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Paava Kadhaigal Review: Tactfully depicts how the shallow concept of “honour” chokes the humanity out of people. | Subhadeep Das
Netflix’s Paava Kadhaigal is a brilliant depiction of how the concept of “honour”, dictated by a community, is often detrimental to the well-being of the people belonging to that community. The anthology consists of four stories concerning four people who somehow, either of their own accord or not, damage the honour of their families and the undeserving repercussions they deal with. In society’s view, they are nothing but deviants who have sinned and the anthology horrifyingly depicts those despicable people who gain from perpetuating this violence against these so-called deviants.
The anthology has structured the four films quite well and none of them ever do anything else except add to the growing resentment to the horrors occurring on screen. The series begins with Sudha Kongara’s, Thangam(My Precious). Set in a small village near the city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, we follow Satthar(played by Kalidas Jayaram), a transgender man who wishes to start afresh by moving to Mumbai, away from the constant abuses and bigotry of the villagers. He also wishes to get a gender reassignment surgery and is saving up for it. His father is tremendously disappointed with him which shows in the regular outbursts of anger towards him. The only person he can confide in, is his childhood friend, Saravanan(played by Shanthnu Bhagyaraj), who seems to be the only one not viewing him as someone different. It is a story of one -sided love that is rightly felt due to the restrained performance by Jayaram. He doesn’t strive for meager empathy, he digs deeper. Although not perfect, it is quite a commendable performance. The movie is not without a few flaws. The comic relief scenes at the beginning feel forced and often are not able to produce a chuckle and the screenplay does take quite a while to establish the main plot getting quite stagnant at times. However, the movie recovers quickly from the fatigued and a bit cliched start and goes on to give a heartfelt ending that did make me tearful.
In Vignesh Shah’s, Love Panna Uttranum (Let Them Love), the story follows twin daughters Aadhi and Jothi(both played by Anjali) whose father, Veerasimman(played by Padam Kumar), is a politician who though promoting inter-caste marriages for his image, is a man to whom honour remains above everything else. Thus, he employs his right-hand man, Narikuttan(played by Jaffer Sadiq) to adhere to their community and makes sure that the parity is met. The main conflict occurs when Aadhi declares her love for their driver who belongs to a lower caste and surprisingly her father agrees to their union. Seeing that her father has truly let go of his age-old beliefs, Jothi comes back to visit her family and check on her sister. She also brings along two of her friends Penelope(played by Kalki Koechlin) and Bad boy Bharani B-Cube(played by Tony Sebastian), who is a rapper from Mumbai but Penelope is the one who soon starts to realize that something is off about Veerasimman. The plot of this short may seem heavy but Vignesh Shah makes a bold creative decision of incorporating humour into the plot. The movie deals with the subject of honour killings and skillfully portrays this through dry humour. Characters often use movie references to justify their gruesome deeds and a character who resembles Kannada actor, Yash is also called KGF. While the premise ventures into borderline absurd, director Vignesh never mocks the situation they are in. Thus, as the story progresses and the situation becomes even more bizarre, you still remain invested due to the sheer gravity of it. The performances here are some of the best. Padam Kumar as the politician and the patriarch, Tony Sebastian and both Anjali and Kalki give faithful performances but it is Jaffer Sadiq who steals the show as one of the most despicable casteists ever seen onscreen. The way he justifies his actions is a treat to watch. The writing however, could have seen improvement as not all the comic scenes stick their landing. Some of the comic scenes feel extremely forced and inappropriate and often are placed at odd points in the narrative that the important scenes start to lose their finesse. Also, in an attempt to give a happy-ever-after, the movie forgives the father’s evil deeds and sort of ends up trampling on its subject matter that had been well-handled up until then. It does become frustratingly confusing at times as to what genre the movie is going for.
The third story, Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vaanmagal(Daughter of the skies), could have easily surpassed Vetri Maaran’s outing, had it been for a few questionable narrative choices due to which it does come as a close second to being the best out of all three. Vaanmagal is the story that focuses on the theme of honour through a family dealing with a victim of sexual assault, that victim being the youngest daughter of the family. In the early 90’s of Hindi commercial cinema, acts of physical or sexual violence have mostly been used as catalysts of revenge plots with the women immediately committing suicide as the pain of dishonouring the family. Gautham Menon’s narrative heart-wrenchingly portrays the internal dilemmas that each member of the family goes through after such a horrific act is committed. The film also showcases the societal expectations of women as they are trained from birth to live a life that is respectful to the family. In a particular scene, where the mother tells her eldest daughter who has gone through her first periods that she should not touch anything as she will dirty them, really goes to show how controlling our society has been towards women for generations. This movie highlights how the will to preserve the honour of the family, makes the parents oblivious to their child’s pain. They even go so far as to refuse to file a police complaint in fear of their eldest daughter also getting dishonoured. The performances in this short are the best among all the three. Both the performances by Gautham Menon as the father and Simran as the mother will tug at your heartstrings. They feel the most genuine and both of them beautifully portray their internal struggles with the matter of the assault. In an absolutely breathtaking scene, the mother asks the father as to why he wouldn’t talk or face his daughter. To which he replies that it is because he feels naked. This is an immensely powerful scene and the camera remains stationary on him as he goes on to say how he has failed as a father to protect her in her time of need. The one narrative thread which the movie should have avoided would be the physical revenge exacted by the brother. It fails to serve its purpose, feels forced and sticks out immensely like a sore thumb. It also feels petty in comparison to the sort of psychological revenge that the mother exacts on the society by refusing to live by its terms. It is what singlehandedly brings down the overall continued brilliance of the film and keeps it from triumphing over the fourth entry.
Finally to complete the anthology we have the Vetri Maaran directorial, Oor Iravu(That Night). Vetri Maaran has never shied away from narratives featuring the torment of the lower caste people at the hands of the upper caste and it is beautiful to see how a director when armed with an unrestricted canvas(referring to the OTT platforms), is able to make something that gets under your skin so effectively. This movie is a clear example of what a master filmmaker he is. That Night follows the story of the relationship between a father(played by Prakash Raj) and a daughter(played by Sai Pallavi) that gets ruined when the daughter decides to elope with her boyfriend from college, who happens to be from a lower caste. The narrative begins with the arrival of the father at the daughter’s house, who has been pregnant, and asking the couple to host a baby shower at his house. Like all his movies, Vetri Maaran uses the visuals to convey a lot of the internal conflicts. How the father refuses a glass of water at their house and also decides to accompany his daughter to her yoga classes in fear of having to stay back alone with the husband. These subtle cues really hint at how the father still hasn’t been able to accept them completely. Even though her daughter has the most financially stable life, the deeply ingrained caste system in his mind ends up clouding his judgement. The husband picks up on these details and confronts him about it but he ultimately agrees for his wife and makes one request of having the event held at a public venue such that both their families are able to attend the event as equals. A great moment of visual storytelling occurs in a splendid one-take scene when the daughter is back at her home and the father simply goes to bring a glass of water for her from the kitchen. This almost uneventful scene is actually the best in the whole movie as through the visuals the director conveys the unknown horrors that are unfolding offscreen. The camera refuses to go into the kitchen with the father and once he comes out refuses to show his face, quickly conveying that something is really wrong here. Unlike the previous three films, Vetri Maaran refuses to use any songs or background scores and simply lets us feel the intense affair in its absolute raw format. He achieves this great task through both his cinematographer, Suresh Bala and through some careful but genius editing and it just goes to show how well he is able to use the assets at hand. This film was the toughest to watch mainly due to the performances of Sai Pallavi and Prakash Raj, who are magnificent in their roles. It also made me quite happy to see Prakash Raj getting a role that is quite different from the commercial ones that he is used to. This just goes to show his immense range as an actor.
Paava Kadhaigal, from the onset makes it clear that it is not for the faint hearted but one should expose themselves to it regardless, to get an idea about how this concept of honour can harm us. This anthology rightfully overwhelms you with emotions and transports you to the creations of some of the finest directors working in films today. Even though some aspects of it disappoint, they are not overpowering enough to diminish or tarnish the overall image the anthology strives for and hence, one should definitely give it a watch. | https://medium.com/alternatetake/paava-kadhaigal-review-tactfully-depicts-how-the-shallow-concept-of-honour-chokes-the-humanity-2e96660c40ee | ['Alternate Take'] | 2020-12-24 10:12:17.919000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Netflix', 'Movie Review', 'Streaming', 'India'] |
Did They Forget To Invite Me? | Back in October, one of my Black friends back home was upset because the White folks on her street gathered to project movies on a movie screen in their cul-de-sac for Halloween instead of trick or treating because of Covid, and they didn’t invite her and her kids. She indicated she probably wouldn’t have gone anyway because of Covid, but it offended her her White neighbors of five-years gathered without her.
She lives in a predominantly upper-middle-class community of White folks. Her neighbors have never really been all that friendly to her, but the ones who were most friendly when she initially moved there have moved on. Most of her current neighbors have been in their homes for 30-years of more. My friend was Black, and new, two strikes for her. She believed because she could afford to live among White people in the suburbs with her six-figure salary, her neighbors should have been welcoming to her and her kiddos. Unfazed, I stared blackly at my phone.
I really don’t understand what Black folks are thinking about when they move into these types of communities. The whiter the community, the more self-insulted and racist the communities are, even if they don’t realize it. I am tired of Black people moving in White communities and then crying about they won’t play with them. I just don’t have time for this shit anymore. Because we’re in the middle of a soft coup and the beginning phases of violent civil unrest, I had to keep it real with my friend.
“The didn’t invite you because they didn’t want you there,” I said to her.
She was silent for a moment, absorbing the sting of my words. She continued talking about her feelings about being excluded, talked about her having kids that might have wanted to take part, and then I just stopped her.
I said, “Look, you moved into the community because it was White and you wanted “good” schools for your kids. You wanted to be where White people were because you believed being there helps your household’s community standing. Those White people planned that community and moved there because it was all White, and they didn’t want any N-words there among them. Your presence in their community reminds them of the thing they are running from, us. They don’t want to be around you, or your kids. Anyway, your kids don’t socialize with the White kids in the neighborhood, anyway. They don’t walk to and from school together, even though they live a few homes down from each other and stand at the same bus stop together. You may live in that house, but it’s not your community, it’s theirs. You were intentionally excluded because they don’t want you there. Get over it.”
I also reminded her Covid was raging. She agreed. The exclusion still bothered her, though. It’s a microaggression racists use all the time.
Exclusion is a Microaggression
My friend’s exclusion from White community events is another way her neighbors show her who belongs and who doesn’t. My friend was upset until I broke it down to her. I asked her what she was going to do about it, because it will happen again. Will she stay because “good White people’s shit” is worth slights from neighbors, raising kids in isolation with no culture and no Black friends? It sounds like she’s in for the long haul with White Supremacy. White slights and isolation are things she has a high tolerance level for, apparently. She gave me the old tired trope about Black folks not having nice things, and I pointed her to places like Marietta, Ga, parts of Columbia, South Carolina near Fort Jackson and other place across America with racially diverse or predominantly Black communities excelling, nice communities with all the amenities, etc.
I broke it down to my friend. Her choice was a lazy thought-process because she believes it’s the simple choice. She chose to live where she lived because she valued Whiteness more than she valued her Blackness and would deal with microaggressions and intentional exclusion for a good education and a nice home value. I asked her if she believed she was providing her children a White education.
There are many reasons for exclusion, and exclusion has many purposes.
Exclusion Is Fear
White people use fear as an excuse to exclude Blacks and People of Color in their communities they deem otherness. At the heart of every matter, there is White comfort which leads to White fragility. Because White people have not done the work of getting to know people, so they fear what they don’t know. Instead of getting to know non-White people outside of superficial metrics assessed used to judge us in the same way we Blacks and other racial groups, they exclude them. White people believe getting to know folks is the job of otherness, not White people. Their beloved White Supremacy teaches them to either fear or not respect non-White people, and most White folks haven’t engaged in any antiracism to understand how wrong, racist, and stupid their thought-processes are. Nothing makes White people look smaller than when they fear otherness for no reason except White Supremacy ingrains in White people they must fear us to survive.
