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Five Things Japan is Doing in Preparation for The 2020 Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games | The opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games is scheduled to begin in a little over two years, on July 24th. The Paralympics will kick off August 25th. One of the largest sporting events in the world will be taking place in the most populated city in the world. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics is sure to be a spectacle, as Japan’s effort to make the games both accessible to foreigners and something uniquely their own is underway. It has been 20 years since the last Olympic Games was held in Nagano, Japan. Similarly to previous games, there will be no holding back any expenses to make it a smoothly run operation. Despite being two years out, you can see some of the ways in which the preparation for the games is already underway.
1). Increased Education in English.
Japan already has a relatively high amount of English speakers considering its history. However it is undeniable that there has been an influx of individuals studying the language. The Japanese educational system has started to ramp up their English studies for students. Private schools like NOVA, have started offering specialty courses for those specifically looking to volunteer. Some Japanese citizens have no intention of volunteering but simply wish to be able to help and interact with foreigners if the occasion arises.
It is not only the citizens of Japan who are working on their English skills but many companies as well. Some more services are being introduced, such as a recent twenty four hour English hotline for the benefits of foreigners in need of some assistance.
A textbook used in TEFL course to teach English as a second language. ©Shotaro Honda Moore.
2).Renovating Cultural Heritage Sites.
While sightseeing in Japan, you’ll notice there are currently quite a few cultural heritage sites and major tourist attractions under renovation at the moment. Himeji Castle, The Hiroshima Peace Museum and Tosho-Gu in Nikko are some such sites. It isn’t uncommon for these sites to undergo maintenance every few decades as Japan is known for having natural disasters that contribute to the erosion of these places. Heavy rain, tsunamis and earthquakes just to name a few examples. The fact that seemingly so many are under renovation now and will be done sometime in late 2019 or early 2020 before the Olympic games is no surprise. It is obvious the motives behind them at this particular time.
Toshu-Gu in Nikko being renovated. ©Shotaro Honda Moore.
3). Transportation and Roads.
Japan already has one of the most elaborate and efficient public transportation systems in the world. Tokyo specifically needs to be incredibly effective at transporting commuters and has some of the most high traffic train stations in the world. The single highest is Shinjuku Station that sees over 1 million commuters daily. There will be an altered train schedule during the Olympics to compensate for the influx, however details aren’t set.
There is also going to be additional construction done to roads to some tourist destinations. Engineers are working on making alterations to small roads that don’t have the necessary access for increased traffic.
Train stations can expect to have increased passengers and different schedules with the upcoming Olympics. ©Shotaro Honda Moore.
4). Changing the Rules of Smoking in Restaurants.
Currently there are very few regulations in terms of smoking within restaurants. Many restaurants allow smoking in their establishments, including most chains. There are often smoking and non smoking sections but many small family run shops don’t have a separated areas. On occasion and more frequently in big chains there is a designated smoking room which is a glass box with some ventilation systems that allows smokers to still have a sit down meal, while separating them from non smokers.
For the upcoming Olympics there has been many talks about changing the rules to accommodate those from abroad. This has been met with criticism, as it seems ridiculous to some that the Japanese should have to cater towards foreigners. There are already many restricted areas in big cities, especially main shopping streets that prohibit smoking. Usually this means that individuals who do wish to smoke, have to go out of their way or are confined to small smoking areas. Obviously this seems quite reasonable especially in areas with a high traffic of kids. One concern however is that having to regulate so many smokers to one area is incredibly inconvenient.
Designated smoking areas may be increased due to changes made for smoking in restaurants. ©Shotaro Honda Moore.
5). Creating A New National Arena.
Following Tokyo being announced as the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics, it was announced that the National Olympic Stadium from 1964 Olympics would be knocked down. A new state of the art facility would replace it and the construction began in 2016. The budget for the new area is 155 billion yen and architect Kengo Kuma has been placed in charge. It is expected to seat somewhere between 68000 to 80000 spectators.
This may be a more controversial change then the rest, even more so than the smoking. There has been some complaints by businesses as to the effect this construction has on them. Despite this, the creation of a New National Stadium is still one of importance in the eyes of many members of the Olympic Committee. It will serve as a symbol to the rest of the world when hosting the opening and closing ceremonies. The goal is to move away from concrete and incorporate much more wood and a more unique Japanese aesthetic. It is expected to be done completion in November of 2019. | https://shotarohondamoore.medium.com/five-things-japan-is-doing-in-preparation-for-the-2020-tokyo-olympic-games-bab2cead1e56 | ['Shotaro Honda Moore'] | 2019-02-20 04:10:56.460000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Japan', 'Olympics', 'Athletics'] |
In Search of Joy: Empty Fields, Full Hearts | Empty Fields — Full Hearts Image : Conrad Madden @CMPWarrenpoint
A couple years back , I remember watching a very well produced video from the GAA, that celebrated an event that to be honest, I had never heard of. During the war of Independence, a day of national defiance was held, against a policy of enforced conscription to the join the British war effort in WW1. It was called ‘Gaelic Sunday’ when in flaunting the restrictions from Crown forces, over 300 games of football and hurling were held across the Island.
Watching the video, I was reminded of a visit from the about to be Director General Páraic Duffy to our club in Warrenpoint. I remember sitting there, open mouthed, when he claimed that there was nothing more that could be done in Northern Ireland to increase the playing base of the games outside of its traditional Catholic Nationalist base. All possible avenues to build bridges to the Unionist community had been exhausted ‘we are doing FAR more than anyone else’. With a new club in East Belfast, a number of high profile GAA baptisms for Arlene Foster, Linda Irvine and others, not to mention the huge development efforts undertaken by Ulster Rugby and the IFA, those comments from Duffy seem as foolish now as they did to me then.
Tipperary football players lay their wreath at the 1920 memorial at Hill 16 Image : RTE online
The cloth capped players in that video, jumping over dry stone walls with their hurleys concealed, have now been followed with a memorable commemoration of the Bloody Sunday massacre in Croke Park. And quite incredibly, as you might have seen in about 25 Whatsapps you received, the provincial finalists of the Football Championship echo exactly those of 1920, with particular symbolism for Tipperary of course.
Their slain player Michael Hogan and his eponymous stand in Croke Park has led Hogan to become the best known surname in GAA, arguably above even Cusack, Maguire and McCarthy.
A sombre and respectful week of commemoration with excellent contributions from the Abbey Theatre and the team at Radio 1 culminated in the incredible and improbable semi-final pairings. Aine Lawlor on the Friday tried to encourage a “this is a strange All Ireland weekend” angle but the interviewee couldn’t hide her joy. The Postmistress spoke of her elation and the excitement in Cavan about being in the All Ireland semi final. While Tipperary suffered at Mayo’s hand, having the opportunity to lay a wreath at the spot where Hogan last took his breath, was an incredible moment for that Tipperary team.
The event that falls under this decade of remembrance, again deepened our understanding of the events of that weekend; the actions of Collins that precipitated the slaughter on Jones’ Road, as well as knowing of the other names that deceased that day.
The evening events from Croke Park made a stunning nocturnal sight. Image PRI173326631 / Sportsfile
To me, it was a reminder of the complicated linkages that are stitched in the fabric of the GAA, the warp of war and weft of renewal, and how they resonate so loudly with the events during this most turbulent of decades of Irish history.
Jessie Owens. Tommy Smith and John Carlos. The poppy-less James McClean. Shut up and dribble. Kneel, don’t kneel, then kneel again but get booed. If its true that you shouldn’t mix politics and sport, then we’re not doing a very good job of it.
The perception that both are pure, distinct bodies is of course untrue; beware of any elected representative telling you to ‘stop politicising the issue’. Politics is the sombre, organisation of society defined by the principles and laws of the land. Sports, is the recreation of the people, a distraction to be enjoyed without the botheration of ideologies, parties and philosophies.
Nice try. There is politics in everything. Even marble racing. And of all the sports bodies on the Island, the GAA is beyond question the most political of them all. It is inherent in its nature. Borne from the anger of a post famine Ireland, the GAA is the sporting embodiment of the Gaelic Revival; the living, sweating, panting beast that was born from the Phoenix Bird that beat its wings on O’Connell Street.
Politics will alway be in Sport — especially in Ireland Image — Paul Faith / Agence France / Getty
The GAA has moved with great political astuteness through the Covid 19 pandemic. Along with deft manoeuvers to mobilise its members to aid with a covid community response, GAA chiefs have ensured that throughout the year, they have crafted guidelines that do not make distinctions between its playing base in the North or South. It is unashamedly a 32 county operation, operating in a futuristic ‘agreed Ireland’, as Seamus Mallon once put it. There is little doubt, the hands and arms of Ireland these days, are those of the GAA. | https://medium.com/@conorkeenan/in-search-of-joy-empty-fields-full-hearts-7139b10e6b43 | ['Conor Keenan'] | 2020-12-22 22:34:17.410000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'NBA', 'Ireland', 'Soccer', 'Covid 19'] |
Ak Parti bizi kandırmanın çocuk oyuncağı olduğunu biliyor! | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/creacity/ak-parti-bizi-kand%C4%B1rman%C4%B1n-%C3%A7ocuk-oyunca%C4%9F%C4%B1-oldu%C4%9Funu-biliyor-al%C4%B1nt%C4%B1-2291243b25f5 | ['Hunili Yazılımcı'] | 2018-01-05 12:50:00.307000+00:00 | ['Quotes'] |
Who said we cannot unit test SwiftUI views? | The Tool
Since there’s no access to the inner shadow attribute graph of SwiftUI, I tried to use Swift’s reflection API. Xcode uses it for printing out the contents of variables when we stop on a breakpoint in the debugger. And I was surprised by how much information was available inside the SwiftUI views.
It turns out SwiftUI views have a very ramified inner structure, so the first thing I had to implement was a recursive traversing of inner attributes:
If you call this function for a simple view hierarchy, like this one:
… you’d get a pretty long output. However, this could be restructured in a more readable and concise way:
"view" of type AnyView
↳ "storage" of type AnyViewStorage<Text>
↳ "view" of type Text
↳ "modifiers" of type Array<Modifier>
↳ value = []
↳ "storage" of type Storage
↳ "verbatim" of type String
↳ value = "Hello, world!"
I had a gut feeling that it just can’t be that simple — there had to be a wall I won’t be able to get through with using just reflection, but I was curious how far I could dig.
And as it turned out, there were many pitfalls waiting for me on the way:
All types in reflection are erased to Any Computed properties, such as var body: some View , are not available in reflection There are generic private structs and function types, which are tricky to cast the value to It’s hard to initialize a struct for which all init methods are private SwiftUI dependency needs an injection through Environment There are significant variations to the hierarchy after a tiny tweak of the input — for example, Text("Hi") vs. Text(hiValue) Overall there’s a lot of obscurities and a lack of information about the private structures
In this article, I’ll talk about interesting use cases I encountered and the ways I addressed the challenges, but before that, let me show you what I’ve got after a few days of trial and error:
With this library, you can extract your custom views from the hierarchy and evaluate its state in unit tests:
You can read the actual values from the standard SwiftUI views, such as the String value of Text .
And it’s also possible to programmatically trigger side effects on behalf of the user:
By now, the framework supports the majority of views available in SwiftUI for iOS and macOS, as well as views ported from UIKit with UIViewRepresentable :
AnyView , Button , DatePicker , Divider , EquatableView , ForEach , Form , GeometryReader , Group , GroupBox , HSplitView , HStack , Image , List , ModifiedContent , NavigationLink , NavigationView , Picker , ScrollView , Section , SecureField , Slider , Stepper , TabView , Text , TextField , Toggle , VSplitView , VStack , ZStack
I did eventually hit a few unbreakable walls, but overall, I’m satisfied with the result.
OK, it’s time for some hacky stories. | https://medium.com/better-programming/hacking-swiftui-for-unit-testing-and-runtime-inspection-5f6329ff1697 | ['Alexey Naumov'] | 2019-12-07 18:54:14.811000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Programming', 'Swiftui', 'Mobile', 'Swift'] |
Analysis: 2020 Black List | A deep dive into the scripts named to this year’s annual Black List.
The 2020 Black List rolled out Monday — you can find titles, writers and loglines for all of the selected scripts here — and as promised, today we have some statistics and analysis for you.
First some interesting stats about this year’s Black List:
There are 80 screenplays on the 2020 Black List (There were 66 screenplays on the 2019 Black List). I believe this is the highest number of screenplays on an annual Black List which is surprising because the minimum number of mentions this year is 7, where in year’s past, it has more typically been 6.
375 working film executives at major Hollywood financiers and production companies contributed to the 2020 Black List, compared to 250+ in 2019.
26% of the scripts on the 2020 Black List have a financier attached (30% on 2019 Black List)
74% of the scripts on 2019 Black List have a producer attached (68% on the 2019 Black List)
37.5% of this year’s Black List scripts were written or co-written by women. Note the trendline from 2007 to present for women written scripts on the Black List.
Drilling down into the scripts, here are some interesting notes:
Unlike the previous several years where Biopics had a significant presence on the Black List, this year there are only 6 (Bikram, Enemies Within, Excelsior, Gusher, Plush, and Viceland). Additionally, there are 14 historically based scripts. This lends credence to conversations I’ve had this year agents and managers that original stories are making a comeback.
There are 4 stories set in outer space: Bring Me Back, Generation Leap, I.S.S., and If You Were the Last.
There are 3 scripts featuring airplane storylines: Fight or Flight, Flight Risk, A Single Point of Failure.
There are 3 stories featuring transgender lead characters: Good Chance, Occupied, What If?
There are 3 scripts featuring uncle-nephew relationships: The Black Belt, Saturday Night Ghost Club, Uncle Wick.
Finally, Cosmic Sunday continues in the tradition of ‘reliving the same day’ story conceits including Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs, Happy Death Day, and the TV series Russian Doll.
Scripts By Agency
UTA 17
Verve 9
WME 5
CAA 4
Gersh 4
Paradigm 3
APA 1
Kazarian, Spencer & Associates 1
Rothman, Brecher, Ehrich, Livingston 1
Scripts By Management Company
Kaplan/Perrone 9
Grandview 8.5
Bellevue Entertainment 5
Management 360 5
Writ Large 5
Brillstein Entertainment Partners 4
Fourth Wall 3
3 Arts Entertainment 3
Heroes & Villains Entertainment 3
Epicenter 2
Fourward 2
Good Fear 2
Gotham Group 2
Lit Entertainment 2
MXN Entertainment 2
Zero Gravity 2
Anonymous Content 1
Calvary Media 1
Echo Lake 1
Fusion 1
Hopscotch Partners 1
Jen Au Management 1
Lee Stobby 1
M88 1
Management SGC 1
Mutiny 1
Syndicate Entertainment 1
Vision Entertainment 1
Haven Entertainment 0.5
For Go Into The Story analyses of previous Black Lists:
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
As always, I encourage people to read as many of these Black List scripts as possible. These 80 scripts represent, as best as we can know at this moment in time, where development execs’ heads are at and most importantly what types of stories resonate with them.
How to find the scripts? Hint: r/Screenwriting. | https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/analysis-2020-black-list-1ef6aae418c3 | ['Scott Myers'] | 2020-12-16 18:23:19.516000+00:00 | ['Screenwriting', 'Hollywood', 'Screenplay', 'Business', 'Writing'] |
How Asset Managers are Leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) Techniques | AI-led Hedge Funds have delivered cumulative returns of 3X the overall Funds universe
A recent analysis by Cerulli Associates, a provider of global asset management analytics, of the assets under management (AUM) and net new flows of Europe-domiciled AI-led funds from 2013 to April 2020 shows solid AUM growth from 2016 to 2019. Notably, the research finds that the cumulative return of AI-led hedge funds was about three-times the overall returns clocked by the hedge fund universe during this period: 33.9% compared to returns of 12.1%. The report finds that European AI-led active equity funds added assets at a faster rate than other active equity funds from January to April this year. The research contends that there “has long been suspicion of the ability of AI to react to unexpected events, such as the coronavirus pandemic, but there is now a sense that the technology has advanced to the point where it is better able to adapt to unforeseen scenarios via the ever growing amount of market data available.”
Machines can understand the text better than ever before
In the investing world, it used to be the case that edge was based on access to better sources of information and superior analysis/number crunching. Given that access to information is no longer a competitive advantage, generating alpha has become much harder. Moreover, with the proliferation of humongous text-based data (unstructured) across media, it is no longer possible for human capacity alone (nor efficient) to read and analyze the data. To drastically cut the text-related grunt work and capture excess returns, the asset managers are increasingly leveraging NLP techniques — a key subset of AI to process unstructured text into actionable insights for decision making. The NLP has wide applications across various business areas. The Covid-19 pandemic and tougher economic climate have only accelerated the use of NLP in investment management. Some of the most compelling applications of NLP include assistance in credit scoring, fraud detection, customer service, chatbots, and document search and processing for business intelligence.
Examples of Some Key NLP Applications in Asset Management
1) During the pandemic, Blackrock employed NLP on research documents to glean insights from analysts many of whom were relatively slow to update their earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2020. The leading asset manager contends that while an analyst may take some time to update a numerical forecast, examining the text of their reports helps capture a true picture of their overall stance in the absence of a standard numerical estimate. Besides, Blackrock has recently also utilized the NLP model to generate sentiment signals for getting an early read on fiscal policy, allowing the investment manager to parse analyst language for a sense of how policy is moving across countries. The investment manager then tilts its portfolio decisions to lean into those with easing tendencies, such as the US.
2) Uncovering hidden market signals in equities: Global asset manager American Century Investments uses NLP to complement its research process with an NLP sentiment model that aims to detect deception in management commentary/language during quarterly earnings calls. The NLP model predicated on psychology and computational linguistics has been trained on Russell 3000 companies. It evaluates the text for an indication of deception such as omission (failure to disclose key details), spin (exaggeration from management and overly scripted language), obfuscation (management’s use of complex explanations/storytelling for a simple concept), and blame (deflection of responsibility characterized by the use of language such as ‘bad luck’, ‘challenging environment’, etc.).
3) Better Sustainability Investing: Deutsche Bank observed that typically large-cap companies tend to receive overall higher ESG ratings, probably because large firms employ greater resources to write detailed sustainability reports. For instance, about 85% of S&P 500 companies publish sustainability reports. The Bank decided to devise an alternative way to evaluate sustainability reports using the NLP algorithm — to ascertain whether the commitments firms made to reduce carbon emissions were correlated with achieved sustainability performance. For assessing carbon-related discussions within the reports, researchers identified five different topics along with the top keywords associated with each topic. The NLP model ranked companies based on their focus on the mitigation and adaptation topics. The algorithm also checked for mentions of numeric and quantitative terms (like ‘first’ and ‘half’), and for use of active versus passive language. The bank discovered that firms using highly active and numeric language have, on average, a 74% chance of reducing their future emissions. Moreover, companies that frequently discuss mitigating or adapting to climate change have a 65% higher probability of achieving reductions.
4) UBS wealth management is using NLP in its investment due diligence to detect negative news — via reading and analyzing vast amounts of documents fetched from search engines developed by its in-house AI-team. The algorithm saves hours of time and thus frees up the research team to focus on other critical tasks. In addition, UBS also uses the same model in its client screening process, where profiles are scanned to identify whether features meet a client’s criteria.
5) Top institutional investors such as AIG and Citadel are leveraging insights from alternative data such as text in social networks, shopping history, shipping info in order to enhance active investment return and are considering how NLP technology can improve efficiency and scalability in this practice. Moreover, several asset managers have hired in-house technical teams or enlisted third-party providers for automatic ingestion and analysis of public filings and derive signals from sentiment in the news and social media content.
Closing thoughts
Humans are generally better at high-level comprehension of written text and have a better understanding of the context. However, with the rise of myriad sources and enormous quantum of unstructured textual data, it makes compelling sense to harness technology to process such data. Meanwhile, advances in AI such as NLP techniques, coupled with a tremendous increase in computational power are at an inflection point. This presents immense opportunities for asset managers to leverage NLP techniques for deriving reliable insights from textual datasets and build a competitive edge. In the future, there is certainly going to be a huge divide between the firms that leverage technology and data for a competitive edge, and those who are falling behind. In the long run, this will reflect in the flow of assets and portfolio performance of asset managers.
However, a vast number of NLP solutions typically target the streamlining of repetitive tasks. To devise a solution to one’s custom needs and derive tangible gains from its implementation needs domain knowledge. We at Decimal Point Analytics, with our deep finance domain knowledge and expertise in data analytics, have been employing NLP techniques to bring out unique/distinctive insight for our asset management clients, affording them a distinct edge in investing.
To know more details of projects executed by us or to request case studies featuring asset management firms using Natural Language Processing, email us at [email protected]
You might also be interested in reading how Data Analytics can be helpful in monitoring risk in Asset Back Securities | https://medium.com/@decimalpointanalytics/how-asset-managers-are-leveraging-natural-language-processing-nlp-techniques-b83aa91cf9dd | ['Decimal Point Analytics'] | 2020-12-08 09:12:12.495000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Data Science', 'NLP', 'Asset Management', 'Asset Management Software'] |
Blockchain, DLT and Crypto Assets: Trends and Predictions for the New Year 2020 | Predictions and trends for 2020
1. Bitcoin: Will remain important
Fuelled around the world by infrastructure and regulatory frameworks for digital assets being built, we will see that a new asset class arises. This class is currently led by Bitcoin: Crypto currencies are still the only liquid products in the market and Bitcoin has by far the leading position in this market. We think it will remain the largest digital asset traded, while it might not be the biggest liquidity pool in the long run.
2. Security tokens: Securities will be tokenized and tokens will be securitized
Only a few crypto assets are truly digital at this point in time. We see, however, first movers into tokenization of other assets as well as regulatory frameworks preparing themselves for the broad implementation of digital assets in the whole financial industry. While traditional assets will be embodied in new digital ways (e.g. “tokenize securities”) we will also see new asset classes being put in known regulatory frameworks to make them tradable in existing infrastructure (e.g. “securitize tokens”). This means the convergence of traditional financial instruments and new digital embodiments. Suitable and regulatory compliant infrastructures for digital assets will hence be a tipping point for the adoption of digital assets beyond crypto.
3. Digital Euro: Euro-on-blockchain will be a hot topic in 2020
In 2019, both startups and traditional institutions have issued a regulated, digital blockchain-based Euro via tokenizing E-Money. The digital Euro is not simply a stablecoin since it is issued via an E-Money license such that the tokens are the actual Euro (in a similar mechanisms as the Euros are in one’s bank account). Simply put, it is a “stablecoin + regulation”.
The German Government, the Association of German Banks (Bundesverband Deutscher Banken) and players from the German industry have publicly demanded such a digital Euro, which will drive the automation of the German industry by using Euro-based smart contracts.
This makes it possible to leverage the functionalities of the new distributed technology while keeping the stability of central bank money. The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced to set up a taskforce for analyzing the potential issuance of a digital Euro. The recent paper by the ECB about such a digital Euro suggests that a digital Euro could be issued on a blockchain system. If we refer to the digital Euro, we also mean related digital fiat currencies such as the digital US dollar, the digital Yuan, the digital Swiss Franc etc.
In 2020, we will see more companies privately issuing the digital Euro and we will see plenty of companies starting to use the digital Euro in process automation, leasing, factoring, Industrie 4.0, supply chain processes etc.
4. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Strong growth to be expected in 2020
Decentralized Finance is a rather new topic but we saw major development steps last year. In the beginning of 2019, less than USD 300M have been locked in DeFi. By the end of this year, this value is around USD 700M. DeFi is a collective term for blockchain applications (mainly based on Ethereum) which focus on making financial markets permissionless and inherently transparent.
DeFi is an entire system of interconnected smart contracts. Products such as lending and borrowing, insurance, liquidity provision, exchanges and trading, leveraging and shorting, synthetic financial instruments and more can already be realized with the perks of the blockchain technology. In 2020, we will see more such products. We expect up to USD 2B being locked into DeFi smart contracts — and we will see regulators starting to scrutinize DeFi since they will see that a full-fledged capital market can potentially arise. This could replace a wide array of traditional financial organizations but also exhibit regulatory issues (e.g. AML/KYC not met; prospectus requirements not met).
To really hit off in 2020, experts like Brendan Forster (Dharma) state that it is required to have easier conversion between any crypto asset and fiat money to make DeFi more accessible, insurance in case of failing smart contracts in order to reduce systemic risk, better software oracles to transmit information from external markets and improved management of private keys. If all these criteria are fulfilled, finance can become what it was meant to be.
5. DLT: Financial institutions will drive enterprise solutions
Many prototypes have been made and many studies have been written. But only rarely, real production systems are live or soon to be launched given the tremendous potential of the technology. This process will speed up in 2020. Networks are being built and systems will go live.
The ultimate goal of full-fledged DLT-based capital markets will though not be reached in 2020 but rather in 2022 or later. Then, the local currency would run on-chain as well as securities. This would allow delivery-vs-payment (DvP) to be moved from central clearing houses to smart contracts executing atomic swaps in seconds.
6. Libra: No prediction possible
Libra has been a blast in 2019. It took a few weeks and suddenly all regulatory bodies and financial institutions were awake. At the end of 2019, it became clear that Libra would not be realized as originally planned (as a basket of currencies and bonds).
However, the codebase of the Libra project is one of the most active ones we currently see. Also, experts speculate whether Libra could simply use standard licenses (e.g. E-Money license) to tokenize existing currencies in a straightforward way. No basket, no mix between currencies and bonds. Rather, straight forward tokenized money similar to the digital Euro.
If Libra takes this route there would be enough room to comply with regulatory requirements and go live for dozens of millions’ users. Maybe not hundreds due to the difficulties of KYC procedures. The idea of a basket mixing currencies and bonds could then in the long run easily being done as a “passive investment smart contract” on the higher layer when individual currencies are tokenized on the lower layer. Think LEGO bricks that together form a house; but first you need to have the single bricks.
7. HR: Blockchain will be a career booster for employees dealing with this technology
We believe that blockchain technology and its increasing importance have the potential to positively affect the career path of interested persons since there is a lot to do over the next few years — and even decades — within this dynamic and fast growing segment. We expect the demand for skilled personnel significantly increasing as of 2020 while the supply in the job market develops relatively slow.
This way, the risk of losing a job (e.g. in the financial sector) as a result of increasing digitization and automation can be minimized due to outside options that start to appear in the entire economy due to companies searching for blockchain experts. Blockchain technology will not disappear but rather grow. It will drive the automatization of business processes and the German industry and the digitization of a wide variety of products (e.g., cars, machines, trucks — just to name a few).
8. Machines: Blockchain will become the operating system for the machine economy
As outlined above, smart contracts have a tremendous potential for the German industry. Combined with a blockchain-based Euro (see also above), this will enable Euro-denominated smart contracts and drive automation and digitization.
Once all kinds of machines, all kinds of mobility devices (e.g. cars, trucks, trains), all kinds of sensors are connected to blockchain networks, these IoT devices can participate in financial transactions directly. This will allow a broad set of new automated business models once these IoT devices start to interact with financial markets through pay-per-use, leasing, factoring, securitization or new ways of financial instruments we do not even know yet. So far, we mainly talked about industries such as automotive or machinery but of course other industries will also discover blockchain: utilities, medical technology, etc.
In 2020, we will see industrial companies that offer such machines, cars, sensors etc. connecting their devices to blockchain networks. They will also discover the broad variety of process automations and automated business models that might be possible.
9. Interfaces: Smart contracts in combination with oracles will receive great attention
Companies that offer interfacing solutions between software (e.g. oracle solutions) and IoT hardware (e.g. crypto chips with private keys, embedded systems) will become more and more important. We saw first developments here in 2019. Especially in the industry, so-called hardware oracles enable to combine off-chain data (e.g. data or measurements) and blockchain systems. Powerful tools can be created with the interplay between smart contracts and oracles.
10. Convergence: Blockchain will converge with AI, analytics and cloud computing
Once more progress has been made in this area, we will see innovations like blockchain, AI, data analytics and cloud computing to converge. Until now, startups, larger companies and the public administration are giving their best to understand the single “technology silos”. But it is reasonable to expect that as of 2020 convergence of these technologies will take place even though these individual technological domains are often not fully understood yet. We will see more projects in areas where multiple of these technological domains are touched.
11. Tokenization: Bringing all kinds of IoT devices such as sensors, machines on-chain
Blockchain technology can be particularly beneficial for the dematerialization of assets, which is commonly known as tokenization. Assets, such as sensors or other IoT devices, can be tokenized and then get the status of an autonomous entity.
For example, tokenizing a street lamp leads to the situation that payments can be made directly to the lamp, triggering the lamp to turn on. The city council would pay for the evenings by default; a resident, that demands high security could pay for the lamp to shine throughout the entire night. Double payments by multiple interested persons would be avoided. The lamp could also carry a camera and weather sensors for which the same on-demand-logic would apply.
Such tokenized assets can also be made available for investors. Consequently, investors could be willing to build and maintain these lamps on a full scale. In return, investors would receive their share on the lamp’s profits. This application is a potential game changer for infrastructure and capital investments and will be further developed in 2020.
Conclusion
Blockchain in general provides tremendous benefits in the field of finance as it can enhance security, transparency, immutability and data privacy of transaction data. Even more so, it will be the basis for most financial transactions and — once smart contracts are adopted — it will also be the basis for a wide array of fully automated financial services.
Why do organisations not fully embrace blockchain yet, as it seems? In our opinion, this is due to the high regulatory burden for financial corporations. But here, governments are changing laws to remove frictions between decades-old law frameworks and dematerialized assets and rights based on blockchain, crypto assets and DLT. Also, executives and decision-makers have often not understood the potential of blockchain to a sufficiently required degree. One reason for this is that understanding blockchain takes time. In the heavy-loaded calendar of executives there is maybe room for a 30-minute blockchain presentation by an external expert but not enough room to really understand the technology and its potential.
Yet, this will not prevent the uprise of this technology. We believe that organizations should intensively deal with blockchain technology in order to leverage this brilliant technology. The reason is simple: In 10 years, there will hardly any finance, transactions, assets without DLT.
Given the huge opportunities ahead, it is worth it to dig into this technology.
Remarks
If you like this article, we would be happy if you forward it to your colleagues or share it on social networks. More information about the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center on the Internet, on Twitter, or on Facebook.
Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner is head of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC) at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. In 2018, he was ranked as one of the “Top 30” economists by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a major newspaper in Germany. Further, he belongs to the “Top 40 under 40” — a ranking by the German business magazine Capital. The expertise of Prof. Sandner, in particular, includes blockchain technology, crypto assets, distributed ledger technology (DLT), Euro-on-Ledger, initial coin offerings (ICOs), security tokens (STOs), digital transformation and entrepreneurship. You can contact him via mail ([email protected]) via LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippsandner/) or follow him on Twitter (@philippsandner).
Jonas Gross is a project manager and research assistant at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC). His fields of interest are primarily cryptocurrencies. Besides, in the context of his Ph.D., he analyzes the impact of blockchain technology on monetary policy of worldwide central banks. He mainly studies innovations as central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and other crypto currency projects as “Libra”. You can contact him via mail ([email protected]), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonasgross94/), Xing (https://www.xing.com/profile/Jonas_Gross4) or follow him on (Twitter Jonas__Gross).
Marcel Kaiser is a project manager and research assistant at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC). His expertise is primarily decentralized finance (DeFi) and industrial blockchain applications. He analyzes the impact of blockchain technology on the economy in his master thesis. He speaks at public events about topics like Libra, quantum cryptography and blockchain in general. Feel free to contact him via mail ([email protected]), LinkedIn or Xing. | https://medium.com/swlh/blockchain-dlt-and-crypto-assets-trends-and-predictions-for-the-new-year-2020-b2e5b8ad08d3 | ['Jonas Gross'] | 2020-01-11 08:34:17.196000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Euro', 'Libra Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Trends'] |
Creating awesome word clouds using Highcarts JS | Word clouds are cool. For instance, I use it to build infographics to visualize word frequency in media publications. Higcharts JS allows us to build many interesting kinds of charts, so let`s try to build some, starting with simple but awesome one — word cloud.
First steps
Let's create an index.html with all the elements we need to start.
...
<body>
<div id="worcloud-container"></div> <script src="https://code.highcharts.com/7.1/highcharts.js"></script> <script src="https://code.highcharts.com/7.1/modules/wordcloud.js"></script> <script src="index.js"></script> </body>
As you see, we only need to create a root container for our chart. By the way, I suggest you always specify the version of Highcharts to avoid compatibility problems in the future.
Next, let`s see the demo from official docs for a quick start.
As you see, before sending data to the word cloud, we need to create an array of objects which have at least the name (String) and weight (Number) properties. So if you have just a string with your text, you have to prepare it first.
Then we just past this prepared list to Highcharts.chart() function. The first argument is an id of your chart container element and the second is chart options object. Pay attention, that you have to create a series property which is an array (!) of objects. Then, pass your data to “data” property and check the result in a browser:
Oh, wait, this doesn`t look awesome!
Of course, not yet. Here we need to adjust some modifications to make things prettier.
First, let`s disable the creepy rotation and set minimum font size to avoid rendering too small words. I also suggest setting a default font family (this will be useful if you decide to export it as an image). To do that, the series property should look like this:
Now it looks a little bit better, but still not ‘awesome’:
Improving colors
As you see, Highcharts use its default colors for words, but this chart will look better if we will use just one. Of course, we can just rewrite Highcharts default colors property:
Highcharts.setOptions({
colors: ['#3caac8']
})
It will produce something like this:
But the better idea is to use color shades to show the difference between words` weight, right? We can add “color” property to our words objects. Also, we can describe the color with as a rgba, using its alpha channel which specifies the opacity for a color. That is not actually a “shade”, but it will show weight difference well. To do that, we have to use some simple math, find the min and max value and write a function that scales weight to an alpha channel value (let it be the range from 0.3 to 1, but you can play with it)
And now the result will be:
Bonus track
I suggest you improve the scale function to make it no linear but logarithmic. It suits better in cases with a huge difference between words!
Please, leave your comments to help me improve my code style because I am a novice in JS. | https://medium.com/@pmzubar/creating-awesome-word-clouds-using-highcarts-js-76967cb15c22 | ['Petro Zubar'] | 2019-05-26 20:34:54.430000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Infographics', 'Charts'] |
Introducing IBM Watson Studio | Professionals are putting AI to work to turn our most valuable resource — data — into new ways of doing business. With AI, we are no longer wrestling with data, but using it to recommend with confidence, accelerate research and discovery, and enrich interactions with customers on their terms. The purpose of AI systems is to augment human intelligence, and today, we are excited to announce the next step on our journey to make AI more accessible for everybody with IBM Watson Studio.
Watson Studio: accelerating value for enterprises with AI
Watson Studio accelerates the machine and deep learning workflows required to infuse AI into your business to drive innovation. It provides a suite of tools for data scientists, application developers and subject matter experts, allowing them to collaboratively connect to data, wrangle that data and use it to build, train and deploy models at scale. Successful AI projects require a combination of algorithms + data + team, and a very powerful compute infrastructure.
Until today, there was a gap between data experts and domain experts. Only highly technical professionals in IT could organize and make sense of the vast amounts of data. Only domain experts could successfully convert data into the rich knowledge needed by AI. But domain experts and IT professionals worked in silos, with different tools and no visibility to each others work. The result was AI that fell short in its promise to augment people’s expertise.
Watson Studio closes the gap with a unified experience to create new insights from knowledge contained in the data. Watson Studio enables multidisciplinary teams across the organization to collaborate. We are convinced, after working with clients around the world, that rich collaboration is key unlocking the full potential of AI. | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/introducing-ibm-watson-studio-e93638f0bb47 | ['Armand Ruiz'] | 2018-05-01 19:30:42.210000+00:00 | ['Announcements', 'Machine Learning', 'Watson Studio'] |
How to Fetch a Remote Branch using Git | We, as developers, also work with Git. Developers need to understand how to work with Git and the different possibilities of working with repositories and code in Git (such as managing the size of your reports, etc.). Along those lines, testing out a remote branch is one thing you’ll be doing at least regularly, so we put together a short guide to cover the ins and outs of dealing with small branches in Git.
Git: How to Fetch a Remote Branch
When working in the team, You will need to fetch the branch from a remote repository using Git. Simply need to do:
git fetch <remote-repository>
This fetch command will fetch all remote branches and also store all references/objects. Once all branches are loaded successfully, you can check out to the branch you are interested in, giving you a local working copy. Now you can inspect and play with code.
Run this command
git checkout -b <local-branch> <remote-repository>/<remote-branch>
or
git branch <local-branch> <remote-repository>/<remote-branch>
If you have a single remote repository, then you can omit all arguments. just need to run git fetch , which will retrieve all branches and updates, and after that, run git checkout <branch> which will create a local copy of the branch because all branches are already loaded in your system.
Note: git pull = git fetch + git merge
When you run a pull command, it will fetch changes from remote branches and merge them into your local changes, but if you want to get the latest changes and don’t want to merge them into the local branch, you need to run git fetch command.
Fetch command will retrieve all changes from the remote branch which do not exist in the local branch. FETCH_HEAD ref track can be used for fetched changes from remote branches.
This is a good option --track in this command through which you can track the local branch with the remote one. It helps pull and push the changes. Run this command
git checkout --track <remote-repository>/<remote-branch>
The above command will create a local branch with the same name as the remote branch. But if you want to create a different local branch, then include the -b option to create a new local branch.
git checkout --track -b <local-branch> <remote-repo>/<remote-branch>
To verify what tracking branches you have set up, you can use the -vv option with git branch . This will list out your local branches with more information on what each branch is tracking and if your local branch is behind, ahead.
git branch -vv
Conclusion
For software developers, Git is a way to track their code for different modifications. It stores all the various models in a unique database. Git enables several developers to work concurrently on the same principle. A programmer will also need to access the independent job, or “branch,” of a coworker. This is made possible by the git remote branch operation.
If you want to learn more about GIT here is a quick guide on, how to use git cherry-pick. If you like the tutorial, then leave a comment below, and let’s talk. | https://medium.com/@loginradius/how-to-fetch-a-remote-branch-using-git-5c0f6d28264d | [] | 2020-12-16 11:30:17.631000+00:00 | ['Developer', 'Cybersecurity', 'Git', 'Programming', 'Coding'] |
Testing useEffect and Redux Hooks using Enzyme | Hi there! About two years ago I wrote a blog about testing React Function components with hooks using enzyme and here I am writing about the same with a new perspective.
TLDR; Here I’ll let you know of a way that I learnt to test the lifecycle hooks such as useEffect and redux hooks namely useSelector and useDispatch while shallow mounting components using enzyme .
If you’ve not read my previous article I suggest you’d read it as it covers topics such as how to test hooks such as useState and how to handle controlled and uncontrolled components which I won’t be covering here.
Preface 🌃
Back then when I wrote the previous article there wasn’t a way to test the lifecycle methods of the shallow mounted react function components since the lifecycle methods such as useEffect and useLayoutEffect aren’t executed when we use shallow from enzyme to test it. Thus I recommended using mount for testing the lifecycle methods for that purpose. I wasn’t happy with it since all of my test files were a hybrid of the shallow and mount methods and it essentially felt redundant.
A year later I received a comment from Mike to try using jest-react-hooks-shallow package if I wanted to test effect hooks. Back then I tried using it but I remember it not working somehow. Recently I thought of giving it a try again and this time it worked. So here I am writing about it as well and how you could embed it into your enzyme tests.
jest-react-hooks-shallow
(Skip this section if you’d not want to learn about implementation details)
What this package does is magically make even the shallow renderer run the effect lifecycle methods useEffect and useLayoutEffect making our coding lifecycle easier.
Setting it up is fairly easy using npm or yarn. One additional step you’d have to take is to initialize it in jest setup file where you’ve setup the enzyme adapter.
import enableHooks from 'jest-react-hooks-shallow';
// pass an instance of jest to `enableHooks()`
enableHooks(jest);
Once installed all of your shallow mounted components in test files would essentially try to run its effect hooks as stated in the package documentation. Here’s where I ran into a problem. My components weren’t running the effect hooks. After several hit and trials I realized that the effect hooks were only working when I shallow mounted them by wrapping them up within a HTML tag. So what I meant by that is that if
const wrapper = shallow(<Login/>);
isn’t working then try using shallow by wrapping it up in a div and then getting it by using dive() .
const wrapper = shallow(<div><Login/></div>);
const container = wrapper.find('Login').dive();
Then you could test the function components’ lifecycle.
You could also manually enable the effect hooks in desired spec files instead of enabling it globally by passing in additional parameter while setting up the jest-react-hooks-shallow library.
enableHooks(jest, { dontMockByDefault: true });
Then you’d need to be enable the effect hooks in test files by wrapping then up within withHooks() .
Writing Tests
Let us take an example of this small component which makes an AJAX request on mount to check if the user is logged in and renders an input field conditionally (if they are logged in) and validates the text field when the input field value changes.
Testing Component Mount Effect Hook
Even though the useEffect hook is now running with jest-react-hooks-shallow , I immediately ran into a problem with Async functions in the effect hooks. I was trying to mock axios by using jest jest.mock('axios') and even tried to integrate msw package to create a mock server. But the problem in both the implementations was that by the time the mock server returned a value, the test would have already exited. I tried adding setTimeout and using done() function to make sure that it would wait for the change to trigger but it just failed no matter what I did. It was always rendering the <>User is not logged in.</> component.
The mistake I did was I was trying to mock the server instead of mocking the function that abstracted the logic that would query the server for the value. So the workaround of this was pretty simple. What I did was move the functions that made the async requests to another file and mock the function instead.
Now that Async requests are separated out to a different file you could mock axios or use msw to add test specs for requests.js . Now to write test specs for MyComponent.jsx you’d mock the requests.js which would ensure prompt response thus fixing the issue.
Then the tests run as expected rendering the input field when the user is logged in ensuring that we have tested our component mount effect hook.
// Jest Snapshot v1, https://goo.gl/fbAQLP exports[`MyComponent: When the user is logged in should render the logged in elements 1`] = `"<input type=\\"text\\" value=\\"\\"/><div></div>"`; exports[`MyComponent: When the user is not logged in should render not logged in message 1`] = `"User is not logged in."`;
Passing tests ✅
Testing Component Update Effect Hook
Testing the component update effect hook is also fairly simple. We can simulate events and check for changes.
Here we ensured that the validateText() and doSomething() prop get executed when the text state gets updated.
Testing Redux Hooks
If you’re using react-redux and not using useSelector and useDispatch hooks you’re missing out. I’d recommend reading this article that I wrote on how to migrate from using connect to using the redux hooks. 🏴☠️
Let us consider this simple component where the logged in state is being fetched from the store and an action is being dispatched on mount.
In order to test the components using those hooks you’d need to mock them and the best way to do so is to do it in the test setup file where you setup the enzyme adapter. It would looks something like this after mocking react-redux .
Testing useSelector Hook
It is pretty straight forward to test the useSelector hook now since we’ve already mocked it. So we’d just add a mock implementation to return a desired value.
Testing useDispatch Hook
It is similar to testing the useSelector hook but the only key difference being that since useDispatch is a function that dispatches the function that we pass thus we need to have a mock implementation such that it returns a mock function and we test the mock function to test whether the actions have been dispatched.
Conclusion
Thus in this way I managed to write the test specs for the effect and redux hooks. To summarize:
Enzyme doesn’t support effect hooks by default while shallow mounting components. You’d need to add jest-react-hooks-shallow to ensure that the hooks run.
to ensure that the hooks run. Async requests should be abstracted from the component into a separate file such that the methods that make async requests can be stubbed or mocked while testing the component instead of mocking the server.
To test the component update useEffect hook you’d simply trigger state updates and check for effects in rendered elements.
Redux hooks can be tested by mocking them and their implementation.
Hoping this will be helpful to those who have been using Enzyme to write tests. 😇 Please let me know if you know of any simpler or better methods of writing shallow tests. | https://medium.com/geekculture/testing-useeffect-and-redux-hooks-using-enzyme-4539ae3cb545 | ['Aashish Manandhar'] | 2021-06-08 13:38:59.579000+00:00 | ['React Hook Useeffect', 'Redux', 'Enzyme', 'Useselector', 'Useeffect'] |
Hiwali: The land of no connectivity but a million connections! | I’ve been very sure of what I have always wanted, whether it be my personal or professional life. But this one day spent at a faraway village, made me question a lot of things that I thought were true!
Imagine a place with no network, no connectivity, no internet. Imagine a place that seldom has electricity and is populated by not more than 150 people, who might have never seen the inside of a school. This is a common scenario in a lot of remote villages in India.
Imagine a small village like this, 75kms away from Nashik.
Here’s a little map of ‘nowhere’
Now if I tell you that there’s an 8 year old kid here who knows tables upto 625 or another 12 year old who creates mini fans out of beer cans or 43 more little kids who could do so much, would you believe me? I couldn’t believe it either!
A few weeks ago we celebrated my father’s 51st birthday. This year, he wanted to do things differently. He has been an active contributor to GIVE Welfare Organisation since his last birthday and wanted to spend it with kids from the foundation. Mr. Ramesh Iyer (the founder of the organisation) was kind enough to invite us to Hivali and take us around. When we reached the village in the morning, there was a beautiful procession happening. It didn’t feel different from any other village I had ever visited.
It was a celebration where they take the idol in a decorated tractor across the village, from house to house
As we turned the corner, our perception of the village turned around too!
This is what we spotted!
The village was made of hues of dull browns and greens and in the middle of nowhere stood this beautiful lush green wall, filled with vibrant colours. When we came closer, we found that this was a school’s garden that the kids had built themselves. On taking a closer look, this is what the wall looked like:
They used waste plastic bottles and coconut shells to create beautiful little planters for their garden wall. I was surprised to see how they had setup a drip irrigation system for their little plants! They created fence decorations out of anything and everything that they found: used cycle tyres, old pipes, scrap metal, etc. and painted it with every happy colour possible. But what truly blew me away was the entry to the little school:
This has to be the prettiest little gate I have ever seen! It beats the little Paris café entrances that we find so breathtaking.
Keshav Gavit Sir, the ‘Rancho’ to this ‘3 Idiots’ school, warmly welcomed us to his school. A school that he had created with the kids in the village for them to learn what they wanted, how they wanted. A safe place that allowed them to explore the worlds of science, literature, go on adventures with historical figures and much more!
This was a school for 45 kids in the age group of 3–14 years, with a single teacher!
What he has developed, is a brilliant way to teach all ages together! He teaches the elder kids and the elder ones teach the younger ones and the younger ones teach the youngest. In schools and education conferences around the world, peer learning is given a lot of importance. It is said that peer learning and facilitation-based learning are one of the most effective ways of learning and are supposed to be the way of the future.
“Peer learning is not a single, undifferentiated educational strategy. It encompasses a broad sweep of activities. For example, researchers from the University of Ulster identified 10 different models of peer learning (Griffiths, Houston and Lazenbatt, 1995). These ranged from the traditional proctor model, in which senior students tutor junior students, to the more innovative learning cells, in which students in the same year form partnerships to assist each other with both course content and personal concerns. Other models involved discussion seminars, private study groups, parrainage (a buddy system) or counselling, peer-assessment schemes, collaborative project or laboratory work, projects in different sized (cascading) groups, workplace mentoring and community activities.
Formalised peer learning can help students learn effectively. At a time when university resources are stretched and demands upon staff are increasing, it offers students the opportunity to learn from each other. It gives them considerably more practice than traditional teaching and learning methods in taking responsibility for their own learning and, more generally, learning how to learn. It is not a substitute for teaching and activities designed and conducted by staff members, but an important addition to the repertoire of teaching and learning activities that can enhance the quality of education.”
— David Boud, Stanford University Professor.
A man living and having grown up in a village himself, has been able to achieve what universities and schools around the world have been talking about achieving for decades. His way of teaching involves all the 10 different models mentioned above! This way of learning is a major reason why an 8 year old girl knew tables upto 625 or another 12 year old boy could create mini fans out of beer cans. The elder kids can teach much more to the younger ones than what is set out for their age. They are able to grasp better, retain better and the elder ones can gain their fair share of revision while teaching!
Entrance to the school. Ramesh Iyer (Left) explaining the activities.
Keshav Sir and the kids wanted to build a school that had learning everywhere. Wherever you looked, there was something new to learn. I think this is such a big life lesson for kids. Even in a post-formal education life, one needs to constantly keep learning and learning is everywhere. Wherever you look, you can learn something new around you!
If you think this is the true beauty of the school, here’s what we discovered in the first room!
This is a fully functioning JCB robot that works on a battery. It lifts small objects with the help of a hydraulic system that they created with an injection syringe!
This is a fully functioning tractor that the kids in the photograph created with nothing but waste cardboard, old plastic disposable pens, ice cream sticks and a small motor that they extracted from a discarded machine. The remote was procured from an old remote control car.
To the left is a fan made out of a beer can, in the middle is another fan and to the right is switch board made out of a used motor oil bottle. These are just a few examples of all the things that the kids have made there. To my surprise, the entire electrical work for the school was done by the kids themselves!
This is what the classroom looked like when you looked up!
This is what it looked like when you looked down! Every single inch of space was used to create learning experiences.
The people in the village might not be as educated as the kids, but they didn’t cease to amaze me either! Every door of the village house has it’s eldest daughter’s name written at the entrance with a very nice slogan/ saying. This showcases how evolved these people are. They understand and respect the system that the teacher is trying to build and try to support it in the best possible way.
Pawar baba, headman of the village donated his land to build the school and the garden. He is also a farmer in the village who comes from a very humble background but had it in his heart to voluntarily donate the land for the growth and betterment of the village.
A day at Hiwali, changed my perception of education and true learning. It’s not about the board, the school building or even the kind of facilities. At the end of the day, what really matters is the quality of learning that the child is receiving. It’s the excitement and need of learning that the teacher can instil within the child that really defines the kind of life they will be leading. This is exactly what will define the future of the village, the state, the country, even the world!
The next Prime Minister or the next astronaut or the next IAS might be sitting in this class now. The way they learn, the way they understand will define our future as a society, as a human race! Let’s try to place learning above all and create humans who can think, process and create!
If you would like to be a part of this learning movement and support other villages become like Hivali, you can donate to GIVE Welfare Organisation on this UPI ID: Q53743538@ybl or connect on: +91–9822477971
GIVE Welfare Organisation has adopted 106 villages in Maharashtra and is working broadly in the fields of education, sanitation and humanitarian development.
Ps- When a brain starts thinking or doing, it starts making at least a million neural connections to make it happen! | https://medium.com/bookaworkshop/hiwali-the-land-of-no-connectivity-but-a-million-connections-2f00ce881daa | ['Nidhi Agarwal'] | 2020-12-11 16:10:47.622000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Ngos In India', 'Edutainment', 'Education', 'Education Reform'] |
MERN Stack and Docker Containers for Web Apps | MERN Stack and Docker Containers for Web Apps
Outline
In this article we are going to go through the main blocks to build a full stack web application with a database. The idea is to implement a web interface using the React framework to show — add — delete on a todo list, a backend API that will act as our controller using NodeJS and Express, and finally a MongoDB database to store the todos.
We will go through those steps to build the whole project:
Project Architecture : Specify and described the main components in the application as docker containers.
: Specify and described the main components in the application as docker containers. Front-end : A one page react application to show a list of todos, append to it, and delete from it.
: A one page react application to show a list of todos, append to it, and delete from it. Back-end: An express server with a simple API to get the todos, add and delete from the list.
Architecture
Containers architecture of the 3 main components
In this application we will use docker containers to run the 3 different components separately. And we will be using docker-compose to make the connection between those containers when starting the app. In each project we will have a Dockerfile that will be used by docker-compose to start it.
Express Server
For the nodejs backend express server we will use the base image to compile and build the application and run it inside the container, we will expose the port “8000” where the server will be listening for incoming requests. The necessary commands are present in the figure below, make sure to put the file in the main project’s directory.
Docker file for express server app
React Front-end
We can do the same thing with the front-end app, because we are using react. It uses npm as its package manager, and we can build and run our project using node as well. For this app we will expose the port 3000 where the front-end can be visited on from the browser.
Docker file for front-end app
MongoDB instance
We will use the base image from docker hub for the mongoDB that will be listening on the default port “27017”. We can always connect to this instance inside a container from cmd or from any application, in our case we will make connections from the express server app as you will see in the docker-compose configuration.
Docker-Compose
Since we will have 3 components running in separate containers, we will use compose to manage those applications and control the networking between them. To achieve this, one has to write a configuration file called “docker-compose.yml” which will basically describe how the services will be called and what ports to map to, and volumes to mount inside the containers. This file must be present in the main directory of the project outside the applications directories.
We will link the node service to the mongo service and pass it as an environment variable so that the express server can connect to the mongoDB instance that is running in another container ( since it will have a different IP address — this point is important). For the “volumes” tag used in node-app and react-app, this will mount the directories where we have our files so that if we make changes while docker is running our containers, we can have live updates and hot reloads automatically without restarting the containers. The ports tags are used to map the ports from the machine to inside the containers so we can access them from outside.
Notes
To test the applications separately, we can run in each container alone without compose. To do this we have to build the images and run them from the cli. For example to do this for the react application we can first build the image like so:
docker build -t react-todo .
And then run the image we called “react-todo” using this command:
docker run -p 3000:3000 react-todo
Note that we map the port “3000” so that we can access the application from localhost. | https://medium.com/@ali-haidar/mern-stack-and-docker-containers-for-web-apps-9a019810761c | ['Ali Haidar'] | 2020-12-25 18:55:37.888000+00:00 | ['React', 'Nodejs', 'Software Development', 'Web Development', 'Mongodb'] |
DBFT + DPoS in INT — Part 2 | This is only concerned with scaling on layer 1 of the network. Second layer scaling solutions is another topic entirely.
Scaling, one of the more popular words in the greater blockchain buzzword bingo that has a lot of people demanding it without many understanding the intricacies involved in successfully implementing a lasting solution. Scaling is not as simple as increasing block size and quickening block generation. Transactions have weight, require computation, need to be communicated through all nodes and the blockchains they are included in require storage in their ever growing state. Scalability is therefore heavily dependent on how the specific blockchain handles transactions and node communication.
In general, one of the core concepts of cryptocurrency, trustless verification, causes the most trouble for scaling. In all blockchain protocols, each node stores all states with account balances, contract code, and entire transaction history, in order to trustlessly verify a transaction’s validity for each transaction in the network. This provides a large amount of security but limits scalability to not being able to process more transactions than any single node in the network can. This is the biggest variable in setting the ceiling for transaction volume at ~3–7 transactions per second for Bitcoin or 7–15 TPS for Ethereum. Visa processes ~2,000 transactions per second and an IoT network with an estimated 50 billion devices could produce several times that. That’s a large gap.
So if we want to expand into the future and create the real world usable networks that we all envision them to be, we have to find other ways to scale. Second layer solutions that stretch each of those transactions to the settlement of larger groups of transactions, like Lightning, are a valid path and one that even Satoshi conceived for Bitcoin.* But more can be done to the first layer to establish it as more able to scale with higher throughput to push out the need for more extreme first or second layer solutions or make them a natural evolution within the network.
Defining the Problem
We are going to talk about the problem in terms of Bitcoin pre-SegWit as this complicates things and turns the discussion from easy to understand block size to less easy, block weight
What prevents a network from processing more transactions? There are two types of constraints: physical resource constraints and software constraints. Data communication is limited by the speed of light, bandwidth determines how much data can be sent in time, CPUs limit how much processing can be accomplished, blockchains grow and after all of that, the network has to remain secure and resilient against attack.
At the very base of the problem, we have network latency, how long it takes for data to travel. This is dependent on the size of the transaction but in most global networks this is about 2–3 seconds. Currently, transactions are about 500 bytes for Bitcoin and 150 bytes for Ethereum so if we want to compete with Visa the network must be able to communicate at 8 Megabits per second. This is relatively common Internet speeds for today.
At this theoretical rate of transactions that means the nodes in the network must be able to process 500 bytes x 2,000 tps = 1 MB amount of transactions per second. Processing a transaction involves hashing and ECDSA signature verifications. RIPEMD-160 and SHA256 (both hash algorithms) run at about 100 megabytes per second, so 2,000 transactions could be processed in about 10 milliseconds, so fast enough that we don’t need to worry about it.
A Bitcoin node does do other things above verifying transactions, but this process takes up the majority of the processing power required to run a node.
Ethereum is a little different in that it doesn’t have a traditional block size but a per block gas limit. Gas is the payment unit used to pay for the computations required to process the transaction. This is a consistently reevaluated value based on the current processing, storage and bandwidth conditions of the network. This is important because not every transaction is just used for transferring an asset but may be used to signal a contract or carry data to it which requires the network to do some level of extra computation.
