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The President’s Plane Is Missing: The story of the 1986 Mozambican Tu-134 crash and the death of Samora Machel | The President’s Plane Is Missing: The story of the 1986 Mozambican Tu-134 crash and the death of Samora Machel Admiral_Cloudberg Apr 3·35 min read
The severed tail of Mozambique’s presidential aircraft lies on a hillside on the border of South Africa and Mozambique. (OZY)
On the 19th of October 1986, a Tupolev Tu-134 jet carrying Mozambican president Samora Machel crashed into a hill in what was then apartheid South Africa, killing Machel and 34 others in a disaster that rocked the continent. Mozambique, already fighting a brutal civil war, reeled from the sudden loss of its founding father. Accusations over the crash flew in every direction. The basic problem was that the president’s plane never should have been in South Africa at all: the two countries were mortal enemies, and the flight path was not supposed to leave Mozambique. Although the crash site was only 150 meters inside South African territory, South Africa had legal jurisdiction over the investigation and quickly moved to launch an inquiry. It was not long before rumors of a coverup began to swirl. Had the plane been brought down by South Africa to destabilize Mozambique? Or had the jet’s Soviet crew made a fatal navigational error? It’s hard to decide who was less trustworthy, apartheid South Africa or the Soviet Union. But looking back at the crash today, long after the collapse of all the regimes involved, only one answer makes sense.
Disclaimer: Historical analysis in this article should not be construed to reflect the specific political views of the author, who strives to remain politically neutral.
Map of Mozambique. (Nations Online Project)
The story of the crash that killed President Samora Machel can only be told as part of a sweeping historical narrative, a particularly poignant moment in the geopolitical drama that gripped southern Africa throughout the second half of the 20th century. It is a story rooted in the struggles of decolonization, apartheid, and the Cold War. It is also a tragedy that forever changed the trajectory of Mozambique, for better or for worse.
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By the start of the 1960s, the decolonization of Africa was in full swing as waning European powers pulled out of one country after another. Some were faster than others: in Mozambique, a stretch of coastal southeast Africa that had been a Portuguese colony for over 400 years, the Europeans were in no hurry to leave. Portugal at that time was ruled by an authoritarian regime known as the Estado Novo, under the iron fist of dictator Antonio Salazar (and later Marcelo Caetano), who wanted to turn Portugal’s African colonies into extensions of the metropole. Despite the winds of history blowing against him, Salazar insisted on trying to preserve what was left of the Portuguese Empire at any cost.
Not all in Mozambique were happy with this proposition. In 1962, a collection of anti-colonial groups came together in exile in Tanzania to form a new body called the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, known by its Portuguese acronym, FRELIMO. The group, inspired by Marxist principles, intended to win independence for Mozambique through armed revolution. In 1964, having assembled a sizeable guerilla army, it proceeded to do exactly that, launching an invasion of Mozambique that led to one of the bloodiest chapters in what became known as the Portuguese Colonial War.
Progress of the rebellions in Mozambique and Angola in 1964. (Emperor Tigerstar via YouTube)
FRELIMO turned out to be fairly well-organized with a cohesive Marxist worldview, unlike many of the fractured and incoherent political movements in Africa at the time. As FRELIMO forces captured more and more of the Mozambican countryside, they attempted to bring education and healthcare to the local peasantry, with some modest success. They beat back Portuguese forces by sending women ahead to villages to educate the population on the principles of communism, creating willing bands of rebels who would attack the Portuguese from behind. The group eschewed racial politics, accepting anyone, white or black, as long as they opposed capitalism. In each village that fell under FRELIMO control, traditional tribal power structures, especially around gender and land ownership, were swiftly dismantled.
In the late 1960s, with FRELIMO growing in strength thanks to material support from the USSR, China, and several Scandinavian countries, Portugal entered into a makeshift alliance with the white minority governments of South Africa and Rhodesia in an attempt to crush the rebellion once and for all. The counterattack, known as “Operation Gordiаn Knot,” slowly pushed the rebels back. But by the mid-1970s, Portugal itself was in freefall; the colonial wars had become financially and militarily unsustainable. In 1974, the Estado Novo regime was overthrown in a nearly bloodless coup known as the Carnation Revolution, which led to the establishment of a multiparty democracy the following year. One of the first things the new government did was grant independence to all of Portugal’s African colonies. After talks with FRELIMO led to the group’s recognition as the legitimate government, the People’s Republic of Mozambique became independent on the 25th of June, 1975.
Samora Machel delivers a speech. He was known for his charisma. (The Zimbabwean)
Under the independence agreement, the presidency of Mozambique was handed to Samora Machel, who had been co-leader of FRELIMO since 1969. Machel was a nurse by profession; as a result, he was one of an elite few in Mozambique who received a full education. It was this education and his nursing career which led him to radicalization. Upon getting his first job at a hospital, he discovered that white nurses were paid more than black nurses, an event which became the straw that broke the camel’s back: after that, Machel fled to Tanzania and joined the resistance.
Now, at the age of 42, Machel took control of a nation in the most desperate condition. Most of the country’s approximately 250,000 white Portuguese had fled after FRELIMO asked that they either become citizens of Mozambique or leave within 24 hours. Аs in many other newly independent African countries, the fleeing colonizers destroyed as much infrastructure as they could on the way out, driving bulldozers into the sea, plundering factories, and filling the sewers with concrete. To make matters worse, there was no one in Mozambique who could rebuild it: 95% of the population was illiterate, and virtually no one had a college education.
Upon his accession to power, Samora Machel immediately began working to build a Soviet-style communist state. There were no elections, and FRELIMO was declared to be the only legitimate political party. Machel quickly nationalized key industries, ousted tribal chiefs, cracked down on dissidents, sent opponents to prison camps, and began collectivizing agriculture (an effort which was met with abject failure). Any effort to bring services to the people was hampered by a complete lack of capital, exacerbated by the country’s almost non-existent infrastructure. Nevertheless, the measures that Machel did successfully implement, such as free primary school for all, brought him a decent measure of popularity.
Meanwhile, the neighboring apartheid governments of South Africa and Rhodesia looked on with concern as Mozambique and Angola both became independent socialist states. Mozambique immediately began harboring black nationalist groups who were fighting to overthrow the brutal white-minority regimes in both countries, putting Rhodesia in particular in a precarious position. Within two years of Mozambique’s independence, a Rhodesian-backed nationalist group called the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) declared war on the government, triggering a civil war. Countries around the world began taking sides. And yet somehow, the conflict managed to transcend Cold War politics: only South Africa and Rhodesia openly backed RENAMO, while the FRELIMO government was supported by the USSR, China, the United Kingdom and the United States (at least in public), East Germany, and North Korea. Truly, the Mozambican Civil War created strange bedfellows.
Soldiers during the Mozambican Civil War. (Black Past)
From 1977 onwards, the civil war put Mozambique in a state of low-level conflict with both Rhodesia and South Africa. Rhodesian forces entered Mozambique multiple times, at one point actively bombing the city of Beira. In addition to providing material support to RENAMO, South Africa also performed targeted strikes in Mozambique to kill members of the African National Congress (or ANC, the anti-apartheid group led by Nelson Mandela); most notable was a 1983 airstrike against the Mozambican capital of Maputo, in which South African forces missed their target entirely and instead killed workers at a jam factory.
In 1984, unable to end the civil war and with the country’s economy in shambles, Samora Machel was forced to go to the negotiating table. In an agreement known as the Nkomati Accord, Machel promised to expel all ANC members in the country in exchange for South African Prime Minister P. W. Botha promising to end his country’s support for RENAMO. Machel swiftly followed through on his end of the deal, but instead of honoring its side of the agreement, South Africa actually increased its support for RENAMO. It was an ugly and bitter betrayal, one which taught the FRELIMO government that South Africa could not be trusted under any circumstances.
Samora Machel and P. W. Botha at the signing of the Nkomati Accord. (Club of Mozambique)
By the mid-1980s, regional dynamics were changing. Rhodesia’s apartheid government had collapsed, and the country, now called Zimbabwe, established friendly relations with Mozambique. At the same time, the landlocked nations of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi wanted to sanction South Africa for its human rights abuses, but could not do so because 68% of their imported goods came through South African ports. To get around this, the three countries reached an agreement to help build a railroad through Mozambique to the port of Beira, with the goal of eventually eliminating their dependence on South Africa. South Africa, meanwhile, saw this effort as a threat to its geopolitical sphere of influence.
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It was in the midst of the railroad controversy that President Samora Machel flew to Mbala, Zambia on the 19th of October, 1986 for talks with Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko. Several years earlier the government of Mozambique had custom ordered a modified version of the Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-134, a twin rear-engine jet analogous to the DC-9, specifically for use as the presidential plane. As a result, it was equipped with a number of features that did not come standard on the civilian version, such as a ground proximity warning system.
C9-CAA, the Tupolev Tu-134 involved in the accident. (Gerard Helmer)
As Mozambique lacked any qualified Tu-134 pilots, the government hired a crew on charter from the Soviet state aviation division, Aeroflot. The five-man cockpit crew consisted of Captain Yuri Novodran, First Officer Igor Kartamyshev, Flight Engineer Vladimir Novoselov, Navigator Oleg Kudryashov, and Radio Operator Anatoly Shulipov.
After picking up the president and his entourage in Maputo on the morning of the 19th, the plane headed north to Lusaka, Zambia, where it picked up more fuel before continuing to Mbala. President Machel departed for his meeting with Kaunda, dos Santos, and Mobutu; in the meantime, the crew of the plane went to a restaurant in town with the pilots of the other presidents’ aircraft.
By the time the talks concluded, some seven hours had passed and night was falling. As the crew prepared the plane for departure, President Machel, several cabinet ministers, and other support staff boarded the aircraft and took their seats (although the exact identities of those on board, besides Machel, are not clear). In total there were 44 people on board, including nine crewmembers and 35 passengers.
Route of the flight. (Google + own work)
At 18:38 local time, the presidential plane departed Mbala, headed back to Maputo. The crew didn’t file a flight plan, and although the navigator Kudryashov specified Beira as the designated alternate airport in his navigation log, the plane didn’t actually have enough fuel to divert to Beira following a failed approach to Maputo. Most probably the crew took less fuel than was needed because taking more would put them over the maximum takeoff weight for Mbala Airport, but this left them without any possibility of making a diversion late in the flight, as Beira was the only other airport in Mozambique capable of handling a Tu-134.
As the plane proceeded south into Mozambique at its cruise altitude of 35,000 feet, Captain Novodran carried on a long, one-sided conversation about arguments he had had with other Aeroflot pilots over how much fuel to take on various journeys. Nobody appeared to be paying any attention, least of all First Officer Kartamyshev, who was listening to a Moscow-based news and music station on HF radio.
By 21:10, the crew had already begun their descent from 35,000 feet, heading for runway 23 at Maputo International Airport. Their plan was to navigate to the approach course by tracking the Maputo VOR radio beacon, located northeast of the airport along the extended centerline of runway 23. The VOR receivers on board the airplane could track the signal from the VOR to determine its azimuth: the angle between the plane and the VOR with reference to magnetic north, thus providing the heading from the VOR to the plane. The plan was to fly south until the instruments showed they were crossing the 45-degree radial of the Maputo VOR, which corresponded roughly to the extended runway centerline, and then turn right to track along this radial and line up with the runway (see diagram below). They would then intercept the signal from the instrument landing system (ILS) and use that to land.
The route that C9-CAA was supposed to fly as it neared Maputo. (Google + Own work)
Besides the VOR and the ILS, the navigational infrastructure in Mozambique was very poor. Of the two waypoints in Mozambique listed on the navigator’s log for the flight, one only existed on paper, and the other, a non-directional beacon (NDB), had been inoperative for years. Two more NDBs near Maputo were known to be weak, unreliable, and sometimes completely inoperative. Maputo International Airport lacked radar or any other means of accurately tracking the positions of incoming planes. And to make matters worse, the systems that did exist periodically went offline due to sabotage by insurgents, a situation with which the crew were all too familiar.
At some point during this period, a series of events occurred which is disputed by the various countries involved. The official investigation carried out by South Africa is the basis for the following section.
At 19:10, navigator Kudryashev announced that they were 100km from Maputo, based on the signal from the distance measuring equipment co-located with the VOR. Although this distance was correct, he had unknowingly made an error just a few moments earlier. When entering the frequency for the Maputo VOR — 112.7 — into the №1 (captain’s side) VOR receiver, he accidentally entered a frequency of 112.3 instead. The VOR frequency selector was lit only by the overhead lights in the cockpit; it was located far forward of the navigator, who was seated behind the first officer; and on the Soviet instrumentation, the numbers 3 and 7 looked rather similar. All these factors combined to prevent Kudryashev from realizing his error.
It just so happened that 112.3 was the actual frequency for a different nearby VOR, which had recently been installed at an airport in Matsapa, Swaziland, some 200 kilometers to the southwest. Without realizing it, Kudryashev was using the wrong VOR to decide where to turn onto the 45˚ radial.
Comparison of where C9-CAA began the turn with reference to the correct location and the 45-degree radial of Matsapa. (Google + Own work)
At 21:11, he noticed that the plane was passing the 45-degree radial of the VOR, and he began using the autopilot’s heading select function to turn towards the radial.
Noticing that the navigator had begun a turn to the right, Captain Novodran uttered a pair of expletives, then asked, “Making some turns? Couldn’t it be straight?”
Kudryashev simply replied, “VOR indicates that way.”
Despite the fact that they began the turn much farther from the airport than they were supposed to, nobody cross-checked their position, and nobody questioned the navigator. First Officer Kartamyshev’s (№2) VOR receiver had been correctly set to track Maputo on 112.7, but apparently nobody paid any attention to it. The №1 VOR receiver indicated “that way,” so “that way” they went.
At this point Kudryashev should have engaged the autopilot in VOR mode, allowing it to track the VOR automatically. But in fact he continued to control the plane using the heading knob, and he never quite turned far enough to the right to intercept the 45-degree radial of the Matsapa VOR, which would have required a heading of 225 degrees. Instead, the plane continued on a heading of roughly 221 degrees, slowly diverging to the left of the VOR. Why he did this is unclear. In any case, the pilots were quite distracted: immediately following the brief discussion of the turn, Captain Novodran began asking various crewmembers for a pen, then started working out their drinks order with Flight Engineer Novoselov.
“Three beers and one coke, here,” Novoselov said.
“Three beers yes, Vova?” Novodran asked, addressing the flight engineer.
“Yes, and one coke each,” Novoselov replied.
At the same time, First Officer Kartamyshev mused openly about whether the lights indicating the status of the VOR were working properly, roping Captain Novodran into another conversation. This was followed by an extensive discussion of when they expected to land, before the conversation again returned to drinks.
“Two for each, or what?” Flight Engineer Novoselov asked.
“No, three beers and one coke each, they brought equally for each,” said Captain Novodran.
“Three beers and one coke each,” Novodran confirmed. Why the crewmembers were ordering beer while still in flight was not clear.
Further progress of the flight as it strays ever further off course. (Google + own work)
Before they began their descent, the controller had requested that they report upon reaching 3,000 feet or upon catching sight of the runway lights, whichever happened first. Up until this point the plane had been descending rather sedately toward 3,000 feet, although in parallel to the Maputo approach path, not in line with it. The terrain beneath the plane was rising as they headed into the highlands surrounding the triple point of Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland, but the pilots had no idea — they assumed they were northeast of Maputo, over the coast, tracking inbound to runway 23.
By this point the signal from the Matsapa VOR was obscured by mountains — but they were no longer trying to follow it anyway. The №1 (captain’s side) VOR receiver, which had been erroneously set to track Matsapa, had been reset (probably by Captain Novodran) to follow the signal from the Maputo instrument landing system. First Officer Kartamyshev’s VOR receiver had been correctly tuned to Maputo the entire time, but the navigator’s instruments were set to take their VOR information from the captain’s receiver, and in any case Kartamyshev was still listening to the music station instead of paying attention to his instruments.
At 21:17, Captain Novodran noticed that the radio altimeter had come to life and begun displaying their height above the ground. Believing that the ground below the plane lay at sea level, this struck him as much too early, considering that they were still at over 4,000 feet and the radio altimeter should activate at no more than about 2,000 feet above terrain. Turning to Flight Engineer Novoselov, he said, “Volodya, it is necessary to tell them [maintenance] about RV [the radio altimeter].”
“Say it, say, it’s not the first time,” Radio Operator Shulipov chimed in. They had seen problems with the radio altimeter before, and they figured it was just acting up again.
C9-CAA descends toward the ground in the highlands near the border. (Google + own work)
Seconds later, Captain Novodran looked down at his instruments to see how close they were to intercepting the ILS for runway 23, but to his surprise there was no sign of the signal at all. “There is no Maputo?” he exclaimed, enhancing his remark with a well-placed expletive.
“What?” First Officer Kartamyshev asked.
“There is no Maputo,” Captain Novodran repeated. “Electrical power is off, chaps!”
Unable to see the ILS signal (in fact it was out of range), Captain Novodran concluded that this was just one of the frequent electrical blackouts that plagued the capital. Sure that the power would come back on soon, he made no move to halt the descent.
“There to the right, it is lit,” said First Officer Kartamyshev. By this point the plane was approaching the South African border, and they were seeing the lights of South African towns. But Kartamyshev probably thought the lights were evidence that the power was still on in Maputo.
“There is something I don’t understand…” said navigator Kudryashev.
“No, there is something…” Captain Novodran started to say.
“ILS switched off, and DME!” said Kudryashev. It’s not clear what he meant, as the flight data recorder showed that the DME — Distance Measuring Equipment — was working just fine, and was tuned to the correct source in Maputo.
“Everything switched off, look chaps!” said Novodran.
“And NDBs do not work!” Kudryashev added. Like the ILS, the signals from the NDBs were out of range.
“Chaps!” Novodran exclaimed.
“Yes, yes, everything switched off — ILS, DME…” Kudryashev repeated.
“And they do not have electrical power,” said First Officer Kartamyshev.
“NDBs?” Kudryashev asked.
“And there to the left… what kind of light is there?” Kartamyshev continued.
“This is correct,” said Captain Novodran. “Something strange?” Why were they seeing lights between the scattered clouds if the power was out?
At this point the plane reached 3,000 feet, the minimum altitude to which they could descend without seeing the runway.
“3,000 feet,” First Officer Kartamyshev announced.
“Tolya!” Captain Novodran shouted to the radio operator, “3,000 feet!”
“What?”
“3,000 feet!” Novodran let out another expletive.
“Maputo, Charlie Niner Charlie Alfa Alfa,” radio operator Shulipov said to air traffic control, “maintaining 3,000 feet.” Nobody had told him they were maintaining 3,000 feet, and in fact they had continued to descend below this altitude, despite not being able to see the runway. Captain Novodran might have chosen to violate this basic principle of airmanship because he thought he could see better if he got below the scattered clouds reported to be at 1,800 feet. Little did he know that they were up in the highlands, where 1,800 feet was below ground level.
“Charlie Niner Charlie Alfa Alfa, roger” the controller replied, “and confirm you have field in sight?”
“No!” said Captain Novodran.
“Not yet,” Shulipov relayed to the controller.
“And runway lights negative yet?” the controller asked.
“Negative,” said Shulipov.
“ILS negative, not working,” Novodran interjected.
“Roger, Charlie Niner Alfa Alfa continue approach, and ILS out of service?” Shulipov asked.
“And NDB,” Novodran chimed in again.
The controller, who had a poor understanding of English, did not realize that this was a question, not a statement of fact. “Affirmative,” he replied, although the ILS was in fact working normally. Since the crew weren’t picking up the ILS, he then cleared them to circle around for a visual approach to runway 05 instead.
Navigator Kudryashev now reported that they were still 25 to 30 kilometers from the airport. This information made little sense. “Something is wrong, chaps,” Captain Novodran exclaimed.
“Here they gave cloud base 1,800 feet, and so take it into consideration,” said radio operator Shulipov.
“Eight octas?” said Kudryashev, asking whether the clouds were supposed to fully cover the sky.
“No, two octas,” said Shulipov. The forecast only called for one quarter cloud cover.
“And so this…” Kudryashev started to say.
“It should be lit,” Captain Novodran concluded, staring into the dark abyss in front of him where the runway should have been. If the runway wasn’t obscured by clouds, then why couldn’t he see it?
In fact, the plane was headed straight for an unlit mountain, obscured in the pitch-black night. The lights of nearby towns were proving to be no use.
“There to the right, lights are seen,” Captain Novodran continued.
“Runway is not lit?” First officer Kartamyshev asked.
“Runway is not lit!” Novodran repeated. “There’s a problem.”
“Maputo, Charlie Niner Charlie Alfa Alfa, check your runway lights,” radio operator Shulipov said to the controller. But in official aviation English, “check” means “I’ve got it,” so the controller thought Shulipov was saying he had the lights in sight, when he actually wanted him to check whether or not they were working. In response, the controller simply repeated his clearance to perform a visual approach to runway 05. Shulipov then requested to turn right to circle around to this runway, although the captain had not actually decided to do this.
“Wait, right?” said Captain Novodran, upon hearing this transmission. “I understood nothing!”
“Don’t you see the runway yet?” Shulipov asked.
“And what runway, what are you talking about!?” said Novodran. “We are doing straight-in approach!”
“No, well, can you see the runway?”
“No, there’s nothing, there’s neither city nor runway,” First Officer Kartamyshev chimed in.
Shulipov explained that he asked the controller to check the runway lights but that he didn’t get an answer. First Officer Kartamyshev ordered him to ask again.
“Maputo, Charlie Niner Charlie Alfa Alfa, check again runway lights,” Shulipov said over the radio. But he made the same mistake as the first time, and the controller again thought he was saying he had the lights in sight.
At this point the plane’s ground proximity alarm, a Soviet model known as the SSOS Terrain Proximity Warning System, detected a dangerous closure rate with the ground. A loud, repetitive alarm began to sound in the cockpit. “Dammit!” Captain Novodran exclaimed. He pulled back to slow their descent, but not enough to stop it entirely.
The controller repeated his clearance for a third time, still not understanding Shulipov’s question.
“Runway lights out of service?” Shulipov now asked the controller.
“No, it’s cloudy, cloudy, cloudy!” Captain Novodran said.
“Confirm, runway lights out of service?” the controller asked. The radio operator and the controller were now chasing each other in circles, each asking the other to confirm the status of the runway lights.
With the SSOS still blaring, Shulipov replied, “Affirmative, lights not in sight.” In response the controller repeated the approach clearance for the fourth time.
“No! Normal!” said Captain Novodran. He still wanted to fly the regular straight-in approach.
After going off continuously for 32 seconds, the SSOS stopped sounding, probably due to a decrease in their rate of descent relative to the ground.
“No, no, there’s nowhere to go, no NDBs, there’s nothing!” navigator Kudryashev exclaimed. The crew were hopelessly confused — and little did they know, it was already too late.
Three seconds later, the left wingtip of the plane struck a tree atop a hill at an elevation of around 2,180 feet above sea level, some 150 meters inside South African territory. Traveling at over 400 kilometers per hour, the plane smashed to the ground, bounced, came down again, and skidded over the top of the mountain, breaking apart as it went. The wreckage tumbled on seemingly forever, leaving a debris trail over 800 meters long, strewn with shattered pieces of the Tupolev. By the time the plane came to rest, 34 people were dead, including Mozambican President Samora Machel.
A small section of the vast debris trail left by the plane on impact. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
Remarkably, ten people initially survived the crash: nine passengers seated on the right side near the tail, and Flight Engineer Vladimir Novoselov, whose survival could only be considered miraculous. Every other passenger and crewmember in the front of the plane died instantly on impact, except for him — and he wasn’t even wearing his seat belt.
Villagers in the nearby settlement of Mbuzini heard the crash, but it was not until 1:00 in the morning, nearly four hours after the accident, that someone managed to raise the South African police by telephone. A single officer from a nearby town hurried to the scene, where he found the survivors strewn about the vast wreckage field. The first doctor didn’t arrive for another two hours, and it wasn’t until near dawn that helicopters managed to reach the remote site to take the badly injured survivors to hospital. (One of them went on to die of his injuries after two and a half months, unofficially bringing the death toll to 35.)
Meanwhile in Mozambique, the controller repeatedly asked the plane to confirm its position, but his calls went unanswered. Realizing that something was seriously wrong, authorities launched a search and rescue mission near Maputo, but they failed to find the plane, as it was never located anywhere near the city.
In South Africa, aviation authorities became aware of the crash at around 5:30 a.m., and at 6:50 a.m. they informed authorities in Mozambique that the plane had been found in the farthest corner of South African territory, a few hundred meters from the border with Mozambique and some four and a half kilometers from the border with Swaziland. Although there were ten survivors, the president was unfortunately not among them.
Police inspect one of the largest pieces of the aircraft’s fuselage. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
The first sign for most people in Mozambique that something was wrong came at 8:30 in the morning, when all the national radio stations switched to funeral music. A few minutes later, Marcelino dos Santos, second-in-command of FRELIMO, announced that the presidential plane had crashed and Samora Machel had been killed.
The news of Machel’s untimely death shook all of Africa. Accusations immediately began to fly. South Africa was a pariah state, bent on destabilizing its neighbors; when it was revealed that the plane had crashed in South Africa, many people were immediately convinced that Machel’s plane had been brought down on purpose. Just days earlier, Mozambican authorities had warned that South Africa was planning an air raid against Maputo to kill anti-apartheid insurgents; now rumors swirled that something much bigger was afoot, perhaps a plot to destabilize the country in advance of an invasion, presumably to install a pro-South African puppet government. Others said that Machel had been assassinated in order to stall the construction of the railroad and preserve South Africa’s trade dominance with neighboring landlocked countries; indeed, there were immediate fears that security around the rail line would collapse and insurgents would destroy it. Newspapers spread allegations by a survivor that South African police had looked through the wreckage for secret documents before helping the survivors. Mozambique immediately issued veiled accusations that South Africa was behind the crash, while South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha toured the crash site and oversaw the recovery of the plane’s four flight recorders. Under international law, South Africa had the right to lead the investigation, and they fully intended to exercise it.
The tail of C9-CAA was left lying on the barren hillside. (OZY)
Chosen to lead the South African board of inquiry was former air force pilot and former Supreme Court Justice Cecil Margo, who was already well known for leading the controversial 1961 investigation into the crash which killed UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold. (He would also go on to investigate the equally controversial crash of South African Airways flight 295 in the Indian Ocean in 1987.) Margo swiftly moved to invite teams from Mozambique, the state of registry, and the USSR, the state of manufacture, to assist in the inquiry, as was his obligation under international law. In order to ensure neutrality, the cockpit voice recorder was taken to Zürich, Switzerland, thus avoiding any suggestion of bias in its decoding.
At least initially, the three countries managed to agree on a basic set of facts. It was established beyond reasonable doubt by all parties that the plane had been on course until 21:11, when it made a 37-degree turn to the right. After that, it roughly maintained a course of 221 degrees magnetic while continuously descending until it eventually struck the ground. There had been no mechanical failure of any sort and all the instruments were assessed to be working perfectly. It seemed as though the plane had simply turned to line up with the runway about eight minutes too early without the pilots ever realizing their mistake.
Personnel carry a body away from the crash site. (OZY)
Meanwhile, Mozambique mourned the loss of Samora Machel, who had been a defining force in the young country’s history. On October 28th, tens of thousands of people turned up for Machel’s funeral in Maputo. Over 100 foreign delegations attended, including from the United States, which sent President Ronald Reagan’s daughter Maureen. South Africa, however, was not in attendance, and numerous people raised banners in the central square in Maputo proclaiming that “apartheid is responsible for the death of our president.” Others held signs featuring Machel’s famous slogan, “A luta continua!” (“The struggle continues!”)
On November 6th, eager to avoid any further destabilization of the country, the Politburo unanimously appointed Joaquim Chissano as the new President of Mozambique. Chissano would prove to be an even more transformational figure than Machel: during his 18-year tenure in office, he oversaw the rapid recovery of the economy, ended the civil war with RENAMO in 1992, and in 1994 established a multi-party democracy that survives to this day. Child mortality rates plummeted and literacy skyrocketed. In 2004, after running for and winning two terms in office, he chose to set an example by declining to run for a third, a precedent that his successors have emulated ever since. But all that lay ahead: first, Mozambique needed to know who or what had killed Samora Machel.
The central puzzle for investigators was why the VOR would have indicated that it was time to turn right, as the navigator apparently believed, when they were nowhere near the correct radial. South African investigators noted that at that time the plane was quite close, within a reasonable margin of error, to the 45-degree radial of the VOR at Matsapa in Swaziland, which was broadcasting on almost the same frequency as Maputo. It would have been quite simple to mix them up.
The problem was that besides the circumstantial evidence of the plane’s location at the time of the crash, and the similarity of the two frequencies, there wasn’t much else which would prove that the crew accidentally selected Matsapa instead of Maputo. The №2 VOR receiver was found to be displaying the correct heading to the Maputo VOR on impact, and the №1 VOR receiver had been switched over to the ILS setting before the crash, erasing whatever it had been set to when the navigator first made the turn. South African investigators felt that the most likely possibility was that the navigator simply entered the wrong frequency in the №1 receiver (which was the default source for his instruments), then attempted to turn the plane toward what he thought was the correct radial but never actually engaged the autopilot in VOR mode. Thus the plane initiated the turn at the 45-degree radial of Matsapa, but never intercepted it; instead, they ended up roughly paralleling the 45-degree radials of both Matsapa and Maputo, but were not on either of them.
A massive portrait of Samora Machel accompanied his casket at his funeral. (University of Cape Town Digital Collections)
Although it wasn’t clear why exactly the navigator would do this, it was obvious that the conduct of the crew left much to be desired. With five people in the cockpit, they needed to be a well-oiled team, or information would get lost very quickly. It was clear, however, that communication between the crewmembers was extremely poor: the five pilots fell victim to something like the bystander effect, where each assumed the others were handling the situation. The navigator made the turn without consulting any of the other pilots, and the captain took his decision at face value without questioning why they were turning so early. The first officer remained completely out of the loop as his radio was tuned to a Moscow radio station throughout the flight. In fact, during the entire sequence of events he did nothing that was of note. Meanwhile, the radio operator repeatedly gave information to the controller that had not been agreed upon by the rest of the crew, and caused confusion with his non-standard use of aviation English. The controller, for his part, actively exacerbated the pilots’ confusion by unintentionally confirming their suspicions that various systems weren’t working, when in fact they were all working just fine. It was found that understanding of English was the controller’s biggest weak point, and in this area he had finished second to last in his class during training.
A badly mangled section of the aircraft’s fuselage. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
On top of these breakdowns in communication, investigators noted that the crew did not use a single checklist or conduct a single cross-check. This represented a shocking lack of cockpit discipline that would be unthinkable at any major airline, let alone in the cockpit of a presidential aircraft. The crew seemed to be flying on faith alone, without ever taking the time to assess the situation objectively. Proper procedure called for the captain and first officer to confirm that the correct frequency for the VOR had been entered, but this didn’t happen. When faced with an apparent indication to turn right while still 100 kilometers from the airport, the pilots should have suspected that something was wrong, but there was no indication that anyone cared about the discrepancy. Nobody looked at the first officer’s VOR receiver, nor did anyone listen to the Morse code broadcast from the VOR, which would have confirmed its identity. Nobody ever realized that their DME reading was not what it should have been. (And on top of this, investigators noted a large number of additional procedural errors, too numerous to list here, which had little to do with the accident.) In short, plenty of methods existed to inform the pilots of their mistake, but through laziness, hubris, or both, they never performed even the most basic safety procedures.
One of the Tu-134’s landing gear bogies lies near the remains of the fuselage. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
The most frustrating part was that the pilots could have prevented the crash at any point up until the last couple of seconds before impact. But despite their inability to find the airport, and mounting evidence that it would not be possible to land on this approach, the crew ignored the SSOS terrain proximity warning system for a full 32 seconds. Pilots in most of the world were trained to react to such an alarm by immediately climbing to the minimum sector altitude, but in the Soviet Union, the procedure was a little bit different. The South African report did not appear to mention it, but the Soviet SSOS escape procedure implied that the pilots could ignore the alarm if they were over flat terrain, even if that terrain was not in sight. Obviously this did not account for a situation in which the pilots thought they were over flat terrain when they actually weren’t. Indeed, the procedure might have cultivated an attitude where pilots could always convince themselves that they were justified in ignoring the alarm, as long as they thought they knew where they were. In this case, the captain might have believed that he had no choice but to salvage the approach because he did not have enough fuel to reach Beira, which could have resulted in “motivated cognition,” priming him to conclude that the SSOS alarm need not be taken seriously. This glaring shortcoming in the procedure was typical of Soviet aviation, where the lessons of foreign accidents were ignored in favor of a domestic body of knowledge that was perpetually 15 to 20 years behind.
Some wreckage, such as this wing part, is still at the crash site. (Peter Levey)
When South Africa concluded that pilot error was the cause of the crash, Mozambique and the USSR denounced the finding. Both countries complained that there was no evidence the crew had ever tried to lock on to the Matsapa VOR, accidentally or otherwise, and the flight path after the turn did not correspond to any radial of this beacon. Instead, Mozambique and the USSR argued that the most probable reason for the turn was that the crew had locked on to a decoy beacon, set up to lure the plane off course by broadcasting on the same frequency as the Maputo VOR.
To support this point they presented a number of items of evidence. Witnesses had seen a mysterious tent near the crash site at an encampment known to be used by the South African Defense Forces. The crew had actually turned while passing the 48-degree radial of Matsapa, not the 45-degree radial, undermining the assumption that they were turning onto this radial (although the South Africans put this down to inaccuracies inherent in the system). An analysis by the USSR showed that it wouldn’t have been possible to detect the Matsapa VOR from the point where the aircraft made the turn, because a mountain was in the way. And a report by none other than Ron Chippindale — the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents of New Zealand, who famously came to an incomplete conclusion about the cause of the Erebus Disaster — indicated that it would be easy to set up a VOR on a Land Rover using a couple of car batteries and 1.5-meter antenna. This beacon could have been made to overpower the real beacon by simply cutting electricity to the real Maputo VOR, which was located in an unsecured shed near the airport. Although the Mozambican and Soviet replies to the South African report didn’t directly accuse South Africa of setting up such a fake beacon, that was clearly the implication.
The theory that the plane was lured off course by a false beacon had a couple of important hurdles to overcome. The first was the fact, agreed upon by all three countries, that the first officer’s VOR receiver was showing the correct heading to the real Maputo VOR at the moment of impact. This showed that the VOR was turned on and was the most powerful beacon on the frequency of 112.7 in the area of the crash site. The Mozambican reply simply ignored this fact, but the USSR did try to explain it. In the Soviet deposition it was argued that the false VOR was sufficiently more powerful than the real VOR to mask it, even though both VORs were turned on. However, the plane flew over the false VOR shortly before impact, after which intervening terrain blocked its signal, causing the first officer’s VOR receiver to start indicating the heading to the real VOR, which was in line of sight. This analysis came complete with complex mathematical calculations and helpful diagrams, which were all technically correct, but came with one glaring flaw: the calculations placed the false beacon five to seven kilometers behind the crash site, well inside the territory of Mozambique. (In fact the plane only crossed into South Africa about two seconds before the crash.) As the proposed location for the beacon was controlled by the central government and was quite close to a Mozambican military camp, it was not clear how South Africa could have put a false VOR there without being noticed. Indeed, in trying to mathematically prove where the false VOR must have been, the USSR had seemingly forgotten why they thought there was a false VOR in the first place.
A diagram attached by the USSR, clearly showing the false beacon 5-7km behind the crash site along the flight path, putting it in Mozambique. (CAA South Africa)
That left the argument that the Matsapa VOR was not detectable from the point where the plane made its fatal turn. The USSR noted that South Africa had not actually tested its Matsapa hypothesis with a reconnaissance flight, leading to an incorrect conclusion, although South Africa replied that this was because Mozambique never gave them permission to do one. In any case, this was the one major claim by the USSR that South Africa did not effectively rebut and which merited closer scrutiny.
Trusting neither apartheid South Africa nor the Soviet Union, I decided to find out for myself. For my calculations, I used the altitude, distance, and bearing figures for the airplane at the time of the turn as stated by the USSR, along with Google Earth and a protractor.
According to the facts agreed upon by the three nations, at the moment of the turn the aircraft was at a height of 19,000 feet above sea level and was located 202 kilometers from the Matsapa VOR on a radial of 48.8 degrees magnetic. The USSR calculated that a mountain northeast of the airport formed a 2.13-degree angle with the VOR, which when extended to a distance of 202km, would result in a signal shadow below ~24,500 feet. Using Google Earth, a protractor, and a calculator I was able to arrive at a value within 5% of that calculated by the USSR. I was, however, unable to corroborate the USSR’s claim that the mountains would block the signal below this height on the entire range from 19.8˚ to 57.8˚, as my calculation only held true for a narrow zone directly behind the summits of the two mountains in question, and it was unclear how the Soviets could have arrived at the conclusion that the whole range would be blocked. My best guess is that they used a different location for the VOR to calculate the width of the shadow than they used to measure its height. | https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-presidents-plane-is-missing-the-story-of-the-1986-mozambican-tu-134-crash-and-the-death-of-b2ab747fc630 | [] | 2021-06-24 03:24:03.302000+00:00 | ['Mozambique', 'History', 'Africa', 'South Africa', 'Aviation'] |
How To Automate Searching For The Target Audience For User Interview | Parsing group members
I had several Slack groups where my potential target audience was hanging out.
I selected one group and took it to Slack Channel User Extractor
1.The Extractor asks to give a cookie from Slack. To do that click Get Cookie from Slack. After the first click, you’ll be offered to add a browser extension. Add and click the Get Cookie from Slack button again.
2. Put a workspace link
3. Add a link to the spreadsheet containing the list of channels you’re going to parse. It looks like this:
* Make this spreadsheet public so Phantombuster can access it.
4,5,6. The name of the column from the previous spread, the number of lines per launch, and the number of users to parse (leave empty to parse all at once)
7. Enter the file name and click Save
8. On the next screen select Manually & Save
9. Notifications settings are up to you. I always chose this:
Click Save
10. Go to this Phantom and click Launch
11. Download the completed file
12. Open the file in Google Spreadsheet. Now we will work with this document.
🔥Tip # 1
The first thing I recommend is to exclude admins, so not to get in trouble.
🔥Tip # 2
Some groups even provide you with an email list. Using this list, you can create a custom or lookalike audience, for example in Facebook Ads Manager. | https://medium.com/@mglodian/how-to-automate-searching-for-the-target-audience-for-user-interview-c0a65e37507b | ['Mykhailo Glodian'] | 2020-12-25 15:01:34.964000+00:00 | ['Automation', 'User Interviews', 'Custdev', 'Customer Development', 'User Insight'] |
The Relief of Ownerlessness | Photo by Martin Damboldt from Pexels
All things flourish without interruption. They grow by themselves, and no one possesses them.
Laozi, Daodejing (tr. Chuang-yuan Chang)
Wood. Is there anything more alienated than a wooden table? Carpentry is the ultimate act of kidnapping, unlike metallurgy- when we build of wood we literally build with dead bodies, thieves of bone and blood. Can you imagine being invited over to someone’s house only to find that the walls were built of bone? Yet our ancestors fed and clothed themselves with the bodies of animals. Animals were life inside them, and they lived their lives inside animals.
Heraclitus was seemingly right when he saw strife as fundamental to being, writing “all things happen according to strife and necessity.” Even if what Heidegger called the es gibt of being, its given-ness or its generosity, could be called a kind of inhuman love, there are endless skirmishes in the clearing of reality lit up by consciousness.
In the world of pure surfaces, things have only a human meaning. Tables are just “tables”, and more than that, “our tables”, not the stolen flesh of trees with history buried now in the grave of their human appropriation. Recalling their histories removes them from our ownership. When we no longer own them, they in turn no longer own us.
This dynamic was described by Max Stirner (1806–1856), the influential radical anarchist and iconoclast in his book The Unique and Its Property (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum). Stirner pointed out how the I, the individual, uses something external in a way which makes it “property.” In doing so, the individual defines that thing and makes it into a specific object- a table, a hammer, a glass. The thing, once given an identity and use, now has power over the owner, the very one who assigned it an identity in the first place. In the end the owner, now believing in the reality of the object it created, becomes the property of the object.
This is similar to the process of fetishization in Marx’s thought, though Stirner makes his analysis more fundamental and existential. It is the process of reification where a nameless manifestation of cosmic forces becomes a thing with a character and identity we wrongly believe inheres in the thing itself. To put it in Buddhist terms, we believe the thing has “svabhava” — inherent, or self-generated identity- when in fact it is “empty” of such a nature.
As a result of this we wrongly believe we can depend on that thing to be what we say it is. We also feel that we owe it a fidelity to its identity which we treat as though it came before us instead of being something we have created. Yet life will teach us that nothing is as we conjure or conjecture it to be. Nothing belongs to us, and our stories about what things are are not the final word.
When we learn about all the ways that things do not belong to us, we suffer grief and also liberation.
This is just as true in our relationship with people.
In early Buddhism there was a word for the realization of such ownerlessness as well, the subjective counterpart to the phenomenal reality of “emptiness.” It was called anatta. This is often incorrectly translated “no self”, influenced by later Buddhist thought, when in fact it means “not-self.” In the context of how the Buddha defines and uses the word, it is clear the primary meaning is “not mine.” The Buddhist doctrine of no-self, which denies the existence of an abiding identity in the human being, grew out of this doctrine, but was still centuries away when the Buddha sat under the tree of India and spoke about the simple impossibility of owning anything.
Although grief may follow this realization, in its train it bears relief. Many of us have felt, at least fleetingly, this relief of ownerlessness. Not being an owner is one of the great pleasures of traveling. I might take care of an object, like I would a hotel room, but what a relief for things not to be “mine”!
When something is mine I feel I need to control it, to take responsibility for it, in a way in which it’s really impossible to live up to. As Ajaan Chah (1918–1992), a teacher in the Thai Buddhist Forest Tradition said, a glass I pick up to drink from is “already broken.”
Contrary to this, however, our delusion is compounded. We believe the glass belongs to us, we believe it will last, and we believe, in the first place, that that particular collection of un-nameable energies is a glass.
Stirner called the identities we give things “spooks”, ghosts which haunt the world and rule over human beings. The Buddha too talked about releasing awareness from these spooks so we could rest in the bliss of letting go of them. So that we could live in a world suddenly become weightless. Maybe the “unbearable lightness of being” is only unbearable to those trying to hold on to something.
To understand our lack of ownership over anything is to walk through the door of grief and come out the other side.
This is hard, though. How hard is it to understand my lack of ownership over my child? Over my partner? Over my art, or my house, or my reputation? What about over the teeming earth itself, over all the human culture with which we have filled the world? We don’t own any of that either. We never did.
As Canadian poets Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky write in Learning How To Die: Wisdom In The Age of Climate Crisis, the human project on this earth is ultimately doomed. Even were it not for our anthropogenic climate emergency, everything we do here will one day be consumed in the heat of an expanding sun en route to becoming a red star.
There is tragedy in our gambling so recklessly with our very limited inheritance, of course, and we are almost certainly in the process of bringing a lot more death and suffering to our human sojourn here on the back of Gaia than need be.
Nevertheless, perhaps we need to understand the ownerlessness of earth and of human culture because we need to walk through the door of grief and come out the other side with hands ready to preserve and protect, hands ready to reach out “like someone adjusting their pillow in the middle of the night.”
That line comes from an old Chinese koan (k’ung an), a “public record” of a dialogue between a master and student preserved for contemplation. The koan asks about Guanyin, the awakening being (bodhisattva) pictured in China as a woman of power who responds to the cries of suffering in the world.
Q: How is it with the thousand arms of Guanyin?
A: Like someone adjusting their pillow in the middle of the night.
Such hands cannot be trying to carry the unbearable lightness of being, they must have let it go.
As Jan Zwicky writes, “What use is it, to anyone, to lie down, immobilized by pain? Pain must be used to turn the soul toward the real, to reform both action and attention: to love what, in this case, remains.”
This is a revised version of an essay I published on Medium in February of 2019. | https://medium.com/strange-wonder/the-relief-of-ownerlessness-add2b83c6e79 | ['Matthew Gindin'] | 2021-01-18 23:46:47.635000+00:00 | ['Ecology', 'Crisis', 'Buddhism', 'Climate Change', 'Philosophy'] |
How To Touch A Woman 101 – Guide To Ultimate Orgasms | What women want
Women (I can’t speak for them all, but I bet the majority) want to be sensually appreciated. Now, I’m not talking about kinky shit, every once in a while, I like to be thrown in the cage and whipped if I miss behave, but if I want to experience a mind-blowing orgasm, this is the route to take.
Before sex
This isn’t a fucking movie. Cut the shit. We don’t give a turd about flowers, candies, dinner reservations, etc. I mean, all that shit is amazing and appreciated, but it isn’t the way to approach a night of orgasmic insanity.
Women get swooned constantly. Flowers, candy, DMs, money, yada yada YADA! It’s all the same. Where is the originality? Intelligence? Humor? Creativity? How about you come over and instead of flowers, bring me a badass animal shaped stone? Or, a board game to play? Anything but fucking flowers!
It’s not that flowers are bad, they aren’t, it’s just that we expect shit like that. And if you’re trying to create the most epic sexual battle scene in history, bring something unique. Maybe come over and bring a pie, or invite her to an art class?
(If she cringes at anything other than money, red roses, or diamonds, she’s a hoe and only has the mental capacity for basic sex — run.)
Foreplay
Stop watching Fifty Shades of Grey. While the movie is fucking orgasmic, it’s unrealistic. Unless you have the time and patience, do not try that at home.
Women are sensual creatures. We like to be touched, teased, and pleased. Forget the Wham! Bam, thank you, ma’am; it’s overrated and only used for quick fucks and random’s. If you genuinely are interested in pleasing a woman, you have to do a lot more than flick her nipples a couple of times and bite her thighs.
Caress her body like it’s a piece of artwork, smell her, taste her, grab her hips while you inhale the scent of her hair at the nape of her neck. Aggressively spread her legs apart and then gently kiss up and down her legs. Take some time experiencing your meal, if you want a woman to treat you like a king in the bedroom, you have to touch her like she is royalty. If you don’t, then don’t expect anything but subpar.
Do you catch my drift?
Sex
Sex should only be Initiated after a long period of foreplay. If you can’t get her hot and wet, you failed.
During sex, stay sensual. Don’t forget her hotspots, kissing, touching, and teasing. Do the stop and go, get her to the point of climax and then WHAM! Either slow down of stop entirely and tease her some more. Also, switch it up, don’t just fuck her in doggy; Google some new positions. Add music, scents, lay a white sheet down and play with body paint. Oil her up and spank her, creativity is key.
Be romantically aggressive, be gentle and demanding, in a sexy, sensual way. Women enjoy a man who can please the mind along with the body. Make sex art, not just an act.
After sex
After sex is just as important. Don’t just stand right up and head to the shower, wipe her down, feel her body, or hell, round two?
Make her feel like she was a damn treat. Play with her hair and tell her she was amazing, maybe even touch yourself while she gets dressed, so she knows how much she turns you on. Sex should not have a beginning and end; it should be infinite. Always make her feel sexy and wanted. If you can remember to treat her body and mind like a goddess, I promise you; you’ll have the best sex of your life.
Happy fucking. No, happy art-making. | https://medium.com/wtf-moments/how-to-touch-a-woman-101-guide-to-ultimate-orgasms-5499a7d74ccb | ['Meghan Gause'] | 2020-12-26 20:33:32.089000+00:00 | ['Men', 'Relationships', 'Sex', 'Orgasm', 'Sexuality'] |
All you need to know about the Kineticex Project | Kineticex Token is designed to allow anyone easily access a cryptocurrency. Just through the installation of the mobile app, any user will be able to see KRC Token being added to his/her wallet based. Unlike most cryptocurrencies that are “mined” with special heavy equipment, a user can obtain KRC Token through the mining system on the app.
Kineticex aims to make KRC Tokens the cryptocurrency of the future. Kineticex team is working on a system that will help users to generate steady profit. We are committed towards creating a transparent and secure environment for cryptocurrency enthusiasts on our platform.
Our mission is provide a simple, secure and transparent cryptocurrency platform for every individual and organization regardless of the eld. Kineticex are creating a stable digital currency with high distribution and high value on an Ethereum blockchain platform that will embrace everyone to the cryptocurrency world.
KRC Token is designed on Ethereum, a blockchain-based distributed computing system that allows smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain platform allows us to incorporate all the features of KRC Token into smart contracts. Smart contracts provide a means to validate transactions, and the Ethereum blockchain reduces the chance of any attack on the coin and solidifies the security of the platform.
There will be Soft-CAP of 7500 ETH, Hard-CAP of 68750 ETH and 500 Million KRC Tokens in total supply. We have allocated 70% of tokens to be sold to public. There will be Pre-sale, during which KRC Token will be available on “1 KRC = 0.0001 ETH”and 25% KRC Tokens will be sold in Pre-Sale from public allocation. The ICO will be done in three rounds, and 45% KRC Token from public allocation will be available on “1 KRC = 0.00025 ETH” throughout three rounds.
The ICO will begin from August 15th, make sure you get KRC tokens.
Read more:
Exchange: https://kineticex.com/
Follow us in Twitter: https://twitter.com/KineticexE
Like and share: https://www.facebook.com/kineticex.io/
Join us Telegram: https://t.me/kineticexexchange
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kineticex-revolution-ltd/ | https://medium.com/kineticexexchange/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-kineticex-project-a3a7c03db871 | ['Kineticex Support'] | 2018-08-02 13:01:37.590000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Token'] |
5 Effective Possible Treatment For Pregnancy Stretch Marks | Stretch marks are one of the few pregnancy symptoms that are very common both during and after pregnancy. Most pregnant women develop stretch marks during their third trimester. More than 90% of pregnant women get tummy stretch marks.
Stretch marks can be annoying as they are quite difficult to treat. Cosmetic surgery is an option and many people often go for surgeries, and beauty treatments in order to get rid of the stretch marks. However, one should also know that these treatments have their own side-effects.
While during and after pregnancy it becomes important that you use only safe and natural products. For this, you can consider using Revitol stretch mark solution as it comprises only natural and quality ingredients that can help in fading the stretch marks and in restoring the elasticity of the skin.
Stretch marks cannot completely go away. However, there are certain remedies which can help in reducing and fading the stretch marks. Following are five such possible treatments for pregnancy stretch marks:
Essential Oil Treatment
The regular oil massage can also help in diminishing the appearance of the stretch marks. Just massage the affected area 2 to 3 times daily for the effective results. Some of the oils that you can use for stretch marks are Vitamin E oil, castor oil, olive oil, and coconut oil.
2. Aloe Vera
Aloe vera has many amazing benefits for the skin. It is very effective for stretch marks as it promotes healing of the skin. It is advisable that you use fresh aloe gel rather than buying the packed gel from the market. Apply it on the affected areas daily for 15 minutes then rinse it off with lukewarm water.
3. Skin regeneration creams
A stretch mark removal cream may also help you achieve the results. Look for an effective stretch mark removal cream. Always go through the ingredient list. A good cream should consist of the following ingredients –retinol, elastin, essential oils, vitamins, amino acids, collagen, jojoba oil, and shea butter. One can find many of these natural ingredients within this Revitol stretch mark cream for best results. The cream is made of natural extracts, essential vitamins, and similar substances which stimulates the growth of new cells and are effective for the stretch marks.
4. Laser Therapy
Laser therapy is a quick, effective and proven treatment for the removal of the stretch marks. This treatment is quite effective and can remove both the old and the new stretch marks. However, it is quite costly and may have certain side effects such as redness or itching which may go after a few days.
5. Sugar scrub
It is one of the best natural remedies. It will lighten the marks and also exfoliate the dead skin. Mix one tablespoon of sugar with almond oil and few drops of lemon juice. Use this before you go for a shower.
There is no magic treatment for removal of the stretch marks. They will fade with time. You can use any of the above methods to reduce and lighten the marks. | https://medium.com/@laurasmithsch/5-effective-possible-treatment-for-pregnancy-stretch-marks-541c8561ac55 | [] | 2020-12-23 05:37:48.909000+00:00 | ['Stretch Marks', 'Beauty', 'Skincare', 'Skin Care Products'] |
How Easy Is It Being Vegan? | How Easy Is It Being Vegan?
And I’m not talking about the food!
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” ― Alice Walker
Image created in Canva by Author
Have you any idea how much a part of your life bits of animals are?
Life is not as easy as one thinks when it comes to being vegan! Oh, the food’s a doddle (that means easy), but trying not to use animals in other things that’s where the headache begins.
Thought today I’d give you a list, just in case you’re interested in finding out where the rest of the animal goes.
In the list below, most of the products have animal parts within them, for example, glue. Some glue is made with synthetic materials, others, however, have casein, blood albumin, fish bladders and/or animal tissues. The conundrum is that you have no idea what type of glue has been used. A pair of synthetic leather shoes may look vegan, but chances are an animal glue has been used.
Other products have been animal tested as in the case of pharmaceuticals. Another minefield for the vegan to navigate.
WARNING: This list may surprise you.
Packaging
Glue
Wallpaper
Carpet
Laundry detergents
Disinfectants
Steel,
Lubricants
Perfumes
Shampoos
Toothpaste,
Cosmetics,
Pharmaceuticals
Furniture
Ink
Paint
Linoleum
Insulation
But wait … there’s more!
Fabric softeners
Asphalt
Tires
Deodorants
Sunscreen
Soaps
Creams,
Fabric dyes
Sports equipment
Clothing, shoes, bags and other accessories.
Okay, so some of these things we have no control over — like car tires and asphalt, but others we can do something about. Look at what you’re buying and see if there’s a more natural alternative. There are some fantastic products out there that are animal-free.
Do you know of any others that can be added to this list?
I put out a monthly newsletter with snippets of news and other bits and bobs I think you may be interested in: Sign up for it here: Goldcardvegan.com/newsletter | https://medium.com/an-idea/how-easy-is-it-being-vegan-5960fa97f894 | ["Fee O'Shea"] | 2020-10-30 02:27:43.227000+00:00 | ['Lists', 'Vegan', 'Animal Rights', 'Life', 'Animals'] |
Learning To Love Myself From My Husband | Fast-forward to 2017, I met my husband. I was still very insecure about myself. I couldn’t understand why he would want to be with someone like me. Since he’s dated other people who I considered to be more attractive. But he kept, and still does, complimenting me and telling me how much he loves me. He found me attractive and loves me for who I am. He accepted me as a person.
At first, I didn’t believe it, but he began showing his disapproval whenever I would call myself fat or ugly. He kept loving me and cherishing me. He was dispelling my harmful words and replacing them with words of love and encouragement. My husband’s love changed me. I was beginning to love myself more, and I was willing to take care of myself for myself. | https://medium.com/sweaters-and-blankets/learning-to-love-myself-from-my-husband-5f53a94b1dab | ['Tiffany Hsu'] | 2020-12-14 17:39:33.102000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Self Love', 'Self Acceptance', 'Self Improvement', 'Marriage'] |
Names Of Colors In Thai | Colors in Thailand have an interesting connection with the culture. Sure, for some countries, the color of the flag is synonymous with the country itself. For Thailand, it goes even deeper than that. For that reason, I think it could be an interesting insight into the country to look into this further to help understand the language and mindset of the people a little bit better. Also, I just think it is good to be able to name colors in any language you learn.
In this article, we will look at the name of colors in Thai and some of the deeper connotations they have in the culture.
Colors Names
As you make notice, the word ‘sii’ (สี) is usually placed before a color name. It actually means color and is used as a classifier of sorts that is placed before the name.
If you want to say light or dark when talking about a color, you would say ‘orn’ (อ่อน) for light and ‘khem’(เข้ม) for dark. You place these after the color name, so dark blue for example would be ‘sii nam-ngurn khem’ (สีน้ำเงินเข้ม).
The Meanings Of Colors In Thai Culture
As I spoke about before, there is some significance for the colors in the culture. Each day is assigned one or more lucky and unlucky colors. The reasoning behind this system is due to the Thai names for the days of the week. Each name corresponds to a planet or star in the solar system, which in turn correspond with certain gods who are said to protect that day. These gods have an associated color which is used as the lucky color for that day.
While this is an ancient custom, some people still follow this system. Of course it is not strictly followed everyday. It is more often relegated for special occasions, holidays, or certain superstitious dates and religious events. You will probably find that people do follow the ‘unlucky color’ schedule to an extent. It is better to be safe than sorry after all.
Then there are people’s birth colors. These are considered the most lucky of all for the individual and so people may tend to choose to wear their color when they want luck to be on their side. Yellow is heavily associated with the royal family for this reason.
Otherwise, it is questionable how many people actually still believe in this. It might be worth learning even if just to impress people with your knowledge of the ancient tradition.
The Deep Meaning Of Thai Colors
So there you go, the somewhat complicated back story of the significance of colors in Thailand. I hope that knowing this now motivates you to learn the colors in Thai and possibly even consider following the system. I know I have started doing so, even if subconsciously. Next time you are walking around in the country, take a look around at the colors people are wearing to see how many people actually follow this system. It could make for a great way to practice the new vocabulary too.
The Ling Thai app is another great way to practice your Thai skills. Try out the tests and strengthen your knowledge in the Thai language. | https://medium.com/@ling-app/names-of-colors-in-thai-c3a98e952d37 | ['Ling Learn Languages'] | 2019-12-10 17:12:31.124000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Learning', 'Language Learning', 'Thailand', 'Thai'] |
You Don’t Tell Me. I won’t listen anyway | You Don’t Tell Me
Photo by Robert McGowan on Unsplash
You don't tell me
what to do and what not to do.
That I am a tiny dot in this colossal universe,
and therefore my life is of no value.
That I had emerged from the soil
and will go back into it.
