know what you need to adjust to meet your goals.
“What gets measured, gets done.” — PETER DRUCKER
Without knowing what objectives you needed to hit, you’ll be all over the place. Just working on the tasks you think you need to work on, want to work on, are the easiest, or that you feel most comfortable with. When in reality, those tasks don’t match up with what was expected of you. Without a defined strategy and clear objectives, there is no direction. No direction creates failure because a defined strategy outlines what you need to do or not do and without one, you don’t know what you need to do or not to do.
No I.T. Strategy in Place
Anything within your business operations that does not have a plan is likely ineffective. Without a plan or strategy in place, there is no direction. No goals being met because there are no goals. Nothing being measured because there are no KPIs to measure. No objectives being hit or missed which can help you evaluate what to do next.
No strategy means you have nothing to plan, execute, achieve, measure, and evaluate. There is no clear direction for the use of your technology. If part of the larger picture is to implement new software, does your technology allow for this? Or if you plan on adding new hires to your team, will there be money in the budget for the hardware needed for them?
No Budget for Technology
There are many areas of the business to consider when determining your budget for the year, which is why I.T. often gets thrown to the backburner. It’s deemed as less important than other areas of the budget. However, that’s not a great idea when almost half (43%) of cyberattacks are targeted towards small to medium-sized businesses. And that is the sole reason for SMBs becoming an increasing target to hackers — A lower I.T. budget means lessened security and an easier chance for hackers to be successful.
Without a sufficient budget for I.T., you can kiss your goals and objectives goodbye. Now, I’m not saying you need to allocate all your resources here, just enough to realistically meet your goals.
Take the examples from the previous section. If your plan is to deploy new software, but the hardware you currently have is not compatible, then you need to account for updated hardware in your budget. The same goes for the new hires.
You’re Not Using an MSP
Developing a successful I.T. strategy can be a lot to handle, especially if you don’t know where to begin. Luckily, partnering with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) can get you on track and stay there. From conducting third-party audits to ensure all of your partners are aligned with your goals, having a dedicated client success team on your side, to the actual strategic road mapping of your technology and processes.
Not to mention, when you partner with an MSP, they are with you every step of the way. By thoroughly understanding your I.T. infrastructure, every decision made will be well-informed rather than just an unrealistic expectation set by business leaders who are disconnected from your I.T. department.
And with the help of an MSP, aligning your technology with your business goals has never been easier. With both your technology and goals on the same page, you’ll be able to accurately plan for the future and ensure a smooth execution to reach success. | https://medium.com/@gordonmonica96/why-your-i-t-strategy-is-ineffective-3f47084da9a | ['Monica Gordon'] | 2020-12-21 22:07:53.839000+00:00 | ['Strategy', 'Business Strategy', 'Information Technology', 'Strategy Execution', 'Strategy Planning'] |
Want to be a great leader? Lead from the heart | Want to be a great leader? Lead from the heart
Build followers, not subordinates
Amina Islam
“He that thinketh he leadeth, and hath no one following, is only taking a walk,” John Maxwell
There is no doubt that Nelson Mandela was not just taking a walk, but was one of the greatest leaders to have ever lived. Despite being in prison for 27 years, he held a clear vision of ending the apartheid system and achieved it.
But he didn’t do it alone.
He built a follower-driven movement through his charismatic and oratorical skills, inspiring his followers to defy the racist policies of the South African government in a peaceful and dignified manner. Through it all, he was known for his endearing qualities and his ability to engage with others at a deeper emotional level, traits that even the prison guards attested to in interviews following his release.
What can we learn from Nelson Mandela about how great leaders can lead in the business world?
Great leaders have followers, not just subordinates.
Unfortunately, a lot of people mistake holding positions of authority with leadership. Perks of being in a position of authority such as carrying a title that starts with the letter ‘C’, having people follow one’s orders, and parking in a coveted spot at the office do not necessarily make one a great leader.
Leading by authority is not the same as leading by influence. So how can you lead by influence and build followers?
Start with the ‘Why’.
Simon Sinek made popular the concept of ‘Start With Why’ through his Ted Talk, where he repeatedly emphasized that people don’t buy what you do but why you do it. He says, “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”
People at work yearn to know that what they do contributes to something bigger than themselves. Discussed in the same talk, the limbic part of the brain that controls feelings such as loyalty and trust, which in turn controls behavior and decision-making, is highly attuned to the concept of purpose.
Do your employees know what your organization’s purpose is? Most importantly, do they know why you’re all pursuing it?
One way to test that is by simply handing each one of them a blank three-by-five-inch card, and have them write down their answers to the following two questions; “In your own words, what is our organization’s purpose? How is your role contributing to that purpose?”
Then collect the cards and see whether their answers are aligned or not.
If their answers are not aligned, why is that? Is there no clearly articulated mission statement encapsulating the purpose? Or is the mission just words that are discussed but not lived by?
Diagnose where the disconnect is, and work on fixing that.
2) Lead from the heart.
Unfortunately, there is a common perception among C-suite level executives that managing by fear and intimidation produces results, but as we explored in a previous article, toxic fear-based environments hinder employee engagement, creativity, morale, and productivity.
Great leaders lead from the heart.
This means they genuinely care about their people and aim to serve them. They’re empathetic, listen to their people’s needs — at work and in life — and make sure they feel understood and valued. More importantly, they treat them as people rather than resources and tools that can be exploited, utilized, and replaced.
Richard Branson says it best when he says, “If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers, and your customers will take care of your shareholders.”
For example, if one of your employees starts showing up late in the office, rather than taking the usual route of giving them a stern lecture on timeliness, try to understand why they’re consistently late, and how you can help them?
3) Create a “Circle of Safety” within the organization and most importantly, protect it.
A Circle of Safety is a firm foundation of trust within teams (a topic we’ve discussed in a previous post about building trust through transparency). As it is, organizations already face many threats from their competition and the market. So your employees don’t need to spend extra energy fending off internal threats from their own colleagues. The ability for the team to pull together well in the face of obstacles is what defines an organization’s endurance, and it’s your job as the leader to create this circle where everyone feels safe.
Reinforcing this idea, Nelson Mandela is quoted to say, “It is better to lead from behind and put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger.”
As a leader, one simple tool to test the health of an organization was devised by former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich. According to Dan Pink’s book Drive which introduced this tool, “When he (Reich) talks to employees, he listens carefully for the pronouns they use. Do they refer to their company as “they” or as “we”?”
When employees refer to the company with “they,” it’s clear they view themselves as being separate, hinting at not feeling a sense of ownership or safety.
To conclude, it is important to understand that what makes great leaders is their ability to lead by influence and build a followership. Cultivate this ability by communicating a clear vision to inspire people. Make them internalize your ‘why’. Also, lead from the heart, and make sure that all your employees feel heard, seen, and valued, as the relationship between leaders and followers is one where influence goes both ways!
About the author: Amina Islam is the Innovative Learning Lead for Xcelerator , where she works with the product team to develop new programs. She received her Ph.D. from Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in 2017. Amina is always excited about new ideas and explores them in writing on her Linkedin profile and ahscribbles.com. | https://medium.com/xcelerator-alg/want-to-be-a-great-leader-lead-from-the-heart-5cb0c5e8a571 | [] | 2019-11-27 06:38:46.670000+00:00 | ['Leadership Development', 'Xcelerator', 'Leadership', 'CEO', 'Purpose'] |
Baby travel bag checklist | Baby travel bag checklist
Travelling with your baby? Don’t hush while packing. There are a lot more essential thing to pack for your baby. It is very important to plan well before hand and don’t miss what your baby requires the most.
Trying to figure out what to pack? Here we are with the checklist:
· Diapers: Pack of diapers pant should be on priority. They are disposable, easier to use and comfortable for baby while travelling.
· Changing pad: Carry a few plastic bags or disposable changing pads while changing a baby’s diaper pants.
· Baby wipes: They’re the multi-tasker of all diaper bag essentials — handy for wiping baby’s bum, your hands and the changing pad
· Hand sanitizer: a must in this covid-19 situation
· Blankets: it will be helpful to wrap your baby and protect from cold winds or you can also, use it to cover up while breastfeeding.
· Mosquito repellent: protect your baby from the uninvited bites of mosquitos.
· Pacifiers: keep them in a clear bag with extra nipples.
· Baby food
· First aid kit
· Diaper rash cream
· Baby lotion
Quick tips:
· Use a waterproof diaper bag to carry it all.
· Keep an extra outfit handy at all times.
· Pack medicines and liquids in separate plastic pouches.
· Keep each baby clothing item in a separate compartment | https://medium.com/@doobidoo/baby-travel-bag-checklist-ba648dc736cf | [] | 2021-01-06 05:37:17.587000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Parenthood', 'Diapers', 'Baby Care'] |
Food, Finance, And Future | Food, Finance, And Future
Examining how innovative food trends will revolutionize our ways of eating, and help you thrive at work and home
Photo by Martin Bargl on Unsplash
2020 woke people up in regards to foodways
Twenty twenty provided 20/20 hindsight about some of the ways we produce, obtain, and distribute food. There are lessons to learn, but also opportunities for aligning our food habits with healthy Earth ways.
If you eat every day, you should invest a bit more time in thinking about food.
Possibly, you might consider investing your energy and time into related industries, or actual financial investments.
The world of food is our world. It is undergoing remarkable revolutions.
Food is more than our sustenance, most of our industries are in one way or another related to how your lunch is sourced, where you eat it, and the reason you work at all in order to “bring home the bacon.” Obviously, if we are to continue to eat and sustain a planet to raise plant- and animal-based foods, we will have to innovate quickly, and with tremendous determination.
Location and Innovation
Even whether you own or rent is related to food, because you either commute and eat primarily at one or two locations (home and/or work), and you source your food accordingly. For example, owners are much more likely to have a window, or backyard, garden. Doing so allows an owner an advantage to accumulate saved wealth, food convenience and quality, and considerable savings in time spent shopping, and waste (garbage/recycling/compost) streams. Growing food at home is especially helpful for those people who work from home, or who crave food security during pandemics and social upheaval.
According to the Wall Street Journal, cooking at home has been even more evident in 2020 than ever before.
Of course, it’s also worth considering your health. Fast food and processed food is well-known to be detrimental to overall immune health, and in addition to the usual suspects of extra body weight, heart disease, and cancer, there are many other considerations.
Farm to fork trends that will require startups and investments
As the world moves toward awareness of both our limitations, our tolerances, and our sustainability, we will see millions of new technological innovations, and eventually, billions of new employment opportunities.
Given globalization, new trends in food production, distribution, and sales will continue to be led by the dawning realizations of changes coming due to things like pandemics, the climate crisis, and species extinction. The whole world is beginning to see the many thousands of ways we can innovate and collaborate to increase yields even as we protect soils, water, air, and land.
A few areas that are being closely studied include vertical farming — (critical to save space and habitats as well as to green our cities), AI, robots, aquaponics, and genetic tinkering. Other new innovations are being developed worldwide in things having to do with material themselves, such as biodegradable polymers, packaging, GMO crops, meat substitutes, and insect protein development.
Many people believe that the tendency for baking bread and developing new family rituals in favor of in-home dining may become a new piece of whatever new normal we attain.
Our present system, of on-the-run eating, fast food drive-thru meals, eating at the desk, and other “convenient” methods could hopefully be replaced by wider, greener, city spaces where parking garages and offices are converted to ‘pocket’ food growing space, and occasional take away kiosks, or outdoor cafes where food becomes more social, (or think of a spread out block party food fair) and less of just a ‘fueling station’ feel to them.
The future will run on food
All of these things will be collaboratively driven in order to feed a few more billion people while at the same time preserving climate and environmental health. Over the next thirty years, these revolutionary new habits will fundamentally change our human relationships to food innovation and production itself.
Many of these new trends will face social and political struggles, but in the end, society will always choose to feed itself. Controversy such as those over GMO foods, for example, will drive food trends in different directions among different cultures. In the west, our disdain for insect protein is presently being re-examined. Will people opt for a cultured meat that is cruelty-free and climate-friendly, or will they simply switch over to more genetically modified and enhanced plant protein?
Much of what lays ahead will depend upon public preference and public pressure to wean ourselves away from carbon heavy “junk food,” sugar and fat addiction, awareness of animal suffering, awareness of deforestation, and awareness of mental, physical, and spiritual needs of people and cultures.
There will likely be trends that ebb and flow, according to human need, cultural foodways, and technological advancements.
From pandemics to remedies
These trends are well under way in 2020, given how many people are accepting the reality of climate change and the realization that pandemics are often zoonotic (animal flesh originated) in our endless search for food.
In 2020, for example, food sourced by animal flesh — bats or pangolins — has provided insight to many millions more people about zoonotic illness and the great need to protect habitats as well as human health. But you don’t have to eat a bat to get Covid-19; just getting food at the supermarket where anti-maskers shop could do it! Nor are livestock diseases from domestic animal husbandry something we can continue to ignore.
Awareness alone, if done in true public health awareness campaigns, will continue to surge the search for healthier eating habits that sustain all life.
Last week, for example, Spillover author David Quammen wrote about bats in the New York Times. Our relationships to all beings on Earth have a direct bearing on how, what, where, and what we will eat in the future.
Then there are the very real concerns about employment for restauranteurs, food outlets, service people, farm workers, and related industries. There are also legitimate interests in local food shortages while at the same time we had record amounts of food waste as the whole economy weakened.
Issues like this will require creative minds, collaborative efforts, startups of every kind, and a full range of people to participate in all of the above.
Awareness and acceptance are at least half of the battle. If we are creative, we will innovate entire new industries. If we are investors, we should look toward the newer, safer, food trends — wake up and smell the sustainably-sourced coffee — as it were.
If we are wise, we will invest in every remedy that we can in order to find which trends will be hit and miss, and which trends will ultimately steer us toward foodways that make a healthier you and a healthier world. | https://medium.com/climate-conscious/food-finance-and-future-422d23fdac76 | ['Christyl Rivers'] | 2020-12-16 16:03:25.387000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Culture', 'Climate Action', 'Climate Change', 'Food'] |
Dark Energy | What is dark energy? Why is it so important to the development of the Universe?
Find out in Dark Energy, the newest installment of Cosmic Funnies where Planet X tells the story! | https://medium.com/the-cosmic-companion/dark-energy-bd04ba0db533 | ['Cosmic Funnies'] | 2020-01-26 18:53:59.984000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Space', 'Education', 'Astronomy', 'Comics'] |
Towards Human Centered Education | Today’s education
Education is at the hearth of societal, individual and collective development and is supposed to facilitate children empowerment. Yet, in many situations, it fails to do it well, whether because of economic problems or outdated approaches.
According to USI data, about 260 million of children are out of school and a study conducted by Cindy Liu on US students concluded that 1 out of 5 students would consider suicide because of stress at school.
Education is currently not optimized, with a large level gap between students and individual differences not sufficiently considered.
Education in the 21st century
School defines what skills are valued by society. Today, it mainly promotes individualism, competition and zero-sum game. Yet, living in the 21st century, in a society of growth, resources are growing and highly valuable skills are now cooperation and communication.
In addition, knowledge is now at the core of every economy. The more knowledge you have, the more patents, publications or innovations you have and the more powerful you are. This is what makes Google and Facebook the giants they are today. As a result, to redesign learning approach is key so that schools promote cooperation, self-Discovery, creativity and win-win state of mind. Catching attention through gamification, fun and customized information is probably the most promising approach.
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained” Walt Disney
The first part of this article introduces the individual differences that influence the learning process. Then, a digital tool aimed at optimizing each individual learning potential will be introduced, leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to design a more customized platform. | https://towardsdatascience.com/human-centered-education-85f9a9702076 | ['Andy Spezzatti'] | 2019-08-02 02:52:29.407000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Education', 'Data Science', 'Improvement', 'NLP'] |
Books & Booze: 12/20/20 | Your antidote to a week of chaos.