The only resource concern then that increasing transaction rate brings is increased requirements for node storage which may lead to a centralization of nodes based on higher cost of equipment. If the rate of transactions increases by way of block size increase or block generation rate, the blockchain would grow at a corresponding rate. Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain grows at a max rate of about 1 GB a week (max rate of about 4 GB for SegWit enabled Bitcoin). If the block size is doubled, that rate would be 2 GB a week, tripled it would be 3 GB a week and so on. (Imagine if Bitcoin Cash, with its 32 MB blocks, were filled. The blockchain would grow at a rate of 4.5 GB per day.) If the block production rate increases, this would have the same effect. This poses a node centralization risk if this is done too early putting the node storage requirements out of financial reach for common people. So while it is something to keep in mind in terms of the implementation timing of certain scaling techniques in relation to technology cost, it is not a base concern.
As we saw above, all the operations of processing a transaction, from the propagating through the network, to the hashing and verifying, do not pose any real physical resource constraints on transaction throughput in our current networks. What does currently stop us from going faster is the size of the transactions, the size of a block (how many transactions you can fit in the block), how often a block gets added to the chain and the mechanism by which the nodes collaborate to add transactions to the chain.
Anatomy of a Transaction
Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions are fundamentally different but the data within is relatively similar. In a UTXO framework like Bitcoin, the transaction has two sections, the input data, and the output data. In an account based network like Ethereum, the transaction is not dependent on proving you possess the private key to spend an output but in having enough balance in your wallet for that transaction. This makes Ethereum transactions quite a bit smaller than Bitcoin transactions and fairly consistent in their size. Bitcoin transaction size is heavily dependent on the number of inputs and outputs included in the transaction.
In the most simplified Bitcoin transaction, pay-to-public-key-hash, where you are sending as an output the entirety of an input with no change address required, there are two main chunks of data, the input and the output. For each of those we will need the signature, the public key, the previous unspent output, the new output public key and the amount (with some little tidbits here or there). This looks like this (though not this nice):
<Version>
01000000
<Input No.>
01
<Unspent TX Output>
be66e10da854e7aea9338c1f91cd489768d1d6d7189f586d7a3613f2a24d5396
<Output Index>
00000000 <scriptSig:scriptPubKey>
19 76 a9 14 dd6cce9f255a8cc17bda8ba0373df8e861cb866e 88 ac <Sequence>
ffffffff <Output No.>
01
<Tx Amount in Little Endian>
23ce010000000000
<Output Script>
19 76 a9 14 a2fd2e039a86dbcf0e1a664729e09e8007f89510 88 ac <Lock Time>
00000000
<Hash Code Type>
01000000
and without the nice titles and spacing:
01000000 01 be66e10da854e7aea9338c1f91cd489768d1d6d7189f586d7a3613f2a24d5396 00000000 19 76 a9 14 dd6cce9f255a8cc17bda8ba0373df8e861cb866e 88 ac ffffffff 01 23ce010000000000 19 76 a9 14 a2fd2e039a86dbcf0e1a664729e09e8007f89510 88 ac 00000000 01000000
Once all of that is set, we have to sign the transaction that shows that we own the address of the output included in this transaction. This consists of a DER encoded signature generated with the private key and the corresponding DER encoded public key. We then use this to replace the <scriptSig:scriptPubKey> portion of the input, and completes our transaction for .00128307 BTC:
01000000
01
be66e10da854e7aea9338c1f91cd489768d1d6d7189f586d7a3613f2a24d5396 00000000 8c 49 3046022100cf4d7571dd47a4d47f5cb767d54d6702530a3555726b27b6ac56117f5e7808fe0221008cbb42233bb04d7f28a715cf7c938e238afde90207e9d103dd9018e12cb7180e
01 41 042daa93315eebbe2cb9b5c3505df4c6fb6caca8b756786098567550d4820c09db988fe9997d049d687292f815ccd6e7fb5c1b1a91137999818d17c73d0f80aef9 ffffffff
01
23ce010000000000
19 76 a9 14 a2fd2e039a86dbcf0e1a664729e09e8007f89510 88 ac
00000000
Or:
01000000 01 be66e10da854e7aea9338c1f91cd489768d1d6d7189f586d7a3613f2a24d5396 00000000 8c 49 3046022100cf4d7571dd47a4d47f5cb767d54d6702530a3555726b27b6ac56117f5e7808fe0221008cbb42233bb04d7f28a715cf7c938e238afde90207e9d103dd9018e 2cb7180e 01 41 042daa93315eebbe2cb9b5c3505df4c6fb6caca8b756786098567550d4820c09db988fe9997d049d687292f815ccd6e7fb5c1b1a91137999818d17c73d0f80aef9 ffffffff 01 23ce010000000000 19 76 a9 14 a2fd2e039a86dbcf0e1a664729e09e8007f89510 88 ac 00000000
You can see that once the transaction is signed, the signature is about 65% of the transaction data. This would be a good place to work in order to reduce transaction weight. This is in fact what SegWit does, it segregates the witness (signature) from the transaction data, reducing the transaction weight by 65%, by moving it to a new merkle tree in the coinbase transaction. This along with changing how the block size is evaluated, effectively quadrupled the size of the block.
This transaction format also grows rapidly with the number of inputs and outputs. If the transaction requires two inputs (to cover the amount of BTC sent) and two outputs (one for a change address), as is most common, the transaction size doubles. Larger transactions of larger sums including a large amount of smaller inputs would then become quite heavy. In fact, this is an effective way to attack the network and clog blocks. This was, arguably, what occurred during the scaling debate where Bitcoin Cash tried to overthrow Bitcoin for the top spot. Transactions were sent for relatively small amounts containing many inputs and therefore creating transactions so heavy the number of transactions that could be included in a block was significantly reduced. In several instances, this took the average number of transactions in a block from over 2,000 to under 100. This is currently still an issue but one that has a proposed solution.
Schnorr signatures is a proposed change to Bitcoin’s current Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm that essentially allows the combination of keys to provide an aggregate signature for many inputs. This would reduce the need to provide a signature for every input to a combined signature for all inputs, thereby reducing the weight of the transaction and nullifying the attack vector. | https://medium.com/int-chain/dbft-dpos-in-int-part-2-390ac43b8d84 | [] | 2018-09-04 22:50:19.747000+00:00 | ['Scaling', 'Int', 'Community Article', 'IoT', 'Bitcoin'] |
5 Ways Your Accountant Can Save You Money | 5 Ways Your Accountant Can Save You Money
Many small businesses and freelancers manage their own finances. But most of them choose to hire accountants that are beneficial in the long run to save your money. Whether you are a sole trader, freelancer or trading as a limited company an accountant can help you flourish in the business world. Accountants are skilled, trained and have deep knowledge in the field of dynamic professionals to help in the growth of the businesses. They don’t just assist with your taxes, they provide guidance on all issues relating to the financial growth of your business.
Consider the following ways your accountant can help you save money:
1. Tax Advice:
Tax regulations and dealing with HMRC can be a maze and it is difficult to stay abreast of all the changes in the tax law, as our tax position changes based on the structure of the business. A big thanks to accountants for their expertise on a range of tax planning options. Our tax accountants can help you make the most of each tax year and advise on the most tax-efficient plan for your business. They will ensure you never have to pay penalties and miss tax deadlines. The money can be invested for your business growth.
2. Cash Flow and Financial Forecasting:
A good control over the cost and having bookkeeping function can help the business flourish while the cash flows in the business. Otherwise the businesses fail 82% of the time due to severe cash flow issues. Cash flow is the lifeblood of all businesses without which the business cannot operate especially for small business firms. This is where our Accountants come in.
Through their expertise, they forecast the financial concerns in the business and a close eye on cash position can save you from a rollercoaster ride. It also prepares you for the unexpected financial crisis. This way the cash flow keeps rolling which will not hamper the running of the business. Overhead cost is easy to predict over a three month time frame. The cost of rent, rates, insurance and staff wages are pretty much fixed for this time frame. Targeting these rates will help you with a sound sleep.
3. Growing your business:
Accountants can be of a huge help as an advisor of the business. Many accountants have seen startups businesses grow to become the established profit makers. This makes it best to discuss our business with. From figuring out your most valuable clients to monitoring your growth and setting realistic goals, accountants can support your business growth in a timely and sensible way.
4. Saving your time:
Time is money. Saving time is equal to saving money for the business. Your Accountant can save your money by saving you time. By taking responsibility for going over your records and keeping on top of tax deadlines, an accountant can help to free up your schedule you’ll have more time to invest in client relationships and focusing on core activities of the business. Doing your own self assessment tax return won’t pay you a salary, but investing that time into your business will help business flourish. Time is Precious!
5. Leave it to the dynamic Professionals:
Many businesses lack time to manage everything in-house. There is when the need of Accountants arise. Are you good with numbers? Or do you have skilled knowledge in tackling your finance administration? If the answer is doubtful, go ahead and hire an Accountant and make things simpler for yourself. They will do the work in less time and you are stress free.
Having an Accountant can streamline the financial process and make sure you are not fined for simpler slip-ups. They not just help in saving money and claiming expenses but also in overall growth of your business.
Talk to our Accountants today and see how we can take your business to the next level. | https://medium.com/@cloudcoaccountancy/5-ways-your-accountant-can-save-you-money-181b7f71ab29 | ['Cloudco Accountancy Group Ltd.'] | 2019-11-22 10:46:16.517000+00:00 | ['Accountant', 'Accounting', 'Accounting Services', 'Taxes', 'Tax Returns'] |
Brussels Airlines to fly all ladies flight to Entebbe, Kigali on March 8 | The A330 will fly with an all ladies crew, including captain and first officer, to Eastern Africa.
Feb 25, 2019: Brussels Airlines will be operating a special flight on International Women’s Day on March 8 from Brussels to Entebbe via Kigali.
The A330 will fly with an all ladies crew, including captain and first officer, to Eastern Africa. Brussels Airlines is a carrier with a female CEO for that matter made progress in having more and more ladies fly their planes, compared to even ten years ago.
Brussels Airlines will be joined by fellow Star Alliance member Ethiopian Airlines on the day, which will operate an Addis Ababa — Stockholm — Oslo flight on the same day.
The airline flies daily between the European capital city and Entebbe, in conjunction with both Kigali — six services a week and Bujumbura — 1 service per week and is considered a choice airline for Ugandans and Rwandans to fly not just to Brussels but via the Belgian capital to over 100 destinations in Europe, North America and Africa. | https://medium.com/@logupdateafrica/brussels-airlines-to-fly-all-ladies-flight-to-entebbe-kigali-on-march-8-5cad0a0dc2f6 | ['Logistics Update Africa'] | 2019-02-25 05:45:44.693000+00:00 | ['Aviation', 'Airlines'] |
Groups within Groups: The End of LGBTQ+? | Image by wokandapix / Pixabay
To say that I have been lucky in my life would be an understatement. I am white, male, well-educated, and middle-class, all of which provides me with a level of privilege that is quite frankly head spinning. The only area in which that unearned parade of privilege breaks down is in terms of my sexuality, on account of the fact that I am gay.
Even there I have little to complain about, though. My family and friends were all very supportive when I came out, I have never been the target of any truly horrific homophobic abuse and, in general, my life proceeds quite smoothly, unaffected by my queerness. All in all, I can’t say I have had it bad at all.
As a writer, I often find myself waxing lyrical about the LGBTQ+ community, or typing out furious tirades against bigotry and ignorance in a vain attempt to help my queer brothers and sisters in the only way I know how. I write on these topics constantly, doing my best to contribute to the cause for equality and acceptance.
But, in truth, I sometimes feel unqualified to fight that fight. Within the LBGTQ+ ranks, I am all too aware that I am one of the most fortunate. I can’t really provide any personal angle on trans issues or bi-erasure, any more than I can give personal accounts of going to war or meeting the queen. The fact that I occupy the same acronym as these people hardly seems reason enough to claim to have any insight into their lives and struggles.
Therein lies the problem.
The Many Faces of LGBTQ+
I love the queer community, but increasingly I find myself wondering if it really is that — a community. The sheer range of people, the broad spectrum of identities, which are packed into one group is mind-blowing. Spanning sexualities, romantic preferences, and gender identities, the LGBTQ+ community is a veritable kaleidoscope of humanity, and to simplify that complexity down to one overarching label seems at best counterproductive, and at worse reductive.
We in the queer community should, of course, support all of our comrades in every corner of the LBGTQ+ acronym, but I’m not sure we can reasonably call ourselves one group. Rather, we are more of a collection of individual, separate, communities who are allied, but very much independent.
My concern is that the nuances of our various existences and unique experiences are lost in the broadness of ‘the community’. Our unity gives rise to issues, like when people claim to be LGBTQ+ friendly, when in fact they’ve only ever thought about the L and the G.
Moreover, the progress made in gay rights over the last few years seems to be more and more taken to generally indicate an improvement in LGBTQ+ rights by the media and by ignorant individuals. The fact is, while gay people can now marry and live fairly freely in much of the western world (though there is still a lot of work to do), trans and non-binary people are currently experiencing levels of oppression and hate hitherto unseen in recent years.
Progress in one area of the community doesn’t translate to progress in all areas of it. That is a notion which we must dissuade people of, lest parts of our community are left behind, forgotten while others of us enjoy the progress of the ages.
Trouble at Home
Let’s also not forget, uncomfortable though it is, that there is plenty of bigotry and intolerance within the queer community itself. Bi-erasure is rife in the gay community, while transphobia rages across the board. How can we in good faith call ourselves a community and fight for universal tolerance from the world when we can’t even seem tolerate each other?
I have had conversations with other queer people about transgender issues that wouldn't have been out of place at a conversion therapy camp. I’ve sat in gay bars, those bastions of queer safe spaces, only to hear people declare openly that they could ‘never be with a trans person because it just wouldn’t feel right’. Phrases like ‘it’s a sickness’ or ‘it’s not real unless you have surgery’ may not be as common in the LGBTQ+ community as they are in the world at large, but they are still there. Queer society fails miserably at being a reliable safe place for trans people, so what right do we have to claim the mantel of a ‘community’?
As for bi-phobia, I am ashamed to say that many of the stock phrases that have caused so much hurt to the bi and pan community have tumbled from my mouth in the past. I was never directly hateful or intent on causing offence, of course, but I was ignorant and uneducated on queer matters. Back in my school days, for example, I distinctly remember telling one of my closest friends that he was just using bisexuality as a ‘stepping stone’ to coming out as gay.
Yep, that old chestnut. That offensive, delegitimising, ignorant chestnut.
The fact that he did eventually come out as gay is completely and utterly irrelevant. Regardless of whether someone is comfortably bisexual or still coming to terms with their sexuality, it doesn't change the validity of their identity at any given time. This, unfortunately, appears to be something that some people in the queer community still need to learn.
If an LGBTQ+ person reveals their identity to you, the only appropriate response is to accept it. There is no debate to be had, no questions to be asked. Their identity is theirs and theirs alone. You have precisely nothing to do with it.
I look back on that conversation with deep regret. My only response should have been acceptance and praise. After all, he had the bravery to come out in high school. It took me until halfway through university. | https://medium.com/prismnpen/groups-within-groups-the-end-of-lgbtq-b6ebe1a0ccdf | ['Sean Bennett'] | 2020-12-05 09:02:28.781000+00:00 | ['Transgender', 'Identity', 'LGBTQ', 'Community', 'Creative Non Fiction'] |
Peter Beinart’s Grotesque Utopia | Peter Beinart’s Grotesque Utopia
In the years I spent as a grad student first in New York and later in England, I was often buttonholed by opinionated young Jews who wanted to give me an earful of “criticism of Israel.” Some of it was ignorant blather, some of it was quite serious. Some of it I disagreed with politely (whenever that was possible) and some of it I agreed with, even wholeheartedly as my own views evolved. I heard it all, and I’d like to believe (though I’m no doubt being very generous with myself), that I was able to listen and engage with most of it, but I did notice after a few such encounters that there was one claim which led me, entirely by reflex and not by will, to shut down. Maybe it says more about my own weaknesses, I don’t know. But conspiracy-mongering didn’t make me stop listening, nor did Holocaust inversion or comparisons with apartheid. Such nonsense was upsetting, to be sure, and it did occasionally result in a raised voice or a bruised friendship, but it never caused me to just stop listening.
What would cause me to stop listening was the word “brave.” Anyone, and especially any young American or British Jew at a fancy university, who saw himself (and even though ignorant anti-Israel obsessiveness was distributed across genders, the “bravery” complex was almost always a symptom of male carriers) as brave for daring to criticize Israel was just not capable of thoughtful discussion. The claim of bravery, the self-image of a dissident voice speaking out against rigorously enforced dogma, was so patently ridiculous that it was impossible to take seriously anything that a person so afflicted might have to say about a topic that I knew well.
To call a comfortable Upper West Side American Jew “brave” for writing something against Israel says very little about bravery and very little about Israel, but it says a great deal about what the person making the compliment thinks about Jewish power in American public life.
And so it was that I encountered Peter Beinart’s recent fatwa on the Jewish state from Twitter posts hailing him as brave. Pro-democracy writers in Hong Kong, to say nothing of in mainland China, merit the description “brave.” So too do LGBT activists in Egypt or Iran. To call a comfortable Upper West Side American Jew “brave” for writing something against Israel says very little about bravery and very little about Israel, but it says a great deal about what the person making the compliment thinks about Jewish power in American public life.
This was the barely repressed subtext of the two big NYRB essays with which Beinart reinvented himself as a “critic of Israel” a decade ago — and which I critiqued seven years ago. In all the years since, each time I was approached for a comment about some new bit of “bravery” from Peter Beinart, I always declined. My explanation whenever I was asked why was that I didn’t disagree with the views Beinart claimed he held — for a Jewish state, against the occupation — I just didn’t believe those were his actual views.
It turns out I was right to doubt him.
People opposed to legal abortion call themselves “pro-life,” but no one with a modicum of intellectual integrity thinks that asking why your opponents in a policy discussion “are against life” is a winning argument.
In my 2013 piece I identified four themes to Beinart’s writing on Israel: (1) He makes sweeping judgements on scant evidence, that rely on out-of-date and out-of-context quotes. (2) Any observable outcome or effect or result of the Arab-Israeli conflict is for him an Israeli policy or the action of an Israeli subject on a Palestinian object. (3) He has no expectation of any kind of self-criticism by Palestinians or pro-Palestinian partisans and no capacity for a critical engagement with their actions and the effects those have on the conflict. (4) He consistently presents ideas that have been around for a long time as something new which he has just discovered, and thus manages to make them into a progressive reaction to Israeli actions rather than part of a long-standing rejection of sovereign Jewish life in the Middle East.
In 2013, this was most clear with his historically blind discussion of boycotts, which were central to the Arab strategy to prevent a Jewish state from coming into being and then, when that failed, an attempt to strangle it economically. In 2020, this is how he processes the old-new idea of one non-Jewish state in land of the former Mandate as an expected reaction to Israeli intransigence rather than the longstanding political program of those who never accepted a Jewish state and never will.
This old-new idea Beinart is now openly advancing, though, it being Beinart, he has branded it under the most sanctimonious name possible, “equality.” People opposed to legal abortion call themselves “pro-life,” but no one with a modicum of intellectual integrity thinks that asking why your opponents in a policy discussion “are against life” is a winning argument. If you oppose the end of Jewish sovereignty (but weirdly, no one else’s), then apparently you are against equality. This is the level of argumentation Beinart routinely resorts to now on Twitter when confronted with Israeli voices who actually aren’t so eager to see their hard-fought state be dismantled. Beinart, however, isn’t concerned with engaging with Israelis in any constructive way, and he wouldn’t know how to if he were.
For two years, Beinart had a regular column in Israel’s high-brow broadsheet Haaretz. It should have been an ideal venue for him. It is a left-wing paper read by cosmopolitan Israelis where his opinions (Bibi bad, Trump bad, etc.) met a sympathetic audience and, in a country without any widely read opinion journals, the best place to have an impact on public intellectual life. The column ran in Hebrew translation for about two years, and I honestly cannot recall even once that anything he wrote had even a minor impact or became a topic of public conversation or even manufactured controversy.
The column stopped running sometime in 2018 without anyone much noticing. It’s worth reminding his American acolytes who take his every pronouncement on this country as holy writs (and who find themselves having to conform to his increasingly pietistic demands regarding who must share a stage with him) just how little he understands Israel and how little purchase his ideas have even among left-wing activists and thinkers.
Beinart doesn’t understand actual Israelis because he doesn’t care about the actual Israel. “Israel” for him is a projection, a cave shadow with which to imagine an argument with people and organizations in American Jewish life that Beinart resents deeply. Even as Beinart’s views on Israel have changed and changed again, his wrath at American Jews has stayed constant and his message consistent: American Jews must choose between their liberalism and their Zionism, between membership in good standing in the community of the good or, sounding almost like someone who tags a synagogue with graffiti, “our community’s complicity in the oppression of Palestinians.”
One could make a career out of correcting the errors in Beinart’s writing about Israel (and maybe somebody else should), but I’ll narrow my focus to just three things he gets wrong: the past, the present, the future.
Past: A stately home
If someone had asked me this morning what I was in the mood to eat, I might have answered oatmeal or an omelet or maybe just some yogurt and granola. I also would have asked for a cup of coffee. But faced with the same question twelve hours later, it’s likely that my answer might mention steak or tacos or even a hearty salad and no coffee. You might rack your brains trying to analyze the reasons for this sudden shift. Did my tastes change in some dramatic way over twelve hours? Was I a committed vegetarian who left the fold, and, if so, why did I do it? Maybe a marketing campaign or a particularly persuasive friend had convinced me to change my entire approach to cooking and eating?
Or maybe you would just note that you asked the first question at 7:00 in the morning and the second at 7:00 in the evening, and that I hadn’t changed at all, but breakfast hunger and dinner hunger are not the same thing.
The second method clearly didn’t appeal to Beinart in considering why Zionists were by the 1940’s so insistent on statehood rather than some of the more abstract ideas about a Jewish “home,” as had occasionally been mooted in the half century before. Just as he does with the Arab-Israeli conflict, so here he is unable to see any observable fact without assuming that it can be explained entirely by Jewish or Israeli action — that should be judged as uncharitably as possible.
But it wasn’t Zionism that changed. The world changed in at least three very significant ways that required that the cause of Jewish self-determination take into account. First, the norm of state sovereignty went from a vaguely north Atlantic ideal to a global norm. Second, there was a Holocaust. And third, there was a conflict with the Arab (and to a certain extent, Muslim) world that impinged on personal and communal security of Jews in the Middle East and throughout the world. | https://medium.com/@shanymor/peter-beinarts-grotesque-utopia-cfbe9c7a6fe0 | ['Shany Mor'] | 2020-09-17 18:48:07.376000+00:00 | ['Zionism', 'Israel', 'Peter Beinart', 'Middle East', 'Palestine'] |
Exceptions From A Software Engineer | Let’s define an SDE/SE using the following points, and this my understanding and learning so far.
GDTRS “A software engineer is the one, who can ‘G’ather requirements, ‘D’evelop, ‘T’est, ‘R’elease and ‘S’upport a software product.”
- Pranay Deep
Gather Requirement and design
Photo by Med Badr Chemmaoui on Unsplash
Use common sense and understand general ask then do a dive deep for the actual requirement. Create a design document (HLD and LLD) and get it approved from senior SDE and peer. Break it into task and give ETA.
Development
Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash
Choose a technology to deliver result. Follow SOLID principle and write scalable and maintainable code. Write proper “Unit Test” for all the public methods. Make sure to maintain code-coverage at-least by 75%.
*Writing unit tests after code is not TDD
Testing
Since you have covered UT(Unit Test) while writing code, now this is the time to write integration tests.
Here we will check actual behavior of various components when the interact with each other.
Release
Photo by Bill Jelen on Unsplash
You don’t want to deploy your newly baked code into production. Better deploy you code in batches 25% at a time. Observed any spike in normal behavior? Revert!
Support: — Every SDE is expected to be On-Call(Support) for a week or two (team dependent).
Acronyms:
Photo by Lauren Sauder on Unsplash
SDE: Software Development Engineer. SE: Software Engineer. UT: Unit Test. LLD: Low Level Design. TDD: Test Driven Development. ETA: Estimated time of arrival SOLID: | https://medium.com/dev-genius/exceptions-from-a-software-engineer-4a9e8e5611be | ['Pranay Deep'] | 2020-06-24 10:27:49.815000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Amazon', 'Microsoft', 'Expectations'] |
The Most Important Thing to Know Before IVF with guest Dr. Max Ezzati | The Most Important Thing to Know Before IVF with guest Dr. Max Ezzati Dr.Aimee Eyvazzadeh May 22·27 min read
Welcome to The Egg Whisperer Show. I have a very special guest on today. Dr. Max Ezzati inspires and educates people with his analogies and easy to understand concepts. He created something that I share with every single patient who visits me, and that is the IVF Pyramid. It is the most important thing to know before IVF.
He is the medical director of the IVF Center at Palo Alto Medical Foundation and a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist. He went to medical school at Tehran University of Medical Sciences School of Medicine, completed his internship and residency at Georgetown University Washington Hospital Center, and did his fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern, and graduated in 2012. He’s been practicing with Palo Alto Medical Foundation ever since.
Dr. Aimee: Welcome to the show, Dr. Ezzati.
Dr. Max Ezzati: Thank you very much for having me and thank you very much for finding this pyramid helpful. Fertility is an extremely complicated topic. It has been my goal since I started practicing to try to make sure my patients understand the complexity of the process as much as they can. I found this visual aid helpful in articulating the difficulties with the complex subject of fertility. I’m glad you’ve found it helpful.
Dr. Aimee: what drew you to fertility medicine?
Dr. Max Ezzati: It’s an interesting question. I was actually interested in fertility since I was in medical school. My medical school dissertation topic was the association between autoimmunity and unexplained infertility. That sort of prompted my interest in the field.
I left Iran in 2002 and went to London to do my OBGYN training. When I was in London, I was very fortunate to be mentored by a very well-known professor of reproductive medicine in the UK and that further solidified my interest. I finished my OBGYN residency and then I started a fellowship in fertility.
Dr. Aimee: Wow. So, we should do another podcast episode on just autoimmunity and unexplained infertility another day.
Let’s break down the IVF Pyramid. Before we do that, can you tell us how did you come up with this concept?
Dr. Max Ezzati: I feel like there is very little knowledge among the general public, and even among some physicians and healthcare providers, even among some OBGYNs, about the complexities of fertility and about how difficult it could be at times for a couple to become pregnant because of biological limitations. These biological limitations also have an impact on the success of the fertility treatment, including IVF.
Unfortunately, a lot of times, people in society believe that if they delay fertility treatment, once they make a decision to proceed, if they go down the path of IVF, that it will definitely work. In other words, they have this conception, this understanding that I can delay fertility as much as possible and once I go to IVF it’s going to work. But unfortunately, we know that’s not necessarily true and there are limitations.
Because of us having difficulty articulating these limitations with just oral communications and with just talking, I figured some visual aid may be helpful for patients to actually conceptualize the drop that happens at every step in the IVF process. I basically put my mind into a picture and came up with this visual aid.
Dr. Aimee: Perfect. Let’s break it down. The first base layer is the number of eggs or follicles you have in the ovaries. What determines this number?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Basically, women are born with a limited nonrenewable endowment of eggs at the time of birth. This is a very precious thing that is not going to be replaced during the following years of life. As a matter of fact, women are born with about 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 eggs at the time of birth, but then that number already drops about 400,000 at the time of puberty and the beginning of menses, so we lose about 1.6 million eggs from birth until starting periods.
That number is pretty much determined genetically at the beginning, but the catch is that not everybody is born with the same number of eggs and not everybody is losing the eggs at the same pace. At any given period in life, women may have a different number of eggs and different residual balance in their egg bank account.
Dr. Aimee: Are there some misconceptions that people often have about the number of follicles that they have in their ovaries?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Basically, it’s very difficult to know the exact number of follicles left in a woman’s ovaries, because the only way to know that for sure is to take out the ovaries, slice them into pieces, and look at it under the microscope, which is not what we do of course. We have to rely on some surrogate markers that can give us some estimate of the number of follicles left in a woman’s ovary.
That brings us to ovarian reserve testing, which would be in the form of a series of blood tests and ultrasound. By doing the ovarian reserve testing, we get some estimate of the number of follicles in the ovary, but we don’t necessarily get the whole picture. The other issue is that there is some significant variability in these test results from one month to the next within the same individual. That’s why we don’t rely on one single test to get a good understanding of a woman’s ovarian reserve.
Dr. Aimee: Right. The next layer in the pyramid is the visible small follicles prior to stimulation. What is a follicle and what determines how many you see?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Because eggs are very precious and they are not going to be replaced, the body is going to take care of the eggs by placing each and every single one of them in a safe box that I call a follicle. I basically call a follicle a safe box that is protecting the egg inside of it. There is a one-to-one relationship between the eggs and the follicles. During fertility consultations, these names, eggs and follicles, are used interchangeably. Most of the time they are referring to the same concept, but they are not exactly the same thing.
The fact that they are not exactly the same will have an impact on the fertility pyramid, because what we can see on ultrasound is just the follicle, we don’t see the eggs inside of the follicles. The number of follicles that we see doesn’t necessarily mean that we are going to have an equal number of eggs.
Generally speaking, every month, I use another analogy, I say several hundred follicles wake up and register at the school of egg development. These eggs register at the first grade, some of the first graders make it to the second grade, but some drop out. Some of the second graders make it to the third grade, but the rest drop out. As they grow in size, but they drop in number, once they reach middle school, they become large enough to be seen on ultrasound. The follicles that we see on ultrasound at the beginning of the cycle are the kids that have already made it to the middle school.
I can do an ultrasound, get an assessment of their number. If there is no fertility treatment, only one of those follicles in middle school will keep growing to become the one that graduates that month, but with the help of the medication that I call the private tutoring that come on board to help the middle schoolers, we basically make sure that extra follicles that were going to be drop outs are not going to drop out and are going to go all the way to graduation.
Dr. Aimee: I love it. Is there anything else aside from private tutors that we can do for them not to drop out or to do better. To see more eggs is basically what I’m asking. Is there anything that a woman can do to increase the number of follicles that you see? I get that question so much and I’m sure you do as well.
Dr. Max Ezzati: Absolutely. I always say that the number of kids that graduate from high school depends on two things. Number one, how many kids do we have to work with equals the number of eggs that we have to work with. Also, what is the quality of the teacher and the curriculum that comes on board and works with those kids.
If we are not graduating, in other words if we are not getting enough eggs at the end of the stimulation, it could be because of two reasons. Either we don’t have enough eggs to work with, unfortunately that’s a very difficult situation to deal with, or maybe it’s because we do have eggs, but the curriculum and the teachers were not doing the job that they were supposed to do.
So, we do have influence over the modifiable factor of teachers or the stimulation protocol that we can look into and figure out if that stimulation works best for those number of eggs or not, and then modify and tweak it for the next cycle if it did not get enough eggs. But if the underlying problem is the low number of eggs, that is a very difficult thing to do.
However, some studies have shown that some supplements, for example, mild forms of androgens like DHEA supplementations, can potentially help some of the, I will call them second or third graders, to graduate into the fifth or sixth grade, to middle school, and therefore when the private tutor comes on board, they may have a few more follicles to work with. Some people have advocated for supplemental DHEA as a way to get a few extra follicles at the beginning of the stimulation to work with, but it doesn’t work in everybody.
Dr. Aimee: Right. I wish there was some sort of pharmacogenetic testing that we could do at the beginning to see who could potentially benefit from some of these supplements. One day.
The next layer up in our fabulous pyramid that you have invented is the number of large follicles at the end of stimulation. Not to make a joke, but why does size matter?
Dr. Max Ezzati: The size matters because the quality or the maturity of the egg within the follicle depends on the size of the follicle. In other words, if the egg inside the follicle is going to be mature and usable for the purpose of fertility and ultimately resulting in the formation of a competent embryo, that egg needs to have had enough training and enough education within that follicle. Follicles that are very small usually do not have a mature egg inside of them. Follicles that are on the larger side usually have a mature egg inside of them.
However, again, it is also important to know that size is one of several factors that determines what is the quality of the egg inside of them. In other words, sometimes we can even have a big follicle that does not have a mature egg in it, and sometimes we may get pleasantly surprised and have a fairly small follicle that has a mature egg in it. It’s not a 100% black and white situation. It’s one of the several factors that help us determine how many eggs we are anticipating to retrieve.
Dr. Aimee: Why do some follicles reach larger sizes and some don’t?
Dr. Max Ezzati: It probably depends on how responsive the cells that build the walls of the follicles are to the private tutoring or to the stimulation, because some of those cell walls are more likely to respond and grow faster, some of the follicles are less likely to respond.
Again, going back to the egg development school analogy, we know that regardless of how good the teachers are, unfortunately, some kids do not have the same capacity as others. Teachers come on board, but not all of the students are going to respond equivalently and to the same level, so it also goes back to the potential of the eggs for growth on their own.
Dr. Aimee: Okay. Let’s go back to your IVF Pyramid. The next layer up is number of eggs retrieved. What affects your egg count at egg retrieval and how do you know when it’s time for retrieval? Does the estrogen help you at all during this process?
Dr. Max Ezzati: We usually make that determination based on two different factors. One, by imaging and ultrasound based on the size of the follicles, as we discussed. The second one based on blood tests and the estradiol level, which is a functional measure of the follicles’ capacity.
Estradiol is a hormone that is being secreted and synthesized by the cells that are making the walls of those follicles containing the egg. So, if follicles are still responding and are still growing and are functional, they secrete estradiol or estrogen. We rely on that estrogen level as a surrogate marker for the function of the follicles.
Dr. Aimee: Okay, now we’re going up to the next layer. That is the number of mature eggs. Why does egg maturity matter and what causes the eggs to actually mature?
Dr. Max Ezzati: When it comes to maturity of the eggs, we have to try to differentiate between two different types of maturity of the eggs. Most of the time when we are using these words, we are referring to the nuclear maturity of the eggs, meaning that the egg has completed the process of receiving only half of the chromosomes from the female.
As human beings, we have 46 chromosomes, we get 23 chromosomes from dad in the sperm and 23 chromosomes from mom from the egg. In order for the egg or sperm to have the correct number of chromosomes, the initial 46 chromosomes in the progenitor cells need to divide equally and symmetrically into two 23s, half each.
When we are talking about nuclear maturity of the egg, we are talking about the eggs that have completed the process being ready to have only 23 chromosomes. This is important because when we are pushing the eggs towards maturation, towards graduation, with the private tutoring, some of the kids may make it to maturation to graduation but may not be quite ready yet because they were pushed a little bit too excessively. Because of this, there is always a fraction of the eggs that we retrieve that are truly ready to be fertilized.
There is another aspect of maturity, which is called cytoplasmic maturity, but that is not an aspect that is easily identifiable or can be checked during the process. We just hope that during the course of the stimulation the eggs within the follicles have had enough time to achieve both nuclear and cytoplasmic maturity.
For example, if the stimulation has been very short, we think maybe the cytoplasmic maturity has been impacted. On the other hand, when the stimulation is getting too long, we get concerned about the cytoplasmic competence of the eggs.
Dr. Aimee: If an egg isn’t mature at the time of egg retrieval, is there anything the IVF lab can do reliably to help it mature?
Dr. Max Ezzati: It depends how immature it is. In other words, it depends how far from being ready it is. If it is what we call metaphase one, so just one step behind being ready, then occasionally that egg can mature within the few hours that the eggs are being incubated in the lab and potentially can be used for fertilization. In rare instances, the eggs can mature overnight and can potentially be used for fertilization the next day. But generally speaking, these are not common scenarios. We expect the eggs to be mature at the time of the retrieval.
Dr. Aimee: You talked a little bit about eggs potentially being too mature. Is there ever such a thing as having an overcooked egg?
Dr. Max Ezzati: I believe there is. There is no good way to recognize that, but most studies have shown that if follicles get too big, based on their size, we’re talking about 24 or 25 millimeters, for example, that’s really too big. Most of the time, we expect or we think the eggs may get overcooked, and that’s a time that we try to avoid. We try to get to the eggs before they get overcooked.
Dr. Aimee: Aside from maturity, is there anything else you can tell about the egg, like the quality?
Dr. Max Ezzati: When embryologists look at the egg, they usually describe the egg in morphological or appearance terms. They say whether the eggs had a dark appearance or a more uniform appearance, they talk about the contours or the periphery of the cells. But it’s important to know that these appearance-based assessments are very subjective and are not necessarily correlating with the eventual outcome of the embryo that will result from that egg.
Really, maturity of the egg currently is mainly assessed in an objective way by visualization of what we call a polar body to see whether the egg is ready to fertilize, whether it has completed that process of separating the chromosomes symmetrically. Other than that, embryologists usually comment on the quality of the eggs, but this doesn’t necessarily correlate with the actual outcome, which is the developmental potential of that egg.
I always say never judge a book by its cover. The egg may look good, but may not actually have what it takes to become a good embryo. Otherwise, the egg may not necessarily look very good, but it may result in a beautiful embryo that results in a beautiful baby.
Dr. Aimee: I agree. The next layer up on our pyramid is the number of fertilized eggs. How do you fertilize eggs in the lab?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Generally speaking, there are two ways to fertilize the eggs.
The conventional method to fertilize the egg is called conventional insemination, which means that we put each and every egg, without cleaning them first, next to about 50,000 to 100,000 sperm, and then we sit back and cheer for the fetus sperm to fertilize the egg. In other words, we don’t do anything. One of those sperm is going to make it into the egg on its own, this is survival of the fittest. This is the conventional or the standard IVF.
However, the problem that not all men have enough sperm to enable the sperm to make it into the egg on its own. In situations where sperm motility or count, or even the appearance and morphology of the sperm, are on the lower side, then we have a procedure called ICSI, which stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injections, in which the embryologist picks up just one single sperm, puts that into a needle, and then injects a single sperm under the microscope into the egg.
ICSI is another alternative way of fertilizing the egg. It’s usually used for couples in whom the male partner does not have good quality sperm and has some major issues going on with semen parameters. Since its introduction in 1991 and 1992, it has revolutionized the treatment of male fertility.
However, because it results in a slightly higher fertilization rate, about 60–70%, some centers and some couples decide to do ICSI as a default method of fertilization for everybody. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this approach, but this is a hotly debated topic, whether you are going to recommend ICSI for couples without male factor or not. That is a separate topic, basically.
Dr. Aimee: Can ICSI cause birth defects or damage to the egg?
Dr. Max Ezzati: ICSI is operator dependent, which means that the outcome of the ICSI depends on the experience and the training of the embryologist or the scientist who is actually doing the procedure. It’s also very important to know that even the best and highly skilled embryologist every now and then may not have a good day. The fact that ICSI sometimes does not work can potentially, in some instances, be explained by operator issues.
However, it’s not the only potential drawback with ICSI. The other issue with ICSI is that we don’t really know which sperm we are choosing to inject. The selection of the sperm is also a little bit subjective. Both the subjective nature of the sperm selection as well as the issues with the operator can potentially result in problems with ICSI. Specifically, about genetic problems.
There are a series of medical disorders that are actually called epigenetic disorders that are not per se problems specifically with changing genetic code, but a problem with the way the genes are expressed. These medical epigenetic conditions are very rare. In the general population, they may happen 1 out of 10,000 or 1 out of 15,000 cases.
Some studies have shown that if the eggs have been fertilized via ICSI, the resulting children from these embryos can potentially have a slightly higher relative risk of having epigenetic disorders. How much higher? Let’s say from 1 in 10,000 it might increase to 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 500.
So, the relative risk may be increased, but the absolute risk remains very low. I would say 99.9% ICSI does not result in birth defects. But if you want to compare ICSI with conventional, then conventional is probably just a tad safer.
Dr. Aimee: Got it. Going back to eggs and fertilization, how do you know if an egg is fertilized?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Embryologists have a fairly narrow window of time, about 18 hours after the eggs have been exposed to a sperm either via ICSI or via conventional insemination, to check for fertilization. They usually call it a fert-check. That is done in the morning, usually at 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM, because of the fairly narrow window of time.
When embryologists look at the eggs that have been previously exposed to a sperm, again either via the conventional way or via ICSI, they are expecting to see two polar bodies and two per nuclear, which are referring to remnants of those chromosomal compartments that are currently being shaped to form a mature embryo. If an embryologist looks at the eggs and sees these structures, they will declare the egg as fertilized.
Again, it is important to know this is a time-sensitive issue, so occasionally the embryologist may not be able to call the egg fertilized correctly on that day, but then a few days later they will see the egg and now the embryo has been growing appropriately, so they may occasionally change their original assessment and say, “At the time I did not see the evidence of fertilization, but a few days later we see evidence of growth indicating that the egg had fertilized correctly. We just did not check it right at the correct time, that’s why we missed the window.”
Dr. Aimee: Got it. That’s probably maybe a zero PN, it’s called zero, but it just means they missed the window.
Dr. Max Ezzati: Absolutely. We see that fairly often, actually, every now and then, that zero PN or even 1 PN may continue cleaving and resulting in a very good quality embryo, and then we’ve had babies from those embryos.
Dr. Aimee: Yes. Going back to our pyramid, we’re making our way to the top. The next layer up is the number of blastocysts. What is a blastocyst?
Dr. Max Ezzati: A blastocyst is an embryo. Once the egg gets fertilized via the sperm and forms a one-cell embryo, then in the next few days it is going to divide successively. After two days, it usually has about four cells. Then it divides into eight cells on day three. On day four, somewhere around 16 cells. Then around fay five and six, it usually ends up having somewhere between 100 to 200 cells, and also changes its shape into a very distinct structure called a blastocyst.
In brief, a blastocyst is a more advanced embryo, is a more advanced stage that is reached after five to six days of continued appropriate embryonic growth.
Dr. Aimee: Why do some embryos stop growing before they reach that stage?
Dr. Max Ezzati: That’s a very good question. It could be because of a variety of reasons. It could be because of the problems with the egg quality, or it could be problems with the sperm quality. We don’t really know most of the time what was the initial culprit. Occasionally, but not commonly, it can also be because of the incubator conditions in the lab.
Maybe, for example, if this embryo was placed in the uterus at an early, maybe it would have made it into a blastocyst, but because we kept it outside it did not go all the way. Whether there are some inherent issues with the egg or sperm that have formed the embryo or whether there were problems with the embryology lab and the culture condition, it’s not always easy to say and to make that distinction.
Dr. Aimee: Does the quality of the blastocyst matter?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Absolutely. That is one of the major factors that is going to determine whether this blastocyst once transferred into the uterus is going to result in the formation of an ongoing pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby.
There are different ways for us to assess the quality of the blastocyst. The easiest way or the traditional way is by looking at it under the microscope and then counting the number of cells that the blastocyst has. Again, we will not be able to count each one of them individually, but we get some idea. We look at their shape, look at their symmetry, look at the cavity or the hole that is expected to appear within the blastocyst. We call this morphological or shape-based assessment of the blastocyst.
We usually give them a grade. This is the standard way. We can even do a more thorough assessment of the quality of the blastocyst, particularly at the genetic level, by doing preimplantation genetic testing, which entails removing a few cells from the embryo and then biopsy them to see if the embryo has the correct number of chromosomes or not.
Dr. Aimee: Perfect. That’s the next layer, the number of genetically normal embryos. What does genetically normal actually mean? You mentioned a little bit already about how it’s determined. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Genetically normal is referring to the number of chromosomes that the embryo has. By that we mean the embryo that has 46 chromosomes and only 46 chromosomes, no more chromosomes, no fewer chromosomes.
The body does not tolerate any extra or any missing genetic information. It needs to have the exact number of chromosomes. In order for the embryo to have the correct number of chromosomes, it needs to get the correct number of chromosomes from its ingredients, which are the sperm and the egg.
Again, if the egg is of good quality, we usually expect the embryo resulting from that egg to be of good quality. But I do not want to ignore the sperm, because the sperm also plays a significant role, basically half of the chromosomes do come from the sperm. It’s not always easy to say whether an abnormal number of chromosomes were due to problems with the egg or due to problems with the sperm.
Dr. Aimee: What can people do to increase their chances of having a genetically normal embryo?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Having babies earlier. That’s really the most important factor that can determine that. Generally speaking, in order to have a genetically normal embryo, we need to have genetically normal eggs and genetically normal sperm.
On the sperm side, it’s very important for the men who are planning to have a baby to have healthy diets full of antioxidants to improve the quality of the sperm DNA. It’s important for them to have frequent ejaculation, to have fresh sperm available for the day of the egg retrieval.
On the female side, again good diet and healthy diet is definitely important. Exercise, reducing weight. These are the things that can potentially have a positive impact on the egg quality. But the most important factor on the female side is the age, which is unfortunately not a modifiable factor.
Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash
Dr. Aimee: Right. I wish. The next layer up is the number of clinical pregnancies. This is the thing. If an embryo has normal genetics and is good quality, why wouldn’t it turn into a pregnancy?
Dr. Max Ezzati: That is a very good question. I get that question all the time, as I’m sure you get asked that all the time. When we transfer a reportedly normal embryo into the uterus that looked good on ultrasound and we had the perfect transfer, why didn’t it work?
If an embryo transfer is not successful, I usually break it down into two components. Either the embryo was not good or the uterus was not good. Most of the time, if an embryo transfer is not successful, we usually blame the embryo 80–90% of the time. About 10–20% of the time, the transfer is not successful not because the embryo was not good, but maybe the uterus was not optimally prepared or ready to receive the incoming embryo.
On the embryo side, it’s important to know that even a reportedly normal embryo is not guaranteed to be normal, because there could still be a variety of genetic issues that are present in the embryo but unfortunately were not detected by the genetic testing that we had done on the embryo. This is due to a variety of reasons, because of the biological limitations that the cells that we sample are not necessarily the cells that matter, because of a process called mosaicism.
Also, because of some technical issues with the fact that we have to work with only four, five, or six cells, and then we have to amplify the DNA of these very few cells. Sometimes there can be problems with the amplification. In other words, in order to make the DNA readable, sometimes not all parts of the DNA are basically readable to the same level and to be the same clarity.
Also, the resolution of the test is not 100% accurate. I always give the example of some textbooks, saying that with the genetic testing we are going to look at the genomic library of the embryo and then make sure that there are 23 textbooks on the maternal side and there are 23 textbooks on the paternal side, for a total of 46 books, or chromosomes.
We also have the ability to pick up a textbook, look at it, glance at it, making sure it has all of the chapters. Occasionally, we may even check some of the pages. But we don’t have the ability to go and read each paragraph, each sentence, each word, and each letter. Sometimes a missing paragraph is enough to cause the embryo to be nonviable, but that was not necessarily picked up by the test.
Dr. Aimee: Why not? You would think that at this point in time we would be there, that we could pick everything up. But it’s so incredibly frustrating. I imagine you feel the same way.
Dr. Max Ezzati: Absolutely. It’s really frustrating when couples have been through so much in the IVF process and they have eventually made it to the point of having a reportedly euploid or normal embryo, and now their hopes and our hopes are very high that this is the one, this is the embryo that is going to result in the delivery of that healthy baby that we are all hoping for, but then we transfer and it does not result in a pregnancy. It’s very heartbreaking.
Dr. Aimee: It is. Also, experiencing a miscarriage after you go through all of that. What are the chances of a miscarriage after transferring a genetically normal embryo that is high quality?
Dr. Max Ezzati: Usually, this number is reported to be somewhere between 8–12% of the time. It’s still a high number. I still would like that to be really much lower than that, like to zero. At least, the good thing is that number is independent of the female age, which means that if the embryo is reported as normal across all age brackets, whether that woman is 32 or whether she is 42, we are going to have somewhere about 8–12% maximum of miscarriage rate.
Dr. Aimee: I had to look this up before coming on with you today, what the peak or apex of the pyramid is called. Apparently, it’s called a pyramidion. Did you know that?
Dr. Max Ezzati: I did not know that.
Dr. Aimee: Now we’re there. The pyramidion is a live birth. I feel like we need to start singing a song or creating a new song, Talk Like an Egyptian, now let’s start pyramiding. We have to create song lyrics to get people to understand everything there is to understand about your IVF Pyramid. I want to basically start pyramiding right now. That’s going to be a thing, let’s pyramid together.
Can you describe what an IVF pyramid would look like? I’m going to give you a whole bunch of scenarios, so bear with me. Let’s start with a 25-year-old with 10 follicles. What would her pyramid look like?
Dr. Max Ezzati: A 25-year-old with 10 follicles, I’m assuming at the beginning of the stimulation, 10 small follicles, it’s important to know from the very beginning we are dealing with a little bit of a low number of follicles for a 25-year-old. In that age bracket, we are usually expecting about 15 or 20 follicles. But the good thing about this particularly young lady is that her egg qualities are expected to be very good, so the low number to begin with at the beginning is not as major of a concern as it would have been in an older woman.
Let’s say out of the 10 I’m expecting to have about maybe 8 or 9 at the end of the stimulation for the large follicles. Out of those 8 or 9 large follicles, hopefully, we get about 7 or 8 eggs. Hopefully, about 6 or 7 of them are mature. Then when we try to fertilize them, hopefully about 4 or 5 will fertilize. Out of the 5 fertilized, our blastocyst conversion rate is somewhere around 50–55%, a little bit higher for younger women, so if we are lucky, we may get 3 or even 4 blastocysts. If we are unlucky, 1 or 2.
Let’s say 3 blastocysts from a 25-year-old. The chances of them being genetically normal for each one of them is about 55–65%, so hopefully one of those or maybe two of them normal. Then when we transfer the normal embryo, the chance of that resulting in a pregnancy is about 65%. Then about 10% risk of miscarriage. About 55% actually having a baby.
Dr. Aimee: I love it. There should be IVFpyramid.com where you just plug in your numbers and your numbers come up. It would be a great counseling tool.
Let’s go now to a 35-year-old with 10 follicles.
Dr. Max Ezzati: This is a more appropriate number of small follicles to begin with for a 35-year-old. Out of 10, we are expecting to get the same number of large follicles and the same number of mature eggs, so somewhere around 8 or 9 large follicles and 7 or 8 retrieved eggs, then 6 or 7 mature eggs. Then when we try to fertilize them, about 5 fertilized eggs.
Here, we may expect a little bit fewer blastocysts. Not that much different compared to a 25-year-old, because 35 is still pretty young. We may get let’s say 2 blastocysts out of the 4 to 5 fertilized eggs. At age 35, probably about 50% of those embryos are euploid or normal, so hopefully one of them is going to be normal. If we transfer that embryo, she has about 65% chance of pregnancy and 55% chance of going all the way to term.
Dr. Aimee: Okay. The next one is 40-years-old with 10 follicles. What would her IVF pyramid look like?
Dr. Max Ezzati: We are approaching difficult terrain. With a 40-year-old, out of the 10, we may get about 7 or 8 of them making it to the large follicles. When we try to retrieve the eggs, we probably get maybe 5 or 6 eggs. Out of the 5 or 6 eggs, let’s say 4 or 5 of them are mature. When we try to fertilize them, maybe 3 or 4 fertilize.
Then out of these 3 or 4, we may get 1 or 2 blastocysts. Then the chance of each blastocyst being chromosomally normal at the age of 40 is only about 30–35% at most. Hopefully, she will have a normal one among them, but the chances are that she needs to have 3 or 4 blastocysts at that age to have one normal one.
Dr. Aimee: Right. Okay, last pyramid for us to go through. 45-years-old and 10 follicles.
Dr. Max Ezzati: A 45-year-old with 10 follicles, we are probably going to have maybe 6 or 7 at most with the large follicles at the end of the stimulation. When we try to retrieve eggs, probably we may get 5 eggs. Out of the 5 eggs, probably 4 are mature. When we try to fertilize, maybe 2 or 3 fertilize.
Then if we wait for five days to see if they make it into a blastocyst, we may have one, or we may have none out of the 2 or 3 fertilized eggs. If we are lucky to have one, the chances of that being normal at age 45 is only about 10% or less. She has a chance, but the chance is about 10%.
Dr. Aimee: Right. I appreciate you going through all of the levels of the IVF pyramid. I think the one thing that people listening will notice is that the number 10 doesn’t increase to 20. I think that’s a huge misconception. Like you said at the beginning of our interview, that people somehow have this misunderstanding as to what happens as you go along the way, and one thing people think is we have the power to turn 10 eggs into 20. We certainly don’t. MD stands for medical doctor, not deity or superpower.
Dr. Max Ezzati: I agree. Unfortunately, that’s a very important concept to clarify at the beginning of the fertility journey, just to say that there are limits to what we can do as fertility doctors and there are limits to what medicine can do in this specific situation. At least, for the foreseeable future. Maybe at some point we’ll be able to create novel new eggs. I think at some point it will happen. I don’t think it’s going to happen next year, but maybe in 5, 10, or 15 years we’ll have that ability. Until then, we are dealing with a very precious commodity called eggs.
Dr. Aimee: Thank you for creating the IVF Pyramid. It has helped people all over the world. I talk to everyone about it in my IVF class. I’m sure that your patients appreciate you so much for what you do. Thank you.
Dr. Max Ezzati: Thank you very much for having me. It was great to be with you. I’m glad you’ve found it helpful.
Catch more of me and topics like this through The Egg Whisperer Show. Episodes are live-streamed on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, IGTV and Apple Podcasts . Sign up to get my newsletter. Tune in to The Egg Whisperer Show on YouTube. and Sign up for The Egg Whisperer School. | https://medium.com/@eggwhisperer/the-most-important-thing-to-know-before-ivf-with-guest-dr-max-ezzati-ffee772d99ab | ['Dr.Aimee Eyvazzadeh'] | 2021-05-22 19:25:28.793000+00:00 | ['Infertility', 'Womens Health', 'Health', 'Fertility', 'Doctors'] |
Profolan Review (Never Suffer From Hair Loss Again) | One of the most common problems that affect people all around the world is hair loss. Hair loss affects both men and women, though it is generally more common in men. There are so many product out there that claims to help you with hair loss.. They work but has a very bad side effect WHY because they are not natural…. Profolan is a very unique product out there its new and natural You Can Check Out some of the Testimonials Here<<<
Profolan Review (Never Suffer From Hair Loss Again)
Profolan Review
Profolan is a food supplement that contains innovative formula Grow3, which is a unique combination of field horsetail extract, nettle and l-cysteine. It is fully based on natural ingredients that successfully stimulate hair growth and preserve its natural colour.
Profolan is a completely new product that stormed the market recently. The product is intended for all men that struggle with alopecia and also with hair loss or weakened hair growth. Effective impact of Grow3 formula on hair condition was confirmed by clinical trials.
Profolan is based on natural, completely safe for our heath substances. The product directions are quite simple — you only need to take 2 pills per day during meal and wash it down with glass of water. You will observe satisfactory effects after 3 months of regular use!
Profolan is the number one among hair loss products. It’s the real thing, straight from the USA. Profolan not only prevents hair thinning, but also stimulates growth.
The product is recommended by 9 of 10 people using it, which makes it the most desired hair loss product on the market. In addition, Profolan not only stops hair loss, but also has beneficial effect on hair colour by preventing graying. It is all natural formula and does not cause any side effects.
HOW DOES PROFOLAN WORKS?
Profolan owes its effective impact to an innovative mix of natural ingredients Grow3 formula that is responsible for hair growth stimulation and also for strengthening of its natural tone. Furthermore, Profolan in its composition has vitamins and minerals that block DHT, contribute to improvement of head skin’s blood supply and strengthens hair follicles.
Numerous clinical trials confirm positive influence of Profolan on men’s hair condition. Even 9 per 10 clients found high level of satisfaction from reached results after 3 months of regular use. You only need 2 capsules per day to start effective fight with hair loss!
Profolan effectiveness is based on use of natural ingredients that do not casue any side effects. The product is therefore completely safe for your body.
WHY SHOULD YOU BUY PROFOLAN?
Unique Grow3 formula with efficiency confirmed by numerous clinical trials.
High effectiveness — 9 per 10 men achieves satisfactory effects after regular use of the product.
90-day money back guarantee without any questions!
Immediate and fast shipment!
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE MAIN PAGE
INGREDIENTS
Profolan owes its efficient impact to an innovative mix of natural ingredients — Grow3 formula that is responsible first of all for hair growth stimulation, and also for strengthening its natural tone and vitamins and minerals that blocks DHT, contributes to improvement of head skin’s blood supply and strengthens hair follicles.
Numerous clinical trials confirm positive impact of Profolan diet supplement to men’s hair condition. Even 9 per 10 clients found high level of satisfaction from reached results of conducted treatment after 3 months of regular preparation’s use. You only need 2 capsules per day to get rid of onerous alopecia problem once for all! Profolan’s efficiency is based on use of natural ingredients that what is important do not cause any side effects. This natural alopecia treatment is therefore completely safe for your body.
NETTLE
Common nettle (Urtica dioica) and dwarf nettle (Urtica urens) are plants from nettle family. Both strains of plant are characterised by effuse, serrated and heart-shaped leaves. Flowers, leaves, seeds and root of nettle are used to many types of therapy, because they contain various chemical compounds. Among others thanks to large quantity of nourishments this ingredient splendidly influences on stoppage of hair loss process which is confirmed by conducted researches.
