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Getting Acceleration by iPhone | Here’s how to use the iPhone’s accelerometer to get the acceleration.
As shown in the following image, the acceleration in the X, Y, and Z axes can be acquired.
This image is my application interface.
When we get the acceleration on iOS, we use CoreMotion, which is provided by Apple.
import CoreMotion
This is the source code
Set an interval of updating accelerometer.
motionManager.accelerometerUpdateInterval = 0.2
Start updating the accelerometer.
motionManager.startAccelerometerUpdates
End updating accelerometer.
motionManager.stopAccelerometerUpdates()
We use these technologies to evaluate drivers, improve their driving skills, and work to reduce traffic accidents. | https://medium.com/dsf-developers/getting-acceleration-by-iphone-d368dc46b34b | [] | 2020-05-19 01:16:23.443000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Mobile App Development', 'Acceleration', 'Swift', 'iPhone'] |
Proctoring Software and Abusability Testing | Link roundup
Here are some platform abuse incidents from last week:
Abusability Testing: Proctoring Software
During the pandemic, more than 800 schools across the world have been using Proctorio, an online proctoring edtech company, to enforce academic honesty. The primary way that Proctorio software monitors students’ integrity is through making it so that the student must keep the camera, mic, and other computer activities visible and available to Proctorio and the instructors.
The company has faced public backlash and protest from students who are being forced to use them — leading students to organize petitions and public articles against the invasive nature of the technology. Other companies such as ProctorU, ProctorTrack, and large MOOCs share these features (e.g. webcam and mic access). In some cases, implementing proctoring software can help online degree programs appear rigorous in the way they evaluate students.
What should other edtech companies learn about how the specific webcam features on Proctorio have been abused?
Webcam hijacking or “camfecting” is a type of abuse where an external actor gains access to another user’s web camera without the user’s knowledge. There have been numerous reports on the ways that remote access trojans, phishing, and other malicious attacks can be used to control another user’s camera, invade their privacy, and secretly record and blackmail them with illegally obtained footage. These attacks disproportionately affect women and those with lower tech familiarity.
Camfecting warns us that proctoring companies should understand that the number of people who can be attacked increases in magnitude if someone else can peer into student cameras. The access that these proctoring apps are given through schools and institutions makes it imperative that security is prioritized. Bad actors who gain access to proctoring software will be able to exponentially multiply the reach and impact of their attacks.
This is what abusability testing offers us — a look at specific features (in this case, cameras) that are shared among technologies across the industries (beyond edtech!) and to learn from how they have been abused before. This way, we can perform risk assessments and understand the consequences of the permissions that we give to new and seemingly innocuous technologies.
This post is the third of a series where we will analyze real examples of platform abuse and abusability testing. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop! | https://medium.com/@platformabuse/proctoring-software-and-abusability-testing-d9d4ae01ee9e | ['Mobius Project'] | 2020-10-14 00:51:29.430000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Cameras', 'Edtech', 'Technews', 'Technology'] |
Energy Flows | Energy Flows
Entities possess and caress me from across the Universe
Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash
Where shall I start? This morning? Last night? Does it matter? Does the structure of the poem about without routine require a beginning and an end?
I didn’t know what it was about when first I was in my idea, pace, think, pace more mode, but then again, inside of course knew;
yet, turns out it’s about so much more than I imagined.
As oft happens with me, the art, being a product of split streams into and out of my split-screens, takes on a life of its own and tells me what to write on its behalf, which is really a metaphoric way for saying that this piece has already been written by my soul in my unconscious mind and is now being revealed to my consciousness.
I woke a little after 00:00, very groggy, no, dissociatively foggy as is my norm these days both as I nod off and as I wake, then it’s sixteen after one when I decide to put feet on the floor.
Shall I break the haze with some HIIT as has smacked so well in days past — Nah, I feel like a walk.
I turn north out the door, it’s quite dark, perhaps my friends are behind clouds, but then my eyes adjust and a warm smile engulfs my face as I begin my stroll along Milky Way
with a bounce in my step energized by whoever is nodding approvingly from another dimension.
My sense of wondrous awe grows with each buoyant step, and then as I turn south for home, POW, the sky is vast and my friend Orion smiles and I get warmer yet as the angels alight me.
Will wonders never cease, I am not alone — the silhouettes of a herd of deer dart across the road perhaps 40 yds yonder, disappearing into the leafless thicket as suddenly as they had appeared to announce Prithvi’s watchful eye.
India, Tamil Nadu, 13th century Sculpture Copper alloy Gift of Anna Bing Arnold (M.70.5.3) South and Southeast Asian Art
I am like a tourist looking up at the lights of Times Square the whole way home and then the silence shifts;
the wind begins to talk to me with the chimes on the house up the hill and with the chatter from the crisp brown leaves that somehow on 23.12.20 still cling to their branches despite the firm breeze;
back inside, inspired by all those that joined me on my jaunt,
AND it's 3 am that means Linstara is here too, hooray!!
Idea, pace, think, time to write. Shoot, MacOS update on iMac still has 26 minutes to go. That’s ok, get laptop…continue the flow
What is the central idea about which I am so moved to wax poetic?
Flow. Go with it. We do not need the structure of routine. That’s what the myopes need. We claustrophobes cannot and will not allow our potential to be limited by false societal-constructs; possessing the eyesight of hawks, we discern from our lofty perches that we always have all the structure we need as provided by the connection between us and everything — we, the stars, the leaves, even the flag on the pole barking from the NW breeze, we are all connected to Source — what more structure could anyone need?
I know from the unique energy signature that just excited my follicles, almost bringing me to tears, that Rama agrees, and so proud of me are all of our creators (flood gates just opened)
YG
Note: While now quite different, an earlier version of this poem entitled The Flow, Poem inspired by my Muse and a 17-minute walk at 2 am under the stars, was published in ILLUMINATION on 12.23.20. That piece was focused on going with the flow; this piece focuses more on the influence that spirits, angels, souls and deities have on, and ever-presence in, us. Everyone has access to god — I am not special (in that way ;) ).
Note, the inspiration for the use of the word “claustrophobes” should be credited to 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. for this from her bio: “𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐’𝘮 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘤.” | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/energy-flows-72a9fa18637d | ['Yohanan Gregorius'] | 2020-12-24 02:29:21.989000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Gods Presence', 'Energy', 'Nature', 'Universe'] |
Arts Omaha + The White Supremacy Culture of Omaha’s Cultural Sector | Arts Omaha + The White Supremacy Culture of Omaha’s Cultural Sector
image by Sarah Hummel Jones
It feels like this quote by James Baldwin holds more truth these days than it ever has before. As a nation, we have been moved by the murder of George Floyd and other atrocities to look within ourselves, our systems of government, corporate structures — and our non-profit sectors — to search out, acknowledge and work to correct our shortcomings in addressing inclusivity and equity.
As a Black executive director of an arts non-profit in Omaha, I have been doing my own soul searching — looking for oppression within my organization and moving to address it with the assistance of my team. No institution is perfect, and anti-oppression work is a process. Each of us, but more importantly those of us in positions of privilege and leadership, has a responsibility to take a stand and work for greater equity and justice. Taking a stand requires that we be attuned to the ways that white supremacy has evolved enough to know how to manipulate the optics of DEI while maintaining the status quo.
The Omaha World Herald recently ran an article highlighting the DEI work being done within Omaha’s cultural sector, and while I recognize that effort is being made, I feel that I need to raise my voice and speak on the discrimination and culture of white supremacy that has long existed within my city’s cultural sector.
Each of the organizations mentioned in that article are a part of a consortium of cultural sector executive directors and CEOs, called Arts Omaha. Many people, even in Omaha’s cultural community, don’t know about this group, which has existed for decades. Its members run the largest cultural institutions in Omaha and over the past year it has evolved from being a “wine and cheese” social group, to moving politically to create opportunities for its members’ organizations.
Until recently, the eligibility requirement to be a member of Arts Omaha was running an organization with a budget of at least $1 million. I say recently, because I believe that the requirement was raised to $2 million to hide the fact that its members were discriminating against myself and the organization I founded, The Union for Contemporary Art.
>> Arts Omaha is a segregated collective of white executives, perpetuating a culture of white supremacy — who decided against diversifying their ranks by adding eligible BIPOC leadership and working towards equity in our cultural sector — choosing, instead, to change the rules so that they could maintain the group’s segregation. <<
Despite meeting the eligibility requirement of the group for years, The Union was never invited to participate, while smaller organizations with white leadership were invited to join. There have been other instances of bias, including a BIPOC interim director being turned away from meetings, while a white interim director of another organization was welcomed by the group. Over the past nine months, I have approached several of its members to question the group’s segregation and ask why I, in my role of director of The Union, was never approached about membership, despite my organization meeting their one known requirement to join. My questions have been met with silence, as the group moved to make sure it could deflect any accusation of discrimination I brought against them.
Over the past year, Arts Omaha has moved to secure substantial financial support for its member’s organizations, while not moving to secure equitable support for the greater sector, which includes any organization run by a BIPOC leader, staffed by a significant number of BIPOC employees or serving its mission in a BIPOC community. Last fall, the members of Arts Omaha, through the Omaha Community Foundation, petitioned the Douglas County Commissioners for CARES Act funds to cover COVID related expenses for the cultural sector. No other cultural institution was engaged in the development of this request — no other director was informed of the petition, or subsequently, informed of the public hearing regarding it.
The agenda they presented requested nearly $6 million for their members — and $750,000 to be divided amongst the other 30+ cultural organizations in the county. The approved petition actually secured $7 million for their organizations and $3 million for the other organizations, with any fees owed to OCF for facilitating the grant process to disburse the funds coming from the $3 million portion. The terms of that grant, as dictated by the state, were so restrictive that the majority of Omaha’s small/mid-sized organizations, including The Union, were unable to receive even one dollar of the $3 million designated to help sustain our organizations during the pandemic.
It is important to recognize that the majority of the Arts Omaha organizations have endowments. They have reserve funds for the worst-case scenarios. While the impact of the pandemic has taken a toll on every organization in our cultural sector, regardless of size, it’s safe to say that COVID wasn’t going to bankrupt Omaha Performing Arts. We weren’t going to lose the Joslyn Art Museum. Not one Arts Omaha executive director needed to pick up a second (or third) job to make ends meet because they took a pay cut to keep their organization afloat last year… but that is exactly what was happening at many of Omaha’s cultural institutions. The amount of CARES Act support that could have financed entire 2020 budgets for some organizations, Omaha Children’s Museum requested for marketing and programs.
Realizing the gravity of the pandemic on our sector, a separate group of directors made a second appeal to the Douglas County Commissioners for support. It wasn’t until this appeal was made, explaining that their approved measure was deeply flawed, and that Omaha was at risk of losing many of its cultural institutions without equitable emergency funding, that additional funds were released to support the sector as a whole.
Following this incident, I approached members of Arts Omaha to express my dismay and anger regarding their movements. I questioned how they could have brokered a deal that would impact the entire cultural sector without engaging any organization outside their group. I pointed out that no BIPOC leadership participated in the process, which resulted in no BIPOC-focused organization receiving support through their effort. And I pointed out the obvious — that Arts Omaha was essentially a secretive, segregated group of white directors, that failed to act when they had an opportunity to diversify their membership by adding a Black director to their ranks, one whose organization had been eligible for membership for nearly four years.
When confronted with their group’s segregation and the fact that their actions had caused harm, I was told by members that no discrimination had taken place, and no apology or move to right the wrongs I brought to their attention was made. I was told that there had to be another reason why I was excluded — yet, several months later, no member has been able to explain what that reason might be.
An attempt to address these issues from within the group failed — with members deeming that no harm had occurred, no action was required, no apology needed. While claiming that they had done nothing wrong, they moved to cover their actions in case someone from the outside should call them out on their lack of BIPOC members. The group suddenly increased the eligibility requirement from $1 million to $2 million and then revoked the membership of the smallest organization at the table. I believe, without reservation, that this was an attempt to justify their maintaining the segregation of their group, allowing them to state that The Union was never actually eligible to join. This is untrue, and I hold that it shows the group’s intent to remain segregated, even if it requires losing members to do so. Can’t explain your group’s segregation away? Just change the rules and pretend that the Black person was never actually eligible to join in the first place. Problem solved.
Just as I believe the recent article in the OWH was an attempt by Arts Omaha to preemptively say, “We can’t be discriminating against a Black person — look at all this DEI work, our BIPOC staff, the Black-focused programs we’re doing!” Essentially: pay no mind to the moves we make privately because, publicly, we’re out here empowering Black folks all day, every day. Don’t look at what we do in private — just listen to what we say publicly.
The timing of the Omaha World Herald article is of issue to me, because it directly follows my expressing to a now former member that my organization would no longer be collaborating with or supporting the work of organizations sitting at Arts Omaha’s segregated table. It feels more like a calculated PR move than a coincidence. Again, I acknowledge the efforts being made… the BIPOC employees mentioned in the article are incredible individuals, working diligently to improve accessibility and equity in our cultural sector — but I have to wonder if they were made aware of their organizations involvement in Arts Omaha or the actions their directors have participated in, to mask and maintain its segregation.
Recently, two of the executives involved in Arts Omaha have removed their organizations from the group, acknowledging its issues and impact. While I hold no gratitude towards them for taking this action several months after I pointed out the harm being done by the group — I do appreciate their listening to their staffs, who had been telling them all along that their participation in the group was problematic, and a direct affront to the anti-oppression work their organizations are engaged in.
I have stood in this situation, holding the truth of it silently, because I have a deep love for my community’s cultural sector. I have dedicated the past 10 years of my life to strengthening it. I worried that exposing Arts Omaha for what it is might negatively impact the important work being done to unify our cultural institutions so that we could collectively enact change in support of the arts. Today, I am putting words to the truth because my silence was wrong. I was not supporting my community by swallowing the actions and harm done by my “peers” — I was now enabling them to appear to support equity for BIPOCs out of one side of their mouths, while they used the other side to keep us in our place.
Why does this matter? It matters because these organizations are using the BIPOC members of their staffs and boards to shine a light on all the ways they’re working towards creating more equity in the arts — while moving in a much different way behind the scenes. They are booking BIPOC artists and performers as fast as they can find them to keep us from looking behind the curtain. How can an executive director truly be working towards equity and inclusivity within their organization, while moving with intent to dismiss an accusation of discrimination they’ve been confronted with? How can someone sit, willingly, at a segregated table and truly support an organizational culture based on diversity, equity and inclusion within their institution? How can a leader who can so easily dismiss a claim of discrimination from a peer be expected to treat one from an employee, artist or community member differently?
We should be holding our cultural institutions accountable for their actions — we should not settle for lip service about equity when BIPOC arts administrators continue to struggle to work in an organizational culture of white supremacy. We should not be okay with an organization that has historically failed to uplift BIPOC artists, suddenly placing them front and center on every PR piece, without actually addressing the institution’s history of neglect and harm in dealing with those same artists. We should not simply listen to what they say while turning a blind eye to what they do. If we are going to fight for equity throughout the systems that negate it, we must fight for it fully… you cannot move to empower BIPOCs with one hand, while pushing them down with the other.
And the truth matters to me — I cannot work for equity and social justice in my community, while sitting in silence about the harm and injustice I’ve experienced through the actions of this group. If I’m going to stand for others, I must be willing to stand for myself. I cannot continue to advocate for my city’s cultural sector if some of its leadership feels justified in discriminating against others — whether that’s an artist, an employee, a patron… or myself.
So. What am I asking of you? Question authority. Please, ask the hard questions of those charged to lead our cultural institutions forward. It is not enough to post a statement about equity, to curate an exhibition featuring BIPOC artists, to hire a BIPOC person to advance DEI initiatives in their organization . . . it’s a start, but it’s not enough. Unfortunately — unless we as a community hold organizational leadership accountable for their actions (including those done privately) they will view these first steps forward as being enough. It’s not.
Whether or not you donate to the organizations listed below, or attend their programs, if you live in Omaha, a portion of your tax dollars is being used to support some of them. I believe that this gives you the right to ask them to do better. To be better. This is about holding our leaders accountable — if they’re going to celebrate their DEI efforts and publicly claim to be creating change — I’m asking you to make sure they do it in all of their professional interactions, in all the ways, for all BIPOC individuals. All the time.
The leadership of these cultural institutions are currently members of Arts Omaha: Film Streams, Joslyn Art Museum, Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha Children’s Museum, Omaha Performing Arts, Omaha Symphony, The Community Playhouse, The Durham Museum, The Rose Theater | https://medium.com/@brigitte-mcqueen/arts-omaha-the-white-supremacy-culture-of-omahas-cultural-sector-de176c5cec36 | ['Brigitte Mcqueen'] | 2021-04-09 12:48:31.313000+00:00 | ['Arts Omaha', 'Omaha', 'Arts Culture', 'Bipoc', 'Discrimination'] |
How to Order 3Leaf Edibles for Delivery In California | Yes, in California you can order cannabis products directly to you. All you need is an internet connection or phone; no medical card required.
There are delivery services all over the State, but none quite like MyJane and Flower Co. MyJane serves the Santa Ana area, while Flower Co. delivers to the Bay Area, and both offer 3Leaf products. These groups don’t just take your order and drop it off. They go above and beyond as cannabis delivery services.
MyJane is a delivery service “by women for women.” They deliver highly curated boxes of cannabis products to women in Santa Ana and the surrounding area. Their goal is to “empower women to make educated choices about how cannabis can play a role in their wellness.” To ensure that only high-quality trusted products make their way into MyJane Experience Boxes, their team carefully vetts each product.
The MyJane Experience Box
Each box is individually tailored based off of the responses given on your MyJane Wellness Profile. Your responses allow the MyJane wellness advisors to curate a selection of edibles, topicals, vape pens, and tinctures that best suit your individual needs. We love MyJane because they understand that cannabis offers a personalized experience for each individual, and they’re there to guide you to find what works best for you!
The MyJane Experience Box
How MyJane works
The membership is free! And the steps you have to take are extremely simple. To get started with MyJane, you can contact one of their Wellness Advisors at 833-MYJANE2 (833–695–2632) or sign up online. From there, you can build your wellness profile and then schedule a delivery at a time that is most convenient for you.
3Leaf and MyJane
3Leaf and MyJane recently partnered together to help you achieve a good night’s sleep. 3Leaf’s ratio-infused Double Chocolate Cookie is available in the new MyJane Sleep Box! We asked their team why they chose to offer 3Leaf to help with sleep, and here’s what they had to say:
“Help your little kid dreams come true and elevate your dinner with the MyJane approved Double Chocolate Chip Cookie. The 1:1 ratio makes this a low dose edible that delivers on taste and experience. Prepare to enjoy an evening of connection and calmness, by yourself or with a loved one. New to cannabis? Cut the cookie in half and share it with a friend or circle back around to the other half after 2 hours and you’ve had a chance to explore how the cookie works for you.”
For more information, visit myjane.com.
Flower Co. delivers the highest quality cannabis products at an ultra-competitive price. Sometimes called the “Costco of cannabis,” Flower Co. prices are practically shocking when compared to conventional retailers. And with the ability to schedule your delivery, they’ve managed to combine convenience with personality and professionalism.
Why you’ll love Flower Co.
Their team upholds the highest of standards, from the products they choose to the service they offer:
“FLOWER CO. is a wholesale cannabis club that saves medical, MMIC, and recreational users 40% on their favorite products and brands by offering 2+ day scheduled delivery across California. We commit to providing our customers with the most convenient and environmentally-friendly cannabis delivery service possible: all of our products come straight from farmers and manufacturers, there aren’t any additional middlemen. Moreover, everything is packaged to-order, ensuring product quality and freshness. We love partnering with 3Leaf Edibles in sharing the common goal of keeping the Emerald Triangle sustainable through responsible cultivation, using natural ingredients, and keeping ourselves accountable to high standards.”
How Flower Co. works
Choose from one of Flower Co.’s annual memberships, which start at $79. There’s also the option to choose a free day pass, so you can try before fully committing. Once you’re signed up you’re free to shop! But, because their prices are so astronomically low, their website is only open for orders every week from Friday at 4:20 p.m. until Sunday nights at 11:59 p.m. The limited time window is a pretty fair deal for paying wholesale prices and having edibles delivered conveniently to you anywhere in the Bay area.
Take a look at what Flower Co. has to offer! And try to keep your jaw from dropping when you see the prices.
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For more information, visit flowercompany.com.
—
Thank you for taking the time to read our post! To keep up with exciting 3Leaf news, including new product launches, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and Facebook. | https://medium.com/@3leaf_edibles/how-to-order-3leaf-edibles-for-delivery-in-california-5b856ca67670 | [] | 2019-06-25 18:18:51.820000+00:00 | ['Marijuana', 'Edibles', 'Cannabis', 'Startup'] |
The Universe In Me Part2 | Where am I? If I knew where I lost myself…I would go get me. But where would I be…Please tell me. In the middle of the road, suddenly I was alone, and then I heard some voices. They we’re talking to me, if I don’t know where I am…How do they, in my head they started talking and I could only hear…You don’t know us but we know you, don’t even try to scream because…We can be loud too; do you want to scream for help or are you going to stay quiet, they asked me, and so, it started…They were in my head, how was I supposed to run?
Since that day, I don’t know where I am, Where did I lost myself? Where am I? Why can’t I run, from my own mind? How did they know my name, before knowing who I am? Why won’t they let me sleep, and why they don’t want me to wake up? They brought so many questions, but no answers they’ve got, so I know…They know my past, they say today is all I got, because the future may not arrive. They never shut up…If I knew where I was…I would run to me; and I would tell her to run because they are coming with me. Don’t turn around, don’t look at me, just run and don’t look back. I am not her; you are not me; I’ll disappear and you will be happy.
Day or night, sun or rain, I just know I want you to see rainbows even when they are thunders in the sky be happy at least they are not in your mind, because to stay in the dark is not as bad as it sounds the monsters are now scared of the demons inside of me so they don’t bother me, even I am scared of myself sometimes. The monsters are not under my bed anymore they are now in my head, they are so many I lost count, everywhere, they are under my tongue, in my heart, my eyes and in my mind. Is there any hope for me? I tried already and now what else is there do to? So please I am asking you again, if you know where I am please tell me, you they can’t read. I would go get me, somehow, I would figure it out…I don’t know where I lost myself? I can’t ask for help…because i don´t know where am i? I don’t know no-one , beyond the me that is writing this…Nobody knows me, not even I do, I can’t even trust myself imagine somebody else. In the middle of the road, it all turned black…on the cross road of my life…They screamed my name and I knew that was the end.
I will never forget the day I lost myself…I knew there was no turning back, they were right behind me, while looking straight at my eyes…The creepier moments of my life were inside of my head, beside the ones outside of it, lucky me, am I right? My mind is a scary place?…For me it is just another day. My last thought before falling asleep is to don’t wake up…Just stay in your dreams, there you can hide,even thou you can´t run, but… you always wake up. My first thought when I wake up starts with a d and ends in e. Do you know what it is? I guess that says something about me. I lost myself, a long time ago…I don’t know where…And now I don’t know who I am anymore, I wonder if I ever did, if someone ever does, Who was I? Who are you? I think I already answered you, the future is yesterday do not forget?
The only thing I can see, is the dark surrounding me…The only thing I can hear from here are their voices, well they’re screams…They walk with me, everywhere I go, they are right by my side they never leave, if I knew where I was, I wouldn’t be here, they know the answers they just won’t tell me. Where am I? How did I get here? I hope…yesterday me knows the answers, I am looking for in the past you call tomorrow. | https://medium.com/@svunknown/the-universe-in-me-part2-4c53d8fa25b4 | [] | 2020-12-03 04:25:36.085000+00:00 | ['Reading', 'Universe', 'Writer', 'Poetry'] |
The Script Change That Almost Led Rod Serling to Walk | Photo by Bruna Araujo on Unsplash
Desi Arnaz was the Desi in Desilu, the Lu of course was his wife Lucille Ball. Together, they formed the Desilu studio producing I Love Lucy among many other hit shows including the original Star Trek.
In 1958, Desilu produced The Westinghouse Desilu Theatre on CBS. In those days, whole programs had single sponsors, however, as television became more popular that would become prohibitively expensive and no longer cost-effective to sponsors.
Corporate censorship is endemic in media
Rod Serling was already an established writer for television and today he is most famous for his Twilight Zone series that although attempted has never been duplicated exactly without him.
In 1958, he announced that he considered quitting television after the censors changed his script for The Desilu Playhouse. Understand, such censorship is part of the media industry. One of the most famous incidents also for the same network, CBS, happened nine years later when the producers of the Ed Sullivan Show told Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, not to sing the word higher when performing Light My Fire. They were afraid many would consider it a drug reference. He did it anyway — a classic Jim Morrison move. The Ed Sullivan Show’s producers blacklisted the group from that moment.
Rod Serling wrote a script for the Westinghouse Desilu Theatre called The Time Element. The drama featured television stars at the time such as William Bendix who headlined his own comedy show — The Life of Riley, Darryl Hickman younger brother of the future Dobie Gillis star Dwayne Hickman, Martin Balsam, maybe most famous for his role in The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974), Jesse White prolific supporting role actor, one of those with a famous face whose name you would have to look up. Finally, there was Joe DeRita who later became the fifth of the Three Stooges.
Writers know every word counts. The same with any scene they may create. Television, like social media today, worked then and to a slightly lesser degree now through advertising. Cable television was a scenario only found where the reception would be poor. Normally, people watched over-the-air television that was free in the United States. Today over-the-air television is still free but I literally see comments occasionally by people who believe, falsely, it is illegal to access it.
You are the product in free media
As with social media today, such as Facebook and Twitter, the reason access is free is the true product in television is the viewers. Sponsors bought viewers and the number of viewers set the rates. Networks did not want to alienate their sponsors so they gave them control over scripts.
Westinghouse was a major broadcaster at the time and parent to the Group W television stations and network as well as a sponsor on other networks. Westinghouse also was a defense contractor.
The teleplay featured William Bendix as a man who in repetitive dreams wakes up in the Imperial Hawaiian hotel on December 6th, 1941. Since it is a dream, he spends his time figuring out how he went from 1958 to 1941. He realizes he is in Honolulu, Hawaii the day before the invasion of Pearl Harbor.
The man encounters newlyweds Ensign and Edna Janoski. The officer works in the engine room on the USS Arizona and, obviously, he and his wife have no idea that tomorrow at least one of them will be dead. Bendix tries to warn them and others that a Japanese invasion is imminent.
Let us not offend a sponsor
According to television columnist Bob Foster, writing at the time in the San Mateo Times, this script was the one that led Serling to declare he was leaving television. The original teleplay involved Bendix’s character going to the Army to warn them of the upcoming invasion but they dismissed him. Of course, wrote Foster, this “might offend one of the sponsor’s top accounts. . . the Defense Department.”
The scene had to be changed. In the final version, Bendix’s character goes to a newspaper to warn them and is tripped up as delusional for being unable to name the vice-president.
Serling, who had a history of fighting such censorship, hated the idea of having to bow to sponsors and decided to leave Hollywood. This was not the first time Serling fought network censors. Previously that year, he wrote a script “Panic Button” about a commercial airline crash. Network executives told him to change it to a charter plane. Of course, commercial airlines were then and are now sponsors. Charter airlines not so much.
Bill Frisett relaying the story for the Oakland (CA) Tribune added apparently, one network executive complained that by the time the script was produced the airplane would be a taxi and the taxi companies would scream.
Frisett reported Serling’s attitude against censorship was that the sponsors controlled the flow of information and, therefore, controlled how people thought.
“If the trend towards censorship continues the next few years in the same direction to the same degree that it has, there will be a new citizenry evolving in this country. They will be very selective in terms of their serials in automobiles, but they’ll have forgotten how to read books. Make a decision and probably in the long run, to even think a thought.” Serling complained.
Obviously, Serling stayed and the show aired.
There are two ironies of this incident; together they are worthy of a Twilight Zone episode in themselves.
One is that Serling went on to become one of the most famous writers of the Golden Years of Television. IMDB reports that this Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse episode was so successful that viewers hounded CBS for more and so began the trek toward The Twilight Zone, the series for which Serling would be forever associated.
The second is that Serling died at a relatively young age — fifty, after a series of heart attacks over several days. I point out to young people that rarely was he seen on television not smoking. He was a smoker — a heavy one. Oftentimes tobacco companies were sponsors which added to the irony of his death in light of his fight over censorship.
Today, we can look back at the warning of one of the great prophets of television, the other being Edward R. Murrow, ironically another heavy smoker who died young. They saw a different world coming and did not take too kindly to it. If Serling did walk away, one of the great schools in television would never exist — The Twilight Zone. The show still speaks to us and maybe more so than in the five years it ran from 1959 to 1964.
There is a lesson there. You can take your ball and go home on principle but maybe the world is better off if you persevere as best you can.
The Time Element, S1E6, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, IMDB.com
The Time Element, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, YouTube
Frisett, Bill, Rod Serling Pipes Up on Censorship, Oakland, (CA) Tribune, May 5, 1958 p.l9
Ewald, William, Serling Pearl Harbor Drama Engrossing, UPI, Tucson Daily Citizen, December 2, 1958 p.20
Foster, Bob, column, San Mateo, (CA) Times, November 5, 1958, p. 14
Wikipedia, Rod Serling,
Crosby, John, I Never Turn It On Anymore, Tucson Daily Citizen, May 17, 1958 p. 19 | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-script-change-that-almost-led-rod-serling-to-walk-7aa0b584540c | ['Rj Carr'] | 2021-06-08 07:15:58.239000+00:00 | ['Twilight Zone', 'Rod Serling', 'Censorship', 'Writing', 'Television'] |
I Went To A Tantric Orgasmic Workshop — Here’s What I Learned | By Siobhan Lawless
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MEG O’DONNELL
It was a regular Friday night and while my friends descended to our favourite grotty local for a pint or their living room sofas to binge Dirty John, I found myself poised in lotus position, about to embark on a tantric orgasmic workshop.
When my mate invited me to Tara yoga centre’s orgasmic journey workshop, curiosity got the better of me. What was tantra? Would the workshop be like a Wild Wild Country group orgy? Would I be sat beside the woman who can orgasm for 18 hours just by hugging her partner? Would it be as intense as watching ADAM trying to hit E flat before they hit the big O? So many questions, so much intrigue — there was only one way to find out.
Tara’s three-part orgasmic journey workshop series focuses on taking participants on “a journey towards more pleasure, fulfilment, self-awareness and happiness”. Their three-hour “Heaven in the Bedroom” session, held in separate classes for women and men, specialised in giving participants a better understanding of their anatomy and awakening their full orgasmic power. As a sexual person who loves mixing things up in the bedroom, while I can’t say I’d ever adopted a spiritual approach like tantra before, I’m always up for trying something new.
Our workshop started with our mellifluous teachers, Marilena and Kate guiding us through a meditation before getting down to more tantralising things. Marilena and Kate began debunking the myth that tantra is just about sex; tantra is a spiritual practice which aims to provide us with a network of tools which, once put into practice, can lead to liberation (bear with me here). Each set of tools harnesses different energies to access higher consciousnesses. Tantra’s about being more present in our mind, soul and body — finding empowerment in vulnerability, silencing our inner critic and embracing all the different elements which make us whole.
Tantra breaks down the barriers between sex and the beautiful and sublime — often perceived as mutually exclusive in Western thought. Marilena acknowledged how our society annexes eroticism as “a kinky thing done behind closed doors, that everyone’s interested in but no one really wants to talk about openly” — which makes the hypocrisy of an estimated $97 billion dollar porn industry even more obscene.
Our teachers touched on the difference between having sex and making love. We’ve all been there — having soulless sex, eyes boring into the cracks in the wall as you wonder if your room would look better with a cheese plant. At the other end of the spectrum, ‘making love’ has become synonymous with James Blunt crooning “You’re Beautiful” or Eyal Booker having a DMC with just about anyone. Tantra aims to bridge that gap, creating more meaningful sex while keeping the passion alive.
One concept I struggled with was how the yoni (female genitalia) is sacred and worshipped in tantra. We were told we could make ours a shrine if we liked — personally, I couldn’t see this happening. Asked when was the last time we admired ours in the mirror, the ensuing silence spoke volumes. So what better way to reconnect with our yonis than being shown artistic representations of them on a massive screen?
We were shown successive watercolour paintings of promiscuously plump tulips and suggestively sumptuous fruits, and I could appreciate these were beautiful. Then suddenly — bam! — there’s a giant image of a wet yoni on the screen, accompanied by two juicy pomegranates. We were asked how this made us feel; answers ranged from uncomfortable and awkward to empowered, feminine and beautiful. Me? Conflicted (it ain’t no tulip). Marilena summed it up perfectly: “It’s daunting for the lights to be switched on in an area of our lives they’re normally switched off.”
Our teachers recognised this awkwardness stems back to sex education — so are you ready to go back to school? We all know about the G-spot and clitoral orgasm, but did you know we have an A, P and U-spot, each producing a different sensation when stimulated? Asking friends if they’d be able to tell the difference, they answered with a resounding “no”, which came as no surprise. My sex education was pretty much: If you have sex, you will get pregnant and die. The pleasurable element was completely ignored. When our teachers spoke about being penetrated by the cervix, my eyes bulged in alarm. To clear up any confusion, the cervix can’t be penetrated by a penis, but can be stimulated by touch or a well-endowed partner tapping it — although this is usually painful at first.
After spotlighting the (many) gaps in our knowledge, we ended the first half of the workshop with an exercise, lying down and contracting our pelvic floor muscles for approximately 7 minutes. Once this was over, we were asked how we felt. One woman spoke breathily, as if her every syllable was drifting away on clouds; she said if the meditation had gone on any longer, she would have reached climax.
Now seemed like a good time for a break.
In the second half, things got even more experimental. Our teachers addressed how central transfiguration is to tantra, reiterating the importance of regarding ourselves and our partners as gods and goddesses in the bedroom; harnessing our sexual energy to embody higher states of being. After walking around the room, grounding our feet to the earth, we had to stop and face the woman closest to us, maintaining her gaze for five minutes as we regarded her as a goddess, appreciating her beauty and generating thoughts of loving kindness. We repeated this extremely awks situation not once, but four times. Initially the intimacy was too much to bear; afterwards, as we broke eye contact and embraced each other, relief washed over me. As women we have a tendency to criticise and compare ourselves with other women, which creates separation; once we suspend judgement, we begin feeling more connected to one another. The more we practised this, the easier it became.
Next, we lay down on a mat, placing one hand on our heart and one hand above our yoni to feel the connection between the two. We were then instructed to slowly and tenderly caress our bodies with our fingertips. The class ended with us forming a large circle on the floor and embracing one another. Having been pushed completely out of my comfort zone, into unavoidably awkward scenarios where I couldn’t be sure how I felt, afterwards I felt reenergised and calm, as if my defences had been dropped.
While I struggled with tantra’s elevated terminology of gods, goddesses and sacred yonis, many other elements resonated. Tantra encourages women to embrace and feel fully empowered in our bodies; considering we’re accustomed to policing them on a daily basis, this is no easy feat. By breaking down these barriers, I began feeling compassion for the other women in the workshop, which manifested in a greater acceptance of myself. I loved the idea of becoming more engaged with my body and receptive to all the different nuances of sensations, without getting swept away in the moment. Most importantly, I now know I have an A, P and U-spot. | https://medium.com/refinery29/i-went-to-a-tantric-orgasmic-workshop-heres-what-i-learned-ad5eaa4e42e0 | [] | 2020-11-09 17:02:35.671000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Sexulity', 'Sex', 'Tantric Massage', 'Workshop'] |
The Basics of Building Accessible Forms | This blog is part of a continuing series on accessibility, striving to provide a starting point for building common components with accessibility in mind.
Login Form
<form>
<h2>Login</h2>
<label for="username">Username</label>
<input id="username" type="text" placeholder="spacemanspiff8" title="enter your username here">
<label for="password">Password</label>
<input id="password" type="password" placeholder="******">
<button type="submit">Login</button>
</form>
This may be review for some of you, but it’s a good opportunity to go over the basics on something we all use about 30 times a day — a login form. First of all, we have an <h2> tag at the top to give our users a solid idea of the purpose of the form. Next we have labels for each input, attaching their “for” attributes to the corresponding “id” for each input. [ For JSX users in React, use “htmlFor” instead of “for” ]. Standard HTML elements and their attributes have a lot of accessibility built in. Once you link the label to the input, years of others’ hard work will do the rest.
Many developers wish to omit labels for fear of sacrificing minimalist design principles, however I strongly encourage you to use them in your forms. If you truly detest the look of labels, you can check out this article to learn how to visually hide them without losing functionality.
Lastly — our submit button. To be fully compliant and reliable, these buttons should take the “type” value of “submit”. That’s easy enough.
Survey Time
<form>
<h2>Tell us about you</h2>
<fieldset>
<legend>Preferred Drink</legend>
<p>
<input type="radio" name="drink" id="drink_1" value="coffee">
<label for="drink_1">Coffee</label>
</p>
<p>
<input type="radio" name="drink" id="drink_2" value="tea">
<label for="drink_2">Tea</label>
</p>
</fieldset>
<fieldset>
<legend>Preferred Animal</legend>
<p>
<input type="radio" name="animal" id="animal_1" value="cats">
<label for="animal_1">Cats</label>
</p>
<p>
<input type="radio" name="animal" id="animal_2" value="dogs">
<label for="animal_2">Dogs</label>
</p>
<p>
<input type="radio" name="animal" id="animal_3" value="both">
<label for="animal_3">I like both cats and dogs</label>
</p>
</fieldset>
</form>
Here is where the real fun starts. I love the the look of fieldset tags, but they’re so much more than simply how they look. In the code above, you’ll notice we have two sets of fieldset tags. Each one has nested radio buttons inside, as fieldset elements are an ideal way to create groups of widgets that share the same purpose. The legend tag gives a title to each group of inputs and some assistive technologies will even include the legend when speaking each input option. For example, when reading the first fieldset above, a screen reader will say: “Preferred drink: coffee” for the first input and “Preferred drink: tea” for the second.
You might also notice each widget, or option, is wrapped in a p tag. Adding HTML elements that aren’t specific to forms will not disrupt assistive technologies, provided you use them correctly. In the example above, the p tags keep our widgets orderly. Then, default CSS will place each p tag on its own line. Pretty nice.
Labels can also be used to activate their corresponding widget, so that users can click on the text as well as the input, giving them way more surface area to make the correct selection. This is especially helpful for users on mobile devices, those who are visually impaired, or who people who have ginormous thumbs.
Taking a step back, let us remember, accessibility is only a part of inclusive design. We want our final product to make sense to users, and make sense to all users. It is best practice not to assume that a user has the same skills, abilities, or knowledge that you do.
Checklist
Input elements have a corresponding label element
Submit buttons have a “type” of “submit”
Input elements used as radio buttons are nested inside of fieldset tag
Fieldset elements have a corresponding label element
This tutorial should get you started with building accessible forms, and I encourage you to check out the more comprehensive resources below.
If you would like access to this code, feel free to grab it from my github
Resources | https://medium.com/@jdbrewerhofmann/the-basics-of-building-accessible-forms-f7d341c0437c | ['Jd Brewer-Hofmann'] | 2020-12-13 22:20:54.479000+00:00 | ['Web Accessibility', 'Accessibility', 'Html Form', 'Web Accessibility A11y', 'Html For Beginners'] |
Why should you read? Book/Author recommendations at the end | Why should you read? Why should anyone read? What are the actual benefits of reading?
I am here to tell you exactly that, and therefore give you motivation and a more or less valid reason to read.
Reading, in easy terms, prepares you for long and boring tasks. due to technology our brains are used to multitasking and switching focus from one thing to another. The way in which the books are written makes our brain follow the linear layout of words and sentences to make sense of what the book is trying to tell us. It encourages us to take our time and read every sentence, without switching focus on something else.
Additionally, there is also the benefit of improving our grammar, spelling and language skills. If you are not comfortable doing public speeches, read out loud to practice. If you keep making the same grammar mistakes, read to improve them and expand your vocabulary. Not only that but it also improves our comprehension and reduces stress.
And of course, last but certainly not least, it allows us to leave our problems and travel anywhere the books and our imagination takes us. The key factor that will encourage anyone to read is if they find it pleasurable. And to find reading pleasurable, they need to find books that suit them and that they will like and enjoy. Reading is a long and boring process if you do not enjoy it and sometimes the process of looking for the books that will catch your eye can be quite discouraging as there are so many many books to read that you might not necessarily like, but after every book, you always end up with new ideas and food for thought.
Reading for pleasure is the single biggest factor in success later in life, outside of an education. Study after study has shown that those children who read for pleasure are the ones most likely to fulfill their ambitions . If your child reads, they will succeed — it’s that simple.-Bali Rai
To help some of you out, I will list a few authors in a few categories and genres that I think should catch at least someone’s eye.
Crime and Thriller
Arthur Conan Doyle — any book in Sherlock Holmes series is a good place to start.
Agatha Christie — she has 66 detective novels so you cannot go wrong with her.
Gaston Leroux — The Phantom of the Opera is a true masterpiece and the atmosphere that the book creates is simply enchanting.
Say her name by Juno Dawson is horror fiction/ghost story but it is so gripping that I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommend if you like something that keeps you slightly on your toes and you are just starting you reading journey.
Stieg Larsson — Millenium series. No comment, just run and read it ASAP.
Gillian Flynn — Gone Girl, or anything of his really, just once again run and read!
Truman Capote — In Cold Blood. Once again, run and read it now.
Romance
Jane Austen — literally anything, great place to start if you want to get into the classics.
Brontë Sisters— Jane Eyre, Shirley, The Professor, Agnes Grey.
Truman Capote — Breakfast At Tiffany’s. If you still have not either watched the film or read the book, what are you waiting for?
Nora Roberts — recently read Born in Fire and absolutely loved it as it is such a quick and delightful read. She keeps her language simple and understandable while still making it magical.
Kiera Cass — the Selection series. The. Most. Beautiful. Story.
Estelle Maskame — Did I Mention I Love You series. Have not finished all the books but definitely worth your time if you want to take your mind off of something stressful.
Anna Todd — After — the most controversial book series. But they are undoubtedly better than the film adaptation.
Fantasy
C.S.Lewis — Narnia series, pretty good read.
Sarah J. Maas — anything you can find of hers is worth your time.
V. E. Schwab — The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Breathtaking, fantastic, immeasurably beautiful.
Cassandra Clare — Mortal Instruments or anything of hers really.
Lewis Carroll — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Do I really have to say anything else?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — The Little Prince. The absolute classic although I hated it when I read it first but now it is one of my favourites.
Horror
Stephen King — Classic. Pure classic.
Shirley Jackson — The Haunting of Hill House.
Bram Stoker — Dracula.
Mary Shelley — Frankenstein.
Horace Walpole — The Castle of Otranto.
(Do I really need to even comment anything about those four?)
H. P. Lovecraft — Any book of his is a masterpiece.
For now that is all, but I am always open to suggestions and please please please share your own recommendations for other people and for me as well. I am constantly looking for something new and interesting to read whether it is a classic or anything really! | https://medium.com/@kay99/why-should-you-read-book-author-recommendations-at-the-end-193dac041c9f | ['K A Y'] | 2020-12-20 13:52:36.384000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Recommended Reading', 'Authors', 'Books', 'Reading'] |
Four Seasons of Quarantine | The pandemic froze us
with life on the rocks
lacking toilet paper
enclosed all year
separated
in a rut
desperate enough
to try a quarantine haircut
and a viral challenge like “Dalgona Coffee”
Hoping — idly
still
to melt in a huge huddle
next season | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/four-seasons-of-quarantine-ac90969a9848 | ['Tracy Luk'] | 2020-12-21 11:17:43.482000+00:00 | ['Quadrille', 'Challenge', 'This Happened To Me', 'Covid 19', 'Poetry'] |
The cognitive overload happening on your screen right now | The most recent, controversial Google app icon redesign sparked a discussion around the direction in which digital product icons are moving in general.
App icons have to be brighter, more colorful, and as vibrant as humanly possible. They practically jump out at you. Companies simply cannot afford their products being “missed”, or used rarely because the competition is screaming for attention much louder.
Minimalism? No. Skeuomorphism? No thanks!
There was a time when super-minimalistic, type-based logos were a thing. A white shape on a black background often communicated luxury and status. But those times are now gone, as we’re bombarded with attempts to outdo the competition.
More colors!
More gradients!
More of everything!
Google fell into that trap recently changing their icons to a “uniform style” and while brand consistency is generally a good thing, these all look too similar which only adds to the confusion of angry users.
This meme has been all around my social media lately. And it does have a point.
But trying to fit in the extra colors with a consistent set of shapes led to eMail being just an M now. There is no envelope for context anymore. The Docs icon is too similar to the calendar icon, which is too similar to Meet.
The only icon that possibly fits into this aesthetic is the Drive icon, but mostly because it had the least changes.
But this fight for attention also comes at an expense of jarring color combinations. If you’re a UI designer, you probably know not to mix green or blue with red at high saturation. That combination actually makes the edge bleed and your eyes hurt.
Just take a look at the edge where red meets blue and green. Pause and look at it for a few seconds.
And do you know what’s the worst part?
These colors are currently at 69, 73,79 saturation. If we believe this trend to be continuing we may see these delightful colors at 100 each. After a while that may be the only thing to do to “bump up the visibility”.
These are the same colors with Saturation increased.
And our eyes will hurt.
Instagram’s controversial redesign
It all started with a very famous and controversial app icon transition. In 2016 Instagram unveiled a new logo and it was almost unanimously declared the biggest redesign fail EVER.
But guess what? People got used to the new logo very quickly.
Skeuomorphism went away with iOS 7 in 2013. An Instagram refresh was more than expected.
The new logo served another purpose. By having very strong and very saturated colors making up a pretty unconventional gradient, it stood out from the crowd. It was instantly visible on a home screen. It was even easier, as a staggering number of app icons uses a shade of blue as its primary color. Blue can be seen in over 50% of all the app icons on most home screens.
Breaking the rules in a sea of blue may be a great idea to stand out. Instagram? Right here!
Apple has been using similar concepts in their icons as early as 2013. It took a while for everyone to catch up, but when they did, they went all in.
The same thing happened to slack, which actually had a rather colorful logo and icon, but the colors were muted. The new redesign, as in this entire trend was about pushing the saturation as high as possible.
Fighting for your attention
Four years after Instagram went radical with their app icon, nearly everyone is following suit.
Tobias Van Schneider summarised it well recently with this Tweet and also gave me the idea to write this story.
So what is cognitive load?
In cognitive psychology, cognitive load refers to the used amount of working memory resources. — Wikipedia.
When everything starts looking the same, we end up struggling to find the right icon — again. So we’re back to square one. We need to put in a lot more mental effort to find what we’re looking for.
Our senses and memory becomes overloaded with similar looking shapes, colors and patterns.
The blur test
If you blur all those icons, you’ll see that it’s literally impossible to distinguish most of them from the pack. They’re all pretty similar blobs, mostly consisting of the same four colors.
The Messenger icon sticks out the most, but that’s only because it uses an even stronger gradient than Instagram.
No worries!
The next wave of app icon redesigns will likely try and beat that.
And yes — I am also guilty of this as well by having a blue and purple gradient in my profile photo and most of my shared images.
How far can it go?
Obviously this trend is only accellerating. If Google is using clashing colors now, then the next big thing will be ugly, clashing gradients. Here are a couple of examples:
After all the good combinations are used up and the saturation can’t get any higher, the trick will have to be crossing a line. Maybe they’ll even redefine ugly, just so they can trick our eyes into noticing them.
It’s a battle for our attention, and we don’t have a lot of it to begin with. Most people can’t even binge a netflix show without scrolling a feed at the same time.
The next logical step would be icons that animate in almost seizure-causing flashes. Or maybe AR icons that jump right at your face from the phone.
Imagine smartphone makers charging app makers extra cash to get their icons to be bigger and more annoying.
The future looks … colorful. | https://uxdesign.cc/the-cognitive-overload-happening-on-your-screen-right-now-deee2a913393 | ['Michal Malewicz'] | 2020-11-01 22:46:22.297000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UI', 'UX', 'Visual Design', 'Colors'] |
Many Moments in Time | My brain feels like it’s melting. I feel like this past month went by in a foggy state of surrealness. Or perhaps, it’s just this entire year. I have suddenly become the melting clocks in Salvador Dali’s, The Persistence of Memory (1931).
I am stuck in many moments in time. I am slipping between these moments and feeling off-kilter. Each time I move between them, another part of my soul sheds away. Tiny particles float away into the atmosphere and disappear forever. I’ll never get back what I lost. I can’t seem to find my balance.
I have survived the majority of this year. That should feel like a blessing, right?
I lie in bed, dreading another day and I finally realize why I feel so distraught and mentally exhausted. The majority of the big projects I got to help work on this year have fallen through and I won’t ever really get to share my hard work with the world. The opportunities I had have suddenly been taken away, just to disappear in a cloud of dust.
This absolutely kills me. It kills me because it always feels like I’m so close to greatness. The old cliche, “So close, yet so far away,” suddenly makes all the more sense now. I’m always so close to finally achieving something that’s going to gain me more respect and recognition as an artist and finally out of the shadows. But then life happens.
Feelings of inadequacy, failure, bad luck, misfortune — whatever you wish to call it — float through my mind. “Is it me?” I can’t help but question. Or just the result of uncontrollable circumstances?
Is this how the writer’s who constantly get their work rejected feel? I don’t want to have a pity party for myself, but it’s so hard to shake these feelings of failure away. I know my ego also plays into it. My ego is wounded over and over again. I wish I could just lock it up forever. I wish I didn’t let it bother me so.
I had a dream a few months ago that I was involved in a car accident. I was on the freeway with two other people and it was a very foggy night. We couldn’t see very well, and suddenly, our car lost control and it spun through the air. Time suddenly seemed to slow. The only way I can describe it is like that scene from Inception when they’re in the moving car, and it starts falling into the river but in slow motion. The synchronized kick, except there was no La Vie en Rose playing in the background. Just terrifying silence.
In that painstakingly slow moment, I just remember thinking, “I’m going to die.” I suppose it was more of a nightmare. Before we crashed, I woke up. I’ve never had such a dream before. It felt so real.
I recently pulled the Ten of Swords from a tarot deck. It can represent failure, exhaustion, bitterness, betrayal, or playing the victim. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, ” I said, rolling my eyes. But I admit I have not been able to stop thinking about it since.
I know that I have much to figure out. This year has been tough for a lot of us. Our workforce hasn’t been the same, and we’ve had to pause and survive this pandemic as best we can.