Let’s get this pressing question out of the way. Why should you pay any mind to my tastes?
I have excellent taste. In books and booze. I read 100–125 books per year. For the past decade. I’m slightly smarter than average. Not exceedingly so mind you, but like a tad bit. And that’s enough.
Anyway, moving on to the important things.
Here are the books I’m reading:
An especially great week for books! The first one about the making of the Patriots Dynasty was really well written. Since the dynasty is done, this book and my memories are all I have. And then a surprise banger…a book about how fast the future is coming (spoiler, a lot of the future is here, the rest is coming REALLY fast) and what we can do to capitalize on it.
The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict
“From the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots — the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century.”
Many people have their opinion about the Patriots. Typically it’s not a good one. I myself have been a Brady fan for a long time and remain one today. I’m also a fan of Robert Kraft. He’s a good person and he, Coach Belichick and Tom Brady built something really special up in Foxboro. Something that lasted for twenty years. This is the story of that and it’s a fascinating read whether you like football or not. Though admittedly you’ll enjoy it more if you’re a football fan. And it probably helps if you’re a New England fan. But anyone can steal some antidotes to building a winning culture from this 500 page part tale/part manifesto.
The Future is Faster Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis
“From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era.”
Did you know you (well probably not you, or me, but anyway) can 3-D print an 800 square foot house in under 24 hours?? I didn’t. Now I do. This book is broken into 3 parts: The Power of Convergence, The Rebirth of Everything and The Faster Future. Part 2 (Rebirth) is probably the most interesting since it covers the future of shopping, healthcare, education and more. I’m not super tech-savvy so this was a great read for me. But even for people with their finger on the pulse of our advancements, this is a fun book. I almost want to say it’s a must read…
And the drinks I’m having:
This was the rare no beer, double cocktail week! My 9–5 sent us a holiday party in a box, which included 4 simple syrups from Root 23.Cucumber habanero, grapefruit basil, maple cinnamon and pear rosemary. Root 23 also has a cherry almond on their website which I want to get my hands on. So obviously when this box came I had to cast beer aside, temporarily, to make room for the harder stuff.
Kickin 2020 Buh-Bye Cocktail
So, tequila isn’t for everyone. Hell, it isn’t even for me 99.9% of the time. BUT, when I saw the recipe card in the holiday party box and it had me mixing up some cucumber habanero syrup with orange liqueur and then tossing some tequila in…I said, eh why not, it’s 2020 after all. Man, I’m glad I mixed it up and took the first sip. This drink was FUN. A hint of heat and a good buzz later, I’m ready for whatever nonsense 2021 has in store.
Ingredients:
3oz tequila of your choice (I used Jose, duh)
1oz cucumber habanero syrup (https://www.root23.com/)
2oz lime juice (I fresh squeezed mine because I’m an overachiever)
1tsp orange liqueur
Cucumber slice (use the rest in a big salad to offset your drinking habit)
Habanero pepper (don’t feel pressured)
Directions:
Pour tequila, syrup and juice into a shaker with ice. Shake with some sass in your wrist. Strain into a highball glass (or any old glass, we’re not fancy here). Garnish (an admittedly fancy term) with the cucumber and habanero. Sip, adult style. Do not chug. That’s fair warning.
Are You Al-Ryete Cocktail
A modern twist on the familiar whiskey sour. This is a maple whiskey sour! Now I love whiskey and I can like sour, though I’ve never chased after whiskey sours when it was still smiled upon to go out and about to bars and what not. But, one of the simple syrups was maple cinnamon and the picture was pretty so I thought shiiiit, let’s do it! This turns into a sweet and sour with that whiskey bite. Tasty.
Ingredients:
2oz rye whiskey (I used Rittenhouse Rye, sounds fancy but sells under 30 bucks)
2oz apple juice (organic, pairs nicely with the rye’s liver abuse)
3/4oz maple cinnamon syrup
3/4oz lemon juice (yes, you already know I fresh squeezed it because I’m annoying)
Lemon slice
Cinnamon stick
Directions:
Pour whiskey, juices and syrup into shaker with ice. Shake, with cigar in mouth (lit or unlit, your choice). Strain into a martini glass, pinky out(who are you??). Toss the lemon slice and cinnamon stick on there for good measure (sex appeal).
Enjoy and see you next Sunday for more books and booze! | https://medium.com/@caitmackcs/books-booze-12-20-20-a27e912114ea | ['Cait Mack'] | 2020-12-20 13:32:17.362000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Life', 'Alcohol', 'Books', 'Reading'] |
Automated Liquidity Management Strategy for incentivized GEL/ETH G-UNI Pools | Automated Liquidity Management Strategy for incentivized GEL/ETH G-UNI Pools Kassandra Follow Sep 8 · 6 min read
Background
Gelato Network is releasing the GEL token in a public sale (see here). In order to create a healthy and robust market for the GEL in circulation after the sale, Gelato Network is planning to incentivize liquidity for the GEL/ETH token pair on Uniswap V3. The Liquidity Mining Program proposed (see here) would use Gelato’s very own G-UNI system for pooled liquidity management on Uniswap V3. The Liquidity Mining incentives will help to accumulate capital in two GEL/ETH G-UNI Pools as holders of these GEL/ETH G-UNI tokens may stake their G-UNI to earn GEL rewards. This should bootstrap deep liquidity for the GEL token in the Uniswap V3 market.
The two incentivized G-UNI Pools will be managed by an automated smart contract that periodically adjusts the G-UNI Pools’ Positions on the Uniswap V3 trading pair, changing the price range and concentration of the positions on a predefined strategy. The strategy is optimized to maintain deep liquidity for GEL no matter where the trading price moves, as well as minimize losses due to inventory risk (impermanent loss) by cleverly managing the inventory (passive rebalancing). The details of the strategy are discussed below, so interested participants have clarity around how the assets they provide as liquidity to these G-UNI Pools will be managed.
Two-Pool Strategy
Two automated G-UNI Pools allow us to handle covering price movements in each direction separately. This two-pool strategy makes it easy to adjust the ranges without the need to swap one asset for another and “actively” rebalance the inventory. Swaps can be undesirable because they take on price risk (make impermanent loss into permanent loss), have a fee taken off the top of trades, and don’t work if there is no other liquidity to source (if you swap against your own assets you didn’t actually change your inventory). Passive rebalancing is a much better strategy for LPing in our scenario- we can adjust the composition of our G-UNI Uniswap V3 liquidity without swapping by placing the holdings in configurations that promote natural rebalancing as prices move.
Below, the “red” pool is in charge of making sure we never run out of GEL and escape the range on the left side. Similarly, the “blue” pool is in charge of making sure we never run out of ETH and escape the range on the right side.
The default starting position for GEL/ETH G-UNI Pools
Passive Rebalance with Range Order
The first and simplest kind of passive rebalance is to simply shift an out of range position to be as close to the current price as possible:
The price moves into the blue pool’s range.
The red pool shifts its GEL liquidity down to the edge of the current price
New configuration, same underlying assets
So when the current price is entirely out of range on the right of the red pool it can shift as far right as the current price, acting as a GEL range order just above market price. The same thing for the blue pool, if the price escapes the range to the left of the blue pool, it will shift left and follow the price as an ETH range order.
Passive Rebalance with Range Expansion
The other type of rebalance that is possible without swapping assets is to proportionally expand the range of a pool. This way the same liquidity (less concentrated) can cover more prices. This is how we rebalance whenever we are within the “buffer zone” of a pool:
Price moves into “blue pool” buffer zone
Blue pool expands (dilutes) to cover more prices on the right of the price
Blue pool after expansion
As before red pool can shift down towards new current price as well
Final position after both pools adjust to the new price
This way, pools extend their range and spread the thinning asset in the pool over a wider variety of prices, while concentrating liquidity near current prices with the over-accumulating asset. This promotes rebalancing of the inventory towards a more balanced ratio of GEL/ETH, without ever swapping.
Passive Rebalancing with Range Contraction
The final maneuver for the automated strategy will be the inverse of range expansion we saw above: contraction of the expanded ranges once the price is moving in the other direction. Range contraction works very similar to range expansion:
Price changes direction back into the GEL range order
With price sufficiently far from buffer zone blue pool can contract range
Final position after contraction
Putting it all together
Put as simply as possible, the two pools run a mirrored strategy on opposite sides of the market, with the following rules:
Expand the range (reducing concentration) of pool when the price enters the buffer zone.
Contract the range (increasing concentration) of pool when the price moves far enough out of the buffer zone.
If the price completely escapes the range on the opposite side of the buffer zone, simply shift the liquidity as close to the current price as possible.
With both pools running this mirrored strategy we will always have at least some liquidity wherever the price moves. Below, let's watch the evolution of the liquidity if the price were to move in the other direction:
Price now moves into buffer zone of the red pool
Red pool expands the range
Final Position after expansion
If the price continued to move to the left and the blue pool was entirely out of range it would start shifting left to follow the price as a range order… and so on. With such a strategy we are protected (as best as possible) from escaping both ranges completely, however we never swap assets, avoiding the associated price risks.
Notes
In this article, some aspects of the strategy have been simplified for brevity. Most importantly everywhere we speak about the “current price” we actually use a TWAP (time-weighted average price) in the real implementation. This way prices cannot be manipulated in the short term just to trigger an automated rebalance. Other important parameters are set when initializing the strategy (things like bufferLength for the tick length of the buffer zone, or or twapDuration for the number of seconds used in calculating TWAPs).
There are a number of other subtle technical aspects omitted here that are necessary to make the automated rebalancing strategy optimal and safe. The code and documentation will be made available for those who want to dive deeper into the exact specifications of the pool automation! | https://medium.com/gelato-network/automated-liquidity-management-strategy-for-gel-eth-incentivized-g-uni-pools-70b989c0424b | [] | 2021-09-12 14:15:24.006000+00:00 | ['Automation', 'Uniswap', 'Ethereum', 'Defi'] |
The Eidoo Hybrid Exchange — a technical look under the hood | In this article, we want to tell you more about how the Eidoo Hybrid Exchange works from a technical point of view.
To do so, we have prepared a technical paper about the Eidoo hybrid exchange, a new architecture which provides efficiency, security and transparency.
This hybrid exchange is an important part of our roadmap and, as explained on our social media channels, a first version will be released in March.
See more images of the hybrid exchange here.
The first pair listed will be EDO/ETH; then we will gradually launch more pairs, including the most popular ERC20 tokens on the market.
As usual, everything will be very user-friendly being the user experience our main goal for the whole Eidoo app.
Code is Law
In the technical paper that follows you will see how the whole architecture works, and why we define it as “hybrid”.
Hybrid platforms leverage both centralized and decentralized system to get the best features out of both. Any transfer of value is executed on the blockchain according to the exchange smart contract and dedicated user wallets, this is to give to the users full control of their funds and to guaranteed a safe management of those.
Eidoo and Oraclize
Thanks to the strategic alliance between Eidoo and Oraclize, we can prove that the centralized order book server is behaving as expected, making front-running impossible and ensuring that a fair matching of the orders always happens.
This is possible thanks to the use of the Oraclize “authenticity proofs” and of their “computation datasource”.
The Eidoo’s hybrid solution
You as a user will maintain total control over your tokens because ETH, ERC20 and ERC223 tokens will be managed on a safe and trustless platform, but with higher speed and scalability than a normal decentralized exchange.
The hybrid Eidoo exchange will overcome current decentralized exchange limitation regarding the management of large amounts of trades while maintaining low fees.
User accounts are based on a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, where tokens are placed: the exchange itself won’t have any direct unauthorized access to funds.
Also, in a similar way to what happens in decentralized platforms, exchange transactions between wallets will be based on atomic swaps: this means that the operation will be indivisible and can only terminate with a full exchange; otherwise, nothing happens.
Read more about the hybrid exchange on our Technical Paper here. | https://medium.com/eidoo/the-eidoo-hybrid-exchange-a-technical-look-under-the-hood-4a549f4d5189 | ['Amelia Tomasicchio'] | 2018-03-13 13:47:54.563000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Blockchain', 'Exchange', 'Ethereum', 'Token'] |
The Gospel of Salvation | “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.” — Psalm 62:1
What is salvation? Salvation in the Bible refers to God delivering His people from impending destruction. Throughout the Old Testament, God has been delivering His people from troubles. in the Old Testament, God has been called as the Redeemer of Israel, denoting redemption or salvation as one of God’s absolute work, and no one else was considered as such (Isaiah 43:10–11).
In the New Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came into flesh as the Messiah, the One promised to Israel. It is God Himself, the Holy One of Israel who prepared Himself a sacrifice, not just for the redemption of the Jewish nation but also to the redemption of all mankind. Jesus fulfilled them all. “And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The Bible further declares that this Jesus is no other than Emmanuel, God with Us, prophesied in Isaiah 7:14.
SALVATION IN JESUS ALONE
Therefore, salvation is tantamount in receiving Jesus Christ as both God manifest in the flesh to be the begotten Son prepared for the redemption of humanity, and the personal Lord and Savior of an individual person: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Faith in Jesus Christ alone, and not in any other false gods or deities perceived in this world and by other religions, is the only, or say the minimum requirement in order for a man to obtain salvation for his soul.
In Ephesians 2:8, Paul reminded God’s people are saved by grace through faith, not of their works. This epistle was written for the church, who have already been saved. It is not intended to be the way of salvation itself, for Paul is not giving a pattern to unbelievers on how to be saved. He just reminded them of the salvation that they have received, as recorded in the book of Acts. The Book of Acts of the Apostles details the actual conversion experiences of the early church, on how they got saved and added to the church, the pattern of terms of the Gospel message that the Lord has provided for all people, regardless of their ethnicity, backgrounds in life, traditions, or nationalities.
JESUS’ GREAT COMMISSION AND THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
The Gospel, which is represented by Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1–4) summarizes the steps on how a sinner can be saved. It is through the Gospel that man is considered saved. This Gospel is wholly found in Jesus, and any one who profess faith in Him should respond in the command to believe (Acts 16:31).
Believing is more than a mental profession. It is an action word that expects obedience in the part of man: “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). God is requiring all people to believe in the Gospel, which is the Good News of death and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord. To believe the Gospel is to accept the words and command of Jesus Christ, which He commissioned to all His apostles before He ascended back to heaven. The Great Commission is found in the books called the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament.
In Matthew’s account, the Bible says: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 28:18–20).
In Mark’s account, the commission was stressed: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15–16).
In Luke’s account, the Lord has clarified the details o the Great Commission: “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:45–48).
THE GOSPEL CENTERS ON THE IDENTITY OF JESUS
As we understand very clear in the above scriptures, the Great Commission consistently includes the message of the true identity of Jesus Christ Himself, the importance of His name, the connections of preaching the Gospel in His Name, and the relationship of the Gospel to the message of salvation. The Gospel cannot be complete without carrying the message of Jesus Christ’s absolute identity, whose Name possesses all the authority from heaven and on earth. The command of baptism in one single Name of God, who has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all represented in the Person of Jesus, is part of His commission. He wants His disciples to fulfill all these commands and teach them to those who have been reached by the Gospel and been baptized. The Book of Acts of the Apostles records all the records on how the apostles preached and obeyed the Gospel of salvation.
THE GOSPEL OBEYED BY THE EARLY CHURCH
Peter, the apostle who received the “keys of the kingdom” from Jesus Himself (Matthew 16:18–19) was the one who first preached the Good News of Christ’s salvation to the people gathered on the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, or the initial ingathering of God’s people for His name. He opened the kingdom through the keys of the Gospel, so that all people can be saved and be counted part of God’s called out people (Read the whole Acts Chapter 2).
In summary, Apostle Peter, in obedience to the Great Commission of the Lord in Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, and Luke 24:47–49, commanded all people to: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).