Common nettle (Urtica dioica) and dwarf nettle (Urtica urens) are plants from nettle family. Both strains of plant are characterised by effuse, serrated and heart-shaped leaves. Flowers, leaves, seeds and root of nettle are used to many types of therapy, because they contain various chemical compounds. Among others thanks to large quantity of nourishments this ingredient splendidly influences on stoppage of hair loss process which is confirmed by conducted researches. FIELD HORSETAIL
Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is a herb that grows mostly in Europe. This ingredient has splendid source of nourishments that has many applications. It is confirmed by numerous researches, among others the ones conducted by specialists from University of Maryland Medical Center. Presence of this ingredient in preparation guarantees strengthening of hair from the inside by feeding hair bulbs with vitamins and many other microelements essential for general improvement of hair condition.
Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is a herb that grows mostly in Europe. This ingredient has splendid source of nourishments that has many applications. It is confirmed by numerous researches, among others the ones conducted by specialists from University of Maryland Medical Center. Presence of this ingredient in preparation guarantees strengthening of hair from the inside by feeding hair bulbs with vitamins and many other microelements essential for general improvement of hair condition. L-CYSTEINE
L-cysteine is a one from twenty main amino acids from endogenous group. Characteristic feature of l-cysteine is uniqueness of nourishments included in it. It participates among others in nutrition and cells regeneration processes. Therefore its deficit often leads to hair loss. Proper dose of l-cysteine in preparation assures that treatment with this preparation will be effective.
L-cysteine is a one from twenty main amino acids from endogenous group. Characteristic feature of l-cysteine is uniqueness of nourishments included in it. It participates among others in nutrition and cells regeneration processes. Therefore its deficit often leads to hair loss. Proper dose of l-cysteine in preparation assures that treatment with this preparation will be effective. VITAMINS AND MINERALS
Component members of this preparation are simultaneously vitamins like E and B6 that according to University of Maryland Medical Center have significant influence on hair growth. Furthermore scientist since 90’ propounded that elements like zinc or copper can prevent hair loss. Conducted experiments initially proved that zinc and copper stops constringency of hair follicles and stimulate their regeneration.
FOR WHOM PROFOLAN IS INTENDED?
Profolan with an innovative Grow3 formula, is intended for all men above 18 years old that struggle with hair loss. It doesn’t matter if hair loss started over a dozen years ago or if you noticed this touchy problem not so long ago. Profolan capsules in efficient way deal with any kind of alopecia because in contrast to other prodcuts available on the market it works within organism and focus on main cause of hair loss. It doesn’t matter if your hair loss is caused by stress, age, genetic or inappropriate lifestyle, use of Profolan caps will allow you in any moment of your life to stop the process of hair loss and to restore hair in natural and safe way. Furthermore, Profolan thanks to its unique mix of ingredients not only blocks DHT hormone and stimulates processes responsible for hair growth, but in the same time restores and keeps its natural tone, so it also stops process of going grey. Profolan is an ideal solution for every man that wants once and for all to get rid of hair loss problem!
PROS AND CONS OF PROFOLAN
PROS;
Fights Hair Loss
Strengthens Hair Follicles
Preserve Natural Hair Color
Stimulates Hair Growth
All Round Natural
There is a money back Guarantee
Cons;
It is only for men older than 18
FAQ
WHEN CAN I EXPECT FIRST EFFECTS OF PROFOLAN’S USE?
Due to fact that hair grows averagely 1.3 cm per month it is advised to use Profolan for at least 3 months. Some men noticed quick growth within first 6 weeks, while the others found effects after few months of treatment. The best results according to conducted clinical research were observed after 6 months of treatment, however it need to be pointed out that significant improvement of hair density and diminution of its loss can be noticed sooner.
Due to fact that hair grows averagely 1.3 cm per month it is advised to use Profolan for at least 3 months. Some men noticed quick growth within first 6 weeks, while the others found effects after few months of treatment. The best results according to conducted clinical research were observed after 6 months of treatment, however it need to be pointed out that significant improvement of hair density and diminution of its loss can be noticed sooner. DOES PROFOLAN WORKS FOR EVERY TYPE OF ALOPECIA?
Profolan in contrast to other preparations that are available on market works from the inside of organism and focus on curing primary cause of any type of alopecia. Supplement efficiently and in fully natural way fights hair loss regardless of that if cause of alopecia is age, genetic, stress etc.
Profolan in contrast to other preparations that are available on market works from the inside of organism and focus on curing primary cause of any type of alopecia. Supplement efficiently and in fully natural way fights hair loss regardless of that if cause of alopecia is age, genetic, stress etc. WHAT IS GROW3 AND WHAT ARE ITS FEATURES?
Innovative complex Grow3 is a combination of extracts from nettle, field horsetail and l-cysteine. All ingredients take active part in stopping a work of DHT hormone that is responsible for alopecia and also intensively stimulate process of new hair’s growth. Profolan additionally contains vitamins and minerals that have positive influence on production and condition of hair, including its natural tone.
Innovative complex Grow3 is a combination of extracts from nettle, field horsetail and l-cysteine. All ingredients take active part in stopping a work of DHT hormone that is responsible for alopecia and also intensively stimulate process of new hair’s growth. Profolan additionally contains vitamins and minerals that have positive influence on production and condition of hair, including its natural tone. WHAT IS DHT?
DHT or dihydrotestosterone is unwanted hormone whose level is increased among men suffering from hair loss. DHT causes loss of hair colour that becomes brittle and falls off much sooner. According to international resources, lowering of DHT level and blockage of hormone’s access to hair follicles is an effective solution of hair loss among men problem. Substances in Profolan in active way stops unwanted influence of DHT hormone and simultaneously stimulate growth on new hair.
DHT or dihydrotestosterone is unwanted hormone whose level is increased among men suffering from hair loss. DHT causes loss of hair colour that becomes brittle and falls off much sooner. According to international resources, lowering of DHT level and blockage of hormone’s access to hair follicles is an effective solution of hair loss among men problem. Substances in Profolan in active way stops unwanted influence of DHT hormone and simultaneously stimulate growth on new hair. HOW PROFOLAN PILLS SHOULD BE TAKEN?
Dosage of diet supplement Profolan is quite simple. You only need to take 2 pills per day during meal and wash it down with glass of water (at least 30 cl).
Dosage of diet supplement Profolan is quite simple. You only need to take 2 pills per day during meal and wash it down with glass of water (at least 30 cl). WHO SHOULDN’T USE PROFOLAN PILLS?
Preparation should be used by men in age below 18. In case of doubt before use you need to consult will preparation’s manufacturer or directly with a doctor, particularly if you take medications or suffering from any illnesses. Profolan is a fully natural and safe for heath preparation, so side effects are very rare.
Preparation should be used by men in age below 18. In case of doubt before use you need to consult will preparation’s manufacturer or directly with a doctor, particularly if you take medications or suffering from any illnesses. Profolan is a fully natural and safe for heath preparation, so side effects are very rare. DOES PROFOLAN CAUSE ANY SIDE EFFECTS?
Profolan’s efficiency is based on use of natural ingredients that do not cause any side effects. Treatment is therefore fully safe for organism. Capsules are easy to swallow, free from fillers, preservatives, sugar substitutes and artificial colourings. Occurrence of any unwanted reactions can be caused by taking a pill on empty stomach instead of during meal or taking it with other medications. It is worth to consult with a doctor before launching the treatment, particularly when you are diagnosed with any illnesses.
Profolan’s efficiency is based on use of natural ingredients that do not cause any side effects. Treatment is therefore fully safe for organism. Capsules are easy to swallow, free from fillers, preservatives, sugar substitutes and artificial colourings. Occurrence of any unwanted reactions can be caused by taking a pill on empty stomach instead of during meal or taking it with other medications. It is worth to consult with a doctor before launching the treatment, particularly when you are diagnosed with any illnesses. WHAT IF I’M NOT SATISFIED WITH RESULTS?
Profolan is under 60-day refund warranty. It means that if in spite of regular use of pills client do not find satisfactory results can with no unnecessary questions and additional conditions resend every unused packet which will be refunded.
Disclaimer
Most of my links above are my affiliate links which means if a purchase is made I would receive a certain commission with no additional cost on your side a discount would be given if you use my links.. I would not put anything I haven’t verified.. | https://medium.com/healthy-faktor/profolan-review-never-suffer-from-hair-loss-again-911466734f77 | [] | 2020-12-15 09:49:13.083000+00:00 | ['Profolan Reviews', 'Men', 'Profolan', 'Hair Loss'] |
Why High Earners Also Need Help Managing Money | It’s easy to assume that just because you earn a lot of money, you don’t need help managing your finances.
As we’ll see in this article, this is far from the truth. In fact, many high earners are people who desperately need help managing their money. Here are a few reasons why:
The more money you earn, the more complex your tax payments become
The more you earn, the less time you (usually) have to do your research and educate yourself on your financial options
The more you earn, the more you think you can spend (also called lifestyle inflation )
) The more you earn, the more likely you are to be targeted by scammers, overpriced financial advisors and snake-oil salesmen.
Having a high income does not mean having a high net worth.
If you earn $200k per year but you are still paying off your $500k medical debt, then your net worth is negative and you are in fact less wealthy than your friend who is making $50k per year and has $100k in her retirement accounts.
If you are a high earner, you also need help managing your money. Let’s dive into some more specifics. 👇
Understanding complicated taxes
As we mentioned above, the more you earn, the more complicated your taxes get.
Even if you earn all your money from a W-2 job, you still need to manage all your retirement and tax-optimized accounts including your 401(k), Roth IRA and 529, to name a few. If you’re also investing in mutual funds, rental properties and have a spouse in a different tax bracket, things get tricky very quickly. At first, you may not think too much of it — but once you’re hit with the tax bill and additional fees you’ll likely feel a bit of sting. Understanding how the tax system works will help you make sure you’re not overpaying in taxes and can pass on as much wealth as possible to the next generation.
A simple example of the above is comparing between a Roth IRA and a Traditional IRA. Many high earners believe that investing in a Traditional IRA is better since they think they are more likely to fall into a lower tax bracket after retirement. But as the White Coat Investor says, in most cases, your wealth will actually be higher once you retire, and it may actually be wiser to use a Roth IRA hedge against future tax rates (who knows what the tax rates will be in 20 years?!). Doing your research and understanding how taxes work can save you (and your children) thousands of dollars in the long run.
Learning about investing
Many high earners start investing in the stock market later than their peers.
That’s because if you spent 7+ years in school before entering the job market, it’s likely investing and money management was at the back of your mind. However, starting late means you have fewer years for compound interest to work its magic. For this reason, high earners who start late should actually contribute more than the average person when it comes to investing. Yes, 20% of your salary is a lot more than 20% of someone else’s regular salary, but if they started many years before you it’ll take a lot longer for you to catch up.
The other investment you’ll hear a lot about is your house. But is your house really an investment? The only time you’ll be making money off your house is if you sell it at a profit, or if you rent it out. In the meantime, it’s an expense. Many high earners believe that because they earn a high income, they can afford a large house. But if your mortgage costs two-thirds of your income, is it really an investment worth considering?
Learning about the importance of investing early could be the difference between a comfortable and tight-budget retirement.
Managing lifestyle spending
A high income does not automatically mean a high net worth.
Why? This is often because high earners are also in large amounts of debt. It’s also because many fall into the trap of the infamous lifestyle inflation: “I earn more so I should be able to spend more”.
There are a few reasons this happens:
Pressure from society: “You’re a high earning lawyer now; you should be able to buy a nicer car”
Relying on a higher future income: “I will earn even more money in the future, so I should be able to take on as much debt as I like and pay it off later”
The “I deserve” this mentality: “I work long and hard hours; I deserve a nice car and a nice house”
Lifestyle inflation encourages high earners to have large obligations. Next thing you know, you’re spending one-third of your income on a house and another third on your car — does that make you wealthy?
The Federal Reserve estimates that Americans save 8.1% of their income. That is too low for any income level; no matter what your salary is, saving, budgeting and having an emergency fund should be an essential part of your financial management. Once again, someone who earns $60k per year and saves $10k is increasing their wealth at a higher rate than someone who earns $250k and spends every dollar.
Understanding what lifestyle inflation is and how to manage it means you won’t fall into the trap of being a “poor” high-income professional.
Prioritizing financial education
The last but the most important reason high earners need help with money management is the lack of financial education available specifically for them. There is already a huge lack of financial education for people of all income levels — but the resources that are there rarely cater to high-income professionals.
This may not seem like a big deal to others, but unfortunately, a lack of education usually means that doctors, lawyers and engineers are targets for scammers and snake-oil salesmen. This leads to situations where well-meaning doctors are paying over 1% in mutual-fund fees, getting a low return on their investment and buying dodgy insurance products that are designed to steal their money.
A lack of education also leads to high earners getting into a huge amount of debt. With college tuition prices ballooning and students earning an income later on in life, many high earners leave school with over $500k in debt. Even if your first job earns you $200k per year, a $500k student loan debt repayment program can take decades to pay off. Many young students require education on how to fund college tuition and how to take advantage of forgiveness programs.
Everyone needs help managing their money, and that’s including high earners. Complex tax calculations, high student loan debt and predatory “financial advisors” put high earners in just as much risk. We believe there is a large gap in financial services for high earners; many are quick to think that the high earners don’t need help, but here at Unifimoney we know that this is not the case. That’s why we are building a bank account to help you spend, save, and invest effortlessly.
Are you a high-income professional who wants a genuinely better bank account? Join the Unifimoney waitlist today! | https://medium.com/@unifi-money/why-high-earners-also-need-help-managing-money-ca961d5949ba | ['Unifimoney Editorial Team'] | 2020-08-13 14:36:55.848000+00:00 | ['Money Management', 'Investing', 'Fintech', 'Lawyers', 'Doctors'] |
Global Hopes for Stability | Terry H. Schwadron
Nov. 14, 2020
Images of spontaneous expressions of joy in ousting Donald Trump for Joe Biden came from around the world last week, and along with them, new expectations for a reentry of the United States into global issues.
Four years of Trump’s America First slogans, of a program of isolation that made allies into adversaries and that adulated despots are going to give way quickly to something more recognizable as American foreign policy, if Biden can bring it off.
The response showed that the world expects and needs a stable United States for its own health, security, trade and approach to international problems — something most countries have found lacking under Trump.
Indeed, Trump since Election Day, Trump seems missing in action — except for making punitive fires of perceived opponents. Since Trump was skeptical about intelligence reports, maybe he figures Biden doesn’t need them either — or he’s just being obstinate.
But the world power balance has shifted in a single Trump term, with increased climate concerns, aggressive and nationalistic trade and military strategies, with yet more pressure on what to do about refugees forced from home countries. The “populist” or nationalist political causes rising here were also growing in Europe, in the United Kingdom, through the Middle East and Asia.
Biden is going to have a plateful of issues to get nuclear expansion in Iran and North Korea back under control, to persuade Israel’s right-wing parties that also caring about Palestinians is not against their interest and to rebut aggressiveness by Russia and China.
For Trump, trade was a weapon, not a sign of prosperity, yet, by almost every measure, things worsened on his watch. Trump’s episodic approach to military efforts has left more questions than answers in many places. And the failure to help lead global efforts on pandemic, refugee issues and climate have left us in a weaker position.
So, it was with little surprise that plaudits poured in from world leaders as soon as the election was called for Biden, a known quantity to them over years, as well as delayed congratulations from Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s conservative president, Chinese leaders and silence from the Russian, North Korean, Mexican and Brazilian leadership.
Foreign policies were not the deciding issues of this election, but clearly Biden will be spending a good deal of attention to address what he sees has been lost in the Trump years.
Looking Abroad
The United States will address the world as “a” leader rather than “the” leader, argues Timothy Garton Ash, columnist for the Guardian.
“Even if Biden had won a landslide victory and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the United States’ power in the world would be much diminished. President Donald Trump has done untold damage to its international reputation. His disastrous record on handling Covid confirmed a widespread sense of a society with deep structural problems.”
We can expect that Biden will revisit Trump plans for full withdrawal from Afghanistan and cutbacks of U.S. military bases in Europe.
A recent survey of European officials, for example, found that the U.S. is seen as “ineffective” on a variety of international issues — “an all-time low for American soft power,” as Ash called it. Strategic distraction has allowed China to rise, Russia and Turkey to advance territorial claims, Iran to restart nuclear development — though it’s unclear whether Iran was fully complying with international limits before Trump broke off from a 2015 agreement.
Biden is regarded as having good international experience as a supporter of traditional alliances, and someone who can assemble and trust a team — skills that seem foreign for Trump.
European leaders agree that the priorities are the “3 Cs”: Covid, climate change and China. Among Biden’s first acts are creating a Covid team and intention to rejoin the World Health Organization. Biden is a supporter of United Nations efforts in the Middle East and for NATO, both of which Trump has loathed.
Biden promises to stand firm with China and Russia, and to renew efforts to stop North Korean nuclear development. In general, Biden advocates coalitions, a distinct difference from Trump, and the basis of approach to issues from terrorism to environment and health. Biden has discussed supporting a network of democracies with more flexibility than in the past.
A More Balanced Approach
Biden stands for an approach more committed to balancing international and strictly U.S. interests than did Trump.
His selection of a Secretary of State and national security team should be an early signal as to whether the emphasis will be on restoring U.S. standing in the world or seeking to dominate trade partners to bring multinational companies back to American shores.
Other world leaders, including in China, must understand this, because they are trying for the same balance. In a world in which no one country produces all the parts for an automobile or a mobile phone, there is need for increased internationalism. The question, as always, is how to enable that while promoting domestic jobs.
Right now, for example, Europe has just decided to levy tariffs on a range of U.S. products — as tit-for-tat retaliation for American actions, including subsidies to support Boeing production of aircraft. Trump has pushed for tariffs to counter sale of European-made cars, among other products. It’s a tangle that a paralyzed U.S. government shows no sign of repairing before Biden takes over.
Biden’s main strength seems to be a commitment to stability, where Trump’s main tool was unpredictability. Clearly the world is telling us it prefers a Biden, regardless of the specific programs that he will support.
Those big problems cannot be solved by the United States alone: Trump’s isolationist lean has proved that in only this one term. And even if isolation had proved effective, it comes at a price for American farmers and businesses.
Biden’s desire to take early actions in rolling back many Trump decisions shows that he is serious about foreign policy and eager to restore what he sees as better balance.
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www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com | https://medium.com/@terryschwadron/global-hopes-for-stability-caacbf82ddb1 | ['Terry Schwadron'] | 2020-11-14 13:05:06.078000+00:00 | ['Europe', 'World', 'Joe Biden', 'Foreign Policy', 'Allies'] |
OTT Trends | “55.1 million people are expected to chop the cord by 2022.” — eMarketer
OTT streaming services are attracting 71% of internet users which makes it almost urgent to take a position in integrated video platforms for distributing and monetizing original and curated content. With a ballooning content production, the organization of content both on the users’ end and back-end system should be the priority.
Global Media And Entertainment Trends
“33% of people watch online videos on a Smart TV with video-enabled apps and 23% use a video game console.” — Statista
But Why Are People Moving To OTT?
According to a study by Telaria and Adobe, people retain traditional screens to stream their favorite live sports, events, and news. But with telecom services like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint rolling out 5G internet plans in the US, video OTT platforms now have the bandwidth to deliver UHD streaming for these niches too.
The global trends are pointing the same way.
The Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget for 2020 proposed to allocate Rs 6,000 crore for the BharatNet program which will be a shot in the arm for broadband connectivity, especially in the rural areas. While India is keen to welcome 5G, the task before the policymakers are to ensure that the telecom infrastructure and related technologies support its divergent demography, economic conditions, and shifting market trends. In response to the favorable technology and investment climate, platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney-owned Hotstar, and Zee5 are making a beeline to the Indian OTT video audience.
Data consumption has seen a steep rise within the last three years as a mirrored image of cheaper Internet data costs, says Amitabh Kant, CEO of the policy think factory NITI Aayog.
Subscription Fatigue
Global OTT revenues are predicted to succeed in $129 billion by 2023. Despite SVOD being the general streaming services trend, it is building up to a saturation point leading to a new phase in the Internet lexicon — Subscription Fatigue. People have finite entertainment budgets and SVOD services are easy to cancel. These factors make it more prone to churn.
‘47% folks consumers say they’re frustrated by the growing number of subscriptions and services required to observe what they need .’ Deloitte survey.
The OTT viewing trends are, nevertheless, more promising to commercials than Television viewers. The OTT platforms themselves allow advertisers to better target their ads to specific demographics or types of consumers who are likely to be interested in their products or services.
Latest Applications
The first experience of VR and AR was in gaming and entertainment. But research shows that the development of enterprise extended reality (ER) solutions is growing fast. 65% of the companies surveyed said they are working on industrial applications.
AR is ready to ascertain a 38% annual growth in healthcare by 2025.
Applications in healthcare are expected to ascertain many use cases in 2020.
Virtual reality (VR) has is being adopted in treating patients with phobias and anxiety disorders. Combined with biosensors to monitor physiological reactions like heart rate and perspiration, therapists can understand how patients react to stressful situations in a safe, virtual environment.
VR is additionally utilized in helping people diagnosed with autism develop social and communication skills. Patients with visual or cognitive impairments can also be diagnosed and treated.
Augmented Reality is often employed by surgeons within the theater and in training to alert them to risks or hazards while they’re working.
Global Vs Local Competition
If you think that the lion’s share is going to be retained by global OTT content providers, you’re pleasantly off the mark!
Indian music streaming services app company, Gaana has used a hyperlocal approach and competitive pricing to offer stiff competition to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon music service. It draws 152 million monthly users, completely half of Spotify’s worldwide market share.
Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Hulu are already in a race for market share. But now they need to also compete with Bollywood powerhouses who are luring users with almost free offers.
Hotstar built its base by streaming cricket matches. The Los Gatos, a California-based firm is proposing a mobile-only service at but half the standard subscription rate, and increasing expenses on local content quicker than in any other market.
Conclusion
The OTT landscape goes to be during a churn with the introduction of 5G internet and therefore the vistas that it exposes. While sustainability and margins are the proverbial elephants within the room, innovative services are pushing media and entertainment trends in favor of OTT streaming platforms.
Despite the multiple services available within the market, the video streaming market still has the capacity to soak up viewership. Breaking into the scene with a new video OTT platform is not as difficult as you imagine. Explore the way to build an OTT platform customized to grow your own brand. | https://medium.com/@shivani-dua17/ott-trends-a0dabe4cc4e8 | ['Shivani Dua'] | 2020-12-18 02:28:06.204000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Trends', 'Content Writing', 'OTT', 'Content'] |
“Stumbling In” | “Stumbling In”
Lyrics to “Stumbling In” by Stroke 9
Listen free here.
I was long gone before I went away
I didn’t have what it takes
There was something in your eyes
Struck out when you walked in
Blacked out in a tailspin
I Wasn’t thinking right
that night
this won’t be the first time it’s crashing on me
I know someday you’re gonna find
a place to rest your weary mind
but when?
Now I’m standing in the light
Can’t you see the stars shining bright
for you
Standing in the light
That’s the best I’ll ever do
Well I’m not scared anymore
Like the time before
All i ever wanted were the simple things in life
nothin more, nothing more
Throttle wide open on the 442
Swallowing pills just to see what they do yah
Stumbling in -
Stumbling out-
It’s was all over when you started to shout HEY!
Are ya hearing me now?
Now I’m standing in the light
Can’t you see the stars shining bright
for you
Standing in the light
That’s the best I’ll ever do
Yah It’s all that I can scream about for a minute
Life’s what I dream about with you in it
Don’t walk away
What’s left to say | https://medium.com/stroke-9/stumbling-in-c07b8c3b8679 | ['Luke Esterkyn'] | 2020-04-10 18:59:37.429000+00:00 | ['Stroke 9', 'Lyrics'] |
Community Update: 2020–11–17 | Hello StakeHODL’ers!
We are back with another update — progress on many fronts!
We are currently preparing our next update for the #HODLdex with some code enhancements, distribution claims, and the long-awaited calculator. We are excited to be able to roll these out to you and hope you will enjoy them as much as we do.
Blank space
Our UI team is working exceptionally hard to deliver and upgrade the experience of our community members.
In our quest to keep the system streamlined, the UI will no longer show the buy order side. We changed this because:
No buy order can exist when there is a sell order — the sell order immediately fills the buy order; Until the reserve is empty, the reserve will fill any open buy orders (after sell orders have been processed).
So it seemed illogical to have an empty side at the moment. Once the reserve is empty, the issue will be revisited.
The system currently has a long list of sell orders. This is not a problem in itself. We expect that there might be hundreds, even thousands of them in a day as the project develops. This is healthy for the system and stimulates growth. Please keep in mind velocity and volume — that is what will be created and sustained by community building, and afterward with ecosystem development.
…Ready for it?
We are also making progress on our technological side with the continued development of our EOS ledger family. Our newest family member is the HCEOSUSD/HTEOSUSD pair (try saying that three times fast!). This will enable our community members to interact with the HODLCommunity network from two ledgers.
Put that chequebook away! There’s more!
As both of the ledgers will impact the entire HODLCommunity network’s price velocity, participating in any network will benefit everyone.
We expect to announce a release date in the next 5–6 weeks.
In time, all the main ledgers such as BTC, Tron, Stellar will be included.
Everything has changed
White paper v2 is also getting a last review after the discussions with our legal partners and should be published as a v2.0 in the next two weeks.
Our song
Community building efforts and the development of the correct core messaging to reach crypto enthusiasts have been our priority.
We are preparing to launch a PR campaign comprising of many elements:
World-class website;
Explainer videos and animations;
Articles on tier 3–2–1 crypto media;
Podcasts, interviews with crypto groups, media groups, and crypto influencers;
Telegram, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook community building and management;
Targeted growth hacking campaign;
Publications and posts in relevant blogs and site (Reddit, Bitcointalk, etc.);
Partnerships with other telegram groups;
Collectible NFT reward campaign for our community;
and more (we can’t tell you everything now, but we are chair dancing on this side of the computer).
You belong with me
In parallel, we are working with motivated ecosystem candidates to help bring their projects into the HODLCommunity network.
This comprises institutional initiatives as well as crypto initiatives. Some of these initiatives will bring our community members the ability to buy and sell HODLC with fiat money, making our adoption easier and possibly even viral.
End game
Finally, opening a crypto foundation takes a lot of time and effort. However, the journey is well underway for the opening of the HODLCommunity Foundation. We look forward to being able to give you a big update in the future.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print. If you’re looking for opportunities to help move the project further, the simplest and easiest thing to do is to talk about it on social media.
The HODLC Team
p.s. Today’s headings are all related — have you figured out how? So groan-worthy! | https://medium.com/@hodlcommunity/community-update-2020-11-17-4d48d48cc7a8 | [] | 2020-11-17 00:00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Eos', 'Community', 'Token Economy'] |
The best reason why you need a protein shake | Introduction:
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Reduce hunger and appetite:
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Prevent muscles loss:
The protein shake helps to prevent muscle loss. If you are on a weight loss diet so adds the protein shake to your diet that prevents the loss of muscles. And it has a combo on special training. The vegan man shake is best if you are on a weight loss diet and have an allergy to dairy products, so you can buy this vegan man shake for just $49.95.
Defend immunity:
It is the most prominent feature of the protein shake. It defends the immunity system with perfection and keeps you away from various diseases and seasonal viruses. The defend immunity booster really protects your body and health. This defender of your body’s immune system is available just for $39.95.
Conclusion:
To conclude, this protein shake has several reasons to be in your life. For a healthy start of the day to the best sleep at night, from the fight the virus in your body to help to increase your metabolism. Of course, to assist in losing weight, a protein shake is always a healthy start. The protein shake helps you to maintain a healthy life in this hectic life schedule. Just two scopes of your favorite protein shake flavor can make you feel lighter and healthier than before. Get your protein shake now. | https://medium.com/revountsau/the-best-reason-why-you-need-a-protein-shake-abba47d96a06 | ['Linda Haynes'] | 2021-02-18 12:09:27.163000+00:00 | ['Coupon', 'Promo Code', 'Protein Shake', 'Coupon Code'] |
Integrating Vue with Spring Boot | In this tutorial, I will show you step by step to integrate Vue.js with Spring Boot so that Spring Boot project can serve Vue App. You will also know how to configure Vue SPA Routing to avoid Whitelabel Error Page.
Vue & Spring Boot application Overview
Assume that we have 2 projects: Vue & Spring Boot:
For example, if we run them separately:
Spring Boot Server exports Rest Apis at Url: http://localhost:8080/
Vue.js Client runs at url: http://localhost:8081/
Using Vue to call Spring Rest API:
Otherwise, when deploying Vue production-build with Spring Boot project, we only need to run Spring Boot Project for the fullstack (Vue.js + Spring Boot) system.
In this example, we access http://localhost:8080/ .
Technology Stack
Node.js
Vue 2.6
Vue Router 3
Vue Cli Service 4
Spring Boot 2
Spring Tool Suite
Maven 3.6.1
Setup Vue Client
You can use your own Vue.js Project, or just download the source code on Github, or follow these steps to create a new one.
Open cmd at the folder you want to save Project folder, run command:
vue create vue-js-crud
You will see some options, choose default (babel, eslint).
After the process is done. We create new folders and files like the following tree:
public
— index.html
src
— components
— — AddTutorial.vue
— — Tutorial.vue
— — TutorialsList.vue
— services
— — TutorialDataService.js
— App.vue
— main.js
package.json
Because I want to keep this tutorial simple and brief, please continue to develop this App with instruction in the post:
Vue.js 2 CRUD Application with Vue Router & Axios
Import Vue Project to Spring Tool Suite
Open Spring Tool Suite, right click on Package Explorer and choose Import -> General -> Projects from Folder or Archieve, press Next.
Find the Vue.js Project that we’ve just created above and press Finish, vue-js-crud is imported like this:
To clean the source code in STS, we need to remove node_modules folder by following the steps:
Right click on vue-js-crud project, choose Properties , then Resource -> Resource Filter .
project, choose , then -> . Press Add Filter…, choose Filter Type: Exclude all, Applies to: Files and folders, and check All children (recursive), with ‘File and Folder Atributes’, we specify node_modules:
Press OK, then Apply, the result will be like this:
Setup Spring Boot Server
You can use your own Spring Boot Project, or just download the source code on Github, or follow these steps to create a new one.
Use Spring web tool or your development tool (Spring Tool Suite, Eclipse, Intellij) to create a Spring Boot project.
Then open pom.xml and add these dependencies:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency> <dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency> <dependency>
<groupId>mysql</groupId>
<artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
The instruction can be found in the post:
Spring Boot, Spring Data JPA — Rest CRUD API example
Now we have 2 projects together in Spring Tool Suite:
Let’s continue to the most important part.
Integrating Vue.js with Spring Boot
Build Vue App
Currently Vue Client and Express server work independently on ports 8081 and 8080 .
The first thing we need to do is to build Vue App for production.
Open package.json file, modify the scripts so that output files and folders will be stored in build folder:
{
...
"scripts": {
"serve": "vue-cli-service serve",
"build": "vue-cli-service build --dest build",
"lint": "vue-cli-service lint"
},
...
}
Run command: npm run build
E:\STS\WorkPlace\vue-js-crud>npm run build > [email protected] build E:\STS\WorkPlace\vue-js-crud
> vue-cli-service build --dest build
| Building for production...Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run next command `npm update
`
/ Building for production...Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run next command `npm update
`
| Building for production... DONE Compiled successfully in 19202ms 6:50:36 PM File Size Gzipped build\js\chunk-vendors.6a5b8348.js 115.12 KiB 40.60 KiB
build\js\chunk-1b8a9a30.48200924.js 17.45 KiB 6.13 KiB
build\js\chunk-24926a39.dbd26b18.js 8.95 KiB 3.51 KiB
build\js\chunk-7d82c670.cf3aa735.js 7.73 KiB 3.25 KiB
build\js\app.7e2a4494.js 4.81 KiB 2.07 KiB
build\js\chunk-29724baf.89c3a7e4.js 2.98 KiB 1.10 KiB
build\css\chunk-29724baf.1ae50cfb.css 0.05 KiB 0.07 KiB
build\css\chunk-7d82c670.465f69d9.css 0.04 KiB 0.06 KiB
build\css\chunk-24926a39.2d561e0d.css 0.04 KiB 0.06 KiB Images and other types of assets omitted.
INFO Check out deployment instructions at DONE Build complete. The build directory is ready to be deployed.INFO Check out deployment instructions at https://cli.vuejs.org/guide/deployment.html
Now you can see new build folder with content as following:
Integrate Vue production into Spring Boot Project
Now we need to copy all files from Vue build folder to src/target/classes/static folder of Spring Boot project.
There are 2 way to do this:
Manually copy/paste Using maven-resources-plugin
Open pom.xml, add following plugin:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin> <plugin>
<artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>copy-resources</id>
<phase>validate</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy-resources</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${basedir}/target/classes/static/</outputDirectory>
<resources>
<resource>
<directory>${basedir}/../vue-js-crud/build</directory>
</resource>
</resources>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
In the code above, we specify outputDirectory for the destination folder, and resource>directory for the source folder.
Serve Vue App on Spring Boot
Build and run the Spring Boot server with commands:
– mvn clean install
– mvn spring-boot:run
Open browser with url: http://localhost:8080/ .
The result:
Spring Boot + Vue: Whitelabel Error Page
Oh yeah! Everything looks good.
But wait, let’s try to refresh the page.
What happened?
To handle this error, we’re gonna re-enable hash(#) in Vue App Routing. It will keep the UI route in hash part of the URL, which should not make the server return 404.
The default mode for Vue Router is hash mode. It uses a URL hash to simulate a full URL so that the page won’t be reloaded when the URL changes. In the source code, we already set Vue Router to history mode to get rid of the hash.
So, in Vue Project, let’s open router.js file and comment or remove mode: "history" :
import Vue from "vue";
import Router from "vue-router"; Vue.use(Router); export default new Router({
// mode: "history",
routes: [
{
..
}
]
});
Don’t forget to rebuild the Vue App and copy all files and folders in build directory (Vue project) into views (Node.js Express project).
Now Our Url is hashed(#) after port number: http://localhost:8080/#/tutorials
Now you can refresh the page without worrying about Whitelabel Error.
Conclusion
Today we’ve learned how to integrate Vue.js with Spring Boot Application. We also handle “Whitelabel Error Page” case for Spring Boot + Vue Project. Now you can use Spring Boot to serve Vue App easily on the same server/port.
There are many fullstack Spring Boot + Vue examples that you can apply this approach to integrate:
– Vue.js + Spring Boot + MySQL/PostgreSQL example
– Vue.js + Spring Boot + MongoDB example
– Spring Boot + Vue.js: Authentication with JWT & Spring Security Example
Serverless:
– Vue Firebase Realtime Database: CRUD example
– Vue Firestore: Build a CRUD App example
Further Reading
Source Code
You can find the complete source code for this tutorial at Github. | https://medium.com/@bezkoder/integrating-vue-with-spring-boot-489573caccbf | [] | 2020-12-14 04:43:40.192000+00:00 | ['Integration', 'Spring Boot', 'Vue', 'Vuejs', 'Spring Boot 2'] |
Myth vs. Fact in the State of Nature: Hunter-Gatherers and Life Before the State | Photo by Ian Macharia on Unsplash
What was life like before government?
Philosophers have romanticized this period as the “state of nature”, and we’re usually told it was a time of desperation and bloodshed. But does the evidence back them up? That’s what we aim to examine here.
If we can find clues as to what life was like before the state, we will know what most of human history was like. From the emergence of Homo sapiens around 300,000 BC up until around 3,000 BC(only about 5,000 years ago!), people were stateless.
Unfortunately, writing — and thus recorded history — evolved alongside the centralized state. So we have no records of how most of our ancestors thought, what stories they told, and what their ideas were about life. We can reconstruct vague details of how they lived, using artifacts and bones; or we can talk to modern peoples who continue living in the ancient ways — albeit, in much more limited contexts. But that’s pretty much it. So it’s not surprising that many of us rely on a philosopher’s stereotype to conjure up our perceptions of this forgotten world.
THE STATE OF NATURE
Schools across the United States teach the philosophy of the “state of nature”, typically beginning around the 6th-7th grade, and as part of their curriculum on the ideas that inspired America’s founders. “America’s founding documents” and “Foundational American literature” are listed as critical content for any states that have adopted the Common Core Standards. In particular, John Locke’s and Thomas Hobbes’ ideas on the state of nature (and how it leads to the necessity of government) are considered highly influential in inspiring America’s founders.¹
A 6th grade lesson plan distributed by Scholastic reads:
“Locke asserted that the purpose of government was to protect the rights of the people. Without a government of laws, he wrote, society could be considered in a state of nature. Locke and many of his contemporaries believed that, in such a situation, stronger and smarter people take away the natural rights of others, and/or weaker people work together to defend themselves or take away the natural rights of the stronger and smarter people. In either situation, everyone would feel insecure and unsafe.”
Another K-12 lesson plan by the North Carolina Civic Education Consortium asks the teacher to:
“Facilitate discussion based on [the questions in the lesson plan]. Note possible disadvantages of living in a state of nature: stronger or smarter people might take away other peoples’ lives, liberty, and property, or weaker people might band together and take away the lives, liberty, and property of stronger or smarter people. Also note advantages: people have unlimited freedom to do whatever they please.”
Hobbes describes our now-classic view of the “state of nature” in his Leviathan, saying, “During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe […] There Is Always Warre Of Every One Against Every One” (1).
Thus these ideas wedge themselves into the minds of many Americans, starting from a relatively early age. People come to assume that life without government would be a life of fear and conflict — a life without rights, and full of war.
The problem with using this idea as a reference for understanding life without government is that it is a philosophical idea. Philosophy is great for coming up with hypotheses that can be tested scientifically; but it is not a substitute for evidence-based investigation.
In addition to this idea of constant warfare in the state of nature, we are led to believe that the time before the state was a time of short lives, hardship, and starvation. We are told that ancient and present-day hunter-gatherers work long, hard days for food, only to fail to meet their basic needs. We are told that civilization gave us the leisure time necessary to create “culture”, feeding us with less labor and freeing us up to participate in other pursuits. But is this image of historical progression true?
WHAT DOES THE EVIDENCE SUGGEST?
Marshall Sahlins was one of the first anthropologists to directly challenge this theory. In 1972, Sahlins published Stone Age Economics, a book of essays which examined anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers and their semi-nomadic agriculturalist counterparts.
In contrast with the more traditional philosophical pictures painted above, Sahlins calls the historical world of the hunter-gatherer “the original affluent society”. He argues that hunter-gatherers probably worked less than their civilized counterparts (including most of us!), had more leisure time, and still fulfilled all of their needs.
For his analysis, Sahlins used field research published across more than a hundred-year span, from social groups all over the world who still practice hunting and gathering or semi-nomadic agriculture.² Examined populations include the !Kung Bushmen in the Kalahari, Australian hunter-gatherers in Arnhem Land, the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego, and the Hadza of Tanzania, among others.
It’s important to recognize that these people differ necessarily from the ancient, pre-state hunter-gatherer we are trying to imagine. For one thing, expanding civilization and development has drastically reduced their access to land and resources. The modern hunter-gatherer lacks the immense freedom to roam that their predecessors had, and often they are confined on reserves to some of the least desirable patches of land in the world. They are relegated to civilization’s “leftovers”, so if anything we would expect them to starve more than their ancestors. Secondly, their lifestyles are often altered by contact with civilization. They gain access to tools and learn farming practices that their predecessors would not have known. They also occasionally interact with outside economies and currencies.
But they are the only living models we have, so we will have to extrapolate a little, keeping our limitations in mind. Probably some of them help to cancel each other out — for example, modern tools that increase foraging and cultivating efficiency might help balance out some of the resource deprivation and territorial scarcity that modern nomads and semi-nomads experience. But we cannot be sure whether that is the case, or to what extent.
What Sahlins found is that, on average, researchers recorded 3–5 hour workdays for the social groups they studied.
“Hunters keep banker’s hours,” he writes, “notably less than modern industrial workers (unionized), who would surely settle for a 21–35 hour week.” (2)³
Sir George Grey, for example — a British explorer writing in 1841 — recorded an average of 2–3 hours of work per day for the Australian social groups he studied; his research included some undesirable parts of Australia, as well. John Edward Eyre, in 1845, marked an average of 3–4 hours per day (also in Australia). James Woodburn, who studied the Hadza in Africa, found that people typically worked less than 2 hours per day. And Lee, in his 1968 study in Dobe, found that the norm was two 6-hour workdays per week.
This work was not necessarily daily or regular. Members of social groups would sometimes work for three or four days straight, going for a long hunt or gathering in the woods. Then, they might rest for several days afterward, chatting and gambling and feasting. Or, community members might work a mere two hours one day and six hours the next. One researcher noted:
“Since the Kapauku have a conception of balance in life, only every other day is supposed to be a working day. Such a day is followed by a day of rest in order to ‘regain the lost power and health.’ This monotonous fluctuation of leisure and work is made more appealing to the Kapauku by inserting into their schedule periods of more prolonged holidays (spent in dancing, visiting, fishing, or hunting…). Consequently, we usually find only some of the people departing for their gardens in the morning, the others are taking their ‘day off.’ However, many individuals do not rigidly conform to this ideal. The more conscientious cultivators often work intensively for several days in order to complete clearing a plot, making a fence, or digging a ditch. After such a task is accomplished, they relax for a period of several days, thus compensating for their ‘missed’ days of rest (Pospisil, 1963, p. 145).”
In addition, researchers consistently found that the available workforce of these communities was significantly underutilized. In many groups, young adults would not begin contributing to food production until they were married — sometimes not until their 20s. Among the Lele, adult males were only found to work between the ages of about 30 and 50!
Lee writes:
“Another significant feature of the composition of the [!Kung Bushmen] work force is the late assumption of adult responsibility by the adolescents. Young people are not expected to provide food regularly until they are married. Girls typically marry between the ages of 15 and 20, and boys about five years later, so that it is not unusual to find healthy, active teenagers visiting from camp to camp while their older relatives provide food for them (Lee, 1968, p. 36).”
But it’s not just the labor force that is underutilized; the land and its resources typically are, as well. Hunter-gatherers don’t gather more than they need to eat that day, or perhaps for one or two days coming. In the off chance they end up with more food than they need, they invite a neighboring camp to feast. And cultivators, likewise, rarely plant fields and gardens to their maximum capacity. The hunter-gatherer and the semi-permanent agriculturalist are not hoarders. Their lifestyle — or what Sahlins calls the DMP or “Domestic Mode of Production” — “harbors an antisurplus principle. Geared to the production of livelihood, it is endowed with the tendency to come to a halt at that point. Hence if ‘surplus’ is defined as output above the producers’ requirements, the household system is not organized for it”.
These habits aren’t suggestive of the habits of starving people. Working sporadically, along with underutilizing both labor resources and land productivity, does not imply a sense of desperation.
And indeed, people like Sir George Grey agreed, even as far back as 1841. Grey suggests that many early reports miscategorized indigenous populations as “starving”, based simply on their food choices. Observers like Captain Sturt, for example, who witnessed Aboriginals gathering mimosa gum, commented that “‘the unfortunate creatures were reduced to the last extremity, and, being unable to procure any other nourishment, had been obliged to collect this mucilaginous.’”
Grey wrote about his colleagues:
“They lament in their journals that the unfortunate Aborigines should be reduced by famine to the miserable necessity of subsisting on certain sorts of food, which they have found near their huts; whereas, in many instances, the articles thus quoted by them are those which the natives most prize, and are really neither deficient in flavour nor nutritious qualities.”
He insisted, moreover, that “generally speaking, the natives live well […] and I can only say that I have always found the greatest abundance in their huts (Grey, 1841, vol. 2, pp. 259–262, emphasis [Sahlins’]; cf. Eyre, 1845, vol. 2, p. 244f)”.
In other words, early European observers in Australia saw the natives eating things that grossed them out. They assumed the people must be on the verge of desperation — otherwise, why would they consume such items? But what Grey found is that, totally to the contrary, many of these items were highly-valued delicacies. The Aborigines weren’t starving — they just had different palates than the Europeans.
More than 100 years later, Lee tells a similar story:
“A woman gathers on one day enough food to feed her family for three days, and spends the rest of her time resting in camp, doing embroidery, visiting other camps, or entertaining visitors from other camps. For each day at home, kitchen routines, such as cooking, nut cracking, collecting firewood, and fetching water, occupy one to three hours of her time. This rhythm of steady work and steady leisure is maintained throughout the year. The hunters tend to work more frequently than the women, but their schedule is uneven. It is not unusual for a man to hunt avidly for a week and then do no hunting at all for two or three weeks. Since hunting is an unpredictable business and subject to magical control, hunters sometimes experience a run of bad luck and stop hunting for a month or longer. During these periods, visiting, entertaining, and especially dancing are the primary activities of men (Lee, 1968, p. 37).”
And in a simplified version of part of his PhD thesis published in Lee and DeVore (1968), James Woodburn describes the the appearance of starvation among the Hadza compared with the reality:
“Hunting and gathering tribes are often described as living on the verge of starvation. It is easy to gain such an impression after living for a short while with the Hadza; often by nightfall every scrap of food in the camp has been eaten unless a large animal happens to have been killed recently. Moreover the Hadza place such emphasis on meat as proper food and treat vegetable foods as so thoroughly unsatisfactory in comparison that they are apt to describe themselves as suffering from hunger when they have less meat than they would like. In fact, there is never any general shortage of food even in time of drought. The range of foods in the bush is so great, if one knows what these are and how to obtain them, that if weather conditions should cause the failure of some type of root or berry, or the migration of some of the game, some other type of food is always available. For a Hadza to die of hunger, or even to fail to satisfy his hunger for more than a day or two, is almost inconceivable.” (3)
As we can see, cultural factors, such as a varied diet (consisting, perhaps, of foods repulsive to European tastebuds) or a tendency to immediately consume the day’s acquired food stores, can and have contributed to the impression that hunter-gatherers are desperate. But there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that many social groups have no trouble feeding themselves. Of course, starvation and famine have been legitimately documented, as well; after all, hunter-gatherers today have a fraction of the territory they had in prehistoric times. Sometimes, communities are forced to wander deserts or other barren tracts of land in search of food. Other times, they do exhaust local supplies. But this does not seem to be the norm.
When introducing their symposium on Man the Hunter, Lee and DeVore write:
“Ever since the origin of agriculture, Neolithic peoples have been steadily expanding at the expense of the hunters. Today the latter are often found in unattractive environments, in lands which are of no use to their neighbors and which pose difficult and dramatic problems of survival […] Since a routine and reliable food base appears to be a common feature among modern hunter-gatherers, we suspect that the ancient hunters living in much better environments would have enjoyed an even more substantial food supply.”
WHAT WAS SOCIAL LIFE LIKE?
Were hunter-gatherers constantly at war?
The evidence on this subject differs. Some anthropologists argue that hunter-gatherer communities were, in fact, more peaceful than civilized societies. Others believe that conflict was common, but typically ritualistic and resulting in little bloodshed. Michael Mann tells us that in one quantitative study, “only four out of fifty primitive peoples did not routinely engage in warfare”, but that “comparative anthropology shows that its frequency, organization, and its intensity in lives killed, increase substantially with permanent settlement and, then again, with civilization”. Further, he cites at least five sources and quantitative studies, providing evidence that “half the warfare of primitive peoples is relatively sporadic, unorganized, ritualistic, and bloodless”. (4)
So it would seem that, while hunter-gatherers do and probably always did engage in warfare, it is and was almost certainly less violent and bloody than civilized warfare. But Sahlins and others argue that the most natural response to conflict, in a world without centralized authority, is dispersion rather than war.
“Maximum dispersion is the settlement pattern of the state of nature,” Sahlins writes. “Where the right to proceed by force is held generally rather than monopolized politically, there discretion is the better part of valor and space the surest principle of security. Minimizing conflict over resources, goods, and women, dispersal is the best protector of persons and possessions.”
It makes sense. If conflict arises on a sparsely populated landscape, you can fight and risk losing your life and possessions, or you can simply choose to walk away. If food is readily available elsewhere, you can maintain your autonomy, go your own way, and lose nothing. Of course, this “choice” is contingent on the availability of food in nearby areas. If this hypothesis is true, we’d expect to see more dispersal throughout lush landscapes, ripe for foraging — and more conflict in areas where the food supply is scarcer.
Another way to solve conflict peaceably in the “state of nature” is through use of the gift. Gifts, in modern hunter-gatherer societies, are invaluable tools for de-escalating confrontation before it becomes war. According to Sahlins:
“Thus do primitive peoples transcend the Hobbesian chaos. For the indicative condition of primitive society is the absence of a public and sovereign power: persons and (especially) groups confront each other not merely as distinct interests but with the possible inclination and certain right to physically prosecute those interests. Force is decentralized, legitimately held in severalty, the social compact has yet to be drawn, the state nonexistent. So peacemaking is not a sporadic intersocietal event, it is a continuous process going on within society itself.”
Hunter-gatherers probably lived in small “bands”, loosely tied together by kinship. According to Lee and DeVore, at their Man the Hunter symposium, the most commonly cited “band size” among modern hunter-gatherers ranged from 25–50 people. These people generally lived at densities of 1–25 people per hundred square miles, and shifted location frequently within these territories:
“We make two basic assumptions about hunters and gatherers: (1) they live in small groups and (2) they move around a lot. Each local group is associated with a geographical range but these groups do not function as closed social systems. Probably from the very beginning there was communication between groups, including reciprocal visiting and marriage alliances, so that the basic hunting society consisted of a series of local ‘bands’ which were part of a larger breeding and linguistic community. The economic system is based on several core features including a home base or camp, a division of labor — with males hunting and females gathering- and, most important, a pattern of sharing out the collected food resources.”
These smaller groups of between 25–50 people probably operated, moved and exchanged within slightly larger bands, or what Michael Mann calls “a loose confederation […] of 175–475 people”; these “confederations” probably contained between 7–19 bands, and they formed the pools from which people would intermarry and exchange goods. (4) Mann thinks that perhaps these bands “were tied into continent-wide cultural matrices” — a larger cultural web beyond the typical interaction sphere of most people. But the basic social network for most hunter-gatherers probably did not far exceed 500 people.
Furthermore, hunter-gatherer communities were probably pretty egalitarian. Modern hunter-gatherers keep little personal property, and what they do have they often share with their bandmates. This lack of possessions serves two functions: on the one hand, it allows for a freedom of movement that facilitates individual autonomy; and on the other hand, it keeps differences in wealth from creating power differences and sowing discord.
According to Lee and DeVore:
“If individuals and groups have to move around in order to get food there is an important implication: the amount of personal property has to be kept to a very low level. Constraints on the possession of property also serve to keep wealth differences between individuals to a minimum and we postulate a generally egalitarian system for the hunters […] Further, the lack of impediments in the form of personal and collective property allows a considerable degree of freedom of movement. Individuals and groups can change residence without relinquishing vital interests in land or goods, and when arguments break out it is a simple matter to part company in order to avoid serious conflict. This is not to say that violence is unknown […] The resolution of conflict by fission, however, may help to explain how order can be maintained in a society without superordinate means of social control.”
In groups that do have “ranks” or social hierarchies — such as tribal societies with a “chief” or “bigman” — the leadership role is typically organized to facilitate wealth redistribution. Chiefs and bigmen are expected to hold feasts and dole out gifts to the community. Sahlins observes, “In primitive society social inequality is more the organization of economic equality. Often, in fact, high rank is only secured or sustained by o’ercrowing generosity: the material advantage is on the subordinate’s side.”
If a community “chief” or “bigman” gets too big for their britches, and tries to accumulate too much or abuse their power, their community members can and do leave, or depose them. For example, Sahlins quotes Malo’s study of Hawaiian kingships:
“…as one ethnological bard said, the Hawaiians sat cross-legged upon the ground and told sad stories of the death of kings: ‘Many kings have been put to death by the people because of their oppression of the makaainana [the commoners]. The following kings lost their lives on account of their cruel exactions on the commoners: Koihala was put to death in Kau, for which reason the district of Kau was called the Wier. Koka-i-ka-lani was an alii [chief] who was violently put to death in Kau…Enu-nui-kai-malino was an alii who was secretly put out of the way by the fishermen in Keahuolu in Kona…King Hakau was put to death by the hand of Umi at Waipio valley in Hamakua, Hawaii.²³ Lono-i-ka-makahiki was a king who was banished by the people of Kona…It was for this reason that some of the ancient kings had a wholesome fear of the people (Malo, 1951, p. 195).”
Malo also says that the Hawaiian chiefs’ storehouses were the “‘means of keeping the people contented, so they would not desert the king […] as a rat will not desert the pantry…where he thinks food is, so the people will not desert the king while they think there is food in his storehouse’”. That is, the people expect generosity from their chief; and if he lacks this, or abuses his authority, they will desert or kill him.
DID THE STATE IMPROVE LIFE FOR THE HUNTER-GATHERER?
Maybe the ancient hunter-gatherer didn’t lead as miserable a life as we’ve been led to believe. But did the state and civilization improve things? Scholars like James C. Scott — author of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States — cast doubt on this notion.
Scott believes that early humans had plenty of reasons to avoid the state, once it had come into being.
For one thing, civilization concentrated populations on a scale that was previously unheard of. And with that concentration, disease was more likely to spread. Some of the earliest texts document disease epidemics, and demonstrate that ancient peoples understood principles of contagion. Bedsheets, dishes, and clothes of sick people were avoided, for example. Scott believes that ancient cities, many of which were suddenly abandoned, were breeding grounds for new diseases — diseases that could not have adapted to their human hosts without the population concentration provided by civilization. He argues that these mysterious and sudden episodes of “abandonment” could have been triggered by plagues.
“The diseases of crowding are also called density-dependent diseases or, in contemporary public health parlance, acute community infections. For many viral diseases that have come to depend on a human host, it is possible, by knowing the mode of transmission, the duration of infectivity, and the duration of acquired immunity after infection, to infer the minimal population required to keep the infection from dying out for lack of new hosts […] By the same token, of course, this means that none of these diseases could have existed before the populations of the Neolithic.” (5)
Furthermore, the concentration of livestock and other “commensal” animals around the civilized domestic environment allowed species to cross-transmit disease as well. Citing “an outdated list, now surely even longer”, Scott notes that we share 26 diseases with poultry, 32 with rats and mice, 35 with horses, 42 with pigs, 46 with sheep and goats, 50 with cattle, and 65 with dogs. Measles, smallpox and influenza all are thought to have originated after the domestication of various animals thousands of years ago. And the sedentary lifestyle that civilization required also concentrated another disease vector: human and animal waste. Rather than leaving their waste behind as nomadic hunter-gatherers did, civilized humans left it festering in the city, providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes, fleas, and other pests that spread illness.
Over time, the people living within the city would have developed immunities to many of the pathogens that lurked among them; but this is the type of process that occurs over generations — not necessarily within the lifetime of one person. Meanwhile, those who continued to live on the outskirts — such as hunter-gatherers — would remain vulnerable, having had little to no generational contact with these diseases. It’s easy to see how an early hunter-gatherer near the edge of an ancient city-state might see it as a dangerous cesspool, and avoid it at all costs.
Secondly, the diets of civilized peoples tended to be inferior to those of the nomad. People in cities relied predominantly on grains to nourish them — and many of us still do! On the other hand, hunter-gatherers had highly varied diets of vegetables, fruit, berries and meat. They were typically taller than their city-dwelling peers, and had good bone structure, whereas urban agriculturalists showed evidence of poorly formed bones and iron deficiency.
These are already some good reasons, from a nomad’s perspective, to steer clear of civilization. But the state was also a sort of population cage and control center. Many early cities were walled — as Owen Lattimore remarked about the Great Wall of China — probably as much to keep citizens in as to keep barbarians out. Within the boundaries of the state, tax collectors and armies could appropriate your harvest, or your labor might be conscripted by the elites and rulers who owned your farmland. Nomads were nearly impossible to track, tax, and control, while city-dwelling farmers occupied predictable areas, harvested at the same time every year, and counted readily visible proceeds that could be taken from them.
Some nomads did join the urban centers, either by raiding and plundering, through developing trade relationships, or as captured slaves sold into bondage, for example. But it was by no means a one-way street from barbarism to culture. Pierre Clastres calls this “secondary primitivism” — the phenomenon of city-dwellers giving up their urban lifestyle and relearning how to be nomads. Apparently, it was extremely common. Christopher Beckwith describes a “constant drain of peoples escaping from China to the realms of the eastern steppe, where they did not hesitate to proclaim the superiority of the nomad lifestyle”; Scott writes:
“The process of secondary primitivism, or what might be called ‘going over to the barbarians,’ is far more common than any of the standard civilizational narratives allow for. It is particularly pronounced at times of state breakdown or interregna marked by war, epidemics, and environmental deterioration. In such circumstances, far from being seen as regrettable backsliding and privation, it may well have been experienced as a marked improvement in safety, nutrition, and social order. Becoming a barbarian was often a bid to improve one’s lot.”
