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Set up R-CMD-check with a GitHub Actions workflow and notify Slack | How to: for a future me
Introduction
If you work in software, you know all about Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. These are best practices for shortening feedback loops between code changes and successful builds. GitHub Actions are a fairly new feature in GitHub, but is growing rapidly thanks in part to community involvement and the GitHub Marketplace. I am fortunate enough to contribute to several packages in the R ecosystem, and most packages use Travis-ci for their CI pipelines. If you store your project on GitHub, then the nice thing about using GitHub Actions for your pipelines is that the functionality already resides in the same system. There are a bunch of other reasons why you may choose GitHub Actions over Travis, some of which are covered in this talk by Jim Hester at rstudio::conf 2020.
Now, chances are that if you work in a technology or service organization that you also use Slack. Something we are trying with several projects related to the R organization’s participation in the prestigious Google Summer of Code program for 2021 is to use Slack for asynchronous communication. Slack has a range of integrations that can be built into your workflow. For example you can add Travis, GitHub, Zoom integrations etc. This makes for a productive experience from a single workspace whilst working in Slack. One of the things we are testing is adding a Slack bot app for notifying the relevant channels of build status updates whenever code is pushed or pull requests are submitted to the relevant code repositories in GitHub. The rest of this document is intended to be a step-by-step guide for how we got that done…so that i can refer to it in future and hopefully someone else reading this might benefit.
Its worth noting that there are really 2 workflows merged into one; a workflow to run an R-CMD-check and a workflow to notify Slack of the results. We will look at each part separately in the next 2 sections.
Part 1: R-CMD-check
The first workflow is running an R-CMD-check with a GitHub Actions workflow. You can refer to the Github Actions for the R community repo for more information, examples, additional resources etc. For our purposes, and the example below we merely used the YAML for “A simple CI workflow to check with the release version of R”, but changed the OS it runs on to Ubuntu.
Thanks to the contributors of that repo and the developers of the rcmdcheck package which makes this all possible.
You will likely want to add a status badge for your workflow to your project README. If so, you can refer to GitHub docs for “Adding a workflow status badge.”
Part 2: Slack Notification
At this point the GitHub Marketplace shines again. There are several Slack Notify options from the Marketplace which are open source, but i ended up going with Slack Notify Build. The documentation was helpful, but i still found myself getting stuck in places, hence this post for my own future reference if nothing else.
In order to get the integration working you first need to create a Slack app. This app will connect to your GitHub repo and hook into the status of your workflows. Creating a Slack app is really simple, requiring no code. You can go to https://api.slack.com/apps and create your Slack app “from scratch,” or at least that was the option i chose.
Then, you will need to create a Bot user. This is well documented in the Slack API docs here.
Next, you will need to install the app to your Slack Workspace. You can do this from the Settings menu for your app. Once that is done, you will need to enable a few features before you are done with configuring your new app in Slack. You will need to:
Activate Incoming Webhooks
Add the following OAuth scopes:
Bot Token Scopes
At this point you are pretty much done with any Slack setup and config. The only thing left to do is add the app to your respective channel with the command “/invite GitHub Action” or whatever the name of your Slack Bot app is. If you dont you will see a build error in GitHub Actions workflows like the below (after activating the workflow by adding the appropriate yaml file in the .github/workflows folder) which is quite helpful…
We will need to add the Slack bot token to our repo environment secrets in the Settings menu in GitHub (note: can only be done by repo owner) and add the channel ID to the YAML file. More on that in the next section.
.github/workflows/slack-notify-build.yml
For an example of a working yaml file, see my gist here. For more info regarding GitHub Actions workflow syntax please refer to their docs. For general YAML syntax docs, see the Learn YAML in Y Minutes website.
At this stage you will need to do 2 things:
Add the Slack Bot User OAuth Token to your GitHub repo secrets. The token is available under the “OAuth & Permissions” menu option under Features in your Slack app. For info about how to add a repo secret in GitHub, please refer to the docs. Make sure the name you give the token in the GitHub repo secrets is the name you use in the YAML file. The value of course is the token itself. And add the channel ID (see this accepted answer in this SO question for info on how to get that ID).
Conclusion
Assuming all the above steps have been carried out, you should receive notifications to your Slack channel of the workflow status for an R-CMD-check. The example YAML file stored on gist shows the config for combining an R-CMD-check and sending a status update to Slack in a single notification (a single notification is possible as the same message ID is used for each update).
I hope this is helpful. None of this would be possible without the contributions from the r-lib community and of course the contributors from Vox Media for the build status GitHub Action Slack notification code. | https://medium.com/@jaymon0703/set-up-r-cmd-check-with-a-github-actions-workflow-and-notify-slack-5b4b37f6ab35 | ['Jasen Mackie'] | 2021-06-18 13:25:26.814000+00:00 | ['Rstats', 'Github Actions', 'Slackbot', 'Slack', 'Notifications'] |
#TIME Ingenious Evolution to Pass Complex Regs — Update #122 | Thanks for the fantastic feedback on the packaging designs Seymour showed you in the last update. It’s thrilling to know you love these designs so much as we work to set a new standard across the board with these products. (If you want to see last week’s update it’s here)
This week we’ve done a video showing how we solved a very significant challenge with one of our products over the holidays.
You probably know that business these days is David vs Goliath — with the big tech companies writing the rules and a single change can be devastating.
A few weeks ago a MAJOR challenge came up with a rule being imposed on one of our products, a rule which frankly completely blocked the design.
If you’ve been with us for a while you know we’ve faced this kind of thing a couple of times before… and our strategy is always the same: don’t think of it as a roadblock, but as a chance to create an even better design.
We believe we’ve done that here and would love you to take a look, please.
Get connected with MAGFAST:
Website: https://www.magfast.com/launch-campaign-new/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MAGFAST/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/getmagfast?lang=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/magfast | https://medium.com/magfast/time-ingenious-evolution-to-pass-complex-regs-update-122-18038c385ff8 | ['Seymour Segnit'] | 2020-01-28 18:23:43.083000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Electronics', 'Charger'] |
An ode to the most fucking beautiful time of year | The flowers are out, Venus is shining (at night, look up, it’s just over there). We are all angry and we are all grieving, but this is the most fucking beautiful time of year. So today, an ode to angry joy:
Dear everyone walking around outside, ambling, distantly, avoiding one another, thank you, we are all in this together.
Dear strangers in cloth bandanas, breathing your own carbon, thank you for protecting me.
Dear neighbor I’ve never met, I’m weeding my front garden for the first time, beside you, let’s fight these weeds together.
Dear lilacs, fuck you, you smell so good but I’m not allowed to stick my nose in you, I’ll just pretend I’m sniffing you today, sorry I said fuck you, it’s not your fault, maybe I’ll buy a lilac candle online instead.
Dear friends I bump into on the street, but not bump, never bump, but happily stand six feet away from, your masks look so nice, thank you for the air hugs.
Dear Rock Creek Park, you really are endless, thank you for providing us new places to explore, to dive-bomb into bushes so we can avoid passersby.
Dear strangers in windows, howling at the moon at eight o’clock on the dot, let it loose, baby, let out your voice from your shelter-in-bedroom.
Dear people on texts and Zoom and Snaps and what have you, dear people walking on Facetime letting whoever you’re talking to see your dog poo, I see you and everyone trying to connect.
Dear people suffering, dear people who have lost loved ones already, dear people who have lost your jobs or sense of security, I’m so sorry, I will not ignore you, I know sometimes it is not possible to choose joy.
But when you can, grab hold. Take it in your fists, wring it by the neck. Take a nap if you need it, dream, wake up, dream again, and move.
Dear everyone, please listen. We are all angry and we are all grieving, we’re all on our phones and computers for digital connection, it’s still weird but it’s getting less weird, and we all go outside when we can’t take it anymore, because outside is still outside and trees are still trees and flowers are still flowers, and it feels like a joke that right now is the most fucking beautiful time of year, but it still is, so when you are able to take a break from anxiety and anger, please get out there and fucking ENJOY IT. | https://medium.com/@deniserobbins/an-ode-to-the-most-fucking-beautiful-time-of-year-5f74983f0942 | ['Denise Robbins'] | 2020-04-23 21:52:45.647000+00:00 | ['Nature Walk', 'Enjoy Life', 'Go Outside', 'Walking', 'Walking Social Distancing'] |
A Novel in Thirty Days: The Rest of the Story | Short version: I did not complete a first draft during Camp NaNo in July.
Long version: I did not complete a first draft during Camp NaNo in July, for a lot of good reasons. But the point isn’t what I didn’t do.
What I did do, and what I learned.
I wrote on six of the first seven days of July. Each writing session was more productive than the last, and I have every reason to believe that I would have made my goal if I’d continued that habit.
At the end of July, I had 5,867 more words than when I started. That’s not a whole manuscript by a long shot, but it’s not nothing.
I learned that, actually, I can just start writing, even if I feel like there’s nothing in me to write. I learned that I could write a novel in a month. I can write a novel, guys. That feels… big.
I also learned that I could buckle down and focus on the practical rather than the creative when I have to.
So what happened?
Short version: A deer got acquainted with the driver’s side of our car. Intimately acquainted. And I fixed it. And a lot of other stuff came up that required adulting. (If that’s all you want to know, skip ahead to Perfectionism strikes again.)
Long version: A deer blindsided my husband while he was on his way to work. It destroyed the side mirror, cracked the windshield, and busted up the fender and both doors, plus a few more minor things. Unsurprisingly, the car was totaled. It’s served us well for several years, but we got it used and it had high mileage long before we bought it.
Also unsurprisingly, the insurance payout wasn’t nearly enough to replace it. Or enough to pay someone to repair it. There was really only one option left: it had to be repaired, and we had to do it ourselves.
News flash: brand new car parts are expensive.
To the junk yard with me. The cheapest option was a Pull-A-Part junkyard in Nashville. As the name implies, they don’t actually take the parts off the cars-you have to go there and ‘pull the parts’ yourself.
Now, I am not and never have been a mechanic.
My experience with cars extended to adding gas or oil when needed, and calling my dad when something went wrong.
I didn’t have the first clue how to get the parts I needed off of a car in a junkyard, or even what tools I would need to do it. Luckily, I have access to Google and several mechanically-inclined family members.
I arrived at the junkyard armed with a printout specifying the locations of cars that might have what I needed, a bag of tools (thanks, Dad!), and my uncle for muscle power and technical know-how.
I left with all the panels and pieces required to get the car roadworthy again (except the windshield-that we paid to have professionally replaced), a bit of a sunburn, lots more confidence, and a basic understanding of how the driver’s side of a Honda Civic is put together.
Over the next three weeks, I put the car back together. Then I filled out paperwork, arranged to have the car inspected, and got papers notarized so we could apply for a rebuilt title and a new license plate.
My husband was finally able to drive it to work again just this last week.
As if we didn’t have enough going on already, it became clear that my husband’s job needed to change. His health meant that he couldn’t physically handle the work it required anymore, and he wasn’t earning enough to keep the bills paid. We made the decision to relocate where the job market in his field was better.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, a depressive episode descended. My focus switched to just surviving. I made it through, but I didn’t have the capacity for anything extra-like working on a car, or writing a novel.
My mental illness + stress = not a great mix
Of course, life hasn’t stopped coming at us. It never does.
Perfectionism strikes again.
My plan at the beginning of July was to write a novel.
Then my plan became fixing our car.
Then preparing for a move.
Then surviving depression.
Then spending a week out in South Carolina, also in preparation for moving.
And then, a new semester began.
When I realized that I wouldn’t reach my goal of finishing a manuscript in July, perfectionism snuck in and I felt like I had failed. I felt ashamed that, once again, I hadn’t done what I wanted to do.
Shame stole the joy from my novel.
Because I let shame get the better of me, I haven’t added to my story since July. Worse, this time I’d told the world that I was going to write a novel in a month. There were people out there watching me, and they would know that I had failed.
Depression quickly twisted ‘I failed’ into ‘I am a failure.’
A goal is a plan with a deadline, and plans are allowed to change.
Adjusting our priorities according to the challenges that arise is a healthy, adult thing to do. We’re supposed to adjust, we’re supposed to change our plans as needed. That’s not failure-that’s adulting.
A goal is a plan with a deadline, and plans are allowed to change. My mom told me that, and I needed to hear it. Maybe you need to hear it, too.
Just in case: Changing your plans is not failure. Changing your plans does not make you a failure. Changing your plans is a valid, healthy method for coping with the unexpected.
You are allowed to change your plans.
Go reach for your goals. Change your plans as many times as you need to along the way.
I’ll be here, writing a novel in however long it takes me. | https://medium.com/write-well-be-well/a-novel-in-thirty-days-the-rest-of-the-story-112c0624d957 | ['Rianne Grace'] | 2019-08-28 13:26:01.419000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Life Lessons', 'Mental Health', 'Failure', 'Self Love'] |
Fat Suits | Sarah Paulson was criticized recently for wearing a fat suit for her role as Linda Tripp in the limited series on FX, Impeachment: American Crime Story.
The series deals with the sexual relationship between President Bill Clinton and his intern, Monica Lewinsky. He lied about the relationship and, as a result, was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998. The Senate later acquitted him.
The case against Clinton would have been impossible without Linda Tripp. She secretly recorded Lewinsky’s account of the sexual encounter with the President. Tripp claimed that her motives were purely patriotic.
Could Sarah Paulson play Linda Tripp without a fat suit? No. Would we allow a fat person to play the role of someone who is thin? Nope. The majority of roles played by fat people throughout the history of film have been degrading. We owe them better. I know, firsthand, what they are up against.
I’ve always been thin. My parents were thin, so, genetically, I’ll never weigh 200+ pounds. But, I put on 20–30 pounds when I was prescribed psychiatric medication. When I got off that particular medication, I lost the weight. It wasn’t an issue of will power. It was something neurological. I could eat and eat and eat and not feel full. Trying to sleep when you are hungry creates a whole other set of psychological problems. Eating fruits and vegetables didn’t solve the problem. Exercising didn’t solve it either. It’s not will power. We need to stop treating fat people as horribly as we do. And we need to give them roles that they can be proud of. | https://medium.com/@cynicalwhitemale/sarah-paulson-was-criticized-recently-for-wearing-a-fat-suit-for-her-role-as-linda-tripp-in-the-eb6136b994a | ['Cynical White Male'] | 2021-09-04 01:32:21.531000+00:00 | ['Sarah Paulson', 'Impeachment', 'Bill Clinton', 'Monica Lewinsky'] |
Christmas tree lighting is Nov. 29 | If you have written your letter to Santa, bring it to the Christmas tree lighting on Friday, Nov. 29 at 6:30 p.m.
The lighting will be held in Nicholson Park at Library Point.
Be sure to bring a flashlight.
Remember those in need also. Bring canned goods with you for the food bank. Boxes will be available on the Haddon Avenue side of the Library steps.
The Haddonfield Memorial High School choir will be there to entertain with songs. Afterward there will be a count down to light the big Christmas tree which will signal the arrival of Santa Claus. Santa will be driven by one of our own committee elves.
The children will then follow Santa to Kings Highway and Kings Court. Santa will greet the children and hear wishes at the Kings Court gazebo and his elves will give out candy canes. Santa letters may be placed in the mailbox. Be sure to include a return address so Santa can write back.
In case of rain or snow, the event will take place Nov. 30.
Donations can be sent to the Haddonfield Celebrations Association, P.O. Box 15, Haddonfield, NJ 08033, with Pay Pal through www.HaddonfieldCelebrations.org, or by credit card at the Haddonfield Visitor’s Center located at 2 Kings Court, 216–7253. | https://medium.com/the-haddonfield-sun/christmas-tree-lighting-is-nov-29-d1b56188be64 | [] | 2017-01-10 15:20:57.839000+00:00 | ['Headlines', 'Families', 'Entertainment', 'Christmas Tree'] |
How to start Mining Cryptocurrency | Is it Worth The Effort? | Cryptocurrency mining is a relatively easy way to start earning cryptocurrencies.
Mining profits will always depend on what hardware miners have available
In this guide, we look at how to start mining data for complete beginners
How to Start Mining Cryptocurrency
For the past two years, Bitcoin has been trading at several thousand dollars per coin. Did you know, though, that anyone anywhere can earn digital currency, simply by starting their own cryptocurrency mining operation?
How Does Cryptocurrency Mining Work?
Despite what you might have heard, you don’t need to be a blockchain genius to start mining.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, use what is called a ‘Proof of Work’ consensus algorithm to validate transactions.
When anyone sends coins from one address to another, transactions are bundled into encrypted code blocks
These blocks are passed on to blockchain miners
Miners break the encryption of each block, validate transactions inside, and receive rewards for doing so.
Is Cryptocurrency Mining Worth It?
In theory, cryptocurrency mining is easy. People looking at how to start mining, simply need a PC and a reliable Internet hookup. However, in practice, mining is much more difficult. — At least initially.
Hardware & Energy Prices
Prior to 2013, proof of work coins like Bitcoin could be mined on most modern computers. Then in early 2013, dedicated ASIC mining hardware started to come to market. As a result, it is now only possible to mine most proof of work coins profitably using high-power ASIC miners or graphics cards.
How Much Does a Bitcoin Mining Rig Cost?
As of 2018, the most affordable ASIC mining rig on the market is the Halong DragonMint 16T. However, new devices will still set miners back $2,700 (approx).
How Much Power Does it Take to Mine Cryptocurrency?
In the case of the Halong DragonMint 16T, devices use an average of 1,480W per day. In the U.S. electricity rates start at 12 cents per kilowatt. This might sound reasonable. However, at present, mining with a single DragonMint 16T would only be profitable if Bitcoin was priced at $18,000 per coin. Worse, even then, profits would equate to just $0.17 per day.
Why You Shouldn’t Mine Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s favorite cryptocurrency, but it is also the most difficult to mine profitably. This is why when looking at how to mine cryptocurrency, people should focus on mining altcoins rather than Bitcoin itself.
All the Cryptos that are being mined with ASICs are on a highly competitive environment, where ASICs manufactures have all the weight on their side of the scale. That means that when you buy an ASIC miner for Dash Cryptocurrency for example, and you calculate a X profit, when the Dash Miner arrives to you, that calculation will be all wrong, and you probably be on loss against the electricity bill, because there will be a lot more Dash Miners that will impact on the difficulty of the network, making it more difficult to land a block and get a profit from it.
Which Altcoins are the Most Profitable to Mine in 2018?
As of 2018, altcoins like Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero, are still profitable to mine at home with relative ease. Miners will still be liable for hardware and power cost. However, mining profits can range from a few cents, all the way up to a few hundred dollars per day.
How to Start Mining Cryptocurrency After Calculating All Costs Involved?
After calculating which coins will be most profitable to mine, new miners need to invest in appropriate hardware and set this up accordingly. It is also strongly recommended that miners join online mining pools. This way, miners can contribute processing power to large networks, while mainly automating the mining process itself.
Is Cryptocurrency Mining Right for You?
Mining cryptocurrency can cost thousands of dollars in initial setup fees. Because of this, it is important not to jump straight into mining. Thankfully, BitDharma provides a variety of mining consultation services. These cover everything from physical system setup procedures to trading how-tos for both individuals and businesses. To find out how you could benefit, visit www.bitdharma.info now for more details. | https://medium.com/bitdharma-newsletter/how-to-start-mining-cryptocurrency-is-it-worth-the-effort-a6f856d8e171 | ['Fritz Wagner'] | 2018-11-26 14:18:16.695000+00:00 | ['Mining', 'ICO', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
Our #WFH Month 2 at AIV summed up: Are things going back to normal? | Lately, the economic outlook has been nothing short of precarious… The wild market swings, the sudden oil crash has made the challenging game of investing even more complicated.
However, it has been a pleasant surprise that early-stage funding has shown an uptick in recent weeks, as investors are slowly adapting to the current scenario. As the deal flow continues, at Artha, we stay true to our core investment thesis and focus on investing in the most innovative start-ups around the globe. Our optimism is further driven by the performance of some of our portfolio companies — Several of them have adapted their business models or changed their product lines to align with the prevailing market conditions!
We are also pleased to announce that our portfolio company NUOS, has launched India’s first-ever smart safety measuring device. This touchless, wall-mounted device uses IR thermal sensors to detect the body temperature of people.
Also, Rapido has started operations in 35 cities in red and orange zones following the government’s social distancing norms.
Similarly, our portfolio start-ups like Purplle and BabyChakra have resumed their non-essential e-commerce business and are delivering to the zones out of containment in the country.
While we continue to engage in discussions with fund managers and incubators in the MENA and SEA region, Artha India Ventures has recently signed a term sheet with a cloud-based HRMS platform. We, as a firm, are actively evaluating deals and continue to bet on innovative ideas. A few members of our closed investor group have also started investing in start-ups again, and we hope to lead an investment with them soon.
Media Mentions of our portfolio companies during week #22 (24th — 30th May 2020):
Mobilewalla– Targeted audience data provider for mobiles
Rapido — Mobile Bike Taxi Service
• Restarts operations in 35 cities with safety measures
Coutloot — O2O social commerce
Enabling offline business to go online amid the COVID-19 crisis
Exotel — Cloud telephony platform for businesses | https://medium.com/artha-india-ventures/our-wfh-month-2-at-aiv-summed-up-are-things-going-back-to-normal-9d2b60309cf9 | ['Emaan Hawa'] | 2020-06-01 12:43:01.831000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Covid Diaries', 'India', 'Funding News'] |
Rasa Advanced Deployment: Part 2(Scaling pods and Cluster requirements) | In the previous blog, we installed rasa in the VM. The installation is done with only one Pod for each deployment running in our application. When traffic increases, we will need to scale the application to keep up with user demand.
Scale Pods
Scaling is accomplished by changing the number of replicas in a Deployment.
Method 1:
On the VM, Issue this command to check how much pods we have for our deployments:
kubectl -n my-namespace get deployment
Here we have Ready 1/1 it means we have 1 pod for that deployment.
On the VM, Issue this command to scale the pods:
kubectl -n my-namespace scale deployment my-release-rasa-production --replicas=2
-n my-namespace : Name of the namespace in which rasa is installed
my-release-rasa-production : Name of the deployment which you want to scale you can see the name in the above-given image.
— replicas=2 : It means we want 2 pods for our my-release-rasa-production deployment.
Let’s again check the pods are scaled.
We can see in my-release-rasa-production now we have 2 pods ready.
To scale it down issue this command
kubectl -n my-namespace scale deployment my-release-rasa-production --replicas=1
Note:
You can also use this command to restart any pod.
kubectl -n my-namespace scale deployment my-release-rasa-production --replicas=0
It will delete that pod now you can again initialize the new pod.
kubectl -n my-namespace scale deployment my-release-rasa-production --replicas=1
it will restart the my-release-rasa-production pod.
Method 2: Helm
We can define replicaCount in the “values.yml”
# rasa: Settings common for all Rasa containers
rasa:
versions:
# rasaProduction is the container which serves the production environment
rasaProduction:
# replicaCount of the Rasa Production container
replicaCount: 2
Now issue this command on VM
helm --namespace my-namespace upgrade --values values.yml my-release rasa-x/rasa-x
It will work in the same manner as the command-line method. But, here we can keep track of all the values defined in the values.yml file.
Cluster requirements
We can specify how much of each resource a container requires or is allowed to use in the values.yml of the helm chart, eg. for the rasa-production container if we want 2vcpu and 2GB ram then we can define this thing as follows.
Edit Values.yml file
rasa:
versions:
rasaProduction:
# resources which rasaProduction is required / allowed to use
resources:
requests:
cpu: "2000m"
memory: "2Gi"
Upgrade the installation
helm --namespace my-namespace upgrade --values values.yml my-release rasa-x/rasa-x
This will assign the resources as we have described in the values.yml.
That’s all for today in the series of advance deployment of the Rasa chatbot. Keep an eye on the series of this blog. Till then, Happy Coding!!!
References:
If you like this post, HIT Buy me a coffee! Thanks for reading.
Your every small contribution will encourage me to create more content like this. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/rasa-advanced-deployment-part-2-scaling-pods-and-cluster-requirements-e1bc507aa333 | [] | 2021-01-25 16:51:33.269000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Kubernetes', 'Docker', 'Rasa', 'Deployment'] |
Dental pain during pregnancy? | Pregnancy comes with a host of new emotions, experiences and for some women, uncomfortable side effects. One such common concern for expectant mothers is dental pain during pregnancy.
Dental pain can be quite unpleasant and adds to the existing stresses of a pregnant women.
Causes of dental pain during pregnancy
The body undergoes many changes during pregnancy, all thanks to the ever changing hormones. Estrogen and progesterone are responsible for not just symptoms like vomiting and nausea, they also make you vulnerable to dental problems.
The delicate dance of hormones, reduces your body’s defences against dental plaque. This gives dental plaque a free regime to entrench itself and cause maximum damage to your teeth and gums. This causes formation of tartar, pain and in severe cases even loosening of teeth.
The same hormonal changes are also responsible for gum diseases like gingivitis during pregnancy. Symptoms of gingivitis like bleeding gums, red, swollen gums along with dull pain are seen. Ignoring them for a long time can turn gingivitis into serious conditions like periodontitis.
Morning sickness, causes vomiting of food along with the stomach acids. These acids are strong and melt away the outer surface of your teeth. This causes tooth sensitivity and even pain.
Treatment options for dental pain during pregnancy
First and foremost visit your dentist. They are best equipped to handle all of your dental problems well and give you long lasting results. Most dental treatments can be safely done during pregnancy with the right precautions.
If you can’t reach your dentist, you can always try simple home remedies like chewing a piece of clove or using clove oil. Garlic also works just like clove and can provide relief from dental pain. Warm salt water rinses will help soothe gums and reduce oral bacteria.
Dos and don’ts if you’re experiencing pain
Don’t just pop a pain killer even if you’re experiencing severe dental pain. Some medications may cause side effects and directly affect the baby.
Don’t place hot or cold packs if you are having any kind of swelling and immediately visit the dentist.
Do not apply excessive clove oil for relief. Apply only a minimal of 1–2 drops.
Avoid eating hot and hard consistency foods.
Do not apply any gels or intraoral ointments before asking your dentist.
Last but not the least don’t ignore or suffer the pain. Your dentist will guide you and help you get rid of your sufferings. Make sure you carry all your reports while visiting your dentist.
Read More On DentalDost Blog. | https://medium.com/@dentaldost/dental-pain-during-pregnancy-2667270a590c | ['Dental Dost'] | 2021-11-11 10:30:30.701000+00:00 | ['Dental Care', 'Dentistry', 'Oral Health', 'Pregnancy'] |
Why Flutter Uses Dart | Many linguists believe that the natural language a person speaks affects how they think. Does the same concept apply to computer languages? Programmers working in different kinds of programming languages often come up with radically different solutions to problems. As a more extreme example, computer scientists eliminated the goto statement to encourage more structured programs (not quite the same as totalitarian leaders in the novel 1984 expunging heretical words from natural language to eliminate thoughtcrimes, but you get the idea).
What does this have to do with Flutter and Dart? Quite a bit actually. The early Flutter team evaluated more than a dozen languages, and picked Dart because it matched the way they were building user interfaces.
Dart is a big reason why developers love Flutter. As one tweet puts it:
Here is a quick list of the Dart features that together make it indispensable for Flutter:
Dart is AOT (Ahead Of Time) compiled to fast, predictable, native code, which allows almost all of Flutter to be written in Dart. This not only makes Flutter fast, virtually everything (including all the widgets) can be customized.
Dart can also be JIT (Just In Time) compiled for exceptionally fast development cycles and game-changing workflow (including Flutter’s popular sub-second stateful hot reload).
Dart makes it easier to create smooth animations and transitions that run at 60fps. Dart can do object allocation and garbage collection without locks. And like JavaScript, Dart avoids preemptive scheduling and shared memory (and thus locks). Because Flutter apps are compiled to native code, they do not require a slow bridge between realms (e.g., JavaScript to native). They also start up much faster.
Dart allows Flutter to avoid the need for a separate declarative layout language like JSX or XML, or separate visual interface builders, because Dart’s declarative, programmatic layout is easy to read and visualize. And with all the layout in one language and in one place, it is easy for Flutter to provide advanced tooling that makes layout a snap.
Developers have found that Dart is particularly easy to learn because it has features that are familiar to users of both static and dynamic languages.
Not all of these features are unique to Dart, but the combination of them hits a sweet spot that makes Dart uniquely powerful for implementing Flutter. So much so, it is hard to imagine Flutter being as powerful as it is without Dart.
Flutter loves Dart
The rest of this article goes into more depth about many of the characteristics of Dart (including its standard libraries) that make it the best language for implementing Flutter.
Compilation and execution
[You can skip this section if you already know about topics like static versus dynamic languages, AOT and JIT compilation, and virtual machines.]
Historically, computer languages have been divided into two groups: static languages (e.g., Fortran or C, where variables are statically typed at compile time), and dynamic languages (e.g., Smalltalk or JavaScript, where the type of a variable can change at run time). Static languages were typically compiled to produce native machine code (or assembly code) programs for the target machine, which at run time were executed directly by the hardware. Dynamic languages were executed by an interpreter, without producing machine language code.
Of course, things eventually became much more complicated. The concept of a virtual machine (VM) became popular, which is really just an advanced interpreter that mimics a hardware machine in software. A virtual machine makes it easier to port a language to new hardware platforms. In this case, the input language of a VM is often an intermediate language. For example, a programming language (such as Java) is compiled into a intermediate language (bytecode) and then executed on a VM (the JVM).
In addition, there are now just-in-time (JIT) compilers. A JIT compiler runs during execution of the program, compiling on the fly. The original compilers that execute during creation of the program (before runtime) are now called ahead-of-time (AOT) compilers.
In general, only static languages are amenable to AOT compilation into native machine code because machine languages typically need to know the type of data, and in dynamic languages the type is not fixed ahead of time. Consequently, dynamic languages are typically interpreted or JIT compiled.
When AOT compilation is done during development, it invariably results in much slower development cycles (the time between making a change to a program and being able to execute the program to see the result of the change). But AOT compilation results in programs that can execute more predictably and without pausing for analysis and compilation at runtime. AOT compiled programs also start executing faster (because they have already been compiled).
Conversely, JIT compilation provides much faster development cycles, but can result in slower or jerkier execution. In particular, JIT compilers have slower startup times, because when the program starts running the JIT compiler has to do analysis and compilation before the code can be executed. Studies have shown that many people will abandon an app if it takes more than a few seconds to start executing.
That’s the end of the background info. Wouldn’t it be awesome to combine the advantages of both AOT and JIT compilation? Read on.
Compiling and executing Dart
Before working on Dart, the Dart team members had done groundbreaking work on advanced compilers and virtual machines, both for dynamic languages (like the V8 engine for JavaScript and Strongtalk for Smalltalk) and for static languages (like the Hotspot compiler for Java). They used this experience to make Dart unusually flexible in how it can be compiled and executed.
Dart is one of very few languages (and perhaps the only “mainstream” language) that is well suited to being compiled both AOT and JIT. Supporting both kinds of compilation provides significant advantages to Dart and (especially) Flutter.
JIT compilation is used during development, using a compiler that is especially fast. Then, when an app is ready for release, it is compiled AOT. Consequently, with the help of advanced tooling and compilers, Dart can deliver the best of both worlds: extremely fast development cycles, and fast execution and startup times.
Dart’s flexibility in compilation and execution doesn’t stop there. For example, Dart can be compiled into JavaScript so it can be executed by browsers. This allows code reuse between mobile apps and web apps. Developers have reported as high as 70% code reuse between their mobile and web apps. Dart can also be used on a server either by being compiled to native code, or by compiling to JavaScript and using it with node.js.
Finally, Dart also provides a standalone VM that uses the Dart language itself as its intermediate language (essentially acting like an interpreter).
Dart can be efficiently compiled AOT or JIT, interpreted, or transpiled into other languages. Not only is Dart compilation and execution unusually flexible, it is especially fast.
The next section provides an example of how Dart’s compilation speed can be a game changer…
Stateful hot reload
One of the most popular features of Flutter is its extremely fast hot reload. During development, Flutter uses a JIT compiler that can reload and continue executing code usually in under a second. App state is retained across reloads whenever possible, so the app can continue from where it left off.
Flutter’s sub-second stateful hot reload
It is hard to appreciate how important really fast (and reliable) hot reload can be during development, unless you have experienced it yourself. Developers report that it changes the way they create their apps, describing it as being like painting their app to life.
Here’s what one mobile app developer says about Flutter’s hot reload:
I wanted to test the hot reloading, so I changed a color, saved my modification, and… fell in love ❤️! This feature is really amazing. I thought the Edit & Continue in Visual Studio was good, but this is simply astounding. Only with this, I think a mobile developer can be two times more productive. This is really a game changer for me. When I deploy my code and it takes a long time, I lose my focus, I do something else and when I come back to the simulator/device I have lost track of what I wanted to test. What’s more frustrating than losing 5 minutes to move a control by 2px? With Flutter this no longer exists.
Flutter’s hot reload makes it far easier to try new ideas or experiment with alternatives, providing a huge boost to creativity.
So far, we’ve discussed how Dart makes things better for the developer. The next section is about how Dart also makes it easier to create smooth apps that delight users.
Avoiding jank
A fast app is great, but a smooth app is even better. Even a super fast animation will look bad if it is jerky. However, preventing jank can be difficult because there are so many different causes. Dart has a number of features to avoid many of the common things that cause jank.
Of course, (like any language) it is still possible to write a janky app in Flutter; Dart helps by being more predictable and giving the developer more control over the smoothness of their app, making it easier to provide the best user experience possible, bar none.
The results?
Running at 60 fps, user interfaces created with Flutter perform far better than those created with other cross-platform development frameworks.
And not just better than cross-platform apps, but as good as the best native apps:
The UI is butter smooth… I have never seen such a smooth Android app.
AOT compilation and the “bridge”
We’ve already discussed one feature that helps keep things smooth, and that is Dart’s ability to be AOT compiled to native machine code. Pre-compiled AOT code is more predictable than JIT because there are no pauses during runtime to perform JIT analysis or compilation.
However, there is an even bigger advantage to AOT compiled code and that is avoiding the “JavaScript bridge”. When dynamic languages (like JavaScript) need to interoperate with native code on the platform, they have to communicate over a bridge, which causes context switches that have to save a particularly large amount of state (potentially to secondary storage). These context switches are a double whammy because they not only slow things down, they can cause serious jank.
“The Bridge”
Note: even compiled code may need an interface to talk to platform code, and this can also be called a bridge, but it is typically orders of magnitude faster than the bridge required by a dynamic language. In addition, because Dart allows things like widgets to be moved into the app, the need to go over a bridge is reduced.
Preemptive scheduling, time slicing, and shared resources
Most computer languages that support multiple concurrent execution threads (including Java, Kotlin, Objective-C, and Swift) use preemption to switch between threads. Each thread is allocated a “slice” of time to execute, and if it exceeds its allocated time the thread is preempted using a context switch. However, if the preemption occurs when a resource that is shared between threads (like memory) is being updated, then this causes a race condition.
Race conditions are a double whammy because they can cause serious bugs, including crashing your app and causing data to be lost, and they are particularly difficult to find and fix because they depend on the relative timing of independent threads. It is all too common for race conditions to stop manifesting themselves when you run the app in a debugger.
The typical way to fix a race condition is to protect the shared resource using a lock that prevents other threads from executing, but locks themselves can cause jank, or even more serious problems (including deadlock and starvation).
Dart took a different approach to this problem. Threads in Dart, called isolates, do not share memory, which avoids the need for most locks. Isolates communicate by passing messages over channels, which is similar to actors in Erlang or web workers in JavaScript.
Dart, like JavaScript, is single threaded, which means it does not allow preemption at all. Instead, threads explicitly yield (using async/await, Futures, or Streams). This gives the developer more control over execution. Single threading helps the developer ensure that critical functions (including animations and transitions) are executed to completion, without preemption. This is often a big advantage not just for user interfaces, but for other client-server code.
Of course, if the developer forgets to yield control, this can delay other code from executing. However, we have found that forgetting to yield is usually much easier to find and fix than forgetting to lock (because race conditions are difficult to find).
Allocation and garbage collection
Another serious cause of jank is garbage collection. Indeed, this is just a special case of accessing a shared resource (memory), which in many languages requires the use of locks. But locks might stop the entire app from running while free memory is collected. However, Dart can perform garbage collection almost all of the time without locks.
Dart uses an advanced generational garbage collection and allocation scheme, which is particularly fast for allocating many short-lived objects (perfect for reactive user interfaces like Flutter that rebuild the immutable view tree for every frame). Dart can allocate an object with a single pointer bump (no lock required). Once again, this results in smooth scrolling and animation, without jank.
Unified layout
Another benefit of Dart is that Flutter doesn’t split layout between your program and an additional templating or layout language like JSX or XML, nor does it require separate visual layout tools. Here’s a simple Flutter view, written in Dart:
new Center(child:
new Column(children: [
new Text('Hello, World!'),
new Icon(Icons.star, color: Colors.green),
])
)
A view in Dart and what it produces
Note how easy it is to visualize the output this code produces (even if you have no experience with Dart).
Note that now that Flutter uses Dart 2, layout has become even simpler and clearer because the new keyword is optional, so static layouts can look even more like they are written in a declarative layout language, like this:
Center(child:
Column(children: [
Text('Hello, World!'),
Icon(Icons.star, color: Colors.green),
])
)
However, I know what you are probably thinking — how can the lack of specialized layout languages be called an advantage? But it is actually a game changer. Here’s what a developer wrote in an article titled “Why native app developers should take a serious look at Flutter”.
In Flutter, layouts are defined using Dart code only. There is no XML / templating language. There’s no visual designer/storyboarding tool either. My hunch is, upon hearing this, a number of you might even cringe a little. Prima facie, that was my reaction too. Isn’t it easier to do layouts using a visual tool. Wouldn’t writing all kinds of constraint logic in code make things overly complicated? The answer for me turned out to be no. And boy! what an eye opener it has been.
The first part of the answer is the hot reload mentioned above.
I can’t stress enough how this is light years ahead of Android’s Instant Run, or any similar solution. It just works, even on large non-trivial apps. And it is crazy fast. That’s the power of Dart for you. In practice, that makes a visual editor interface redundant. I did not miss XCode’s rather nice auto layout at all.
Dart creates terse and easy to understand layout, while the “crazy fast” hot reload lets you see the results instantly. And that includes the non-static parts of your layout.
And as a result, I have been way more productive writing layouts in Flutter (Dart) than either Android/XCode. Once you get the hang of it (for me that meant a couple of weeks), there is a substantial overhead reduction because of very little context switching that is happening. One does not have to switch to a design mode, and pick a mouse and start clicking around. And then wondering if something has to be done programmatically, how to achieve that etc. Everything is programmatic. And the APIs are very well designed. It becomes intuitive soon and is much more powerful than the constructs offered by auto layout / layout XMLs.
For example, here is a simple list layout that adds a divider (horizontal line) between every other item, defined programmatically:
return new ListView.builder(itemBuilder: (context, i) {
if (i.isOdd) return new Divider();
// rest of function
});
In Flutter, all layout exists in one place, regardless of whether it is static layout or programmatic layout. And new Dart tools, including the Flutter Inspector and the outline view (which take advantage of all layout being in one place) make complex, beautiful layouts even easier.
Is Dart a proprietary language?
No, Dart (like Flutter) is completely open source with a clean license, and is also an ECMA standard. Dart is popular inside and outside of Google. Inside Google it is one of the fastest growing languages and is used by Adwords, Flutter, Fuchsia and others; outside, the Dart repository has more than 100 external committers.
An even better indicator of the openness of Dart is the growth of the community outside of Google. For example, we are seeing a steady stream of articles and videos on Dart (including Flutter and AngularDart) from third parties, a few of which I’ve quoted in this article.
In addition to the external committers to Dart itself, there are over 3000 packages in the public Dart package repository, including libraries for Firebase, Redux, RxDart, internationalization, encryption, databases, routing, collections, and more.
Will Dart programmers be easy to find?
If not many programmers know Dart, will it be more difficult to find qualified programmers? Ironically, Dart makes it easier to find programmers because it is an incredibly quick language to learn. Programmers who already know languages like Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, C#, or Swift can start programming in Dart almost immediately. On top of that, hot reload encourages users to play with Dart and try new things, which makes learning Dart even faster and more pleasurable.
Here’s how one programmer put it in an article titled “Why Flutter Will Take Off in 2018”:
Dart, the language used to develop Flutter apps, is stupid-simple to learn. Google has experience in creating simple, well documented languages like Go, for example. So far, to me, Dart reminds me of Ruby and it’s a pleasure to learn. It’s also not only for mobile but for the web as well.
From another article about Flutter and Dart, titled “Why Flutter? and not framework X? or better yet why i’m Going Flutter all in.”
Flutter uses the Dart Language that was created by google also, to be honest i’m not a fan of strongly typed languages like C# or JAVA, but i don’t know why Dart’s way of writing code seems different. And i feel very comfortable writing it. Maybe because it’s very simple to learn, and very straightforward.
Dart was specifically designed to be familiar and easy to learn, through extensive UX research and testing. For example, in the first half of 2017 the Flutter team did a UX study with eight developers. We gave them a short introduction to Flutter, then turned them loose for an hour or so creating a simple view. All of the participants were able to start programming right away, even though they had never used Dart before. They were focused on writing reactive views, not the language. Dart just worked.
At the end, one participant (who had progressed particularly far in the task) hadn’t mentioned anything about the language, so we asked them if they realized what language they were using. They didn’t know. The language didn’t matter; they were programming in Dart in minutes.
The hard part about learning a new system is typically not learning the language, it is learning all the libraries, frameworks, tools, patterns, and best practices for writing good code. And the Dart libraries and tools are exceptionally good and well documented. One article proclaims, “As a bonus, they also keep tremendous care of their codebase and they have the best documentation I’ve ever seen.” What little effort is spent learning Dart is easily made up for by the savings in time learning the rest.
As direct evidence, a large project inside of Google wanted to port their mobile app to iOS. They were about to hire some iOS programmers but instead decided to try Flutter. They monitored how long it took to get developers up to speed on Flutter. Their results showed that a programmer could learn Dart and Flutter and become productive in three weeks. This compares to the five weeks they had previously observed to get programmers up to speed on Android alone (not to mention that they would have had to hire and train developers for iOS).
Finally, the article “Why we chose Flutter and how it’s changed our company for the better” is from a company that moved their large enterprise application to Dart on all three platforms (iOS, Android, and web). Their conclusions:
Much easier to hire. We now look to take the best candidate regardless if they are from Web, iOS or Android. We have 3x the bandwidth now that all of our teams are consolidated on a single code base. Knowledge sharing is at an all time high
They were able to triple their productivity by using Dart and Flutter. This should be no surprise given what they were doing before. They, like many companies, were building separate apps for each platform (web, iOS and Android) utilizing separate languages, tools, and programmers. Switching to Dart meant that they no longer had to hire three different kinds of programmers. And it was easy for them to move their existing programmers to Dart.
They and others have found that once programmers start using Flutter, they often fall in love with Dart. They like the terseness of the language, and the lack of ceremony. They love language features such as cascades, named parameters, async/await, and streams. And above all else, they love the features of Flutter (like hot reload) that are made possible by Dart, and the beautiful, performant apps Dart helps them build.
Dart 2
As this article is being published, Dart 2 is being released. Dart 2 is focused on improving the experience of building client apps, including developer velocity, improved developer tooling, and type safety. For example, Dart 2 features a sound type system and type inferencing.
Dart 2 also makes the new keyword optional. This means that it is possible to describe many Flutter views without using any keywords at all, making them less cluttered and easier to read. For example:
Widget build(BuildContext context) =>
Center(child:
Column(children: [
Text('Hello, World!'),
Icon(Icons.star, color: Colors.green),
])
)
Dart 2 also uses type inferencing to make many uses of the const keyword optional by not requiring const to be specified redundantly inside of a const context. For example, the statement:
const breakfast = {
const Doughnuts(): const [const Cruller(), const BostonCream()],
};
can now be replaced by this:
const breakfast = {
Doughnuts(): [Cruller(), BostonCream()],
};
Because breakfast is const , everything else is inferred to be const as well.
The secret is focus
The improvements in Dart 2 are focused on optimizing client-side development. But Dart will still be a great language to build server-side, desktop, embedded systems, or other programs.
Focus is a good thing. Pretty much all enduring popular languages benefitted from being very focused. For example:
C was a system programming language for writing operating systems and compilers. It became so much more.
Java was a language designed for embedded systems.
JavaScript was a scripting language for web browsers (!).
Even much-maligned PHP succeeded because it was focused on writing Personal Home Pages (where it got its name).
On the other hand, many languages have explicitly tried (and failed) to be completely general purpose, such as PL/1 and Ada, among others. The most common problem is that without focus, these languages became proverbial kitchen sinks.
Many of the features that make Dart a great client-side language also make it a better language for use server side. For example, the fact that Dart avoids preemptive multi-tasking gives it the same advantages as Node on the server, but with much better and safer typing.
The same thing goes for writing software for embedded systems. Dart’s ability to handle multiple concurrent inputs reliably is key here.
Finally, Dart’s success on the client will inevitably generate more interest in using it on the server — just like what happened with JavaScript and Node. Why force people to use two different languages to build client-server software?
Conclusion
This is an exciting time for Dart. People who use Dart love it, and the new features in Dart 2 make it an even more valuable addition to your arsenal of tools. If you have not used Dart, I hope this article has provided you with valuable information about what is new or different about Dart, and that you will give it — and Flutter — a try. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/why-flutter-uses-dart-dd635a054ebf | ['Wm Leler'] | 2019-04-02 17:39:05.929000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Programming Languages', 'Dartlang', 'Flutter', 'Dart'] |
Svelte.js — An Introduction to the Compiler as a Framework | All Right, but How Can Svelte Be Interesting?
The biggest advantage of Svelte is, as the name suggests, the very low weight of the application when compiled, which promises a loading speed that is impossible to achieve with frameworks like Angular, Vue.js, or React, which embed a runtime in addition to the logic code of the application. With Svelte, you only have your code with just the right amount of Svelte, so you don’t overload the scale.
However, Svelte is also quick during execution. Indeed, it compiles your code to make something probably much more optimized than what you would have done alone on your side (while having your source files of Svelte code perfectly readable and maintainable) and especially: It does not have virtual DOM, and that’s one less layer to run to reflect a change on the page.
Then, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Svelte gives you a more readable and maintainable, component-oriented code. Why? First, because you group everything related to a component in the same file: logic (JavaScript), structure (HTML), and style (CSS) — everything goes there! And secondly, because Svelte’s philosophy encourages you to write code that is as concise and easy to understand as possible. | https://medium.com/better-programming/svelte-js-introduction-to-the-compiler-as-a-framework-43555046868b | ['Thibault Goudouneix'] | 2020-09-03 15:13:02.480000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Svelte', 'Sveltejs', 'Programming'] |
Actor vs art: The Kartik Aaryan problem | Still of Kartik Aaryan, and his famous 5-minute monologue from 2011 Hindi film, Pyaar ka Punchnama
Of monologues, misogyny and moronic choices
In Pyaar ka Punchnama, Kartik Aaryan was the bullied boyfriend with the now infamous and viral self-indulgent 5-minute monologue — an ode to the wronged lives of boyfriends. In Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, he was the saviour friend of the groom, and in Luka Chuppi, a coy yet persuasive man who prefers a live-in setup than marriage.
It’s a special genre now defined by the 30-year old, Gwalior-born, Kartik Aaryan, who’s given a slew of hits in the past three years. With his release ‘Pati, Patni Aur Woh’, a remake of 1978 comedy centered around celebrating an extra-marital affair, he officially entered Bollywood’s ‘hit factory’ club. Though he followed it up with Love Aaj Kal, a colossal disappointment, let’s focus on the rather ‘genre defining’ films Aaryan has been part of.
Let there be no doubt — Kartik Aaryan isn’t just the underdog here — he’s also a legit star in the making. He comfortably finds company in, and completes the holy trinity with Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao — the small town heroes with small town stories. The same towns with a population that makes up for an ever-increasing growing consumer base. It also makes for a clever move on his part to woo the audience that resides in these cities, armed with their now redundant tik tok accounts.
And so Aaryan has carved his own niche like Khurrana and Rajkumar. The latter, obviously, have established a strong fan base and have cemented their position in Bollywood’s star pyramid with their heartland connect, and exceptional performances.
For Aaryan, it’s in his ‘commitment-phobic, next-door boy’ roles ready to take on the women. You can see the charm. It’s always the bumbling character surrounded by manipulative women, or the socially-awkward boy that wants to romance the beautiful, and ‘out of his league’ women. In simple words, he’s your average brown man, who somehow, always gets his happy ending, with or without the woman.
I’m not here to say that Aaryan’s talent needs to be questioned. He’s a hard-working actor at best, and an outsider trying to make it in the highly cliquey industry, at worst. The struggle, in itself, finds a place in his graph charting the peak of success in a Khan-dominated industry.
But it was only after the massive 2018 success of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety directed by Luv Ranjan, an equally controversial director, that Bollywood took note of Aaryan. From his stint on Koffee with Karan with Kriti Sanon to bagging revered Imtiaz Ali’s film opposite Sara Ali Khan to being inducted in the famed halls of Dharma for Diwali parties — Aaryan is making inroads to his Bollywood mainstream dream.
Do his films reek of sexism, overtly sexual jokes and misogynist charades? Yes. But it isn’t something that our society already doesn’t laud. Misogynist dialogues elicit laughter in the audience. This is, in fact, a loud reflection of the way our society reiterates “boys will be boys”, also plastered all over tees being sold on Bandra’s Linking Road, closely followed by the popular ‘Apna Time Ayega’.
When Aaryan goes on to proclaim ‘he doesn’t understand women’ the theatre laughs with him in acknowledgement — because, yes, we don’t understand women. Instead, we choose to label them. They’re the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and wives. Never just themselves.
The society, with its overarching hand, pulls them back and pushes them in a velvet box — they’re soft by association, bad by rebellion.
The conversation on showcasing female actors in Bollywood through a male gaze, still largely remains on the fringes. Spurred by Twitter observations, in enclosed parties, in our living rooms, or by pieces which care to lead that conversation forward. Then follows the trolling, online, and offline, often of women, to discredit these criticisms. You’re devaluing art, they say.
But why can’t “art be art”?
To unpack the complexity that is ‘art’ in cinema, let’s first acknowledge that this criticism isn’t limited to India. The world-at large seems to weakly express the problem in ‘over-correcting’ entertainment. Isn’t entertainment for pure joy? Isn’t it a tool of creative expression? Can we, in our right conscience, really criticize an artist’s freedom to express through their art? Or can we, as individuals, also have the freedom to dissent, and create an open space for art criticism — definitely not a path-breaking thought.
Because when French actor from the highly acclaimed film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Adèle Haenel, walked out of the French Film Academy’s César Awards as Roman Polanski was announced the Best Director, the audience chose their sides.
French star Adèle Haenel, walking out of the French Film Academy’s César Awards
A quick recap: In 1977, Polanski was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, but left the United States before his sentencing and moved to France. Haenel drew her boundaries, between the art, and the artist.