1. Repenting of sins
2. Being baptized in water in Jesus’ name for the remission of sins
3. Receiving God’s gift, which is the promised Holy Ghost
Repentance, water baptism, and Holy Ghost reception constitutes the terms of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:1–5; 1 Corinthians 15:1–4). This is the apostles’ doctrine where the apostles and the early church resided in, the faith once delivered unto the saints (Acts 2:42; Jude 1:3), the actual experience that any person on earth who believe the Lord should have, .”For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to those who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39). Through this, the words of Christ are fulfilled, that: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20), that the Lord is “working with them, and confirming the word with signs following” (Mark 16:20).
SAME OLD MESSAGE FOR TODAY’S PEOPLE OF GOD
Those people who have obeyed the Gospel of Jesus Christ becomes His followers or become part of His Body which is the Church. In God’s final call to salvation in these last generations, the same Gospel message is preached and laid, but those who will respond will in this final worldwide revival will no longer be identified in denominational names and affiliations, but will be part of The Jesus People, which is God’s remnants in this end of age, a people for His name, which will usher into the new millennium of Jesus Christ’s final rule on earth. | https://medium.com/@thejesuspeople/the-gospel-of-salvation-fbb4b5942515 | ['The Jesus People'] | 2020-12-21 11:48:11.533000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Jesus', 'Christianity', 'Faith', 'The Jesus People'] |
Do we need to measure marketing performance? | What Is Marketing?
Marketing is a process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships to capture value from customers in return
Can we measure Marketing Performance?
A senior marketing manager in a Fortune 100 company once told
‘‘Every week I have to go to a gun fight, the senior executive leadership meeting, and I am tired of going to this gunfight carrying only a knife.’’
His frustration was the result of having no concrete data to answer hard questions about the value of marketing activities in his division.
What is a metric?
A metric is a measuring system that quantifies a trend, dynamic or characteristic.
Metrics are used to explain phenomena, diagnose causes, share findings and project the results of future events.
Metrics encourage rigour and objectivity.
They make it possible to compare observations across regions and time periods.
They facilitate understanding and collaboration.
Mind Map for measuring marketing performing
MARKETING METRICS vs. MARKETING ANALYTICS
To build a performance advantage we first need to understand how Marketing Analytics (instrumentation) drives Marketing Metrics (performance metrics) .
drives . Marketing Analytics are the tools and data needed to produce Marketing Metrics which are measures of performance.
Measuring Marketing Performance
The measurement of marketing is one of the most important business needs today as companies face increasing pressures to demonstrate financial returns across the organization from shareholders, investors, senior managers, and boards of directors. | https://medium.com/@rhtk/do-we-need-to-measure-marketing-performance-f54e620da1a7 | [] | 2020-12-22 20:14:28.413000+00:00 | ['Performance', 'Mindmap', 'Marketing Metrics', 'Marketing'] |
Why is D3 So Hard To Learn From Bl.ocks? | Why is D3 So Hard To Learn From Bl.ocks?
Tantalizingly complete, the current state of blocks leads to confusion and poor coding technique.
Comments Save Brains
As an early career practitioner, I’m drawn to D3 by the compelling graphics I’ve seen users produce with it, as well as its interactivity. As a former mechanical engineer, my nature is to want to play with and manipulate things. D3 is often touted as the only way to make the most powerful data visualization products. But one of the main ways of learning D3 is “by example” (see Mike Bostock’s 2013 Eyeo talk “For Example”) and those examples are typically hosted as gists on GitHub and then deployed using Mike’s own code called bl.ocks.org (typically referred to as “blocks”) or via similar methods like blockbuilder. Bostock’s new endeavor, Observable, is populated with many new examples that also follow the same approach as these original blocks.
I want to start off by thanking him for creating D3. It’s an incredible tool and I very much look forward to feeling competent in my use of it.
Unfortunately, these blocks he created show major issues that can subvert a learner’s ability to understand code. Or maybe they started that way? I’m new enough to D3 to not know the origin story of these things. Did they start as innocuous ramblings from Bostock as he played with the magical toy he had just invented? Did he intend for them to become the go-to tool for learning how to use said magical toy? Did he ever imagine how many hours would be spent by future disciples helplessly trying to decode not only his wholly un-commented work but the un-commented, and frequently wrong, work of others?
I like to think that it was the innocuous ramblings option. That way I can excuse Bostock and those that came after him from culpability in my personal frustration as I learn his tool.
Here’s an example of a fun viz that would be so much more useful to us newbies if it had some comments.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<body>
<script src="//d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js"></script>
<script>
var width = 960,
height = 500;
var nodes = d3.range(200).map(function() { return {radius: Math.random() * 12 + 4}; }),
root = nodes[0],
color = d3.scale.category10();
root.radius = 0;
root.fixed = true;
var force = d3.layout.force()
.gravity(0.05)
.charge(function(d, i) { return i ? 0 : -2000; })
.nodes(nodes)
.size([width, height]);
force.start();
var svg = d3.select("body").append("svg")
.attr("width", width)
.attr("height", height);
svg.selectAll("circle")
.data(nodes.slice(1))
.enter().append("circle")
.attr("r", function(d) { return d.radius; })
.style("fill", function(d, i) { return color(i % 3); });
force.on("tick", function(e) {
var q = d3.geom.quadtree(nodes),
i = 0,
n = nodes.length;
while (++i < n) q.visit(collide(nodes[i]));
svg.selectAll("circle")
.attr("cx", function(d) { return d.x; })
.attr("cy", function(d) { return d.y; });
});
svg.on("mousemove", function() {
var p1 = d3.mouse(this);
root.px = p1[0];
root.py = p1[1];
force.resume();
});
function collide(node) {
var r = node.radius + 16,
nx1 = node.x - r,
nx2 = node.x + r,
ny1 = node.y - r,
ny2 = node.y + r;
return function(quad, x1, y1, x2, y2) {
if (quad.point && (quad.point !== node)) {
var x = node.x - quad.point.x,
y = node.y - quad.point.y,
l = Math.sqrt(x * x + y * y),
r = node.radius + quad.point.radius;
if (l < r) {
l = (l - r) / l * .5;
node.x -= x *= l;
node.y -= y *= l;
quad.point.x += x;
quad.point.y += y;
}
}
return x1 > nx2 || x2 < nx1 || y1 > ny2 || y2 < ny1;
};
}
</script>
In the example above, wouldn’t it be great to have a brief explanation of what the map method is doing? Or what do .gravity and .charge do? These, of course, are things that can be looked up in the D3 API but a brief explanation specific to this chart would be much more efficient.
I’ve been learning D3 on and off now for about a year and a half. I’ve gone through some tutorials but I find that they only scratch the surface and are often fragmented — learning the code for building a scale doesn’t mean anything to me without the accompanying chart. Also, I’m impatient. Once I built my first simple bar chart I wanted to do all of it. And all of it was sitting right there in the block library! Beautiful, interactive charts that just looked so cool. And all the code was sitting there for me to use!
So, my process has generally been the following:
Decide what kind of chart I want to make Search for a block demonstrating that chart Attempt to modify the block to ingest my own data and fit my own needs.
This is where things go wrong. Without comments and explanations of what is happening along the way, it’s very hard for someone starting out to figure out what’s going on. Where in this code is the data ingested? How is it manipulated? Why is it manipulated? And why isn’t it working with my data?
And then there’s the problem of blocks that are written with bad code, or don’t include the necessary data files or libraries. I run a dataviz meetup near me and part of what we’ve been doing each month is to dig through a block to understand what’s going on. We’ve come across:
Redundant code. This is where the writer wasn’t sure which was the best method to accomplish their task so they just used both. How is a newbie supposed to recognize this?
Blocks that don’t include all the necessary data files. The only way to recreate a block is to have the data it worked with. Without that it’s useless.
Blocks that are disorganized. This is a stylistic issue and one I could live with but it’s worth mentioning.
Blocks today seem to be simply a showpiece. A way to get someone’s work up in front of other people. They’re not written or intended to be helpful or useful in the pursuit of learning D3. I should also say, aside from HTML and CSS, this is the first coding language I’ve learned so I don’t know if my experience with D3 is unique to this language or just the way it’s done in learning to code.
What can we do to fix this?
In writing this article I’ve stumbled upon some maybe useful articles and tutorials that I wish I had read through as I was starting out (but I’m impatient). The D3 Tutorials Github Repo appears to have some more comprehensive information.
I, myself, have been working to comment any block I dig through and fix bad code. I hope others will join me. I’ve only gotten a few done but every little bit helps.
Comment your blocks. Write nice long intros that explain what the block does and any challenges you had. Especially comment on any data binding peculiarities.
Include any data files that are needed for the block. That should go without saying.
Include links to any additional libraries you used.
Make note, ideally in the title but at least in the intro, what version you used to create the block. Versions matter a lot.
Write an awesomely detailed account of how you created your thing like this guy.
Overall, try to remember what it was like when you were learning this tool and think back to what might have helped you as you sat mystified at your desk. When I first started learning this tool I thought it was so cool that there were all these great examples for me to work off of. A year and a half into it, now, the tool is finally starting to gain some transparency. I wonder how much faster that could have happened if those examples had been easier to understand. | https://medium.com/nightingale/why-d3-is-so-hard-to-learn-from-bl-ocks-a2ac258964af | ['Sarah Reed'] | 2019-09-11 16:09:02.849000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'D3js', 'Data Visualization', 'JavaScript'] |
The Best Internet Privacy Tools for 2019 | If 2018 taught us anything, it’s that even the biggest companies are can fall victim to data breaches and other privacy and security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, when it’s your data being stolen or lost, you’re the victim, not the company.
We’ve put together this list of tools you can use in the new year to help keep your private data safe on the internet in 2019.
Use a Private Search Engine
Private search engines let you search for anything you want, without having to worry that your search engine will use your data against you. These search engines don’t target you with ads, based on your search history.
Search Encrypt: Search Encrypt uses local encryption to secure your searches. It combines AES-256 encryption with Secure Sockets Layer encryption. Search Encrypt then retrieves your search results from its network of search partners. After you’re done searching, your search terms expire so they are private even if someone else has access to your computer.
uses local encryption to secure your searches. It combines AES-256 encryption with Secure Sockets Layer encryption. Search Encrypt then retrieves your search results from its network of search partners. After you’re done searching, your search terms expire so they are private even if someone else has access to your computer. Startpage: StartPage uses results from Google, which is a good thing if you prefer Google’s result without the tracking. Ixquick, which is an independent search engine that uses its own results, developed StartPage to include results from Google. Its features include a proxy service, URL generator, and HTTPS support. The URL generator is a unique feature that eliminates the need for cookies. It remembers your settings in a privacy friendly way.
uses results from Google, which is a good thing if you prefer Google’s result without the tracking. Ixquick, which is an independent search engine that uses its own results, developed StartPage to include results from Google. Its features include a proxy service, URL generator, and HTTPS support. The URL generator is a unique feature that eliminates the need for cookies. It remembers your settings in a privacy friendly way. DuckDuckGo: DuckDuckGo is probably the most well-known alternative search engine. Its CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, said, “if the FBI comes to us, we have nothing to tie back to you.” Searches are sourced mostly from Yahoo. One cool feature of DuckDuckGo is what it calls “bangs”. Users can directly search other sites, like Amazon, Wikipedia, Yelp or Youtube, by starting their query with an exclamation mark!
is probably the most well-known alternative search engine. Its CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, said, “if the FBI comes to us, we have nothing to tie back to you.” Searches are sourced mostly from Yahoo. One cool feature of DuckDuckGo is what it calls “bangs”. Users can directly search other sites, like Amazon, Wikipedia, Yelp or Youtube, by starting their query with an exclamation mark! Qwant: Qwant is a private search engine based in Europe that “never tries to guesswho you are or what you are doing.” According to its About page, Qwant never records your searches and never uses your personal data for advertising or other purposes. Qwant has a feature similar to DuckDuckGo’s !bangs which it calls Qwick search shortcuts.
[Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.]
Use a VPN
ExpressVPN: ExpressVPN is a virtual private network service offered by the British Virgin Islands-based company Express VPN International Ltd. The software is marketed as a privacy and security tool that encrypts users’ web traffic and masks their IP addresses. In 2018, TechRadar named the services its Editors’ Choice.
is a virtual private network service offered by the British Virgin Islands-based company Express VPN International Ltd. The software is marketed as a privacy and security tool that encrypts users’ web traffic and masks their IP addresses. In 2018, TechRadar named the services its Editors’ Choice. NordVPN: NordVPN is a personal virtual private network (VPN) service provider. It has desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux, mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as an application for Android TV. Manual setup is available for wireless routers, NAS devices and other platforms. In 2017, PC Magazine rated NordVPN as the year’s best VPN service.
is a personal virtual private network (VPN) service provider. It has desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux, mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as an application for Android TV. Manual setup is available for wireless routers, NAS devices and other platforms. In 2017, PC Magazine rated NordVPN as the year’s best VPN service. Perfect-Privacy: Perfect Privacy is a good example of a reliable and reputable VPN. It has servers in 23 countries and only uses dedicated servers rather than virtual servers. If Perfect Privacy discovers a bottleneck slowing down its network, it will just spin up a new VPN to direct traffic through.
is a good example of a reliable and reputable VPN. It has servers in 23 countries and only uses dedicated servers rather than virtual servers. If Perfect Privacy discovers a bottleneck slowing down its network, it will just spin up a new VPN to direct traffic through. Private Internet Access: Private Internet Access is a VPN option that offers multi-layered security and privacy protection with VPN tunneling. Like many other VPNs PIA works at the TCP/IP level which means all your internet connections are secured, not just your web browser.
is a VPN option that offers multi-layered security and privacy protection with VPN tunneling. Like many other VPNs PIA works at the TCP/IP level which means all your internet connections are secured, not just your web browser. Hotspot Shield: Hotspot Shield is a VPN operated by AnchorFree, Inc. It uses encryption to keep any of your internet activity private and secure.
is a VPN operated by AnchorFree, Inc. It uses encryption to keep any of your internet activity private and secure. TunnelBear: TunnelBear is a public VPN service based in Toronto, Canada. The company was founded by Daniel Kaldor and Ryan Dochuk in 2011. In March 2018, TunnelBear was acquired by McAfee. TunnelBear is available as freeware, but as with other services online we’ve found that paid versions are often more secure and offer better privacy.
Read More: 22 VPN Services to Protect Your Privacy
Use A Privacy-Focused Web Browser
If you have privacy concerns with Google as a search engine but still use Chrome as your browser, Google can still gather information about all of your browsing habits. Your browser is your gateway to the internet so it’s important to choose a safe and secure option.
Tor Browser: Tor stands for The Onion Router. It works to anonymize your web activity by directing your connection through multiple locations.
stands for The Onion Router. It works to anonymize your web activity by directing your connection through multiple locations. Mozilla Firefox: Firefox is a good alternative to Google Chrome. Firefox is easy to install and works like most other web browsers you may have used.
is a good alternative to Google Chrome. Firefox is easy to install and works like most other web browsers you may have used. Brave: Brave is an opensource browser that offers similar functionality and ease-of-use to Chrome or Firefox. It is a high-speed browser with built-in ad tracking and privacy controls.
Use Private File Storage
Using Google Drive and Dropbox may feel like the most convenient choices for cloud file storage, however, if you are storing files that contain sensitive information that you want to keep secure there are other options that use encryption to keep your files and their contents private.
Cryptomator: Cryptomator is a free, client-side encryption software for your cloud files. It’s totally open source and relies only on donations for its revenue. When installed on your device, Cryptomator uses transparent encryption which means you won’t notice a difference when working with your encrypted files. Cryptomator lets you create vaults anywhere, even within your existing Dropbox or Google Drive.
is a free, client-side encryption software for your cloud files. It’s totally open source and relies only on donations for its revenue. When installed on your device, Cryptomator uses transparent encryption which means you won’t notice a difference when working with your encrypted files. Cryptomator lets you create vaults anywhere, even within your existing Dropbox or Google Drive. Tresorit: Tresorit is a file encryption tool for syncing and sharing files across multiple devices. It features zero-knowledge encryption which means that Tresorit knows nothing about the contents of your encrypted files. Even though Tresorit uses top-notch security features, it doesn’t come at the cost of user-experience. The interface is extremely simple and easy to use and makes security barely noticeable.