In the upcoming articles we will be delving deeper into some of these concepts, and the evidence that exists to support them. What were some of the forms that could define a barbarian’s relationship to the state? What was it like to live in some of the world’s earliest states, and how powerful were they in reality? Who were the people who made up the structures of government, who were the people who lived under them, and who were the slippery ones who lived in and profited from the shadows?
We will look at more evidence, but one thing is clear: for some people at least, civilization probably did not spell out progress.
Notes
We’ll examine their ideas directly in the future, but for now we are simply concerned with how their ideas are portrayed by modern educators. Some of his sources include Frederick McCarthy and Margaret McArthur (1960), Richard Lee (1968, 1969), John Edward Eyre (1845), James Woodburn (1966, 1968), Martin Gusinde (1961), Herbert Basedow (1925), Sir George Grey (1841), Lorna Marshall (1961), and Harold Conklin (1957). But the list goes on. Sahlins’ book will be the primary source for this section of the article.
Sources | https://medium.com/power-lines/myth-vs-fact-in-the-state-of-nature-hunter-gatherers-and-life-before-the-state-2ac9cc7d300a | ['Haley Kynefin'] | 2019-04-26 04:28:38.499000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Sociology', 'History', 'Philosophy', 'Indigenous'] |
Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Split From Their Joint Charity With Prince William, Kate Middleton | Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Split From Their Joint Charity With Prince William, Kate Middleton Arlenehines Jul 24, 2019·2 min read
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are officially breaking things off with the charity they oversaw withPrince William and Kate Middleton.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are parting ways with the Royal Foundation, Kensington Palace announced on Thursday. The charitable organization is an umbrella for Fab Four’s joint interests, which include the mental health charity Heads Together and Harry’s Invictus Games.
“Later this year The Royal Foundation will become the principal charitable and philanthropic vehicle for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” Kensington Palace said in a statement, adding that Harry and Meghan will start their own foundation.
The statement added that ”both couples will continue to work together on projects in the future,” including Heads Together.
“These changes are designed to best complement the work and responsibilities of Their Royal Highnesses as they prepare for their future roles, and to better align their charitable activity with their new household,” the palace said, adding that the two couples are “incredibly proud” of their joint work.
Harry and Meghan’s decision to split from The Royal Foundation is a further sign of distance between the two couples.
In March, it was officially announced that the royals of Sussex and Cambridge were splitting households, with Harry and Meghan forming a household with Buckingham Palace, while Will and Kate stayed with Kensington Palace.
“This long-planned move will ensure that permanent support arrangements for The Duke and Duchess’s work are in place as they start their family and move to their official residence at Frogmore Cottage,” Buckingham Palace said in April.
Subscribe to HuffPost’sWatching the Royals newsletterfor all things Windsor (and beyond). | https://medium.com/@arlenehines10482/meghan-markle-and-prince-harry-split-from-their-joint-charity-with-prince-william-kate-middleton-16cfffd761f1 | [] | 2019-07-24 21:01:31.961000+00:00 | ['Veterans'] |
An Overview of Calculus: Foreword, Important Concepts, and Learning Resources | Historical notes
The idea of calculus, according to some mathematicians and historians — such as Carl Boyer — have been motivated to solve one of the most famous problems in philosophy called the Zeno’s Paradoxes — these are set of philosophical problems, as proposed by the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea, that supports the doctrine contrary to the evidence of one’s senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion [2].
In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started so that the slower must always hold a lead.
Infinitesimal calculus was developed independently in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Criticisms on the First principles of Calculus
In modern mathematics, the foundations of calculus are formalized in the field of real analysis, which holds full definitions and proofs of the theorems used in calculus. Foundations refer to the rigorous development of the subject from axioms and definitions that sought to have been deduced and logically justify conjectures.
In early calculus, the use of infinitesimal quantities was thought unrigorous and was fiercely criticized by a number of authors, most notably Michel Rolle and Bishop Berkeley.
Working out a rigorous foundation for calculus occupied mathematicians for much of the century following Newton and Leibniz, and is still to some extent an active area of research today.
Several mathematicians, including Maclaurin, tried to prove the soundness of using infinitesimals, but it would not be until 150 years later when, due to the work of Cauchy and Weierstrass, a way was finally found to avoid mere “notions” of infinitely small quantities [3].
The foundations of differential and integral calculus had been laid. In Cauchy’s Cours d’Analyse, we find a broad range of foundational approaches, including a definition of continuity in terms of infinitesimals, and a (somewhat imprecise) prototype of an (ε, δ)-definition of limit in the definition of differentiation.
Weierstrass, on the other hand, formalized the concept of limit and eliminated infinitesimals. Following the work of Weierstrass, it eventually became common to base calculus on limits instead of infinitesimal quantities, though the subject is still occasionally called “infinitesimal calculus”. Bernhard Riemann used these ideas to give a precise definition of the integral. It was also during this period that the ideas of calculus were generalized to Euclidean space and the complex plane.
Today, the field is equipped with foundations that have been carried on — developed — for ages. However, there still remains a question that is yet to be solved making the area of mathematical analysis, in general, an active research domain. | https://medium.com/dave-amiana/an-overview-of-calculus-foreword-important-concepts-and-learning-resources-d13863fa2ca7 | ['Dave Amiana'] | 2020-07-07 03:41:33.096000+00:00 | ['Mathematics', 'Machine Learning', 'Education', 'Engineering'] |
How we implemented bike distance restrictions: A story | Hey folks!
The Time Team has been working hard to change the restrictions for bikes on Generate Match (GM) from filtering based on estimated time of arrival (ETA) to filtering based on distance. It’s always cool to share what we do and why we do it. So here we go:
In the blog post below, I’ll explain what we did to improve the assignments of jobs to our bike Quiqees. These changes have already been working well in production for some time (full disclosure: we implemented the solution in early November, 2017). As they say — it’s better late than never to share this with you.
Problem
Some time ago (in a galaxy far far away…), CORs received complaints from bike Quiqees who used estimated time of travel on Google Maps to determine whether or not they would accept a job. They knew we limited assignments of jobs with an estimated pickup or dropoff more than 20 minutes to scooters and cars, and they made sure to double check it on their mobile phones. If Google Maps said it would take more than 20 minutes to reach a pickup or dropoff, some of the drivers would complain about the job and ask to be unassigned.
We use neural network models to predict times that are valid for our business (see previous Time Team posts), but they compared our ETA with Google’s and obviously would see different numbers than what we had predicted.
It goes without saying that in the past, we checked if we could use Google to predict our job ETAs, but found that it’s not fit for purpose. This isn’t a problem with Google or our models, it’s just that our couriers’ behaviour cannot be predicted based on the data set used by Google.
The time you need to go from one place to another depends on many variables, the same path may require different lengths of time due to weather conditions, traffic, transport mode, etc. As a result, we needed a more predictable method. Our solution was to use distance instead of time (ironic for the Time Team, huh?) to ensure more stability in how bikes are restricted from long distance jobs and reduce number of complaints from drivers. Because distance is always the same. No matter if we use distance or time, we knew our couriers were going to crosscheck the job using mapping applications. So, we had to be sure to calculate something close to the predicted distance on-the-road by the Almighty Google Maps.
We had few options to choose from: a) querying Google Maps itself (or any similar paid 3rd party mapping service), b) resurrecting the open source mapping service OSRM for GM purposes and retrieving the distance from this internal service, or c) modelling the actual on-the-road distance with simple mathematical formulas. Guess what we chose…option c, of course! It was the easiest, cheapest and fastest action we could take. After just a few short days of research, we had a no-cost, no-latency solution that was fit for purpose. Not too shabby. Below you’ll find more details about the modelling and evaluation processes, as well as the results.
Modelling
As mentioned above (and unsurprisingly), we chose ‘the cheapest’ option of solving the business problem. We aimed to experiment with different distance metrics and algorithms to come up with the most accurate calculation of the on-the-road distance knowing only the current position of the courier and coordinates of the destination locations.
Definitions of distance metrics from A to B
Using straight line distance between two coordinates isn’t a good option (you can try, but I don’t recommend it!) for obvious reasons. In the city, we have path restrictions due to one-way roads, buildings, bridges, etc…
Mathematically, there are few different ways to calculate the distance between two points. In the data team, we use Haversine distance. For simplicity’s sake, we can describe Haversine distance as the same as a straight line, but over the earth (you know, the earth isn’t flat right?).
Another way to calculate the distance is using what is called Manhattan distance (or taxicab distance). This looks more similar to what you might do while driving in the city.
Figure 1: Manhattan distances
The blue and yellow lines show what you may do while driving, i.e. you can’t go straight from one point to another, but rather in a zigzag, navigating around buildings, one-way traffic, and other road blocks. Same for red line, but well, a bit less realistic. Note that all those lines have same distance, though their trajectories are very different. See the example below of the Manhattan vs. Haversine vs. actual on-the-road distance on the real map.
Figure 2: Manhattan vs. Haversine vs. Actual
Dataset and evaluation of success
Firstly, I used our internal dataset. It simply included pickup coordinates, drop coordinates and current locations of drivers when they accepted jobs. This is the input data, and the output data comprised of distance on-the-road (Ground Truth). I retrieved this Ground Truth value from querying Google Maps API service for the limited amount of our observations.
Secondly, in every modelling attempt there is a requirement to measure the success or, in other words, have a way to quantify how much your predicted values correspond to the reality (Ground Truth). For this, I used average error measured in meters. For each observation error is calculated as: abs(predicted distance in meters — actual distance in meters), where abs is an absolute value without regard to its sign (+/-). I took an average of an error for thousands of observations we were testing our new model against and got the final evaluation metrics. This procedure would be repeated for every separate model. Larger the error, worse the representation of reality.
Trialed approaches and their results
Raw Haversine distance
Using the straight distance between two points we have:
Avg. error: 876 meters
As we can see we have an average error of 876 meters, thus the prediction model isn’t doing a very good job. This was our benchmark. All the subsequent models were aiming to bring the average error down.
Linear regression using Haversine distance
Next, I tried a linear regression model with the Haversine distance as a feature. If we call Haversine distance “X” then we have the formula:
A*X + B
Where we have to calculate A and B, to fit the data we have from Google Maps.
Avg. error: 470 meters
This model was already looking much better than just a straight line.
Linear regression using Haversine distance + Manhattan distance
We often have hypotheses that we wish to try, to improve our models. The Manhattan distance is not as direct as straight line distance and thus we hoped it would account for obstacles drivers would have to navigate between. So we experimented, using this as a feature. If we apply “X” to Haversine distance and “Y” to Manhattan distance then we have the following formula:
A*X + B*Y + C
Where we have to calculate A, B and C (the machine does this for us, easy peasy!)
Avg. error: 470 meters
That’s interesting!! As we can see, using Manhattan distance isn’t useful at all, there is no significant improvement whatsoever.
Gradient boosting algorithm
I also tried gradient boosting, one of the most advanced methods, to push the boundaries of our knowledge. However, using more advanced and more accurate methods isn’t always the best option, there is a trade-off; complexity comes with a cost, and sometimes it’s not possible (or very difficult) to implement it in production.
Avg. error: 393 meters
This is about 100 meters better on average. But as I said, complexity is bad, really bad. It’s not worth using this method for a mere 100 meters improvement. It’s not significant enough to warrant implementing gradient boosting in production.
Choosing the model
After considering all the data, I chose the Linear Regression with Haversine distance as a feature. The model is good enough while keeping complexity to a minimum, with an average error of 470 meters. Another advantage is that it is easy to understand what is happening, consider our formula (remember that was calculated by the computer!), X means straight distance:
1.27 * X + 306
So, what does this really mean? It means that have to multiply straight distance by 1.27 then add 306 to give us a distance close to what Google Maps will return.
Impact
We’re near the finish line! We just need to measure what impact to expect.
Here come the plots:
This plot shows the error (distance calculated by our model compared with Google). We can see that on average, the error is 119 meters and 80% of the data is between +931 meters of error and -776 meters of error.
Positives values mean we overpredicted and negative values mean we underpredicted.
One more:
Not an easy one, but we can see that our predictions (red) are pretty close to Google (green). Meaning that we don’t have to use Google like our Quiqees do (thereby reducing costs). Good stuff!
Blue is the performance of the previous prediction based on time vs. distance. That prediction was calculated using neural networks. Though they sound cool, they aren’t always the best option. The best option is quite simply, whatever solves the problem better, in this case it’s reducing the number of jobs rejected by couriers due to length.
The graph above tells us how many bikers will be rejected by GM. Remember, too many low rejections is not desired because couriers will complain about inaccurate predictions!
Conclusion
In data science we have to find the most parsimonious model that accurately predicts our target variable. As previously discussed, we achieved this with something as simple as multiplying straight line distance by a coefficient. We always prefer to find simple solutions than to resort to complex ones. If simple solutions can provide good enough results, we shouldn’t waste 80% of our time to achieve an extra 20% in improvement. In this case, we don’t need accuracy down to the meter, so no point going after it. We all have better things to do!
After some time, we can now confirm that the number of long runs complaints from bike Quiqees went down. So moral of the story: KISS — keep it simple, stupid! | https://medium.com/quiqup-engineering/how-we-implemented-bike-distance-restrictions-a-story-a4799071d74f | ['Alvaro Duran Tovar'] | 2018-04-30 12:10:04.353000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning'] |
Merkle Trees: Growing in Use. Ralph C. Merkle (not pictured above)… | Ralph C. Merkle (not pictured above), born 1952, is one of the founding fathers of Public Key Cryptography. Throughout his career he has developed and contributed to a list of monumental cryptographic systems, some of which are embedded in the backbone of the online protocols and applications we rely on in daily life. In this post we will look at his work on Merkle Trees, how they function, and why and how they are growing in use.
Merkle _What_
The overall structure of a Merkle Tree is quite simple and is very familiar to computer scientists: a tree data structure. Data trees have one root node (the main file or piece of data) which is then divided or branched out into child nodes — in this case exactly one or two. By branching out again, these children then become parent nodes to subsequent children and so on. The final child node of any branch is called a leaf node. In reverse, each leaf node in combination with its sibling node (should it have one) yields its parent node and so on, until the original root node is reconstructed.
Merkle Trees differ from traditional data trees in one simple way: they use cryptographic hashes of each piece of data rather than the data itself. From leaf nodes up to the root, the process works as such:
Each leaf node is hashed Moving up the tree towards the root, each leaf or child hash is XOR’d (cryptographically combined) with the hash of its sibling node Finally, the hash of the the top parent nodes are XOR’d into the root node which precisely equals the aggregate hash of the original piece of data
Merkle _Why_
For many years Merkle Trees were little more than a cryptographic magic trick. But as is common with mathematical and computational breakthroughs, years later it began to play a critical roll in various protocols and software projects. Merkle Trees are mainly used for two reasons:
They allow a client or server to efficiently validate the contents of large files/data They allow a client or server to validate any segment or sub-segment of the file/data without possessing any other segments
To understand why Merkle Trees have these properties, it is important to know a little bit about Cryptographic Hash Functions. Hash functions are easy to compute in one direction but extraordinarily hard to compute in the opposite direction. For example, the industry standard SHA-256 can be hashed in milliseconds but would theoretically take about 3.85 × 10²⁹ years to reverse, according to computer scientist Luke Dash Jr.
In the case of Merkle Trees, the hash function is used to calculate the hash of each segment of data which becomes the leaf nodes, then XOR each leaf node with sibling leaf/child nodes into parent nodes and so on, all the way up to the root node or Merkle Root. If each segment of the data is in tact and unchanged, the Merkle Root is exactly equal to the aggregate hash of the entire file or piece of data. If even one bit of information is changed in any segment, the hash is completely different which propagates up the tree, resulting in an entirely different Merkle Root. This root can then be compared with the actual/desired root and thus any inconsistency is detected.
“These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices, they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. They strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.” — Bruce Schneier, Cryptographer
Merkle _How_
One important use of Merkle Trees is in downloading files. If a user/client attempts to download a large file all at once and something goes wrong, the entire file can be corrupted and the full download process would need to be restarted. Using Merkle Trees, the user can download a smaller segment of the data and hash it. By combining this hash with the hashes of each other segment (trivially small to download/check compared to the data itself), they can check to see if any data was corrupted during the download process. These steps continue for each segment such that if the Merkle Root doesn’t match up at any step during the download process, they know which segment of the data was corrupted. It is important to note that this process takes place automatically in the background and does not require any action from the actual user.
Another place we see Merkle Trees being used is in the Distributed Version Control System Git. Git maintains and reconciles many different versions of a piece of software as it is built, changed and updated simultaneously by many contributors. Git is both fast and secure because instead of storing and comparing every instance of the actual software, it instead stores and compares the hashes of each segment and version in the form of a Merkle Tree. Git’s implementation is slightly more complicated as it XOR’s some additional nonces along the way, but the overall structure is that of a Merkle Tree.
Finally, Merkle Trees play a key roll in the construction of the Bitcoin blockchain. When a Bitcoin node broadcasts a transaction to the rest of the peer-to-peer network and is included in a block by a mining node, the miner hashes that Transaction ID along with every other Transaction ID in that block. Those hashes are then put into pairs and XOR’d into a new hash and so forth in the form of a tree, all the way up to the Merkle Root. The root is then XOR’d once more with some additional data pertaining to the block itself and the hash of the preceding block (forming the chain), which finally results in a new block hash. While it is impossible to infer the details any particular transaction from it, the details of all transactions in the block are needed to compute the final block hash.
Merkle _Root_
In conclusion, Merkle Trees are a very clever way to maintain and verify databases and large files across networks of users/devices. When checked against the original Merkle Root, every piece of data must remain completely unchanged, else the roots will not align. As we live in a continuously more digital age and distributed systems gain popularity, it is likely we will start to see more Merkle Trees sprouting up in new and exciting places. | https://ericb10.medium.com/merkle-trees-growing-in-usage-a7cc1ed7b2ac | ['Eric Blander'] | 2020-05-27 17:02:39.032000+00:00 | ['Cryptography', 'Data Structures', 'Bitcoin', 'Data', 'Git'] |
How to Crack Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate (DA-100) Exam? | Are you an aspiring Data Analyst or are you willing to test your knowledge about Microsoft Power BI? Then you are at the perfect place!!
In this blog, I will guide you through each and everything you need to know, to crack the DA-100 exam.
What is the DA-100 exam?
DA-100 is an associate-level exam by Microsoft, primarily for the Data Analyst role. This exam is a successor of the ‘70–778 Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Power BI’ exam. The highly acclaimed ‘Microsoft Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate’ certification exam accelerates your career growth and definitely helps you climb up your professional ladder.
This exam consists of case study questions, multiple-choice and drag & drop questions. The actual number of questions you will get will vary between 55 to 65.
Who can apply for the DA-100 exam?
This certification exam is for those who are:
A business analyst who is looking to upskill.
A data analyst who is willing to test their knowledge of Power BI.
Anyone who wants to have an in-depth knowledge of Power BI.
What are the skills measured?
The skills measured in this exam are broadly classified into:
Prepare the data.
Model the data.
Visualize the data.
Analyze the data.
Deploy and maintain deliverables.
For more detailed information, please refer to Microsoft Learn.
Note: Before starting your preparation, please refer the Microsoft Learn page for the latest syllabus.
What is the application process?
Follow these steps to book your slot:
Navigate to Microsoft DA-100 page.
Sign in with your Microsoft account.
Scroll down to ‘Schedule exam’ section.
Select your country from the drop-down and then click on ‘Schedule with Pearson VUE’ or ‘Schedule Exam’ button.
Complete your certification profile and then click on ‘Schedule Exam’.
Select your location and language preference.
Select your appointment date and time from the available dates.
Complete your payment.
You will get the confirmation email of your appointment.
Where can we find the study materials?
The best possible resource for any Microsoft certification is Microsoft Learn. Complete these Learning paths along with the hands-on to get in-depth knowledge about the exam.
Apart from Microsoft learn, you can also follow Microsoft Power BI youtube channel for regular updates about the new releases. They also explained the various features of Power BI with hands-on labs.
Tip: Please perform the hands-on labs atleast twice before appearing for the exam. This will help you in dealing with the case studies.
How many days of preparation are needed?
The preparation timeline can vary between 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on your familiarity with Microsoft Power BI. You should go through the learning paths at least once, and then focus more on the difficult areas. Practising hands-on will play a crucial role in passing the exam. Take notes while going through the learning paths, which will help you later.
What should be our approach on the Examination Day?
On the exam day, go through your notes and then run the system test once again to fulfil the technical requirements for the exam.
Log in to the test 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time and keep a govertment id proof with you. Please don’t panic during the verification process and patiently wait for the exam to begin. If you face any difficulties during the exam, then use the chat feature to get clarifications. While giving the answers, don't hurry. Specially during the case studies, be careful with the business requirements and the constraints.
After your exam is over, you will get your score immediately. But the certificate and the badge might take few hours to reflect on your certification profile.
My DA-100 experience!!
Since I have some previous work experience with Microsoft Power BI, so the exam wasn’t tough for me. It took me around 1 month to prepare for the exam, as I could study only at the weekends. I prepared primarily from Microsoft learn, but sometimes I referred to youtube also to get some more insights. The exam questions were generally on the easy to moderate side, but the DAX queries and the case studies were a bit tough. It took me some minutes to get familiar with the case study questions and the purpose of various tabs present there. But all the hard work was worth it, once I got this wonderful certificate.. Yaay!!
Do you want this awesome certificate? Then pull up your socks and prepare well for the exam. If you have any doubts, feel free to ping me on LinkedIn.
Best Wishes & Happy Learning!! | https://medium.com/@sandippalit009/how-to-crack-microsoft-certified-data-analyst-associate-da-100-exam-157ab6f289e7 | ['Sandip Palit'] | 2021-08-27 15:18:06.267000+00:00 | ['Microsoft Certification', 'Data Analyst', 'Da100', 'Power Bi', 'Tips To Pass Exam'] |
A Silence That Conversed | Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash
A man wearied by the commotion everywhere,
sought a quiet place to be found nowhere,
silence eluded him,
amidst thoughts that drowned him,
implored the Gods to liberate him.
A mentor then arose,
inviting him to seal the uproarious,
believing he avered assuredly,
wishing for an incredible abiding calm,
he heard the seas when there was none in sight.
The waters calmed opening to a rhythmic pace,
a white blaze of light then arrived,
one that matched an unlimited pillar,
small chimes playing unceasingly,
staring at him as if it was only the beginning. | https://medium.com/illumination/a-silence-that-conversed-53f5af6df441 | ['Rajesh Ramachander'] | 2020-09-27 15:29:33.344000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Yoga', 'Solitude', 'Soul', 'Meditation'] |
Announcing Beam’s First Grant Recipient: Ampaire! | Image credit: Ampaire, Inc.
Air travel is a big deal when it comes to climate change. Each year, aircraft contribute 800 million tons of carbon emissions to our total greenhouse gas load. They are a source of particulates and condensation trails (contrails) that contribute to atmospheric pollution and are a secondary source of warming. Often, air travel is the biggest slice of the average person’s carbon footprint, and has become a huge cause of climate angst. But airplanes, like other technological advances, have connected society and improved our quality of life substantially. It has become a crucial piece of our modern life. We need to spend less time figuring out how to swear off flying, and more time on technology innovation that can make air travel clean, as soon as possible.
That’s why Beam Project is beyond excited to announce that Beam will be giving it’s first grant to Ampaire, Inc., a California-based startup that is developing hybrid electric aircraft. Co-founders Cory Combs and Kevin Noertker are serious about building airplanes using design and technology that is implementable now, and that can be used to help every person, in every community, travel by air — without the baggage of tailpipe emissions.
Ampaire is already doing some amazing things to achieve this vision. In June 2019, they flew their first hybrid electric aircraft in Camarillo, California (you can check out the video here). Now they are beginning a feasibility study to apply their concept to a 19–passenger plane, with NASA support.
Ampaire’s retrofit strategy is what makes us most excited about their concept for electrifying and decarbonizing air travel. In Kevin’s words, “It’s a low-risk, achievable path to a hybrid/electric, and ultimately a fully electric, future.” Their strategy is also a practical approach that helps keep their costs lower than they would be if they were building new planes. If Ampaire is successful, it will have addressed one of the more difficult challenges we must face to decarbonize society, and will let us stay connected to one another without the guilt.
For our first grant, Beam Project is aiming to give Ampaire $25,000 to help carry their development forward more quickly. You can ask any startup: every dollar helps, and it couldn’t be more crucial for a startup like Ampaire to achieve their vision without being delayed by funding needs. Every donation that you make to Beam, whether it is a one-time donation or through Beam’s round-up tool, will go towards making this grant to Ampaire, and that means you have an opportunity to make a HUGE impact on the status quo of the airline industry.
We can’t do this without you. Help Ampaire make a huge impact on carbon emissions by helping us meet our grant goal!
And make sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep up with our progress meeting our first goal and to stay up to date on the progress of the startups we’re supporting. | https://medium.com/@beam-project/announcing-beams-first-grant-recipient-ampaire-b33695a8d623 | ['Beam Project'] | 2019-11-15 21:52:05.908000+00:00 | ['Airlines', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Clean Energy', 'Crowdfunding', 'Climate Change'] |
Dear Abby: What Were You Thinking? | I’m not mad, exactly. And betrayed isn’t the right word, either — I don’t really seek out advice columns, and I’m not a regular Dear Abby reader, so her recent highly publicized, casually racist edition doesn’t make me feel like anyone has let me down. But as someone whose life is closely tied to the question discussed in said column, I do feel some very specific things.
Last month, an advice-seeker nicknamed “Making Life Easy” wrote to ask Dear Abby about starting a family. The wife, born and raised in India, wants to give their future children Indian names. Making Life Easy has reservations about the idea, as these names are “often difficult to pronounce and spell,” and would like to opt for “Western” names, saying they are more suitable because the couple will live in the United States.
“How can I make my wife understand that having ‘unusual’ names makes certain aspects of kids’ lives more difficult?” is the actual question posed.
One would hope to see a scolding. A call to be open and accepting of others. An explanation that our nation is a melting pot, not a sanitized mayo jar. But instead, Abby agreed with Making Life Easy. In part of her response, she explained the burden of a foreign name. She told her letter-writer that while their wife has a lovely idea in providing an Indian name, practically speaking, Abby hopes she will “rethink this.”
“When we’re teased, it’s usually because that foreign name belongs to a foreign-looking person. The name isn’t the problem.”
The column blew up on Twitter earlier this week, and over the past few days has sparked a handful of articles noting Abby’s insensitive and uninformed response. Rightfully so: it’s dumb, bad advice. And the question itself is equally questionable.
I say this with an extra dose of authority on the subject. I’m Indian-American, and my parents grew up in two different religions. My dad is from a Christian family where everyone has “American” sounding names; my mom is Hindu, and most people on her side of the family have names that are not common in the U.S. — myself included.
Let’s unpack Abby’s response a little bit.
“Popular names in one country can cause problems for a child living in another one.”
Everyone with a difficult name shares the same stories: Dreading roll-call at school. Getting a funny word on your Starbucks cup. Finding similar-sounding English words to assist in pronunciation. Eventually growing into your name, and realizing it helps you hold on to an identity in a place where people like Abby find that identity inconvenient.
In one important way, having an uncommon name actually makes life easier. My name is a litmus test for ignorance, one that I’m always administering regardless of whether I like to do so. I once had a college professor who, on the first day of class, asked us to write down a nickname we preferred, if any. I wrote “Shwin,” which I still go by sometimes. After reading this, she said, “Schwinn is a bicycle company here. Is it a bicycle company in your country?” (It is!)
Had I been a Mike, or a Bartholomew, I never would have exposed this part of my professor’s character — but it still would’ve been there. This way, I knew.
“Why saddle a kid with a name he or she will have to explain or correct with friends, teachers, and fellow employees from childhood into adulthood?”
Abby is telling a half-truth here. Indian names, as a broad category, are difficult to pronounce for some. Especially if you are not from India, have never worked with someone from India, or have a specific phobia about asking someone how to pronounce their name. Chances are, even if you don’t know someone Indian, someone you know does.
Still, there is no doubt that at some point, the child will have to explain and correct his or her name. But correcting someone’s pronunciation is not as difficult as, say, talking to your child about why non-white people are often treated poorly.
“Not only can foreign names be difficult to pronounce and spell, but they can also cause a child to be teased unmercifully.”
As I child, I was teased. Abby is correct in her assumption that foreign names can become points of ridicule, especially in grade school. There were several times I recall asking my mom why she picked mine. (Her answer: because she always liked it.) But as I grew, I came to appreciate having a unique name, a part of me that was tied to my family’s heritage. I also came to understand that when the teasing happens, it’s usually because that foreign name belongs to a foreign-looking person. The name isn’t the problem.
“Sometimes the name can be a problematic word in the English language.”
Unless the wife cannot understand English, she has absolutely considered this issue, and would not pick a name that is problematic. Next.
“… And one [name] that sounds beautiful in a foreign language can be grating in English.”
English names can be grating in English!
And while we’re on the subject, both the writer and Abby are operating under false premises. The writer doesn’t want an Indian name because they’re difficult to spell and pronounce. But you don’t press a button on the Indian Name Machine and watch a dial spin until your baby is magically assigned a label. You’re actually allowed to pick any Indian name you want, including one with an easy spelling. Off the top of my head, Asha, Akshay, Ravi, Veena, Nikhil, Mikhil, Kavita, Nikita, Suresh, and Ashish are all available options.
But that’s beside the point. People and their names don’t exist in the world for the convenience of others. Centering a conversation about choosing an Indian name in this way is xenophobic at worst, and intensely self-centered and ethnocentric at best. Abigail Van Buren, better known to most as the original Dear Abby, is credited for the quote: “True, a little learning is a dangerous thing, but it still beats total ignorance.” The current holder of the pseudonym, her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, doesn’t exactly do her predecessor proud.
I’m trying to keep it all in perspective. After all, it’s just an advice column. But I worry: if people read this in the newspaper, as the advice of an Advice Expert, they might think it’s actually good advice. Instead it’s just feeding into a larger ignorant sentiment that makes life difficult for many us. We don’t pick our names.
And if we could, many of us would pick the names we have. I think my unusual Indian name is extremely cool. I recently added a pronunciation guide, as provided in the dictionary (USH·win), to the top of my résumé; I’ve had several people tell me it was helpful. And I’ve had people of all different backgrounds compliment my name. My standard response? “Thanks. My mom gave it to me.” | https://medium.com/s/story/dear-abby-what-were-you-thinking-6c2d042d0543 | ['Ashwin Rodrigues'] | 2018-10-19 18:45:17.672000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Foreign', 'Names', 'Indian', 'Racism'] |
How to add an SSL certificate for WordPress within 2 minutes | First, Let’s understand the SSL and HTTPS.
Before installing the SSL certificate for a WordPress site or a blog, Let's understand the purpose of the SSL certificate.
What is HTTPS?
HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It is the protocol where encrypted HTTP data is transferred over a secure connection. Using secure connections such as Transport Layer Security or Secure Sockets Layer, data privacy and integrity are maintained, and websites' authentication is also validated.
What is an SSL certificate?
SSL Certificates are small data files that digitally bind a cryptographic key to an organization’s details. When installed on a web server, it activates the padlock and the HTTPS protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser. Typically, SSL is used to secure credit card transactions, data transfer, and logins, and more recently, it is becoming the norm when securing social media sites' browsing.
Why is an SSL certificate required in a WordPress Site?
Keep data secure between servers.
SSL Certificates protect your sensitive information, such as credit card information, usernames, passwords, etc.
Increase your Google Rankings
If you own a website or a blog, then you need to have an SSL enable in your website to increase your google rankings because Google doesn’t want to show a not secure website to their users.
Build/Enhance customer trust
If the SSL is not enabled on your website, google labels it as a not secure website, leading users not to enter your website.
How to enable SSL on your WordPress site?
We will do this with a small plugin called Really Simple SSL, which needs no setup required. So you don’t need much coding knowledge with this plugin.
First, you need to get an SSL certificate. You can get either a free SSL certificate, or you can buy one.
Go to Plugins in your WordPress site, and search “Really Simple SSL” plugin on it.
Here, you can see there are more than 5 million active installations in this plugin. To enable SSL on your website, you need to install this plugin and click active. The rest of the things will be handled by this plugin.
Read more about free SSL and Paid SSL certificates in my personal blog. | https://medium.com/@pubudu2013101/how-to-add-an-ssl-certificate-for-wordpress-within-2-minutes-8ba900319cf7 | ['Pubudu Jayasanka'] | 2020-12-20 14:35:21.592000+00:00 | ['Ssl', 'Ssl Certificate', 'WordPress', 'Wordpress Plugins'] |
Denouement | Empty footsteps echo on empty halls,
The denouement that slips further and further away,
With each scribbled word on the dot dot dot…
Waiting for you to write me into existence. | https://medium.com/@sofiaisabelkavlin/denouement-413ca5f67792 | ['Sofia Isabel Kavlin'] | 2020-12-27 16:20:23.116000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Free Verse', 'Prose', 'Haiku', 'Ode'] |
Challenge 2:. Challenge 2: Wireframing | Wireframing
For this challenge we have to create a wireframe user flow of an app that we like or use. In this case, I chose one of my favorite apps called Calm. Calm promises to help users sleep better, boost confidence and reduce stress and anxiety; all with the help of guided meditations, soothing music, and bedtime stories. Calm produces meditation products, including guided meditations, books, narrated sleep stories, and health and meditation videos. I like it very much because it has helped me in moments of stress and has a lot of content. It is also very well organized. I admire the UX of this application and the ease and order in which I can interact with it.
Calm is an excellent example of how to design an application in a simple and practical way with high levels of content.
Calm is an excellent example of how to design an application in a simple and practical way with high levels of content. For this exercise I will work with Figma as it is the tool I am most comfortable with Figma is an incredibly powerful tool and I am still in the process of learning it.
Prototyping can be a lot of fun and also a little confusing. I think it is very important to keep a strict order of operations and do everything step by step. In this process I will focus on the basic analysis of Calm’s Toolbar.
Before I start, I need to select the screens that I’m going to work with. Then I can start designing the wireframes in Figma. These are screenshots of the screens I want to work with: | https://medium.com/@francesca9/ironhack-prework-23680507b1d1 | ['Francesca Foiadelli'] | 2020-12-27 19:52:09.300000+00:00 | ['Wireframing', 'Ironhack', 'Prototyping', 'Ironhack Prework', 'Figma'] |
Data Science in Solar Power. Generation forecasting: from problem to solution | Hello everyone,
This is a new part of the series Data Science in Solar Power and this time I want to talk a little about forecasting of power generation from PV plant. This topic is not new, there are a lot of talks about it, there are many different solutions to this problem, but nevertheless, it cannot be called as finally resolved. Here I will focus on the relevance of this problem and what its solution consists of and whether there is any reason in such forecasting. So, anyone who is interested — welcome.
First of all, I want to discuss the difference between Predicting and Forecasting (at least within the scope of this article), I am sorry in advance to those who know this very well, nevertheless, it will not be superfluous to mention it one more time.
Predicting — you create a function/model
where G is the PV plant output power, and x, x1, …, xn are some known parameters. In other words, knowing x, x1, …, xn at a certain moment, you find the corresponding value of the Generation G.
Forecasting — you create a function/model
which, being based on the current and past values of the PV plant output power and other parameters, forecasts the next output power value. In other words, knowing current and historical values of the output power and other parameters, the function is trying to foresee the future value of the output power (for example, tomorrow). Exactly this problem will be in my focus this time.
So, Forecasting. What time intervals it should have and who are interested in it at all?
Long-term forecasts, i.e. annual, monthly intervals. This information is useful for the owner of the PV plant and the Asset Management, at the initial stage to understand whether there is a point in building such a station, then for planning the budget, income/expenses. Usually, such forecasts are rather static and are made on the basis of statistical information about the climate in the region and the actual parameters of the PV plant. This is done at the design stage when simulations are performed, for example in PVSyst. Another feature of such forecasts is their low variability, i.e. there is often a single annual forecast, and the real values, although different, do not differ significantly, within +- 10%. There is not so much even to talk about.
Short-term forecasts, i.e. daily, hourly intervals. For example, hourly values of the output power of the PV plant within the next day. For the Owner, Asset Manager such kind of information seems to be not very useful, the plant generates and thanks to God. But for the Power Grid, this information is extremely important. Due to the growth of renewable energy in the total energy balance of the Power Grid, the process of maintaining a sustainable regime becomes more and more difficult. In short, the Power Grid works like a single organism and the process of energy generation and consumption occurs almost instantly. Consequently, if the generation suddenly changes dramatically, these changes will affect consumers easily. Therefore, the Power Grid managers would like to forecast such changes in order to be ready for them. Of course, we can talk about distributed generation and its balance, various compensations, but this is another question. The important thing is that the Power Grid is very interested in accurate short-term forecasts and sometimes so much that they may oblige the generating companies to provide such forecasts by introducing appropriate penalties or vice versa, rewards. And at this moment these forecasts become more interesting, let’s talk more about them.
Firstly, a few words about the things that don’t work — all sorts of autoregressive models (ARIMA, SARIMA, …). They do not work for the reason that a PV plant power output is not just divorced from reality, but very much depends on the weather, and you cannot forecast it in this way (of course some forecast can be made, but the quality…).
And if I say that the power depends on the weather, let me demonstrate how. I simply make for example a linear model that will predict the generation of a solar power plant knowing: solar irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed. Taking the data for a couple of days in a 10-minute resolution, I can get a model whose MAE (Mean Absolute Error) will not exceed 2.5 - 4% of the installed capacity and the feature’s contribution will have the following order:
Based on these results, it is possible to say with certainty that knowing the weather conditions it is possible to predict accurately the generation of a solar power plant. Also, considering the coefficients of the features, it can be seen that the solar irradiance makes the largest contribution to the forecast as it was expected. Thus, knowing this we can say, well, let’s train a model for our PV plant using known weather and generation parameters, take the weather forecast for tomorrow and that’s it, all is done.
But I would not do so. The first reason for that is IMHO obvious; it is quite difficult to get a high-level weather forecast for the next day. I think many people had such experience when rain was forecasted for the next day, but it didn’t happen so or vice versa.
The second, less obvious, is that you cannot use actual weather data to train the model. And the thing is that if you train the model on the actual data, it will be overfitted for them in the sense that they will be considered as reliable (and we remember how much solar irradiance and power generation are correlated) and then when the model will be used with non-super precise weather forecasts the results will be worse, really worse.
The third reason is that usually you do not have the weather forecast specifically for your location, but rather for some region, therefore, the model should learn how to localize the forecast and find systemic bias in it (if there is any, of course). To summarize the above, I can say that if you use the weather forecast to predict PV plant generation, then you need to train the model on the forecasts. It is a simple but crucial thing.
Using this approach, it is possible to achieve some stable results. Of course, I don’t say about super high accuracy, and this approach doesn’t have to be considered as the only correct one. But nevertheless, this approach gives a strong baseline for sure. Lastly, I want to leave a link to the work of DeepMind, who forecasted wind power generation.
That is it for today. Stay Tuned! | https://medium.com/@slava.K./data-science-in-solar-power-generation-forecasting-from-problem-to-solution-5cc4a2b5012f | ['Slava Koval'] | 2019-08-21 13:27:59.924000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Forecasting', 'Renewable Energy', 'Solar Power'] |
Domestic Violence Does Not Begin and End in The Month of October | Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash
Unity among victims and survivors of domestic abuse sets a firm foundation for a voice against domestic violence. Even if you never find yourself in an abusive situation, your voice is still valid, and that does not begin and end with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Advocating for victims, or educating those who are inconsiderate about the issue year round gives voice to an issue that has become a silent killer. Click on The Following Link To Read A Survivor’s Story:
https://www.theacphoenixnews.com/news/stories.html | https://medium.com/@wcpcommunications/domestic-violence-does-not-begin-and-end-in-the-month-of-october-37a3f65adf7 | ['Wc Consulting'] | 2020-11-23 23:54:11.194000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence', 'Abuse Survivors', 'Texas', 'Survivor', 'Domestic Abuse'] |
Decolonial Humanitarian Digital Governance | “Before we start, I’d like to acknowledge that the decisions we make in this room today may have implications into the future and far beyond the lifetime of this project, team or organisation. We make those decisions with that in mind.”- The Long Time Project
Image by Carol Gaessler — shared under Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC-BY-NC-SA).
This is the first public ‘writing out loud’ of my dual fellowship with the Berkman Klein Center and the Carr Centre for Human Rights, both at Harvard University. In the spirit of a true exploration, rather than starting from a point of ‘expertise’ and homogeneity, I offer this as an emergent thought process, and to invite in participation. I must also point out that though this blog is written through the lens of my journey, my learning isn’t mine alone — it is greatly informed by so many people, disciplines and research and I am grateful to the countless people that have gracefully shared their knowledge and wisdom so that we might collectively grow together.
“Who and what gets fixed in place to enable progress? What social groups are classified, corralled, coerced and capitalized upon so others are free to tinker, experiment and engineer the future?” Ruha Benjamin
I started off my exploration with this hypothesis: Can humanitarian digital policy be decolonized?
I started with this, as I’ve often argued that the humanitarian aid system perpetuates hierarchical, patriarchal, hegemonic views of what ‘development’ and ‘progress’ looks like, ignoring other world-views, and underlying systemic and structural pillars of inequality and bias. As the humanitarian aid system increasingly intersects with technology systems developed in the context of Western capitalism and in small pockets of privileged power, I have not been alone in raising concerns on the implications of collision of two systems that are fundamentally patriarchal and hegemonic on those that are minoritized in the Global South.
To put in context, the range of digital or technology systems that humanitarian actors engage with is incredibly wide. This can range from (as a snapshot):
Systems used to support the coordination of aid efforts — for example, biometric digital identities with refugee assistance programs or earth observing technology in disaster relief Digital platforms or digital transformation with partners — for example, e-government services that link social protection and citizen welfare Technology innovations to support affected populations access to aid — for example, ICTs, apps, digital ledgers, hardware and many others
Even what we constitute as ‘humanitarian’ has shades of grey — whether it’s at the pointy end of a crisis, to support during peacetime. The wide array of aid provision does not easily exist within the carefully designed terminology found in textbooks and political resolutions.
Additionally, who works on technology or digital innovations within humanitarian institutions is wildly divergent — mostly within institutions innovation labs, or within digital or thematic teams — then deployed to the global south for implementation or testing (the notion of testing on vulnerable groups is already contentious and has its own set of critiques).
The diversity of use cases, contexts, stakeholders and owners does have one common thread however. As humanitarian organisations do not tend to traditionally have the requisite digital or technology expertise in-house, they partner externally to achieve their aims. And this is the sticking point — it easily falls into expertise and partnerships that predominantly come from small communities of public-private, technology partners, and academic institutions from the global north. What this does (whether implicitly or unconsciously) is to reinforce a dominant, hegemonic narrative that assumes:
The experiences of global civil society and its actors, is homogeneous
The singular ‘Silicon Valley’ values that underpin such digital policies are the ones that all people aspire to, regardless of where they live or their cultural, societal, economic, geographic bearings
Power dynamics will continue to be affirmed in the hands of those that currently hold it without considering the cascading impacts of those policy decisions on those that are most going to be affected by it
The appropriateness and impacts of digital technologies and AI within aid systems is still being discovered and understood. An incredible amount of work has gone into establishing data governance guidance and data protection protocols but not as much into broader policy governing the deployment and use of these technologies sector wide. Often they are siloed into communities or thematic areas of work, or perhaps resulting in codes of conduct — but not systematically looking at a sector wide approach that interrogates whether the use of these technologies paradoxically expose, mitigate or expand harm on often marginalised, minoritised constituents AND whether the digital futures we are chasing merely replicate or reinforce existing or past inequalities?.
“..the relationship between tech industries and those populations who are outside their ambit of power — women, populations in the Global South, including black, Indigenous and Latinx communities in North America, immigrants in Europe — is a colonial one” Sareetyta Amrute, Data and Society
So, could humanitarian actors play a more intentional role in designing just and equitable digital futures? Could we in fact, unshackle ourselves from our neo-colonial humanitarian mental models, and push back against the hierarchies of techno-chauvinism and meritocracy? Could we use this moment in time to design worlds that don’t imagine some figures, especially populations in the Global South — to merely be passive beneficiaries and outside of the borders of expertise we seek? Could we invert the pathways of tech colonialism in the aid sector?
As I started my exploration, I realised that my original hypothesis needed more rigour. There were tensions inherent in my original starting point. Firstly, what in fact constitutes digital policy? For whom? For what purpose? What influence does policy have in fact over systems? Different actors have their own policy making instruments — that are incumbent on different leverage points that service multiple agendas. Considering the multiplicity of use cases, actors, and contexts — what I was softly heading to was the governance of the deployment and use of digital systems and technologies within the aid sector. Notwithstanding the work in data governance and data protection in aid, there are still gaps in governance in terms of how and when we deploy tech innovation, the digital systems we are creating and supporting to create, supply chains that we are a part of, due diligence processes, accountability and risk ownership, and many other elements. In addition to this, are questions of immunity (traditionally, humanitarian organisations do not go beyond the individual institutional governance mechanisms, that often are bordered by the institution’s immunity); and appropriateness of the technology innovations we deploy.
How then do we design digital governance systems that speak to these complex, intertwined issues? Instead of merely looking at digital governance in terms of control, could weaving in feminist and decolonial approaches help us liberate our digital futures so that it is a space of safety, of humanity — for those whom we are meant to support? Are these approaches ways in which we can design new forms of digital humanism?
“We could build systems for durability, but instead some dipshits told you we needed to move fast and break things” Audrey Watters
Could a digital governance approach consider questions like the following:
How then do we go beyond what we are merely legally required to do versus what is right to do? And importantly, are humanitarian actors willing to go beyond their immunity?
How do we extend digital governance to go beyond the fortresses of individual institutions to a multi-actor, sector wide approach that is emergent and iterative?
Can and should governance systems help users realize and/or amplify their rights and in fact use it as a way to hold humanitarian actors to account?
How might governance systems actually flatten power in decision making
Can governance systems help us monitor our accountability to our promises to affected populations?
Who has the power to draw the conclusions from assessments done?
Just because we *can* deploy a specific asset or tech, *should* we?
How do we increase percentage of risk/harm that gets absolved by humanitarian institutions rather than that risk/harm being pushed further down the chain to affected populations?
How might we incentivise governance systems to do the right thing?
Digital technologies and AI mask ideologies of power, and are wed to a market ideology of dominance. To intentionally carve a different type of ideology would require governance systems that are informed by different knowledge sources into decision making. That prioritise those that are most impacted by or are on the receiving end of that initiative, rather than cantering donor or aid institutions privileges. Good digital governance in the vein that this research is pursuing then, must disrupt the idea of ‘solutionism’, must also critique the systems in which that technology is being deployed and the impacts of that deployment — now and into the future.
And this is when my hypothesis started to fork out. Where I originally thought to use elements of futures methodologies to analyse future states and imaginaries of what we might collectively desire, I realised this was not enough for the rigour of what is needed to be achieved. What I have learned in my practice of strategic foresight within systems and institutional transformation is that the facilitation of the method does not automatically result in a change in policy and/or strategic decision making. And that is because the application of insights isn’t weaved into and within how change actually occurs. Often in humanitarian/development work, we are fire-fighting the now — the problem right in front of us. We design solutions and interventions aimed to problem solving what is immediately in front of us without necessarily assessing three things:
The complexity of the system in which that issue lives
Just as rights are not static, neither is harm. What is the current and future theory of harm that might arise out of that solution/intervention
theory of harm that might arise out of that solution/intervention What might be the impact of the solution/intervention on future generations and on our planet
Who holds the fiduciary duty to future digital selves of affected populations?
I now radically pursue the idea of foresight within ethics systems to inform governance. Can we consider the ethics of intervention through the lens of constraining future good and mitigating future bad? Might this in fact be where it can add rigour and value?
“Our radical imagination is a tool for decolonization, for reclaiming our right to shape our lived reality.” ― Adrienne Maree Brown
Lastly, I realised that my focus on decolonisation was somewhat, and honestly — skewed.
Decolonisation is the process of undoing and giving up social and economic power, and restoring what has been taken away in the past, which arguably includes reparations. As Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang argue — decolonisation is also not a metaphor for diversity and inclusion nor is it a replacement for social justice efforts. Would the efforts of humanitarian aid ever include reparations? Could we ethically profess to even do so? We often argue that for the humanitarian system to change, it would involve giving up the status quo that we have a strangle-hold on. However, could this ever be achieved through the result of this one approach/framework? Am I being authentic, am I being honest if I were to declare it so? The answer was no.
What I was unpacking in actuality, was the notion of decoloniality — an aspiration to restore, renew, elevate, rediscover, acknowledge and validate the multiplicity of lives, lived-experiences, culture and knowledge of indigenous people, people of colour, and colonised people as well as to decenter hetere/cis-normativity, gender hierarchies and racial privilege. I think of this as how do we exist in plurality — in a multiverse so to speak. And to include this in governance, not as a tokenistic or virtue-signalling flag, but rather to help us consider different lenses, perspectives, sources of truth in even how we think about what is right, what is fair and what is just. How might decolonial and feminist approaches help us reframe our starting points and in fact influence governance design? This isn’t about just getting different under-represented groups around the table, but rather how might we shift the knowledge and experiences we draw from in the very design and decision making of policy and governance frames. It is to ensure that we are considering the multiplicity of ways in which issues of rights, privacy and agency are understood and experienced the world over, and not imposing just one or a narrow valued judgement on these issues.
Through applying a decolonial lens to governance, might we in fact be able to intentionally design for equity rather than for privilege?
“Decolonisation, expressed by your lips, differs from the decolonisation that comes from within, as a revolutionary concept that speaks about rehumanization — a fundamental planetary project” — Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Thus, I am gently landing on Decolonial Humanitarian Digital Governance. An emergent process that is grounded in the following hypothesis: How do we not lock people into future harm, indebtedness or future inequity? It seeks to help start answering the questions unearthed through the journey thus far. Importantly, its primacy is to shift the focus of current humanitarian digital efforts that prioritise the problem solving of now, to one that aims to mitigate future harm and inequity. It aims at not binding nor narrowing the governance actions of humanitarian actors to merely their institutional legal liabilities and privileges but rather allows self-regulation for a shared responsibility for our collective futures across all actors and constituents in the aid sector.
The Decolonial Humanitarian Digital Governance is a framework that is:
Multi-Dimensional (intentionally includes plurality of perspectives affected populations, minoritized groups, humanitarian and tech governance actors, activists, and ethicists)
(intentionally includes plurality of perspectives affected populations, minoritized groups, humanitarian and tech governance actors, activists, and ethicists) Rigorously analyses future harms and impacts on future generations
Interrogates who absorbs future harm
Grounded in the rights and equity of impacted minoritized people
of impacted minoritized people Is emergent and acts as a compass (not a checkbox)
I see it visualised in three weaves:
And how we might judge this? Though not complete, perhaps some questions we might weave into that could include:
1. For the improvements it makes relative to what is replaced
2. For its understanding and active management of unintended consequences
3. For its mitigation and absorption of current and future harm
4. For its ability to cultivate an evolved awareness of rights, accountability and collective humanity
And that is where I am up to. This is a journey that isn’t complete by any measure. In fact, this framework must never be complete. It must never be static. The complexities we are dealing with are continuously evolving, and our commons have irrevocably shifted. We must unpack decades of mental models and behaviours as the range of choices about the type of futures we want to inhabit — has expanded exponentially, and the choices we make now will decide our collective fates.
To design more flourishing and liberated futures for all, we must uncover the plurality that is available to all of us, to frame how we see the world. | https://medium.com/berkman-klein-center/decolonial-humanitarian-digital-governance-48b35b05b110 | ['Aarathi Krishnan'] | 2021-05-04 16:11:10.681000+00:00 | ['Ethics', 'Decolonisation', 'Humanitarian', 'Digital Futures', 'Foresight'] |
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What Will I Learn? | https://medium.com/@vinaymeh6070/best-affiliate-program-2021-5d9a9ae651a2 | [] | 2021-01-07 17:55:14.816000+00:00 | ['Earn Money Online', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Digital', 'Students', 'Millennials'] |
At These Cafés in Oakland, People Actually Talk to Each Other | Once upon a time, coffee shops were simple places. Somewhere you could go to buy a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, or catch up with a friend. Maybe you’d even meet a cutie in line. But in 2020, a coffee shop can now be anything: an office, a trendy backdrop for an Instagram photo shoot, the headquarters of a small startup.
Don’t get me wrong; as a writer, I understand the need for a place to get some work done, and libraries don’t serve you coffee. But sometimes, I want to grab some coffee with a friend and not be glared at because I’m talking too loudly while someone is working on their pitch deck for a new app.
If there’s one place that emphasizes and revels in human interaction, it’s the East Bay. With a surprising number of cafés that flat out don’t have Wi-Fi at all, the options are plentiful for those seeking comfort and conversation in a simple coffee shop. Below are my top picks for cafés in Oakland where people actually talk to each other.
1. Tertulia Coffee
It took me two years of living in Oakland to discover Tertulia, and for that, I am deeply ashamed. With a sign at the counter displaying some rendition of, “NO WI-FI: Bring a friend or meet someone new,” this is part café, part art gallery. Located in Uptown, Tertulia’s owners founded the space with a mission to mix their passions of art and coffee, and the result is a truly unique establishment. I highly recommend the vanilla latte — the most requested drink of 2019, according to their Instagram — and while their food menu is limited, they do have fresh pastries everyday and huge chocolate chip cookies that make the perfect midday snack.
The front half of the space provides ample seating, from standard tables to what I swear are the coziest couch and armchairs in the Bay. If the temptation of slouching down in your seat and making yourself at home isn’t enough to deter you from whipping out your laptop, the lack of internet should do the trick. If you’re still feeling tempted to plunge into your technology burrow, check out the art gallery in the back. Housing art from Sanchez Contemporary, the space is designated to showcase Bay Area Latin artists and other underrepresented artists. The displays rotate throughout the year, with both solo and group exhibitions on display.
1951 Telegraph Avenue [Uptown Oakland] | tertuliacoffee.com
2. Awaken Cafe & Roasting
My first visit to Awaken, located in Downtown Oakland, was for the Oakland Poetry Slam, though the event has grown too big and since moved elsewhere. However, the fact that Awaken once hosted it should tell you all you need to know about the café. My second time here was during the Oakland teachers strike, and the café was serving as the unofficial meeting place for many of the protestors after the sun went down. Teachers with picket signs filled the seats and one protestor even led the entire establishment in a celebratory chant — beer in hand (yes, they have alcohol here too).
Awaken is very much a social scene, with no Wi-Fi and tables filled with chatter and people eating lunch (Beauty’s bagels with hummus and avocado please). One Yelp reviewer did my job describing this café best: “Spent three hours in here with a friend. That’s all I really need to say.”
1429 Broadway [Downtown Oakland] | awakencafe.com
3. Timeless Coffee, Piedmont
The Piedmont Avenue location of Timeless is far more spacious than its College Avenue sister, with indoor and outdoor seating and a large brunch crowd. With an entirely vegan menu, Timeless joins the ranks as yet another coffee shop with no Wi-Fi. In place of surfing the web (do people still use that phrase?), I like to spend my time here reading a book and eating one of their massive slices of cheesecake that, as a non-vegan, I can promise you is insanely delicious. Once again, I turn to Yelp to sum up Timeless perfectly in one Q&A:
“Q: is this a good place for studying?
A: No. Go to a library.”
Come on the weekends for lots of cute dogs and kids.
4252 Piedmont Avenue [Piedmont] | timelesscoffee.com
4. Equator Coffees, Bay Place
My favorite thing about Equator Coffees is everything. I must admit, I’m extremely biased on this one, as this is my go-to local coffee shop. I firmly believe it deserves all the hype I give it.
Equator has several locations around the Bay — all very hip, usually in old shipping containers — all excellent. The Bay Place location opened shortly after I moved to Oakland, and life has never been the same. This location is almost entirely outside, and I’ve seen over the years how they’ve morphed it from a weather-permitting grab-and-go coffee stop to a welcoming, heated, bustling patio. There is a tent over the space in case of the rain, and space heaters blast from above. Equator Coffees does offer free Wi-Fi, but it’s hardly used as a remote workspace. There is the occasional person working from their laptop among the succulent-lined tables, but it’s more common to see people talking to strangers and introducing their dogs to one another. It’s a small space that makes it comfortable to strike up a conversation with whoever is there at the time, and that almost always includes really good dogs. One regular named Rufus wags his huge, white, fluffy tail alongside his five-year-old pal who is the friendliest guy in the neighborhood.