Feelings of defeat do weigh heavily on my mind, but I must deal with them and keep moving on with my life like I always do. Another year soon comes to an end, and with that, another part of me as well. For better or worse. | https://medium.com/@luvnicomichelle/many-moments-in-time-8d9bb63cd00e | ['Nicolette Michelle'] | 2020-12-09 22:50:33.729000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Pandemic', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Nonfiction'] |
7 bulletproof keys to stay vegan (and healthy!) | Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash
Is it getting hard for you to hold on to veganism?
Are you afraid of failing them? Yes, the animals. Are they the reason why you keep on the vegan path?
Do you feel staying vegan is the least you can do to stop animal suffering happening every second in slaughterhouses around the world?
How to avoid the pitfalls of this non-vegan world? Maybe you feel overwhelmed and want to overcome this situation.
I know those feelings. It took me 23 long years to go from lacto-vegetarian to vegan. And after almost ten years, I don’t have a single reason to go back.
If you feel identified, I can help you to not only stay vegan, but also to enjoy every day of your life being vegan… and healthy!
Here you have my 7 keys to stay strong as a rock:
1. Hold on to your why
Remember your reason to go vegan.
Never forget the main reason why you became vegan in the first place. It’s your anchor in the middle of the non-vegan turbulent ocean.
If you know the principles of veganism, you know exactly what triggered you to transform your mindset, an thus, your relationship with yourself and with nonhuman animals.
You know that veganism is not a trend nor a diet. It’s a life philosophy, a deep questioning of those forms of living which not only harm many sentient beings, they also harm ourselves and the planet.
It turns out that by becoming vegan you also contribute to stop the main cause of greenhouse gas emission, global deforestation, biodiversity loss, soil and water pollution, ocean dead zones, among other environmental concerns. And the Nº1 culprit is animal agriculture.
2. Check your health
A periodic health check-up is a good way to stay on the track.
No, veganism is not a diet. But if you are reading this, chances are that you have at least three opportunities a day to decide what to eat, why and how to eat it.
You care for animals, but you probably want to care for your own health as well. Because being vegan doesn’t mean being healthy. And learning about nutrition is essential to succeed in this paradigm shift.
Going whole foods plant based is the best way to prevent and reverse pandemic chronic diseases (e.g. heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc.) which are directly linked to animal based diets and also to consuming highly processed foods. So, to avoid setbacks that will “unveganize” you, check your health periodically and be mindful of what you eat. Like everyone else should.
3. Veganize the foods you love
You can enjoy every single food you like in its vegan version.
It will take some creativity, but it’s worth it.
List all the non-vegan foods you love. You will soon realize there’s a plant based recipe for each one of them. And many are healthy versions.
Vegan processed foods are great for making the transition or as ocasional whim. They are way better for you and for the animals, because they are free of the toxins from their suffering. But remember that it is preferable to go for real food, no labels or disposable packages needed.
4. Learn from the experts
Read, study, research, learn. A lot.
Today it’s getting easier to become vegan. However, it is vital that you inform yourself. There’s plenty of unbiased science based evidence showing the benefits of a balanced plant based diet for preventing and reversing chronic diseases, and avoiding the greatest animal and environmental damage ever seen in history.
Now it’s also easier to get vegan shoes, clothes and vegan products from brands which don’t experiment with animals.
There are thousands of books, articles, courses, documentaries, videos, websites and blogs to find the latest information on veganism as well as infinite delicious and nutritious vegan recipes. Empower yourself through research.
5. Enjoy preparing your meals
How could you not?
There are colors, beautiful forms and fresh clean smells. Straight from the earth. There is life in vegan meals. No blood and foul-smelling parts of dead animals involved.
The biggest part of going vegan is food related. The other part is relationships, information, clothing decisions and getting vegan products.
If you learn to prepare and enjoy preparing your own meals, you assume responsibility and control over your own health.
Choosing what, why and how to eat it is self-empowering. Deciding to buy real food from local peasant businesses instead of highly processed products from the industries that profit from life (human and non human)is self-empowering. Making the decision to feed yourself is empowering.
6. Know yourself and avoid conflicts
Dig deep into your own mind to know your triggers.
This is a rare advice, you won’t find it elsewhere. There are plenty of initiatives and challenges to show you the basics of going vegan, recipes and nutrition facts. But none of them will tell you how to deal with this decision in the real world.
Ask yourself what leads you to conflict in your relationships. Then learn to acknowledge and manage your emotions to avoid conflicts with those who don’t agree with your values.
You will find many haters in your path; people who choose to feel offended or threatened by the vegan philosophy. Don’t mind them. You are not here to convince anyone. Empathize, because you probably were not born vegan. If you work on your self-awareness, you will find that is better to have peace than to be right.
7. Create a safe space to ground yourself
And make this a daily habit.
What is a safe space? It is an inner space to be only with yourself.
Why is this important? To find peace and tranquility, to free yourself from thoughts that create stress and anxiety. This will help you identify the essential amidst the noise.
You will find plenty of benefits from a quiet space and time for yourself: to breathe, to be still, to observe your feelings, to observe the sensations in your body, to acknowledge your being. This will help you to recognize the voices in your mind calling for different sensory pleasures (maybe unhealthy pseudo food), and be able to ignore them.
This safe space will make you feel grateful for having the sensitivity and courage to go vegan and stop contributing to the suffering of others. By being vegan you will also have more mental clarity which will be supportive of this peaceful state.
So, is there any reason not to stay vegan?
Do you find the reasons exposed here compelling enough? You have the power to decide. Try to avoid haters and naysayers advice, listen to yourself in your own safe and quiet space, where you can create your own vegan world.
Imagine yourself empowered through your food choices, contributing to a more peaceful world, free of human and non human suffering.
Imagine yourself eating plant based, feeling guilt-free, full of energy, with mental clarity, improved health and overall performance.
Imagine yourself certain that staying vegan is the most powerful transformation you can undergo for the animals, for the planet and for yourself.
And always remember that nothing that harms others can do you good. | https://medium.com/@tannia-falconer/7-bulletproof-keys-to-stay-vegan-and-healthy-fc9c176f7b41 | ['Tannia Falconer'] | 2020-12-22 02:44:01.513000+00:00 | ['Philosophy Of Life', 'Consciousness', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Veganism', 'Self-awareness'] |
How does my first mechanical keyboard work? | Where to buy it?
Mechanical keyboards are sold almost everywhere, Amazon, Bestbuy, Newegg, even Walmart. But Ducky One is only sold from Mechanical Keyboard Catalog and Guide. (mechanicalkeyboards.com). For an unknown reason, most of the keyboards there are out-of-stock. Maybe people are so bored or so lonely at home, they all want to make noises. So they wouldn’t feel that lonely?
One buying tip: check on the In-Stock Page, find one version you like the best, and then put an order. This way, you could get your keyboard much faster.
What to buy?
From a size perspective: the mechanical keyboard has the following types (from large to small)
Full size: including a separated number pad
Full Size Keyboard. It even includes a separated number pad. © Ducky
Regular size (TKL): no separated number pad, but has separate special function key zone (HOME/END/PgUp/PgDown).
Only missing part is the number keypad, which is completely optional. © Ducky
SF (Sixty Five) size: with stand-alone arrow keys/Delete/PgUp/PgDown. Remove all the F1-F12 keys.
Ducky One SF. I decided to buy this one. It is compact with the essential special functions keys. © Ducky
Sixty-size: comparing with SF, removes all the stand-alone arrows/Delete/PgUp/PgDown keys.
Only 60% size comparing to TKL. This is the most compact model. © Ducky
Whichever model, it has all the keys. You could make your decision completely based on your taste and preference.
For my daily workload, I do coding and word editing a lot. So, I would prefer a separated DEL and arrow keys. And I like the smaller model, which could offer better mobility and save spaces. That’s why I decided to go with Ducky One SF.
The Keys
As a first-time mechanical keyboard buyer, you might be surprised to notice that you have to select from a list of different switches, such as the below image. What are these “Switches”? What do those red, blue, brown colors mean? How should I make the decision?
Switch Types — Mechanical Keyboard (mechanical-keyboard.org)
Mechanical Keyboard Switches
There are lots of YouTube videos talking about the differences. I would recommend one as below.
Which Cherry MX Key to use? | BeatTheBush — YouTube
For me, I like longer key travels and louder sound. So I decided to go with blue.
LED Backlights
As a grown-up, I am not a big fan of those shiny lights. But it is a completely different story for my kids. They love it and can not stop playing with it. Even as a toy, it is a popular one.
Besides the entertaining effects, I find the LED backlights are sometimes useful. It could light up and residual for 3 seconds for the keys I just pressed. I could use that to help me understand that I pressed the wrong key to make my program crashed. LOL.
Capital Key
It is not only big but also very convenient and easy to reach. But it is almost the most useless key. There are lots of articles, tips, small programs to reuse this little key. Most of them are related to change registration file or install new software, etc. There are all software dependent solutions; once you have changed to another machine, you need to redo all the setup.
Docky One SF provides one universal solution by changing the function from keyboard level. As long as you are using the same keyboard, you will have the same experience across different machines.
How to switch Caps Functions in the official user menu. Ducky_One2_SF_usermanual_V4_20190624_ol (duckychannel.net)
Usage Tips:
For me, I switch the Capital Key to be “Fn” key. This way, it is much easier for me to move my cursor when typing without my hands moving away from the base location. With the Fn + A/W/S/D, I could easily move my mouse cursor, Fn + R/F, to scroll up and down. All of these functions are convenient for developers who wish to use a keyboard to do everything. Once get used to it, it could be very efficient and productive.
All these fancy usage tips, are printed directly on the side of the keys.
All these fancy usage tips and more are all printed directly on the keys’ front side. It is easier for users to refer to.
Summary:
Introduces basic bits of knowledge to buy your first mechanical keyboards, such as keyboard sizes and switches.
How to maximize your productivity by personalizing the keyboard settings.
Usage tips to increase your efficiency with your new keyboard.
Hope you would enjoy the reading and encouraged to buy one and taste it for yourself. | https://medium.com/technology-hits/here-is-my-first-mechanical-keyboard-6833ae0d34f0 | ['Binlong Li'] | 2020-12-24 05:54:45.984000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Tools', 'Productivity', 'Mechanical Keyboards', 'Developer'] |
Using ES6 in Node JS Server | Build Steps
Install Node js and validate if Node JS is installed properly
node -v
Create project directory and initialize Node package
mkdir nodeapp && cd nodeapp && npm init -y
Create a src folder in your project's root directory to keep server code.
mkdir src
Create Index.js in src folder as starting point for Server
Set up Babel for precompiling ES6 into JavaScript
Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.
Install Babel
npm install --save-dev @babel/core @babel/cli
Install Babel Preset & Class Properties Plugin
npm install @babel/preset-env --save-dev
npm install --save-dev @babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties
@babel/preset-env Allows you to use the latest JavaScript without needing to micromanage which syntax transforms (and optionally, browser polyfills) are needed by your target environment(s). This both makes your life easier and JavaScript bundles smaller! @babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties transform ES6 class synthecic sugar into JavaScript __Prototype__
Create .babelrc file in your project's root directory & add the following code in .babelrc
{
"presets": ["@babel/preset-env"],
"plugins": ["@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties"]
}
Watch File change with Node Monitor
Install Nodemon
npm i -d nodemon
npm install rimraf --save-dev
Nodemon is a tool that helps develop node.js based applications by automatically restarting the node application when file changes in the directory are detected.
Update package.json by adding following line for precompiling ES6 and allowing nodemon to restart server when file changes
"scripts": {
+ "build": "babel src -d dist"
+ "start": "npm run build && node dist",
+ "restart": "rimraf dist && npm run start",
+ "dev": "nodemon --exec npm run restart"
}
Create nodemon.json file in your project's root directory.
Add src folder in watchlist by adding following code in nodemon.json
{"watch": ["src"]}
Now You Can write Your Server in ES6 Syntax
Here are examples of writing Node Server using Express JS and plain Node JS
Finally Run the project | https://medium.com/@hiteshkrsahu/using-es6-in-node-js-server-eba548f013b3 | ['Hitesh Sahu'] | 2020-10-20 10:01:34.968000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'ES6', 'Javascript Tips', 'Expressjs', 'Babel'] |
The Best Contemporary Artworks In USA, Part 10 Of 12 / 2021 AMERICAN ART AWARDS Winners | 263 artworks from USA won in the 2021 American Art Awards. 20 of those masterpieces are featured in this article.
The AMERICAN ART AWARDS is a globally revered competition, decided by America’s 25 Best Galleries & Museums (from 2022 forward it will be 20 Best Galleries & Museums).
From now until July 30, 2022, painters, digital artists, photographers and sculptors from all countries can enter JPEGs of their works in the 50 categories of the next AMERICAN ART AWARDS — to win gallery affiliation, a career launch, great scores, great press and/or $5,000 in prizes.
In 2021, artists from 62 countries took prizes. Americans took the most wins because the contest is more publicized in the USA, and therefore more Americans entered.
As president of www.AmericanArtAwards.com, I hosted this 47 minute program which shows hundreds of winning pieces to beautiful music:
100 ARTICLES and VIDEOS on the 50 CATEGORIES of the 2021 AMERICAN ART AWARDS WINNING ARTISTS are at this link: https://www.americanartawards.com/the-best-artists-in-the-world-2/2021-winning-artists/
COLLECTORS wanting to acquire these pieces or contact the artists can get direct links here: https://www.americanartawards.com/2021-winning-art-artist-contacts/
This is the 13th anniversary for the American Art Awards organization which has decided the 25 Best Galleries and Museums each May. Decisions were based upon years established, industry reputation, online buzz, location, size, socially relevant exhibits, motivational and educational programs, represented artists as well as artist, client and visitor references.
American Art Awards 25 Best Galleries & Museums for 2021, in alphabetical order of state, who were asked to vote on last year’s art submissions:
BEST IN ARIZONA: Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art
BEST IN CALIFORNIA: Revolver Gallery
BEST IN COLORADO: Mirada Fine Art
BEST IN FLORIDA: Art Fusion Galleries
BEST IN HAWAII: Sunshine Arts
BEST IN ILLINOIS: Trickster Cultural Center
BEST IN IOWA: Moberg Gallery
BEST IN KANSAS: Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery
BEST IN KENTUCKY: E&S Gallery
BEST IN LOUISIANA: Jonathan Ferrara Gallery
BEST IN MASSACHUSETTS: Boston Sculptors Gallery
BEST IN MISSOURI: Hilliard Gallery
BEST IN MONTANA: Dana Gallery
BEST IN NEBRASKA: Kiechel Fine Art
BEST IN NEVADA: Metropolitan Gallery Las Vegas Art Museum
BEST IN NEW JERSEY: Evalyn Dunn Gallery
BEST IN NEW YORK: LIK SOHO
BEST IN NEW MEXICO: GF Contemporary
BEST IN NORTH CAROLINA: The Arts Council of Fayetteville| Cumberland County
BEST IN SOUTH CAROLINA: Mary Martin Galleries Of Fine Art
BEST IN SOUTH DAKOTA: South Dakota Art Museum
BEST IN TENNESSEE: Stanford Fine Art
BEST IN TEXAS: Ao5
BEST IN WASHINGTON: Maryhill Museum of Art
BEST IN WEST VIRGINIA: Parkersburg Art Center
Enter here: https://www.americanartawards.com/register-to-enter-3/
or get a gallery to rate and price your work: https://www.americanartawards.com/gallery-ratings/ | https://medium.com/@thombierd/the-best-contemporary-artworks-in-usa-part-10-of-12-2021-american-art-awards-winners-1fc8f6722d4b | ['Thom Bierdz'] | 2021-12-19 23:16:10.109000+00:00 | ['News', 'Photography', 'Photos', 'USA', 'Art'] |
COVID, ICE, and burnouts — cycles in life | Since the last time I wrote, a fair bit has happened. Trump released new regulations for F-1 students and rescinded it in a week. COVID is peaking (and probably will continue in this upward trend) in India. Will Smith’s situation unfolded very badly, we all feel bad for him. Crazy few weeks. Matches the theme of 2020 very well.
Personally, I went into breakdown mode. With the added stress from the new ICE regulations, I could barely focus on work, ended up making the stupidest mistakes while coding, didn’t lift that much. didn’t meditate — basically everything ‘wrong’ that I could have done, I did.
I’ve noticed that I fall in these cycles quite often. A few weeks of me feeling amazing and leading highly productive days, to barely doing any work and just binging Netflix for days. This cycle is something I have struggled with since the start of college, and while I haven’t figured it out entirely, I have gotten better. Something that has worked for me is using certain times as motivation. What do I mean by that? Say I entered this bad cycle on Tuesday, I would slowly pick up my good habits until Sunday, and then I would do something very drastic so that I have no choice but to start over with the good cycle on Monday.
NOTE: Since I am a STEM major, I chose to explain this using geometry. Who knew you can use maths for this, right?
What this allows me to do is:
Stop me from feeling shitty. Yes, I’m binging Netflix, but hey atleast I drank enough water, atleast I cleaned up my room, so on and so forth. This stops the guilt trip and self-pity. It’s a positive delta-x in the very negative slope that I have at the moment. Here is a small graph to better explain.
Notice how the line goes from being nearly straight down to horizontal
Stopping the downward slope is the important bit here, not necessarily bringing it up right away.
2. Cool, I now have my life’s graph at slope = 0, what do I do now? Timing is your friend here. I learned this from the book When by Daniel Pink, recommended to me by my friend Nick. Some of the key takeaways from that book were to use special days as new beginnings. A very common form of this is the New Year, where nearly everyone makes a goal to improve in a certain way over that year, although not everyone holds on to that promise, I’ll get back on that later.
Now, there are a lot of these special days in our life, it doesn’t just have to be the New Year. There’s birthdays, anniversaries, public holidays, and the highest frequency special day — the beginning of the week, be that Sunday or Monday.
You can decide to lead the week in a certain way. “This week I will not be binging Netflix”, maybe an appropriate goal. Or maybe, “I will give in 2 hours daily to my side hustle”.
Now, of course, we humans generally have terrible discipline, as we saw with the New Year resolution case. How do you deal with that?
3. There are two ways to go from here, depending on the situation. You can choose to go all out, or you can build the momentum slowly. If you have a hard deadline, get a website blocker to block Netflix, or don’t buy any carb-heavy ingredients on your next visit to the grocery store. If you don’t have a hard deadline, build it up slowly. On Monday, make sure to your easiest habits, say, 5 minutes of meditation. On Tuesday, ramp it up, add in another habit, say, 15 minutes of reading Medium posts. This will ensure that you don’t burnout. Instead of balancing the week, balance the day. You won’t need extra dopamine on the weekend to offset the week’s hard work.
Willpower is a limited resource, and while it can be built like muscles, if you break it, it won’t heal very fast. Use it wisely, like you would any muscle. No point breaking your back to lift that 300kg deadlift if you can’t even lift a measly 20kg the next 3 months. | https://medium.com/@inos1199/covid-ice-and-burnouts-cycles-in-life-c6978d7dddc | ['Laxman Soni'] | 2020-07-20 08:43:00.128000+00:00 | ['Covid Diaries', 'Cycles Of Life', 'Coronavirus Diaries', 'Growth Mindset'] |
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Autoencoders in TensorFlow — part 3 | In this blog I am going to show to use recurrent neural networks as part of Autoencoders in Tensor flow. Please see my part1 blog here & part2 blog here for convolution neural network based Autoencoders.
As we did last time I am still going to use the fashion mnist data to show how we can use LSTM layers and re-construct an image. The training is going to take a lot longer compared to both Convolution layers and Dense layers.
Finally, I want to take a second to give a huge shout out to Aurelien Geron for his amazing book Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow. Most of the code is inspired from this book, I made a few tweaks here and there but I cannot emphasize enough how good this book this.
So without further ado, here is the code on how to do this.
#General imports
import tensorflow as tf
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline#Load Dataset
mnist = tf.keras.datasets.fashion_mnist
(training_images, training_labels), (test_images, test_labels)
= mnist.load_data()
#Scale
X_train=training_images / 255.0
X_valid=test_images/255.0
Here is the encoder LSTM layers
encoder_rnn = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
tf.keras.layers.LSTM(100,return_sequences=True,
input_shape=[None,28]),
tf.keras.layers.LSTM(30)
])
The encoder rnn has only two layers, the first LSTM layers reads the images and creates a 100 nueron based layer. The second connected layer gets input and the hidden states fed to it with return_sequences set to True in layer1.
Here is the encoder_rnn summary
encoder_rnn.summary()
Here is the decoder LSTM layer to reconstruct the images
decoder_rnn = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
tf.keras.layers.RepeatVector(28,input_shape=[30]),
tf.keras.layers.LSTM(100,return_sequences=True),
tf.keras.layers.TimeDistributed(
tf.keras.layers.Dense(28,activation='sigmoid'))
])
The first layer repeats the inputs in effect creating 28 parallel inputs of the same data to be fed into the second LSTM layer. The second layers feeds it into a Time Distributed layer, that applies the same instance of Dense layer to each of the returned sequences generating our final 28x28 image.
Here is the decoder_rnn summary for more details.
Decoder_rnn.summary()
With this we are ready to build our full model and run our test. Here are the compile and fit steps.
AE_RNN = tf.keras.models.Sequential([encoder_rnn,decoder_rnn])
AE_RNN.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy',optimizer='adam') history = AE_RNN.fit(X_train,X_train,epochs=10,verbose=2,
validation_data=(X_valid,X_valid))
Here are our final images
AutoEncoder_RNN generated images in second row
As you can see we are able to get back decent images but obviously we are losing a bit of detail like colors & patterns.
Now lets redo the same thing with a 50% dropout and slightly different layers.
Encoder Layer with 50% dropout
encoder_rnn2 = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
tf.keras.layers.Reshape([28,28],input_shape=[28,28]),
tf.keras.layers.Dropout(0.5),
tf.keras.layers.LSTM(100,return_sequences=True),
tf.keras.layers.LSTM(30)
])
Rest of the model remains the same
AE_RNN2 = tf.keras.models.Sequential([encoder_rnn2,decoder_rnn])
AE_RNN2.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy',optimizer='adam') history2 = AE_RNN2.fit(X_train,X_train,epochs=10,verbose=2,
validation_data=(X_valid,X_valid))
Final images with 50% dropout
AutoEncoder_RNN generated images in second row with 50% dropout
Happy reading !!!
References:
Book: Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow by Aurelien Geron | https://medium.com/@sailajakarra/autoencoders-in-tensorflow-part-3-63495808ccf7 | ['Sailaja Karra'] | 2020-12-24 16:01:11.800000+00:00 | ['TensorFlow', 'Fashion Mnist', 'Keras', 'Autoencoder', 'Python3'] |
The 1 Lesson We Should Take from This Year’s Annual Review | Dam…it’s nearly Christmas and amongst the many traditions of the year, I’ll be doing my own annual review. Yep, for the last three years, I’ve dismissed new year’s resolutions in favour of a more reflective assessment of the year gone by. I try to objectively reflect on the past year, compare where I am to where I wanted to be, and seize upon any lessons I can take to make me a better person in the year ahead.
The annual review builds upon my goal to become a better person. So, I look to answer the following questions…
What were my goals?
Did I achieve them?
If not, why not?
What could I have done better?
What would have helped?
If I did, why?
As I’ve begun to reflect on what has happened, I realise my 2020 review is going to be unique. Not only will my annual review hold the drama of COVID-19, so will everyone else’s. We have faced a global pandemic, one which has taken the lives of many people but also turned the way we live on its head. I — and probably you — have had to cope with lockdowns, face masks, social distancing, possibly even illness and loss — all of which have disrupted my life and others. | https://medium.com/the-resolve-blog/the-1-lesson-we-should-take-from-this-years-annual-review-2deadacb3abc | ['Darren Matthews'] | 2020-12-15 12:05:41.996000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Leadership', 'Life Lessons', 'Thinking', 'Decision Making'] |
The ‘New Year, New You’ mindset and making it stick.🏋️♀️🏋️♂️ | Hands up, whose made a New Years resolution? I have. Mine is to train to compete in Triathlons. Last October I took part in my first triathlon and I loved every second of it. I have lots of experience of road cycling and road running but my swimming let me down. So once I finished the Triathlon, I spoke with my friend who took part and said I would spend 2020 training towards more triathlons. The emphasis being on improving my swimming technique.
So that’s my goal in a nutshell, but whats your goal for this year? Have you got the plan/mindset in place to go and achieve this goal? Let’s discuss just a couple of things which I find help keep me focused and overcome any obstacles that come my way.
Firstly is this goal ACHIEVABLE? — So for example lets say I want to lose 2 stone ready for my winter sun holiday I’ve got booked at the end of February. I’ve started my new workout routine on the 2nd of January and I have about 8 weeks until that holiday✈😎 . So I’ve got to lose 1 stone every 4 weeks or 3.5 lbs a week or 0.5lb a day. So firstly, ask yourself ‘Why 2 stone’? Why not 1 stone? Whichever way you break it down, trying to lose this much weight, in a short space of time, just isn't going to happen (unless you go on some crazy crash diet which lets face it, wont be sustainable and you’ll probably end up worst off this way). Another way of looking at this goal could be to say ‘I want to lose a stone before my holiday and then if I lose anything extra then great’. So lets say your holiday arrives and you’ve lost 1 stone. What a great achievement!! Lets celebrate this and tell yourself that although you’re not quite at your 2 stone goal, you’re a lot closer than you were on the 2nd of January. If 2 stone was your magic number, and you still feel disappointed that you aren’t there yet, then moving forward take note of the fact that perhaps extra planning was required and waiting to start this 2 stone weight loss journey in the New Year, was perhaps just a touch too late. So to sum up — don’t lose focus. You’re halfway to your goal. Plan your next 2–3 months fitness routine out, identify potential obstacles and go hit your target. What’s your PLAN?- So if we’re looking at a weight loss goal, have you structured your fitness and nutrition🥗 plan to help hit your target? We’ve looked at your goal being achievable so let’s now put our weight loss plan in place. Firstly, you need to be in a calorie deficit to see the change on the scales. ‘How can I be in a calorie deficit’ I hear you ask? You need to expend more energy (calories) than you consume. Firstly identify the calories you need to maintain your weight (say 2500). So if you consume 2500 calories a day, you aren’t going to lose any weight (pretty straight forward). I mean you could consume 2500 a day, but then you need to be adding in exercise to help burn off some of these calories. So adding in 3 exercise sessions each week, where you burned off say 500 calories each one, gives you a deficit of 1500 calories in one week. So, the second point to consider is adding in some exercise where you can to help. Look ahead at your weeks, months and decide when you’re going to train. Are you better in the mornings so a 6am session before work is the time for you? But hold on, you’ve got the train to catch to work at 7 so you will need to consider starting your workout at half 5 (who needs sleep anyway😴 ). If 5:30 isn’t going to be an option, because you want that extra half an hour sleep, then whats option 2, 3 or even 4. Don’t just make it up day by day. Have your workout routines setup in your diary around work, social, family time etc and make it a priority. But lets be realistic here, life has a habit of making things crop up last minute and we might only achieve 2 workouts on week 2 of your plan and you’d hoped for 3. Again, well done for achieving 2 workouts that week and keeping nutrition under control. Ask yourself ‘would I have done 2 workouts and had a good week of nutrition before I started this new routine’? If the answer is ‘no’ then you’ve made instant progress, even though you missed a workout (that actually wasn’t your fault). So no harm done, onto week 3 and lets hit those 3 workouts and keep the good nutritional habits ticking along nicely. So to sum up point 2 -get your workouts setup in 4 week phases and nutrition plan set up for 1 week at a time . Expect things to come up which cant be avoided, but get back onto the right path the next day and keep going.
These 2 points should give you a clear focus on what you need to do to get off and running with your New Years resolutions. Setting new habits can be fun but also challenging. But if you can stick to something new for 30 days, you’ll soon make that new habit a part of every day life. Its not just Health and Fitness that these 2 points can be applied to. You can set yourself PLANS and ACHIEVABLE goals for lots of different things in life. Keep a strong mindset this year and go out and be the best you can each and everyday 💪👍 | https://medium.com/@steve_65548/the-new-year-new-you-mindset-and-making-it-stick-fbe389fb1695 | ['Whittfit Training'] | 2020-01-14 12:27:47.992000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Mindset', 'Fitness', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Lifestyle'] |
4 Human Skills that will be Valuable in the Future | 4 Human Skills that will be Valuable in the Future
Image by Pixabay
The mainstream media loves to shower doom and gloom stories on us about how technology will render humans useless one day. They describe a future world where robots will be performing all tasks and possibly even making all decisions after the singularity.
But I got news for them.
The basic skills that humans can provide are not only irreplaceable; they are exclusive — and no machine can ever mimic them. After all, didn’t humans create the technology, to begin with?
Whenever feeling discouraged by our place in this technologically driven world in which we find ourselves, just a simple reminder is needed regarding the powerful human skills we possess.
These 4 human skills have always been valuable and are sought after by smart employers — and they always will. | https://medium.com/@charliestephen6/4-human-skills-that-will-be-valuable-in-the-future-241f4a8798f1 | ['Charles Stephen'] | 2021-02-02 15:09:37.278000+00:00 | ['Skills', 'Skills Development', 'Future', 'Future Of Work', 'Technology'] |
PDCA to the Perfect Roti | If you are beginning to read this with a palm on your face, with mild disbelief and a sardonic what-has-the-world-come-to expression, my sympathies and commiserations. I invite you to give this 5-minute piece a read and then share your annoyance on the comments section. However, it is my humble submission that this skill intensive flat bread, an integral part of the food from our sub-continent deserves a piece on just how hard the bloody thing is to nail.
Here’s some context to roti making in India. An average Indian household consumes roti as part of 1 to 2 meals a day and purchases roughly 10 Kgs of Atta a month (which could give 240–300 Rotis). Assuming 2 Rotis per person per meal, this means that across roughly 150 million households our women spend anywhere between 40–60 minutes of their day just making Rotis, every single day! (That’s considering 60–65% of our 243 million non-affluent households, excluding the South & East)
5 years back set aside practising the PDCA method, rotis would be the last thing that I would want to apply it to. But that was until I married somebody who swore by his grandmother & mother’s rotis. According to my husband, that coveted bread, was perfection ‘objectified’. Soft, light and fluffy, a mild beige colour speckled with little brown dots, roti with a bowl of dal and spicy sabji transcended into a culinary experience only the finest fine-dining could match.
And I being the kind looking to win at everything from Lemon & Spoon to Battleship couldn’t relent to that woebegone piece of bread. Thus began my tryst with the roti, as we locked ourselves down in March this year.
Making the perfect roti is an interplay of multiple factors and I have learnt this from repeat cycles of Plan-Do-Check-Act. Here’s a link to familiarise yourself to the process, just in case.
My analysis directs to 3 key factors — The balance of Heat, Moisture and Surface Area and 5 critical actions that when mastered will always give you the perfect roti.
Factor 1 : Balancing the heat
The roti cakes up like Papad when the heat is not balanced. There are 3 main gaps that could lead to a dry and brittle roti. | https://medium.com/@supriyas-madhavan/pdca-to-the-perfect-roti-f4fe01e16096 | ['Supriya Madhavan'] | 2020-12-28 03:40:34.168000+00:00 | ['Continuous Learning', 'Food', 'Learning', 'Cooking', 'India'] |
How to gain TikTok followers and go viral | How I gained 20K+ TikTok followers in 2 weeks
Photo by Franck on Unsplash
TikTok is a place for incredible viral growth for both brands and influencers. But it’s sporadic, and won’t happen for everyone. Success on TikTok depends on numerous factors and the algorithm is always changing.
I started on TikTok in June of 2020. I named my account after my favorite Pokemon because it was available. Vulpix. I was trying to grow a platform on Twitch, and someone messaged me with the idea:
On TikTok, it’s way easier to get discovered. The app WANTS people to find you. I have a friend with 2,000 followers that she got in just a few months.
Wow, I thought. 2,000 in two months? I was impressed.
Little did I know that on my account, there would be an extra zero.
I never planned to go viral.
But that’s how TikTok works. You keep making content, and one day, the video you least expect to go viral just will. It’ll feel like a fluke. It will make you laugh and surprise you.
When I was first starting out on TikTok, my now-ex boyfriend, who is, technically, an Instagram influencer himself, recommended I check out a friend of his, Quigley, who was offering courses on social media growth. She’s a lifestyle influencer who had recently blown up on TikTok (138K followers) and was offering a free group Zoom call on how to be successful on the app.
Her biggest piece of advice? Delete your account if you haven’t blown up within your first five posts or if you have less than 5,000 followers and start over. TikTok wants to categorize you as a “ghost” account, a “small” account, a “medium” account, or a “viral” account. Once you get assigned after your first few posts, it’s quite difficult to get out of that rut.
This news shocked me. I had already gained 2,000 followers organically on my own. One of my TikToks had 14K views.
How could I just delete my account, lose all those people and views and start from scratch?
The truth was, I just couldn’t. But I think Quigley’s advice is smart, for most people. If you don’t have a sentimental attachment to your account name or your current content and views, it’s probably a good idea. If you’re trying to grow a business account, it’s probably a good idea to delete and start fresh if you don’t get traction right away.
But I couldn’t bring myself to delete my account.
I couldn’t kill my vulpix.
So I pushed on. Here are the things I’ve learned, navigating the Wild West of TikTok on my own… | https://bettermarketing.pub/how-i-gained-20k-tiktok-followers-in-2-weeks-d2bad1896a95 | ['Kate Irwin'] | 2021-02-11 21:47:12.393000+00:00 | ['Tiktok App', 'Content', 'Technology', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Social Media'] |
The Future of our Evolution is up to Us. | “It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the [person] of the future may reach or the heights to which [they] may carry [their] technique. [We] will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler…The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.” — Trotsky
Should humanity make the conscious effort to evolve itself? Is it wise to indefinitely strive for more and more advanced versions of ourselves, or are we better off not fussing about it?
Some people feel uneasy about the prospect of a future humanity that is more evolved than ourselves as a result of our own conscious upgrading. Opposing conscious evolution implies one of two things: it either admits the belief that we are better off as less evolved, or the belief that where we are today is the best possible version of ourselves. But is it? If you could make humanity less intelligent and weaker, would you do it? If not, that is what we are in effect doing to our descendants by our cynicism towards optimizing human evolution today.
It’s critical to optimize both the whole as well as the individual, the mind as well as the body. This means raising the collective intelligence, EQ, levels of self actualization, mental health, and human capital relentlessly. True evolution involves the collective consciousness. It does not mean a mere transhumanist implant, it means a happier, healthier, smarter culture.
Consider that today the median IQ is 100. Imagine if tomorrow’s median were equivalent to today’s 110, 120, 130, or what about 200 or 300? There will always be people at the lower, middle, and upper levels of the bell curve- that is inescapable- but we must strive to make the lowest levels of the bell curve overcome their weaknesses and the geniuses crack the gates of heaven. Let’s unleash everyone’s inner da Vinci.
We are all individuals. Yet it’s possible to collectively improve ourselves (we’ve already done it many times) by moving the whole bell curve to the right for certain traits, in other words, making us better on average. Since that’s true, not proactively improving our average traits when we could reflects a lack of collective courage, will or clarity.
Sometimes, this prospect makes some people uncomfortable. To commit to a future where the average IQ is equivalent to today’s 150 or 200 feels like we would lose a part of ourselves to elitism.
But consider this. There was once a time when humans were illiterate, when the life expectancy was 25 years, when the workings of the natural world were a superstition-filled mystery, when we didn’t have language other than primitive hand signals and grunts. Every time we’ve overcome ourselves and evolved, we did indeed lose some part of ourselves, because to evolve is to transform, and to transform is simultaneously death and birth.
In retrospect, would we ever want to go back to when most people were illiterate and less conscious? So when most people are hyper-conscious, would they ever want to come back to where we are now? Have you ever wished you could go back to before you had a clarifying epiphany to your previous state of ignorance?
At its core, the fear of actively improving ourselves collectively is ultimately a subconscious fear of our own power, a fear of our own vast potential.
Just like many of us in the microcosm of our own personal lives might fear our own power to become a more capable, intelligent, powerful and self actualized version of ourselves because we are so addicted to our comfort zone and limiting beliefs, so too do we apply this same handicap to our conception of humanity as a whole.
Would you ever want society in the future to be one as depicted in the movie Idiocracy, where the average IQ decreases? If you are a normally reasonable person, the answer is almost certainly no. So, if you wouldn’t want our collective intelligence to decrease, why would you want it to stay the same? Just like a penny saved is a penny earned, collective intelligence stagnant is collective intelligence lost.
Do you think the universe, after evolving into us for eons, has finally reached as high as it (and therefore we) could ever possibly get? We used to be apes, even lizards and amoebas. Why would we want to arbitrarily draw the line now after all that? How unimaginative!
In the swampy primordial pools of early Earth, the first biological life forms emerged. These simple, humble, microscopic amoebas were almost the furthest thing we could imagine from beings that could write poetry, have ecstatic spiritual experiences, contemplate the deepest thoughts on the nature of existence, and engineer space ships that would land on other planets. Yet here we are, our very existence in this moment the definitive proof that intrinsic in those amoebas, and even intrinsic in the Big Bang itself were always the potential for the beauties and magic of advanced civilization.
We began as pure potential, and through the evolutionary process, potential transforms into actualization.
Have we arrived? Has humanity already achieved the apex of this universal process of actualization? It would take arrogance and short-sightedness to an astonishing degree to assume so. The minds of the most enlightened and intelligent human beings to ever walk the earth all descended from this seed, as all life has. For billions of years, no life even had a spinal cord, let alone the capacity for complex self-reflection and analysis.
It would be impossible for the mind of a bug to accurately contemplate the complexities of the human condition, so it takes a leap of intuition and intellectual honesty for us to come to terms with the fact that the level of consciousness, psychological wholeness and intelligence that the universe (i.e. we) are actually capable of may be mind-bogglingly greater than we’ve generally imagined.
Now, we can theoretically make sense of that, which means we can actively make immanent the actualization of this elevated condition.
“What is great in [humanity] is that [we are] a bridge and not a goal”- Nietzsche
Evolution, until it developed consciousness, was by definition unconscious. The struggle to survive, reproduce and evolve into more complex and intelligent beings was left to its own devices. The thing about evolution is that it itself also evolves- meta-evolution. In other words, once we were evolved enough to self reflect, plan, and conceive complex thoughts as individuals, and develop civilization as a collective, the process of our evolution switched gears into a higher phase where its outcome is directly dependent on culture.
Evolution has now become a conscious process.
Materially, this has culminated into genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, advanced medicine and the many other ways we’re extending our lives and controlling our environment. But crucially and often missed is that evolution is not only genetic, but memetic, not only physical, but psychological and cultural. Assuming we take on an evolutionary mindset aimed at constant improvement, it naturally follows that we should consciously design our psychological and memetic evolution with as much, if not more of a priority as our physical evolution.
There have been times and places where human consciousness, thinking and creativity have flourished more vibrantly than most other times- think of all the times in history designated a “renaissance” or a “golden age.” During those special moments, the culture of a people reaches a critical condition that arouses a collective consciousness into remarkable vibrancy, passion and innovation.
Modernity is duplicitous. In terms of material things like technological advancements and physical sciences, the last few centuries have ushered human civilization as a whole into a golden age. In mere centuries we’ve developed modern sanitation, medicine, agriculture, all types of engineering, computing, we’ve unlocked cosmological questions like the age of the planet and the universe, we’ve discovered the nuances of subatomic particles and quantum mechanics, we’ve sent people to the moon, created the internet, decoded our genome and extended our average lifetimes significantly.
It is, in these material respects, a wondrous golden age to behold.
The self-evident wonders of modern innovation are a double edged sword, though. Their very success breeds a blindness to their own undoings. The easiest but wrong way to look at material advancement is linearly- We had less, now we have more, we were worse off, now we’re better off, we were primitive, now we’re advanced.
This simple idea of linear progress just isn’t true. Modern philosopher Marshall McLuhan pointed out a pattern in technological innovations- rather than seeing each new medium as simply “better” for having been invented, he points to a more nuanced look at each innovation, by considering the following questions about them:
-What does it enhance?- How does this new innovation make things better? This is the default question a lot of people turn to when looking at the progressions of modernity.
-What does it make obsolete?- What do we no longer use or do because of this new technology?
-What does it retrieve that was obsolesced earlier?- New innovations revive a sense of what had been lost before, but in a new way. Radio brought back the importance of the spoken word, cell phones and social media brought back proximity to our neighbors, quantum mechanics brought back a sense of immaterialism and nondeterminism in physics.
-What does it flip into when pushed to extremes? Here is the crux of the hidden pernicious side to modernity’s material ‘golden age.’ These are unintended consequences and often downsides. Cars brought us pollution and traffic jams, social media brought us distraction, fakeness, and isolation, modern agriculture brought us ecological destruction, consumption of junk food and pesticides, modern media brought us marketing and advertising which has ushered a culture of materialism, consumption and celebrity worship, the instant gratification of modern technology reduced our patience and attention spans, modern engineering led to the development of nuclear weapons and the means to destroy life on earth.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. -Martin Luther King
In many ways, because of the advancements of modernity, we have access to the most information than ever before, and in that sense, we are in a golden age. But we are also surrounded by a cultural matrix of commodity fetishization, degenerative culture, distraction, systemic privilege, hyper consumption and atomization. In that sense, we are overdue for a renaissance.
The classical Greeks and Renaissance Italians did not need refrigeration, smartphones and automobiles to engender a civilization that brought them an unprecedented burst of philosophy, art and culture. This doesn’t mean that modern technology and high culture are mutually exclusive. This has been the claim of anarcho-primitivists who note modern cultural degeneracy and mistakenly see these trends as direct evidence that culture and modernity cannot coexist.
In reality, the evolutionary process is dialectical. Every phase brings with it new challenges, which are then synthesized into new solutions. This means our challenge isn’t to reverse the technological trend- it’s to learn how to harness it for higher ends through even more innovation, crucially guided by more noble values.
Today we are already seeing the rumblings of the potential for a modern cultural renaissance. We can reject the debilitations of modernity without necessarily turning to primitivism. We can enjoy our technologies without becoming a slave to them- but only by cultivating virtue into the minds of our citizens and leaders.
The ultimate quest for human civilization is to optimize our spirit and our technological capabilities. Evolution passed us the baton when it handed us our neocortex, giving us consciousness and the ability to conceptualize, plan, and take responsibility. Then, and now more than ever, humanity is playing the highest stakes game with its very existence. Do we take this sacred baton of evolution and drop it, squandering it on hate, fear, greed and small-mindedness, destroying ourselves or descending into Idiocracy? Or do we follow through on the sacred task, and take this process that began in Earth’s primordial pools all the way to the Omega Point?
The hour of decision looms, the countdown to launch can be heard. This is the moment all of human history has culminated to- so what’s it going to be? Failure to launch and implosion, or Humanity 2.0?
Humanity 2.0 will wisely and altruistically use artificial intelligence, cyborg enhancements and genetic engineering in a way that provides universal access and empowers everyone. But if our collective consciousness fails to launch or rise to the challenges of these transformative technologies, transhumanism will be defined by the highest bidders, and there will be no going back from the resulting dystopia.
Like a post- Star Trek world, imagine a highly technologically advanced society that is full of composed, thoughtful, confident, dutiful, freethinking and talented people with healthy psyches. The technological advancement is already here and closing in fast. The consciousness revolution to eliminate government corruption and embrace the collective upgrade is scarily behind.
Technology is neither inherently good or evil-it’s simply a tool. How that tool is used is determined by the values, thought and intention behind its innovation and use. When we optimize our values, cultures and our minds and wisely guide our optimized technology, we will have reached the next phase of evolution of not only humanity, but of life and the universe itself.
A renaissance that proactively evolves the human condition by maximizing our collective consciousness will unleash a golden age the likes humanity has never seen before. We will fuse the vast knowledge and power already achieved by modernity with a cultural and political renaissance, synergizing them into a potent alchemy that will spark a quantum leap that will take is to the stars- both figuratively and literally. | https://medium.com/@phoenix-goodman/the-future-of-our-evolution-is-up-to-us-98cd1867ec34 | ['Phoenix Goodman'] | 2020-12-23 01:11:12.739000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Opinion', 'Evolution', 'Culture', 'Transhumanism'] |
Virgin Galactic: Awesome. But not so sustainable. | On Sunday morning, Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE, profiled above) CEO Richard Branson touched the edge of space, beating Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos’s own escapade into suborbital space by nine days.
The journeys cap a race between billionaires Branson and Bezos to prove their companies are safe for commercial travel, paving the way for daily passenger trips by 2022. Amid the pandemic- and climate-related negative news of the last few months, finally a bright spot: space tourism has liftoff.
But is it a bright spot? The view from the mesosphere must be serene — assuming it’s hard to see the raging wildfires and diminishing icecaps. Soaring 86km above a drought-hit New Mexico, it’s unclear whether Branson had any of the epiphanies about the Earth’s fragility and unity so often relayed by astronauts.
Aerospace technology is exciting. Burning the required fossil fuels to launch rockets 86km above the earth every single day: not so much. Rockets individually produce up to 150 times more CO2 per launch per passenger than aircraft.
That seems unlikely to bring investor excitement back down to earth. In a note, Morgan Stanley today observed that “investor interest in space, which just two years ago was as vacuous as space itself, today seems to be on a path to become as crowded as an orbital debris field.”
Our analytics show the price of that enthusiasm. Virgin Galactic says emissions will be offset, but it’s still an enormous negative climate impact for a few minutes in zero gravity. | https://medium.com/@util-19620/virgin-galactic-awesome-but-not-so-sustainable-a02ad6d57413 | [] | 2021-07-15 05:03:28.496000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Impact Investing', 'Green Investment', 'Esg'] |
How American Schools Can Empower Multilingual Students | Advocate for dual-language immersion programs
Dual-language immersion programs offer one of the most valuable methods of closing the gap on academic performance between native English speakers and non-native English speakers. A four-year study on dual-language immersion students in Portland Public Schools revealed that students in the program performed an entire grade year ahead in English-language reading by the eighth grade than their non-immersion peers: an outstanding gain for this traditionally underserved population.
Advocacy groups like the D.C. Language Immersion Project have compiled resources to make the case for dual-language programs in your school — and how to get started. Dual language programs not only benefit your multilingual students but will also give other students the chance to develop foreign language skills that are essential for global competency.
Host an Arabic or Chinese language teacher from Egypt or China
What could be better than exposing your students — whether English speakers or not — to a native speaker and professional teacher of two of the world’s most critical languages? The U.S. Department of State makes this possible through the Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) by matching Egyptian and Chinese teachers with schools across the U.S. for an academic year.
Virtual exchange programs and teaching resources from organizations such as the Qatar Foundation’s I Speak Arabic initiative and the 100,000 Strong Foundation can further enhance programming so that language lessons can continue well beyond the stay of a hosted teacher.
For schools with pockets of Arabic and Chinese speakers, hosting an Egyptian or Chinese teacher could result in increased use of students using their native language at school, greater acceptance of the language within the school community, and a budding interest in Chinese and Arabic culture.
Welcome high school exchange students from other countries
Consider bringing high school exchange students from traditionally harder-to-navigate countries to your school for an academic year. Just like exchange teachers, exchange students can increase the language and cultural diversity in the classroom and help make the language groups in your school feel inclusive and affirmed.
Programs like the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) and the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) select exceptional students from across the Muslim world and the former Soviet Union to spend a year living and studying in a local high school in the U.S. These students are often ambassadors for their home country and their home language — and could bolster your efforts to increase inclusion of a language in your school.
Enhance the resumes and high school transcripts of multilingual students for college admissions
Many — if not the majority — of multilingual students have never taken a formal language course for their language other than English and their language skills are rarely reflected on their high school transcripts.
A new movement is working to change that. Your school can provide testing opportunities like the National Examination of World Languages for multilingual students of less common languages to earn college credit for their native languages and prepare to enter the global workforce with a distinct (and certified!) advantage.
Incorporate foreign languages through school activities
Give students the option to write in their first language for their school newspaper or to read a book in their native language and share a summary in English with their classmates. Facilitate classroom discussions that affirm the multilingual nature of students to make sure they feel accepted and valued. Host a multilingual open mic night where students can read poetry and short stories from other countries or a cultural fair that showcases music, cuisine, dance, and customs from another country.
Even taking simple steps like posting multilingual signs directing visitors around your school and incorporating various greetings that reflect the languages spoken at school in official communications can go a long way in welcoming your diverse language communities.
Plan multicultural field and service trips
Instead of the typical field trip or after school activity, consider the many other types of community outreach activities your school can participate in. Develop partnerships with elementary schools where multilingual students can receive credit or volunteer hours for teaching elementary school kids their first language.
Think about the multicultural nature of your own town or city: plan trips to ethnic restaurants and meet with the chef, start a conversation with diaspora organizations, or host an international dinner for those who need a meal. If you have enough multilingual students with certain language skills, you could even organize volunteer projects for them to outreach to that specific language community. | https://medium.com/language-matters/how-american-schools-can-empower-multilingual-students-5bac7f847c0c | ['American Councils For Int'] | 2016-05-04 19:31:19.448000+00:00 | ['Teaching', 'Language', 'Education'] |
The Unending Connectedness of the Books We Write and Love | How poetry started for me, and why/how I’ve come full circle — Two or three book reviews of a sort:
Image courtesy of author
One morning in 1967 or 68 when I woke-up I glanced over and my wife Linda had already gotten up and started her day. But on her bedside table was a book of Ancient Chinese Paintings and Drawings. I reached over and began thumbing through it and pretty soon I was taken aback by how much the subject matter of these artists, many of them dead for the last 500 years or more, reminded me of what I saw and felt in the world: the mountains, rivers, trees, daily lives of people and animals and nature.
I’d wanted to be a poet since I was 16 or 17 but felt I had nothing to write about, nothing to add to poetry or any part of life for that matter. But this art inspired me. I grabbed my journal and began to write what I immediately thought of as “translations,” not of Chinese poetry, but of these beautiful works of art, translating them into my language, my sensibilities, my work.
In an hour I had written 25 or 30, and I liked what I’d done.
Within a year or two I met and became a friend and protégé of the Pacific Northwest Poet Robert Sund.
Robert Sund and Terry Trueman, 1968 from author’s pers. pics
Sund had studied under Theodore Roethke, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet who had died in 1963 and who had taught for many years at the University of Washington. Robert had been inspired by him to become a poet, just as I was now inspired by Robert to follow the same path.
