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Making A Page Builder: init() | Page builders are very powerful tools for building web pages without code. We can build web pages with special blocks from the page builder. As a junior-programmer, paying money for other page builder isn’t useful. Therefore, I will make my own page builder in this article series. Let’s go!
Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash
Step 1: Choose your dependencies!
Making a page builder from zero is a very terrible idea. More time, more tears, and more neck pain… This scenario is more terrible than a horror movie.
Page Builder Framework: GrapesJS
UI Framework: VueJS
GrapesJS and VueJS are more powerful frameworks and very enough for my page builder.
Step 2: Downloading!
In this step, I need to download these frameworks.
GrapesJS
CDNs
or with npm
npm i grapesjs
VueJS
For development version
<!-- development version, includes helpful console warnings --> <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/vue@2/dist/vue.js"></script>
Step 3: First setup!
In this step, we will initialize our project with GrapesJS.
index.html
<div id="gjs">
<h1>Hello World Component!</h1>
</div>
app.js
const editor = grapesjs.init({
// Indicate where to init the editor. You can also pass an HTMLElement
container: '#gjs',
// Get the content for the canvas directly from the element
// As an alternative we could use: `components: '<h1>Hello World Component!</h1>'`,
fromElement: true,
// Size of the editor
height: '300px',
width: 'auto',
// Disable the storage manager for the moment
storageManager: false,
// Avoid any default panel
panels: { defaults: [] },
});
I will continue this article…… | https://medium.com/stingy-developer/making-a-page-builder-init-951170beb4b8 | ['Furkan Zerman'] | 2020-12-21 08:36:26.442000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Projects', 'Software', 'Page Builder'] |
Why are you still managing your data processing clusters? | Cluster computing is used to share a computation load among a group of computers. This achieves a higher level of performance and scalability.
Apache Spark is an open-source, distributed and cluster-computing framework, that is much faster than the previous one (Hadoop MapReduce). This is thanks to features like in-memory processing and lazy evaluation. Apache Spark is the most popular tool in this category.
The analytics engine is the leading framework for large-scale SQL, batch processing, stream processing and machine learning. For coding in Spark, you have the option of using different programming languages; including Java, Scala, Python, R and SQL. It can be run locally on a single machine, or on a cluster of computers for task distribution.
By using Apache Spark, you can process your data in your local computer, or you can create a cluster to send any number of processing jobs.
It is possible to create your cluster with physical computers on-premises, with virtual machines in a hosting company, or with any cloud provider. With your own cluster, you’ll have the ability to send Spark jobs whenever you like.
Cluster Management Challenges
If you are processing a huge amount of data and you expect to have results in a reasonable time, your local computer won’t be enough. You need a cluster of computers to divide the data and process workloads — several computers are run in parallel to speed up the task.
Creating and managing your own cluster of computers, however, is not an easy task. You will face several challenges:
Cluster Creation
Creating an Apache Spark cluster is an arduous task.
First, you’ll need to create a cluster of computers and install an operating system, development tools (Python, Java, Scala), etc.
Second, you’ll need to select a version of Apache Spark and install the necessary nodes (master and workers).
Lastly, you’ll need to connect all these nodes together to finalise your Apache Spark cluster.
All in all, it can take several hours to create and configure a new Apache Spark cluster.
Cluster Management
But once you have your own cluster up and running, your job is far from over. Is your cluster working well? Is each and every node healthy?
Here is the second challenge: facing the pain of cluster management!
You’ll need to check the health of all your nodes manually or, preferably, install monitoring tools that report any issues nodes may encounter.
Do the nodes have enough disk space available for new tasks? One key issue faced by Apache Spark clusters, is that some tasks write a lot of data in the local disk space of nodes without deleting them. Disk space is a common problem and, as you may know, a lack of disk space eliminates the possibility of running more tasks.
Do you need to run multiple Spark jobs at the same time? Sometimes a single job occupies all the CPU and RAM resources in your cluster and doesn’t allow other jobs to start and run at the same time.
These are only a few of the problems you will meet while working with your own clusters.
Cluster Security
Now for the third challenge! What is even more important than having a cluster up and running smoothly?
You guessed it: security. After all, Apache Spark is a Data Processing tool. And data is very sensitive.
Where in your cluster, does security matter most?
What about the connection between nodes? Are they connected with a secured (and fast) connection? Who has access to the servers housing your cluster?
If you have created your cluster on the cloud and you are working with sensitive data, you’ll need to address these issues by securing each and every node and encrypting communications between them.
Spark Version
Here is your fourth challenge: managing your cluster’s user expectations. In some cases this may be a less daunting task, but not all.
There isn’t a whole lot you can do to change the expectations of your cluster’s users, but here’s a common example to help you prepare:
Do your users like to test their codes with different versions of Apache Spark? Or do they require the latest feature from the latest Spark nightly version?
When you create an Apache Spark cluster, you have to select one version of Spark. Your whole cluster will be bound to it, and it alone. This means it isn’t possible for several versions to cohabit in the same cluster.
So, either you’ll have to change the Spark version of your whole cluster or create another separated cluster. And of course, if you decide to do that, you have to create a down time on your cluster to make the modifications.
Cluster Efficiency
And for the final challenge: scaling!
How can you get the most benefit from the cluster resources you are paying for? Are you paying for your cluster but feel you’re not using it efficiently? Is your cluster too big for your users? Is it running, but empty of jobs during the holiday seasons?
When you have a processing cluster — especially if you have a lot of precious resources in your cluster that you’re paying for — you will always have one major concern: is your cluster being utilised as efficiently as possible. There will be occasions that some resources in your cluster are idle, or where you are only running small jobs that don’t require the amount of resources in your cluster. Scaling will become a major pain point.
OVHcloud Data Processing (ODP) Solution
At OVHcloud, we created a new data service called OVHcloud Data Processing (ODP) to address all cluster management challenges mentioned above.
Let’s assume that you have some data to process but you don’t have the desire, the time, the budget or the skills to overcome these challenges. Maybe you don’t want to, or can’t, ask for help from colleagues or consultants to spawn and manage a cluster. How can you still make use of Apache Spark? This is where the ODP service comes in!
By using ODP, you need to write your Apache Spark code and ODP will do the rest. It will create a disposable dedicated Apache Spark cluster over the cloud for each job in just a few seconds — then delete the whole cluster after finishing the job. You only pay for the requested resources and only for the duration of the computation. There is no need to pay for hours and hours of cloud servers, while you are busy with the cluster installation, configuration or even debugging and updating the engine version.
ODP Cluster Creation
When you submit your job, ODP will create an apache spark cluster dedicated to that job in just a few seconds. This cluster will have the amount of CPU and RAM and the number of workers specified in the job submit form. All necessary software will be automatically installed. You don’t need to worry at all about a cluster, how to install, configure, or secure it. ODP does all of this for you.
ODP Cluster Management
When you submit your job, cluster management and monitoring are configured and handled by ODP. All logging and monitoring mechanisms and tools will be installed automatically for you. You will have a Grafana dashboard to monitor different parameters and resources of your job and you will have access to the official Apache Spark dashboard.
You don’t need to worry about cleaning the local disk of each node because each job will start with fresh resources. It isn’t possible, therefore, for one job to delay another job as each job has new, dedicated resources.
ODP Cluster Security
ODP will take care of the security and privacy of your cluster as well. Firstly, all communications between the Spark nodes are encrypted. Secondly, None of your job’s nodes are accessible from the outside. ODP only allows limited ports to be open for your cluster, so that you are still able to load or push your data.
ODP Cluster Spark Version
When it comes to using multiple Spark versions on the same cluster, ODP offers a solution. As every job possesses its own dedicated resources, each job can use any version currently supported by the service, independently from any other job running at the same time. When submitting an Apache Spark job through ODP, you will first select the version of Apache Spark you would like to use. When the Apache Spark community releases a new version, it will soon become available in ODP and you can then submit another job with the new Spark version as well. This means you don’t need to keep updating the Spark version of your whole cluster anymore.
ODP Cluster Efficiency
Each time you submit a job, you’ll have to define exactly how many resources and workers you would like to use for that job. As said earlier, each job has its own dedicated resources so you will be able to have small jobs running alongside much bigger ones. This flexibility, means that you will never have to worry about having an idle cluster. You pay for the resources you use, when you use them.
How to start?
If you’re interested in trying ODP, you can check out: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/data-processing/ or you can easily create an account at www.ovhcloud.com and select “data processing” in the public cloud section. It is also possible to ask questions directly from the product team in the ODP public gitter channel https://gitter.im/ovh/data-processing.
Conclusion
With ODP, the challenges of running an Apache Spark cluster are removed, or alleviated (we still can’t do much about users’ expectations!) You don’t have to worry about the lack of resources necessary to process your data, or the need to create, install and manage your own cluster.
Focus on your processing algorithm and ODP will do the rest.
I published this article first time for the OVHcloud weblog. You can find it here. | https://medium.com/@mojtabaimani/why-are-you-still-managing-your-data-processing-clusters-f444aeea8fb1 | ['Mojtaba Imani'] | 2020-12-12 13:50:26.486000+00:00 | ['Cloud Services', 'Data Analytics', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Big Data', 'Apache Spark'] |
The Marvelous Adaptation of Heroes | Within the past few decades, superheroes have been flying onto our screens and pages, quipping a witty catchphrase, and stealing our hearts. Sure, there have always been superhero-like figures, such as the gods in Greek or Roman mythology, but recently flying men and women in spandex have been increasingly popular when it comes to otherworldly figures. A certainly notable piece of this uprise is Marvel Comics and, most importantly, their vast collection of crime-fighters. Ever since the organization’s creation in 1939 by Martin Goodman, Marvel characters (along with the guidelines of how new marvel characters are built) have adapted in several ways, the most notable of which being interworking current events, diversification of characters, and relation to the newest generations of people to stay relevant in our ever-changing society.
Ever since the dawn of Marvel, the company has been intertwining current events with their entertainment to keep the viewers flowing in. In 1941 Captain America was introduced to the world through the pages of Marvel’s comic books. Captain America, also known as Steve Rogers, was a morally righteous, patriotic twenty-something less-than-average joe who was turned into super-soldier overnight for the sole purpose of doing right and serving his country. Of course, at the time this comic was released we were in the middle of the second World War. No one would be surprised to see that an uber-patriotic, nazi-punching, red-white-and-blue rocking hero would rise to fame in a time when American patriotism was most abundant. Captain America was a strong supporter of joining the Army and encouraged Americans to help fight this war and step up to be their own kind of superhero. Similarly, Black Panther was released to the public in 1966, during the Civil Rights Movement. Tim Posada, a professor at Saddleback college wrote about people who read the Black Panther comics feeling “…empowerment felt reading about Black Panther ‘fighting the KKK on their own turf in 1966’” (Posada). It’s no shock that a KKK-fighting Black superhero would become popular when African-Americans needed to be empowered and represented. Not only has Black Panther been around for the Civil Rights Movement, but the Black Panther movie (the first Marvel movie to have a person of color as the main character) was also released just a couple years ago in 2018, in a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has been most alive. Since then, Black Panther has become a symbol of black empowerment and a legend of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Along with prominent movements like BLM, in recent years Marvel has become noticeably more liberal, especially in their 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok. The movie features subtle undertones of liberal ideals such as immigration. At the end of the movie (spoiler warning) the Asgardians are left as refugees from a destroyed land looking for a home, a situation very similar to a lot of immigrants in our world today coming from broken countries in search of a safe haven. Thor is a “…hero at the head of an ark full of people whose homeworld is on fire, looking for a new land to call their own. Immigrants all, refugees from a foreign land” (Bernardin). The most relevant example in the comics is the comics of Ms.Marvel. Ms. Marvel is embodied by Kamala Khan, “her newest iteration as a Pakistani Muslim young woman, challenges the conventions of race and American citizenship in the post-9/11 United States” (Landis). This comic is extremely relevant considering all the Islamophobia in the United States that have been occurring recently, including the recent travel ban created by Trump, nicknamed the “Muslim ban”, that restricts the travel of citizens of middle-eastern countries in the US. Weaving in these current events that are relevant to our political situations and ideals as a country over the years has surely gained Marvel the attention of many liberals who can either relate or sympathize with the predicaments throughout their lifespan as a company.
. Not only do the Ms.Marvel comics work to tie together comics and current events but this specific series of comics, along with several others, is part of the new wave of diversity that Marvel is working to bring to all their universes. Originally, Ms.Marvel was Carol Danvers, a white woman who was part of the Air Force, before she took on the role of Captain Marvel. Danvers is also a part of the change in diversity but in the category of gender. She replaced the original Captain Marvel, a male Kree alien named Mar-Vell that went by the alias of Walter Lawson, making yet another pre-existing Marvel character more diverse.
Several other heroes have gone through this type of adaptation, changing from one ethnicity, gender, or religion. The best example of all three would be the characters from Into the Spider-Verse. Though it is not technically a Marvel movie (Sony developed the movie), all of the characters in Into the Spider-Verse are Marvel characters that appear in their comics, movies, and television shows. Into the Spider-Verse was released last year and includes a very diverse cast of characters, including the lead, Miles Morales. Miles is a half Puerto Rican and half African American growing up in New York. There is also several other alternate Spider-Men, such as Spider-Gwen, an alternate universe’s Gwen Stacy turned Spider-Man, and Penny Parker, a young Asain girl who fights crime with the help of her robot. A good part of the movie to point out would be, as New York Times writer Eliana Dockterman said, “Spider-Verse does not make much hay of the gender or ethnicity of Miles, Gwen, and Peni” (Dockterman). Not only is there an abundance of race and gender diversity in this movie, but it has also been confirmed that Peter Parker from ‘our’ universe is Jewish, seeing as the movie depicts him breaking plates at his wedding which is a Jewish tradition.
Going further into Marvel Comics, there is even an abundance of LGBTQ+ characters. Deadpool, America Chavez, Loki, and Mystique are just a few. As well as adapting old characters, Marvel writers have made new characters that more diverse, such as America Chavez and Karolina Dean. Even though there has been much change in the Marvel comics in relation to the amount of diversity, there has not been as much in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Only in the past few years have they had a rise of minority and women superheroes, with Black Panther debuting in 2018 and Captain Marvel (Marvel’s first female-led movie) just this year. Future movies that will be released are in the works currently including women and minorities in leading roles such as Black Panther 2, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, and, even though it is technically a Sony movie, Into the Spider-Verse 2 (Donnelly). This newfound diversity in Marvel’s several universes will help them to bring in new viewers or readers who want to see someone like themselves reflected in entertainment. Diversity in Marvel will certainly help them stay relevant, especially with the wave of new generations that have arrived.
. Of course, the main crowd Marvel has to worry about staying relevant with is the newest generations. The youngest generations alive right now, Gen Z and the Millennial Generation, have been the most liberal generations yet- these generations are super accepting, caring, and aware of others’ emotions. In an article from the Pew Research Center, 62% of Gen Z and 61% of Millenials say that increasing diversity is good for society. These percentages have a 9% or higher gap between them and other generations percentages, with the silent generation coming in dead last with 41%. Marvel doesn’t let this information fly over their heads. Their new diversity in their casts of characters and inclusion of current events bundle up into a well-rounded content that the youngest generations would be interested in consuming. Giving minorities and women bigger roles in the work will draw in these younger people who appreciate diversity and inclusion. Kids around my age are also attracted to the comedy and quirks that Marvel seems to be bringing to its content. Having little jokes like the ones Tom Holland’s Peter Parker makes or remarks from Shuri, sister of Black Panther, such as “What are those?!” (a reference to the late, great Vine, a social media platform that many younger kids, in particular, are well-versed in) is very appealing to kids because those small bits are something we can fully relate to and understand, as well as some of the jokes made by these Avengers utilizing the same sense of humor many kids have today.
Younger people appreciate the effort that is made by Marvel when they choose to begin the process of de-sexualizing women superheroes in ways like a not-overly-sexualized-for-no-reason costume or by not making it such a big deal that women and minorities are getting huge roles. In Captain Marvel, instead of making Carol wear an ultra-tight, latex body-suit, the creative minds behind the movie made the decision to have her wear a less revealing suit that much more realistic for a woman that would be fighting evil forces and want her legs covered for the sensible purpose of protection. Making costumes less over-sexualized definitely helps to appeal to a younger audience that is still deciding if this brand of movies is worth their time or not and so far Marvel has been doing a great job of improving their material to become more geared to these younger generations down the road.
. Marvel’s sly strategy of creating content for younger generations has certainly worked on me. For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a superhero. My dad started a tradition with me when I was a kid. He and I would go out to the theater, get some slushies, and we would watch the latest Marvel movie. I loved doing this. It was extra time I got to spend with my dad when he wasn’t traveling for work and it also led me to discover an affinity for superheroes. These heroes I love so dearly stand up for the helpless, rescue the endangered, and always do their best to be genuinely good. Plus they had super-powers, so that was a plus. These heroes all had special powers that made them unique, well, unique in most ways. Tony Stark: a genius with an iron super-suit; Steve Rogers: a less-than-average joe with a righteous moral compass and newly developed super-soldier strength; Thor: a god with the power of all the sky. All of these men were the focal point of the heroes seen on screen in the Marvel Universe, and all are heterosexual caucasian men. As a kid, I always loved these guys to the moon and back, but I felt like something was missing. I could only relate to them on a certain level and, besides that, I was confused. Why was it only guys that were allowed to be the hero that saved the world? There were virtually no women early on in Marvel’s cinematic life. Though, Peggy Carter, Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, and, later on down the road, Natasha Romanoff, main women characters that I looked up to and cherished deeply, were around to assist the main superheroes a few times, why wouldn’t they defeat Red-Skull or save a town from destruction? These are definitely questions other little kids like me were asking around that time. Why can’t someone who looks like me save the world? As we know, representation is important for everyone, especially women and minorities. Marika, an author of an article from the Geeks website, best describes the reason for representation being so important by stating, “We want to feel empowered after seeing a superhero movie, we want to believe we can be as strong and powerful as them. It’s sometimes hard to feel that way if you don’t look anything like the character”(Marika). Earlier this year, when Captain Marvel was released in all it’s glory, I watched in awe as Carol Danvers flew through spaceships and kicked butt with the same gusto that all of her male counterparts had for years prior. I knew that the little girl sitting in the theater with her dad all those years ago would be overflowing with joy. That is why Marvel’s diversity is so important in its relevance. As Eliana Dockterman so eloquently stated, “What matters is that they each remind audiences that, to quote Aunt May, ‘There’s a hero in all of us.’ More than half a century ago, Spider-Man became the original everyman. Now he’s finally starting to look like it”(Dockterman).
People want to see others like them doing amazing things and see that they can be just as fantastic. It’s difficult to look at someone drastically different than you and think “Wow. If that guy can save all those people and perform so many heroic acts, then I can do great things with my life like him.” This is why heroes are inspiring to people who have similar characteristics (race, gender, sexuality, have the same disability). They can go through the same adversity that anyone like them is going through, push through it, and then go kick butt. Seeing a character look like yourself is a reassuring comfort that you are capable of being as amazing as them.
. Through similarities to our current society and societies of the past, a newfound diversity in content, and the attraction of new generations, Marvel is able to stay relevant, and even thrive, in the world we live in today. Through and through, Marvel has evolved, growing more popular with each new movie or comic released. While it’s very possible Marvel is just another greedy corporation making a change for cash in return, there are wonderful people creating the content that have pure intentions and that truly care about having everyone feel represented and empowered. The radical change in Marvel’s entertainment has created a gateway towards new viewers, extending a hand to help everyone feel welcome and represented in our society. Through the attention, Marvel has managed to be stably relevant, remaining steady enough to keep the flow of astonishing, loveable characters coming to be consumed by adoring fans in a marvelous cycle of adaption.
Works Cited
Bernardin, Marc. “Thor: Ragnorak Is A Direct. Commentary On Trump’s America”. SyFy Wire, 5 November 2017, https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/thor-ragnarok-is-a-direct-commentary-on-trumps-america. Web. Accessed 5 November 2019.
Dockterman, Eliana. “Spider-Man’s Sticking Power”. TIME International (South Pacific Edition), 27 August 2015, http://ezproxy.missouriwestern.edu:2139/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=5ff814fd-8d4c-4977-b73d-7ac0575d74a3%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=133447793&db=f5h. Web, Accessed 29 October 2019.
Dockterman, Eliana. “Everyone’s A Superhero at Marvel”. TIME International, 17 December 2018, https://time.com/4012852/everyones-a-superhero-at-marvel/. Web. Accessed 29 October 2019.
Donnelly, Matt. “Marvel Powers Up”. Variety, 9 July 2019, http://ezproxy.missouriwestern.edu:2117/eds/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=e006e0c1-2398-4826-a965-ac67bb660c27%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=137368500&db=f5h. Web. Accessed 29 October 2019.
Parker, Kim. Graf, Nikki. Igielnik, Ruth. “Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues”. Pew Research Center, 17 January 2019, https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/. Accessed 29 November 2019.
Posada, Tim. “Afrofuturism, Power, and Marvel Comic’s Black Panther”. Journal of Pop Culture, June 2019, http://ezproxy.missouriwestern.edu:2117/eds/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=e006e0c1-2398-4826-a965-ac67bb660c27%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=201916063955&db=mzh. Web. Accessed 29 October 2019.
Landis, Winona. “Ms.Marvel, Qahera, and Superheroism and Muslim Diaspora”. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 2 April 2019, http://ezproxy.missouriwestern.edu:2117/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=e006e0c1-2398-4826-a965-ac67bb660c27%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=135462173&db=a9h. Web. Accessed 29 October 2019.
Marika. “Why ‘Captain Marvel’ is So Important”. Vocal, March 2019, https://vocal.media/geeks/why-captain-marvel-is-so-important. Web. Accessed 3 November 2019. | https://medium.com/@tanndoubleyou/the-marvelous-adaptation-of-heroes-ac63339b53d3 | ['Tay Waller'] | 2020-12-30 00:49:16.050000+00:00 | ['Marvel', 'Feminism', 'Comics'] |
The Reason Why a Simple Tweet From Elon Musk Can Boost Dogecoin Price by +31% in a Few Hours | The Reason Why a Simple Tweet From Elon Musk Can Boost Dogecoin Price by +31% in a Few Hours
Illustration by Sylvain Saurel
I don’t generally write about Altcoins since I consider that only Bitcoin really matters. Nevertheless, an event that happened yesterday on Twitter, and which had a strong impact on the Dogecoin price, led me to make an exception to my golden rule.
Indeed, I received a lot of questions from people about Dogecoin following a tweet from Elon Musk.
A few people wanted to know what Dogecoin was, while the majority wanted to understand why a simple tweet from Elon Musk could increase its price by +31% in just a few hours.
So I will try to make you understand what has happened in the last 24 hours for Dogecoin.
It all starts on Sunday, December 20, 2020. Elon Musk is apparently in a playful mood, and he starts tweeting on Bitcoin and then on Dogecoin. After starting by saying “Bitcoin is my safe word”, Elon Musk laughs at the enthusiastic reactions of the Bitcoiners saying that nobody needs a safe word anyway.
Elon Musk continues his provocation by saying that “Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money”. Finally, Elon Musk ends his Sunday morning fun with the following tweet:
Just after this tweet, Elon Musk changed the biography of his Twitter account to include the following message: “Former CEO of Dogecoin”.
The enthusiasm of Tesla’s CEO for the Dogecoin project is a long-running meme. This is not the first time that Elon Musk has positioned himself in this way to support Dogecoin.
As a reminder, Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that was launched as a joke on December 6, 2013. Its image is that of the dog Shiba Inu, which made it immediately very popular. A community of fans continues to use the DOGE regularly. If Dogecoin is nothing more than a joke, we can recognize two things:
Its longevity.
A healthy development that has allowed Dogecoin to continue to survive for so many years.
In July 2020, Elon Musk had already posted a tweet on Dogecoin talking about “Dogecoin Standard Future”. This had increased the price of DOGE by +14% in a few hours at the time.
With his tweet of December 20, 2020, Elon Musk was more successful since the DOGE price increased by +31% in a few hours:
DOGE price surged by +31% in some hours
If Elon Musk had some DOGE, he could almost be accused of manipulating the DOGE course to his advantage by creating pump & dump moves.
Elon Musk has nearly 41 million subscribers on Twitter. As a forerunner in the world of Tech, everything he says is extremely followed. A tweet from him on Twitter is bound to have great repercussions in the cryptocurrency world.
The repercussions are even greater for a cryptocurrency like Dogecoin which has a market cap of only 550 million dollars. A tweet from Elon Musk allowed Dogecoin to be trending on Twitter. This naturally draws attention to Dogecoin. As a result, many novices are starting to buy some DOGE.
The price of the DOGE was thus able to go from $0.00395 to $0.00524 within a few hours. At the time of writing the market cap for Dogecoin is now $654 million.
In July 2020, this pump initiated by a tweet from Elon Musk who talked about “Dogecoin Standard Future” was followed by a quick dump:
Dogecoin Pump & Dump on July 20
However, the situation might be different this time. Indeed, Bitcoin beat its ATH above $20K several times last week. Its price is still very close to $24K at the time of writing.
The fact that Bitcoin is hitting the $25K resistance suggests to some that an Altseason is about to start. Some people, therefore, see this increase in the Dogecoin price as a signal that the Altseason is about to arrive.
I don’t know if this empirical observation that some may have made will happen again in the coming weeks, but what is certain is that this pump in the Dogecoin price should alert you to something obvious: you should stay away from these Altcoins which are in fact only Sh*tcoins.
Contrary to what some will try to make you believe, none of these Sh*tcoins will replace Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the true monetary revolution that will change the world of the future for the better.
Buying these Altcoins will make you lose a lot of money in the end. Even if an Altseason should occur, don’t lose sight of the real signal which is the Bitcoin revolution.
Don’t pay attention to those provocative tweets from Elon Musk. He loves to have fun in this way on Twitter to see the reactions of his followers. Bitcoin is the unique invention that will revolutionize the world of the future when it comes to money.
It’s the only thing you must keep in mind. | https://www.inbitcoinwetrust.net/the-reason-why-a-simple-tweet-from-elon-musk-can-boost-dogecoin-price-by-31-in-a-few-hours-6fcd10c9f73b | ['Sylvain Saurel'] | 2020-12-21 17:08:18.310000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Dogecoin', 'Elon Musk'] |
How To Use Hashtags Effectively In Social Media Marketing? | Growing Fast in Social Media…
hashtags
Hashtags are a crucial part of social media marketing. It is a great way of labeling and finding social media updates. It makes your content discoverable and allows you to find relevant content from other people and businesses. The hashtag allows you to connect with and engage other social media users based on a common theme or interest. Indeed, hashtags help you to increase traffic on Twitter and Instagram.
Hashtags can increase awareness, getting your content seen by more people than just followers, and increase your social shares. By simply incorporating #hashtags into your social media content, you can expand your reach and increase your audience. Knowing how to use a hashtag is fundamental to your success on social media. Here you can find seven innovative ways to use hashtags in social media marketing.
1. Keep it simple and relevant:
When you are choosing a hashtag, it is important to make sure that you pick something that people are searching for and can easily remember. There are lots of hashtags scattered in the social media universe. Using a hashtag that is long and difficult to spell or pronounce, will probably not give you a good result. However, an unclear, never-used, or generic hashtag will also not get the results you want.
Your hashtag should be short, precise, and simple to spell. It should give your audience a clear idea about the topic of the conversation. The key is finding out to what topics your audience can relate to. You need to find the ones they are already talking about. The hashtag helps to categorize your content and let people follow a trend and even help you to engage with a community. You need to use a hashtag that is relevant to your content and company as well as simple to use.
2. Utilize trending hashtags:
A trending hashtag is a hashtag topic that has become very popular. Maybe you have heard people are talking about what’s “trending now”. Sometimes, it is referring to the hashtags that are currently popular or are the most talked about right now. Oftentimes, hashtags are centered on the major news topics of the world. When you see a trend that relates to your business, engage in it by using the tag. By using a trending hashtag in your content update, you can get your message seen by a much larger audience. More and more people can see your updates rather than just your fans and followers.
In addition, a trending hashtag is a great way to increase the brand’s visibility. Before you use a hashtag in your social media post, make sure it adds value to your existing conversation. If your post does not add value, it is likely to be ignored and lost in an ocean of posts. If you have a truly informative post, more and more people will re-share it and it will increase your overall brand awareness. Make use of the best social media automation tools to automate your posts with hashtags on social. After all, consistency is the key!
How to use trending hashtags:
Be the first in using trending tags to get more exposure for your content and brand
Find trending hashtags on Twitter & Google+
Hashtag analytics & monitoring sites
Hashtags.org
Trendsmap
Hashtagify
RiteTag
Use niche-trending hashtags to connect and build relationships with your targeted market.
3. Use hashtag on multiple social media marketing channels:
Hashtags are an important part of all social media platforms. Hashtags give your brand more exposure so you can spread the word about your product to a massive audience. In addition, when you use it multiple times on different channels, people will easily remember your hashtag. You can use the hashtag before the keyword in the mind and this way you will find useful content.
Twitter : Because of character count restrictions, please don’t use more than 2 hashtags per tweet for best engagement.
Because of character count restrictions, please don’t use more than 2 hashtags per tweet for best engagement. Facebook : Use 2 hashtags on Facebook try one popular hashtag and one custom hashtag for your brand.
Use 2 hashtags on Facebook try one popular hashtag and one custom hashtag for your brand. Instagram : It allows up to 30 hashtags, however, keep it to no more than 11 per post for the highest level of engagement.
It allows up to 30 hashtags, however, keep it to no more than 11 per post for the highest level of engagement. LinkedIn: There is no limit on the usage of hashtags. But it has been recommended to limit it to a maximum of 5. Otherwise, LinkedIn Algorithm could mark your posts as spam.
There is no limit on the usage of hashtags. But it has been recommended to limit it to a maximum of 5. Otherwise, LinkedIn Algorithm could mark your posts as spam. Pinterest: Use only 2 hashtags, it’s a category of search so use your unique hashtag to help pinners to find relevant content.
Read: How To Use Hashtags On Instagram To Grow Your Reach?
4. Search the hashtag before you use it:
Check each of the social media networks to make sure that your hashtag isn’t being used for the wrong reason. Also, ensure that you don’t choose something that can be interpreted in a different way. It is worth making sure that another brand isn’t using hashtag specifically for their own promotion as well.
When you are using hashtags properly, they help to create online conversation, increase brand awareness, and increase your sales as well. Before using a hashtag, always you need to search to see if other people are using it and what they saying. If you want your tweet to stand out, tweeting on a negative hashtag might not be the best way to do it. You can also use Twitter analytics tools to find out which hashtags you’ve used worked the best for you and which of them didn’t.
5. Don’t overuse hashtags:
Make sure to use a maximum of two hashtags for each post. Including too many will leave the impression that you are spamming your followers. Usually, you don’t want to use more than one or two hashtags per post, with one hashtag is the best choice. Additionally, it will be important to avoid using them in every single post that you make, as social media users are wary of businesses trying too hard to promote themselves. Use these organizational tools when it makes sense to use them and you’ll reap the rewards of a more engaged subscriber base.
Read: How to use Twitter for Business Marketing?
6. Be specific and unique:
As a marketer, you want to able to reach your community with the use of a hashtag, especially during special events and Twitter chats. However, if you want others to join in on the conversation you need to engage with each other, you have to use the hashtag that is more unique. You can’t use generic hashtags, such as #marketing or #seo, and expect people to re-tweet your post. Nowadays, people are using unique and specific hashtags and incorporating them with better social media marketing tips for better engagement with the audience.
Undoubtedly, hashtags are a powerful tool for brand marketing on social media. For getting great results, you need to use a hashtag that is carefully selected and tactically utilized.
Although the uses of hashtags differ depending on the channel, by following the best practices you can increase their performance. As a marketer, you also need to stay current on the ever-evolving features of social media, and constantly changing user preferences. Every new year brings innovations and new features. Try to keep yourself well informed of them.
7. Create brand engagement:
The key to a hashtag is the ability to connect your brand with many popular and incredibly visible topics. This will drive new viewers to your social media, and allow you to engage with them. When you use hashtags carefully, it helps you to expand your reach to targeted users, and improve customer relations. The more comfortable your followers feel with your brand the more likely they will interact with you on social media.
You don’t want to ignore them, but it’s not necessary to use hashtags while conversing with your followers. Also, you don’t need to use a hashtag in every post either.
However, it is vitally important to remember that you should not use them while responding to someone. Whether it’s a re-tweet or a reply, avoid using these characters when they are not required.
Keep the marketing to your posts and out of your customer dialogue.
Adding keywords within your hashtags isn’t enough to enhance your online presence. You need to ensure your hashtags are short, conversational, and unique. However, hashtags play an important role in the social media marketing strategy. | https://medium.com/@socialmediamarket/how-to-use-hashtags-effectively-in-social-media-marketing-faa3fb726f7b | [] | 2020-12-23 02:37:59.780000+00:00 | ['Hashtag', 'Business', 'Medium Brasil', 'Influencer Marketing', 'Social Media Marketing'] |
[Video] Islam and the Environment | The Holy Quran reminds people of the creation and says that Allah created everything that is on this earth so that man “may not exceed the measure”. But humans ignore this instruction and misuse the bounties of Allah. Although the question Allah asks “which of my bounties will you deny?” is rhetorical the answer is that by misusing Allah’s bounties man is denying them. | https://medium.com/virtual-mosque/video-islam-and-the-environment-e3125f5358a5 | ['Virtual Mosque'] | 2016-04-09 17:56:10.886000+00:00 | ['Chapter 55', 'Environment', 'Islam'] |
3 Benefits Of Coffee | Brewing up some facts about coffee
Photo by BRUNO EMMANUELLE on Unsplash
“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes
Coffee is my go to drink and I love it in every form.I have been drinking coffee regularly since I was sixteen. I am slowly reducing the amount of sugar and cream I put in it (even tho I love sweet coffee). Black coffee is the healthiest way to drink it. Drinking coffee has health benefits and here are three reasons you should continue to brew it up:
Wakes You Up
This is the reason why many of us drink coffee as soon as we wake up. Coffee has caffeine in it which helps us wake up and start our day off right! If you need a little extra boost throughout your day, don’t be afraid to grab another cup!
Helps Burn Fat
Yep! You read that right. Coffee can help burn fat and even calories. Coffee can stimulate can stimulate the body’s fat burning cells.
So everyone looking to burn a few extra calories grab a cup of coffee! Preferably a cup of black coffee. Skip the extra sugar and cream when you are looking for the healthiest way to drink your coffee.
Helps With Depression
Studies have shown that coffee can help people who have mild depression. According to nca.com in this article, “Coffee’s positive impact on mental health may be related to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as to caffeine’s ability to block receptors in people’s brains from binding with a chemical that causes fatigue and depressed mood.”
With COVID-19 continuing and the uncertainty that this pandemic brings, grab an extra cup of joe and feel help your mind stay happy.
In Conclusion
With your love of coffee strong, make sure you drink your coffee strong. These are three reasons why to continue drinking coffee each and every day. Coffee without the extras of cream and sugar will give you the best results of the reasons above. | https://medium.com/@carolynerickson17/3-benefits-of-coffee-4a503b00a080 | ['Carolyn Erickson'] | 2020-12-18 19:10:15.202000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Coffee', 'Benefit'] |
Winter Spiral Day #22 | a WBC writing invitation series for the Winter Solstice
Just as the winter solstice is the shortest day, it is equally the longest night, and the longest window to look at the stars.
Write a luminous detail about your day, month, year (this can be a very small, everyday beauty). Ask several people, friends, family for their luminous moments, or imagine the luminous moment of someone who has passed on, a character in a book, the tree out your window. Collect several of these, and then trace the space between them.
Let each luminous moment consider the others, until an image, a narrative, a question, a tension emerges — write into it, and you’ll have yourself a luminous constellation. | https://medium.com/wisdom-body-collective/winter-spiral-day-22-54007b5614c6 | ['Emily Willow'] | 2020-12-21 20:02:23.319000+00:00 | ['Writing Challenge', 'Winter Solstice', 'Writing Prompts'] |
Understanding the RESTful state of the web | Hello World, …. I guess that is the first line of programming for most if not all and in the same simplicity, will this blog explain the key constraints that build up a RESTful web architecture.
Client-Server
The web is a client-server based system which separates these distinct parts to enable independent deployment of each using any language or tool of choice provided it conforms to the Web’s Uniform Interface.
This could be essentially perceived as building a frontend system in VueJs and a backend system in Python.
Uniform Interface
So what is the Web’s uniform interface that we mentioned earlier as an expectation of client-server to conform to?
Just as a request expects a response, the interactions between the web components depend on the uniformity of their interface. For clarity on the uniform interface, I will proceed to break it down into four segments.
Identification of resources
The URI ( Uniform Resource Identifier) is a syntax that assigns unique addresses to each web content hence each Web content is known as a resource. https://www.google.com is an example resource identifier to google’s website root resource.
representation as a means to manipulate the resources
A resource can be represented in different ways without having to change its unique identifier. A user might want an HTML view of the resource whereas a program may require a JSON representation of the same information. HTML and JSON, in this case, are not the actual resource rather a representational way that allows interacting with the resource itself.
self-descriptive messages
a request’s current state may be represented by a server’s response, for instance, a google search client may use a request message to the server to update content on the page. These self-descriptive messages may include metadata with extra information regarding the representation format and size, the resource state and the message itself.
Hypermedia as the engine of application state
Hypermedia references to information that includes graphics, audio, video, texts, and hyperlinks. It is an extension of the term hypertext.
Cache
Caching reduces the web costs by reducing the client-perceived latency, controlling a web server’s load and increase the reliability of the application. This is achieved by declaring cacheability of each response’s data making it faster to fetch the information.
Stateless
While considering the scalability of your program, you require to build a server capable of servicing multiple client platforms. This would require the server not to memorize the state of its client applications, as a result, each client must include all relevant information required to establish communication with the server. This trade-off ensures a stateless architecture type to the webserver.
Code on Demand
This is the only optional constraint in the REST architecture. It allows the server to provide executable code to the client e.g scripts or plug-ins. The client must be able to understand and execute the code downloaded from the server hence the reason this constraint is made optional to integrate.
For more information on this, check out this link https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32094952/code-demand-constraint-for-restful-apis.
Awesome Ninja!! Now you are more knowledgeable on the REST architecture’s key constraints have your foot down the right path to building awesome web-based solutions.
Your comments, contributions and most definitely claps are very welcome. | https://medium.com/@boydbugle/understanding-the-restful-state-of-the-web-91072af35445 | [] | 2019-10-08 12:04:12.923000+00:00 | ['Restful Service', 'Backend Development', 'Rest Api', 'API', 'Restful Api'] |
Stock value prediction with time series analysis | Stock market data is inherently unpredictable, there are too many different external factors influencing the pricing of so many different kinds of companies stock. Especially with such a small time frame of the market’s trends I thought it would be interesting to see how much variance a simple time series model would be able to pickup. The majority of stocks values go up gradually over time, whether it is a few months or years, so I felt like overall the trend of the aggregated data would be fairly positive. I was less sure, however, of the models ability to pickup on the sudden drops and spikes in the market so I set off to find out.
Reading the data in, this is what the data looked like:
Head of data set
#Seeing how long each count should be
len(stocks_df)
length of data set
stocks_df.describe()
statistical description of data set
As you can see, there were very few missing values and because stock data generally flows together over time I felt comfortable interpolating the few missing values.
stocks_df = stocks_df.interpolate()
The first thing I wanted to do with this luckily clean data set is create a new metric of the average value the stock had during the day by averaging high and low prices in each row. I did that simply as follows:
stocks_df['average_price'] = ((stocks_df['high']+stocks_df['low'])/2)
Next, I needed to create the metrics that would help me carry out my time series analysis: days and months since the beginning of the data availability.
stocks_df['days_since_2013_02_08'] = (stocks_df['date'] - pd.Timestamp('2013-02-08'))/pd.Timedelta(1,'D') stocks_df['months_since_2013_02'] = (stocks_df['date'] - pd.Timestamp('2013-02-08'))/pd.Timedelta(1,'M')
I also wanted to create a column which indicated the month of each pricing for any seasonal analysis.
stocks_df['month'] = pd.DatetimeIndex(stocks_df['date']).month
Finally, I needed to group the dataset by date to be able to get an overview of all stock prices at once.
stocks_date_grouped = stocks_df.groupby('date').mean()
I first plotted both the opening and closing prices as well as high and low values during the day to see if there were obvious disparities on this time scale.
open and closing prices
high and low values averaged
There was nothing that could be justified as significant between either one of these plots, though there was a noticeable split between the high and low prices for each day. This is something I was very curious to see if the model could pick up.
Another way I tried to see variance in the data was by creating a rolling mean and comparing that to the average price. That went as follows:
stocks_date_grouped['rolling_mean_average'] = stocks_date_grouped['average_price'].rolling(12).mean()
Then I visualized this new metric:
rolling mean vs average price
There is certainly some disparity between the rolling mean and true value. Something promising for the validity of the prediction. Before that, I wanted to get a picture of the monthly trends and influence on the value of the stock. This was done by creating a simple linear model.
sm0 = smf.ols('average_price ~ months_since_2013_02 + C(month)',data=stocks_date_grouped).fit()
sm0.summary()
linear model output
This output was quite interesting, the coefficients for each month are almost all negative. From what we saw in the previous trends this does not add up as there has been a positive trend over time with price. This may be the first glimpse into the overall unpredictable nature of the data.
Let’s finally take a look at what the model shows.
predicting values until 2025
I plotted three separate types of prediction models. The first is a simplified model which was just based off of the average price and months since opening. The second is a detrended model which was the rolling mean vs months since opening. Finally, the model that took in the most variance was the one called fixed effects. This took in the average price vs months opening but also took into account the variance month by month. Those models each look as follows under the hood:
m0 = smf.ols('average_price ~ months_since_opening',data=stocks_date_grouped).fit() m1 = smf.ols('rolling_mean_average ~ months_since_opening',data=stocks_date_grouped).fit() m2 = smf.ols('average_price ~ months_since_opening + C(month)',data=stocks_date_grouped).fit()
This really was not a very effective model which predicted the large dips and peaks that was contained in the real data, but then again it would not be very ‘statistically accurate’ model if it did wildly show large dups and spikes. As stated in the beginning, stock data is inherently random and there are a myriad of factors influencing the pricing every day.
For a future study I would try and gather data from further back in history including both major market crashes in the past century. I suspect it would still produce a model similar to this, though. The only way to truly get even close to an accurate prediction would be to take in thousands of other financial and political factors and use the one showing the highest statistical correlation.
If anything, this brief study validates how complex stock data is and why no one has been able to crack the code of prediction (and why no one probably ever will). Stocks at their root are influenced by human behavior and as long as that is prevalent it will be hard to reach a perfect model of prediction. | https://medium.com/@BW.benward/stock-value-prediction-with-time-series-analysis-96dc10376574 | ['Ben Ward'] | 2019-04-27 06:14:09.751000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Time Series Analysis'] |
To Solve the Climate and Extinction Crises, Societies Must Find the Path of Mindful Development | To Solve the Climate and Extinction Crises, Societies Must Find the Path of Mindful Development
We must ditch the colonial model of development in favor of one that recognizes our dependence on the communities around us, human and natural.
My greatest hope for the new decade is that societies find ways to develop mindfully and let go of old colonial patterns of development. Many people are calling for new ways of approaching our societal and ecological crises, but at the same time there are many signs that we are stuck in old ways of thinking that prevent us from seeing real solutions to the present crisis.
Last week I watched the first episode of Netflix’s series Our Planet, which starts with a reference to our first moon landing in 1969 accompanied by the wise voice of David Attenborough:
“For the very first time, we looked back at our own planet. Since then, the human population has more than doubled. This series will celebrate the natural wonders that remain and reveal what must be preserved to ensure people and nature thrive.”
This all sounds very inspiring, but the idea that we just need to “preserve” the remaining parts of nature is really an old-school “fortress conservation” mindset that has so far been completely inadequate at stopping the hemorrhaging of Earth’s species. The reference to the doubling of our human population conjures an image of rapacious, ever-multiplying humans who are daily assaulting nature. The “war on nature” is a narrative we are all familiar with, and the implied solution is that if only we cared more about protecting nature we would be able to save the planet. However, by putting the focus “out there” (on nature) and taking for granted that rising human population necessarily means more destruction of nature, this thinking completely ignores the real problem — that we have an exploitative colonialistic economic model that has persisted over centuries and is based on mindless consumption and exploitation of people and resources. This system reflexively seeks to obtain, extract, and destroy every resource it comes across, including the places we thought were already protected.
Simple calls to “protect” nature also ignore that many of the most biologically important places on Earth are within developing countries (e.g. Brazil, Peru, Democratic Republic of Congo) that need to develop economically in order to provide basic services and increase the quality of life of their citizens. Calls to conserve more of nature puts the argument within the false dichotomy of complete exploitation or complete protection that is characteristic of colonial thinking.
The question should not be whether these countries get to develop but how they develop. Scientists and others have put forward many ideas of what we need to do to going forward, but I have never heard anyone put it into a coherent framework or acknowledge that what they are proposing is actually a totally new system. This is disappointing because the true appeal of colonial capitalism is that it offers a coherent narrative of how to see the world (nature needs to be “tamed” and “developed,” men are “naturally” the heads of their households and politics, etc), and the only way to defeat a narrative is to replace it with a different one.
In April 2019 a group of scientists issued a call for a Global Deal for Nature that includes the steps that would be necessary to stop the Sixth Mass Extinction, protect the Earth’s biological diversity, and maximize the utilization of nature-based solutions to achieve our most ambitious goals under the Paris climate agreement (limiting global temperature rise to less than 1.5°C). The plan contains three areas of work:
First, protect at least 30% of the Earth’s surface by 2030 rising to 50% protected by 2050, across the full range of Earth’s 846 eco-regions, in order to maintain the world’s biological diversity. Second, mitigate climate change by protecting especially carbon-rich landscapes (e.g. tundra and boreal biomes, Congo Basin peat swamps, and Bornean forests). This also includes recognizing the central role of indigenous lands by supporting keeping these “lands intact — for hunting areas, protection of traditional lifestyles, or other features — and [providing] a mechanism to assist these communities with securing tenure rights.”
Third, minimize major threats to ecosystems by engaging in smarter development. This includes, but is not limited to, stopping destruction of intact habitats for agriculture and instead intensifying agricultural production on degraded lands and stopping food waste to meet the world’s rising food demand. We also need to subject major transnational road projects to international planning in order to minimize their impacts on biodiversity and maintain ecological connectivity; cancel and halt construction of medium to large dams on the world’s rivers and maintain two-thirds of the headwaters of all the world’s major rivers undammed; prevent illegal hunting and stop illegal trade in plants and animals; stop the production and use of the most damaging commercial toxins, and test newly developed toxins (e.g. herbicides) that are less damaging; and move away from our take-make-use-dispose linear economy to a circular economy “in which resources do not become waste but instead are recovered and regenerated at the end of each service life.”
The Global Deal for Nature includes habitat protection as a crucial component, but it really goes beyond that to start to re-envision our development activities to exhibit greater sensitivity to the processes and limits of nature. I would go one step further and say that we need nature-based agriculture, where our crop systems mimic the local natural environment and reduce the use of artificial inputs through increased diversity. In fact, we need nature-based solutions in all aspects of development. By nature-based solutions I mean biomimicry (using nature as the “model, measure, and mentor” for all our designs) and using both scientific and indigenous knowledge to maximize the well-being of ecosystems and act as their caretaker even while conducting the human activities that are necessary to improve our quality of life.
Mindful development should be based on the recognition that our quality of life depends on the quality of our environment (including the people and natural world around us). It should require us to be consciously aware of the impacts of our activities on nature and human beings, and to plan our activities in ways that minimize harm and maximize the potential of rich socio-ecological systems to regenerate, thrive, and continue to provide invaluable services to the world. This is the exact opposite of the colonial model of mindless consumption which is based on the premise that self-interest is all that matters and there will always be more “frontier” to use up and exploit.
Or, as Wendell Berry put it in the essay “The Native Hill”:
We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world — to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity — our own capacity for life — that is stifled by our arrogant assumptions; the creation itself is stifled. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us.”
Mindful development does not have to be selfless development — rather, it is an evolution of economic thought that acknowledges that by looking out for the best interests of our communities and of nature (in addition to paying attention to our own needs), we are in fact looking out for our own interests and those of our children. It is marked by awareness, intention, cultivation of our relationships between humans and with nature, and planning for the future.
In a sense, we all need to recognize that we are native to the specific places we live and to Earth. It is only by respecting and cultivating the “soil” around us (human and natural environments) that we can thrive.
Scientists are already saying that to solve the climate emergency we need to shift our economic metrics away from GDP to metrics of health and human wellbeing. Indigenous peoples have been telling us for centuries that the first step to respecting ourselves is to learn to respect the lands, waters, and air — and other cultures — around us.
Lastly, the word mindfulness also evokes spiritual awakening and shifting one’s focus away from an ego-driven view of the self to understanding oneself at a deeper level, including as part of a greater whole and in interaction with the rest of life. We have a lot to learn from each other and especially from indigenous peoples on this journey. As Australian indigenous activist Teila Watson put it in an op-ed in The Guardian:
“My understanding of the Murri perspective of humanity means that country is taken care of, in order to sustain life. I believe this is connected to the fact that many different Indigenous groups across the continent and the world have creation stories that relate directly to land and/or waters which ensures that all land is held sacred in its production of life. This relationship between people and land lays the foundations for the relationship between people. We cannot treat land with disrespect without disrespecting ourselves and each other.”
We live in an era when we are seeing the flaring up of old colonial patterns, partly because the system is so under threat from changing demographics, changing societal norms, increased international cooperation, and other factors. Now is the time to keep moving forward and not regress to harmful ways of thinking or outdated, simplistic political identities. We also need to call the present system by its true name — it’s not fascism, it’s colonialism. We should not be operating our societies on economic models and norms that derive from the 17th to 19th centuries. It’s time to put the old colonial system to rest and breathe a sigh of relief and contemplation so that we can start the exciting work of the next stage of economic and societal development.
Cover image: “When sunrays touched the shoreline” by Guy Mayer. Copyrighted under Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 2.0. | https://medium.com/climate-conscious/to-solve-the-climate-and-extinction-crises-our-societies-need-to-find-the-path-of-mindful-d6b3298d3dc7 | ['Benjamin Gutierrez'] | 2020-01-13 16:45:47.453000+00:00 | ['Vision', 'Climate Change', 'Climate Action', 'Politics', '6th Mass Extinction'] |
The highest ROI AdWords campaign in the world: $1 in, $13 out | I spent $343.38 to get 155 leads.
Those 155 leads converted into 15 sales and $6,750 sales for my business.
$4,500 profit after paying for cost of goods sold and employee wages.
$1 in. $13 out.
Before I came up with this strategy my AdWords ad money was being wasted.