Just a few blocks from Lake Merritt, Equator is perfect for grabbing a coffee after a run, and they also have cans of beer and wine for happy hour.
175 Bay Place [Adams Point] | equatorcoffees.com
5. Farley’s East, Oakland
The Grand Avenue location of Farley’s East is a nice mixed bag of people working remotely and people chatting over cappuccinos. Unlike most of the other spots on this list, Farely’s does have free Wi-Fi, and a rather large upstairs area packed with laptop-bearing millennials. But this café is able to keep things in check with designated laptop areas. The spacious tables closest to the front of the café are no-laptop zones, with signs on them that read “reserved for eating and conversation (no laptops).”
Overall, it seems like people are pretty good at following this rule, and it’s nice to have an area already reserved for you if you want to talk to your friend and not be amongst the sea of typing. It’s equally as nice to have a designated spot to sit if you do need to work from your laptop without feeling like a social pariah (yes, I am writing this from Farley’s as we speak, the irony is not lost on me). There’s also a large area with magazines to read while you’re there and an extensive food menu. As a bonus, there’s a little outdoor seating area that’s pleasant during the few days of the year Downtown Oakland isn’t under construction.
33 Grand Avenue, [Uptown Oakland] | farleyscoffee.com
6. Blue Bottle, Broadway
The entire layout of this Blue Bottle location seems like it was purposely built to deter anyone who may wish to enter with a laptop. I’ve actually seen someone come here, get out their laptop, attempt working, and leave within 30 minutes out of frustration. This place is huge, has high ceilings, and gives off an old factory vibe that I can’t quite describe (although I guess I just did). There’s a large round table in the middle where it’s equally acceptable to chat with the stranger next to you or bury yourself in a book. There are many other high-top tables perfect for two people, AND this location has the coveted avocado toast.
4270 Broadway [Broadway] | bluebottlecoffee.com
7. Julie’s Oakland
It would feel wrong to write this article without mentioning Julie’s. Located on Telegraph Avenue in Temescal, this shop, like Farley’s, has designated laptop areas. Though, there have been more laptops showing up lately, likely due to the sudden closure of the go-to remote working café down the street, Hawk and Pony.
That being said, Julie’s has a nice atmosphere if you can find a table, and a really lovely back patio — the kind of back patio that made me want to move to California to begin with. And, while a bit pricey, the food and coffee are delicious. There’s also beer on the menu if you need something to do while you wait for a table to free up.
4316 Telegraph Avenue [Temescal District] | juliestea.com | https://thebolditalic.com/at-these-caf%C3%A9s-in-oakland-people-actually-talk-to-each-other-1d76899ed7c | ['Emma Webster'] | 2020-01-24 20:21:14.667000+00:00 | ['Bay Area', 'Oakland', 'Cafe', 'Coffee', 'Food'] |
Understanding American Jewish Philanthropy | Understanding American Jewish Philanthropy
Throughout history, the American Jewish community has had a lot to be rightfully proud of. Their dedication to Jewish communal life, their commitment to education, their organizing and lobbying skills, and their sustained investment in Jewish-focused media outlets, are just a few. Much of the individual and institutional successes across a myriad of domains can be attributed to what seems to outsiders as an abundance of funds, at times thought to be retrieved from a bottomless pit.
If you are like me, you are always seeking funding support for one project or another. In my case, very rarely are the projects my own. Fundraising is hard work, regardless of its purpose. Fundraise long enough and you start to learn that it is an industry, like most other domains, but very few people have the wherewithal and persistence to dig deep into the black box of how the mechanics of fundraising developed and exists in today’s world. Professor and Author Lila Corwin Berman clearly does not fit that description. She just released a book titled, The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution, which is a fascinating read.
The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex
By Lila Corwin Berman
Princeton University Press, 2020, 280 pp, $42.00
I picked up this book with four distinct interests in mind. First, as an American citizen, I genuinely want to understand how this relatively small Jewish minority in the US came to wield so much financial power, particularly as it relates to the realm of politics. Second, as a Palestinian living under Israeli military occupation, I continually seek to educate myself on why and how the American Jewish community blindly supports the worst that Israel has to offer, such as the internationally-condemned and blatantly illegal settlement enterprise, just to name one. Third, as someone active in civil society who has a role in both grant-making organizations, such as the Open Society Foundations, as well as in efforts that require significant fundraising, such as Just Vision’s new “Untitled Free Speech” documentary, I’m always seeking how this funding industry works. Lastly, I want to be able to successfully find funds to support the worthy projects currently on my desk.
Enter the complex
Have you ever heard of the late American Jewish lawyer Norman Sugarman? Me neither, until now. Attorney Sugarman was thirty-five years old when he served as an assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (its name before renaming to the Internal Revenue Service). He testified regularly in front of Congress on tax law and was pivotal in laying the foundation for America’s non-profit financial underpinnings, not to mention his particular focus and support to the Jewish community’s financial machines.
In The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex, Professor Berman takes a deep — and brave — dive into the inner financial workings of the American Jewish community role in contributing to the entire American philanthropy industry. As Professor of History at Temple University, Berman holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History and directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History.
The author starts with a bold assertion that “Associational life or what some in more modern parlance may call “civil society,” far from a natural outgrowth of democracy and capitalism, cannot be understood apart from the state.” The book dissects this notion from after the First World War and walks the reader through the milestones, debates, and various stakeholders’ agendas as the United States crafted and modified what it would permit in terms of private capital being employed for the public good. Nothing here was straightforward or innocent of narrow agendas, like everything in public life.
The titles of the book’s eight chapters and conclusion give the roadmap that Professor Berman uses to make a compelling argument: Associations, Regulations, Property, Taxation, Politics, Finance and Identity, The Market, The Complex, and Reform. Many, if not all, of these elements of philanthropy, are blind to the operatives in the field, those knocking on doors, and making the fundraising calls. However, as Berman summarizes, “Through tax reform, cuts to social welfare spending, and policies to deregulate and subsidize the financial industry, the American government steadily put the public good in the hands of private entities that controlled and benefited from the market economy.” Sound like a message from President Trump? Well, it could very well be given the American Jewish involvement in the Republican Party, in particular, Nixon’s and Reagan’s administrations. The book touches on the internal American Jewish partisan politics in some depth.
One of the many fascinating dilemmas the book portrays is the American Jewish organizations debating how best to build their resources to serve the public good — raise funds and disburse as soon as possible or raise funds to disburse some and leverage some for the accumulation of wealth to sustain future efforts. This was, and I assume in the times of a global pandemic like we are facing today still is, an issue of debate.
The punch line of the book, all the more relevant as we reel at the end of Trump’s first term, was the notion that “The spectacular growth of philanthropic institutions over these years could be interpreted as proving the felicitous coexistence of capitalism with democracy, as an ever-wider array of Americans divested themselves of their private earnings for the public good. However, that same growth could threaten a democratic process, as private entities took hold of their capital power to serve the public as they saw fit.” | https://medium.com/@sbahour/understanding-american-jewish-philanthropy-c0a99e2199e4 | ['Sam Bahour'] | 2020-10-22 09:11:18.664000+00:00 | ['Jewish', 'Palestine', 'Book Review', 'Israel', 'Philanthropy'] |
Staking vaults have re-opened; stake your VACC to earn partner rewards! | Staking vaults have re-opened; stake your VACC to earn partner rewards! cordfinance May 8·3 min read
Token pairs may differ from those in screenshot
As announced previously, VACC has another powerful usecase! Already we have the global VACC hodler’s multiplier which produces extra rewards in all pools (including partner pools) just for holding VACC in one’s personal wallet — no spending required. This usecase puts VACC in very high demand, because only 37 people on Earth could ever achieve the max VACC hodler’s bonus awarded at a level of 50k VACC. But now is an even more direct usecase, because we will have direct VACC -> Partner token vaults. You will need to stake VACC in order to earn partner rewards, it will never be the CORD vault. This means if you have already acquired 50k VACC, you may want to collect even more! because you want some VACC to stake also to earn partner rewards. This is now a reality in our latest vaults: if you want to earn partner rewards right now, you need to stake VACC on top of the VACC you hodl for global VACC hodler’s multiplier.
The current vaults are as follows
CORD -> VACC
CORD-VACC-LP -> VACC
VACC -> COVAL-BNB-LP
COVAL-BNB-LP -> VACC
Due to the PancakeSwap update to V2, we have had to deploy new vaults for CORD-VACC-LP and COVAL-BNB-LP. If you were previously staking those LP tokens, please go to https://pool.cord.finance/retired/7/ and exit all vaults, then unwind your old CORD-VACC-LP V1 and COVAL-BNB-LP V1 tokens, and create new ones on PancakeSwap V2. Once you have created the new V2 LP tokens, stake them in our live vaults at https://pool.cord.finance/.
Note: The above does not apply to CORD-BNB-LP; we will not be staking V2 LP tokens for that for the foreseeable future, so just unwind your V1 CORD-BNB-LP tokens without creating new V2 LP tokens.
TIP: Stake in the VACC vault before locking any of the other vaults, to ensure you keep your VACC hodler’s bonus! If you do it afterwards and the multipliers drop, just add a tiny extra stake to the other pools to re-activate the VACC hodler bonuses.
Contract for CORD on Binance Smart Chain (BSC)
0xa3506A4f978862A296b29816C4e65cf1a6F54AAA
Contract for VACC on Binance Smart Chain (BSC)
0xb01228C32F85db30b8F9fc59256B40C716b0E891
To buy or trade CORD-BNB on PancakeSwap V2, enter the BSC contract address of CORD in one of the PancakeSwap V2 exchange token fields, and select BNB in the other field.
https://exchange.pancakeswap.finance/#/swap
To buy or trade CORD-Sushi on SushiSwap, enter the BSC contract address of CORD in one of the SushiSwap exchange token fields, and select Sushi in the other field.
https://app.sushi.com/swap
To buy or trade CORD-VACC on PancakeSwap V2, enter the BSC contract addresses of CORD and VACC in the PancakeSwap V2 exchange token fields. https://exchange.pancakeswap.finance/#/swap
So stake your VACC in our new partner vault fellow CORDians, plus hodl even more VACC for your global multipliers in all vaults!
- The CORD.Finance Team | https://medium.com/@cordfinance/staking-vaults-have-re-opened-stake-your-vacc-to-earn-partner-rewards-348b5ee9de2 | [] | 2021-09-09 14:41:54.875000+00:00 | ['Yield Farming', 'Cord', 'Finance', 'Defi', 'Partnerships'] |
How to Live Life without Anger..(Top 3 Myths busted) | Anger.. is the root cause of most of the issues we are facing today. From fights in relationships.. to road rage.. to fear of war, anger has always been one of the major cause of problems.
Have you ever imagined how our life would have been without anger? A life full of happiness, calmness, and peace.
Anger is the most destructive human emotion which not only have extremely bad impact on ourselves, but the negative energy generated due to our anger disturbs everyone around us.
Lets bust few anger myths vs reality.
1. Its a natural human emotion and we don’t have any control over it. This is the most common excuse, but the reality is that anger is just like any other bad habit, just like smoking a cigarette. As you are aware that smoking is bad for health still you smoke, just like that you are aware that anger is not good, still, we get angry. Anger is not an emotion, it's a habit which with time have become part of our reflex action.
2. Anger is sometimes an important tool to prepare ourselves for revenge or get our work done.
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. The end result of anger can never be good. Even the biggest Army battles have been fought with intelligence and tactics, not with anger. A most common example of a sports lover is how a good sportsperson react to sledging or provocation by the opposite team. If the sports person starts playing and reacting in anger, his/her defeat is definite. Instead, a good team, sportsperson keep themselves calm and unaffected with provocation and just carry on with their game plan for success.
3. No matter how hard we try, there are some people or situations which always instigate anger in me.
Always remember that “Your problem is not the problem, your reaction to the problem is the actual problem”. Stop getting upset with the people. They are powerless without your reaction. If someones shout on you or behave in an unexpected way, just stay calm and let that moment pass by like the dark clouds.
Stay Calm, Stay Happy !!! | https://medium.com/@connect.beingpositive/how-to-live-life-without-anger-top-3-myths-busted-a27d7869a1d9 | ['Being Positive'] | 2019-08-19 06:47:30.197000+00:00 | ['Anger', 'Anger Management', 'Self Improvement', 'Positive Thinking', 'Happiness'] |
Grown Science Nano CBD Patch :-Reviews [ New York, USA] | What is CBD?
Grown Science Nano CBD Patch:- CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a chemical compound from the cannabis plant.
Nano-technology is a method that CBD manufacturers use to improve absorption methods. The process breaks down the cannabinoid compounds into tiny particles. Since the compounds are smaller in size, this allows the particles to more easily enter the bloodstream and deliver the CBD more efficiently.
Our CBD concentrate is a true Nano-CBD and is batch pasteurized and sealed in a sturdy aluminum container to preserve freshness.
Why is Hydrogel Better?
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Reusable
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https://supplementsonlinestore.com/grown-science-nano-cbd-patch/ | https://medium.com/@susantelsh/grown-science-nano-cbd-patch-reviews-new-york-usa-f2d7bad48328 | ['Grown Science Nano Cbd Patch'] | 2021-02-22 07:43:43.253000+00:00 | ['Grown', 'Science', 'Patch', 'Cbd', 'Nano'] |
Three Signs of a Good Personal Trainer | #1. An initial assessment
A personal trainer should be just that — your personal trainer, and the sessions your trainer puts you through should be designed around your personal needs.
Before your first session together, your trainer should be performing an initial assessment to identify what exactly those needs are.
An initial assessment may include:
Asking about any medical/injury history
Establishing your specific goals (i.e. Do you want to lose weight? Gain muscle? Why?)
Identifying any mobility restrictions you might have
Using this information to design your individual training program
Too many trainers will lay out the same cookie-cutter program for the 19 year old football player as they do the 72 year old with a history of osteoporosis.
If your program isn’t built specific to your needs, keep on looking.
#2. Having a structured plan
There’s a difference between “training” and “working out”.
Training for something involves laying out a plan with an end goal in mind. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds of fat and add 5 pounds to your bench press in 12 weeks, your programming is going to reflect that goal.
On the other hand, putting someone through a serious of random, aimless workouts just for the sake of getting sweaty is lazy personal training.
How many times have you heard somebody brag about their coach/trainer “kicking their ass” in the gym? That’s because many newcomers associate feeling exhausted with a productive workout — but that’s not always the case.
A five year old could tell you to do 1,000 burpees and you’d be hooked up to a defibrillator before you could finish. It would “kick your ass”, but what did you accomplish? Are you any closer to your goal than you were before the workout? Do you even know what your goal is? (See: Initial assessment)
When there’s no clear, defined goal established with your training; that’s a tell-tale sign of a trainer that doesn’t know how to properly structure a program.
You — and your hard earned money— deserve better than that. Make sure they have a plan.
#3. Education
A trainer/coach that takes themselves seriously is going to invest in themselves.
Not every personal trainer has to necessarily have earned a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science, but they should have invested in some form of education to provide themselves with the requisite knowledge needed to work with clients before doing so.
This typically comes in the form of a personal trainer certification program. Some of the most well known certifications are:
ACE — American Council on Exercise
— American Council on Exercise CPPS — Certified Physical Preparation Specialist
— Certified Physical Preparation Specialist NASM — National Academy of Sports Medicine
— National Academy of Sports Medicine ACSM — American College of Sports Medicine
— American College of Sports Medicine ISSA — International Sports Science Association
One caveat: As someone who has earned multiple certifications over the years; I can tell you from experience that, while having an education is one thing, knowing how to apply that education in the real world — to people of different shapes, sizes, ages, and personalities — is a whole different ballgame.
For that reason, I’d like to point out that while certifications or degrees of any level are definitely not the “be-all-end-all”, they’re still of value, because it shows that your trainer has at least invested in themselves enough to achieve a rudimentary level of education before working with clients.
That’s a sign that they take themselves and their brand seriously — which likely means they’re going to take you and your results seriously, too.
Make sure your trainer has invested in themselves before you invest in them.
Image by Darren Constance from Pixabay
There are many variables that make up a great personal trainer, but these three fundamental boxes should be checked before you invest your time, money, and health into one of them.
Find someone who assesses your needs, establishes your goals, has a plan to help you reach those goals, and has invested in an education — your body will thank you. | https://zackharris.medium.com/three-signs-of-a-good-personal-trainer-d8689d17264 | ['Zack Harris'] | 2020-03-18 00:32:09.899000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'Health', 'Lifestyle', 'Coaching', 'Self Improvement'] |
How to Start a Motorcycle Ride sharing Company in Nigeria | This is the story of one of the most out there things I’ve done. This is the story of how I started Gokada.
It was the Summer of 2017, right on the heels of Pathos's multi-million dollar Series A funding. The company I had co-founded and had invested in was now worth nearly $100MM. I had always attributed raising capital as a distant achievement that would take more experience to obtain. But here I was at thirty-years-old — with shares in a three-year-old company that were worth more value than all of the revenue I had generated in my past thirteen-years of entrepreneurship. It was surreal.
By this time, I had already decided to stay in New York rather than join Pathao full time — it was a good time to sell a portion of my shares in the company. After a few secondary transactions, I was sitting on a pretty significant pile of cash. I could have done what any rational human being would do in such a situation — put a portion in a low-risk mutual fund, buy some real estate, and get a Lamborghini! Yet. None of that really interested me. The question, “Could I do this again?”, kept reverberating in my head. But where? I went to what many turn to when they perform in-depth business analysis — Wikipedia.
What I needed was a country that had intense traffic, a large population, a readily available supply of motorcycle taxis, and little competition.
First I went to the population charts. India, China, Indonesia, etc.. had too much competition. The States didn’t make sense. Brazil, potentially but not enough motorcycle taxis. Nigeria came next and piqued my interest. I started googling keywords such as “Nigeria traffic” and “Nigeria motorcycle taxi” and read headline after headline of the millions of lost hours from traffic and the dangers of the current 8 million “okadas”, the name given to the local motorcycle taxis.
The only competition dabbled in transportation, instead mostly focusing on package delivery. This had potential but I had no idea about the country. The only context I had of Nigeria were emails of promised riches from deposed princes. I had to see it for myself. I got my visa and packed my bags for my first visit in the fall of 2017.
Walking into the airport, I must have handed out $50 worth of extraneous fees but I had landed. Roaming around the streets of Lagos, I saw gangs of seemingly unruly “okadas” on the side streets with customers approaching them to negotiate the fare. They were everywhere. I had my market.
I returned to New York certainly uncertain of this new Nigerian venture. As I told people about the idea, skeptics abounded, and I was one of them. Then there was one fateful night that solidified my resolve. I was hosting a networking event and as I was telling a friend about the idea, an inebriated ex-colleague who I had a rocky relationship with came up to me and said:
“What makes you think you can do this in Nigeria? You couldn’t even stay in Bangladesh and you have friends and family in Bangladesh.”
“We’ll let the numbers speak for themselves,” I replied as I walked away. The proof is in the pudding. I was going to prove to everyone and most importantly, prove to myself I can do this.
I needed a name. Names always came easy to me. Okada.. okada.. okada.. Gokada.. ok that was easy. Now I needed a team. Was I really going to Nigeria, a country where I knew basically no one and set up shop alone? I didn’t have time to live in Nigeria for a while as I had in Bangladesh and network to find people. I had to use my online network. So I made this faithful post on LinkedIn:
At first, not many responses. Comment here and there. Some tags from my friends. But then something started happening. The post skyrocketed in popularity but not for the reason you would expect. I asked that team members be educated abroad, a combination of what investors wanted and a more worldly view I believed the person would have. Nigerians didn’t like that. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-to-start-a-motorcycle-ridesharing-company-in-nigeria-9ed73286f705 | ['Fahim Saleh'] | 2019-05-26 14:52:32.913000+00:00 | ['Nigeria', 'Investing', 'Startup'] |
A Return to the T | Riding the Train Stirs Old Memories and Creates New Ones.
My car broke down over the July 4th weekend. It was on a Saturday during a rainstorm. I had spent the afternoon with family, running errands. We started with a late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory followed by some shopping at Target. My sister needed to pick up some items from a Dollar Tree and then make a quick stop at Stop and Shop.
Everything was fine with the car as we made our various stops. There had been no forewarning that the car was in trouble. Sure, it needed an oil change and two of the tires required air, but nothing more serious than that. I should have paid closer attention to the messages that popped up every time I turned on the car. It would have saved us several hours.
I had dropped the family off at the front entrance to the Stop and Shop. I then drove down an aisle and parked. I decided to pick up some items at the supermarket as well. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary as I turned off the car and headed into the store. We purchased our items and returned to the car.
We loaded up the car and got in. The rain was coming down in sheets and I was eager to get home. On Saturday evenings, I meet with my writing group via Zoom. It was about six o’clock when I placed the car key in the car, held down the brake, and pushed the starter button. The engine didn’t roar to life. All of a sudden, a series of images flashed on the screen.
I didn’t immediately panic. Sometimes, the icons appeared if I didn’t press down on the brake hard enough or push the starter button properly. I removed the key, released the brake, and began the process again. It was the same result. The icons flashed red on the screen — check engine, oil change, service car now. The engine remained quiet.
After some suggestions from my sister and a couple more tries, it was clear that I needed to call for help. I went to Triple AAA online and made a request for service. The wait would be thirty minutes. That would place us at around 6:45 PM. Fortunately, my writing group had texted me and said they needed to reschedule. At least I didn’t have to worry about missing our session.
Forty minutes later, a young man in a car sped up to us. I got out to meet him, the rain making it hard for me to see. He grabbed his battery charging equipment and asked me to return to my car. He hooked up the equipment to the battery and a few minutes later asked me to start the car. I did so with the same result. The technician got into my car and tried to start it. Again, the engine remained silent.
The technician determined that it wasn’t a battery issue. My battery was nearly full. It had to be the starter mechanism. I would need a tow. After giving him the name of an auto shop, the technician put in the request for a tow truck. He said the wait would be up to ninety minutes. The technician returned to his vehicle and then sped up off into the night.
We all took turns going back to Stop and Shop to use the restroom. Luckily, everyone was still full from lunch. I chomped on some gum to keep any hunger pangs at bay. However, the wait wasn’t long. Ten minutes after the technician had left, a tow truck by the same company, pulled into the parking lot. Our ride also appeared right after the tow truck had arrived. My car was placed on the tow truck and carted away to the auto body shop.
As I sat on the train, I recalled my younger days riding to school on the train. The MBTA as it was known was called the “T” by the locals. As a child, I’d walked down Quincy Street, approximately three-fourths of a mile to the bus stop at the intersection of Quincy Street and Blue Hill Avenue. There, we’d catch the №45 bus (the only bus on the route) to Dudley Station (now Nubian Square) or to Ruggles Station (on the Orange Line). We would then ride the train into Downtown Crossing.
When I became old enough to take the T on my own, I would venture far and wide. I’d go to Forest Hills and take the bus to the Dedham Mall. I’d take the Orange Line train to Fanueil Hall Marketplace. I’d ride the Red Line to Harvard Square and hang out in the bookstores. I was my own tour guide, getting to know Boston in my own way.
With my car being worked on, it's time to get to the city once again. A lot has changed since I was a kid. A Silver Line was created that runs from Nubian Square to South Station. We also have a Seaport District with its own T stop. Much of my old neighborhood has been gentrified with condos replacing once vacant lots. The Dedham Mall received a makeover and many of its stores like Sears and Brighams have been replaced by Burlington and Five Below. Harvard Square has more shops, but some of the bookstores have closed.
I’ll probably have my car by the end of the week. For now, I have to use the T to get around or an Uber if I really want to go somewhere. I prefer the T. I like walking to the train station, looking at the homes, and admiring the gardens. Plus, I could use the exercise. The pandemic pounds must go! Also, this will be a good way to gather more ideas for future essays. You don’t have the opportunity to really look at your surroundings when you’re in a car. By walking, I can study every inch of my neigjborhood before letting the T take me where I need to go. | https://medium.com/@shirleyjonesluke/a-return-to-the-t-6db07964f632 | ['Shirley Jones Luke'] | 2021-07-06 17:01:34.225000+00:00 | ['Car Repair', 'Ideas', 'Public Transportation', 'Walking', 'Memories'] |
ESG Development in Mexican Transportation | September 10th, 2020
This week, we are sharing our ESG Development Heatmap for one new sector in Mexico: Transportation. As in the past, we only focused on (1) companies listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange and (2) publicly disclosed materials.
Transportation
What can we read from this heatmap?
All companies but one have published a sustainability or integrated report in the past three years and have a dedicated ESG team or an ESG Committee. 75% of this group has done a materiality assessment at least once and 62.5% has a materiality assessment that is not over 3 years old. More companies in this sector than any other sector before have publicly communicated some sort of KPI goals for at least some of their material topics, but no company has published goals for the KPIs for all of its material topics. All companies but one have mapped its ESG efforts to the UN’s SDGs. No company in this sector has committed to support TCFD or the Science Based Targets efforts. Only three companies (37.5%) are aligned to CDP. Only two companies (25%) are participants of the UN Global Compact. As we have seen in other sectors too, corporate governance info is available across the board. All companies but one share their efforts in terms of social impact and environmental efforts. All companies who published a sustainability or integrated report followed GRI, albeit most of them loosely. Only two have external verification for their reports.
Overall, the Transportation sector seems to be ahead of others in terms of ESG development. It is interesting that a sector that is relatively close to climate change issues is not more aligned with TCFD, Science Based Targets, and CDP. However, we would expect this to come as KPI goals are formalized and more investors engage companies on these topics.
I hope you found this interesting. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, please reach out.
Best,
Marimar
Partner, Miranda ESG | https://medium.com/@marimartorreblanca/esg-development-in-mexican-transportation-a832f20207a2 | ['Marimar Torreblanca'] | 2020-12-21 15:17:35.672000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Mexico', 'Esg Investing', 'Esg', 'Transportation'] |
Can Milton Friedman Help Save Wildlife? | By David Wilkie, Ray Victurine, and Todd Stevens
October 3, 2018
A recent article in the Economist got us thinking about a novel way to overcome the challenge that almost all small enterprises in developing countries face — access to affordable capital.
A number of conservation-linked enterprises have arisen over the past decade to help communities in developing nations secure household income by marketing sustainably produced wildlife friendly goods. For example, Ibis Rice is a premium jasmine rice produced by rural farmers in Cambodia in ways designed to protect the wetland habitat of the Critically Endangered Giant Ibis — Cambodia’s national bird. Ibis Rice buyers purposefully use their purchasing power to help finance wildlife conservation and improve the lives of poor families.
A conservation trust fund that offers income share agreements would provide much needed and hard to get loans to start-up companies and would not saddle the borrower with a massive debt service burden just when they are getting started.
These enterprises often find it difficult to secure loans to cover start-up costs and to maintain liquidity until the business scales to profitability. Even when they are able to obtain loans, their high interest rates (which reflect the risk to the investor) and fixed repayment schedules usually demand that much of the income accrued by the business at the start is spent on debt service and is not ploughed back into building the business.
Ibis Rice buyers purposefully use their purchasing power to help finance wildlife conservation and improve the lives of poor families
So even those very few businesses that are lucky enough to obtain loans may fail because the debt service burden is too high, at least when they start-up.
A relatively new lending system deployed by some US universities offers a novel solution. The concept was first presented in a 1955 essay by Nobel economist Milton Friedman titled “The Role of Government in Education,” as a means of reducing the burden of tuition loan repayment on recent college graduates.
Friedman observed that investment in education pays off not immediately but over the working lifetime of students, as they get promoted or move to better paying jobs. His insight was that rather than lenders providing fixed interest loans to students in return for lump sum payments they could use to cover tuition cost, they could “buy” a share in a student’s future earnings after graduation.
The student and lender would sign an “income share agreement” where the student would agree to pay back a loan by providing the lender with scheduled payments based on a fixed percentage of her income. Immediately after graduation, her salary from her first job may be relatively low and thus will not require a large monthly payment to the lender.
Over time as the borrower’s salary increases, monthly payments to the lender would increase. The period of the loan would be determined by the borrower’s salary growth, with payments continuing until the loan was paid off in full with interest.
Conservation trust funds typically provide grants only. Now imagine offering income share agreements to finance the start-up costs of conservation-linked enterprises. This would help turn sinking funds (trust funds that spend down their initial endowment and need to be recapitalized by charitable gifts over time) into revolving funds (trust funds where the initial endowment is replenished by the fund’s income generating investments), which donors are much more willing to capitalize in the first place.
For a conservation enterprise like Ibis Rice, the big starting obstacle was the lack of access to markets by several thousand of Cambodia’s poorest people, who had often been trapped in debt cycles to middlemen. To get the rice initiative off the ground and achieve conservation of the magnificent Giant Ibis, front-end costs included things like training and capacity building; creating an infrastructure and purchasing equipment; and development of a wildlife friendly certification process.
A conservation trust fund that offers income share agreements would provide much needed and hard to get loans to start-up companies, would not saddle the borrower with a massive debt service burden just when they are getting started, and would enable most of the early profits to be reinvested in building the business rather than being used to pay down the loan.
Friedman’s insight was that rather than lenders providing fixed interest loans to students in return for lump sum payments they could use to cover tuition cost, they could “buy” a share in a student’s future earnings after graduation.
Income share agreements would require that borrowers keep auditable accounting records so that the income share at each payment period could be assessed accurately. This would incur some costs to the borrower and lender but would also help professionalize the borrower, who would need to adopt industry standard accounting protocols.
If we can prove that this type of lending works for conservation-linked enterprises then it should also work for lenders interested in financing any type of start-up business in the developing world.
Income share agreements may have been conjured to ease the debt service burden of students who wanted to invest in their education, but it may prove to be the best way to finance small businesses in risky places around the planet — helping people and saving wildlife.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
David Wilkie is Executive Director for Conservation Measures and Communities at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society); Ray Victurine is WCS Director of Conservation Finance and Business; Todd Stevens is WCS Executive Director of Markets. | https://medium.com/wcs-conservation-solutions/can-milton-friedman-help-save-wildlife-96e468111b9a | ['Wildlife Conservation Society'] | 2018-10-11 12:04:48.203000+00:00 | ['Wildlife', 'Lending', 'Small Business', 'Conservation', 'Finance'] |
GET (SH)IT DONE (how to clear your to-do list and feel good about it) | GET (SH)IT DONE (how to clear your to-do list and feel good about it)
Having a To-Do List is one important tool to plan out your tasks and actually progress by executing them. So it holds you accountable and makes sure that you are heading in the right direction. When the tasks are planned out wisely of course.
In the past I’ve done a lot of to-do lists in many different ways. I’ve made an own Excel sheet where I’ve written down all the tasks and routines from Monday to Sunday, I’ve bought a journal to plan out the To-Do’s, I’ve used apps like Trello to be more productive and many more. They all have had their own advantages and disadvantages. For example it hasn’t turned out for me to plan and check the tasks 100% digital. It’s way better for me to write them down with my hand and cross them with the same hand, too.
I’ve tried many things and made different experiences. So the decision has been easy to write a blog post about my learnings to inspire, help and motivate you to find your own way to get more things done and actually feel good about it because just crossing the tasks out of your list shouldn’t be the major goal. I will explain it during the post.
Learning #1 : Focus on the why behind your tasks instead of just checking them
When you have prior experience in working with To-Do Lists you may have came across this phenomenon. Your tasks are planned, you’ve executed them all and finally checked them all on your list. But you don’t feel too good about it and have a strange feeling in your gut. That’s what I’ve experienced very often, too. The problem here is that we tend to focus just on crossing the goal itself and not on the task. I’ll give you an easy example what I’ve struggled with many times.
I’m meditating on a constant basis for around 3 years now. So I’ve always thought it’s a good idea to write this on my to-do list because it’s part of my daily routine. Each morning I looked on my list, saw „Meditation (10 Minutes)“, executed and crossed it out. But each time I did it this way I felt that there was something missing. There was a feeling inside me that I didn’t meditated at all. Crossing it out of my list wasn’t a good feeling and I headed directly to the next task. So executing the tasks became a reactive habit which made me not really doing the tasks with full awareness.
That’s because I had just focused on the goal of crossing it out and not on the meditation instead. So I was checking and crossing the tasks all day but wasn’t even aware of them. It’s a trap where many of us fall in.
A great way to avoid this trap is asking yourself the following questions:
- Why am I doing this task?
- Why is it important to do it?
- What will be different when I’ve executed it?
- How will I come closer to my goal when I’ve finished the task?
- …
These questions help you to focus more on the task itself. It’s the same as for setting goals in life. Having a goal is crucial but the journey to reach that goal is where the main focus should be on.
To wrap it all up in one sentence: Having your tasks planned out is important, but keep in mind why you are actually doing them.
Learning #2: Visualization brings satisfaction
To have a To-Do list is one thing. Another thing is to visualize it. Visualizing your list has many positive effects.
The first effect is that it makes it obvious for you what you want to accomplish during the day, the week, the month or the year. You’re always reminded that you still want to do task XY and it won’t get accomplished by itself. It serves as a cue.
Another great effect of visualizing is that you can see and even feel what you are about to do and what you’ve done. For me it comes in very handy to have an overview of my tasks.
The most beneficial effect is the satisfying effect when you reward yourself visually. Crossing a task out or transferring it to the DONE-Section of your list is a great feeling of accomplishment when you take care of focusing on the why behind your task. It makes you feel that you successfully made another step towards your goal.
There are many great ways to visualize your To-Do list. The one that has turned for me is a very simple method from a fellow Web Developer named Chris Hufnagel who has inspired me. I’ve mounted a pin-board made of cork onto my wall and split it into two columns. In the left column are all my To-Do’s for the week and in the right will be the one’s I’ve done. When I’m planning out my week I’m writing all the important tasks on a piece of paper. I’ve categorized them into 3 major fields: Learning, Projects and Books. The more precisely the tasks are, the easier it is to accomplish them.
For example:
Books → Chapter 3, Chapter 4
Learning → Udemy-Course: Responsive-Design Section (and then finding subcategories for each video to make it more detailed)
Projects → Navigation-Bar of Website XY, centering all images, …
Once I’ve written them all down I start to put them on post it’s. I use a different color for each of the 3 fields. After that I just hang them into the left column (To-Do’s). For me it’s a great visual cue and it’s obvious what I want to do during the week. When I start to execute them I take them and put them on the bottom corner of my screen because it sometimes happens that I’m getting distracted. With the task sitting in front of me I always get reminded why I’m sitting down here. Once done I hang them into the right column (DONE) and it’s a great feeling.
Feel free to check my instagram (@jean_marc.dev) where I’m regularly posting my To-Do Lists.
Learning #3: Keep your list short and simple
Another major mistake I’ve always made was to overflow my lists. When I was sitting down at a Sunday afternoon and thought about my tasks for the week I felt bad or not enough when there were not many tasks in it. So I was trying to put a good bunch of tasks in it to let it look packed and full. I’ve always thought that this is the way to go and that this will motivate me. Okey, it did. For the Sunday evening.
The rough awakening often came on Monday when I’ve started to work on that list. There were so many things to do for the day and for the week that I’ve started to get overwhelmed because I couldn’t find any clue where to start. I’ve recognized very quickly that this definitely was not the way to go.
A full packed to do list may look nice because you get a feeling that you’re about to accomplish a lot. But reality often looks a little bit different. Life uses to get in the way, focusing on the less important tasks, …
Another thing I’ve done wrong is to underestimate the tasks and especially their required time. When I’ve couldn’t manage to do all tasks (which has happened most of the time) I’ve began to feel pretty bad about myself because I’ve thought that I haven’t accomplished not enough. This quickly led into a down spiral of being not good enough and demotivation.
So I’ve begun to reduce my To-Do list and to focus on the major tasks. With major tasks I mean those ones which are supporting your goals. Start with 1 or 2 during the week. When your major goal for the week is to read a book, focus on reading one hour, 30 pages or something similar which will allow you to reach your goal. You want to meditate each day? Great, focus on meditating for 10 minutes each day. That requires that you already know your goals and what you want to accomplish.
When it comes to writing your To-Do list always keep in mind if it’s not fitting onto a 3x3 post-it how will it fit into your day? That’s the hook which still reminds to not overflow my list when I’m planning it out.
Learning #4: Tackle the ones at first you want to do at least:
Let’s be honest. There will always be tasks on your list which you can’t wait to do and ones which you don’t want to do. That’s normal. In order to achieve greatness and success it’s important not only to do the things you want to do. The most important aspect is to execute the one’s which are necessary. And in this case there won’t always be only fun tasks. I can relate as well.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this in your past, too. You have a task which waits to be executed but you don’t want to do it at all and you don’t even find the motivation to start. Homework in school are a great example for this. So you tell yourself „Well, this evening I will go for it“, the evening occurs and nothing has changed. You still don’t want to do it. So you tell yourself again „Okey, now it’s too late for that. I will tackle this one right in the morning“. Guess what? The morning alarm turns on, you wake up and nothing has changed. You start procrastinating and it starts to become a habit. A bad one. Obviously.
A great way, that takes a bit of time and effort at the beginning, is to create a habit to execute the tasks you want to do at least right at first of your day. This concept is also known as „Eat that frog“ (great book by the way). It gives you a lot of energy through out the day when you’ve already done the less fun part. Now you have time for the tasks which are considered to be more fun. It helps you to kill procrastination and build self discipline.
Start here simple and small as well. Begin with simple and little tasks you feel lack of motivation. This could be answering emails, going to the dentist (oh we all love them, right?), tidying up your desk or decluttering your desktop.
When I’m planning out my tasks for the day I usually setting one task as my MIT (Most Important Task) and highlight it on my written list. In the next morning I immediately know what do to at first and finally start to execute it. It’s a great feeling to have this one already crossed out of my To-Do list and made room for my „fun“ tasks or those ones who are easier for me to do.
Learning #5: Always be kind and proud of yourself (don’t beat yourself up):
As I’ve already written in the first paragraph it’s very easy to get beaten up by ourselves. Especially in the ALWAYS HUSTLE work ethic of today’s society. But let’s face it. Life sometimes uses to get in the way and you’re not able to do all of your tasks. That’s another reason why keeping the list short and only with the major tasks is important.
There are good days and even bad days where you won’t get much done. That’s normal and it’s okey. The big difference here is how you’ll continue. When you’re beating yourself up with feeling not good enough and being a bad person, chances are high that you won’t continue with a good state of mind. The key here is working frequently on a daily basis.
When you know that you’ll get back to work tomorrow and see it as a new chance to get the things done you’d wish to it comes along with a whole new energy, right? I’m following the mantra „Missing a task once is okey, but missing it twice is the beginning of a new habit“. Fitness is a great example for this. When you go every day to work out one missed day won’t be bad. But missing another workout right ahead will raise the chances that you’ll miss it a third time.
It’s very crucial that you commit yourself to working frequently. Writing 50 words this evening is still better than writing nothing. Even if you fail to write anything at all, get back to it the next day.
That’s it. Those were my 5 top learnings I had to learn the hard way and still working on today. Feel free to share your own experiences with executing to do lists and concepts you got to know to be more productive.
We’ll see us in the next blog post. It made a lot of fun to write this one here. | https://medium.com/@jeanmarcmoeckel/get-sh-it-done-how-to-clear-your-to-do-list-and-feel-good-about-it-70c41e3eeca2 | ['Jean-Marc M.'] | 2019-06-14 09:41:19.546000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Habit Building', 'To Do List', 'Procrastination', 'Working From Home'] |
Pickyourtrail, a self-service platform that lets travellers create, customise and book international vacations | Pickyourtrail has raised $3M in total. We talked with its co-founders Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar.
How would you describe Pickyourtrail in a single tweet?
Pickyourtrail is a self-service platform that lets travellers create, customise and book international vacations in a jiffy.
How did it all start and why?
Pickyourtrail began as an attempt to break how vacations are currently been planned and booked by travellers. At our very heart, we want to create happiness and not sell packages. The seed to all this began in August 2012 when co-founders — Hari & Srinath went on a Europe trip.
Ardent travellers themselves, the duo had put in more than 2 months to fully craft their vacation. This included planning end-end, bookings, and visa processing. It was during their trip they stumbled upon fellow travellers who were all on packaged tours. Interacting with them, Hari & Srinath understood they were literally rushed between destinations and their urge to discover new experiences wasn’t fulfilled. The travellers, on the other hand, were amazed to see the flexibility Hari and Srinath had in their itinerary and that piqued their interest.
Once back home, the duo was bombarded with pings asking for details on how they went about planning the entire trip. These interactions slowly multiplied and this lead to an idea that will forever change their career roadmaps!
What have you achieved so far?
We have been growing 80% YoY. And aim to grow 5X over the next 2–3 years.
Products: http://pickyourtrail.com — our website | https://apple.co/2mBMqI0 — our mobile app for travel concierge.
We have had about 15,000+ travellers who have planned their dream vacation with us in the Free Independent traveller segment.
We are currently a team of 185 members.
What do you plan to achieve in the next 2–3 years?
Broadly 3–4 things we would be focusing on, one obviously acquire more customers on the digital medium, try and build you know our own digital acquisition channel that’s number 1.
Number 2 is you know on tier 2- tier 3 towns where digital penetration is still not very high but still there is a significant amount of people taking trips out there, how do we go to that audience and become top of mind for that audience, So if you look at it audience wise the digital-first audience is what we want to capture and then tier 2- tier 3 towns.
The next focus is on beefing up the tech team and overall tech capabilities. how do we ensure that our product innovation efforts continue to be one of the best in the industry?
There is also a larger focus on taking this product global. End of the day there is a European going to the US or an Australian going to Bali and the product is suitable even for them. We also want to try and understand what it takes to build traction in those markets.
While all this may not be possible in the next 6–10 months but this is the broad themes we want to focus and kind of drive over the next 2–3 years. | https://medium.com/petacrunch/pickyourtrail-a-self-service-platform-that-lets-travellers-create-customise-and-book-143c7a380cc6 | ['Kevin Hart'] | 2019-10-03 11:19:40.368000+00:00 | ['India', 'Planning', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Travel'] |
The Case for Giving Up the Search for Definitive Answers | Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
I used to want to be certain about everything in life. I thought that as long as I had the right answer, everything would be okay.
Until my mom told me something revolutionary.
As we were arguing within the family, as we sometimes do, she told me:
“Being right doesn’t matter to me.”
Now, out of context, that’s hard to understand. Of course, we’ve all heard that we should learn to be wrong for the sake of the relationship, but she meant it a different way. She meant it in a more profound way.
She meant, that even if someone does wrong, and I know I’m right and they’re wrong, and what they’re doing is wrong, it doesn’t ultimately matter. Being morally right, even, is not important. She will set her boundaries, but she doesn’t quibble about moral rightness.
Because a person who does wrong will get their comeuppance anyway, even without her anger, even without her censure. She doesn’t have to intervene.
The trust encompassed in her phrase, the mercy, shook me.
This was when I realized that it’s true that losing to others for the sake of the relationship is worth it, every time. And if you feel resentful about it, that’s because you don’t yet fully understand that losing is worth it.
This was the moment that I understood that man has laws because he is weak. Here is the order, from least to best:
Law, Love, Mercy, Sacrifice.
And what I had thought was so weak in my mother was actually what made her a great businesswoman. It was what made her incredibly strong.
Justice holds scales, but love keeps no records.
Remember that, the next time you feel angry and resentful. The strongest thing you can do, and the best thing you can do for yourself, is to forgive.
Let God do the measuring. | https://jennajlee92.medium.com/the-case-for-giving-up-the-search-for-definitive-answers-148307910d6e | ['Jenna Lee'] | 2019-09-16 08:02:14.419000+00:00 | ['Justice', 'Mercy', 'Sacrifice', 'Love', 'Forgiveness'] |
How Covid-19 has made us feel the importance of owning a house even more? | They say, “Always grab an opportunity when it knocks at your door.” When they do, how many of us actually optimize it to the fullest?
The answer is well- known to us.
Covid-19 has truly made us all realize that having your own home is such a blessing as any rented arrangement cannot give you that comfort and ease like that.
People have also realized the importance of real estate as an important asset in their lives which is actually the most reliable option for stable returns.
A recent study stated that the level of March 2020 residential property sales in China stands at almost 95% in comparison to the December 2019 levels. If this bounce back after the lockdown that ended in China is an indication of a trend, the Indian real estate market is also likely to witness a similar scenario after attaining normalcy in the near future.
RBI has also taken a monetary policy decision earlier in March 2020 to slash repo rates by 0.75 basis points (bps). This move by the Indian central bank has made it quite easier to have home loans thereby attracting larger home buyers to surely give this one a try. The steep cut has brought interest rates on home loans by public and private sector banks to their lowest, between 7.20% and 8.05%, in over a decade.
It’s a great time for the home buyers to make the right move considering this to be an apt opportunity to take up the plunge!
If you are one of those looking forward to buying a residential property then wait no more!!
That’s because home loans at prevalent interest rates allow for considerable savings while creating an asset for end-use or investment purposes. Furthermore, the borrower gets to use the savings resulting from a reduced equated monthly installment (EMI) to avail of a top-up loan, also available at lower interest rates.
The additional funds can easily be used for undertaking interiors related work for the apartment being purchased.
Those looking to acquire a property for investment purposes and earning rental income have their own set of benefits. Rental yields are currently pegged at 2.5%. And with effective interest rates at 6.75%, the net effect, if a home is purchased for letting out, comes to 4.25%. This beats long term inflation figures of India's hands down, thus presenting another win-win situation.
Buying an apartment is the most expensive financial commitment that an individual makes in his/her lifetime.
Isn’t it?
But what better than a great time to do so!
For more such insights and detailed conversation on the real-estate metrics, follow:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/maddex-consulting/ | https://medium.com/@pankaj.maddex/how-covid-19-has-made-us-feel-the-importance-of-owning-a-house-even-more-65d8d098d6f1 | ['Pankaj Garg'] | 2020-10-27 11:45:06.122000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Covid Diaries', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Covid 19 Testing'] |
The deep philosophy of Tyler Durden | “The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.”
We’re about to break the first rule and discuss what I truly believe to be one of the greatest films ever made. Now, that’s quite an accolade and I’m sure you’re wondering exactly why I hold it in such high regard. Well, first and foremost, the storyline is gripping from start to finish; there’s not a weak scene in the whole movie. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club’s highly original author, is clearly unafraid to investigate the grittier side of humanity. In Tyler Durden, he’s created one of the most interesting characters in fiction. Furthermore, Fincher’s directing is second to none. The cinematography, the acting- it’s all top-notch. Then there’s this; never has a film so skilfully thrust insightful philosophy in front of the eyes of the masses.
Nihilism?
“Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent..”
I’ve asked friends about the underlying philosophy of Tyler Durden and a common interpretation has been ‘nihilism’. Understandable. The characters are lost and depressed. They fight each other partly to escape the monotony of modern-day life, like teenagers drinking themselves to oblivion on a park bench. Project Mayhem seems like mindless vandalism, an outburst from those who have given up. Tyler even explicitly encourages self-destruction and suggests “in all probability, God hates you”. Altogether, this is looking pretty dark.
But is hopelessness and meaninglessness really what’s happening here?
Is Fight Club nihilistic?
I don’t think so.
Take Tyler seriously enough and you begin to realise there is consistency, a heroic directive even, to his actions. It’s highly unconventional, at times counter-intuitive, and not fully explicated, but it’s there. Murky chaos pervades the atmosphere but it doesn’t encapsulate the essence.
What follows is my take on the philosophy of Tyler Durden.
The Poison
MATERIALISM
“Working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need”
Fight Club is first and foremost a critique of modernity. The first section of the movie introduces us to the unfulfilling life of a cynical and depressed automobile recall specialist, Jack (as named in the credits). He seeks relief in buying contemporary IKEA furniture for his flat, has no passion for his job, is lonely, and suffers from chronic insomnia. Returning home one day Jack discovers an explosion has destroyed his flat and all his possessions. Hopeless and homeless, something drives him to make contact with an eccentric stranger he met on the plane, Tyler Durden. They meet up for a drink at Lou’s bar where Tyler intrigues Jack with his unconventional, anti-materialist stance. Thus begins one of the most enlightening scenes in the whole movie regarding Tyler’s philosophy.
Tyler asks Jack what we essentially are. “Consumers” is the answer given. Not humans or social or spiritual beings, but consumers; cogs in an economic machine. This notion of who we are has seeped into the cultural narrative, supported by advertising, social and mass media. Tyler later makes this point at one of the Fight Club meetings: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need”. Consider recent discussions of political decisions or national events. There is often an unnatural weighting applied toward the economy as if it is to be prioritised above even general happiness and lives. Young people look up to those who’s lifestyle they want, not those who have sacrificed in the name of principle; social currency bought with envy, not respect. These are strong signifiers of the social imbalance that an economics obsessed system, devoid of counter-balancing wisdom, manifests.
“Well, you did lose a lot of versatile solutions for modern living”
In the same scene, Jack laments the loss of his possessions as they share a pitcher of beer. In response, Tyler sarcastically references the cyclical nature of consumerist ‘progression’: “Well, you did lose a lot of versatile solutions for modern living”. The point is, as a society, we create problems (often lack of time) which are then solved with improved products. Modern solutions for modern problems. The thing is, studies have shown our happiness is more closely related to relative, rather than absolute, wealth & status; how we compare to those around us. Strengthening a developed economy and improving technology does little for the average person’s happiness because it provides them with no relative advantage, especially when the gap between rich and poor grows. Yet we expend such significant human effort creating more advanced TVs, phones, and cars, and then consuming them, playing into the hands of the power structure, rather than attempting to modulate it. Modernity; the illusion of evolution.
“The things you own end up owning you”
As Tyler continues to wax philosophical in Lou’s bar, he takes the critique further, pointing out that consumer culture has reduced us to obedient slaves. “The things you own end up owning you”- the more we join the rat race, the more we compare our material success with others and become psychologically beholden to their judgment. We neurotically chase materialistic perfection and social status to the detriment of all else. It’s a system that predates on living things, turning us (and other animals) into means to economic ends.
The consequences extend far beyond wasting our own lives and feeling unfulfilled though. Countries fight wars and millions die, not for the greater good, but for profit. The natural world is destroyed so we can have more unnecessary things. What’s worse is this has become normalised. And through normalisation, it has become accepted. Consumer culture is the new religion, Facebook and Apple are our idols. Serving them is our primary function and like a cult it’s brainwashing us, owning us. Tyler is hypersensitive to the inappropriateness of this.
REPRESSION OF THE NATURAL SELF
“Our great depression is our lives”
A key turning point of the movie occurs when Jack, dismissed by his doctor because his insomnia has no obvious physical signs, resorts to joining cancer/disease support groups, posing as a sufferer. The sympathy he receives cures his chronic insomnia and so he keeps returning. The madness of our culture is perfectly portrayed here; Jack has to masquerade his emotional suffering as physical in order to be taken seriously.
Indeed, our emotional well-being is undervalued. How much easier is it to get medical care for a physical ailment than a mental one? The reason is simple: You can still work if you are depressed, you can’t if you have a broken arm. In fact, mild depression is somewhat useful, economically, as a catalyst for ‘retail therapy’.
Mental health degradation is caused in large part by social policy. Consumerism, advertising, lack of sleep, disconnection, low-income stress are all culturally avoidable. But it’s seen as an individual’s problem. If you’re depressed because you’re sensitive to the suffering in the world, it’s up to you to be less sensitive. If trauma has been passed down from oppressed generation to generation, it’s up to you to deal with the fallout. And then, like economically worthless male chicks, the mentally exhausted are crushed up and shipped off to Big Pharma, the last bit of profit and power wrung from them before their spirits keel over and die.
“What kind of dining set defines me as a person”
This is a line from the beginning of the movie as Jack narrates his everyday consumer-based thinking. One symptom of an overly prescribed lifestyle is that we outsource expression to an assembly-line of machined goods. Copies of copies of copies. We define ourselves by the things we own rather than via a creative and personalised expression. Art for art’s sake is devalued and humanity’s voyage into the unknown stunted.
“Murder, poverty, crime; these things don’t concern me. What concerns me is having some guy’s name on my underwear”
Jack is captivated as his mentor furthers the doctrine. Tyler points out how our individualistic frame of mind means we lose care for social matters; we lack values. Amidst so much social pressure to conform we repress the feeling that the world isn’t right. Worse than this, society actually encourages us to be more psychopathic. Studies have suggested that a disproportionate amount of the financially successful have strong traits of functional psychopathy. Conversely, those who are most sensitive to atrocities carried out around the world are often ridiculed; consider the commonality of anti-vegan rhetoric. Our social system rewards psychopathy over empathy, so we numb ourselves with escapist activities, all the while living in mild depression. How many of us think about the impending doom of environmental catastrophe each day, yet recognise the gravity of the situation when we are confronted with it? How many of us consider the exploitation carried out by corporate interests when we wake up? Are these not more pressing events, really, than what new couch to buy? Like trauma victims, we dissociate from all the horror around us and pretend nothing is going on. We resemble groomed drug addicts accepting hits of heroin to turn a blind eye to abuse.
THE MODERN STRUGGLE
“Our great war is a spiritual war”
After they meet in Lou’s bar for the first time, Tyler instigates a fistfight with Jack. This is the birth of Fight Club. Over time, others join and Tyler uses it as a platform for his subversive rhetoric. He declares “our great war is a spiritual war” which encapsulates the underlying wisdom of Fight Club. Humanity is, unwittingly, engulfed in a spiritual war. The old, self-centred forces of Nietzsche’s ‘Will to Power’ battle the new, connected will of a less primitive, more spiritual form. Selfishness vs empathy. Materialism vs immaterialism. The satisfaction of visceral, primal urges vs a more subtle, deeper sense of wellbeing.
The Antidote
INDEPENDENCE
“Self-improvement’s masturbation, now self-destruction…”
There is a prescribed antidote to this social malaise, but it is less obvious than the critique as it’s not explicitly stated by Tyler. So we have to look at repeated themes.
Tyler Durden is hyper-masculine and impervious to social norms. He is self-destructive with regard to his social image- the egotistical (usually fake) self-representation that one presents to others. He says whatever he believes and has alpha confidence in his contrarian views. This is freedom of the mind through relief from social ambition. Why is this so important in Tyler’s philosophy? Well, because you have to be non-conformist if you want to walk the path of the maverick and discover the truth. This is the crucial first step in becoming the antidote to the current system. If you care too much about your image, you will be psychologically drawn to whatever helps you ‘fit in’ and that extends to party-line belief systems. Everything starts and ends with beliefs.
MASCULINITY
“Is that what a man is supposed to look like?”
Masculinity and its portrayal in modern times is a central theme in Fight Club. The film is very much about lost men gaining a sense of purpose. There is a telling scene in which Tyler and Jack mock the advertised depiction of an underwear model; “is that what a man is supposed to look like?”. They know that our perception of what it means to be masculine has been molded around the values (or lack of values) of an economics-based system. Organic masculinity resonates protection; a vanguard against evil, fortified in courage and a sense of righteousness. Seen this way, true masculinity is a threat to the ethically empty system that depends on abuse.
As such, actual courage is replaced by looking tough. Obedience and risk aversion are encouraged qualities when they can in fact be dangerous to the integrity of goodness. Instead of maturing character through hardship, the focus is on accumulating wealth and security. Rather than acting for the greater good, we are encouraged to adopt individualism; the pursuit of personal status and power. United we stand, divided we fall. If the first step of the resolution is adopting fluidity of mindset, the next is to connect with our natural states.
We are losing touch with both strong masculine and feminine essences. As we are subdued, this polarity subsides and we converge toward bland consumers, stripped bare of our connection to nature. We have become separated from our deeper selves, operating more on the level of superficial immediate feelings. We need to teach the next generation the necessity of being in tune with ourselves, as well as a responsibility to the world around us. We need a role in our community beyond a corporate one; social responsibility and hardship. Through this, we gain purpose and heal the existential pain that so commonly ails us.
DISCOMFORT OVER COMFORT
“What is a duvet?…. Comfort”
Tyler sleeps in a dilapidated, derelict house, embraces pain as a daily ritual, and condemns conventional luxuries, like televisions and sofas. His consternation with the modern world could be summed up quite well with this single concept; excessive comfort-seeking. “We’re a generation of men raised by women,” Tyler states, linking it with evolutionarily maternal traits. The suggestion is that due to a failure to exhibit, demonstrate, and teach true masculinity, we have become soft and lost our way.
In terms of self-discipline and strength of mind, things have deteriorated over the past few decades. Attention spans have been affected by new media forms and our ability to cope without stimulation has deteriorated rapidly. This is a critical point because knowing your deeper self depends upon sustained self-attuned attention. Meditation retreats require abstinence from distraction- a distinct contrast with today’s world of modern tech and media. The expectation of dopamine inducing entertainment has become borderline addictive.