As luck and miracles and serendipity sometimes happen, at the time we met Robert was trying to put together his first book of poems , a collection about working in eastern Washington’s Palouse country on the wheat harvest. He wasn’t having much luck. His mind didn’t work in strong organizational ways. And being stoned most of the time didn’t help.
Robert Sund, pic taken by author 1968
He’d read my Chinese painting poems and had said he liked them a great deal. This, as much as any other thing had led to our meeting one another. At some point, I’m not sure how or when or exactly why, he handed me his wheat harvest poems and I began to read them. Robert was in his early 40’s, I was 20.
As I read his work it reminded me so much of the Chinese paintings and the poems I’d written; clear, simple, direct, the subject matter perfectly balanced with the length, style, language and accessibility of the works.
Inside flap copy of First Edition Bunch Grass, by permission of publisher
We ended-up working together on organizing the poems over a long weekend and at the end we had a manuscript that eventually became Robert’s first book (and one of only three ever published of his poems and art,) Bunch Grass (University of Washington Press, 1968).
Image courtesy of publisher
Many years later, I pulled my Chinese painting poems together, mostly those previously published and a few others and made them into a small chapbook.
Image courtesy of author and publisher
If it hadn’t been for that book of Chinese paintings, and my writing inspired by them, and Robert’s reading my poems and inviting an unpublished 20 year old kid to help him with his work, I can safely say Bunch Grass might never have come to be (or if it had it wouldn’t have been the book it became), and that it’s unlikely that any of my future books would have been written and published.
I once heard Alan Ginsberg talk about his connection, looking back through friends and lovers all the way to Walt Whitman. Ginsberg wanted to claim an ancestral connectedness to Whitman, I think justifiably so.
Robert and I stayed friends for the rest of his life, he died in 2001. But we never were as close as we had been while working on Bunch Grass. He had asked me, numerous times, to help him with later books but it never worked out. Life had pulled us far apart in different directions, me to family and children and him to his own passions and lifestyle.
The last picture taken of Sund and Trueman, courtesy of Terry John Pratt, Flickr
Our books, like our lives are not created in a vacuum: not artistic, not social, not historical or aesthetic — our works are connected, one generation and one work to the next, directly and obviously and invisibly and mysteriously.
A Chinese painter in the 14h century picks up a paint brush and 600 years later a young poet, about to be influenced for the rest of his life by an older poet, connects and begins to work.
This is how our books are made.
This is why our books are loved and why they demand a place in our lives and hearts.
*********************************************
Part of the reason for posting this story is that I will be posting some of my Chinese Painting Poems in the days and weeks to come. I hope you’ll read and enjoy them.
Wikipedia & Encyclopedia | https://medium.com/write-and-review/the-unending-connectedness-of-the-books-we-write-and-love-4b20998c2068 | ['Terry Trueman'] | 2020-12-26 23:16:49.346000+00:00 | ['Works', 'Connections', 'Art', 'Life', 'Poetry'] |
Monitoring and Alerting on your Kubernetes Cluster with Prometheus and Grafana | Why Are Monitoring and Alerting Important?
IT Teams already realize the necessity of monitoring their infrastructure. There is a long history and many products available for legacy infrastructure: tools like Nagios, Zabbix, and others are familiar players in this space.
But, with the Kubernetes ecosystem, it brings many levels of abstraction and troubleshooting if you don’t have the right tools. How many DevOps engineers are faced with the familiar error:
Failed scheduling No nodes are available that match all of the following predicates::Insufficient CPU
Cluster resource monitoring is essential to follow in real time. In comparison with traditional infrastructure, cluster resources are constantly scaling and changing. You can never know where your pods will be launched on your cluster. For these reasons, we need to monitor both the underlying resources of the cluster and the inner cluster health.
On top of that, monitoring alone is not enough if you’re not utilizing alerts. We can easily imagine that our OPS will not stay all night looking at their dashboards on critical production clusters.
Why Prometheus and Grafana?
With an extensive set of alerting and monitoring tools, why should we go for Prometheus and Grafana specifically?
Prometheus
Prometheus is an open source monitoring tool. It was initially developed at Soundcloud but is now a standalone open source project, part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2016. It is the second project after… Kubernetes itself. This is the first reason why both components are often associated as tightly coupled projects.
In addition to that, Prometheus differs from numerous other monitoring tools as its architecture is pull-based. It continuously scrapes metrics from the monitored components.
Finally, in the architecture itself, Prometheus uses a multi-dimensional data model very similar to the way Kubernetes organizes its data by labels. In opposition to a dotted data model where each metric is unique and each different parameters requires different metrics, with Prometheus, everything is stored as key/value pairs in time series:
<metric name>{<label name>=<label value>, …}
Prometheus architecture includes three main components :
The prometheus server itself : which collect metrics and answer to queries via API
A pushgateway : to expose metrics for ephemeral and short jobs
An alertmanager : to enable the alerts publication as name suggests
Prometheus architecture and ecosystem components. Source
We will be using here a combination of the prometheus node_exporter and kube_state_metrics to publish metrics about our cluster.
Grafana
Grafana is a popular open source (Apache 2.0 license) visualization layer for Prometheus that supports querying Prometheus’ time-based data out of the box. In fact, the Grafana data source for Prometheus is included since Grafana 2.5.0 (2015–10–28).
It is, on top of that, incredibly easy to use as it offers template functionality allowing you to create dynamic dashboards editable in real-time.
Finally, there is a very good documentation and a vast community sharing, among other things, public dashboards. We will use two public dashboards specifically made for Kubernetes in this article.
After all this theory let’s get our hands dirty!
Prerequisites for Installation
The only requirement we have for this project is a working kubernetes cluster. For the sake of simplicity, I will be using in this article a minikube installation on AWS EC2.
Minikube is a convenient way to install a single-node Kubernetes cluster for non-production, lab, and testing purposes. It is especially effective on individual computers, as it doesn’t come with heavy resource requirements, and it supports several K8s features out-of-the box.
It works normally by creating a local VM on the machine relying on a hypervisor, but being on a AWS VM myself I’ll be using vm-driver=none mode of Minikube for this demonstration.
Install Prometheus and Grafana with Helm
It is time to install both products. We will rely on Helm, a Kubernetes package manager which updated to version 3.0 in November 2019.
Just for history, this update is very important as Helm was deeply rewritten to catch up with Kubernetes evolutions like RBAC and Custom Roles Definitions. It makes it a lot more production-compliant than previous versions. Previously, many IT experts were reluctant to use Helm for production-grade clusters due to its permissive security model and its dependence on the controversial Tiller component (now removed from 3.0).
We will use charts (Helm’s packaging format) from the stable Helm repo to help getting started with monitoring Kubernetes cluster components and system metrics.
Installing Helm
Add the stable repo to your Helm installation:
$ helm repo add stable https://kubernetes-charts.storage.googleapis.com/
$ helm repo update
Then we will create a custom namespace on our K8s cluster to manage all the monitoring stack:
$ kubectl create ns monitoring
Installing Prometheus
We can install now the Prometheus chart in the newly created monitoring namespace
$ helm install prometheus stable/prometheus --namespace monitoring
NAME: prometheus
LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Apr 14 09:22:27 2020
NAMESPACE: monitoring
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
The Prometheus server can be accessed via port 80 on the following DNS name from within your cluster:
prometheus-server.monitoring.svc.cluster.local [...]
Then we can create a NodePort using K8s’ native imperative command which allows us to communicate directly to the pod from outside the cluster. Just know that this step is optional if you don’t intend to query Prometheus without Grafana.
We can see the port 30568 was automatically allocated to map the 9090 port to the pod.
I can now access the Prometheus endpoint using my public DNS and port 30568 in my browser.
There, we can directly query Prometheus to get, for example, CPU consumption by namespaces using the following command:
sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{container_name!=”POD”,namespace!=””}[5m])) by (namespace)
Installing Grafana
Now that Prometheus is installed, rather than querying each metric individually, it is way more convenient to use Grafana to get comprehensive dashboards aggregating multiple metrics in one place.
We use helm once again to install grafana in the monitoring namespace :
$ helm install grafana stable/grafana --namespace monitoring
We can see that grafana pod is running along the prometheus components
Here again we create a NodePort service to access Grafana from outside the cluster (this time it is mandatory) :
$ kubectl -n monitoring expose pod grafana-5b74c499c6-kt4bw --type NodePort --name grafana-np service/grafana-np exposed
And get the external port mapped to Grafana listening port 3000 : (here 31399)
$ kubectl -n monitoring get svc grafana-np NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
grafana-np NodePort 10.111.59.2 <none> 80:30368/TCP,3000:31399/TCP 3h8m
Type in your browser : yourPublicDNS:yourPort and tada!
Grafana has user management capabilities, and by default, you must connect using the admin user.
To get the admin password, type the following :
kubectl get secret — namespace monitoring grafana -o jsonpath=”{.data.admin-password}” | base64 — decode ; echo ADMINPASSWORD
Now you can connect.
The first step is to configure Prometheus as Data Source by using the internal DNS structure of Kubernetes:
http://prometheusServiceName.namespace.svc.cluster.local:port
Which is in my case :
http://prometheus-server.monitoring.svc.cluster.local (:80 optional)
Now that the datasource added, we will import two community dashboards useful for monitoring both our workload and the cluster health. They should work out of the box.
Click the import button and type Grafana dashboard ID:
Let’s install 1860 then 8685 which are complementary:
Now you should have two working dashboards:
We are now able to easily monitor both system metrics and cluster configuration!
Alerting on Slack Channel
Now that we have a working monitoring solution, the second step is to activate Alerting. We easily understand that an Ops team supervising several clusters in production cannot keep constantly an eye on their dashboards.
There are two ways to implement Alerting in our monitoring stack. We might use the prometheus AlertManager component (which is installed by the helm chart) or the built-in alerting function of Grafana. We’ll go for the latter as it’s easier to implement.
Grafana can send an alert on Slack, mail, webhook or other communication channels. As I’m using Slack a lot, and I know several companies do as well, I’ll go for this example.
Create the Slack notification channel
The first step is to add Slack as a notification channel. In grafana, click on the bell to the left, select the notification channel menu then create a new channel.
You’ll see the great number of tools compatible with Grafana for alerting.
Select Slack and enter the URL of your slack webhook URL (other fields are optional).
If you don’t have a webhook URL already follow this tutorial : https://api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks
It will help you create an endpoint for sending messages to a specific channel of your Slack server.
Create and test your custom alert
Now that your channel is set up, take your “K8S Cluster Summary” dashboard, and click on the Cluster Pod Capacity title, to edit the panel.
We will set up an alert to monitor the pod capacity, which is limited at 110 by Kubernetes by default on each node. This limit is considered as the limit of reliability. If the number of nodes in your cluster is limited and if you reach this hard limit of 110, the remaining pods will enter in a pending state which could be very problematic in a production cluster when scaling during a high business activity for example.
We’ll set up an alarm at 90 pods:
Back on our cluster let’s create an arbitrary deployment with 100 nginx replicas:
$ kubectl create ns loadtest
namespace loadtest created $ kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx -n loadtest
deployment.apps/nginx created $ kubectl -n loadtest scale deployment nginx --replicas=100
deployment.apps/nginx scaled
We can see the Pod capacity quickly rises to 115 because of the existing 15 initial pods in the cluster:
That’s 5 pods more than the allowed 110 and effectively we can see on the dashboards 5 pods are on pending state.
After 5 minutes the alert goes into ALERTING state and sends our notification on the Slack channel with the custom message and the current value .
We can scale down the deployment to 1 pod :
$ kubectl -n loadtest scale deployment nginx — replicas=1
deployment.apps/nginx scaled
The Pod Capacity has cooled down
And the alert sends a return to normal state notification to slack.
This little exercise was very interesting as it is fairly straightforward to implement but still gives a real world scenario.
There is something to note concerning the Grafana alerting feature. Both our dashboards are using functions called template variables. Variables are the values you can change on top of the dashboards like the host, cluster or namespace. By design, Grafana does not allow alerts on template variables for several reasons you can read here. If you try to put some alerts on certain panels on dashboards you may have an error for this reason. The solution will be to specify for each alert a specific host, cluster or node to monitor without using a variable. | https://gregoiredayet.medium.com/monitoring-and-alerting-on-your-kubernetes-cluster-with-prometheus-and-grafana-55e4b427b22d | ['Grégoire Dayet'] | 2020-11-25 10:21:22.521000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'DevOps', 'Software', 'Monitoring', 'Kubernetes'] |
Work Like You Own The Place | Work Like You Own The Place
My boss told me my work wasn’t good enough. I cried, then got on with it and tried again
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
I have always had a strong work ethic. I’m not bragging here, just stating the facts. I’ll write until 2 or 3 in the morning some days to ensure I’m meeting my deadlines.
Lately, however, I’m finding it challenging to focus. Writing that last sentence took me an hour because I was distracted by my friend’s Facebook statuses. I’m sort of a mess right now. I can’t nail down the various streams of thoughts that wander through my head. I’m finding it difficult to make a metaphor that doesn’t sound hinky as hell.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Except I do.
We are right back where we started as far as the health crisis goes. Case counts are on the rise here in Alberta, Canada, again, and I am getting antsy. My husband has been on Employment Insurance for months now. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find freelancing work. Money is tight.
It’s all I can think about. I spent all day today applying for jobs. Then after my eyes began crossing from looking at a computer screen all day, I switched to my mobile.
There was a text message from my boss. She owns a local diner in my city, and I do content creation for her social media accounts — usually daily meal specials, menu design, that sort of thing.
Worst luck, they had to close down for a few days to retile their cooking line’s floor. Although it may not sound like much, it’s a difficult thing to do — closing one’s doors — after having been shut down from COVID for the past three months. They had just reopened and two weeks later discovered these issues with their flooring.
So she asked me to write up a post for Facebook explaining that they would need to remain closed for another day due to delays in the process. She asked me to portray that they were trying to get back up and running but were unable to at this time. “Pull some heartstrings, so I’m busy when we do open.” She said.
Yeah, yeah, sure, I thought. I can do that in my sleep, no biggie.
So I wrote this:
We have been trying our hardest to get back up and running as soon as possible. However, because we cook everything from scratch and are unable to hook up any of our equipment for another day, we, unfortunately, will not be ready to open back up tomorrow. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your understanding.
If that’s my idea at pulling at heartstrings, then I must be one cold son of a gun. This was perhaps the sorriest excuse for work that I have ever tried to pull off. And I knew it. Yet, I still sent it to my boss for review. Despicable. I was lazy and didn’t want to put in the brainpower. I wasn’t thinking like an owner. If this were my business, is that what I would have written to my customers to explain the situation?
“No. This isn’t going to work for me,” Was my boss’s reaction when I sent it over. She said it in more delicate terms, though.
I am very fortunate to have the boss I do in this job because we are also good friends. Occasionally we get a bit snippy with one another when emotions get high, or there is stress in the air, but for the most part, I feel we work well together. However, she is still my boss. She pays me for my services.
She rarely tells me that she doesn’t like my work. So this stung.
What?! Don’t you appreciate this mediocre piece of crap that’s not hitting even one of the marks you asked for? How dare you! That was my first reaction. I sulked for about a minute then looked back over our last few text messages about the issues going on in the diner’s kitchen.
We talked about revisions to the post, “how about adding this here” or “what if we took that part away,” I eventually interrupted her.
“You know what, I think I missed the mark on this one. Just let me try again. I’ll send you a new post to review in a couple of minutes.”
So I wrote the blurb up again, except this time, I had my client’s feelings in mind. When you work as a content creator for a small business like this one, it is so important to speak in the business’s voice. In this case, the owner’s voice.
She is the type of restaurant owner who is on the line cooking every lunch rush and makes the time to go out into the restaurant to visit with the regulars when here is a break in the lineup. I needed to make this post straight from her heart. She didn’t like being closed any more than her loyal customers did.
I sent her the new article, and she loved it. I used a real photo she had sent me the day before, so customers could truly understand the situation.
Screenshot by Author
I apologized for the shotty first try. She said it was okay, and that we all need a kick in the ass sometimes.
I’ve always had a good work ethic because I’ve always thought like a boss.
Whether I was working on a greasy line at Kentucky Fried Chicken or housekeeping at a dingy hotel in the heart of Victoria, B.C., I’ve always had the mentality that the company I worked for was my company.
Sure there were a few places where the owners treated me like garbage, during which I didn’t think like a boss because those guys could screw themselves. But if I enjoyed my job and the people I worked for, I would take on the responsibility to do whatever it took to help grow the business.
Thinking like a boss has helped me move up in business.
This is not to say that privilege and circumstance did not contribute to my luck, but having a strong work ethic helps push one along as well. In every job my husband has ever worked, he always tells his managers/employers that he’s going to take their position.
One might think that this is too forward of a statement; however, it’s never backfired on him yet. Good employers love to hear this sentiment. It means that their workers are going to work as hard as they do for the company.
Thinking like a boss has taught me responsibility, and what accountability truly means.
Today I wasn’t thinking like a boss, and it could have potentially hurt my employer’s business. My business. It could have lost me my job. In these challenging times, many small business owners heavily rely on their social media presence to get the word out about their specials and daily affairs.
If I fall short on the content I am creating, this business could lose patrons. Then, I could be out of a job. Who needs a content creator who isn’t producing good enough content?
It’s not only about thinking like a boss but acting like one too.
I may be tired at the end of a long day pitching articles to editors and scouring freelancing job boards, but that isn’t my boss’s problem. She is hiring me to do a job and an excellent job at that.
From now on, I’ll remember to think like a boss and make sure I’m acting like one too. | https://medium.com/illumination/work-like-you-own-the-place-dc29e47e5656 | ['Lindsay Brown'] | 2020-07-23 00:47:45.622000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Work', 'Careers', 'Social Media', 'Small Business'] |
Data Profiling using Apache Spark | To ingest data with quality from external sources is really challenging, particularly when you’re not aware of how the data looks like or are ambiguous about its contents. That’s where the data profiling comes in. You can use data profiling to get insights on the data source and figure out how the data looks like.
What is Data Profiling?
Data Profiling is the process of running analysis on source data to understand it’s structure and content. You can get following insights by doing data profiling on a new dataset:
Structure Discovery: No of columns and their names in the source data
No of columns and their names in the source data Content Discovery: Data types of the columns, Identify Nullable columns
Data types of the columns, Identify Nullable columns Cardinality of Data: Number of Distinct Values in each column
Number of Distinct Values in each column Statistical Analysis: Min / Max / Mean / Std Dev of numerical columns
Min / Max / Mean / Std Dev of numerical columns Value Histograms: Frequency of values in low-cardinality columns
Why Data Profiling?
Data profiling is typically needed to address following points:
Use data profiling before beginning to ingest data from a new source to discover if data is in suitable form — and make a “go / no go” decision on the dataset.
Identify and correct data quality issues in source data, even before starting to move it into target database.
Reconcile vendor specification with real data
Identify data quality issues that can be corrected by Extract-Transform-Load (ETL), while data is moved from source to target. Data profiling can uncover if additional processing is needed before feeding data to pipeline.
Profiling of Sample Dataset:
Before taking you through the technical implementation, I would like to show you the output of Data Profiling code that I wrote. You can run this code by yourself as well by following instructions in next section.
We’ll use a sample CSV file for weather data downloaded from a Kaggle dataset available at this link. The data has a station number and values of different sensors measured on a particular date. Following is a snippet of the dataset.
Preview of the Sample Dataset
After running the Data Profiler on this dataset, we get following output:
Data Profiler Output
The above output show following information for each of the columns present in the data
Completeness: (i.e. Fraction of the values having non-null values in the column, ranging from 0–1)
Number of Distinct Values in the column
Data Type of the column (i.e. String, Integer or Fractional)
Statistics of Numerical Columns (Min / Max / Mean / Std Dev)
You might find it strange to find that some of the columns that are supposed to be Numeric are marked as String by the profiler (e.g. snowfall & wetbulb columns). This is because some of the values in these columns had a String value. Let’s investigate this further. If we move down the output of Data Profiler, we can see Value Histograms of the columns. This is how the histogram for snowfall column looks like:
As you can see, there is one value ‘M’ of data type String appearing in this column for 35.75% of the times. Hence this column in marked as having String data type because of this particular value. This is where the value of Data Profiling comes in. It shows us what anomalies are there in the dataset and what data cleaning steps need to be performed before ingestion. For example, in this sample dataset, we need to perform data cleaning to replace ‘M’ with null values to represent missing values.
Lastly, Data Profiler also provides the Spark Code of StructType that this dataset should be having. This code snippet, after a careful deliberation of course, can be copied on to the pipeline code to define schema on top of the dataset. In a later post, I shall explain how we can leverage this StructType snippet to perform Data Quality checks on the datasets. Here’s the Spark StructType code proposed by the Data Profiler based on input data:
In addition to the above insights, you can also look at potential skewness in the data by looking data histogram values. There might be some values which are off the typical pattern, or which appear more often than others. This might result into misrepresented data, or might reflect a flaw in the data creation process that can be addressed on case-to-case basis.
How to Run the Data Profiler?
The Data Profiler that I wrote is essentially a Spark Zeppelin notebook. You can download the notebook from this link and import it into Zeppelin. Before using it, change the ‘inputDataPaths’ variable to the path of your desired dataset.
This notebook uses a a Spark library, named Deequ, to do data profiling of columnar sources. The documentation of Deequ is accessible at this link.
Before running the notebook, you will have to add Deequ’s jar file in Zeppelin’s Spark Interpreter. Follow these steps to add the jar:
Download the jar from this link
Place it at Zeppelin machine
Make sure jar is readable by Zeppelin user. (You can do that using bash command: chmod 644 /path/to/jar )
) Go to Zeppelin Web UI, open the Menu on right top and select “Interpreters”
Look for the ‘spark’ interpreter. Go to dependencies and enter full path to the Deequ jar file.
Save the settings
Restart the interpreter
After that go back to the Zeppelin Notebook and run it. It will execute all the paragraphs one by one and present the output of Data Profiling.
Got questions? Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]
Happy Data Profiling! ☺ | https://medium.com/@sajjadsarwar1/data-profiling-using-spark-deequ-46ad8dbe3ed1 | ['Sajjad Sarwar'] | 2020-02-06 18:57:16.091000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Data Quality', 'Data Profiling', 'Apache Spark'] |
El caso de Rocky Aoki | in Eudaimonia and Co | https://medium.com/inteligencia-log%C3%ADstica/el-caso-de-rocky-aoki-435dabd9206f | ['Ivan Flores Hurtado'] | 2017-09-21 07:56:30.671000+00:00 | ['Supply Chain Management', 'Español', 'Logistics', 'Inteligencia', 'Eficiencia'] |
Lost the way | It’s around 5 months after the coup happening. In these 5 months, so many things happen in our life. Now, Covid-19 is back and lost hope again.
I still remember when I back to Yangon, Myanmar at the last 4 years. At that time, there is hope. So many people still believe in the future. There will be a bright light in the future of the country. But nobody knows we are living in a bubble. Now, it pops. Simple. When I arrive back, I couldn’t believe so many things changes in Yangon, Myanmar. However, now it looks like a dream. It has gone with the coup.
We are working for the clients. Our company is base on the clients. Look like B2B business. I always hope and trying to help my clients’ businesses grow. Their growth in our company growth, too. Most of the app, the startup doesn’t fall easily within these 4 years.
But most of the apps and businesses closed in these 5 months. One of the clients, they are going to an online clinic from offline to online. It will save a lot of people time and also prevent for the covid. Now, they need to close down because there are no doctors for their clinic. Most are running aways from Yangon because of 505. Some of the people are in jail. So, the only way is to close down the clinic and app. We have a lot of plan and cannot release the new version that under the UAT.
Another client just starts a studio. He needs to close down because most of his actors are on the 505 list. They cannot say when they can show their movies. So, they decide not to publish the app now and pending. So, we couldn’t get the full payment until they release it.
Some of the clients are closed down the business and running aways from Yangon. We developed the System together for over a year. Now, it has gone.
Some of the clients cancel the maintenance of their system. They cannot pay anymore. Shut down their backup servers, too.
Today, one of my favourite app and client, Aung Myin close down. The founder is fighting with Covid-19 at the hospital and cannot continue anymore. Nobody wants to learn business these days because all are down and most people become jobless these days. I still remember when we start Aung Myin. So excited and I learn and watch a lot of videos from Aung Myin.
I regret coming back to Yangon from Singapore. But I believe I done a lot when went back to Yangon. I published two books, Programming Basic and Database Basic. Another new book is still writing now. I contributed to young people in our office, how to write proper way and how to deploy on servers. How to use read/write databases. Now they know what is the load balancer, CDN, etc. When I back, nobody used that kind of technology and all are writing on one server. But I feel so late after the bubble burst. After the coup, I was checking outside the world and the world is changing so fast. So many new technologies are used to it like Docker, Kubernetes, serverless. Machine learning, real-time, RTC are not a big burden like last 4 years. Here, we are still a lot of issues when making the chat apps.
I didn’t know what to do next. I believe everything is happening in my life for a good future. I hope, I can find the way to exit. | https://medium.com/@saturngod/lost-the-way-f6930d53394f | [] | 2021-07-05 21:43:45.760000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Myanmar', 'Business', 'Myanmar Coup', 'Yangon'] |
How to Future-Proof Your Company | How to Future-Proof Your Company
Executives have the compulsion to know, “What’s next?”
Leaders have always longed to see the future.
This is ironic, in a way, given that one of an executive’s scarcest resources is time.
A CEO’s priorities are reflected in how he or she chooses to spend his or her time. A company’s priorities reflect those of its leadership.
Following that path of logic, how should CEOs and their companies be prioritizing their time now to best prepare themselves for the future? Here’s a list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts”.
Don’t Ask: “Will things ever get ‘back to normal’?”
The short answer is, “No.”
Don’t feel bad — companies and consumers alike are asking that same question.
“Will things go back to normal?” was one of the most popular questions that Google received between March and April 2020.
Though searches for “back to normal” are no longer at an all-time high, it continues to be a much more popular query than at this time last year. The answer as to why, of course, is obvious.
Google Trends, Accessed December 1st, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic changed everything to the extent that some are even asking, “Can the world ever go back to normal?” (See the last query in the image below.)
Google Search, Accessed December 1st 2020
Do: Embrace that there isn’t a “normal”.
The trouble with “normal” is that it doesn’t have a singular definition.
It means something different to every person and every company. For some people, “normal” means financial stability. For others, it means contact with family and friends. “Normal” for the travel industry looks different than “normal” for retail.
“Normal” sales — and even expenses — look quite different for most companies after factoring in 2020 numbers.
There can’t be a singular “normal’ these days, as tools, trends, and realities continue to evolve quickly and comprehensively — and, at the same time, uniquely to each industry and consumer segment.
Nobody can forecast the future with absolute certainty.
In the absence of “normal”, how can companies prepare for what’s next?
Do: Research and brainstorm possible futures.
The laws of physics maintain that every action has a reaction.
If we consider Covid and its resulting realities and regulations to be the “action”, then it becomes obvious that there will be a long-tailed “reaction”.
We’ve seen it throughout history — when a rock is dropped in the water, there will be a long-lasting ripple effect.
For example:
For generations, people remembered and were influenced by their experiences during the Great Depression throughout the rest of their lives.
Innovation was launched forward after Sputnik and the Space Race. The limits of exploration were forever expanded.
Rock & Roll was never the same after Buddy Holly took the stage.
Airports never went back to “normal” after 9/11. TSA checkpoints are here to stay, and security measures continue to evolve.
Game-changing events lead to new realities. The rules change. Plans change. What people value changes.
Teams should research and brainstorm the realities that may be here to stay in the long term:
Shifting consumer values, needs, sentiments, and buying habits (Recommended tactics: customer listening, surveys, user experience testing.)
Shifting employee values, needs, sentiments, and working habits (Recommended tactics: employee listening, surveys, focus groups)
Regulations impacting operations
Increased sales
Higher expenses
…and so on.
But, brainstorming is only impactful if it inspires action.
Do: Clarify Your Purpose.
“Purpose” describes how a company will infuse real value into the lives of its customers.
A company must stake a claim for who it will be — what value it will provide — in the times to come, in light of the information at hand.
Having a clear purpose:
Creates a common goal
Rallies internal teams
Aligns internal efforts
Presents customers with a clear value proposition
Makes decision-making easier
Cuts excess activity and expenditures that don’t align with the purpose
Provides a clear direction for internal optimization
Do: Optimize for agility in light of the knowns — and the unknown.
Which company is in a better position, the one that says, “we’ll be fine when things return to normal” or the company who states, “we’ll be ready for whatever comes”?
The second one, of course. The first statement is passive — “what will be, will be.” The second statement is active — “whatever will be, we’ll be.”
Now, “Whatever will be, we’ll be” doesn’t represent the mantra of a used car salesman.
It does represent two things: longevity (as in, “we’ll be around”) and agility (as in, “we’ll be the company our customers need us to be in order to bring real value to their lives”).
Obviously, it’s impossible to predict every event or occurrence that will happen in the future. Trying to plan for everything means that you will overlook something. Acknowledging that is critical to a company’s ability to plan for anything.
Planning without allowing room for the unknown isn’t “having control” — it’s maintaining the illusion of control, which is a bubble that will eventually break.
Therefore, companies should optimize based on their best knowledge of what’s coming — but also prepare to be flexible in light of the unexpected.
This is just as necessary for companies who are doing record-breaking business as it is for companies who are struggling to survive.
These organizations face a different set of challenges, but the path to profitability is the same: optimize for agility.
For Organizations Operating Above Projected Sales Levels:
Your reality:
Your teams are maxed out. You can’t add more to their plate.
Your expenses are higher year-over-year.
Your shipping times are delayed.
Your customer service team is working overtime.
Your customers are waiting.
You don’t know how to forecast 2021 sales.
During this time, it can be easy to put a hold on any strategic growth efforts.
But, if you could go back to 2019, you know that you would have made optimizing for 2020 a priority.
The same principle applies to 2021. You can’t afford not to optimize now.
Look for a partner who can help with the heavy lifting. It’s likely that you don’t have the time to do it yourself, but you know that it must be done. In that case, it can be helpful to outsource the “heavy lifting” to a trusted agency partner who can act as an extension of your team.
Your main areas of focus will be:
Clarifying your purpose.
Understanding the value drivers that matter — and the things that matter less — to your customer so you can prioritize efforts.
Turning your people into “swiss army knives” — able and incentivized to help in whatever department where the need is greatest. For example, customer service reps learning how to box and ship, and packaging team members learning how to assemble.
For Organizations Operating Below Projected Sales Levels:
Your reality:
Internal team morale is low
Marketing spend may be more scattered and less strategic in an effort to get any business
Expenses going out may be higher than profits coming in
You don’t know how to forecast 2021 sales
Look for a partner with expertise in your space and a proven record of helping companies like yours grow. As you craft a strategy for 2021, you’ll want a “borrowed expert” — someone to take a look at your strategy, offer insight, and help you execute in a way that will grow your business.
As you optimize, your main areas of focus will be:
Clarifying your purpose and inspiring your team.
Understanding your customer, and ways that you may need to pivot to add more value.
Taking a strategic approach to advertising based on your customer knowledge.
Optimizing internal resources and evaluating any spending that doesn’t align with your purpose and strategy.
Do: Start now.
You can’t afford not to. Next year, you’ll wish you had.
INTO helps companies transform aspirational goals into actual growth. For more information, visit into.agency. | https://medium.com/whats-next-labs/how-to-future-proof-your-company-9b2ff89c49ee | ['Mackenzie Caudill'] | 2020-12-02 15:34:30.621000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Optimization', 'Digital', 'Branding', 'Business'] |
ドローン週報⑱ | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/furuhashilab/%E3%83%89%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E9%80%B1%E5%A0%B1%E2%91%B1-d09bbfb4ffe8 | ['Ran Matsuyama'] | 2020-11-16 06:02:12.136000+00:00 | ['Drones'] |
People of Bharat: Veena Kalita | ‘He’s my keeper…my friend…my protector. He is my Lord — Shiva’. Veena’s eyes glistened as she gestured towards the picturesque temple in the backdrop with folded hands. She is a woman of faith; her attachment and devotion to Bholenath easily palpable. Veena, 45, sells worship material from a small makeshift stall in front of the picturesque 60-year-old temple at Pulibor. The temple is located besides the busy National Highway-37 in the western part of the city of Jorhat in Assam. At present, she lives with her son (23), daughter-in-law (21) and granddaughter (6) in Haahpiya Gaon, a small village about two kilometers away from her workplace.
It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon. ‘Devotees hardly come at this time of the day unless it’s a Monday’, she said shifting her stock to one side of the small and wooden table. She explains to me the importance of worshipping Lord Shiva on a Monday for all Hindus and offers her chair for me to sit while she insists on standing. ‘Aapuni e bohouk atieya, moi tu gutei din tu bohi e thaaku’ (Please be seated. I sit all day).
Veena is slim, petite and healthy, and speaks with a sense of calm assurance. Her thin, wavy hair is showing visible signs of age. Draped in a white mekhela chador [1], she resonates with the image of a good mother and a strong woman who has stood the test of hard times. Veena was born in Mothiachiga-a small village in the Sivasagar district of upper Assam into a poor family. Her parents were farmers. She studied till the seventh standard,‘I know how to read and write in my mother tongue -Assamesemiya and can do some basic accounting’.
Following village tradition, she was married off at the age of sixteen and had three children — a son and two daughters. Her husband who worked as a driver took to alcoholism leading to health issues and his eventual death 20 years ago. Reminiscing about her life, she shared some fond memories of this village and its people when she first came here as a newly-wed bride. She regales me about Bihu [2] and Na-khua [3] celebrations with her relatives and speaks with helplessness about her husband’s addiction. ‘My world came crashing down when he died, (I felt like) everything was over’.
Veena stepped up to fill in the shoes of her husband, the sole bread-earner, and started looking for work. Someone from her village recommended her as a housemaid for an upper middle class family in the city of Jorhat. She was promised a salary of INR 1200 — an amount enough to sustain her children in those days. Veena joined the work but returned after a single day! ‘I felt uncomfortable working in a household where the woman went to work and I was alone with the man at home all day.’ About a month later, she was approached by a ‘bhaal manuuh taeu‘– a good human being. A man from her neighbouring village who knew her situation suggested opening a small pooja upakaran (worship material) shop in the temple precincts. ‘When God can’t come in front of you, he sends a messenger’ she says. With faith in the Divine and conviction in her abilities, she started her business. Veena sells incense sticks, coconuts, flowers, bel leaves, areca nuts betel leaves and earthen lamps from a small stall — a rickety, wooden table with a plastic canopy. Veena arrives at the stall at 7 AM and she works till 2 PM. Mondays are longer — she arrives at 6 AM and leaves at 5 PM. ‘How do you commute every day?’, I ask. ‘On foot of course. Women of our generation women are strong!’ she laughs.
Veena and the other shopkeepers buy their daily stock from a local vendor who comes daily to the temple premises. She purchases only a limited stock of perishable items such as coconuts, betel leaves, flowers, bel leaves and areca nuts and aims to sell everything by the end of the day. She tells me this is important — as non-perishables such as incense sticks and earthen lamps can be stored. During the holy month of Shravan devotees throng the temple and her stall assumes an elaborate look with a larger number of items of each variety on display. On an average business day, she makes a sale of INR 350–400 with a profit of around INR 250–300. Her average monthly earnings amount to INR 9000. During Shravan, her earnings go up to INR 12–13,000. The lockdown imposed in Assam owing to COVID-19 badly impacted her earnings. For four subsequent months starting in March, the temple was closed for devotees which also stopped her source of income. During this time, she cultivated vegetables in her kitchen garden to supplement the family’s food sources. ’Ki ba aibilaak bemaar aahisile naajanu’ (I don’t even know what this disease is) she says and then listens attentively while I explain to her the causes and symptoms of the coronavirus.
In mid-August, the temple-management committee decided to open the shrine to devotees. But people are still hesitant to step out. ‘I earned around 12,000 rupees last year during the month of Shravan; this year I hardly earned 4500’, she says dejectedly. With restrictions by the committee on pooja offerings, Veena’s daily profit has fallen to INR 150–200.
Veena doesn’t own a mobile phone but wants to buy one in the future. She has a savings account in a government bank across the highway from the temple. She visits the bank at the end of every month to deposit her savings which amount to INR 4000. ‘I cannot manage more than that. Things have become expensive these days’ she mentions. I agree. Three years ago, Veena took a loan of INR 80,000 from a local women self-help group to build a pucca house and pays INR 930 as her weekly installments. Her son earns INR 12,000 per month and helps with household expenses. Veena is a beneficiary of the Orunodoi scheme launched by the Government of Assam in December 2020. Under this scheme, the adult female member of a household whose composite income is less than INR 2 lakh per annum receives INR 830 as a monthly benefit. She is happy as the amount for the month of December has been credited to her bank account.
Three years ago, Veena’s present business came under a threat due to the onset of construction work for widening the highway. She was asked to close down her shop but she managed to get permission from the temple’s management committee to shift the stall backwards by a few feet. When the highway construction is complete, she hopes to start an additional shop selling Assamese handicrafts from the side of the road.
It was half past two when I stood up to thank her for the invaluable time and she started packing up her unsold stock into a bag. I lifted the wooden table and moved it to a corner within her small stall and helped her cover it with a sheet of polythene. She smiled and thanked me for my assistance. | https://medium.com/bharatinclusion/people-of-bharat-veena-kalita-d9e5688e07f2 | ['Bharat Inclusion Initiative'] | 2020-12-26 09:08:40.610000+00:00 | ['People Of Bharat', 'Entrepreneur', 'India', 'Saving', 'Business'] |
A Rare Conjunction between Saturn & Jupiter | Many people I have spoken to recently have said they are looking forward to a new year beginning. 2020 has been a difficult year for people on many levels, particularly with the challenges of a global pandemic and its impact on everyone. The agitation and conflict we have seen across the world has been experienced by many people in their internal worlds. It has been a year of many serious planetary events, which I have discussed in earlier articles, but, although the year end is approaching fast, the best is yet to come!
The 21st December marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day of the year. This is one of the most powerful points of the year, when the Earth’s axis pauses, shifts and moves in the opposite direction. Now a new solar cycle begins, and the rays of the sun start to penetrate the darkness, gradually bringing brighter days and shorter nights, slowly giving rise to new life.
A few days later, on the 25th December people all over the world celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus. At the time of His birth, three Wise Men, followed a star to find Him in the stable in Bethlehem. Matthew’s Gospel says: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him… And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” This star became known as the Star of Bethlehem, but was, likely, a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.
To coincide with the December Solstice this year, we will experience a rare astrological event, known as the Great Conjunction, when the planets Jupiter and Saturn will be aligned more closely than they have been in almost 800 years. They will meet at 6.19 degrees in Capricorn, which is very significant. Being so close they will look like one radiant star — our 2020 Star of Bethlehem. A conjunction at this degree indicates a time of great change.
We have seen huge change happening in the world. There has been a lot of unrest, even before the pandemic brought us to standstill. In March, the outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, the unrest in America over the Presidential election, and protests and riots in Europe and beyond, are indications of a move from the old established order — governed by Saturn- to the creation of a new order — governed by Jupiter. Nature has also shown that the order of things is not working for the planet as we have drained the Earth of many of her resources and not treated the animal and plant kingdoms with respect, manifesting through climate change and the current pandemic. This Saturn/Jupiter conjunction signifies further change. We have arrived at a junction, and our actions, individually and as a society will lay the ground for the kind of world we wish to leave to future generations.
However, before the new year begins, we need to be cautious over the coming nine days as there will be a lot of negativity and unease in the environment. People who have a weak star may develop chronic diseases especially of the blood. So, I encourage you to use this time for reflection and prayer, for your own life and for the good of all. The birth of Jesus, marked by the Star of Bethlehem, gave birth to a renewed message of love, peace and hope to the world. Greet this Great Conjunction as a new Star of Bethlehem with hope and joy in your heart. I leave you with these words from the Christmas Carol — “We Three Kings of Orient Are”
“O star of wonder, star of night, Star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, Guide us to thy perfect light.” | https://medium.com/@shashidubey/a-rare-conjunction-between-saturn-jupiter-b62aba26d60e | ['Shashi Dubey'] | 2020-12-20 19:15:10.320000+00:00 | ['2021', 'Life', 'Christmas', 'Life Coaching', 'Astrology'] |
How to install Node.js on Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 using NVM (Node Version Manager) | Installation of NVM
First download the NVM installation script using cURL as follows
$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash
After downloading the script, run the script using bash as follows
$ bash install_nvm.sh
To reflect the changes for the current user session, use following command
$ source ~/.profile
Check installed NVM version as follows
$ nvm --version
Use following nvm command to list all available node.js versions
$ nvm ls-remote
It shows the output as follows
Install particular node version using following nvm command:
$ nvm install 10.15 # it will install node 10.15.0
To see all installed node version, use nvm list as follows:
To use particular node version use
$ nvm use 10.15 # it will use node 10.15.0
To check node and npm version, use following commands: | https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-to-install-node-js-on-ubuntu-16-04-18-04-using-nvm-node-version-manager-668a7166b854 | ['Vishal Jagtap'] | 2019-02-20 01:59:00.196000+00:00 | ['Node', 'Nodejs', 'NPM', 'Nvm', 'Ubuntu'] |
GraphQL Kullanım Alanları ve Örnek Bir Uygulama | ozanturhan - Overview
Welcome to my page! Since 2012 I have been working as a Software Developer. I manage my projects carefully in… | https://medium.com/@ozanturhan/graphql-kullanim-alanlari-ve-ornek-bir-uygulama-ff33b9b2e38 | ['Mehmet Ozan Turhan'] | 2020-12-15 09:39:19.490000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Rest Api', 'Apollo Server', 'Expressjs', 'Apollo'] |
Den Automation Review — Mechanical smart light switches and power | One of the more annoying issues with home automation systems is the cumbersome external power and light switches that require you to leave your existing light switches and power sockets in place.
There are some exceptions, Lightwave has been the only company in the UK offering replacement units for both sockets and switches for several years. Z-Wave has a few options for light switches, and there has slowly been a growing number of companies introducing light switches available on Amazon.
Den Automation hopes to shake the market up with an interesting approach compared to other companies. All their switches and sockets are traditional white that use mechanical switches powered by magnets, the automated functions physically switch the lights or plug off.
Den’s product range can be operated at the wall as usual, via an Android or iOS smartphone app, or through an Amazon Echo or Google Assistant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiaUCbCYc1o
The video is a bit cringe-worthy but it is a good overview of the product.
Den uses the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol, which is a ‘low-rate wireless personal area network’ (LR-WPAN). This 2.4GHz wireless mesh network is designed to co-exist with Wi-Fi and is the basis for the Zigbee protocol which is used by Samsung SmartThings. Unfortunately, even though this is based on the same underlying protocols, Den uses a custom protocol that is not interoperable with Zigbee systems.
However cross-compatibility is not out of the question, the system already supports Amazon Alexa and Google Home and Den have said they are keen to support other platforms in the future. It is worth noting that Lightwave also uses a proprietary communication standard. At the moment the system does not support IFTTT, but this is planned.
Each individual power socket contains power consumption monitors, so you can see how much energy each appliance is using. Power consumption for the Den devices themselves is less than 1.0 Watt for the sockets and less than 0.4 Watt for their light switches. The sockets also come with NFC tags that you can attach to your appliances, this allows the system to know what is plugged in where, rather than you naming plug sockets and always having to have the same applience plugged into that socket, or just guessing where things are.
At the moment the Den Automation system is limited to lights and power, and they also then have a motion sensor and smart remote.
Pricing is competitive, the Hub costs £89.95 by itself, in comparison the Lightwave Link Plus costs £129.95.
A two-gang socket will set you back £69.95 which is more expensive than the Lightwave option at £59.95
A basic light switch is £39.95 or £49.95 for a dimmer, and a Lightwave Smart Dimmer is £59.95. Z-Wave options start at £34.99 to £79.99 for single switch options.
It is worth noting that the Den system is a three wired light switch, but they don’t require earth in the back box, so this should work with older systems (it does with mine). There is an Earth Terminal on the Light Switch that needs to be connected to an Earth wire, in order for the Light Switch to function, which they also include with the packaging. Please consult a and electrician before taking any of my advice, as I am useless with DIY.
The wall mount modules require a 35mm back box, and a 10 mm adapter is included with each light switch and socket outlet. The light switches have a much larger internal switch compared to Lightwave and for me, unfortunately, even with the adaptor I was unable to get the socket to fit flush with the wall. I have very old wiring which needs updating.
Set up
Set up is similar to the Lightwave system I reviewed a few months ago, crucially it requires you to replace your light switches and power sockets, if you are not comfortable doing this, please get a professional in. I set the system up myself, and it is reasonably easy, as long as you switch everything off via the mains first it is risk-free.
With the light sockets, the 10mm adaptor isn’t quite big enough for me, the hardware for the switch extends past the adaptor, and it doesn’t quite fit into my old back box. So, I had to test the system without it properly attached to the wall.
As these are mechanical switches, as soon as you switch the power back on, you can use the switch as you would with an old fashioned dumb switch. The switch itself isn’t the most attractive in the world but it is more neutral than other options and I find the design superior to all the other smart switch options, I find most of them too modern to my tastes.
When you have added all your switches and sockets, you can plug in your hub and set the system up. My instructions told me to wait for it to update, which I ignored and could not pair with the hub at first. When I came back to the hub in the morning, it had three LEDs lit up which appeared to indicate that it was working. Once the hub has updated connecting to it was instant, and from there, I had to connect all the switches and accessories.
The general procedure is to hold down the little button until the LED flashes and wait for the app to connect. Most of the time this was done quite quickly. As you add each device, you can assign a room, name etc. So the light switch was named ceiling lights and assigned to the living room. When I added the remote, I set it to control the ceiling lights. All simple stuff.
Functionality & Performance
The app is well designed but quite basic, the limited hardware options provide limited functionality to implement a complex smart home system. So, there are no recipes or strings of commands you can carry out. The main options are to control a device/room and set up timers. This makes the app quite easy to use and for me, this is all I really need.
Switching on or off lights is strange at first, the switch uses magnets to move the switch physically and there is a considerable mechanical switch noise as it flips. This is much louder than flicking a normal switch and should be taken into consideration if you are likely to do this when sleeping or trying not to disturb someone. I can’t see it being a problem though.
It appears that in order for the magnets to work their battery needs to charge, so there is no way to quickly switch things on or off, you switch it on, wait a few seconds then you can switch it off. This shouldn’t be an issue but it was peculiar to experience. One thing I particularly like about the light switches is that the LED is off by default, it will occasionally light up as the light switches but it switches off after a few seconds. This means that the switch could be fitted into a bedroom without illuminating it with a bright LED and disturbing your sleep.
Motion sensing and hob performance appear to be quite slow for me, I am talking about several seconds delay, this could be a communication issue with the hub being in my office, or something else. It isn’t ideal though, but it isn’t terrible either.
Conclusion
Overall there is a lot to like about Den Automation, at the very least it offers a viable alternative to Lightwave. I find the overall design of the switches and the mechanical switch concept superior to Lightwave, however, in my case, the switches just don’t fit my dated electrics.
There does seem to be some performance issues with the remote and motion sensing but I am confident that Den will improve this and I probably need to optimise the placement of my devices.
Furthermore, it is somewhat limited with its ability to work with other systems and cohesively as part of a home automation system. For the most part, it is not too much of an issue, I think it does the job that 90% of people want, but if you are the type that likes to set up complex recipes or uses multi-sensors found with Z-wave systems then this option may be a bit limited for you.
With this being such a new product to the market I am sure it will improve considerably over time and I think Den are well worth keeping an eye if you plan to implement any new home automation systems in the future. | https://medium.com/@mighty_gadget/den-automation-review-mechanical-smart-light-switches-and-power-f2e929ac7da | ['James Smythe'] | 2019-03-20 12:39:22.180000+00:00 | ['Internet of Things', 'Smart Home', 'Home Automation'] |
The Floor and Ceiling Approaches to Income Redistribution | The Floor and Ceiling Approaches to Income Redistribution
A Brief Overview of the Current (And Potential) Regulatory Solutions To Address Income and Wealth Inequality in the United States Amanda Silver Follow Nov 27, 2020 · 8 min read
For months, governments around the world have been sorting through the economic devastation caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic, putting in measures in an attempt to spur a U-shaped recovery, and avoid what seems to be an inevitable K-shaped one. But there’s another, more sinister U that has been growing for decades, one that is not a sign of a healthy economy.
In the early 2000s, economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez used a century’s worth of data to visualize income and wealth inequality over time. Their findings validated a sense of injustice what many had been experiencing: by 2013 the top 0.1% were collecting over 10% of the nation’s income. The top 10% earned 50% of the nation’s income. After a period of compression and growth of the middle class that began in the 1940s—due in part to the New Deal, financial regulation, progressive taxation, and World War II—modern American society had reverted to the way it had looked in the age of robber barons and monopoly tycoons. Inequality over time was U shaped.
Graph sourced from Saez, 2016. A similar trend is observed in post-tax income share and wealth share.
What We Should Do About Inequality
It’s true that some inequality is good for society in a capitalist system: inequality creates stakes and incentives to produce and innovate. But a society where 90% of people can work hard their entire life and see no meaningful material gains for themselves or for their children, the incentive system breaks down.
This is not an article about the causes of inequality or the optimal amount of inequality, but rather an overview of the various policies that the American government has explored in an attempt to redistribute gains. I’ve broken down these policies into two categories:
Floor Policies: ways that the government attempts to provide a social safety net for those with the lowest incomes or wealth. Ceiling Policies: ways that the government attempts to redirect funds from those with the highest income or wealth.
These policies are not mutually exclusive—in fact, they tend to complement one another, with money from the ceiling used to fund the floor. Another important distinction is the mechanism that is used to redistribute these funds:
Firm-based: policies directed towards corporations, indirectly effecting workers by regulating wages or use of corporate funds. Citizen-based: policies that redistribute resources directly to/from individuals and families, such as transfer payments or tax credits.
Once again, these aren’t perfect categories. For instance, although I’ve labeled the Earned Income Tax Credit as direct, these benefits are a function of income earned at a firm. But it’s an attempt to illustrate a few (this is far from an exhaustive list!) existing and proposed methods of redistributing wealth and income.
Note: this is far from a complete list, but the goal is to provide a picture of some existing and potential measures.
The Ceiling Approach
(*) Indicates that this measure has been proposed, but is not in place as of 2020.
Firm-Based
Anti-Trust Laws : The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, and Clayton Anti-Trust Act are laws used to restrict uncompetitive business practices and consolidation of monopoly power. These laws can technically be used to protect workers from wage collusion and monopsony employers, but have been used ineffectively for this purpose.
