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Spectrum | Spectrum
Photo by Lisa Alletson (author) of her daughter
My daughter wears my DNA like a casualty,
drifts through conversations with melodic logic.
When she speaks in the language of my ancestors
I know she’s caught something with her mind –
a dinosaur or the swamp root of a poem.
Her centre is her own.
Sometimes she huddles on the beach like driftwood,
golden gaps of sunshine in her silhouette
as if her body has bullet holes
and I can see the brightness of her soul.
Blue-skinned, she seems, breathing slow and low,
drawing narwhals in the air or covering her ears.
She tells me in a voice of dusk pebbles,
Mom, you are a maiasaura. A good mother lizard.
We schedule a hug.
Her shadow catches in my throat.
She grows deep, a creature of thrum and ashes,
knows she is different from others.
When she’s clumsy she giggles, like any kid,
but the clay of her mind can be bloodish,
a nerve ball tender to touch,
a constantly knitted refrain.
The school day comes violently, spinning too bright,
the forcing of norms does not fit the build of her mind.
She closes her eyes and rocks, tick tock, to find a kind face,
a good space. Returns home bent with hurt.
In the evening she wraps herself tight
in an old breeze, wanders
the playground to feast on leftover laughter,
blown kisses fallen to the ground.
In the half-light she looks grey,
an abandoned painting.
I find her shivering under a tree
her courage discarded on a rock.
I drink her tears,
wrap her under my skin.
Life after life, she sobs. Too much.
I nod and we walk away.
But my daughter can hear the sun.
We dance to the sound of unfurling leaves
sing to the shift of birch skin.
Her soul lives in the blood of rivers
moans through the forest.
She hears everything.
Alone, we bathe in the suds of the sun
watch the orange dawn of a butterfly,
speak of mammals and robin song
and why the Congo changed its name.
For on the days she can inhabit
the wholeness of her verse
she soars melodic over earth
dancing with the universe.
I don’t label myself an autism warrior.
That gives me credit.
I carry guilt made of covert creatures,
wet wings stuck to their bodies.
At dawn I let them out,
they unfurl their wings and flee.
At night they return, watch me,
cold planets in my throat.
But I will sing to my daughter as long as I live:
My love,
You don’t have to smile for me
You can rock your body to peace
You don’t have to leave to cry
You can flap your hands when you need
You don’t need to say hi
to respond
to do anything
but be.
You are the world where I live.
*************************************************************
Originally published by the League of Canadian Poets in “Fresh Voices”. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/spectrum-5e7cc7ee7a56 | ['Lisa Alletson'] | 2020-12-20 13:03:55.802000+00:00 | ['Poetry Sunday', 'Daughters', 'Parenting', 'Autism', 'Poetry'] |
Actions against Violence by Shirlene Green Newball | Actions against Violence by Shirlene Green Newball
On the 25th, of November women around the globe will take the street or internet to manifest on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This day was established in 1993 by the General Assembly of the United National. We Encourage Nov 19, 2020·4 min read
In it’s declaration article 1 states that violence against women
“means any act of genderbased violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.
A lot of time went we talk about the term violence against women we only think of physical, psychological, and sexual violence, however that is not the case since there are several types of violence. According to a Reporting on Violence against Women and Girls Handbook for journalist published in 2019 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) these are also actions of violence against women:
Cyberbullying and online harassment to women includes several:
Trolling: post or comments to try to provoke controversy
• Doxxing: online researching and publishing of private information about a person in order to cause them harm
• Obsessive online stalking (cyberstalking), intrusive and threatening harassment of a person
• Cyber-control in relationships
• Revenge porn: non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, online public sharing of sexually explicit content without the consent of the person concerned, often for the purposes of revenge.
Early marriages or child marriages
Female genital mutilation/cutting
Forced marriages
Gender-specific foeticide and infanticide
Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape
So-called ‘honour’ crimes
Trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants women
Violence by an intimate partner or ex-partner and murder (femicide).
Is important to remember that all these actions of violence are based on a patriarchal structure, which is defined by the power between women and men globally.
+Collective and We Want We Do event
In Finland +Collective which is a group of individuals of different backgrounds, networks, and organizations has a shared goal to support human rights and equality, promoting social change, and inclusion. Toward the 25h of November, it launched the campaign “We Want We Do”. The 6-week campaign program includes workshops, webinars, podcasts, and exhibitions; however, the main events will take place at Central Library Oodi and in Kansalaistori, Helsinki, from November 17 to 29, 2020.
One the webinar that will be discussed is Online violence that was mentioned above. This way of violence is common today since the use of social media platforms are part of daily routine. You are welcome to join us on 20.11 at 16:30–18:00. For more information click here.
In the campaign We Want We Do transgender women voice is heard about the violence they experience. In an interview to Susanna Viljanmaa from Transfeminiinit she manifested,
“the violence that most transgender people experience is verbal. For example, the year I came out I got multiple harassment on the street everyday. Also, transgender immigrants face their own problems in Finland, sometimes their diagnoses from other countries aren’t respected or they might not need any diagnosis to get hormone replacement, thus their treatment ceases”.
The artistic installation of Red Shoes created by the Mexican artist Elina Chauvet which denounces the high percentage of violence against women and femicides during the 90s in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico is one of the events that will take place on the November 25. Is the first time that this installation will be presented in Finland. During an interview for the campaign she said
“the death of my sister by her husband (femicide) was the cause of my art. I was really excited when I got an email requesting that my art be presented in Helsinki, it will be at the very north of the planet”.
Finland is not an exception for women violence. According to data from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in 2019 there was an increase of 6% in relation to 2018 in people who sought help from shelters. 91% of people out of 5,354 who sought services were women. In addition, statistic from the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy (Krimo) states that in 2019, 15 women were murdered in Finland.
Women violence is a public issue, so please join us, act, and be part of this chain of change. We Want and We Can Do it.
Text by Shirlene Green | https://medium.com/@we-encourage/actions-against-violence-by-shirlene-green-newball-194219b47ea8 | ['We Encourage'] | 2020-11-19 08:03:15.174000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence', 'Women Empowerment', 'Gender Based Violence', 'Violence Against Women'] |
Recover all | stress
how can i recover deleted post If the post written by our entire event gets deleted by mistake, then we feel very bad, even worse when the post is written 10 or 20 or more and no backup is given. If you too have made this mistake, then there is no such thing as panic. techdigitalearning.com has brought for you an easy solution to all your posts like that back to your blog.
First you have to make a list of all your posts, that in the name of the title of the same post, yes it is important to keep in mind that the title is necessary to bring your post back. Next
Now you just have to take your blog with (Domain name.com) https: // or www. Do not use Now you have to type in the search bar on Google or Chrome browser, you have to write your post title and next to it your (domain name.com) https: // or www. Don’t use — search now,
(1)
screen shot recovery
Now your website will be visible in front of you, the title of your post will also be shown below it, next to that you will see a Down Arrow 🔽, click on it, now click on (Cached) option.
(2)
how to recover screen shot
(3)
how to recover post
Now your post is open in front of you, select it and copy it in full, then go to your blog and post and paste it. Please note that if you have not indexed the link of your post in Google, then these posts will not be visible to you. Likewise keep doing all the posts.
office work
do not publish any post on your blog, beyond all the post should optimize for the title search description label and publish it after fill it . Again index the link of all posts in Google Search Console. And now come in the settings of your blog, go on Manage Blog — blog backup and take a backup. Thank you for visiting our techdigitalearning.com and comment in the comment box if you have any more problems. | https://medium.com/@techdigital/recover-all-55ac1fde69e1 | ['Praful Makwana'] | 2021-01-18 15:02:31.990000+00:00 | ['Blogging Tips', 'Recovery', 'Recovery Success', 'How To Recover'] |
Mapping the DACH Pre-Seed VC Landscape | Mapping the DACH Pre-Seed VC Landscape
🏃♂ Take this shortcut to access the DACH Pre-Seed investor database in Notion 🏃♂️
Over the past years, the startup ecosystem in DACH has considerably matured and has become more and more differentiated. One major trend: The establishment of Pre-Seed. While still representing relatively new terrain in DACH, we at signals Pre-Seed observe the accelerating dynamics of this exciting stage on a daily basis. In this post, we give an overview of the Pre-Seed investor scene in DACH and share our take on Pre-Seed as the new Seed.
Pre-Seed is the new Seed
The ubiquitous “Seed is the new Series A” has turned from a gut feeling into a hard fact of the VC fundraising process. As found in Wing VC’s 2020 analysis of US VC investment, the median seed round size has almost doubled within four years, rising from $2MM in 2015 to $3.9MM in 2019. Traveling back further in time to 2010, we observe a whopping growth multiple of nearly 4x for seed rounds within one decade. In Wing VC’s comparison of these new Seed round sizes with the similarly growing size of Series A rounds, it becomes evident that a “2019 Seed looks like a 2011 Series A”. The story continues when moving to later stages in the VC financing process. In 2019, Series A took over the volume of what was considered a Series B in 2010.
The shift from Seed to Series A is not only reflected in the sheer round sizes. Valuations have also almost quadrupled within the past 10 years. Another obvious hint for this “continental drift” in VC financing stages is expressed by the maturity of startups in this stage. Companies have already raised a substantial round prior to Seed. As a result of these ballooning Seed rounds, expectations from investors to startups at this stage have heightened too. While it used to be normal some years ago to raise a Seed round pre-revenue, in 2019, two-thirds of Seed stage startups already generated traction.
Data Source: Seed is the new Series A, but what’s next? (Wing VC, 2020)
While the above data reflects the fundraising landscape for the US pre-Covid-19, the overall trend of continuously shifting round dynamics can also be observed in Europe, despite the economic impact of the pandemic (see KPMG’s Venture Pulse Q2 2020).
One of the reasons for the shifting round dynamics could be higher valuations through a concentration on fewer, yet bigger Seed deals. This might have been intensified by the Corona crisis. In the Acquired LP Podcast, Precursor Ventures’ Charles Hudson further makes the point of rising fund volumes as a reason for the growing Seed rounds. Since funds get bigger, too many “classic” Seed rounds of $300k would need to be invested in order to deploy the managed capital in the market. Another more obvious driver for the development is stated by Gaurav Jain from Afore Capital in the Twenty Minute VC podcast. Since in most cases, staff is the biggest cost driver in startups and labor costs naturally evolve, the need for capital rises and rounds naturally get bigger.
But what does that mean for the lower end of the spectrum? As outlined in Pear VC’s report on this new seed landscape, the needs of startups at the very early stage haven’t changed. Prior to demonstrating traction through hard sales KPIs, scalable processes and overall product-market-fit, founders are still heavily involved in ideation, product design and user testing. The below figure by Pear VC perfectly visualizes this “drunken walk” along the fundraising timeline. As one can see from the below graph, over time “Pre-Seed” has sneaked into the fundraising process.
Navigating the New Seed Landscape (Pear VC, 2019)
So when Seed rounds blow up and expectations rise, who is financing founders at their earliest stage? While the “classics” of bootstrapping, FFF (Friends, Family, Fools) and the traditional angel investor still exist, a new class of institutional investors have emerged to fill this gap: Pre-Seed VCs.
After diving deeper into the theory behind Pre-Seed rounds, we reveal the findings of our mapping of the DACH Pre-Seed VC landscape below. | https://medium.com/hellosignals/our-pre-seed-investor-market-map-42880dfaef48 | ['Christopher Algier'] | 2021-01-06 16:01:12.021000+00:00 | ['VC', 'Seed Investment', 'Germany', 'Startup', 'Investors'] |
Are you a giver or a taker? | Day 41 / 365
Givers are people who are concerned with what can they do for them. Takers are the opposite, they are concerned with what can others do for them. You would have surely seen both these type of people around you at work or at school. So do you think you are a giver? and if so is it of any advantage to you to be a giver?
Some of the worst performing people are givers
In his study of numerous schools and workplaces, Adam Grant found that unexpectedly the worst performers in each of these places were givers. These were people who were so busy doing things for others that they couldn’t get their own work completed. They took on too much spread themselves too thin and they paid the price.
The silver lining here is that although these people sacrifice themselves, they make the organizations better.
givers spend a lot of time trying to help other people and improve the team, and then, unfortunately, they suffer along the way.
So if the worst performing people were givers, who were the best performing people?
Some of the best performing people are givers as well
We would have thought that takers might be the best performers, but the study found that they were average at best. Takers did rise very fast, but they fall very fast as well. We can say that for the takers, what goes around comes around.
In every job, in every organization I’ve ever studied, the best results belong to the givers again.
So we have givers at both extremes. We have givers who are performing exceptionally well, and on the other hand, we have people who are generous at the expense of their own careers.
We know how important givers are for the success of the organizations. What can we do to ensure we have more and more givers at the top?
Creating a world where givers can excel
How do we provide an environment for givers to thrive, and to encourage more and more people to transform into givers? Adam makes 3 suggestions- | https://medium.com/@pranavtiwari/are-you-a-giver-or-a-taker-82ca4301919e | ['Pranav Tiwari'] | 2019-02-10 15:20:31.189000+00:00 | ['Giving', 'Ted'] |
Influence of Literature: Books Still Change the World | Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash
Literature has a lot to offer. Entertainment, education, psychological and cultural enlightenment, even a hefty profit. But, now and then, a publication comes along that actually makes reality shift. It opens our eyes to truths we’re either oblivious of or avoiding. Most such books that come to mind are from the past and some people argue that modern literature just doesn’t pack the same punch. Why would that be? And what’s so special about books that change the world? Let’s explore the issue with past and present examples.
1984
George Orwell’s novel came out in 1949, a dystopian story about a totalitarian England watching and controlling its citizens’ behaviour, thoughts and even perception of the world. As real human governments keep veering in that same direction, it seems that 1984 will never stop being current. When people are in danger of falling into the same governmental, media and societal traps, this book resurfaces to wake them up and inspire them to stop its fictional narrative from becoming reality.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Some of the books that change the world the most are dystopian. This is because they’re based in the real world and poignantly reflect the outcome of horrible possibilities that often turn into high probabilities. Margaret Atwood’s novel is one such literary work, published in 1985 and also warns against an oppressive regime. This time it’s a theocratic US government dealing with a fertility crisis by stripping women of their rights before assigning them to either a domestic, housekeeping or reproductive role. A valuable and frequently brandished reminder of how badly things can go if patriarchal ideologies are allowed to thrive.
The Diary of Anne Frank
As powerful as fiction can be, non-fiction has even greater lessons to impart. The horrors of WWII are a major example of human events that must never be forgotten so that they’re not repeated. Anne herself didn’t write in her diary just to vent while hiding from the Nazis, she compiled all her memories in there and a revised version (The Secret Annex) for posterity. And, since their publication in 1947, the texts of Anne Frank still exist today in almost every human language, thanks to Miep Gies and Otto Frank. Unlike 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale, they recount very real events and have an even more powerful moral influence over readers.
The Bible
Books that change the world can do it for good and bad. The Bible is basically an anthology of religious beliefs, but which has left many footprints and fissures in human history since antiquity. The texts themselves have also changed so many times in the hands of the church. This makes them less a loyal representation of Christianity’s original teachings and more a product of the religious institution’s interactions with the human nature to a range of effects, from inspiring to atrocious. The Bible shows how much sway a literary work can have over people, but also how important it is to think and question while reading. In fact, it’s vital when dealing with texts trying to direct human behaviour and even more so when their intent is harmful.
So What Makes a Book Influential?
Based on the examples above, let’s summarise some key features of literary works that stay ingrained in our consciousness and progress as a “civilised” species.
Themes drawn from real concerns
Discussions of uncomfortable truths
Quality and / or moving writing
A willing audience
A degree of luck in societies actualising a given book’s messages and creating a need for its words to re-emerge
21st-Century Influential Books
Returning to this article’s original question, does this century’s literature have examples of books that can change the world? For me, the answer swings between ‘yes’ and ‘it’s complicated’. On the one hand, the amount of texts and opinions out there makes it hard to separate facts from inaccuracies and lies. On the other, you’re also left with so many good works from prestigious, indie or self-publishing avenues.
Because of this abundance, an extra silver lining is that readers can be a lot more informed and already on-board with ethical or cultural messages in books. This perhaps makes them less groundbreaking than they could have been if published 50 years ago. Of course, this is dependent on readers having an open mind, choosing good texts and navigating the often intentionally muddied literary waters.
Having said that, there are books of the 21st century that have stood out for their much-needed psychological and societal impact. Current crises related to black lives, women’s rights, immigration and more are motivating authors to produce powerful works that turn heads and push for positive change. Here are some examples:
White Teeth & NW (Zadie Smith)
Home Fire (Kamila Shamsie)
Citizen: An American Lyric (Claudia Rankine)
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
Conclusion
There’s no shortage of books nowadays in print, digital or audio form. It’s exciting for bookworms, but also makes it tricky to pick out the truly influential works among them. But the point is that the 21st century absolutely has its share of inspirational texts. What has changed is the world around literature as technology, politics, the media and so on overwhelm our perception of what’s fair or correct. This can be countered, however.
With the variety of platforms available to them, authors are in a great position to deliver truths and inspire unity against the wrongs of our times. The pen is still by far mightier than the sword, so books that change the world continue to emerge for the benefit of an increasingly sensible and ethical audience.
Any thoughts or other modern influential works you want to share? Feel free to contribute below. | https://medium.com/books-are-our-superpower/influence-of-literature-books-still-change-the-world-18668bc96128 | ['Electra Nanou'] | 2020-07-19 17:41:42.372000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Society', 'Writing', 'Reading', 'Books'] |
The Gifts Divorced Families Give | We can view divorced families like we do people with disabilities —
as people, but like, with superpowers.
When I first began accepting and going “with” what was happening and seeing the upsides of life apart from my former spouse, I felt like Oprah with my friends: And “you get a divorce! And you! And you!”
Driving around with my four year old and he says, “Mom, I wish the coronavirus and divorce didn’t exist anymore.” Of course he doesn’t understand, but if it’s one thing parenting has taught me it’s that messaging matters. It’s my job as a Mom to listen to his and his sister’s laments and teach them wisdom to navigate these storms.
What I want to tell those sweet little ones in the backseat is the truth I have affirmed since the day their dad and I sold them on the idea of living in two houses, and promised:
We’re still a family, but now we’re a divorced family.
But I want to say more:
Being divorced isn’t a source of shame. It’s a disability to the ideal child-rearing life of two parents in the same home.
One doesn’t have to look very far to see we live in a disabled world; for every child born healthy, is one with a missing hand, a genetic mutation, a duplex ureter, or chromosomal abnormality. For every person who appears complete is one with a hidden illness or PTSD, or missing a limb, a sensory disorder, or challenges too numerous to name.
We’ve learned as US Americans embrace our diversity and melting pot identity to make room for those among us with non-normative disabilities. We’re even, in some places, celebrating the gifts that differently-abled persons bring to our common life. A person who is hard of hearing, challenges us to enunciate well, speak more clearly, and listen to non-verbal cues that send a message.
It’s been a hurdle to be sure, and we have a long way to go. We are so bothered by imperfect things that it’s hard to see the gifts of what has been marred, especially when it appears the “broken” family is a disability chosen by sometimes “selfish” people.
Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
What deep wisdom does divorce teach its parents, its children, its communities about being human?
The Gifts Divorced Families Give
My children are learning a wisdom and truth about love, resilience, growth, forgiveness, and (always) hope. My friends in marriages are giving their children a sense of stability, but in favor of safety, what are these children shielded from that is also real and worthwhile?
Much of the wisdom given to me about marriage was passed on in the months following my sudden and unexpected separation and divorce.
When my parents were married about 10 years, they had a slew of friends whose spouses left, citing “I don’t love you and I’m not sure I ever did.” Mom still tells the story of waiting for Dad to get home from work, holding a calendar in her hands. “Do you love me?” she asked. “Yes, Liz, of course I do!” he replied. “Ok, I’m writing it on the calendar, this day, you loved me and you meant it. So you can never say you aren’t sure you ever did.”
The tragedy of others taught them not to take that love for granted.
My childhood best friend lived primarily with her mom, after her parents divorced when she was the age my kids are now. Nearly every Friday night I spent with her involved a ritual of shopping for frozen pizza, picking out a movie to rent (how many times can one person watch What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?), and going through the carwash on the way home listening to Celine Dion belt out “My Heart Will Go On” and pretending we were on The Titanic, about to go down with Jack and Rose.
Although A and her family weren’t regular churchgoers, I learned to appreciate ritual from the single mom Friday night jam.
When my pilgrimage through this began, A’s mom was the first person I reached out to to ask,
“Can I do this?”
And of course I knew, yes, with frozen pizza and some ritual magic of my own, of course.
Watching, even at a young age, an adult woman do so much on her own made me feel strong facing the unexpected in my life.
Divorce isn’t always bad news — there are days, in the vocation of pastoring, in which weddings were difficult to officiate, because the union, while not abusive, was also not necessarily “good news.” Marriage has some ugly surprises and fine print that is impossible to see until you’re knee-deep and long past committed.
There are beautiful days when we see one another as phoenixes rising from the ashes of broken relationships — not just broken marriages, but broken communities; acquaintances we thought were friends and allies; “families” who stopped acting with unconditional love a long time ago; or who proclaimed a forgiveness and acceptance of which they could not embody. Brokenness is everywhere, but the gift of divorce has taught me to look for the steady hope that flows beneath such fragments too.
What Now?
My intent is not to “sell” anyone on the option of divorce.
It’s awful, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy (except maybe my ex-husband? Ha!).
Here is an invitation to look around at your peers and classmates, or your children’s and count: how many of them have been touched by divorce?
There are so many good and tough reasons to depart from a set of promises you made to another person. No matter the reason, it came with a lot of pain and grief, but what came out the other side is a person who has a lot of wisdom and love yet to share with the world, in ways that are different from what we perceive to be an ideal and perfect life.
Elaine Murray is (in this order) a child of God, a mother, a pastor, a writer, a health coach, and a divorcee living courageously into futures she didn’t expect. | https://writingelaine.medium.com/the-gifts-divorced-families-give-a9fc1b454e6f | ['Elaine Murray'] | 2020-08-07 15:25:32.668000+00:00 | ['Divorce', 'Spirituality', 'Empowerment', 'Parenting', 'Women'] |
First Job Via NYSC [A Predictive Model] | A lot of Nigerian graduates hope that they’d be retained after their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) especially if they served somewhere they’d always dreamed of working before. Some of these people basically just feel their first job after NYSC might be gotten through these places that they have served in via recommendation to some other company, retainment, posting to some other branch of the same company or organisation they served in, or something related. But this isn’t always the case. Most people go to starting afresh in searching for a job and fitting in properly.
**NYSC is a program undertaken by most Nigerian Graduates after graduating from a University or a Polytechnic. The aim is basically for nation building and development.***
So should I have some hope of getting my first job via NYSC? Knowing this would help make some major decision. Decisions such as paying the next rent, turning down a job offer or accepting it, relocating to another town, switching careers or learning a new skill, or simply allowing people understand how these selections, recommendations and retainment are done or generally just allowing people plan their lives as much as they can after service.
Well, trusting a model to make this life important decision would mean the model is properly validated. How well will you trust my model? Cos that’s what I’m about to do ;), build a predictive model.
I downloaded this dataset (Stutern Nigerian Graduate Report) from Kaggle but this data set was extracted from Stutern.
I first of all did some data cleaning in Excel because it was such a ‘raw data’. I eliminated 15 columns, that weren’t related to the task at hand, changed the title of the columns and made answers brief.
Then I took my data set to Jupyter Notebook.
You can find my codes HERE on Github
Next, I extracted information from the dataset, that is the column types, null values present, number of rows and columns to understand the data better.
EXPLORING THE DATASET
Graduation Year:
Most graduates for this survey graduated in 2015, 2016 and 2017. And the range of graduates’ graduating year for this survey is between 2013 to 2017. The highest number of graduates for this survey are from the year 2015; a total of 1327.
Gender:
From above, we see that the values in the gender column are Male, Female and ‘Prefer not to say’. The dataset is balanced between male and female but unbalanced when we consider the ‘prefer not to say’ option. The prefer not to say option is quite low (3). And although slight, female graduates are seen to be lesser than male graduates from this survey.
Polytechnic or University Attended:
There are different polytechnics and university represented in this survey. There are a total of 158 unique schools represented here
University of Lagos has the highest number of students in this survey, followed by Covenant University. Dorben Polytechnic has the lowest number of students represented in this survey as well as Federal Polytechnic, Mubi and others. The datasets aren’t quite balanced here. Comparing the number of rows covered by Lagos State Graduate and by Dorben Polytechnic, this shows that the dataset isn’t quite representing of all schools in Nigeria.
Federal Universities and Polytechnics have the highest number of representation followed by Private Universities, then State, Foreign schools and other Nigerian Schools not mentioned by names. The number from Federal Universities is quite understandable as most Nigerian Universities and colleges are owned by the Federal Government.
Qualification before First Job:
Bachelors Degee Holders are highly represented in this survey, followed by HND, Masters, OND, MBA and PhD’s. From this survey, it is observed that most Nigerians prefer to go through Universities than Polytechnics.
Job Search Mode:
Most graduates search for jobs or hear about jobs via personal contacts from family and friends. Social media is the second major place people search for jobs or get job vacancy information from. Recruitment agencies and online job sites is the third main place people get job vacancy information from. People barely get news about job vacancies directly from The employers websites.
Course and University Type:
From this survey, a lot of Nigerians study Computer Science in school. This is an interesting insight as what makes most developed countries is the level (growth) of Science and Technology in those countries.
From this, we can see that several Nigerians attend more of the Federal Schools than any other kind.
PREPARING THE DATASETS FOR THE MODEL
This particular data set had a lot of missing values but for the data set required for the model, the missing values were replaced with the mode of the columns while some other missing values especially when very few were dropped.
I later dropped irrelevant columns. The job search mode column was filled with the mode.
Conversion from strings to numerical values were done:
SPLITTING THE DATA SET TO TRAIN SET AND TEST SET
DEVELOPING THE DECISION TREE MODEL
The decision model was developed and the accuracy for the test and train data set were displayed as well as the confusion matrix.
From the confusion matrix, we can see that 777 were rightly predicted as No (No job via NYSC) and 205 were wrongly predicted as No, when they were supposed to have been predicted as yes (Yes, Job 1 via NYSC). 24 were predicted to be yes when they were actually no and 17 were predicted correctly to be yes.
Displaying the classification report and pickling(saving) the model.
PREDICTION
Predicting someone’s first job status via NYSC is shown below:
A prediction for a Female graduate who studied Economics in a Foreign University and whose job search mode is through Personal contacts, including family and friends.
Note that the meanings of the digits are displayed here
The predicted value (1-Yes) is that that Graduate will likely be retained, get recommendations from NYSC and her staff or anything related… but generally be offered a job via NYSC. | https://goldochim2.medium.com/first-job-via-nysc-prediction-model-cb7658a67213 | ['Gold Ochim'] | 2021-01-01 02:12:53.166000+00:00 | ['Nigerian Graduate', 'Decision Tree', 'Nysc', 'Data Science', 'Predictive Modeling'] |
Renaldo Webb & Gertrude Allen of ‘Pet Plate’: 5 Important Business Lessons I Learned While Being on Shark Tank | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit of the backstory about how you grew up?
I grew up in New Orleans with my mom and two sisters. I also developed a love of science (and animals) at a young age. That eventually led me to boarding school for high school and MIT for college, where I earned a degree in Physics.
Can you share with us the story of the “aha moment” that gave you the idea to start your company?
After graduating from MIT, I began my career as a consultant and wound up focusing on the pet food industry. I spent a lot of time on the factory floor where I saw the substandard ingredients and processes used to make traditional dog food. Suffice to say, I was pretty grossed out and wondered why we weren’t feeding our dogs a human-grade diet. This question nagged me for a while, and when I got my first dog Winston I decided to cook for him under the guidance of a veterinary nutritionist. Seeing him love the food that I made for him was an “aha moment” that eventually led me to start PetPlate.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
One of the most interesting things that happened to me while leading PetPlate was my second appearance on Shark Tank. One day, while leaving one of our distribution centers, I received a call from a Shark Tank producer. We had a great chat about how much PetPlate had grown since the initial airing, and they offered me the opportunity to provide an update on my business on the show! This was especially exciting because companies that don’t get a deal aren’t usually brought back to give an update. I was also able to share this entire experience with my growing team, which was a great morale booster.
Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
One funny mistake I made in the early days of PetPlate was when I used to hand-deliver the food by bike. I launched my business in the winter of 2016 when there were quite a few major snow storms. A few times, I found myself trying to ride my bike through the snow in Manhattan only to completely destroy my bike and almost get hit by cabs (don’t worry! I made it out alive). While it would have been funny to watch me struggle through snow to deliver fresh-cooked dog food, what wasn’t funny was being late with our deliveries or not being able to make a delivery. That taught me that consistency and reliability in the supply chain is key to the customer experience. We pivoted the business in 2017 to solve this problem by shipping via last-mile carriers like FedEx and UPS..
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We’re continuously working on new initiatives at PetPlate, which often involve developing new products and features for our customers. Our overarching goal is to deliver a complete and convenient experience for our customers. Currently, we’re working on products that address specific health issues. As a digitally native brand, we’re laser-focused on ensuring that our website has all the functionality our customers need for a smooth journey.
Ok, thank you for all that. Let’s now move to the main part of our interview. Many of us have no idea about the backend process of how to apply and get accepted to be on the Shark Tank. Can you tell us the story about how you applied and got accepted. What “hoops” did you have to go through to get there? How did it feel to be accepted?
My experience was somewhat unique. Most people go to their website, download an application, and send it in. However, I stumbled upon an opportunity to attend a live “pitch competition” held at a NYC TechDay event. At the event, I delivered a 1-minute pitch to one of the Shark Tank producers alongside hundreds of other entrepreneurs. Two weeks later, I got a call from the producers in LA telling me I’d made it to the next round! I then had to make a few more pitch videos to submit with my application and information on my business and revenues. Shortly after that, my application was selected, and I was on my way to LA to pitch the sharks. It was honestly a shock to be selected. As an introvert, I never saw myself as someone who would be on TV or in front of the camera. So I felt more shocked and nervous than anything else.
I’m sure the actual presentation was pretty nerve wracking. What did you do to calm and steel yourself to do such a great job on the show?
The actual presentation still seems like a blur, but once I arrived at the set, I was assigned a coach who helped me practice my pitch. The one piece of advice they gave that was super helpful was to know your pitch and business metrics cold. I had about four days in LA to practice, and took every chance I could get to do dry runs in front of producers to solicit feedback. My goal was to make sure I was only nervous about being on screen, and not the content. I also think I had a bit of an advantage having my first dog Winston there. He was my partner in crime, and, at the end of the day, having him there with me made the pitch more fun than intimidating.
So what was the outcome of your Shark Tank pitch. Were you pleased with the outcome?
Unfortunately, I walked away from Shark Tank without a deal. Initially, getting funded was my primary goal, so naturally I was disappointed with the outcome. However, four years later, and two years after my second appearance, I’ve learned that the most important outcome of being on the show was gaining brand exposure. Looking at the experience through that lens, I’m thrilled with how Shark Tank continues to help support the growth of my business.
What are your “5 Important Business Lessons I Learned While Being On The Shark Tank”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Lesson 1: Know your metrics — It’s important to know your business inside and out. Especially during a pitch to investors. I think I did a good job here, but as you’ll see in my next few lessons, it’s important not to just know your metrics, but to understand how they are all related and what metrics drive the business most.
Lesson 2: Be prepared to scale — There sharks asked multiple questions about how I planned to get my product into the hands of many more consumers, because it wasn’t immediately obvious how the business would scale. We didn’t have a scalable manufacturing system or distribution network in place, nor was it in our roadmap yet. If that had been in place, or if I could have articulated a plan, maybe the sharks would have felt more comfortable investing in my business.
Lesson 3: Demonstrate traction — One of the hardest questions I had to answer was: “why don’t you have more sales?”. At the time, I wasn’t able to clearly communicate my initial proof of concept and that the lack of sales was a function of limited time in the market (6 months!) and limited marketing spend (barely anything!). My pitch would have been more convincing if I could have highlighted stats such as organic growth, referrals, and reorder rates as a proxy for future growth.
Lesson 4: Practice your pitch — For the few days I was in LA, all I did was practice delivering my Shark Tank pitch. I wanted to make sure that the pitch would come across as natural, and that I wouldn’t be nervous once the bright lights and cameras were shining on me. This was an important lesson learned that I now use before important meetings to help me feel more confident.
Lesson 5: Eat your own dog food — We actually fed our dog food to the sharks, which was a great moment of the pitch. I generally believe that it is important for founders and executives to use their own products and services so they can speak firsthand about them and make necessary adjustments to improve customer experience and retain valuable customers.
What advice would you give to other leaders to help their team to thrive and avoid burnout?
One of the most important things I’ve learned through my experience at PetPlate is to not let other people add additional stress or anxiety to your life. Oftentimes, worrying about issues, meetings, and deliverables is more exhausting than the work itself. It’s critical to share the burden with the rest of your team. Don’t try to go it alone! And, most importantly, take care of yourself. Sleep, diet, exercise, even meditation, may be hard to schedule, but it will give you the energy you need to make it through another day.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would want to inspire a movement around understanding and empathy. In today’s world, it can be difficult to walk in another person’s shoes and understand the challenges they face. However, if we can make this discussion a larger part of society, there would be more compassion and a renewed focus on solutions that can help those most in need.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite Life Lesson Quote is from “The Man in the Arena” by Theodore Roosevelt. It is a long quote, so I won’t write it here, but it is important and relevant to my life as a founder. The quote basically says that the person who tries something new or subjects themself to criticism by challenging the status-quo is the one worthy of praise, given they challenged themselves to be better. As a founder, this is important because we’re constantly subjecting ourselves to criticism and failure, and this helps remind me to keep pushing forward.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
I would love to meet with Barack Obama. His life story has been an inspiration to me and so many people around the world. I’d love the opportunity to talk to him about the challenges facing the world, how he thinks about solutions, and to see if his dogs love PetPlate! | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/renaldo-webb-of-gertrude-allen-pet-plate-5-important-business-lessons-i-learned-while-being-on-6fe30a037314 | ['Yitzi Weiner'] | 2021-01-06 17:40:06.215000+00:00 | ['Pop Culture'] |
Is Tesla in the market to acquire another automaker? | Originally published at https://evannex.com on December 16, 2020.
Oh, the irony! In Tesla’s early days, many assumed it would eventually be acquired by a larger automaker. After all, this was, and is, the tried-and-true trajectory for a Silicon Valley startup. This wasn’t just a journalist’s fantasy-the co-founders themselves considered it a possibility. Marc Tarpenning told me in 2013, “We believed (quite naively), that once the Roadster was out and people saw that you could make a compelling electric car, all the car companies would jump on this idea…so even if the stand-alone company becomes questionable, it’s okay because there’ll be ten car companies around the planet that will want us.”
At the time, nobody imagined that the legacy automakers would show so little interest in electrification, or that by 2020, Tesla would have left them in the dust.
Now Tesla is the world’s largest automaker by market cap (though very far from the largest in terms of sales), and could theoretically acquire just about any of the world’s legacy carmakers. In fact, financially speaking, Tesla could gobble up two or three of the smaller brands with a minimal dilution of shareholder value.
Elon Musk recently started up the rumor mill when he said, in answer to an interviewer’s question, “We are definitely not going to launch a hostile takeover, but if somebody said it would be a good idea to merge with Tesla, we would have this conversation.”
On the face of it, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Most automakers have been battered by the pandemic, and Tesla might be able to pick up a lot of hard assets at a bargain price. It’s an interesting fantasy (and a thought-provoking object lesson in how quickly technology can change the business landscape), but for those of us who follow Tesla closely, there are several obvious reasons why it’s unlikely to happen.
The legacy automakers only have a couple of things that Tesla would want. Tesla could acquire some existing factories, perhaps in strategic parts of the world, and retool them to build its EVs and other products. However, this just isn’t the way Tesla is doing things these days. The company has been down the refurbishment road before, with its Fremont factory and with Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo (a former steel mill), and has plainly come to the conclusion that it makes more sense to build new factories from scratch to its specifications.
Tesla decided early in the game that converting an ICE vehicle to an EV (as it did with the Roadster, and as some legacy automakers are still doing) makes no sense. To realize the full potential of an EV, you have to start from the proverbial “blank sheet of paper.” The same applies to Tesla’s factories, and that’s why, beginning with Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, it has chosen to build new facilities on greenfield sites (there were surely disused factories in China, Germany and elsewhere that it could have picked up on the cheap).
An integral part of Tesla’s business model is aggressively squeezing out costs by incrementally improving its manufacturing processes, and to do that, it has to be able to design its factories for optimal efficiency. Each new Gigafactory is more efficiently designed, more closely attuned to Tesla’s evolving needs, than the last, and some say that Gigafactories may prove to be the company’s most important innovation. Refurbishing existing auto plants just isn’t the Tesla way.
Another so-called asset that a legacy automaker could bring to the table is a pool of loyal customers. Many car buyers are loyal to particular brands, usually for purely emotional reasons. A Tesla-powered Peugeot or Fiat might capture a certain number of buyers who wouldn’t look at a car with the red T logo. This vestige of the auto industry’s past has led automakers to keep historic brands alive by creating duplicate branding for the same automobiles. Examples include the Opel Ampera-E, the European version of the Chevy Bolt, the Buick Velite, a version of the Chevy Volt rebadged to make it more attractive to Chinese buyers (who have a historic affinity for Buick), and the Citroen C-Zero and Peugeot iOn, both rebadged versions of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
However, Tesla isn’t likely to consider this brand-based goodwill much of an asset. On the contrary, it’s exactly the kind of wasteful and unproductive auto industry tradition that Tesla is dedicated to sweeping away. Other structures that legacy automakers consider “assets” (their dealer networks, marketing operations, etc) are probably better described as “baggage,” and it’s difficult to imagine that Tesla would want anything to do with them (and let’s not even get into the touchy subject of automakers’ union contracts).
For these reasons and others, any merger in which Tesla would take over another automaker’s assets and fold them into its own operations just seems incompatible with the California carmaker’s business model. However, what if Tesla decided to play the corporate spoiler, accelerating the EV revolution by destroying ICE automakers from within? It could buy one or more of the automakers that have been most resistant to electrification (Fiat Chrysler and Honda come to mind), and shut ’em down! Some would imagine this as poetic justice-after all, we all know that oil companies and their shadowy allies regularly buy up green-tech startups and bury their gas-saving innovations, just as pharmaceutical companies suppress life-saving cancer treatments (Elvis, Obama and aliens are also involved somehow).
Leaving aside the question of whether this would actually work, shuttering factories, putting dealerships out of business and taking away car buyers’ beloved brands would not be any way to win friends and influence drivers to go electric. Elon Musk is no Daenerys Targaryen (we hope), and I don’t think he has any plans to decimate Detroit with flame throwers. The march of technology and the free market will accomplish the task of creative destruction in due time.
The only merger scenario I see that makes any sense would be one in which Tesla buys a controlling stake in an EV-reluctant automaker, then gently steers it onto the right path. With Tesla calling the shots, an automaker’s existing EV programs could be strengthened, perhaps with the addition of some Tesla tech, ICE models phased out, and workers retrained for 21st-century careers.
Even this seems unlikely-it would involve wading into the mire of the legacy auto industry, and dealing with a corporate culture that’s the opposite of Tesla’s own. And how likely is it that an ICE-builder, forcibly converted to an EV-only brand, would be profitable?
In any case, Elon and his companies have plenty on their plates right now-if Tesla can bring all, or even most, of its already-announced projects to fruition, it will bring about the desired revolution. However, I could be wrong-Elon Musk and his crew have never been frightened of a full, or even overflowing, plate.
===
Originally published at https://evannex.com on December 16, 2020.
Written by: Charles Morris | https://medium.com/@mpressman/is-tesla-in-the-market-to-acquire-another-automaker-d554fa351daa | ['E.V. Annex'] | 2020-12-16 17:05:07.142000+00:00 | ['Elon Musk', 'Tesla Motors', 'Tesla', 'Tesla Model S', 'Electric Car'] |
Cash or credit card which is better to use when traveling abroad? | Traveling abroad could be a fun experience. However, it could be just as scary for the inexperienced travelers. You would need to be careful about the rules of the country, their customs, traditions, and especially about your safety and finances in an alien country.
When it comes to finances, travelers are often concerned about whether to use Plastic Money or Cash. If you too are one of them, here is a guide to help you choose better.
Cash
Pros:
Cash is convenient to use as it is accepted everywhere. With cash usage, you probably would pay less for exchange and conversion fees. Moreover, you need not pay any transaction fees while using cash for your payments.
Cons:
Using cash while traveling can be quite risky. It can be stolen or lost. Therefore, in a different country, if you rely only on cash for your expenses, you could be in trouble.
Moreover, it is difficult and inconvenient to carry cash everywhere you go. Further, you would have to look for ATMs and banks to withdraw, and exchange currency whenever required.
Credit card
Pros:
They are easy and convenient to carry and use.
You need not worry about its theft or loss as you can replace it through your bank.
You can make payments even if you run out of cash.
MasterCard and Visa are accepted worldwide
You can withdraw cash through credit cards.
In case of wrong or fraudulent activity through your card, you can send a request for price protection and get a refund.
You can earn and redeem your reward points while traveling abroad in branded and multinational stores.
Credit cards can be the most affordable means of payments if you take a credit card with no foreign transaction fees.
Cons:
You might face trouble in making payments if your card is not accepted abroad. When applying for a credit card look for institutions that have been lending for a long time and have a reputation in the industry.
You will need to notify your bank when you travel abroad unless you opt for a foreign service credit card.
You might have to pay interest on the unpaid amount on credit card depending on the bank.
Conclusion
Whether you should use a credit card or cash depends on many factors. Which country you are traveling to and if your credit card would be accepted there? What is the duration of your stay? It is because if you are going for a short period, you might as well use cash for transactions. However, if you plan to stay abroad for a longer time, it would be better to use a credit card for convenience and safety. You might have to look for ATMs for withdrawing cash if you run out of money. Therefore for a more extended stay, it is better to use credit cards. Moreover, it is best to use credit cards if you are traveling to multiple countries, as you will need to exchange your currency to make payments. | https://medium.com/@sawitree-monpadungkij/cash-or-credit-card-which-is-better-to-use-when-traveling-abroad-3633ade2c474 | ['Sawitree Monpadungkij'] | 2019-07-22 05:29:09.087000+00:00 | ['Credit Cards', 'Best Credit Card', 'Thailand', 'Foreign Currency', 'Banking'] |
Which are the fastest ways for instant income??? | In this post, we will discuss the more instant ways to earn online. Some people need a job that will give results instantly because they seem to be very needy in this case and they require so instant job. There are so many ways either online or offline that give results very quickly. So here we will discuss some of these ways to help very needy people. So if you want to earn instantly then please read the blog post very carefully. So here we go;
We will discuss all the ways step-by-step, so remain along with this post to its end.
Freelancing:
So in this respect, the method of freelancing always comes to the top of any post. It is simple and even it can be done through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also.
You can find clients according to your interest in these social media platforms. So you can easily find work and can earn by doing your job part-time or even full time if you have plenty of time to do it with consistency and accuracy. So it the best way to earn if one has a laptop, mobile phone, and a stable internet connection.
Become a delivery rider:
The one who has the intention to earn can become a delivery rider and can earn such a huge amount of money by working some little amount of work.
You can join any company as a delivery rider and you will have to deliver a parcel to a certain person anywhere in the city or outside the city. It’s just a little work and gives a comparatively more income. If anyone wants to earn instantly then he can become a delivery rider for any company or brand.
Affiliate marketing:
Affiliate marketing is also a very easy and instant way to earn money. In this, you will have to work as an affiliate with any company or brand and you will have to promote that company’s products.
On which you will earn such a good income. In my opinion, affiliate marketing is the easiest of all the ways and requires almost no physical work to do. Thus the affiliate marketing is the best one.
If anybody has some area of interest and has some knowledge about that field then he can write a short book on that field or topic and he can publish it on any publishing platform either online or offline.
The writing of a book is very simple because you can write either in your own language or directly n English if it suits you and you have a very strong grip on the English language grammarly. It is also an easy way but a little bit lazy in giving you a reward instantly.
I hope you will like our post and will start earning instantly after reading this post. If you think that we have missed some point then inform us by commenting below.
Thank you! | https://medium.com/@mikm786khn/which-are-the-fastest-ways-for-instant-income-3d0fc41a0025 | ['Irtaza Khan'] | 2020-12-22 17:46:05.389000+00:00 | ['Delivery Riding', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Freelancing', 'Writing A Book', 'Instant Earnings'] |
5 Career Advantages You Get By…. Volunteering — Raz Coaching | “What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.” — Aristotle
Whether you’re an experienced employee seeking a new career, or about to enter the workforce without a clear idea of your ideal profession, you can’t go wrong by volunteering.
Seriously…
Volunteering may not directly pay the bills, but have you ever thought about volunteering your way into a career that you’ll love?
Because let’s face it:
It’s 2019, and simply sending out your resume for just any old job that looks interesting isn’t going to cut it.
But don’t worry. I’m about to let you in on an untapped strategy secret: the power of volunteering as part of your career development.
Here are five high-value, low-risk advantages to help you discover your ideal career through volunteering.
The Fabulous Five Advantages
1. Expand your networking: not only will you meet an entirely new group of people as a volunteer, usually you’ll be in a friendly environment without a lot of pressure. This frees you to relax and be yourself with people who share your interests. You can make more meaningful connections, and have more genuine conversations, than are sometimes possible at formal networking events.
2. Discover your volunteer personality: the more you understand yourself, the better you can home in on a volunteer opportunity that will help you discover your dream career. A good place to start is with the Myers-Briggs test. You’ll discover your strengths, your communication and learning styles, and the type of training you may need for the career you desire.
3. Receive free training: And speaking of training, when you volunteer you have the opportunity to receive free training that may otherwise cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars. If your idea of volunteering has been limited to stuffing envelopes or answering phones, good news! You could learn how to design a website, manage a project, or become a top-notch fundraiser. The list is endless.
4. Get early access to employment openings: because you’ll be a part of an organization that’s hiring, you’ll have become known to a group of people as someone reliable and competent. When job openings become available in your organization (or one in its network), you’ve got people who will vouch for you. Employers often go with someone known to them, even over someone who on paper is more qualified, so you’ll have a definite advantage.
5. Test your purpose: Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste and experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.” If you already know your life purpose, excellent! What better way to put it to a test than to volunteer in the field you’ve chosen? And if you haven’t yet had the opportunity to discover your purpose, there are ways to uncover it so you can learn which organizations might be a good fit for your talents and passion. When you infuse your life purpose into your chosen volunteer work — well, look out, world, you’re going to be on fire!
See how volunteering can propel you down the path to your ideal career? Yet it’s often overlooked by people when they are deciding on a profession.
Over To You
If you spend a significant amount of time wondering “ I’m not sure if this is the right career choice! What if I hate it?”, I feel you.
Choosing a profession is a huge commitment. You can’t afford to take a shot in the dark, fingers crossed, hoping for the best.
There are so many different organizations with a wide variety of opportunities within them, you may find to your surprise that it’s hard to choose because of the abundance. And isn’t that a lovely spot to be in?
Give your choice a chance without risking everything. Even if you realize you made a mistake, the worst that’s happened is you’ve given up some of your time and effort and probably made a few friends on the journey.
But along the way you’ve made a difference to someone else’s life. You’ve gotten to know yourself better.
Volunteering extra bonus benefit: Actively being a good person and making a positive impact in your own life and many others!
Raz Coaching specializes in helping people with executive function challenges associated with ADHD, PTSD, Stress, TBI’s and ASD find careers they will love and land them. Read more at www.razcoaching.com/about Or sign up for the weekly blog and learn about my new book Happiness+Passion+Purpose. | https://medium.com/@michelleraz51/5-career-advantages-you-get-by-volunteering-raz-coaching-d4ab2b438e13 | ['Michelle Raz'] | 2019-09-11 03:56:41.968000+00:00 | ['Adhd Help', 'Career Paths', 'Adhd', 'Volunteering', 'Career Development'] |
ATK Mohun Bagan and their 3–5–2: Complete Breakdown with Solutions for Opponents | ATK Mohun Bagan are off to a flying start in the Indian Super League 2020 and the 3–5–2 of Antonio Habas has been a highlight with majority of the teams not finding it comfortable to break it down. In more recent games, ATK have experimented with a 4–4–2 as well as a 4–3–3 but it is with the 3–5–2 that they have seemed the most solid so far. We shall have a look at the same in a detailed manner with focus on the following aspects:
1. Formations & Preferred Starting XI
2. Approach in Possession
3. Approach without Possession
4. Weaknesses in ATK Mohun Bagan’s 3–5–2
5. Using the 3–3–3–1 to beat the 3–5–2
6. Possible Solutions for the opponent when in Possession
7. Possible Solutions for the opponent when not in Possession
Formation & Preferred XI with 3–5–2
Let us start with the most basic details of ATK Mohun Bagan. As you can see, this has been their preferred eleven, a very typical 3–5–2 formation with a back-three of Pritam-Tiri-Sandesh, Prabhir & Subhashish as wing-backs, a midfield-trio of McHugh as the ‘6’ with any two out of Jayesh Rane & Javi Hernandez as advanced midfielders, then followed by two strikers out of which one is always Roy Krishna and the other being any one out of Williams, Manvir Singh or Brad Inman.
Other central-midfield options include: Edu Garcia, Glan Martins & Michael Soosairaj. All of these players have been tried out in the first 4 games in an attempt to figure out the best combination. But it looks like Javi-McHugh-Edu has been their best midfield till now.
Goalkeeper: Arindam Bhattacharya has started all games for ATK Mohun Bagan and he has done a good job with 17 saves from 7 games. He also has the most cleansheets in the league this season with 5.
Approach in Possession
3 central defenders split wide, McHugh stays deep along with the three to help in build-up while the other two central midfielders push higher up
ATK Mohun Bagan’s shape becomes a 3–1–4–2 when in possession with the three central defenders spreading apart wide and the wing-backs pushing higher up the field. McHugh stays deep along with the central defenders with the advanced midfielders (Javi & Rane) occupying more attacking positions. Rane generally offers support to McHugh with Javi pushing higher up. The two strikers are responsible for depth and they try occupying the opponent’s central defenders.
On contrary to what most believe, ATK Mohun Bagan don’t depend entirely on counter-attacking football and attacking only after absorbing pressure from the opponent. This season, they have been proactive in attack, trying to make use of the best abilities in the team.
Tiri: The Playmaker
The most important player when ATK Mohun Bagan are in possession is Tiri. The central defender is single-handedly responsible for progressing the ball from first-third to the next two-thirds of the pitch. He has got one of the best passing range among central defenders in the Indian Super League.
Despite being solid defenders, Pritam (RCB) & Sandesh (LCB) are not most comfortable when it comes to progressing play into advanced areas and they entirely depend on Tiri for this job. Tiri is capable of playing the ball to any area of the pitch in any angle, whether its short or long or between the lines or directly to the striker, he is a complete package in passing. Here is a 1-minute video showcasing his passing from this season:
As you may see, the others around Tiri (Pritam, Sandesh, McHugh) are there to attract the opponent’s pressure or move the opponent to one side and set up the team before Tiri decides to progress the ball into the last two phases of the pitch. A very common pattern you may see is Tiri’s long diagonal ball to right wing-back Prabir Das as he has got a good acceleration, pace and decent ball control and is a major source of attacking for ATK Mohun Bagan.
(Data till first 4 games of ATK): In comparison to the other central-defenders and McHugh, Tiri dominates the numbers in terms of long-passes completed, forward passes completed & passes into final-third completed
Central midfielders move wide and strikers drop in
Another common way of progressing the ball from first phase to the next two phases is by using the movement of the advanced central midfielders and the two strikers, basically: Rane, Javi, Roy Krishna & Edu Garcia. These are the four central players in the attacking phases of the pitch and hence, a lot depends on their behaviour to progress the ball centrally.
CMs go wide and empty space for Striker to drop in and RCB finds the Striker dropping in
It is a fast movement but try noticing what happens here: As Pritam (RCB) receives the ball, look at the central areas where central-midfielders Edu Garcia (№10) & Glan Martins (№14) make runs away from the central areas to create space for Roy Krishna to drop in and receive.