But the matter extends beyond tech. It’s the inability to endure hardship in a culture of mollycoddling that is lamented. People travel to third world countries to ‘immerse’ themselves in the culture, soaking in the atmosphere from their 5 star hotel balcony. Most of us stick to what we’re familiar with, in thinking and behaviour, too afraid to live.
In contrast, the natural masculine state thrives on adrenaline-fuelled risk. With too much security we become meek, have no clear purpose, and become frustrated with our inauthentic lives.
As Tyler says, “how can you really know yourself if you’ve never been in a fight”. Perhaps physical fighting is a little extreme for most of us but the essence holds; valuing discomfort over comfort is where real personal development and self-knowledge begins. Individual physical survival is not a worthy enough standard anymore- the real struggle is for spiritual development and the survival of ideas.
Wim Hof (aka The Iceman) is a perfect modern-day example of this principle. An ordinary Dutchman who, after the tragic death of his wife, adopted a lifestyle of exposing himself to harsher and harsher cold conditions. These experiences forced him to attain an unheard-of level of connection with his body, similar to that claimed by meditation masters in the East. In 2007 he climbed Mount Everest topless and later proved he was able to control his autonomic nervous system- feats previously considered impossible by the scientific community. Through seeking discomfort he found a natural state of being, overturned scientific theory and rediscovered lost truths of the human condition.
“After fighting everything else in your life got the volume turned down. You could deal with anything”
This is a key insight from Jack. Having met Tyler and become a fighter, Jack’s character visibly changes. Workplace anxiety is replaced with a fearless self-confidence. He narrates the above thought as he hands over some papers to his manager, meeting his eye with visible disdain. Jack has transformed from a submissive underling, living in fear of artificial hierarchy to an irreverent maverick, able to judge his boss by his true character.
Today, we are so far removed from the ‘rites of passage’ traditions that would have formed a significant event in tribal life. Overcoming pain was an integral step in the progression toward manhood. Why is this necessary? Fear of pain is the weakness that power structures commonly exploit. Remove the extent of that fear and you diminish the control. Tribal traditions that force boys to undergo extreme acts of pain begin to make more sense in this context. You have to prove you can face extreme adversity because that will be necessary for your role as protector of the realm.
It’s also true that stressful events leave you less preoccupied with irrelevant details- the volume has been turned down on them. Keeping yourself in a progressively uncomfortable state maintains this effect. The message is; embrace the inner warrior and confront fears. You will feel more capable and alive and better able to live true to your core.
FUCK THE RULES
“The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club!”
We all know what the first and second rules of Fight Club are. But if you can’t talk about it, how can the club grow and spread its message? The only way is if some of the members disobey and invite others. The friends they bring are also likely to be rule breakers, by association. The genius of this catch 22 set up is that it necessarily creates a community of disobedient rebels who are united by an empowering shared principle: Fuck the rules.
Before meeting Tyler, Jack lived a submissive, disenfranchised life, strictly regulated by social norms. Tyler’s contempt for artificial stipulations of any kind is one of the most immediate aspects of his character and it soon rubs off on Jack. Independence of mind is another lost masculine trait. This comes back to the idea that blind obedience is dangerous. Rules often represent centralised control by those who are served by the prevailing power structure. Following them without consideration will only perpetuate the path we are heading in, solidifying it. Questioning the status quo and going against the grain allows us to act according to more authentic internal laws.
“I want you to hit me as hard as you can”
Beyond societal rule-breaking, the concept of rule-breaking can be extended to our biology. Primitive drives and the lack of control we have over them are to a large extent what fuels the system we are trapped in. This ties into the aforementioned ‘rites of passage’ idea; voluntary exposure to pain leads to inner strength and resilience. After their first meeting, Tyler takes Jack outside of Lou’s bar to put into practice his philosophical outlook. “I want you to hit me as hard as you can” is the line that first wakes Jack up out of his decades-long stupor. It has such an effect because it is so surprising; you are not supposed to want people to hit you, it’s against the ‘rules’. Yet here is Tyler, going against his biological drives of self-preservation and self-improvement.
Biology is pertinent when it comes to cause and effect too. It’s emotionally easier to blame external agents (be it the media or government) for the greed infused system we live in than to admit the issue ultimately stems from human nature. Power structures naturally develop and if anything, they tend to wield already existing drives within us, rather than creating them. Our own lack of personal control of these drives leaves them open for exploitation. This means if we want to change our personal lives and the social system, the duty to develop character lies not just with those in power but within us also.
Consumerism is driven to a large degree by our rampant competitive nature. Keynes, an influential economist from the 1930s predicted we’d be working half the hours we actually do by now because improved technology would allow us to. In fact, rather than work less, people just buy more. We have become better consumers instead of taking the opportunity to have more varied lives. This is another strong indication of how people in general help perpetuate the status quo. Just as we can over-ride the drive to eat certain foods (eg sugar), we can subdue attraction to power and wealth. Testing the rules of our own nature is about more than defense against abuse; it pertains to the root of the issue.
Tyler’s philosophy prescribes the need to transcend our social conditioning and to stop being enslaved by our biological conditioning. Fight it. Constantly testing the limits maintains our ability to rise above them.
PRESENCE
“Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life”
In due course, Tyler transforms Fight Club into something more than just fighting. His engaging speeches to the group serve as a prelude to the creation of Project Mayhem. He issues members of this project ‘homework’; acts of public provocation and subversive, anti-corporate vandalism.
During one escapade Tyler takes Jack to a convenience store and, without warning, pulls a gun on the cashier. Raymond is shaking with fear as Tyler demands to know what his true life goals are. Jack was shocked by this, but ‘shocking’ is exactly what the world needs right now.
This is an over-riding theme throughout the movie; the necessity for us to be jolted out of our robotic, sheltered modern-day existence. We must stop running away from our pain, we must feel it and let it guide us. Triggering Raymond’s survival instinct forced him to face the reality of death and thereby the potential of life. The same idea carries across to the other Project Mayhem homework assignments. They seem to be causing chaos for the sake of it but they’re really about metaphorically shaking people up out of their comfort induced malaise.
In fact, the central focal point of the movie, fighting, fits into this theme. Out of context, the underground fighting looks like mindless bravado- self-destructive behaviour borne of nihilistic resignation. But it’s more profound than that. It’s about gaining fearlessness and presence of mind. Think back to when you’ve had your fight or flight response triggered; you can’t help but become utterly attentive to present reality. This is the antidote. Only by forgetting the minor trivialities of your own life can you stop dissociating from the real problems of the world and become useful. Tyler Durden honours discomfort and pain as a way to gain such presence of mind; it is the route to salvation, not something to be avoided at all costs.
VIOLENCE
“He’s dead, they shot him in the head!”
“You wanna make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs”
During one of the Project Mayhem homework assignments, a member is shot and killed by the police. Jack is beside himself but Tyler takes it calmly: “You wanna make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs” he says. The risk of violence and death is part of the warrior’s path.
The influence of corporate power can be seen in the inconsistency of our general attitudes toward violence. By and large, violence is an abhorrent concept to the masses, even when it’s for the greater good; consider how only peaceful protest is applauded. Well-coordinated violent activism is arguably the most effective means for creating significant, positive systemic change, yet history indicates social violence has declined in recent centuries. This is convenient when physicality is the arena in which the outnumbered ruling elite, who play the biggest part in perpetuating the system, are weaker than the masses they attempt to subdue.
At the same time, we support political parties that routinely play a critical role in military-based mass murder, indirectly through weapons dealing, or directly through war. The contradiction in conventional thinking is glaring: Murder is a sheer necessity when carried out in support of power hierarchies, yet inherently evil if carried out to break them down.
It’s this aspect of Tyler’s viewpoint that ultimately leads to Jack opposing him. He is unable to follow Tyler’s philosophy to its logical conclusion.
PROJECT MAYHEM
“Do not fuck with us”
What is the macro effect implied to be when enough individuals exhibit presence of mind and fearlessness? Project Mayhem provides a clue- an army of fearless ubermensch (to take the Nietzschean term) who can overcome even their own drive for self-preservation to rebel against an abusive system through subversive activism. They recognise the power inherent in the masses; numbers. The project is not anarchist for the sake of it, it is an attempt to unplug people from the matrix, to shake society out of the drone-like state it is in. The final scenes of the movie centre around Tyler’s plan to blow up the buildings containing credit card records; the end goal being to erase debt, a crucial pillar of the economic system. This is Tyler/Jack acting out of his deep desire to right the wrongs of the world.
BUDDHISM
“We’re all dying, in the Tibetan Buddhist sense of the word”
Interestingly, the focus on shunning social status and becoming present creates a strong parallel with certain eastern philosophical doctrines. There are actually a couple of references to Buddhism in the film.
“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time”
One is the focus on temporality and how we’re in a constant state of decay. In Fight Club this notion can be regarded as another call to arms. Every minute we spend as drones is another minute of wasted precious life. Each day we seek comfort over personal development is another day we amalgamate with the abusive system.
“Losing all hope was freedom”
Another parallel is the idea of losing desire. The four noble truths of Buddhism state that desire is the root cause of all suffering and that we should therefore try to extinguish it. Tyler recognises self-centred hope as a hindrance to spiritual freedom and a means of control- it is our wanting to be rich and famous like the celebrities that shepherds us toward conveyor belt consumerism.
Let go of what you think you want to find what you truly need.
“Let’s evolve… Let the chips fall where they may”
In Lou’s bar it’s clear Jack is searching to be made ‘complete’ by his possessions. Tyler rebuts the underlying assumption, announcing “I say never be complete. I say let’s evolve. Let the chips fall where they may.” Tyler is without attachment to any given outcome. If it’s time for him to die, so be it. He is the ultimate wing artist; spontaneous, unplanned, and unpredictable. He just acts, just is. Does it strike you that someone who is not even afraid of death, like Tyler, can be easily controlled or intimidated? He is truly detached from the system and thereby a threat to it.
“You are not special. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else”
In one of his speeches to the Project Mayhem group, Tyler rejects the egoism of modern culture. One of the most powerful teachings found in Buddhism is the idea of oneness. In another dimension, perhaps, we are connected as one, spiritually. If this is so then our apparent manifestation as disconnected individuals in this physical realm is but an illusion. No given person is special, in the sense that we are all part of the same form. No you or I, just life. This ‘ridding of the ego’ is in direct opposition to the current social system and closely unites Tyler’s philosophy with the ancient East.
“This is the best moment of your life and you’re off somewhere missing it!”
If there is a key contrast between Buddhist methods and Tyler Durden’s, it’s encapsulated perfectly in the harrowing chemical burn scene. After his first meeting with Tyler, Jack is intrigued. He ditches his materialistic lifestyle and moves into the abandoned building Tyler resides in. Later on in the soap-making kitchen, without warning, Tyler grabs Jack and pours corrosive lye on his bare hand. The pain of his flesh searing is excruciating and Jack’s only recourse is to psychologically escape using meditation. At this, Tyler angrily admonishes him: “This is the best moment of your life and you’re off somewhere missing it!”. The divergence is clear. Whilst Buddhism aims to dissolve the ego through the cultivation of an internal mindful state, Tyler has a more brute force method; pain is not shunned, but embraced as a primal connector to the reality of death, and thereby life.
Beyond Nihilism
“I don’t want to die without any scars”
So how to summarise the ideas we’ve explored? The essence is that we are unhappy because we are born into a system, economic and social, that accentuates greed and has remained unchecked by wisdom or principle. There’s no real love and that lack of love from the society we live in is the source of our emptiness. The emptiness is not recognised and is portrayed as something we just have to live with. We exist like docile sheep, preoccupied with what everyone thinks of us. We are kept in this state through social conditioning, via advertising and mass media mind control as well as a reliance on our self-preservation instinct inhibiting us from striking out.
Tyler Durden’s philosophy highlights how modern civilisation is a hindrance to reconnecting with our natural, healthy state. He shows that the way out is to reject materialism, seek discomfort, be disobedient, and let go of egotistical desires. Furthermore, we must understand and challenge our biological nature, for it is ultimately this that must be controlled. Following this prescription cultivates self-knowledge, disillusionment, fearlessness, and presence of mind. The result is a deep sense of purpose and the freedom to begin an authentic life.
The philosophy is about individual re-birth, a pro-active means of self-control. But it’s also about turning the social tide away from harmful modern developments. Voluntary adversity allows us to find ourselves and discover meaning through fighting, metaphorically at least, for what we believe in. Consider William Wallace from Braveheart and his quest to resist destructive forces. “They may take our lives but they will never take our freedom” expresses how we always have the choice to resist or submit. He could have kept his head down and lived a comfortable life, but he didn’t and his life was as meaningful as any in history.
Ultimately, in line with Buddhist doctrine, Tyler’s teachings are about leaving egoism behind and evolving humanity to a state of spiritual resolution, through deep personal development.
Since the release of Fight Club, there has been a surge in activism. Significant movements such as Occupy, Extinction Rebellion, Antifa, BLM, Me Too, Greta Thunberg’s environmentalism, and covid related protests have all arisen in recent years. Rightly or wrongly, this kind of activism questions the cultural narrative and we have to remember- who else changes culture but those of us that act?
As a final note, the climax of the movie revolves around a fantastic plot twist; Tyler reveals he and Jack were the same person all along. They were dissociated personas of the same body. Tyler was the part of Jack that wanted to not care, have no fear, and be free of restraint. The very creation of Tyler in Jack’s mind indicates he was in dire need of a mentor. The key message here is where your mother/father/authority figures fail you, be your own guiding light. You don’t need to create a split personality alter ego, but you do need to be the leader to yourself, and perhaps others, that our society doesn’t provide.
Tyler’s philosophy is far from nihilistic then, as far as I see it. It’s actually incredibly profound and empowering. The surface level chaos is merely a ‘river of shit’ (ala Shawshank Redemption) to swim through to reach salvation. It’s a call to arms for us to save ourselves and to become the protectors we are meant to be, not just of our loved ones, but of society, of nature, and the world as a whole. | https://medium.com/@thesomethingwriter/the-deep-philosophy-of-tyler-durden-8990159b84f0 | ['The Something Writer'] | 2020-12-30 18:56:10.815000+00:00 | ['Fight Club', 'Tyler Durden', 'Buddhism', 'Philosophy', 'Discomfort'] |
I Don’t Get Too Attached to The Success of Any One Piece | I Don’t Get Too Attached to The Success of Any One Piece
You can’t control your audience. So move onto the next one instead of fixating.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Other writers have a lot of preferences, and I might just be weird, but a rule I have for myself is to not get too attached to the success of any one piece.
I put as much of myself into my writing and my personal pieces as much as anyone else. I put a lot of thought and a lot of effort, editing and craft into my pieces. I have articles that I read very quickly, and then articles I take hours if not days to write.
What I have learned is that once I have hit the “publish” button and released a piece into the stratosphere, I have very little control over how my writing is received. I have very little control over whether people read in the first place.
Sure, I can spam the messages of my friends and writing groups. But that doesn’t help because it’s just going to damage my credibility as a friend, and I’m going to just be that guy who spams other people with his blog links.
I wasn’t always good at this, but now, once I release a piece of my writing into the world, I let it go. I stop being attached. How it is received and the attention it garners stop becoming relevant, because I’ve become laser focused on something I have much greater control over:
The next one. Sure, I take breaks. I work. I live my life. I read my Bible and pray, but I don’t focus on how my piece does after it’s published. Do I give into human temptation to check? Yes, I absolutely do, like anyone else.
But the joy is in the writing. Where I make my success and focus on my craft is in the writing. The next piece beckons to me now more than my attachment to my latest piece of writing that I hope gets read, but sometimes am disappointed that it doesn’t.
Meredith Arthur asked me for her podcast today whether I had a piece I specifically wanted to share with the audience that I was particularly proud of. I had a lot of trouble answering that question because I don’t get too attached to any one piece, and I expressed that moving “onto the next one” has worked wonders for not only the quantity, but the quality of my writing.
You don’t become a better writer begging other people to read your writing. You become a better writer by living more, reading more, and writing more.
It’s important to me now to never stay stagnant — and fixating and being too attached to a single piece’s success is being stagnant to me. I used to do it a lot. I would refresh my pieces every 10 seconds to see if there was a new read — only to more often than not be disappointed.
You don’t control whether people read your work. Either they like it or they don’t. Either they click or they don’t. What you can control is what you write and how you write. You can’t force views and reads, but you can always write.
I have a lot of pieces that are duds, and some pieces that are hits. If I were to tell you I had a magic formula, I would be lying — some pieces take 30 minutes to write and go viral, while others I took days writing and barely got anyone to read. It happens. It doesn’t really make sense and there’s no rhyme or reason. I’m prouder of the ones that took days to write, even if no one read it. I’m the proudest of the pieces I wrote about my family and faith, even if no one reads them. Those are the pieces closest to home that I will always cherish.
But I would be lying if I said the reception of my pieces didn’t matter to me. At the same time, the reception isn’t something I can control.
To me, fixating and being attached to any one piece when you’re a blogger is like when basketball or soccer players argue with referees. What good is there in arguing with a referee? What can it possibly achieve that’s good? And why aren’t players focusing on the next play or getting back on defense?
So focus on the next play. Get back on defense. Stop arguing with the referees who made their call on the reception of your piece, whether you think it was deserved or not. Basketball players get a lot of unfair calls in any game — but they get unfair calls in their favor as much as they get unfair calls against them. Players get away with overt fouls all the time, it’s just a matter of whether you’re the beneficiary or the one who lost out.
Like foul calls in basketball, reception as a writer is not always fair and is prone to human error. So focus on the whole game instead of getting over-emotional about any one play, and in our case, any one piece. I don’t get over-attached to the success of any one piece, which doesn’t mean the piece didn’t mean something special to me, but that the success is defined by how I perceived it, not the audience.
You can control yourself. You can’t control your audience. So move onto the next one instead of fixating. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/i-dont-get-too-attached-to-the-success-of-any-one-piece-3016ea8d88f1 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-07-09 15:11:07.371000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Freelancing', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Self'] |
Four One-Minute Ways to Help You Be More Productive on Slack | I discovered these during my recent attempts to make Slack more usable. None of these requires configuring bots or adding heavy integrations, so after reading these articles you’ll be ready to use these tips in no time.
Keyword-based notifications
This one is by far the best power move that I discovered on Slack to this day.
How?
Click on your avatar in the top right corner of the Slack app Go to Preferences On the left, choose Notifications from the menu Go to My Keywords section Type in a comma-separated list of phrases that, when used by someone in a channel that you are a member of, should trigger a notification
Why?
I have so many channels on my list that it’s consistently a challenge for me to catch up on what’s going on in all of them. I have made amends with the fact that I won’t be able to stay up to date with all of them and still be able to do some meaningful work during my workday, unless I extend it to at least 12 or 16 hours.
On the other hand, I often go through that list and remove myself from a channel if it is outdated or not needed anymore, so the list I end up with is more or less the list I have to have. Not every conversation on these channels will be of interest to me, so to make sure I get notified about things that really matter to me, I’ve set up a list of keywords that includes:
Names of my current and upcoming projects
Name of team
My name
Name of the technologies unique to or heavily used by my team
Most characteristic keywords that correspond to any of the above
I try to keep the list as short as possible (to not get too many notifications about things that don’t bring much value) but when in doubt, I add a keyword and evaluate if it was needed later on. If I get spammed too much about it without much value, I would remove it from the list. | https://medium.com/swlh/four-one-minute-ways-to-help-you-be-more-productive-on-slack-38fb5a95b6eb | ['Bart Kowalczyk'] | 2020-12-04 18:00:23.669000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Communication Tools', 'Productivity', 'Workflow Automation', 'Slack'] |
Startup Career Fair Company List | Top Sponsor:
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Legends Fantasy League is hiring full-time Computer Science, Engineering and Design students. Make sure to check out their table at Startup Career Fair!
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Seoul Robotics is a dynamic 3D Perception AI startup founded in 2017 headquartered in Seoul, South Korea with a branch in Ann Arbor. They’re hiring full time, part-time, and internship positions with openings in Business Development, Robotics and engineering.
All Startups in attendance:
Click on the Startup Career Fair Icon above and check out the rest of our medium content for advice from recruiters on how to thrive at startups as well as in-depth company highlights.
Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions!
We can’t wait to see you this Friday at the Duderstadt on North Campus!
— MPowered and the SCF Team | https://medium.com/startup-career-fair/startup-career-fair-company-list-9ea1fdd4aa25 | ['Nate Fialkoff'] | 2020-02-05 17:39:23.108000+00:00 | ['Company', 'List', 'Startup Career Fair', 'Recruitment'] |
I Quit Sugar for 8 Weeks to See What Would Happen | Earlier this year I stumbled across a podcast episode in which Sarah Wilson, an Australian journalist, television presenter and author, talked about her cookbook I Quit Sugar. It is designed to take the readers on an 8-week sugar detox programme accompanied with suitable recipes for each stage.
I’ve been debating the How bad is sugar really? question for a long time (no, that’s not true — for a very long time). On some days I’m convinced it is horribly bad and on other days I think ‘oh well, if it makes you feel better after a hard day, then why not’.
So, I never really made it out of this cycle and went back and forth between these two — leaving me none the wiser. And most of all giving me a good excuse to never try a detox in the first place (smart, I know)!
And because I’m sceptical when people tell me that sugar might be harmful to my teeth and body (But it tastes so good!?!), naturally, I needed an ulterior motive. In my case, it was that I had been experiencing quite severe skin problems for almost three years (better to take action late than never, right?).
I found out that it was a skin condition called dermatographia causing incredibly itchy skin and severe swelling when I would dare to scratch any part of my body. Each of the books and articles I read confirmed that healing dermatographia is not straightforward and would most likely include testing a variety of approaches and combinations of things to see what works for my body.
Quitting sugar was one of the suggested strategies and it was what I needed to finally test what the outcome would be. | https://medium.com/curious/i-quit-sugar-for-8-weeks-to-see-what-would-happen-50c5f11b5a16 | ['Pia Barna'] | 2020-12-02 10:32:53.032000+00:00 | ['Reading', 'Sugar', 'Health', 'Books', 'Humour'] |
Contact 24*7 Hours for Book Emergency Medical Air Ambulance Services from Surat to Patna | Surat is one of the most sought after cities in Gujarat, it has something for everyone. From culture and history to food and nightclubs, the city of Surat in Gujarat, India has a lot to offer. Care Hospital, Anand Hospital, Mahavir Hospital, BAPS Pramukh Swami Hospital, Apple Hospital, etc. are some of the finest hospitals in Surat and has been serving its people with great potential. Well many times and often some Medical Cases do come to the hospital wherein a patient needs to be transferred to different cities in India for better treatment progression and Quick Medical Relief.
Thus if you are in need of emergency do call Hifly ICU Air Ambulance Service from the above-mentioned and other as we are easily accessible from any part of the Surat ad Gujrat. Air Ambulance Service from Surat to Patna easily is accessible 24x7 hours along with with Round the Clock assistance service. Thus, be it any part of India apart from Surat you can book Hifly ICU Air Ambulance in Surat by calling or sending email to Hifly ICU anytime, day or night.
What makes HIFLY ICU one of the most trusted Medical Repatriation Companies?
The biggest reason we are so reliable is our extensive network, which makes it possible for us to get you to the desired hospital or at home back. Whether you want to be repatriated to a world-class hospital in Patna or to your home, Hifly ICU Air Ambulance Service in Delhi, Ranchi, Mumbai, Chennai and other major cities within India has the essential resources to offer you a secure Bed to BED service along with international Scoop Stretcher, Wheel Chair, etc.
The Hifly ICU Air Ambulances are outfitted with stretchers, and all Advanced Life Support and Basic Life Support equipment along with the emergency Medicals, for the onboard patient that may require throughout the journey. Hifly ICU offers its medical emergency services throughout India and worldwide via chartered and commercial airplane. The selection of the aircraft totally depends upon the distance to be covered, patient’s conditions and type of care the patients require on their patient and numerous other factors.
Hifly ICU Air Ambulance Service in Patna offers professional, dedicated care to patients as well as to their family members as the patient travel to the referred hospital or medical center. Our team compassionately will also take care of all the paperwork and formalities required to reach you to the desired hospital within a short span of time. Thus if, for Emergency Medical Repatriation from Surat to Patna or to any other cities in India call Hifly ICU Air Ambulance service at +91–8448135593, or +91–9319024809 and avail their exceptional medical emergency transfer services.
Content Source: Whom to Call for Emergency Medical Repatriation from Surat to Patna? | https://medium.com/@Hiflyicuambulance/contact-24-7-hours-for-book-emergency-medical-air-ambulance-services-from-surat-to-patna-76da226526e3 | ['Hifly Icu Air Ambulance Service'] | 2019-07-10 10:57:03.645000+00:00 | ['Air Ambulance Services', 'Medical', 'Air Ambulance', 'Health'] |
How Alexey Navalny survived Novichok | How Alexey Navalny survived Novichok
The Lancet published a timeline of the clinical course of Alexey Navalny's illness. He is a prominent opposition leader in Russia, after recovering over a long period of time in Germany, Navalny returned home and was immediately thrown in jail.
Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash
Clinical timeline
On Aug 20, 2020
A 44-year-old previously healthy man became confused 10 min after boarding a flight in Russia. He vomited, collapsed, and became unconscious. The same day the patient had received atropine in the intensive care unit in Omsk, Russia.
31 hours later
German air ambulance medical crew had access to Navalny. The patient had a heart rate of 44 beats per min, a body temperature of 34,4°C, wide pupils. He did not react to external light, had intermittent muscle spasms. The treatment administered was sedation (propofol), lung ventilation with oxygen.
47 hours later
The patient was transferred by a German air ambulance. The patients’ condition slightly improved, with a slight heart rate normalization of 58 beats per min. Sedation was continued.
55 hours later
The patient arrived at the German clinic Charité deeply comatose. Initially, his heart rate slightly improved; however, the improvement did not last. His heart rate plunged to 33 beats per min. Body temperature was 33,5°C; he experienced excessive sweating and was not reactive to light; body spasms continued. Laboratory tests demonstrated a decreased level of pseudocholinesterase. The patient was started on atropine and obidoxime.
56 hours later
Within an hour of targeted antidote therapy, the patient cholinergic signs returned to normal.
80 hours later
The medical team stopped obidoxime administration. Atropine was continued for ten days.
120 hours later
Navalny developed a fever and was treated by a cooling system for nine days. He still exhibited muscle spasms, mostly in the muscles of the throat and abdomen. His sedation was continued for 15 days. Examination showed the dysfunction of neuromuscular transmission typical for cholinesterase inhibition. The patient was breathing via tracheostomy at that time.
On day 10
The patient’s body started to normalize the level of pseudocholinesterase. It’s value reached normal on day 20. Hemoglobin level significantly decreased, the patient was tested positive for multidrug-resistant bacterial infection.
On day 20
The normal level of Navalny’s pseudocholinesterase recovered.
On day 24
The patient’s lungs’ mechanical ventilation was gradually discontinued.
On day 26
Navalny gradually recovered from delirium and was discharged to a regular ward.
On day 33
A neurological examination showed a tremor. Neuropsychological testing in the Russian language showed subtle impairments in processing speed and verbal fluency, which had fully resolved three weeks later.
On day 55
Navalny was discharged from intensive care and followed a rehabilitation program for a period of 5 months.
On January 17, 2021
Fully restored and rehabilitated by German doctors, Navalny returns to Russia.
On January 22, 2021
Navalny is experiencing a falling vision of an unknown etiology in the Russian jail after surviving a nerve agent attack. | https://medium.com/@andeveaux/navalnys-illness-4459d0629295 | ['Anna Deveaux'] | 2021-01-25 15:14:16.505000+00:00 | ['World', 'Politics', 'Navalny', 'Russia', 'Germany'] |
How LinkedIn, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and Netflix are Solving Data Management and Discovery for Machine Learning Solutions | How LinkedIn, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and Netflix are Solving Data Management and Discovery for Machine Learning Solutions
The tech giants have build unique architectures to manage datasets in large scale machine learning solutions.
I recently started a new newsletter focus on AI education. TheSequence is a no-BS( meaning no hype, no news etc) AI-focused newsletter that takes 5 minutes to read. The goal is to keep you up to date with machine learning projects, research papers and concepts. Please give it a try by subscribing below:
When comes to machine learning, data is certainly the new oil. The processes for managing the lifecycle of datasets are some of the most challenging elements of large scale machine learning solutions. Data ingestion, indexing, search, annotation, discovery are some of the aspects required to maintain high quality datasets. The complexity of these challenges increase linearly with the size and number of the target datasets. While it is relatively easy to manage training datasets for a single machine learning model, scaling that process across thousands of dataset and hundreds of models can become nothing short of a nightmare. Some of the companies at the forefront of machine learning innovation such as LinkedIn, Uber, Netflix, Airbnb or Lyft have certainly experienced the magnitude of this challenge and they have built specific solutions to address it. Today, I would like to walk you through some of those solutions that can serve as an inspiration in your machine learning journey.
High quality machine learning requires high quality datasets and those are not very easy to produce. As machine learning evolves, the need for tools and platforms that automate the lifecycle management of training and testing datasets is becoming increasingly important. Somewhat paradoxically, machine learning frameworks have evolved several orders of magnitude faster than the corresponding data management toolset. While today we have dozens high quality development frameworks that incorporate the latest research in deep learning disciplines, the platforms for managing the lifecycle of the datasets powering machine learning models are still in its infancy. To solve that challenge, fast growing technology companies like Uber or LinkedIn have been forced to build their own in-house data lifecycle management solutions to power different groups of machine learning models. Let’s take a look at how they did it.
LinkedIn’s Data Hub
Data Hub is a recent addition to LinkedIn’s data analytics stack. The core focus on LinkedIn’s Data Hub is to automate the collection, search and discovery of metadata related to datasets as well as other entities such as machine learning models, microservices, people, groups etc. Specifically, Data Hub was designed to achieve four specific goals:
Modeling: Model all types of metadata and relationships in a developer friendly fashion. Ingestion: Ingest large amount of metadata changes at scale, both through APIs and streams. Serving: Serve the collected raw and derived metadata, as well as a variety of complex queries against the metadata at scale. Indexing: Index the metadata at scale, as well as automatically update the indexes when the metadata changes.
To enable the aforementioned capabilities, Data Hub a state-of-the-art technology stack that includes several frameworks developed internally at LinkedIn. For instance, all metadata constructs stored in Data Hub are modeled using the Pegasus data schema language which was incubated by LinkedIn years ago. Similarly, the APIs powering Data Hub are based on LinkedIn’s Rest.li architecture for highly scalable RESTful services. LinkedIn’s data storage technologies such as Expresso or Galene are also used to store the metadata representations in ways that can enable diverse use cases such as search or complex relationship navigations. To abstract those different types of storage, Data Hub uses a set of generic Data Access Objects (DAO), such as key-value DAO, query DAO, and search DAO. This allow to use Data Hub with different underlying storage technologies.
The robust backend architecture of LinkedIn’s Data Hub is complemented with a simple user interface that enables the search and discovery of metadata elements. | https://medium.com/dataseries/how-linkedin-uber-lyft-airbnb-and-netflix-are-solving-data-management-and-discovery-for-machine-2361a8623aa8 | ['Jesus Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-11 15:58:21.690000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Thesequence'] |
Be prepared for your Eagle Scout board of review | It’s the pinnacle of Scouting; the top of the mountain. The Eagle Scout rank takes years to attain and is the highest honor a Boy Scout can achieve. Ask any scout and they’ll tell you they aspire to reach Eagle. Yet, historically less than five percent of all Boy Scouts reach the goal.
The top prize is difficult to garner, but not impossible. By design, boys grow into it, step-by-step; like a mountain ascent, they conquer one challenge after another until they reach the top. After years of effort, experience and achievement, the Eagle candidate must pass his Eagle board of review; a final check-and-balance preceding the prize. Akin to a job interview, the aspiring Eagle candidate presents his portfolio of achievements to a panel of adult volunteers from all walks of Scouting. While it may seem daunting and intimidating, the board of review is made easier with a little preparation and planning. Here are some tips for the Eagle candidate:
Recite
The advancement committee will ask you to open your review with the Pledge of Allegiance, Scout Oath, Scout Law and Outdoor Code. Be flawless, confident and clear as you recite them. Practice ahead of time, in front of family and friends.
Uniform
It’s not the day to forget your belt. The advancement committee expects you to be in full uniform. Show up out of uniform and it is possible that the committee chairperson might end the board of review before it even begins. If you are unclear about uniform requirements and badge placement, refer to BSA’s uniform inspection sheet or check with your Scoutmaster ahead of time.
Documentation
Be prepared to boast about your accomplishments. Organize and display letters of recommendation, merit badge paperwork, and your Eagle project workbook in a manner that is easy for the committee to review. In most cases, the advancement committee will take the opportunity to review it before the board of review, so first impressions count.
Practice
The committee will ask you questions so they can evaluate your readiness, understanding and passion for Scouting. You won’t have family in the room to throw you a lifeline. Be prepared for the interview by anticipating the questions they will ask and practice your answers out loud. The committee may ask about your Eagle project, religious affiliation, character, current events, and camping, among others.
Rest
Get plenty of rest the night before your board of review. You need to be on your toes during the review. If you are not well-rested it will show in your body language and the committee might mistakenly believe you’re simply disinterested and not enthusiastic.
If you would like to receive future Boy Scouts of America news directly to your email, click on the SUBSCRIBE button at the top of this article.
Originally published by Chuck Douros, National Boy Scouts Examiner, Examiner.com | https://medium.com/chuck-douros/be-prepared-for-your-eagle-scout-board-of-review-a56e8382504a | ['Chuck J Douros'] | 2017-12-27 22:58:41.409000+00:00 | ['Eagle Scout', 'Boy Scouts', 'Life', 'Web Content'] |
Awake | I believe I have something special, something that makes me stick out, Ive felt that way since I was a little girl. I wanna make this world a better place. This human experience should not be caught up in the ways of greed and hidden truths.. pain has been bigger than light and love these days. Has it always been like this or am I just wise enough to see the constant cycle we are placed to see and accept? Deep down we all know this isn't the way life is supposed to be. We shouldn’t pay to live nor suffer in a world thats not even ours “the land of the free”. Ive been called crazy for not settling for these false hopes and societies ways of being. I know there is more than what we are seeing. We need to WAKE UP. As we begin to wake technology only gets stronger, its just another drug so that the powerful wont become powerless. It sucks out the authenticity of just being. Think, Breath, Meditate fight for your soul peel off those layers of whats expected and be whats unexpected thats the beauty of being you, Truly. | https://medium.com/@nessamae720/awake-caad993d8736 | [] | 2020-12-21 00:36:05.254000+00:00 | ['Beauty', 'Self Love Poetry', 'Alone', 'Finding Yourself', 'Authenticity'] |
Keep It Simple-Management Lessons from the Movie “Sully” | Focused Mindset
The movie is about the extraordinary story of how Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger expertly piloted 155 people to safety in an emergency crash landing on the Hudson River. A bird strike had incapacitated both of the plane’s engines causing the emergency landing. This was one rare plane crash that ended positively.
Lesson 1: Focus on the NOW
In his parting words, the man who trained young Sully to fly said: “Whatever happens, just fly the plane.” When the plane was hit by an unforeseen situation, Sully had to wrap his head around the reality of the situation and made decisions quickly. He reduces the problem down to its basics, at that moment, Sully only cared about three things: altitude, airspeed, and the angle of attack, and took a snap judgment to land in the river.
Lesson 2: Reduce Complex Situations to the Simple
When faced with complexity, there is great value in identifying what is most important, here saving lives. Our job as leaders is to make the complicated simple. The hard truth is most leaders go through life doing what’s right in front of them, and not preparing, or bracing, for all the impacts ahead. In business, as in life, less is more. When you keep it simple, it makes “bracing for impact” easier, and it helps you prepare for, lead through, and recover from disruption.
Lesson 3: Give Credit
Though the media and the world treated him like a celebrity, his first words were: “This was a team effort and everyone did their jobs”. As a true leader, he passed on the credit to his team which stood through him.
Though the media and the world were treating him like a celebrity, his first words were: “This was a team effort and everyone did their jobs”. As a true leader, he passed on the credit to his team which stood through him. | https://medium.com/@kkailashkarthik/keep-it-simple-management-lessons-from-the-movie-sully-a64be92d1417 | ['Karthikeyan K'] | 2021-05-20 11:02:43.756000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Decision Making', 'Teamwork', 'Focus'] |
Deep Roots. | I am a brahmin from Rajasthan who has been brought up to put the family first. The only time I didn’t do that was when I chose to marry a Punjabi from New Delhi. For those who don’t seem to get the difference, watch “Two States” ya! (XD) I thought that it’s just a movie that cannot be applied to me, and I even made my boyfriend (now fiance :P) watch it with me. And now I am shocked to see that resemblance (it’s funny because it’s true (sobs in the corner) XD).
Photo by Giorgio Parravicini on Unsplash
(This picture is to keep all the stereotypical happy with their imagination LOL).
Apart from the cultural gap due to the different religions we follow, we observed the difference in thought-process. I have seen people in my house chasing the family traditions. Now that I look at these things, I feel that we weren’t grown up to chase after the world, but just our people. The only problem is that I have no idea whether it’s right or not.
I am rooted in a small town in Rajasthan, where we don’t need a television for news, we all know each other (not that we don’t have televisions, we just prefer to call it a stupid box and catch up with people). So my wedding was anyway a big deal. It is no less than an event of the decade. But, the loveliest part about families is that they always keep their children’s wishes above their own. | https://medium.com/@mansipareek/deep-roots-91cd10d2b59f | [] | 2021-01-21 03:28:45.566000+00:00 | ['Weddings', 'Marriage', 'Religion', 'Love', 'Roots'] |
Ten Reasons Why You Should Consider Dental Implants for Missing Teeth | Tired of damaged or missing teeth? Are you facing problem while chewing or biting? You deserve to smile again, and dental implants will help you do that. Some people may also use dental implants to straighten teeth that are crooked or teeth that are not responding to orthodontics.
If you want a solution that replaces your teeth without requiring support from your remaining ones, dental implants are a better solution. Implant dentistry is the second oldest dental profession; oral surgery being the oldest. Dental implants are artificial tooth roots permanently implanted in the jawbone to provide secure support for everything from a single replacement tooth to implant-supported partial or full dentures.
There are multiple benefits of Dental Implants as Tooth Replacement. To name a few:
· A high success rate (above 97% for 10 years)
· Offer permanent solution
· Restore proper chewing capability
· Can last for a lifetime with proper care
· Prevent bone loss as it stimulates natural bone growth
· Reduce risk of caries and endodontic problems of adjacent teeth
· Help keep missing tooth gap free of gum disease
· Prevent facial sagging
· Decrease sensitivity of adjacent teeth
· Easy to take care with brushing and flossing
· Boost confidence and self esteem
In this procedure, a titanium post will be implanted under the gums and secured to the jawbone. Over the course of several months, usually three to six months after surgery, the post and bone will fuse together, forming the stable base for the new restoration. This creates a durable root system for your new tooth to be attached to. Dental implants look, behave, feel, and function exactly like natural teeth. You can eat what you like, be active, and enjoy life without ever worrying about your replacement tooth or teeth.
In most cases, anyone healthy enough to undergo a routine dental extraction or oral surgery can be considered as a good candidate for a dental implant. One should have healthy gums and enough bone to hold the implant. If you have lost bone density, your jawbone may no longer be thick enough for an implant. Think of it in the same way as if you were building a piece of furniture. The wood you were using would need to be thick enough for the screw. Otherwise, it would not be able to screw in all the way. A bone grafting procedure can increase the density of your jawbone so that the titanium post is a perfect fit. An individualized restoration treatment plan addressing your specific needs should be prepared by trained professionals. A skilled dentist will then custom make your artificial tooth taking into consideration the shape, contour and colour your natural teeth. The tooth will be permanently affixed to the jaw, matching the contour of the surrounding teeth. Furthermore, the ceramic crown is custom made to match your other teeth, both in colour and shape. Thus, your implanted tooth or crown will be Indistinguishable from adjacent teeth.
Life with dental bridges and dental implants can be far more convenient than it is when wearing dentures. Dentures need to be removed every night for cleaning and soaking. This can be inconvenient and even embarrassing. Simultaneously, dentures can become loose when eating or speaking, which can be worrisome when going out to eat or attending a public event. None of these problems exist when you replace teeth with a fixed solution.
The goal is to provide you with a tooth replacement solution that is beautiful, natural-looking, and will work for your lifestyle. Dental implants help you look and feel better, regain your self-esteem, and have better quality of life. If you want to know more about dental implants or want to see if you are the right candidate for it, feel free to contact Kelowna Dental Centre on 250–860–1414. You deserve a healthy beautiful smile! | https://medium.com/@kelownadentalcentre1/ten-reasons-why-you-should-consider-dental-implants-for-missing-teeth-8e9d08a4f702 | [] | 2021-10-27 21:00:35.064000+00:00 | ['Dentistry', 'Dental Treatment', 'Restorative Dentistry', 'Dental Care', 'Dental Implants'] |
New Businesses Want to Help You Invest Your Retirement in Crypto | The skyrocketed price and attention paid to cryptocurrencies in recent months has undoubtedly fueled general interest in investing in digital currencies.
While many consumers are directly converting USD on digital currency exchanges like Coinbase or Kraken, most Americans don’t have more than a few hundred dollars in their savings accounts. For many, their wealth is stored in their homes, 401(k)s, or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA).
Some people are even taking out mortgages on their houses to fund crypto investments. But, because cryptocurrencies are treated like property by the U.S. government, individuals can also opt to invest in Bitcoin through the funds locked up in their IRAs.
One cryptocurrency custodian, CoinIRA, was launched earlier this year by parent company Goldco, a firm that helps consumers exchange stocks and bonds for investments in precious metals like gold and silver in their retirement accounts. Goldco touts precious metals as a means to shore up against the dollar crashing in a potential financial crisis.
Now that consumers have the option to diversify their self directed IRA through investment in cryptocurrencies, Morgan Steckler, CoinIRA’s vice president of sales, said they are focusing on educating people about the new digital assets.
“It’s a disruptive technology. Digital currency will do to money what email did to the post office or what Netflix did to Blockbuster or what Amazon did to Sears. This is not going to go anywhere,” Steckler said.
Kirk Chisholm, wealth manager at Innovative Advisory Group, an investment advisory firm specializing in self-directed IRAs, advises investors to do their own due diligence or consult with an IRA expert before investing a portion of their IRA with these custodians.
“I would suggest, if somebody is buying cryptocurrencies inside of their retirement account, they get their own separate opinion,” Chisholm said.
But, when done right, Chisholm said he does see cryptocurrencies as an interesting investment. While volatile, Chisholm said investing in cryptocurrencies is something like going to the casino. Yes, you have the potential to lose all of your money, but you also have the opportunity to make 3, 5, or 10X your money.
As with any investment, Chisholm said consumers shouldn’t invest any more money than they can reasonable stand to lose.
CoinIRA offers digital currency IRAs in three risk portfolios: conservative, moderate, or aggressive. The conservative bundle is 50% Bitcoin, 41% Ethereum, and 3% each in Ether classic, Litecoin and Ripple.
CoinIRA partners with Xapo, a Bitcoin wallet allowing consumers to view the exact address of their cryptocurrency and monitor its performance any time of day. If at some point a consumer changes their mind about holding cryptocurrency as part of their IRA portfolio, they can call CoinIRA. Steckler said the cryptocurrency will be converted back to a cash asset with the consumer’s original investment firm within one business day. Following current IRA regulation, no fees will incur unless a consumer decides to withdraw their money from their IRA altogether. CoinIRA declined to say how much they charge customers for their custodial services, stating that “fees vary for each investor and are dependent on several factors.”
Within the last year, several companies have surfaced marketing the ability to invest in a “Bitcoin IRA”, including BitIRA, IRA Financial Group, and HonestBlock. This surge in interest is shaping the products offered by not only fintechs looking to capitalize on the opportunity or excited about the technology, but traditional financial institutions looking to service consumer demands. In August, Fidelity introduced the capability for consumers to view their cryptocurrency wallet on Coinbase alongside their other IRA investments.
It looks like the demand for education about buying and investing in cryptocurrencies could represent and stimulate further mainstream adoption. | https://medium.com/blackbox/new-businesses-want-to-help-you-invest-your-retirement-in-crypto-341b0990499e | ['Cadence Bambenek'] | 2018-02-16 01:14:22.705000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin'] |
GM Won’t Serve As the Electric Pickup Manufacturing Arm of Startup Nikola | In statements today, GM said it will sell fuel cells to Nikola for its electric semi-truck, but it omitted any mention of its abortive September agreement to engineer a pickup truck for the startup. At the same time, Nikola’s shares also plunged after Nikola said it will be canceling the electric Badger pickup.
In September, GM said it would engineer and manufacture the Badger, plus take a $2 billion, 11% stake in Nikola. The deal would have provided billions in cash to GM. But it seemed to demonstrate an insecure GM, relegated to the labor pool while Nikola basked in GM’s engineering, whose much-promoted Ultium battery system would be part of the deal.
The deal began to get shaky after a short seller’s report alleged fraud at Nikola, and the startup’s founder, Trevor Milton, resigned. Since then, GM has conducted high-profile news events heralding its own coming electric Hummer pickup. | https://themobilist.medium.com/gm-wont-serve-as-the-electric-pickup-manufacturing-arm-of-startup-nikola-290591f6b0fa | ['Steve Levine'] | 2020-11-30 16:47:46.341000+00:00 | ['Tesla', 'Electric Vehicles'] |
What You Need to Know About Transitioning — Changing Occupations or Professions | “We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore” — Andre Gide
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
More and more people are transitioning occupations, changing jobs, or moving into new professions. With the change of a new year, a new location, or new status we seek opportunities to start over, explore new opportunities, or seek career changes. This is a major transition for many. It is unfamiliar. In fact, it can be terrifying; however, you can create new and meaningful experiences while earning a living. Do not expect rainbows and sunshine in the modern business landscape. Sure, you can become successful, but you must strategically position yourself for your future.
A few simple mistakes could cause you considerable challenges that can sink your time and effort investments. Are you an aspiring entrepreneur who wishes to step foot in the business landscape? Are you seeking employment in the public sector? Are you seeking employment in the private sector? If the answer is yes to any of these options, you will need to prepare to adapt and evolve, from what you did to what you are going to do.
The Importance of Change
Success will be difficult without evolving into today’s business setting. Sure, some people get lucky, but you can only ride luck for so long. Every aspiring transitioning professional must gain expertise in their chosen field and acquire the knowledge, skills, or abilities to succeed within the ecosystem of their chosen field. The economic and social environments rarely remain the same and continue to change at a rapid pace.
Sure, there are external forces that are outside of our control, but there are a number of areas where we can focus to get the most out of our efforts. For those wondering about what we can do to get ahead in the business world, we can be resilient, more flexible, and most importantly, open to change. You must mentally prepare for rejection.
Staying Ahead by Being Responsive
It should be clear that people today have many options. It is a primary reason why people should focus on retaining their current social networks while building leads to new social networks. During the transition period, the last thing you want to do is lose a potential advocate for your cause. Fortunately, you can avoid this by affiliating with professional organizations, civic groups, or volunteer work.
Working with professional organizations, civic groups, and volunteer work can involve focusing on digitization like creating the organization's website or social media page, or being present at meetings or other forums. Doing so will maximize your exposure, provide organizational value, and help meet their organizational demands.
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
A New Working Environment Can be Challenging
Claiming that the private sector is similar to the public sector would not be a far stretch at all. Why? Because like the public sector, the private sector faces many of the same challenges. Customer demands, funding, regulations, marketing, and competition — it is all there if you look hard enough. These factors evolve, just like the environment around us, and when they do, you must be resilient and adapt to the conditions. Any professional who fails to react to uncertainty finds themselves in a difficult position and may struggle to find their place.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it” — Abraham Lincoln
Actionable Steps Transitioning Professionals Can Take to Succeed
While there is no limit to the number of ways you can succeed in your occupational or career transition, following the tips mentioned below is a must for short and long-term success.
1. Looking for Trends
Many professionals tend to follow the same ideologies and strategies for long periods. Sure, sticking to a game plan can be a good thing, but sometimes, it simply is not sufficient. As mentioned time and time again, you need to be open to change if things don’t go your way. Do not be so focused on one thing that you miss a better opportunity. Always keep an eye out for the changing professional trends and adapt to stay ahead.
2. Learning from Mistakes
Blaming external factors, events, and various events for your loss or setback is never the correct approach. Instead, it is better to conduct a self-assessment and rightfully link your setback to a lack of knowledge and experience. It will help you stay informed or current on the business landscape, this includes allowing yourself and your social networks to evolve.
3. Take Action
Mistakes happen, and they are a part of every successful transitioning professional's journey. However, what makes the transition successful is your ability to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Always take time to reflect on the actions, events, or statements that led to your setback and take action by working on strategies to avoid them again.
Photo by Jeremy Beadle on Unsplash
Final Thoughts
Transitioning professionals often focus on loss. The loss can be characterized as a loss of camaraderie, loss of status, loss of options, etc. However, you should focus on new opportunities, expanding social networks, and generating increased income and benefits.
“When one door closes another opens but all too often there is a long hallway in between” ―Rick Jarow | https://medium.com/@drstevendcarter/what-you-need-to-know-about-transitioning-changing-occupations-or-professions-3037e55a2c12 | ['Steven D. Carter'] | 2020-12-28 11:32:44.947000+00:00 | ['Change', 'Jobs', 'Career Change', 'Occupation'] |
Alan Partridge’s Rover 200 fascia control system | Alan Partridge’s Rover 200 fascia control system
Everyday Interaction Design Classics #5
This is perhaps a little different to other entries in the highly occasional Everyday Interaction Design Classics series. I’m Alan Partridge Series One DVD extras had a ‘quite superb’ additional play-let, entirely improvised between Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge) and Felicity Montagu (his personal assistant, Lynn). Within which, Alan, perhaps unwittingly though you never know, gives Lynn a short lesson in creating a hierarchy of alerts within interaction design. That’s not quite how he put it, but …
The scene is the Linton Travel Tavern car-park. Alan is bored. He’s called Lynn into the car for some “paid conversation”. He’s further exasperated as he doesn’t know why his Rover 200 makes an alarm noise when he turns the key in the ignition. For the last ten minutes, he’s been exploring the possible reasons for the alarm. Lynn’s suggestions serve only to force Alan to explain a few things about in-car control systems, both on the ideal way to articulate non-urgent alerts which don’t serve to distract from primary tasks and when to recognise that a non-essential feature is not worth building alerts for … | https://medium.com/a-chair-in-a-room/alan-partridges-rover-200-fascia-control-system-4c114d5f8824 | ['Dan Hill'] | 2020-09-29 19:59:56.257000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Interaction Design', 'Humor', 'Cars', 'UX'] |
8 Best Practice Tips for Multilingual Websites — Ethnolink | As we all know, Australia is a vastly culturally and linguistically diverse country, with 21.7% of Australians speaking a language other than English at home.
In the Australian context, multilingual websites are an under-utilised resource for governments, businesses and organisations to share information with the wider community.
As Ethnolink’s CEO and Founder, Costa Vasili recently shared in his webinar Best Practice Tips for Multilingual Websites, multilingual websites are the great tool for connecting with your diverse target audience.
And with his best practice tips, professionally translating your website into different languages doesn’t have to break the bank…
Tip #1 Choose the right approach
There are 3 main approaches that you can take to translate a website, with each approach having merit in different circumstances.
Depending on your content, budget, and target audience(s), you may consider the following common approaches:
Machine translation Translation of the entire website Create a ‘mini-site’ for each language
Approach 1: Machine Translation
Machine translation is a very tempting, fast and low-cost option which is becoming more and more common, particularly with small business and local governments.
Machine translation can be implemented on a website with an extension such as Google Translate, however, it is important to be aware of the risks.
Machine translation should not be implemented on websites that contain high risk information, such as health information, where translation errors could have significant implications on the user.
Pros of machine translation for websitesCons of machine translation for websites
No quality control
High risk of mistranslations/misinformation
Machines cannot always tell the context of the content, resulting in incorrect word use
The use of machine translation alone is also not aligned with several Federal and state government guidelines and policies:
Australian Government agencies should engage NAATI-credentialed translators to post-edit machine translation output.
(Source: Australian Government Language Services Guidelines ).
Approach 2: Translation of the entire website
The most comprehensive approach to website translation is to translate all website materials and text so the message that you want to convey will be easily understood by users.
In an ideal world, this is the recommended approach for all websites, however, for various reasons, particularly budgets, this approach is not always plausible.
Pros of translating an entire websiteCons of translating an entire website
The most expensive option, especially for sites with lots of content
It takes a lot of work, time and planning to implement
It’s an unrealistic option for most organisations due to cost
Approach 3: Create a page / “mini-site” per language
This approach is a great middle ground solution which is cost-effective and still provides professional, in-language information to users in a user-friendly way.
Pros to a mini-site per language
More cost-effective than translating the entire site
Provides key information to communities, in their preferred language
Cons to a mini-site per language
Costa’s recommendations for website translate approaches
Do not integrate machine translation into your website, unless you plan on having a professional translator review and edit the translation to bring it up to a professional standard.
Unless you have a very large budget and the time to invest in translating your full website, c onsolidate all key information in one place and translate that into a select few languages.
Think carefully about the information that you want culturally and linguistically diverse users of your website to be able to access, and in what languages. Take the time to plan this strategy and engage experienced language professionals to roll it out.
Tip #2 Localize, don’t just translate
Image localization really matters. Aside from the written content on your website, you should also make sure that the visual content is relevant and appropriate for your audience.
Culturally adapted imagery is an essential part of localization and may make or break how your translated website is perceived by culturally and linguistically diverse audiences.
It would be a real shame if you went to the effort of translating your whole website, only to forget about the visuals.
Costa’s recommendation for website localization
Get expert advice or consult community members who speak the language you are translating into, to ensure that the images on your site are culturally appropriate.
Tip #3 Get the technical implementation right
A good multilingual website is user-friendly.
From a technical point of view, you need to consider how the translated text will be implemented, especially if you are working with non-Latin script languages and/or bi-directional text.
There are considerations to make about HTML/XML, Hreflang tags, unicode and redirection strategies. Sounds complicated? It won’t be to a professional.
Therefore, you will need the help of web developers who have expertise on the topic and have experience working with different languages. Alternatively, your translation provider that has a broad technical understanding of translating websites.
Costa’s recommendation for technical implementation
Ensure that your translation provider has a sufficient technical understanding of translating websites, to ensure it is done correctly.
Best practice is to engage your translation provider to implement the text in your content management system (CMS) and also get the translators to conduct an in-context review of the translated text on your website before it goes live.
Tip #4 Think about your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
So, you’ve invested the time and money into creating a user-friendly multilingual website, great! But it’s no use if no one can find it… that’s where SEO comes in.
You want your website to be on the first of google’s result page rather than on the second or third. The higher your website and content rank on Google, the more people will click on it, and the more culturally and linguistically diverse people who need the translated information on your site will be able to find it.
Well good news, carrying out technical SEO will help the process.
Here are just a few tips to improve your site’s discoverability:
Costa’s recommendation for SEO
Where possible, display text from within the HTML rather than just linking to PDFs and Word documents and implement technical best practices when making information available online in a variety of languages.
Tip #5 Make it easy to find translated information on your website
As mentioned earlier, multilingual websites must be user-friendly. If you’re going to invest in website translation, make it clear on the homepage and accessible for the people who will be using the translations.
This can be done with the use of a universal symbol such as a globe, or with langauge identifiers.
But please, do not use flags to represent languages — this is not appropriate for many languages, such as Arabic, which are spoken in more than one country.
Other common ways to indicate that your website is available in other languages are:
Using the universal interpreter symbol
Placing a list of languages in the footer of your website
Having a pop-up appear when a user lands on the site, to choose their preferred language
Costa’s recommendation making your translated information easy to find
Make it obvious from first glance at your site that you have translations available, ideally in the header or at the minimum, in the footer and do so in a way that is universally recognisable and simple for people with very little English to navigate.
Tip #6 Think about your Call to Actions (CTAs)
Don’t go to all the effort of translating web content, only to have a non-English speaker click on a link that takes them to a page in English.
Again, the key here is user experience! Make sure that you consider the next steps for the person reading your content in-langauge, and strategise based on the assumption that they have low or very low English comprehension.
If you’re directing people to a form, make sure that form is available in other languages. Likewise, if you are directing people to call a phone number, make sure that you have services set up to help non-English speakers communicate on the phone (TIS National can help with this).
Costa’s recommendation for CTAs
Give clear directions and options for people who want to access your services, but don’t have any English proficiency — these may be the people who need your services the most!
Tip #7 Don’t forget an in-context review
What is an in-context review you ask?
It’s a final check of translated content on the website before it is made publicly available.