Use Privacy & Security Hardware
Apricorn: Apricorn is a designer and manufacturer of computer storage products, utilities and accessories. It provides external storage hardware with 256-bit encryption specifically for companies and organizations that need high-level data security (finance, healthcare, education, etc.).
is a designer and manufacturer of computer storage products, utilities and accessories. It provides external storage hardware with 256-bit encryption specifically for companies and organizations that need high-level data security (finance, healthcare, education, etc.). Bitdefender: Bitdefender is a cybersecurity and anti-virus software company that also offers a network security hardware tool for IoT devices.
is a cybersecurity and anti-virus software company that also offers a network security hardware tool for IoT devices. Purism: Purism is a security focused computer manufacturer based in San Francisco. Purism began in 2014 with the goal of combining the Free Software movement with the hardware manufacturing process to give people computers they can trust and feel safe using. Its product line consists of security and privacy focused smartphones, laptops and a USB based security token.
is a security focused computer manufacturer based in San Francisco. Purism began in 2014 with the goal of combining the Free Software movement with the hardware manufacturing process to give people computers they can trust and feel safe using. Its product line consists of security and privacy focused smartphones, laptops and a USB based security token. Helm: Helm is a secure personal server that makes it easier to protect your emails and other data online. Helm lets you set up your own email in just a few minutes with a custom domain that will work on all your devices. It ships with 128 GB of solid state storage, and can be expanded with external storage.
is a secure personal server that makes it easier to protect your emails and other data online. Helm lets you set up your own email in just a few minutes with a custom domain that will work on all your devices. It ships with 128 GB of solid state storage, and can be expanded with external storage. Kingston Technology: Kingston Technology is one of the leaders in the development and manufacturing of flash memory, and other memory-related products. Kingston Technology uses encryption to protect the contents of their devices. Their devices comply with the leading security standards, like AES 256 encryption, FIPS 197 and FIPS 140–2.
is one of the leaders in the development and manufacturing of flash memory, and other memory-related products. Kingston Technology uses encryption to protect the contents of their devices. Their devices comply with the leading security standards, like AES 256 encryption, FIPS 197 and FIPS 140–2. SecureDrive: SecureDrive offers encrypted external storage. It began as a data recovery service provider, and after gaining trust in that industry they moved into hardware storage and encryption. Similar to Kingston Technology and Apricorn’s devices, SecureDrive uses onboard keypads for one method of user authentication.
offers encrypted external storage. It began as a data recovery service provider, and after gaining trust in that industry they moved into hardware storage and encryption. Similar to Kingston Technology and Apricorn’s devices, SecureDrive uses onboard keypads for one method of user authentication. Winston Privacy: Winston Privacy is a new player in the security hardware space. Its founders saw the issues with the surveillance economy that is taking over the internet. Winston is a hardware device that runs inline with your router and as a result protects every device on your WiFi. It offers similar functionality to a VPN without having to trust the VPN provider with your browsing data. It’s is essentially a distributed, decentralized platform with no logging.
is a new player in the security hardware space. Its founders saw the issues with the surveillance economy that is taking over the internet. Winston is a hardware device that runs inline with your router and as a result protects every device on your WiFi. It offers similar functionality to a VPN without having to trust the VPN provider with your browsing data. It’s is essentially a distributed, decentralized platform with no logging. Yubico: Yubico offers hardware-based encryption and authentication solutions. Its most notable product is its YubiKey authentication devices. They look like flash drives and work as an alternative to traditional username/password logins. The YubiKey devices are multi-protocol security keys that make logging in more secure and convenient.
Use an Encrypted DNS
DNS, or Domain Name System is one of the main building blocks of the internet. Cloudflare calls it “the phonebook of the internet.” DNS is the protocol used to translate the domain name of a website (e.g. choosetoencrypt.com or google.com) into it’s IP address format so that your browser can load the resources from that website.
Because DNS is essentially the last link between you and the websites you visit, it can create security vulnerabilities if someone is able to hack into the system. Secure and encrypted domain name systems have additional security and performance features that keep websites up and running with less security threats.
Cloudflare: Cloudflare runs one of the largest authoritative DNS networks in the world. Cloudflare represents 39% of the Global Authoritative DNS market. While other DNS providers leave your website or other web resources vulnerable to DDoS attacks, Cloudflare provides protection. Cloudflare offers free and paid plans depending on your personal needs.
Use a Secure Messaging App
Your communications could contain sensitive information, even without you noticing. These apps use encryption to keep your conversations and files you send private and secure.
Signal: Signal uses end-to-end encryption and is “painstakingly engineered” to keep your communication private. Signal is an Open Source project, and is supported by grants and donations, meaning it can put users first, by putting people over profits. It emphasizes delivering a “fast, simple, and secure messaging experience”.
uses end-to-end encryption and is “painstakingly engineered” to keep your communication private. Signal is an Open Source project, and is supported by grants and donations, meaning it can put users first, by putting people over profits. It emphasizes delivering a “fast, simple, and secure messaging experience”. Wire: Wire is another private alternative to instant messaging apps. It allows users to communicate securely with clients and partners — even if they don’t have a Wire account. Create an encrypted guest room in seconds; just send an invitation link and partners can join with a click.
is another private alternative to instant messaging apps. It allows users to communicate securely with clients and partners — even if they don’t have a Wire account. Create an encrypted guest room in seconds; just send an invitation link and partners can join with a click. Telegram: Telegram offers a private, cloud-based messaging platform for desktop and mobile users. It has grown to over 100 million monthly active users. Telegram uses end-to-end encryption, and is considered one of the most secure messaging platforms. You can send self-destructing messages that will disappear from both your and the recipient’s device after a set amount of time.
Use Encrypted Email Services
ProtonMail: ProtonMail is an encrypted email service that was founded in 2014. It uses end-to-end encryption so emails remain in encrypted form from the user’s computer to ProtonMail’s servers. In January of 2017, ProtonMail had over 2 million users. ProtonMail is based in Switzerland, which has notoriously strong privacy laws, including the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act.
is an encrypted email service that was founded in 2014. It uses end-to-end encryption so emails remain in encrypted form from the user’s computer to ProtonMail’s servers. In January of 2017, ProtonMail had over 2 million users. ProtonMail is based in Switzerland, which has notoriously strong privacy laws, including the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act. Hushmail: Hushmail offers encrypted, private email tailored to enterprise use for healthcare and legal professionals. It began providing secure webmail solutions in 1999, so it’s an established player in the field. Users can choose to send emails in encrypted or unencrypted form. For emails sent to other Hushmail users, they will be encrypted by default. Non-users can view emails on a secure webpage.
Use Strong Passwords and a Password Manager
Bitwarden: Bitwarden is a free and open source password management solution for individuals, teams, and business organizations. It works as both a password storage and generator tool. Bitwarden supports syncing between all of your devices, making it easy and convenient to use.
is a free and open source password management solution for individuals, teams, and business organizations. It works as both a password storage and generator tool. Bitwarden supports syncing between all of your devices, making it easy and convenient to use. Blur: Blur is a tool that protects your passwords, payment information, and other private information. Beyond just storing and generating your passwords, Blur can create “burner credit cards” to prevent your payment information from being hacked or stolen. It also keeps your passwords in encrypted form until you visit a site or account you’ve visited before. You can use it to auto-fill your login information.
is a tool that protects your passwords, payment information, and other private information. Beyond just storing and generating your passwords, Blur can create “burner credit cards” to prevent your payment information from being hacked or stolen. It also keeps your passwords in encrypted form until you visit a site or account you’ve visited before. You can use it to auto-fill your login information. Enpass: Enpass manages passwords, payment information, and other credentials. It’s available for multiple platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and Chrome OS. Enpass does not store the encryption key to your stored credentials. The encryption key is instead derived from your master password.
manages passwords, payment information, and other credentials. It’s available for multiple platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and Chrome OS. Enpass does not store the encryption key to your stored credentials. The encryption key is instead derived from your master password. KeePass: KeePass stores and generates passwords with top-notch security. It’s a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager with many extensions and plugins.
stores and generates passwords with top-notch security. It’s a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager with many extensions and plugins. LastPass: LastPass is available as a browser extension and a native app. For the most security, we recommend using the app version rather than the browser extension. With the app you can access all of your passwords with your fingerprint. It uses AES-256 encryption to keep your passwords hidden.
is available as a browser extension and a native app. For the most security, we recommend using the app version rather than the browser extension. With the app you can access all of your passwords with your fingerprint. It uses AES-256 encryption to keep your passwords hidden. LessPass: LessPass computes a unique password using a site, login and a master password. You don’t need to sync a password vault across every device because LessPass works offline. LessPass works similar to Master Password, it doesn’t store your passwords because the password is generated with your login, master password and the site you’re logging in to.
computes a unique password using a site, login and a master password. You don’t need to sync a password vault across every device because LessPass works offline. LessPass works similar to Master Password, it doesn’t store your passwords because the password is generated with your login, master password and the site you’re logging in to. Master Password: Master Password takes a unique approach to protecting your passwords. Rather than storing your passwords on your device or on the cloud where they could be stolen, Master Password acts like a calculator.
takes a unique approach to protecting your passwords. Rather than storing your passwords on your device or on the cloud where they could be stolen, Master Password acts like a calculator. Password Safe: Password Safe uses a single master password to keep all of your passwords protected, similar to the functionality of most of the password managers on this list. It allows you to store all your passwords in a single password database, or multiple databases for different purposes. Creating a database is simple, just create the database, set your master password.
uses a single master password to keep all of your passwords protected, similar to the functionality of most of the password managers on this list. It allows you to store all your passwords in a single password database, or multiple databases for different purposes. Creating a database is simple, just create the database, set your master password. SuperGenPass: SuperGenPass uses a hash algorithm to transform a master password into unique, complex passwords for the web sites you visit. SuperGenPass is a bookmarklet and runs right in your Web browser. It never stores or transmits your passwords, so it’s ideal for use on multiple and public computers. It’s also completely free and open-sourced on GitHub.
Use a Reliable Antivirus Software
McAfee AntiVirus Plus: McAfee AntiVirus Plus is a well-known name in the security industry. It’s antivirus is one of the most popular on the market. McAfee offers multi-platform protection for PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets.
is a well-known name in the security industry. It’s antivirus is one of the most popular on the market. McAfee offers multi-platform protection for PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets. Symantec Norton AntiVirus Basic: Norton is another well-known player in the anti-virus game. Similar to McAfee’s antivirus, Norton has received many awards for its virus protection product. Norton offers Basic, Standard, Deluxe, and Premium products to protect one or multiple devices with additional features in each package.
is another well-known player in the anti-virus game. Similar to McAfee’s antivirus, Norton has received many awards for its virus protection product. Norton offers Basic, Standard, Deluxe, and Premium products to protect one or multiple devices with additional features in each package. Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus: Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is a cloud based security software designed to keep your computer safe from virus and other malware threats. Webroot’s antivirus also protects your internet browsing to limit threats to access your private information.
is a cloud based security software designed to keep your computer safe from virus and other malware threats. Webroot’s antivirus also protects your internet browsing to limit threats to access your private information. Other Antivirus Providers: Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Avast Pro Antivirus
Use an Ad Blocker
Ad revenue is one of the main drivers behind the successful publications on the internet, however when websites put ad revenue ahead of user experience, it can be difficult to read the content on a website.
Ad Blocker by Search Encrypt: Search Encrypt’s latest addition to its product line is Ad Blocker by Search Encrypt . This tool combines the encrypted search engine with an ad blocker for even more privacy protection. Ads can seem like a harmless distraction, but can contain tracking scripts that run in the background without your knowledge. Search Encrypt’s Ad Blocker keeps these scripts from loading and as a result can even speed up your web browsing.
Search Encrypt’s latest addition to its product line is . This tool combines the encrypted search engine with an ad blocker for even more privacy protection. Ads can seem like a harmless distraction, but can contain tracking scripts that run in the background without your knowledge. Search Encrypt’s Ad Blocker keeps these scripts from loading and as a result can even speed up your web browsing. uBlock Origin: uBlock Origin is one of the most widely used ad blockers on the web. It’s known for its efficiency and minimal resource use. It is free and open-source and blocks more than just ads. uBlock Origin makes your web browsing much faster and more user-friendly.
Use Tracker Blockers | https://medium.com/digiprivacy/the-best-internet-privacy-tools-for-2019-e2cb61fbf9de | ['Christian Stewart'] | 2019-03-04 20:00:05.587000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Security', 'Privacy', 'VPN', 'Technolog'] |
What Do Hiring And Eating Have In Common? | I recently had an epiphany. The one that makes you go ‘aha!’. The one that comes naturally, but unexpectedly and lights up your brain with clarity — like the monsoon rain, which wipes away the accumulated dust from the leaves of forgotten plants and brings out the vivid green in them.
Okay, technically it wasn’t mine.
My friend and a long term colleague, Sudesh, had it while we were having our weekly 9 AM hiring-review meeting. We were looking at the impending gap in our hiring timelines. We were lagging behind by a week and achieving our targets looked insurmountable for at least a few more weeks.
Our discussion started gliding towards how we had set to seek candidates akin to a mythical purple squirrel and why we shouldn’t keep our hopes high because of the volatility in talent-market.
Just about then he said —
“You know, hiring is like eating. You become what you eat.”
He didn’t appreciate hearing things like- “Why can’t we compromise on certain skill-sets ?” “Do engineers really need to have great communication skills?” This statement was his way of making clear that compromise is a slippery slope that leads to talent dilution.
When he said this, I was eating my usual breakfast of deep-fried aloo parathas with the creamy, sunshine like yellow Amul butter, and my heart missed a beat. No, not because of the artery choking fat in my food, um, it could have been that too.
But, it was because he said such a profound statement. I quickly devoured this unhealthy mass of wheat, aloo, and butter and started reflecting on it.
Health coaches preach about how healthy food options are necessary to build good muscle, a healthy gut, and a resilient immune system. If you’ve ever consulted (a good) one, you would know how they never suggest crash diets for losing weight.
How I wish we had someone similar in our industry — hiring coaches, maybe?
People who talk passionately about how investing time in finding the right person is absolutely crucial for organizational success. People who understand that the initial pain of finding the right talent (akin to finding a needle in a haystack) gives benefits in the long run.
Of course, every organization wants to hire great people and do it fast. But sometimes in the rush of closing the positions, hiring managers find comfort in Jeff Bezos’s philosophy of reversible doors — if things don’t work out, you can always ask the person to leave.
But it’s not that easy, Sherlock.
When you let a bad hire go, it creates a rubber-band effect in the team — you can get rid of them but the team usually doesn’t return to the same normal. It’s akin to those rumpled brownish scars on the skin after the body has healed from a bad burn.
So, what did I learn from my epiphany?
Start by investing time in hiring the right people.
It’s simple — an investment may take some effort in the short term, but always benefits in the long run. It not only saves you time and effort in aligning them towards organizational goals, but also helps in building your organization’s muscle and immune system.
Which made me realize the next point,
Great people are like antibodies, they protect your organization.
Your antibodies are your first line of defense, and so are great people in the organization. When they see that something is not right, they call it out. You don’t have to wait for the symptoms to appear. These people call things out as soon as they happen.
They go an extra mile to ensure that only quality work gets delivered. They uphold the cultural values of the organization and even take care of the viruses in the form of bad hires, which accidentally enter into your system.
And the corollary to that is -
Bad hires, like junk food, potentially rot the system inside out.
This rotting exhibits itself in myriad ways — lack of speed of execution, sloppy quality of work, disengagement, or even politicking. And just like junk food, the more you continue with the rotten system, the effort of cleaning up becomes more difficult, with the good hires potentially leaving for other ‘great’ places.