I was struggling to find people “ready to buy” my products and services.
I was scared to add more keywords to my AdWords account and increase my ad budget.
Because I didn’t have a proven campaign structure that I knew worked.
And that could be scaled across the other products and services in my business.
I now use this strategy in my agency everyday.
I use it to help my clients sell millions of dollars worth of products.
It works for attracting big corporate B2B clients.
As well as small individual B2C customers.
I have tested the strategy with:
local service businesses
digital products
SaaS companies AND
eCommerce stores
And it works for all of them.
It can work for your business too.
The only prerequisite for this strategy to work is that people are searching for your products and services on Google.
If they are, follow this strategy to grow your business with AdWords…
The 3-Steps to Using “The Cookie Monster Formula” To Get Quality Leads and Sales
There are 3 steps to The Cookie Monster Formula.
Step 1: Research 1–5 keywords that are highly relevant to one product/service/feature you sell
Step 2: Write 2 ads that are highly relevant to those 5 keywords
Step 3: Build 1 landing page this is highly relevant to those 2 ads
Here’s why this formula works so well (and what it has to do with the Cookie Monster):
Have you ever watched Sesame Street as a kid?
On the show there is a famous character called Cookie Monster.
You can feed him just about anything and he will eat it, including: ice cream, hot dogs, cake, pizza, doughnuts, lettuce, apples, bananas, watermelon, as well as inedible objects.
But his favourite food is chocolate chip cookies.
Let’s say you are in the muppet food business.
If the Cookie Monster is searching on Google for “buy chocolate chip cookies”…
Which ad do you think he will click on:
Buy Chocolate Chip Cookies OR Buy Muppet Food
He will click on whatever ad you show him (ordinary humans will as well).
But the difference is, the Cookie Monster might click on Ad #2, then leave your website…
Because he can’t find the chocolate chip cookies he is looking for.
He will click on your ad, leave your website, and eat up your ad budget.
And you will have nothing to show for it.
But an ad that says “Chocolate Chip Cookies” with a landing page headline that says “Chocolate Chip Cookies for Muppets” is going to show Cookie Monster exactly what he wants.
All of a sudden YOU are advertising the exact product that Cookie Monster wants to find.
And BUY.
Your conversion rates will skyrocket through the roof!
Before you implement The Cookie Monster Formula however, you need to know 3 things:
How much you are willing to spend to acquire 1 customer How to structure your AdWords campaign How to break your business into product/service/feature “themes”
Keep reading to see how to do these 3 things, and how to implement “The Cookie Monster Formula” in your business…
If You Don’t Know This Number, Your AdWords Campaign Is Already Dead In The Water
Before you even start your AdWords campaign you need to know your CPA.
And no, I don’t mean your Certified Public Accountant.
Your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) is the absolute maximum you are willing to pay to acquire 1 lead, 1 sale, 1 quote, etc.
Determine how much 1 average customer is worth to your business (over their lifetime with your business).
Then work backwards to figure out how much marketing dollars you are willing to spend to acquire them.
For example, in my eCommerce business we sell snow cone syrup packages for $130.
The profit on that product for my business is $90.
The most I’m willing to pay to acquire 1 $90 customer is $100.
I’m willing to pay $10 more than the profit I make from the customer.
Because I have a quality product and I know on average most of my customers will repeat purchase at least once.
My lifetime customer value is $260 ($180 profit).
However, I’m always optimising to get my CPA well below $100.
So my business makes more profit.
You need to know this number so you can determine if your campaign is profitable or not.
You will be using AdWords conversion tracking to see your cost per lead/cost per sale for every ad group, keyword and ad in your AdWords account.
With conversion tracking installed and your CPA figured out…
You will be able to identify any unprofitable ad groups, keywords or ads.
If they go over your CPA, you can remove them OR optimise your ads and sales funnel.
This way, all parts of your AdWords campaign will be profitable.
Can Your AdWords Campaigns ROI At 13.11X? Not Without Using This Proven AdWords Campaign Structure They Can’t
Before I get into tactics, you need to understand the campaign structure needed to get results with AdWords.
You can’t just create 1 campaign, throw all the keywords relevant to your business in it, and send people to your home page.
That is what most people do, because they don’t understand AdWords.
It doesn’t work.
Conceptually, this is the Google AdWords Campaign Structure I use.
I use this exact same diagram in my agency pitch deck to show potential clients my agencies process.
Let’s break it down…
The “AdWords Golden Rule” That Will Make You Ridiculous Profits For Every Product And Service You Sell
AdWords Golden Rule: Every Ad Group should have 1 very specific theme.
If my local lawn care business has 4 different services…
Lawn mowing, weeding, landscape design and landscape maintenance.
Each service should have it’s own ad group.
If my software product has 4 different features…
Estimating, invoicing, asset maintenance and stock control.
Each feature should have it’s own ad group.
If my eCommerce store has 4 different types of products…
Mens socks, womens socks, childrens socks and baby socks.
Each product type should have it’s own ad group.
You get the idea, right?
You need to think about the specific products and services you offer.
Then group them into their own Ad Group in your AdWords account.
Pro Tip: If your business services multiple locations AND people use location-specific keywords to search for your products and services…
Create separate geographic-specific AdWords campaigns for each major location you service.
And use the same ad groups in each campaign.
This way you will be able to use location specific ad copy to get more clicks on all your ads.
Think about it.
If you were searching for “brisbane snow cone machine hire”.
Would you be more likely to click on the ad headline that says:
“Brisbane Snow Cone Hire” OR “Snow Cone Hire”?
I tested it, and more people click on the location-specific headline.
Once you have a list of all your ad groups, you can now implement the 3-step “The Cookie Monster Formula”.
Step 1: AdWords Keyword Research Is Boring. Telling Your Boss Sales Are Up 1,211% Is Not.
Now that you have identified all the ad groups for your business, you need to identify the specific keywords people are searching for to add to those ad groups.
To do that, you should use the Google Keyword Planner.
The keywords you choose will make or break your AdWords campaign.
If they are too broad, you will get unqualified clicks to your website.
And waste your ad money.
You should only include keywords that are directly related to the product or service you sell.
A successful AdWords campaign is not about getting millions of clicks to your website.
It is about capturing as much of the Google search volume as possible for specific, high ‘buy intent’ keywords that are highly relevant to your business in your service area. | https://rocketshipgrowth.com/the-highest-roi-adwords-campaign-in-the-world-1-in-13-out-873570508d45 | ['Chris Von Wilpert'] | 2018-03-02 04:07:38.214000+00:00 | ['Google Adwords', 'Advertising', 'Adwords', 'PPC', 'PPC Marketing'] |
Deploy Python-Flask Application to Kubernetes | This article will explain how can we deploy our Python-Flask Application to Kubernetes. We will use Kubernetes to deploy our Flask Application.
We will build a Flask Application and create a Docker Image of flask application and deploy in a Kubernetes cluster.
Why we are using Kubernetes?
Suppose we hosted an application on internet using any hosting services. At some point of time number of user on your application increases so your application crashes because of very high number of requests. So in that case there is no backup or no another application which will serve in the meantime we fix the application problem.
Kubernetes comes with solution for this problem. So what Kubernetes does is it create multiple instances of your application. It has also the load balancer over it so that the users which are accessing your application will not directly access the url of your application. It will call the load balancer and load balancer will the distribute the number of request over multiple instances of the application even if one of the instances of the application is crashed Kubernetes automatically create another instance of the application.
Prerequisites
step 1- Create a Flask Application
let’s create a basic Flask application. create an app.py file and add this code into it.
from flask import Flask, jsonify
app = Flask(__name__) @app.route("/")
def hello():
return jsonify({"Message": "Hello World"}) if __name__ == "__main__":
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', debug=True)
Create an requirement.txt file to add flask as our dependency.
flask
step 2- Create a Docker image
To containerize the application we will create a Dockefile from which we will create an Docker image corresponding to the Application.
create a file name Dockefile and add this into it.
FROM python:3.7
RUN mkdir /app
WORKDIR /app/
ADD . /app/
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
CMD ["python", "/app/app.py"]
then we will generate docker image for the application using this Dockerfile.
Run below command to create an image
docker build -t flask-kubernetes-deploy .
it will generate a docker image of this application. we can also check image via this command
docker images
output
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
flask-kubernetes-deploy latest 544c8498b243 26 hours ago 885MB
tag the image using this command
docker tag flask-kubernetes-deploy <username_of_docker hub>/flask-kubernetes-app
push the image to docker hub
docker push <username_of_docker hub>/flask-kubernetes-app
step 3- Deployment
create a deployment.yaml to deploy an application on to the Kubernetes engine.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: flask-test-service
spec:
selector:
app: flask-test-app
ports:
- protocol: "TCP"
port: 6000
targetPort: 5000
type: LoadBalancer --- apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: flask-test-app
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: flask-test-app
replicas: 5
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: flask-test-app
spec:
containers:
- name: flask-test-app
image: docker.io/<username>/flask-kubernetes-app
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
ports:
- containerPort: 5000
in this yaml file there is two parts one is service and another is deployment. means we are creating a service which will work as a load balancer and deployment which will serve as application.
we need to execute below command to create service and deployment
kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml
output:
service/flask-test-service created
deployment.apps/flask-test-app creted
you can check pods by this command:
kubectl get po
output:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
flask-test-app-74bcc4d458-87xj2 1/1 Running 0 10h
flask-test-app-74bcc4d458-9vvdr 1/1 Running 0 10h
flask-test-app-74bcc4d458-n82s8 1/1 Running 0 10h
flask-test-app-74bcc4d458-vcp6m 1/1 Running 0 10h
flask-test-app-74bcc4d458-vr6zk 1/1 Running 0 10h
as an output we will get 5 replicas of application.
we can check the service by this command:
kubectl get svc
output:
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
flask-test-service LoadBalancer 10.101.220.162 <pending> 6000:32609/TCP 10h
Run minikube service flask-test-service to access the application and minikube dashboard to access the Kubernetes application.
you can see the deployment and pods on minikube dashboard like that:
Conclusion:
So, In this way of deployment your application is scalable and always available to the user.
you can access the above code from
‘ https://github.com/pratik-iiitkalyani/Deploy-Flask-Application-To-Kubernetes-using-Minikube’ | https://medium.com/@pkraja121dss/deploy-python-flask-application-to-kubernetes-31f7c255c0b3 | ['Pratik Kumar'] | 2020-11-11 23:23:15.699000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'Kubernetes', 'Flask', 'Docker', 'Python'] |
Learn To Visualize And Change Your Life In Minutes | How To Prime Your Brain for Success in Just 10 Minutes a Day
Visualization can be the secret weapon in turning your dreams into reality. You already have the power to achieve what you want in life; motivation, strategy, and the Big Idea are already there, locked in your subconscious mind. Take just ten minutes every day to unlock that power and start to move towards your goals.
1. Harness the Power of your Subconscious
You may not realize how powerful your subconscious is in determining whether or not you succeed in life. A negative mindset can act as a drag, stopping you from imagining your dream life and going for it. It will remind you of past failures and tell you that gaining success and wealth is hard work and painful, even impossible.
Studies have shown that you can rewire your mindset by programming the Reticular Activating System in your brain to select for positivity and success. The RAS acts a bit like an email folder, getting you to focus on what’s important to you. If you tell it to prioritize information that will feed your success, you will have your subconscious mind working for you, not against you.
2. Make Visualization a Habit
Just ten minutes a day of visualizing your future life is enough to keep the momentum going and your motivation high. Make the visualization habit easy by doing it at the same time and place each day. The ten minutes before you get up and before you go to sleep are the perfect times to practice visualization. You’re relaxed, unlikely to be interrupted, and in the ideal state of mind to have an impactful visualization.
Bring to mind every detail of your future successful life, How does it feel? What can you see, feel, hear, and taste? What are you wearing? What emotions are you feeling? Make it as real and detailed as possible.
3. Be present
You can practice visualization not just by thinking about the future but also being fully present in the here and now. Placing your happiness in the future means you miss out on all the good things in your life right now. And that can be demotivating and lead to a drop in positivity.
Don’t postpone happiness. Think of all the things in your life that you are grateful for right now. Celebrate your successes and your gifts and use them to fuel your ambition for more and better.
See yourself working your way along the map and ticking off your successes as you get closer to achieving what you want. Mark every success, no matter how small and keep your energy and motivation high.
8 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Visualization
Visualization has been used for decades to improve sporting performance, build confidence, and help people achieve their goals. It has become a popular technique to change mindsets and build a more positive, motivated outlook on life.
But did you know that there is a scientific basis for visualization’s success? Studies have shown measurable improvements and health benefits to having a regular visualization practice. Here are eight ways that science has shown the benefits of visualization.
1. Increased Focus
Regularly visualizing a future scenario, one where you achieve your goals, can help improve your focus. When you go over and over the details of that prospective situation, whether it’s a job interview, a presentation, or a race, your brain can take in more information that it needs to ensure you perform at your best.
2. Improved Performance
Using visualization to win has been most famously used by sports coaches and elite athletes to improve performance. By visualizing each aspect of the race and competition, down to each swim stroke or game point, can give athletes the edge and lead to medal-winning results.
3. Increased Confidence
Practicing visualization allows you to safely explore every possible outcome and to see yourself succeeding. By building a positive picture of your achievement, success becomes more tangible. It becomes the alternative reality that you can choose. Your confidence will soar, and you’ll be able to take greater risks without being hamstrung by anxiety.
4. Decreased Anxiety
By visualizing as much of the future event as you can, you can take the mystery and the stress out of it. Instead of a tangle of ‘what ifs,’ you can imagine each obstacle outcome and plan for it. Performance anxiety and associated stress will be reduced and allow you to do very best.
5. Decreased Depression
People who suffer from depression often find it difficult to imagine that things could be different could be better. Using visualization can help to give you a step up into a different world, one where you feel happy and able to take action.
6. Better Sleep
Decreased anxiety and greater confidence lead to deeper relaxation, meaning you’ll sleep better also. Visualizing before you go to sleep will reduce insomnia and stop those waking up in the middle of the night worry sessions.
7. Boosted Immune System
Stress and anxiety take their toll on your immune system. Add sleep deprivation to that mix, and you’re a sitting duck for every passing germ. Visualization focuses your mind and body on being relaxed and calm. Your immune system can rebuild and strengthen.
8. Help with Migraines
Studies have found that visualization can even help with migraines and chronic headaches. By creating new neural pathways in the brain, visualization can help alleviate the pain of chronic headaches.
Click Here To Learn More… | https://medium.com/@bossupfit/learn-to-visualize-and-change-your-life-in-minutes-afc59ebfeb11 | ['Boss Up'] | 2020-12-20 19:32:13.598000+00:00 | ['Law Of Attraction', 'Self Confidence', 'Manifest', 'Visualization'] |
Dimensionality Reduction using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) | An important task to handle dataset with more number of features/dimensions.
Data keeps on increasing every second and it has become crucial to interpreting insights from this data to solve problems. And, as features of data increases so dimensions of the dataset increases. Eventually, a Machine Learning model needs to handle the complex data resulting in more complexities. On the other hand, there are a lot of features that are futile for the model or are correlated with others. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is the way out to reduce dimensions and deduct correlated features from the dataset.
The article is divided into the following sections:
Definition- PCA Need & Advantages of PCA Real-time usage/application Steps to perform PCA —
Data standardization
Computing covariance matrix
Determining eigenvalues and eigenvectors
Computing PCA features
5. Implementing PCA to MNIST dataset using Python
6. Conclusion
What is PCA?
Principal Component Analysis(PCA) is a Dimensionality Reduction technique that enables you to identify correlations and patterns in a dataset so that it can be transformed into a dataset of significantly fewer dimensions without loss of any important information.
Need of PCA
A dataset with more number of features takes more time for training the model and make data processing and exploratory data analysis(EDA) more convoluted.
Advantages of PCA
Reduces training time.
Removes correlated features (removes noise).
Ease for data exploration (EDA).
Easy to visualize data (maximum 3D data).
Real-time applications
PCA is used for dimensionality reduction in the domains such as face recognition, computer vision, image compression, image detection, object detection, image classification, etc.
Steps to perform PCA:
Data Standardization
Standardization is all about scaling the data in such a way that all the values/variables are in a similar range. Standardization means rescaling data to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 (unit variance).
Why? It is about making sure that data is internally consistent; that is, each data type has the same content and format.
Computing covariance matrix
The covariance matrix is computed after data standardization and it is used to find correlated features in the dataset. Each element of the covariance matrix represents the relation between two features.
Why? It is used to determine the correlation between features.
Reference - Analysis Factor
Determining eigenvalues and eigenvectors
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors are the mathematical constructs that must be computed from the covariance matrix in order to determine the principal components of the dataset.
Principal components are the new set of variables/features that are obtained from the initial set of features. They compress and possess most of the useful information that was scattered among the initial features.
Eigenvectors are those vectors when a linear transformation is performed on them then their direction does not change.
Eigenvalues simplify denote the scalars of the respective eigenvectors.
Why? To find the direction of the maximum spread of the features.
Reference - HMC
Computing Principal Components
Let’s suppose there are 5 features in a dataset, then after computing eigenvectors and respective eigenvalues, there will 5 principal features, each of the features will have its eigenvalue and eigenvector.
The features with the highest eigenvalues have most of the details/spread of the data in comparison to other features.
So the features with high eigenvalues are considered as principal features and those features would be the output of PCA.
Now, these principal components would be used as input to train the model and for data visualization.
Implementing PCA to MNIST dataset using Python
Problem statement — To perform step by step PCA to MNIST dataset in order to reduce dimensions.
MNIST dataset contains various images of 0 to 9 numbers and it is primarily used to recognize image/digit for beginners. Each image is 28 * 28 pixels and when converted to vector form, it would be 28 * 28 = 784 features and it is tough to visualize 784 features on the screen and to train the model. So, here I will reduce the dimensions of the dataset and visualize data in 2D.
Dataset is already prepared and converted to matrix form(stored in CSV format), so it would be easy to use it for further tasks (How data is prepared is not explained in this article as the subject of the article is PCA). To download data, visit — https://www.kaggle.com/c/digit-recognizer/data
Let’s dive into coding. Firstly, load data and read using pandas;
Then separate label data and features data;
Apply column standardization the sklearn library;
Now, computing covariance from standardized data as follows;
Following to that, find eigenvectors and eigenvalues here I have computed the top 2 eigenvectors;
Computing principal components;
Plotting data with two principal features using seaborn;
Implementing the PCA package from the sklearn library;
Conclusion | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/dimensionality-reduction-using-principal-component-analysis-pca-41e364615766 | ['Rajvi Shah'] | 2020-09-18 14:00:10.822000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Visualisation', 'Dimensionality Reduction'] |
A designer’s approach to remote meetings | Do you hate inefficient meetings? Meetings that go overtime, meetings without meaningful results, or meetings that are not relevant to me — those meetings won’t increase our productivity, and they can make us less satisfied with our work.
“Unproductive meetings are like time stolen from us.”
Designers have been experiencing Zoom fatigue and calendar bloating in 2020. While many articles are discussing what meeting participants should do to avoid that, it’s also the meeting host’s duty to make every meeting super effective.
To apply design thinking at an organization level, I decided to redesign our meeting structure at Anyscale. Last week, I gave a presentation on how I run design review meetings and led a fun brainstorming session to create our meeting guides. Here I’d love to share my key takeaways about how to make meetings efficient.
Set up the meeting — why, who, and when?
Why — Think about the goal of this meeting first. During my presentation, I led a discussion about what makes a meeting bad. People mentioned that some meetings should not even exist - “Oh great, another meeting that could have just been an email!” Always think about “why” before you set up the meeting.
Who —Always try to only invite people who are relevant to the topic and motivated to join the conversation. I sent out a survey in my company with the question, “What’s your favorite meeting at Anyscale?” Results showed most people prefer smaller meetings because they feel more intimate, efficient, and relevant. A tip I have for this is to think about what each person can bring to the table and why they care about this topic before sending the invitation.
When — Finding the best time can be tricky but important. To start, understand your coworkers’ work habits. For instance, some prefer to have more focus time in the afternoon so try to schedule some time in the morning with them instead. Check participants’ calendars and try not to invite them to back-to-back meetings without any break — we’re all working remotely, and those breaks are essential to our mental health. If you’re not sure if a time works well for a specific person (like a new employee), send a short and sweet Slack message to double check.
Make sure meetings end on time
Have you ever been to a meeting that went overtime? Of course you have! I have too, frequently. Let me tell you the truth — no one wants a meeting to go overtime. Here are some of my tips to make staying on track easier:
Always have an agenda with a time breakdown
Something I’ve been doing that has worked super well is to always have an agenda with time allocation for every meeting. I not only attach the agenda to the calendar but also talk about it at the beginning of every meeting. Then I’ll monitor the time and stick to the agenda.
illustration by Asana Blog
Interrupt immediately when someone goes off-topic
You’re in a meeting. Someone becomes excited and brings up a different topic. You feel awkward to stop them, so you let them speak for the rest of the meeting.
Stop doing that, and interrupt immediately. In Chinese culture, it’s rude to interrupt people, so I’ve always found it super hard. But I also know by interrupting, I can save people more time and focus on more critical things. By simply saying, “That’s a great idea, but I want to go back to the topic of registration flows. What’s everyone’s thought on the second design?”, your coworkers will appreciate you keeping everyone on track.
Facilitate free expression through empathy and motivation
Empathy — Some love to speak up about their opinions while others prefer to give written feedback. During my design critique sessions, I’d always say, “You can ask questions any time or write down your thoughts in the Google doc — just use whichever way you feel more comfortable with,” and that has worked pretty well.
Motivation — People only pay attention to things that are relevant to them. At the beginning of meetings, I love to talk about how this topic can impact everyone’s job or how everyone’s unique contribution can be so helpful. For instance, I’ll say, “I invited Alex because I hope to get his unique perspective on product privacy and safety issues, and I know he cares deeply about how design can influence them.” People are more likely to contribute if they know the role they’re supposed to play.
illustration by Blankenship
End strongly with TL;DR and action items
People hate meetings without clear conclusions. In fact, just by stating the TL;DR at the end of the meeting can help people feel more accomplished.
Always make the action items clear. It can mark a strong ending of a meeting. To go further, you can also post action items after the meeting to inform people, especially stakeholders who were not able to make the meeting.
Take care of each other’s well-being
Having a lot of Hangout or Zoom meetings in a day can be draining. Trying to give people enough breaks if a meeting goes longer than an hour can help a lot.
People may be more vulnerable to negative feelings about meetings due to staying in the same place all day long. Be more empathetic to coworkers; one thing my manager and I try to do is having more 1-on-1s outdoors. We encourage each other to go for a walk during our 1-on-1s whenever possible. I always believe well-being is an essential part of our work and life; Don’t forget to take care of yourself and others, even during meetings :) | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/how-to-run-a-great-meeting-in-2020-5f986750b298 | ['Yunjie Yao'] | 2021-03-15 03:08:37.619000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Meetings', 'Leadership', 'Remote Working'] |
On Losing | (a little November draft)
Losing is always hard. Then again, losing is also something that each person must endure once in a while. You can’t just skip ahead to where you think your life should be. You have to go through all the bumps along the way.
I remember when I was only an elementary student, a fourth-grader, I was super into basketball. I enrolled in my school’s basketball team and practiced two times a week. One day after I finished practicing, I head out to my driver, crying in disbelief that someone actually stole my school bag during the practice. I never expected to lose my bag that day, which is why I was completely devastated about it. Yes, losing something you never thought you’d lose is perplexing.
On the other hand, losing things you already know you’ll lose is a different kind of pain. Even if you know how something’s going to end, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ride, but keep in mind that the agony always keeps fast-track card in hand. It’s the type of sorrow you can’t run away from since it’s always one step ahead of you.
Losing something fucks up your brain. It messes with your mind. It left you silent-crying beneath the pillow at 3 in the morning. It’s full of puzzling question marks.
Whatever you lost wasn’t yours, but you sure as hell can be sad about it. | https://medium.com/@fragilestate505/on-losing-4b7f3ecc5b6c | ['Kayla Jashiraz'] | 2021-02-15 15:33:18.888000+00:00 | ['Lost', 'Confused', 'Losing', 'Heartache', 'Feeling'] |
Ignorance is bliss. “Find the truth and tell it.” Harold Pinter. | Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, Head of MDDUS, your ancestors were THIEVES and owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk.
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop could trigger an enquiry.” Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, Head of MDDUS. A brainless fake expert. An impostor and an expert of deception. OYINBO OLE: HABAKKUK.
pt-br.facebook.com › Daringtruths01 › photos › district…
DISTRICT JUDGE AYERS OF BEDFORD COUNTY COURT: A BRAINLESS WHITE MAN; A RACIST DESCENDANT OF PROFESSIONAL THIEVES AND ..
factsaresacred89.medium.com › bedford-paul-your-bra…
20 Nov 2020 — Her Honour Judge Gargan, 05/08/20. Her Honour Judge Hildyard QC, 05/08/20. District Judge Ayers, 05/08/ . “Someone must be trusted.
Mustafa Mehmet in Turkish; Boris Johnson isn’t.
The real name of GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S father was; Robert Maxwell was from Czechoslovakia. He arrived without luggage or decent shoes, changed his names, and latched onto the yields of millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk.
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family crossed the English Channels.
Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, Head of MDDUS, what’s your father’s real name, and where did your father’s father come from? Or did the ancestors of your father’s father evolve from gorillas in Holborn, London or Epping Forest, London?
Ignorance is bliss.
“Those who know the least obey the best.” George Farquhar.
“It was in 1066 that William the Conqueror occupied Britain, stole our land and gained control by granting it to his Norman friends, thus creating the feudal system we have not fully escaped.” The Right Honourable Tony Benn, 1925–2014.
Normans stole from others what others stole from others.
Aboriginal Britons are extinct; we are all genetic aliens on stolen land.
“All have taken what had other owners, and all have had recourse to arms rather than quit the prey on which they were fastened.” Dr Samuel Johnson.
Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, Head of MDDUS, you’re a genetic alien; your lecherous ancestors were economic migrants who crossed the English Channels, not that long ago, without luggage or decent shoes, changed their names, blended, and latched onto the huge yields of several centuries of barbarously racist traffic in millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people.
So, Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, Head MDDUS, your ancestors did not evolve from gorillas in Epping forest or Holborn. You’re not an aboriginal Briton; you’re a genetic alien, and a descendant of lecherous economic migrants who crossed the English Channels, not that long ago, without luggage or decent shoes — Habakkuk.
Gigantic yields of millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors), not feudal agriculture lured Eastern European Jews to Great Britain — Habakkuk.
SCOTTISH MDDUS: STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS, AND LLM (THAT CARDIFF THING), ORAL SURGEON (WITH NO POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATION, ONLY SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE) AT EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD. HE IS ALSO THE ORAL SURGEON, WITH NO RELEVANT POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATION, AT JOHN MILLER DENTAL PRACTICE IN OXFORD.
The natural instinct of privileged dullards is APARTHEID BY STEALTH: They don’t want progressive blind objectivity because it’s colour blind and Christly, as it does not favour the intellectually ungifted irrespective of skin colour.
He was lynched like Gadhafi, and He was crucified only because He spoke; He reluctantly disclosed the picture that his unbounded mind painted.
WOLLASTON, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, a closeted racist England Class Senior NHS Nurse, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK.
AN IMPOSTOR.
AN EXPERT OF DECEPTION.
A RACIST DESCENDANT OF THIEVES AND OWNERS OF STOLEN CHILDREN — HABAKKUK.
GOOGLE: STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
GOOGLE: STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, MPS.
GOOGLE: MEDIOCRE GDC.
A bastardised, unashamedly mediocre, indiscreetly dishonest, potently weaponised, vindictive, and institutionally racist system that is overseen by MASONS (Mediocre Mafia) — Habakkuk 1:4.
They persecute our people for the dark coat that we neither made nor chose, and they steal the yields of our God granted talents.
Ignorant racist leeches; righteous descendants of THIEVES and owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk.
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop’s could trigger an enquiry.” STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
A RACIST DUNCE.
“I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.” George Bernard Shaw.
GOOGLE: STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
GOOGLE: STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MPS.
STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS: A shallow racist bastard allowed prior predilection, professional envy, and uncontrollable racial hatred to becloud his objective reasoning and judgement. He immortalised the type of mediocre stories he might’ve heard his functional semi-illiterate father tell in their house, when he was not trying to teach him anything.
PERSECUTORY NEGROPHOBIA: Ms Rachael Bishop, England Class Senior NHS Nurse was a RACIST CRIMINAL: A Negrophobic perjurer. Her kind oversaw the administration of the LAW, so demons couldn’t cast out demons — Matthew 12:27.
In Trump’s (a genetic Scot) America, they kill our people for fun — openly and hands — on. In more civilised Great England, our people are being killed for fun hands-off.
They stalk our people like prey, and they hunt in packs.
They kill our people hands-off, and for fun:
Google: Dr Anand Kamath — dentist.
Google: Dr Richard Bamgboye — GP.
Then, their ancestors killed ours, hands-on.
“Many Scots masters were considered among the most brutal, with life expectancy on their plantations averaging a mere four years. We worked them to death then simply imported more to keep the sugar and thus the money flowing. Unlike centuries of grief and murder, an apology costs nothing. So what does Scotland have to say?” Herald Scotland: Ian Bell, Columnist, Sunday 28 April 2013.
“I know of no evil that has ever existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of eighty thousand persons annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilised nations inhabiting the most enlightened part of the globe, but more especially under the sanction of the laws of that Nation which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all.” Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.
“They may not have been well written from a grammatical point of view but I am confident I had not forgotten any of the facts.” Dr Geraint Evans, Postgraduate Tutor, Oxford.
“I think I will ask our legal adviser for any advice he may have. My view is that there are six or seven of us here who had the admission down, but we cannot find it in the transcript and there is wordings that imply that there was, but it is not in black and white…..” Dr Shiv Pabary, Member of the Most Excellent Order of our Empire (MBE) and Justice of Peace (JP).
An unashamedly, incontrovertibly functional semi-illiterate Excellent Member of our Empire, and Justice of Incompetent Racist Lies (UNCLE TOM).
His brother is autistic; based on proximate observations and direct experiences, the Indian seemed physically and mentally wonky. Their father and mother could be siblings or cousins.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW: Babies with huge oil-wells and gas fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; bellyful, bloody fool, seemingly incestuously conceived, and physically and/or mentally malformed people thrive in Great Britain.
There (USA), racist bastards kill our people for fun, albeit openly and hands-on.
Here (UK), racist bastards kill our people for fun, albeit hands-on.
Then, rebellious Negroes were frog-marched to the woods at gunpoint, and they’re hanged from a tall-tree, without a hood.
“Racism is rife in most of the organisations across Britain.” The Mayor of London.
“Racism is alive and well and living in Tower Hamlets, in Westminster and, yes, sometimes in the judiciary.” Judge Peter Herbert, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)
Stephen Henderson, Racist Freemason, and Head of MDDUS, are closeted racist bastards, and professional hands-off racist killers. Their ancestors were racist killers too.
If one’s ancestors were industrial-scale professional thieves, owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors), and efficient killers of stolen children, it’d be naive not to expect incompetent mendacity and racial hatred to be part of one’s genetic inheritances.
“Megan Markle was the subject of obnoxious and explicit RACIAL HATRED.” John Bercow.
The former speaker had access to a lot of Classified Information.
“All sections of the UK Society are institutionally RACIST.” Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.
MDDUS is part of the UK Society.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW.
Very poor Nigerian children with huge oil-wells and gas-fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; Stephen Henderson, a closeted racist, functional semi-illiterate bastard whose father and mother have never seen crude oil, is the Head of MDDUS, A closeted racist descendant of ECONOMIC CANNIBALS.
Then, racist bastards (ECONOMIC CANNIBALS) carried and sold millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people; now, they carry natural resources.
SUBSTITUTION IS FRAUDULENT EMANCIPATION.
“Moderation is a virtue only among those who are thought to have found alternatives.” Henry Kissinger.
“To deny or belittle this good is, in this dangerous century when the resources and pretensions of power continue to enlarge, a desperate error of intellectual abstraction. More than this, it is a self-fulfilling error, which encourages us to give up the struggle against bad laws and class bound procedures and to disarm ourselves before power. It is to throw away a whole inheritance of struggle about the law and within the forms of law, whose continuity can never be fractured without bringing men and women into immediate danger.” — E. P Thompson.
“It is incumbent upon the court and all those professionals involved to conclude court proceedings as quickly as possible. This hopefully ensures that a child has stability, love and affection and the parents working together to ensure that he has the best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” The Senior Vice President of the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges — proofed and approved Judgement.
Based on proximate observations and direct experiences, our incontrovertibly functional semi-illiterate fake Judge seemed physically and mentally malformed; his mother and father could be related.
“A typical English man usually violent, and always dull.” Wilde
A RACIST DUNCE.
“Yes, Sir, it does her honour, but it would do nobody else honour. I have indeed, not read it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery.” Dr Samuel Johnson.
To survive, the brainless racist bastard approved and immortalised (for eternity) the type of stories his functional semi-illiterate father taught him at odd moments.
“To survive, you must tell stories. I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.” Umberto Echo.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW. Nigerian children with huge oil-wells and gas-fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; a closeted racist, functional semi-illiterate former debt-collector Solicitor in Norwich, whose father and mother have never seen crude oil — is our District Judge in BEDFORD.
CRASS!
BEDFORD, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Freemason, Brother, Dr Richard William Hill fabricated reports and unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
When their people commit racist crimes against our people, they criminally bury racial hatred. They measure their own people with a different yardstick — Apartheid by stealth: Demons can’t cast out demons — Matthew 12:27.
Privileged dullards lied to their duller children that they’re geniuses; they kill all those who know they’re brainless racist bastards — Matthew 2:16.
Deluded racist bastards want superiority but they do not want Freedom of Expression; intellectual cowards want to eat their cakes and have them. They stifle Freedom of Expression because they don’t want their people to know what they do to our people.
The Senior Vice President of the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges was nominated and constructively appointed by Lords.
Lords and Judges, nearly all, are Freemasons. Based on available evidence some Judges and Lords are thicker than a gross of planks. The appointment of Judges and the Lords who appointed them are not based on progressive and colour blind objectivity. Dr Samuel Johnson implied that some Lords were excessively dull.
“This man I thought had been a Lord of wits but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.” Dr Samuel Johnson.
“Someone must be trusted. Let it be the Judges.” Lord Denning.
Majestic appointee.
Majestic stupidity.
“There is no sin except stupidity.” Wilde
OUR SEMI-ILLITERATE RACIST FREEMASON YOUR HONOUR.
Then, yields of stolen and destroyed children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) were used to build courts and pay the wages of judges who sent those who stole money to prisons built with stolen money.
Had his own mother and father cared, he’d not have approved excessive stupidity, at 16, and he’d be a properly educated QC, privately-educated Rabinder Singh’s class, and he’d do proper law in STRAND.
In an open dialogue with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933–2020, Lady Hale lamented funding. My Lady, what’s the value of several lawyers of mediocrity and confusion?
PERCEPTION IS GRANDER THAN REALITY.
He approved and immortalised (for eternity)what his functional semi-illiterate father and mother spoke, which is polytechnic-educated supervisors in Luton authorised.
His Honour Judge Perusko studied law at Polytechnic
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop’s could trigger an enquiry.” STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
A RACIST DUNCE.
CORBY: Dr Kevin Atkinson (NHS) lied under oath.
A RACIST CROOK.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
Majestic appointee.
Majestic stupidity.
“There’s no sin except stupidity..”Wilde.
CORBY: Dr George Rothnie (NHS) lied on record.
A RACIST CROOK.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
Majestic appointee.
Majestic stupidity.
“There’s no sin except stupidity.” Wilde.
OXFORD:Dr Stephanie Twidale(TD)lied under oath.
A RACIST CROOK.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
Majestic appointee.
Majestic stupidity.
“There’s no sin except stupidity..”Wilde.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
If he weren’t our Judge in BEDORD, he might’ve been unemployed, or what’s in Norwich for semi-illiterate Solicitors to do, prior to COVID.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
A MASON.
NO BRAIN.
NATURAL RESOURCES POOR.
If the polytechnic-educated racist bastard read his judgement, he was a FOOL; if he didn’t, he lied.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
Had his mum cared, he’d not have approved rot at 16, and he’d be a properly educated QC, Rabinder Singh’s Class, and he’d do proper Law in STRAND.
NORTHAMPTON:Dr Geraint Evans lied on record.
Bedford yields only food ,and our District Judge is a semi-illiterate;it’s plainly deductible that his ancestors were THIEVES and owners of stolen children(Kamala’s ancestors).
WOLLASTON:Ms Rachael Bishop lied under oath.
Bedford yields only food ,and our District Judge is a semi-illiterate;it’s plainly deductible that his ancestors were THIEVES and owners of stolen children(Kamala’s ancestors.
BEDFORD: Dr Sue Gregory(OBE)lied on record.
Bedford yields only food ,and our District Judge is a semi-illiterate;it’s plainly deductible that his ancestors were THIEVES and owners of stolen children(Kamala’s ancestors.
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S CASH COW.
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
Children with huge oil-wells near their houses eat 1.5/d;a dipstick is our Judge in BEDFORD.
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill lied under oath.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S CASH COW.
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
Children with huge oil-wells near their houses eat 1.5/d;a dipstick is our Judge in BEDFORD.
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
A descendant of THIEVES; owners of stolen children (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk.
NO BRAIN.
THE LAND YIELDS ONLY FOOD.
CENTURIES OF SLAVERY PRECEDED THE TRUST FUND.
“The best opportunity of developing academically are emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD.
A RACIST DUNCE.
A MASON.
Polytechnic-educated racist bastard.
An intellectual impotent nonentity.
A racist descendant of THIEVES; owners of stolen children.
Freemason,Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports.
OYINBO OLE-HABAKKUK.
BEDFORD:District Judge,NIGERIA(oil/gas)is more relevant to the survival of your mum than LUTON.
Then, your ancestors were fed like battery hens with the yields of stolen children. | https://medium.com/@factsaresacred89/ignorance-is-bliss-find-the-truth-and-tell-it-harold-pinter-c761e45bdaf6 | ['Abiodun Bamgbelu'] | 2020-12-25 10:37:17.990000+00:00 | ['Law', 'America', 'Africa', 'Racism', 'Politics'] |
How to Help Your Fat Friends Have Happy Holidays | How to Help Your Fat Friends Have Happy Holidays
Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
Here we are again, at the beginning of the season of sweets. Last week at work, we finally received the first of what will be several much-anticipated boxes of chocolate sent by our consultants and vendors. Along with the boxes always come self-deprecating comments by co-workers as they dig in, searching for their favorites.
I really shouldn’t.
Ugh, more chocolates? What are they doing to us!
There goes all my hard work.
I sit at my desk and listen, and begin building the wall I have to put up around myself every December. I am experiencing the first twinges of the letdown of what feels like endless talk about diets and weight loss. Even when it’s framed as being about health, it’s all just a whole lot of buy-in to a really harmful diet culture. The holidays ramp up to their biggest money maker: New Year’s, with all it’s resolutions, promises, and false hopes.
For those of us living in fat bodies, it can be a particularly challenging time mentally and emotionally. Hearing so many people talk non-stop about how my body isn’t okay is demoralizing and frustrating and it hurts. So, how do you help the fat people you care about have a better holiday season?
Don’t shame yourself for enjoying food
Food has no moral value. After the year we’ve all had, we deserve to take comfort in tradition and nostalgia and the special things that make Christmas what it is. When you call certain foods bad or put yourself down for enjoying them, you’re buying into a false binary of good and bad foods. There are no bad foods, it’s much more complex than that.
If you choose not to eat chocolate or drink egg nog, that’s okay. But if you love the ridiculousness of candy before 8 am on Christmas morning or peppermint mochas with extra whip or an extra roll at dinner, that’s absolutely okay. It’s literally just food. When you shame yourself for those things, you are also shaming anyone within earshot and removing the enjoyment for everyone.
Don’t comment about anyone’s plates
Whether it’s at an in-person gathering with people in your quarantine bubble, or a zoom dinner party, resist the urge to make comments about how much (or how little) anyone has on their plate. Maybe they’re not hungry. Maybe they haven’t eaten all day. Maybe they’ve looked forward to mashed potatoes for a month. No matter what, you’re definitely harshing their mellow. At best, you’re attempting to make a joke that isn’t actually funny. At worst, you’re shaming someone for participating in what is supposed to be a fun celebration.
Telling someone else what they should or should not eat isn’t your job, and it’s unnecessary. Even if you think you’re helping, unless that person has hired you to be their nutritionist, you’re not. Almost always, these types of comments come with thinly-veiled, unwelcome opinions about the size of someone else’s body, which leads nicely right into the next big no-no.
Don’t comment on people’s bodies.
Commenting on people’s bodies is a minefield of triggers for all kinds of reasons. Talk about weight gain and weight loss inevitably comes with a value judgement, implying that our weights and our worth are in inverse proportion to one another.
When you say “You look great! Have you lost weight?” you’ve communicated that size is one of the first things you notice, and that a lower weight is more desirable. You’ve also, however unintentionally, implied that the person didn’t look good before. For someone who is fat, or has gained weight, hearing this can be devastating. Answering “no, I haven’t,” puts a weird, strained stop to the conversation, and it’s awkward.
Additionally, even if someone has lost weight, you have no idea why. They could have been ill, or have struggled with disordered eating. Making the assumption that any weight loss was intentional is flawed, and not welcome most of the time. It’s also just not that interesting. There are about 2,000 things about myself and my life that are more fascinating than my body fat percentage or my exercise routine.
Make a point to use non-weight based compliments
Around the holidays, we find ourselves seeing folks we haven’t seen in a while. It’s natural to feel that oxytocin flowing and want to connect and say nice things about your friends and family. There are tons of compliments you can give that have nothing to do with the size and shape of someone’s body.
It may take a tiny bit more effort, but it almost always leads to a more heartfelt connection and interesting conversation. Even if you have a superficial relationship with the person, you can compliment them without bringing up their body. Here are some examples:
I love that scarf, the color looks gorgeous on you!
Seeing your smile again is so refreshing.
I’m so glad I get to see you/talk with you today, you’re such a good listener!
You’ve accomplished so much this year (at work, at school, on hobbies, volunteering)!
You have the best sense of humor, thanks for always making me laugh.
I love hearing about your work, I can’t wait to see what you do next.
I’m so glad we’re friends.
You’re so smart, I always learn new things from you!
The options are pretty much endless, and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather receive any one of these compliments than being told that I look skinnier than the last time you saw me.
Rethink your New Year’s resolutions
To be honest, I stopped making New Year’s resolutions a while ago. However, I know that setting intentions and goals for the new year is a large part of many people’s tradition every December. There are a lot of ways to keep that tradition without incorporating body negativity, fatphobia, and diet culture.
If your goal is to move more, divorce that from anything having to do with a number on a scale. Frame your movement in terms of feeling good physically and/or mentally, getting stronger, or having specific goals. Maybe this year you want to hike a trail you’ve been coveting, and need to work up to it. Maybe you want to build your stamina or lung capacity so you can go on that bike tour of Italy you’ve always dreamed of.
If your goal is to eat differently because you’ve noticed some foods help you feel more energetic or enjoy life more, focus on meal planning and recipes. Stay away from words that give food moral value or imply that only these foods are good, healthy, wholesome etc. Talk about how good the food tastes and how you’re learning new cooking techniques. Remember:
There is not anything inherently wrong with wanting to eat more nutritious, nourishing food, to get exercise, or to keep your body in good health. But the pervasive diet culture that we live in goes into overdrive in January every year, and it’s damaging in so many ways. People recovering from eating disorders are surrounded by triggering “inspirational” quotes and memes and social media posts and articles and tips. People who are not between sizes 0 and 10, regardless of their health or physical fitness, are even more constantly being told that they are not okay with anybody. You cannot exist in anything resembling a mentally healthy way when you internalize these messages that you are the opposite of desirable, beautiful, normal, and acceptable. - Surviving New Years in a Fat Body
Call people out for promoting harmful ideas.
Most people I know are at least somewhat conflict-avoidant. Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier, and a lot more comfortable in some ways, to let a comment or joke slide than to make someone feel bad for what they said. Speaking up when people around you say things you know are harmful takes courage and energy. It’s easier just… not to.
It also takes energy for your fat friends to try not to internalize every comment we hear that makes it clear this world isn’t made for us. Over this weekend when Lizzo shared on her social media that she did a detox/juice cleanse, my social media exploded. It was exhausting, because it brought up all these feelings and commentary from people who praise weight loss, restrictive eating, and unsustainable diet practices. Whenever someone makes a fatphobic comment around me, I have to decide whether to say something and potentially be perceived as too sensitive or taking things too personally.
As an ally, when you refuse to laugh at fat jokes or point out that someone’s comment is fatphobic or based in harmful ideals around diet culture, you alleviate that stress. It shows understanding and support for your fat friends, and it shows that we are not the only ones who are noticing and pointing out problematic speech and behavior.
Your voice means something, and having you stand beside us and use your voice when we can’t is meaningful. Refusing to tolerate jokes, insults, and misinformation based on body size is important. | https://medium.com/fattitude/how-to-help-your-fat-friends-have-happy-holidays-89204b2d43f5 | ['Rachael Hope'] | 2020-12-16 19:44:59.017000+00:00 | ['Feminism', 'Equality', 'Holidays', 'Body Image', 'Mental Health'] |
Mentality | I have a real issue with people that moan about their life all the time, why don't they do something about?
Honestly like your hear bad stuff everyday on TV, reading about it, it is everywhere!! And still on top of that you still moan about life?” I can´t afford that?” ” I don't have time “ “ I can`t do that “
COMPLAINING HAS NO VALUE
All those questions have answers: work more, make time, spend less time doing nothing, you haven't even tried and if you have think another way around it.
There is always a solution, it is super simple:
LET YOUR ACTIONS DICTATE
Instead of sitting there and feeling you're not in control
DISCIPLINE
Discipline as a bad reputation people thing have of it like punishment, it is not that, discipline is an amazing thing it is staying true to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left.
There's really bad days that you feel crap and just a mess but you said you were gonna do it and you get up and do it, I guarantee you after you did it your going to feel better. THROUGH DISCIPLINE YOU GET THINGS DONE | https://medium.com/@kjj69677/mentality-d36b14a04a60 | [] | 2020-12-26 16:00:26.456000+00:00 | ['Happiness', 'Life Lessons', 'Fashion', 'Lifestyle', 'Life'] |
3D Printing for Veterinarian Applications | With the help of 3D printing dental professionals are creating more effective braces that are less harmful for the patient. These applications for medical use benefit both animals and human beings. Specifically, those that use online 3D printing india to print for medical reasons have assisted vet surgeons to practice surgery to develop and test prosthetics in addition to giving them the ability to make biocompatible implants. 3D printing in india has proved to be extremely adaptable and affordable for veterinarians. 3D printers are able to create objects out of ordinary materials. They include , but are not only limited to metals. There are dozens of different kinds of powders, plastics and even the fundamental structures that living tissue can make scaffolding. One such material is very very fine-grained plaster. Infiltrated with a form of superglue it can be compared to the bone’s density. Different types of hardeners are able to give a similar representation. Some medical teams are depositing cells that could develop on 3D printed structures.
Due to its efficacy the 3D printing process is being integrated into the curriculum of several vet schools. Although it’s still an innovative tool for clinical use however, it is now being utilized for educational purposes as students will be exposed to it once they are finished. This article we’ll examine some practical uses 3D printing quote is a viable option in the medical field of the field of veterinary medicine.
How Veterinary Medicine Uses 3D Printing
The versatility of 3D printers offers infinite possibilities for veterinarians. You can print anything provided it’s developed in the 3D firm file. The geometry that is created must be water-tight. The surgeons and doctors are making use of 3D printing services to get ready for the surgery. They are making prosthetics and other tools to make sure that the procedure is as swift as it can be. Veterinarians are able to make use of CAT scans as the basis of their models, which makes the made pieces extremely accurate. Examining the condition that exists in every patient, they are able to design tools and strategies to plan surgery as well as analyzing the condition within the patient. Let’s look at a few specific examples of how doctors currently utilize 3D printing.
Surgical Models
A very well-known ways to use 3D printing service in india for veterinarians is the creation of 3D operating models. This allows surgeons to precisely portray various aspects of the body of animals, including the bones and skull. These models are helpful in assessing the severity of injuries and deformities and also for conducting pre-surgery morphological tests. In addition, 3D models are especially helpful when explaining the condition to pet’s owners. Based on models produced by 3D printing companies, vets are able to make implants that are precisely how they are supposed to. Prior to performing the actual surgery the doctor would usually carry out the procedure using an exact 3D model. Researchers could even print models to experiment with innovative methods and create new methods for complex procedures. 3D printed models also have their applications in education. Universities use these models to instruct students on the importance of bone fixation as well as surgical techniques. In general, 3D printing offers an opportunity for vets with experience and students.
Post-Surgery Masks
Masks are vital to help animals recover from surgery or injury to bones or joints. They assist in healing animals without the danger of reopening an injury or dislocating their bones. 3D printing can help veterinarians create masks that are perfectly sized and can serve as a solid support structure in certain situations. The creation of a functional casting can be a challenge for certain parts of the body, like facial features, as an instance. With 3D printing, vets can create masks that precisely follow the contours to the shape of the animals face.
The Benefits of 3D Printing for Veterinarians
As you can observe, 3D printing has many practical applications within the area of vet medicine. From orthopedic implants and prosthetics to models to aid in the preparation for surgery and training vets now have efficient instruments to assist in improving and saving animals’ lives. Additionally, 3D printing allows for the development of custom surgical instruments, significantly reducing the time required to perform complex surgeries.
One of the greatest advantages 3D printing offers vets is that it’s relatively inexpensive and simple to carry out. The creation of custom tools, prosthetics and models wasn’t an everyday practice prior to 3D printing because it was simply not feasible. With 3D printing however, intricate models can be made quickly and with a minimal cost. Due to this advancement in technology thousands of lives are either saved or dramatically enhanced.
Conclusion
3D printing is changing the world of veterinary medicine, and many other areas. Because of the effectiveness and popularity of the process the demand for it is growing at a rate that has never been previously seen. It is now being taught at universities, helping prepare the next generation of veterinarians to utilize it effectively within their practice. It is safe to predict that 3D printing to take on a bigger part in veterinary medicine in the near future. | https://medium.com/@makenica/3d-printing-for-veterinarian-applications-16d364d09fd9 | [] | 2021-12-22 07:45:08.738000+00:00 | ['3D Printing', '3d Printing Service', 'Veterinarian Services', 'Veterinarian'] |
How to Write HTML, Part 1: What is HTML? | Learn HTML. It will Help Your Career.
Look, I know what you’re saying.
“Why do I need to learn HTML or any basic coding? I deal in account, product management, copy, finances, etc.”