This is a must when it comes to multilingual websites, to ensure that all text is displaying correctly and is easy to read for users.
The Victorian Government Guidelines on Policy and Procedures explain that these checks should be done by a NAATI certified translator who asks themselves the following questions:
Is the text rendering correctly?
Is a suitable font being used?
Did the text become corrupted when it was added to the website?
Are languages that are written from right-to-left, such as Arabic and Persian, displaying correctly? Text alignment, positioning of bullets, punctuation and phone numbers should be checked
Costa’s recommendation for in-context reviews
Ensure that your translation provider checks the translated website before it goes live. They should be getting the NAATI certified translators who worked on the translations to review the site, picking up any errors that a non-native speaker would miss.
Tip #8 Promote your multilingual website
Congratulations, you’ve created a high-quality multilingual website — it’s time to get the word out there!
The following organisations can help you spread the word and get your website in front of the people who need it most.
The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia — fecca.org.au
The Refugee Council of Australia — refugeecouncil.org.au
The Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health — ceh.org.au
Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities — adec.org.au
The Victorian Multicultural Commission — multicultural.vic.gov.au
The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria — eccv.org.au
Health Translations Directory — healthtranslations.vic.gov.au
If you have any more questions about website translation, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Translation Strategists, who help people like you bring their multilingual websites to life everyday. | https://medium.com/@ethnolink/8-best-practice-tips-for-multilingual-websites-ethnolink-b60c97f60351 | ['Ethnolink Language Services'] | 2021-06-09 00:57:24.367000+00:00 | ['Multilingual', 'Best Practices', 'Multilingual Websites', 'Translation Services', 'Website Development'] |
My White Son Believes Santa is Black. Why Doesn’t Yours? | I’m a biracial Black woman. Growing up, my (Black) mother always went above and beyond to make Christmas special for my siblings and I. But what always stood out as the most special part was that it was the one time of year our tiny extended family was able to get together. My grandma would travel over 18 hours on a Greyhound bus to be with us (“because if the Lord wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings”), my Uncle Dave would leave the peace of his bachelor apartment to bring us scratch tickets and join us for dinner, and if we were really lucky, my Uncle Will with his Will Smith-like charisma would make an appearance. Those faces, those bodies, all skilled at balancing a meal on their lap (because who actually eats at a dining table?!) meant Christmas.
You know when you have to come to grips with those realities that crush you? Mine was realizing that my son would never experience that. My Uncles both passed in their mid 50s of cancer (how our medical system fails Black men is a post for another day), and while my grandmother did once get to hold my son, she left us at age 95. When I started to think about how I wanted my son to think about the Christmas season, I knew a celebration of Blackness and Black people needed to be central to his experience.
My son was 2 years old when we accidentally ended up double booked to see Santa. The first visit was to see the jolly old St. Nick you can find in any mall. Little T was inconsolable. The second visit of the day was to see a Haitian Santa. He sat with me, but he played it cool. ‘I’ve got one year to figure out how to explain the presence of white Santa and Black Santa,’ I texted a group of my college friends. Elizabeth immediately replied: “I have two words for you: Santa’s Husband.” I ordered the book on Amazon, a tale about the real Santa being a Black man who is married to a white man. Santa often sends his hubby out to do the public appearances, so most kids think that the husband is the real Santa. But only some kids know the truth. Bingo.
At Macy’s NYC Santaland, you can find Real Santa by asking to meet “Mr. Claus.”
Real Santa in our house means the guy with the melanin. Not his fair skinned hubby. Little T knows most children don’t know the secret, so he keeps it under wraps at school. We drive across state lines when necessary to make sure he can tell the Real Santa his Christmas wish. He lights up when he sees him, believing he will get the one toy he asked for because he got to tell the Real Deal. That moment where he lights up seeing a Black Santa I’m sure is how I looked seeing my Uncles walk through the door. It means so much to me that we can give him this one piece of his family story.
But our decision to raise our white son with a Black holiday icon had another impact. The research tells us that white children start to reason about behaviors based on race at age 2 and express racial in-group preferences at ages 4 and 5. I always knew this, and it terrified me. We live in a predominantly white town. He attends a Spanish immersion preschool that is evenly split Latinx/White, but our time before his graduation to public elementary school is counting down. He has meaningful relationships with a number of Black people… but they are ALL women. I worried about him growing up to be one of those white boys who saw and immediately criminalized black men. How will he know that those men could have been his Uncles?!
Pre-COVID we spent a lot of time walking around Boston. Little T was 3.5 when he saw a Black man with some facial hair, and froze. I noticed his reaction, his stare, and I felt absolute dread. Then he slowly gestured for me to bend down so he could whisper to me. “Mama, do you think that’s him?! Do you think that’s Real Santa?!” He was star struck. I laughed and said we should ask him. The guy kept a straight face when asked and said no, he wasn’t the Big Guy, but he would be happy to send him a message. Little T was delighted. “Tell him I’ve been doing good listening,” he told the guy.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘Black Santa Directory’ Facebook group hooked us up with The Black Santa-Houston for a virtual session.
This all started as a way to give my white child a tie to my racial identity and his family story. I hadn’t thought about how the story could disrupt the water of white supremacy that he will wade in his entire life. It made me wonder: what if all white kids who celebrate Christmas were told that Santa is a Black man who has the power to decide if they are naughty or nice, whether they receive a prized gift or a lump of coal? What if he became the omnipresent authority parents everywhere warn about — don’t make me call Santa! — the one they are quick to try and impress? What if we conditioned our white children to see Black men as powerful, kind, accessible, and yes, magical?
What if…
Our Santa is Black. And if you think that is a radical statement, ask yourself why.
Our Santa is Black. Why isn’t yours? | https://medium.com/@mixedpodgie/my-white-son-believes-santa-is-black-why-doesnt-yours-bd51aac80a02 | [] | 2020-12-22 03:26:21.858000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Racial Justice', 'Black And White', 'Blacksanta'] |
Jesus, John Prine, and Hope | One of the greatest songwriters that has ever lived passed away this week after contracting COVID-19. John Prine penned classics like “Hello in There”, “Angel from Montgomery” and “Sam Stone.”
Maybe you’re not a music buff or not a big Americana fan and you aren’t familiar with Prine. Let me sum up his influence and talent this way, the single greatest songwriter of all time, Bob Dylan, revered Prine.
I’m far from Prine’s biggest fan, I can’t tell you about his deep tracks or the details of his long career in the music industry. There have been numerous incredible obituaries written about Prine from people far more qualified to do this than me. What I wanted to write about was one specific song, one specific line, and one specific truth that we all need in this time.
Prine’s “Sam Stone” is regarded by many as his greatest song. It’s certainly his most devastating. The song is about a Vietnam veteran returning from the war with “a Purple Heart, and a monkey on his back.” That line alone is better than anything 99% of songwriters have ever written. Sam Stone soon becomes addicted to morphine and spirals into a death by overdose. It’s a deeply sad, hopeless song, but one illustrative of the experiences of many veterans returning from war. The song could apply to Vietnam, World War II, Afghanistan, or Iraq veterans. He perfectly captures the hopelessness and helplessness that many feel.
The chorus of the song has two very famous lines, “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm, where all the money goes/Jesus Christ, died for nothin’, I suppose.” When Johnny Cash covered the song, he didn’t sing the second line. I understand where Cash was coming from. As a Christian, you immediately recoil upon hearing a line like that. But, with all due respect to Cash, who is my favorite artist of all time, I think he misinterprets the line. To me, Prine is actually showing how powerful and important and hope-filled the death and resurrection of Christ truly is.
I don’t have any idea on the state of Prine’s soul or what he personally believed. I do know that Jesus shows up in a lot of his songs, from “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” to “Spanish Pipedream” to “Jesus, the Missing Years.” It’s obvious Prine had a fascination with Jesus.
From Rolling Stone’s obituary: “I was trying to say something about our soldiers who’d go over to Vietnam, killing people and not knowing why you were there,” Prine told Rolling Stone in 2018. “And then a lot of soldiers came home and got hooked on drugs and never could get off of it. I was just trying to think of something as hopeless as that. My mind went right to ‘Jesus Christ died for nothin’, I suppose.’ I said, ‘That’s pretty hopeless.’ ”
Prine believed that a world where Jesus Christ died for nothing, meaning a world where Jesus was just a mortal man who died at the hands of Roman executioners in a backwater province of the mighty Roman empire two thousand years ago was as hopeless as you can get. Of course, the reverse implication is that if you believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, sent to pay the penalty of sin and redeem the world through his death, burial, and resurrection, then you have hope. You have hope even if you’re a war veteran with PTSD and an opioid addiction. It’s when you give up on that thing that gives you hope in a hopeless world then Jesus’s death becomes just another death in a world full of darkness.
We live in a world that desperately seeks hope. I don’t mean that just in reference to the global lockdown and economic turmoil that we are stuck in at the moment. Sure, hope may be in shorter supply than ever, but even before this we lived in a world with high rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, eating disorders, addictions, violence, wars, famines, and more. People live their lives like Sam Stone — as if Jesus Christ really did die for nothing.
Those of us who believe the opposite, that the death and resurrection of Christ is the one key to hope in the world, have to go about the business of telling people about that hope. People will go on being Sam Stone unless they know about the hope of Christ. If this hopeless world is all there is, there is no reason for hope. Fortunately, through Christ’s death we will be raised with Him. This isn’t the end of the story. Sam Stone is just a character in a song, but because of the genius of John Prine he’s more than that. He’s your neighbor, he’s your family member, he might even be you.
Jesus really did die for something, and I suppose John Prine knew that when he wrote that line. I hope he knew that when he himself died this week, too.
https://open.spotify.com/track/4BIej0swGWja46j5B7l4s1?si=y5OQpCNySjuQb3YiKCtjfA | https://bedgood.medium.com/jesus-john-prine-and-hope-f891c7b6a89f | ['Scott Bedgood'] | 2020-04-09 14:45:13.091000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Jesus Christ', 'John Prine', 'Country Music', 'Christianity'] |
Llaydiyln lives and learns long distance | Llaydiyln gives a thumbs up to her teacher Elizabeth Earnest during a recent Google Meet with her fifth-grade class at Maxfield Elementary. Llaydiyln misses seeing her friends’ faces in person, but she also said she understands they have to be safe. | Submitted photo
Llaydiyln lives and learns long distance
How one Maxfield Elementary School scholar remembers the good times while learning virtually and staying connected with her friends and family, not just a screen away, but states away. Lydia Gessner Follow Dec 18, 2020 · 4 min read
By Lydia Gessner | Author and Speaker
Llaydiyln’s eyes are glued to the screen. On the other side, and a world away back in Minnesota, her sister moves the camera to show Llaydiyln’s nephew, who danced and laughed, showing how much he missed them. Since moving to another state, Llaydiyln hasn’t been able to see as much of Carter, who she used to babysit back in Minnesota.
“What I am good at is taking care of my nephew,” Llaydiyln said. She explained that she was the first kid to see him after he was born.
The fifth-grader at Maxfield Elementary reflected on all the fun times they had back in Minnesota, including when she, her little cousin and her best friend, used to babysit him together.
One of their favorite games to play with him was “peek-a-boo.”
“We would play peek-a-boo. … we would pop up and be like ‘boo’ and he would laugh. His laugh is so cute, I miss it so much!” said Llaydiyln, who explained another game they would play with him was trying to talk to him in his own little language.
Then there was the time, before he had even turned one, that Carter beat her at her own game.
“I had two controllers and I was trying to play with my cousin, but then he grabbed one controller and he literally picked his character and he fought against me,” Llaydiyln said. “And you know what he did? He won. Cause … he was pressing everything.”
Llaydiyln loves playing video games and they are one way she has been able to connect with her friends, even from far away. She and her friends have PS4s, so they play together and talk. There’s even an option that allows them to text back and forth. Some of Llaydiyln’s favorite video games to play are anime games.
“She loves anime and is also a great writer! She is unique and wonderful!” said Elizabeth Earnest, Llaydiyln’s fifth-grade teacher at Maxfield Elementary, of Llaydiyln.
Video games are also ways that Llaydiyln connected with her family and friends when she lived in Minnesota. She loved to play with her little cousin and her best friend, though Llaydiyln said she had to teach her friend how to play like her older cousin taught her.
This is the same older cousin who used to take the girls to McDonalds down from where they lived in Minnesota. Sometimes he would take Llaydiyln’s bike to go pick up their food, other days, they could be found riding that bike around the neighborhood.
“We had some good memories.” –Llaydiyln, fifth-grader.
“I had a bike, but there was only one, so we all had to take turns. Like there would be a limit of time that we could go on the bike, so like we would go around 10 times and then it would be the other persons’ turn and they would go around 10 times …,” Llaydiyln said.
And that’s not all they would do for fun. Llaydiyln remembers having sleepovers with her cousin and friend in the living room on a pallet, and talking, having fun and playing house. Sometimes they would even play Barbies.
“We had some good memories,” Llaydiyln said.
Now she is making new memories in a new state with her family, while still holding onto the ones from Minnesota, and connecting with friends, family and her school from her old state through technology.
Though she misses seeing her friends’ faces in person at school, she said she understands they have to stay safe. Distance doesn’t stop Llaydiyln’s personality from shining through the screen.
“Llaydiyln is a hilarious student,” Earnest said. “She has a natural humorous personality. She is a loyal friend to others and she’s not afraid to be who she wants to be.”
So for now, states away and screens apart, virtually will have to do, especially for being a great aunt to her nephew Carter.
“(My sister) gave him the phone and he was running with it … he was holding the phone and it was so close to his face …,” said Llaydiyln of their most recent video call. “… he’s just so little and I just want to hug him, cause he’s so cute and I miss him so much.” | https://medium.com/maxfield-times/llaydiyln-lives-and-learns-long-distance-1034805fa3ba | ['Lydia Gessner'] | 2020-12-18 21:55:28.100000+00:00 | ['Distance Learning', 'Friends', 'Family', 'Fifth Grade', 'Staying Connected'] |
Don’t “Other” One Another | The Bible is filled with ‘one another’ commands. As a Christian, there is an overwhelming life handbook of how we should treat one another. The Overview Bible has designed this amazing infographic of the commands: https://overviewbible.com//wp-content/uploads/2014/03/one-another-commands-in-new-testament.infographic5.png
They sort the commands into 3 main areas:
Unity — 13 areas of unity such as, “be at peace with one another”, “forgive one another”, “don’t complain against each other”
Love — 5 areas about love such as, “love one another”, “tolerate one another in love”, “be devoted to one another in love”
Humilty — 7 commands towards humility such as, “wash one another’s feet”, “serve one another”, “regard each other as more important than yourselves”
They have a 4th category of miscellaneous commands, such as: “don’t judge one another”, “pray for one another”, “bear one another’s burdens”
So, if the Bible gives clear teaching on how we are to treat one another, why don’t more Christians do a better job conducting themselves according to this biblical standard they say is true. After all, not only are these clear commands about how the church is to treat each other, when not practiced they also lead to the most despised trait of the church in the eyes of the world, hypocrisy. Many people outside the church are generally familiar with the claims of the Bible, and when they see the actions of the church towards each other, they find it lacking.
This is completely contrary of the intent of the teaching of Jesus. The Church started out with nothing, they didn’t have money, power or resources, but they had their faith and through faith in Christ, they could obey these difficult commands. They could look around in the room at their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and realize that even if they didn’t agree about everything, they were in it together. They could love one another in Christ in all the ways taught in the NT, but only through His power, not through their own capability. As they did this, the testimony of the church was powerful. They preached the truth of the Gospel, Christ crucified and raised from the dead, and salvation through faith in His triumph over sin and death, but they also demonstrated that their lives had been changed for the better by that Gospel, not just for eternity, but for their community.
Today, it seems like we are missing the impact of this in many of our local churches. Here are three key reasons I think this happens:
First, there is the tendency to other, “one anothers”. I’m using other as a verb to illustrate the idea of dividing someone into a group different than our own. Maybe it is just a loose definition of the term, one another. We divide people from us so we don’t have to count them as people who need to be treated in the way the Bible defines. We make them “others” not “one anothers”. In the Bible, the community of faith is a “we”. People exist together and they treat each other as a part of their own group. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul told the church, they were the body of Christ. They were all pieces of the same body. This was a powerful illustration of what it means to be a group of “one anothers” not others. People in your church aren’t a decoration for the body, like an article of clothing or jewelry, they are the body itself. A part of the body that serves a purpose and is connected to the whole. This is meant to change our perspective and help us see the importance of taking care of our whole body. When we see things like this, it becomes easier to carry out the one another commands.
The second area of struggle is the overall lack of community in the modern church. It is much easier to other one another, when we don’t really know one another. The NT community that Paul and others were writing to were intimately involved in each other’s lives. They knew what was going on and practiced Biblical community by spending time together. In some cases, they may have had less available time than we do today when you consider hours worked and daylight hours, but it was a priority to make time for relationships. The transitory lifestyles that many people live these days make it difficult to build strong, lasting relationships where people are used to being in each other’s lives. But with effort, we can connect with people in our local church. Without community, it is very easy to other one another.
The third reason we don’t practice it is our disobedience to a particular command, Galatians 6:2, “bear one another’s burdens.” We generally ignore this because we are very independent. In the modern world, especially in western culture, people don’t want to appear weak and needy. Instead they want to present themselves as the person who has it all together and is very successful. Part of this comes from living in great wealth compared to every non aristocratic class in every period of history before this one, but it is also seems to be an unhealthy dose of pride. It is much more common in churches for people to put on the Sunday morning facade of “everything is fine” than to transparently share our true burdens in life. Developing the habit of sharing our burdens with one another, encourages the church to see each other as a true body.
The irony is by disobeying the commands of Scripture in the one another’s, we all suffer. Our churches are weaker, our marriages are more likely to be a struggle, we lose access to the wisdom of the body and we become more likely to be disconnected from Christ. God has given us to each other as a wonderful gift in order to encourage one another, love one another, serve another, etc, and the greatest barrier to receiving this gift is the walls we put up when we “other” one another. | https://medium.com/@chadhensley/dont-other-one-another-ce146ae2b74c | ['Chad Hensley'] | 2020-12-05 17:02:52.611000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Christianity', 'Other', 'Discipleship', 'Church'] |
How to Build Better Machine Learning Models | How to tackle overfitting ⭐
When you’re working with neural networks, overfitting and underfitting might be two of the most common problems you face. This section talks about some common approaches that I use when tackling these problems.
You might know this, but high bias will cause you to miss a relationship between features and labels (underfitting) and high variance will cause the model to capture the noise and overfit to the training data.
I believe the most effective way to solve overfitting is to get more data — though you could also augment your data. A benefit of deep neural networks is that their performance improves as they are fed more and more data.
But in a lot of situations, it might be too expensive to get more data or it simply might not be possible to do so. In that case, let’s talk about a couple of other methods you could use to tackle overfitting.
Apart from getting more data or augmenting your data, you could also tackle overfitting either by changing the architecture of the network or by applying some modifications to the network’s weights. Let’s look at these two methods.
Changing the Model Architecture
A simple way to change the architecture such that it doesn’t overfit would be to use Random Search to stumble upon a good architecture. Or you could try pruning nodes from your model, essentially lowering the capacity of your model.
We already talked about Random Search, but in case you want to see an example of pruning you could take a look at the TensorFlow Model Optimization Pruning Guide.
Modifying Network Weights
In this section, we will see some methods I commonly use to prevent overfitting by modifying a network’s weights.
Weight Regularization
Iterating back on what we discussed, “simpler models are less likely to overfit than complex ones”. We try to keep a bar on the complexity of the network by forcing its weights only to take small values.
To do so we will add to our loss function a term that can penalize our model if it has large weights. Often L₁ and L₂ regularizations are used, the difference being:
L1 — The penalty added is ∝ to |weight coefficients|
L2 — The penalty added is ∝ to |weight coefficients|²
where |x| represents absolute values.
Do you notice the difference between L1 and L2, the square term? Due to this, L1 might push weights to be equal to zero whereas L2 would have weights tending to zero but not zero.
In case you are curious about exploring this further, this article goes deep into regularizations and might help.
This is also the exact reason why I tend to use L2 more than L1 regularization. Let’s see an example of this with TensorFlow.
Here I show some code to create a simple Dense layer with 3 units and the L2 regularization:
import tensorflow as tf
tf.keras.layers.Dense(3, kernel_regularizer = tf.keras.regularizers.L2(0.1))
To provide more clarity on what this does, as we discussed above this would add a term (0.1 × weight_coefficient_value²) to the loss function which works as a penalty to very big weights. Also, it is as easy as replacing L2 to L1 in the above code to implement L1 for your layer.
Dropouts
The first thing I do when I am building a model and face overfitting is try using dropouts (Srivastava et al.). The idea here is to randomly drop out or set to zero (ignore) x% of output features of the layer during training.
We do this to stop individual nodes from relying on the output of other nodes and prevent them from co-adapting from other nodes too much.
Dropouts are rather easy to implement with TensorFlow since they are available as layers. Here is an example of me trying to build a model to differentiate images of dogs and cats with Dropout to reduce overfitting:
model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
tf.keras.layers.Conv2D(32, (3,3), padding='same', activation='relu',input_shape=(IMG_HEIGHT, IMG_WIDTH ,3)),
tf.keras.layers.MaxPooling2D(2,2),
tf.keras.layers.Dropout(0.2),
tf.keras.layers.Conv2D(128, (3,3), padding='same', activation='relu'),
tf.keras.layers.MaxPooling2D(2,2),
tf.keras.layers.Dropout(0.2),
tf.keras.layers.Flatten(),
tf.keras.layers.Dense(512, activation='relu'),
tf.keras.layers.Dense(1, activation='sigmoid')
])
As you could see in the code above, you could directly use tf.keras.layers.dropout to implement the dropout, passing it the fraction of output features to ignore (here 20% of the output features).
Early stopping
Early stopping is another regularization method I often use. The idea here is to monitor the performance of the model at every epoch on a validation set and terminate the training when you meet some specified condition for the validation performance (like stop training when loss < 0.5)
It turns out that the basic condition like we talked about above works like a charm if your training error and validation error look something like in this image. In this case, Early Stopping would just stop training when it reaches the red box (for demonstration) and would straight up prevent overfitting.
It (Early stopping) is such a simple and efficient regularization technique that Geoffrey Hinton called it a “beautiful free lunch”. — Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow by Aurelien Geron
Adapted from Lutz Prechelt
However, for some cases, you would not end up with such straightforward choices for identifying the criterion or knowing when Early Stopping should stop training the model.
For the scope of this article, we will not be talking about more criteria here, but I would recommend that you check out “Early Stopping — But When, Lutz Prechelt” which I use a lot to help decide criteria.
Let’s see an example of Early Stopping in action with TensorFlow:
import tensorflow as tf callback = tf.keras.callbacks.EarlyStopping(monitor='loss', patience=3)
model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([...])
model.compile(...)
model.fit(..., callbacks = [callback])
In the above example, we create an Early Stopping Callback and specify that we want to monitor our loss values. We also specify that it should stop training if it does not see noticeable improvements in loss values in 3 epochs. Finally, while training the model, we specify that it should use this callback.
Also, for the purpose of this example, I show a Sequential model — but this could work in the exact same manner with a model created with the functional API or sub-classed models, too. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-build-better-machine-learning-models-537a4486d056 | ['Rishit Dagli'] | 2021-04-29 09:58:20.153000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Computer', 'Deep Learning', 'Computer Vision', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Web Sitenize Gelen Potansiyel Müşteriyi Kaçırmamanın Yolları | FozDigital is a freelance digital agency specializing in WordPress&WooCommerce Development, Website Maintenance, UI/UX Design and Branding. | https://medium.com/fozdigital/web-sitenize-gelen-potansiyel-musteriyi-kacirmamanin-yollari-3fc13c2bddb4 | ['Fatih Özdemir'] | 2021-02-23 09:16:12.981000+00:00 | ['Web', 'Jivochat', 'Web Development', 'Marketing', 'Web Site Development'] |
Is Some Stress Necessary, or Is it All Destructive | Is Some Stress Necessary, or Is it All Destructive
Breaking Free from Stress
Photo by Aliyah Jamous on Unsplash
Remember that stress doesn’t come from what’s going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what’s going on in your life.–Andrew J. Bernstein
Regardless of how you live, you’re bound to experience stress occasionally. Whether you’re always in the fast lane at work, juggling hectic family demands, or striving to navigate the choppy waters of relationships, tension and stress are a natural byproduct of life.
You probably can identify when stress is creeping up on you. But, if you’re like most of us, you just keep plugging away, working hard, and trying to get everything done.
What if you actively took steps to manage your stress? Could your life be different? Would you feel better?
Fortunately, there are some easy ideas you can implement to get a handle on your stress. I want to help you understand what stress is and why it is necessary to help you get through the day.
Also, I want to help you learn how you react when you’re under stress and identify the signs and stress symptoms.
We’ll review destructive ways you might be used to managing stress, so you’ll be more aware of those behaviors.
Finally, we’ll open up a toolbox of effective stress management skills that will help you in eliminating tension as soon as it begins.
What is Stress?
You’ve probably heard the term “stress” used in several different contexts. Stress is defined as the mental or emotional strain you experience due to any tension or anxiety-causing situation. Sometimes even self-induced.
The word “stress” is also used to describe challenges that bring about feelings of anxiety, tension, or worry. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.
Stress is your body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline.
The following elements are also often included in definitions of stress:
Fight or flight response. There are biological and physical roots attributed to the development of stress in your mind and body. On a physical level, humans behave much like animals. Most animals respond to perceived threats in one of two ways: they either run or fight.
This is known as the “fight or flight” response. This biological reaction is not usually in our control. The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to any perceived event as stressful or frightening.
The perception of a threat activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. Our bodies release hormones that cause us to either fight what’s happening or flee from it.
Perceived loss of control. One crucial element of stress is that you don’t have control over events or circumstances. If you’re involved in situations where you feel helpless or waiting for someone else to take care of whatever’s happening, you’re likely experiencing anxiety or tension.
These situations are often when stress hits the hardest because you have no control over the situation. Your mind and body remain in a constant state of tension and frustration.
Change. One of the most integral aspects of stress is change. Many people experience tension or worry whenever a change occurs in their lives. Even though a change or shift in some part of your life might actually be good, you may still experience feelings of anxiety.
Is There Such a Thing as Positive Stress?
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. — — John Newton
A certain amount of stress in life is purposeful. There will be beneficial tension in your life every day. Positive stress compels you to move ahead and do what you need to do now.
Examples of positive personal stressors include things like:
Receiving a promotion
Starting a new job
Marriage
Buying a home
Having a baby
Moving
Taking a vacation
Holiday season
Retiring
Taking educational courses
So obviously, positive stress is a part of our everyday life. We need it to provide momentum to accomplish our goals throughout each day.
What Does Stress Look Like?
Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.–Natalie Goldberg
Although stress is a universal feeling, your stress might appear quite different from someone else’s. How you react to your emotions and stress is unique to you.
You may even be unaware of your individual “fingerprint” of tension or worry building up inside of you. To give you an idea of what you’re looking for, here are some common symptoms of untreated stress:
Recurring physical ailments. You might notice that you’re starting to get nagging headaches, or maybe you occasionally deal with stomachaches that occur whenever you’re feeling tense and anxious about something.
The feeling of being rushed. You feel like you’re always in a hurry. There isn’t enough time in the day for you to accomplish everything that must be done. You find yourself rushing around trying to get from one place to another.
I can’t take a break. If you notice you’re finishing one task only to proceed directly to the next one and then the one after that, you’re probably feeling stressed out. It’s important here to realize that your thoughts and thinking are leading you to believe you don't have time to stop and rest.
Recurrent symptoms of chronic illnesses. When we’re habitually stressed out, chronic medical conditions (diabetes, chemical dependency, Crohn’s Disease, or obesity, for example) progressively get worse. Symptoms of rage start to appear as our physical bodies manifest the challenges of our demanding emotional and stressful experiences.
Overwhelming fatigue. Tiredness may overshadow your days; you can’t sleep. You feel as though you’re pulling a dead weight everywhere you go. You’re not sure how you’re making it through each day because you’re exhausted and feel there’s no relief in sight.
Negative emotional states. Even your moods can be affected when stress comes for a visit. This manifests itself in many different forms. Maybe you’re cranky, or perhaps sullen, even angry at times.
Consult with friends and family if you’re unsure what’s baseline normal for you. They can often give you a more objective picture of whether your emotional reactions have been extreme lately.
Episodes of crying. Do you feel like crying all the time? Or are you crying more than usual? Do you feel like you’re struggling to get your emotions under control? If so, take a look at your stress level.
Stormy work relationships. At work, you notice your co-workers are tactfully avoiding you. Your boss seems to be increasingly irritating. While some of us naturally have challenges interacting with others, many of us only do when we feel stress.
Grouchy toward your kids. At home, your children quietly put their heads down and walk by you. Secretly, you don’t blame them because lately you’ve been noticing and pointing out every little mistake they make. Or maybe you’ve been more reactive; when they make a mistake, your verbal and emotional response is stronger than normal.
Your spouse confronts you. Maybe your wife has already asked you what’s going on or what’s wrong. Maybe she’s walking on eggshells around you, afraid of your emotional response.
Attitude changes. Your attitude hasn’t been the greatest lately. You assume things are going to go badly. You feel yourself slowly starting to give up. You’re starting to not care anymore about your relationships, job, or family situation.
Feelings of futility. You feel that you just can’t get anything done, no matter what you do. You now know what those hamsters in the little wheels going round and round feel like. That’s how you feel when you’re under stress: going nowhere, fast.
Stress manifests itself in our lives in very different ways, depending on the person experiencing it. Examine the above list again carefully, and see what you notice about yourself when you’re under pressure. Which signs are you showing?
Be honest with yourself and take note of how your stress is manifesting itself in your life. The more awareness you have about your unique expression of stress, the better your ability to manage it effectively.
Causes of Stress
There are thousands of causes for stress, and one antidote to stress is self-expression. That’s what happens to me every day. My thoughts get off my chest, down my sleeves, and onto my pad.–Garson Kanin
Interestingly, all kinds of things can cause stress. Situations, people, and events you dislike can trigger these emotions.
Being constantly in a time crunch, involved in a stormy relationship, experiencing a divorce, leaving a job, or moving might create anxiety, worry, and stress.
Tension, anxiety, and worry are often the result of a change, especially when you feel little control over the situation.
There are some events and circumstances viewed as positive that are also stressful? Purchasing your first home, getting married, or bringing a baby into the world, although positive experiences, still induce tension.
So when assessing all of the sources of your stress, remember to count the enjoyable or planned changes in your life as well.
Unhealthy Ways you Might be Managing Stress
“Frustration, discouragement, and depression mean you are working against yourself.” — Jagadish Vasudev Sadhguru
First, the bad news: It’s possible that your approach to dealing with your stress isn’t helping you. Here are some signs of dealing poorly with stress.
Overuse of substances. Many people cling to their substance of choice when stress moves in. So don’t be surprised if you’re smoking more cigarettes than usual, drinking more alcohol than you should, or taking those over-the-counter sleeping pills every single night. Spend a few minutes to reflect on ways you might be mishandling your stress. Vow to stop your use of unhealthy substances when you’re stressed out — get help to do so if necessary.
Bad eating habits. You might be eating a lot of fast food because your schedule feels overcrowded. Or perhaps you’re skipping meals here and there and getting a little light-headed sometimes from lack of food.
Stress can either cause you to forget to eat (you’re too busy) or not want to eat (you’re too tense). Take a long hard look at your nutritional intake habits to ensure you’re eating as healthy as possible.
Inappropriate remarks and communication. Perhaps you’re short with others and use cryptic or sarcastic comments to express yourself. Or, your stress response may involve closing people out emotionally and giving them the silent treatment.
Tune into your verbal communications to ensure you’re expressing yourself appropriately. Remember that when you’re under pressure, you could be engaging in habits and behaviors that serve to stoke the fires of stress rather than put them out!
Effective Methods of Stress Management
Now the good news. You have abundant choices for learning how to manage your stress effectively.
Try these strategies:
Make time for physical activity. It’s vital to have regular exercise in your life. Not only does physical activity do great things for your body, but it also works magic on your soul. Exercising regularly is a great all-around stress reliever.
Prayer and meditation. In the crazy world in which we live, it’s essential to find time alone in solitude. As your world increases in stress and anxiety, your ability to withdraw to a quiet, peaceful place becomes even more critical.
Research has confirmed the importance and life-giving benefits of setting aside time daily to meditate and pray. It has the power to instill a deep sense of calm and peace, thus illuminating most stress.
Schedule downtime. Everyone just needs to chill every once in a while. Plan some time every week to let your hair down and do what relaxes you most. Read a book, or see a movie. Take time to enjoy the things you love to do.
Put down the technology. If you find yourself on the computer or playing with all the apps on your smartphone or tablet all evening, take some time to engage in life without all the electronics. Your stress levels might be a result of too much input via the internet. Work on turning them off at least an hour or two before bedtime.
Focus on your health. If you have a chronic health condition like asthma, allergies, over-eating, or diabetes, you’ll want to do everything you can to manage it successfully. To keep your stress level minimized, keep your conditions under control.
Practice healthy eating to stay strong and vital. Look around you. You’ll see that your friends who take good care of themselves nutritionally are often dealing with their jobs, loved ones, and selves in healthy ways as well. Because they eat right, they have the energy to deal with life’s ups and downs and the confidence in themselves that they’ll always be okay.
Reduce caffeine consumption. If you require a couple of cups of coffee to get going every day, your caffeine intake will very likely contribute to your level of stress. Although this commonly-used drug is considered relatively harmless in small doses, it does contribute to tension and anxiety.
Get your rest. You know what NOT getting enough sleep feels like. The day seems to drag by, and you feel a bit punchy. Concentration can be challenging. To deal with ongoing stress, get good sleep, six to seven hours a night.
Practice a healthy nighttime routine. Bedtime rituals are great stress-busters. Ensure that you have a night-time routine that works for you and follow it.
Give your schedule a long, hard look. What can you get rid of? To reduce your feelings of tension, worry, and anxiety, trim down the tasks and errands you have to do, especially towards the end of the day.
Prioritize. One of the best ways to handle stress is to have a good grasp of your daily tasks. Which responsibilities need to be done right away? Create a daily priority list of the 3 most important things that need to occur that day, and focus on those things.
Communicate. Discussing whatever is troubling, you help to dissipate challenging feelings. Give your best friend a call and pour out your heart to her. Get in touch with a friend or brother and tell him what’s bugging you. Get those emotions out of your head and onto the table, where you can look at them objectively.
Just say, “NO.” An often-overlooked but effective method of managing stress is declining to take on more tasks or do more favors for people. Exercise your right to choose how you’ll spend your time by starting to say “no” more often. The more you say “no,” the easier it will become.
Ask for help. One of the best ways to successfully manage your stress is to take steps to obtain assistance actively. So, not only should you communicate your feelings but also speak up and ask for help.
Write down your feelings. Journaling is a wonderful and effective way to learn to understand, articulate and therapeutically deal with your feelings. Take a few moments every evening to write down what happened that day and how you feel about it. It works wonders.
Seek professional assistance. Although you might tend to avoid calling counselors until you’ve exhausted all of your other options, consider doing so before you’re totally buried under stress.
I find it works wonders just to sit and talk with someone who’s only concern is your welfare. Their only job is to help you feel and live more productively.
You have a lot of choices when learning to manage your stress successfully. Try some of the approaches above as soon as you feel those feelings of tension and worry coming on.
Conclusion
Understanding what stress is and that a certain amount of stress is purposeful is your first real step to recognizing the impact of stress in your life.
Knowing some of the main causes and being aware of how your stress expresses itself will help you avoid dealing with it in unhealthy ways.
Identify the best methods to manage your tension, anxiety, and worry successfully. Do what works best for you.
Use the skills and techniques listed above to relieve the pressure and stress in your life successfully. Break free from stress; you’re worth it! | https://medium.com/an-idea/is-some-stress-necessary-or-is-it-all-destructive-951599060478 | ['Michael Mints'] | 2020-12-30 04:58:04.337000+00:00 | ['Stress', 'Success', 'Motivation', 'Anxiety', 'Fear'] |
Are you the product manager you really want to be? | I used to be a Product Manager at a 300-person online gaming company, a Head of Product at a 5000-person Google competitor, a co-founder of a game-dev startup where I acted as a CEO/CPO. Each job had its challenges but I loved all of them.
Things changed when I joined Amazon in 2017. I loved the product, I loved the domain and the intellectual challenge, I loved working in downtown Seattle, and I enjoyed working with a very supportive team, but yet, something was fundamentally broken.
I had zero energy left when I would come home at 5pm. The only thing I could manage was watching inspirational movies on Netflix instead of exercising or going out as usual.
Being a framework-loving person, I analyzed what kept me energized at my previous roles. I found a huge discrepancy between the scope of what I loved to do and what I was doing there, at Amazon. I adjusted my approach when looking for my new role, and now I am happy again at Google.
Now, I want to share the framework I created and the results I’ve seen. Take a look and see if it works for you.
Spoiler: If you fill out the form at the end of this page, you’ll get your results of applying this framework.
PM Daisy framework: breadth and involvement
I explored two dimensions:
First, I outlined the main workstreams I was ever responsible for. For example, creating and owning product artifacts, designing user experience, running data analytics, building and owning P&L, building partner relationships, doing customer or market research, etc. Then, I identified how much involvement and control I had over each of those workstreams. I either was doing it myself, or I was having a dedicated team or team members whose scope I defined. Sometimes, I was acting as a customer of an external to my product team and had to hope they would have the bandwidth for me.
I then visualized my roles from the past by putting those dimensions together in a Daisy-like graph form, and compared roles among each other. I clearly saw what was going on with me at Amazon.
Dimension 1: each paddle represents a workstream (e.g. UX, Research, UX, etc.) — all explained later
Dimension 2: coloring shows the level of my personal involvement in each area
Some hypothetical examples to better understand the meaning of PM Daisy:
Applying the framework to my story
On the left: I was building one of the company portfolio products in the area that was the main expertise for the company (games). My day-to-day job was focused mainly on the product development. All external-facing and business-oriented processes, like partnerships, marketing, and revenue management, were taken care of by relevant departments.
On the right: Co-founding an independent game development studio required me to to do everything myself (even submitting production code).
On the left: I was a Head of Product, responsible for P&L, managing a directly reporting to me cross-functional team, and having a wide network of external resources. I was also wearing a PM hat, doing all PM-related tasks myself. It was the happiest time in my career.
On the right: at Amazon, I became an Individual Contributor again. I went to great detail of depth for several workstreams, but I lost the breadth of responsibilities and the horizon view.
The source of my pain has been identified. I didn’t do my homework well enough to really understand what that role would be like for me.
To clarify, I see nothing wrong with neither being an IC, nor with working for Amazon. I know a lot of awesome people who would feel the opposite if they were at my place. Amazon is a great company, it has many interesting and challenging areas to work on. Some people also love being individual contributors, they love going deep, and they don’t love managing multiple connections, being responsible for something they don’t quite care about. That just was not for me.
Here is how my current job at Google looks like:
I adjusted requirements to my next job, extensively interviewed potential future teams before choosing one to join, and here is how my job looks now:
I’m almost there, see? My next career step would be to get back my business and people management paddles back.
Does it apply to other people?
I also surveyed eight friends who worked in different companies as PMs. Here how their daisies looked like:
The more paddles they had colored, the more areas they oversaw. The lighter each paddle was, the less control they had over those resources.
Let’s take a look at the daisy in the lower right corner (#8). You can see the breadth of what that person oversees and that she also does a lot by herself. I bet she has a lot of fun and not a lot of spare time.
The person in the top left corner (#1), on the opposite, focuses mostly on doing research, defining features, and leading engineering execution. I would guess that product roadmap and go-to-market strategy are defined and managed by others.
The person in the right top corner (#4) seems to work on a very research– and data–heavy product, oversees a lot, and doesn’t look like having access to a lot of resources. Meanwhile, the owner of the daisy #7 looks like he has a lot of resources and does only what’s absolutely necessary for a PM: identifies and drives business opportunity and what product response
We could spend hours debating about what those daisies really represent, but the truth is that only their owners know that. Only they could tell us whether the results of this exercise had matched the picture of the product manager role they wanted to have.
Conclusion:
Not all PM positions are equal. Roles that share the same title — Product Manager — might actually mean completely different sets of responsibilities.
Job descriptions are not the source of truth. It’s almost impossible to identify how a future job would look like based on the job description alone or after one conversation with a recruiter.
Do your homework. Talking to the future team and asking very specific questions would help learn what is expected (and what’s not) from a PM at that specific position, what resources are available, and who owns them.
How does all of that apply to you?
If you feel happy and energized by your work, clearly see your future path, do not feel like you are doing something you would rather not be doing, and not missing anything you would love to do — I’m really happy for you!
If you have doubts and think something is wrong with the scope of your responsibilities — let’s do this:
Get your PM Daisy: fill out the form, and I’ll send you a graphical representation of your job responsibilities. You can even choose the color! Look at it and see how close it is to your ideal one (to decide which one is your ideal one also might be a challenge, I admit.) Make your next career move more informed. Send me feedback on the framework, share it with other people, and CLAP below if you found it valuable.
Disclaimers
There might be many other issues with your job that make you unhappy — a culture, commute, your manager, lack of benefits, etc. The PM Daisy framework only helps find misalignment between your current responsibilities and the work that you really want to do.
The workstreams I chose are the most common ones that would apply to majority of PM roles. Agree, it’s not an exhaustive list. For example, I also worked with legal and privacy teams, localization and content teams, QA, accessibility, customer support, sales, operations, you name it. At the end of the day, the purpose of the framework is to help compare multiple positions across the most important categories, which, I believe, this framework does well.
Appendix: workstreams explained | https://medium.com/agileinsider/are-you-the-product-manager-you-really-want-to-be-7bc0148c1bb9 | ['Julia Nechaieva', 'Lorien'] | 2021-01-24 05:34:32.089000+00:00 | ['Framework', 'Job Description', 'Career Development', 'Product Management', 'Career Paths'] |
The Company Shutdown | The Company Shutdown
Jay, Part II
Jay* was in the middle of telling his story to me when he brought up depression:
What were the scariest moments in the company?
Shutting down the startup was definitely the worst moment. Over the course of the company, I dealt with anxiety and I learned how to manage it. But when we shut down the company, I was definitely depressed for at least 6–9 months afterward.
I hadn’t expected him to tell me this. Jay had mentioned nothing about depression before or during the interview. But I was so glad that he did because it’s incredibly common to go through both. The statistics are all over the place; studies cite comorbidity rates anywhere from 30%-75%.
Woah. What happened?
This startup that was my baby–it took up all of my time and energy–was no longer in my world. I no longer had a job. I had a relationship fail at the same time largely because I was so focused on my startup that I wasn’t very present. All of these things were related. And so I was dealing with both of those things and, in my life all of a sudden, I had all of this free time. I had way too much free time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.
Did you have symptoms or behaviors that other people could be feeling and could recognize that they need help?
I lost my appetite. I lost 15–20 pounds in the month or two after shutting down the company. I sulked around a lot. It was obvious to me that I was depressed. Anxiety was something that I was unaware of and maybe through the life of the company I had dealt with some depression but it was way minor than anything that I had dealt with related to anxiety. But after the company shut down, I was just super bummed out. I needed to vent a lot about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about something for more than an hour or two. Because of what I had gone through with anxiety, I knew that I just needed to go and see someone a few times a week before I would start feeling better.
My sleep patterns definitely changed, too. I remember getting heartburn–that was weird. I had never had heartburn before but it’s a common effect of anxiety so maybe I had anxiety and depression when the company shut down. Some of the same things that I had dealt with earlier came back. I drank more and socialized more because I just wanted to get out and be with people. Being with people, actually just being around people was really good for me, but I sulked by myself a lot.
What helped?
Therapy definitely helped me through this period. Talking to other founders who had been through company failures helped me through that, too. They would remind me that startups are hard and you probably messed up in a million different ways but most startups don’t make it anyway. It’s so easy to go into denial about that or pretend that that doesn’t apply to you, because you went through a top accelerator program, you had great investors, you had a dream team. There are so many reasons that you can come up with to justify why you shouldn’t have failed. Talking to other people and in particular other founders who had been there and could understand what I was going through was hugely important.
“I think for them, it helped them heal their own wounds, too. A lot of smart, driven people fail in the startup world. It may or may not have been your fault that you failed but it’s just part of this game that we are all playing. And it’s okay to fail”
How did you meet these other founders?
That’s a good question. A handful of people reached out to me. We had some nasty press written about us after we shut down the company that placed the blame on us, the founders. That was salt in the wounds for us. The last thing you need after admitting failure is bad press.
People saw the press and a few founders from the Y Combinator community emailed me and said, “Hey, I’ve been through this. It really sucks. Do you want to grab a beer or lunch?” And so we did. I started to network with more and more people who had been through the same pain I was going through.
I think for them, it helped them heal their own wounds, too. A lot of smart, driven people fail in the startup world. It may or may not have been your fault that you failed but it’s just part of this game that we are all playing. And it’s okay to fail. You’ll go on to bigger and better things. But even so, there was like a grieving process for me for at least half a year.
What else helped you get through it?
I took a trip–a solo trip to Europe. This was both really hard and helpful. I just told myself, when in the hell else am I going to get a chance to travel with so few obligations. I had no job, I didn’t have a place to live because I had been living with my girlfriend and we broke up. I had some savings and I didn’t have an apartment or need to pay rent.
The first couple of weeks were really hard because I was just thinking about all of the things that had happened. But it ended up being a really good experience for me. There is so much for you to do out there in the world. Your life is more important than this or any startup. It made the startup failure and everything that I was upset about back home seem kind of silly. These people in these different countries didn’t care, didn’t give a shit about it. I realized that my startup was this small world that I was obsessed with. The time away gave me perspective and healed me a little bit.
What are you doing now?
I just started a new company. I worked at another startup in-between and did some consulting.
Do you think therapy should be required for startup founders? Do you think it should be a business expense?
I totally would support that. It’s good for the company. It’s good for investors. I think it absolutely should be, in particular in the beginning. The more you do before it’s an issue, the better you’ll be long term. Therapy is preventative healthcare, too.
I think it’s really important to learn how to deal with your own stress and learn how to deal with one another. There were times when we were all fighting. Or one person wasn’t performing as well as other people would like. And that rotated around and we kept pointing fingers at each other. So there is something similar to relationship and marriage counseling that needs to happen. And that should happen before there are big issues . That should happen early.
What do you do when you see a friend who needs help?
I’ve definitely recommended therapy to friends. I had some people come to me who were suffering with anxiety and depression and knew that I had dealt with it, too. Also, if I see a friend going through a breakup or a friend who exits a company poorly, is upset and looks depressed, or needs to vent, then I’ll be there for them and let them vent and talk to them as much as they need to. I always tell them that they should really go talk to somebody who is a professional, who can really help. I definitely recommend therapy to people, I advocate for it. Only so many people will follow through because of the stigma around therapy. It’s really common for people to think that therapy is only for “crazy” people. That’s just not true.
Thank you again, Jay, for sharing your story. I’m grateful for your trust and willingness to revisit hard times in your life with the shared belief that by sharing our stories we can help someone else.
Resources
Looking for therapy? Book an appointment with an evidence-based therapist on Kip.
Need help now? You’re not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273-TALK. It’s available 24/7 and staffed by crisis response professionals. | https://medium.com/kip-blog/the-company-shutdown-355712c54753 | ['Erin Frey'] | 2017-03-30 17:21:25.478000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Mental Health', 'Startup', 'Depression', 'Founders'] |
Pairing and connecting your brand new headphones with a new device | Did you bought a brand new Bluetooth headphones but you are not able to connect them to your computer? Or maybe they are working with your computer but your smartphone is not able to find them even if the Bluetooth is activated in both the systems?
The answer is really simple, once the headphone have been paired with the first device, they do not enter in pairing mode anymore when you switch them on again. This is because when you pair a 2nd or subsequent device, the headset has pairing information for other devices.
The re-activation of the “pairing mode” is usually not really clear even if it is illustrated in the user manual included in the headphones box.
The solution is simple and usually the same for every headphones out in the market. So, to activate pairing mode, switch off the headphone and then press and hold the power button from 5 to 10 seconds.
The headphones will switch on in “pairing mode” and you will see the Bluetooth led indicator flashing, for example in the Sony WH 1000XM3, it flashes two times in a row.
For some headphones models, you may will also hear a guidance voice saying “Bluetooth pairing” or something similar, as a confirmation that the pairing mode has been activated.
That’s it! Now you can check again the device that you want to connect with your headphones, and you should be able to see the name of the headphones in the list of the found devices: simply click on it to start pairing.
Repeat this procedure for any new device that you want to connect to the headphones. | https://medium.com/@ferie/pairing-and-connecting-your-sony-headphones-with-a-new-device-751a98b7e4a1 | ['Riccardo Andreatta'] | 2020-07-03 04:43:05.323000+00:00 | ['Sony', 'Headphones', 'Bluetooth', 'Bose', 'Pairing'] |
What’s Outside Space? | Outer space is the expansion that exists beyond the Earth and between celestial bodies. The outer space is not completely empty — it is a hard vacuum that has a low density of particles, mainly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, neutrinos, dust, and cosmic rays. The base temperature of outer space determined by background radiation from the Big Bang is 2.7 Kelvin (45270.45 ° C; 4454.81 ° F). Approximately half of the baryonic (ordinary) matter in the universe consists of plasma between galaxies; It has a density of less than one hydrogen atom per cubic meter and a temperature of millions of Kelvin. Local concentrations of matter have condensed into stars and galaxies. Studies indicate that most galaxies have 90% mass in an unknown form, called dark matter, which interacts with the other matter through gravity, but not electromagnetic force. Observations reveal that much of the mass-energy in the observable universe is dark energy, a type of vacuum energy that is poorly understood. The vast majority of space occupies space, but even galaxies and star systems have almost completely empty space.
Outer space does not start at a certain height above the Earth’s surface. The Personnel Line, located at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, is traditionally used in space treaties to record outer space debuts and aerospace records. The framework of international space law was established by the Outer Space Treaty, which came into force on 10 October 1967. The treaty does not incorporate any claim to national sovereignty and allows all states to independently explore outside space. Despite drafting UN resolutions for the peaceful use of outer space, anti-satellite weapons have been tested in Earth orbit.
Humans began the physical exploration of space during the 20th century with the advent of high-balloon flights. This was followed by the rocket flights of the crew and then, in 1961, for the first time in Earth orbit, achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union. Due to the high cost of going into space, the human spacecraft is limited to low Earth orbit and the Moon. On the other hand, all known planets in the solar system have reached the spacecraft.
Outer space represents a challenging environment for human exploration due to the dangers of vacuum and radiation. Microgravity also has a negative effect on human physiology which causes muscle atrophy and bone loss. Apart from these health and environmental issues, the economic cost of putting objects, including humans, into space is very high.
According to the Big Bang theory, the very early universe was an extremely hot and dense state about 13.8 billion years ago [9], which rapidly expanded. About 380,000 years later the universe was sufficiently cold to allow protons and electrons to form hydrogen and the so-called recombination era. When this happened, matter and energy decomposed, allowing the photon to travel freely through the continuously spreading space. The case that remained after the initial expansion has come since the fall of gravity to form stars, galaxies, and other celestial bodies, leaving behind a deep vacuum that is now called outer space. Since light has a finite velocity, this theory also constrains the shape of the directly observable universe. These leaves open the question of whether the universe is finite or infinite.
The current shape of the universe has been determined from measurements of the cosmic microwave background using satellites such as the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe. These observations indicate that the spatial geometry of the observable universe is “flat”, meaning that photons on a parallel path at a point remain parallel, as they travel to the space of the observable universe, leaving the local universe.
The present-day shape of the universe has been determined from measurements of the cosmic microwave background using satellites such as the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe. These observations indicate that the spatial geometry of the observable universe is “flat”, meaning that photons on a parallel path at a point remain parallel, as they travel to the space of the observable universe, leaving the local universe. The flat universe, combined with the measured mass density of the universe and the accelerated expansion of the universe, shows that space has non-zero vacuum energy, called dark energy.
Estimates are equivalent to 5.9 protons per cubic meter of the average energy density of the present-day universe, including dark energy, dark matter, and baryonic matter (simple matter composed of atoms). Atoms account for only 4.6% of the total energy density or a density of one proton per four cubic meters. The density of the universe is clearly not uniform; This ranges from relatively high densities in galaxies — including very high densities in structures within galaxies, such as planets, etc. Stars and black holes — positions in huge voids whose density is very low, at least in terms of visible matter. Unlike matter and dark matter, dark energy is not concentrated in galaxies: although mass in the universe may account for the majority of energy, the effect of dark energy is 5 orders of magnitude smaller than the effect of gravity by matter. And Dark Matter within the Milky Way.
Outer space is the closest known approximation to a complete vacuum. This is effectively no friction, which allows stars, planets, and moons to move freely along their ideal orbits, following the initial formation phase. Space is not devoid of the deep vacuum substance of space, because it contains a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. By comparison, the air humans breathe contains about 1025 molecules per cubic meter. The low density of matter in outer space means that electromagnetic radiation can travel large distances without scattering: the average free path of a photon in space is about 1023 km or 10 billion light-years. Despite this, extinction, which is the absorption and scattering of photons by dust and gas, is an important factor in galactic and space astronomy.
Stars, planets, and moons maintain their atmosphere by gravitational attraction. There is no clear upper limit for atmospheres: the density of atmospheric gas gradually decreases with distance from the object until it becomes indistinguishable from outer space. The Earth’s atmospheric pressure falls to about 0.032 pA at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi) compared to the 100,000 pA of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) of standard pressure. Above this altitude, the pressure of isotropic gas becomes increasingly insignificant compared to the radiation pressure from the Sun and the dynamic pressure of the solar wind. The thermosphere of this range has large gradients of pressure, temperature, and composition, and varies greatly due to space weather.
The temperature of outer space is measured in terms of the kinetic activity of the gas, as it is on Earth. Radiation from outer space has a different temperature than the kinetic temperature of the gas, which means that the gas and radiation are not in thermodynamic equilibrium. All observable universes are filled with photons that were created during the Big Bang, known as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB). (There is a large number of very large neutrinos known as cosmic neutrino backgrounds.) The current black body temperature of background radiation is about 3 K (−270 ° C; 4454 ° F). Gas temperature in outer space can vary widely. For example, the Boomerang Nebula has a temperature of 1 K, while the solar corona reaches a temperature of 1.2–2.6 million K.
Despite harsh environments, many life forms have been detected that can withstand extreme location conditions for extended periods. The species of lichen carried at the ESA bio pen facility remained at risk for ten days in 2007. The seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana tabacum germinated after being in space for 1.5 years. There are 559 days left when a strain of Bacillus subtilis, which is exposed to the Earth’s orbit or a simulated martyr environment. The hypothesis of lithopanspermia suggests that rocks emanating from life-exploiting planets into outer space can successfully transport life forms to another habitable world. One speculation is that just such a scenario occurred in the history of the solar system, in which potential microorganism-bearing rocks were exchanged between Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Even at relatively low altitudes in the Earth’s atmosphere, conditions are unfavorable to the human body. The altitude where atmospheric pressure corresponds to water vapor pressure at human body temperature is called the Armstrong Line, named after the American physician Harry G. Armstrong. It is situated at an altitude of about 19.14 km (11.89 mi). Over or above the Armstrong line, fluid is boiling in the throat and lungs. More specifically, bodily fluids such as saliva, tears, and fluid in the lungs are boiling. Therefore, at this height, human existence needs a pressure suit or pressurized capsule. | https://medium.com/@loopsfacts/whats-outside-space-461ceeb67b08 | ['Loops Facts'] | 2021-01-25 15:48:46.117000+00:00 | ['Time Out Space', 'Science', 'Space', 'Space Exploration', 'Space Travel'] |
SaaS, Paas, Iaas Analogy | I came across a great analogy that conceptually synthesized the differences between SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. The analogy compared cloud services to transportation, an on premise solution was compared to owning a car, IaaS to leasing a car, PaaS to using a taxi, and SaaS to riding the bus. Similar to owning a car, companies that own local on premise solutions rather than cloud services are responsible for the maintenance, security, and upkeep. IaaS on the other hand relates to leasing a car, companies can choose and use the infrastructure as they want but they do not own it. PaaS relates to using a taxi because you are not the one driving the taxi but rather you tell the driver where you want to go and relax in the back seat. Finally, SaaS was compared to riding the bus, the bus already has predefined routes and the ride is shared with other passengers. I thought the analogy between cloud services and transportation effectively conceptualizes the differences between cloud services.