It’s like teaching a lion to be afraid of a sheep.
In the racist minds of simple White neighbors engaging in exclusive community events, they believe excluded minority neighbors can’t see them all gathered together in their seas of White enjoying their White people stuff. And even if we don’t see them, we see their coordinated efforts to be on the same page when everyone has the same decor except the Blackitty Black or Brown neighbors. The entire reason White people are in their White communities in the first place is because they are racist, and fear drives that racism. They do not welcome otherness to the barbecue, or in my friend’s case, the racist Halloween movie.
Exclusion Is To Maintain Inequality
White people work to maintain inequality, and exclusion is the primary way they keep inequality alive and well. Although it’s may not seem like a big deal, exclusion erodes trust. When White neighbors exclude their Black and Brown neighbors from whatever White people shit they can’t do in our midsts, they erode community trust. Ya’ll have two sets of meetings, we know. Sometimes Black and Brown people will foolishly let the guards down, believing because they can afford a home in certain upper-middle-class communities, they will be viewed as an equal and received with open arms.
Most Black upper-middle-class homeowners end up learning they are just in a new, more expensive place they chose on their own to be subjected to White folks’ exclusion tactics. Most are angry Blacks and People of Color are in their White spaces, and the only thing they can do to make you feel bad and unwelcomed because you made “it” to “good shit” town is to exclude non-White folks. Why anyone wants to be subjected to that is beyond me, but I’ve seen it and lived it for a few years myself. Being the only Black person in a White community is the most uncomfortable shit I’ve ever experienced. You know you’re going to be judged, and you can expect some unfairness to happen. It’s part of the pulling yourself up by your bootstraps experience. Go figure.
Exclusion Is A Microaggression
When White people exclude us from their little White people’s activities at work, in our communities, in college, in our friend circles, and neighborhood politics, it’s intentional. It’s also a microaggression. It’s a way to show us yet again we don’t belong, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you attempt to address the microaggression with racist neighbors, they’ll usually turn the tables on ya, blaming you for exaggerating what you see and feel. Or perhaps they’ll tell you they assumed you didn’t want to take part. They didn’t know when they made no efforts to know. While exclusion is soft racism, but it’s still racism. It’s one of those comfortable things you can’t always prove. If your feelings are going to be hurt because you’re going to be excluded from said White people’s activities, reconsider not moving to all White communities. Waving hello is one thing. Being invited to gather for White pre-Thanksgiving socials is something completely different. They don’t care about your feelings, their comfort is all that’s important. Everything is about White comfort.
Exclusion Is American
White people founded our country on exclusion. Negros were 3/5ths of a man, excluded from being whole, free people like White men. Slaves were denied rights and treated unfairly. Native Americans had their lands stolen, they were excluded from their own nations and dehumanized. Because of their history with White folks, they’ve fought to Non-White immigrants were placed in ghettos upon their arrival. White people have always sought to make sure dirty Brown folks didn’t mix up with them. We all know how White people have treated slaves, then freed Blacks/African-Americans. Black Codes, Jim Crow, and other segregation efforts ensured they excluded Black people from White American society.
Exclusion of Black people and anyone not White is American.
Black and Brown folks have been excluded from public education. When White people allowed Blacks to learn how to read and write, they didn’t want us to be as educated as they were. White people excluding Black people and other non-White people are nothing new. Excluding for people because they don’t have the proper hair textures and skin tones is American, and its sole purpose is to ensure White folks maintain their privilege. They also receive some joy apparently from gatekeeping.
Excluding is policing, and we know at anytime, any White person can go from being a citizen to a police officer over anyone, anywhere. White people policing non-White people is also American. Controlling who comes and goes, lives and doesn’t live in their communities is policing, they just choose to see it differently.
Stop Moving Where They Are If You’re Seeking Inclusion
I told my friend the cold, hard truth. White folks move to the suburbs to get away from Black people specifically. When we show up to live around them, we piss them off. There are always going to be some White assholes who dislike us just because we made it to their good stuff. Exclusion from Whiteness is a way for them to pretend you’re not there. It’s how they keep the ignorant mindset their country is White and why they believe all their spaces need to be taken back.
Excluding us is a way for White people to put the rest of us in our places. It’s a way for them to show you they are superior and we are inferior. It’s their way of showing us we don’t belong where they are.
My advice to her was to suck it up and stop expecting them to treat her and her children as if they are a part of the community. Stop complaining about what they do. In fact, stop looking at them at all. They have let her know she’s not included, just deal with it.
She could either remain in her nice home and take advantage of all the good racist stuff she died to have (which is the entire reason for her moving there in the first place), or she could move to a more culturally enriched, inclusive community, preferably an upper-middle class Black community.
They do have those; you know?
Black and Brown folks’ addiction to accessing White folks’ good stuff has unintended consequence. Just because our money allows us to buy a home among them doesn’t mean we’ll be accepted. In some communities, we’re never going to be welcomed. Sure, you may have the right move any place you want to, but just because you move to those places doesn’t mean you’ll be welcomed or wanted. If want to live like that, raise your kids in places where they don’t have real friends, and where you can’t rely on your neighbors because they hate you, have at it. We have to deal with enough White Supremacy. Why go and make that place that lacks neighborly love your home?
It’s wallowing in White Supremacy. It’s self-hate.
Plenty of folks do it, and years later, they question their decision. Moving in communities where you’ll be excluded takes a psychological toll not only on Black and Brown adults but also their children. Those kids often catch hell at schools, because racist adults who exclude Black and Brown folks, teach their children how to do it too. Why do we Black and Brown people subject our children to racism for nice stuff? Is the psychological scars, forced assimilation, and culture confusion really worth it?
Every man and woman has to make that choice for themselves. For some minorities, they view the choice as a sacrifice. For other minorities, the choice is a compromise. Whatever the reason, don’t blame White people because they don’t want you in their neighborhood social circles and community gatherings.
White folks moved to their suburbs to get away from us. So don’t be expecting racist, gatekeeping White people to run to us with open arms after we snatch our for sale signs out of the ground in front of our new suburban homes. Some may, but most won’t. White folks will still have White meetings where non-White folks are excluded, and they’ll make White people plans to celebrate White folks’ favorite holiday activities you won’t be included in, because they rarely include your kind in their circles.
I suggested to my friend maybe she should delete the illusion of inclusion from your mind.
So if you live in a gated community or in the suburbs and you notice your neighbors are having White people gatherings and you weren’t included, don’t be offended. If the neighbors have their 4th of July tree decor going in their yard and you didn’t get the memo, find peace in your spirit and chill. You’ve been intentionally excluded, and that goes with the territory of living and working in White spaces. Everywhere belongs to them. The sooner you learn that lesson, the better off you’ll be.
So when your White neighbors gather and don’t invite the Black and/or Brown neighbors, you don’t have to wonder if they intentionally excluded them.
They didn’t forget to send the invites. The Blacks and Browns were intentionally excluded.
Marley K. in Quarantine, waiting for America’s other shoe to drop.
Follow me: https://marleyk.medium.com
Check out some of my other work here on Medium at Our Human Family, Afrosapiophile, Age of Awareness, and my personal publication, Marleyisms. | https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/did-they-forget-to-invite-me-5432632ffdfb | ['Marley K.'] | 2020-12-21 07:01:55.660000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Inequality', 'Life Lessons', 'One Black Friend', 'Microaggressions'] |
filtkokong | (Series: Answers to the question no one asked about the people in those commercials. The Less Gives Us More commercial made me scream in rage https://www.ispot.tv/ad/tqIt/ikea-less-gives-us-more.)
“I can be down whenever
dinner is ready,” he calls
from his office (bedroom-turned-office)
Sit in this chair and hope,
if only for a minute,
a body can disappear
into the grey fuzz like crumbs
that hide in the carpet
If still for hours
maybe She will find
another outlet for her
repetitive wit and unfailing questions
Maybe the piles of laundry, the mountains
of guilt will slowly dissolve
if no thought rests upon them
Avoid those twin mirrors
reflecting back the cycle of
annoyance, guilt, shame, annoyance
A load finishes and she complains,
uncomfortable and cold,
drops pristine clothes into
the waves forever crashing
on the couchy shores
Breathe and try not to think
of sugar and vitamins
and pants too short
for growing legs
and how many pounds of pasta
can growing bodies
healthily consume anyway?
A cup of tea, questions of where
I might be going
whether she might have
another sweet concoction
a better mother would never allow
over the threshold
Up the steps, steaming cup
the door to my bedroom
opened at the top, I watch
his successful finger enter his mouth
with the treasure it carried from above
Every moment watched
every movement questioned
anger rises above disgust:
To believe in one’s autonomy
Return to the chair
watch as he descends
attentions rests on the clean laundry still
floods the end of the couch
The girl bypasses his reach,
begs for food, screams for
a reprieve from the chores that prove
she is more than a consumptive viewer
He washes dishes
the unasked words
refusing to leave that spot in his eyes
oblivious
to the steam rising from the drain
Clap if you’re interested in seeing more of what I think of the stories behind the current ads. | https://medium.com/@jeanneerin/filtkokong-425406362dad | [] | 2020-12-20 15:36:58.292000+00:00 | ['Quarantine', 'Motherhood', 'Feminism', 'Covid Poetry', 'Poetry'] |
Why Don’t We Take Antivirals? | If we’re talking about total number of lives saved, antibiotics are likely one of the greatest discoveries ever made.
Since the first half of the twentieth century, when they were discovered (remember famous penicillin?), life expectancy has risen by nearly thirty years. The most common cause of death has shifted from communicable diseases (smallpox, typhoid fever, plague, tuberculosis) to non-communicable diseases (heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cancer).
Much of this can be directly attributed to antibiotics.
An antibiotic is, to use simple terms, any substance that kills bacteria. Many antibiotics, like the penicillin compound that was the first discovered, are naturally produced by other creatures. (Penicillin is made naturally by Penicillium mold, used to kill bacteria so that the slower-growing mold could spread.)
These drugs can be lifesavers — if your illness is caused by a bacterium.
But what about diseases caused by viruses? Aside from the current COVID-19 global pandemic, we deal with plenty of other nasty viruses. HIV, influenza, and the common cold are all caused by viruses.
We do have a series of drugs called antivirals, which can be used to help prevent viral infections. But why aren’t these as common as antibiotics? Why do we go for vaccination instead of antiviral drugs?
Here’s how antivirals work, and why we don’t go to them as our first choice like we do with antibiotics.
It is Hard to Kill That Which is Already Dead
Bacteria are decidedly alive. They eat, they can reproduce through the exchange of genetic material, and they exhibit most other qualities of life.
Viruses, on the other hand? It’s a matter of open debate.
Viruses can only reproduce through hijacking of a cell’s machinery — they can’t make more copies of themselves on their own. This means that, if left to sit on their own, they’re pretty much inert. They don’t move, they don’t show metabolic activity, and they don’t make more copies of themselves.
This also makes them hard to kill.
Pictured: a weapon that is horribly, completely ineffective against viruses (although great against viral carriers). Photo by Thomas Def on Unsplash
Many antibiotics work by either attacking the cell wall of bacteria, or by interfering with their metabolism, blocking certain vital processes that the bacteria need to perform to reproduce. Break apart the cell wall, and the bacteria literally falls apart. Interrupt the processes that the bacterium needs to reproduce, and they’re literally stuck, like jamming s stick into the spokes of a bike.
But for viruses? They don’t have a cell wall, just a protein coat that surrounds their DNA instructions. They don’t have any metabolic processes to interrupt, since they use the machinery of their prey.
Instead, we have to use more specialized, more targeted approaches. We can’t just use a method that works on all viruses; we need to build more specific treatments that only work on specific types of viruses.