You don’t tell me
what my true worth is.
Oh, I bet you don’t even know I exist.
You just sit there in the highest atmospheric layer
maybe even beyond that
and release self-acclaimed orated speeches.
In fact, I will tell you
what I feel right now.
I may be a tiny dot in the universe
but remember,
I have a universe of my own.
A universe where I am as important
as the stars, planets, earth, moon, and the Sun.
My existence holds value to the people in them,
and for them,
I am not just any dot in the system,
I am their entire UNIVERSE.
So, you don’t tell me
what to do and what not to do
cos brother sorry to say,
but you really don't know anything about me. | https://medium.com/illumination/dont-tell-me-what-to-do-af55386a225e | ['Bhavna Narula'] | 2020-12-25 14:46:30.845000+00:00 | ['Creative Writing', 'Poetry Writing', 'Emotions', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
Four Ways to Express Your Look. What is the average woman to do when… | What is the average woman to do when she doesn’t have an hour to craft her look for the day? I posed that question in the first blog “Getting Back to the Basics”. You Tube and the like has exploded with video tutorials that seem so easy to copy. In reality, to some, it may seem like mimicking a Bob Ross episode; looks nice, looks easy, looks fun. The end result for an amateur is mediocre without practice. I believe the average woman is able to follow simple steps and get a breathtaking result. Once you master the three basic steps, cleanse, setup and makeup, the rest will come more easily.
While the majority of 16–24 year old girls are discovering new products and finding new brands, the whole makeup super store was a bit intimidating to me. I admit it, I had a brand at a counter, I could shop with no questions whenever I needed anything in the beauty line. Gone are the days of either grocery store makeup or the lux of department store cosmetics. Now we have super stores with overwhelming aisles full of trendy brand after trendy brand. The only way to sample a product is to risk the germ infested testers and hope colors have not been mixed or worse. Don’t get me wrong, I love those stores… but yikes, they are scary to me for multiple reasons.
In my fear, I reached out to a makeup subscription delivery service. That was a good and a bad idea. In my boxes came brands I had never heard of, much less tried. Excited to receive my box every month, I loved the products inside. The problem was in choosing on line and with any real precise measure what I wanted to sample. The positive result of the subscription taught me to try products and trust more than the one brand I had used all my life.
This led me to where I am now. I am such a “big girl”, going into a makeup superstore; I feel more confident. Learning the looks, I now know where I “fit in”. There are 4 basic concepts in cosmetic application I would like to discuss; The Instant Fix, The All Natural Earthy, The Porcelain Doll, and a Creativity in Expression looks.
The Instant Fix
OUCH! Knowing this is a touchy subject; I tread lightly. I wish there was a magic fix, and maybe there will be one day. Besides the knife, there are only temporary options. My suggestion for this sensitive subject is to concentrate on what you can do.YOU CAN… drink more water… 8 glasses a day at the very least, you can keep active. You can cleanse and care for your skin. Mask application is a must in the anti-aging process. Removing dead cells and renewing your skin encourages your collagen to reproduce and revitalize.
The Porcelain Doll look
The Porcelain Doll look is popular with girls who have the time to really work for the look. It is a flawless, almost ethereal, doe eyed and well contoured style. Okay, to be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with this look. In my younger days, the flawless look was… how should I say it… more easily attained! Okay, that’s funny! I should remove myself from this category. However, you knew that was coming. On a date night with my main squeeze, I want to look flawless. Using foundation and a bit “more” is just fine with me.
All-natural Earthy look
Hippy, Organic, All Natural… whatever you call it, the look is simple, yet flirty. Somehow the simplistic translates to some men as attractive. My husband loves it when I wear only mascara. The truth is, he doesn’t realize I have applied serums, moisturizers, concealers, contour and powder. I love the look that claims to be all-natural. It is simple and alluring.
Creativity in Expression look
Perhaps this is where I shine! In the 80s I wore rainbow eye shadow… take a moment to digest that… I will wait. Creativity, after all, is my jam, however, creativity has gone to a new level. With the internet and tutorials, anyone can practice and create a unique look in their peer group. This look includes bravery in color and concept. Exchanging a basic hue for a bold expression is where the creatives express themselves.
All of this to say, I am an advocate of beauty and expression. It does not have to be an hour long, complicated event. Color is matched to fashion and palette. Stay tuned to the next blog to learn application and decision.
Until then, explore color and brand… in your home… on your own… where no one will see! | https://medium.com/@simplysunni/getting-back-to-the-basics-2-9bf456b4ab37 | ['Simply Sunni', 'Sunni Baerwalde'] | 2020-04-23 20:05:04.998000+00:00 | ['Basic Makeup Tips', 'Cosmetics', 'Simple Makeup', 'Easy Makeup', 'Skincare'] |
Blockchain For Government | Blockchain technology offers a whole world of possibilities for Government systems.
Not only can it make tasks faster, it can also be an aid in fighting corruption.
How can it do tall that you ask?
Let’s find out . . .
Trustless Transactions
The word “trustless” doesn’t mean that it’s untrustworthy, rather the opposite.
With Blockchain, tasks such as money transactions (eg. Pension) can be automated using smart contracts.
Once a smart contract is implemented, no “middle men” can tamper with it.
This allows for a completely hands-free and seamless operation, eliminating the need for “trust.”
Transparency with Privacy
-The information once stored on the blockchain database can never be tampered with, and it will be available whenever needed.
-You can store the public information on a public blockchain ledger that everyone can access (such as criminal records, employment records).
-Sensitive information (such as medical records) can be stored on a private distributed ledger, making it available to specified persons only.
-This way, the government can access and keep the information they need for providing services to the citizens, while ensuring their privacy.
Enhanced Security
-Blockchain for government and public services add extra layers of security that keep hackers away from the data.
-When you use a distributed ledger for storing your data, on a protected network, it becomes extremely difficult for hackers to get into the system.
-Blockchain is made up of multiple blocks, each block is connected to all the other blocks, and each block has the cryptographic hash of the block before it.
-For a hacker to access the system, they would need to change the data on a block as well as the data on every other block, to avoid detection.
-Each entity that makes a transaction in the block gets a private key assigned to the transactions they make.
-When a hacker tries to make any changes to the data on a block, this key becomes invalid and the peer connection is notified instantly.
-There is no single point of weakness, the data itself is stored on multiple databases and not on a single server, making hacking practically impossible
Fighting Corruption
-Blockchain technology protects your data, not only from hackers but from everyone, making falsifying of data practically impossible.
-You can use authentication to choose who gets the data, while maintaining transparency by making relevant data available to the public.
-The immutable storage keeps data intact, and citizens can easily view and verify data using a Blockchainbased explorer.
-What you see is literally what you get.
Elections
-In the era of ballots, security was a major concern and Ballot boxes were guarded with high levels of security to ensure that the votes were not forged.
-Now, this process is done with the help of electronic devices, but the problem here is that electronic devices can be easily tampered with.
-There have been several reports of voters clicking on one candidate’s button and the vote being cast for the other candidate.
-Blockchain can eliminate this completely by ensuring that each vote cast is authentic, and the immutable storage makes sure that the data is not lost.
In A Nutshell
If Implemented, Blockchain technology has the potential to change the way our system operates, forever.
A change that maximizes efficiency while safe guarding privacy and countering corruption. | https://medium.com/@blockchainx-tech/blockchain-for-government-d1aa92907b37 | [] | 2020-12-21 12:52:52.041000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Development', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Startup'] |
Executives don’t want snackable content, they want long lunches | Your reader scans through a short article and leaves it feeling s/he is up-to-date on its subject matter. You, the author of the material taps “Publish” and feel the satisfaction of knowing that you have shared something worthwhile that will generate leads.
What’s really happening here is that you are churning out the equivalent of junk food that your audience is “snacking” on. They feel as if their hunger for knowledge and insight is sated, not realizing that there is little nutritional value in this snack blizzard.
Worthwhile content takes longer to prepare
I had an appointment with my dietician earlier this week. I’m diabetic so my diet has a pretty big impact on my health. Some of her advice is relevant so bear with me.
As I described what I typically eat for lunches (usually something I can toss in the oven and prepare quickly), she pointed out that if food is quick and easy to make, it usually isn’t that healthy for you. Food that nourishes you tends to take longer to prepare but it gives your body what it needs.
When I think about “snackable content” now, it seems a lot like that quick and easy food I tend to eat when I lack the energy to prepare something healthier (probably not a coincidence).
Sure, you can pump out a higher volume of material but at what cost? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking but creating shorter pieces of content in an effort to fill those attention gaps isn’t the solution.
You’re aggravating the attention problem
When your audience finds itself facing with higher volumes of “easy to digest” content that, necessarily, lacks any meaningful depth or insights, they’re often overwhelmed. It’s a bit like walking through a food court and all the food vendors are throwing small, bite-sized chunks of food at you.
It’s probably not going to be a satisfying dining experience (unless you are about 8 years old). If that’s how you eat your meals, your audience is going to find themselves on their hands and knees a lot, picking up bits of food and stuffing their faces.
Using better food cannons may increase the volume you’re hurling at your audiences but is it really giving them what they need? If anything, you’re just fragmenting their attention even further (which means louder and bigger food cannons, right?).
To aggravate the situation, you’re also insulting your audience’s intelligence by force feeding them with this superficial stuff masquerading as “content”.
Maybe it isn’t about attention, not really.
What if the underlying assumption is wrong? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking because there is too much junk food content being thrust at audiences and they have become far more selective.
You can try break through to them with a bigger banners, clickbait titles and other shiny objects but it’s not a sustainable strategy.
In a recent episode of the “PNR: This Old Marketing” podcast, hosts Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose mentioned the “Quartz: Global Executive Study” conducted by Quartz Magazine.
One of the statistics they highlighted was that 84% of the study’s respondents said they are most likely to share long-form articles. Charts and data came in at second place with 47%. A related insight reinforces this:
88% of executives are likely to share good content, and its source almost always (85%) influences their decision to share it.
Long lunches and better conversation
Certainly, long-form articles take time to write and they take time to read. The same applies to longer videos, podcast episodes and so on.
It’s worth it. | https://medium.com/the-graph/executives-dont-want-snackable-content-they-want-long-lunches-44095422437f | ['Paul Jacobson'] | 2017-05-07 09:33:20.593000+00:00 | ['Digital Media', 'B2B', 'Content Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Content Strategy'] |
3 Important Lessons I Learned Cutting My Workout Time in Half | 3 Important Lessons I Learned Cutting My Workout Time in Half
Photo by Diego Lozano on Unsplash
I’ll be the first to say it: I’m a fitness nut. I spent roughly an hour at the gym every day, and then another hour reading and learning about fitness and health.
But then the Pandemic happened, and I suddenly lost the freedom of going to the gym every day. After a few months, they started to reopen again, but I can’t stay my usual workout hours because of social distancing, and there are also in line waiting for their turn.
So I cut it down to what I thought was the bare minimum: 30 minutes, three to four times a week. I knew I was making a sacrifice, and I was prepared to face the consequences. I was sure I’d see a huge drop in performance and strength within a few weeks.
I was waiting for that moment where it would become clear that I couldn’t lift as much or run as fast as I used to.
The only problem was; that moment never came.
Instead of the degradation I was expecting to see, I was actually getting stronger! I noticed how I could lift more, run faster, and do more reps of just about every exercise!
And now, a few weeks later, I did a fitness test to analyze the results of my new training routine. Here’s a quick excerpt of my results:
The maximum amount of pullups: 35 (1st quarter of 2020–20)
The maximum amount of pushups: 108 (1st quarter of 2020 ~70)
Fastest time on 10 km (~6.2 miles): 38 minutes (1st quarter of 2020 42 minutes)
Obviously, cutting my training in half was a great decision — but why? How did reducing my time at the gym lead to these results? After analyzing the changes in my training routine, I have extracted three valuable lessons:
1. You adapt to the time you have
The first thing I learned from cutting my training in half is that you adapt to your available time.
If you have unlimited time to do something, you will have no pressure to be effective. If you have 10 hours to finish a project, you’re going to fill out those 10 hours. But if you only get 5 hours to do the same work, you’ll be pressured to be far more productive to produce the same results in half the time.
That’s what happened with my training; since I suddenly only had half of my usual time at my disposal, I was forced to make my workout as effective as possible.
I slimmed it down to only the most essential exercises, cut my resting time between sets in half, and removing any distractions that would drag out the time between exercises.
Through all these changes, I managed to make my workouts more effective than they had ever been and produce much better results in half the time.
2. It’s about quality, not quantity
The more time spent at the gym does not equal better or faster results. Just because you do more exercise and train for longer periods of time doesn’t mean you’ll get any stronger any faster. It’s about training right, not training more!
When I cut my training in half, I learned that a lot of what I was doing contributed very little to my overall results. Some of my training was even reducing my results!
For instance, I used to do many exercises with the same muscle group, thinking that the more I worked it, the stronger it would get. But what I was actually doing was exhausting those muscles with unnecessary exercises so that I was too tired to do the key exercises properly.
I was basically sacrificing my training quality by increasing the quantity, which brings up the last lesson.
3. 80 percent of the results came from 20 percent of the training
Once I cut my training in half, I realized that only about a fifth of my time at the gym was producing 80% of my results. It was a small number of key exercises that resulted in most of my strength gain, while the rest were basically inefficient time wasters.
This is what is known as the Pareto principle — that a majority of your results stem from a small portion of your efforts.
Once I realized this, I cut my training down to those basic 20 percent and expanded them. This was the key to maximizing my gains while minimizing the effort; by identifying the time-wasters and cutting them out, I reduced my total amount of training and focused on expanding the 20 percent that stood for most of my results.
By implementing these three lessons, I successfully cut my training in half while suffering no negative effects on my results. And as a fitness nut, this meant that I had just made a huge part of my life much more effective! | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/3-important-lessons-i-learned-cutting-my-workout-time-in-half-ceeb1c82d8e5 | ['Josef Cruz'] | 2020-12-24 15:25:02.836000+00:00 | ['Exercise', 'Fitness', 'Running', 'Workout', 'Health'] |
UX 101: How to Improve User Experience On Your Website | You could spend 15 months trying to build a perfect website but the truth is that your viewers might give it just 15 seconds.
It’s a competitive and ruthless world out there and if you don’t work to improve user experience with each change you make, you’re going to lose your visitors. For companies whose websites power their profits, this is a real problem.
Here are some of the most important ways to improve the user experience on your site in the mobile era.
Build Strong Calls To Action
Ultimately, your customers have come to your site to perform one of a handful of actions. If you’re running an eCommerce site, they want to shop. If you’re running a site for a restaurant or a dentist’s office, people want to book a table or an appointment.
Make these things easy with strong calls to action. Use bold colors and buttons that your customers want to click. Use clear language that lets them know that you’re there to help.
If you’re writing a blog, make sure that every single post ends with a call to action. Every page should start with that aforementioned call to action and end with another type of call to action if the subject matter on that page differs.
Either way, don’t expect your visitors to want to dig for what they’re looking for on your site. They’ll be frustrated if they spend more time than they want to try to perform a simple task.
Test and Monitor Your Site Regularly
With every single browser update, take a quick peek at your site. Pages designed more than a few years ago may not hold up to the standards of the latest browser changes.
If you’re deploying an entirely new site, run some user tests where you can monitor people using your site live. Have them narrate their experience and watch the metrics. These can ensure that every change you make to your site is fruitful rather than frustrating.
Don’t forget to test mobile optimization on your site as well. If your site can’t run well on phones and mobile devices, it’s not worth deploying. With mobile traffic outpacing desktop traffic three years in a row, mobile is the future you need to invest in.
Make it Responsive
Your site doesn’t need to just look good on a variety of devices, it has to shape itself to fit the device. When you focus on responsive web design, you create experiences that are optimized for use.
For sites that are reading or text-based, make sure that they’re easy to read and that text blocks are optimized. When an article or blog post is clicked, the page should reconfigure on small devices to make the font readable and for the text to take up the screen.
Panning and scrolling should conform to the standards of devices and not the other way around. While you might think it’s valuable to do things in a new way, new methods can interrupt your ability to communicate clearly with your audience.
Technology is meant to help your business, not get in the way.
Social Media Matters
What social media apps do your customers use the most? How often do you update your social media profiles? If you’re not on top of this information and aren’t updating on a daily basis, it’s time to start.
This requires you to come up with a content strategy. It’s hard to come up with interesting content for your site or social media profiles every day. It’s much easier if you have a strategy that allows you to draw in other media channels.
Find a few writers or digital sites that post about the news that matters to you and your customers. Along with your own original content, pepper in a few posts from them each week. If your staff is creating 2–3 posts per week, you can fill out the other 2–4 days of the week with posts from those channels.
Find new diverse ways to share that information. Use videos and story functions. Use Medium and LinkedIn to share longer posts and stories.
The more people understand who you are as a brand, the more they’ll be invested in working with you.
Talk To Your Users
If you’ve been in operation for a few years, it’s likely that you’ve got some dedicated or committed customers who use only you for their services. Work with them to make your site work the way they want.
It might start with a survey or an outreach email. When you’ve built a relationship with customers, they’ll want to tell you how they feel about what you do and how you do it.
They might stick with you because they like your products and services. They’ll appreciate that you’re trying to do things even better.
Make a list of potential types of benefits that users can get from the apps they use. Rank the value they get from each benefit and how it contributes to their overall happiness with you as a company.
Build their feedback into data that you can show your project managers and C-level executives. They’ll appreciate the clarity and continue funding work that connects with users the way your site does.
Improve User Experience Through Listening
If you want to improve user experience, the biggest thing to do is to listen to what users want. Every market for every product has preferred devices, preferred types of apps they use, and what they want from their service providers. If you’re not working to ensure user satisfaction, you could possibly lose out on potential sales.
To keep up with the latest design trends, check out our latest guide.
Looking for tech support connect with me at raicheltotherescue.com
🌺Raich | https://medium.com/@raichelwhite/ux-101-how-to-improve-user-experience-on-your-website-749332a428ad | ['Raichel White'] | 2021-09-03 01:07:21.819000+00:00 | ['User Experience', 'Web Design', 'Website', 'Lead Generation', 'Customer Experience'] |
The Fake Wayfair Scandal in Excruciating Detail | The Children’s Names
Let’s talk about big numbers. According to Wikipedia’s page for Wayfair, their sales platform has about 14 million products for sale. (Per a claim from Boston Magazine)
Imagine you were a software engineer working for Wayfair and your supervisor comes to you and says, “I need you to make all of the listings for all of the 14 million products on the website unique so the search function on the site works better and customer service knows what product someone is asking about.” Someone at Wayfair was confronted with this exact problem.
The solution they apparently decided on is to add (somewhat) unique names to each listing in order to make it easier for users to search the site for specific bar stools/sectionals/recliners they happened to be looking for. IKEA actually does something similar, naming products after places and people. It’s just that those places and people are Scandinavian.
Where would these hypothetical unique names come from? You might ask. From all appearances, it seems Wayfair decided to scrape the internet for them, pulling them from baby name lists like the one you can find here. [archive] (There are 18,757 names on the girls’ list alone)
Huh.
Try it yourself, if you like. Search a few of the names on this list against Wayfair’s product listings. You’ll get about halfway through the whole list before you start having trouble finding matches. In that context, it seems a lot more plausible that Wayfair could produce listings with these “unusual” names. They’re on these lists. As such, I wouldn’t call it a coincidence when you find a missing child’s name on Wayfair. It’s a bit like winning the lottery when you bought nearly every ticket. Coincidence is probably the wrong word.
Note that this specific list is just one set of data, and doesn’t include every name that Wayfair uses in their process. Last names and boys names aren’t represented here, for example.
If you search for “bookcase” you’ll get 7,163 results (as of the time of writing). But if you search for “Anabel bookcase” you get 1 result. (also as of time of writing.) I hope you can see why this would make communication easier for Wayfair.
Another detail that’s often left out, these names are reused across multiple types of products. Searching for a name without a specific product type yields many results. They’re only interested in making the name + item combos unique.
Did they kidnap 46 girls named Anabel? — Where’s the break point in price between children and beds?
So you hypothetically take these many many thousands of names across millions of products and mash them up against a Google search for “-name- missing” or the database at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (421,394 entries as of 2019) and then you pick out a few examples that sound interesting/convincing. It would be good to pick an unusual sounding one. Probably a recent one, or maybe there’s a product review on the Wayfair page that sounds strange when read with the missing person in mind. That would make for some nice bonus points and extra retweets. Lots of shocked face emoji too. | https://medium.com/@alsoVincent/wayfair-conspiracy-analyzing-the-evidence-e2f4e407ff93 | [] | 2020-07-20 16:42:22.029000+00:00 | ['Furniture', 'Conspiracy Theories', 'Wayfair', 'Social Media', 'Human Trafficking'] |
My Setup — Dev Tools Overview. To start with let's be perfectly clear… | To start with let's be perfectly clear. I am not current a web developer but rather someone learning the skills to be a JS Software Engineer. I blow through HTML/CSS/ and JS currently. I am learning react & Redux with more planned shortly. But all that means is that my setups are a bit more flexible…
So I am going to give you what I currently run between software & hardware and get you a look at what works and what doesn't.
HARDWARE:
This is the easy one. I run both a Desktop PC & a MacBook pro 2020 w/ touch bar.
Desktop:
Ryzen 7 2700X Processor
16GB Ram
1TB M.2 SSD
3 TB HDD Programs Drive
1 TB HDD Storage Drive
2x 27in 4k Monitors (on a side by side monitor mount)
Blue Snowball Ice Mic
Logitech 615 Mechanical Keyboard
Logitech G Pro Mouse
GTX 2060
MacBook Pro 13 2020:
8GB Ram
256 M.2 SSD
TouchBar
Cast to 55in 4k TV
Enroute:
Magic Keyboard
Magic Touchpad 2
Software:
VSCode
Discord
Slack
Git Bash
Postman
Insomnia — New Addition
Spotify
Zoom
So Obviously this is a pretty obvious setup. I also still have tools like Adobe Creative Suite, and others that I retained from my last job, and still use, but this is my core that is installed every 3–6 months when I clean up and wipe the system drive. (I am kind of OCD on that)
All told the entire setup between both computers would be about 3K for all of it. The TV and monitors are not the top brands, they are merely functional. This is all OVERKILL for the programming that I do, but some of my side hustles include video editing, graphic design, audio editing, and of course in my downtime gaming is certainly a thing.
Here is my advice:
Use this equation:
Price /5 years usage (- hrs used per year) = ROI
The point is this: You do not need a super high-end computer but the time that you save being able to keep going instead of having to wait is a HUGE $$ saver on its own… It is kind of like buying a car. Will it suit your needs long term, will it last 5–10 years with minimal cash expenditure to ensure that it stays that way. Accessories are cheap in comparison to a computer so really don’t include that other than in the initial cost.
Do what works for you… don't worry about what others are doing… BUT if you can spend the extra money so that you have the time savings and dependability. | https://medium.com/@kyleswillard/my-setup-dev-tools-overview-1f23907e847e | ['Kyle Willard'] | 2020-12-06 04:06:48.358000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Javascript Development', 'Software Engineering', 'React', 'Computers'] |
If young adults watch too many sports games on television, it may make them want to play sports. | If young adults watch too many sports games on television, it may make them want to play sports. Ekko Follow Aug 16 · 2 min read
In modern times, a lot of technology comes into our life. There are smartphones, internet. And for myself television is my favorite, I like to use it to watch some TV shows, sports races or cartoons. With the popularity of TV, some people like it, but some people don’t like it. And some people, who don’t like it, start to say that if young adults watch too many sports games on television, it may discourage them from playing sports. But I can’t entirely agree with that idea because I think only if you like this sport, or you are interested in this sport, then will you go to watch this sport on television. So I believe if young adults tend to watch too many sports games on television, it may make them want to play sports.
Photo by Fancy Crave on Unsplash
As an example, if you are a person who doesn’t like sport, and you enjoy watching the romantic show, I believe that when you are watching TV, you will not turn to the sports channel, maybe when you change the television channel, you may be watching it for a few seconds. Still, you will turn it to another medium very fast. But if you like to play sports, like basketball, soccer, baseball, you may be watching the race or sports game on television; this probability is very high. For example, I am a person who also very much likes sport; I like to play basketball, soccer and a lot of other sport; I’m usually watching the NBA games on television all the time, and if I miss it I will also watch some highlights in this game. Sometimes I can learn some tricks or moves from watching the sports game on television, and after I learn those skills, I will go to the basketball court to practice them and show them to my friend. It makes me spend more time playing basketball.
Photo by Sabri Tuzcu on Unsplash
In conclusion, I believe that young people watching too many sports games on television will not discourage them from playing a sport, the only thing that will prevent you from playing sport is laziness. | https://medium.com/illumination/if-young-adults-watch-too-many-sports-games-on-television-it-may-make-them-want-to-play-sports-1ea7ed281a96 | [] | 2021-09-05 10:22:45.040000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Sports Games', 'Basketball', 'Sports', 'TV'] |
What on earth am I doing?. As a startup founder you have to refine… | In that emergency, we ended up making mobile phone credit fungible back into cash at face value, unblocking the liquidity (cash is the most liquid asset for those not in the financial services business) problem and enabling people to paid on time and without having their money stolen.
In Sierra Leone, to get mobile money to work at national scale, the government and international community had to subsidise the ecosystem and the networks themselves. This obviously isn’t ideal, and wasn’t sustainable, the ecosystem collapsed after the emergency and subsidies stopped. The system also never had to contend with a rainy season, which often disabled bits of the network for days on end. Workers would withdraw all of their money from the system at once, even though the amounts were relatively huge compared to local incomes. When asked why, one reason given was that people weren’t confident their money would always be available, so they took it all out into a form they knew they could use, even if it meant stashing huge amounts of cash in a box under the bed.
What this experience taught me is that electronic money is only useful if you can use it all the time even in the middle of a howling gale or tropical downpour, and mobile money fails completely when the network vanishes which happens when networks are poorly maintained and it rains a lot. App based systems like AliPay have the same problem. If the network is down, they don’t work. If it’s not available, money is useless. Therefore I came up with a key design goal:
When all other technologies fail, our platform must keep working.
What traction can we show?
We do have an up and running deployment and it is set to get quite big. National state scale big.
Our first “At Scale Demo” deployment is “Kartaun Bele” (KB) in East Timor. This project sees us partnering with a consortium comprising World Vision, one of the largest INGOs in East Timor, and local investors to bring digital finance to the poorest country in SE Asia.
KB’s secure digital currency deployment is a radical departure from traditional development programmes which historically overlooked finance as a key enabler of poverty alleviation. Aiding people to safely trade and save their way out of poverty. Australia’s Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade estimates that for every dollar spent in Aid to enable Trade is equivalent to twenty dollars in conventional development aid.
Not having to rely on constant internet and data connectivity KB overcomes the limitations of the telecommunications and physical infrastructure in the country and enables the pooling and efficient allocation of funds. This will ease payments of everything from pensions to utility bills to payroll. Seeing the practical benefits of a fast, secure payment system first hand, the local Timorese people have enthusiastically embraced our technology. Villages are now actively petitioning for the system to be rolled out to them as soon as possible.
After one demo and training session, a group of elderly village leaders trekked overnight over mountains in freezing fog to ask the World Vision team when their villages would get the platform. The last time I was in one of the villages where the platform is being tested, a local shopkeeper asked me when could he deposit his own meagre funds into the system for safekeeping.
When the elderly cross mountains and the poorest trust your technology with their means of sustenance, that’s customer demand.
Who are our key competitors in the market?
The problems I encountered as I worked through the field, got me thinking about how do existing digital payment technologies work. These in effect are our competitors.
Mobile Money
Systems like MPESA and AirTel money, use the billing systems of Pay As You Go mobile phones as wallets, and were developed from the observation back in 2002 that Kenyan merchants were accepting airtime minutes like currency for payments. Mobile Money simply formalises this and adds some management features. This is a gross oversimplification, but it helps explain the limitations of these systems, they obviously don’t work when the mobile phone network is unavailable (hence the stories of people walking for hours to get to somewhere with signal so they can transfer some money), and worse they have a problem where it is very expensive or impossible to move money between phone networks. After all if there is no agreement between the mobile phone carriers to cooperate to allow cross network funds transfers, then your money is trapped, and it’s not in the phone company’s interests to allow really easy movement, they would rather try to grow their subscriber base at the expense of the other phone companies.
This results in Mobile Money being mostly used for transfers, rather than for savings or loans. People don’t deposit money to keep it safe; rather they use the system to send value to other people who withdraw it as soon as they can to so the value is always available in a form that everyone accepts, even if they are on another network.
People always point to Kenya as the shining example of how Mobile Money can revolutionise an economy, but it’s not a good example for a few different reasons; one is that Kenya has forced it’s mobile operators to co-operate and interoperate between its two dominant platforms M’Pesa and AirTel money. This is combined with brutal competition which has forced the networks to become reliable, as well as a benign environment which doesn’t suffer environmental events that bring down parts of the network barring the odd lightning strike. Kenya is unusual in that while central government is often politically weak, it has strong institutions and regulators which drive integration, if only the rest of the developing world were anywhere near as organised.
EMV2 based Credit and Debit Cards
You’ll immediately recognise these as the credit and debit cards in your wallet. The system that underpins them is pretty complex, and I won’t go into all the detail, other than to say that they rely on complex communications networks to allow the receiving bank that holds the merchant account to check you have enough money or credit available to pay. They have floors and ceilings built into the cards which allows you to simply wave the card or present it to with no authentication for small value payments, but need to contact your bank to do anything above that built in ceiling. Anyone who has ever travelled to a country where the telecoms and banking infrastructure isn’t great has probably experienced this first hand; you try to make a purchase, put in your PIN number and it’s declined (this goes double for ATMs, I remember many a time going from ATM to ATM of different banks trying to find one that worked to withdraw cash). You call the bank and they say you have plenty of money and they have no record of the transaction being attempted, would you mind trying that again. What you just experienced was a failure of that complex bank end infrastructure. Needless to say when the infrastructure fails you can’t use your card for very much unless it’s to buy a bus ticket or a coffee while you wait for the network to come back.
We’ve built our platform so that this should never happen, as long as you have enough money on the card, so one can enjoy that foot massage at the airport spa rather than endlessly searching for an ATM that works (true story from several occasions stuck in airports around south east asia where looking for an working ATM totally wrecked my quest for a foot massage; you come up with solutions to problems you’ve personally experienced, foot massage is important).
App based payments
These are the big new kids on the block, and in China, they have supplanted everything from Mobile Money to Credit Cards to Debit Cards. They rely on everyone having a smartphone with a camera and having really good telecommunications networks. They come in 2 sorts of flavour: Paypal/Venmo and WeChat/Alipay.
Paypal and Venmo technically aren’t technically very interesting. You link your existing credit or debit account to the app, and then use the app to pay for stuff identifying the payee with an email address or phone number. They are more like payment processors than anything else, you can hold a balance on them, but it doesn’t offer you much other than convenience for online shopping.
WeChat Pay and AliPay are totally different animals, which use very different technology to achieve the same ends. They both use the ubiquitous smartphone camera and QR codes with embedded single use passwords (Time based One Time Passwords for those of a technical bent) to identify either the seller to the payment app (alipay) or the payment app to the seller (wechat pay). They have staggering user bases, 871 million people in China use AliPay and WeChat Pay claims over 600 million users.
Obviously none of these work when the telecoms are down, and require everyone to have a smartphone, which is actually a very expensive item for the bottom 3.1 billion people.
Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
Despite the recent hype, these things aren’t actually very useful. They behave more like a effort to recreate assets like gold, and suffer many of the same disadvantages as gold as money (which is different from money, cash and assets). As well as being inherently deflationary, they can’t be recovered if stolen, the apps don’t work when the network is down, they are hard to turn into real goods like food due to poor acceptance, vulnerable to theft by hacking and tough to turn into widely accepted currency because of rules around money laundering and tax evasion. An excerpt from a hilarious and very erudite book about the strange world of cryptocurrencies called Attack of the 50 foot Block Chain by David Gerard which explains some of Bitcoins deficiencies can be found here
How will we make money?
In a word licencing. We want a tiny cut of every transaction that crosses the boundary from the physical cash and default banking system into the card ecosystem. We don’t want to be a bank, or have to set up payment processing subsidiaries in every country. That’s a regulatory nightmare, and we aren’t bankers. There is also a strong argument to be made that finance must be accountable to the needs of the people it serves, and in practice that means financial institutions should be locally owned and run. Even in the globalised developed world, this more or less holds true as we have strong government, central banks and regulators (in theory at least).
So the game plan is to try to get our technology into every payment card worldwide and get cards into the hands of everyone, ideally from a local financial institution that can use the deposits the technology enables to invest into the local economy. Often times those financial institutions that make up these national payment associations won’t be able to or want to run the backend ledger systems needed to support the card ecosystem, and we plan to make money hosting and running these backends for them.
Integration with everything from trade finance platforms for small producers to government to people and business financial platforms provide additional income streams, as finally does data. Central banks, government and regulators finally have a way to directly see the health of their economies in near real time, while segregation of KYC data and ledger data ensures that privacy of users is protected. These are all services we can make money from.
It’s ambitious, but if one thinks about the world that we are heading towards, where the bottom 3.1 billion make up the last markets that will experience double digit growth rates, and increasing numbers of weather related (un)natural disasters test the resilience of everyone, it makes sense to move to technology platforms that are inherently robust, and that make real the promise of the much vaunted, but rarely seen, technological leapfrog.
What is our unique advantage?
To the best of our knowledge our technology is unique. It is the only one that works well when the network is down, it’s pouring with rain and the mains power is out.
A common idea is that once a technology is adopted, it opens a moat which makes it hard for competitors to cross. In our case, by getting to these markets first with a product that is trusted because it’s always available in the same way as cash, empowers countries, local economies and which provides resilience we can open a moat that is very hard for others to cross, simply by virtue of being the only digital wallet that keeps working seamlessly even when everyone else has failed because a flood, cyclone or fire has drowned, blown away or burnt their supporting infrastructure to a crisp. Or indeed when just some tropical rain makes it impossible to buy your vegetables because the local cell has gone down for an hour. | https://medium.com/@mautinoa_technologies/why-on-earth-am-i-doing-this-a860a64c4d08 | ['Mautinoa Technologies'] | 2019-04-23 22:41:09.197000+00:00 | ['Financial Inclusion', 'Startup', 'Humanitarian', 'International Development', 'Fintech'] |
Fine Jewels & Swiss Watches under the Gavel in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Only this Sunday October 16th | Fine Jewels & Swiss Watches under the Gavel in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Only this Sunday October 16th
Richmond Hill, ON –Federal Auction announced its next Fine Jewellery & Swiss Watch auction which offers rare Diamonds and many other consignments including Rubies, Sapphires, Emeralds, Pearls, 22K Gold and much, much more. This liquidation will also offer a generous selection of hand crafted Swiss watches, featuring Rolex Day-Date and Datejust models. Important Jewellery and Gold Coins are up for grabs at this live auction liquidation.
This auction is open to the public and you are required to register at the auction site just before the door opening. Join us on Sunday October 16th, 2016, 1pm at Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel, 600 Highway 7 East, Richmond Hill, ON. For more info, please visit http://www.federalauction.ca/toronto
Federal Auction has been a fine jewellery auction specialist since 1994.
Featured Lots:
Lot 211: A Rare & Important 3ct Cushion Cut Natural Fancy Yellow Diamond Ring (GIA Certified).
Federal Auction announces its next Greater Toronto Area live auction sale of Fine Jewellery & Swiss Watches. This fine Canary Fancy Yellow Diamond Ring leads the auction which features over 200 items including a wide collection of large Diamond jewellery, Ruby and Sapphire jewellery, as well as Swiss Watches. Fancy Yellow Diamonds are a rare sub-category of natural Diamonds that exhibit a Canary Yellow color. The intensity of Yellows goes from Light Yellow, Fancy Light Yellow, Fancy Yellow, Fancy Intense Yellow, and peaks out at Fancy Vivid Yellow.
Lot 43: An Elegant Vivid Red Burma Ruby & Diamond Necklace & Earring Set.
Federal Auction proudly announces it upcoming auction to be held in Richmond Hill ON. Some 200 Lots of Fine Jewellery & Swiss Watches will be part of this sale. This finely designed Vivid Red Burma Ruby & Diamond set will be one of the features items at this sale. Burma origin Rubies are scarce, especially in a Vivid Red color, featuring high clarity as in this example.
Lot 89: Rolex Yacht-Master Automatic Wristwatch.
Federal Auction announces hot deals for its upcoming Jewellery & Swiss Watch Auction to be held in Richmond Hill, ON. Leading the auction is this fine Rolex Yacht-Master Stainless Steel Wristwatch. Fitted with an automatic self winding movement, this Rolex features a silver dial finished with white luminous markers and hands.
Lot 51: An Exquisite Cushion Cut Natural Blue Sapphire Ring (GIA Certified).
Federal Auction presents the best in Luxury Jewels & Swiss Watches at its upcoming Fine Jewellery & Swiss Watch Live Auction in Richmond Hill, ON. This 9ct Natural Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring leads the auction with one of the rarest gems to come to the Greater Toronto auction market.
Lot 201: An Important 5ct Oval Cut Diamond Ring (GIA Certified)
Federal Auction announces an exciting auction for the Greater Toronto area, featuring a stunning 5ct Oval Cut Diamond Ring. This classic design ring exhibits a Diamond which has been certified by the Gemmological Institute of America with an F color, and VVS1 clarity! Finding a Diamond of this quality in a 5ct weight is truly rare. A store of wealth, Diamonds of high quality and beauty have been the favourites go to gems for celebrities as collectors. No other gem rivals the lustre of a fine Diamond. The beauty of this gem can been experienced in person only at Federal Auction, so we hope you will join us on Sunday October 16th, 2016, 1pm at Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel, 600 Highway 7 East, Richmond Hill, ON. | https://medium.com/@newscanada/fine-jewels-swiss-watches-under-the-gavel-in-richmond-hill-ontario-50b8931bd0cb | ['Michelle Lee'] | 2016-10-14 01:20:16.810000+00:00 | ['Diamonds', 'Jewelry'] |
Implementing FA2 | Implementing FA2
Overview
As outlined in March, FA2 (TZIP-12) is a multi-asset interface for tokens and multi-token contracts on Tezos. FA2 broadens the potential for tokenization on Tezos significantly, supporting a wide range of token types (e.g. fungible, non-fungible, non-transferrable, etc.) and use cases. In practice, it aims to support novel implementation patterns alongside well-known patterns like single-asset fungible tokens (i.e. ERC-20) or NFTs.
Since our first release of FA2, we’ve updated the TZIP-12 specification to include a Michelson interface, refined prose around token supply behaviors, and provided standardized error messages.
With this post, we’re releasing an initial implementation of a multi-asset contract based on FA2 in SmartPy, available in the Dev version of the SmartPy IDE.
We also briefly discuss the pros and cons of several implementation patterns for FA2 permissioning, one of the main concerns of the effort.
Upcoming releases will provide several new LIGO implementations of FA2 (e.g. single and multi-asset for NFTs, fungible, etc.), a benchmarking of initial FA2 implementations, as well as tutorial quick-starts in the assets portal.
In addition, ongoing work continues to ease the lives of tooling developers and extend FA2 in terms of permissioning (e.g. whitelist, allowance), metadata (e.g. rich metadata spec for NFTs, implementation guidelines), and new functionality enabled by potential protocol amendments.
Key Resources
FA2 Implementation Patterns
FA2 has been designed to facilitate multiple implementation patterns around permissioning. As noted while introducing FA2, we’ve identified and outlined three implementation patterns: the monolith, the wrapper, and the transfer hook. We describe and compare these patterns below.
As included in the introductory FA2 post, FA2 facilitates multiple implementation patterns
Monolith
In a monolith contract, permissions are contained within a core FA2 contract. This is likely familiar to those used to the most commonly used ERC-20 implementations on Ethereum which include Approve and Allowance within the same contract. Unsurprisingly, FA1.2 contracts deployed to date have followed this pattern as well.
Although benchmarks are ongoing, current gas constraints in Tezos suggest the monolith pattern is currently the most viable option in terms of gas efficiency for the time being given the cost of inter-contract calls (compared to wrapper- and hook-based options).
However, monolith architectures are less modular and make permissioning less flexible to upgrade out-of-the-box (although operators make this easier). Changing or upgrading the permissioning logic of a monolith contract may require redeploying the contract and/or an extensive migration.
That said, FA2 seeks to reduce this tradeoff by specifying operators (similar to the notion in ERC-777/1155) and allowing the user to assign permissions over their tokens to another contract. Importantly, these can also include generalized permissioning contracts (e.g. a smart contract wallet) or application-specific permissioning contracts (e.g. specific to an exchange) which may be more easily upgraded or adapted as needed.
Wrapper
In an on-chain wrapper implementation, a separate “wrapper” contract applies permissions and forwards calls to the core FA2 contract which manages the token’s ledger (mapping addresses to balances).
Wrappers enable modularity, ideally with composable contract pieces (e.g. whitelisting or allowance wrappers) which extend core functionality and can be upgraded or replaced over time. Upgradability is a big advantage of the wrapper pattern, because permissioning can be upgraded without touching the core ledger contract.
On the downside, expressive wrappers currently face practical limitations in Tezos as they require inter-contract calls for both transfer and view operations. And from a client perspective, such architectures can be more complex as the client needs to be aware of both the wrapper permissioning contract and the core ledger contract. A wrapper-based approach to permissioning may also produce fragmentation and a weaker network effect for a standard by requiring wallets and other third-parties to support multiple wrapper variants.
Transfer Hook
In a transfer hook pattern, a core FA2 contract calls another contract which defines a permissioning policy regarding who can send and receive tokens. The permissioning policy contract can include granular permissioning rules, including allowance, whitelist, and other functionality.
Among upsides of the hook pattern is a separation of concerns, namely that core transfer logic is fixed in the core contract while permissioning rules in the hook contract can be upgraded easily. In other words, the permissioning rules of the token contract can be upgraded with ease without requiring any storage migration of the FA2 ledger state.
As in the case of contract wrappers, gas is a limitation for such architectures in Tezos today given the inter-contract calls’ cost and sensitivity to the size of the contract they’re interacting with. In other words, more complex permissioning policies in a hook contract are very clearly felt by the user, especially as use of the contract generates increasing contract size.
Comparing Wrappers and Hooks
The table below enables easy comparison of on-chain wrapper, source-code wrappers, and transfer hooks.
A comparison of the on-chain wrappers, source code wrappers, and transfer hooks
What’s next?
Upcoming releases include new FA2 implementations (e.g. NFT, fungible), benchmarks of FA2 performance, FA2 tutorials, and permissioning plug-ins, such as whitelisting. We’ve also recently provided reference implementations in both SmartPy and LIGO for an independent security audit and continue to welcome product feedback on anything FA2 or assets-related.
A Special Thanks*
Special thanks for invaluable conversations, advice, and feedback about blockchain-based assets from those listed below (and anyone we’ve forgotten)
* does not indicate endorsement of TZIP-12
Gabriel, Tom Jack, and team from LIGO
Benjamin, Raphael, and Bruno from Nomadic Labs
The SmartPy team
Nicolas and Santiago from OpenZeppelin
Greg and team at 0x
Matej and Istvan from Stove Labs
Devin and Alex from OpenSea
Alex from Blockwatch
Tarun Chitra from Gauntlet Networks
Arthur Breitman
Serokell
Tezit
Jared from Compound
Michael from Baking Bad
Luke and Brian from Coinbase Custody
Gavi and Viktor from Anchorage
Vertalo
Philippe from Horizon Games
James and Tyler from camlCase
Chris Goes and team at Metastate
Mike Radin from Cryptonomic
ZenGo
Marco from Tezos Foundation
Madfish Solutions
Jev from ECAD Labs
Klas from Kukai
Pascal and Mike from Airgap
Ron, Mason, and James from Tokensoft | https://medium.com/tqtezos/implementing-fa2-526dc4ef4715 | ['Tq Tezos'] | 2020-05-06 21:01:01.146000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Tezos', 'Smartpy', 'Ligo'] |
2020 Year in Review | This year has been filled with an unprecedented amount of disruption. Covid-19 has impacted almost every aspect of our global economy. Here’s a look back at digital asset milestones in 2020, emphasizing institutional adoption, national and regulatory policies. We believe 2021 will be another momentous year.
Stay up to date with BitGo and sign up for our newsletter here. | https://blog.bitgo.com/2020-year-in-review-6b8d77a2f11f | ['Bitgo Editor'] | 2020-12-22 14:55:46.421000+00:00 | ['Industry', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Digital Yuan', 'Digital Asset'] |
The Stratified Cox Proportional Hazards Regression Model | The data set
The data set we’ll use to illustrate the procedure of building a stratified Cox proportional hazards model is the US Veterans Administration Lung Cancer Trial data. It contains data about 137 patients with advanced, inoperable lung cancer who were treated with a standard and an experimental chemotherapy regimen. Their progress was tracked during the study until the patient died or exited the trial while still alive, or until the trial ended. In the later two situations, the data is considered to be right censored. The data set appears in the book The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data, Second Edition, by John D. Kalbfleisch and Ross L. Prentice.
Using Python and Pandas, let’s load the data set into a DataFrame:
import pandas as pd data_types = {'TREATMENT_TYPE':'int', 'CELL_TYPE':'category', 'SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS':'int', 'STATUS':'int', 'KARNOFSKY_SCORE':'int', 'MONTHS_FROM_DIAGNOSIS':'int', 'AGE':'int', 'PRIOR_THERAPY':'int'} df = pd.read_csv(filepath_or_buffer='va_lung_cancer_dataset.csv', dtype=data_types) df.head()
Here is the output:
The first few rows of the VA lung cancer data set (Image by Author)
Our regression variables X are going to be the following:
TREATMENT_TYPE: 1=Standard. 2=Experimental
CELL_TYPE: 1=Squamous, 2=Small cell, 3=Adeno, 4=large
KARNOFSKY_SCORE: A measure of general performance of the patient. 100=Best
MONTHS_FROM_DIAGNOSIS: The number of months after diagnosis of lung cancer that the patient entered the trial.
AGE: The age in years of the patient when they were inducted into the trial.
PRIOR_THERAPY: Whether the patient had received any kind of prior therapy for lung cancer before induction into the trial.
Our dependent variable y is going to be:
SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS: Indicating how many days the patient lived after being inducted into the trail.
The event variable is:
STATUS: 1=Dead. 0=Alive
Using Patsy, let’s break out the categorical variable CELL_TYPE into different category wise column variables. Don’t worry about the fact that SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS is on sides of the model expression. It’s just to make Patsy happy.
from patsy import dmatrices #Build the model expression in Patsy syntax.
model_expr = 'SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS ~ TREATMENT_TYPE + CELL_TYPE + KARNOFSKY_SCORE + MONTHS_FROM_DIAGNOSIS + AGE + PRIOR_THERAPY + SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS + STATUS' #Use the model expression to break out the CELL_TYPE categorical variable into 1-0 type columns
y, X = dmatrices(model_expr, df, return_type='dataframe') #Print out the first few rows
X.head()
The first few rows of the regression matrix (Image by Author)
Training the Cox Proportional Hazard Model
Next, let’s build and train the regular (non-stratified) Cox Proportional Hazards model on this data using the Lifelines Survival Analysis library:
from lifelines import CoxPHFitter
#Create the Cox model
cph_model = CoxPHFitter() #Train the model on the data set
cph_model.fit(df=X, duration_col='SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS', event_col='STATUS') #Print the model summary
cph_model.print_summary()
We see the following model summary:
Cox model training summary (Image by Author)
Performing the Proportional Hazard Test
To test the proportional hazards assumptions on the trained model, we will use the proportional_hazard_test method supplied by Lifelines on the CPHFitter class:
CPHFitter.proportional_hazard_test(fitted_cox_model, training_df, time_transform, precomputed_residuals)
Let’s look at each parameter of this method:
fitted_cox_model : This parameter references the fitted Cox model. In our example, fitted_cox_model=cph_model
training_df : This is a reference to the training data set. In our example, training_df=X
time_transform : This variable takes a list of strings: {‘all’, ‘km’, ‘rank’, ‘identity’, ‘log’}. Each string indicates the function to apply to the y (duration) variable of the Cox model so as to lessen the sensitivity of the test to outliers in the data i.e. extreme duration values. Recollect that in the VA data set the y variable is SURVIVAL_IN_DAYS. ‘km’ applies the transformation: (1-KaplanMeirFitter.fit(durations, event_observed). The ‘rank’ transform will map the sorted list of durations to the set of ordered natural numbers [1, 2, 3, …]. ‘Identity’ will keep the durations intact and ‘log’ will log-transform the duration values.
precomputed_residuals : You get to supply the type of residual errors of your choice from the following types: Schoenfeld, score, delta_beta, deviance, martingale, and variance scaled Schoenfeld.
Let’s compute the variance scaled Schoenfeld residuals of the Cox model which we trained earlier:
scaled_schoenfeld = cph_model.compute_residuals(training_dataframe=X, kind='scaled_schoenfeld')
To know more the Schoenfeld residuals, you may want to refer to the following article:
Now let’s perform the proportional hazards test:
from lifelines.statistics import proportional_hazard_test proportional_hazard_test(fitted_cox_model=cph_model, training_df=X, time_transform='log', precomputed_residuals=scaled_schoenfeld)
We get the following output:
Output of the proportional_hazard_test (Image by Author)
The test statistic obeys a Chi-square(1) distribution under the Null hypothesis that the variable follows the proportional hazards test. Under the Null hypothesis, the expected value of the test statistic is zero. Any deviations from zero can be judged to be statistically significant at some significance level of interest such as 0.01, 0.05 etc.
The genesis of this test statistic is itself a fascinating topic of study. For the interested reader, the following paper provides a good starting point:
Getting back to our little problem, I have highlighted in red the variables which have failed the Chi-square(1) test at a significance level of 0.05 (95% confidence level).
Output of the proportional_hazard_test (Image by Author)
We will try to solve these issues by stratifying AGE, CELL_TYPE[T.4] and KARNOFSKY_SCORE. | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-stratified-cox-proportional-hazards-regression-model-fa1fa5de2bb1 | ['Sachin Date'] | 2020-12-11 19:29:43.662000+00:00 | ['Regression', 'Survival Analysis', 'Machine Learning', 'Cox Proportional Hazards', 'Data Science'] |
My Journey into Veganism | My Journey into Veganism
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
While I only turned vegan in 2019, I think the seed was planted back in 2017. I had seen a few documentaries on Netflix showing the ill treatment of animals in dairy farms as well as their impact on our environment. I was shocked by some of the statistics shared on how the consumption of meat and dairy products has a direct impact on global warming. I think it was these two aspects that stuck with me and got me thinking on what I could personally do to make change.
Being a vegetarian, I was always proud that I was doing my bit for the environment as well as the welfare of animals. Little did I know that my daily consumption of milk, cheese and yogurt was in fact harmful in its own way. Watching those documentaries opened my eyes and so I started thinking about turning vegan. I honestly thought making the transition from a vegetarian to a vegan would be smooth. But it was harder than I expected. So, I have put together a few things that helped me start my journey.
Bringing my family onboard: Being an Indian, a good tasty wholesome meal is something we live for. My husband and I are big foodies and we love going out to explore new places. Our favourite food is either a good wood-fired pizza or a finger licking good Indian meal. Now, both of these options are strictly non-vegan. So, my first concern was how are we ever going to eat a decent meal outside again? I slowly started floating the idea with my husband and after some serious discussions and contemplations, we made a compromise. He wanted 6 months to adjust to the idea of me becoming a vegan before he was comfortable with it. Initially, I did think he was being unreasonable. After all, it is just a change in my diet! But on pondering further I came to realise that this change in my lifestyle would have a direct and significant impact on him even though he wasn’t planning on becoming a vegan. I am so grateful that I was able to talk it out with him and get his support before I took the plunge.
Information overload: There is a LOT of information out there on how you can become a vegan and what you need to do to transition to this lifestyle. However, because there is so much information out there, I was overwhelmed. Simple decisions led to hours of reading online, and watching YouTube videos. I couldn’t decide on what type of non-dairy milk I would switch to without having my head spin. Should it be oat? Should it be almond? Oh what about macadamia? Like I said, so many options! It took a while but I began to realise that this is a journey. I needed to slow down and take things one at a time instead of re-doing my entire pantry. Over months I started figuring out what kind of milk I liked. I went through a few different types and brands of milk before I finally found the one I love. Thank you Oatly! You are a game changer. While the information out there is useful, you need to do what’s best for you. Use the information as a starting point but don’t be afraid to experiment and find what feels good.
Taking it slow: When I started off, I decided to transition into my vegan lifestyle. So, I began with 3 days a week where I would try to be vegan for all my meals. I started with 3 days because I wasn’t ready to give up my morning cup of coffee. I wanted to cherish it a little while longer and coffee with non-dairy milk was just not cutting it for me then. I think just accepting the fact that you are making this change and that change takes time helped me stick to my guns. Don’t get me wrong, there were days when I questioned my decision, but I would always go back to my WHY and my rationale for making this change to get inspiration and try harder the next day. There will be days when you will mess up. And that is ok! Don’t be afraid to take it slow. Do what seems right to you and in time you will find your balance.
After the crazy 2020 that we all have had, I am sure everyone is looking for a change. If you are considering a change to a vegan lifestyle, I do hope me sharing about my journey has helped you in some way. For those of you who are scared or apprehensive, don’t be afraid to take the plunge! You are not alone.
It is absolutely and completely worth it! x | https://medium.com/@karishmanair/my-journey-into-veganism-93a65444de65 | ['Karishma Nair'] | 2020-12-26 09:22:05.987000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Resolutions', 'Journey', 'Vegan', 'Food'] |
Case study: How we redesigned a jewelry e-commerce website | Our client : Mahny Jewelry
We chose to work with Mahny Jewelry, a brand of French handcrafted jewelry. The pieces of jewelry are assembled by hand in Paris and made from sustainable materials like gold plated brass and stainless steel alloyed with semi precious stones. Christine founded the brand four years ago and manages alone this project.
The problem
Mahny Jewelry mainly sells jewelry during physical events as pop up stores. Before the first lockdown due to COVID-19 in March, the founder tried to revive her website and develop her online content but the results were disappointing. The reason is she was too irregular in updating her website. With the new lockdown, she really needs help to attract customers and sell jewelry through her website.
Our goal
Our goal is to redesign Mahny Jewelry’s website to attract more customers and to make them want to buy a jewel. The brand already has a strong relationship with some customers met on physical events and we would like to transpose it online.
The customers
To know more about how customers buy online and especially jewelry we conducted some interviews with them. We met three people with different habits regarding online shopping.
Here are some insights :
Customers want to be sure of their purchase.
Several criteria are important to them : other clients reviews, price, price delivery, return conditions, precise informations on the product (size, material).
To buy a jewel the word of mouth works well. It’s easier to buy from a website that a friend has told them about. They less afraid to make a mistake.
Most of the time, when they go online to buy a jewel, they already know what they want to buy. it’s to save time, to avoid queuing into shops or simply to avoid moving.
When customers go to a shop it’s because they need an advice or to try the jewel. It concerns value purchase because the risk of doing a wrong choice is bigger.
Some products are difficult to shop online such as rings or earrings because it’s complicated to know how they really fit.
The competitors
When we met Christine, the founder of the brand, she mentioned some of her direct competitors. With a better online positioning, they sell more than her and we tried to understand why.
We did a benchmark of several jewelry shop online :
We chose Many Jewelry’s direct competitors as Lily Garden, Lou Yetu and GinandGer and indirect competitors as Collection Constance and Mayuri.
All these brands have in commun to make handcrafted jewelry with noble materials and precious or semi-precious stones.
We included Etsy too, THE creators website.
We observed how the competitors present their products online and how they highlight their savoir faire. | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-we-redesigned-a-jewelry-website-6086e6c52022 | ['Caroline Graver'] | 2020-11-24 05:41:32.106000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Prototyping', 'Website Design', 'E Commerce Solution', 'Redesign'] |
One Day at a Time: Why You Should Focus on the Small Picture When Setting Goals | One Day at a Time: Why You Should Focus on the Small Picture When Setting Goals Sowmya Sridhar May 12, 2020·5 min read
Already given up on your New Year’s resolutions? Here’s a clear action plan to achieve even your most far-fetched goals.
We all have dreams — dreams of landing a coveted place on the New York Times bestselling books list, dreams of becoming the next Michael Jordan, dreams of joining Doctors Without Borders. And our dreams spike around January 1, with millions of people creating New Year’s resolutions. However, around 80% fail to follow through on their goals set at the beginning of the year. In fact, you might have already let go of your resolutions by this time of the year. But why? After all, doesn’t the saying go that creating a goal means you’re halfway to the destination?
Here’s why many New Year’s resolutions are doomed to fail from the beginning:
A year is daunting:
January to December: that’s 12 months, 52 weeks, or 365 days of staying consistent. It’s hard to commit to plans a week ahead for most of us! Dwelling on the months ahead simply overwhelms the mind. When you’re facing such a long stretch, it’s easier to come up with excuses why NOT to begin than to actually commit.
Delayed gratification:
Whenever I go finish a run or an ab workout, I often feel the need to immediately see better muscle definition. However, success doesn’t come on Day 1, Day 5, or even Day 50. It’s the days upon days of drafting, endless balls of paper thrown in the trash, and countless edits that come together to form a New York Times bestselling novel. We all know that no matter what the headlines say, there’s not one secret to success, no simple trick to follow that will make you a master of your craft in a month.
Though this is common knowledge, our inner desire remains to see external results and to see that our hard work has paid off. When this doesn’t happen within a month or so, we disregard the fact that there’s still 11 months of work to go, part of a collective 12 months that will surely culminate in progress and improvement. Thus, when we don’t see instant weight loss or thousands of new subscribers on YouTube immediately after starting our journey to success, a mental block arrives, convincing us that we will never attain the results we desire.