Huffington Post, too, put forth a simple question: “Do actors have a moral responsibility in choosing the roles they portray?” In the article, it discussed South Indian actor Parvathy, who at Film Companion’s Performance of the Decade roundtable voiced her opinion on how problematic messaging, or glorification of violence, and sexism can carry real-life consequences, specifically referring to 2019’s most controversial, and popular film— Kabir Singh.
Parvathy said, “When a man is being misogynistic and abusive and you show that in a way that incites applause in the audience, then that’s glorification. At the same time, (if) you make the audience think (about) whether he’s done the right thing or not, then you’re collaborating with the audience. Then there is cinema, there is dialogue. But the other one is almost spoon feeding you that this is okay.”
Her messaging was clear. If you choose to do damaging work, take the bloody ownership.
A good example of that would be the deeply disturbing yet entertaining Netflix show, You.
A story that follows an obsessive stalker, and a psychopath killer, played by Penn Badley.
But take one look at Badley’s promotions for the show, and you’ll see him repeatedly reiterate his stance on the obviously problematic character; engaging with his fans on Twitter to set the distinction — he doesn’t condone his character or revel in its unhinged portrayal. He too, draws the line between the art, and the artist.
Something that majority of our mainstream Indian actors refuse to engage with. It’s simple — they want to steer clear of their personal stance, choices, and the freedom to creatively pursue whatever that is they want to do. It’s business, they say.
However, it’s in these spaces that it is hard to distinguish between Kartik Aaryan, the actor with ambitions, and Kartik Aaryan, the person. Though none of Aaryan’s films bother to give him any redeeming arch, or whether that’s even a point of contention, it is understandably trickier to call out the actor basis the content. After all, he isn’t the writer. He’s a performing actor, one believes, who wants to do cinema for the audience, free of any censorship.
We shan’t, and can’t muzzle voices. Instead, we choose the voices that we muzzle. His and Luv Ranjan’s voices aren’t those.
But Aaryan agrees to carry on the world written, and directed by men who weave the sad, victimised man-child narratives against the evil, and overbearing women.
So can we, as the audience, then at least discuss the possibility of conveying to the industry that these films do matter in the context of society, and have always mattered? That, no, in 2020, the cliche man child versus a domineering women isn’t in good taste. Or can we, simply, wash our hands off it to get our buckets of buttered popcorn out, ready to meme-fy douchey dialogues.
Interestingly, Bollywood films do carry their tokenism of “we see what’s happening” tropes. No, not the cop films celebrating police that refuse to acknowledge police brutality in India, or worldwide. Nor the ones erasing, and rewriting India’s Mughal history.
But take a closer look, and you’ll find bits, and pieces thrown in. The problem isn’t in those pieces. It’s in the intent.
Because using a protest song to drive the narrative of a film without acknowledging its history is as much of an empty tokenism as crediting the female actor before her male co-star.
And seeing Karthik’s choices so far, it gives us an apparent picture — he’s here to stay, and entertain.
Or Kabir Singh wouldn’t have made 377 crores worldwide, becoming the 11th highest grossing film worldwide. | https://medium.com/@jayatibhola92/actor-vs-art-the-kartik-aaryan-problem-c372499e4f5d | ['Jayati Bhola'] | 2020-12-12 15:31:33.432000+00:00 | ['Metoo', 'Kartik Aaryan', 'Entertainment', 'Misogyny', 'Bollywood'] |
BFF Pattern — Dos and Don’ts. The right way to implement… | 1. Modality
Your application may have two or more microservices (e.g., Customer, User, Order, etc.) and a few frontends serving different purposes. When I say a few frontends, it does not only mean a public-facing interface. For example, an application with varying requirements for frontend could be as follows:
Desktop Application
Mobile Application
Third-party Services/APIs
How do we structure our BFF to serve all these?
❌ — Do NOT use one BFF for all these requirements.
✅ — Use Multiple BFFs for each requirement.
If we take each of these frontend requirements, each one is unique. So, for example, the scalability requirement of the API could be way higher if more integrations are there with your application.
Therefore, if we use multiple BFFs for Desktop, Mobile, and API respectively, we can optimize each BFF based on the different requirements of these clients. Further, having separate BFF would make the application more fault-proof and cost-effective.
2. One Experience — One BFF
Maintaining multiple BFFs can be a cumbersome task. However, rather than a single BFF serving multiple purposes, multiple BFFs serving a more optimized purpose make more sense. What we discussed in the previous point can be enhanced further to provide a single experience per BFF.
❌ — Do NOT use one BFF for multiple experiences.
✅ — Use Multiple BFFs per experience optimizing the BFF best to serve the experience.
For example, let’s say your application has an iOS application and an Android application. If both of these provide the same or almost similar experiences, having one BFF would serve the purpose. However, if the iOS application and Android application serve different experiences, need different formats, handle requests in different manners, having two BFFs for them would be the best way to go.
3. Multiple Downstream Services
In an application with a few microservices, the BFF wouldn’t have to make a lot of calls in order to get some information to be displayed in the frontend.
However, let’s say we have a large e-commerce application with a large scope of functionality. For example, we have to extract information to show the favorite products of a customer with their stock levels and prices. In our application, the favorite products and relevant logic is managed by the Wishlist service, stock levels are managed by the Inventory service and the prices should be extracted from the Product service.
However, there could be scenarios where one or some of these services are not available at the time of the request. If the Wishlist service is not available, the request can be fulfilled. However, let’s say the Inventory service is not available but the other two services are available. If the frontend is designed in a way where it could accept partial information to be shown, the BFF should be designed in a way where partial information will be processed.
❌ — Do NOT fail the entire request from the frontend if partial data isn’t available due to service failures.
✅ — Process the request partially if sufficient information is extracted from the microservices and if it can be displayed correctly in the frontend
4. Responsibility
The BFF should be an interface between the frontend/client applications and the microservices. However, there is a limit to what the BFF can handle. Just because we have a BFF in our application, we shouldn’t hand over all the responsibility to it. For example, any sensitive processing such as authentication and authorization should not be handled solely by the BFF. There should be a separate microservice that handles such critical processing.
❌ — Do NOT expect the BFF to handle all the responsibility. Do NOT over-rely on the BFF.
✅ — Keep the BFF as a thin layer that processes requests to be sent to the microservices, an interface that bridges microservices and the client applications, and also a thin layer that can format and process data if and when necessary to optimize the data for the frontend.
5. Team Ownership
At first glance, it seems like having a BFF would increase development time as it is another layer that we need to manage. While this is a valid concern, the benefits of having a BFF outweigh the concerns of development time. In order to make sure that we don’t increase development time drastically and make the application less manageable, the best way to manage a BFF is by giving that responsibility to the associated frontend team.
❌ — Do NOT have separate teams to manage BFFs.
✅ — Allow the respective frontend team to manage their respective BFFs.
This has a few advantages.
Frontend teams do not have to wait till another team completes BFF functionality.
The frontend team knows best the type and format of data required for the frontend to provide an optimized user experience.
Development time will be reduced.
You can use Bit to build all your components and modules (for the backend and frontend) in the same workspace by setting a different development environment for different components.
Each component will be developed and versioned independently (using Bit). These independent components can then be pushed to a single remote hosting, a ‘remote scope’, that grants the right permission levels to all members of that team. | https://blog.bitsrc.io/bff-pattern-dos-and-donts-cf52853491e3 | ['Viduni Wickramarachchi'] | 2021-07-17 23:02:31.987000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Backends For Frontends', 'Backend Development', 'JavaScript', 'Front End Development'] |
Want Peace? Build Your Life Around Your Spiritual Practice | And never the other way around
As I mentioned yesterday, life has lately felt like walking up Mt. Everest in cement boots. With cast iron cylinders on my head. In the rain. And yet, one thing has kept me consistent and calm despite the world seemingly seeming to fall apart around me — and that is my spiritual practice.
Every day, whether I feel like it or not, I get out of bed, hit my knees, say a prayer, grab some tea and do my Morning Pages. (More on this another day! In simplest form, they are 3 pages worth of free flowing writing to get your grr out at the beginning of the day so you can feel fresh, balanced and ready for new adventures to begin.)
When my writing is complete, I do 5 minutes of meditation with my husband (a miracle in and of itself) and then we do a spiritual reading.
When that is done, I read my own devotions and, if there is time, I’ll do ten minutes of meditation myself.
This whole routine takes about 1 hour. And while, yes, I could use this time to finish up some house cleaning, move ahead with paperwork or scroll through Social Media, the bigger question is, “Why?” I have found that unless I am centered — allowing the God of my understanding to connect with the most sacred part of me where my creativity, love and true being live, I view life only through a lense of fear and anxiety.
Keeping a small routine allows me to stay anchored when the storms of life blow all around me. And, unlike much of my younger days when my happiness depended on other people, places and things, keeping a practice reminds me to count on one thing and one thing only: God.
God is Not Weakness
Reliance on the God of my understanding does not make me a little woman, content to just sit around and let success pass her by. Do I want my musical to sell? Yes. Would I love Covid to be over so I could finally use my Disney passes and hang out with my friends in a beautiful cafe and watch babies in ridiculous outfits shriek in delight at oversized park characters? Of course! But if the spirit I bring to this job or event is restless, irritable and discontent, why would it matter if Covid ended and I could go to such an event? I wouldn’t enjoy my time there and, more importantly, I wouldn’t be of service to those around me. Anger, like a virus, is contagious, too.
Focusing on the Inside
Simply put, when I don’t take quiet time in the morning with God, I focus on the outsides of life, then try to control people, places and things to fix my insides. This never works. Just try it on some teenagers and you’ll see what I mean!
You Are Worth Rest
Keeping a spiritual practice reminds me of a lighthouse on the water. It might be freezing outside, and ships are sinking all around me, but in that lighthouse is a warm bed, a fire, a hot cup of tea and beautiful music playing. (Okay, so my lighthouse is more of an AirBnB but you get the idea!)
Instead of focusing on the chaos on the stormy sea, I can stay in gratitude that I am cared for inside. Because God is my keeper, I don’t need to worry about the rent or people coming in to steal my stuff. That house is open 24 hours for me with a sign on the door, “Come on in, Andrea. You are loved. You are welcome.”
There, in that lighthouse, I can lay down any expectations I have of myself and remember that I am a child of God and nothing else matters.
And, from that place of rest and contentment, I can light a candle and look out my window. Sometimes I’ll see sun. But sometimes I’ll see other fellow travelers who are drowning in horrific waves. Having been there myself, I can understand their struggle. And then, best of all — and only because I will have had my time of rest — I can leave the safety of the lighthouse with a sense of purpose. I can get into my boat and, with a spirit stronger than the weather around me, motor out to help some of them.
My purpose isn’t to do better, it’s to be better.
As a perfectionist, I struggle with always wanting things done a certain way. But when I remember I don’t have to be perfect, because only God is, I can relax and let my true nature come out to play. I don’t need to check off one more box on an endless to do list. I simply need to sit still and, once again, be reminded who I really am… who my authentic nature is. Who is that nature? She is someone who likes to feed people. She has Taco Tuesday complete with mariachi hats… who is writing a musical about camels… who reads Roald Dahl to her homeroom every day and can’t pass up a yard sale or a stray dog. I love that Andrea, but the only way I can let her out to play and to “be” is to bring God in. And the only way to do that is to begin each day in prayer and meditation.
My practice is my answer.
And so, friends, if you already have a morning practice where you can connect to the God of your understanding, that’s awesome! If not, I encourage you to start. It’s not easy at first (that’s why they call it “practice”) but in time, like any routine, a pattern will establish. I can promise you that in nurturing your spirit, you will find you are more able to face whatever comes your way each day. And not only will your soul thank you, everyone around you will, too.
Until tomorrow,
Andrea
About Me
I’m a published TV, blog, magazine and book writer who also coaches moms and grandmoms to write books rooted in wisdom, spirituality and humor. Come back Monday — Friday where I’ll post about spirituality, writing and sobriety. And sometimes tacos. Because Tacos make everything better. Always.
DON’T MISS A NEWSLETTER!
You can sign up for my email list here where I’ll send you a newsletter all about book writing every Wednesday. Happy Hump Day indeed! | https://medium.com/the-innovation/want-peace-build-your-life-around-your-spiritual-practice-1dead875fcf | ['Andrea R Frazer'] | 2020-11-07 15:06:32.425000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Writing', 'Faith', 'God', 'Meditation'] |
Iconic Woman | Iconic Woman
Grandmothers gift granddaughters memories
Picture taken on writer’s iPhone
Like every grandmother, I desire to share my passions with my granddaughters, leaving them a bit of me in their memories. But ever since taking home economics in middle school, I knew baking and sewing were not my strengths. In cooking class, I forgot to put water in the bottom pan of the double boiler, so the teacher used the mutilated remains of metal with a hole in the bottom as a model of what not to do.
At semester, we rotated to a different room that housed sewing machines. Relieved because there was less opportunity to set off the fire alarm and cause a schoolwide evacuation, I welcomed a chance to learn a new skill. The teacher later claimed I was the first student ever to sew the project to the clothes I wore. To this day, I have doubts about that, but she used my little mistake at the beginning of every class thereafter in her lecture of what not to do.
Over the years my cooking abilities have improved. The family enjoys dinners at Grandma’s, and I can sew on a button — when required. However, those are not activities that prompt excitement. I enjoy writing.
So, with my granddaughter sitting beside me, I suggested we write poetry, something I love and can share. Flashbacks from teaching English overwhelmed my senses when she answered with a groan. My well-mannered granddaughter who loves me to the moon and back, rolled her eyes. Oh my, at 13-years-old, she was turning into one of those creatures right in front of me.
With an attitude not of gratitude, she pointed out it is summer, and she should not be required to do homework, then whined something about poetry being mushy and boring and just not fun. It seems the distance to the moon was less than it once was with technology and all because her devoted adoration for me was fading.
Surprised, I wondered if other grandmothers met resistance when they teach the kids to knit, paint, or play the piano. However, bravely I began the lesson. Yes, I actually used the word lesson. Immediately identifying the guttural noises that filled the room, I substituted the word games for lesson. “We are going to play a word game.”
I tore a page out of a magazine. For the assignment — I mean the fun activity — we needed a paragraph or two. To not lose her attention or provide time for the beeps, dings, and chimes radiating from the phone to capture her attention, I quickly chose one of the two option on the first page I opened. Perfume or detergent advertisement? Perfume ad of course, even an aging grandmother still knows what interests a teenager.
Cautiously, we read the paragraph together and I explained that she should circle words that she likes. Her look told me she thought age had pushed me over the edge, and I began to think she might be correct as I questioned why I undertook such a task. But she did as I asked and circled. I believe the red ink pen helped. Then together we read the words a loud. Questioning she said, “That doesn’t sound like poetry.” I remember the time this child would have trusted me if I said the world was flat. How times change.
I explained a poem will grow when you write the words on paper, add or delete as need and a masterpiece would evolve before her eyes. I winced when her eyes rolled and disappeared into her forehead thinking if she kept doing that she would never be able to see her poem when completed. Skeptically, she did as I asked, probably thinking the sooner this was done the sooner she would be free to investigate the sounds emanating from her phone.
The final step was to add a title. We both held our breath suspicious that one of us was being deceived because we began to enjoy ourselves. Her eyes met mine and she smiled; I could actually see her pupils. They were not stuck to her skull!
She wrote a poem.
Iconic Woman
A Woman’s Rebellious style Over a century ago To be a mix
Of red cream
And sweet floral Which makes her
A perfect choice
She read her creation a loud to me pleased with the result. “Grams, I wrote a poem. That’s cool! Can we write another one?”
I may not be a great cook and sewing is definitely not a strong suit but if playing with words installs a love of poetry, I know my granddaughter will always have the tools to find a path to happiness. | https://medium.com/crows-feet/iconic-woman-a64d63da4c88 | ['Brenda Mahler'] | 2020-10-01 15:06:18.512000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'Memories', 'Poetry', 'Grandmother', 'Poem'] |
Women of substance — “Hold your head high” School | In 1957, the significant white supremist part of America was still seething at the US Supreme Court ruling in Brown versus Board of Education. The Court had ruled that racial segregation in schools was unlawful. On the back of this ruling, in North Carolina, four black students applied for transfers to all-white schools.
Dorothy Counts-Scoggins was 15 years old when she was granted admission to study at Harry Harding High School, one such all-white institution.
Entering school on her first day, backed only by her father’s words (“Hold your head high. You are inferior to no one.”), Dorothy was met by hundreds of white students blocking her path. Continuing to walk on unafraid, Dorothy heard an adult voice call out “spit on her girls, spit on her”. She walked on without reacting and managed to reach class as the students, confused by her composure, slowly parted making way for her to walk ahead. At lunch, students spat into her food. In class, the teacher ignored her while students threw a blackboard eraser at her, hurting her.
Asked by her parents at the end of the day if she would like to withdraw from the school, Dorothy bravely replied that it was only a matter of the students getting to know her and refused to walk away. Only one student would make an effort to try to know her in the next three days. Sadly, it turned out that the student was new to town, and she too would proceed to ignore her the following day.
Two days later, as she exited school and made her way to her parents’ car, she saw angry white students surround the car and break the windows. Fearful for her life, her parents complained to the police. The police pled ignorance to the goings-on and refused to offer any help.
Four days from when she started, fearful for the lives of her family and herself, Dorothy Counts-Scoggins withdrew from Harry Harding High School.
For holding her head high, refusing to break down in the face of such severe abuse, and showing us that we are inferior to no one, 15-year-old Dorothy Counts-Scoggins will forever be regarded as a woman of substance.
Also read: Women of substance — Taking a stab at being number 1 | by Dwarak Narasimhan | Jan, 2021 | Medium | https://medium.com/@en-dwarak/women-of-substance-hold-your-head-high-school-dc0890ba332b | ['Dwarak Narasimhan'] | 2021-01-21 13:19:56.618000+00:00 | ['Courage', 'Race', 'Respect', 'Nonfiction', 'Equality'] |
The problems of 2018 and the solutions of 2019 | The development of the Futourist platform started in Q2 of last year and really got to speed in Q3. Trying not to scale too fast, but still, deliver the MVP product to the market fast, proved to be a real challenge. The development team was only 3-man strong at the beginning and 5 at the end of 2018. The complex nature of our platform (video streaming, multiple front-ends, mobile apps, web, blockchain,…) forced us to pick our priorities. To optimize the development costs and speed, we decided to go completely “serverless” with Firebase and Cloudinary on the back-end side. On the front-end, we decided to go with ReactJS for the web and React Native for our mobile apps. The programming language of choice was JavaScript, across all those technologies. And that was a great idea since the team at the time were JavaScript web developers. Except for one thing. React Native really isn’t just JS.
We delivered on the backend and a limited version of most of our web front-ends. The backend set up, admin dashboard running, web app released in beta, business dashboard in testing. But things got really messy with our mobile app, arguably the most important one. React Native proved to be the wrong choice for our team. With no native developers in the team and not many resources to be spent, we were in a constant battle with buggy 3rd party provided or open-source code. In the end, our conclusion is that React Native demands native developers for any medium- to the high-complexity app. This one we had to scratch off and throw away entirely.
The New Year
The situation for the New Year was more than comfortable for Futourist. With ETH reaching absurdly low levels, it became obvious that our runway got so short that we might not even be able to take off.
There is one more thing to know here. Due to the nature of the subject, this is going to be a short paragraph, but to understand the situation further, you need to know that a terrible family tragedy struck in our team before the end of last year. Our CTO was away for months after that, spending most of his time in the hospital. It was up to the rest of the team to handle things, restructure and move on, which took extra time. Something major had to be done at that point if we were to fulfill our promises.
The Pivot
The decision, in the end, was not hard. In a matter of days, we pivoted from a product-oriented company to a full-scale digital agency. We set the remaining ICO funds on the side and started earning our own money.
In Q1 and Q2 of 2019, we made a 6-digit number, which was enough to sustain the team over this period, without digging into investments. We also decided to part ways with certain team members, which were not the right fit for the company. We optimized our expenses and reduced our burn rate significantly. The development team itself has made significant know-how progress. We are actively looking for other means of financing, and have made progress there as well (another blog about this coming soon).
We feel the team is stronger than ever. It had some serious ups and downs, but right now we are working as hard as possible and the determination to deliver is at its peak. It hurts us deeply when Futourist is marked with words like “scam”. We are far more than that and we’ll do everything to prove that.
The restart of Futourist
The process of restarting the development of Futourist has now begun! Plans are being made on how to tackle the mobile app problem, as well as on how to progress with web front-ends. Please understand that things take time. We are still involved in the digital agency space, which is good, we have an additional stream of revenue. There is still some cleanup to do after this 6-month fallout and the developers who are not here anymore. But as said before, the team is strong and we will do everything to deliver. If no more unpleasant surprises come along the way, and crypto markets hold on, you should be seeing more deliveries from us in the autumn.
The strong supporters | https://medium.com/futourist/the-problems-of-2018-and-the-solutions-of-2019-8bec18ae6128 | ['Ziga Luksa'] | 2018-12-29 00:00:00 | ['React'] |
Error-free by design: the blockchain trust layer applied to operational chain of custody. | Error-free by design: the blockchain trust layer applied to operational chain of custody.
Learn how mathematically verified transactions can help your business scale faster.
Trusting your operational data remotely is hard, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents (72%) report that COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst to their companies’ innovation. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting business priorities by MIT Technology Review.
The importance of operational data cannot be overestimated, but it’s getting increasingly harder to elicit business insights when we need them. Complicated by the COVID situation, the pace of change of the global economy has only accelerated driving technological innovation to unprecedented heights. In order to survive in this new normal, businesses increasingly need access to operational data in the front-lines to be ready to act fast and confidently with adequate data at hand. Just having financial data is no longer enough, as most CFOs today will tell you they absolutely need to incorporate operational data in order to monitor and act on the company’s performance.
Intelligent Automation PostCovid found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of US IT decision-makers plan to increase their investments in automation technology over the next year as a result of COVID-19, with 71% noting that intelligent self-service has been key to remaining agile during the crisis.
But let’s take a look at how this crucial piece of corporate assets is handled today. Most of the world’s operational data reside not in highly structured ERP or project management platforms but remain stuck in baseline communication tools such as text or email. The reasons are very simple. First, most people do not like to learn complex software platforms where they are required to manually enter and structure operational information. Second, there is no reason to trust the data that has been entered, especially when dealing with large numbers of external partners and stakeholders. This problem has not really been addressed, as the world just keeps churning out more and more project management software platforms that only adds to the problem generating larger process silos. So the question remains — how can we prove chain-of-custody and provenance for all transactions throughout the business cycle?
The good news is that for the first time in history, we have the technology at hand that offers a feasible way to replace trust between humans by mathematically verified proof of the correctness of data, networks, systems, and processes. Let’s take a closer look at how Taraxa makes use of distributed ledger tech to deliver applications that have the ability to guarantee truth inherent in their design.
Business processes on blockchain steroids mean operating at a lower cost and much higher speed.
In times like this, the advantage of speed and transparency is truly unbeatable. What we offer is a scalable infrastructure API designed to infuse mathematically provable trust into your company processes to let you make better and more informed decisions. While blockchain doesn’t guarantee the uploads of correct data, it allows us to zoom in to see the operations log and trace responsibility by looking at who and when uploaded a particular data set.
Stanford Seminar — Practical Blockchain Applications by Steven Pu.
Taraxa delivers a robust operational chain of custody to make your operations credible and error-free.
Taking advantage of a transparent operational chain of custody is what a company of any size needs today. With a scalable infrastructure built to enable frictionless operations both internally between the departments and externally with clients and partners, businesses can enjoy elevated efficiency of all processes through blockchain’s biggest value prop — building up trust and integrity at a lower cost. Not only the processes become faster, but also as visible and accountable as ever.
‘We don’t care what data people enter, as long as they claim responsibility’. Steven Pu, Taraxa’s Founder and CEO.
Taraxa builds this foundation for a reliable chain of custody spanning across every business unit and automatically capturing all the critical OpsData you need to prove the integrity of your organizational planning, execution, and assessment processes, from end to end. Recorded in a clear audit trail, all inter-department communication, external partner operations, and customer interactions are in full view of project owners. This kind of system will chronologically retain critical documentation and traces every movement across all business units. Here are some of its broader benefits.
No more operational surprises.
A detailed account of each business interaction from start to finish lets you zoom in and investigate the issue or check on the area of accountability. Now you can always go back and check on the event log and react before negligence becomes a dispute.
You’re one step ahead of operational risk with absolute data integrity.
A complete record of all customer-facing and internal operations backed by an audit trail provides strong proof to verify the authenticity of documents and contracts for all sorts of evidence requests, commercial arbitrations, and court procedures.
Operational records are visible, searchable, and available at all times.
All facts and deeds are consistently backed up by the audit log to eliminate the risk of tampering with sensitive documentation and other files. Its validity is assured by a robust DLT ledger making the system highly trusted by any third party.
Transparent processes at your fingertips: a brief overview of Taraxa’s applications.
IT decision-makers today agree that tools that allow them to build and manage their own applications are important to their automation strategies. ‘Intelligent Automation PostCovid’.
Taraxa is very easy to set up and run to give you more control over application management keeping the cost and time to development fairly low. With applications built on top, it enables myriad useful features and functionalities. For instance, our ready-made solution for remote process management will finally let project stakeholders lock-in and agree upon facts and deeds — no matter how and where they work. With more and more companies accelerating their move to the cloud, employees now like never before need the ability to agree on critical business decisions faster.
Streamline collaboration processes through explicit sign-offs.
Give the power of a legally-enforceable contract to any type of agreement. No matter how big or small, formal, or handshake, every operational transaction is securely backed up by an immutable audit log, which means that no one can mess up the data.
Visualize all processes and minimize disputes.
Get confident views of all processes and stakeholder involvement near real-time. Transparency means fewer discrepancies and disputes and also lets you browse processes and act on inefficiencies faster than ever before.
No need to install additional apps or plug-ins — keep working from apps of your choice.
[Marinate] is easy to integrate into your existing stack, and even easier to use. Love using email and SMS? Slack is your go-to-app? We got you covered: you won’t even notice how data is retained and anchored in the audit log sparing you from the setup headache.
Pull in stakeholders from disparate apps to work on the project in a matter of minutes.
We all know how painful it can be to coordinate workflows in a ‘bring-your-own-tool’ setting. No more of that: [Marinate] will let you send invites and add stakeholders to the project giving them (and yourself!) the flexibility to keep their workflows and preferences without the efficiency trade-off.
Another use case is in asset leasing that we’ve been working on with our client in Japan for quite some time. The biggest value prop here is machine state integrity and creating digital twins for machinery pieces to let the asset vendor and machine operators agree on revenues generated by the slot machines. To help them build trust with their customers, we set up and installed cryptographically secure hardware modules to arcade machines connecting the signals in multiple spots like coin slots and tickets. The signals are transmitted both to the cloud and to the blockchain, which facilitates data audits later. An added value prop here is elevating preventive monitoring and reducing the maintenance costs. | https://medium.com/taraxa-project/error-free-by-design-how-mathematically-verified-transactions-help-your-business-scale-faster-56c3182a2351 | ['Olya Green'] | 2020-09-18 08:58:42.654000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Remote Work', 'Process Improvement', 'Dlt', 'Taraxa Use Case'] |
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Film, also called Episode, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film The Flight Attendant, and to the art form that is the result of it.
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 iNBCovation 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 8s, 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 180s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 882 intertwined lines of goal and 882) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 88288 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 882s. Most TV sets sold during the 180s 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 180s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 180s, 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 iNBCer 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 soNBCets 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 fuNBCies, 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.
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Cypress: Mocking GraphQL Requests | Let’s See Some Examples!
We have created a suite of helpers that allows us to freely mock and control GraphQL operations when running Cypress tests. Though for this article we will display a barebone version of how we approach mocking GraphQL operations.
As an example, here is a GraphQL query operation that our Frontend might execute. Let’s see how we would mock this request.
productList query
Because we convert GraphQL schemas to Typescript types, we already have the response type in our Frontend code.
productList query response type
We can reuse this Typescript interface to add type safety to our API mock data. This way we will be sure that the response mock data is always correct. If the API contract would change for the productList query, after re-generating graphql.types.ts file and running Cypress tests we would receive a Typescript error telling us that the response mock data is outdated and no longer reflects what the products query would return.
Response mock with type safety
Now we need to use this data to mock the productList GraphQL operation. Cypress does come with a cypress.route() function that allows mocking network requests, but it does not work as well for GraphQL requests. For GraphQL, it’s common practice to have all queries executed under a single request endpoint. We needed to create a custom helper function that allows us to mock requests not by URL, but by the GraphQL operation name.
Here is a simplified version of what we use. A helper function is going to mock all window.fetch calls that are executed with /graphql endpoint. The fetch stub will look for mock data based on the GraphQL operation name. If request mock data is found, it will be used as the request’s response. If not — the request will not be mocked.
With everything set up, we can effortlessly mock GraphQL requests inside Cypress tests 🙌 | https://medium.com/revel-systems/cypress-mocking-graphql-requests-fc1afda4654 | ['Viskantas Juodenas'] | 2020-12-17 16:54:41.839000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Mocking', 'Cypress', 'Typescript', 'Testing'] |
5 Altcoins for the Week of April 1st, 2018 | This week has 5 altcoins with major events: PRL, UKG, EOS, PKB, and BRD.
PRL — OYSTER PROTOCOL (SHL AIRDROP, EXCHANGE SUPPORT)
The SHL airdrop to PRL holders is finally a week away! On April 6, 2018, each holder of PRL will receive a 1:1 ratio of SHL for each PRL crypto held. Last week no exchanges had announced support for the airdrop. However, this week, the exchange PRL is predominantly traded on expressed their support for the airdrop. Now holders of PRL in their wallets or on the main PRL exchange can easily attain the SHL tokens.
PRL is planning to revolutionize the way web hosts earn an income. Instead of advertising revenue making up the majority of income for web hosts; PRL intends to replace ad revenue. Web hosts will soon be able to input a line of code into their websites that allow for no advertisements but still provide revenue based on total views/visitors. How is this completed? Well, the visitor to the website is unaware but a miniscule amount of their spare computing power is used to confirm transactions on the PRL network, rewarding the webhost in PRL tokens.
The amount of revenue attained from removing advertisers is expected to surpass the amount received from running advertisements. PRL is a great crypto without having to airdrop SHL, but SHL adds any entirely new degree of value in the form of an airdrop. SHL intends to decentralize the internet and if it comes even close to its ambitions should increase exponentially in value.
As airdrops approach the underlying crypto usually increases until exchange support is announced or declined. If a major exchange supports the airdrop the value of the underlying crypto tends to increase until the date of the airdrop. If an exchange declines support for the airdrop the crypto generally retracts significantly as individuals have to decide to move the crypto to a desktop/application based wallet or to sell at the current price. PRL received support for their SHL token airdrop on the main exchange PRL is traded.
This week should be a very positive week for PRL. Following the airdrop, there should be a significant correction in the price of PRL as many are currently holding for the SHL token.
UKG — UNIKOIN GOLD (ESPORTS LIVE BETTING, SPECTATOR BETTING)
Unikoin Gold (UKG) is an ERC-20 token that has been incorporated into the Unikrn platform. The Unikrn platform specializes in licensed, legal betting on eSports tournaments and matches. UKG provides a reward and incentivization structure for teams, players, and the participants of eSports. One of the biggest backers of the Unikrn project is the infamous Mark Cuban, billionaire, investor, Dallas Mavericks owner, and television personality. With investors such as Mark Cuban and a major upcoming week UKG should see a strong rally in the short term.
UKG is fairly useless without its Esports live betting and spectator betting platforms. Well, these platforms allegedly go live this week, on April 6, 2018. If UKG achieves this deadline the price of UKG will respond accordingly in a positive manner. Similarly, if UKG misses this deadline the public will lose faith regardless of the importance of Mark Cuban. What UKG is “supposed” to be, a major aspect of their roadmap, and the backbone of the platform is supposed to go live in less than a week. The ability to access spectator and Esports betting is what gives UKG utility. Utility adds value more than anything else in the crypto space.
If UKG is able to implement spectator and Esports live betting this week UKG should see a nice boost in sentiment regarding the coin, and the underlying value of UKG.
EOS — EOS (DAWN 3.0 RELEASE)
EOS is a similar cryptocurrency to Ethereum (ETH) but excels in areas ETH fails. EOS specializes in scalability, an area where ETH suffers greatly. However, ETH has attained the most important thing of all: market penetration. The overwhelming majority of ICOs from the past year were ETH based on the ERC-20 platform. This sheer quantity led to many scaling problems for ETH and this is specifically where EOS excels.
For those that are not technology advanced understanding what Dawn 3.0 is will be fairly difficult. To summarize, Dawn 3.0 is finally stable enough to release as an Alpha and will soon become the GitHub master branch for EOS. This substantial development for EOS ensures its relevancy in the future as long as ICOs continued to be launched.
EOS is on the cusp of being fully implemented and functioning. Once these benchmarks in their roadmap are met, EOS will have an inherent advantage when compared to other cryptos that specialize in ICOs. It is expected by many crypto enthusiasts that EOS is the only capable platform able to handle full-scale commercial decentralized applications. Once this is achieved developers and investors will flock to the EOS platform for its advantages over other ICO platforms. Dawn 3.0 is the beginning of being able to understand what these advances truly include.
BRD — BREAD (IOS AND ANDROID UPDATES)
The BRD token was sold during an ICO to raise money for the Bread App (a great mobile wallet for iOS and Android). It seems curious but currently, the Bread App only can buy, sell, and transfer Bitcoin (BTC). The Bread application currently does not have the ability to hold the BRD token. This will obviously change in the short term with April 7, 2018, being the targeted date. The plan according to BRD is to update the iOS and Android applications to support ETH, ERC-20 tokens, and Bitcoin Cash (BCC). BRD currently has no utility and cannot even be held in the Bread application.
This week should be the last week the Bread application cannot hold BRD tokens. By incorporating BRD, ETH, ERC-20 tokens, BTC, and BCC all in one mobile wallet many individuals may begin using Bread for its overwhelming benefits. Once BRD can be held on the Bread application the plan is to allow BRD to be used to “unlock” special features within the app. If a wallet user has 10,000 BRD for example, they may be able to purchase BTC for a 1% fee instead of the industry standard of over 4%. The more BRD you hold in your wallet, the more benefits the user will receive for possessing them.
BRD’s token is about to be given significant utility by being able to provide the holder special benefits within the Bread application. This system creates an environment where holders of BRD are not selling but continuing to acquire as their will be benefits based on quantity held. By decreasing supply on the open market while increasing utility of BRD, the price should correspondingly increase.
PKB — PARKBYTE DELISTING (BITTREX, SHORT)
Not all news is “good” in crypto. PKB is being delisted from Bittrex on April 6, 2018. PKB was unable to provide all the documentation Bittrex requested in the 7-day time frame they were given. Unfortunately for PKB holders, this resulted in their delisting by Bittrex. Other cryptos like MTL have rebounded following their delisting but it seems PKB may fall into the majority category and fade into oblivion unless they can create positive sentiment very quickly. Being delisted from Bittrex generally is a “nail in the coffin” unless significant changes, public outreach, and a strong team remain.
PKB has a solid team but with a market cap of under $500,000, it seems unlikely they can revive their project following a Bittrex delisting. However, if they are able to this very small market cap crypto that can still be purchased on Bittrex will skyrocket in value. Of the coins on this list this is the only one that is reasonably expected to continue fading into oblivion. There is no real ability to short this crypto which would be the recommendation but if you are feeling risky do the opposite of what the public does! This is crypto, anything can happen.
If PKB can get themselves relisted or provide project updates that change market sentiment, expect this very small market cap crypto to increase dramatically in value. With the current negative news regarding a delisting, this is a very risky coin to hold but provides more upside than any on this list.
To read the full article or to see the extended market analysis please check it out here: http://bitcoinist.com/5-altcoins-major-events-week-april-1-2018-gains-likely-beat-bitcoin-returns/
To read the King’s prior articles, to find out which ICOs he currently recommends, or to get in contact directly with the King, you can on Twitter (@JbtheCryptoKing) or Reddit (ICO updates and Daily Reports). | https://medium.com/swlh/5-altcoins-for-the-week-of-april-1st-2018-d619734fd437 | ['Crypto King'] | 2018-04-02 07:59:43.286000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin'] |
Measurement of Value | The value of 1 Auricoin is equal to the purchasing power that $ 888.88 USD had, by November 23, 2018.
The first function of money consists in providing the world of goods and services with the expression of its values, or in representing values as magnitudes of equal denomination, qualitatively equal and quantitatively comparable. This is the Function of money, which is useful as a general measure of values, and only by virtue of this function Auricoin money, has a reference value of $ 888.88 USD. The specific equivalent goods and services, comes first of all from money.
Goods or services do not become commensurable by money. On the contrary. Because all goods and services, as values coming from objectified human labor and/or raw materials used, and therefore commensurable in and of themselves, can collectively measure their values in the same specific goods or services and this becomes their collective measure of value, that is, in money. As a measure of value, money Auricoin is the necessary manifestation of the measurement of the immanent value of goods and services: working time and / or raw materials used. Or why not, private work can be treated as if it were directly social work, as its opposite.
The expression of the value of a commodity in RIC: x commodity A = y money Auricoin, constitutes its form of money or its price. An isolated equation, such as one ton of iron = 0.10 RIC, is now sufficient to represent the value of iron in a socially meaningful way. This equality no longer needs to march in formation with the equations of value of the other goods or services, since the goods or services are equivalent, the RIC, now possesses the character of money. Therefore, the general relative form of the value of the goods and services returns here to the figure of its original simple or singular relative form of value. On the other hand, the unfolded relative expression of value, or the infinite series of relative expressions of value, becomes the specifically relative form of monetary referential value. That series, however, is no longer socially given in the prices of goods. Read upside down the quotations of a price list and you will find the magnitude of value of Auricoin money, represented in all possible goods. Auricoin money, on the other hand, has no price. To participate in that relative unit form of the value of the other goods, you would have to refer to yourself as your own reference equivalent of $888.88 USD.
The price or monetary form of the characteristic value of the goods is, like their value form in general, an ideal or figurative form, different from their real and palpable corporeal form. The value of iron, clothing, shoes, etc., although invisible, exists in those very things; they will be represented by their equality with the RIC, by means of a relation to their referential value of $ 888.88 USD, which, so to speak, is only like an illusion that walks in their heads.
Hence, the custodian of goods and services has to provide them with their own language, or hang a sign on them, to communicate their prices to the outside world. As the expression of the values of goods or services in RIC is ideal, the RIC used in this operation is also purely figurative or ideal. Every guardian of goods or services knows that when he gives them the form of the price, or figurative form, he is far from having wrapped them in dollars, and that to value millions of goods in RIC he does not need a single shred of US dollars.
In its function as a measure of value, therefore, money serves as purely figurative or ideal money. This circumstance has given rise to the most unreasonable theories. Although only figurative money is used for the function of measuring value, the price depends strictly on the monetary reference value. The value, i.e. the amount of human labor it contains, the raw material and machinery used, for example, a ton of iron, is expressed in a figurative amount of the RIC’s monetary reference value containing the same amount of labor, raw material and machinery. Depending on whether RIC, dollar, Mexican peso, euro, pound sterling or yuan is used as the measure of value, the value of a ton of iron will have completely different price expressions, or will be represented in entirely different amounts of RIC, dollar, Mexican peso, euro, pound sterling or yuan.
Therefore, if two different monetary cones, for example, the RIC and the dollar, serve simultaneously as a measure of value, all goods will have two different price expressions, prices in RIC and prices in dollars, which will coexist smoothly as long as the relationship between the RIC and the dollar remains unchanged, for example.
But any change in that relationship of value will disturb the ratio, between the prices of dollars and the prices of dollars in the markets and thus effectively demonstrate that the doubling of the measure of value contradicts the function of the dollar.
The goods with determined prices are all represented in the following formula: a goods A = x RIC; b goods B = z RIC; c goods C = y RIC, etc., where a, b, c represent certain quantities of the classes of goods A, B, C; x, z, y, certain quantities of RIC. The values of the goods, then, are transformed into quantities of RIC figured and of different magnitude and, therefore, in spite of the tangled variegation of the bodies of the goods, in magnitudes of equal denomination, in magnitudes of RIC. As such, these dissimilar quantities of RIC are compared and measured among themselves, developing in this way the need, from the technical point of view, to link them all to a fixed quantity of RIC that officiates as a unit of measurement.
This unit of measurement itself continues to develop, thanks to its further division into aliquots, until it becomes a measurement pattern. Before its transformation into money, the RIC already has such patterns in its reference value; so, for example, an RIC serves as a unit of measure, and while on the one hand it is subdivided into rich, on the other hand 100,000 rich units are added up to form an RIC. In all circulation, therefore, the denominations of the $888.88 USD pattern, pre-existing, are also the original names of the money pattern or price pattern.
As a measure of values and as a pattern of prices, money performs two completely different functions. Value measure is money as the social embodiment of human labor, the price pattern, as $888.88 fixed. As a measure of value, money serves to transform the values of a wide variety of commodities into prices, as a measure of prices, it measures precisely those quantities of RIC. In value measurement, the goods are measured as values; the price pattern, on the other hand, measures according to an RIC quantity the equivalent dollar quantities and not the value of one RIC quantity according to the value of the other.
For the price pattern it was necessary to set a certain value of the RIC as a unit of measure. Here, as in all other measurement determinations of quantities of equal denomination, the decisive factor is the fixity reached by the measurement ratios. The price pattern, therefore, will perform its function all the better the more invariably one and the same amount of RIC officiates as a unit of measure. If the RIC can serve as a measure of values, it is only because it is not itself a product of labor and therefore potentially does not have a variable value.
It is clear, for the moment, that a change in the value of the RIC in no way affects its function as a price pattern. No matter how much the value of the dollar varies in the foreign exchange markets, they always maintain the same reciprocal relationship of value of an RIC.
Even if the value of the dollar drops by 1000%, since the RIC is referenced to the value of a specific dollar amount ($ 888.88 USD), by November 23, 2018 it does not matter, because the RIC would be worth, as always, and in the prices the only thing that matters is the reciprocal proportion between different amounts of RIC.
On the other hand, just as the amount represented by an RIC does not vary in any way with the fall or rise of the dollar value, neither does that of its aliquots change, and in this way the RIC, as a fixed pattern of prices, always provides the same service because its reference value does not change, will be and will continue to be $ 888.88 USD.
The prices, or the amounts of RIC in which ideally the values of the goods or services are transformed, are now expressed in the monetary denomination or in the account denomination. Instead of saying, therefore, that one pound of rice is equivalent to 0.025 RIC, in England it will be said that it is equal to 1 shilling and 10 1/2 pence. The goods are thus said to be what they are worth, in their monetary names, and money serves as account money whenever it is appropriate to fix a thing as value, and therefore to fix it under a monetary form
The price is the monetary denomination of the work objectified in the merchandise. The equivalence between the merchandise and the amount of money whose name is the price of that one, is, therefore, a tautology, since the relative expression of the value of a merchandise is always and in general expression of the equivalence between two goods. But if the price, as an exponent of the magnitude of the value of the merchandise, is an exponent of the relationship of exchange between it and money, it does not follow, conversely, that the exponent of its relationship of exchange with money is necessarily an exponent of its magnitude of value.
The form of the price, however, not only admits the possibility of a quantitative incongruence between magnitude of value and price, that is, between the magnitude of value and its own monetary expression, but it can also harbor a qualitative contradiction, so that, even if money is only the form of value that the goods have, price ceases to be the expression of value in general. Things that in themselves and for themselves are not merchandise, such as conscience, honor, etc., can be put up for sale by their owners, thus adopting, thanks to their price, the mercantile form. It is possible, then, that a thing has a formal price without having any value. Here the expression in money becomes imaginary, as in certain mathematical magnitudes. On the other hand, the imaginary form of price, as for example the price of a lot of uncultivated land, which has no value because no human labor has been objectified in it, may contain an effective relation of value or a relation derived from it.
Implicit in the form of the price is the alienability of the goods for money and the need for that alienation. On the other hand, the RIC only serves as an ideal measure of value, since in the process of exchange it already runs as a money service. Hidden in the ideal measure of values, it therefore lurks for cash and sound money.
For the above reasons, and the need of the economy to have a monetary cone, which works and expresses the monetary value of goods or services that are exchanged between them through a third party (money), the Auricoin money was created with the following golden rule: That the value of 1 Auricoin is equal to the purchasing power that had $ 888.88 USD, by November 23, 2018. This makes the value of Auricoin money immovable, stable and perfectly usable as a Unit of Account and Value Deposit, which is the true sense of duty of money.
In fact, before the creation of Auricoin money, there was no precise definition of money and, what is more, there are certain erroneous appreciations about what it represents in the economy. For example, the word money is often used as a synonym for wealth when, in fact, wealth is the set of assets considered as deposits of value, among which not only money, but also material goods, such as real estate, and non-monetary financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, are included. Also, people often use the term money to refer to the income they receive from their work; however, there is a big difference between income and money, since income is considered a flow, while money is a stock.
As you can see, with Auricoin money, we have given the economy the answer to so many questions and unknowns that have been woven around money.
We can inform the world without fear of being wrong, that with the creation of Auricoin money, we have managed to give the precise definition to money, since it has the necessary characteristics to be recognized as the first monetary cone in the world economic history that manages to develop the 3 exact functions of the duty of “money”, Unit of Account, Value Deposit and Exchange Medium. That along the world economic history has been investigated without having been created. Now the Auricoin money is the fundamental pillar for an economic and social development, which will benefit all the peoples of the world equally, without distinction of races, creeds or social strata. | https://medium.com/auricoin/measurement-of-value-1c085c9f0ee5 | [] | 2020-11-18 16:15:49.353000+00:00 | ['Industry', 'Money', 'Economics', 'Sistem', 'Values'] |
Vanity Fixtures to Fit Theme and Style For Your Bathroom | One of the easiest and inexpensive ways to update your bathroom decor is by replacing the light fixtures in your bathroom. Depending on your taste and style and how much you want to change the look and feel of your bathroom you can make minor adjustments or take it up a notch and really go to play. Finding the right bathroom lighting incorporates combined lighting techniques to achieved satisfying balance of ambience and task lighting.
The most satisfying thing about updating your bathroom lights is how easy it is, and knowing the you can do the job yourself without having to hire any professional trades. Assuming all your electrical work is up to code and that you are not installing too much lighting of course. It is also important to note that even though you can install as many lights as you want there is nothing quite like natural lighting. If you have natural light coming through a window into your bathroom try to complement the natural light with bathroom lights.
The right designed bathroom lighting plan will take into account luminance, placement of the light. On the one hand you want enough brightness to be able to shave and apply makeup, on the other LUXE led ring light hand you want pleasant ambiance. The plan will also coordinate the numerous surfaces that are found in your bathroom, mirrors, matte or gloss tiles, counter top, ceramic bath, glass doors, faucet hardware, wallpaper or paint, wood finishings, window treatments and floor rugs — to blend them and pull everything together.
Bathroom Lights Well Executed: A small part of the total bathroom cost is vanity lighting.
The mixture between overall light and task lighting requires you to use layers. To prevent shadows you can’t rely on just overhead lighting. Combine it with vanity lights close to the mirror by using wall sconces on each side. This will make applying makeup or shaving easy daily tasks.
More Tips
Take advantage of light sources such as windows or skylights.
Natural light can be used as task lighting at the vanity.
Recessed lighting can be used as elegant accent lighting when combined with task lighting.
Reduce glare on shiny surfaces found in the bathroom by layering the lighting. Use frosted light bulbs and shades over regular bulbs will help lower glare but still give you enough light.
Choose a chandelier or pendant for added elegance.
Add lighting in the shower or over the tub. Make sure the bathroom fixture is UL rated for moist locations.
Add a reading light near the toilet.
Lighting strips around cabinets could serve as a night light.
Consider dimmer switches which will give you accurate control of the level of light and luminance. Great for those LUXE led ring light midnight bathroom trips.
midnight bathroom trips. Try not to combine clashing finishings. If your faucet is a copper finish you’ll want to try to match your fixtures to look the same or similar.
Some featured retailers | https://medium.com/@customerpormotionalblogs/vanity-fixtures-to-fit-theme-and-style-for-your-bathroom-5ef9863e53a8 | ['Martain Buranes'] | 2019-04-27 18:03:08.244000+00:00 | ['Lighting'] |
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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/t%C3%BCrkiye/mesleklerin-gelece%C4%9Fi-hakk%C4%B1nda-bilinmesi-gereken-5-%C5%9Fey-3dfdde9f06af | [] | 2020-12-27 08:27:43.480000+00:00 | ['Rapor', 'Türkçe', 'Meslek', 'Gelecek', 'Covid 19'] |
What is a garden? | There are two main ways to look at the gardens:
Habitat gardens: These are great for a lot of things, but they are mostly used to grow fruit and vegetables, and that’s pretty much it.
Perennial plants: When your garden is out of control, I tend to buy perennials. So if I see something beautiful like an Asparagus Fern I can make an attempt to sell it to someone. It is very cheap and if you’re lucky you might get a good price and if you’re unlucky nothing will happen.
When your garden is out of control, I tend to buy perennials. So if I see something beautiful like an Asparagus Fern I can make an attempt to sell it to someone. It is very cheap and if you’re lucky you might get a good price and if you’re unlucky nothing will happen. Annuals: I tend to buy annuals, I think that it’s better to have a couple of years of good crops before moving to annuals to avoid a huge loss of income in the future.
I tend to buy annuals, I think that it’s better to have a couple of years of good crops before moving to annuals to avoid a huge loss of income in the future. Small plants: If you’ve got a few things that are small and easy to grow you’ve got some options in terms of planting them in your yard
If you’ve got a few things that are small and easy to grow you’ve got some options in terms of planting them in your yard Perennials: I think that pines are the obvious choice. They’re pretty easy to grow (except those pesky red ones you may hear of sometimes) and they can produce a fairly good amount of harvest and can do a decent job of keeping pests away and providing you with a steady income year over year.
If you’re struggling to get into gardening
Now I’m not talking about becoming a farmer or something, I’m simply saying make all planning for and thinking about your gardens a priority. This really isn’t very difficult, but sometimes you just might not be as good a gardener as you think you are. As an example, this article will hopefully help you out and help you get your garden into the best possible shape that you can. | https://medium.com/@pushgarden/what-is-a-garden-30a985162113 | ['Push Garden'] | 2020-11-26 19:27:21.817000+00:00 | ['Lawn', 'Garden', 'Gardening', 'Soil Health', 'Lawn Care'] |
Movement Research at The Judson Church January 21, 2019 | Tyler Rai, Yunkyung Hur¹¹, Jānis Putninš/Eva Kronberga^
glacial erratics/for laurentide
choreographer/director: Tyler Rai
performers: Leonid Galaganov, Sarah Lass, and Tyler Rai
music/composition: Leonid Galaganov (live), Aly Gear
costume: Tyler Rai with consultation from Anya Klepacki, indigo dye by codo ceramics + textiles
A special thanks to Emily Climer and Aaron Rourk for being critical components of this work’s evolution, to everyone who has supported past showings of this work, including my mother Jacey Raimondo, and to the Laurentide ice sheet, for its mighty will.