The simple answer: if you don’t know how to write HTML — or have a basic understanding of what HTML is and how it functions across the Internet — you will never begin to understand the core fundamentals of the digital landscape.
So, first and foremost, what is HTML?
What is HTML?
HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is defined as:
“a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages.”
HTML, along with CSS and JavaScript, are the basic languages of the Internet used to make webpages look the way you want them to look.
As noted by Adobe Certified Instructor James Williamson:
“Although CSS controls how a page looks, and JavaScript controls how it behaves, HTML provides the essential structure for web pages. Take away the CSS, and you simply have an unstyled page. Take away the JavaScript, and certain behaviors may cease to function. Take away the HTML however, and you’re left with nothing at all, no web page, no content, nothing. In fact, to have a website, all you really need is HTML. A properly written HTML document will not only be readable to the user, but will also convey the structure of the document, the relationship of its content to each other, and allow the user to link to other pages and sites.”
HTML is the groundwork. Without it, you do not have a full understanding of the foundations of the web and you become lost when working on digital projects.
HTML is important to learn to understand the basics of the web and digital products
Why is HTML Important to Learn?
Sure, HTML editors like FrontPage and Dreamweaver allow you to build webpages without truly understanding the code behind those pages, but those editors make mistakes. By learning HTML you have the ability to fix mistakes, adjust code as needed and perform your own coding when needed.
More to the point, in terms of content creation, learning basic HTML will enable you to format a webpage as you wish and format the content of that page as you see fit. If anything, HTML is your basic principle for getting your voice heard across the Internet.
Understanding the Basics
HTML, so called Hypertext Markup, is named as such because it allows you to markup content in order to determine what that content is and how it relates/corresponds to additional content on a given page.
How does it do this? Tags.
A tag is the basic bedrock principle of HTML. It is the building block tool which enables formatting of font, color, graphic, and hyperlinks. Tags are used universally across HTML to identify specific types of content and how a webpage is formatted. For example:
A paragraph tag is represented by p and /p The title of a page is defined by title and /title
The tags, p and title bookend the content placed in the middle, in this case represented by the word and. By knowing the rules of how tags work, which tags to use in a specific situation and more importantly, how tags relate to one another, it becomes stupid simple to create a HTML page.
So, now that you have a basic understanding of what HTML is used for and its basic functional elements, let’s move on to a deeper exploration of tags. | https://medium.com/healthwellnext/how-to-write-html-part-1-what-is-html-a710c9638782 | ['Brad Yale'] | 2017-11-02 15:23:31.809000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Digital Marketing', 'Web Design', 'HTML', 'Web Development'] |
How Do I Come Out? | How do I come out to my parents?
HELP! I need to come out to my parents, but I don’t know how. What if they reject me?
How do I tell my friends I’m gay/trans/lesbian/nonbinary/ect?
Questions about coming out are asked every day. Many are terrified of revealing such a vulnerable part of them to their family and friends. They have every right to be scared with all of the anti-LGBTQ news stories plastered all over social media.
Kids, teens, and young adults are kicked out of their homes for being LGBTQ. Children are forced into brutal conversion camps. People are pushed out of their families, bullied, and met with nothing but hostility.
Kids are bullied at school and isolated. Discrimination makes getting a job or place to live 10x harder. With all of the possible negative outcomes, how could someone not be afraid of coming out?
There isn’t a right way to do it.
Every situation is different. There isn’t a “right time” or a “right place.” If you’re constantly waiting for the right time, you’ll look up and realize you’ve been waiting for 40+ years.
However, there are a couple of different ways to attack the situation. Just because there isn’t a perfect time or an instruction manual on how to come out doesn’t mean there isn’t a smart way to go about it.
Safety is the top priority.
If you believe you might get kicked out or if the situation could turn violent, coming out right now might not be an option. That’s okay too. You don’t have to be ashamed to stay in the “closet.” If that’s the safest option, do not put your life in jeopardy.
Recon work beforehand is always a good idea. Do you know how they feel about the LGBTQ community in general already? Do you know how they feel about your particular part of the community?
If you don’t, you might want to try casually bringing up a news story to see their reaction. However, don’t pick a story you’re too emotionally invested in or one that stresses you out like an ongoing court case. Instead, pick a happy one or a light topic. This way you avoid unintentionally causing an argument.
Plan it out.
One of the best ways to fight anxiety and nerves is to have a plan. Deciding on what you might say beforehand could help calm your nerves.
You can write it all down to help clear your mind and allow you to find the main points you want to focus on. Don’t be afraid to bring these notes with you to the talk, and don’t worry if you need to look at them. This is an emotional moment and a huge step. You can’t possibly remember every little thing you rehearsed in your head.
If you’re not comfortable talking, print out some articles and have them read them over. That’s what I did when I came out to my grandmother when I was 12. I printed out some articles about Gender Identity Disorder, and I sat beside her on the bed while she read them. After she was done reading, we talked about it.
Follow your heart.
There’s only so much planning you can do for a talk like this. At the end of the day, you’re talking about how you feel and how you see yourself. Nobody will ever know that better than you.
Don’t be afraid to ditch your notes. It doesn’t have to be a speech or a sales pitch. You also don’t have to ambush them with a truckload of information at one time. The more things you throw at them, the less likely they’ll be able to process it. Start with how you feel and how you identify yourself and then leave the door open for questions about whatever else.
Remember that your life is your own.
No matter the outcome, it’s crucial to remember that you only have to live for one person and that’s yourself. However they feel or whether they choose to support you or not is on them, but you only get the one life you have right now.
Nobody is worth living in the closet. Nobody is worth hiding such a big part of yourself. Coming out should be on your terms when you’re ready.
Take a deep breath. You’ve got this! | https://medium.com/brian-the-man-behind-the-pen/how-do-i-come-out-75d660ae7c1a | [] | 2020-02-20 19:16:46.581000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Transgender', 'Family', 'LGBTQ', 'Equality'] |
Australian Government loses majority as High Court disqualifies deputy Prime Minister | D-day for the ‘Citizenship Seven’ has arrived for the Australian politicians taken to the High Court over their eligibility to stand in Parliament.
The seven politicians caught up in the dual citizenship saga. (AAP, composite by Stephanie Preston)
In a major ruling, the High Court has found that deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to be ineligible due to his New Zealand citizenship
The High Court has also disqualified Greens senator Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts and Nationals senator Fiona Nash for dual citizenship.
Under Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, members of Parliament are not permitted to be dual citizens.
Nationals Matt Canavan and South Australian Nick Xenophon have been cleared by the High Court paving the way for the Nationals senator to return. Senator Xenophon has already announced his intention to enter state politics prior to today’s ruling.
Image: Dan Smith/ABC
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s coalition government has now lost its majority with a by-election to be held in early December in Barnaby Joyce’s seat of New England.
Although Mr Joyce is expected to face a run off against former member Tony Windsor, the former deputy Prime Minister is favourite to return to Parliament.
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale has commended Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters for resigning as soon as they became aware of their dual citizenship status.
Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek has announced that the opposition will now seek consider its legal options in regards to decisions made by disqualified politicians. | https://medium.com/typewriterintl/australian-government-loses-majority-as-high-court-disqualifies-deputy-prime-minister-7999f1799758 | ['Roydon Ng'] | 2017-10-27 04:09:16.185000+00:00 | ['Roydon Ng', 'Politics', 'News', 'Barnaby Joyce', 'Australia'] |
Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021 | Source: Derivative from original on Pixabay, created with photoshop.
Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021
These are the best universities to pursue a Ph.D. in machine learning, with research rankings in AI and machine learning research.
Last updated, December 19, 2020
Considering various factors such as the research areas, research focus, courses offered, duration of the program, location of the university, honors, awards, and job prospects, we came up with the best universities to help prospective students choose. This article is most suited for individuals who would like to pursue a Ph.D. with a focus on machine learning and need some guidance on their decision making.
📚 Check out our simple linear regression for machine learning tutorial. 📚
For the list of the universities, please jump at the end of the article.
Note: The universities mentioned below are in no particular order. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/best-universities-to-pursue-a-phd-in-machine-learning-ml-academic-program-8fa31eee3b6d | ['Towards Ai Team'] | 2020-12-19 22:13:28.087000+00:00 | ['News', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology', 'Future', 'Education'] |
Handle State with Sealed classes in Android. | Sealed class is the best solution, when we use Kotlin.
Sealed classes are used for representing restricted class hierarchies, when a value can have one of the types from a limited set, but cannot have any other type.
They are, in a sense, an extension of enum classes: the set of values for an enum type is also restricted, but each enum constant exists only as a single instance, whereas a subclass of a sealed class can have multiple instances which can contain state.
State<T>(
val data: T? = null,
val msg: String? = null
) {
class Success<T>(data: T) : State<T>(data)
class Loading<T>(data: T? = null) : State<T>(data)
class Error<T>(msg: String, data: T? = null) : State<T>(data, msg)
}
A sealed class is abstract by itself, it cannot be instantiated directly and can have abstract members.
Sealed classes are not allowed to have non-private constructors (their constructors are private by default).
The key benefit of using sealed classes comes into play when you use them in a when expression. If it's possible to verify that the statement covers all cases, you don't need to add an else clause to the statement. However, this works only if you use when as an expression (using the result) and not as a statement. | https://medium.com/@armgal/handle-state-with-sealed-class-in-android-3f7ded883e45 | ['Armen Galstyan'] | 2020-12-24 14:26:52.984000+00:00 | ['When Expression', 'Enum', 'Sealed Class', 'Kotlin'] |
What Employers Can do to Combat Coronavirus in the Workplace | By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard a copious amount of details about the recent coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan City, China. But for all the business owners, C-Suiters, and HR professionals, you need to know what your organization can do to counter this pandemic. So, in this article, we’ll tell you what the coronavirus is and what you, the employer, can do to combat this virus in the workplace.
What is the Coronavirus?
There are actually multiple types of human coronaviruses. This strain of the disease has been named coronavirus 2019, by the World Health Organization (WHO), or COVID-19, for short. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ stands for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. The virus causing COVID-19 isn’t the same as the coronaviruses that commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illnesses, such as the common cold.
How Employers Can Combat the Coronavirus 2019
While, as of yet, there’s no vaccine for COVID-19, there are several actions your firm can take to ensure the safety of your employees and combat the spread of COVID-19. These actions are as follows:
1. Communication is Key
The first step employers should take is to ensure you’re communicating with your employees on a regular basis. Stay in contact and up to date with the latest news and analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One of the most significant practices your business can take to battle COVID-19 is to fight the flow of misinformation that exists in today’s world.
So, make sure when communicating with your employees, you’re only using quality, trusted sources, such as the CDC. Scaring your employees isn’t helpful to either them or you. A critical first step to ensuring proper communication, according to Employee Benefits Adviser, is to establish one individual as the point person for all coronavirus-related news and information. You need to find an individual who is both knowledgeable and has the time and resources to gather the correct information.
Learn how past epidemics, like coronavirus, have affected global financial markets.
2. Promote Precautions
There are several recommended, standard precautions each of your employees should take to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. These precautions include:
Washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
If soap isn’t available, use hand sanitizer (at least 60 percent alcohol content)
Disinfecting touchable objects and surfaces
Avoiding close contact with people who are sick
Educating employees about travel advisories before business trips
Covering your mouth & nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
Staying home when sick
3. Have a Plan in Place
Another step employers should take to battle the spread of coronavirus, is to establish a plan right now. You should have a plan in place that dictates the actions of employees who recently traveled, those who are presenting symptoms, and those who have tested positive for the coronavirus. It’s vital for employees who’ve recently traveled or are showing symptoms that you ask the correct questions.
Federal laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, limit the types of health information employers can seek from their employees. So, the kind of questions you ask is critical. For example, employers can’t ask questions that may indicate a person has an underlying health issue, such as “Do you have a compromised immune system?”
Still, during a pandemic, employers can ask whether a worker has flu-like symptoms, according to guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And, if workers are presenting these symptoms, it is permissible to send those employees home.
Similarly, during such a pandemic, it’s permissible for employers to fever screen and act against an employee after the return from an affected area. The previously mentioned disability discrimination laws don’t apply if the employer acts reasonably to prevent the possibility an employee may become ill and disabled in the future (and infect co-workers).
4. Utilize Your Employee Benefits Plan
Your employee benefits program is an invaluable tool to help your business avoid the spread of coronavirus amongst your staff. For example, benefits such as remote work, flexible work options, alternative work schedules, and flexible leave policies can help employees avoid spreading the virus if they’ve traveled to an affected area or suspect they are infected.
Similarly, make sure your employees understand your paid leave policy. Paid time off can help employees avoid a loss of pay if they do have to quarantine themselves due to the illness. Or your company could consider continuing regular pay for workers required to stay home for 14 days, rather than making them use their paid time off. Additionally, your health insurance plan is critical to ensuring your employees are receiving treatment as soon as possible.
One man from Miami made national news when he went to get tested for coronavirus and received a surprise $1,400 medical bill for the test. It turns out the man’s employer-provided only a short-term health insurance plan, which usually offers less significant benefits for participants. So, make sure your employees know what your health plan covers and encourage them to see a health provider as soon as possible if coronavirus symptoms present.
*Note: Employees aren’t allowed to stay home to avoid getting sick (except those with pre-existing conditions that may worsen).
5. Be Wary of Discrimination
The final step every employer should take in the wake of this potential pandemic is to be cognizant and wary of possible incidents of discrimination. During recent weeks in the U.S., multiple reports of anti-Asian discrimination based on blaming Asians for the outbreak, have surfaced. Your company must take steps to avoid this kind of discrimination in the workplace.
Members of protected classes should not be singled out for elevated scrutiny. If this type of scrutiny occurs, it may constitute illegal discrimination. So, employers need to ensure they’re not targeting individuals of Asian descent. Reaffirm and restate your company’s anti-discrimination, harassment, bullying, and retaliation policies. Similarly, conduct thorough and prompt investigations if complaints of mistreatment or discrimination do occur.
The Wrap
No matter what your business does to combat the coronavirus, specifically, one of the most necessary actions anyone can take is to remain calm. While coronavirus is a severe illness, your business can adopt the five actions above to combat the spread of the virus in the workplace.
And, if you’re concerned about your symptoms, please contact your local healthcare provider as soon as possible. If you were in China in the last 14 days, the CDC offers the following guidance:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/steps-when-sick.html | https://medium.com/@TheOlsonGroup/what-employers-can-do-to-combat-coronavirus-in-the-workplace-65d76b9c48fc | ['The Olson Group'] | 2020-03-12 16:06:19.542000+00:00 | ['Employees', 'Employee Experience', 'Coronavirus', 'Employment'] |
After Walkout Over Company Racism, Pinterest Adds Its First Black Board Member | Pinterest announced it was adding Andrea Wishom, president at Skywalker Holdings and former executive vice president at Harpo Productions, to its board of directors on Monday. The addition of Wishom, who is a Black woman, comes three days after Pinterest employees staged a virtual walkout over racial discrimination and retaliation at the company.
“I want to thank the entire Pinterest board for this opportunity,” Wishom said in a statement on Monday. “In this unprecedented moment in time, I’m excited to join the board of a global company that has provided exploration and inspiration to so many, including myself.”
Wishom is the third woman on Pinterst’s board of directors and its first Black member. The board is currently composed of Jeffrey Jordan, formerly a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; Leslie J. Kilgore, a director at Netflix; Jeremy S. Levine, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners; Gokul Rajaram, Caviar lead at DoorDash; Frederic G. Reynolds, director of Mondelez International, Inc. and United Technologies Corporation; Evan Sharp, Pinterest co-founder and chief design and creative officer; Ben Silbermann, Pinterest co-founder and CEO; and Michelle Wilson, formerly senior vice president at Amazon.
A spokesperson for Pinterest said that the addition of Wishom was not a response to Friday’s walkout, saying “the board has been speaking with many candidates over the past few months. This appointment is focused on Andrea’s expertise and what she can bring to Pinterest, and not in response to any specific events.”
At Skywalker Holdings, Wishom oversees operations at the privately held property management company affiliated with George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch. At Harpo Productions, where Wishom worked for more than 20 years, she held various production, programming, development, and executive roles for The Oprah Winfrey Show and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.
The announcement punctuates several months of unrest at Pinterest after Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks, two Black women who formerly worked on the company’s policy team, went public about their mistreatment by managers and Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann. In July, the Washington Post reported that Ozoma and Banks faced racist comments, unequal pay, and retaliation at the company for speaking up about the conditions they experienced. Silbermann denied their claims in an internal email to staff, according to the Post. Both women filed complaints last year with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
“This appointment is focused on Andrea’s expertise and what she can bring to Pinterest, and not in response to any specific events.”
Last month, OneZero reported on moderation problems at the company, identifying numerous examples of harmful content that persists on the platform. OneZero also spoke to former content moderators at Pinterest who described their jobs and “second-class” treatment as a “permanent nightmare.” Their stories underscore the testimonies of Ozoma and Banks that Pinterest, while promoting itself as Silicon Valley’s friendliest social media platform, suffers the same systemic inequalities of other technology companies.
And on Tuesday last week, Pinterest’s former COO Françoise Brougher filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Pinterest after reporting mistreatment by the company’s CFO Todd Morgenfeld. According to the New York Times, Brougher also experienced pay inequality and sexist comments from colleagues. The suit describes Silbermann as “dismissive of Ms. Brougher’s concerns about Mr. Morgenfeld, comparing it to a domestic dispute.”
In a statement on Monday about Wishom’s new role, Silbermann wrote, “For the past few months, the board has been meeting with many great candidates, and Andrea stood out for several reasons. She’s an expert in creating positive and inspirational content for global audiences, and a passionate advocate for building a company culture of respect, integrity, inclusion, and support — areas in which we must innovate and improve. Andrea has spent her career outside of Silicon Valley and has a vision for reimagining the board/employee relationship. We welcome her creativity and authenticity, and I’m honored to grow Pinterest alongside her.”
Wishom said in a statement that she is “interested in Ben’s vision of having a new type of conversation between employees and the board itself.”
“Part of meeting this moment is looking outside the expected and bringing different perspectives to the table,” Wishom added. “There are real challenges to address, and that responsibility is not lost on me. I’m committed to listening and sharing my perspective and providing guidance as Pinterest continues to make positive strides forward.” | https://onezero.medium.com/after-walkout-over-company-racism-pinterest-adds-a-new-board-member-856b7ff5d682 | ['Sarah Emerson'] | 2020-08-18 17:02:02.956000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Business', 'Pinterest', 'Tech', 'Equality'] |
The Children of the COVID-19: Haydens Corner | Stephen King’s 1984 movie Children of the Corn tells the story of a malevolent entity referred to as “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” which entices the town’s children to ritually murder all the town’s adults, and a couple driving across the country, to ensure a successful corn harvest.
He Who Walks Behind the Rows
Growing up in the ’80s the big screen movie theatre was the equivalent of an 85 inch HDTV in your living room now. Stephen King’s Children of the Corn hit movie theatres in 1984. A story about how children murdered adults, and their parents from the influence of “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”
Many veterans who grew up in this era flew the coop and went to serve our country. Starting families while on their twilight tours, or others who started early on in their careers. The remaining currently isolated in fear now.
While public schools sit empty many of these veterans children are learning to cope with their own current situations. While learning how to receive an education virtually. Plus stay inside and avoid their friends at the park.
As I sat at the dinner table today to talk with my 10-year-old son I asked him the hard questions. The first time I actually realized I had asked him for the entire pandemic. It’s never too late to start today. Conversations matter.
Hayden did not struggle with depression nor did he have a history of mental health problems. He was a normal healthy and happy kid who was unprepared for social isolation. His parents attribute Hayden’s emotional suffering to a “perfect storm of routine disruption, social isolation, increased gaming, and a pressure stack of activity cancellations,” all created by the government’s mandated stay-at-home orders in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Photo Credit and H/T Hayden's Corner
Coronamania
In Children of the Corn, the external influence who targeted children from behind the rows could now appear in the form of coronamania. The world lost Hayden Hunstable to suicide in the middle of the mandated stay-at-home orders on April 17th, just 4 days before his 13th birthday.
As if we veterans did not have enough to deal with when it comes to our own mental health. We must also care for our children’s mental health too. In order to get a different result, we must approach it differently than before. Much like our own conditions during the coronamania. Seek help first.
Although our children may appear unphased by their current virtual learning situations they may be too scared to speak up otherwise. Similar to the stigma among veterans face in the ranks when it comes to mental health.
While talking with my son, my teenage daughter joins the discussion and I briefly share with them about my Hayden’s Corner research discovery. In addition, how his unfortunate death is now a dinner table discussion in our home. Re-inforcing that if anytime they feel the need to talk simply connect.
From backpacks filled with books to iPads filled with virtual resources. The digital education revolution is taking place in front of our very eyes. Just above our N95 masks firm facial grip.
Residential Vaccine
Many veterans are currently serving in uniform during the dark winter pandemic month of December. Away from their families and home during the holidays. Standing the watch for freedom this holiday season.
My oldest son initially started out his virtual journey bright-eyed and bushy-tailed previously every spring morning. Over the last month or so he has been unmotivated to catch his second COVID-19 wind thanks to pandemic fatigue.
Thankfully for our Hayden table discussion I previously launched a plan after reading about it. For all 3 of my virtual learners this week. Changing up the routine of the house. Complacency can become our enemy only if and when we allow it. It was time for a new residential vaccine.
Veterans, please talk to your children too before Santa arrives with his bag of gifts this Christmas. This time is hard for each one of us, but when we work together we can accomplish the impossible. And a child shall lead them….
Like 1 veteran suicide daily is 2 much so are the Children of the COVID-19.
These 18 Red Flags can also be applied to the Children of the COVID-19.
Are you a veteran who wants to connect with a weekly newsletter built for you around the medical cannabis industry, and its many benefits? If so, link up with my ‘Weekly Smoke” project below today.
A freshly packed email every Monday directly to your inbox packed with cannabis potency to elevate veterans to see the opportunities in front of them.
Lastly, be sure to follow me Barry Gipson here for more suicide and prevention awareness content for veterans and now their families too. Stay Bullet Proof out there Unifiers. | https://medium.com/@barrygipson/the-children-of-the-covid-19-haydens-corner-c48dcb097056 | ['Barry Gipson'] | 2020-12-17 16:07:41.091000+00:00 | ['Pfizer Vaccine', 'Suicide', 'Covid 19', 'Stephen King', 'Hayden Hunstable'] |
[Python] Coding Practices | I am seeing some tensions in onboarding new team members and a lot of it is about coding practices and common mindset that is not shared with people who come from other disciplines. I will add to this list as I come across cases and I hope this serves other people joining Datance and the broader community. Disclaimer: I’m an ex-software engineer who hasn’t done industrial software engineering for more than 10 years. In many of these matters I have referred to partner who’s been spending the last 10 years producing software across a wide range of languages and environments.
Lambdas
Anonymous functions are powerful concepts, but they have to be used with caution. Lambdas semantics and syntax differs between languages and depending on the language and situation it imposes harsh restrictions and may also have other side effects. So after calming down from excitement when you learn about lambdas the first time, you should thinking clearly about what it is you want to achieve in your code and how you want to use lambdas. In Javascript for instance we also have to deal with the extra inconsistency between arrow function style of defining lambda and the standard function keyword. Remember when you define arrow function for example you don’t have access to this . Fortunately in this case docstring is not affected.
In Python however, we have one-liner function definition with the help of lambda. But this comes at the cost of loosing readability of docstring and your function syntax. As of now I am not aware of other semantics that maybe affected here. Also with normal setup you wouldn’t be able to type hint your lambdas and you won’t get any help from your IDE (say VSCode) to remind of the parameters and even if it did, it would defeat the purpose of an anonymous function. Now of course for type hinting alone you cold resort to something like this:
from typing import Callable StrLen: Callable[[str, int] = lambda Var1: len(Var1)
But even this will not give you the convenience of using your automatic docString generator, or even your IDE’s help with the parameters. So at least at the time of this writing I don’t know what the point would be. As of now the only reasonable use of lambdas I can think of is crafting partial functions (which is a whole topic of its own if you are not used to functional programming from pure functional languages, but maybe that is for another time. If you have comments or edits on anything here, I’m always looking to learn more.
2. Imports
When you are working with layered architectures it is always good to be aware of your hierarchy. Therefore try to avoid doing things like from Package.Module import Function . Ideally we don’t want to see Function() in our code. Not to mention if you are importing several modules you will get into namespace conflicts if modules have functions of the same name. Keep your from...import... knowledge for writing importers, which means most probably the maintainer of frameworks need to deal with it.
3. Information Flow
Always try to stick to one-directional information flow. This will avoid bugs, and ease troubleshooting and architecting your frameworks. What do I mean by that. Imagine something like this:
src/data/model/Models.py
src/helpers/Loaders.py
src/main.py
Here Main.py is responsible for managing the information flow. A Datasource object is created in Models.py . We would import Models and Loaders in Main, then call Loaders.Load(Datasource) from Main. Be sure not to call Load() inside the Loaders.py .
4. Dynamic Variable Generation
If you are hot on dynamism, you will probably fall victim to this. But for heaven’s sake no eval() or globals() for dynamic variable generation in your local or global scope. You are undermining you IDE to help you and your colleagues or your future self when trying to modify or trouble shoot your code.
5. No or Limited Side Effects
Side effects are when a function creates a change in its context. All communication with a function should be through the parameters and the return value. Functions that change their environment are not pure functions and make your entire software error prone. They may sometimes be unavoidable, but their use MUST extremely limited. | https://medium.com/an-hour-with-myself-as-an-engineer-and-a-scientist/python-coding-practices-1ce8727c265a | ['Alireza Goudarzi'] | 2020-04-23 00:59:12.037000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Python'] |
Obrolan #15 — Perubahan Hidup di Era Ponsel | 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/siniar-kawan-kawin/obrolan-15-perubahan-hidup-di-era-ponsel-6b6e45eeeb84 | [] | 2020-12-11 03:11:44.916000+00:00 | ['Siniar Kawan Kawin', 'Gadget', 'Podcast', 'Ponsel', 'Handphone'] |
Lets Defeat Hepatitis c:- | A wareness about Hepatitis c in different areas of Pakistan.
HEPATITIS:-
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver caused by many different agents like Alcohol, drugs, herbs, viruses, genetic disorders, and obesity. Every year 28 July day is celebrated as world awareness day of hepatitis.
HEPATITIS C:-
If we talk about hepatitis c so it was firstly identified in 1989. Hepatitis c is a liver disorder caused by the hepatitis c virus.it is a highly emerging disease all over the world. Every year so many people are infected by hepatitis and even some of them don't experience any symptoms/know about this disease. so that's why I think it is essential/important to give awareness about this disease.
The ratio of hepatitis in Pakistan:-
World Health Organization (WHO) reported that Pakistan has the world's second-highest prevalence of hepatitis C. A survey which was done in 2007 found that close to 7% of people in the province of Punjab had hepatitis C, while around 5% of people were infected in the whole country.
In most countries, there is some organization that already work on awareness about hepatitis c and how hepatitis c spread out. But in Pakistan, there is a lack of these things and I observed that most of the people are not know how to spread out this disease. I noticed that 4–5 cases in my family and neighborhood. when I met them to know about /discuss their disease / their illness, They replied to me they don't know how to spread out this disease before it was diagnosed in us. so that's why I decided to start an awareness session about this disease in my city/ area where I lived. I also started work on it with my family.
I will work on the following measurements/strategies that help us to prevent Hepatitis c.
what are the risk factors of hepatitis c infection…and how to overcome the risk factors of hepatitis c?????
Risk factors:-
1).using or having injectable drugs
2). Exposure to a needle stick is most common in people of healthcare.
3). Being born to a mother who has hepatitis c.
4).sharing items that could have contact with blood.
Avoid Risk Factors:-
1). Avoid injected drugs that reduce your risk.
2).use sterile injection instruments.
3).Avoid reusing or sharing something like(comb, nail cutter, syringes )
4).Avoid sharing personal care items that might have blood on them e.g(razors, needles, toothbrushes, etc…)
5).Avoid using un-healthy and contaminated food.
6).Avoiding Alcohling
7).Avoiding smoking
sign and symptoms of hepatitis c:-
1).Fatigue
2).Discomfort in the liver area
3).loss of appetite
4).Depression
Many people have no signs and symptoms of hepatitis c so the best way to know this is a blood test.
Diagnostic test for Hepatitis c:-
Blood Testing
Hepatitis c antibody test Hepatitis C PCR test is used to find out the virus in the blood.
Liver function test
These diagnostic tests are essential to check the presence of hepatitis c.
Treatment of hepatitis c:-
if anyone has hepatitis c so this can be treated by the following methods:-Treatment of hepatitis C involved a combination of antiviral medication taken for 8 to 24 weeks. These medications are DAAS(direct-acting antiviral medicines) whose names are given below.
elbasvir/grazoprevir (Zepatier)
glecaprevir and pibrentasvir (Mavyret)
ledipasvir/sofosbuvir(Harvoni)
peginterferon alfa-2a (Pegasys)
Cure of Hepatitis c through diet:-
Eat a fiber-rich diet Choose healthy fats such as (olive and canola oil) Eat vegetables Eat fruits
Eat lean protein choices /items such as (egg whites,non-fat yogurt or milk, nuts, fish, beans, poultry).
I am very excited to do this step for the happiness of my soul and others.
jazakallah……… | https://medium.com/@sana-nadeem167/lets-defeat-hepatitis-c-8e5416986b0d | ['Sana Nadeem'] | 2020-12-25 10:15:42.626000+00:00 | ['Amalcademy', 'Amal Fellowship'] |
How to Build an Email List of 500 Subscribers in a Month | I’ve made a decision.
2021 is going to be the year I finally, finally, go all in on trying to make self-publishing a thing in my life.
My plan is simple. I’m going to publish romance novels. They’re my first love. I found my traditional publishing niche in children’s literature, but I started out to be a romance writer.
I decided to go with a pen name for a couple of reasons.
Reason one: see children’s literature. I don’t want to write both middle grade books and smut with the same name.
Reason two: I’m a teacher at heart and I want to be able to teach the things I’m learning to other people. That means starting from scratch and doing things that can be recreated. I don’t want to mess up my experiments by using my own already-established audience.
So, I have a pen name. And a month ago, I created a brand new email list. You know — with zero subscribers.
Photo: Author
So, there’s a screenshot of my Convertkit subscriber chart.
Here’s what I did in the last month to build my email list.
Offer a Little More
What you can see is that I started the account on November 4, so exactly a month ago. It’s hard to see but I had three sporadic followers between November 4 and November 16.
Those are actually some of my favorites, because they represent people who read one of my stories and really liked it.
I put a link to an expanded epilogue at the back of my first published short read. And three people out of the ten or so who actually bought the book downloaded it and made it onto my list.
That’s 30 percent, ya’ll. Yay! It’s a good indication that my landing page at the back of my books will do okay, when I have more readers entering my funnel.
What to do:
When you put work out into the world, always have a way of capturing readers who enjoyed it.
For fiction, a little more story is a great idea. An expanded epilogue, like I did, is one idea. You can also write a short story that answers a question or tells the story of a popular secondary character.
Another idea is to just have a generic free story that you offer readers who might have enjoyed what they just read. This is a good idea, for when you don’t have time to write a new story.
Ask Your Friends
There’s a little blip at November 16. That represents me posting a little note on my personal Facebook wall that said simple this:
Who do I know who reads romance books?
About fifteen people either liked my post or left a comment. I PM’d each of them and told them that I have a new pen name and I’m publishing romance — it’s a secret, but would they be interested in joining my email list?
If they said yes (they all did), I asked for their email address and then added them to my list manually.
What to do:
Just what I did. Ask a pointed question, designed to find out who you know who is interested in what you’re up to.
I wanted to make sure I only added romance readers to my list, because I’m trying to preserve my Amazon also boughts (I don’t want Amazon’s algorithm to get mixed up about what people who buy my book are also interested in.)
Rather than just posting a landing page link to Facebook (although, why not try that, too?) You can ask a question that is designed to bring your friends who really might be interested in what you’re doing out of the woodwork.
Then reach out to each of them personally. Get their email address and add them yourself.
This is a nice first step to building your list, because it’s pretty much guaranteed to work. And I promise, going from zero to a few subscribers is a good boost.
Think About Where You Might Already Have Some Subscribers
You’ll notice a big old spike in my subscribers on November 24. That was about 280 subscribers.
After pretty much a whole week of not adding anyone and feeling sorry for myself, I started to think about where I might already have some emails I can add to my list.
I remembered that three years ago, I’d added a short story to a site called Prolific Works. It was a romance story, so I knew that the people who downloaded it were romance readers.
They were people who found it because they were looking for a romance story to read.
So — full disclosure. Adding people who two or three years ago downloaded a story from a different pen name isn’t ever going to lead to a super healthy, engaged email list.
Because those people likely don’t remember joining any list and for sure not my pen name’s list. But I added them anyway, then sent an email out letting them know what I’d done, linking them to my book on Amazon, and inviting them to unsubscribe if they didn’t want to be on my list.
Fifty took me up on that. And only about 10 percent even opened my email.
Here’s what I’m planning to do about it: This week, I’m going to tag all those folks in Convertkit. I’ll email them and ask them to click a link if they WANT to stay, then remove everyone else at the end of a week. It’ll shrink my list, but leave me with something healthier.
I anticipate that the vast majority of this group of subscribers will be removed.
BUT, I’m not sorry I did this. Because having an email list of 250 or so really lit a fire under my butt. I wanted more, so I started thinking about how to get more.
Another place I might have found subscribers, but I won’t because I’m trying to preserve my experiment, is in my Ninja Writers list. I could write a blog post designed to figure out which of my followers read romance books, then send the link in an email, and finally send the people who click that link a landing page to join my new list.
What to do:
Think about where you might already have subscribers you can seed your list with.
It might seem on first glance that you’re doomed if you don’t have something like this. Trust me, I’m only including this because you might have some subscribers laying around and I don’t want you to forget about them. But all isn’t lost if you don’t.
Of all my new subscribers, these are the least effective and I expect to remove the vast majority of them in the next week or two.
Host a Giveaway
Starting on December 1 in my chart, you’ll see a steady influx of subscribers. Those are folks who joined my list via a giveaway I’m currently hosting.
I spent some time thinking about what I could offer that would be valuable to readers of my genre, but wouldn’t be so generic that I’d wind up with a bunch of subscribers who only wanted to win my prize, but otherwise would never engage with me.
So, something like a Kindle or a gift card to Amazon wouldn’t work.
I realized that people who read my genre are voracious readers and they tend to read on e-readers and are almost always Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Because they read so much that buying hard copies of all their books would be too expensive.
So I decided to choose five popular titles and offer paperback copies in my giveaway. I called it a Book Boyfriend giveaway and added in . . . um . . . another kind of boyfriend.
Screenshot: author
I’m five days into a seven day giveaway and I’ve added more than 300 subscribers to my list.
Screenshot: author
When I sent another email to my list, my open rate increased to 23 percent. That’s pretty much industry standard and includes those subscribers who will eventually be removed from my list.
I put some money into this method. For me, it was important to get my email list off the ground and I was willing (and able) to invest in it.
I bought King Sumo for a onetime $49 payment. And I’ll buy those books and the, uh, other thing, which I anticipate will cost about $100. And then I bought some Facebook ads.
I’ve spent $50 a day on ads. In all, I’ll spend $350 on advertising my giveaway.
So a total of $500.
I love King Sumo, because it rewards people for sharing your giveaway with more entries. It also gives more entries for things like following social media. As a result of my giveaway, besides adding more than 300 email subscribers so far, I’ve built my Instagram and Facebook followers by about the same amount.
I didn’t set up Twitter until three days in, but it’s built up some as well.
Obviously, I could have built my list faster with a bigger ad spend. And I could have spent much less and still built some list. You can run a Facebook ad for as little as $1 a day.
You can also find free places to advertise your giveaway. I’ve added mine to Facebook groups dedicated to my genre, when it’s allowed. I have NOT shared it with my friends because I’m really trying to keep my pen name secret.
What to do:
Come up with a prize that will appeal to exactly the folks you want on your list, and host a giveaway.
Be really thoughtful about your prize. You want it to be something valuable — to the people you want to attract.
You’ll want to have your social media accounts set up for this, too. Because if you use King Sumo, you can use your giveaway to build those as well. Set them up and get a little content up in them.
I spent about two weeks starting up my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I wish I’d set up my Twitter account as well. I honestly didn’t think I was going to do Twitter at all, but changed my mind three days in.
Put aside some money to pay for Facebook ads for this one, if you can. Even if it’s just $20. It’ll make a difference. And share your giveaway link everywhere you can think to.
Offer a Reader Magnet
A reader magnet is just what it sounds like: a free read that draws readers to you.
I used a site called Story Origin to host my reader magnet. I did that around the same time I started my giveaway. Story Origin is in beta — and it has been for a long, long time — so it’s totally free right now.
In the last four days I’ve added 25 people to my email list via my reader magnet.
Screenshot: Author
I used a novella that I wrote a long time ago as my reader magnet. At some point I may remove it and put it up for sale, but for now I’m happy to give it away.
Story Origin is a site for all kinds of writers. You can put a reader magnet up there no matter your genre — including non-fiction.
In addition, you can join newsletter swaps and other people’s giveaways or sales.
What to do:
Head over to Story Origin and join. Create a reader magnet and get it up on the site. Once you have some people on your email list, start looking for newsletter swaps and giveaways you can join.
You can add your reader magnet to Prolific Works, too, by the way. It took me about three years to give away 280 copies, but it’s not nothing!
Wrap-Up
I started from scratch with a pen name and a brand new Convertkit account on November 4, 2020. I’m writing this post on December 4, 2020, one month later.
I used a free account at Convertkit — which allows me up to 2000 followers before I have to start paying. I can’t do automated emails with a free account, but for my purposes (building an email list for my fiction that I’m just barely starting to publish), that’s okay.
I can send a single automated incentive email with my opt-in attached, even with a free account.
I spent $100 on the items to offer as a prize in a giveaway and spent another $350 in ads and paid $49 for King Sumo, to host the giveaway. A total of $499.
I currently have 561 email subscribers, one month after starting to build that list. I’ll come back in another month for another update, where I’ll also be able to let you know whether the list made a difference when I launch a new book. | https://medium.com/the-write-brain/how-to-build-an-email-list-of-500-subscribers-in-a-month-8c8e99f5967c | ['Shaunta Grimes'] | 2020-12-04 18:34:08.430000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Creativity', 'Productivity', 'Business', 'Email Marketing'] |
Stone By Stone, I Fall | Stone by stone, I fall,
bound by weighty grievances
held against me by
a multitude of forces —
originating from me.
But I will not roll
with the thunder even when
the end is nearer,
yet I have to ask myself
if glory is just deceit.
Perhaps there is no
refuge beyond my narrow
field of sight — for now,
I weigh fleeting desires
and mistake them for freedom. | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/stone-by-stone-i-fall-1c4e25f5df12 | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-07-11 03:52:41.383000+00:00 | ['Tanka', 'Spirituality', 'Religion', 'Depression', 'Poetry'] |
Having 2020 Vision: Transforming the Decade with Sustainable Tech | The biggest challenges that we face today will require all of us to take action, no matter what sector we work in. People may ask why companies in 2020 should be bothered with sustainability as it would be their main focus to make money. However, we should not underestimate the power of consumers in 2020. Today, consumers have access to more information and data than ever before. They are well-educated on what they want and what they are passionate about and they know how to get it quickly. However, we have seen a shift in the criteria that consumers are looking at when it comes to digital products. There are a growing number of consumers that are not making a decision on price anymore. They are looking closely into brand representation and what they stand for.
This also goes for employees. Employees are taking care to join companies that align with their values which adds an additional layer to the employment process and employee retention. They are choosing companies that align with their ethos on the environment specifically. Simply, companies will not succeed long term unless they make a positive contribution to society as a whole.
Our CEO at Borne addressed this in his article on Digital Transformation, this shift in tech and how it is affecting every sector. These changes are altering the world around us so quickly that all companies have to undergo a transformation to avoid complete extinction. This transformation means the integration of digital products into all areas of your business will change how you deliver your digital product to your customer. Digitalisation and tech will help a business achieve this and maintain a highly agile process. However, transformation is also about a change of culture which requires a radical change of thinking. Just like any company cannot survive without digital transformation, this will require a human element of change too. While tech itself does come with its own environmental cost, digitalisation and tech plays a crucial role in developing solutions for a sustainable future.
An example of this, Google is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning which allows the company to focus on consuming less energy, reduce emissions and cut energy bills. The DeepMind term at Google have used AI to reduce the amount of energy for cooling their data centres by 40%. They are also making use of machine-learning algorithms to harness wind power by predicting wind output 36 hours in advance and delivering optimal hourly delivery commitments to the power grid. Google have released a statement saying, “machine learning has boosted the value of our wind energy by roughly 20%, compared to the baseline scenario of no time-based commitments to the grid.”
While this sounds amazing, it needs a lot of transformation. Transformation inside companies by integrating digital technology and products into all areas of your business. Transformation of a company’s internal culture, with the leaders setting the tone of a company, embracing necessary change towards sustainable ethics. On the larger scale, industries are unpredictable. If we want to create a world where sustainability is an effortless part of everyday life, we should look beyond the corporate boundary and towards the communities you create in your business. In the end, transformation will succeed or fail because of people and the initiatives we take with the resources we have. It is up to us to use the technological advancements that come to tackle the world’s greatest challenges towards sustainability. | https://medium.com/@borneagency/having-2020-vision-transforming-the-decade-with-sustainable-tech-c42730aba003 | ['Borne Digital'] | 2020-01-14 16:49:28.349000+00:00 | ['Transformation', 'Technology News', 'Digital Transformation', 'Sustainability'] |
Translating Your Web App Via Flask-Babel 🌎 | While building my first web app I decided to have a language feature that allowed users to pick between Spanish or English. Following the Flask-Babel documentation was confusing for me since it was my first time using it. Now that I have implemented this library, I wanted to create a blog that can be used by developers who are also learning Babel. It is important to know that this blog is targeted towards developers that can manually create their translations and for those using Flask as their framework, so here we go!
Installation 🚀
$ easy_install Flask-Babel
or
$ pip3 install Flask_Babel
Configuration File 📁
Once, you have installed Babel you will move on to creating a babel.cfg configuration file and add the following:
babel.cfg lets Babel know where to look for your translations.
In your server file you will add the following to instantiate flask and babel. I only used gettext() for flash messages so that is why I imported that as well.
Backend 🔙
Through Babel you can make your translations based on the locale of the user or the user preferred browser language. However, I designed my web app to allow users to make those changes. To do this I created the following POST request and then used the babel.localeselector to make those changes.
There are many ways to do this so feel free to use what makes sense in your web app.
gettext()
Any messages that will be rendered to your user via Flask (backend) will be formatted this way.
Here are some examples:
Frontend (HTML & Jinja)
The way you will communicate to Babel that you want something translated in your frontend will be by using the following format (parentheses preceded by an underscore),
{{ _(‘Translate Me’) }}
Here are some examples of what I translated. You can translate the placeholders, labels, heading, inputs. EVERYTHING! As long as you wrap it around the example format. DON’T translate “name” as that can create errors with POST and GET requests.
Creating messages.pot & messages.po 💻
Now that you have arranged all the strings you want translated we will compile them and create our translations folder. To do this we will return to the terminal and type the following.
Make sure you do this in your project directory. This will allow babel to extract all the strings you want translated (both in your server file and Jinja templates)
$ pybabel extract -F babel.cfg -o messages.pot
This will create a new file called messages.pot which is the template.
Then, type this to your terminal
$ pybabel init -i messages.pot -d translations -l es
es is for Español but you can choose your preferred language
Here are other languages you can choose: https://flask-user.readthedocs.io/en/v0.6/internationalization.html
This will create a new file called messages.po and will be in a translations folder. Messages.po will include all the strings that you want to translate. It looks like this:
Looks very similar to messages.pot but it is not the same. Here you will make translations.
In this file you will make the translations in msgstr.
Translations Completed ✅
Once you have translated all your strings you will compile them with pybabel
$ pybabel compile -d translations
YAY! You have translated your Web app! 😁 | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/translating-your-web-app-via-flask-babel-a1561376256c | ['Alejandra Lopez'] | 2020-01-11 10:46:57.478000+00:00 | ['Flask', 'Translation', 'Python', 'Babel', 'Web App Development'] |
Multi-tenancy architecture of a relational database | A while back I designed a multi-tenancy system. My initial thought was to share the database resources (single database table, shared connection pool) over the tenants as much as possible, but I quickly realized there are no free meals. Going with the ‘maximum resources sharing approach’ may produce new issues, like data leakage over tenants.
In this post I’d like to propose a method to evaluate the Relational Database appropriate architecture that matches your system’s needs.
The method consists of the following three steps:
1. List of criteria that can affect the architecture selection
2. Some architecture alternatives
3. Decision table — system criteria vs. architecture alternatives
Aspects to consider
First, map your system needs with the criteria below, later a decision table can help you decide which architecture to use. For example, if thousands of tenants are expected, then only a sub-set of the architectures is relevant.
1. High level estimation of total number of tenants is expected — (few, many, unlimited)
2. Tenants Isolation
Data isolation — how far are you willing to go (in terms of effort and cost) to provide data isolation between tenants?
Work load isolation — is there any tolerance for workload impact between tenants? The answer is probably yes
3. Cost effective solution
4. Operational complexity, the following is likely relevant to your system:
Automation for new tenant provisioning & database version upgrade
Database user permission management
Database backup and restore
5. Operations on a single tenant
Restore of single tenant data, due to data loss
Porting tenant between environments
6. Regulation support e.g. compliance with GDPR — you may be required to remove a customer’s data from the database and from old database backups
Logical Solution Architectures
In this section I’ll discuss three possible Logical solution architectures. A Logical architecture, is a database agnostic architecture that can be mapped, in a good approximation, to any relational database vendor.
This analysis was originally made for MySQL, but if you’re using another vendor, then map the MySQL ‘Schema’ term (which repeats itself below) to yours. For example, if your database is MSSQL then the MySQL ‘Schema’ term is mapped to the MSSQL ‘Database’ term.
Note: There are additional possible architectures, which are database provider specific, such as PostgreSQL Row Level Security, these approaches are not covered in this post.
The two main questions to answer regarding the database are:
How to organize the tenant’s data in the database
How the application layer manages the database connection
There is a tight relation between the database and the application layer, the following are assumptions about the application layer:
The application layer is stateless, any application instance can serve any tenant request.
The application connects to the database using a connection pool.
Database schema per tenant, connection pool for each schema
Architecture Main Concept:
Any application instance has a connection pool per schema
Routing data source is used to route the request to the logged-in user schema
Schema per tenant, having a shared connection pool
Main Concept:
Any application instance has a single database connection pool
Infrastructure code sets the active schema (e.g. in MySQL: set schema <user tenant>), prior to user interaction with the database
Single database, discriminator column for data partitioning
Main Concept:
Any application instance has a single database connection pool
Discriminator column, added to any row, to associate with the owned tenant
Comparison table
This table compares the three possible architectures with the list of criteria proposed at the beginning of the post. By mapping your system specifications (e.g. hundreds of tenants are expected), this table can instruct you on which alternatives are feasible.
Notes:
1. For some of the ORM solutions (e.g. Hibernate filters), the SQL where condition (“and tenant_id=..”) can be added automatically but for native queries the filter should be managed manually
2. Sensitive data can be encrypted using per tenant key. In this case, if data is leaking, the data is meaningless for other tenants.
There’s a great post on this topic: https://medium.com/cyberark-engineering/make-client-side-encrypted-data-searchable-by-saas-backend-b11344804ed1
3. Operational complexity is about implementing version upgrade, new tenant provisioning, database permission management and high availability support
4. Dedicated deployment, with few tenants, can be managed for rolling out releases to subset of the population
5. With assumption of many tenants and long duration for database upgrade per tenant (e.g. new Index on a massive table)
Wrapping Up
In this post I’ve introduced a method that can help you decide on the RDB architecture in a multi- tenancy system , it’s important to note that there is no correct architecture, and the decision on which architecture to use depends on your system’s needs. I suggest referring to the Salesforce and Atlassian approaches — two different companies, each company uses a different RDB architecture for their SAAS solution. | https://medium.com/cyberark-engineering/multi-tenancy-architecture-of-a-relational-database-afe3548fd8bb | ['Yoel Yaffe'] | 2020-05-20 14:31:26.820000+00:00 | ['Rdbms', 'Comparison', 'Multitenancy', 'Architecture', 'SaaS'] |
Hello to all the people that occupy this earthh. | Hello to all the people that occupy this earthh. If you're a dog and you can somehow read and you come across this, Sorry for not mentioning animals I assure you that I consider you as equals to humans all offence taken.
Sorry about my boring title btw I was overthinking what to use as a title and overthinking never gets me anywhere so I told myself fuck it let's write something and get it over with.
Now to the big question??
What is this blog gonna be about ma'am? Are you here to waste our time or? What are you bringing to the table??
You guys need to chill. That kind of pressure is what kills people. Planning and having a goal is great but nothing is as exciting as doing something out of impulse. With planning you have great expectations because you didn't just stress yourself and allathat to get this result. But with impulse? You really wouldn't get disappointed at failure. What did you expect anyways. So in essence( ignore the reference to the Wizkid song I have no love for the man) I do not know what I'm bringing to the table. I do not know my what my next sentence will be. I do not know anything about anything. I will be doing whatever comes to my mind at whatever time. Just to be a little bit sane though, all my writings shall be top tier cause life is bad enough and the least I can do is give you good writing AND I will be consistent( I will learn and memorize the meaning of this word first though)
To the second big question??
Why did you choose to open a blog?
I know you guys don't really care about this question. If I was on someone's blog page I would probably just roll my eye and scroll past. You can roll your eyes it's good. I don't care. But don't scroll past guys please thank you.
Here's the answer to the question you want to scroll past
I do not know why I have created this. I think I am trying to find a purpose to my life and just do something apart from the mundane day to day activity. Writing this now I'm sitting in an empty class with my friend Esther who is playing loud burna boy "way too big" and moaning about why she is in school. I do not know the answer to her question because it is a question I am asking myself.
I hope you enjoyed my first blog post. If you didn't I owe you two neck kisses especially if you're of the female gender. Please tap on my link the next time I promise to be as better as people generally promise. I do not know if I love you but there's somebody out there that definitely does( I realized how weird this was after I typed it. Eye rolling allowed. People generally say it's true though). Plus love is overrated anyways( it's not. I'm trying to sound cool). Point is I hope you have a great day AND night for the rest of your life. It will most likely never happen but isn't hope the key? | https://medium.com/@Chrissywritess/hello-to-all-the-people-that-occupy-this-earthh-cd6eb505f66e | [] | 2021-03-04 22:44:51.145000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'First Post', 'Funny', 'Interesting', 'Short Writing'] |
Sylvia Plath, a Silent Voice That Can’t Be Silenced. | The first time I heard about Plath, it was when I had started reading The Bell Jar unknowing of how someone as complex as her, had written a story of her own life hiding behind Esther Greenwood, hiding behind Victoria Lucas, and hiding behind the fiction. As someone who has always hidden parts of himself in poetry, trying to write a story that one is not accounted for- there is a strange resonance one feels when they read The Bell Jar. But once I completed the Bell Jar, there was this clawing feeling that kept scratching- what happened to Sylvia? What killed her? What happened before New York?