At this point, there’s more media out there on why you shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions than why you should. So, here’s another option: why not create an overarching theme for a year but then break your goals down per month?
Right now, most of us are stuck at home for the foreseeable future, faced with endless amounts of time to relax, binge Netflix or maybe…work on our goals. All the excuses we’ve been circulating for letting go of our dreams have vanished: no more distractions, fewer outside obligations, just days upon days of complete isolation, and if used wisely, days of productivity and focus.
So, here’s how you can create sustainable goals and track your true progress.
Choose an overarching theme for your long term goals
Before breaking down the steps you need to take to achieve your goals, decide a theme that your goals fall under. If you plan to lose 20 pounds in the next 6 months, start easing into a vegan diet, and aim to gain muscle mass, your overall theme could be Better Health. Focusing on improving one aspect of your life is more manageable than trying to revitalize your social life, physical and mental health, and professional life all at the same time.
2. Break down your goals and the steps needed to achieve them by month and week
First, set aside a journal for the sole purpose of tracking your journey towards achieving your goals. Start off by writing down your theme and long term goals. After all, according to a study by psychology professor Dr. Gail Matthews, putting pen to paper and writing down your goals increases the chance of accomplishing them by 42%.
Next, establish some milestones for each month of your journey. For example, continuing with the previously mentioned theme of Better Health, milestones for the first month could be losing 3 pounds, learning how to cook a new vegan recipe, and gaining a pound of muscle.
Once you have your milestones, it’s time to create actionable steps for each week that will help you reach each milestone. Keep these steps small: even just switching to only eating vegan breakfasts for a week or running 5 minutes a day is something to be rewarded. By focusing on the small picture and appreciating the daily actions you’re taking to build a better future, you’re much more likely to stay motivated.
I recently started running again, and keeping track of how long I run and the length of my runs each day motivates me to keep up my streak the next day.
At the end of every week, jot down a quick but honest reflection of the week’s actions in your goal journal. Keep track of what’s working in your action plan but also what actions aren’t conducive anymore to achieving your dreams.
3. Plan ahead for the obstacles that might obstruct you from your destination
We all have our indulgences and distractions that makes us veer off from the path to success. Before defeating your demons, you first have to understand them. In your journal, identify your distractions and why you keep getting sucked in by them. Once you have the list in front of you, all that’s left to do is eliminate those distractions in the time you spend working towards your goal. Personally, YouTube is one of my biggest vices, so when I was working on this article, I made sure to put my phone out of the room.
The Takeaway
Establish an overarching theme for your goals
Create monthly milestones for each goal
Create small, actionable steps for each week
Remove the obstacles sidetracking you from your destination
Reflect upon your journey in a journal weekly
Now, you have a clear action plan for achieving your wildest dreams! Integrate these simple steps into your life, but don’t keep searching for signs of progress. Focus on staying consistent with your actions, and progress will come when you least expect it.
Remember, the positive actions you take today are tomorrow’s results. | https://medium.com/@sridharsowmya7/one-day-at-a-time-why-you-should-focus-on-the-small-picture-when-setting-goals-29254999d27c | ['Sowmya Sridhar'] | 2020-05-12 02:43:37.004000+00:00 | ['Goals', 'Self Improvement', 'Resolutions'] |
Thinking Citizen Blog — Was September 14, 2019 the “Pearl Harbor” of the Middle East? | Thinking Citizen Blog — Monday is Foreign Policy Day
Today’ s Topic — Was September 14, 2019 the “Pearl Harbor” of the Middle East?
If so, I slept through it. Did you? In case you did, let me explain. By far the most eye-popping article I read this week was by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in which the author argued that the biggest event since 9/11 was what happened on 9/14 last year. What was that? Iran’s attack on one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing facilities using 20 drones and precision-guided missiles. Experts — please chime in.Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“DEAR JOE, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE NUKES ANY MORE”
1. “Biden wants to reinstate the nuclear deal, but first he must confront the new Middle East.”
2. “The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.”
3, “First, how did Trump react? He did nothing. He did not launch a retaliatory strike on behalf of Saudi Arabia — even though Iran, unprovoked, had attacked the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.”
THE LACK OF A US RETALIATORY STRIKE RESHAPES THE MIDDLE EAST
1. “Trump forced Israel and the key Sunni Arab states to become less reliant on the United States and to think about how they must cooperate among themselves over new threats — like Iran — rather than fighting over old causes — like Palestine.”
2. “This may enable America to secure its interests in the region with much less blood and treasure of its own.”
3. “It could be Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement.”
SUICIDAL VERSUS HOMICIDAL, THE 2006 ANALOGY, “PRECISION” IS THE KEY WORD
1. “Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states want to make sure that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. But some Israeli military experts will tell you today that the prospect of Iran having a nuke is not what keeps them up at night — because they don’t see Tehran using it. That would be suicide, and Iran’s clerical leaders are not suicidal….They are, though, homicidal.”
2. “And Iran’s new preferred weapons for homicide are the precision-guided missiles that it used on Saudi Arabia and that it keeps trying to export to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which pose an immediate homicidal threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and U.S. forces in the region. (Iran has a network of factories manufacturing its own precision-guided missiles.)
3. “In the 2006 war in Lebanon, Iran’s proxy militia, Hezbollah, had to fire some 20 dumb, unguided, surface-to-surface rockets of limited range in the hope of damaging a single Israeli target. With precision-guided missiles manufactured in Iran, Hezbollah — in theory — needs to fire just one rocket each at 20 different targets in Israel with a high probability of damaging them all. We’re talking about Israel’s nuclear plant, airport, ports, power plants, high-tech factories and military bases.”
CONCLUSION: “So, if you were planning a party to celebrate the restoration of the Iran-U.S. nuclear deal soon after Biden’s inauguration, keep the champagne in the fridge. It’s complicated.”
Opinion | Dear Joe, It’s Not About Iran’s Nukes Anymore
How a ‘quantum change’ in missiles has made Iran a far more dangerous foe
Here is a link to the last three years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest or most important thing you learned in the last week, month, or year related to foreign policy. Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in our life related to foreign policy.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is the key to depth of thought. The prospect of imminent publication, like hanging and final exams, concentrates the mind. A useful life long habit. | https://medium.com/@john-muresianu/thinking-citizen-blog-was-september-14-2019-the-pearl-harbor-of-the-middle-east-4533cbae9e87 | ['John Muresianu'] | 2020-12-07 21:45:57.497000+00:00 | ['Middle East', 'Foreign Policy', 'Thinking Citizen Blog', 'Trump'] |
Why NY and NJ Ethnic Media Still Embrace Print in the Digital Age | In 1994, as the number of migrants coming to the United States started to hit a peak, Abu Taher arrived in New York City. A daily newspaper in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, that he worked for at the time had sent him to the U.S. on assignment. Taher lived in a small apartment that he shared with more than 10 other Bangladeshi immigrants in the Bronx.
It was his first experience to get his bearings in a newfound American life.
Whenever he would go to social gatherings on weekends or visit the mosque, Taher realized, the Bangladeshi immigrant families that he’d meet had almost exactly the same questions in his mind: where to find a reasonable car dealer, a trusted immigration lawyer and an experienced real estate broker, or how to access information. Those questions, though they seemed basic, kept him wide awake at night; he knew that they were critical for anyone new to this country.
A veteran journalist, Taher decided to establish his own weekly newspaper in 1996, Bangla Patrika, that would serve as a “life link” to members of his community in the New York and New Jersey areas and their loved ones in Bangladesh, covering news and information that they could use practically.
“That was the main purpose of the publication: giving information to my fellow Bangladeshi immigrants on how to live a normal life in a new homeland and, at the same time, connecting them to the homes they left behind,” he said.
Print as the flagship
Taher said that Bangla Patrika, now one of the longest-running ethnic media news outlets in the city, has remained true to its core purpose.
Despite significant changes brought by digital technology — utilizing mobile devices, blogging — joining multiple social media networks and producing slideshows and videos, Taher said that the survival of his paper still largely rests in the same community that he’s served since its inception over 20 years ago.
Like hundreds of ethnic media in New York and New Jersey, particularly among newspapers, the print edition remains to be the flagship of the news outlet — unlike its mainstream counterparts that have shifted by and large to digital and relegated its print edition to a secondary portal to news access.
In fact, over the last decade, some digital-first ethnic media publishers inNew York and New Jersey have found that some community members they serve don’t consider a news organization legitimate unless it has a print edition.
“In the Filipino community, you are not considered a ‘real’ newspaper, if you don’t have a print edition,” said Cristina Pastor, publisher and editor of FilAm.net.
Business sustainability
While many publishers can see the value of digital presence, not all in the ethnic media sector believe it’s the most effective way to keep the business afloat.
Kaushik Shah, publisher of Gujarat Darpan, a monthly magazine in Gujarati based in central New Jersey, said that his paper’s circulation grew to nearly 15,000 copies a month — a 75 percent increase over the last 20 years.
While his magazine has an online edition, mostly PDF files uploaded to its website, he said he owes the growth to his print subscribers and readers who are mostly Gujarati immigrants in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. These subscribers, according to Shah, may be on Facebook using their smartphones, but the majority of them still access their news and information through print.
“This is why enhancing my digital existence is not a top priority for us. Gujarati readers who are, for example, in San Francisco, they could get their news from other Gujarati publications based in California — we don’t have to capture them on the Internet,” Shah added. “But in order for us to stay in this business, it is not just all about increasing the number of readers from across the U.S. and around the world, but rather it is about going back to the basics: provide local content that our readers actually need.”
Advertisers Still Prefer Print
Kleibeel Marcano, publisher and editor of Reporte Hispano, one of the biggest Spanish-language weeklies in New Jersey, was on the same page. The ad sales, he admitted, have gone down, but the number of his readers — including those on social media and online generally — has increased nearly tenfold in recent years.
Kleibeel Marcano (third from left) with other NJ ethnic media reporters at a press briefing, organized by Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media. (Photo Credit: Anthony Advincula)
As he enhanced the paper’s digital presence, it also increased his overhead cost. Most interestingly, Marcano admitted that his paper, like any ethnic media news outlets on a shoestring budget, also finds it challenging to monetize digital content:
“Our biggest advertising revenue sources still come from our print advertisers,” Marcano said.
While he lost some of the paper’s big corporation advertisers, he added, most businesses in the community still place ads in the print edition.
“Whether we are expanding our reach through online or boosting our social media presence, there’s no way that we could get rid of our print edition,” Marcano said. “The Internet has inundated our readers with information that they actually don’t care about, with unreliable and untrusted sources. Because our readers know that we are part of our community and we know our community, they will continue to grab our newspaper from the newsstand.”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Oni Advincula was a former editor and national media director for New America Media and a correspondent for The Jersey Journal and The Associated Press. He is the co-author of “The State of Ethnic and Community Media in New Jersey” and has worked with ethnic media in 45 states for more than 20 years. | https://medium.com/the-engaged-journalism-lab/why-ny-and-nj-ethnic-media-still-embrace-print-in-digital-age-997da773bb6e | ['Oni Advincula'] | 2019-12-04 05:43:43.651000+00:00 | ['Print', 'Community', 'Journalism', 'Media', 'Digital'] |
Introducing Bitfury’s New Brand | bitfury.com
Bitfury today proudly unveils a new logo and website that reflect the remarkable growth and success we have achieved over the past several years.
Bitfury began in 2011 as a handful of employees and a fast and furious, tiger-like focus on becoming the best security provider for the Bitcoin Blockchain. Today, we are a multinational company that leads the bitcoin and blockchain ecosystems, with team members in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the United States and datacenter operations in Canada, Norway, Iceland and the Republic of Georgia.
We have grown, and our mission has grown with us. We are now focused on promoting innovation in every sector by building out a full stack of secure and scalable blockchain and bitcoin services and products. We work every day to deliver the software and the hardware solutions necessary for businesses, governments, organizations and individuals to securely move assets across the blockchain.
We will always cherish our days as a young and hungry startup. But we have grown in ways that now require us to embrace a fresh approach. New look. Same ferocity and focus. We hope you like it. We certainly do!
Sincerely,
Valery Vavilov and the Bitfury Team
bitfury.com | https://medium.com/meetbitfury/introducing-bitfurys-new-brand-1aeb7a9113ae | ['The Bitfury Group'] | 2018-08-23 12:29:28.108000+00:00 | ['Bitfury', 'Company Culture', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
A New Brain-inspired Intelligent System Drives a Car Using Only 19 Control Neurons! | IST Austria And MIT’s New Intelligent System — NCPs
Let’s now enter a little deeper into how this new system works.
It consists of two parts. At first, there’s a compact convolutional neural network, which is used to extract structural features from the pixels of the input images. Using such information, the network decides which part of the image is important or interesting and passes only this part of the images to the second system.
End-to-end representation of the architecture — Image from the paper
Which they called a “control system” that steers the vehicle using decisions made by a set of biologically-inspired neurons. This control part is also called neural circuit policy, or NCP. Basically, it translates the data from the compact convolutional model outputs to only 19 neurons in an RNN structure inspired by the nematode’s nervous system controlling the vehicle and allowing it to stay into the lanes. Following the architecture shown above. You can find more details about the implementations of these NCPs networks in their paper or clear guide they made on their GitHub [2].
This is where the biggest reduction in parameters happens. Mathias Lechner explains that “NCPs are up to 3 orders of magnitude smaller than what would have been possible with previous state-of-the-art models” as you can see in table 2 shown below. Both of these systems are trained simultaneously and work together to create this self-driving car.
Network size comparison — Image from the paper
Being so small, they were able to see where the system was focusing its attention on the images fed. They discovered that having such a small network extracting the most important part of the picture made the few decision neurons focus exclusively on the curbside and the horizon. Which is a unique behavior among artificial intelligence systems that are currently analyzing every single detail of an image, using way too much information than needed.
Global network dynamics — Image from the paper
Just take a second to look at how little information is sent into the NCP network compared to other types of networks. Just by looking at this image, we can see that it is clearly more efficient and faster to compute than current approaches.
Plus, while noise is a big problem for current approaches, such as rain or snow in lane-keeping applications, their NCP system demonstrated strong resistance to input artifacts because of its architecture and novel neural model keeping their attention on the road horizon even if the input camera is noisy, as you can see in the short video below. | https://pub.towardsai.net/a-new-brain-inspired-intelligent-system-drives-a-car-using-only-19-control-neurons-1ed127107db9 | ['Louis', 'What S Ai'] | 2020-10-19 00:02:19.978000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Autonomous Vehicles', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Machine Learning'] |
DB Sharding & Scaling a NET Core Microservice Arch | 1. Usecases and Datamodell
The example application consists of a user and a post microservice. They communicate via messages:
See also my previous article How to Build an Event-Driven ASP.NET Core Microservice Architecture
The User microservice handles adding and modifying users. The Post microservices handles viewing and adding posts. There is far more interaction with the Post microservice. So when the load to the app increases the Post microservice will be the first microservice that needs to scale.
The name of the author is part of the PostService bounded context and therefore the Post microservice. Adding and modifying authors is done in the User microservice. The User microservice sends events when a new user is added or a username changes.
Logical Data Model of the PostService
Users can write posts in categories. They can also read the posts by category including the author name. Newest posts are on top. The categories are fixed and change seldom.
Based on these use-cases I decided to shard by category: | https://itnext.io/how-to-use-database-sharding-and-scale-an-asp-net-core-microservice-architecture-22c24916590f | ['Christian Zink'] | 2021-06-20 20:35:31.100000+00:00 | ['C Sharp Programming', 'Microservices', 'Software Architecture', 'Aspnetcore', 'Database'] |
Spike Speaks | Spike Speaks
From harrowed to hugged
“they care for injured companions.” From Living with Wolves
Spike the Wonder Wolf with me in my office. Photo by poet
I slid out of my seat in the theater
seeking retail therapy
to release
the documentary’s harrowing tale
of the party that was no party
doomed on the Donner pass.
Like icicles encasing pine needles in spring,
our virtuous veneers
may well melt while catastrophe’s fires
stalk us.
A wolf minding the gift shop’s register –
Heidi, her lanyard read –
read my face.
We did try to warn them, she sighed.
In their arrogance, they knew better.
When we showed them a way clear,
their fears kept them frozen.
From a shelf
over ranges of postcards paperbacks
dolls in period costumes
a stuffed wolf leapt.
Hi, Spike, I said, catching him –
register pealing as Heidi rang him up
and the stuffed creatures sang
bon voyages and benedictions.
Then to celebrate our pact
the pack of us –
Heidi, Spike, you, and I –
howled at the eleven noon moons
forever chiming Lauds.
©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2020
Pre-Covid, I took Spike with me wherever I traveled. “I like your dog,” invariably someone would say. “He’s not a dog,” I’d reply. “He’s Spike the Wonder Wolf.” So when I read Gregory D. Welch’s article on bringing back the magical and surreal in poetry, I knew I’d write about how Spike and I met. Thank you, Desiree Driesenaar, for guiding me to Gregory’s story. Isn’t it interesting how you and I have often spoken about/written about re-wilding and wolves?
Regarding Heidi, the real wolf — as opposed to stuffed Spike — at the gift shop register, I played a game with the Muse. Heidi was the first name that popped into my mind. Prompted, or so I thought, by the children’s book I read of that name. Heidi lived in the snowy mountains with her grandfather. When I looked up the ‘meaning’ of Heidi, I learned the name means “of noble birth.” No animal is more noble than the wolf — as evidenced by the quotation opening the poem. Eleven moons? Why not? Plus, I love the number 11, symbol of spiritual enlightenment. When I went through the toughest period of my life, my apartment number was 9211 — double 11s — and my parking place, 11. Epiphanies arrived like raindrops during monsoon season. No doubt the Muse sent the ending lines to remind me/us that the living world is a ‘monastery’ of sorts. A place where, ideally, we reverence all that is sacred. Even the harrowing, gruesome parts. To learn more about the Donner party, visit
Thank you, Thomas Plummer and team at Blue Insights for providing a home for my poetry. And thank you, dearest readers, for visiting today. You’re the real magic!
https://medium.com/about-me-stories/about-me-jenine-bsharah-baines-1b7652c9561b | https://medium.com/blueinsight/spike-speaks-b631d2713f5d | ['Jenine Bsharah Baines'] | 2020-12-28 23:33:37.782000+00:00 | ['Blue Insights', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Magical Realism', 'Spirituality'] |
11 lessons learned walking away from my dream house in Jackson Hole | With that context, here are 11 lessons learned from my experience (including some things I got right, and some that I missed):
#1 | Do some basic zoning research before you sign the purchase agreement.
The house I put under contract was in violation of private road setback requirements, rendering the entire house a “nonconforming structure.” Not necessarily a deal breaker, but it increased the risk that remodeling permits (or new structures like a guest house) would be rejected by the county, especially given I wasn’t locally connected at the time.
Other issues like restrictive covenants are often discovered only during post-contract diligence (found some in my title search, resulting in a collective deal breaker when added to zoning issues). But, basic zoning violations can be easier to spot in advance.
I read through the zoning rules the day I signed the contract, and remember seeing the setback and wondering if the house was in violation — should have paused there.
#2 | If it’s an investment property, get multiple estimates for rent potential.
I worked with one of the best brokers (if not the best) in Jackson Hole (DM me for a referral!), who gave me reliable estimates. Even then, I connected with two local managers to sanity check those estimates.
My target gross yield (rent / purchase price) in Jackson Hole was 6% — covering the cost of carrying the property (mortgage, taxes, etc.) with some margin for error. Your target yield will vary by market based on appreciation potential, demand stability, etc.
#3 | Find an honest, top-ranked local broker.
This is especially critical if you’re new to an area. I worked through some contacts in my network that had Jackson Hole connections until I got a great referral. Most brokers would’ve sold me a ton of junk by now, and I wouldn’t have been the wiser.
#4 | All else equal, try to stay in a price range that qualifies for an FHA loan if you’re a first time homeowner.
Getting 3.5% down mortgage dramatically magnifies potential gains if you’re confident in the long-term appreciation story and rental potential / your ability to cover costs. To double your equity or cash invested, the property only needs to increase 3.5% — of course, a 3.5% decrease wipes you out, so long-term confidence is key.
You’ll have a higher carrying cost because of mortgage insurance premiums, so factor that into your target yield.
#5 | Give yourself generous walk-away rights if possible.
One of the upsides to working with my broker was her standard contract: it included a 15-day “any or no reason” walk clause. Most contracts allow the buyer to walk only upon finding some predefined defects through diligence, and only after the seller has an opportunity to cure.
While a combination of the zoning defects and restrictive covenants (the house was explicitly marketed as covenants-free) would have been sufficient even without the “any or no reason” clause, it’s good insurance to have in place.
#6 | Don’t be afraid to low ball in your initial offer and counter aggressively.
I was able to get the sellers down to 10% below ask by starting at 20% below ask and holding relatively firm. We ultimately went through five rounds of offers / counters, which set a record for my broker this year.
#7 | Ask for a seller’s credit.
In my last counteroffer, I added a $15k credit that was accepted by the seller. Basically, you inflate purchase price (pay an extra $15k, which you can then borrow against — i.e., the bank covers 80% through the mortgage), then the seller pays up to $15k in your closing costs.
The seller breaks even, but you decrease your upfront outlay at the cost of a slightly bigger mortgage and higher interest payments.
#8 | If it’s an investment property (or you don’t have furniture from another property), ask for the property as-furnished.
I added an as-furnished clause to my last counteroffer and the seller accepted. It would have significantly reduced another upfront cost to me and alleviated a huge headache delaying me from renting out the house. This is a great move if you’re buying an investment property / second home and the seller’s furniture is decent quality — less so if you’re buying a primary home and already have furniture.
#9 | If your state permits it (Wyoming does), add a price non-disclosure provision.
When you’re looking to sell down the line, prospective buyers won’t know your cost basis as a reference point in negotiations. In this case, buyers might have assumed I paid closer to asking price (which is public on Zillow / MLS) or the industry-norm 5% discount.
This isn’t critical, but why not optimize for resale if you can?
#10 | After a few counteroffers, suggest that the seller’s broker cut their fee to close the deal.
In this case, the seller’s broker cut half their fee, enabling the seller to accept a lower price. If you can make that happen, you know you’re close to the seller’s lowest price.
Brokers want to close deals when the bid is within striking distance to the seller’s “lowest” price— half fees are better than no fees!
#11 | Consider engaging an architect during diligence if zoning rules are complex and you have improvements in mind.
One of the upside drivers for this property was building a guest house. Covenants notwithstanding, any guest house would need to comply with road setbacks, slope restrictions, ridgeline restrictions, etc. It can be tough to diligence those rules yourself (i.e. this property was on the slope of a butte complicating matters), so engaging a local architect for a quick on-site review is often worth the cost. | https://medium.com/@alexrienzie/10-lessons-learned-from-buying-a-house-in-jackson-hole-then-walking-away-4e349bfa5b93 | ['Alex Rienzie'] | 2021-01-12 19:22:23.529000+00:00 | ['Financial Freedom', 'Investing', 'Advice', 'Real Estate', 'Lessons Learned'] |
Why workplace wellness needs to be a priority, even for startups | We spend over 90,000 hours (1/3 of our lives) at work and yet most of us treat our health and wellbeing as a second thought during our working life. This may be due to cultural beliefs that hard work leads to success — taking a break or time out for self care is seen as an indulgence, or worse, laziness.
No wonder why, according to Neurum’s recent white paper on ‘Designing an Effective Workplace Mental Wellbeing Strategy’, 1 in 3 employees in APAC experience mental ill health at work. A Cigna survey in 2018 reported 92% of workforce suffer from daily stress and 87% receive inadequate support from their company.
Burnout and stress cases on the increase globally
The problem extends beyond Asia since the start of Covid-19, when social distancing led the majority of entrepreneurs and their teams to work from home. What was once desirable for many, is causing them to lose a sense of work/life balance particularly if boundaries for working hours and accessibility are not actively encouraged and put into practice by leaders. In July 2020, 69% US employees surveyed by Monster experience burnout symptoms while working from home.
Covid-19, social distancing and working from home are all contributing factors to global increase in stress and burnout. Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Stress hormones are experienced when we see circumstances as a threat to our survival. For a workplace, the longer stress levels are sustained, the more it engenders the ‘flight or fight’ mechanism which hinders communication, cooperation and problem solving. Doesn’t that ring true when navigating through the changing landscape of the world with Coronavirus?
The immune system, especially crucial during this time, is also known to weaken as a result of ongoing stress and lack of rest and proper self care. This leads to a decrease in productivity and increased risk to your team’s health, as employees become more vulnerable to Covid-19 and other forms of illness.
Cost of neglecting employees’ wellbeing, happiness and fulfilment
“If you don’t take time for your wellness, you will be forced to take time for your illness.” — Unknown
Business leaders often underestimate the cost of neglecting their team as well as their own wellbeing until too late. Photo by Craig Ren on Unsplash
Burnout, stress and anxiety leads to a series of business problems including a decrease in productivity in the long run, poor communication, apathy, disengaged employees, insomnia, low energy and team morale, depression, increased medical leave, and the inability to have the mental clarity required for good decision making, ultimately negatively impacting your team’s performance, client satisfaction and business results.
This translates to dollar values — employees who are present at work but are unproductive (presenteeism) cost organisations 1.3B USD, while those who take sick leave (absenteeism) and quitting their jobs (churn) cost 23M USD and 284M USD respectively. This is not including the detriment of employees’ health and team motivation to contribute and perform at their best, which is priceless.
The cost of unwellness is estimated by Whole Business Wellness to reduce profitability by up to 20%, this includes staff turnover and re-training costs (6.3%), absenteeism and medical costs (1.7%), and productivity costs (12.6%). These numbers are rising with the global pandemic, as people constantly fear for their health, finances, future, families.
Wellbeing and team development are critical components to increasing team resilience and protect the continuity of business operations. Rather than waiting until it turns into a mental health issue, what if we consider the ideal scenario and optimal results for your team wellbeing, culture and performance and take action towards that? With over one third of our lives spent at work, we believe work can and should be something to look forward to when wellbeing, growth and fulfilment are prioritised.
Benefits and ROI of Wellness Initiatives
CEOs, executives and business leaders must role model healthy habits, bejaviours and work/life boundaries to foster a caring team culture that prioritises wellbeing. Photo by KrakenImages on Unsplash
Companies have reported a return of $5 for every $1 spent on mental wellbeing initiatives on average, while 89% employees said they are more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work if there is an effective mental wellbeing strategy*. Management consultants have found that the surest way to keep your customers happy is by having a team that is happy to work and serve to the business objectives.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to create and implement your own startup wellness program and best practices. What it does require is a commitment to prioritise wellbeing and self care, and for a company’s CEO, executive team and leaders to role model and encourage healthy habits, behaviours and work/life boundaries for all employees.
*‘Designing an Effective Workplace Mental Wellbeing Strategy’ — Neurum White Paper 2020
Empowering your team to thrive with purpose
Thriving as a team means better business results, happy clients, and a more joyful and productive working environment. Your team constantly grow into the best version of themselves with incredible synergy, reducing the need for taking sick leave (absenteeism), increased employee engagement & retention. Your business attract high quality employees who are motivated to work for your company because of the strong team culture and a sense of purpose. Regular and proper self care practice for individuals in turn lead to better mood, increase in energy level and performance overall for the team.
Thriving as a team means better business results. Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
For Startups, you can start by making simple yet transformational interventions that are impactful but does not require a massive budget. Here are some examples:
Setting clear boundaries for when work start and finish and expectation for availability
Have a regular morning routine in place which enables you to perform at your best, e.g. meditation, yoga/exercise, healthy breakfast, read/learn for at least an hour that can be done as a team
Stocking a selection of delicious healthy snacks and fresh fruits that requires a walk away from your desks to refuel
Set up a wellness accountability buddy system for your team members and check in regularly on each other’s wellbeing
Set a good example of self care for your team by leading with a sense of balance and awareness of your own emotional and physical energy level
Plan regular wellness workshops, meaningful team experiences and retreats regularly that help individuals and the team to grow and bond | https://medium.com/@tforteams/why-workplace-wellness-needs-to-be-a-priority-even-for-startups-1781b1db9d43 | ['Tracy Tsang'] | 2020-12-14 02:56:32.896000+00:00 | ['Growth Mindset', 'Mindfulness', 'Workplace Wellness', 'Team Building', 'Purpose Driven Business'] |
When We Compare Ourselves to Other People — Lose Weight With Ang | All my life, I’ve had a tendency to compare myself with the people around me. As someone who’s suffered with eating disorders, I would find friends or celebrities who are the same height, then try to find out their weight. I did this just to see how I compared to them, and most of the time, this ended in soul-crushing disappointment.
It sometimes doesn’t seem fair. You see how many friends a disrespectful person has, or how beautiful someone who doesn’t work out or wear makeup is. And then there’s you, putting in all your time and effort to have just a fraction of what they do. In the end, you may start believing there’s something wrong with you.
Is it Helpful to Compare Ourselves?
Comparison can encourage us to better ourselves which is positive and helpful. But some things like being rich or tall cannot be achieved easily and discourage us. Becoming obsessed with comparing ourselves can lead to unhappiness, and even hate. Worst of all, jealousy can lead to us bringing others down rather than raising ourselves up.
Obsession with comparison can be crippling. It can paralyze you, making you not want to try new things, or stopping you from getting involved in activities you feel you’re inadequate at. It can also be harmful to our mental health, and shatter our self-esteem.
Remember, you won’t be good at everything, and it’s useless to beat ourselves up over the things we are not. Instead, we should compare ourselves to a former version of our self. Look back a year. Is there something you’ve improved on that you can be proud of? Be at peace with where you are and how far you’ve come. It’s better to use our energy to improve ourselves, and focus on that, than to get caught up on how successful others are.
“Comparison with myself brings improvement, comparison with others brings discontent.” -Betty Jamie Chung Click To Tweet
In Conclusion
Sometimes, I still compare myself to others and get worked up over it. I’m much better at picking up on it now, which is an improvement. I compare to other blogs a lot, wondering how they’ve managed to become profitable or drive so much traffic to their site. This gives me the drive to work harder at my blog, but also leads me to grief and exhaustion when I don’t see clear progress. I always have to remind myself that I’ll get there eventually, it just takes time.
There are a couple things I’d like you to keep in mind when comparing yourself to the people around you. Remember, you are a work in progress. It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to not be great at everything. Also, consider taking a step back from the people who make you feel overly jealous or inadequate. Taking a break from social media especially can help us break the chains of comparison and jealousy.
That’s it for now everyone. If you’ve found some value in this post, please share it to inspire others too! Also, subscribe for more at the top of my site’s sidebar. Thanks!
-Ang
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission with no additional cost to you. Thanks! | https://medium.com/@loseweightwithang/when-we-compare-ourselves-to-other-people-lose-weight-with-ang-9cdd02b47a7 | ['Lose Weight With Ang'] | 2021-03-20 20:09:19.019000+00:00 | ['Comparison', 'Positive Thinking', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Love'] |
Understanding Git under the hood | Adding Sequential Commits, & Nested Directories / Files
This just had one file, and no directories. Lets add more blobs & trees to give clearly understanding of how files & directories are stored in object database.
$ mkdir files
$ echo "aaa" >> files/aaa.txt
$ echo "bbb" >> files/bbb.txt
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Add files"
$ git log
It is intentional that aaa content is also added for the new file. Lets check upon commit content by reading that git object → git cat-file 5c45ebb -p .
tree 21e6981939eae6277ad2128753e2984b552868cf
parent 239d1a0f75b596d7d67e23721f11066abf144982
Important changes include parent attribute that refers to parent commit. and then observe that tree has changed since files and directories changed. Lets go one by one and check content of trees & blobs to build files & directories.
100644 blob 72943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34 a.txt
040000 tree 75d27669a0c4e9dd702c71c6ac3307d533493ba5 files
Git object for a.txt remains same as content remains same. But within the parent tree object, there is another tree which represents that its a directory. When checking content of this nested tree: git cat-file 75d2766 -p
100644 blob 72943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34 aaa.txt
100644 blob f761ec192d9f0dca3329044b96ebdb12839dbff6 bbb.txt
If blobs are checked it will have expected content. Note that here aaa.txt will have same object of a.txt cause the content of the files are same containing aaa . However file name change didn’t effect this as it was not stored in blob itself but rather it was stored in its containing tree.
Git Object Model
It can been seen how git reused common blob containing aaa between two commits. Only 7 objects
.git/objects/
├── 21
│ └── e6981939eae6277ad2128753e2984b552868cf
├── 23
│ └── 9d1a0f75b596d7d67e23721f11066abf144982
├── 37
│ └── 057b2e8a9041ef88b805a5b7c4e0e668a03be4
├── 5c
│ └── 45ebb2052428ce037e2fbf760cb0ec9a18f6e2
├── 72
│ └── 943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34
├── 75
│ └── d27669a0c4e9dd702c71c6ac3307d533493ba5
├── f7
│ └── 61ec192d9f0dca3329044b96ebdb12839dbff6
Interpret working directory from commit
This currently have two commits, and user can checkout to either of these commits. For either of the commits, its perspective of files and directories might differ. For a commit it will ignore connected commits, and build up files and directories using trees and blobs it is connected to Here it will show how its seen by two commits | https://medium.com/swlh/understanding-git-under-the-hood-b1aeae1d02f5 | ['Udara Bibile'] | 2020-04-28 18:04:29.635000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Github', 'Git', 'Programming', 'Coding'] |
The key to a focused mind | Photo: Maurício Mascaro | Pixels
It is not rare to hear someone complaining about not having enough time to do something or using it as an excuse for not achieving their goals. I have done it myself countless times. However, as Zig Ziglar once said: “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days”.
Some people accomplish great things in just one day while others can’t get the same results in a lifetime. This quality of getting more things done in the same amount of time is called productivity.
Most of us think that a higher IQ or the capability to manage time is the key to being more productive. Even though they are indeed important, there is a single thing that can beat both:
FOCUS
In the era of distractions, it seems to be one of the hardest skills to master. Nevertheless, improving your capacity to concentrate is far from impossible.
“Ineluctable modality of the visible.” So begin the deliberations of Stephen Dedalus in the third chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. “Signatures of all things I am here to read.” Albeit this chapter may appear as a soulful debate about prose writing, it is an exquisitely perceptive impersonation of a mind at work. Conscious of his consciousness, Dedalus controls his thoughts without reining them in. He’s simultaneously focused and unfocused. Ostensibly rambling sentiments, ideas and reminiscences combine into models, into literature.
Navigating between the complete lack of attention and blind focus, we find a state where gaiety and pensiveness intermingle. This unusual form of attention is called open awareness. As it lays amid two poles, it prevents us from both losing control over our thoughts and falling victim to narrowed vision, in which, similar to a visor, our focus prevents us from seeing not only distractions but also other ideas or paths.
Attentiveness is hardly natural. Like a muscle, to strengthen it, practice is required. Stay focused is an active choice that must be made whenever our minds start digressing. It is at this point that self-awareness is of extreme importance: we must perceive the distraction, redirect our attention back to the task and keep it there.
In the beginning, this act of self-control won’t be simple, yet as it is realized, it also becomes easier, until it converts into an unconscious habit. The challenging active decision shifts to the imperceptible urge of the soul.
In this tortuous journey through perfect focus, the ability to surpass the process of delayed gratification proves to be the key to achieving lasting results. The one who has the ideal attention is capable of aiming and visualizing long-term consequences instead of eagerly seeking immediate delight.
The concentration itself does not bring instantly evident outgrowths. Fortunately, just as focus, control over impulses is not intrinsic, it can be cultivated with everyday practice.
Moreover, in one of the letters he wrote to his son, Philip Stanhope, also known as Lord Chesterfield, advised: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” This simple statement contradicts the esteem for multitasking preached in modern society.
Notwithstanding this contemporary high praise for multitasking, researches have shown that such achievement is biologically unachievable. When executing more than one assignment at once, our brain simply switches quickly between the two different actions, instead of performing them simultaneously.
Furthermore, several studies conclude that multitasking diminishes productivity when compared to sequential execution. Each time we shift from one activity to another, the attention that was built to perform the previous task is lost and it takes time to regain that former level of concentration. Also, during the swap, it is easier for our minds to start drifting toward distractions, leading us to lose control over our actions or thoughts.
Until this point, we’ve mainly focused on enhancing attention. Nonetheless, it is equally important to know when to lose it. As presented by Daniel Goleman in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, the stage of daydream can be quite beneficial if it is used wisely.
The great majority of the world’s brightest inventions were developed in woolgatherings. When we ramble we become immersed in the sensations of the body. Every feeling is emphasized as we get lost in the sea of thoughts. It allows us to see from different angles and that conduct us to splendid insights. However, one must be careful not to drown. By letting yourself be carried away by the wave of ramblings, even the most illustrious idea can be lost, and return to a state of consciousness becomes an arduous task.
Besides insights, daydreaming can provide us rest. As said earlier, focus is like a muscle, hence, to develop it, rest is as crucial as training. Recurrent mental deviation from a task is a clear sign that a pause is needed to continue with maximum focus. Successfully identifying these moments is vital for productivity. The ten-minute break required for brain recovery is nothing compared to the time wasted if one insists on completing a task while worn out. Something that is fulfilled within a few minutes when done with the supreme attention, takes hours to be accomplished in the state described above.
To summarize, there are three key steps to improve concentration. First, identify when your attention is floating and then re-focus on the main assignment. Second, perform only one activity at a time. Last but not least, know when to wander and unwind.
Finally, always remember that practice makes perfect and attentiveness isn’t different. A skill cannot be thoroughly acquired overnight, it takes time. | https://medium.com/@isamamede/the-key-to-a-focused-mind-de24d52a7d41 | ['Isa Mamede'] | 2020-07-07 23:35:50.872000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Study', 'Attention', 'Focus'] |
The Physics of Back to the Future | Mr. Strickland: “I noticed your band is on the roster for the dance auditions after school today. Why even bother, McFly? You don’t have a chance. You’re too much like your old man. No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!”
Marty McFly: “Yeah, well, history is gonna change.” -Back To The Future
A tale of wrongs righted and second chances, Back to the Future — the trilogy of iconic 80s movies — offers a tantalizing possibility to mistake-makers everywhere: the ability to travel to the past and fix your (or your ancestors’) mistakes, and the ability to travel to the future, scope out your (or your descendants’) misfortunes, and adjust your actions accordingly.
It’s every perfectionist’s dream.
Image credit: Back to the Future, 1985, via GoneMovie.com.
But what does physics have to say about these scenarios? First off, the notion of time-travel is one that doesn’t belong on the “fiction” side of science-fiction: it’s the one thing in science that you can’t help yourself from doing no matter what you do! Whether you held perfectly still or accelerated to nearly the speed of light, you, in your own frame of reference, are always traveling through time at the same rate: one second per second.
Sure, that doesn’t sound like a very profound statement, but when Einstein put forth special relativity in 1905, that was just one of its astounding implications.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Lookang.
For another, we learned that photons — or any massless particle, for that matter — cannot experience time at all in their frame of reference: from the instant one is emitted to the instant it’s absorbed, only massive observers (like us) can see the passage of time. From the photon’s reference frame, the entire Universe in its direction-of-travel contracts down to a single point, and absorption and emission happens all at the same time: instantaneously.
But we have mass. And for anything that has mass, you’re limited to always travel at less than the speed of light in a vacuum. Not only that, but no matter how fast you’re moving relative to anything else — whether you’re accelerating or not — you’ll always perceive light to be moving at that one constant speed: c, the speed of light in a vacuum.
This is a powerful observation and realization, and it comes with a fascinating consequence: if you observe someone in motion relative to you, their clock will appear to run slow.
Image credit: John D. Norton, via http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_clocks_rods/.
Imagine a “light clock,” or a clock that works on the principle of light being bounced back-and-forth in the up-and-down direction between two mirrors. The faster the person in motion moves relative to you, the more the light’s velocity will move in that transverse (across) direction, rather than in the up-and-down direction, and hence the slower their clock will appear to run.
By the same token, your clock will appear to move slow with respect to them; they’ll see time passing more slowly for you! Clearly this can’t be the case for both of you: when the two of you get together again, one of you will be older and one will be younger.
Which one?
That’s the nature of the Einstein “twin paradox” problem. The short answer: assuming you started off in the same frame of reference (at rest on Earth, for example), and you wind up in that same frame of reference at a later time, the person who did the traveling will have aged less, having had time pass at the “slow” rate, while the person who remained at home will have had time pass at the “normal” rate.
Image credit: © 2015 Twin Paradox, via http://www.twin-paradox.com/.
So if you want to travel ahead in time quickly, just accelerate to a fast (near-light) speed, move at that speed for some time, and then come back to rest at your initial location. (This will involve some turning around!) Do that, and you can — depending on the theoretical quality of your equipment — travel days, months, decades, eons, or billions of years into the future!
You can witness the evolution and destruction of humanity; the end of the Earth and Sun; the dissociation of our galaxy; the heat death of the Universe itself. So long as you have enough power in your space ship, you can travel as far into the future as you like.
Image credit: the Economist, via http://timelessbreakthroughs.economist.com/is-time-travel-already-happening/.
But backwards is another story. Simple Special Relativity, or the relationship between space and time on a basic level, was enough to get us into the future. But if we want to go back — or into the past — we’ll need to go to General Relativity, or the relationship between spacetime and matter and energy. In this case, we treat space and time as an inseparable fabric, and matter and energy is what warps it, or causes changes in that fabric itself.
For our Universe as we know it, spacetime is pretty boring: it’s almost perfectly flat, barely curved at all, and in no way, shape or (discernible) form loops back on itself.
Image credit: Science News / Nicole Rager Fuller, via https://www.sciencenews.org/article/special-report-gravity%E2%80%99s-century.
But in some model Universes — in some solutions to Einstein’s General Relativity — you can loop back on yourself. If space loops back on itself, you can travel in one direction for a long, long time, and wind up right back where you started: a consequence of a closed Universe.
Well, you can not only have solutions with closed space-like curves, but you can have spacetimes with closed time-like curves as well, meaning you can literally go Back to the Future!
Image credit: New Scientist / John Papasian.
But that’s a mathematical solution; does that mathematics describe our physical Universe, though? It appears not to be the case. The curvatures and/or discontinuities we’d need our Universe to have are wildly incompatible with what we observe, even near neutron stars and black holes: the most extreme examples of curvature in our Universe.
Our Universe could be rotating on a global scale, but observed limits on rotation are some 100,000,000 times too stringent to admit the closed time-like curves we’re craving. If you want to go forward in time, a souped-up DeLorean — assuming “souped-up” means relativistic — will get you there, as will a souped-up train, which was Einstein’s initial idea!
Image credit: the “Jules Verne Train” from Back To The Future Part III.
But going backwards? Perhaps it’s better that you can’t go back in time, prevent your father from marrying your mother, and creating a time paradox.
Image credit: user Unit 3.0 of the Infosphere wiki, via http://theinfosphere.org/images/cache/4/43/File%253AFry_Family_Tree%252Epng.html.
Futurama aside, the idea of traveling backwards in time will likely continue to fascinate humanity, but that half of time travel — the “back” half — will almost certainly remain a fiction eternally into the future. It’s not mathematically impossible, but the Universe is based in physics, which is a special subset of mathematical solutions. In this case, our dreams of correcting our mistakes by going to the past will likely exist in our imaginations alone. | https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-physics-of-back-to-the-future-137774bb43e7 | ['Ethan Siegel'] | 2015-10-21 17:08:47.141000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Physics', 'Time Travel'] |
Learn how to get lucky in your job search… | I hate the common idea of luck.
Luck is not waiting for a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end. There is no such thing as leprechauns. Luck is a roll of the dice. Luck is playing the odds. The awesome thing about odds is that it is a statistic. So, how do you control the odds?
Well, if you show up to a casino, you definitely do not want to be caught counting cards. That is just going to get you tossed in a dark room where you start losing teeth.
No, no, no. Instead, I am talking about controlling the odds of your own life. Life is a numbers game. It is a series of statistics. There are certain games worth playing and some games that are a total waste of time. Are you the penny slots player or are you going to learn how to play Texas Hold ‘Em? What’s the difference between the two?
Well, penny slots in this case are clicking to quick-apply on Ziprecruiter, Monster, DICE, etc….this also includes mass applying to any and all roles available with no follow up plan. You are putting your odds in the hands of a machine. A machine that has no emotions. A machine that has no understanding of your skills, personality, and potential. You just get to put a penny of your time in, pull the lever, and pray to god you get something in return.
Playing Texas Hold ’Em is a completely different game. You have the dealer. You have players with emotions, tell signs, and a limited deck. You can bluff. You can build relationships. You can learn how to read the game to control your odds over time. This can eventually become a legitimate skill over time. This is similar to networking on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media sites to build relationships with professionals in the communities you want to join. Going to events is always an awesome way to build communities too, but that isn’t going to happen until the pandemic is over.
So, what type of luck do you want to have? Do you want the emotionless machine (Job Boards) to control your odds or do you want to learn how to network with people to learn how to play the job market game?
So, let’s put luck in your hands!
During these crazy times and future pandemics, we need an action plan. But, let’s put aside the fact that you’re struggling and looking for a job. This time last year, there was no pandemic. Yet, there were still people struggling to get employed. The difference between now and then is that the competition is fierce. There is more competition than ever. There are more applications happening now more than ever. Seriously, it’s turning into the episode of the bachelorette where a bazillion dudes are all trying to attract the same woman. Not everyone gets a rose at the end of the day.
Honestly, we are hiring at Nxt Level for entry level recruiters and entry level sales representatives and applications are flooding our inbox. I genuinely do not have enough time in the day to interview everyone. On paper, it is very difficult to determine who I should and should not reach out to right now. I am not even a large employer. Most people have no idea who Nxt Level is unless you are a Gaming Studio or SaaS company using us as a recruiting service. Amazon, Google, Asurion, and other major brands have it even worse than we do at Nxt Level. How do they determine who they should and should not call?
Every single day, I am genuinely anxious. I am anxious for the rare unicorns that reach out to me on LinkedIn or Facebook asking to learn more about Nxt Level. Candidates that are passionate about our mission, looked up our services, and are invested in building a genuine connection with me rather than spamming the job boards with their applications are like an angel dropping down from Heaven. Legit, the horns come out playing a song and get me really jazzed up.
I have interviewed too many candidates that know nothing about us. I will have a scheduled interview call and one of the first questions I ask, “What do you know about our company and what we do?” If you go to our website the first line tells you that we are a recruiting agency hiring for Gaming Studios and SaaS companies. I just need them to say that one sentence to feel comfortable with them. Maybe 10% of people can even say that. By the way, this is not a literal number, this is just the emotional stress and frustration coming out. Please, just take 30 seconds to google someone or look at the company website if you get an interview. It genuinely makes me sad.
So, there are really two things I want to isolate here:
One: Do your research:
Find companies that you’re genuinely interested in and learn what their products or services are today. Look up their mission statement and company values. Are they a startup? Are they a large enterprise company? Did you read the job description? Do you meet the minimum requirements and if you do not, what do you have to offer that might be similar?
Two: Reach out to people that matter. Who matters?
Talking to leadership might seem scary, but it is important. Reach out to the hiring manager or folks that might manage the potential hiring manager. This could be a Manager, Director, VP, or go big and reach out to the C-Suite.
There are other folks worth speaking to outside of pure management. It is also important to reach out to people with the title you want. Ask to buy them coffee and send them a virtual Starbucks card. Ask to pick their brain to learn about the team, culture, job expectations. Get the insider scoop about the role so you have more than a generic job description to know if you fit on the team. If you built a genuine relationship with this person, they might even be cool enough to send you in as a referral. This could put you in the front of the line to earn an interview and give you leverage that others do not have.
If you don’t have the money to buy them coffee, do not stress. That isn’t what you should focus on here. Pay them with your passion. Pay them with your curiosity. Pay them with your potential.
Seriously, this matters. Relationships matter. Be Human.
In my personal opinion, I try to connect with people I want to learn from in life. I am open to connecting with leaders in my industry and hoping to find nuggets from them. My goal isn’t to request a job. My goal isn’t to request a referral. My goal is to build a connection that can lead me to future opportunities. I imagine every opportunity is like standing in front of Morpheus with a red pill and a blue pill saying, “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth — nothing more.”
https://www.wired.com/story/matrix-red-pill-vs-blue-pill/
Personally, I’m not going to offer a job to someone I don’t know. Second, I’m not going to refer to someone that I have not met. It really does not matter if you have the best resume on the planet. I might pass along your resume, but that comes with the caveat that I don’t know the individual on a personal or professional level. Therefore, the only value is that your resume got in the hands of someone else (Hopefully the right person).
My goal is to learn from them…seriously, genuinely learn. Do not fake it. Do not pretend. Sharks smell blood. Chickens kill the weak. There’s a pecking order for a reason. Don’t be selfish and make the conversion about you. That’s a big fail. Too many people request for something prematurely. This is like talking to a complete stranger on the street and asking them to marry you. They are legit just going to laugh in your face and continue walking. Then they are going to share this funny story with their friends with no idea who you were, what your name is, or what you are good at in life. That is the last thing we want. We need and want folks to know our name. Advocate for us. Be a champion for our future if we fit the bill.
First, give before you receive.
So, you’re probably asking yourself, “How do I give something to a Director, VP, or CEO of a company when I am just a desperate job seeker?”
Well, that’s a valid question. What you have to offer might be fairly limited. So, offer genuine curiosity, passion, and unique potential.
Leaders feel inspired by individuals with motivation to progress in life. What is an example of an initial message that can make a leader feel like there’s genuine interest?
“Hey John, we don’t know each other and I am hoping to change that. First, I want to admit that I felt inspired by your career progression. One day, I want to be a Director of Software Development at a company with a great reputation like Facebook. I would love to pick your brain and learn how you get there. Would you be open to starting a conversation?”
Or…
“Hey Niti, we don’t know each other and I am really hoping to change that. I was doing some research on Nxt Level and wanted to pick your brain. I noticed you’ve been there for 3 years and would love your insight on the company culture and what makes employees successful there.”
What does this message do?
1. Acknowledging this is a cold email.
2. Inserting a form of admiration.
3. Stating my goals for the future.
4. Asking for advice from a potential mentor.
5. Asking a question that isn’t intrusive.
The goal of this message is to inspire a response. You don’t need to add your credentials. Ideally, you have a LinkedIn profile that has all of that information readily available. If you need more insight, click here. You want your initial message to be unique and engaging. At the same time, you don’t want the reader feeling like they’re reviewing your dissertation.
So, what exactly are you “giving?” You’re giving someone the opportunity to share their experience. Their story. Honestly, to the right people, it’s fulfilling. On the off chance the individual is willing to meet, buy this person coffee or lunch. Show the person you value their time and advice.
https://thesalesvp.com/5-steps-to-effective-networking/
Be genuine when you are Networking.
If you get the chance to meet or speak to someone, use your time wisely. Understand that networking is an opportunity to learn and exchange value. For a new grad, value is recognized by future potential outcome. Therefore, the Manager or Director will want to provide advice and transfer wisdom. If you receive advice, actually listen. Absorb everything.
Depending on how the conversation goes, advice might include homework. It might be to study a topic and a follow up meeting to review content. If this happens, you 100% need to follow through. This allows you to earn a seal of approval and could get you the recommendation you want. Best case scenario, a leader gives you an assignment and some minor form of assessment. To be clear, you want this to happen naturally. You might have to try and meet someone multiple times before you get to this point. It’s better to be offered an opportunity to interview than to ask.
Sometimes you get uber lucky and after your first meeting they just tell you about an immediate opening, give you a referral to the hiring manager, and speed up the process of a legitimate interview.
On the off chance that the role isn’t a good fit, also feel grateful. Thank them for their time and walk away knowing you met a new person that can be a potential advocate when the timing is right. | https://medium.com/@shane-shown/learn-how-to-get-lucky-in-your-job-search-94ff16143037 | ['Shane Shown'] | 2020-12-09 14:27:17.838000+00:00 | ['Interview Tips', 'Job Search', 'Interview', 'Job Hunting', 'Jobs'] |
Weekly Recap #1. This week was the first of my… | This week was the first of my post-college career. If I follow the traditional path of retirement after 40 years, I only have 1,999 weeks left.
Articles I Wrote:
Venture capital investing has changed with “bulge bracket” firms investing growth equity at later stages and higher valuations. This methodology goes against traditional venture investing strategy and creates unhealthy pressure for founders to create exponential and usually unreasonable growth numbers. By investing huge dollar amounts at later rounds, it also dilutes out those that took the most risk at early stages.
Fintech companies aim to go public or be acquired by one of the big banks. By focusing on these two outcomes, they are missing other opportunities.
Equity compensation has emerged to become a popular form of attempting to attract tech talent from joining incumbents that can offer higher starting salaries. I had some quick thoughts on using this mechanism.
I wanted to pause and remember those that served on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
Fintech M&A activity remained hot in 2018. | https://medium.com/clays-thoughts/weekly-recap-june-3-9-2019-71689ea4f034 | ['Clay Norris'] | 2019-11-10 18:17:34.663000+00:00 | ['Recaps', 'Newsletter', 'Venture Capital', 'Fintech', 'Startup'] |
Instinct v Intuition | One of the questions that I get asked a lot is what is the difference between intuition and instinct? For me there are some very subtle differences, which I will take you through in this article.
Most dictionary definitions of Instinct will describe it as the ability to comprehend something instinctively, so they group the two things together. In my experience, they do feel different in our body.
Here are two ways that I distinguish between instinct v intuition:
Where You Feel It
For me, instinct is a very basal reaction and is felt in the body somatically. We sense a tingle on the back of our neck, or a tightening of our shoulders when we feel uneasy. It comes from the animal part of our nature and is fuelled by our innate desire to survive.
Intuition almost feels like it sits just outside of the body for me, like the Jiminy Cricket sitting on my shoulder, or a cloak of knowing. It lives in the open space around us, the magic in our fingertips, and our connection to source and the universe.
How You Feel It
Instinct will quite often come along with a sense of fear of anxiety. It is likely to be heightened when walking in the dark, or in an unsafe environment. There is a sense that there is something to be fixed. For me, sometimes I wake in the night when one of my kids is ill, before they even call out. That is my animal instinct.
Intuition cannot come from a place of fear. We simply can’t intuit when we’re afraid. Instead, it comes with a feeling of fulfillment or purpose. That something is just right or wrong. It is very calm and usually feels like a deep, soothing voice inside.
If the voice is too excited or scared, it is not likely to be our intuition. Excitement might be a sign that there is either something instinctual, or there is something deeper, like wishful thinking or projection at play. I will cover those in a later article.
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:
What Is A Three Centered Decision?
Tomorrow’s Men | https://medium.com/@sarahclaireryan1/instinct-v-intuition-43be03f678da | ['Sarah Ryan'] | 2020-02-20 12:44:57.574000+00:00 | ['Instinct V Intuition', 'Intuition', 'Instinct', 'One Of Many Coach', 'Intuitive'] |
I don´t even know where to start | I honestly have no idea of what I want to write about in here. Which story should I tell? Should I tell you the whole story, or do I want to skip the hard parts? Am I ready to do this, to go through all of it once again? I am not so sure anymore… | https://medium.com/@evaaa/i-don-t-even-know-where-to-start-45f3a6039510 | [] | 2020-12-24 10:10:07.765000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Prologue'] |
Donald Trump Doesn’t Care About You | Russell County, Virginia (Credit: Ben Gilmer)
I do not hold a public office or a high profile corporate position. I am not a social media influencer or a religious leader. I grew up on a farm in a small town in southwestern Virginia. My dad was a coal miner, my mom a school teacher. Though I have closely followed politics for as long as I can remember, publicly debating sticky topics, including our elected officials, was never really part of my upbringing.
But then again the country never really felt so on fire. There was no Facebook, Roger Ailes was still sketching out Fox News on his whiteboard, and Donald Trump was just a bankrupt, flashy, fast-talking New York businessman with dyed hair and a fake tan. He embodied the type of person I, and most everyone else back home, was raised to never trust or pay much mind to. He fit the general description of those men from long ago who made out like bandits with all the timber and mineral rights, or, during my childhood, the coal bosses who helicoptered in and out of the Pittston Coal headquarters up the road from my house during the 1989 strike.
And now here we are. The bandit is our president and he won 81% of my home county’s vote for re-election.
I have many friends, family, and acquaintances who continue to support Donald Trump. Here is the thing you need to hear right now: Donald Trump didn’t care about you back then, he doesn’t care about you now, and he won’t care about you in the future. He has used our families, friends, and a racist system to rise to power, while shoveling out policies that benefit the super rich, increase our risk of becoming sick and unemployed, and further erode our country’s standing, security, and influence in the world. Your continued support for the Trump regime is simply dangerous.
I have watched as many decent people — people I love — have found themselves lost in a vast wilderness of deceit and misinformation. People who have forced themselves into positions of extreme tribal allegiance — an allegiance to a man, political party, and ideology — an allegiance that requires unending moral and mental gymnastics. These acts of gymnastics have unfortunately rendered many folks unable to distinguish between fact and fiction when interpreting current events.
Many people I love and care about should be struggling to reconcile how the actions of Trump and his band of grifters fundamentally conflicts with the values they lift up in prayer on Sunday mornings, the life lessons they teach to their kids on the little league team, or the wisdom they share with loved ones around their supper tables at night.
As of yesterday morning, President Trump’s first public statements about last week’s events at the Capitol made it clear that he feels exactly no remorse or accountability for inciting the insurrection, the consequential loss of life, the continued erosion of our democratic processes and institutions, and the compromising of our shared safety. Credible threats of armed domestic conflict remain for the coming days and foreseeable future. Yet these events have not been enough to stop powerful Republicans in their effort to curate demonstrable lies about election fraud — all in a bid to leverage this chaos and division to rally political power and influence.