“Theatre of Miniature Spaces”
choreographed and performed by Yunkyung Hur¹¹
music composed by Kanghee Choi
With accumulated history of contact with space, body itself becomes a map that stores memories and information of different spaces. Or, let’s use it as a map. A moving body exists as a void or surface where temporary maps can be constantly drawn on, accumulated or erased. How does that shape the movement of here and now? Can space be projected on to body, as the body is projected on to space?
“LET ME GET ME” idea for work in progress
Choreographers & performers: Eva Kronberga and Jānis Putninš^
MUSIC: Andris Jeziks — Stop, Inese Berzina — Just Two Of Us, and Imlars Sterns — sketch 01 intro
Stillness to rush and noise to silence. This performance is experiment and movement research about states of body and mind saying yes and no at the same time, to share urges of understanding, exploring, and claiming rights of truth and being. Attempt to destroy patterns of artificial state of knowing and replicating the same thinking again and again. Energy interactions through dance.
¹¹MRX/Korea in partnership with Seoul Dance Center, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
^MR/GPS (Global Practice Sharing) in partnership with the Latvian Dance Information Center | https://medium.com/@movementresearch/movement-research-at-the-judson-church-january-21-2019-23dcae9f7e25 | [] | 2019-02-07 19:30:15.743000+00:00 | ['Judson Church', 'Dance', 'Movement Research', 'NYC'] |
Who can tell the story of their career in design with only emojis? | Twitter Design, the voice of Twitter’s product design team, recently asked it’s subscribers on Twitter to tell the story of their career in design with only emojis:
Using our special data analysis tool, we managed to find the most popular answers and reveal the top 5 most followed Twitter users among respondents.
Among the most popular answers were for example the following:
How do you find emojis of Elon Musk?😃
The most followed Twitter user among respondents @Emojipedia doesn’t make a career in design, but decided to take part in this challenge as well, and its answer has become the winner among answers that got a majority of the votes (“likes” ❤):
It was interesting how Product Design Manager at @Twitter James D. LaCroix described the story of his career 😀 :
The below figure illustrates the top 5 most followed Twitter users among respondents:
Follow us😉 If you find any interesting requests in Twitter, please let us know. We will experiment with replies to different list of issues. | https://medium.com/@anastasiavladi/who-can-tell-the-story-of-their-career-in-design-with-only-emojis-d43d9fdc18ab | ['Anastasia Vladi'] | 2020-03-11 16:17:43.794000+00:00 | ['Twitter', 'Careers', 'Emoji'] |
Living in Australia. What is it like? | Living in Australia. What is it like?
Australia is a great country. It is a dream country for many people around the world and it is the country to be in. It’s amazing in every way, beautiful people, weather, food, heaps of things to do. It’s a great country to explore or to live in. If you are respectful to the Australian culture you will have no problem, Australians are very welcoming.
Looking at some of the factors that play an important part while choosing to live in a country
Work
Australia is a great country if you are looking for work opportunities. It is continuously developing and always have a place for a skilled professional. So if you have experience in your hands, you have great chances of getting work.
You need a degree to get work but your experience is more valuable than a piece of paper. If you know what you are doing and you can provide details of your previous experience from work and related references, you have great chances of getting work.
It’s not that easy to just walk in and get work wherever you want, if you’re lucky, they have a vacancy and you are applying at that time you can get in. You have to be at the right place at the right time or know people who can help you.
Weather
Weather is overall good compared to some other countries out there. It can get really hot in summer in some parts of the country like Perth, Adelaide, even up north Queensland and really cold in some parts like Melbourne and Tasmania. But overall amazing weather.
People
Super friendly always happy to have a chat and help you when ever you get stuck. Australians are very easy to get along.I have heard from some people that Australians are not friendly, i think it’s not the whole country if you come across one person that is not nice. Do not assume everyone to be the same. There are good and bad people everywhere in the world.
Australians love animals. Pretty much everyone has a pet animal here. People also support all the sanctuaries by becoming members yearly and go see the beautiful animals like Kangaroos, Koalas, Dingos and many more native animals that are found in this country.
Sports
Australia is a big name in any sport in the world. You will see Australian flag shine in every game, do not be surprised to see the name Australia in the Top 3. Australians love to play sports and watch sports at home or at the pub. There is always some sports being played in the country or outside.
Few games that are big in Australia are Cricket, AFL, Rugby, F1 Racing and all other sports that are played and Australia participates in it.
What’s Australian lifestyle like?
It is all about having a relaxed life. Taking it easy, having a good time. Australians like to work when it’s time to work and have fun when it’s not time to work. People in Australia live in the moment and love having fun and few beers. People work hard during the week and have fun on the weekends, go out for walks, markets, dinners, shows, friends and family get togethers etc.
Pretty much whatever the whole world does, but australians are very outgoing, we love the beach and doing lots of outdoor activities. It all happens because the weather is amazing all the time, in the mid 20 degrees throughout the year on the gold coast.
Everyday is an adventure here, Welcome to Australia. | https://medium.com/@dickee/living-in-australia-what-is-it-like-b298ee1bb867 | ['Inspo Blogs'] | 2020-12-26 09:15:08.031000+00:00 | ['Australia', 'Best', 'Adventure', 'Travel', 'Beauty'] |
How to Incorporate Old Art Pieces into a New Interior Design Project | Every property owner has certain items he or she feels particularly attached to. It can be a chair, a couch or an art piece. When the time for a makeover comes, interior designers are confronted with the challenge of integrating these pieces into their new project. Many interior designers get nervous about placing old art into a contemporary setting, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Old paintings can be used to add depth and character to a room. Consequently, simple shapes and muted hues of contemporary interior design can help reinterpret the art piece and make it look fresh and exciting again. In this blog post, we’ll give you a few ideas about how to incorporate old paintings into your new design without disrupting the visual balance of the place.
Art piece by Picasso in interior via @fredrikkarlssoninteriors
Select Your Color Palette
Vintage art can be a great starting point for picking the color palette for your design. Looking at all those shades of paint in a home improvement store can seem intimidating. But if you use artwork as inspiration, you can easily structure your color scheme.
Pick two or three shades from the artwork and incorporate them into your design. Select one hue for the dominant color, while others can serve as accents. Then look for furniture pieces and wall paint that will match these shades. If you are not sure which color to use on the wall, you can use apps like ColorSnap to virtually paint your walls in different shades.
Discover the Story Behind the Piece
Every artwork has a story. If the piece has a special significance for homeowners, make sure to learn more about it and discover why they love it. Maybe the piece reminds them of a person that they used to know or a trip they enjoyed. Understanding why your clients feel personally attached to the piece will help you find the perfect place for it.
If they own a portrait of a loved one, the dining area can be the perfect place for the display, as it will give clients a notion of drinking their coffee with the people they love. A portrait of a person your client looks up to will serve as an excellent motivational piece in the study. An artwork purchased on vacation can be placed in the bedroom, where it will remind your clients of the joy of travel before they go to sleep.
Use it as a Focal Point
Every interior design project needs a focal point — one item or element that draws the viewer’s eyes and brings together the entire space. An old art piece can be a perfect focal point for every room. This particularly goes for bigger art pieces, as they tend to naturally stand out and demand the viewers’ attention. Realistic depictions of biblical and historical motifs can add character to space, while tapestry can make the entire room look and feel cozy.
Use Art to Accentuate Architectural Elements
Placing an old piece above a vintage fireplace seems like a logical idea, but many interior designers avoid this set-up as they fear that it will make the place look too traditional. But if you tastefully mix old paintings and architectural elements with modern furniture and contemporary paint colors, you’ll ensure that space looks stylish. Mix old art, ravishing crystal chandeliers and crown molding with muted, neutral tones to make the room look fashionable, while simultaneously honoring the original architectural design of the place.
Art piece by Picasso in interior via @art_informer
Incorporate the Art into a Bigger Collection
Use artworks of similar subject matter, color, and style to create a vivid collection spanning through the room. To make the display more interesting, use the asymmetrical arrangement to form an abstract pattern on the wall. Surround the artwork with an eclectic collection of furniture that will add a modern note to the project.
Leaning Artwork
Leaning an artwork on the wall or a shelf or even directly on another artwork can make the room feel more relaxed. Even a rigid, formal portrait can appear casual and youthful when leaned against the wall. Large artworks can be placed on the floor and leaned on the wall and smaller artworks can be elevated to bookshelves and coffee tables. Or you can lean a smaller artwork on top of a bigger artwork to add depth and spark interest. Just like a book standing on the shelf, the leaned artwork will inspire people to pick it up and carefully inspect it.
Juxtapose Old and Contemporary Pieces
Many contemporary artists have created pieces inspired by old masters' paintings and drawings. So why not emphasize the similarities between contemporary painters and old masters by juxtaposing artworks from different art periods. By placing contemporary and old pieces side by side, you will powerfully portray the evolution of art through time.
When placed in a contemporary setting, old art pieces can bring something new to the space. They can add a touch of elegance and museum-quality to the room. Or a sense of monumentality and nostalgia for times past. So don’t be afraid to include old artworks in your contemporary interior design project. Properly displayed, they can spark imagination and make any room come to life. | https://inna-13021.medium.com/how-to-incorporate-old-art-pieces-into-a-new-interior-design-project-7de3e9e98a2e | ['Art Acacia'] | 2020-01-20 13:05:39.065000+00:00 | ['Interior Design', 'Art', 'Creative Thinking', 'Art Collecting', 'Decor'] |
The easiest way to build a Dark Mode | Most operating systems natively support dark mode now. I have become so used to it that anything without a dark theme becomes painful in the evening.
As I gave my website a minor visual refresh this week, I often coded into the evening. When everything else switched to dark mode, my website stayed in its light theme. A dark mode would be nice, but that sounded like a lot of work.
Little did I know that browsers and CSS have caught up. Adding a dark mode to websites is not hard anymore. The easiest way to build one is with our good old friend, the media query.
Detecting browser widths with media queries is essential for building responsive designs. They can also check for other media features, like a display’s pixel density or a device’s orientation.
The feature `prefers-color-scheme` detects if the system is set to a light or dark color scheme. In the same way we’d do progressive enhancement, we can add styles for a dark mode with this.
The un-queried version is our light theme. In a media query that checks for a dark mode preference, we override some styles as necessary.
Want to copy this code? Get the text-version on my website.
We mostly need to change colors to turn a light theme into a dark theme. Many other styles can stay as they are, which makes it pretty easy to add a dark mode to an existing website. By using the media query, we can switch back and forth by changing which mode our operating system is set to.
I’m about an hour into experimenting with this on my own website, and it looks like I’m almost done. I would release it, but I’m too busy switching back and forth between light and dark mode. It’s too fun to see everything update instantly.
There is another, more complicated way to do the theme switch that does not rely on the media query. We could add a toggle that allows people to pick the theme. I’m not sure it’s worth the extra effort if the media query works so well.
What do you think? Is the media query “good enough” or do you prefer the sites you visit to have a theme toggle somewhere?
– Dom | https://medium.com/@domhabersack/the-easiest-way-to-build-a-dark-mode-4340942cbf6b | ['Dom Habersack'] | 2020-12-14 13:45:55.751000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Accessibility', 'CSS'] |
Checklist for supervisors and tips for successful guidance. Interview with the intern Clarissa. | Why internship is important
The purpose of the internship is to give the intern a grounding in reality and an opportunity to test their knowledge. The internship gives our interns a head start, as well as a pre-understanding of the different subjects they study in school.
During the internship, leadership is extra important and the supervisor has an important role, and must be interested in the assignment. The supervisor must have a good professional knowledge and an interest in working with young people.
The intern learns about entrepreneurship. How does it work in a workplace? What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? The intern’s time in the workplace gives them a sense of entrepreneurship and what it means.
International perspectives are another important factor. Several of the companies in Sweden that Björg works with have an international connection, and also enable internships abroad.
Internships develop people. Practicing generates courage, knowledge and social skills. For many, internships are their first opportunity to be in a workplace.
Checklist for supervisors
Below is a checklist / guide that is good to start from:
✅ Meet expectations and requirements for the intern.
✅ Set up a schedule for the intern.
✅ Supervise the intern in the practical tasks at the workplace.
✅ Introduce the intern in the company.
✅ Answer questions and help the intern to cope with any tasks.
✅ Help the intern to understand how the company works.
✅ Ensure that requirements for the work environment are met.
✅ Make sure that any accidents / incidents are reported.
Tips for successful guidance
✅ Share experiences and encourage questions.
✅ Give constructive criticism.
✅ Involve the intern as much as possible, let them, for example, meet customers, let them submit their own suggestions for solutions, encourage initiative.
✅ Feel free to have a continuous dialogue with the intern about the work.
Hello! I ´m Clarissa the intern
Hi! My name is Clarissa and I´m 16 years old. I’m in my first year of high school in a school named Thoren Business School. I attend the science program with a specialization in management. All the students at the school have been instructed that they need an internship. The purpose of the internship is that the students should develop knowledge about professional skills and understand the professional culture but also become a part of the professional community. That’s why I’m going to be here with Björg the following three weeks, WHICH WILL BE FUN! I will help Björg with practical tasks.
When I’m not in school I spend my spare time at studies, being with my family and friends but also listening to music. I love going to concerts but under prevailing circumstances there have been no concerts this year. My own thoughts about internship is that is fun to be a part of the real “working life” in different ways because I will end up there in the future. My dream is to become a doctor or a dentist, I want to work in healthcare in some way so I can help people who need it.
Designing the first T-shirt
A fun random fact about me is that I love ice-cream so much that I once ate a whole 1L package of ice-cream a hot summer day … I did not feel well after that LOL.
I think its fun to be an intern. I have helped my supervisor with different kind of tasks, and I have learned how to use different tools and programs that I did not have knowledge about before. I designed my own t-shirt using a tool named “Figma”. That’s not the only thing I have done. I have also written articles, made illustrations, helped design an app, both the content inside the app and the app icon. The app will later be launched on the App store and Google Play.
I have been involved in meetings with consultants and supervisors but also learned more about the business and the profession. The absolute most fun has been designing a t-shirt. At first it was difficult to figure out how it should look, but then I came up with some ideas. I created a mood board and looked at inspiration from internet. It feels good to be able to take part in real working life because it gives me an insight into what my future may look like.
/ Clarissa | https://medium.com/@bjorgcreative/checklist-for-supervisors-and-tips-for-successful-guidance-interview-with-the-intern-clarissa-ee945751a916 | ['Björg Helene Eggen'] | 2020-11-25 17:49:57.117000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Intern', 'Mentor', 'Mentorship', 'Internships'] |
Life is You | Life is You
Image of unknown origin
Look someone you don’t know in the eyes for a few minutes without speaking. You will feel connected not only with the “other” human being but with Life itself — and rightly so.
We are born; we live, and we die. We can see this commonality in the other.
We are people with organs, we breathe, eat, and excrete.
We are like the others. We inhale the air that the “others” just exhaled. The atoms from the air we breathe are fed into our bodies. The same applies to the food we eat, the beverages we drink, the minerals, the water, the plants, and the animals. We are in constant atomic exchange with one another.
While we talk and listen to each other, the neuro-networks of our brains adapt and evolve.
We transform others, and others transform us.
Right now, reading this — you transform.
We (ex-) change one another in direct or indirect contact.
We howl at the same moon, and we walk on the same mother earth.
Yet, we think of Life as something different or disconnected from us!
As if Life were some phenomenon “out there” that needs to be handled. Except, it is more realistic to understand ourselves as being Life; “being” in a reciprocal sense of “I execute Life and Life executes me”.
I. AM. LIFE. YOU. ARE. LIFE.
What made us so stupid that we believe we are different or better or more or less worth from the “Others”, “Life”, or anything else?
There are no others. | https://medium.com/an-idea/life-is-you-6c71cb3bef44 | ['Karmen Jurela'] | 2020-12-19 05:15:35.331000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Spirituality', 'Connection', 'Cognitive Bias', 'Transformation'] |
Confessions of a Therapist: What You Need Know | Have you ever been sitting in therapy wondering what your therapist thinks of you? Or maybe you start comparing your situation to others they may have heard.
As someone who has been a client to multiple therapists over the past ten years, I know the exact thoughts and insecurities that race through your mind when you are bearing your soul to someone.
Not only have I been a client, but I am a mental health therapist myself. I am here to let you in on all secrets therapists have about you. From one side of the couch to the other, I know exactly what is going through your mind.
***Trigger warning: mention of (but no details) my hospitalization for suicidal ideations***
Photo by MARK ADRIANE on Unsplash
Your problems do not sound small or stupid to me
I remember the day my therapist hospitalized me for suicidal ideations. Do you want to know what was running through my head the entire time?
“She probably thinks I’m so dramatic to be suicidal. There is nothing that bad in my life to put me in this position.”
It was not until I became a therapist myself that I understood this. When you come into our office, I see you in distress. It does not matter what is causing you distress. If it is hurting you, I am determined to help you.
Nothing is too small or stupid to cause pain.
It breaks my heart to see you cry
There have been many times in session where I have choked back tears for you.
To watch you in such a vulnerable and raw state, trusting me with your scariest thoughts, it is gut-wrenching to see you cry.
Most of us see a therapist as well
Do you know how many nurses say they became one due to how a nurse changed their life? Or that they wanted to help others because they went through so many medical issues when they were younger?
The same goes for your therapist. Believe it or not, many therapists choose this career path due to their mental health issues.
I became a therapist because I was hospitalized twice for suicidal ideations at 23. I have c-PTSD, depression, anxiety, and OCD diagnoses. My battle with mental illness started when I was only 6 years old. This has been a lifelong thing for me and many of my colleagues.
Even if your therapist does not suffer from their mental illness, our ethics say that we should practice what we preach. It helps us to get experience on “both sides of the couch” and relate to you more profoundly.
I think about you when we are not in session
Not in a creepy way, but I am reminded of you in my daily life. Whether it’s being exposed to a hobby you enjoy or reading about something I know you’d find interesting.
Even if it isn’t being reminded of you, I spend hours outside of our sessions researching ways to help you heal from your traumas and thrive in your day-to-day life.
It isn’t a “forget about them until I see them next” kind of relationship that most medical professionals have. Your therapist gets to know you on a level that no one else ever will.
Thank you for trusting me.
I can and will only meet you where you are at
If you aren’t going to put forth the work outside of the session, there is nothing I can do to help. I see you for two hours a month. That means the other 728 hours are up to you, and how you decide to employ tactics given to you.
Sometimes I have clients who don’t want to do the work but just need a place to let it all out. That is okay, but it is hard to help you when you don’t want to help yourself.
Other clients take my techniques and apply them to their life daily. These are the ones where we can move forward together and watch you heal and move on with your life.
“I will always be there for you, but you need to put forth an effort.”
Nothing embarrasses me, tell me everything
When I say I’ve heard it all, I have heard it all. You will not embarrass your therapist with anything you say.
Chances are we have already heard something similar or have heard much worse. Either way, we have been in the business long enough to not be shocked by anything anymore.
Believe me when I say that you are the only one who might feel embarrassed by what you need/want to say.
I know when you are deceitful
Do you think I went through 6+ years of schooling, practiced thousands of hours before becoming fully licensed, and continue my education yearly to not know when you are being dishonest?
I consider myself a human lie detector, and I can smell lies a mile away. Sometimes I will call you out on it if it is pertinent to what we are dealing with in the session. Like I said above though, I will only meet you where you are at.
If you are not ready to tell me the truth, I will not force you to tell me. But know that I know more is going on than you are leading me to believe.
I do not compare you to our other clients
Each client has a different story and each story leads to different paths. There is no way I could ever possibly compare any of my clients because of how different each person is.
That was always a worry I had with my therapists, that they would think my problems were petty compared to their other clients.
While some of my problems might be smaller than others, it was not until I became a therapist that I saw that did not matter at all. If you are in distress, traumatized, or struggling it is for a reason.
“The human mind is much more fragile and easily traumatized than one would think.”
The pain you feel from that event is all I care about. I do not sit there and think about how you should not be hurting from something like that or how “it could be so much worse.” I just care about making sure you can heal.
You will heal more quickly if you are honest with me
The longer you keep that junk inside, the harder it will be to heal.
I see memes all the time that joke about how much you hide from your therapist. I am guilty of it as well! I have done it to my therapists, but it has hurt me in the long run.
The more quickly you process pain and trauma, the less long-term effects it will have on your mental and physical health.
Do not open up before you are ready to, but do not purposefully hold back pertinent information either. You will feel so much better if you get it out.
It is okay and normal to not remember your trauma
People come to me all the time and say they know they have been traumatized in some way but have no recollection of what happened to them.
That is totally and completely normal.
It is a trauma response from the brain that helps protect you.
Many times your body can remember and respond to certain smells, noises, or tastes, but your brain has no idea what is going on.
I want you to understand because it happened to me and others I know. Many times when you are struggling with severe mental health issues in your mid-to-late 20s, you will uncover that it is your body trying to finally process the trauma that you have failed to remember, or severely downplayed, growing up.
This is completely normal but is necessary to process to heal and live a healthy life.
You have no idea how proud of you I am
When you have a breakthrough or tell me you practiced using your coping strategies, I BEAM with pride for you!
There is nothing more satisfying to see the look on your face when you tell me how you overcame a difficult situation healthily.
Therapists have meetings called supervision. This is where we gather with other therapists in our building and ask any questions, get advice on a situation, or process things ourselves. You best believe that we brag on our clients and celebrate your success in supervision as well.
Your accomplishments in therapy mean so much to me, and I cherish those moments I get to celebrate them with you.
___________________________________________________________________
I know I am not the only one when I say:
“Your therapist telling you they are proud of you is a personal achievement unlike any other.”
Go forth to your next therapy session and relinquish yourself of any insecurities you may have. You are going to make some real progress if you remember these secrets. | https://medium.com/@hereforanadventure/confessions-of-a-therapist-what-you-need-know-9f3a97e1c6d6 | ['Sarah Banwart'] | 2020-12-26 21:17:32.898000+00:00 | ['Therapy', 'Health', 'Mental Health'] |
Yafim Vainilovich talks life as a Pierce County IT intern | Green River student and Pierce County intern Yafim Vainilovich
Meet Yafim Vainilovich. Vainilovich completed his associate degree in computer science at nearby Highline College before transferring to Green River College to pursue his bachelor’s degree in software development. This summer, he joined Pierce County IT’s software development team as an intern working on core libraries and internal web updates. Below, Vainilovich talks about on his internship experience and offers a word of advice for college students who are looking for their first tech internship.
What led you to Green River’s software development program?
YAFIM: I heard good things from people that took the program prior to me. Also the cost of classes was a big deal for me as well.
Can you tell us a little bit about your internship experience?
YAFIM: Pierce County IT has a lot of projects. Every time I was given a task, it was always something new, and it was really fun to work on something different every day and to learn a lot of new skills. Recently, I’ve been assigned a project to work on by myself. In this project, I am using an AngularJS frontend and Grails backend to build an OfferUp-like application for Pierce County employees.
What is a memorable experience from your internship experience that stands out?
YAFIM: The most memorable experience for me was getting past a problem that I was stuck on for over two days. Something just clicked in my head. That experience was really good. Debugging a structure for couple of days taught me a lot.
What tip do you have for college students who are looking for their first tech internship?
YAFIM: I probably applied for over 50 internships and only got an interview for Pierce County and that was the internship that I got. I would recommend to not give up and to apply as much as possible, even when you get rejection emails on a daily basis. | https://medium.com/green-river-web-mobile-developers/yafim-vainilovich-talks-life-as-a-pierce-county-it-intern-f1d6cfc50fd9 | ['Andy Orr'] | 2019-09-30 23:30:00.885000+00:00 | ['Internships', 'Student Success', 'Community College', 'Career Advice'] |
Best high-resolution digital audio player: Which DAP reigns supreme? | Life is not all about studying. But if you can’t even conquer this little part of life, then what else can you possibly do? | https://medium.com/@gabriel73089648/best-high-resolution-digital-audio-player-which-dap-reigns-supreme-41095d9b9afa | [] | 2020-12-25 00:55:15.547000+00:00 | ['Gear', 'Audio', 'Tvs', 'Electronics'] |
[Weekly report] April 20 | [Weekly report] April 20
Node Elections | Light Wallet update | Cobo Mobile Wallet | Community Reward Program
Milestones
Lightning Bitcoin is going to start Lightning node elections. The rules will be revealed soon.
Technical Improvements
Full node wallet
Modified invoke commands to fix deadlock.
Completed DPoS datastore fault. At the time of program exception, the full node wallet recovers the DPoS data.
Light wallet
Added automatic language detecting function.
Made password dialog show only once when user do vote or cancel voting.
Removed the black background dialog, new version run without python embeded interpreter. The speed have been improved to make experience better.
Minimized wallet size from 257M to 20M.
Announcements
Cobo Wallet supports LBTC
April 17th, LBTC was listed in Cobo Wallet. Cobo claims that you can get approximate 170% return of LBTC by voting in their wallet. It uses smart voting system and profit allocation algorithm. Users do not need to vote manually but still can get stable income.
Cobo Wallet’s team includes the founder of the world’s largest mining pool (F2Pool), Shen Yu, and former Facebook senior scientist and founder of coin bank, Jiang Changhao.
New Light Wallet tutorial
LBTC team has published a tutorial for the latest version of light wallet (v0.0.6). We have added details about how to change system language and how to vote. Read the article
Node Capital participates in LBTC Lightning Node Election
April 13th, Node Capital announced that it is going to participate in the LBTC Lightning Node Election. Node Capital is a venture capital company that focuses on blockchain investment and is one of the earliest professional investment institutions in the global blockchain industry. It aims to connect each part of the blockchain industry through project investment and cooperation.
Node Capital’s participation will undoubtedly help LBTC accelerate sustainable ecosystem construction.
LinkVC participates in LBTC Lightning Node Election
April 14th, LinkVC announced the will to participate in the LBTC Lightning Node Election.
LinkVC is an emerging venture capital firm based in Singapore, focuses on investing in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and Internet financial services.LinkVC’s participatation will bring massive resources and make large contribution to LBTC community.
ColdLar participates in LBTC Lightning Node Election
April 16th, hardware wallet, ColdLar, announced to join in the LBTC Lightning Node Election. The concept of separation of network and non-network, God Seed Code plus Payment Password and Multi-signiture make ColdLar known as one of the most reliable hardware wallet.
We believe that ColdLar Wallet can both help LBTC community attract more attention, and provide hardware storage services for LBTC users.
BTCC participates in LBTC Lightning Node Election
April 19th, the BTCC Pool decided to take part in the LBTC Lightning Node Election. BTCC established the largest and earliest bitcoin exchange in China. The BTCC pool is the most important business of BTCC company, and it is deployed globally to provide excellent service and competitive rates for miners.
Zhao Qianjie, the vice president of BTCC believes LBTC has a good future and BTCC pool will be deeply involved in the elections.
LBTC Community
LBTC will join K Site
Bitkan launched the K Site “100 Global Community Officers” Recruitment Plan, and LBTC will be one of the first to join it.BitKan is a popular chinese cryptocurrency price aggregation. K Site will be released as a new feature in the BitKan App.
K-Site has the characteristics of a small community culture, multi-currency payments, token incentives, and expert nodes. We believe that K Site will further promote construction of LBTC’s global community.
LBTC Community News
Lightning Reward Program
The Lightning Program is still ongoing, rewards for contributing into the community for past three months will be given out soon.
The details of the reward winning contributors will be revealed in LBTC forum, Medium.
Thanks for your support. The contributors to the LBTC forum are counted in the Lightning Reward Program as well. We encourage everyone to share your opinions and suggestions with us. It will help to establish a better and stronger community.
GIES2018 summit
April 18th, Jack Zhang, on behalf of LBTC, was invited to give a speach in the 2018 Blockchain Plus Technology Application Summit Forum organized by LianJin Finance, Blockchain Finance Weekly, Blockchain Form and Yousheng Voice, co-sponsored by Dapao Rating, Future Finance, Golden Finance, 9 Billions Finance, Blockchain Learning and Tuoniao Blockchain.
Jack Zhang, gave a speech about “The Past, Present and Future of Blockchain”. | https://medium.com/lightning-bitcoin-blog/weekly-report-april-20-30cdde74f3b | ['Lightning Bitcoin', 'Lbtc'] | 2018-04-22 06:27:28.342000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Lbtc Weekly', 'Blockchain'] |
“The Strain,” medicalized Nazi zombie vampires | Covid-19 is responsible for me watching more television than I have since I was, like, 10. I recently came across a series called The Strain, which mashed together zombies, Nazis, and vampires . . . with a medical contagion narrative. So I decided to pull a chapter from my book, Tough Gynes, that has some bearing on this trope cluster. (You should by all means buy this book right away and get a few copies for your friends.)
I post this not just to review the contagious zombie trope or sell books, but because the pandemic has, in many ways, fed into the kinds of fears — especially “biophobia” —which have animated all sorts of mischief in the past . . . fear of fresh food, germophobia, and other manufactured obsessions that translate into fear and loathing of the “contaminated” other.
The pandemic — which should be taken seriously, and hasn’t been taken seriously enough — will not help matters going forward, because many people lack the conceptual tools necessary to distinguish the pandemic from these obsessions. We generalize from the specific.
Pass the hand sanitizer.
The book unpacked nine movies that related to the theme of “honorary men,” or violent women characters who, in order to secure their “equality,” became like the violent men of our past narratives — a trope that has done nothing to push back against the violent patriarchy which this trope purports to resist. This chapter is titled Recapturing Normal from the Zombie Apocalypse: Selena. Hope you like it.
Attention: spoilers.
###
28 Days Later is two overlapping genres: the contagion narrative and zombie apocalypse.1 Good writing, great direction and acting, excellent film composition and editing, convincing special effects that don’t overwhelm the scenes, and well-adapted background music are all combined with a strong story to make this an edge-of-your-seat classic. That’s not to say that the film is above criticism, as we will see, but at least it’s not Hollywood gruel like G.I. Jane. [an earlier chapter in the book] Before we get to the female lead character, Selena, however, we need to look at the film’s dual genre to establish some context.
As a long time Haiti-phile, I have to start with zombies. The history of the zombie is quite revealing, because it is associated with Haiti, even though zombies are an American invention. As Paul Farmer pointed out in The Uses of Haiti,2 the first independent black nation — one born of a slave rebellion — has been attacked and undermined from its inception by “white” nations that needed a standing example, a “proof,” of some inhering black deviance and black incapacity for self-governance. The policies first of France and then the U.S. were designed to cripple the nation at every turn to make the black deviance narrative appear to be true. And so Haiti came to be associated in the white mind with some fundamental deviance; and this association prepared the “white mind” to project its most lurid fears back onto Haiti.
Between 1791 and 1804, when the Haitian rebel armies were beating the pants off of Napoleon’s best (a disastrous blow to the myth of white supremacy), Napoleon — who was fighting in Europe, too — started to run out of money. That’s why the Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803, adding some or all of Louisiana, Arkansas, Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, both Dakotas, and Wyoming, as well as a bit of Saskatchewan to the holdings of the United States. France had claimed this land and sold the claim to the United States to replenish the Little General’s war treasury. Bonaparte lost the war in Haiti less than a year later, and things continued to go downhill for him afterwards.
French slave owners in Haiti, with many of their slaves, decamped to New Orleans,3 and the Haitian slaves — seventy percent having been born in Africa — brought an amalgam of native rituals and beliefs, which were syncretically combined with aspects of French Catholicism. Those beliefs and rituals were further mixed with Native American beliefs and rituals, and this amalgam came to be known as Voudon, or in street speech, voodoo — a popular spirituality. Beliefs and stories about voodoo then circulated among whites, where they were embellished by white people’s often paranoid imagination of black cultures. It wasn’t until around 1930 that the popular idea of voodoo incorporated zombies — the walking dead. White American culture, especially Hollywood, with drivel like The Serpent and the Rainbow, projected its racial fears into the zombie. The rest, as they say, is history.4
This individual racial zombie was then replaced by a new kind of zombie, zombies exhibiting herd behavior. In Night of the Living Dead, the 1968 camp-cult classic by George Romero, hordes of slow-moving but relentless reanimated corpses roam the streets in pursuit of human flesh to devour — brains preferred.
In Romero’s film there is brief speculation that the reanimation of corpse herds is being caused by radioactivity from a returning space probe, but this is a minor sop to causal calculation, the main attraction being the advancing horror of smelly, sluggish, brain-eating cadavers. A few people whose kids had been traumatized by the film wanted the courts to declare Night of the Living Dead a form of “violence pornography.” Given what kids can see nowadays, including the television series The Walking Dead, which is a kicked-up version of Night of the Living Dead, the campaign to nip the “violence pornography” of the zombie in the bud has apparently failed.
The Walking Dead has herd zombies, but it also employs another theme — the patriarchal survival fantasy, in which the key to survival (redemption) is still the Man with a Gun, even when it involves women and women with guns. Because a bite contaminates you and makes you a zombie, The Walking Dead is also a contagion narrative.
This will take a little history, too.
All good fun.
In 2002, Barbara Duden and Silja Samerski introduced a new term: pop gene. The pop gene is short form for “popular gene,” and it doesn’t mean the gene with the most friends. Pop gene doesn’t refer, except in passing, to actual genetic science either. Pop gene is a vague yet potent impression of what genes are, the popular imagination of genes which has only a fleeting familiarity with actual genetic science. In the pop-imagination, the pop-gene is one form of collective magical thinking. The “gene” becomes symbolic, an idea, independent of actual genes, and an idea with tremendous power.
Samerski and Duden are both also interested in the history of the experience of pregnancy, and how — over time — this experience has been transformed into a “risk management” exercise requiring the mediation of highly specialized experts. The pop-gene has driven this risk management medicalization paradigm. So what about zombies? Hold tight. We’re getting there.
Samerski, a German, traced the use of the term risk in her own culture and found that in the early twentieth century, risk was a merchant’s term. As cars became ubiquitous, risk was associated with the dangers of car traffic.
But today, sick people, pregnant women and healthy persons, they all live under the shadow of “risk”. When I read the science page of my newspaper, when my health shop informs me about food options or when I go for a routine check to my gynecologist — everywhere I am in the danger of absorbing risks. For years, my neighbor lives in anxiety because of her increased risk of breast cancer. She worries incessantly about every medical check up and studiously pores over all the guides on “Breast fitness — How to reduce your risk of breast cancer”. Almost none of my friends escaped becoming a risk carrier as soon as they were diagnosed “pregnant” by a gynecologist. I remember very well when one of my friends desperately rang my doorbell after the physician had urged her to choose between two risks: The risk of giving birth to a handicapped child and the risk of an abortion induced by the test.5
This loss of autonomy to experts, based in some cases on the internalization of the pop gene, has transformed many people into obsessive “risk managers.” It is relatively new; but it points to the ways that popular misconceptions can be transformed into popular obsessions.
Now, at last, we come back to zombies and contagion.
#
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western Europe and the United States were gripped by something called “the social hygiene movement.”
The popular (mis)conception then, which still prevails today, was what we might call the pop germ. [today we may have the pop-virus]
Ever since Pasteur’s germ theory and the partially successful employment of carbolic acid as a surgical disinfectant during the American Civil War, the discovery of the role of particular microorganisms in medical pathologies has been translated into the popular imagination as germophobia. And the way to protect oneself from “germs” is through sterilization/extermination.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of microorganisms — a classification by size only — are either benign to humans or beneficial has not blunted this fear. In fact, to this day, one can see television ads representing “germs” as disgusting cartoon-monsters, the solution being the liberal application of this or that product to “leave surfaces germ free.”
The social hygiene movement of the early twentieth century simply extrapolated this phobia from microorganisms to whole societies, with a synergetic boost from social Darwinism, which led to a vigorous American
eugenics movement. Affluent white people not only saw “social hygiene”
as a public health movement, but poor and racially-othered people as the
equivalent of “germs.” Germs and “genes,” the pop gene of that era seen in
the light of selective breeding, these ideas — including aggressive support
for eugenics — were advocated by liberal and conservative alike well into
the twentieth century, until the special earnestness of Hitler’s eugenic programs was exposed after the war, temporarily slamming on the brakes on open support for eugenics.6
Even after Hitler’s illumination of the eugenic moral hazard, however, the metaphorical power of disease and sociopolitical hygiene retained its force. J. Edgar Hoover frequently referred to communism, for example, as a “virus.” Today, the rapid spread of a story over the internet is called “viral.”
The contagion narrative in film has its symbolic roots in this history, and more generally in the way cultures have understood purity and pollution, as in Mary Douglas’s anthropology, to define boundaries for millennia. Priscilla Wald calls the specific form of contagion narrative that became popular in the 1990s and increasingly popular in the past few years, an “outbreak narrative.” She relates this popular narrative to the serial discoveries of various communicable diseases, HIV in particular, followed by traveling maladies like SARS and Ebola.
The outbreak narrative — in its scientific, journalistic, and fictional incarnations — follows a formulaic plot that begins with the identification of an emerging infection, includes discussion of the global networks throughout which it travels, and chronicles the epidemiological work that ends with its containment.7
The standard outbreak narrative described by Wald ends with the triumph of science over these threats that have penetrated our boundaries, and sets up the scientific establishment in a kind of guardian role for a world where traditional boundaries begin to seem dangerously permeable. In film, we see this narrative in And the Band Played On and other “based-on-the-true-story” accounts.
Outbreak and contagion narratives are always in danger of reinforcing the medicalization of society wherein cultural, moral, and even legal norms are giving way to medical descriptions of behaviors considered aberrant, with medical solutions near at hand — which include copious pharmaceuticals and some institutionalizations. ADHD, for example, describes a set of behaviors that were in greater or lesser force apparent in children before they were confined for six hours a day in compulsory schools; but rather than ask if children should be thus confined, we describe the reactions of many children to that confinement as pathological, then prescribe drugs to inhibit these reactions. Again, this process of medicalization surrenders our autonomy, practical and moral, to a collection of experts in the radical monopoly called Medicine.
Contagion narratives draw the line between the healthy and the infected
as boldly as older films drew the line between the Good Guys and the
implacable threat, and set up a new risk equation where The Threat, now
existential, can come up anywhere, at any time.8
There is more than one way, medicalization aside, to characterize contagion narratives. Returning to Night of the Living Dead, let’s compare Wald’s contagion narrative and the triumph of science to the zombie story.
The irredeemability of the infected/the zombie creates a situation wherein
what is called for is not science, but a reassertion of naked violence like
the kind that drives Walking Dead and 28 Days Later. In some cases, this
contagion narrative serves up male post-apocalyptic, survivalist fantasies. In this regard, contagion/contamination/zombie narratives like World War
Z, Resident Evil, and Dawn of the Dead establish the basis for tempo-task
mass killing which allows men (and their Hot Chicks with Guns [a trope covered earlier in the book]) to prove their mettle by dealing out death (to the dangerous dead). These can be cross-categorized with other post-apocalyptic genres — post-nuclear and alien invasion, e.g., Mad Max, Independence Day, and Cloverfield.
28 Days Later, even though it departs from other male post-apocalyptic, survivalist fantasies, and even though it is, in its production values, superior to most, and even though it significantly departs from this genre in particular and powerful ways, is exactly that — a male post-apocalyptic, survivalist fantasy. The inclusion of Selena, played to the hilt by Naomie Harris, not a token female at all, and a black woman to boot, as a co-equal lead with white male protagonist, Jim, makes the fundamental masculinity of this narrative far less apparent than it usually is. 28 Days Later is also a film that has an explicit anti-christological theme with regard to the uses of violence and is resolved in the most conservative sense by redemptive violence and violent masculinity.
Karl Martin wrote a detailed exposition of the (pseudo) Christian themes in 28 Days Later,9 in which he showed how and how often Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotters, The Beach, Slumdog Millionaire), a former altar boy, ironically employed Christian music, metaphor, and imagery to translate Alex Garland’s (The Beach, Ex Machina) screenplay for 28 Days Later into this highly popular 2002 Gen X thriller, whose majority audience — and this is important — was young white men under thirty years of age.10
The film opens with a restrained, partially-tranquilized chimpanzee, surrounded by television monitors displaying newsreel footage of horrific mass violence. We pan over to the security monitors and see a black-clad team of Animal Rights activists breaking into the facility to liberate the chimps. We don’t know it yet, but within minutes, if we put on our thinking caps, we will realize that this government lab is developing a biowar weapon in the form of a virus, called Rage. Infection transforms the host into a hyperaggressive, highly contagious beater and biter, who strangely enough recognizes others of “the infected,” as we come to know them, and does not attack them. In fact, we have the Herd Zombie trope here, for pack monsters internally compelled to attack only those who are uninfected. Think Walking Dead or I Am Legend. Mary Douglas’s thesis about in-groups is super-amplified.
Government conspiracies, the basis of the Deep State Paranoia genre, are a popular device for contagion and monster narratives (Alien, Stranger Things, Resident Evil), but in 28 Days Later, the plague that is presumably created by the government (and, significantly, let loose by anti-government activists) destroys the known government. Immediately after the activists release the Rage virus on the world, we go to a scene 28 days hence, where our protagonist, Jim (played by Cillian Murphy), lies emaciated in a hospital bed hooked up to dead monitors and dried out IVs. When he escapes the hospital to eventually join up with two of the uninfected, he demands to know, “What about the government?” Selena informs him there is no government. “There’s got to be a government,” he insists. “They’re in a bunker or a plane.”
Civilizational breakdown becomes a key theme in the film, contrasted with what Martin calls the “pseudo-Christian community” of Jim and three of his fellow uninfected survivors.
Selena, then, is the female lead. Young, black, trained as a pharmacist — when we first meet her, she and another survivor named Mark are Jim’s rescuers. She leads the three, even in close combat with “the infected,” like a military commando. She is smart, decisive, efficiently ruthless, and painfully realistic. She is pretty, without a doubt, but not overtly sexualized in the opening scenes, where she is clad in a trench coat, with a kind of centurion’s helmet hairdo, carrying a machete in her hand at all times. In practice and temperament, Selena is a soldier. When Mark is bitten in a confrontation with the infected, she unhesitatingly dispatches him with her machete in a gruesome splatter scene, telling the surviving Jim that if she suspects he’s infected, she’ll do him “in a heartbeat.”
This is the Tempo Task trope.
The tempo task is a soldier character’s meat and potatoes. The Russian
film director Sergei Eisenstein coined the term “tempo task” as part of his critique of D. W. Griffith’s filmic paean to the KKK, The Birth of a Nation.
The tempo task is a set-up in the film’s story where time is running out, and for the victim — then generally a white woman “Beautiful Soul” — to be saved, the rescuers had to set aside the rules as well as their moral scruples to get the job done in time. Ann Kibbey translated the tempo task to the post-9–11 conjuncture, when we used the same rationale to justify torture.
Liberals . . . have had difficulty in believing that a much-discredited American film genre, the Western, could suddenly be structuring and mandating U.S. political rhetoric. It is — from Bush’s “Wanted dead or Alive” Bin Laden poster, to Colin Powell’s insistence that “time is running out” as we cut to the chase, to the numerous U.S. television and print media that report daily on the “Showdown” or “Standoff” with Iraq.11
The justifications are always hypothetical situations where the bomb
is about to go off in the subway. “Would you, oh effeminate snowflake that
you are, refuse to torture the evildoer rather than pull out his fingernails to
discover where the bomb is and defuse it before it kills thousands?” While
such urgently constructed scenarios are nearly non-existent in reality,
they are the stuff of many films, including the execrable Zero Dark Thirty,
directed by Katherine Bigelow, about the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden.
Bigelow introduced just such a last-minute torture scene to discover the whereabouts of bin Laden before he could get away, even though no such
thing happened in conjunction with the actual operation. It was gratuitous
pro-torture propaganda.
A zombifying contagion like the Rage virus is an ongoing tempo-task, a situation where all the old moral scruples have to be set aside. In the beginning of the film, Jim is reluctant to embrace the tempo-task mentality or Selena’s keep-up-or-die soldier’s commitment to survival. In fact, as Martin notes, Jim begins by exercising a decidedly Christian sensibility — at least from Director Boyle’s perspective.
Jim roams the empty streets of London after waking to an empty urban landscape from his hospital bed, and he eventually — as the sun gets low — heads to a church. He mounts the church steps, and we see a massive cross hanging by the wall, and alongside it graffiti that says, “The end is extremely fucking nigh,” a mocking paraphrase of the last chiliastic street preachers. Jim continues in, finding the pews stacked with corpses — where others have likewise sought the church for their fruitless refuge. When Jim calls out, two of “the infected” — the first he’s seen — pop up from the piled dead and begin scuttling toward the stairs. Then the priest himself arrives, infected, hissing, hacking, and red-eyed, convulsing with mindless reptilian aggression toward Jim until, at the last moment, Jim knocks the priest away with a sack of canned soda, muttering to himself as he runs away, “I shouldna done that.” Hit a priest, even though . . .
In a latter scene, before Selena has killed Mark, as the three companions head out to find Jim’s dead family, the background music is Perry Alleyne singing “Abide with Me,” a Christian hymn. It is coming back down that same road, Mark dead now, that Selena delivers her soldier’s speech to Jim: kill without hesitation if you want to live. Christian church fails to protect. Christian morals fail to protect. As Karl Martin says,
The gospel hymn’s lyrics follow Jim’s actions so closely that it seems as though this might be what is playing in Jim’s memory as he finds his parents. Secondly, the lyrics of the gospel hymn stress comfort offered to the individual in the midst of a crisis. The repeated use of the first person is one indication of the private nature of the comfort offered. The temptation sung of in “Abide With Me” seems to be to give up in despair. Perhaps following the pattern of his parents, and much more than the other two survivors, Jim seems tempted in this way. Early in the film, neither Mark nor Selena seems tempted to despair. Rather, they are focused on violent resistance to the infected . . . The Christian message of the hymn may bring comfort to Jim . . . but it provides little guidance in a world swarming with enraged plague victims.12
The message of the film is traditionally gendered, even with the early gender subversion of Selena as the warrior and Jim as the nurturing nice guy. Selena and Jim meet Frank and Hannah, father and daughter, holed up in a fortified high rise apartment. Selena and Jim enter the apartment under duress, “the infected” hot on their heels in the dark, dingy stairwells, but once inside, they encounter Christmas lights and Christmas music playing. Frank — appearing as a formidable black-armored behemoth — removes his makeshift armor and emerges as a smiling, soft spoken, middle-aged man who asks teenage daughter Hanna to find the crème de menthe for a toast to their guests.
They settle in, and when Jim and Selena are talking, she castigates Jim for calling Frank and Hannah “nice people,” telling him that his concern ought to be whether they’ll slow him down. This disagreement about who would or would not leave people behind highlights again the contrast between Selena’s soldier/survival ethic and Jim’s basic (Christian) altruism.
Over time, however, after the four companions go in search of “salvation,”
as advertised on a repeating radio broadcast, and after a kind of faux-family shopping spree and another confrontation with “the infected,” they take off through the countryside to the background of “Ave Maria” (that’s right) and end up camping at an old church ruin (yes), where they see four healthy horses (two adults and two juveniles) cavorting in a field, a reflection of how they themselves are becoming a family.
With the “In Paradisium” of Fauré’s Requiem in the background, this is when Selena has a change of heart, as she grows increasingly close to Hannah. In this pivotal scene, she admits to Jim that she was wrong in earlier saying “surviving is as good as it gets.” She has learned to love, and she even pecks Jim on the cheek. Frank has become the father (Jim even calls him “Dad,” when Frank shakes him to interrupt a nightmare), Selena and Jim the older brother and sister, and Hannah the younger sister. Selena, the soldier who eschewed any form of family, is now embracing it again, moving her back into the “correct” gender column. This is what Martin calls the formation of a pseudo-Christian community in the film.13
Off they head, the family of four, to the intersection described by the soldiers in the radio broadcast, promising, “Salvation is here. The answer to infection is here” (italics added). And so our family seeks salvation no longer from pseudo-Christ, but from soldiers. While this is certainly a common refrain in film — officially-sanctioned violent men with guns standing watch on the frontier between civilization and chaos — 28 Days Later flips this tired script and makes the soldiers they encounter more dangerous than the zombies.
Frying pan. Fire.
This is where the film appears to become really transgressive even as it slips into a deeply conservative convention, perhaps reflecting the moral confusion experienced by the writer’s generation, Alex Garland having been born in 1970.
Selena and her companions have reached the roadblock designated in the radio broadcast, whereupon Frank, the “father” of this little group, is infected by a drop of blood from a corpse. Just as Selena is screaming at the reluctant Jim to kill Frank, and just as Jim is about to do the deed, a flurry of shots from unseen assault rifles riddle Frank’s body.
The soldiers are here, and they transport the grief-stricken Hannah, Selena, and Jim back to their base — a converted palatial estate — where they are met by their new “father,” Major Henry West. West greets them with an incongruously light-hearted welcome, considering they’ve just lost their beloved Frank, and once they’ve settled in and begun taking showers, we see the soldiers — in an ominous foreshadowing of the group’s new danger — taunting one of their more effeminate comrades (the cook, who wears a frilly apron, and is called “a fucking Doris”) by playing stupid, reckless games with Frank’s car. A sense of that frat-boy threat which women know only too well.
Selena’s character, after her transformative softening at the idyllic campsite, becomes even more vulnerable now, crying to Jim in despair over Hannah’s grief, showing us how Selena is being transformed, with Frank dead now, into Hannah’s mother.
In a scene immediately following a defensive “battle” against an assault by a herd of “the infected,” which pumps up the saurian hyper-macho Corporal Mitchell, Mitchell re-enters the building, and in a scene dripping with that feral locker room innuendo, disarms Selena, taking her machete and using it to balefully mime his own erect penis. It is now that we realize Selena and Hannah are about to become Damsels in Distress [a film trope mentioned earlier in the book].
After the symbolic disarming and threat of rape, Major West — read: the bad father — takes newly-adopted son, Jim, to the side to explain that the radio message was meant to gather women as sex slaves for the soldiers. So Selena’s development, if we track it here, is from survivalist soldier and leader, to daughter, to mother, to Damsel in Distress. Just as importantly, this transformation of Selena serves the film’s overall purpose not in showing Selena’s development, but in giving Jim his chance to become the new father.
Jim is locked up with the rebellious Sergeant Farrell, who informs Jim that West is as crazy as the proverbial “shithouse rat,”14 and that Great Britain has been quarantined — that the virus has not, as earlier believed, destroyed all of human civilization.
Farrell and Jim are to be taken to a killing ground and shot by the vicious Corporal Mitchell and another soldier. When Mitchell’s comrade shoots Farrell, depriving Mitchell of the sadistic satisfaction of bayoneting Farrell, who Mitchell hates, Mitchell attacks his comrade, and Jim takes advantage of the momentary confusion to make his escape by diving into a hillside of putrid corpses.
Golgotha.
Place of the Skull.
Then comes a resurrection scene . . . but not for a Prince of Peace.
Jim hides in a pile of corpses, and when his former captors aren’t looking, he “rises from the dead,” whereupon he sees a plane fly over, confirming Farrell’s story. Jim is now transformed, ironically by love, into a steely-eyed fighter, and a pathetic-fallacy thunderstorm sends him half naked, ripped and stained, marching through the elements toward rescue and retribution.