ATK Mohun Bagan’s central-midfielders are highlighted as they make runs away from the center to create space for striker to receive
For better understanding, let us have a closer look at what is happening here via this image. The two central midfielders are usually marked by the two central midfielders of the opponent who are in a 4–2–3–1 or 4–4–2, which is usually the formation when not in possession for many teams in the ISL. So once the two central midfielders get the attention of the opponent’s central midfielders, they move wider towards the wing to pull the opponents out of position and create a gap in front of the defence.
Dark Red: ATK Mohun Bagan & Orange: Opponent
Once that gap is created, there is space for the strikers to drop in and receive the pass from Pritam, Tiri or Sandesh. This is common especially with Roy Krishna as he shows movement both ways: Dropping deep into space or running behind the opponent’s defensive line as well.
Here is a look at Roy Krishna’s touchmap in ISL 2020–21
(Data till first 4 games of ATK):
Viz Courtesy: @DrMukherjeeS on Twitter
Passes Received by Roy Krishna in the first 4 games
The blue circles represent the passes he has successfully received in ISL so far while the red circles represent passes attempted to receive but failed. You can see many successful & unsuccessful passes which deep in midfield as well while only one pass he has received inside the box.
Full Thread: https://twitter.com/DrMukherjeeS/status/1336621993291112448
Wing-Backs connection with Central-Midfielders
As with any of the 3–5–2 formation, the wing-backs play a very important role for ATK Mohun Bagan as well. We saw how Tiri tries to find the wing-backs in the final-phase with his direct, vertical passing. If that option is not possible, ATK try to move the ball into the second-phase of the pitch into their central-midfielders. However, the central midfielders don’t offer much verticality or penetration into the final-third. They are mostly positioned in wide half-spaces and then prefer to play combinations with the wing-backs.
From an aerial view: The central-midfielders are usually in the half-space corridor, wide enough to form a triangle with the central defender and the wing-back. The central-midfielders usually act as connectors between the central-defenders and the wing-backs to progress the ball into the final phase.
Among the wing-backs, Prabir Das is much more attacking as compared to Subashish on the left. Because of this, the right central-midfielder is usually holding back to cover for Prabir. However on the left, the central-midfielder is a lot more attacking and makes runs out-wide or behind the defence and into the penalty area.
Data till first 4 games of ATK Mohun Bagan
As you can see, the central-midfielders have a good number of passes into the final-phase of the pitch but not many into the penalty area. But the wing-backs Prabir & Subashish have a combined total of 23 pass attempts into the penalty area as compared to all the central-midfielders, who don’t even have 10 passes into penalty area together.
Note: Prabir Das also has 6 touches in the penalty area in this ISL which is more than any defender or midfielder of ATK Mohun Bagan
Approach when not in Possession
ATK Mohun Bagan are in a 5–3–2 formation without the ball and are usually in a high to medium block with the two-strikers and the three midfielders maintaining a compactness in the middle. They mostly try to stop the opponent playing out from the back smoothly and start pressing the opponent in the attacking third of the pitch.
High press on the flanks
Here is a sample snapshot of how they apply pressure very high up the pitch when their opponent tries to play out from the back. Many teams in the ISL use the right-back and left-back frequently during build-up in the first phase of the pitch. Since ATK Mohun Bagan have an extra defender at the back, they are able to create problems when their opponent does this. ATK send their left wing-back or right wing-back all the way up the pitch to close down the opponent’s full-back while the other four defenders slide across the pitch to maintain a back-four.
As you can see in the image above, right wing-back Prabir Das would go and close down the opponent’s left-back while the other defenders slide across the pitch and maintain defensive balance. The same would happen on the other flank with left wing-back Subashish closing down the opponent’s right-back and the other defenders sliding towards the right. Once the opponent’s full-backs are closed down, they find it difficult to play it back to the central-defender as well because ATK’s two strikers directly mark the opponent’s central-defenders. This is true especially with Roy Krishna as he is very quick and aggressive in his pressing.
Some Samples:
High-press ATK Mohun Bagan’s LWB to close down the opponent’s RB
High-press ATK Mohun Bagan’s RWB to close down the opponent’s LB
Pressure in central areas in 2nd phase of the pitch
This has forced opponents to use faster passing and channel it in the central areas to progress the ball quickly. Once the opponents are forced to play through the centre, ATK’s three central-midfielders maintain their narrow shape and go for high pressure.
Here is another snapshot trying to show what happens usually. The opponent’s full-backs are always kept at a close distance by ATK’s wing-backs Prabir Das & Subashish. Once opponents are forced to try central routes to progress the ball, ATK Mohun Bagan’s two strikers and three central-midfielders try to form a high-pressure zone between the five of them. This is to stop the opponent from using his central-midfielders as any pass which enters into this zone would mean rapid high pressing from the five ATK Mohun Bagan players (2 strikers + 3 central-midfielders)
I have slowed down the clipping for you to be able to carefully observe the same here. Odisha try to move the ball higher up the pitch using their central-midfielder and you can see the pressure from the five ATK Mohun Bagan players (2 strikers + 3 central-midfielders).
Note: Try noticing how the three midfielders of ATK Mohun Bagan are very high up and narrow as well to try to squeeze the space for Odisha’s central midfield
This is the shape we were discussing earlier on as ATK Mohun Bagan wait for the cue to apply high pressure, which is a pass by the opponent to their central-midfielder. Here is what happens after the pass is made by the opponent into the central zone:
As you can see in the snapshot above, there are five ATK Mohun Bagan players (the 2 strikers + 3 central-midfielders). You would also notice how the five players are just meters away from each other while trying to press.
This is evident even in terms of numbers as McHugh’s aggression has led him to have the highest number of fouls in the ISL this season with 20 in 7games. He is also among the top three for number of tackles in the ISL this season with over 45.
The Long Route taken by ATK’s opponents
The third alternative for opponents to attack ATK Mohun Bagan would be to take the long route, which is to hoof the ball over the top to by pass the five central players and directly challenge their back-three of Pritam-Tiri-Jhingan. This is a very uncertain way of attacking as a lot depends on whether the aerial battle or the second ball is won by the attacker against that back-three. The three central-defenders of ATK Mohun Bagan average almost 70% success in aerial duels. (Data till first 4 games)
But if the opponents aren’t able to cope with the pressure from ATK Mohun Bagan on the flanks and in the centre, then they choose to go long and lose possession very often. Hence, this has been favourable to ATK Mohun Bagan in the five games so far and if we have to summarize their off-the-ball approach in one line then we could say…
Stay compact with the two strikers and three midfielders, protect the centre while push wing-backs high up to close down opponent’s full-backs and force them into taking risks and win back possession
Weaknesses in ATK Mohun Bagan:
In Possession
a) Over-Reliance on Tiri:
This has been a pretty obvious factor when we look at the ATK Mohun Bagan’s ball progression from the first phase into advanced phases of the pitch. Except for Tiri’s vertical or long-passing, they are left with no solid plan to progress the ball. His absence against Jamshedpur showed clearly as ATK struggled to create chances from open-play. Whenever Tiri is given time & space on the ball, he is able to scan for the best possible option and execute the pass as well.
b) Lack of Variety in Final-Third:
Again, this point is in connection with the previous one. ATK Mohun Bagan are limited in terms of having variety and different dimensions in attack. A major source of creating chances is from the flanks using their wing-backs. You may remember the numbers about passes into penalty area, which was dominated by Prabir Das & Subashish and the midfielders’ contribution being significantly less. ATK have scored a number of goals against the run of play, from set-pieces or individual brilliance. The chances created from open-play have been quite limited.
Out of Possession
a) Narrow First-Line Press:
The first-line of pressure from ATK Mohun Bagan is of the two strikers. It is always difficult to cover the entire width of the pitch with two players. Hence if ATK’s opponents are able to have enough width while playing out from the back, then it is possible to stretch the two strikers wide and open up space to progress the ball further.
b) Space between Defence & Midfield:
We had seen earlier how the midfield-trio pushes up and maintains a narrow compact pressing trap in the central area. As the three-midfielders push higher up, there is space created between the defence and midfield as the three central-defenders stay with the attackers. Ideally, they are supposed to be pushing up along with the three midfielders to avoid this space getting created but often not the case.
Here is an example:
The red-shaded area is the space which gets created when ATK Mohun Bagan’s first two lines of pressure are beaten. Odisha, ideally should have had players in this area to take advantage of the situation but as you can see, they don’t overload in this area and instead go for a shot and the attack ends in a goal-kick
Possible Solutions for ATK Mohun Bagan’s opponents:
In Possession
3–3–3–1 to counter ATK’s 3–5–2
A possible solution for an opponent might be to alter their shape a little bit to take advantage of the inherent weaknesses in ATK Mohun Bagan. The reason being that facing ATK’s 3–5–2 is going to be an entirely different challenge as it is a team with a completely different shape, structure and approach than the others in the ISL. Hence switching to a back-three can provide the opponent with many advantages in terms of numerical superiority in key areas.
Now that we also had a look at the major weaknesses in ATK Mohun Bagan’s 3–5–2, which is a lack of width in first line of pressure and space between the lines of defence and midfield, a change in shape can allow the opponent to make the most out of these two weaknesses. Let us have a look at how it can work:
Splitting ATK’s first-line of pressure
Switching to a back-three provides a direct 3v2 advantage in the first-phase of the pitch. Till now, ATK Mohun Bagan’s two strikers have been able to press the opponent’s centre-backs directly man-to-man and also ensuring shadow-cover on the opponent’s central midfielders. This can be overcome comfortably with three players at the back who are positioned away from each other across the width of the pitch.
When ATK Mohun Bagan were up against teams of back-four, we saw how Prabir Das & Subashish could go all the way up the pitch and close down the opponent’s full-backs. But with a back-three supported by two wing-backs, there would be no way to close down the right and left center-back without losing organization.
As you can see, ATK Mohun Bagan’s wing-backs would be occupied by the opponents’ own wing-backs. It would also be risky for ATK’s central-midfielders to come up the pitch to close down the right & left central-defenders as the opponent’s attacking midfielders in half-spaces would be let free.
This already makes it difficult for ATK Mohun Bagan as they would be forced to move away from their usual high-press in the central areas and rather sit deeper to absorb pressure. There is a lot of possibility for ATK Mohun Bagan to be pulled out of position in case they choose to apply high pressure because of the numbers advantage.
Utilizing the Space between Defence & Midfield
While this picture was already posted a little earlier while explaining about the shape, I would like to bring it back to your attention to focus on what happens in the final-phase of the pitch. We had seen earlier how ATK Mohun Bagan have a tendency to leave out space in between midfield & defence. No team in the ISL were visibly trying to take advantage of this space by overloading this space and the right & left half-spaces.
Overloading these areas with players who have positional intelligence could cause a lot of trouble for ATK Mohun Bagan when they are trying to defend. If ATK want to be careful, it can result in their three central-midfielders getting pinned back in front of the defence, which would allow the opponent to keep control of the ball, maintain possession and break them down eventually.
Practical Examples of ball-progression using the 3–3–3–1
From the Right-Flank
In the above snapshots, you can see how the 3–3–3–1 formation could provide a numerical advantage without taking too many risks. The right central-defender can play it to the right wing-back who would attract pressure from ATK Mohun Bagan’s left wing-back. That is a space that can be utilized by the opponent’s right attacking-midfielder by playing a pass directly or a quick combination with the other attacking-midfielder or the ‘6’.
P.S. — The same move can be replicated on the left-flank as well
From the Central Channel
This can be another possible move when the opponent want to take the central channel. Once the two strikers are split wide apart, the ‘6’ can drop little deeper to receive the pass from the central-defender. Once he receives and makes a turn, he can try to connect with the three attacking-midfielders behind ATK Mohun Bagan’s midfield. With quick passing, intelligent movement and the right body positions to receive the passes, it is possible to slice through ATK’s pressure from the centre itself.
From the Left-Flank
Yet another way to play out from the back but this time, it is a move from the left-flank. First, the right & left central-defenders can split wide (as you can see in the first picture). Then if the left central-defender receives the ball, he can carry the ball forward till he attracts pressure from ATK Mohun Bagan’s midfielder. Then one of the attacking-midfielders can make himself available to receive the ball directly from the left central-defender
P.S. — The same move can be replicated on the right-flank as well
Possible Solutions for ATK Mohun Bagan’s opponents:
When not in Possession
The 3–3–3–1 formation can fall back into a 5–4–1 with the diamond in midfield being retained. The only difference would be the wing-backs falling back to join the three central-defenders and form a back-five. However, there will be some defensive diligence required from the three attacking-midfielders of the opponent.
Just like a variety of advantages that the opponent could gain while in possession, this shape will provide with them with some key advantages when they are without the ball. Let us have a look at how:
Basic Numerical Advantage in the final-phase
The most important advantage here would be the 3v2 that the opponent can enjoy against ATK Mohun Bagan’s two strikers. We saw earlier how ATK’s strikers, especially Roy Krishna tends to drop deep into space to receive the ball. In case of three central-defenders, one defender can follow Roy Krishna even when he drops deep without worrying about a space being created as there would be four defenders to compensate. This can allow the opponent to mark Roy Krishna tightly and not let him any time or space on the ball.
Similarly, we saw how ATK Mohun Bagan’s central-midfielders tend to go out wide to connect with their wing-backs and pull out the opponent’s central midfielders into wide areas, along with them. This usually opened up space in front of the defence as many teams used two central-midfielders to screen their defence. In this case, even if two midfielders of the opponent follow ATK’s midfielders into wide areas, there would still be a ‘6’ in front of the defence.
Possible Issue with a back-four
With a flat back-four defence, one major problem apart from the central-midfielders getting pulled out of position happens when ATK Mohun Bagan’s wing-backs are in possession. Here is a sample when ATK’s left wing-back receives the ball. If the opponent’s right winger fails to track back, it is easy for their opponent’s right-back to get attracted to close down the left wing-back. When the right-back is pulled out of position, there is a space created for the ATK striker to run into. This can happen very less when it’s a back-three supported by two wing-backs as the wing-backs would be in charge of ATK’s wing-backs, avoiding confusion.
Closing down the Ball-Progressor in the back-three
It would be absolutely important to close down ATK’s Tiri when they are in possession as they are heavily reliant to progress the ball forward. While many teams have been hesitant to apply heavy pressure on Tiri, it would be interesting to see what ATK do with their play-making central-defender under constant pressure. Without any doubts or second thoughts, the opponent’s striker may need to close down Tiri as quickly as possible and not allow him any time or space on the ball.
In case of ATK Mohun Bagan, it is Tiri. In case of another team, there would be another defender who will be in charge of ball-progression owing to his passing-range being a notch above the others. He could be in the centre of the three or the right center-back or the left center-back. Who so ever it is, he needs to be given no time or space when he is in possession.
Even if Pritam (RCB) or Jhingan (LCB) are allowed a few more seconds on the ball than usual, it would still be okay as they aren’t the best of passers. But despite that if Pritam or Jhingan need to be closed down, it would still be possible with a slight rotation.
The attacking-midfielder on Pritam’s side can go to apply pressure on Pritam while the other two midfielders of the opponent can slide across and take up the marking duties of the other players. This is the advantage of having three central-midfielders in front of defence as compared to two.
Now let us have a look at other situations for example, Pritam (RCB) passes it to Prabir (RWB):
Here ATK’s right wing-back Prabir could be in possession but the opponent can still remain well-positioned as the left wing-back would directly close down Prabir with one attacking midfielder marking McHugh and Angulo marking Tiri.
The same could be repeated on ATK’s left-flank as well: Tiri & McHugh tightly marked with Jhingan having space and time on the ball but no promising passing option available.
So to summarize the entire defensive strategy in one or two lines, we could say…
Allow 2v4 disadvantage in the first-phase of the pitch with Angulo & one attacking midfielder marking tightly on Tiri & McHugh while Pritam & Sandesh receive time & space on the ball. Enjoy 8v6 advantage in own half with 3 midfielders and 5 defenders taking care of ATK’s remaining players | https://medium.com/@onenil/atk-mohun-bagan-and-the-3-5-2-a-complete-breakdown-with-solutions-for-opponents-2b68db7d23f3 | ['One Nil'] | 2020-12-27 09:58:14.411000+00:00 | ['Tactics', 'Soccer', 'India'] |
Bear | Bear
Photo by Daniel Eledut on Unsplash
The last half-hour of darkness and I rolled
onto my side and sensed
you were in the same
position. I put out
my arm, rested my…paw
on your shoulder, bear paw, bear claw
the fur did not bother me, though
it was hot — I can always
shave it off, I thought; my toenails
scratched the underside
of the duvet, my ear
was creased against the pillow, the pink
morning light pearled
the end of my nose — quite pretty –
you don’t get to see that
when your face is flat; the roundness
of my rump and the sturdy feel
of my legs pleased me, though
when I yawned, my breath
came through like goats and aniseed
and sour milk; how do you brush
canines like these — how
do you even hold a toothbrush?
You moved a little
in your sleep and my claw
made a red stripe on your arm.
You didn’t wake up. | https://medium.com/@laurasheridan-28545/bear-6a0f6515c4b9 | ['Laura Sheridan'] | 2020-11-06 09:48:48.426000+00:00 | ['Kafka', 'Poem', 'Dreams', 'Animals', 'Poetry'] |
Natural newborn baby photography in the comfort of your own home | Natural newborn baby photography in the comfort of your own home
Anytime of year, any day of year. Just make sure you book it in advance! If you just became a mother there is nothing more important in your life right now than your child. You have probably already been documenting the length of your pregnancy with photos of the growth. Maybe you even have prints of the ultra sound photos? Obviously you want photos of your precious little newborn. In this case you should go with a professional photographer. Only this way will you get the quality natural newborn baby photography that you want for your memories. You should really seize the opportunity to capture this very unique time in the child’s life. Do it not only for your own sake but also for your child’s sake. Studio Milla Jun 5, 2019·6 min read
Directions it can go in
There are several directions you can go with newborn baby photoshoot. Firstly, you can choose to photograph the baby alone. This tends to work best when the baby is sleeping. That way you get a lovely peaceful photo of your newborn baby. If you want a portrait where baby is awake, prepare yourself to have your patience tested. It can be really tricky to find the right moment in the studio where the baby is smiling and behaving.
During the photo shoot it’s more than likely that will need to calm the crying child, breast feed or will need to change a diaper. So be prepared for these scenarios when setting off to do your newborn baby photography. You can also choose to be in the photos yourself. Either alone with your baby or with your partner as well. If the newborn is awake, it should help keeping the child calm during the photo shoot, to near the mother. Moreover, if you find a family photographer, these things should not be an issue at all.
If the newborn baby has older siblings, you can also do pictures with the newborn and the older children together. Depending on their age it can be hard to hold their attention, so good tip is to bring some toys they can play with once this part of the photo shoot is over. If the children are still very young, they will most likely be bored by sitting around the studio waiting. Alternatively, your partner can entertain them if he is not going to take part in the photos himself. Otherwise your natural newborn photo session could turn into a nightmare.
A more traditional direction
As for the question of taking colour or black and white photos, it is of course a matter of your personal taste. I personally prefer black and white, as I think it makes the photos more artistic to look at. Furthermore, with a professional family photographer, you will see that you can actually have beautiful light in black and white photos.
If you go for colour you should in my opinion go for somewhat softer tones, and neutral background without too much colour. This way you really make your child the centre piece of the newborn baby photography. Some people want photographs with the family pet and the newborn together. Unless your dog is extremely calm and obedient I would not recommend this. It is hard enough to control the newborn and perhaps a toddler on the side as well.
Then add an animal into the equation, and you could be in for some real stress. Trust me this is not what you want from your newborn baby photography photo shoot. Ask any family photographer this, and I’ll bet you they will tell you the same thing. The photographs of your newborn should show the calm baby undisturbed. A sleeping newborn can be so beautiful when photographed, and it will give you a memory for the rest of your life.
Play the dress up game
As we are currently coming in to the European carnival season it is perhaps tempting to think of such a theme for your newborn photography, however in my opinion it is too soon. If our child really is a new born baby, you had better save all the fun dressing up for later. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future as your child grows older. You will get to see a little princess or pirate posing for the camera soon enough. And by then you can pay a visit to your family photographer and get some awesome pictures of the whole thing. Until then a peaceful and natural newborn baby photography photoshoot will serve your needs.
On the other side this does not mean that you should let go of themes entirely. Have you thought about a flower theme for instance? Even though it is still pretty cold outside spring is just around the corner. This means that trees and flowers will start growing and blooming again. And isn’t that also a nice image in relation to your newborn baby? The newborn baby will grow and blossom just like the plants coming out from their winter hiding places.
It is of course up to you how much you want to elaborate this theme when you do the actual newborn baby photography. It could be some colourful decorations in the background. Or maybe a vase with freshly blooming daffodils. These will be in season any moment now. Or it could be some soft pink or white rose peddles strewn across a table on which the newborn is sleeping on a pillow. Quite simply allow yourself to be creative here.
Go for the pro
The best thing about hiring a professional newborn baby photographer is that the photographer will listen to your ideas. And not only listen but also make suggestions on how to improve the photo shoot and your overall experience with natural newborn baby photography. The photographer’s first job is to make you and your newborn baby feel comfortable in the setting. Before you achieve this, no good photos can be made. Luckily the professional photographer knows exactly how to make this happen. You and your newborn baby will be in good hands when you book a photo shoot. | https://medium.com/@photomilla16/natural-newborn-baby-photography-in-the-comfort-of-your-own-home-6e94d2fa30e0 | ['Studio Milla'] | 2019-06-06 14:03:30.631000+00:00 | ['Parents', 'Baby', 'Photography', 'Children', 'Newborn Baby Photography'] |
How the Efficiency Mindset Leads to Zombie Scrum | How the Efficiency Mindset Leads to Zombie Scrum
The contradiction and tension between the empirical process of Scrum and the often-used efficiency mindset
In our book — the Zombie Scrum Survival Guide — we dive deep into what causes Zombie Scrum; something that looks like Scrum from a distance, but lacks a beating heart. We also offer 40+ experiments to recover from Zombie Scrum. In this series, we share experiments that either didn’t make it to the book or a selection of those that did and are just too good to miss.
The Scrum Framework was developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in the 1990s and first formalized in 1995 to address the inherent complexity of product and software development. More recently, the Scrum Framework is being applied successfully to complex problems in a wide variety of domains, like marketing, organizational change, and scientific research. The Scrum Framework is built on three pillars that allow empirical control:
Transparency: you gather data — like metrics, feedback on the product, and other experiences — to find out what is going on;
you gather data — like metrics, feedback on the product, and other experiences — to find out what is going on; Inspection: you inspect the progress with everyone involved and decide what that means for your ambitions and work together;
you inspect the progress with everyone involved and decide what that means for your ambitions and work together; Adaptation: you make changes that you hope will bring you closer to your ambitions;
The short cycles of creating transparency, inspecting the outcomes, and adapting what else is needed.
This cycle repeats as frequently as necessary to catch deviations, unexpected discoveries, and potential opportunities that emerge as the work is done. It happens not once a year or when the product is completed, but continuously on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis. Rather than basing our decisions on risky assumptions about potential futures that will probably never unfold, we’re instead making decisions based on the data we’ve collected up to this point. This is empiricism. Everything in the Scrum Framework is designed around these three pillars.
“The cycle of transparency, inspection, and adaptation, repeats as frequently as necessary to catch deviations, unexpected discoveries and potential opportunities that emerge as the work is done.”
What is Made Possible by the Scrum Framework
The empirical approach that the Scrum Framework offers becomes tremendously useful when you accept that you don’t know and can’t control everything. Because of that, your understanding of what is necessary will change, you will make mistakes and new and valuable insights will emerge that you never considered initially. Instead of making a precise plan upfront and then sticking to it no matter what, you can treat the ideas you have as assumptions or hypotheses that you validate through working with the Scrum Framework.
The Scrum Framework allows you to learn whether you’re off track and need to make adjustments much sooner than when you’re simply following a plan. Instead of going all-in on one solution, you’re now able to tackle the biggest risk you’re facing first.
This is especially important when you’re operating in an uncertain, changing environment. Assumptions you may have had at the beginning may have been absolutely correct at that time. But while you’re developing your product, the context may shift so much that your whole approach flies out of the window. Instead of catastrophic failure at the end of a long project, an empirical approach reduces that to a minor speed bump that requires you to correct the course a bit.
So if anything, the Scrum Framework reduces the risk of the inherent unpredictability and uncertainty of complex, adaptive problems. It allows you to continuously verify that you’re still doing the right things and moving towards solving the problem you set out to solve. Even better is that you now have a process that actively encourages the discovery of even better ideas and to include them in shaping the next steps. Now, uncertainty becomes an asset because of all the underlying possibilities within it.
“The Scrum Framework reduces the risk of the inherent unpredictability and uncertainty of complex, adaptive problems.”
Zombie Scrum and the Efficiency Mindset
So where does Zombie Scrum connect to all this? One clear theme we — and many others — have found is that people use the Scrum Framework for the wrong reasons. When you ask people in a Zombie Scrum organization what they are hoping to get out of Scrum, you’ll hear things like “more speed”, “more brains”, “more output” and “more efficiency”. That’s very different from the actual meaning of the word “agile”. It’s also very different from what the Scrum Framework is designed for. Where does this contradiction come from?
The traditional ways of managing organizations and product development are designed to achieve the opposite of agility. This mental model is often called the “Efficiency Mindset”. A full history of the efficiency mindset is beyond the scope of this book. Suffice to say that its aim is to reduce uncertainty as much as possible, increase predictability and drive efficiency. This usually manifests in detailed plans for upcoming work, the standardization of work through protocols and procedures, a high degree of task specialization, and measuring efficiency (like units of work per day, errors). This mindset can certainly work in environments where work is fairly repetitive and simple, like assembly lines or certain administrative work, it certainly doesn’t work in environments where people deal with complex, adaptive problems that are inherently unpredictable and uncertain. | https://medium.com/the-liberators/how-the-efficiency-mindset-leads-to-zombie-scrum-d817b29fa852 | ['Zombie Scrum Resistance'] | 2020-10-15 09:08:22.207000+00:00 | ['Scrum', 'Zombie Scrum', 'Agile'] |
Nature is “brutal”, lawful on one hand, while benevolent, life-giving in the other hand… | Opinion from the Internet about adapting Humanity to the laws, the balance of Nature’s perfect system:
“I think you have a romantic notion about Nature: she is not so placid; rather brutal I would say. It’s survival of the fittest. Humans may have become too kind and accommodating in their attitudes. Actually, when you look at the world, at the current time, I would say the common person has more freedom to choose his/her destiny. But there are too many people on the planet, especially if we all want to live as Westerners, ie have as much as we want in every respect. It’s clear we are too numerous, and though there have many smaller battles, maybe only a Third World War will reduce the population adequately. That’s not what I want, but what else can be done in time? (Humans are polluting this world at a horrendous rate.)”
I hope I have a romantic side in relation to music, movies, and my wife. But since I consider myself an empirical scientist, researcher of Nature, I don’t think I have a romantic notion about Nature itself.
First of all, I agree with you, Nature is “brutal”, meaning that it is a strictly deterministic, lawful system, it is not like a Human judge one can appeal to or even bribe, influence. In Nature we either know and follow the laws, it we don’t and then we need to bear the consequences.
But beyond that Nature is the most benevolent system that creates and nurtures life.
The notion of “survival of the fittest” is misinterpreted and distorted by us to justify our own egotistic, exploitative behavior, where the “strongest bully” prevails - at least prevailed so far.
In Nature, the fittest is the one that can integrate most effectively, after all, Nature’s system is integral, interdependent. Its “circle of life” is beautifully arranged, all elements from the still, vegetative, and animal layers mutually complementing each other.
If truly the cruelest, aggressive creatures had the advantage of survival, probably only the most vicious dinosaurs would have survived eating all others…until they had only each other to eat.
But only Humans behave that way driven by our inherently self-serving, self-justifying, individualistic, and exploitative nature.
In relation to the claim of overpopulation, it is true that we have saturated the planet, we are depleting its resources. But not because of the number of people in existence, but by the lifestyle, “footprint” of the people. It is the excessive overconsuming, the multiple cars, houses, material possessions, extreme pollution that causes the damage.
It is the lifestyle that draws everybody into the cities and the hoarding of possessions everybody pursues which makes us feel crowded.
We could help Earth to support even double the number of people we have today or even more, provided we ourselves adapt ourselves to Nature’s balance and homeostasis.
If we become part of the perfect “circle of life”, by building an integrated Human society based on mutually responsible, mutually complementing connections, cooperation, while scale our lifestyle back to within the optimal parameters of healthy, modern, natural necessities and available resources, facilitating a fair distribution among all, we would find a completely different, qualitatively much higher collective existence partnering Nature.
In that case, we would become part of the constantly recharging, self-sustaining system which never runs out of resources, energy. This is all achievable here and now through the right, purposeful, and highly practical “global, integral” education system.
(Finally, I just note, that if you truly think that the only solution is “culling Humanity” through a 3rd, probably nuclear world war, then you are much, much crueler then Nature’s system that does everything to sustain life. Moreover, where is your guarantee that you would be among the survivors?!) | https://medium.com/@samechphoto/nature-is-brutal-lawful-on-one-hand-whole-benevolent-life-giving-in-the-other-hand-b14c95d21c5b | ['Zsolt Hermann'] | 2020-07-01 05:38:30.925000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Evolution', 'Balance', 'Humanity', 'Integration'] |
學生顧問的出路 | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/%E4%B9%9D%E4%BA%94%E5%BE%8C%E7%9A%84%E5%98%B0%E5%98%B0%E5%96%B3%E5%96%B3/%E5%AD%B8%E7%94%9F%E9%A1%A7%E5%95%8F%E7%9A%84%E8%A7%92%E8%89%B2-c29a05c3297f | ['Evan Chang'] | 2018-07-25 15:30:02.002000+00:00 | ['學生顧問', '顧問', '180dc'] |
Cracks | Photo by Matt Sclarandis on Unsplash
Sometimes
after I spend a day
talking to friends
and holding up pieces of me
as bigger than they are;
showing my strengths as
stronger than they are;
my laughter, my conversation
almost cartoonish
I hang up the phone and feel
hollow;
a shell of who I made myself be
The show I put on is so fantastic
an animated feature film
I direct and star in;
and I am insatiable
building this facade around my body
lest someone should see through the
cracks that I fear could form
in my voice
when I reach and stretch for a spell
I haven’t learned;
the sorcerer’s apprentice
drowned in a flood of
his own making
though that’s not the story they tell
and I surprise myself when I
hang up the phone
and moments later I drop you a line
“Hello,” I say, and then I wonder
why can’t I just sit in the silence
why can’t I let the sound of the blood
rushing in my ears engulf me
and bury me in a watery catacomb of
my own making
instead of forever reaching for
life rafts that never signed up to be life rafts
and especially not for humans encased in the
strongest cement;
layer after layer of unbreakable material
covering a weakness so unremarkable;
“How are you,” you ask, casually, but still;
“I’m okay,” I say, always. | https://medium.com/scribe/cracks-d000b17478bc | ['Jade Gatsby'] | 2020-12-15 11:40:11.161000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Mental Health', 'Poetry', 'Relationships', 'Free Verse'] |
Ring Alarm (2nd Gen) review: Still the best DIY home security system | Ring Alarm (2nd Gen) review: Still the best DIY home security system Jennifer Jan 15·13 min read
Ring Alarm has been our favorite home-security-focused smart home system since its launch, and the second-generation system is even better. That said, Ring hasn’t yet delivered on its implied promise to make the Ring Alarm the unifying core of a complete smart home system. Fulfilling that promise—which Ring Solutions president Mike Harris spoke of in 2018—would have bumped up our bottom-line score by a half point.
I’ll assume, however, that your primary interest in reading this review is to learn about Ring Alarm as a home security system. So, I’ll focus on that aspect first and summarize its shortcomings as a smart home system later. This is an in-depth review of a complex system, written after living with the product for a couple of months with the professional monitoring option enabled. Click here if you’d prefer to skip to our bottom-line recommendation. If you’d like to read more of our smart home system reviews, click here.
Michael Brown / IDG The new Ring keypad (right) is much smaller than the original, and it has dedicated buttons for summoning emergency responders (although you need to pay for monitoring to enable that feature).
Ring Alarm 2 is available in several starter kits. Ring sent us a eight-piece kit consisting of the Ring base station, a keypad for arming/disarming the system, four contact sensors, one motion sensor, and one range extender with a battery backup. This kit sells for $250. To get the most value out of the system, you’ll also want to sign up for a professional monitoring service that will summon first responders in the event of an emergency. That will add $10 per month to the overall cost of the system, but it doesn’t require a long-term contract. We’ll get deeper into that in a bit.
The system can be expanded and enhanced with a wide range of specialized add-on products from third parties (via the Works with Ring certification program) and Ring itself. But again, the focus of all these products—ranging from cameras to smoke detectors to connected lighting products to smart locks—is on home security, not the comfort and convenience aspects that define a smart home.
Hardware evolutionWith the exception of the base station that connects the Ring Alarm system to your home network, every Ring Alarm component has been hit with a shrink ray. The keypad for arming and disarming the system is smaller. The contact sensors you’ll mount to your doors and windows are smaller. The motion sensor is smaller. Each of the new sensors and the new range extender have an LED-backlit button that lights up when the sensor is activated, although you can override that behavior.
[ Further reading: A smart home guide for beginners ]The reductions are thanks, in large measure, to Ring’s decision to use the new Z-Wave 700 chip in those components. That should yield a second important benefit to consumers: Longer range and improved battery life. Chipmaker Silicon Labs says sensors using Z-Wave 700-series chips should be able to last 10 years or more, although Ring itself more modestly says only that battery life depends on usage.
Michael Brown / IDG The base station is the only component that didn’t benefit from a redesign in the second-gen Ring Alarm system.
The new keypad used for arming and disarming the system now has three dedicated buttons for summoning police, fire, or medical assistance. But these buttons are non-functional unless you sign up for Ring’s professional monitoring (more on that later).
All 18 buttons on the keypad are now backlit, where only the numeric buttons on the original model were. The keypad comes with a wall-mount bracket or it can be left on a tabletop. It has a rechargeable battery, or you can run it on AC power with the included adapter. All the new components are backward compatible with the first-generation Ring Alarm, and all first-gen Ring components can be used with the new system.
The base station is designed to operate on AC power most of the time, but it does have battery backup to keep the system working in the event of a blackout. The base station connects the system to your Wi-Fi network, and if you pay for monitoring, Ring will activate its onboard LTE radio so the system can maintain its internet connection if your broadband connection fails (as it likely would in a blackout or if an intruder cut your phone or cable line).
The base station has a 104dB (at one foot) siren onboard that sounds off when the system goes into an alarm state. Either way, the siren isn’t as loud as I would like it to be. Something that produced 120dB—the noise level a chainsaw would generate—would make it uncomfortable for an intruder to stick around.
Michael Brown / IDG The new Ring motion sensor (right) is much less obtrusive than the original.
Easy-peasy installationThe new Ring Alarm system is every bit as easy to install as the original, but Ring provides a glossy printed user manual with photos and diagrams to step you through the process. The manual suggests placements for the contact sensors, motion sensor, Z-Wave range extender, base station, and keypad along with lots of other handholding. These come pre-paired with the system when you buy the kit.
Should you add additional sensors down the road, there’s a quick-and-easy onboarding system in which you open the app and scan QR codes on the devices. Buy these add-on products directly from Ring, and they’ll arrive already pre-paired with your system, just like the ones from the starter kit.
The contact and motion sensors have adhesive pads applied to them to make installation quicker, but these devices also have screw holes if you want something more permanent. You’ll need to provide your own screws, but the holes go through the pads. I’ve seen too many of these devices where the adhesive covers the holes, so the pads get all twisted up when you put screws through them. That’s just one of many seemingly insignificant details that demonstrate the thought that Ring put into this system.
Ring A clever bracket design allows you to mount the Ring motion sensor on either a flat surface or in a corner, where it can monitor a bigger area.
Another detail is how you open the contact sensors to replace their batteries: The sensor cover simply slides off the part that is mounted to your door frame. The more common practice is to have you pry the battery compartment off, which would weaken the sensor’s adhesive grip if not break it completely. And as you would expect, the system will send you a tamper alert when you open the battery compartment.
If you’d prefer to have a professional install your Ring Alarm system, that option is available through the Ring-endorsed third-party service OnTech.
Professional monitoringProfessional monitoring is an added-cost option ($10 per month, but without a long-term commitment) after a free 30-day trial. We strongly recommend signing up for it. Without professional monitoring, the system will only send you push notifications for events and when an alarm state is triggered. With monitoring, Ring (via its third-party contractor, Rapid Response Monitoring) will dispatch the appropriate emergency response: Police or ambulance. If a connected smoke detector fires off, the service will dispatch firefighters.
Michael Brown / IDG Ring hit its second-generation contact sensors (right) with a shrink ray, although we remain partial to sensors that disappear from view inside the door and door frame.
You can also initiate an emergency response from within the app, or by pressing a dedicated button on the Ring keypad (more on that in a bit). The service will attempt to contact you to verify the emergency before dispatching help, but it will assume you need help if they can’t reach you. Depending on where you live, you might need to secure a permit to activate professional monitoring.
Michael Brown / IDG You can summon police, fire, or medical assistance right from the app in the event of an emergency.
Ring’s professional monitoring service plan is among the least-expensive on the market, and it includes cloud storage for an unlimited number of Ring cameras, including the Ring Video Doorbell.
Soon, however, it will no longer be the cheapest solution. Wyze Labs has announced a home security system with professional monitoring that costs just $5 per month—and you’ll get the Wyze hardware for free if you pay for one year of service in advance. But we won’t be able to compare Ring’s product to Wyze’s until the Wyze system ships.
How it worksThe system has three modes: Disarmed, for when you don’t need security; Away, for when you leave the house; and Home, for when you’re in the house but want security (such as when you go to bed for the night). You can program the system so that each contact and motion sensor behaves differently depending on which mode the system is in.
You’d probably want the contact sensors to trigger an alarm in either of the armed modes (Home and Away). The motion sensor should be set to active only when the system is in away mode. Otherwise, the alarm will go off when you walk around the house.
If a sensor is tripped when you attempt to arm the system in Home or Away mode (which might happen when you leave a door or window open), you’ll have the option of bypassing that sensor. Unfortunately, the base station won’t tell you which sensor is open. You’ll just hear a female voice say “Sensors require bypass.”
You can push a button on the keypad to blindly bypass all open sensors and arm the system anyway, or you can cancel arming and walk around the house to figure it out what was left open. Your best option, however, is to pull out your phone and look at the Ring app, because it will tell you which sensors are open. You can then make an informed decision about bypassing them or closing the affected door or window.
Michael Brown / IDG The Ring app tells you which sensors are tripped, so you can make an informed decision about bypassing them.
You can program an entry delay to give yourself time to walk to the keypad and disarm the system when you come home, and you can set an exit delay to give yourself time to open doors and walk out of the house after you’ve armed the system in Away mode.
Contact sensors you designate as being placed on windows are automatically exempted from any entry delay, because no one should be entering or exiting your home while the security system is armed.
When the system goes into an alarm state, and you don’t immediately disarm it, the siren in the base station will go off and—if you’re paying for professional monitoring—the service will attempt to reach you. They’ll go down your contact list until they reach someone to confirm the emergency, and they’ll summon a local police response if they can’t reach anyone.
If you’ve installed any sensors that can detect a fire, the service will call your local fire department if smoke or flames are detected.
In addition to the fire, police, and medical emergency buttons on the keypad, you can establish a duress code that will alert the monitoring service if someone forces you to disarm the system against your will. To the intruder, it will seem as if you’ve complied with their demand and turned the security system off. In reality, the police will be summoned (in this scenario, the service will not attempt to contact you first). Once again, however, this level of service is only available if your pay the $10 per month for professional monitoring.
Ring doorbell and camera integrationRing now has an indoor camera that wasn’t available when I reviewed the first-generation system in 2018. More importantly, the company has improved the manner in which its cameras interact with the alarm system. You can control how each individual camera behaves in each of the system’s three modes: Disarmed, Home, and Away.
For the sake of privacy, for example, you might want to turn off motion detection and the live feed view on your indoor cameras while the system is disarmed. Leaving motion detection enabled on the doorbell and outdoor cameras will ensure awareness of what’s going on outside the house. But when the system is in Away mode, you might want everything enabled to document everything that happened while you were gone.
Michael Brown / IDG The Ring Indoor Cam can rest on any horizontal surface or be mounted to a wall or ceiling.
You can toggle these two settings on a camera-by-camera basis and set different values for each of the system’s three modes. But the big improvement is that you can now set all your Ring cameras to record the moment the system goes into an alarm state. This will provide the best chance of catching forensic evidence of what triggered the alarm in the first place.
Works with RingRing has expanded its third-party certification program to include more smart deadbolts; Chamberlain smart garage door opener, in-wall and plug-in lighting controls, a siren with a strobe light, and the Flo by Moen smart water shutoff valve.
Michael Brown / IDG You can program Ring Smart Lighting products to turn on when the system goes into an alarm state.
Ring does smart lock integration right, giving users the option to program a compatible lock and the system so that when you use the lock’s keypad to throw the bolt, the Ring Alarm automatically goes into Away mode. When you return home and enter a valid PIN on the lock’s keypad, the lock can be programmed to automatically put Ring Alarm into Disarmed mode.
If you place Ring’s $35 Alarm Smoke & CO Listener near each of your smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors, it will listen for the sound of the alarms going off and the system will send you an alert accordingly. If you pay for professional monitoring, a dispatcher will contact your local fire department and summon help.
You can also purchase and install a First Alert Z-Wave Plus Smoke & CO Alarm (2nd Gen) and incorporate it into your Ring Alarm system to get the same protection. It’s worth noting, however, that this is the only Ring-certified third-party product that will trigger an emergency response from the professional monitoring service. Other third-party devices can cause the system to go into an alarm state, but the monitoring call center will not respond.
Smart home system potentialAs I noted earlier, Ring Alarm still hasn’t realized its full potential as a smart home system despite having everything you could want in a smart home hub. You can tie Ring’s home security cameras and its smart lighting devices to the security system and manage everything from a single app, but Ring contact sensors will only trigger lights to turn on during an entry delay—in the 30-second to three-minute interval after the system is disarmed from Home or Away mode. That can conveniently light your way into your home when you arrive and disarm your system, but opening a door outfitted with a contact sensor won’t otherwise turn any lights on.
If you own any of Ring’s Smart Lighting products, you can depend on the motion sensor in one of those fixtures, or you can deploy a stand-alone Ring Smart Lighting motion sensor to trigger one or more of Ring’s exterior lighting fixtures or its white-only smart bulb. You can also program the system so that if it goes into an alarm state, these lights will turn on. Be aware that you’ll also need the Ring Smart Lighting Bridge to deploy any of those products.
Michael Brown / IDG Ring largely punts on smart home integration, expecting you to use Alexa routines and Echo smart speakers to pull home automation and home security together.
As for the Works with Ring-certified Leviton and GE by Jasco smart lighting controls, all of which are based on Z-Wave, you can turn those lights on and off from within the Ring app, but Ring contact sensors and other Ring products won’t trigger them, and you’ll need to rely on those products’ apps if you want to set lighting schedules. Ring’s suggested workaround is to create Alexa Routines if you want that level of automation.
Ring Alarm obviously integrates with Alexa, to the degree that you can arm and disarm the system with voice commands. I wouldn’t recommend disarming the system with your voice, however, since someone outside your home could hear you and learn how to defeat your security system. Ring Alarm still does not work with Google Assistant, and it isn’t compatible with Apple’s HomeKit platform.
Michael Brown / IDG The system will alert you if any of the sensors are tampered with (hopefully that will only happen when you change their batteries).
Despite the presence of a Zigbee radio inside the Ring Alarm base station, there are still no Works with Ring-certified products based on Zigbee, and you can’t integrate Philips Hue smart lighting products into the system.
IFTTT support would greatly expand Ring Alarm’s utility as a general smart home system, but Ring has so far declined to support that service in its Alarm product (you can create IFTTT applets that use the motion sensors in Ring’s video doorbells and cameras as triggers).
I’m fine with Ring’s decision to not support geofencing for automatically arming and disarming the system as you leave the vicinity of your home, but it would be great if your smartphone could trigger your lights to turn on when you arrive home.
Bottom lineRing Alarm is our longtime favorite DIY home security product, and the second-generation system only reinforces that view. It’s priced right, offers all the right components and services, and the optional professional monitoring service is an absolute bargain.
We remain disappointed, however, that Ring hasn’t done more to move the ball on the smart home front. This system has everything needed to become a strong smart home system, and the company has added support for some third-party lighting controls, but you can’t create meaningful routines to automate lighting—or to have Ring motion and contact sensors trigger those lights—unless you also have an Amazon Echo smart speaker and create Alexa routines. But then you’re working outside the Ring app.
That said, Ring Alarm retains its TechHive Editors’ Choice designation as our top pick in DIY home security systems. But if you also want a complete smart home, you’ll still need a second product.
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/@jennife35377798/ring-alarm-2nd-gen-review-still-the-best-diy-home-security-system-88d1731d26fd | [] | 2021-01-15 13:58:38.034000+00:00 | ['Services', 'Mobile Accessories', 'Home Tech', 'Entertainment'] |
Chief Diversity Officer Isn’t Enough | Hiring Black and Brown people for PR points and relegating them to these positions seems like a cop out and highlights the persistent issues of racial equity and equality within corporate America. In fact, there are just four Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Black and Brown people should be given the opportunity to do far more than tackle diversity within a company. To make real change, we need to be given the same opportunities and access to other high level positions within a company.
Some of the largest companies in the world like Apple, Amazon, and McDonald’s have pledged their support for Black Lives Matter and called out racial injustice with donations and statements of solidarity, but more meaningful actions need to be taken. What does it really mean when a company like Apple, which made $55 billion in net income last year, pledges to donate $100 million to racial issues? Apple is effectively donating 0.18% of their profits to fight racism.
Oftentimes, these pledges being made by corporations help to cement their own power than those of the community they are vowing to support. Donations like these serve as tax breaks and the same companies that are vowing to do better are the same ones that suffer from poor working conditions and bare minimum health insurance for their employees. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/chief-diversity-officer-isnt-enough-6dfaec260e12 | ['James Woods'] | 2020-06-29 11:03:28.464000+00:00 | ['Blm', 'Race', 'Race Relations', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Corporate Culture'] |
An Ode to Gophers, Our Fellow Journeyers | An Ode to Gophers, Our Fellow Journeyers
Photo copyright of Jenine Bsharah Baines. One of many gopher battlegrounds. I’ve called a truce; I leave the hills & plunk new cuttings atop it. IF it rains, nasturtiums & poppies will appear among the rocks. Magic!
I understand you’re programmed to tunnel.
If I could fall down your hole
like Alice tumbled down the rabbit’s,
no doubt I’d be impressed by your ingenuity,
enthralled by your replacement of vowels
and consonants with clicks,
and envious of your tight community ties.
I wish I could propagate plants and poems
at the pace you propagate holes,
portals to the Journey.
But must you uproot the spinach and alyssum
and squash and roses and tomatoes and lilies
and all Beautiful
and leave the weeds?
For creatures who are darn near blind,
you are snipers
picking off the good guys with one shot
one by inevitable one.
Or are you like me?
Loath to tackle the dandelions and devil grass
because the groundwork beneath
budding enlightenment
is just too hard?
©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2020
My neighbor Arlene and my partner Gary are on the warpath against the gophers. I confess I can get annoyed at their uncanny ability to dig/bury plants we treasure, especially this time of year. Our back garden looks like a cribbage board, there are so many little holes. Gotta look where you walk or…ouch, risk a sprained ankle or fall. I’ve decided to let go of my gopher-angst. (Trista Ainsworth) To embrace co-existence. I leave the giant mounds as they are and plant on top of them. My version of thatching gopher roofs. After all, isn’t one of our major spiritual purposes to ask ourselves, especially during setbacks or hard times, “What can I learn from this?”
Thank you, Simran Kankas, for the spiritual prompt “PURPOSE” and providing me a warm spiritual home where I can grow tall at Spiritual Tree.
Thank you, dearest reader, for accompanying me on the Journey. | https://medium.com/spiritual-tree/an-ode-to-gophers-our-fellow-journeyers-ffd6f53245c4 | ['Jenine Bsharah Baines'] | 2020-12-07 12:07:28.451000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Spirituality', 'Gardening', 'Spiritual Weekly Prompt', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
Frontend Architectural Patterns: Virtual DOM | Frontend Architectural Patterns: Virtual DOM
A Brief Look at a Helpful Abstraction
What’s a DOM?
The Document Object Model (DOM) is the data structure that a browser uses to represent an HTML file.
DevTools DOM visualization
More specifically, the browser DOM is an object-oriented tree data structure with nodes that contain information about the structure, style, and content of a web page. Think you can memorize the spec?
To represent elements in a meaningful way, each node has methods to:
Specify its children.
Set custom attributes.
Add and remove event listeners.
Although the DOM can be accessed and manipulated with JavaScript, it’s typically implemented as part of the browser engine (think C++ ). Besides being responsible for parsing HTML into the DOM tree, the browser engine also handles some other relevant tasks:
Creating a visual representation of the page — the render tree .
. Tracking “dirty” DOM nodes to understand when the render tree needs to be updated.
Calculating element size and position, a process known as layout or reflow .
or . Physically rendering pixels to the screen, a process known as painting.
These tasks are relevant to the DOM…but feel free to take a detour and dive deeper into how browsers work. | https://medium.com/frontend-at-scale/frontend-architectural-patterns-virtual-dom-5a1b171089a9 | ['Bowei Han'] | 2020-10-17 12:02:08.111000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Frontend', 'Software Engineering', 'Architecture'] |
The Apple M1 SSD SwapGate is a Massive Overreaction | I am not here to defend Apple. God knows, they have not given me anything I have not paid for (other than Apple TV+), I haven’t a single Apple share, nor is my dwarf cactus a distant relative of Steve Jobs. I am just a tech enthusiast like many others, but perhaps with a bit more balanced view on the tech world than customary these days — hence my statement that all this “SSDs are dying because of M1” is an overreaction, and tech news outlets publishing sensationalist articles with zero evidence is dumb, dangerous and goes against the very essence of what journalism is meant to be about.
Over the last three months I have paid very close attention to what some would call #SwapGate. It started with some YouTubers trying to justify the choice between 8GB and 16GB RAM, or 256GB and 512GB SSD. I would not see their intentions as malicious, but rather poorly educated, which begs the question — why?!? Why is YouTube split into two camps — one that claims there is no SSD swap issue, and another that claims there is. Same for Twitter. One guy posts a screenshot, and a day later tends if not hundreds of news outlets share that one screenshot, creating the impression that we’re dealing with a widespread issue. Needless to say, I am not going to share that same screenshot!
Naturally, owning an M1 since its launch, the concerns raised seemed legit, and I still believe they are. But having a legitimate concern does not equate to having an actual problem. Hypochondriacs have legitimate concerns all the time, but rarely do those turn out to be actual illnesses. I think we can also all agree that being concerned about the possibility of a nuclear war is very different than being in one — and let’s hope, we’ll never have to prove that. Same goes for the M1 and its alleged “problem” and associated concerns.
An analysis of the problem proposition
SSDs have a limited life-span. This is a fact. But this is also a fact for HDDs, and believe it or not, the average life-span of a spinning-disk drive is shorter than an SSD’s — by a lot! I am not going to regurgitate what others have already explained in intricate detail, just going to highlight that the average life-span of a spinning HDD is 5–7 years. That largely depends on how you use it though. Leaving a HDD running 24/7, will likely kill it in the space of 2–3 years.
By comparison, SSDs (solid state drives) have a longer average life-span, and it’s considered to be around 10 years. Having said that, leaving them always running is calculated quite differently. For all intents and practical purposes an SSD can be read an “infinite number of times”, but the number of times it can be written to is finite and it’s calculated in TBW (terabytes written) or — and this is very important — years, whichever limit is reached first. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is the manufacturer’s warranty period. We have all used technology long enough by now to expect most of our devices and appliances to last much longer than their warranty period. When you buy a car, its warranty states x number of miles or years, whichever limit is reached first. In an electric vehicle, the battery has its own warranty of x number of charging cycles or years.
Both HDDs and SSDs have something in common though, regardless of very different technologies being used to store data: usage pattern. Users writing massive amounts of data to the drive regularly, will wear out the drives quicker. This does not however mean that reaching the warranty limit renders the drive dead and since the introduction of SMART diagnostics for drives, preventing an unexpected catastrophic failure is much easier than it used to be before — though not an absolute fail-safe prevention method (always back up your stuff!).