: The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, and Clayton Anti-Trust Act are laws used to restrict uncompetitive business practices and consolidation of monopoly power. These laws can technically be used to protect workers from wage collusion and monopsony employers, but have been used ineffectively for this purpose. Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS )* : This proposal from Senator Bernie Sanders is a response to the prevalence of employees who earn so little from their full-time jobs that they qualify for welfare benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid. The act would create a corporate welfare tax which could be charged in proportion to the number of employees who receive welfare benefits, as disincentive against unlivable wages.
: This proposal from Senator Bernie Sanders is a response to the prevalence of employees who earn so little from their full-time jobs that they qualify for welfare benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid. The act would create a corporate welfare tax which could be charged in proportion to the number of employees who receive welfare benefits, as disincentive against unlivable wages. Robot Tax*: This idea was proposed by Bill Gates, among others, as a means to align the tax structure with the changing world of work. By taxing labor performed by robots in the same way that we tax the labor performed by humans, there could be a disincentive to replace human labor with machines or use the tax funds to reinvest in worker training programs or finance high-value care jobs that currently pay low wages. Because it is difficult to define what type of automation could be taxed, it has been criticized as difficult to implement. Political philosopher Michael Sandel has suggested something similar, but for high-speed trading.
Citizen-Based
Progressive Taxation : The idea of progressive taxation is that individuals should pay taxes in proportion to their spending power—if there was a flat tax rate, there would be a higher burden on those who earn the least. This system creates tax brackets, which in 2020 was a maximum of 37% for those who earn more than $518,000. President-elect Biden has proposed increasing the tax rate for individuals who earn more than $400,000, moving the maximum rate to 39.6%. The top-income tax rate peaked during World War II at 92%, dropping to no lower than 70% for the next several decades.
: The idea of progressive taxation is that individuals should pay taxes in proportion to their spending power—if there was a flat tax rate, there would be a higher burden on those who earn the least. This system creates tax brackets, which in 2020 was a maximum of 37% for those who earn more than $518,000. President-elect Biden has proposed increasing the tax rate for individuals who earn more than $400,000, moving the maximum rate to 39.6%. The top-income tax rate peaked during World War II at 92%, dropping to no lower than 70% for the next several decades. Death Taxes : This form of tax is similar to the wealth tax, but concerns the transfer of assets after an individual is deceased. The estate tax is federal tax of up to 40% of the value of assets for an estate that exceeds $11.4 million dollars, although some states have their own separate taxes and thresholds. The inheritance tax is levied by 6 states — including Maryland, Nebraska, and New Jersey — and is paid by the person who inherits assets from a deceased friend or family member, with exemptions for spouses. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have been vocal in their support of these taxes, which can reduce the accumulation of capital among the wealthiest families.
: This form of tax is similar to the wealth tax, but concerns the transfer of assets after an individual is deceased. The estate tax is federal tax of up to 40% of the value of assets for an estate that exceeds $11.4 million dollars, although some states have their own separate taxes and thresholds. The inheritance tax is levied by 6 states — including Maryland, Nebraska, and New Jersey — and is paid by the person who inherits assets from a deceased friend or family member, with exemptions for spouses. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have been vocal in their support of these taxes, which can reduce the accumulation of capital among the wealthiest families. Wealth Tax*: Most of us learned about the wealth tax concept from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders’ respective presidential campaigns. Their proposal would have created a new progressive federal tax on net wealth (assets minus debt) for any individual with wealth upward of $30 million. This type of tax has had limited success in some European countries for several reasons: properly evaluating the value of assets is very resource-intensive, wealth can be hidden, and some wealthy individuals ended up leaving the country.
The Floor Approach
Firm-Based
Citizen-Based
But Don’t People Earn What They Deserve?
Now that I’ve outlined the various ways that income and wealth are redistributed, let’s quickly think about whether the government should play a role in this at all. Isn’t the distribution of resources the role of a market?
My view on this is very much aligned with political philosopher Michael Sandel, who makes the argument that what we may perceive as merit or talent has much more to do with luck than most of us recognize.
Some people do work harder than others, but what’s reflected in the vast income inequalities that we’ve seen in recent years is not hard work primarily. School teachers work hard, bus drivers work hard, kindergarten teachers, daycare workers — they work hard. Do they work less hard than hedge fund managers and Wall Street bankers who reap hundreds and thousands of times what they do in the market economy? Most of the wage differences, most of the income differences have very little to do with differences in effort. Most of them have to do with supply and demand and with the qualities that our society happens to value, and a lot of this is no doing of the people who are lucky enough to have those talents and those abilities to wind up on top. And if that’s true, then it seems to me there is an obligation for those who are affluent, those who succeed under this system, to share their bounty with those who through no fault of their own are less well off.
Those that accumulate wealth might have worked hard, but that doesn’t automatically negate the efforts of every other hardworking person trapped in a cycle of poverty. There’s no such thing as purely individual success: we are surrounded by invisible support systems, from stable institutions to the provision of clean water. So, is it time to reverse the U? | https://medium.com/swlh/the-floor-and-ceiling-approaches-to-income-redistribution-8b8c98fb744e | ['Amanda Silver'] | 2021-02-14 00:51:57.664000+00:00 | ['Wealth Inequality', 'Regulation', 'Income Inequality', 'Universal Basic Income', 'Work'] |
Their Unspendable Coins | “There’s a license,” Coleman explains in quiet, expatriate English: slow enough and clear enough for Yury’s understanding. “Few are granted, and almost none — as far as I know — are passed along.”
“It is illegal?”
“To share these coins?” Coleman is as lean as a cat and as brown as the husk of an oak-leaf clinging to its branch in the frosted depths of February. Where such a leaf is dead and papery, Coleman’s flesh is as warm and as comforting as the sweetened burn of expensive brandy.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so,” Coleman says, fingering his teacup. “Just uncommon.”
The first colors of dusk waft across the world beyond the façade window of Café Slava as Yury considers Coleman’s words. They serve zavarka here, with the chance to brew it yourself in ornate, faux-antique samovars brought out by impeccably-polite waiters. Few tourists come to this part of the city, and Yury counts Café Slava as one of Coleman’s intoxicating discoveries. He’s known about it for six months, and for six months Yury has explored the strangeness of this city; sometimes at Coleman’s side, and sometimes through pictures captured by Coleman’s intimidating camera. He’s been the subject of Coleman’s photographic interest dozens of times; naked in the wreckage of any previous night’s sex with a slant of sunlight drawn across his skin.
“So why now? Why with me?” Because he’s just some awkward guy: as lean and as wet-sand blond as any displaced northerner. Because he’s a refugee, though the stamp in his passport, his visa, and this country’s legal statements don’t declare him as such, and only Coleman ever mentions Crimea as if it’s a legitimate place. He’s always afraid to see how kindly Coleman regards him every time he grants a gentle courtesy beyond the zealous heat of sex on weekends or on random weeknights, or whenever restless torment makes him send Coleman a text, a phone-call, or any invitation for drinks in the barrel-vault cellar of that bar on Znín Street. He’s afraid because Coleman is the exotic black American, teaching English to local businessmen and there’s never a tangible reason for him to enliven Yury’s own plain, sallow days, and yet….
“Because something important happens; I want to share it with you — ”
Two silvery disks, edged in copper, gleam on the table between them. Emblazoned with inscrutable runes, like the footprints of implausible, alien birds; they shimmer as if bathed in muddled, pearlescent moonlight.
“ — but you need one of these to experience it,” Coleman says, sliding one of the coins across the table to Yury.
And by late night, they’ve wandered into the city’s ancient heart, and the hoary Blacksmith’s Square is strangely devoid of both tourists and brooding locals. Yury has walked with Coleman, unsettled by the graceless noise of his footsteps on timeworn cobblestones, but now — at Coleman’s playful insistence — he has removed his sandals, and posed the naked pallor of his toes beneath the lens of Coleman’s iPhone camera; the one he uses only when he’s left his real camera at home.
Holding hands, they trace the edges of the square on foot until, at midnight, an old man steps from the shadows, claiming spot in the middle of the emptiness. He stands near the plague monument — one of thousands in this part of Europe. The man, as Yury sees him, is impossibly old; he is bearded like any Church Slavonic patriarch, but regal and in ways that don’t fit into the confines of his mind. He doesn’t know how to see this man in a rough-woven tunic and trousers like some 13th-Century peasant. And now, others have appeared in the square: lone women and lone men. They’re all lonely, Yury thinks, recognizing their stooped and weighted postures.
“Listen,” Coleman says, clasping his hand.
But there’s sad and troubling magic in the song breathed from deep within the wizened old man. His voice is powerful and supple; hypnotic. Yury is chilled, and he feels the cloying night around him. There is movement just beyond the square: something growing close; carvings on the facades of timeworn buildings shimmer as something peels away from each of them; strange amoebic billows congeal into flesh-clad echoes of whatever carvings have yielded them. There are horsemen in the square, saints, and naked women wreathed in strategic, floral garlands; angels and poets and trumpet-blowing heralds gather around the singer, enraptured by his song. And by the end of it, Yury knows with marrow-deep certainty that all of the city’s statues have been sung out of slumber. Summoned. For reasons he cannot imagine, they disperse into the alleys and narrow streets fanning out from the square. They move with common, determined purpose with bleak and haunting darkness in their manner.
“Vampires,” Coleman says. “They’ll spend tonight, creeping into homes and eating the dreams of everyone asleep. It happens once a year; one dreamless night. But it’s sadder than that.” Coleman pulls his hand from Yury’s clasp, fishes in his pocket for the moon-gleaming coin, and holds it in his open palm. “There’s a treaty. That’s what these coins are all about. Anyone who carries one can stay awake on the nights that the statues feed. We come to hear their song, to watch them gather and disperse.”
And Yury feels sad, appalling logic becoming plain; awareness bleeding into his flesh and blood from the coin in his own pocket. “To bear witness,” he says, before he’s aware of the words.
“Yeah,” Coleman says. “To understand the sadness of living eternal, dreamless lives: to eat, but never to experience.” A shiver dwells deep in Coleman’s voice, as the last of the statue-wraiths wander out of the square and into the night’s irregular stillness. “Come home with me,” he says in a plaintive whisper as heavy as the coin he holds and the coin he has given. “Let’s hold each other tonight.”
“Yes,” Yury pleads. He tastes melancholy hunger in his voice. “Let’s hold each other every night.” | https://medium.com/1-1000/their-unspendable-coins-ee527f36d868 | ['One For One Thousand'] | 2017-05-17 13:01:02.188000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Archive', 'Mythology', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
Best SEO Services in Cape Town: Gear your business for boosting profits today! | The online platform has been of great help for businesses today. If we think that we can uplift the growth of the business just by putting in our own efforts, it is not a good task. That is one of the reasons it is suggested the right support will work all the time.
Setting up the support online might sound easy, but it is not in real life. If we wish to boost the support online, it is quite important for us to make the right set of understanding. As things are taking up the bog change, companies need to adapt to all the new technology and tools that are taking place. With the growth and support, we need to be careful about the things taking place online.
SEO company in Cape Town: Why are they good for you?
Today, if we are thinking to boost the business, it is quite essential to set things in the right way. Businesses can easily flourish if the pattern is handled for business enhancement is maintained. With the change in time, people these days need to seek help from experts. An SEO company in Cape Town can do it all for you. Right from boosting the publicity to looking into the essential requirements of the business, things have become quite easy these days.
How to look for the right SEO company in Cape Town?
Choosing the best SEO Services in Cape Town is not easy as it looks. That is one of the reasons it is suggested to seek support from experts right after taking help from the online portal.
Reading the details: Do make sure that the best SEO Services in Cape Town cannot be decided easily, and that is why it is important to look for the best support after going through the site details.
Client support: If the company is not offering the client support, then they are not worthy to avail services from. It is therefore submitted to opt for the company’s support that is helping with the client assistance as well.
Make sure to avail the best support right after you go through the complete details of the site. It is because this is the best way of boosting the support of the company online. Make sure to bring on the best with time after going through the information. | https://medium.com/@globalbeglobal021/best-seo-services-in-cape-town-gear-your-business-for-boosting-profits-today-edbbd29fd436 | ['Beglobal Global'] | 2021-12-30 09:32:18.434000+00:00 | ['Seo Services', 'Seo Services In Cape Town', 'SEM'] |
MapReduce real use cases and design patterns | Datasalt was invited to give a talk at the University of Geneva last October about MapReduce, Tuple MapReduce and real MapReduce use cases.
The following slides contains an introduction about Big Data and MapReduce covering the main design patterns, describes real-life MapReduce use cases where this paradigm has proven to be useful, and finally they present the new Tuple MapReduce paradigm and its Hadoop implementation: Pangool
Real-life use cases presented:
Data analytics
Crawling
Full-text indexing
Reputation systems
Data mining
Big data, map reduce and beyond from datasalt | https://medium.com/iv%C3%A1n-de-prado-alonso/mapreduce-real-use-cases-and-design-patterns-44d4df7272f0 | ['Iván De Prado'] | 2018-04-10 11:32:18.023000+00:00 | ['Datasalt'] |
Instalaciones que necesitarás para empezar a usar WSL en tus proyectos | Just someone who likes design 🎨 and code 💻. | https://medium.com/@netosym/instalaciones-que-necesitar%C3%A1s-para-empezar-a-usar-wsl-en-tus-proyectos-7521d18585fe | ['Ernesto Angulo'] | 2020-12-01 23:02:36.120000+00:00 | ['MySQL', 'Node', 'Wsl', 'Git', 'Linux'] |
Monero Hits Temporary Roadblock But Remains Exciting, DCR, XMR, IOTA Analysis Oct. 25 | Monero and DCR hit strong headwinds, which have temporarily checkmated their bullish starts to the week even as BTC continues to snooze.
Bitcoin and Ethereum still are not showing signs of the big moves that they are known to display. However, Bitcoin has been trading around the pivot points of the last few days. So intraday traders may find some joy range-trading Bitcoin.
But the real market movers have been other lesser known cryptos. After a strong start to the week, Monero and DCR seem to be cooling off. IOTA is now very close to support levels and we may see some big moves on this crypto next week. These three cryptocurrencies will form the basis of today’s analysis piece.
DCR/USD
In our last analysis piece, the key price levels for DCR were identified. The price action chart shows that on Wednesday, prices retraced to the support line (marked as 2) found on the $49 level. This was a previous resistance seen in September which was broken to the upside. This price served to provide support for subsequent price action, which as at this morning, pushed upwards to the $62.50 mark. This price level was seen as a previous support for prices way back in July 2018, but having been broken to the downside on a later date, is now performing a role reversal as a resistance point. This price level has been tested three times this week and has held well.
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Price action has since retreated from this price level. It is expected that the $49 price level will continue to serve as support heading into the weekend, provided daily price action for this week does not violate this area. If this price level is broken, then the next support line (marked as 1) at the $43.80 mark will serve as the next support.
Now that the key levels on the daily chart have been identified, is there an opportunity for day traders? The intraday chart answers this question, with price action already seeing resistance at the central pivot ($53.95) and finding support with a strong bounce off the S1 pivot at $45.79. These price levels are expected to serve as the ceiling and the floor of price action respectively if the intraday candles do not violate any of these lines.
It must be noted that price action on the daily charts have been particularly choppy and the same situation may replicate itself on the hourly charts. Therefore, extreme caution should be applied in setting up the intraday positions.
Outlook for DCR/USD
Long-term: bullish
Medium-term: bullish
Short-term: neutral
XMR/USD
Monero posted a strong start to the week, pushing itself to $111 in Tuesday’s trading session. However, it hit a roadblock at that level, which is an area where price had found support and is now performing a role reversal as a resistance area. We also see that the descending trendline resistance that connects the highs of the last two months intersects with this line, thus providing additional strength in resisting further upside price action.
Below this area, there is a support line which connects the lows of August and September 2018. This line is expected to provide firm support for price action in the medium-term. Therefore, traders who want to trade Monero have to consider these key areas, which will serve as the medium, upper and lower ranges of price action. A push to the upside which is able to break the resistance line at $111 will open the door for a test of the $125 price area. If prices go south and are able to burst through the support line at the $100 price area, then a test of the mid-August lows seen at $89 will be on the cards.
Price action on the intraday chart has broken below the S1 pivot at $106.70. Price had also found resistance here on Sunday, October 21, before it was broken by the price surge of late Monday. However, prices have been able to break below this price level, which is now functioning as a resistance. If this price level holds up, then we can expect a push of price towards the S2 pivot if sellers seize the initiative. However, if both sets of traders are undecided as to what to do, the price may continue to trade around the S1 pivot without breaking it for the rest of the day.
Outlook for XMR/USD
Mid-term: neutral
Short-term: bearish
IOTA/USD
IOTA, which had earlier found support at the 49.6 cents area in its pairing with USD, is gradually inching back to that support level on the back of a very thin trading volume. Price had earlier found support at this price level in August 2018. This area is expected to be tested a few times and will provide some buying impetus if the few tests of price action fail to violate this price level to the downside.
What does this mean for IOTA traders? If price is able to find some strength to bounce off this support line, the price action will find resistance at the 53 cents price area (orange line). The descending trendline resistance will also intersect the initial horizontal resistance at this level. If price breaks this level to the upside, we expect the price action to aim for the next available resistance, depicted by the thin blue line at the 64 cents mark. However, trading volumes have to pick up if any of these price moves are to be witnessed in the next few days to weeks ahead.
Intraday price action is expected to find support at the S2 pivot line (49.2 cents), which is also where the price found support in the last few trading days. It is worthy to note that the pivot levels have not changed much, indicating how low trading volumes have affected the ability of daily price action to experience some volatility changes. Price action is testing the S1 pivot presently. It may be better to use the S2 pivot area as a better buying price location than any other area for the day.
Outlook for IOTA/USD
Long-term: neutral
Medium-term: neutral
Short-term: bullish
Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies. | https://medium.com/bitrates-news/monero-hits-temporary-roadblock-but-remains-exciting-dcr-xmr-iota-analysis-oct-25-b7f7b06002a8 | [] | 2018-10-25 11:20:13.456000+00:00 | ['Monero', 'Ethereum', 'Trading', 'Bitcoin', 'Iota'] |
Neural Network From Scratch: Hidden Layers | Hidden Layers
Why do we need hidden layers? Perceptrons recognize simple patterns, and maybe if we add more learning iteration, they might learn how to recognize more complex patterns? Actually, no. Hidden layers allow for additional transformation of the input values, which allows for solving more complex problems.
Every hidden layer has inputs and outputs. Inputs and outputs have their own weights that go through the activation function and their own derivative calculation.
This is a visual representation of the neural network with hidden layers:
From a math perspective, there’s nothing new happening in hidden layers. You can check all of the formulas in the previous article. We’re using the same calculation of the activation function and the cost function and then updating the weights. The feature of the hidden layer is hidden in the back propagation part.
First, we’ll calculate the output-layer cost of the prediction, and then we’ll use this cost to calculate cost in the hidden layer. Let’s implement it in code. | https://medium.com/better-programming/neural-network-from-scratch-hidden-layers-bb7a9e252e44 | ['Pavel Ilin'] | 2020-12-22 19:38:06.600000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Test Driven Development for Blockchain Apps with R3 Corda — How to Write Contracts and Unit Tests | What about the unit tests!?
Now we’re ready to start implementing TDD and developing out our Contract specifications.
The Template project already has an IntelliJ Run Configuration set up for running Contract, Flow, and Integration tests. Right now we have a dummy contract test defined in ContractTests.java (cordapp/src/test/..), so let’s go ahead and try it out:
And we should see:
Preparing for a Unit Test
Corda has a built-in MockServices interface that makes it very easy to write Contract tests. Using the “ledger” method, our mock services will provide a clean slate each test with no pre-existing transaction or services. This way we can be sure each test is isolated with no side effects.
We’ll also utilize a TestIdentity, which will be a mocked node— or participating party in the blockchain. When instantiating the TestIdentity, we’ll use a CordaX500Name, specifying the name of the individual or organization, as well as the country and locality. These values can be whatever you want. The identity might represent a bank, a company, an individual, or any other entity that would be a participant in your blockchain app.
ContractTests.java
cordapp/src/test/java/[package]
How to Use the MockServices
Let’s discuss the use of the ledger() method. See below:
(Edit: If IntelliJ can’t autoimport ledger, you can manually add it via “import static net.corda.testing.node.NodeTestUtils.ledger;”).
We call ledger, providing our instantiated MockServices object which we’ve named ledgerServices. Then we have a predicate expression ledger -> {} . Everything inside of these brackets will be in our isolated blank-slate mock ledger. Within our ledger expression, we will create a new transaction using the method ledger.transaction(tx -> {}); . Everything inside of these second set of brackets will be corresponding to the new transaction, referenced by variable tx. For now, we don’t care about the return values, so we’ll return null from both expressions.
Add a Unit Test
Now let’s get rid of that dummyTest and replace it with something legitimate.
Let’s say that for now the ledger only supports adding a bank account and balance entry, but not altering or removing it. In this case, our transactions will produce one output state — a TemplateState entry that contains an account number and balance — and consumes NO input states. So our contract will need to make sure that a transaction does not include an input state if it is to be approved as valid.
Let’s add our first unit test, which will verify that an exception is thrown if a transaction is issued which contains an input state.
Let’s run the unit test!
And…
1 test failed. 😢 😢 😢
Uh oh..
Just kidding, that’s what we want, because we haven’t written any code in our Contract class to throw the exception the test is checking for!
java.lang.AssertionError: Expected exception but didn’t get one 👍
This is the TDD philosophy. Test first, code second. We should be able to make this test pass without making any changes to the test itself.
Note: If you get an error saying “Constructor parameter — ‘arg0’ — doesn’t refer to a property of …”, no big deal! You just need to add the following lines to your .idea/compiler.xml file: <component name="JavacSettings">
<option name="ADDITIONAL_OPTIONS_STRING" value="-parameters" />
</component> If you still have issues, try rebuilding, gradle clean, restarting IntelliJ, etc. to make sure nothing is cached.
Write Contract Code
Let’s add some code into our contract to prevent ledger updates from being approved if the transactions has any inputs states.
Using the requireThat() method, we can have any number of require.using() clauses — each of which takes a string to be used for the exception message, and an expression that will throw the exception if evaluated to true. Here, we grab the list of inputs from our transaction by calling getInputs() on our injected transaction variable tx, and then check to see if it’s empty.
Now when we re-run our unit test..
It passes! 👍 💯 😍
Continue the cycle => write failing test, make it pass
Let’s add a few more Contract unit tests for good measure:
Run the tests..
😨
Looks scary, but you’ll get used to it. 😅
The new tests fail. Add the contract clauses to make them pass:
Note that on Line 8 we grab the first (any only) output state from our transaction object tx and cast it to a TemplateState so that we can check its properties.
And re-running tests…
All passing now!
💯 👍 😄 | https://medium.com/corda/test-driven-development-for-blockchain-apps-with-r3-corda-how-to-write-contracts-and-unit-tests-f2360fe7a97d | [] | 2020-02-05 18:50:23.577000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Corda', 'Programming', 'Tdd', 'Tutorial'] |
Bigger Than A Shoe Box | Pain: the presence of bodily and/or mental suffering, and the anxiety of future suffering
“Simply put, Mrs. Palmer, your daughter needs an operation. Several, in fact.”
It is 1964. I am nine. In sugar-white gloves, my mother holds her own hands.
Dr. Salter, Surgeon-in-Chief of Sick Children’s Hospital, lifts his pen to my x-rays.
“A normal human foot contains twenty-six bones: seven tarsals or ankle bones, five meta-tarsal or foot bones, and fourteen phalanges or toes. Dorothy’s tiny toes have two bones each. Her left foot has three tarsals, two meta-tarsals, and two unique fused bones. Her right foot has three tarsals, three meta-tarsals and three fused bones. Instead of twenty-six bones, her left foot has seventeen and her right has nineteen. Both feet flop over, like a permanently twisted ankle.”
Mother sighs. “That’s what I was afraid of. She’s deformed. She has clubbed feet.”
Dr. Salter frowns at her, smiles at me.
“No, Dorothy, you don’t. Clubbed feet can’t place themselves flat on the ground. With effort, with considerable pain, yours can. One in every thousand babies has a degree of clubfoot. Your congenital abnormalities are more complex. Much rarer.”
I can’t see any of this. He is making it up.
“Here’s the skivvy, Princess. I don’t know how many years you’ll walk for. Maybe into your thirties, or forties. That’s up to your feet, not to you or to me.” He smiles. “But I think I can help you walk better for longer. It’s experimental. So, no guarantees. But it’s worth a try.”
I cup my left foot. Make a promise I can’t keep. “I won’t let them cut you.”
He explains a triple arthrodesis. An operation every two years. Removable metal pins and permanent metal staples. I have to close my eyes or barf. I tune back in and wish I hadn’t.
“Each recuperation requires six weeks on crutches, another six in a walking cast. A year of physio. Corrective shoes. I’ll begin with the left foot. Cut fused bones for range of motion. Implant stabilizers. File abutting bones to articulate more like the joints of a normal foot.”
Articulate? A crazy man wants to cut me open. A man who thinks feet can talk.
Mother takes his lunacy straight in her chair, poised, attentive, accepting.
“She didn’t walk when we got her at three. Children’s Aid called it Failure to Thrive, said she might be retarded. She falls so often, it’s embarrassing. After this, will she pass for normal?”
As my doctor stacks my x-rays, one falls from his hands. A bone grey dove fluttering down.
“Your daughter’s feet, Mrs. Palmer, have virtually no cartilage.”
I know that word from Health Class. “Like in the rim of our ears?”
“Yes, Princess. Connective tissue between joints, like gristle. A shock absorber. Cushions impact. You limp because without it, every movement registers as pain.”
“Is that why she’s always complaining that her feet hurt?”
“Mrs. Palmer, I repeat, your daughter is in pain. All the time. Sitting or standing. Worse when walking. Unbearable by nighttime. Imagine this.” He rams his knuckles together, grates them hard. “These are her bones. Without cartilage, they’re grinding themselves into splinters.”
Mother averts her gaze, smoothes her gloves. He tugs on my braid. Winks at me.
“So you fall down. So what? The longer I’m in this business the more impressed I am by kids like you. I’m proud of you, Princess. I don’t know how you walk at all.”
All the pieces of my life fly together. I’m not a lazy, lying, complaining, clumsy excuse for girl. It hurts. He said so. The sanest man on earth. He can cut me anywhere he wants.
Mother makes the sound reserved for my brother when he picks his nose.
“Excuse me, I’m wondering about high heels?” | https://medium.com/little-fiction-big-truths/bigger-than-a-shoe-box-27dca8b67cd9 | ['Little Fiction'] | 2017-05-03 10:01:06.150000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Nonfiction', 'Memoir'] |
How to Build a Lasting Emotional Connection | Having a strong emotional connection with your partner is perhaps the most essential component of a relationship that is deep and lasting. It is also what many find lacking. Though men and women experience and create that special emotional bond somewhat differently, you can’t go wrong if you follow the suggestions below.
Have each other’s backs
Come to his or her defense. This is especially important if they said something you know is dead wrong, or if they are struggling or making a fool out of themselves. Come to their aid. Don’t challenge them in public. Save them from themselves. That’s what love looks like.
Keep each other’s secrets
You can’t be close if you don’t share tender things like fears, vulnerabilities, insecurities or huge challenges. We all have moments when our confidence tanks. Your spouse won’t tell you if you send the message that you are not on their side.
Never tell another living soul, ever, about the secrets he or she shares with you. It’s privileged information and I never want you to be on the outside.
Listen to establish an emotional connection
Most people suck at listening. It’s just the truth. Sorry, but it’s because many of us feel that responding is the same thing as listening. It’s not. True listening is when you do the following:
1. Put down your devices.
2. Summarize what you think you heard.
3. Ask great questions about what they just said.
4. Don’t offer fixes or solutions.
5. Be empathetic.
6. Don’t interrupt them.
Make love often
Men feel that special bond by making love, much more than women do. Men and women are different. And I think that’s a good thing! Just understand that women are more likely to think that foreplay starts in the kitchen — and some men are at a loss to understand why.
Be each other’s best friend
Just ask yourself why your best friend is your best friend. I’m thinking lack of judgment, enormous compassion, availability, and that feeling you have in your bones that they truly care. That is exactly what your significant other needs. So be each other’s best friends.
Initiate love making
For some reason, men are far more likely to initiate lovemaking that women are. Maybe it’s a libido differentia, a differing level of energy left over a long day, or simply not feeling that emotional connection.
Whatever the reason, I just know that because men initiate far more than women, they also get rejected a lot more. So it’s really important to often send the message to each other that they are desirable.
Know each other’s challenges and fears
I hope for you that you’re the first person he or she calls or texts about anything important. If you’re not, then you have somehow sent the message that you’re emotionally unavailable. If this feels like a fit for you, acknowledge and apologize to him or her what you just figured out, that you’re going to work on it immediately, and change.
Know and respond to each other’s signals
Try to be so tuned into each other that you notice when your partner is tired or is ready to leave. If he or she is ready to leave a great party, then respect your best friend and lover is in a different place, and go. They’ll be so thankful that you saved them from their own guilt trip.
Ask questions
Good question-asking is how you will get to know each other more deeply. Questions let a person know you care about them. Learn the details of their lives, what they love, what they loathe, what their favorite color is, or who irritates them most at work and why.
Learn their hopes and dreams — and share yours with them. Details matter like coffee-light-no-sugar, or medium rare. And of course important and remembered dates like anniversaries and birthdays.
Support each other’s right to see things differently
Lack of judgment or a need to persuade your special person to see things your way are the hallmark of respect and a 50/50 partnership. What he or she feels and thinks should be every bit as important as what you feel or think.
****
If you work toward understanding the person you love most in life, rather than always focusing on being understood all the time, then you will enjoy and will have earned a lasting emotional connection that will last a lifetime.
Counseling for Busy People is a membership site for individuals looking to help save their relationships. For more information on emotionally connecting with one another, check out our blog or some of our recent videos. | https://medium.com/@lisaryanlpc/how-to-build-a-lasting-emotional-connection-3f0bda685747 | ['Lisa Ryan'] | 2020-12-15 21:21:14.635000+00:00 | ['Emotions', 'Couples Therapy', 'Dating', 'Connection', 'Love'] |
A Gentle Introduction to DAX Queries: How they’re different from DAX functions, how to write them, and how they look vs. SQL queries | If you’ve been using PowerBI (or PowerPivot, or SSAS in Tabular mode) for any amount of time, you will inevitably come across the need to write DAX (Data Analysis eXpressions) to create the custom columns and measures that you need to build your model, enhance your report, and/or perform your analysis. When thinking about DAX, many people I have worked with think about it or use it as just a formula language like Excel’s but it’s much more than that. It can also be used a query language.
How are DAX queries different from DAX functions?
At its simplest — DAX functions return a single value whereas DAX queries return a table. You will notice that some DAX functions take a table as an input and/or output an entire table, like CALCULATETABLE:
CALCULATETABLE, a function that takes a table as it’s first and only required parameter, and returns a table
If the function outputs a table, then it cannot be used on its own in PowerBI’s formula bar when creating a new column or measure, it needs to be combined with another function that uses it as an input to return a single value or it will return an error, like below.
However, it can be used if you select “New table”, where it asks you to write a DAX expression to create a new table.
To see what’s going on, I encourage you to download DAX Studio, an open-source tool that specifically works with DAX queries. After doing so, connect it to your model, whether it’s in PowerBI, SSDT, PowerPivot, or a live Tabular server, and run some DAX queries against it. That brings us to our next point.
How do you write a DAX query and how does it look vs. SQL queries?
For the sake of this article, we are going to use basic examples and assume we aren’t using variables anywhere.
Much like how the most basic SQL queries begin with a SELECT statement, DAX queries begin with an EVALUATE statement. The equivalent of SELECT * FROM <table> in DAX would be EVALUATE <table>.
Here’s a quick comparison of the basic syntax of a DAX query vs. a SQL query:
The basic SQL query syntax vs. DAX query syntax
With DAX queries if you want to specify columns, filter rows, add extra columns, or group your data, you would use many different DAX functions including but not limited to: FILTER, CALCULATETABLE, SUMMARIZE, SUMMARIZECOLUMNS, ADDCOLUMNS, GROUPBY, instead of DAX statements.
Let’s go with a slightly more complicated example.
I’ve been re-watching the MCU movies during quarantine, so I’ll be using another made up dimensional data model and dataset here.
Fact table: f_kill
Dimension tables: dim_avenger, dim_location
Our little avenger kill data model
In DAX Studio: the tables and attributes, the DAX query, and the results.
DAX query code:
EVALUATE
SUMMARIZE (
CALCULATETABLE (
‘f_kill’,
‘dim_location’[location_name]
IN {
“New York”,
“Wakanda”
}
),
‘dim_location’[location],
‘dim_avenger’[avenger],
“kills”, [number_of_kills]
)
Purpose of the above DAX query: to find out the number of kills in Wakanda and New York, and group it by location and the Avenger. One thing you may notice about the above query if you understand SQL is the lack of JOINs. With DAX, it already knows the existing relationships between tables so there are no JOINs to be written :)
Let’s break down the above query from inside to out after the EVALUATE statement:
CALCULATETABLE takes a table as input, in our case the “f_kill” table, and applies filters. The filter I am applying is for the location_name to be either New York or Wakanda.
SUMMARIZE “creates a summary of the input table grouped by the specified columns”, it is similar to GROUPBY. In our case, the input table is the result of CALCULATETABLE and we are grouping our results by location name and avenger, and the expression we are summarizing is the number of kills, which is a measure I’ve created for this exercise.
The equivalent of this query written in SQL would resemble something like:
If you’d like to download the sample PowerBI file, click here.
If you want a more comprehensive guide on DAX queries, I recommend the below resources: | https://medium.com/@allentseng92/a-gentle-introduction-to-dax-queries-how-theyre-different-from-dax-functions-how-to-write-them-ab3e8a5b640 | ['Allen Tseng'] | 2020-12-09 00:41:25.395000+00:00 | ['Data Analytics', 'Dax', 'Business Intelligence', 'Power Bi', 'Analyitcs'] |
Interesting Castles in Northern Ireland | Northern Ireland Castles
Do you enjoy the way those old castles look, walking through them, and getting to know more about the history they carry behind? Northern Ireland is filled with different castles that stand for a very long period of time, some of them could be entered while others do not allow visitors to come inside, but in both cases tourists will end up enjoying the whole scene of the old building and hearing the story behind it.
Some castles out there only carry historical stories related to when they were built and what was the main purpose behind their appearance, others might carry some scary stories which make people even more interested to visit them. Which kind of tourist are you, the one who enjoy regular stories or the one who enjoys those scary ones?
There are some famous castles located in Northern Ireland which I want to shed the lights on — it might be helpful for those who are still writing down their plans.
Carrickfergus Castle in county Antrim is the first one I am going to talk about. Carrickfergus Castle is a Norman Irish castle and its name means “cairn of Fergus” with ‘Fergus’ here referring to a strong man. This castle is situated in the town of Carrickfergus in county Antrim on the northern shore of Belfast Lough. Back in the old days, when Carrickfergus Castle was built, it was considered very important since it managed to play an important military role until 1928 because about 3/4 of the castle was surrounded by water before the reclamation of the land which we see today. This is one of the best medieval structures in Northern Ireland nowadays.
Carrickfergus Castle
Carrickfergus Castle
The second castle to mention here is Dunluce Castle which is a medieval castle on cliffs. Dunluce is translated into ‘fort of the fort’ but this was not its first name and actually no one knows the meaning of the first name which was “Dunliphis”. The castle is surrounded by very steep drops on each side, which drew the early Christians and Vikings to this place where an early Irish fort once stood. This historical castle has been the site of numerous battles, over a one hundred year period it was besieged numerous times.
Dunluce Castle Co. Antrim
Dunluce Castle Northern Ireland
Dunluce Castle
Among the long list of castles which tourists could visit while they are in Northern Ireland and experience a bit of the country’s history, there is Dundrum Castle in County Down. In order not to get confused, there are two different castles named Dundrum, one in Northern Ireland and the other one in Ireland. Dundrum Castle is a 13th century castle that is located above the town of Dundrum in county Down, Northern Ireland, and the reason behind building it back during these days is to control the access into Lecale from the west and the south.
Dundrum Castle
Dundrum Castle County Down
Belfast Castle is set on the slopes of Cavehill Country Park, 400 feet above sea level, which gives visitors the chance to check this old castle in Belfast and at the same time get the chance to enjoy the breathtaking views from up there. The original Belfast Castle was built back in the 12th century by the Normans and it was even located in Belfast City Centre, and this means that it is not the same castle that we visit today, and this goes back to the old version being burnt down. Belfast Castle which is visited today was actually built when the Chichesters decided to build a new residence for the suburbs.
Belfast Castle is also used today for making events, like weddings for example, giving couples the chance to mix their future with a bit of history.
Belfast Castle Northern Ireland
Belfast Castle
Belfast Castle 360 Degree
These are some of the most famous historical castles in Northern Ireland that tourists could visit and enjoy while being there, but there of course a couple of others which we didn’t manage to include in the list.
You could visit www.connollycove.com in order to check the different touristic attractions in Northern Ireland, Ireland, as well as different other countries around the world, and you could also check several different videos on ConnollyCove channel on YouTube. | https://medium.com/@basmaas_hayek/interesting-castles-in-northern-ireland-a152b215784a | ['Basma Alhayek'] | 2019-04-11 11:54:17.318000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Castles', 'Tourism', 'Northern Ireland Castles', 'Northern'] |
Community Zero: A Relational Account of the Ethics of Sanitary Cordon | China Daily / Reuters
The recently enforced “sanitary cordons,” vis-à-vis the novel coronavirus strain, surrounding some Italian and Chinese regions have brought the ethics of disease containment to the fore. Sanitary cordons are physical or effective barriers intended to enforce “community quarantines” (Cetron, Martin, & Julius Landwirth, 2) to insulate a community from infection or, more commonly, contain an infection within a community. In either case, I consider the “cordoned community” to be whichever group is unable to traverse the cordon on suspicion of infection. Insofar as living among an uninfected population is non-rival and non-excludable, a relative absence of communicable diseases may be thought of as a “public good,” the cost for which is disproportionately accrued by cordoned communities. In particular, they may face stigmatization by association with a disease; they may experience poorer conditions than their counterparts with freedom of movement; they may incur the brunt of the frustrations and economic costs of controlling disease spread; and healthy members of diseased cordoned communities may be placed at a greater risk of disease contraction. Historically, sanitary cordons have unduly targeted marginalized communities (Tognotti, 254) and have been employed to suppress the spread of subversive ideas and expand state power (Tognotti, 254). In light of these possible pitfalls, the ethics of community quarantines must be understood through a relational lens and by reference to four key relational principles.
In contemporary bioethics, community quarantines are often justified on the grounds that they prevent harm to the surrounding populace and protect precious healthcare resources to better serve the cordoned community. These justifications, such as those advanced by bioethicist Ross Upschur and philosopher John Stuart Mills, are often steeped in the liberal ethical tradition and couched in the jargon of personal liberty, autonomy, and externalities. Historically, though, liberalism has been more hostile to state-issued quarantines. In the years following the French Revolution, quarantines of communities infected with smallpox sparked numerous popular uprisings in England, France, Italy, and other European states on the grounds that they betrayed enlightenment ideals (Tognotti, 256). Contemporary liberal justifications seem, therefore, an uneasy and paradoxical compromise between foundational liberal principles and the public health.
On the other hand, “relational” approaches to public health ethics understands individuals, not as wholly autonomous agents, but as constructed by and inextricably linked to their communities (Baylis, 202). These approaches offer powerful insights into the communal aspects of quarantine and into communal vulnerability to domination, humiliation and stigmatization by privileged public health decisionmakers. The relational account of the ethics of community quarantines begins with an understanding of individuals as members of communities.
Most fundamentally, cordoned individuals are residents of the same geographic region, but this trait may intersect with other socially and epidemiologically salient characteristics such as class, age, ethnicity, disability, population density, and homelessness. History is rife with examples of quarantines being used explicitly to further disadvantage marginalized communities. Dark-Age sanitary cordons often explicitly prevented Jews, minorities, and lepers from entering (Tognotti, 254) and 19th-century Neapolitan health officials disproportionately restricted the movements of prostitutes and the homeless (Tognotti, 256) to name a couple.
Contemporary liberal theory opposes discriminatory interventions because they denigrate the individual by emphasizing his or her group. This framing is reductive for an ethics of community quarantines because, even in the absence of explicitly unequal quarantine interventions, quarantines may implicitly inflict harm on a particular group. For example, elderly people or those living with disabilities may require medication that is harder to receive within the confines of a community quarantine. Relational theory readily identifies this as an example of a marginalized community experiencing a disadvantage where a dogmatically individualistic mindset may view these as parallel, but discrete cases of individual misfortune.
Relational theory also emphasizes the group membership of those erecting sanitary cordons. Historically, this authority has been afforded to dominant groups, even in cases where the dominant group was not a majority in the location. For example, sanitary cordons throughout Panama were erected by the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on pretenses of mitigating harm to Panamanians from syphilis and gonorrhea. Rather than reducing harm, cordoning efforts served more to protect U.S. soldiers from disease, to justify tighter control of Panama, to protect mainland Americans who worried diseases could spread from Panama to the States (as it already had from India to Britain), to reinforce conceptions of Panamanian women as unclean and promiscuous, and to justify the incarceration of suspected Panamanian sex workers (Ahuja, 20). Such examples underscore the dynamics of domination and submission that exist between those erecting a cordon and those excluded by it. Although these policies were justified at the time by reference to a Millian ethical imperative to reduce harm, contemporary liberal scholars would of course cringe in shocked opposition at its implementation. Within the context of a relational ethical framework, however, such an implementation seems increasingly predictable.
I outline four principles, informed by a relational ethic, which prima facie justify the establishment of sanitary cordon: the unharm principle, representativity, reciprocity, and the least restrictive means principle. These principles are meant as relational counterpoints to Upshur’s influential four principles justifying quarantine: the harm principle, transparency, reciprocity, and the least-restrictive means principle.
The unharm principle dictates that sanitary cordons should not reinforce systemic disadvantage and domination however feasible. In particular, this principle implies that domestic stakeholders, rather than outside authorities, should regulate their own quarantines so as to prevent an occupier/occupied dynamic. Representativity mandates particular influence be afforded to the communities most vulnerable to an infectious disease outbreak and to the consequences of a quarantine. Proactive efforts must be undertaken to place representatives of communities disadvantaged socially or vulnerable epidemiologically in positions to understand the nature of the outbreak and decide matters related to the sanitary cordons. This principle is meant to ensure that quarantines are scientifically warranted and to ensure accommodations for quarantined people are responsive to the special vulnerabilities of cordoned sub-communities.
Traditional bioethicist Ross Upshur conceptualizes reciprocity as the obligation to assist cordoned persons in dealing with their confinement through measures such as providing them with “adequate food and shelter” and workplace accommodations. In this framing, public health officials are empowered to pay back quarantined communities “at cost” by ensuring their most basic necessities are met while they are quarantined. A broader, relational definition of reciprocity must insist further that reciprocity be understood within the broader discourse of the population’s obligations to the community prior to an outbreak. To be specific, the right of a city to quarantine its homeless community should go hand in hand with the city’s obligation to tend to the everyday medical concerns of the homeless community, such as substance use, mental health, and malnutrition. Moreover, reciprocity cannot be narrowly understood in terms of so-called “distributive justice,” a conception of justice which places emphasis on individuals’ burdens and benefits. Reciprocity must further encompass a fair dispensation of social benefits such as respect and opportunities within the conceptual framework of “social justice” (Baylis, 202). Similarly, traditional conceptions of the least-restrictive means principle must be reinterpreted through a relational lens and within the broader context of pre-outbreak public health. Insofar as disease outbreaks may be prevented in impoverished communities by access to routine public health measures, such as improved sanitation or anti-smoking efforts, the least-restrictive means principle should be hardest to satisfy among these underserved populations.
Relational frameworks provide unique insights, beyond those of traditional liberal frameworks, into the ethics of sanitary cordons. In particular, they provide a framework for understanding who is empowered to enforce quarantines on whom, ask how conceptions of obligations to the public in an outbreak confers rights in the absence of one, and provide insights into the effects of quarantines on communities (as distinct from individuals). In evaluating the ethics of a particular quarantine, four key principles, rooted in relational theory, must be considered: the unharm principle, representativity, reciprocity, and the least restrictive means principle. | https://medium.com/@george-botros/community-zero-a-relational-account-of-the-ethics-of-sanitary-cordon-57ca70ad8731 | ['George Botros'] | 2021-09-02 19:03:12.600000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Italy', 'Coronavirus', 'China'] |
Plow all the fields | Plow is bringing security-centric farming tools to the defi market.
Plowing feeds the world
Agriculture was the primary development that drove the rise of civilization. Farming created the surpluses that allowed people to build and cluster in cities. This science and art of cultivation has been a driving force of humanity for thousands of years. Nothing has been more fundamentally impactful to human society. Plowing has changed the world.
Plowing the soil is the foundation of farming. The primary role of plowing is to prepare the top layer of soil and bring fresh nutrients to the surface while eradicating the weeds that can destroy a crop. Plowing is done before anything else… before you plant your seeds. If you want to reap the rewards and be a great farmer, you need to cultivate your plowing skills.
Now a new form of farming is coming to civilization and we think it has equally transformational potential. There are nearly 5 trillion dollars sitting in no/low yield accounts around the world. There are billions of dollars in crypto sitting in hard wallets, exchanges, etc earning no yield. We’re always working hard for our money. Now, our money will work hard for us. We’ll all become farmers and decentralized finance will fan the flames of a new financial fire that will make yield-farming a central component to everyone’s financial planning repertoire. These tools have typically only been available for the wealthy. Now, every person will have access to tools to maximize their cash base.
We want to introduce you to Plow. We’re going to ship our community tools that help them plow their fields and be the most productive farmers they can be. We’ll help the small independent farmers up to the big industrial shops. Plow aims to provide you the highest yield available while always focusing on removing the weeds. We’ll focus on removing the risks that can destroy your yields.
Plowers need tools to protect their crops
Plow aims to be the most secure yield farming tool in decentralized finance. Having the highest yield will be just a byproduct. Our focus will be on security, trust, and transparency.
We’ll do the above by focusing on these things that will be baked into our protocol and processes.
We’ll continue to build the platform with security engineers at the beginning of the process, not the end.
We’ll do weekly, continuous audits on all our vaults. We’ll do both certified audits by reputable auditing firms and community-based audits and bounties.
We’ll have limited direct interaction with the smart contract. Users will mainly only be able to manually interact with the deposit/withdraw function.
We’ll have intelligent moving caps to prevent flash loans from manipulating our pools.
We’ll implement a circuit breaker. When too many withdrawals from the pool are occurring simultaneously, the break will trip to give us a chance to see if the withdrawals are legit transactions or someone trying to exploit the smart contract.
Our final security measure includes you, the Plowers. Nobody wants to be part of an industry-changing project that has no hope for longevity due to malicious actors in the world. We will rely on you to put your White Hats (or Grey Hats) to help us find our blind spots. Most projects make you submit tickets into black holes, or don’t have any way to contact them outside of social media. The last thing we want is for you to tell us about potential exploits by announcing it to the world. We haven’t settled on the exact bounty amount, but you will be rewarded if you help us remain secure.
Token Distribution
Total $PLOW supply: 2,500,000 PLOW distributed over 4 years
Circulating supply at launch: 0 PLOW
Emissions happen as rewards are farmed:
68% for liquidity providers from incentive pools
8% rewards to the operational treasury
24% rewards to the team for building PLOW
PLOW holders receive the 5% fee from PLOW operations.
Airdrop rewards will be distributed on November 21st.
The Contract Address
$PLOW Token Explorer: https://etherscan.io/address/0x7c34eafdbfcc04999e568015c2b6cec89b1a550d
Join the rest of the Plowers | https://medium.com/plowfinance/plow-all-the-fields-e4634d781ed | ['Plow Team'] | 2020-11-03 06:12:43.826000+00:00 | ['Yield Farming', 'Launch', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Community', 'Defi'] |
Community Gaming Launches 2x Daily Axie Infinity Tournaments with Axie.GG, E1337, and YGG | Esports 4 Everyone hosted by Axie.GG exclusively on CommunityGaming.io
Axie Infinity’s community has continued to grow at a blistering pace each month, topping 2.5 million daily active players in November. This incredible growth has led to an increase in the amount of tournament organizers hosting events for their communities and guilds on the CG platform.
As one of the most popular games on our platform, it’s often the case that Axie tournaments fill up almost immediately. This leaves only the players who register the fastest getting a chance to compete while others are stuck on the waitlist or waiting for the next tournament.
One of the most dedicated organizers in our ecosystem, Axie.GG, has run 24 bi-weekly tournaments over the past few months, and continues to see their tournaments quickly hit their player cap with a ton of spillover demand.
Introducing Esports 4 Everyone Daily Tournaments
As a result, Axie.GG has decided to create Esports 4 Everyone, an Axie Infinity tournament series where players of all skills are encouraged to participate. This series will be free-to-enter and open to anyone with an account to play!
Together with Axie.GG, YGG, and E1337.Pro, we’re proud to announce that starting on January 1st, 2022, there will be E4E tournaments TWO TIMES A DAY! Players who compete in the E4E Dailies will be able to qualify for monthly and yearly Showdown Finals.
Tournament Structure & Prizes
The 2x daily tournaments will each have 32 players in single elimination, while the monthly showdowns will have 64.
Daily tournaments will be free to enter, whereas the final showdowns will require players to burn QPs (Qualifier Points) in order to enter. QPs are not tradeable/sellable and can only be used to enter E4E Showdown Finals.
Prizes in 1337 token will be automatically distributed twice daily using our platform’s AutoPay tech as follows:
1st Place: $30 in 1337 + 5 QP
2nd Place: $15 in 1337 + 3 QP
3rd Place: $10 in 1337 + 2 QP
4th Place: $5 in 1337 + 1 QP
5–8th Place: $2.5 in 1337 + 0.5 QP
9–16th Place: $0.50 in 1337 + 0.25 QP
The Monthly Showdown Finals will follow a similar breakdown, with approximately $600 in prizing.
Open Source Streaming
In the spirit of E4E, Axie.GG has decided to make these daily events available — open source — to the entire Axie streaming community! In doing so, anyone and everyone with a desire to stream can use their tournaments to create content. This should enable up-and-coming streamers to get a taste of the action, as well as providing established content creators with a constant stream of usable Axie Infinity content.