How We Kill Viruses
Viruses go through a set of stages when they infect a host:
The virus attaches to a host cell. The virus releases its genetic material (DNA or RNA) into the host cell. The virus makes more copies of itself, using the cell’s own machinery. Those copies assemble into new viruses. The new viruses are released (or burst free) to spread to additional cells.
If we disrupt one or more of these stages, we can stop the spread of the virus.
We’ve found a few ways to do so, including:
We can build specific proteins that bind to the outside of the virus’s shell, so that it can’t attach to (and infiltrate) host cells.
We can interfere with the binding of the virus to host cells.
We can block the virus’s shell from opening, even after they’ve attached to a host cell.
We can block the activation of the genetic material inside the virus, so it can’t be used to make more copies of viral components.
We can build pieces of cell machinery that will specifically cut viral sequences, chopping their genetic material into bits.
We can target and specifically kill the host cells that have been hijacked by viruses, killing them before they can release their payload of new viruses.
These are all valid methods, for some viruses — but because the composition of different viruses varies so widely, a treatment that works on one type of virus won’t necessarily work on others.
This means that most antivirals are “one virus, one treatment” — they only work on the specific virus that they’re built to fight.
Are There Broad-Spectrum Antivirals?
For a bacterial infection, doctors may prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics — that is, antibiotics with a mechanism that works on a wide range of different bacteria.
Are there, similarly, broad-spectrum antivirals?
There are a few. Most, with names like favipiravir, cidofovir, and ribavirin, work by targeting the viral polymerase, a specific viral protein that helps make copies of the viral genetic material. These treatments are “broad-spectrum” in that they work on multiple different classes of viruses, but none of them are truly effective for all viruses. Cidofovir, for example, works on viruses that are based around DNA, but doesn’t work on viruses based on RNA.
This means that, for a viral treatment, we usually need to have an antiviral that is specifically focused on that particular strain or type of virus. Think about how a lock requires a specific key.
There’s a strong drive among researchers to search for that fabled broad-spectrum antiviral that will work on a huge range of viruses — but we may never find it. There’s just too much variety among different viruses, how they work and what they’re comprised of, for us to ever have a single treatment that can stop the spread of any virus.
When Should I Take an Antiviral?
All of this raises a question: when are antivirals worth taking?
There are two main reasons to consider an antiviral:
For dangerous/deadly viral diseases; If you are in a population at high risk of death or lasting injury from a virus (elderly, immunocompromised, etc.).
Antivirals can help lessen the length of time that you are sick from a disease, but usually won’t completely cure the disease. For example, there are antivirals for the flu — but they will only shorten the time spent feeling ill from the flu by about a day, and they must be taken right after the initial infection to work.
Antivirals are used in situations like in nursing homes, when people may be too weak to survive a course of the flu.
Similarly, with diseases like HIV, there are antiviral treatments — but they aren’t a cure. They can help lessen the viral load, and prevent someone who is HIV positive from passing the disease on to others, but they won’t cure the disease or fully eradicate the virus.
The other concern with antivirals is, just like how bacteria can mutate to become resistant to antibiotics, some viruses may mutate to the point where the antiviral no longer has any effect.
This is dangerous — it removes a vital tool that we may use to help our most vulnerable populations avoid dying from virus-based diseases. | https://medium.com/@westwise/why-dont-we-take-antivirals-e9fe1cfdb7a6 | ['Sam Westreich'] | 2020-12-23 12:37:46.551000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Biology', 'Science', 'Virus', 'Medicine'] |
Why The Argument Over Ownership Of Mobility Data Is Both Silly And Essential | Why The Argument Over Ownership Of Mobility Data Is Both Silly And Essential Cityfi Follow Jul 15, 2019 · 8 min read
by Gabe Klein
Climate change on-one hand…and data sharing, security and privacy on the other, may seem like problems that exist in distant worlds from each other, but let’s take a harder look. They are both existential threats to our way of life; physical destruction of our ecosystem, or cloud-based destabilization of our political system and polarization of populations (just to start). In the world of transportation, small, electric vehicles could be a lifeline to lower CO2 emissions in our densest urban places, but data protocols and associated misunderstandings threaten to derail the scaling of these crucial solutions that would provide people with lower cost, sustainable transportation solutions from private sector companies, into publicly run cities.
Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors will pass a resolution “Supporting the Development and Adoption of an Open Source, Mobility-Focused Platform for Management of Cities’ Public Right-of-Way,” or The Open Mobility Foundation and the Mobility Data Specification.
How did we get here?
When Google introduced Gmail 15 years ago, on April 1st, 2004, they started a data revolution; beta-testing and quickly proving that people would gladly trade access to their most personal information in exchange for very high quality, and free services. I am not judging btw, this was a brilliant bet and has changed the workplace in innumerable ways, spawning dozens of new verticals including social media and thousands of start-up businesses with free-to-consumer, ad-based and data monetization revenue streams, from Facebook to Waze. What was not contemplated was the Pandora’s box of geolocational data + first-party and third-party data targeting, and in-app monetization (what apps in 2004??), the resulting data privacy issues, surreptitious breaches and uses of 3rd party data including the 2016 election fiasco… that would slowly take hold over the next two decades.
In 2019, we seem to take for granted that data produced by citizens, but on a private platform, is then “owned” by the company that grants access to the citizen and provides them a service. In the simplest of terms, in a moment of extreme, and wonderful innovation, Silicon Valley assumed ownership of a powerful asset. I don’t fault them for this, particularly when you are pioneering change in soon-to-be very competitive industries, and no one is really paying attention. It’s much like finding a new island and planting a flag and claiming ownership as countries did in days past. Having recognized that, and all of the unintended consequences in the last few years, it is now time for a new approach to “data stewardship” vs. “ownership, and as the EU’s GDPR shows, the time has come and industry, local and national governments and NGOs recognize this too.
The Mobility Opportunity and Challenge at Local Government’s Door
2018 was the “year of the scooter” for mobility enthusiasts, as the latest transportation craze took hold and a net-positive one at that… millions of trips that could have been taken by car, ridehail (car) or other means, were taken by small, electric, 2-wheeled scooters or bicycles. Like Uber /Lyft and 1st-gen dockless bikes before them, many of the companies dumped copious amounts of product on the streets to test the waters and see how local jurisdictions would react. Unlike Uber/Lyft, the companies owned the asset and could not utilize the personal ownership model to provide obfuscation of ownership in an unmarked vehicle… and cities quickly realized that the ridehail model was an anomaly, not the norm. If these “micro-mobility” companies wanted to operate in public space, they would have to work with local government, and this is a good thing if we want a long-term sustainable business and transportation option for citizens.
The public-private balance of power is a very important piece of maintaining good relations between the government and private sides, as well as maintaining a relentless focus on the public’s/customers interest. People I like and respect have made the argument to me in multiple forums that “local government does not have the bandwidth or resources to manage complex data vs. the private sector.” To which I respond in a few ways:
This is demonstrably false if we look at history (medical records, tax returns, social security numbers, etc.) coupled with regular breaches of private systems If you are right, we are in tremendous trouble as a society A third-party organization is needed to support the development of open-sourced software that provides scalable mobility solutions for cities
In June of 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation released its Mobility Data Specification (MDS) API standard (application programming interface) between shared scooter or e-bike providers and the city, with the purpose of standardizing basic data exchange regarding vehicle starting point, end point, and trip route in 100 foot increments. Our firm, Cityfi had the opportunity to work with the city, interface with the private firms and see behind the scenes as to how this was rolling out and being received, and it was fascinating.
Pretty universally, and because the LA had also released a “Strategic Implementation Plan,” initially focused on autonomous vehicles that referenced a future state that could include some level of “routing” and “control” over the transportation system exerted by government (as is done today in analog fashion), there was a fair amount of palpable fear and uncertainty on the part of the private sector, particularly the service providers and their representatives in the data privacy world. Some of this is legitimate, I mean, how often does local government stand up and assume a posture that we will ‘take control of the system’ for the societal good? Ironically, the language that had been used was cribbed directly from the 1980’sATSAC traffic signal system in LA, (Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control (ATSAC) System) which was instituted to do just that btw, but added a “big brother” vibe to the storyline in 2019. Data privacy concerns were suddenly being bandied about Twitter and other venues with grave concerns being expressed by companies and privacy advocacy groups about the potential to re-identify individuals by triangulating personally identifiable information, also based on cities voluntarily publishing detailed individual trip data (which cities should not). In the meantime, 75+ cities and countless mobility providers embraced and adopted MDS as a standard for data exchange facilitating information to turn into scale of service.
My feeling then, and my feeling now, is that this is obfuscating what’s really important. First, a trove of primary data is generated by citizens and fed into a private companies database. A small derivative data feed relating to vehicle origin and destination is being requested by cities for the purposes of managing the system, regulating safe operation for citizens, and enforcing adherence to regulations prescribed by local legislators on equity of access and geographic limitations and caps.
If this is some terrible breach of a citizens privacy, why is the generation /origination of this data in the private sector, and limitless monetization and sharing with other private companies… just fine? A recent Washington Post piece found that in one week, an iPhone had over 5400 “app trackers “ guzzling data including the user’s real-time location. And this from Apple, a woke company that proclaims responsible data sharing and privacy to be job #1.
The Real Deal (In My View)
So let me try to break this down to its simplest form and separate the hype & fear from the reality:
National governments and local governments are not the same, and not seen as equal threats to individual autonomy by citizens. States are also not as trusted as municipal government. Just look at the polling data. There is significant mistrust of the private sector in terms of the collection and sharing of personal data, and some transportation companies have the lowest ratings by the public. New mobility businesses will ultimately not be able to scale to their mainstream potential (like the personally owned automobile has) if cities are not permitted to move in lockstep into a digital future that allows them to provide their core functions of safe operations and consumer protection. Cities need detailed data about mobility operations at a vehicular (vs. person) scale. Is this a threat to the businesses? No, quite the contrary, but it is a threat to the culture and model of companies that do not understand the mandate of local government or the concept of local democracy as being the most accountable representatives of citizens. There is a difference between — shared mobility and owned mobility data outputs. Cities are not interested in ingesting data on single occupancy vehicles and their drivers, but they are on shared vehicle movements and travel patterns including for individual consumer safety and protection, with data standards and protocols in place for aggregation when needed and data disposal post utilization. There is a difference between using data for planning purposes vs. real-time operations of the system. We are moving into a new era with micro mobility, drones, autonomous vehicles and we operate primarily on an analog system of signals and stop signs. If we want to innovate and scale on the private side, we cannot be limited by a byzantine set of regulations or 20th-century infrastructure. State preemption of local control almost never has the intended outcome for businesses or citizens that are desired by the companies that push for it. AB-1112 in California is an example of a bill that was intended to create some reasonable baseline standardization, and has spiraled out of control into a prescriptive data screed and if passed, will kill the growth of micro-mobility in California just as national 5G preemption has had the unintended consequence of holding back the Telco’s from bringing us amazing 5G speeds in a timely fashion (further, MDS is being widely adopted in Europe, where they have GDPR coming into play) We need to move past the double-standard that approves of no-holds-barred innovation from the private sector, but complains when cities move too slow (I complain about this) and then also complains when the same cities try to respond at private sector speed (This btw is often because a companies business model and growth plan depends on catching cities flat footed initially, and then the same companies complain later when they need government to scale and the response is mistrust and a vehicle cap). Data privacy is absolutely crucial, and a very serious set of complex issues, but it also needs to be weighed against public safety, individual rider security and protections of civil rights. Further, the private sector does not have a corner on this market or deciding what people need or want. Ultimately people generating the data should and will be in the driver’s seat, as they are beginning to be under GDPR in the EU.
What is the solution?