It was not always sad. We often see Plath as a bipolar manic depressive whose entire life was just an episode of waiting to kill herself, but it was a series of events- a slow gradual progression towards feeling estranged, a revival, and finally unable to survive. Plath had a troubled relationship with her authoritarian father, and his death felt more like a betrayal than something tragic to her. In “Daddy” she writes- “Every woman adores a Fascist” comparing her plight to that of the Jews in Nazi Germany. But as they moved to Australia, Plath’s literary genius showed itself as she wrote for magazines and then moved to New York to write for Mademoiselle- a magazine which included the likes of Dylan Thomas. It was here that she realizes that all her awards and academic success have no real value. While for years, where she had felt like a literary genius, New York is unforgiving to her where she is mocked for her accent and lack of spontaneity. It is in New York, Plath feels like losing the one thing that has driven her throughout her life and that is her ambition where she says in the Bell Jar when asked about what she plans to do after graduation as “I don’t know.” New York is a strange place for her where she is attacked by men, sees sexual degradation but at the same time survives, goes on dates, enjoys her life, and learns how to face the city. This part is where the depression takes root and when she is denied admission into a writing class at Harvard, her spirits break and starts the next chapter of her life where depression takes control.
“It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative — whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.” Plath writes in her journal on June 20, 1958. Having been denied admission into the writing class, Plath stops eating or sleeping and words stop making sense. And that is when it happens for the first time- her first suicide attempt where she locks herself in the basement having left a note that she is going for a walk. She survives the attempt where she vomits out the sleeping pills and is consequently hospitalized- the account of which forms the story of her only published novel The Bell Jar. In one of her letters, Plath conveys that she wants to give up her old self and form a new one. It is surprising to see how unlikable she becomes, where she is extremely selfish, treating her mother with disdain and not feeling the slightest bit of remorse when her friend kills herself. Yet we see, that is the freest that Plath feels since her moving to New York. She goes out and fucks a Harvard professor to who she is not at all attracted. She dumps the bouquet her mother sends her. She constantly tells Joan how she hates her and finds her sickening. At the end of The Bell Jar, though she might have approved to go out into the world again, Sylvia knows that she is still essentially the same person that walked in.
She returns to Smith and she is better than before, ambitious and driven, but a lot carefree than before. She starts dating a lot of boys and sleeping with them. She goes to Cambridge having won the Fulbright Scholarship and this is where she met Ted Hughes, her to-be husband.
When we talk about Ted, we mostly remember his infidelity or their divorce but Hughes and Plath had good times. For once Plath writes, she felt like she was living a dream where she wanted to live a rural life, have five children, to write, cook, and to shun the publicity of literary London. They would sit in a boat where Hughes would narrate poetry to her. They would visit their neighbors and there was laughter- the one word that people don’t talk a lot about Plath. Plath’s relationship with Hughes deteriorated with time. They decided to rekindle their life in the Devon countryside and invited couples. One of the couples was the Wevills, the tenants of their London home. Assia was so ecstatic about the visit that she said in her rich deep challenging voice- “I am going to seduce Ted.” Half of the visit later, one morning as Assia made salad in the kitchen with Ted while Plath and David Wevill sat outside chatting, David recalls hearing muffled voices from the kitchen and Sylvia going really still. She didn’t speak a lot after that. Assia later told that Plath had seen her and Ted kissing in the kitchen. However, this didn’t affect the relationship between the four of them as Plath forgot it as something that wasn’t serious. Ted on the other hand, who as Janet Malcolm says, “went through swaths of women like a guy harvesting corn” didn’t stop at that and on his visit to London for a recording at BBC, having not found Assia at her studio left a note- “I have come to see you, despite all marriages.” This started a series of them sending each other blades of grasses from London to Devon and back. Assia, pretending to be a man called Court Green asking for Ted, and an enraged Plath ripped apart the cord of the phone and acting on her suspicions raided Hughes study. She burnt his letters to Assia Wevill in a backyard bonfire and Hughes flew to London finally deciding to leave Sylvia. Assia was never shy and flaunted her relationship with Hughes talking about how virile he was in bed and how her husband was less of a man. One fine day, as Assia told David that she was going to meet Ted, the usually calm man gave in to his rage and rushed with a knife to the station but couldn’t find Ted and later on tried to kill himself instead.
Torn between her love and sympathy, Assia lied to David that Hughes raped her. Assia was never the initiator but the responder. Hughes and Assia still carried on meeting secretly. While Sylvia got to know and moved to London, David had no idea till he turned 40. On 7th February, Plath wrote, “The whole crazy divorce stuff was a bluff." On 11th February, we found her gassed to death, ironically in a kitchen.
After Hughes left, there was a change in the style of Plath’s writing. It changed from poetry that was replete with metaphors, riddles, and misdirection to something that was unabashedly direct and explicitly personal. In December, she moved to London with her two children. Scared of not being able to financially sustain herself, she started sending copies of Bell Jar to American publishers who rejected it saying, “We didn’t feel you had managed to use your materials successfully in a novelistic way.”Her fear reaches such a high point as she mentions in her journal that she starts working on a play based on her experience at the asylum. She told herself- “I am a fool if I don’t relive it, recreate it.” She took to journalism, writing essays, wrote a lot of poems some of which were published, went out with friends where she hated on Ted’s betrayal, and talked about her future plans. But soon after on 11th February she sealed herself from her children in a lonely kitchen, she placed her head in an oven and gassed herself to death thus ending a life which by no means, was ordinary.
In an ironic twist of fate, her death or more so her manner of death made her even more famous where Ariel, her collection of poems published posthumously came to be regarded as a relic, a poetry written on bones. Hughes took control of her estate and her works. He destroyed the journal entries written in the period before her death stating that they would be too hard on the children. He went on to use Plath’s new gained fame past her death to send the Bell Jar to American publishers again, despite Plath’s mother completely against it. He still maintained that the work was subpar and after a few years will be reduced to just text taught at schools. However, Hughes didn’t have it easy where many women accused him of Plath’s death. In 1972, Robin Morgan wrote the memorable rhyme in The Arraignment,
I accuse
Ted Hughes.
Women would chip off the Hughes surname from Sylvia’s grave every time it was repaired. However later, when her mother published The Letters Home, we get to see that maybe the conflict within her was far beyond Ted but somewhere ingrained in her childhood.
Accusing Ted for her death seems injustice, because the problems with Plath existed way before Ted. She was a woman who was torn between her ambition and her personal life. She was a compulsive overachiever who also wanted to be seen as a nice person by everyone. She was always in a fight with herself where she wanted to devote all her time to writing but also wanted to be a good mother and wife. She wanted to be too much and couldn’t see the impossibility of her situation. When you don’t like the person you are, you are constantly fighting against yourself trying to be something that you can’t be without giving up one thing or the other. Plath refused to give up anything and thought that she can be all, and thus we saw how she broke down- first in New York and finally, ten years later, forever in London. | https://medium.com/@jhonsonzr/sylvia-plath-a-silent-voice-that-cant-be-silenced-fcf895057acc | [] | 2020-12-21 18:48:45.041000+00:00 | ['Ted Hughes', 'Sylvia Plath', 'Biology', 'Literatura', 'The Bell Jar'] |
What is ansible? | Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code. It runs on many Unix-like systems and can configure both Unix-like systems as well as Microsoft Windows.
As customers embrace the DevOps model to accelerate application deployment and achieve higher efficiency in operating their data centers, the infrastructure needs to change and respond faster than ever to business needs. These changes can help you achieve an agile operational model by improving automation, innovation, and consistency
Ansible works over SSH and doesn’t require any daemons, special servers, or libraries to work. A text editor and a command-line tool are usually enough to get your work done.
HOW ANSIBLE WORKS:
Ansible is a radically simple IT automation engine that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, intra-service orchestration, and many other IT needs.
Designed for multi-tier deployments since day one, Ansible models your IT infrastructure by describing how all of your systems inter-relate, rather than just managing one system at a time.
EFFICIENT ARCHITECTURE
Ansible works by connecting to your nodes and pushing out small programs, called “Ansible Modules” to them. These programs are written to be resource models of the desired state of the system. Ansible then executes these modules (over SSH by default) and removes them when finished.
Your library of modules can reside on any machine, and there are no servers, daemons, or databases required. Typically you’ll work with your favorite terminal program, a text editor, and probably a version control system to keep track of changes to your content.
Ansible Terms:
✨Users: Users who create the Ansible playbook have a direct connection with the ansible automation Engine.
✨ Ansible playbook: It also interacts with the ansible automation engine and configuration Management Database
✨Public or Private cloud: They help in interacting with all the modules and API with this but also with the entire cloud which proves that it has security measures as well.
✨Inventory: Inventory which is a part of the automation engine helps in provisioning and internal provisioning using automation.
✨API: It helps in creating the necessary API for the interaction of end to end modules.
✨Modules: The modules are directly run using playbooks the modules can control all services, packages, AWS cloud formation, etc.
✨Plugins: All necessary cache, logging purpose, ansibles functioning all help in creating augmented ansible’s core.
✨Networking: It helps to automate different networks that make use of all agentless frames and generate useful configurations.
✨Hosts: Hosts here refers to the machines like Linux or Unix machines which are getting automated using Ansible.
MAIN REASON OF USING ANSIBLE:
the reason is, ansible has some extra feature, it provides something else due to which it’s so famous from past 5–6 years.
And this extra thing is INTELLIGENCE.
Modules provide intelligence to the ansible.
Ansible works on Declarative Language. Here you only have to tell you what to do. Don’t need to tell it how to do it.
🎡 VMWARE:
THE SIMPLICITY OF ANSIBLE MEETS THE POWER OF VMWARE
You’ve made a significant investment in your VMware infrastructure, but your digital transformation objectives likely still haven’t been met. These objectives require a new way of thinking about IT management — one that allows operations to deliver on the demands of the business. In maximizing your VMware investment, IT organizations must effectively answer:
How will we build in flexibility to keep our platform and infrastructure options open?
Do the solutions we use to deliver value and promote organizational change?
Ansible maximizes your VMware investment
Make it possible to do more with what you already have. Ansible will help you automate your VMware infrastructure and accelerate the process from development to production.
Changing the economics of virtualization
Many enterprises' IT teams have an operations team managing the VMware infrastructure and second-team deploying apps to this environment. Using Ansible with VMware allows your team to enable a simple self-service IT model across all environments. In addition, Red Hat® Ansible® Tower can be used as a common tool across both teams, reducing complexity. The operations team can write Ansible Playbooks and job templates to describe the environments and the App team can build environments and deploy apps with a single button click.
When you automate, you accelerate
With Ansible, one member of your team can figure out how to solve a problem, automate the solution with Ansible, and then everyone knows how to solve the problem. Expanding automation to allow everyone to participate will ensure you get the most out of your existing infrastructure, and will prepare your organization for tools such as a cloud manager — helping you realize even greater benefits.
ANSIBLE IS GLUE FOR VMWARE AND DEVOPS
Chances are VMware isn’t your only infrastructure tool. With Ansible’s extensive list of integrations and capabilities, you’ll be able to model nearly any process in your IT organization, and you can use the same tools you have today.
Over half of our customers are using Ansible on VMware today, and they’re using it to glue together complicated workflows that encompass (for instance) a physical network, build systems such as Jenkins or Bamboo, a monitoring service, and finally, a firewall and load balancer — all while ensuring everything is configured exactly the right way each and every time. And when you’re ready to go hybrid, Ansible’s broad support for cloud providers is ready.
AUTOMATE VSPHERE, EXTEND CAPABILITIES OF VREALIZE AUTOMATION
Out of the box, Ansible ships with over 50 VMware modules supporting most use cases, including:
Managing vSphere datacenters, clusters, hosts, and guests
VM template and snapshot management
vSwitches, DNS settings, firewall rules, and NAT gateway rules
Ansible also ships with integrations to support physical network devices for all leading vendors. Additionally, NSX modules are available for teams looking to automate network virtualization.
Many VMware customers use vRealize Automation (vRA) to automate the provisioning of VMs and would prefer to use Ansible Tower for orchestration and application deployment. Through a partnership with SovLabs, the power of Ansible Tower is now accessible from vRA, enabling advanced provisioning and ongoing Day 2 management functions. The combination of vRA and Ansible Tower expands the scope of possible automation for customers — in a manner that is faster and simpler than was previously possible. | https://medium.com/@sahidmatrix00/what-is-ansible-1564fe6d3d88 | ['Sahid Khan'] | 2020-12-10 09:59:17.637000+00:00 | ['Redhat Linux', 'Ansible', 'Ansible Playbook', 'Linux'] |
Some Key Machine Learning Definitions | Model: A machine learning model can be a mathematical representation of a real-world process. To generate a machine learning model you will need to provide training data to a machine learning algorithm to learn from.
Algorithm: Machine Learning algorithm is the hypothesis set that is taken at the beginning before the training starts with real-world data. When we say Linear Regression algorithm, it means a set of functions that define similar characteristics as defined by Linear Regression and from those set of functions we will choose one function that fits the most by the training data.
Training: While training for machine learning, you pass an algorithm with training data. The learning algorithm finds patterns in the training data such that the input parameters correspond to the target. The output of the training process is a machine learning model which you can then use to make predictions. This process is also called “learning”.
Regression: Regression techniques are used when the output is real-valued based on continuous variables. For example, any time series data. This technique involves fitting a line.
Classification: In classification, you will need to categorize data into predefined classes. For example, an email can either be ‘spam’ or ‘not spam’.
Target: The target is whatever the output of the input variables. It could be the individual classes that the input variables maybe mapped to in case of a classification problem or the output value range in a regression problem. If the training set is considered then the target is the training output values that will be considered.
Feature: Features are individual independent variables that act as the input in your system. Prediction models use features to make predictions. New features can also be obtained from old features using a method known as ‘feature engineering’. More simply, you can consider one column of your data set to be one feature. Sometimes these are also called attributes. And the number of features are called dimensions.
Label: Labels are the final output. You can also consider the output classes to be the labels. When data scientists speak of labeled data, they mean groups of samples that have been tagged to one or more labels.
Overfitting: An important consideration in machine learning is how well the approximation of the target function that has been trained using training data, generalizes to new data. Generalization works best if the signal or the sample that is used as the training data has a high signal to noise ratio. If that is not the case, generalization would be poor and we will not get good predictions. A model is overfitting if it fits the training data too well and there is a poor generalization of new data.
Regularization: Regularization is the method to estimate a preferred complexity of the machine learning model so that the model generalizes and the over-fit/under-fit problem is avoided. This is done by adding a penalty on the different parameters of the model thereby reducing the freedom of the model.
Parameter and Hyper-Parameter: Parameters are configuration variables that can be thought to be internal to the model as they can be estimated from the training data. Algorithms have mechanisms to optimize parameters. On the other hand, hyperparameters cannot be estimated from the training data. Hyperparameters of a model are set and tuned depending on a combination of some heuristics and the experience and domain knowledge of the data scientist.
These are some key machine learning terms that I thought are important and should be looked into for someone who is a machine learning beginner. In case you have encountered some common terms which are not included here, do write about them in the comments below.
Thanks for reading this. If you are interested in talking more on this, just drop me a message @alt227Joydeep. I would be glad to discuss this further. Also please hit the claps and help this article reach more audience.
Reference: | https://medium.com/technology-nineleaps/some-key-machine-learning-definitions-b524eb6cb48 | ['Joydeep Bhattacharjee'] | 2017-11-20 09:29:52.770000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Regression', 'Tech', 'Beginners Guide', 'Modeling'] |
Fade to Black | You flew in through the open window
with your patchwork Technicolor cape
the superhero suit
you put together from thrift shop finds
and pulled me out of the burning building
I didn’t even know it was warm
but you took me through the sky over tall buildings
and changing atmosphere
through sun and rain
and snow and hail
we sailed
You always wanted to be Superman
and I was your chance
to play the rescuer
I felt safe beside you
You in your silly suit
I felt as normal as never
but it didn’t matter
we flew
we flapped our wings
like chickens in the sky
we never should have made it
two feet off the ground
but we flew through space
surfed on Saturn’s rings
the Universe was ours until
you dropped me
And I bounced off the clouds
each pillow fell into place
and I was fine
aside from the fear
that you’d forget me
but you didn’t
I could still see the way
the corner of your eye
reflected off the birdbath water
while I waited on the balcony
eyes skyward like Lois Lane
I screamed your name
And you came
sometimes
and sometimes the black engulfed you
and I cried
missing our funky chicken dance.
like Icarus, I tried to build wings
from the feathers that fell from the sky
knitting them together
with my own gray hairs
pulling and tying in angry desperation
until you landed on my balcony
and we embraced
The whole world melted
I felt protected
as you took me on a reprise
through the air
and I notice the sequins you added
to your ensemble
and the way we reflected
in the night sky
like swirling comets
until you set me down
gently this time
and you took off
I watched the flashes of color
from the silver sparkle foil
on your suit
wrote notes on paper airplanes
and soared them into space
where you seemed to swat them
like mosquitoes
that fell back on my shoulders
like snow
so cold
I longed to be back
in the burning building
and I wondered if the fire
had only been in the furnace
and I had been safe
all along
I launched the last letter
with my slingshot
balled-up tight
off like a rocket
so hard and far
you could never send it back
my one last word,
goodbye
before you fade to black | https://medium.com/brave-inspired/fade-to-black-35742818cb1a | ['Gretchen Lee Bourquin', 'Pom-Poet'] | 2019-06-21 18:53:08.327000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Courage', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Friendship'] |
Hey Louise, | Hey Louise,
Love every single lesson shared by your nephew! I find the ability to fail and get up to try again the most admiring. It builds character!
I’ve recently become an uncle to a wonderful nephew just this year. I hope he’s as wise to teach me awesome lessons like these in a few years ☺️😍 | https://medium.com/@inahid/hey-louise-477a9c61c3e2 | [] | 2020-12-09 08:40:58.941000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Lessons'] |
Wish | Wish
Make a Wish!
If this world really is controlled by our subconscious thoughts, our will is the simplest way to effect change.
The purest form of intention is a wish.
So make a wish, a conscious desire for something, wish for it in the truest sense of the word.
So pick the one wish that you feel will be the best, and put your heart and soul into wishing for it.
Do it with the best of intentions, intentions for you, and those for everything that we are a part of.
Make a wish, and the belief of it will guide you down the path.
Your will and trust in it will allow you to see the way.
How can it not come true? | https://medium.com/the-poetry-of-john-bysinger/wish-2b19238b9e80 | ['John Bysinger'] | 2017-09-06 23:27:49.068000+00:00 | ['Wish', 'Dreams', 'Poetry', 'Follow The Path'] |
Excavating Calabazas Creek: An Inefficient Route Through Silicon Valley | What happens in these places? Some of them are electronics parts manufacturers, some of them make surveillance systems, and many of them are data centers. Watching the water flow through the concrete channel, I think about the flows happening inside these buildings, and how different they are: streams of requests and information coming in and out, unpredictably, from any place at any time. A data center is about as a close to a non-place as you can get — if it could do away with space and time, it would. The image that Terix Computer services uses on its website is not of its interior, but a stock photo of some data center somewhere, an image that it shares with countless other sites.
That said, some of these companies have became “grounded” in this place in at least one way. Right next to this section of Calabazas Creek are several EPA Superfund sites, where pollution from electronics manufacturing companies contaminated the groundwater with things like trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent originally made as an anesthetic for humans.
In stark contrast to the linear, hyper-logical character of this landscape, the EPA notes that groundwater pollution from the Sunnyvale sites has begun to run together underground, creating a “commingled plume” that extends more than a mile north toward the bay — a reminder that that the machinery that moves our data creates other flows as well.
adapted from illustration by Eurico Zimbres
The offending companies named in the Superfund reports are gone and forgotten, leaving only their contribution to the commingled plume. Somewhat ironically, one of those companies was named Monolithic Memories.
Part 2: Apple (and apricots)
From Sunnyvale, Calabazas Creek passes through some housing subdivisions before it cuts through a corner of the new Apple campus.
Renderings of the “spaceship” campus don’t include the creek. Sometimes there’s also a weird fog at the edges, a dismissive hand wave to the actual geographical site — as though the campus could actually be anywhere.
Like most places in Cupertino, there were once orchards here. In this case they were apricot orchards belonging to Scottish immigrants Robert and Margaret Glendenning, who established their farm in 1851. (Note the barn, which will come up again later.)
The Glendenning farm. (courtesy of History San José)
From then until the 1960s, much of the area was orchards. For high school students, “cutting cots” was a common way to spend one’s summer. When the orchards gave way to shopping centers, subdivisions, and tech companies, many people mourned the loss of a semi-rural feeling.
looking east from the foothills in 1955 (courtesy of History San José)
But while orchards and tech would seem to be opposed, fruit production in Cupertino was high tech in its own way — systematic and producing ever higher yields. On the Internet Archive, I found a strangely pleasing video of a local grower’s apricot processing machine, which almost reminds me of fruit as data. Before tech, industrial farming was in its own way an abstraction applied to the land.
apricot processing at the plant of John Leonard, a prominent Santa Clara Valley grower (courtesy of History San José)
apricots drying at J. Frost’s, a few miles from the Glendenning farm (courtesy of History San José)
Below you can see a scene typical of the 1970s, a weird mix of tech buildings and remaining orchards. The Glendenning farm was sold to Varian, which sold to it Hewlett Packard, where my mom would later work as a technical writer.
early Hewlett Packard buildings (courtesy of History San José)
I sometimes accompanied my mom to work, admiring her line drawings of printers or laminating membership cards for my mystery-solving club. Once, I visited the lobby and tried on an early version of a VR headset. The scene was a chessboard; all the chess pieces were bigger than me, and I couldn’t move — maybe an apt image of my relationship with technology these days.
casual teen Jenny at HP (courtesy of Gwen Odell)
Recently, I asked my mom whether she remembered a barn being on the campus. She said that she did, but that she never got to see the inside. People would have “beer busts” there, and sometimes she would go and get apricots from the few trees left standing around it.
Apple acquired the campus in 2010 and demolished it in 2013. My mom sent me this video, which somebody amazingly set to set to Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.”
On the urging of the Cupertino Historical Society, Apple was compelled to keep the Glendenning barn, but it dismembered it plank by plank, promising to reassemble it near the fitness center where it could become “a hub for employees.” Many years later, the planks have indeed been reconvened (and painted black), but the barn does not seem to be a hub for anything except for landscaping vehicles.
the Glendenning barn in 2019 (courtesy of anonymous)
There’s another relic at the new campus, but it was created, not preserved. Inside the circle are a couple of orchards, which Steve Jobs hoped would “create a microcosm of old Silicon Valley, a landscape reenactment of the days when the cradle of digital disruption had more fruit trees than engineers.”
an Apple orchard, off season (courtesy of anonymous)
But given the surrounding circumstances, it feels like Baudrillard’s description of the simulacrum come to life. While it magically reconstitutes Steve Jobs’ childhood memory of the past, the campus dramatically cuts itself off from the physical fabric of the city surrounding it. What’s not necessarily evident in renderings of its campus is that it has built gradual hills around the spaceship so that it’s almost impossible to see even when you’re right next to it. Perhaps this explains this giant mountain of dirt that happened while the campus was being constructed.
the campus in 2015
In Sunnyvale, the creek is a flood threat; at Apple, it’s a security threat. An environmental impact report was supposed to require Apple to build a trail along the section of Calabazas Creek, but they objected, writing that “such a trail through a portion of the site would pose security risks because Apple has been the target of intense scrutiny regarding its future projects.” In an LA Times article, a Cupertino official is quoted comparing the campus design to a moat.
I was a bit apprehensive about visiting the creek at this site, since the LA Times reporters had been chased away by a security guard who believed (mistakenly) that Apple owned the road. When I visited, I parked a mile away at Main Street Cupertino — which I’ll get to in a minute — and bought a Philz coffee to make myself blend in. I strolled as casually as possible across existential landscape, over interstate 280 and down the road that Apple, in fact, does not own. | https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/excavating-calabazas-creek-an-inefficient-route-through-silicon-valley-8f6d0b119583 | ['Jenny Odell'] | 2019-05-26 06:47:00.604000+00:00 | ['Vallco', 'History', 'Ecology', 'Cupertino', 'Silicon Valley'] |
What Every Young Creative Marketer Can Learn From “Emily in Paris” | This year has been full of so many surprises, and most of them have been pretty horrendous. So like millions of others, my wife and I turn to Netflix for some escapism and fun. This brings me to one of the most delightful surprises all year: I’ve found some kinship with, and inspiration from one of the top streaming shows this season: Emily in Paris.
Now, I’m not here to critique the show itself, which has mixed reviews. It was a combination of nostalgia (my wife and I got engaged in Paris) and a low commitment (30-minute episodes) that got me to press play. But it was something about the main character, Emily, that kept me watching.
For the unanointed, Emily Cooper is a 20-something American who moves from Chicago to Paris for a social media strategy job at luxury goods marketing firm, Savoir. Since the show is by Sex in the City creator Darren Star, there’s plenty of aesthetic inspiration, from clothes to the actors and Paris itself, plus lots of soapy drama. None of that was the pull for me.
What intrigued me most is Emily’s curiosity, creativity, positivity, and perseverance. What she doesn’t know about France (and admittedly, it’s significant things like the language and customs), she makes up for with her enthusiasm for her work. When she arrives, she changes her Instagram from @EmilyCooper to @EmilyinParis (a real account for the show, which has 1.1 million followers — great marketing!), and the story unfolds from there.
And this is where I started looking past the stylized soap to find some substance that can fuel business success.
The Ingenuity of the Ingenue
I’m a big fan of the Zen concept of Shoshin or Beginner’s Mind. It’s a mindset that’s entirely free of preconceptions, which is an easier state to attain when you are, in fact, a beginner.
Early on in my career, I was faced with numerous challenges to overcome as I started building my profile as a coder and designer. Without a mentor or even a way to describe what I did for a living, I just followed my passion and gut. My goal was to create beautiful online experiences — something relatively novel in the early 2000s. For example, when my dad brought me in to redesign his company’s website, I worked my butt off to deliver the best possible design for their business.
There’s an old saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” I had no idea that would be a problem… but it was. When the site won awards, the corporate parent company freaked out — how could one of their satellite offices have a stronger web presence than they did?
That was bureaucracy in action, and I had no idea at the time how or why that existed. A couple of decades later, I get why it exists. And I actively seek to avoid it.
Back to my youth, and to Emily in Paris, where not knowing is a gift. What you do in that space is the dividing line between laziness and ambition, pencil-pushing and leadership. One of the best things about Emily is that she knows there are things she doesn’t know, but instead of paralyzing her, they motivate her. She asks questions of everyone and anyone: her patronizing boss, reluctant co-workers, and potential clients.
Through her curiosity, Emily finds connections. The unhappy perfumer who’s on the verge of firing Savoir? Emily turns a serendipitous meeting with a budding Ian Schrager-type hotelier into a fruitful new alliance for the scent creator — and an account-saving move.
My point is that the wheels of quick pivots can be greased by a little bit of naiveté and a lot of ingenuity. By considering how things might interrelate and taking action to make those connections, you can move the ball forward — and into your court.
The Business Benefits of Joie de Vivre
There’s another old saying (by Aristotle, actually): “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
Emily’s antagonist is her Miranda Priestly-like (The Devil Wears Prada) boss, Sylvie, who embodies the projected superiority of the status quo. She repeatedly scoffs at Emily’s command of social media and punishes her for anything that may be perceived as a faux pas.
When I watch this fictionalized boss in action, I see one of the biggest threats to business growth: fear.
Sylvie wears her scowl and put-downs like a badge of honor. But the audience gets a glimpse of what’s underneath her chic armor: a woman who has lost accounts, lovers, and the spark that presumably got her to the top in the first place.
While there are many ageist clichés that I despise in this characterization, as the show wears on, you start to see the edges of the battle between wonder (Emily) and wisdom (Sylvie) blur. And it also becomes clear that it’s an allegory about the need for joy-fueled change agents to upend stale, embedded systems.
The most crucial change agent of all? Positivity. It’s on display in Emily, who, despite all she doesn’t know, plows forward. And it’s also in Sylvie, who, in a pivotal scene, stands up to a spoiled movie star whose shenanigans with a two-million-Euro watch nearly cost Savoir a literal small fortune.
This represents the two sides of positivity: a sunny outlook towards the world (Emily) and confidence that radiates from within (Sylvie). Both are a mindset, and both are equally important in having the resourcefulness and resilience necessary to rack up the small victories that add up to big business wins.
What’s Your Je Ne Sais Quois?
How Emily in Paris caught my eye has nothing to do with why it’s a hit with Gen Z and Millennial women in particular. Like it or hate (watch) it, the show has a certain indescribable allure that makes it irresistible.
And that brings me to my final point: a winning story is one that doesn’t dwell on successes or failures, but one that cycles through it all quickly. Emily’s character is gratingly earnest and sometimes a bit pompous (there’s a big riff in the show on ignorance vs. arrogance), but she’s also endearing, captivating, and smart. She embodies the double-entendre of “fresh” — it can mean new and different or insulting and smart-alecky.
So while I’m not endorsing pissing people off for a living, I am all for being your most authentic, curious, and creative self in every realm of your life. That will often break down the barriers between what you do for a living and how you live your life, and that’s a good thing. The optimist doesn’t compartmentalize work and pleasure but finds the connection between the two.
And that’s something I believe we should say oui to!
What shows and characters from your favorite binge-worthy shows resonate with you? I’m curious who’s your inner Emily, so let me know in the comments. PS: If you have an inner Emily, we are hiring! | https://medium.com/swlh/what-every-young-creative-marketer-can-learn-from-emily-in-paris-aca9e07e98ef | ['Pete Sena'] | 2021-01-08 07:28:17.294000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Influencer Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Netflix', 'Gen Z'] |
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Don’t sleep on feature engineering | I’m currently attending a Data Science bootcamp in NYC, and one of our first projects was a Kaggle competition where we had to predict housing prices in Ames, Iowa. Back then we had just learned about linear regression and that was the first model we built on our own.
One of the advantages of linear regressions is interpretability. We understand how it works and we can visualize the relationships between our target and features really well. During presentations I realised that almost no one decided to use feature engineering, probably because creating new variables by multiplying others is not very intuitive.
What I hope to do here is to explain how I went about to create new features and show you how much it improved my model, so that the concept of feature engineering becomes more instinctive.
The data we were provided with was a set of houses in Ames (about 2000) and the features of each house (80 features), including lot area, pool area, bedrooms, various quality columns for different parts of the house etc…
Two features that were given to us were “Basement Area” and “Basement Quality”. Now it’s obvious that a bigger basement would mean a higher price, and a higher quality basement would also mean a higher price. But how do they relate to each other? Surely some people would prefer a higher quality basement that is smaller in area.
Suppose we have a new feature
Bsmnt = (basement area) * (basement quality)
When theres a increase in basement area, Bsmnt increases and so does the price, and when the area decreases then so does Bsmnt and the price. Similarly for the basement quality.
The resulting feature shows a much more linear relationship and a higher correlation to the sale price:
The same concept was done using the “Above Ground Living Area” and “Overall Quality feature”, where we can see the effect of multiplying those variables on the sale price here: | https://medium.com/nourzahlan/dont-sleep-on-feature-engineering-3ddf20a79464 | ['Nour Zahlan'] | 2019-05-15 00:46:56.038000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Kaggle', 'Feature Engineering', 'Data Science', 'Linear Regression'] |
Cinderella Solution Review | Intro
Weight loss is a global issue that is affecting many peoples’ lives. The problem with being overweight is that it affects some peoples’ self-esteem because of how they look, it makes them feel as if they failed themselves. Nonetheless, the real issue is not about looks it has to do more with health. Being overweight puts you at risk of heart diseases and diabetes.
(* Note — This article may contain Affiliate Links. If you purchase anything after clicking an affiliate link, I may receive some compensation)
Ok we all know the information stated above, but what is the solution? Loosing weight isn’t as easy as we like it to be. What makes matters worse is the huge number of weight loss programs and diets that don’t work or are not the right fit for your age or body type. Now, that brings us to the product being reviewed in this post The Cinderella Solution, does it work? Is it the right program for you?
The Cinderella Solution Program
I want to help you make an informed decision, so we are going to go over the following:
Who created the program and why?
Most weight loss programs are geared toward men because they require high-impact workouts that are testosterone driven. Therefore, Carly Donovan a pioneer in the weight loss industry for over 10 years and the creator of The Cinderella Solution, decided to create this program to be the first weight loss solution that is specifically geared towards women and is compatible with their body’s physiology and chemistry. | https://medium.com/@healthoutlined/cinderella-solution-review-3c631a393c7e | ['Health Outlined'] | 2019-09-14 23:43:25.141000+00:00 | ['Weightloss Foods', 'Weight Loss', 'Weight Loss Tips', 'The Cinderella Solution', 'Cinderella Solution'] |
Best Tips for Email Marketing in 2021 | Everyone knows about email marketing, a marketing tactic that has been around since the dawn of the internet. In fact, the first mass email campaign was sent out in 1978 by Gary Thuerk, the Marketing Manager of Digital Equipment Corp. Thuerk sent out a mass mailer promoting DEC machines to 400 users that resulted in an astounding $13 million in sales. This was a monumental moment in marketing, and from its inception, email marketing was known as one of the most effective channels for direct marketing.
Fast forward to the late 90s and early 2000s when email marketing became somewhat repetitive and “spammy”. Many email recipients became tired of receiving sales related emails from faceless corporations that just wanted to “sell sell sell” and email marketing started to lose its edge. Marketers desperately needed to try a new approach to email marketing, and in 2010 segmented, personalised and targeted email marketing campaigns were introduced.
With the introduction of Customer Relationship Management software such as HubSpot, email automation, personalisation and segmentation has become even easier to implement, and through CRM platforms businesses are now able to measure and track the success of each campaign — all of which allows for greater lead generation, conversion and customer retention.
This kind of email communication and marketing forms part of today’s Inbound Marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is a process of communicating with high quality leads by providing them with information that they actually want to be informed about as opposed to the spammy email marketing of the past.
In this article we provide 10 tips for email marketing that will help you improve open rates, click through rates and lead generation potential.
1. Email Workflows
Contact Leads at the right time with the right message
Whatever tactic you use for lead generation, be it social media lead generation campaigns, website lead forms or newsletter sign ups, you need to take advantage of the window of opportunity when you are at the top of a prospects mind. This is why it is important to always send an email to a prospect within 24 hours of receiving their information.
Send emails from a person, not a faceless brand
Your email open rate will increase substantially if you send out emails that come from a real person. This is because recipients are more likely to believe in and trust an email from an individual’s personal work address as opposed to an email sent out from a generic work address.
3. Send Out Mobile-Friendly Emails
As much as 60% of all marketing emails are opened on mobile devices. Most people check their phones for messages, calls, and emails as soon as they wake up, and when your emails are not responsive, you’ll be missing out. Your customers will either delete or unsubscribe.
Even if they don’t, you can be sure they won’t open or read them, which beats the purpose of sending them. The most important thing to do here is to ensure you implement a responsive email design. Also, use short subject lines and pre-headers, and make your CTAs large and noticeable, regardless of the screen size.
4. Invest in the Right Email Marketing Tools
As email marketing strategies evolve, so do the marketing tools, and you need to ensure you’re using the right ones. For instance, you can use an email list provider to automate lead generation, segmentation, and onboarding processes, making things easier for your campaign.
Top Email Marketing Platforms for 2021
5. Keep Your Email List Clean
Your email list declines by about 22% every year, even if you email them regularly. This means that every single year, nearly a quarter of your list doesn’t actually want to hear from you anymore. That’s going to tank your open rates along with everything else. Fortunately, there are ways to grow your email list so you can replenish it with subscribers that are interested in what you have to say. The other end of that, though, is removing the subscribers who are no longer interested.
But when you’ve defined that segment, don’t just delete them right away.
First, you’ll want to send a winback email campaign in an attempt to re-engage them and bring them back into the fold. Many brands will send a last email or email series to their inactive subscribers in hopes of getting those subscribers once again engaged with the brand.
6. Build an Organic Email List
We understand the temptation to purchase email addresses, especially when you’re trying to grow your list fast. However, this tactic is sure to backfire, leaving you with dud addresses, uninterested recipients, and a strong chance of getting flagged by your email provider.
A better approach: build a strong and sustainable list of opt-in contacts, complete with people who actually want to hear from, and engage with your brand.
7. Make your Images Clickable
The goal of any email marketing campaign is to drive the recipient to take a specific action, and the action usually requires a click through to a specific page (be this a lead form or website page). One way to increase your click through rate without overdoing your text or copy is by hyperlinking your images through to your chosen landing page.
For example, if the goal of your campaign is to get recipients to download an ebook, you can include an image of your ebook cover in the body of your mail. Instead of just adding a hyperlinked text with the copy “click her to download” you can also make the image itself clickable. People in general are more drawn to images as it is, and you can capitalize on this by making the image itself clickable as well. | https://medium.com/@shubhamkhandelwal-29253/best-tips-for-email-marketing-in-2021-f7bb806ce2b7 | ['Shubham Khandelwal'] | 2020-12-21 11:43:38.883000+00:00 | ['Email Marketing', 'Email Marketing Tips', 'Best Email Marketing Tips'] |
What do Terre Haute Prisoners, Tuskegee Sharecroppers, and Guatemalans Have in Common? The US Government Gave Them Venereal Disease. | It started in Tuskegee, Alabama. The US Public Health Service (PHS) began a study on 600 black sharecroppers in which they were offered free medical treatment. Many of the men had never been to the doctor. Of the men, 399 already had latent syphilis and the control group of 201 men was syphilis free. They all were told they were being treated for “bad blood,” a name given for a variety of ailments at the time. While most of the men already had the disease, some of their spouses and unborn children had not yet contracted it and the government effectively gave it to them.
Part of the purpose of the study was to track the full progression of syphilis and the men were given only placebos or aspirin while the disease took its course, ravaging their bodies. By 1947, penicillin had been proven an effective treatment for syphilis but the men were not offered treatment, only watched as they went blind, insane, and many eventually died.
In the mid-1960s, PHS investigator Peter Buxton voiced his concerns that the study was unethical. A committee was formed to review the program but the Public Health Service elected to see the study through its completion until all the men were dead. Years later, Buxton leaked the story to a reporter who told Associated Press reporter Jean Heller who broke the news nationwide. The public outcry forced the study to shut down. At that time, 28 patients had died from syphilis, 100 more from related complications, 40 spouses had contracted the disease and 19 infants got syphilis at birth.
In 1973, Congress authorized a $10 million settlement for the remaining participants and heirs. New laws were established as to what could happen in US Government-funded research. Many people are generally aware of the Tuskegee Experiments but far fewer know of two other government-backed studies on captive populations, involving some of the same doctors who should have known better.
In 1943, at the Federal Correctional Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana, the government injected 241 men with gonorrhea so that treatments could be studied as to their effectiveness. The men were offered $100, a certificate of merit, and a letter in their file for their parole board hearings. After several months, the study was concluded in 1944 because injecting men in their penises proved an unreliable method of passing along the disease. There is no information available as to the racial make-up of the Indiana subjects as opposed to the black ones in Tuskegee and the brown ones in Guatemala. One can’t help but wonder?
In September 2011, a report titled, “ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, was released. The following is from the preface:
On October 1, 2010, President Barack Obama telephoned President Álvaro Colom of Guatemala to extend an apology to the people of Guatemala for medical research supported by the United States and conducted in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948. Some of the research involved deliberate infection of people with sexually transmitted diseases (“STDs”)1 without their consent. Subjects were exposed to syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, and included prisoners, soldiers from several parts of the army, patients in a state-run psychiatric hospital, and commercial sex workers. Serology experiments that did not involve intentional exposure to infection, which continued through 1953, also were performed in these groups, as well as with children from state-run schools, an orphanage, and several rural towns. President Obama expressed “deep regret” for the research and affirmed the U.S. government’s “unwavering commitment to ensure that all human medical studies conducted today meet exacting” standards for the protection of human subjects.
While the United States expressed “deep regret,” it later declared itself not liable for these tests conducted outside the United States. Guatemalans were not entitled to the $10 million the remaining participants and heirs of the Tuskegee Experiment got. They didn’t get the $100 the Terre Haute prisoners got. The United States of America said Guatemalans were entitled to nothing at all. Judge Reggie Walton said he was following Federal law but was deeply troubled by the study. He urged the government to provide assistance to the affected.
“This lawsuit is simply not the appropriate vehicle for remedying those wrongs.”
Lawyers representing the Guatemalans are now seeking redress against private companies involved and in January 2019, a Federal Court declared that the Rockefeller Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and related entities, and Bristol-Myers who they describe as, “the driving force” behind the study. Several of the doctors worked for Johns Hopkins and received support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Bristol-Myers provided drugs to the small percentage that received treatment. In response to the $1 billion lawsuit lawyers for Johns Hopkins said,
“Johns Hopkins expresses profound sympathy for individuals and families impacted by the deplorable 1940s syphilis study funded and conducted by the U.S. government in Guatemala. We respect the legal process, and we will continue to vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
A spokesman for the Rockefeller Foundation said the lawsuit has no merit and they had no role in the funding, management, or design of the study. Bristol-Myer had no comment at the time.
The US Military had an interest in finding a treatment for syphilis which had no cure when the Tuskegee Experiment began. They estimated that as many as 350,000 soldiers might contract syphilis while fighting overseas wars and at home. Someone in the government thought it was just fine to infect targeted populations of prisoners (race undetermined), poor black people, and brown people of Guatemala. The government was shamed into a settlement with the Tuskegee survivors. They had no concern for the Guatemalans they infected with most receiving no treatment. The trial against the private companies is in discovery and we don’t know what information will be revealed. Here’s hoping that $1 billion is the floor and not the ceiling for compensation. | https://medium.com/recycled/what-do-terre-haute-prisoners-tuskeegee-sharecroppers-and-guatemalans-have-in-common-1b9009025804 | ['William Spivey'] | 2020-03-26 04:40:49.059000+00:00 | ['Tuskeegee', 'Health', 'Syphilis', 'Racism', 'Guatemala'] |
Part 1 — The Database. How to build a real time data sync, multi platform app with CouchDB and PouchDB | Design
Before diving into the specifics of our Database design, here are a few words about the product being built.
The app is basically a task management system, that allows organizing tasks in lists and calendars, sharing them with friends and more, all while being focused on your goals. It also needs to be able to run simultaneously on browsers and mobile devices.
That should explain pretty well why the app should be available in offline mode, and why the data needs to sync in real time.
Also, only the shared lists of tasks need to be kept in sync between friends, and since the data is entirely synced with the client, each user needs their own DB, with restricted access, but the common records (and only the common records) need to by synced automatically between per-user DBs.
Image 1: Database Architecture
Image 1 presents the high-level database architecture, but what is very important here is that the standard communication paradigm has shifted from UI-API-DB to UI-DB-SERVICES.
This approach has its challenges, because on the server side we need listener services always running to track events that trigger business logic. Also this forced us to have quite a lot of the business logic residing on the client side, which is not necessarily a bad thing but needs to be kept in mind.
In order to understand it better, a general data flow process should shed some light. Assuming that User 1 and User 2 are friends and have a shared list of tasks, when User 1 updates one of the shared tasks, the following data flow occurs:
Task gets replicated from PouchDB Client User DB1 to CouchDB User DB1 Spiegel listens to CouchDB User DB1 changes and triggers a CouchDB replication from User DB1 to CentralDB Spiegel listens to CentralDB changes and determines (via an API call, but let’s keep things simple) what changes go where and if the User 2 has the required permissions Spiegel triggers a CouchDB replication from CentralDB to the User DB2 PouchDB long polling via HTTP mechanism is getting the changes in Couch DB User DB 2 and updates the PouchDB Client User DB 2
Quirks
The process, as always, wasn’t defined straight through, the design emerged gradually while adding more features, facing more and more challenges and limitations. We had to come up with various solutions, listeners, complementing services, even cleanup jobs for the deleted revisions and here are some of them:
Conflicts will happen when 2 users update the same document at the same time. Then, scheduled and constantly running jobs need to be created, to watch those conflicts and to gracefully (merge) solve them (otherwise CouchDB will select one of the revisions and that’s it)
Solving conflicts on the client side: in PouchDB conflicts need to be considered and solved, but it might not be enough
If you need more granular control when replicating a document according to specific business rules, Spiegel can call an API endpoint where you can implement specific logic
A CentralDB, holding ALL the important documents is needed because otherwise it would be very difficult to query documents for specific reports. But also, listening to document changes in EVERY User DB is highly impractical
Because the DB is responsible of Client-Server communication, this leads to a CQRS-ish way of doing things, meaning that the services are listening to changes and if there is a business-concerning event, the event is raised to the proper service that in turn will be responsible for generating a notification that will finally (via PouchDB to CouchDB replication) arrive to the client. This forced us, for immediate response requests (like adding a friend) to create an API endpoint as well
Because even though PouchDB is capable of using various plugins for local storage, the storage footprint needs to be monitored, so we are keeping a limited number of revisions and auto-compaction enabled. Also, since the entire client database gets replicated automatically to the CouchDB server, that too needs to be configured carefully to limit the number of revisions, to enable auto-compaction as well and even more special jobs might have to periodically purge the deleted documents, because otherwise will end up with a huge storage usage
We don’t recommend using CouchDB attachments for file storage, because behind the scenes each file would be converted to base64 and replicated via the standard mechanism, which is fantastic for small documents but not so great (actually bad) for larger ones, especially files, so the file, images and attachments support should be handled separately
Conclusion
Both CouchDB and PouchDB are mature technologies, developed by strong teams with active communities. They are most definitely alternatives worth considering and both of them are capable of being used independently.
There is so much more than this, CouchDB is designed with multi cluster replication and sharding in mind, PouchDB has a rich set of plugins allowing it to run from Web Workers or in-memory to transforming the DB into an Event Sourcing one with Delta Pouch. All these are topics for the advanced classes and will require a deeper understanding of the two.
Hoping that we’ve scratched the surface and made you curious, please join the discussion if there’s anything you want to share! | https://blog.adaptabi.com/part-1-the-database-b7c575864407 | ['Tudor Dumitriu'] | 2021-01-05 06:20:56.372000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Pouchdb', 'Mobile App Development', 'Couchdb', 'NoSQL'] |
MetaKrypton Exclusive NFT Presale(INO) on Metaverse Games | Dear Adventurers,
MetaKrypton is expected to be officially launched in January 2022, before then, we are thrilled to announce the MetaKrypton Starship NFT presale, the first ever INO (Initial NFT offering). There will be a total of 12,000 NFT blind boxes available for sale, featuring three different starships, each of which will have 3 classes. As the total quantity of INO phases is limited, a lot of members requested for the sales of extra phases. This cannot be provided as INO was designed considering the over-all balance of the game play.
Please stay with us for MetaKrypton, an exciting Play-to-Earn Metaverse Game!
INO has 5 phases and will last for 4 days:
From Jan 5, 2022 12:00 UTC — Jan 8, 2022 12:00 UTC
How to participate:
Enter the official Metaverse Games website: https://meta.auto , and visit the INO page. (TBA)
Phase 1
Date: 5th January 2022, 12:00 UTC
Price: 40 $META (tentative)
Quantity: 1,000
NFTs included: CT-Moxie, CT-Hades, CT-Fearless; CE-Explore, CE-Brave, CE-Hermes; CC-Prometheus; CC-Ares; CC-Discovery
Phase 2
Date: 6th January 2022, 12:00 UTC
Price: 45 $META (tentative)
Quantity: 2,000
NFTs included: CT-Moxie, CT-Hades, CT-Fearless; CE-Explore, CE-Brave, CE-Hermes; CC-Prometheus; CC-Ares; CC-Discovery
Phase 3
Date: 7th January 2022, 12:00 UTC
Price: 50 $META (tentative)
Quantity: 3,000
NFTs included: CT-Moxie, CT-Hades, CT-Fearless; CE-Explore, CE-Brave, CE-Hermes; CC-Prometheus; CC-Ares; CC-Discovery
Phase 4
Date: 7th January 2022, 12:00 UTC
Price: 220 $USDT (tentative)
Quantity: 2,500
NFTs included: CT-Moxie, CT-Hades, CT-Fearless; CE-Explore, CE-Brave, CE-Hermes; CC-Prometheus; CC-Ares; CC-Discovery
Phase 5
Date: 8th January 2022, 12:00 UTC
Price: 240 $USDT (tentative)
Quantity: 3,500
NFTs included: CT-Moxie, CT-Hades, CT-Fearless; CE-Explore, CE-Brave, CE-Hermes; CC-Prometheus; CC-Ares; CC-Discovery
Description
1. What is INO?
INO is a mode of selling NFT in the first release on a public platform. MetaKrypton’s current INO is the first public pre-sale of Starship NFT through Metaverse Games.
2. What can Starship NFT do?
(1) Mining
CT class starship mining $HY, CE class starship mining $TI, CC class starship mining KR
(2) Upgrade
3 similar low cost starships can be upgraded to higher level starships by consuming $KR and $TI
(3) Collection
Starship NFT has unique numbering and exquisite design, which is highly collectible
(4) Trading
Starship NFT can be sold in MetaKrypton’s marketplace for $META.
3. Notes about the INO
(1) The Starship NFT blind box presale is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
(2) Please prepare your BSC wallet and $META or $USDT required for each phase before you join the presale.
(3) Once the order is successfully made, open the Starship NFT and view it by clicking on “My NFT”.
(4) Players who failed to purchase NFT may pay attention to the next phase of NFT sales or wait for the game to launch and mint starships through KR+TI.
(5) The proceeds of INO will provide initial market liquidity for KR/META, TI/META, HY/META and subsequent iterations of the game.
4. The attributes of blind box starship NFT
Please click the link below for the brief information about the game.
Gear up and get ready for your epic space battles! | https://medium.com/@metaversekrypton/metakrypton-exclusive-nft-presale-ino-on-metaverse-games-37fc01c40912 | [] | 2021-12-31 03:25:49.428000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Ino', 'Bsc', 'Initialnftoffering', 'Nft'] |
BCH hardfork | Hi
Nomenclature BCHN is the longest running chain.
BCHABC (newer) are the forked tokens which is a smaller chain.
We would be distributing additional BCHN to users in the proportion of the current value BCHABC which is around 8.5% of the current value of BCH.