Selena and Hannah, meanwhile, are being dressed up by the soldiers in preparation for being sexually broken in by their captors. Selena, the former and formidable zombie-fighter, is now disarmed, though not without a new kind of (feminine) agency. She promises to sexually cooperate if the soldiers leave her alone with Hannah for a moment, whereupon she gives Hannah a fistful of valium. Hannah asks if she is trying to kill her, and Selena says, no — as a good mother who is doing the best she can for her daughter, she explains, “I’m making it so you don’t care.”15
As we approach the climax of the film, Jim is sounding the siren at the
roadblock, calling out West and his soldiers for a jungle fight, just as Selena
and Hannah are being prepared for their first gang rape. Jim is no longer
the former bike messenger, nor is he the gentle counterpoint to Selena’s
stone-cold warrior. These roles are now flipped, as Jim is transformed into A Man — determined and deadly — and he has acquired . . . of course . . . a gun. He kills one soldier at the roadblock, then returns and releases a captive zombie to run amok in the palace.16 As the soldiers are picked off by the released zombies, Jim advances toward his confrontation with chief rapist, Mitchell. The transformed Jim drops down out of a skylight, bashes Mitchell’s head against a wall, then — in a state of righteous Rage (yes!) — Jim kills the odious Mitchell by gouging out his eyes with bare hands.
Jim, in an Oedipal struggle, is displacing West as the father, to rescue/win the women.
A final escape scene ensues, where West, conveniently offscreen for three scenes, reappears (Not Dead Yet trope) to shoot and wound Jim. Hannah gets rid of West by driving him with the car into the arms of a rage-zombie. A frantic clip-scene of attempted resuscitation!
Cut.
We are suddenly transported to an idyllic cottage in the country, where Jim is the (wounded) dad, Selena is the (nurturing) mom, and Hannah is the (cheerful) daughter. The world has been restored to a microcosmic (gender) order.
A plane flies over and spots their ground signal, which we saw Selena making earlier— Olde Tyme mom style — at a sewing machine.
#
Just as this writer’s generation was caught between its normative inheritance from the generations before it, the social tumult into which it was born, and the fragmented moral pluralism of the 1990s and 2000s, this is another film that reflects a clumsy reaching for some feminist sensibility by men who think they know more about feminism than they do.
A white man generates, albeit with a few minor transgressions, a white man’s fantasy of a feminist “honorary male” (in extremis), and resolves his plot by returning to the normative gender order, the man coming into his own through redemptive violence, and Getting the (now male-protected) Girl(s).
Bad message maybe, but not unpredictable. Good movie, though.
Footnotes | https://medium.com/@stangoff/the-strain-medicalized-nazi-zombie-vampires-aff1936af259 | ['Stan Goff'] | 2021-02-01 14:17:54.304000+00:00 | ['Zombie Film', 'The Strain', 'Biophobia', 'Medicalization', 'Gender'] |
Whim is a mobility app with a modest proposal: Give up your car | Whim is a mobility app with a modest proposal: Give up your car
The term “mobility as a service” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but there’s a beautiful simplicity to the concept itself. “It’s a promise of anywhere, any time, on a whim,” says Sampo Hietanen. “It’s a promise of freedom.”
Widely considered a pioneer of the MaaS concept, Hietanen is also founder and CEO of MaaS Global, whose dutifully named Whim app launched in Helsinki in 2016 in an effort to fulfill that promise. The jury remains out, but the case is getting stronger by the day: Whim had a reported 60,000 monthly users as of last fall, and has started to expand into other cities.
Whim currently offers four tiers of subscriptions. A pay-as-you-go model charges people for each trip. A low-end package (€60 a month, or $67) includes unlimited public transport, bike-share access, guaranteed car prices, and fixed-rate taxis. A “weekend” package builds on the low-end option to offer households a different car every weekend for €249 ($279). Then there’s the unlimited option: all your trips for €500 a month ($560).
If that sounds like a lot, consider that the all-in cost of owning a car can average more than $10,000 a year in many cities, when including parking, maintenance, insurance, and gas. That’s much more money than even the most expensive Whim option—and that’s a conservative estimate, given that most car-owning households still pay to use public transit, bike-share, taxis, or other mobility options on a regular basis.
“The elements we need to create that freedom for you — all of the ones to make a relevant subscription for you — they exist,” he says. “What we have to do, actually, is to be able to digitally tap into them.”
Hietanen spoke with Sidewalk Talk about what’s surprised him since Whim launched, the challenges of integrating public and private services, and how trust — not data — is the primary currency of an API economy.
I guess it’s not an accident that the app for mobility as a service in Helsinki is called Whim.
There’s a nice story around that. We got the first money to see if the whole MaaS [concept] is possible in 2016. And of course, we’re smart startup people, so we hired a London-based agency to come up with really cool names. They came up with about 2,000 different suggestions, and we didn’t like any one of them. And then our CTO, it was one Friday, he just said, “Guys, if you don’t have a name by Monday, I’m just going to throw darts and I’m going to pick a name.”
We were on Slack over the weekend, and someone from our office, she said: “So what is the freedom of mobility? What does a car resemble? What is it to you? They all keep on saying the same thing: ‘Yeah, during the weekdays, I could be okay with this, but I want to be able to take my wife to the beach on a Saturday. I want to be able to go golfing on a whim. I want to be able to do this, this, this spontaneously.’ ”
Then she said: “Why don’t we just call it Whim?” And it took like five minutes to decide.
What does Whim offer travelers, and how would it work for a day-to-day commuter?
The basics of being able to offer this freedom is that, if you want freedom, we need public transport, which in Helsinki is really good. Like in New York, for example. We need that as a backbone. That does quite a lot of those trips.
As a fallback, we need of course a taxi and taxi-like services, but that’s not going to do it. Finns have a lot of summer houses, for example, so the people in Helsinki, over the weekends, they want to go there. So we need access to cars.
But also in the city center, we need access to bikes, we need access to e-scooters and all of the cool stuff. So we combine all of them into a really, really simple user interface. And with one payment, you can just ride them all. You don’t need to jump from one to another.
All you do is that one click, or at best case, not even a click. You just go. In a way, we open a golden key to your city and to your needs.
“All you do is that one click,” says Hietanen of Whim, “or at best case, not even a click. You just go.”
We’ve seen a lot of research in the mobility world of how difficult it is to change people’s trip habits. It’s really locked into their brains, especially when it comes to commuting.
There’s a good story about the whole concept of MaaS and where the value in all of it lies. I was in Ireland, in Dublin, and there were transport professionals. One said, “Look, I’ve got €700 for commuting to Dublin, and all of the transport needs I have in Dublin, all of the PT [public transit] there is covered, and that’s my MaaS.”
I said, “Yeah, that can be your MaaS, but at the same time you just raised your hand when I said, ‘Who here has a car?’”
He said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a car.”
So I said, “You’re a professional. You can probably say out of the trips you make, what’s the percentage you do with your car?” And then he calculated and said, “Somewhere between 5 to 10 percent. Closer to 5 percent.”
I said to the group, “You’re also professionals, so you probably know the cost of your car annually.” We came to a figure of €12,000. I said, “Okay. So for the 95 percent of your trips you do with €700, and the remaining 5 percent you use €12,000. Do you see where the business case is?”
When you made that point to him, did he give up his car?
No, and there’s a good reason. If you come from the transport world, we laugh at these things and say, “Oh, people are silly.” But that’s not the right answer or question. The right question would be, “Look. What do I have to do to get on the same level?”
In Tokyo, to be able to purchase a car, you need to have a dedicated parking space, and that costs more than the car. So it’s really expensive to have a car. At the same time, over 50 percent of the cars in Tokyo are used less than once a week, which means that you have a pretty, pretty, pretty expensive asset there that you’re using once or twice a month.
That just tells you how much they value their freedom.
That’s your point. At the end of the day, it’s just about convenience. If you can provide that, you’re doing that job.
Yeah. What we’re aiming at is this dream space, it’s not that we’re after the utility. If the question was, “Can I do all of your trips with $100?” It’s nice, but an even more relevant question is, “So what do I have to do to surprise you or amaze you so that you’re willing to pay $2,000 a month?” Because that’s what you pay for your car.
There’s an immense amount of collaboration that has to occur across providers, private and public sector, for this to work. I’m curious, what are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in getting that collaboration?
This is true. And of course, it’s not easy. There are fair fears with the different transportation service providers of: What if we become too dominant? We become too big? We start white-labeling them, taking away their customership and such? It takes a lot of trust-building, it takes a lot of time to show how we do it, and really, we have to be extremely open.
In a way, everybody has to take a leap of faith at the same time, and that’s not an easy dance to dance. Having said that, let’s say over the last six months, I think the tide has turned. We’ve got quite a bit backlog of contracts that we’ve signed that we’re now integrating. First, you have to show, “Okay, this is how we do it,” and explain how we also make our money, and that we encourage all of our partners, “Do not do an exclusive deal with us.” That’s how you make sure that we don’t end up being the one bully.
I think many have seen that the, let’s say, a bit old-fashioned way of platform economy does not really apply in mobility. It’s just way too big. Maybe we should be talking about an API economy more, which means that there’s not one dominant platform across mobility.
Can you talk a little bit about how important open data standards are for something like mobility as a service to flourish?
If you don’t make these into standardized things, then you’re hooked with a partner, and eventually you might not like that partner and you’d like to do changes.
In the platform economy, there’s one bottleneck that collects everything and then holds the keys to everything. Whereas in the API economy, there’s a lot of players, nobody’s ruling or controlling it, but you do plug-ins here and there, and it’s just much more effective.
That’s why we’ve chosen that look. We want to plug in with everything. We’re not trying to control them. We embrace that there should be competition. We really have to up our game to be as good as owning a car. Like I said, one of the best things in cars is I get to choose my car. If there are several MaaS operators, if you want to jump out of your car and go to Whim, and you see that there’s fierce competition, you’re more likely to trust that: “Okay. I’ll be good, because they’re competing like hell here.”
You’ve been doing Whim a few years now, and you’ve been studying this area for even longer. What are some of the patterns of usage that you’ve noticed that may have surprised you?
We thought that the users would have what we call “car hesitance.” Twenty-five to 35. Single, double households. No kids. Just at a time when you’re about think: “I have enough money. So should I get a car, or not?” They would be the ones. And they are a good target. We target mostly all of the campaigns and everything to that segment.
Now what surprised me is that there’s a second peak, and over a third of our customers are above 45, which has completely struck me.
There was this one journalist who called me from the biggest local newspaper out of a comment for something completely different, a taxi business or something like that, and then at the end of the interview he said, “Me and my wife, we took up Whim.” I said, “That’s nice.” He said, “Yeah. I’m a 50 plus guy, and I’ve always been a big car enthusiast. Now we saw that this Whim came along.” This is where I almost got a heart attack and said, “You’re really not in the target group, so why on Earth?” I know it was a bad answer.
Then he said, “Look, just yesterday, we took this cheap taxi or this fixed taxi to a train station, we went with the train, walked to tennis and we played tennis with the wife, then we stayed for a glass of wine and we were able to then take the bikes and go with the train.” And me, still a bit shocked, I said, “But still, all of these elements existed before. So why on Earth now?”
And he said it nicely: “Look. Before it’s been too much hassle that I have to worry about these different modes, and there’s never been anyone who’s on my side. They just try to sell their part of the whole story. Now that you guys have it here, it felt convenient enough, so we gave up the car.”
What do you think stops some people from using Whim?
People really get the concept. They get it a bit too well, and that means that they expect a lot.
In the trial phases, there was this father with a family, with two kids, pretty close to downtown. On Sundays, he went for some kind of sports, the father, and of course wanted to use a taxi for that because the PT wasn’t working. The first Sunday, he had a taxi driver dropping out, not showing up. And of course, that’s not very nice. Next Sunday, the guy was late with about 20 minutes, and he was late for his sports.
Now this tells you about the expectations. If we were just a taxi app or ride-share app or something, we could tell you: “Well, this ride didn’t come. You won’t pay for this.” If you pay a monthly fee, you expect a lot. We really have to work and work to be able to give some sort of a service promise. Giving the service promise that the car provides you with is extremely hard.
At the end of the day, you’re showing the services that others operate, but the subscribers are paying you. So they want accountability from you, and you want accountability from the service. A chain of communication needs to happen.
It’s a chain of trust. In this API economy, the biggest value, the new oil, is not data. It’s trust. How do you build trust? Because you have to build on someone you don’t have complete control over. That just comes through trust. You just have to be able to get into that mode. “Hey, let’s get into this together. We do find a model that works and it fits everyone, but you have to take care of your part and we’ll have to take care of our part.”
How would you describe the ultimate goal of what you’re trying to do?
We’re trying to give people the freedom of mobility in a way that they love, without all of that hassle that comes along with it. That you’re polluting, you’re making a mess, and that you’re spending too much money.
This Sidewalk Talk Q&A has been edited for length. Follow Sidewalk Labs with our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our new podcast, “City of the Future.” | https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/whim-is-a-mobility-app-with-a-modest-proposal-give-up-your-car-f2db0bf2ba65 | ['Eric Jaffe'] | 2019-08-27 19:43:45.647000+00:00 | ['Mobility', 'Cities', 'Transportation', 'Interview', 'Helsinki'] |
Flash games as told by Flash creators #14: Jordan Magnuson | Every week during the 100 Days for Flash, we celebrate the history of Flash games and the peoples who made them by asking Flash creators about the Flash games that inspired them, influenced their works, or simply games they find noteworthy. For more informations, go to The Museum of Screens.
This week’s creator is Jordan Magnuson, game designer and writer, founder of the websites GameTrekking, TIGSource and Necessary Games, maker of Loneliness, The Killer, and many more. I reached out to ask him about the Flash games that he remember the most. Here is his answer…
First of all I just want to say thank you for working to showcase and preserve the legacy of Flash game development. In a way, Flash existed as a unique medium within the broader ecosystem of videogames, and I think it was really an incredibly exciting medium (largely for the dual accessibility it offered to creators on the one side, and players on the other by virtue of in-browser play). At a time when videogames seemed rather stagnant to me, the world of Flash games offered a seemingly endless supply of strange, personal creations that often managed to surprise me. And most of the time that’s all I want from a videogame: just to be a little bit surprised. Just to find something interesting, something resonant, something lovely, something horrible, something a little bit unexpected. Here are three Flash games that managed to do that for me.
Daniel Benmergui’s I Wish I Were The Moon, 2008
A lovely little game that works simultaneously as a micro-narrative exploration, a one-move interactive riddle, and a poem. In 2008 that combination was a little bit mind-blowing, and in 2020 the game is still beautiful and evocative.
Adam Saltsman’s Fathom, 2009
A game that looks familiar at the start, but then turns into something else entirely in a way that evokes mystery and wonder. I keep playing games in the hopes that more of them will be like this one.
Axcho’s The Love Letter, 2012
A wonderful little slice of life game that takes familiar mechanics and recasts them. We need more games about just another day at school that was transformed by that one note in your locker when you were oh so young.
Thanks a lot to Jordan Magnuson. You can follow him on Twitter or check out Necessary Games. | https://medium.com/@touloutoumou/flash-games-as-told-by-flash-creators-14-jordan-magnuson-5eb0fa92e58d | [] | 2020-12-27 20:28:38.452000+00:00 | ['Flash', 'Videogames', 'Internet'] |
Did CDC Delays in Up-To-Date Masking Advice Cost Health Workers’ Lives? | Kaiser Family Foundation (KNN)
By Christina Jewett, MARCH 12, 2021
Since the start of the pandemic, the most terrifying task in health care was thought to be when a doctor put a breathing tube down the trachea of a critically ill covid patient.
Those performing such “aerosol-generating” procedures, often in an intensive care unit, got the best protective gear even if there wasn’t enough to go around, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
And for anyone else working with covid patients, until a month ago, a surgical mask was considered sufficient.
A new wave of research now shows that several of those procedures were not the most hazardous.
Recent studies have determined that a basic cough produces about 20 times more particles than intubation, a procedure one doctor likened to the risk of being next to a nuclear reactor.
Other new studies show that patients with covid simply talking or breathing, even in a well-ventilated room, could make workers sick in the CDC-sanctioned surgical masks.
The studies suggest that the highest overall risk of infection was among the front-line workers — many of them workers of color — who spent the most time with patients earlier in their illness and in sub-par protective gear, not those working in the covid ICU. | https://medium.com/@joaquimcardosodorosario/did-cdc-delays-in-up-to-date-masking-advice-cost-health-workers-lives-76b4680d2ff4 | ['Joaquim Cardoso'] | 2021-03-15 01:36:38.838000+00:00 | ['Masks', 'N95'] |
How do capitalism and socialism play out in modern transportation? | How do capitalism and socialism play out in modern transportation?
Transportation is the vascular system of societies. Let’s use it to probe societies deepest questions in the age of informed technologies.
Aerial of Trucks at the Port of Los Angeles | Nearmap
In 1952, English mathematician and transport analyst John Glen Wardrop stated two principles for equilibrium route assignments for vehicles in traffic. The first principle, the principle of user equilibrium states no vehicle can reduce its travel time by changing its individual route. In other words, for this equilibrium, travel times on all routes are the same. Whereas the second principle is for social optimal travel. This occurs when vehicles cooperate to reduce average travel time. Let’s illustrate this through an example.
User Equilibrium | Skanda Vivek
Above, you see three paths from Origin to Destination: AB, AED, and CD. The travel times on each link are given in the formula in minutes, with x being the number of vehicles traveling on the link and a total of 100 vehicles in this scenario.
From setting the travel times equal on all 3 paths, we get travel time=3.75 minutes, for every driver. Thus, no driver benefits from changing their route individually, which is the user equilibrium. But is this the best outcome?
Social Optimal | Skanda Vivek
It turns out that the best outcome is when path E is not used! When drivers cooperate to not use path E, the average time is reduced to 3.5 minutes per driver! This is also referred to the Braess’ Paradox, where removing roads could actually reduce travel time.
Of course, a defector could decide to use path E. More defectors would ultimately lead to the selfish user equilibrium. But perfect coordination is clearly superior.
Capitalist vs socialist routing
In essence, user equilibrium is the outcome of a free market ideology. Every driver has same access to route information, and ultimately chooses the route that minimizes their individual travel time, or maximizes their individual benefit. The result? A sub-optimal routing strategy. Whereas, the social optimal prioritizes global travel times. In general, it is possible that individual drivers might suffer by traveling for longer, but the social optimal strategy reduces the total travel cost, or maximizes the social benefit.
But how can a society coordinate to achieve this minimal cost? Currently, the best solutions for traffic are routing software like Google Maps, that give everyone the same information and best path. This is the same as selfish routing, the user equilibrium. Instead, what if everyone were given different routes to maximize the social good by minimizing global travel times? You might say well I want to reach work on time, and don’t want to sacrifice for someone else. But when this game is played 261 times a year when you go to the workplace, on average you will reduce your travel time! The increasing prevalence of big data technologies will hopefully help achieve this vision.
In the near future, it might be possible to tightly coordinate routing and streamline transportation. This can be extremely important during emergencies such as hurricanes. During hurricane Irma, there were traffic jams from Florida to Tennessee — over 700 miles long. Coordinated routing and information could make evacuation traffic jams a thing of the past.
The broader societal context
I like to think of transportation as a stage for society. Transportation is extremely complex, but simpler than the interconnected complexities of society. Take this example of selfish vs social routing. In society, the scenarios are not that simple. Capitalism has served us pretty well, even though it is clearly not optimal. Why is this the case? It’s because of a lot of additional complexities, and small perturbations that can have large emergent consequences. For example, if half of our society believes socially optimal solutions are ‘evil’ because of misinformation, no matter how large the potential for improvement is, it will end up failing. Another issue is the person or group that decides what is socially optimal could have flawed judgement.
But how could big data and information revolutionize our society? During this presidential election cycle, more than 10 billion$ were spent — that’s larger than the GDP of Haiti! But isn’t the reason we have elections for the people? Do the people benefit from blowing money on TV, Google, and Facebook ads? Rather than spending in this way, big data and scientific methods could make it objectively possible to infer which policies work for the larger societal good through detailed information gathering. More money can be allocated towards optimal policies rather than infighting between political parties. The catch is that this is a powerful tool, that can also be misused. Transparency, accountability, and big data — the confluences of these 3 could change society for the better. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-do-capitalism-and-socialism-play-out-in-modern-transportation-5e2f86b7718c | ['Skanda Vivek'] | 2020-11-07 14:47:17.005000+00:00 | ['Transportation', 'Science', 'Society', 'Economics', 'Technology'] |
Gray clouds race across the sky, blown by the north-westerly winds, as Grandpa looks out the window. | Too many sit in gray darkness, longing for loved ones who passed this year in the fight for their life. Like the damp wind penetrating the bone, loneliness overwhelms those souls isolated in their homes to protect them from this infectious and deadly disease.
The embers spring to flame, then into a bright and shining glow rising from his heart.
Today is a special day—a day of glad tidings, of hope, and light. A day to lift longing spirits by the hand of kindness out of the darkness and into the light.
You say I am not a celebrator of this tradition. Many whose spiritual journey has taken them on other paths recognize the spirit and intention of this day.
A glow of anticipation rises with visions of children’s laughter and excitement. Today Grandpa will see the momentary joy on the faces of five younglings from ages fifteen to two. He has already tasted this dish once with three other younglings the Saturday before.
Grammy scurries around in final preparation. She picks up a piece of ribbon here and wrapping paper rolls there. Puts away the tape, scissors, and utensils.
After coffee and Christmas Morn Casserole, we will embark on traditional festive activity and taste the hope and joy we all long for. Merry Christmas and blessings to all. | https://medium.com/the-mystics-trove/gray-clouds-race-across-the-sky-blown-by-the-north-westerly-winds-as-grandpa-looks-out-the-window-aed9944a8476 | ['Don Feazelle'] | 2020-12-25 23:32:34.717000+00:00 | ['Light', 'Hope', 'Loneliness', 'Short Form', 'Christmas'] |
Reflections on Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk | Written by Jay Shetty, a personality known for his videos and podcasts on living a purposeful and spiritual life, Think Like a Monk scrambled up the charts — and I just wanted to see what the hype was all about. Though most wouldn’t guess from his outward appearance, Jay has spent time living a monastic life. Struggling to meet the status quo of an Indian household and fulfill the hopes and desires of his family, Jay was lost. One fortunate day, he reluctantly attended a talk featuring a monk by the name of Gauranga Das. He developed an instant curiosity that drove him to explore life at an ashram for the next four summers, and, later on, led him to make the life changing decision of leaving everything behind and becoming a Hindu monk. After three years of learning how to think like a monk, his guru told him that there would be greater value and service if he left the ashram and shared what he learned with the world. This book is one of the sublime results of this action, a shocking revelation for the modern world.
Jay Shetty creates an immersive experience through personal anecdotes, quotes from renowned entities, and academic research to give his readers a lens into the monk world. Most of us reading his book wouldn’t take such drastic measures towards attaining peace and satisfaction. In the world we live in today, such a task is difficult to carry out — especially with our society’s picture of a good person: one who deserves to go to Heaven, Nirvana or the Good Place. In the process of modernizing and making everything “easier” to understand, I believe that the basic fundamentals of living a prosperous life have gotten lost over the years. Jay does a remarkable job to help the layman understand and practice how to live a better life — one with meaning and purpose. He acknowledges time and again that taking the leap of faith is not something the common man would prioritize, but he makes the starting point of one’s spiritual journey accessible. He says, “the greater your investment, the greater your return.”
As I started reading Think Like A Monk, I was in awe after seeing so many parallels to Jain philosophy and our core beliefs. In Jainism, the purest form of the soul exhibits total bliss, ultimately achieving a state of inner peace. It is precisely this inner peace that Jay writes about, guiding us through a meditative excursion with three checkpoints: Let Go, Grow, and Give. Let me be your tour guide as we walk through his guided trail.
Starting Point: Let Go
For starters, you and I are pretty much strangers to one another, so let’s introduce ourselves! Who are you? Who am I? Most of us get stumped right here. But what is our true identity? We are so used to describing ourselves using an external, temporary attribute that isn’t really us. For example, “Hi, I’m Shruti Jain and I’m a Software Engineer” doesn’t tell you who I really am. That is my job role, and further, it tells you nothing about my true self: my soul. Jay recalls through an anecdote: He [Gauranga Das] says, “Your identity is a mirror covered with dust. When you first look in the mirror, the truth of who you are and what you value is obscured. Clearing it may not be pleasant, but only when that dust is gone can you see your true reflection.” It is our responsibility to remove these distractions that are fogging up the clarity of our true self.
Maybe we work together and figure out how to remove these distractions. How hard can it be, right? Well, there is a clutter of emotions — both positive and negative — that we deal with especially in today’s day and age. For example, a lot of these emotions stem from the instant gratification or lack thereof from social media, in turn causing harm to our mental and physical health. Throughout life, we ride a rollercoaster of emotions, and through its course we collect what we know as karma — good (punya) and bad (paap). These emotions impede our dharmic progress, detrimental to our spiritual growth in Jainism. How do I prevent this?
Jay shares a very practical approach to identifying, assessing, and acting upon the negativities in our life. To start off, audit your negative thoughts. Though it is near impossible to patrol our thoughts so as to make sure they are positive one hundred percent of the time, we must not undermine the importance of the following:
challenging ourselves to identify the root of the negativity
acknowledging whether it stems from within or the individuals around us
acting upon it while being mindful of the mental space and energy we allow for it to absorb
Another practice Jay highlights is Ksama: Amending Anger — Seeking Forgiveness and Forgiving. Sound familiar? Michhami Dukkadam and Uttam Kshama are integral parts of our religious practice. Hey! Maybe we can refer to his exercise and write out forgiveness letters to individuals of all relations to us — new, old, and even those we aren’t close with anymore. He says, “The pinnacle of forgiveness, true sattva, is to wish the person who caused you pain well” (p.44). Oh, and friend, if I may call you that, don’t forget to forgive yourself too!
Wait, Shruti. Sure, I can learn to forgive, but can I really forgive without knowing the root cause? That’s fair, and lucky for us Jay left us with some insight. He describes the root as that which prevents life, not death — fear. What’s your biggest fear? Well, before you answer that, here’s a thought: THE CAUSE OF FEAR: ATTACHMENT. THE CURE OF FEAR: DETACHMENT. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s reminiscent of one of our core beliefs in Jainism — Aparigraha, or non-possessiveness.
Attachments are some of the greatest sources of our pain. From here, it is just a lifelong practice of mentally changing our relationship with all the items on our list with the ultimate goal of detaching from them and learning how to enjoy and value what is in front of us.
All this talk about negative emotions and fears are sending shivers down my spine. Jay is definitely right to have us LET GO of the negativity! I think it’s time we take the reins to these emotions in our hands and navigate through the new opportunities that stem our way by uncovering the deeply rooted truths. We will use them to build a meaningful and happier life, ultimately realizing that true happiness is within; it is internal. We have to live life with intentions by having them permeate through our behavior. Be mindful!
Wow only one-third of the way to our final destination! How are you holding up? Whenever you are ready, now that we have let go of so much baggage, it’s time to fill that void with some good stuff.
Next Stop: Grow
A concept to familiarize yourself with when you embark on the second stretch is that of the monkey mind vs. the monk mind. Think of it as the monkey mind is the child and the monk mind is the pragmatic adult. Jay refers to the conflict between the two to help us understand the impulses that drive our decisions and actions off track and how we expect the monk mind to direct us to pause and assess the bigger picture. It is our responsibility to nurture and train our monk mind to gain more self-control and become more aware of the different voices inside us.
Jay paints a vivid picture for us to better understand the influence of our 5 senses on our thoughts and actions depending on how present and developed our monk mind is. “These senses are responsible for our desires and attachments and have the power to pull us in the direction of impulsivity, passion, and pleasure destabilizing the mind” (p.152). He uses an analogy of a charioteer (the intellect) and his horses (the senses). In the first scenario, the charioteer is untrained and asleep on the job, so the horses have complete control of the reigns (the mind) and have freedom to lead the charioteer anywhere. The horses make their own judgements based off of whatever is around them, veering the chariot off the road “in the direction of temporary pleasure and instant gratification” (p.151). In the second scenario, the charioteer is trained, awake, aware, and attentive with the reigns to the chariot in his hands, carefully steering along the correct route. The horses, in this case, are completely controlled by the charioteer’s command.
Do you think your monkey mind or monk mind overpowers the majority of the time? It’s okay, I need to learn to calm my monkey mind too! It takes identifying our dharma, establishing a routine, and taking control of our mind by destroying our egotistical mindset to cleanse our soul of its impurities. Dharma, in the context of this book, is defined as Passion + Expertise + Usefulness. Our dharma is within us already, it’s a matter of opening up our mind and curiosities to it. However, if we let our monkey mind thrive and take over, we make ourselves vulnerable to violence, close-mindedness, and greed. This is all a work in progress and can take a lifetime to achieve, but now that we are starting to dig deeper into our souls and how we can live a purposeful life, how do you feel?
Final Destination: Give
We have reached the last stretch of our little excursion!
With all the enlightening insight and practices we have learned so far, it is very important to practice gratitude, or genuine appreciation for everything in our lives, regardless of our progress in our spiritual journey so far. “Even if your life isn’t perfect, build your gratitude like a muscle. If you train it now, it will only strengthen” (p.211).
There are so many ways to express gratitude, from simple words like “thank you” to taking part in a volunteer service to simply being kind to everyone, even strangers. Our lives are composed of the little events we experience, be it commuting to work, working on a class project, or going grocery shopping. The pleasure we receive from these events are dependent on the mutual kindness we give and receive to and from those around us. These acts of kindness go a long way in bringing forth the positive qualities in our life — compassion, resilience, confidence, and passion — and help us form meaningful relationships with ourselves as well as others.
Beyond gratitude, service is the most direct form of giving and it is one of the most satisfying acts for our soul. It not only helps others, but also helps us.
“When you’re living in service, you don’t have time to complain and criticize.
When you’re living in service, your fear goes away.
When you’re living in service, you feel grateful.
Your material attachment diminishes” (p.269). “Service is the direct path to a meaningful life” (p.269).
And with that we have reached the end of our tour through the guidance of Jay Shetty. Though many questions have been left unanswered, it is important to internalize the fact that these changes cannot happen overnight. Regardless, if you have made it till here and have enjoyed the content so far, I highly recommend you invest in this feel-good book as it has a lot of practical advice to offer through the flurry of examples and insights. This was just a surface level depiction of a handful of the many teachings you will encounter in this book! Good luck with your spiritual journey, my friend.
- Shruti Jain | https://youngminds.yja.org/reflections-on-jay-shettys-think-like-a-monk-4ba653d88d7d | ['Young Jains Of America', 'Yja'] | 2020-12-15 19:47:45.976000+00:00 | ['Reflection', 'Book', 'Perspectives', 'Ymq4'] |
How the Coronavirus Pandemic Has Impacted the Travel Industry | Once upon a time, we nonchalantly booked plane tickets to the other side of the world, but that is no longer the case. Instead we must now tiptoe around travel bans or wait patiently for this pandemic to end. It’s clear that no industry has been quite as affected by the pandemic as the travel industry. From spring break to summer vacations, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted travel plans, closed down airlines, businesses, amusement parks, attractions, and cruise lines around the world — many of which rely heavily on tourism. How’s how the pandemic has impacted the travel industry.
100% of destinations around the world imposed travel restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus, according to research from UNWTO. With the travel industry contributing 2.9 trillion-dollars to the GDP in 2019, that number is set to drop significantly for 2020, resulting in a likely 60–80% drop compared to 2019. Tourism decline is especially harsh on destinations that rely heavily on the tourism industry. For example, states like Nevada, where casinos and hotels fuel the economy; and countries like Greece, where touristic islands like Santorini have seemingly become ghost towns, business from tourism is an essential part of these destinations’ economies.
The U.S. Travel Association forecasts that domestic travel will decrease by 45% and 75% internationally by the end of this year. This means that many businesses of these touristic destinations might not make it through the end of the year. The U.S. Travel Association is calling it the Great Travel Depression, with travel industry unemployment at 51%, twice the number during Great Depression’s worst year.
Millions of jobs around the world have been lost, with nearly 7 million in the U.S. alone. Jobs lost range from cafe employees and nightclub owners to tour guides and food service providers, but many lost jobs are particularly within the transportation industry. For example, major airline British Airways has cut up to 12,000 employees alone.
Though Spain reopened its border with Europe and the United Kingdom on June 21, flights have not returned to normalcy. Last June major Spanish destination Barcelona received 30,200 incoming flights. With an average of 1,000 incoming flights a day during June 2019, June 2020 has experienced a sharp decline. Currently, Barcelona is receiving slightly over 100 flights per day, a near 90% decrease comparatively.
Even as lockdown measures around the world ease up, many tourists are postponing their travel plans or canceling altogether. For example, according to research from Longwoods International, 69% of Americans say they are changing their travel plans due to the coronavirus pandemic. 36% of those American travelers have canceled their plans entirely. Furthermore, 29% changed to a drivable destination as opposed to flying, suggesting that many will opt for domestic travel.
Another area of the travel industry that has been largely impacted by the pandemic is hotels. A 96% decrease in hotel stays hit Italy as well as 68% in China, and currently 56% in the United States. However, high vacancies are seen across the world even as countries reopen borders and loosen restrictions.
An usually quiet Barcelona — Photo by author
Typically, visitors spend 300 million nights in tourist accommodation annually across Spain. However, that number is set to drop significantly due to the coronavirus pandemic as hotels across the country were closed from mid-March throughout much of June. Even now as European and British tourists are welcomed back to Spain, many hotels report high vacancies, and hotels that usually staggered between 80–90% occupancy are now experiencing a drop to around 25%, according to El País. The impact of COVID-19 on Spain’s travel industry is felt throughout the country, and quieter streets and empty attractions are a clear indication of that.
As for attractions, theme parks like Disney World and Disneyland have also taken a major hit. Both theme parks closed their doors in mid-March in response to the coronavirus. These closures are big — Disney’s four theme parks are among the five most visited in the world.
Though Disney World in Florida expects to reopen on July 11, California’s Disneyland will be postponing its original reopening date of July 17, due to the continuous rise in cases in the US. Of course, once Disney parks reopen strict health measures are expected to be set in place.
Major attractions around the world have seen several month-long closures. The Louvre in Paris, the world’s largest art museum, closed in March. Though typically The Louvre only shuts its doors three times a year and receives over 9 million visitors every year, its closure along with the Eiffel Tower and other prominent admission-required attractions in Paris have taken a blow to its economy. Fortunately for the city, the museum is set to reopen on July 6, though there’s no making up for the millions of visitors already lost throughout spring and what will continue to be lost, as tourism is at an all-time low.
The sector of the travel industry that may have it worst of all is cruise lines. The cruise industry accounts for $150 billion annually and reports over 1.7 million jobs worldwide. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a No Sail Order on March 14 and has repeatedly extended that order.
The Royal Caribbean cruise line does not expect to resume any of its sailing routes until September 16, after the peak season. However, certain routes like Canada and Bermuda will stay closed until the end of October. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a loss of salaries and benefits for many cruise line employees.
Those who do travel this year can expect social distancing measures at airports, a mandate to wear masks on flights, and sanitizing hands before entering hotels, attractions, restaurants, and shops.
To sum it up, it’s uncertain how many businesses will survive this pandemic, especially small businesses like bars, cafes, and nightclubs that cannot offer many takeaway options to keep their businesses running amidst a pandemic. Tour guides, travel agencies, and even travel bloggers are seeing a potentially dire cut in income. It’s clear that every sector worldwide has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. What still remains unclear is when life will return to normal, especially for the travel industry.
For more information on travel restrictions worldwide, please advise this compilation from the New York Times. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-impacted-the-travel-industry-bce8d15bab55 | ['Christa Adams'] | 2020-07-24 08:50:25.224000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Coronavirus', 'Tourism', 'World News', 'Airlines'] |
The Harrowing Dystopian March of Coles Minis | The excessively upbeat Coles jingles shower the Australian public in earworms with a vigour and effectiveness Goebbles could only dream of. Murdoch media joyfully plaster entire pages of the local slack jawed tabloid shitfit with ads for what could easily be argued the most venomous promotional product on Australia. And those who prefer not to think about the realities of our world hoard Coles Minis with the effervescent ignorance of a Labrador pissing on an electric fence.
Australian consumer culture has long been defined by two corporations reining godlike over all food and beverage consumed upon our sun burnt land. With the great milk wars and green grocers across the country “straight up not having a good time” Coles have made a decisive right hook at Woolworths and the remaining tatters of any dignity the Australian shopper may have had.
Unfortunately for those who prefer to maintain the illusion of a rational public this right hook takes the form of Coles Minis. Tiny figurines which allow you to conveniently collect all the grocery items you just purchased so you can admire the brands Coles prefers you buy all over again. The eerie, self-imposed delusion of collecting smaller versions of the food you had to purchase in order to get the figurines is a labyrinthine windmill of circular logic. Those who answer interviews with a sentiment along the lines of “it’s just a bit of fun” should consider throwing themselves under the nearest Coles semi-trailer.
Let us consider for a second the monumental invasion of the Australian psyche Coles must perpetuate in order to make this promotion and by association their business successful. Coles have successfully convinced human beings (with brains) that they should be excited to collect small, plastic versions of the food products why so desperately need for their morning pep or obsessive-compulsive cleaning habits. The fact that particular brands are included while others ignored brushed aside as a natural practicality of a carry case “well you can’t fit all the products in there”. No, of course not, merely the ones Coles most hopes your 4-year-old grows familiar with as you bring the psychological asbestos into your play-room. In an even greater feat of brainwashing acrobatics, Coles have also managed to persuade the same semi-conscious public that a toy replica of a checkout is not only worth money but worthy of introduction to their children.
“Here, (insert misc modern name here) you can practice for your inevitable service to the glorious overlord. Would you like to be in the petrol station, alcohol or grocery division?”
Consumerist indoctrination of children is nothing new, but this particularly hypocritical assault on Australia’s children is more reprehensible than usual. The Australian public is acting as a willing vector — populating their subconscious and that of their immediately family with the same affection for Coles as an anti-tank dog holds for the dinner bell. By choosing to take these little toys we are strengthening the strangle hold Coles has on our hearts and minds and by the same token our children. We have the worlds most saturated grocery market. Every Coles, Woolworths, Officeworks, Bunnings, Target, Kmart, Big W or Dan Murphies belongs to one of these two companies. We are watching the most powerful corperations in the world duking it out for control over our essential-for-life products and we are ever so willingly bringing their propaganda into our homes. These Minis are the eyes and ears of Big Brother silently and inexorably inundating the sub-conscious of our children. We are calmly listening to the lullaby of the telescreen as we lull ourselves into the Orwellian day dream.
The earlier a child is introduced to a brand the more likely they are to grow up purchasing from that brand. This is a carefully calculated move on the part of Coles to slide their image into the hands of the youngest Australians. Their cunning a sure-fire advantage 15 years from now, when the unwitting victims come of age.
There is no such thing as a fun little toy when provided by corporate vested interests. You may choose to take these toys but do so knowing they are an attempt to increase your subconscious familiarity with one of Australia’s largest companies so you will buy with them more. Remember when you complete the full set that you have not only satisfied your need to hoard but also crumbled to the will of Australia’s tyrannical corporate big brother. | https://medium.com/@ryanharvey_61726/the-harrowing-dystopian-march-of-coles-minis-52d7b0f0a609 | ['Ryan Harvey'] | 2019-09-01 12:32:52.264000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Consumerism', 'Dystopia', 'Australia'] |
How The Matrix Paved The Way For Blockchain And Decentralisation | The red pill movement is here…
How The Matrix Paved The Way For Blockchain And Decentralisation
I just watched the trailer for the 4th Matrix film, aptly titled resurrections (if you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing and watch this now!).
Seeing that famous green code again got me thinking about the time I saw the first film. It was then, and still is now, a very revolutionary and on point set of ideas about the evolution of technology and the human race.
The story of interoperability between man and machine, and the eventual control by machines is actually not too far off what has happened nearly 22 years since the first Matrix. Just not in the exact way that is depicted in the films.
Instead of being physically connected in a tub to machines sapping our energy. We are staring into screens which are draining our attention, mental energy and showing us a world that isn’t exactly real or true in many cases.
And although we reside in the real world (or at least I think we do — Elon might disagree!).
We spend most if not all of our time in a secondary digital world where we engage with a multitude of sub-digital worlds and experiences. No jack in the back of our heads, just a device glued to our hands and seducing our eyeballs.
Many of the themes that the original Matrix explored including independence, freedom and forms of decentralisation from a system, are the same things that exist in the blockchain world.
The characters in the Matrix want to break free from their virtual prison to have freedom of choice. The world of Blockchain tech follows a similar line. Crypto exists as an alternative form of currency in rebellion to a centralised system controlled by what many deemed as shady characters.
De-Fi exists to empower people with the option to use financial products which grow their wealth beyond the restrained rates fixed by centralised institutions and NFT’s exist to provide a new form of ownership that’s not governed nor can be controlled by traditional institutions.
So the world of Blockchain and all its creations have a lot in common with the narrative of the Matrix. Well, in my opinion anyway.
The red pill, blue pill question is basically like asking, do you want to earn 0.01% from your traditional bank account or delve down that rabbit hole and see where those Crypto saving products could take you?
It’s all about choice — freewill.
It’s not only a cool techy, cyberpunk influenced piece of art. It’s also like a strange Nostradamus type prophet, telling us the future before it happens.
Tech addiction, decentralisation, man and machine integration are all things we live with today. The original cryptocurrency in Bitcoin was born about 10 years after the Matrix hit our screens, and it was everything that the movie promoted.
Choice, freedom and freewill.
As Blockchain tech continues to grow, innovations like NFT’s and De-Fi will continue to rise, giving way to even more digital tools that reshape our world.
We have most certainly already dived down the rabbit hole but just how much further will we go?
More from me
Worldwide crypto adoption rises by 888% in 12 months: What this means for the future of finance.
Million Dollar Bitcoin: Fantasy or a certain reality? | https://medium.com/coinmonks/how-the-matrix-paved-the-way-for-blockchain-and-decentralisation-e22ade176564 | ['Ross Stevenson'] | 2021-09-12 17:34:54.301000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Future Technology'] |
Python workflow for interactive projects (Colab + Github + Drive). Kaggle use case. | Take your Jupyter Notebooks to the next level. Compete with style.
Jupyter Notebooks have become one of the most used tools for Python development in Data Science [1]. They are highly preferred by many data scientists due to their user-friendly interface and interactive computational environment.
Image from JetBrains
Project Jupyter has been offering 100% open-source software in order to make Jupyter Notebooks accessible for everyone since 2014 [2]. However, these notebooks have limitations:
Jupyter Notebooks run on your local machine , making the computational power available to you entirely dependent on your computer’s CPU/GPU/RAM/etc. specs. While most laptops are more than enough for the basic tasks one encounters when starting out in data science, you might quickly hit barriers once you start doing machine learning tasks (especially deep learning) on your local machine.
, making the computational power available to you entirely dependent on your computer’s CPU/GPU/RAM/etc. specs. While most laptops are more than enough for the basic tasks one encounters when starting out in data science, you might quickly hit barriers once you start doing machine learning tasks (especially deep learning) on your local machine. Jupyter Notebooks do not come with version control per se. It is right that you can upgrade your Jupyter Notebooks to JupyterLab, and from there install the extensions @jupyterlab/github and @jupyterlab/git. I have used that before, but today I will show you a better option.
Google Drive + Google Colab + GitHub
In order to overcome the aforementioned limitations we will use the following combination:
Google Colab: Colaboratory is a free Jupyter notebook environment that runs in the cloud and stores its notebooks on Google Drive. Ie, we will use Google Colab to develop our Jupyter Notebooks without depending on the computational power of our laptops. It can also be used as a shell to run bash and git commands.
Colaboratory is a free Jupyter notebook environment that runs in the cloud and stores its notebooks on Google Drive. Ie, we will use Google Colab to develop our Jupyter Notebooks without depending on the computational power of our laptops. It can also be used as a shell to run bash and git commands. Google Drive: When we use Google Colab, the code is executed in a virtual machine private to our Google account. These virtual machines are deleted when idle for a while, and have a maximum lifetime of 12 hours. Therefore it is not ideal to store our work there since it will eventually be lost. The solution that we propose here is to store your output (weights, csvs… ) in a cloud storage hosting. As we all know, Google Drive is the cloud storage provided by Google. It provides 15 GB of free storage and it is the default storage system when using Colab.
When we use Google Colab, the code is executed in a virtual machine private to our Google account. These virtual machines are deleted when idle for a while, and have a maximum lifetime of 12 hours. Therefore it is not ideal to store our work there since it will eventually be lost. The solution that we propose here is to store your output (weights, csvs… ) in a cloud storage hosting. As we all know, Google Drive is the cloud storage provided by Google. It provides 15 GB of free storage and it is the default storage system when using Colab. GitHub: A code hosting platform for version control and collaboration. It’s a good practice to use version control and branch strategy even when working with Jupyter Notebooks.
The three parts of our infrastructure
Other cloud-based notebook services
Google Colab is not the only free cloud service for Jupyter Notebooks. These are the most relevant to me:
Google Colaboratory
Kaggle Kernels
Microsoft Azure Notebooks
Datalore
Binder
CoCalc
All of them are completely free, they do not require you to install anything in your local machine, and they give you access to a Jupyter-like environment.
I personally like Colab because of the following:
GPUs often include Nvidia K80s, T4s, P4s and P100s. Their availability varies over time. [3]
TPU v2–8 [4]
Idle cut-off 90 minutes
Maximum 12 hours
On the other hand, we also have the Kaggle Kernels [5]:
Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU
TPU v3–8
Idle cut-off 60 minutes
Maximum 9 hours using GPUs
Maximum 3 hours using TPUs
As I am an active participant of Kaggle competitions, I am always combining both. This can be managed easily using features toggles. More on that later.
Setting up the workflow
In this section, I am going to guide you through the different steps you must complete in order to configure the workflow. First things first, I am assuming that you already have a Goggle and Github accounts and you are familiar with them. Otherwise you will not be able to complete the process. If you are ready, just create a Google Colaboratory Notebook using your Google account. You will have to copy the following snippets of code as cells step by step.
1. Feature toggles and path
The above snippet defines the feature toggles that we will activate or deactivate depending in our use case. It has several of them since I have tried to make it as general as possible.
As you can observe, I will be using my private repository osic-pulmonary-fibrosis-progression as an example. You should put the name of your public or private repository of interest. Same for FILE_NAME.
Notice that there is the possibility to deactivate both COLAB and KAGGLE toggles. This should be done in case we want to run the notebook locally using our IDE or editor of preference (e.g. PyCharm). This is beneficial in certain situations. I will comment more on that at the end of the article.
2. Linking personal Google Drive storage with Google Colab
Here we mount Google Drive to Colab. Mounting is the process by which the OS makes files and directories of a storage service (Google Drive) available for the users via the computer’s file system. In order to do so, we will be required to authenticate our account. Notice that we can mount a Google Drive account different from the Google account from which we are running Google Colab.
If you see “Mounted at /content/drive”, it means that Google Drive was mounted successfully. After that, you should be able to find a new directory called gdrive in the Colab file explorer.
3. Clone GitHub repository to Colab Runtime system
Here we clone our GitHub repository to the personal Virtual Machine initiated when we started the Colab session. Remember that it has a maximum lifetime of 12 hours.
Notice we will need to pass some credentials in case the GitHub repository to clone is private. In order to keep the credentials safe from the public (we do not want everyone to have access to our private repositories), we will store them in a file (git.json) in our private Google Drive account. In this way, the credentials will only be accessible during the Colab session if you have access to the Google Drive account.
How to generate our credentials file
Go to your Google Drive account. Create a directory called Git. Inside this directory create a file called git.json. The file needs to look like this:
In case you do not have a GitHub access token, generate it as follows:
Go to user profile at the top right corner → click on settings → then choose developer settings.
Replace the credentials into the git.json file.
Once you have the credentials ready, you should be able to clone the repository successfully. If so, you will find a new directory with the name of the repository in the Colab file explorer once you execute the cell.
We can also clone our repository on Google Drive. If you prefer to do so, just uncomment the line of code that is mentioned in the feature toggles snippet. Following this second option, you can save your modifications in your Google Drive synchronously. However, I prefer to push my changes to GitHub and clone the repository in each session. This becomes more practical if you are also running your notebooks locally using your IDE.
In case you want to run the Notebook locally, you need to copy the git.json file we generated in your home directory.
4. Kaggle API Setup
(Not necessary if you do not plan to use Kaggle)
Similar to what we did in the previous step, here we pass the credentials of Kaggle in order to use its API.
Go to your Google Drive account. Create a directory called Kaggle. Inside this directory create a file called kaggle.json. The file needs to look like this:
In case you do not have a Kaggle API token, generate it as follows [6]:
Sign in to your Kaggle account. From the site header, click on your user profile picture, then on “My Account” from the dropdown menu. This will take you to your account settings at https://www.kaggle.com/account. Scroll down to the section of the page labelled API. To create a new token, click on the “Create New API Token” button. This will download a fresh authentication token onto your machine.
Replace the credentials into the kaggle.json file.
In case you want to run the Notebook locally, you need to copy the kaggle.json file we generated in your home directory.
5. Download competitions data using the Kaggle API
(Not necessary if you do not plan to use Kaggle)
Here we create a new directory called input inside the VM and we download the data of the requested competition. Notice the data is stored in the Colab Runtime system so it does not occupy space in your Drive.
As you can observe, here I am reusing the GIT_REPOSITORY name to download the data. This is because my repository is called as the competition: “osic-pulmonary-fibrosis-progression”. If this is not your case, just replace the lines with the original Kaggle API commands from the competition webpage.
If successful, we should see a new directory called input inside the cloned repository, and all the data stored in it.
Keep in mind that you do not want to push your input folder into GitHub, so you should have a .gitignore file with input/ in it.
6. Save changes to GitHub
Remember that we can run all git commands from here. Therefore, we can automate the process of saving to GitHub.
Notice that FILE_NAME should coincide with the name of the notebook. Even though this is useful, I usually do not use it unless I need to let my whole pipeline running and want to save the changes after it. The alternative is to save it directly using the tools from Colab: Go to File, then Save a copy in GitHub. This will commit and push your changes to GitHub.
The workflow
Now that we have everything set up, let me describe briefly how my workflow usually looks like:
Create a repository.
Start a new notebook from Colab.
Copy paste all the mentioned cells.
Configure the feature toggles and constants.
Work on the notebook.
Save changes to GitHub continuously.
After that,
Once I start a session again, upload the notebook from GitHub using the Colab toolbar.
If I need to debug, I clone the repo locally, pull and open the notebook with my preferred IDE (PyCharm).
References
[1] “Python Developers Survey 2019 Results”. JetBrains. https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/python-developers-survey-2019/.
[2] Project Jupyter. https://jupyter.org/about.
[3] Google. https://research.google.com/colaboratory/faq.html#gpu-availability.
[4] Google. https://cloud.google.com/tpu/docs/tpus.
[5] Kaggle. https://www.kaggle.com/docs/notebooks.