This is why — if you end up with a tsunami of bad hires (especially while blitzscaling) it could lead to the untimely demise of your company as these viruses have the potential to kill the antibodies in your system. | https://medium.com/unboxing-product-management/what-do-hiring-and-eating-have-in-common-68f67a7675c8 | ['Tarun Kohli'] | 2020-07-30 08:56:22.078000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Talent Acquisition', 'Startup Lessons', 'Culture', 'Hiring'] |
Brother your speech is so good | Brother your speech is so good
Even i also want to become ui ux designer. So please help me regarding this. | https://medium.com/@rs939198/brother-your-speech-is-so-good-81832b30a57a | ['Rajan Singh'] | 2020-12-19 10:12:59.804000+00:00 | ['Artist', 'Uiux Designer'] |
The Magic of Taking Leadership III | What Does it Mean to See Beyond You?
Just do this: take off your eyes for a moment from the little world that is your personal space and personal problems and personal "beef" and all those things we find personal, and adjust your eyes to see the world. When we see beyond ourselves, we learn that there are so many aching hearts and suffering persons. We realize that even the planet needs a bit of saving.
In a nutshell, seeing beyond you is choosing to open your eyes to the people and world beyond you. And when you do this, you find out that the world is really in need of superheroes with a little magic.
Just think about the millions of people and thousands of families living in extreme poverty, who cannot afford to eat every day. Or the thousands of expectant mums and new babies that die every year from preventable causes – from things as little as pneumonia and malaria. Or the sheer number of girls and boys raped everyday, and suffer other forms of dehumanizing treatment. Or the fact that the planet is literally crying about the greenhouse emissions we produce.
It takes bravery to care enough to do something about these big issues - yet the choice to be brave and to care is part of the superhero magic! | https://medium.com/@pcd.opara/the-magic-of-taking-leadership-iii-c6c92cd4824f | ['Davida Opara'] | 2020-12-07 17:37:45.177000+00:00 | ['Sustainable Development', 'Leadership', 'Magic'] |
Why am I still single? | You are not mixing around enough
People who get married meet people before they get married. You can go out to your church, club, society, or go to meetup.com (website where people organise meetups). Just go and mix around, and eventually you may find the one you are looking for!
2. You need to look after yourself
Perhaps you are not in the best shape to attract a significant other. Areas you may have to look after are your emotions, spirituality and physicality. If you need to exercise, exercise more. If you need to manage your emotions, perhaps joining a social group may help. If you need more spirituality, perhaps find more meaning in your life. All this adds up to a very healthy person, that one will want to be with.
3. Come up with a list of traits of the ideal person
Maybe you just don’t know who’s right for you. In that case, come up with a list of traits of the ideal person. It can be something like — Seeks the truth, strong and muscular, loves art. This helps you to find the right person.
Happy holidays and hope you have fun getting to know the people around you! And hopefully, eventually find The ONE. | https://medium.com/@paulatan77/why-am-i-still-single-21af8ac10cba | [] | 2020-12-24 02:58:06.845000+00:00 | ['Single', 'Self Care', 'The One', 'Attract', 'Romantic Relationships'] |
Diving into Kotlin DSL Part-2: Kotlin enters the Gradle realm | There are few steps by which you can set up DSL with your Android Studio:
Step 1: Create “buildSrc” directory
Android Studio automatically creates app level and module level build.gradle files to handle project level and module level dependencies.
Now, we are going to manage every dependency in a way, so that it will be accessible from a single place. Don’t worry if you have modularization in your project, even multiple modules can be configured with this mechanism.
Sometimes you might have faced two different versions of the same library that have been used in multiple modules and that creates inconstancy problems. By this method, we can have the same version of the library available to all the modules.
First, create buildSrc directory in the root directory of your project. This will provide a gradle feature that enables us to define tasks and access tools that can be used for the build scripts. By adding kotlin-dsl plugin in the build config, we can use Kotlin within this directory.
For more information check the Gradle documentation for buildSrc here
Now let’s create the following files inside buildSrc directory in the package structure as shown in the image below: | https://medium.com/mindful-engineering/diving-into-kotlin-dsl-part-2-kotlin-enters-the-gradle-realm-effb24e48fa8 | ['Malik Motani'] | 2020-01-18 06:50:57.535000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Kotlin Dsl', 'Gradle Kotlin Dsl'] |
Top 10 Marketing Technology (MarTech) Magazines | The marketing industry is constantly transforming. As a marketer you have to keep ourselves updated with the latest trends and ideas in the marketing field. There are a number of marketing magazines and publications out there. But it is difficult to identify which one best serves the general marketing needs.
In order to keep you updated with the latest happenings in Martech landscape, here are some of the best magazines and publications you are looking for.
MarTech Today
MarTech Today is a daily publication that covers all aspects of the marketing technology industry alongside sister publications, Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. Daily news coverage includes breaking stories, industry trends, feature announcements and product changes at popular platforms used by marketing technologists to reach consumers online.
Website: MarTech Today
2. Marketing Week
Marketing Week publication gathers information on the tools, case studies, and trends that are being used by the biggest names in marketing. Marketing Week offers a free digital version and print subscriptions are available for distribution across the globe. Available for free on a weekly basis, Marketing Week should earn a place on your Bookmark list at the very least!
Website: Marketing Week
3. MarTech Outlook
Previously going by the name Marketing Tech Outlook, we are today, MarTech Outlook, a monthly magazine that keeps the readers abreast of the recent trends in the martech industry and profound insights of the changing industries from the CMO’s of various companies. It serves as an information guide of the changing scenarios of the market with the introduction of novel innovative technology and solutions for CMOs and other suites of C-level executives.
Website: MarTech Outlook
4. Martech Advisor
MarTech Advisor has evolved to become one the fastest growing media brands providing unbiased news, industry perspectives and in-depth research for Marketing professionals. As the world’s leading and dedicated source of unbiased research, news, resources and expert commentary on marketing technology, they responsibility towards marketers very seriously and passionately.
Website: Martech Advisor
5. Marketing Land
Marketing Land is a daily publication that covers all aspects of the digital marketing industry alongside sister publications, MarTech today and Search Engine Land. Daily news coverage includes breaking stories, industry trends, feature announcements and product changes at popular platforms used by digital marketers to reach consumers online.
Website: Marketing Land
6. Marketing Dive
Marketing Dive provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping marketing & advertising. The newsletters and website cover topics such as marketing technology, advertising creative, social media, video marketing, analytics, and more.\
Website: Marketing Dive
7. MarTech Cube
MarTech Cube recognized the need to address the technology challenges specific to a CMO and the marketing department. This need became the crux of MTC’s mission statement; to be the single source destination for marketers in the digital age; dedicated solely to Marketing Technology arena and the people who buy, influence and consume MarTech around the globe.
Website: MarTech Cube
8. Branding Mag
Brandingmag is an independent journal narrating the discussion around branding with thought leadership from across the globe. Their dedicated team of writers strives to keep readers informed and intrigued with unique work from brands across the globe, concentrating on fresh brand and marketing strategies, executions, identities, development, and overall evolution.
Website: Branding Mag
9. The Drum Magazine
The Drum is a global media platform and the biggest marketing website. With articles, career search tools, lists of events, and features, marketing, and advertising industry news are the main content for this magazine.
Website: The Drum Magazine
10. Visibility Magazine
Visibility Magazine print magazine dedicated to bringing vision, clarity, and visibility to the internet marketing industry. Our content, provided by leading internet marketing firms, remains on the cutting edge. Search Engine Marketing Magazine (SEO), Internet Marketing, Web Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
Website: Visibility Magazine | https://medium.com/@georgekaren654/top-10-marketing-technology-martech-magazines-cd2006047d61 | ['Karen George'] | 2020-12-08 06:31:56.223000+00:00 | ['Martech', 'Magazine', 'Marketing Technology', 'Publication'] |
Unlike what we are hearing from some quarters, Covid is a killer and has left a swath of pain and… | Unlike what we are hearing from some quarters, Covid is a killer and has left a swath of pain and loss as it goes. Aric D Mayer lost his grandmother and his personal memories of her will touch most hearts.
But it’s not all gloomy.
Keep reading the stories below and you will feel Jo Ann Harris’ excitement about finding love late in life as well as Julia E Hubbel’s take on dating while grey.
Other Crow’s Feet writers feel the change of seasons in the northern hemisphere and praise autumn and winter, too. Read Our Stories below.
Take a moment as well to check out the new book of Crow’s Feet essays and poems that is available on Amazon. Your reviews of the collection are eagerly awaited!
Requiem for a Matriarch. COVID sucks. By Aric D Mayer
I am Winter. A poem of aging. By Dennett
Darkness & Rest. Gifts from The Autumn Of Our Lives. By Ann Litts
Late Life Love. How Can This Be? By Jo Ann Harris
Dating While Grey. Or not, as the case is more often. By Julia E Hubbel
The Possibilities. A personal essay. By Dennett
My Body, My Friend. A thank you note. By Ann Litts
Life Looking Forward. Just Say Yes. By Max K. Erkiletian
Kata. What I didn’t know was there. By Quasimodo
When I Used To. How a Good Memory Can Rob Your Now. By Norma Bourland
Warren Nelson Fires Off a Rant. And I want you to read what he has to say. By Julia E Hubbel
Lament of the Aging Athlete. What happened to my body? By Mary McGrath
Let’s Not Give up Social Security. It’s one public program that’s working. By Jean Anne FeldeisenP
The End Of The Snow Day.Another victim of the pandemic? By Randy Fredlund
Putting It Out There. Caught between two deadly pincers. By Rkayell
Footprints. The past is a beach. By Deborah Barchi
The Death of My Friend. Rising upward… By Mary McGrath
Picking Your Providers As You Age Can Make All the Difference. How choosing the right healthcare providers for you as you age, if you have the choice, can ensure a vibrant aging process. By Julia E Hubbel
My Grandmother’s Embroidery Silks. Precious Memories. By Thewriteyard
Goodbye to My Old Car. Gone but not forgotten. By Mary McGrath
Vuyani Dies. And waits for the Afterlife. By Vuyo Ngcakani | https://medium.com/crows-feet/unlike-what-we-are-hearing-from-some-quarters-covid-is-a-killer-and-has-left-a-swath-of-pain-and-861d4ce39ef0 | ['Nancy Peckenham'] | 2020-10-10 01:07:20.996000+00:00 | ['Retirement', 'Aging', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Ageism', 'Seniors'] |
Serious Business | So as our digital media business explodes in multiple directions the discussion every media agency is having (and if they are not, they should be) is that of brand safety. The curtain is slowly lifting and as brands become more savvy, they now question “Exactly where is my brand being placed?”
In March this year France’s Havas SA, the world’s sixth-largest advertising and marketing company, pulled all its U.K. clients’ ads from Google and YouTube after failing to get assurances from Google that the ads wouldn’t appear next to offensive material, forcing Google to revamp its advertising policies. This is one of many cases across the globe and one that will affect numerous social platforms.
The silver-lining here is there’s now some serious media industry housekeeping going on and agencies are regrouping to ensure they have the correct tools in place to confidently execute campaigns. Private Audience Marketplaces have become an attractive ground to invest given the sheer nature of being a so called “walled garden”.
Adjoin has invested strategically through the launch of its local private audience marketplace as one solution to this new landscape we find ourselves in. Working with world leaders such as Krux and the Rubicon Project (the Rubicon Project is a founding member of the Industry Certification Program in Fight against Ad Fraud TAG) and strategic partner IAS who’s core competency is around transparency.
We are using sophisticated tools that are able to assist against not only the brand safety issues, but viewability and ad fraud. Adjoin is committed to investing with these organizations and building out South Africa’s leading private audience marketplace at both scale, tech and innovation. | https://medium.com/mobile-rocks/serious-business-46dd4b3b5269 | ['Mike Carter'] | 2017-06-19 14:25:50.816000+00:00 | ['Mobile Marketing', 'Mobile', 'Publishers', 'Advertising', 'Business'] |
Navigating fundraising during an economic downturn | A growing number of businesses, investors, consumers, employees, and members of the economy are concerned about the economic downturn that is occurring globally. Areas of concern vary between the political and trade conflict between the United States and China and the coronavirus outbreak. The latter bringing serious and increasing negative economic implications across the world. So, what does this mean specifically for venture capitalists, early stage investors, and technology startups? It is extremely difficult to predict a recession or how severe it will be, but we can take a look at historical economic behavior to extrapolate into current times.
Usually venture capitalists are comfortable with higher levels of risk. But to prepare for a downturn of uncertain length, they have begun to strategize with a focus on sustainable growth. With this in mind, founders need to be mindful of the following:
Does your startup have enough cash reserves for a rainy day? All companies, no matter their level of advancement, should have contingency reserves for unforeseen eventualities. Some can be covered by insurance, equity providers, or operational top line. The reality is that it’s not the founder’s job to guess when the next recession could happen, but to be prepared for it. Founders should practice good cash management, have contingency plans, and choose investors with well-defined reserve policies.
Are the founders mindful of making the necessary business decisions during uncertain times? Are the founders cutting unnecessary expenses? Extending cash runways? Expanding their customer base? Not relying on a single powerful client? Depending on a board of experienced directors that enables them as vision driven founders? Are the founders excellent communicators that transmit how the startup is solving a pressing societal problem? A founder needs to be prepared to make smart strategic decisions to keep their business alive.
Has your startup developed a financial viable business model? Financial performance should be measured with primary KPIs like revenue and gross profit but also with greater granularity, such as revenue/dollar spent. Startups should focus on more reliable measures to understand what is really happening in the company. Many companies that enter the public market (through IPOs) have received major backlash from investors for their mismanagement. An infamous example is WeWork that ignored profitability to focus on aggressive growth strategies and compensated shareholders instead of devoting resources to important areas of the business that needed support.
Assuming that your company is a sustainable business with sane fundamentals, important barriers to entry, and scalability. How much capital is available in the market during a recession? Historically, it goes without saying that companies have found it challenging to fundraise in the middle of a recession. However, capital was still deployed even during the Great Recession. What changed was that investors became much more cautious. During a recession, funds may be blocked by their Limited Partners to make more commitments. They may even reduce the number of target deals, meaning VC Funds will tend to have more difficult investment criteria. It is important to note that some verticals, geographies, or industries will be more resilient, or may even be shown more interest than others in the middle of a recession caused by COVID-19. However, this does not mean that if your company is in a “hot” vertical like plant-based alternatives to animal products, or virtual conferencing, your fundraising will be guaranteed. No matter what the economic circumstances are, companies that have a market fit will always attract capital (be it equity, or clients).
Are the founders listening to their target market? Economic recessions and recovery periods usually see changes in consumer’s purchasing behaviors, so companies need to make sure that they are listening to their customers and satisfying them. An example of a good measure of consumer satisfaction to keep in mind for B2C companies is the Net Promoter Score. Also, loyal clients that may not be able to purchase a service during the recession are more likely to come back when times become better.
According to Pitchbook: “General partners at VC firms may face increasing headwinds in the fundraising market. As asset values decline across the board, many LPs are expected to shy away from VC and other alternative investments as they rebalance their asset-allocation models. If a recession proves long-lasting, managers of all sizes would likely struggle to raise new funds.”
I urge technology startups to prepare for diminished access to capital, try to achieve break-even more than they ever have before, and seek non-dilutive capital sources such as grants for R&D, go to market strategies, or those that have been created to alleviate COVID-19’s economic effects. Non-dilutive capital has the advantage of ensuring that vision driven founders can own their destiny for longer. Finally, whenever possible, always reach out to strategic investors with relevant and large networks who can provide support and drive technology startups to become category owning businesses.