So if users were holding 1 BCH they would get 1.085 BCH
Maintaining a particular coins infrastructure is costly and requires a lot of resources. And lower value chains are fairly susceptible to 51% attacks and hacks which typically can compromise with security. In lieu of all this we have decided not to support the same. Consequently we would not be adding deposit/withdraw / trading support for the airdropped BCH.
Users can withdraw normal BCHN and buy the new BCHABC on any platform that trades it if they wish to.
Thanks
Team Bitbns | https://medium.com/bitbns/bch-hardfork-581bd27f993c | [] | 2020-11-18 16:07:46.595000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency'] |
Why Should My Business Accept Cryptocurrency? | Does accepting cryptocurrency make sense for your business? More and more merchants are taking a long look at the pros and cons associated with selling their products and services for cryptocurrency. This guide aims to be a complete resource for answering everything you need to know about getting paid in cryptocurrency.
Reasons to Accept Cryptocurrency Today
Below are a selection of real-world benefits businesses can start earning today by accepting cryptocurrency. The march of technological progress is never-ending, and it’s reasonable to assume that we will see even more benefits as the technology improves and sees further adoption.
Cheap, Fast Payments
Can you believe that it can take up to 10 days to make a bank transfer in 2018? That’s nearly 1/3 of a month! You can safely move a large amount of money quickly and much more affordably using cryptocurrency.
Exactly how fast and cheap will depend on which cryptocurrency you choose to do business in. The difference between an hour and a couple minutes is merely semantics when compared with the legacy banking system.
Irreversible Transactions
Chargebacks exist to protect consumers from shady merchants and identity theft. Unfortunately, chargebacks are often abused by ill-intentioned fraudsters uninterested in paying for the goods and services they desire.
Cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible; there is no central authority with the power to alter transactions. Merchants who deal in cryptocurrency don’t have to worry about the potential of chargeback fraud. The CEO of Headphones.com recently took to Reddit to explain how this, among other things, has benefited his business:
We don’t have to worry about Visa or Mastercard blaming fraud caused by their own lack of security on us. (FYI if your Visa is compromised and you get reimbursed, that’s coming from the merchant — not Visa. Even though it’s Visa that allowed the money to be spent in the first place) The point above has given us the freedom to ship products to places we usually would have avoided due to fraud concerns
Borderless Currency
Cryptocurrencies don’t care where you live, or where your customer is sending their crypto from; they are completely location-agnostic.
The benefits derived from this are plenty for merchants. Never before have you been able to sell a product or service to a truly global audience.
You probably wouldn’t bother integrating support for the Japanese Yen, Indian Rupee, or the Thai Baht for your next ebook launch. By accepting cryptocurrency, however, brands can maximize their global exposure.
Marketing Move
How can you tell if someone has invested in Bitcoin? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you! Cryptocurrency has a large, passionate following of users and investors who love nothing more than hearing about how existing businesses are adopting their favorite method of payment.
Accepting cryptocurrency is free marketing if nothing else. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself an influx of new customers going out of their way to support your decision after you make it official. Here’s the CEO of Headphones.com again on his experience dealing with cryptocurrency customers:
Every single customer who has paid with Nano has been awesome to deal with. The quality of people we’ve encountered from the Nano community has been astonishing.
Join the Revolution
The cryptocurrency industry maintains a constant buzz of excitement among all of those involved. There is an air of importance which blankets this space. It feels like we’re about to be apart of something big.
Whether you share that belief or not — you’ve made it this far — perhaps it’s worth taking part solely on the off-chance that cryptocurrency does end up causing historical change to our aging financial system. Something you could tell your grandkids about.
Speed Bumps: Reasons to Be Cautious
It’s no secret that we’re pro-crypto — hence the crypto invoicing software — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t clear risks associated with accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method. Here are some of the risks you need to be aware of as an early adopter of cryptocurrency.
Volatility
Nobody wants their paycheck to be worth less today than it was yesterday. The value of cryptocurrency today is heavily influenced by speculation, leaving prices subject to seemingly random fluctuations.
As adoption rises and holders of cryptocurrency turn into spenders of cryptocurrency, volatility is expected to decrease. Until then, it’s important to be mindful of the potential fluctuations your earnings are exposed to.
Avoid Volatility by Cashing Out
Cryptocurrency can be used as a quick and inexpensive vehicle for moving value. By instantly converting incoming cryptocurrency to native (fiat) currency, it’s possible for merchants to profit by minimizing the typical fees charged by payment processors. This also makes sense for high volume merchants who wish to hold cryptocurrency, but a smaller percentage than that which they earn organically.
It’s important to note that this strategy isn’t viable for everyone. Make sure you have access to a cryptocurrency exchange capable of converting crypto into your native currency and withdrawing to your bank. Coinbase should work for Americans, QuadrigaCX for Canadians, and Bitstamp for Europeans, but make sure you double check! A small test withdrawal is never a bad idea.
Lack of Spending Options
We’re a ways away from being able to clear an entire shopping list exclusively using cryptocurrency. Unless you live in Arizona, you can’t (yet) pay your bills in cryptocurrency either. It will likely take a major move by Amazon or Walmart to reach that point where a double digit percentage of your peers are regularly using cryptocurrency for purchases.
In today’s markets you need to go out of your way to find merchants willing to deal in crypto, but they do exist. More and more business owners are becoming aware of the benefits (listed above) accepting cryptocurrency lends to them and their businesses.
Cryptocurrency Accounting
Tax advice is outside the scope of this article. We recommend consulting a professional accountant familiar with cryptocurrency. If you’re looking to do some reading on your own, check out this guide by Visor for a basic overview.
The Responsibility of Being Your Own Bank
Owning cryptocurrency is empowering: you are your own bank. There is no man in the middle telling you what you can and can’t spend your crypto on.
With great power comes great responsibility. The additional control over your money granted by cryptocurrency also opens up additional opportunities to mess things up and lose your money. There is nobody but yourself to blame if your cryptocurrency gets lost or stolen — that’s on you, my friend.
There’s no denying the margin for error is small, but as long as you’re careful and follow best practices, you should have nothing to worry about.
How to Begin Accepting Cryptocurrency
First, you need to choose which cryptocurrencies you’d like to begin receiving as payment. According to CoinMarketCap.com, there are over 1,500 cryptocurrencies currently in existence!
Only a small percentage of those 1,500+ cryptocurrencies are functional and commonly used for payments today. In this guide we’ll be using Ethereum.
Choosing a Cryptocurrency Wallet
Second, you’ll need a way to receive your cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency wallet is a software program which enables users to send and receive cryptocurrency*. This is an extremely simplified definition — if you’re interested in learning more about wallets and cryptocurrency safety 101, check out this article by Shapeshift.
This is where things could get confusing for our least technical readers. Setting up a wallet is just like setting up any other piece of software. If this isn’t something you’re comfortable doing, you’re going to have to trust a third-party (like Coinbase) to manage your cryptocurrency. This can be a dangerous proposition; even competent, trustworthy companies are prone to being hacked.
Make your choice below:
If you trust a company like Coinbase more than you trust yourself; use the Coinbase mobile app as your designated cryptocurrency wallet.
If you’re comfortable setting up an Ethereum wallet on your own, check out MyCrypto.com. Follow the detailed instructions on their site to get your Ethereum wallet up and running now.
Integrating Cryptocurrency with Your Business
Once you have your Ethereum wallet setup through Coinbase (easiest, but reliant on a third-party) or MyCrypto (more technical, less vulnerable to hacks) it’s time to enable your customers the ability to send Ether directly to your wallet.
Receiving cryptocurrency is much like receiving an email. Your wallet has a public address, like an email address, which other people can use to send you cryptocurrency. While you could simply list your wallet address on your website, just as you could with your email address, there are more elegant methods of integration.
Here are the resources worth checking out:
How to Accept Cryptocurrency Anywhere:
Share your public wallet address
Generate a QR code for your public wallet address
How to Accept Cryptocurrency as a Freelancer:
Send crypto invoices to your clients with Gilded Invoices
How to Accept Cryptocurrency on Wordpress:
How to Accept Cryptocurrency on Shopify:
Conclusion: Class Dismissed
That covers everything you need to know about accepting cryptocurrency as a means of payment for your business. Any further questions? Don’t be a stranger, let us know!
Keep up to date with Gilded’s latest developments | https://medium.com/gilded/why-should-my-business-accept-cryptocurrency-e25a6728c5e3 | ['Jamie Sutton'] | 2018-03-27 05:43:50.224000+00:00 | ['Payments', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum'] |
Quick MongoDB Docker Setup | Here’s how to create a quick MongoDB Docker container with a volume to store the Database. We will also create a simple “init” script to create a user, then create a collection and insert a ‘document’ into that collection.
We’ll create a quick Dockerfile so that our Mongo container isn’t running as root (although feel free to use a Mongo image), a docker-compose.yml file to create the our containers and volume for our database as well as passing environment variables to create a user and password, and an init-mongo.js script that Mongo will use on first start up to run some Mongo commands.
Dockerfile
It is best to not run a container as root, so this Dockerfile will use the official Mongo image and change the user to the mongodb Linux user.
Feel free to just use the Mongo image in the Docker Compose script if you are just testing, but for production, it is best to not let containers use a root user.
FROM mongo:4.4.1
USER mongodb
init-mongo.js
This script will run when the container starts up, and will create a new user with read & write access to a MongoDB database called ‘testdb’.
A collection will then be created in this DB called ‘users’ (This is because in the following Docker Compose script, ‘testdb’ is set as the initial database).
A record is then inserted into the collection that was just created.
db.createUser(
{
user: "bpalmer",
pwd: "password",
roles: [
{
role: "readWrite",
db: "testdb"
}
]
}
};
db.createCollection('users');
db.users.insertOne(
{
name: 'Bill Palmer'
}
);
docker-compose.yml
The mongo service will:
Create a root Mongo user called root with example as the password
with as the password Create a database called testdb
Mount the ‘init’ script to the /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d directory as ‘read only’
directory as ‘read only’ Attach a Docker volume to /data/db where Mongo stores the db files
The mongo-express service provides a useful web app to access the MongoDB databases in the mongo container and will:
Publish port 8081 of the container to the host machine — This allows us to access Mongo Express at http://localhost:8081
Set the admin credentials to use so that it can connect to the MongoDB database
version: '3.1' services: mongo:
build: . # Instead of build you can use 'image: mongo'
restart: always
environment:
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME: root
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD: example
MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE: testdb
volumes:
- ./mongo-init.js:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/mongo-init.js:ro
- mongo-volume:/data/db mongo-express:
image: mongo-express
restart: always
ports:
- 8081:8081
environment:
ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINUSERNAME: root
ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINPASSWORD: example volumes:
mongo-volume
Home page of Mongo Express
Useful Docker commands
Here’s how to create a shell in the Mongo container and use the Mongo CLI — this can be useful for debugging.
$ docker exec -it mongodb_test_mongo_1 mongo
> use admin
> db.auth('username', 'password') # e.g. with the DB we created above
> use testdb
> db.auth('bpalmer', 'password')
I hope this helped you get up and running with MongoDB!
Chur 🤙 | https://medium.com/@connor-hewett/quick-mongodb-docker-setup-d1959c8fc8f2 | ['Connor Hewett'] | 2020-12-21 00:08:39.258000+00:00 | ['NoSQL', 'Docker', 'Tutorial', 'Mongodb'] |
SnapML in Lens Studio: ML Component Breakdown | Model Compatibility
First things first, in order to get an ML model inside Lens Studio that you’ll be use creatively, you’ll need to ensure that the model is compatible with SnapML. But what does this mean, how can you tell if your model is incompatible, and what can you do to fix it?
In essence, there are two parts of model compatibility that you need to be aware of: model file format, and model layer compatibility.
**An additional, but important note: ML Assets (Lens Studio’s term for model files) must be under 10MB to use in Lens Studio
Model File Format
Machine learning models can take many different forms. There are model file formats that are broadly compatible across server-side deployment targets (cloud servers, on-premise servers, etc), and then others that are designed for mobile or embedded devices (i.e. smartphones, dev boards like Raspberry Pi’s, other AI-capable “smart” devices).
These file formats all depend on what the target platform or device accepts. For instance, for iOS native applications, Core ML (.mlmodel) is the model framework and type you’d need to work with. For native Android, you’d use a TensorFlow Lite model type (.tflite).
For SnapML, there are two ML model types that are compatible: Protobuf files (.pb) and ONNX files (.onnx). These model types can be created by converting from TensorFlow and/or PyTorch, which are the two primary deep learning frameworks/libraries for ML engineers and researchers.
While the Lens Studio team might add new model types to support in the future (fingers crossed for .tflite), currently, your model will need to be successfully converted to either .pb or .onnx.
The Lens Studio team has recently updated their SnapML docs to include instructions for exporting your ML models from both TensorFlow and PyTorch into formats compatible with SnapML.
Export from TensorFlow
Export from PyTorch
Model Layer Compatibility
Though model conversion can be a bit fraught, there are clear and known methods for doing so. A more ongoing and iterative concern that Lens Creators will need to grapple with is the compatibility of the “layers” that make up their models.
Broadly speaking, an ML model layer (or more specifically, a neural network model layer) is a set of mathematical operations that take the data you feed into said model and help produce the intended output. For instance, many computer vision neural networks contain “convolutional layers”, which can be visualized in the image below:
While the technical specifics are a bit outside the scope of this post, you can imagine neural network layers as mathematical layers through which data passes and is processed, all in order to produce the desired output (i.e. an accurate prediction).
So if you’re building your own models, whether from scratch in TensorFlow or PyTorch or from other existing pre-trained models, you’ll need to regularly consult with this layer compatibility chart in the SnapML docs:
What’s more, this compatibility is broken down by mobile device platform (iOS, Android) and by processor. To get the most out of your ML-powered Lenses, and to ensure they work properly, you’ll want to work with model layers that are compatible with at least the CPU, and, if possible, the GPU/NPU (the use of advanced hardware will generally lead to better model performance).
This is something to pay particular attention to when working with pre-trained models and Notebooks you pull from external sources or from locations where you can’t immediately verify compatibility — some of these pre-trained models, though optimized for mobile platforms, might need to have some layers removed/adjusted if they aren’t supported by Lens Studio. This can then lead to the need to retrain models, as removing network layers can significantly (and adversely) affect performance.
Model Import
Once you have a model built and exported with both supported layers and in a compatible format, you’ll need to import it into Lens Studio. If you import a model into a completely blank project, you’ll need to do quite a bit of manual work (including material graphing, scripting, etc).
So if possible, we’d recommend starting with a template project that most closely matches your use case. We have a number of [specific pre-trained templates] at Fritz AI, and any custom models trained will already be configured. Lens Studio also offers a number of helpful templates that make it easier to import custom ML models built with their provided Python Notebooks (typically iPython or Jupyter Notebooks, to be precise).
When you create an ML Component Object (from the top left Objects panel), you’ll automatically be prompted to import your trained model file — in my case, as you can see below, through Finder on my MacBook.
Because I trained my model using Fritz AI, I didn’t have to worry about configuring the import — as mentioned above, Fritz AI does all that work under the hood.
But if you’re bringing in your own custom model, the best thing you can do to ensure that your model makes it into Lens Studio unscathed is to make sure everything is compatible up front as you’re training it — with supported layers, a model architecture supported by and optimized for SnapML, the expected number of channels, etc. | https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/snapml-in-lens-studio-ml-component-breakdown-80d2e2b596ee | ['Austin Kodra'] | 2021-01-28 19:15:48.856000+00:00 | ['Lens Studio', 'Heartbeat', 'Snapchat', 'Augmented Reality', 'Machine Learning'] |
Watch Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 :: Full (‘ONLINE’) | ☆~Stream : Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 Full ☆ Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 Full Episode ☆ Watch Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 Full Series ☆ Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 Full Episodes ☆ Letterkenny Season 9 Episode 2 Stream Online ~☆
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Overview
Letterkenny follows Wayne, a good-ol’ country boy in Letterkenny, Ontario trying to protect his homegrown way of life on the farm, against a world that is constantly evolving around him. The residents of Letterkenny belong to one of three groups: Hicks, Skids, and Hockey Players. The three groups are constantly feuding with each other over seemingly trivial matters; often ending with someone getting their ass kicked.
❏ STREAMING MEDIA ❏
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream identifies the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, instead of the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies particularly to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, music CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks satisfactory bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves with a television signal. Live internet streaming takes a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio tracks interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an option to file downloading, a process where the end-user obtains the entire file for this content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The word “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.
❏ COPYRIGHT CONTENT ❏
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[1][2][3][4][5] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[6][7][8] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][9][10][11][12] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[13]
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.[14]
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[15]
❏ GOODS OF SERVICES ❏
Credit (from Latin credit, “(he/she/it) believes”) is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[1] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and extensible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower. | https://medium.com/@docosaj403/watch-letterkenny-series-9-episode-2-full-online-775b420a65a8 | [] | 2020-12-27 13:09:06.151000+00:00 | ['Letterkenny', 'Television', 'Season 9 Episode 2', 'Comedy'] |
Salesforce aims to deliver 100,000 Dreamforces through its customers doors | Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made two big announcements on Tuesday. First, that the CRM giant he co-founded 21 years ago intends to acquire business chat app Slack. And second, that he wants to create a Dreamforce (Salesforce’s star-filled user conference that brings over 150k to San Francisco most years) specifically made for each corporate customer.
Here’s exactly how he explained it on yesterday’s quarterly earnings call.
“We’re reimagining our entire business, we’re reimagining our industry. And we’re even reimagining Dreamforce.
So many of you have emailed me and called me and talked to me about your ideas for Dreamforce. But I’ll tell you, when it really comes right down to it, Dreamforce is different this year, it just is, you know. It’s not the Dreamforce that we wanted, it’s the Dreamforce that we got. It’s the Dreamforce with all of you. You know all of our trailblazers and all of our Ohana, and all of our friends from all over the world. The best part of Dreamforce is being together in person. And there was a little bit like Thanksgiving all by ourselves last week, and here we are again, it’s kind of Dreamforce by yourself.
So we’ve re-imagined Dreamforce. And the first thing we did is, we said, well, you know what, we’re going to have Dreamforce for each and every customer. And we’ve already reached out to thousands and thousands of our customers. We’re creating custom Dreamforce’s exactly for them. We’ve already done almost 5,000 of those Dreamforces, which has been our prototype, and we hope to do over 100,000 Dreamforce’s before we’re done. These are unique presentations exactly for our most important customers in the world.
And then we have a huge conference coming in a couple weeks, which is our Dreamforce Trailblazer Conference, which gives ability for all our Trailblazers to come together. Then tomorrow, we’ve got a phenomenal event with myself, with many of our executives, Brett (Taylor) who’s going to join me on stage as well. It’s going to be live from San Francisco. It’s going to be cold. We’re going to be doing it outside. I think Brett’s holding the camera for a while and I’m holding the camera for a while. It’s basically, you know, we’re following all these protocols, and we’re trying to stay as safe as we can, you know, we’ve all been tested, and we’re ready to go. And it’s going to be very exciting, and we’re going to have some very, very special guests tomorrow, some great customers, and some really outstanding music, you’re not going to want to miss this presentation.
And by the way, if you’d like to have Dreamforce, to you, please contact our Salesforce executives, and we will arrange Dreamforce for your company. You’ll be shocked at the depth and incredible custom presentation that we’re able to bring to you. And we’ve re-imagined how to do a conference. We’re not doing it like everybody else.
We have our own unique approach, of course, you would expect nothing less of Salesforce. And one thing that’s really cool is how well Dreamforce to you is going. I want to thank my entire Dreamforce team. I’ve definitely got them working much harder than they should be working, especially during this holiday season.
Well, look, we’re going to have some exciting announcements, surprises, you’re not going to want to miss it. All of you need to tune into that, but the keynote, again, is just one part of an amazing month of Dreamforce 2020. It’s Dreamforce to you. We’re powering every account executive in our company to do this (create a Dreamforce for you), it’s going to be amazing, and you’re going to love it.”
You can sign up to checkout Benioff’s keynote here.
If Salesforce delivers a Dreamforce to your company, we’re all ears. | https://digitizingpolaris.com/salesforce-aims-to-deliver-100-000-dreamforces-through-its-customers-doors-34585daa65f7 | ['Virginia Backaitis'] | 2020-12-02 07:25:01.913000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Salesforce', 'Pandemic', 'Conference', 'Technology'] |
What A Newbie Thinks About The Dash Community So Far | ‘Smart coin’ communities can be treacherous for newbies who are unfamiliar with digital currency technologies.
Its culture can be extremely intimidating and I believe that aspect could be one of the biggest reasons people don’t feel comfortable learning about smart coins.
In my previous smart coin community, some of the most active chat rooms had devolved into a kind of toxic cesspool of pathetic manboys who ranted about everything from the size of their bananas to the sad state of their vacuous souls. After being called a c*nt for no apparent reason by one of the whales (a whale is someone with an enormous account) in that chat room, I decided I’d had enough and that day I went searching for a new smart coin community that wasn’t hostile towards decent people.
I was talking about Bitcoin and Dash in a Facebook group last week and one of my friends remarked,
“I agree that the current marketing of cryptocurrency is a kind of exclusive, inaccessible club. For me and others I suspect it is also emotionally associated with a sort of nefarious, criminal need to hide, which has always put me off from finding out more.”
After I explained to my friend that I am neither a criminal nor one who needs to hide my financial activities, I offered to send her some Dash as a gift. Her response was,
“Oh, I am way too cautious to jump right in and start using it! I’ll need to do some serious research first.”
So, there you have it. That’s probably what more than 95% of the population honestly feels about smart coins. They think cryptocurrency is exclusive, inaccessible and full of scary criminals who are all trying to hide their activities on the dark web. That’s not exactly an accurate description, but I’m very well acquainted with that kind of uncertainty and fear.
I’ll be honest, though, it has not been all roses and puppy dogs.
It’s been a mix of good and bad, but mostly good things have come out of it. Knowledge is the best thing to come out of it for me personally.
I’ve been earning smart money for almost a year now. I haven’t gotten sucked into some nefarious criminal gang and I only associate with other people whom I trust. I’ve met some really amazing people, too. I will say, however, that I am more cautious than the average person and I’m able to detect dishonest people pretty easily.
Now, I’ll take you on a tour into a smart coin community that I just discovered last week. I’ll tell you where I went, what problems I encountered and how each problem got solved. The smart coin community I entered a week ago is the Dash community.
The first thing I did was go to the dash.org forum where I began researching which Dash wallet to get. After reading about the Dash Core wallet, I decided I wanted to start off with a wallet that was the easiest to use. An acquaintance from Steemit recommended the Exodus wallet and after researching it on a website called Crypto Compare , I decided to try out Exodus.
There were five reasons I chose the Exodus wallet:
Exodus interface
It’s super easy to use. It received 4.7 stars from users. The customer support for this wallet is outstanding. The wallet doesn’t hold your private keys in a server. It’s beautifully designed.
It’s not a good idea to hold too much money in the Exodus wallet because it’s not an offline wallet. But it’s a good wallet to keep a little money in and experiment with.
The Exodus wallet is visually stunning and contains many different colored skins for different tastes. It uses more graphics than text and is therefore much easier to use and way more aesthetically pleasing.
So far, so good. As I wandered around the Dash Forum I began to notice that it’s very well-organized and contains many moderators.
I was amused to discover that you can give people’s comments other things besides a thumbs up. You can give people a rainbow, a check mark and you can even give them a troll head if they’re nasty or being a jerk.
There’s a thumbs down icon you can use if you disagree with someone’s comment. A lot of forums I’ve been in aren’t this friendly and more still seem to be full of disgruntled young men who enjoy belittling people who are different from them. As someone who has been viciously stalked online several times and publicly doxxed twice by a deranged man, I’m happy that the forums in Dash are very well moderated. I felt extremely safe and respected in there. I really wasn’t expecting the Dash community to be so nice and welcoming. It was shocking.
Next, I ventured into the Dash slack channel.
In the Dash slack chat, I was very amused because the people in there seemed pretty nice.
Keep in mind, this was when the value of Dash had just skyrocketed up so people were celebrating big time. Lots of people made it rain Dash, which means that they tipped Dash to all the people in the slack chat room. It was kind of like being in a virtual bar, where everyone in it was bought a free drink.
I noticed that whenever a guy became an a**hole in slack, someone would step in and basically give him a hint about how to treat people. I have never witnessed this before in any online community. There’s a level of respect that I can honestly say is unique to the Dash community.
For people who are into being crude, they can go into the “off-topic” channel, so it’s not like there’s censorship or a lack of free expression. Creating an environment that is open but respectful towards others is a really difficult thing to achieve. It appears that a community manager created this uniquely positive social environment.
Many people might think that I am interested in the Dash community only because its value has shot up recently. That is perhaps why everyone else is interested in it but it’s only part of the reason for me.
I would say that it’s 40% of the reason why I came into Dash initially. The other 60% is because of my positive experiences within the Dash community and its amazing organization. I am tired of the fighting and discord in other smart coin communities. Achieving balance inside of a decentralized community is extremely difficult. Dash seems to have done this from what I can tell so far.
At the beginning of March when I first entered the Dash community, the price of Dash was around $38.
Some of my trader friends were selling their Dash, thinking that the price would immediately go down from there. As many of you know, it didn’t go down. At that same time many people were selling their Dash, I was buying it. But the reason I decided to buy it wasn’t based only on the market or expert opinions.
The reasons I decided to go all in with Dash was because I saw a number of things it has that is completely lacking in other smart coin communities: a very visible and trusted female leader, a newbie-friendly community, a well-organized and unified governance structure and a Treasury that is able to fund marketing and outreach efforts.
And the reason I kept converting my Bitcoin to Dash even when the price of Dash went up to $93 is because my own personal experiences within the Dash community were probably the best I’ve ever had in any online community. The amount of help I received when I had technical problems was the final thing that sent me over the Dash edge and made me a believer.
Let’s examine what happened to me when I had technical problems:
First Issue: Computer Froze Up
When I downloaded the Dash Core wallet, my computer froze up and became unresponsive. It did this while it was encrypting my wallet, so instead of just sitting there watching the beach ball go around, I decided to force quit and try the process all over again. I forced quit, downloaded the wallet again and then noticed that the wallet encryption had already finished from the earlier time. I posted my concerns in the Dash forum and very shortly thereafter, several people gave me very detailed instructions how to proceed.
Second Issue: Proposal Headaches
When I was going through the process of creating my Dash Budget Proposal, I ran into some issues that I could not resolve by myself. I asked a member for help and he provided me with step-by-step instructions in real-time that helped me navigate the super technical process of sending my proposal to through the Dash blockchain.
Third Issue: Writing Editor Woes
When I wrote my proposal on Dash Central, the fonts didn’t display properly. I highlighted them and changed the setting to ‘normal’ several times, but I wasn’t able to fix the size. I must have tried 6 more times, but still the letters were huge. I nearly lost my mind!
Also, weird code snippets were appearing in my text! I deleted the lines of code, but then the code would reappear again! It was like cutting off the head of a snake in a dream, only to have the snake regrow several more heads afterwards!
I almost lost my mind as I am a perfectionist and having my proposal display in such an ugly manner was super disturbing to me. I wrote for help in the forum and also sent an email to [email protected] asking for help to fix the size of the fonts. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to get a reply to my email. I figured my email would just sit there without getting any answer. To my surprise, not only did I get an answer, but a person named @rango fixed the size of my fonts in my proposal, and completely solved my problem. I really couldn’t believe it. It was shocking.
Well, there you have it. Now you understand why I’m happy to be involved with the Dash community. People are still at the heart of every successful new technological breakthrough. Without a supportive and encouraging community to help newbies jump through the technological hoops of smart money, Bitcoin and other alt coins will remain just a pipe dream.
I think Dash has the best chance of being embraced by the mainstream especially when Evolution comes out.
Full disclosure: I am lightly invested in Dash starting from March 3, 2017. I also recently created a proposal for the Dash Treasury. You can view my proposal here.
ps-I know this article is too long. The next one will be shorter.
About the author:
Leah Stephens is the editor of Dash For Newbies, writer and full stack artist. She has written one book, Un-Crap Your Life which is now available on Amazon. She wrote for Interesting Engineering before discovering the blockchain. She runs a zany YouTube channel and she’s now working within the Dash decentralized autonomous organization. Most days she can be found lurking on Twitter and in the Women of Dash Slack channel. She’s also a top writer in Steemit. Her favorite quote is by Rimbaud: | https://medium.com/dash-for-newbies/what-a-newbie-thinks-about-the-dash-community-so-far-16d2c4c4c90c | [] | 2017-04-21 17:14:05.771000+00:00 | ['Dash', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Women', 'Bitcoin'] |
How To Implement A Linked List In JavaScript. | After going through the title you might think, why are we even using JavaScript to implement a Linked List, why can’t we just use C++ or Java which support prebuilt DS functions? To be honest, you are not wrong, JavaScript does not support Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and it does not have any built-in functions for any Data Structures (except Arrays), however with ES-2015, a new class keyword was introduced and we will be taking advantage of that. But again, is implementing Data Structures really hard & is it even worth our efforts?
You will get an answer to this once you go through this article.
Through this article we will try to understand and implement the following: | https://ojha-akhil123.medium.com/how-to-implement-a-linked-list-in-javascript-28e5d9fa9cc1 | ['Akhilesh Ojha'] | 2020-10-11 07:48:01.351000+00:00 | ['Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript', 'Javascript Development', 'Singly Linked List', 'Datastrucutre'] |
Sharing keyboard & mouse across devices | As programmer, I often juggle between multiple computer systems, for various purpose. Personally, I own a Macbook Air, a Linux desktop and a Windows laptop from my office. Quite often I am juggling between all the three machines, moving my hands from one keyboard to another, a tedious and boring task. So I was googling for how to share single keyboard & mouse across devices. There were several paid solutions, but I was looking for a free and open source solution. That’s when I found out BARRIER.
The fantastic part about BARRIER is that it is available for Linux, Mac & Windows and can work across the combination of the OS. So, here is the procedure to setup BARRIER.
Visit the Github BARRIER page — https://github.com/debauchee/barrier
Based on the operating systems on your machines, download the appropriate versions and run the installer. If you are using Linux, use snap
sudo apt-get install snap snapd -y
sudo snap install barrier
Logout and login again
Start barrier first on the machine from where you want to share the mouse & keyboard. Choose to run barrier as server. It might take a while to boot up.
Now start Barrier on the machine(s) where you want to use the shared keyboard & mouse and click start. It will take a while for barrier to connect with server. First it will ask for confirmation about verification of the server finger print. Allow it.
The important thing to remember is that Screen name plays an important role here. Go back to Barrier server and click on configure. From the right top corner, drag the icon to the desired position in the grid. Rename the newly dropped icon to the same name as of the client. Save the settings and click reload for server.
When the client(s) are connected to the server, you see a connection successful notification. Wallah, now you can use the keyboard & mouse from your server device across the mesh of devices.
That’s all folks.
EDIT: The clipboard is shared across the devices. | https://medium.com/@vishalraj82/sharing-keyboard-mouse-across-devices-7e901549471e | ['Vishal Raj'] | 2020-10-19 17:14:06.551000+00:00 | ['Windows', 'Keyboard', 'Linux Tutorial', 'Mac', 'Sharing'] |
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Data Transfer Pricing: A Surprising Item on Your AWS Bill | AWS’s Data Transfer costs and how they can impact you
If you’ve used AWS, then Amazon must have already charged you for Data Transfer. These costs are what AWS charges to transfer data into or out of AWS. Data transfer could be between AWS and the Internet and within the AWS cloud. If you fail to consider these costs right from the beginning, then you might find yourself with an unpleasant surprise when the bill pops up. In an interview with TechRepublic, “Cloud Economist” Corey Quinn refers to AWS data transfer prices as “cloud’s Achilles’ heel”. According to him, we are still paying 1998 prices for data transfer.
AWS data transfer prices vary for different services and regions. AWS charges you for transferring data into or out of one AWS service to another one. There are charges for transferring data across services within the same region and for transferring it outside the region. So if you were to transfer data across different regions, the cost would be extremely high.
Now you must be wondering how much could these costs even be to be writing an entire article about it? Well, that thought is justified. Large-scale multinational companies end up paying a million dollars a month. But that’s not it. There are relatively small-scale startups that suffer fees close to a million. There are data transfers to and from AWS services that cost more than others. So, the cost of transferring data, say, OUT from EC2 to the Internet, ends up accumulating substantially.
Let’s take an example of data transfer fees for the AWS storage platform S3. For S3 buckets situated in the US West (Oregon) region, the first GB/month incurs no cost and the next 9.999 TB/month costs $0.09 per GB. But if the S3 buckets are in the South America (São Paolo) region, the first GB/month is still free, but the next 9.999 TB/month costs $0.25 per GB.
Tips on how to reduce data transfer costs
While you might not want to focus entirely on completely cutting down your AWS transfer costs, but you might want to reduce them sensibly by following the steps below:
Control data volumes by limiting the size of data transfers by using storage efficiencies with a data management platform.
Keep all traffic within a region, if you can. And in case of traffic leaving the region, pick the lowest transfer rate region depending on your business’s needs.
All traffic is free within the same AZ and the same VPC, using AWS Private IPs. So, make sure your resources are in the same AZ and the same VPC, using private IPs when possible.
Dedicated NAT devices incur a rate per GB on top of the applicable data transfer out rates, so try avoiding these. Utilize the VPC Internet Gateway NAT functionality instead and assign these instances public IPs. You can also utilize VPC endpoints.
Across the board, there are higher data transfer costs with public IP or Elastic IP addresses as compared to a private address. Using private IP addresses frequently reduce costs drastically.
Opt for billing alarms by subscribing to an AWS bill monitoring service. These include Billgist, Metricly, and Yotascale. These monitoring services let you keep an eye on your AWS billing expenses.
Choose Amazon CloudFront to transfer data out to Internet users. Up to 50TB of data transferred out to the Internet will be less expensive from Amazon CloudFront than transferring out from AWS regions and with less latency.
There are some distinguishing pricing principles for the following services, so you need to ensure that you double-check these: Amazon Neptune, Amazon MSK (Managed Kafka), Amazon CloudSearch, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon ElasticSearch.
Data transferring fees might end up being an unpleasant surprise on your AWS bill. Amazon might charge you differently for transferring data into and out of your AWS database, depending on the source and destination. So, it’s a good idea to follow the tips mentioned above to ensure you aren’t spending, in terms of resources and money, more than you require.
You can read more on how to spot a surge in overall AWS cost in How to Monitor AWS Costs. | https://medium.com/billgist/data-transfer-pricing-a-surprising-item-on-your-aws-bill-637743b3d2ae | ['Nada Gul'] | 2020-12-28 15:58:26.988000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Tips', 'DevOps', 'Web Development', 'Cloud'] |
Matt’s Tidbits #51 — Easy stack traces | Last time I wrote about a strange behavior that can happen when you use Mockito incorrectly in Kotlin. This week, have a quick tidbit on a helpful Android Studio debugger feature.
On Friday I found myself trying to track down a difficult problem where some code would sometimes crash. At first glance, it appeared that a service was running after having been stopped. It turned out this was partially true. Instead, this service was being started multiple times. This code used some Rx observables, but re-initialized the CompositeDisposable each time start was called. This meant that when this service was later stopped, only the observables that were added after the second time start() was called would get cleaned up later.
The easy fix for this would have been to change the code so that the CompositeDisposable was not overwritten, but I was concerned about additional side-effects (and the root cause of why start() was being called multiple times), so I kept digging.
It soon became clear that start() was being called from multiple places, and I needed an easy way to identify what order this was happening from — and comparing this against an older working version of the app. I could have put print statements at each call site, but this would have been cumbersome (and messy — I would have to remove them later).
Additionally, adding a breakpoint and pausing execution was not a good option either because some of the Rx observables would time out after a few seconds, making it very difficult to absorb the information in the stack trace without affecting the behavior of the program.
Then, I remembered that Android Studio has a fantastic feature for just this purpose — non-suspending breakpoint stack traces!
To use these yourself, add a breakpoint to your code like you normally would by clicking in the left gutter area of a code window.
Then, right-click on that breakpoint and un-check the “Suspend” checkbox (so the program will keep executing when it reaches this breakpoint):
This will open up a larger version of the dialog. Then all you need to do is check the “Stack trace” box:
Now, just run your app in debug mode, and stack traces will be printed to the Debug window any time this line of code is executed! Using this, I was able to track down all of the places my code was being called from and eventually figure out why this was happening. And, I didn’t have any print statements or other stack trace-producing code to clean up after the fact.
I hope you learned something useful that will help make your own debugging easier in the future! Let me know in the comments what other debugging tools you like to use. And, please follow me on Medium if you’re interested in being notified of future tidbits.
Interested in joining the awesome team here at Intrepid? We’re hiring!
This tidbit was discovered on January 10, 2020. | https://medium.com/@matthew-b-groves/matts-tidbits-51-easy-stack-traces-5f4123958d25 | ['Matthew Groves'] | 2020-01-14 17:42:59.664000+00:00 | ['Android Studio', 'Tidbittuesday', 'Mattstidbits', 'Debugging', 'Android'] |
A Seat Near Toilet | “Who cares if you are angry? Who cares what you feel? This is an office and you are supposed to be professional.”
These were the first lines I heard on my first day at the new workplace. They were not said to me, but I overheard this conversation while I was on my seat, engrossed in my mandatory but irrelevant trainings.
My new seat was near the common washroom and was the most happening place I had in my 10 years of career at different organizations. All sorts of people passed through my desk at least once a day, others more often. I thought it would be distracting for me to sit near a place with relentless traffic, but over the time, it became a thing to pass time. Whenever I was engrossed in work, my mind blocked the crowd entirely. Whenever I got bored, I could hear people laugh, cry, share secrets, walking out holding hands and so many things I could never have imagined to be happening near a toilet.
“I am going to resign tomorrow. Have got everything in place, right where I required it to be. This is the best day of my life.”
I heard this over, right at my seat. Someone was talking on the phone hiding in the passage of the toilet. It was evident the person was very happy but the only person he could share his happiness was not with him. But somehow, I felt, I was there, to be a part of the happiness he had, to be a part of the joy he was overflowing of. I feel feelings are contagious. You see a happy face, you have a happy day. Maybe not the happiest day but you definitely will have a happy moment. You see a sad face and lo!, you just missed a heartbeat. Washroom is an intimate space in its own. It’s the one place where you have your privacy, where you can be your own, whatever you are. The walk down the washroom also is a priced journey. You don’t take a walk to the washroom with any random person. You usually go alone, or you get your closest friend to have a moment, whatever it might be, I leave it to your imagination. In my opinion, it even intimate than meeting at a coffee shop. I have witnessed cribbing, complaints, compliments, match-ups and breakups finalized near the washroom, that’s how precious this place is, except for the obvious reasons.
Tik-Tok, Tik-Tok, Tik,-Tok…
As I said, I don’t spend 8.5hrs of my workhours on work, per-say. Writing is my work anyways, so I do get some liberties in the name of artist’s whim. But I sometimes, even when deeply focused on my computer screen, I hear a familiar footfall and I look up to see a familiar face. Not entirely familiar cause we never spoke, but we both know each other from months of passing glances. I smile unknowingly and on that stern face broke a gentle smile, short but sweet. She had passed from my desk so many times in the past, but this time she makes a small stop. Hesitant, a little involuntary maybe. It was just a few seconds, but sure felt like ages of confusion and shyness. I wanted to help out, but I was restrained myself. Afterall, i knew I couldn’t have a unbiased reaction if I spoke. I knew about her, but I wasn’t supposed to. I was a part of her moments, unknown to her, unauthorized but not illegal. | https://medium.com/@Rahul666/a-seat-near-toilet-33ce80b5e0fe | ['Morrhua Hilar'] | 2019-03-07 12:04:09.501000+00:00 | ['Thoughts', 'Short Story', 'Conversations'] |
Less likely to lie, cheat, and steal | In recent years one mainstream buzzword that seems to get an upper hand in vibrating my eardrums is Self-awareness, and it is for a very good reason.
Researchers suggest that when we see ourselves clearly and become more and more self-aware, we become more confident, focused, and creative. Not only that, but we also make sounder decisions and become less likely to lie, cheat, and steal.
Recent research summarized here revealed some surprising truths about what self-awareness really is and what it takes to improve it. The research suggests that even tho most people think that they are self-aware. Self-awareness is a very rare quality. But, whether we think we have it or not, it is crucial to continue developing it because it is evident that we can not have too much of it and the benefit is tremendously positive and life-changing.
Before beginning to improve Self-awareness, it is important to fully grasp the concept of what it is. that is what I will be explaining in this short note.
What is Self-awareness?
Self-awareness is not just our ability to monitor our inner world. There are some that label it as a brief state of self-consciousness and some others say that it is the difference between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us.
We can try to understand self-awareness by breaking it down into two types.
First, it can represent how clearly we see our own values, passions, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, and behaviors), and the impact we have on others. This type of self-awareness is mostly tied to higher job and relationship successes, general fulfillment as well as strong personal and social control.
The second category is external self-awareness, it measures the ability of an individual to understand how other people perceive their way of being. People who possess this type of self-awareness are more likely skilled at showing empathy and taking others' perspectives.
For leaders who see themselves as their employees do, their employees tend to have a better relationship with them, feel more satisfied with them, and see them as more effective in general.
It’s easy to assume that being high on one type of awareness would mean being high on the other. But the research has found virtually no relationship between them.
The following link is useful for those who want to read further on how to improve this wonderful quality.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90583956/self-awareness-is-key-to-success-here-are-5-ways-you-can-improve-it | https://medium.com/@semosem/less-likely-to-lie-cheat-and-steal-bf645f9a5a08 | ['Sem Gebresilassie', 'Semosem'] | 2020-12-26 21:03:14.506000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Awareness', 'Awakening'] |
You Own Too Many Video Games | You Own Too Many Video Games
It is that time of year again. Black Friday. The time when bargain hunters wake up at five in the morning just so they can get a peek at a television that is on sale for a small fraction of the original price. The time when Fred Meyer puts socks and underwear at the forefront of their store, enticing innocent grandparents to get the stereotypical clothing gift for their little ones.
It’s also the time when digital game shops start putting half of their entire catalogue on sale, leading game hoarders like me to fight against the urge to splurge. Buying several game releases you’ve been waiting on for months is an exhilarating feeling, and it can happen all from the comfort of pajamas and warm blankets.
Before you know it, you look at the front of your Nintendo Switch and see that you’ve bought over a dozen indie gems that you haven’t even bitten into yet, all because you’re still trying to finish that AAA release that takes upwards of 50 hours. Does that mean you shouldn’t have bought those eShop games that were on sale? If you hadn’t, they would have gone back to full price, excluding them from your grasp for another eternity.
How then do you decide what to play when you own too many video games? What are the motivations behind devoting your precious time to one title while another sits lonely, waiting patiently to entertain and impact its player? Here are some tips to decide what to pull off the shelf of your personal library when you have some me-time.
Image by Enisaurus on Dribbble.
Pick up and play
Once you are an adult, gaming becomes a much more difficult hobby to navigate, unfortunately. You know, responsibilities and all that stuff are to blame. That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to enjoy our childhood pastime, though. Even if it’s only for 20 minutes right before bed, it’s satisfying to wind down with an enjoyable title.
Some of the bigger, meatier releases pose a problem on this front. Many games of the current generation are so involved and so deeply narrative-driven that it makes it virtually impossible to pick them up and play for a small chunk of time. Sometimes you need a smaller release to engage in when all else fails.
Here’s where I suggest that if you are a grown-up who is inundated with the boring pleasantries of the working world and the chores of the household, you should go directly to the pick-up and play games in your library. Those retro hits like Super Mario World that require only ten minutes to complete three levels during a lunch break, or an indie stud like Gunman Clive that folds into your pocket on the Nintendo 3DS.
Sure, you want to get to the big release that you bought a couple of weeks ago, but that one can wait until vacation or a much-needed open patch of time in your life. Take what you can get with grab-and-go gaming. It’s like eating a piece of candy in the meantime until the cake arrives. Satisfying still, isn’t it?
What to play? So many games! Source: Shawn Laib.
Avoiding spoilers
Now, I realize waiting to play the enormous launch title you bought for your new PS5 or Xbox Series X has some gigantic drawbacks. Besides the fact that you bought a console possibly just to play that single huge release, you also have to avoid the avalanche of spoilers that fall upon you every time you open social media.
As already mentioned, games are so narrative-driven in modern times that any detail that slips across your eyes could completely ruin your own experience with the game. If you are paranoid about this possibility, then forgo my previous advice about tinkering with a small title. Dig into the one everyone is talking about, and then you’ll be able to add to the conversation instead of waiting on the sidelines, missing out.
Perhaps you bought a sequel to a game that you haven’t even played yet. Better to play the first one so that you can get to work on the next one as soon as possible. I know that my brother played The Last of Us this summer specifically so that he could hop in for the controversial follow-up. So if you see that there is some work to do before getting to the new release, prioritize those older games in your collection to get in on the new fun!
What is the most fun?
Sometimes it’s just as simple as what game you think you will have the most fun with. Not what game others have had the most fun with, and not the game that fits most snugly into your busy schedule.
Choose the game you’ve played every other year since you were a teenager, rekindling that magic you crave from previous times experiencing it. Play the game that your friend recommended to you in the genre that is your absolute favorite, allowing you to dive even deeper into the category that makes you the happiest.
Hobbies are about enjoyment, first and foremost. That same philosophy applies to gaming. Just because The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is considered the GOAT doesn’t mean that you have to keep playing it to the end if you aren’t feeling the same way about it.
Many gamers feel like it is sacrilegious to start and not finish a game, but if there is another title on the shelf you’ve been holding off on, you should probably quit and move on. We as adults don’t have that many hours in the day to play, so make sure whatever you’re playing is the experience that provides the most fun for you. All other reasoning is worthless without that ultimate joy.
Image by Scott Ulliman on Dribbble.
I hope that if you have been struggling to dig through all of your games for which one to enjoy next, these tips helped you even a little bit in your decision making. It is the holiday season, after all, so we should all get a little more time to play. Happy buying and happy gaming. | https://medium.com/super-jump/you-own-too-many-video-games-6a6cad99151f | ['Shawn Laib'] | 2020-11-27 22:41:28.519000+00:00 | ['Features', 'Gaming', 'Culture', 'Digital Life', 'Videogames'] |
Money is a Tool | Daunting.
Starting a business is daunting. There are so many things I don’t know. Some days it feels like there are even more I don’t know I don’t know yet!
What I do know is God called me to start this business. So, I keep saying yes.
I’ve always had ideas for making money. Most have not really produced.
A little over a year ago my husband and I had a hard conversation about finances that started me on a prayer journey with the Lord.
God has been challenging me to dream bigger, way bigger than I can do on my own. He has been challenging me to stretch beyond what I think I can do, beyond what I see myself doing, way beyond the impact I believe I can make.
He gets the credit
There’s none of it He wants me to do on my own and none of it He wants me to take credit for. He wants to build a business and an influence through me.
That makes the task a lot less daunting. When I remember it’s for Him and by His strength I can relax. It’s up to me to obey, not to produce. I have to trust Him enough to do what He says no matter how much it stretches me. The current daunting area of stretching is pricing. This might scare a lot of you off but I firmly believe God has called me to make a lot of money. One of the verses He keeps highlighting to me is:
And thou hast remembered Jehovah thy God, for He it is who is giving to thee power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He hath sworn to thy fathers as at this day. Deuteronomy 8:18 Young’s Literal Translation
He gives me the power to create wealth so He can expand His Kingdom!
Like it or not, we live in a world where money is necessary. I always wished it wasn’t, but it is. Money is a tool. Like any tool how it gets used is determined by whose hand it’s in. I want to always be humble and obedient so money will be a powerful tool for the Kingdom in my hand.
Is there a daunting task God is calling you to let Him do through you?
This is my 17th post in a writing challenge by Janis Cox. She has given 28 prompts. I have committed (being accountable to myself here!) to write for 15 minutes a day on one of her prompts (this one was daunting). I then have 15 minutes to polish and post so there’s not much polishing. As I said in my first post of this challenge it’s getting me back to writing instead of producing. Still, I hope my thoughts are a blessing and you’ll keep reading.
This story is published in Koinonia — stories to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family and fun. | https://medium.com/koinonia/money-is-a-tool-3ddce16ab6a | ['Mukkove Johnson'] | 2019-02-25 22:56:00.737000+00:00 | ['God', 'Money Mindset', 'Faith', 'Christianity', 'Dreamers'] |
Reflection on AMAL TOTKAY | Before going to the reflection I will share some AMAL TOTKAY For Developing A Growth Mindset.
· Self-talk
· Get out of your comfort zone
· Create new habits
· Ask people for help
· Fake it till you make it
All the tips are very good. If someone really practices these tips he/she can do anything in the world. They will always have some particular goals for them .it makes their lives purposeful and happy.
So to live a wonderful life you should know yourself. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses. When you know your weaknesses, try to work on them. To learn more about yourself, you have to come out of your comfort zone. When you try a new thing, you will know more about yourself. So take challenges and give your best to accomplish them. Then again reflect on yourself. J
Among all the tips I really love the idea of come out of your comfort zone and fake it till you make it. In the past both these things kept pressurizing me.
fake it till you make it
Sometimes I wanted to do something but I can’t .i always gave excuses to myself. But now I just thought if it is halal or haram. If it is halal then I will try it no matter what kind of work it is.
When i started doing something new, i found people who are proficient in those things but I was struggling with basics.it puts pressure on me.do I really want to do it or not? Is it good enough? Should I quit? I asked myself such questions. But the idea of fake it till you makes it and Kaizen approach (just change yourself by 1% everyday) removes all my burdens and always gives me a push towards my goals
Now I am trying everything that comes to my mind. Because I feel that this age will never come back. When I die I will be ok if I have a lot of mistakes but I can’t bear if I have a lot of ‘‘IF’s’’ | https://medium.com/@huma-javaid/reflection-on-amal-totkay-5334ac002911 | ['Huma Javaid'] | 2020-12-26 00:33:13.717000+00:00 | ['Growth Mindset', 'Love Yourself', 'Amal Totkay'] |
Should the developer in you care about Unified Platform? | There has been a lot of buzz around unification of services, to provide a single window for end users to work with. But how does this work for a developer, what does this single window look like for the developer? We asked this ourselves when we were building a Unified platform, and these are the services which we believed need to be unified and provided to ensure developers and administrators can optimize their work.