Historical evidence
Knowing all of the above one can see where the initial concerns came from. With a smaller RAM size and SSD size, one can make an educated enough guess and assume that the life-span of their drive will be shorter than it used to be before. This is what I think, is a fair assumption backed by historical evidence. However, note the operative word there in the subheading is: historical and in tech that can matter more than in many other industries.
SSDs over the last number of years have improved by a lot, and I mean exponentially. The TBW has gotten higher and higher, speeds improved to levels we never dreamed of, wear-leveling has improved, and cost has gone down by a lot!
Another historical fact is that Apple’s SSDs are famously reliable. I went through many Macs (around 10 of them) in the last 7 years. The drives were never an issue. From anecdotal evidence the most common issue seems to be the batteries expanding over time. Boom!💥
Apple’s SSDs don’t have an advertised TBW. Tech conspiracy theorists tend to latch on to this like a chihuahua on to the postal officer’s pants. To be the devil’s advocate for a second though, it can be seen as suspicious, but then looking at the company’s track record of not advertising overly technical details being the norm, becomes a lot less so. If the thing does the job, and does it well for many years, customers are happy, so TBW becomes irrelevant to 99.9% of customers.
Anecdotal evidence
Some users in the past have had bad experiences with SSDs. A lot more people have also had bad experiences with HDDs. That is partly why we now have SSDs! Just like not every user is the same, not every drive is the same, so it’s not surprising that we all have individual concerns and would like to address those. But unfortunately all we have is limited evidence in even more limited context — hence labelling it anecdotal. To illustrate, I’ll use my own M1 Pro with 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD as an example, and it’s a great example because it’s the exact configuration “everyone” is so stressed out about.
When I bought this machine, I knew it was a gamble to some extent, but I genuinely wanted to see if the lowest spec M1 Pro machine can replace my current daily-driver — a 15" Pro, with 16GB RAM and 512 GB SSD or at the very least test out its reasonable limits. Not so much for myself, but to have first-hand proof of whether that is the case or not and know what to recommend later to friends and colleagues for various types of work like general software, web, mobile development or audio-video work. As a worst case scenario, it was going to replace my entry-level Air that I traded in for the M1 Pro, and I knew for fact before even powering the M1 Pro up, it will do that and a lot more. After all, the Air was just powerful enough for mid-complexity web development. Everything else beyond that, it tended to struggle with enough not be able to consider it great UX.
Now let’s do what all the tech journalists out there failed so very miserably to do, and analyse the output above in actual context. I purchased the machine on the 19th of November 2020. As I am writing this paragraph on the very same machine, it is the 19th of March, which makes this an exactly 4 month old machine.
294 power on hours = 42 days of power-on time at 7h / day.
= 42 days of power-on time at 7h / day. 188 power cycles because this machine (and frankly all my machines) is rarely ever shut down, I mostly just put it to sleep.
because this machine (and frankly all my machines) is rarely ever shut down, I mostly just put it to sleep. 66.9 TB Data units read, but who the heck cares, reads are essentially infinite anyway.
but who the heck cares, reads are essentially infinite anyway. 28.3 TB Data units written, so 0.66 TB / day.
You can see the emphasis is on that last bit, and what so many people are suddenly freaking out about. Those 28.3 TB written represent 2% of the TBW of the drive according to SmartMonTools, released on the 30th of December 2020. Allow me to reiterate, so it doesn’t get missed in translation:
A piece of software at a version barely a month older than the Apple M1 machines, reports that I have so far, in exactly 4 months, used up 2% of my SSD’s manufacturer-warranted life.
I am being somewhat deliberately patronising here, because while I am terrible at maths, I am able to calculate that 2% usage in 4 months, means 6% in 12 months, which last time I checked, meant a whole year. At this rate, this drive will last 16 years, and still not be void of warranty — based on TBW numbers alone, that is.
But 660 GB written in a single day, every day?!?
Ehh. Yes, and here’s what I do to make that happen, which is very important to take into account because the apps you run can make a huge difference in how your drive is used — another “detail” tech journalists didn’t care to research.
I am going to pull the classic “trust me, I’m an engineer” line here, except on this occasion I am actually being serious, because I am a software engineer, and I do spend quite a lot of time on this machine, coding. WebStorm, Android Studio for Flutter development, VSCode, Xcode are tools I often use to work on various projects of my own.
In terms of apps that are always open, it’s Safari, Apple Music, iMessage and Signal, with LittleSnitch and 1Password always running in the background. On this machine I also work a lot in Apple Motion 5, did a whole course on it before that (so plenty Udemy streaming), do some audio editing with Reaper, iZotope and Audacity. Occasionally I’ll spin up MS Teams or Outlook and Affinity Photo. I do all my Zoom and Skype calls on this machine and I do watch YouTube and write Medium blogs on it as well.
It’s also worth noting that I keep the OS up to date, download all the new versions, and that includes updates to the apps. It’s also permanently connected to Time Machine to back up whenever it needs to.
There are three very important aspects to remember here:
I use this machine for a wide array of tasks , and I do use it a fair amount .
, and I do . Not all the apps I use are M1 optimised. Wanna check? Head over to isapplesiliconready.com and it’ll tell you all you need to know. There may very well be a correlation between data writes and the use of Rosetta 2 for translating Intel apps to M1 architecture.
Wanna check? Head over to isapplesiliconready.com and it’ll tell you all you need to know. There may very well be a correlation between data writes and for translating Intel apps to M1 architecture. I do not use Chrome. Not on this machine. I made a point of that. It is installed, and occasionally I fire it up just to debug something in a web app or website I am building, but no actual web browsing is done, all happens locally on the machine.
Take all that into account, and the daily 660 GB of written data start making a bit more sense. Having said that, some might say, that’s still too high. Well, let me tell you a story…
Back in 2007 when Windows Vista started to become popular, a lot of PC fans (believe it or not I used to hate Macs), including myself, were outraged when we realised that Vista, unlike XP, used all the RAM it could get its hands on. But then my friend — who was equally outraged — and I started thinking. If I had 2GB of RAM back then, and the operating system took no advantage of that, wouldn’t that have been a waste of resources? The more we thought of it, the more it made sense what Microsoft decided to do: use as much of the resources as you can whenever you have it. Within safe parameters of course, to allow all the other apps competing for memory as well.
Back to present day, when SSDs are lightning-fast, it starts to make more and more sense to use it as more than just storage, but also as a RAM extension. But again, within safe parameters, and this is practically the biggest take away of this article, and what should have been everybody else’s conclusion as well.
Technologists were right to pop their heads up looking at the new M1 machines and how RAM, SSD, GPU all together create a different hardware climate going forward, because that is indubitably the case. We are now dealing with a different kind of monster than with the Intel CPUs, but different doesn’t equate to bad. It can be proven, and has been a few times now, that the M1 machines that come with 8GB of RAM, will use more — if not double — the swap space on an SSD, and that will without a doubt cause more writes to the drive over the course of its life, but that amount will only mean the drive’s TBW life will shrink to 16 years versus 32 years, neither numbers representing anywhere near a practical, real-life use-case of a commercial entry-level laptop.
But let’s say you’re the absolute edge-case that needs their laptop to run and do stuff 24/7. Then having the configuration I have, would result in reaching the SSD’s warranted life in 5 years. In my book, under those circumstances, even that is a very respectable amount of time, and nothing to get our knickers in a bunch over. And remember, those 5 years are the warranted years, you could very well get a good few more out of that drive.
But it’s soldered to the motherboard…
Uh-hum. While I do empathise and to some extent support the Right to repair sentiment, I am not as outraged by the lack of removability of a memory chip by the user or some street corner computer-repair shop. I used to work in one right out of high-school, and let’s just say I’ve seen far too many things go wrong. But in my mind the argument around a user being able to replace the drive themselves doesn’t hold much water, not because it wouldn’t be great, because it would, but rather because the expectation is based on tradition rather than a genuine need.
Historically speaking we’re used to being able to replace drives all the time. I used to keep my PC open at all times, because I’d swap drives on a regular basis for a number of reasons. But that was me — the PC enthusiast and later computer technician. Replacing drives was also much more of a need back in the day, than it is today. Back then people would upgrade more often, or have a failed drive much more often, especially in laptops. The largest market for upgrades and drive replacements was teenagers and young adults, and occasionally a middle-aged PC enthusiast. Believe it or not, that is a fairly small market in the grand scheme of things, and now even smaller because laptops are so commonplace that barely anyone but enthusiasts and hard-core users and gamers need anything else. Times have changed, and user needs are different.
Additionally, there’s the aspect that few talk about — smartphones. You’re wondering what does that have to do with my Mac’s SSD? Well, a lot. I don’t see anyone banging on the table screaming for memory to be replaceable in a smartphone. Sure there’s folks who are advocates of external SD card storage, but that doesn’t mean the drive iOS or Android runs on is not soldered on to the motherboard. And that has been the case from before the smartphone era! No widely commercially available mobile phone had its memory replaceable ever. So if it’s fine in smartphones — the very devices we use 24/7 — why is it such a huge problem in laptops we use say 7h/day on average?!?
There is no verdict…
Yeah. The “it’s not an exact science” applies here very well. Just like it’s hard to bet on the weather, it’s also hard and ill-advised to bet on a piece of automated software that throws out some numbers that may or may not be accurate. Truth is, SMART data generated by software based on some drive tests is somewhat dependent on every manufacturer being honest with the numbers they claim as under warranty for their drives. Chances are, Apple has not yet provided that data, and it might never do, as we know, they’re not huge fans of advertising numbers that mean nothing or little to the end user. Therefore all the above data — my anecdotal evidence — and everyone else’s could be a big pile or worthless nonsense.
While this makes drawing conclusions a lot more difficult, it does illustrate the problem of too many variables to consider throwing out unverified and poorly researched claims on the interweb. Twitter is not a scientific journal, and even that is full of theories that can be refuted in next month’s issue. Irresponsible journalism relying on social media is the last thing the tech world needs in a society already saturated with fake news and “alternative facts”. | https://medium.com/codex/the-apple-m1-ssd-swapgate-is-a-massive-overreaction-50002ee23d0 | ['Attila Vágó'] | 2021-03-26 12:00:03.809000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'MacBook', 'Hardware', 'Computers', 'Technology'] |
A few CSS properties I’ve been trying. | I’ve been working on creating another website and trying to improve my front-end creativity and styling. I’m using this blog to write down and share some of the things I’ve learned recently.
background-blend-mode
Using CSS blend modes is a great way to unify the look of the content across your website. It also enables you to set different color versions of an image by changing only one value in CSS: the color. There are 15 possible blend mode values, including screen, overlay, lighten, and darken.
There are a couple of implementation methods depending on the type of element you would like to apply the effect to. For example, if your using background-image and background-color, you can set background-blend-mode: darken to blend these together and make them a color overlay on the image. You can read more about this property on MDN Web Docs.
Another similar property is mix-blend-mode. This lets you blend content of the element with the content or background of its direct parent. This works especially well on overlapped lettering.
mask
Masking tells your browser which pieces of an element should be visible, and is very useful for building creative shapes and layouts. Masking can be done in three ways: using an image, CSS gradients or an SVG element. Masking is actually quite useful because it enables you to apply the same properties to background images, defining their position, size and repetition.
One great use you’ll normally see for CSS masking is in articles that combine text and images. Irregular containers and images are very popular in print, and thanks to masking this allows for the same use on the web. Here is the MDN Web Docs for mask.
clip-path
A shape’s boundary is called the clip-path, and clipping defines what area will be visible. Clipping is similar to cutting out a piece of paper, anything outside the path will be ‘cut off’, while everything inside the path will stay visible. What cool with this is that we can use shape functions and SVG as clip paths, which lets you do some cool things. For instance, you could animate them into morphing shapes.
The difference between clipping and masking is that masks are images and clips are only vector paths. It’s worth mentioning that masking will consume more memory, as you’re working with a full image so everything has to be done pixel by pixel. Again, you can read more on the MDN Web Docs. | https://medium.com/@ericksenm93/a-few-css-properties-ive-been-trying-748bc6fe1518 | ['Matt Ericksen'] | 2021-01-18 19:33:56.428000+00:00 | ['Front End Development', 'Flatiron School', 'CSS'] |
Machine Learning — Don’t Just Rely on Your University | The Problem with Learning in a University
Incorporating machine learning into predictive analytics has been in high demand that provides businesses the competitive edge. This hot topic is highly subscribed by undergraduates all over the world. However, being formally introduced the concepts and techniques of machine learning in universities may prove extremely daunting for the average undergraduate.
During my undergraduate winter exchange in McGill University, I enrolled myself in their Applied Machine Learning course. Yes, it was foolish of me to enroll in a graduate-level course! It started with the introduction of Linear Regression as it should be since it is the most basic machine learning algorithm out there. The tutor did a great job attempting to explain the intuition behind the algorithm.
But after introducing a ton of heavy math behind the algorithm, the finishing blow was dealt with “Oh by the way, assignment 1 is out, it’s due in 10 days time and you are encouraged to complete it in Python, see you next lecture.”
How was I supposed to learn the concepts of L2 regularization and fitting regression models with stochastic gradient descent in 10 days! I didn’t even know how to code in Python!
I was already overwhelmed by the second lecture that I immediately dropped out. In that course, solid background knowledge in statistics, calculus, linear algebra and programming is assumed. And sure enough, the 4 elements were immediately introduced within the first introductory lecture.
It doesn’t help that I was one of the many students who learn and forget majority of the mathematical concepts through summer/winter break! | https://towardsdatascience.com/machine-learning-dont-just-rely-on-your-university-bce2571dead1 | [] | 2019-11-20 03:43:03.552000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'College', 'Mathematics', 'Education', 'Data Science'] |
Wabi Sabi’s Christmas Hamper | Bill and Sarah both grew up middle-class and left college with roughly the same advantages in life.
Bill joined a law firm, worked hard all his life, steadily built up a reputation. He gave 10% of his earnings away every year, and sometimes when he was feeling particularly generous — Christmas, Lent — he’d donate some extra funds to whatever relief effort caught his attention. He died surrounded by his loving family.
Sarah worked a series of office jobs. When she turned 30 she gave everything — all her earnings, savings, possessions — away. She spent the rest of her life travelling around, learning what she could about the ultimate purpose of life, going on retreats, spending time communing with God in the forest, helping the unfortunate people she met in whatever way she could. She died alone.
Ultimately Bill donated far more money, helped far more people and left far more of a legacy to future generations in his children and grandchildren.
Who lived the better life? Why? | https://medium.com/the-small-dark-light/wabi-sabis-christmas-hamper-ded4ccaf87d2 | ['Wabi Sabi'] | 2020-12-23 00:03:26.109000+00:00 | ['Koans', 'Self Improvement', 'Aphorisms', 'Self Actualization', 'Short Story'] |
Q: Tell us about a product you love | A three-step guide to answering that one question that is asked in every PM interview
So, if you are someone who is trying their best to nail those PM interviews — You know there is no way you can avoid this question — What’s your favorite product and why? You may have heard a version of this in interviews or may have added a few lines that briefly touch upon it while you were writing that perfect cover letter.
Tell us about a product you love
The question entails more than just mentioning a product you like and a few features that you find cool — be prepared to talk about users, use cases, metrics etc. In my first few Interviews for a product management job, I tried to come up with a product that I like on the spot and trust me it’s not easy and it does not end well — you ALWAYS miss something.
I, therefore, came up with this 4-step guide that helps me in structuring my answer to this question.
My 4 steps guide to answering the “what product you love” question
Answer Example :
My favorite product is Slack.
P.S — I love their new logo
Slack is a cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools and services. The name ‘Slack’ is an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge”. It is essentially an instant messaging app specifically designed for effective communication in the workplace.
I think of Slack as a chat room for the whole company, designed to replace email as the primary method of communication and sharing work information. Its workspaces allow different teams to organize their communications by channels. It also allows for private messages (chat) to share information, files, and more.
Slack is my favorite for the following these three reasons -
1) All in one place
Slack brings all my communication together in one virtual place and helps eliminate the inbox clutter. I have everything related to the project in the channel plus the platform offers a hardy search functionality that enables me to find key information quickly, even if it’s inside of a document I’ve shared.
2) It’s fun and it works
It offers an intuitive and customizable interface that allows me to share files, videos, GIFs simply by dragging and dropping. It gives me the affordability of brainstorming on a project idea in my groups/Teams without the inbox clutter. The chatroom environment is great for brainstorming compared to the reply-all avalanche.
3) Integration
Slack integrates well with other platforms like Google drive, GitHub, Trello, Twitter etc. and this is what takes Slack from a normal online instant messaging and collaboration system to a solution that enables me to centralize all my notifications, from work to social media and more, into one searchable place.
What is truly great about Slack is that it also allows building your own integrations. I recently build a Slack-bot (with few of my cool friends at UC Berkeley) that can be used to obtain real-time data regarding bus and BART arrival and departure times. So, now I can learn about the next bus timings for home by giving “one” simple command to this Slack bot — and I no longer need to use a different app for it.
However, it is not like there was no internal office communication before Slack. Communication is crucial for teams to function and most businesses/offices managed (some still do) a lot of communication via internal email. And I agree an Email is a great tool for connecting with people outside a workspace because almost EVERYBODY uses email — No matter what email program they use, you understand that the person on the other end will be able to open and read your message, but email isn’t so great when it comes to internal communications within your company or organization. Since one receives 100’s of email messages every day — from work emails, news you subscribe to promotions. It is very easy to miss important communications in an overflowing email inbox.
Email does allow you to separate the internal emails relating to each project, but it definitely takes some extra time and effort to make it more organized. Instead of project and work messages being scattered through your email inbox and archives, Slack’s simple UI makes it easier to view and scroll through past communication instead. There are other alternatives to Slack but its ability to integrate with multiple platforms gives it an edge.
Thus, Slack helps businesses and employees by providing a platform that allows them to brainstorm in real-time, communicate rapidly and collaborate better with each other. Slack Integrations also empowers it with the capacity to replace meetings, for example, there are daily Slack standups software such as Jell that integrate well with Slack and offer a substitute for physical standup meetings.
And though Slack does an overall great job as a productivity tool, it does add another level of notifications on top of the existing email, calendar, mobile, and other apps. And, the fast, real-time aspect of the messages could result in 100s of additional notifications each day. I believe allowing the user better notification controls can help in conquering the interruptions to some degree.
Slack can also make teams a Little TOO Connected. Slack also measures team productivity by primarily focusing on volume metrics (just as many other companies do) such as the number of active users, number of messages sent, amount of file storage used etc. However, since Slack is a productivity tool these metrics do not provide a good proxy for measuring productivity.
Connecting with the team is great, but there are times when one needs to be uninterrupted so that they can more fully focus on work. With Slack, it can be tough to disconnect from your team. Some people spent a lot of time on Slack on chatting about non-work-related matters or simply talking about projects instead of actually getting the project work done. My assumption is shifting focus on value metrics such as helping people understand their increased collaboration via the platform would be more useful for the company to both acquire new users and to retain the existing users. Slack can thus report measures such as the decrease in % time spent on meetings or the % increase in productivity/ quality of work since using Slack or integrating “X” tool with Slack (Using data and analytics from customer engagement platforms, conducting user research). By focusing on value metrics, Slack can help its customers achieve measurable productivity gains. This will not only strengthen the bonds Slack has with its customers but also deepen customer engagement in the platform.
This post has been published on www.productschool.com communities. | https://medium.com/@anupandey_50705/q-tell-us-about-a-product-you-love-81fa47ad7d27 | ['Anu Pandey'] | 2019-02-14 17:55:38.310000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'Slack', 'Interview Questions', 'Favorite Product', 'Product Management'] |
Logistic Regression in Depth | Logistic Regression is a classification algorithm. It is used to predict a binary outcome (1 / 0, Yes / No, True / False) given a set of independent variables. To represent binary/categorical outcome, we use dummy variables. You can also think of logistic regression as a special case of linear regression when the outcome variable is categorical, where we are using log of odds as dependent variable. Logistic regression is named for the function used at the core of the method, the logistic function.
The logistic function, also called the sigmoid function was developed by statisticians to describe properties of population growth in ecology, rising quickly and maxing out at the carrying capacity of the environment. It’s an S-shaped curve that can take any real-valued number and map it into a value between 0 and 1, but never exactly at those limits.
1 / (1 + e^-value)
Equation For Logistic Regression
Input values (x) are combined linearly using weights or coefficient values (referred to as the Greek capital letter Beta) to predict an output value (y). A key difference from linear regression is that the output value being modeled is a binary values (0 or 1) rather than a numeric value.
Below is an example logistic regression equation:
y = e^(b0 + b1*x) / (1 + e^(b0 + b1*x))
Where y is the predicted output, b0 is the bias or intercept term and b1 is the coefficient for the single input value (x). Each column in your input data has an associated b coefficient (a constant real value) that must be learned from your training data. Below shows a sample logistic regression graph with changing values for coefficients.
Logistic Regression implemented using Sigmoid function
Cost Function
The cost function is minimized for any machine learning algorithm to find the best fitted line or the most effective coefficients. Here we have — b0 + b1*x, and we need to find a cost function that will help us in minimize the coefficients. We will use gradient descent on the cost functions to minimize the given equation and the point where slope is minimum will give us best decision boundary for the logistic regression.
The cost function for Logistic regression can be given as below-
This can be combined as-
Combined cost function with both the cases.
Performance Metrics
Confusion Matrix: Before dealing with the performance metrics let us talk about the confusion matrix first and understand it, a sample confusion matrix is shown below. Y-axis represent the actual labels and X-axis represent the predicted labels. We use this to calculate performance metrics as discussed below.
2. Accuracy: Accuracy represents the number of correctly classified data instances over the total number of data instances.
3. Precision: Precision should ideally be 1 (high) for a good classifier. Precision becomes 1 only when the numerator and denominator are equal i.e TP = TP +FP, this also means FP is zero. As FP increases the value of denominator becomes greater than the numerator and precision value decreases
4. Recall: Recall is also known as sensitivity or true positive rate. Recall should ideally be 1 (high) for a good classifier. Recall becomes 1 only when the numerator and denominator are equal i.e TP = TP +FN, this also means FN is zero. As FN increases the value of denominator becomes greater than the numerator and recall value decreases
5. F1 Score: F1-score is a metric which takes into account both precision and recall. F1 Score becomes 1 only when precision and recall are both 1. F1 score becomes high only when both precision and recall are high. F1 score is the harmonic mean of precision and recall and is a better measure than accuracy.
Summary
Logistic Regression is one of the most widely used industry standard Machine Learning Algorithm both because of it’s performance and ease of interpretability. What features are important for business can be determined by their coefficients when we look at the final model that is generated and can be used to drive business decisions. | https://medium.com/@rakeshranjan8792/logistic-regression-in-depth-252c576a07c1 | ['Rakesh Ranjan'] | 2020-12-21 07:00:08.826000+00:00 | ['Classification Metrics', 'Logistic Regression', 'Cost Function', 'Python', 'Machine Learning'] |
5 Website Design Optimization Apparatuses That Will Launch Your Rankings | There are a portion of the significant things in the marketing scene which are viewed as vital for creating drives, traffic alongside deals inactively. Seo Company in Surat gives benefit and practically 90% of the social encounters typically start with the assistance of a web search tool.
There are around 75% of the clients who in no way, shape or form look to the second page of the outcomes. Additionally, paid inquiry commercials are totally overlooked by 70% to 80% of the clients. This shows that on the off chance that you get natural site positioning on your specific internet searcher. This assists with utilizing your rate potential.
In this way, you ought to basically have some familiarity with about the best equations identified with the SEO which will rocket your specific site to the top situation of the query items.
Here is given a conversation with respect to the five SEO apparatuses which will launch your rankings.
Ahrefs Is Known To Be The SEO Keyword Tool
Ahrefs is known to be a famous SEO apparatus accessible on the web. With regards to being the biggest site crawlers, it is simply second to Google. Website optimization specialists can’t get adequate of the Site Audit element of Ahref as it is viewed as the best SEO investigation instrument around.
READ MORE: Top 5 SEO tools marketers use to optimize website in 2021
This specific apparatus will guarantee your best positioning. Thus, you will probably utilize this Ahrefs to decide the backlinks of your rivals. Thusly, you can undoubtedly utilize this for your image.
Google Search Console Is One Of The Top SEO Tool
Everybody having a site can get to this free of charge of cost. Once more, this Google Search Console explicitly assists you with appropriately checking and furthermore report on the presence of your site Google SERP.
In such manner, you need to basically confirm your site which should be possible by adding some particular code to your specific site or by going through Google Analytics. For ordering, you additionally need to present your sitemap.
SEMRush Is Known To Be One Of The Best Marketing SEO Tools
There are a portion of the marketing related SEO apparatuses, for example, SEMRush which is generally well known locally of SEO. In this device, you can get to your rankings just as roll out explicit improvements to them. Subsequently, you additionally have new positioning freedoms.
The Domain Vs Domain investigation is known to the best component of this device. This again effectively permits you to contrast your specific site with that of your rivals.
KWFinder Is A Popular SEO Keyword Tool
You can without much of a stretch observe some to be long-tail catchphrases which have a lower contest by the KWFinder which is a famous SEO watchword instrument. This apparatus is fundamentally utilized by specialists to track down probably the best watchwords. Alongside that, it is likewise used to run examination provides details regarding SERP and backlinks.
Moz Is Known To Be The Best SEO Software
Moz is viewed as Seo Services in Ahmedabad which is again the best SEO device that is utilized by the specialists. | https://medium.com/@anvigeet1322/5-website-design-optimization-apparatuses-that-will-launch-your-rankings-f00787d25e99 | ['Anvi Geet'] | 2021-11-26 06:26:12.755000+00:00 | ['Online Business', 'Digital Marketing', 'Seo Servives', 'Website Design', 'Internet Marketing'] |
Numbness | This is a creative writing peace which I wrote for an assignment. The exercise consisted of writing an abstract and making a 3D space in a cube out of that abstract. This is the very abstract which I wrote. It consists an experience and only the emotion and the feel which was felt during that specific moment in time. This is the essence of the feeling and not the feeling itself.
I was afraid to tell people how I feel. I felt it would let them down, rather I would let them down with my problems. I didn’t want them to come close to it. So I buried it deep within. Four walls surrounding it and let it destroy me. Little was I in the knowledge of, that I could understand what I did. Little was I in the knowledge of, that burying it in the four walls within me was the very thing it wanted me to do. And I had done it. These walls are always very unimportantly dangerous, very unexpectedly fathomable and very unrespectably simple. They are extremely fickle when it comes to making decisions. They have a conscious of their own. They understand that supremiety is the only goal and hence they try and expand themselves. Unknowingly we get trapped inside these very walls and become one of it. It’s our own little jail. Where no one is going to come and bail us but ourselves.
When we go to therapists, they tell us to come out of these walls. But they don’t realise that these walls have grown themselves into the Walls of Nanjing(thickest walls of the world). They were a maze now. A closed maze. Like the big bang, it made life as well. The horrific demons, the sadist animals, the fervour beasts. Not evil. Never evil.
I didn’t go to a therapist if that’s what you are wondering. I was never a child to give up. And I didn’t. It’s said that, with time everything will corrode. Hence, I made him my master. I let him corrode. Turn it weak while I was making myself stronger. Gaining energy from its crumbles. Like a virus it had infected me and like a virus I now infected it. Humour. Sadistic humour. Not evil. Never evil. But infectious than was expected.
I thought when it would go away, I would be free. But I was wrong. I had made it a part of my existence. And now when it was nearly gone, I could feel nothingness. Again. I was afraid. Again. But now I knew what exactly to do. I let it build again. I let it consume me again. But this time “I” made it. I rose from it. Like a phoenix. I made it into a kingdom, a kingdom of those demons and beasts, whom I still pet till this very day. A mild entirety of my existence. History repeated… but the lessons learnt? Vastly different. The contortion could be seen and in that I regained my posture and laughed it out.
Written by Parishi Bachkaniwala | https://medium.com/@parishibachkaniwala/numbness-92af77594ee0 | ['Parishi Bachkaniwala'] | 2020-12-23 14:00:25.904000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Numbness', 'Emptiness', 'Abstract', 'Essay'] |
Linux Interview Questions | Contributed by: Subashree
The Linux Operating System (OS) is an open-source and one of the most reliable OS in the world. With rising numbers of data centers, many organizations use Linux. It is easy to customize and makes it highly versatile. Android OS, the mobile operating system is based on a modified version of Linux OS.
As Per 2019 report, 100% of the world’s supercomputers run on Linux! 90% of all cloud infrastructure operates on Linux!
Linux desktop market share is just about 3.17% currently, which is not a great deal compared to Windows with >75% market share in Desktops. Nevertheless, its penetration for the Cloud based market is huge.
We are now in times when the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting every industry worldwide, there arises a higher demand for cloud-based systems. This further enables market growth for Linux OS, now and in the future. Many open source projects using Linux OS are supporting healthcare providers, scientists, innovators, software developers across geographies to help alleviate impacts from the pandemic. Advent of hybrid cloud technology aid to the increase in the demand for the Linux OS. There cannot be a more favorable time to adopt Linux OS.
Curated below are some of the frequently asked Linux interview questions. While it is expected from the learners that basic Linux terminologies are clearly understood, please follow below for the interview questions.
1. How to check for running processes and CPU usage from command prompt?
Answer: The ‘top’ command is used to check for all the current running processes, CPU usage and memory usage from the command prompt. This provides a dynamic real-time information on resource usage.
2. Write the command to find all the files modified in the last 3 days and write to a myfile.txt file?
Answer: The command is as below:
find / -mtime 3 > myfile.txt
find / -type f -mtime -3 -printf “%M %u %g %TR %TD %p
” > last3days.txt
3. How to list all the directories in Linux?
Answer: The command ls -d */ is used to list all directories.
4. How to see environment variables in Linux?
Answer: env command lists all the ENVs in the shell.
5. How to know the disk partition details?
Answer: The command df -k is used to know the partition information.
6. How to start a particular process say ‘myengine.sh’ automatically every time after reboot?
Answer: Crontab can be set up to run this .sh file automatically after reboot. The command is as follows to edit the crontab and to add the .sh file to the cron:
crontab -e
@reboot myengine.sh
7. How do you know what shell you are currently using on Linux?
Answer: echo “$SHELL”
8. How to know which process is using a particular port?
Answer: netstat command is used to display network connection details. For a particular port, using grep with netstat as below will help.
netstat -ltnp | grep 8080
To further know the PID of the process, use of sudo helps.
sudo netstat -ltnp | grep 8080
9. What is the difference between kill and kill -9 commands?
Answer: kill will generate a SIGTERM asking the process to kill itself gracefully. This will free up memory and gracefully exit.
kill -9 will generate a SIGKILL which kills the process immediately irrespective of which state the process is in. It does not wait for the process to clear memory or wait for a graceful exit.
10. Log details generally get printed in the console. I want 2 files — 1 is errorlog.txt that has all the errors and dailylog.txt that should have all other statements such as debug, information, warnings, etc. How do you do that?
Answer: While running the process cout can be used as below:
./processName.sh 2>errorlog.txt 1>dailylog.txt &
11. How to setup GitHub with SSH in Linux? What are the benefits of using ssh in this case?
Answer: Using SSH for Git is to connect with public key encryption and hence there is no need of typing username and password for every Git command. By default, Git uses HTTPS and using SSH instead is easier and secure. We can setup SSH using the below steps:
We need to generate new ssh keys using:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C [email protected]
Now, after checking if ssh is running, add the SSH key to the ssh-agent:
ssh-add ~/ .ssh/id_rsa
Now, copy the public SSH key to clipboard
In GitHub settings, add this public key.
12. How to map a drive in Linux?
Answer: We will need a samba-client installed and as a root user:
mount -t cifs //hostname/share /targetdir -o user=userID
13. What is shebang and how to use it?
Answer: Shebang is a special character sequence in a script file that specifies which program should be called to run the script. It will always be the first line in the file and starts as #! followed by the path of the interpreter. For example:
To use Perl: #!/usr/bin/perl
14. You have a python file say ‘collectedData.py’. How will you run it in shell from the current directory without mentioning python each time?
Answer: In the .py file, add the below in the first line. This lets the shell know python is to be used to run this file.
#!/usr/bin/python
Next, provide the executable permission to this file using:
chmod +x collectedData.py
From now on, ./collectedData.py will work. | https://medium.com/@mygreatlearning/linux-interview-questions-efc97831201e | ['Great Learning'] | 2021-01-21 10:40:12.995000+00:00 | ['Linux Tutorial', 'Interview', 'Linux', 'Interview Questions'] |
Year-end Tax Planning Tips | 2020 has certainly been an eventful year, so it’s likely that income taxes have not been at the top of your mind. But there is still time before year-end to complete some simple strategies that have the potential to save you big bucks on your 2020 tax bill.
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
If you haven’t taken your RMD yet and don’t need the cash, don’t take it! The CARES Act suspended RMDs for 2020 — you are not required to take any distribution this year. RMDs are fully taxable at ordinary income rates, so any reduction or elimination of the amount you take out will help your tax situation. This suspension is only a one-year reprieve. If you can get by without the cash for now, wait until sometime next year so that it will count towards your 2021 RMD.
Charitable Contributions
This is one of the easiest ways to lower your tax bill, and you get the added benefit of helping out others in need. Generally, these contributions will only help lower your taxes if you itemize rather than take the standard deduction ($12,400 Single, $24,800 Married Filing Joint). In 2020, however, the CARES Act included a provision that allows for up to $300 in cash donations to be deducted from income for taxpayers claiming a standard deduction. You can make a gift to any 501(c)(3) organization; if you’re not sure the organization qualifies, simply ask them. If you don’t know what charities to gift to right now, no problem — you can also make the gift to a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF). A contribution to a DAF allows a deduction in the year you make the gift and also provides flexibility in that there are no requirements as to when you have to disburse the funds to charity. See the article in this link for more detailed information on donor-advised funds.
A great strategy to fund a gift is by using appreciated securities (e.g., stocks, mutual funds, or ETFs). You’ll first need to check with the organization you’re donating to in order to make sure they can receive securities, but more and more are accepting this method since it’s so attractive to donors. By doing it this way, you are basically getting more bang for your buck since you don’t have to sell the stock in order to make the gift. For example, let’s say you want to make a $1,000 donation to a charity, and you plan to use $1,000 worth of stock you bought five years ago for $100. If you sell the stock and give them the $1,000 in cash, you will still have to pay taxes on the $900 gain. If you instead gift the stock to the charity, you don’t have to pay any tax at the time of the transfer, and the charity doesn’t either since it’s a tax-exempt entity.
If you are in a situation where you are right on the edge of taking the standard deduction and itemizing, you should consider bunching your contributions — making the majority of your gifts every other year in order to maximize your deductions over time. For example, let’s look at a married couple whose only itemized deduction is $15,000 in annual charitable contributions. If they continue to donate $15,000 a year, then they will always end up taking the standard deduction. If instead they donate $30,000 in one year, they would be able to itemize in that year and take the $24,800 standard deduction the next year.
Retirement Savings Accounts
If your cash flow situation allows for it, max out your traditional 401(k) contribution for the year. If you’re under 50 you can contribute up to $19,500; if over 50 you can add an additional $6,500. A contribution to a traditional 401(k) account will reduce your taxable income dollar for dollar. If you have some other type of retirement plan or IRA, talk to your CPA to see how much you are eligible to contribute.
Tax-loss Harvesting
Although tax-loss harvesting is a year-round strategy, this is a good time to check if there are additional losses you can take in 2020 in your non-retirement accounts. The losses can be used against any capital gains incurred throughout 2020 or can be carried forward indefinitely if there are no gains to offset. Even if you don’t have capital gains in future years, you can deduct $3,000 per year against ordinary income. You don’t want to miss out on market activity though, so if you sell to realize a loss, make sure to buy a similar holding (but not the same to avoid the wash sales rules). Once you’ve held the new investment for 30 days, you can sell and buy back the original one.
Remember that everyone’s situation is unique, so no matter what tax savings strategy you are considering, please consult with your financial advisor or CPA to ensure that it is appropriate for you and fits well with your long-term goals and financial plan.
If you have any questions or wish to discuss further, please reach out to your Team Hewins advisor.
Team Hewins, LLC (“Team Hewins”) is an SEC-registered investment adviser; however, such registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training and no inference to the contrary should be made. The information contained within this letter is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any types of securities. Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. It should not be assumed that diversification protects a portfolio from loss or that the diversification in a portfolio will produce profitable results. The opinions stated herein are as of the date of this letter and are subject to change. The information contained within this letter is compiled from sources Team Hewins believes to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee accuracy. We provide this information with the understanding that we are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or tax services. We recommend that all investors seek out the services of competent professionals in any of the aforementioned areas. | https://medium.com/@teamhewins/year-end-tax-planning-tips-12f9fefe345c | ['Team Hewins'] | 2020-12-21 20:27:30.825000+00:00 | ['Year End Planning', 'Taxes', 'Financial Planning'] |
SolidStamp x Trivial.co partnership | So here is what we’ve been up to recently…
One of the reasons why Trivial.co was created is because we couldn’t find a platform that combines on-chain and off-chain data about tokens in an elegant and comprehensive way. We’re putting all this information into the profile of a token, so you don’t have to go on various websites to get the whole picture. Having that in mind we want to keep adding even more data.
Thanks to SolidStamp we can now display :
info if the particular token was audited
link to token’s audit
name&logo of auditor
We hope it will be useful for our audience! | https://medium.com/trivial-co/solidstamp-x-trivial-co-partnership-46ccc9dbfb94 | [] | 2018-10-26 15:32:03.306000+00:00 | ['Crypto Tokens', 'Ethereum'] |
AN UNFORTUNATE STORY OF MISDIAGNOSIS … or How I Learned the Importance of Self-Advocacy in… | AN UNFORTUNATE STORY OF MISDIAGNOSIS … or How I Learned the Importance of Self-Advocacy in Healthcare
On April 26th of this year, I woke up to a strange physical ailment … my right foot was dropping heavily to the ground when I was walking. With a little more investigation I realized I had numbness extending from my outer knee along the shin, then across the top of my foot. I couldn’t flex my foot, and I couldn’t raise my toes.
I thought it was a fluke, so I let it go on for a few days. The following Monday I saw my primary care physician (PCP). She is a PA, and I consider her to be absolutely brilliant … I have always felt I received stellar care from her.
It was a short exam, with her concluding that I had a condition known as foot drop or drop foot. She explained that this is caused by protrusions at L5S1, so she ordered a lumbar spine MRI. During the exam, she did a few rudimentary tests of my strength, but did not thoroughly do the kinds of strength checks commonly used to diagnose spinal issues. I believe she jumped to a conclusion, and determined that I had developed a lumbar spine problem … ignoring many other possibilities.
I survived the MRI (I’m incredibly claustrophobic, so I opted for the open-sided variety, which was still very uncomfortable). When my PCP called with results, she informed me that the MRI did indeed provide evidence of a protrusion at L5S1. After getting a prescription for a round of medrol, I was referred to her practice’s physiatrist.
Two weeks later I drove to the physiatrist’s office. I should have listened to my body: I had a panic attack as I walked in. Somehow I knew this was the wrong person to see and the wrong course of treatment. But I stayed for the examination. The physiatrist did run a few more tests of my strength, and I passed them all … which was an indicator I had no spine problem. In addition, I was experiencing no pain whatsoever, and had not experienced pain since the onset of the symptoms. The doctor was puzzled, but adamantly informed me that nonetheless, I had a bulging disc, which would be resolved with another round of medrol and physical therapy. At no point did I see pictures from my MRI, nor did I see the MRI report. These were my initial errors, and I take full responsibility for trusting my physicians wholeheartedly. I have learned my lesson and this will not happen again.
My physical therapy experience was a bit of a clusterf**k. I was working with an experienced PT and an intern, who collaboratively were trying to determine the best course of treatment. They, too, did not read my MRI report very carefully, and they also concluded I had a spinal problem. The office had a “30 minutes in and 30 minutes out” policy, and I felt rushed in and rushed out. As kind as the two therapists were, they were baffled at what to do with me, and just as baffled at why nothing was improving.
Around that time, I started to have nerve tingles and cramping in my lower leg at night. My doctor sent a prescription for muscle relaxers, but I chose not to take them after googling the side affects! The pain only happened at night, and so I would get up and walk around, do child’s pose for long stretches of time, and ice. This would resolve it, and I would go back to sleep. This lasted about three weeks.
After three weeks of treatment, I had an emotional breakdown in my PT appointment. Nothing was changing. I had no dorsal flexion, and no strength in my big toe. I could walk short distances, but still could not ride my bike because my right foot would fall off the pedals. During the appointment, one of the PTs suggested I get a referral for an AFO (foot brace) designed for drop foot. That was the greatest gift of my round of physical therapy.
I had my followup appointment with the physiatrist a few days later. All he did was check my foot strength, and there was none … so he sent in a referral for a cortisone injection in my back to relieve the pressure the bulging disc was putting on the nerve. But was that really the problem? I asked him for a copy of my MRI report, and also for the referral for the AFO, which he did take care of.
When I returned home, I spoke to one of my neighbors, who suggested I go see her chiropractor. I had never been to a chiropractor before, so I was hesitant, but I was able to schedule an appointment for the next morning. He looked over my MRI report and was appalled … told me in no uncertain terms that the report did NOT indicate any spinal issues. He did extensive diagnostic strength testing, and told me my strength was exceptional, and there was no sign of spinal issues. He believed I had been misdiagnosed, and that I had nerve issues in my shin — possibly just blocked fascia — and he performed Graston technique on my shin.
Armed with this information, I made the decision to go see a spinal surgeon. Miraculously, I was able to get an appointment for the next week. In the meantime, I was fitted for the AFO, I had another Graston technique treatment, and I asked the PT to review the MRI report, as clearly I did not have a spinal issue. And I canceled my appointment for the cortisone injection.
The appointment with the spinal surgeon was a game changer. He was APPALLED that I still had a numb foot after 8 weeks and no one had ordered a nerve study. He said protocol indicates such testing should occur 4 weeks in when there is no improvement. He also took xrays of my spine, and showed me the pictures side by side with the MRI … and this was the first time I had seen the MRI images. He assured me my spine has some minor issues typical for a very active 61-year-old woman, but nothing of concern. He said my drop foot was the result of pressure on the nerves in my lower leg.
He ordered an EMG test, and the testing center informed me I could not get in for the procedure for three weeks. When I called the spinal surgeon’s office to report this delay, the spinal surgeon found someone to see me the next morning. It was a dreadfully painful test, and I had no idea what I was in for. I cried through most of it, but the doctor assured me we were finding answers, and then recommended an MRI of my lower leg.
Again, no one could get me in quickly, but the surgeon intervened and my MRI was scheduled for only two business days later. I was then referred to an orthopedic center to see a nerve specialist. My appointment was set for ten days later.
Unfortunately, there was one more bump in the road. My ortho appointment was set up for the wrong doctor. I went in to see him, fully ready to get answers, and he said “I’m the foot guy — you need to see the nerve guy.” I burst into tears because I had just about had enough of this craziness. When I left his office to go to the appointment schedulers, I was informed the nerve guy couldn’t see me for over a week. More tears. I kindly explained this had been going on since April 26th … they were compassionate in their response, and told me to email the assistant to this other doctor and hopefully I would get in sooner.
Miracle of miracles, I emailed and shared my story briefly, and was able to see the nerve specialist (who is officially their hand surgeon) the next day. He showed me the MRI and I had a massive cyst in my shin pressing against the nerve … thus causing the drop foot. It was never, ever about my lumbar spine … all along, my problems had been caused by a cyst.
My surgery was five days later. It was quick, it was efficient, and now it is my job to recover. The cyst was removed, and the pressure on the nerves was released. I have some very gnarly photographs of the procedure, and in the doctor’s words, I had one “big ol’ cyst.”
Between May 3rd and June 30th, I racked up over $2500 in out-of-pocket medical bills. My deductible started all over on July 1st (this is typical of teachers and health insurance), so my surgery will cost all $4000 of my out of pocket max for the new coverage year.
This could have had a very different direction and outcome if I had questioned my PCP’s instinctive conclusion that I had a lumbar spine issue. I should have gotten more information about the physiatrist, and insisted I see a spinal expert instead. I should have asked to see my MRI images in my initial appointment, so that I could see proof of this spinal issue. I also should have gotten my MRI report in that initial appointment, and then I would have seen that there was nothing in that report conclusively supporting the diagnosis of an L5S1 lumbar protrusion. It simply wasn’t there.
It has been 5 days since my surgery. The nerves in my right leg are still a little traumatized, but the numbness is slowly improving. I have my AFO, and I will be relying on it for quite a while until my foot strength returns. I think I am most looking forward to being able to flex my right foot and toes … I never knew how much I enjoyed that simple movement until it was taken away from me. I am fortunate that I have a very strong and resilient body due to years of cycling, walking, running, and daily yoga, so the doctor expects a full recovery. But I have learned a very expensive lesson about healthcare, and the importance of self-advocacy, asking questions, and trusting your gut. Please don’t make the same mistakes as I did … I don’t plan on repeating any of them. | https://medium.com/@derr.theresa/an-unfortunate-story-of-misdiagnosis-or-how-i-learned-the-importance-of-self-advocacy-in-3ef1a164dc73 | ['Theresa Derr'] | 2021-07-24 04:01:11.554000+00:00 | ['Misdiagnosis', 'Medical', 'Healthcare', 'Self Advocacy'] |
SREAMING || Super Bowl Watch on line Live”Kansas City Chiefs vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers”07 Feb 2021 | Super Bowl Sunday 2021 is right around the corner and the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are set to play in football’s biggest game. NBC Sports has you covered with TV channel information and every live streaming option on Roku, Apple TV and more for Super Bowl LV. Plus, find out where to watch the game for free and options for anyone without cable TV.
🔰LIVE🔴🆗✅GO📲💻► https://t.co/NEHZRvJs2N?amp=1
Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and the 14–2 Kansas City Chiefs are looking to repeat as Super Bowl champions after last year’s victory over the San Francisco 49ers. Mahomes threw for 286 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions, while Travis Kelce scored one touchdown on six receptions. This year, Mahomes will go up against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. According to PointsBet, the Buccaneers are favorites over the Chiefs. Click here to bet on the game. Follow ProFootballTalk for more on the 2021 NFL Playoffs as well as game previews, recaps, news, rumors and more leading up to Super Bowl 2021.
PointsBet is our Official Sports Betting Partner and we may receive compensation if you place a bet on PointsBet for the first time after clicking our links.
🔰LIVE🔴🆗✅GO📲💻► https://t.co/NEHZRvJs2N?amp=1
RELATED: Where does Tom Brady rank amongst quarterbacks with the most Super Bowl wins?
The Weeknd will perform this year’s Super Bowl halftime show at around 8:00–8:30 p.m. ET. R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan and country singer Eric Church will perform a duet of the national anthem prior to kickoff, while Grammy-award winning artist H.E.R. will sing “America the Beautiful.”
What channel is the Super Bowl on this year?
CBS will broadcast this year’s Super Bowl with Jim Nantz and Tony Romo announcing the game. Check your local listings to see what TV channel CBS is in your area. For those without access to CBS, you can watch the game for free on your phone or connected devices with the CBS Sports App or on CBSSports.com, as well as with the NFL App and the Yahoo! Sports App. In addition, the Super Bowl can be streamed live other ways with services such as FuboTV, YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV and AT&T TV.
According to The Verge, this year’s Super Bowl will not be broadcast in 4K or HDR by CBS.
RELATED: Check out the full 2021 NFL Playoffs schedule including scores, recaps and more here
NBC was originally scheduled to broadcast the 2021 Super Bowl, with CBS airing the 2022 Super Bowl. However, the two networks decided to swap years in order for NBC to have both the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics in 2022.
How to watch Super Bowl LV
When: Sunday, February 7, 2021
Kickoff time: 6:30 p.m. ET (3:30 p.m. PT)
Where: Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida
TV Channel: CBS
How to watch, live stream: Super Bowl halftime show
Follow along with ProFootballTalk and NBC Sports for Super Bowl news, updates, scores, injuries and more
Get betting tools, DFS, season-long fantasy help, live odds and more for Super Bowl 2021 with Rotoworld Premium
2021 NFL Playoff Bracket
RELATED SUPER BOWL POSTS
What kind of Super Bowl food, appetizers, snacks should you make?
Why does the NFL use Roman numerals for the Super Bowl?
What are Super Bowl Squares and how do they work? | https://medium.com/@cbssuperbowllive/sreaming-super-bowl-watch-on-line-live-kansas-city-chiefs-vs-tampa-bay-buccaneers-07-feb-2021-c041854dfb3e | ['Cbs Super Bowl Live Stream'] | 2021-02-07 11:14:28.101000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Super', 'Live', 'Bowl', 'TV'] |
An MBA’s guide to understanding Data Science | If you come from a non-technical background, it is easy to feel insecure with heavy buzzwords around data science. Do not let that concern overshadow all that you can bring to the table. A business-savvy tech person or a technically-sound business person is an asset to any organization.
To oversimplify it,
“Data science is the discipline of making data useful.”
If you are wondering why you should care about these terms, we present to you some facts.
The big data analytics market is expected to touch $103 billion by 2023. In 2020, an individual will generate 1.7 MBs in a second. Users on internet generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day. 95% of businesses acknowledge the need to manage unstructured data as a challenge for their business. 97.2% of organizations are investing in big data and AI. Using big data analytics, Netflix saves $1 billion per year on customer retention. [1] In 2020, there will be around 40 trillion gigabytes of data (40 zettabytes)
Organisations are extensively hiring data scientists and machine learning engineers for an analytical transformation within the various verticals to keep up with ever changing and rapid data generating world.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” — Peter Drucker
There is also a high demand for business translators or those who can serve as a link between data analysts and practical applications and solutions to an organization’s business challenges.
Increasing number of organizations are on the hunt for these translators who not only possess data savviness but who can also deeply embed themselves into the organization’s decision-making processes. McKinsey & Company estimated the demand for translators will reach 2 to 4 million in the United States alone over the next decade.
Businesses are swimming in data of customer behavior, competitors, and their operations. The need for managers who can sail through the data and uncover insights that would generate profit is why data science positions are some of the most in-demand and highest paying jobs around.[2]
A Data Science Lifecycle
Evolution of Data Science
The Begining (40s, 50s, 60s)
Used in operation Research during World War II, predicting Weather Model on ENIAC, Barometric equations,Scheduling and resource allocation
Analytics turns Mainstream (70s, 80s)
In 1977, John W. Tukey published Exploratory Data Analysis, the book emphasised on using data to suggest hypotheses tests.
The Relational Database is born!
1982: IBM DB2, Oracle v3, Sybase (SAP)
1986: First standardized SQL
1987: Commercial use of Decision Support Systems in the Texas Air Traffic Expert system
The Internet goes Global (90s)
1995: Amazon, eBay
1996: HotMail
1998: Google, Paypal
Data warehouses and ETLs come into existence in 90s
Analytics (OLAP): Long queries, aggregations, data mining, reporting, models Operations (OLTP): Fast transactions, ACID, consistent, available, fault-tolerant
The World goes Social (00s)
Hyper growth of web applications
2003: LinkedIn, Skype
2004: Facebook
2006: Twitter
Map-Reduce and Hadoop come into existence for processing huge raw files.
Fast Data, APIs, Mobile and IoT (10s)
Spark is a new framework for in-memory computing. It combines SQL, streaming, and complex analytics.
Rise of distributed Computing paradigm: SQL, Machine Learning, Map-Reduce, Graph Analytics
Micro-Batch and Event Streaming Analytics (20s)
Micro-Batch (Spark Streaming)
Log Oriented (Kafka, Samza)
NewSQL (VoldDB)
Career in Data Science for an MBA graduate
Machine Learning Scientist: Often going by titles of Research Scientist and Research Engineer, they are the ones who research new approaches and build new algorithms and prototypes, using mathematics in order to solve business problems.
Data science consultant: Are you someone who has a special knack towards data analysis, problem-solving and has an in-depth industry knowledge, not forgetting to have attention to detail and advanced vision? Then probably this profession is for you!
Data science consultants provide data science solutions to their clients and help them understand the business mechanisms with in-depth understanding and insights. They also strive to build up their client’s analytical skills and data competencies and sail them through each step in the process of hypothesis testing.
Product managers: this job role requires the person to be innovative, drive business requirements and communicate their decisions lucidly. In the data science domain, a product manager would need to discern applications based on the inferences that has been assimilated from the data. They are a wholesome pack of managers and technicians and need to talk to everyone, right from designers to engineers and jence can be pursued by an MBA degree holder.