If still today you remain in support of this president, his enablers, and their treasonous actions — after these domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol at the continued urging of the President and other Republican leaders — it is well past time for you to ask yourself many hard questions and undertake the uncomfortable work of seeking truth and self-reflection. I believe that there is still an opportunity for you to emerge from this dark fog which has engulfed you, but this is a journey you must initiate. I recall the lyrics of an old gospel song that I used to love singing at church: Mercies abundantly wait / Turn back before it’s too late / You’re drifting too far from shore.
We have a fragile, fleeting window of opportunity to build a democracy that serves us all — a country that lifts up the underserved and disadvantaged. As I type these words, this window is rattling and about to slam shut.
The political system is indeed broken. However, the self-serving false prophet at the helm has demonstrated very clearly that he is not the one to fix it. His team has shown through their policies that they do not care about your family’s well-being. Trump’s many disciples, from Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, all the way down the food chain to some of our state and local representatives, are members of an elite class of gamers. These are masters of a tried and true methodology that harnesses the weapons of white supremacy and disinformation to build and control political power. You’re a pawn in their game.
These political gamesmen, their corporate bankrollers, and their misinformation news channels know exactly what they are doing right now. They know who it hurts and the lasting damage that will remain in their wake. These people are the machine behind the fog.
Some of these elected officials openly play political poker with your healthcare, black lung benefits, or unemployment payments. Others simply stay silent in fear of upsetting the Trump complex and losing votes from his supporters. This game has been a constant thread throughout our country’s history. A recent social media post by the comedian Ziwe Fumudoh succinctly captured how our modern American fabric is woven from the same needle and thread as other pivotal moments from history, such as the Civil War, where the majority of southerners who fought and died couldn’t even afford slaves. They were convinced by the white aristocracy that Black liberation would negatively affect them.
Last week Donald Trump sent his followers to seize the Capitol while he eased on back to his recliner in the West Wing to watch from his TV. He’s the foreman who stays at the office and sends you back into the coal mine knowing the roof bolts aren’t stable, or the boss who sits in the work truck with his Hardees biscuit while you fix a broken water line in the dead of winter.
Donald Trump’s public escalation of racism, greed, and deception have been very present for us all to see since well before the 2016 campaign. As Trump garnered more and more support during his first election season, I repeatedly told myself a quiet story about how this was “not who we are, not who my people are.” But I knew in my heart that this was not true. Even the most cursory review of American history shows that this is indeed the same America that Black people know.
If you are still supporting Trump and his administration, when did you declare “Despite all I have witnessed from this man, yes, I will endorse this”?
What did you tell yourself the day he made fun of a disabled reporter on live television? I know a lot of people who would have knocked someone out cold in aisle 5 of the Food City if they heard someone talking like this about a disabled person. And then there was the audio recording with Billy Bush where Donald Trump admitted to and explicitly endorsed sexual abuse. And the time he said that the late Senator John McCain was not a hero because he was captured and served as a prisoner of war. And the grotesque child separation policy at the border where babies and young children are separated from their parents, nearly all of whom have fled war or other impossible circumstances in pursuit of any chance at stability and opportunity. I remember many Sunday sermons with stories of weary refugees looking for safety and shelter. “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” — Matthew 25:35
And now here we are in the season finale of this administration, sitting on top of a towering pyramid of observed atrocities. Here we are in a global pandemic where basic approaches to protecting our communities like wearing masks have been openly ridiculed and politicized by the President and his enablers. I still can’t get past the fact that I can log onto Facebook anytime to find friends — the same friends who I have seen wearing full face masks in the woods during spring gobbler season — taking their righteous stand against the tyranny of face masks, all in the name of freedom and liberty (read: all in the name of fragile masculine egos), while many of our family members actively battle COVID.
The season finale has culminated into an unbelievable story arc stretching far beyond what the most creative Hollywood studio could write. It sure is a lot to take in and to know what to do with it all.
I understand some of the thinking. I want to break the system too. Our government doesn’t provide the fundamental goods and services in a way that matches my values either, and the incremental steps offered by traditional candidates will not build an inclusive, equitable, and democratic system that meets our needs.
But this man and his enablers are not on our team. Do not think for a moment that they understand or care about you. Donald Trump continues to cannibalize everyone in his orbit once they prove unwilling to do his bidding. Most recently Vice President Pence was added to Trump’s sordid blacklist — the man’s VICE PRESIDENT.
You know in your heart that Donald Trump would toss you and your family into the hog trough like a burnt skillet of cornbread if you no longer served his needs.
At this very moment, the House is barreling toward a second impeachment. Senator Mitch McConnell, Rep. Liz Cheney, and others are pulling their support of Mr. Trump and quietly acknowledging that his most recent betrayal amounts to an impeachable offense. They are cutting bait because the GOP’s hourly political calculation is showing the cost of keeping Trump as the face of the Republican party now exceeds the benefit. These power brokers have acted as the president’s henchmen since the day he announced his candidacy from his golden escalator in New York City. Like a scene from a Netflix political drama, the whole gang is looking to remove the emperor, shed their political and personal liabilities, and regain their funding streams in the final hour of the show.
But they do not get to reset after enabling Trump and this criminal network for the past four years. This should haunt whatever is left of the GOP for an entire generation, and all of the elected officials who have been complicit in this scheme must be held accountable.
My Trump-supporting loved ones, you definitely have played a role in the damage this man has caused, too. And though I have never supported this man, I own my share as well.
I am a privileged white man who has actively parlayed my silence and privilege into various streams of power and opportunity for many years now. Like many others, I have spent the last years of the Trump presidency asking myself a lot of uncomfortable questions about my whiteness and my white privilege, starting with the very basics: How have I personally benefited from our country’s vast infrastructure of white supremacy? At whose expense have I benefited? What have I done to help in the fight for racial justice? And, perhaps most relevant to the moment we find ourselves in, when have I chosen to remain silent so that I might benefit from this racist system? The questions and the answers have been both devastating and unending — the more you dig, the more you find.
So if the good Lord or Elon Musk or anyone else blasts me off of this ancient rock today, I want to exit the troposphere knowing that my two sweet little girls, and everyone else I know for that matter, understand that I will no longer be silent. If my speaking out makes you uncomfortable, costs me some opportunity, or inspires you to cut me out of your life, so be it.
For the people I care about who continue to rally behind Donald Trump, I realize there is probably not much that could move you if you are this far in. I am happy to talk with you on this topic but I won’t sit back and silently accept your dangerous actions or your willingness to check out from our shared reality, as your decision greatly affects us all.
I hope you’ll give it all some thought in the coming days, though, because after Donald Trump leaves office and returns to his life of private jets and golf courses, you should know that he still won’t care about you. | https://aninjusticemag.com/donald-trump-doesnt-care-about-you-53b9c9675638 | ['Ben Gilmer'] | 2021-01-17 17:45:30.457000+00:00 | ['Impeachment', 'Family', 'Trump', 'Appalachia', 'Election'] |
Madame Tussauds Wax Museum To Create it’s First Wax Cat! | The famous wax museum, Madame Tussauds is delighted to announce that irreverent Internet sensation Grumpy Cat will be the first ever cat to be immortalized in the attraction’s history.
“This is truly an honor…” said a distinctly unimpressed Grumpy Cat. “I hate it.”
Grumpy Cat shot to stardom when her photo was posted on Reddit on September 22, 2012. To dispel suspicions that the image had been Photoshopped, she posted two videos to YouTube. The videos went viral, making her the darling of meme-loving macro-makers everywhere.
In step with Grumpy Cat’s digital celebrity, her figure will be an animatronic with five different movements. The animatronic will be unveiled at Madame Tussauds’ San Francisco location later this year in typically aloof fashion by Grumpy Cat herself. After a short stay at Madame Tussauds San Francisco, the animatronic will tour the remaining five Madame Tussauds attractions across the US. | https://medium.com/@catydogyhq/madame-tussauds-wax-museum-to-create-its-first-wax-cat-110bc505169a | ['Weight Loss Drinks'] | 2020-12-23 22:49:47.509000+00:00 | ['Dogs', 'Cats', 'Cats Cats Cats'] |
All You Need to Know about HR Strategy | All You Need to Know about HR Strategy
Human Resource Strategy is a long-term plan created to achieve objectives in the field of HR and human capital management for the success and development of the organization. Aviahire Follow Dec 14, 2020 · 5 min read
An HR plan gets the employees ready to execute the business strategy and goals. It helps you, as an HR manager, prepare your current staff and anticipate what talent you’ll need to add in the future. It preps your company for employee turnover and other managers for making future hiring decisions more strategically. A good HR plan should also include a succession plan, so you can minimize disruptions to your business should there be a change in management or structure.
If you think it’s important to have a business plan then you need a human resources (HR) plan, too. It’s just as critical.
What is Human Resource Strategy?
A Human Resource Strategy is a company’s overall plan for managing its human capital and to align it with its business activities. The HR strategy sets a direction for all key areas of HR, including hiring, performance appraisal, development, and compensation.
An HR strategy has a set of characteristics:
It requires an analysis of the organization and the external environment.
It takes longer than one year to implement.
It shapes the character and direction of all the HR Management activities
Helps in the deployment and allocation of organizational resources (i.e. money, time, personnel)
Is revised on a yearly basis.
It is number-driven.
It results in a specific behavior.
3 Pillars of a Successful HR Strategy
1. Legal requirements
When onboarding an employee, it’s important that you follow and fulfill all legal requirements to ensure that you protect the business and the employee. For instance, every full-time employee should fill out an IRS W-4 form and I-9 form, another important legal requirement is worker’s compensation.
2. Employee engagement
Did you know that only 33 percent of employees in the United States are engaged in their jobs, according to Gallup’s “2017 State of the American Workplace” report? Employee engagement as a whole increased by only 3 percent from 2012 to 2016, according to the aforementioned report.
Employee engagement is critical to a company’s success. After all, an engaged employee is a productive employee. To increase employee engagement, bring the following points into your culture and HR strategy:
Gamification: Incorporate gamification into employee activities, such as achievement-tracking and peer competition.
Incentives: Financial and non-financial incentives, such as rewards and perks, give employees something to work toward. Besides, they reinforce attitudes and behaviors that will help the company to succeed.
Employee Surveys: Conducting surveys regularly lets employees know that their voice is being heard and valued.
3. Performance management system
To make goal-setting successful, you need to have a performance tracking system in place. Without an advanced performance management system, it will be difficult for employees to know their progress and stay motivated in reaching their goals.
Not to mention, keeping track manually can get tiresome and is less reliable. If you haven’t yet, invest in a performance management system that makes it easy for employees and managers to track and measure progress throughout the year.
If you have trouble getting buy-in from decision-makers, ask for a free 30-day trial of the product you like most. When your trial is up, you can show higher-ups the benefits, rather than just telling.
6 HR strategy best practices
When creating and implementing an HR strategy, there are several best practices to keep in mind.
HR professionals should know the strategy and be involved in its process– A strategy will only be effective if it is communicated. Involvement in the creation of the strategy will help in communication and create buy-in. The HR budget is the critical enabler of any strategy execution — An HR strategy can never be realized in isolation. Conditions are management budget, skilled HR professionals, and appropriate technology. HR manager’s initiatives should be aligned with the HR strategy — The strategy is there for a reason and it should be followed. HR practices and initiatives should follow the strategy. Performance incentives should be connected with the execution of the goals– The idea of incentives or compensation is as old as HR itself. People will work harder if their goals and incentives are aligned. Strategies should be monitored & execution measured through KPIs — A strategy will never be effective without the consistent implementation of results. This is done through different KPIs (metrics that measure strategic goals) A strategy is a long-term plan — A strategy is, by definition, long-term. This doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to change. A strategy can and should be adapted to better fit the external environment.
How to Create an HR Strategy?
Here are 3 critical steps to creating an effective HR plan for your company.
1. Assess your current workforce
Your first step in strategic HR planning is to identify your current employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. This will include evaluating your employees’ strengths, education levels, and additional training or certifications he/she has completed.
Your personnel files will already contain a wealth of information needed to help monitor your employees’ talents and skills, such as:
Resume
Continuing education history
Performance appraisals
Projects completed
2. Create a succession plan
With business growth comes change. It’s inevitable. Whether it’s a shift in the executive team or a reorganization of departments, you need to be prepared. A succession plan will help you minimize disruption by identifying critical points in your business, and the employees who have the skills to immediately resolve these points.
You can choose to involve employees directly in creating your succession plan. This would mean having conversations with all of your employees to find out what their career goals are, and where they see themselves in the future.
3. Perform a gap analysis
A gap analysis helps you identify what resources your organization already has and what resources you’ll need in the future. When performing a gap analysis, you’ll assess the HR practices and infrastructure to determine where your company or employee is falling short.
When conducting a gap analysis, do take a look at your: | https://medium.com/aviahire/all-you-need-to-know-about-hr-strategy-b8712fa0dbf2 | [] | 2020-12-14 07:14:54.536000+00:00 | ['Business Functions', 'Research', 'HR', 'Corporate', 'Finance'] |
To Celebrate or Not? | I am not quite sure what to feel today, or what to do. I don’t see death like a lot of people, and to be honest, I’m still trying to feel my way into what I view it as.
For context, my dad passed away in August, 2ish months after his birthday. I felt this immense power gained the day my dad passed. He passed away around midnight and my mom and I went to go be with his body as the mortuary came to get him. They didn’t come until 3:00am and then we didn’t get home until 5:00am. Then I started calling people, and then people started coming over, and then we started making arrangements. Outside of coffee, I felt this crazy energy within me, and I couldn’t understand why. I felt comfortable sharing all parts with myself that I wouldn’t have normally shared with family and didn’t feel a sense of judgment from them like I worried I would. It’s like my dad’s energy, his strength, passed through me as he passed on…. but I had sense that my dad wasn’t “done,” he transitioned. He could be floating around, doing his thing, or he could becoming something else. For every physical death, there is physical life. I witnessed this with my mom’s birds that passed last Monday. The next day, the eggs hatched in the nest that was being built in our awning in the backyard.
With death, comes life. With life, comes death. It’s the cycle in this life. But what happens between the death and birth?
Ok, so, long winded context behind the question of “what do I do?” I love my dad. I know that my dad as he was is no longer. His birthday was the day his physical body was born, but now he’s no longer in his physical body — so do we still celebrate something that is no longer? Should I celebrate his life on his birthday? Should I celebrate his life on his death day? Do I celebrate everyday? I’m still feeling into it. And as I got to the bottom of this, it felt wrong to hold on to his body’s birth- it felt like I was holding onto him in that life and not allowing him to transition to his next life- and that I don’t want to do- I never want to hinder someone’s growth or transformation.
Today I made enchiladas, because it’s what I remember my dad eating when we would go out for Mexican food (shout out Alcapulco in Alameda!) or when mom would bring some home after work. While he would have had ground beef enchiladas, I opted for vegetarian because trying to minimize my meat in take these days. Also, going to watch some old home movies later with my mom… but my dad was usually the one behind the camera. So… while I didn’t say “happy birthday” today, I did eat some foods that my dad liked (food is big in our family). I didn’t get him a gift, I didn’t light a candle, but I celebrated him. I think that’s it… celebrate his life, doesn’t matter which day, as long as he is celebrated… and also, recognize the impact he had on my life — celebrate that. Celebrate the lessons. Celebrate the impact… but I don’t have to celebrate his birth, when his physical body is no longer. And that’s ok.
If you don’t agree, that’s ok. You’re entitled to celebrate life and death the way you like. How I celebrate doesn’t change or affect the way you celebrate… and both can coexist.
If you go to this point, thanks for reading. Would love to hear your views on birth, life, death, the transition, and the in-between. | https://medium.com/@leilaniwagner/to-celebrate-or-not-e788843fbbc6 | ['Leilani Wagner'] | 2020-05-20 21:28:49.765000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Birthday', 'Death', 'Transitions', 'Rebirth'] |
Working with Package Visibility | In Android, we are making changes to enhance user privacy and platform security to provide our users with a safer experience. Apps targeting Android 11 (API level 30) or higher will only see a filtered list of apps that are installed on a device. In order to access apps beyond that filtered list, an app will need to declare the apps they need to interact with directly using a <queries> element in the Android manifest. This blog post will go through best practices of how to adapt to this feature.
Querying and interacting with apps:
There are different ways to query and interact with apps:
If you know the specific set of apps that you want to query or interact with, include their package names in a set of <package> elements inside the <queries> element.
If your app needs to query or interact with a set of apps that serve a particular purpose, but you might not know the specific package names to include, you can list intent filter signatures in your <queries> element. Your app can then discover apps that have matching <intent-filter> elements.
If you need to query a content provider but don’t know the specific package names, you can declare that provider authority in a <provider> element.
We encourage data minimization by querying only for the packages you need to interact with. QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES or equivalently broad <intent> elements should only be used by apps that need this level of information. Our new Package Visibility policy introduces an approval process for the new QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission which controls access to the complete inventory of installed apps on a device.
Activity flags:
Most common use cases don’t require your app to have package visibility at all. For many scenarios, you can use startActivity() and catch an exception if there is no app that can open this intent.
While you can start any activity without visibility of the target, you can’t query for the availability of that activity before starting it or learn which specific app will be launched because it is an implicit intent. Instead, you will be notified when you start if it doesn’t resolve. If you want to be more selective about what opens, you can use flags.
A common example that uses flags is Custom Tabs, which allow a developer to customize how a browser looks and feels and have more control over the web content experience. Links will correctly open in non-browser apps if available, but flags help in advanced cases when developers want to be selective about handling the content in a native application before using custom tabs. In short, this flag helps a developer determine if there’s a native app to navigate to and from there they can handle it how they want.
FLAG_ACTIVITY_REQUIRE_NON_BROWSER
This flag only launches the intent if it resolves to a result that is not a browser. If no such result exists, an ActivityNotFoundException will be thrown and your app can then open the URL in a custom tab.
If an intent includes this flag, a call to startActivity() causes an ActivityNotFoundException to be thrown when the call would have launched a browser app directly or the call would have shown a disambiguation dialog to the user, where the only options are browser apps. To read more about flags, see Configuring package visibility based on use cases.
Customizing a share sheet
We recommend using the system share sheet instead of a custom one. You can customize the system share sheet without needing app visibility. Refer to this documentation for more information.
Debugging Package Visibility
You can easily check your manifest to see all queries included. In order to do this, go to your manifest file and choose Merged Manifest.
You can also enable log messages for package filtering to see how default visibility affects your app:
Next steps:
For more information on Package Visibility, check out these resources:
Happy coding! | https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/working-with-package-visibility-dc252829de2d | ['Meghan Mehta'] | 2021-04-01 18:13:03.627000+00:00 | ['Latest', 'Android', 'Android Developers', 'Android Privacy', 'Featured'] |
‘Learning’ the Stochastic Gradient Descent Algorithm | When it comes to machine learning and computers being able to learn and recognize patterns — similar to what our brains do, (which is why ML/AI fields are so related to neuroscience) we want to be able to increase the accuracy and efficiency of our prediction algorithm. This is so that the prediction gets better and better, closer to the target value we are aiming towards achieving.
Let’s compare this situation to a more human-related real life scenario. Suppose you are studying for an exam. You have a set study plan, and followed the points in your plan to prepare. Unfortunately, you weren’t too satisfied with your result, since your exam result was way off the targeted score you wanted to achieve. So, what do you do? Well, you would want to make some adjustments to your study plan in order to prepare for your next exam effectively and efficiently.
You would want to make adjustments based on what you think you should have worked on more, such as:
covering more broad topics next time,
reading over applications,
practicing more problems..etc.
You are doing this because you learned from your past experience, and are making some changes to perform better, and get a better result.
This is exactly what optimization in machine learning is all about. It’s about making these small adjustments to see if an algorithm’s accuracy is improving. The algorithm wants to get as close to the target value, and optimization techniques can allow us to choose and make adjustments to our paramaters of our machine learning model (also known as the weights), so the algorithm performs better next time.
One of the most well known optimization methods used today is called the Stochastic Gradient Descent (or SGD in short). How does this method work, and what certain adjustments does it make to our algorithm?
Before we add the word “Stochastic”
Before we dive into what Stochastic Gradient Descent is, lets take a look at what the term “Gradient Descent” means.
When we want to increase the accuracy of a machine learning algorithm, we are looking for our error difference. What is the difference betweeen the target value and the predicted value from our model?
Let’s say we had a model that outputs a numerical real valued number based on some arbitrary inputs. The predicted value (the value that is produced based on the model parameters) is 1.45. The actual target value is 3.32. This doesn’t look like a good ‘learning’-based model, since the target and predicted values aren’t too close. The error difference is then 3.32–1.45 = 1.87. We want the target value to be close to the actual value, so how do we get a good understanding of whether the algorithm is functioning terribly or well?
Cost Function
We can use a Cost Function to analyze the model’s ability to understand and learn patterns and relationships between inputs and outputs. A cost function is usually a function of the error difference, and our goal in machine learning problems is to MINIMIZE the cost function. There are many cost functions we can use to optimize models. Examples are Mean Squared Error (MSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and a lot of other more math-heavy trickier ones :)
Now we might be thinking — why can’t we just work with our error difference and minimize our error difference itself? Why do we have to work with a cost function? Our error function can also be negative — in this case it is ‘minimized’ in terms of the value, but, there still exists a huge difference between our predicted and actual values. So this is why we are going to instead focus on some function of our error, rather than just the error difference itself.
For instance, if we are focusing on improving a single linear neuron’s output prediction, (in a neural network), we will want to obtain a set of weights which will minimize the cost function. This means we will have to find the minima of the function — where is the lowest point of this particular function?
This neuron has three inputs and 3 associated weights for each feature. The output is then the dot product of the weights and inputs, which is then passed into an activation function, such as ReLU. Now, how would we essentially train our model to adjust our weight parameters to improve the accuracy? Since we use functions to get to the output of this neuron, we need to do just the opposite to backpropagate, i.e. go back change the weight parameters to perform better. This means we are gonna get into derivatives .
So we know that our cost function is technically a function of the weights, since computing the difference between the target and predicted value involves the predicted value, which involves the dot product of the weights and inputs. The main goal of gradient descent is to iteratively decrease the function of weights/cost function such that we find a set of weights for where the accuracy is maximized.
The Gradient and the Descent
We can first set arbitrary values to our weights, for instance, starting from 0. Then, from that point, we need to find out which direction to go towards in order to reach the minimum value of the cost function. The gradient of the cost function tells us exactly that. The gradient, also denoted with a upside down triangle, represents the slope of the function with respect to each weight. The gradient of the cost function is basically a vector of partial derivatives with respect to each weight (ex. w1, w2,..etc).
*Note: We are assumming this cost function is a strictly convex function, i.e. a function which has no more than 1 minimum point.*
When we are updating our weights, we subtract the gradient multiplied by the step size with the old set of weights. The w in the equation above is basically a vector of weights, in this case a vector of two weights w1, w2. The gradient is also a vector with the partial derivatives with respect to w1, w2. This process of updating the weights iteratively happens until the gradient is at or at most close to 0 (this will indicate it’s at a minima).
The step size basically tells us how fast is the iterative process towards convergence. For instance, a small step size will slow down the convergence process, and a large step size might lead to an infinite amount of iterations..,divergence, which is not good! That is why it is so important to find the right step size amount.
Back to the ‘Stochastic’
Ok, so now that we looked into Gradient Descent, what does the term “Stochastic” mean? Stochastic is all about randomness. What can we do to this algorithm that involves randomness though?
Though the Gradient Descent algorithm is very effective, it isn’t too efficient for huge amounts of data and parameters. The Gradient Descent algorithm updates weights only after only one complete pass of the training dataset. It would have to compute the gradient after every iteration (after one pass of all the training samples). With a large amount of features and weights, this can be computationally exhaustive, and time consuming.
The Stochastic Gradient Descent, or SGD introduces a sense of randomness into this algorithm, which can make the process faster and more efficient. The dataset is shuffled (to randomize the process) and SGD essentially chooses one random data point at every iteration to compute the gradient. So instead of going through millions of examples, SGD using one random data point to update the parameters. This computationally makes the algorithm a bit more efficient. Consequently, it can lead to excessive ‘noise’ on the pathway to finding the minimum. For example:
The Circle Maps represent the cost function, from the top-eye perspective or point of view. The path to finding the minimum point of the loss function looks very different for Gradient Descent and SGD.
The trajectory towards the minimum looks very different for both of these variants of Gradient Descent. For SGD, the path is heading towards the minimum with harsh, and abrupt turns (because we are using random samples to update weights), and the path for the Gradient Descent algorithm is more smooth, and direct since we are using all of the training samples to compute the gradient. This is a very interesting aspect that looks visually different for both the optimizers.
Applications
The Stochastic Gradient Descent algorithm is one of the most used optimization algorithms in Machine Learning. It is very popular in deep learning and neural networks as well!
The Gradient Descent Algorithm has applications in Adaptive Filtering (learning based systems), and is used to optimize the filter’s weights to minimize a cost value. An example of a particular Adaptive Filter is the Noise Cancellation algorithm in our headsets!! :) Thank you! 😊
Links for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_gradient_descent | https://medium.com/@aarushiramesh/learning-the-stochastic-gradient-descent-algorithm-6bb5617e28ec | ['Aarushi Ramesh'] | 2020-12-26 04:08:56.112000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Optimization', 'Algorithms', 'AI'] |
3 Best Practices for Setting Up Retainer Agreements | I landed my first freelance engagement when I was 21, and it was — to put it kindly — a complete ripoff.
I was writing an article for one of those clients more focused on penny-pinching than quality (every freelancer’s favorite) and ended up getting paid around $50 for a piece that took me 8–10 hours to research and draft.
To be fair, I was a newbie, and there are two things almost every new freelancer has in common:
They’re much slower at their craft than they will be after more experience, and They probably suck at pricing and negotiating.
I’ll be the first to raise my hand and admit to fitting in both of these buckets for longer than I’m proud of. That being said, we all move onward and upward, and I recently came across the holy grail of freelance agreements:
Retainers.
What is a retainer?
A retainer agreement is an agreement where one party — your client — retains accessibility to another party — you, the freelancer — on an ongoing basis.
For freelancers, this typically means selling future availability (perhaps at a discount) for a fixed monthly fee. Retainers are particularly great for:
Non-newbie freelancers who have gotten more efficient at their service offerings and the administrative sides of their business
People looking for somewhat predictable income — aka the freelancer’s version of “job security”
Anyone looking to skip all the extra steps involved with quotes, purchase orders, invoicing, and other bureaucracy for each individual project
Here’s one of my favorite parts about retainer agreements: they’re also often excellent for your clients. From their perspective, you — the freelance expert — are their trusted advisor. Every leader is only as good as their trusted advisers, and a retainer aligns incentives for both you and the client to maintain that relationship.
Think about it like this: if you were a full-time employee, you’d be your client’s direct report. You’d own a domain, and the more you deliver, the more responsibility you’d get.
Being a freelancer is no different — but since you work on a project basis, the risk is that when the client needs you, you’ll be busy.
A retainer is how to tell the client, “I appreciate you as a client and I want to ensure I can always put you as a top priority, so I’m willing to commit X hours a month to make sure you can come first.”
Mutually beneficial payment structures are the best, and it’s quite likely your client will appreciate 1) ongoing access to you when needed and 2) easier invoicing and predictable monthly costs.
Retainers aren’t the right fit for every freelancer/client relationship, but when used properly, they can save you tons of time and help you rapidly scale your business. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when setting up a win-win retainer agreement.
1. Invest time in properly estimating work volume.
The point of a retainer is to streamline the process of working together, so you’ll want to spend time thinking about how much work will be needed on average (usually per month). This could mean a certain number of deliverables, a productized service (e.g. ongoing maintenance to a website), or hours worked.
If I may play devil’s advocate for a moment: I am a recent convert to non-hourly freelancer pricing. After several years of pricing by hour, I finally came to recognize why this is something to steer clear of when possible.
Time = money, which is exactly why you should move away from your hours worked dictating your income as a freelancer. It’s difficult to scale if you’re continually working on an hourly basis, and using hours in a retainer agreement somewhat negates the benefits we discussed above.
All that being said, how you set up your retainer will depend on the type of work you do. For example, as a copywriter, I base mine on estimated # of articles needed per month. If you’re a social media manager, yours might be based on how many accounts you’ll run for your clients. The examples are endless.
(Pro tip: We have experienced freelancers from a huge range of industries currently beta testing Venture L. You can sign up to join the community here and tap into the peer mentorship vibe we’ve got going on!)
2. Choose a win-win pricing method.
There are several approaches to pricing retainer agreements:
Value pricing — With this method, experts recommend that freelancers charge 10% of the potential value of the service. For example, if I designed and wrote copy for an email campaign that would be sent to 10,000 subscribers, selling a $100 product, with a projected conversion rate of 1%, the value of the service would be $10,000. My copywriting retainer for that email would be $1,000, which I could multiply by the number of emails I’d be writing per month.
Anticipated labor pricing — This is a bit easier to estimate if calculating the potential value of a service is tricky for your business. With this method, freelancers work with the client to estimate how much work (deliverables, hours, etc) will be required each month. They then base the retainer fee on that estimate, with the understanding that some months will end up being more work and some will end up being less.
Baseline pricing — This doesn’t simplify invoicing at the end of the month as much as the other methods, but it’s a good approach to start out with if you’re just trying out retainers for the first time. For my first retainer, I chose a fee that would equate to approximately two articles per month, but chose to still charge per individual article. Essentially, this meant I had a certain amount of money guaranteed at the beginning of the month (my retainer), then added any additional work I did onto the next month’s invoice. Here’s some example copy from my contract:
By entering into this contract, The Client agrees the retainer does not constitute full payment for any services rendered by The Freelancer during that month. Each individual article will be billed at $X. The Freelancer agrees the retainer will go towards covering the fees for any individual project until the total for that month goes over the amount of the retainer. Beyond that point, the regular fee of $X applies. If the retainer covers the entire amount of work ordered by The Client during the month, The Client agrees the difference will not roll over into the next calendar month. All fees in excess of the retainer will be added to the invoice for the next month.
3. Protect yourself with a ‘kill fee’ clause, renegotiation & termination terms, and very specific scoping.
It’s important to protect yourself and your time in writing as a freelancer. This means thinking through every scenario and ensuring your retainer agreement is as specific as possible.
Kill Fees
We all change our minds, but it’s beyond frustrating when a client does so mid-project. Protect yourself from losing out on compensation you’ve already earned by including a ‘kill fee.’ Example clause:
If The Client decides to terminate or change any project already underway, The Client will submit to The Freelancer a written change order request. Upon termination of any work given by the The Freelancer:
The Client will agree to pay The Freelancer for all services performed prior to the change or termination before The Freelancer begins work on the new project. The fees for any partially completed, terminated project will be added to the next month’s invoice and will count toward the retainer.
Renegotiation & Termination
This doesn’t have to be as intimidating as it sounds. Sure, sometimes contracts need to be renegotiated because one side harmed the other or didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. However, it’s also very common with freelance retainer agreements to reevaluate the pricing, scope, and other aspects of the contract after a few months.
The whole point of the retainer is to benefit both sides, so if you’re working more or less than originally anticipated, adjust accordingly.
On the other side, ensure that both sides are also protected with terms for termination and notice periods. This is in line with the “job security” side of retainers. For example:
This Agreement may be terminated by either party upon 60 days written notice to the other party.
Scoping
What services are included within your retainer fee? Even if it seems obvious that something is (or is not), write it down. Also include pricing for “out-of-retainer” work — aka anytime something goes beyond the scope of your original agreement.
To Retainer or Not to Retainer?
Whether a retainer agreement is right for your freelance business is a choice only you can make. For myself, having transitioned from hourly pricing to project-based pricing to a hybrid of project-based and retainer, I can attest that the consistency it brings is hugely beneficial to both my monthly budgeting and my capacity planning.
Retainer agreements can be an optimal vehicle for moving away from transactional freelancing to relational freelancing. All that’s left to do is pitch it to your client! | https://medium.com/@venturel/3-best-practices-for-setting-up-retainer-agreements-af9a2c395e71 | ['Venture L'] | 2020-12-17 05:49:32.462000+00:00 | ['Retainer', 'Future Of Work', 'Freelancing', 'Contracts', 'Freelance'] |
Why do you believe in conspiracy. | Photo: The logic behind conspiracy — LA Times
In the world, some people believe in conspiracy theories and others don’t. People should not believe in every article or piece of paper they read or listen to. To believe something you should have academic proof to back it.
The fact is, people, avoid uncertainty because it is uncomfortable. People look for control about the reality and the life they live in, they have to find a reason in everything they do. The desire for controlling and understanding creates in the mind realities. These realities can be defined as conspiracy theories.
Before believing something always ask for evidence and proof.
There are three ways why people believe in conspiracies. These are Cognitive dissonance, Fundamental attribution error and Confirmation bias.
The Cognitive Dissonance is the people’s tendency to support their beliefs and reject information that contradicts these beliefs. The human being is unwilling to change their minds. One simple example can be how we all know that smoking kills and is harmful in the future but at the same time, we will believe that smoking helps us to not eat as much. Two clear contradictions, smoke kills but helps in reducing obesity?
Fundamental attribution error influence how people judge others, underestimate the environment’s situation and overestimate the personality factors such as attributing a person the wrong personality. For example, people assume actors’ personalities through the character they’re performing rather than by their real personality.
Confirmation Bias is a way of supporting our beliefs by rejecting contradictory evidence. If we think about social media, we can see that people tend to use known channels and sites to obtain the information that they want rather than unbiased sources of information.
Facts are not able to change our minds because we are protected by our own beliefs and thoughts.
References
Brehm, J. W., & Cohen, A. R. (1962). Explorations in cognitive dissonance. John Wiley & Sons Inc. https://doi.org/10.1037/11622-000
Forgas B., & Joseph P.(1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 75(2), 318–331.
Kassin, S. M., Dror, I. E., Kukucka J. (2013). The forensic confirmation bias: Problems, perspectives, and proposed solutions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Volume 2, Issue 1, Pages 42–52. | https://medium.com/@zanin-tecla/why-do-you-believe-in-conspiracy-30a45d600877 | ['Zanin Tecla'] | 2020-11-25 21:10:04.520000+00:00 | ['Social Psychology', 'Psychology', 'Belief', 'Conspiracy Theories', 'Fake News'] |
I am 40. I am pregnant. And I feel fantastic. | I am in no way an expert in pregnancy; I am currently 26 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and I find I am amazed every day with the new sensations, facts, and updates I learn. What I am an expert in, is my own experience of being 40 and pregnant, and it is undeniably nothing like I expected.
When thinking of conceiving at the age of 39, I did some research, which involved a google search that brought me into a world of fear and negativity. From statistics that showed how hard it would be to get pregnant to how being an older parent is exhausting to being called a “geriatric pregnancy.” I was blown away by the world of articles on conceiving, and the overwhelming sense that this was not going to be an easy, nor enjoyable, process.
My husband Mark and I were married in July of this year, and as we went on our honeymoon in our joyfully blissful bubble, conceiving was not on our minds. Had we discussed having children? Absolutely! Had we planned on beginning to try later in the year. Yes! But that would be after I downloaded many monthly tracker apps, invested in body temperature kits, and we both buckled in for a long and tedious process of monthly pregnancy tests and constant disappointment. That’s what one possibility could have been, and from the online reading I had done, it seemed a very likely part of the process for us. After all, I was 39 and considering having my first child. Although the timing to me felt right, I was inundated with articles and opinions of fear about how I waited too long, it wouldn’t be easy.
Mark, age 43, was always so positive about us conceiving, and never let the idea of it being difficult become a reality for him. He just knew when it was right, it would happen easily and in our own perfect way, just as other things in our life had worked out. When I breathed deep and felt connected to myself, I felt an overall sense of wellness and peace around conceiving, but unlike Mark, I couldn’t stop those statistics from creeping into my mindset.
I was sure that I was meant to be a mother, or a mother figure, in some way or another. I have endless love for my 2 nephews, and my friends’ children, and knew it was what I wanted one day. I was always open to options, whether it was IVF, or adoption, or fostering — for me everything was on the table.
It was to our surprise, and giddy delight, that two weeks after our honeymoon we found out we were pregnant. What? But what about what all the articles I read? What about all the statistics that were against me solely because of my age? An article in Today’s Parent explained, “ According to OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist Beth Taylor of Olive Fertility Centre in Vancouver, only about 50 percent of women age 40 to 43 will be pregnant after a year of trying, compared to 80 percent of women under 40. “Your odds are certainly declining at 35, but by 40 they really start to plummet,” she says.”
( https://www.todaysparent.com/getting-pregnant/trying-to-conceive/getting-pregnant-after-40/)
This was my first glimpse into a whole world of what I felt was false information that creates fear and stress for women, and the beginning of a journey where I found myself questioning so much information that is circulated around pregnancy and age.
Through this journey, I have experienced awe and wonder, frustration and anger, and a slow building of confidence in really trusting myself and my instincts. And I would not change a second of it.
Because of my age, and also because of a pre-existing congenital heart condition I was diagnosed with two years ago — hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — I am considered high risk. Not to mention we conceived in Mexico, having given no thought to Zika, which also moved us up the ladder of high risk. I have had many tests and scans, many of which I struggled with deciding if they were right for me. Genetic testing — how much did I want to know about what Mark and I may have a 25% chance of passing down to our children? We decided to pass on that one. We did take the Natera Panorama noninvasive prenatal screening test (NIPT) which would tell us if our baby had a genetic disorder, such as Down’s Syndrome or other Trisomy’s. After I gave blood for this test, I suddenly felt fear and panic set in. The nine days waiting for the results were the longest period of concern for me. I had such a feeling of well being about myself and the baby, and this was a lesson in letting those outward forces enter my inner world of well being. Any tests that we have subsequently been offered, I make sure to ask if they’re mandatory, and when possible Mark and I opt out. I absolutely want to make sure that my baby, and myself, have the best medical care, but for me, filtering through what is smart for our health vs. what is a fear-based test in which the results have no bearing on the path of the birth of our child, has become important to me.
Turning 40 during my 4th month of pregnancy was empowering and wonderful. I feel strong and healthy, and that I can do anything. Unlike so many articles I have read, my age has not had an effect on my experience at all. Perhaps it’s actually made it better as I am in a place where I am so ready for this next experience in life, I am confident in myself, my job, my financial situation, and my whole heart loves this baby already without hesitation or fear. I have lived abroad for 12 years in Ireland, traveled all over Europe, had many jobs and career paths, and countless adventures, friendships, and love stories. Having found my true life partner in Mark, I am more ready for this experience than I have ever been in my life, and I know the timing is absolutely right.
This is not to negate any woman’s experience where there have been challenges in conceiving and in pregnancy. I have many friends who have a variety of experiences, and I do understand the physical and emotional struggles many women go through. From infertility issues to miscarriages, the stress and pain that can be involved with conception and pregnancy are very real. In my experience, I want to offer a possible alternative example — one which I believe I share with many women, but for some reason, the fear statistics seem to win out when hearing stories of new mothers over the age of 40. The idea that age is such a limiting factor is often false, and new data is slowly starting to catch up to the reality of later pregnancies.
According to an article in The Telegraph, “Over-40s are the only age group with a growing pregnancy rate for the first time ever, new figures show.” Women are waiting longer to have children, and this increase in pregnancy rate in over 40’s will soon add to the data that is currently out there.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/27/older-mothers-rise-over-40s-become-group-rising-conception-rate/
Many women have shared their experiences with me, from morning sickness to aches and pains, to weight gain and judgemental doctors, to the pain of labor. Being pregnant brings out a want to share personal stories. I did indeed have morning sickness for the first 14 weeks, and it has not been all roses and sunshine. But, I feel strong and empowered, and in wonder of what is happening in my body. I love watching my belly grow, and my body change. Through this incredible experience, there is no room for body shame or hatred; I have never loved my body more. I am lucky that I have a practice of doctors that are supportive and always have a relaxed attitude. Weight, which seems to be of big concern in so many ways, whether it’s gaining too much or too little, has not been a topic they have focussed on. For the most part, either has age. One Dr. even celebrated my turning 40 and called it a rebirth for myself. I’m lucky that I find myself surrounded by many positive outlooks. Because of my heart condition, I am monitored closely, and I get frustrated at the number of extra tests I need — Echocardiograms, 24-hour heart Holter, stress test, etc. I do appreciate the care and detail in which the Dr.’s are monitoring me, but sometimes the tests get in the way of my sense of well being, and I just want them to get out of my path. All the results have been, “Everything looks great.” Which I already know, because I feel great, and I did not need a complex test to confirm it for me. In books and Apps that I have read, there is sometimes a tone of sarcasm that drives me crazy and I tend to block out — hinting at the next symptoms to come. “ And just wait for the heartburn to set in! Another joy of pregnancy.” I find these types of comments unamusing and unhelpful. Yes, some women experience that. But maybe not me. Maybe I won’t have any of those symptoms and I’ll continue to feel great. That is also just as likely an option and one I choose to focus my energy on. I have learned so far during this pregnancy how important it is to listen to the voice of my higher self, to really dig deep and check in with my intuition, and to create a sort of forcefield around myself. All those messages of fear and negativity can then simply bounce off. I am a big believer in manifesting my life’s experiences, and perhaps this outlook has played a part in my pregnancy. I awake every day grateful for my body, my baby, and all the love and wellness I feel, and I expect to feel good each day.
If you are someone who is hearing and reading messages of fear and scary statistics, do not let that deter you from what you want. If motherhood is something you would like to consider, don’t let an age number be the deciding factor for you. There are so many women in their 40’s having babies, and having healthy pregnancies. The pressure we feel about what to do with our lives, and in what timeframe, is overwhelming. Only you know what’s right for you — whether it’s not having children, waiting to a later age, being a working mother or stay at home mother, breastfeeding or not breastfeeding — women are faced with an enormous amount of judgment and guilt. You are the only expert on you, and you do not have to make life decisions based on anyone else. Listen to that loud voice of intuition and follow your own path, anything is possible. | https://medium.com/@lisajdaly/i-am-40-i-am-pregnant-and-i-feel-fantastic-55c6a8cb7bdc | ['Lisa Daly'] | 2019-04-01 23:15:03.979000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Women Health', 'Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Pregnancy'] |
The Station Wagon and Family Turmoil | The Station Wagon and Family Turmoil
I had a friend remark to me recently that she would never drive a minivan. I love minivans! They are very useful, especially if you have kids. They are much more useful than those old family cars of the 70’s — station wagons.
I am not picky about what I drive, I am more concerned with the vehicle getting me to where I want to go, but I guess I would prefer not to drive a big, cumbersome, gas guzzling station wagon.
A few days ago, I was driving home, and as I passed a driveway, I spotted a big old 1970’s era station wagon. I guess I have not seen one of those in a while, because I somehow noticed it.
Then I let out a big laugh. About twenty years ago, my sister was in the Coast Guard, and she and her husband, Neal lived in several places all over the world — California, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Guam…
It was in one of those places that Neal, who was not in the military, decided he wanted a car of his own. He just needed something cheap that would take him around town on errands.
My family was chuckling when we found out that this good looking guy in his twenties was driving around in a big old station wagon. It was not that we were being materialistic, we just found it funny. I would have done the same thing, if a station wagon was all I could find to drive.
I had a good laugh, thinking of Neal cruising around in a big, old station wagon. As I continued on my drive home, my laughter dissipated, and I suddenly felt a little sad.
Neal and my sister went on to have two children, both boys, then fight, separate, fight some more, and finally divorce. Neal went back to his native New York state, while my sister took the kids and ended up in Hawaii, where she retired from the Coast Guard.
Neal has not seen the kids since they were babies. He does not have a relationship with them, because the parents won’t get along. It is very sad, as every child needs two parents.
Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t people find the good in life, the things to laugh at, the things that bring smiles to our faces? Why can’t we concern ourselves with making others happy, instead of constantly demanding our own way?
I know a lot of people, and sadly, most seem to come from families with much dysfunction. I really do believe dysfunction is way more prevalent than love, as I hardly know any loving families, but I know plenty of unloving, dysfunctional ones.
I used to work for a family whose three grown daughters hated each other so much, they did not even want to be around each other. Where does such feelings originate? Shouldn’t parents be developing love among their children, not discord?
I know of several families where the parents actively turn their kids against one another, yet try to seem innocent of any wrongdoing. They then stand around, wondering why nobody gets along.
I grew up in that very same way, yet I have no desire to continue the dysfunction. I have pets, not children, but I did a very good job of getting them to love one another. Now, I have dogs, cats, chickens and a pet goat, and all are respectful of one another, and a few are even affectionate with each other.
It is all very sad, all of the lost relationships, the what-could-have-beens…and for what?
Life would be much happier for everyone if people decided to get along and respect one another. We could all be positive and happy, and enjoy things such as laughing at big, old station wagons. | https://medium.com/@cynmcb-56570/the-station-wagon-and-family-turmoil-c18a2d8eda99 | [] | 2020-12-24 20:09:43.965000+00:00 | ['Station Wagon', 'Divorce', 'Fatherless Children', 'Family Turmoil'] |
Republicans Finalize the Cover-up in the Midst of Damning New Evidence | Mitch McConnell loves it when a plan comes together. He had gotten his flock back in line after new information from John Bolton’s book was all over the news indicating among other things; Trump was intent on firing Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yokonovitch a year before he actually did, he knew Lev Parnas who he disavowed far more than three times, and the conspiracy included most of the senior members of the administration. Republican Senators; fearful of how their voters would respond, seemed on the verge of joining Democrats in sufficient numbers to allow for witnesses. That would ensure at minimum John Bolton would get to tell his tale although they were already planning to ensure the American public would never see it; keeping it behind closed doors and out of the reach of television cameras.
It would take four Republican Senators to open the floodgates for witnesses. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) were on the record as calling for witnesses. Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) seemed like the best bets to join them but McConnell was able to persuade them to stick with their Party, conscience be damned. Alexander released an extraordinary statement in which he acknowledged Trump’s guilt but felt the penalty was too severe.
“I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense. …The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.
“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. …Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” — Senator Lamar Alexander
Murkowski blamed the House of Representatives and partisan politics and decided there wouldn’t be a fair trial in the Senate; strange because Republicans had complete and utter control over every aspect of the process.
“I worked for a fair, honest, and transparent process, modeled after the Clinton trial, to provide ample time for both sides to present their cases, ask thoughtful questions, and determine whether we need more.
“The House chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed. I carefully considered the need for additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings of its process, but ultimately decided that I will vote against considering motions to subpoena.
Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.
It has also become clear some of my colleagues intend to further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray, while attacking the Chief Justice. I will not stand for nor support that effort. We have already degraded our institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another.
We are sadly at a low point of division in this country.” — Senator Lisa Murkowski
Having secured the votes to prevent witnesses, McConnell moved ahead with the proceedings on Friday, January 31st after having slowed things down to regroup; hoping to potentially end the proceedings by the end of the day. Sessions were planned to begin at 1:00 pm but more breaking news from two sources hit the fan.
A new purported release from Bolton’s book tells of President Trump asking for John Bolton’s help (then the Director of the NSA) in putting Ukrainian leaders in touch with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani. That happened in front of Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and White House Counsel Pat A. Cipollone who is currently leading the President’s defense in the Senate Impeachment Trial. That meeting took place months before the July 25th phone call previously thought to have kicked off the pressure on the Ukrainians to help Trump with his own political campaign.
Separately, Rudy Guiliani associate Lev Parnas wrote a letter to Mitch McConnell; not only offering to testify but naming names of those who were included in the Ukrainian scheme. They included; Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General Bill Barr, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Nunes adviser Derek Harvey, journalist John Solomon, pro-Trump attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, and America First, a pro-Trump super PAC.
News of these events spread through the Senate but Mitch had come too far to stop now. Any pretense of it not being a cover-up was gone as McConnell proceeded with the vote to hear more witnesses. Republicans carried the day, blocking additional witnesses, leaving only to decide tow to wrap up the proceedings and acquit the President. Even that didn’t go off without a hitch as Republican infighting brought the proceedings to a halt.
Many Republican Senators, realizing they looked exactly like they were part of a cover-up, wanted to have time during the trial to make statements to explain their position. While Alexander and Murkowski had made statements that were widely released, the rest of the group would be lumped together as having participated in the sham trial and needed to be able to tell their constituents something. The President and the White House wanted to get everything over with that night (Friday) which would allow the President to crow during his planned Superbowl interview with Sean Hannity on Sunday and be officially exonerated when giving his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. As currently scheduled, the final vote to Impeach or not will take place on Wednesday, February 5th, after all of that. Senators were left mulling around on the Senate floor while the defendant in the proceedings dictated to them how things would go.
Self-interest led the Senators to refuse the President’s demands and he won’t be cleared until Wednesday. McConnell made a resolution which passed along Party lines to “close the record.” That means that no new evidence that comes out between now and Wednesday can be considered and all there is left to do is let Senators take two days to make their statements and then vote on Wednesday. They chose to hear no evil so they can protect the President, who is still trying to rig the November election in his favor.
As far as Impeachment goes, the cover-up is complete. Unless whatever new information comes out between now and Wednesday is so damning and compelling that Republican Senators change their mind, it’s a done deal. But Congress has heard, the free press has heard, and the American people have heard, that as Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified during the House hearings, “Everyone was in the loop.” Nothing will stop them from digging into every individual involved, including the President, who still is facing hearings at the Supreme Court in March regarding the release of his finances. Chief Justice John Roberts presided over the Senate trial and listened to all the evidence of the President’s corruption. The last remaining question is whether the Supreme Court will be part of the cover-up as well? We will see! | https://democracyguardian.com/republicans-finalize-the-cover-up-in-the-midst-of-damning-new-evidence-e63a58bcc8ac | ['William Spivey'] | 2020-02-02 21:52:03.274000+00:00 | ['Donald Trump', 'Impeachment', 'Politics', 'Mitch Mcconnell', 'Senate'] |
Tracking the Worst Sci-Fi Movies With Angular and Slash GraphQL | I originally discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) by mistake.
In order to avoid missing a movie premiere on the HBO network, I set my VCR to record the program. However, when I started to watch the recording, I quickly realized I had recorded “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie” instead of the HBO premiere production. After recognizing the images of Mike Nelson and the two robots from years of scanning channels, I decided to give my mistaken recording a try.
After five minutes of watching the critiqued version of “This Island Earth,” I knew I was hooked. I was already in tears from gut-busting laughter. These guys were comic geniuses.
For those who have no idea what I am talking about, MST3K was an American television comedy series that ultimately ran for 12 seasons. At the heart of the series is a lead character who gets captured by an evil villain and shot into space, then forced to watch really bad movies. Along the way, the main character builds a couple robots to keep him company while watching these bad films. Their silhouettes can be seen in the corner of the screen as the subpar movies unfold. Their quite-comical observations poke fun of the production and make the series a lot of fun to watch.
Since I was still interested in doing more with Slash GraphQL, I thought it would be really cool for us to create a modern-day MST3K wish list. You know, in case the series were to be picked up again.
Selecting Dgraph’s Slash GraphQL
A graph database is an ideal solution when the source data handles recommendation and personalization needs. Such functional requirements often place the value of data relationships on the same level as the attributes which are being persisted. In this example, the use of ratings for a given movie title is just as important as the title attributes which will be analyzed and presented, making a graph database the preferred approach.
Since September, Dgraph has offered a fully managed backend service, called Slash GraphQL. Along with a hosted graph database instance, there is also a RESTful interface. This functionality, combined with 10,000 free credits for API use, allows us to rely fully on the Dgraph services. That way, we don’t have to introduce another layer of services between the graph database and web-based client.
Our technology stack will be quite simple, but effective:
Dgraph Slash GraphQL to house the data
Dgraph Slash GraphQL to provide a GraphQL API for accessing the data
Angular CLI to create an application for presenting the data
With service/storage choice set on using Slash GraphQL, our next step is to figure out how to get data for the project.
Getting Data From IMDb
Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has been my primary source of film data for the better part of twenty years. In addition to the details of any movie, there is a crowd-sourced five-star rating system available for each title. At a glance, the consumer can see both the average rating and the number of votes used to reach the current score. These data points will be perfect for our new application.
For the modern-day MST3K wish list, we’ll use the following criteria to build our list of bad sci-fi movies for consideration:
genre must include “Sci-Fi”
limited to movie types (exclude shorts, made-for-TV movies, series, etc.)
excludes titles with fewer than 500 ratings
We will focus on the bottom 125 of movies ranked by imdb.com.
IMDb Datasets
IMDb Datasets make subsets of IMDb data available to customers for personal and non-commercial use. On a periodic basis, a series of TSV files are available for download. Upon reviewing the list of files, two of those seem to fit our needs:
title.basics.tsv.gz — contains basic information for IMDb titles
— contains basic information for IMDb titles title.ratings.tsv.gz — contains the ratings and votes for IMDB titles
As one might imagine, these files are quite large — especially when extracted. We need a mechanism to filter these data source files.
Filtering the TSV Files Using Java
Using IntelliJ IDEA, I created a simple class which would accomplish the following steps:
read each line of the title.basics.tsv file
file determine if the line contains the “Sci-Fi” genre
if so, capture the title ID attribute as the key to a Map<String, String> and place the entire line as the value of the map
and place the entire line as the value of the map if any match is found, process the title.ratings.tsv file:
file: read each line of the ratings file and capture the title ID
if the title ID attribute exists in the Map<String, String> , add the rating and votes data to the value of the map entry
, add the rating and votes data to the value of the map entry create a new TSV file which contains the Sci-Fi title information, plus the average user rating and number of votes
Below is the very simple entry point into the Java program:
public class Application {
private static final String DEFAULT_GENRE = "Sci-Fi";
private static final String USER_HOME = "user.home";
private static final String DELIMITER = "\t"; private static final String TITLE_BASICS_TSV_FILE_LOCATION = "/downloads/title.basics.tsv"; private static final String TITLE_RATINGS_FILE_LOCATION = "/downloads/title.ratings.tsv"; private static final String DESTINATION_FILE = "/downloads/filtered.tsv"; public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
String genre = DEFAULT_GENRE; if (args != null && args.length > 0) {
genre = args[0];
} Collection<String> data = filterData(TITLE_BASICS_TSV_FILE_LOCATION, genre); if (CollectionUtils.isNotEmpty(data)) {
writeFile(data, DESTINATION_FILE);
}
} ...
}
The main filtering code is shown below:
private static Collection<String> filterData(String fileName, String genre) throws IOException {
Map<String, String> data = new HashMap<>(); try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(System.getProperty(USER_HOME) + fileName))) {
String string;
long lineNumber = 0; while ((string = br.readLine()) != null) {
if (lineNumber > 0 && StringUtils.contains(string, genre)) {
String firstItem = StringUtils.substringBefore(string, DELIMITER);
data.put(firstItem, string);
} logResults(lineNumber, fileName);
lineNumber++;
} if (MapUtils.isNotEmpty(data)) {
appendUserRatings(data, TITLE_RATINGS_FILE_LOCATION);
}
} return data.values();
}
The code to process the average rating and total votes TSV file is shown below:
private static void appendUserRatings(Map<String, String> data, String fileName) throws IOException { try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(System.getProperty(USER_HOME) + fileName))) {
String string;
long lineNumber = 0; while ((string = br.readLine()) != null) {
if (lineNumber > 0) {
String firstItem = StringUtils.substringBefore(string, DELIMITER); if (data.containsKey(firstItem)) {
data.put(firstItem, data.get(firstItem) + DELIMITER + StringUtils.substringAfter(string, DELIMITER));
}
} logResults(lineNumber, fileName);
lineNumber++;
}
}
}
Finally, the following helper methods were added:
private static void writeFile(Collection<String> data, String fileName) throws IOException { try (BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(System.getProperty(USER_HOME) + fileName))) {
for (String str : data) {
bw.write(str);
bw.newLine();
}
}
} private static void logResults(long lineNumber, String fileName) {
if (lineNumber % 10000 == 0) {
System.out.println("Completed " + lineNumber + " " + fileName + " records");
}
}
Locating the Bottom 125
With a filtered.tsv file now ready, we can use Microsoft Excel to narrow the data down to a manageable size of the 125 worst-rated Sci-Fi movies. Based on the Java program’s results, here are our columns:
id
titleType
primaryTitle
originalTitle
isAdult
startYear
endYear
runtimeMinutes
genres
averageRating
numVotes
The following actions were taken in Microsoft Excel:
only “movie” value for the titleType column
remove any values where isAdult is greater than zero
only items which have a value greater than or equal to 500 in the numVotes column
We can now sort the list by the averageRating column, where the lowest rating is at the top of the list.
Next, copy the top 125 records and drop this data into another sheet. Let’s also remove all but the following columns:
id
primaryTitle (which will become title)
startYear (which will become releaseYear)
runtimeMinutes
genres (which will become genre)
averageRating
numVotes (which will become votes)
To prepare for use by Dgraph Slash GraphQL, use the CONCAT function in Microsoft Excel to create a new column for each row of data which presents the data in the following JSON format:
{id:"tt5311054", title:"Browncoats: Independence War", releaseYear:2015,runtimeMinutes:98,genre:"Action,Sci-Fi,War",averageRating:1.1,votes:717},
At this point, the source data is ready for use by Dgraph Slash GraphQL.
Using Slash GraphQL
In the “Building an Amazon-Like Recommendation Engine Using Slash GraphQL” article, I walk through the necessary steps to create a free Dgraph Slash GraphQL account, which provides 10,000 free credits. Getting started is as simple as navigating to the following URL:
https://slash.dgraph.io/
Since I still have a significant number of credits available for my account, I decided to create a new backend service called bad-scifi-movies to house the data extracted from IMDb. This action provided me with a GraphQL Endpoint value in the Overview section of the Dgraph user interface, which will be referenced in the Angular client setup.
Next, the schema for the new backend service needs to be created. We’ll keep things simple — the Slash GraphQL schema is noted below:
The Movie object will house all of the data filtered from IMDb. For the sample application, the User object will contain a unique username and a list of really bad sci-fi movies seen by that user.