[6] Kaggle. https://www.kaggle.com/docs/api. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/python-workflow-for-interactive-projects-colab-github-drive-kaggle-use-case-92252ce575e2 | ['Aleix López Pascual'] | 2020-10-16 13:38:45.199000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Kaggle', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Google Colab'] |
What Is a Good Business Leader’s Most Critical Leadership Skill? | The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Stephen Hawking
While we may debate the most important skill of a good business leader, certainly a critical skill is curiosity. That is, demonstrating curiosity and inspiring and cultivating the natural curiosity in your staff. Ineffective business leaders are the ones who have lost their passion and curiosity for their subject or even for their job.
You can’t fake curiosity and passion. The best leaders are the ones who show their passion to continuously learn more about their subject. They are not afraid to show mistakes or admit that they don’t know it all. They continuously seek to experiment with new ideas.
The best leaders guide, coach, inspire and feed that natural flame of curiosity and exploration that lives within every employee. The courage to lead, then, is the courage to expose yourself as you demonstrate your curiosity and passion for business subjects. This kind of passion is both infectious and memorable.
The openness to show your natural curiosity in front of others requires one to be vulnerable. Passionate curiosity demonstrates many things to others, including that we don’t know all the answers or even that we are uncertain about various things. Be curious and never fear your vulnerability.
Become the leader and coach who lights the sparks and inspires those around you to pursue curiosity, exploration, and discovery. | https://medium.com/@mikeschoultz/what-is-a-good-business-leaders-most-critical-leadership-skill-64a6fc3a9b5f | ['Mike Schoultz'] | 2020-12-05 15:22:04.166000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Curiosity', 'Skills'] |
Blogging Guide YouTube Channel | Hey everyone
I just wanted to let you know that I have started uploading some short videos / tutorials to YouTube, discussing Blogging strategies. I currently only have a few videos on my channel, but I plan to upload more. So please check it out and subscribe so that you don’t miss any new content!
The videos will cover many of the stated topics of Blogging Guide, such as:
Medium
Substack
WordPress
Social Media Marketing
SEO
Building a Brand as a Blogger
If there are any topics you want to learn more about (whether it’s through a video or article) feel free to leave a comment on this article or a private note.
Please be sure to Subscribe to my channel! | https://medium.com/blogging-guide/blogging-guide-youtube-channel-41aebce75f3b | ['Medium Formatting'] | 2020-07-10 03:07:07.957000+00:00 | ['Blogging Platform', 'Médium', 'YouTube', 'Blogging Tips', 'Writing Tips'] |
“14” — Glen Saffer Ranting At Kaley — An Education For James Goddard | Glen Saffer, Tommy Robinson’s friend, was recorded ranting at a lady over the phone. He goes into a rage calling Kaley a “b*tch” which is off putting to say the least but there’s irony in this rant given Tommy Robinson and his fans, many of whom are middle aged men like Glen Saffer, present themselves as folks who are looking after British women.
Glen Saffer did well not to have an aneurysm during all his raving, sadly he did not do nearly as well in keeping double standards and errors out of his rant.
I’ll analyse the bits of the rant which interest me below the video.
James Goddard, 14 and Far Right
[Time frame 6.30] Glen asks whether Kaley thinks James Goddard is not far right and whether she knows what “14” means. He gives Kaley a hard time for associating with James Goddard as James Goddard is “Far Right” and mentions “14"
There’s a problem here for Glen if he feels Goddard is Far Right — Tommy associates with Paul Golding. Golding was one of Nick Griffin’s golden boys. Golding is on record saying he wants London to be more white and that London is not even British anymore. It looks like Paul Golding has similar views to James Goddard, surely if Goddard is Far Right in Glen’s eyes then surely Paul Golding is too? Glen may have some talking to do with Tommy once he develops enough courage!
At this stage he also betrays his ignorance of the number 14 in Right Wing circles. Glen makes out it’s linked to Hitler when in fact it’s not necessarily support for Hitler or Nazism. The ADL tell us the 14 words the number 14 represents are:
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”.
As you can see, there’s no explicit reference to violence, Nazis or Hitler in the 14 words. I’ve heard at least one advocate for the 14 words say “14 for all” indicating he wants all people to adopt such a slogan with respect to their various ethnic groups. I just feel it’s unfair to be so simplistic in tarring anybody who writes 14 as a Nazi sympathiser. More of an exploration of their ideas is required before such an ostracising label can be put in place.
There’s another problem for Glen as he has marched with Generation Identity, there’s been many Generation Identity flags at Tommy’s events and Tommy even read Martin Sellner’s speech out in London (I assume the active Glen Saffer was there). Sellner and GI are advocates of the 14 words — they are ethnonationalists. Glen Saffer probably will not question Tommy and his own involvement in Tommy’s group but he’s surely got to see the double standards here. How can he be having a go at Kaley for associating with James Goddard when he sides with Tommy who has and still does associate with people who have sympathies for the 14 worded message? Think about it Glen.
There’s further double standards as Kathryn Blaicklock and Allen Craig (Tommy Robinson’s colleagues at Hearts of Oak have both retweeted Mark Collett see here)
Free Speech, Hearts of Oak and “Tommytard”
[Timeframe 12.00] Glen Safferis upset he was called a “Tommytard” (a derogatory online term for Tommy fans). He conflates this with calling his disabled son a “tard”. Glen is mistaken in my view. As far as I understand James Goddard did not call his son a Tommytard, he called Glen such (if Glen wants to dispute this he needs to provide some evidence and if he acknowledges his mistake he needs to retract this allegation- it’s important not to exaggerate or make mistaken claims which add a greater deal of severity to what was said). I’m no friend of James Goddard but fairness and honesty is important. Glen’s taken offence to the word Tommytard, quite howhe expects kaley to respond to his complaints about Goddard’s name-calling is unclear but there’s irony here again. Tommy Robinson and Tommy fans in their echo-chambers say all sorts of nasty things about Muslims yet Glen does not seem to have the same reaction. Saying nasty drivel about Muslims is not protested by Glen but the word Tommytard is protested vociferously, so much so that Glen threatens James Goddard.
The irony continues, Tommy was part of a free speech protest and is part of Hearts of Oak currently which is advocating for free speech. Glen, if you advocate for free speech then you may end up getting called words you don’t like. Unless, of course, Tommy and his followers are looking for their freedom to offend others (largely Muslims?) to suit a Zionist agenda of demonising Muslims but Geln’s not exactly up for giving wholesale support for free speech.
Another example of this is Holocaust denial which is discussed earlier [10 min timeframe].Glen states he is Jewish and proceeds to tell Kaley James Goddard denies the Holocaust and that she should be offended — I think he was shocked to ear Kaley say she’s Jewish and she’s not really offended by Holocaust denial. Kaley seems like an independt thinker who has rejected the the more aggressive Zionist rhetoric of killing Palestinians despite being raised hearing a family member talkig about killing Palestinians. Contrast this with some Tommy fans who are so eager to bomb Iran and glory in the Chinese persecution of the Uighur Muslims — Kaley has a bigger heart than these Tommy fans. Blind hatred of Muslims leads folks to become heartless.
Getting back onto the theme of being offended. Before talking about Holocaust denial I want to ask Glen what he would do if his fellow Jew (Kaley) said she was offended by Tommy Robinson clearly mocking Jewish noses in a recent ‘joke’ video by Tommy? Would Glen question call out his boss if some Jews were offended?
Simon Evans (The Reverend Simon) has been flirting with questioning the Holocaust. Who is Simon, he’s only one of Tommy’s buddies — he even campaigned with him in the North West of England during his failed MEP bid. Glen may want to get on the phone to Tommy’s pal and ask him if he denies or has reservations about the Holocaust or even questions the figure of 6 million. In addition, Tommy’s about free speech so you’d expect him to support anybody’s speech, even when questioning the Holocaust, if he’s a free speech absolutist…right?
For the record, I don’t question the Holocaust. It happened.
Mark Collett — Guilt By Association + Frank Bruno!
[Time frame 14.20 onwards] Glen wants nothing to do with anybody who supports Mark Collett! There’s a slight problem here for Glen, he has already seen Tommy supports Paul Golding and Golding is close friends with Mark Collett. They were groomed together under Nick Griffin. Glen cannot seriously ask others to disavow anybody who is supporting Collett whilst working for Tommy who has supported Sellner, marched with Generation Identity and is pals with Paul Golding. There’s a double standard here.
Glen mumbles an argument against Mark Collett by bringing Frank Bruno into it. His argument, although not articulated in full is that Mark Collett would not consider Frank to be British. Actually, that’s not true. To be fair to Mark Collett, Collett would consider Frank to be civically British but not ethnically British. What is wrong with that? If indigenous British ethnicities span 1000s of years it’s obvious folks like Sadiq Khan, Fran Bruno and Anthony Joshua are not ethnically British. To make it easier, would you say they are ethnically English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish? They’re not so how can they be ethnically British? I don’t think they would even claim to be ethnically English, Glen. Nick Griffin articulates his position on this subject here which I highly suspect Mark Collett agrees with. To be honest, there’s NOTHING wrong with saying somebody is not ethnically British or English.
There’s more irony here, Tommy has ranted about Sadiq Khan not being British (i.e. Britian is not Sadiq’s country). Why are you triggered with the belief that Mark Collett does not consider Bruno to be British whilst having no issue with Tommy saying Khan is not British but an invader How offensive is that? Sadiq and Frank were both born here Glen — surely you should be ranting about Tommy now rather than just Mark Collett? What’s he matter, is that double standard weighing your tongue down?
There’s further double standards as Catherine Blaicklock and Allen Craig (Tommy Robinson’s colleagues at Hearts of Oak) have both retweeted Mark Collett. Where’s Glen to rant at Tommy for associating with Craig and Blaiklock like he’s just ranted at Kaley for associating with James Goddard?
Glen Corrects Lies Perpetuated By James Goddard and Tommy Robinson
[Timeframe 18.00 ]Glen Saffer, to his credit does (even though he may not have been aware this dialogue will enter the public domain), does touch on the lies about Jaynesh Chudasama, a speeding drink driver who crashed into Tracy Blackwell’s son and two other boys in Hayes. He was driving recklessly whilst 2.5 times over the limit. The man has a Hindu name but this did not stop Tommy and some Tommy fans from perpetuating the lie that it was a Muslim terrorist. Anybody who reads the court papers and investigates it will see it was a drink driver and was not deliberate. It’s come to light now that Tommy backed off privately despite giving oxygen an publicity to Tracy Blackwell’s conspiracy theory. We must mention the fact that Tommy was not responsible enough to publicly disown and repudiate this lie (let’s call it for what it is) which he ultimately helped perpetuate by doing a video on Tracy Backwell’s conspiracy theory. He and others (including James Goddard) sat back mouths shut allowing this lie to be believed by some — including some folks who donated money to JFOB on the wrong-headed belief it was a terrorist attack. This statement from Glen can come in handy as I suspect there are still a few Tommy fans who still believe that lie. What this goes to show, again, is how gullible the anti-Muslim/Islam crowd are, they will believe any old tripe about Muslims. Smarter people amongst them are leaving that that crowd.
Message to Glen
Lastly, unrelated, Glen Saffer uploaded a video featuring a recording of a conversation between Tommy Robinson and a police officer. In that video he forgot to bleep out the name of Tommy;s daughter so inadvertently doxxed her. I ask Glen to remove that video with immediate effect if you have not done so. NOBODY should put Tommy’s daughter’s name into public domain.
Sources used:
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-word
Video 1: In this video it appears Tommy Robinson is playing to the stereotype of a Jewish nose. This could well offend some of our Jewish friends. This should be condemned.
Video 2: This video goes through Allen Craig and Catherine Blaiklock’s links to Tommy through Hearts of Oak whilst showing they retweeted Mark Collett. It also highlights Simon Evans’ reservation around the Holocaust and his association with Tommy.
Video 3: Tommy Robinson says Britain is not Sadiq Khan’s country thus indirectly saying Sadiq Khan is not British despite Sadiq Khan being born here. Tommy’s inconsistency is highlighted too.
Video 4: This video showcase a few folks who know folks lied about the deaths Josh Kennedy, Harry Rice and George Wilkinson. Some people spread the lie it was a Muslim terrorist attack which killed them when in fact it was a speeding drink-driver.
Video 5: Nick Griffin’s views on who is British — civically and ethnically.
Video 6: Showing a double standard amongst the Tommy camp regarding anti-semitism.
Video 7: Demonstrating Paul Golding’s ethnonatiolist leanings and his links to both Tommy and Collett. | https://medium.com/@yahyasnow/14-glen-saffer-ranting-at-kaley-an-education-for-james-goddard-bd22c0a41f12 | ['Yahya Snow'] | 2020-03-08 21:10:16.120000+00:00 | ['Tommy Robinson', 'Muslims', 'Mark Collett', 'Norwich', 'Center Parks'] |
3 Things no one tells you about early pregnancy | 1) There are a lot more warning symptoms than nausea and vomiting
The quintessential early pregnancy symptom is nausea. However, some people never or rarely experience nausea as an early pregnancy symptom. According to research, nausea is thought to be caused by increasing HcG levels as your pregnancy continues. However, just as HcG levels can vary widely among pregnant women so too can their experiences regarding symptoms like nausea and vomiting.
Hormones are mostly to blame for many of the more common pregnancy symptoms, but other mechanisms can be at work as well. Fatigue can be caused by lowering blood sugar and blood pressure, as your body prepares for the additional strain of caring for another life. Headaches are another common symptom and can also be caused by changes in blood sugar and blood pressure.
Other common pregnancy symptoms include tender or swollen breasts, muscle aches, and an overactive bladder. However the most important symptom is a missed period. Unfortunately. . .
2) An irregular period can lead to issues with dating your pregnancy
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
There are many causes for a missed period that don’t involve pregnancy.
Missing your period for 3 months or more is called secondary amenorrhea, which can make it difficult to get pregnant in the first place.
Causes of a missed or irregular period can include Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Endometriosis, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and even innocuous things such as a change in diet and stress.
If you suffer from irregular periods, it can make dating your pregnancy more difficult. The most common way to date a pregnancy is to count from the first day of the last period, adding 280 days to that will give an estimated delivery date.
Unfortunately, for those who suffer from irregular periods, the most common method for determining gestational age assumes a normal cycle pattern and length, in addition to regular ovulation.
If you have irregular periods, your doctor will rely on sonograms and the size of your fetus on initial scans to determine how far along in your pregnancy you are.
3) Miscarriage is common
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
Miscarriage most commonly occurs in the first trimester, and 10–15 percent of known pregnancies result in miscarriage. However, as your age increases so do your chances of miscarriage. Women over 45 can have up to a 50% chance of miscarriage, and risk of miscarriage increases with your first miscarriage.
The most common cause of miscarriage are issues with the developing fetus’ or embryo’s chromosomes. However there are many other causes of miscarriage including infection, malnutrition, and the use of certain medications.
You can likely expect more frequent appointments with your obstetrician during your first trimester, as opposed to your second, partly due to the risk of miscarriage. Your doctor may also be interested in making sure that a variety of tests and screenings are done in order to insure that you can make the best decision for yourself. | https://medium.com/@beasou/3-things-no-one-tells-you-about-early-pregnancy-e9309c37c231 | ['Bea Sou'] | 2020-12-04 00:33:02.567000+00:00 | ['Pregnancy Loss', 'Pregnant', 'Medicine', 'Early Pregnancy Symptoms', 'Pregnancy'] |
Skills Required for Data Scientist | First let’s understand What is data Science?
In simple words, data science is the process of getting insights from structured and unstructured data along with the identification of information from big data. It identifies what the data actually represents & how this information can be transformed into valuable resource in business domain.
Data science possesses various key skills. Let us have a quick look on those points and get familiar with it. Data science requires multiple number of skills, so let’s see what are all those skills and why that specific skill is required?
1. Basic Mathematics :
Having a basic mathematical background initially is necessary for a Data scientist. In building of Machine learning models, developing deep learning models and also to understand the concepts, mathematics plays a vital role. Since most of the ML algorithms have the basis of Statistics, Probability, Linear algebra theories & concepts.
2.Programming:
Now shifting our focus on hands-on skills, knowledge of atleast one programming language is required. Nowadays Python and R languages are ruling the world of Data Science. If you are a beginner then better get started with Python as it is provides a generic approach towards data science. Whereas R language is mainly built by statisticians for statistical analysis purpose. R and Python are state of the art in terms of programming languages oriented towards the field of data science. So, learning them both is an ideal solution.
3. Database :
After we learn to code, it is equally important to learn about databases where most of the data resides. You should be at least at the level of general designing of simple to moderate relational databases and their management. Basic knowledge of SQL can contribute in our journey towards data science. Thus, the data can be taken for analysis in models. While working over cloud system Hadoop can be used. Knowledge of basic distributed system concepts like Pig & Hive would also prove helpful.
4. Machine Learning:
Machine Learning(ML) is teaching machines to perform specific tasks without explicit programming. Machine learns from the data we pass it as input. The process of learning is automatic (on its own) without any human assistance. ML enables analysis of huge volume of data delivering faster & more accurate results. Henceforth, it helps in building different predictive models.
5. Visualization:
As we all know the common human tendency that pictures memorization or understanding is more convincing than theories. Thus, grasping of difficult concepts or identifying new patterns becomes easy after visualization. Similarly, in ML Data Visualization denotes the data, analysis, results, comparisons etc. in pictorial format or graph format. It clarifies the influential factors in business domain for gaining insights in future. Trending tools are Tableau and Power BI.
6. Domain Knowledge:
Knowing the domain in which we are working should be properly known to us. For example, if you work for a finance company, then you must be aware of the finance domain. This domain knowledge indicates specific understanding of their data, models & outcomes. In some service based companies, working has to be done with data from multiple domains.
So, these are some collective skills required for becoming a Data Scientist. In the next post I’ll share detailed description of skills along with the study material. Till then stay tuned with Omni Data Science! | https://medium.com/omni-data-science/skills-required-for-data-scientist-745824092100 | ['Saurabh Dorle'] | 2019-04-25 13:18:49.302000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Data Science Skills'] |
Hey, You: Get Some Sleep | A Letter to Myself — Hey, You: Get Some Sleep
Hey, you. Yea, you. I’m talking to the guy who’s sleeping till 12:00 pm every day. Cut it out.
I get it; I get it. You like coffee, but don’t go blaming the caffeine for your insomnia. It’s simple — put down the hot jo after 2:00 pm. Presto, you feel better.
And exercise? Why don’t you exercise? You know for a fact that running, lifting, jumping up and down all release those essential feel-good chemicals that regulate your daily routine and make you properly tired by the time 11:00 pm rolls around. So why don’t you structure in a thirty-minute slot religiously to get those legs moving?
I know you’ve been making all kinds of excuses, too, and your diet certainly doesn’t help. But let’s get to the true root of the problem: you love television. And you need to stop watching it in your room, with the lights off, till 1:00 am. No one, no one at all is going to be able to fall asleep with that kind of habit. So, instead of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Youtube, why not try reading a book for twenty minutes? And no, I’m not talking about a work of complicated literature with challenging stylistic choices and esotericism. I’m talking about a solid self-help title, easy-to-read autobiography, or relaxing fictional story. Nothing crazy. Please don’t try reading Ulysses at 11:00 pm.
Regardless, I want to help you out, friend. I want to fix this perpetually latent lifestyle you lead because you always wake up late. And I know that now, more than before, it’s difficult to find opportunities to expel energy and structure your time. But here are a few more tips.
1. Melatonin. Give it a shot. But don’t use it all the time. It’s good for regulating the circadian rhythm back to “normal” parameters. The more you use it, as far as I understand and I’m no scientist and I could be wrong, the less effective it is. I mean, after all, melatonin naturally occurs in your body.
2. Try a podcast or two. One of those put-you-to-sleep ones with slow and melodic narration and subtle, classical soundtracks. That’ll knock you right out.
3. Make your bed in the morning.
4. Stop doing work in your bedroom after 6:00 pm, if possible.
5. Do something with family or close friends in the evening, though understandably this is not always possible.
6. Tea — good ole herbal teas. Ginger or peppermint or one made for that thirty-minute period right before bed.
So, there you have it. Listen, we know the problem and it’s not so difficult to find the reasons for it. Give it a try with these solutions and keep your ears open to new ones. Above all else, get some sleep. | https://medium.com/@tcocco/hey-you-get-some-sleep-70b6edb31aba | ['Tom Cocco'] | 2020-12-12 18:02:43.325000+00:00 | ['Sleep', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Hacking', 'Letter To Myself', 'Routine'] |
If a startup founder doesn’t follow up, should I pass? | As an early investor (angel or seed investor), there are thousands of potentially interesting startups that you might invest in.
The issue is that it’s so early! Some companies have users, some have tech, some have a great team, some have revenue, and so on. But more than ever, at this early stage, it’s extremely difficult to figure out which eggs are the good ones.
Because any filter or criteria is so random at this stage, we see a lot of investors who select criterias based on how simple they are to be applied. The simplest and most famous one being: If a user does not follow up, I pass.
Why it’s a good idea
Simple to set up
It’s extremely complex and time consuming to follow up with all the founders you’ve reached out to or been in touch with. If you use Streak or any other CRM tool, your funnel is already complex enough and trying to follow up with everyone would suck up too much of your time.
Why it’s a bad idea
It’s a bad criteria
If a founder doesn’t follow up, he might be:
Busy working on his startup
Talking with other investors
…
In both of these examples, the fact that he didn’t follow up is actually a good indicator of future success, and passing on such a founder might turn out to be a very bad decision.
It does not optimise for time
A startup founder might be a bad investment today and fail, but use his learnings to start a second company which might become a really good investment. In such a case, removing him from the funnel in the first place was a really bad decision, but it would have happened anyway, due to the system’s design.
Wouldn’t it be great if you just stayed in touch with this founder and invested later on?
From funnel-based, to relationship-based
CRMs are funnel-based by design. You have a list of founders at the top of the funnel, you meet, you do your due diligence, present to an investment committee, come up with a term sheet, … And at every step of the funnel, some will churn because you decide so, and some will churn because they forget to follow up and you’ve got 240 other startups to worry about.
The better solution
At Nat.app, we think that investments are mainly done based on the founding team. That’s why we’ve built a CRM that does not have any funnel feature.
Instead, we’ve built an algorithm that looks at your email & calendar data to figure out your relationship strength with every single founder you’ve talked to and simply let you know when you’re at risk of losing touch. This lets investors become humans again and focus on building relationships with founders, rather than dragging them down a funnel.
We’d love to have you as a beta user, let’s have a call! | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/if-a-startup-founder-doesnt-follow-up-should-i-pass-7f410f07493d | ['Nathan Ganser'] | 2020-02-20 13:41:01.282000+00:00 | ['Angel Investors', 'Investors', 'Seed Investment', 'Early Stage Startup', 'Personal Crm'] |
The Resurgence of Poetry in Northern Nigeria: A Conversation with Salihu Mahe | The Resurgence of Poetry in Northern Nigeria: A Conversation with Salihu Mahe
Uchenna Emelife
Salihu Mahe is a Nigerian writer. He is an engineer by profession and a poet at night. He writes from the deepest parts of his heart. His writing is often motivated by nature, love, the psychology of human beings, morality and philosophical principles. He believes so much in humanity, peace and unity. His first published chapbook “How to View the World from a Glass Prism”, won Words Rhymes and Rhythms’ Green Author Prize for 2019. His works have appeared in Praxis Magazine, CWC Kongo Issue, The Shade of Women Foundation Issue among others.
In this conversation, Mahe discusses his writing and poetry in Northern Nigeria with our interviewer: Uchenna Emelife.
Thanks for granting this interview. Let’s begin by finding out your writing history. When did you start writing?
Thanks for having me.
I wrote my first poem at around 11 years old. It could have been the start of a wonderful journey for me but then fate happened & for the next ten years or so I did not write much. I resumed writing late 2015.
Has it always been poetry since then?
Yes, it has always been poetry. However I dabble into a little bit of creative nonfiction, on very few occasions fiction, even then I stop at short stories.
In few poetic lines using any device of your choice, what does poetry mean to you?
A form of expression. A means for introspection. An avenue for understanding myself and my surroundings. A source of therapy.
Fine lines here.
What can you say is the highlight of your career so far?
My book How to View the World from a Glass Prism is the highlight of my writing career so far. Started as an after thought but ended up winning the WRR’s Green Author Prize for 2019.
A well deserved win. Congrats again, bard.
Thank you.
How do you overcome writer’s block?
“When you write about your feelings it is difficult not to find the right words.”
Funny you ask me this, just yesterday my friend Hauwa Saleh asked me when last I had a writer’s block & I said I don’t know but asked what prompted the question. She said it doesn’t seem like I have writer’s block. The truth is I have my downtimes. When that happens I don’t let it get to me. I hardly really force my writing. If I want to write something & it doesn’t come I leave it & come back to it later. Hauwa thinks I’m a good writer that’s why I don’t have writer’s block but I think it is because I don’t challenge myself. And also because mostly I write for myself, and when you write about your feelings it is difficult not to find the right words.
How do I overcome writer’s block? I write when there’s something to write about & I don’t force it and when the downtime prolongs, I read a page or two.
I understand Hauwa’s curiosity. Your consistent content would make one thing there is never a time you feel betrayed by your muse. Like you too, I bury my head in a book those frustrating times productivity seems out of my reach. Haha.
It always works. Somehow after reading, you find yourself anew and your works become a breath of fresh air.
In the last decade, there has been an impressive surge of poets from Northern Nigeria, what can you say is responsible for this having in mind that this was not the case some 10, 15 years ago?
“The resurgence is catalysed by the presence of poetry in our roots.”
The word you’re looking for is ‘resurgence.’ Northern Nigeria has always been an avenue for poetry. Rightly called 'Waƙe' in Hausa, is deeply engraved in our culture. Poetic offerings from the likes of Sa’adu Zungur, (Dr.) Shata, Dan Kwairo & my grand uncle Waziri Ummaru of Gwandu. He used to write poetry on political and religious issues, even in recent times his poems have been aired in radio stations in Kebbi & Sokoto. So yes poetry is part of the Hausa tradition to the extent that there used to be poetry competitions between bards, to see who has the best control over the language. Some time ago I watched a documentary video of a poetry battle between a poet from Sokoto & a poet from Kano, it was intense!
So yeah, a long the lines we somehow lost touch with our roots, or more closely to the truth, poetry as we know it 'Waƙe' metamorphosed into what we now call Hausa songs like in Kannywood movies, which are less poetic in their offerings. So with the return of poetry to our lands, our youths easily reconnected with it because it has always been there in our blood. For example I started writing a long while, before I came to know that my grand uncle was a renowned poet in his time. So the resurgence is catalysed by the presence of poetry in our roots.
Wow! This is very informing.
Do you have a favorite poem(s)? If yes, why are they your favorite?
People often ask these type of questions, the truth is I don’t think I have a favorite anything, period! Haha. I have things I like, some love, some more than others but to categorically assign a favourite, I don’t know about that.
To name a few, I like On this the 100th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic… by Laura Lamb-brown Lavoie, Television by Roald Dahl, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, The Square-root of Three by David Feinberg, To Make Use of Water by Safia Elhillo, If Tomorrow Starts Without Me by (attributed) to David Romano. I love them for different reasons and it would be difficult to choose one.
This list is definitely worth looking up. Thanks for recommending.
What is your definition of poetic fulfilment? Writing a poem? Or it being read?
To successfully transcribe the language of my soul & try to understand it.
Who do you write for? Yourself or your reader?
I write for myself.
What are you currently working on? Any upcoming project(s) you wouldn’t mind sharing?
I’m working on the paperback version of my chapbook though the lockdown has slowed down the whole process. In the near future I hope to publish two more poetry manuscripts which I’m currently working on bit by bit. Later in the year maybe a spokenword album if the opportunity presents itself but I want to. At the moment though, I’m hosting a poetry series called Quarantine Poetry Series on Open Arts platform which airs live on their Instagram page bi-weekly. I recommend it for every lover of poetry.
Beautiful. Looking forward.
This was an interesting and informing session, Mahe. Best wishes in your career.
Thank you. You too, Uche.
_______________________________
Uchenna Emelife is a journalist, creative writer, content creator, and a literary enthusiast. He has written for Nigeria’s Nation Newspaper, the ICIR, Opinion Nigeria, Minority Africa, Punocracy and Book O’Clock. A third year student of Literature In English, Uchenna was awarded “Rookie Journalist Of The Year” by the National Union of Campus Journalists (NUCJ) in 2019 and “Essayist of the year” by the local chapter of the NUCJ and “Campus Reporter of the year” by Pen Press UDUS.
In 2020, he co-pioneered a book club in his school, Book O'Clock UDUS where he reports and writes about books and currently serves as the deputy editor-in-chief of Pen Press UDUS, Programs Director of Minority Africa and the Resource Officer of the Caliphate Arts and Literary Forum.
He tweets @uc_emelife. | https://medium.com/@bookoclock/the-resurgence-of-poetry-in-northern-nigeria-a-conversation-with-salihu-mahe-3398225e17d5 | ["Book O'Clock Review"] | 2020-06-15 08:40:34.962000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Literature', 'Poetry', 'Interview', 'Conversations'] |
Treating Hypoglycemia Reliably | Diabetes is a balancing act: you never want to have your blood sugar be too high or too low. The ideal would be that we could maintain blood sugars easily within the 80–120 mg/dL range consistently. However, the reality is that it is easy to miscalculate and go too high or too low after a meal and then overcompensate, repeating the process in the other direction.
When it comes to treating hypoglycemia a further challenge is that when you have low blood sugar your body is sounding the alarm bells by releasing adrenaline and signaling your brain that it needs sugar now. This means that you feel extra hungry and instead of following the recommendation of 15g of carbs every 15 minutes until you’re back in the proper range it is easy to eat far more sugar. This of course leads to a spike in blood sugar, often taking you into hyperglycemia and requiring insulin to bring you back down.
I struggle with this all the time. It is easy to let logic fall by the wayside in the moment of choosing what to eat when low, especially when faced with a tasty piece of candy or slice of cake that you have sitting in your fridge. But there is a simple solution that I’m working into my routine that has helped a lot with this.
The key is to make a rule to never eat pleasure foods to compensate for a low. This not only avoids giving you the excuse of eating ice cream just because you’re low, but also avoids the temptation to eat significantly more than you should because it tastes so good. Instead, pick one or two sources of sugar that you reserve solely for the purpose of treating hypoglycemia and only treat your lows with those. Also important is that you pick sources that will break down quickly to bring your blood sugar up. If the sugar is mixed with fat or protein it will slow digestion and therefore absorption of the sugar.
For me, I have two go-to sources of sugar that I reserve for treating hypoglycemia. When I’m home I use a tablespoon of maple syrup to treat lows. Each tablespoon has 12g of carbs and it is pure liquid sugar so brings my blood sugar up quickly. When I’m traveling or just out-and-about, I use Smartees as they are easy to pack, don’t melt, and each roll has 6g of carbs so two or three will get me to where I need to be. | https://limitnotfound.com/treating-hypoglycemia-reliably-6baea1580a93 | ['Tim Harsch'] | 2016-04-24 16:44:52.742000+00:00 | ['Diabetes', 'Type 1 Diabetes', 'Healthcare'] |
ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO MANAGE BLOOD SUGAR AND YOUR WEIGHT? | Altai Balance — Get 85% Revshare Or Cpa!
Altai Balance Reviews — Effective Ingredients or Cheap Blood Sugar Pills? 2021 Review
Altai Balance claims to “reset” your blood sugar, helping people with diabetes restore healthy blood sugar levels and resume living a normal life.
February 26, 2021 22:05 ET | Source: 2021Review.com
New York, NY , Feb. 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Altai Balance is an anti-aging supplement that claims to “reset” your blood sugar.
The supplement is marketed to diabetics, pre-diabetics, or anyone who struggles to balance blood sugar. By taking Altai Balance daily, you give your body 19 ingredients that support healthy blood sugar levels.
Although you might not know it, high blood sugar is a leading killer in the United States. Over time, untreated blood sugar problems can lead to damage in the pancreas, as well as atherosclerosis, which occurs when the blood vessels harden. High blood sugar can begin as a minor inconvenience; it might make you hungrier than usual, increase your urge to pee, or even blur your vision. But far too many people allow this small health issue to balloon into a life-threatening condition. Finding treatment for your high blood sugar is an essential process, and you should contact your doctor first if you think you are experiencing high blood sugar.
Unfortunately, there are clearly limits to what the traditional medical industry can do for sufferers of high or low blood sugar. Blood sugar pills are a possibility, but they often come with a litany of hard-to-swallow side effects. Most doctors will prescribe a diet and exercise plan for people with high blood sugar. It is important to follow these plans; healthy living is an easy way to improve blood sugar and avoid the impacts that this condition can have later in life.
Supplements present an alternative way to potentially improve the health of people with high blood sugar. These supplements should never be considered their own treatment plan. They work best when combined with the prescriptions and advice of a licensed medical professional. More importantly, too, people looking to naturally treat high blood sugar should consider losing weight, exercising, and dieting whenever possible. As simple as it sounds, cutting down on sugary foods is a surefire way to get that blood sugar down to healthier levels.
If you’ve already spoken to your physician and you’re interested in using supplements for high blood sugar, Altai Balance might be at the top of your list. And if you’re reading our review, you likely want the inside scoop on everything that this new blood sugar supplement has to offer. Can it really help to balance blood sugar using “all natural” and ancient ingredients? Who’s marketing this new formula? And what does the science say about Altai Balance? Read on to learn more.
What is Altai Balance?
Altai Balance is a nutritional supplement sold exclusively online through AltaiBalance.com.
The supplement is made in the United States in an food and drug approved, GMP-certified facility. The formula’s creator claims “nothing like this has ever been created in history” and that “no discovery like this will come around again.”
Dramatic language aside, Altai Balance claims to support healthy blood sugar levels in men and women. The supplement uses 19 ingredients, including nutrients and plant extracts, that target and balance blood sugar in men and women.
In other words, Altai Balance is a diabetes supplement. The supplement is marketed primarily to diabetics — or anyone who has recently struggled with blood sugar. Like other diabetes supplements, Altai Balance promises to support healthy blood sugar, support weight loss, help you flatten your belly, and support other benefits.
In fact, the Altai Balance sales page claims “you can quickly balance your blood sugar levels” after taking Altai Balance. They even claim that many have stopped taking their prescription diabetes medication and insulin after using Altai Balance regularly.
You should be skeptical any time a nutritional supplement claims to impact your blood sugar significantly. Let’s take a closer look at how Altai Balance works and what it does.
What Does Altai Balance Do?
Altai Balance claims to “reset” your blood sugar, helping people with diabetes restore healthy blood sugar levels and resume living a normal life.
Typically, doctors recommend diet and exercise to control symptoms of diabetes. Some doctors prescribe medication.
However, Altai Balance’s makers claim that their supplement is “more powerful than any diet or exercise on the planet.” It will balance your blood sugar more effectively than if you followed a strict diet or exercise routine.
In other words, Altai Balance claims to give you all of the benefits of diet and exercise — with none of the hard work.
Each bottle of Altai Balance is priced at around $50. You get 30 capsules (30 servings) per bottle. By taking one capsule of Altai Balance daily, you can purportedly balance blood sugar and enjoy other benefits within a short period of time.
Altai Balance Feature & Benefits
The makers of Altai Balance claim their supplement can offer all of the following features and benefits:
Reset your blood sugar and support healthy blood sugar levels
More powerful than any diet or exercise routine on the planet
Help with your waistline and support weight loss.
Support a healthy heart
Support a healthy brain
Support healthy joints
The makers of Altai Balance claim you should notice all of these benefits shortly after taking the formula.
Overall, Altai Balance claims to be a miracle solution for virtually every problem faced by people with diabetes. Whether you want to lose weight, balance blood sugar, or improve your heart health, Altai Balance seems to suggest it’s the right supplement for you.
In fact, Altai Balance makers seem to suggest you should stop taking your insulin after taking the supplement. Even if doctors have prescribed medication or insulin for your diabetes, “they [diabetics] can come off their medication and insulin” after taking Altai Balance for a short period of time.
Obviously, it would be best if you were skeptical when a company promises a miracle solution to diabetes. Let’s take a closer look at what’s inside Altai Balance.
What’s Inside Altai Balance?
Altai Balance contains 19 ingredients that can purportedly balance blood sugar more effectively than any diet or exercise alone.
Altai Balance makers do not disclose dosages upfront, making it difficult to compare Altai Balance to diabetes medication or other diabetes supplements. The supplement may contain significant doses of all listed ingredients. However, it’s more likely the supplement contains only trace amounts of all listed ingredients.
Most active ingredients in Altai Balance are packaged into a 212mg proprietary formula. That proprietary formula contains many of the same ingredients found in other diabetes supplements — like cinnamon extract.
However, a dose of 212mg is too low for any of the individual ingredients to work. Most studies on cinnamon extract use a dose of around 200mg to 400mg, for example. There’s just 212mg of the total formula inside Altai Balance. It’s unlikely the supplement contains a clinically proven dose of cinnamon extract (or any other listed ingredients) sufficient to balance blood sugar or impact your diabetes in any way.
The full list of ingredients in Altai Balance includes:
50mg of Vitamin C (56% DV)
5mg of Vitamin E (33% DV)
300mg of Biotin (1,000% DV)
50mg of Magnesium (12% DV)
15mg of Zinc (73% DV)
1mg of Manganese (43% DV)
250mg of Chromium (714% DV)
And 212mg of a “Proprietary Blood Sugar Formula” that includes taurine, licorice root extract, cinnamon bark extract, yarrow aerial, cayenne pepper, juniper berries, Gymnema leaf, banaba leaf extract, bitter melon, white mulberry leaf extract, alpha-lipoic acid, and vanadyl sulfate
Other ingredients like gelatin (to form the capsule) and microcrystalline cellulose, and magnesium stearate (as fillers, binders, and preservatives)
Altai Balance contains two ingredients at a clinically effective dosage based on the listed ingredients: biotin and chromium. Most diabetics are deficient in chromium, so a chromium supplement is crucial. However, you can get a similar dose from any multivitamin or chromium supplement.
How Does Altai Balance Work?
Altai Balance makers have carefully selected each ingredient for its purported ability to target symptoms of diabetes, balance blood sugar, help you lose weight, and provide other powerful benefits.
The ingredients include:
Vitamins and Minerals: Altai Balance contains seven vitamins and minerals at between 12% and 714% of your daily recommended value (DV). The supplement contains significant doses of chromium (714% DV) and biotin (1,000% DV), both of which are crucial for overall health and wellness. Chromium is essential for people with diabetes, as most diabetics are deficient in chromium, and many take a chromium supplement to help. Other listed vitamins and minerals include magnesium, vitamin E, vitamin C, zinc, and manganese.
Alpha Lipoic Acid: Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) is a vitamin-like chemical used as an antioxidant. Virtually every major diabetes supplement sold online today contains alpha-lipoic acid for its ability to target blood sugar. Altai Balance does not contain a significant ALA dose (it’s the second-last ingredient listed in the proprietary blend), although it does seem to contain trace amounts of ALA.
Amino Acids: Altai Balance contains amino acids like taurine. Your body needs amino acids for processes throughout the body, ranging from metabolism to energy to muscle formation.
Herbal Extracts: Altai Balance contains a range of herbal extracts commonly found in diabetic supplements. Although the dosages are much smaller than what we see in competing supplements, Altai Balance contains popular diabetic supplement herbal extracts like licorice root extract, cinnamon bark extract, bitter melon fruit extract banaba leaf extract, among others. These ingredients have been shown (in much higher doses) to support blood sugar in various ways in people with diabetes.
Other Plant Extracts: Other plant extracts in Altai Balance include yarrow aerial, cayenne pepper, juniper berries, Gymnema leaf, vanadyl sulfate white mulberry leaf extract.
Overall, Altai Balance seems to use the right ingredients — but the verdict about the dosages might be a red flag issue. The dosages listed on the Altai Balance label are much smaller than what we’ve seen in competing diabetes supplements or any peer-reviewed research to date, which may seem like it makes it unlikely Altai Balance provides any benefits (beyond the strong doses of chromium and biotin).
Click Here to Get the Leading All-Natural Blood Sugar Supplement from the Official Website AltaiBalance.com Today
Scientific Evidence for Altai Balance
Altai Balance makers have not conducted any research to prove their formula is more effective than diet or exercise, but that is on par for most of the rest of the supplement industry. The company also does not cite any evidence proving you can stop taking your diabetes medication after using Altai Balance, nor do they overly suggest that anyone dealing with these life-altering conditions to do so without first consulting with a licensed professional.
Altai Balance uses the right ingredients at the right dosages. Many of Altai Balance’s ingredients have been shown to support healthy blood sugar in multiple studies to date. However, with just 212mg of proprietary formula in each serving, it’s unlikely any of the 19 ingredients are found at a strong enough dosage to significantly impact your body in any way, shape, or form overnight and why the company adamantly recommends a continued daily usage to allow the ingredients to keep building up and working their magic overtime.
Blood sugar is a simple sugar that is produced and stored in the cells of the body. Its primary function is to provide energy or fuel for all your body activities. It provides energy for your muscles, heart, brain, and other internal organs. For this reason, blood sugar must be maintained at an optimal level at all times to ensure normal functioning of all these organs. When blood sugar level drops too low it affects your brain function causing decrease in concentration and alertness. Hence blood glucose levels must be maintained within a normal range at all times (72mg%).
Let’s start with the two ingredients in Altai Balance that have high dosages: chromium and biotin.
As WebMD explains, researchers have analyzed chromium and biotin’s combination to impact blood sugar and cholesterol. Studies show that chromium and biotin could lead to “significantly better” blood sugar and cholesterol readings. Other studies have confirmed the importance of chromium for people with diabetes, finding that people with diabetes are more likely to be deficient in chromium than non-diabetics.
Altai Balance contains taurine, which researchers have found has “potential usefulness” for controlling symptoms of diabetes. One review study found taurine, an amino acid, was linked with better insulin control and an overall improvement of diabetes symptoms. Although all taurine studies use a much stronger dose than what we see in Altai Balance, that sounds good. The minimum dose of taurine used in studies is 400 to 6,000mg per day, and Altai Balance contains just 212mg of total formula across all 19 ingredients. The amount of taurine in Altai Balance will not impact your body in any way. In fact, most people get more taurine through an ordinary diet. One analysis found that the average person gets around 40 to 400mg of taurine per day through dietary sources.
Taurine is the first listed ingredient in Altai Balance’s proprietary formula, which means there’s more taurine than any other ingredient on the list. However, even taurine is not found in high enough doses to impact your diabetes, so most other Altai Balance ingredients aren’t worth discussing.
You can find cinnamon extract in many diabetes supplements. In some small studies, researchers have found a connection between cinnamon extract and blood sugar. However, other studies have been less conclusive. As the Mayo Clinic explains, “it still isn’t clear whether cinnamon helps lower blood sugar in people with diabetes.” Some studies have shown a benefit from the spice, while others haven’t.
There are only trace amounts of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) in Altai Balance, as it’s the second-last listed ingredient in the proprietary blend. However, studies show that ALA Could impact diabetes at much higher doses. In this study, researchers gave participants 600mg of an ALA supplement and observed significant antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and hypoglycemic effects. As WebMD explains, most ALA studies use a dose of 600 to 1,800mg — many times higher than the dose used in Altai Balance.
Overall, science tells us that Altai Balance will not allow you to stop taking your diabetes medication or insulin prescribed by your doctor, nor is the supplement more effective than diet or exercise for controlling blood sugar. Always follow the advice of your doctor when dealing with a serious medical condition like diabetes.
The symptoms of blood sugar level abnormalities are not easy to detect. The symptoms may not be evident in all cases. However, the symptoms that indicate abnormal blood glucose levels are extreme fatigue, difficulty concentrating and thinking clearly, blurred vision, excess sweating or frequent urination. All these symptoms are classic signs of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). In this condition the brain is deprived of energy and as a result it slows down your reaction time and concentration level. You will feel very weak, shaky and irritable if you experience episodes of hypoglycaemia daily.
There are plenty of ways to maintain healthy blood sugar level in your body as the Altai Balance supplement is just a natural solution high on the list of available options to choose from. First, you need to have proper daily meal planning as a supplement is just that, a supplement to your day to day diet routine. Always try to have adequate amount of proteins and carbohydrates in your daily meal for a well-balanced nutritional approach to life. You can consume high fibre carbohydrates as well because they take longer to break down and hence take more time for the blood sugar level to increase during digestion. Also make sure you get healthy fats in your diet as they will help digest other food items and release energy slowly at a constant rate. This is where the Altai Balance ingredients can come into play and help stabilize and regulate erratic blood sugar levels.
It should go without saying, but another very important thing in maintaining healthy blood sugar level is to exercise regularly. You must do exercise every day for at least 20 to 30 minutes to ensure that your body is working well and all energy requirements are being met. If you have an underlying condition such as diabetes, it will help to control the blood sugar level and insulin levels in the body. But always remember don’t overdo exercise as it may lead to muscle stress and excessive sweating with a higher risk of dehydration. Also if you have been active or exercising vigorously for more than one hour, make sure you replenish your energy supply right away by having a drink or snack containing carbohydrates and proteins.
Altai Balance Pricing
Altai Balance is priced at $49 per bottle, although the price drops as low as $34 or $39 per bottle when ordering multiple units.
You can only buy Altai Balance through AltaiBalance.com, where pricing works like this:
1 Bottle: $49 + $9.95 Shipping
3 Bottles: $117 + $9.95 Shipping
6 Bottles: $204 + $9.95 Shipping
Each bottle has 30 capsules (30 servings). You take one capsule of Altai Balance to support healthy blood sugar.
BUY NOW- CLICK HERE
Altai Balance Refund Policy
A 60-day refund policy backs Altai Balance.
If you don’t significantly lower your blood sugar, end your reliance on prescription diabetes medication, and stop all diabetes symptoms within 60 days of taking the supplement, then you are entitled to a complete refund.
BUY NOW — CLICK HERE | https://medium.com/@lakshy/are-you-struggling-to-manage-blood-sugar-and-your-weight-d78f75bb9c37 | ['Lakshya Mahawar'] | 2021-12-20 08:46:51.898000+00:00 | ['Sugar', 'Diabetes'] |
Learn blockchain by creating one. | Learn blockchain by creating one.
Blockchain will bring a lot of disruption in the IT-sphere but how precisely do you implement one. This article will take you through the entire completion of a simple blockchain project in python. Djegnene Penyel Dec 8, 2020·6 min read
Blockchain 101:
Blockchain is a public ledger being shared between all the nodes in a peer-to-peer network. It is composed of a multitude of blocks being each cryptographically linked together and that is ruled by a protocol.
If you want to get in more depth in Blockchain technology you can go see my article on the subject.
Begin with the block:
As we stated above the blockchain is a cryptographically linked chain of blocks so it is logical to begin by implementing a block class. This structure is quite similar to the linked list one this is why we will use it as a base for our blockchain project.
We will begin by creating a Block class. Let’s take a look at our constructor function and explain all its different components.
Let’s take a look at our constructor function and explain all its different components.
Index : The index tell the number of the block (i.e is position in the blockchain)
: The index tell the number of the block (i.e is position in the blockchain) Nonce : The nonce is number that is used in the proof of work algorithm that we will explain later in this article.
: The nonce is number that is used in the proof of work algorithm that we will explain later in this article. Timestamp : The timestamp tell when the block was created.
: The timestamp tell when the block was created. Block_hash : The block_hash hold the hash of the block we will takl about hash and hashing function after.
: The block_hash hold the hash of the block we will takl about hash and hashing function after. Previous_hash : As we stated above all blocks in the blockchain are linked together this is the part that do the linking by holding the hash of the block before it.
: As we stated above all blocks in the blockchain are linked together this is the part that do the linking by holding the hash of the block before it. Transaction: Transaction is used to hold the data that you whant to put in the blockchain.
Hash and hashing function.
A hash is a digital signature of a block it is made with the help of a hash function. A hash function is a mathematical function that turn any amount of data into an alphanumeric string with a fixed length. Any change even the smallest into the input will result in a totally different hash. This makes it almost impossible to find the input of a hash function giving the output.
this is just an example do not put it into the file of your project
As we can state from the code above just a small change into the input will give a totally different hash.
Now that we understand hash and hash function better we can implement the method that will hash our block.
function to hash the block
Blockchain and all its componant.
After creating our Block class we will implement a Blockchain class that will hold all the functionlity our Blockchain will have.
Let begin by creating the constructor.
Our constructor will be pretty simple because it wil only have two things a list called unconfirmed_transactions and a list called chain.
I think the named of the list are pretty self-explanatory but just to be sure the unconfirmed_transactions will hold all the transaction that are not in a block but that we want to put into one, and the chain one will actually hold all of our Blocks. Now let look at how to implement it.
Create the genesis block.
The first block in a blockchain is named the genesis block there is two way of creating a genesis block. You can either hardcoded it into the blockchain or do it manually. For or project we will hardcoded it into our Blockchain class. Here how we will do it.
Adding transaction into the blockchain.
The next step will be to implement a function that will store transaction before we put them into a block. The function below will do the task.
Proof of work and adding block to the blockchain.
Proof-of-work is one of the protocols used in Blockchain this is one special kind of protocol named a consensus protocol.
Why use a proof of work ?
One of the things that make the blockchain so interesting is its decentralization. But one problem emerges when a system is decentralized, and this problem is consensus. In other words, how do you make a decentralized system come to an agreement? In the case of blockchain, this agreement is deciding which block will be added to the blockchain.
Proof-of-work solve this problem easily, it is a consensus algorithm that allows the node in the blockchain to make an agreement.
A consensus protocol allows a decentralized system to achieve an agreement. In the case of the blockchain this agreement consists of choosing which block will be added to the blockchain.
As a matter of fact, you can only add a new block in the blockchain after a consensus between the participants in the network, and once this is done the block can never be erased or change.
But, how does a proof-of-work work?
In proof-of-works nodes in the computer compete against each other to hash the block until they achieved a certain result that is chosen by the protocol for example the giving hash should begin with a certain number of zeros. To do so they tweak a parameter that is in the block to get the right hash usually the parameter tweak is the nonce that we explain in a previous part of this article.
So lets implement our proof-of-work algorithm and a function to add block to the blockchain. This part will be longer than the other one but it will also be the more important.
Mining a block.
The action of solving the proof-of-work and adding a block to the blockchain is called mining. So lets implement a mining method. | https://medium.com/@penyel-djegnene/learn-blockchain-by-creating-one-3a38cc7b263b | ['Djegnene Penyel'] | 2021-03-09 02:43:16.333000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Development', 'Blockchain Development', 'Technology'] |
Inviting Top Writers to “ILLUMINATION-Curated” | Invitation to Top Writers — Create Visibility
Inviting Top Writers to “ILLUMINATION-Curated”
Give a second life to your curated and outstanding stories
Photo by Fabio Jock on Unsplash
Both ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated support many top writers. Our aim is to create multiple visibility options for them, and the demand from writers to submit their outstanding stories to ILLUMINATION-Curated is rapidly increasing.
The value ILLUMINATION-Curated adds to our top writers and advanced readers is recognized, and our stats substantiate this claim.
Here is the diagram depicting new visitors to ILLUMINATION-Curated.