Product analysts: When it is time for a company to design or release a new product, product analysts come to their rescue! Their main task is to provide continuous product analysis, conduct thorough market research and develop marketing strategies. They engage in inter-departmental collaboration and work in tandem with the entire product development team and other several entities simultaneously. Their other responsibilities would include creating dashboards, defining product metrics, and performance control and measurement.[3]
References
[1] https://techjury.net/blog/big-data-statistics/#gref
[2] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3198927/thinking-twice-data-science-or-mba.html#:~:text=The%20growing%20demand%20for%20business,an%20MBA%20for%20management%20positions&text=Big%20data%20helps%20organizations%20amass,decisions%20quickly%20and%20more%20effectively.
[3] https://www.jobhero.com/career-guides/interviews/prep/what-is-a-product-analyst
[4] https://datasciencedegree.wisconsin.edu/blog/history-of-data-science/ | https://shalini-singh20b.medium.com/an-mbas-guide-to-understanding-data-science-50c02331dd55 | ['Shalini Singh'] | 2020-11-01 17:17:40.452000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Data'] |
If You’re Grieving, I’d Like You to Know This | Image by Dmitry Ratushny via Unsplash
You don’t have to be strong.
You don’t have to get over it.
You don’t have to find closure.
You don’t have to believe that everything happens for a reason,
Or that it was “their time,”
Or they’re in a better place.
You don’t have to hunt for the bright side
Or peck for silver linings.
You don’t have to “cherish the memories”
Or follow the prescribed stages
Or any time table.
You don’t have to drape yourself in any of the other platitudes people toss your way
Because they’re afraid to enter these jagged, sacred places
Because they don’t know how to say, “This will hurt forever, but even heartbreak changes shape.”
You just have to breathe.
That’s it.
That’s enough.
You just have to meet each wave of pain as it rises and crests
Even if it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do
You just have to sit through this moment, and this moment, and this one. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/if-youre-grieving-i-d-like-you-to-know-this-b8223aad7b2 | ['Lynn Shattuck'] | 2020-12-27 13:03:01.028000+00:00 | ['Poetry Sunday', 'Love', 'Affirmations', 'Personal Growth', 'Grief'] |
Scratch to SOTA: Build Famous Classification Nets 4 (GoogLeNet) | Photo by Ed 259 on Unsplash
Introduction
Two articles ago, we dissected the structures of AlexNet and VGG-family. While the two networks differ largely in their choice of filters, strides and depths, they all have the straight-forward linear architecture. GoogLeNet (and later the whole Inception family) in contrast, has a more complex structure.
https://note.com/lametmp/n/n1d4a5934c8f8
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At the first glance of the well-known GoogLeNet structure diagram and table (see below), we tend to be over-whelmed by the nontrivial sophistication in the design, and baffled by the specification over the filter choices. However, once we understand the philosophy behind the “Inception” module, the whole structure of GoogLeNet can quickly collapse into a simple, traceable pattern.
Overview
Explanation of the Inception module
Overall architecture of GoogLeNet
PyTorch implementation and discussions
GoogLeNet Basics
With its stylized name paying homage to LeNet, GoogLeNet was the winner for ImageNet 2014 classification challenge. A single GoogLeNet achieves a top-5 error rate of 10.07%. With a 7-model ensemble and an aggressive cropping policy during testing, the error rate can be slashed to 6.67%. In comparison, VGG, the first runner-up in the same competition has an error rate of 7.32% while AlexNet in the year of 2012 has an error rate of 16.4% if trained without external data.
Its impressive performance comes down to the novel Inception module. In fact, GoogLeNet is but an epitome of this design heuristic. In the paper, the authors described GoogLeNet as a “particular incarnation of the Inception architecture”. So let’s look into the Inception module
Inception Module
As shown below, the naive version of Inception module is just a set of filters of different sizes along with a max pooling block. The outputs of these individual components are concatenated in the channel dimension to form the output of the inception module.
Naive Inception
The authors argue that on the feature map of a specific layer, some statistical relationships are local, while other relationships are formed by “feature pixels” that are more spatially spread out. If we are to cover all these relationships effectively, we should use filters of different sizes. 1x1 filters can capture local statistics while 3x3 and 5x5 can be used for statistics that are more spread out.
Comparing this with VGG family which exclusively uses 3x3 filters. If we talk about the receptive field of the filters on the original image, VGG’s filters of the same layers are only collecting statistics from regions of the same size. In comparison, every Inception module on GoogLeNet gets to collect statistics from regions of different sizes. This gives GoogLeNet more representational power. (This illustration is of course not entirely accurate, as after certain depth, all filters are already looking at the whole image. But you get the idea.)
However, the naive version of the module is impractical. As we go deeper into the network, the channels of feature maps increase. The computation of filters on these feature maps increases quadratically. Computation for 3x3 and 5x5 filters may be too big. Therefore, we should reduce the number of feature map channels for 3x3 and 5x5 filters.
1x1 filters
1x1 filters in GoogLeNet are not only used to capture local statistics, but also to reduce the input channels. For example, suppose an input feature map’s dimension is 14x14x512, we can reduce the number of channels of this feature map by passing this though 24 1x1 filters. The resulting feature map will then have a dimension of 14x14x24. Now we can apply larger filters on this reduced feature map with less computation required. This explains the 1x1 convolution before 3x3 and 5x5 convolution in the final Inception module (figure below). There is also a 1x1 convolution behind the 3x3 pooling block. The effect of this 1x1 filter is similar, it ensures the output channels are kept in check. Without this 1x1 filter, the output channels will only increase monotonically.
Final Inception
Let’s do a bit of math to demonstrate the reduction in computation with 1x1 filters. Take the 3rd branch (5x5) of the naive version as well as that of the final Inception module. Take inception-4b (see table below) as an example. It has an input size of 14x14x512 and the 3rd branch has 64 5x5 filters. If we use the naive version, the third branch will incur 14x14x512 x 5x5x64 =161M floating point multiplication. With the reduction, the floating point multiplication is reduced to 14x14x512 x 1x1x24 + 14x14x24 x 5x5x64 = 10M. This amounts to a reduction of about 16 times!
Dual-purpose. We should take note that these 1x1 filters used for reduction also have ReLU activation placed behind them. Thus, in addition to dimension reduction, they also add extra non-linearity to the layer.
GoogLeNet Architecture
When we treat the Inception modules as a basic building block, GoogLeNet condenses back into a linear model for inference (for training, it requires two auxiliary side classifiers. Getting to it soon!).
GoogLeNet Structure Diagram
The table below and the diagram above illustrate its structure very clearly. The “S” and “V” in the diagram refers same padding and valid padding. It is the way to specify padding in TensorFlow. Here and here are stackoverflow answers explaining them. We can use the formulae in these answers to compute the corresponding paddings that we need to add in PyTorch.
Note: in this article, we ignore the Local Response Normalization layers.
GoogLeNet Structure Table
Auxiliary Classifiers
GoogLeNet has 22 convolutional/linear layers (if we sum up the depth column in the table). It was considered very deep at that time.
Large depth generally induces concerns in gradient backpropogation, efficiency of the model and overfitting. To alleviate these issues, the authors proposed adding two auxiliary classifiers to the intermediate layers.
The auxiliary classifiers are due to two considerations. The first one comes from the insight that many shallow networks can have strong performance on the image classification tasks. It means that the feature maps after a few rounds of convolution should already be discriminative enough. Therefore, we attach classifiers to lower layers to ensure this property. In the process, we also force the parameters of the lower layers to generate more interpretable features, preventing them from just projecting the features to whatever space that best fit the training data. This constraint on the parameters offers regularization effects. (I have to admit that the last two sentences are my own rationalization of how the regularizing effects come about. I may have committed the mistake of over-interpreation 😐).
The second consideration comes from gradient flow. Many gradients in the backward pass can be killed by the ReLU unit or diminished by small weights/intermediate features, the auxiliary classifiers can provide more direct gradients to the lower layers, enhancing their training.
The final loss for our optimizer will be main_loss + 0.3 * aux_loss_1 + 0.3 * aux_loss_2 , as the auxiliary losses areweighted by a factor of 0.3.
Code
Don’t be daunted by the table and long diagram of GoogLeNet! Its actual implementation is in fact very straightforward. Just like how we understand its structure, once we finish implementing the Inception module, the whole GoogLeNet strcture is almost as linear as our previously coded AlexNet and VGG.
Firstly, let’s implement a helper class called Conv2dBn . We use this class to retrofit batchnorm to GoogLeNet by appending a nn.BatchNorm2d layer behind every nn.Conv2d .
Next, let’s implement the core of GoogLeNet, Inception . The arguments for the __init__() constructor refers to the channels for input feature maps and number of filters for each convolution, except use_bn which specifies if we are retrofitting batchnorm. In forward() , torch.cat() is used to concatenate the output of different branches.
There are two thing that is worth pointing out. For the official implementation of GoogLeNet in torchvision, the 5x5 convolution is replaced by 3x3 convolution. Yes, they used two 3x3 branches. It is known mistake as explained here. In our implementation, we stay true to the original paper.
Secondly, notice the ceil_mode = True for the nn.MaxPool2d() ? By default ceil_mode is set to False . The difference is that usually when we compute the output dimension, the formula is O = floor((W-K+2P)/S) + 1 . If ceil_mode is set to True , we will be using ceiling instead of floor in the formula. This extra flag is set to True to match the “same” padding implementation in TensorFlow.
We need one last ingredient before assembling them into the final GoogLeNet. Let’s code the SideClassifier now. We did not go through the structure of the side classifier in the article, but its structure can be easily found at the bottom of page 6 in the paper.
Now, we can define the GoogLeNet class. With all the previous preparation, coding the main structure is as easy as copying the numbers from the table. Below is the code for __init__() . self.stem combines the few standalone layers in the beginning of the model. self.side_classifier_1/2 and self.classifier are the auxiliary and main classifiers. All the inception modules can be initialized by copying the corresponding number of channels from the table.
The forward() method is coded below. The two auxiliary classifiers are attached after inception_4a and inception_4d respectively. If the model is in training mode i.e. by default or after we called model.train() , we will return the outputs of all classifiers. Else (if we called model.eval() ), we will only return the main classifiers’ output for inference.
So far, we have finished coding for GoogLeNet. However, to simplify our training script, we can create a helper class called GoogLeNetWithLoss . It includes the forward pass through the loss function, and weights the main loss and auxiliary losses.
With this, we have finished implementing GoogLeNet. If you have some idle GPU time, feel free to plug it into our training scripts for training!
Kudos!
Conclusion
As mentioned in the introduction, the use of “Inception” is not unique to GoogLeNet. Many later works expanded on the idea of “cardinality”, the number of paths/branches in the Inception module, to build even more powerful models. Many of them are as inspiring as GoogLeNet. Hope we may take a look at them in some later articles.
Based on the three networks we have learnt so far, it seems that deeper networks are generally more powerful. However, gradient flow can be an issue for deep architectures. GoogLeNet used auxiliary classifiers to overcome this hindrance, but is there a more systematic and elegant design to solve this problem?
Yes, there is. In the next article, we will go through skip connections and one of the most popular network families in computer vision, the ResNet family. | https://medium.com/@pasa34987/scratch-to-sota-build-famous-classification-nets-4-googlenet-1b94dbcdb4ca | ['Gary L. Brown'] | 2020-12-06 13:23:30.416000+00:00 | ['Pytorch', 'Image Classification', 'Step By Step Guide', 'Machine Learning', 'Computer Vision'] |
Newsletter 44: Where’s my screwdriver? You mean OUR screwdriver? | Hello, and welcome again to the Spiralbound newsletter! This is where we link to the stories we published recently. We had some good mom content this week, in case that’s what you’re hungry for, and we had some great non-mom content, too. See if anything catches your eye!
Mom Guilt, by Anna Moriarty Lev | https://medium.com/spiralbound/newsletter-44-wheres-my-screwdriver-you-mean-our-screwdriver-3bc23208b853 | ['Edith Zimmerman'] | 2019-05-12 11:02:02.862000+00:00 | ['Mothers Day', 'Comics', 'Spiralbound'] |
Research sounds warning for gene editing in embryos | Gene editing in embryos to repair defective genes may cause more harm than good, research from South Australia has shown.
The research led by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the University of Adelaide has uncovered a significant hurdle for realising the potential benefits of gene editing in embryos.
It provides an alternative explanation following a North American study published last year that seemed to demonstrate gene editing in human embryos was highly effective in repairing a defective gene in a majority of the embryos.
Gene editing is the process of cutting specific regions of a cell’s genetic material with molecular scissors, and then “repairing” the cut by altering the target DNA sequence, resulting in a specific change or “edit.”
The South Australian team, led by Professor Paul Thomas, discovered the process of repairing the cut could sometimes lead to a significant loss of DNA, meaning function to the faulty gene could not be restored.
This research provides an alternative explanation to the North American study, showing rather than gene editing fixing small errors, much larger errors could instead be created.
“Gene editing technology is still relatively new, and part of this field of research includes understanding the flaws, which will ultimately allow us to develop the safest possible therapies for genetic conditions,” Professor Thomas said.
“Understanding the fundamental mechanisms by which these tools work are important advancements for research and for clinical translation to treat a host of genetic diseases.”
Professor Thomas and Dr Fatwa Adikusuma, the paper’s first author, replicated the North American study on mouse embryos, which closely replicate the development of human zygotes.
Australia has strict legislation against using gene editing in human embryos.
“We looked beyond the small deletions, exploring larger areas of DNA,” Dr Adikusuma said.
“When we searched a wider area, we found that repair of the DNA break generated by molecular scissors resulted in deletion of large stretches of DNA.”
Gene editing technology with molecular scissors, or CRISPR-Cas9 as they are scientifically known, are being used in studies to cure muscular dystrophy in mice and a number of clinical trials are also underway to test gene editing therapies for several cancers and blood diseases.
The research findings were published today in the British multidisciplinary science journal Nature. | https://newsleads.medium.com/research-sounds-warning-for-gene-editing-in-embryos-3335e5ce7ec1 | ['Solstice Media'] | 2018-10-26 05:18:03.900000+00:00 | ['Genetics', 'Dna', 'CRISPR', 'Science', 'Genetic Engineering'] |
What kind of specialties we covers at HMS USA Medical Billing? | For more than 5 years, HMS USA is helping doctors, clinics, group practices and hospital-owned physician groups with their medical billing. Our medical billing and coding services can be useful for all types of medical practices and medical specialties including:
Gastroenterology Services:
Gastroenterology is the study and treatment of normal functions and diseases of the digestive system. It includes the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) starting from the esophagus, epiglottis, pharynx, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, colon, rectum, to anus, and other vital organs such as pancreas, gallbladder and liver.
Our Gastroenterology billing services will furnish your practice with a highly trained staff that can handle all your Gastroenterology billing with absolute efficiency. Have a look at HMS USA’s website and contact us for better Medical Billing experience.
Labs Services:
The field of Laboratory Medical Billing is under intense scrutiny. After OIG announced a close review of independent laboratory billing practices, CMS has increased its oversight on laboratories, making the billing process much more complex. With the reimbursement rates getting lower, costs getting higher, and billing norms becoming more stringent, the need for proficient and process compliant laboratory medical billing services is at its peak.
Familiarity with Laboratory Medical Billing HCPCS, CLIA amendments, PAMA updates, is what is important for medical billers. The knowledge of extensive laboratory services like biological, serological, hematological, and cytological has been critical. The chances of error are supposed to be minimal. At HMS USA Medical billing, we understand the number of billing challenges that laboratories face. The complexity of laboratory billing standards, ever-changing payer requirements, and difficulties accessing information can hinder growth and impede your business success. Our 5 plus years of Laboratory billing experience enables us to overcome these volatile billing challenges with ease, hence enabling our clients to focus on their core competencies and consequently grow their bottom lines.
Radiology Services:
The Department of Radiology and Imaging is at the forefront of innovation and advancement, providing premium quality imaging services to the patients. It is a highly advanced, full service department which strives to meet all patients’ and clinicians’ need in diagnostic imaging and Image-guided therapies.
Our Radiology Billing department is equipped with the latest technologies and required expertise. We specialize in billing for Internationale Radiology, diagnostic Radiology, and nuclear Radiology.
Orthopedic services:
Orthopedics, or orthopedic services, aim at the treatment of the musculoskeletal system. This includes your bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, and muscles.
Our Orthopedic Billing and Coding team will furnish your patient handling through a highly trained staff that caters to all your billing chores with remarkable efficiency.
Imaging Centers Services:
Our imaging services offer you the latest technology and highly trained experts to quickly provide the most precise images you and your doctor need to diagnose and treat your medical condition. Doctors and hospital owners can contact us through hmsgroupinc.com for handling all their Medical Billing related issues.
Whether you choose a Fairview Imaging or Health East Imaging location, you can be sure you’ll receive the high-quality imaging services you expect. Our experienced technologists focus on your needs. They will help you through your procedure, answer questions, and make you feel as comfortable as possible throughout your visit.
Internal Medicine:
According to the American College of Physicians, internal medicine is a science that represents the best of both worlds. The specialty combines the analytical examination of laboratory science with a personalized, compassionate approach to adult medicine. This expertise enables doctors to treat both common illnesses and complex medical conditions. They also specialize in treating long-term chronic illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Doctors who specialize in internal medicine are called internists or general internists. Internal medicine specialists also take a close look at how all the systems in the body work together as a whole because a problem in one area could cause complications in another.
We provide best Internal Medicine services to physicians and hospital owners at HMS USA Medical billing. If you need our services, stay connected with us. Visit our website and reach out to with you current problems. | https://medium.com/@hmsusamedicalbilling/what-kind-of-specialties-we-covers-at-hms-usa-medical-billing-34aee18254b5 | ['Hms Usa'] | 2020-12-23 16:15:37.817000+00:00 | ['Hms Usa Medical Billing', 'Medical Billing', 'Hms', 'Medical', 'Medical Billing Services'] |
What If? | What If?
You were laying naked in your bathtub. You could hear voices but couldn’t respond. You’d lost enough blood over the past twelve, or twenty-four, or forty-eight hours — nobody really knows, that your organs were beginning to shut down for want of the oxygen that blood once carried.
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash
You heard your boyfriend say:
“Uh, my friend. She’s laying in the tub. She won’t wake up. I think she fell last night. I’m not sure. There’s blood coming from her nose so I can’t get her to wake up,”
You wanted to scream, but you couldn’t make a sound.
Moments later you heard the sirens, then heavy boots on the steps leading to your front door. Firemen carefully removed you from the tub and lay your unclothed body on your bathroom floor. All you knew then was pain. Tears welled in the corners of your eyes as the EMTs began to work on you.
“I’ve got a pulse, can you get a clear shot at her airway,” said one voice.
“I can’t get past her teeth,” said another. “Her jaw won’t move, can’t get the blade far enough — “
You felt something cold and metallic bump the back of your throat and you gagged.
“Gag reflex. Attempting nasal route,” he continued. “Nasal is a negative, going with BVM.”
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
The voices grew faint as rescue workers placed a mask over your mouth. For the moment it wasn’t so hard to breathe again.
“Alright, we need to get this woman ready for transport asap. Is the board ready?” asked a faceless voice.
You moaned out loudly as workers from the fire department rolled you slightly to your side to slide a board under.
“She’s in pain. Definitely responsive to that,” one of them said. “Evaluate for possible head and neck trauma. Keith, get the C collar.”
One of the men on the scene fitted you with a cervical neck brace and they secured you to a wooden board. | https://medium.com/@p-g-roberts1970/what-if-f7d18015b5da | ['Peter Graves Roberts'] | 2020-12-12 05:14:57.627000+00:00 | ['Murder', 'Domestic Violence', 'Police', 'North Carolina', 'Violence Against Women'] |
Super Mario Sunshine is the Most Forward-Thinking 3D Mario | Super Mario Sunshine is the Most Forward-Thinking 3D Mario
Nintendo pushed its most celebrated franchise in bold new directions
By the end of 2002, with my Year 9 school holidays on the horizon and my “Spice” orange GameCube controller in-hand, I’d come to a firm decision: Super Mario Sunshine was my favourite game. It wasn’t just better than Super Mario 64 (a game I only recently finished); it was the very best game I had ever played. I decreed this to myself, quietly (I was at the start of a long phase of not really wanting to discuss games with my friends for fear of looking nerdy), and was puzzled with every review that didn’t declare this to be the truth of the matter.
I was hoping that when I came back to Super Mario Sunshine in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection on Switch, it would help me to understand how I’d reached this conclusion as a kid. For all its strengths, Super Mario Sunshine is — quite plainly — not the best game of all time. It’s probably not a top-5 Mario game. But I think I get it. For a kid who had only ever owned Nintendo systems, Super Mario Sunshine felt like something truly different: a step forward into the future, into something new.
There was a rumour, before the GameCube was revealed, that the next Mario would go in a more “mature” direction for his next outing. For whatever reason, every magazine I read interpreted this news in the same way — Mario would have a gun this time. It would be Shadow the Hedgehog, years before that game released. What we got wasn’t that, of course: Super Mario Sunshine’s “mature” direction amounts to a game about needing a relaxing vacation, and then struggling to find the balance between actually relaxing and getting as much out of the location you’re visiting as possible.
For a kid who had only ever owned Nintendo systems, Super Mario Sunshine felt like something truly different: a step forward into the future, into something new.
Coming back to it now, I can see the parts of Super Mario Sunshine that resonated with me, and the things about it that are very specific to my interests. It’s bright and colourful in a way I’d come to see, as a Nintendo fan, as inherently good; it had beautiful water, far beyond what was possible on the Nintendo 64; it had a lovely soundtrack. I still love that one level is set inside an amusement park. In 2001 I’d gone on a family trip to four amusement parks at the Gold Coast, Queensland, and I loved being able to recapture some of that feeling in the game. I don’t like the use of the word “escapism” around games — I believe that good media is much better at making us confront the difficulties of life than it is at helping us forget them — but Sunshine really does feel like a vacation, despite all of its fiddlier elements and frustrating sections.
Source: Nintendo.
All in all, it’s hard to get back into that exact headspace, and the game’s numerous, well-documented flaws are more apparent than they were back then. But I’ve found that I still think Sunshine is lovely, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think it tried to do something with Mario that no platformer since has really attempted — it tried to take the whole series in a completely new direction, one that wasn’t tied to the series’ past. It’s not just that Mario has FLUDD strapped to his back: it’s Mario is a legitimately new setting.
Super Mario Sunshine contains aesthetic elements of the series’ past: Yoshi, warp pipes, coins that can be collected for extra lives. But it’s distinctly separate from the Mushroom Kingdom in ways that make it very interesting to come back to. No other Mario game feels like it’s set across a singular large location: while each level is discrete, they maintain the same aesthetic sensibilities, and feel part of a larger whole. The levels in Sunshine feel different from anything that came before or since. This is a world without Goombas or Koopas, without Stars. Sunshine hints at a wider world than even the globe-trotting games that followed do: a world that’s not beholden to what has come before.
This is a sensation I had with Super Mario 64, too, but it’s more pronounced for his second 3D outing. As much as I miss the analogue shoulder buttons of the GameCube controller, I’m still fond of FLUDD, too. Mario’s water-spraying device feels like it was built with speedrunners in mind, with the way a careful jump-and-hover can lead to shortcuts, and jumping into a wet downward slope sends you sliding like a kid on a slip-‘n-slide. Beyond the ways it opens up Mario’s set of abilities, it also reminds me of an Australian summer as a child, where the school holidays seemed to stretch endlessly and after Christmas everyone you knew had a fancy new watergun they couldn’t wait to fire at you when you caught up in January (although you ended up spending a lot of time with those friends inside, playing games).
Source: Nintendo.
The game launched in Australia in October 2002, but it feels like January. How many other games feel like a specific month?
I’ve been thinking a lot as I play about how Mario changed after Sunshine. As many problems as it has, I think there’s an interesting alternate dimension out there where it became the blueprint for what Nintendo should be doing with Mario. In 2006, the excellent New Super Mario Bros. arrived on the DS, returning Mario to his 2D roots. It was a game that proved that, after years of moving forward into 3D spaces, people weren’t done with 2D Mario games (in an age before digital downloads, 2D games didn’t tend to do so well on consoles for the first two generations of 3D games).
Sunshine hints at a wider world than even the globe-trotting games that followed do: a world that’s not beholden to what has come before.
New Super Mario Bros. was an excellent game, but it also, on some level, redefined what it meant for Mario to be “new”: for Mario to move forward, he would have to constantly look back. The game’s knowing winks and nostalgic background designs set the tone for every Mario platformer to come.
And look, don’t get me wrong. Super Mario Galaxy, which is properly indebted to every Mario that came before it, is better than Sunshine. Miles better. It’s comfortably one of the best games ever made, and if by some very specific curse I was sent to a desert island with just 10 games to enjoy for the rest of my life, I’d have to seriously consider whether to take both Galaxy games or just one.
But going back to Sunshine, it’s hard not to think what would have happened if Nintendo had kept pushing the boat out further. Imagine a version of Super Mario Galaxy where instead of stomping on Goombas, you’re fighting an alien enemy. Imagine, then, that Super Mario Galaxy 2 went even weirder, more alien. Maybe Bowser wouldn’t be part of it, and Peach wouldn’t get captured (which is a plot structure we really must stop hand-waving away as totally fine and cool, by the way — there’s no other series critics would allow to get away with doing this over and over).
What would that universe’s version of Super Mario 3D World look like? Where would Super Mario Odyssey have gone? While Odyssey digs deep into some new corners of the Mario universe, it’s very tied to the series’ past. Every modern Mario platformer since Galaxy feels simultaneously like a new game and a celebration of everything that came before it. That’s part of why it’s so hard to say who and what Mario is now. I love the parts of Odyssey that lean into the series’ past (that Donkey Kong tribute is perfect), but I wonder what a version of Mario not tethered to that past might look like.
When I first played Super Mario Sunshine, my favourite parts where the sections where FLUDD is taken away from you, and you need to complete more traditional 3D platforming challenges. Coming back to the game now, these are easily my least favourite sections. Being stripped of FLUDD makes the jumping a bit cumbersome, since Mario is much too slippery and has been stripped of his long jump, and subsequent Mario 3D games have just done this sort of thing much better. More pressingly, these are the sections where Sunshine feels most at odds with its own identity, and too beholden to what has come before. I hope that one day, Nintendo will allow another 3D Mario game to forge its own unique path the way this game did. | https://medium.com/super-jump/super-mario-sunshine-is-the-most-forward-thinking-3d-mario-edb9e82a843b | ["James O'Connor"] | 2020-11-16 09:25:47.991000+00:00 | ['Videogames', 'Nintendo', 'Gaming', 'Features', 'Nintendo Switch'] |
A Weary Nightingale | My heart sings like a weary nightingale
with a rhythm I can never refine,
but I carry within a mournful tale
and yearning for dreams that were never mine.
By the mountains, in search of peace to grieve,
I seek respite from the years filled with scorn,
yet no one had a reason to believe
I could ever fulfill what I had sworn.
But it is the calling of the sublime
that leads me to search for rapturous heights,
even against the bitter foe of time,
I will not lower where I set my sights.
But against all odds, can my soul ascend
or am I stuck with wings I cannot mend? | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/a-weary-nightingale-717ab2fae547 | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-12-17 19:53:13.938000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Spirituality', 'Future', 'Poetry', 'Sonnet'] |
Grayzone, Grifters and the Cult of Tank | Grayzone, Grifters and the Cult of Tank
A photo of US freelance journalist Carl Goette-Luciak with a Nicaraguan Sandinista that Max Blumenthal misrepresented on his blog Grayzone to grave consequences (Photo: Twitter)
The first in a three part series on the toxic influence of pseudo-journalists in the digital age and the danger they represent to the self-determination of peoples across the globe.
Professional liars, conspiracy theorists and old-fashioned fanatics have existed since the dawn of civilization, but in a digital age where clicks are driven by outrage and sensational headlines, these bad actors find themselves in possession of a megaphone with global reach that has never before been seen in human history. But not all grifters and yellow journalists are created equal. That is to say, in media platforms prone to consolidation and driven by outrage, the most extreme voices have a tendency to dominate the field.
The game of exaggerations, baseless accusations and dictator apologia for cash and clout is becoming increasingly dominated by a small and particularly unhinged group of smear-merchants who boast a cultish group of very-online and very-aggressive followers. These electronic minions of misinformation spread the exaggerations, denials and half-truths they receive from their grifter masters with evangelical zeal, and an apparent imperviousness to facts or reality ¹.
Enter Grayzone, a supposedly leftist crew of “journalists” with opaque financing and Russian support.
This all-caps charge against responsible journalism is led by son of a wealthy Clinton advisor, Max Blumenthal and his zany “never met a Human Rights violation we didn’t like” cohorts at Grayzone ². They receive helping hands from a number of shady media organizations and fringe voices that include Russian disinformation network RT, TeleSur in South America, reknown racists Richard Spencer, Tucker Carlson, a nazi school shooter and even ex-KKK wizard David Duke.
Though they claim to write from the left, their digital fog-machine defies political boundaries, incorporating anti-semetic smears about Soros that have white-supremacist origins, genocide denial tricks pioneered by European fascist parties and the “always discredit or insult rather than respond to fact” tactics of sociopaths like Alex Jones.
Every social movement in the world they dislike is the fault of the CIA, and every government they support, which are unfailingly disturbingly authoritarian, can do no wrong.
These fearless champions of state-violence cheer police forces brutalizing protesters, deny well-documented death squads and rationalize oppression at every turn.
Despite Blumenthal’s attacks on journalists who work for publications funded by Soros, he has had no problem accepting money from that source in the past, such as when he worked for the Nation, whose parent company, TYPE Media Center is funded in part by grants from the man he so often demonizes, nor from his time at “Media Matters” which has also enjoyed Soros funding. Oh, and also AlterNet, who helped him develop Grayzone until 2018, when they fired him, presumably because his conspiracy theory mongering was damaging their reputation.
Nor has he been above accepting gifts from the regimes he writes so flatteringly about. Blumenthal and other writers at Grayzone have also been exposed accepting “journalism prizes” from pro-Assad lobby groups.
What are their motives? That varies from personality to personality, but they all share two traits: an inability to realize the world does not in fact revolve around the United States and the certainty that they know what should happen in countries they don’t live in infinitely better than people who do.
As David Smilde, senior fellow at human rights group WOLA and Professor at Tulane aptly stated, they “instrumentalize the realities of the global South for their own purposes — whether that be personal identity work or political battles they consider important — and it’s a form of colonialism”
It’s American exceptionalism turned on its head — an inability to imagine that people in other countries have the agency to form their own social movements and revolutions without help from the U.S. This worldview leads them to de-legitimize and dismiss protesters in Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Venezuela as illegitimate, and to deny horrific human rights abuses in a score of countries across the globe from Russia to Bolivia. | https://medium.com/muros-invisibles/grayzone-grifters-and-the-cult-of-tank-fbd9b8e0dbe2 | ['Joshua Collins'] | 2020-02-12 18:23:32.021000+00:00 | ['Syria', 'Grayzone', 'Media', 'Max Blumenthal', 'Nicaragua'] |
[Review] ABN: Attention Branch Network for Visual Explanation (Image Classification) | [Review] ABN: Attention Branch Network for Visual Explanation (Image Classification)
Attention Branch Network (ABN)
In this story, Attention Branch Network: Learning of Attention Mechanism for Visual Explanation, ABN, by Chubu University, is presented. In this paper:
Attention Branch Network (ABN) is proposed, which extends a response-based visual explanation model by introducing a branch structure with an attention mechanism.
is proposed, which extends a by introducing a branch structure with an attention mechanism. ABN can be applicable to several image recognition tasks by introducing a branch for the attention mechanism and is trainable for visual explanation and image recognition in an end-to-end manner.
This is a paper in 2019 CVPR with over 60 citations. (Sik-Ho Tsang @ Medium) | https://medium.com/@sh-tsang/review-abn-attention-branch-network-for-visual-explanation-image-classification-30fd164960ee | ['Sik-Ho Tsang'] | 2020-12-13 09:31:54.958000+00:00 | ['Image Classification', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Convolutional Network', 'Attention Network', 'Deep Learning'] |
Using emotions to drive conversions | Using emotions to drive conversions
This blog post is based on Cugelman Emotion Map and draws heavily from his course on “Digital Psychology & Behavioral Design” at CXL Institute.
Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash
An emotion is a complex set of physiological changes in response to a perceived threat or opportunity. They’re automatic and mostly unconscious, which is why we’re never fully aware of all the changes we’re experiencing.
Emotions drive behavior or put another way motivation is an emotion that facilitates action. If you have read my previous post on Using Neuromarketing to Drive Conversions, you came across a fascinating study done by researchers at UT Austin where participants were shown photos of two chickens. The research concluded that we are ruled by our emotions first, and then we build justifications for our response since we want to be considered scientific and rational.
So understanding emotions and designing with that in mind is key to giving users the right experience for them.
Cugelman’s Emotion Map
Cugelman’s emotion map is based on the “dimensional approach” wherein every emotion either boosts or lowers three dimensions: (1) arousal, (2) pleasure, and (3) control. Arousal is the level of physical and cognitive energy experienced which can span from feeling energized and focused on one hand to feeling lethargic and unfocused on the other hand.
The pleasure dimension describes how pleasurable or painful emotions feel. And finally, control describes how much power someone feels that they hold in any situation. When people possess more power or control, they generally feel calmer and more confident. With less power and control, people can’t fully predict the outcome of a situation, which can lead them to feel higher levels of stress.
Dr. Cugelman essentially divided these dimensions into four emotional quadrants as follows:
Optimistic: This quadrant of highly-arousing and pleasurable emotions is where people feel control, motivation and pleasure. These emotions compel users to act in anticipation of a reward.
Pessimistic: The quadrant with low-arousal, negative emotions and a lack of control is where people experience feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, shame, humiliation, pessimism, and lethargy which demotivate any action as users eventually give up.
Insecure: This quadrant with high-arousal and painful emotions is where users react to any threat of losing control, and experience emotions such as urgency, suspicion, vigilance, fear, stress, and anxiety. People describe these strategies as pressure tactics, and their primary drive comes from the emotions that underpin loss aversion.
Secure: The low-arousal positive emotions are where people let their guard down, within a context where they feel secure, grateful, trusting and generally content. This is where our target audiences or users trust us so much, that they feel secure and trusting interacting with our organization, and shift into a long-term trusting relationship which is known as loyalty. These are the emotions where we want our customers to reside, as these are the emotions tied to loyalty, and complacency. This is where you form long-term relationships with the people who matter to your organization.
What causes people to act is usually loss aversion (insecure emotions) and achievement (optimistic emotions). When people feel either very helpless or very secure, they are less likely to act.
Example
Let’s look at how a company like Dollar Shave Club uses emotions on their homepage. | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/using-emotions-to-drive-conversions-9588de9c569e | ['Bithika Mehra'] | 2020-11-10 19:38:41.023000+00:00 | ['Experiment', 'A B Testing', 'User Research', 'Conversion Optimization', 'Psychology'] |
Am I Muslim Enough? | Kafir was a nickname given to me by the Muslim community of Tumblr circa 2009. Someone had found my Tumblr and forwarded it to the Muslim community. I didn’t have much on my Tumblr. I reblogged a lot of cat pictures, talked about my day, and posted pictures of myself. One of these pictures happened to be from a banquet I attended with my best friend. Teal dress. Knee high length. Sleeveless. I was also pretty “blessed” in certain areas. This picture went viral and the haram police came. I had already considered myself agnostic long before this. I was receiving death threats for months it seemed. A lot of “you’re not a real Muslim” “your mother is probably so ashamed” “Allah hates you” — everything.
None of this is new to me.
My parents never had time to sit down and teach me stories from the Quran, or even teach me how to pray. They were too busy trying to make sure my siblings and I had food on our plates. My brothers never had the time either, they all worked full time and went to school full time.
I never doubted my place in Islam when I was younger. I was loved and I was taught how to love. Islam was that to me. My mother would tell me that taking care of plants and animals is part of Islam, and if I help her water the plants then Allah will be so proud of me. She said if I’m nice to my brothers and stay quiet while they study, Allah would help them pass their classes.
At night, my mother told me stories of birds. I saw God in that.
I asked her about heaven and she told me I would have my own Pikachu and as many cats as I wanted to. That’s all I needed to hear.
And that’s the last time I imagined heaven. | https://medium.com/muslim-women-speak/am-i-muslim-enough-d03bcb5336cb | ['Sarah K'] | 2018-05-31 00:36:30.866000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Relationships', 'Women', 'Religion', 'Bullying'] |
Goodbye Chicago: Blah, blah, blah | I happened by chance on the ‘Goodbye Chicago: blah blah blah,’ article. I was up early this morning and waiting on my Uber to work. Despite the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ level of grammatical errors, reading through the narcissistic, self-aggrandizing article, I kept scrolling back up to the shot of Eric Barry in front of the Bean. I knew this guy, but how? How do I know this guy? Estelle’s.
This man approached a couple of friends and myself at Estelle’s one night during the Polar Vortex of 2014. I had been doing stand up for a while and was doing an independent study at Second City through my college. A friend was visiting out from out of town. Naturally, we wanted to catch up and she had just fallen in love! Deep in discussion, this man approaches us and jumps into our conversation. We stop and I explained to him that, “We’re kind of in the middle of something.” He dismisses me and says something about how I’m catty or need to relax, and proceeds to start telling us his life story, and someone asks — incredulous, because Polar Vortex 2014 that shut down CPS but not the rest of the city, “You moved here in the middle of winter?” His response was a boring story about how no one understands him and he needs a fresh start, and finally I interrupt. Eric Barry got it wrong though, I actually said, “None of us,” waved a pointed finger around at my friends and I, “are going to fuck you!” I wouldn’t have said we were all taken because we all weren’t. Regardless, I was out for a drink with friends and we were annoyed with him. After the better part of a decade bartending, I’ve found that when a person in a bar disregards a polite request to leave you alone or that you’re uninterested in getting to know them, it sometimes takes a bit more aggressive approach for them to listen. The offenders are generally men. Often white privileged men who aren’t used to hearing the word, “No.”
That same night he rambled over again bragging about his well-known and critically acclaimed podcast. He was, “Sex positive,” and blah, blah, blah, “here have my card.” After a monologue about his podcast, comedy status, and penis size, I’m over this guy — who can’t take no for an answer. I exclaimed, “I do stand up as well, and I don’t know you at all.” This predatory I’m recognized and should be lauded behavior is absolutely not tolerated in the Chicago comedy scene and I suspect that’s why I never once saw him at an open mic. The Chicago comedy scene is known for taking care of that kind of behavior and stamping it out no matter what the accomplishments. From Improv to Stand Up, we have a strong scene that stands with women and refuses to look the other way when this behavior occurs. This is most likely why he didn’t fare well here. I hear he went to a few open mics, but I also never once saw him booked on a showcase or at a major club. We don’t tolerate this type of behavior here.
In our initial exchange, he did reply with a pathetic whiney, “I wouldn’t even fuck any of you!” like the predator who cried nice guy. We all know this narrative, at best it’s the David Beckers and Brock Turners, and at worst the Scott Petersons. A bold statement I know, but Eric Barry held on to this for three years. Three years! Opening his critique of an entire city and coloring most of his experiences here in Chicago, from the times he “almost died,” to the bad food, expensive beer, slow public transit, Midwest charm, and how comfortable he was harassing women. I didn’t even remember this experience until I saw his picture, a trigger for a night that should have been remembered as reconnecting with life long friends, instead overshadowed by that asshole at the bar. As a woman I’m conditioned to move on and get ready for the next one so I forgot his petty remarks about our appearances and our value based on how much we wanted to listen to. I forgot because he isn’t important but the lesson of the story is, especially as the more I speak out about this the more stories I’ve heard of run ins with this guy. He is not comedy, he didn’t fare well in San Francisco or Chicago. I doubt he will do well in New York, a city that never sleeps and also doesn’t tolerate bullshit. Grammatical errors aside, come on Huffington Post you’re better than this.
Sidenote: Look how much he hated Chicago and our pop up Logan Square Bars: #strangerthings Looks like he had a really hard time here. | https://medium.com/@allyssabujdoso/i-happened-by-chance-on-the-goodbye-chicago-blah-blah-blah-article-b85b08bf7e11 | ['Allyssa Bujdoso'] | 2017-09-09 17:49:46.962000+00:00 | ['Chicago', 'Comedy', 'Life', 'Huffington Post'] |
Build a scalable web crawler with Selenium and Python | The approach was to develop the web crawler in a Jupyter Notebook on my local machine and to constantly professionalize and increase the project (see Fig 2). For instance, I built a Python application with a dedicated crawler class and all necessary methods based on the Jupyter Notebook scripts. But let us have a more detailed look at the implementation steps.
3. Source Inspection and Packages
3.1 Source inspection
To develop a properly operating web crawler, it is important to familiarize yourself in advance with the site structure, available content, and irregularities.
Fig. 3 — Connection of the relevant entities
TWDS is a classic publication with many authors and a lot of articles. Thanks to an archive page it was easy to understand the page structure in detail (see Fig. 3). Fortunately, the authors were not only listed there but also provided with links that led to overview pages for these authors.
Fig. 4 — Page source-code for authors list on TWDS-Archive
The used HTML class was constantly used so that the links could easily be identified (see Fig. 4).
For the overview pages of the authors, I figured out that at first
only the author’s articles published on TWDS were listed. Other articles published on Medium.com by the author were not displayed. It was therefore not necessary to check whether the specific article belonged to the TWDS publication. Unfortunately, the HTML class for these links was empty and the links could not be identified. However, the links contained the complete URL and thus the word “towards”. Therefore, the identification of these links was just as unambiguous. However, another challenge occurred when examining the page. Not all of the author’s articles were displayed directly, but when the website was scrolled down further content was dynamically reloaded using Javascript. To ensure completeness, this had to be taken into account for the development of the web crawler.
Fig. 5 — Example of the HTML source code from a TWDS-Article
Finally, I had to examine the structure of the individual articles for similarities and patterns to extract the relevant data fields. The required properties were author, URL, title, text, reading time, publishing date, tags, claps and the number of responses. As can be seen in Figure 5, the HTML source code has some challenges. For example, the class names are seemingly dynamically generated and have only minor matches across articles. But there are also rays of hope, e.g. reading time, title, URL, and publishing date are standardized in the page header. The remaining content was reasonably easy to access.
3.2 Package Selection
At first, during development in Jupyter Notebooks, I was looking for Python packages I could use to fulfill all requirements. I quickly realized for Scrapy, one of the most commonly used packages for web scraping, that dynamic content reloading would be difficult. After focusing on this requirement, I became aware of Selenium. Selenium is a framework for automated software testing of web applications and can interact with browsers, e. g. to scroll down pages to load the dynamic javascript content and receive the full HTML source code.
To work with the extracted HTML source code, I found the Python package BeautifulSoup4, which provides various methods to systematically search the HTML tree structure for relevant content. With these packages selected, I could fulfill all the requirements to develop a web crawler. | https://towardsdatascience.com/build-a-scalable-web-crawler-with-selenium-and-pyhton-9c0c23e3ebe5 | ['Philipp Postels'] | 2020-01-28 11:56:40.748000+00:00 | ['Selenium', 'Docker', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Kubernetes'] |
Just commenced working on my goals | I am going to start working on my goal of wining a foreign scholarship for master’s program. Since after wining a foreign scholarship for master’s program, I would be able to pursue my research in my interested area, therefore this goal is very crucial. Research that I want to continue during my master’s studies is also linked with my dream project. I have a plan to establish my career in this dream project.
However, coming back to the main agenda, before applying for a foreign scholarship in some good reputable university, you need to have or prepare some very vital documents. These documents decide either the wining side or rejected situation of your applied profile for scholarships. These include the following i.e.
i. Academic certificates/degrees including your school or college transcripts, your CV, and language proficiency certificates, Medical fitness prove etc.
ii. Motivational letter (MOL)
iii. Research proposal or Statement of purpose (SOP)
Well, while considering about first part i.e., Academic certificates, I already have made sure that everything is available and ready to go. Therefore, I have started to work on making an eye-catching Motivational letter and I hope to complete it in the present week. Figure 4 presents the first paragraph has been written for the letter but still this is not the final one and needs some alterations and additions by the end of the following week.
Started drafting MOL
After drafting the final document, I would be reviewing this from an expert and again would be making some changes in it depending upon the feedback it would receive. After completing my Motivational letter, my next aim is to establish a good research proposal or a statement of purpose. I shall do these tasks in next and right after the next week.
I was planning to start writing my MOL for about a Month. But there I felt a slight laziness and lack of interest in commencing. The last day, when I was engaged about the leadership online courses, I came to know that there needs just to take a responsibility without waiting for an opportunity. So, I planned to take responsibility and just started writing letter.
I was surprised to see that writing an opening statement for my letter hardly consumed my just 30 to 40 minutes and I was just delaying it from a long time. It was an amazing experience to just commence the work. Although I have not finished it yet, but I am already feeling close to its final.
One thing that I learnt from this experience and which I am going to really admire in future also, that you just consider a pending task like a burden upon you until you begin doing it. Once you are on the road, things go quiet softly. You just need to practice leadership in your own personal matters also. Make a habit to accept responsibility and avoid waiting for an authority to do a thing.
I am feeling a slight satisfied after doing it!! | https://medium.com/@muhammad-shayan177/just-commenced-working-on-my-goals-15625e6ccfb8 | ['Muhammad Shayan'] | 2020-12-19 05:23:23.348000+00:00 | ['Justsrart', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Amal Academy', 'Goals'] |
ClubHouse — what is it and how to get there? | From the beginning, Davison and I had an idea: And the idea was to develop auditoriums and develop technology that allows people to have meaningful conversations and make “strong human connections with interesting people around the world without leaving their homes. @ Clubhouse
How Clubhouse works :
The concept of work is as follows: In front of the user there are many rooms to which you can connect at any time.
Each room can accommodate up to 5,000 participants, and each room is dedicated to a specific topic
How to get to the Clubhouse ?
Registering an account in the Clubhouse is not such an easy task, since it is a closed social network and is now available on the IPhone (iOS 13 or higher)
To get into the Clubhouse , you need to have a device based on iOS 13 and no less (there is no official version for Android yet — but there is a port for android) and receive an invitation from a user who is already registered in the Clubhouse
You can send an invite only to a person from your notebook on your phone, this is the only way that invitations work
Why did Clubhouse blow up the internet?
In fact, the social network Clubhouse appeared back in 2020, and so — to say it bummed at 21, most likely the success is connected not so much with the concept of audio communication, but rather with the fact that it is a closed social network where you can speak with a voice with many famous personalities: For example, with Elon Musk, etc.
Clubhouse for android
In fact, Clubhouse under — androyd does not officially exist yet, and when it will be officially unknown.
But there is some good news:
One GitHub enthusiast ported Clubhouse to android, the program is distributed free of charge with open source, so anyone can disassemble the program into pieces and check for malware.
The Clubhouse port is available for Android version 7.0 and higher — it most likely will not work on smartphones with an older system. | https://medium.com/@zpmirov/clubhouse-what-is-it-and-how-to-get-there-7ae13be944bd | ['Zpmirov'] | 2021-04-13 23:58:38.491000+00:00 | ['Clubhouse', 'Social Network', 'Voices', 'Social'] |
STREAM’!!*~Giants vs Ravens Live Stream Free 2020 | STREAM’!!*~Giants vs Ravens Live Stream Free 2020 NFL Week 16: How to watch, live stream Saturday games on CBS All Access NFL live stream: How to watch every NFL week 16 game online The NFL live streams for week 16 are here and giving us a mix of Christmas Day games and leftovers that will keep us entertained throughout the cold days.
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The biggest game of the week finds the Colts visiting the Steelers, to see if they can do more damage to the once-undefeated, now ever-eroding squad. Plus, the Titans (10–4) and Packers (11–3) go to battle in a serious evening of Sunday Night Football.
Not everybody pays for cable these days. There are tons of cord-cutters out there that use streaming services to watch their favorite shows, and those people want to do the same to watch their favorite sports teams, recognition of that fact, the folks at the CBS mothership have partnered with the NFL to allow CBS All Access customers the opportunity to stream all NFL on CBS games and content live.
CBS All Access was a pretty sweet deal even before this partnership, as subscribers got the opportunity to stream more than 8,500 episodes from hit CBS shows, for as little as $5.99 a month. Now, you get an even better deal. If you don’t pay for cable and prefer to use streaming services, or even if you simply aren’t home every weekend and want to watch the NFL anyway, you can now do that via your mobile device thanks to CBS All Access.
How to get CBS All Access
Signing up is easy too. You simply go to the CBS All Access landing page and pick the plan you want to purchase. Click here if you want to go straight to the free one-week trial. Please note: there is a seven-day free trial available for new customers.
Sign up this week to make and you’re going to be on the NFL streaming bandwagon before the rest of your friends.
Saturday’s NFL games on CBS All Access
Signing up for the service this week is going to net you a pretty sweet little set of games* too, just in time for a heated playoff race in both conferences. | https://medium.com/@kenovalobashao/stream-giants-vs-ravens-live-stream-free-2020-bb76b34e6a02 | [] | 2020-12-27 09:20:06.689000+00:00 | ['Streaming'] |
In Memory Of 2020 | (Personal Opinions)
2020 You can take your highway back to Hell
Don’t bother coming back another day or way
We have lost so many tears for the many lost
So many gone, some that it needed not to be
Pray for all the living but forget not the dead
2020 Became known as the year of the virus
We learned a lot about science and of our selves
Do not forget that the year ended in High Treason
Our Constitution is drenched in the blood of our Vets
Don’t give it up now to McConnell/Trump and thugs | https://medium.com/@oldandgrumpy56/in-memory-of-2020-975a67b07e49 | ['T.R. Savage'] | 2020-12-24 02:57:13.858000+00:00 | ['Poems On Medium'] |
How to Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas | As soon as the scale of the pandemic became apparent this spring, I accepted that the rest of my 2020 was probably fucked: No enormous birthday party at my favorite wine bar in Clinton Hill, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas. So when my birthday rolled around in August, I saw some friends in the park and walked to Chinatown to eat my favorite wontons outside on Bayard Street. When the CDC all but cautioned against cancelling Thanksgiving last month, outside of celebrating with the members of your home, I was sad but I made peace with it and cooked a big dinner for four in my Brooklyn apartment’s kitchen. And when my dad and stepmom both contracted Covid-19 right before Christmas, I had already decided that I would be staying put at home instead of going back to Pennsylvania.
I am not really a “Christmas person.” My family, I would say, is not composed of “holiday people.” I mean, sure, we have our light-up Santa Claus that we put up in the front yard every year, and the tree, and the shrimp cocktail and baked pasta on Christmas Eve and my mom’s quiche on Christmas morning. I love all of that, but we’re not religious, so the whole “reason for the season” element is sort of lacking, and some of the magic of the holiday is inherently lost with you’re figuring out the logistics of splitting time between your parents’ respective houses or you’re working over the holidays.
My sister and I usually take Amtrak home together from the city a few days before Christmas and my mom is always waiting for us, standing next to her car at the Middletown, Pennsylvania train station, which is a generous term for a plank of wood next to the train tracks a stone’s throw from Three Mile Island, the nuclear power plant that famously partially melted down in 1979. When I go home I usually get goaded into going to one of several hometown bars with my friend Ben. If we go to Primanti Bros we might see someone who was nice to us in high school and is now married. If we go to the Penn Hotel & Sports Bar we might see someone who bullied one of us in high school and is now married. The actual fun bar in the vicinity of our hometown, which was confusingly called Gas Station, closed a few years ago. You would be forgiven for thinking we were actually hanging out at a gas station, because after going to any of these bars we do usually end up at Sheetz, an iconic Pennsylvania gas station-slash-convenience store, getting a sensible 11:30 pm made-to-order snack. Then I hang out with my mom and the cats for a few more days, sleep in as much as I can in my childhood bed, and eventually come back to the city.
For better or for worse, none of that is happening this year. Instead, I’ve been on a mission to establish new traditions, or at least try new things for the 2020 Christmas Experience.
Go see the Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
Last weekend, I did something I’ve been meaning to do since I moved to New York in 2014. I drove to Dyker Heights in South Brooklyn, where we bought $5 cups of steaming Swiss Miss hot cocoa from an ice cream truck and walked around and looked at the intricate and elaborate Christmas light setups adorning many of the houses in the neighborhood.
If you look up the Dyker Heights geotag on Instagram you can see it for yourself. There’s a whole cottage industry devoted to putting up these lights on people’s houses, which is entirely foreign from my experience stringing up a strand of lights along the front of the house if we feel particularly ambitious one year. Some Gen Zers approached me to ask to take a picture of them, which is extremely flattering, since they’ve profiled me as someone who can take a grid-worthy iPhone picture, but also very high-pressure . It would be devastating to walk away from this situation to see them swiping through the pictures in disappointment. Anyway, I loved the lights and would go again literally tomorrow.