The public and private sectors are merely stewards of individuals data and need to take to heart that they are both there to work for citizens and the greater good of society while taking note that local government is the most accountable and trusted by citizens in this equation. The Open Mobility Foundation, with a big tent for many other organizations and entities, is the beginning of a public-private solution; an international coalition of cities, governed by cities, and partnered with the private sector can assure standardization of data practices that help private sector providers to scale faster, bringing economically and environmentally sustainable transport solutions to people. But I am also here and now calling for an end to the pretense that there is some Beijing style authoritarian plan on the part of city governments that want detailed trip information from shared mobility operators to manage the transportation system in the 21stcentury. We know that data collection at its origination is where data protocols are most impactful. It is misleading, inflammatory and threatens to stifle innovation from startups and cities alike to claim that local government’s meager data requests pose a threat. More importantly, this approach continues the pattern of leaving fossil fuel companies as the biggest winners, a classic distraction technique while the planetary ecosystem falls apart. Public and private entrepreneurs know that we can do better. | https://medium.com/cityfi/why-the-argument-over-ownership-of-mobility-data-is-both-silly-and-essential-b8d13467ce06 | [] | 2019-07-15 15:20:19.542000+00:00 | ['Mobility', 'Smart Cities', 'Privacy', 'Transportation', 'Big Data'] |
Be a Servant to the Environment | Nature is not very linear in her design policy. Crystal development is an exception perhaps, but in general, you can count on nature to blend her solutions. We humans on the other hand, tend to prefer linear fixes. They are easier to understand, for sure. Pop a pill, add chemical, burn it down, tuck it below the surface, short and easy, and usually dead wrong.
We humans have short memories too. I’m a historian, but by nature’s standards we, and our several tens of thousands of years of history are a blip on a dot on the tape of life. There’s a wonderful expression of this in the entrance foyer at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. A colorful tape has been strung back and forth across the ceiling. Could be a half mile length of tape. And at one spot, a small, inch(es) long color stands out, depicting the time in which humans have lived on earth. The world does not circulate around us. We are a blip on a branch off to the side of the MilkyWay, and the MilkyWay is just a run-of-the-mill galaxy. We are far from the core.
So thinking and acting outside of our temporal existence isn’t easy. But the rewards may be incredible. Perhaps one day our race may touch millions of other worlds. Perhaps one day we will understand life, and really propagate it. Perhaps one day we will be godlike, and actually nurture and sustain new life.
Here and now, for us to have any hope of sustenance, we must accept that our place is that of servants to the environment. We are servants, nothing more. Nature provides us with her model, and we are charged with stewarding it. We care for and seek to understand our environment, and this nurtures our climate, and together, these result in action that sustain all of us.
And here’s a quick but factual data point: if water managers employed healthy stewardship strategies, there would be no dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Urban heat sinks, carcinogens in water, nutrient pollution that kills life, microplastics, these are all present opportunities for stewardship. Solutions, or actions, that address multiple environmental insults, are nature’s model. Her wetland effect addresses all of the above, and more. One plus one equals one hundred!
A nutrient-impaired waterway is receiving some help from biomimicry — a solution based on Mother Nature’s model.
There are thousands of “end of ditch” settings across the western United States. Every river from which irrigation water is pulled is a candidate for real stewardship. And here’s a quick but factual data point: if water managers employed healthy stewardship strategies, there would be no dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. But there would be a wealth of new, incredibly productive fisheries. The fishing aside, there would also be many more bald eagles, ospreys, kingfishers, blue herons, and the countless other forms of life that associate with critical riparian edge habitat.
Hey, I know it’s weird, but when salamanders thrive, so do we.
How do you serve the environment? Has there been a time when you’ve reached out for a linear fix and found yourself in a worse place than where you started?
Mimicking Mother Nature — Biomimicry and Water Management
My company has spent the better part of a million dollars experimenting with magic pills. These take several forms in connection with water. But they truly are just experiments. They aren’t magic at all. They are like shooting at clay pigeons — in the dark.
Microbes at work in water.
There is a real, and simple, explanation for this. It explains why results are never exactly replicable in natural systems. Put very plainly, there are too many variables in natural systems. From our human perspective this is a problem. From nature’s perspective, this is biocomplexity. It’s a wonder!
How many species of microbes are present in a waterway?
More than you could count in an hour. In fact, more than you could count in a day. The biocomplexity of waterways is vast. When a salesman represents that their “magic pill” will accomplish your goal, know that the goal may indeed be accomplished, but that the accurate explanation for the “fix” is probably quite different than the salesperson’s explanation.
Nature is wonderful, and nature does not abide with the human vision of a “fix”. You don’t just add your magic elixir to a waterway, and say “Abracadabra,” collect your fee, and walk away. Not from nature.
Nature does not abide with human comfort goals. Nature doesn’t really care about humans. It just is.
So what do we do to support nature to “fix” water?
What do we do to help it transition from some kind of aberration, like a harmful algae bloom? We provide nature with more of the two primary variables it uses to cycle contaminants out of water: surface area, and circulation. Nature’s wetland effect is impacted by other variables too, like “residence time,” and “temperature.” But surface area and circulation are the big guys. Our research has quantified that provision of both of these results in the expedited cycling of contaminants, of every sort.
The list of aberrant conditions in water is long. And getting longer. But know that biomimetic solutions, ones that track with nature’s model, are being thought of. They are being developed. These are hopeful times!
Nutrients can be steered towards healthy biota, instead of harmful algae blooms.
Not too long ago, we were visited by a young and really energizing biologist who is with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, based in Bozeman, MT. He had read an article that described Floating Island International’s (FII’s) work towards water quality enhancement that the State of Montana DNR had commissioned two years ago. His first visit was a year ago. He is a thoughtful, proactive person, looking purposively for actual sustainability directions.
While fishing at Fish Fry Lake, I can catch a perch every two minutes. But these giant bass take a bit longer to reel in.
During that first visit he and I had occasion for an early morning fishing excursion by canoe on Fish Fry Lake. I can close my eyes and see his fly rod doubled over as he fought a heavy bass, and tried to pull it up and over an island webbing tether. The fish escaped with us never getting a glimpse of the fish, its actual size…those are the most heart rendering of fishing episodes! But also, those are the mind’s eye visions that seem to stay with us forever!
On this visit we discussed the business of floating islands. We discussed “end of ditch” water stewardship, and what it means for everyone downstream. We extended our discussion and talked about dead zones, including the large one that occurs annually in the Gulf of Mexico, and to which Montana is the eleventh largest contributor. And then we talked about solutions.
Agriculture is the key to improved water quality. Agriculture is the premier source of nutrients that fuels harmful algae blooms. Agriculture is also the premier solution provider. Inventory of water at end-of-ditch locations could provide a massive window, a huge stewardship opportunity. Nutrients can be steered towards healthy biota, instead of harmful algae blooms. We have the science.
The biologist was both energized, and energizing, when he left here. Youth are tomorrow’s stewards. They are the lenses from which tomorrow’s vision will happen.
I am left with hope. With gratitude, too.
During these hyper political moments, know that there is still a wealth of calm, pedantic, careful, and patient thinking going on. Nature doesn’t give a damn about human politics. We are a blip on the planet, in the scheme of things. But if we truly want to be here, to be functional and to advance life, we must partner with nature. We sure will not succeed if we attempt to fight nature. No way. But if we recognize nature as partner, we will advance!
I want to know about the work you’re doing to recognize nature as your partner. | https://medium.com/@brucekania/be-a-servant-to-the-environment-ef5d9f28fd60 | ['Bruce Kania'] | 2020-12-21 21:58:20.050000+00:00 | ['Water', 'Climate Change', 'Paleo', 'Fishing', 'Nature'] |
Javascript Data Structure | Part 1. Built-in Data Structures
What is Data Structure?
The way you organize data.
What is an Algorithm?
The way you solve the problem.
Built-in Data Structures
Array
Set
Map
Object
Array
Arrays are list-like objects whose prototype has methods to perform traversal and mutation operations. Neither the length of a JavaScript array nor the types of its elements are fixed. Since an array’s length can change at any time, and data can be stored at non-contiguous locations in the array, JavaScript arrays are not guaranteed to be dense; this depends on how the programmer chooses to use them. In general, these are convenient characteristics; but if these features are not desirable for your particular use, you might consider using typed arrays.
Array: non-contiguous, elements can be different types Typed Array: contiguous, element should be the same type (mainly for binary data)
An element inside an array can be of any type, and different elements of the same array can be of different types
let arr = [1, "two", [3, "four"], {"hello":"world"}]
console.log(arr)
// [ 1, 'two', [ 3, 'four' ], { hello: 'world' } ]
Methods and property you must remember
[]
construct a new array
construct a new array length
length of the array
length of the array push()
add to an end
add to an end pop()
pop from an end
pop from an end shift()
pop from the start
pop from the start unshift()
add to the start
add to the start splice(…)
Adds and/or removes elements from an array.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/splice
Adds and/or removes elements from an array. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/splice slice(…)
Extracts a section of the calling array and returns a new array.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/slice
Extracts a section of the calling array and returns a new array. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/slice map(…)
Returns a new array containing the results of calling a function on every element in this array.
Returns a new array containing the results of calling a function on every element in this array. reduce(…)
forEach(…)
adding or removing at the start and end of an array
changes the contents of an array by removing or replacing existing elements and/or adding new elements in place.
returns a shallow copy of a portion of an array into a new array object selected from start to end ( end not included) where start and end represent the index of items in that array. The original array will not be modified.
Sets
Set objects are collections of values. You can iterate through the elements of a set in insertion order. A value in the Set may only occur once; it is unique in the Set’s collection.
let mySet = new Set() mySet.add(1) // Set [ 1 ]
mySet.add('some text') // Set [ 1, 5, 'some text' ]
let o = {a: 1, b: 2}
mySet.add(o)
mySet.add({a: 1, b: 2}) // o is referencing a different object, so this is okay console.log(mySet)
// Set { 1, 'some text', { a: 1, b: 2 }, { a: 1, b: 2 } }
constructor
size
add
delete(value)
has(value)
clear()
Map
The Map object holds key-value pairs and remembers the original insertion order of the keys. Any value (both objects and primitive values) may be used as either a key or a value.
The wrong way of creating a map
// don't do below to create a map. Below is just adding a property to an opbject!!!! let wrongMap = new Map()
wrongMap['bla'] = 'blaa'
wrongMap['bla2'] = 'blaaa2' console.log(wrongMap)
// Map { bla: 'blaa', bla2: 'blaaa2' }
The proper way of creating a map
the map needs to be added using the “set” method.
let contacts = new Map()
contacts.set('Jessie', {phone: "213-555-1234", address: "123 N 1st Ave"})
contacts.has('Jessie') // true
contacts.get('Hilary') // undefined
contacts.set('Hilary', {phone: "617-555-4321", address: "321 S 2nd St"})
contacts.get('Jessie') // {phone: "213-555-1234", address: "123 N 1st Ave"}
contacts.delete('Raymond') // false
contacts.delete('Jessie') // true
console.log(contacts.size) // 1
Property
size
Method
clear()
delete(key)
get(key)
has(key)
set(key, value)
Iteration method
keys()
values()
entries()
let myMap = new Map()
myMap.set(0, 'zero')
myMap.set(1, 'one')
for (let [key, value] of myMap) {
console.log(key + ' = ' + value)
}
// 0 = zero
// 1 = one
for (let key of myMap.keys()) {
console.log(key)
}
// 0
// 1
for (let value of myMap.values()) {
console.log(value)
}
// zero
// one
for (let [key, value] of myMap.entries()) {
console.log(key + ' = ' + value)
}
// 0 = zero
// 1 = one
forEach(callbackFn,[, thisArg])
myMap.forEach(function(value, key) {
console.log(key + ' = ' + value)
})
// 0 = zero
// 1 = one
Object
It is used to store various keyed collections and more complex entities. Objects can be created using the Object() constructor or the {}
Static methods
Object.
assign()
create()
defineProperty()
defineProperties()
getOwnPropertyDescriptor()
getOwnPropertyDescriptors()
getOwnPropertyNames()
getOwnPropertySymbols()
getPrototypeOf()
setPrototypeOf()
is()
preventExtensions()
freeze()
seal()
isExtensible()
isFrozen()
isSealed()
entries()
keys()
values()
Instance properties
Object.prototype.
constructor
__proto__
__noSuchMethod__
Instance methods
Object.prototype. | https://medium.com/@poby/javascript-data-structure-17c4714e8ba3 | ['Poby S Home'] | 2021-01-25 19:58:27.809000+00:00 | ['Set', 'Arrays', 'JavaScript', 'Map', 'Data Structure'] |
NapoleonX Newsletter — January 17, 2019 | Dear Napoleonians,
Christmas period has come and go since our last newsletter. Santa brought us a nice gift as crypto markets seem to have bottom, at least on a short term horizon. BTC.USD is up 9.6% since then and ETH.USD 40.3%. However, the rebound is still fragile and we remain in a downward trend at this stage. So you should trade accordingly.