With the schema created, it is time to insert data into Dgraph Slash GraphQL. To insert the Movie data, that JSON-based column in Microsoft Excel needs to be copied.
Below, is an abbreviated example of the insert command:
mutation AddMovies {
addMovie(input: [
{id:"tt5311054", title:"Browncoats: Independence War", releaseYear:2015,runtimeMinutes:98,genre:"Action,Sci-Fi,War",averageRating:1.1,votes:717},
{id:"tt2205589", title:"Rise of the Black Bat", releaseYear:2012,runtimeMinutes:80,genre:"Action,Sci-Fi",averageRating:1.2,votes:690},
{id:"tt1854506", title:"Aliens vs. Avatars", releaseYear:2011,runtimeMinutes:80,genre:"Horror,Sci-Fi",averageRating:1.5,votes:1584},
... more JSON data here ...
{id:"tt0068313", title:"Brain of Blood", releaseYear:1971,runtimeMinutes:87,genre:"Horror,Sci-Fi",averageRating:2.9,votes:727},
{id:"tt1754438", title:"Robotropolis", releaseYear:2011,runtimeMinutes:85,genre:"Action,Adventure,Sci-Fi",averageRating:2.9,votes:1180}
])
}
Please note: at the end of this article, there will be a link to the GitLab repository, which includes the full list of 125 movies.
For the purposes of this example, we’ll utilize a single User object:
mutation AddUser {
addUser(input:
[
{
username: "johnjvester",
movies: [
{id: "tt0052286"},
{id: "tt0077834"},
{id: "tt0145529"},
{id: "tt0053464"},
{id: "tt0060074"},
{id: "tt0075343"},
{id: "tt0089280"},
{id: "tt0059464"},
{id: "tt0055562"}
]
}
]) {
numUids
}
}
Once all of the Movie objects have been inserted, the johnjvester User has watched a total of 9 of the 125 really bad sci-fi movies.
At this point, the new backend service is available for use at the GraphQL Endpoint noted in the Overview section of the Dgraph interface.
Adding the Movie Poster
Showing only the raw data for these movies would be okay, but when the application’s user switches from the list-view to the detail-view, we want them to see the movie poster for the title. However, the IMDb extractions do not provide this information.
Using Google, I was able to locate the open-movie database (OMDb) API, which just happens to contain a link to the movie poster. Additionally, the OMDb API allows for items to be queried using the same unique key which is used by IMDB. However, an API key would be required.
In order to show the movie poster in the Angular application, a free OMDb API key is required:
Visit http://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx to request an API key.
Select the FREE option and provide an email address.
Single-click the Submit button and follow any required follow-up steps.
Note the “Here is your key” value provided via email from The OMDb API.
Now, when combined with the source data from IMDb, adding the movie poster image is a small API request, which Angular can certainly perform without much effort. In reviewing the Slash GraphQL documentation, I later learned the API call to retrieve the movie poster could have been added to the Slash GraphQL schema using the @custom directive — making it included in the GraphQL query.
Creating the Angular Application
The Angular CLI is very easy to use. Our sample application will use the base component to serve as the view into the Slash GraphQL data. As one might imagine, this data would be presented in a table format. When the user clicks on a row in the table, a basic modal will be displayed, showing the full details for the title (including the movie poster) via the integration with the OMDb API.
Interacting directly with Dgraph Slash GraphQL is handled by a service called graph-ql.service.ts :
providedIn: 'root'
})
export class GraphQLService {
allMovies:string = '{queryMovie(filter: {}) {votes, title, runtimeMinutes, releaseYear, id, genre, averageRating}}'; @Injectable ({providedIn: 'root'})export class GraphQLService {allMovies:string = '{queryMovie(filter: {}) {votes, title, runtimeMinutes, releaseYear, id, genre, averageRating}}'; singleUserPrefix:string = '{getUser(username:"';
singleUserSuffix:string = '"){username,movies{title,id}}}'; constructor(private http: HttpClient) { }
baseUrl: string = environment.api; getMovies() {
return this.http.get<QueryMovieResponse>(this.baseUrl + '?query=' + this.allMovies).pipe(
tap(),
catchError(err => { return ErrorUtils.errorHandler(err)
}));
} getUser(username:string) {
return this.http.get<GetUserResponse>(this.baseUrl + '?query=' + this.singleUserPrefix + username + this.singleUserSuffix).pipe(
tap(),
catchError(err => { return ErrorUtils.errorHandler(err)
}));
}
}
The communication to the OMDb API utilizes the omdb.service.ts :
providedIn: 'root'
})
export class OmdbService {
constructor(private http: HttpClient) {
baseUrl: string = environment.omdbApi + environment.omdbKey; @Injectable ({providedIn: 'root'})export class OmdbService {constructor(private http: HttpClient) {baseUrl: string = environment.omdbApi + environment.omdbKey; getMoviePoster(id:string) {
return this.http.get<any>(this.baseUrl + '&i=' + id).pipe(
tap(),
catchError(err => { return ErrorUtils.errorHandler(err)
}));
}
}
The Angular environment.ts file includes a few custom attributes as shown below:
The API value should be replaced with the GraphQL Endpoint value for the backend service with Dgraph Slash GraphQL. The omdbKey is the unique value received via email from "The OMDb API."
When launching the Angular application, the following OnInit method is executed:
ngOnInit() {
this.graphQlService.getMovies()
.subscribe(data => {
if (data) {
let queryMovieResponse: QueryMovieResponse = data;
this.movies = queryMovieResponse.data.queryMovie;
this.movies.sort((a, b) => (a.title > b.title) ? 1 : -1)
}
}, (error) => {
console.error('error', error);
}).add(() => {
});
}
The GraphQlService is used to make a GraphQL API call to Slash GraphQL. That call, which eliminates the need to massage data in the Angular application, retrieves the list of 125 really bad sci-fi movies. The list is then sorted by title, by default.
When users click a movie, a modal opens and the following OnInit is executed:
ngOnInit() {
if (this.movie && this.movie.id) {
this.omdbService.getMoviePoster(this.movie.id)
.subscribe(data => {
if (data && data.Poster) {
this.posterUrl = data.Poster; this.graphQlService.getUser(this.username)
.subscribe(getUserResponse => {
if (getUserResponse && getUserResponse.data && getUserResponse.data.getUser) {
this.user = getUserResponse.data.getUser;
this.hasSeenThisMovie();
}
}, (error) => {
console.error('error', error);
}).add(() => {
});
}
}, (error) => {
console.error('error', error);
}).add(() => {
});
}
}
The OmdbService is used to retrieve the URL for the movie poster and the GraphQLService retrieves the list of movies for the user. The user data determines the value of the hasSeenThisMovie boolean attribute. The simple boolean will determine if the Mark as Watched button in the template will be active or inactive.
To make things appear a little nicer, try including the following packages in the Angular project:
@ng-bootstrap/ng-bootstrap: ^5.3.1
angular-star-rating: ^4.0.0-beta.3
bootstrap: ^4.5.2
css-star-rating: ^1.2.4
Running npm ci (or npm install ) made sure all the Node modules were installed. Now we can start the Angular application, using the ng serve command.
Using the Angular Application
With the Angular application running and the Slash GraphQL running, the following screen should be displayed:
Single-clicking an item on the list for a movie not seen by the johnjvester user appears as shown below:
Notice the Mark as Watched button is active.
Single-clicking an item on the list for a movie in which johnjvester has watched appears as shown below:
Notice the Mark as Watched button is inactive, since this movie has already been seen.
Conclusion
In the example above, we created a fully functional application using an instance of Dgraph Slash GraphQL and the Angular CLI. While the example provided here was on the simple side, the GraphQL features made available by Slash GraphQL allow for diverse and complex graph-database operations. This approach abstracted the design to not require use of any GraphQL libraries, resulting in a really nice GraphQL database backend from the Slash service that can be treated just like any other API. However, if additional needs are required which fall into the graph database realm (as found in my “Connecting Angular to the Spring Boot and Slash GraphQL Recommendations Engine” article), Slash GraphQL is ready to assist with meeting any functional needs.
This article has demonstrated that it is possible to leverage Slash GraphQL as both a data source and a service layer with your application. This could translate to impressive cost savings over the life of an application. When including the @custom directive, the Angular client no longer has to make a second call for the movie poster, which is handled and included in the payload provided by Slash GraphQL. In fact, the design of the application becomes simplified with the API key moving from Angular into the Slash GraphQL instance — which is a lot easier to secure from anyone with source control access.
If you are interested in the full source code for the Angular application, including the Java code referenced above, please visit the following repository on GitLab:
https://gitlab.com/johnjvester/slash-graphql-bad-scifi-movies
Current pricing for Slash GraphQL makes use of the service very attractive, at $9.99/month for 5GB of data transfer. No hidden costs. No costs for data storage. No cost per query.
Have a really great day! | https://medium.com/@johnjvester/tracking-the-worst-sci-fi-movies-with-angular-and-slash-graphql-1a937a1a4b57 | ['John Vester'] | 2021-01-22 11:16:29.795000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Slash', 'Angular', 'Dgraph', 'Integration'] |
Why Organizations Avoid Qualitative Research | (and how to change that)
Note: The Framing Your Study online course begins 16-Sep; four weeks. Bring your own study and use it for homework! I will review and guide homework.
Because the business world shuns uncertainty, quantitative data insights get twisted so that the conclusions sound like they were deduced, and their validity unimpeachable. Business research adheres to its cousin in the laboratory, where validity is determined by empirical evidence — which is a positivistic view. It assumes that human behavior is stable and static and can be measured the way the physical sciences measure things. But, positivism is not embraced universally in the social sciences, and it is certainly not compatible with inductive reasoning. So why do businesses automatically turn to positivism when trying to understand human behavior and reasoning?
Sometimes, it’s because people misconstrue the word qualitative and think of qualitative insights as data that has to be qualified with a phrase about how unreliable it is. Or they think of qualitative data as words which cannot be pinned down and measured. Or they have not been exposed to inductive reasoning or interpretivism.
Quantitative and qualitative data are different approaches to knowledge creation. Each has a spectrum of studies that goes from subjective to empirical.
With respect to the misconstrued word “qualitative,” both kinds of research have their “fuzzy” studies and their precise studies.
The state of things in academic research
When positivism was first extended to the academic social sciences, it met with opposition. The social sciences researchers supported constructivism or relativism instead, which mean many versions of the truth can be valid at once. Through the last three decades of the 1900’s, this “Science War” raged. Dr. Karl Fast, former professor of User Experience at Kent State University in Ohio, describes an early clash — a book written by Bruno Latour, Science in Action, which chronicled field studies about the way people work in science labs. Karl says, “The studies concluded that since laboratory experiments were conducted by teams who talked about the questions to ask and how to collect the data, science was ‘socially constructed’ — therefore not positivistic, itself. Social scientists were overjoyed to have scored a point against their more well-funded cousins doing research in physics, biology, etc.”
Then another landmark event happened in the late 1990’s. A pair of physicists wrote a “faux” paper and got it published in a peer-reviewed social science journal called Social Text. This paper said that in postmodernism, the idea is that our senses rely on interpretation, and the universe is something we construct from these interpretations. To postmodernists, laboratory science is about interpretation of what scientists sense, and conclusions are made through a social process. The paper the two physicists wrote was deliberately absurd, yet they made serious points, and the writing was internally consistent. Scandal, controversy, and embarrassment ensued. The authors eventually wrote a book about this event, called Fashionable Nonsense. In the end, a new theory gained support: post-positivism, which gives allowance for the fact that scientists doing empirical work can be influenced by other factors. Post-positivism holds that a single set of laws exist, but that we have imperfect knowledge of them. (See Dr. Anthony Yeong, independent researcher, Introduction to Business Research Methods.)
A summary:
Positivism — the only valid knowledge comes from verified, empirical evidence
— the only valid knowledge comes from verified, empirical evidence Constructivism — each person builds their own understanding of reality, so many versions of the truth can be valid at once
— each person builds their own understanding of reality, so many versions of the truth can be valid at once Relativism — there is no one truth, but it depends on context and the person beholding it; people behold and interpret reality differently (See Podcast by Oliver Kim, “On Relativism and Constructivism.”)
— there is no one truth, but it depends on context and the person beholding it; people behold and interpret reality differently (See Podcast by Oliver Kim, “On Relativism and Constructivism.”) Postmodernism — our senses rely on interpretation, and the universe is something we construct from these interpretations
— our senses rely on interpretation, and the universe is something we construct from these interpretations Post-Positivism — a single set of laws exist, but we have imperfect knowledge of them
Qualitative research is not post-positivistic
Cognitive empathy work falls under constructivism and relativism. (See paper by Valerie Malzer and Sarah von Schrader of Cornell University.) You gather data, which lead to patterns, which give you insights, which are probably correct, but which will have exceptions. In turn, these insights help you guide your choices toward a few better directions than what you had before. These choices can’t be proven as “right,” but have a high probability of improving different dimensions of how you support people.
Sam Ladner writes in her book about Mixed Methods that there is another term in use. Interpretive flexibility acknowledges that people change the way they see things, which is embraced as a part of qualitative data analysis.
Interpretivism — knowledge of social reality is created by exploration of subjective meaning w/in a person’s own frame of reference
Know & teach the difference
Now you have the explanation for why business seems to avoid qualitative research. It follows the historic tendency that natural sciences to get better funding and respect in the academic world. Social sciences tend to be the poor cousin–but not due to less rigor or validity in their work. It’s due to different underlying philosophies.
If you can clarify this difference to your peers, stakeholders, and leaders, it will help them understand. Hopefully it will pave the way to less resistance to your requests to spend time on qualitative research.
Understanding the people you support is a valuable way to improve your offerings and the role you play in the market. Lobby for splitting some budget off from researching your solution to put toward researching the problem space. | https://medium.com/inclusive-software/why-do-organizations-avoid-qualitative-research-4dd18716d357 | ['Indi Young'] | 2020-09-12 00:47:40.829000+00:00 | ['Problem Space', 'Pitching Research', 'Qualitative Quantitative', 'Persuading Stakeholders', 'UX Research'] |
Young People Are About to Get Rich in a Massive Transfer of Generational Wealth | Young People Are About to Get Rich in a Massive Transfer of Generational Wealth
It’s weird to think about, but consider how money you’ll inherit plays into your personal finance today and when you’re old Vani Dec 3, 2020·11 min read
Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash
Typically, when you click or tap on an article about young people and their relationship with money, the author proceeds to shit on young people.
That will not happen in this article. In fact, I intend to do the complete opposite.
I’m a staunch proponent of people younger than me.
As a proud member of Generation X (I missed being a millennial by six years), people in their 20s and 30s generally inspire me. They keep me focused on the present and what I want to accomplish in the future, using the past as little more than an informed lens into how to be better and help make it all happen.
I regret briefly jumping on the bandwagon that lamented a surge in millennial interest in the stock market this past Spring into Summer. I reconsidered my position and realized that this dissing of young people by mostly older people (white men, in particular) isn’t helpful or nuanced.
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http://isra.org/dnf/Lud-v-Ant-pfk-02.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Lud-v-Ant-pfk-03.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Lud-v-Ant-pfk-04.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Lud-v-Ant-pfk-05.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Dn-v-Fe-hr-01.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Dn-v-Fe-hr-02.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Dn-v-Fe-hr-03.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Dn-v-Fe-hr-04.html
http://isra.org/dnf/Dn-v-Fe-hr-05.html
http://trob.be/qbc/v-ideo-Standard-fcb-01.html
http://trob.be/qbc/v-ideo-Standard-fcb-02.html
http://trob.be/qbc/v-ideo-Standard-fcb-03.html
http://trob.be/qbc/v-ideo-Standard-fcb-04.html
http://trob.be/qbc/v-ideo-Standard-fcb-05.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Boy-v-Rom-wcq-01.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Boy-v-Rom-wcq-02.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Boy-v-Rom-wcq-03.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Boy-v-Rom-wcq-04.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Boy-v-Rom-wcq-05.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Gent-v-Liberec-dfb-01.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Gent-v-Liberec-dfb-02.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Gent-v-Liberec-dfb-03.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Gent-v-Liberec-dfb-04.html
http://trob.be/qbc/Gent-v-Liberec-dfb-05.html
In May of 2020, CNBC published one of dozens of stories detailing the millennial move into the stock market. They were doing — no doubt — some dumb things, such as day trading, chasing momentum stocks, and speculating on bankrupt or near-bankrupt stocks:
Michael Krause, chief investment officer at Counterpoint Mutual Funds, said this strategy may not be a safe long term bet. “Robinhood investors are making all the classic mistakes in the short term. May work for today’s market, but not in the long-run if repeated.”
But they also made incredibly smart moves:
With the major inflow of new market participants, the market chugged higher, led by the companies young people know and love… TD Ameritrade investors “have been doing a pretty good job choosing technology stocks,” said Kinahan. “In this last month, Apple was one of the stocks that stood out in terms of millennial clients compared to our overall client base and Apple performed pretty well in that time frame.”
I scoff at the guy warning Robinhood investors like they’re children.
Young investors took some fliers. But they also bought pandemic plays — from Apple to Amazon and Peloton to Zoom — that will stand the test of time and, by and large, turn out to be solid long-term investments. It’s no different, in theory, than your baby boomer parents buying companies such as Coca-Cola and Emerson Electric 50 years ago.
But here’s one thing the people chiding the millennial generation fail to take into account. I’ll let a recent article in The Economist do the honors:
The young acquire wealth by inheriting or earning it. Already more than a third of America’s labour force is millennial and they have been the largest cohort since 2016 (even though some are still in education). Bank of America Merrill Lynch reckons that, worldwide, their earning power will rise by nearly three-quarters in 2015–30 as more start work and others gain seniority. Inheritance flows are set to speed up. The population structure in most rich countries bulges outwards for the baby-boomer generation and then again for their children, many of whom are millennials. Every five years $1.3trn in investible assets, or 5% of the stock, passes down the generations in America. The pace of the wealth transfer will probably double by 2036–40 as boomers die. According to Cerulli Associates, a research firm, millennials will inherit $22trn by 2042.
In other words, as old people (such as our parents) die, young people (such as Gen Xers and millennials) — all things equal — inherit their money. For many investors, say under age 50 with living parents, this changes the game.
It’s a somewhat psychological thing. If you’ve read my writing more than once, you know I’m obsessed with the psycho-emotional components of how people act and react with money.
As I noted in a recent Making of a Millionaire article:
This is the direction personal finance needs to head. Looking at what motivates people to make money decisions others simply can’t make sense of.
If you know you’re going to inherit money — even if you can’t be sure when — it’s going to change how you handle money in the here and now. It might be a cold thing to think about. But the fact is people die. When this happens, offspring often receive financial windfalls — be it cash or a home they can sell for cash or close to it.
For example, I have a pretty good idea how much money I stand to inherit when my parents pass away. My dad just turned 86. My mom is 73. Here’s hoping the inevitable doesn’t happen for a good 20 or 30 years (knock on wood!). But it’s going to happen. Even if I don’t run around thinking about it every day, the relative certainty of receiving what will probably be somewhere in the low-six figures plays into my long-term financial planning.
It has to.
I’d be stupid to ignore it.
The millennial generation, who, according to the above-linked The Economist article, will inherit $22 trillion by 2042 would be stupid to ignore it also.
How does this impact us?
First and foremost, it’s just another example that we should not place our personal finance and investing focus on traditional conceptions of retirement. If I am pretty confident, I’ll receive, say, $250,000 by the time I’m 65 via inheritance, I should work this assumption into how I spend, save, and invest over the next 20 years.
I could consider that money gravy. Because who knows? My parents could blow it, have less wealth than I think they do, or have mortgage-related debt I don’t know about it. In this scenario, you don’t want to count on this money.
However, if you know your parents live free and clear (or close to it), you can shift focus from conventional approaches to retirement savings to how to live your best personal finance life now. You can allocate your cash flow to satisfy your needs and wants today and in the near-term rather than obsessing over how much money you’ll have at some magical and mystical retirement age.
I explain ways to do this here:
And here:
I hesitated to introduce this subject into our personal financial equation. It’s an uncomfortable subject to bring up. For legitimate reasons, we don’t want to think about our parents dying. We also don’t want the same old white male critics to brand anybody younger than them who does things differently than them as lazy and “making all the classic mistakes.”
You lack work ethic! You not only burden your parents by moving back in with them, now you’re going to rest on the assumption of an inheritance!!
At the same time as I experienced this hesitation, I was reading research and articles like the one from The Economist about the wealth transfer millennials can expect to receive. It’s real. We’re not all going to inherit money. Some of us will inherit way less or much more than others. As with anything else, assess and anticipate your situation and plan accordingly.
Treat it like Social Security. You’re not going to rely on it. However, you shouldn’t act as if it doesn’t exist. Cynics argue that Social Security will not be around for millennials or even Generation X. This is alarmist bull.
You can literally go online right now and see how much money you’ll receive each month based on your earnings history and age you intend to collect. Most of us will collect one or two thousand dollars per month somewhere between 62 and 70 years of age.
If I can reasonably assume $2,000 a month starting in my 60s alongside a lump sum of $250,000 (which I can hypothetically pay out to myself at a rate of $12,500 a year over 20 years), I need to consider it in conjunction with everything else I’m doing now.
Even if it happens on a subconscious level, I think many young people realize this eventuality. And it influences how they manage their money today. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this.
While I expect my daughter to create a life and attendant personal financial plan of her own as she heads into adulthood, I’m also saving for her. I’m accumulating wealth on her behalf that she can use when she needs it and inherit when I’m dead.
At age 17, she knows approximately how much money she stands to have access to when she turns 18. This factors into her college-related plans. It’s no different for her to look ahead to how much wealth she can expect to inherit from me as she starts making longer-duration plans.
There’s also a flip side to this. Not every young person will participate in this transfer of wealth. Some boomers have nothing to pass on. Or they will not pass it on for myriad reasons. If you’re in this situation, strategize how you spend, save, and invest now through that reality.
The millennial generation is smarter — and savvier — than (relatively) old people give them credit for. They know a massive wealth transfer lies ahead. Don’t look down on them for having the foresight to take this into account as they live their presents and plan their futures.
Author’s note: This is merely my take. I stress my “take.” This would be an awesome area to conduct rigorous survey research in to test my hypothesis. Much of the research that exists comes from self-interested parties and doesn’t give millennials credit for taking into account what could get in the way of a healthy inheritance (e.g., parents outliving their money, taxes, philanthropy, greedy siblings).
This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.
Sign up for Making of a Millionaire Weekly Newsletter | https://medium.com/@vani_12343/young-people-are-about-to-get-rich-in-a-massive-transfer-of-generational-wealth-c8e3cb1d9be6 | [] | 2020-12-03 17:29:27.198000+00:00 | ['Millennials', 'Money', 'Investing', 'Saving'] |
Top 4 Marijuana Stock To Watch This Month | The first quarter for the cannabis industry has been a bountiful one, while the stock market is also off to its strongest start to the year since ’91. The broad-based S&P 500 (SPY) tacked on 13% for the first quarter, but the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, a basket cannabis stocks, grew 54% in the same period.
The North American legal cannabis market generated $12 billion last year, and analysts predict that the market will reach $25.5 billion by 2021, according to a report by Cannabis Business Plan. The growth can be contributed to increased legalization and the increased use of cannabis in medical applications. As the cannabis sector continues to grow, investors continue to place their bets on several cannabis stocks.
ParcelPal Technology Inc. (PTNYF) (PKG) (FSE: PT0), a technology-driven logistics company purposed with connecting consumers to the goods they love within an hour, announced cannabis deliveries with Vancouver-based cannabis brand Kiaro will launch in Saskatchewan on April 15th. The two companies have completed integrations and have been actively marketing the on-demand cannabis delivery service. ParcelPal also has a cannabis distribution agreement inked with adult and medical cannabis company Choom Holdings, Inc. (CHOOF).
President and CEO Kelly Abbott stated,”We are extremely excited to go live with our first partner in the cannabis space, Kiaro. Customers no longer have to wait for upwards of a week to safely receive their product. We are now one step closer to becoming the Uber of Cannabis in Canada. I would like to thank both the ParcelPal and Kiaro team for all the hard work completing this project for our upcoming launch. We will also be rolling out several verticals in the month of April within the city of Saskatoon. We look forward to expanding into additional cities in Saskatchewan and beyond with Kiaro.”
Towards the end of March, ParcelPal announced it had achieved a major milestone of completing 2 Million deliveries. The company will be hosting an investor update conference call on May 17th to review recent progress and stated will be releasing its quarterly financial statements for Q4 FY2018 by April 30, 2019.
Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB), a world leading cannabis company, announced an update on the status of Aurora Sun, its latest and largest Sky Class facility, which is currently under construction in Alberta. To support rapidly growing global demand for high-quality medical cannabis, the facility will be expanded to 1.62 million square feet, a 33% increase from its original plans. Aurora predicts that production capacity at Aurora Sun will be more than 230,000 kg of high-quality cannabis annually.
“Aurora Sun represents the next evolution in our Sky Class facility design, delivering massive scale, low cost production, and consistent, high-quality cannabis,” said Terry Booth, CEO. “The increased scale of Aurora Sun reflects our expectations for the long-term growth in global demand, especially the higher margin international medical markets which will be faced with significant supply shortages for the foreseeable future. Sun is also designed with flexibility in mind to enable us to quickly meet changing market demands, particularly as breeding and cultivation technologies evolve and as customer preferences and requirements change.”
Following the announcement of the addition of activist investor Nelson Petlz in March, Aurora most recently hired Carey Squires as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy to focus on global growth and partnership strategies and investor development.
Valens GroWorks Corp. (VGWCF) (VGW.CN) is a multi-licensed, provider of cannabis products and services focused on various proprietary extraction methodologies, distillation, cannabinoid isolation and purification. The company recently entered a two-year agreement to provide hemp and cannabis extraction services to The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (TGODF). The agreement details, TGOD will supply Valens with an annual minimum of 30,000 kilograms of cannabis and hemp biomass for Valens to process into quality resins and distillates for TGOD to then use to produce oils, sprays, edibles, beverages and topical products.
“We are excited to work with TGOD, Canada’s premier certified organic producer,” said Tyler Robson, CEO of Valens GroWorks. “Organic resonates with consumers, and Valens looks forward to helping accelerate TGOD’s time to market with the launch of its hemp-derived CBD product line in the coming months.”
This followed the news of Valens inking a two-year deal to provide cannabis and hemp extraction services to Tilray Canada Ltd. (TLRY) to receive and process the cannabis and hemp on a fee for service basis into crude, distillate or other cannabis oil derivatives prior to shipping the desired product back to Tilray for final processing and sale.
New Age Beverages (NBEV), a health-focused organic and natural beverage company, announced it has expanded its Marley brand’s partnership with Walmart (WMT). The deal represents the its first national account penetration and shipments of Marley brand coffee and relaxation drinks have begun to Walmart distribution centers across the US.
Craig Thibodeau, VP of Key Accounts commented, “This is such a great accomplishment for New Age to gain its first national distribution, and to do so with the world’s largest retailer in Walmart. This is just the first initiative that we expect to do with them on the Marley brand and other New Age products on which we are in active discussions. We know Walmart is equally as committed as New Age to providing healthier products for their customers, and we expect to make the full portfolio of New Age’s better-for-you products available as we expand the relationship.”
New Age recently has filed a registration statement with the SEC to issue common shares, preferred shares, warrants, and units totaling $200 million. The company intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions and working capital, according to the company. | https://medium.com/@mrsmallcap/top-4-marijuana-stock-to-watch-this-month-25742b84a4dc | ['Small Cap Reporter'] | 2019-04-11 13:28:36.734000+00:00 | ['Stock Market', 'Stocks', 'Marijuana', 'Investing', 'Cannabis'] |
8 Questions to Ask Your Content Marketing Agency | 8 Questions to Ask Your Content Marketing Agency
Managing the many components of a marketing strategy and ensuring it becomes successful is a lot to handle. How can one organization possibly keep an eye on every factor between social media management, e-mail marketing campaigns, and, especially, SEO? Hence, why hiring a content marketing agency is becoming the new norm with 73% of major organizations having someone manage their content marketing strategy.
Keep in mind too, not every content marketing agency is created equal. Remember this when you’re on the prowl to find that perfect match; the one who will boost your domain authority and organic traffic. Here are eight questions to ensure you evaluate a partner that will help deliver relevant, engaging content and a strategy built on data and insight.
1. What is your experience in our industry?
If the content marketing agency has had previous clients within the industry, they will have a solid understanding of what makes for compelling content, provide access to thought leaders, and open opportunities for industry resources.
However, industry knowledge doesn’t make or break a decision to hire. It’s just one of many factors to consider. If a client hasn’t had experience in the field, they should offer up some legitimate tools and data-driven strategies. The demand for content is at an all-time high and quality ranks over quantity so their explanation is essential.
They should provide insight into:
What tools are going to be used to source content or secure opportunities for your team on high ranking sites?
How they will conduct keyword research within the industry, along with long-tail keywords, and potential seasonal keywords or topics?
What tactics will be used to benchmark your content strategy against your competitors and the overall industry?
2. What strategies did your content marketing agency implement for your own brand?
Before you sign that retainer, take a step back from your business marketing goals and ask a prospective agency about theirs.
How did they decide to take on a specific strategy?
Do they keep up with the trends?
What have been the results of their own marketing efforts?
What key lessons have they learned from using their tactics to their business?
A digital marketing agency who practices what they preach is a good sign that they believe in the tactics they’re selling. They should be able to demonstrate that they are their marketing practices’ best case study.
3. What would be your process for helping us meet our marketing goals?
Instead of asking about how they are going to help you accomplish your goals, be more exploratory in your question by asking about the specific process.
It’s easy for an agency to answer back that they are going to help you come up with a sound marketing strategy if you ask how. On the other hand, asking about the process itself will yield more insights on the details of the strategy. If an agency cannot articulate their process in detail including the tools required and the frequency of interaction with your team, consider looking elsewhere.
4. How does your content marketing agency plan to work with our team?
The marketing agency you hire should be able to communicate what needs to be done, but they also need to educate you on how to effectively manage your marketing. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
For your campaigns to truly succeed, the agency of your choice should be able and eager to train your in-house team on the basics. This could include training your team to use automation platforms or interpreting data from the analytics software that they recommend.
Furthermore, an agency who is truly involved in helping you grow your business understands that your team’s subject matter expertise is a critical piece of the puzzle. How will they communicate with your subject matter experts? How often?
5. What tools do you use to gather data to strategize?
The agency should respond with a variation of web analytics, social media analytics, SEO analytics, marketing automation, blogging, and CMS tools all within arm’s reach to start.
Here’s a sample of what some of these tools are and their purpose:
Moz: Ranking, keyword research, SEO campaigns
SEMRush: Tracking keywords across both paid and organic channels
Google Analytics: Tracking organic traffic, along with other marketing channels, and Search Console queries
Hubspot: Marketing automation platform
6. How does your content marketing agency define and measure success?
Based on the tools and strategies they use, the agency should be able to communicate what they define as “success.” There’s more to creating the best call-to-action on your landing page or picking the right font size for your homepage. The marketing agency you work with should be able to to support their recommendations with data.
When talking with a prospective agency, ask questions on benchmarks, metrics, and analytics. Aside from asking on what should be measured, inquire on how often the report on progress should be made towards these metrics. What adjustments can be made if data indicates that the campaign is not working?
Lastly, when will you see results? Be wary of digital marketing agencies who promise that you can expect substantial ROI in a short span of time. Marketing efforts founded on inbound takes time to yield positive results. However, once you’ve built a mean inbound machine, you’re in it for the long haul. Think of it as a long-term investment with compounding interest.
7. What do you and your team know about us?
You should probably ask this question at several points along the process. When you first meet with them, see what research they’ve done in advance about you and your company. Find out what they know about your products and services, your industry, your key customers, your role, etc.
Allow them to show you that they’ve done their homework too and are proactive about learning about their client. And if-after meeting with them and describing your needs-you permit them to assemble a quote, see how much they actually paid attention to the uniqueness of your company. Make sure they didn’t just cut-and-paste a strategy for you. You want an agency that is willing to pour into your brand like you do.
8. What do others have to say about you?
Ask for a list of contacts of the firm’s current AND past clients. You’ll want both because the contacts from their current clients will undoubtedly be their biggest cheerleaders. Of course, they may be hesitant to share past client’s contact info, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Plus, you may be able to find that info yourself by perusing their resources page. | https://medium.com/@keyholemktg/8-questions-to-ask-your-content-marketing-agency-c67c9792940e | ['Joe Dudeck'] | 2020-12-31 17:40:45.308000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Small Business Marketing', 'Marketing Agency', 'Team'] |
Trading in the age of Blockchain | You’re in a cab, you listen to a mutual fund advertisement. You’re flipping channels on TV, you watch a bank’s investment plan advertisement. You’re reading the morning newspaper, you see a government bond’s advertisement. But that’s not all. You’re talking to a friend, and she tells you how investing in the stock market will reap tremendous returns.
All these people who suggest different instruments for you to invest in are practically unaware of the revolution called blockchain. They might have heard of Bitcoin somewhere, sometime but don’t really know anything about it. Isn’t it some sort of a digital currency, they’ll ask.
Don’t be like them.
The age of blockchain
The world is going to change the way it acts: how financial institutions work, how organizations conduct business, or how governments govern. Everything is going to change, all because of blockchains. In fact, the change has already begun.
Blockchain is a digital distributed ledger of transactions which are maintained chronologically and publicly across an entire network in clusters called blocks. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (like Ethereum or Ripple) are built atop this foundational technology. Think of blockchains as the new internet and the new trust protocol. If information is available with everyone, no one needs an authority to stamp authenticity. The trust on transactions, identity, or assets comes intrinsically on a blockchain.
Cryptocurrencies are rad
Although blockchain finds applications in almost any real world scenario, the first and foremost use case of the technology is being seen in cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, is just 8 years old. At the moment of writing this article, 1 Bitcoin = $2,760. From January 2017 to June 2017, the price has increased more than 2.7 times. No other instrument offers such kind of return in such a short span of time.
Another popular cryptocurrency, which is taking Bitcoin for a run, is Ethereum. At the moment of writing this article, 1 ETH = $255. From January 2017 to June 2017, the price has increased more than 30 times. Be it for short-term or long-term, trading in cryptocurrencies is the new trend where people are making tons of money.
The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies now exceeds $100 billion, and that figure is probably going to double itself every few months. Interesting fact: a Norwegian man invested $27 in Bitcoin in 2009 and the invested value became $886,000 in 2013. Imagine!
Trading in cryptocurrencies
But how do you really trade in cryptocurrencies? To get hold of some Bitcoins (BTC) or Ethers (ETH) or Ripples (XRP), you will need an exchange that accepts your old, boring fiat currency and converts them into new, exciting cryptocurrency mentioned before. A cryptocurrency exchange offers the platform where people can buy, sell and trade in various cryptocurrency markets.
Taking the form of a complete investment instrument, there arise speculations, analyses, trends, forecasts and bets as part of this exhilarating new domain. Cryptocurrencies are being traded at a faster rate than ever before, with new exchanges coming up in different parts of the globe every single day. But this is just the start. The entire concept of a cryptocurrency is to break all barriers and establish a new world order where transferring money and making payments should not take 2–3 days, but just 2–3 seconds. | https://medium.com/koinex-crunch/trading-in-the-age-of-blockchain-2d9ea62554df | ['Team Koinex'] | 2017-08-15 02:11:49.824000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Ethereum', 'Team', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
2. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions… 1 trillion in a lifetime | Dionne England & Sarb Parhar
What’s common between human decisions and an iceberg?
Both are enigmatic. Like an iceberg, most of the the human decisions are hidden below the conscious (water) level. The decisions are made hidden away from conscious awareness and we are left to rationalize them only after the fact.
In this article, we will dicuss the nature and importance of decision making process.
Enigma…
What is your decision-making methodology? Do you know, how do you make decisions? Do you list out the pro’s and con’s and go with whichever list is longer? Do you canvass the input from trusted family and friends? Do you procrastinate long enough that the decision is made for you? Do you let few things fall in favor of others? If yes, which one are treated as not important? We all have strategies we tend to rely on to figure out what we should do.
If you’re like most of us, we pay attention to the big decisions we need to make in our life, for example, for my post-secondary education do I want to go to a school in town or out of town? At work we deliberate over new hires and usually have a custom scoring process to ensure we are assessing each candidate fairly and making an objective hiring decision. When we seek funding within our organization for our projects, there are standard internal equations that allow the organization to objectively compare very different initiatives and select the best projects to invest in financially.
These are large, structured decisions that we make as a professional. We tend to allocate time to deliberate. We schedule meetings to gather team members to brainstorm on strategies and options.
These decisions are big because once the decision is made its cumbersome to change our mind. Once you make a job offer, there is a probationary period however leaders want a new hire onboard, trained and hitting the ground running. If we make a poor hiring decision and have to terminate the candidate early it probably means starting the hiring process again which involves more time, cost and lost opportunity with other candidates. Similarly, once a project gets the approval for funding, changing our mind is disruptive. In addition to putting the brakes on the work that has inevitably started and dismantling the team, it’s important to remember that when your project got approved, someone else project they were passionate about was declined due to limited financial resources. Hopefully these funds can still be used by another group, but at minimum, you’ve wasted valuable time.
This is why for these big decisions, we take the time to try to get these decisions right the first time and to avoid regret and the wasted time, energy and financial cost of having to back out of these decisions.
These big decisions are conscious decisions, which arise occasionally but they are not daily or weekly occurrences.
Did you know that we make on average 1 decision every 2 seconds, 35,000 decisions a day, over 1 million decisions in a month, 1 trillion decisions in a lifetime? These represent sub conscious decisions that we make every minute of every day. These decisions cover everything from what to eat for breakfast to whether to take the highway or the street to how to what to write in an email or speak to a client. We spend less time on these micro decisions because they feel trivial and less impactful. But in reality, majority of these decisions have a compounding effect, as we make the same decisions repeatedly hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. Over time these seemingly small decisions are making a big impact on our outcomes. In summary, everything we see, do and experience is a manifestation of decisions, whether ours’ or others’.
Once you analyze your thoughts, decisions, and actions, you will realize that we make decisions on margin or in other words, we play “Whack a mole” game. In essence, we trade one problem with another one, while making decisions instead of understanding the present problem and solving it.
Figure 2 — “Whack a mole” as our decision-making process
More importantly, we don’t know why we do what we do in most instances. We think we are in control and have free will, but most of our decisions are below our conscious level, invisible like an iceberg.
With that said, the generalized human decision-making process is completely elusive so far. At present, there is no holistic human decision-making framework that explains how we make decisions.
That’s not what I wanted? Decisions gone awry…
According to WHO1, close to a million people worldwide end their life with suicide and another two million people are killed by another human being, every year. This begs the following two questions.
1. Why we choose to hurt ourselves?
2. Why we choose to hurt others, especially the people close to us?
No one wakes up in the morning to hurt themselves or others but we all do it at one time or another. The culprit, in this case, is faulty human decision-making. We, as humans are slaves to our thoughts. Even though, most of the time, our actions are appropriate and honorable, however, many a times our thoughts lead us astray to faulty/bad decisions.
During the day to day activities at a smaller scale, we experience pain when our outcomes don’t match our expectations. It can be baffling when we deliberate exhaustively around a big decision and yet we still don’t get the intended outcome. Even with careful deliberation there could be factors we never considered or new information that enters into the equation after we make the decision. Consider how difficult it would be to arrive at outcomes that match our expectations when we unconsciously make decisions. If we are not even thinking through the holistic decision process from end to end, landing on our desired outcome would be a game of chance. Do any of these scenarios sound likely to you?
So, the challenge becomes, when to listen to your thoughts and when to disregard them?
This is where our proposed solution comes in. We have unraveled this enigmatic human decision-making process and developed a proprietary human decision-making framework and related algorithms, wherever applicable, based on the multi-disciplinary knowledge — Neuroscience, Behavioural science, human psychology, philosophy, mathematics and business principles. This decision-making framework can help in differentiating the decisions between good, bad and ugly decisions. According to the process, any decision can be traced back to 27 “mutually exclusive collective exhaustive” contributors. This knowledge leads to couple of realizations. First the free will is an illusion even for conscious decision, as most of the decision is pre-baked even before the problem is known. Secondly even though we know intuitively that the human decision-making process is quick and seamless, but the process highlights energy efficiency, risk minimizing and marvelous attributes of the process.
To summarize we make fewer than 10 conscious decisions, but over a million sub conscious decisions in a month. Presently, the decision-making process is not only enigmatic but also leads us astray many a times. In the subsequent articles, we are going to unravel the holistic Decision-Making Framework, which can be used in converting the subconscious decisions to conscious choices and can also help us in hacking the process to get desired outcomes. | https://medium.com/@sarbjitsparhar/decisions-decisions-decisions-1-trillion-in-a-lifetime-bfc720fd799e | ['Sarb Parhar'] | 2020-12-26 19:17:20.343000+00:00 | ['Decision Making'] |
Get to know VPN up close. | Get to know VPN up close.
VPN is not foreign to our ears. We often use VPN for convenience and data security. But what is a VPN? VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a virtual private network or virtual private network to extend a private network on a public network and allow users to send and receive data on shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network.
The VPNs available in the global market consist of free VPNs and paid VPNs. Paid VPNs further strengthen the security of our personal data. But did you know that high-class hackers with the best skills are able to hack data even though we have used a VPN. Therefore, these shortcomings and problems are used as business opportunities by VPN entrepreneurs. VPN continues to be improved in quality so that it further reduces the risk of data misuse when we make transactions with the highest risk such as financial transactions, personal data and matters related to government and state data. Paid VPNs guarantee data security and that can be strengthened by the existence of protective laws.
But do you know the history of VPNs?
The history of VPNs dates back to 1996, when a Microsoft employee named Gurdeep Singh-Pall started developing the Peer to Peer/PPTP Tunneling Protocol. In 1999, the specifications were published and over time, VPNs have grown more and more. VPN technology was originally developed only by and for large companies and organizations with business purposes not for general use purposes. This was done because companies needed a secure and private method to enable communication and file sharing between different offices, and make it easier for employees to access important files remotely without any risk of data theft.
How do VPNs work?
When we have successfully connected to the web with a VPN, our performance traffic on a network is encrypted by the VPN application on a computer or smartphone. The VPN goes to the ISP server, and then the VPN server. When it reaches the VPN server, the traffic is decrypted and forwarded to the wider web with an IP address that has been assigned to the VPN service provider rather than by region. It's different when browsing the internet without using a VPN.
The following are some types of VPN protocols: 1. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec)
IPsec has been created for use with IPv6. This protocol encrypts network traffic by encapsulating IP packets inside IPsec packets.
2. SSL/TLS: Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) can route all traffic on the network through a VPN connection.
3. SSH: Secure Shell (SSH) VPN uses tunneling to add security to intra-network links.
4. SSTP: Microsoft Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) uses Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) tunnels to send traffic over SSL 3.0 channels.
What are the drawbacks of a VPN?
Each thing has advantages and disadvantages. The following are some of the disadvantages of a VPN:
1. VPN cannot block cookies
Cookies in large organizations such as Facebook, Twitter to Google can monitor the activities that everyone does on the internet.
2. Even though we have used a VPN we are not completely in incognito or anonymous mode.
The reason :
- VPNs can go offline suddenly or have a DNS leak opportunity, both of which can expose your data to snoopers, ISPs, and a country's government without warning.
- Even though by using a VPN, our ISP (Internet Service Provider) no longer has a copy of the browsing data, the VPN provider still has a copy. So that our privacy does not belong to us completely nor trust. There is a risk of data misuse.
3. Still vulnerable to Malware
Even if you use a VPN, it doesn't guarantee that your device is safe and free from malware. Even some malware has the ability to turn off the VPN without notification and destroy the VPN functionality. | https://medium.com/@tiaramerlinannisa/get-to-know-vpn-up-close-a543184a25c9 | ['Tiara Merlin Annisa'] | 2021-06-23 23:06:42.612000+00:00 | ['Content', 'Internet', 'Writing Life', 'Technology', 'VPN'] |
INTRODUCING GROUP ORDERS IN SWIGGY | How do you share the cart?
Initially I thought of just having the invite link to be shared but it had an inherent assumption that the user has everybody’s WhatsApp/Messenger contact as link sharing will need any of those mediums. But what if friends of friends have also come to the party? Then it might become a hassle to first save the number on WhatsApp and then send the invite link and hence I came up with Sharing the Invite code like Among us ( APopular game ) which could also be made by the host. For example, “Naren’s Party” would be an easy Invite code to circulate in a party.
Types of Roles in the App:
Host: The person who started sharing the Invite link/code. He will take care of the bill atleast initially. Participants: People who get added using the Invite link/code.
Note: This might sound a bit complex but in the actual implementation I wont be using any of these terms in the actual implementation.
Why did I do this ( Simplifying payments )?
Parties go for long and people are going to place orders at different different times. Consider a room full of 20 people and everybody is paying for their own in the middle of a party. Dont you think the payment hassle will spoil the party vibes for them? So for those 20 people,our host ( the one who started the party ) will pay for it initially so that a large section of people have a good time.
Rejecting Identity Tokens for Now:
During this sprint alot of questions arised for me, some of which were:
Should the user know what others have order by their name.
How should individual invoices be sent and should they be included in the first version?
And many more
My Design Decision for Version 1:
Considering this to be a party scenario, let’s just consider that I care for my Pizza i.e. whatever I have ordered and what else is being ordered as whole for the party as the food is going to be shared.
Note: If the research and further feedback from this version suggests that we should go for person wise bifurcation in terms of what they have ordered, I will surely give it a shot but for now I have kept it simple: “My Order and what others have ordered.”
Before the Order is Placed:
Things I should solve in this section:
Bringing people at one platform so that they can order together:
People can be invited in two ways what I could think of: | https://medium.com/fizday/group-orders-through-swiggy-eb9a27d6195 | ['Naren Parashar'] | 2021-01-05 08:17:14.113000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Product Design', 'Swiggy', 'Product', 'Dunzo'] |
Flutter — My First Application. Basic Variables in dart Variables store… | Basic Variables in dart
Variables store references. Variable ‘x’ inferred to be String but you can change by specifying it.
A Dart string is a sequence of UTF-16 code units. You can use either single or double quotes to create a string
List: it is mutable (You can change the value of the list)
Lists use zero-based indexing, where 0 is the index of the first element and total_list_length -1 is the index of the last element.
List is also referred as Array’s in Dart language.
You can either give ‘var’ which dynamically consider itself as “List” depends on the values inside list or you can write as “List”
List can also be hard coded to specific data type, say “int”. It can be restricted only to int, if not it gives error.
Values of the list can be extracted depending on there index number.
Values of the list can be modified based on the index number.
List has a drawback that system assign the position number and anybody can change the position value, to overcome we have “Map” variable where you can assign position (key) and value.
Create a basic flutter app
Open cmd and create a folder inside your working directory and run flutter create <folder_name> which will load all libraries into the directory.
Import that folder into VS Code IDE
import ‘package:flutter/material.dart’;
void main() {
runApp(MaterialApp(
home: Text(“Hello Flutter”),
));
}
runApp will run the code as application on your phone.
MaterialApp gives material or set of code to design your widgets.
Run the sample code Without Debugging mode and wait for 1–2 min to execute.
The Text will be printed on the screen of your virtual phone. | https://medium.com/@whizcozy/flutter-my-first-application-b244636bff8c | ['Chandan Sharma'] | 2020-08-13 20:45:10.111000+00:00 | ['App Development', 'Flutter', 'Dart', 'Apps', 'Programming'] |
DEFCON 201 Online CTF Practice Challenge — justCTF — December 20th~22nd | Welcome to the DEFCON 201 justCTF Practice Challenge!
For over two years we have been planing running our own Wargames and CTF to help people develop their hacking skills. While progress is still being made (we plan to launch our own in Winter 2019), DC201 will also occasionally enter into various online CTF Tournaments to test our skills and to get a sample on how one is set up so we have a blueprint in creating our own.
This Friday, from December 20th 3:00 PM EST to December 22nd 4:00 AM EST, we invite all DEFCON 201 Members, Attendees and Fans to help us hack the justCTF 2019!
NOTE: This is also happening DURING our DEFCON 201 Meet Up for December 2019! If you are in New Jersey and want to get the prepare and participate in-person for this CTF check out our meet up here:
Anyone can enter by joining our group and entering our DISCORD Chat! Once in chat, select the #CTF channel. Our Discord will have our Team Invite passphrase. When registering your username, select “I have an invitation code to an existing team” and enter the passphrase posted in our Discord #CTF chat. You are then ready to hack away!
DEFCON 201 Discord Link: https://discord.gg/PGgPNEF
CLIENT INTERFACES
Clear Net: https://discordapp.com/channels/@me
Windows: https://discordapp.com/api/download?platform=win
macOS: https://discordapp.com/api/download?platform=osx
Linux: https://snapcraft.io/discord
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/discord-chat-for-games/id985746746
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.discord (We recommend using YALP)
Join The DEFCON 201 CTF Time Group: https://ctftime.org/team/40304 Join The DEFCON 201 Team Page: https://ctf.inctf.in/teams/225
Rules
Each team is allowed to participate under one account and each member must belong to exactly one team. Teams may consist of any number of members. During the contest, sharing flags, solutions, hints or asking for help outside the team is prohibited. If you have questions about challenges or you believe that you found a correct flag, but the system is not accepting it, ask organizers on chat or via e-mail [email protected]. Do not brute-force flag validation endpoint. Attacking the infrastructure or any attempt to disrupt the competition is prohibited. Please, report any bugs you find in the infrastructure or tasks directly to the organizers. Breaking any of the above rules may result in team disqualification. We have a custom dynamic scoring system, which means that the challenge’s points depend on the number of its solves. We will embed the equation before the CTF starts. All flags fall into the following format: justCTF{something_h3re!} , unless the challenge description states otherwise. Challenges might be released at different times, but it is guaranteed that all of them will be released no later than 10 hours before the end of the competition. The live chat address will be announced on the CTF page. All crucial information about challenges or the competition will be announced in the news section on the CTF page and on the corresponding channel on the live chat. Registration will be open before and throughout the competition. The competition will last for 37 hours straight. During the last hour, the scoreboard will be frozen until the end (its changes won’t be available for players). However, points for tasks will be updated at all times. The presented set of rules might change before the start of the competition. In order to receive the prizes, winning teams may be asked to submit write-ups in 10 business days after the end of the competition. Resolving any unregulated cases remains on organizers’ discretion.
Happy Hacking!
::END OF LINE:: | https://medium.com/@defcon201/defcon-201-online-ctf-practice-challenge-justctf-december-20th-22nd-eb2b1d2f2b67 | [] | 2019-12-17 06:00:50.670000+00:00 | ['Contests', 'Tech', 'Computers', 'Ctf', 'Information Security'] |
Why is there music in Film | Music is a curious thing. Ask a million people what music means to them and you’ll probably get a million different answers. This is largely due to the fact that music subconsciously triggers our memory. Understanding how music relates to memory is crucial to understanding why filmmakers rely on music to help tell their story.
“There are different kinds of memory, including explicit and implicit memory. Explicit memory is a deliberate, conscious retrieval of the past, often posed by questions like: where was I that summer? Who was I travelling with? Implicit memory is more a reactive, unintentional form of memory.”
When someone hears a piece of music their memory is involuntarily triggered.
Think about that for a second.
Every audience member can have a different response, recall a different memory, to every piece of music they hear.
This idea alone will give you a sense of how powerful music is in film, and why it is so important to interpret the wishes of your director correctly. This is also why directors can get nervous working with composers. This is also why directors continually work with the same composers.
As you can imagine, everyone will have a different opinion about why music is in film. But it all comes down to the same idea: music in film is used to evoke an implicit, subconscious response in the viewer to support the story being told. What I’ve found is that if I want to trigger a specific emotion then I have to find a sound or register that is associated with the emotion I wish to evoke.
When you come right down to it… we are all animals and are susceptible to being controlled by conditioned responses. For example: if you hear a loud, sharp noise there is a good chance you’ll jump. If you hear a low, sustained, slow moving sound (think low cellos playing whole notes)) you might feel a little anxious. If those low tones have a rhythmic pulse (think Jaws) your anxiety will increase. When you match those sounds with an image the response is heightened. Or, if an inappropriate sonic convention is applied, the meaning of the scene can be changed. This can mean a drama can become a comedy. A comedy can become serious or scary and on and on . The thing is: every story or film is different which can make writing appropriate music a minefield with few markers to guide you. Knowing how to identify those markers will determine your success or failure as a film composer. Therefore, it is important to understand that there are two parts to film music. There is the intuitive, emotional reaction (right brain) and the analytical (left brain).
Never forget: music in film is a tool that is used to manipulate an audience’s emotional response.
The challenge for the film composer is to match the convention that evokes a specific emotional response or reaction with the specific need of the story.
Sign up for “Crib Notes”- a free resource and community for composers to learn more about film music, compositional techniques and more. Sign up here. | https://medium.com/@chrisboardmanmediagroup/why-is-there-music-in-film-bcd26b12b416 | ['Christopher Boardman'] | 2020-12-16 22:15:32.156000+00:00 | ['Film Music', 'Filmmaking', 'Film', 'Creative Process', 'Film Music Composer'] |
Double Predestination is Anathema to Catholics | Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Those who are not Christian may believe that we all have identical beliefs. That is not true. There are a variety of understandings Christians have and as with other faiths there are arguments over points of doctrine.
For example, some Christians hold tightly to the first three chapters of Genesis as proof that the world was created in six days and that evolution is a false teaching. Whereas Catholics never believed in understanding those three chapters literally and do accept evolution. We just do not accept random evolution.
The creation story is itself a prophecy. It is not information about the external processes by which the cosmos and man himself came into being. The Fathers of the Church were well aware of this. They did not interpret the story as an account of the process of the origins of things, but rather as a pointer towards the essential, towards the true beginning and end of our being. — PopeBenedict XVI Homily Easter Vigil 2011
Even within a denomination there are differences: Tish Durbin wrote an article for The Atlantic on Medium about the Catholics who dislike both Joe Biden and Pope Francis. Many of them believe few are saved. They accuse other Catholics such as Bishop Robert Barron of being quasi universalists who say few go to Hell, if any at all. Fr. Paulo Ricardo Acevedo, Jr. from the Diocese of Curitaba in Brazil teaches Jesus never said how many were going to be saved and how many were not, he just said “You walk the narrow path and not the wide path.”
So, to assume that one Christian believes the same as all is a misnomer. There are some universally accepted truths such as the resurrection but some Christians also embrace teachings we as Catholics do not. What is also bothersome is when people in the general populace assume after listening to other Christians that they have no hope for salvation. It is something that Catholics do not accept and call anathema.
Scripture alone or with tradition
Some Christian preachers encourage you to find a Bible based Church. That is code for “Do not go to the Catholics.” Evangelicals believe in scripture alone as the source for divine revelation. Catholics believe in scripture and in the traditions of the church passed down from the apostles. Evangelicals can quote many of the scriptures chapter and verse and Catholics often cannot and that is why. Catholics once believed they were not to read the Bible although the Church never taught it prohibition. St. Jerome, who translated the scriptures from Hebrew and Greek to Latin, taught “ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.” So think of it this way — Evangelical faith would be represented by the Bible alone and Catholicism would be represented by the Bible and a rolling snowball. The latter is a growing understanding of our faith through the people living it rooted in the traditions handed down over the ages.
The origins of double predestination thought
Let us take the best example of what is not Catholic and it even bleeds over into civil society: double predestination. This teaching is most connected to the reformers and especially John Calvin from the seventeenth century, although traces of it were found throughout the Christian era.
Robert Reilly in his book America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding (Ignatius 2020) explains that one source of the double predestination ideology of Calvin starts with William of Ockham that God is sovereign. There is no order to his movement because he is God. If he wants to make a duck like a fish he can do it because he is God and can do anything he wants.
Catholics reject this understanding completely. We believe in an order to the universe which is why Catholics strongly believe in natural law. That is a philosophy that there is an observable order to nature, teaching us a moral way of living. It actually originates with the pagan pre-Christian Greeks filtered through the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Thirteenth Century. He quotes the philosopher (Artistotle) throughout his masterwork Summa Theologica
What is double predestination?
Double predestination says God made some people to be saved and others to be damned. No one can change God’s mind on who is whom. Indeed Christianity.com explains the doctrine says Jesus did not die for all, but only for some and if you are not one of the some then you are going to Hell no matter whom you may be.
The article indicates that the sign you may be saved is that you live a moral life. However, actually no one knows who is saved and who is damned.
This is far from what we as Catholics believe.
Now let us extend this to the civil sphere. Can you see the problem when some people feel that all Christians consider them condemned to Hell? Can you see what happens when our laws are based on those principles? You end up with a legal system that assumes some people are bad and others by default good.
Catholic belief is we have a mission to lead all to salvation which is why we embrace the grace of God. We believe in praying for others and we seek to bring all to know Christ. We also believe that God does all He can to lead all to salvation. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that God’s grace constantly calls people to convert and it grows stronger even among the most hardened of sinners especially as they approach death.
Catholic teaching always condemned double predestination:
I condemn with you that view which states that Christ our Lord and Savior did not incur death for the salvation of all St. Gelasius I in the Fifth Century
#167 Denzinger, H., & Rahner, K. (Eds.). (1954). The sources of Catholic dogma. (R. J. Deferrari, Trans.) (p. 65). St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches that only those who obstinately reject God’s grace will end up in Hell.
God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. (CCC 1037)
The Catechism cites the Council of Orange which considers anathema embracing this double predestination.
We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.
The Canons of the Second Council of Orange (529)
And The Council of Trent also condemned the idea:
CANON XVII. If any one shall say, that the grace of justification only befalleth those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.