Purchase and wear a Lanz flannel nightgown
My friend Emma said she was buying one of these so I bought one too. Now we both look like adult-sized American Girl dolls. Yes, they’re completely sexless garments. But so cozy!
Buy a bunch of Christmas-scented Bath & Body Works candles
My friend Kate asked me if I wanted to go in on an order of the three-wick bad boys from Bath & Body Works after Thanksgiving. They came a couple weeks later. I have so far enjoyed having my apartment smell like “Merry Cookie,” “Fir Tree,” and now “White Eucalyptus & Sage.”
Trim a Christmas tree
In Decembers past I’ve gone to the bodegas in my neighborhood and purchased a paltry, Charlie Brown-esque tree—a true tumbleweed of a Christmas tree—and sort of propped it up in the corner of the stairwell in my old Crown Heights duplex where it stayed until I figured out where to dispose of it after New Years. This year I knew I had to go bigger, so I did what anyone in this situation would do and bought a tree from the very nice people at the lot across from Mr. Mango — I was promptly upsold on the tree variety that I was told was “the Cadillac of Christmas trees” — and had my boyfriend carry it home for me. My roommate and I have a bay window that faces the street, and it felt almost obligatory to put the tree in the window and keep it lit whenever we could, so we’ve been doing that all month.
It’s a nice little tree.
Nicely wrap everyone’s gifts
I do possess some aptitudes, but wrapping gifts is not among them. Last year, I think I just gave everyone their gifts in the bags from the stores in which I bought them during Christmas karaoke in a private room at a Korean restaurant and karaoke lounge in Gowanus. I still can’t wrap presents, but I did splurge for nice wrapping paper and ribbons so everyone had nice-looking gifts to open.
Ball out on Christmas dinner
If we cannot go anywhere for Christmas, at least we can eat tremendously at home. So Christmas Eve dinner will consist of a dozen Duxbury oysters, enormous ribeye steaks, shrimp cocktail, and house-mixed and -bottled negronis and martinis from Hart’s. I realize that by cooking an elaborate steak dinner I’m technically going against my own exhausted screed from last month promising I wouldn’t cook again until the end of 2020, but in fairness, I have been eating a lot of sad frozen grain/vegetable/protein dinners this month and I would like a little treat.
The woman at Hart’s was like “we didn’t expect the steaks to be this big either”
Bake 12 dozen Christmas cookies
I’m not really sure what compelled me to do this. I think it just didn’t really feel like Christmas in my apartment so this week I took inventory of my baking supplies, asked Twitter for cookie recommendations, and got to work. When I go home to my mom’s house, there are a few kinds of cookies we usually make. There are Snickerdoodles, which I recreated this year. There are pizzelles, Italian anise-flavored cookies you make in a special waffle-ish iron that my grandpa once sent two dozen of in a coffee canister to my dorm freshman year. (Lacking the appropriate equipment, I didn’t make these.) There are the Pillsbury sugar cookies we buy in tubes at the store and cut into shapes with my mom’s copper Christmas cookie cutters and decorate with sprinkles and bake, but I wasn’t going to go buy cookie cutters, so that option was out. And there are thumbprint cookies, which I kind of don’t like, so I freed myself from tradition and instead baked the following cookies:
I lost two days to these cookies. On Tuesday I made the dough for most of them and on Wednesday I baked them each. Mixing each batch of dough by hand reminded me of the one time a few years ago when I really needed to stop looking at my phone so I went to a pottery studio and just immersed myself in clay, a tactile distraction from the rest of the world, except this time it was several large molasses-based masses of wet cookie dough.
The chewy Mexican hot chocolate cookies. They’re delicious.
This was the nicest thing I did, I think, because it’s largely for other people—I’ve been giving cookies to friends who are similarly staying in the city this week—and it reminds me the most of being home. Tomorrow I’ll open a few presents and FaceTime my family and feel grateful I can stay home on a day off to do all of it. Emma will come over with a peppermint schnapps-spiked hot chocolate-filled thermos and we’ll walk to see the Grand Army Plaza Christmas tree together and I’ll drop off some more cookies for friends. Doling out a trillion cookies — and creating my own traditions— feels like a very small way to take back a tiny bit of control from a very much still out-of-control world. | https://kosoff.medium.com/how-to-have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas-f8c446423c49 | ['Maya Kosoff'] | 2021-01-04 15:31:30.419000+00:00 | ['Holidays', 'Baking', 'Christmas'] |
Life Outside the Lower 48 | Christine with her husband and corgi, Winston!
Have you ever thought about packing up and taking off for rural Alaska? If you’re adventurous enough to set off on that type of journey without looking back, you’ll definitely want to watch this episode of A Day in the Life.
Guest Christine Cassidy Itta shares with host Rachel Miles Sijacic her reasons for leaving South Carolina (where all her friends and family lived) to teach in a remote town in “The Land of the Midnight Sun” where she didn’t know a soul.
Now living in Anchorage where she is responsible for educational programming at The Anchorage Museum, Christine has become passionate about curriculum — especially when it comes to making sure kids (and by creating a ripple effect, all of us) are properly educated about the history of indigenous peoples in America.
Christine began her interview with a land acknowledgment, and shared many historical facts most of us never learned in school. Find out the native lands you live on here!
Like most people, the Covid-19 pandemic shook things up for museum educators, causing her job responsibilities to shift. But through it all, she’s never lost her focus.
In addition to the serious topics covered, you can learn a few new words and phrases, fun places to visit in Alaska, and what visitors from South Carolina think about seeing snow on Denali in June. We hope you’ll join us.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss an update and like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to stay in touch! | https://medium.com/dayinthelifestudio/life-outside-the-lower-48-27b36ef18b88 | ['Henry Miles'] | 2021-08-12 16:13:24.829000+00:00 | ['Indigenous People', 'Adayinthelife', 'Anchorage', 'Museums', 'Alaska'] |
At Cornell, debates over campus policing ignite racist online harassment | “My name and photo, as well as the names and faces of my friends and peers, Moriah and Uche, have been shared without our consent at a national level by multiple popular right-wing entities,” Huang said in an Instagram post to her personal profile.
“I have been called racial and anti-Asian slurs, targeted for deportation, called a Chinese spy, and much more (Nevermind the fact that I was born here in America and I’m Taiwanese)” she added, going on to note how her family has also been affected by the publicity.
Moriah Adeghe revealed on her own Instagram page that she was “called everything from a bitch, to aggressive, to violent, by strangers on the internet for speaking up against the violence that police officers often incite against Black people and calling for my own campus police to not have arms when they interact with students.”
She goes on to allege that the Cornell Republicans student club “sicced” the Young America’s Foundation on them for payback and retaliation.
“Rhetoric like this is literally what gets Black people killed and I am enraged that this type of mercilessness was used to get hundreds of thousands of people to shame, ridicule and abuse me.”
Uche Chukwukere’s statement rung very similarly to Adeghe’s.
“I have been called a nigger, a faggot, an AIDS and COVID spreader, a monkey, a FOB, a retard, and more. These individuals have gone as far to say more recently, ‘Let’s hope someone — anyone — clips ur gay black azz,’” he said.
“My livelihood and safety are on the line. There is no reason that my family should be in such fear for my life and safety as they are right now.”
Despite the ramifications that have ensued for the three students and the widely-circulated idea that the Cornell Republicans had it out for the pro-disarmament advocates, the student organization insisted they “had no involvement with the creation of this story and no one acting on behalf of the Cornell Republicans provided any information to YAF. All of the audio footage used by YAF is publicly available on the SA website.”
Indeed, audio footage of Student Assembly meetings are available to the public here.
However, refuting the organization‘s claim of non-involvement are screenshots that show several members, including the club’s president Weston Barker, celebrating the YAF coverage and specifically, the negative affect it would have on the three students.
“The fact that their pictures are right there with the audio, I would not want to be them rn” said one member.
“We might face backlash here in a minute so prepare yourselves” said another.
Responding to the latter comment, Weston Barker believed that the students would be “too busy defending themselves from a national tsunami to substantively attack our organization.”
He went on to point out his belief that “They used fear, vitriol, and public humiliation, and they are truly reaping what they’ve sown,” leaving it unclear as to whether or not ‘they’ refers to the three students specifically or a broader entity. | https://medium.com/@jaylencoaxum/at-cornell-debates-over-campus-policing-ignite-racist-online-harassment-8d658adecc15 | ['Jaylen Coaxum'] | 2020-12-20 16:24:31.781000+00:00 | ['College', 'Politics', 'Police', 'America', 'Racism'] |
Chernobyl’s Lessons for Data Scientists | Wrangling through Dataland
Chernobyl’s Lessons for Data Scientists
Insights on decision-making amid uncertainty from the HBO-Sky TV series
Image by Денис Резник from Pixabay
Chernobyl (2019) is a mesmerizing drama of human incompetence, ingenuity and courage in the face of disaster. The show’s analytical examination of the swirling confusion and haphazard reponse in the aftermath of an unprecedented catastrophe also offers valuable lessons for data scientists facing a dynamic situation amid great uncertainty. Moreover, the show cast a scientist (a physicist no less!) as the main hero, and put the science and scientific reasoning up front and center.
I am not going to venture into the debate over the accuracy of the HBO-Sky production, but focus on the content of the show rather than the actual Chernobyl incident. Dramatic license was undoubtedly taken, but the heightened drama and suspense serve I think to encapsulate how people make decisions in the presence of high anxiety, incomplete information and changeable circumstances.
A Bayesian perspective is useful
After the explosion, the nuclear power plant’s senior managers quickly assumed that a water service tank had exploded because it was utterly inconceivable that an RBMK-class reactor could explode. When challenged on this by their underlings, the managers countered by asking them to explain how the reactor could explode, and no one could answer. Even Chernobyl’s hero physicist, Valery Legasov, could not at the outset explain how the reactor could possibly explode. Not only was it supposedly impossible for an RBMK reactor to explode, but there was of course no historical example of a reactor explosion to serve as a guide.
As Sherlock Holme’s famous quip goes, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains…must be the truth.” From a statistical perspective, it was as if the managers were frequentist straw men thrown into a scenario without any historical samples to guide them. The probability of a reactor explosion was judged to be zero, and so the managers ruled it out, facilitated by a big serving of self-interest. Using a bit of Bayesian terminology, the managers had a very strong prior belief, hardened further into concrete by their self-interest in downplaying the accident’s severity.
Legasov however raised the possibility of a reactor explosion after reading a report of graphite pieces littering the ground outside the plant. Graphite, he explained, is only found in the reactor core, so if it is observed on the outside then it must imply that there had been a reactor explosion. Let’s bring back Holme’s quip in full: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Legasov allowed for the second impossible scenario (graphite on the ground) to condition the initial impossible scenario of a reactor explosion to at least prompt an urgent investigation of the situation.
Let us say that there is a 1 in a ten million chance of a nuclear reactor explosion on any given day, or 0.00001%. It may not be zero, but it is infinitesimal to such a degree that one could not be faulted for assuming it is zero. Then let’s say that the probability of finding graphite on the ground outside the reactor if there were no reactor explosion is 0.5%. Maybe it sprouted out of the ground spontaneously or someone dumped it there. So the probability of graphite given a reactor explosion is 99.5%.
Please note that I am not a nuclear engineer, and I have generated these numbers out of thin air purely for illustrative purposes. Given these probabilities, what is the conditional probability that there had been a reactor explosion given the presence of graphite on the ground?
We need to use Bayes’ Theorem to figure this out. Let’s use “ex” as short for reactor explosion, “no ex” for no reactor explosion, and “g” for graphite on the ground:
When you plug in the various probabilities it goes:
The computed conditional probability of a reactor explosion is 0.00199% or approximately 0.002%. So we have gone from a 1 in ten million chance to a 1 in fifty thousand. The probability remains low, but it’s now firmly within the realm of possibility. If you assumed that the probability of finding graphite on the ground given no reactor explosion is 0.1%, then the conditional probability of a reactor explosion rises sharply to 1 in ten thousand.
Using Bayesian terminology again, Legasov updated his prior belief as new information became available, which was crucial in cutting through the confusing narratives in an evolving situation that was unprecedented in human history. The lesson here is to always keep an open mind, and be ever ready to update our priors in the wake of new information.
Be guided by expected value considerations
One of the memorable subplots in Chernobyl involved a group coal miners recruited to dig under the reactor. There was a risk that the melted reactor core (corium) could breach through the nuclear plant’s foundation and contaminate the Ukraine’s groundwater. The miners were tasked to excavate an area under the reactor so that a refrigeration source could be installed to cool the corium. Needless to say, the operation would expose the miners to potentially dangerous doses of radiation, but this terrible cost was judged necessary to eliminate the risk.
The probability of the contamination outcome was difficult to quantify, given the unprecedented circumstances, and in actual fact the whole operation was judged to have been unnecessary in hindsight. Nonetheless, the operation was prompted by the potentially catastrophic outcome in the event that the corium were to melt through.
Let us examine the expected value of a variable:
A very low probability outcome can heavily affect the entire variable’s expected value if it has a sufficiently sizeable payoff. For example, let us say an oncoming event has two outcomes, one with 99.9% probability (scenario A) and another with 0.1% probability (scenario B). So the chance of scenario B happening is very low. If the payoff from scenario A is $100 and the payoff from scenario B is -$1,000,000, however, the event’s expected value is 99.9%*($100) + 0.1%*(-1,000,000), or -$900.01. Thus, scenario B dominates the expected value despite its rather low probability.
In such cases, the highly consequential outcome overrides the low or uncertain probability associated with it, and we need to consider preventing the risk scenario from occuring at all. On the flipside, it also means that we could ignore risk scenarios that have limited outcomes. By so doing, we can evaluate what risk scenarios need urgent attention, and what may be safely ignored.
This concept was first explored by Blaise Pascal in his famous argument that one should believe in God despite the unknown probabilities (“Pascal’s Wager”). I won’t go into the game theoretic and theological arguments inherent in the wager. It is sufficient to say that in an uncertain world we should evaluate potential outcomes not just by their probabilities, but also by their payoffs. When making decisions amid uncertainty and incomplete information, we should be guided by the expected value.
Influence requires communication skills
Legasov’s coutroom testimony in the series’ final episode is a masterclass in elucidating complex scientific concepts to a lay audience. But before we got there, Legasov had already demonstrated his communication skills in the high-level policy meeting covened to discuss the accident. At the meeting he explained why he thought the reactor might have exploded, and persuaded General-Secretary Gorbachev to order an urgent investigation of the situation.
He effectively countered an official’s earlier casual dismissal of the recorded levels of radiation by stating that it was in fact equivalent to “400 chest x-rays” in one case, and possibly “4 million chest x-rays” in another”. He described neutron radiation as “billions, trillions of bullets” whizzing out of the open reactor, and imperiling the entire country. By using understandable language and metaphors, he succeeded in conveying the gravity of the situation.
The point is that scientists, including data scientists, need to be able to explain their scientific viewpoints to non-specialist audiences if they want to influence policy and business decision-making. This is crucial in the case of data scientists, unlike say theoretical physicists or mathematicians, because data science is primarily concerned with solving real-world problems.
When dealing with an uncertain and fast-evolving situation, there is frequently competing perspectives and explanations in the air, compounded by often unspoken human emotions and biases. Clear-headed thinking is not enough. Influence requires persuasion, and communication skills are critical for this purpose.
Conclusion
The TV production undoubtedly took dramatic license, and the actual Legasov may or may not have done the things depicted in Chernobyl. Nonetheless, there are valuable insights to be gained from the show’s analytical portrayal of the human reaction to the unfolding nuclear disaster. There was incompetence, blame-shifting and lies, but also perceptive reasoning, clear-eyed risk assessment and persuasive communication. From these, I draw three key lessons for data scientists facing an uncertain and dynamic situation: | https://towardsdatascience.com/chernobyls-lessons-for-data-scientists-e0b5fb14f5fd | ['Alvin T. Tan'] | 2020-12-29 13:44:41.144000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Decision Making', 'Chernobyl Tv Series', 'Statistics', 'Data'] |
Two angles | First angle.
You were barefoot.
They held a gun.
You held a knife. Not even.
You kept walking.
They fired.
You died.
Second angle.
You were barefoot.
They held a gun.
You held a knife. Not even.
You kept walking.
They fired.
You died.
Written in response to two of the videos capturing the shooting of Georgia Tech student, Scout Shultz. He was killed by campus police on Saturday, September 16th, 2017. | https://medium.com/letters-from-cabral/two-angles-96fa04dd784 | ['Jennifer Cabral'] | 2017-09-23 20:33:40.914000+00:00 | ['Police Shooting', 'Poetry', 'Notes', 'Campus'] |
El ABC de EOS Market Place | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@eosmarketplace/el-abc-de-eos-market-place-57ea8162ae89 | ['Eos Market Place'] | 2020-12-18 22:33:06.999000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Blockchain', 'Eos', 'Defi', 'Criptomonedas'] |
The Reality of Reality | The Reality of Reality
Is reality objective or subjective? Meaning, is it the same for all or different for everyone? If it is different for everybody, then is it that no one perceives the ultimate reality? If yes, then why? How does the vague sense of reality give meaning to our life? Or do we have any sense of it at all? Let us contemplate these above questions one by one with the knowledge of Evolution.
Through our perception, we experience the sight of an amazingly colourful and vibrant world, taste the molecules of our favourite dishes, smell fragrant molecules of a flower carried by wind to our nose but, is this all that is out there? No, the visible spectrum is only a small part of the EM waves that surround us in every moment in space and time. This incompleteness is not particular to only vision but all the senses. A mouse is evolved to smell more molecules than humans, which helps it to find food. Therefore, a mouse’s perception of reality is more filled with different odours and, thus, different from ours. When applied to all organisms and their senses, similar reasoning concludes that reality is subjective, or at least its perception is.
The preceding small exercise of mind brings us to our next question of discussion: why didn’t the organisms ultimately evolved into seeing the ultimate reality as life got more complex with time? Or, are we still in the process of it? The surprising answer is that it is better to see reality as incomplete and different from others as it gives survival advantages. For example, let us say there are two species in an area competing for resources then, if they perceive the same taste and smell molecules, the competition for resources would be very high. On the other hand, if one species’ senses evolve to sense the odour of different molecules coming from a nearby source, it can increase its chances of survival by eliminating competition. A very renowned cognitive scientist and professor at the University of California, Donald D. Hoffman, once said,
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be.” — Donald Hoffman
Further, imagine what the world would look like if we could see the full spectrum of light. If we assume that the visible spectrum’s perception will be the same, we would see black and colourful flashes. When the eye’s receptors pick up a photon outside from the visible spectrum, the brain will give no colour, and when it picks one from the visible, we will see the corresponding colour. Apart from the competition, it will also make it challenging to detect predator’s presence and thus survive. So, should we feel depressed for not seeing the reality? Not necessarily, as still there is a lot that is admirable in this very incomplete sense of reality. This I leave up to the reader as everyone may find beauty in different things and that’s alright as it’s just a perception. | https://medium.com/@kartik03/the-reality-of-reality-a03618d45b55 | ['Kartik Agrawal'] | 2020-12-24 08:09:32.282000+00:00 | ['Perception', 'Evolution', 'Spirituality', 'Psychology', 'Reality'] |
Rebalance vs. HODL: A Technical Analysis | This demonstrates the median percent for which rebalancing at varying intervals outperformed HODL for a portfolio which contains ten assets.
We observe from the 10 asset portfolio results that the trends discussed in the 2, 4, 6, and 8 asset portfolios continue. This includes the larger spread for shorter rebalance periods and a higher average performance for shorter rebalance periods. We can also see from these results that only 10 portfolios out of 4,000 performed worse than HODL if they had rebalanced even 1 time each month. This means if you randomly selected 10 assets and rebalanced at least once a month, you would have had a 99.75% chance of outperforming buy and hold over the last year. This is truly incredible. The median performance for a portfolio with 10 assets and a rebalance period of 1 hour was 234% BETTER than HODL.
Complete Comparison
Now that we have all of the data, we can simplify the results into a 4 x 5 grid that illustrates the performance of each portfolio and rebalance period. Since the upper bound on most graphs is much higher than the lower bound, we will calculate the median. This also means that 50% of the portfolios were above and 50% of the portfolios were below this value. So, if when creating your portfolio, you randomly selected assets without performing any research, you would have a 50% chance of performing better than the listed value.
Also, the listed value is the percent gain over buy and hold. So, a value of 10% would mean rebalancing performed 10% BETTER than HODL.
The median performance demonstrates that the higher the rebalance period with the higher number of assets presents the highest gains for rebalancing. Each value represents a percent increase OVER buy and hold. That means a value of 18 means the median of that group performed 18 percent BETTER than buy and hold. This demonstrates, even the absolute worst case performs better than by and hold, even after considering taxes.
We can draw two major conclusions from this grid. First, we have obvious correlations between the rebalance period and the performance. As the rebalance period becomes shorter, the performance of the portfolio increases. A second correlation we can see is between the number of assets and performance. As the number of assets in the portfolio increases, there is an increase in performance. Therefore, the best performing portfolios were those that have both a short rebalance period and a large number of assets.
To round out the complete comparison, we will combine every backtest to create an overall comparison.
Combining all of the backtests over all portfolios and rebalancing periods produces a complete picture comparing rebalancing and HODL. We observe a median complete performance of 64%. This means, if you were to randomly select a portfolio size between 2 and 10, randomly select a rebalance period between 1 hour and 1 month, and randomly select the assets in your portfolio, you would have a 50% chance of performing 64% better than buy and hold if the only difference was rebalancing.
The results show a median performance increase of 64% over all portfolio sizes, rebalance periods, and coin selections.
Tax Implications (US Specific)
According to the latest news, crypto trades are taxed as short-term capital gains at the rate of your current income bracket if the assets were held for less than a year. Long-term capital gains will be taxed at a discount when assets are held for more than a year. Since there are a lot of misunderstandings revolving around taxes, I will try to break down some of the implications here. All calculations will be based on an individual income of $120,000.
An individual making $120,000 is well within the top 10% of incomes in the US. They are also in a federal income tax bracket of 24%. This means any short-term capital gains will be taxed at 24%, which is equal to the personal income tax. That same individual making $120,000 will pay long-term capital gains at 15%.
We can see quickly that there is a 9% difference in taxes between long and short term capital gains. We can compare this difference to the 64% boost in returns observed through rebalancing. What we see is that rebalancing significantly outperforms HODL even after factoring in tax implications of frequent trading. In fact, 92% of all portfolios which rebalanced over the past year beat HODL, after taxes.
That’s not the entire story, however. Rebalancing only trades a portion of the portfolio at any given time. This means part of a portfolio which uses rebalancing would not have been traded by the end of one year. These untouched portions can be taxed as long-term capital gains, reducing the overall taxes that are incurred as a result of rebalancing. The amount can be quantified by examining the volatility difference between all cryptocurrencies over the last several years. This would give us an idea of what percentage of a portfolio would typically be considered long-term capital gains. Since a proper simulation would require careful design, we will save this analysis for another post.
Conclusions
There are two major relations we can draw from this study. The first relation is that increasing the number of assets increased the performance of a portfolio. The second relation is that decreasing the rebalance period (increasing rebalance frequency) increased the performance of a portfolio. Therefore, the ideal portfolio was rebalanced frequently and also contain numerous assets.
It should be remembered that all of these portfolios were selected on a completely random basis. There was no research or elimination process when determining which assets should be incorporated into the portfolios. There is a significant amount of improvement potential for an individual who actively researches and selects promising assets.
Rebalancing beat HODL by a median of 64%. After taxes, this represented 92% of all possible cryptocurrency portfolios.
Rebalancing with Shrimpy
Now that we have determined that rebalancing was objectively better than HODLing, we need a way to capitalize on this knowledge. This is where the Shrimpy application can help. Shrimpy is a completely free service that automatically rebalances your portfolio. However, that’s not all it does. It is the easiest way to manage your portfolio. Quickly select assets, instantly allocate a portfolio, and monitor your investment over time. It’s the less stress, more gains solution to portfolio management.
Sign up today by clicking here.
If you still aren’t sure, try out the demo to see everything we have to offer!
Additional Reading
Crypto Users who Diversify Perform Better [New Research]
Portfolio Rebalancing for Cryptocurrency
The Crypto Portfolio Rebalancing Backtest Tool
The Whitepaper for Portfolio Rebalancing in Crypto
Common Rebalance Scenarios in Crypto
10 Tips for Creating a Killer Cryptocurrency Portfolio
How to Avoid Scams with these 24 Cryptocurrency Red Flags
Don’t forget to check out the Shrimpy website, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates, and ask any questions to our amazing, active communities on Telegram & Discord.
Leave a comment to let us know your experiences with rebalancing!
The Shrimpy Team | https://medium.com/hackernoon/rebalance-vs-hodl-a-technical-analysis-6f341b0db9cd | [] | 2018-11-09 19:14:29.729000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Investing', 'Investment'] |
The Power of Introverts: Finding a Voice in the Pandemic | Bill, 11 years old, lived with his parents and two sisters in Seattle. He was extremely good at school, especially math and science. His favourite hobbies were playing board games and reading books.
Yet his parents worried about his behaviour, but decided not to force Bill to change his hobbies and passions. During high school, Bill spent almost all of his time by himself, but this time in the school computer lab rather than his room. With silence as his only companion, Bill could clearly hear his thoughts and solve problems. He could think, imagine, and create. Today, Bill is 65. He is a software developer, investor, author, philanthropist, and the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.
In the world, one in three people is an introvert. We all know one. It might be you, your best friend, your spouse, your boss, your colleague. If you are an introvert, you know the power that lies in silence and quietness. That magic ingredient that allowed Bill Gates, JK Rowling, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Steve Wozniak, Larry Page, Warren Buffett and many others to create unimaginable things that changed our world. What would have happened if these people had been forced to discuss their ideas in groups rather than in their heads? Play a team sport instead of writing? Talk instead of thinking? Google, Harry Potter and the theory of relativity probably wouldn’t exist.
Often, people think that introversion means being anti-social, but this is not true. It’s all about stimulation.
I am an introvert but it took me some years to fully understand what that meant, and to find the courage to make unpopular choices to protect my wellbeing and unleash my power. Living in a society with a cultural bias toward extroversion, I often saw introversion as a burden rather than a gift. I spent too much time justifying my choices, pretending to feel good surrounding myself with people, conversations, and noise. Trying to be an extrovert when you are an introvert is like asking a bird to walk instead of fly — exhausting and counterproductive. A bird will look at his short and fragile legs with disappointment, without realizing he was gifted with wings.
Being an Introvert at the GSB
With participation a significant part of grades, and with group projects and peer pressure to participate in social activities, a day at the GSB can be very draining for an introvert. “Before Covid-19 I had to take one day per week completely off,” an MBA2 said. “I needed to be in my room by myself to recharge.”
Asked the most challenging part of their MBA life, introverts shared a common answer: class participation.
“Every time I sit in class I feel the pressure to talk, but I need time to gather my thoughts and put together relevant things to say,” shared an MBA2. Said another MBA2: “You are aware that frequency, rather than quality, of participation is very important. I became more concerned about the frequency of my comments. I needed to remind myself, ‘You haven’t talked in this course yet.’ ”
Rewarding students who talk the most also affects how introverted students think about their leadership style. “Sometimes I doubt myself — can I really be an inspiring leader?” said an MBA2.
The Impact of Covid-19
While it has been a very challenging year for everyone, introverts seem to have found a silver lining in the pandemic.
“Some of the rules for socializing are actually playing in my favor,” said an MBA2. “Engaging in small groups rather than large gatherings. Going on a hike rather than to a party. This is where I feel most comfortable.”
While everyone agrees that Covid-19 worsened the MBA experience, introverts seem to participate more in online classes than they did in-person. Zoom has introduced new ways students can contribute, and most match introverts’ thinking style. To speak, there is no need to interrupt someone or wave your hand higher than others; you simply need to click a button. Want a few minutes to gather your thoughts? You can always write your comment in the chat.
“Participation in Zoom classes is so much better,” said an MBA2. “I love the chat. I feel I can contribute to the class discussion with relevant content. I wish all professors would count the written comments as participation points.”
Extroverts seem to appreciate the broad range of participation by their classmates as well. “I feel the smartest comments in the chat are by people who never spoke in class,” said an MBA2. “I would be very sad to see the chat go away,” shared another student.
Looking Forward
In a world that rewards socializing and talking it is no surprise that business schools place a large emphasis on speaking up. But what if instead of teaching birds to run, we teach them to use their wings? What if we create an environment where both personality types contribute in their own ways? Both introverts and extroverts have special capabilities that, if used correctly, can unleash magic.
As teachers, students, parents, colleagues and leaders, we need to take into account differences in learning, thinking and contributing.
We need to stop assuming that silence is disengagement and talking is intelligence. We need to help others to become aware of their stimulation preferences, rather than forcing them to adapt to a one-size-fits-all learning model.
We need to respect and celebrate our differences, instead of limiting them. We need to assure that kids like Bill will not spend their lives thinking they are lonely and weird, but rather that they can think, imagine, and create great things that will change the world. | https://medium.com/non-disclosure/the-power-of-introverts-finding-a-voice-in-the-pandemic-6ab0ea6d092c | ['Camilla Zanon'] | 2021-06-02 01:21:40.731000+00:00 | ['Voices', 'Introvert'] |
Vikings Finale: Is Vikings Ending Better Than GOT? (NO SPOILERS) | The second and final part of Vikings season 6 has been concluded just recently and fans are giving mixed reactions. Is Vikings Finale good? Does the Vikings ending satisfy its fans? Is it well enough to beat the final season of GOT that left its fans suspended in disappointment when the GOT series launched its final season in April 2019. Fans hoped that Vikings finale would be able to fill the gap that was left dangling helplessly with GOT ending.
Vikings Vs Game of Thrones
Vikings series is considered to be similar to GOT in some though not many ways for Vikings series has a historical-based plot while GOT is based on pure fantasy. Still both shows have had a certain competition between them which escalated with the release of Vikings finale and raised the question “Did Vikings conclude better than GOT?”
The Storytelling
Although the Show “Vikings” has a true historical based plot, there is a significant blend of fiction in the storyline by Michael Hirst, the screenwriter of the Vikings series and I think the man has done a great deal of work.
As we know that no one can beat G RR Martin in telling a story with great twists and complexity as he did in his volume of A Song of Ice and Fire but then we got the ending of GOT that does not go parallel with Martin’s mind and the reason is obvious in a way that the show finale had suffered because of the difference in approaches between G RR Martin and the GOT showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and so having no source material from George RR Martin (Mr. Martin Sir, you’re still the best!). While on the other hand, Vikings give a well-knitted plot with a real historical based story mixed with some spicy fictional theories doing a certain justice with its characters in the show. The whole story goes with such fluency and every character is exactly doing what it is supposed to do. Even after the exit of the most favorite character of Viking fans (including me) “Ragnar Lodbrok” played by Travis Fimmel, the show kept its charms throughout the time continuing with the story of the “Sons Of Ragnar”.
The story of brothers, the rivalry between Bjorn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless (I loved the character of Ivar played by Alex H Anderson, such an amazing actor!), the quest of Ubbe, and the complex character of Hvitserk, all of them contributed very well in keeping the show interesting after the departure of Ragnar. (Yes you’re right, the show still in fact lost a great deal of its fandom with the leaving of Travis Fimmel (King Ragnar Lodbrok)).
The Ending
As I have just finished watching Vikings Finale, I would love to say that it ends pretty cool (yeah, I am not going to spoil anything so you’re good to go). Well, there are of course some flaws (Everything has its flaws) but I think Vikings Finale is far better than GOT finale where the whole thing was put together in some kind of emergency and so many things were left unexplained and in chaos while in Vikings finale, everything seems to be going with a flow. Of course, both shows did kill some of their main characters but in Vikings, the deaths are made essentially required, thoroughly explained, and well deserved (which is not in the case of GOT which made its death scenes of “some main” characters so normal that it gave fans a shock not of surprising admiration but of disappointment).
So, as GOT remains one of the top best TV shows ever for its excellent complex story with outstanding characters and their background stories(Tyrion Lannister is my favorite!), its greatness in diversity(so many characters and so many different themes), a marvelous direction and amazing cinematography ( without any doubt, GOT has got some wonderful scenes worthy of high praise like dragons and white walkers) and of course it’s on the top of most high budget TV series ($15 million per episode), Vikings being a show describing the hard work and struggle of people for surviving is also going to be included in my list of the most favorite shows of all time. | https://medium.com/@aqsaalibhatti/vikings-finale-is-vikings-ending-better-than-got-no-spoilers-6ddc334dd2fe | ['Aqsa Ali'] | 2021-01-19 11:56:27.336000+00:00 | ['Blog', 'Ragnar', 'Game of Thrones', 'Vikings', 'Articles'] |
What Works For Content Direction Agency Founder Lacy Boggs: Writing For Results | The Nitty Gritty:
Why Lacy is producing fewer “how to” articles and, instead, focusing on “riffing” on the leading edge of content marketing thought leadership
How she’s developing a process for asking for referrals after realizing her top clients come through that channel
Why her priorities have changed when it comes to growing her email list–and why she’s stopped using content upgrades to find new subscribers
How she makes sure none of the work falls through the cracks even as her client load and her team has grown
Today, we’re catching up with Lacy Boggs in a special episode recorded live on Crowdcast. Lacy is a content strategist and Director of The Content Direction Agency, which helps online small business owners communicate and connect with their audiences through authentic, organic, and values-driven content.
Lacy has been honing her business model, adjusting her own content marketing strategy, and growing her team over the last year.
Figuring out what’s not working is just as important as figuring out what is working–especially if you want to cut back on your workload and cultivate sustainable operations in your small business. Lacy shared that she’s been intentional about figuring out where her clients come from and reducing the amount of time and effort she puts into marketing activities that don’t yield the kinds of clients she’s really looking for.
For her, that means backing away from email list growth-at-all-costs and, instead, putting an emphasis on showing up in communities where her ideal clients hang out and writing content that positions her as an authority worth trusting.
Listen to the full episode and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or RadioPublic so you never miss an episode. Plus, follow CoCommercial and What Works on Crowdcast to get notifications whenever we do live episodes. | https://medium.com/help-yourself/what-works-for-content-direction-agency-founder-lacy-boggs-writing-for-results-7b0de02b836a | ['Tara Mcmullin'] | 2018-04-12 14:25:48.138000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Small Business', 'Digital Marketing', 'Podcast', 'Agency'] |
How to Take the Perfect Nap | How to Take the Perfect Nap
10 science-backed tips for more productive shut-eye
The Elemental Guide to Napping is a three-part special report. Read about the science of napping and why napping should be more egalitarian.
My life to this point is marked off in two epochs: Before Nap and After Nap. From birth until about age 30, I had no patience for napping; naps left me groggy, hungry, cold, and disoriented, or feeling as if I was missing out on something much more interesting in the world. And that’s if I could fall asleep at all, which was almost never.
Seven years ago, that all changed when I moved to Spain on a Fulbright fellowship to research a book on the history of the siesta (yeah, I didn’t know the government gave out money for that either). I would spend my mornings working in the archives and go home around 2 p.m. to cook whatever lunch I could afford on my stipend, then crawl into bed for the next phase of my “research.” For the first few days, I just laid there, eyes wide open and thoughts racing. Day after day, I worked at it, until I finally achieved that first perfect nap.
After the perfect nap, I’m not entirely sure I’ve been asleep at all. I drift off without noticing and wake up fresh, ready to start the second part of my day. Over the years I’ve honed it to a fine art and become attuned to my body’s natural rhythms. Anticipating when the tired feeling will hit, I try to be someplace where taking a break is possible — if not at home, then maybe in my car or at a park. I took my nap habit with me when I left Spain, and it’s been my secret weapon against burnout and exhaustion ever since. Here are a few of the best napping tips I’ve learned along the way.
Timing is everything
The desire to sleep corresponds to changes in body and brain temperature that run on a roughly 24-hour schedule, called a circadian rhythm. Everybody, no matter if they live in a warm or cold climate or if they’ve eaten a big meal, experiences these subtle changes at bedtime and, to a lesser extent, in the afternoon — usually around six to eight hours after waking. For most people, “prime napping time falls between 1 and 3 p.m.,” writes Sara Mednick, a leading voice in nap research and author of Take a Nap, Change Your Life! Plan your nap for the time when your body is naturally sleepier and you’re more likely to fall asleep.
Know your sleep stages
Different phases of sleep confer different benefits on the brain and body, so you can actually hack your nap by adjusting when you nap and for how long. According to Mednick, the first 20 minutes of your nap are spent in Stage 2 sleep, which provides energy and alertness. Stay asleep longer and you’ll enter slow-wave sleep (SWS), which is when the brain begins to process memories and information, and then rapid eye movement (REM), the creativity-boosting dream phase. If you fall asleep during your prime napping zone and stay asleep for 90 minutes — what Mednick calls “the perfect nap” — you’ll get one full sleep cycle, complete with an optimally balanced dose of all three phases.
Not all naps are created equal, though. “As a rule of thumb, you can count on naps earlier in the day to be richer in REM, while late-afternoon naps tend to be higher in SWS,” Mednick writes. If you’re interested in dreams or are working on a creative project, you might prefer a REM-soaked late-morning nap for the creativity boost it can bring; if you’re physically exhausted all the time, opt for a long afternoon nap rich in rejuvenating slow-wave sleep.
If you wake up groggy, you may be sleeping too long
That disoriented feeling I used to suffer from is known as sleep inertia, and it happens when you wake up during slow-wave sleep, the phase that comes after the energy-boosting Stage 2 sleep. If this happens to you, try waking up a few minutes earlier and see if you feel more refreshed.
The perfect nap lasts around 20 minutes (unless it doesn’t)
Though Mednick calls the 90-minute nap “a clear blue-ribbon winner,” the National Sleep Foundation recommends a snooze lasting 20 to 30 minutes. That’s long enough to grab a dose of that energizing Stage 2 sleep, without the risk of being plunged into the slow-wave sleep that can make you groggy. There seems to be a general consensus that a nap of precisely 26 minutes is best: That’s based on a famous 1994 NASA study that found that long-haul pilots who napped for 25.8 minutes were 50% more alert than their nonnapping counterparts and performed 34% better on certain tasks. I usually set my alarm for around 30 minutes, to give myself a few extra minutes to drift off.
Don’t nap too late in the day
Improperly timed naps can interfere with your nighttime sleep, experts say. Don’t sleep too long or too late in the day, especially if you have trouble falling asleep at night.
Try a caffeine nap
In my pre-nap days, I would fight off the afternoon slump with a Starbucks instead of a nap. But you can have it both ways. Since caffeine takes about 20 minutes to kick in — almost exactly the recommended nap length — down your latte just before lying down. The caffeine will act as a natural alarm, waking you up refreshed and ready to focus on the next activity. A 2003 Japanese study found that caffeine naps were more effective at combating daytime sleepiness than noncaffeine naps.
Clear your mind
For many of us, the main barrier to falling asleep at nap time is an overactive mind. Especially if you’re not in the habit, “Nap Bishop” Tricia Hersey recommends journaling before you lie down, to process whatever is nagging you. Or try a guided meditation like yoga nidra, also known as yogic sleep, to relieve stress and give your brain a break.
Carry a nap kit
During my pre-nap days, I could find a million excuses for not taking a siesta: The room was too bright or the traffic outside was too loud. Then some co-workers gave me an airplane nap kit, complete with sleep mask, neck pillow, and earplugs, enabling me to create the right conditions for sleep almost anywhere. Now I don’t go anywhere without it.
Practice makes perfect
You can train yourself to become better at napping. Regular nappers like Hersey report that it gets easier and more fun the more you do it — like riding a bike, but horizontal. Once your brain and body get in the habit, you’ll learn to drift off quickly and even wake up at the perfect time without an alarm. “Take your time and don’t guilt or pressure yourself” if you can’t fall asleep right away, Hersey says. “Just slowing down alone is a big pushback against grind culture and burnout culture.” Even if you can’t fall asleep, just lying down can have a positive effect: Science has found “nonsleep dozing” to be effective at reducing sleepiness among drowsy drivers.
Invest in stuff you love
For Hersey and for me, working the nap beat unleashed an obsession for all things sleep-related. I’ve spent hours researching linen duvets, memory-foam pillows, and silk pajamas that I hope one day to be able to afford, and Hersey rejoiced when she found the perfect fleece blankets for her Nap Ministry. Whatever gets you excited about crawling into bed will make nap time that much more appealing. “But even if you don’t have that stuff, wherever you are, you can embody rest,” Hersey says. “If you’re sitting on a couch, on a park bench, on an airplane, it’s about your mentality around it and getting into a routine. Wherever your body is, it’s the site of liberation.” | https://elemental.medium.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-nap-397ee26a64c7 | ['Maya Kroth'] | 2019-08-19 15:35:43.074000+00:00 | ['Rest', 'Sleep', 'Napping', 'Guide To Napping', 'Body'] |
We’re ready to take on 2021, and the U.S. is our big target. | Why?
We are aiming to build upon the momentum of 280% revenue growth and the doubling of our staff since 2018. We’ve built a reputation for closing technology, creativity, and knowledge gaps with real, actionable methodologies and solutions. The New York office will provide a direct link to Finnish innovation and our deep bench of technologists, engineers, and product builders who deliver fast results, efficiencies, and strategic thinking.
Founded in 2017, Finlabs will continue to be headquartered out of Oulu, Finland, supported by our new office in Helsinki. Oulu is the perfect location for us to continue to cultivate the technical skills and knowledge within our team. Considered one of Europe’s “Living Labs” where residents experiment with new technology on a community-wide scale, experimentation and technical exploration is engrained in town and its occupants.
Our existing team has built a deep bench of technology experts with knowledge in AI, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and data science. Finlabs infuses these technologies to create intelligent products and platforms that solve problems and improve business results.
We’ve developed intelligent technology solutions in partnership with companies like Glaston, Greenmaster, Dosh, Nordkapp, Haltian, Suunto, and Wellmo. In the U.S., Finlabs works with CareConnect, a healthcare technology company, where we serve as their technology partners to build and design an agency management platform that facilitates more efficient communication between care agencies and their remote caregiver workforce. In doing so, we have helped them drastically simplify the often-complex shift allocation process and turned employee compliance into a smart digital solution. We aim to further build on the relationship with CareConnect while aggressively seeking out more clients and partners in the U.S. to add to our roster. | https://medium.com/finlabsoy/were-ready-to-take-on-2021-and-the-u-s-is-our-big-target-9076a33ebbbf | [] | 2021-04-01 00:00:00 | ['Expansion', 'Company Culture', 'News', 'Growth', 'Software Development'] |
5 Powerful Lessons My Dog Taught Me About Writing | 5 Powerful Lessons My Dog Taught Me About Writing
Simple ways you can become your readers’ best friend
Photo by Frank McKinley
As I sat down to write this, my dog sat down in front of me.
I rubbed her head.
She licked my hand.
Then she walked over to the door and turned her head to look at me.
“It’s that time, isn’t it?”
She wagged her tail and held her ground.
Of course, I got off the couch and took her outside to do her business. When we returned, she showered me with affection and lay down for yet another nap.
Delilah the four-legged teacher
As writers, we’re always looking for illustrations.
Delilah knows how to get what she wants. Every. Single. Time.
Food.
Love.
A forever home.
Whatever she wants.
Would you like to know how she does it?
Here are four simple but powerful lessons Delilah taught me about persuasion.
The beautiful thing is you can do these things every day, and you don’t have to learn any complicated strategies to practice them.
Let’s dive in.
Treat your readers like your best friends.
Every day when I open the door, Delilah runs to it to greet me.
She doesn’t care what kind of day I’ve had. She doesn’t stop to ask me if I’m happy, sad, or tired. She just gives me all the love she has to offer, no questions asked.
And if I don’t return her love, she’ll try again tomorrow.
How can you show your readers you love them?
Write to them like you’re writing a letter. Brew some coffee and have a heart-to-heart conversation. Read it aloud before you publish and make sure it doesn’t sound like a lecture.
People read your writing by choice.
Delight them and they’ll choose you again and again.
Photo by Frank McKinley
Get excited about what interests your readers.
Delilah gets excited whenever she sees us. I can talk to her about whatever I want and she’ll never judge me.
The way to anyone’s heart is to make their interests your own.
I learned this from Dale Carnegie three decades ago.
Nobody cares what you care about.
When you meet someone for the first time, what do you do? You ask them to tell you about themselves. Do that, and people will talk all day — especially if you listen with enthusiasm.
Do some research. Get to know people. Listen to what they say. Let them rave, rant, and brag. The time you give them might be the best gift they’ve ever received.
And it’ll help you write stuff they’ll love.
Pay attention to what your readers are doing.
Delilah knows when I open the front door.
She sits by the table when we have dinner to see if we’ll share.
She follows us around the house to make sure we’re okay.
Are you involved in writing groups? Do you have a few close writer friends to encourage and challenge you?
Pay attention to what they’re doing.
Celebrate their victories.
Help spark their creativity when they feel blocked.
Share ways they can shine so brightly it turns darkness into light.
When you lift others, you lift yourself.
Photo by Frank McKinley
Assume the best.
When Delilah sits down next to me at the table, she expects me to give her something.
I usually do. I mean, who can resist that cute expression?
And she sits so patiently.
She doesn’t stick her nose in my food either.
When you write, do you expect your readers to get what you mean?
Do you expect you’ll write something great, or at the very least something that’s worth reading?
People are busy. You’ve got to wow them to get them to give up a few precious minutes to spend with you — especially if they don’t know you already.
So how do you wow them?
Do like Delilah. Be audacious. Get in their faces. But don’t be rude about it. Make them smile, laugh, or find you charming.
Or as Steve Martin says, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
If you sit in the next room and wait for someone to notice you, it may not happen.
Write everything assuming the best will happen.
Show up consistently.
Delilah never misses a meal.
She also regularly comes to me so I can pet her, walk her, and let her lick my hand.
She’s never too busy to love us.
How often do you write?
I write every day. I may not publish every day, but I do it as frequently as I can.
I’m not going to tell you how often is enough. I will say this — publish before your readers forget you. Better still, show up often enough that they miss you when you’re gone.
My son and I went on a trip for three days last month. My wife says Delilah looked for us every night. When we returned, what a welcome we got!
I’m not sure who missed the other more.
When your readers enjoy your company, they’ll follow you anywhere. When you love them, you’ll find time to write no matter how busy you are.
Applying the lessons
Think about how you can become your reader’s best friend.
Here’s a few things you can do now:
Be generous. Show your love by sharing something valuable. And do it without expecting anything in return.
Expect the best. When you sit down to write, dig deep and share something awesome. You won’t always hit it out of the park, but you’ll definitely take better swings with that attitude.
Show up because you love the work, not because it’s an obligation. If it starts feeling like a chore, rekindle the spark that got you writing in the first place.
Find some other writers to get excited about. The journey is more fun when you’re not traveling alone.
Love your readers and they’ll love you back.
Then you can make friends as easily as man’s best friend. | https://frankmckinley.medium.com/5-powerful-lessons-my-dog-taught-me-about-writing-4af1290740d4 | ['Frank Mckinley'] | 2020-01-07 02:57:11.862000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Business', 'Creativity', 'Personal Development', 'Writing'] |
TWIN BABY (sometime MIRACLES come in pairs)… | Everyone loves kids. But twins are often the desire of many. But it is important to know who is at risk. In some cases, the pregnancy may occur suddenly. But for some, it is a difficult situation. There are also retailers who want twins when they want a baby. All parents want is a healthy and intelligent baby. Happiness doubles when you have twins.
There are some things that mothers need to take care of in order to have healthy children. Every parent wants a healthy baby boy or girl. But we can see who is likely to do this. Learn about medical ways to increase the risk of this.
About twins:
There are two types of twins. These include monozygotic twins and dysgygotic twins. The first category includes identical twins, which are identical twins. But the second category includes innate twins, which are not identical in appearance. When sperm and ovum combine to form sperm, the embryo divides into two to form twins. These are the ones that become similar to see. But dizygotic twins are two sperm that combine to form two eggs. That they bear no resemblance in any way.
Possibility of race:
There is a possibility of having twins depending on what race you belong to. This is because the race and color of a human being help to produce twins. Africans and Europeans have the highest potential for twins in the world. Those who belong to the Negro community are twice as likely to do so. But the Mongols are a group with very little chance of having twins. Indians have a 50:50 chance of having twins.
Science says that age is an important factor influencing the likelihood of twins. It is most common in people aged 30–35 years. This is because they produce more than one egg in a month. Therefore, the chances increase with age. But postponing pregnancy for twins is also dangerous. This can lead to more discomfort and sometimes infertility. When you feel the need to have a baby physically and mentally, you should try to conceive.
Delivery:
The chances of having twins increase based on how many births you have. Studies show that those who give birth to more than two children are more likely to have twins next. But this childbirth should be completed within 30–35 years. Otherwise it leads you to more complications. It is said that getting pregnant sooner rather than later after childbirth also increases the risk of having twins. Therefore, great care must be taken
Inheritance:
If someone in the family has twins, you too are more likely to have twins. This increases the risk, especially if it happened in your mother’s family. Inheritance is a big factor in the case of twins. One of the most essential of these is the tradition of the mother. In addition, proper ovulation increases the risk of twins. All of this requires a lot of attention.
Height and weight:
Health are essential for pregnancy. But height and weight need a lot of attention. This increases your chances of having twins. Larger women are more likely to have twins. The possibility of this can be found by calculating their body mass index. However, the possibility of having twins in short stature cannot be completely ruled out. Because we can take care of such things considering the health of these people.
In Vitro fertilization(IVF):
In those who seek infertility treatment, IVF often increases the risk of having twins. In IVF patients, two or three embryos are taken and implanted in the uterus for treatment. In some cases, both embryos grow and develop into twins. But science says it’s never healthy.
Diet also has the potential to increase the risk of twins. Chewing gum and sweet potatoes increase the risk of twins. In these, estrogen helps to increase the production of the hormone progesterone. That is what often increases your chances of having twins. It helps a lot in correcting ovulation and ovarian health. In addition it is important to eat a diet rich in folic acid, vegetables and dairy products. All of this increases the risk of twins.. | https://medium.com/@akarshagru/twin-baby-sometime-miracles-come-in-pairs-fbfc9c7d00a6 | ['Psylent Dart'] | 2020-07-19 13:40:59.087000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Women', 'Motherhood', 'Love', 'Pregnancy'] |
HIV Care for Trans Women | Transgender women living with HIV face many barriers that can prevent them from finding and remaining in care, and they are less likely than other populations to adhere to their antiretroviral medications.
The Fenway Institute published a guide on how providers can help trans women living with HIV remain in care and achieve better health outcomes. The guide explores the barriers that these patients face and the ways that healthcare professionals might help patients overcome them. The guide mentions discrimination and violence victimization, representation, financial barriers, and perceived negative effects of mixing hormone therapies and antiretroviral medications as some of the main reasons that patients might not continue care.
The guide provides suggestions for overcoming each of these barriers:
Discrimination and violence victimization
Transgender women are disproportionately the victims of hate violence and overall have less confidence than other patient populations in medical professionals’ ability to integrate HIV-treatment into their lives. The guide suggests that providers take a trauma informed approach with trans patients, which “places importance on the safety of the individual and attempts to cultivate a high level of trust and transparency with the patient.” Some other practical suggestions include changing intake forms so that patients can self-disclose both assigned sex at birth and gender identity and asking patients for preferred name, as this may differ from legal name.
Representation
Trans representation in healthcare settings can be an important way to make trans patients feel comfortable there. The guide suggests that providers include physical illustrations and signals, like rainbow flags and LGBT-specific pamphlets, that indicate that the practice treats individuals of all sexual orientations and gender identities. There is also a need for trans representation in research, and the results of such research should be communicated to the patients who it can benefit.
Financial barriers
Transgender people have higher rates of joblessness and poverty than cisgender people, so many trans women suffering from HIV may not have insurance to cover needed treatments. The guide indicates that there are not very many health centers that operate on a sliding scale, which limits the locations that these patients may be able to access. Further, for trans women who engage in sex work or other jobs without traditional hours, patients may not be able to make typical office hour appointments and may not get health care at all. The guide recommends that clinics offer alternate appointment slots and provide convenient transportation options so that these financial and logistical barriers do not interfere with trans women obtaining health care.