NapoleonX trading signals
We have had a disappointing performance on our BTC.USD strategy that has yielded a -1.9% return over the period due to lack of a clear trend. That is why we have been working on a new strategy that will incorporate short positions for this pair. We can’t specify an exact date at this stage but we will make our best to release it in the near future.
On the contrary, our ETH.USD strategy has been on fire with a +90.4% return (you read it right and this is not an annualized figure!). Here, the trends have been clearer and our model has managed to catch them both on the upside and downside.
With a +97.2% return, our ETH/BTC/USD allocation strategy has been the winner over the period, on the back of the excellent performance for the ETH.USD strategy.
DAFs
We know you are all impatient for the DAF release. What we have communicated is that we need to get out of this vicious bear trend on cryptos to attract institutional investors attention and avoid spending money and energy to fight a lost battle. It has always work like this when you are in a fund raising exercise. Having performing strategies is mandatory but it is not sufficient.
We will wait until the planets are aligned. Hopefully, this will happen sooner rather than later. We are hopeful that the bear trend may end in Q1-Q2 this year if history is any judge.
New developments
You have asked for it and we are working on it! Basically, we are only providing trading signals at this stage as was planned in our roadmap. The launch of the first DAF is still a few weeks/months away. So we have some time to develop actual bots (through API) that will hit the markets for you at the right time of our trading signals. We will select 3 main Exchanges and develop these new products that will allow to follow a given crypto strategy by a simple subscription program. This will not come for free and will only be available to NPX token holders at first, through our NapoleonX platform.
There are some difficulties that we need to resolve like the equality among the users of our service, the minimizing of market impacts, the minimizing of tracking error, the execution of these signals on your accounts without NapoleonX team being able to access your fund, and the fraudulent use of our services. This will take some time but could hopefully be launched before the end of Q1. We will of course keep you posted on this matter.
Partnerships
We are also working to launch an execution module through copy trading on a well known trading platform. There are legal and technical issues that need to be overcome but hopefully this could also be available in the near future.
Events
On January 30th I will be part of a panel on the “Disruption in the Asset and Wealth Management Industry” at the Paris Fintech Forum, alongside eToro CEO amongst other.
The PFF is the leading international event in Europe on digital finance and fintech with an international crowd of attendees being mostly decision makers, so its a great opportunity to get the Group some visibility. While we are not exhibiting at this show, our co-founder Jean-Charles Dudek will also be present during the two days of the event to identify business opportunities with the players in the sector and promote our investment solutions.
We will also present at an event organised by OKEX on February 20 in London. We hope to develop our relationship with this platform as it is particularly suited for the execution of our trading bots.
We will publish further details on these two events on our social media, so stay tuned on our channels.
Conclusion
As you can see, we are not sitting still but are working hard to develop this project beyond what was initially planned. The weeks ahead may end the terrible crypto bear market. This would then pave the way for the actual launch of the first DAF. Continue supporting us and spread the love to grow our community of users.
Yours sincerely,
Stephane IFRAH, CEO Napoleon Crypto | https://medium.com/napoleonx-ai/napoleonx-newsletter-january-16-2019-5e351d35600a | ['Napoleon Group'] | 2019-01-17 15:04:22.111000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Bitcoin', 'News', 'Investing', 'Finance'] |
The Note | A short story
image from pexels.com
Pamela Driscoll was crazy, Rob was sure of that. No sane person would have done what she did to him all those years ago, but was she this crazy? He hadn’t seen or heard of Pamela since the incident, and he wondered if she was even still alive. At the rate she was going, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had died, or was in some institution for the criminally insane. Still, who else could have written it?
Rob looked at the note that he held in his hand and wondered for the hundredth time if he should take it to the police. He had found it in his bathroom that morning on top of his tube of tooth-paste, folded neatly despite the dark stain on one corner.
Hello my big teddy bear. What are your plans for tonight?
Pamela had always left him little notes like this where he would find them. He thought it was cute, then one night he awoke to find her standing naked above him, smeared in the gore of some butchered chickens, chanting some indecipherable gibberish, and holding a knife to his groin. His stomach rolled in the remembering. He had barely managed to escape losing his favorite appendage, but he now had a very sizable scar on his left butt cheek in payment.
He had ran, as he hoped any man would, and she packed up and left. She vanished, not like a specter or a witch might, although she might as well have. In the half an hour it took to call the police and wait til they showed up, dressed in nothing more than his blanket, she had packed up all of her possessions and left. She had even cleaned up the mess she’d made with the chickens, a feat that he was truly impressed with.
The over-worked New York City police department chose to write off his injury as the result of some late night debauchery. That had been over four years ago. The thought that she, or anyone, had come into his studio apartment and left him the note, was terrifying.
Rob was just getting back to normal. He had started dating again, after a long hiatus, and things had really started to progress with his girlfriend, Jen. She was terrific. He feared to hope that their relationship would turn into anything more.
Rob took the keys out of his pocket and realized that he was standing in front of his apartment door. He was confused momentarily as he tried to remember his trip from work back home. He thought he remembered portions of the bus ride, or was that yesterday’s bus ride. He must have been thinking the whole time about Pamela, Jen and his totally messed up life, and not paying attention to his trip. He had just gone through the motions.
His hand trembled at the lock.
“Calm down” he told himself.
The key turned the heavy bolt with a small familiar squeak and a low thunk. He opened the door and swung it inward then stood for a moment in the doorway, almost expecting to see Pamela’s naked silhouette standing in the room before him with a dagger in one hand. He cursed himself for a fool and entered, closing and locking the dead-bolt behind him. He opened the closet door and hung his coat on one of the three hangers in the otherwise empty closet.
He felt foolish but he couldn’t resist making a cursory inspection of the small apartment. It was easy, It consisted of opening the bathroom door and moving the shower curtain to reveal it’s dubious secrets. Nothing was there but the rust and soap stains in the bottom and on the walls. He then looked under his bed. That rounded out all the possible places a person could hide.
Sighing, he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.
A distant siren sounded outside and he glanced up. The light of the day was already fading. The days always shortened so quickly around this time of year.
Rob went to his computer that sat on the one table in the apartment, and moved the mouse to wake it up. As the black faded away, fear clutched at Rob’s heart. Splayed across the screen were the words.
Hello my big teddy bear. What are your plans for tonight?
The cursor blinked, waiting for further instruction, oblivious to the fear it had caused. Rob stared at the screen, transfixed.
The tiny refrigerator, at the other end of the apartment, began it’s whurring obligation to food preservation. The sound was a cacophony to Rob’s overly sensitive ears, and it tore his attention from the computer screen.
Rob stood abruptly, sending the chair tumbling backwards in a crash. She had written it from his own computer. How? He had been a light sleeper, especially for the last four years. Surely if she had sat down at his computer that was all of five feet away from his bed he would have woke up.
He paced.
He looked at his watch and remembered that he did, in fact, have plans for that night. Despite looking at the note all day long, he hadn’t bothered to think about what it said. Jen was supposed to have met him here an hour and a half ago, then they were going to walk to the cafe down the street before catching a movie.
The fear that he had felt on his own behalf most of the day vanished and was replaced by anxiety for Jen. Was she Pamela’s target? Rob looked at his phone, hoping that there was a message from Jen. Nothing.
Rob found Jen’s contact on his phone in the recent calls directory and pressed send. He heard the universal ring tone on his phone as he waited impatiently for Jen to pick up. A muffled sound brought Rob’s head around. “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones, Rob recognized it because it was Jen’s ringtone.
His heart skipped a beat. He stood motionless, looking at the door to his apartment.
A huge wave of relief washed over him as he realized that she must have just arrived outside his door. He crossed the room and, first unlocked, then opened the door. She wasn’t there, but he thought he could smell her perfume lingering. “Jen?” He poked his head out, looking down the hall in both directions, confused. The song reached the end of it’s shortened ringtone and began over.
Rob closed the door, the song was just as loud as it had been. It cut off abruptly and a ding sounded, signalling a voicemail. It had come from inside of the closet.
Rob sucked in a trembling breath.
His heart felt like it would erupt from his chest. He imagined his heart as if it were a bomb, exploding through the relatively thin membrane of bone and tissue that made up his chest as if it were paper mache. He smiled, then slowly opened the door.
Jen’s pale face stared back at him. Her eyes were unseeing, blood had congealed at the corner of her beautiful mouth and the black handled of a chefs knife protruded from the center of her chest. He remembered taking care to place the blade so as not to harm her beautiful breasts.
Then he laughed softly. “tsk tsk, you should watch your minutes sweetie.” He fished in Jen’s pocket for the phone and threw it on the bed. He bent back down and pulled the knife out of the stiffening corpse.
He put it in the kitchen sink, then walked over to the fridge and pulled out one of the large cardboard boxes he kept folded in the gap between the fridge and the wall. On his way back past the table he picked out a sharpie from the pen holder and got a roll of tape from the drawer, then he carried the items over to the closet. He formed the box and then unceremoniously picked up Jen and dropped her into it. The Heavy cardboard strained, but held the weight. Jen’s hair and left hand could still be seen poking out of the box as he slid it back into the closet, right next to another box. The other was stained, and looked as if it had seen water damage. It was marked “Pam’s stuff”. The top of a skull could be seen, a few tendrils of black hair clung to it resiliently.
Rob smiled to himself as he grabbed his coat and closed the door. “What movie do you wanna see?” he said, slipping one arm into the leather jacket. The sound of the bolt sliding shut was followed shortly by the whurring of the refrigerator once more. | https://medium.com/the-fiction-factory/the-note-344924c805e | ['Levi Jess Mecham'] | 2020-12-28 01:30:35.722000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Short Fiction', 'Suspense', 'Fiction', 'Fiction Writing'] |
Why Startups Need To Follow the Hard Product Path | Why Startups Need To Follow the Hard Product Path
Four steps to a stronger company and a higher valuation
When a startup attempts to build a product-based business out of an existing service model, there will always be the lure of leaning on the service to bring in revenue. But while that easy money may support you in the short term, it’s going to suffocate you in the long run.
Thanks to the mainstreaming of cloud-based processing, mobile communication, and simplified digital commerce, we’ve arrived at an age where every single service you can imagine is being streamlined, restructured and offered as a product.
As we ride out the innovation cycle of Software as a Service, we’re seeing a new cycle developing you could call Service as Software. Innovation-chasing companies now offer the hiring of labor through an app — from consumer-based services like shopping, oil changes, and personal investment advice to business services like hiring, legal, and even creative services like design.
How a service model evolves into a product model
The modernization and automation of these traditional services begins with the streamlining of how they’re engaged, delivered, and paid for. What happens next, for those especially innovative companies anyway, are changes to the execution of the service itself.
If you can achieve the same results of a traditional service using a new process, and if those results can change the customer’s behavior and expectations, you can successfully shift from a service model to a product model. That means your company gets awarded all the trappings of a product play, including a sizable bump in valuation.
Unfortunately, on the way to product manna, the temptation will always be there to keep making the service money. Yes, it’s lower margin. Yes, it goes against everything your startup is trying to change. But the business is always readily available, and it’s low-hassle money. You don’t have to educate your customers to solve their old problems in new ways, you just have to show up and collect your hourly rate.