Buckley, T. A. (1851). The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (p. 44). London: George Routledge and Co.
The more I live as a Catholic, the more I believe that not only does God desire to see that all are saved, he will hold us responsible if we do not seek to carry out his will by simply teaching people of Christ and leading them to him. We begin with doing nothing more than just teaching people to pray.
We must understand and teach that God’s grace is constantly calling everyone to His salvation. Co-operation with it even for the most hardened of hearts is the way to eternal life and that begins simply with prayer. No one is outside of any chance of salvation.
Subscribe and learn of new articles and homilies. | https://medium.com/writings-from-the-catholic-abbey-to-the-secular/double-predestination-is-anathema-to-catholics-c868717915b1 | ['Rj Carr'] | 2020-11-18 12:34:31.189000+00:00 | ['Catholic', 'Catholicism', 'Christian', 'Jesus', 'Salvation'] |
How to Get Somebody to Open Up to You Without Any Effort | Can’t you just tell when something is wrong with your friend? They give you the occasional “I’m good,” but you know something is up. It’s hard to get your friends to open up to you. As their friend, you don’t want to see them down in the dumps because if they’re not happy then you’re not happy.
You can’t expect your friends to open up to you every time something is going left in their life, either it can be too much to get into, or it’s too tough to explain. You know this feeling, there’s been times where you’ve been hurt before and didn’t know how to open up about it.
Even with my time in therapy, I had many appointments where the conversation was all small talk and nothing was solved. Even though I was there to see a therapist and talk to him about what was going on in my life, I couldn’t bring myself to it.
This is important to understand when it comes to your friends, no matter who you are to them, opening up may not be something that they want to do at the moment. There’s something that you’ll always not know about your friends, this isn’t a bad thing but it’s something that everyone in a relationship goes through.
You know something is wrong with your friends when the long and funny conversations start to become shorter and shorter with every phone call. It’s not a good feeling, you start wondering if you did something wrong or if they are really upset. You even begin to wonder how much longer your friendship will last with that person, it’s ok to have these thoughts because this is why you want to help.
As much as you want them to be ok, you also want them to still be your friend at the end of the day. Also, you don’t want their negativity to get to an extreme.
Match Their Mood
Matching somebody’s mood is the closest you will be to being in their shoes, this method allows you to get a similar perspective on how that person is viewing their life. This can be done by first looking at how someone is standing or sitting down, really take a look at their posture. If they’re feeling down then you might see them talking with their head down and constantly rubbing their forehead with their index finger and thumb.
When looking at this, try to casually act in the same way, you don’t have to copy their exact positioning but something similar so that you know how they may be feeling physically.
Next, you’re going to want to listen to the few words they say, it may be a couple of sentences or one-worded answers. Do the same when talking back to them except don’t use any condescending words directed towards them. Instead, say things like “I feel you” or “yeah that’s true.” What you’re doing in this instance is getting on their level of energy so that they can build a level of trust with you.
If you can’t do this in person then listen to the sound of their voice on the phone and try to match that tone. People have a harder time opening up to somebody who is not on the same energy level as them. One example of this that we’ve probably all experienced is when we’re going through a tough time in our lives and one of our friends starts to talk about themselves and their problems.
Of course, we should always be open to listening to our friends but what about how we feel. Talking to your friend about some of your problems can already be hard enough, if they somehow make the conversation about themselves then you are going to be even more upset than you were before talking to them.
Don’t ever try to force a conversation onto your friends when you know something is wrong, this can make things worse and you’ll be viewed almost as an enemy in the situation. | https://medium.com/@bell-brandon0/how-to-get-somebody-to-open-up-to-you-without-any-effort-7830dc5562cd | ['Brandon Bell'] | 2020-12-05 05:16:23.090000+00:00 | ['Friends', 'Relationships', 'Vulnerability', 'Helping Others', 'Friendship'] |
2021 would be a hot year. And why? | 2021 is predicted to be among the seven hottest years on record despite La Niña.
The UK’s Met Office recently released that average global temperatures for 2021 are estimated to be 0.91 to 1.15 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial period’s average. Despite it likely would not break any records, based on this forecast, the seven hottest years on record will be all from 2015 to 2021. This may reject the claim that global warming is a cyclical phenomenon.
2021 would be a hot but not the hottest year because of the La Niña effect. The cooling influence of La Niña partly offsets the global temperature rise caused by the climate crisis. However, studies have suggested that the circumstances are worrying. With La Niña as a backdrop, 2020 has been unusually hot. For comparison, the average global temperature for 2020 is around 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level and 2020 is the third hottest year on record. 2021 would be slightly cooler than this year but is still among the hottest.
For those who are looking for more information, La Niña is the opposite of El Niño. While El Niño tends to result in fewer Atlantic Hurricanes but more in the Pacific, La Niña brings more to the Atlantic and fewer to the Pacific due to the rather low sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific which cause a northward shift in storms.
However, in 2020, a La Niña year, countries like the Philippines also experienced several extreme typhoons, including Super Typhoon Goni which caused at least 10 deaths in November. Extreme weather conditions bring more frequent and severe impact to the low-lying countries’ population.
The Paris Agreement targets to control the average global temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius (and ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius) higher than the pre-industrial level. It is challenging regarding the recent global temperature records. Last week, while December 12, 2020 marked the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, climate activists in 41 countries organized a Fight for 1.5! campaign with over 180 actions during December 10 to December 12 to raise public awareness toward the pressing challenge.
Further reading
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-18/weather-and-climate-change-met-office-sees-2021-temperatures-among-hottest-ever?srnd=green
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/2021-global-temperatures-la-nina-met-office-b1776214.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/world/climate-change-effects-wmo-2020-intl/index.html
www.insideclimatenews.org/news/02052012/weather-insider-la-nina-el-nino-hurricanes-extreme-weather-climate-change/
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/01/asia/philippines-super-typhoon-goni-landfall-intl-hnk/index.html
https://fridaysforfuture.org/fightfor1point5/ | https://medium.com/@ecotures/2021-would-be-a-hot-year-and-why-8799cb7c9a0b | [] | 2020-12-22 22:16:08.412000+00:00 | ['2021', 'Environment', 'Weather', 'Climate'] |
{“Full’Episode”} “The Stand (2020)” Ep 2 ‘[CBS All Access]’ | Pocket Savior
Episode 2 | Pocket Savior | Musician Larry Underwood is on the cusp of his big break when “Captain Trips” strikes New York. Alone and wandering an empty city, he meets an alluring new acquaintance also desperate to escape. Meanwhile, an incarcerated Lloyd Henreid comes face-to-face with Randall Flagg, The Dark Man himself, who makes him an enticing offer.
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/359583/1/2
In a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil, the fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.
Show Info
Web channel: United States CBS All Access (2020 — now)
Schedule: Thursdays (60 min)
Status: Running
Show Type: Scripted
Genres: Drama Horror Supernatural
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(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 00s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 444545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 174. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/the-stand-2020-ep-2-cbs-all-access-fullepisode/fullepisode-the-stand-2020-ep-2-cbs-all-access-4d9614d8bdf | ['Brittany P. Hamilton'] | 2020-12-25 02:40:42.959000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Horror'] |
React components: add CSS with clean code | Read this post in Spanish here.
When it comes to designing applications with React, there are many ways to add style to components. The ones I knew so far were the following:
Import a CSS file with the necessary classes and use the JSX property “className” to add them to the component. Use the “style” property to add inline style.
The disadvantage of the first option is that you have to create an additional file to create a component and it complicates the maintenance of the code a bit. Also, you have to manually avoid class name collision between components.
On the other hand, the main drawback of the second option is that you cannot copy CSS from the browser inspector and paste it into our code, or vice versa, because the “style” property of our component receives an object and the properties of the objects cannot have the “-” character in the name, so the properties must be rewritten. Also, the property value must be quoted to convert it to text. All of this slows down development because you have to retype what you test in the browser. For example, to add the following CSS snippet to a component:
element.style {
min-height: 626px;
border: 1px solid red;
background-color: white;
}
We would have to create the following object in our code:
const style = {
minHeight: '626px',
border: '1px solid red',
backgroundColor: 'white'
};
In this post I share a clean way to style components using “styled-components”.
Styled-components is a library that creates React components with embedded styles using template literals.
Some of the advantages of this library are the following:
Creates class names automatically to avoid collisions.
Templates use CSS syntax.
Allows conditional rendering based on properties.
Adds vendor prefixes automatically.
Example of use
To install the library, you have to execute the following command (the types can be omitted if TypeScript is not used, but in this case I use it):
npm install styled-components @types/styled-components
Imagine you want to create a list of elements and that the color of each element, as well as the cursor, changes when it is clicked on.
If the library is not used, this can be achieved by writing the following code, where I use a function to get the style using the component’s state (I write it directly in the index.tsx file for simplicity):
And the result, after clicking on the “Three” element, would be the following image:
If we used the library, you could replace the style function with a component that can interpolate a CSS fragment depending on the value of the “selected” property. The resulting code is as follows:
And the result, after clicking on the “Three” element, would be the following image:
The extension “vscode-styled-components” for Visual Studio Code is very useful to work with this library, because it adds syntax highlighting for templates and allows CSS autocompletion.
References: | https://medium.com/the-agile-crafter/react-components-add-css-with-clean-code-afcab7778804 | ['The Agile Crafter'] | 2020-12-06 17:54:44.701000+00:00 | ['Clean Code', 'CSS', 'Tips', 'React'] |
Healthful Monday~ 05/04/2020 | Make a positive difference in your life! You deserve greater bliss and fulfillment~ so, self-improve your overall well-being toward positively affecting those you love as well. Self-care toward supporting a healthier mind and body in support of achieving and accomplishing further in your successes! Remind yourself that, "I deserve better moments of today for an appreciative yesterday as I create my ideal tomorrow! I deserve to enjoy every day that much more with those I love!"
Check out this bit of information provided for you today, and learn more about what energizes you as you continue moving forward! This is just some info to assist you towards the better. Today's Healthful-Amusement share worth reviewing and considering to amuse your thoughts with as you'll surely achieve and accomplish more with a healthier better version of yourself. I am simply here assisting you with better self-care for healthier decisions and healthier choices for a healthier lifestyle not just for yourself, but to positively affect those you care about. Invest in your education by increasing your knowledge regarding your health.
CHEERS~ to your bliss everywhere in between your lessons and wins... 😉
#healthful #lifeguidance #selfhealing #nutritional #infographic | https://medium.com/@edwardftcharfauros/healthful-monday-05-04-2020-e16d6720f80a | ['Edward F. T. Charfauros'] | 2020-05-04 15:12:39.392000+00:00 | ['Infographics', 'Nutritional Guidance', 'Life Guidance', 'Probiotics', 'Healthful'] |
Rammstein — Deutschland. After 7 years from their previous video… | After 7 years from their previous video release, Rammstein, a German hard rock (I prefer not to use heavy metal for them) group get the spotlight again with their controversial new single (as like any single they have released so far) — Deutschland.
You barely hear any kind of guitar on the radio today, not to mention a hard rock riff. This single is most welcomed. I’m a Rammstein fan since the early 2000; I got them on my collection since then (which was not that easy to get your hands on a CD back then — and it was really expensive) and was fortunate enough to see them live in Bucharest a couple of years back.
Germany played the World Cup a day previous to the concert, and they were already arrived and accommodated in my city. They went to see the game at a local pub where a friend of mine was working and he called me right away to let me know who’s there and if I could have come he could try to squeeze me in. I wasn’t around, so there goes Rammestein’s chance of hanging around one afternoon with me.
I saw them at the concert the next day and man, what an experience. Before the gig started they had a huge Germany flag that covered the stage and when the show started it felt in synchronous with the show.
If you’re not familiar with Rammstein’s live shows… there’s not much I can tell you then; maybe just go and see one. The members have a pyrotechnic background and there’s a lot of fire involved. A lot of fire (although after the Colectiv incident I don’t appreciate these things anymore).
Also, towards the end of the show, the keyboardist pulled out an inflatable boat, threw it on and let himself be carried by the crowd (he’s a skinny guy). Thought that was really awesome.
Rammstein never changed their line-up since the formation of the group — and that says a lot about them. If there’s one word that can describe the band, that word is controversy. Which, as we know, creates cash. All of their videos and all of their appearances are controverted.
Enjoy the new single:
And also this video of people reacting to their music 😀 | https://medium.com/@emanuelp986/rammstein-deutschland-881a82907d5f | ['Emanuel P'] | 2019-04-08 18:35:54.014000+00:00 | ['Controversy', 'Music', 'Rammstein', 'Rock', 'Guitar'] |
Python Map Reduce Filter Tutorial Introduction | Map, Filter And Reduce In Pure Python
The concepts of map, filter and reduce are a game changer. The usage of these methods goes way beyond Python and are an essential skill for the future.
Map, Filter and Reduce (Image by Author)
The Basics
Map, filter and reduce are functions that help you handle all kinds of collections. They are at the heart of modern technologies such as Spark and various other data manipulation and storage frameworks. But they can also very powerful helpers when working with vanilla Python.
Map
Map is a function that takes as an input a collection e.g. a list [‘bacon’,’toast’,’egg’], and a function e.g. upper(). Then it will move every element of the collection through this function and produce a new collection with the same count of elements. Let’s look at an example
map_obj = map(str.upper,['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>['BACON', 'TOAST', 'EGG']
What we did here is using the map(some_function, some_iterable) function combined with the upper function (this function capitalizes each character of a string). As we can see we produced for every element in the input list another element in the output list. We receive always the same amount of elements in the output as we will put into it! Here we send 3 in and received 3 out, this is why we call it an N to N function. Let’s look at how one can use it.
def count_letters(x):
return len(list(x)) map_obj = map(count_letters,['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>[6, 5, 3]
In this example we defined our own function count_letters(). The collection was passed through the function and in the output, we have the number of letters of each string! Let’s make this a little bit sexier using a lambda expression.
map_obj = map(lambda x:len(list(x)),['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>[6, 5, 3]
A lambda expression is basically just a shorthand notation for defining a function. If you are not familiar with them you can check out how they work here. However, it should be fairly easy to understand how they work from the following examples.
Filter
In contrast to Map, which is an N to N function. Filter is a N to M function where N≥M. What this means is that it reduces the number of elements in the collection. In other words, it filters them! As with map the notation goes filter(some_function, some_collection). Let’s check this out with an example.
def has_the_letter_a_in_it(x):
return 'a' in x # Let's first check out what happens with map
map_obj = map(has_the_letter_a_in_it,['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>[True,True,False] # What happens with filter?
map_obj = filter(has_the_letter_a_in_it,['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>['bacon', 'toast']
As we can see it reduces the number of elements in the list. It does so by calculating the return value for the function has_the_letter_a_in_it() and only returns the values for which the expression returns True.
Again this looks much sexier using our all-time favorite lambda!
map_obj = filter(lambda x: 'a' in x, ['bacon','toast','egg'])
print(list(map_obj))
>>['bacon', 'toast']
Reduce
Let’s meet the final enemy and probably the most complicated of the 3. But no worries, it is actually quite simple. It is an N to 1 relation, meaning no matter how much data we pour into it we will get one result out of it. The way it does this is by applying a chain of the function we are going to pass it. Out of the 3, it is the only one we have to import from the functools. In contrast to the other two it can most often be found using three arguments reduce(some_function, some_collection, some_starting_value), the starting value is optional but it is usually a good idea to provide one. Let’s have a look.
from functools import reduce map_obj = reduce(lambda x,y: x+" loves "+y, ['bacon','toast','egg'],"Everyone")
print(map_obj)
>>'Everyone loves bacon loves toast loves egg'
As we can see we had to use a lambda function which takes two arguments at a time, namely x,y. Then it chains them through the list. Let’s visualize how it goes through the list
x=“Everyone”, y=” bacon”: return ”Everyone loves bacon“ x=”Everyone loves bacon“, y=”toast”: return ”Everyone loves bacon loves toast“ x=”Everyone loves bacon loves toast“, y=”egg” : return ”Everyone loves bacon loves toast loves eggs“
So we have our final element ”Everyone loves bacon loves toast loves eggs“. Those are the basic concepts to move with more ease through your processing pipeline. One honorable mention here is that you can not in every programming language assume that the reduce function will handle the element in order, e.g. in some languages it could be “‘Everyone loves egg loves toast loves bacon’”.
Combine
To make sure we understood the concepts let’s use them together and build a more complex example.
from functools import reduce vals = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
# Let's add 1 to each element >> [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
map_obj = map(lambda x: x+1,vals)
# Let's only take the uneven ones >> [1, 3, 5, 7, 9]
map_obj = filter(lambda x: x%2 == 1,map_obj)
# Let's reduce them by summing them up, ((((0+1)+3)+5)+7)+9=25
map_obj = reduce(lambda x,y: x+y,map_obj,0)
print(map_obj)
>> 25
As we can see we can build pretty powerful things using the combination of the 3. Let’s move to one final example to illustrate what this might be used for in practice. To do so we load up a small subset of a dataset and will print the cities which are capitals and have more than 10 million inhabitants!
from functools import reduce #Let's define some data
data=[['Tokyo', 35676000.0, 'primary'], ['New York', 19354922.0, 'nan'], ['Mexico City', 19028000.0, 'primary'], ['Mumbai', 18978000.0, 'admin'], ['São Paulo', 18845000.0, 'admin'], ['Delhi', 15926000.0, 'admin'], ['Shanghai', 14987000.0, 'admin'], ['Kolkata', 14787000.0, 'admin'], ['Los Angeles', 12815475.0, 'nan'], ['Dhaka', 12797394.0, 'primary'], ['Buenos Aires', 12795000.0, 'primary'], ['Karachi', 12130000.0, 'admin'], ['Cairo', 11893000.0, 'primary'], ['Rio de Janeiro', 11748000.0, 'admin'], ['Ōsaka', 11294000.0, 'admin'], ['Beijing', 11106000.0, 'primary'], ['Manila', 11100000.0, 'primary'], ['Moscow', 10452000.0, 'primary'], ['Istanbul', 10061000.0, 'admin'], ['Paris', 9904000.0, 'primary']] map_obj = filter(lambda x: x[2]=='primary' and x[1]>10000000,data)
map_obj = map(lambda x: x[0], map_obj)
map_obj = reduce(lambda x,y: x+", "+y, map_obj, 'Cities:')
print(map_obj)
>> Cities:, Tokyo, Mexico City, Dhaka, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Beijing, Manila, Moscow
If you enjoyed this article, I would be excited to connect on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Make sure to check out my YouTube channel, where I will be publishing new videos every week. | https://towardsdatascience.com/accelerate-your-python-list-handling-with-map-filter-and-reduce-d70941b19e52 | [] | 2020-12-01 14:56:19.868000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Mapreduce', 'Tutorial', 'Programming', 'Intro'] |
#42: EasyTutor | Featuring Phil Anderson, founder of Easy Tutor.
Listen Now
Show Notes
The promise of technology to improve education IMHO has yet to be fulfilled, Easy Tutor claims to have a solution, today, Phil Anderson, the founder, explains how and why they will do this on the blockchain. CEO of EasyTutor Phil Anderson, EasyTutor is a client of Coloring Crypto.
Transcript
Coming Soon. | https://medium.com/coloringcrypto/42-easytutor-9e79381f71d2 | ['Kelly Mcquade-W.'] | 2018-07-04 00:11:22.314000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Investing', 'Education', 'Finance', 'Bitcoin'] |
The 2020 Guide for White Men in Tech | Welcome back, gentlemen. Last year’s guide to white men in tech was one of the most popular articles on this platform, so I’m excited about this year’s. We assume the popularity was for several reasons: The title had a number in it, it was addressed to white men, it was written by a white man, and it was about tech. That’s a Medium grand slam!
(I’m kidding. There was no guide last year. Roll with it.)
Look, I’m walking a tightrope here, kids. First of all, let’s acknowledge, as white men, the privilege we have in society in general and in tech specifically. Then let’s acknowledge that you get that privilege whether you want it or not. You can be super conscious of your privileged place in the world, you can disavow it, you can attempt to cast it off, you can rail against it. And I encourage you to do all of those things and more.
You can either float along thinking you hit a triple when you really just happened to be born on third base, or you can use that privilege to help others
But at the end of the day, you’re still going to get it. You’re still going to be offered more and better jobs and get paid more for them, the bank won’t call the cops on you if you go to deposit a check, the passport office won’t give you side-eye, and your co-workers won’t confuse you for the building’s custodial staff. Finally, I should acknowledge that I couldn’t say half this shit and still expect to have a regular column here if it weren’t for that privilege.
Privilege is unshakeable. Until the world is fundamentally changed so that all people are viewed as equal — which is our goal — you have two choices: You can either float along thinking you hit a triple when you really just happened to be born on third base, or you can use that privilege to help others who have to work much harder than you to achieve even half your success. As the recipient of unfair advantage, it’s on you to tip the scales back to where justice would have them. This will not make you a hero, but it will bring you closer to being a decent human being. Which is a pretty wonderful thing to be, I’ve heard.
It’s still a great time to be a white man
Your successful white father had it pretty good. Maybe he worked in finance, wore an Armani suit with big shoulders and swank suspenders. Carried a big brick of a mobile phone. A real Gordon Gekko vibe. He’d wheel and deal in the morning, do a little cocaine at lunch, go to some afternoon meetings, then hit the clubs. Sometimes he “worked so late” he stayed in the apartment he kept in the city.
Your successful white grandfather would take the train in from the ’burbs, do some office work, have a two-martini lunch, do a little more work, have his secretary buy his wife an anniversary present as well as a little something for herself, and then head back to the ’burbs where the missus would be waiting with dinner on the table and a glass of scotch. Your successful white great-grandfather might have owned a top hat. Your successful white great-great-grandfather might have owned your co-worker’s great-great-grandfather.
Successful you has to work longer hours, you’re saddled with a lot of student loans, and you’re probably having dinner at work, or maybe picking it up on the way home because your wife has a job, too. So on the surface, it might look like things are on the decline even for the successful white man. On the surface. Until you take a look at society as a whole and see that successful people of other races and genders are going through all of those same things while getting paid a lot less than you are. Plus you can get things like bank loans and VC funding and not get killed by cops during routine traffic stops.
The world may be slowly edging toward justice on a generational level, but the last three years of U.S. leadership is certainly pushing it backward. You’re still living the high life, though. As the saying goes, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Other people aren’t subtracting from what you’re entitled to. They’re entitled to as much as you are.
I know how much you hate to wait as much as you love a microbrew IPA, so here are this year’s bullet points:
Stop being so emotional about everything
Despite your perception that things are now harder for you (they’re not, we just went over that), you are going to need to hold your shit together if you want to be taken seriously. I understand how emotional white men can be because I am one of you. I see you, Todd!
We freak out when everything doesn’t go our way because everything went our way for soooo long.
Sometimes people are wrong on the internet. Sometimes people are wrong at work. Sometimes the cafeteria is out of chicken molé enchiladas by the time you get there. Sometimes the company offsite can’t be at a strip club because Karen made a fuss last time. Sometimes they remake your favorite childhood movies and they put women in them. I realize how traumatizing all of this can be, but my dudes — we freak out about this shit. We freak out when everything doesn’t go our way because everything went our way for soooo long. And honestly, it still goes our way more than is fair. That’s not a feature, that’s a bug.
So let’s stop accusing others of being emotional at work when we’re the ones spending our lunch hour rage-petitioning for the release of the “proper” Star Wars film edit.
Save your energy
Look, we all know that you knew how Mary Anne was going to finish that sentence, but why exhaust yourself by finishing it for her? Let her tire herself out. Make her finish what she started. So let’s keep our pieholes shut while Mary Anne is talking. You know, to save our energy. After all, you have a century to ride this Friday. Oh, and maybe remind the other guys to save their energy, too.
Also, promotions are exhausting. It’s a lot more work, which cuts into your “you” time. So the next time one comes up, why not sit it out? Let Mary Anne try to get it. Sucker. She’ll be doing more work. And even if you end up reporting to her, you’ll most likely still be making more money than she does.
Sabotage is fun!
Listen up, young Chads. Some of you are working at companies that are doing society a disservice. You may even feel bad about it. You’ve been telling your woke friends you’ve been “changing things from the inside” for years. Why not actually start doing it?
But rather than trying to organize your co-workers or collecting signatures for petitions, why not play to your particular white-men strengths? Keep things from running smoothly. Introduce wedges into the cogs of the machine. Stick a potato in the proverbial tailpipe! Not only is sabotage ethical, but it can also be a lot of fun. If your company is doing shady shit, you are in a great position to disrupt the flow of “progress.”
If you’re a worker, be late for meetings. Spill your coffee on the conference phone. Unplug random electrical plugs. Accidentally delete code for problematic projects. At all-hands meetings, ask long-winded questions that have little to do with anything. Address email to the wrong people. Don’t document your work for colleagues who will need to use it or build on it. Take the batteries out of the remote for the presentation screen. Get needlessly emotional when there are no donuts left in the breakroom. Take excessive bathroom breaks and clog the toilet with an entire roll of paper. Do less work than the previous quarter and demand a raise. Take sick days as a deadline looms. Use your unlimited PTO until it becomes a problem, but come back before someone mentions it.
If you’re a manager, call meetings that don’t need to happen. Invite people who don’t need to be there. Don’t guide the meeting at all, let it drift from one topic to another without any resolution. Make sure there’s always a remote caller and struggle with getting them set up. Tell remote callers you’re using Zoom and then wait for them in Hangouts. And make sure it runs long enough so that people are late to their next meeting — that way you get to disrupt two meetings! Promote people who are incompetent and offer them no training. Assign your worst workers to the most problematic problems. Accidentally leak sensitive interoffice memos to members of the press. Lie to your boss about success metrics.
As white men, you can use your positions of privilege to sabotage the workplace and emerge relatively unscathed. You’ll rarely be blamed, and if you’re actually caught red-handed, it’ll be assumed that you’re under a large amount of stress, and you’ll probably be given extra vacation time to recharge or promoted to a position where you can do less damage. If you’re a company founder, you can sabotage at will and get a $1.7 billion payout!
Empathy is for suckers
You’ve probably sat through a couple of empathy workshops at this point. Probably something put together by the UX people and HR together. They’re exhausting. Why should all this shit be on you? Why should you have to learn how to think like other people? Here’s a loophole: You don’t have to think like any of these other groups if you hire them to do the work for you. That’s right! Why wonder how women and minorities might use something? Just let them build the damn thing. They can do all the hard work. They can do all the messy stuff.
You can just sit back, brother. Recline in that nice, expensive office chair. Put your feet up. See if McKinsey’s hiring. And think about the bright future you and the other white guys built for everybody. Heckuva job, Dougie. | https://modus.medium.com/the-2020-guide-for-white-men-in-tech-23c9c5b57e82 | ['Mike Monteiro'] | 2020-01-30 16:31:01.474000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Dear Designer', 'Equality', 'Design', 'Privilege'] |
Medical Encounter and Vulnerability | An ill (or suffering) person facing a healthcare encounter always occupies an inferior position of multiplied vulnerability.
This multiplication happens through the combination and mutual influence of different factors resulting from the impact of the person’s suffering:
i) directly on the self, and ii) through the self’s relation with the other.
At the essence of suffering there is a disintegration of the person’s own personhood or self. In this way, suffering from an illness can be considered as a theft, a disruption of a person’s integrity, of a self’s physical, emotional, social or spiritual wholeness. And this is perhaps the first instance of inferiority: the self feels, at first, inferior to their previously sensed self.
When this ailment or illness’ solution relies on a healthcare encounter, due to the sufferer’s inability to solve their own suffering comes a sense of impotence that is too, in itself, a source of self-devaluation. The inferior self cannot solve their own inferiority. They depend on the other, feeling, in this way, deprived of their autonomy. There is a sense of loss of control and at the same time a need to submit oneself to the other: the caregiver: the healer. It is a double humiliation: not only is one unable to maintain their own integrity but they also have to deliver it into the hands of the other.
It follows that, as the ill person resorts to healthcare, the other is summoned and an encounter occurs. Within this encounter, vulnerability is further multiplied.
The first immediate multiplying stance is the pernicious and all-encompassing tic of healthcare services of systematically depriving the ill of their role as a person through transferring them to a position of ‘patient’, ‘client’ or the ‘infirm’. We say: now you’re no longer yourself. Now you’re an element, an objective side of this relation, of this exchange of services. It is an institutional blow that further diminishes the person’s sense of value, adding again to their inferiority — a case of institutional depersonalization.
Additionally, the in-between of the healthcare encounter is a relational space of considerable imbalance, both cognitive and of resources. One side has all the needs, while the other side has all the knowledge and all the tools. There is, hence, a further devaluation of the self and, perhaps, an overvaluation of the other, resulting in a deepening of value distance between the suffering person and the healthcare provider.
And this is not an exhaustive list.
If we, as healthcare providers look closely at this encounter, if we look reflexively upon ourselves, or if we peer empathically into the other, we’ll find numerous other multipliers. These may be either variations of those already listed, or of a different nature. But, in the end, the result will be the same:
a multiplied vulnerability. | https://medium.com/@migueloteles/medical-encounter-and-vulnerability-9251a724b239 | ['Miguel Oliva Teles'] | 2020-03-03 22:03:39.095000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability', 'Suffering', 'Responsibility', 'Healthcare'] |
Meus primeiros passos em UX | Developing my skills to generate creative solutions in an empathetic and holistic way through UX Design. www.linkedin.com/in/juliana-penna/ | https://medium.com/@ju-penna/meus-primeiros-passos-em-ux-45b999d5e3e1 | ['Juliana Penna'] | 2020-12-27 17:18:23.049000+00:00 | ['Career Change', 'Ironhack', 'Ux Design Thinking'] |
Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation | A few weeks ago I was listening to an extremely moving TEDx talk by Mataio Brown whose own childhood had been less than idyllic. He said “Your childhood trauma is not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility” and my heart sang loudly in response; I feel this speaks to the very core of what is needed to evolve individually and collectively right now.
I deliberated for quite a while about including the word trauma after childhood in the title but decided to leave it out. In my experience, people tend to associate the word trauma with things like physical and sexual abuse, warfare and life threatening illnesses to name a few. While these are unarguably traumatic and horrendous, most of us experience emotional and psychological trauma on some level that comes as part of a normal childhood.
This is often caused completely subconsciously by well meaning parents, who themselves have grown in a form reflecting their own childhood. However, I feel this is an era where are becoming aware of these cycles and have a responsibility to break them.
When I look at the definition of trauma, it can arise from any event or situation that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. This can range from issues with the way a parent interacts, to childhood illnesses, injuries and accidents, developmental trauma, exposure to violence and chronic stress to name a few.
A trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience, so it makes sense to me that — especially as helpless babies and young infants beginning to interact with the world — it would be traumatizing to feel rejected in any way. For example, Dr Gabor Mate talks about certain disruptions in the attachment process leading to developmental trauma.
To put that in plain English, I am talking about the job I might have to go to, which places my attention elsewhere, not on my infant seeking far more connection than I am able to give him or her. Or the constant distraction of a device and countless other things in this day and age when there is far more screaming for my attention than I am capable of giving.
Then there are the inherited patterns of behaviour in our parents that we react to, and unwittingly develop patterns in response to. These are essential for our survival in childhood but become unhealthy patterns later in life, and will certainly pass on unless we take action.
The best description I’ve seen of these is in James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy, he describes control strategies that we each develop in order to stop others draining our energy. These sit on a scale of aggressive to passive and he describes four archetypes; it’s often easiest if you start by taking a look at which strategies your parents employed:
· Intimidator’s threaten verbally or physically and come on too strong, making others frightened. They are so wrapped up in their own anger they don’t care what is happening inside the other person.
· Interrogator’s constantly question, criticize, nag and find fault, making others self conscious and eroding their confidence.
· Aloof’s shut down when confrontation happens. They often withdraw physically or verbally, forcing others to struggle and dig to find out their true feelings.
· Poor Me’s tend to guilt trip, projecting themselves as the helpless victim in need or care and attention. This makes others feel guilty even if they know there is no real reason to feel this way.
Each of these are linked with the corresponding strategies that created them, and that they create. For example, Intimidators create Poor Me’s appealing for mercy, or, the child will endure until they are old enough and big enough to fight back, creating another Intimidator, and so the cycle continues.
To break the cycle I have to become aware of the strategies I employ, and those being used by others around me. As James Redfield’s characters say, a person cannot play these strategies unless we play the matching drama.
While the answer lies in becoming a more detached observer of our own interactions, rather than getting pulled into the drama, and calling out what is actually happening, this is something that requires learning and practicing new skills that I will talk about later.
While I found these archetypes of how humans interact exceptionally useful, Jen Peters points out the many ways in which unhealed childhood trauma manifests:
· Fixing others
· People pleasing
· Co-dependency
· External validation
· Living on high alert
· Fear of abandonment
· De-prioritising one’s own needs
· Need to prove one’s self
· Tolerating abusive behaviour
· Attracting narcissistic partners
· Difficulty setting boundaries
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives an indication of the common types of ways in which childhood trauma can limit us in adulthood if we let it.
Yet when I take responsibility for my shortcomings and seek to heal them, I break a cycle that has been repeating uninterrupted for thousands of years. I become less encumbered, more connected, happier and more able to fulfill my potential. I become the very best version of me, and the best partner, best mum, best friend, best sister, the best of me reflects into all my relationships.
Circling back to the inspirational Mataio Brown telling his story in the TEDx talk, whose first memory of Christmas was as a three year old witnessing his father beat his mother half to death with the Christmas tree, he now says this of his father “That man who was my childhood monster, I now see his pain and loving him releases me to be the father for my children that I wanted”.
This is an excellent example of what Tony Robbins means when he says “Heal the boy and the man will appear”. Mataio could have become another generation of monster, or he could have played the Poor Me drama his whole life, instead he now campaigns with the slogan “She is not your rehab” and advocates for awareness and a healthier approach to childhood trauma.
I agree wholeheartedly, and I also think you could easily widen the scope in the broader sense of trauma and say “your partner/your children are not your rehabilitation centre”. As I’ve said before, whether psychologically, emotionally or physically The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth.
There are many things in this world that I believe need to change: poverty, access to education for all and the way we treat the planet to name a few of the big ones. But I am swimming upstream until I take responsibility for my own healing.
I realised life is not about having, life is about being, being who I truly am; not the misshapen version I’d become. Like most people, I would go to work to just exist, albeit it in a nicer lifestyle than that which I’d grown up in. It is easy to get distracted by the glittery baubles of day to day living, but they soon lose their sparkle yet require the money wheel to keep spinning anyway.
Becoming the observer of my own life, consciously aware of what is really tripping me up, is one of the most fundamental skills I have learned; and that is a whole lot easier when I take regular time out to meditate. The other skill that helps me take ownership of my part in all of it, is building my energy through appreciation of the beauty and awe of intelligent design that abounds on this planet; in people, animals and our environment.
The alternative, the default setting I had developed, is to steal energy from others, winning points in rounds of interactions. It is some time since Newton told us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Well, here it is, I only need look into the world to see what our actions and reactions among each other have come to look like after generations of just living on the wheel, acting and reacting subconsciously.
There are many ways to heal childhood trauma, but the common thread between most that are successful is to recognise and learn from the emotions we have locked inside us. My own approach has been to deal with one issue at a time, starting with whatever is my biggest block or trigger in the moment, including what’s happening on a physical level with my body.
I sometimes self heal using techniques and practices I’ve learned like The Completion Process, other times I use healthcare practitioners to help. I have some trusted confidantes that willingly dive into issues with me when they are raw and we keep each other honest, looking for the lessons rather than to blame, and I have a mentor that keeps me focused on the big picture.
This is not easy, it is not quick work, but it is everything.
I challenge you to be the you that you are destined to become, you are not just destined to take from this Earth and provide for your family, get off that wheel. Until you feel connected to yourself you are cut off from your connection to everything else. You are here to be somebody, so wake up and be that person, this world needs the true you.
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy some of my other articles like: Embody Your Spirituality — a Healing Journey, Learn to See What Is in Plain Sight, Leverage Your Feelings to Find Your Authentic Self, Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary). To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog. | https://byrslf.co/your-childhood-is-not-your-fault-but-it-will-be-your-limitation-ab3686981636 | ['Shona Keachie'] | 2019-10-13 17:29:39.334000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Personal Growth', 'Self-awareness', 'Self Love', 'Beyourself'] |
The Learning Problem: Comparison between Brain and Machine | This is the first chapter of a series devoted to analyze and decompose the learning problem in its very bases. In doing that I would like to stress the comparison between the biological and the artificial realm. Particularly, as a Physicist, I’m interested in understanding Emergence and Self-Organization phenomena, which are topics typically related to Complex Systems (e.g. the Brain or a Deep Neural Network). The central idea will thus be: showing how well-understood solutions (e.g. a single neuron) can be applied in a bottom-up manner in order to understand complex situations. With the purpose of building a solid structure for tackling this problem we’d need two tools: Mathematical Modeling and Simulation (a.k.a. Coding). I’ll go trough all of this since the very beginning, let’s get it started!
If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it. (George Pólya, Mathematical Discovery on Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Problem Solving)
Physics has been traditionally faithful to this idea: complex situations are preferentially studied on top of simple solutions. Even on the more abstract level, where issues pertaining to the general nature of constraints on cognitive processes are discussed, a physicist is likely to feel that natural language, for example, is much too complicated a subject-matter for a starting point. He is likely to try to construct a structure of increasing complexity consisting of definite realizations of simple processes possessing cognitive flavor. One of the main criteria for the selection of these stages is their analizability. Their properties can be studied in a non-abstract manner, avoiding mysterious conclusions which are brought by the blurriness of complexity.
In this way, in order to understand the learning problem, we should deal with its basic units. In particular we’re going to compare neurons and perceptrons. Let’s go on with the first one.
Neurons: biological candidates for understanding complexity [1]
A short description of the biological background is called for, even though it wouldn’t be possible, for a long time to come, to overcome Eric Kandel’s description of the neural sciences (you can check, therefore, this outstanding text for a general overview of the field). Only those features which are essential for the construction of the model will be summarized here.
The basic elements are, naturally, neurons and synapses. There is a fairly large variety of types of neurons in the human nervous system — variations are found in size, in structure and in function. As a choice of context, for the present purposes, we will consider a “canonical” type of neuron. If the underlying principles depend on the structure of individual neurons, it is unlikely that physics will contribute much to their clarification. Beyond a certain level, complex functions must be a result of the interaction of large numbers of simple elements.
Fig.1A source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/08/27/scientists-discover-a-new-type-of-brain-cell-in-humans/ — modified by myself
A neuron is depicted in Figure1, alongside its schematic representation. The neurons communicate via synapses, which are the points along the axon of the pre-synaptic neuron at which it can communicate the outcome of the computation that has been performed in its soma to the dendrites or even directly to the soma of the post-synaptic neuron. The output part is the axon. Usually only one axon leaves the soma and then, downstream, it branches repeatedly, to communicate with many post-synaptic neurons.
Now, from our perspective, the dynamics of neurons and synapses, which is very similar to the propagation of an electric signal in a cable, is based on the following sequence:
The neural axon is in an all-or-none state. In the first state it propagates a signal — spike, or action potential — based on the result of the summation, performed in the soma, of signals coming from dendrites. The shape and amplitude of the propagating signal is very stable and is replicated at branching points in the axon. Furthermore, the presence of a traveling impulse in the axon blocks the possibility of a second impulse transmission.
When the traveling signal reaches the endings of the axon it causes the secretion of neuro-transmitters — our harbingers — into the synapse extremity.
The neuro-transmitters arrive, across the synapse, at the post-synaptic neuron membrane and bind to receptors, thus causing the latter to open up and allow for the penetration of ionic current.
The post-synaptic potential (PSP) diffuses in a graded manner towards the soma where the inputs from all the pre-synaptic neurons connected to the post-synaptic one are summed. If the total sum of the PSP’s arriving within a short period surpasses a certain threshold, the probability for the emission of a spike becomes significant.
Following the event of the emission of a spike, the neuron needs time to recover. We are going to name this amount of time as absolute refractory period, in which the neuron cannot emit a second spike (in this way nature sets a maximal spike frequency, de facto limiting the amount of information that a neuron can process in a fixed amount of time).
The previous description indicates that the only way neurons can communicate the outcome of their computations to other neurons is trough the emission of neurotransmitters. For the sake of mathematical modeling we shall make a strong assumption, namely that: sub-treshold potentials do not lead to the release of neurotransmitters. In other words, neurotransmitters are released by spikes only.
Now that we have a basic introduction of neurons functionalities we can take a look at a mathematical model, i.e. the Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) neuron. For the ones of you who are interested in the “heavy” math behind this model, I’m going to briefly introduce it.
Leaky Integrate-and-Fire model, a mathematical perspective [2]
The canonical way in order to deal with neuronal models is the circuit analogy. This is pretty technical, but I’ll try to keep it as low level as possible. For the ones of you who have taken an Electronics 101 it’ll just be a quick recap of a simple 𝑅𝐶 circuit.
We’ve been previously talking about the summation (sometimes referred as integration) process that happens in the soma, which is, combined with the mechanism that triggers action potentials above some critical threshold, the very core of neuronal dynamics.
Let’s now dive into math so that to build a phenomenological model of neuronal dynamics. We describe the critical voltage as a formal threshold 𝜽. If the voltage 𝑢(𝑡) (the sum of all inputs) reaches 𝜽 from below, we say that the neuron fires a spike. In this model we have two different components that are both necessary to define the dynamics: first, an equation that describes the evolution of the potential 𝑢(𝑡); and second, a mechanism to generate spikes.
The following is the simplest model in the class of integrate-and-fire models is made up of two ingredients: a linear differential equation to describe the evolution of 𝑢(𝑡) and a threshold for spike firing.
The variable 𝑢(𝑡) describes the instant value of the potential of our neuron. In the absence of any input, the potential is at its resting state 𝑣 . If the neuron receives an input (a current) 𝐼(𝑡), the potential 𝑢(𝑡) will be deflected from its resting value.
In order to arrive at an equation that links the momentary voltage 𝑢(𝑡) — 𝑣 to the input current 𝐼(𝑡), we use elementary laws from the theory of electricity. If a current pulse 𝐼(𝑡) is injected into the neuron, the additional electrical charge will charge the cell membrane. The cell membrane will therefore act as a capacitor of capacity 𝐶. The charge will slowly leak through the cell membrane since this ladder is not a perfect insulator. We can take this into account by adding a finite leak resistance 𝑅 to our model.
The basic electrical circuit representing a leaky integrate-and-fire model consists of a capacitor 𝐶 in parallel with a resistor 𝑅 driven by a current 𝐼(𝑡); see Figure 2
Figure2 — source : https://neuronaldynamics.epfl.ch/online/Ch1.S3.html . On the left: a neuron, which is enclosed by the cell membrane (big circle), receives a (positive) input current 𝐼(𝑡) which increases the electrical charge inside the cell. The corresponding circuit is depicted at the bottom. On the right: the cell membrane reaction to a step current (top) with a smooth voltage signal (bottom)
With the purpose of analyzing the circuit, we use the law of current conservation and split the current into two components:
The first component is the current which passes through the linear resistor 𝑅 and it can be calculated from Ohm’s law. The second component charges the capacitor 𝐶. Thus, by using Ohm’s law and the current-voltage relation for capacitors, we get:
Luckily, this is a linear differential equation in 𝑢(𝑡) and it is easy to solve, especially if we consider a constant input current 𝐼(𝑡) = 𝑖 which starts at 𝑡 = 0 and ends at time 𝑡 = 𝚫. For the sake of simplicity we assume that the membrane potential at time 𝑡 = 0 is at its resting value 𝑢(0) = 𝑣.
The solution for 0<𝑡<𝚫 is, thus:
If the input current never stopped, the potential would approach for 𝑡→ ∞ to the asymptotic value 𝑢(∞)=𝑣 +𝑅𝑖. We can understand this result by taking a look at Figure2 right-side bottom. Once a plateau is reached, the charge on the capacitor no longer changes. All input current must then flow through the resistor. Additionally, for notation purposes we usually denote RC as 𝜏, phisically the time constant of our circuit. Now that we have introduced our ingredients it’s time to start baking some code.
Let’s code a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire neuron
We’re going to use Brian2, a very efficient Python library for simulating spiking neural networks (i.e. biological neural networks), which you can easily install by following the official instructions.
I often use Jupyter notebooks in order to run Python scripts: it’s an interactive environment that let you code and integrate Markdown and a wide range of useful plugins specifically designed for scientific computing and machine learning.
Once you’re ready with the installation, you can start by importing Brian2.
import brian2 as br2
After that, we’re going to define some global parameters of our model: N is the number of neurons; tau is the circuit time constant, previosly defined ( i.e. 𝜏 = RC ); v_r is the resting membrane potential (i.e. 𝑣); I_c is the constant input current (i.e. 𝑖); v_th is the spike critical voltage (i.e. threshold 𝜗)
N = 1 tau = 10 *br2.ms
v_r = 0 *br2.mV
I_c = 18 * br2.mV #v_th is a string, it's going to be clear in a while
v_th = "v > 15*mV"
You should note that in defining the variables we’ve set physical units as well.
Consequently, we can sketch out the dynamics: Brian2 let you write the equations that describe your model, you have to specify units as well (I know the current is apparently measured in Volt here — it’s a kick in the teeth, but everything is done for the sake of congruence)
eqs = '''
dv/dt = -(v-I)/tau : volt
I : volt
'''
By calling NeuronGroup we’re creating a group of Neurons (here we have 1 neuron) with the previously defined dynamics, v_r and I_c as the characteristics of our neuron. In order to record its activity we call StateMonitor, v_trace can be used to extract time and voltage values as we’ll soon see.
lif = br2.NeuronGroup(N, model = eqs, threshold =v_th, reset = 'v = 0*mV')
lif.v = v_r
lif.I = I_c v_trace = br2.StateMonitor(lif, 'v', record = True)
The last step consists in running the simulation and plotting the result. As previously said, we extract time from v_trace as our x-axis and voltage (v[0] refers to the first — and only — neuron). You have to be careful with physical units — again — and remember that for plotting we need a dimensional data.
br2.run(0.1*br2.second) br2.figure(1)
br2.plot(v_trace.t[:]/br2.ms, v_trace.v[0]/br2.mV)
br2.xlabel('Time (ms)', fontsize = 24)
br2.ylabel('v (mV)', fontsize = 24)
br2.yticks([0,4,8,12,16])
br2.show()
The result is thus a sequence of spikes. You should play with parameters in order to see different kinds of behaviour.
We’ve described a fairly biological model of spiking neurons, but what’s the transition from this realm to the artificial one? Let’s talk about perceptrons.
Perceptrons: artificial candidates for understanding complexity [3] [4]
By continuing with the complex systems’ paradigm, from Minsky’s and Papert’s book:
Although we do not have an equally elaborated theory of ‘learning’, we can at least demonstrate that in cases where ‘learning’ or ‘adaption’ or ‘self-organization’ does occur, its occurrence can be thoroughly elucidated and carries no suggestion of mysterious little-understood principles of complex systems. Whether there are such principles we cannot know. But the perceptron provides no evidence; and our success in analyzing it adds another piece of circumstantial evidence for the thesis that cybernetic processes that work can be understood, and those that cannot be understood are suspect.
As hinted by the quotation above and strongly advocated by Turing, mental phenomena are nothing but an expression of a very complex structure operating on relatively simple processes. This is the very first thought that brought to the formalization of the brain.
The perceptron is, in this way, the very first brick of Artificial Intelligence. We are going to formalize the biological neuron, de facto getting the perceptron and after that introduce Rosenblatt’s perceptron learning algorithm.
We now focus on the logical structure of a single neuron. The description of the previous sections suggests the following scheme:
Figure 3
There is a processing unit, the large circle , which represents the soma.
A number of input lines connect, logically, to the soma, depicted with incoming arrows in Figure3. They represent dendrites and synapses.
The input channels are activated by the signals they receive from the input variables (x’s) to which they are connected. These variables are our pre-synaptic axons, and they have an intrinsic logical nature, since they can either activate the channel (carry a spike) or not activate it (sub-treshold activity in the pre-synaptic neuron).
To each input line, we associate a parameter w — the subscript refers to the various input channels. The numerical value of each w is indeed the amount of post-synaptic potential (PSP) that would be added to the soma if the channel were activated.
Furthermore, there is a single logical output line (outgoing arrow in Fig3). It expresses the logical fact that our neuron produces a single relevant ouput — a spike .
We can arrange the operations of the unit in the following way:
At a given moment, some of the logical inputs are activated.
The soma receives an input which is the linear sum of PSP values of the channels that were activated — the variable x indicates whether the channel is active (x = 1) or inactive (x = -1)
values of the channels that were activated — the variable x indicates whether the channel is active (x = 1) or inactive (x = -1) The sum of PSP’s is compared to the threshold value of the neuron and the output channel is activated if it overcomes the threshold.
Formally, we’ll get:
with h as the PSP at our neuron and n as the number of pre-synaptic neurons. Mathematically h is nothing but a dot product.
Anyways, the operation implemented by our little “machine” can be expressed as:
with sign as the sign function and 𝜽 as the threshold of our neuron. H is basically 1 if its argument (h+𝜽) is positive and -1 if negative — and, to be precise, 0 if h +𝜽 = 0. The variable y indicates, in our biological analogy, whether a spike will appear in the output axon.
Now that our perceptron has taken shape we can talk about how this mathematical structure can be involved in the learning process. Let’s introduce Rosenblatt’s perceptron learning algorithm.
The learning process in perceptrons [4]
There’s a clear analogy between neurons and perceptrons, but how can we use this ladder model in order to learn ? We’re going to show that the perceptron can be used to solve classification problems, namely it can tell you whether, if we have two sets of points, a point belong to one set or another. We can say without a lack of generalizability that the problem can be thought as a binary (yes/no) decision, where the variable y (the output value) defined above is one of these two binary values ( yes = 1, no = -1) .
From the previous definition of h as a dot product it’s even clearer that x is formally a vector (the input vector). Every component of x is called feature, by talking in Machine Learning terms. In the same way w is a vector (the weight vector). The threshold term 𝜽 it’s usually called bias term. In the direction of a simplified notation we’re going to augment both x and w in the following way:
Basically, by extending the sum from i = 0 to i = n.
The learning algorithm we’re going to build will consider all these terms and in particular the term learning specifically refers on finding the best value of w’s components in order to achieve the best classification possible. Take a look at the following 2-dimensional (here x has only two components) problem in Figure4 and everything will be clear.
Figure 4 — On the left: misclassified data. On the right: perfectly classified data.
So, in practice, classification means finding a way in order to separate the two different “kinds” of data we have. Each “kind” of data is specified by a different label (plus or minus, in the figure above). So to speak, this is a two labels classification problem.
It’s time to introduce the perceptron learning algorithm (PLA), which will determine what w should be, based on the data. This learning algorithm consists in a simple iterative method. By involving the term “iteration”, we’re going to introduce a new parameter in our model, namely, time. At iteration t, where t = 0,1,2…, there is a current value of the weight vector, call it w(t). The algorithm picks a point, associated with its label, that is currently misclassified, call it (x(t), y(t)), and uses it to update w(t). Since the example is misclassified, we have y(t) ≠ sign(w(t) · x(t)), where the dot represents the dot product.
The weight update rule is as follow:
Figure 5 — The last update
This rule moves the boundary in the direction to classify x(t) correctly, as depicted in the figure above. The algorithm continues with further iterations until there are no longer misclassified points in the data set. With this intuitive view of the PLA, it’s now time to code it.
Let’s code the Perceptron Learning Algorithm
We’re going to implement the PLA from scratch by coding a simple Python script. Let’s open a new notebook with Jupyter and start by importing matplotlib.pyplot and numpy
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
We’re going to create a 2-dimensional random dataset of 5 points (with two possible labels, -1 and +1) by using numpy.random.rand(). In order to reproduce the result we’ll fix the random seed — you can actually choose every integer number, 137 has a particular meaning for Physicists though.
# Setting the random seed
np.random.seed(seed = 137) # Generate x1 and x2, coordinates of our points
number_of_points = 5
x1 = np.random.rand(number_of_points)
x2 = np.random.rand(number_of_points) # We have two labels, namely -1 and 1
possible_ys = np.array([-1,1]) # We randomly build the label y to point (x1,x2) association
y = np.random.choice(possible_ys, number_of_points)
Data are represented by triplets of values.
# We create data as triplets of values
data = []
for i in range(number_of_points):
data.append((x1[i],x2[i],y[i]))
You can take a look at your data by executing the following line and you’ll get:
# Taking a look at data
data
The next step is to plot them by denoting with a “-” the label corresponding to “-1” and by “+” the label corresponding to “1”
# Plotting our data
plt.plot([x1 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==-1], [x2 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==-1], '_', mec='r', mfc='none')
plt.plot([x1 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==1], [x2 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==1], '+', mec='b', mfc='none')
After that we can start with the learning model. The very first thing to do is to initialize the weights, usually a “little” random value is the best solution for faster convergence.
# Initializing the weight vector
w = np.random.rand(3)*10e-03
Consequently, we define the function “predict” which is nothing but sign(w(t) · x(t))
def predict(x1,x2):
# w[0] is the threshold value, x0 = 1
h= w[0] + w[1]*x1 + w[2]*x2
if h<0:
return -1
else:
return 1
The last part of the learning model is the function “fit” which corresponds to the weight update rule. The essence is: for every point we compare the predicted label with the actual one, if these are not equal each component of the weight vector is updated.
def fit(data):
stop = False
while stop == False:
stop = True
for x1,x2,y in data:
ypredict= predict(x1,x2)
if y != ypredict:
stop = False
w[1]= w[1] + x1*y
w[2]= w[2] + x2*y
w[0]= w[0] + y
By applying the function “fit” to our data, the PLA will converge to a solution. If this is the case we’ll get a printed ‘SUCCESS!’ as the output of the following cell.
fit(data) # Check if the model is predicting correct labels
for (x1, x2, y) in data:
if predict(x1,x2) != y:
print('FAIL')
break
else:
print('SUCCESS!')
Last but not least, we can plot our result. “f(x)” is the functional form of the line given by the PLA (you can get it by applying simple algebraic calculations — de facto by expliciting the expression for x2).
def f(x):
return -(w[0] + w[1]*x)/w[2] d = range(0,2)
plt.plot(d, [f(x) for x in d]) plt.plot([x1 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==-1], [x2 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==-1], '_', mec='r', mfc='none')
plt.plot([x1 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==1], [x2 for (x1,x2,y) in data if y==1], '+', mec='b', mfc='none')
In this way, we’ve solved a simple classification problem, i.e. we’ve been learning!
Conclusions
We’ve reached the end of our adventure: we’ve been traveling trough a mathematical model of the neuron and its implementation. With that in mind,we’ve been taking inspiration from it in order to formalize the neuron and build the perceptron. Be careful though, the perceptron is not a biologically plausible model. The relationship between neurons and pereptrons is much more similar to the one between birds and planes. Here, the problem of “flying” is actually the learning problem, but again, the road for a perfectly reliable plane it’s way longer than this.
In particular perceptrons have an intrinsic problem, which is insurmountable without a major change. Minsky and Papert have been pointing out that issue so clearly that research in Artificial Intelligence has been subjected to a quite long break. Therefore, I would like you to point out this serious perceptron’s limitation. I think that you can grasp an intuition of the problem by looking at the code in the previous section and tweaking np.random.seed() and number_of_points. Give it a try and let me know!
References
[1] Amit, D. (1989). Modeling Brain Function: The World of Attractor Neural Networks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2] Wulfram Gerstner, Werner M. Kistler, Richard Naud, and Liam Paninski. 2014. Neuronal Dynamics: From Single Neurons to Networks and Models of Cognition. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA. Online version: https://neuronaldynamics.epfl.ch/online/index.html
[3] Marvin L. Minsky and Seymour A. Papert. 1988. Perceptrons: Expanded Edition. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.
[4]Rosenblatt, Frank. 1962. Principles of neurodynamics; perceptrons and the theory of brain mechanisms. Washington, Spartan Books
[5] Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa, Malik Magdon-Ismail, and Hsuan-Tien Lin. 2012. Learning from Data. AMLBook. | https://medium.com/mljcunito/the-learning-problem-comparison-between-brain-and-machine-1e52213a1a63 | ['Simone Azeglio'] | 2019-09-24 20:07:36.618000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Programming', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Neuroscience'] |
Yes!!! We cant have Peace and Unity with creatures who 1. | Yes!!! We cant have Peace and Unity with creatures who 1. Actively want our destruction by any means possible and 2. Or who are content to “stand by and stand back” chastising us for being “rude.” | https://medium.com/@kayvalley/yes-we-cant-have-peace-and-unity-with-creatures-who-1-e5e265d202f0 | ['Kay Valley'] | 2020-11-13 11:54:40.957000+00:00 | ['White', 'Politeness', 'White Privilege', 'Racism', 'White Supremacy'] |
The Church of St. Paul the Apostle | Father Hecker was a Catholic convert, baptized in 1844 and ordained in 1849, and was first associated with the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly known as the Redemptorists. His own assertiveness led to being expelled from the Redemptorists, which spurred the founding of the Paulist Fathers with four other former Redemptorist American priests. The fresh orientation and approach developed by Father Hecker brought rejuvenation to not only American Catholic thought, but further influenced French Catholics pursuing revival in the context of the French Third Republic. | https://medium.com/the-photographic-muslim/the-church-of-st-paul-the-apostle-5e86368a6b4c | ['Haytham Ad-Din', 'The Photographic Muslim'] | 2019-12-23 23:47:41.822000+00:00 | ['Photography', 'Christianity', 'Catholic', 'Religion', 'History'] |
qua-diary: entry 02 | On June 4th, 2020, amidst the covid — 19 pandemic and quarantine, I decided to start a diary, I called it Quarantine Diary (Quadiary in short). Starting today, I decided to share some of the entries, not all of them.