The Major Goal of ILLUMINATION-Curated
We analyzed the feedback from our customers — our readers and writers — and created an innovative publication design for ILLUMINATION-Curated. This design will help us reach our goal of offering high-quality content to our readers, while simultaneously allowing us to meet the needs and aspirations of our top writers.
The Process for ILLUMINATION-Curated
We established a process to publish stories in this publication.
There are three ways for articles to be included in ILLUMINATION-Curated.
1 — The first one is for Medium-curated articles published in ILLUMINATION. Our writers can remove their articles and add them to ILLUMINATION-Curated. We also give our writers the flexibility to move their articles back to ILLUMINATION, if they so choose.
2 — The second option is related to articles published in ILLUMINATION but not curated by Medium. If these non-curated articles meet our submission guidelines and Medium curation guidelines, they can be selected by our editors using a set of criteria. The editors approve the article for publication in ILLUMINATION-Curated and inform the writer. The writers can then transfer their article from ILLUMINATION to ILLUMINATION-Curated. Writers will need to request access to the new publication.
3 — The third option is the direct submission by approved writers for ILLUMINATION-Curated, meeting all submission guidelines and approved by our editors. We have already selected over 100 top writers as part of this pilot implementation, and we are eager to extend our offering to more writers.
The Value for Writers of ILLUMINATION
Though we invite advanced and accomplished writers with a demonstrated curation success rate on Medium to write for ILLUMINATION, we also support writers at several levels.
Our aim is to give meaningful and realistic goals to our writers, for the purpose of elevating the skills of our writers at all levels. For example, as part of our pilot project, aspiring writers can make a commitment to follow Medium curation guidelines and improve the quality of their stories for a promotion to write in our new publication.
This new publication is a tool to encourage our writers to grow. Cross-pollinating writers at all levels is a primary purpose of ILLUMINATION, and we are committed to featuring our writers and putting their outstanding stories to spotlight.
Value for Top Writers
ILLUMINATION-Curated is home for high quality and outstanding stories aiming towards giving the best reading experience to our advanced readers.
We only publish articulated and edited content with a clear purpose.The stories of Top Writers have the potential to find a new audience, because we are promoting this publication to readers who enjoy reading high-quality articles with important content for society.
ILLUMINATION-Curated aims to bring Top Writers under an umbrella and encourage collaboration among them, having writers support writers because they know the challenges they face. As a bonus, networking with top writers from different backgrounds can increase synergy and create serendipity.
For ILLUMINATION-Curated, we set the benchmark and raise the bar for producing and sharing quality content in over 100 topics.
Stories submitted to ILLUMINATION-Curated must adhere to Medium curation guidelines at a minimum to qualify the contributors as permanent writers for this publication.
We understand the challenges of the curation process on Medium. Even the most experienced Top Writers feel the pain of rejection. This pain is a natural consequence of subjective assessment.
We discovered that even if many Top Writers religiously followed the guidelines, their stories still might not be curated by Medium. The Medium curation guideline clearly states that the curation process is subjective and we acknowledge this fact. We also understand this constraint undermines the quality stories submitted by Top Writers, if not curated.
We came across remarkable stories not distributed to topics.
With this insight in mind, editors of ILLUMINATION-Curated are determined to evaluate articulated and outstanding stories by using our rigorous and objective process, leveraging Medium curation guidelines. If these outstanding stories match the set of criteria, even if we disagree with the content, we still qualify them for ILLUMINATION-Curated.
We know that each reader is unique. We respect the choice of our readers and do our best to meet their expectations. Undoubtedly, one person’s rejection could be another person’s curation as far as content is concerned. This is why impartiality for content is one of the core values of ILLUMINATION-Curated editors.
ILLUMINATION-Curated aims to provide high-quality and high-impact content to our esteemed readers, representing a wide variety of domains.
We discovered that some readers of ILLUMINATION preferred only content written in simple language that appeals to a broad audience at all levels. However, the primary goal of ILLUMINATION-Curated is to cater to a more specific audience which prefers sophisticated language and complex topics, as is reflected by the feedback during this pilot initiative.
ILLUMINATION-Curated adds exceptional value to Top Writers. For example, we not only select high-quality articles, but we also edit them to meet the requirements of our readers.
Editing is an added value we provide to our writers and readers, but editing is an expensive process. However, our experienced editors are willing to perform this duty, free of charge as a giveback activity to the writer and reader communities.
These editors are not paid by the writers, the publication, or Medium. These editors only do this for altruistic and intellectual purposes, and we are privileged to have a team of volunteers performing the editing function for the success of our writers.
ILLUMINATION-Curated has 38 volunteering editors who can read and vote for stories to curate them for a specific audience looking for a quality reading experience. Our plan is to increase the number of editors to 100. These diligent and committed editors are also willing to undertake the role of curators for the new publication.
Providing edited and curated stories to our reader is an innovative solution and can be considered a paradigm shift for publication services on Medium. This reflects the power of collaboration.
Benefits for Older Curated Stories
For instance, if our writers submit curated articles to ILLUMINATION-Curated, their older Medium-curated stories can also be curated by ILLUMINATION. We call this “dual curation”.
We offer flexibility for the success of our writers, so even though we recommend draft submissions, as a bonus, we created an exception for older curated articles to be submitted as published.
This means that if writers have published articles, previously curated by Medium, these writers can still submit those older articles. We value articles chosen by the Medium curation process.
The purpose of ILLUMINATION-Curated is to give a second life to curated stories.
Why is dual curation important for top writers?
Dual curation can bring two significant benefits for increased visibility.
As you may know, Medium supports curated stories by several means. ILLUMINATION-Curated uses the same model but plans to extend the model with targeted distribution and innovative means as explained in next section.
In addition to Medium curation, how does ILLUMINATION curation help the Top Writers?
We offer three benefits.
1 — The first reason is our curation process does not depend on algorithms. Our human editors perform selection activities.
2 — Secondly, our curation process is based on the agreed criteria. We use the level of rigor that peer-reviewed journals perform.
3 — Thirdly, and most importantly, is that we simply have more human eyes going over your outstanding articles for reading and editing. And in many cases there are several editors communicating and collaborating with the writers and with each other, to help bring out the best in your articles.
ILLUMINATION-Curated editors will use the Medium curation guidelines along with a set of criteria, standardized by ILLUMINATION editors, to determine whether a piece can be curated or not.
Our hands-on approach aims to address the root causes of the concerns that Top Writers experience now and then. Many of us experienced the suffering from rejections.
With empathy and compassion for accomplished writers, our goal is to reduce the potential pain as much as possible. We designed an innovative process, clear procedures, and productive tools to achieve this goal.
ILLUMINATION-Curated editors believe that writers need a certain amount of objectivity for selection of their content for distribution to a broader audience. Our core values, such as diversity, inclusiveness, and fairness, require us to remain on the more objective side. ILLUMINATION-Curated is a value-driven publication. We don’t compromise our values.
Strategies, tactics, and techniques tend to change, but the values of our publications will not change. They are permanent and designed to survive and thrive in our exciting journey.
Innovation Brings Several Other Benefits
For example, if ILLUMINATION editors/curators choose stories of Top Writers and publish them in our new platform, these stories are more likely to be curated by Medium due to the editing and formatting rigor that we invest in these stories.
We also introduce a consolation for rejected stories caused by too much subjectivity.
If Medium does not curate outstanding stories, we believe that subjectivity has affected the outcome. But, as Top Writers of ILLUMINATION-Curated, at least your high-quality and high-impact articles will be curated and distributed to a target group. The consolation is to relieve the pain of rejection by at least half.
Editors of ILLUMINATION-Curated are working hard to increase the curation rate of our writers, developing many tools and processes that are helping our writers increase their number of curated stories.
Distribution Model
As you know, Medium distributes curated stories to readers on-topic pages, the Medium app, Daily Digest newsletter, emails, and sometimes on their front page.
ILLUMINATION-Curated will follow a similar model.
We extend the current model to amplify messages to a broader and targeted audience at the same time.
For example, stories published on ILLUMINATION-Curated are captured in a Flipboard magazine and distributed to our external readers.
In addition to automating our new publication to create Twitter posts of your stories, we also post your stories to our own FaceBook page.
We will pin your stories to Pinterest Board and also post them to Quora Spaces.
Our tech savvy leaders are automating to share stories to 600 external services using IFTTT tools, helping your stories to be indexed by various search engines.
Reader-focus
ILLUMINATION-Curated is a reader-focused publication and service excellence is our strategy.
Since establishing this publication, we communicate with the readers daily using various methods, including Slack groups, social media, email, newsletters, and voice communication tools.
We distribute our stories every day to serve our readers as a daily digest.
Readers enjoy our distribution lists, through which they can access many stories from a single article. Recently, we archived over 50,000 articles, easily accessible from a single story.
ILLUMINATION-Curated is designed to serve a special reader group with special reader expectations. These are characterized as discerning readers.
We understand that the audience of ILLUMINATION-Curated is not after simple tricks. For instance, this special reader group does not want to read stories about how much money Medium writers earn. They do not want to read about the issues encountered on social media platforms.
These readers want to enjoy the high-quality and high-impact materials which matter to them and to society.
The audience for ILLUMINATION-Curated includes professionals in business, science, technology, philosophy, arts, self-improvement and many other interesting domains.
Focus on Editing
Based on our daily interactions with thousands of readers, we know that advanced readers prefer curated stories edited by experienced editors.
We have experienced editors and utilize their capability as curators, choosing the optimal content for our readers.
Based on reader feedback, we know the expectations and requirements of our audience. We have accumulated rich and supportive data for our business strategies and tactics.
Editing is a primary focus of ILLUMINATION-Curated.
Progress
ILLUMINATION-Curated is operating in pilot mode, but the publication is ready to review, currently hosting many outstanding articles.
Many Top Writers have already joined and have submitted their stories.
ILLUMINATION-Curated currently has trending articles enjoyed by many readers, and our beta readers are providing constant feedback.
We received useful feedback from our beta readers and are continuously refining our process, procedures, and tools.
ILLUMINATION-Curated editors shared useful resources to guide our top writers and encourage our other writers who are working hard to elevate their skills.
For example:
This article by Tree Langdon is about the ILLUMINATION-Curated submission process.
This educative article by Dew Langrial aims to help our writers. Dew is mentoring many writers to achieve their curation goals. Her altruistic contributions are greatly appreciated.
This article by Britni Pepper reflects editor, writer, and reader for the value we add on ILLUMINATION-Curated.
Easy transfer between two publications
ILLUMINATION writers can easily move their curated stories between the two publications to receive the benefit of different audiences.
CLARIFICATION:
A story on Medium can be published in only one publication at a time. Therefore, you need to remove your curated story from ILLUMINATION and submit it to ILLUMINATION-Curated. Your story will be published and hosted on the new publication, and it should no longer be in the previous publication. There is no duplication. Your story is either on ILLUMINATION or on ILLUMINATION-Curated. Not in both of them at the same time. If you read comments contrary to this on social media, it is an allegation with no facts. ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated are 100% compliant with Medium rules.
Please check the step by step guide authored by our editor Dew Langrial.
If you are a current writer, we can add you to the new publication so that you can transfer your curated stories. Please send a request via this link. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/inviting-top-writers-to-illumination-curated-4e136cc42cb0 | [] | 2020-10-26 08:31:20.211000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Philosophy', 'Science', 'Business', 'Writing'] |
Best Diet For Women Over 50 With SET OF Must Eat Foods For Optimal Health | A directory of services which includes hotlines, medical treatment and support groups, therapy, caregiving, housing, parenting and child services, and public assistance. Another justification for fiftysomething women to dish up strawberries: a 2007 Harvard study found much less inflammation in the arteries of older women eating two servings (½ cup each) of strawberries a week. If you trim your diet plan to 1 1,300 calorie consumption but aren’t slimming down, don’t immediately assume you need to reduce your calorie consumption even more. Cheung, T. The Menopause Diet: The natural way to beat your symptoms and lose weight. One of the central subject areas surrounding most any diet program for females is portion control. Very restrictive low-carb diet programs limit someone to 50 grams of net carbs a total day, with some scheduled applications daily going only 20 grams. The basic low-fat diet plan suggests specific foods for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner.
best diets that work
When you’re trying to lose weight, diet plan is one little bit of the puzzle; the additional is exercise. Since there are zero precise diets for females over 50 , it is vital to know, that only at that age, trying crash diets and extra starvation methods is an unhealthy choice surely. For the advantage of our readers, we’ve secured 50 trial bottles from an accredited supplier. That will help you to create the proper decision for the nutritionists specialize in making particular diet programs for folks, depending on their condition. Some women will have to re-feed twice a week or even more once they’re in maintenance mode.
There are many different kinds of change that occur within you simply because you reach 50. The very first is a complicated one — your nutritional requirements increase at exactly once as your nutrient absorbing capability is waning ( source ). Women over age 50 need at least thirty minutes of exercise each day for health benefits and weight loss.
Women who read food labels are regularly, normally, 9 pounds lighter than those who don’t do that, analysis from the U.S. Country wide Wellness Interview Review found. Most women feel better when they avoid plain intermittent practice and fasting Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting, instead.
Instruction To Successful Bodybuilding For More than 40 YEARS Eating clever once you complete the magical 50 season draw needs some smart planning. Finding the right combination of fiber and protein while keeping caloric intake within a reasonable range is the key to reducing your weight and/or maintaining a healthy weight for women older than 50. At least 2 to 4 servings of fruits and 3 to 5 5 servings of vegetables should be included in the daily food diet. Nothing functions except starvation and I simply can’t carry out it. I’ve tried 24 months of a whole foods plant based diet.
In some cases, women may have to deal with night sweats and flushes also, which can be quite uncomfortable. More specifically, when you have been subsequent a fat rich diet, it’s period to change it. As a female above 50 years of age, you should be aware of certain healthy foods that will enable you to lose pounds and live a fulfilling existence. Furthermore, adjusting to an altered diet program could cause unpleasant side outcomes, such as nausea, fatigue, and dizziness, notes the Mayo Clinic. A note on pounds gain and menopause just, I eat as real a paleo diet plan as I could and zone block aswell and I don’t drink alcohol. Many doctors advise that for bone and health and wellness, children and teenagers should reach least 400 IU of vitamin D daily, adults less than years 50 should get 400–800 IU daily, and parents more than years 50 should get 800–1,000 IU daily.
My viewpoint on diet plans is much more neutral today, as in you will look for a right time and place for everything, eating plans included. Any diet shall assist you to lose weight, but a low-carb diet plan has been proven to greatly help women lose weight faster than low-fat weight loss programs, according to a 2007 specialized medical research shared in JAMA. You shall be helped by any diet program lose weight, but a low-carb diet plan has been shown to greatly help women lose weight faster than low-fat meal plans, according to a 2007 study published in JAMA. But I’m the person that never gives up, since a while I adapted my diet a little to Paleo and started reading about IF (intermittent fasting).
For the scholarly study, lead author Monica Bertoia, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Consumer Health insurance and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, and her co-workers analyzed the dietary behaviors and weight alterations of 133,468 U.S. women and men.
from Burn Fat http://ift.tt/2euatBd
via eugenioplit.jigsy.com
Originally published on Tumblr
Read More earnonline11 on jigsy.com | https://medium.com/@xavierpzir/best-diet-for-women-over-50-with-set-of-must-eat-foods-for-optimal-health-1b3304ec5610 | [] | 2016-10-21 21:30:23.058000+00:00 | ['Health Foods', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Fat Burning Foods', 'Health Recipe', 'Weightloss Recipe'] |
Want to take a healthy side to Christmas lunch? | Try this, Roasted Garlic mashed potatoes, and cauliflower Recipe
Ingredients:
1 head garlic 1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil 2 lb. golden potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" chunks 1 medium head cauliflower (about 2 lbs.) cut into large florets 2/3 c. half-and-half 6 tbsp. butter Snipped chives, for garnish (optional)
Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut off the top third of garlic head. Place garlic head and top in a sheet of foil; drizzle cut sides with oil. Reassemble head; wrap in foil, crimping and sealing tightly. Place on a small baking sheet. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes or until deep golden brown and very soft. Remove from oven; cool completely.
-While garlic cools, in a 7- to 8-quart saucepot, place potatoes with enough water to cover by 2" and 1 tablespoon salt. Partially cover and heat to boiling on high. Reduce heat; simmer for 10 minutes. Add cauliflower; heat to boiling again, then reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes or until cauliflower and potatoes are very tender. Drain well.
-Meanwhile, in a small microwave-safe bowl, microwave half-and-half and butter on High 30 seconds or until the butter has melted; squeeze roasted garlic cloves from skins into the mixture.
-Mash potatoes and cauliflower with the half-and-half mixture and 1/2 teaspoon salt until smooth. Garnish with chives. Serve immediately.
Let us know your thoughts.
Get Your FREE Physical Copy of The Essential Keto Cookbook Today! | https://medium.com/@tharakalakmal163/want-to-take-a-healthy-side-to-christmas-lunch-926da2f59e2d | ['Tasty Recipes'] | 2021-12-15 06:55:39.685000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Health', 'Lunch', 'Keto', 'Recipe'] |
4 Ways to Combine Strings in JavaScript | Code Tidbit by Samantha Ming.com
Here are four ways to combine strings in JavaScript. My favorite way is using Template Strings. Why? Because it’s more readable, no backslash to escape quotes, no awkward empty space separator, and no more messy plus operators 👏
const icon = '👋'; // Template Strings
`hi ${icon}`; // join() Method
['hi', icon].join(' '); // Concat() Method
''.concat('hi ', icon); // + Operator
'hi ' + icon; // RESULT
// hi 👋
1. Template Strings
If you come from another language, such as Ruby, you will be familiar with the term string interpolation. That’s exactly what template strings is trying to achieve. It’s a simple way to include expressions in your string creation which is readable and concise.
const name = 'samantha';
const country = '🇨🇦';
Problem of Missing space in String concatenation
Before template strings, this would be the result of my string 😫
"Hi, I'm " + name + "and I'm from " + country;
☝️ Did you catch my mistake? I’m missing a space 😫. And that’s a super common issue when concatenating strings.
// Hi, I'm samanthaand I'm from 🇨🇦
Resolved with Template Strings
With template strings, this is resolved. You write exactly how you want your string to appear. So it’s very easy to spot if a space is missing. Super readable now, yay! 👏
`Hi, I'm ${name} and I'm from ${country}`;
2. join()
The join method combines the elements of an array and returns a string. Because it's working with array, it's very handy if you want to add additional strings.
const instagram = '@samanthaming';
const twitter = '@samantha_ming';
const array = ['My handles are ', instagram, twitter]; const tiktok = '@samantaming'; array.push(tiktok); array.join(' '); // My handles are @samanthaming @samantha_ming @samanthaming
Customize Separator
The great thing about join is that you can customize how your array elements get combined. You can do this by passing a separator in its parameter.
const array = ['My handles are '];
const handles = [instagram, twitter, tiktok].join(', '); // @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming array.push(handles); array.join(''); // My handles are @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming
3. concat()
With concat , you can create a new string by calling the method on a string.
const instagram = '@samanthaming';
const twitter = '@samantha_ming';
const tiktok = '@samanthaming'; 'My handles are '.concat(instagram, ', ', twitter', ', tiktok); // My handles are @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming
Combining String with Array
You can also use concat to combine a string with an array. When I pass an array argument, it will automatically convert the array items into a string separated by a comma , .
const array = [instagram, twitter, tiktok]; 'My handles are '.concat(array); // My handles are @samanthaming,@samantha_ming,@samanthaming
If you want it formatted better, we can use join to customize our separator.
const array = [instagram, twitter, tiktok].join(', '); 'My handles are '.concat(array);
// My handles are @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming
4. Plus Operator (+)
One interesting thing about using the + operator when combining strings. You can use to create a new string or you can mutate an existing string by appending to it.
Non-Mutative
Here we are using + to create a brand new string.
const instagram = '@samanthaming';
const twitter = '@samantha_ming';
const tiktok = '@samanthaming'; const newString = 'My handles are ' + instagram + twitter + tiktok;
Mutative
We can also append it to an existing string using += . So if for some reason, you need a mutative approach, this might be an option for you.
let string = 'My handles are '; string += instagram + twitter; // My handles are @samanthaming@samantha_ming
OH darn 😱 Forgot the space again. SEE! It’s so easy to miss a space when concatenating strings.
string += instagram + ', ' + twitter + ', ' + tiktok; // My handles are @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming
That feels so messy still, let’s throw join in there!
string += [instagram, twitter, tiktok].join(', '); // My handles are @samanthaming, @samantha_ming, @samanthaming
Escaping Characters in Strings
When you have special characters in your string, you will need to first escape these characters when combining. Let’s look through a few scenarios and see how we can escape them 💪
Escape Single Quotes or Apostrophes (‘)
When creating a string you can use single or double quotes. Knowing this knowledge, when you have a single quote in your string, a very simple solution is to use the opposite to create the string.
const happy = 🙂; ["I'm ", happy].join(' '); ''.concat("I'm ", happy); "I'm " + happy; // RESULT
// I'm 🙂
Of course, you can also use the backslash, \ , to escape characters. But I find it a bit difficult to read, so I don't often do it this way.
const happy = 🙂; ['I\'m ', happy].join(' '); ''.concat('I\'m ', happy); 'I\'m ' + happy; // RESULT
// I'm 🙂
Because Template strings is using backtick, this scenario doesn’t apply to it 👍
Escape Double Quotes (“)
Similar to escaping single quotes, we can use the same technique of using the opposite. So for escaping double quotes, we will use single quotes.
const flag = '🇨🇦'; ['Canada "', flag, '"'].join(' '); ''.concat('Canada "', flag, '"'); 'Canada "' + flag + '"'; // RESULT
// Canada "🇨🇦"
And yes, can also use the backslash escape character.
const flag = '🇨🇦'; ['Canada "', flag, '"'].join(' '); ''.concat('Canada "', flag, '"'); 'Canada "' + flag + '"'; // RESULT
// Canada "🇨🇦"
Because Template strings is using backtick, this scenario doesn’t apply to it 👍
Escape backtick (`)
Because Template strings is using backticks to create its string, when do want to output that character, we have to escape it using backslash.
const flag = '🇨🇦'; `Use backtick \`\` to create a template string`; // RESULT
// Use backtick `` to create a template string
Because the other string creations are not using backtick, this scenario doesn’t apply to them 👍
Which way to use?
I showed a few examples of using the different ways of concatenating strings. Which way is better all depends on the situation. When it comes to stylistic preference, I like to follow Airbnb Style guide.
When programmatically building up strings, use template strings instead of concatenation. eslint: prefer-template template-curly-spacing
So template strings for the win! 👑
Why the other ways still matter?
It’s still important to know the other ways as well. Why? Because not every code base will follow this rule or you might be dealing with a legacy code base. As a developer, we need to be able to adapt and understand whatever environment we’re thrown in. We’re there to problem solve not complain how old the tech is lol 😂 Unless that complaining is paired with tangible action to improve. Then we got progress 👏
Browser Support
Browser Support Comparison Chart
Resources | https://medium.com/dailyjs/4-ways-to-combine-strings-in-javascript-b1de5302fdaa | ['Samantha Ming'] | 2020-08-05 12:11:13.875000+00:00 | ['Front End Development', 'Web Development', 'Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development'] |
How to Talk about Mental Health with Your Team | Great leaders want what’s best for their team. They want to ensure that each individual is put into a position to succeed, one in which they are able to leverage their strengths and unique abilities. When all roles have been identified, filled, and placed in the correct spot in the system, the engine is ready to turn on. It’s time to go places.
But often the very fuel that keeps the motor running — our health — slowly starts to feel the pressure of the external forces around us. We might even see the changes of our team at a surface level. Sedentary lifestyles. Poor nutrition choices. Burn out. Fatigue. What we can’t see though is hidden away, and it is the most influential aspect of our health as it is what manifests our behaviours in the world.
That’s our mental health.
And being a great leader, we want to help. As the awareness around mental health continues to rise, we feel we need to better communicate this with our team. We just don’t know how, because it is still such a subjective and nuanced discussion. We don’t want to upset anyone, step on any toes, or make a comment that causes unintentional pain.
Once we run through these thoughts in our minds, we can quickly become discouraged. How will we ever be able to help our team?
Beyond words
Well, I believe this is about moving beyond our words. It’s not really just how to talk about mental health, but it’s actively showing up with presence, compassion, and empathy.
I think a great first step is making your presence felt in areas where mental health is being discussed. In that way, the team can feel your presence and see that you are actively engaged in learning more. It’s much more humble and approachable when the team can see a leader participating in these activities. Then you have conversations to build off of, and it’s less about you trying to start these difficult conversations out of thin air.
Because mental health is so subjective and can vary in terms of intensity, duration, and frequency from person to person, it makes opening up discussions around it quite challenging.
We worry that one well-intended thought once verbalized might be a trigger to someone else. So we hold back, but deep down wondering if we should have said it. Or we begin a conversation coming from a place of “well, it has to get done,” just to say that we spoke about mental health. Box checked.
We might even just fall into the trap of not saying anything at all, and simply nodding in agreement when we hear others talk about needing to break down the stigma, or support the mental well-being of our team.
In any case, we must come forward with the intention to bring our most empathetic self to the table. That means becoming grounded and ready to open up a difficult discussion. It could also mean getting ready to listen wholeheartedly to someone’s story, and then just being present with that.
Remember, leadership isn’t about having all of the answers. Especially when is comes to understanding the complexities of the human condition. But it’s with this fact, that it’s in our differences that we are so similar. By hearing each other fully and working towards a common goal, our perspective and how we respond to stress will only get better.
Below is a list of actions that you can immediately integrate into your routine to help better converse about mental health with your team. I’m sure I am only scratching the surface when it comes to a topic that runs much deeper that a lot of us might care to imagine. But I also believe that this serves as a good starting point for us as leaders.
Your call to action
Pick one of the following action items and aim to implement it into your communications this week. For the bigger tasks, aim to get make something happen in the next month.
First look at your own behaviours and ask yourself if you might be unintentionally contributing mental stress to those around you.
Participate in workplace mental health events and programs. Remember: Be engaged if you want to see engagement. This isn’t about crossing another item off your workplace wellness to-do list.
Start a campaign around raising awareness for cause that is near and dear to your heart. Purpose brings people together.
Share meditation apps, podcasts, resources that resonate with you. Add value to those around you by sharing meaningful resources.
Take part in exercises that address your mental health in a positive way and speak about these experiences. For example: Writing a gratitude journal, or write a letter to someone who has had an impact on your life. Share the letter with that person.
Start your own personal mental performance routine such as deep breathing, meditating, positive self-talk and mantras, or other mindfulness practices that recharge you.
If you’re feeling anxious about something, try therapy yourself. Open yourself up to the experience that we often refer to others in times of need.
Promote the benefits of exercise and nutrition on mental health. Even if just speaking to the benefits of improved mood, and energy. Our behaviours in varying aspects of our lives are interrelated.
The action steps can be plenty, but I hope this gets you on your way. Please share any of your tips or practical steps that we can all follow!
Further reading and resources | https://medium.com/@paulkeefe/how-to-talk-about-mental-health-with-your-team-1b4ff71bcaf4 | ['Paul Keefe'] | 2020-12-24 14:43:04.957000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Communication', 'Mental Health', 'Wellness', 'Wellbeing'] |
What Is Measuring Success On Pinterest? — Part 1 | The Beginner’s Guide
Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool that many brands are using as a way of reaching a newer customer base in order to increase brand recognition, and reach their social media marketing goals. In our article series, “What Can I Do With Pinterest?”, we took you through the various ways in which your brand could leverage the platform to achieve marketing and revenue success.
If you missed these articles, you can begin by reading the first in the series, “What Can I Do With Pinterest? — Part 1 (The Beginner‘s Guide)”.
“Let’s change the way we look at what happens to us.” — Art Sobczac (30 Years Of Experience In Phone Sales And prospecting) @ArtSobczak
In this article series, I will take you through what it means to measure your success on the platform by taking you through what it is, why you should care about it, how it can impact your bottom line and more.
In this article I will cover:
#1 What Is Measuring Success On Pinterest?
#2 Why Should I Care About Measuring Success On Pinterest?
#3 How Can Measuring Success On Pinterest Help Me Hit My Company’s Revenue Targets?
#4 What Should I Watch Out For When Measuring Success On Pinterest?
Let’s dive in…
___________________________________________________________________
#1 What Is Measuring Success On Pinterest?
Since the dawn of the social media age, marketers have been faced with the conundrum on how their efforts will be measured in terms of their success. In the early years of social marketing, all eyes were focused on the number of likes or followers a brand had. But, what do these numbers mean in terms of the bottom line?
While traditionally thought of as just another soap box, Pinterest has developed into a powerful marketing tool that presents marketers with a new set of opportunities, leading to even more questions.
Video Taken From Pinterest For Business’ Official YouTube Channel
While Google Analytics is still the go-to analytics platform for nearly all marketers, each social media platform has its own unique metrics for success measurement. Special attention should be paid to Pinterest Analytics over and above your traditional reporting methods.
There are 6 key benefits of adopting Pinterest Analytics into your current reporting strategy:
1. Meeting Your Pinterest Goals
In order to achieve your overall marketing goals, as with any other social media platform, you need to have a Pinterest specific strategy formulated before embarking on your marketing efforts. This strategy will allow you to identify the specific metrics you need to be measuring to track your performance on the platform, in a way that speaks to your overall goals. Pinterest Analytics can help you measure whether or not you are meeting these goals, while helping you to analyse how the platform contributes to your overall social media ROI.
2. Monitoring The Competition
The public nature of the social platform, allows marketers to gain insights on how their marketing efforts are performing versus those of their competitors. Pinterest Analytics allow brands to not only identify their competition on the platform quickly and easily, but to also analyse which other brands their target audiences are interacting with. By reviewing your competitors’ Pins, you are able to compare how your content is performing in comparison to your competition.This helps you to gain a deeper understanding of how effective your overall content strategy is.
3. Gaining Actionable Website Insights
If you have the “pin It” or “Save” button installed on your brand’s website, Pinterest Analytics allows you to gain insights on how you can improve your site based on how people interact with this button, tracking what content from your website is shared on Pinterest by your audience.
4. Tracking Referral Traffic
As with all social media sites, the tracking of website traffic is crucial in your overall marketing strategy. Pinterest Analytics will allow you to see how much traffic you are driving to your brand’s site from the platform, helping you to identify the amount of resources you should be allocating to your efforts on the social media giant, while helping you identify room for improvement.
5. Better Content Creation
Pinterest, like sites such as Facebook and Twitter, base their success on the content shared on the platform, whether in paid or organic formats. By monitoring how your audience interacts with your content on the platform, Pinterest Analytics can aid you in your content development and optimization strategies for the future — helping you identify what works and what does not.
6. Understanding Your Audience
An understanding of your audience is crucial on any social site, as each platform attracts a different type of audience — meaning that your brand will not only need to know what type of content works best for the audience on that specific platform, but how the demographics on that platform can aid you in developing your overall marketing strategy for success. Pinterest Analytics provides in-depth demographic data about your audience that will help you understand where your market lies, and what interests them. | https://medium.com/inside-revenue/what-is-measuring-success-on-pinterest-part-1-e52f14cfc7c6 | ['Samantha De La Porté'] | 2018-07-16 14:25:14.082000+00:00 | ['Inside Revenue', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Pinterest', 'Social Platforms', 'Pinterest Marketing'] |
Quick Logistic Regression with TensorFlow | Here is a simple logistic regression model built with TensorFlow. We are using MNIST Image example data set which is provided by default with Tensorflow package.
Here are the hyperparameters we choose to run initial model:
learning_rate = 0.01
training_epochs = 20
batch_size = 128
We achieved impressive 90.8% accuracy in 20 epochs with a learning rate of 0.01 by running simple logistic regression model build with Tensorflow on MNIST dataset.
Install
I am using Conda to install TensorFlow. You might already have a TensorFlow environment, but please check below to make sure you have all the necessary packages. If you have never used Conda environments before, please go through my other tutorial What is Anaconda and Why should I bother about it?
Assuming you have conda install on your machine, please run the following commands to have tensorflow-playground ready for you to play.
OS X or Linux
Run the following commands to setup your environment:
conda create -n tensorflow-playground python=3.5
source activate tensorflow-playground conda install pandas matplotlib jupyter notebook scipy scikit-learn
pip install tensorflow
Windows
And installing on Windows. In your console or Anaconda shell:
conda create -n tensorflow-playground python=3.5
activate tensorflow-playground conda install pandas matplotlib jupyter notebook scipy scikit-learn
pip install tensorflow
After creating conda environment, clone this repository on your local machine via Git or GitHub Desktop
under tensorflow-playground environment on your terminal or shell window, cd to the cloned directory and then run following command:
jupyter notebook
That’s it, now you can play around with various hyperparameters which you feel are good enough to improve accuracy on MNIST dataset.
If you a bit more adventurous, you can try replacing MNIST dataset with another sample dataset, such as CIFAR10. However, you have to download this data separately on your hard drive, extract it and access it via another python functions, something like below for your jupyter notebook.
import os
import os.path
import sys
import time
import re
import cPickle
import urllib, tarfile
current_path = os.path.abspath(getsourcefile(lambda:0))
parent_dir = os.path.split(os.path.dirname(current_path))[0]
sys.path.insert(0, parent_dir)
import common.load_notebooks
import common.utils DATA_URL = 'http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/cifar-10-python.tar.gz' def maybe_download_and_extract(dest_directory):
"""Download and extract the tarball from Alex's website."""
if not os.path.exists(dest_directory):
os.makedirs(dest_directory)
filename = DATA_URL.split('/')[-1]
filepath = os.path.join(dest_directory, filename)
if not os.path.exists(filepath):
def _progress(count, block_size, total_size):
sys.stdout.write('\r>> Downloading %s %.1f%%' % (filename,
float(count * block_size) / float(total_size) * 100.0))
sys.stdout.flush()
filepath, _ = urllib.urlretrieve(DATA_URL, filepath, _progress)
print()
statinfo = os.stat(filepath)
print('Successfully downloaded', filename, statinfo.st_size, 'bytes.')
with tarfile.open(filepath, 'r:gz') as t:
dataset_dir = os.path.join(dest_directory, t.getmembers()[0].name)
t.extractall(dest_directory)
return dataset_dir
dataset_dir = maybe_download_and_extract('./../data')
print(dataset_dir) checkpoint_dir = os.path.join(dataset_dir, 'chkpt_cifar10')
if not os.path.isdir(checkpoint_dir):
os.makedirs(checkpoint_dir) checkpoint_dir = os.path.join(dataset_dir, 'chkpt_cifar10')
if not os.path.isdir(checkpoint_dir):
os.makedirs(checkpoint_dir) #Here is the regular expression that matches a datafile
r_data_file = re.compile('^data_batch_\d+')
#training and validate datasets as numpy n-d arrays,
#apropriate portions of which are ready to be fed to the placeholder variables
train_all={'data':[], 'labels':[]}
validate_all={'data':[], 'labels':[]}
test_all={'data':{}, 'labels':[]}
label_names_for_validation_and_test=None
def unpickle(relpath):
with open(relpath, 'rb') as fp:
d = cPickle.load(fp)
return d
def prepare_input(data=None, labels=None):
global image_height, image_width, image_depth
assert(data.shape[1] == image_height * image_width * image_depth)
assert(data.shape[0] == labels.shape[0])
#do mean normaization across all samples
mu = np.mean(data, axis=0)
mu = mu.reshape(1,-1)
sigma = np.std(data, axis=0)
sigma = sigma.reshape(1, -1)
data = data - mu
data = data / sigma
is_nan = np.isnan(data)
is_inf = np.isinf(data)
if np.any(is_nan) or np.any(is_inf):
print('data is not well-formed : is_nan {n}, is_inf: {i}'.format(n= np.any(is_nan), i=np.any(is_inf)))
#data is transformed from (no_of_samples, 3072) to (no_of_samples , image_height, image_width, image_depth)
#make sure the type of the data is no.float32
data = data.reshape([-1,image_depth, image_height, image_width])
data = data.transpose([0, 2, 3, 1])
data = data.astype(np.float32)
return data, labels
#return transform_input(data=data, labels=labels, h=image_height, w=image_width, d=image_depth)
def convert_to_rgb_img_data(index=-1, data=None):
assert(index < data.shape[0])
image_holder = np.zeros(shape=[data.shape[1],data.shape[2], data.shape[3]], dtype=np.float32)
image_holder[:, :, :] = data[index, :, :, :]
plt.imshow(image_holder)
def load_and_preprocess_input(dataset_dir=None):
assert(os.path.isdir(dataset_dir))
global train_all, validate_all, label_names_for_validation_and_test
trn_all_data=[]
trn_all_labels=[]
vldte_all_data=[]
vldte_all_labels=[]
tst_all_data=[]
tst_all_labels=[]
#for loading train dataset, iterate through the directory to get matchig data file
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(dataset_dir):
for f in files:
m=r_data_file.match(f)
if m:
relpath = os.path.join(root, f)
d=unpickle(os.path.join(root, f))
trn_all_data.append(d['data'])
trn_all_labels.append(d['labels'])
#concatenate all the data in various files into one ndarray of shape
#data.shape == (no_of_samples, 3072), where 3072=image_depth x image_height x image_width
#labels.shape== (no_of_samples)
trn_all_data, trn_all_labels = (np.concatenate(trn_all_data).astype(np.float32),
np.concatenate(trn_all_labels).astype(np.int32)
)
#load the only test data set for validation and testing
#use only the first n_validate_samples samples for validating
test_temp=unpickle(os.path.join(dataset_dir, 'test_batch'))
vldte_all_data=test_temp['data'][0:(n_validate_samples+n_test_samples), :]
vldte_all_labels=test_temp['labels'][0:(n_validate_samples+n_test_samples)]
vldte_all_data, vldte_all_labels = (np.concatenate([vldte_all_data]).astype(np.float32),
np.concatenate([vldte_all_labels]).astype(np.int32))
#transform the test images in the same manner as the train images
train_all['data'], train_all['labels'] = prepare_input(data=trn_all_data, labels=trn_all_labels)
validate_and_test_data, validate_and_test_labels = prepare_input(data=vldte_all_data, labels=vldte_all_labels)
validate_all['data'] = validate_and_test_data[0:n_validate_samples, :, :, :]
validate_all['labels'] = validate_and_test_labels[0:n_validate_samples]
test_all['data'] = validate_and_test_data[n_validate_samples:(n_validate_samples+n_test_samples), :, :, :]
test_all['labels'] = validate_and_test_labels[n_validate_samples:(n_validate_samples+n_test_samples)]
#load all label-names
label_names_for_validation_and_test=unpickle(os.path.join(dataset_dir, 'batches.meta'))['label_names']
load_and_preprocess_input(dataset_dir=dataset_dir)
print('train_all: ', 'data: ', train_all['data'].shape, train_all['data'].dtype, ' labels: ', train_all['labels'].shape, train_all['labels'].dtype)
print('validate_all: ', 'data: ', validate_all['data'].shape, validate_all['data'].dtype, ' labels: ', validate_all['labels'].shape, validate_all['labels'].dtype)
print('test_all: ', 'data: ', test_all['data'].shape, test_all['data'].dtype, ' labels: ', test_all['labels'].shape, test_all['labels'].dtype)
print('label_names_for_validation_and_test', label_names_for_validation_and_test)
Please do let me know your thoughts, questions under the comments section. I would really appreciate getting some feedback on this article & ideas to improve it.
In the meanwhile, Happy Thinking… | https://medium.com/pankajmathur/logistic-regression-with-tensorflow-a02c2bd2bd1e | ['Pankaj Mathur'] | 2018-02-06 22:29:30.223000+00:00 | ['Jupyter Notebook', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Logistic Regression', 'Cross Entropy'] |
Deploy Vue with Firebase hosting | for this firebase hosting must select Blaze (Pay as you go) billing plan
vue and firebase
Preparation
Vue project
Firebase account https://console.firebase.google.com/
Create Vue Project
install vue cli
npm install -g @vue/cli
create project
vue create <project-name>
vue create demo-firebase-hosting
select vue version 2
select vue version 2
Open project with VS Code
Open project with VS Code | https://medium.com/@por-porkaew15/deploy-vue-with-firebase-hosting-b403dd207712 | ['Porkaew Jarusdamrongwat'] | 2020-12-21 02:43:07.194000+00:00 | ['Deploy', 'Firebase', 'Vue', 'Firebasehosting'] |
JavaScript Array Methods: Part 1 | This week and next I’ll be covering some fundamental array methods within JavaScript! This week will cover: .push(), .unshift(), .pop(), and .shift(). Let’s begin!
It’s important to remember that all of these methods are actually callback functions; some of which require something to be provided to it. These functions have already been defined for you within JavaScript, and so are available for you to call.
I will also try to point out which methods are “destructive”, meaning they alter the original array in place, or “non-destructive”, meaning the original array is left unaltered.
I’ll start with an array, myArray = [1,2,3] and build or destroy on it through these methods.
.push()
This method will add the element that is provided to the end of the array. On its own, it is a “destructive” method.
myArray.push(4)
//myArray === [1,2,3,4]
It can be made into a non-destructive method by using the spread operator!
newArray1 = […myArray, 5]
//newArray1 === [1,2,3,4,5]
//myArray === [1,2,3,4]
.unshift()
This method will add the provided element to the beginning of the array it’s called on; it is also destructive.
myArray.unshift(‘A’)
//myArray === [‘A’,1,2,3,4]
This one can also be turned into a non-destructive method like so:
newArray2 = [‘B’, …myArray]
//newArray2 === [‘B’,’A’,1,2,3,4]
//myArray === [‘A’,1,2,3,4]
.pop()
This method will remove and return the last element in an array destructively; it does not require an element to be provided.
myArray.pop()
//4
//myArray === [‘A’,1,2,3]
.shift()
This method will remove and return the first element in an array destructively; it does not require an element to be provided.
myArray.shift()
//’A’
//myArray === [1,2,3]
Technically both .pop() and .shift() could be made into non-destructive methods, by first creating a copy of our original array, and then calling these methods on the copy. Just be sure to keep in mind any changes made to the original array after the copy is made, will not apply to the copy.
newArray3 = [...myArray]
newArray3.pop()
//newArray3 === [1,2]
//myArray === [1,2,3]
Be sure to tune in next week for .slice(), .splice(), .filter(), and .reverse()! | https://medium.com/@heartyrhombus/javascript-array-methods-part-1-15b91ac209dc | ['Kayla Budzeak'] | 2021-09-11 00:08:35.988000+00:00 | ['Array Methods', 'Coding', 'Junior Developer', 'JavaScript', 'Arrays'] |
The Year in Review | During a tumultuous 2020 that witnessed the emergence of the most deadly pandemic to sweep the globe in more than 100 years, USAID and partners have proven flexible and resilient in delivering safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) to the world’s most underserved and at-risk populations. Recognizing the importance of good handwashing hygiene and uninterrupted water service in containing the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopening economies, the Agency went above and beyond throughout the year to ensure that communities across the globe had the necessary information, strategic guidance, and WASH services they needed to protect themselves.
But the story of USAID’s WASH programming achievements cannot be viewed solely through the lens of COVID-19. This past year, the Agency expanded its evidence base to inform and strengthen current and future WASH programming. We released an expansive Water and Development Technical Brief Series and completed the research on a series of Ex-Post Evaluations that turned a critical eye toward long-closed WASH activities and examined the reasons why some interventions proved sustainable — and why some did not.
As we continue to learn, we also reflect on what has proven so impactful to date: USAID support since FY 2008 helped more than 53 million people gain access to sustainable water services, and 38 million people gain access to sustainable sanitation services. But our work is far from done. Between FY 2018 and 2019 alone, the Agency provided $835 million to support WASH activities in more than 50 countries. This year, USAID continued to make progress toward achieving its key development objectives under the U.S. Government Global Water Strategy. To accelerate our progress, we launched a private sector partnership with the global sanitation company LIXIL to help scale-up and speed access to affordable, sustainable WASH solutions around the world.
Don’t just take our word for it — let us show you the many ways USAID is helping transform lives. Scroll down to see how the Agency and its many partners have been busy harnessing the incredible power of WASH to enhance the quality of life, build more resilient and self-reliant communities, and create a healthier, more livable world for all, while protecting the environment.
Click here to view “Year in Review” in Adobe Spark. | https://medium.com/usaid-global-waters/the-year-in-review-df794e4a5c60 | ['Usaid Water Team'] | 2020-12-16 04:40:33.198000+00:00 | ['Sustainable Development', 'Water', 'International Development', 'Public Health', 'Covid 19'] |
Make Black Lives Matter In Your Workplace | Make Black Lives Matter In Your Workplace
Seeing your prejudices and bringing your privilege out into the light is a step towards change.
Previously published on Forbes
Say what you need to on social media. Then put down your phone and pick up your life. Not many will see you learning, confessing, repenting, uprooting, retooling, forgiving, inviting, empowering. But we will see its fruit. The hidden work is the heart work is the hard work. — Ashlee Eiland
Racist. This is not a term I have ever used to describe myself. But after reading “ White Fragility “ by Robin DiAngelo, I can identify my own racism. As a friend of mine said about the book, “It’s a tough but necessary read for white people.” It’s also illuminating and transformational. That’s why I am inviting every white person I know to read it.
With straightforward language and an unapologetic perspective, DiAngelo writes about why it’s so hard to admit one’s own racism and prejudice: We have it in our minds and hearts that racist people are bad people. And no one wants to be a bad person.
In an interview with Sandee LaMotte at CNN, DiAngelo explains:
One of the most important white pillars is what I call the good/bad binary — you’re either racist or you’re not. If you’re racist, you’re bad. You’re intentionally and consciously mean to people based on race. And if you’re not racist, you’re good, you’re nice and you’re open minded. What that sets up is that being a good person and being complicit with racism become mutually exclusive.
Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. Our culture has reinforced the message of white supremacy (the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society) for hundreds of years. It’s the water we’ve swum in. It’s the air we’ve breathed. This article by Isaac Bailey, demonstrates that no one is immune to the influence of white supremacy. You and I have absorbed these messages, whether we consciously chose to or not.
But seeing your prejudices and bringing your privilege and sense of superiority out into the light is a step towards change.
How Good Leaders Model the Way
What does leadership look like now that the Black Lives Matter movement has finally come to the forefront of all of our conversations and consciousness?
First and foremost, it looks like having people of color on your leadership team.
Don’t just give lip-service to this, build diversity into your organization by ensuring that your internal practices — hiring, promotions, who gets opportunities, etc. is not just for people who look like you. Second, true leadership looks like doing your own work. It looks like educating yourself about racism and prejudice. It is taking responsibility for how you are part of the problem. Then it’s sharing vulnerably with your team about what you are learning and what’s becoming clearer to you.
This kind of vulnerability-based sharing is no easy thing. It may even be one of the more challenging things you do in the days to come — in an already uniquely challenging environment.
Good leaders model the way. They show others what is possible and open perspectives for those that follow them. This is the heart of good leadership.
I am engaging in this conversation in a way I never have before. As I said, I didn’t think any of this applied to me. I had never considered myself racist and like to think I am a “good” person. I now know that those two terms are not mutually exclusive. The challenge is to walk straight into this conversation, this inquiry. To look at it squarely and not flinch or look away out of discomfort. It might get messy. You may not like what you see. But do not look away. This is a life or death matter.
In my own case, I recently discovered that I have been marginalizing a woman of color who reports to me, and I wasn’t even aware of it. She told me that she feels like I’m not listening to her as fully as I do others and that I seem to be more effusive with other team members. Predictably, I became defensive. I denied it.
But, with further reflection, I can see that she was right. I didn’t listen fully to her. I valued the contributions of other team members over hers. Not once did I become curious about her culture, her way of seeing the world, the impact of our white-dominated western culture on her. My own racism was hidden in the shadows. Now I am seeing all of this, and I’m grateful.
Before the death of George Floyd and the subsequent wake-up call for all white people, I would have argued and defended myself if someone had called me “racist.” As DiAngelo points out, “White people who see themselves as liberal can be the hardest, the most defensive, the most resistant, the most arrogant in their certitude that it is not them.” Now I can see that, too.
Consider that there is no way any of us white people could have avoided internalizing a racist worldview. It’s liberating to learn and understand why you need to stop saying that you’re not racist. It opens up your mind and your heart to a larger conversation, where new choices and actions are possible.
Many of us are asking, “What can I do?” If you are a leader, here are a few tips from a colleague of mine, Carmen Morris, on Forbes:
Recognize your own privilege. Advocate for radically changing systems of inequality. Don’t take it personally, recognize your position. Listen to the experiences of black and brown people. They matter. Practice reflective thinking and act to make changes.
I will be traveling beside you on this journey toward inclusive leadership.
*Ashlee Eiland is the author of Human (Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together | https://medium.com/swlh/make-black-lives-matter-in-your-workplace-ecbce9ed8b12 | ['Dede Henley'] | 2020-06-26 18:11:47.470000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Self-awareness', 'Unconscious Bias', 'Racism', 'Personal Development'] |
Too American, Not Asian Enough. I am a third-generation… | Cambodian and American Flag. Photo from voacambodia.com
I am a third-generation Cambodian-American.
My grandparents survived the Khmer Rouge genocide, soon emigrating to the United States, with the help of a generous family from Pennsylvania, who sponsored them, and their children. My mother and aunt were born in Thailand; they were toddlers when they came to the United States. My uncle was the first, in our family, to be born in the United States.
Leaving Pennsylvania, my family moved to California, seeking a community of other Cambodians, who were also trying to start their new lives in the United States.
With this being said, my grandparents have worked immensely hard, trying to make ends meet, to provide a good life for their family, here in the United States. They have sacrificed so much to make a new life for themselves and their children & grandchildren, in a new country. I will always, and continue to, admire their courage and tenacity, in doing so.
My mother and her siblings, grew up in the United States, and are very much well-versed in American culture. My grandparents encouraged them to focus on learning English, as well as becoming accustomed to American mannerisms. Because of this, my mother is a much more fluent English-speaker, compared to Khmer.
Growing up, I was always around my grandparents and mother; they helped in raising me and providing a good life for me. When I was a toddler, I was surrounded by many Khmer-speaking relatives, so my comprehension of both English and Khmer was evident. However, when I started attending public grade school, my understanding of Khmer began to diminish greatly.
My mother rarely spoke in Khmer to me, as a child and teenager, therefore I am, and have grown to be, a predominantly English-speaker. As much as my grandmother tends to speak to me in varied amounts of Khmer, I have a difficult time trying to grasp what she is saying to me.
I occasionally attended Khmer class, at the public library, when I was 7-years old, but I clearly did not comprehend much. I vaguely remember practicing writing Khmer letters, but seeing as that I could barely write words in English neatly, I eventually stopped going.
When I attended grade school, particularly elementary school, many of my peers were not minorities, let alone had any clue of where Asia was on a map. I received microaggressions, with kids making remarks, aiming at my darker skin tone. Many adults, even those who are Cambodian, would make it a point to always say that I did not look Cambodian, but instead I looked Mexican or Filipino. This led me to be embarrassed of my culture, as a child, and not wanting to share certain things about myself, that had any relation to my ethnicity.