1. Unified UI: As a developer, One of the most important uses of a binary store is to be able to search the repo to pick the right package to be used. Introducing global search, which can help you search across any package, to get details on the downloads, license information, the security issues, and the versions available in the package. The developer friendliness really comes in the keyword based search where you can use keyword based search to dive right into the package you are looking for. Consider a query below:
find all the packages that was uploaded after Feb 1st, and having violation severity high, and having cve: CVE-2019–12 translates to after:2020–02–01 cve:CVE-2019–12 severity: high
2. Unified Configuration: Artifactory by itself came with a lot of configurations to be done. With the unification process, one would expect that the configuration of such a platform will be complex by an order of magnitude. But the reality is that, it is made even more simplified. The secret behind this is consistency, we took one system.yaml which is of the same common structure across all the products in the platform, allowing consistency and re-usability of configuration snippets helping automation of configuration changes. A detailed look a the new and shining system.yaml here
3. Unified Installation: We attempted to make all JFrog products installed similarly to aid developers to automate installations and upgrade across all products, as if it were one product. Of Course there are specific nuances of each product, but the key is that this has led to a lot of commonality across installers leading to more consistency and faster turnaround of fixes. A discuss around this is done very well by Vivek, here
4. Unified Folder structure: Extending the principle of common configuration via system.yaml, we also considered creating a common folder structure for all our products, mainly to allow a clear segregation of immutables and mutables. Very well discussed by eldad here
5. Unified Communication: We also streamlined all the communication across our products and service to allow net-native architecture to be used even in a standard VM based installation, while allowing cloud native services to leverage net-nativeness of the overall architecture. Introducing router service in the new platform helped us to remove redundant code across all products to handle communication, service registrations, SSL services, routing logic, health-check services and meshing of services. More details about this bundled service is here
5. Unified Naming: We took this opportunity to also streamline the names of all the different packages to allow a simplified continuous upgrade to be performed by watching out assets in Bintray. Here is a nice table that may come in handy.
Unified Naming
We at JFrog hope you will love these features as much as we did working on them. Keep those feedback coming! | https://medium.com/@vinsanna/should-the-developer-in-you-care-about-unified-platform-5e601740a669 | ['Prasanna Raghavendra'] | 2020-04-23 14:45:34.417000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Platform'] |
Getting ‘it’: What Brands Can Learn from Red Bull about marketing in eSports | It’s no secret that brands have their hands full when connecting with millennials in today’s hyper-connected and brand-promiscuous social consumer landscape. It’s also not much of a secret that competitive video gaming, most commonly known as eSports, has emerged as a global phenomenon and is all-the-rage with this elusive demographic.
The explosion of video gameplay as entertainment has created an undeniably rich media channel which forward-thinking companies like Red Bull are leveraging with great success. With so few able to capitalize on the eSports opportunity thus far, brands would be wise to take some cues from those who have.
Red Bull recognized the potential of eSports early and has executed more effectively than almost any other brand involved in the space. They are one of the few brands who have been able to foster an authentic connection with millennials through eSports, by showing that real engagement takes more than merely being present. In doing so, they have established their brand as one of the leaders driving eSports toward even greater heights of legitimacy, professionalism, and spectacle; all while creating a lasting and powerful connection with the valuable millennial demographic.
Connecting to the hyper-connected
Red Bull’s sense of profiling and connecting with niche communities, and their knack for connecting their product with the millennial demographic didn’t start with Felix Baumgartner’s breathtaking 24-plus-mile freefall from the edge of space. They are a brand who understands content and “epic moments” storytelling. Red Bull has recognized that by putting their product, which has a true functional benefit into a space where emotion and authenticity are paramount that they can extract results. It’s a simple strategy which has allowed Red Bull to make a name for itself supporting athletes who exist on the fringe of pop culture, and proof-positive that they excel at authentic consumer engagement.
For Red Bull, eSports has been no exception. The energy drink maker has been sponsoring and working with professional video game players since 2006. They clearly understand the media consumption patterns of today’s consumer and execute accordingly knowing that it’s about context-rich experiences first and content second. Most importantly they recognize that it is a marathon, not a sprint getting into the consideration set of their consumers.
While the eSports tidal wave is smashing viewership records, the number of households with cable has fallen. Pacific Crest has estimated a drop in the number of households with cable of over 10% in the past five years. With television and other traditional media consumption at all time lows, gaming has been steadily gnawing at the foothold these channels once had with consumers. There isn’t just more people playing games, there is also tons of people consuming the digital content surrounding it using platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Brands taking a traditional approach to marketing to millennials face additional complexities, drawn from the fact that mobile devices have put a limitless number of distractions into the pockets of nearly everyone in the modern world. Brand messages are muffled amongst the noise of the newsfeed, push notifications, livestreams, and subreddits that consumers engage with daily. Meanwhile, gaming viewership has grown to reach over 188 million viewers. This is almost double the viewership from all of 2014. It is no wonder that brands like Red Bull have invested over $578 million into the space this year alone.
Red Bull and fellow carbonated beverage maker Coca-Cola have demonstrated that a mix of new and old media, informed by a deep understanding of how each fits into the lives of the millennial audience, can successfully push brand objectives in the space. Red Bull’s venture into eSports is wide-reaching with investments into events, teams, broadcast production,training facilities, content creation, and more.
So, why are these brands becoming increasingly interested in making big-time investments into gaming? Well, it’s that we’re witnessing tremendous growth in the space. As of October 2015, the total value of the worldwide eSports market has been pegged at $748 million. Competitive gaming isn’t showing signs of slowing down either, it has been estimated that eSports could generate more than $1.8 billion by 2020. Competitive gaming is on the cusp of becoming a no-brainer for marketers.
Gaming exists at the crossroads between all of the media types the spend-happy millennial consumers engage with the most. Red Bull saw the future, and has been making waves with a passionate community of consumers cheering them on for nearly a decade in the “blue ocean” market space of eSports.
Brands not already involved with the video game industry would be wise to follow in Red Bull’s competitive gaming footsteps. Through eSports, Red Bull has gained access to a considerable audience of passionate, engaged fans and gamers, in a cost-effective method unmatched by traditional channels.
Red Bull’s eSports empire
In June 2006, Red Bull announced their very first eSports athlete sponsorship when they signed Halo legend David “Walshy” Walsh, marking one of their first forays into the world of eSports. A few years later in 2011, Red Bull took their commitment to the next level: organizing their own Red Bull LAN events. The LAN was the perfect test bed for Red Bull events and was a big success, delivering high production and competitive value which helped them grow their brand equity in the community. Red Bull LAN established the framework upon which the energy drink maker built an authentic connection within gaming. Allowing them to reach more eSports fans in order to generate a bigger interest in their brand.
Dave “Walshy” Walsh is a former professional player and current eSports caster for Red Bull.
Encouraged by the success of Red Bull LAN, Red Bull doubled down on their investment, creating a new series of invitation-only events. Red Bull Battle Grounds centered around the biggest eSports game in the world at the time, StarCraft II. Battle Grounds has become one of the most popular eSports events and has given Red Bull brand recognition throughout the entire international eSports community.
Red Bull has become an eSports empire that also happens to sell a beverage, which is a powerful thing. Having come to the realization that marketing to millennials is no longer an ad on a billboard or a spread in a magazine. Cable television, and the commercials it’s lived on for generations, are in decline. Reaching your audience today needs to include a creative multi-channel approach blending great content and authenticity, with community building.
Red Bull is providing great events and great entertainment which is valuable to those inside and outside of the eSports community. In return, they gain value from people who consume that content who then associate the Red Bull brand with the things they love and are fascinated by. Red Bull has been consistent in aligning its brand with sports or activities that exist on the fringe of our cultural awareness, with individuals leading lifestyles most of us aren’t brave enough to live. They arm themselves with the power of our curiosity and passion, while creating amazing events and content around their brand, but never directly about their product, in a way that is so engaging that consumers will spend hours interacting with it.
Two StarCraft players face off at Red Bull LAN
Red Bull’s investment into eSports extends what they’ve done in extreme sports for the past decade: engaging their target audiences through great content, live events, and social media. By staying connected to the community with their fingers constantly on the pulse of competitive gaming, Red Bull has unlocked a world of possibilities for continued engagement from eSports fans. Staying in-touch with the ebb and flow of eSports has allowed them to pivot as needed to maintain their foothold at the forefront of the gaming hivemind.
A great example of their ability to pivot occurred recently when StarCraft II’s popularity started to wane, Red Bull branched out and created a new DOTA2 event under their highly recognizable Battle Grounds brand. As a result, Red Bull was able to remain a conduit for fans to consume new forms of eSports-related entertainment while leveraging the existing Battle Grounds brand to reach an entirely new fanbase.
Red Bull’s position in eSports was fortified by their continued support and drive to remain thought leaders in the space. In recent years, they have been one of the driving forces behind pushing for a more structured environment in eSports, supported by investments in sports-like training for their Red Bull eSports athletes. The Red Bull High Performance eSports lab, which is in development in Santa Monica, is a high-tech training facility offering access to nutritionists, scientists, and new technology designed to help measure, analyze, and train gamers and ultimately enhance their performance much like traditional sports.
The Takeaway
Red Bull’s investment in eSports reveals their factors for success that brands looking to win in eSports would be wise to adopt.
A winning marketing strategy starts with context and authenticity — eSports is an overarching label often tossed around in reference to the entire competitive gaming landscape. However, it is important for brands to understand that there are multiple segments in the eSports space, most often divided by different game titles or genres. The psychographics and persona archetypes of fans and players vary widely across these segments. To be successful, brands need to understand the dynamics of the game, its ecosystem, and the personality of the community archetype. Red Bull has been very successful in identifying the segments it plans to enter and builds relationships authentically based upon them in order to gain access and acceptance from the community, players, and fans. Brands seeking to emulate Red Bull’s approach, and penetrate the eSports market should follow due diligence in identifying the appropriate segment and target messaging which demonstrates an understanding of its unique characteristics.
— eSports is an overarching label often tossed around in reference to the entire competitive gaming landscape. However, it is important for brands to understand that there are multiple segments in the eSports space, most often divided by different game titles or genres. The psychographics and persona archetypes of fans and players vary widely across these segments. To be successful, brands need to understand the dynamics of the game, its ecosystem, and the personality of the community archetype. Red Bull has been very successful in identifying the segments it plans to enter and builds relationships authentically based upon them in order to gain access and acceptance from the community, players, and fans. Brands seeking to emulate Red Bull’s approach, and penetrate the eSports market should follow due diligence in identifying the appropriate segment and target messaging which demonstrates an understanding of its unique characteristics. Use a mix of new and old media — Competitive gaming is inherently digital, but that doesn’t mean that traditional approaches don’t have their place in the marketplace. Red Bull has achieved its success by leveraging a diverse mixture of tactics as part of its overarching strategy. Some of those tactics include leveraging the influencer power of player sponsorship, creating pre-produced and streaming video content, hosting and promoting its own invitational events, and perhaps most powerfully, leveraging the connection between fans and pro players which are unparalleled in traditional sports to create meaningful experiences in eSports. Red Bull has demonstrated that both new and proven strategies can work inside of eSports, and that similar efforts by other brands looking to carve out a presence in eSports can succeed when execution and initiative are matched with authenticity and commitment.
— Competitive gaming is inherently digital, but that doesn’t mean that traditional approaches don’t have their place in the marketplace. Red Bull has achieved its success by leveraging a diverse mixture of tactics as part of its overarching strategy. Some of those tactics include leveraging the influencer power of player sponsorship, creating pre-produced and streaming video content, hosting and promoting its own invitational events, and perhaps most powerfully, leveraging the connection between fans and pro players which are unparalleled in traditional sports to create meaningful experiences in eSports. Red Bull has demonstrated that both new and proven strategies can work inside of eSports, and that similar efforts by other brands looking to carve out a presence in eSports can succeed when execution and initiative are matched with authenticity and commitment. Make a Committment – Red Bull has carved a niche in the eSports arena. Anyone with knowledge of eSports knows and associates their brand with competitiveness, engaging content, and blockbuster events. It wasn’t automatic, and it didn’t happen overnight. Red Bull invested heavily and committed itself to improving the eSports experiences of the various communities it has engaged with. True success in eSports can only come through commitment and sustaining the value that your brand can deliver to the eSports segment it activates with. We’d love to help you get there.
– Red Bull has carved a niche in the eSports arena. Anyone with knowledge of eSports knows and associates their brand with competitiveness, engaging content, and blockbuster events. It wasn’t automatic, and it didn’t happen overnight. Red Bull invested heavily and committed itself to improving the eSports experiences of the various communities it has engaged with. True success in eSports can only come through commitment and sustaining the value that your brand can deliver to the eSports segment it activates with. We’d love to help you get there. Join the Community — eSports are inherently structured around their community of loyal enthusiasts. As such, brands looking to penetrate the eSports marketplace need to be cognizant of the needs and wants of the community and tailor their messaging accordingly. The most successful eSports brands often take to participating in community discussions in an effort to further embed themselves as an authentic, knowledgeable, and reliable pillar that community members can count on. Esports communities, in general, often count some of the most passionate and dedicated gamers among their members. Brands who can reach them most effectively often do so by showing that they too share the same passion for the game as the fans themselves. When such an authentic relationship between a brand and fans is established within these communities engagement becomes automatic. However, efforts that don’t align with the community values will inevitably fail. eSports fans have an uncanny sixth sense for the disingenuous and can tell when enthusiasm is faked. For brands looking to reach the type of success that Red Bull has found in eSports, creating a compelling story which resonates with your eSports audience is critical. Just remember, providing value to the community and staying authentic are the driving force behind reaching competitive gaming enthusiasts.
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”– Wayne Gretzky
eSports is aggressively growing right now, and it is predicted to reach market potential and viewership numbers that rival traditional sports and entertainment over the next few years. It is truly a burgeoning marketplace, and the rules of engagement are certainly still being written. For brands looking to take a page out of Red Bull’s book, and unlock the true marketing potential and strength of eSports — the time to establish yourself as the next big eSports brand is now. | https://medium.com/forward-obsessed/getting-it-what-brands-can-learn-from-red-bull-about-marketing-in-esports-80cde9b94c66 | ['Craig Keller'] | 2018-05-26 04:06:22.676000+00:00 | ['Red Bull', 'Marketing', 'Esports', 'Gaming', 'Brand Strategy'] |
How to Setup a MultiParty 3-of-5 Multisig Wallet Using Electrum | How to Setup a MultiParty 3-of-5 Multisig Wallet Using Electrum ecurrencyhodler Aug 26·6 min read
The purpose of this guide is to show you how to setup a 3-of-5 multisig and how to co-manage it with five different people who live in different geographic locations. This setup could be useful for those running a remote-based Bitcoin business, a family wallet, a Bitcoin pot for a fantasy league, or even your own geographically distributed setup with computers in different locations.
Here are the six things you will need:
Five hardware wallets — This guide will specifically focus on Trezor and Ledger for simplicity’s sake. Zpubs of the hardware wallets. Electrum wallet. Password manager such as 1password. Encrypted chat tool such as Signal or Telegram. A computer.
Hardware wallets
Purchase the hardware wallets
Each person should purchase their own hardware wallet. Make sure to buy them directly from their website or an authorized reseller and get it shipped to a P.O. box or office. Do not ship these to your personal home. It would also be ideal to have hardware wallet diversity meaning three Trezors and two Ledgers or vice versa. Lastly, the Ledger or Trezor models you purchase won’t matter.
P.S. if you’re fairly technical, I would highly recommend Coldcard as well!
Setup the hardware wallets
After each person purchases their own hardware wallet, you all will need to set them up individually. Below are the setup guides for Trezor and Ledger:
Setup guide for Trezor.
Setup guide for Ledger.
Hot Tips:
Make sure no one is around when you set these up. Write down your seedphrase on a piece of paper, preferably on a steel plate and inside a tamper evident bag. Also keep it somewhere safe like a home vault and don’t share them with anyone! Keep the pin # in a password manager so it doesn’t get forgotten. Because the hardware wallet is going to be used with a multisig, it’s not a huge deal if one of them gets compromised. Each member should set their own pin #’s as well.
Grab the Zpubs from the hardware wallets
The next step is that everyone must grab their Zpubs from the hardware wallets using Electrum. A Zpub is a public key expressed in the SLIP-0132 standard. It is NOT a private key so they are safe to share. Here’s a video of the directions below:
Download Electrum from electrum.org/#download, install it, then open it up. Start creating a wallet by giving it a name. Select “multi-signature wallet” Set it to 2 cosigners and 2 required signatures Plug in your hardware wallet device Select “Use a hardware device” (Make sure to be inside the Bitcoin app if you’re using a Ledger. It should say application is ready). Select “native segwit multisig” and copy the derivation path into a password manager. Keeping the derivation path is super important! It should look something like this: m/48’/0’/0’/2’. Then copy the Zpub and then you can click Cancel. The Zpub should look like this: Zpub7547VVDh2UVhSisRLLPhwCvLmqv3rUSQoAxjwVDwVD4mHNYi2QdgzhjDAVodTN3JbgC1fnrsbW82c9uTVpNTkXeX7jc6LnuBgEbBRekJFhA Paste the Zpub and derivation path into an encrypted chat (Signal or Telegram) to the other members of your multisig wallet. A group encrypted chat through Signal would be the most efficient way to do this. Make sure everyone has the same derivation path! If you don’t, you won’t be able to setup the multisig.
Use Electrum to create the multisig wallet
This is also something everyone must do so that all parties can have a copy of the multisig wallet as well as sign with their own hardware wallets. Here’s a video of the directions below:
Open Electrum. Create a new wallet then name it. Select “Multi-signature Wallet”. Then create your wallet with spending the appropriate conditions. For a 3-of-5 multisig wallet, set it to 5 co-signers and 3 required signatures. For the first cosigner, select “Use Hardware Wallet”. Connect your hardware wallet. Make sure “native segwit multisig” is selected and that the derivation path matches the default one Electrum gave you earlier when you grabbed the Zpub (e.g. m/48’/0’/0’/2’). Then click next on the screen that says “Master Public Key” and skip that section as you’ve already shared this with your fellow co-signers. For the second cosigner, select “Enter cosigner key.” Copy and paste one of the Zpubs that was given to you. Click next and select “Enter cosigner key”. Paste the next Zpub. Repeat steps 8–10 until you’re done adding all five Zpubs. Encrypt the wallet with a password and store the password in a password manager so you don’t forget! You should now see a multisig wallet with addresses.
How to send Bitcoin
Your multisig transaction can be performed asynchronously, from different geographic locations, and without a time limit in-between sharing the signed transactions.
Open up the wallet with your password in Electrum. Create a transaction by entering in the Bitcoin address, amount, and fee inside of Electrum. Make sure to enter a fee that is acceptable to everyone. Hit sign transaction in Electrum and then follow the prompts in your hardware wallet. Make sure to verify the amount, the address, and the fee before signing it. Export the signed transaction into a file. Share the file with the second co-signer of the multisig wallet via encrypted chat. This can be any other member of the multisig wallet. The second co-signer downloads the signed transaction file to their desktop. Then they load that file into Electrum by going to Tools > load Transaction. They’ll find the file on their desktop. The second co-signer signs the transaction with their hardware wallet device. Then the second co-signer exports the transaction into a file again and sends it to the third co-signer via encrypted chat. The third co-signer loads the file into Electrum and signs with their hardware wallet. Once Electrum sees three signatures, it will prompt the third co-signer to broadcast the transaction. This person must then click “broadcast.” Everyone deletes the files they shared with one another in the encrypted chats and desktops.
Final considerations
You can connect Electrum to your own full node using Electrum Personal Server.
It is absolutely imperative that everyone writes down the Zpubs and the derivation paths for their hardware wallets. If you ever need to recreate your multisig for any reason, you will need both of these two pieces of information from everyone. If one person fails to provide them, you may never be able to recreate your multisig. So keep the Zpub and derivation paths somewhere safe such as a password manager. But do NOT keep your seedphrase in the password manager.
After you set up the multisig, I would first verify that everyone sees the same Bitcoin addresses in their wallets to check that they were set up properly. Then drop a small amount of Bitcoin (~$50 worth) and see if the transaction shows up in everyone’s wallet. Finally, send a test transaction out of the multisig.
If your hardware wallet ever breaks, you can restore it by purchasing the same device and typing in your seedphrase. When you open Electrum and connect your newly recovered hardware wallet, you should be able to sign transactions like you did before.
If someone has one of their hardware wallets compromised (such as a stolen seedphrase), you must perform a key rotation. Have the person wipe the device and setup a brand new seedphrase for the hardware wallet and run through the guide again. Everyone else must also run through the “Use Electrum to create the multisig wallet” section again because a new Zpub is being introduced to the keyset creating a brand new multisig wallet. The last is to then send bitcoin from the old multisig wallet to the new multisig wallet.
A word of caution
Maintaining a multisig wallet can be difficult. Not only must you stay abreast with firmware updates and figure out whether or not they will break compatibility (for all the hardware wallets and Electrum), you should periodically practice signing transactions without broadcasting them and then delete the transaction file. This will keep the process fresh in your memories and checks to see that the hardware wallet is still functional. Lastly, keep in mind that there is no support team to contact if you run into any issues. However if everyone keeps their seedphrase, derivation paths, and Zpubs written down, you will be well positioned to recover your Bitcoin. | https://medium.com/@ecurrencyhodler/how-to-setup-a-multiparty-3-of-5-multisig-wallet-using-electrum-126835c3da69 | [] | 2021-08-26 14:27:41.248000+00:00 | ['Btc', 'Bitcoin Wallet', 'Bitcoin', 'Multisig'] |
Thessalonica | Thessalonica
Acts 17:1–9
Overview
The material in Acts 17:1–15 is noticeably less circumstantial than the previous material on Philippi, and here we see the return of the familiar theme of preaching in the synagogue followed by acceptance by some Jews and rejection by many. Success with Gentiles leads to jealousy among the rejecting Jews, which in turn leads to persecution of Paul and his coworkers and finally precipitates their moving on to another city. The evidence on a whole suggests that the missionaries moved on when circumstances dictated when they do so. As a result of the persecution by the Jewish rabble rousers in the judicial system, Paul and his coworkers can no longer return without great cost to the church of Thessalonica until the current politarchs are out of office. (Witherington and Pesch) It would seem that Paul passes through Amphipolis and Apollonia because there were no synagogues in these two cities.
Places
Amphipolis- Just north of the Aegean Sea sat Amphipolis, a city of northeastern Macedonia. It was approximately 30 miles (45 km) southwest of Philippi and 5 miles (8 km) inland of the port city Eion. The city was best known for its oil, timber, wine, figs, gold, silver, and woolen textiles. Thracians first founded this site, a strategic military and commercial location, in the 5th century BC. (Bibleplaces.com)
Apollonia- The next day they traveled another 27 miles, farther west-southwest, to “Apollonia.” this is also in Macedonia, and is said to have been formerly a colony of the Corinthians, and about seven miles from the sea; and in that part of Macedonia called Mygdonia, its name is Apollonia of Mygdonia; it was situated by the river Echedorus, and was famous for Augustus Caesar’s learning Greek here, and is now called Ceres. (Pliny and Gill)
Thessalonica- A 35-mile day of travel farther west from Apollonia on the Via Egnatia took them to “Thessalonica” (modern Salonika), situated on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. Thessalonica was the chief city and capital of Macedonia, about 100 miles from Philippi. As such, it was a strategic center for the evangelization of its region (cf. 1 Thess. 1:7- 8) (Constable). Though officially free, Thessalonica was yet another city caught in the emperor’s social network involving patronage and the response of homage and loyalty. Local officials. would be expected to enforce loyalty to Caesar in order to maintain the peace and help the city stay in the good graces of the emperor.(Witherington)
People
Jason- Jason was a common Greek name but was also common among Hellenized Jews, as inscriptions and business documents alike testify. He is probably a Jewish host with whom Paul and Silas stay while working there. As their host (verse 6), Jason is held responsible for their actions and required to post bond for them, as if they were members of his household. Jason is said to be one of seventy disciples, and afterwards bishop of Tarsus, but this is not certain; nor whether he was a Jew or a Greek. This man’s Hebrew name might be Jesus or Joshua, and his Greek name Jason; and very likely he was a believer in Christ before the apostle came to Thessalonica, and he may be the same person who is spoken of in Romans 16:21.(Keener and Gills)
Politarchs- The authorities mentioned in verse 6 are quite properly called politarchs, a designation appropriate to this city. and region, as is attested by inscriptions. There were five of these officials, and their rulings were valid as long as they were in office. (Witherington) One of these is on the still-standing Arch of Galerius over the Egnatian Way, which commemorates Roman victories over the Persians in the late third century A.D. Before the discovery of these inscriptions, critics said Luke erred when he wrote that there were politarchs who ruled in Thessalonica. “Politarch” was a title used only in Macedonia to describe city officials. “Since the term was unknown elsewhere, the critics of Luke once dismissed it as a mark of ignorance. Sixteen epigraphical examples now exist in modern Salonica, and one is located in the British Museum on a stone which once formed part of an archway. It was evidently the Macedonian term. It was Luke’s general practice to use the term in commmonest use in educated circles. Hence he called the officials of Philippi ‘praetors’, and an inscription has similarly established the fact that this was a courtesy title given to the magistrates of a Roman colony.” (Constable and Blaiklock)
Background
Riots and Mob- The idle unemployed of the marketplace could be stirred to mob action, as other ancient examples attest. Jewish inhabitants were a small minority in Thessalonica, so those Jews whom Paul did not persuade (verse 4) would need help to oppose Paul effectively. (Keener)
City Assembly- δῆμος (dēmos) The city assembly of its citizens had juridical functions in a free city and it would have been competent to deal with charges brought against Paul and Silas. (Witherington)
Charges- There are basically 2 accusations made: (1) Paul and his coworkers are itinerant troublemakers who were upsetting things here and elsewhere in the Empire; (2) they have acted contrary to the decrees δόγμα (dogma) of the emperor by saying there was another king, named Jesus. The latter was the more serious charge. (Witherington) Romans could understand proclaiming another king as treason against the majesty of the emperor; they could take mention of signs indicating this new ruler’s coming as predictions of the current emperor’s demise, and such predictions violated imperial edicts. That Jesus had been crucified on the charge of sedition only lent further credibility to the charge against Paul and his associates. Citizens who pledged loyalty to Caesar also pledged to report any report any possible treason. (Keener)
Three Sabbath days- Paul reasoned with them out of the Old Testament, and this he did three weeks running, going to their synagogue every Sabbath day, when and where the Jews met for worship; and made use of books, which they allowed of, and of arguments they could not disprove. (Gills)
Key Ideas
Paul’s argument- Verse 3 reveals what Paul sought to prove by his arguments. The form of the argument is that of the enthymeme, the verbal form of syllogism- a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given propositions, each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion. Luke intends to show that Paul did not just appeal to the emotions but presented reasonable arguments for his claims about Christ . The argument is as follows: (1) the Messiah must suffer and rise again as the proper interpretation of the scriptures prove, (2) Jesus died on the cross and rose again (as Paul and various eyewitnesses would attest), (3) therefore, this Jesus that Paul is proclaiming must be the Messiah. The art of persuasion worked not least because Paul had based his proof on a source that both he and the audience recognized as authoritative — the scriptures — but also because he appealed to them as people of intelligence who could discern the truth if the case was laid before them in good logical fashion. (Witherington)
Jewish uproar- “’Those,’ they said, ‘who are upsetting the civilized world have arrived here.’ That is one of the greatest compliments which has ever been paid to Christianity. . . . When Christianity really goes into action it must cause a revolution both in the life of the individual and in the life of society.” (Constable and Barclay)
Possible Discussion Points
There might be times where our faithfulness to what God has called us to can stir up trouble for others, as was the case with Paul and Jason. In this scenario we need to make sure we are true to God first and not operating out of a people pleasing mentality. Has your ministry negatively affected any other Christians? And if so, is there any reconciliation needed?
Paul “explained and proved” the Gospel in his passage. Many Christians can tell their story and share the Gospel through narrative, but can you explain the Gospel and prove the truthfulness of it to someone?
These men were said to be turning the world upside down. Are we laboring and striving in our ministry with the same energy and power that others might say we are trying to turn the world upside down?
Noteworthy
Apologetics- This took place around 20 years after Jesus’ death and he is already making arguments about Jesus’ death. If his death was a lie, then these claims wouldn’t have stood up so close to the actual event of his death and resurrection. The eye witnesses would have refuted these advances and Paul’s ministry would have been a joke. | https://medium.com/acts-study-guide/thessalonica-ff275c081002 | ['Underground Network'] | 2017-03-17 19:35:16.688000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Jesus'] |
Sigappu Rojakkal — 50 Tamil Movies to watch before you Die — 18 | Bharathiraja doesn’t like criticisms. But, when the media rubbed him in the wrong side early in his career, he answered in the way he could. So what was the criticism? His first two movies (16 Vayadhinile, Kizhakke Pogum Rail) were village-based, and he was branded as a director who can only give rurally based movies. Sigappu Rojakkal was an act of revenge that he took on his critics and it became another trendsetter.
Sigappu Rojakkal (1978)
Sigappu Rojakkal is a thriller with Kamal Hassan and Sridevi in the lead with an unknown (at that time) supporting cast of Bhagyaraj, Vadivukkarasi, etc., Ilaiyaraaja scored the movie’s music with the cinematography of PS Nivas. The film was written and directed by Bharathiraja.
Sigappu Rojakkal is about a young man Dileep (Kamal) who kills women in the city after seducing them. He buries them in his bungalow garden below rose bushes with the help of his stepfather and a loyal servant. He falls in love with Sarada (Sridevi), who is a poor girl trying to live her life by working as a sales girl in a textile shop. Much against his wishes of his stepfather, he marries her. When she enters the bungalow, strange things happen and slowly she uncovers the truth about her husband. Sarada realises that Dileep is a victim of child abuse by various women and had transformed into a psychopathic killer. In the end, he tries to kill Sarada as she finds the truth but ends up in a mental asylum after a freak encounter with police.
Why is it so special?
Sigappu Rojakkal is the first psychopath murderer story of Tamil movies and one of the best thrillers to have been made in Tamil cinema. Wonderfully crafted writing in which both the lead characters had the space to showcase their talent. Kamal as Dileep — a charming businessman with the other side showed why he is gonna become the benchmark for actors in the future — the “nothing scene” is one instance whereas Sridevi as the innocent Sarada steals your heart and you just want her to escape from the clutches of Dileep. Ilaiyaraaja was in the second year of his career. If the songs like Ninaivo Oru Paravai and Miniminikku were classics, the background score was brilliant. The Dileep theme gives you a mixed feeling of sympathy and eeriness to the situations. The final scenes were his forte where he runs riot with his western classical based score. The reason why I am reiterating the fact that it’s one of the well-written movies is that because the movie is an open-ended thriller. The audience knows that the hero is the killer and he may attempt to kill the heroine. The reason for the murders is unknown, and the suspense is sustained throughout the movie. You are compelled to see the other side of the killer and be sympathetic to it. The screenplay is deft, but there are a few tiny mistakes in the movie, but the wonderful casting and direction overcome them.
The “Nothing” scene of Sigappu Rojakkal
Why is it on the list?
For the sheer guts of Bharthiraaja, who had an anti-hero as his lead protagonist and pulled off such performances from the lead actors. A trendsetter — gave the confidence to other directors to move from their comfort zones and make different movies. I think any psychopathic story can’t go without the shades of Sigappu Rojakkal. The first original thriller in Tamil Cinema as all the previous attempts were based on Hollywood flicks.
Trivia
Bharathiraaja never knew how to write English dialogues for this movie, and he had to pull off some English words which he hears in daily life (told by him during a promo program for Nadunisi Naaygal) The movie was initially offered to Sivakumar (!!!), but he refused the role as it would not suit him. (Anecdote from Idhu Rajapaattai Alla — an autobiography by Sivakumar) The movie was remade as “Red Rose (1980)” in Hindi with Rajesh Khanna and Poonam Dhillon. Although critically acclaimed, the movie was a box office loss. Bharathiraaja is probably will be the director who introduced the most number of lead actors and actresses to Tamil cinema. The list includes the “R” actresses — Revathi, Radhika, Radha, Ranjita, Rekha, Riya Sen, Rati Agnihotri, Rohini and other beautiful actors like Napolean, Raja, Suganya, Bhagyaraj, Goundamani and Vijayashanti.The famed assistant directors from Bharathiraja became successful directors. The people who started their career with Bharathiraja include Bhagyaraj, Manivannan and Manobala. A strong supporter of Tamil Eelam cause, Bharathiraja returned his Padmashree in order to show his protest against the inaction by the govt. Vadivukkarasi was born in Ranipettai, Vellore. Although she is a daughter of a farmer,, Shanmugam, her family had cinema connections. Her father Shanmugam did tiny roles in many Devar Films movies of MGR and her uncle was AP Nagarajan. Due to the loss in farming and AP Nagarajan’s death, the family moved to Chennai and Vadivukkarasi had to give up her studies to work. She worked as an occasional presenter in Kanmani Poonga in Doordarshan and also worked in maintenance supervisor in Taj Connemara. She auditioned for the role of Radhika in Kizhakke Pogum Rail (1978) but was rejected because of her stylish looks and tall stature. Bharathiraaja had her in his mind and wanted her to play the small role of receptionist in Sigappu Rojakkal. She reminisces in an interview that she didn’t inform her family about the movie (as they wouldn’t approve) and was thrashed by her father when he knew about it. But the small role catapulted her into fame and she had many offers including the lead role in Kanni Paruvathile (1979). She was never concerned about playing the lead so she played interesting roles in movies like Metti (1982), Nizhal Thedum Nenjangal (1982) and Bhagavathipuram Railway Gate (1983). The pinnacle of her performance came in Mudhal Mariyathai, in which she acted as the wife of Sivaji Ganesan. She was just 26 when she played almost a 50 year old. But this made people to cast her in old roles but she shined in vile, negative roles than any other actress of her times. Her best roles include Varusham Padhinaaru (1989), En Uyir Thozhan (1990) and Sundara Purushan (1996) etc., Vadivukkarasi continued to act in many movies as mother and grand mother but also shined in TV serials. Her best role of her career became unlucky one too as they never gave her a chance to do younger roles. Bonus Trivia: She was named as Vadivukkarasi after Vadivukku Valaikappu, the first movie of AP Nagarajan as director. [5] Ninaivo Oru Paravai was the first song rendered by Kamal Hassan for Ilaiyaraaja. The same day he recorded Paneer Pushpangale (Aval Appadithan). In fact, the first hit song for Kamal as a singer. He already had sung a song in Tamil (Nyayaru Oli Mazhayil, in Andharangam) and couple of songs in Malayalam. Bhagyaraj wrote the dialogues for the movie but he hasn't been credited in the movie. It was a bit of possessiveness of Bhagyaraj that triggered the rift between him and Bharathiraja. There was a new Asst.Director Ramu, who took up Bhagyaraj’s place when he left for a small holiday. Bhagyaraj was miffed that Bharathiraja got closer to Ramu in a short period and left the sets of the shoot. KRG (producer and friend), convinced both and Bhagyaraj continued to work in the movie. But Ramu made sure his name wasn’t there in the final credits. Bhagyaraj was dejected by the entire episode and left the crew. But later, he was convinced by mutual friends and worked in the screenplay of Puthiya Vaarpugal and Bharathiraja made him the hero of the movie. [2] Ilaiyaraaja has recalled that it took only 4 call sheets (or recording time periods) to score the original soundtrack for the movie. He had used only 5 musicians for the first 3 and used only 12 Violins and 2 Cellos for the last one. When Bharathiraja remade the movie as Red Rose in Hindi, he opted for RD Burman. RD Burman was baffled by the score created by Ilaiyaraaja and he asked how he did it. The Hindi producers wanted to use some tracks from the Tamil movie but Ilaiyaraaja refused to provide the tracks because he wasn’t happy that Bharathiraja chose to go with RD Burman instead of him. [3] Ananda Vikatan gave a whopping 53/100 for the movie and called it an Hollywood Thriller in Tamil. [4] One of the promotional posters of the movie was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho’s promotional poster
Sigappu Rojakkal Promotion Poster Inspired by Psycho.
Read the entire list from this link
https://medium.com/sylvianism/50tamilmovies/home
References | https://medium.com/sylvianism/sigappu-rojakkal-50-tamil-movies-to-watch-before-you-die-18-40b6762eaaf7 | ['Sylvian Patrick'] | 2019-12-11 13:49:17.726000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Kamal Hassan', '50 Best Tamil Movies', 'Best Tamil Movies', 'Tamil Movies'] |
Uplift Modeling: A Quick Introduction | It may seem like the project was a success but how do you know if the outbound call campaign caused the customer to convert? It could just be cherry picking easy wins.
In other words, all the propensity model did was gather the leads that were most likely going to convert to sales. It did not separate the customers who were already going to purchase from the customers that needed the outbound call to be persuaded.
Welcome to the world of uplift modeling — a bridge between causal inference and machine learning. What the case study above forgot to consider is persuasion, incrementality, or the true effect of the outbound lead campaign.
Uplift Modeling
So how does uplift modeling work?
The propensity to purchase model, highlighted in the last section, uses machine learning to answer the question:
“How likely is the customer going to purchase in the future?”
Uplift modeling improves on that by answering more important questions:
“Did my advertising cause the customer to purchase from me?”
“Did I waste money advertising to customers who were already going to purchase from me?”
Did my advertising make the probability of someone purchasing worse (negative impact)?
In other words, the classic propensity model (and most machine learning algorithms) predict target (y) given features (x). Uplift looks to solve for the impact of treatment (t) on target (y) given features (x).
Uplift modeling is often explained by using four customer segments (Siegel 2011):
1. People who will purchase no matter what (sure things)
2. People who will purchase only if they are exposed to an advertisement (persuadables)
3. People who will not purchase no matter what (lost causes)
4. People who will not purchase if they are exposed to an advertisement (sleeping dogs)
A propensity model adds value by helping you avoid lost causes. Uplift modeling improves the targeting even further by focusing on only the customers who are in the persuadables segment.
Common Applications
How can this be applied to any business unit or industry?
Political Campaigns:
Uplift modeling has been used to identify and target voters who are on the fence (Stedman 2013). By leveraging uplift models, a political marketing campaign can avoid people who are dead set on their party and instead only focus on persuadables.
A New Health Treatment:
Rather than just evaluating the results to the whole treatment group vs control group uplift modeling can help understand how treatments might impact certain groups differently. Also, by how much those impacts differ.
Perhaps the treatment has a large positive impact to people who are age 50+ and have underlying health conditions, but has a small impact to people who are under 50 and healthy.
Lead Optimization: (this should sound familiar)
A company has a lead database but they generate more leads than can be worked and a lot of the leads are a waste of time — currently agents can work the leads in any order they choose.
Cross-Sell:
A company wants to run a cross-sell campaign and the assumption is they don’t want to cross-sell to their entire customer base because budget is limited and some people may not need or want the other products.
Retention:
A company wants to reach out to customers who are about to churn and save them. The company wants to prevent further upsetting customers when reaching out and to only focus on high risk savable customers.
User Experience Testing:
A company wants to understand if a change to their website or app caused the intended result.
Commonly Used Techniques
In a quickly evolving space I feel like techniques can currently be bucketed into three pillars.
Traditional Propensity Model
This is actually not an uplift model but needs to be included because it is the classic approach to the uplift problem. The algorithm will typically be a classifier like logistic regression. These algorithms can output a probability 0 to 1 that can be used to sort the audience. Then a threshold can be selected (perhaps .70 probability or greater) as the cutoff for those who should be treated.
Direct Uplift Models
This pillar represents techniques and algorithms that allow you to directly model treatment effects. It requires the algorithm like random forest to be completely redesigned to feature select, hyper parameter tune, and fit to solve for the impact of (t) on (y) given (x). Typical algorithms found in a package like Scikit-learn cannot do that. You can implement uplift trees with the package Uplift for R and CausalML for Python.
Meta-Learners
The final pillar represents techniques and algorithms that can be used to model uplift but use some sort of shortcut to get to a proxy for uplift. The proxy approaches tend to be useful in most applications and these shortcuts usually provide benefits in speed and/or simplicity.
There seems to be many techniques so the list below is by no means comprehensive. There also seems to be different ways to implement each of these techniques depending on where you go.
Current Challenges with Uplift Modeling
Why Uplift modeling can be tricky.
The ground truth labels aren’t available unless the data is synthetic.
In machine learning, you usually have features (inputs to help with a prediction) and the ground truth labels (the target to predict).
In uplift modeling, the ground truth is never available because an individual cannot both see and not see the advertisement. Causal inference simulates the scenario that didn’t happen so then it is possible to estimate the ground truth labels and treat it as a machine learning problem.
Because the ground truth labels are not available, this makes measurement and validation a little less straightforward. Typically, you can see how the model is performing by comparing the predictions to actual. In uplift modeling, you see how the model is performing by comparing to an estimated actual.
Generating synthetic data for validation has an advantage in that it can be constructed to have both scenarios simulated. That way different techniques can be more cleanly evaluated to select a winner. However, the synthetic data probably will never perfectly reflect the real world data you want to uplift model on.
2. Highly optimized packages like Scikit-learn are not set up to solve for uplift.
As previously mentioned, machine learning algorithms are set up to predict target (y) given features (x). Direct modeling requires both the algorithm and the entire machine learning pipeline to be adapted. Feature selection, model selection, hyper parameter tuning, and fitting with an optimized package like Scikit-learn is not straightforward.
Currently, (at the time of writing) direct methods are available but are slow even on small datasets.
3. The names of things and techniques are unorganized with no consensus.
To prove the point, even the name of uplift modeling changes depending on where you look:
Estimating heterogeneous treatment effects (Example)
Incremental response modeling (Example)
Net scoring (Example)
True response modeling (Example)
Based on my own research, I am unsure if there is a comprehensive list of the techniques or a consensus on how to implement each technique.
Resources
Relisting my own collection, then also other links that are noteworthy.
This is the first article in an Uplift Modeling Collection.
A Quick Uplift Modeling Introduction Applied Uplift Modeling Example with Python (coming soon) Lead Optimization Example with Uplift Modeling (coming soon) Comparison of Different Uplift Packages (coming soon) 5 Tips for Uplift Modeling (coming soon) End-to-End Uplift Modeling Project (coming soon)
Recommended Packages:
CasualML: Uplift Modeling Python Package by Uber
Pylift Uplift Meta-learner Python Package
R Uplift Package
Opossum: a Python package to create synthetic uplift datasets
References:
Fei, G. (2019, October 29). Modeling Uplift Directly: Uplift Decision Tree with KL Divergence and Euclidean Distance as Splitting Criteria.
Gutierrez, P. & Gerardy, J. (2016). Causal Inference and Uplift Modeling A review of the literature. JMLR: Workshop and Conference Proceedings 67:1–13
Künzel S., Sekhon J., Bickel P., and Yu B. (2019) Metalearners for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(10):4156–4165
Michel René, Schnakenburg, I., & Martens, T. von. (2019). Targeting Uplift: An Introduction to Net Scores. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Siegel, E. (2011, October 19). Persuasion by the Numbers: Optimize Marketing Influence by Predicting It.
Stedman, C. (2013, November 11). How uplift modeling helped Obama’s campaign — and can aid marketers — Machine Learning Times — machine learning & data science news.
Yi, R., & Frost, W. (2019, February 7). Pylift: A Fast Python Package for Uplift Modeling. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-quick-uplift-modeling-introduction-6e14de32bfe0 | [] | 2020-06-30 18:15:27.635000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Machine Learning', 'Analytics', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Building AI autopilots for engineering systems | Building AI autopilots for engineering systems
Joint work with the Huawei Paris Noah’s Ark team: Merwan Barlier, Igor Colin, Ludovic Dos Santos, Gabriel Hurtado, Cedric Malherbe, and Albert Thomas.
What do we aim for?
Our objective is to develop reinforcement learning autopilots which can be deployed by systems engineers within weeks of setting up the project.
We will make the systems better, cheaper, more reliable, safer, and more energy efficient.
Currently we are working on the cooling system of data centers and the systems that manage the connections in the wireless antenna or your local Wifi network, but the applications of the technology are countless: given that engineering systems are the backbone of most of industry and transportation, making AI useful in this domain is a multi-trillion dollar endeavor.
The control view: systems and agents
The abstraction of a controlled engineering system contains a system (plane) and an engineer (pilot). The system provides observables (instrument readouts) and performance metrics (aka rewards: e.g., speed, consumption, safety alarms) at each discrete timestep, while the engineer steers the system using control actions, attempting to optimize the metrics or to keep them within limits.
The abstraction of a controlled engineering system: system = plane, engineer = pilot.
The goal of reinforcement learning is to mimic the engineer, leading to an autopilot.
More precisely, we learn the policy that maps the observable and reward sequence to optimized control actions, using historical system logs (traces) and/or by interacting with the system.
Why offline/batch reinforcement learning (RL)?
You may ask: why don’t we just use the beautiful RL algorithms that, among others, helped to beat the Go world champion in 2016? The answer is simple: these algorithms need to interact with the system over millions or billions of time steps while losing a lot of times during learning. Engineering systems are tightly controlled by systems engineers whose responsibility is to run them safely. They rarely allow the data scientist to directly experiment with the system.
This means that we need to learn a good control policy based on small offline data and iterate with systems engineers slowly.
Below is the offline RL loop embedded into a typical project management process.
The “iterated” offline or batch RL loop embedded into a project management framework. The red arrows are data flow (“in the computer”), the purple arrows are project management steps that the human participants take.
The process iterates the following steps:
The systems engineer, logs the trace of (action, observable, reward) tuple (besides doing her work of controlling the system). She sends the data set to the data scientist. He designs a controller based on the collected data with the goal of improving the system (mean reward). She executes the policy, logs the trace again and sends it back to the data scientist.
Policy validation and data taking is slow: it may take weeks to months to iterate once. This puts our setup somewhere between offline and online RL: we can call it slowly growing batch RL or slow iterated offline RL.
Why micro-data RL?
Physical systems are slow and are not getting faster with time (unlike computers). We often need to start with a static system log containing a couple of hundreds or thousands of time steps, and we are not allowed to hot test a new policy on a data center cooling system before the systems engineer is certain that it is safe. Micro-data RL is the term for using RL on systems where the main bottleneck or source of cost is access to data (as opposed to, for example, computational power). The term was introduced in robotics research. This regime requires performance metrics that put as much emphasis on sample complexity (learning speed with respect to sample size) as on asymptotic performance, and algorithms that are designed to make efficient use of small data.
Model-based RL (MBRL), model-free RL (MFRL), and contextual bandits (CB)
The goal of RL is to learn a control policy. Offline MFRL does this in a single shot on the collected offline data set. In MBRL we first learn a model of the environment, essentially a multi-variate time-series predictor, forecasting the evolution of the system given its history of observables and control actions. We can then use this model, often in the form of a simulator, to learn the control policy. Aircraft simulators have been used to train pilots. The idea is the same here except that we do not have a physical model so we learn it from data.
The model-based iterated offline RL loop, embedded into a project management framework. The red arrows are data flow (“in the computer”), the purple arrows are project management steps that the human participants take.
We have reasons to explore both model-free and model-based approaches.
Why MFRL?
MFRL seems to achieve better asymptotic performance. MFRL is better researched and the existing algorithms can serve as strong baselines. We need to plan on the model learned in MBRL, and these planners are essentially MFRL algorithms.
Why MBRL?
It is considered the best approach for the micro-data regime. A common argument for the supremacy of model-free RL over model-based RL is that we waste predictive power on predicting all system observables, not only those that matter for optimizing the return. But variables in a system log are usually crafted to aid the systems engineer, so they are arguably all relevant for optimizing the policy. System models (simulators) are useful on their own. First, they can be validated by the systems engineer. She will trust an opaquely learned controller much less than a controller learned and demonstrated on a simulator which she can check against her experience on how the system works. Second, they can serve for consistency check and predictive maintenance. When the system does not respond according to the model, we can set up an alarm to wake up the systems engineer. Third, they can be used to validate policies learned offline.
A probabilistic system model and simulations of multiple futures. Red: past, black: (unknown) ground truth future, orange: simulated alternative futures.
Why contextual bandits?
One of the alleviating attributes of engineering systems (versus, for example, games or even robots) is that most of the time we receive rewards at every time step, and the effect of an action has little delay. In some circumstances, it is even possible to control these systems using bandits which optimize the immediate reward. The goal of a policy is then to find the action leading to the largest reward, without caring about the future. Bandits are essentially model-free, but models learned on held-out traces can be used to validate the policies.
Research themes
Models for dynamic systems
This theme covers the questions around dynamic system models, which are essentially multi-variate time series predictors, learned on non-iid and nonstationary system traces.
Which models to choose and based on what criteria?
In this blog post (summarizing this paper) we compare generative models in a rigorous experimental setup by fixing the planning agent to random shooting and compare the most popular generative models using two dynamical metrics, four metrics evaluated on static traces, and seven requirements which practicing data scientist may find important. We establish a new state-of-the-art sample complexity on the well-known Acrobot system, and declare deep autoregressive mixture density nets (DARMDN) the most preferable model for their ability to model multivariate and heteroscedastic posterior predictives, and for their robustness and flexibility to model heterogeneous system observables. On noisy systems, separating epistemic and aleatory uncertainties is considered a good practice. Can we verify this? What are the best approaches to do it and what is the experimental framework in which the different approaches can be compared? What are the best environments to use in the experiments? Heteroscedasticity at training time proved to be crucial in this paper. Why? The objective is to reproduce the phenomenon on the smallest toy system possible and study it both experimentally and theoretically. In noisy engineering systems it happens that the control action has little effect on the reward, compared to the effect of the state or context. Learning a joint model sometimes “shadows” the effect of the action which is detrimental to learning a good control agent. Finding this (unbiased) action sensitivity of the reward explicitly in the system modelling phase is thus crucial, leading to questions similar to experimental design, causal learning and learning treatment effects in healthcare. On complex systems constructing the summary of the history (the context) may be nontrivial. Using prior knowledge obtained from the systems engineer is one direction, using attention-type neural architectures is another. In our setup, we have to learn new models for each new feedback from the real system. Instead of doing it from scratch, it can be interesting to leverage transfer learning techniques to ensure an easier and smoother training process. One of the side effects of learning a system model is that we can check the behavior of the system against the model. If there is a discrepancy, we can act, for example, by triggering a maintenance action or alerting the systems engineer. We can design both on-line checks, “fear reactions” of the autopilot, and off-line data checks, inserted in the slow offline RL iteration.
Model-free RL
Model-free RL algorithms can be either used in the offline RL loop as standalone approaches, or in the model-based RL loop as planning agents.
Which are the best model-free RL algorithms, especially in terms of sample complexity, crucial in the micro-data regime? Which are the best contextual bandit algorithms? Once we learn a system model, the control agent can be trained on the simulator using any model-free RL or CB technique. Of course, the performance of this controller will depend not only on the model-free RL/CB technique but also on how well the simulator mimics the real system. The questions around this theme are: i) Which model-free or planning agents to choose?, ii) How to incorporate robustness to covariate shift due to offline learning the model into learning the model-free control agent on the model? iii) What are the criteria to choose the planning agent in the iterated offline MBRL/CB setup? How to explore? Pure offline RL has no notion of exploration, but in our slow iterated offline setup exploration is a crucial.