Reference:
https://rubygarage.org/blog/iaas-vs-paas-vs-saas | https://medium.com/@1johnreynolds/saas-paas-iaas-analogy-b38e27e7b712 | ['John Reynolds'] | 2020-12-21 05:26:52.575000+00:00 | ['Cloud Services', 'Iaas', 'Paas', 'SaaS', 'Cloud Computing'] |
How to Install Python Barcode SDK via Pip on Apple M1 Mac | Someone may be curious about whether Intel-based Python apps can work well on Apple M1 Mac . I recently did a test with Dynamsoft Python Barcode SDK, which is built with native x86_64 libraries and CPython . It turned out that there was no issue using pip to install the wheel package and running my Python barcode reader app.
Installing Pip and Python Barcode Wheel Package
When you open the terminal app and type in Python3 the first time, a prompt dialog will pop up for installing the command line developer tools.
Click Install and wait a while for installing the relevant tools. After that, you can run python3 successfully in the terminal.
The next step is to install pip :
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python3 get-pip.py
Once pip is ready, you can try to install Dynamsoft Python Barcode SDK:
python3 -m pip install dbr
Don’t be surprised if you see the failure message.
You are trying to install an x86_64 wheel package on ARM64 architecture. However, don’t be frustrated because Rosetta 2 can make it work. Let's take a look at the Python3 architecture:
% file $(which python3)
/usr/bin/python3: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e]
/usr/bin/python3 (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
/usr/bin/python3 (for architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e
As you can see the Python 3 is a universal app, supporting x86_64. Therefore, we can install the x86_64 wheel package by specifying the arch:
arch -x86_64 $(which python3) -m pip install dbr
Congratulations! You have installed Dynamsoft Python Barcode SDK. From now on, you can get started to create a barcode scanning app with a webcam.
Building Webcam-based Python Barcode Reader on Apple M1 Mac
Install OpenCV-Python for capturing webcam video stream:
arch -x86_64 $(which python3) -m pip opencv-python
Open a camera and display the video stream in real-time:
import cv2 as cv
cap = cv.VideoCapture(0)
while True:
_ret, frame = cap.read()
if not _ret:
break
cv.imshow('BarcodeReader', frame)
ch = cv.waitKey(1)
# ESC
if ch == 27:
break
Since scanning barcode is a CPU-intensive task, we should run it in Python Process rather than Python thread:
from dbr import *
from multiprocessing import Process, Queue
def process_barcode_frame(license, frameQueue, resultQueue):
# Create Dynamsoft Barcode Reader
reader = BarcodeReader()
# Apply for a trial license: https://www.dynamsoft.com/customer/license/trialLicense
reader.init_license(license)
settings = reader.get_runtime_settings()
settings.max_algorithm_thread_count = 1
reader.update_runtime_settings(settings)
while True:
results = None
try:
frame = frameQueue.get(False, 10)
if type(frame) is str:
break
except:
continue
try:
frameHeight, frameWidth, channel = frame.shape[:3]
results = reader.decode_buffer_manually(np.array(frame).tobytes(), frameWidth, frameHeight, frame.strides[0], EnumImagePixelFormat.IPF_RGB_888)
except BarcodeReaderError as error:
print(error)
try:
resultQueue.put(results, False, 10)
except:
pass
barcodeScanning = Process(target=process_barcode_frame, args=(license, frameQueue, resultQueue))
barcodeScanning.start()
Note: you need a valid SDK license as well.
In the main process, create two queues for continuously sending image frames and receiving barcode scanning results:
frameQueue = Queue(size)
resultQueue = Queue(size)
while True:
_ret, frame = cap.read()
if not _ret:
break
try:
results = resultQueue.get(False, 10)
except:
pass
cv.imshow('BarcodeReader', frame)
# Append a frame to the frame queue
try:
frameQueue.put(frame.copy(), False, 10)
except:
pass
ch = cv.waitKey(1)
# ESC
if ch == 27:
break
Now, we can test the Python barcode program:
arch -x86_64 $(which python3) barcode_scanning.py license.txt
One more thing, you may fail to run the app due to the camera permission restriction. Instead of the terminal app, you can install iTerm2 to request the camera access.
Finally, we can do barcode scanning on Apple M1 Mac.
Source Code
https://gist.github.com/yushulx/c6666905d083d26b4d51316530faec56 | https://medium.com/@yushulx/how-to-install-python-barcode-sdk-via-pip-on-apple-m1-mac-13af8c4de533 | ['Xiao Ling'] | 2020-12-22 05:22:06.658000+00:00 | ['Barcode', 'Python', 'Python3', 'Pip', 'Apple M1'] |
Black reality | We black people have to choose what is more important to dedicate ourselves everyday, for our lives don’t follow the holistic pattern. For us, mainly when gender and social class are considered, it is offered the minimum amount of everything.
If we have education, maybe food and other supplies will not be enough, because there is no possiblity to work.
If we have jobs, it might not have enough time to study and get a better job, cause the actual one doesn’t offer health insurance. And even if we have jobs, it does not necessarily mean we earn enough money to buy food and other supplies, because there is still rent to pay and some other bills. I don’t think I need to talk about love here. We already know how this can be difficult to get in a world like we live in.
They build us to believe we always need something else, because we do not have the same conditions of our white earth colleagues after all. They treat this matter like it is wrong to be born black. They make us believe Africa is a poor continent and there is just poverty there. Have you ever been to Africa at least once? Or do you just know about it what TV has been showing you?
I want to digest all this bullshit. I can’t take so many lies anymore. We are beautiful and kind people. We’ve been on Earth longer. And where is the Earth’s heart? Don’t you think that’s why we black people are so connected with nature? Earth is in our hearts.
We’re very strong and, beyond that, totally capable to change our future. We are the ones who live our present, not them. I know it is hard, but we are capable of living a good life. Just try to go back and look into our roots. There are too many ancestors who fought to pave the way for us to live longer and better lives. They made it. We will so. We are smart people. Rescue the ancestral knowledge within you. | https://medium.com/@sueleendesouza/black-reality-4992d16c2c19 | ['Sueleen Souza'] | 2021-09-14 16:48:57.363000+00:00 | ['Black Women Writers', 'Ancestors', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Ancestry', 'African American'] |
Game of Thrones Season Premiere Twitter Analysis | Winter has come. Game of Thrones season 7 is here and there is merely 12 more episodes left of our beloved series. Now is the time to sit back and enjoy what we have while we have it. Or we can dive into the data and do a bit of analysis. One in the same, right?
“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities” — Tyrion Lannister
So with little direction or end goal in sight, I starting thinking of the best way to do some interesting exploratory data analysis on the recent premiere. After a bit of thought, the obvious choice seemed to be Twitter: where the general public of casual watchers and die-hard fans all join together to spout their opinions and impressions in real-time. I was bound to find some interesting insights. So let’s get into it.
Spoilers
If you haven’t seen the season premiere and plan to, I recommend you stop reading this, fire up your friend’s HBO GO account that you’ve been mooching off of for 6 months now, and watch it. Then and only then come back to this post and enjoy my data-driven look into the awesomeness that was S7E1.
Gathering Data
So with little to no real experience scraping data, I underwent the process of extracting thousands of ‘Game of Thrones’ related tweets. I made the choice to identify relevant tweets by only scraping those that contained #GoT. This turned out to be plenty, as I extracted over 215,000 tweets over the course of the week and more importantly over 25,000 live-tweets from during premiere. These will serve as the backbone of my analysis.
Leading up to Premiere
As one might imagine, the excitement surrounding the premiere built up over time. I was able to capture this in the plot below that shows number of relevant tweets over the course of the week from 7/10–7/18.
You can see some small blips on the 11th and 13th. I’m honestly not quite sure what these were due to, possibly generally hype or a headline/article being released. More apparently, we can see a clear peak that took place over the hour that the episode aired for the public to enjoy. Let’s dive into the live-tweets from that hour alone.
Activity Throughout the Episode
All in all, we can learn a lot from the ~25,000 tweets related to Game of Thrones that were put out during the episode from all over the world. As you can see in the plot below broken down by minute, the activity wasn’t exactly consistent.
So right off the bat, you probably notice 2–4 local maximums that stand out. I went back and looked at what exactly went down during these peaks. It went something like this:
0–4 Minutes in (~800 Mentions): Episode kicks off, Arya gives her big speech.
8–12 Minutes in (~1300 Mentions): Intro starts, we hear that sweet tune we’ve been waiting for.
34–36 Minutes in (~400 Mentions): Sam makes his entrance via a very unappealing montage.
40–44 Minutes in (~600 Mentions): Ed Sheeran inexplicably shows up in a cameo role.
Key Word Analysis
Moving past the general activity analysis, we can dive in a little further by looking at the content of all these tweets. I opted to use the nltk package in order to create a corpus of all the tweets throughout the episode.
A few measures had to be taken in order to verify that this corpus was meaningful. I removed all the typical stop-words right off the bat using nltk built-in functionality. Next, I removed words that were under three letters. I also removed any words that weren’t in the english dictionary. Lastly, I re-added any specific ‘thrones’ terminology like names of characters. Since for some reason ‘daenerys’ isn’t in the english dictionary, but that’s for another discussion.
Now we’ve cleaned up this giant corpus of over now just under 500,000 different words and can start understanding the data. In order to visualize the corpus, I created a data frame of the top 20 most frequent words to go along with a word cloud.
So as you can see, the clear-cut frontrunner was ‘premiere’ (makes sense). Next we had a couple other interesting data points in the form of ‘red’, ‘jorah’ and ‘varys’. I’ll get more into the character analysis later, but all of the ‘red’ tweets could be directed at the revenge of the red wedding orchestrated by arya in the first moments of the episode. Furthermore, I would be amiss to not mention that ‘sheeran’ came in at #12 with over 4,000 mentions. Take that as you may.
Character Mentions
Upon the closing sequence of an episode, we often find ourselves asking our friends and selves: “which characters won (or lost) the night?”. Through data analysis, we can answer this question more clearly and accurately.
These results were particularly interesting to me. Jorah came in at number one (much to his dismay) with over 6000 mentions. While Varys placed second with nearly the same (can’t quite remember why this would be the case… anyone?). After that we have the usual suspects: Arya, Jon, Cersei, and Sansa. To my surprise, Daenerys clocked in as the 7th most tweeted about character, despite being the focal point of the last 15 minutes. My guess is that this is primarily due to the difficulty that comes with spelling her name, but I could be wrong. Last but not least (okay, probably least), is Hodor — who managed to somehow squeak into the top ten by being mentioned over 500 times. Hodor.
Wrap it up
So as this post comes to an end, I would like to reflect on a couple things. First off, by going through with this project, I realized the power that resides in seemingly trivial things like tweets when taken in large quantities. I plan to utilize this concept via Twitter and other mediums as I move forward with my work and idea generation practices.
Moving forward to next week, I’m thinking of putting out a similar post for each episode and then compiling the data into one set for a larger project upon the end of the short season. Please reach out to me with any ideas or questions that I can explore. Also, feel free to check out my code. | https://towardsdatascience.com/game-of-thrones-s7e1-twitter-analysis-8dcd0bec958b | ['Conor Dewey'] | 2020-01-23 03:26:47.801000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Game of Thrones', 'Data'] |
The Woman in the Letter | Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
By the time you read this, you’ll probably be on the plane to Cali, about to begin the next leg of your adventure. This is the beginning of the distance between us; soon, you’ll lose my face in mist of the rainforest. In a few year’s time you’ll be searching for the name of that Canadian girl in Quito.
That’s I want to record it now, while it’s still fresh. The way you got up with me in the mornings before I worked and we’d drink coffee on the balcony, when our conversations carried the drunken haze that can only be reproduced by fatigue. Running for the bus that would take us up to the mountains for the weekend. The all-nighter we pulled by the beach in Puerto Lopez, drinking cheap rum by the fire and telling as many stories as we could cram in before sunrise.
That urgency is part of what made this so beautiful. There is no moment that hurt, nothing I regret.
Because of you, I’ll remember the roosters crowing in the morning as the most mournful of love songs. You changed the landscape of the city for me. You poured romance into the streets of Quito.
Our love can’t cross borders. It won’t transcend distance and make its home in reality. It will always be trapped here, frozen in time.
I hope you look back to it sometimes and that when you do, it makes you smile. If you’re ever feeling sad or lonely in snowy Michigan, read these words again and remember someone loved you.
Kisses,
Brynn
***
I found your letter, Jeff messaged Brynn once he connected to the airport wifi.
Was it too much? It felt like a bit much.
You made me blush.
Good. I’ve always wanted to write a proper love letter, on paper and all. And I thought you might appreciate it.
I’ve always wanted to receive a proper love letter on paper and all, so that worked out well.
Look at us, being this in sync to the end!
Jeff hadn’t ever thought about receiving a love letter. He’d never given much thought to the ways in which love was expressed until he met Brynn, who was obsessed by human connections or the lack thereof, and the role language played in everyday interactions. She was living in Quito as an ESL teacher and slowly learning Spanish, and was consistently fascinated by her loss of ease in communication.
“It’s almost nice to have this language thing as a crutch,” she told him once. “I never manage to make myself understood either way. Now at least I have an excuse.”
“How can you not make people understand you? You’re a writer!” Her speckled brown arm still held the warmth from the sun. He rested his head against it.
“Yes, but the speaking words are harder.”
Jeff chuckled. “Oh wow. Yeah, I can see that.”
“Shut up.” She pretended to slap him with her scarf, but it barely brushed against him. “I wish I could just write out everything I wanted to say. And pass it through at least seven edits.”
“Seven?”
“That’s the magic number.” She shrugged. “I’d end up saying a lot less, but my words would all be true. Or not. But they’d sound better.”
“I think your speaking words sound fine.”
“You would.”
Jeff couldn’t remember the context of that conversation, but he wished he’d told Brynn how lucky she was to at least have one method of communication that worked for her. He had nothing. His thoughts just gathered in his mind, shapeless, until they faded. He’d never been able to express to someone how he felt; he couldn’t even find the words for himself.
That always made their relationship feel unbalanced.
He still kept her goodbye note in the top drawer of his nightstand. He wondered what she’d think of that, whether she’d be flattered or accuse him of holding on. Brynn had an almost religious respect for the transience of things.
Most of the time it stayed there. He brought other girls back to his place and never gave a second thought to the person trapped in the letter. But on his lonelier nights he’d take it out and reread the dog-eared page for the thousandth time.
Remember someone loved you.
***
“Let’s not fall in love,” Brynn said after the first time they had sex.
“Sorry, what?”
“I’m sorry. It might seem a bit presumptuous to assume you’re going to fall in love with me, and I don’t, but I want to get this out of the way just in case. I mean, you’re going back to Michigan. I don’t even know if I could get a work visa in the States. And I can’t stand the cold.”
“Why are you thinking about this now?”
“Am I freaking you out? Sorry. I just think all the time. And I don’t know about you, but that was some fantastic sex for me.”
Jeff smiled. “Yeah. Same.”
“Seriously. It’s usually not that good.”
“Same.”
“And I like you.”
“Same.”
“Hey.” Brynn punched him lightly. “Stop stealing my thoughts.”
“Sorry.”
“You’d better be. Anyways. The next step from here would normally be getting to know each other better in hopes of falling in love and starting a life together. I’m saying, let’s not do that. Because it doesn’t really make sense.”
“Because of the visas.”
“Because our lives don’t line up. Would you wait around Quito for the next six months while I finished my contract?”
“I mean… I only have a three month leave from work, and money’s pretty tight, so…”
“Exactly. That’s fine.” She wrote something on his chest with her fingertips. He couldn’t quite make out what it was. “So let’s make this easy. No long-term expectations. Just the fun stuff. You down?”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“Excellent. So do I get to see you again?”
“I was planning on heading to Quito after this.”
“Perfect. You can stay with me. If you want.”
“I want.”
“Good.” She rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Is it weird that I just said all that?”
“A bit, yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I liked it. It was honest.”
“I try.” She turned back to him and propped herself up on her elbow. “I just don’t want you reading too much in it if I start saying romantic stuff, you know? I’m very capable of caring without committing.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m talking too much.” She marched her fingers down his stomach. He bit his lip. “Our days are numbered. We shouldn’t waste them.”
***
Jeff didn’t fall in love with Brynn, but he got used to waking up next to her. He learned to identify when she was having a moment and needed to disappear into herself, or when she’d worked herself into a frenzy and needed an adventure. He heard stories of her friends and family back at home until he knew who was who by name. He could remember her smell the second he closed his eyes.
He cared for her, but not enough to miss his flight to Cali. Not enough to follow her around the world, or to beg her to move to Michigan. He reread her letter over and over again on his flight and mourned the ending of their brief fling, but was satisfied with how clean the break was. No unfulfilled expectations. No bitterness. It was over. He’d loved her, and he didn’t anymore.
Brynn wasn’t his only romantic entanglement on his three-month South American trip, but she was the only one who wrote to him, so she endured the longest in his mind. She was the only one he kept in touch with when he got back home. She sent him long messages dripping with poetry and longing, painting a picture of her life in Quito, and her sad relocation to Vancouver when her mother’s dementia worsened. He’d saved all those messages. He still poured over them sometimes, when he was feeling a bit lonely. She’d trapped herself in her own words to the point where he didn’t even want to see her again. He preferred having this version of her, the one that simultaneously was and wasn’t real.
She’d deleted her Facebook eight months earlier. She sent him a message saying goodbye.
I just can’t deal with this social media shit anymore. I hate feeling like I always have to be available for everyone. And having daily access to these idealized versions of lives I could be living, while I’m trapped here in rainy, expensive Vancouver… It’s just too much. It doesn’t bring me joy. Feel free to send me an email if you want. I’d still love to keep in touch.
He’d tried writing to her a couple times, but erased everything less than a paragraph in. Everything he wrote made him sound boring, and he couldn’t deal with the fact that she may find him boring. Every now and then he googled her. She’d been trying to get her writing published the last time they’d spoken, and he kept hoping to see her name pop up as the author of a piece, but all his searches for Brynn Taro brought up were websites about gluten-free biscuits.
It was better this way. They’d had their moment, and now he was forced to let go.
***
Brynn bent over to pet Ferdinand the cat when she walked through the front door, and banged her head on the doorframe getting back up. She mouthed a couple curses, then unlaced her boots and walked into the kitchen.
The night had made her melancholic. She blamed Lucy for bringing up Ecuador. “Isn’t it wild that this time two years ago you had a whole other life there? It must be so weird for you.”
Yes, Lucy. This is weird. In the most boring way possible.
Brynn was glad she could be around for her mother as her illness progressed, and she couldn’t be chasing freedom forever. It made sense for her to stay in Canada. But her heart ached for Quito. Sometimes it was easier to pretend that part of her life had never happened, so she didn’t contrast Quito’s colourful Old Town and coconuts on the beach to the drab Vancouver skyline and overpriced beer at whatever knock-off Irish pub her friends had chosen.
This is my life now.
Whenever she thought of Quito, her mind inevitably drifted to Jeff, even if he’d only been around for a month. She hated herself for placing such importance on him. He’d affected her a lot more than she liked to admit.
Jeff made her feel comfortable and loved. But more importantly, he’d been around while she was the best version of herself.
Back then she romanticized everything, from solo sunsets to makeout sessions with strangers who hadn’t taken time to learn her name. Life felt alive then, that was the best way she could put it. Everything made her tingle with emotion and excitement. Jeff had walked in at the perfect moment, when she could shower him with love, then send him away with a smile.
She was glad he couldn’t see her now that her spirit was trapped in the mediocrity of the day-to-day. He probably wouldn’t care for this version of her.
She wondered how he was doing. He’d never emailed her, and while that hurt, it was probably for the best. Neither one of them should be clinging to an idealized love that never would have held up against the brutality of time.
Sometimes she wished she’d tried to make it work for real. When that happened, she googled the weather in Michigan and the feeling went away.
“Bedtime, kitten,” she cooed to Ferdinand. He wriggled away when she tried to pick him up, so she walked into her room alone. She lay in bed and behind closed eyes, tried to piece together Jeff’s face.
Remember someone loved you. | https://medium.com/the-junction/the-woman-in-the-letter-3976f66f3fe9 | ['Nikita Mélusine'] | 2019-06-28 21:08:39.503000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Romance', 'Love Letters', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
Finding Valuable Deals that are Worth Pursuing | I am so excited to share this DealQuest episode with you! Stephanie Scheller is the founder of Grow Disrupt, a San Antonio-based training organization for small businesses, and an accomplished speaker who has been behind-the-scenes with more than 2500 companies in the past five years to analyze & address their sales, marketing & systems! Her wealth of knowledge is especially useful when it comes to finding valuable deals that are worth pursuing!
Stephanie is a TEDx speaker, a Forbes 30 under 30 nominee, a 2019 New York Life Woman of the year Nominee, a two-time best-selling author, an entrepreneur, a coach and a trainer and dedicated to teaching the same skills that allowed her to build her business from scratch and walk away from her corporate job in less than five months. It is abundantly clear why I’m so excited to have her as a guest!
Grow Disrupt: Decreasing Overwhelm with Connections
Stephanie notes that when it comes to business, there are so many experts and self-proclaimed “gurus” out there. It’s very challenging to find people who actually give good information that is currently working.
A lot of small businesses get stuck. They get bad information, and then they get so overwhelmed with trying to either use that information, or find a new person with better information, that eventually they just kind of give up on follow through. We all know that doesn’t work if you’re going to run a business. You’ve got to have business skills as well as technical skills and you know like
So my goal was to be a gatekeeper so people could come to me and get connected with solid industry leaders that could really provide the guidance they needed. Eventually, Grow Disrupt turned to events as their medium of choice; they would bring in the people who not only know what they’re doing, but also know how to break it down in a way that makes sense. It’s vital that these guests can provide strategies and information that will work inside multiple businesses; global application is key!
Finding Valuable Deals
This may not seem like the ideal time to be knee-deep in the events industry! Stephanie shares that Grow Disrupt adapts as needed.
Right now, for example, they’re doing a lot of events online. Because they’ve positioned themselves as a brand that people can connect with, they’ve been able to make the pivot and continue serving their ideal clientele. This has been made simpler because Stephanie is a connector; she isn’t just signing contracts and creating growth for herself. Instead, she’s making deals that are based on trust and that grow from relationships.
As a connector myself, I know what a great skill this is when it comes to making deals. Before a transaction can occur, a relationship has to be made!
(Speaking of the event industry, you can go all the way back to episode three of the DealQuest Podcast to hear my interview with Ramon Ray if you want more information about deals and events!)
When Stephanie creates events and brings in experts, she tends to focus first and foremost on what her audience needs. They’re looking to accelerate their growth, shorten the learning curve, and uncover problems they don’t even know they have. By connecting with the experts that Stephanie brings them into contact with, they are able to identify what they most need to work on next. Often, these are problems that they have been unable to identify themselves, which means they’ve often put time and resources into trying to fix the wrong things!
Stephanie shares a great example she recently discovered in a violin lesson (I’d invite you to listen in to the full episode to hear about that real life example of fixing all the wrong things!)
Desperate Deals
Stephanie shares that one of the keys to deal-making is that you can’t be negotiating from a place of desperation.
When you’re just trying to get sales going,you tend to be desperate for the deal to go through. But here’s the thing: this deal is not going to save your business.
When you’re making deals from a desperate place, what you’re going to end up getting is a deal that’s not in your best interest. Stabilizing your sales funnel and using marketing to drive leads into that funnel will allow you the space you need to really negotiate and make deals from a place of power.
I love that Stephanie talked about this; something I talk about in my negotiating book is that if you’re in a place of scarcity, desperation, or fear, you’re going to be making wrong decisions. Great deals don’t come from a bad place!
Stephanie also mentioned some big ideas about taking a paycheck and getting a profit distribution from your business.
That ties in so well with last week’s episode, where Mike Michalowicz shared about his work with Profit First and Fix This Next.
Leverage Organic Growth With Deals
If you’re doing it right, you have organic growth from your sales and marketing as the base. And then you leverage that growth with deals. You’re able to use your organic success to enhance your negotiating position, which enables you to release the desperation of “needing” the deal.
Making deals from a place of strength also makes it more likely that you’ll be able to create ongoing relationships. The best way to do this is to start with a continuation of each relationship in mind. This requires honesty. Ideally you’re entering into deals that further your business without threatening to overwhelm it. Ideally, you don’t want a single deal to comprise more than 25% of your business, because you have to recognize that there are hundreds of reasons that that deal could end. Things change, clients’ needs change, the economy changes, your connection leaves the company. Too many companies become complacent and overly reliant upon one or two really large clients. Then if you lose them, you risk losing your business.
I completely agree with Stephanie’s thinking here. I’ve been in business for 35 years, and I feel like we do great work for people. We rarely have any issues with clients. However, we still lose clients for other reasons; by reducing our reliance on a small handful of clients, we strengthen our overall business and approach.
Stephanie shared about a contact that was making $250,000 a year from three clients. With no warning, she lost two of them overnight. It wasn’t anything she did “wrong”; they were bringing it in house because they got acquired by a larger company. Her business had relied on three contracts; they were good deals, but she could have lost everything by over relying on them and ignoring organic sales and marketing that would have enabled her to have more diversity within her business.
To learn more about leveraging deals while organically growing your business, listen in to the whole episode here! You can also learn more about Stephanie over on her site, www.growdisrupt.com.
Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 30 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.
If you want to find out if you’re an authentic negotiator, take the Authentic Negotiating Success Quiz today! | https://medium.com/@corey-kupfer/finding-valuable-deals-that-are-worth-pursuing-68d0e9a8bc43 | ['Corey Kupfer'] | 2020-05-25 19:24:35.557000+00:00 | ['Corey Kupfer', 'Negotiation', 'Stephanie Scheller', 'Business Strategy', 'Deals'] |
Introduction to Firebase Storage #1: Upload Files | Some apps allow users to upload images and files, read them, delete them and even download them whenever users want. Such functionality can be useful for social media platforms, blogging platforms or storage services. Firebase Cloud Storage offers a solution to store user-generated content easily.
Hello fellow devs, in this article, we’ll be discussing Firebase Cloud Storage and how we can implement it to upload, retrieve and store user files securely.
What is Firebase Cloud Storage?
Firebase Cloud Storage is a service that developers can use to store and download files generated directly by clients. No server-side code is needed.
It uses Google Cloud Storage buckets to store the files, allowing accessibility from both Google Cloud and Firebase. These buckets are formed within a hierarchical structure. For example:
What I really like about Firebase Cloud Storage is how seamless it integrates with Firebase Authentication so you can organize uploaded files based on each user and apply access controls if needed.
Also, it scales automatically so there’s no worry about moving to another provider when stored data gets too large.
Now that we know what Firebase Storage can do, let’s try using it in our project. For this tutorial, I’m making a simple photo album app that allows users to upload, view and delete images.
Step 1: Create a new Firebase Project
Head over to firebase.google.com and create a new project.
On the dashboard, click on the Web icon to initialize Firebase for Web Apps.
Follow the steps by Firebase and you’ll reach a page that shows your config variables (see image below). This is important so copy and save it somewhere. We will use it soon.
Next, head over to the Storage tab and click on the ‘Get Started’ button.
You’ll see a pop-up window that asks if you are okay with some settings. Replace the request.auth !=null to true . This ensures we are allowed to upload files to Firebase without needing authentication for the simplicity of this tutorial.
Click ‘Next’ to proceed.
And there you go! Firebase Cloud Storage is now enabled. Let’s integrate it into our app.
Step 2: Create a React App
For this example, I’m using a react project template. You can use whatever front-end framework you like.
To create a React project, simply run:
npx create-react-app <app-name>
Once your project is created, run:
npm install firebase
This is a package that contains the necessary tools and infrastructure we need to set up Firebase in our app.
Step 3: config.js
Create a file called config.js to store our Firebase config variables that we copied earlier.
Our config.js will look like:
import firebase from "firebase/app";
import "firebase/storage"; const app = firebase.initializeApp({
apiKey: process.env.REACT_APP_API_KEY,
authDomain: process.env.REACT_APP_AUTH_DOMAIN,
databaseURL: process.env.REACT_APP_DATABASE_URL,
projectId: process.env.REACT_APP_PROJECT_ID,
storageBucket: process.env.REACT_APP_STORAGE_BUCKET,
messagingSenderId: process.env.REACT_APP_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID,
}); // Get a reference to the storage service, export it for use
export const storage = firebase.storage(); export default app;
Note that I’m storing the actual config values in my .env file and accessing them as process.env.VARIABLE_NAME .
If you are new with environment variables, I found this nice article explaining how to use it.
Step 4: Uploading Files to Storage
In App.js , we can import our storage reference that we exported from our config.js file.
import {storage} from "./config";
In order to upload files, we need to have an input field for the user. We can create an input element like so:
<input type="file" accept="image/x-png,image/jpeg" />
By specifying the type to file, the input field will be a file picker.
For this example, we only accept files that are .png or .jpeg . We can specify this requirement in the accept attribute.
Now let’s add a button that will upload our image to Firebase when clicked.
<button>Upload to Firebase</button>
At this point, the UI should look something simple like:
1. Create Image state
To track whether our user has supplied a file in the input, we should have an image state. First, import the useState hook.
import React, { useState } from "react";
And initialize the state to null:
const [image, setImage] = useState(null);
2. onImageChange
Next, let’s create an onImageChange function which will update the image state every time the user supplied a new file to the input field.
const onImageChange = (e) => {
const reader = new FileReader();
let file = e.target.files[0]; // get the supplied file
// if there is a file, set image to that file
if (file) {
reader.onload = () => {
if (reader.readyState === 2) {
console.log(file);
setImage(file);
}
};
reader.readAsDataURL(e.target.files[0]);
// if there is no file, set image back to null
} else {
setImage(null);
}
};
Then, we will pass this function into the onChange handler of our input element.
<input type="file" accept="image/x-png,image/jpeg" onChange={(e) => {onImageChange(e); }}/>
3. uploadToFirebase
Now let’s create an uploadToFirebase function for our button so that the image will be uploaded to Firebase when the user clicks the button.
This is how we can implement the function:
Check if the image state is null. If it is, ask the user to supply a file first. If image is a file, we'll create a root reference to our storage. Then we create a child reference to store our file. We can name that reference by the image’s name property. Finally, use put(image) to store our file in the reference. Then have a callback function to let the user know that the file has been uploaded to Firebase successfully.
Here’s the implementation in code:
const uploadToFirebase = () => {
//1.
if (image) {
//2.
const storageRef = storage.ref();
//3.
const imageRef = storageRef.child(image.name);
//4.
imageRef.put(image)
//5.
.then(() => {
alert("Image uploaded successfully to Firebase.");
});
} else {
alert("Please upload an image first.");
}
};
That should do it!
Let’s check if it works.
Yay it does! The uploaded image is in Firebase Storage.
Conclusion
With Firebase Cloud Storage, there are many things you can do to handle, organize and store user’s data and files. Stay tuned for the next article on how to retrieve, display and delete files from Firebase Storage.
Thanks for reading and I hope it was helpful in any way. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below and refer to the Firebase documentation to read more about it yourself. Take care and cheers! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/introduction-to-firebase-storage-1-upload-files-25e63a74a8c2 | ['Victoria Lo'] | 2020-12-02 21:29:45.393000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Firebase', 'Web Development'] |
Why Wait for the New Year? Start Now. | Why Wait for the New Year? Start Now.
Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash
New year New Goals! I am going to start my side project in 2021. I am going to start exercising daily in 2021. I am going to smoke less in 2021.
But why? Why should we wait for the new year before starting?
This realisation struck me as I was watching Ryan Serhant (one of America’s top real estate broker) latest vlog: You’re WASTING Your Time. In his introduction, he said: “Why wait? It makes no f**king sense.”
He then goes on and talks about the importance of seizing the present and putting in the work consistently for your dreams.
Many of us have our personal projects that we will like to start doing. It can be starting a side hustle like writing or doing youtube, executing a new fitness plan or even starting to save consistently.
However, many times we like to procrastinate and tell ourselves to start our projects later, perhaps start on a new day or even a new year. New year resolutions are common because it is a promise, a personal commitment to do something that will improve your life in the coming year. It invokes the feeling of renewed hope.
Yet, it makes no difference. There is no point waiting for a new year to start a change when you can just start it now. In fact, it is better to start now as you can achieve your goals faster. If the resolution means so much to you, just do it today.
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
So yes, start today. Even if it just a couple of days before 2021, it does not hurt by starting now. By starting a couple of days earlier, you are a few steps closer to your goals. Acting now also creates a positive feedback mechanism that creates further emotional reactions and inspirations and moves on to motivate your future actions.
Just by taking action today and starting before the new year can actually create a strong mindset that is essential in sticking to your commitment in the long run.
This is because you are telling yourself that this project is a non-negotiable one and you can and will commit to it, regardless of the occasion.
Only 23% of people who set a New Year’s resolution actually follow through with them according to a survey by FranklinCovey. Thus, if you treat each day as a gift and seize the present moment instead of waiting for the magical first day of the year, you realized that you have a greater chance of following through with your goals.
Let’s start today for a better tomorrow.
Thank you for reading to the end. I really appreciate it. If you are interested to join me in this self-development journey, consider following me on Medium, Youtube or LinkedIn. Have a great year ahead! | https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/why-wait-for-the-new-year-start-now-8b8c278db823 | ['Rui Yi Gan 颜睿易'] | 2021-01-16 02:05:41.711000+00:00 | ['Growth', '2021', 'Dreams', 'Resolutions', 'Work'] |
How to Work 40 Hours in 16.7 | I used to work a lot — 60, 80, or even 100 hours a week. I let my work be a big part of how I defined myself. I wore those insane hours like a badge of honor…I loved telling people how “busy” I was…and how much I “had to do”.
Sound familiar?
Looking back, I realize I used my work to try and fill a void in myself. The problem was that this void was like a black hole. No matter how many hours I worked, it never seemed to fill it up. If anything, it made me feel worse.
One day I’d had enough. Truth be told, I’d had way more than enough. I stopped and reevaluated my life, trying to figure out what was important to me, and what wasn’t. I realized that while work was important, because I want to feel productive, it was just one important thing…and not the most important one at that. What’s more, I realized that working on things I didn’t really like was detrimental to my well-being.
So I decided I had to make a big change…
Searching for the Way
Since my work is important to me, I had to figure out how to work smarter, not harder. I had to optimize my work process, doing more in less time.
Of course, I also had to find work I enjoyed, that fulfilled me, rather than work that drained me. By doing this, I have more time to improve myself, be with friends and family, and truly be healthy on all levels — mind, body, and soul.
I love to read. I especially love to read things that help me improve myself. The change I embarked on gave me the perfect excuse to go on a reading binge! I read every book I could find on the subject of working smarter. I read a ton of blog posts on the same topic. I talked to people.
Then, I took the things that made the most sense to me, and implemented them. Some were complete disasters. Some worked partially, but clearly weren’t for me.
I noticed that several different solutions each had a piece of the puzzle. I took those parts that worked for me, and combined them into my own system. Slowly but surely, I developed a formula that would forever change how I work.
Enter the Pomodoro
Over the years I‘d heard about a time management system called the Pomodoro Technique. It seemed too simplistic, but as they say, the simplest things often work best.
I read the 2006 paper written by its creator, Francesco Cirilio, which explained the technique and as importantly, the psychology behind it. This revolutionary time management system is deceptively simple to learn, but life-changing when applied correctly. The Pomodoro Technique can be broken down into the following four basic principles.
1. Work with time, not against it: Many of us live as if time is our enemy. We race the clock to finish assignments and meet deadlines. The Pomodoro Technique teaches us to work with time, instead of struggling against it.
2. Eliminate burnout: Taking short, scheduled breaks while working eliminates the “running on fumes” feeling you get when you push yourself too hard. It’s impossible to overwork when you stick to the system.
3. Manage distractions: Phone calls, emails, Facebook messages, or suddenly realizing you need to change the oil in your car — distractions constantly bombard us. Usually, these distractions can wait. The Pomodoro Technique helps you log your distractions, and prioritize them for later.
4. Create a better work/life balance: Most of us are far too intimately acquainted with the guilt that comes from procrastination. If we haven’t had a productive day, we can’t seem to enjoy our free time. As a Pomodoro Master, you create an effective timetable and achieve your high-priority tasks, so you truly enjoy your time off.
“All this is great,” you may think, “but what do I actually do?”
It’s Simple:
1) Choose a task;
2) Set a timer for 25 minutes;
3) Work on your task until the timer rings, then put a checkmark on a tracker;
4) Take a five minute break (you just completed your first Pomodoro!); then
5) Repeat steps 1–4 three more times, followed by a 15 minute break.
Simple, But…
Now, you’re probably thinking “Twenty five minutes of work? That’s nothing! This is gonna be easy!” Not so fast… That’s 25 minutes of steady, focused work on ONE task. No multitasking. No emails. No phone calls. No checking Facebook. Nothing! No distractions allowed!
For me, this took some getting used to, and required some tools and hacks. Here’s what I used:
1) A kitchen timer (or an app);
2) Airplane mode (the most important function on any mobile phone!);
3) A quiet place to work and/or a good pair of headphones or earplugs;
4) Pen and paper (for those Pomodoro checkmarks);
5) Five minutes each morning to plan out the day’s tasks; and
6) 30 minutes at the end of each week to review the past week and plan for the next.
Finding the Magic Combination
Like most things in my life, I learned through experimentation, experiencing a lot of pain and frustration but ultimately growth.
At first, I thought I could do 16 Pomodoros each day, no problem. I was used to working so much, that less than seven hours of work seemed like a breeze. The first day I completed 12 Pomodoros. I got a ton done, but still felt like a failure because I fell short of my goal. I felt tired and miserable.
Over the following days, I tried cutting back on my target number. When it worked, I got a ton of stuff done and felt amazingly productive. I knew I was onto something good. Other days, I did too little or too much, felt like crap and was convinced this was the dumbest system in the world.
One day, I just ignored the system altogether and went back to multitasking. I was unfocused, unproductive, and frustrated. I gritted my teeth and kept doing things my old way for a few more days. What I found was that I got things done, but my productivity simply couldn’t compare to when it all clicked with the Pomodoros.
Sanity returned. I began experimenting with smaller numbers of Pomodoros, starting with five per day, gradually working my way up to eight. My goal was eight Pomodoros each weekday, for a total of 40 per week.
This worked (sort of) but as they say, life happens. Some days I had so many meetings to attend, or my daughter had a recital at school which I didn’t want to miss, and I just couldn’t find fit in eight Pomodoros. It became clear that 40 was my magic weekly number, but I needed to be less rigid with how I approached my work-week.
The math was straightforward: 40 Pomodoros = 1,000 minutes of work (plus 350 minutes of breaks) each week. This averages out to about 16.7 hours of work each week. That’s it!
However, when I had too much going on, or felt physically or mentally off, I couldn’t fit in eight Pomodoros. I’d fall behind, and next day I’d try to cram in 14, leaving me exhausted and not very happy with the quality of my work.
I realized I had to step back and rethink my week, paying attention to my moods. To refocus on what was right for me. The Pomodoro Technique was great, but something was missing to make it really work for me.
The Psychology of Motivation
In a perfect world, I’d have eight high-value tasks identified at the start of each workday. I’d prioritize these, and knock them off one by one, from most important to least. I’d be equally enthusiastic and motivated about each one, wouldn’t be interrupted, and would finish my day’s work in less than three hours.
Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, “we live nowhere near perfect”.
The reality is that I’m a human being, living in a world full of other humans. I have emotions I don’t control, and I often get tired. Some tasks I simply don’t feel like doing, even though I know they’re important, and possibly urgent.
To make this work long-term, I had to face these things and learn to accept them, working with, rather than against them.
My energy level and attitude affect my work and output, so I had to stay present to how I was feeling, and master myself. Reading a useful blog post, I found questions like these especially helpful:
My physical energy — how healthy am I?
My emotional energy — how happy am I?
My mental energy — how well can I focus on something?
My spiritual energy — why am I doing this? What is my purpose?
These questions helped me take into account my mood and energy when prioritizing tasks. As a result, I no longer did anything just because I felt I had to.
When my physical energy was low, I’d work on my health and wellness. When my emotional energy was low, I’d find something that made me happy, like spending time with my wife and daughter.
A Seven-Day Workweek
Remember where I started all this — working crazy hours, evenings, and weekends?
When I decided to change, I swore to myself I’d never work on weekends, holidays, vacations, or even after 5 PM. Great, right? Well, I’m happy to report I’ve broken all of these promises, and that’s actually a good thing.
On those days when I couldn’t finish eight Pomodoros by 5 PM, I’d feel stressed. I’d feel like a failure. Suddenly I realized my view of the work week was too limiting. Why did I make those commitments to myself, limiting when I could work? I did it because I was coming from an unfulfilling work life, working too many hours, and for the wrong reasons.
I transitioned from just working…to working on things that fulfilled me. What’s more, I gave myself the freedom to do non-work stuff, such as attending my daughter’s recital during what most people consider work hours. This made it easy to shift my mindset about when I could or couldn’t work.
The final piece to my puzzle was moving from a five-day work-week, where I had to stop by 5 PM, to a seven-day work-week, where I could work when it suited me. This took me from 40–45 hours available to get my 40 Pomodoros in, to having 168 hours each week. Since I only need 16.7 hours net, that means I only work 10% of my time. What a difference!
What?! I’m Supposed to Do Everything in Just 16.7 Hours a Week?!
You’re probably thinking, “I work more than that in two days and you’re trying to tell me that’s all I need to work in an entire week?”
YES! That’s exactly what I’m telling you. And NO, you’ll probably still ‘work’ more than 16.7 hours a week. I ‘work’ 35–40 hours a week, but I spend at least 20–25 of those hours on calls, meetings, networking on- and offline, and other less-focused tasks. These are important, but I don’t count them as work time.
I truly work 16.7 hours each week, and I get about five times more done in those few hours than in the other 25 hours.
There’s no avoiding it. Life happens. As long as humans are involved, and especially if you live in modern society with its 24/7 connectedness, it’s next to impossible to have a perfect working environment. However, you can work smarter without having to work harder.
Are you up for it?
Action Idea: Start with trying 1 Pomodoro today. Twenty-five minutes of concentrated work on one task. Start with one and work up from there.
Want to go further?
Ready to save 23.3 hours each week and get MORE accomplished?
Of course you are…and I want to make it as easy as possible for you.
Click the image below to get access to my free 32-page eBook.
This guide explains my simple system in detail and includes worksheets, tools and resources that you can print out and use. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-work-40-hours-in-16-7-d9038681e652 | ['Chris Winfield'] | 2015-11-11 15:20:11.145000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Work', 'Productivity'] |
World Religions that Worship Water | “We made from water every living thing” (Qur’an 21:30).
Photo by Jeffrey Workman on Unsplash
Water is often thought of as a purifier in many religions. In some, it is associated directly with a god or deity. Without modern scientific knowledge, adherents to ancient religions were capable of recognizing the importance of water in their lives and duly worked to protect, save, and honor it. Here are a few religions that worship the most divine resource on Earth:
Aztec religion
The Aztecs believed that Tlaloc, the god of rain, was responsible for bearing the fruits of the Earth and providing water (1). In Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City), atop The Great Temple sits a shrine dedicated to Tlaloc where the Aztecs gave many water-related offerings. When the Aztecs inhabited Tenochtitlan, they built the city on an island of then Lake Texcoco. Water was not only important for the health of the people and their agriculture, it was imperative for literally keeping the city afloat. At Mount Tlaloc, an extinct volcano located slightly East of Mexico City, the Aztecs would hold sacrificial rituals just before the rainy seasons to secure rain for the land. In the ones where children's hearts were ripped out, they were supposed to cry leading up to the ceremony because their tears symbolized abundant rain. If they did not cry, they would rip the child’s fingernails off to elicit tears. Sadly, Mexico City no longer floats on top of a lake. It’s actually one of the most water-scarce cities in the world despite receiving more rainfalls than London. The water shortages largely affect low-income families and are expected only to get worse. Let’s hope the Mexican government can come up with some science-based means of water renewal soon before someone tries going old-school to restore water for the people. President Lopez-Obrador, at least do it for the children!
Yoruba
For the Yoruba people, Yemoja is the goddess of the oceans and rivers. She is one of many orishas (deities) in the Yoruba religion and is considered the metaphysical mother of all orishas, exemplifying the importance of water to life. The etymology of her name comes from the Yoruba words Iye, meaning “mother”; ọmọ, meaning “child”; and ẹja, meaning “fish”; roughly translated to mean “mother whose children are fish.” She is patron orisha of the Ogun River which supplies water to Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. In more than just ethereal belief, water is also essential to the daily worship rituals of the Yoruba.
Hinduism
The Ganges river is the most sacred river in Hinduism. Worshipped as the goddess Ganga, she became associated as the bestower of earthly gifts and ultimate liberation. The Hindus believe that the waters of the Ganges are pure and cleansing (2). Simply a droplet of water from the Ganges carried by the breeze in one’s direction is believed to “erase the sins of many lifetimes in an instant” (3). Unfortunately for many Hindus and those reliant on the material benefits provided by the Ganges River, the Ganges faces serious threats from pollution to environmental destruction. Despite many government actions to preserve the river, most have seen only limited success. Hopefully, the Indian government and its people recognize just how important it is to preserve this body of water quickly to ensure the religious and corporeal health of the people reliant on it.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism was a dominant religion in ancient Iran. One of the seven holy immortals (key aspects) of the religion is water and its association with health (page 32). A core tenet of Zoroastrianism is protecting the life-giving elements. Unlike most other religions on this list, Zoroastrians believe water is inherently pure and should not be used as a cleansing agent (page 35). For the sake of its purity, nothing impure must come into contact with it, so lakes, streams, and other natural water sources are to be protected. If we — in the United States, at least — had a more Zoroastrian stance on preserving water, we’d likely be more cautious about what we discharge into water sources and have more abundant clean water.
Photo by Jenil Jain on Unsplash
Islam
“We made from water every living thing” (Qur’an 21:30). This statement could sum up the importance of water to nearly all of the beliefs in this list. Water not only symbolizes human provenance in Islam but also purity. For the ritual purification practices detailed in 5:6 of the Qur’an, the reader is instructed to perform a cleansing with water before worship. Mosques are always equipped with fountains or other water sources for Muslims to perform ablutions before prayer. Additionally, consuming excess water is considered sinful. 7:31 of the Qur’an explains that God does not like those who consume in excess. Water also plays an integral role in the most beautiful instances of Islamic architecture like the water tank in front of the Taj Mahal, the various pools at the Alhambra fortress in Granada, Spain, and the hammams (public baths) that covered ancient Muslim cities.
Judaism/Christianity/Catholicism
From Genesis 2:5, “no small plant of the field had yet sprung up — for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land,” there was an understanding that water was necessary for life. This concept gets further emphasized in Ezekiel 47:1–12 when it was explained that life follows the path of the water running from the temple to the Dead Sea. As in Islam, many Jewish rituals (and even after menstruation) call for cleansing with water. Water is also symbolic in cleansing sins. In Christianity, Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19–20). The ceremonial baptism symbolizes rebirth and purity of the soul. In yet another instance of ritual purification, water is again the key element.
Photo by Mor Shani on Unsplash
Taoism
Taoism teaches virtue to its practitioners by demanding them to “be like water.” In chapter 8 of Lao Tzu’s, Tao Te Ching, Tzu describes seven ways that virtues are connected to water. Some virtues like embodying a giving spirit are based on the environmental roles of water, such as how rivers provide to animals and the surrounding lands. Other virtues like practicing humility are based on water’s physical properties, such as how water naturally flows to the lowest point, not concerning itself with needing to be seen. With very visible metaphors and some that are a slight stretch, Taoism preaches a lot of water-based wisdom.
Shinto
Shinto uniquely recognizes the beauty of incorporating natural water landscapes into their religious architecture and practices. When communities have a thirst for a natural backdrop, they will use portable Shinto shrines, called mikoshis, to hold a ceremony at a waterfall. Like basically every other religion, Shinto also adheres to using water for ritual cleansing practices in which they use a temizuya, a stone water trough. To preserve the sanctity of religious shrines, worshippers wash their hands and mouth with water.
Greek Mythology
The Greeks really had fun with their religion. They created action-packed stories with intriguing plotlines. Out of Greek mythologies, Hollywood has produced dope movies like Hercules. In creating entertaining stories, naturally, they also created diverse sets of characters. Of their over 30 deities relating to the sea and water, some bear no significance to any of the water-based themes prevalent in the previously discussed religions. Glaucus is a deity who simply just protects fishermen. Conversely, Naiads is a deity associated with more classic water-based themes like protecting freshwater supplies.
Photo by Kedar Gadge on Unsplash
The above religions listed are just a few of the many old religions that worship water. There’s something to learn from each one about how we could appreciate or approach preserving this essential resource. The reason that we universally see water as a core piece of nearly every religion has to do with the critical role it plays in sustaining human life.
Civilizations were built on water. Societies fought and continue to fight each other over land containing water. And we use absurd amounts of water to develop nearly every product on a grocery store shelf. As water becomes more scarce, our secular societies may take science-based but religiously fervent steps to ensure our most precious resource continues to be accessible by humanity. | https://medium.com/water-locale-inc/world-religions-that-worship-water-f9bb76e7f4c9 | [] | 2020-12-14 17:48:08.903000+00:00 | ['Purity', 'Water', 'Clean', 'Religion', 'Environment'] |
Willow Talk | SHORT STORY/LIFE LESSON
Willow Talk
A reminder from the willow tree
Image by Peggy Choucair from Pixabay
This is the story of Willow and how Willow came to be. This is the story told to me by Willow for my son and all children. And even for adults, too, if they can get out of their heads, if only for a moment. . . .
A long time ago, at the beginning of the new cycle of Grandmother Earth, the spirit of Willow approached this planet. Already there grew many tree people upon the Earth. They, too, were spirit but had taken form.
There grew the great Sequoia, so tall and majestic, who could see over the whole world as a reminder of the need to see the whole picture before judging another. There grew, all gnarled and twisted, Grandfather Oak, who although looked old, reminded all of the strength in age. So, too, grew the Birch people, white and pure, as a reminder of the untarnished Great Spirit.
In addition, there grew Pine and Eucalyptus and Cedar and Banyon and many, many more. So many, in fact, that even the Creator had difficulty counting them all. And each possessing their own message.
So when the spirit of Willow came to Grandmother Earth and saw the great nation of the tree people, she asked Great Spirit why she should take form, if so many existed already.
And Great Spirit said to Willow: “There is never too many to express my Infinite Being. Each of the Tree Nation are needed to express My Being, and you Willow are no different.
“You will be a reminder that though the Life Force that pushes through your being pushes upward in your growth, to kiss Grandfather Sun, that same force will also pull you down to touch Grandmother Earth, that none should forget her.”
And Willow asked: “But who would forget her–she who is the maker of all that is form? Are there some among the Tree Nation who have forgotten her?”
“No,” Great Spirit replied, “none of the Tree Nation have forgotten her. Nor will the Four-Leggeds who will come later. Nor the Winged Ones. Nor those who will swim or crawl. Yet there comes those who will walk on two legs. Who will forget. Who will think they are separate–separate from the Earth; separate from all things; even separate from each other.
“You will be a reminder for any of those Two-Leggeds who will stop under your shade and who will be still for a moment, of the wisdom to walk in humility in honor of the Grandmother of all things. To live in compassion towards all beings of the Earth.
“You will teach that none can grow into the future without giving gratitude and honor for the roots of the past.”
And Willow became pleased at these words of Great Spirit, of her role upon the Earth. She happily took form in a seed. And the Life Force–the intention of Great Spirit–pulsed strong in the seed. Until it changed into a sapling. Then up and up Willow grew, drawn by her love for Grandfather Sun.
Yet before Willow grew too high, she remembered her beginnings, and in love and thanksgiving reached down and touched Grandmother Earth.
As she does to this day. | https://medium.com/spiritual-tree/willow-talk-32bc36ae7931 | ['Janaka Stagnaro'] | 2020-08-19 14:51:01.249000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Spiritual', 'Spiritual Tree', 'Trees', 'Short Story'] |
Weekly Pentina Prompt: Happy New Year | Weekly Pentina Prompt: Happy New Year
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
2021 is almost here. What does that mean? That means there’s a whole year ahead in which to write fiction. How great is that?
For this week’s pentina prompt, your assignment is to write a 50-word story about celebrating New Year’s eve. Your story could be about a party, about people who have to work on New Year’s Eve, or anything else, as long as the story is about bringing in the New Year. Write science fiction, horror, romance, mystery, or whatever delights you.
(When 2017 became 2018 I was standing in an airport security line, which was probably — definitely — the least interesting New Year I’ve ever celebrated.)
You’re welcome to write about celebrating New Year’s in 2020, 1920, or any year that strikes your fancy. Your celebration can be anywhere in the world, too. Or not even on this world.
Feel free to invent your own New Year’s tradition.
And, of course, happy New Year. | https://medium.com/centina-pentina/weekly-pentina-prompt-happy-new-year-264a42607f42 | ['Bill Adler Editor'] | 2020-12-25 14:02:42.533000+00:00 | ['Fiction Prompts', 'Writing Prompt Response', 'Pubprompt', 'New Year', '2021'] |
Creating a Stunning Interactive Dashboard with Plotly Express and Dash | 1. Requirements
You need to install pandas , plotly and dash before starting this tutorial with the command pip install <package-name> .
, and before starting this tutorial with the command . Create a file.py with all the code. I also tried to use the Jupiter notebook, but it didn’t seem to work. But since the dash tutorial on the official website suggested the format .py, I preferred to keep it.
2. Libraries and dataset
After the required installations are done, we can import the following libraries:
The library dash contains python classes with all components of the web application, such as dash_html_components and dash_core_components .
dash_html_components provides components for HTML tags, while dash_core_components components for HTML tags generated with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through the React.js library.
We also import the Plotly express and pandas libraries.
Later, we import the famous Iris dataset, like in the tutorial I wrote about Plotly Express. My purpose is to group the plot obtained before into a unique page using Dash.
3. Initialize app
As you can deduce from the title of the paragraph, we start to build the app through initialization.
In other words, the application uses a custom CSS stylesheet (https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css) to modify the default styles of the elements.
5. Web app with one plot
Let’s begin showing the code to produce a web page with only two sentences, without any plot. We specify the layout that we want in our application:
This output should be returned when you run the code. When it appears, you should copy http://127.0.0.1:8050/ in your web browser and you’ll see something like this:
You can observe that the line of code html.H1(children=''Dashboard of Iris dataset'') is like to write <h1>Dashboard of Iris dataset</h1> in HTML, where the tag <h1> is typically used for the headings.
The same thing for html.Div(children=''Dash: A web application framework for Python'') that corresponds to <div>Dashboard of Iris dataset</div> in HTML.
If we want to add the plot to the app, we should add the component dcc.Graph .Before defining the layout, we first create a scatterplot using the Plotly express library. After we pass the figure into dcc.Graph
Above you have the dashboard you should obtain after modifying the code.
6. Three plots on the page
In the previous paragraph, I showed only one plot on the page to start from the simplest case. But as you know, the dashboard is typically used to contain more than one plot. For this reason, let’s put three graphs on the page, a plot for each line.
Now, it’s possible to observe the three plots on a unique page! But at the same time, each plot takes a lot of place within the application. Wouldn’t it be better to have two plots for a row?
7. Two plots in the same line within the page
Now, I want to show two plots side by side. It’s possible by defining two blocks with <div> tag. In each block, we specify the class name, “six columns”, which is the width, not the number of plots to display. The class name of the row, which contains the two graphs, is “row”.
We can also add two additional plots in the same way:
In the way, we have two rows and two columns, where each row will contain two plots.
7. Display plot with Callback
In the previous paragraphs, I showed how to use app.layout , which provides the hierarchical structure of the app, and the examples were mostly static. Now, the goal is to build a dynamic app, where you can change the x variable and the y-variable of a plot. This is possible with the callback functions, that allows changing the input component’s property. Let’s start the example:
In this example, we can the function update_graph when the input variables are changed of the Input properties. The @app.callback decorator describes the inputs and the output of the application’s interface. We have as input the “value” property of the components with ids ‘x-axis column’ and ‘y-axis column’, while the output is the ‘figure’ property of the graph.
8. Summary:
I made a summary to see fastly the apps we created in the previous paragraphs:
Example 1: One plot
Example 2: Three plots within the web page
Example 3: two plots side by side
Example 4: Display plot with Callback
Final thoughts:
Nice results, don’t you think? I only the most simple examples focusing only on the layout, but other advanced properties can be added. There are many examples in the dash tutorial on the official website. I hope that this guide helped you to understand how to apply dash and Plotly express to create a dashboard. At first, it can seem hard, but after some trials, it’s really intuitive. Thanks for reading. Have a nice day! | https://pub.towardsai.net/creating-a-stunning-interactive-dashboard-with-plotly-express-and-dash-7e3dddcb955 | ['Eugenia Anello'] | 2021-08-07 17:33:37.985000+00:00 | ['Plotly Express', 'Data Visualization', 'Programming', 'Dash', 'Data Science'] |
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