The economic recession brought on by COVID-19 requires funds and startups to make thoughtful decisions on how to manage risk and seize opportunities. Startups must prepare to weather this downturn and benefit from it too. Look to secure outsized returns, capture new market opportunities, while helping build a better and more efficient society. | https://blog.brinc.io/navigating-fundraising-during-an-economic-downturn-eb344d659c08 | ['Estefania Almeida C'] | 2020-06-15 10:21:03.073000+00:00 | ['Recession', 'Covid 19', 'VC', 'Tech', 'Fundraising'] |
“I Don’t Like Sand” | “Episode One: The Phantom Menace”
About 72 hours ago at the time of this writing, I posted the following:
Indeed, my defense of “The Last Jedi,” a film I absolutely adore and consider the best in the series since “The Empire Strikes Back,” became by far my most popular post in weeks, debated endlessly on social media and increasing its views day-to-day.
I’ve written numerous articles on “Star Wars” for this platform, and it appears as though there is certainly an audience for more.
So let’s flash back, in earnest, to 1998.
The first “Star Wars” trailer in 15 years (since “Return of the Jedi”) was attached to prints of the Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt starrer, “Meet Joe Black.” The film was playing 30 minutes from my apartment at the time, but damn right I purchased my tickets. After all, it was far too long since filmed “Star Wars” was in our lives.
Like most, I only went to the theater for “Meet Joe Black” to catch the new “Star Wars” footage.
I’d leave following.
I entered the theater, and saw this poster in the lobby:
I very nearly began to lose control of my faculties. That poster kicked all sorts of ass.
I was primed, and I was ready. We all were.
For an account of what some of us experienced during that special day, see here:
Or, look here for a better view of that first trailer that got us all crazy excited, inclusive of a new (and fairly strange-loooking) puppet Yoda (before Lucas replaced it with a CGI version later) …
My appetite whetted, I anxiously awaited May 12, 1999, the date tickets would finally go on sale. Along with many hundreds of other fellow fans, I waited on line at the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood for 25-and-a-half hours before purchasing my prized ducats:
I scored the midnight show on opening night, May 19.
YES!!
So May 19 happens, my friends and I get to the theater, we’re all in partying mode … the familiar 20th Century Fox fanfare blares, followed by Lucasfilm Ltd.’s logo and “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …”
“Star Wars!”
Audience members wave their lightsabers like a collective orgasm. I legit had tears in my eyes. Anyone who knows me knows I am an unabashed “Star Wars” addict.
This was too much.
“Episode One: The Phantom Menace” begins its crawl and the audience screams. Some words about trade disputes (?) prove this is certainly a new soup, and within the first 45 minutes of feverish anticipation … the crowd largely silences and I fall asleep.
What I caught as I struggled to stay awake I didn’t mind … but my “Star Wars” this wasn’t. Sure there was a Skywalker, and Anakin was to become Darth Vader, but this thing was plodding. Though he has had a hard time of it later in life, and I’m not keen on being insensitive, I honestly did not care for Jake Lloyd’s performance. Now, I had previously watched documentary footage of outtakes featuring Jake from TPM, and I found him to be charming and a bit edgy. I could totally see him pulling off this performance but, and I place the blame squarely on director Lucas here, he was stilted in my view. His dialog didn’t help, with the repeated “Yipee!” exclamations and other nonsense.
But hey, George Lucas was the creator. Surely he knew what he was going for. Who was I to argue? Two other “Star Wars” films were to follow!
Regardless, I woke up during the pod race, which I found over the top. As for Jar Jar Binks, speaking of actors who played hated characters, Ahmed Best has since told interviewers he contemplated suicide over the response to his role. I was one of the few who didn’t mind the character. I didn’t quite like him, but I didn’t loathe him as did others.
However, I did (and still do) find the character to be racially inspired, as I had the Jewish Watto and the Asian viceroys of the Trade Federation.
I initially thought perhaps Lucas was trying to make the new beings relatable somehow. Still, I didn’t hate any of them. Nor did I hate the film when I saw it a second time and nor did I believe George Lucas “raped my childhood” which was fast becoming a popular refrain.
No. I was grateful for a new series of “Star Wars” films, even as I tried to ignore Lucas in interviews stressing that the old fans grew up and these new films — like the older ones — were for children.
I didn’t buy it then and I don’t now, but damn if that Darth Maul lightsaber duel didn’t boot my backside three days from Sunday. For that brief shining moment at the midnight show, I was as awake and wide-eyed as ever.
And that’s where Lucas was wrong. The original trilogy appealed to the child in all of us … whereas he stated at the time, following the horrific word of mouth for TPM, the new trilogy was for children.
Trade disputes? For kids? And boardrooms? And … boardrooms again?
Onward. | https://medium.com/writing-for-your-life/i-dont-like-sand-b072398aadcc | ['Joel Eisenberg'] | 2020-01-11 17:38:39.578000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Entertainment', 'Science Fiction', 'Star Wars', 'Movies'] |
NEAR Protocol: Finnish POV 👀 | Last weekend I had a lengthy discussion about crypto adoption with one of my crypto friends. And this one thing stuck with me: “scam tokens” are going to die, while the innovation stays. Built on top of these innovative emerging technologies, there are always some projects riding the hype wave with no long-term goal in mind.
In my previous article I briefly touched upon the crypto debris in this ever changing crypto space. In the past few weeks I have witnessed some attempts at resurrecting one of these crypto zombie projects, but I’m saving that for a separate post.
The Open Web
NEAR exists to enable community-driven innovation to eventually benefit people across the globe. With NEAR, both developers and entrepreneurs are able to create apps “that put users back in control of their data and assets”. This is the recurring topic the Open Web podcast, where Aliaksandr Hudzilin’s engages with interesting people who work with the open internet in one way or another. I’m telling you this, because this is fundamental to everything NEAR related.
Big Brain Man Reviews NEAR
Mikko Ohtamaa, CTO of FirstBlood, reviewing NEAR Protocol
Not so long ago, there was a Twitter thread on “Let’s explore Ethereum killers Tuesday” by a guy named Mikko Ohtamaa. Basically he participated in the Hack the Rainbow hackathon and then posted a review on NEAR of nearly 50 tweets.
Based comment from Mikko
The Technical Stuff
Mikko talks about a lot of technical stuff from his honest POV. For example, he explains how NEAR is the first to shard both state and transactions. You might be thinking now what is this and how can I profit off of this. Well, it’s NEAR’s innovative approach to sharding, so you’d be good knowing that in a few years from now, the network can scale and scale. No NEAR 2.0 and no NEAR killers just yet. If you want to learn more about NEAR’s sharding, go here to learn more about Nightshade.
There’s a lot Mikko talks about, and I do recommend you to go through his chain of tweets to read up on his thoughts.
NEAR has better fundamentals than any of other existing blockchains. But the developer experience is not good and scalability promise does not mean anything at the moment. — Mikko Ohtamaa
The Verdict and What I Think
A 50% chance for NearProtocol to succeed, is Mikko’s final verdict. While I may lack the developer knowledge he possesses, I do agree with some of the points he addressed.
From my perspective, NEAR is very developer-oriented, and that is fine at this point. Without developers and companies building on NEAR, the protocol may end up being another crypto zombie. That being said, I hope to get a glimpse of their business development soon.
Next, being not an “Ethereum Killer”, NEAR seeks to work alongside other networks. The Rainbow Bridge is such an initiative. Once this bridge is properly launched, I think other projects such as FLUX Protocol can live demonstrate the beast that is the Rainbow Bridge.
In addition to the Rainbow Bridge, NEAR even incentivizes developers to build their Smart Contracts on NEAR. Devs can earn themselves a passive income through Contract Rewards. Basically if a transaction goes through your Smart Contract, you collect 30% of transaction fees. Very neat!
The Crypto Side of NEAR
There is more to talk about, but all in all I believe a 50% success rate really is on the low end. NEAR has only just launched and only just trades on Huobi and Binance. The price action has been as expected. Don’t worry, though. These are the times a redistribution takes place. Boomer VC’s dump their $NEAR bags and buy more gold, while you and I being hippie degenerates accumulate more.
Crypto Twitter hasn’t caught wind of $NEAR yet, so these months are perfect for accumulation and staking especially. Though the process is new and a bit rusty, it’s easy to get stake through a validator pool of your choice. You don’t need extensive tech know-how. Staking your $NEAR will get you an APY (Annual Percentage Yield) of 17% (source: Staking Rewards).
Despite prices being volatile, and even more so on the short term, NEAR is a great play for stakers and long-term investors.
To Be Continued
I’ve got a new article on crypto zombies coming up. Got any objections or tips? Let me know on Twitter.
🌍 Follow me on Twitter for more epic explorations.
⏩ Share my articles with your friends and win nothing.
📣 Join the official NEAR Protocol chat and lose faith in mankind. | https://medium.com/near-ecosystem/near-protocol-finnish-pov-8b6818679db4 | ['Dora The Block Explorer'] | 2020-11-02 12:34:52.501000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Near Protocol', 'Sharding', 'Staking', 'Staking Rewards'] |
In the EU-s big rule-of-law runoff, everybody is a winner, but Orbán just a bit more | Seems like the Germans are only interested in rule-of-law when it doesn’t interfere with business. For Orbán, not losing EU funds before the election in 2022 is more important than anything else.
This post is a revised translation originally published by me in 24.hu, the leading independent news site in Hungary.
The German-lead EU finally reached an agreement with Hungary and Poland on unblocking the union’s seven-year budget and the huge economic relief fund dubbed Next Generation EU. The main source of the two countries’ objections to the funds had nothing to do with the budget itself, more with the conditionality mechanism developed alongside the Multiannual Financial Framework and the NextGenEU fund. This rule-of-law conditionality was designed to withhold funds from certain member states accused of not obeying the fundamental values of the European Union.
Just to be clear: the Hungarian and Polish governments never had any issues with the EU budget or the relief fund itself, only with the rule-of-law conditionality. But they couldn’t stop the conditionality, as it only requires a majority in the European Council, and Hungary, even with the help of Poland, does not have a blocking minority. The seven-year budget is a different game, it has to be approved by all member states (as well as the legal framework for the new resources responsible for covering the NextGenEU fund), so even the smallest countries can threaten the whole EU with a veto.
For a while it seemed like the EU will stand its ground this time, adopting the conditionality and finding a way to do the relief fund with only 25 member states sans Hungary and Poland (kind of like they did with the ESM when Greece was in trouble). But then news started leaking about converging positions between Germany (acting as the rotating presidency of the European Council) and the two renegade countries.
The essence of this compromise is that the Hungarians and the Poles will go with the rule-of-law conditionality as it stands after agreed upon by the trilogue (the Commission, the Parliament and the rotating Presidency), but the Germans will make sure they don’t have to deal with it for a little while.
There are several interesting things in this compromise:
The rule-of-law mechanism is adopted as it is, not a single comma changed in it, as it was an important demand from the northern member states and the European Parliament.
But the Council adopted a declaration about how it can be used. It states — according to the demands of Orbán Viktor — that the mechanism can’t be used to police family policies (I.e.: gender) and migration. It wasn’t a big prize, as it was never designed to concern these as issues, but this was the position of the Hungarian government’s internal communications. This declaration also states that the mechanism can only be used when rule-of-law issues concern the EU-budget. This is kind of the same as it was before, but Orbán’s goal is clearly to define corruption in the strictest, narrowest way possible, so the mechanism has a narrower scope.
But the most important thing is that the mechanism itself will be in effect iced until around 2022. The declaration allows the Hungarian and Polish governments to start an action for annulment before the Court of Justice (basically to ask the court if its legal), and the conditionality will only be finalised after the ECJ says that its OK. This takes around 1–3 years by the previous cases, so the mechanism will definitely only be finalised after the parliamentary elections in Hungary, which will be held in april 2020.
This declaration in itself is an interesting legal phenomenon, since only the mechanism itself is EU-law. The declaration by the Council is more like a political agreement in which the Commission, the administrative arm of the EU, tells the Council how it will apply the law. It is an interesting circumvention of not changing a single comma in the law itself, but lessening the scope by administering it more narrowly.
But the more important question is, as always: who won this round?
Basically everybody, but the Hungarian prime minister just a bit more.
Even last week, when Polish deputy PM Jaroslaw Gowin started speaking about dropping the veto, it seemed like Orban had finally maneuvered himself into a losing position. But the poles didn’t drop the veto, it was only a sign of the internal struggles of the ruling coalition in Poland.
(There are three main parties in the Polish government, one big and two smaller ones, each on the two political sides of the Law and Justice. United Poland is hard right, challenging Mateusz Morawiecki’s premiership, while Agreement is more to the center. The main governing party can’t let any of them leave the ruling coalition because the margin of majority is so small.)
When the council decided about the budget and the conditionality mechanism at the end of the summer, Orban had asked the German chancellor Angela Merkel about putting it off until the 2022 elections, but Merkel declined. So it is a big political win for Orbán to finally achieve. In practice, it is a much smaller one, since the mechanism only concerns the 2021–28 budget and the relief fund, and Hungary can only expect real money at the end of 2021 from the latter and 2022 from the former. It also takes around six months to start the mechanism, so there was never really a chance for Hungary to lose EU funds until the election. Orbán’s concerns were more in the dimension of political communications.
But with this declaration, Hungary can spend the EU relief funds on an economy broken by coronavirus restrictions while Orbán doesn’t have to care about the rule-of-law threats from the EU until the elections.
You can also consider this as a win on the side of the European Union. There is still a rule-of-law mechanism adopted, which was unimaginable a year ago. The NextGenEU fund in its current form is also a historic achievement both for its size and the fact that member states finally take responsibility for each other’s debts which makes the EU an ever closer financial union.
What can we learn from all this?
There are two main conclusions concerning Hungary: | https://medium.com/@kernerzsolt/in-the-eu-s-big-rule-of-law-runoff-everybody-is-a-winner-but-orb%C3%A1n-just-a-bit-more-7333b72a49a8 | ['Zsolt Kerner'] | 2020-12-10 23:55:22.756000+00:00 | ['Hungary', 'European Union', 'Orbán Viktor', 'Angela Merkel', 'Rule Of Law'] |
3 Things That Hold You Back From Success | We tend to think that success only comes for hard workers, and it is measured by the amount of money we make. But it isn’t entirely true; we can measure success in many different ways. Success means different things to different people. Half of the journey is putting enough time into reaching our goals; the other half is trying hard enough to get there. And it doesn’t necessarily mean hard work; we can successfully use our minds and set reachable goals and succeed.
Successful people fail more times than we can imagine, but the main thing is — they always pick themselves up and try again.
There is no such thing as a quick success, we need dedication, hard work, and we need to make daily choices that work for us. Forming good habits is a part of it. Without them, there’s nothing that can guide us to our success and goals.
If we want more success in our life, we need to change ourselves and our behavior over time, day by day. Changing or losing bad habits and creating new ones is a great step to take. We need to change our patterns and our way of thinking and reacting to situations in life.
By changing our patterns and ways of thinking and reacting, we can give ourselves a better chance to achieve what we want in life. We are what we choose to be. We are what we make of ourselves.
Not Taking Responsibility
Responsibility is a tricky thing. There will be situations where we will know that we were a part of the problem, and we will still blame failures on somebody else. People tend to steer away responsibility from themselves whenever they can.
It is because either we don’t know how to take responsibility, or we are afraid of the consequences. Every action we take can bring us some consequences and a different outcome than we expected. Learning how to be more responsible for our actions and doing something about it is a step towards success.
Knowing we did something wrong and acknowledging that it was our fault or misfortune or mistake will bring us a chance to learn and change our behavior.
When we blame others for our mistakes, we are in the pattern where we think that somebody else is in charge of our life and our success. Waiting for somebody else to do the job needed to be done, we are giving away the power of our life.
Our success or failure is in our hands; take responsibility for your actions, make a conscious choice to do better for yourself, and learn to move forward.
Negative Mindset
The mind is a powerful thing that can make or break our chance of changing. Our behavior is the consequence of our own thoughts. Our mind is what directs us in one way or the other.