Safety
One of the crucial issues on engineering systems is that we are not allowed to break them either when we learn or when we deploy the learned policy. In some cases there exist good first-principle (physical) simulators or test systems equipped with a “red button”, in which case safety is a lesser issue at learning time.
How to formulate and enforce safety when learning and when deploying the learned agent? Even with well-formulated safety metrics, we end up with a bi-objective problem. How compare different policies that represent different operating points on the safety/reward plane? What are the best algorithms to set the desired safety level flexibly. How to add safety to the exploration policy, so the systems engineer can limit the number of safety violations while gathering as much information as possible?
Multi-agent control
It happens often that the system does not exist in isolation, rather it has multiple copies, either interacting or not. The most well-known example is the self-driven car, but we also have spatially distributed and connected systems in telecommunications.
When we collect data from multiple non-interacting systems, sharing their experience is a great way to accelerate learning. In case the systems are built one by one, transferring the learned model from one system to another, perhaps parameterized differently, is the principal challenge. In a connected network of interacting systems, we may use both experience sharing and transfer, but we also need to take into consideration the interaction between the systems and the control agents when we design the RL or CB algorithm. When dealing with multiple systems, we also need to deal with multiple rewards. One way to adapt any technique to this setting is to optimize the average of these rewards. This may lead to overly focusing on some systems while ignoring others. One could instead focus on optimizing the rewards in a fair way, and improve the policies on most of the systems.
Policy evaluation and AutoML
Policy evaluation is a critical point in the iterated offline RL loop. It is needed for selecting the best algorithms and to tune the models. Our ultimate goal is not only automating the pilot, but also automating the process that learns the autopilot. As an intermediate step we aim at providing easy-to-use tools to the systems engineers so they can debug and develop both system models and control agents. | https://medium.com/@balazskegl/building-autopilots-for-engineering-systems-using-ai-86a4f312c1f2 | ['Balázs Kégl'] | 2021-01-10 21:33:44.504000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'AI', 'Control'] |
Top 5 Data Analysis Methods You Need to Know | In data analysis, data analytical thinking is a framework-based guide. When analyzing problems, we need a lot of skills and tools. Just like in secondary school, you may solve the quadratic equation with the formula method, completing square, extraction of the square root, or the factorization method. There are also techniques in data analysis that we can use in some common analysis scenarios. And they can be helpful in building data analysis models in the future.
In this article, we will share five common data analysis methods: the formula method, the comparison method, the quadrant method, the 80/20 rule, and the funnel analysis. We often use them in combination.
Note: These methods are mainly biased towards the thinking level and are an exploratory analysis of data based on business problems. They are different from the data processing methods in professional statistics.
1. Formula Method
The so-called formula method uses the formula to decompose the influencing factors for a certain index.
Example: Analyze the reasons for the low sales of a product, using the formula method.
Product sales = sales volume * unit price
Sales volume = channel A sales volume + channel B sales volume + channel C sales volume + …
Channel sales volume = number of users * order rate
Number of users = exposure * clicks ratio
Step 1: Find the influencing factors of product sales. Is the sales volume too low or the price setting unreasonable?
Step 2: Find the factors that influence the sales volume. Analyze the sales volume of each channel. Compare it with the previous sales to find out the abnormal ones.
Step 3: Analyze the factors that affect channel sales. Is the number of users or the order rate low? If the order rate is low, it is necessary to see if the advertising content of the channel matches the actual audience of the product.
Step 4: Analyze the factors that affect clicks. Is the exposure not enough or the ratio of the clicks too low? If the ratio of the clicks is low, you need to optimize campaigns. And the exposure is related to the channel.
For that, the formula method is a hierarchical analysis of the problem. It decomposes the influencing factors step by step.
2. Comparison Method
The comparison method is to compare two or more sets of data, which is the most common method in data analysis.
We know that isolated data is meaningless and we see differences through comparison. People compare some variables that directly describe things, such as the length, number, height, width, and so on, to get the ratio, growth rate, efficiency, and other indicators.
The comparison method can find the law of data change. The following figure shows the sales comparison of Company A and Company B. Although the sales of Company A have generally increased and are higher than that of Company B, the growth rate of Company B is higher than that of Company A. Even if the late growth rate of Company B declines, the final sales catch up.
3. Quadrant Method
By dividing two or more dimensions, we use the coordinates to express the value, which is the quadrant method. The quadrant method is based on strategy-driven thinking. We often use it in product analysis, market analysis, customer management, and commodity management.
For example, the following image is a four-quadrant distribution of ad clicks.
If an ad gets high conversion rate (CVR) and high click-through rate (CTR), it means that its target audience is relatively accurate.
If CTR is high and CVR is low, it means that most of the people who clicked in were attracted by the ad itself. The low CVR indicates that the people that the ad is targeting don’t match the actual audience of the product.
A high CVR and low CTR indicate that the audience of the ad and the actual audience of the product are more consistent. The problem is that the content of the ad needs to be optimized to attract more people to click.
And we can abandon the ads with low CVR and low CTR.
Using the quadrant method to analyze events with the same characteristics, you can find the common cause of the problem. In the above advertising case, observing events in the first quadrant, you can summarize effective promotion channels and strategies. The third and fourth quadrants can exclude some invalid promotion channels. At the same time, you can establish optimization strategies for different quadrants.
4. 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto Principle. It was named after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. He noticed that 80 percent of the wealth of Italy during that time was controlled by 20 percent of the population. In data analysis, we can understand that 20% of the data produce 80% of the effect. We need to mine this 20% of data.
It is often related to the ranking and the top 20% are considered valid data. The 80/20 rule analyzes the key parts and applies to any industry. Find the key points, discover their characteristics, and then think about how to make the remaining 80% convert to this 20% to improve the effect.
Typically, it will be used in product classification to measure and build the ABC model. For example, if a retail enterprise has 500 SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit), then which SKUs are important? This is the problem of distinguishing the primary and secondary parts in business operation.
It is common practice to use the product’s SKU as a dimension and use the corresponding sales as a base metric to rank these sales metrics and calculate the percentage of the cumulative sales of each SKU in total sales. For example, we can divide them into 3 classes: Class A (<70%), Class B (70%-90%) and Class C (90%-100%). You can adjust the percentages according to your actual situation.
The ABC analysis model can be used not only to divide products and sales, but also to divide customers and profits. For example, which customers contribute 80% of the profits to the company? If this part of the customer accounts for 20%, then with limited resources, you know to focus on maintaining this 20% of customers.
5. Funnel Analysis
A funnel analysis is a funnel chart, a bit like an inverted pyramid. It’s a streamlined way of thinking. We often use it in the analysis with changes and certain processes like the development of new users, shopping conversion rate, and so on.
The picture above is a classic marketing funnel that shows the whole process from the acquisition of users to the final conversion into the purchase. The funnel model splits the entire purchase process into steps. Then it uses the conversion rate to measure the performance of each step, and finally finds the step with problems through the abnormal data indicators. In this way, we can optimize the step to improve the conversion rate of the overall purchase.
The core concept of the funnel model can be classified as decomposition and quantification. For example, to analyze the conversion of e-commerce, all we have to do is monitor the conversion of users at each level and find the optimizable points for each level. For the users who are not following the process, we specifically build their conversion model and shorten the path to enhance the user experience. However, a single funnel analysis is useless. We should combine it with other methods, such as the comparison with historical data.
Data Analysis Tool
The benefit of using data analysis methods is that it provides a thinking framework that helps you build perspectives on things and problems. Now that we have a thinking framework, we also need effective tools to achieve true data analysis, like Tableau and Python. Here I recommend a free data analytics tool, FineReport, for you to practice. It’s a BI reporting & dashboard software that integrates data display (report) and data entry (filling). It has been successfully selected in the Gartner Global Market Guide, becoming the only manufacturer and product in China to be selected, listed with international giants such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.
FineReport allows you to create complex reports through simple drag and drop. Next, I’ll show you some data analysis scenarios using FineReport.
Sales analysis
Real-time order monitoring
Marketing analysis
Population flow analysis
If you are interested in FineReport, you can go to the official website and download it for free. There are also help documents for FineReport Beginners.
You might also be interested in…
6 Key Skills That Data Analysts Need to Master
9 Data Visualization Tools That You Cannot Miss in 2019
A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Sales Dashboards
How Can Beginners Design Cool Data Visualizations? | https://towardsdatascience.com/top-5-data-analysis-methods-you-need-to-know-e83f95cae355 | ['Lewis Chou'] | 2019-10-18 15:34:04.263000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Analytics Tools', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization', 'Methods'] |
Why I Stopped Forgiving People… and Maybe You Should, Too | Why I Stopped Forgiving People… and Maybe You Should, Too
Forgiveness was turning me into a chump
Image by Timisu
Forgive and forget, right? I used to think that. I don’t anymore.
Now look, I know I’m up against some real heavy hitters here when I say maybe you should stop forgiving people. After all, isn’t forgiveness a cornerstone of the major religions?
The Tanakh says that one who forgives an insult keeps a friend (Proverbs 17:9). The Christian New Testament says to forgive, if you have anything against anyone (Mark 11:25). The Qur’an says that one who forgives shall have reward with God (42.40). The Vedas say that forgiveness is the greatest strength (Mahābhārata 5.33.48).
Well, I tried that. For decades, I forgave people who did me wrong. And you know what? It made me feel good about myself. But then one day, I woke up. And I realized that forgiving people was turning me into a chump.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
What changed my mind was Frankie. We met in high school, and despite our differences became friends. But at some point, he started going down roads I didn’t particularly want to be on. It wasn’t just all the New Age stuff he and his girlfriend Hailey were into. It was their physically abusive relationship, which he made no apologies for, along with his white suburban Marxism and what I considered an abuse of psychedelics.
I reached my breaking point one night shortly after his marriage (not to Hailey) when he invited me up to his new place, saying we’d go out and shoot some pool. Turns out, he hadn’t bothered to tell his new wife about these plans, and I found myself cooling my heels out in the hallway while overhearing a knock-down-drag-out argument. Eventually he walked out, cool as a cucumber, and drove us to a pool hall somewhere in Atlanta. Almost as soon as we arrived he excused himself and slipped into the back to score some acid. I ended up playing 9-ball with total strangers for over an hour.
I’d just had the bartender call me a cab, hoping he could find Frankie’s place from my memory of the directions to his house from mine which were on a scrap of paper in my car (this was before cell phones and GPS), when Frankie reappeared, all smiles. His guy didn’t have the stuff, so they’d had to go get it. After that night, I didn’t see Frankie for two or three years.
Until the day he showed up on my front porch. His wife was divorcing him. All his stuff was in his car.
It wasn’t much stuff. He’d sold most of it, including his guitars. “What’d you do,” I asked, “have a yard sale?” Frankie let out a quick “Ha!” Apparently, he had other venues for selling things.
So he stayed a couple weeks.
Back then, I was using the “envelope method” of budgeting, and a couple of times I could swear I’d had more cash in this or that envelope than was now there. But since I didn’t write down the running amounts, I couldn’t be sure. I told myself I was being paranoid, misjudging my friend, letting old scores make me suspicious. Then again, why was it that I, of all people, was seemingly the only option he had to turn to?
A few days after he split, I went to get my checkbook out of my desk. And didn’t see it. Uh-oh. Rummaging around, I found it, and felt ashamed of myself. Until I thought, “Wait, where’s the watch?”
My grandfather’s silver pocket watch. (Yes, like in Pulp Fiction — except my grandfather carried his in his vest and never took it to war.) I knew the watch was in that drawer. Except now, it wasn’t. I searched the house. No dice. It was gone. I had no idea where Frankie had lit out to. And I’ve never seen him since.
The Trap of Forgiveness
It took a while, but I forgave Frankie. For the night at the pool hall, the cash in the envelopes, even the watch, which was irreplaceable. Being angry wasn’t doing me any good. And the odds of getting restitution were pretty much zero. It felt like the right thing to do, like it made me a better person.
Then came the day, many years later, when I decided to finally go through all my old photographs, put dates and names on the backs, organize them, and toss out the ones I didn’t want to keep. I pulled out all the photo albums and Fotomat envelopes. And there, in the back of the drawer, was the watch.
That’s when it hit me. Forgiveness had made me a chump.
I realized then that forgiving Frankie hadn’t really made me a better person. It had only made me feel like one. But not just better than who I’d been before. Better than Frankie. It was a way of permanently casting Frankie as the offender and myself as the victim. I got to be blameless, and he got to be the villain.
Truth was, if I was honest with myself, I’d had my own problems in relationships. I wasn’t physically abusive, but I knew how to turn the emotional screws when I wanted to. And come to think of it, I’d pulled a vanishing act on very close friends a couple of times myself, and for no more noble reasons than he had. And, too, I’d taken my own flights of fantasy into strange philosophies and mystical nonsense. And I could be a downright arrogant sumbich.
I was no better than him. After all, we became friends for a reason, didn’t we? But by “forgiving” him, I got pretend to myself that I was. That he was down there and I was up here. My “forgiveness” had never been about him. It had been about me the whole time. It was a shaming moment. And it changed my attitude.
If Not Forgiveness, What?
There are lots of stories told about the Buddha, to illustrate his teachings. In one of them, a man decides to test the Buddha by insulting him. If he were to react with anger, he would show himself to be a fraud. If he did nothing, he would reveal himself as a coward.
So the man found the Buddha sitting with his disciples, walked up to him, and spat right in his face.
The Buddha wiped off the spittle with the hem of his garment, looked up at the man, and said, “What now? What else do you have to say?”
The man was not prepared for this question. He turned and left in silence and went home. And that night, he could not sleep for shame at what he had done.
The next day, he again found the Buddha sitting with his disciples, and he bowed to him and said, “Sir, please forgive me for what I did to you yesterday.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” responded the Buddha. “I cannot forgive you. Because I have no grudge against you. Please, sit down, and let us talk of something else.”
Returning to Here and Now
There is a technique in Buddhist counseling to ask the person seeking help to focus on what is going on at the moment. If a person is angry about an argument they have had with their spouse, they might be asked “So where is your spouse right now?” And then they might be asked “Where is your argument?”
The argument no longer exists. What exists is simply who we are at this moment.
We do not need to “let go of the argument” because there is no argument to let go of. There is only who we are now, where we are now. Once we see this, we can get to the truly important question: What next? What do I choose to do at this time? What karma, what result, do I intend to create?
Doing this, we can escape the trap of forgiveness, the self-serving urge to cast ourselves as the victim and the other as the offender, ourselves as the good guy and the other as the bad guy. We can recognize our responsibility to decide how we are going to act, and let go of our desire to protect our own ego. And believe it or not, we can do this for offenses a lot more heinous than petty larceny (real or imagined). Just ask the Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. For me, it has turned out to be the key to getting past things I am not yet ready to write about, and maybe never will be. I don’t have to carry them anymore.
I have no idea where Frankie is today. I’ll probably never see him again. But wherever you are, Frankie, I owe you one. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/why-i-stopped-forgiving-people-and-maybe-you-should-too-37fc61e00a22 | ['Paul Thomas Zenki'] | 2020-11-22 02:20:56.949000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Personal Growth', 'Zen', 'Buddhism', 'Forgiveness'] |
Dealing with the Coronavirus as an international college student | What I’ve gone through, what I’ve done and what I’ve learnt from a life-changing experience
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
When we all chanted “Happy New Year” at midnight the 31st of December of 2019, greeting 2020 surrounded by champagne and our loved ones, no one would have predicted that barely three months into the new decade, we would be dealing with a global pandemic. I speak from a privileged position; I am healthy, have access to food, water, shelter, and some money to spend on books and video games to occupy my time. However, I do find myself in a position, as most international students have. I am far away from my family, living alone in a relatively small apartment, and with very little to no contact with the outside world. I tried to go out and enjoy some of the sunniest days in the whole year, but found myself in front of a thick locked iron door, preventing me from enjoying the fresh air in my building’s terrace. Being confined inspired me to reflect and write down my experience.
I lied. I am not alone, or at least not completely alone; I live with my sister. We share a small apartment in Barcelona. Most of the time, we get along. Since we are only two years apart, we have more than a few things in common, but we do have different personalities and our means of entertainment differ from each other.
This is not an impediment for us to talk, and sometimes, even to have fun. Nonetheless, after being forced to stay at home, without interacting with other people except through a smartphone, tablet or computer, problems arose after a couple of weeks.
Small things that usually seem insignificant mean the world to us, and became perfect ammunition to begin arguing with my roommate. We haven’t talked to each other for days, which is pretty awkward when you are confined in a small space.
We both know that patience and understanding are much needed, but sometimes, arguing over the small things has served us to relief stress and anxiety. Fortunately, technology allows us to keep in touch with our family back in Colombia. The ability to cut distances short through social media gets to the point to which even in small arguments we call our parents to act as referees, as they used to do when we lived with them. Still, this is no replacement for the real thing; being able to hug them, kiss them or just spend time with them brings more comfort than what any sort of technology can give you.
The distance between us and our family, plus the state of emergency, led me to reflect on my own and to realise how important people around me can be, and how often I take them for granted. These people were my parents, my younger brother and my dog, but for others, it may be a friend, a grandparent or their partner. It’s the small details, like a mother’s hug or some words of encouragement from your father, that tend to be unappreciated when you get them too often.
To fight boredom and the feeling of unproductivity that came with isolation, I had to scratch my head and come up with ideas. I am a fit person, so working out was among my top priorities. I found that with the virus affecting countries all around the world, the most respected trainers, athletes and fitness influencers uploaded tons of content to Youtube. I thought of producing online videos myself, but I was discouraged by the amount of work that scripting, filming and editing implies. I also lack a base of subscribers, which is to be expected if you have never shared content online.
Despite having unlimited access to fitness, nutrition advice and motivational videos, I found myself dissatisfied with my training. If you are an outside person like me, quarantine can take an additionally heavy toll. Firstly because going to the gym is a ritual for me, putting my headphones on, stretching and warming up, and talking to trainers makes up an essential part of my routine. Secondly, because I live in a small apartment, I don’t have enough space nor material for all my workouts. And finally, the mental aspect involved in working out has been affected by the pandemic and the confinement. Working out at home is still better than doing nothing. It has served me not only to stay in shape but to keep my mind off the most stressful matters. I am still looking forward to going back to the gym, much in the same way a child that is only a few weeks away from his birthday.
Another helpful and enriching activity for me has been, without a single doubt, reading. Since I moved to Barcelona, I abandoned the habit of reading daily. In addition to adapting to a new country, I had to deal with university and socializing. Thus, I had forgotten the easing sensation of sitting down with a book that you genuinely enjoy. I decided to approach reading as I normally do, by reading a book of fiction and one of non-fiction simultaneously. I learn new skills and acquire knowledge about a certain field, and when it gets overwhelming or I simply feel like taking my mind off things, I read a novel or short story.
Because I could not bring all my books from home to Barcelona, I made one of the best purchases of my life, a kindle that has come indispensable in these times. I didn’t have to run to a bookstore on the day before quarantine to buy books, and I have saved myself from any contact with a courier that may have the virus. I personally consider reading to be one of the most satisfying, worthwhile and thought-provoking ways of investing time during a quarantine, it also does not require much money nor space to be done; just access to books or the internet.
This situation most definitely caught me by surprise, as for the vast majority of the world population, and although if I were back home with my family, I would be more comfortable, this is my reality and I feel lucky to be alive, healthy, and in control of my mental faculties. As Aristotle allegedly said, “it is during our darkest moments in which we must focus to see the light”. This crisis will pass, and we shall learn from it and come out as better people. | https://medium.com/@lucasheili25/dealing-with-the-coronavirus-as-an-international-college-student-2e936af74918 | ['Lucas Heili'] | 2020-05-18 09:36:11.125000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'College', 'International', 'Students'] |
Application Development with Rust | Abstract
The purpose of this article is to make it easier for the reader to learn Rust. This article will provide use-case, and example design and implementation using Rust. The hope is that the reader will be able to explore the example implementation and learn Rust. The reader can extend this and apply their learning to further solidify their understanding of Rust language.
Introduction
I developed this code as part of my learning Rust. I had already developed the same in Python and C as part of my class assignment. I didn’t have to spend time in developing logic, rather I focussed on developing the same using Rust. This expedited my learning process. In this article, I would want to sharer the use-cases, and the design that I based this code on. My hope was that this would help the reader not to worry about the use-case or design, rather the reader would explore the implementation using Rust, and this could expedite the Rust learning for the reader.
The use-case section of this article would link to the page with problem description. The design section would details the code structure. The run and extend section would detail the process to run this code, prerequisites, and options to extend this code. I hope that this would make it easier for the reader to learn Rust.
Use-cases
The use-cases have been borrowed from NYU Cyberfellow class Introduction to Operating Systems. This class has a number of assignments to help the students to better understand various concepts in Operating System. This specific code has implementation for two of those assignments:
Memory allocation lab: This lab project addresses the various memory-management schemes in an operating system.
Virtual lab: This lab project addresses the implementation of page-replacement algorithms in a demand-paging system.
Design
The solution was developed as two different modules a) Memory for Memory Allocation, and b) Virtual for pagination algorithms in a system that utilized virtual memory.
In Rust, the modules were to be defined either in main.rs or lib.rs. I had chosen to use lib.rs. You would notice that virtual was prefixed with r# in lib.rs. This was because virtual was a reserved keyword in Rust, and the prefix would help to escape the reserved keywords and use them as identifiers. For both modules defined in lib.rs, I had to create two .rs extension files: a) memory.rs, and b) virtual.rs. I again defined two modules in each of these files. For example, I had memory and test_memory in memory.rs. With this, I had a folder named memory that contained memory.rs, and test_memory.rs. The memory.rs had implementation code for Memory Allocation lab use-case. As the name suggests, test_memory had unit test code for the functionality implemented in memory.rs. Similar design was followed for implementing Virtual Lab use-case.
I used “serde” crate to enable serialization and desearilization of structured data. This was done to be able to expose the functionality as REST APIs. The details for API development would be covered in a separate repo. These external libraries or crates were to be defined as dependencies in Cargo.toml.
Run and Extend
Before downloading and running this code, please follow Rust Getting Started. At this point, you would have Rust installed. Now you would clone or download this code. Then go to the code directory, and run the command “cargo test — lib”. Upon successful run, you would see a message like “test result: ok. 37 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out; finished in 0.00s”.
If you would want to extend this code, you could implement functionality for Disk Scheduling and CPU Scheduling labs following the design stated above and using the code here as examples. The implementation code for these use-cases in C and Python are available at GitHub Repo.
Conclusion
This was an attempt to provide an example design and implementation to help the reader to learn Rust. The reader was expected to explore the code on their own. This would be revised based on feedback from readers to achieve the goal of making it easier to learn Rust. | https://medium.com/@rudrapanda/application-development-with-rust-4bb0d5f4435b | [] | 2021-08-30 14:24:59.127000+00:00 | ['Example', 'Rust'] |
Tale of the converted: how complex social problems have made me question the use of data in driving impact | Tale of the converted: how complex social problems have made me question the use of data in driving impact John Burgoyne Follow Sep 17, 2019 · 4 min read
The recent Social Outcomes Conference hosted by the Government Outcomes Lab at Oxford provided an opportunity to reflect on my views around outcomes and how they have evolved over time.
Here’s what I used to believe was the best way to drive impact:
1. Data is a powerful tool that is under-utilized in the public and social sector.
2. Powerful insights and knowledge sit in academic journals with rigorous research waiting to be applied by practitioners.
3. We need a better evidence base to understand how to allocate public and social dollars.
4. Measurement frameworks will help service providers better understand and improve their impact.
5. Outcomes should be rigorously measured and used to hold people to account.
These beliefs are consistent with the contemporary canon that’s taught at many universities and which is backed by lots of philanthropic funding. They were hot topics of debate at the conference.
As I gain more experience with social problems, however, I increasingly understand that my original beliefs about impact are flawed. They rest on the assumption that impact can be brought about by a linear chain of causal events. Research what works, invest in some outputs, and over a predictable time span, a quantified set of measurable outcomes will result.
However, in the face of complex problems our society faces, this assumption, while compelling in theory, has consistently proven itself untrue in practice. From working on issues ranging from homelessness to mental health to animal welfare, the only outcome I can predict with any consistency is that unexpected changes will occur and force actors to adapt if they want any chance at achieving impact.
Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash
After the excellent debates at the Social Outcomes Conference, I wanted to reflect on what I have learned about those original five beliefs:
1. The increase in usage of data does not automatically lead to more impact. In fact, requiring data usage can exacerbate unhealthy power dynamics and make things worse. I still believe data can be helpful, but I would rather have a well trained team with no experience in data analytics than a team of data analysts with no experience in the field. One innovative teaming model comes from Austin’s Homelessness Advisory Council, where those who have experienced homelessness work hand in hand with city government, including data analysts, to shape policies and programs.
2. Powerful insights and knowledge sit in the minds of practitioners waiting to be enabled. While innovative research may attract funding and recognition, it is frontline staff with years of experience tackling social problems who should be invested in and nurtured. If I had $1M to tackle a crisis, I would start by asking those closest to the problem what support they need and what conditions would need to change for them to better serve their residents, just as Huntington, WV has done for its first responders of opioid epidemic.
3. We have invested loads into building countless evidence bases and I’m not sure anyone has ever calculated the return on those investments. While evidence-based approaches can provide inspiration for a community struggling to tackle a problem, they come with the dual dangers of undervaluing local contexts and overlooking new methods. Rather than earmarking social and public dollars exclusively towards “what works”, we need flexible investment into local communities, who should be trusted to figure out the best way to spend it.
4. Top-down reporting requirements restrict rather than support service providers. A clear theory of change can be helpful for service providers, but too often we see grantees subject to overcomplicated reporting of metrics set by their funders. At best, these metrics help tell a story of impact, but at worst, they force grantees to change their models and can lead to decreased levels of motivation among staff. Wigan Council found success in an alternative approach, offering flexible community grants rather than prescriptive funding for services. After introducing this scheme, hundreds of project were launched, overall satisfaction levels increased 59% among residents, and overall spending decreased dramatically. Donna Hall, the CEO of the council, noted, “we didn’t tell them what they needed; we listened.”
5. Outcomes are emergent properties of complex systems that we simply cannot force through more rigorous measuring. We can create the conditions from which outcomes can emerge, but we should not start assigning blame (or withdrawing funding) when targeted outcomes are not met due to unforeseen circumstances. Adaptive experimentation among a group of trusted partners is much more likely to lead to positive impact than adherence to rigid outcomes set by those in a position of power.
Photo by David Travis on Unsplash
If you can’t tell already, my relationship with social outcomes has grown complicated. It admittedly has been confusing having my view of the world upended by new experiences, but I think a worthwhile pursuit and reflection. I realize my original assumptions resulted less from the hands-on testing of hypotheses I intended, but rather from a selective seeking out of evidence that validates my thinking.
I wanted to share how my thinking has changed for two reasons. First, in case others are similarly wrestling between these different views and seeking another perspective. And second, more selfishly, to get out of the old echo chamber, gain diverse perspectives, and ultimately avoid the confirmation bias trap that led me to my original beliefs!
To the second point, if others on the interwebs have experiences and perspectives that challenge or add nuance to my own, please do reach out or leave a comment! Especially interested in recommendations for good people to be reading on these topics. | https://medium.com/centre-for-public-impact/tale-of-the-converted-how-complex-social-problems-have-made-me-question-the-use-of-data-in-driving-39b378e81f19 | ['John Burgoyne'] | 2019-09-17 08:27:15.765000+00:00 | ['Our Vision For Government', 'Government', 'Data', 'Impact', 'Complexity'] |
Shade | Shade
Just what is there to him?
Photo by Rendiansyah Nugroho on Unsplash
“I accept dollars, euros, sterling silver, broken hearts, and secrets.”
The look of confusion on the brunette’s face was crystal clear. The redhead currently guarding her turned at her lack of response. He grinned faintly; humor was evident in his blue eyes.
She finally responded, “in payment for what, exactly?”
“Anything, really. I’ve taken a large range of jobs, from guard to hitman, from destruction to restoration, and everything in between.”
“And just how do you accept broken hearts? I wouldn’t think that’d be something physical, though I can certainly see you being the cause.”
His grin brightened temporarily before disappearing altogether, “You’d be surprised.”
She looked at his hands just in time to see a flame flicker before disappearing despite there no lighters or matches in sight.
Before she could question him further, he pulled her to her feet and pulled her along, likely in response to whatever he was hearing.
Anna still didn’t know who he was. He’d simply shown up after shooters had broken into the boardroom where she’d been attending an important meeting of the company she worked at. Only she, the CEO of the company and a couple more of his advisors had survived. As it was, the only reason she and the other three had survived was due to this guy right here.
He’d only introduced himself as Shade, took out the guys still shooting at them and helped the four of them out of the building. The building had been like a ghost town as they’d carefully made their way out.
Now, the five of them were crouched behind a car in the employee parking lot while Shade was checking their surroundings.
“Are any of these cars yours?”
The two advisors mutely shook their heads, the CEO shook his head, “My car is in the parking garage.”
She spoke, “I was running late so my car’s out here but not anywhere near here. It’s on the outer edges of the parking lot.”
Shade turned to the other two advisors, “And your cars?”
The brunette spoke, “I took the bus.”
“I have a bike.”
Not something very helpful in a case such as this with more than two people.
“Alright then, you, Beauty, where’s your car.”
“Name’s Mariya, not Beauty, and it’s the green Ford Escape down five lanes from here.”
“Of course, it is. So, this isn’t going to be easy. They’re all over the place. Dude, where’s your bike?”
“It’s just down a couple of lanes.”
“Okay, here’s the plan. We make our way down to Be-Mariya’s car. When we pass your bike, you and she take it and get out of here. The three of us make our way to Mariya’s car and get out of here. You both got your keys?”
Mariya and her coworker nodded.
They moved along, keeping low, trying to stay out of sight of the people they could see pacing the parking lot.
“wait, this is my bike!”
“Go, get on the bike. Take off as soon as your engine starts. You won’t have long before they catch on and come after you. Meanwhile, the three of us need to make our way down the aisle here to get away from them.”
Mariya and her boss followed Shade while her coworkers got on the bike. As soon as the engine started, they heard wheels squealing on the pavement followed by gunshots.
The engine faded out of sound, Mariya didn’t know if both made it out of here or if the bike was shot down. Honestly, right now, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting out of here herself. She just hoped Shade would succeed.
After making their way halfway down the aisle, they crept between cars three more aisles until Mariya spotted her car.
“There!”
Mariya pulled her keys out of her pocket, nearly dropping them as she fumbled them. She pushed the button to unlock her car and all three scrambled in.
Mariya put her key in the lock and started the engine. She immediately jammed her car into reverse, swinging it around and, putting it back into drive, pushed her foot on the gas and took off as fast as she could. The back window shattered from a hail of bullets that just missed the three of them.
Of course, it missed the CEO as he was curled up on the floor of her backseat.
She pulled into crowded traffic, figuring they’d be safe now.
“Where now?”
“The safest place would probably be the police station.”
“Okay. By the way, boss, I want a raise.”
“Granted. Immediate promotion is in order.”
Mariya pulled into the parking lot of the police station.
She turned to the passenger seat to thank Shade only to shriek.
Her boss leaned forward to see what was going on, “Wait?? What? Where’d he go!”
“He was there, wasn’t he?”
“Yes! It’s the only way we got out of there! Did he slip out of the door as you pulled into the parking lot?”
“No. My car beeps when doors are opened while the engine’s running. I’d known even if I hadn’t seen him move.”
“Let’s just go into the station. We’ll go from there.”
“Okay.”
Mariya climbed out of her car, her boss climbing out of the other side. Her heart was racing, she knew Shade had been in her car but now, he was nowhere to be seen. She remembered the flame in his hand earlier.
Perhaps, just perhaps, there was more to Shade than they’d seen. | https://medium.com/sunday-fabricated-stories/shade-2efe3a107d3d | ['Paula Crofoot'] | 2019-09-08 14:43:37.701000+00:00 | ['Unknown', 'Magic', 'Safe', 'Ford', 'Fiction'] |
Sitting on a Surfboard in Coolangatta | In our interview with guest Scratch Mitchell talks about the precise moment that he knew that his days with the Royal Canadian Air Force were coming to a close and the next phase of his career was about to start.
The WorkNotWork Show [0:23:26]: Eventually, in 2010, you finished up with the Royal Canadian Air Force. You must have had very mixed feelings about wrapping up this stage of your life.
Scratch Mitchell: I had an option to continue on in the Air Force. I was a lieutenant colonel, and some suggested that I had had this sword placed on my shoulder, that I was one of a few select people to carry on and I’d quite likely become a general and beyond. That was very flattering and, I must say, I got caught up in that a little bit. I said “really — wow — because I thought I’d never make it past lieutenant.” I got in trouble a couple times as a young fighter pilot.
WNW: Say it isn’t so. [laughter]
SM: Yes. Goodness, my daughter’s listening. [laughter]
WNW: That’s right. There’s a whole range of stories that you can’t tell. [laughter]
SM: That’s right. But I realized while I was doing post-graduate training in Australia — I was sitting on a surfboard in Coolangatta one of my favourite places on the planet — and I had a moment where I said “I’m not going to fly airplanes anymore as a colonel, and beyond.” I was 39 years old. I was fairly young still, and I said “nothing else scares me in the Air Force.” The fact of being a general doesn’t scare me and that was frightening in itself that I wasn’t afraid of progression. Whereas everything else in my career I was like, “am I going to make the Snowbirds? Am I going to throw my name in there? If I don’t make it, what would that look like? The fact of becoming a general didn’t scare me, and I realized that was a turning point for me.
WNW: The challenge just wasn’t there anymore?
SM: The challenge wasn’t there. I had set out to do a number of things and I had achieved those. I had discovered that there were other passions in my life that I needed to bite into. Because as a Snowbird pilot, we used to do countless visits to schools talking to kids and our main message was pursue your dreams and goals. I realized I had to measure up to my own words and I had to embrace that which I was preaching to all these kids and I challenged myself. It was terrifying, but I challenged myself. I said you have an opportunity that no one else has to go pursue a second goal.
WNW: So after retiring you spent a couple of years as a first officer for Westjet?
SM: Being an airline pilot was fundamentally different than being a military pilot. Some people respond to it very well. It didn’t grab me. I sort of knew that was going to happen because I’ve been very success-driven, very goal-oriented and I like to get within a situation, find what I like and rise in that aspect of what I was doing. Whether it’s being an air show pilot, or it’s being a tactical person, in my younger days. I found an aspect or something I could potentially rise above other people.
WNW: And people in a 737 don’t appreciate four point rolls?
SM: No, they don’t want to appreciate four point rolls in a 737. But I think the airline thing didn’t give me any sense of challenge. Certainly, it was very interesting, and I’m very, very happy that I did experience that aspect of aviation. I can say with authority what that is like now. But at the same time, I didn’t respond well to being a number. I knew that going to the airlines was hedging my bets a little bit because I got out of the Air Force with this clear goal of getting into film and television. I thought I was going to be at the airline for ten years and perhaps be able to work part-time, do film, develop a performing career, training as an actor, developing a director/producer career. But I quickly found out I had to make a decision early on.
WNW: I’m guessing that the majority of our listeners will recognize your name and, when they see the pictures, they will recognize you as that guy from that show on Discovery Channel called Airshow.
SM: Yes, Airshow. It was basically the catalyst for change for me. I have somewhat of a mentor in the film industry and he told me early on that to get into TV at anything but the bottom, go in with something you’re an expert at. Aviation clearly was what I had in my back pocket — an interesting perhaps background with aviation for many people. So I had brainstormed an idea for a TV series. I don’t like the term reality television, but a documentary series about the airshow industry, because I knew a lot about it and I knew there was some amazing characters and some interesting stories.
I was involved with some flying myself. I thought “could we marry this all together?” So I partnered with somebody who had deep connections with Discovery Channel, who incidentally was coming up with this idea himself. We met at a convention, I heard him speak about it. I’m, like, “we should talk” because I’m thinking about something like this now, but I don’t have the means or wherewithal to get it going. So we partnered on this. Little did we know that within nine months Discovery Channel would say “yes, let’s make this.” | https://medium.com/the-worknotwork-show/sitting-on-a-surfboard-in-coolangatta-58817bc10210 | ['Terence C. Gannon'] | 2017-06-14 16:05:47.640000+00:00 | ['Surfing', 'Bonus Material', 'Aviation', 'Podcast', 'Australia'] |
This Is The Most Powerful Example Of Sales Copywriting… | And to illustrate, I need to take you back in time:
I was a Ps get degrees kind of university student.
Not because I wanted to be, but because that is what I got.
Don’t get me wrong, I put a lot effort into University study.
But the vast majority of my subjects were assessed by written assignments and I just wasn’t very good at writing:
• I didn’t know how to start writing;
• I would stare the black page with writer’s block;
• I didn’t know how to structure an essay;
• I couldn’t make clear arguments; and
• So on…
What should have taken me an hour, blew out to 8 and I am not exaggerating.
After 5.5 years, I graduated with a Law Degree, a liberal Arts Degree and a Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice.
I ended up getting a marketing job (as I had been in that industry during my studies).
I still wasn’t good at writing, but it was fine, because it didn’t need to do a whole lot of writing, or so I thought.
After I started, I realised it was predominantly a sales copywriting job!!!
This was just after the Global Financial Crisis and I needed the job, so I had to learn to write quick.
After a lot of frustration, I decided to build up the courage to reach out to a CEO of very well-known advertising agency to ask for guidance.
I played the “I’m a recent university graduate” card.
Thankfully, they wrote back with a one sentence email including a book title from the 1970s and an instruction.
The instruction read:
“Read one chapter, then implement it before you move on to the next and you’ll be blown away in 3 months’ time.”
So, I tracked down the book, bought a hardback copy and did as I was instructed.
It was only 112-pages, so within 3 months I was done.
And that CEO was right, from then on:
I knew exactly how to start writing sales copy;
I would no longer stare at a black page with writer’s block;
I knew how to structure sales copy; and most importantly
I could make compelling sales cases and offers.
And I could do it at the drop-of-at-hat.
If fact, each day I write ~500 words and have written what I estimate over 1,000,000 words since then.
If it’s not already clear — up until this point, that CEOs reply, and subsequently that book changed my sales copywriting life.
Since then, I contacted the author of that book written in the 1970s and told them what a big deal it was for me — I told them the story I just told you.
Over the years we have been in contact and I recently ask them if could licence copies of the book to distribute to help others like me who were once in the same situation as I was.
As they are nearing the end of their life, they agreed!
So, what I have for you is:
An e-copy of the original 112-page book so you can see the visual examples that are explained within; A recorded audiobook version so you can listen to the words on the move; and A checklist/cheat sheet so you can implement the chapter lessons correctly before you move on to the next.
And, I have also been able to convince the author to do a once-off, live, remote workshop during the pandemic for 20 people so you can apply everything then and there on-the-spot.
If this all sounds attractive, click here for the details. | https://medium.com/@orren/this-is-the-most-powerful-example-of-sales-copywriting-a00af73dd768 | ['Orren Prunckun'] | 2020-05-20 06:57:56.392000+00:00 | ['Copywrite', 'Copywriter', 'Copywriting', 'Copywriting Tips', 'Sales Copy'] |
Running RASA bot with AWS-EC2 | RASA has been actively developing its NLP stack on top of spacy. If you follow their git then you can relate to it. No doubt the latest changes are awesome!! Rasa-core is now streamlined to run a rasa server, they have decoupled customization actions from the actual bot stack. Actions now can run in a separate server as you might want in production scenarios.
However, it took away developer-loved-control of the bot. Earlier we used to feel things working in front of us which now have been abstracted down. This was expected with the maturity of the platform.
In this blog, we will explore doing simple hosting of rasa core in AWS EC2. Then we will run an old-school flask application on Heroku to talk to the bot.
Step 1] Get your bot working locally
If you already have your rasa bot running, then cool. But if you don’t, do not worry. You can use an awesome starter pack available here. This will build your bot right away.
pip install -r requirements.txt
make train-nlu
make train-core
make cmdline
Try chatting with the bot to ensure it is responding as desired. | https://medium.com/tech-that-works/running-rasa-bot-with-aws-ec2-c08ed3b02455 | ['Samrudha Kelkar'] | 2020-01-15 17:07:50.266000+00:00 | ['Ec2', 'Rasa', 'Chatbots', 'AWS', 'Rasa Core'] |
God Hates Your Pillow | Photo by Kirill Vasilev on Unsplash
“Jesus slept on rocks just so you could one day reap the benefits of cotton and polyurethane”, said 59-year-old Mike Lindell, CEO and founder of MyPillow Inc., and third largest pimple on the ass of soon to be former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
In 2004, the former crackhead and lunch wagon proprietor started a business and launched a revolution. MyPillow was born and life as the rest of the world knew it was changed forever.
Self-proclaimed sleep lover, Barney Watson of Eden Prairie, Minnesota and MyPillow customer, had this to say when asked about Lindell:
“I’ll tell ya, Mr. Lindell is the smartest man alive dontcha know? Now, I know sleep ok? I’ve slept on pillows of all shapes, sizes, and material, and nothing, I mean nothing sends me off to catch my Zzzz’s like MyPillow, you betcha!”
As luck would have it, I had to be in Chaska, Minnesota last week to cover a story on the world’s largest 3D printed mustache which I’m told is nearly 12 feet wide, and took over 300 hours to print, and was able to track down and speak with the MyPillow guy himself.
RJ: Hi MyPillow guy, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me on such short notice.
ML: Well, you’re welcome but my name is Mike.
RJ: Er, ok…I’m sorry, umm, Mike.
ML: It’s ok.
RJ: So Mike, I thought I’d begin by asking what made you start the My…
ML: You THOUGHT? So you’re thinking now? I only know of two people who have the authority to think my friend. Donald J. Trump, the greatest President in the history of our great land and our Lord and Savior himself, Jesus Christ!
RJ: (staring blankly) O K A Y…
ML: Have you ever read the Bible son?
RJ: Excuse me?
ML: The Bible, have you read it?
RJ: Uhh…ok, umm, yes I have. I went to Catholic school as a kid and my parents are…
ML: You are filthy garbage!
RJ: I’m so confused.
ML: (sound of sucking water and a deep inhale) This conversation is over!
RJ: MyPill…I mean, Mike, wait. I’m not sure what I did but can you forgive me? I see that cross you wear outside of your shirts all the time which means you put it on after you get dressed so everyone can see it and that signifies you’re a Christian, right? Isn’t the whole thing built around forgiveness?
ML: You’re lucky your lungs are still functioning. Now get out of my way you heathen! (MyPillow guys exits the room)
RJ: (whispering and slumped in the chair) What in the fuck just happened?
It took a few minutes to gather my thoughts, finish what was left of my Hotdish, and come to grips with what transpired. Then it hit me. The MyPillow guy is a genius!
Mike Lindell isn’t selling pillows, who the hell would ever want to sell pillows? No, Lindell is playing The Queen’s Gambit level chess while the rest of us are playing with plastic checkers. Mr. MyPillow is selling SLEEP!
Think about it…sleep is something we all do, we all love and it’s necessary for survival. It’s brilliant! He will never run out of customers. It’s one of those ideas that once you hear about it you say to yourself, “God, why didn’t I think of that”?
Speaking of God, that guy is a master marketer in his own right, and Lindell, the one-time freebasing crack fiend, struck gold by implementing the Big Guy. Throw in a heaping side dish of Donald Trump and the Holy Trinity of money-making is born. MyPillow is worth hundreds of millions of dollars…do you know how much rock cocaine and how many politicians that kind of scratch can buy?
Say what you will of Mike Lindell, but I for one think he’s the kind of genius rarely seen these days. If there were a Mount Rushmore for pillow people, Mike Lindell’s face would be the first to be chiseled in rock…you betcha! | https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/god-hates-your-pillow-56e7f25063a0 | ['Rob Janicke'] | 2020-12-15 21:03:00.973000+00:00 | ['Change', 'The Bad Influence', 'Comedy', 'My Pillow', 'Satire'] |
My Journey into CQRS and Event Sourcing | My Journey into CQRS and Event Sourcing
Using Elixir — Part 2
Note: this is part of "My Journey into CQRS and Event Sourcing" series. If you're jumping in right now, please consider reading the previous ones and if you like what read here, please consider reading the next ones.
< Part 1 | Part 3 >
Recap
Last time we started by explaining the theoretical basis of the architectural patterns and started building an Elixir application (revolving around medical consent):
higher level api with a command/write side and a query/read side
command side: dispatches commands to aggregates producing domain events
query side: event handlers build projections into a relational database optimized for the specific business case requirements
Introduction
Now that we have a working application it's time we tackle some items from the todo list left at the end of the previous article, more specifically exposing the application as a HTTP/REST api.
There are several ways of doing that, this time I'll be using the Phoenix Framework — "A productive web framework that does not compromise speed or maintainability."
Why phoenix? It's pretty much the de-facto web framework for Elixir. It is mature and rich in its feature set. It might be an overkill for a simple application such as this, but it was so easy to configure and integrate it into the project that this was not a problem.
Phoenix follows a pretty "standard" MVC — Model-View-Controller — pattern. If you are familiar with the pattern and/or other MVC web frameworks such as ruby on rails or django you'll be right at home.
Note: application code can be found in this repository in the branch part-2.
The Application
Phoenix comes with its own CLI productivity tool for helping with scaffolding a brand new application and creating framework components (such as Controllers, Views, etc). We'll take advantage of some of these features to add a web-tier functionality to our existing application.
Dependencies, Structure and Configuration
Note: I'll be honest, I sort of cheated a little bit when incorporating phoenix into the application. Since it's CLI does such a great job at creating a fully functioning project scaffold, I decided to take advantage of it: instead of adding it to the existing project I created a brand new phoenix project and added the code produced previously (copy and paste) and did some git trickery in order to keep the history and remote origin.
# for scaffolding a new project: mix phx.new consent_api --module Consent --database postgres --no-webpack --no-html # code copy and git trickery omitted ...
We'll have five new phoenix dependencies added to our mix.exs file:
{:phoenix, "~> 1.4.10"},
{:phoenix_pubsub, "~> 1.1"},
{:phoenix_ecto, "~> 4.0"},
{:plug_cowboy, "~> 2.0"},
We'll also have a brand new configuration in our config/config.exs and config/dev.exs scripts:
# config.exs config :consent, ConsentWeb.Endpoint,
url: [host: "localhost"],
secret_key_base: "*** omitted ***",
render_errors: [view: ConsentWeb.ErrorView, accepts: ~w(json)],
pubsub: [name: Consent.PubSub, adapter: Phoenix.PubSub.PG2] # dev.exs
config :consent, ConsentWeb.Endpoint,
http: [port: 4000],
debug_errors: true,
code_reloader: true,
check_origin: false,
watchers: []
This configures phoenix's Endpoint. More on that later…
Endpoint
"[…] a supervised process. Each request begins and ends its lifecycle inside your application in an endpoint. The endpoint handles starting the web server and transforming requests through several defined plugs […]" — Official Docs
In a phoenix application we start the application's endpoint as a supervised process in the application's supervision tree.
Router
Routers are responsible for parsing and matching incoming requests and dispatching them to the correct handler — they very similar to routers in NodeJS web libraries such as express in that they allow you to configure path+verb matchings and middleware components.
We'll configure our router to dispatch incoming requests to an application controller while also parsing json encoded request bodies and serializing responses bodies as json encoded strings:
defmodule ConsentWeb.Router do
use ConsentWeb, :router # plug pipeline -- "middleware"
pipeline :api do
plug :accepts, ["json"]
end # request matching and dispatch
# we'll dispatch to a specific controller function
scope "/api", ConsentWeb do
pipe_through :api scope "/api", ConsentWeb do
pipe_through :api # dispatch to ConsentController.ask_consent/2
post "/patients/:patient_id/consents/ask", ConsentController, :ask_consent
post "/patients/:patient_id/consents/grant", ConsentController, :grant_consent
post "/patients/:patient_id/consents/revoke", ConsentController, :revoke_consent get "/patients/:patient_id/consents", ConsentController, :list_consents
get "/patients/:patient_id/consents/filter", ConsentController, :has_consent?
end
end
Controller
Now we have to implement the controller module's functions that we rely on in the previously defined router.
Controllers are modules that provide functions to handle the requests.
These request handling functions — also called actions — follow the pattern:
@spec action(Plug.Conn, Map) :: Plug.Conn
The first parameter is always conn, a struct which holds information about the request such as the host, path elements, port, query string, and much more. conn, comes to Phoenix via Elixir’s Plug middleware framework. More detailed info about conn can be found in plug’s documentation.
The second parameter is params. Not surprisingly, this is a map which holds any parameters passed along in the HTTP request — body, path and query. It is a good practice to pattern match against params in the function signature to provide data in a simple package we can pass on to rendering.
Now let's implement our controller: upon receiving a request we'll extract the parameters, forward them to the higher level api — built previously — handle it's result and render a json response accordingly. Let's show this by implementing one command side request and one query side request:
defmodule ConsentWeb.ConsentController do
use ConsentWeb, :controller # fallback actions: not discussed
action_fallback ConsentWeb.FallbackController alias Consent.Api, as: ConsentApi # Command side request
def grant_consent(conn, %{
"patient_id" => patient_id,
"to_entity" => to_entity,
"to_id" => to_id,
"target" => target
}) do
with :ok <- ConsentApi.grant_consent(patient_id, to_entity, to_id, target) do
conn
|> put_status(:ok)
|> json(%{patient_id: patient_id, action: :grant_consent})
end
end # Query side request
def list_consents(conn, %{"patient_id" => patient_id}) do
list = ConsentApi.consents(patient_id) conn
|> put_status(:ok)
|> json(%{data: list})
end
end
Note that the functions follow the action spec and that the names match those we configured in the router.
Note: For brevity I skipped on showing the V part of the MVC i.e Views. Even though we are simply serializing data as json we could forward the rendering logic to a view — this is how it is implemented in the actual codebase. It can be achieved by calling render(conn, name, params) instead of json(conn, data).
Conclusion
Since last time we made the bulk of our application and had already exposed it through a higher level api it became pretty straight forward to expose it as an HTTP service.
All we had to do was: have a web server to receive requests and send responses and implement a very thin logic of parsing request parameters, calling the higher level api, handle its results and serializing a response accordingly.
With phoenix this meant: configuring and starting the application endpoint — supervised — , configuring request matching and forwarding rules in a router and implement a controller.
I chose to use Phoenix but we could have achieved similar results using other means — cowboy + Plug for example.
Comments
Unfortunately this part of this series of articles doesn't have much in terms of actual CQRS and Event Sourcing, it's just about building on top of our previously defined application.
But don't worry, there's much on my todo list to learn about these patterns, so stay tuned for more.
Thanks for staying up until this point. This started as way for me to learn about these topics but I hope it is also helping some of you out there that are also starting to learn about them or about Elixir in general. | https://medium.com/nexa-digital/my-journey-into-cqrs-and-event-sourcing-b8534d846b5c | ['Rodrigo Botti'] | 2019-11-05 01:40:15.518000+00:00 | ['Phoenix', 'Cqrs', 'Event Sourcing', 'Elixir'] |
Email Marketing 101: Everything you need to know | Long before email marketing was born, the famous writer R L Stevenson (1850–1894) once said, “Everybody lives by selling something.”