The tournaments will be shared to the new E4E Twitch channel without commentary, and those who wish to re-stream the E4E tournaments with their own commentary can register here.
Tournament registration will go live for the the first event next week on CommunityGaming.io. For the full event details, head over to Axie.GG’s blog post. | https://medium.com/@communitygaming/community-gaming-launches-2x-daily-axie-infinity-tournaments-with-axie-gg-e1337-and-ygg-fda2152af7db | ['Community Gaming'] | 2021-12-29 00:59:44.179000+00:00 | ['Esport', 'Axie Infinity', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Game', 'Indie Game'] |
Five steps for achieving almost any ambition | Step 1: Recognize Priorities
Playing cricket in video games isn’t going to make you a cricket player in real life.
Photo by Phil Desforges on Unsplash
I often hear people saying they are working hard to achieve their dreams, and that’s really appreciable.
But the question arises, are you working hard in the right direction?
I bet every day you must be doing a lot of work, ranging from small household chores to big tasks in your to-do list, but how often do you ask yourself that “is the task that I am doing currently, taking me any close to my dreams?”
I have seen that most of us love being busy, after all, it gives us a sense of pleasure that we are working hard, and satisfaction that we are not wasting time.
But, are you actually differentiating between productive tasks and unproductive busy tasks?
If your aim is to become a programmer, but seeing others code, reading from books, and dreaming about a software engineering job is all you do, you aren’t going to make any good progress. If you want to become a coder, coding should be a priority for you.
The same thing is true for everything, once you have your dreams clear, ask yourself, what are the things that bring you closer to your dreams, and what are the things that make no difference.
Learn to identify the productive tasks, spend time on them.
Learn to identify the unproductive busy chores, get them done quickly.
Here’s how Amy did it
Amy knows she wants to get the role of SDE (Software Development Engineer), and she also knows that to do so, she needs to be good at data structures, algorithms, problem-solving, and other core subjects.
But sadly, her college keeps on bombarding her with tons of assignments and exams.
Fortunately (unlike many), Amy has understood what should be her priority and has started taking action.
She plans to spend more time doing competitive programming, and less time on college assignments (of course, she doesn’t plan to ignore the assignments, but she knows she can get them done real quick).
Here’s how Jimmy did it
Jimmy knows that if he wants to be a successful content creator, he needs to expand his reach over various social platforms.
Earlier, Jimmy has tried putting lots of content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, and YouTube.
Much to Jimmy’s surprise, the content on LinkedIn and YouTube gets much more engagement, and the content he puts on Twitter gets almost no engagement.
The reason might be anything, but this is a signal for Jimmy to start making more attention on LinkedIn and YouTube to scale his content (and later on, he can bring attention to his Twitter handle as well).
Amy knows her priority is learning the skills that can fetch her a job.
Jimmy knows his priority is putting more content on which platform | https://medium.com/@madhavbahl/five-steps-for-achieving-almost-any-ambition-c582728178bc | ['Madhav Bahl'] | 2020-12-27 03:18:16.615000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Goals', 'Ambition', 'Personal Growth', 'Productivity'] |
Linear Regression Clearly Explained (Part 1) | Linear Regression Clearly Explained (Part 1)
Linear regression has been around since 1911. It is one of the core pillars of the data science and machine learning domain and is widely used in the industry to date.
This is Part 1 of the Linear regression series.
The main objective of this blog is to highlight the need for linear regression and to identify the domains where linear regression is used to solve real-world problems.
What is Regression?
Regression is a supervised machine learning technique in which, the target output is also provided along with the input data.
In the case of regression algorithms, the target output or the dependent variable is continuous in nature. For example, measures like height, weight, length, price, etc. all fall under continuous values.
“Regression analysis is a form of predictive modeling technique which investigates the relationship between a dependent variable and an independent variable.”
Regression analysis involves graphing a line over a set of data points that most closely fits the overall shape of the data.
A regression shows the changes in a dependent variable on the y-axis to the changes in the independent variable on the x-axis.
Basically, regression is the task of predicting a continuous quantity.
Where do we use Regression analysis?
There are three major uses of regression analysis:
1. Determining the strength of the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable
Regression can be used to determine the strength of the effect that the independent variable has on the dependent variable.
For example, we can ask questions like:
a. What is the strength of the relationship between sales and marketing spending?
b. What is the relationship between the age and the income of a person?
2. Forecasting an effect
In this case, the regression can be used to forecast the effects or impact of changes. That is, the regression analysis helps us to understand how much the dependent variable changes with the change in one or more independent variables.
For example, you can ask questions like:
a. How much additional sale income will I get for each $1000 spent on marketing?
3. Trend forecasting
In this, the regression analysis predicts trends and future values. The regression analysis can be used to get point estimates.
For example, you can ask questions like:
a. What will be the price of the Bitcoin in the next six months?
b. What will be the stock price of Apple after one year?
What Is Linear Regression?
By definition, linear regression is a statistical way of measuring the relationship between variables.
For example, let’s assume that you are a fitness researcher and the task in your hand today is to measure the height and the weight of 10 volunteers standing in front of you.
You create a table with “Height” and “Weight” as two columns and start entering the data into that table.
Linear regression attempts to measure a correlation between the independent variable and the dependent variable.
In our example, let the weight be the dependent variable and let the height be the independent variable.
In other words, linear regression finds the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable, and based on that, it can predict the future value of the dependent variable.
So for instance, as the height increases, it is more likely that the weight will also increase. This is the relation that is established from the “Height-Weight” data after applying linear regression.
So once you apply linear regression on your “Height-Weight” data, you can then predict the weight of a person if we know his height.
Some Real-world Problems That Can Be Solved Using Linear Regression
1. Evaluating trends and sales estimates
Linear regression can be used in businesses to evaluate trends and make estimates or forecasts.
For example, if a company’s sales have increased steadily every month for the past few years, then conducting a linear analysis on the sales data with monthly sales on the y-axis and time on the x-axis will give us a line that predicts the upward trends in the sale. After creating the trend line, the company could use the slope of the line to forecast sales in future months.
2. Analyzing the impact of price changes
Linear regression can be used to analyze the effect of pricing on consumer behavior.
For example, if a company changes the price on a certain product several times, then it can record the quantity sold for each price level, and then perform a linear regression with the sold quantity as the dependent variable and price as the independent variable. This would result in a line that depicts the extent to which the customer reduced their consumption of the product as the prices were increased. So this result would help us in future pricing decisions.
3. Assessment of risk in financial services and insurance domain
The linear regression can be used to analyze the risk.
For example, a health insurance company might conduct a linear regression algorithm on its data. How will they achieve it? They can do it by plotting the number of claims per customer on the y-axis against the age of the customer on the x-axis. Using this, they might discover which customer will be making more insurance claims in the future.
The result of such an analysis might guide important business decisions.
The Selection Criteria For Linear Regression
There are tones of machine learning algorithms out there that can be used to solve a business problem. Now, the question arises, when should we choose linear regression over others?
If the problem at hand fulfills the following set of criteria, then we can use linear regression to solve that business problem.
1. Classification and Regression capabilities
The regression model predicts a continuous variable such as the sales made on a day, or predict the temperature of a city. Their reliance on a polynomial like a straight line to fit a data set possesses a real challenge when it comes to building a classification capability. Hence linear regression cannot be used to solve a classification problem. The dependent variable has to be continuous in nature.
2. Data Quality
Each missing value removes one data point that could optimize the regression. In simple linear regression, the outliers can significantly disrupt the outcome of the prediction. So if we remove the outliers, the regression model performs better.
3. Computational Complexity
The linear regression is often not computationally expensive as compared to the Decision tree or the clustering algorithm. So if we don't have a high computational power to work with, then linear regression becomes our go-to algorithm.
4. Comprehensible and Transparent
The Linear regression models are easily comprehensible and transparent in nature. They can be represented by a simple mathematical notation to anyone and can be understood very easily.
So these are some of the criteria based on which you will select the linear regression algorithm.
Conclusion
Though it is one of the earliest machine learning algorithms, linear regression is a very powerful tool that is still used to solve real-world problems.
Having a good understanding of linear regression is very important and we are trying to cover all the aspects of the algorithm through these blogs.
This article was Part 1 of Linear regression from Scratch. In the next part, we will cover the underlying working and mathematics of linear regression and how it can be used to predict future values. | https://ai.plainenglish.io/linear-regression-clearly-explained-part-1-96dc1e9e70f7 | ['Ashish Mehta'] | 2020-12-09 00:20:55.072000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Linear Regression', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Algorithms'] |
🍄 Why I stopped microdosing psilocybin | Why I got into microdosing
I struggle with lack of focus while working. While working on a task I tend to dedicate more energy to actually staying on the task rather than the task itself. It’s been like this since I was a kid and I never got used to. I’m surprised by how much I’ve done in my life while fighting this constant distractions.
I wanted to figure out why I’m so distracted more than I wanted a “cure” for my distraction.
Testimonies (real?) of other people doing microdosing mentioned improvements in focus and ability to identify the triggers. So I was sold on it.
Where, how and how much did I take
I got my shrooms online and ordered straight to my home address. It’s illegal in my current country and it probably is in yours. I’m also lazy so I got them already dosed in 1g x 6 on a strip.
I tried 0.5g / 0.75g and 1.0g and accidentally 2.0g
On 2.0g I was tripping. My personal sub-perceptible dose is 1.0g but I know for sure it varies. Everyone is different, from weight to tolerance. You should build your way up. Unless you have free days and can just chill in case you end up tripping.
How the F##k did it actually feel
I got into microdosing mainly to figure out why it’s so hard for me to maintain focus. Here’s what I got instead:
- Goosebumps for the entire duration of a song. (multiple times)
- Balls to send really painful messages
- Decided to pull the trigger on a project and go for it
- Mapped out business problems I was procrastinating for a long time (during my first intake)
- 2 subscriptions to the gym (first impulsive, the second planned)
- Next-to-zero fucks about making errors
I would describe this short experience with microdosing like taking the pill from limitless. But for the balls.
I believe that what makes incredible people incredible is not what they have, it’s what they don’t. Ego, fear and social construct cages seem to have less power over them. Microdosing psilocybin definitely goes in that direction.
If so great, why did I stop?
Let’s take a step back and define what we are. 95% of the time we operate on autopilot. As bad as that might sound, that Autopilot is what built our lives as they are right now: our jobs, passions, relationships, social media addiction [you name it].
Most of the time we don’t make changes because we don’t know what the triggers to our discomfort and sadness are. But to me, those triggers are less hidden when microdosing.
These couple of months have moved really fast for me and I realise not everyone around me will have the time to adapt. This potentially brings a lot of friction.
So, what’s the “side effect” of microdosing?
The side effect is exactly the reason you might be considering doing it. But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. You might want to:
- leave your job
- travel a lot
- dedicate your life to a “crazy” project
- leave your spouse
- do weird things that suddenly feel like your life goal
The side effect is that you will start changing. And if you’re like me, changes will happen crazy fast. And while it’s ok for me, it might not be ok for people around me. People I care about. People I want to communicate better what I’m jumping on and why it’s so important to me.
So I decided to stop microdosing to allow a better level of communication. This is something I need to thank psilocybin. Being more patient and less selfish.
I know the red pill is real. I just need to prep things before I take this journey. When I’ll be ready, I’ll go for a full year of microdosing in a row.
PS: this is my first post. I’m not a writer and don’t care about being one. I just want my message out there.
PPS: if you want more stories from a dude with more questions than answers subscribe or follow or whatever you call it here on medium. This is the only place I write.
Much love, M. | https://medium.com/@mirelvasile/why-i-stopped-microdosing-psilocybin-2191908305f5 | ['Mirel Vasile'] | 2019-10-09 20:57:55.668000+00:00 | ['Focus', 'Psilocybin', 'Life Lessons', 'Microdosing'] |
What makes a startup resilient in crisis (Like COVID-19) | This is the story of a startup that found itself prepared to navigate the COVID-19 crisis without even knowing it.
Nanoramic Labs is a mid-stage startup based in Boston, MA. Among other things, it claims a breakthrough in energy storage technology that could reduce by 20% the cost of a KWh in a Li-ion battery. Nanoramic’s main operations consist of lab work to experiment with nanomaterials and small scale manufacturing to prove that its technologies are scalable.
Nanoramic, previously known as FastCAP Systems Corp, is not new to crisis. Ironically, the company started with funding that was the result of government stimulus during The Great Recession of 2008.
FastCAP faced its first crisis in 2014 when the oil price crashed. At the time, the company focused exclusively on oil drilling technology. Therefore, it was completely exposed to oil price cycles. During that crisis, FastCAP went through a painful reorganization, the results of which made possible the level of crisis readiness it has today.
A wake up call
Conventional wisdom usually describes startups as nimble and ready to pivot to reach product market fit as soon as possible. One would have expected FastCAP to pivot quickly, appealing to different market segments as their core technology was not specific to oil drilling. But this did not happen. In the following two years, their CEO made no effort to pivot and the company ran out of cash.
This was a complete shock for employees as they were furloughed overnight. There were clues that the company was on the rocks but employees were mislead about why the company had missed payroll on multiple occasions. The lack of transparency and corporate governance made the dire financial situation unknown to employees and even senior managers. Eventually, the CEO was shown the door and a group of senior executives took the lead to convince shareholders the company was worth saving. It took a very painful 9 months to raise a bridge round to make a restart possible. They eventually convinced one shareholder and their major lender to step up and support them in turning the business around. As a pre-condition for support, they requested the hire of a new CEO. That’s when I was hired.
When I came in I was lucky. On the positive side, there was a sense of urgency in the core team and a strong belief in its technical capabilities. The organization rallied around the CTO and the IP council as they navigated the storm. They were able to preserve the knowledge through a team of loyal employees that stayed with the company despite the hardships. Also, in the bridge round, employees were given substantial stock in the company to create the right incentive.
On the negative side, the company had no revenue and a heavy balance sheet with more than $10m debt at very high interest. And a lot of skeletons in the closet.
It is hard to explain how the company operated before. I am quoting here an employee that lived through it and is still with the company today.
It was a culture of secrecy, there was no trust in the employees or encouragement of new ideas. Aside from secrecy about the business, there was a culture of paranoia and secrecy around communicating our achievements or projects with the outside world. All work happened in the office and there was no work from home allowed for any function. We were tied to working in the office by complex server systems, paper files, and on-premise storage of documents. People were shamed for leaving at 5pm …
The Key to Resilience
You cannot predict the future, let alone control it. The only thing under your control is building adaptive capacity in your organization.
Here is an article describing the concept of Adaptive Capacity
First Things First: An Infrastructure to Enable Adaptive Capacity
Cloud
Before anything, I wanted to make information available to anybody in the company. One should find any information they need in less than 60 seconds from anywhere. This was my way of making sure we have good data and transparency.
Previously, all data was stored on one server in the company office. All accounting data was on one computer used by the CFO in his office.
I decided to move EVERYTHING to the cloud in 90 days. By sheer coincidence, the server were all the technical files were stored crashed and all data was lost. It was the equivalent of Cortez burning his ships before conquering the Aztec Empire. We had to start fresh, so why not all in the cloud? Very quickly, we realized our CFO was not up to the challenge. We let him go and had accounting in the cloud in 30 days.
Since 2005, I had transformed companies to work remotely. I was well versed in virtual work across many time zones. I saw first hand what can be achieved in terms of agility and productivity if you know how to do it. I had a strong background in cloud based technologies. But this was not to be a copy-paste exercise. Nanoramic is a hardware business. My previous experience with remote work was with software companies. We had to experiment, fail fast and adapt.
Quality of Sound
In my 10 years of leading remote organizations I learned that quality of sound is the most important productivity factor in remote communication.
At Nanoramic, some of the things I faced could not have been anticipated. I discovered that our office is very noisy and very expensive to sound proof. We could not make normal audio conferencing equipment work to achieve a reasonable sound quality.
We had to improvise…In a previous life I had my own rock band and a passion for band touring and studio gear. After a couple of failed attempts with regular video conferencing equipment, I turned to stage audio solutions. We ended up with gooseneck microphones in meeting rooms and a digital mixer featuring auto-mixing.
Improvised audio setup for video conferencing. See mixer rack on the right and gooseneck mikes on the table
We also purchased noise canceling wireless headsets for each desk. The standard desk would have a headset and 3 monitors.
Standard setup for a desk
The objective was to have anybody able to organize and/or join a video conference remote or from a meeting room with exceptionally good sound.
Pretty soon we decided to buy equipment to take home or on the road for people who would regularly join remote.
Real Time Collaboration Tools
The next thing required for distributed work are real time collaboration tools. We decided on Slack for fast tactical communication, JIRA for activity planning and tracking, Confluence for content creation and sharing, and Box and Dropbox for document storage. We eventually ended up with more than 50 apps in the cloud to support this remote collaboration way of working.
This is a short list of the most used apps today
Google Apps
Slack
JIRA
Confluence
Dropbox
Box.com
odoo
Bill.com
Expensify
ScreenCloud
Wix
Pingboard
Zoom
Geekbot
Lucidchart
Frame.io
Breezy.hr
ApprovalMax
Zenefits
OfficeVibe
SignNow
Office365
Voltaiq
Disciplined Rituals
It is difficult to make a bunch of people with different schedules, time zones, and interests effectively collaborate in a virtual environment. It all starts with time awareness ( See here a blog article describing my definition of time awareness).
We have a strict interpretation and enforcement of time awareness rules:
Meetings are scheduled in 50 or 25 minutes slots. We always start on time. We never go over the scheduled time and we prefer to end earlier.
We always describe in the invite why are we meeting and what is the ONE thing we want from that meeting
You are required to RSVP at least 48 hours before the meeting
Every meeting has meeting minutes recorded in Confluence. If it is an external meeting with a customer we post the link of the minute in the CRM chatter for that particular opportunity.
We practice 3 types of rituals:
Situational Awareness rituals make sure everybody knows what is going on around them. We have daily standups, weekly syncs, monthly scorecard huddles and quarterly strategic intent clarification off sites.
Learning and Adaptation rituals allow the organization to continuously learn and adapt to a changing environment. We have retrospectives, education days and black hat planning sessions.
Maintain Readiness rituals keeps the organization ready to act at a moment’s notice by systematically reducing organizational friction and enforcement of safety and cleanliness rules
Clear Intent
At FastCAP nobody knew the company strategy and they were never asked for input. Unrealistic promises were made to customers which translated to toxic work culture and unrealistic expectations for employees.
I practice a form of management that I call Intent Driven Management . It is based on a 200 year old military command philosophy that I was exposed to while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. The key principle of this philosophy is to create a decentralized operating environment guided by an operational intent. In other words, you get your people to take the right decisions and act on them without asking for permission. All guided by your Strategic Intent.
In 2018, we rebranded to Nanoramic Labs to communicate that we are an R&D driven company practicing a Product Leadership strategy. We are a business experimenting with nanomaterials, taking them out of the lab into industry to solve major problems in energy storage and thermal management.
A Product Leadership strategy means that we deliver innovative, cutting edge products and technologies. Essentially the customer gets the latest and the greatest. An organization delivering on this strategy needs to be focused on invention, product development, and market exploitation. It runs processes that are loosely knit and constantly shifting. It is entrepreneurial with a desire to work in unexplored territory. The culture of such an organization encourages imagination, out-of-the-box thinking with a mind-set driven by the desire to create the future. We measure and reward new product success and we don’t punish experimentation and risk. We allow and support variations that lead to innovation. This is how we describe our “playbook.”
But everything needs to start with Why. In other words, Why are we doing anything and What do we need to do to fulfill the Why?
For us is very simple:
We want to exit by 2023 for more than $1Bn by disrupting large markets in Energy Storage and Thermal Management Materials.
How we are going to achieve that is something we discover as we move forward, always testing our decisions and actions through the Why and What test. This provides a decision making framework for all our employees.
Intent driven management was designed specifically for what the military calls a VUCA environment. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Complexity. It is hard not to notice how COVID-19 perfectly fits this definition.
Optimized Talent
We want our people to understand each other from a personality needs lens. When compared to face-to-face communication, remove interaction gives far less clues when trying to understand another’s behavioral needs. We teach people to use behavioral science to understand the needs of their colleagues in absence of face to face interaction. (See here an article on how to create a behaviorally balanced organization)
Using Slack anyone can ask for a summary of the behavioral profile for anybody in the organization:
This makes virtual interaction far more productive. You can understand the needs of people you are going to interact with BEFORE you ever interact with them and you can adapt your communication to their needs.
This is an example of a relationship guide provided by our Behavioral Assessment tool (Courtesy of Predictive Index):
Trust and a Web of Symbiotic Relationships
If you want to prepare for a crisis, you need to create a web of trusted relationships with your investors, lenders and customers. For FastCAP the journey to regain trust of our shareholders and the investment community was slow and bumpy. We started from a significant disadvantage. The key to success was constant communication and demonstration of trustworthiness every single day. We never hide bad news and we explain good news with cautious optimism. We want to under promise and overachieve.
We started with transparency towards our shareholders and lenders. We created a dedicated investor portal were we allow our shareholders to understand what is going on. We have more than 150 shareholders, so communication is not an easy task. The portal allows our shareholders to be informed in real time on critical events in the life of the company. We organize quarterly investor webinars that are recorded and available to watch on the investor portal. In times of crisis we can reach out to our investors in real time with specific messages or requests.
Nanoramic through the COVID-19 crisis
Immediately when we realized the pandemic will hit the United States, we scheduled two daily 15 minutes stand-ups for the executive team, one at 10am and one at 3:45pm followed by a company wide zoom stand-up. During this stand-up we go through all the good and bad news of the day and we allow employees to ask any question they want anonymously or not.
We took steps to protect our employees immediately, even before authorities started to shut down life as we know it to enforce social distancing.
We moved to 3 shifts and we limited presence in the office to 4 people per shift. Attendance is strictly voluntary and people sign up on a shift schedule the day before. We assumed that this is the new normal and started to experiment with ways to make this work for the next 6 months. We already had a flexible shift policy before the crisis in which you could take one or two days per week to work from home. We just made this the rule rather than the exception. Already a third of our organization was working from home before the crisis, with people scattered across 7 time zones. From their perspective nothing changed.
When the lock-down was declared in Massachusetts, we were were already operating in crisis mode for 10 days.
The next challenge was cash flow. As the world was coming to a standstill, we had no visibility on cash collections. This is where the web of trusted relationships kicked in. In the last 3 years we built relationships with industry that led to some of our customers becoming strategic shareholders. Trust was already in place when we asked them to contribute to an emergency credit line and acceleration of payments on existing contracts. During this time we maintained real time communication with our key stakeholders.
We quickly furloughed 1/3 of our workforce. Anybody that we assessed as not being able to provide meaningful contributions during the crisis for the next 6 months was furloughed.
This combination of quick action and shareholder/customer support provided us almost immediately with an additional 3 months of cash runway
How do you know you are doing what needs to be done?
Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion’, W. Edwards Deming
Three weeks into the crisis we ran a survey to learn how are we doing as a leadership team in this crisis. This is what got:
We are far from being out of the woods. As the crisis unfolds, we operate one day at a time using our intent as guidance for every decision we make and action we take. We don’t have “best practices.” We only have practices that work today and might not work tomorrow, so we are constantly validating and re-validating them (See here “The Best Practices trap” article). This crisis is a fail fast lab to experiment with new ways of operating. We are blessed with a culture that allows us to quickly learn and change course. We strive daily to take good enough decisions and actions in absence of long term information. But for us it is our natural way of operating.
More resources on intent driven management
From 5 to 50 to 500 book
Everyday Turnaround book
About the author: https://www.erickish.us/eric-kish
For Leadership needs in a crisis: https://interimexecs.org/business-survival/ | https://medium.com/intent-driven-management/what-makes-a-startup-resilient-in-crisis-like-covid-19-a04490480542 | ['Eric Kish'] | 2020-04-15 22:27:09.233000+00:00 | ['Covid 19 Crisis', 'Startup Lessons', 'Resilience'] |
The CyberStalking Scams | Allowing yourself to have such a open profile on Social Media platforms, gives predators an easier access to your personal information, allowing them to do whatever they please with that. This can be known as cyberstalking. Cyberstalking is the use of internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual. This can be in forms such as identity theft, gathering information, soliciting sex, etc. Let it be known there is a big difference between Cyberstalking and Cyberbullying, but both equally as traumatizing.
There are a number of key factors that have been used to identify cyber stalking. One of the most detrimental being, taking the information of their victim and creating their own accounts and websites under the victims name, creating false accusations against them, and attempting to turn their “followers” against them. According to LifeLock.com, all a hacker/ cyberstalker needs to get your personal information from you, is a Spyware app downloaded onto his computer. When getting your information or “ PII” which is Personal Identified Information, they are essentially able to do whatever they want, but using your name ( tax refund, apply for job, etc) | https://medium.com/@chrystabarbaro/the-cyberstalking-scams-69f9191de1c7 | ['Chrysta Barbaro'] | 2020-12-11 23:18:13.874000+00:00 | ['Cyberstalkers', 'Médiá', 'Stop Cyberstalkers', 'Media Criticism'] |
How to find a great wine in a Dutch supermarket | How to find a great wine in a Dutch supermarket TWEC Jun 17·7 min read
Author: Federico L’Huillier — 03/06/2021 — Reading time: 7 minutes, it worth every minute!
Photo by Iuliyan Metodiev from Pexels
Have you ever been to the supermarket thinking: — “I’m going to try a new wine today”, but there were so many options that you couldn’t make up your mind and you went home with your usual bottle? Well, we’ve all been there! This is why this post will give you smart tips on how to spot that amazing wine bottle standing on the supermarket shelf that best fits you!
Wine’s taste profile and its price
There are 2 factors to pay attention to, the wine’s taste profile and its price. The wine’s taste profile is how the wines do taste, is it dry, fruity, etc. Supermarkets do this to make your life easier, instead of having to worry about country of origin, vintage or grape variety, etc., you can just focus on finding a wine that fits your taste preference. Price will define the wine’s quality, in this case, the more expensive, the more intense, tasty and complex the wine will be, you’ll see that in the price range categories further down in this article.
But, first, let’s get something out of the way. Wines sold at the supermarket are well made. You won’t find a bad quality wine in a big supermarket chain. Each of these big chains have a wine department with qualified professionals that will choose wines with the best quality for the price they want to sell it for, and behind each of these wines there is a very big winery that produces millions of wine liters per year, using the latest techniques and technologies to make the best product they can under different price range categories.
Factor 1. Dutch Supermarket Wine Classification
In many Dutch supermarkets wines are classified according to their taste profile, how the wine does taste:
For whites, in general, they are classified as:
“Vol en Droog”, full bodied and dry, with structure, wines that are more serious and more complex in flavours, that will need more time to drink as each sip will display a different character of the wine, like an oaked Chardonnay; “Lichtzoet”, lightly sweet, sometimes fizzy and refreshing wines where Moscato, Lambrusco, Riesling Spatlese and Asti are found; “Fris en Droog”, fresh and dry, easy to drink wines, a place for Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Verdicchio, etc.
Red wines are, in general, classified as follows:
“Fruitig”, fruity, easy to drink wines like a Pinot Noir, Beaujolais AOC and Cote de Rhone AOC “Soepel”, smooth, with a bit more structure than the fruity ones, such as a merlot or Cote de Rhone Village AOC “Stevig”, firm, complex and serious, also these wines will need more time to drink as each sip will display a different character of the wine like a Rioja Reserva DOCa, an oaked Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeaux AOC.
For Rosé and sparkling wines, in general, there is only one category for each style, Rosé and sparkling wines, where the last is are referred as “Bubbles”.
Factor 2. Price Matters
In the case of supermarket wines, the quality of the wine is directly linked to the final price offered on the shelf. The more expensive the wine, the more the wine will give you in return, for real!
There are 2 variables that explains this, the cost of an empty bottle standing on the supermarket shelf and the wine per se, the liquid inside the bottle:
The cost of an empty bottle
This cost includes the glass bottle, label, cork or screw cup, foil, transport, supermarket logistic etc. According to wine journalists Esmee Langereis and Karin Leeuwenhoek, an empty wine bottle placed in a Dutch supermarket costs on average 3 euro. This is a cost that will remain constant for any supermarket wine price range;
The cost of the wine (the liquid inside the bottle)
The cost of the wine inside of a bottle will vary drastically depending on the quality of the wine. For example, if you buy a € 3,50 wine bottle, you will be paying only € 0,50 cents for the wine, the liquid, but remember that the 0,50 cents will include the winery and the supermarket profit too, so, the real cost of that wine (the liquid) may be around € 0,10 or €0,20 cents. What can you expect from it, right?
Still, even the €3.50 wines are well made wines. They are produced intentionally towards a value of €3.50, resulting in very simple wines, with few aromas and flavours. These wines are easy to drink but the flavours will disappear as soon as you’ve swallowed the wine. These wines are ok but, for just €1.50 extra, the next wine price range can provide much more enjoyment and pleasure.
Wine price ranges — What are the differences?
I divide supermarket wines in 4 price ranges:
Less than € 5 euro € 5 to € 7 € 7 to € 10 More than € 10
As I mentioned before, the quality of the wine will be linked to the price range category of the wine. It is fascinating that for wines below €10, every euro extra makes a big difference in taste.
Less than €5
In the first group of less than €5, we find, among others, the supermarket brands such as AH Sauvignon Blanc from France (€ 3,99). In this category, wines are very simple, with a low aroma and flavour intensity, as well as few aromas and flavours, in the case of the AH Sauvignon Blanc from France (generic Sauvignon Blanc), it mostly displays aromas of green apples and grapefruit; Also, wines are light to medium body but with a short finish (the finish is the duration of the pleasant flavours in your mouth after having swallowed the wine, the longer those flavours linger in the mouth, the better quality of the wine). In the Sauvignon Blanc example above, the flavours disappear immediately after swallowing the wine, leaving a bitter taste due to the wine’s high acidity.
€5 to €7
In the second group of €5 to €7, wines begin to be more interesting, their aromas and flavours are more intense than the first group, more aromas and flavours are identifiable, and the finish will be longer than the first group. For example, the AH Excellent Selectie Touraine Appellation Touraine Contrólée Sauvignon Blanc (€ 6,99) displays notes of grass, asparagus, green apples, grapefruit and lime, with a longer fish of lime, grapefruit and grass, or a Jacob Creek Sauvignon Blanc (€ 6,65) will have notes of passion fruit, grass, asparagus, peach, displaying more aromas and flavours than the previous category.
€7 to €10
In the third group of €7 to €10, wines are more serious, in the sense that they will have an even higher aroma and flavour intensity and even more aromas and flavours. These notes will linger longer in mouth and they will have a level of complexity higher than the previous levels, resulting in more balanced wines. Within this category, we find wines labeled “Reserve” or “Reserva”, therefore, more winemaking techniques will be implemented to produce the wine, like the use of wooden staves, wood chips or in some cases, the use of oak barrels to add oaky characters to the wines, like the Casillero del Diablo Reserva Especial Chardonnay (€ 9,99) that display aromas and flavours of green apples, pear, white peach, nectarine and pineapple. As well as, hazelnut, and vanilla from time spent ageing in barrels and complemented by a subtle minerality. In some cases, like the Antonin Rodet Bourgogne Chardonnay (€ 8,99), the wine undergoes an ageing period on its lees before they are filtered out, lees are a wine natural sediment that before it is removed, if it is left on purpose for some time in contact with the wine, it adds roundness and richness to the mouthfeel, reducing the wine’s acidity levels, while adding notes of biscuit and bread.
More than €10
As for the last group of more than €10, if you are willing to spend more than 10 euro on a wine, I recommend you to go to your local wine store and buy your wine there. The personnel from the wine store will be able to recommend something that will be in line with your taste profile and that will surprise you. Wine shops generally manage smaller wine producers that don’t scale for supermarket chains. These producers can provide a higher quality in a limited production, making their wines more special and unique.
Recommendation
The next time that you go to the supermarket, check out in which taste profile and price range category your favorite wine stands. Then, start playing with these 2 variables!
Same wine taste profile, different price ranges
If your “go to” wine stand in the “Fris en Droog” taste profile, like the Jacob Creek Sauvignon Blanc (€ 6,65) — 5 to 7 euro price range — then choose another “Fris en Droog” but from the next price range category — 7 to 10 euro price range — like Brancott Sauvignon Blanc (€ 8,49) and try to find that quality difference.
Same price range, different wine taste profile.
If your “go to” wine is under the taste profile “Vol en Droog” like the Undurraga Chardonnay (€ 4,99), then you may choose another wine taste profile like “Fris en Droog” wine within the same price range like the Mesta Organic Verdejo (€ 4,99) and taste the difference.
Same price range, same wine taste profile, different wine
If you “go to” wine is the “Soepel” Berberana Red Dragon Tempranillo” (€ 5,98), then you might choose another wine from the same price range and taste profile like the “Soepel” Welmoed Merlot (€ 5,99)
Before you know it, you will have tasted many different styles of wine and flavours. This is the fun part of the wine adventure!
I hope you liked the article. Please share it among your friends and if you have any questions or comments, send us an email at [email protected]
Many thanks and Happy Tasting!
NOTE: Always drink in moderation. Remember to drink water while enjoying your glass of wine, the “divine proportion” is, one glass of water per glass of wine | https://medium.com/@twec-nl/how-to-find-a-great-wine-in-a-dutch-supermarket-df1458895f4 | [] | 2021-07-01 14:12:15.067000+00:00 | ['Dutch', 'Wine', 'Wine Tasting', 'Amsterdam', 'Netherlands'] |
My Experience Taking The #1 Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA) Course By Iman Gadzhi | Key Components Of A Great Online SMMA Course
I’ve been making and taking online courses for over a decade. My college courses have gone through rigorous testing and an approval process that was a little too overboard if you ask me.
What I see is that online courses come in two major forms: academic courses and skills training courses. Instructors try to cross-pollinate these two all the time, but it rarely works. With business courses, we really just want the skills training and what works — leave the theory and liberal arts stuff to the profs.
So when I started taking business courses, I was surprised to see how much instructors loved teaching the theoretical stuff. In some cases, theory is necessary. But in SMMA, we’re trying to get a tangible result.
We want views, clicks, clients, and cash! That’s pretty much it.
What I also noticed is that the course itself was only a minor part of the overall educational package. In my research and experience, a lot of SMMA courses just fall short. Believe me, I’ve wasted money on them! No refunds, just a lot of regret.
Here’s what I think is the best scenario for optimal online learning. The ideal SMMA course — or any training course really — has these components:
1.COURSE QUALITY: A solid course does what it says it can do. It’s not too short, and not too long. It must have all the necessary lessons in the most logical sequence. For SMMA, you need to know things like the business model, marketing, cold calling, onboarding, etc. Six Figure SMMA has it all. The quality of the video and sound is very professional. Unlike other courses, this was not shot in a dingy bedroom with bad acoustics. With lesser courses, you never see the instructor. It’s just five hours of powerpoints and screenshots. Not in this course. Gadzhi is often teaching you face-to-face.
Knowing how much to teach is an art. If it can be done in six modules with about five to ten lessons or less within each module, that’s a good setup. Six modules imply six weeks. That’s just enough time to learn a skill and still not be too overwhelmed with the time commitment. We all know the more ambitious students will burn through that course in a week and start making money sooner.
Gadzhi’s course comes close to these parameters. He has nine modules. Most of them are short with only a few lessons in each. What I like is that the area that many SMMA owners struggle with the most, Gadzhi provides three-times the content. This section alone is worth the price of the entire course. Why? It’s nearly three hours of incredible content that you’d extract from a high-paid coach.
Now the technology is somewhat disappointing. A lot of instructors use the same learning platform for courses: Teachable. As an educator, I think the functionality is pretty basic. The assessments are unwieldy and there’s not much to choose from. Most instructors never use quizzes or any form of assessment: that’s just not learning. I think if Teachable created more options and it was fun for students and instructors, they’d have a real hit on their hands. But let’s be real. Instructors choose Teachable because it’s cheap, functional enough, and integrates with sales brilliantly.
My only major gripe with Six Figure SMMA is that there should be a few videos where you get to peer over Gadhzi’s shoulder to see him create a few winning Facebook campaigns for popular niches, start to finish. That would eliminate a lot of the questions people ask in the private Facebook group. Even if it’s not your goal to be an ad specialist, it helps to know the lay of the land. Six Figure SMMA Score: 9/10
Student post in Iman Gadzhi’s “Six Figure SMMA” FB group. | http://bit.ly/2U3faEM
2.INSTRUCTOR EXPERTISE: Great instructors have a proven track record in the field for getting outstanding results. It’s not about theory or mastering just the basics. These kinds of instructors have put in the time and know what stumbling blocks new students make.
This is a mistake I often see with many instructors. They get just enough experience and data to start their own spin-off business. What’s missing is the years of fine-tuning and experimenting that leads to predictable success. Often what you get in business courses are people learning new things along with you. That’s not an expert. That’s a peer who’s only a couple steps in front of you.
As mentioned, Gadzhi maintains a successful agency himself. He has worked with some incredible clients including Oura Ring, Kevin Rose, ZebraFuel, AJ&Smart, and dozens more. He never does this to name-drop — his clients actively sing his praises for the results he gets them. I don’t personally know of anyone else who has worked with this caliber of clients.
Furthermore, Gadzhi always shares several SMMA best practices. You can count on these tactics working. You also see him trying new tactics to get even better results. A lot of Gadzhi’s tests and innovations have made him a leader in this space. This is exactly the kind of person you should be learning from. Six Figure SMMA Score: 10/10
3.COMMUNITY SUPPORT: If there were one component that stands out from the rest to me, this is the one. Sure, the actual course and instructor are very important. But when you take a course, you’re on your own. It’s all you, and no one to keep tabs. It’s a discipline many haven’t mastered since online course completion rates are dismal.
That’s where community support comes in. We’re all part of a tribe. People matter. Tribes are difficult to cultivate online and SMMA groups are no exception. Starting an SMMA or any business is a difficult endeavor. Everything can’t be in a course because of all the updates and new tactics. And no one wants to take a 50-hour course.
The big first thing I noticed about Six Figure SMMA is the interaction between the Facebook Group administrators and the students. Gadzhi and three other admins regularly answer questions and celebrate wins of their members. It starts with a warm welcome when you make your first post, and it continues as you get more involved.
One particular administrator, Esteban, is an essential part of this community. He specializes in sales, which is what most SMMA owners struggle with. As a moderator, his comments augment and verify the lessons from the course. Esteban continuously keeps the group upbeat and positive to push members to complete the course and make more sales.
Also, members often collaborate with each other to practice sales calls. Some even go into business together. We’re all moving in the same direction. It’s comforting to know that a cheerful legion of peers and attentive administrators are there to help you succeed. Just the community support component alone is worth the sticker price of the course. (And in my humble opinion, this is the prime reason why people who just get the course fail at their SMMA.). Six Figure SMMA Score: 9/10
Student post in Iman Gadzhi’s “Six Figure SMMA” FB group.
4.GROUP OR INDIVIDUAL MENTORING: High-end courses often have mentoring available for students. This is a difficult task since it takes lots of time and differentiating for each student. Instructors that want to put up a course and never touch it again because they think students will serve themselves don’t last long. The art of teaching involves truly connecting with people. Online that includes occasionally checking in.
Student negligence in itself is a terrible situation. Far too often I’ve clicked on an ad, listened to a webinar, and bought into all the hype of a great course. After the sale, all I heard was crickets. I’d get an email to access the online course, and a prompt to join a private Facebook group. Then every few days, I’d get an email from the seller to buy yet another item.
Automation has disintegrated human connection.
Luckily, the best entrepreneurs understand how to merge automation with customer support. This is ideal regarding group and individual mentoring. When I ordered Six Figure SMMA, I got a very nice welcoming video. I know everyone was sent the same video, but it was nice that after the sale I was acknowledged. From there, Gadzhi instructed students on the next steps and what to expect. From the very beginning, I could tell that he had a “No SMMA Owner Left Behind’ attitude. The guidance and mentoring never ends, you just have to keep showing up.
Also in his course, Gadzhi takes the time every two weeks to have a Q and A session. These are live calls where any member can chime in and ask their most pressing questions. Lots of members get excited about this and the turnout is impressive. There are so many people, you wonder if he’ll ever get to your question but he usually does.
After a while, I noticed a lot of the people asked the same kind of question over and over. Also, since Gadzhi is being bombarded with these questions, he usually can’t go very deep with them. However, these sessions are still valuable. You can always watch the video replay and skip parts that don’t apply to you. It’s also a fantastic way for Gadzhi to keep in touch with his tribe and discover where people are getting stuck. Six Figure SMMA Score: 8/10
5.ONGOING EDUCATION: Industry knowledge constantly changes. Just as lawyers have CLE (Continuing Legal Education) units to keep their licenses and practices up to date, SMMA owners have a form of that too. For example, how do agencies handle new provisions regarding Value-Added Tax (VAT)? A lot of these things come up after a course has been created.
Sometimes you see these inquiries pop up randomly in the private Facebook group or live calls. The best courses organize these updates better because not knowing this information affects the bottom line. The last thing you want to do is ignore a Facebook policy and get your client’s account banned. (And Facebook policies change quite frequently.)
Six Figure SMMA needs a specific section where they address this, and they should update it regularly. Instead, it’s a bonus module in the course — but again, things change. They could create a simple Google Doc and update it. I’ve been a part of groups where they don’t create a section for this, but instead they send out an email regarding a new policy change from Facebook. It’s like a friendly FYI email. If they start getting a lot of questions about it, they hold a live meeting to show how others are handling the new policy. Six Figure SMMA Score: 7/10
Student post in Iman Gadzhi’s “Six Figure SMMA” FB group. | Strayed Marketing: http://bit.ly/2OYOkMU)
6.RETURN ON INVESTMENT: After it is all said and done, can you take the training from a course and actually make money? This is where a lot of courses (and universities) fall drastically short. If I take a course for a thousand dollars, I want to at least 5X it. That is, I want to make $5,000 minimum. A great course would 10X my money because of all the time and effort I put into it. While college-educated millennials are still waiting for their ROI, Six Figure SMMA delivers on the promise. If you do the work, it will generate money for you.
Students in this course have definitely started making money within the first couple weeks. There are countless testimonials about that and since I know the people personally, I’m a believer. This is the #1 goal and purpose of the course: to make money with an SMMA.
There are many reasons why someone wouldn’t make money with this course. They could be the wrong fit for the business model. They could be trapped by various kinds of fear. Their learning style may not be suited for online learning. They could even be in the wrong mental space to create a business. The reasons (and sometimes, excuses) go on. However, for those willing to do the work this is at least a 10X course. Six Figure SMMA Score: 8/10
7.MINDSET: I have always thought that the key to succeeding in anything comes down to your mindset. Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky maintains the same notion in her book The How Of Happiness: The Scientific Approach To Getting The Life You Want. In it, Lyubomirsky declares that 40% of your happiness is determined by the activities you choose to do. You might not be able to control your circumstances (10%) or your genetic set point (50%), but you can control your actions. In order to take the right actions, your mind must be in a good place. You have to control your thoughts and insist on doing the right things. Actions don’t always follow thoughts, but the two obviously work well together.
Similarly in a Harvard study (Opportunity Insights), several economists formally demonstrated that one of the key features to succeeding is one’s environment. When children were in a good neighborhood and a culture of excellence was fortified daily, nearly everyone was successful.
This was a huge part of Six Figure SMMA. The course, the peer support, the administrators, and Gadzhi himself always stressed a positive mindset. An ideal environment and cultural mindset were carefully nurtured online: All the members had to do was to keep taking action. If people failed at SMMA, it was due to something deeper about their personality or mindset. A course can’t solve everything, but those ready to succeed had it all with this course. And for those who keep getting in their way, Gadzhi addressed that directly in his other course Kaizen Cure. It was designed to get your mind straight and instill the kinds of habits to succeed at any endeavor. Six Figure SMMA Score: 9/10
Student post in Iman Gadzhi’s “Six Figure SMMA” FB group. | Find Liaison: http://bit.ly/2IguigH
8.MISSION: Business opportunities come and go. Great mentors come and go too. The most interesting thing about Gadzhi is not his portfolio of businesses or effective mentorship programs. Deep down, I think many people gravitate to Gadzhi because he is relatable and inspiring.
The facts about his life are both heartbreaking and remarkable.
What I know is that he comes from a single-parent home. When he was young, his family moved from Russia to England: a big transition both physically and psychologically. And as part of his personal branding, we hear about how he dropped out of school when he was seventeen. Furthermore, he shares his first efforts at trying to make money online. He dabbled with businesses around fitness and relationships. None of them worked out.
Gadzhi was clearly struggling.
In one interview, he briefly talked about the negative environment in his home. He was subject to arguments, put-downs, and grief. As a teenager, this only compounds all the daily challenges to face. When you’re growing up and you’re being told that you’re never going to amount to anything, that cuts deeply. A lot of teenagers feel like this to a greater or lesser degree.
Despite all of this, Gadzhi managed to pull himself together. He started reading more books. He devoured inspiring material from entrepreneurs like Ed Mylett, Aubrey Marcus, and Sam Ovens.
After working with a close mentor and doing a little soul-searching he discovered his life’s mission. It’s very personal because of his past. When I first learned about it, I have to say I was incredulous.
Gadzhi wants to change the broken education system.
He’s not wrong for trying, and I think he has figured out a better way. Through his courses and mentoring, thousands of students have created ethical businesses that help them live a better life on their own terms. Six Figure SMMA Score: 9/10 | https://medium.com/swlh/my-experience-taking-the-1-social-media-marketing-agency-smma-course-by-iman-gadzhi-a86a9c2acc24 | ['Arlie'] | 2020-11-25 19:28:25.190000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Education', 'Smma', 'Startup'] |
Reading picks — Google, travel trends, connected trip, and travel agents | Every day, we see all sorts of new articles from the travel industry. Many of them are interesting. Every two weeks, the number of new articles amounts to exactly one gazillion. So to save you from having to read it all (and to make it easier for you), we do it for you. And we cherry-pick the ones that caught our eye and share them with you. These are the articles from the last two weeks.
Beating Google
Both Booking.com and Expedia are focusing on improving the brand messaging to increase brand loyalty. Since Google keeps slithering in the travel industry, the OTAs need to up the ante and make customers actually loyal to them. First article is on Booking, second on Expedia.
https://skift.com/2020/02/20/skift-forum-europe-preview-booking-coms-top-marketing-exec-vows-to-unify-messaging/
https://skift.com/2020/02/13/expedia-chairman-barry-diller-rips-his-bloated-company-as-all-life-no-work/
Travel trends
Travel industry is adapting to new trends as well, using technology to increase efficiency and more importantly to improve the customer experience. Today it’s also a must if you want to keep up with the competition.
https://www.revfine.com/technology-trends-travel-industry/
Connected trip
Interesting thoughts about getting to the Holy Grail of OTAs: the connected trip.
https://www.destinationcto.com/2020/02/5-thoughts-on-executing-a-connected-trip-strategy/
Travel agents still relevant
Many people prefer to organize vacations on their own but using service can be a game-changer and at the end can save money and a lot of stress.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/4-scenarios-when-you-should-use-a-travel-agent/ | https://medium.com/daytrip-insights/reading-picks-google-travel-trends-connected-trip-travel-agen-8bcfc0b86554 | [] | 2020-02-21 09:24:40.570000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'News', 'Google', 'Business', 'Traveling'] |
Engadget reviews the $130 Sony XB700 wireless earbuds | Engadget reviews the $130 Sony XB700 wireless earbuds
Looking to capture a broader audience beyond the premium market, in early April, Sony unveiled the WF-XB700 wireless earbuds. Priced at $130, the XB700 obviously lacks features found in the well-reviewed 1000XM3, like noise-cancellation, but do offer their own unique characteristics, like being the first truly wireless earbuds from the company to carry the EXTRA BASS branding.
So is the more affordable XB700 worth your money or are you better off spending $100 more to get the 1000XM3? Billy Steele tackled that in his review on Engadget.
Sony’s Extra Bass line has long been a haven for listeners who want their headphones to have more low-end tone. We’re not necessarily talking early Beats levels of boom here, but there is a noticeable difference between the tuning on these and the company’s “core” lineup. […] Since reproducing punchy bass can be a struggle in this type of earbuds, it’s nice to see Sony bring its low end expertise to field. Plus it’s doing so while keeping the price low. […] Thankfully, the sound is respectable out of the box. As you might expect, it doesn’t have quite the range and dimensionality that the WF-1000XM3 offers, but it’s solid nonetheless. And when someone kicks a bass drum or a drum machine delivers a sonic punch, the WF-XB700 does a respectable job beaming that into your ears. The synth-laden beats of Purity Ring, Phantogram and Sylvan Esso ring full and clear. There’s not just noticeably more bass, there’s detail to it. Sustained chords drone in waves and the kick drums boom and pop with life.
I’m not saying sound doesn’t matter at more entry-level price points, but it’s typically not a priority. Good enough is often, well, good enough, so it’s great to hear (pun intended) that the XB700 earbuds offer more than good enough audio.
Instead of touch controls on the outside of the earbuds or physical ones along the top, Sony chose to put a single, tiny button on the bottom edge on both sides. Despite only having a single button, you still have a full range of controls. On the left, you press once to increase the volume and press-and-hold to turn it down. On the right, press once to play/pause, press twice to skip tracks forward and press three times to skip tracks backward. A press-and-hold on the right earbud will summon the voice assistant of your choice. And lastly that button on the right side is used to answer and end calls. The WF-XB700 doesn’t have ANC or an ambient sound mode, so these controls cover everything that’s available without reaching for your phone. They’re not only simple, but they’re also reliable. I didn’t have any trouble getting those tricky double and triple clicks to register accurately.
To me, control features like this stem from an engineering mentality of the ’90s. Is anyone going to actually remember all the different clicks required to make your headphones do what you want, or is it easier to pull out your phone or raise your watch and tap a few times to raise the volume or change the track? Plus, while in motion, I find the interaction cumbersome, though I equally feel weird when I’m in public and fidgeting around with my headphones on my ear to make something happen. In my opinion it draws too much attention and comes off pretentious, but maybe that’s my social anxiety shining through.
One of the best features of the higher-end WF-1000XM3 is the ability to adjust everything from noise cancellation to the EQ inside Sony’s Headphones app. This isn’t unique to Sony earbuds as several companies offer companion apps with similar functionality. Unfortunately, the WF-XB700 don’t work with the app. It’s not just that some features aren’t available either. These earbuds won’t even connect with the software. That means any customization is out the window.