This is not a new problem. The very first startup I worked for, over 20 years ago, started as a technical services firm — a custom software factory. On the side, we developed frameworks that we used to cut our coding time by up to 80 percent. Eventually, we began selling those frameworks, and training for the customer on how to create their own software. This was a move to a higher-margin product model that required a lot less talent and cost to produce.
But there was always the lure of multi-million dollar projects coming in, customers who just wanted to get out of the way and were willing to pay our old hourly rates for custom work — low-margin but guaranteed easy money. The kind of money that’s hard to say no to.
So how do you make sure your evolution to a product model doesn’t devolve back into a low-margin, low-valuation, highly-labor-intensive service model?
Step 1: Stick to your positioning
The first thing to do is decide what your company is going to be.
For example, Lyft never referred to itself as a “two-sided marketplace for taxi services.” It was always a “ride sharing” company. In fact, while early Uber was calling itself a black car taxi service, Lyft’s business model was borrowed from Sidecar, which was a platform that allowed people who were going in the same direction to pair up (actual “ride sharing”). As ride sharing continued to evolve into a dedicated driver and rider system, Lyft never lost sight of the original positioning. Uber launched their own ride-sharing service, Uber X, soon after. Uber Black is now the ride sharing equivalent of Uber’s original black car taxi service.
If you’re going to change the way a service is executed, don’t position yourself as a watered-down or technology-enabled version of that same service.
You can get away with it for a while. You’ll definitely make investors and employees happy as the money comes in. But soon you’ll be bifurcating, essentially running two companies at the same time. And one of those companies will wind up a small competitor in a field that you had started the other company to disrupt, not to compete against. All that time spent competing is time spent not disrupting.
This happened to a fellow founder friend of mine. He found himself spending upwards of 80 percent of his team’s time filling service needs related to his product in the recruiting industry. In other words, instead of converting his customers from his service to his product, he was just using his own product to execute his old service. So he took drastic action, and shuttered his service arm entirely, telling his customers they either needed to switch over to the product, or they needed to find another service provider.
Almost all of them went and found another service provider.
But as crushing a blow as that was, he didn’t regret it, and now he’s going to succeed or fail building the business he set out to build.
Step 2: Keep the wizards behind the curtain
Success doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does the transition from service model to product model. If you switch over to a product model right away, you’re going to have to do a lot of educating, a lot of onboarding, and a lot of support.
What’s worse is you’ll have no idea how much education, onboarding, and support you’ll end up doing, or how to do any of it efficiently.
This is where you bring in the idea of managed services. Think of managed services this way: The customer tells you what they want to accomplish with your product, your managed services team are the wizards behind the curtain, with their hands on the keyboard, until the customer is ready to do it all on their own.
But managed services isn’t merely a services arm of a product company, it’s a way to fake the product until you make the product. Managed services should exist to identify the gaps between the customer and customer success. The more experience your managed services team accumulates, the better position your company will be in to anticipate and automate the tasks they repeat the most, converting those human wizards into software wizards, which can get to a better customer experience more quickly.
Managed services should not be white-glove, and it should not be offered past a defined and distinct onboarding phase. The trick is to figure out when that handoff should happen and how. Because while managed services should bring in some revenue, it shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for the volume of service revenue you used to bring in.
As an added bonus, managed services will keep your customers from turning out complete crap results with their initial attempts at solving their old problem with your new solution.
Step 3: Sell out of the death spiral
At my last startup, we had a huge hiring problem. The way we were going about hiring was producing awful results, but we were so busy trying to fill positions that we never took the time to consider changing the hiring process. That’s a death spiral.
If you’re revolutionizing the way a service is executed, you’re essentially asking customers to likewise consider changing the way they do things. This is a difficult ask, as customers would rather stay with something that isn’t working than risk moving to the unknown.
Once you get your customers to see their own death spiral, they can’t unsee it. They might not rush to change their behavior immediately, but the seed is planted. Like Inception.
Now, you might ask yourself: How long will a customer stay with a solution that’s no longer working? And the disheartening answer, from my experience anyway, is “As long as they can.”
You have to sell the customer out of the service and into the product from the beginning. That’s hard to do when you’re offering the same exact service on the side.
Step 4: Don’t chase bad product business for service money
The last temptation of a service model is sneaky, because it’s often disguised as a product use case. Bigger customers with deeper pockets can request all kinds of enhancements, one-offs, and special favors that they’re more than willing to pay for to make your product fit their needs. This can happen even when the customer sees the value in your product, because they’re not ready to let go of the status quo. So they’ll look for compromise, and by compromise, they mean customization.
This can be a big windfall if the changes fit your roadmap, but beware the customer that assumes any of these three killer personas:
They don’t find value in the product, but see it as something to work around to get the service done. This usually happens when your product fits a limited use case for them. That’s not a problem for as long as it remains true. But the moment they want to go “off-menu,” they’ll expect your product to automatically conform to their needs. They see you as their own private development shop. They’ll request so many deviations from your product’s feature set that you’ll need to build a custom version just for them. They’ll go through on-boarding but never “get on board,” expecting your team’s hands at the keyboard forever.
Like I said, these are difficult scenarios to identify ahead of time, but even more difficult to deal with. It all goes back to sticking with your position and your messaging.
In fact, if you follow these steps from the beginning, you’ll have a much better chance of not becoming a clone of your service industry incumbents, but succeeding or failing with the product you actually set out to build.
Hey! If you found this post actionable or insightful, please consider signing up for my newsletter at joeprocopio.com so you don’t miss any new posts. It’s short and to the point.
This post was originally published in Built In. | https://jproco.medium.com/why-startups-need-to-follow-the-hard-product-path-9c251b6bed58 | ['Joe Procopio'] | 2020-09-10 11:04:42.672000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Product Management', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
TOP AR GAME DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES IN USA | AR Game Development
AR games have taken off in a huge way in the past few years. It all started with the release of Pokémon Go, which became an instant hit. Following in Pokémon Go’s footsteps, several AR games of all genres followed.
As a result, AR games now have an audience. It is no longer an obscure technology but is relatively popular. So, this is the best time in history to create an AR game of your own.
But AR is still a new technology for many developers. To stand out from many of the mediocre AR games that are released each year, one must be willing to take the development services from only the top AR game developers out there.
Below we are listing some of these service providers, who have proven track records as top AR game development companies:
Juego Studio
Juego Studio is a top game development studio founded back in 2011. They provide several game development services. AR game development for iOS and Android platforms is one of their primary areas of expertise.
The company has a team of dedicated AR developers. This team of developers is experts at various development technologies like ARKit, ARCore, Vuforia,8th Wall, etc. They also are experts at the various development platforms they work in.
Over the years, the team has created several notable AR game projects for their clients. Being an AR game development company, which has been developing for the technology since its inception, the team at Juego can execute AR game projects of all types and scope.
Visartech
Visartech is a software development company established in 2010. The company creates various applications and games and other content for various platforms. Among them is their AR game development services.
The AR team at Visartech are experts at different AR development tools and toolkits. This includes Apple’s ARKit, Google’s ARCore, Vuforia, and 8th Wall. Using these, they create AR games of all genres for their various clients.
Kevuru Games
Kevuru Games is a well-known name in the game development sphere as a whole. One of their chief specialties is AR game development.
The team at Kevuru Games can design, develop, and test, and help deploy AR games of all types and scopes. They even adhere to their own AR standards which help them deliver excellent quality projects every, single time.
Chaos Theory
Chaos Theory is another leading AR game development company.
They have a dedicated team of artists and developers, who can create AR games for all audiences. They are experts at developing for multiple platforms, including Android and iOS. They use the latest tools like Unity, Unreal, ARKit, ARCore, etc., to develop their acclaimed AR game projects.
Logic Simplified
Logic Simplified is a top AR game development and design company, who offers excellent services for their various clients.
Just like many on the list, the team is experts at using the latest AR tools to create marker-based, marker-less, and location-based AR games. The team at Logic Simplified also keeps a close watch on upcoming AR development technologies in order to adapt them at their inception.
Team in India
Team in India is a top game development team with 50+ experts.
The team uses Unity, Unreal, and WebAR to create AR games for different platforms. This includes smart glasses, smartphones, and tablets, the latter from both iOS and Android technologies.
One of their most notable games include Creature Strike, which is an addictive AR game, they developed using the Unity3D game engine.
RedAppleTech
RedAppleTech is a top app and game development company. One of their chief services includes their VR game development services.
Over the years, RedAppleTech has delivered several notable AR game projects.
Intelivita
Intelivita is an expert at creating AR games for both Android and iOS platforms.
The team at Intelivita consists of a team of dedicated professionals. They have in-depth knowledge of AR technology, as well as the various platforms they are going to develop.
Quytech
Quytech is another top software development company. They have a 130+ team spread across multiple development disciplines. Over the years, they have created 500+ projects across multiple platforms.
The team at Quytech are experts at using the Unity3D technology to create AR games. One of their notable games include a social community AR game, they developed for one of their clients.
Digifutura
Digifutura is primarily an application development company. It was founded back in 2015.
One of their chief services includes the development of AR content for various platforms. Among them is the development of AR games of all genres.
Conclusion
A top AR game has a higher chance of success in today’s competitive atmosphere. Games that are created by adhering to the highest standards can achieve success at a much higher rate than ever before.
By selecting a top AR game development company to create your AR game, you too can have a game that stands out and gets users. | https://medium.com/@juegostudio/top-ar-game-development-companies-in-usa-52315f93b31c | ['Juego Studio'] | 2020-12-24 06:40:28.591000+00:00 | ['Game Development', 'Ar Game Development', 'Ar Game'] |
Why Won’t My Baby Stop Crying? | Hi, Mama. So you’ve brought your sweet baby home and you’re getting into a routine, all be it a very exhausting, sleep-deprived, routine, and then you notice around two weeks or so that your little baby has moments when they won’t stop crying. There can be several reasons why. In this article we’ll talk about why your baby may be crying and what you can do to soothe them and yourself.
Would you like more support when it comes to your newborn? Be sure to join Stork and Cradle’s Virtual Baby Care 101 Class. Click here to find out more.
Why is my baby crying?
You can check these things when it comes to resolving why your baby is crying.
Is your baby:
Tired- Babies aren’t able to put themselves to sleep like we are. They require a little help. We’ll discuss some soothing methods below.
Colicky- Causes severe to a baby’s abdomen, resulting in painful wailing. You may notice your baby arching their back when they cry, stretching their legs out or pulling legs up to their belly, balling their fists up, or their face turning red or becoming flushed.
Hungry- Your baby may be hungry. Be sure to catch hunger cues early. Some clues that your baby may be hungry are sucking on their hands and fingers, rooting or moving head from side-to-side, turning their heads towards your chest, licking lips, or smacking. Missing these cues will cause your baby to become frustrated and the crying will begin or become more intense.
Bored- Believe it or not, babies get bored. If your baby is yawning, looking away, or starting to get fussy, they may be bored. Either switch to a new activity or allow your baby to rest.
Seeking comfort- Sometimes babies just need to be held close. Remember they’ve been super close to you for 9 months and now they’ve been thrust into the big world. Allow them to cuddle when they need it. Don’t worry about spoiling them.
Overstimulated- just like a baby can become bored they can also become overstimulated. When a baby is overstimulated there is too much noise, visuals, activity, or people in their environment.
Wet or soiled- Babies like to be dry. So you can first check their diaper and make sure they are dry.
In pain or irritated- If your baby is crying uncontrollably check to see if something visible is hurting them. Check for bites, diaper rash, etc. As stated before your baby can be in pain from colic or gas. They can also be too hot or too cold.
Purple Crying- This is the most frustrating for parents and dangerous for babies. Keep reading to find out what you need to know about Purple Crying.
How to Comfort Your Fussy Baby
If you haven’t read The Happiest Baby On The Block by Dr. Harvey Karp, you definitely should. His 5 S’s method has helped so many parents find what soothes their fussy babies and it will probably help you too.
The 5 S’s are
S- Swaddle
You probably saw your nurse or doula wrap your little bundle of joy like a burrito when they were born. This not only keeps your baby warm but it also provides your baby with a great deal of comfort and security. Swaddling may also help your baby sleep better. Search Youtube for swaddling instructions.