Marketing and business promotions aren’t new ideas but the digital age has changed a lot of things.
As a matter of fact, the only thing that has remained intact is the basic premise of marketing: understand your customer’s needs, develop products that meet those needs and tell the customer you have the right products.
Now that we’re very much into the digital age, it’s important to learn the basics of email marketing.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a startup, a small business, a not-profit, a huge company or a multi-national. Each of us will have to adapt to the changed scenario and email marketing is very much a part of the new scenario of business promotion.
While it’s almost impossible that you’re completely unaware of email marketing, there’s a good chance you don’t know the framework of email marketing in detail.
Email marketing is not just writing a promotional email and hitting Send. There’s a lot, lot more, so sit tight and learn the basics of email marketing.
We’ll keep it jargon-free, simple, short and direct.
What is email marketing?
When you send out emails to a number of people telling them about your products/services, you’re basically doing email marketing.
While the real-world email marketing is a lot more than just this, the above line fairly captures the essence.
Is email marketing effective?
It’s reported that email marketing has an ROI (Return On Investment) of 4400%. That means, for every dollar you invest in email marketing, you get a return of $44. (Source)
Huge, right?
Everyone will not see such big numbers, but those who follow email marketing best practices will definitely get handsome returns.
Who can carry out email marketing?
Anybody. (But it needs a great deal of expertise to get it right).
Can I begin right now?
Sure, why not? But it’d be a good idea to read the rest of this post before you actually begin. There are a few things you should know first.
Do I need a special setup for email marketing?
Depends mostly on the size of your mailing list.
If you mail to only 30–40 people and they are dedicated to your emails, there’s nothing you’ll need except your laptop and an email account. Even a gmail or yahoo account will do.
If, on the other hand, you plan to send out emails to more than 100 people, (say, 3,000 subscribers), you’ll either need an ESP (Email Service Provider) for your email address or you’ll have to configure your email server.
What are the major challenges in email marketing?
There are two major challenges in email marketing: deliverability and reputation.
Deliverability: Your subscribers will read your emails only if they land in the inbox. If your email is delivered into a spam folder, no one will ever read it. So your challenge is to craft and deliver the email in a way that it’s delivered in the inbox and not in the spam folder. Reputation: When you send out emails to incorrect addresses (and they bounce) or your email copy uses too many spammy words (e.g. “Free!”, “Meet singles”, “Make money online”), your online reputation suffers. That can lead to a steep reduction in your deliverability rates.
How much does it cost?
Again, it depends.
It depends upon how many emails do you send, what is the size of your email mailing list, what kind of other value-added services you might use and so on.
A small mailing list (contacts <100) with infrequent emails won’t cost anything.
In case of ESPs, their fees start with around $9 per month. Of course, these aren’t the only costs involved.
What are the steps to email marketing?
Nurture a mailing list
Don’t purchase a list, build your own. Using purchased lists is illegal in some countries. And besides, a purchased list is too random to have subscribers who might be interested in what you have to sell.
Understand double opt-in
When someone signs up to be on your mailing list, they’re opting in for the first time. Send one email to that address asking them to confirm the address. That’s the second opt-in. Relax, this is easily automated.
Clarify what you’ll write about
Tell your potential subscribers what you will sending emails about and stick to the promise. This is particularly true about newsletters, but ultimately even newsletters seek to sell something.
Draft an email
Drafting the perfect email takes practice, and then some. You can check tips from marketing experts like Ann Handley, Chad White, Ian Brodie, Jeff Walker, Joanna Wiebe, Julia McCoy, Neil Patel, and Val Geisler, among others.
Test your email
After you are ready with the final copy of the email, including the layout and all that, you‘ll want to test your email for things like if the language is ok, whether the images render properly, whether the email appears right on different email clients and all that. There are some great services to test your email before you actually send emails.
Clean your mailing list
An estimated 22% email addresses expire every year. So even if you double opt-in your subscribers, it’s important to clean your mailing list at least twice a year to remove invalid or not-safe-to-send addresses. There are some good email checkers available which you can test out.
Understand sender reputation and deliverability
We’ve talked about it earlier in this post, but these two things are so important it’s worth reminding you about.
Use an ESP or set up your own email system
Choosing an ESP over your own email set up makes a lot of sense because they are specialists sending emails. AWeber, BenchmarkEmail, ConstantContact, Drip, Emma, MooSend and SendLoop are some of the efficient ESPs you may want to check out.
Understand analytics
It’s extremely important to understand the important email marketing metrics. These metrics include Click-through rate, Open Rates, Conversion Rates, Bounce Rate etc.
What rules govern email marketing
This depends on the country your customers and you are based in. In the US there is CAN-SPAM Act; the European Union brought in GDPR in May 2018. Make sure you follow the rules properly.
Summing up
No single article can ever tell you every aspect of email marketing in detail. While I have tried to cover as much ground as possible, I know I’ve only scratched the surface.
If you’re just starting out to explore email marketing, don’t expect triple-digit growth instantly. Marketing is about nurturing clients and email marketing is no different. What makes email marketing special is its extremely low costs and its features that allow you to easily personalize your email. Use it well and you will be more than rewarded. | https://medium.com/@mayankdb/email-marketing-101-everything-you-need-to-know-d83b3169deed | ['Mayank Batavia'] | 2019-05-09 00:50:54.779000+00:00 | ['Best Practices', 'Email Marketing Tips', 'Digital Marketing', 'Email Marketing'] |
Parsing REST API Payload and Query Parameters With Flask. | Intro
For a very long time Flask was my first choice of framework when it came to building micro-services (until python 3.6 and async/await came to life). I have used Flask with a different number of extensions depending on the situation. flask-restful , flask-restplus , webargs .. etc. All of these extensions were great until I needed to parse the request payload or query parameters, it gets painful and the reason is they are all built on top of marshmallow .
Marshmallow
Marshmallow is probably the oldest python package for object serialisation and parsing and probably most of the flask extensions are built of top of it.
here is an example of marshmallow
from datetime import date
from pprint import pprint
from marshmallow import Schema, fields
class ArtistSchema(Schema):
name = fields.Str()
class AlbumSchema(Schema):
title = fields.Str()
release_date = fields.Date()
artist = fields.Nested(ArtistSchema())
bowie = dict(name="David Bowie")
album = dict(artist=bowie, title="Hunky Dory", release_date=date(1971, 12, 17))
schema = AlbumSchema()
result = schema.dump(album)
pprint(result, indent=2)
# { 'artist': {'name': 'David Bowie'},
# 'release_date': '1971-12-17',
# 'title': 'Hunky Dory'
The Pros
Stable and provides a lot of complex functionality
The Cons
Can be confusing sometimes when you use dump vs load. It is old and not using python annotations. Documentation is terrible and ugly
Pydantic
Another package for object parsing, validation and serialisation which is more intuitive and uses python type annotations.
The Pros
Uses python type annotation Documentation is fabulous, check here No dump or load Can be used for settings management as well
The Cons
It is new and is not yet battle tested like marshmallow There are not much flask extensions/packages built on top of it
The same example written using pydantic
from datetime import date
from pprint import pprint
from pydantic import BaseModel
class ArtistSchema(BaseModel):
name: str
class AlbumSchema(BaseModel):
title: str
release_date: date
artist: ArtistSchema bowie = dict(name="David Bowie")
album = dict(artist=bowie, title="Hunky Dory", release_date=date(1971, 12, 17))
schema = AlbumSchema(**album)
pprint(result.dict(), indent=2)
# { 'artist': {'name': 'David Bowie'},
# 'release_date': '1971-12-17',
# 'title': 'Hunky Dory'
Here is the same exact example written in a much more intuitive way.
Webargs
Webargs is a popular Python library for parsing and validating HTTP request objects, with built-in support for Flask built on top of marshmallow
from flask import Flask
from webargs import fields
from webargs.flaskparser import use_args
from marshmallow import Schema, fields app = Flask(__name__) class user(BaseModel):
name = fields.Str()
@app.route("/")
@use_args(user(), location="query")
def index(args):
return "Hello " + args["name"]
if __name__ == "__main__":
app.run()
Luckily there is another webargs package which is using pydantic now, called pydantic-webargs | https://medium.com/swlh/parsing-rest-api-payload-and-query-parameters-with-flask-better-than-marshmallow-aa79c889e3ca | ['Ahmed Nafies'] | 2020-10-25 09:59:55.540000+00:00 | ['Https', 'Json', 'Python', 'Web Development', 'Flask'] |
I Quit Drinking For A Month — & These 12 Things Happened | By Elettra Wiedemann
A couple of years ago, I decided to do a Dry January. That means no booze at all, for any reason (yes, even at a birthday party / wedding / after a bad day / whatever) for the entire month. To some people, that might not sound like a big deal, but to me it sounded like a major commitment. Before I gave this a try, I wasn’t even a huge drinker or partier — I would do wine on weeknights, and maybe some cocktails on the weekends with friends. So, my Dry January was not about “detoxing” or turning around a serious bad habit. Mostly, I wanted to see if having a sober month was something I could do. I also wanted to see how it would make me feel (better? more focused? totally the same?).
Going in, I figured I would probably miss having a drink with my friends on the weekends, but as it turned out, the effects were way more far-reaching than that. My first-ever Dry January not only totally changed my relationship with alcohol; it changed some of my friendships, and I’d even argue it changed my life. In fact, this January was my seventh Dry January.
Intrigued? If you are planning to try a Dry January, there are some important things you need to know before you embark on this challenging, enlightening, and ultimately rewarding booze-free journey. Here we go.
You might want to try not to get totally wasted on NYE
I get the temptation to party hard on New Year’s Eve, to get in one last hurrah before your month of sobriety, but having a massive hangover is just going to weaken your resolve starting from Day 1 (after all, it’s hard to resist the hair of the dog). Of course, I’m not saying “don’t drink at all on NYE,” but I highly recommend resisting the urge — and the peer pressure — to get smashed. Trust me, you’ll need all your resolve and discipline, because…
The first two weeks will be really hard.
Yep, the first 14 or so days of your alcohol-free month are probably going to be really hard. I’m sorry to be the bearer of not-so-amazing news, but if you know that you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle, I think you’ll have a better chance of success. As I mentioned previously, I was not even a huge drinker when I tried this for the first time (other than two “too much” years in my 20s, and even then, I only blacked out once — and rugby-tackled my dad’s best friend to the ground. Zero recollection). But even so, that first half of the month took a lot of resolve, focus, and almost constant re-commitment for me. Even just one or two glasses of wine, or a couple of beers in the evenings, were sorely missed, because…
You’ll realize that almost all social life is centered around food and drink.
Being sober will make you recognize this. It’s actually kind of astounding, and not something you fully notice while you are participating in it. (Tip: Going to the gym really helped, mostly because it gave me something else to do and was another form of sociability.) It became hard for me to even have dinner with friends, though, because…
A lot of people, including your close friends, will be SUPER annoying and unsupportive about your decision.
This was the strangest thing of all about going dry for a month: other people. Almost everyone, including my own friends, was likely to get weird and even kind of pissy about it. People called me “boring,” rolled their eyes when I said I wasn’t drinking for the month, and put a lot of pressure on me to “just have one drink.” Some people even stopped calling me or inviting me out to gatherings or parties.
The first time I faced this, I felt totally unequipped for how to deal with it. But ultimately, I realized it was about them and not about me. That said, it still totally sucked, and made me feel embarrassed (Oh God, am I boring?) and sad. Once I had some time to reflect, I realized that being sober can make some other people uncomfortable because they don’t know how to be social/interact without a drink. In my personal experience, I got the most flak from friends whom I always suspected had less-than-healthy relationships with alcohol. If you find yourself in a situation that just feels too peer-pressure-y, here are two tactics that worked for me to deflect.
Tell people you’re on some SERIOUS antibiotics or, in very extreme cases, tip your bartender for club soda.
In my experience, if you tell people you’re getting over strep/flu/some horrible illness, that you’re still not feeling 100%, and you’re on antibiotics, so you can’t drink, people will back off. If, after that, people are still being dickheads (and yes, that happened to me), go to the bar, give the bartender a fiver, and tell him/her that every time you order a vodka and soda, all you want is soda and lime. It’s sad to have to resort to that, but it did happen to me, which leads me to this doozy…
You might decide you don’t like your friends anymore.
This sounds horrible, but it needs to be said: Being dry for the month might make you realize that some of your friends kind of suck, or at the very least that you don’t have much in common with them apart from drinking. What happened for me was this: I realized that some of the people I was hanging out with would all get drunk together and tell the SAME STORY AND JOKES OVER AND OVER AGAIN AD INFINITUM. It was shocking. And it shocked me mostly because it made me reflect on myself: After all, just a couple weeks before, I was probably that guy. I was the one telling the same stories and jokes over and over again. Which led me to realize that…
Maybe “just a drink or two a night” is much more than that.
I am not trying to come across as a total geezer here, but this was a big “aha” moment for me. I had NO idea how much my light booze habit of one to two drinks per night, plus drinks on the weekends, was affecting me, my choices, and my life. Everything from the people I was choosing to hang out with to how I was choosing to spend my time to a kind of blasé laziness / “I’ll do that tomorrow” attitude was all tied to just a couple of seemingly innocent drinks. But take out a calculator, and you’ll soon realize that “just a couple of drinks per night” plus weekend drinking will amount to over 900 drinks per year (yep, really; just do the math). That ain’t nothing, friends!
At the time of my first dry month, I was kind of “stuck” in a lot of areas (mostly deciding about the trajectory of my school and work life), and that mental fog, or “stuckness,” cleared up within a couple of weeks of no booze. Yikes. On the positive side, while I started to distance myself from one group of friends, there were all these other great people I started getting closer to. Which leads me to this nugget…
Your Dry January will likely lead you to new friendships, relationships, and other cool people your slightly inebriated brain didn’t really notice before.
When I take a look at my close friends right now, I realize that many of them came into my life around the time that I did my first Dry January. A lot of them had been casual friends or acquaintances, but I had just never really connected with them before, beyond surface conversations. I remember I ran into one of these people in the street around week three of my first Dry January, and she asked me to go get a drink. When I said, “Oh I can’t, I am not drinking this entire month,” she immediately answered, “Oh, that’s so cool! Well, let’s go get a coffee or see a movie then?” WHOA. After the weirdness I had endured from others, that response felt so refreshing and awesome, and I really appreciated it. So fret not if you find yourself wanting to branch out to new friends; you’ll find them (you might even already know them). And, what’s maybe even better than that is…
By the end of week two, you’ll feel like a new person.
Holy shit, guys, I have to tell you that you will feel SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN by the end of week two. I was sleeping so much better, my brain was firing on all cylinders, I was getting all my to-do lists done, my mood was sky-high, my PMS that month was so minor I almost didn’t notice it, my outlook on life was consistently positive, my energy levels were constant, I felt so clear-headed, and my skin was glowing. Which is why…
You might be tempted to extend your Dry January to a Dry February.
And, in fact, I did. I felt so great at the end of January that I decided to extend it another month. And after those two months without any booze at all…
The first drink you have after the dry period will be like whoa. And hangovers? Well, they might never be the same.
After about 60 days of no drinking, I had a glass of wine (which I had missed, despite all the upsides) and OMG did I feel it right away. I felt like a cartoon character with those little stars and birds flying around my head. Of course, I had another glass or two that night, which led to an insane hangover the next day. Seriously, the ratio of booze-to-hangover was just totally unjustified. And that, sadly, never went away. To this day, even when I don’t drink a lot, I feel the effects of those drinks. Honestly, I’m not sure if that’s a result of my sober months or a product of getting older, or both, but either way…
This whole experience may change how and how much you drink forever.
Listen, I still like to go out and have a drink with friends, and when I have a hard, frustrating, difficult day, I’ll come home and pour myself a glass of vino. But I have never gone back to the same drinking habits I had before, I never will, and I am so glad. In fact, in my mind, my first alcohol-free month marks the moment I went from grown-up-in-training to real grown-up.
Now that you’re equipped with all the tips, go forth into your alcohol-free month with confidence: You CAN do this, you WILL do this, and you’ll be so glad that you did. | https://medium.com/refinery29/i-quit-drinking-for-a-month-these-12-things-happened-489727624937 | [] | 2020-08-12 15:56:01.047000+00:00 | ['Alcohol', 'Dry January', 'Stop Drinking', 'How To Quit Drinking', 'Health'] |
The American Pig and the Art of Klippothic Intersectionality — Part I. | The American Pig and the Art of Klippothic Intersectionality
The night before Thanksgiving, the Pigs dragged women and children out of their beds in the formerly abandoned homes my comrades had sheltered them in, the houses my comrades helped them upkeep beautifully, with lovely gardens, some of the soil of which I helped them till. Some of these people were of the first wave of unhoused families our comrades housed at the CalTrans owned neighborhood of unused houses in El Sereno, once planned for demolition for a new railway, a project years since abandoned. Feeling guilty that I didn’t go and physically stand against the Pigs and protect those families the other night, I drove over this morning, to see who was left. No one. Instead of doing what I really wanted to do, I put on my badge that shows that I, too, am a public service worker, employed by the county, paid by the public, just like them. I asked them where the families were, so that we might try to assist them. They didn’t know, and they didn’t care. They just gave me the front desk number to CHP in Sacramento. I asked them if they ever considered disobeying orders they found unethical and even wicked. They shrugged and said they weren’t allowed to express personal opinions, only to follow orders. I told them that must be why cops drink so much. I looked at the two Hispanic cops, a man and a woman, both athletic suburbanites who probably live somewhere in Santa Clarita in a gated McMansion neighborhood where everything smells like a freshly opened can of tennis balls, sterile, and rubber. I view these Latinx cops with even more derision than I feel towards white cops, more like the derision I feel towards the class traitor street gangs who shake down hard working elderly street vendors for gang-taxes. Middle class bourgeois kids going straight from high school to the police force is to be expected. When your ancestors were indigenous to this land, and you’re dragging other such indigenous people out of their houses at night, houses with no owners, you are of the type that would have shown Spanish conquistators around towned, helped them butcher your cousins if they’d give you some of that fancy armor. Come se dice Uncle Tom, foo?
Santa Clarita cops living in sterile mcmansions only go into nature within the militarized exoskeletons of speed boats and atv’s. Nature, a thing to be conquered. These are men uncomfortable in nature, uncomfortable in their own skin, uncomfortable in anything besides their uniform or their nylon Underarmour and Costco shirts (and big ass Oakley sunglasses). These are men who went straight from high school football bullies into a job that allows them to do that with impunity on the tax payer dime. They are nothing outside of their uniforms but vacant-eyed non-individuals, killing off duty hours in hours in their suburban homes with action movies, beer, and shitty jock rock. These are the guys who pound beers driving to and from the gym, knowing all they have to do is flash that badge to get a pass. I won’t say who or when, but one time I was riding in a van with one of these cops, on a family-related event I was coerced into attending. He had to stop into a 711 to pour vodka into his Big Gulp to stop the shakes. He had a van load of children. I made him pour it out. He wasn’t used to being told what to do. He complied. We had lots of talks thereafter. He showed me his human side. Then he went back into his shell and succumbed to alcoholism. I’m more of a socialist than an anarchist. I think societies need an accountable, tax-funded police force if for anything else, to keep the rich from crushing us with their own militias. But the line between those militias and the police force in America, military as well, has completely disappeared. The Blue Lives Matter flag might as well be a swaztika. In some countries, guys in the military and police join peoples’ mobilizations towards justice. The military and police in America are unreformable, given the blue code of silence and compliance. They are not servants of the public. They are hungry souls of the non-living, inhabiting steroid and alcohol bloated bodies, waiting for their day to retire, waiting for their day to die, probably with the television on. Because silence is a howling void for those who have never developed a soul. | https://medium.com/@robertgstrongphd/the-american-pig-and-the-art-of-klippothic-intersectionality-part-i-473901014e00 | ['Rob Strong'] | 2020-11-27 19:37:41.303000+00:00 | ['Acab', 'Anarchism', 'Socialism', 'Direct Action', 'Housing Crisis'] |
Red pepper and walnut spread | makes about 2 cups
This spread was inspired by an appetizer called muhammara found in Middle Eastern countries such as Syria and Turkey. In the original, roasted red bell peppers and walnuts are flavored with pomegranate syrup. If you have pomegranate syrup on hand, you can use it to replace the maple syrup in this recipe.
½ cup chopped walnut pieces
1 slice white bread, torn into pieces, or ½
cup dry bread crumbs
1 (12-ounce) jar roasted red bell peppers,
drained and coarsely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
½ teaspoon chili paste, or to taste
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus
additional as needed
Chopped fresh parsley or walnut pieces,
for garnish
In a food processor, process the walnuts and bread until finely ground. Add the roasted red peppers, lemon juice, vinegar, maple syrup, and chili paste, and blend until smooth. Season with the salt and cumin. Add the olive oil and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings, and add more oil if needed for consistency. Place in a bowl and garnish with chopped parsley or walnuts. note: If not using right away, cover and refrigerate. | https://medium.com/@plansvegan/red-pepper-and-walnut-spread-548faaa9fa29 | ['Plans Vegan'] | 2020-07-21 08:42:16.521000+00:00 | ['Foodie', 'Food', 'Dinner'] |
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Remember! Your health matters. #health #like #weightloss #worldhealthorganization #medecine #fatloss | https://medium.com/@guysgood547/free-weight-loss-supplement-2k22-69f310a06118 | ['Mr. Kamara'] | 2021-12-29 01:51:40.293000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Health', 'Healthcare', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Growth'] |
Artist Gabriela Gil Presents Her First Solo Art Exhibition in NYC, TIME and SPACE | Gabriela Gil
Painter, sculptor, and former dancer Gabriela Gil has announced her first New York solo exhibition this week. The Honduras-born, NYC-based artist will show the first volume of her “Time and Space” series starting Thursday, December 3 through Sunday, December 20, 2020 in Soho which will be shown in-person and virtually. Gabriela explains, “Timing is important in this project, because I am purposely taking advantage of the Covid lockdowns to present this body of work in creative ways.”
“I’ve been working on this series for two years,” Gil says. “My previous work was more figurative, and this new series breaks away from the figure completely. This is making way to abstract work that explores line, color and rhythm.”
Ave Del Paraiso, Gabriela Gil
In volume one of the series, Gil will show roughly 20 highly detailed miniature sets, inspired by the hand-made nativity scenes she saw as a child in Latin America, each with small paintings. The miniatures will then be displayed alongside large-scale paintings from the series.
Despite having worked on the project for years, Gil says that the Covid-19 pandemic recontextualized her vision. She says that she is leaning into the fact that people have been exposed to high levels digital content during the Covid-19 lockdown — the time during which she created the second half of the series.
“We are all consuming content on this tiny screen,” she says. “So, the idea was to create a play on perception. A lot of my paintings in this series are really big. I wanted the virtual exhibition itself to become an artwork.”
De Adentro, Gabriela Gil
Gil has moved throughout South and North America for her entire life and that “constant migration” shaped her multicultural perspective and nurtured her “interest in art as a way to transcribe personal experience using a unique visual language.” This series is heavily inspired by Latin America — its colors, its textures, its dances, its nature, and its warmth. However, I wouldn’t say this series encompasses my whole Latin American experience. Maybe another way to put it is that I am exploring my roots or going back to my roots with Time and Space, with the intention of building from there.
“I thought, if we can’t actually go somewhere physically, what is a way we can travel to a different place without really going?” she says. “And if I can only show the content virtually, on the tiny screen, then why not flip it on its head, go all the way and do something that would be harder to do in real life at a physical showing.”
For more information, visit: www.gabrielagil.com | https://medium.com/@lillianlangtrywrite/artist-gabriela-gil-presents-her-first-solo-art-exhibition-in-nyc-time-and-space-c6cbf92e94e6 | ['Lillian Langtry'] | 2020-12-01 22:07:15.939000+00:00 | ['Exhibition', 'Art', 'Gallery', 'New York City'] |
South China Sea Dispute. South China Sea Dispute Overview | South China Sea Dispute Overview
The South China Sea covers an area of 3.5 million square kilometers. The sea is considered a strategic area militarily and economically. According to various measurements and assessments, there are huge oil and gas deposits below the sea.
Beyond the energy reserves, about 30 percent of the world’s maritime transport passes through the South China Sea and carries about $5 trillion worth of goods.
South China Sea map
In addition to all this, there is a large amount of commercial fishing in the sea. Therefore, it is clear that those who have the strongest presence in the sea will take over a strategic sea route and enormous energy reserves.
The South China Sea claims map by Voice of America.
It can be said that control of the South China Sea will ensure control of Southeast Asia.
Several countries lie on the South China Seashores, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, and Taiwan (where China is not recognized as an independent state but a Chinese province).
There are more than 250 small islands in the South China Sea, most of which are largely uninhabited, but the main points of disagreement are Spratly islands, Paracel islands, and the Gulf of Tonkin. When all this data is taken into account, the South China Sea dispute takes on a different meaning.
This is not a negligible or insignificant area, but rather an area that is key to military and economic control throughout Southeast Asia.
The beginning of the South China Sea Dispute
In the 1970s, China and Vietnam confronted Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam lost, and China managed to take over the islands and affirm a base there.
However, the South China Sea conflict was significantly boosted in 1992 when China passed a law that the entire South China Sea belonged to China. Since then, China has been strengthening its hold on the sea by constantly exploiting its growing economic power, military capabilities, political status, and no less important, the superpowers' weakness.
Over the past decade, China has completed dozens of military bases on islands and reefs scattered across the South China Sea.
At first, China claimed that the buildings were completely civilian. Today it is clear that the bases are military in nature, and the main inhabitants of the islands are Chinese soldiers.
Yongxing Island, part of Paracel Islands (credit: Paul Spijkers)
At the same time, China became more aggressive in its claims to the sea ownership and began to prevent entry into the islands' territorial waters.
In recent years there has been a series of events in and outside the region that continues to lead to a worsening of the situation and the level of statements, threats, and actions taken by all parties involved.
One of the most significant events was a lawsuit filed by the Philippines against China at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2013 for violating their sovereignty in the South China Sea in the Philippines' vicinity.
In 2016 the court accepted the Philippines’ claim and ruled against China. However, China announced that it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, and of course, its rulings.
Simultaneously, the rise of the Trump administration led to a change in the Obama administration’s feeble approach to the region. The US military began sending military patrols into areas claimed by China.
The patrols were conducted by US destroyers and planes and have become the main cause of friction in the South China Sea. Currently, the US is the only country that is not afraid to confront China and challenge China’s takeover of the region.
Will China Launch A War Against the USA over the South China Sea Dispute?
In 1996, Professor Samuel Huntington published his book “Collision of Civilizations.” The book dealt with the world after the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the book’s main prediction was that a clash of civilizations would replace the conflict between the two major powers.
World’s civilizations map, by Prof. Huntington
One of the major civilizations is China. Professor Huntington predicted then that the South China Sea could become a focus of confrontation that would ignite a war between China and the United States.
Professor Huntington’s prediction was very accurate, although there has still been no war. The region has become a constant focus of tension between the United States and China's armies, and friction seems to be rising.
A war between the United States and China over their territorial rights dispute seems like a natural and unavoidable development.
It can be assumed that the Americans will not intentionally start a war but will continue to sail warships in areas that China claims to own. But what can we assume about the Chinese? Will they start a war?
There is, of course, no way to predict the future accurately, but it is possible to try to evaluate.
The relevant considerations for assessing the likelihood of a confrontation
What are the chances of success of a Chinese military move against the United States?
The Chinese success criteria for such a move is the cessation of American shipping in the South China Sea and the adoption of China’s claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea.
If the United States actually stops the flights and the destroyers’ patrols in areas that China claims to own, it can be assumed that no other country will dare to confront China militarily to prevent them from completely taking over the sea.
China, armed with missiles capable of hitting an American aircraft carrier, openly declares that its missiles can sink an aircraft carrier.
Suppose China prepares the US Pearl Harbor of the South China Sea, launches a devastating missile attack, and manages to destroy an entire American Armada.
What will happen next? Will the United States retreat, raise their hands, and give up?
History should teach us one thing: The United States will embark on a full-scale war against China.
A Comparison Between USA & China’s army
For the sake of a very detailed comparison between the two armies, you can click here, but since we would like to take a high-level view, we will focus on several key things:
Army’s Budget
The US military budget is more than $ 600 billion, about 2.5 times the Chinese military budget, which is reflected in a huge gap in naval and air power. The United States holds 20 aircraft carriers compared to China’s 2. The number of the United States’ attack aircraft and helicopters incomparably exceeds that of the Chinese. The fact that the Chinese have a much larger reservist army seems almost meaningless in this context.
Other significant capabilities such as logistics, communications, electronic warfare, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are much more developed in the American military.
Army allies
China’s most significant ally in the region is Pakistan, which has no outlet to the South China Sea. The Americans, on the other hand, have the Philippines, Taiwan, India, and Singapore. Each of these countries could serve as an important logistical rear for the US military.
This is not just a logistical hinterland, but rather the ability to strangle the Chinese economy and impose a naval blockade on China. Much of China’s energy consumption comes from Africa.
The excess American power at sea can relatively easily block the maritime route and paralyze the Chinese economy's energy consumption and the export of its goods, much of which operates in the South China Sea.
History of China’s Confrontation
What is the potential damage to China?
Suppose China decided to take military action against the Americans. What are the options at its disposal? At least according to Chinese statements themselves (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/10/asia/china-missiles-south-china-sea-intl/index.html), they would choose to launch missiles and sink an aircraft carrier.
There is no doubt that this is a serious military attack that will bring down thousands of American soldiers, fighter planes, missiles, and the aircraft carrier itself.
Apart from this, the Chinese have no other military options. It is possible, of course, to imagine a ballistic missile attack on the United States. Still, this possibility seems completely unrealistic and will only be realistic in a full-scale war between the two countries.
Suppose China actually sunk an American aircraft carrier. What results can China expect from such a move?
From the Chinese point of view, the goal of such a move would be to deter the Americans from repeatedly infiltrating what the Chinese see as their territory and finally eliminating any military challenge to China’s claims in the South China Sea. If the United States were to no longer position more challenges, the Philippines or Vietnam would not do so either.
But is it really likely that the American aircraft carrier ring will cause the Americans to tuck their tail and leave the South China Sea?
Maybe.
But if we look at history, the likelihood of an unacceptable military coup for China, leading to economic disaster and perhaps the fall of the communist regime, is more likely.
Unlike Europe, the United States has never been passive or submissive in defending what it saw as its most important interests. Examples are abundant.
Pearl Harbor, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq invasion, and the latest examples are the disproportionate response to the big terror attack on the Twin Towers.
The United States destroyed two states, Iraq and Afghanistan, out of a desire for revenge against those who harmed it.
In other words, China would actually risk a disproportionate response, for example:
The elimination of its naval force
Destruction of main ports and airports
Destruction of government buildings and symbols of the Communist Party
The imposition of a prolonged naval blockade and its economic paralysis
Destruction of all naval bases China has built in the South China Sea, removing Chinese presence in the South China Sea (This is a possible US response in consideration of the logic of a Chinese assault against the USA)
Infrastructure destruction (energy, water, military, government)
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Chinese were very wrong in assessing their power and underestimating Britain's power and then Japan.
China paid for these mistakes in full. It can be said that it was only after World War II that China began to experience full independence again.
Can China make the same mistake again and underestimate the USA's excess of power?
We shall assume carefully that the answer to this question is not rhetorical. Since the death of Mao Zedong, the Chinese have proved one thing: they have a vision and a clear strategy updated every five years through the five-year plans. They are rational, goal-oriented, and they are very determined.
So what is China’s strategy?
China’s Strategy — Walking On the Threshold
To understand China’s strategy, it is important to understand how China views itself and what is perceived by China and its citizens as the essential thing for China.
What is the ethos of the Chinese people (most of them — except for small minorities)?
One Emperor Under The Sky
If we were to look at Chinese history and choose one point as the most significant landmark in Chinese history, we would choose 221 BC as the most important year in China's history.
In that year, Emperor Qin, after whom China was called, succeeded in uniting the countries that had made up China and fought for centuries into one state (not in the modern sense, of course) under one imperial rule.
The reign of the Emperor of China lasted only a short time, 14 years, and during those years, Emperor Qin acted to unite China.
Chinese unity and the need for one emperor to rule under the sky in China were then burned into the Chinese national consciousness and continued to this day.
Thus, one can understand how Taiwan and China see each other as original China. They do not challenge the unity of China, but only the representation of this unity.
Since 221 BC, during periods when there was one powerful dynasty that ruled and during transitional periods of dying dynasties and new dynasties, the ethos of one emperor under the sky was always dominant in China.
Middle Earth
China has always perceived itself as a central power. It saw itself as the center of the world and the other peoples as culturally, politically, administratively, and intellectually subordinate.
Middle earth, an ancient world map, was drawn by Jesuit missioners.
Thus, China maintained its political relations with many countries in East Asia. The connection was based on delegates who came to visit the emperor’s court (after receiving approval, of course), brought gifts with them, received gifts from the Chinese emperor, and was allowed to stay in China for a while to learn what China had to offer.
It was also how the Chinese treated Britain without understanding the risk and irrelevance of this perception and approach when dealing with the Western powers.
In the Chinese language, China is called Zhong Guo (中国), the middle earth. China is in the center of the world and other countries around it.
The values of Confucianism — Harmony, and Hierarchy
During the Mao Zedong period, China suppressed the Chinese. An all-out war against Chinese culture was declared. The war ended after the death of Mao Zedong, and since then, China has been returning to the values of Confucianism that have characterized it for thousands of years.
Over 500 Confucius Institutes have been established around the world to spread the culture of China.
What are the basic values of Confucianism?
If you summarize them, then it is about hierarchy and harmony.
The hierarchy is based on five relationships defined by Confucius, and in each relationship, there is a senior and junior.
There are no two equals. For example, the older man is senior to the young man. The father is senior to the son. The husband is a senior to his wife.
If human relations are to be cast into international relations, then it is clear that China is more important than Vietnam or the Philippines, or any other country in the region because of its size, its antiquity, and its strength.
Harmony — When each person knows his role, a harmonious society is created. When people do not know their role and try to be what they are not supposed to be, social disorder begins to form.
Confucius spoke of relationships between people, but this idea also applies to international relations. A junior state that tries to be a senior and refuses to accept the larger and stronger country's prestige will cause an international disorder.
Therefore, every person and every company or country must recognize their role and their place to achieve harmony.
The Prospect of a Confrontation in the South China Sea
Now that we have briefly reviewed the military issue, potential damage, and some of China’s major ethos, is it possibly better to understand China’s strategy in the South China Sea?
We assume the answer is yes, but this is, of course, only an estimation. Reality has its own rules, and one incident that spins out of control can completely change the game. Assuming that both sides will manage the South China Sea's territorial struggle, we shall assume that China will continue to walk on the threshold while the threshold rises slightly each time.
They will not dare to make any dramatic war moves, such as the aircraft carrier ring from rational thinking. They might engage in warning fire or maybe light exchanges of fire, but not the aircraft carrier ring.
The price that China might pay in such a case would set its economy back by decades, undermine Communist Party control, encourage social unrest within China, and dismantle strategic alliances that China has built with great effort in the last twenty years in Asia and South America.
But the more ironic part of such an operation could be an American attack that would destroy all the naval bases China had built in the South China Sea with great effort.
In other words, rationally, China has so much to lose in the event of wartime action against the United States that this alone is sufficient to decide the scale of the assessment.
Also, China, by nature, is not a war-seeker. Its past includes many internal wars even before it was founded (the warring stated some 2,500 years ago). Since then, especially during the periods of decline of the dynasties, it includes very few external wars.
The Mongol Yuan Dynasty led two attempts to invade Japan in the 13th century. Other wars (opium wars with Britain) broke out in the nineteenth century against Britain due to the opium import into China Britain to improve its trade balance with China.
China was dragged into a war with Japan following the Japanese provocations in Korea. During the 20th century, China was involved in World War II and war with India on Arunachal Pradesh in the Himalayas, an area claimed by China.
If China’s history is compared to any other Western country's history, there is no doubt that China is essentially a peace-seeking nation. Yet, it has great ambitions to return to its status as Middle-earth, the great empire, and the world's greatest power to which everyone aspires.
In this context, China views itself as a Confucian. From China’s standpoint, its size, economic, military, and political power make it a more important country than others. So, the other countries must recognize this and respect China.
As Confucius said, when everyone knows his place, there will be harmony. When each country knows its place (senior or junior), there will be harmony, that is, peace. | https://eastasiancultures.medium.com/south-china-sea-dispute-2019-ab198205d887 | ['East Asian Cultures'] | 2020-11-25 13:48:24.662000+00:00 | ['South China Sea Dispute', 'China', 'South China Sea', 'China Us Trade War', 'China Trends'] |
Reflection on Amal Totkay | Amal career prep fellowship is a 3months programme, which prepares us for a better future, to become professional in our field.
Last week, Amal’s session was on growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
In short, a person with a fixed mindset considers a failure, the endpoint, while a growth mindset person starts to learn from failures and achieves success.
For this Amal academy shared 5most important learning tips for a growth mindset, called as Amal Totkay.
5 Amal Totkay
Self Talk
Get out of comfort zone
Create new habits
Ask people for help
Fake it till you make it
How did I find these tips?
I believe these tips as a starting point of my successful career, and I’ll surely achieve my ultimate goal of life by following these tips.
What are my takeaways?
It is helping me to reflect on my ideas and making me creative. I’m learning new things and getting out of my comfort zone.
My favourite tips
My favourite one is fake it till you make it, this tip has made me confident about my skills, and now, I’m trying to improve these skills.
The tips that I’m implementing in my life
Like I said above, fake it till you make it, and others include self-talk and getting out of comfort zone.
What can I do further to grow my mindset?
I’m trying my best to follow these tips and working on my skills to polish them. Also, I’m asking for the feedback and taking it positively to improve my skills. | https://medium.com/@alihasanwakeel/reflection-on-amal-totkay-591ecb40d2e | ['Ali Hasan'] | 2020-12-26 02:25:44.130000+00:00 | ['Amal Academy', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Amal Totkay'] |
March 22: A Walk in the Cemetery | This will be a short one since I was too tired last night to write anything and have thus failed to write every day this quarantine season. Oh, well. I’ll make up for it by writing twice today, because I cannot go without mentioning my goose story from this morning.
In light of my very lazy Saturday, I didn’t want to spend another day entirely in my pajamas, but I did, once again, play quite a bit of Animal Crossing. I am motivated by simple tasks, DIY projects, and cute animals, I guess. Sunday, I spent some time with my father, who has taken time off work to self-isolate. He works with adults who experience certain mental challenges, and they do production work in their warehouses with these individuals for various companies. That work has since ceased due to statewide restrictions, so rather than be placed in a different area of work for the foreseeable future, Kevin decided to take some time off. I respect that choice, but he is a prime candidate for cabin fever. We’ll see how it goes.
When I visited him, we decided to go for a walk since it was nice out. It was on the cooler side yesterday, but I live for this true spring weather. Our usual haunt (hah) when we take walks is, of course, the nearby cemetery. This started about half a decade ago when I felt the compulsion to take a walk there on Christmas morning. Cemeteries get a bad reputation, and I get it; there are a lot of corpses and ashes there, but there’s also a lot of history, memories, and nature. It’s peaceful, and for a fan of the macabre such as myself, all these things combined makes for a perfect destination.
That’s right. I hung out with tombstones this weekend. I bet you’re all insanely jealous.
Being out in the fresh air was pleasant. I admittedly haven’t been out of the house much because, as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m lazy. However, I love taking walks. It’s good for the joints, and all that.
We also ventured to one of my favorite stores, Grocery Outlet (Bargain Market) where I purchased three pounds of bacon (six bucks, y’all), fresh asparagus, and whatever else I put in the cart. I don’t even remember. I’m sure I bought some cheese.
With our dinner (grilled cheese sandwiches and frozen pierogies), I tossed the asparagus in some grapeseed oil, topped it with salt and pepper, and roasted it for about fifteen minutes. I don’t have many opportunities to cook due to my commute, my family’s preferences for dinner times, and a general lack of interest in purchasing separate groceries while I’m still living at home (paying off my student loans is a priority and even with this current weird situation we’re in, I’m still aiming to pay the remaining amount in April). But that dinner, however simple, was delicious.
I’m also planning on making asparagus with some black pepper bacon as a side for dinner tonight. Looking forward to it.
My insights from Sunday:
Get some fresh air when you can. Eat tasty food. Play Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
And be sure to follow along with Erin Walker’s quarantine adventures! | https://medium.com/@sydneyj/march-22-a-walk-in-the-cemetery-b08a297bc7f0 | ['Sydney Jane'] | 2020-03-23 17:08:37.119000+00:00 | ['Journaling'] |
Goldilocks and the Sleeping Butterball | The other day while looking for a Christmas tree in the narrow strip of woods between our alfalfa fields, Eden found something she was not expecting.
The woodlot
The little woodlot is a frequent playground for our kids and they know most of its trails and hiding places well. A tree twenty or thirty feet from the clearing had fallen who knows how long ago and then had been cut, leaving a stump perched lopsided atop a large mat of roots and upended earth, leaving underneath it a space big enough for…well, it was a large space.
Eden, spotting the gap and thinking she had found the perfect cubbyhole from which to evade detection during games of hide and seek, scurried down to the stump and crouched down to look inside. What she saw — in a strange twist of the old story — was that someone had been sleeping in the bed she had intended for herself, and he was still there!
What Eden Found
Fortunately for Eden, she saw it before attempting to crawl into the den with it, and the bear apparently did not consider the commotion at close quarters outside its winter home as requiring much of its attention.
Also fortunately for Eden, it wasn’t a big bear. Nor a very old bear. And by all appearances, was a very sleepy and docile bear. But it was a bear, nonetheless.
We know this for certain because Eden and the other children came running to me with this wild and unlikely story and asked that I confirm its authenticity — which I promptly did.
Recounting what followed risks the approbation of park rangers everywhere, but with me posted close to the entrance, all five children and then Rebecca and even Nana made there way one at a time down the slope to peak at the bear’s nose and then go back up to the trail.
Because I was posted near the mouth of the den, I was able to watch him for several minutes. He looked up at the light I was shining down on him but never appeared the least agitated. Once he even yawned, as if to punctuate his indifference.
We think that this is the same small bear that I saw several times in September. He’s a small, jolly, fat little fellow who is probably a year and a half old and has been feasting on our neighbour’s corn. He’s about as big as Heidi, our St. Bernard. At the time I named him Butterball.
Butterball coming back down after sitting near the top for half an hour
He might be one of the cubs of the mother bear with twins Rebecca and the kids stumbled across the same time in September of last year.
All of our human inquisitiveness does not, of course, change the fact that Butterball is a wild animal and would have likely let Eden know this if she had gotten just a little further into his living quarters.
It’s exciting and sometimes disconcerting: All the animals of various sizes and descriptions with which we share our environment both knowingly and unknowingly.
Within a couple of miles of our home, we’ve seen dozens of species:
Birds: Quail, Pheasant, Grouse, Bald Eagle, Barn Owl, Trumpeter Swan, Great Blue Heron, Canada Geese (of course), Osprey, Red-tailed Hawk, and many varieties of sparrows and songbirds.
Hoofed: Mule Deer, Whitetail Deer, and Moose. Our neighbours have seen elk, although we’ve never gotten a glimpse.
Predators: Black Bear and Coyote. We’ve seen cougar tracks, and have heard that wolf and grizzly have been spotted north of town.
And that’s just the neighbourhood.
As far as I know, Butterball is still in his den under the tree stump and will, I guess, stay there until Spring unless something — hopefully not another little blond girl — disturbs him
As for us, we found a Christmas tree, headed back to our own den, and found that it was just right. | https://medium.com/mcnorth/goldilocks-and-the-sleeping-butterball-fdf615cf99cf | ['Nathan Mcneill'] | 2020-12-21 16:23:35.505000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Bears', 'Wildlife'] |
The Covid-19 Vaccine Conspiracy Nobody's Talking About | Photo by CDC on Unsplash
I love a good conspiracy theory. I enjoy the dopamine rush of diving headfirst into a rabbit hole risking my sanity in the process. During the quarantine, I did just that. Swimming in the internet currents of RFID chips, Bill Gates, nanotechnology, bioweapons, population control, and 5G. Anything to satisfy my dopamine cravings. I watched The ‘Plandemic’ and ‘Tracking Down the Origin of Wuhan Coronavirus’ back to back in one sitting. Like most conspiracy theories, the evidence was circumstantial at best and raised more questions than it answered. Having said that, I didn’t find any of the Rona theories all that compelling. At least Qanon has underground mole children and CIA gunfights in Germany to capture a Dominion server. Now that’s an entertaining conspiracy. The idea of Bill Gates investing hundreds of millions to develop a vaccine to track my normie ass commuting to work 5 days a week is kind of lame. Besides, my phone does that quite effectively. After coming out the other end of the rabbit hole disappointed and dopamine deprived maybe all of these vaccine and covid conspiracies are just a distraction. Obfuscating our broken for-profit health care system and the millionaires and billionaires who buy their second and third private islands off of our misery.
Bill Gates is a Capitalist First
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
In the spring of 2020 Oxford University developed a covid-19 vaccine and promised to donate the rights to any drug-maker. Essentially making it open source. The idea was to provide medicines preventing or treating COVID-19 at a low cost or free of charge, the British university said. That humanitarian spirit only lasted a few weeks before Oxford caved and reversed course signing an exclusive deal with AstraZeneca which made no guarantee to sell the vaccine at a low price. Here’s where the internet’s favorite boogie man steps in. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation persuaded the university, I’m being generous here, to sign the patent rights over to AstraZeneca by flexing the foundation’s political and financial power. The Gates Foundation is the key funder of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations or CEPI, which funds Oxford’s vaccine projects to the tune of $384 million. The foundation also directly gives the British university hundreds of millions of dollars through charitable grants for various projects. Why would the face of rich guy philanthropy want to stop billions of people from having affordable access to a life-saving vaccine? Here’s a clue. According to K M Gopakumar, legal adviser to the Third World Network, who is based in India, “If we change the way in which you regulate the industry, or the ways in which you want medicines or vaccines to be produced and delivered,” “it’s definitely going to affect these companies’ business model — and also the investments of Gates Foundation. So they are using their money to reinforce the status quo.” This all adds up when you take into account the Gates Foundation’s holdings of Big Pharma companies like Pfizer, BioNTech, CureVac, and Vir Biotechnology. All who have or are in the process of developing a COVID-19 vaccine. Why isn’t this trending? Well, the media doesn’t want the Big Pharma advertising dollars to dry up. So instead of showcasing real epidemiologists to inform the public, they parade around a billionaire computer nerd. The facts may not care about your feelings, but the capitalists don’t care about your health or well-being.
Everything's a Commodity
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
Google the words vaccine stocks and you get pages of advice on which Big Pharma stocks you can bet on. Titles like ‘3 Covid Vaccine Stocks That Could Be Millionaire-Makers’ or ‘7 Biotech Stocks To Buy For Profit From The Vaccine Crunch’. With a global death toll of over 2 million as of early 2021 and untold economic and social devastation, speculating on vaccine stocks seems more sadistic than Darwinian. But this is neoliberalism after all so it possibly a mixture of the two. On the other side of the bitcoin, you have pharmaceutical execs cashing in on their companies vaccine progress. A January 21, 2021 report released by Accountable Pharma details over $250 million in insider trading by executives and directors at five major drug companies producing vaccines after receiving billions in taxpayer funding. According to SEC filings, from the launch of Operation Warp Speed on May 15 through August 31, 2020, executives and directors at five of the companies receiving COVID vaccine funding through the Trump Administration initiative made stock transactions valued at a net profit of more than $145 million. Moderna was the most active netting $115 million in profit. “This is an eye-popping amount of money that drug company executives have shamelessly cashed out after pumping up their stock prices with billions of taxpayer dollars,” said Eli Zupnick, spokesman for Accountable Pharma. “While taxpayers are putting more and more skin in the game through Operation Warp Speed, drug company executives are feverishly pulling theirs out and making sure that they come out of this big winners whether or not they actually deliver a safe and effective vaccine.” Disaster capitalism at its finest.
Medicare for the Rich
Photo by Ondrej Bocek on Unsplash
While millions of Americans are waiting in hours-long lines to get vaccinated, the elite are skipping the line. The rich and powerful are using private physicians, concierge services, connections to get inoculated first. Private jet setters are traveling across the globe to engage in vaccine tourism. Hollywood insiders are flying to Florida, a casino magnate and his wife were caught flying to Canada to cut in line in front of the indigenous locals, there’s even concierge service to get the jab internationally. If you have a minimum net worth of $800 million you join the Knightsbridge Circle, a concierge service offering luxury vaccination holidays in the UAE.
Stepping over society’s most vulnerable isn’t just for the ultra-wealthy. With vaccine shortages and delays, the upper-middle-class are getting in on the vaccine Hunger Games too. According to a New York Times Report, wealthy people across the country are flocking to low-income neighborhoods to get vaccinated. George Jones, head of Bread for Jones, a New York City nonprofit medical clinic, told a local news outlet, “Suddenly our clinic was full of white people. We’d never had that before. We serve people who are disproportionately African-American.”. Early reports of the nationwide vaccine rollout show that White Americans are receiving most of the vaccines. According to Politico, just 5% of Black Americans and 11% of Latinos have received the vaccine since the beginning of February. When you add the limited access to the vaccine, the higher rates of contraction and death, and the over-representation of black and Latino workers in front-line industries our countries priorities are clear. Not to mention the elderly, homeless, and prison populations which nobody cares about until they become an inconvenience.
America’s Pastime
Photo by Ronda Darby on Unsplash
Conspiracy theories are an American pastime. Myths about its founding and founding fathers are the glue that holds this country together. I mean, burning witches at the stakes used to be a thing here, so people animatedly believing in shape-shifting reptilian beings running the government is very on-brand. While most Americans were locked down due to a global pandemic, social media and the attention economy exploded. The algorithms designed to keep its users engaged found that rabbit holes are not only engaging but very profitable for Big Tech. One side effect of AI radicalizing Nana and Pawpaw is the mainstreaming conspiracy theories. Ultimately moving the public discourse into non-constructive disagreements about perception. While the rubes yell past each other over a vaccine that may not be accessible to everybody, Bill Gates doesn’t isn't losing a wink of sleep in his quite castle on his floating bed made of money. | https://extranewsfeed.com/the-covid-19-vaccine-conspiracy-nobodys-talking-about-56c24062cc13 | ['Pierce Price'] | 2021-03-22 16:03:02.688000+00:00 | ['Conspiracy Theories', 'Astrazeneca', 'Vaccines', 'Coronavirus', 'Bill Gates'] |
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