This is where tech reviewers often get lost in the weeds. Is this a nice feature to have? I guess, but I’d be willing to bet that a single-digit percentile of owners uses it. This is even more true when the headphones are entry-level and positioned for everyone and not the elite who care about LDAC and other nonsense.¹
The WF-XB700 also doesn’t automatically pause when you take them out of your ear, which is a slightly bigger nuisance than some of the other omissions.
A lack of auto-pause/play, however, is a terrible omission. Once you’re used to the idea of removing your headphones and having your music or movie pause, there’s no going back.
With the WF-XB700, Sony promises up to nine hours of battery life on a charge. That’s three hours longer than the WF-1000XM3. I eked out eight hours and 15 minutes during the course of my testing. That’s well within the stated range considering the volume at which I typically listen to music. The only downside is that the included charging case only offers one full charge. With most of the competition, you get at least two (sometimes more) additional charges. Still, 18 hours is a decent amount of listening before you have to plug in the whole set to recharge. And if you’re in a hurry, a 10-minute charge will give you an hour of use.
Short of flying, I don’t see this as a problem, whatsoever. Frankly, even 8+ hours is more than adequate for most, so the fact that you can double that via the carrying case and placing them inside for 10min gets you another hour should satisfy nearly everyone. | https://sonyreconsidered.com/engadget-reviews-the-130-sony-xb700-wireless-earbuds-c73479f6ea5a | ['Sohrab Osati'] | 2020-05-11 20:52:51.224000+00:00 | ['Sony', 'Headphones', 'Airpods', 'Mobile', 'Audio'] |
What is price elasticity, and how does price optimization work? | Have you ever wondered how product prices are determined? How do large corporations (i.e. Hotel.com, Amazon, or American Airlines) decide on the right price for their products? Whether that product is an airline ticket, an insurance policy, or a loan. Companies have to use price optimization, as a vital tool for your pricing process.
Credit: Michael Byers
To best understand price optimization, we first need to understand a core concept of microeconomics: Price Elasticity.
What is price elasticity?
As the price increases, your demand for the orange juice decreases. If we plot this behavior the trend would appear as below:
The price elasticity for purchasing the orange juice is different for every point in the graph.
It can be calculated using the following formula:
We can see that the price elasticity at a price of $3 is -1. Then, for every 1% of price increase, the demand will drop by 1%. And at a price of $4.5 is -3. Then, for every 1% of price increase, the demand will drop by 3%.
What can we understand from the Price elasticity of demand?
When the customer has a high price elasticity, they are very sensitive to the change in price. Therefore, if we can set the price, we would aim towards the area where the price elasticity is lower in absolute terms. In our example: around $3. Based on the price elasticity and other factors, we can build a demand model that estimates the probability of buying the product. Now that we have a grasp of what price elasticity is, we have a solid foundation to dive into price optimization…
What is price optimization?
Price optimization will help us to understand how much to charge in order to maximize the profits of a given product.
Price optimization is based on two factors:
1. The behavior factor, also known as the demand model based on “Price Elasticity” — the customer’s sensitivity to change in price.
2. The profitability factor: how much potential profit the company can earn from selling this product at a given price.
Let us look at the following example: Rebecca is 30 years old, and she wants to take a $10,000 loan to replace her car. She went to shop around for a loan from different banks and settled on her local branch.
Rebecca’s demand vs APR
The upper graph represents Rebecca’s change in demand for the change in the price of the loan (APR). We observe that her demand decreases at different rates as the price of the loan increases; this relative change in demand represents her price elasticity.
The bank’s profit vs in profit APR
This graph represents the bank’s change in profit as a result of the change in the price of the loan (APR). The bank’s profit increases for every increase in APR.
Back to our story, the bank’s initial offer was a loan with an 8 % annual interest rate for ten years. If Rebecca closes this deal, the bank will make a $2180 profit (in the diagrams above: the purple circle represents this initial offer).
We can observe that there is a trade-off between these two factors: on the one hand, as we increase the annual interest rate the probability for Rebecca to close the deal decreases, but on the other hand, as the interest rate increases the expected profit for the bank increases.
How do we solve this trade-off?
First, the bank evaluated Rebeca’s Price elasticity of demand at 8% APR. Her price elasticity was considered very high [-5], in other words, she was not likely to take the loan. therefore the bank decided to lower the price of the loan. But for how much should they lower the price?
The bank will formulate it’s expected profit. The bank will do this by multiplying Rebecca’s probability of closing the deal by the bank’s profit.
If the bank wants to maximize the profit from Rebecca, it will be better to offer her a loan with a lower interest rate of 6.5 %, as opposed to 8%.
The bank’s expected profit vs APR
If the bank offers her a loan with 6.5%, her probability of closing the deal will rise, and the bank’s profit will decrease to $1,760 from $2,180, but the bank’s expected profit will increase to from $872 to $1,068.
Now the bank needs to repeat this process and calculate the expected profit for every customer. Therefore, for some customers, the bank will increase the APR, and for other customers, the bank will reduce the APR, as we saw in Rebecca’s case.
If the bank builds a robust “demand model” it will increase it’s profits.
Summary: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/what-is-price-elasticity-and-how-does-price-optimization-work-2004c99e397c | ['Roy Swisa'] | 2020-07-04 16:42:07.208000+00:00 | ['Financial Planning', 'Price Analysis', 'Banking Technology', 'Data Science', 'Fintech'] |
Create Variety for Small Area Rugs. | Line up the pattern of the other Small Area rugs and tape the rugs together as closely as possible. Make sure the carpet’s edge is aligned first. You can always fake the remainder if necessary. Then, to make the carpets appear as seamless as possible, press them together. If your area is limited, consider utilizing light-colored carpeting to give the illusion of greater space. Many people get caught up with having an identical shade match when it comes to color matching. However, colors should not match exactly. The golden guideline is to use colors that are close in tone. It will all come together beautifully. A threshold made of wood or stone is the best transition strip between different types of carpeting. To connect the two types of carpet, install a strip the width of the door or wall opening. The outcome is a distinct edge that gives your space a professional appearance.
Are you able to sew carpets together?
Place the rugs, right sides facing in, one on top of the other. Sew the two rugs together with a straight stitch, making sure the cut edges are aligned. Then, with the backside facing up, open the rugs that have been sewed together. To make the seam lay flat, open it up and sew a wide zigzag stitch over it. | https://medium.com/@ooptech123/create-variety-for-small-area-rugs-9ded2e8aa6c8 | [] | 2021-12-17 15:59:56.470000+00:00 | ['Furniture', 'Rugs', 'Lighting'] |
Ray Illingworth dies at 89 | Between 1958 and 1973, Illingworth appeared in 61 Tests for England.
In the 1990s, he was chair of selecting an England trainer.
According to the Yorkshire Cricket Club, Ray Illingworth, the former England skipper, died on Saturday at the age of 89. Illingworth had been having radiotherapy for oesophagal cancer and was one of the few individuals to guide England to a Test series win in Australia in 1970–71.
Illingworth played 61 Tests between 1958 and 1973, scoring 1,836 runs at an average of 23.24 and capturing 122 wickets at a scoring rate of 31.20. He led England to victory in 12 of his 31 appearances as captain.
Between 1994 and 1996, Illingworth served as the head of England’s selectors and captained the squad in 1995–96.
His cricketing abilities were evident early in his life when he averaged more than 100 with the bat for his school and showed ability as a medium-pace bowler before switching to spin. He took several wickets for little runs with both deliveries.
He was also a promising player who could play for Huddersfield Town and Bradford City, two local teams. However, his skills with a tiny, hard red ball for Farsley in the Yorkshire League rapidly drew the notice of Yorkshire county coaches. He stood out for Yorkshire’s second XI and earned his first XI appearance just after his 19th birthday.
Between 1959 and 1968, Illingworth rose through the ranks of a brilliant Yorkshire team that won seven county tournaments in ten years, three of which he captained.
Illingworth was advised to “bugger off” when he asked for a three-year agreement despite his on-field success. Leicestershire quickly grabbed his services and declared him captain. Following an injury to England captain Colin Cowdrey, Illingworth has named his replacement.
He returned to Yorkshire later, primarily as head coach, but he also attempted to come back as a player at the age of 50 in 1982. The time was plagued by controversy involving the dismissal of Geoffrey Boycott as captain by Illingworth. Boycott’s followers would extract vengeance by seizing control of the Yorkshire committee, ending Illingworth’s career in Yorkshire.
From his debut in 1951 until his final appearance in 1983, his first-class career lasted 32 years.
In 1960, he was voted Wisden Cricketer of the Year after scoring 24,134 first-class runs and taking 2,072 wickets.
He will be recognised as one of the country’s top leaders when he is at his best. The away Ashes victory over Australia in 1970–71 was a milestone. If he hadn’t been enticed back to prominence as England’s chairman of selectors in 1994, it would have been a fitting end.
He stepped aboard what was effectively a sinking ship, with strong expectations that his keen sense of the game and straightforward approach would turn things around.
Instead, his time was a disaster, with frequent clashes with captain Michael Atherton. Illingworth tried to tell his side of the storey in his book One-Man Committee but was accused of taking the game into disgrace and fined £2,000 for remarks against bowler Devon Malcolm. The fine was overturned on appeal.
Illingworth, who was known for being combative and never afraid to speak his views, struggled to interact with most England players as a manager.
On Saturday night, England and Wales Cricket Board executive chairman Tom Harrison expressed gratitude to Illingworth, saying that It is always tremendously painful to lose a person who has done so much to the English game and the sport of cricket in general.
Ray was a fantastic cricketer, and his love, enthusiasm, and understanding of the game allowed him to keep contributing long after his playing days were over. They express their condolences and best wishes to Ray’s friends and family at this sad time.
Yorkshire paid tribute to the club’s most accomplished skipper in recent times. Ray Illingworth died suddenly, and the county said in a message that it was profoundly grieved to know of his death. His performance at the county level was matched on the international stage when he captained England for a long time.
Ray’s family and the larger Yorkshire family who held Ray in such high regard are in their thoughts.
Everyone at Leicestershire County Cricket Club is genuinely, very saddened to learn of the death of team captain Ray Illingworth, as per the club. At this terrible moment, their prayers are with Illy’s relatives.
Illingworth was an honorary life member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, which was “extremely sad” to learn of his passing.
According to Farsley Cricket Club, Cricket has lost a terrific man, for whom Illingworth continued to prepare pitches for several times.
Illingworth performed for Yorkshire from 1951 to 1968, taking them to three consecutive County Championship triumphs in his final three years before entering Leicestershire in 1969 and remaining there until 1978.
He returned to Yorkshire as a squad manager before returning as a player in 1982, at the age of 50.
Shirley Illingworth, Illingworth’s spouse, died of cancer previously this year, and Illingworth had indicated sympathy for reforms to the law regarding assisted dying.
He doesn’t want to go through what his wife has gone through in the previous year. He stated She was in excruciating pain as she was transferred from hospital to hospital.
It’s not worth it to believe in assisted death. There was no joy in life in the previous 12 months because of his wife’s condition, and he doesn’t see the sense of living like that, to be truthful.
However, because assisted dying is not yet in existence in England, they do not have options. They discuss it, and He believes it will happen sooner or later.
Many physicians are opposed to it, and they’d have to live as the Illingworth’s wife did in her final 12 months; they may reconsider.
In November 2021, he had revealed that he was receiving treatment for esophageal cancer. He had lost his wife due to cancer earlier in the year. | https://medium.com/@pathankhan12255/ray-illingworth-dies-at-89-b9e2e5afc89d | [] | 2021-12-27 13:21:44.651000+00:00 | ['India', 'Bbl', 'Australia', 'Cricket', 'Test'] |
COUSERA Machine Learning Week06 | 5週目の記事もあるので良かったら読んでみてください。
Evaluating a Learning Algorithm
この章では、機械学習してできた仮説をどのように評価するかを説明します。
Evaluating a Hypothesis
この節では、まず機械学習の結果をどのように評価するかを説明します。直感的には、仮説 h(x) をプロットして何が起きているかを見てみるということを考えると思います。 しかし、多くのフィーチャーがある問題に対しては仮説をプロットするのが 難しかったり、時には不可能だったりします。なので、仮説評価する他の手段が必要です。
その手段として有効なのが、データセットを2つに分ける方法です。 最初の部分は通常のトレーニングセットとして扱い、残りの部分はテストセットとして扱います。おおよそ、7:3の比率になるようにデータセットをランダムにトレーニング用と、テスト用に分けます。そして、トレーニング用のデータセットを使って、今まで通りに機械学習を行い仮説 h(x) を得ます。その後、テスト用のデータセットを使って、その仮説の誤差を計算します。その際に、用いる数式も機械学習を実行する時に使ったコスト関数と同じです。下記に、線形回帰とロジスティック回帰の場合の誤差の計算方法を示します。
線形回帰のコスト関数
ロジスティック回帰のコスト関数
この誤差を計算して、自分たちの目的に合う精度の仮説を得るように改善を加えていきます。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
Once we have done some trouble shooting for errors in our predictions by: - Getting more training examples
- Trying smaller sets of features
- Trying additional features
- Trying polynomial features
- Increasing or decreasing λ We can move on to evaluate our new hypothesis. A hypothesis may have a low error for the training examples but still be inaccurate (because of overfitting). Thus, to evaluate a hypothesis, given a dataset of training examples, we can split up the data into two sets: a training set and a test set. Typically, the training set consists of 70 % of your data and the test set is the remaining 30 %. The new procedure using these two sets is then: 1. Learn Θ and minimize Jtrain(Θ) using the training set
2. Compute the test set error Jtest(Θ) The test set error 1. For linear regression
2. For classification ~ Misclassification error (aka 0/1 misclassification error):
This gives us a binary 0 or 1 error result based on a misclassification. The average test error for the test set is:
This gives us the proportion of the test data that was misclassified.
Model Selection and Train/Validation/Test Sets
この節では、何次の多項式を使うかを判定する方法を説明します。この問題をモデル選択問題と呼びます。モデル選択問題では、一般的にデータセットをトレーニングセットとテストセットの二つに分割するだけでなく、データセットをトレーニングセット、クロスバリデーションセット、テストセットの三つに分割する方法をが使われます。だいたい、60%をトレーニングセット、20%をクロスバリデーションセット、20%をテストセットのように分割します。続いてそれぞれのデータセットがどのように使われるか説明します。
まず、トレーニングセットは前節と同様に、仮説を導出するために使います。ただ、この段階では何次の多項式を使うかを分かっていないので、考えられる多項式を虱潰しに計算して仮説を導出します。次に、どの多項式の精度が良いかを判定するために、クロスバリデーションセットを使って誤差を計算します。これは前節と同様に、コスト関数を使います。最後に、テストセットを用いて誤差を計算し、仮説の改善するための施策を実施します。
講義内では、たまにクロスバリデーションセットとテストセットに同一のデータセットを用いて行うケースがある言及されます。講義内でその方法は正しくなく、おすすめしないと教わります。理由としては、モデル選択問題にテストセットを使って、その後の誤差の計算にまたデータセットを使うのは公平に仮説を評価しているとは言えないからです。具体的に説明すると、データセットに合う多項式を選択したのだから、そのデータセットを使って誤差を最小化するのは、特定のデータセットに当てはまるオーバーフィッティングに繋がりやすいということです。なので、また別のデータセットであるクロスバリデーションセットを使って、モデル選択をします。その後、中立的なテストセットで仮説の評価をする。この3分割の方法を強く薦められました。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
Just because a learning algorithm fits a training set well, that does not mean it is a good hypothesis. It could over fit and as a result your predictions on the test set would be poor. The error of your hypothesis as measured on the data set with which you trained the parameters will be lower than the error on any other data set. Given many models with different polynomial degrees, we can use a systematic approach to identify the ‘best’ function. In order to choose the model of your hypothesis, you can test each degree of polynomial and look at the error result. One way to break down our dataset into the three sets is: - Training set: 60%
- Cross validation set: 20%
- Test set: 20% We can now calculate three separate error values for the three different sets using the following method: 1. Optimize the parameters in Θ using the training set for each polynomial degree.
2. Find the polynomial degree d with the least error using the cross validation set.
3. Estimate the generalization error using the test set with Jtest(Θ(d)), (d = theta from polynomial with lower error); This way, the degree of the polynomial d has not been trained using the test set.
Bias vs. Variance
この章では、評価した仮説をどのように改善するのかを説明します。
Diagnosing Bias vs. Variance
この節では、テストセットを用いて、仮説がアンダーフィッティングしているのか、オーバーフィッティングしているのかを見分ける方法を説明します。学習アルゴリズムを走らせて期待ほど良い結果で無ければ、だいたいその原因は高いバイアス問題か、高い分散問題のどちらかです。言い換えると、それはアンダーフィット問題かオーバーフィット問題のどちらかということです。そしてこの場合、これらの問題のどちらなのかを 見分けるのは凄く重要です。何故なら、どちらの問題なのか次第で、対応する改善策が異なるからです。そして、その判定にはトレーニングセットの誤差とクロスバリデーションセットの誤差を使って判定します。
上記の図は、次元数と誤算（コスト関数）のグラフです。上記のように、トレーニングセットとクロスバリデーションセットの両方の誤差が高い時は高バイアスであり、アンダーフィッティングしている状態です。一方、クロスバリデーションセットの誤差は小さいが、トレーニングセットの誤差がクロスバリデーションセットの誤差と比べて大きい時は、高分散であり、オーバーフィッティングしている状態です。このように、アンダーフィッティングとオーバーフィッティングを見分けます。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
In this section we examine the relationship between the degree of the polynomial d and the underfitting or overfitting of our hypothesis. - We need to distinguish whether bias or variance is the problem contributing to bad predictions.
- High bias is underfitting and high variance is overfitting. Ideally, we need to find a golden mean between these two. The training error will tend to decrease as we increase the degree d of the polynomial. At the same time, the cross validation error will tend to decrease as we increase d up to a point, and then it will increase as d is increased, forming a convex curve.
The is summarized in the figure below:
Regularization and Bias/Variance
この節では、オーバーフィッティングを防ぐための正則化の λ の選び方を説明します。まず、下記が正則化を考慮したコスト関数です。
λ の選び方の手順を下記に示します。
λ の候補を決める その候補に対して、正則化とトレーニングセットを使って各 λ に対するθ を決める 2で求めた θ を用いて、正則化なしでクロスバリデーションセットを用いて誤差を計算する 3の結果一番誤差が小さくなった λ を選ぶ
3 で正則化を用いないのは、単純にインプットとアウトプットの誤差が欲しいだけなので、正則化の項は不要です。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
In the figure above, we see that as λ increases, our fit becomes more rigid. On the other hand, as λ approaches 0, we tend to over overfit the data. So how do we choose our parameter λ to get it ‘just right’ ? In order to choose the model and the regularization term λ, we need to: 1. Create a list of lambdas (i.e. λ∈{0,0.01,0.02,0.04,0.08,0.16,0.32,0.64,1.28,2.56,5.12,10.24});
2. Create a set of models with different degrees or any other variants.
3. Iterate through the λs and for each λ go through all the models to learn some Θ.
4. Compute the cross validation error using the learned Θ (computed with λ) on the JCV(Θ) without regularization or λ = 0.
5. Select the best combo that produces the lowest error on the cross validation set.
6. Using the best combo Θ and λ, apply it on Jtest(Θ) to see if it has a good generalization of the problem.
Learning Curves
この節では学習曲線を説明します。学習曲線とは横軸にデータセット数として、トレーニングセットのコスト関数 Jtrain(θ) とクロスバリデーションセットのコスト関数 JCV(θ) をプロットしたグラフです。クロスバリデーションセットのコスト関数でなくて、テストセットのコスト関数 Jtest(θ) を使うことも可能です。学習曲線はプロットするとアルゴリズムがちゃんと機能しているの正当性チェックをしたい時や、アルゴリズムのパフォーマンスを改善したい時に役に立ちます。うまくできた仮説の学習曲線は、Jtrain(θ) と JCV(θ) が低い値に収束するようなグラフになります。
一方で、上記のようなアンダーフィッティングしている学習曲線は、Jtrain(θ) と JCV(θ) が高い値で、一定になっています。この場合、グラフから見ても分かる通り、データセット数を増やしてもほぼ結果は横ばいになります。なので、根本的な解決策は、モデル選択からやり直すことです。
次に、上記のようなオーバーフィッティングしている学習曲線は、Jtrain(θ) と JCV(θ) の間に大きな差が生まれます。これは、データセット数が増えれば収束していくのが見えるので、モデル選択をするよりもデータセット数を増やすことをした方が精度を上げることができます。混乱を防ぐために補足しておくと、J(θ) と Jtrain(θ) は同じくトレーニングセットを使っていますが、J(θ) は正則化の項を含み、Jtrain(θ) は正則化の項を含みません。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
Training an algorithm on a very few number of data points (such as 1, 2 or 3) will easily have 0 errors because we can always find a quadratic curve that touches exactly those number of points. Hence: - As the training set gets larger, the error for a quadratic function increases.
- The error value will plateau out after a certain m, or training set size. Experiencing high bias: Low training set size: causes Jtrain(Θ) to be low and JCV(Θ) to be high.
Large training set size: causes both Jtrain(Θ) and JCV(Θ) to be high with Jtrain(Θ) ≈ JCV(Θ). If a learning algorithm is suffering from high bias, getting more training data will not (by itself) help much.
Experiencing high variance: Low training set size: Jtrain(Θ) will be low and JCV(Θ) will be high.
Large training set size: Jtrain(Θ) increases with training set size and JCV(Θ) continues to decrease without leveling off. Also, Jtrain(Θ) < JCV(Θ) but the difference between them remains significant. If a learning algorithm is suffering from high variance, getting more training data is likely to help.
Deciding What to Do Next Revisited
この節では、どのような対応をして仮説を修正するのか説明し、それをニューラルネットワークへどのように応用するのかを説明します。まずはオーバーフィッティングとアンダーフィッティングした場合の対応策を下記に列挙します。
オーバーフィッティング
データセット数を増やす
特徴量を減らす
λ を大きくする
アンダーフィッティング
特徴量を増やす
仮説の次数を増やす
λ を小さくする
また、ニューラルネットワークにおいて学習曲線は、線形回帰やロジスティック回帰と同様に使うことができます。なので、学習曲線からオーバーフィッティングしているかアンダーフィッティングしているか判断することができます。また、ニューラルネットワークでは、隠れレイヤーや隠れユニット数を減らすとアンダーフィッティングしやすいです。逆に、隠れレイヤーや隠れユニット数を増やすと多くのパラメーターを持つことと同義でオーバーフィッティングしやすいです。ただ、ニューラルネットワークにおいては、隠れレイヤーや隠れユニット数を減らしてオーバーフィッティングを解決するよりも、正則化を用いてオーバーフィッティングを解決するほうが効果的なことが多いです。ただ、注意しなくてはならないのは、隠れレイヤーや隠れユニット数が多いほど計算量が増えるので、処理が遅くなるという問題が別にあります。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます。
Our decision process can be broken down as follows: - Getting more training examples: Fixes high variance
- Trying smaller sets of features: Fixes high variance
- Adding features: Fixes high bias
- Adding polynomial features: Fixes high bias
- Decreasing λ: Fixes high bias
- Increasing λ: Fixes high variance. Diagnosing Neural Networks - A neural network with fewer parameters is prone to underfitting. It is also computationally cheaper.
- A large neural network with more parameters is prone to overfitting. It is also computationally expensive. In this case you can use regularization (increase λ) to address the overfitting. Using a single hidden layer is a good starting default. You can train your neural network on a number of hidden layers using your cross validation set. You can then select the one that performs best. Model Complexity Effects: - Lower-order polynomials (low model complexity) have high bias and low variance. In this case, the model fits poorly consistently.
- Higher-order polynomials (high model complexity) fit the training data extremely well and the test data extremely poorly. These have low bias on the training data, but very high variance.
- In reality, we would want to choose a model somewhere in between, that can generalize well but also fits the data reasonably well.
Machine Learning System Design
この章では、機械学習を実装する際に遭遇する問題の対処について説明します。数学的というよりはどちらかと言うとティップスのような感じです。
Error Analysis
機械学習のモデルを実装後に、それをどのように改善していくのかはとても大事なことです。そして、闇雲に時間をかけるのではなく、適材適所に時間を割くをことが望ましいです。その際に、役に立つのが3つのティップスを説明します。
まず一つは、クロスバリデーションセットを使ってモデルを評価します。その評価結果の間違ったデータセットを人力で見て、法則性を見つけ出す方法です。これによって、新しいフィーチャーをデザインする手助けになったり、 現在のシステムの短所などを教えてくれたりします。ここで、前章と同様にテストセットで行わずに、クロスバリデーションセットを使うことで、最終評価ようのテストセットに最適化するのを防ぎます。
次に、モデルを評価する数値設定をします。単一の実数値による評価指標があれば、 単にそれを見て、改善したのか改悪したのかを判断できます。そして、それを用いて、より素早く、 新しいアイデアを試す事が出来ます。この評価指標がないと、意思決定を行う時に良くなるのか、悪くなるのかを見るのが 難しくなってしまいます。簡単なところで言うとクロスバリデーションセットの誤差などから始めると良いと思います。下記の記事のように、高精度な分類問題を解いている場合は、適合率や再現率などを評価指標にします。
最後に、とにかく素早く雑にプロトタイプを実装するということです。一般的に、最初の早くて汚いはずの実装に時間をかけすぎるということがよくあります。「手早すぎる」や「汚すぎる」は心配しなくて良いです。そうでは無く、自分の出来るかぎり早く、 何かしらを実装することを心がけます。そして、ひとたび最初の実装を得たなら、その次にあなたが 何に時間を使うべきかを決定するとてもパワフルなツールになります。何故なら、まずそれの出力するエラーを見て、この種のエラー分析を行って何が誤りを生んでいるのかを見て、それを使ってさらなる開発をインスパイアしていけるからです。
もし、早くて汚い実装が、 単一実数の評価指標と共に用いる事が出来たなら、これは様々なアイデアを行き来する大きな手助けになってくれます。 そして素早く別々のアイデアが、 アルゴリズムのパフォーマンスを改善するかを 試していく事を可能にしてくれて、ゆえに、何は要らないか、 何はアルゴリズムと共に使うと良いかを 素早く意思決定していく事を 可能にしてくれます。
最後の方は、僕がデザインスクールで学んでいるようなことを書きましたが、改めてプロトタイプの大切さを痛感します。また、デザインスクールではそんなに効果計測の観点を学ばないので、評価指標を持つということにハッとさせれれました。
最後にこの節のサマリーを載せておきます
System Design Example: Given a data set of emails, we could construct a vector for each email. Each entry in this vector represents a word. The vector normally contains 10,000 to 50,000 entries gathered by finding the most frequently used words in our data set. If a word is to be found in the email, we would assign its respective entry a 1, else if it is not found, that entry would be a 0. Once we have all our x vectors ready, we train our algorithm and finally, we could use it to classify if an email is a spam or not.
So how could you spend your time to improve the accuracy of this classifier? - Collect lots of data (for example “honeypot” project but doesn’t always work)
- Develop sophisticated features (for example: using email header data in spam emails)
- Develop algorithms to process your input in different ways (recognizing misspellings in spam). It is difficult to tell which of the options will be most helpful. The recommended approach to solving machine learning problems is to: - Start with a simple algorithm, implement it quickly, and test it early on your cross validation data.
- Plot learning curves to decide if more data, more features, etc. are likely to help.
- Manually examine the errors on examples in the cross validation set and try to spot a trend where most of the errors were made. For example, assume that we have 500 emails and our algorithm misclassifies a 100 of them. We could manually analyze the 100 emails and categorize them based on what type of emails they are. We could then try to come up with new cues and features that would help us classify these 100 emails correctly. Hence, if most of our misclassified emails are those which try to steal passwords, then we could find some features that are particular to those emails and add them to our model. We could also see how classifying each word according to its root changes our error rate:
It is very important to get error results as a single, numerical value. Otherwise it is difficult to assess your algorithm’s performance. For example if we use stemming, which is the process of treating the same word with different forms (fail/failing/failed) as one word (fail), and get a 3% error rate instead of 5%, then we should definitely add it to our model. However, if we try to distinguish between upper case and lower case letters and end up getting a 3.2% error rate instead of 3%, then we should avoid using this new feature. Hence, we should try new things, get a numerical value for our error rate, and based on our result decide whether we want to keep the new feature or not.
最後に今週の分の宿題のコードを載せておきます。今週は数学的に簡単だったのですぐに終わりました。 | https://medium.com/@atsss/cousera-machine-learning-week06-ef7297c76e19 | ['Atsushi Ito'] | 2020-12-07 15:17:43.597000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Linear Regression', 'Logistic Regression'] |
Announcing Uniswap V3 on Optimism | Almost two years ago at DEVCON V in 2019, we collaborated with Uniswap to build Unipig Exchange, the first-ever demo of Optimistic Rollup.
Though just a proof of concept, it was a hit and started our journey towards building a general purpose solution that could scale any smart contract. Now, several mainnet deployments, several hundred thousand transactions and what feels like several lifetimes later, we’ve come full circle!
Today, the biggest dApp on Ethereum goes optimistic.
This is a chance for us to test the protocol in a controlled environment where we can prioritize user safety on novel software. Starting today, anybody can deposit, trade and provide liquidity using Uniswap V3 on OΞ. This does not mean that it’s time to ape in — in fact, we have explicit safeguards in place to prevent usage from skyrocketing — but it’s a next step we couldn’t be more excited to share!
First, let’s take a look at all the work done in the last 6 months that has made this possible:
Since we last launched…
We’ve made incredible progress in the last 6 months and want to share some of the new highlights:
Redesigned token bridge:
A redesigned token bridging system resulting from months of collaboration with the community (shoutouts below!) which allows us to flexibly and easily bridge new L1 assets into L2. At launch, the bridge supports DAI, WBTC, USDT, EURT, ETH, and SNX, with an interface for adding new assets soon to follow.
Infrastructural integrations:
We couldn’t have done this without the incredible suite of new infrastructure integrations to help make OΞ as powerful and versatile as L1 Ethereum, including:
Etherscan
Infura
Alchemy
Quicknode
The Graph
Truffle
Hardhat
Metamask
Coinbase Wallet
Imtoken wallet
Now before getting into how you can use Uniswap, be sure to understand the following information:
Important to know:
Fees
With this release, we are officially enforcing fees on Optimistic Ethereum. We have chosen a conservative target of 50,000 transactions per day at launch, to be targeted with an EIP1559-like congestion pricing mechanism, to be ramped up over time. You can read more here in this standalone post.
Potential for Unplanned Downtime
As with our previous Synthetix launch, one of our main goals with this release is to uncover new bugs and beef up our stability. We will be all hands on deck if the system goes down, but it could happen — this is an alpha system you should use at your own risk. You can check on network health at optimism.io/status.
Future Planned Downtime
As with our previous launch, we will retain a system upgrade multisig, and have at least one more upgrade to OΞ planned in a few months. We will communicate this well in advance, but during upgrades, transaction submission may go down for several hours, and history (not state) may be reset.
How to use it
Using Uniswap on OΞ is a simple matter of depositing your L1 assets into L2, and switching your wallet to interact with OΞ. Uniswap has put together a great detailed tutorial on the process — check it out!
Wowie zowie! How fast ;)
If you encounter any bugs, or have any questions please feel free to hit up #support in the Optimism discord.
What’s Next
This release is a huge milestone for us, and Ethereum at large, but it’s not over yet! After the Uniswap launch, our priorities are:
Validating system stability & accompanying bug fixes. Ramping up the TPS constraint as we gain confidence in stability. Preparing Optimistic Ethereum for open deployment.
We originally planned to enable arbitrary contract deployment later this month. Although we’re itching to flip the switch, we’ve decided against dropping all controls right out the gate. Instead, we’ll be keeping a liberal whitelist where any project that demonstrates responsible test coverage and a functioning Kovan deployment will be able to deploy. Information on requirements for whitelisting & updated integration documentation will be published in the coming weeks after the Uniswap deployment stabilizes. We are thankful and humbled by the community’s eagerness, but we must balance this with system security and stability with each new wave of usage.
With this release, we’ll also be making a firm push to share more frequent updates. It’s easy to get so focused on building and neglect sharing the incredible wins and progress we’re making beyond those who follow our github. Monday will mark the first release of the Highly Optimistic Dev Blog, a bi-weekly series sharing our latest updates, milestones, and accomplishments.
Sneak Peek: Next Project Launch — Chainlink and Kwenta
Synthetix’s upcoming Kwenta release includes Chainlink oracles and proper exchange functionality (link). Excitingly, we expect them to move off of testnet very soon, at which point Synths and LINK will also be tradable on L2 mainnet!
Gratitude & Shoutouts
Thanks to the incredible Synthetix community for your support as early adopters. Your communication, feedback, and patience has been instrumental helping OΞ become everything it needs to be. THANK YOU!!! ❤
Thanks to everyone in the community who helped along the way to our redesigned token bridging system, including the ETH magicians, Chris Kaczor, Kristijan Rebernišak, transmissions11, Alejandro Santander, David Mihal, Pete Kim.
On security, much gratitude to Protolambda, Sam Sun and Yoav Weiss for their sharp eyes and sharper brains. Thanks also to Scopelift and Georgios Konstantopoulos for their work in bringing this integration over the line!
And last but not least, we are so grateful to the Uniswap team for embarking on crazy experiments & pushing forward the cutting edge with us. | https://medium.com/@optimismpbc/announcing-uniswap-v3-on-optimism-6fb033398a11 | ['Ethereum Optimism'] | 2021-07-13 20:02:00.088000+00:00 | ['Optimism', 'Uniswap', 'Ethereum'] |
TV shows & cartoons for (and about) women | A list of quite new TV shows and cartoons that you will probably like if you’re a woman (that doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy them if you’re a man). I included only those that I’ve already watched and enjoyed.
Fleabag (2016–2019, 2 seasons)
Fleabag is a British drama-comedy show about the life of a young woman after a traumatic experience. Sounds boring, hah? Actually, these series are funny, clever, and touching. They’re all about how to be a girl ‒ tough, and scary, and hilarious, ‒ all at once. You may not like British humor but I’m sure you’ll like this extremely modern and complicated story. Also, you just mustn’t miss Andrew Scott (Moriarty) in the role of the priest in the second season.
2. Aggressive Retsuko (2017–2018, 2 seasons, Netflix)
I was looking for some crazy enough anime and discovered Aggretsuko. This cartoon is cute and so truthful. Main events are happening in the office but it’s more than anime about office life. The main character ‒ Retsuko the Red Panda ‒ is 25 years old, she is cute, single, and frustrated about work most of the time. She is questioning her dating life, trying to find a soulmate, a hobby, friends, and just deal with all grown-up shit. And when she is stressed and wants to give vent to her emotions (read: every day), she is going to karaoke and singing metal songs (what could be more crazy and cute than the red panda singing the death metal songs?)
3. Tuca & Bertie (2019 — …, 1 season)
This cartoon has a similar mood to Bojack Horseman (though I’m not a fan). ‘Tuca & Berties’ is about the friendship between two bird women who live in the same building. They’re both 30-year old, and this is almost the only thing that they have in common. Tuca is single, free-spirited, and unemployed, her friend Bertie has a good job and a nice boyfriend, and anxiety. It’s a women-led cartoon about funny stuff in life, relationship, mental health, and the pitfalls of adults.
4. Why Women Kill (2019 — …, 1 season)
‘Why Women Kill’ is a comedy-drama. It tells three stories about three women ‒ from the 1960s, 1980s, and 2019 ‒ and problems in their marriages. Here’s everything I like ‒ good cast, witty dialogues, overall positive mood. This show made me laugh in my room in the middle of the night because it’s so addictive that I didn’t want to sleep. One of the best shows I watched recently, strongly recommended.
5. Big Little Lies (2017 — …, 2 seasons)
These TV series are based on the book of the same name by Liane Moriarty (I highly recommend reading). It’s a great crime drama that is funny, smart, and scary. I like all characters and cast of the first season but the second one is weaker in terms of almost everything. One of the best roles of Reese Witherspoon in my opinion, beautiful sceneries, and keen dialogues won’t leave you indifferent.
6. Killing Eve (2018 — …, 3 seasons)
The spy drama mostly about the relationship between the officer and the killer that I watched because everybody was talking about it. I couldn’t say that I liked it a lot. Yes, the tension between two women is interesting, and both actresses are good but for me, these series are missing something important. Still recommend watching, at least because it’s not a male-centered thriller and it will make you laugh at some moments.
7. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018 — …, 3 seasons)
Sabrina the teen witch should choose between the world of normal people and the world of witches on the eve of her 16th birthday. I’d describe these series as “young adult” because of all elements of the genre: first love, rebellion against the adult world, a lot of emotions, and rash acts. The first season is really cool, with an interesting story and due amount of magic but the second one was more about feminism and girl power in a kind of annoying way. I recommend watching one season and then see how it goes! Also, these series have a great opening! | https://medium.com/@juliarainbowx/tv-shows-cartoons-for-and-about-women-7d286eea5bc3 | ['Yulia Kostyuchenko'] | 2020-12-10 09:09:05.124000+00:00 | ['TV Series', 'TV Shows', 'Lists', 'For Women', 'Women'] |
Design and the Green New Deal | A brief manifesto
Proposals for deep decarbonization, ecological megaprojects, and really any project that attempts to address the crises we face at the scale necessary to make a difference are often met with criticisms of “financial realism” and “government overreach.” What are the assumptions that underpin such a confident dismissal of these proposals? The infallibility of the free market to correct itself? The free market is what got us to this point, and has proven itself largely incapable of addressing environmental externalities, dwindling resources, and staggering wealth inequality in any meaningful way. Unfettered capitalism is what created this mess- it will not get us out of it, at least not in time. These criticisms ignore historical precedent, and the rightful role of government to regulate commerce and make investments that protect the long term health and prosperity of its inhabitants- especially critical roles to play in an economic system that prioritizes short-term gains for wealthy shareholders.
What constitutes “realism?” We have been brought to this point by a global system that operates on economic abstractions and market manipulations to the point that it has become disconnected from the ecological reality of the closed, very much not abstract earth system that we live in. It is not “realistic” to ignore the symptoms of the climate crisis when we observe melting glaciers and ice caps and permafrost, megafires, biodiversity loss, and large swaths of the earth’s surface that will become too hot for human habitation.
If we continue to only propose, design, pay for and build small projects- these forms of “urban acupuncture”- we have no hope of integrating our built environment with the natural environment in a way that is mutually beneficial and sustainable. It’s time for a hefty dose of real, proven medicine for what ails us: massive spending on deep decarbonization and green infrastructure, investment in the circular economy, and putting an adequate price on carbon and pollution. And it’s time to do so in a way that addresses the deep economic and environmental inequities we have designed into our society and built environment.
As designers, we have a role to play in envisioning what such a world would look like, and selling people on that vision. Daylighted stream corridors, restored wetlands and grasslands, green streets with protected bike lanes and rapid public transit, ubiquitous electric vehicle charging stations in public parking spaces, community microgrids, urban farms, green infrastructure- the list goes on and on. These aren’t just buzzwords- they are proven ways to improve the urban environment and transition to a more sustainable future. Let’s stop being shy about asking for it. And let’s show the world what that future looks like. | https://medium.com/landscapes/design-and-the-green-new-deal-e2c8162c8f7e | ['Chris Mcguire'] | 2020-12-19 23:56:10.829000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Climate', 'Landscape Architecture', 'Green New Deal'] |
Do you think that changing your lifestyle can result in your productivity? | changing my lifestyle can absolutely result in my productivity in a good way, of course only if my change was positive … if i quit doing boring stuff and repeating the same thing each day my lifestyle will change and I will be productive more than ever, staying away from corrupted society and negative minds made me look at life from a different point of view and I love the person that I’m becoming , I used to wake up late ,go out meeting the same faces doing the same activities like I’m trapped in a circle same energy nothing interesting like a robot . now I wake up every day early with a positive mindset doing my best to become a better version of myself for me, and I’m starting to feel productive in a good way learning new stuff and talking about interesting subjects , doing activities that keeps my mind active . so from my perspective I think that changing my lifestyle results in being productive and keeps my brain active all the time even when I’m asleep :) . | https://medium.com/@saadaouikaram13/do-you-think-that-changing-your-lifestyle-can-result-in-your-productivity-f471462516cb | ['Karam Saadaoui'] | 2020-12-22 15:32:36.364000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Rbk'] |
Could that be friendship? | Could that be friendship?
Gabriel and Leon.
These guys would meet every day and soccer was all they talked about. It was a very easy subject for both of them. They cheered for the same team. Whenever they met it was all about soccer. They’d tell memories of their favorite players, argue about the coaches that would build the best teams… They’d even remember each other whenever it was game night, in case the other one had forgotten about it.
Okay, okay… to be fair, they’d chat about other things every once in a while. Leon knew a bit about Gabriel’s personal life, not about his job though. Gabriel used to work with advertising back then. And he felt like he couldn’t talk to his mate about it. Leon wouldn’t talk much about himself either. On the other hand, he was quite a curious guy. So he’d ask Gabe a bunch of questions about himself. Eventually, he ended up got getting to know about Gabriel’s hobbies, about his girlfriend and some other stuff too.
But, whenever the subject was soccer, that’s when they really connected. They’d always meet and boom! Just like that, soccer here we go. They’d either meet before or after Gabriel’s work hours. Leon would always be there by Gabe’s home waiting for him. They’d been doing it for so long it almost felt like they were really good friends.
Actually, both of them had bigger interests besides soccer. Gabe was a big cinema guy. He’d go for the movies every week. On Leon’s side of things, his favorite sport was actually car racing, Formula 1. That was all he was able to watch when he wasn’t at work on sunday mornings. So, I guess you must be asking yourself now: Why the hell would they make the effort to meet every single to talk about soccer, since clearly they weren’t that close and had better things to do?
Well, Leon was Gabriel’s home building doorman. Soccer was all they could ever talk about. | https://medium.com/@marcofrossi/could-that-be-friendship-5e48609bd027 | ['Marco Felipe'] | 2020-03-23 21:31:00.917000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Friendship', 'Thinking', 'Perspective', 'Sociology'] |
Breaking Open at an Immigration Detention Center | A vigil attendee holding up his sign.
On June 18, 2018 in Sheridan, Oregon, hundreds of Americans, descendants of immigrants, came together outside the former Sheridan Federal Prison to let 123 immigrant men know they are not alone. As we, the people, arrived for an evening vigil, men from India, Pakistan, Mexico, Guatemala and other countries stood in prison garb, in the sun, watching us through barbed wire. Some waved as signs in English and Spanish were displayed sharing messages of protest and hope.
Attendees waving to detainees who’re being taken inside.
As guards replaced detainees outside, faces appeared in the windows trying to receive what we came to offer.
One prayer of connection asked us only to breathe. With each inhale, we connected to the humanity we share with these immigrant families; the shared air, the shared earth, the shared energy of life itself. With each exhale, we connected with another aspect of what it means to be an immigrant today, whatever came to our own minds. 20 breaths, each recognizing 100 children of the 2,000 separated from their families so far.
The only sound was the counting by 100s in between each breath. My thoughts broke my heart, deeper, wider and more open, knowing that it is only by facing, recognizing and feeling the truth that we have the chance to heal our shadows, personal and collective, and create genuine change.
Inhale. Exhale.
Children screaming, crying and acting out in search of their parents.
100 families recognized.
Inhale. Exhale.
Americans, just like me, looking parents in the eye, lying, telling them their children are being taken to be photographed or bathed, never to return. 200 families recognized.
Inhale. Exhale.
Children as young as 15 DAYS Old taken from their parents. Children caged. Children without a common language to comprehend what’s happening. 300.
Inhale. Exhale.
No distinction being made between families entering legally or illegally. ALL children taken from their parents’ arms.
400.
Detention center guards watching from nearby after taking detainees indoors.
The US is the only country in the world that separates families at the border. We are surrounded by humane immigration examples we choose to ignore.
500.
There is NO LAW — human or divine — that requires separation of families. The UN has deemed it a crime against humanity. We ignore them too.
600.
Detainees are fleeing religious persecution, civil war, poverty, famine, and death threats. They seek safety, religious freedom, and the opportunity to pursue happiness — just like our own ancestors.
700.
Asylum seekers are put in prisons, forced to wear prison uniforms, held in cells, locked down for 23 hours a day, denied medical care, denied phone calls, denied due process, surrounded by people they cannot communicate with and forced to sign documents they do not understand. Yet, they have committed no crime.
800.
The average length of time in holding before the first hearing is 404 days. US citizens accused of murder are treated better. Is crossing a border seeking a better life worse than that?
900.
Removing causes for asylum while separating families increases unaccompanied minors and adult detainees, and lengthens the average detainment period. It serves no one except the private prison industry seeking trillions to build new prisons. How long will we allow corruption to destroy lives for profit?
1,000.
This is not the first time in our country’s history that we are guilty of separating families. Slavery. Indigenous tribes. Japanese-Americans. We deemed it legal then too.
1,100.
History remembers cruelty as atrocity — regardless of laws. Where is our moral center?
1,200.
A man shares his signs.
The current administration uses a twisted interpretation of religion to justify persecution of others while deeming itself ordained. Our religious founding fathers saw fit to separate church and state for a reason.
1,300.
Our president has a choice, and is choosing to use children as a bargaining chip. Is this the kind of leader we choose to follow?
1,400.
Innocent children are being traumatized. Trauma affects the brain’s development for life. Is this how we want the next generation shaped?
1,500.
The adults assigned to these traumatized children are handling as many or more children than teachers in a classroom, but with only about one week’s worth of training. How can we expect any tired, stressed, ill-equipped human being to manage this effectively?
1,600.
The agencies responsible for finding guardians for these children are losing a significant portion. Children are missing.
1,700.
Immigrants are among the most vulnerable human beings on the planet. American authorities are destroying evidence of abuse, blackmail, and assault against detainees of all ages. Where is the human decency?
1,800.
Parents are being deported without their children. As a parent, I can’t even begin to imagine the not knowing.
1,900.
The 123 immigrant faces in the windows of the Sheridan Federal Prison reflect the soul of our nation. And we, the people, are the nation.
2,000.
Inhale. Exhale.
The numbers keep rising as we live our lives, safely pursuing our own happiness while denying the basic human rights of others. We must ask: what is ours to do?
This is our history. This is our present. It does not need to be our future.
Former Sheridan Federal Prison, now an Immigrant Detention Center.
Sign petitions. Call your representatives. Connect with a local agency that is actively involved. Write letters. Speak up. Protest. Vote.
We know better. It’s time to do better. | https://loriannerising.medium.com/breaking-open-at-an-immigration-detention-center-f337437bfc95 | ['Lori Anne Rising'] | 2018-06-20 00:12:00.337000+00:00 | ['Immigration In Usa', 'Oregon', 'Protest', 'Immigration'] |
The Left Still Doesn’t Understand Trump’s Appeal | A few years ago, I attended a lecture about alternative therapies. The doctor giving the talk spent a lot of time explaining that while many alternative therapies are no more effective than a placebo, many patients are convinced that they work miracles.
The medical community wanted to understand why this was, so they spent years trying to figure out what these practitioners were doing that doctors weren’t. If it wasn’t the treatment that was making the difference, what was?
The difference, it turns out, was the level of basic human care and attention the typical patient received. Doctors spend an average of seventeen minutes talking to each patient. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that their patients have an average of six health concerns to discuss.
The doctor and patient would typically spend about ten minutes discussing and diagnosing the main issue, leaving just over a minute each for the rest. A minute isn’t a long time to talk about something that’s worrying you. It certainly isn’t a lot of time to get an answer that will put your mind at ease. Maybe sixty seconds were all it took for the doctor to be convinced that the problem wasn’t anything serious. But their patients needed more time.
Alternative therapists, on the other hand, give each patient a much higher degree of individual care. They take concerns that doctors might dismiss as trifling or petty, seriously. Their treatments are far more often in the form of personalized, hands-on therapy than a prescription for some pills. As a result, the patient feels valued, they feel heard, they feel like their problems are being taken seriously. And surprisingly often, that’s enough to make those people feel better.
If you set aside the Trump supporters who voted for him because they want a tax break or because they’d never vote for a bleeding-heart Liberal, you find people who’ve spent a lot of time feeling as if they weren’t being heard. People who were so desperate to feel that somebody was listening, that when Trump said the things they wanted to hear and addressed the concerns they had, even though the insincerity dripped from every word, they felt better.
When you’ve been feeling ignored for long enough, even if you have no good reason to feel that way, you’ll throw your arms around anybody who claims they care about what you’re going through. Say what you want about Trump (and there’s a lot to say), he made a large swathe of the American people feel acknowledged. Hillary called fifty percent of them, “Deplorables”.
Biden might have learned from her mistake, but the votes show he’s been ineffective at making them feel heard. Maybe that’s because putting their minds at rest would require a degree of dishonesty he’s uncomfortable with. Maybe he’s unwilling to placate voters with promises of “clean coal” and “big, beautiful walls” when he knows he can’t deliver. I can respect that. But they don’t. They take his unwillingness to say the right things as a lack of interest in their concerns. The Left still hasn’t figured out a way to speak to these people so that they feel heard. It’s a gap that people like Trump will always profit from at the polls. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/biden-didnt-win-by-a-landslide-here-s-are-two-reasons-why-afd460a22956 | ['Steve Qj'] | 2020-11-13 13:27:47.065000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Elections', 'Election 2020', 'Government'] |
[Paper] VGGNet for COVID-19 Detection (Biomedical Image Classification) | [Paper] VGGNet for COVID-19 Detection (Biomedical Image Classification)
Left: X-Ray, Middle: CT Scan, Right: Ultrasound
In this story, COVID-19 Detection Through Transfer Learning Using Multimodal Imaging Data (VVGNet for COVID-19), is briefly presented. In this paper:
Broncho vascular thickening in the lesion, and traction bronchiectasis are visible during absorption stage, automatic diagnosis is possible.
Various classification models are tested , such as VGG16/VGG19, ResNet-50, Inception-v3, Xception, Inception-ResNet-v2, DenseNet, and NASNet-Large, for COVID-19 detection.
, such as VGG16/VGG19, ResNet-50, Inception-v3, Xception, Inception-ResNet-v2, DenseNet, and NASNet-Large, for COVID-19 detection. It is found that VGGNet has the most stable performance across different multimodal datasets including Ultrasound, X-ray and CT scan.
has the across different multimodal datasets including Ultrasound, X-ray and CT scan. The aim is to provide over-stressed medical professionals a second pair of eyes through intelligent deep learning image classication models, providing an automated “second reading’’ to clinicians, assisting in the diagnosis and criticality assessment.