S-Side or Stomach Position
Try holding your baby on their side and if that doesn’t work hold them so that they’re on their stomach.
S-Shush
Have you heard about the wonders of white noise when it comes to soothing babies? Many moms swear by it. Make your own white noise by making shushing sounds with your mouth and while simultaneously using the other methods.
S-Swing
Babies love swinging motions. Place baby in your arms and sway from side to side in a rhythmic motion.
S-Suck
Sucking provides comfort for babies. You can either give your baby a pacifier, bottle, or breast.
Download your printable How to Soothe Your Crying Baby Guide.
Watch The Five S’s in Action as Dr. Karp demonstrates
Help No Matter What I Do My Baby Won’t Stop Crying
Purple Crying
If your baby is absolutely inconsolable and you’ve done all that you’ve can. Your baby may be going through a phase called Purple Crying. If your baby is perfectly healthy and you can check off the description in the acronym PURPLE you may have discovered why your baby is crying.
P- Peak of Crying
You may notice your baby may cry more and more each week. Your baby’s crying may meet its peak at 2 months. The crying should become less between 3–5 months.
U-Unexpected
Your baby’s crying may start and stop without warning.
R-Resists Soothing
No matter what technique you try your baby will not stop crying.
P-Pain-like face
Your baby’s face will look as if they’re in pain and they may not be.
L-Long Lasting
Unfortunately, crying can last as long as 5 hours and sometimes longer.
E-Evening
You may find that your baby cries more in the evenings. This can also be known as the Witching hour.
What to do if my baby is experiencing Purple crying?
First of all, you must remain calm. That’s easier said than done. A baby crying inconsolably for hours on end is enough to frazzle even the most zen person. Here’s how you keep your sanity. Let another responsible adult take the baby.
Put the baby on their back in the crib, and take a breather (check on the baby every few minutes). Once you’ve calmed down, try soothing baby again.
Remember your baby can feel your energy.
If you suspect you may be suffering from Postpartum Depression, call your doctor or nurse’s line right away. Never ever shake your baby. Shaking your baby can cause permanent damage (Shaken Baby Syndrome) to your infant or death.
Don’t be afraid to call your pediatrician or nurses’ line.
Verywell.com suggests the following coping strategies.
Would you like more support when it comes to your newborn? Be sure to join Stork and Cradle’s Virtual Baby Care 101 Class. Click here to find out more. | https://medium.com/@storkandcradle/why-wont-my-baby-stop-crying-b3d0a5149b01 | ['Stork'] | 2020-06-12 01:56:36.091000+00:00 | ['Black Moms', 'Newborn', 'Infant', 'Baby Care', 'Black Lives Mater'] |
Are you craving to make your lifestyle disease free? | Being healthy and disease free is everybody’s aspiration and a basic criterion to lead a happy, peaceful and a joyful life. If you look around, you will see that there are so many health advertisements running, so many apps being promoted which not only promises a healthy body but a healthy mind too. Gen Z or Zoomers will have an application installed in their mobile phones that would track their vitals, track how much calories they have spent on a particular day either by walking or by running or how many calories they have consumed through food and other snacking activities. Why only talk about Gen Z generation, all of us irrespective of our age would have an app installed in our phones that would direct us on what to eat today or what should be cooked today. All these fitness apps help us work on our weight management issues or help us treat ailments through proper nutrition and activities.
We all know that a healthy body hosts a healthy mind, but then are physical ailments the only diseases to be considered of? Comparing ourselves constantly to others, trying to beat the other person in their social media activities is something we all are trying to do, isn’t it? We all want to be special and want to attract and impress people. We want our prizes, possessions, and powers to be displayed and would like to create a particular self-image to people out there in the world. The self-image that we want to project to the world now becomes dependent on the validation of others which in turn soon becomes a need and addiction to keep ourselves going. The race for this false projection, acknowledgement from others soon translates into a disorder of seeking fulfillment through society. Sadly, it now has become quite rampant.
We live in an interconnected world currently. The world is not only interrelated but inter dependent too. Our lifestyles which is a combination of style, attitude and possessions is just not determined by the local scenario but is also affected by international lifestyle and situation. At the click of a button, we can know what is happening around the world in terms of news, fashion, business, and food. News and social media have become not only tools for a friendly communication but also tools for business communication in generating business leads. We all know how Facebook has evolved in recent times from just being a friends networking community to a local business hub. The recent roar of WhatsApp policy and integrating Facebook business and WhatsApp business is known to all of us. How fast we are integrating with media and internet is something which needs no mention. Although social and digital media is a good medium for connecting with people, reducing loneliness, and expressing oneself, it also carries a plethora of negative effects. The biggest negative effect of social media is on mental health and this is alarming for all of us.
Social media has become addictive for most of us and especially for younger population. There is a constant need for self-validation and self-approval. At times it becomes very hard to resist to see how many comments and likes we have got on a post. Number of people who are meeting the criteria of social media addiction are increasing day by day not only in India but also globally. There are enough studies and surveys that have been published which mentions the negative impact of social media on health.
For people who have anxiety and depression, social media can easily trigger this feeling. One prominent feeling that gains momentum with this social media is the feeling of inadequacy and being left out. When we see that all our friends are partying every weekend, then suddenly we have a desire, to engage in the similar activity. Otherwise, we feel that our life is not good as theirs and we feel at a disadvantage. Even the during the holiday season, the race is to post fun-filled photographs vis a vis your next-door neighbor or a colleague. For few professionals, their tour plans or flight details on social media becomes the validation of their professional success. For occasions such as Valentine’s day which has recently gone by, your husband’s love for you is depicted by the gift he showers on you so that you can either tell your neighbor, a friend or post it on your status. Forget your friend, you even want to be better off than Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas wherein this Valentine day he gifted her a room full of red roses. All these comparisons put us under a lot of stress and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). The constant race of being better than someone, having more than what is required, having a credit-based lifestyle so that we look good to others is the founding stone to stress.
Stress is a killer and a precursor of many physiological and mental diseases. Stress perceives that the body is under treat and starts to react accordingly. Stress either worsens or increases the risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disorders, Type 2 diabetes, respiratory diseases, blood pressure and various gastrointestinal problems. Stress also reduces immunity and flu is the first thing that we catch when we are under stress. The entire Ayurveda and natural medicine industry saw a surge in sales when this COVID 19 attacked us. All the formulations were being sold on the pretext of increasing your immunity levels so that you can defend yourself from the flu virus. Adrenaline when released under stress causes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, muscle energy supplies and respiration rate. Many of the current lifestyle diseases are because of the stress. Some more common stress related illness is obesity, difficult in sleeping, depression, and failure of memory.
We need to start investing in our health from today, right here and right now and following are some ways we can start living with:
1. Look yourself in the mirror and appreciate yourself completely every single day. Do not be critical of yourself for your appearance or your behavior. You are unique and beautiful in your own ways. Appreciate yourself for having come this far and trust in yourself.
2. Engage in one activity that is outside your routine and gives you a sense of fulfillment. It can be gardening, singing, reading, or doing yoga. This will not only reduce your stress levels but also empower you with positive self-image.
3. Be mindful of every activity you do even if it is as simple as brushing teeth. Witness how the brush moves through your dental set and how you feel those bristles in your mouth. If you have a habit of brushing with your right hand, do it with your left hand so that you slow down and notice the moment.
4. Life is a journey and paths of everyone are different. You have no knowledge on how the other person is placed with respect to the milestones in their journey. We never know the complete story of any individual. So be kind to them and to our own self and enjoy your path. Children, marriage, career, and family has different timings for different individuals. Comparing only sets you to a frantic and needy energy levels that does not help you at all.
5. Eat a nutritious meal and make sure that your platter is colorful. Try and eat positive pranic foods like greens and fruits and eat them as much raw as possible. Food has an effect not only on your body in terms of health but also on your mind in terms of thinking process and clarity. Fruits and vegetables have excellent antioxidant properties and help you keep mentally and physically fit.
6. Practice mindfulness and meditation each day. Slowdown from your fast paced life’s journey. It not only reduces your stress levels to keep you healthy but also helps you find your purpose. Only finding your true purpose will always make you joyful rather than accumulating wealth or comparing your life’s journey with other people.
Have a disease-free Lifestyle. Happy living!
Love and Hugs
Pracchi
Sources:
What Is Stress-Related Illness? (healthline.com) | https://medium.com/@contactpracchi/are-you-craving-to-make-your-lifestyle-disease-free-dd75e8074e6a | ['Pracchi Parihar Saxenna'] | 2021-06-15 10:03:37.594000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Lifestyle', 'Mindfulness', 'Disease', 'Stress'] |
10 Tips About Subscription Pricing | I probably get more questions on pricing than on anything else relating to building subscription models.
So I thought I’d dedicate this article to some best practices for pricing subscriptions.
Keep it simple. There are so many terrific subscription billing platforms and digital tools these days. When it comes to pricing, anything is (from a technical perspective) possible. You can create multiple pricing tiers, but then you can also layer in micropayments, onboarding fees, usage charges, extra services and one-off purchases, just to name a few. But in subscription pricing, restraint is key. When I was a kid, I got a Crayola 64 pack. It became my goal to use every color in every picture. One day, I was drawing with my school art teacher. I noticed that she deliberately pulled a small number of colors from the box, and used that tight palette to great effect. Remember, if your pricing is complex, your customers need to become experts on your pricing in order to ensure they’re buying what’s best for them. And if they have to become experts to get what’s best, they’re going to worry that if they don’t have their wits about them, they might NOT get what’s best for them. And that makes it harder for them to relax and trust that you will take care of them, anticipate their needs and give them the best that you have to deliver on your forever promise. Subscriptions can serve many functions. Price accordingly. Disney, Apple, Amazon and Netflix all have streaming content subscriptions. On the surface, they might all look similar, but if you understand the business models of these companies, you’ll see that their streaming content subscriptions serve different roles. For Netflix, their subscription is their core product, and primary source of revenue. For Apple, it’s a way of deepening the customer’s engagement with Apple hardware, AppStore and other software offerings. For Disney, it’s a way to stay connected with fans across many channels, including TV, movies and theme parks. And Amazon pretty much gives away their streaming content with their Prime subscriptions, as one more benefit, beyond the headliner of “free shipping”. If your subscription is a marketing tool, make sure you consider its value as a marketing tool as well as the value of the direct revenue it drives. Price not just for acquisition. Also price for engagement, expansion and retention. Most of the time, when you’re coming up with a price for a product or a service, your primary goal is to get the customer to buy. But the moment of the transaction is the starting line, not the finish line, for revenue. You want to price in such a way that people want to stay and maybe even expand the relationship by upgrading or buying additional services, or bringing in their network. It doesn’t matter if you attract new subscribers with your low introductory pricing if you can’t keep them for the long term. This is especially true if new subscribers are unprofitable — for example, if the acquisition costs or onboarding expanses are higher than the first period payments. When it comes to value proposition, cost savings is just the starting point. When you’re thinking about pricing, remember that cost savings is expected in any subscription — anyone committing to paying on an ongoing basis expects at least a small discount for their loyalty. Cost savings might attract early subscribers, but it is an easily replicable strategy and not differentiated. It’s also not an emotional benefit. If your subscription was started as a “cost savings in exchange for commitment” kind of value proposition, use that as your starting point, and explore other, more emotional and more differentiated sources of value to layer in over time. Market research can only take you so far. My roots are in marketing and I love market research. But market research alone won’t tell you how your subscription is going to do. Market research can tell you which offer someone might find more attractive, or what offer they’re likely to click on, but it doesn’t provide insight on how frequently they’ll actually use the subscription or how long they’ll stay. Engagement and churn are key metrics that go into understanding the success of the subscription. Many organizations focus too much on the offer that will get a buyer to buy, and not on what will get the right buyer to buy, and stay and recruit their friends and colleagues. Tiers come later. I just saw some interesting data from Zuora and McKinsey that indicated that the most successful companies have one product or less per million dollars of revenue. In other words, when you’re just getting started, one subscription offer is enough. Many organizations come to me before they launch, with complex pricing grids indicating multiple offerings optimized by usage, features, service level and other elements to have something for everyone. You are much better off launching with a single subscription offer, optimized for a very specific group. Then as you learn, you can layer in more benefits to attract and serve additional segments, and maybe to refine your pricing to include multiple tiers, or another layer of pricing complexity, such as usage. If you start with multiple offerings, that risks confusing the market, and distracting the team. Usage can add a layer of value, but only in certain circumstances. Early in my career, I advised a company that provided tools for market researchers. They had a single offering and a fixed price — something around $50/month. Pretty quickly the subscription started being used by sophisticated teams in Fortune 50 companies, who could afford to pay a lot more than $600 a year, and who were using the subscription to reach millions of people. The organization quickly realized that they weren’t capturing their fair share of the value they were creating, and adjusted their pricing to charge more based on usage. They eventually optimized pricing by number of seats in the organization that were using the subscription, as well as number of people being touched by the subscription and even by the features being used. And then they added a whole layer of features around a corporate dashboard to track and manage the usage of the subscription across the enterprise. They learned quickly, but it would have been hard for them to anticipate from the start exactly how the product would be (mis)used and how to price to manage the value. For larger companies and especially those in the B2B space, it can be useful to charge more to companies that are using the subscription more heavily, but maybe it’s not the most important thing to focus on on day one. Hiding the cancel button will cost you in the long term. Many CFOs have bragged to me how they have expanded customer lifetime value (CLV, a key metric in subscription businesses) by adding complexity to the cancel sequence. By making it harder for customers to cancel their subscription, requiring a phone call to cancel for example, or not letting subscribers keep their data, companies can indeed enjoy additional short term revenue. However, “hiding the cancel button” reduces trust, causes customers to share their “horror stories” with friends and on social media, and makes it much less likely that a lapsed subscriber will ever return. Netflix, one of the most successful of all subscription businesses, has gone in the opposite direction.