Hormones and antiretroviral medications
Many trans women worry that antiretroviral therapy will negatively affect hormone therapy and therefore show decreased adherence to their prescribed medications. The guide notes that previous studies have demonstrated that it is unlikely that the two medications interact, so providers should communicate this information to patients who may believe otherwise. Providers should still monitor for excess or deficient estrogen, as protease inhibitors may have these effects; this monitoring should improve compliance with medication regimens.
Ultimately, the guides suggests including HIV treatment in a broader context of “affirming, competent transgender health care.” This might require additional education and training for providers in either of those areas, but it should improve health outcomes for the many trans women who indicated that they’d like to receive co-delivered services for their hormonal and antiretroviral needs.
You can access the full guide from The Fenway Institute here: http://fenwayhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/TFIR46_RetainingTransgenderWomenInHIVCare_BestPractices_webready.pdf
You can learn more about the LGBTQ competency training services offered by QSPACES here: https://www.qspaces.org/lgbtq-training/ | https://medium.com/qspaces/hiv-care-for-trans-women-2ef6f996ebdc | ['Olivia Homer'] | 2018-05-08 11:56:01.059000+00:00 | ['Transgender', 'HIV AIDS', 'LGBTQ', 'Lgbt Health'] |
5 Easy Tips To Go Zero Waste | Seriously, these are so easy that you’ll never go back!
Photo by Laura Mitulla on Unsplash
This year my husband and I made a simple goal of going zero waste. Okay, maybe not simple, per se, but a very attainable goal with some very small changes to our routines. When living on the road you tend to use a lot of plastic, you shop in the sale aisle for food, and you cut a lot of corners when it comes to spending money. A lot of those corners end up in savings but also in a lot of waste. So, my husband and I made some changes and also ended up saving even more money both in the long term and short term (one of our goals is also to pay off debt and save money). So, here are some quick tips on how to go zero waste, help the environment, and save money in the process!
#1: Bring jars when you go grocery shopping.
Whether you are going to the farmers market, the grocery store, or the co-op — bring those jars! When you go to the store have the person in the checkout lane weigh and tare your jars for easy, sustainable, zero-waste shopping. Now, instead of buying packaged grains, pasta, spices, coffee, tea, nuts, dried fruit, flour, and even candy, you can instead buy in the bulk aisle. The bulk aisle is the best kept, money-saving secret in the grocery store. You can get almost anything you buy packaged in the bulk aisle for a way cheaper price and you can purchase and subsequently store in the same jar! I made these super cute ball jar storage options in our RV so that we can always shop sustainably.
Also, if you need something packaged and it’s not in bulk you can find almost always find a bulk alternative. If you’re forgetful, put your jars near your reusable bags or in your car so you don’t forget when you go to the store!
#2: Reusable bags, obviously.
It almost feels dumb mentioning reusable bags but I kind of have to because reusable bags are the easiest zero-waste change in your routine. I bring a bag literally wherever I go and if I forget them I will carry my stuff out and put it in my car loosey-goosey as punishment to myself (seriously, it helps me not forget). Reusable bags are not just for grocery shopping so throw them in your purse. You can use them at the mall, the hardware store, literally wherever you go that requires a bag. I always have multiples in my car and also at least one in my purse.
Also, get these reusable bags for your produce so you don’t use paper or plastic to package your produce at the grocery store.
#3: Stop shopping online.
I know this one is hard but stop shopping online (especially on Amazon, Bezos is seriously the worst). If you absolutely have to shop online shop from sustainable organizations or choose the “limit waste” option that some websites, like Glossier, have when you checkout. Shopping online not only creates waste with packaging but often you spend more money shopping online and you shop for more stuff because it’s so easy to spend more money or get click-happy when online shopping. How many times have you needed one thing but ended up buying ten? I mean, it happens to me whenever I online shop.
Now, I take the extra step to find whatever I need locally and also shop sustainably. Not shopping online is a huge money saver and you’ll definitely make less waste.
#4: Okay, this is for those of you who get periods, invest in a menstrual cup.
Did you know, that the average person who has a period uses approximately 20 pads or tampons per month which equals 240 per year, which over the average lifespan of a menstruating person (about 40 years of periods) gives us the grand total of 9,600 period-products used during one menstruating person’s lifetime? Now multiply that by every menstruating person on the planet and we have a pretty massive amount of avoidable waste.
A menstrual cup is a great alternative to other menstrual products. Also, if you are living on the road, that’s a ton of waste that you really don’t want to be carrying around with you. I use a Diva Cup and it’s been great! I honestly can’t recommend it enough, there are tons of menstrual or moon cups to choose from, here’s a handy list. Also, just as a plus, menstrual cups are way more comfortable and easier to wear than tampons and pads.
#5: Borrow items that you may only need to use once.
Honestly, this is a big one and it’s an easy solution to buying and accumulating things that I had never given too much thought or consideration to. Borrowing items that you may only need to use once is a great alternative to buying. For example, the other day I was sewing some curtains and I needed an iron and I was able to borrow one from my neighbor and return it later in the day. Often, people have the thing you need and truly don’t mind lending it out. Obviously, as a huge plus, borrowing items from your pals also results in you not having to buy that item, so you’re simultaneously saving money!
Bonus tip: If you must buy something, buy it second hand. Almost always the thrift store will have what you need at a cheaper price. | https://medium.com/the-human-condition/5-easy-tips-to-go-zero-waste-f707a59c855b | ['Alexandra Tsuneta'] | 2020-08-13 16:30:25.474000+00:00 | ['Vegan', 'Sustainable', 'Shopping', 'Environment', 'Zero Waste'] |
Criminal Justice is Rotten from the Cops to the Courts | By Jill Creech Bauer
The American criminal justice system is rotten to its core. What began as a noble pursuit based on the U.S. Constitution has devolved into a biased miasma where few participants feel that justice is served — even crime victims. The word “justice” should probably be replaced with something more accurate, like “swamp.” The process begins with racially charged arrests, continues with coercive and unethical interrogation techniques and ends with a dire statistic — only 2% of the accused take their cases to trial. This number — 2% — is not because the system gets prosecution right 98% of the time. It is because the values that criminal justice institutions were built on have been lost in the weeds. Lady Liberty must be shaking her head. She probably stashed the scales of justice in her closet and went on vacation.
During my stint as a public defender assigned to criminal cases in Flint, Michigan from 2006–2012, it did not take long for disillusionment to set in. Though not a full-time criminal attorney, I was appointed new cases every month. I had enough contact with the process to draw some conclusions. The following is based on my experience with a state court system in a medium-sized urban community, though I suspect these problems are exponentially worse in larger urban courts.
Black men are, without doubt, disproportionately targeted by police. Most of my clients were Black men under the age of 30. I was surprised how many were resigned to the reality that they will acquire a criminal record, deserved or not. “Catching a case” is an urban coming of age rite for men of color. So many of my clients had prior contact with the courts that if I had a client with a “clean record,” I could highlight this fact and successfully negotiate a better resolution simply because of it. (If you are interested in learning more about this topic, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is excellent.)
Most of the criminal complaints filed against my minority clients began with a “pretextual” traffic stop — a completely trumped up traffic “violation” that was used as a justification for pulling over a Black driver. One client was stopped for staying in the left lane (on a local, non-highway four-lane road) too long as he passed a slow-moving vehicle. As someone who lives in the left lane when I drive, this basis for pulling him over was among the most ridiculous I encountered. Incidentally, I cannot recall a single White client that was subjected to a pretextual stop.
The pretextual stop is used to pressure the accused into allowing the police to conduct a needless vehicle search. I say “needless” because a traffic violation does not create a reasonable basis to search a car. Whether the search is warranted or not, if a gun or drugs are found, the police can then arrest the driver and file criminal charges.
(Anecdotally, I lived in a predominantly-White suburb of Flint for several years and 90% of the time that I passed a car that had been pulled over by local police, it was being driven by a person of color. A Black man that I knew who worked near this community and regularly ate lunch a fast food restaurant located in the community told me that he was stopped half the time by police. He was in his 60s.)
These traffic strategies have been broadened to pedestrians. I had a 19-year-old client who was stopped and physically searched by the police because he was walking in the street — in a residential area — when a sidewalk was available. The police report did not mention that there were no streetlights on the block and that the street felt safer than the sidewalks which were lined with overgrown trees and bushes. The court accepted “walking in the street” as a basis to search the teenager and he ended up with a criminal case for the small amount of marijuana that he had in his pocket. My client’s White suburban counterpart would never have to worry about being stopped under similar circumstances.
Complaints about tactics that target people of color fall on deaf ears in the courtroom. Even if an attorney presents a valid legal challenge to a bogus traffic stop in district court — which is supposed to serve as a gatekeeper by determining if there is “probable cause” for the charges before they are allowed to survive — cynical judges rubber-stamp virtually every case and allow them to proceed to the trial court. Clients may challenge police officers’ lies and speak of misconduct and brutality, but judges either do not believe them or do not care. Even well-meaning judges are hamstrung from doing the right thing by the current state of pro-prosecution criminal law that extends immunity to law enforcement and prosecutors for unacceptable behavior.
The complicity surrounding racial bias runs through the court hierarchy from the bottom all the way to the top. There is no true justice in most cases, so Black clients and their attorneys must determine how to navigate a Catch-22 world and mitigate the damage the system can inflict. The decision about whether to enter a plea or challenge charges by taking them to trial is difficult for people of color. They are routinely grossly overcharged and this factor is coercive.
The process works like this. A litany of excessive criminal counts is lodged against a defendant and then a “reasonable” plea offer is made that is simply in line with the allegations in the police report — which may or may not be accurate. Plea offers do not truly represent any effort to cut an individual a break. If an innocent client chooses to challenge false charges in a probable cause hearing at district court, the prosecutor makes it clear that the plea offer will be withdrawn and that charges may be added if the challenge fails. And the challenge almost always fails.
Because it is virtually impossible to prevail on a probable cause hearing, the client is faced with a horrible choice — take the plea offer or go to trial and fight excessive charges. Juries are unpredictable. Juries in Flint are always predominantly White. Prosecutors have sneaky methods for removing potential Black jurors. I do not have statistics for Flint, but nationwide, Black jurors are excluded in 72% of cases.
Taking a case to trial creates a terrible risk of being convicted of an unwarranted crime and given an excessive sentence. All of my clients chose not to take that risk and instead decided to admit to a lesser charge, even if they were innocent or overcharged or had a valid legal defense. Pleading to a low-level felony or misdemeanor was more appealing than risking being sent to prison.
Judges are complicit at the plea stage. Pleas require people to make factual admissions that fit each element of a crime. Judges ignore or even assist in the acrobatics that defense attorneys and clients must engage in to provide an “adequate factual basis” for bogus pleas. If a questionable plea clears the case off the docket, the judges are happy to play their part.
I eventually became an appellate attorney and I learned another hard truth. Many clients who give pleas have an inaccurate belief that they can challenge their cases on appeal. Part of the calculation they make is that if they acquiesce to the problems posed at the trial court level just to get things over with, they can fix things later. But the appeal system is not really set up to right wrongs that are driven by racism that happen at the trial court level.
It is almost impossible to overturn a plea-based case in the Michigan Court of Appeals and I expect that this problem extends to other states. Even trial-based cases have little chance of favorable outcomes given the fact that cases are reviewed by a three-judge panel made up of individuals who may or may not have a background in criminal law. If an appellate judge does have criminal experience, it was most likely as a prosecutor — very few people coming from defense attorney backgrounds are appointed to judicial positions throughout all levels of the court system. This skews the entire body of law in a prosecutorial direction from the very bottom all the way to the top in state court systems because laws evolve, for the most part, from the decisions made in individual cases.
There are so many topics I could discuss that contribute to the victimization of accused people. I cannot cover them all in a single article. However, I will mention a few. As I said before, the criminal justice system is rotten from the get-go. Beyond the excessive tactics used during arrest, interrogations that occur at the jail are equally unethical. The accused are held for extensive periods of time and repeatedly interviewed without the requirement that these sessions be recorded; arrestees consistently report being subject to violence and intimidation. Suspects are subtly dissuaded from consulting with an attorney because “only guilty people need lawyers,” right? If the person is poor, then any appointed attorney will not be available until long after the interview has ended anyway.
Sometimes police pose as “friends” who just want to get to the bottom of things, but they are not seeking information to exonerate the accused — they are building a case and they will meet the accused at the bottom of the barrel that they “drown” them in. Officers apply psychological pressure and feed details to detainees until the accused taint their own statements. The police are legally allowed to lie to suspects to induce confessions. Once the interrogators are satisfied that the prisoner will say what they want to hear, only then will they turn on the recording equipment. Studies show that these coercive techniques are very effective and lead to false confessions that send innocent people to prison.
Once the interrogation is over, the case is turned over to a prosecutor. Prosecutorial misconduct is rampant and troubling because there is no remedy for it. Prosecutors receive absolute immunity for their actions that exceeds the immunity granted to the police. If a D.A. withholds evidence that can exonerate a defendant, there is no penalty. If one coerces a witness to testify to an inaccurate set of “facts” or threatens perjury charges for a witness who might have evidence that will help the defense so that the person will stay away from the courtroom, there is no way to hold the prosecutor personally accountable. Post-conviction claims of prosecutorial misconduct are rarely given serious consideration at the appellate level. Over 16,000 cases of prosecutorial misconduct have been identified since the 1970s; only 2% have met corrective action.
A disturbing tunnel vision on the part of police and prosecutors seems to overtake so many cases that it calls the entire system into question. It is mind-boggling how true this next statement is for violent crimes — closing a case and obtaining a conviction is much more important than finding the actual perpetrator. Yet locking the wrong person up puts the public at tremendous risk. When an innocent person is convicted, the failure to identify the true criminal allows further crimes to be committed. When the wrong person is behind bars, murderers and rapists walk the streets, allowed to harm additional victims. Listen to stories about exonerated individuals and you will see a pattern — the reason that the actual perpetrator is usually caught is their commission of additional crimes and victimization of additional people.
Beyond the actual risk to the community, wrongful convictions are expensive. When people are exonerated, they obtain multi-million-dollar payouts for the harm they have suffered by being falsely incarcerated. Public dollars pay that compensation.
The number of podcasts, TV shows and movies about the exoneration of innocent people who have served decades in prison has exploded. The Innocence Project has secured the release of people who have a combined total of 1600 years behind bars. If you want to get a sense of how corrupt and unjust the criminal justice system has been and still is, I highly recommend the Netflix series “The Innocence Files.” In fact, episode nine highlights a Michigan case that provides a terrible case of prosecutorial misconduct and now that prosecutor is a judge.
Not everyone who is victimized by wrongful or excessive prosecution has a high-profile case. Thousands of people serve short enough prison sentences that their cases do not garner assistance from organizations who help those seeking exoneration. Yet lower-level criminal convictions follow “ex-cons” for the rest of their lives and impact them in broad and practical ways, such as difficulty finding a job, obtaining public housing, getting student loans or even voting.
The murder of George Floyd has tragically proven that the complaints that Black people have voiced about their mistreatment by the police are valid. Examples of past and ongoing police violence emerge daily. Cell phones provide undisputed evidence that cannot easily be brushed aside. Continual protests have generated a level of scrutiny and political will that may force meaningful change to engrained systems. But the change cannot end at police reform. The entire chain of the criminal justice system must be broken down and rebuilt in a more just manner. That will take a long time. What can be done in the meantime to correct past injustice? I have three ideas that could make a difference. They will need to be refined, but I hope to begin a conversation.
CREATE CRIMINAL CONVICTION REVIEW PANELS
States should establish local panels to review criminal cases, beginning with incarcerated people, then branching out to people with criminal records who have served their time. The panels should be local and consist of representatives from the criminal defense bar, prosecutors and a diverse selection of citizens. All participants should go through racial bias training before the panels begin their work.
All defendants, regardless of race, who request a review must be appointed an attorney to review their cases. Any case that is deemed to have been racially biased or unfairly prosecuted should be re-investigated by the appointed attorney. (For example, cases based on junk science or eyewitness testimony that has no other corroboration should be scrutinized. These are just a couple of issues among the litany that has emerged in the past decade that call the legitimacy of old convictions into question.) The attorney should be provided resources, such a budget for necessary testing and expert review as well as an investigator. Once the case is prepared, it should be presented to the panel and the panel should have the power to end a sentence and erase a conviction. These panels would be in a position to distribute justice more quickly than appeals courts and would not be bound by the very restrictive process and rules that exist in the court system.
The panel system would require significant funding. Our society has woefully underfunded indigent criminal defense for decades. Dedicated public defenders exist, but they are the rare exception. Generally speaking, the only people who receive a fair shake in court are those who can afford to pay for one. This societal bill has come due and we need to invest in correcting the deeply-seated injustice that pervades American criminal justice.
We have not become the country that incarcerates at the highest rate in the world because we are willing to spend a proper amount of money to weed out the innocent from the guilty. (If you want to see the type of defense that everyone accused of murder should get, watch Kathleen Zellner in action in Season II of “Making a Murderer.” Almost no one in America gets the level of defense that she provides when they choose to take a case to trial. If Kathleen Zellner cannot get Stephen Avery a new trial, then the wrongfully convicted who rot away in prison do not have much hope of having their own egregious cases set right by the courts.)
And parole boards are not the answer. They are constricted by the criminal record that is presented to them, so if it contains a falsely constructed conviction, they cannot modify it. In fact, prisoners who maintain their innocence are disadvantaged from being granted parole because of a “lack of remorse.”
A review panel could move swiftly to cancel wrongful convictions, over-prosecutions and disproportionate sentences. The existing body of criminal law has moved so far beyond community values in so many ways that it would take decades to adjust criminal laws in meaningful ways to address the racism that saturates the system. Panels are a realistic way to provide a meaningful immediate remedy for those harmed by the status quo. The authority that panels would have already exists — it is called expungement and it allows judges to erase criminal records under strict and narrow circumstances. Panels could grant expungements on a broader scale and at a faster rate.
For those of you who might say that this idea is too expensive, I would point out that housing an inmate for a year costs between $31,000 and $60,000 depending on the state. Much of this money, nationwide, goes to private for-profit companies. (These companies lobby hard and pay through the nose to prevent widespread reform that would reduce prison populations.) This public money could be diverted to panels to improve lives, correct past errors and eventually create a net savings as panels could process an individual case for less than this annual per person cost, even given the expense of an attorney. If a 30-year-old who is wrongfully convicted of murder is released, the savings for a life span of 75 is over $2,000,000.
We need a speedy solution to this problem that has been festering for decades. Panels would work. They would be an efficient means to obtain justice for people who have been wrongfully convicted because of systemic racism or outdated prosecutorial techniques. They could quickly remove all of the barriers that a criminal record creates — literally and figuratively.
REFORM JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS
The U.S. must become better in addressing juvenile justice. If we continue to get it wrong, we will drive juvenile offenders toward continued criminal behavior well into adulthood. Juvenile justice systems in almost every state are still mired in outdated practices that tend to solidify youthful offenders into a life of crime rather than deter them from one. Treating a kid like a criminal makes them see themselves as a criminal. Research shows that punishment-based programs, such as bootcamps and scared-straight programs, have led to a proliferation of recidivism rather than a diminishment of continued criminal behavior. Incarcerating children, even for a short period of time, creates trauma that leads to the exact opposite of what one might expect — they are not “taught their lesson” so much as they are assured that they are bad.
Juveniles do not commit crimes in a vacuum. Policies must evolve to address the complexities of juvenile justice in meaningful ways in order to prevent youth offenders from growing into adult offenders. Utah is a model for juvenile reform that should be copied by other states. As of July 1, 2018, juvenile offenders in Utah cannot be locked up unless the crime fits a limited range of violent offenses. Juveniles who are deemed in contempt of court can only be locked up for 72 hours. In most states, juveniles can be locked up for months or even years for low-level offenses.
Instead of harsh punishment, juvenile offenders in Utah receive intensive probation services that have a positive focus. Youth participate in cognitive behavioral therapy. The focus of treatment is to meet the youngster’s needs and replace poor decision-making skills with positive problem-solving tools. Instead of receiving a night in lock-up, probationers might receive the eyeglasses or shoes or coat that they need from the court. All fines and costs are based on family income. It is too soon to compile statistical results that prove the wisdom of this radical overhaul, but the Utah system is aligned with research and best practices and takes evolving brain research into account..
Brain research from the past two decades has solidified the fact that making 18 the age of adulthood is arbitrary. The human brain does not fully develop until age 25. Individuals who experience trauma may take even longer to fully mature. California has put this research into practice in the most progressive way that I have seen — offenders with life sentences who were 23 or younger when they committed their crime were entitled to a review of their sentence that would be informed by developmental information.
Other states fought reform and begrudgingly conducted reviews of “lifer” convictions for people who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crime only after the U.S. Supreme Court required them to. States have not been willing to embrace the logical application of the research beyond that. As a society, we need to change the definition of juvenile offender to cover people age 25 and under.
We have become a society that criminalizes too much across the spectrum. This especially shows up in juvenile justice. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, if kids got into a fight at school, the school and the parents worked things out. Now the police will be involved — often one of them is already on staff at the school — and the kids will acquire a criminal record. It is the same with marijuana and alcohol. When my generation experimented with these substances, we usually did not get arrested if we were caught. If we engaged in normal teenage sexual behavior, we did not become a sex offender for the rest of our lives. Kids these days are subject to over-policing and this trend needs to be rolled back. The criminalization of normal youthful behavior does more harm than good.
REDUCE THE NUMBER OF CRIMINAL STATUTES
The “tough on crime” mentality has driven an explosion of legislation that has expanded the opportunity to engage in criminal behavior to a level that has been tough on all of us. Some of this is driven by the desire to cut taxes. Lower revenues reduce the amount of public dollars available to fund services. The system must make up for this lost revenue. Collecting fines and costs from “criminals” is a way to bridge the gap. We need to fund the system from outside the system so that the incentive to issue more criminal complaints disappears.
This is simply my opinion, but I suspect that the slow crawl toward criminalizing more behavior over a few decades causes people to be anxious; it weakens our sense of community. Instead of working things out amongst ourselves, we just call the police for every minor conflict. Laws that determine what is criminal needed to be vetted and thinned back to a more essential level.
As a society, we have access to so much more information about scientific analysis and human behavior and development than we had when the body of law that we are currently saddled with developed. New research — information that often supports a complete upheaval — trickles in and adjusts the law at a glacial rate. Shaken Baby syndrome is an excellent example. Studies that were conducted after people convicted of this crime had been in jail for a decade completely exonerated them by exposing the fact that the original “expert” testimony was completely inaccurate. Yet the innocent people convicted of this crime were not immediately released. It takes years to go through the process of challenging convictions in the courts, even in a situation like this.
Another example is the current attitude toward sex-trafficking. Sex workers are now more likely to be viewed as victims than criminals — especially if they are underaged. This change may be preventing new convictions, but there are still women who are incarcerated or labeled criminal from this work who would benefit from having their cases reviewed. Similarly, the dynamics of domestic violence are better understood, but there are women who killed their abusers in self-defense serving life sentences. They should have the opportunity to have their cases re-evaluated through the lens of modern research about the psychology of domestic violence.
We need a means to correct the circumstances of wronged individuals more quickly. There are flickers of hope, but the system needs to catch fire. People who have been negatively impacted by an unjust criminal “justice” system do not have the time — nor should they be asked — to wait for slow reform. We, as a society, need to move quickly to reset the system for those currently suffering under it and then continue this reform by advocating for change in the law, which we know will take much longer. Let’s perform triage on this sick system by creating local conviction review panels. We can schedule the system for surgery at a later date.
Check out The Nine Lives of John Aslin by Jill Creech Bauer, the true story of an Ojibwe man who has been incarcerated in Michigan for 36 years for a nonviolent crime that caused an unintended death. Sign the petition to “Free John Aslin” on change.org | https://medium.com/@authorjillcreechbauer/criminal-justice-is-rotten-from-the-cops-to-the-courts-a3fd5b971a58 | ['Jill Creech Bauer'] | 2020-07-14 06:16:28.485000+00:00 | ['Court Reform', 'Institutional Racism', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Criminal Justice Reform', 'Prison Reform'] |
Are Israel and the United States wanting to assault Iran? | Iran and Israel have a long history of ill will. The different sides in the contention, yet the United States is the third-biggest partner in Israel. During Donald Trump’s administration, Iran went under expanding pressure. He has forced various arms and monetary assents. The US has killed key figures in Iranian governmental issues, for example, General Qasem Sulaimani who was murdered in an airstrike this year.
The death of Qasem Soleimani, has detonated the cerebrum of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and all other Shiite pioneers and raised their antagonism toward the United States and pledged to fight back against the United States and its partners. In the interim, Israel is entangled in an unpleasant contention over the battle in Syria with Iran. Israel has promised to assault Iran’s atomic framework, including delicate regions of Iran’s atomic weapons industry.
Israel had trusted that president G.W. Shrubbery would dispose of Iran’s atomic offices before he leaves office, yet when Obama was chosen it arose that the atomic intensity of the Iranian system was developing which stressed Israel. As opposed to the ongoing Donald Trump organization, it has arisen that it will arrange US military activity against Iran or permits Israel to assault the Iranian system.
There have been past plans by Israel to intentionally assault Iran’s vital partners in the Middle East, as a component of its new procedure of stifling its long-term adversary. However, the Islamic Republic cautions of the critical outcomes of the counter. The plans come as a component of a system for re-arranging the five-year Israeli military called “Force”, which intends to forestall the individuals who contradicted all through the locale, especially Iran.
Indications of Trump’s goal to dispatch a military strike on Iran incorporate the terminating of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper a week ago and changes to other top Pentagon authorities. As indicated by reports, Trump needed Esper to venture down; so he could undoubtedly take part in a questionable military movement that might be against Iran.
In the interim, there is an immediate connection between the US and Israel, particularly with regard to the Iranian issue. Elliott Abrams, Iran’s top agent, was in Israel this week for chats with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be here one week from now for three days to proceed with those discussions.
The entirety of this appears as though a rehash of what occurred in 2008 just as in 2012 when Israel likewise appeared to be on the edge of an assault on Iran. That said Netanyahu truly needed to assault in 2012, he at last neglected to get uphold from the bureau. Remember that Israel’s assault on Iran is perplexing to such an extent that it is constantly observed by the IDF as the last decision. What’s more, there are signs that a potential war, for example, reinforcing the North’s military exercises or planning for an assault on the Iranian system. | https://medium.com/@ahmadtan740/are-israel-and-the-united-states-wanting-to-assault-iran-71cfaa753e30 | [] | 2020-11-16 08:14:11.119000+00:00 | ['Middle East', 'Iran', 'United States', 'Israel'] |
What the World Can Learn From Africa’s Covid-19 Response | What the World Can Learn From Africa’s Covid-19 Response
The Lagos government conducts community testing and search samples for eligible cases in order to contain Covid-19 cases in Nigeria. Photo: Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto/Getty Images
The United States has had a less than successful handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. From the government response to individual protests, the American response has abounded with politics and failures that have led to unfortunately high fatalities.
While the U.S. has floundered, other countries have succeeded. Many have praised the response from countries like New Zealand and Singapore, but other countries, particularly in Africa, have done well, too.
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https://test.activesilicon.com/vdl/video-molde-v-sarpsborg-08-v-no-no-1gwj-19.php
https://cartaodosus.info/video.php?video=video-Colchester-Morecambe-v-en-gb-iiy-.php
http://mileno.provecracing.com/oyv/video-Partick-Thistle-Peterhead-v-en-gb-1une-2.php
http://mid.actiup.com/nzm/video-borussia-mg-v-hoffenheim-1899-v-de-de-1wrg-3.php
https://test.activesilicon.com/vdl/Video-Molde-Sarpsborg-08-v-en-gb-1lgz-19.php
http://mileno.provecracing.com/oyv/Video-Partick-Thistle-Peterhead-v-en-gb-1gsd-11.php
http://amik.closa.com/unx/Video-Pogon-Szczecin-Zaglebie-Lubin-v-en-gb-1sry-7.php
Africa’s Covid-19 response includes many lessons that “first world countries” could benefit from implementing.
If you stay ready, it takes less to get ready
Few countries have escaped the grasps of pandemic outbreaks, yet many have readily forgotten the realities of these health crises. The United States had the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, yet disbanded dedicated pandemic response teams in 2018. Conversely, African countries retained the health systems used for previous pandemics.
“Much of the success was attributable to the public health infrastructure that had been put in place before now. The emergency coordination structures— from the national to the state and below—were already there,” explains Chizoba Wonodi, MD, MPH, DrPH, director of Nigeria programs at the Johns Hopkins’ International Vaccine Access Center.
For example, much of the contact tracing measures implemented in countries like Nigeria drew from the experience of contract tracing for the previous Ebola outbreak response and from the emergency operating centers used for polio, Wonodi says.
“[The African] system of health already is inclined more toward these communicable diseases as opposed to a lot of other countries,” explains Javed Ali, MD, the International Medical Corps director of emergency response, Africa region. He adds that aspects of surveillance, reporting, and data collection are ingrained in many aspects of primary health care in a way that is not necessarily as common in the United States.
Leaderships needs cohesive, clear, and united messaging
While U.S. politicians differed widely on their opinions related to Covid-19 management, politicians in Africa struck a unified tone. African citizens got consistent messaging from the government and public health leadership.
“Africa’s response demonstrated African unity,” says Daniel Fagbuyi, MD, Obama administration public health/biodefense appointee and an emergency physician. “They were very cohesive,” he adds. “Leaders were working together, collaborating, and communicating. They were able to orchestrate a better response than even some of the high-powered and wealthy Western countries, including the United States.”
Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), led by Director John Nkengasong, collaborated with government officials from the African Union countries to develop the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for Covid-19 Outbreak and the African Union Covid-19 Response Fund.
Ali adds that joint partnership also created the African Medical Supplies Platform which helped ensure that medical equipment, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), could equitably be distributed across countries in the region.
The African response also benefited from communication that its citizens could readily understand.
“Africa is well acquainted with risk communication because of Ebola. They were able to implement those risks and risk mitigation modalities in local languages, understandable to people,” Ali says.
“[The response] wasn’t piecemeal as opposed to what happened in the United States and other countries where they’re having the discussion back and forth, whether you should be wearing a mask, whether we should lock down or not. Science ruled, they realized, and they did not take things for granted,” adds Fagbuyi.
Citizens should promote the collective good over individual autonomy
A significant hindrance to the U.S. Covid-19 response emerged from the dissent among American citizen’s beliefs relating to the severity of the disease and prevention tactics.
“There was good buy-in by [African] citizens, meaning their citizens were willing to actually listen to their governments and their leaders,” Fagbuyi explains.
The overwhelming majority of the 54 African nations implemented partial or full shutdowns and mandated African nations use masks in public spaces. Countries like Morocco even threatened jail sentences for mask-use violations.
When it comes to stringent rules, “it may not necessarily always be welcome, but it is acceptable, and they will follow those types of rules,” adds Fagbuyi. “While in the U.S., our autonomy takes precedence [over community].”
Wonodi explains that Nigeria offered an isolation and treatment center that allowed Covid-19 positive individuals to quarantine and receive care without personal cost.
Simple public health measures matter as much as medical innovations
An overreliance on treating disease versus preventing them can do more harm than good, experts say. Many African countries’ health systems have a strong focus on prevention.
“High-tech medicine is great, advanced diagnostics and therapeutics are great, they should not exist at the detriment of good old public health,” Wonodi says.
Nigeria did not have enough ventilators, Wonodi recounts. Yet they implemented robust public health measures early on, such as monitoring ports of entry, screening arrivals, collecting contact information of international arrivals for contact tracing, and closing their borders. This gave the country a head start in curtailing importation and transmission of the infection and contributed to their lower case counts as compared to countries with more advanced medical technology.
Africa does have certain intrinsic differences from the United States that could explain some of the successes. Compared to North America, Africa has a younger population and a lower prevalence of chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes. According to Wonodi, other immunological and environmental factors may also be a factor in explaining the lower rates of cases and fatalities.
Still, the lessons can apply.
The West has often viewed African health initiatives through a savior lens; that the West needs to teach Africans about health care yet not the reverse. The truth is global health care is a symbiotic relationship. Learning lessons from the strong African response could help the United States achieve a better Covid-19 response. | https://medium.com/@weel.matouk2/what-the-world-can-learn-from-africas-covid-19-response-a7ff15145307 | ['Weel Matouk'] | 2020-12-20 05:41:55.456000+00:00 | ['Babies', 'Health', 'Humor', 'Life', 'Coronavirus'] |
A Bizarre Case of Spontaneous Combustion | A haunting piece of history fit for Halloween
Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. Library of Congress.
In 1829, doctors in Lexington, Kentucky, examined a case of spontaneous combustion after a local resident mysteriously burned in her home.
The episode was recorded in Transylvania University’s Journal of Medicine and Associate Sciences and was investigated by Dr. Charles W. Short, a Lexington physician and botanist who taught at the university’s medical school. Short, who co-founded the Journal of Medicine in 1828, was called “a learned botanist, and an accomplished physician and teacher.” This case was likely the strangest of his career.
Short’s position at the college certainly qualified him to examine medical mysteries. At the time, Transylvania University was one of the most respected medical colleges in the United States. Moreover, Lexington was a western center of learning and refinement which had earned the nickname “The Athens of the West.” The city, which included more than six thousand residents, boasted thriving businesses, influential churches, the first library and newspaper in Kentucky, and prominent national leaders like Henry Clay.
Henry Clay. Library of Congress.
The university also helped bolster Lexington’s solid reputation. Founded in 1780, by the time Short investigated his case the school had 317 students, including 114 in the college and 203 in the medical department. News about the school frequently made national headlines. When the main college building burned that May, newspapers around the country urged donations to the school. Another article published that year, which announced the beginning of medical lectures, made the New York Evening Post.
Upon investigating the case, Dr. Short determined that the unfortunate victim was “aged sixty-five or seventy years” and weighed approximately 120 pounds. Her health had been “impaired” by “her late habits,” which included her addiction “to the intemperate use of ardent spirits — the drink more commonly used by her was whiskey distilled from corn.”
On the night of November 15, 1829, the victim was last seen out drinking before returning home, where she lived alone. Several hours later, a neighbor smelled a burning, “unpleasant odour.” Fearful that his smokehouse was on fire, the neighbor checked his property. He also searched around the victim’s house, but there was no sign of a fire.
Late the next morning, neighbors noticed that the woman’s house was locked up and that the curtains were still drawn. According to Dr. Short, “suspicions of mischief arose in the minds of the neighbours, and the door was broken open.”
Witnesses were shocked at what they found. The doctor reported that “a dense smoke issued from the room, the floor adjoining the fire-place and something upon the hearth were discovered to be on fire; water was thrown upon them, and then a black substance was perceived lying on the hearth, which was ascertained to be the remains of the unfortunate woman; so much consumed however, and so disfigured by the fire, as to be mistaken at first for a stick of wood.”
In his report about the incident, Dr. Short explained the woman’s condition in great detail, including the portions of her corpse that remained intact and her limbs that had been consumed by the fire. He added that “the entire remains of the body would probably not have exceeded the weight of thirty pounds.”
It was also noted that “a small Irish potatoe” was still in a pot on the hearth while the poplar fireplace was “burnt in the middle immediately above the body.” Furthermore, behind the victim, “the ash flooring had taken fire and was burning at the time of the discovery.”
While modern forensic science would probably discover a logical reason behind the woman’s death — her dress could have ignited while cooking or she could have died from other causes and fallen into the fire, for example — readers surely gleaned a moral lesson from Short’s analysis. The woman’s health had been in decline from imbibing too much whiskey. Furthermore, prior to her demise she had engaged in that habit which, readers might infer, contributed to her fiery death.
In fact, in supposed cases of spontaneous combustion, writers frequently highlighted victims’ alcoholism and turned the investigations into morality plays.
The same year as the Lexington case, a woman in France reputedly died in the same fashion. Newspapers reported that the remains of “Marie Drignan, widow of Ferand,” were discovered after neighbors smelled “an empyreumatic odour, like that of a burnt horn.” Drignan “was found almost entirely burned, and what remained of her corpse was still burning.” She, too, was supposedly a heavy drinker. Therefore, her doctors concluded, her body became full of hydrogen after she drank too much alcohol, and a nearby candle ignited the gas that was emitting from her body.
The “habit of intemperance” was also blamed for Ann Smith’s death.
A year later in North Carolina, an African American woman named Ann Smith — also an alleged alcoholic — was said to have spontaneously combusted. “We understand that she was so badly burnt, that her intestines fell out before she died,” a newspaper reported. Again, the media highlighted the victim’s alcohol abuse.
Dr. Short provided few conclusions about the Lexington case. Therefore, the incident left residents scratching their heads as to how their unfortunate fellow citizen died. Yet, her death served as a grim warning for the intemperate. By blaming her demise on alcohol consumption, one writer warned, “her end is a solemn warning to all, who indulge in the use of ardent spirits. The circumstance of her being so entirely consumed, can be accounted for, only by her system having become highly inflammable by the excessive use of alcohol.”
Consume alcohol, the cases warned, and your body would be literally consigned to the flames.
Stuart W. Sanders is the author of four books, including the forthcoming “The Ohio Belle Murder: Vigilante Justice in 19th Century America,” which will be published in March 2020. | https://stuartwsanders.medium.com/a-bizarre-case-of-spontaneous-combustion-1caa17efca0 | ['Stuart W. Sanders'] | 2019-10-26 13:49:31.588000+00:00 | ['Lexington', 'Forensic Science', 'Halloween', 'History', 'Kentucky'] |
Dart backend - REST API by Example | Photo by Kelvin Ang on Unsplash
Ever wondered if you can use your Dart code on your backend? Reusing code is a best practice, allowing the same code to run on multiple platforms will lead to reduced maintenance, time to market, and stress.
In this tutorial, we will build a web server with a REST API in Dart allowing a caller to get JSON data from your Server. Our Dart backend REST API will support the following features:
CORS configuration
Server-side sorting
Server-side paging
Hosted via Nginx (as a back proxy)
Preface
Dart SDK installed
Follow the steps shown below to get the Dart SDK installed. In case you have Flutter 1.21 or newer installed you don’t have to install the Dart SDK as it is included in Flutter.
Any IDE you like
I will use Visual Studio Code (working on Linux), any IDE will work as you just have to edit text (of course, if you want to debug you need something compatible with Dart). A list with possible options can be found here.
Get your project ready
To get you a head start, download the following project from my GitHub page, we will use it in this tutorial. You can either use the download button on GitHub or run the below command in a shell/command window (you will need to have Git installed):
Run the git clone command
How to create a dart project?
We will use the above-mentioned repository in this tutorial, but you might ask yourself: “How can I get a new project template?”
Like Flutter, Dart offers a command line interface to generate project templates:
dart create -t [PROJECT_TYPE] [PROJECT_NAME]
Help text for dart create
If you would like to create a Dart console app and name it helloWorld the command would be the following:
dart create -t console-full helloWorld
Dart.dev has some further details and step-by-step guides about this topic.
Structure of the project
Let’s check out the project you downloaded from GitHub, we will start with the files in the root folder of the project:
pubspec.yaml
Like Flutter, Dart uses .yaml files to track and configure dependencies and project details. The example projects have two dependencies: path and pedantic.
The first one is needed to read data from a file.
Pedantic is a development dependency, that means it’s used during the development process and is not needed to use the final application.
Supported by Pedantic you will get notified if your code violates any style guides or has other short comes, simple said it supports you to write clean code.
analysis_options.yaml
This file is used by Pedantic (the code analytic development dependency) to know what kind of rules you would like to apply. The file is configured to use the default rules. The configuration can be adjusted if needed.
LICENSE & README.md & .gitignore
GitHub/Git related files, not needed for our Dart backend project.
The bin folder
Inside the bin folder you will find the complete code of the application. The tutorial will cover the details below, quick overview:
serveTestData.dart — The main Dart file, including the code for the REST API
data.json — Our data storage, the data inside will be used to answer requests
company_contact.dart — the model class that will be used to read the JSON data
Let’s build a web-server
The first step for any Dart or Flutter application you check out from Git should be to restore the packages (the packages are not in the Git repository). Run the following command inside the root folder of the project:
dart pub get
Once you downloaded the dependencies, you can directly start the project, either using your IDE or via the following command:
dart run
If all is correct, you will see two prompts in the console/IDE output window:
The web server has started, found the data file and is waiting for requests
Now open a browser of your choice and open the URL shown in the output or copy the one below:
http://127.0.0.1:4044
Result of requesting data in a browser
Please note: The web server will start listing to requests only from your computer (localhost) on port 4044. If this port is already in use the application will print an error and exit.
The code
Great, the project is running! Now, let’s make sure to understand how it is working in detail. Open the serveTestData.dart file.
Inside the file you will find four sections (marked with comments):
Four sections inside the serveTestData.dart file
Section 1
In the beginning, I mentioned that we want to ship data from a JSON file. This section builds up the path to this file automatically when the Dart web server starts.
The path package from pub.dev enables you to interact with file paths and create matching ones for the operating system you are using. Check out line 5, that’s where I import the package and rename it to path.
Section 2
Our REST API needs to answer to the client — to accomplish this the class ResponseModel is used. The class always contains the amount of total rows as an integer and a list of CompanyContact objects.
CompanyContact is a custom class located in the company_contact.dart file and is used as DTO (data transfer object) in our Dart REST API.
Section 3
The REST API should support server-side sorting and paging, to-do, so it needs to know how to sort the data based on the request of a client.
To keep the code simple the REST API uses a numeric index to decide what property of the data should be sorted. Dart offers a handy function called compareTo that does the sorting for us. All decisions in the code are done by a single Dart switch case statement.
To make sure the REST API works also without a specific sorting the code uses the ID property as a fallback in case nothing was requested by the client.
To enable the client to decide if the data should be ascending or descending ordered at the end, the result of the compareTo needs to be multiplied by -1 to turn the default ascending method to descending.
To briefly explain the compareTo (from the Dart documentation):
compareTo(this,other) returns a negative integer if this is ordered before other , a positive integer if this is ordered after other , and zero if this and other are ordered together.
Section 4
Inside section 4 you will find the main functions, the start of the application. Dart backend projects will always start inside this function.
Get the data ready
One of the first things that will happen is that our web server will read the complete file with example data into its memory. The path that was built in Section 1 is now used. This happens only once during the startup, in case the file is missing an error will be printed and the application will stop working.
Bind the web server
The next step will configure and start the web server. The server gets connected to your local loopback IPV4 address (fancy for localhost or 127.0.0.1) on port 4044. This all happens with the call to HttpServer.bind in line 16. In case port 4044 is already in use (or anything else goes wrong) our Dart backend code will print an error and stop the application.
If all works out you will see the messages that the code is now listing for incoming requests.
Handle incoming requests
From this point on the web server is running and waiting for incoming connections. Thanks to the way how Streams work in Dart all you need to do is an async For loop to get new requests.
A new request was received
Once you open the URL (long version, if you send an HTTP GET request to the URL of our Dart backend REST API) the code will go into the for loop.
The first thing that happens is setting the contentType of the response to JSON. This is done to inform the client that we will talk JSON to him.
Followed by another HTTP header to set CORS rules, quick version this allows a browser to use the API even if it is hosted on a different URL (I covered this a bit in the following article):
After all HTTP Headers are in place the code will check the request query parameters. Our backend server supports four parameters:
offset — the amount of data entries that should be skipped
— the amount of data entries that should be skipped pageSize — the number of elements the client would like to get back
— the number of elements the client would like to get back sortIndex — the numerical index of the column to sort the data (see Section 2)
— the numerical index of the column to sort the data (see Section 2) sortAsc — The order to sort the data (see Section 2)
All the above query parameters are optional, in case they are missing a default value is used. In case a request contains an incorrect value for one of the parameters, for example text instead of a number, the request will fail with a 500 server error. Of course, this part could be improved with a proper error messages and the right HTTP code 400 to inform the caller he made an error.
Get the data to the client
Once the request parameters are checked it’s time to sort the data before we apply the offset and page size. It is required to do this as the first step to make sure we get the right data, If you sort the data by name and then take the first 50 rows you will get a different result as if you sort the data by phone numbers.
Once the data is sorted, the code “writes” the response to the client.
Thanks to the build in skip and take methods of List the paging is done quickly. The last step is to wrap the response in our DTO (Section 2) and encode it to JSON with jsonEncode. Dart has a built-in to JSON conversion, JSON data is handled as a Map<String,dynamic>.
The last line of our for loop is closing the response and finally sending the data to the client.
Complete section 4 code
Live example
The complete code is running online, give it a try and checkout a few examples:
https://example.devowl.de
This will give you the first 10 rows sorted ascending by the ID property.
https://example.devowl.de/?sortIndex=2&sortAsc=0&offset=100&pageSize=50
Running the above request will sort the data by the CompanyName property in descending order. The first 100 records will be skipped, and 50 records will be returned.
If you try the URL below, you will get an HTTP 500 error, the value “foobar” is not a valid number for the pageSize:
https://example.devowl.de/?sortIndex=2&sortAsc=0&offset=100&pageSize=foobar
To see the system in action used as a backend of an application, check out my post about server side data tables in Flutter:
Or head directly to the running Flutter Web application:
What’s next?
Play around with the code, you could exchange the state file backend and replace it with SQLite, checkout Moor if you want to go this way.
Another change to the code could be the error handling inside the API. The best practice for web API’s would be to return proper error codes to the client.
Sorting and paging is nice but what about server side filters? Change the code to only return company’s that start with an A or phone numbers from Germany (+49).
Hope I could showcase you how to use Dart on the backend and create a simple REST API. Feel free to comment and clap ☺ | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/dart-backend-by-example-rest-api-a8a1004dc705 | ['Christian Muehle'] | 2021-05-16 21:48:27.114000+00:00 | ['How To', 'Backend', 'API', 'Dart', 'Rest'] |
When Black Folk Are “Middle Class” and White Folk Are Not “Privileged” | While we hear political pundits talk about the mythical “angry white voter” or Trump supporter, we never hear about why these white folk are angry. What we are living through is a type of American language that does not line up with American history or its current present.
Downloaded from Amazon.com
When I last posted, I talked about cookbooks and synonyms. As an English doc/professor/nerd, there are times when I am going to pay close attention to the language. As a reader of this blog, there are times when you have run across a number of my typos. I am accustomed to writing EVERYTHING on a legal pad first, then typing them. Yes, I love handwriting and paper and ink and inkpens and markers and calligraphy and even those feather tip deals that you see when you watch Restoration/Victorian era pieces and sealing wax. There is nothing more beautiful than classic cursive in a fine tip pen! So, drafting totally on the computer is a new experience for me and I am not as mindful of my words and letters when I am typing as when I see the letters flow from my pencil/pen and onto the yellow pages of my legal pad. As time progresses and I blog more often, I am becoming accustomed to the sterility of my computer screen and the impersonal nature of the keyboard and the typos are becoming less frequent.
With that said, I also pay close attention to the way people use language. And when I hear politics and pundits talk about “angry white voters” without giving us the reason behind the anger, that sends bells and whistles off for me. And what we are living through, is a crisis of synonyms. In academic social science, in America’s popular imagination, in most news reporting, and in most political discussions Black has become synonymous with “poor” or “underprivileged” and white is synonymous with “middle class.” There is no space in our national media language for “Black middle class” or “white underprivileged,” yet both of these classes of people exist in America today. There are people on television who keep yelling about white privilege, but there may be some person in Appalachia, a white person, who believes that he should be privileged and has done all of the right things as a white man to be privileged and is on food stamps. He drives to the local grocery store and meets a highly educated Black woman who teaches at the university with children in a private school whose clothes cost more than his monthly salary, and he becomes angry. Since he has done everything right in his whiteness, he becomes angry. At who? And for what? Well, his local conservative radio host tells him — the minorities who are using programs such as affirmative action to take opportunities away from him and his children. Blame those people who he can see every day, and not the invisible and inequitable government structures that were never set up for people like him to succeed.
In his book, Angry White Men (2012), Kimmel puts this quite bluntly. The appeal to Trump was a direction of anger to somewhere. It was almost like that river of slime on Ghostbusters II. People bought into white supremacy the way that it was sold to them during slavery: a linguistic package with an awful practice. America, when it was first founded, was governed by wealthy British men. Its laws were actually built upon the British system. With the British governing system came British ideas about class. The only ideas different from the British were ideas that separated church from state…legally. Yet, religious prejudices remained in early colonial America. The Puritans and the Quakers HATED one another in America the same as the Anglicans and the Catholics HATED one another in Britain. In fact, the Puritans persecuted the Quakers. The Puritans believed that their religion should be the only religion and felt that the Quakers were heretics. They harassed the Quakers the same way that the British harassed the Catholics and banned them from all government and civic life at one point.
Economically, colonial America’s wealthy British men used poor whites, Native Americas, and Africans as indentured servants. America was about class and not race. As a matter of fact, emigration to America was used to alleviate the overcrowded burroughs of poor people in Britain’s larger cities. Australia was a prison colony at one point. It was only after the poor whites rebelled against their wealthier overlords that British men in American decided that it would make Africans, with their Black skin that was easier to identify, synonymous with “poor.” And we have been stuck there ever since.
Writing in The Source of Self Regard (2019)in the essay, “The Foreigner’s Home,” Toni Morrison describes how the erasure of the white poor leaped from slavery to the modern press. The vehicle was minstrelsy and the black mask that white performers wore (oddly, while Black social scientists spend exorbitant amounts of energy studying the masks that Black folk wear, it has been English majors who study the masks that white folks wear. We call it Whiteness Studies). Morrison writes:
“ In this fashion, the black mask permitted freedom of speech and created a place for public, national dialogue. For whites that is. On the other hand, the mask hid more than it revealed. It hid the truth about black humanity, views, intelligence, and most importantly, it hid the true causes of social conflict by transferring that conflict to a black population. Without going into the growth, transformation, and demise of minstrelsy (a demise that was simply an enhancement in and a transfer to another site — film, for example), suffice it to say that its strategy is still useful and its residue is everywhere. The spectacle of a black and signifying difference taught to an illiterate white public (via minstrelsy) became entrenched in a literate public via the press. It was a way of transforming organic ignorance into manufactured error, so the political representation of the interests of the white poor is and remains unnecessary” (Morrison 37–38, emphasis Morrison, boldface mine).
White people were indentured servants. They chopped tobacco. They picked cotton. Right alongside slaves. And while slaves worked for no wages, white folk worked for pitiable wages that kept them on the edges of starvation. It is not something that we write or teach about, and it is not something that we talk about. After the slaver, the anxieties of having to compete with this body of labor drove the American Holocaust. And the spectacle that was minstrelsy ensured that the politicians that supposedly led poor whites and had their best interests in mind NEVER had to actually follow through on any promises made to them during campaigns. They never had to actually even discuss poor whites. All they had to do was race bait.
Quick aside. What is minstrelsy? I’m glad you asked. Here’s an example:
To me, this has nothing to do with the way Black folk look, sound, or behave and everything to do with white people’s anxieties. But minstrelsy is one of the major reasons why Black folk try so hard to distance themselves from ANYTHING that reminds them of their agrarian pasts: “country” dialects, “country” clothing, “country” metaphors, “country” similes, “country” cooking. Minstrelsy made fun of Black folks’ skin color, hair texture, eyeball whiteness, lip thickness, and even teeth whiteness. I don’t let it bother me, because Vizine is an essential beauty tool, dentists make thousands of dollars whitening teeth, and reality tv stars have set a new record for lip injections in 2020. So, I’ll keep my “country” dialect, my “country” cooking, my “country” language, and my “country” clothing. Shame surrounding all of these things are “white people problems,” as my students say, and not mine.
Race-baiting often covered the class issues that continue to rot the roots of the American democratic tree. The appearance of a Black caricature in legitimate press outlets such as The Atlanta Journal Constitution led to the disappearance of the white poor from the imaginary body politic. White newspapers carried gory details of lynchings with such gusto, that Ida Bell Wells reminded them, while she was on tour in Britain, that she used their words, and not her own, to inform the English public of the barbarity taking place in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” Feeling ashamed of their minstrel-like, but very real coverage of the latest lynching, Memphis’ Commercial Appeal, hired and paid a Black man to travel to England and try to discredit Wells. But, the damage had been done by their own words. Wells, always the astute writer, wrote an article high-lighting great Black men who backed her work while disparaging sniveling, money-grabbing cowards like the one who took money to go against a woman of his own race.