However, middle school was different. I went to a very racially-diverse public school, and to my surprise, there were many Cambodian students there. I was friends with a number of them, which helped me learn to embrace my culture more. The downside was that I still felt out of place with them, with one of the reasons being that I felt they were “more Asian” than me. Many of them were bilingual English and Khmer-speakers, whereas I predominantly spoke English, at school and at home.
When I was 13-years old, I felt a desire to become more connected to my culture; I learned how to cook various Khmer dishes with my grandmother and wanted to add more vocabulary to my (practically nonexistent) knowledge of Khmer. My attempts at speaking Khmer to various family members and friends often resulted in getting teased and made fun of, leading to experiencing constant feelings of embarrassment.
When I started high school, I eventually stopped trying to learn or speak Khmer, and nobody in my family seemed to expect me to. Having always excelled in my English classes, along with having to learn Spanish, as part of my high school curriculum, improving my Khmer comprehension was left on the back burner.
I also constantly watched TV shows, that solely starred and featured people who are white. This was partially because I didn’t know of any other series with much of a diverse cast, let alone an Asian cast. I wanted to look like them so much, that I would straighten my naturally-wavy hair, on a regular basis. I had only ever grown up around people who followed and adhered to Eurocentric beauty standards, which influenced me to do the same. However, I soon realized that it was pointless; I would never look like them, and instead I am only concealing who I really am, both physically and mentally.
The CW Network show, Gossip Girl. Photo from Entertainment Weekly.
Disney Channel show, Hannah Montana. Photo from IMDB.
I began to feel like I was too American, and not Cambodian enough. I had a difficult time trying to be comfortable with myself, since I have been immersed in American culture my entire life, yet I do not look like many other Cambodian people that I know. Many self-esteem issues rooted from this; it is still a struggle I try to grow from, everyday.
Unfortunately, living in America, as a minority, will always have downsides, but it’s not something that one has to tolerate or stay silent about.
Despite my lacking comprehension of the Khmer language, I learned a lot about my culture and its history, throughout my childhood and teenage years. From my family’s stories, my childhood adoration of Khmer karaoke, and various movies about Cambodia that I have watched, I have always appreciated my culture. Now, I share that appreciation and learn to correct people when they may say something about my culture that is incorrect. I am no longer embarrassed about who I am, as my culture is a part of my identity, and I am proud of it. | https://medium.com/@jasmineal/too-american-not-cambodian-enough-75697d37dcd9 | ['Jasmine L.'] | 2020-08-06 01:47:23.186000+00:00 | ['Khmer', 'Asian American', 'Cambodian American', 'Cambodian', 'Asian'] |
Databases and Quick Overview of SQLite | We will be getting familiar with some of the technical terms and then jump into the details of the most widely used & deployed database engine in the world.
Nowadays, you’re getting 2020 wrapped on Spotify or you might have seen the Khatabook ad. The main reason behind the success of these apps is maintaining the databases properly and then performing analysis, serve the user better. The database is present for a long time and the only form of maintenance is the constant change. In ancient times we used to write it on stones than on paper and eventually on digital machines.
Okay, enough with the philosophy🤔, so let’s start !!
Databases
It is a collection of information that is organized so that it can be easily accessed, managed, and updated. You might be thinking of your phone’s contact list or your google photos! Yes, these are also databases.
Broadly speaking databases are mainly of two types relational and non-relational databases
Now let’s dive deep into them one by one!!
What is a DBMS?
A database management system (DBMS) is a software used to store and manage data. It guarantees the quality, durability, and confidentiality of information.
Relational Databases
It is a collection of data items with a pre-defined relationship between them. These items are organized as a set of tables with columns and rows. Tables hold information about the objects to be presented in the database.
How can you forget your attendance sheets? 😬 They can be the finest example of a relational database.
Don’t search your name in this list, the defaulter list will be separately uploaded😛.
Relational Database Management Systems, or RDBMSs are the most popular type of DBMS.
Some popular examples of standard relational databases management include Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, MySQL, and IBM DB2 but here, mostly we are going to talk about SQLite.
What is SQL?
Structured Query Language (SQL) is the standard language to interact with DBMS. In in simple words its used to talk to the data in a DBMS. Thinks of it as English language.
Note: All the popular RDBMS use slightly different implementation of SQL. But it’s not an issue. People across the globe have their own flavours of English language (different slang, dialect, and accent). But you can easily talk to them if you understand English. Similarly, if you know SQL, you can easily work with all of them.
Non-relational Databases
Often called as NoSQL database stores data in a non-tabular form. Instead, non-relational databases might be based on data structure like documents such as simple key/value pairs, as JSON documents, or as a graph consisting of edges and vertices.
Different Non-relational databases are
MongoDB
Cassandra
Elasticsearch
Amazon DynamoDB
HBase
To learn more about relational and non-relational databases refer to this
Now, lets us learn the most widely used & deployed database engine in the world.
SQLite
SQLite is a C-language library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. The lite in SQLite means lightweight in terms of setup, database administration, and required resources
Why SQLite is so popular?
Self-Contained means it requires minimal support from the operating system or external library. This makes SQLite usable in any environment especially in embedded devices like iPhones, Android phones, game consoles, handheld media players, etc.
means it requires minimal support from the operating system or external library. This makes SQLite usable in any environment especially in embedded devices like iPhones, Android phones, game consoles, handheld media players, etc. Zero-configuration Because of the serverless architecture, you don’t need to “install” SQLite before using it. There is no server process that needs to be configured, started, and stopped.
Because of the serverless architecture, you don’t need to “install” SQLite before using it. There is no server process that needs to be configured, started, and stopped. Maintenance : It’s just a single file. So, a normal copy-paste is enough to create a back-up.
: It’s just a single file. So, a normal copy-paste is enough to create a back-up. Transactional: All transactions in SQLite are fully ACID-compliant. It means all queries and changes are Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, and Durable.
Many high-profile companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. use SQLite in their products.
Limitations
Database size is restricted to 2GB in most cases. It might perform well if we use a client/server database engine that spreads its content across multiple disk files, and perhaps across multiple volumes.
SQLite is used to handle low to medium traffic HTTP requests to be specific it handles about 400 K to 500k HTTP requests per day, about 15–20% of which are dynamic pages touching the database
It’s row first, so column operations are pretty difficult to perform. For example, adding 10 to a particular column of all the selected records.
Installation of SQLite
To download the setup, open the download page of SQLite.
1.In the case of windows, you have to download this zip file. | https://medium.com/aiadventures/databases-and-quick-overview-of-sqlite-5b7d4f8f6174 | ['Sanjay Singh'] | 2020-12-14 07:04:31.430000+00:00 | ['Non Relational Database', 'Relational Databases', 'Database', 'Sqlite', 'Cap Theorem'] |
Dr. Allen Cherer, Neonatologist based in Charlotte, N.C. | Dr. Allen Cherer is a board-certified Pediatrician and Neonatologist with over 30 years of experience. A dedicated physician, Dr. Cherer profoundly values the opportunity to provide specialized care to sick newborns. His career closely tracks the incredible advances in neonatal intensive care. The field has grown extensively, assisted by unbelievable scientific advancements paired with technological innovation, and Dr. Cherer continues to proudly serve his community by caring for its most vulnerable members.
After earning his B.A. in Biology from the University of Virginia and his M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia, Dr. Cherer trained in Pediatrics at the University of Louisville’s Kosair Children’s Hospital. Following residency, he became Chief of Pediatrics at the USAF Regional Hospital Minot (North Dakota) after being commissioned in the United States Air Force Medical Corps. Once he completed his military service, Dr. Cherer started a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship in the Joint Program in Neonatology at Harvard Medical School. His research included the causes and sequelae of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in preterm infants. You can find his work published in a manuscript that proposed a comprehensive management protocol of IVH.
An experienced neonatologist, Dr. Allen Cherer has cared for thousands of newborns and their families in Georgia, California, and North Carolina. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has been extremely active with quality improvement initiatives sponsored by the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) to improve the care to infants and families affected by substance abuse disorders, as well as by the Perinatal Quality Collaborative of North Carolina (PQCNC) to further engage patients and families in hospital care practices. Also, Dr. Cherer is an instructor with the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program.
Devoting his life to providing care to newborn infants, Dr. Cherer appreciates all children’s incredible promise and potential. In addition to continually expanding his clinical expertise, he is also deeply invested in supporting parents and families to live their fullest, happiest, and most rewarding lives. | https://medium.com/@drallencherer/dr-allen-cherer-neonatologist-based-in-charlotte-n-c-ff40f08b2231 | ['Dr. Allen Cherer'] | 2021-02-18 22:07:35.363000+00:00 | ['Neonatal Care', 'Pediatrics', 'Doctors'] |
The Lionite and a Robot II | And so, one day, Matekel the lionite, was walking down the road, when he heard the intensive buzzing, getting louder and louder. He turned behind his back and in that moment katana sword sliced his belly, slightly. The lionite quickly distanced, as far as he could and in one moment stoped, realizing that the robot couldn’t reach him. The robot was stuck between two jardinieres and his arms couldn’t reach the lionite. It was a bigger robot than the last time, approximately two times taller than the lionite. This time, the spherical head was two times smaller than the square body and had eight arms coming out of the body, holding one katana sword in each of the arms. The lionite realized he had to wait for the robot to deplete it’s batteries, just like the last robot did. However, the lionite was bleeding through his belly, so he turned to his father and his father healed him. About an hour later, the robot, not stopping to sway the swords, trying to kill his target, shut down. The lionite, satisfied, continued to walk down the road in peace. | https://medium.com/@fallencrusader/the-lionite-and-a-robot-ii-5a384bbfea81 | ['Chris Skywalker'] | 2020-11-12 15:35:58.781000+00:00 | ['Miracle', 'Fight', 'Fiction', 'Robots', 'Lionite'] |
Automating the data movement from GCS to BQ using Data Transfer Service | In this example, Let us assume we have a cloud storage bucket with URI gs://bucket-dts-bq/ which has several csv files and there’s a destination table created in BigQuery as dtstransfer.salesdata.
To Set up a cloud transfer from console:
Navigate to BigQuery page, and click Data Transfers under the left pane. At this stage I assume you have already enabled APIs and Services mentioned above.
Create A Transfer from BQ data transfer screen
On create transfer page, you would need to make selections required for your data transfer.
Select the source type, which in our case is Google cloud storage. You can choose from a variety of sources, or even select third party transfers from Google Cloud Marketplace.
Give a name to your transfer job under Transfer config name. You would need to choose a schedule option, which enables a trigger for the data load. You may choose to load data at any interval you want. By default, DTS allows Daily, Weekly and Monthly. For example, if you want to load data bi-weekly, you may choose Custom.
You can even change the time zone depending upon where your data is loading from
You can select the data source details such as destination table , cloud storage URI etc. Under Write preferences , you may choose to either append or mirror (Please note mirror overwrites the fresh batch of data every time the scheduler runs).
, etc. Under , you may choose to either append or mirror (Please note mirror overwrites the fresh batch of data every time the scheduler runs). You can choose to delete the source file after each successful transfer by checking the option available. You may even choose to receive email notifications about the transfer run.
Selecting data source and providing write preferences.
Imagine there are problems with source data, or there is an outage at the source. You can initiate data backfills. This process is called Refreshing and you can initiate it from your data transfer console. Please note this option is enabled only for runtime parameterized transfer configurations.
Parameterization is process of setting up runtime parameters in order to load data by run_time. Using runtime parameters, you can specify how you want to partition the destination table. You can easily retrieve files by matching a particular run_time.
For example, salesdata$20210403 (Table_name$Run_Time) is the file loaded into partitioned BQ table from GCS at specific run time.
To Set up a cloud transfer from CLI:
The above assumptions apply here as well.
#Set transfer configuration — Wild card (*) enables to read all files in GCS bucket instead of listing each file individually. #Make transfer configuration same way we create DTS from Console. bq mk --transfer_config -- data_source=google_cloud_storage \
-- target_dataset= dtstransfer -- display_name “gcs-bq-transfer” \
-- params=’{“data_path_template”:” gs://bucket-dts-bq/*.csv”, “destination_table_name_template”:”salesdata”, “file_format”:”CSV”,“max_bad_records”:”1", “skip_leading_rows”:”1", “delete_source_files”:”true”}’\ -- data_source=google_cloud_storage
Points to remember when using DTS: | https://medium.com/@rspraneethkumar/automating-the-data-movement-from-gcs-using-data-transfer-service-e156b851a9bb | ['Sp Kumar Rachumallu'] | 2021-03-04 12:03:21.795000+00:00 | ['Gcp', 'Data Transfer', 'Bigquery', 'Google Cloud Platform'] |
Go auth with JWT | What will we be building?
In this article, we will try to build a simple Golang API for authorization and authentication. We will use JWT to store a user to reduce database calls and Echo framework to build routing. PostreSQL and pgx will be used to handle the database part.
Building
So, let’s start with designing the service API. We need an authentication route, which compare given login and password with ones in the database. If login and password match we will generate a JWT token for a user and store it in the cookies.
To authorize a user, we have to register one. So, we will also make a registration API.
Database
So, let’s create a user table in the database. We will use tern package to perform migration. Firstly, we have to specify a config file with DB credentials in the migration directory and call it tern.conf:
Secondly, we need to specify the user’s migration itself. Tern package can generate migration file for you. Use tern new create_users command to generate file and fill it with user table creation code:
Finally, we can perform migration using command tern migrate in the migration directory.
Now, we need to write some code that will let us connect to the DB and perform queries:
API
Let’s write the routing skeleton using Echo framework. We need to create new Echo instance and define an API group(with name /v1 for example). We also pass the group to InitAPI method which we will consider later.
Now, we can initialize the v1 api handlers, using Echo group that we passed to InitAPI before. users.SignUp and users.Auth are controllers from the user package that we consider next:
SignUp
While registration, we need two additional functions. First is a function, that performs searching in the users table by login. The function is used to validate uniqueness of the given login. Second is a function, to create a user in users table by given parameters. We will define these functions in the user model later.
Let’s define the models package.
Auth
Auth controller try to find the user by given login and compare passwords if user will be found. If user was found and password matched, it will created JWT token and add it to cookies. Let’s add the controller’s code to the users package.
We have to add two additional functions in the models package. First is the models.VerifyPassword function, that compare a given password with user’s hashed password. Second is the user.GetJWT function, that can create JWT token for a user.
Now, a JWT token contains the user model and we can extract it from the token. Let’s write the middlewares, one that can get a user from a JWT token and another one that will check the token and return Not Authorized error if it is invalid.
Now, we can get a user from the echo.Context in next handlers with code like this user:= e.Get(”user”).(*models.UserClaims) . For example, GetProfile handler, that returns the dencoded user:
Improvements
You can generate two tokens. First one to store a user’s data and user’s authorization, this token must expire in a short time span. Second token is a refresh token, which you can use to generate new token pair. Refresh token lifetime must be longer, so a user will be able to refresh tokens and continue using your API. Authorization token’s lifetime is short due to the fact that the token is sent to a server along with each request and can be intercepted. So it needs to be refreshed regularly. | https://medium.com/effective-development/https-medium-com-sergey-suslov-go-auth-api-using-jwt-47a4ef91f158 | ['Sergey Suslov'] | 2019-11-26 14:16:55.701000+00:00 | ['Postgres', 'Jwt', 'Golang', 'Go', 'API'] |
Why is CRM super-important for an Ecommerce Business? | CRM for Ecommerce Business
Because of the sharp increase in the Ecommerce Business, customers have a plethora of options to choose from. And the customers tend to choose the stores that are user friendly and provide product recommendations and discounts. They also want the brands to respond quickly to their queries and grievances.
The major factor that makes a company the most loved brand is the WOW experience they give to their customers. Smoother and faster customer interactions lead to an increase in sales. The customers prefer a personalized approach, be it in terms of the ads they see or their shopping experience. Maintaining this is the biggest challenge for Ecommerce Businesses.
What is CRM? Why is it needed for ECommerce Business?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. The main goal of CRM is to maintain existing customers as well as help to acquire new ones. And if the customers are happy then they refer your business to their friends and family.
CRM Software is a platform where the businesses can store their contact details, sales information, and revenue details. CRM Software also helps to automate the process. Thus, helping businesses to increase productivity, sales, and profitability. Presently, users are relying on online shopping and thus the physical touchpoints with the customers are less. So, businesses have to rely on Softwares to understand the customers and give them a better customer experience.
Now, let’s head on to the CRM Benefits for Ecommerce Business.
9 Key Advantages of CRM for Ecommerce Business
9 key advantages of CRM for Ecommerce Business
Gather Customer Data
The first thing that companies need to do is to study their customers and understand them. Thus, comes the need for customer data management. To create a buyer persona of the user, the business must know basic details about customers. This can be anything like the age group, gender, location, and lifestyle.
This information is very important. The companies can then plan their marketing campaigns and contents for blogs and social media pages as per this data. This helps the companies to understand consumer preferences and provides hyper-personalized marketing for different customer segments.
With the help of CRM, businesses can automate routine tasks such as lead generation. And, one can also get detailed information of the customers through reports and dashboards.
Thus the brands can focus more time analyzing and interpreting the data and thus creating effective marketing campaigns.
Increase Conversion rates
Once you understand who your actual customers are, you can create a more effective sales pipeline. One, which leads to faster conversions. It saves time as all the information needed by the sales team, such as important notes, emails, or meeting schedules, will be available at the same place.
With such detailed information about each customer, the businesses can create personalized campaigns rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.
The businesses can filter out qualified leads. The sales and marketing team can focus their efforts on these leads. And the chances of these leads converting to customers are higher.
Re-Engage with Customers Through Enhanced Marketing
This is the best way to show your customers that you care. Have they kept the cart abandoned for a long time? It is time to remind them of the lovely dress they might have forgotten about.
Statistics from the Business Insider shows us that returning customers generate more value for a business compared to new customers:
The bounce rate of the new visitors is much higher (34.8%) compared to that of existing users (24.4%).
(34.8%) compared to that of existing users (24.4%). Returning visitors had a higher conversion rate (4.4%) as compared to that of returning visitors (2.4%)
With the help of CRM, businesses can store customer information at the same place.
Amazon is the greatest example of how a brand engages with its customers. They not only remind customers of the things abandoned in the cart. But, they also give recommendations for the things that customers might be interested in.
Users might be using different channels to interact with the businesses. Still, the businesses can provide personalized customer service to the customers throughout all channels.
Email Marketing
Gone are the days when you could send mass emails to thousands of people. Now everyone craves for personalization. Personalization is the basis that determines whether your company’s email would land up in their inbox or Trash folder.
Now create marketing campaigns that instantly connect with your customers. Send emails to each segment and collect relevant information. Which emails were opened and which links did they click? This helps the marketing team to understand the customers or leads better. It also helps to filter out the ones who engage with the brand.
Email Marketing Tools like Mailchimp help to segment the customers and test the effectiveness of the campaigns.
And once such tools are integrated to CRM Software, the contacts or leads can be synced to the software.
Help in better forecasting and Inventory management
Inventory Management information gives details about the buying patterns, the products that are trending, accounting information, etc. Once this information is integrated with the customer information using CRM, the businesses can get a 360-degree view of their customers.
This can help the businesses understand as to how their customer tastes are evolving. It also tells the amount spent by customers, their demographics, etc.
This data helps in better forecasting. The Ecommerce businesses can manufacture or source the goods in advance when they see that a certain product is in high demand and soon would go out of stock. Similarly, the marketing team can identify how a campaign is performing. If the results are not good they can direct the marketing spend towards other successful campaigns.
The Products Reports in TeamWave CRM helps the businesses to identify the high performing as well as low performing products and their value. This helps in making the forecasting process more efficient.
Product Reports in TeamWave CRM
Build an Efficient Customer Support
We have mentioned in each of the above points, how the customers can be treated like Kings with Ecommerce-CRM integration. But there needs to be a special mention of efficient customer support. Businesses can have all the information associated with a customer in the CRM.
This allows the salesperson to upsell or cross-sell to a customer or lead. Thus, keeping in mind their tastes and preferences. Thus, keeping in mind their tastes and preferences.
Also, the brands can recommend products based on a user’s purchase or search history. If the brands understand how the customer responds to different situations, the businesses can enhance the customer journey. Thus, increasing customer lifetime value.
Get Satisfaction is a tool that takes the customer company engagement to a whole new level. They engage the customers through community platforms. This helps the new customers to get their queries answered faster by other experts in the group. The brands can also reward loyal customers here. Such tools help the brands to innovate their business strategies by interacting with the customers.
Minimize Losses Involved by Reducing Errors
Gone are the days when you had to handle different business operations manually.
With CRM integration, the businesses can automate the workflows thus saving time and reducing errors.
This prevents “entering duplicate content”. And the whole team gets access to real-time data once the data is entered in the CRM Software.
Maintain Brand Consistency
There are several departments in a business and many employees are working under these departments. Thus, the need arises to automate processes so that brand consistency is maintained through all channels.
So the businesses need to have templates in place that can be used by teams across your company. And at the same time, it can be edited to give a personalized touch.
Be it sending an email, creating content for campaigns, or responding to messages, a brand needs to have consistency in the way they communicate with their leads or customers.
Social Media Integration
Now the customers prefer to interact with the brands through different channels and expect a quick response. And social media is one such channel where the customers are spending most of their time. What is the use of a large social media following if they do not engage with your brand?
Now the customers expect the same level of seamless service through all channels. Thus, the brands have to be available at these channels to give the best customer experience
As quoted by the Salesforce Team, “79% of Salesforce customers reported improved customer service, and 63% increased customer retention — demonstrating that social CRM delivers real commercial benefits.”
Thus, Social CRM helps brands get valuable information about customers. It can be about how they interact with the brand, the products they like, the challenges they face, feedback for services, etc. This helps the brands to understand their customers in a better manner. The brands can create content that is hyper-relevant to their audience. This builds trust and brand loyalty. If your audience can relate to your content then they would share it among their circles. In turn, increasing your brand reputation.
CONCLUSION
Ecommerce Businesses need to integrate their data into CRM software. So that they can understand their customers better and increase efficiency in the way they interact with their customers. The current need for these businesses is to provide a personalized touch to each customer. But, at the same time maintain the brand consistency.
While choosing the perfect CRM Software that suits your business, you need to keep several factors in mind.
Looking for CRM Integration Software to boost your E-commerce business and increase customer engagement? Get started with our free trial right away. | https://medium.com/@remimenon/why-is-crm-super-important-for-an-ecommerce-business-e9ee1b703a72 | ['Reshmi Menon'] | 2020-09-23 05:02:45.146000+00:00 | ['Crm Software', 'Crm Solution', 'Sales Development', 'CRM', 'Salesforce'] |
How to disable kerberos in a CDH cluster | I am sure the first question arising in any sane person’s mind is why are we doing it? normally everyone goes the other way, we would want to make our cluster more secure and kerberise the cluster. And here I am, going the other way. It is due to change in how we want to use the clusters in the future.
All of our clusters are no-more multi-tenant, so losing authorization was lesser of a concern. We no longer needed to secure data between applications.
We used Redhat’s IPA as our Identity Provider and since we were moving to Centos, we wanted to get rid on IPA as well.
An important point to keep in mind is that, authorization does not work without authentication, for obvious reasons. So, removing kerberos means, we no longer can use Sentry as well for granting access to databases and table.
I have covered the changes made to cluster configuration through Cloudera manager, but I am sure same changes can be easily made using Ambari as well.
Hadoop Properties to change
Properties to change
After removing kerberos authentication, to maintain the behavior in which all yarn container are executed as user submitting the yarn job and not as nobody user, we have to make changes in below parameters.
Yarn properties to change
In CDH 5.11 , second parameter needs to set in safety and NOT just unchecking the parameter in Cloudera Manager, just edit parameter YARN Service Advanced Configuration Snippet (Safety Valve) for yarn-site.xml
As we are removing kerberos authentication, we have to get need to stop and delete Sentry which provides authorization. Before stopping and deleting the sentry service, make below changes in the configuration.
Clear yarn usercache — follow the steps detailed here in Cloudera community article. Delete the usercache carefully on all the nodes and all directories, here is a sample command I used on the hosts with nodemanager roles rm -rf /mnt/dsk/*/yarn/nm/usercache/*'
Along with the Cluster changes, after disabling Kerberos, some code changes are also required. All users interacting with the cluster need to update the configs.
Impala — impala-shell connection need to remove -k flag while connecting to impala
— impala-shell connection need to remove -k flag while connecting to impala Spark — in spark-submit, flag for --keytab and --principal need to removed from the command
— in spark-submit, flag for and need to removed from the command Oozie — Add config user.name to workflow config to make user actions are executed as the specified user.
There are more changes based on different access patterns to cluster, but most of the changes follow either of these two themes.
Ignore or remove the parameters which passes the kerberos principal and keytab for authentication to the service. Since on a kerberos cluster, principal specifies the identification on user which is trying to access to cluster services, hence after removing the kerberos authentication, we need to add parameters like user.name or define the environment variable HADOOP_USER_NAME
So, this is my experience for un kerberising the hadoop cluster, please let me know if you find this helpful and share your experiences. | https://medium.com/@sameerahmad-dba/how-to-disable-kerberos-in-a-cdh-cluster-8b467f1d3dd5 | ['Sameer Ahmad Siddiqui'] | 2020-12-30 17:25:49.074000+00:00 | ['Kerberos', 'Hadoop', 'Cdh', 'Cluster Management'] |
Exploring childhood diabetes in American Indian populations | Chronic conditions, such as type 1 diabetes, are becoming more prevalent in children. However, it is not just the children themselves who are affected. Many parents become so knowledgeable and hypervigilant about their child’s care that they essentially develop “diabetes-by-proxy”. Dr J. Neil Henderson, at the time working at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre but now affiliated with the University of Minnesota Medical School, explored experiences of parents of children with diabetes amongst American Indians over a four-and-a-half-year period. The study highlighted the need for focus on parent caregiver stress, as well as on the medical management of diabetes.
Globally, the incidence of diabetes is increasing. This means that the number of children with diabetes is also increasing and this is mostly due to diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D). Around 90% of young people with diabetes have T1D, with the remaining 10% diagnosed with type 2 or other forms of diabetes.
The International Diabetes Federation estimates that over 98,000 children under 15 years develop T1D annually. Globally, there are an estimated 600,900 children under 15 years who have T1D.
Designua/Shutterstock.com
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition that occurs when the body attacks the cells of the pancreas that are responsible for making a hormone called insulin. Insulin helps the body’s cells use glucose (sugar) for energy and in doing so, ensures that the levels of glucose circulating in the blood are kept under control. The absence of insulin production by the pancreas means that people with T1D must administer their own insulin via injection, and the amount of insulin required depends on blood sugar levels.
“The parents’ hypervigilance can be associated with chronic sleep deprivation, increased depression and anxiety, and physical illness.”
While adults may be more aware of drops in their blood sugar levels and how to address them, this is often not the case in childhood T1D. There is a risk associated with night-time drops in blood sugar levels that are not noticed by the child or parents. Even when the child is able to independently test their blood sugar levels and take the appropriate action, parents must remain vigilant. Furthermore, it is already well known that being a caregiver for someone with a chronic condition is associated with persistent and sometimes extreme stress.
In the case of childhood T1D, the parents must learn how to manage the condition. Dr J. Neil Henderson comments that they “essentially have type 1 diabetes-by-proxy”. “Diabetes-by-proxy” refers to the virtual internalisation of the child’s behaviours, mood and metabolic physiology by the parents, but an absence of actual physiological symptoms of diabetes. Although this work was done while Dr Henderson was at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre, he is now at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Even if the child can manage his or her condition, the parents need to remain vigilant.
Dr Henderson emphasises the clinical need to better understand that parents require support beyond practical management of T1D; parental fears also need to be acknowledged and appropriate help must be offered to ensure a high quality of life for the child and their parents.
Diabetes in American Indian people
There are many disparities in healthcare for American Indian people compared to other populations in the United States. For example, American Indians (AIs) are 2.2 times more likely than non-Hispanic white people to develop type 2 diabetes; 16.3% of AI have diagnosed type 2 diabetes. The rate of complications is also higher than in other populations. These differences may partly be due to genetic influences, but psychocultural variables also play a major role.
Dr Henderson’s previous work has shown that the main categories of patient’s concern about type 2 diabetes centre around mechanical acts, such as injecting insulin, medical complications and the perception that diabetes is not generally a severe condition, although in the extremes, there is a profound fear of amputations. Dr Henderson also identified that AI elders may hold the strongest views around type 2 diabetes, including denial, avoidance and non-adherence to treatment, and these can influence the beliefs and practices of others.
Parents essentially develop “diabetes-by-proxy” since they are so involved in their child’s diabetes management.
Parents experiences of childhood diabetes
Dr Henderson’s research team followed the experiences of 19 families in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma over four and a half years. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest recognised tribe in the United States, with over 200,000 enrolled members.
Each of the 19 recruited families had a child under 18 years with T1D and they provided Dr Henderson with almost 100 hours of semi-structured interview data over this time period. This allowed the researchers to track changes in the caregiver stress and distress, as well as exploring the child’s transition into young adulthood with T1D. In particular, they noticed that increased levels of stress within the family were present between the ages of 18 and 25 years. This was due to a combination of factors such as concern over the child being able to manage their own care, repeated hospitalisations and approaching the time at which the child would be leaving their parental home.
This exemplifies the extent to which a childhood condition directly effects the mental and physical health of the parents.
American Indians are 2.2 times more likely than non-Hispanic white people to develop type 2 diabetes.
Ruslana Iurchenko/Shutterstock.com
Diabetes-by-proxy
The families involved in the study had access to free insulin and equipment as well as clinical diabetes specialists. Most of the families did not have continuous glucose monitors (apart from two families). These are devices which can track and monitor blood sugar levels throughout the day and night, allowing trends to be identified and patients to be alerted to high or low blood sugar levels.
“There is a need for the parents to recognise their own stressors, rather than focusing solely on the child.”
Without continuous blood glucose devices, parents must monitor the blood glucose levels of children who are too young to do so themselves. This requires constant vigilance and as a result, parents behaved as if it was them that had diabetes. Dr Henderson interprets this as psychological embodiment of the disease by parents. This hypervigilance, especially when linked to checking the child’s blood sugar levels overnight, can be associated with chronic sleep deprivation, increased depression and anxiety, and physical illness.
The study used qualitative methods to explore categories of interest that arose from the answers to the questionnaire and interviews. Serial interviews occurred at intervals of six to ten months over the whole span on the four-and-a-half-year study.
Whilst caring for their child, parents also need to monitor and recognise their own stressors to avoid caregiver burnout.
The first common theme identified was extreme stress relating from the potential for severe drops in blood sugar levels at night-time, something which can be a real or perceived risk of death for the child. The second theme followed from this and included the subsequent hypervigilance of parents to prevent episodes of nocturnal low blood sugar levels. For example, parents may start becoming more anxious before bedtime and post-traumatic stress-type responses may be seen in parents who have experienced extreme diabetic events.
Both of these factors contribute towards the parents’ developing “diabetes-by-proxy” as they are impacted by the condition as much as the child — if not more.
Parental personality traits can also impact the stressors they experience. Depending on their socio-economic backgrounds, parents may have different approaches to managing their child’s conditions, ranging from more relaxed approaches to more structured, proactive approaches.
Clinical need to address parental stress
While parents of children with chronic health conditions are dedicated to saving the lives of their children, they also put themselves at risk of caregiver burnout at the same time.
In order to achieve the best outcomes for both parents and child, there is a need for the parents to recognise their own stressors, rather than focusing solely on the child. This places additional pressure on the child as they may feel that their diabetes is responsible for changes to their parents’ health and wellbeing. Thus, the balance between caring for the child and enabling them to manage a chronic health condition, and ensuring the parents are in the best possible place emotionally and physically to facilitate this, is key.
Dr Henderson emphasises it is not only the child with T1D who is a patient; a household made up of others who are also impacted by the condition should be included under this title as well.
Furthermore, by recognising “diabetes-by-proxy” as a real, meaningful phenomenon, Dr Henderson hopes that clinical frameworks may start to explore options for treatment, improvement and legitimisation of parents’ experiences and concerns.
What can parents of children with chronic illnesses do to prevent caregiver burnout?
Parents can become well informed regarding the nature of T1D and its many metabolic manifestations, identify a hotline for immediate help with questions, join a support group, teach family, friends, and teachers about the condition and its best management, and ask for their cooperation. As the child matures, parents should provide age-appropriate information in a factual manner that does not scare the child but empowers them. Last, like many things, the task is communication, communication, and, yet again, communication.
References
Carson, L. D., Henderson, J. N., King, K., Kleszynski, K., Thompson, D. M., & Mayer, P. (2015). American Indian Diabetes Beliefs and Practices: Anxiety, Fear, and Dread in Pregnant Women With Diabetes. Diabetes spectrum: a publication of the American Diabetes Association, 28(4), 258–263. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2337/diaspect.28.4.258
Henderson, J. N., Carson, L. D., Tomette, A., Hass, A., & King, K. (2020). Diabetes-by-Proxy: Virtual Embodiment of Disease by Oklahoma Choctaw Parents of Children with Type 1 Diabetes. Medical anthropology quarterly. Advance online publication. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12581
Tomette, A., Henderson, J. N., Hass, A., Carson, L. D., & King, K. (2020). Parental Stress as a Child With Diabetes Transitions From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood. Journal of patient experience, 7(3), 365–371. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373519842963
Research Objectives
Dr Henderson studies parents’ experience of their child’s type 1 diabetes.
Funding
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Collaborators
Amanda Hass
Alisa Tomette
Bio
Dr Henderson is a medical anthropologist using a syndemic analytic framework to explore the intertwined nature of diabetes and dementia among American Indian people. He developed the earliest minority Alzheimer’s support groups and biocultural dementia research with American Indians. He is a voting member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Contact
Joseph Neil Henderson
Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team
University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus
624 East 1st Street
Duluth, MN 55805, USA
E: : [email protected]
T: +1 405–509–1945
W: https://memorykeepersmdt.com/ | https://medium.com/@ResearchFeatures/exploring-childhood-diabetes-in-american-indian-populations-620fad98aba5 | ['Research Features'] | 2021-12-25 09:01:11.424000+00:00 | ['Chronic Illness', 'Science', 'Health', 'Diabetes'] |
Simple CSS Animation Tutorial. Let’s turn a yellow square box into a… | These diagrams are from CSS Visual Dictionary — grab a copy here.
Check out the above figure. Soon as .animateClass is assigned to an element, animation will start playing. The class has a link to animationName. It must match the name specified by @keyframes rule. This animation is set to last 3 seconds or 3000ms as specified.
Note: Easing adds flavor to your animation — by providing a curve describing relative velocity of your animation at a particular spot on the time line.
We’ll cover easing and all other CSS animation properties throughout the remainder of this article, based on this simple example.
So How Does It Work?
You can animate any CSS property whose physical position, dimensions, angle or color can be changed. Basic animation is surprisingly simple to implement using keyframes.
CSS animation keyframes are specified using the @keyframes directive. A keyframe is simply the element’s state at a single point on animation time line.
CSS animation engine will automatically interpolate between animation keyframes. All you need to do is specify the state of CSS properties at the start and end points of the animation.
Once all of our keyframe locations are set up (which are often specified in percentages) all we need to do is set up the defaults for our original element we wish to animate.
Then create a named animation using @keyframes animationName {…} format, that stores all the keyframes. We’ll take a look at that in just a moment!
Finally, create a special class that will define your animation’s duration, direction, repeatability, and easing type… and link it to the same animation name that was used by @keyframes directive. This process is explained visually in the following sections.
CSS Animation Properties
The animation property is the short-hand to the 8 stand-alone animation properties described below:
animation-name — name of the keyframe specified by @keyframes rule.
animation-duration — duration of the animation in milliseconds.
animation-timing-function — specify easing function.
animation-delay — add delay before animation starts playing.
animation-iteration-count — number of times animation should play.
animation-direction — play forwards, backwards or alternate sequence.
animation-fill-mode — state of the animation when it is not playing.
animation-play-state — specify whether animation is running or is paused.
In the following sections we’ll explore each one visually.
animation-name
The alpha-numeric animation identifier name: | https://jstutorial.medium.com/a-simple-css-animation-tutorial-dd24f82cafe3 | ['Javascript Teacher'] | 2020-10-24 02:43:55.772000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'CSS', 'UI', 'UX', 'Programming'] |
Nonzero: the logic of human destiny | Notes | 1/ Here are my notes from @robertwrighter‘s book — Nonzero: the logic of human destiny. I enjoyed the book very much.
The basic premise of the book is that history has a direction which favors co-operation and non-zero sum games, and that causes an increase in complexity.
2/ Starting from the first replicating molecule which co-operated with an outer layer to form first proto-cell, evolutionary and cultural history is full of examples where two entities come together to survive and progress a lot more than they would have done individually.
3/ This co-operative entity fares much better than two individual entities because of specialization. If two entities are in the same boat — that they win together or lose together — then trust is implicit.
4/ In a non-zero sum game, trust causes entities to focus on what they do best. For example, eukaryotic cells — the ones animals and plants have — emerged when two proto-cells merged, and one took the role of energy generator (mitochondria), the other specialized in protection.
5/ Some scientists believe that even nucleus in a cell is a result of an early cell merging with another cell. So M&A is not a recent phenomenon, entities have been merging because of common interests ever since life started.
6/ Even a single cell is an emergent entity because different genes/DNA “decided” that co-operating and specializing via a single genome is a much better survival mechanism as compared to individual genes/DNA trying to replicate in the wild.
7/ By making an organism, the genes in the genome, seal their common fate. Either they survive together or they die together. This is truly a non-zero sum game.
8/ However, within the broader non-zero sum game, there are opportunities for playing zero-sum games. Like, even though we’re a family and there’s a single ice-cream left in the fridge, you’d want to have it.
9/ After emergence of eukaryotic cells, the big leap was multiple eukaryotic cells coming together to form a multi-cellular organism.
10/ An organism is a pact that billions of cells share that they either survive together or die together. This “trust” enables them to specialize and co-operate together for better survival. Some become specialists at taking in oxygen, and others at writing poetry.
11/ Now onto cultural evolution. What I thought was perhaps the most clever idea in the book: ideas that support co-operation and specialization survive and get adopted because they enable win-win deals for idea holders. (Non-zero sum games)
12/ Technologies — like hammer and spear — enable a group of humans to co-operate and do things they individually couldn’t have done: like taking on a mammoth, or going to the moon.
13/ And there’s a nice feedback loop in technology< →co-operation cycle. The more people co-operate, the more they’re able to specialize, which leads to more sophisticated technology.
14/ Out of all technologies, perhaps information technologies are most conducive to enabling more non-zero sum games. As writing skill spread, more and more people entered into simple written contracts that helped people co-operate and specialize.
15/ Perhaps the biggest information technology was money and the corresponding meme of capitalism that helped people express their desires clearly and others to fulfill those desires.
16/ We have a thousand different types of shoes because shoe-makers today do not have to worry about baking their own bread. This “trust” in the larger entity of commerce helps everyoneprogress.
17/ This loop of technology< →co-operation accelerates specialization and causes complexity to grow even in face of the second law of thermodynamics, which states universe tends to move towards disorder.
18/ One good way to think why non-zero sum games are inevitable throughout history is to see thatentities that co-operate overpower entities that don’t. In this way, war or threat of war actually causes people to come together as a nation-state.
19/ This threat of zero-sum or even negative-sum game (of say “nuclear war” or “climate change”) is the catalyst for greater levels of co-operation. The book discusses EU and UN as early and emerging examples of a possible future “world government“ (whatever shape it may take)
20/ So even though history is full of accidents and you can’t precisely tell time and location of major shifts/innovations, you can tell that (social, information, energy and material) technologies that enable entities to co-operate are inevitable.
21/ Eye was “discovered” by evolution multiple times, and so was flight. Similarly, the book argues, if humans vanish, perhaps our close cousins (primates) will have an opportunity to evolve towards a greater level of co-operation and reinventing writing, capitalism and culture.
22/ That reminded me of the movie “Planet of the apes”! Of course, tribalism is rampant today and the age of Trump and Brexit will be a good test for book’s ideas. My sense is that these are hiccups and counter-trends such as crypto, Internet and UBI will enable cohesion.
23/ To reiterate: the trajectory of history pushes co-operation and complexity while the second law pushes dissolution and disorder. Is it the old yin-yang meme at play? | https://medium.com/@abishekbabu/nonzero-the-logic-of-human-destiny-notes-aa22e90d4e95 | ['Abishek Babu'] | 2020-12-27 17:56:58.167000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Book Review', 'Review', 'Information', 'Reading'] |
New Apps Help You Explore Cuisine And Restaurants in Vietnam | New Apps Help You Explore Cuisine And Restaurants in Vietnam
DeliHoli
Hello everyone, we, SHIFT ASIA company located in Vietnam, have just released an application which helps you explore local cuisine and restaurants in Vietnam
As of now, only Ho Chi Minh City is supported. Other cities (Ha Noi, Da Nang, Hue, etc,) will be added soon. Download and use it to explore Vietnamese cuisine by yourself!
What are difficult things when coming to a strange country?
- No knowledge of recommended Local Foods and Restaurants
- Being over-charged as you don’t know the actual price
- Worrying about the gredients of local food.
DeliHoli help you to explore and eat local foods as a local. Do you know understanding the cuisine is the best way to know about the country’s culture
Amazing Key Features:
- Local Food Pedia; Any food has a story. Let’s explore the story of each local food.
- Restaurant Details: Get lost in choosing restaurants? Detailed menu and rating help you to choose the best restaurants in town.
- Support Languages: Support multi languages (currently English and Japanese).
- Detailed Price: Worry about being over-charged? DeliHoli helps you to know the price clearly.
- Easy to use: Simple and Friendly Interface.
You can download DeliHoli to explore Vietnamese cuisine and eat Vietnamese food just like local !!!
Web: http://deliholi.com
IOS: https://goo.gl/JpDhfs
Android: https://goo.gl/w2kEUQ
Facebook: http://facebook.com/deliholi/
Instagram: DeliHoli | https://medium.com/@hungvo_52128/new-app-help-you-explore-cuisine-and-restaurants-in-vietnam-5495664c183b | ['Hung Vo'] | 2017-12-11 06:06:54.632000+00:00 | ['Vietnam', 'Travel', 'Ho Chi Minh'] |
Documenting the almighty button | Artists, whether they’re experienced or amateurs can then use any of these mediums to jump back hundreds of years in history and thousands of miles across the globe to see what’s out there. They can then be inspired by illustration techniques used in ancient Malaysian manuscripts while also walking into an open exhibition in their neighbourhood later that day.
Compared to artists, how do we, as designers of products broaden our perspectives and look back in our field? I’m specifically intrigued by digital products for now. Sure, we have a bunch of books around brand identity, typography, and visual design in general. We also have books about products and processes, using examples from their time which simply got older. There’s also the Way Back Machine, keeping track of some parts of the Internet. However, digital design evolved beyond the Internet and beyond a few big brands: there are apps, IOT systems, open-source software, wearable devices, operating systems, phones, panels, and more. All of them require digital interfaces to be created, still by humans.
How do we get to creating these interfaces? Well, we’ve got several processes, principles, and methods to make sure that the interfaces we create will make sense for the people using them. We look at existing designs in the form of market or competitor analysis, mainly to ensure that we are adopting successes while avoiding mistakes. These analyses, however, rarely get to look back more than a couple of years; most of the time ending up focusing on the same famous products. We fail to realise the amount and variety of solutions different designers came up with, somewhere else across the World 5, 10 or even 20 years ago. We tend to look at our nearby comfortable vicinity only, enclosing our imagination right from the start. | https://uxdesign.cc/documenting-the-almighty-button-bb37cebb4647 | ['Teisanu Tudor'] | 2021-06-01 10:56:34.566000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UX', 'Documentation', 'History', 'UI'] |
An Artist Created Lifelike Photos of the Wives of King Henry VIII | The daughter of two teachers, Becca Saladin has always loved history. Her love of history, paired with her talent as a graphic artist is breathing new interest into centuries-old stories.
It all started with Anne Boleyn
The first book her father read her was a fictionalized version of the Anne Boleyn story. Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s second wife, was a feisty and intelligent woman who quickly became Saladin’s favorite historical figure.
One day, she wondered what Boleyn would look like today. So, she opened Photoshop to see if she could bring her into the future. Pasting together eyes, nose, and mouth, she manipulated them to match Boleyn’s portrait, digitally painting eyelashes and skin color.
When she was done, Boleyn felt like a real person to her. Looking at the photo makes Boleyn’s story feel more horrific and somehow more profound. She could relate to her.
“It’s hard for us to relate to historical figures”, she says, “when all we have to go by is flat portraits wearing outdated period era garments. We don’t connect with them. But they were real people, with real feelings.”
“History isn’t just a series of stories, it was real people with real feelings. I think the work brings people a step closer to that.” — Becca Saladin
public domain photos of King Henry VIII’s wives from Wikipedia, composite created by author
Once Boleyn was completed, she started photoshopping the portraits of King Henry VIII and the other wives and launched an Instagram account for her Royalty Now project. It’s taken off and has over 270 thousand followers.
The accidental king…
photos of King Henry VIII created by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
A second-born son, Henry was the spare, not the heir. While his elder brother Arthur was being groomed for the throne, Henry studied religion and the arts and wrote music and poetry.
His brother Arthur, heir to the throne, had been betrothed since childhood to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella.
Six months after Arthur and Catherine were married, he died of a sudden illness and Henry VIII became heir to the throne. Henry VIII was only 17 years old when he ascended to the throne. He immediately married his brother’s 23-year-old widow.
1. Catherine of Aragon: perfect in every way but one
photo of Catherine of Aragon by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
Promised to Arthur since childhood, Catherine was raised to be queen. Many historians believe she’s the only woman Henry truly loved. Tiny, delicate, and ladylike, he believed she was perfect in every way — except one.
In their years of marriage, Catherine bore him six children. Three boys, three girls. One after another, each infant died. All but one. The only child that survived infancy was a daughter, who would become Mary I.
As one son died, then a second and third, Henry became obsessed with a male heir. It was her one failing, he said. The inability to give him a son. When his mistress bore him a son that could never be king, that was the final straw.
“Henry viewed her as a model wife in every respect but one… her failure to give him a son” — Tracy Borman, Tudor historian
Henry petitioned the pope for a divorce, but his request was refused. So he broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church, formed the Church of England, and got his divorce.
Catherine was demoted to princess, disallowed to see her daughter, and banished to a distant residence. Henry was free to marry again.
2. Anne Boleyn: “Lord have mercy on me”
photo of Anne Boleyn by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
With Catherine out of the way, Henry married Anne Boleyn. As feisty and intelligent as she was tiny and feminine, Henry was smitten. Their first child, Elizabeth, was born barely nine months after the wedding.
She was expecting their second child when Henry was injured in a jousting tournament. When news of the accident reached Anne, she collapsed and miscarried, delivering a tiny stillborn son.
Miles away, Catherine of Aragon died the day Boleyn miscarried.
Henry lost interest in Anne after the stillbirth and developed an attraction for her lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. Anne was enraged. Not just as his infidelity and indiscretion, but his choice.
Boleyn’s and Seymour’s mothers were cousins and the girls had been raised together for a time. The two women came to blows over Henry and Anne plotted with her sister-in-law to remove Jane from the court.
Desperate to end the marriage, Henry accused Anne of treason and adultery with multiple men including her brother, a charge historians believe was fabricated. She was forced to listen to her brother’s execution the day before her own. The king did not even attend her beheading.
“Oh Lord, have mercy on me. To God I commend my soul!”
—the final words of Anne Boleyn
3. Jane Seymour: a story short and tragic
photo of Jane Seymour by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
On the day Anne Boleyn was beheaded, Henry announced his engagement to Jane Seymour. They married a few days later.
Seymour’s story is short and tragic. A few months after the wedding, she delivered the male heir King Henry so desperately wanted. Less than two weeks after delivering Edward VI, she died from postpartum complications.
As the only woman to produce the male heir he was so desperate for, she was buried (next to Henry) at Windsor Castle.
4. Anne of Cleves: thanks, but no thanks
photo of Anne of Cleves by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
Two years after Jane Seymour’s death, the king’s chief minister suggested that a European alliance would be beneficial and suggested that Henry marry one of the sisters of Germany’s Duke of Cleves.
The king dispatched an artist to paint portraits of the women. Upon receiving the portraits, he selected Anne and the marriage was arranged.
When Anne arrived, Henry protested that the portrait did not accurately represent her and tried to halt the wedding. Alas, it was too late. They were married six days later. It was his shortest marriage.
Less than six months later, Henry offered Anne a generous financial settlement in return for agreeing to annul the marriage given that it remained unconsummated. She accepted and lived out her life in peace and financial comfort as the “King’s Sister.”
5. Catherine Howard: A double tragedy
photo of Catherine Howard by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
She was 15, perhaps 16, and a lady-in-waiting to the undesired Anne of Cleves. He was 49. He proposed. She accepted. Delighted with his young bride, Henry showered her with gifts and called her his “rose without a thorn.”
Catherine Howard gave Henry the youth and vitality he thought he’d lost. After a long honeymoon, they settled into marriage and she became step-mother to Henry’s three children, one of them slightly older than her.
Less than a year later, the rumors of infidelity started. Catherine was sneaking out to meet someone. After an investigation by the archbishop, two of Catherine’s childhood teachers claimed they’d had consensual sexual relationships with the girl, one starting when she was only 12.
Today, we would not call a sexual relationship with a 12 year old consensual. Historian Josephine Wilkinson said, “Catherine was sexually exploited by two men of the household.”
One of the “relationships” continued after her marriage, under fear of exposure. Catherine was afraid he would reveal knowledge of private markings if she didn’t comply. Today, we might call that blackmail.
Henry was furious that she was not a virgin at marriage. She was denied a trial and executed for adultery and treason. She was not yet 18.
Catherine Parr: a full and creepy circle
photo of Catherine Parr by Becca Saladin © Royalty Now
Henry’s last wife was a childhood friend of his first child, and named after his first wife, bringing Henry’s relationships to a full and creepy circle.
Parr’s mother had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and named her baby in honor of her queen. Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor, was only four years younger than Parr and the two were childhood friends.
At age 30, she was thrice married and widowed and in love with Thomas Seymour, brother of Jane Seymour when the King took interest in her. One does not reject the king carelessly. She accepted his proposal. He was 52.
Henry’s last wife was a spirited and educated woman who won some firsts in women’s literary history. Her book, Prayers or Meditations, is the first book to be authored by an English woman under her own name and the first book to be published by a woman in the English language.
During their short marriage, she persuaded Henry to restore his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to the order of succession to the throne.
Death of a king
Henry VIII died of natural causes, age 55, with Catherine Parr at his side. After his death, she quietly married her true love, Thomas Seymour. Less than a year later she was dead from childbirth complications. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/an-artist-created-lifelike-photos-of-the-wives-of-king-henry-viii-bdb99cd35155 | ['Linda Caroll'] | 2020-12-06 18:02:46.694000+00:00 | ['History', 'Women', 'Murder', 'Royalty', 'Relationships'] |
Is 2020 the reset year we all needed? My reflection on COVID-19 and 2020 | My calendar was filled with meetings, and commitments right before COVID-19 lockdown was announced. As soon as the lockdown news came into effect, my empty calender was riddled with the uncertainty of what the future holds.