Even the smallest thought about failure can lead us to stress and worry. Without a proper change in our mindset, we can’t give ourselves a chance to succeed in life.
Even with a tiny bit of doubt about our abilities to succeed, we can implant a bad behavior pattern that will lead us nowhere.
To find the balance in our own minds, we need to seek happiness and acceptance in ourselves in the first place. We are our own worst enemy when it comes to self-doubt and confidence in our abilities. Even without thinking, we can get ourselves more down than anybody else in our life.
A positive mind and happiness rise within us, the sense of believing in ourselves, and our abilities grow within our mind. Within our lifetime, we accumulate experiences that can either bring us down or move us forward.
We need to be aware of our thoughts and how they affect us and lead us in one way or another. We cannot have a positive life with a negative mindset. Most of the amazing things we get to experience in our lives begin as thoughts in our minds.
Expecting Instant Results
We see everyone else succeed in life, and we tend to think that it was easy for them. We forget that getting to where we want to be in life takes time and hard work. It never comes easy; things don’t just happen. We need a plan, dedication, and time to get ourselves where we want to be in life.
When we fail, we start to compare ourselves to others, thinking that it was an easy, smooth journey to get wherever they are. Everything starts with our own mind, a simple thought, one step forward, and dedication to change.
Life isn’t effortless; we need to try and then try again harder. It is a journey, and it lasts a lifetime. Life is full of choices we need to make, and we need to consider ourselves when we make a choice; in the end, it is our life and our happiness and success that we are aiming here for.
Nothing happens just because; everything has a reason behind; whatever is happening in our lives, it is all connected to our choices; everything in life that happens is the consequence of our choice.
The sooner we understand that things don’t happen instantly and require hard work, dedication, a positive mindset, and great daily habits, the sooner we can get ourselves to our end goal — a successful, positive life experience, a positive journey of a lifetime. | https://medium.com/better-advice/3-things-that-hold-you-back-from-success-c85bc07855a4 | ['Sandija Sproģe'] | 2020-12-09 15:32:39.549000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Self Improvement', 'Success', 'Self Development', 'Mindset'] |
How Many Women Did John Eric Armstrong Kill? | How Many Women Did John Eric Armstrong Kill?
Armstrong, photo courtesy BBC News.
“You are dealing with a sadist,” state prison psychologist Richard Walter told the Detroit Free Press, shortly after police arrested the man responsible for at least five murders in the Detroit area.
Walter went on to note, “[Sadists] like to play cat-and-mouse with the police; catch me if you can [to] terrorize the community….[In the end], it’s [their] arrogance that [always] does them in.”
Childhood and youth
He went by Eric because, he said, his abusive father also carried the name John. Eric Armstrong wanted to put distance between himself and his worthless father, who abandoned the family when the boy was five.
When he was a toddler, his father was charged with keeping an eye on him but had more important things to do. Two-year-old Eric fell from a window.
When Eric was five, his two-month-old baby brother Mikey died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. For better or worse, Eric’s dad left the family just four months afterwards. He hadn’t bothered to pay for a gravestone when he took off for Georgia with another woman. Shortly thereafter, Eric rode his bike into traffic, telling his mother he wanted to die so he could be reunited with Mikey.
In high school, Eric was an ordinary student who made no waves. He dated, and would later claim a single incident shaped his view of women. He recalled his high school girlfriend left him after another guy lured her away with gifts. In his mind, she might as well have been a sex worker. After that, Eric Armstrong viewed all women as potential whores, guilty and deserving of punishment.
Eric took a job in a grocery store just after graduating high school, then decided to make a career in the navy. He enlisted and was stationed as an active-duty sailor aboard the USS Nimitz, the largest ship on the planet. The Nimitz is an aircraft carrier with its home base in Bremerton, WA (10 miles west of Seattle). In the navy, he met another sailor, Katie, who would become his future wife. They married in 1998, six years after Eric enlisted.
The other sailors nicknamed him “Opie” for his strawberry-blond hair and mild demeanor. Some said he could be moody, while others barely recalled his presence.
‘I called you guys, remember’
It isn’t clear why Eric Armstrong settled in Detroit after he left the navy in 1999, but since his wife had grown up in nearby Dearborn, MI, it’s likely the growing family (they had one son and his wife was pregnant at the time of his arrest) wanted to be closer to Katie’s family. In his mid-twenties now and honorably discharged, Eric took a job first as security guard, and later worked for at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport as an aircraft refueler.
He first came under suspicion when he reported finding a body on January 2, 2000. The story he told investigators sounded concocted and raised eyebrows.
According to Eric, he was strolling near the Rouge River in Detroit, when he felt sick to his stomach. Bending over the side of a bridge to vomit, he saw the half-naked body of Wendy Jordan floating in the icy river. Officers weren’t just skeptical of Armstrong’s story; they immediately began considering him as the prime suspect in Jordan’s death.
She was murdered on New Year’s Day and police immediately interviewed Armstrong’s neighbors who reported the only unusual activity was him leaving home at 5am, to return an hour later.
Despite being under suspicion as of January 2nd, he wasn’t arrested until April, 12, 2000. This four month period would later come back to haunt the DPD, as Eric continued to prowl the streets of the Motor City.
While police had physical evidence, including DNA left on Jordan’s body, it was Armstrong’s behavior that made them suspicious. Several months earlier, while working as a security guard, he’d filed a false police report, claiming he’d been assaulted while on duty. He eventually admitted he made the story up, and was fired from his job.
But forensic evidence doesn’t lie, and fibers found on Jordan also pointed to Armstrong. When they discovered the fibers were a match, police asked the Wayne County prosecutor’s office for an arrest warrant but were denied. The County wanted an official report before they moved on Armstrong. At the time, police were in no rush to solve a single murder.
Waiting for evidence
Because of the delay, four more women would die at Eric Armstrong’s hands before he was taken off the streets.
While the fiber evidence made its way through the Wayne County forensics procedures, and before the DNA was matched, Eric continued to cruise Michigan Avenue.
After Wendy Jordan, however, the next attack didn’t go as planned. He offered Wilhelmenia Drane a lift, then attempted to strangle her. Drane fought him off with pepper spray, crediting wearing a scarf for slowing down the assault. She narrowly escaped from Armstrong’s clutches with her life, reporting the incident to police.
Kelly Hood, Rose-Marie Felt, Robbin Brown, and Monica Johnson were not so lucky. On April 10, 2000, four months after Armstrong reported finding a body in the Rouge River, the bodies the first three of these women were found, dumped together. They were spotted early one morning next to the train tracks, near the intersection of Southern and Military streets in southwest Detroit, by a train passenger.
Grisly puzzle pieces fall into place
The list of Eric Armstrong’s victims may be much longer than five, although police are still unsure if he has inflated the numbers. He was charged with murdering: Jordan, Hood, Felt, Young and Monica Johnson.
Johnson, 31, was found clinging to life on the side of a road in Detroit. She died shortly after being admitted to Ford Hospital and before she could tell anyone what happened to her.
‘Sex Machines’
Bonnie Jordan is the sister of Wendy, the murder victim who drew attention to Eric Armstrong. Bonnie acknowledges her sister once had a drug problem, and once made her living as a sex worker. But at the time of her death, Wendy Jordan had two years of sobriety under her belt. Her family still does not know if she was back in “the life” when she told them she was going out on New Year’s Eve.
All of Armstrong’s victims were sex workers, and most were plying their trade to support a drug habit.
“[Sex workers] are the most common target [of serial killers],” Psychologist James Fox told the Detroit Free Press after Armstrong’s arrest. “They are women who get into cars and find themselves at the mercy of strange men. For the killer, it is psychologically easier to kill them because he already views them as worthless sex machines who exist only to give pleasure.”
Kelly Hood, the next victim after Wendy, fit the victim profile perfectly — but it hadn’t always been so. Kelly had come to Detroit from northern Michigan, to marry and raise a family. She was a mother of three kids, all under 10-years-old, at the time of her death. She had a normal, working-class life in Detroit but one day picked up a crack pipe.
It didn’t take long for Kelly to become an addict; her life turned upside down as she became more dependent on using crack and heroin daily. She left her kids for a life on the streets, selling herself to fuel her drug habit. Kelly was standing on a Detroit street corner one cold Spring night in heels, a short skirt, and a faux rabbit fur coat when she saw a black Jeep approach.
She was mostly concerned about whether Armstrong might be a cop, but once she was sure he wasn’t she climbed in and they bargained over price. She told him to drive a block away and pull over in an alley. Before he choked her to death he told her, “I hate whores.”
The next victim who fell prey to Eric Armstrong was Rose-Marie Felt, who was murdered about a week after Kelly.
Robbin Brown was the last victim in this group of three who were dumped on the tracks. She had been murdered, police estimated, about 12 hours before her body was seen by the train passenger.
Profile of a serial murderer
The justice system had been slow, but three bodies discarded in one spot got cops attention. The Detroit Police Department now sprung into action and assigned dozens of officers to track down the killer, knowing they might prevent more deaths.
One of the first moves they made was profiling the murderer. The profile indicated he would strike again soon, and identified Michigan Avenue as the place he was targeting women. And shortly after midnight, on April 12th (over four months after Wendy Jordan’s body was found), police located Armstrong cruising the area and arrested him.
The evidence was overwhelming, and Eric Armstrong soon began detailing his murderous acts from 1992 to 1998 — across the world. He told police he’d killed women in Washington State, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Israel, Thailand, Hawaii and the Middle East. Police have not been able to confirm all of these locations, but a conservative tally of victims stands at 11.
He admitted he often returned to where he’d left bodies so he could have sex with them. This is the reason the three women were not only dumped in the same location, but also posed.
“He told us he either killed, or tried to kill, every prostitute he’d ever had sex with,” Assistant Police Chief Marvin Winkler said, adding, “He expressed remorse several times.” The 300-lb killer, who was as ordinary looking as the day is long, was “crying like a baby” as he confessed his crimes. | https://medium.com/the-true-crime-edition/how-many-women-did-john-eric-armstrong-kill-ce1563c247f7 | ['Jean Campbell'] | 2020-12-30 18:12:56.489000+00:00 | ['Psychopath', 'Serial Killers', 'True Crime', 'Detroit', 'Murder'] |
Ta dose crypto du jeudi 15 mars — Coinbase reçoit la licence E-Money | BitGrail Denies Responsibility for Hack, But Will Refund Coins "Voluntarily" | Finance Magnates
A Telegram group for victims of the recent BitGrail hack has revealed that the exchange does not consider itself to be… | https://medium.com/la-bulle-crypto/ta-dose-crypto-du-jeudi-15-mars-coinbase-re%C3%A7oit-la-licence-e-money-508a7f8385e7 | [] | 2018-03-15 08:01:01.402000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Coinbase', 'Bitcoin', 'Litecoin'] |
Am I Happy? | When someone asks “are you happy?” how do you evaluate your vast life-tapestry into a simple yes or no answer?
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
“Are You Happy?”
It can be a completely benign question, it could be a genuinely concerned query, or it could imply that the person asking the question doesn’t believe the subject of their question IS happy. When the question arises unexpectedly while discussing my current state of (recent) unemployment and my plans for the future, I feel the latter is probably true.
It seems a little disingenuous to ask if I’m happy while juggling financial and career worries and becoming increasingly stressed over them. It took me a while to formulate an answer, which prompted further worried questioning, but I can honestly say that I am happy.
Am I completely content with my life and the way things stand? No. Am I striving for something more for myself, my family and our future? Hell, yes! Do I occasionally wish that things had gone differently or that we had done something better? Of course, I do. Very few people live life without regrets.
The difference between happiness, contentment, and bliss
The question, “are you happy?” is incomplete; it misses the nuance that life requires for us to appreciate it. The fluctuation between the highs and lows, ease and hardship, joy and sorrow. Would you appreciate joy and ecstasy so much if you had never experienced the pits of despair or sadness? Would you feel the relief of economic ease without the pinch of financial difficulty? There is a balance to be found that cannot be encompassed by the simplicity of happiness.
Overall, the balance in my life is positive, the highs outweigh the lows. If I look at happiness as a measure of balance then I can be true to myself and say that I am happy.
Am I blissful? Um, no. I have moments of pure bliss, but I suspect it is unhealthy to spend every moment blissed-out on the universe (and highly improbable without altered brain chemistry).
Am I content? To a certain degree of contentedness, yes I am content. My family life makes me content. I have a wonderful husband — not perfect by any stretch, but my life-partner, friend and lover. My son makes me extraordinarily proud, frustrated, and speechless on a daily basis — sometimes all at the same time.
But does all of that equate to happiness?
There are bumps and wiggles along the path of life. If the question had been asked fourteen months ago, I would have had to think much harder about the question. Depression had me in its grip, I wasn’t working, my self-esteem was at an all-time low, stay at home mum, with little social interaction (that part doesn’t bother me), but with no time or energy to do anything for myself (didn’t write, didn’t read, barely able to watch a favourite TV show etc).
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I can see everything that was going on back then and surmise that I had almost the same things going for me then as I do now, but now I see things from a perspective of not being depressed. I do derive joy from my family life, I’ve found the time to do things for me, I’ve recently rediscovered my womanly wiles (and my relationship with my husband).
Asking if I am happy is almost cruel because it forces me to evaluate the balance in my life. I may have been focussing on enjoying the positives, but asking me to inspect the balance between the positives and negatives impels me to focus on the bad. There will always be problems along the road, but this is not a fairy story (or if it is, it’s one of the Grimm’s before Disneyfication).
Cinderella knew hardship and drudgery, before swapping a prison of servitude to the gilded cage of royalty. Sleeping Beauty had problems with a little prick. Belle went forth and dealt with the anger management issues of her future prince. Don’t get me started on Elsa’s social anxiety and Anna’s desperate need for another person to make her feel whole.
Even in fairy stories, happiness is not guaranteed. Happily ever after is just the end of that tale, there are more tales to be told until everyone is dead and buried.
Happily ever after is a Myth
Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar or delusional.
“Are you happy?”
“No. My husband is crap at cleaning, my son ignores me and is naughty. My self-esteem is in the toilet because I’ve lost my job, and I’m considering moving back to a city where it is stupidly expensive to live but is the only place I can find work.”
When you put it like that it seems so petty, but it is a fact of life that not everything is going to be sunshine and roses.
If my life were a fairy tale, happily ever after would have been our wedding day. Happily ever after makes no reference to the life that continues after that day; it is a lazy story ending and a Big Fat Lie. If happily ever after were to have any basis, in reality, it would last the length of the honeymoon and then they would die in each other’s arms after spectacular sex.
If anyone expects happily ever after then they are setting themselves up for disappointment. A good aim would be more or less happy.
Am I Happy? Are you Happy?
I am happy. I have no job, my writing makes me nothing, my son doesn’t sleep through the night, I’m exhausted, my sex life is insufficient, I’m eating emotionally so the 15kgs I just lost os creeping back on at an alarming speed…(the list goes on)
…but, the feel of my baby boy’s arms around my neck when he wakes in the night for comfort makes me warm and squishy. We may be too exhausted for sex, but every night I fall asleep with my Honey’s arm around me and his breath on my neck. I have the emotional support from my husband to continue pursuing a writing career, rather than taking any old job, just to make finances a little freer. I look at my son and see the absolute best from me and my husband, I’m proud of the little man he’s becoming.
In my mind, the second list gives me more to be happy about, than the first gives me cause to despair.
I can see the problems well enough to do something about them, I just don’t want to dwell on them.
If I can see my shadow, I know that the sun is shining on me. | https://mamiepmuse.medium.com/am-i-happy-2548423bdbd2 | ['Mamie P Muse'] | 2019-06-06 09:49:07.771000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Happiness'] |
how to use Django | how to use django
Introduction :-
this blog introduces Python programmers to build websites using the Django library. You will build online websites using Django and those working websites are graded throughout courses . This blog is excellent preparation for using Django to build websites.
Why Django ?