Young Ida B. Wells from Women’s History Museum
Race-baiting was effective in hiding money-moving and power-grabbing by the South. Today, having the words “poor” and “under-privileged” be synonymous with “Black” ensures that we never have to address the economic inequalities encoded in America’s late capitalist system, and we can continue to blame COVID-19 for a “k-shaped” recovery that has characterized our economy since Regan sold his condescending “trickle-down” ideology. Those two synonyms for Black (and do not get me wrong, there are poor Black people) stand-in at all times for “Black” simply erases “poor white.” It seems as if “underprivileged” and “white” have become antonyms. Or the phrase “Black middle class” is an oxymoron. What about the white working class? In our economic body politic, they were erased during minstrel era. And from Fox News to CNN to MSNBC, they are nowhere to be found currently. They are just gone baby gone. And as we, as a nation, continue to behave as neither the Black middle class nor the white underclass don’t exist, we feed the rage that makes white supremacy go.
This is not from a teaching binder, but from my personal musing. Press the hands if you like it. If you don’t, leave an ugly comment. | https://medium.com/@latoyarjeffersonjames/when-black-folk-are-middle-class-and-white-folk-are-not-privileged-223405b6f00f | ['Latoya R Jefferson-James'] | 2020-12-19 18:40:47.640000+00:00 | ['Black Middle Class', 'Toni Morrison', 'White Supremacy', 'Michael Kimmel', 'White Mediocrity'] |
Hydrogen Will Make The Term “Blockchain” Obsolete | In the Web 1.0, companies minted millions by adding “Dot-Com” to their name. According to a 2014 article in The Atlantic —
In 2001, when people were still sorting through the pixelated debris of the dotcom bust, three finance professors from Purdue University published a study of the fates of 95 companies that added “.com,” “.net,” or “Internet” to their names during the bubble. They found that on average, the stock prices of these companies increased 74 percent over the period of time from five days before the name-change announcement to five days afterward.
Not only did the dot-com bubble burst, but having a company with “.com” in its name became repetitive. Is the website a separate platform from the main brand (e.g. ESPN vs. ESPN.com)? Why else would you have .com in your company’s name? By 2002, having a .com was no longer a choice, it was a necessity.
We are in a similar moment in the blockchain industry. Take a look at this Sentieo study —
There is increased buzz and talk from large companies about using blockchain, accepting crypto, even adding one of these terms to their name! Yet, in a few years, being a “Blockchain Company” will be obsolete. Like having a .com website that users could interact with in 1999, utilizing a blockchain in 2019 will be assumed.
As we approach 2019, it will be implied that you have already built your tech stack in a more decentralized way. The world is becoming more decentralized, billions are pushing for more ownership of their data (see GDPR in Europe), and there is less trust in institutions than ever before.
If you don’t leverage blockchain in the future, your business will fail, PERIOD.
Hydrogen Changes the Paradigm
While the world obsesses over which blockchain protocol will be “the winner,” we view the industry a bit differently.
Hydrogen is doing for fintech in the Web 3.0 what Paypal did for fintech in the Web 2.0.
We are making it simpler, making it easier to interact with new technology, making it faster, making it more efficient, and most importantly, focusing on the layers above the protocols that add that most value to the end users.
As our Blocktoberfest series highlighted, we are working to finalize partnerships that will make using blockchain as simple as viewing your Facebook feed now. Interoperability, APIs, one-click payments, identity aggregation, privacy protocols, Layer-2 payment rails. These might seem like alien terms to most, but they are integral to making blockchain usable.
Take a look at our end state app prototype —
Can you spot where we are using all of the technology we just described above? 99 out of 100 people will not be able to, and this is exactly what we are striving for. Blockchain is assumed here, it is not explicit. The end consumer experience has been enriched and made much more secure through the blockchain underpinnings.
There is no need to call Hydro a blockchain platform. It is just a better platform, helping to advance financial services for billions globally. | https://medium.com/hydrogen-api/hydrogen-will-make-the-term-blockchain-obsolete-9de0c1436386 | [] | 2018-11-16 12:44:57.368000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Hydrogen', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Hydro'] |
SE V7: A Good Microphone You Should Consider | And here’s what the marketing mumbo jumbo says:
[The sE V7’s] specialized aluminum voice coil offers natural-sounding reproduction of your voice, while simultaneously giving it a crisp, open quality. Its supercardioid design yields excellent isolation from stage noise and delivers massive amounts of gain before feedback. Rumble and handling noise aren’t a problem for the V7, thanks to its integrated shockmount. -Sweetwater.com
Three things about this marketing hype stood out to me:
The SM58 is Cardioid, not Supercardioid. The SM58 does not have an integrated shockmount. The SM58 isn’t “crisp and open.”
I want to make it clear before I continue, because I just made a bunch of “isn’t/not/don’t” type statements about the SM58, that I am not taking the piss out of Shure. I still love my SM58s (and all the rest), I’m only pointing out that the sE V7 is a different animal and will be better in some use cases and worse in others.
I told Andrew to pull the trigger and I waited for my microphones to arrive.
The unboxing | https://blog.tannerhelps.com/se-v7-a-good-microphone-you-should-consider-65ab41de8fb6 | ['Tanner Campbell'] | 2020-02-07 15:26:54.265000+00:00 | ['Public Relations', 'Marketing', 'Podcasting', 'Podcast', 'Content Marketing'] |
AstraZeneca’s Calquence gets Japanese approval to treat adult patients with relapsed/refractory CLL | AstraZeneca’s Calquence gets Japanese approval to treat adult patients with relapsed/refractory CLL Worldreasons Jan 27·4 min read
AstraZeneca’s Calquence (acalabrutinib), a next-generation, selective Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, has been approved in Japan for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) (including small lymphocytic lymphoma [SLL]).
The approval by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) was based on positive results from the ASCEND phase III trial and a phase I trial in Japanese patients, showing Calquence monotherapy demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) versus a standard treatment of rituximab, a monoclonal antibody, combined with the physician’s choice of idelalisib, a PI3-kinase inhibitor or bendamustine, a chemotherapy.
CLL is the most common type of adult leukaemia across the globe but is considered a rare disease in Japan and East Asia, representing between 1% and 2% of patients diagnosed with leukaemia.
Dai Maruyama, MD, PhD, director, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Cancer Institute Hospital of Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo, Japan said, “This news marks great progress for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in Japan. As the ASCEND trial showed, Calquence provides a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with current standard therapies. Treatment with a safe and tolerable regimen remains paramount for these patients who often require ongoing therapy for many years.”
Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president, Oncology Business Unit, said, “Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia is less prevalent in Japan than other regions, yet patients remain in need of innovative treatment options. This approval of Calquence offers patients in Japan a new, chemo-free, tolerable treatment option with uncompromised efficacy and the potential to positively impact quality of life.”
In the ASCEND phase III trial, an estimated 88% of patients with relapsed or refractory CLL treated with Calquence remained alive and free from disease progression after 12 months compared with 68% of patients on rituximab combined with idelalisib or bendamustine. After a median follow up of 16.1 months, median PFS was not reached with Calquence monotherapy versus 16.5 months in the control arm.
Calquence is approved for the treatment of CLL and SLL in the US and is approved for the treatment of CLL in the EU and in several other countries worldwide in the 1st-line and relapsed or refractory settings. Calquence is also approved in the US and several other countries for the treatment of adult patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) who have received at least one prior therapy. Calquence is not currently approved for the treatment of MCL in Japan or the EU.
CLL is the most common type of leukaemia in adults, with an estimated 114,000 new cases globally in 2017, and the number of people living with CLL is expected to grow with improved treatment as patients live longer with the disease. In CLL, too many blood stem cells in the bone marrow become abnormal lymphocytes and these abnormal cells have difficulty fighting infections. As the number of abnormal cells grows there is less room for healthy white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. This could result in anaemia, infection, and bleeding. B-cell receptor signalling through BTK is one of the essential growth pathways for CLL.
ASCEND (ACE-CL-309) was a global, randomised, multicentre, open-label phase III trial evaluating the efficacy of Calquence in patients with relapsed or refractory CLL. In the trial, 310 patients were randomised (1:1) into two arms. Patients in the first arm received Calquence monotherapy (100mg twice daily until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity). Patients in the second arm received physician’s choice of either rituximab, a CD20 monoclonal antibody, in combination with idelalisib, a PI3-kinase inhibitor, or rituximab in combination with bendamustine, a chemotherapy. | https://medium.com/@worldreasons/astrazenecas-calquence-gets-japanese-approval-to-treat-adult-patients-with-relapsed-refractory-cll-ec4e0e915a01 | [] | 2021-01-27 08:15:18.532000+00:00 | ['Astrazeneca', 'Covid'] |
MOVING THROUGH TIME | MOVING THROUGH TIME
What if you could go back in time and change a few things?
That one moment you regret and want to change? Past experience that you cherish and wants to re-live??
That one school/college friend you wanted to be in your life? What if you could make that one change to keep them in your life?
Seems like a fantasy right. Something that every sci-fi movie shows us(mostly negative things though).
But what if the future that these movies predict isn't as brutal, lonely, chaotic and unhappy but instead something beautiful.
The thought is worth exploring isn't it.
Well, let's first look at what every movie explore in this area.
Tenet for example, explores the possibility of traveling back through time and giving a little hint of how parallel worlds can exist. In the movie, people in future have discovered how to travel back in time or rather how to move backwards in time. That way they(future humans) want to move backwards and want to change their fate in the future without affecting anything in their own world. The world in their time doesn't have enough resources to feed their own and hence wants to move backwards to overtake ours. Interesting bit is that they are actually the future version of us(present people)
This can be connected in a very interesting way with Nolan's other big hit, Interstellar. In Interstellar, future's world is also deprived of resources, but they are good people and are more forward looking than the "Tenet" ones. Hence, they want to flee the earth and find something else out there and restart(hopefully better this time).
Tenet shows a negative side of things while Interstellar is at the opposite spectrum.
Let's look at time travel a little more technically. I will explore it from my side of understanding. I might be wrong about a few things but the overall concept should be fine. Let me explain the concept a little by this small example.
You are looking at a mirror and can see yourself. Let's look at what all happens when you stand in front of a mirror. Light is reflected from the mirror, travel towards you and you see yourself. You will see the exact same thing but in reverse.
Light travels really fast and is the fastest speed of anything known to us. Around 3 lakh km/sec. To give you the perspective, Sun is 147 million kms away from the Earth and light takes a little more than 8 minutes to reach here. So if sun rays started at T0 reference time from the Sun, it will reach Earth by T0+ 8 minutes. Similarly light that travels to the mirror and back has to cover some distance. Let's say that time is T1, so in theory you are looking at your past self by T1 time. The time T1 however is very very very small and can be ignored here. But, what if the mirror was far far away and light takes enough time, say 5 years to go and come back. That means you will be seeing a 5 years younger version of yourself.
Now what if you can harness this thing and can in fact control it. In simple words, what if you could get to travel to that past version and change things.
How can that happen or when in time it can happen is a much more technical question to be asked. Interstellar has tried giving one kind of explanation. They talk about Gravity being the key in making time travel possible. In that black hole, Cooper along with TARS sends the code to finish his daughter's equation back in time through gravity. I can not comment on how that can happen, but gravity is one of the forces well felt by us but not so well understood. Newton told us how two bodies are attracted towards each other but exactly how it happens is unknown. We don't yet understand which particle is behind gravity force to be generated. We are far far away from harnessing gravity and the only way of doing that would be that we understand it's fundamental particle.
Whether or not we will be able to harness gravity and control time travel is a thing of the future(from our perspective at least! ).
Right now we can all be curious and keep moving through time!! | https://medium.com/@prashantkumar.rathee/moving-through-time-f304bae17047 | ['Prashant Rathee'] | 2020-12-25 17:55:45.955000+00:00 | ['Black Hole Sun', 'Space', 'Time', 'Tenet 2020', 'Interstellar'] |
5 Obvious Signs You Need a Mental Health Day | 1. You feel “off”
While feeling “off” might not sound very specific, most of us should be able to tell when something seems different about yourself.
Perhaps it is a visible reduction in productivity, perhaps you begin to become more forgetful and distracted, or perhaps you feel like something is missing from your daily life. When you begin to sense that there is something that doesn’t feel right, it is a good time to take a short break to figure out what is wrong (especially when it goes on for a prolonged period of time).
2. You no longer enjoy the things that you used to like
In addition to sensing that something doesn’t feel right, another common sign of mental weariness is when you begin to stop enjoying the things you used to.
Of course, we might find ourselves losing interest in certain hobbies from time to time. However, the process of losing interest in hobbies is normally obvious and should take a while (like how children lose interest in watching children’s cartoons slowly).
That’s why, if you find that you’ve suddenly lost interest in activities (especially out of nowhere) you’ve always loved, it could be a sign that something could be wrong. Furthermore, if this waning interest happens to many different activities all at once, you might want to take a mental health day and/or seek help to see if there could be anything affecting you.
3. You’re shutting yourself in at home
A common trait that many suffering from mental illnesses share is the withdrawal from their social life.
As fighting with the demons of mental issues takes a huge toll on one, many will find that they have become more fatigued when dealing with mental illnesses. This can decrease one’s productivity (leading again to point 1 about feeling “off”) and causing work to pile up. This increased pile of work could start to overwhelm and put one into a downward spiral of having to dedicate more time to work (and an increasing amount of stress), reducing the time and energy available for socializing.
Another reason that could lead to the withdrawal from friends and family is the fact that many individuals suffering from mental illnesses believe that others simply do not care. They might feel that others are unable to understand their situation or push others away in fear of “being judged”.
Lastly, some also find themselves staying home more simply because they no longer enjoy the activities that they used to. Without the joy that comes with participating in these hobbies or interests, these individuals would prefer to simply stay at home instead.
4. You find your sleep schedule changing drastically
Everyone has a different sleep schedule. Some prefer to sleep early while others might prefer to sleep only when it’s 3 in the morning. However, when you begin to find your sleep schedule changing, it might be a good time to take a mental health day in order to step back and find out if anything is wrong.
From sleeping too much suddenly to not being able to fall asleep normally, a drastically different sleep schedule could be a manifestation of mental health issues. Furthermore, as a constant sleep problem can affect your physical health as well, it will be extremely worth it to take note of changes and find the root cause before it causes other problems for you.
5. You experience a change in your appetite
Just like a dramatically different sleep schedule, a drastic change in one’s appetite could be a sign of one’s mental health needing attention. This can come in two different directions: wanting to eat everything in sight or completely not wanting to eat (of course, these are but two extreme ends on the spectrum).
Of course, mental health issues do not necessarily come with all 5 of these symptoms. In fact, some individuals could experience none of this (and could also be experiencing other physical symptoms that aren’t mentioned).
However, these 5 common signs serve as a prompt that can remind you to take a break and seek help if necessary. Whenever you find yourself experiencing a shift in your own personal behavior (or routines), take a step back to take a breather and ask yourself if you need help.
By normalizing taking care of one’s mental health, it becomes easier for all of us to help one another detect possible symptoms and for us to seek help when we have to. And when we begin to treat mental health issues just like physical illnesses, perhaps we can create a society where seeking help is common. | https://medium.com/wholistique/5-signs-that-tell-you-its-time-to-take-a-mental-health-day-8048ee15a4b4 | ['Jerren Gan'] | 2020-12-25 08:39:31.228000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Psychology', 'Work Life Balance', 'Self Improvement', 'Mental Health'] |
The 3A Berkeley Mansions Literary Society, #7 | P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster and Jeeves discuss great works of literature
Oscar Wilde “The Picture Of Dorian Grey”
“Jeeves, a question.”
“Yes, sir?”
“If you had a portrait in the attic that grew old, while you stayed young, but the rummy thing is that the portrait would show all of your sins and grow quite unappealing, would you want a portrait like that? Would you?”
“No, sir.”
“Silly of me to ask, really. You don’t commit any sins.”
“None that would be worth memorializing in oils, sir.”
“Huh. I wonder what a portrait of this Wooster would look like. I’ve pinched cow creamers, impersonated friends and others, cheated at billiards — once — that might not be much when stacked against a life of debauchery and murder.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“This Dorian Gray chap does all sorts of terrible things, Jeeves, but most of the time Wilde is so dashed coy about what those terrible things are. He repeatedly mentions this bally book that Dorian has copies of, without the title. It might as well be Milady’s Boudoir. Not that Milady’s Boudoir would lead one to a life of sin. The opposite effect, I should think.”
“The book so obliquely referred to is Against Nature by the French writer Huysmans. It is concerned with the inner life of Jean des Esseintes, a recluse retreating from bourgeois life to contemplate beauty. It was an important portrait of the Aesthetic movement in the late 19th century — “
“Jeeves, enough about Against Nature.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Save it for the long winter nights.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, don’t. I have no wish to know more.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I don’t know why this Gray chap preferred that novel over a cracking mystery. The inner life of a bally recluse sounds oppressive to the spirit. I wish this Wilde fellow had been more explicit. It’s damned disappointed to read a ‘racy’ novel and find it’s nothing but hints. It’s not fair that the portrait knows more than the reader. It should be the other way round, what?”
“If you say so, sir.”
“I was thinking of commissioning a portrait of myself. But it might be best not to go down that road. Besides, it might be unsettling to look at my face all day.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Jeeves! Whatever do you mean?”
“Do you require anything else, sir?”
“No, dash it!” | https://medium.com/@elisadec/the-3a-berkeley-mansions-literary-society-7-72c05b917003 | ['Elisa Decarlo'] | 2020-12-19 18:31:51.925000+00:00 | ['Jeeves', 'Parody', 'Comedy', 'Oscar Wilde', 'Series'] |
Changing the Convictions for Rape | Brock Allen Turner, a former Stanford swimmer and white male, sexually assaulted an unconscious woman, and he was released from jail after only 3 months.
On January 18, 2015, Brock Allen Turner was found, after a party, sexually abusing an unconscious woman behind a fraternity house. Turner, at the time, was a 19-year-old freshman. The Stanford University student was supposed to serve a six month sentence in a county jail, of which he only served three months, and three years on probation.
He was found guilty on three counts of felony sexual assault in March of 2016, and planned to appeal his conviction. Brock Turner, a champion swimmer, lost his swimming scholarship and was forced to register as a sex offender in the state of Ohio.
Emily Doe has left a “legacy of raising the world’s awareness about sexual assault” mentioned Jeff Rosen. This Santa Clara County district attorney also mentioned that he believe Brock turner received a fair trial and conviction, but that is not what a vast majority of the people see it as.
After being released only three months later, many criticized that Turner’s sentence was lenient, and after reading Sharon Marcus’ reading, this situation only proves that white rapists have lower rates of conviction than intraracial rape cases because of their skin color. Judge Persky was not unfair to Brock Turner because instead, he was unfair to Emily Doe. At the time, Professor Dauber was collecting signatures for the June ballot, and so far she had 76,000 signatures of the 90,000 she needed.
The victim Emily Doe had no idea what had happened to her until she regained her conscious and was told that Turner had taken her behind a dumpster. She saw that from news reports that her attacker, Turner, was on top of her partly clothed body.
Turner’s father responded to the hate that his son was receiving by saying that his son does not deserve to have his life ruined for a mistake that happened in a span of “20 minutes”. But, this is not just any mistake. This is assault and it is not something that can happen on ‘accident’. The moment that you see a girl or boy is unconscious is the moment you realize that for one, she or he is not able to make rash decisions, and two, if you proceed to have any kind of sexual activity with him or her, it is automatically considered rape. There should be no exceptions.
Sharon Marcus wrote the reading, “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention” in which he believes that it is important that the understanding of rape needs to be changed. Rape needs to be seen as a language and used to see women as neither “already raped nor inherently rapable”.
There needs to be many changes in the way that society goes about the situation of rape. One of these changes would be that we, as a society, need to focus on the rape situations themselves and rape prevention instead of just rape and its aftermath. Along with this new idea is the way that rapists are being convicted. There has been a number of times that white males are given ‘lenient’ sentences compared to the sentence an African American rapist would get. Feminists are workign to change these terms of rape in order to increase the penalties and render the terms of rape trial as less prejudicial to victims (Sharon Marcus’ reading).
In the Brock Turner case, Turner was given a more lenient sentence than what an African American would be given. Him being released after only three months only makes the victim feel like injustice is being served and it shows the rest of the world how messed up the system really is. Women are not ‘rapable’ nor do they want it, deserve it, or provoke it, and instead of wanting to change women, there needs to be a change in the perception of rapists and those who believe in such bizarre ideas. | https://medium.com/gendered-violence/changing-the-convictions-for-rape-54dd2baca46a | ['Lizett Gonzalez'] | 2018-03-28 00:28:35.719000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Sexual Assault', 'Race', 'Brock Turner', 'Stanford'] |
The Magic of Optimistic UI Updates with React and Redux | Hey there! Let’s talk about optimistic UI updates. The whole point of this discussion is to bring clarity to the bigger picture — why do we need optimistic UI updates and how is it done.
What are optimistic UI updates?
An optimistic UI update is an update in the user interface showing the final result even before the change requested to the server has returned a success. In other words, the UI changes to the result even before receiving a response from the server.
Yes, you read it right. It’s simple! Optimistic UI makes the app feel faster, thus impacting the user’s happiness(or in other words, customer’s satisfaction).
You can find the concept being used in everyday applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
But what if the server returns an error?
That is where progress indicators come to play. When the user initiates a change, we use a loader or spinner to indicate the status of the ongoing process.
So, how is it done?
Implementation
We will try and build a rating component using React and Redux to understand this concept.
Note: We’re Using TailwindCSS for styling.
Building the component
So first, we will make a rating component with 5 Stars. This component should accept three things:
The initial state of the component
An updater function to update the value
And a status indication variable
We can also have a React state for indicating a hover action on the stars.
As we have access to the status indication variable, we can use react-icons to get a spinner icon and render its styles according to the variable. If the status is loading, we can display the spinner and animate it.
Otherwise, it stays hidden. On click of any star a function is triggered that passes the selected star’s value to the updater function (minding that array indexing starts from 0).
2. Building the Store, Reducer, and Actions.
Actions : In Redux, actions are JavaScript objects that describe the event. It usually has a type and a payload property.
: In Redux, actions are JavaScript objects that describe the event. It usually has a type and a payload property. Reducers : Reducers are functions that take the current state and an action as arguments and return a new state result.
: Reducers are functions that take the current state and an action as arguments and return a new state result. Store : The Redux store brings together the state, actions, and reducers that make up the app. The store is responsible for updating the state, dispatching an action, etc.
: The Redux store brings together the state, actions, and reducers that make up the app. The store is responsible for updating the state, dispatching an action, etc. Middleware: A Redux middleware provides an extension point between dispatching an action and the moment it reaches the reducer. Redux-Thunk is a middleware that helps us write async logic that interacts with the store.
We can define our initial state as:
The Reducer Returns a new state according to the action type.
Now we can create the actions
The next move is to create a thunk action so that we can update the server with our data.
Note: I have used setTimeout to mimic the delay.
First, we request a change so that the loading spinner starts. If the requested change is successful, then turn the loader off and update the value. Otherwise, revert the UI to the previous state.
We can also use this for already existing applications by just creating a state for loading and writing a thunk action to update it.
So, At the start of a request the thunk action should set the loader variable true and process the request if it is completed successfully the loader is set to false and if not, the value will be reverted and the loader will be set to false. | https://engineering.surveysparrow.com/the-magic-of-optimistic-ui-updates-311351df28b | ['Gokul Suresh'] | 2021-09-16 18:26:08.201000+00:00 | ['Tailwind', 'Js', 'Reactjs', 'Redux'] |
How to Change the Search Icon in a UISearchBar | Now, with just single line of code, you can change UISearchBar right view icon.
Note: This call doesn’t work in viewDidLoad ; call this above method in viewDidAppear .
// Set Custom Right View
searchBar.setRightImage(normalImage: UIImage(named: “filter”)!,
highLightedImage: UIImage(named: “filter_selected”)!)
To invoke your method, on click of Right View of UISearchBar , override the following method of UISearchBarDelegate : | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-change-the-search-icon-in-a-uisearchbar-150b775fb6c8 | ['Mukesh Mandora'] | 2020-06-06 10:18:53.768000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Xcode', 'Swift', 'Programming', 'Mobile'] |
Using Elasticsearch to Offload Real-Time Analytics from MongoDB | Offloading analytics from MongoDB establishes clear isolation between write-intensive and read-intensive operations. Elasticsearch is one tool to which reads can be offloaded, and, because both MongoDB and Elasticsearch are NoSQL in nature and offer similar document structure and data types, Elasticsearch can be a popular choice for this purpose. In most scenarios, MongoDB can be used as the primary data storage for write-only operations and as support for quick data ingestion. In this situation, you only need to sync the required fields in Elasticsearch with custom mappings and settings to get all the advantages of indexing.
This blog post will examine the various tools that can be used to sync data between MongoDB and Elasticsearch. It will also discuss the various advantages and disadvantages of establishing data pipelines between MongoDB and Elasticsearch to offload read operations from MongoDB.
Tools to Sync Data Between Elasticsearch and MongoDB
When setting up a data pipeline between MongoDB and Elasticsearch, it’s important to choose the right tool.
First of all, you need to determine if the tool is compatible with the MongoDB and Elasticsearch versions you are using. Additionally, your use case might affect the way you set up the pipeline. If you have static data in MongoDB, you may need a one-time sync. However, a real-time sync will be required if continuous operations are being performed in MongoDB and all of them need to be synced. Finally, you’ll need to consider whether or not data manipulation or normalization is needed before data is written to Elasticsearch.
Figure 1: Using a pipeline to sync MongoDB to Elasticsearch
If you need to replicate every MongoDB operation in Elasticsearch, you’ll need to rely on MongoDB oplogs (which are capped collections), and you’ll need to run MongoDB in cluster mode with replication on. Alternatively, you can configure your application in such a way that all operations are written to both MongoDB and Elasticsearch instances with guaranteed atomicity and consistency.
With these considerations in mind, let’s look at some tools that can be used to replicate MongoDB data to Elasticsearch.
Monstache
Monstache is one of the most comprehensive libraries available to sync MongoDB data to Elasticsearch. Written in Go, it supports up to and including the latest versions of MongoDB and Elasticsearch. Monstache is also available as a sync daemon and a container.
Mongo-Connector
Mongo-Connector, which is written in Python, is a widely used tool for syncing data between MongoDB and Elasticsearch. It only supports Elasticsearch through version 5.x and MongoDB through version 3.6.
Mongoosastic
Mongoosastic, written in NodeJS, is a plugin for Mongoose, a popular MongoDB data modeling tool based on ORM. Mongoosastic simultaneously writes data in MongoDB and Elasticsearch. No additional processes are needed for it to sync data.
Figure 2: Writing simultaneously to MongoDB and Elasticsearch
Logstash JDBC Input Plugin
Logstash is Elastic’s official tool for integrating multiple input sources and facilitating data syncing with Elasticsearch. To use MongoDB as an input, you can employ the JDBC input plugin, which uses the MongoDB JDBC driver as a prerequisite.
Custom Scripts
If the tools described above don’t meet your requirements, you can write custom scripts in any of the preferred languages. Remember that sound knowledge of both the technologies and their management is necessary to write custom scripts.
Advantages of Offloading Analytics to Elasticsearch
By syncing data from MongoDB to Elasticsearch, you remove load from your primary MongoDB database and leverage several other advantages offered by Elasticsearch. Let’s take a look at some of these.
Reads Don’t Interfere with Writes
In most scenarios, reading data requires more resources than writing. For faster query execution, you may need to build indexes in MongoDB, which not only consumes a lot of memory but also slows down write speed.
Additional Analytical Functionality
Elasticsearch is a search server built on top of Lucene that stores data in a unique structure known as an inverted index. Inverted indexes are particularly helpful for full-text searches and document retrievals at scale. They can also perform aggregations and analytics and, in some cases, provide additional services not offered by MongoDB. Common use cases for Elasticsearch analytics include real-time monitoring, APM, anomaly detection, and security analytics.
Multiple Options to Store and Search Data
Another advantage of putting data into Elasticsearch is the possibility of indexing a single field in multiple ways by using some mapping configurations. This feature assists in storing multiple variations of a field that can be used for different types of analytic queries.
Better Support for Time Series Data
In applications that generate a huge volume of data, such as IoT applications, achieving high performance for both reads and writes can be a challenging task. Using MongoDB and Elasticsearch in combination can be a useful approach in these scenarios since it is then very easy to store the time series data in multiple indices (such as daily or monthly indices) and search those indices’ data via aliases.
Flexible Data Storage and an Incremental Backup Strategy
Elasticsearch supports incremental data backups using the _snapshot API. These backups can be performed on the file system or on cloud storage directly from the cluster. This feature deletes the old data from the Elasticsearch cluster once the backup is taken. Whenever access to old data is necessary, it can easily be restored from the backups using the _restore API. This allows you to determine how much data should be kept in the live cluster and also facilitates better resource assignments for the read operations in Elasticsearch.
Integration with Kibana
Once you put data into Elasticsearch, it can be connected to Kibana, which makes it easy to explore the data, plus build visualizations and dashboards.
Disadvantages of Offloading Analytics to Elasticsearch
While there are several advantages to indexing MongoDB data into Elasticsearch, there are a number of potential disadvantages you should be aware of as well, which we discuss below.
Building and Maintaining a Data Sync Pipeline
Whether you use a tool or write a custom script to build your data sync pipeline, maintaining consistency between the two data stores is always a challenging job. The pipeline can go down or simply become hard to manage due to several reasons, such as either of the data stores shutting down or any data format changes in the MongoDB collections. If the data sync relies on MongoDB oplogs, optimal oplog parameters should be configured to make sure that data is synced before it disappears from the oplogs. In addition, when you need to use many Elasticsearch features, complexity can increase if the tool you’re using is not customizable enough to support the necessary configurations, such as custom routing, parent-child or nested relationships, indexing referenced models, and converting dates to formats recognizable by Elasticsearch.
Data Type Conflicts
Both MongoDB and Elasticsearch are document-based and NoSQL data stores. Both of these data stores allow dynamic field ingestion. However, MongoDB is completely schemaless in nature, and Elasticsearch, despite being schemaless, does not allow different data types of a single field across the documents inside an index. This can be a major challenge if the schema of MongoDB collections is not fixed. It’s always advisable to define the schema in advance for Elasticsearch. This will avoid conflicts that can occur while indexing the data.
Data Security
MongoDB is a core database and comes with fine-grained security controls, such as built-in authentication and user creations based on built-in or configurable roles. Elasticsearch does not provide such controls by default. Although it is achievable in the X-Pack version of Elastic Stack, it’s hard to implement the security features in free versions. The Difficulty of Operating an Elasticsearch Cluster Elasticsearch is hard to manage at scale, especially if you’re already running a MongoDB cluster and setting up the data sync pipeline. Cluster management, horizontal scaling, and capacity planning come with some limitations. Challenges arise when the application is write-intensive and the Elasticsearch cluster does not have enough resources to cope with that load. Once shards are created, they can’t be increased on the fly. Instead, you need to create a new index with a new number of shards and perform reindexing, which is tedious.
Memory-Intensive Process
Elasticsearch is written in Java and writes data in the form of immutable Lucene segments. This underlying data structure causes these segments to continue merging in the background, which requires a significant amount of resources. Heavy aggregations also cause high memory utilization and may cause out of memory (OOM) errors. When these errors appear, cluster scaling is typically required, which can be a difficult task if you have a limited number of shards per index or budgetary concerns.
No Support for Joins
Elasticsearch does not support full-fledged relationships and joins. It does support nested and parent-child relationships, but they are usually slow to perform or require additional resources to operate. If your MongoDB data is based on references, it may be difficult to sync the data in Elasticsearch and write queries on top of them.
Deep Pagination Is Discouraged
One of the biggest advantages of using a core database is that you can create a cursor and iterate through the data while performing the sort operations. However, Elasticsearch’s normal search queries don’t allow you to fetch more than 10,000 documents from the total search result. Elasticsearch does have a dedicated scroll API to achieve this task, although it, too, comes with limitations.
Uses Elasticsearch DSL
Elasticsearch has its own query DSL, but you need a good hands-on understanding of its pitfalls to write optimized queries. While you can also write queries using Lucene Syntax, its grammar is tough to learn, and it lacks input sanitization. Elasticsearch DSL is not compatible with SQL visualization tools and, therefore, offers limited capabilities for performing analytics and building reports.
Summary
If your application is primarily performing text searches, Elasticsearch can be a good option for offloading reads from MongoDB. However, this architecture requires an investment in building and maintaining a data pipeline between the two tools.
The Elasticsearch cluster also requires considerable effort to manage and scale. If your use case involves more complex analytics-such as filters, aggregations, and joins-then Elasticsearch may not be your best solution. In these situations, Rockset, a real-time indexing database, may be a better fit. It provides both a native connector to MongoDB and full SQL analytics, and it’s offered as a fully managed cloud service.
Learn more about offloading from MongoDB using Rockset in these related blogs: | https://medium.com/rocksetcloud/using-elasticsearch-to-offload-real-time-analytics-from-mongodb-b0efd68c9764 | ['Shawn Adams'] | 2020-12-24 07:16:26.112000+00:00 | ['Data Pipeline', 'Analytics', 'Mongodb', 'Elasticsearch', 'NoSQL'] |
EPILOGUE: DIE SCHULDEN | One Wednesday that August you are having breakfast in a diner in Kingman, Arizona. You’d woken up with a yen for pancakes, could almost taste the butter melting into syrup, and want to pretend to be human again, hanging out with other good Americans and saying things like hot enough for you, maybe doing the crossword. So you risk it. Peggy Lee’s on the radio singing about paying your bills and curing your ills, and the sun is shining but it’s not anywhere near as hot as it’s going to be, and you open up the paper to find Lenny Bruce being led away in handcuffs with a cocky grin. The words are wrong, though.
‘Top that off for you?’
She has to repeat it twice before you figure out what she’s talking about. Say, no. Want to add ‘I’m fine,’ but are afraid you’ll never stop saying it, growing louder, echoing down a canyon, signifying nothing. This woman is too pretty to be a waitress. She shouldn’t be in pictures, though. No one should be in pictures, ever again.
You later find out that the Lenny-as-criminal shots that adorned every paper in the nation that morning were the Plan B, the merciful edition. In one of the few acts of decency of his life, Phil Spector had swooped in and nabbed the negatives of Lenny naked on the bathroom floor, needle still in his arm. They were going to flog that shit, flay his misery for the masses now that he could no longer cut them down to size, because nothing will ever, ever, ever be enough for them.
So you simply say no, and stand. She looks concerned. You say, do you have kids, and she nods. Hand her a hundred and say, do something nice with them today, okay?
Stumble from that diner, behind the wheel of the powder-blue Chevy Impala, drive away. It’s surprisingly reliable; you change the plates every two weeks, and no one ever remembers it. You’re briefly tempted to drive it off a cliff — the Grand Canyon is right there. You don’t.
Take the 66 to Vegas instead, 90 minutes away, a feature-length film of four-lane blacktop and scruffy mountains. Never did get around to the pancakes, so by the time you hand your keys to the Sands valet, you are faint with hunger and horror, already wanting to run from what you are about to embark on. Alone on a rowboat, in the middle of the ocean, you will row and row and row until your deltoids scream and your shoulders dislocate and your arms fall off. You will never get anywhere, but that’s okay, because an armless man can’t shoot up.
All that matters is that you start rowing, right now.
‘I need a man,’ you tell the bellhop as he shows you the room. He looks like a guy who can get things. ‘Someone large, and not open to suggestion. I can’t leave this room for a week.’
The bellhop nods, as if he gets this request every day. He may well. ‘How soon?’
I check my watch. ‘Four hours, tops.’
‘Money?’
I show him the money, give him a list of supplies. It’s not long. You can get anything from the front desk, but I want to minimize contact, because this is Vegas; you can get anything from the front desk. Take a long shower and flush every drug I have down the toilet. Two hours later, as I am putting stamps on a letter, there is a knock at the door, and Jerry Lee Lewis walks in. Not the man himself, of course; an alternate version, larger than life. An impersonator.
Jerry Lee can’t get arrested these days, even in Vegas, but turns out we miss him so much we’ll employ his doppelgänger. He’ll do. Hands me a bag, and I pull out the Pepto-Bismol, the saltines and ginger ale, the fresh pajamas. We’re going to need more sheets and towels.
Still time before the crash, so we order up lunch. I have pastrami with a side of slaw, Jerry Lee has the Cobb salad. Doesn’t break character once. We talk a little, mouths full. He looks like a man of few words, but turns out to be pretty garrulous — and from a farm just outside of Ferriday, so he sounds just like the Killer. Looks like him, too, possibly a cousin, same blond curls snaking across his brow. Not Jimmy Swaggart, no. Jerry Lee has a lot of cousins, all grit and grinning gall, music and hellfire. Must be nice. None of mine survived; I’m a genetic bottleneck.
Most of Ferriday is black. Whites are all related in various ways, mistrusting the unheimlich. You marry your cousin young, as God intended. It’s okay. Jerry Lee had been genuinely stumped by England’s horror over Myra; he’d been 15 when he married for love, 16 at the point of a shotgun. The rest of the South was puzzled too, but the Brits must know what they were doing, so we went with it. Overnight, he went from ten grand a night to $250 before the shows disappeared. Without them, he nearly disappeared too, his passion spiraling down into an abyss of fury and frustration. He was, perhaps, not a good man to piss off.
The Killer, to my knowledge, never actually killed anyone; he was just the fucking Angel of Death. People died around him at rates far greater than average. His older brother was killed by a drunk driver as a kid, then he pushed his cousin Frankie Jean off a cliff (she was fine, if pissed off). The nickname was for his mad piano skills — he taught himself at eight — and that time he tried to strangle a shop teacher with his own tie. His son Steve Allen drowned in the pool while Myra was on the phone. Wife four overdosed on methadone, then he shot his bass player in the chest — who didn’t die, or even quit, hey, these things happen — but his fifth wife did. Jerry Lee, Jr. overturned his car. Gone. By now everyone’s a little leery, so when Jerry Lee showed up at Graceland waving a Derringer, drunk, hollering of the devil and backstabbing hypocrisy, a shaken Elvis called the cops on him. A few months later the King was dead on the toilet, Lenny Bruce-style. Maybe we should stay away from Mr. Lewis, or drugs, or pools, or indoor plumbing.
I don’t think he’s ever going to die, either. Had you asked us in 1958 who’d be the first Sun Boy to bite the dust, we’d have said Jerry Lee, no question. That motherfucker’s burning it at both ends. 63 years later, he’s outlived them all. Still recording, and hasn’t mellowed out a bit, though the body count does seem to have dropped. How do I know these things? It’s like seeing a pattern in the corner of a crazy quilt; you know what the rest will look like, this chaotic sorrow. It’s never anything useful, that’d help me win the lottery or play the stock market. I just grasp certain folks, identify with them, and learn very little from their lives.
But his cousin is a different guy. Not fazed by much, and seems to regard the whole endeavor as pretty small potatoes. He does have one concern, though. Think about it, he tells me: what next? Otherwise there’s no point to this. And it’s gonna be bad.
I’ll be fine, I say confidently, though I’ve never done this before. I’ve been so meticulous about handling it all, risk versus reward. You minimize the danger, so you can keep surfing. Really, it won’t be that bad.
It’s that bad.
Vegas in August is the ideal rehab. However miserable you are, if you leave the room, you’re going to be more so: the rank smell of urine, bleach and stale cigarettes in the hall; the crazed clang and thunder of the casino; the gauntlet of the blinding garish lobby, followed by the sear of the Strip, baking any aspiration out of you with first breath. It’s a kiln out there: 111 degrees, zero percent humidity. I’ve never been to Vegas, and know no one here but my babysitter, who has taken up permanent residence with a six-pack in an armchair in front of the door. The only other way out is off the balcony. Chances are slim I’m going to score today; I can barely make it to the bathroom. After my bowels clear out, I stop trying, just puke into a bucket. Jerry Lee keeps pushing water and Tang: get some C into your system.
‘You know what you’re doing,’ I manage, after vomiting it up again.
‘Ahh,’ he waves me off. ‘DT’s. Everybody goes through this sooner or later.’
‘Will you sing me a song?’ I ask. Peggy Lee has been going hard in my head for three days now, ‘Who’s-a Gonna Pay the Check,’ and I’m ready for something else. He shakes his head, though.
‘We don’t have a piano.’
‘There’s a piano down in the lobby.’
‘Uh-huh. Nice try, buddy. I don’t mix business with pleasure.’
I laugh a little. My breath tastes like battery acid and underwear. ‘Which one is this?’
‘You know what I mean,’ he says, and I guess I do. I’ve been mixing business with pleasure for four years. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea, though I’m not sure I could’ve avoided any of this by staying broke my whole life. ‘You’re a Jew, huh?’ he asks.
I tense; it’s rarely a question you want to hear from a Southerner. The muscle spasms are nearly as bad as the nausea, and the fever dreams that savage my brain every time I pass out have left me with a full-body paranoia that never goes away. This isn’t going to end well, any of it.
‘How’d you know?’ I’ve always been so good at passing, no one suspects. Till I open my mouth.
He shakes his head, trying to articulate it. ‘All y’all got that look to you, like…’ and he mimes Atlas holding the world on his shoulders, just barely.
‘Oh,’ I nod. ‘Yeah, maybe. But yeah.’ I sit up to rub out a charley horse.
‘I never got it,’ he says. ‘Pentecostals know we’re going to hell, so we just whoop it up.’
‘Jews are already there, I think,’ I say, and he cackles.
‘That’s the dumbest shit I ever heard, man. You choose your life, every day. Sounds like an excuse to sit around feeling sorry for yourself and doing drugs.’ The charley horse is getting worse, left foot curling in on itself like that of a Chinese concubine.
‘No,’ I say honestly. ‘I’ve never felt sorry for myself. Just…sorry. This world is beyond me. I can’t fix it; I fix so I don’t care all the time. Otherwise I’d have gone under long ago.’ The foot starts to flex out again. ‘Pentecostal, huh? You handle snakes?’
‘I handle everything, brother, and that’s a guaranteed fact.’ He smiles: a sad, crooked little smile. Whatever he’s thinking, I want to take his mind off it.
‘Hey, wanna know something interesting?’
‘Sure.’
‘My brother goes to Caltech. He’s the smart one, hardheaded and practical, not like me. His big thing is aerospace — he always wanted to be an astronaut, it broke his heart when he hit six feet. They can’t get too big, those guys, and, uhh…’ Vertigo slaps my mind. ‘Where was I?’
‘Caltech.’
‘Right, right. So there’s this guy who teaches there, Feynman. Nuts, but he’s got some ideas that, the more I think about them, the more it seems like there might be something there. Does a lot of work with quantum physics, subatomic particles and how they interact with energy. Might even be energy at that level. No real difference, you know? But most of it is dark.’
‘Dark how? Like space?’
‘Like it’s just sitting there, emitting no radiation. Normal matter shines: you, me, a fish or a rock. The sun. But dark matter doesn’t. And he thinks it’s, like, 95% of the universe. It doesn’t leave a lot of light, or normalcy. That science can measure how bad it is now scares the shit out of me.’
‘So you shoot up.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, pretty much. But I should take a shower. Eat, or I’m never gonna stop puking. Can you order up some sandwiches?’ Shivering again, I wrap myself in a blanket.
‘You need chicken soup.’
‘Why, cause I’m Jewish?’
’Cause you’re dehydrated. Potassium’s down to zero, and you need protein if you’re going to make it through. But you gotta start small.’ He pauses. ‘How come?’
‘How come what?’
‘Why’d you get into this, really? Don’t give me that dark matter shit. Decent guy, two brain cells to rub together. Don’t seem the type.’
Where to start? We’d have to go all the way back to the Big Bang. ‘My whole life, I couldn’t ever do the right thing. However careful I was, I’d fuck up. Then I killed my friend; it was an accident, but it was my fault. He needed me to protect him, and I wasn’t paying attention. And there was a girl, and she, ah, she…’ My throat closes up.
His face is a maze of warring expressions: tell me, don’t, there’s always a girl, this guy needs to get some food into him and keep it down or he’s gonna die. But not yet. While you’re able, get it out, before you shut down again. I can take it, and none of it will ever leave this room.
I spill my guts for a long time, and my confessor hears me out. He doesn’t turn me in, or offer platitudes, or in any way try to absolve me of my guilt. It was like giving birth, and when it was over I didn’t feel like a new man, just empty. I cried dumb dehydrated tears, drank some water and kept it down, and the fog I’d been wandering in for so long, growing denser and denser daily, began, very slightly, to lift. This was not a happy thing; there was a lot there I had no desire to see. And then I passed out.
In the dream, I’m walking through the halls of the hotel. I have to move very slowly, as my legs seem to have lost interest in moving at all. Also, Jerry Lee is following me, and he mustn’t know I’m trying to get away. Wisps of smoke begin to filter from under the doors, gathering into a miasma, swirling around my head. The hotel is on fire. I glance back. My guardian has turned into an anaconda, massive, slithering after me. I begin to run. One of the doors is slightly ajar, smoke-free. I will be safe here. Dart in, slam the door shut behind me, edge past the rumpled bed to check for a fire escape, when a hand shoots out and grabs my ankle; I scream, drop to my knees. Peer under the sham — and it’s Georgia, laughing hysterically as she tries to silence herself with her hand. Quick, quick, she gestures. They can’t find us. We have to be super quiet, okay? Ohh, I say. Oh, oh, oh, kissing her all over: the warm solid flesh, lips, teeth, ears, the soft honeysuckle incandescence of her hair. Oh, for God’s sake. I thought you were dead.
And then my eyes are open.
When people talk about rock bottom, they’re usually referring to something terrible they’ve done, a moral fuckup that forces them to face who they’ve become, the mess they’ve made of their lives. It almost always involves sex or their mother, rarely the death of a fellow addict. This is how well we’ve been trained: they were weak degenerates, they chose to inconvenience us this way. Not us, though. We’re gingerbread men; we can handle it. Run, run, fast as you can. When you do hit rock bottom, you have three choices: you can kill yourself, you can shrug it off and score — or you can get in that boat and start rowing like hell.
I’m not in a boat, though. I’m in a bed on the twentieth floor of the Sands at four o’clock in the morning, with a man who may well be Jerry Lee Lewis snoozing in front of the door. I’m too drained to cry, or get up, or fight him, even if I wanted to do any of those things.
I don’t. This is the abyss.
Eight miles down, pitch black, alone with the giant albino crabs, the tubeworms and stalagmite vents erupting volcanic steam from the bowels of the earth into the sub-zero water. No point in moving, if you have no idea what’s going on, or where you’re headed. I’ll just lie here, another lost haole, breathless-haa. Three days to go, then I can leave this room, go back to LA, hole up and shoot heroin till I die. Can’t say I didn’t give it the old college try.
A scrap of red neon light cons its way through the crack in the curtains, flashing on the wall like an alarm. Blink…blink…blink. It’s oddly calming, and I begin to breathe: ha, hana, ha, hana, ha. Ohana. I don’t want to die without seeing them again. Jerry Lee stirs as the sky starts to grey, clears his throat. Says nothing at all for a time, but I can feel him feeling me out. And then, to my surprise, he begins to sing. Up in the morning, out on the job, work like the devil for my pay…
He sings the whole thing, deep and rich, and by the time he’s done, that lucky old sun has cleared the horizon, its first rays peering through the curtain into the room. He gets to his feet. ‘All right, chump, wakey-wakey.’ Helps me into the bath, turns the water on. ‘Chapter Two.’
It’s been a long time since I took a bath; I’ve been sticking to showers since Georgia died. Hear him out there muttering into the phone, then more loudly: well, you better fucking find some, then. You gonna make me come down there?
I sink down, close my eyes, immersed. The drug of gradualism. I can do ten minutes now, close to the world record, but I’ve stopped timing. The trick is to outsmart the narks, nitrogen narcosis. Rapture of the deep is such an easy veil to float through, into death. Surface, scrub away the crust, wash my hair. Get out, dry off, brush my teeth at last. Meet my eyes in the mirror; I look like shit. Pale, skeletal; haggard circles under my eyes. Visible, for the first time in months. I may have just blown my cover. Don the white terrycloth robe. Last time I stayed at a hotel with fancy robes was Honolulu, with Fluke and Georgia. That night we killed Patsy Cline.
I come out and Jerry Lee’s changed the sheets, thrown open the curtains. There’s a knock at the door and a tray is wheeled in with two covered dishes. He’s so matter-of-fact about all this that I start to think, hey, I’m 23 years old. I could just stop being an asshole.
‘How the hell did you score chicken soup in Vegas? At six o’clock in the morning?’ It’s terrific, too. My appetite has come roaring back, and I don’t feel nauseous at all.
‘The Bugsy Siegel Special,’ he says, carefully drizzling a cross of syrup onto his waffles. He’s constructing some kind of weird sandwich involving fried eggs, mayonnaise, bacon and bananas. He unhinges his jaw to bite into the Dagwood monstrosity, as I try not to stare.
‘No, really.’
‘Told ’em you were a high roller.’
‘More of a roller in recovery. Holy, holy, hardy-har.’
My muscles are stiff and aching; I want to do some yoga, but feel shy about looking uncool in front of a man who’s watched me puke and shit my guts out for three days. I could go for a run. Okay, a walk. A short one, off a long pier. But he won’t let me leave; that was the deal.
He puts his sandwich down, sucks a tooth, considering me. ‘You really kill all those guys?’
‘Huh? Oh. Yeah.’
He chuckles. ‘Good for you. They needed to be gone.’
‘Zipped lips, man, I’m serious.’
He shakes his head. ‘You got it. Seems a shame, though. They oughtta give you a medal.’
‘The guys who brought ’em in? Used your tax dollars to set them up for life? Yeah, I don’t think they’ll be giving me any medals any time soon.’
‘Ain’t that a fucking thing.’ He pauses. ‘So? What’s next?’
I pick up a triangle of toast. ‘I’ve got an idea. A good one, I think, but I’ll have to go home for it.’
In that moment he looks so like Grandpa Joe my eyes burn. The way he’d always gaze at me, so proud and sorrowful, as I’d be heading straight for the brick wall with my hard little noggin full of inexhaustible hope. I do the yoga, in the end. He watches, curious, and even joins in on a few of the poses. My head is clearing, the plan taking shape; hope surging back, against all odds.
Thursday we go down to the pool, and Friday he declares me free to go. I pay up, we shake hands. ‘I shouldn’t take this, man. But I’ll be honest, I could use the money.’
‘No, you earned it. Should be more, but that’s all I’ve got. I may run out of gas on the way home.’
He laughs and hands me back a twenty. ‘Don’t get stuck in Baker.’
‘Hey, Baker’s not so bad. World’s tallest thermometer. My family used to be bakers, you know, back in Austria. It’s in the blood. I could always get into it again.’
He laughs, we part ways, and I clear out of Vegas as soon as the bill is settled. I have never liked Vegas, or even the idea of Vegas, and probably never will. | https://medium.com/@avivarosenthal/epilogue-die-schulden-296dae905247 | ['Aviva Rosenthal'] | 2021-07-25 15:42:20.963000+00:00 | ['Heroin', 'Jerry Lee Lewis', 'Las Vegas', 'Judaism', 'Nazis'] |
Mirror Wallet — Premier Mobile Wallet Built on Mirror Protocol | Two weeks ago, Terra successfully launched Mirror Protocol, the first synthetic assets protocol granting traders price exposure to popular US stocks, futures, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and additional traditional financial assets. Mirror’s appeal lay with its ability to grant anyone in the world the unprecedented opportunity to invest in synthetics — an innovative and growing class in the financial sector — tracking the prices of a variety of US stocks.
Today, we are excited to announce the next evolution: Mirror comes to mobile! The team at ATQ Capital proudly presents Mirror Wallet, the very first mobile wallet built on Mirror Protocol, is now live on Google Play and Apple Store!
Download Mirror Wallet: www.mirrorwallet.com
What is Mirror Wallet?
Mirror Wallet is a fully non-custodial mobile wallet. It enables users to purchase the initial 13 “Mirrored Assets” (mAssets) — synthetic assets tracking the prices of the most popular US technology stocks, including Apple, Google, Tesla, Netflix, Twitter, Microsoft Corporation, Amazon and Alibaba — using TerraUSD (UST).
Bitcoin and Tether will soon be added as payment options as well.
Traders can engage in buying and selling TradFi assets that are typically difficult to access for many investors in foreign markets without onerous costs or excessive regulatory hurdles precluding them from participating. For example, a trader in SE Asia can speculate on an mAsset reflecting US-based Apple stock on Mirror without going through costly international brokers, KYC/AML processes, and punitive capital control penalties.
New assets beyond the initial 13 mAssets can be introduced by anyone holding MIR tokens — Mirror Protocol’s governance token. The proposal is put to a vote, and if the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) behind for Mirror’s governance passes the proposal, the new asset is added to the list.