I hope you enjoy my train of thoughts, or at least, most of it.
5 June 2020 | a Friday Entry
I’ve had some things on my mind last night to write and add to yesterday’s entry, but I decided to leave it the way it was and just write another entry the next day (today). I guess this will become some sort of a must to do every day or so during this quarantine. Writing my heart out yesterday did really make me feel better and a little bit hopeful, I guess. I woke up a little bit early today. All those little bits do get to be bigger bits that will have positive effect in my daily life.
I liked a song today called (Dance Monkey — Tones & I), turns out its pretty old but I liked it nevertheless, it made me feel like I want to dance, I’ve always wanted to dance as a kid, I used to do gymnastics when I was around 9 or 10 years old. I miss it, it gave me confidence and flexibility, I used to practice in our aunt’s home garden (where we used to live) I also practiced in our home garden when we moved. I like having fun and I like music, it doesn’t really make me feel insecure like it used to do in my teenage years, in contrast it makes me feel free and invincible.
The thing about postponing what you feel like writing is that you start to forget what you wanted to write and how you used to feel, I think that’s a good thing because it reminds you that not all feelings last long.
My friends and I decided to have breakfast tomorrow, but it might turn into a brunch date and I don’t mind that as long as I get to go out and surround myself with them. Some people’s presence really does give you a spiritual boost you know.
I miss writing, it makes me feel like I’m talking to someone who’s just listening and not judging nor interrupting except to make me fix my spelling or grammar mistakes but that type of interrupting is okay because I can postpone it until I finish this sentence.
That’s what I’ve been feeling lately, the need for someone to listen, to make me feel safe again and less lonely. | https://medium.com/@futtaimhb/qua-diary-entry-02-1a073be87bc9 | [] | 2020-12-25 06:19:07.298000+00:00 | ['Quarantine', 'Quarantine Diaries', 'Quarantinelife', 'Covid Diaries', 'Covid 19'] |
Error Handling with Express-React | I was recently working on error handling between the API and frontend of a single page shopping list app I’ve been designing and would like to share some simple strategies I used in the process.
The app’s backend is built with Node.js/Express connected to MongoDB via Mongoose, an ORM (object relation mapping) package for MongoDB. The front end is built with React.js whose local state is managed by Redux. The API calls are made via actions managed by thunk.
The following outlines how I set up validation for the User model to be used when a new user is created. Mongoose ships with some basic validation and sanitation for fields. Required is the most useful. The second argument of the required property is a custom message (I chose ‘An email is required’).
Mongoose purposely only offers basic validation out of the box, because it’s quite easy to set up custom validations and there are plenty of third party packages to supplement. Below I use a package called validator to check that the email is properly constructed. A custom validation is created by calling the validate and passing the value to the validation. The return value should be a boolean. In the case below the validation calls validator.isEmail(value). If it doesn’t pass, the method throws an error message.
One note about Mongoose schemas — assigning the ‘unique’ property to a particular field doesn’t cause an error to be thrown if you try to create a new instance with an identical field. The ‘unique’ validation is used for indexing fields.
// User schema with validation fields const UserSchema = new Schema({
email: {
type: String,
required: [true, 'An email is required'],
unique: true,
trim: true,
lowercase: true,
validate(value) {
if (!validator.isEmail(value)) {
throw new Error('Not a proper email format');
}
},
}, password: {
type: String,
required: [true, 'A password is required'],
}, name: {
type: String,
trim: true,
required: [true, 'A name is required'],
},
I set up some of the simpler validation on the client side — checking that data was not left blank and that email addresses were in an acceptable format. Once the data is validated and sent to the backend, where validation is set up in Mongoose schemas and is executed as middleware. As a challenge, I rechecked the validation that I set up in the client in the backend, in addition to the server side validations. I also wanted to see if I could have the API send back specific error messages to the client, depending on what went wrong.
The actual validation happens in the router’s handler. In my setup, it’s a three step process:
Check that the submitted email doesn’t yet exist in the database, that it is unique. Check that the password and password confirmation are the same.
These first two validations occur in the actual route handler and if either fails, the router sends back a status 400 with an error object to the frontend.
return res.status(400).send({ error: ‘Account already exists with this email’ });
As an aside, in the client I am using Axios to make the requests. Because the errors are sent back with a 400 status code, they can be accessed in the catch block using e.response.data.error
3. Create and save the new user. The schema validations happen as pre middleware just prior to saving. The error object looks like this:
{
name: ValidatorError: A name is required
{
properties: {
validator: [Function (anonymous)],
message: 'A name is required',
type: 'required',
path: 'name',
value: ''
},
kind: 'required',
path: 'name',
value: '',
reason: undefined,
[Symbol(mongoose:validatorError)]: true
},
In order to combine multiple validation errors (if they should occur), I set up an array of my field names (userFields). I call save() on the new user within a try-catch block. If there are no problems, the new user is sent back to the client. If there are errors, the catch block iterates through the error object, checking if the fields appear using bracket notation. If they do, I push the message into the foundErrors array. Finally I join the messages before sending them to the client.
const userFields = ['name', 'email', 'password'];
const user = new User(req.body); try {
await user.save();
const token = await user.generateAuthToken();
res.status(200).send({ user, token });
} catch (e) {
const foundErrors = [];
userFields.forEach((field) => {
if (e.errors[field]) {
foundErrors.push(e.errors[field].message);
}
});
res.status(400).send({ error: foundErrors.join('. ') });
}
I’m sure there are other approaches, but this setup worked well for me and, as an added bonus, working out the code gave me some insight into Mongoose validation and error handling. This solution works nicely, and sends very specific information that can be directly used for notifications in the client. | https://medium.com/@rixong/error-handling-with-express-react-99e197868817 | ['Rick Glascock'] | 2020-12-20 23:12:06.242000+00:00 | ['Expressjs', 'Mongoose'] |
A Digital Munshi For Indian businesses | Digitization is a reality that thrives the hopes of small and medium Businesses
Micro Small Medium Enterprises are the backbone of the Indian economy. According to the MSME Ministry’s 2019 annual report, out of 6.33 crore MSMEs in India, only 0.05 lakh are medium enterprises while 3.31 lakh are small and 6.30 crore are micro-units. Government initiatives in Ease of doing business, Atamnirbhar Bharat & Skill development initiatives are a powerful boost on medium and micro-enterprises.
Sustain, Support & expand the businesses
Sustain, Support & expand are the three powerful mantras from where Vardaan kicked off. For half of this decade, we talked about Digitization in the industrial sector. We firmly believe that if we innovate something affordable, easy to use, and suffice the requirement, India’s micro & medium segment is ready for Digitization.
“More than 75 % of MSME’s have a digital sense, they use smartphones and Internet”
How Vardaan supports the business?
The purpose of Vardaan is to allow businesses to manage their store end to end. The application’s intuitive design enables the merchants to use it for sales, accounting, and online Marketplace.
Small businesses do not need fancy and expensive software tools; however, to run a data-driven business, an intelligent and affordable tool is required. Many companies die at an early stage in India since they don’t have an affordable tool to manage the business and forecast the risk involved.
“The path to digitalization is from Digitization. Let’s digitize to bring innovation in making a smart business decision.”
The Top 5 Features of Vardaan:
Vardaan- Your digital Munshi
Vardaan has many features for store management:
Store Item entry
Inventory management
Order creation
Customer interaction
Expenses
Digital payments
Digital marketing
The application algorithm does all the calculations related to business and reports. The real-time dashboard allows merchants to see the business in graphical form. Our customers think it is an essential and helpful feature since this gives a visual insight into the business.
2. Operate Multiple Stores with multiple staffs
What could be better than operating multiple businesses or stores from a single device? Vardaan application allows small and medium businesses to run as many businesses as possible through a single account.
All the stores will run individually, and switching between the stores will not take more than one second. The benefit is the harmonization of technology throughout the business. This will give excellent control to the merchants to overview and run the stores efficiently.
Merchants can add multiple staff with limited access to run the business.
3. Store/ Business Management
The application has been designed to support various sectors of the business. Be it a service, retails, manufacturing, and many others. At present Vardaan is being used by retailers, restaurants, food trucks, poultry shops, boutiques, construction, manufacturing, dry cleaners, photo studio, Medical shop, and many others.
The initial POC on the application gives a storing indication of the adaptability of the application across segments.
The application has all the important features that allow a business to get managed. It has:
Store item management
Inventory management
Order creation
Bahi Khata
Expense management
UPI payment option
Multiple invoice selection
4. Online Marketplace
Vardaan also provides Online Marketplace. You can share all your store items and products to any customer or social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook and get your business online. The offline and online store management can be done through the same application and same screen.
The application allows you to manage both offline and online business through one application and one device.
5. Data Security
Customer data security is paramount, and our technical team has given various checks and has adapted the best practice to make the system hack-proof. Merchant data is safe, secure, and available for merchants anytime.
Data is stored in the cloud with multiple layers of security hence it is prone to theft, damage, and loss.
Vardaan takes care of your data so that you can take care of your business.
Give Your business a Vardaan!
Technology has given us a way to digitize the business and took us one step closer to digitalization. We are ready to adapt to the business needs and we are ready to customize applications based on the business type.
The goal is to have one super application that suffices for the major section of the business.
Run your business on a smartphone from anywhere, anytime! | https://medium.com/kunal-kumar/a-digital-munshi-for-indian-businesses-9459f82d4e1f | ['Vardaan Solutions'] | 2020-12-23 11:06:04.126000+00:00 | ['Small And Medium Busines', 'Small Business Owner', 'Online Business', 'Bahi Khata', 'Digital Business'] |
Apache Atlas and Google Data Catalog comparison | Apache Atlas
Defines their core metadata as:
Apache Atlas Metadata mental model
Atlas allows users to define a model for the metadata objects they want to manage. The model is composed of definitions called types .
A type represents one or a collection of attributes that define the properties for the metadata object.
— Hey Marcelo, can we compare a type with any Google Data Catalog object?— Sorry! This is not a fair comparison, if you look at the mental models, the hierarchies are different! But let’s dig deeper and we will find some similarities.
There are two Composite Metatypes: Struct and Relationships that are out of the scope of this article. Google Data Catalog does not support lineage at the time of this writing, so we are not using Relationships. And if you are using struct types, I’d love to know your use cases and perhaps improve this article.
Now let’s understand each main component on that diagram.
Primitive and Enum Meta types
Think about any programming language, those are the most basic types , that you can use when creating your Entities and Classifications attributes.
Collection Meta types
This is where things get interesting, you can use arrays and maps structures composed of the primitive and enum types.
Let’s say you have a Table in Atlas, that Table will surely contain some columns. So here you would represent the columns as an array meta-type.
Composite Meta types
Here are the two most important units, Entities, and Classifications.
Entities
I told you we would find similarities, Entities in Atlas are close to what we call Entries in Google Data Catalog.
They represent an asset’s technical metadata, the difference, is that there are no pre-defined fields.
Gif from giphy
Sounds scary right? This give users a lot of flexibility, but comes with complexity, so use with care.
Lucky for us, Atlas comes with some pre-defined entity types for various Hadoop and non-Hadoop metadata, and you can even ingest sample models and data by running their quick_start.
Also, entity types can extend from other types, called superTypes , so you receive attributes from ancestors. Let’s look at one example:
Atlas Table Example
This image shows the attributes for a Table entity called customer_dim .
If we look at the Table ancestors, we would get this hierarchy: Table -> DataSet -> Asset -> Referenceable.
And the attributes we are looking at, are the combination of that hierarchy.
Bear in mind that DataSet is one of the most important types — according to Atlas documentation: “DataSet can be expected to have a Schema” — allowing us to add classifications on them later on.
Classifications
Do you remember Google Data Catalog Templates? We can say Classifications are really similar to them.
Just like Templates entities can be associated with Classifications, enabling easier discovery and management.
As Atlas Entities we have the same attributes and superTypes capabilities when creating Classifications.
To show how similar Classifications are from Google Data Catalog Templates we are going to create one named ETL Governance.
ETL Classification creation
The difference here, is we are adding the PII superType. | https://medium.com/google-cloud/a-metadata-comparison-between-apache-atlas-and-google-data-catalog-7e1ad391b4c2 | ['Marcelo Costa'] | 2020-07-06 12:19:18.680000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Data', 'Apache Atlas', 'Big Data', 'Data Science'] |
Top 50 Hadoop Interview Questions You Must Prepare In 2019 | In this Hadoop interview questions blog, we will be covering all the frequently asked questions that will help you ace the interview with their best solutions. But before that, let me tell you how the demand is continuously increasing for Big Data and Hadoop experts.
Following are a few stats that reflect the growth in the demand for Hadoop quite accurately:
Big Data will drive $48.6 billion in annual spending by 2019- IDC.
The average salary of a Big Data Hadoop developer in the US is $135k- Indeed.com
The average annual salary in the United Kingdom is £66,250 — £66,750- itjobswatch.co.uk
I would like to draw your attention to the Big Data revolution. Earlier, organizations were only concerned about operational data, which was less than 20% of the whole data. Later, they realized that analyzing the whole data will give them better business insights & decision-making capability. That was the time when big giants like Yahoo, Facebook, Google, etc. started adopting Hadoop & Big Data related technologies. In fact, nowadays one of every fifth company is moving to Big Data analytics. Hence, the demand for jobs in Big Data Hadoop is rising like anything. Therefore, if you want to boost your career, Hadoop and Spark are just the technology you need. This would always give you a good start either as a fresher or experienced.
Prepare with these top Hadoop interview questions to get an edge in the burgeoning Big Data market where global and local enterprises, big or small, are looking for the quality Big Data and Hadoop experts. This definitive list of top Hadoop interview questions will take you through the questions and answers around Hadoop Cluster, HDFS, MapReduce, Pig, Hive, HBase. This blog is the gateway to your next Hadoop job.
In case you have come across a few difficult questions in a Hadoop interview and are still confused about the best answer, kindly put those questions in the comment section below. We will be happy to answer them.
In the meantime, you can maximize the Big Data Analytics career opportunities that are sure to come your way by taking Hadoop online training with Edureka. Click below to know more.
1. What are the basic differences between relational database and HDFS?
Here are the key differences between HDFS and relational database:
2. Explain “Big Data” and what are five V’s of Big Data?
“Big data” is the term for a collection of large and complex data sets, that makes it difficult to process using relational database management tools or traditional data processing applications. It is difficult to capture, curate, store, search, share, transfer, analyze, and visualize Big data. Big Data has emerged as an opportunity for companies. Now they can successfully derive value from their data and will have a distinct advantage over their competitors with enhanced business decisions making capabilities.
♣ Tip: It will be a good idea to talk about the 5Vs in such questions, whether it is asked specifically or not!
Volume : The volume represents the amount of data which is growing at an exponential rate i.e. in Petabytes and Exabytes.
: The volume represents the amount of data which is growing at an exponential rate i.e. in Petabytes and Exabytes. Velocity : Velocity refers to the rate at which data is growing, which is very fast. Today, yesterday’s data are considered as old data. Nowadays, social media is a major contributor to the velocity of growing data.
: Velocity refers to the rate at which data is growing, which is very fast. Today, yesterday’s data are considered as old data. Nowadays, social media is a major contributor to the velocity of growing data. Variety : Variety refers to the heterogeneity of data types. In another word, the data which are gathered has a variety of formats like videos, audios, csv, etc. So, these various formats represent the variety of data.
: Variety refers to the heterogeneity of data types. In another word, the data which are gathered has a variety of formats like videos, audios, csv, etc. So, these various formats represent the variety of data. Veracity : Veracity refers to the data in doubt or uncertainty of data available due to data inconsistency and incompleteness. Data available can sometimes get messy and may be difficult to trust. With many forms of big data, quality and accuracy are difficult to control. The volume is often the reason behind for the lack of quality and accuracy in the data.
: Veracity refers to the data in doubt or uncertainty of data available due to data inconsistency and incompleteness. Data available can sometimes get messy and may be difficult to trust. With many forms of big data, quality and accuracy are difficult to control. The volume is often the reason behind for the lack of quality and accuracy in the data. Value: It is all well and good to have access to big data but unless we can turn it into a value it is useless. By turning it into value I mean, Is it adding to the benefits of the organizations? Is the organization working on Big Data achieving high ROI (Return On Investment)? Unless, it adds to their profits by working on Big Data, it is useless.
3. What is Hadoop and its components.
When “Big Data” emerged as a problem, Apache Hadoop evolved as a solution to it. Apache Hadoop is a framework which provides us various services or tools to store and process Big Data. It helps in analyzing Big Data and making business decisions out of it, which can’t be done efficiently and effectively using traditional systems.
♣ Tip: Now, while explaining Hadoop, you should also explain the main components of Hadoop, i.e.:
Storage unit – HDFS (NameNode, DataNode)
– HDFS (NameNode, DataNode) Processing framework– YARN (ResourceManager, NodeManager)
4. What are HDFS and YARN?
HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) is the storage unit of Hadoop. It is responsible for storing different kinds of data as blocks in a distributed environment. It follows master and slave topology.
♣ Tip: It is recommended to explain the HDFS components too i.e.
NameNode: NameNode is the master node in the distributed environment and it maintains the metadata information for the blocks of data stored in HDFS like block location, replication factors etc.
NameNode is the master node in the distributed environment and it maintains the metadata information for the blocks of data stored in HDFS like block location, replication factors etc. DataNode: DataNodes are the slave nodes, which are responsible for storing data in the HDFS. NameNode manages all the DataNodes.
YARN (Yet Another Resource Negotiator) is the processing framework in Hadoop, which manages resources and provides an execution environment to the processes.
♣ Tip: Similarly, as we did in HDFS, we should also explain the two components of YARN:
ResourceManager: It receives the processing requests, and then passes the parts of requests to corresponding NodeManagers accordingly, where the actual processing takes place. It allocates resources to applications based on the needs.
It receives the processing requests, and then passes the parts of requests to corresponding NodeManagers accordingly, where the actual processing takes place. It allocates resources to applications based on the needs. NodeManager: NodeManager is installed on every DataNode and it is responsible for the execution of the task on every single DataNode.
5. Tell me about the various Hadoop daemons and their roles in a Hadoop cluster.
Generally approach this question by first explaining the HDFS daemons i.e. NameNode, DataNode and Secondary NameNode, and then moving on to the YARN daemons i.e. ResorceManager and NodeManager, and lastly explaining the JobHistoryServer.
NameNode: It is the master node which is responsible for storing the metadata of all the files and directories. It has information about blocks, that make a file, and where those blocks are located in the cluster.
It is the master node which is responsible for storing the metadata of all the files and directories. It has information about blocks, that make a file, and where those blocks are located in the cluster. Datanode: It is the slave node that contains the actual data.
It is the slave node that contains the actual data. Secondary NameNode: It periodically merges the changes (edit log) with the FsImage (Filesystem Image), present in the NameNode. It stores the modified FsImage into persistent storage, which can be used in case of failure of NameNode.
It periodically merges the changes (edit log) with the FsImage (Filesystem Image), present in the NameNode. It stores the modified FsImage into persistent storage, which can be used in case of failure of NameNode. ResourceManager: It is the central authority that manages resources and schedule applications running on top of YARN.
It is the central authority that manages resources and schedule applications running on top of YARN. NodeManager: It runs on slave machines, and is responsible for launching the application’s containers (where applications execute their part), monitoring their resource usage (CPU, memory, disk, network) and reporting these to the ResourceManager.
It runs on slave machines, and is responsible for launching the application’s containers (where applications execute their part), monitoring their resource usage (CPU, memory, disk, network) and reporting these to the ResourceManager. JobHistoryServer: It maintains information about MapReduce jobs after the Application Master terminates.
Hadoop HDFS Interview Questions
6. Compare HDFS with Network Attached Storage (NAS).
In this question, first explain NAS and HDFS, and then compare their features as follows:
Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. NAS can either be a hardware or software which provides services for storing and accessing files. Whereas Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is a distributed filesystem to store data using commodity hardware.
In HDFS Data Blocks are distributed across all the machines in a cluster. Whereas in NAS data is stored on a dedicated hardware.
HDFS is designed to work with MapReduce paradigm, where computation is moved to the data. NAS is not suitable for MapReduce since data is stored separately from the computations.
HDFS uses commodity hardware which is cost-effective, whereas a NAS is a high-end storage devices which includes high cost.
7. List the difference between Hadoop 1 and Hadoop 2.
This is an important question and while answering this question, we have to mainly focus on two points i.e. Passive NameNode and YARN architecture.
In Hadoop 1.x, “NameNode” is the single point of failure. In Hadoop 2.x, we have Active and Passive “NameNodes”. If the active “NameNode” fails, the passive “NameNode” takes charge. Because of this, high availability can be achieved in Hadoop 2.x.
Also, in Hadoop 2.x, YARN provides a central resource manager. With YARN, you can now run multiple applications in Hadoop, all sharing a common resource. MRV2 is a particular type of distributed application that runs the MapReduce framework on top of YARN. Other tools can also perform data processing via YARN, which was a problem in Hadoop 1.x.
8. What are active and passive “NameNodes”?
In HA (High Availability) architecture, we have two NameNodes — Active “NameNode” and Passive “NameNode”.
Active “NameNode” is the “NameNode” which works and runs in the cluster.
Passive “NameNode” is a standby “NameNode”, which has similar data as active “NameNode”.
When the active “NameNode” fails, the passive “NameNode” replaces the active “NameNode” in the cluster. Hence, the cluster is never without a “NameNode” and so it never fails.
9. Why does one remove or add nodes in a Hadoop cluster frequently?
One of the most attractive features of the Hadoop framework is its utilization of commodity hardware. However, this leads to frequent “DataNode” crashes in a Hadoop cluster. Another striking feature of Hadoop Framework is the ease of scale in accordance with the rapid growth in data volume. Because of these two reasons, one of the most common task of a Hadoop administrator is to commission (Add) and decommission (Remove) “Data Nodes” in a Hadoop Cluster.
10. What happens when two clients try to access the same file in the HDFS?
HDFS supports exclusive writes only.
When the first client contacts the “NameNode” to open the file for writing, the “NameNode” grants a lease to the client to create this file. When the second client tries to open the same file for writing, the “NameNode” will notice that the lease for the file is already granted to another client, and will reject the open request for the second client.
11. How does NameNode tackle DataNode failures?
NameNode periodically receives a Heartbeat (signal) from each of the DataNode in the cluster, which implies DataNode is functioning properly.
A block report contains a list of all the blocks on a DataNode. If a DataNode fails to send a heartbeat message, after a specific period of time it is marked dead.
The NameNode replicates the blocks of dead node to another DataNode using the replicas created earlier.
12. What will you do when NameNode is down?
The NameNode recovery process involves the following steps to make the Hadoop cluster up and running:
Use the file system metadata replica (FsImage) to start a new NameNode. Then, configure the DataNodes and clients so that they can acknowledge this new NameNode, that is started. Now the new NameNode will start serving the client after it has completed loading the last checkpoint FsImage (for metadata information) and received enough block reports from the DataNodes.
Whereas, on large Hadoop clusters this NameNode recovery process may consume a lot of time and this becomes even a greater challenge in the case of the routine maintenance.
13. What is a checkpoint?
In brief, “Checkpointing” is a process that takes an FsImage, edit log and compacts them into a new FsImage. Thus, instead of replaying an edit log, the NameNode can load the final in-memory state directly from the FsImage. This is a far more efficient operation and reduces NameNode startup time. Checkpointing is performed by Secondary NameNode.
14. How is HDFS fault tolerant?
When data is stored over HDFS, NameNode replicates the data to several DataNode. The default replication factor is 3. You can change the configuration factor as per your need. If a DataNode goes down, the NameNode will automatically copy the data to another node from the replicas and make the data available. This provides fault tolerance in HDFS.
15. Can NameNode and DataNode be a commodity hardware?
The smart answer to this question would be, DataNodes are commodity hardware like personal computers and laptops as it stores data and are required in a large number. But from your experience, you can tell that, NameNode is the master node and it stores metadata about all the blocks stored in HDFS. It requires high memory (RAM) space, so NameNode needs to be a high-end machine with good memory space.
16. Why do we use HDFS for applications having large data sets and not when there are a lot of small files?
HDFS is more suitable for large amounts of data sets in a single file as compared to small amount of data spread across multiple files. As you know, the NameNode stores the metadata information regarding the file system in the RAM. Therefore, the amount of memory produces a limit to the number of files in my HDFS file system. In other words, too many files will lead to the generation of too much metadata. And, storing these metadata in the RAM will become a challenge. As a thumb rule, metadata for a file, block or directory takes 150 bytes.
17. How do you define “block” in HDFS? What is the default block size in Hadoop 1 and in Hadoop 2? Can it be changed?
Blocks are the nothing but the smallest continuous location on your hard drive where data is stored. HDFS stores each as blocks, and distribute it across the Hadoop cluster. Files in HDFS are broken down into block-sized chunks, which are stored as independent units.
Hadoop 1 default block size: 64 MB
Hadoop 2 default block size: 128 MB
Yes, blocks can be configured. The dfs.block.size parameter can be used in the hdfs-site.xml file to set the size of a block in a Hadoop environment.
18. What does ‘jps’ command do?
The ‘jps’ command helps us to check if the Hadoop daemons are running or not. It shows all the Hadoop daemons i.e namenode, datanode, resourcemanager, nodemanager etc. that are running on the machine.
19. How do you define “Rack Awareness” in Hadoop?
Rack Awareness is the algorithm in which the “NameNode” decides how blocks and their replicas are placed, based on rack definitions to minimize network traffic between “DataNodes” within the same rack. Let’s say we consider replication factor 3 (default), the policy is that “for every block of data, two copies will exist in one rack, third copy in a different rack”. This rule is known as the “Replica Placement Policy”.
20. What is “speculative execution” in Hadoop?
If a node appears to be executing a task slower, the master node can redundantly execute another instance of the same task on another node. Then, the task which finishes first will be accepted and the other one is killed. This process is called “speculative execution”.
21. How can I restart “NameNode” or all the daemons in Hadoop?
This question can have two answers, we will discuss both the answers. We can restart NameNode by following methods:
You can stop the NameNode individually using /sbin /hadoop-daemon.sh stop namenode command and then start the NameNode using. /sbin/hadoop-daemon.sh start namenode command. To stop and start all the daemons, use. /sbin/stop-all.and then use ./sbin/start-all.sh command which will stop all the daemons first and then start all the daemons.
These script files reside in the sbin directory inside the Hadoop directory.
22. What is the difference between an “HDFS Block” and an “Input Split”?
The “HDFS Block” is the physical division of the data while “Input Split” is the logical division of the data. HDFS divides data in blocks for storing the blocks together, whereas for processing, MapReduce divides the data into the input split and assign it to mapper function.
23. Name the three modes in which Hadoop can run.
The three modes in which Hadoop can run are as follows:
Standalone (local) mode: This is the default mode if we don’t configure anything. In this mode, all the components of Hadoop, such NameNode, DataNode, ResourceManager, and NodeManager, run as a single Java process. This uses the local filesystem. Pseudo-distributed mode: A single-node Hadoop deployment is considered as running Hadoop system in pseudo-distributed mode. In this mode, all the Hadoop services, including both the master and the slave services, were executed on a single compute node. Fully distributed mode: A Hadoop deployments in which the Hadoop master and slave services run on separate nodes, are stated as fully distributed mode.
Hadoop MapReduce Interview Questions
24. What is “MapReduce”? What is the syntax to run a “MapReduce” program?
It is a framework/a programming model that is used for processing large data sets over a cluster of computers using parallel programming. The syntax to run a MapReduce program is hadoop_jar_file.jar /input_path /output_path.
25. What are the main configuration parameters in a “MapReduce” program?
The main configuration parameters which users need to specify in “MapReduce” framework are:
Job’s input locations in the distributed file system
Job’s output location in the distributed file system
Input format of data
Output format of data
Class containing the map function
Class containing the reduce function
JAR file containing the mapper, reducer and driver classes
26. State the reason why we can’t perform “aggregation” (addition) in mapper? Why do we need the “reducer” for this?
This answer includes many points, so we will go through them sequentially.
We cannot perform “aggregation” (addition) in mapper because sorting does not occur in the “mapper” function. Sorting occurs only on the reducer side and without sorting aggregation cannot be done.
During “aggregation”, we need the output of all the mapper functions which may not be possible to collect in the map phase as mappers may be running on the different machine where the data blocks are stored.
And lastly, if we try to aggregate data at mapper, it requires communication between all mapper functions which may be running on different machines. So, it will consume high network bandwidth and can cause network bottlenecking.
27. What is the purpose of “RecordReader” in Hadoop?
The “InputSplit” defines a slice of work, but does not describe how to access it. The “RecordReader” class loads the data from its source and converts it into (key, value) pairs suitable for reading by the “Mapper” task. The “RecordReader” instance is defined by the “Input Format”.
28. Explain “Distributed Cache” in a “MapReduce Framework”.
Distributed Cache can be explained as, a facility provided by the MapReduce framework to cache files needed by applications. Once you have cached a file for your job, Hadoop framework will make it available on each and every data nodes where you map/reduce tasks are running. Then you can access the cache file as a local file in your Mapper or Reducer job.
29. How do “reducers” communicate with each other?
This is a tricky question. The “MapReduce” programming model does not allow “reducers” to communicate with each other. “Reducers” run in isolation.
30. What does a “MapReduce Partitioner” do?
A “MapReduce Partitioner” makes sure that all the values of a single key go to the same “reducer”, thus allowing even distribution of the map output over the “reducers”. It redirects the “mapper” output to the “reducer” by determining which “reducer” is responsible for the particular key.
31. How will you write a custom partitioner?
Custom partitioner for a Hadoop job can be written easily by following the below steps:
Create a new class that extends Partitioner Class
Override method — getPartition, in the wrapper that runs in the MapReduce.
Add the custom partitioner to the job by using method set Partitioner or add the custom partitioner to the job as a config file.
32. What is a “Combiner”?
A “Combiner” is a mini “reducer” that performs the local “reduce” task. It receives the input from the “mapper” on a particular “node” and sends the output to the “reducer”. “Combiners” help in enhancing the efficiency of “MapReduce” by reducing the quantum of data that is required to be sent to the “reducers”.
33. What do you know about “SequenceFileInputFormat”?
“SequenceFileInputFormat” is an input format for reading within sequence files. It is a specific compressed binary file format which is optimized for passing the data between the outputs of one “MapReduce” job to the input of some other “MapReduce” job.
Sequence files can be generated as the output of other MapReduce tasks and are an efficient intermediate representation for data that is passing from one MapReduce job to another.
Apache Pig Interview Questions
34. What are the benefits of Apache Pig over MapReduce?
Apache Pig is a platform, used to analyze large data sets representing them as data flows developed by Yahoo. It is designed to provide an abstraction over MapReduce, reducing the complexities of writing a MapReduce program.
Pig Latin is a high-level data flow language, whereas MapReduce is a low-level data processing paradigm.
Without writing complex Java implementations in MapReduce, programmers can achieve the same implementations very easily using Pig Latin.
Apache Pig reduces the length of the code by approx 20 times (according to Yahoo). Hence, this reduces the development period by almost 16 times.
Pig provides many built-in operators to support data operations like joins, filters, ordering, sorting etc. Whereas to perform the same function in MapReduce is a humongous task.
Performing a Join operation in Apache Pig is simple. Whereas it is difficult in MapReduce to perform a Join operation between the data sets, as it requires multiple MapReduce tasks to be executed sequentially to fulfill the job.
In addition, pig also provides nested data types like tuples, bags, and maps that are missing from MapReduce.
35. What are the different data types in Pig Latin?
Pig Latin can handle both atomic data types like int, float, long, double etc. and complex data types like tuple, bag and map.
Atomic data types: Atomic or scalar data types are the basic data types which are used in all the languages like string, int, float, long, double, char[], byte[].
Complex Data Types: Complex data types are Tuple, Map and Bag.
36. What are the different relational operations in “Pig Latin” you worked with?
Different relational operators are:
for each order by filters group distinct join limit
If some functions are unavailable in built-in operators, we can programmatically create User Defined Functions (UDF) to bring those functionalities using other languages like Java, Python, Ruby, etc. and embed it in Script file.
37. What is a UDF?
If some functions are unavailable in built-in operators, we can programmatically create User Defined Functions (UDF) to bring those functionalities using other languages like Java, Python, Ruby, etc. and embed it in Script file.
Apache Hive Interview Questions
38. What is “SerDe” in “Hive”?
Apache Hive is a data warehouse system built on top of Hadoop and is used for analyzing structured and semi-structured data developed by Facebook. Hive abstracts the complexity of Hadoop MapReduce.
The “SerDe” interface allows you to instruct “Hive” about how a record should be processed. A “SerDe” is a combination of a “Serializer” and a “Deserializer”. “Hive” uses “SerDe” (and “FileFormat”) to read and write the table’s row.
39. Can the default “Hive Metastore” be used by multiple users (processes) at the same time?
“Derby database” is the default “Hive Metastore”. Multiple users (processes) cannot access it at the same time. It is mainly used to perform unit tests.
40. What is the default location where “Hive” stores table data?
The default location where Hive stores table data is inside HDFS in /user/hive/warehouse.
Apache HBase Interview Questions
41. What is Apache HBase?
HBase is an open source, multidimensional, distributed, scalable and a NoSQL database written in Java. HBase runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) and provides BigTable (Google) like capabilities to Hadoop. It is designed to provide a fault-tolerant way of storing the large collection of sparse data sets. HBase achieves high throughput and low latency by providing faster Read/Write Access on huge datasets.
42. What are the components of Apache HBase?
HBase has three major components, i.e. HMaster Server, HBase RegionServer and Zookeeper.
Region Server : A table can be divided into several regions. A group of regions is served to the clients by a Region Server.
: A table can be divided into several regions. A group of regions is served to the clients by a Region Server. HMaster : It coordinates and manages the Region Server (similar as NameNode manages DataNode in HDFS).
: It coordinates and manages the Region Server (similar as NameNode manages DataNode in HDFS). ZooKeeper: Zookeeper acts like as a coordinator inside HBase distributed environment. It helps in maintaining server state inside the cluster by communicating through sessions.
43. What are the components of Region Server?
The components of a Region Server are:
WAL : Write Ahead Log (WAL) is a file attached to every Region Server inside the distributed environment. The WAL stores the new data that hasn’t been persisted or committed to the permanent storage.
: Write Ahead Log (WAL) is a file attached to every Region Server inside the distributed environment. The WAL stores the new data that hasn’t been persisted or committed to the permanent storage. Block Cache : Block Cache resides in the top of Region Server. It stores the frequently read data in the memory.
: Block Cache resides in the top of Region Server. It stores the frequently read data in the memory. MemStore : It is the write cache. It stores all the incoming data before committing it to the disk or permanent memory. There is one MemStore for each column family in a region.
: It is the write cache. It stores all the incoming data before committing it to the disk or permanent memory. There is one MemStore for each column family in a region. HFile: HFile is stored in HDFS. It stores the actual cells on the disk.
44. Explain “WAL” in HBase?
Write Ahead Log (WAL) is a file attached to every Region Server inside the distributed environment. The WAL stores the new data that hasn’t been persisted or committed to the permanent storage. It is used in case of failure to recover the data sets.
45. Mention the differences between “HBase” and “Relational Databases”?
HBase is an open source, multidimensional, distributed, scalable and a NoSQL database written in Java. HBase runs on top of HDFS and provides BigTable like capabilities to Hadoop. Let us see the differences between HBase and relational database.
Apache Spark Interview Questions
46. What is Apache Spark?
The answer to this question is, Apache Spark is a framework for real-time data analytics in a distributed computing environment. It executes in-memory computations to increase the speed of data processing.
It is 100x faster than MapReduce for large-scale data processing by exploiting in-memory computations and other optimizations.
47. Can you build “Spark” with any particular Hadoop version?
Yes, one can build “Spark” for a specific Hadoop version.
48. Define RDD.
RDD is the acronym for Resilient Distribution Datasets — a fault-tolerant collection of operational elements that run parallel. The partitioned data in RDD are immutable and distributed, which is a key component of Apache Spark.
Oozie & ZooKeeper Interview Questions
49. What is Apache ZooKeeper and Apache Oozie?
Apache ZooKeeper coordinates with various services in a distributed environment. It saves a lot of time by performing synchronization, configuration maintenance, grouping and naming.
Apache Oozie is a scheduler which schedules Hadoop jobs and binds them together as one logical work. There are two kinds of Oozie jobs:
Oozie Workflow : These are the sequential set of actions to be executed. You can assume it as a relay race. Where each athlete waits for the last one to complete his part.
: These are the sequential set of actions to be executed. You can assume it as a relay race. Where each athlete waits for the last one to complete his part. Oozie Coordinator: These are the Oozie jobs which are triggered when the data is made available to it. Think of this as the response-stimuli system in our body. In the same manner, as we respond to an external stimulus, an Oozie coordinator responds to the availability of data and it rests otherwise.
50. How do you configure an “Oozie” job in Hadoop?
“Oozie” is integrated with the rest of the Hadoop stack supporting several types of Hadoop jobs such as “Java MapReduce”, “Streaming MapReduce”, “Pig”, “Hive” and “Sqoop”.
I hope this article is informative and added value to you.
If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Python, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Big data. | https://medium.com/edureka/hadoop-interview-questions-55b8e547dd5c | ['Shubham Sinha'] | 2020-05-08 08:05:49.258000+00:00 | ['Big Data And Analytics', 'Big Data', 'Hadoop', 'Hadoop Training', 'Big Data Analytics'] |
The Unexpectedly Peaceful French Revolution of 1848 | Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848 By Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, Public Domain
By Paul Ewenstein, Ph.D., author of the forthcoming Realism and Revolution: Why (Some) Revolutionary States Go to War
Perhaps no modern revolution initially appeared more alarming than the one that took place in France in 1848. The wars following the great revolution of 1789 had convulsed Europe for a generation, so when the Second Republic was proclaimed, the continent held its breath. Conservatives dreaded and radicals dreamed that once more, the conquering armies of the levee en mass would march forth, an outcome that only appeared more likely when the revolutionary wave spread across Europe. As revolts engulfed Vienna, Berlin, Rome and many other cities, the great battle between monarchy and republicanism seemed to be at hand.
The leaders of the old order certainly thought so. Prince Metternich of Austria anticipated the outbreak of war within days, predicting, “France will become a vast camp of anarchy. Moderate democracy is in that country a dream, a snare, a phrase.”[i] Many of the German states including Prussia mobilized their armies, while Tsar Nicholas of Russia is said to have informed his officers of the revolution by declaring, “Saddle your horses, gentlemen, a republic has been proclaimed in France.”[ii] Nor was it only the champions of absolutism who felt this way. British foreign secretary Viscount Palmerston was “Revolted by the thought of ‘A nation of thirty-three millions… despotically governed by eight or nine men who are the mere subordinates of 40,000 or 50,000 of the scum of the fauborgs of Paris.’”[iii]
This alarm stemmed from both the history of French revolutions and the ideology of this particular one. The revolutionaries’ adoption of universal manhood suffrage shocked even many liberals,[iv] and more alarming still, the provisional government contained not only republicans but socialists such as Louis Blanc. Blanc and other leading members of the French left wing had criticized the pacific foreign policy of the July Monarchy and wanted the Second Republic to actively support republican revolutions abroad. Even more than in 1789, Paris became a gathering place for nationalist agitators from across Europe, some of whom, abetted by elements within the French government, mounted armed expeditions into Poland, Savoy, and Belgium.
In spite of these provocations, France didn’t go to war in 1848, an unexpected outcome that reveals an important truth about the nature of post-revolutionary conflict. Although many revolutionary wars have proven to be prolonged and bloody, they generally began with the belief that the revolutionary state was an easy target for either regime change or territorial predation. That wasn’t the case with France, not after the experience of 1792. Then, an advisor to the King of Prussia had written, “The comedy will not last long. The army of lawyers will be annihilated in Belgium and we shall be home by the autumn,”[v] but now all of Europe knew better. While the Austrians and Prussians had only mobilized 110,000 soldiers to invade the First Republic, the Tsar planned to send 300,000 to contain the second.[vi] However, he and his monarchial counterparts, preoccupied with internal problems and knowing the high price of such a conflict, preferred to avoid war unless it was absolutely necessary. Louis Blanc argued that “Whether taught by experience or paralyzed by internal difficulties, even the governments most hostile to it [the French Republic] gave no sign of a disposition to attack, if not attacked.”[vii]
The French didn’t launch such an attack. This wasn’t due to a lack of motivation; not only was the new government keen to see republicanism spread across Europe, it was dissatisfied with the territorial status quo. Most Frenchmen regarded the final 1815 settlement of the Congress of Vienna, which had returned their country to its pre-1789 borders, as a humiliation and the left-wing press called for a new people’s war to overturn it.
Yet continuing domestic unrest supplied a powerful reason for France to avoid war. Although the revolution seemed radical to much of Europe, it didn’t go far enough for the poor of Paris and their sympathizers, who wanted to address not merely political questions but social and economic ones as well.[viii] After the election of a Constituent Assembly dominated by free market liberals, tensions in the capital escalated, brought to a boiling point by the issue of the National Workshops. The provisional government had opened them in order to supply jobs to the unemployed masses of Paris but the taxes that funded the program were unpopular and when the assembly closed the workshops, a major uprising followed. The so-called June Days killed over 1,500 soldiers and 5,000 rebels, with thousands of other suspected insurrectionaries deported to Algeria.[ix]
For the provisional government’s Executive Committee, this class warfare was more important than mounting an expedition against foreign enemies. In his history of the revolution, Foreign Minister Lamartine explained “Foreign affairs could wait without inconvenience until France was calmed.”[x] Rather than confronting the rest of Europe, he issued a statement declaring that the Second Republic didn’t desire conflict with any other power, making the case that “Monarchy and republicanism are not, in the eyes of wise statesmen, absolute principles, arrayed in deadly conflict against each other.”[xi]
Though the new government could not, in the face of popular hostility, express approval for the treaties of 1815, neither did it challenge them. Instead, it declared that although it didn’t recognize their legal force, it had chosen to abide by them anyway. This might have been doubletalk, but it avoided the war that would surely have followed any attempt to regain the cherished “natural borders” of the First Republic. The monarchies of Europe returned the favor, drawing a distinction between rhetoric and action. They may have derided the Second Republic and denounced its support for foreign radicals, but neither did they use that support as a pretext for war.
This peace didn’t last. The adoption of a revisionist foreign policy, not the perception of vulnerability, is the most important predictor of long-term international conflict for revolutionary states, and that was what happened here. The victor in France’s post-revolutionary struggles was Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great conqueror, and although domestically, his Second Empire advocated moderation and order, its foreign relations proved contentious. The emperor was convinced that nationalism was destined to reshape the map of Europe and he aimed to help this process along, even when such changes required violence. He also felt that a Bonaparte had to cover himself in military glory in order to rule, and over the next 22 years, these two beliefs would lead France into a series of wars: with the Roman Republic, Russia, Austria, Mexico, and, finally and fatally, Prussia. In 1848, however, all of those conflicts lay in the future. At that time of its revolution, France was too powerful for the crowned heads of Europe to attack and too distracted by its internal problems to invade them in turn, subverting the almost universal expectations of another major war. | https://medium.com/peter-lang/the-unexpectedly-peaceful-french-revolution-of-1848-f579afdf6d11 | ['Peter Lang'] | 2019-08-26 21:46:19.014000+00:00 | ['France', 'History', 'Revolution'] |
Learn Solidity: The Factory Pattern | Clone Factory Pattern
The problem with the previous pattern is that it wastes lots of gas since all child contracts will have the same logic and we redeploy almost the same contract each time — same code but different context. We need a way to deploy only one child contract with all the functions and make all other child contracts act as proxies that delegate calls to the first child contract we created and let functions execute with the context of the proxy contracts.
Photo by the author.
Fortunately, there is the EIP-1167 specification that defines how to implement a proxy contract cheaply. This proxy will forward all calls and 100% of the gas to the implementation contract and then relay the return value back to the caller. The bytecode of the proxy contract according to the specification is
363d3d373d3d3d363d73bebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebe5af43d82803e903d91602b57fd5bf3 . The bytes at indices 10-29 (inclusive) are replaced with the 20-byte address of the master functionality contract (the contract to which we will delegate the calls).
The whole magic of the proxy contract is done using delegatecall . You can get an idea of how it works by reading this article.
Let’s see now how to make this work. First, you need to grab the implementation of this specification, which you can find on GitHub. Copy-paste the code of CloneFactory in your project.
The code we’re going to use this time is as follows:
This time, we used the createClone function from the GitHub repository to create child contracts instead of the new keyword.
You can deploy the contracts by creating a new migration file in Truffle that looks like this:
To test if the code works, I created a test file that you can try on your own to make sure that everything is working as expected: | https://betterprogramming.pub/learn-solidity-the-factory-pattern-75d11c3e7d29 | ['Wissal Haji'] | 2020-12-17 15:50:00.847000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Smart Contracts', 'Solidity', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Programming'] |
Flaunt It Again, Tony | The story of the Fiat 130 is one of corporate hubris overpowering good judgment, of proud but ultimately pointless achievement.
Even Fiat’s engineering supremo at the time, Dante Giacosa, the “father” of all the most popular Fiat cars, did not hide his reservations about the 130 project. He did not particularly enjoy designing luxury vehicles and firmly believed Fiat had no business making one.
But those were the 1960s: Fiat was the biggest automobile manufacturer in Europe and enjoyed an almost monopolistic position in a booming Italian car market. Fiat’s upper management believed they could do everything, that the company was “entitled” to a slice of the luxury car market because of its success. They wanted a flagship saloon to rival the best, and the Fiat 130 that debuted in 1969 at the Geneva motor show certainly was such a car.
The Fiat 130 as it appeared at the 1969 Geneva Motor Show (c. FCA EMEA Press)
Its chrome-laden body measured over 4.7 meters in length, and under its vast bonnet laid an all-new 2.8 liters V6 engine designed by ex-Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi. Power went to the rear wheels via either a five-speed manual or a three-speed automatic transmission.
The Fiat 130 aimed squarely at the Mercedes 250S, perhaps too much in the styling department: ponderous and somewhat old-fashioned, the exterior design of the 130 left cold public and critics alike.
few Italians bought such big cars, and those who did generally sought the distinction of a prestigious foreign brand
Even the brand-new V6 came under criticism: at 140 HP, it was low on power for such a heavy car, something Fiat only partially addressed in 1971, when the 2.8 was superseded by an enlarged 3.2 liters good for 160 HP. The same year saw the debut of the 130 Coupé, whose body was designed and built by Pininfarina.
The Fiat 130 Coupé (c. FCA EMEA Press)
The shape of the 130 Coupé was the polar opposite of the saloon’s one: light, modern, glamorous yet peerlessly elegant, it’s attributed to designer Paolo Martin, and it’s perhaps his finest work: an authentic Italian design classic. Sadly, the coupè did not save the 130 from being a complete market failure: only about 20.000 units were made between 1969 and 1977, a quarter of which were coupès.
The elegant lines of the 130 Coupé (c. FCA EMEA Press)
Punitive taxation in force at the time for the engines above 2 liters of displacement meant that few Italians bought such big cars, and those who did generally sought the distinction of a prestigious foreign brand like Mercedes or Jaguar. Italy’s roads were full of small Fiats, after all, making the brand hardly an exclusive one.
The geopolitical events of late ’73 didn’t help either.
The Arab Oil Embargo hit Italy hard, as it depended on imports for 85% of its total energy needs. In a clumsy attempt to save energy resources, the Italian government imposed a speed limit of 120 Km/h on motorways and outright banned private car usage on Sundays. While such a scenario was a blow to the automotive business as a whole, it killed off any hope for a model like the 130, whose position on the market had been weak right from the start.
Today the Fiat 130 stands tall as a symbol of a bygone era when Fiat was a successful, confident company with the guts and resources to try to beat Mercedes-Benz at its own game. | https://medium.com/roadster-life/flaunt-it-again-tony-2f37e68623e9 | ['Matteo Licata'] | 2020-08-03 08:11:00.873000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Vintage', 'Automotive', 'History', 'Italy'] |
Women Share Wisdom: Makeover Your LinkedIn Profile with Amanda Healy | By Raquel Guarino
The 2018 Texas Conference for Women is an annual event designed to empower, inspire, and advise women as they advance in their careers. Content Strategist Raquel Guarino attended the conference and came back with a wealth of new knowledge that anyone could apply to their career or business. In this series called “Women Share Wisdom,” Raquel will divulge the tips, tricks, and advice she gained from the successful women she encountered at the event.
Most professionals know the basics of LinkedIn, but that doesn’t mean they’re making the most of it. Think your profile is up to snuff? Award-winning marketing manager Amanda Healy provides tips on how to make your profile stand out.
It’s Not Just for Resumes.
The biggest misconception about LinkedIn, says Healy, is that you should treat it like your online resume. Healy explains that instead of pretending it’s a virtual resume, users should use LinkedIn like their own personal website. That means creating content and curating your page to reflect who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
Think of Yourself as a Product.
When you think of yourself as a product, the exercise of personal branding becomes easier, says Healy. According to her, your personal brand is generally a mix of actual and aspirational content (who you are today mixed with whom you hope to be in the future). Marketing yourself as a brand thus productizes all of the various components of your profile. This reframing gives you the opportunity to ask yourself, “How can I offer a unique value proposition in a competitive market?”
Here are the most important sections of your profile Healy says you should focus on:
Profile Picture
Like it or not, the number one most viewed portion of your LinkedIn profile is your photo, says Healy. Because your profile picture is your “product photo,” it’s important you use it to your advantage. Conversely, without a photo, people are more likely to think you are a bot or spam profile.
When picking a picture, Healy has a few suggestions:
The photo should be recent
It shouldn’t be a detriment to your personal brand
It needs to look like you (a LinkedIn catfish will create distrust)
If possible, it should be taken by a professional
If you’re doing it yourself, use natural lighting from outside
Smile. Not smiling comes off as unapproachable
Use the same profile picture consistently across professional social channels.
The best compliment you can get, Healy says, is that you look just like your picture. That’s why it’s so important to bring your authentic self to your photos.
Headline
The second most viewed component of your LinkedIn profile is your headline. Healy says it is your value statement. It’s also one of the driving pieces when it comes to search. Before you settle on any old tagline, she suggests planning it out and doing some testing first.
Ask yourself, “What are 10–15 keywords that I want to associate with my personal brand?” You can use tools like Hashtagify, BuzzSumo, and even the Instagram search bar to come up with ideas about which terms are trending and what will attract people to your profile. From that list, create four different value-driven headlines (ie. “I help companies do XYZ”). Use A/B testing to see which headlines are most effective. Take your first headline and apply it to your profile and leave it up for a set period of time. Do the same for all of your headlines. Keep track of how many people are visiting your profile, requesting to connect, and sending you messages. From there, you can see which headline is most effective for attracting the audience you want.
Read Now: Women Share Wisdom: The Cs of Social Media with Vannessa Wade
Summary
The summary is the place where your CV comes to life, explains Healy. This is the section where you can tell a story about where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you hope to be in the future. Rather than listing off your tasks and daily duties (and boring everyone to death), your summary is where you bring the audience in and remind them that you’re a person with ideas, experiences, and aspirations. She says the key to a good summary is to identify the common thread that weaves all the things you do together. While your experiences may not be entirely relevant to each other, most people have a value, a lesson, or something else that connects all of their past efforts.
In addition to finding that common thread, Healy says your summary is the perfect place for SEO. Be sure to use the exact same keywords that your headline uses in your summary, along with other relevant keywords. This boosts your ranking up on both LinkedIn and Google searches.
Healy recommends adding a variety of media, too. Visual components, such as videos, pop out immediately. To stand out from the competition even more, you can even create a quick “About Me” video. Here’s how to do it.
Grab a tripod or some kind of stabilizing mechanism. Make sure your video is filmed horizontally. Create a quick script for the video but speak from the heart. When writing the script, picture someone across the table from you asking who you are and go from there. Keep the video brief — 30 seconds is perfect. Post the video to YouTube first (it has richer analytics than LinkedIn). Treat the video as part of your personal marketing campaign. Post it as a status update, ask others to share it, create a blog post for it, and promote it on your social media.
Skills & Endorsements
The next most-viewed area of your profile is the Skills & Endorsements section. Healy explains that the best LinkedIn users are the ones who understand how important this section is for SEO; when someone types in “social media,” for example, Healy’s profile rises to the top on both Google and LinkedIn because of the relevant skills listed in her profile. She suggests having at least 15–20 skills on your profile. The most important part of this process is curating which skills appear. You can figure out which skills to use by going to the role you were hired for and looking for the skills required for that position. You should also look at people in your industry whom you admire and see what their skills are.
If you don’t have a lot of endorsements for your skills, she suggests asking friends and colleagues to endorse you. When someone skilled in one area endorses you for that same skill, it boosts your SEO and makes you rank higher in searches.
Recommendations
Last but not least are recommendations. Recommendations are important because they help others understand what value you bring to other people. A best practice for this is at least one recommendation per role (two is even better!). When asking for a recommendation, Healy suggests being prescriptive about what specific things you’d like to be recommended for. Include a particular project, keyword, or element that you’d like the person to incorporate in their writing. And if you’re not completely happy with the recommendation? She says it’s OK for you to ask for small adjustments — just make sure you’re specific about what parts you’d like revised.
Commit to Change
No one is going to do the work of updating your profile for you, says Healy. That’s why it’s so important that you take just a little bit of time out of your day to keep your profile updated and complete. She advises scheduling 20–30 minutes out of your day everyday to look at your social media, think about what you’d like to do over the next week, and set tangible goals. If you make it a daily habit, you will inevitably reap the rewards.
Did you find these LinkedIn tips helpful?
Be sure to follow Amanda Healy on LinkedIn and Twitter. | https://medium.com/helpdotcom/women-share-wisdom-makeover-your-linkedin-profile-with-amanda-healy-98b4e4c23818 | [] | 2019-07-08 20:51:48.537000+00:00 | ['LinkedIn', 'Social Media', 'Startup', 'Women', 'Careers'] |
Getting Started with Kaggle | Introduction
Kaggle is an amazing community for aspiring data scientists and machine learning practitioners to come together to solve data science-related problems in a competition setting. Many statisticians and data scientists compete within a friendly community with a goal of producing the best models for predicting and analyzing datasets. Any company with a dataset and a problem to solve can benefit from Kagglers. Kaggle has not only provided a professional setting for data science projects, but has developed an environment for newcomers to learn and practice data science and machine learning skills.
This blog will serve as an introduction to the Kaggle platform and will give a brief walkthrough of the process of joining competitions, taking part in discussions, creating kernels, and progressing through the rankings.
Kaggle Progression System
Kaggle has a ranking system that helps data scientists track their progress and performance. Medals are awarded for certain activities that are completed. When a Kaggler earns enough medals to move up a tier in the progression system, they rank up!
Kaggle ranking can come from three different “categories of expertise”: Competitions, Kernels, and Discussion.
Each of the three categories has five ranks: Novice, Contributor, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster. The majority of Kaggle’s users are considered a “Novice”, which essentially means they have not interacted with the community and have not run any scripts or made any competition submissions. Every user above the Novice level has made submissions and has used datasets to make predictions and analysis.
A word to the wise, learn from everyone on Kaggle, especially the higher ranking individuals! One of the reasons behind Kaggle’s great success is its learning-friendly environment and the ease of learning new skills. Watching video tutorials about data science techniques is a great start, but there is nothing more valuable than reading through an experienced data scientist’s kernel and explanations, then using the skills you learned in your own models.
Discussion Board
The discussion board is a great place to ask questions, answer questions and interact with the community. There are always people posting answers to great questions that we can all learn from. There is also a “Getting Started” forum for the new Kagglers who want to learn the basics behind the Kaggle platform. Kaggle provides six unique forums in the discussion board where each forum has a different purpose.
Datasets
You need data for any kind of data science project. Kaggle provides a vast amount of available datasets in its “Datasets” tab. As of the time of this blog, there are over 17,730 publicly available datasets. Datasets can be sorted by multiple filters to find exactly what you are looking for. Once you find the dataset that you want, you can simply click on it and click “Download” to download the data onto your machine.
Starting Your First Competition!
Under Kaggle’s “Competition” tab there are many competitions that you can join. This is just like the “Datasets” tab, where you can click on the competition and download the data for your models. There are a few competitions that are designed for beginners to enter and learn the basics of Kaggle and data science. One of the beginner friendly competitions is the famous MNSIT dataset, where we will create a model that will classify handwritten digits and produce predictions on test data. This blog post will use the MNIST dataset and will submit predictions to the competition as well. The first thing we need to do is look at our data and start thinking about building our model. To begin, we can start a new kernel.
Kernel
According to Kaggle’s documentation, Kernels are cloud computational environments that enable reproducible and collaborative analysis. Kernels allow a Kaggler to create and run code from within the browser without needing to download Python and the packages on their machine. One type of kernel that Kaggle provides is a notebook. If you are familiar with Jupyter Notebooks, then you are familiar with Kaggle’s notebooks because they are the same thing!
We will need to create our kernel, to do this, we can click “Create Kernel” and choose the “Notebook” option to do our analysis in Jupyter Notebook. Once the notebook opens, you will notice some prewritten code known as “starter code”. Starter code will import some common libraries and will print the directories within the data folder. For this blog, we will delete the starter code and write our imports by ourselves. In the first notebook cell, we will write all of the necessary imports for our project and we will print out everything that is in the “digit_data” folder that we downloaded.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import os print(os.listdir('digit_data'))
Output:
['test.csv', 'train.csv', 'sample_submission.csv']
The next step involves loading our data into the notebook. Notice that our data folder provides us with a train and test file. We can use pandas, a data analysis Python library, to read the CSV files into our train and test dataframes.
train = pd.read_csv('digit_data/train.csv')
test = pd.read_csv('digit_data/test.csv')
Once we have loaded in our data, we are going to want to get a sense of what the data is. To get a brief overview of what is in our dataset, we can use panda’s .head() method to print out the head, or top, of our dataset. We can set the number of rows that will be shown to 5.
train.head(5)
5 rows × 785 columns
One of the first things we will have to do with our training data is split it into the inputs, or X (features) and the outputs (y). By looking at our data, we can see that the output (y) is the “label” column. This means our X data will be every column excpet the “label” column, and the y data will only be the “label” column. To seperate these we can use pandas’ .drop() method and give the name of the column we want to drop. To let pandas know that we want to drop a column, we will set “axis” to 1.