With Django, you can take web applications from concept to launch in a matter of hours. Django takes care of much of the hassle of web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to update the wheel. It is a free and open source.
LEARN MORE ABOUT APPLYING FOR DJANGO
Amazing flexibility.
Companies, organizations and governments have used it to build all sorts of things — from content management systems to social media to computer science platforms.
for more about this article :- click here | https://medium.com/@kamal20chouhan/how-to-use-django-e55aa409013d | [] | 2020-12-06 02:58:32.906000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Django', 'Django Rest Framework'] |
Lockdown Economy Nepal in a Recycled Paper Handicraft Organization with Kritica Lacoul | The interview was transcribed and adapted into an article by Sujan Lal Manandhar
Lockdown Economy: Interviews by think tank AlterContacts.org with real entrepreneurs sharing insights, challenges and successes during the COVID19 global pandemic to inspire, motivate and encourage other entrepreneurs around the world
In this interview hosted by Sujan Lal Manandhar, we meet Kritica Lacoul, the Executive Manager of Jamarko, which is a recycled paper handicraft organization. They promote the idea of sustainability by offering paper products made using locally sourced raw materials and recycled paper. We talked about the problems Jamarko faced during the lockdown. They had to close their physical store. The workers could not come to the office. It was a major problem because their products are handmade. They also faced issues in paying salaries. It was also difficult paying its vendors. They came up with a few solutions. They shifted their operations online for sales. They had to quickly learn marketing their business online and find delivery partners. They started producing upcycled masks. In the coming months, they will work more on their online platforms, especially their website. They aim to market to people outside Kathmandu valley.
Could you introduce us to Jamarko?
Kritica: ‘Jamarko’ means ‘effort’ in Nepali. Our effort is to reduce environmental pollution by recycling paper. We collect waste paper from different organizations and individuals. We recycle that paper and make our products such as folders and envelopes. In addition to that, we have added Lokta (meaning: wildcrafted, handmade paper in Nepal) paper products to our business where we make lampshades and gift boxes. We also customize the products as per customer demand. We have been upcycling newspapers as well by making newspaper bags and pencils. We have a small team. We have around eight direct employees. We also hire indirect workers on an as-needed basis. We have both individual and corporate clients.
What problems did you face during the lockdown?
Kritica: We had to close our physical store because we could not afford to operate it. We basically had zero business at that time. So, we had a hard time paying our staff and our vendors. After the first lockdown, the odd/even (traffic rule where vehicles with odd license plate numbers could drive only on odd dates and even plates on even dates) rule made it difficult for us and our workers to come to the office.
What strategies did you implement to solve the problems you faced? What worked and what did not?
Kritica: Firstly, we shifted to the online platform as we had closed our physical store. We focused on Facebook and Instagram for sales. For this, we had to learn ways to market our products online. We had to find out how to do online business. We looked for delivery partners. Secondly, our products were labelled ‘non-essentials’. We did not have to focus on the production of other products. We saw the pollution created by improper disposal of surgical masks. Hence, we started producing upcycled masks (reusable fabric masks) since they became a basic necessity. WHO has recommended a three-layered mask for protection as well. We used fabrics from different boutiques and we hired local tailors to make them. Besides giving them wages, we also provided them with 5% of our retail sales from the masks. We also had done some giveaways online. As for the strategies that did not work, switching to an online platform helped our visibility but the return was not as before the pandemic. We had to struggle at that end.
What kind of interactions did you have with your customers?
Kritica: We informed our customers that we had switched to an online platform through our social media. Our store was open after the first lockdown so our salesperson conveyed this information to customers directly as well. We started doing home deliveries. This made our customers quite happy.
How did you approach the lockdown differently from your competitors?
Kritica: Although we could not sell a lot of our products we started telling our customers how they could do simple DIY projects at home. There was a lot of free time during the lockdown. The customers could stay home and make the products sustainably with their families. We gave continuity to our values in this way.
Now that the lockdown has been eased in Nepal, how is your business performing?
Kritica: It is better but it has not been like before. Besides our core products (which are labelled non-essential), our masks are doing quite well.
What is the outlook for Jamarko for the next three months?
Kritica: We are working on our website and our online presence. The customers used to come to us before. Now we have to develop a completely new online strategy. We are brainstorming on it. It is very time-consuming and costly but we look forward to it. We were not used to getting orders from outside the (Kathmandu) valley but this pandemic has created opportunities to sell outside the valley as well. After everything has settled down, we might try to reach the international market.
What are the three things in your business that you need help with?
Kritica: Firstly, we want our customers to support local businesses like ours more than ever before. This is important because it helps to develop the local economy. They can purchase from us. If they cannot do that they could follow us on our social media pages and refer us to their friends and families. Secondly, we are open to collaborations. When our store was open, we used to collaborate with local artisans to provide them with a platform to sell their products. Lastly, we would like to support from the government. Since we did not have any business during the lockdown, they could exempt taxes for at least the pandemic period. They could provide subsidies to local handicraft products. And they can also use these products because handicrafts are of very good quality as well.
About the guest
Kritica Lacoul Shrestha is the Executive Manager of Jamarko, a small handicraft business that makes recycled paper and produces paper products in Nepal. She was a member of Nepal Young Entrepreneurs Forum in 2018. She likes to travel to different places and explore local arts and crafts. She joined her family business ‘Jamarko’ in 2010 and since then has been managing the overall operations of the company.
Facebook: www.facebook.com.np/JamarkoNepal
Instagram: www.instagram.com/JamarkoNepal | https://medium.com/@altercontacts/lockdown-economy-nepal-in-a-recycled-paper-handicraft-organization-with-kritica-lacoul-f8a543220237 | ['Lockdown Economy'] | 2020-12-22 19:48:32.528000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Recycling', 'Lockdown', 'Small Business', 'Handmade'] |
How Creative Thinking Happens | The Adjacent possible
In the middle of the 17th century, two men came up with the same idea, independently and simultaneously and a bitter international row broke out, dividing the scientific community and the countries they belonged to.
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Willem Leibnitz both published their versions of calculus which they had arrived at independently. Researchers found that their notebooks show that they both worked their way towards the conclusion from independent routes. Unlike nowadays, information was not shared freely, mainly where national pride was involved (perhaps it’s not so different?).
Leibnitz, Newton and Calculus
With something so complicated, how can it be that they both arrived at a similar insight at a similar time but entirely independently?
The answer may become evident if you understand a principle known as the adjacent possible, first coined by Stuart Kauffman in 2002.
Kauffman used the term to describe how biological systems can change into more complex structures by making small incremental changes, rather than radical changes. Incremental changes are less energy consumptive and always involve small steps leading to what appears to be giant leaps.
Steven Johnson, in his book, “Where Good Ideas Come From” (watch Johnsons animated talk on creativity here) picked up Kauffman’s insight and applied it to describe how we arrive at insights.
The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself. Steven Johnson
New insights hover on the edge of what we know, believe and assume. They are the re-combination of concepts that exist, that are transformed into new ideas.
If we think about any modern innovation, it’s clear that the innovation could not exist unless other situations, concepts, products and environments weren’t already in place.
The iPhone couldn’t have happened without innovations in battery technology, computing technology, the palm pilot, all the way back to Babbage and Turing, and probably further back than that.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Isaac Newton
At the boundaries of our reach, with the right mental attitude, we create new ideas. The boundaries grow as they are explored, each new innovation engenders the possibility of further new combinations.
This, I think, is the primary motivation behind all motivation. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and it’s giants all the way down.
Whilst our brains crave certainty and predictability, we also have an unquenchable thirst to make meaning out of meaningless information.
We do almost everything we can to avoid uncertainty, by forming stories, beliefs and assumptions so that our brains consume less energy. Assumptions are the predictive power to keep us alive, they keep us stable. By trying to avoid uncertainty, the brain has developed specific biases which help to steer our behaviour back onto a predictable track. This is why we have a confirmation bias where we look for information that reinforces an existing concept or idea.
We view changing our mind negatively and ridicule politicians, for instance, for changing their mind when new evidence comes to light.
This begs the question; “If everything is grounded in our history of assumptions, why do we ever want or need to see anything differently?”
Our pattern-making brains crave novelty and deeper understanding.
Nothing interesting ever begins with knowing, it always begins with not knowing. Curiosity and an unquenchable desire to learn more or to do things better or different fuel our restlessness. Creativity questions assumptions and finds novel solutions to new problems. It doubts what we already know and steps to the adjacent possible to combine, conflate, or contort what we already know and what is already out there, to make a new, emergent property.
To the outsider, these leaps may seem to be giant leaps, but in reality, these are small steps within the realms of what is available and what is possible. Obviously, the more comprehensive your realm of knowledge and experience, the more possibilities you have.
The Adjacent Possible
This is illustrated in the diagram above. Person A may combine diverse ideas from within their adjacent possible, their knowledge and experience. Person B, however, who doesn’t have those reference points within their realm, will not be able to combine the new concepts (unless he has knowledge or experience of them). They are outside their frame of reference. Therefore, from their point of view, the combination of the new concepts appear to be a giant leap. They are, in fact, a small further step for person A.
This would explain why specific ideas can happen simultaneously in different people who may have had no contact. So long as their frames of reference are similar and contain either similar problems or equivalent knowledge and experience; there is a fair chance that they could come up with the same, or similar new ideas or innovations.
The concept of the adjacent possible has also been applied to business and data theory by implying the idea of collaboration to generate new insights. Team members, who have different perspectives on different aspects of a business combine together to create higher-value conclusions and insights.
Incremental progress in an enterprise by the use of diversity can produce a valuable method for business insights. By combining diverse experience, the richness of the “pool” of potential possible is increased.
The concept of the adjacent possible captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation.
I was privileged, some years ago, to be part of an experiment carried out by the Intercontinental Hotel Group, IHG. The moderators, Ove Arup, gathered together a diverse group of specialists. Architects, designers, sociologist, behavioural psychologist, planners, hotel operators and many other seemingly non-related specialists came together to generate ideas for a new hotel concept.
The results were surprising, some completely radical ideas, some completely unusable (but interesting) ideas. Overall, though there was a richness and breadth to the ideas produced which were unlikely to happen if a conventional design route were taken.
Understanding the concept of the adjacent possible is something most creatives will do intuitively. They have trained their minds to seek out ideas by association, assimilation and deconstruction. Using influences and references from a rich background of knowledge and research.
Creative thinking involves risk and uncertainty, but it is how we grow as individuals, as communities and as societies. We share information and then step up on the knowledge ladder and add a further step for those following in our footsteps.
www.charlesleon.uk | https://medium.com/@innovative3770/how-creative-thinking-happens-518cd1cd3ac | ['Charles Leon'] | 2020-12-21 12:46:22.769000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Design Process', 'Design', 'Risk', 'Creative Thinking'] |
Crafting and publishing Kotlin Multiplatform library to Bintray | Kotlin Multiplatform is a great technology in the maturing period, which means that it's not always possible to find what you need for your project and you must craft it yourself. Are you ready for a challenge?
In this article, I'll share a step-by-step guide of creating and publishing of KMP library for JVM, Android and iOS targets. Target, if simply put, is just a type of device where you want your library to work.
Prerequisites
Codeforces WatchR is an open-source mobile client for Codeforces platform, where thousands of programmers compete in weekly algorithmic challenges. There are both, iOS and Android apps, which are available in stores.
Recently we've migrated both apps to Kotlin Multiplatform. In the process, we've just copy/pasted ReKotlin source code (doesn't support KMP at the moment) to KMP common module, which was the short-term solution.
But then we needed ReKotlin in another KMP project, so we decided to publish it as KMP library to Bintray. Now it can be included as a dependency in build.gradle file. Other developers can also benefit from our work.
Source code
All source code can be found in the official ReKamp (this is how we called the library) repo on GitHub. As you can see, all classes are located under src/commonMain folder, which means ReKotlin was 99% ready for KMP.
There is no platform dependent code and our changes are limited to a few tiny tweaks related to how Kotlin/Native compiler transforms Kotlin into Obj-C:
For some reason === didn't work as expected within Kotlin/Native, even though printed addressed were the same. Changed them to == .
didn't work as expected within Kotlin/Native, even though printed addressed were the same. Changed them to . All classes should extend other classes or Any . Otherwise you will have messed up generics, which are limited even without this problem.
. Otherwise you will have messed up generics, which are limited even without this problem. All methods, which begins with new or init are prefixed with do . Changed newState to onNewState to stay consistent between platforms.
Compilation
Configuration of your build happens in kotlin block where you specify your source sets and targets. jvm corresponds to any JVM-powered target and gives you an access to different Java-related APIs. android is subset of jvm , but allows you access Android-specific APIs.
It’s much more complicated for ios target. In many libraries listed in https://github.com/AAkira/Kotlin-Multiplatform-Libraries I've seen a shortcut for ios() preset of targets, which works good until you try to archive the iOS app, which uses the library, in XCode.
Architectures
If you inspect the default Valid Architectures field in your XCode project, you will see that it contains both arm32 (armv7, armv7s) and arm64 (arm64, arm64e) architectures.
But for some reason shortcut for ios() in KMP contains only x64 (simulator) and arm64 (devices) architectures. And when you try to archive the project, you will see following errors:
One of the solutions is getting rid of arm32 architectures in both your common KMP module and XCode project, but I'm not sure about implications of this choice. Comment if it's safe, please.
We've chosen another, more robust solution and decided to support iosArm32 in ReKamp. It can be done by explicitly including iosArm32 , iosArm64 and iosX64 targets in the build.gradle . Just make sure that their corresponding source sets depends on nativeMain .
Metadata
When you do ./gradlew build , outputs for each target are created. These are jar files for JVM targets and klib for Native ones. So far, so good.
The problem is that there is no target for common source set, so no outputs are generated. But Android Studio needs jar file, which is named your-library.jar to support highlighting in your common KMP module.
The solution is simple, you need to rename your-library-metadata.jar (and other metadata outputs) to your-library.jar . Here is the code, which makes exactly that + makes sure that other outputs are named properly.
Publishing
We've used com.jfrog.bintray plugin, which provides convenient methods for uploading your outputs and metadata to Bintray repository. To make sure that all outputs are correctly uploaded, we've added them to publications:
publish.gradle provides the most important information to publishing plugin: repository url, group, artifact and version.
pom.gradle is just another Gradle script, which is used to provide additional information about library' license, developer, etc in POM format.
All the values you see in Gradle files are gathered in gradle.properties :
Another 2 values are located in local.properties , which are private: bintrayUser and bintrayApiKey , which you can get by registering at https://bintray.com/ for free.
At this moment, you should be able to publish your library with ./gradlew bintrayUpload . You should see about 20 lines of Uploaded to ...
Usage
First of all, check that you have all outputs successfully uploaded to Bintray: Repository -> Package -> Files. You should see a few folders (common, mavenProject + one per target).
Now you can include these dependencies for targets you need like this:
Gradle cache
Half of the time I've spent fighting with Gradle cache, which was super persistent about keeping old versions of my library after changes without changing the version.
Here are a few advices on how to overcome caching mechanism:
update version of your library after every single change
of your library after every single change remove all obsolete versions of library from local Gradle cache (Project view -> External libraries -> your-library.jar (and all targets).
all of library from local Gradle cache (Project view -> External libraries -> your-library.jar (and all targets). once done remove all obsolete versions of library from Bintray
Bottom line
Creating and publishing Kotlin Multiplatform library was super challenging for the first time. It took me almost 2 weeks to get all things right in several rounds and a few broken projects.
I hope that this kind of step-by-step guide with working examples will help other developers to get their library published and working much faster.
Good luck!
Sources | https://medium.com/xorum-io/crafting-and-publishing-kotlin-multiplatform-library-to-bintray-cbc00a4f770 | ['Yevhenii Kanivets'] | 2020-06-09 05:50:42.020000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Kotlin Multiplatform', 'iOS', 'Mobile', 'Kotlin'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.