This is a paper in 2020 IEEE ACCESS where IEEE ACCESS is an open access journal with high impact factor of 3.745. (Sik-Ho Tsang @ Medium) | https://medium.com/swlh/paper-vggnet-for-covid-19-detection-biomedical-image-classification-db411de2f013 | ['Sik-Ho Tsang'] | 2020-11-03 06:38:48.386000+00:00 | ['Image Classification', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Convolutional Network', 'Deep Learning', 'Covid 19'] |
Cryptocurrency industry is still in its infancy. | A recent survey by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a regulator in the UK, showed that more than 70% of consumers didn’t know what a cryptocurrency was and only 3% of respondents had ever bought one of the digital assets.
These data points put things in perspective and remind us that this industry is still early in its maturation and there is a lot of work to do… Education and awareness have always been important, but now design, user experience, and interfaces will become focal points as we try to onboard mainstream consumers, and these are the points which have the utmost importance while developing Snowball.
While not surprising, the most exciting part to me is the incredible number of young people who are spending 100% of their time working in crypto. This isn’t about a “get rich quick” scheme for them. The idea of automated finance are definitely taking hold and it is obvious people are fed up with the legacy system. Lastly, Bitcoin is thought of as the least risky investment opportunity among this crowd.
The shift is inevitable
“Due to trying to take the market share away from one of the most important tools of power — money — central banks and governments all over the world tried to kill bitcoin, albeit unsuccessfully,” Angel Versetti, CEO of blockchain firm Ambrosus comments.
The conversation around the largest crypto asset includes a degree of inevitability. There is no talk of “if” Bitcoin’s price recovers, but rather “when.” There is no concern of whether Bitcoin will establish a new all-time high in the future, but rather a debate on whether it will be $100,000 or $150,000 in the next bull market. And these young people aren’t just talking to entertain themselves — many of them have significant portions of their net-worth held in digital assets.
While 70%+ of mainstream consumers may not know about cryptocurrencies, the enthusiasts are pushing an impressive pace of innovation right now. It is just a matter of time before crypto goes mainstream, the fact companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Starbucks expressed interest in getting involved in this industry is not a surprise, everyone wants a piece of the landgrab before it’s too late. | https://medium.com/snowball-money/cryptocurrency-industry-is-still-in-its-infancy-19367ae7631e | ['Dominik Martin Świerkot'] | 2019-06-09 11:35:42.998000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin News', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto'] |
There Will Be No Peace if Trump’s Evil Goes Unpunished | There Will Be No Peace if Trump’s Evil Goes Unpunished
Photo by Lukas Eggers on Unsplash
On September 8th, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon a pardon. I’ve talked with people who were alive at the time to get their opinion on the decision. Most of them acknowledge that the country was divided and needed to move on. But they say those words on autopilot as if to cover up a sense of a terrible injustice.
On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. His predecessor, Donald J. Trump, has been one of the most divisive figures in American history. Trump was impeached and investigated by a grand jury. However, he has always managed to escape punishment by leveraging the power of his office.
The hallmark of the last four years has been violence in the streets and unprecedented challenges to the democratic process. Our nation has never been closer to losing its status as a free state. It is said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps now is the time to recognize that Ford’s pardon can only be perceived as a terrible mistake.
Biden wants to be a force of unity
In a recent discussion, Biden has expressed a desire to place the nation on a path of healing rather than focus on holding the previous administration responsible for its transgressions.
President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration — Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker and Mike Memoli
But what are the consequences of pretending that all the acts of evil that happened right out in the open simply didn’t happen? The American people had to endure Trump’s aggression. We had to stand by and watch him encourage his followers to acts of violence both at his rallies and through his reckless use of social media.
Some of us have witnessed aggression against our children directly as a result of Trump’s behavior. Now, we’re supposed to “move on?” Now, we’re supposed to forget?
The corrupt gentleman’s agreement
Sometimes you look at politicians and wonder why they eschew the knock-out punch. They get up and debate and fail to engage the most obvious arguments that would immediately disqualify their opponent.
Why didn’t Biden demand that all Americans have access to the same taxpayer-funded health care that Donald Trump received when he came down with Coronavirus? Trump dithers endlessly against socialism, but when he gets sick he’s perfectly happy to indulge in all the advantages of socialized medicine for his own benefit. In fact, every single person in politics has socialized medicine. They also have terrific pensions and wage guarantees.
It’s almost as if political candidates get together in private and come to agreements on what topics they will allow each other to engage. “Don’t attack me on X and I won’t attack you on Y.” Does that happen? Does the gentleman’s agreement extend to not investigating a fellow politician no matter what the circumstances?
Are politicians allowed to commit crimes?
Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal — Richard Nixon
To some extent, the president of the United States does walk in a gray area between what is legal and what is illegal. The president is allowed to call down airstrikes that kill people. The president wields power that can bring about tremendous pain and suffering. These facts are indisputable.
The question is, where is the line the president cannot cross?
We the people of the United States of America are allowed our say in what we consider to be inappropriate presidential action. We have spoken loudly and clearly to declare that the actions Donald J. Trump conducted during his occupation of the highest office in our nation were morally and legally reprehensible. We have made that statement and voted for his removal.
This decision cannot be without consequence.
The line must be pushed back
With every transgression against a sovereign people, more protections are eroded. Just as there is a doomsday clock, the people must maintain an awareness of political machinations that push a society closer to servitude. The Founding Fathers were well aware that the greatest threat to freedom was the government itself. In the face of abhorrent aggression, we cannot afford to do anything in the name of unity.
There will be no unity if we lose our freedoms. There will be no unity if our laws do not apply to the most powerful people in our community.
When a president nudges the needle of our government in the direction of authoritarianism, a new precedent is set. Subsequent presidents might begin their own aggression from this point. Once the voting public has elicited a cry of opposition, it is the duty of the incoming president to push the needle back to an appropriate point, and drive a banner into the ground so that future leaders might know the dire consequences of their malicious ambition.
Punishments for the rest of us
It’s not as if Biden will take office and immediately pardon all the illegal activities of all citizens for the past four years. All other Americans that have erred will still suffer the full consequence of our judicial system. Why should the outgoing president be exempt?
It’s not as though Biden can take office and remove the enduring pain that was created by Trump’s behavior. He cannot erase the agony of children that were separated from their parents for months. He cannot bring back the loved family members that are forever buried in the cold Earth because they succumbed to Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Why should Trump be allowed to skate free when the rest of us have to toil in the miserable quagmire he left in his wake? We’re being punished. Why is it considered an act of political cruelty to demand Trump receive his share of the experience he called down upon the rest of us?
We might not have another chance
The only way to defeat a bully is to punch them in the face. Bullies always take advantage of our basic inclination to decency. They know that we would prefer a non-violent solution to all problems. They depend on that, and they continue to torment and attack until instinct takes over and you become fearful for your continued existence.
We aren’t showing strength by enduring abuse. A failure to respond to the transgressions of the last four years serves as an invitation for the subsequent bully president to elevate his own agenda of abuse to the next level.
Our nation is not in need of unity. It is in need of justice. We can’t have armed men taking over our government buildings. We can’t have police officers slaughtering innocent people. We can’t allow a president to spend four years abusing the powers of the office and betraying his sacred oath. These are the trends that must be reversed, and they will not be corrected through the cowardly act of turning our heads and pretending that everything is okay. For the sake of our children, the bully must be made into an example. | https://aninjusticemag.com/there-will-be-no-peace-if-trumps-evil-goes-unpunished-2d851381a772 | ['Walter Rhein'] | 2020-11-19 02:53:32.089000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Politics', 'Freedom', 'Justice', 'Civil Rights'] |
U.S. Attorney General Barr asks Apple to unlock iPhones of Pensacola shooter (PLUS what is Apple’s defense) | U.S. Attorney General Barr asks Apple to unlock iPhones of Pensacola shooter (PLUS what is Apple’s defense)
This appeared in The Millennial Source
Following a deadly December shooting in Pensacola, Fla., United States Attorney General William Barr has pressed Apple Inc. to help unlock a pair of iPhones believed to belong to the gunman. In a press conference Monday, Barr stated the shooting, which resulted in four deaths, was determined to be a terrorist attack. The gunman was a Saudi national who was training with the U.S. military.
The request by the U.S. Department of Justice to have the phones unlocked is similar to a request the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) made in 2016. At that time, the bureau was seeking to unlock the phone of a shooter who was involved with a 2015 San Bernardino attack that left 16 dead.
What happened in Pensacola
On Dec. 6, a gunman identified as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani opened fire on the U.S. naval base in Pensacola, Fla., according to NBC News. Alshamrani killed three U.S. Navy sailors and injured eight others, including two Escambia County sheriff deputies. He was shot and killed by additional sheriff deputies on the scene.
Alshamrani, who was a second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force, was part of a Saudi-funded program to train with the U.S. Air Force. The training involved aviation training as well as studies in English.
Motivation for the shooting
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, questions turned to the shooter’s motivations, according to USA TODAY. The shooting was initially investigated as a terrorist attack, but authorities were cautious about declaring that as the official motivation.
However, on Monday, Barr announced the motivation for the attack was “jihadist ideology,” which refers to militaristic actions based on extremist Islamic beliefs, according to The Hill. No direct link to any specific terrorist group has been found for the attack, though.
A month-long investigation found that Alshamrani had posted messages on social media platforms that were deemed anti-American and anti-Israeli. The most recent messages were posted just two hours before the attacks. On September 11, 2019, he posted a message that simply said, “The countdown has begun.”
According to FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, Alshamrani shot at pictures of U.S. President Donald Trump and another president during the attack, according to The Washington Post. Witnesses also said they heard the shooter making unfavorable statements about the actions of the U.S. military in other countries.
Unlocking Alshamrani’s phone
In order to further the investigation and understand more about Alshamrani’s radicalization, Barr has asked Apple to unlock two of the shooter’s phones, according to The New York Times. Barr also stated he believes that information on the phone could help protect against future attacks.
iPhones have a security feature that can result in all the data on the phone being erased after six or 10 incorrect attempts, depending on the model, to enter the passcode, according to Business Insider. For that reason, investigators cannot simply attempt to break into a phone through repeated attempts.
Apple has shared information from Alshamrani’s iCloud account, but the company has so far refused to provide a means of cracking the two phones. This is consistent with the stance the company took in 2016.
Apple’s defense of civil liberties
In December 2015, two Islamic terrorists entered a social-services center in San Bernardino, Calif., according to The Atlantic. The couple, which was married, killed 14 people and wounded 21 others before being killed by police officers.
Following the shooting, an iPhone used by one of the shooters was recovered. The Department of Justice approached Apple Inc. about it opening the phone by creating a “backdoor” to bypass the passcode, according to The Guardian. The DOJ and FBI argued that they needed access to the phone to better investigate the shooting and provide justice for the victims.
The backdoor that the FBI recommended would have involved creating a new operating system that could be loaded onto the phone, according to WIRED. This OS would not include a limit on incorrect passcode attempts. In that way, Apple wouldn’t be providing the code; it would simply be allowing the authorities the ability to crack the code without the possibility of data deletion.
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, refused to comply with the US government, even going to court to assert their right to refuse. Cook cited the need to protect civil liberties as his reason for his company’s refusal to cooperate. In an internal email, he said the “data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people” was at stake. The U.S. government backed down and Apple was not required to create the backdoor.
The U.S. expels 21 Saudis
During the press conference in which he discussed Alshamrani, Barr also announced that 21 Saudi military students were being expelled from the country, The Millennial Source reported. The students are being expelled for posting Jihadi or anti-American messages on social media, as well as for having contact with child pornography. | https://themillennialsource.medium.com/u-s-attorney-general-barr-asks-apple-to-unlock-iphones-of-pensacola-shooter-plus-what-is-apples-9e641813cc56 | ['The Millennial Source'] | 2020-01-16 01:38:30.189000+00:00 | ['America', 'World', 'News', 'Apple', 'Government'] |
Pros of installing Surveillance Cameras at Home, Office and Public Places | Family violence along with murder, kidnapping, rape, molestation, burglary occurs throughout the world.That means, we are not safe whether we are at home, office or school or in a public places. Instead of this, most of the people are not as careful and don’t take the required safety measures. Protecting your premises is undoubtedly a high concern since it is vital to safeguard lives and properties.
With the advancement of technologies, you will find smart and modern security measure devices that are designed to create a safe and secure around. Installation of Security cameras Chicago is a great way to monitor the activities of your house, office, school or even the public places. It serves various benefits if you install it in school, public place and office. Let’s have a look on those points.
If you are looking for the best company to get smart security devices for your premises, you can rely on Stealth Security & Home Theatre Systems, Inc.as we are leader in Security system provider industry. We specialize in offering different types of cost-effective security systems, such as Monitoring devices, Alarm system and CCTV camera.
Security camera has great features and functionalities, such as
· Up to 1080p resolution
· Works over existing coax cable
· Simple plug & pay
· No networking
· Upgrade existing analogue installations
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Whether you need a security system for office, school or house security, you can contact us today. You will be provided with On site Sales Consultations buy our Trained Staff, Remote Surveillance via Smart Phones and Five Diamond UL Listed Central Stations, Professional Hardwired Installations, Expert level of service and others. Our area of expertise is RESIDENTIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS, COMMERCIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS, SMALL BUSINESS SECURITY SYSTEMS, INDUSTRIAL & COMMERCIAL CAMERA SYSTEMS and others. The entire products and services are available at the best possible price. | https://medium.com/@GetStealthSecurity/pros-of-installing-surveillance-cameras-at-home-office-and-public-places-14b23bffcd0 | ['Get Stealth Security'] | 2019-07-03 15:38:14.661000+00:00 | ['Cctv', 'Business Security', 'Security Camera', 'Security Systems', 'Home Security'] |
Machine Learning + Human Intelligence vs COVID-19: Part2 | Introduction:
Globalization has brought countries together in more ways than ever before. Consumers, corporations and governments alike, now have generally unfettered access to innovations, markets, products and services. While the benefits associated with globalization are many, it also brings associated risks, as we have seen with the recent SARS-COV2 virus. Infectious disease specialists have been raising the alarm about the need for an effective and uniform response to these threats, due to the speed at which an infectious disease could spread as a result of our global connectedness.
COVID-19 (the disease caused by the SARS-COV2 virus) has completely taken over our lives, resulting in a material effect in the lives of countless global citizens. The question at the top of everyone’s mind is; “How do we adjust to this new normal?”
Specifically, what can we learn about patterns and prevention as we analyze how an infectious disease like COVID-19 migrates and assess how industries are impacted by its spread? This understanding can help inform public health directives that aim to control the migration of the disease, while at the same time alleviating resulting strains on the economy.
Study Objectives:
To develop a better understanding of these patterns, our Data Science teams at Inspired Intellect and WorldLink initiated an R&D project with the hypothesis that advanced analytics could uncover insights to address the above questions. We were also looking for pragmatic applications for deploying our findings to help our clients understand how their businesses would need to adapt to survive in the rapidly evolving new normal.
We focused our research efforts into 4 distinct tracks:
1. Creating a data lake of information as a foundational pillar for our research
2. Collating and categorizing experimental treatments, therapeutics and vaccine research into a semantic search-driven library of knowledge to support frontline healthcare workers and medical practitioners as they keep up with trending research in these domains (here)
3. Social listening and associated unstructured text analysis to identify and surface trending topics and concerns people were talking about
4. Machine learning and insight generation to identify the factors influencing the spread of virus to predict the waxing and waning of virus epicenters over time.
This article is Part 2 of a 2-part blog series focused on the 4th track above: Machine Learning and Insight Generation. This blog series is focused on answering the following questions:
· Why are certain counties/cities more affected than others?
· Why is there variation in mortality rates among the most infected counties?
· What are the underlying patterns and factors for virus spread and mortality?
In Part 1 here, we provided recommendations on how to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases, based on our work using county-level data and machine learning techniques. In Part 2, we will explore model data, features and insights.
We feel that a data-driven scientific approach can help answer these questions and, more importantly, inform decision making for a range of stakeholders:
· Policy Makers: Have sufficient measures been taken to ensure that the infection spread can be controlled? If not, how do we mitigate the risks?
· Business Owners: Is my business a potential contributing vector to the spread of the virus? What measures should we consider implementing relative to operating the business in a manner that is safe for employees and customers?
· Individuals: What measures can we as individuals take to help stem the spread of the virus?
Editor’s Note: This blog post was authored to highlight a data-driven perspective on how the latest advanced analytics techniques could examine driving factors behind the COVID-19 pandemic and garner recommendations to inform officials in their policy responses. To do this, I co-authored this blog with my colleague, Darrell Silva, who serves as a Data Scientist for our sister organization, Inspired Intellect. There were several others across WorldLink and Inspired Intellect involved in the data sourcing and model development necessary to deliver these insights related to the pandemic and potential actions to mitigate its impact
How We Explored the Data:
We began our research efforts with a data exploration exercise guided by a quantitative risk score, designed at the county-level. Our risk score design included county-level reported statistics such as:
· Rolling 14-day infection rates
· Mortality rates
· Population density (where the population density is defined against the habitable square miles).
Other relevant attributes such as county-specific mobility, adjacent-county mobility and social stringency could also be included in the risk score design. However, we decided to keep our initial design simple with a view to helping us better understand the insights we encountered. The attributes were passed through a clustering algorithm to arrive at a categorization of counties that exhibited a similarity in infection rates, mortality rates and population density.
The Risk Score for the week of May 9th is shown below. Counties exhibiting the highest risk (i.e. high infection rate, high mortality rate and high population density) collected into Cluster 5. In contrast, counties exhibiting the lowest risk were collected into Cluster 1. To keep the design simple and due to a general lack of insight into COVID19’s pathology, we did not weight infection or mortality rate variables differently when clustering. Therefore, we can label a county as risky if either it has high infection rate or high mortality rate.
We examine a few counties within Cluster 5 to understand why they were categorized as highest risk. Data for relevant portions of the prior 14-day period (Apr 25 — May 8) that illustrate our arguments are shown below. We can see that the infections spiked from 2 to 14 cases in Tillman County, Oklahoma between May 2nd and May 3rd, and from 31 to 74 in Jackson county, Florida between May 7th and May 8th.
These counties demonstrated a noticeable and sudden rise in infections, indicating emerging virus hotspots and signaling the need for allocated resources. We use these two counties as prime examples of early signaling for an escalating hotspot, by using variables that are true of all counties, regardless of size. Note that many high-density counties were already subject to a mandatory shelter-in-place order during our 14-day evaluation period and were therefore experiencing decreasing infection rates throughout our study.
Next, we examine the migration of risk scores across counties when compared with the risk scores from the week of April 24th. The week of April 24th was chosen as our baseline based on anecdotal evidence that the virus has an incubation period up to 14 days. As seen from the color-coded map on the left, the areas of primary concern (as of April 24th) were concentrated in the southwest and northeast of the country, along with some pockets of higher risk in the south region around Georgia. Over the next 14-day period from April 25th to May 8th, the virus had traversed across the country. What is also interesting to note, is that the counties that were previously highest risk, appear to have gained some measure of control over the virus spread. Although these were largely reactive measures, there is much that can be learned from the success of measures these high-risk counties put into place in response to their situation.
In summary, we see that the risk score can be a helpful tool to guide public health policy decision-making. The downside is that it reflects what has already happened, and the best public health policy makers can hope to do is intervene to prevent the situation from getting worse. The truest value-add from data analytics lies in surfacing what factors influence the risk score, so that decision makers can be more proactive in their approach to control the spread of the virus (i.e. implementing sweeping safety procedures in and around airports, where people are highly mobile across counties).
Feature Engineering:
We began our predictive modeling exercise by formulating hypotheses to be investigated. Before the first COVID-19 cases were recorded in the US, medical researchers across the globe were already providing valuable anecdotal evidence published through trusted medical channels. In parsing these via text analytics, these were tremendously useful in guiding our hypotheses design.
The following data were of primary interest to our research:
· Age
· Gender
· Health equity
· Travel exposure
· Social mobility
· Healthcare supply/availability
· Adherence to public health policy directives
Of course, some attributes, such as health equity, presented data acquisition challenges that required creative data engineering. We therefore had to scale back our expectations or rephrase the hypotheses in terms of viable data proxies in a few specific areas. As an example of the latter, we re-phrased hypotheses related to health equity through the lens of county-level demographic data attributes. Similarly, due to inconsistent data reporting on adherence to public health policy directives, we eliminated it from our consideration set.
The resultant inventory of hypotheses influenced the data collection and associated data enrichment efforts. These are succinctly illustrated within the accompanying graphic, through a layered feature list.
Feature Importance:
The representation of an analytic challenge as a machine learning algorithm, and the richness of the features feeding the algorithm, have a direct relationship with the insights gleaned from the model. Accordingly, we now examine the machine learning algorithmic construct we selected, and the features that dominated our models:
1. Target Variable: The target variable describes the analytic objective to be pursued. The viable alternatives in this context would be to estimate the infections or mortalities (i.e. a regression) or to predict the increase/decrease outcome in the infection rate or mortality rate (i.e. classification). To keep it simple, we settled on the classification approach, and, predicted if the rates would increase/decrease over the next two weeks. Two separate models were developed, one that predicted the increase/decrease outcome in the infection rate, the other that predicted increase/decrease outcome in the mortality rate.
2. Independent Variables (or Features): The independent variables explain the variance in the target variable and the degree to which they account for the variance. An examination of the independent variables provides the insights derived from the models, which in turn guides decision makers. The table below arranges the independent variables in order of their significance in the models.
Monitoring all these factors can help policy makers formulate and evaluate strategies to contain COVID-19 spread and develop preventative measures for those counties most at risk
Model Validation:
While there are some exceptional factors responsible for the infection spread, the above features collectively provide a holistic explanation for the spread of COVID-19 across the US.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
As an example of an outlying factor that contributes heavily to infection spread and could create inconsistencies in the model if not monitored, , the correctional institutions in two Ohio counties (Marion and Pickaway) led to these two counties becoming hotspots. The visualizations provided by the NY Times (here) from the week of May 11th provides as visual confirmation of several key features in our models (population density, proximity to major airports, prevalence of seniors, regions dominated by a high-degree of mobility or a disposition towards underlying health conditions, due to various socio-economic or demographic factors)
“…while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
In general, week over week, our predictive models corroborated well with the county-level COVID-19 trends. To demonstrate the relative accuracy of models, validated against emergent data, we now pick two counties from different states to analyze the effect of features that were deemed important by our models. Not all counties of these state have been, or is, an emerging epicenter.
1. Harris County in Texas (Left): Harris County had considerably lower infection and mortality at the start of pandemic. There was limited stay at home order because of which we see the virus spread increasing in the county in following weeks.
2. Suffolk County in New York (Right): Suffolk County was a virus epicenter in March and April. The state had undertaken strict measures requiring face coverings, and we can see the resulting impact through the drastically reduced infection and mortality rate.
We can see for both the counties the increase in mobility is followed by the increase in infection and mortality. In the case of Suffolk, the mobility decrease is followed by a decrease in infection whereas in the case of Harris County, every increase in mobility is followed by the increase in virus spread. The lag between the 2 charts can be explained by the 14-day incubation period for the virus.
Conclusion:
Understanding the driving factors that affect infection and mortality rates are critical insights that can lead to both preventative and prescriptive actions. We note in this article the resulting effects generated by factors such as:
· Age
· Gender
· Health equity
· Travel exposure
· Social mobility
· Healthcare supply/availability
· Adherence to public health policy directives
Using Advanced Analytics techniques, our objective is to equip policy makers, businesses, and individual citizens alike with the insights to minimize the spread of infectious disease and create data-driven, actionable guidelines that will help us emerge on the other side of this pandemic.
Inspired Intellect is an end-to-end service provider of data management, analytics and application development. We engage through a portfolio of offerings ranging from strategic advisory and design, to development and deployment, through to sustained operations and managed services.
Formed in 2020 through the merger of two well-established service companies, Avalon Consulting, LLC and WorldLink Consulting, we accelerate the digital transformation journey of our enterprise customers enabling them to rapidly translate their data assets into monetizable data products and insights.
Inspired Intellect’s unique use of organizational psychology methods differentiates us in accelerating and de-risking our clients’ adoption of technology solutions. We recognize the human aspect of the transformation journey is critical to achieving superior business outcomes.
Over a dozen Fortune 100 companies, across multiple industries, select Inspired Intellect to drive their digital enablement.
Acknowledgements:
This article reflects the work of Prashanth Nayak, Darrell Silva and Felix Simon who collaborated on the sourcing of COVID-19 data, the development of the related machine learning models, and deployment of the models discussed in this article.
The broader team that included Babu Mathew, Kishan Matam, Will Thayer, and Felix Simon led by Brian Monteiro tackled a spectrum of analytic challenges that were introduced at the top of this article.
An article describing Will Thayer’s contributions to the objectives of this R&D study can be found here. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/machine-learning-human-intelligence-vs-covid-19-part2-31cd6df54353 | [] | 2020-09-27 14:23:39.163000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Predictive Analytics', 'Machine Learning', 'Analysis', 'Data Science'] |
How I Coped With 2020 With Horror Novels | Reading in the dark kept me in the light
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
Horror novels have been a staple of my reading diet ever since I read Misery by Stephen King in college. Ever since then, I have read 5–7 horror novels a year. Those have largely been Stephen King and Joe Hill, but I’ve also read Paul Tremblay, H.P. Lovecraft (oof, the racism, though), and Ania Ahlborn.
However, in 2019 I decided to take a break. My personal life was tumultuous, and I recently developed some pretty severe anxiety over it. I used to love dreary, painful, and emotionally distressing fiction more than anything in the world. But suddenly the material I came to love was doing more harm than good. I was losing sleep. I wasn’t eating well. My relationships were starting to fray.
So, in an effort to do damage control, I stopped reading horror cold turkey.
Now, stopping this didn’t magically make my life better, but I believed it helped me maintain a better mental state, especially when I replaced King with Star Wars novels.
However, in the summer of this year, I decided to pick up Doctor Sleep, mostly because I was dying to watch the movie and I hadn’t picked it up before my hiatus.
I don’t want to spoil the entire book, but I do want to talk about the last scene. In Doctor Sleep — which is a sequel to The Shining — Dan Torrance is struggling with alcohol and drugs, just like his father decades ago. You know, before he tried to murder Danny.
The book itself is about soul-sucking vampires, but the internal struggle centers on Dan overcoming his demons and trying to put his life together enough to be a surrogate parent to a gifted child like him.
A moment of release
At the end of the book, Dan is an AA meeting, and he reveals a moment of his life that still haunts him (again, no spoilers here), and the final moment is Dan coming to terms with the mistakes he has made and and feeling relieved when the other AA members still accept him. It was a moment of redemption and personal forgiveness.
At this moment — sitting in my office at two in the morning — I closed the book, turned in my chair, and cried. I cried and cried and cried. Partly because the book was elegant and beautiful, but mainly because it cut into me in a way I wasn’t expecting. The book cracked open a part of me that was dying to get out, and Dan giving permitting himself to open up allowed me to as well.
“There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.” — Doctor Sleep, Stephen King
I wasn’t just crying for his tragedy and addiction. I was crying for my own shortcomings, my own failures. I was letting out my misery and frustration and mistakes and letting it flow in a way I hadn’t for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried ever, and now suddenly everything I had pent up over the years was coming out.
I continued to cry, unleashing my feelings about the shit year of 2020, COVID-19, the economic and environmental problems my kids will inherit. All of it. It all came out at once, right at the end of Doctor Sleep.
When I decided to run away from horror in 2019, I wasn’t trying to protect myself from the macabre. I was shielding myself from my own feelings.
Ever since then, I’ve read four more horror novels: A Head Full of Ghosts, In the Valley of the Sun, The Only Good Indians, and The Boatman’s Daughter. Each one allowed me to channel my anxiety and stress about the world into a medium that perfectly understands those feelings.
Aversion to mystery
I was speaking with a friend the other day about Stephen King and the numerous reasons they weren’t a fan. One of the critiques they had was King’s leaning into the unknown. He felt King just explained away plot holes as the “mystery.” It seemed lazy, cheap, and worst of all it was bad writing.
To a traditional novel, maybe. But the air of mystery — the purposeful unknowing of the threat — is a staple of the genre.
Part of that may come down to the way people think or their life experiences. Binary thinkers may not want to accept a threat that isn’t fully comprehensible or adequately explained.
But to the horror reader, there is something profoundly human in the mysterious. There is so much about life and existence that will never be fully understood. A book that leans into that unknown reminds us that we are not alone in a world that seems perpetually incomprehensible. All the more important in a year like 2020.
“We’re from where we’re from,” she says back. “Scars are part of the deal, aren’t they?” — The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
Being in isolation for so long has been tough. For one, it has made it difficult to see friends, especially since I’m separated from most of them by geography. That’s left me with my thoughts in my free time. When my wife and kids go to sleep, I usually stay up. And in these lonely moments of the night, I often find myself looking back with regrets and shame. The things I shouldn’t have said or done, the words that needed saying but weren’t, it has all been coming back to haunt me.
“Memories, monsters, they are in our blood, and theirs are the faces we find staring back at us in broken mirrors.” — In The Valley of the Sun — Andy Davidson
Horror novels — more than comedies, thrillers, and other light reading — have made 2020 bearable. It’s helped me to not only cope with but accept my mistakes and the state of the world and life as a whole. Horror, for all its grisly features and grotesque monstrosities, has made me more human than I have ever been.
So if you find yourself struggling to get by or if you’re running away from something internally, you may need a little King in your life.
Horror, in its way, can comfort and uplift you. At the very least, it will remind you that you aren’t alone.
That’s what I needed, more than anything this year. | https://medium.com/curious/how-i-coped-with-2020-with-horror-novels-15e71657acf6 | ['Caleb Clark'] | 2020-12-15 21:44:27.818000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Books', 'Personal', 'Horror', 'Reading'] |
Can an Andrew Yang Tweet ‘Red Pill’ MAGA Culture For Real? | Welcome back to TaraElla Report Season 6. Today, I’m going to reflect on the generally broken state of affairs across the political landscape right now, where nobody cares about truth and accountability. I’m going to start with one of Andrew Yang’s most profound insights yet, which explains why many of us have been disappointed with MAGA culture, as for example seen in President Trump’s most controversial twitter drama episode yet. On a related point, I’m also going to talk about why Trump has set out on a dangerous course that may bring the end of internet free speech as we know it, and why the usual free speech warriors on the Right aren’t even concerned about it at all. I’ll end with why we should all take the real ‘Red Pill’, which is not the version that the conservatives are giving us. Before I continue, I have to warn any new viewers that, as someone who identifies with neither the Left nor the Right, I’m going to give harsh criticism to both sides. My show is not a safe space for people who can’t think independently, or can’t take criticism of their own side.
Recently, Andrew Yang made a profound tweet about accountability. He wrote that, ‘one reason things seems so bleak is that there is so little accountability. Crash the economy? Bonuses and bailouts. Kill a jogger? Walk free for weeks. Botch a pandemic? It’s politics. Kill a man arrested for a nonviolent crime? People are fed up.’ And I think people are surely fed up with those in positions of power having next to no accountability all the time. It’s something that unites conservatives, progressives and moderates alike. One of the reasons many people don’t like the establishment is that they believe the establishment shields vested interests from any demands of accountability, thereby perpetuating unfair situations everywhere in life. This is one major reason why many people voted for Trump in 2016. However, many of them now stand disappointed, because things just haven’t changed.
In fact, the MAGA culture that surrounds Trump has discouraged his better instincts, and encouraged his worse instincts. I suspect that it’s all a plot to use his character flaws to slowly push him towards the pro-war establishment neoconservative agenda, a topic I will leave for a future episode. And no, I certainly don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome, as seen in the fact that I was never excited about impeachment, and I vigorously defended Tulsi Gabbard’s decision to not vote for it back in December. However, when things go wrong, people need to be accountable, and MAGA culture’s unconditional support for Trump is a harmful thing. For example, the cultures of the Yang Gang and the Tulsi Train are much better. Those people love Yang and Tulsi very much, but they still speak up about their disagreements all the time. In MAGA land, if you take Trump to task, you get the mob running over you, and you get downvoted into oblivion. What I’m concerned is that, there can be no accountability in that kind of culture.
Let’s start with the fact that the Right has many free speech warriors, and that’s one thing I like about them. They rightly point out the free speech crisis on college campuses, and give it the attention it needs, while many progressives often avoid the topic altogether. Things like de-platforming people and so-called safe speech really need to be called out for the dangerous censorship it is, and I congratulate the Right for doing that. But how about Trump’s recent executive order to water down Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, and his calls afterwards for the repeal of Section 230 altogether? You see, Section 230 shields companies from being responsible for the content of their users, and it is the thing that allows social media to operate without censoring its users. The existence of Section 230 has long guaranteed internet free speech, because without it, every platform would be aggressively policing its users in fear of legal liability. A president threatening to repeal Section 230 is thus a much bigger problem for free speech than all the college SJWs in the world combined. The even worse thing is that Trump did that simply in response to Twitter putting fact-checking statements on his tweets, which essentially represents ill considered policy on the run done for personal reasons. It is disappointing that none of the free speech warriors on the Right have even shown the slightest care about this. Some people have even defended Trump, saying that the executive order was about properly enforcing Section 230, by forcing social media to be platforms that allow free speech rather than publishers that curate their content. But if that were Trump’s real intentions, why would he be tweeting repeatedly calling for the complete repeal of Section 230? It just looks like some people really want Trump to be good for free speech, so they make up their own reality where this is the case. As people say, denial isn’t a river in Egypt.
Here’s another good example. Trump is known for his controversial tweets, but his most recent one is on another level altogether. Indeed, it led to some people interpreting it as calling for violence. Taylor Swift apparently saw it that way, among many others. Since then, Trump has come out and explained that he was only stating the fact, that ‘looting leads to shooting’. Well, it certainly didn’t sound like he was ‘just stating the fact’ to many people, including myself, no matter his intentions. I guess it’s fair to say that, even if it wasn’t his intention to stir up the tense mood, Trump should have apologized for the wording that led to the confusion, like a properly accountable politician would have, because it was his own words that started it all. Nobody likes to admit being wrong, but it’s what accountability is. But then, Trump just ain’t into saying sorry, it seems. Rather, he has taken up the victim mentality, painting a picture of people out to get him on social media. You know how much I hate victim mentality. I hate it when the critical theory and postmodernist Left encourage it in minorities, and I hate it equally when conservative politicians use it to deflect from being accountable. What I hate most about victim mentality is that, in every case, it leads to a cycle of cultural and political polarization. I’ve always believed that conservatives share my views on personal responsibility and victim mentality. But apparently, they don’t really, as seen in their rush to defend Trump once again.
I guess all this is because many conservatives are effectively living in a simulated reality, like the one in The Matrix. Now, I know many so-called progressives are living in a simulated reality too, but let’s focus on conservatives for now, especially since people on the Right like to talk about taking the Red Pill. You know, like taking the Red Pill in The Matrix, and getting to know the truth, breaking free from the lies the establishment tells you, and so on. It’s a really attractive idea, and as I said two years ago, it’s really a shame that people on the other side of politics don’t use it too, because such a profound idea shouldn’t only belong to one side of politics. But then, what the Right has prescribed is not the Red Pill, but just another Blue Pill. When you listen to right-leaning talking heads too much, you effectively enter a simulation like the one in the Matrix. It’s a different program than the Woke Establishment’s one, but it’s no less a simulation, it’s no less a blue pill. In the Right’s simulated reality, everything is the fault of the Democrats, and college SJWs are the only threat to free speech. Trump is here to solve all this, and he can do no wrong. Keep watching your favorite right-leaning talking heads on TV and on the internet, and you keep taking the blue pill, to stay in this simulated reality. The result is they won’t take Trump to account, even when his actions are literally dangerous to the free speech they say they cherish. It’s why I refuse to drink the Right-wing kool-aid, like how I also refuse to drink the Left-wing kool-aid. I think it’s time we all take the real Red Pill, and exit all simulations of reality set up to benefit partisan interests, left-wing or right-wing. | https://medium.com/taraellas-liberal-conversation/can-an-andrew-yang-tweet-red-pill-maga-culture-for-real-548eed3deb7 | [] | 2020-06-15 06:32:06.863000+00:00 | ['Free Speech', 'Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Andrew Yang'] |
Out of many relationships you have, how’s the relationship with your own language going ? | On a peaceful weekend afternoon, I look over my backyard through the family room window. Trees are fighting against the cold winter’s strong wind with their bare bodies. Actually I am not sure whether they are really naked and protesting. Maybe the more correct description would be that they cover their vulnerable and soft life systems in their thick bark in the harmony with the cold winter. While staring at their winter performances, I imagine blooming of yellow-green leaves and white, pink or red flowers on branches, green greetings spread on the brown earthly ground, and fresh humming sounds of melted icy water in the stream. Closing my eyes in one winter day, I am day-dreaming a beautiful spring scene that promises the potentials of abundance, growth and generosity.
Why am I talking about imagining the profusion? As that is the gift I would like to give to myself in this new year. A deeper, clearer, well-understood and nurturing self-relationship. It sounds really good, doesn’t it? But how? How can I and we can grow a better relationship with ourselves? I do not have a one-size-fits-all solution. But I got a glimpse of one solution from my family book club discussion.
The book’s title can be translated as ‘a communication container’. The author argues that each of us has own communication container which size is different depending on who you are. If that container is small, as we cannot hold a lot of water in a small bowl, one cannot hold deep thoughts and many stories in that communication container with patience. All kinds of unpurified words will flow out from that container easily without any consideration on the impacts to other people’s mind and relationships. In the meanwhile, if the communication container has enough space, one can rethink and contemplate on the words and ideas, and present polished and well-organized languages to other people. Those ripened words are considerate, kind and can touch other people’s mind. So far so good. But the author pulls a reader’s hand further to make one more step forward.
Do you want to improve your communication? Then learning communication skills is not the answer. Learning how to speak well is like cooking an instant food. If you put variety of instant foods on the table, in the beginning they will taste good because they are already prepared using the error-proof methods. However, repeatedly buying and cooking instant foods does not help you to improve your own cooking skills. To present your delicious food, you need to know how to choose good materials, how long to cook with which method and even how to display the food in what shapes and colors of different plates.
If we want to improve communication, the author argues that we need to understand ourselves first and then change our mind sets. If your mind is changed, your language will be changed. And the author asked the readers. How long and what kind of efforts did you make to improve the relationship with your language? Out of many questions from that book, this question was impressive and eye-opening for me. I always thought that I was more interested in correct word-choices and sensitivity of communication impacts than on average. But, I could not think of any consistent efforts I poured to my language itself to take care of my own relationship with it. The language was a fixed tool for me, not an alive thing. I felt bad and another fact that I realized a long time ago was overlapped on top of that question in my mind.
We cannot think or even feel without a language. If you do not know a vocabulary to express your thought, there is no way for you to think about that concept correctly. If you do not have a explicit word to describe your feeling, there is no way for you to feel it thoroughly. With a little bit of over simplification and exaggeration, the language you use is you. So if your language reservoir is empty, your thought and feeling will be futile. If your language account has a high balance, the self-relationship will grow with a compound interest rate.
Let me borrow one more concept from the author. She mentioned about the human being’s strong desire to be productive. Almost at the level of an instinct. The productivity here means doing valuable things for others or for the next generation and being loyal to values beyond one’s interest. And when people feel the productivity, the self-capability sense grows inside. On top of these views, I add one more point. In many cases, the productivity will be decided by the degrees of impact to others, but the following self-capability judgement is based on the self-talking regarding the performance against the measurements in one’s mind value system.
Here my confession comes in. It is critical to grow vocabularies to enrich your language. It is important to polish your conversation styles to communicate with others well. However, if one puts a predetermined tag on one’s language, a cultivating relationship to language that encourages improvement is impossible. It is simply like whatever you do, the score card is already written with little possibility of being re-written. And I suspect that that’s what I have done for the last more than 10 years. Sometimes, I pretended that I was not worried about my communication level. I tried to give a fake impression to myself that I was working on my communication skills. I gave a false positive generosity saying that it is acceptable to be a less effective communicator. Other times, regardless of people’s feedback, I judged that my communication was really bad and unqualified. I silently put a name tag that I was an unorganized speaker with low self-confidence. I deceived myself that I could speak and write well in my native language, but I could not be a successful communicator as I am using a second language, English. In other words, I kept moving back and forth between two extreme measurements. I have neglected the inner relationship with my language. I postponed looking at my language carefully and taking care of it. I naively assume that my language will grow and get better as I get old.
With that question from the book, I started to look at my language in my mind that had been wondering while searching for warmer attention, clearer directions and more nourishment. Sometimes, it came out from my mouth in undeveloped format like a wild crying animal captured in a bars cage. Sometimes, it refused to come out in this world like a shivering rabbit in its cave. In either way, I was hurt and my self-capability sense went down. With pre-determined judgements, my language got lost for a long time. At the same time, I expect a high performance from my language. Yes, it was confusing and contradictory.
I took my situation as a big disadvantage to my growth that I needed to make a living in English and I still cannot claim the full familiarity with that second language . In many times, I felt stuffed in my throat emotionally and heard the soundless scream swirling inside. However, now my perspective is changed. As my long time ago yoga mentor told me, I have a relative advantage rather than a disadvantage to observe my own thinking and communication systems using English. It is simply because when one is so used to something, one can hardly realize it. However, when one needs to deal with an unfamiliar thing, one can start observing the corresponding familiar things with a fresh eye through comparison.
It would not be easy to rip off the old tags that have settled in my mind for a long time, but I will work on cleaning up my prejudices on my own language and allow a space in my mind to improve my relationship with English for now. I believe when people work on building a safer and more comforting relationship with own language, the communication container will be expanded and be stronger. And after that, we can work on improving communication skills just like deciding which patterns and decorations we want to put on the container to make it look more pleasing and better. | https://medium.com/@cosmosmind00/out-of-many-relationships-you-have-hows-the-relationship-with-your-own-language-going-d1211ac15a31 | [] | 2020-12-27 01:04:31.312000+00:00 | ['Languge', 'Second Language', 'Communication', 'English', 'Mindset'] |
Spread Love !!! Spread Peace !!! with (…Spread) Operator in JavaScript | With greater power comes even greater responsibilities
Over the last few years, there has been a massive transition of programmers who switched to JavaScript from other programming languages and the best part is JavaScript did not disappoint and kept on evolving.
JavaScript has massively improved its syntax and functionality with additional features over the last few years. With ES6, JavaScript introduced a bunch of features and one of them is the Spread Operator aka … Operator.
Confused with the three dots ??? Yes that’s what Spread Operator looks like
Let’s take a look at what Spread Operator does.
Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash
MDN Definition:
Spread syntax ( ... ) allows an iterable such as an array expression or string to be expanded in places where zero or more arguments (for function calls) or elements (for array literals) are expected, or an object expression to be expanded in places where zero or more key-value pairs (for object literals) are expected.
Syntax:
Its syntax is pretty straight forward just add three dots
const numbers = [1, 2, 3];
console.log(...numbers); OUTPUT: 1 2 3
Spread Operator can be used for three different cases:
Function Calls
myFunction(...iterableObj);
2. Array Literals
[...iterableObj, '4', 'five', 6];
3. Object Literals | https://medium.com/@smkskr/spread-love-spread-peace-with-spread-operator-in-javascript-7fd0cd05612a | ['Saumik Sarkar'] | 2021-04-01 23:12:15.943000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Javascript Development', 'Spread Operator', 'ES6', 'Javascript Tips'] |
Crypto space is developing and institutional investors are getting involved | Crypto space is developing and institutional investors are getting involved Finoa Follow May 27 · 14 min read
This report focuses on the institutional adoption of crypto from the perspective of Finoa as the leading crypto custodian in Europe. It provides a general overview of the news-worthy institutional investments over the past year and a categorization of use cases of such investments as we observe them.
2020: The inflection point for Bitcoin’s institutional adoption
The past 12 months have seen a major shift in the way institutions look at digital assets. The economic effects of the covid-19 lockdowns in spring of 2020 caused central banks to engage in economic stimulus and lower interest rates to zero, and the narrative surrounding Bitcoin became that of “digital gold” — a good hedge against inflation. This was further strengthened by Bitcoin’s halving in May 2020, whereby the supply of newly “mined” Bitcoin was cut in half, making it less inflationary than gold.
A June 2020 survey from Fidelity Digital Assets found that 36% of US and European institutional investors were already investing in crypto assets — those institutions included high-net-worth individuals, financial advisors, family offices, crypto hedge and venture funds, traditional hedge funds, endowments, and foundations. Especially in the latter half of 2020, a number of large institutional investors announced purchases of Bitcoin, as shown in the timeline graphic below.
Institutional crypto investing accelerated in 2020, with major bitcoin purchases from the likes of MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Square, as well as hedge fund managers like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller
Curiously, while Bitcoin garners ever-increasing attention from institutions, interest from ordinary retail investors never passed its 2017 high, according to Google Trends.
Google searches worldwide for “bitcoin” over the past five years. (As of May 5th, 2021)
This indicates that bitcoin’s price rally to 3x the 2017 high has not been driven by the same sort of retail mania as in 2017.
It has never been easier for institutions to get exposure to crypto
Making a first foray into crypto investing can be an intimidating prospect, but the reality is that it is easier than ever to achieve a crypto allocation, for both retail and institutions alike. Firms like MicroStrategy and Tesla chose to achieve their Bitcoin allocation through direct ownership of crypto, purchased and custodied through US prime brokerage services. Those who prefer not to own crypto directly, however, can choose from several crypto-backed ETP’s now trading on stock exchanges in Canada and Europe. Although the US SEC has yet to approve a crypto ETF, Grayscale has provided an investment avenue for US institutional investors via a trust structure. The Grayscale trusts take on new investors via private placements, buying cryptocurrencies in the background to achieve the underlying backing for the shares. Alternatively, for institutions comfortable holding derivatives, futures for both BTC and ETH can be traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
There are also a few options to purchase stock in crypto companies. Coinbase went public on the NASDAQ via a direct listing in April, and its stock provides a way to bet on one of the largest brokerage exchanges in the space. Other notable public crypto companies include the crypto miners Canaan and Riot Blockchain, the ETP provider Coinshares, and the holding company Galaxy Digital.
While this report focuses on institutional investment, it is worth mentioning that opportunities for retail investors to purchase crypto now include Paypal, Venmo, CashApp, Revolut, Trade Republic, Robinhood, eToro, and more. For retail and institutions alike, whether from the US or global, it has never been easier to determine how to invest in crypto.
Breaking down recent institutional inflows into crypto
Grayscale led the way in 2020
The prevailing narrative surrounding institutional inflows has been centered around the Grayscale trusts, which offer new institutional investors access via private placements. These trusts provided an easy answer to institutional investors wondering how to invest in crypto, and Grayscale reported higher inflows for every subsequent quarter of 2020.(The average commitment of institutions also rose dramatically to $6.8 million.) By the end of 2020, Grayscale had raised over $5.7 billion across its family of investment products, more than four times the inflows the received from its inception in 2013 to the end of 2019. Further inflows in Q1 of 2021, combined with the continued rising price of Bitcoin, grew Grayscale’s Bitcoin trust to $36 billion under management, as of May 5th, 2021. With another $8.7b in the Ethereum Trust, Grayscale is one of the fastest-growing asset managers of all time.
The rise of exchange-traded products
A list of crypto ETPs as of May 5th, 2021 — Bloomberg
More traditional (non-trust) exchange-traded products (ETP) have also seen significant inflows. ETPs are springing up in Canada and Europe quickly attracted hundreds of millions from investors wishing to get crypto exposure without the challenge of managing custody of their assets. According to Bloomberg, as of May 5th, 2021 there are $6.9b in Bitcoin ETP’s and another $2.4b in open interest in CME’s Bitcoin futures. (See graphic for full breakdown)
The largest ETPs for both Bitcoin and Ethereum are the “trackers” from Coinshares, which have traded for many years on the NASDAQ Stockholm exchange and have several billion dollars under management. While these “trackers” are synthetically replicated — using both direct ownership of Bitcoin and also derivatives — they do offer shareholders the ability to redeem their shares for the underlying crypto assets, and the funds have been audited to prove their 1:1 replication of the underlying assets.
Further demand may soon come from Germany, where new legislation passed in April of 2021 allows German Spezialfonds to invest up to 20% of their assets into crypto, creating new avenues for institutional investment in Europe (this legislation has yet to come into effect at the time of this report).
The ongoing wait for a US ETF
The next major step forward in the crypto ETP landscape would be the long-waited approval of a Bitcoin ETF by the United States SEC. The Winklevoss twins filed a first application for such an ETF in 2013, which was rejected by the SEC in 2017. Many Bitcoin ETF applications have been made since then, only to receive similar rejections. (Currently, there are 8 applications with the SEC for a Bitcoin ETF.) Grayscale has also stated its desire to convert its products from trusts into ETFs, which would then become redeemable for the underlying assets and trade at a fairer price. Institutional investors wishing to purchase crypto via exchange-traded products will have to wait for a US ETF and make do with existing ETPs.
Crypto investment use cases — Finoa’s perspective
In crypto, investors are as diverse as the methods used to achieve an allocation. Not every institutional investor is the same or enters crypto for the same reason, and Finoa serves a variety of clients who can be broadly categorized as follows:
1. Venture capital is investing in crypto-projects
Whether investing in a blockchain project, participating in governance, or receiving staking rewards, Finoa sees a variety of VC firms following a variety of crypto investing strategies. Traditionally, VCs invest in startup companies at the initial stages of their growth, taking big risks but purchasing significant portions of equity. In crypto, while some founders build companies and raise money by selling equity, innovation also happens in another way: teams of developers work to design and implement new blockchain protocols. Developer teams raise money by allocating a number of tokens on their new blockchain to be sold to investors. VC investors make an agreement with the development team to receive these tokens once the blockchain starts running, after which point more tokens can be distributed to the wider public via a public token sale. Finoa aspires to be the bridge allowing institutional investments to flow into crypto, including the protocol layer, the infrastructure layer, and the application layer, and to this end serves both VC’s as well as industry leaders like CoinList.
GOVERNANCE: On some blockchains, the tokens represent the ability to participate in the governance mechanisms of the blockchain protocol and are used to vote on decisions about how the protocol should run in the future, or where the development team should focus their efforts. This model more closely resembles ownership of voting shares of traditional companies, and venture capital firms are willing to pay for the ability to influence the direction that their investment takes. This is a unique use case that Finoa is following with great interest as here too, custodians have a potential role to play.