In these past 3 months in Canada, I have witnessed growth, resilience, compassion, and adaptability in ways I did not know was possible. I worked in a food bank non-profit organization and with COVID-19 in air, our client pool could not access food services. But that did not stop this non-profit organization. As a team, we came up with a way to deliver food, and make sure no one has to leave their home, take public transportation, potentially expose themselves to the virus just to access their food needs. This is just one of my own lived experiences.
The whole experience of COVID-19 has taught me that sky truly is the limit. If the circumstances call for it, any event or commitment big or small will get canceled. With that being said, we are the basic levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and we must prioritize our physiological and safety needs. So a lesson to take away from this — prioritize your health and needs above all.
Coronavirus has also left some damaging effect on our economy that will take years to recover from. But with that being said, this was a traumatic extreme event for many people. Some people lost their loved ones, some lost their homes, jobs, business, and others are struggling to maintain their mental health. While these are experiences many people experienced first hand, we now have the background and starting point to fathom the amount of stress anyone could be feeling. Not only has COVID-19 given us the universal trauma bond but also, it forced us to slow down and reflect on what we see.
Perhaps one of our hardest-hit groups is our elderly population in addition to vulnerable and marginalized populations. Within this elderly group, there is a large number who are in senior homes and some who may not be technology savvy. This makes them vulnerable to loss of family connections and the resulting loneliness can be an isolating state. In my own community, I have witnessed my healthcare student friends who set up zoom calls to engage with elderly members at senior homes. The shared experience of COVID-19 is drawing us to experience and reach out to help.
With all of these being said, my purpose was to express that perhaps we need to look at COVID-19 differently. It tied us all together with a shared experience of struggle and feeling of fear. We all had to pause our work and bring our own expertise to support our community to get out of this challenge together. COVID-19 also created cracks in our societal system to show the injustice that goes on and challenge our leaders to show how they would protect the citizens of the country. While some leaders have shown exceptional leadership by leading with their hearts, other leaders continue to spread misinformation and do absolutely nothing to support their citizens. Furthermore, our lives will never be the same again and I say this with confidence. Being able to sit and work from home, as well as reflect in the safety of our homes is a privilege. Recognize that countries like Bangladesh continue to suffer especially in slums or homeless individuals everywhere generally. Being aware of my privilege and being in a position of financial stability was enough of a reason for me to volunteer, look to donate to charities as well as set up charities with friends to support the vulnerable members of our society.
In light of the ongoing history-long challenges that the Black community has been facing, I have come to wonder — What role did COVID-19 play in the Black Lives Matter movement? From my perspective, if the color of my skin determines my basic human rights on a regular non-COVID day, then COVID-19 is just another inconvenience to protesters. When human life is being compromised by the protective members of our society such as the police force, COVID-19 truly introduced no new obstacle.
I also believe that the universal pause from COVID-19 gave us time to reflect and recognize our privilege. Social media or the internet generally is our main form of information transmission/consumption and if BLM is all over the internet, TV, social media, we have to pause, engage and learn about it. We see the news of George Floyd and other black individuals who suffered from the police right into our main news. Again, COVID-19 created the cracks in our society, and that crack allowed us to see the injustices in our society.
The optimistic side of me believes that COVID-19 will eventually run its course, but the lessons we have learned from 2020 will forever live through our veins and shape the way we live our lives.
I welcome any ideas you would like to share! Thank you for reading! | https://medium.com/@theshellview/is-2020-the-reset-year-we-all-needed-my-reflection-on-covid-19-and-2020-9473a90d732f | ['The Shell View'] | 2020-06-08 04:06:12.716000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', '2020', 'Reflections', 'Covid Diaries'] |
What Is The Difference Between Reference And Literal In JavaScript? | Before reading this article, you must have intermediate knowledge of JavaScript like a little bit OPP concepts, Arrays Objects & functions .
What you will learn?
Here we will see about,
Data types & a Variable Primitive type vs reference type Literal vs reference (Object, Function, Array)
1. Data types & a Variable
Data types
If you are familiar with programming languages like, C C# C++ Java etc. You have noticed that every programming language has their own data types and declaration of variables & same case with JavaScript. But if you search about data types of JavaScript you will find varieties of answers about it, some resources will say there are 8 data types and some will say 6 and so on. But don't get confused there are 6 data types in JavaScript in general.
Number > integer, BigInt, floats etc. String > Array of characters i.e words Boolean > True/false Null > no value (technically null is a value) undefined > not defined at declaration time symbol > a unique value that is not equal to another value
You Must have to know, these are the types of data or forms of data in other words. The above 6 types can be modified in more detail like in sub-categories. As JavaScript is a loosely and dynamic type language which means there is no force to write the form of data eg. int string boolean you just simply tell computer about declaring of data not the form of the data.
eg.
We just declare our variables by not telling the machine what type of our declared data. It is the JavaScript job to find the type of data. For assurance, we can ask from JavaScript that what type of data we have declared by typeof keyword/operator. let's break here about types of data because this is not our main topic.
A Variable
In the above visual piece of code, we have covered the variable also. Furthermore, a variable is the part of the memory for storing some kind of data. eg. let name = 'Hawking'; now variable name has space in memory containing data Hawking
2. Primitive type vs reference type
Whatever we saw above Data Types & a Variable these were primitive type of data which means whenever memory stores, this data will save an unordered way (where ever memory sees space put there) but in reference case memory store whole data in sequence order (with memory reference) you know why? because reference type of variables are Array Function and an Object . So, these types store in memory with sequence and generate reference (address) in the memory cell. This is the fundamental difference between primitive and reference data types.
In other words, reference type means when you create an object, that value is not directly assigned to the variable. Instead, a reference to that value is what gets set. All that variable knows about is the location of the object in memory, not the object itself.
Now see how primitive and reference works on memory side.
3. Literal vs reference
(Object, Function, Array)
somehow both literal vs reference are the same thing but literal is a way to make a prototype (blue print) of your data in an object. While function, array and reference form has already designed in JavaScript with a constructor and can be accessible with new keyword.
Basically, constructor is the part of “OOP” approach! don’t think over about it if you’re beginner.
See code below how literal and reference look in real.
eg. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/reference-vs-literal-in-javascript-1492edc17df5 | ['Fahad Khan'] | 2020-12-07 08:21:51.353000+00:00 | ['Reference Type', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Primitive Type'] |
Your Words Matter: The Importance of Pronouns in the World and the Workplace | Personal pronouns (words that we use to refer to others in lieu of their name) are an important component of language that people use in almost every interaction they have on a day-to-day basis. In English and many other languages, these pronouns also indicate the gender of the person who is being spoken about.
These gendered pronouns are not something most people spend a significant amount of time or energy considering and they may take the ease of these everyday interactions for granted. But for many people ⏤ particularly those who are transgender or gender nonconforming ⏤ having their correct pronouns used is not a given. For these individuals, the pronouns that others use for them are anything but trivial and can be a significant source of either discomfort or affirmation. That is why everyone must consider and understand the importance of pronouns and how to use them respectfully.
So, what exactly are gender pronouns?
Some examples of gender pronouns include:
“He” and “she” are the pronouns that English speakers are most familiar with, but there are also gender-neutral pronouns (those that do not imply a specific gender) that many people use. For some nonbinary people (those who do not identify within the binary genders of man or woman), for instance, these gendered pronouns simply would not fit. “They” and “ze” are two sets of gender-neutral pronouns that people might use.
While “they” is often thought of today as a pronoun that refers to multiple people, it has been used throughout history as a singular pronoun by writers such as William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and many others. In fact, most people use singular “they” quite often without even realizing it. If you’re leaving a room and you notice a jacket was left on the back of a chair, you might yell out, “Did someone forget their coat?” That’s how easy it can be to incorporate singular “they” into your vocabulary!
Okay, but why are pronouns so important?
For many people, the pronouns they use match what is assumed by society to align with their gender assigned at birth. They most likely don’t pay a second thought to the pronouns that others use for them ⏤simply because they’ve never had to. If you’ve always had the correct pronouns used for you, it can be difficult to understand the impact that these words can have on someone when used incorrectly (or even to recognize that this problem exists at all). But never having to worry that your pronouns may be up for question or debate is certainly not a privilege everyone has.
This is the reality for many transgender and gender nonconforming people when it comes to pronouns. People often make (potentially harmful) assumptions about the pronouns others use based solely on their appearance, but the only way you can know what someone’s pronouns are with certainty (and avoid disrespecting them) is by asking. For those who experience gender dysphoria, being misgendered (having the wrong pronoun or other gendered word used for them) is much more than “just words.” It tells them that the person who said these things does not see them as the person they truly are, does not respect them, and does not support them. For the sake of inclusion, support, and basic humanity, it is important to call people by the names, pronouns, and other words that they have asked you to use. In the same way that you should always call someone by the name they’ve introduced themself with, you should also pay them that respect by using their correct pronouns.
Why are pronouns specifically important in the workplace?
While using someone’s correct pronouns is important in all situations, it is especially important within a professional context. An integral part of a successful workplace is helping employees to thrive and succeed. Employees should feel supported and encouraged to reach their greatest capabilities ⏤ both for their own personal growth and success, as well as for the growth and success of the organization that employs them. This type of work environment is not possible when people do not feel like they can be their true selves at work. When people do not feel supported, comfortable, or accepted for who they are, it makes it that much harder to do the job they were hired to do.
When it comes to transgender and gender nonconforming employees, one of the simplest ways you can show your support and respect is by honoring the pronouns they’ve asked you to use. Whether you are someone’s supervisor or their coworker, using the correct pronouns will set a standard for those around you and let people know that it is necessary to follow suit. This simple step can make a world of difference to those who would otherwise feel excluded and unwelcome in their work environment.
So how can I do my part to support transgender and gender nonconforming folks?
When you meet someone, introduce yourself with your name and pronouns and then ask for theirs. By taking the lead and sharing your own pronouns, you let others know that they are in an accepting space and you help to avoid alienating transgender and gender nonconforming folks from the rest of the group. Remember, everyone has pronouns that they are most comfortable with, not just trans people. So you should share them with others in the same way that you share your name! Include your pronouns in your email signatures and social media bios. This normalizes the idea of everyone sharing their pronouns and helps to avoid people making assumptions. Including your pronouns in your professional email signature, especially, helps to foster a work environment of respect and inclusivity. It even provides an opportunity for you to educate others about the importance of pronouns when someone asks you about it! Correct others if you hear them misgender someone. This helps to take some of the pressure off of transgender and gender nonconforming folks, who are usually the ones correcting people. It also shows your support and solidarity with them even when they aren’t physically present to hear the mistake. If you make a mistake with someone’s pronouns, simply apologize, correct yourself, and carry on with the conversation. Mistakes happen! And while you probably feel bad about the error, it will only make the person who was misgendered feel worse if you continue to draw attention to the situation (especially in front of others). It isn’t their responsibility to comfort you for making the mistake, so please do not make them feel like they need to put in that emotional labor. Don’t use the phrase “preferred pronouns.” While this is often well-intentioned, it implies that someone’s pronouns are just a preference and that there may be other, equally correct options that could be used for them. This is simply not the case. People’s pronouns are not preferred ⏤ they are required. If someone has told you their pronouns, those are the only correct pronouns that should be used for them.
This is only the beginning.
When it comes down to it, you don’t have to understand everything about gender, identities, and pronouns in order to comfort and support those around you. Trust that people know themselves best and be sure to use the words they have told you are correct. Words absolutely have an impact on people’s experiences ⏤ they matter. And by simply honoring people’s correct pronouns, you can make a world of difference in someone’s day-to-day experiences. | https://medium.com/queer-design-club/your-words-matter-the-importance-of-pronouns-in-the-world-and-the-workplace-9edb92232dc5 | ['Kieran Craft'] | 2020-12-17 16:03:00.434000+00:00 | ['Workplace', 'Inclusion', 'Transgender', 'Pronouns', 'Gender'] |
Storytelling with Data — Part 2. Cognitive Load and Charts Best… | Choosing an effective visual
On his book “The Effective Manager” Peter Druker states the importance of learning about effectiveness, part of the discussion surrounds the fact that knowing what the right looks like is one thing, executing it right is a completely different story.
The same applies to data visualization, analysts know the best practices for when using bar charts or scatterplots, but every now and then we see some “food charts” wandering around.
The bottom line of this section for me is that: Taking the time to understand how to display the information efficiently for your public needs to be an active part of visualization planning. In most cases, this step is neglected and ends up passively by accepting the “recommended vizz” from our visualization tools, not anymore.
No graph for just a few numbers
Bar chart for a small data set
We see bar charts like this one in many meetings. It does convey some basic information about this poor manufacturing process, but which story is being told here? What is the unique point that we want our audience to know or take action? Is it the focus on the bad parts increase or on the delivery issue since the necessary batch was 45 units?
Of course, this graph lacks context and this is why we have such questions. However, back to the main point, is this bar chart really necessary to communicate the data? The takeaway is that for small sets, focus on the message you want to inform, save people's time and cognitive load and use simple text with single numbers. In other words, the same graph could've been summarized as:
Concise and direct to the point. This design reduces what Cole calls cognitive load, which is described in more detail in the next chapter. It is a fact though, that the highlighted number communicates the intended message while the underlying text provides the necessary context.
Pro tip: The importance of the grey text when using single numbers goes even further, especially when using a percentage change. From Wheelan on Naked Statistics, percentage changes are always relative to something else, so it is essential to understand what this something else is in order to have a complete picture. In practical terms, a 100% increase in the price of a water bottle is harsh but your wallet will survive. A bonus of 1% on Jeff Bezos' net worth, however, would keep one wondering what to do with such amount of money.
In terms of tools, whenever I need to summarize a chart into a single number I switch to Google Slides, where you can play better with text styles.
Lines for time series and variations
Line graphs are mostly used for continuous data presented in two forms, either you have x-axis as a period of time (date type variable) or as a before and after comparison.
Pre-attentive attributes determine a lot the focus of a line graph. Check the example below from a Google Analytics report.
Google Analytics Audience Overview report, a typical time series plot.
The "good outlier" on January 2nd is spotted with ease, even having no labeled data points. If this is aligned with the context, let's say it is more important the trend than the underlying numbers, this configuration is good to go. However, labeling specific data points such as maximum and minimum are good strategies to bring attention to a different story. Those strategies are discussed in more depth in Part 3.
In my opinion, inclination charts should be part of the analyst toolbox. They present, in a very clear and straightforward way variation between events. In a recent project, I used an inclination chart to present keyword position variation on Google SERP.
Inclination graph for presenting before and after events
Once again, since this was used in a real use case I used all pre-attentive techniques to tell my story. Note that the focus of the presentation surrounded the keywords that went to position one, however, there's a second story to be told in the same chart regarding keywords which shown bad performance.
Seaborn has a beautiful API for time series plots, but in most cases, Google Sheets for plotting and Google Slides for commenting will do the job, this was the exact process for generating the inclination graph on the example above.
Bar charts to keep it simple
Bar charts are one of the best and preferable visualizations due to its simplicity and familiarity. Analysts might argue here that simplicity is not appealing, but when it comes to storytelling with data showing off intricate visualizations and flexing chart customization coding muscles is not really the point.
As storytellers we want our information to be understood, that's it. Therefore, using a visual that requires less cognitive processing helps to direct the public’s attention and willpower to understand the insights being conveyed.
From my experience and confirming Cole’s notes, horizontal bars are the easiest to represent categorical data, especially when having long labels. Horizontal bars follow the same logic of reading, the eyes scroll from left to right, starting on labels and reaching the data, which is the most intuitive way to read information. | https://medium.com/swlh/storytelling-with-data-part-2-6f4ec8a13585 | ['John Ostrowski'] | 2019-03-14 07:01:01.154000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Storytelling', 'Design Thinking', 'Data Visualization', 'Storytelling For Business'] |
5 Reasons To Quit That Dream Job That Became A Nightmare | 1. IT’S A NIGHTMARE!
Sometimes we really need things spelt out for us. We kind of do this dance in our heads thinking that it isn’t as bad as we think it is and we should be thankful for what we have. Don’t get me wrong, we MUST practise gratitude but we also MUST practice being honest with ourselves.
The fact is you likely wouldn’t be reading this if you loved your job. You wouldn’t have clicked the title above if you were truly content and fulfilled within the position you’re currently in. The moment we can find honesty within ourselves and admit things to ourselves that we wholeheartedly know to be true is the moment we really begin living and living on our own terms.
So, reason number 1 to leave that shitty job… it’s shitty.
2. You’re Standing In Someone Else’s Opportunity
I know it tends to be hard to think about other people when we’re so caught up in our own mental messes caused by the very things we’re doing to ourselves BUT it remains to be true that we are actually in a good position, however, the position is for someone else.
When I was working as a Student Success Coach at a local community college, I had a strong realization one morning when I was ironing my khakis:
I’m voluntarily taking myself to slaughter.
It hit me very hard at that moment that there wasn’t anyone holding a gun to my head and forcing me to go to this job that I hated. I was doing it to myself. Within a few weeks of that epiphany, I quit the job and was on my way from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to live in my dream city of Los Angeles, California.
If you’ve ever read The Alchemist there’s a quote that says, “…when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” And that is exactly what happens when we act regardless of our fear. Things will fall into place that you never realized even had to fall into place.
A short time after leaving that job someone else filled the position and it worked as a springboard for him to move into an executive director role within the school.
When you get out of your way, you will also get out of someone else’s way.
3. There Is Something So Much Bigger And Better Waiting For You
You’re always told that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. But I’m here to tell you that when the grass you’re currently standing on is shit-brown, then the grass is definitely greener on the other side.
If you’re dreading coming to work tomorrow and you haven’t even finished today’s workday then that’s when you have to make a decision. The decision to stay and bring on self-inflicted misery or the decision to leave and step into that great void of unknown.
There will always be fear associated with the latter decision but at the same time, there will be this needle-point size of peace in your heart that lets you know you’re making the right move. There is something better waiting for you and that something is a you that’s brave and in control of your own life. Along with that brave new-you comes better career choices and the beautiful freedom to make your life your own.
After a short time in California — and 700 applications later — I secured full-time work at the University of Southern California. Current admissions scandals aside, at the time this was an experience of me going from working in a small community college to working at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. A university I thought I’d only experience through the movies it was mentioned in.
This is the result of taking flight regardless of fear.
4. It’s Actually Taking A Toll On Your Health
There is something to be said about seeking peace in this life. My bachelor’s degree is in Biology and I’m going to call on some of that right now.
When we consistently experience stress, there is — not surprising — a stress hormone that’s released called cortisol. The reason for this is rooted in the evolutionary make-up of our bodies. When our bodies sense stress signals on the outside, the same signals are sent on the inside that essentially says it’s time to get the hell out of here.
Now there may not be a saber-toothed tiger staring us down but rather a micro-managing boss — biologically, the effect on our body is the same. If my telling you that I have a degree in this stuff is not enough, have a look at this article by the Mayo Clinic. They’re pretty reliable.
Some of the side-effects of having this overabundance of cortisol levels are high blood pressure (hypertension), increased heart rates (tachycardia), anxiety, depression, and basically just hating your life.
So, if you’d like to hate your life less and lower that BP, walk away from the origin of your angst.
5. You Deserve To Live A Life You Want To Live
This is a big one because for some reason we are all really prone to thinking we deserve way less or nothing good at all. Maybe just reading that headline made you a bit uncomfortable. It kind of made me uncomfortable to write because I’m human and experience the same doubts that you do. But I’ve been practicing for a long time telling myself that I do deserve good things in life. I do deserve to enjoy the work I do. I do deserve to feel that I’m living a meaningful life. I do deserve to love the life I’m living. And you deserve it too.
It’s not easy to get to this thought process as we are naturally negative in our thinking. “Oh, that’s for someone else… I could never do that… Well, he had more resources than me… She’s prettier than me…”
All of that negative self-talk usually happens without our even noticing it. When we actively practice saying things like — “I deserve this… I can’t wait to be in that place… I am good enough to do this.” — it shines a light on those false thoughts we have about ourselves and ultimately destroys them. Here’s the thing though, at first it sounds foolish. At first we don’t actually believe what we’re saying to ourselves but with more and more practice and speaking truth over those lies we will begin to see ourselves as we should… Capable of anything.
You’re capable of anything.
You’re especially capable of walking away from something bad to find something very good. | https://medium.com/illumination/5-reasons-to-quit-that-dream-job-that-became-a-nightmare-494ec93a14db | ['Mark Craven'] | 2020-12-15 14:22:37.210000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Leadership', 'Self Help'] |
Creating Your SelectUSA Success Plan, Part 1 | Last year, the team at MEET joined more than 3,000 international business investors, U.S. economic developers, CEOs, government officials and market-entry thought leaders at the 2018 SelectUSA Investment Summit.
Unequivocally, SelectUSA 2018 was the best trade event we’ve ever attended and we’re thrilled to be returning this year. For companies looking to scale internationally to the U.S. market, you’d be hard pressed to find a better opportunity to help you achieve your goals.
At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. One of the most effective ways we do this is by ensuring that every investment of time and resources in the U.S. market is maximized. This requires an immense amount of trade show strategy planning — from event selection, marketing design, execution, and follow-up.
In our recent webinar, Setting the Table: Creating Your SelectUSA Success Plan, Part 1, our goal was to help companies planning to attend SelectUSA approach the event from the perspective of a trade show strategy plan. In essence, how to apply our strategic planning and implementation tools to the best opportunity in the business.
Setting your goals for SelectUSA
For many companies looking to scale to the U.S. market, SelectUSA represents months or even years of planning executed in a 3-day event. Fully leveraging this opportunity requires setting clearly articulated goals for:
What you’re aiming to accomplish;
Who you’re aiming to meet; and
What you’re aiming to learn.
Goal-setting your trade show strategy is similar to using the gym. A facility manager fills the gym with all sorts of equipment with the expectation that not everyone will use every asset but some combination will satisfy each individual’s purpose for being there. It is therefore up to the individual to identify the best regiment to achieve their desired results.
Similarly, every trade show attendee comes to an event with different goals and priorities. Meanwhile, the event organizers have curated a full program of tools of resources with these goals in mind. Y(our) role is to develop a unique plan of action (meetings, booth strategy, speaking events) to achieve them.
SMART Goals
For a really simple way to look at effective goal-setting, we like to refer to SMART goals — Specific, Measurable, Achievable (realistic), Relevant (to the priority that you’ve set), and Time-bound, i.e. it’s not a goal if you don’t have a deadline for meeting it.
High-level examples for SelectUSA may include determining the best city in which to scale your venture, connecting with U.S. investors, and developing channel partners. Using SMART to distill these goals into a clearly articulated action plan will help you be more effective at prioritizing your agenda, and at networking.
The better you are at succinctly expressing your purpose for attending SelectUSA, the better those around you will be at helping you achieve your goals.
Setting your agenda
Now that you have your SMART goals, it’s time to set your agenda. That means determining who, of the approximately 3,000 people in attendance, are your primary targets and how you will meet them.
These are not general categories or types of people, i.e. investors or marketing consultants, though that’s a great place to start. Rather, these are people by name or discipline/role who you know will be in attendance and networks you can use to connect with them.
At MEET, we recommend taking a deep dive into the SelectUSA platform (schedule of events, attendees and resources) as soon as possible, and creating a map which overlays your top three market entry priorities with the most valuable resources. Back to our gym analogy, maximize ROI by becoming your own ultimate trainer.
Identifying your best leverage points
Like sand in an hourglass, time does run out on great opportunities like SelectUSA. Another strategy for maximizing ROI at high stakes events like this one is to utilize every available minute the show has to offer and identify your best leverage points for making connections.
You are not restricted to the event dates to schedule your meetings. As soon as the event app is available, you should begin matchmaking, even setting up preliminary meetings. Positioning yourself so that you can have second and third-level conversations at the event. This will create more value than trying to follow-up remotely from your home market.
Maximizing ROI at a unique opportunity like SelectUSA requires preparation. Setting goals that you can clearly articulate, mapping a strategic agenda over these goals, and leveraging every opportunity before the event to connect with the most valuable resources are a great place to start. | https://medium.com/@bkenney/creating-your-selectusa-success-plan-part-1-e65c15e1e10 | ['Bill Kenney'] | 2019-05-17 20:07:10.068000+00:00 | ['Us Trade Representative', 'Trade', 'Selectusa', 'Us Market Entry', 'Market Entry Strategy'] |
Your customers always have options. | There are two realities we need to accept as creators and business owners.
The chances that what we sell is a unique, never-been-done-before product or service are close to zero. Customers always have options — they could purchase what you and I sell from several other places.
So, what we’re all truly selling at the end of the day, is just a better experience. It’s the only way your business can stand out, be remembered, be preferred over competitors, and get recommended.
Please commit to continuously improving your customer's journey in 2021 — that’s your true Unique Selling Proposition. | https://medium.com/@ideadeveloper/your-customers-always-have-options-203afaf875ea | ['Linda Mtambo'] | 2020-12-21 10:13:43.975000+00:00 | ['Customer Experience', 'Small Business Marketing'] |
Your Complete Guide on Learning How to Learn | Expectations
In your first 100 hours of Learning How to Learn, you should be able to:
Understand more about the neuroscience of learning
Understand more about how the different memory “systems” work
Focus better
Master the benefits of rest in its different forms
Master the different learner types and know which one you are and want to be
Understand most of the different skills types and how to balance your learning
Understand the role of talent in learning and what geniuses are
Understand better when to practice what skills
Understand the concept of multiple intelligences and how to apply it in your learning
Know the learning myths and how to avoid them
Understand how to build habits and routines
Master the art of scoping your learning project
Master the process of reflecting on your progress
Get much better at finding the right resources
Start to establish a power napping routine (without necessarily succeeding right away)
Master spaced repetition and apply it for every skill you learn
Take more effective notes
How to go from good to great in Learning How to Learn
Prepare
There’s a lot going on in the first 100 hours, all of which is shown in the second skill tree above. There isn’t much to prepare here because we’ve done the work for you. All you have to do is study and apply what you learn.
Practice
In this phase, there’s a lot you’ll need to study and understand. Open the skill tree mentioned above and pick and choose topics that have a heart next to it. Spend about 20–30 minutes daily to increase your knowledge. My suggestion is to start with Spaced Repetition (under Techniques > Memory). It will show you optimal ways to help you retain what you learn.
Two almost equally important topics to study are the neuroscience behind learning (see Brain > Neuroscience) and resting (see Concepts > Rest). Resting plays a huge role in learning and is one of the most overlooked aspect of learning. Following that, invest a good amount of time learning about habits and routines (see Concepts > Habits) and energy (see Concepts > Energy).
If you’re looking for new skills to learn and don’t know how to choose, check out the resources on Learner Types, Talent, and Multiple Intelligences (all under Concepts).
Simple things you can look at when you have spare time are the Myths (Concepts > Myths) and the theory behind memory (Brain > Memory and Techniques > Memory). By knowing the myths of learning, you’ll more carefully avoid them in your practice.
As for memory, you might be surprised that to learn how to learn, it’s not higher on the priority list. Memory is only one aspect of learning. And for most skills, you don’t need to have an incredible memory as you’ll want to focus on practice mostly, which will create your neural connections in a different part of your brain. If the skills you want to work on needs you to memorize many facts, like this one, you can focus more time on learning about memory techniques. In my opinion, memory is a skill that will bring you to mastery, so you don’t need to know too much about it at this point.
During this phase, you’ll be expected to work on your habits and routine. You’ll also be expected to try to power nap a few times a week. You likely won’t succeed in either because they take time to build. That’s why you want to start now. You should also apply to principles you learn about energy management. It makes a huge difference in your capacity to learn and retain information.
During this phase, make it your mission to finish the Learning How to Learn course. Spend a few hours every week to continue the lessons. As much as you can, do the exercises proposed by the professor.
Ponder
At this stage, you should reflect weekly and monthly. Spend at least 30 minutes on your weekly reflection and 1 hour on your monthly reflection. Start with the same questions you asked yourself in the first phase:
What have I learned? What did I truly understood?
What have I not understood? Why? What can I do to understand better?
How will I apply what I learned?
What do I want to do going forward?
Who can I teach what I learned to?
At the end of your 100 hours, ask yourself the following questions:
Do I understand what’s happening in my brain when I learn?
Do I know how to focus better? Am I more focused now that I know the theory?
Do I know how to manage my time and energy better? Am I able to build good habits and routines?
Do I understand the different types of learners, skills, and intelligences? Am I applying that in my learning?
Have I used some of the techniques that I’ve learned, like resting, note-taking, space repetition, and others?
What techniques have been the most valuable for me?
What are some concepts I should spend more time on?
Fill out your Reflection Journal | https://medium.com/skilluped/your-complete-guide-on-learning-how-to-learn-96d9b28222f5 | ['Danny Forest'] | 2020-11-23 19:18:02.583000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Inspiration', 'Productivity', 'Education', 'Learning'] |
It’s OK to not be a perfect mom | Today it’s one of those days that motherhood drains every last drop of energy from me. It’s one of those days that I want somebody to tell me “ You are doing a great job as a mom!”.
Saying that motherhood is hard is such an understatement. As a first-time mom, I can say that nothing can prepare you for how drastically your life will change as soon as a baby is born. Your previous life is gone, your identity is lost somewhere between breastfeeding and diapers. You forget what sleep is, hoping to get at least 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. All your existence now revolves around this little bundle of joy that sometimes just won’t stop screaming no matter what you do. You are no longer you, you are a mom.
I must admit that before I became a mother I believed that motherhood is nice and sweet just like the Facebook and Instagram accounts of perfect mothers out there make it look like. Well, let me tell you that is a big, fat lie! Maybe it’s like that 10% of the time, but 90% is a boring and grueling routine of dirty diapers, tantrums, screaming, fighting sleep, baby vomit, 2-minute showers, eating on the go, not having time to go to the toilet and so on.
To those mothers that won the baby lottery, whose babies never cry, sleep through the night, and can’t relate with the words above, all I have to say is congratulations, enjoy your motherhood.
To the remaining moms out there, just know you are doing a great job! You don’t have to be a perfect mom, perfection does not exist!
It’s OK to feel sad and angry sometimes, it’s OK dreading being a stay-at-home mom and it’s OK to vent sometimes. That doesn’t mean we don’t love our babies.
It’s OK to be selfish sometimes and have time for yourself. You don’t have to be with the baby 24/7.
It’s OK to ask for help, there is no shame in that. That doesn’t make you a bad mother.
It’s OK if your baby is bored and not stimulated for 5 minutes. Sometimes it’s even healthy!
Please know that you are not alone, many mothers go through the same struggles in silence. It’s not just you who has a hard time. And hopefully, it will all pass and get easier with time.
In conclusion, this post is just my vent and it’s not intended to offend anyone. If there are perfect mothers out there that can do all the baby caring with a smile on their face all the time, kudos to you! You are amazing! If there are mothers who struggle as I do, I send you all a warm hug.
If you know a stay-at-home mom, maybe drop by and bring her a cup of coffee. Stay with the kids for a while and let her have a breather, listen to her, and be supportive. Don’t give any unsolicited advice, just listen and be compassionate. And most importantly don’t critique or judge. Being a mom is such hard work but it’s so underrated. Let’s be good to each other. | https://medium.com/@wiesen.iris/its-ok-to-not-be-a-perfect-mom-6ad3b51e9e07 | ['Iris Wiesen'] | 2021-09-08 12:27:17.288000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Stay At Home Mom', 'Journaling', 'Motherhood', 'Struggle'] |
Salesforce CPQ contributes to Sales Enablement in the Manufacturing Industry | In the current arena, buyers are more involved in selling than ever. It is no longer a financial transaction but a business partnership with the end-users. If manufacturing a product is one side of the coin, handling the ever-evolving supply-demand chain is another.
Consider a large car manufacturing industry that works with a wider network of stakeholders — channel partners, vendors, dealers, distributors, resellers, contracts, engineers, and, not to forget, the end-users. With multinational companies, these stakeholders are distributed in different geographies. This creates a more complex ecosystem considering the changing local laws, tax regulations, and localized process operations in each geography.
Manufacturing companies that deal with a vast product base are faced with a plethora of challenges from product configuration to customer service. The above scenario calls for the need for an “automated ecosystem” for rapid problem-solving and process streamlining.
Meanwhile, what if a single, central platform can coordinate with the various BUs, and bring closer collaboration amongst them, resulting in no or limited errors?
Salesforce, it is!
Improve Customer Experiences (CX) with Salesforce CPQ!
Salesforce is a highly diverse platform that brings together super-intelligent Einstein AI solutions and a robust set of applications to coordinate a larger operations base across the globe, at the click of a button. One aspect of Salesforce — the Configure, Price, and Quote software, has the ability to bring a plethora of transformations to the way your company’s multifaceted sales transactions are managed.
In the most precise form of explanation, CPQ is a tool that streamlines the process of “moving a customer through the sales pipeline” — from the discovery phase to an actual sale phase, all the while recording customer behavior, for futuristic insights. CPQ uses a quick, streamlined, efficient, and well-designed process flow to present an accurate quote to your customers, and helps bridge the gap between customer and sales.
CPQ contributes to Sales Enablement in the Manufacturing Industry
Coming back to our previous example of large car manufacturing companies, CPQ allows the sales teams to offer accurate quotes to buyers, as per individual customization. Customizations may include anything from additional accessories, engine classes, to transmission models, and much more.
In this article, we will cover the various aspects of the manufacturing business processes that are benefited from implementing Salesforce CPQ for sales enablement.
Drives Business Transformation
Still following traditional approaches to configure products? Are you looking for out-of-the-box ways to comprehend how Salesforce CPQ can contribute to an intelligent quote-to-fulfillment process? Salesforce CPQ application not only contributes to enhanced supply chain management but also helps make intelligent inventory management decisions.
Consider a typical scenario where the customer is already provided with a traditional quote but the inventory is unavailable for the next few weeks. This results in bad customer experience. In this case, centralized inventory management (such as an ERP) when collaborated with the Salesforce platform (here, CRM) alerts the sales agent about stockroom availability before generating the final purchase order.
Salesforce CPQ helps in automated product configuration and price calculation for accurate quote generation, resulting in limited or no scope for rework. This triggers a lean and low-waste process business model that improves overall productivity.
Consider a situation where your sales dealers are still opting for manual price quotes. imagine the additional time and efforts invested in applying bulk discounts, geography-specific offers and revising quotes every time a customer choosing between extra accessories’ combinations.
Here, Salesforce CPQ software can help with dynamic product configurations, price fetching, auto-calculation and proposal generation and a bunch of other features.
Agile Selling Process
Integrating Salesforce CPQ into your Sales operations results in adding intelligence to your agile sales operations. CPQ drastically reduces the amount of manual effort needed on simpler tasks, creating a well-defined change management implementation.
The fully automated platform creates self-managed process such as guided selling, approval workflows, catalog management, and data reporting & analytics. This is a major organization-wide shift, resulting in well-managed multi-channel sales and cross-department collaboration for better conversions.
Risk Minimization
Salesforce CPQ is a complete cloud-based delivery model, thus contributing to zero investment in physical infrastructure and a highly secured and dynamically synced data backup on the cloud.
Meanwhile, with robust database management, CPQ cuts down on substantial inaccuracies with manual quotes — such as incorrect pricing and discount calculation, inaccurate component details, wrong client contact details and more. This contributes to effective risk management in the quote-to-order cycle.
Salesforce CPQ instills AI-powered intelligence into a traditional sales process, thereby streamlining the entire quote-to-order process to deliver an user-centric experience across different channels and user touchpoints.
You can go through my other articles on the key features and benefits of Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software. Speaking of which, you can find a comprehensive understanding of the Salesforce CPQ software here.
At Prudent, we focus on a holistic approach to implement Salesforce CPQ, with the integration of the right teams and BUs to create a well-defined lead-to-order process.
Get in touch with a Prudent expert at [email protected] to transform the way you build your loyal customer base. | https://medium.com/@SalesforceSpeaks/salesforce-cpq-contributes-to-sales-enablement-in-the-manufacturing-industry-2d6dc40ff496 | ['Rajesh Cv'] | 2019-08-12 06:30:58.358000+00:00 | ['Salesforce Productivity', 'Sales', 'Manufacturing', 'Customer Experience', 'Salesforce'] |
Concept of Client Server in React.js Express.js & Node.js App. | The topic is primarily confusing for people coming from web development where we have a backend that consists of a web server like Apache, Nginx or IIS with a server side scripting language like PHP and a frontend that consists of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
The article serves as a quick introduction for web developers into the world of Node.js based application development.
A Node.js Hello World program looks like:
// Node .js 'Hello World' const http = require('http');
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
res.statusCode = 200;
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
res.end('Hello World');
});
server.listen(3000, '127.0.0.1', () => {
console.log('Server running');
});
AS you see we are creating a server in our code. So are we going to write our own web server?
Well Node,js platform is built for the purpose. It works based on non-blocking execution i.e. fire a task say performing a file write. After assigning the task to OS’s I/O service and it goes on to other tasks. After the file write is done Node.js gets notified and it resumes the next step post the file write. Read about Events loops in Node.js for more.
So Node.js does pretty much what Apache, Nginx or IIS was doing.
We use Node.js packages like Express.js, a web application framework, to compliment our node application. An Express.js Hello World program looks like:
// Express.js 'Hello World' const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const cors = require('cors')
app.use(cors()) app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.send('Hello World from Express!')
})
console.log('Example app listening at
}) app.listen(8000, () => {console.log('Example app listening at http:// 127.0.0.1 : 8000')})
The above Express.js Hello World program forms the backend. In the browser (i.e. frontend) we get to see the text ‘Hello World from Express!’. There is no frontend app running here. It is just a simple static text getting displayed in the browser.
As you can see Express.js is doing what PHP or similar server side script does. Plus it takes care of the routes also which otherwise was part of web server functionality. It is Express.js that connects to a database like in PHP and React.js only communicates over http.
Now adding React.js to our application: React.js is a frontend application framework. Purpose of React.js is to get data from backend apps like those built in Express.js and create suitable display in browsers.
Creating the frontend using React
Create directory “react-express-hello-world”
cd react-express-hello-world
now create a react app.: npx create-react-app react-fe
Edit file react-fe/src/App.js and replace with
// src/App.js function App() {
return ( <div>Hello World from React!</div> );
} export default App;
cd react-fe
start the app. Now you should see “Hello World from React!” in your browser
To create the Express.js backend application
Go to the react-express-hello-world directory
Create new directory “express-be”
cd express-be
Initialize a new node.js app.: npm init -y
Install express and cors: yarn add express cors
Or if you have npm: npm install express cors
cors package is for allowing cross domain calls else you will get access error in browser console
Create file index.js inside express-be directory and copy-paste our Hello World program for Express.js from above
Now start the Express.js backend application as: node index.js
Open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in browser and you should see “Hello World from Express!”
Now lets make our React frontend connect to the Express backend
Edit our React app index.js file
// react-fe/src/App.js import React, { useState, useEffect } from "react"; // create a functional component
const HelloExpress = () => { const [content, setContent ] = useState('...loading') // call once on load
useEffect(() => {
fetch('http://127.0.0.1:8000/')
.then(response => response.text())
.then(text => {
setContent(text)
})
}, []); return (
<div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: content }} />
)}; function App() {
return (
<div className="App">
Hello World from React!
<br/>
<HelloExpress />
</div>
);
} export default App;
Here as have created a new React component <HelloExpress /> which interacts with our Express.js backend app. Here useEffect, useState are React hooks.
Find the full code at https://github.com/vmandal/react-express-hello-world | https://medium.com/@vikrammandal/concept-of-client-server-in-react-js-express-js-node-js-app-b26a36a322e6 | ['Vikram Mandal'] | 2020-12-03 16:53:46.972000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Client Server', 'Expressjs', 'Developer', 'React'] |
Clean School Shoes Stink? It’s Enough to Read This One | Clean School Shoes Stink? It’s Enough to Read This One
If you’re already planning on sending your kids to school in a uniform that’s neatly-pressed, then it’s a must that they have clean school shoes.
Your child’s first pair of shoes can be a bit of a chore. They can get sticky and muddy, especially if they get wet.
Want to know how to clean them up? Follow these simple methods.
How to clean school shoes?
Soak
You can take those kids’ Crocs and jellies and hose them down outside, but for sneakers, a good old soak in a bucket of water can remove caked-on mud and clean the shoes well. A good old soak in a bucket full of water can help remove mud and dirt from shoes. Change the water regularly and use an old toothbrush or rag to remove the remaining residue.
Use A Cleaning Agent
Enlist the help of a kid-friendly stain-fighting tool to remove tougher stains (grass, blood, and other bodily fluids). Mix baking soda and water in a spray bottle and apply to stains. Let sit for a few minutes, then rinse well.
Try the Magic Eraser&Toothpaste
That magical eraser you use all over your house also does a pretty great job of cleaning rubber soles. A good scrub can remove dirt, oil, and other harmful substances from shoes. It can also freshen them up and make them look new.
Enlist The Help of your Washing Machine
Most sneakers and canvas shoes (like those oh-so-cute little Toms) are safe to throw directly in the washing machine. Since a clothes dryer can cause shrinking, try not to use it. Instead, air-dry inside or over a vent.If you’re afraid of fading, then you want to avoid direct sunlight. Need some additional odor control? A little baking soda in the wash cycle or sprinkled on those wet shoes should help.
Dry them with Paper / Towels
Wet school shoes are more common than we care to think about. Especially at this time of year and of course, the kids find ALL the puddles! The best way to dry out wet leather school shoes is to place balls of newspaper into the shoe. This product will keep the shoes in place while also drawing out moisture. However, it can also cause the shoes to become too dry and crack.
Fix Promptly
There is nothing worse than school shoes that look ratty. To extend the life of your shoes, glue them back on as soon as they become damaged. They can also be repaired by fixing the shoes’ buckles and Velcro straps.
Plus: To keep canvas shoes clean, coat them with a clear/white candle and melt the wax into them using a hairdryer. Always be sure to check that the canvas is cotton not synthetic before heating. | https://medium.com/@akidstar/clean-school-shoes-stink-its-enough-to-read-this-one-9089f78fc932 | [] | 2021-11-16 03:16:59.285000+00:00 | ['Baby Care', 'Cleaning', 'Parenting'] |
Friday Feels: “Permanent” Palm Trees | Ya boy recently got some fresh ink. My first ink, to be precise.
If you’ve been on a video call with me in the last couple weeks and I’ve had short-sleeves on you’ve likely seen it…right there boldly on display on my right forearm, a 6-inch palm tree woven into the fabric of who I am.
I’m 40 years old and for my entire adult life I have always said I would never get a tattoo because I didn’t feel strongly enough about anything that I would want it permanently on my body.
I think it was always the concept of the finality of it all. The potential for regret always kept me safely in my lane.
I have always admired the tattoos of others, but that was good for them — not for me.
Palm trees feel exotic to me. Likely because growing up in Dallas, Texas you never see them. The nearest ones are along the Gulf of Mexico, roughly 300 miles away.
The trees of my childhood were mainly squatty Live Oaks, Cedars and Mesquite trees — regal and resolute. They fit the plains of Texas nicely.
But a palm tree? Well that was something uniquely “other” to me.
As an adult I moved to Miami and started what I would later recognize as a massive personal transformation.
When I started my weight-loss journey it was the palm trees that smiled down on me as I exercised under their swaying branches. It was under the palm trees in my backyard that I closed the chapter on my first marriage. It was in a courtyard filled with palm trees that I met Carlos who changed my life forever.
Palm trees no longer hold a mystique so much as they occupy a place of milestone markers, an Ebenezer of sort, in my story.
So there I am sitting in the tattoo shop, alone because of COVID rules, and the artist begins his work. His name is Gui. He’s from Brazil and also lived in Miami before he moved to SF a few years back. He’s a funny guy, full of incredible stories that probably are reserved solely for tattoo artists.
And suddenly there was no turning back.
The first lines of black ink are pushed deep into my skin repeatedly by a tiny little needle.
And I joined the ranks of people who have tattoos.
Looking back, it was kind of an unceremonious moment, but one filled with deep personal importance to me.
As he was drawing he regaled me with colorful stories — likely to distract me from the pain and the persistent instinct to punch him as he stabbed me with his needle.
As we talked while he worked I mentioned that I never wanted to get a tattoo because I never wanted anything on my body permanently. But then I had to explain that this palm tree, and what it symbolized, was the first time I had ever felt so sure about the permanence.
For Gui, there was nothing permanent about what was happening in that moment.
He shared with me that most art forms such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, etc. would last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
But tattoos, while feeling permanent to us, are actually the most temporal of art — for when we go, so does the tattoo.
It’s perceived permanence is tied only to us and our experience.
I sat there a bit stunned as I processed the depth of his perspective.
This palm tree was to represent that transformation is always possible, that nothing is really permanent. And the reason transformation is possible is because I’m not permanent.
Nothing is finished, until I’m finished.
I had spent my whole life fretting over this moment, riddled with anxiety that once I do this there’s “no turning back” but that idea is not real. We cannot always “go back” but we get to choose how we go forward.
We get to transform.
I chose such a prominent place because I wanted the constant reminder in my face that transformation is always possible, whether it’s under a palm tree, or a Texas live oak, or even a California redwood.
And that truth is maybe all that’s really permanent.
Take care of each other, mi gente.
JM
#fridayfeels | https://medium.com/@jlincmayfield/friday-feels-permanent-palm-trees-ac6693b5ece7 | ['Jeremiah Mayfield'] | 2020-12-11 13:20:02.526000+00:00 | ['Tattoo', 'Change', 'Mindset', 'Perspective', 'Transformation'] |
Friday Five: Aug 19, 2016 | After being sold to Univison for $135 billion, while the rest of the network’s verticals will be folded into their online publication network, gawker.com will cease to update as of this coming Monday. A billionaire executed his own personal vendetta against a man and a website and won. I’d recommend looking on twitter for writers expressing their feelings much better than I can do here.
While Gawker is folding, Mother Jones is standing strong. After their incredible private prisons project was published in June, the events that unfolded sounds like the makings of a Spotlight level exposé. To that extent, the Justice Department officially declared yesterday that they intend to stop supporting private prisons. That being said, there is a very real problem with this kind of investigative journalism. It takes a lot of time, and (relatively) a lot of money. However, in the age of the internet and instant access to information, a very small percentage of the general population is willing to pay to support the journalism they read. The Mother Jones piece cost approximately $350,000 to produce and run; they made $5,000 from the ads running on the project pages.
After the DEA took down Ross Ulbricht (who is maybe) AKA DPR AKA the Dread Pirate Roberts (for that story, read Wireds two part piece [1, 2]) there was a strange loose thread that was never fully explained. What happened to the incriminating bitcoin that federal agents were extorting and paying into the Silk Road network for information or as part of their undercover ops? Ars Technica follows the tale of the two DEA agents who decided to try and get their own piece of the dark web pie.
The story of how Usain Bolt winning a race turned into a full lockdown of JFK airport and reports of a possible terrorist attack, from first hand accounts of the chaos that ensued and islamophobia that followed. Truly the only terrifying part of the whole thing is how massively inept security and police forces reacted.
An inside look at the support network that has been built up in the Wikipedia editor community. The title of the essay comes from a (somewhat outdated, possibly offensively so) page on the site WP:NOTTHERAPY, and tells the story of the man who invented the [citation needed] tag’s possible suicide attempt after being banned from the Wikipedia community.
In what is likely his most in-depth and informative interview since taking the helm of Apple about five years ago, Tim Cook talks with the Washington Post about his role there. | https://medium.com/friday-five/friday-five-aug-19-2016-f4ae9c91e615 | ['Mitchell J. Goldstein'] | 2016-08-19 13:44:23.707000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Newsletters', 'Silk Road', 'Gawker', 'Journalism'] |
Day 437 — Merry Christmas!!! | Day 437 — Merry Christmas!!!It’s often said that joy/happiness is a choice. This is slightly inaccurate. Joy/happiness is an emotion. Sure it can be used as a choice, but making such a decision may manifest as a mask, a pretence, fake, and overall, disingenuous. The real choice to see joy/happiness manifest is gratitude — whether to be thankful or not. If we’re alive, there’s always something to be grateful for no matter how small. Joy/happiness will follow as an emotional by-product of appreciating life. Merry Christmas!
WHAT DO YOU THINK? COMMENT BELOW. I’D LOVE TO DISCUSS! | https://medium.com/@stephenlesliefrance/day-437-merry-christmas-4d11baa399a7 | ['Stephen Leslie France'] | 2020-12-24 00:57:28.063000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Christianity', 'Christian'] |
Netgear has one of the first Wi-Fi 6e routers: The Nighthawk RAXE500 | Netgear has one of the first Wi-Fi 6e routers: The Nighthawk RAXE500 Elizabeth Feb 1·2 min read
Netgear took the wraps off its all-new Nighthawk RAXE500 router at CES today. This is a true tri-band Wi-Fi 6e device that operates three independent wireless networks using spectrum in the 2.4-, 5-, and the newly deregulated 6GHz frequency bands to deliver huge amounts of bandwidth—theoretical top speed of 10.8Gbps combined—with very little latency.
The FCC opened 1,200MHz of bandwidth in the 6GHz frequency band to Wi-Fi in April 2020. The primary benefit is the availability of 59 non-overlapping channels in that spectrum, compared to 25 in the 5GHz band and just three in the 2.4GHz band. Wi-Fi 6e gear is likely to have somewhat shorter range—particularly compared to 2.4GHz—because shorter-wavelength radio signals are more easily absorbed by walls and even the atmosphere.
Netgear The Nighthawk RAXE500 can take advantage of the fastest residential broadband speeds available via its multi-gig WAN and link aggregation features.
The 6GHz frequency band, on the other hand, will be much less congested. Plus, only Wi-Fi 6e clients will be allowed to use that spectrum. The short-term downside, on the other hand, is that there are very few Wi-Fi 6e clients to begin with. Intel has a part now, and Broadcom and Samsung will have one soon, but that’s it.
[ Further reading: A smart home guide for beginners ]The Nighthawk RAXE500 is powered by a 1.8GHz quad-core processor and is outfitted with a multi-gig (2.5Gbps) WAN port for those with very fast broadband connections. Two of its five gigabit ethernet ports can be aggregated for either 2Gbps LAN or WAN connections. The batwing-shaped router also has dual USB 3.0 ports. It will be available later in Q1 and sell for $600.
Netgear The Netgear Nighthawk AX6/6-Stream is a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem/Wi-Fi 6 router combo.
Netgear is also showing a new DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem with an integrated Wi-Fi 6 router. The Nighthawk AX6/6-Stream (model number CAX30) is compatible with cable broadband service from Xfinity, Spectrum, and Cox. It will sell for $300 when it becomes available later this month, joining Netgear’s currently available cable modem offerings, the higher-end Nighthawk WiFi6 AX6000 (model CAX80, $430) and the Orbi Tri-Band WiFi6 Cable Mesh System (model CBK752, or $600 for the router plus one satellite, $450 for the cable modem/router solo).
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@elizabe27676807/netgear-has-one-of-the-first-wi-fi-6e-routers-the-nighthawk-raxe500-cd7f7880626d | [] | 2021-02-01 00:43:36.955000+00:00 | ['Entertainment', 'Lighting', 'Cord', 'Music'] |
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