After splitting our training data, we can print the shapes of everything we have so far. After printing the shapes, we can also print the samples in both the test and training data. The shape of the training data will come out to be (42000, 784). This means that there are 42000 rows with 784 columns. Each row represents an individual digit in the data. Each column represents one pixel value for the image. Our images in the MNIST dataset should have a shape of 28x28 (28 x 28 = 784). Each image is flattened into one row.
x_train = train.drop('label', axis=1)
y_train = train['label'].astype('int32') print('x_train shape: ', x_train.shape)
print('y_train shape: ', y_train.shape)
print('test shape: ', test.shape)
print('
samples in test: ', test.shape[0])
print('samples in train: ', x_train.shape[0])
Output:
x_train shape: (42000, 784)
y_train shape: (42000,)
test shape: (28000, 784) samples in test: 28000
samples in train: 42000
Let’s find out how many samples of each digit we have. For all we know, our data could be unbalanced and some digits may be represented more than others. This could cause our training to be hindered! To check how many samples of each digit we are training with, we can again use pandas and use the value_counts() method on the y training set.
print('Number of Examples Per Digit:
', y_train.value_counts())
Output:
Number of Examples Per Digit:
1 4684
7 4401
3 4351
9 4188
2 4177
6 4137
0 4132
4 4072
8 4063
5 3795
Name: label, dtype: int64
Another amazing high-level Python library that is used a lot in data science for visualization is Seaborn. Seaborn is a data visualization library that is heavily based on matplotlib, but is known to make more attractive graphics. Since we like attractiveness, we will work with Seaborn to visualize how many samples of each digit we have in our training set. After visualizing the balance within the data and after using pandas to view the exact amount of samples, we can confidently say that our data is very well balanced and that no digits are overrepresented.
sns.countplot(y_train)
Each handwritten digit in the MNIST dataset has pixels that are an RGB value between 0–255. To normalize this range of values, we can divide each pixel value by 255. This will bring each pixel value closer together (within a 0–1 range) and keep things easier to learn from for our neural network. For example, an RGB value of 56 would then become .219, and an RGB value of 230 would become .901.
We can then reshape the values in both x_train and the test set. We will want to reshape them such that the number of samples comes first, then as mentioned earlier, each digit has the dimensions (28x28x1) or 28 rows, 28 columns and 1 color channel because the images are not colored.
x_train /= 255.0
test /= 255.0 x_train = x_train.values.reshape(x_train.shape[0], 28, 28, 1)
test = test.values.reshape(test.shape[0], 28, 28, 1)
Now we can print the final shape of the training and testing data.
print('x_train shape: ', x_train.shape)
print('y_train shape: ', y_train.shape)
print('test shape: ', test.shape)
Output:
x_train shape: (42000, 28, 28, 1)
y_train shape: (42000,)
test shape: (28000, 28, 28, 1)
To view what the MNIST dataset contains, we can use pyplot from matplotlib and show eight images. The images will come from the training set (x_train) and above each image we can set the subplot title to be the corresponding output (y_train).
plt.figure(figsize=(12,10)) for img in range(10):
plt.subplot(5, 5, img+1)
plt.imshow(x_train[img].reshape((28, 28)), cmap='binary_r')
plt.axis('off')
plt.title('Label: ' + y_train[img].astype('str')) plt.show()
Now we can start to create our model. To classify each digit we will use a convolutional neural network. Fortunately, Keras, a high-level Python neural network library, provides an easy and quick resource to build deep learning models. We will have to import Keras, the Sequential model and the necessary layers to use in our CNN.
import keras
from keras.models import Sequential
from keras.layers import Dense, Dropout, Flatten, Conv2D, MaxPooling2D
from keras.utils import to_categorical from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
We can use Keras’ to_categorical() function to convert our class vector to a binary class matrix. Our classes in y_train are labeled as 1,2,3,4, etc. to_categorical() will create a matrix with as many columns as there are classes, and where a 1 indicates “yes” and a 0 indicates “no”. Keras’ documentation gives an intuitive example of this. You can view Keras’ docs here or see the example below:
# Consider an array of 5 labels out of a set of 3 classes {0, 1, 2}:
> labels
array([0, 2, 1, 2, 0])
# `to_categorical` converts this into a matrix with as many
# columns as there are classes. The number of rows
# stays the same.
> to_categorical(labels)
array([[ 1., 0., 0.],
[ 0., 0., 1.],
[ 0., 1., 0.],
[ 0., 0., 1.],
[ 1., 0., 0.]], dtype=float32)
Once this is done, our data is ready to be trained! We can split the data up into training and test sets and then start training our model.
y_train = to_categorical(y_train, 10)
x_train, x_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(x_train, y_train, test_size = 0.1, random_state=1)
Now we can create our CNN model, which thanks to Keras, is very easy. We will need to use 2-D convolutional layers, max-pooling layers and dense layers, which are fully connected layers. We will also use dropout and flatten. Flattening our data takes the resulting matrix from the convolutional and pooling layers and “flattens” it into one long vector of input data (column). Our output layer will use the softmax activation function with 10 output nodes (the number of classes in our data).
model = Sequential()
model.add(Conv2D(32, kernel_size=(3, 3), activation='relu', input_shape=(28,28,1)))
model.add(Conv2D(64, (3, 3), activation='relu')) model.add(MaxPooling2D(pool_size=(2, 2))) model.add(Dropout(0.25)) model.add(Conv2D(64, (3, 3), activation='relu'))
model.add(Conv2D(128, (3, 3), activation='relu')) model.add(Dropout(0.25)) model.add(Flatten())
model.add(Dense(128, activation='relu'))
model.add(Dropout(0.5))
model.add(Dense(10, activation='softmax'))
Before we train the model, we must first define the loss function, the optimizer and the metrics by which we will evaluate our model.
model.compile(loss='categorical_crossentropy', optimizer='Adadelta', metrics=['accuracy'])
Now we can finally train our model! We will give the .fit() function our training data and have it run for 12 epochs or iterations.
model.fit(x_train, y_train, batch_size=128, epochs=12, verbose=1,
validation_data=(x_test, y_test))
Output:
Train on 37800 samples, validate on 4200 samples
Epoch 1/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 144s 4ms/step - loss: 0.3357 - acc: 0.8946 - val_loss: 0.1302 - val_acc: 0.9610
Epoch 2/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 154s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0894 - acc: 0.9738 - val_loss: 0.0518 - val_acc: 0.9848
Epoch 3/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 145s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0623 - acc: 0.9818 - val_loss: 0.0398 - val_acc: 0.9879
Epoch 4/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 142s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0481 - acc: 0.9858 - val_loss: 0.0426 - val_acc: 0.9860
Epoch 5/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 145s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0398 - acc: 0.9872 - val_loss: 0.0358 - val_acc: 0.9898
Epoch 6/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 134s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0350 - acc: 0.9891 - val_loss: 0.0305 - val_acc: 0.9907
Epoch 7/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 144s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0302 - acc: 0.9911 - val_loss: 0.0275 - val_acc: 0.9917
Epoch 8/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 133s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0269 - acc: 0.9918 - val_loss: 0.0292 - val_acc: 0.9910
Epoch 9/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 140s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0225 - acc: 0.9929 - val_loss: 0.0400 - val_acc: 0.9886
Epoch 10/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 132s 3ms/step - loss: 0.0215 - acc: 0.9933 - val_loss: 0.0330 - val_acc: 0.9914
Epoch 11/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 133s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0191 - acc: 0.9938 - val_loss: 0.0304 - val_acc: 0.9910
Epoch 12/12
37800/37800 [==============================] - 155s 4ms/step - loss: 0.0183 - acc: 0.9943 - val_loss: 0.0314 - val_acc: 0.9921 <keras.callbacks.History at 0x1a30906ac8>
It looks like our model did a decent job! We can evaluate the model and get its loss and accuracy for both the training and test sets. Once we receive the loss and accuracy we can print it out and round them for simplicity.
loss, accuracy = model.evaluate(x_test, y_test, verbose=0)
train_stat = model.evaluate(x_train, y_train, verbose=0) print('Train Loss: ', round(train_stat[0], 5))
print('Train Accuracy: ', round(train_stat[1]*100, 4), '%')
print('Test Loss: ', round(loss, 5))
print('Test Accuracy: ', round(accuracy*100, 4), '%')
Output:
Train Loss: 0.00551
Train Accuracy: 99.8413 %
Test Loss: 0.03136
Test Accuracy: 99.2143 %
Since our model is trained and has proven to be pretty accurate, we can start to make predictions. We will use Keras’ .predict() method to predict the outputs to each digit in the x_test data.
predictions = model.predict(x_test)
Since we are creating a kernel in Kaggle for a competition, we will need to create a new CSV file containing our predictions. This file will be our submission to the competition and once it is created, we are done the competition! | https://towardsdatascience.com/getting-started-with-kaggle-f9138b35ae18 | ['Aidan Wilson'] | 2019-10-01 14:01:41.336000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Data', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Machine Learning'] |
Addressing Confusion About Nektar Therapeutics’ Bempeg | BMY doubles down on Bempeg
Additional compelling evidence that Bempeg works, despite the manufacturing problem, is that (BMY) chose to continue its large trials of Opdivo plus Bempeg for multiple indications. Before the public was aware of the Bempeg manufacturing difficulties, Nektar shared these with (BMY) and with the FDA. Both were able to review the binned trial data and to question Nektar about its manufacturing mistake and its corrective measures. As a result of these discussions, and despite the manufacturing issue, in mid-2019 the FDA granted (BMY) and Nektar Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) for a Phase III trial of Opdivo plus Bempeg to treat first-line advanced melanoma. A readout on this trial has been slated (reiterated in the last three Nektar conference calls) for 2022. BTD is a big deal because it can lead to accelerated approval by the FDA.
Moreover, (BMY) and Nektar doubled down on the most promising trials of Opdivo plus Bempeg (after melanoma) in early 2020, expanding to registrational trials for first-line cisplatin-ineligible metastatic urothelial cancer (UC) and first-line metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). These investments would be inconceivable if (BMY) thought that Bempeg was “a placebo” and/or that it remained plagued by quality-control issues, as the short-and-distort manipulators have continuously alleged (thereby “confusing” some analysts).
In early 2021, Nektar, Blackstone-funded SFJ Pharma, and (BMY)’s fierce competitor (MRK) entered into a collaboration to perform trials of Keytruda plus Bempeg in head and neck cancers (HNC). Note that SFJ Pharma, given its track record of 15 major market approvals since it was founded in 2009, would be unlikely to enter a deal to co-develop “a placebo,” nor would it waste $150M on trials of a compound that could not be reliably manufactured.
Bempeg has competition, but all of it is years behind Nektar and is not necessarily going to be superior. For example, Synthorx’s (now Sanofi’s) Bempeg-competitive compound THOR-707, reported its first human trial data in April. These supported Bempeg’s mechanism of action, but showed that THOR-707 seemed to trail Bempeg’s efficacy. In 2019, with only preclinical data (no human studies) for THOR-707, Synthorx was bought by Sanofi for $2.5B. Nektar’s market cap is $2.9B, and it has 4 Phase III trials (all Bempeg), 6 Phase II trials, 3 Phase I/II trials, and 3 Phase I trials.
In summary:
Multiple lines of peer-reviewed scientific data, enriched with biomarker studies, strongly suggest that Bempeg works in humans and is safe.
Bempeg manufacturing is a solved problem, ongoing clinical trials have used properly-made Bempeg for years, and the FDA granted BTD for Opdivo plus Bempeg in 2019 for melanoma on the strength of the “good batch” Bempeg data.
Large datasets for Opdivo plus Bempeg in the treatment of melanoma, RCC, and UC read out throughout 2022, in addition to the Keytruda plus Bempeg trial in NSCLC that is due to report in 2021.
Taken together, there’s no reason to believe, as some analysts mistakenly do, that Bempeg remains chequered. On the contrary, maturing late-stage clinical trials are likely to show that Bempeg makes checkpoint inhibitors such as Opdivo and Keytruda work better and in significantly more people than the single agents, thereby allowing a large new population to benefit from these game-changing cancer treatments. Moreover, since Bempeg has consistently shown lower toxicity than most other cancer therapeutics, it may lend itself to combination with Opdivo or Keytruda in triplets with other types of targeted cancer drugs (anti-CTL4 compounds, VEGF inhibitors, TKI’s, etc.) to kill cancer cells by multiple mechanisms. As increasing numbers and types of targeted cancer drugs make their way into the clinic, medicine advances on the path toward converting many cancers from death sentences into controllable and even curable diseases. Given the heterogeneity of cancer, a “moonshot cure” is far less likely than the use of targeted, personalized combination therapies to “chip away” at this group of diseases, thereby lengthening patients’ health-spans and life-spans.
A note on the human cost of biopharma stock manipulation
The institutions and individuals creating false narratives in order to disparage Nektar and thereby manipulate its share price are directly damaging the advancement of medicine. Fabrications designed to baselessly cast shade on Nektar’s science, such as Plainview’s completely discredited “report,” along with the nonsense posted in online forums by self-identified hedge fund affiliates, discourages both patients and physicians from participating in clinical trials. This in turn keeps promising investigational compounds away from patients whose lives might be saved by them. There’s a real human cost to short-and-distort takedowns of biopharma companies. As citizens, we should never forget this, and we should demand greater safeguards against such manipulation.
“It is time the nation woke up and realized that it’s not the armed robbers or drug dealers who cause the most economic harm, it’s the white collar criminals living in the most expensive homes who have the most impressive resumes who harm us the most.” — Harry Markopolos, testimony before the US Congress
Acknowledgment
I thank Seeking Alpha author Corey Sommers for his collaboration in our research on Nektar Therapeutics, and for his encouragement to post my analysis.
Disclosures:
Disclosure: I have a beneficial long position in NKTR through stock ownership and/or options ownership and/or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving any type of compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Additional disclosure: This article contains my opinions based on independent research. Please perform your own due diligence before investing. | https://medium.com/@caffeinatedchemist/addressing-confusion-about-nektar-therapeutics-bempeg-494b8b245a65 | ['Louis E. Metzger Iv'] | 2021-09-16 01:59:01.065000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Ethics', 'Cancer', 'Wall Street', 'Pharmaceutical'] |
Building a Useful Dataset for Spam Detection | The diagram above demonstrates the concept of sample value. In the leftmost diagram, we are shown the total population of samples and their known label, denoted by the shape and colour of the marker. This is representative of our classification problem. In the middle diagram, we see the scenario where the greyed-out markers are unlabelled samples and the shaped/coloured in samples have been selected and labelled using PL. We can see that the decision boundary discovered using PL is sub-optimal as it would misclassify a significant proportion of the green/square samples. Many of the samples that have been labelled are located in uninformative points in the feature space. In contrast, the rightmost diagram shows samples that have been selected using AL. Here, we see that the labelled samples are more densely concentrated around the point where the two classes meet in the feature space. This allows our model to find a more optimal decision boundary.
Even though AL can help reduce the impact of class imbalances in our data, the skew in our distribution was so large that we decided to implement a sampling strategy, based on domain knowledge, to create our initial pool of unlabelled data. This strategy was successful in creating a better representation of both classes.
Having created a large pool of unlabelled samples to select from, we now required a querying strategy to assign a value score to each unlabelled sample. This will enable us to discriminate samples by value when selecting unlabelled samples to be labelled as part of the next iteration. As this is a Binary Classification task, we used the Least Confidence (LC) querying strategy. LC entailed training a model on the set of labelled data, then applying the model over the pool of unlabelled data and assigning each unlabelled sample a value based on the probability of the highest likelihood class. In LC, the samples are ranked by 1 minus the likelihood, so the lower the likelihood the higher the ranking.
For Example:
In the diagram to the left, we can see that sample C is ranked highest because its score is 1–0.6=0.4, which is higher than sample A (1–0.8=0.2) and B (1–0.9=0.1).
Our Active Learning Process
Putting this all together, we can now define our dataset creation process as the following:
Step 1: Randomly select a subset of samples from the pool of unlabelled samples and manually label them. These will be our Test Set.
Step 2: Again, randomly select a small subset of samples from the pool of unlabelled samples and manually label them. This will be the seed to the Labelled Set.
Step 3: Train the model on the Labelled Set and generate class probabilities for the pool of remaining unlabelled samples.
Step 4: Apply our querying strategy, LC, to these probabilities to obtain a ranking of samples. We take the top N samples from this ranking and manually label them. These are then added to the Labelled Set.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3 & 4 until a stopping criteria has been met. In our scenario, the stopping criteria was to produce a fixed number of labelled data samples, unless the task exceeded a predefined deadline.
Labelling Process
The labelling process itself also required some consideration as there were a couple of potential pitfalls. One problem is that the process is vulnerable to human error as a person may mislabel a sample. This was of particular concern in our situation because of the nature of AL.
In AL, samples that are highly ranked for labelling also tend to be ambiguous as they lie close to the decision boundary. This means that the descriptions may be difficult for a human to judge as well. To manage this, we implemented a majority vote system where each sample required 3 votes by 3 separate individuals before it was considered labelled. We also provided the labeller with supplementary information about the product to aid their decision. Each sample consisted of the description text and also an image of the product for context. | https://engineering.depop.com/building-a-useful-dataset-for-spam-detection-515cbc8f9585 | ['Data'] | 2020-12-23 15:33:56.073000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce', 'Machine Learning', 'Classification', 'NLP', 'Data Science'] |
I’ll never wear weave but relaxers don’t bother me | I thought about this recently after the criticism that Adele took for wearing Bantu Knots. I knew someone was going to point the finger at black women who wear weave and claim it’s cultural appropriation. Now I could easily go into a historical pattern of Human Resources manuals encouraging black women to wear their hair any possible way but the texture of the way it’s growing from their heads. I’ve already written posts on colorism and why certain groups are automatically considered attractive over others. Mainstream society has a frustrating view of black women’s hair, and that includes black men. But what rattled my cage during this debate was the belief that all black women must wear weave. No. We. Don’t. All. Do. It.
Photo credit: Adrian Fernández/Unsplash
Almost every female relative in my family, including those who have “Creole hair” that’s dominant on my mother’s side, has worn weave hairstyles. It’s usually braids of some sort, rarely long ponytails or long, flowing manes, but weave nonetheless. No matter how pretty I thought they looked wearing everything from locks to braids, I still just couldn’t ever see myself doing it. I can’t wrap my mind around sewing, braiding and/or gluing someone else’s hair in my head to decide it’s “done.” It’s a strange concept. I hear and read this logic often on social media from users who complain about black women who don’t have their hair “done” when they get on television. But their idea of “done” is literally subbing it out for someone else’s — flipping it around and finger-combing it 99,000 times a day. I prefer playing around with the hair growing from my head.
So why am I OK with relaxer touching the hair growing from my head? I 100 percent understand why it’s brainwashing to purposely change the texture of your hair to appear straighter and more “manageable” to appease Corporate America. That decision was made for me long before I could make it for myself. I stood on a soapbox and lectured a Puerto Rican woman recently who criticized a biracial child for not having “normal hair” and describing it as “looking like an undone Q-tip.” The level of disrespect about a child’s hair was mind-boggling to me. Even as an elementary school kid with relaxed hair, I was not taught to think my hair was any “more normal” or any “less normal” than anyone else’s, just straighter than some of my peers.
Wet hair, don’t care. This is me before I let my hair air dry. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)
By my teenage years, when I tagged my grandmother out and tagged myself in for a go-to beautician, I was wearing so many Hype Hair and Black Hair magazine cuts to the point where I never let my hair grow past my shoulders from ages 15 to 30. Anytime it grew long enough to get in my way while brushing my teeth, I paid a beautician to wack it off again.
My justification at the time was twofold: 1. The kind of hairstyles I was wearing (think of any style Nia Long, Missy Elliott or Halle Berry wore and that pretty much tells you the styles I wore in the ’90s and early 2000s) would never be confused with “white women’s hair”; 2. My hair is so thick that when I wear it in a traditional wrap or get it done at a beauty salon, people always assume I just straightened it. Even when it was freshly permed (every three months now), no one with eyes would ever describe it as “thin” or “flat” — unless I went too far with Let’s Jam. Vitale is never going to outshine the thickness of my hair. It assists with certain styles, but my hair has always felt like my childhood doll, a Melody “Jingle Baby.”
Photo credit: Create Her Stock
Sometimes I’ll just wash it and let it do its thing, blowing around like a lion’s mane, brushed up into a ponytail and/or flat-ironing it. At one point, I had every single curling iron size you could find in a beauty salon. Depending on the month or year, my hair might be one inch long or resting on a half-shirt sleeve. Nowadays, especially during COVID-19 social isolation days, I wouldn’t even consider the idea of running for shelter if I get caught in the rain or get splashed in the face while gardening. Relaxer be damned. I’m living my life.
Some days I’m in the mood to style it. Most days it’s in a permanent ponytail or under a satin cap. I am one of very few women I know who likes my hair shorter because the growing-back process is fun to watch. But I ponder on why I’m somewhere in the middle when it comes to hair. I have no interest in not wearing relaxers; I like the flexibility of making the hair growing from my head do different things. But I also get why women like the co-workers at the gym were adamant about embracing their own natural hair as opposed to relaxers.
My mom, who wore a relaxer throughout my entire childhood up to my late 20s, grew locks after medication started thinning her hair out. And quite frankly, I think she looks 10x better with locks than she ever did with a relaxer. The same goes for my older brother during his locking and braiding days. (He’s bald now although he could grow his hair back anytime he wants to.)
However, that tense ground where sistas will judge each other for their hair choices is where I don’t want to be. It annoys me when people just assume all black women wear weave — because I never will — but I also don’t want to be the one to judge sistas who do. We’re not all Team Natural. We’re not all wearing 3-feet long ponytails. Some of us haven’t seen nor touched a relaxer in years. Whatever your hair choice is, if it works for you, go for it. I’d like us to ease up on each other for not always choosing to wear whatever style the critic considers “complete.” Wear whatever you like on your head, and I’ll wear whatever I like on mine. Regardless of where you are on the hair debate, let’s consider this a “done” deal. | https://medium.com/we-need-to-talk/ill-never-wear-weave-but-relaxers-don-t-bother-me-6b50fe32bc50 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-09-17 01:01:55.279000+00:00 | ['African Hair', 'Natural Hair', 'Black Hair', 'Hair', 'Beauty'] |
Scatter Plot - A Tool for Descriptive Statistics | From the above plots, we could clearly say that both plot have a Linear relationship with positive correlation, but which plot have a stronger correlation?
For that we need something in numbers to compare. Hence we use Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient.
The Pearson coefficient is a type of correlation coefficient that represents the relationship between two variables that are measured on the same interval or ratio scale. The Pearson coefficient is a measure of the strength of the association between two continuous variables. Pearson correlations are only suitable for quantitative variables.
Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient formula is
Pearson coefficients range from +1 to -1, with +1 representing a positive correlation, -1 representing a negative correlation, and 0 representing no relationship. It is independent of the unit of measurement of the variables.
The Pearson coefficient shows correlation, not causation.
The correlation coefficient between the variables is symmetric, which means that the value of the correlation coefficient between Y and X or X and Y will remain the same.
Correlations are very sensitive to outliers. A single unusual observation may have a huge impact on a correlation. Such outliers are easily detected by a quick inspection a scatterplot.
The Pearson’s coefficients for above two plot are 0.59 .Both the plot have same Correlation coefficient because left plot is nothing but Zoomed version of the Right plot.
TYPES OF CORRELATION WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE PEARSON’S CORRELATION COEFFICIENT VALUE
Positive Correlation → X variable increases Y variable also increases.(X is directly proportional to Y)
Negative Correlation → X variable increases Y variable decreases.(X is inversely proportional to Y)
No Correlation → There is no correlation between X variable and Y variable.
From the plot we can see that there exists a curve but the Pearson’s correlation Coefficient is Zero.
Pearson’s correlation coefficient only identifies a linear relationship. If any non-linear relationship exists such as a curve, circle, etc, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient value will be 0.Hence it is always better to visualize any dataset as a scatterplot to find any hidden non-linear patterns.
Correlation is only an association relationship and not a causal relationship.
Correlation is not Causation
From the above pic, we can’t say that if a person owns a cat he is likely to get struck by lightning though there exists a positive correlation. The two variables may have high correlation co-efficient value although there may not be any direct dependence between them. It doesn’t mean that X caused Y to happen or vice-versa.
INTRAPOLATION & EXTRAPOLATION | https://medium.com/swlh/scatter-plot-a-tool-for-descriptive-statistics-4b746d36f94 | ['Koushik C S'] | 2020-12-13 06:51:45.475000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Scatter Plots', 'Data Science', 'Descriptive Statistics'] |
Intern Story#13: Naman’s PM Internship @ Internshala | INTERN STORIES
Naman Goyal is currently a Product Manager at Internshala Trainings. He is a Mechanical Engineering graduate (2016–2020) from Chandigarh Engineering College, Landran, Punjab. As an engineer, he always wanted to solve problems around him.
Naman’s Trysts with Problem-Solving
I participated in his first problem-solving competition (project competition) when I was in 6th standard. I submitted a project idea for a competition organised by the National Innovation Foundation, for school students.
I submitted this project idea: To automatically switch off the room lights with a sensor-based system (LDR sensor-based foot-mat, removing your shoes would complete the LDR circuit, connected with the room’s MCB and would switch off the room lights).
Unfortunately, I did not win that competition.
But I kept on participating in different competitions and my participation in project building competitions helped me in cracking my Product Management interview at Internshala! :)
In my 4 years of college, I participated in around 45+ competitions at all levels: International, National, State, University and College level project competitions!
I won 16+ awards/laurels and in my journey of 4 years, I built more than 11 projects and filed 11+ patents.
My first project in the college (spent only 80 Rs.), helped me to win many project competitions!
It was a project to prevent people from taking their hands out of the buses’ windows. We as a team had participated in our first Science Day’s Project competition (in 2016). We were searching for some problems and this problem took our attention. We researched and started thinking of a possible, convenient and easy to be installed solution.
We used some set of sensors with an alarm buzzer attached to it. Whenever anyone would take their hands out from the buses’ windows the sensors would get activated and the alarm would buzz up, hence indicating the conductor and the helper inside the bus. (A quick demo video of the project, Patent has been filed and published)
We won that competition (1st Runner Up and Cash prize of 3000 Rs.). Then we participated in the Inter-Department project competition and won that too! We went on to participate in the Inno-Tech competition (A project exhibition competition organised by Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala, Punjab and won that competition as well (1st Runner Up and Cash prize of 7000 Rs.). We participated in the inter-college project exhibition at Chandigarh University and won a prize over there as well.
We were even in Finalists (Top 10, all over India) for a B-Plan competition organised by Christ University, Bangalore. Winning all these prizes/awards gave us a lot of self-confidence and we went on filing our first patent for this idea.
We formed our team and gave our team a name as The M3N (We were four members and picked up initials from individual names as: Mohit, Mrityunjaya, Mohd Jafar, Naman Goyal) and got our T-Shirts printed with our self-designed logo (It’s in the form of a sports car representing 4 Engineers from Mechanical Engineering background and would always be moving).
Team Picture atvPushpa Gujral Science City
We never looked back after that. We went on participating in a lot of project competitions (Some amongst those were SIH Software and Hardware Editions 2018, 2019 [1st Runner Ups], AICTE’s Chattra Vishwakarma Awards [National Finalists], UNESCO’s Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Challenge [Best Idea badge, Top 10], Got 1 lakh grant from IEDC CGC-DST, Govt. of India).
I had maintained a decent CGPA (Graduated with CGPA 8.54) throughout my college journey and was always in top 5 or top 10 position holders. I even held a lot of positions of responsibilities (Head-Coordinator, Team Leader, Head Organiser etc.).
Doing all these activities, I realised I was indirectly and unknowingly preparing myself for the Product Management role. Because I was able to:
Build a problem-solving attitude (Approaching the right problem, understanding the pain points, doing a proper market research/analysis, gathering data and targeting the right problems)
attitude (Approaching the right problem, understanding the pain points, doing a proper market research/analysis, gathering data and targeting the right problems) Convert the ideas into reality (practical execution, hands-on experience)
(practical execution, hands-on experience) Implement my learnings in a structured way (Learning from the past mistakes, using limited resources, breaking down bigger tasks into smaller individual tasks and working on them)
(Learning from the past mistakes, using limited resources, breaking down bigger tasks into smaller individual tasks and working on them) Interact with people from different domains (Building and engaging/interacting/coordinating in a team with people having different skill sets)
At the end of the day, This is what all a PM does! :)
Getting hired (Application Process, Interview Experience)
I always wanted to work in a Non-Technical domain (other than Mechanical Engineering) but in the domain which could test my engineering skills (Problem Solving, Logical and Analytical Skills, Structured Thinking, Interpersonal skills etc.) at every point.
In the 7th semester, we had to sit in placements and try our best to get placed. I was also looking for placements in Non-Tech companies but couldn’t find a suitable domain according to my skill sets until one day when I landed onto Internshala’s careers page and found an opening for both Product Management Internship and the Product Management full-time role.
The role’s description (do have a look, it’s pretty interesting!) grabbed my attention and Eureka!, I found my dream role. While reading the description, I could realise that I could be a fit for this role. I wanted to apply for the full-time position and went ahead for the same (shared my resume with the HR)
The application process had 5 rounds (every round being an elimination one) in total, starting with:
Resume Shortlisting
Assignment Submission
HR Interview
Interview with the CTO and a senior PM
Final Interview with the CEO
I enjoyed the complete process and was not a bit nervous in any of the rounds (It helped me to clear all the rounds successfully)
The process was a bit long but it tested all my skills which they had mentioned in their role description. I had an amazing interview experience, the team coordinated with me at every point and I did not face any hassle.
Talking about the interview rounds, Assignment submission was the most interesting for me, I researched for a few days over the Problem Statement provided, started thinking out the solutions and one day sat for straight 13–14 hours, and submitted the assignment, cleared all the rounds successfully and was offered an Internship role with a PPO.
This is how I got an offer from Internshala for the role of Product Manager.
Internship experience
The internship experience was amazing. You could hear Internshala saying that Internshala is built for the Interns by the interns considering a large number of people in the team have started out working as interns and converted their internship to a full-time role.
Internshala has a great culture and every team member portrays all the culture values.
The first day was amazing when I entered the office, the vibes were pretty cool and cheerful! (What else do you need on your first day? :P) . My day started with getting introduced to my manager/mentor (Deepa, Senior PM at Internshala Trainings) and went ahead with an amazing ice-breaking game.
For 1 month, I had an incubation period where I was learning about different things (team, culture, team structure, product, 1 on 1 interaction with different stakeholders with whom I was going to coordinate).
Every intern is provided with a well structured (for 360-degree growth) 6-month plan (1-day internship once in a month in any domain inside Internshala being my most loved. We could do a one-day internship in different domains and could understand more about their work from a dedicated mentor. Full-time team members could also do 1-day Internship anytime!) which helps him/her to learn, explore and experience various things about the role and other things.
As an intern, They gave me full ownership of the projects on whichsoever I was working. I gradually started picking up the pace in my work and started working on Major projects and minor projects.
Throughout 6 months, I worked on a lot of projects and learned a lot of things:
Prioritization (Solving the right problem at right time and managing it) Structured Thinking (Thinking about solutions by digging deep into a problem and finding its root cause) Data-driven approach (for always solving different problems)
4. Improved my interpersonal skills (interacting with different stakeholders with different teams and doing stakeholder management) amongst others.
My day always starts with a daily stand-up meeting (keeping a track and checking the progress of different projects). I then plan my day according to different tasks, put on my earphones and get to work (with tea and coffee breaks :P)!
Advice to aspiring interns
My advice to all the interns would be:
Ask a lot of questions (Yes, a lot!)
Clarify, when in doubt
You would make mistakes, but try learning from those mistakes and figure out what went wrong and keep a track of it (so you won’t make them again)
Never let go of an opportunity (participate in the activities as much as you can, would help you grow your personality)
Learn different things and surely explore different domains
Ask for help, whenever and wherever required
Enjoy your work, take breaks and never get stressed up.
For the aspiring PMs, I had created this document and shared with more than 70 PM aspirants through Linkedin. Folks preparing for the PM role in different companies could take help from it.
P.S. I joined Internshala in December 2019 as an intern and was pretty lucky to be a part of Internshala’s Birthday Celebrations! :P | https://medium.com/internclick/intern-story-13-namans-pm-internship-internshala-b1d7a2860523 | ['Team Internclick'] | 2020-12-15 09:42:55.071000+00:00 | ['Internshala', 'Students', 'Internships', 'Internclick Stories', 'Internship Experience'] |
Zac Efron Height: How Tall is Zac Efron and Is He Too Short? | Shorter Than Average: How Short is Zac Efron?
Let’s get done with it and share that Efron is 5'7'’, or 1,70m, making him shorter than most men according to statistics.
Heck, I was shocked to learn I am taller than him and I’m 1,74m or 5'9'’. On the other hand, The Rock is approximately 6'3'’ so you can see the difference.
Now watch the Baywatch movie and see if you can spot the difference — see the camera angles and positioning I was talking about? They seem the same height.
Now go watch how they pose together for photos and take your own conclusion.
Size doesn’t matter though, as Zac is a success and has been in the industry for about 20 years now, with movies like Baywatch, 17 Again and finally the much loved High School Musical.
Were you surprised to learn of Zac Efron’s height? Did you already know how short he was?
We definitely were, and this is something we can consider a little known fact, like Bhad Bhabie age number as well. Check it out if you feel like it.
On the other hand, we know how big of an actor he is and we’ll continue to love him | https://medium.com/pop-cultured/zac-efron-height-how-tall-is-zac-efron-and-is-he-too-short-65402da3dd17 | ['Rui Carreira'] | 2020-12-07 20:45:19.469000+00:00 | ['Celebrity', 'Hollywood', 'Actors', 'Entertainment', 'Curiosity'] |
From Optimism to Despair: How Social Media is Ruining Our Public Discourse | Media Skepticism throughout History
Photo by Tom Radetzki on Unsplash
The relationship between humans and media technology (i.e. the means of conveying information) is a complicated mix of credulity and skepticism. On the one hand, the positives of media are undeniable. The introduction of print media via the moveable type in Europe, for instance, saw the rise in education among the masses and enabled a period of scientific inquiry and rapid technological advancement known as the Renaissance. On the other hand, it is hard to deny that print and broadcast media have also been tools for fueling disinformation and propaganda throughout the world.
Criticism of media goes all the way back to the beginning of recorded history. In his discourse with Phaedrus, Socrates warned against the act of writing or what he called the ‘use of letters’, saying it would “create forgetfulness in the learner’s souls, because they will not use their memories.” Instead, he praised the power of rhetoric as the best means of engraving virtue into the soul.
Fast forward to the 16th century, there were a number of European scholars who openly described a ‘distressing sense of information overload’ brought about by the invention of the printing press. In her 2010 bestselling book, Harvard University Professor of History Ann Blair notes that while Renaissance scholars were elated at the abundance of printed books, they also found it increasingly ‘unmanageable’, to use the words of Swiss scientist Conrad Gessner. He said those words during his attempt to catalogue all existing books in his alphabetical bibliography which he published in 1545, barely a hundred years after the commercialization of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg.
We can only imagine that the problem has compounded significantly in the years since then.
The explosion of print media, and the emergence of broadcast media in the 1920s, has had implications that go beyond increased cognitive loading. In his landmark 1962 book on the subject of propaganda, Christian theologian Jacques Ellul wrote the following:
“It is a fact that excessive data do not enlighten the reader or the listener; they drown him. He cannot remember them all, or coordinate them, or understand them; if he does not want to risk losing his mind, he will merely draw a general picture from them. And the more facts supplied, the more simplistic the image”. (Ellul 1965, p.87)
Ellul highlighted the apparent gap between the “unmanageable” wealth of information available to us and our individual capacity to process and make value judgments therefrom, wherein lies the real danger. Because individuals are overwhelmed with information and struggle with the associated chaos of having to put it together into a coherent narrative, they readily adopt the “informed opinion” given to them by media establishments, state-sponsored or otherwise. This either serves to integrate the masses into the larger social body or agitate the masses into destroying established order.
Scholars Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky offered an analysis of the news coverage by the media establishments in the USA, a liberal democracy, as examples of how public sentiment and perception can be easily influenced by media. In their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent, they propose what they called the ‘propaganda model’ to describe how multiple levels of filters are present in print and broadcast news media to determine and curate the news cycle in order to facilitate compliance and consent among the populace for the US government and their activities abroad during the Cold War.
Social Media: Excitement to Disillusionment
Being able to publicly pontificate and accumulate Likes in the process was everything my approval-seeking high school mind wanted. “if America was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars” — A Republican Pollster
As incisive as these observations about media were, they were nevertheless written prior to the digital revolution that is the commercialization of the internet, which fundamentally changed the manner in which ideas are exchanged among the masses. Ellul died in 1994 and the latest edition of Manufacturing Consent was published in 2002. With the rise of email and social media in the late 2000s, active participation in the production and dissemination of ideas was no longer restricted to establishment media gatekeepers, but freely available to the masses where internet services are available.
At its inception, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter were greeted with considerable excitement, at least personally. After having never cracked over 100 comments on my Friendster profile, I caved and signed up for Facebook in 2008. I particularly liked how I could connect with people with whom I had no confidence to interact in real life. Moreover, being able to publicly pontificate and accumulate Likes in the process was everything my approval-seeking high school mind wanted.
Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash
Beyond the whimsical aspect of social media, there was also genuine optimism about how the internet and social media could change societies across the globe. I personally remember the great admiration I had for the use of Twitter to provide real-time on-the-ground coverage of events such as the latest developments in the 2010 Arab Spring, as well as for netizens around the world to show solidarity with the people seeking change in their respective countries. Initially, I, like most people, thought that the increased connectivity and decentralization of information production would lead to the rise of liberal democracies across the globe marked by enlightened civil discourse.
Fast forward to 2016, the Arab Spring had come and gone, leaving behind protracted chaos and fighting to this day whose victims are no longer regarded as worthy victims for media coverage. Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election, sending my personal Facebook news feed into a hysterical frenzy and me into digital obscurity in order avoid the drama. The initial excitement for many had faded into a state of disillusionment and anxiety about the future. Despite social media’s initial promise of increased connectivity, Americans are more divided and dissatisfied with their social media experience and their views on tech companies.
The extent of the dissatisfaction is palpable. According to a 2019 NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, a larger majority (> 60%) of respondents comprising of Americans said that social media “wastes time” and “spreads unfair attacks and rumors”, while a smaller majority“ (> 50%) said it “spreads lies and falsehoods” and “divides us”. One Republican pollster commented that “if America was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars”– yikes !
Moreover, this is not purely a populist or uninformed sentiment. In a 2020 Pew Research poll, a plurality (49%) of tech experts said that technology will significantly weaken democracy, citing issues with distortion of reality and the weaponization of information and the glaring problem of social media-abetted tribalism.
So what went wrong? Why has all the optimism surrounding social media evaporated within a decade of its introduction?
Developments in Social Media
To understand what changed for the worse in terms of our experience on social media, we need to first identify the various changes that have occurred on social media since its inception and how these contribute to our current social media environment.
When considering the evolution of social media, I will restrict myself to Facebook and Twitter because I personally, along with many others, find these two to be more mired in bad behavior (e.g. misinformation and public spats). In contrast, Instagram, for instance, has proven to be less susceptible to such outcomes due to its structural minimalism and its being visual-based. Thus, I will omit it from the discussion at hand.
The first change has to do with traffic volume. It is evident that the number of social media users has increased dramatically; from 2006 to 2019, the number of Americans using social media rose from 11% to 72% of the population.
The second change is the wider availability of shareable internet content for social media platforms. When social media and smartphones first appeared in the late 2000s, it accelerated the rise of mobile-friendly websites, with either older websites updating themselves to suit the times or new digital media companies emerging that specialized in mobile content production. Prior to that, web developers had little concern for user experience and the packaging of their content, key things to consider when attracting web traffic and engagement.
Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash
The third change is the development of key user experience features that result in the structuring of online interactions. Facebook and Twitter, arguably the oldest social media platforms of relevance to political discourse, have undergone many user experience changes since its inception. On Facebook, the Like button was only introduced in 2009. Likewise, the Retweet function on Twitter, which had come to define the platform, was also released in 2009. Facebook then followed up with the Reactions feature, which is higher resolution sequel of the Like button, in 2016.
The confluence of these factors proved potent in changing the nature of our social lives and online public discourse. Users found themselves having more fellow users with whom to engage, more content to spur and motivate discourse, and more personal/social incentives to start and engage in debate.
With more than half of Americans using at least one social media platform, it is likely that we’ll encounter people with different perspectives from us. But barring the occasional actor engaged in malicious online social behavior (i.e. trolling, threatening users etc.), the presence of people with different opinions is nothing particularly problematic. Most liberal democracies have had to deal with a populace that is philosophically and politically heterogeneous. Perhaps our current dissatisfaction is unique to social media and not just the effect of external trends.
Sure enough, in a 2016 survey, a small majority of Americans (59%) felt that social media puts an additional layer of exhaustion and stress to already-fraught political discourse. Moreover, the same poll found that social media discussions are less civil, less informative and more angry compared to in-person discussions for sizeable plurality of users (49%, 34% and 49%, respectively). As to why this is the case, perhaps the answer is to be found in the behavior of users of social media, the content being circulated on social media and the structures that allow for such outcomes.
The Economy of Fake News
As described earlier, the emergence of mobile-friendly and shareable digital media content came concurrently with the rise of social media. Although the internet and social media were initially seen as egalitarian and populist in terms giving a voice to the masses, that did not prevent establishment print and broadcast media outlets from moving into this new digital realm. At the same time, new digital media companies (e.g. Buzzfeed News, Huffington Post, NowThis News, Vox, Breitbart, Rebel News) arose that specialized in producing regular news content, analysis and commentary to be shared primarily on social media.
The revenue model of these media companies is something worth describing to some detail, because it is the primary factor in motivating and sustaining the operations of these media companies. In the days of broadcast media, studio producers and their affiliated TV stations had their costs covered by advertisers/sponsors who saw the expenditure as a marketing investment provided viewership is sufficiently high.
Digitally, the revenue model is similar: companies and advertising agencies pay content producers to run ads or do product placements in order to boost their own sales and sustain the operations of the content producer. Producers can also obtain startup funding from venture capitalists in exchange for some return on their investment (i.e. profit or growth). Thus, for most new startup digital companies, there is enormous pressure to produce content and draw in traffic that would become the basis for attracting ad revenue and thereby sustaining operations.
Photo by Dennis Maliepaard on Unsplash
…a new industry has emerged to extract revenue and profit from the emotion of the masses while playing hard and fast with the truth, leaving civil discourse as a casualty.
To meet investors’ expectations, these new media companies ran on tight budgets and rapidly produced content, with questionable journalistic results. Tight budgets meant that companies could only hire a small team of writers, typically fresh college graduates. This small team of writers would be sufficient for rapid production of content that would subsequently be packaged with a marketable veneer to be read by audiences, all this at the fraction of the cost of traditional big-budget content producers.
However, all this speed meant a tradeoff in quality or substance. Having foregone a team of on-the-ground reporters or dedicated researchers, much of the written content is a rapidly repackaged retake on an already existing story covered by more established news media companies, companies that slowly but inevitably moved into the digital market, further saturating it.
The net effect is what some commentators call ‘churnalism’ whereby news, cultural and political content are generated at high-volume to turn a profit or achieve economic viability in a market economy. To be fair, this is not an entirely new phenomenon unique to our age. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is well documented and journalists widely recognize the practice as falling short of the ideals of robust and independent journalism.
The proliferation of recycled content is not harmful per se, except that with every iteration of the story, the probability of facts becoming distorted increases. Moreover, in a hyper-competitive media market landscape, each firm is has an incentive not only to be the first to publish, but also to ramp up their coverage or take on the same story in a bid to attract more traffic and make more ad revenue.
Strikingly, it turns out that the ‘best take’ from a financial standpoint, the one that matters most to venture capitalists and investors, is to side with the audience and also to elicit an emotional response, positive (e.g. affection and moral satisfaction) or negative (e.g. disgust and moral outrage).
The benefits of siding with the audience are obvious as the alternative would mean possibly alienating the target audience and losing traffic. Because active social media users are predominantly younger and more politically progressive on average, new digital media companies adopted a left-leaning position in the content they wished to produce.
This resulted in left-leaning writers being at a productive advantage because they could easily generate the appropriate content without being prompted. Thus, as time goes on, the writing teams of these companies inadvertently but steadily became more progressive, with writers of the opposing viewpoint being pushed out, voluntarily or not. A similar phenomenon is true for media companies wishing to cater only to right-leaning audiences.
The benefits of provoking an emotional response, however, were less clear in the context of digital media revenues, yet manipulation of human emotions via print and broadcast media is a well-studied and practiced art known as propaganda. Selective coverage of convenient atrocities and worthy victims was the means by which U.S. media establishments captured and influenced the sentiments of their viewers, usually for the purpose of mobilizing support for U.S. efforts to stop the global spread of communism.
In Nazi Germany, Hitler and his followers successfully used print and broadcast media to convince the German populace to support the Nazi agenda of an extreme German ethno-nationalistic political struggle. They primarily exploited the lingering resentment of the German populace from the First World War (see the Stab-in-the-back myth), making dramatic references to beloved tokens of German culture such as Wagner’s operas in order to persuade the populace to grant them power and legitimacy.
In the digital media landscape, emotional manipulation is just as potent in controlling the masses primarily for monetary goals (I’m probably engaged in it right now in my writing). Researchers from New York University reported in 2017 that the use of moral-emotional language in messages increased its diffusion in cyberspace by 20%. More diffusion, means more views, resulting in more clicks and site traffic, which generates more ad revenue, thereby providing for the livelihoods of the staff and writers, as well as a return on investment for the investors and stakeholders.
In short, increased competition in the digital market led to news media, both establishment and new digital-based ones, sacrificing journalistic standards to increase market share and to meet their corporate bottom lines. Content became increasingly editorialized, catered to audiences and designed to evoke strong emotions, thereby making it more viral and capable of drawing traffic.
Thus, a new industry has emerged to extract revenue and profit from the emotion of the masses while playing hard and fast with the truth, leaving civil discourse as a casualty. Of course, digital media establishments are not the only ones to blame for producing content that is of questionable veracity, politically partisan and loaded with moral-emotional language. Social media users also engage in this via more modest and amateur content production in the form of micro-blogs (as is the case for Tweets and Facebook posts), memes, vlogs and other video production.
In spite of the less-than-financially lucrative prospects of news genre content production, ordinary people nevertheless engage in it with enthusiasm, whether in an independent capacity or under the auspices of a corporate structures. So what are the incentives for doing so if not financial?
Social Media Today: A Gladiatorial Circus
Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash
The desire for increased social status is a common motivator for our actions in public.
The answer is that it is socially lucrative. The desire for increased social status is a common motivator for our actions in public. Non-political content producers gain influence and a following primarily through displayed expertise and competency in a particular field. High-quality professional production, exciting and engaging content: these are the marks of those who rise to the top of the hierarchy of their chosen fields (e.g. filmmaking, songwriting, video game streaming etc.).
For those dabbling in news and cultural/political content, another key dimension in attaining influence is the appearance of moral respectability. For content producers whose livelihoods rely on attracting a following, being cast out socially for moral repugnance is especially negative since it would mean the loss of credibility and goodwill, resulting in the evaporation of their livelihoods.
But if they can commandeer the appearance of integrity, they would gain the admiration of viewers and build a loyal following whom they can influence and from whose patronage they get their livelihoods. Thus, they are doubly incentivized to exhibit signals of moral uprightness in the content they produce and in their public communication.
Mind you, social status from moral respectability is not a desire limited to public figures and those in the business of producing news content. As social creatures, humans are overwhelmingly motivated to be seen as moral actors in their everyday lives because norm-breaking behavior generally makes one vulnerable to gossip, preening and ostracism from peers.
Thus, both ordinary people and professional content producers are motivated to broadcast their moral uprightness, and the primary means by which this is done on social media is participating in moral discourse. With this social framework in mind, news and current events, then, can be seen as a continual stream of litmus tests or indicators of one’s moral standing.
Public moral discourse is an important contributor to promoting societal moral improvement. “Calling it like it is” allows us identify deficiencies where they exist and spur cooperative action on the matter. Foregoing this would enable the proliferation of these deficiencies, which then exact compounding costs on society at large.
That being said, public moral discourse is problematic because it is ineffective and easily done with mixed motives. Philosophy professors Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke used conventional concepts of social psychology to illustrate how moral discourse progressively devolves into a counterproductive self-aggrandizing spectacle which they call “moral grandstanding”. To be fair, they are not accusing everyone engaging in moral discourse of grandstanding, but they nonetheless point out that grandstanding is at work whenever one aims to convince others (e.g. within or outside one’s own in-group) that one is morally respectable.
In their essay, Tosi and Warmke note the marks of moral grandstanding to include the following:
1) Piling on: reiteration of previously stated point without providing additional input.
2) Ramping up: bringing up stronger claims about the matter under discussion.
3) Trumping up: insisting on the existence of additional moral problems where there is none.
4) Excessive displays of emotion: this is rather self-explanatory
5) Claims of self-evidence: making references to one’s own person or status to justify one’s arguments.
To illustrate these marks using a recent (and, for many of us, personally relevant) example, consider the following fictional Facebook discussion on the breaking news of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis:
A: A man literally begs for his life as policemen mercilessly put him in a chokehold. How has America come to this where an unarmed man is subdued killed in broad daylight by the police? B: I saw this too. No one deserves to die like this. Breaks my heart. C: I just hope that justice is served and that these dirtbag policemen get locked away for a long long time. Absolutely sickening, and I’m just disgusted at my friends who would still defend crooked cops. D: As a long-time advocate for social justice, I can now say that reform has failed us. When a Black man can still murdered in cold blood by the police in 2020, I’d say it’s time to abolish the police. E: Oh please, when you’ve had 200+ years of slavery and 99 years of segregation, should we be surprised that this happened in America in 2020? No. Racism is built into the very core and foundation of this country, period. Make no mistake what Trump meant by Make America “Great” Again.
Breaking down the discussion thread in terms of the framework offered by Tosi and Warmke, “A” makes the original post and implicitly states their righteous bewilderment and disgust at the incident.
“B” then piles on, registering their viewpoint on the matter that is in alignment with “A”. They also use explicit displays of emotion to highlight the seriousness with which they approach the issue at hand.
“C” ramps up the conversation from one of bewilderment to one of moral outrage and indignation. Moreover, conflating a broad support for cops with a defense of the action in question, “C” explicitly and publicly denounces those who support policemen.
“D” appeals to their own role as a long-time advocate for social justice to argue for a more extreme position on the matter (i.e. abolition).
“E” trumps up charges against the legitimacy of the nation as a whole, and against the sitting president, insinuating that the cruelty of the incident in question is the true goal of the said leader.
Now, consider what might happen when a dissenting or skeptical viewpoint is presented from a sixth individual who perhaps took special issue with “C”’s demand for jailtime:
F: Yeah, I mean, this looks awful and indefensible. But let’s not rush to charge these policemen with murder until we get all the facts. After all, it is better than ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
(Now, to be sure, the evidence that we currently have is more than enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Derek Chauvin is guilty of murder. But again, this is merely a fictional scenario set for when the story first broke.)
The suggestion of innocence on the part of the policemen involved by “F” would constitute a sharp break from the norms represented by the five people (“A” through “E”). It is entirely conceivable that the five, and others who align with their moral norms, would mount some pushback on “F”. They might even pile on, ramp up or trump up each other’s criticism of “F” as part of their pushback and punishment for what they view as the morally repugnant and norm-breaking behavior of “F”.
In response, friends or sympathizers of “F” might then be driven to mount a defense for “F”. The defense might involve liking the original statement by “F”, piling on using alternative digital media content that supports “F”. In so doing, they create a parallel performance of moral grandstanding for their own in-group.
Now, we have two opposing camps engaged in a public faceoff. Because “A” through “F” and their respective camps appear as a digital avatars on a screen, it is easy for both sides to dehumanize each other and thus shut out all opportunity to authentically engage and listen. Mired with barbs and strongly emotive words, at some point the discussion devolves into a theatre of emotionally satisfying blows, with both sides striving for the final word and neither side likely to back down from their original position.
Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash
Whenever we see members of our cultural/political in-group being piled upon, we perceive it as a threat to the interests and wellbeing of the entire group, are thus driven to jump in and defend group interests.
Sounds familiar? Of course, this thread is fictional and the words are entirely made up for illustrative purposes. However, this kind of moral grandstanding and mob behavior is pervasive in our social media discourse for two reasons: the first is individual self-interest in gaining social status and avoiding ostracism from one’s in-group as described earlier; the second and more surprising reason is the individual’s interest in the status and wellbeing of their in-group.
Explaining this group-centric interest, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote that humans are mostly individualistic but exhibit highly group-oriented behavior on occasion. He summed this up in the simple metaphor “we are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee.”
Taking an evolutionary psychology perspective, Haidt argues that pre-civilization humans and hive animals (e.g. bees, ants and wasps) shared similar challenges (e.g. territory, needy offspring and confronted with rival neighboring groups) that incentivized in-group cooperation. Thus, according to Haidt, humans evolved as the only primates with hive-like ‘ultrasocial’ instincts and the ability to share and communicate intentionality, which are critical for coordinating activities (e.g. group hunting) and delegating roles for group ends.
In our modern era, group-centric behavior where the individual is subsumed into a larger group entity can be found in organized religion, team sports and our partisan politics. Whenever we see members of our cultural/political in-group being piled upon, we perceive it as a threat to the interests and wellbeing of the entire group, are thus driven to jump in and defend group interests.
Thus, putting everything together in simple terms, writers and content producers working in a faulty profit-driven media ecosystem write stories and package them with an emotionally-manipulative and highly-political spin to be published on the internet and shared on social media. The audience then sees the story, predictably gets an emotional reaction, shares the story on social media and initiates a moral discourse around the story in the process. This draws their circle of friends and beyond into the moral discourse where emotions are strong and the social stakes are high.
Consistent with dualistic nature of morality, the moral discourse gives rise to two opposing sides that view each other as morally repugnant. The discourse quickly becomes polarized, making things more angry and less likely to achieve a satisfactory resolution for both sides. Meanwhile, much ado has been wrought, which means more clicks and traffic to the digital media websites, resulting in them getting a bigger cut of that sweet ad revenue money. | https://medium.com/@tobymea/from-optimism-to-despair-how-social-media-is-ruining-our-public-discourse-cb01775bd240 | [] | 2020-07-23 06:54:53.468000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Morality', 'Social Media', 'Psychology'] |
A Better Way to Approach Your Goal Setting | A Better Way to Approach Your Goal Setting
To keep going you need to make progress visible
Why is it that when we set a big goal for ourselves we end up giving up within a month?
We feel so motivated and inspired to take action, but that feeling lasts for about 5 seconds.
In the beginning, we feel really excited and make some progress for a while, but then we reach a roadblock and we stop. Suddenly everything seems like a huge mountain of work.
We realize that our goal requires a whole lot more effort than we thought it would and that it’ll take months or years to achieve. We start feeling intimidated by the amount of work that must be done to get there.
And as we proceed to get more informed about what it takes to reach that desired outcome we feel even more incompetent.
It’s clear that we are nowhere near our end goal and we don’t even see much progress. So we get frustrated and we quit.
And that’s the problem with setting a big goal and expecting to reach it as soon as possible.
This is also where we realize if we truly want the outcome and we’re willing to dive into the process, or if we only love imagining the end result, the money, the fame, and recognition. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/a-simple-way-to-approach-your-goal-setting-427f504c1d8e | ['Laura Bongers'] | 2020-07-22 15:01:01.224000+00:00 | ['Goal Setting', 'Growth', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Success'] |
Integrate HMS to Unity Game(Part I) | Hi everyone, in this article series we will Integrate HMS to our Unity Game.
We will integrate these kits.
1) Huawei Account Kit
2) Huawei Push Kit
3) Ads Kit
4) In App purchase
5) Game Services
6) Huawei Analytics Kit
7) Crash Kit
8) Remote Config
First, let’s start by creating an app in AGC and adding the plugin to our project.
Create an application on HUAWEI Developer(use this link for details).
Enable the HUAWEI services.
2) We will add plugin to our project. This plugin have two branch for Unity versions.(version 2019 used)
Download plugin from this for Unity version 2019.x.
Download plugin from this for Unity version 2018.x .
Import package to unity.
Then select downloaded package and click import.
Download agconnect.json file from AGC.
Then open project_path\Assets\Huawei\agconnect.json replace with you downloaded from AGC.
Update App ID, CP ID and package name, this information exist in updated agconnect.json file.
Now we can start the integration. I divided this series into 2 parts so that it is not too long. This will be the first part of our series and here we will integrate Account Kit, Push Kit, Ads Kit, In App Purchase, Game Services. | https://medium.com/huawei-developers/integrate-hms-to-unity-game-part-i-d89bea5b815c | [] | 2020-12-29 10:18:42.657000+00:00 | ['Plugins', 'Unity', 'Huawei', 'Hms', 'Huawei Mobile Service'] |
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