What does Mirror Wallet Offer?
To enhance the user experience on Mirror Protocol and increase the availability of stocks across a variety of platforms, Mirror Wallet provides users with the opportunity to:
Purchase fractional shares. As blockchain tokens, mAssets can be held in fractional amounts and traded easily, all while maintaining open access and censorship resistance. Given the administrative and fee expenses of trading leading US stocks, fractional shares further diminish accessibility barriers for a broad range of global users.
As blockchain tokens, mAssets can be held in fractional amounts and traded easily, all while maintaining open access and censorship resistance. Given the administrative and fee expenses of trading leading US stocks, fractional shares further diminish accessibility barriers for a broad range of global users. Trade anytime. Unlike US equities, whose trading hours are restricted to New York’s operational hours (9:30 AM — 4 PM EST), mAssets are not confined to a particular timezone. They can be traded anytime, anywhere.
Unlike US equities, whose trading hours are restricted to New York’s operational hours (9:30 AM — 4 PM EST), mAssets are not confined to a particular timezone. They can be traded anytime, anywhere. Cash out at any point. UST can be withdrawn from Mirror Wallet and sent to an exchange account at any point in time without KYC/AML processes.
UST can be withdrawn from Mirror Wallet and sent to an exchange account at any point in time without KYC/AML processes. Choose from a variety of funding methods:
1. Deposit UST by sending UST to the respective wallet address.
2. Use a credit card to purchase UST via 3rd-party service provider MoonPay.
3. Swap LUNA to UST on Terraswap or an exchange.
1. Deposit UST by sending UST to the respective wallet address. 2. Use a credit card to purchase UST via 3rd-party service provider MoonPay. 3. Swap LUNA to UST on Terraswap or an exchange. Maintain security — simply.
We ensure maximum protection for your wallet with universal key management while removing the complexity of managing private keys and seed phrases. Security is simplified using Torus, so users don’t need to remember their seed phrases and can link their wallet directly to their Google, FB, or Apple IDs.
We ensure maximum protection for your wallet with universal key management while removing the complexity of managing private keys and seed phrases. Security is simplified using Torus, so users don’t need to remember their seed phrases and can link their wallet directly to their Google, FB, or Apple IDs. Enjoy a streamlined interface. Mirror Wallet’s interface has been optimized for an intuitive user experience, rivaling the likes of Robinhood.
How Can I Use Mirror Wallet?
To create a new account , click Create Account , select Continue with <Google / Facebook / Apple>.
, click , select To deposit UST , select from the following options:
1) Deposit UST by sending UST to the respective wallet address
2) Purchase UST via credit card through 3rd-party service provider MoonPay
3) Deposit LUNA and convert to UST
, select from the following options: 1) Deposit UST by sending UST to the respective wallet address 2) Purchase UST via credit card through 3rd-party service provider MoonPay 3) Deposit LUNA and convert to UST To Buy / Sell mAssets , navigate to the Invest tab, select the Mirror Asset that you wish to buy / sell, click Buy/Sell , enter in the amount to sell (in mAsset) and Confirm .
, navigate to the tab, select the Mirror Asset that you wish to buy / sell, click , enter in the amount to sell (in mAsset) and . To withdraw deposit, click on the Wallet icon and select the Withdraw option.
Exclusive Promotion
To reward the most active traders on Mirror, eligible users will be airdropped additional UST as a promotional reward exclusively through Mirror Wallet. The reward amount is prorated to their individual trading volume.
Details
Campaign Duration
14:00:00 UTC on December 17 - 14:00:00 UTC on December 31, 2020 Total Prize Pool
100,000 UST Minimum Trading Volume to Qualify
50 UST Airdrop Date
00:00:00 UTC on January 7, 2021
Promotion 1
The top 10 trading volume accounts with the highest trading volume of mAssets (in UST) will share an exclusive reward of 50,000 UST.
Promotion 2
The next top 11–100 accounts with the highest trading volume of mAssets (in UST) will equally share an exclusive reward of 50,000 UST.
Find more details regarding promotion guidelines on the Mirror Wallet web page.
What’s Next?
As an open-source decentralized protocol, Mirror Protocol provides an unrivaled opportunity for people around the world to have greater access to attractive financial assets. We are particularly excited to support this protocol by offering Mirror Wallet as a complementary addition to the family.
We anticipate Mirror Wallet will democratize accessibility to US equities for millions of users worldwide who haven’t yet had the opportunity to participate in the US stock market. Our technical team is working closely with Terra to continuously improve and integrate additional features to the current platform. Stay tuned for new projects built by the community on Mirror Protocol!
Disclaimer: Mirror Wallet may not be available for use in some jurisdictions, and may have limited functionality in others. Users should do their own research to determine whether using Mirror wallet is compliant with local securities regulations. Cryptocurrency investment is subject to high market risk. Mirror Wallet is not responsible for any direct, indirect, or consequential losses as a result of the trading. Please make your investments with caution. | https://medium.com/mirror-protocol/mirror-wallet-premier-mobile-wallet-built-on-mirror-protocol-385581a9d9bb | ['Mirror Wallet'] | 2020-12-18 22:29:09.021000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Mirror Protocol', 'Blockchain', 'Smart Contracts'] |
What is Moon in your life ? | What is Moon in your life ?
Moon is a planet which takes care of your internal happiness and keep your charged with the positive thoughts !
Remedy for Moon is – take care of your mother and use light colored clothes in daily-life.
Thanks
Astro Subhash | https://medium.com/@astrosubhash/what-is-moon-in-your-life-1202e3d92577 | [] | 2020-12-15 13:50:30.703000+00:00 | ['Moon', 'Astrology', 'Mood'] |
How I Made $60,000 in My Spare Time by Selling Motorcycle and Car Parts | Step 2: Buy the Motorcycle
At this point, you’ll be contacting the seller. If he’s asking $500 and you tell him “I’m ready to come NOW with cash in hand,” he’ll probably take less, maybe $400 or even $350.
Obviously, if you own your own pickup truck and some (ideally four) ratchet tie-down straps (for big, heavy motorcycles, you’ll also need a ramp of some kind), that’s easiest. But I didn’t have a truck when I started and found that many of the sellers have their own pickup trucks and will deliver. However, that might cost you more (You might have to say something like, “I’ll give you an extra $100 if you deliver the motorcycle to me”).
Once you’re on-site with the motorcycle, look it over, and try to get the best price you can. Whatever you do, DO NOT tell the owner that you’re going to part the motorcycle out! Many of the sellers have fond memories of their motorcycle and they do not want to hear that you’re going to take it apart. It doesn’t matter that the motorcycle will cost a fortune to get running again, and parting out the motorcycle will keep other motorcycles on the road. Don’t tell them you’re parting it out!
The motorcycle might have a title, or it might not. It doesn’t make much of a difference. It is nice if the motorcycle has a key, though, because you can hook a power source up to the battery terminals and see if the electrical parts work, if the motor turns over, or even if the motorcycle starts (unlikely). Also, parts that include locks are worthless without a key (such as ignition, helmet lock, luggage, etc). Don’t be bothered by the fact that the paint is dull or there’s some light surface rust here or there.
You might be asking, “how do I know if this motorcycle is stolen?” Sometimes the seller has the title. If the bike is newer, they almost always do. If that’s the case, you’re in the clear. If the bike is very old, and obviously very nonfunctional, the sellers don’t always have the title. However, they almost certainly aren’t stolen. Nobody is going to steal a big, heavy, rusty, nonfunctional paperweight from 40 years ago that’s worth pocket change. There are too many shiny, $20,000 Harleys for them to target.
Once you’ve got the motorcycle loaded, you’re ready to go home! Here are some photos of motorcycles I’ve personally picked up. | https://betterhumans.pub/how-i-made-60-000-in-my-spare-time-by-selling-motorcycle-and-car-parts-54f19d555a08 | ['Erik Mcdonel'] | 2020-08-06 20:14:39.636000+00:00 | ['Do It Yourself', 'Money', 'Side Hustle', 'eBay', 'Business'] |
On the mission to end plastic pollution | Being a human-being and especially a Muslim, it is our responsibility to work for our environment and for the welfare of mankind. We use plastics for our daily life uses like we use shampoo, packed food, hair-brushes, tooth-brushes. Cutlery, crockery, pens, electronics, bags, containers, bottles and the list is so long, all in single use plastic packaging.
How horrible!
For our benefits, we are destroying our environment. We are losing our natural beauty. We are depleting the resources. We are causing trouble to the other species living in the same environment as we do.
not only humans, but other species also get badly effected by the pollution we are causing on the Earth
This is not what we should be doing right now!
Rather we should work for the betterment. For the good endings. For the ideal life having no destructions and problems.
mountains of trash every where
So, I also decided to work for my environment, for my motherland and for my place which I love the most n the world. I decided to end the plastic pollution over here by working as a volunteer.
I came up with an idea which was really beneficial. Cost-effective and needed no as such high resources. I thought to make my community aware of the plastic pollution, its causes and its consequences. Also where does it end to!
I observed my surroundings and found out that how terrible the situation was. The mountains of the plastic trash were getting higher and higher every day.
this is where all the single use plastics end up into!
I raised awareness amongst my people.
They were so appreciative.
They volunteered themselves too and said that from now on, they will recycle thee plastic and reuse them as much as possible.
It really made me happy. I have seen the results. People don’t trash now. They save their area and guide their children to not litter anywhere.
Just a little effort made the whole community aware and clean!
This is the beauty of the volunteer work and team work! | https://medium.com/@urooj-fatima169/on-the-mission-to-end-plastic-pollution-6e4de1d77282 | ['Urooj Fatima'] | 2020-12-25 20:41:51.219000+00:00 | ['Amal Fellowship', 'Amal Academy', 'Plastic Pollution', 'Endplasticpollution'] |
Do Yourself an Important Favor and Say “No” | Do Yourself an Important Favor and Say “No”
It’s saying “Yes” to yourself.
Image by Jefty Matricio from Pixabay
In a childhood phase known as “The Terrible Twos,” kids learn the joy of saying, “No.” They will say “No” to anything and enjoy how this torments their parents.
For a while.
The shocked parent regains his/her sense of who’s the boss and teaches the child the dangers of saying, “No.” Some kids learn, some don’t. I did — meaning that I learned that saying “No” led directly to punishment and possibly (probably) a spanking.
However, my mother made a confusing role model. Though she insisted on obedience, she, being a born rebel, didn’t practice it. “Do as I say and not as I do” never impresses kids.
Her habit of frequently saying, “I’m not going to take that” showed me that to resist what was unfair deserved admiration. Because I wanted her to admire me, I sometimes said “No” to her. Even though she got angry, I also heard her tell my grandmother that I was as stubborn as others in the family — and she said it with affection.
I didn’t push my luck, though, because this would have meant going against another of my mother’s rules.
“I’m Sorry”
She believed that apologizing for mistakes, misdeeds, and unknowing unkindness was polite and therefore necessary. I heard “Say you’re sorry” a lot.
While I learned to honestly apologize (sometimes), my training also taught me how to practice manipulation with the “I’m sorry” phrase.
Insincere Apologies
Consider the apology that isn’t really an apology. As a small child, I figured out strategies to avoid being the recipient of my mother’s easily-ignited temper. That temper was a force of nature, like hurricanes and snowstorms. If I figured out ways to lie low, it would pass.
While saying “No” accelerated the stormy weather, saying “I’m sorry” sometimes had the power to dissipate it.
I’m sorry.
I’m really sorry.
Subtext:
Will you forgive me?
Can I raise my head yet?
The Further Dangers of Saying “No”
Saying “I’m sorry” was easier than negotiating the pitfalls of saying “No.” What I left out of the decision about which to say was authenticity. I didn’t understand that saying “No” could express a core value related to integrity. That was probably because I focused on the core value of survival.
Maturing meant developing an independent sense of self. When I got my first job as a teenaged nurse’s aide in a hospital rehab unit, I thought being employed meant that I had the right to opinions and to be treated as equal to other adults.
I soon discovered the danger of this kind of thinking.
“Don’t Say ‘No’ to Me.
One day my head nurse, whom I’ll call Nurse Smith, assigned me to work on another floor. The head nurse of that floor, Nurse Jones, told me to give a shower to a patient, a very heavy and semi-paralyzed woman.
“She’s going to say she can’t pivot from the wheelchair to the shower chair, but she can do it on her good leg. She just doesn’t want to.”
The message was clear: Shower her or else.
Had I been more experienced, I might have asked for another aide to assist in this task. I might have, when the woman, as predicted, said she couldn’t do it, have gone back to Nurse Jones. Instead, when the patient said she couldn’t move, I tried to pivot her, and she pivoted on top of me.
I lay on the wet shower floor, immobilized, and wished with all my heart that I’d said “No.”
Nurse Jones blamed me for the incident. Had all things been equal, it would have been my fault. However, I was an inexperienced aide who’d been impressed with the importance of doing what the head nurse said.
The Consequences
Though I knew she had treated me unfairly, I felt ashamed about my failure to say no, and I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. The following morning, Nurse Smith told me to return to that floor. I decided that I wasn’t going to put myself in another impossible and perhaps dangerous situation. This decision had a subtext: I wasn’t going to be forced to do something I knew was wrong.
I said, “No.”
Instead of giving me a chance to explain my refusal, Nurse Smith sent me to the director of nursing, to whom I told my story.
She may have seen the justice of my explanation because I didn’t get fired, but when I returned to my floor, Nurse Smith said, “You must never say ‘No’ to me.” She added that if I’d acted apologetic, if I’d said, “I’m sorry, but I have a problem,” she would have listened to me. I’d made the mistake of being assertive to a dictator.
No More “No”s
I learned that when faced with someone in charge who took herself seriously, I would serve my best interests by saying, “Yes.” Integrity seemed to be a luxury I couldn’t afford.
This doesn’t mean I behaved in a docile manner; instead, I improved on my repertoire of manipulative ways to avoid saying “No.” These included excuses, avoiding the issue, and, on occasion, lying. I most often defaulted to the proven success of saying “I’m sorry.”
I’m Sorry, But . . .
Over the years, I got very crafty in using apology as a weapon. I wielded it with deliberation and skill.
Sometimes I would say “No” and even “Hell, no,” but often I didn’t. I used “I’m sorry” as a diversionary tactic that suggested I was a nice person who didn’t want to make a problem, but . . .
While my opponent focused on my feigned apology, I went on the offensive.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s true.
I’m sorry, but I kind of don’t like that restaurant.
I’m sorry, but this thing you sent me isn’t very good. Do you think I could return it?
Deception is Wearying
I discovered that apologizing for myself ate away at a sense of integrity that was becoming more important to me. I didn’t want to say “I’m sorry” when I wasn’t.
Yet I also didn’t want to be harsh. The service person on the phone whom I was telling I wanted to return something didn’t personally manufacture the second-rate item I didn’t want.
The habit that derailed me was feeling that I had to either act extremely aggressively or submissively. I couldn’t find a middle way, and I decided that had to change.
I made small changes. Not saying I was sorry when I wasn’t built up my sense of integrity. I learned that “No” could be said politely and even respectfully, when necessary, but sometimes it had to be said.
I became firm. I set my boundaries. I could regret a conflict without blaming it on myself.
Saying “No” has taught me to define myself and my values. This act increases my self-respect, and that helps me to respect others and the choices they make.
I think my mother would understand. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/do-yourself-an-important-favor-and-say-no-916528a4e338 | ['C. M. Barrett'] | 2020-01-20 12:29:18.614000+00:00 | ['Avoidance', 'Boundaries', 'Self', 'Self Esteem', 'Honesty'] |
Top 10 Budget Laptops for Designers & Creatives in 2019 | For many of us, when we start our creative journey, we might have all the passion and imagination in the world, but one thing we may lack is the money to have the best technology to make our dreams a reality.
We started to reminisce about those early days and wanted to give you, our loyal reader some assistance in getting the best tech available for your budget and still keep your drive & business growing.
When we started building our list of the Best Budget Laptops for Designers and Creatives in 2019, we tried to consider the things that we would look for when buying a new laptop.
So let’s start there shall we?
Related Posts:
7 Things to Look For When Buying A Budget Laptop
When you’re serious about your craft and want to make sure that the work you’re putting out there is the best that it can be, you want to make sure that the tech you’re using does what you need it to.
Without the right gear, your work can suffer. Now while we know you might be on a budget, there can be many things you need to know and look for when buying a laptop. If nothing else, we wanted to make sure you don’t go in uninformed.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Set A Budget
We’ve all been there. You head to the store, see the newest and brightest tech available and get excited. Then reality sets back in and you realize that you have a budget, but can you get a good laptop on a tight budget? Let’s break it down a little bit.
$150 to $350
While these are the least expensive laptops out there, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t quality options out there for you to choose from. Chromebooks run the Google Operating system, might not have all the bells and whistles of some more expensive options, but can still be a quality choice when you’re first starting out. See our post on the best Chromebooks for designers.
$350 to $600
You can buy a quality laptop with an Intel Core i5 or even an AMD A8 CPU plus 4 to 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive for less than $600 these days. While these specs are impressive, for the price, they can come with some exclusions such as an SSD, FullHD display or long battery life. There are exceptions to this though such as the Acer Aspire E 15 or the Asus Vivobook which can be upgraded to an SSD.
$600 to $900
At this point, many manufacturers will start to put features on the laptop that won’t appear on those with lower price points such as a metal finish, SSDs or even high-resolution displays. Finding a quality laptop with the features you need without breaking the bank is very doable in this price range.
$1000+
You can get a top tier laptop for over $1000. Consider looking at our top laptops for graphic designers post and the best Macbooks for designers.
2. Operating System
Other than price, many people will end up choosing a laptop because of the operating system that the laptop runs on. Whether its personal preference because of familiarity or recommendations from a colleague, laptops are generally available with three different OS:
MacOS
The laptops that Apple manufacturers are packaged with MacOS. While functionally similar to Windows 10, there are subtle differences such as an Apps dock instead of a Start menu. Mac users also have Siri instead of Cortana for voice assistance. While many people tout the ease of use that comes with Apple’s operating system, the biggest downside is that the laptops that have this OS can be quite expensive. An entry point for a cheap Mac would be considering a renewed older model.
Windows 10
With its appearance on many more laptops than both MacOS and ChromeOS, Windows is considered to be the most flexible operating system out there. Appearing on a wide range of laptops from those costing $150 to thousands of dollars, the variety of features that Windows offers can make it an enticing choice. Since its release in July 2015, the improvements that have been added to Windows have made it a very popular choice for designers and creatives.
ChromeOS
A simple and secure operating system, the ChromeOS from Google is found on Chromebooks. While the interface is reminiscent of Windows with an app menu, desktop, and ability to drag windows around, the main browser is Google’s own Chrome browser. A downside to using the ChromeOS is that some web applications don’t work all that well offline. That is changing however as newer, high-end versions of the Chromebook are now able to run Android applications.
3. Traditional laptop or 2-in-1
These days, laptops will fall into two main categories: standard notebook style and 2-in-1 hybrids that come in two different variations. A hinged version that allows you to put the device in many different configurations and a detachable that come off the keyboard entirely.
Many of these tend to provide a better experience one way instead of the other with bend-back laptops being a laptop first while detachable offers a superior tablet experience. If you don’t see having a tablet in any form as a necessity, stick with a traditional laptop as you’ll usually get better performance for the money you will spend.
4. Screen Size & Weight
While all the power under the hood is great to have, if all that power causes you to lug around a huge laptop, it might not be worth the money. Laptops are generally categorized by the size of their display:
11 to 12 inches
These will generally be the thinnest and lightest laptop that you can find. The screen is between 11 and 12 inches and only weighs around 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.
13 to 14 inches
Laptops of this size will provide the best combination of portability and usability. This is especially true if you find a laptop that weighs less than 4 pounds.
15 inches
Usually weighing around 4.5 to 6.5 pounds, 15-inch laptops are the most popular choice for those who want a laptop with a larger screen but isn’t so heavy to be a burden when carrying it around
17 to 18 inches
If you have a laptop that stays primarily on your desk and isn’t carried around much, a laptop with a 17 or 18-inch screen can provide you with the processing power you need to do high-quality work without needing a desktop computer.
5. Keyboard & Touchpad
Having the best laptop in the world, no matter how much it costs, can mean absolutely nothing if the keyboard doesn’t fit your hands the right way. A good laptop keyboard should offer tactile feedback, enough space between the keys and when you press a key, it should move vertically enough to make it feel satisfying.
See here for our list of top external keyboards.
The touchpad shouldn’t give you a jumpy cursor and also responds well to your movements as well as multitouch gestures like pinch and zoom. Some manufacturers still provide a pointing stick between the G and H keys. This can be helpful as it will allow you to navigate your laptop’s screen while keeping your fingers on the home row of the keyboard.
6. Specifications (What’s Inside)
When you look at the specs that a laptop has, it can be a little daunting at first. There are a lot of letters on display and it can be tough to know what each one of them means and what you should pick. While there can be some debate over the screen size you should choose, for designers and creatives, focusing more on three areas will help you choose a quality laptop in your price range.
Storage size
Laptops will either come with an HDD (hard disk drive) or an SSD (solid state drive). You want to try and buy a laptop with the highest amount of storage that you can afford and should aim for at least 256GB to start. If you have many files and projects that you can’t keep saved on your laptop, you may want to also look at an external hard drive.
RAM
While there are some budget-friendly laptops that come with 2GB of RAM, you should strive for a laptop that starts with at least 8GB. 16GB would obviously be better if you can afford it, and anything higher might break your budget altogether.
CPU
The CPU is essentially your laptop’s brain and giving your laptop a strong brain can make doing your job much easier. The CPU can affect the performance of the laptop in both good and bad ways. In our opinion, if you don’t have any extra money to spend on other areas of the laptop, make sure you are getting a good processor for the money.
7. Battery Life
Some people who buy a laptop will only look at the specs that it may come with and overlook a very important factor: battery life. If you’re not going to be leaving your laptop on a desk, plugged in all day, you want to shoot for at least 7 hours of battery life, more is obviously better. Just because the manual says that it lasts for 10 hours isn’t always correct. Do your research and read third-party reviews of the laptops you are interested in to get an accurate idea of the battery life.
Top 10 Best Budget Laptops for Designers and Creatives in 2019
While it is true that there are many laptops available for you to purchase, finding the best budget laptops, especially for those who may be a designer or work in another creative field can be a bit tough. There are so many options out there for you to choose from.
What we decided to do was take our criteria of what to consider when buying a laptop and select those that most closely matched. This means that to us, the list below has the Best Budget Laptops for Designers and Creatives in 2019.
If you want to know more about any on our list, click a link below to get more information. However, if you want to know why we picked the ones we did, keep reading below.
Prices above are approximate. Live rates are below.
Can you afford more? See our post:
The Cheapest Laptops for Designers and Creatives in 2019
The term budget can mean many different things and doesn’t necessarily mean that if you are on a budget, that there isn’t a viable laptop option for you out there. In fact, we found eleven great options and even though we focused on these, there are so many more out there.
The choices on our list are the ones that right out of the box, you can turn it on and excel at whatever work you need to do. If you’re ready, keep reading.
The Best All-Around Budget Laptop
CPU: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 | RAM: 8 GB DDR4 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620 | Storage: 1TB HDD | Weight: 3.7lbs | OS Windows 10 Home
Looking for the best all-around budget laptop for design? The Vivobook F510 UA from Asus is it. While priced as a budget laptop, anyone looking for a laptop no matter what their budget is should consider taking this one home. A 15.6" WideView display with FHD resolution can make your projects stand out with the help of a 7th gen Core i5–7200U processor and 8GB of RAM which helps make multitasking as easy as can be. The 1TB hard drive will have more than enough room for all of your files but if you want a faster SSD drive (such as the Crucial MX300), you can upgrade it quite easily. With connection options including HDMI, 2 USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0, and a Type-c port, it’s not hard to see why this is the top laptop on our list.
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The Best Budget Laptop Under $900
CPU: Intel Core i5-i7 | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 256GB DDR4 | Weight: 2.65 lbs | OS: Windows 10 Home
While the Lenovo Yoga may not fit into everyone’s idea of budget, those who can afford this 2-in-1 will be impressed by the performance they receive from a high-quality laptop that doesn’t cost as much as the big boys. A full HD 15.6-inch display is helped by the Intel UHD Graphics 620 graphics card, making all of your design work look amazing. Perfect for those who are looking for a light, powerful 2-in-1 with an accurate touchscreen along with sufficient processing power for all of your needs.
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The Best Budget Macbook Pro
CPU: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 | RAM: 4–8GB | Storage: 500GB Mechanical | Weight: 4.54lbs | OS: MacOS
If you’re wanting to go the Apple route, like many creatives do, but just don’t have the funds to fork out for their newest products, getting a renewed older model Macbook Pro is a great alternative. The 13.3" screen is a great middle ground, and the Intel HD Graphics 4000, while not outstanding, will do the job. It’s also important to consider that older MacBook Pro models come with mechanical hard drives VS the faster SSDs that come in modern day Macs. We recommend opting for the 8GB RAM model which is just $42 more.
See our guide to the best Macbooks for designers.
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The Most Powerful Budget Laptop
CPU: 7th generation Intel Core i5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 1TB HDD | Weight: 4.85lbs | OS: Windows 10
At first glance, the Dell i3567 Inspiron may not look like much, but trust us, it has a lot going on under the hood. With a Core i5–7200U CPU that has a processing speed of around 3 GHz with the use of the laptop’s turbo boost. Eight gigabytes of RAM makes multitasking easy while a hard drive of 1TB gives you more than enough room to save all of your work. A 15.6-inch display is backlit by LED’s which helps to produce almost perfect colors. While it may not appear as more than a simple laptop, the Dell i3657 Inspiron has muscle where it counts.
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The Best Long-Life Battery Laptop
CPU: 2.24 GHz Intel Celeron | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics | RAM: 4GB | Storage: 16GB eMMC | Weight: 3.42lbs | OS: Chrome
For many, Acer has been a computer company that releases quality products at affordable prices and the Chromebook 14" is no exception. Running Google’s own lightweight operating system, the Chromebook is powered by a quad-core Celeron chip plus 4GB of RAM as well as 16GB of eMMC storage. While not everyone is a fan of using a Chromebook, it can be a great first option, especially when you take into consideration the incredible battery life of 12 hours of normal use per charge.
Buy on Amazon
The Best Budget Laptop with an Optical Drive (CD/DVD)
CPU: 8th generation Intel Core i3 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620 | RAM: 6GB | Storage: 1TB HDD | Weight: 5.27 lbs | OS: Windows 10
While not the lightest laptop on our list, the Acer Aspire E 15 has some features that other budget laptops don’t anymore. Namely an optical drive. In an age where the optical drive is becoming less and less common, Acer has packaged the Aspire with a 1TB HDD and an Intel HD Graphics 620 chip. While the large, 15.6-inch display is nice to look at, the Core i3 processor doesn’t move as quickly as some other options on our list. If you’re in need of an optical drive (CD/DVD drive) for your work or entertainment, the Aspire E 15 from Acer may be a great fit for you.
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The Best Budget Tablet Laptop
CPU: Pentium Gold 4415Y | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 615 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 128GB SSD | Weight: 1.15lbs | OS: Chrome
Sometimes the best budget-friendly laptop is more than just a laptop. Case in point, the Microsoft Surface Go is designed to primarily be a tablet. But with the Type Pad accessory, it becomes a quite capable laptop that can be taken pretty much anywhere. With a battery life of around 9 hours, you can spend that time working on the 10-inch PixelSense display which will portray your work in vivid color. A 128GB SSD and 8GB of RAM give you more than enough power and storage to handle any sketching you can do. While the added accessories can up the price a bit, the tablet alone can make for a great sketchpad. The only downfall is the 10" screen size which may be too small for some.
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The Best Budget Laptop for Video Editors
CPU: AMD dual-core A9 APU — Intel Core i7 | RAM: 6GB — 16GB | Graphics: AMD Radeon R5 — Nvidia GTX 1050 | Storage: 512GB SSD — 1TB HDD | Weight: 5lbs | OS Windows 10
Anyone who tells you that sticker shock isn’t a real thing has never been shopping for a laptop. While there are many to choose from, it can be hard to find one with quality construction and won’t destroy any kind of budget you might have. With the Pavilion 15 from HP, you can check both boxes off.
While its overall weight could be a concern for anyone looking to own a lightweight laptop, the 15 houses some impressive tech to make the weight worth it. An Intel Core i7 processor is the brains behind the machine while 8GB of RAM as well and expandable hard drive from 512GB to 1TB gives you more than enough space. If you’re just starting out in video, you can’t start anywhere better in our opinion. See our post on the best laptops for video editors.
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The Best Budget-Friendly 2-in-1 Laptop
CPU: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i3 | RAM: 500 SDRAM DDR4 | Graphics: Intel 620 chip | Storage: 1TB HDD | Weight: 6.61lbs | OS Windows
It can be hard to find a quality 2-in-1 laptop when you have a budget, most aren’t hanging around in the budget class of laptops but the HP Pavilion X360 has an affordable price and some of the style and features that might be found on some of the more popular options out there.
While the amount of memory is a bit lacking with just 4GB to start, the addition of 16GB of Intel Optane memory as a backup. A 15.6-inch FHD display makes a good size surface when in tablet mode and the digital pen is perfect for creatives who don’t want to buy more than one piece of tech.
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The Cheapest Chromebook
CPU: 2.1 GHz MediaTek_MT8127 | RAM: 4 GB LPDDR3 | Graphics: PowerVR SGX543 | Storage: 64 GB Flash Memory Solid State | Weight: 2.64lbs | OS: Chrome
While at first look, the Chromebook C3300 (11.6") from Lenovo may look too small and light to fit onto our list, its those features that help cement it’s spot on our list in the first place. A MediaTek MT8174C processor powers the 2-in-1 and while it comes with a standard 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage help keep all of your important files.
The biggest value in this reasonably priced laptop is the flexibility that it has. With a 360-degree hinge, it can be put in a multitude of positions making getting work done much easier. With a USB-C and USB 3.0 ports included on the machine, you cannot go wrong choosing this one, especially for the price.
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The Best Budget Laptop for Travel (and the clumsy)
CPU: 1.6 GHz Intel Celeron | RAM: 4 GB ddr3 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 400 | Storage: 16 GB Flash Memory Solid State | Weight: 2.54lbs | OS Chrome
If you’ve ever had that moment where it’s too late to save the laptop you just spilled coffee all over, then you’ll be happy to meet the Chromebook 3 from Samsung. Running on a 1.6 GHz Intel Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM, it may not be the fastest Chromebook out there but it still runs pretty smooth. An integrated Intel Graphics Card and 16GB SSD help you store and make your images pop on the 11.6-in screen.
Weighing only 2.54 pounds, it is extremely portable while its durable casing helps protect it from drops and spills, which can be all too common when you have a million things going on at once or trying to catch the subway.
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Best Budget Laptops Summary
Choosing the Best Budget Laptops for your Needs
Choosing a budget laptop can be tough especially when you see higher priced options with all the bells and whistles that you know you want. But if you look past the glitz and glamour, you’ll see on our list of the Best Budget Laptops for Designers and Creatives in 2019 many very capable and affordable laptops to help you get your work done.
We hope that we’ve inspired you to take a closer look at the many different options that you have out there and realize that just because you have a budget, it doesn’t mean that you cannot be successful.
Do you use a budget laptop that’s not on our list? Let us know about it in the comments below.
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Photo credits: Golubovy & Stanislaw Mikulski on Shutterstock | https://medium.com/just-creative/top-10-budget-laptops-for-designers-creatives-in-2019-5d0be5976447 | ['Jacob Cass'] | 2019-07-25 04:49:59.172000+00:00 | ['Best', 'Laptops', 'Gear', 'Tools'] |
by Zach of Mintable.app —A Next Gen NFT Marketplace | Starting Dates
When we go live with Mintable v2.0 we will also go live with the DAO. We are aiming to go live at the end of November.
DAO/Mintable v2.0 goes live: End of November
End of November Can start earning/buying MINT and NFTs: As soon as its live
Mintable.app will be taken down 2 weeks prior to launching and replaced with a landing page as we get closer to launch.
How a NFT DAO works
Mintable wants to be community driven, decentralized, and flexible. To do that a DAO is the best choice. Here is how it works:
The DAO doesn’t take tokens for voting, but instead uses NFTs. In order to submit proposals, vote in a proposal, you need a voting NFT with more than 10,000 votes to propose, and any number for voting.
Each person who wants to vote has an NFT that contains their voting power on it. Each NFT is unique, and each NFT is given to anyone when they buy/sell an NFT on our marketplace or via the bonding curve.
This means people who actively use our platform, have a say in our platform. Exactly what we want.
How to earn a voting NFT and get votes
If you make a transaction on Mintable.app — either buy or sell an NFT — you will be given an NFT automatically in the transaction that you purchased the NFT in. So if you buy an NFT, you will actually get 2 — the NFT you wanted to buy, and the voting NFT.
If you already have a voting NFT, your votes will increase, but you will not get a new NFT.
Example: Bob creates an NFT on Mintable and offers it for sale. This is Bob’s first NFT. Sally sees this new NFT and loves it, so she buys it for 100 USD, Sally buys a lot of NFTs and she already have a voting NFT with 5,000 votes on it. When Sally submits the transaction — she gets Bob’s NFT and her votes on her voting NFT increase to 5,100. Bob gets 100 USD and since it’s his first time selling an NFT or buying one, he is sent a voting NFT with 100 votes on it. (these numbers are made up and not accurate depictions of the amount of votes you’d get.)
The second method of getting votes is via a bonding curve. The DAO contract will sell NFT votes starting at roughly $2.50 per vote, with only 10 million votes available to be sold. This will allow people to start accumulating votes and earning rewards without having to wait the long game of selling multiple NFTs.
How proposals works
At any point a person with over 10,000 votes can make a proposal for the future direction of our platform. A proposal can be anything, either a proposal to change our logo, to changing our name, to adding a new feature, to adding an artist to the community approved artists, or adjusting our fees on our smart contracts. Proposals can be used to enact different features on the smart contract, if the community wants them, such as the ability to convert their NFTs into ETH, or to upgrade the DAO into a new smart contract. These are all just examples and will be dictated by whoever is making a proposal and then of course, if it’s passed.
How voting works | https://medium.com/@mintable/a-new-type-of-dao-for-nfts-by-nfts-9859253dd823 | ['Zach Of Mintable.App', 'A Next Gen Nft Marketplace'] | 2020-11-02 10:08:17.214000+00:00 | ['Solidity', 'Ethereum', 'Marketplaces', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
Kicking off a decade of social innovation after a year like no other | This year, we’ve all experienced a year like no other. Covid-19 has impacted our health, economy, environment and education; exposing significant injustices at societal, community and individual levels. The ongoing pain and suffering so many have faced; and yet at the same time some have experienced moments of joy, optimism, gratitude and beauty. Alongside the deep challenges, we have seen triumphs in collaboration, innovation and community.
This year also kicked off the most important decade for humanity in terms of our actions towards dealing with the climate emergency. We have until 2030 to halve global emissions to even stand a chance at limiting global temperatures to within 1.5ºC compared to pre-industrial levels (this is the critical amount of warming under which scientists predict the planet will have a better chance of being able to adapt).
And, for me, it has been the year that I led my own radical alternative education programme … homeschooling my kids, Lorion, aged 8 years, and Liv, aged 6 years!
In this moment, as we collectively emerge — hopefully for the last time — from the restrictions of the pandemic in the UK, as we face a critical decade in responding to the climate emergency, and as we continue to fight for racial and social justice, Year Here kicks off the next chapter of its journey.
My path into social entrepreneurship
I come to Year Here having benefited from much of what we offer our talented Fellows. As part of an innovation programme offered by Nesta I was supported to develop a business idea, heard from leading-edge entrepreneurs and got start-up funding. I am in no doubt that I wouldn’t be the social entrepreneur I am today if I hadn’t received this investment early on.
I went on to co-found the UK’s first health and wellbeing service design agency, Uscreates, and led the business through acquisition to join the larger change agency FutureGov.
Now I’m honoured to be able to bring this experience, learning and appreciation for social entrepreneurship to serve the Year Here mission.
Me sharing the value of design at one of Uscreates’ design workshops
Why social entrepreneurship?
Year Here provides the fuel, environment and support for budding social entrepreneurs at a time when we need them more than ever. Social entrepreneurship offers us the competencies and the alternative business models that can help us rapidly and radically address the complex challenges of our time.
Social entrepreneurs demonstrate empathy, teamwork, innovation and modern leadership. They seek to understand issues deeply, gain new insights and provide fresh perspectives. They reframe our challenges into opportunities and they go on to create, test and grow social ventures. These social ventures model a more sustainable, innovative and empowering way of tackling problems.
There are great examples from the Year Here fold like Appt Health which increases take-up of health services among those who need them most; Fat Macy’s, the catering business that provides training to support young people moving from temporary accommodation into long-term homes; and Migrateful, running wonderful experiential cooking classes and at that same time supporting migrant chefs to share their culture, practice their language skills and integrate more successfully.
The culinary creations from Migrateful’s Pescatarian Ecuadorean cookery class with Chef Leonor that I joined with my family on Easter Sunday.
My mission at Year Here
I love the Year Here offer. Having met and worked with lots of Year Here alumni, I know that the Fellowship is a transformative experience.
As the social and environmental challenges we face stack up faster than ever, we need to broaden the opportunity for people to become social entrepreneurs and release their changemaker skills. I want us to build on the work that’s already begun to extend and open up our offer to more and different people.
I also want us to explore how we can amplify the impact we have by supporting our social entrepreneurs even further on into their journey, with the goal of helping more Year Here ventures scale to become household names.
I come with ambitions to amplify our impact to meet the social needs of the 2020s — and practical ideas for how to achieve this. I also come with an open mind intending to listen deeply, to understand and honour our assets and all the great work done to date. I believe in collaborative leadership and I will work with the team to shape plans and ambitions that we will build and deliver together.
So now, after this year like no other, this is my opportunity to lead my second radical alternative learning programme. Not my children’s homeschooling this time, but Year Here.
At a time when social innovation and diverse talent is needed more than ever. I’m looking forward to working on this together. | https://medium.com/here-and-now/kicking-off-a-decade-of-social-innovation-after-a-year-like-no-other-17b67cf2dcf | ['Zoe Stanton'] | 2021-04-15 14:24:54.205000+00:00 | ['Social Entrepreneurship', 'Social Innovation', 'Startup', 'Leadership', 'Service Design'] |
The Nintendo Switch Console & Wii-U Games: A Perfect Match | The Wii-U deserved so much better. That system, on almost every level minus its name and how Nintendo rolled it out, absolutely ruled. Killer menu music, amazing games, a fantastic controller (yes, the Gamepad was good actually), and a litany of backwards compatibility features. It is a shame the Wii name was tied to it because, well, it both confused people and undersold what the Wii-U was. At its core, the Wii-U was an integrated system, much like the Nintendo Switch, and in all honesty, it just seems like a (somewhat failed) test run for the Switch. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
It feels like Wii-U games stopped arriving in 2016, minus some virtual console and e-shop stuff. And then the Switch launched in March of 2017. Unlike the Wii-U, the Switch was immediately popular at launch, and its popularity has only skyrocketed in the following years. Where the Wii-U failed to become a popular console, it more than made up for in its lineup of first-party Nintendo titles. The Wii-U has arguably one of the best (and smallest) collections of games ever: Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Mario Kart 8, two amazing Zelda remakes, Splatoon, Star Fox Zero (which deserves more love), and more. As someone who bought the Wii-U close to launch, it felt like I was enjoying this amazing system in secret. It had so much to offer—hell, it still does in regards to the robust virtual console on it—but it felt like no one really knew about it beyond the fact that it kind of became the butt of a joke. In hindsight, we can look back on the Wii-U and say that it ruled, but what of the games “stranded” on it? Well, Nintendo—a company known for idiosyncratic and often downright bewildering choices—actually made the right choice. They’ve started porting Wii-U exclusive titles to the Switch. The only downside to this is that, Nintendo being Nintendo, these games are often still sixty dollars and probably always will be.
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze was one of the first Wii-U exclusives to get the Nintendo Switch treatment. One of the big selling points is that these games are now native 1080p which is all good and dandy, but I have a Switch Lite so I only ever see these games through the handheld screen. They look great. What makes this port special is not that anything new was added, but that it happened at all. The idea of porting Wii-U games to the Switch has seemed so obvious from the start, but it is ideas like this that Nintendo often shuns, and yet here they are leaning into it. Another reason is that even by Wii-U user base standards, it seemed like Tropical Freeze came and went. Those who played it knew how downright incredible it was in nearly every regard, but it also seems like it sort of just slipped by. It is a game that I have recommended to so many people now that it is easily available on the Switch (albeit at a somewhat unreasonable price). Having this game on the Switch is so nice because it is legitimately one of the best platformers of the past twenty years, and the music absolutely HITS (cue Dan Ryckert’s passionate defense of it in 2014). Nintendo didn’t stop there. Wii-U games have slowly but steadily continued to find a new home and a second chance on the Nintendo Switch.
Big titles like Mario Kart 8 and New Super Mario Bros U have made their way to the Switch as “Deluxe” versions of themselves—small changes and additions have been added to make them feel newer. Some of these changes are actually cool while others feel like afterthoughts. Funnily enough, two of the titles that have gotten the best Wii-U-to-Switch treatment are also two of the most underrated games on that system—Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Pikmin 3.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was released with a slew of new bonus levels and they are all quite good. Many of them offer more of a challenge than what is there in the base game. While the core game itself can get tricky, the bonus levels reinvent some of the visual language and signifiers that players who’ve played the full game have likely grown used to. They challenge us with thinking outside of the box and outside of what the game has asked of us up until that point. In that regard, the bonus levels are a fantastic addition to an already brilliant game. As a whole, Treasure Tracker is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time. I mean it helps that it stems from the best Mario game ever—Super Mario 3D World. The way that the game emphasizes perspective and avoidance is genuinely beautiful. Toad is not a fighter but they are smart, and so Toad finds their way around encounters. The biggest obstacles are not creatures but the landscape itself. And Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is one of the most “this is a toy” Nintendo games insofar as each level feels like a tangible playset. The Switch’s touchscreen lets us manipulate these small slices of land and in that regard, they feel like playsets that we manipulate to our own ends. There is a serenity to Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker that is rare in games, it rides that perfect line between comforting simplicity and rewarding complexity. Plus, the music absolutely slaps and Captain Toad is the only good being to ever hold a military(?) rank—what does his captain status relate to? Who gave it to him? Does the Toad world have military branches? Why is he a captain? I’ve got some questions.
And then there is Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Pikmin 3 is arguably the best in Nintendo’s over-a-decade spanning weird little hybrid exploration RTS series. It is intimately gorgeous, full of character, has a bumping soundtrack, and is just endlessly fun to play and engage with. That was true for the Wii-U version and that is even truer with the Deluxe version on the Switch because this Deluxe version really does earn that name. There is now a new easier mode that makes the overall experience more welcoming with a longer day cycle and more guide posting which, to be honest, is super welcome! Pikmin 3 has major chill vibes but sometimes the game gets really stressful and genuine challenge of that variety is not really what I look for in a Pikmin game. I am glad the challenge is there if I want it, but I am glad the game can now be experienced in a way more welcoming fashion. And there is the fact that a two-player mode has been added as well as new side story missions and all of the DLC from the original Wii-U release. Cooperative play was really missing when Pikmin 3 first came out so it is more than welcome now, and the game really shines with two players. The new side story missions are fine enough and the DLC is okay, too. They kind of feel like afterthoughts whereas the new difficulty mode and cooperative play feel like genuinely big (and welcome) changes. It also doesn’t hurt that Pikmin 3 is as pretty and inspired as ever. This world of small quirky creatures from a forest-floor-up perspective never gets old and the natural scenery, gonzo character design, and well-composed music all add up to create an experience that is unlike anything else. To think that this game could’ve been lost to a system that was not very popular and quickly moved on from is a bummer. But Pikmin 3, and many other Wii-U games, have been granted second chances thanks to them being ported to the Nintendo Switch.
Well, what about the Nintendo Switch makes it the perfect place for Wii-U titles to find a new home on? The immediate answers are obvious—The Switch is literally just a Wii-U but sleeker and more handheld focused, it has sold a hell of a lot better and is thus more popular, and it is more powerful (whatever that means, console power is a moot point in my opinion). That paints the immediate picture of why these games are being ported to the Switch, but I think that the reason they fit so well on the system runs deeper than those previously stated answers. A big part of why these games work so well on the Switch and seem to be well-wanted and popular is due to the sheer fact that, well, as time has gone on a fondness has grown for the Wii-U. It is by no means a well-loved by all system, but as with all things, the immediate false-nostalgia of bygone memories made commercial kicks in within 3 years of something not being new anymore. That has happened with the Wii-U and the whole concept of “overlooked/underappreciated games” has entered that conversation as sort of a blanket statement. The Wii-U was an underrated console and thus all the Nintendo games for it are underrated by proxy. Uh, no. The Mario Tennis game on the Wii-U fucking sucked and so did a bunch of other Nintendo games on the system. But it also had some truly brilliant experiences that are finally coming into the limelight (behind a $60 dollar price tag). These games played well on the Wii-U and the Nintendo Switch resembles the Wii-U in more ways than one, but it does what that system tried to do, and it does so better than it did. So, yeah these games naturally still feel great and are often better on the Switch. Also, the constant ask for more games on the system means that these ports are treated as Big Deal releases by Nintendo and they are usually met in such a way by games media/consumers. In reality, they are just little HD updates with some changes here and there, but Nintendo would rather sell them as fully new games. In a way, they are. Not many people experienced these Wii-U games to begin with and so they might feel new, but they aren’t new and we honestly should not treat them as such. Our effort is better spent championing new, smaller games instead of relitigating why X and Y Wii-U games are underrated gems and deserve to be played. I spent a few paragraphs above doing just that, but the press cycle doing that as a whole just drowns out a lot of the space in which we can discuss new, smaller games coming to the Switch. In the end, I am glad Wii-U games are making their way to the Switch and they feel right at home on the system, and that all. | https://medium.com/@inthelobby/the-nintendo-switch-console-wii-u-games-a-perfect-match-8d64caa060ae | ['In The Lobby'] | 2020-12-22 20:00:27.059000+00:00 | ['Nintendo', 'Essay', 'Games'] |
The Borderlands – Feliz Navidad from Cuidad Juarez, Mexico | Thus far my experience here in the borderlands has been full of new experiences, challenges, and friendships. My first two weeks were spent in orientation which consisted of daily group reflections, a few sessions about the history and work of Annunciation house, and daily projects at the house where we were staying.
A mural in one of Annunciation House’s houses of hospitality in El Paso, Texas. In English, it reads: “I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
Orientation was really enjoyable, mainly do to the wonderful four other volunteers who also arrived in November with me. Between cooking and doing dishes together, our morning reflections, sweeping, mopping, and organizing for hours on end together, celebrating election results, and collaborating to tend to the needs of our Covid positive guests, we quickly became quite close.
During orientation, my fellow volunteers and I would typically end our nights with a movie, jam session, or just hang out and chat.
Perhaps me interacting with Covid positive guests caught you by surprise? It certainly did for me! Although I had been forewarned that Annunciation House was accepting Covid positive guests, I did not expect to be interacting with them just a few days after arriving.
The house where our orientation took place has ample space for guests who recently tested positive for Covid to self-isolate (fortunately most were asymptomatic). The majority of guests were not only Covid positive, but were also injured. Their injuries, usually broken legs, feet, and backs, were sustained from falling from the border fence where they were then picked up by Border Patrol and brought to the hospital. After being released from the hospital and processed by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, they are dropped off at our doors. We provide meals and a place to stay for them while they continued to recover. We also help them coordinate transportation to their family or relatives in the US where they can continue their recovery and pursue their asylum case.
Amidst all of this I kept thinking about how just a few months ago I would have never imagined myself interacting so closely with people who are Covid positive, not to mention occasionally helping them perform simple life tasks such as getting out of bed and getting dressed. In fact, I can recall my stomach dropping this past March when I came across a video of nurses and doctors wearing full body suits and face shields to treat Covid positive patients. I remember feeling grateful I didn’t work in health care because I thought I could never do something like that. And here I am a few months later in a full body suit, face shield, and N95, interacting with Covid positive refugees. Life has truly felt like an adventure lately!
Me suiting up with my personal protective equipment to check in with our guests and bring them lunch.
After orientation in El Paso I was placed in a house of hospitality in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. There are currently five Central American families, only women with children, residing here while pursuing their US asylum court hearings. Due to the current administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, they are required to stay in Mexico while they pursue their cases, a process which takes a minimum of several months.
My weekly duties consist of assigning chores, helping cook and clean, enforce the rules of the house, go grocery shopping, and help the guests with anything in particular that they need. I also spend a lot of time playing games, watching movies, and hanging out with the guests – especially the kids.
One of my highlights has been spending time in the kitchen with the moms. They’ve taught me how to make several delicious Central American dishes. For Thanksgiving I made a traditional Thanksgiving feast. It was the guests’ first time trying an oven roasted turkey. Most of them loved it.
Trying to master the art of stuffing, enclosing, and flattening a Salvadoran pupusa.
While being here has certainly been filled with graces, I have to admit, living in a relatively small house with 15 other people has been a challenging transition for me. As my need for quietude has become more and more clear to me recently, the constant commotion and emotion here has required me to get creative with and to maximize the periods of alone time for myself that I do have, which include mornings and my weekly day off.
Finding solitude in the Organ Mountains, just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Since most of the guests don’t roll out of bed in the morning until 9:00 or 10:00 am, I’ve established a routine of waking up at 6:00 am in order to have a few hours of quiet time to start my day. My mornings typically consist of practicing yoga, relaxing in silence or with music, cooking and enjoying a hearty breakfast with an excessive amount of tea, and a group reflection with Mary and Justine, the two other volunteers here.
Every week I have a day and a half off. Annunciation House provides an apartment in downtown El Paso for volunteers to use on their days off, which I have been utilizing as my home base while exploring nearby mountains and bike trails. The Franklin Mountains state park, which sits a new minutes north of downtown El Paso, has been my go-to quick escape to nature. I have also enjoyed exploring the mountains around Las Cruces, New Mexico, located 40 miles northwest of El Paso. I’ve went on several beautiful bike rides as well. My favorite was along the Rio Grande river valley which runs between El Paso and Las Cruces and is lined with pecan orchards and wineries. As for weather, the past few weeks has been 60s and sunny during the day and 30s at night. It has rained once the entire six weeks I’ve been here.
Riding amongst the pecan orchards of Mesilla Valley, New Mexico.
In addition to the beautiful weather, I’m feeling particularly grateful for the leisure time I have at the moment at my house in Juarez. Soon after moving in, I became frustrated with the weak and spotty internet connection in my room, and in our house in general. However, this resulted in me spending much of my leisure time reading and journaling when not interacting with the guests, which has turned out to be quite life-giving. Plus, with limited internet access, I find myself less distracted and more present.
Overall, living in Juarez has been really enjoyable, although I haven’t been able to explore a whole lot due to the pandemic. One unique aspect about living here is crossing the border multiple times per week. I usually cross by bike, stuffing my backpack and pannier with everything I’ll need for my trip. It’s like a mini bikepacking adventure every week!
Taking a ride along the southern side of the border.
With Christmas coming in a matter of days, the spirit of house is full of excitement. While I’m sad I won’t be with my family during Christmas this year, I‘m looking forward to celebrating with the guests and experiencing their traditions.
Our house is decked out with Christmas lights, decorations, and we even have two Christmas trees. Santa will be coming with gifts for all of the guests as well (most of which are hiding under my bed at the moment and need to be wrapped). We plan to leave a mask and some hand sanitizer out for him on Christmas Eve.
For our Christmas feast, we’ll be making traditional Central American tamales which are wrapped and cooked in plantain leaves. I could only find one supermarket here that sells them, and only in limited quantities. Since we will need several bags, I brought up our dilemma to the store manager and he offered to put in a larger order for next week and save some in the back just for us! We’ll be having a gingerbread house making party soon, too. I’m especially looking forward to making lots of Christmas cookies with the kids. The teenage girls and I made our first batch – peanut butter blossoms – a few days ago. They were a huge hit.
Wishing everyone safe and cozy holidays.
Feliz Navidad,
Hugh | https://medium.com/@hughtruempi/the-borderlands-feliz-navidad-from-cuidad-juarez-mexico-87b3723facfe | ['Hugh Truempi'] | 2020-12-29 22:02:48.442000+00:00 | ['Migrants', 'Us Mexico Border', 'Migration'] |
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