STAKING: For blockchains using the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, investors can enjoy the ability to stake their tokens on the network and earn passive rewards. (This is explained in a previous Finoa blog post HERE)
Finoa allows Proof-of-Stake token holders to choose from several institutional-grade validators to delegate their stake to, ensuring that the underlying blockchains remain decentralized.
2. Crypto-native startups with their own token treasury
As blockchain developers design new and innovative blockchain protocols, they implement unique methods to fund their efforts and organizations. Typically, a developer team will allocate themselves an initial number of tokens, which can be used to sell to venture capital (VC) firms to raise funds. These developer teams require custodians like Finoa in order to safely custody their remaining treasury assets in a regulated manner.
3. Traditional companies invest some of their treasury, provide infrastructure
The current low interest rate environment has led many companies to seek yield for their treasury and hedge their exposure to inflation. German corporates are no exception, and we work with many corporate clients who are looking for digital asset exposure. These types of clients generally seek to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum and show limited interest in tokens of other protocols. While corporates have generally not led the surge in institutional investments, Genesis Trading reports that the ratios are shifting:
“Before Q1 2021, hedge funds and passive funds were some of our largest clients by OTC volume. As corporate clients began buying Bitcoin for their treasuries in Q1, our ratios shifted. When viewing our top 100 largest clients by OTC volume traded, Genesis saw volume from “Corporates” increase from under 1% to over 25% of our total activity.” (Genesis Q1 2021 Report)
However, not all corporates are getting involved in crypto solely for their treasury assets. T-Systems, one of Finoa’s corporate clients, saw an opportunity to provide staking and node infrastructure but required a custodian to safely manage the proceeds from their staking and node activities. Read more about our cooperation here.
4. HNWI’s seek first-time exposure or move from self-custody to professional solutions
High-net-worth individuals are also becoming interested in crypto but often have no way to invest via their existing brokerage solutions, and do not want to manage custody of their own digital assets. Finoa offers intuitive access to the ecosystem, bringing down the technical barrier to entry and offering the opportunity to custody with a regulated crypto custodian. In this class of clients, we see some risk-on investors exploring purchases of tokens other than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
This category also includes early investors or miners of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies who have custodied their own stockpiles for years, but recently watched the value of their assets grow to such a degree that they seek professional custody services.
5. Hedge funds and crypto-only funds pursue diverse strategies
Many hedge funds limit their trading and investing strategies to certain asset classes, and this applies to crypto as well. We see a number of funds with the sole purpose of putting money into the crypto space, either in tokens, equity in startups, or both. Because these funds are crypto-only, investors typically allocate a small portion of their assets. A typical NYDIG Bitcoin investor, for example, has between 1–5% of their portfolio invested in cryptocurrency, with a few exceeding 5% (Forbes).
At Finoa we are happy to serve some of the world’s largest crypto funds, custodying their digital assets and allowing them to earn staking rewards on their Proof-of-Stake tokens.
There is also a place in the crypto markets for traders seeking returns without betting on the directional movement of the crypto market. The most notable of these “market neutral” crypto investing strategies is the “basis trade”: cash is used to buy Bitcoin on the spot market, which is used as collateral for a short position in the futures market where bitcoin trades at a premium. Since these contracts expire at the same price as the spot market, all that is required to capture a profit equal to this premium is to wait until the expiry of the futures contract and then sell the spot Bitcoin position back to cash. Genesis Trading reports that “the persistence in basis premium has led many more institutions to eye crypto yield opportunities.” This trade incentivizes the flow of cash into the crypto market, as well as higher interest rates in the crypto lending markets, as traders seek to get “longer” bitcoin in order to increase the size of their basis trade.
6. Family offices and asset managers
Family offices manage familial and generational wealth and focus on managing risk by constructing a portfolio of diverse assets. Such a portfolio should have a high “Sharpe ratio” — diversified enough to perform well in many economic environments while never experiencing significant volatility. Many family offices and asset managers continue to monitor crypto but do not engage on their clients’ behalf, but some have realized that even a small allocation to Bitcoin can significantly increase the Sharpe ratio of any traditional portfolio. This is due to crypto’s non-correlation with other asset classes and the positive performance of Bitcoin over recent years. Analysis from the ETP provider Iconic Holdings found that:
“In the example of the traditional 80/20 stock bond portfolio, it can be observed that the Sharpe ratio increases from 6.66 with no cryptocurrencies included to approx. 8.17 with 1% crypto, 9.53 with 3% crypto, and 9.79 with 5% crypto allocated.”
Finoa is receiving a growing number of inquiries, signaling that adoption has started among family offices and investment advisors.
Investing passively vs putting assets to work
Crypto investors generally become more sophisticated over time and learn how to use their assets with the ecosystem.
We’ve explored the types of crypto investors and their reasons for investing, but we can also classify investors based on their level of involvement with the crypto assets they own:
Passive holders : interested in the long-term price appreciation of their assets, perhaps first-time buyers.
: interested in the long-term price appreciation of their assets, perhaps first-time buyers. Yield seekers : put crypto-assets to work — earn interest via centralized lending platforms and rewards from staking.
: put crypto-assets to work — earn interest via centralized lending platforms and rewards from staking. DeFi users: use assets to participate in decentralized finance (DeFi) via lending protocols, yield farming, blockchain governance, or interactions with other decentralized applications (Dapps).
There is a shift happening on the institutional side, where the focus is broadening from simple crypto investing strategies to more complex engagement with the crypto ecosystem.
The value of digital assets locked in DeFi has exploded over the past 12 months (see graph below), but regulations still lag behind and prevent many institutions from entering in full force. Centralized lending (CeFi) companies have successfully opened up a lending market for crypto and work with many large institutions, but the world of DeFi still remains largely retail dominated due to regulatory and technical complexity and risk.
The evolution of digital assets
Cryptocurrencies
The recent entrance of major corporations and institutions into the crypto ecosystem signified an advancement along the adoption curve. Crypto has clearly grown beyond the retail investors who pushed bitcoin to its 2017 heights — now accredited and institutional investors are learning how to invest in crypto. US banks have been given the regulatory go-ahead to offer custody of crypto assets, and core banking software is being upgraded to facilitate crypto investing by private and investment bankers. However, the low adoption from family offices and pension providers shows that we still have a long way to go before cryptocurrencies and other digital assets reach the level of acceptance associated with equities, bonds, or real estate. The largest of institutions will not be able to enter the crypto market in a meaningful way until there is more comprehensive regulatory and tax guidance, less volatility and more liquidity in the markets, and the ability to cheaply insure large portfolios of assets.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
A development that ran parallel to the cryptocurrency space in 2020 was the testing of China’s digital Yuan and the beginning of serious discussion around Central Bank Digital Currencies in Europe and the US. While it seems unlikely that countries will begin to move to a “Bitcoin standard” of money or use their sovereign wealth funds to enter crypto in the near future, Governments are now paying attention to cryptocurrencies and thinking about their role in the future of digital money.
Tokenization of existing financial assets
Perhaps the largest development yet to take shape in the digital asset landscape is “tokenization”, whereby existing financial assets are put onto the blockchain in the form of “security tokens”. Tokenization is set to create massive change in the way we account for and trade assets, both digital and physical, as ownership of digital assets can be more easily transferred, fractionalized into smaller shares, and traded with more liquidity. Tokenization of real estate assets, for example, would do away with listing agents, real estate attorneys, title companies, and notary signing agents, as smart contracts and blockchain ledgers would create immutable records of ownership and transactions. Research from the World Economic Forum (WEF), Deloitte, and McKinsey project that up to 10% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be stored and transacted with the help of blockchain technology by 2025–27. A 2018 study from Finoa estimated a tokenized asset market of ~$24trn by 2027.
In 2020, Finoa custodied an asset-linked token representing a German DAX share, which was created by Bankhaus Scheich and Cashlink Technologies. We’ve already taken the first step in what we predict will soon be a massive trend towards tokenization.
Conclusion
Whether through a crypto ETP, a prime brokerage trading desk, or an agreement with a developer team, institutional investors of all kinds are entering the blossoming crypto-asset space. An asset class once seen as risky and confusing has become an area of opportunity, and institutions are keen to find their place in this growing industry.
At Finoa, we serve a wide variety of institutions that choose to get involved in crypto for a variety of reasons. Our goal is to create the gateway for traditional financial market participants to safely engage with digital assets, supporting the ecosystem and growing with our clients. We instill trust by keeping safety and security our highest priority while developing our product to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated client base. We see industry trends clearly reflected in our client base, and we’re more excited than ever to serve as the leading European custodian in the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. | https://medium.com/finoa-banking/the-evolution-of-institutional-crypto-investing-43b7289b8528 | [] | 2021-09-06 13:01:39.633000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Digital Asset', 'Institutional Investor', 'Industry', 'Crypto'] |
The geography of Pubs in the UK: Visualizing Geographical Information with Plotly | In my previous blog, I performed some Text Mining techniques to learn more about the names of the Pubs in UK. Since the source of the information contained also the location of each Pub, I am writing this second blog to learn something different about the drinking culture of this country.
Plotting a map is an excellent way of making sense of datasets that contain information about location in the physical world. To understand where the Pubs are geographically concentrated, I would like to start with a basic Scatterplot using the coordinates (latitude and longitude) provided in the dataset.
To do so, I will use Plotly, which is a very advanced and flexible data visualization library. The chart below uses an integration with Mapbox in order to get the base layer of the map and then plot the dots on top of that. We can see that the largest concentration of Pubs happen in the Greater London region, the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds corridor and also in the region surrounding Newcastle.
If you wish to do so, you can zoom in to get a more detailed look and also hover the mouse to see the pubs name and coordinate. Click here to see a zoomable version of the map. | https://medium.com/@focaalvarez/the-geography-of-pubs-in-the-uk-visualizing-geographical-information-with-plotly-4dbfc433eb05 | ['Juan Felipe Alvarez Jaramillo'] | 2019-07-14 08:39:33.080000+00:00 | ['Data Wrangling', 'Maps', 'Data Visualization', 'Plotly'] |
The ‘Glee’ Cast Is Honoring Naya Rivera With A Holiday Charity Drive | “Following their co-star’s tragic July death, the Glee cast is honoring Naya Rivera’s memory this holiday season with a charitable fundraiser. Matthew Morrison, who played Will Schuester in the Fox series, shared in a recent Entertainment Tonight Zoom interview that it was ‘a really challenging year’ with the loss of another cast member but that the group has ‘bonded together so much.’ As part of that, they’ve teamed up to do some good.
Morrison explained that ‘Naya used to do this thing called Snixxmas,’ a Christmas party named using ‘one of her little nicknames, Snixx.’ He told ET that he and his former co-stars were considering reviving the tradition this year, and not long afterward, they officially launched a GoFundMe to collect donations for Rivera’s favorite charity, Alexandria House in Los Angeles. According to the organization’s website, Alexandria House is a ‘transitional residence and house of hospitality’ that provides ‘safe and supportive housing for women and children in the process of moving from emergency shelter to economic stability and permanent housing.’ The Snixxmas Charity Drive, which runs through Dec. 18, has raised more than $68,000 of their updated $100,000 goal, with contributions coming from over 2,700 donors, at the time of publication.
Rivera, the mom to 5-year-old Josey, was vocal about her support of the organization. ‘The connection I feel with [Alexandria House] and the people who reside and work there has been the biggest blessing and made such a huge positive impact on myself and my son,’ she wrote in February, five months before she died in a drowning accident at age 33. ‘We truly have found a home away from home through the time we spend volunteering there.’
In a Dec. 3 video promoting the charity fundraiser, Glee alums including Darren Criss, Heather Morris, Jane Lynch, Dianna Agron, Harry Shum Jr., Kevin McHale, Chord Overstreet, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Chris Colfer joined Morrison in singing Rivera’s praises. ‘Every holiday season, Naya not only managed to find a way to give something to great back to her friends and family, but something great back to her community,’ Criss said. Ushkowitz added, ‘Now more than ever, it’s important that we keep the Snixxmas spirit alive.’”
View the whole story here: https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/glee-stars-naya-rivera-holiday-charity-fundraiser | https://medium.com/@tonycowger/the-glee-cast-is-honoring-naya-rivera-with-a-holiday-charity-drive-258a31e901a7 | ['Tony Cowger'] | 2020-12-08 12:22:59.487000+00:00 | ['News', 'Charity', 'Giving', 'Homeless', 'Holidays'] |
Books I recommend to read | Atomic Habits by James Clear
This has been a phenomenal book on productivity that genuinely has useful tips to help improve your work flow. It has given tips to improve your productivity step by step. It lists out a nice summary at the end of each paragraph on how to implement the strategies straight away. Although there are many productivity books out there, the simplicity and ease in which he introduces concepts make it enticing to read and definitely worth reading.
So if you have an issue with productivity I highly recommend you read this book.
UK: https://amzn.to/34KJvQI | https://medium.com/@medifectious/books-i-recommend-to-read-4910da14a1b7 | [] | 2020-12-26 21:59:46.252000+00:00 | ['Book Review', 'Atomic Habit', 'Productivity'] |
How Friday the 13th Became a Teenager | Once upon a time, Friday the 12th was bored. And pissed off. It was November. And cold. After all, he was 12. It was practically his job to be bored.
The darkening sky came earlier and earlier in Friday’s village until one day it was pitch black outside a little after five p.m.
Friday hadn’t even taken a shower yet that day and decided to hell with it. Why bother now?
Soon, Friday was spending his days sleeping later and later until he wasn’t even waking up until after it was already dark.
Friday’s mother finally put her foot down.
“Friday, get up,” she screamed from the bottom of the stairs one day at the ungodly hour of 2 p.m. “It’s going to be dark soon and you have to stop sleeping your life away.”
Friday had stopped going to school and playing video games and doing anything he used to do. Now Friday mainly stayed awake a few of the dark hours at the end of the day like a sickly patient whose life was so out of whack that he wasn’t sure what day of the week it was. He was content to sit on the couch with his mother and watched whatever idiot show his father tuned the TV to.
But today after hearing his mother, Friday stretched and yawned and even though he seriously contemplated going back to sleep, he realized he was wide awake.
“WTF,” he murmured to his dog Bowtie.
Bowtie was curled at Friday’s feet and knew it wasn’t time to get up, not even close. But his master did something out of character. He flung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Bowtie hopped on the floor too and looked up at the boy.
Friday glanced at the calendar. He had taken to X’ing out the day as it passed, and the next date glared back at him.
Today’s date.
Friday the 13th.
And Friday realized that it was December. “How did that happen?” he said, rubbing the sleep out of one eye.
Bowtie just looked at the boy.
“Are you up? I hope you’re up. Come down here, Friday,” his mother bellowed up the stairs.
Friday made a pitstop in the restroom then trudged down the stairs.
At the dining room table, Friday saw his friends Weekend and Tomorrow. Since his hermit stage had begun, he hadn’t seen either of them. It had been weeks.
The boys were seated across from each other wearing little party hats. When they saw Friday, they blew on little horns and yelled, “Happy birthday, Friday!”
Friday’s mother hugged her son and said, “Have a seat, honey. Did you forget? Today’s your birthday!”
Yes, Friday had in fact forgotten it was his birthday. He realized it was strange to have to be reminded of it, but not every year had a Friday the 13th in December. But this one did.
So that day, Friday turned 13 and celebrated his milestone birthday with his buddies, who later dragged him out in the real world to buy a real Christmas tree at Friday’s mother’s request. She said she needed the scent of pine to fill the house.
They all needed it, in fact.
And as soon as Friday left with his friends she high tailed it upstairs where she opened all the windows to get rid of the teenage funk that lingered in the air. | https://medium.com/muddyum/how-friday-the-13th-became-a-teenager-363b0ea2cec1 | ['Peggy Gillespie Hazelwood'] | 2019-12-14 04:53:47.174000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Humor', 'Friday The 13th', 'Short Story', 'Satire'] |
Breathtaking | I looked over at my wife. Our eyes met, and we took a collective deep breath before I rang the doorbell. This was going to be hard.
We were standing at the front door of the home of a good friend. He and his family were going through a difficult time. His forty-year-old wife had been diagnosed with brain cancer five years earlier. Her therapeutic course was a typical cancer story — surgery followed by traditional chemotherapy followed by rounds of recurrences with requisite increases in tiers of therapy. Unfortunately, her cancer was unrelenting and stubborn, oblivious to her surgeons and oncologists’ efforts and deaf to the prayers of her family. He sent me her most recent MRI. Regrettably, the images corroborated the bleak prognosis.
We were there that morning to attempt to provide a brief moment of solace and comfort. We wanted to make sure our friends knew we were there to provide support, and they would not be alone through what was sure to be a heart wrenching few months. Perhaps we could give some respite through discussion of spirituality, faith, and communion.
I had not seen my friend for a while due to the pandemic and anticipated he would be worn down by the grind of sorrow and grief. I was surprised when he opened the door with his usual warm smile and booming voice.
He was not haggard but looked surprisingly well. We followed him into the living room, and he informed us that his wife had just gone to the bedroom to get some rest. I assumed she was very frail and weak and likely spent most of her time in bed. We learned he had been furloughed from his job due to the pandemic and was currently not working. Ironically, he said it was a blessing not to work as it allowed him to care for his wife. While he was giving us an update on her condition, she rounded the corner of the room and greeted us with a smile and kind words. She was weak but managed to walk across the room of her own volition, sat in a chair, and joined us in conversation. They both spoke in a shockingly matter-of-fact manner about the prognosis and likely course without any apparent sadness or dejection — no watery eyes or cracked voices.
How could this be?
The sword of Damocles sways above our heads, but the certainty of knowing it will drop in only a matter of weeks to months should be overwhelming and crippling. It would fill me with anxiety, despair, and regret over all that I would not be able to do or experience. Yet in this home, it was not. Elisabeth Kübler Ross’ five stages of grief popped into my head.
Denial. They are clearly in denial, I thought. This was the only way to explain their otherwise unexplainable equanimity. Yet the more I listened, it became clear they did not deny the natural course of the disease. They were well aware of what was going to happen. So rather than trying to understand why, I decided just to listen.
He spoke of the four best choices of his life, with the first being to marry his wife. They spoke of their lives together, not with melancholy but with appreciation. She talked of her faith and the inevitability of death, and how she was not resigned to her fate but instead had found peace with it. They showed us a full binder of handwritten notes they had compiled based upon scriptural reading. I figured it was something they had recently compiled while desperately searching for some explanations to life’s cruel twists. Flipping through the pages, however, it dawned on me that this was several years in the making. Together, they read and discussed age-old questions, metaphysical and material — of this world and the next. It was a testament to their love and understanding of each other and their faith. This was the answer to my question. They were not delusional or confused. Instead, they had achieved greater clarity and confidence in their belief of transcendence due to her diagnosis than most will achieve over multiple lifetimes.
We often speak of faith, providing support during periods of crisis, but those conversations typically occur while not in a crisis state. Mike Tyson famously once said, “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” Spirituality and transcendence are often discussed in coffee shops and university classrooms (and hazy dorm rooms) but rarely practiced in the real world. To see such poise, stability, and strength in the terrible crucible of cancer was simply breathtaking. My friend then said something that I will never forget — “I am so fortunate to be so rich.” Was he delusional? No. He was genuine. But how? Because he measured wealth with a different metric than most. Before we left, he took me to his garden and picked some fresh kale and cilantro for us to take home. I insisted that he not, yet his grace and compassion would not be denied.
We walked to the car carrying a large bag of organic kale and cilantro. To say the visit had not gone as we thought would be an understatement.
The cancer was unrelenting and had taken so much of her and him. It had broken her body, but it failed in breaking their unyielding spirit and faith.
His figure became smaller in my rearview mirror as I pulled away, and we quietly drove home. We were humbled and deep in thought. We had gone to inspire, but we were inspired. We had gone to provide strength, but we were the ones given strength. We had gone to speak of faith, but we had our faith reinvigorated. I pray that if hard times come to pass for my family and me, I can marshal even a fraction of their strength and understanding that pain is inevitable, but suffering is truly optional.
Addendum
My friend passed away on December 26, peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by her loving family. Her funeral was a celebration of her life, love, and light. We are sad and grieve because we miss our friend, wife, mother, daughter, and sister, but we find inspiration in her strength, faith, conviction, and clarity of purpose.
Dr. Kashyap Patel, Cardiologist
Atlanta, Georgia | https://medium.com/bapsbetterliving/breathtaking-f47190c3e113 | ['Param Shanti'] | 2020-12-28 14:32:45.270000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Spirituality', 'Life', 'Transcendence', 'Faith'] |
A Very Stark Christmas: Chapter 2 | “We didn’t order room service.” Before I could shut the door, Santa stuck a size thirteen combat boot into the gap.
“No time for funny business Stark, there’s a war going on and you’ve been drafted.”
“You got the wrong room pal.” Helen stepped up beside me. “The only battles we’re planning involve a wrestling match between me and lover boy. It’s not a tag team event either, so scram.”
Santa yanked down the fake beard he’d been wearing as a mask. “Don’t you recognize me?”
I squinted, trying to place the fading red hair and splotches of freckles scattered across his face. “Hmm… something keeps knocking at my brain,” I said. “Weren’t you the smart-ass kid brother in a 1970s sitcom? Donny? Dopey?”
“Danny!” Santa shouted. “I’m Danny Bonaduce.”
“No, that’s not it,” Helen spoke up. “It was some sort of bird. A turkey?”
“I ought to know my own gosh-darn name. I’m not here to reminisce on my faded acting career. And it was a partridge, not a turkey. We need to hire Stark. Someone has stolen Christmas!”
“Look, Santa Danny, just because a certain coffee shop puts ‘Happy Holidays’ on their cups instead of ‘Merry Christmas’ it doesn’t mean we’ve given up celebrating Christmas.”
“Oh yeah?” Santa Danny folded his arms across his chest, a smug look on his face. “Then why is the presence of Christmas missing?”
“Argh! No!” A scream issued behind me. Helen again.
“What?”
“They’re gone!” Helen stood before the open door to the tiny closet in our hotel room. It held my spare trench coat and the pink plastic case where Helen kept her makeup. Nothing else. “My Christmas presents!” Helen wailed. She can cry like a siren, that woman. “I even had one for you, Stark.”
Pushing past Santa Danny, I stepped out our door into the snowy courtyard of the motor court. The red and green lights that had draped the roof line of the building were gone. Also missing was the plastic nativity scene and the inflatable snow globe. Even the sign that had read “Happy Birthday Jesus” was gone.
“What’s going on here?” Behind me, Helen frantically tried to tune in holiday songs on the radio. Nothing but static. Not even a single chorus of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
“I told you, they’ve stolen Christmas.”
“Who stole Christmas?” I asked. “How?”
“If we knew who and how, we wouldn’t need you then would we.”
I thought of the message rock-stamped on my cheek. “You could have thought of a better way of asking for help. I’m not fond of felonious assault unless it’s my girlfriend doing the battery.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Santa Danny said. “And I certainly don’t want the details.”
Santa Danny was wearing out his welcome faster than the anchovies on our pizza. “Cut to the chase, Danny. I’ve got a pizza that’s getting colder and a dame who’s growing…”
“All right.” Fake Santa covered his ears. “We know this much. Christmas was stolen by the same bunch who stole the election.”
Oh boy. This was going to be a hard nut to crack sober. “Who stole the election?” I asked. “Hugo Chavez? Domino’s Pizza? Captain Morgan? Krampus?”
Danny’s eyes lit up like a slot-machine jackpot. “Would you be willing to testify to that conspiracy?”
“Look, I guess I’m about as convincing as the rest of you clowns, but that’s not a circus I’m ready to join. Christmas, however, that hits home. Five hundred a day, plus expenses.”
Helen scrawled out a contract on hotel stationery, Danny signed it (with his real name) and handed me an advance, in cash.
After Danny took off, I pondered the case while we finished off the pizza.
“Where do I start?” I asked Helen. “And if it wasn’t the War on Christmas conspiracy crowd, who tossed the rock message?”
“We’ll find out.” Helen narrowed her eyes. “I’m going with you on this one. We’re here, in New York City, the setting of some of the most famous Christmas movies. You’re gonna need a tour guide, and I know just where to start.”
I nodded. I didn’t know how we were going to recover Christmas, or who the bad guys would turn out to be, but I knew one thing. Helen was tougher to tangle with than a string of Christmas lights. | https://medium.com/out-of-ideas-out-of-time/a-very-stark-christmas-chapter-two-d630e1739d89 | ['Terrye Turpin'] | 2020-12-21 01:45:37.735000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'A Very Stark Christmas', 'Short Story', 'Collaboration', 'Fiction'] |
Hippopoetess | Hippopoetess
On words, poetic and otherwise.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
He wrote lovely words,
beautiful ones about hyacinths
and lantanas, zinnias and spires,
Never achieving immortal fame
as perhaps he would have liked
to, as the poets often delight
to. The Santa Fe of his later
life, still so far from the broken-
bottle alcoholism of the Brooklyn
childhood home that held him but
did not hold him back.
He said, besides those lovely words
about hyacinths, he called her
The Hippopoetess.
Another he wrote other kinds of words,
more for immortality than
understanding, about granite brinks for Helicon.
Though the term in
question was not originally his,
but he repeated it, at a party,
attempting to be charming or funny
maybe:
The Hippopoetess.
She, from her Brahmin berth,
wrote of Other kinds of love,
of being drunk with the wine of
you — who? Never said a word
about the word, the term,
the name, the slur. But moved
on in that world of words
they all shared; but did she
wonder, maybe, in that wide
world of words why that one
should have emerged? | https://medium.com/broads-non-grata/hippopoetess-57caa63ba449 | ['Brian Fehler'] | 2019-11-16 06:55:19.226000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Women', 'Amy Lowell', 'Poet', 'Culture'] |
How I Lost it All at 35,000 Feet | “Love, do you have a barf bag in your seat back!?” I whisper yelled to my wife, Marisa across the aisle.
Before children, I’d never imagined being able to successfully incorporate “love” and “barf” into the same sentence.
Catching the eyes of my sweetheart across the aisle, I was reminded why. “Barf” ranked as the least-favorite word in her trilingual vocabulary — even as it topped the charts for her four little boys, who were all now snickering with delight.
I knew one carefully placed “poop” could send all four into a hysteria, however, I refrained in order to preserve my love life.
Asking for a barf bag before takeoff, even when attempted in a hushed tone, is always guaranteed a lively response.
In fact, in the world of least-desired phrases, only “he’s got a bomb,” “is that what you’re wearing,” and “we’re back with another 24 hours of non-stop Jingle Bell Rock,” rank higher.
Unsurprisingly, within seconds I had three barf bags in hand, all from nearby passengers suddenly eager to help. I handed all three to Sam, my eight-year-old son allergic to takeoffs, landings, and everything in between.
As we rolled toward takeoff, a cheery male co-captain was informing us in a lilting English accent that our travel time would be three hours and eighteen minutes, as planned. He was also pleased to report that the weather in Paris was a sunny, 18 degrees celsius.
“18 degrees celsius?”
Finding myself suddenly marooned in the world of metrics, I began flinging out random math equations trying to arrive at an actual temperature in Paris.
Was it 2.2 times the 18 degrees, plus 32? Maybe it was 1.8 times the 32 plus 18?
I remembered having studied this freshman year of high school but had long forgotten it, undoubtedly rationalized by some astute teenage observation like “Celsius is stupid. Nobody uses it anyway.”
As is the case with most fifteen-year-old opinions, I was profoundly wrong in my estimates.
In fact, of the 195 countries that exist today, only three have not adopted the International System of Units: the United States, Liberia, and Burma.
Liberia, because it was founded by Americans and Burma probably just missed a memo sometime in the mid 20th century when the rest of the world was ditching the old British standard, which even Britain ditched in 1965. Of the three outliers, America is the only superpower to resist the change.
The reasoning for America’s continued allegiance to the Big F° is a mystery. Sure, Anders Celsius might not have been the “made for TV drama” type (Daniel Fahrenheit’s parents both died young from eating poisonous mushrooms when he was a child and later he had to run from the police), but at least his measurements came in nice, sensible round packages.
The freezing of water happens at zero degrees and boiling happens at one-hundred. Fahrenheit, on the other hand, chose zero degrees to be the freezing temperature of a unique water/ice/salt mixture which naturally then meant that actual water would freeze at 32 degrees and boil at 212 degrees.
It’s as if he were trying to intentionally come up with a system to confuse the world.
This failure to switch to Celsius is just another example underlining a strong undercurrent of oppositional defiant disorder when Americans are told what to do.
While the rest of the developed world was mandating a metric conversion in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States was politely asking its citizens to make the switch. In 1975 the United States Congress created the United States Metric Board.
The legislation, while intended to follow suit with the rest of the developed world, was soft and gooey in comparison to other countries’ official mandates. Unwanting or unwilling to offend anyone, the act was voluntary with no hard deadline. The result was that no one was offended, nothing changed, and the Board was disbanded by President Reagan seven years later.
It would be one thing if America was standing on principle (even if only the principle of capitalism) but even that isn’t true.
In the past 30 years since the rest of the world switched measurement teams, America’s allegiance to Daniel Fahrenheit has cost them and everyone else billions.
In fact, on one day alone in the Fall of 1999, NASA (who arguably employs some of the brightest people on the planet), lost a $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because of a simple conversion error. You would think that switching to metrics after such a loss wouldn’t be rocket science. And yet, twenty years later I’m still stuck on an airline stumped by the temperature in Paris.
I humbly add “how hot is it outside” to the growing mental chalkboard list of things I officially no longer know.
Even how much heat the sun generates, something I’ve never worried about in America, suddenly feels like an inside joke to everyone on this flight that’s not American. Well, that is unless there are any Liberians or Burmese on the plane.
I find momentary solace by picturing both a Liberian and a Burmese in the back of the aircraft, both madly scribbling out random multiplication tables on their drink napkins.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve now reached our optimal cruising altitude of 35,000 feet,” comes the cheery voice once again from the cockpit. Thankfully, the airline industry, like Liberia, was founded by America.
This mental tailspin of mine stalls long enough for me to check the color of Samma-jam’s face.
As his doting father and, more applicably, the only other passenger sharing his row, I’m keenly mindful of his well-being. I’m grateful to see that his nausea advisory status is pale but not yet peaked.
Paris’ temperature is just the latest in a disturbingly long list of things I don’t know about our new home.
Two months ago, the idea of ditching all of our belongings was still liberating. In a period of six weeks, we sold our house, our car, our cat, our turtle, all seven Harry Potter books, all eight Harry Potter DVDs, basically everything except our children, a guitar, and enough clothes to last us through the winter.
Freed from our world of junk, an immediate sense of weightlessness set in.
By the time our takeoff from Salt Lake City came around, I felt like a proper Peter Pan, leading our family “Off to Neverland!”
What I had failed to note was that unlike Peter Pan, we had nowhere to fly home to, no mode of transportation once we got there, and no idea how to ensure that our Lost Boys got a proper education.
Even our kids, initially enthusiastic about the adventure, free mini pretzels, and unsupervised onboard entertainment, were quickly losing altitude after three long flights. Looking around at them now, I could see in their bloodshot eyes and numbed expressions that their excitement for the unknown had been wadded up like dirty underwear in their carry-on.
I couldn’t blame them. Part of me right now was feeling the same way at the moment. What if we’d just stayed in Utah? I’d had a great job that I enjoyed, family and friends we loved, a beautiful mountain setting for a…
“Flight crew, prepare for landing,” the flying Brit’s voice came one last time.
The announcement was quickly followed by the uneven ba-bump of the Boeing 757’s ten wheels hitting the tarmac and then the unmistakable sound of a digested salmon sandwich and fruit salad being retched into a paper sack.
Caught up in my own problems, I had failed to check back in with Sam.
My penance: an agonizingly slow taxi with a warm bag of vomit sinking into my palm.
“Bienvenue en France.” I thought. Welcome to France.
“What on earth have I gotten my family into?” | https://medium.com/mindtrip/how-i-lost-it-all-at-35-000-feet-212f76324139 | ['Dave Smurthwaite'] | 2020-05-15 07:29:39.269000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Science', 'America', 'Parenting', 'Short Story'] |
Guiding coal companies to meet the dual challenge of net zero and a just transition | Guiding coal companies to meet the dual challenge of net zero and a just transition GRI Jun 24·5 min read
By Noora Puro, Manager — Sector Program, GRI
As the build-up continues to the pandemic-delayed UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), all eyes — and hopefully all agendas — are on how to reach net-zero carbon emissions. And as the International Energy Agency (IEA) made clear in its recent Net Zero by 2050 report, this aim will fall short without a radical decrease this decade in the share of coal in global energy generation. Indeed, taken together, the coal, oil, and gas sectors are the single main cause of climate change due to their production of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
It’s timely, therefore, that GRI has released an exposure draft for a Sector Standard for Coal, currently out for public comment. With the aim of ensuring transparency on impacts that matter most, the draft Standard has the potential to unlock improved public disclosure on the most significant sustainable development challenges facing companies in the coal sector.
Of all GHGs from fossil fuels, 40% comes from burning coal. And given the sector’s wide-ranging impacts in areas such as biodiversity and human rights, in addition to climate change, the rationale for developing a new reporting standard is clear.
Impacts and opportunities
The proposed GRI Standard for Coal acknowledges that the sector is challenged by the tension of opposites. On the one hand, organizations have a responsibility to mitigate and combat the effects of climate change — manifested, for example, in how they are transforming their business models to lower-carbon alternatives. At the same time, they have a remit to ensure ongoing operations are conducted responsibly. After all, in some regions, coal mining and consumption is still growing. At least 50,000 people continue to be employed in the coal sector, while hundreds of thousands of jobs are indirectly connected.
In addition, whole regions and communities rely on income from coal. These regions will likely make the shift more slowly than developed countries, where decarbonization is already well underway.
There is an imperative for a just transition, to ensure that workers and communities get both protection and benefits from the shift towards climate resilience and a low-carbon future.
A part of GRI’s new Sector Program, which has an aspiration to deliver 40 Sector Standards, the exposure draft for the Coal Standard is the culmination of a rigorous process, which has drawn on multi-stakeholder expertise. An independent working group, including diverse and global expertise from organizations within and connected to the coal sector, has been instrumental to getting the draft Standard to this stage. Its final version will help companies use the GRI Standards to identify likely material topics for the sector, increasing consistency when it comes to how they provide transparency to their stakeholders.
Targeting impact areas
The exposure draft makes the connections to existing topic-specific Standards, in areas such as biodiversity, waste, local communities, taxes, and employment. It also introduces new topics that don’t have a corresponding GRI Topic Standard.
The Standard emphasizes disclosures that get to the heart of the transition challenges faced by coal companies and the communities where they operate.
For example, it seeks forward looking information on the actions organizations are taking to manage their actual and potential impacts that contribute to climate change. This recognizes the crucial role that the decisions and strategies of fossil fuel companies have on global efforts to mitigate climate change.
This Standard singles out three key topics:
· Climate adaption and resilience guides organizations to report on how the low-carbon transition impacts workers and local communities, to encourage a just and fair transition for all. Organizations should also disclose the climate change scenarios they use to assess the resilience of their strategy, and whether they are investing in low-carbon solutions. Acknowledging that the climate change debate evolves rapidly, the topic conveys the latest stakeholder expectations for transparency.
· GHG emissions covers carbon and methane emissions from coal activities. It advises organizations to report on all GHG Scopes, including Scope 3 emissions from product use, which cause the most emissions in this sector. Disclosures about product use emissions are not a means to allocate fault, but rather to enable a link to the global carbon budget, allowing set limits on how much can be burned.
· Closure and rehabilitation focuses on preparation for ending operations, which can happen quickly, especially from the workers’ perspective. This topic asks organizations to disclose how they will support the future employability of workers as well as their financial provisions to cover closures and rehabilitation.
Role of coal in society
Even in the IEA’s most progressive pathways, coal will be mined for the next 20 years. And the sector’s activities will continue to have major impacts on those working for coal companies, their families and surrounding communities. These people-related impacts are also addressed in the Coal Sector Standard. They include issues such as health and safety risks; providing decent work; supporting local development and mitigating social impacts around mining sites; conducting business with integrity when it comes to distribution of wealth and corruption; and last but not least, respecting human rights.
That said, we recognize all sustainability topics are interconnected. The environment may be the initial receptor of impacts, but the effects of climate change will eventually — and at an alarmingly exponential pace — pervade human and animal health and wellbeing.
Seeking multi-stakeholder input
With the global public comment period on the Coal Sector Standard’s exposure draft open until 30 July, we need your input on its comprehensiveness and relevancy. We encourage all interested parties and stakeholders to complete the online questionnaire. Further development will follow the public comment, and we then expect to launch the final Standard in 2022.
Ultimately, this process is about ensuring GRI can deliver a Standard that meets global requirements and expectations for the best transparency practices in the coal sector. At the same time, we remain ready to help coal companies’ fulfill their responsibilities towards a just transition through acknowledging and managing their impacts on people and planet. | https://medium.com/@globalreportinginitiative/guiding-coal-companies-to-meet-the-dual-challenge-of-net-zero-and-a-just-transition-21c88f21591d | [] | 2021-06-24 06:44:22.676000+00:00 | ['Transparency', 'Just Transition', 'Climate Change', 'Sustainability Reporting', 'Coal'] |
The Big Reveal: CarefreeCoveredRVStorage.com Launches Full-Service Website and Adds New Property | Great news — we’re EXPANDING with a new website and a new property!
A (Web)Site to Behold!
You know that feeling after you’ve bought a house, moved in, unpacked the essentials, and perhaps started some home improvements…and then it takes a few months to settle in and decorate? Okay, probably more than a few months, if we’re being honest!
Well, that’s exactly how we feel with the whirlwind of purchasing the Apache Junction vehicle storage facility that is now Carefree Covered RV Storage, hiring staff, forming relationships with our customers, investing in capital improvements, and creating a new web presence.
It’s been a busy year of transformation and growth! During this time, we set ourselves up with a basic, functional website but hadn’t yet added the proverbial throw pillows, curtains, and accessories. So, we’re happy to report that after some months of fine-tuning, we’re excited to announce the launch of our new, full-service website. We want our customers to know we understand what’s important to them and have them see us as a resource whether they’re visiting online or in person.
Immerse Yourself in the Carefree Brand Experience
Be sure to check out the website video tour above. Here are just a few of the highlights of what our new, full-service website offers:
A HOME page chock full of facility photos, best-in-class features and amenities, five-star customer reviews, and a true understanding of what the RV life offers — where you can escape to the open road for a grand adventure and quality time!
We’ve also got a robust RESOURCES section including a handy Size Guide, RV Storage Tips, and FAQs.
Don’t see an answer to your question? Not a problem! Our ABOUT section includes a Contact page for you to reach us. Our amazing on-site property manager Lisa will be happy to help you.
And while you’re in our ABOUT section, learn just a bit more about who we are. You’ll quickly see that we’re here for you. We know you have options, so we’re here to get to know you, get the job done, and find creative solutions.
Our BLOG section provides you with RV news you can use, from local RV resource guides to our top RV destination picks, customer spotlights, and so much more.
Ready to join the Carefree family? Head over to our RATES page to rent your unit online. You can pay your monthly rental fee online too. Just click the blue rent button to get started.
Scroll down the RATES page for a virtual video tour of our sparkling and secure facility, plus enjoy a fun, interactive 360-degree tour of our property. Further down, you’ll find a helpful map showing exactly where we’re located.
Finally, don’t forget to follow us on social media for constant updates, tips, and more. Just click the icons at the bottom of our website (or just below!) to stay connected.
So, from all of us, including Barkley the Guard Dog, thanks for visiting us here at CarefreeCoveredRVStorage.com. We hope you have many carefree adventures ahead!
More Locations to Serve You
Thanks to the overwhelming customer response we’ve received at our Apache Junction flagship location, we’re happy to report that we’re in the process of purchasing a second location in the Phoenix metro area. And, we’ll be happy to fill you in as soon as the transaction is complete.
The new property will include amenities including a Welcome Center with Wi-Fi, remote-controlled gate access, high-definition security cameras, dump-station, wand-bay RV wash, ice machine, power at every space, and more.
Carefree Covered RV Storage is a division of Portland-based Business Property Trust, which offers open-air RV storage at several of its locations through its other division, Bargain Storage. The company launched Carefree Covered RV Storage in September 2019 after purchasing its flagship location in Apache Junction, Arizona.
Carefree Covered RV Storage now has a 5-star rating on Google with over 50 reviews and an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. | https://medium.com/@carefreecoveredrvstorage/the-big-reveal-carefreecoveredrvstorage-com-launches-full-service-website-and-adds-new-property-d25d8f28c56 | ['Carefree Covered Rv Storage'] | 2020-12-23 16:15:17.791000+00:00 | ['Website', 'Rv', 'Rv Storage'] |
What I Saw On Google Search Results Page # 18 | Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash
Today, I was browsing Google for some UI inspiration for my ongoing project.
Specifically, I was searching for a website whose name I had forgotten to bookmark.
I was trying different keywords based on its features that I remembered.
I ended up clicking every page of the Google search result for the term: Create icon online with tint.
When I reached page #18, I was welcomed with reCAPTCHA monster:
Already exhausted in desperation, it took me some time to grasp the fuller meaning of it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was I on Google.com?
It was indeed Google showing it to me. This was Chrome browser. I wasn’t logged into my Google account though, or it would have been a different story.
I felt compelled to change my mental context. The UI search could wait.
Upon clicking the Terms of Service, I was taken to a megalith document that described how Google did business. Maybe it was there, deep down in the gigantic links labyrinth that Google is, but I couldn’t find it.
Exhausted, I ticked the I’m not a Robot, and I was taken to 4x4 grid photo collage displaying cars. The images were extremely low quality (almost blurred). After 4 failed attempts, I managed to get past the CAPTCHA filter.
I had to break for lunch. I was frustrated. Not only my work was unfinished; I was also distracted.
Why Those CAPTCHAs Appeared Anyway?
Past lunch, I revisited the link that got me the CAPTCHA — just to inspect the content of the message. Upon clicking Why did this happen? — I was taken to a page that said Google detected some suspicious network activity from my IP.
Traffic lights — my easiest encounter with CAPTCHA
I took some 10 minutes detour to inspect my mac for malware. All clear, when I revisited the link, the CAPTCHA still appeared despite I had cleared it before. The link was dumb — it didn’t detect I had already answered the CAPTCHA.
I decided to try it one more time. This time, I was welcomed with series of better quality images showing random vehicles. It took me 3 attempts to clear the hurdle.
Finally came the traffic lights — my easiest encounter with CAPTCHA during my online life filled with 13527 sign ups.
They were so easily discernible that every time they appeared, I called my son to click it for me.
Initially, he felt joyous doing it. But lately, he has been scowling at me for thinking it was some wonderful exercise.
He also asked why a computer couldn’t identify it if it showed up in almost every PC game he played.
So I Decided To Google The Problem:
I came across a stiff but enlightening discussion on Google support thread. Google basically admitted that it happened mostly when one used VPN to circumvent some network access restriction, but it was clearly not the case.
Which human would go past #17 page in search result (in less than a minute) these days?
I or my network provider had not undergone any configuration changes between my clicking #17 and #18 pages of the search result. Maybe Google thought my browsing habit was unusual: Which human would go past #17 page in search result (in less than a minute) these days?
To Google servers, I was probably orchestrating a DDoS — a cyberattack that could cripple servers with indefinite number of requests in short time.
When I broadened my Google (!) search about Google search CAPTCHA — I came across an article that confirmed the same. But I wasn’t satisfied. After all, I had done this in the past at least a hundred times, without any CAPTCHA wall.
Then I came across a page that claimed that this is how Google tests it’s driverless AI.
😦 That explained why all images belonged to vehicles, roads and traffic lights.
Just like illegible pages of books that earlier CAPTCHA flaunted to accomplish Google Books project.
In other words, on the road images of all qualities captured by WayMo’s cameras could be fed to Google Search engine, which will flaunt those images to search desperados like myself, telling them they did something suspicious network operation to deserve this.
Until they solved it with squinting eyes and restless brains, no free search results anymore.
Solved images will be fed back to Waymo’s AI engine as positive images: Car images it thought to be of cars were indeed cars (minus a few trucks), and so on.
But That’s What They Call Crowdsourcing:
In a nutshell, it is this:
Waymo cannot differentiate between a car and a tree
As a result, Google.com tells users it cannot differentiate between a human and a robot.
Screwed up UX = AI tax paid by users. Giving back to Google for 20 years of web evolution — what can be more romantic?
It is crowdsourcing in its purest form, used to populate the most crucial component of data science: Data.
The problem is, in this case, it is ambiguous. And also on the offensive line (suspicious network activity, you hacker!), without any doubt.
Privacy is the cheapest commodity everyone exchanges for utility.
Crowdsourcing concept as a tool to collect data isn’t new.
Waze, a GPS app, heavily relied on crowdsourced traffic data collected from its in-transit users. In 2013, Google bought it for $966 million, making all of its 100 employees millionaires.
How much Google may have earned from this data is no one’s guess. But after all, it’s all been disclosed with one tick privacy checkbox. And many companies have done it honestly, reasonably and shamelessly.
And privacy is the cheapest commodity everyone exchanges for utility. Until they collectively know it’s too late.
Where Does This Put Google On Search Pedestal:
There was a time when Yahoo and Alta Vista were the only search engines. Search wasn’t a daily habit, and Google wasn’t a verb.
When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked. Elon Musk
Then Google came up with Pagerank.
Pagerank was a life-changing technology that could be sold to premium searchers for $10 a week.
But Google adopted a different business model. It chose to democratize the web mushrooming with new online shops and blogs. This unique business model of selling keyword rankings yet allowing rank for relevance fueled the Internet.
In late 2001, I heard about Google for the first time. I visited it just for the sake of taking a look. I instantly loved the Page 1 minimalistic UI, followed by rocket-speed search results unimagined in those days.
That first page UI hasn’t changed much these days.
UX has, unfortunately.
Serious stuff gets submerged, while fluff rules the rankings.
Today, a simplistic Google search on How to start a startup yields a bulleted list that seem to follow Google’s guidelines. My 15 year old nephew tells me it’s the stupidest thing he ever saw.
Make a business plan…. Secure appropriate funding…. Surround yourself with the right people….
“Anyone who followed AMP could rank #1 without deep diving into real stuff. That’s how serious stuff gets submerged, while fluff rules the rankings.” he said.
AMP — Accelerated Mobile Pages — is Google’s open standard. It is a format which, if followed by a website, can help Google parse it faster, thus saving some power (environment, anyone?) + precious $$$. In return, the website gets a higher ranking compared to non-compliant website.
AMP isn’t infamous without reasons. It also helps Google display stuff from media website inline, thus digging into their revenues. Companies small and large and CMS sellers (Wordpress et al) had to hire AMP developers just to retain their presence on the web, or devote their time after rankings taking away attention from their real digital businesses.
Conclusion:
If it is free, you are the product. — Popular wisdom
I stopped thinking more. After all, it was just a CAPTCHA, used by thousand other websites that often blocked me from signing up.
(Spoiler: In 99% cases, they lost me)
It was serving a purpose, sure. But for whom — I wasn’t sure.
I typed duckduckgo.com in my address bar, and hit enter. Then I typed the same search term I was trying in Google for my project UI.
Scrolling on Page 1, clicking More Results a few times brought me to the site I was looking for. | https://tipsnguts.medium.com/what-i-saw-on-google-search-results-page-18-a2be05dc2468 | ['Pen Magnet'] | 2020-08-14 08:37:55.650000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Privacy', 'Captcha', 'Tech', 'Self Driving Cars'] |
10 Epic Advent Hymns That Are Basically Heavy Metal Albums | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/illumination/10-epic-advent-hymns-that-are-basically-heavy-metal-albums-ff12b713bee8 | ['Megan Preston Meyer'] | 2020-12-11 15:01:38.185000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Religion', 'Advent', 'Satire', 'Music'] |
4 Hurtful Writer Stereotypes That Need to Be Debunked! | Being a writer is a legit job and it deserves to be respected. Sadly, though not everyone looks at it that way. Some people just think that writing is more like a hobby or a phase. Stereotypes have even begun to spring up which could be both annoying and damaging to a writer’s confidence. So if you are a writer, you should at least know the common writing stereotypes. By at least knowing these stereotypes you will know which ones to avoid playing to, and you can also help your fellow writers by discrediting these stereotypes. Here are 4 Writer Stereotypes that need to be debunked.
1. The loner
Some writers tend to be quiet and introverted. This is because writers have a lot on their minds. They are constantly trying to come up with new concepts to write about. And there will be times that they will want to be by themselves. Sadly, some people take this the wrong way, and think that writers are loners by nature. This is a very unfair assumption because there are many writers who are introverted and like to be around people. Each and every writer has his or her own personality and they should never be lumped together under one category.
2. The book worm
Most writers are often categorized as book worms. And this is a stereotype that has some truth, because most writers tend to be bookish. But people should never categorize writers to be just book worms. Some writers are adventurous and have very outgoing personalities. Writers are people who write. And these people could be writing about their own experiences and adventures. These writers could be mountain climbers, chefs, teachers and even rock stars. Technically everyone can be a writer, just as long as they have the ability and passion for writing.
3. The weirdo
The weirdo stereotype is by far the most painful and damaging stereotype for writers. It does not mean that you have good diction and have a fount of information to write, that you are socially inept. Sadly though some writers are considered weird because they have different thought patterns to other people. So next time someone calls you weird just because you use words that they don’t understand, don’t feel bad. You are not at fault. They are just being ignorant and rude.
4. The know it all
Yet another insulting stereotype that some writers suffer through is the “know it all” moniker. This is hurtful because writers tend to have a lot of information they want to share. Remember that most writers have a lot to say, and they do it through their writing. And seeing as most writers tend to hoard a great deal of information in their heads, they will most likely want to share it in conversation. Sadly though, some people can’t keep up with the conversation and accuse writers of being a know it all or a show off. And if you are a writer and this has happened to you, it will most likely be a very annoying experience. But don’t take it to heart. Just remember that these people are just insecure in their inability to convey intelligent ideas and just want to bring you down. So don’t stoop to their level. Let them be, and you be you.
Posts you might also like:
5 Reasons Why Procrastination Can (Sometimes) Make You a Better Writer!
5 Useful Tips on How to Stay Motivated as a Writer!
3 Feasible Reasons Why You Should Write at Night!
What Do Writers Have in Common? | https://medium.com/writers-republic/writer-stereotypes-ef5cbd228054 | ['Flynn Hannan'] | 2020-07-08 06:17:37.372000+00:00 | ['Writers On Medium', 'Writing', 'Writing Life', 'Writers Life', 'Writers Discussion Group'] |
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