Not only do they encourage subscribers to “cancel anytime”, they don’t offer annual subscriptions because it would be too binding. They recently introduced a new policy of automatically cancelling any subscription that hadn’t been accessed in a year or more — that is, if someone wasn’t getting value from their subscription for 12 months, Netflix doesn’t want to take their money. More generally, we’re seeing an increase in the “pause” button feature, which allows subscribers to take a break from a subscription without losing their data or having to go through a complex set up process again.
Evaluate the ROI of free. Some subscriptions offer a free trial. Other subscriptions offer a free subscription alongside a paid premium subscription for a “freemium” model. Sometimes offering a free trial or freemium membership makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a useful tool often enough that I advise every organization to devote at least one brainstorming session to exploring the ways they might strengthen their business model through the use of “free”. This doesn’t mean every organization should have a free trial or free subscription option. Just consider whether there’s a role for free, and if so, what the return on the investment of free might be. For example, if your biggest challenge is that people don’t understand the value you provide, or don’t believe your offering is as good as you say, a small taste might dramatically increase conversion (a free trial). Or if the value to your paid subscribers increases with every new free subscriber, maybe because of content generated by the free subscribers, or access to them, you might have a network effect which justifies that free offering. Especially with digital subscriptions, there is often a place for free in your pricing model. Don’t overlook it. Don’t just copy someone else’s playbook — pricing should be unique to your organization! You can get great insights by studying how other organizations have incorporated subscription pricing into their business models. Amazon, Salesforce, Dollar Shave Club, and Peloton are just a few of the many organizations that benefit from recurring revenue. But each model is unique in terms of what you get with your subscription and what costs extra. Depending on the value you offer, the customers you serve, the other organizations trying to solve the same problem for your audience and many other variables, you will come up with a unique structure to capture your fair share of the value your organization has created. There are very few metrics that work across companies, let alone across industries — and yet I am still asked “what’s a good price for a consumer subscription” or “how much should we charge to onboard a new b2b subscriber”? The answer is nearly always “it depends”. Be especially wary of advisors who have worked with just one subscription business and want to apply the same processes to your organization. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns and be able to make some educated assumptions about appropriate benchmarks, but not just from a single company.
Subscription pricing should be easy for the buyer. They should be able to relax into a subscription, trusting that the organization is going to continue to evolve the offering to help the subscriber achieve their ongoing goals and solve their ongoing problems.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to develop a subscription pricing model. So be thoughtful and experimental. Label your early offerings “beta” and limit their usage, in case you need to change things as you learn. And above all, always focus on aligning the goals of the organization with the goals of the subscriber. If you do that, you’ll develop both the recurring revenue that makes your organization valuable, and the insights that will help you deepen those trusted customer relationships. | https://robbiebax.medium.com/10-tips-about-subscription-pricing-517691d8ee8f | ['Robbie K Baxter'] | 2020-09-18 20:49:58.339000+00:00 | ['Membership', 'Subscription', 'Business', 'Customer Experience', 'Pricing Strategy'] |
How I Discovered My Passion for Linux | The mascot of Linux is the Tux penguin ( Photo source: pixabay.com)
Introduction to Linux
Just like Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Linux is an operating system.
Linux has many different versions to suit any type of user. These versions are called distributions, or, in short form “distros”.
Popular Linux distributions include:
• Linux Mint;
• Manjaro;
• Debian;
• Ubuntu;
• Fedora;
• OpenSUSE
There are so-called “Lightweight distributions”. These have been designed for old hardware, or maximum possible speed in newer hardware.
Linux is free.
The Tux Penguin is the mascot of Linux (see the upper image).
My first attempts at Linux
I first read about Linux in a computer magazine.
Because a Linux distro can be run from a USB stick I tested some of them but was not yet determined to use them.
Participation in a Linux Workshop
My rescue came through a post on Facebook; it was an invitation to a free Linux workshop.
I was so impatient that I arrived at that workshop earlier than the announced time and was surprised to be the only participant.
The gentleman who ran the workshop asked me if I heard about Linux and what I know about it. He completed what I already knew.
Then he showed me how to install the Linux distro named Linux Mint. I then practiced the installation. It was very simple.
My computer with Linux Mint and what can I do with it
After a while, I installed Linux mint on my home computer.
Linux mint has a huge repository with free software. The software can be installed very simply with a single click.
Linux mint offers applications in the following main categories:
• graphics;
• internet;
• office;
• programming;
• sound and video;
• and more others.
My grandson’s personal computer
My grandson is four years old and has his computer. A second-hand one with few resources.
He is very happy watching cartoons on his computer.
True stories
I picked up the following stories from Linux users.
A student in university bought a laptop with a Linux flavor installed on it. After a while, her father who was an IT engineer proposed to buy and install a Windows operating system, but she refused because she was happy with Linux. (her father told me this)
Someone installed Linux on a blogger’s laptop who was so pleased that he did not want to give up. (the one who installed it told me this)
Myths about Linux
There are many myths about Linux that scare people.
First myth: Linux is difficult to use
Linux is not different than the other operating systems. It takes a little time to learn it, however, it is very intuitive. Linux looks similar to Windows.
As an example, I can tell that when somebody who did not work on a computer with Linux could do his tasks directly on my computer even though he hasn’t used Linux before.
Second myth: you need to know commands to use Linux
I’ve heard this myth many times; people are very scared of it.
The reality is that Linux has a powerful command-line interface which I rarely use, simple with Copy and Paste.
I use the command line especially to test the internet connection with a ping command.
Third myth: Linux does not have enough applications
As I have written above, the Linux repository contains a huge number of applications that can be used for many tasks.
I should point that for Linux exists portable applications (like in Windows) which can be run without installation.
Moreover, there are applications called multiplatform that have versions for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. Because I have a choice, I prefer to use those applications that also exist in the portable version for Windows.
Fourth myth: Linux is not suitable for games
Games are not my interest area and can tell only that I read that there are games for Linux, too.
About viruses
There are fewer applications that can transmit viruses in Linux.
Instead of closing
It is worth considering the use of Linux. This could be a challenge.
I would advise you to install Linux only after running it from a USB stick you are convinced that it is what you need.
Testing different flavors of Linux can be a funny activity even at 60+ years old.
Photo source: pixabay.com | https://medium.com/@danimunte/my-passion-for-linux-1ffd5b588f3e | ['Daniel Munteanu'] | 2021-03-23 16:36:33.461000+00:00 | ['Windows', 'Linux', 'Graphics', 'Internet', 'Linux Mint'] |
Stop Being a Worry Wart — a Tutorial | Stop Being a Worry Wart — a Tutorial
Life is too short to spend it in a tizzy
Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash
I come by my worry gene honestly. My mother and my father both are worriers in their own special ways. I’m fortunate enough to be a hybrid crossbreed between the two of them.
My mom primarily worries about the future and things she can’t change. My dad worries about his family.
Me? I worry about everything.
Worry is an exhausting emotion. It’s draining. It’s your mind chasing itself around in circles, spiralling ever downward into a dark and uncertain pit called “the future.”
But through my own experience as a worry wart and with the help of some advice from my family, I’ve found a few ways to manage my anxieties and move forward with hope — instead of fear.
Find your mute button
Whenever I feel my worries start to kick into overdrive, I press the mute button. Everyone has a mute button, you just have to find out what yours is.
For me, my mute button is jiu jitsu. It’s a physical activity that helps me channel my nervous energy into something productive. It’s so effective as a mute button because it’s an all-consuming activity. It’s the hardest physical and mental thing I’ve ever done, to the point where my brain shifts into survival mode. I can’t worry about anything because my brain and body are too involved in trying to keep my reflexes sharp.
Your mute button is something that you can get entirely lost in, no matter what else is going on in your mind or in your life. Some people can get lost in a good book, a writing project, or some other artistic outlet like painting or drawing. For others, it might be a different physical activity like jogging, hiking, swimming, whatever.
Find whatever thing it is that you enjoy so much, the rest of the world melts away. Hold onto that — it’ll be your lifeline when the worries feel overwhelming.
Find your reset button
Right beside your mute button is your reset button. It’s a more extreme version of the mute button. It’s a fail-safe for when your mute button starts to lose its effect.
For me, my reset button is a place — my hometown. Whenever I’m feeling lost in life, or too caught up in the stress of a demanding routine and living in a big city, I always return home. I’m from a small rural town, so the stark contrast of my hometown versus my city life is enough to push me off of whatever anxious mental treadmill I’m on.
More than that, though, it’s returning to a place where I grew up and spent my formative years that helps me to recenter myself and remember who I am. It shows me how much I’ve evolved.
It’s a reminder that worrying about the future when I was a teenager didn’t make me into a better adult. Worrying wasn’t going to change who I became or what happened to me. It just made me feel more stressed about it than I should have. My reset button reminds me that worry and stress won’t make me more able to predict the future — it’ll just make me feel unnecessarily anxious.
Solo travel, or doing any activity alone, is also a reset button for me. The freedom of doing what I want to do, without being beholden to anyone else’s time schedule, allows me to absorb all the enjoyment I can. Doing something alone helps me to live in the moment and focus on the present rather than worrying about whatever else is going on in my life.
Let go of the outcome
“I can’t control what you do, I can only control what I do.”
Funnily enough, this quote is from Andy Bernard in the show The Office. But it’s a little nugget I think of whenever the worry starts creeping up on me.
It’s a reminder that I can’t control what other people decide to do. I can’t control what the universe decides to throw at me. But I can control the choices I make, my reactions to what happens to me, and how I move forward.
I may not be able to control the future, but I can control my own actions — and sometimes, that little reminder that I do have some control is enough to keep me from spiralling into endless worry.
Connect to your future self
My favorite method for abandoning my worries is trusting in my future self.
I first came across this concept in some sort of woo-woo meditation article. But as I dug into it a little more, I found the idea really interesting and less weird.
You can connect to your future self through meditation, visualization, or writing letters to yourself. For me, I do it through meditation and conversation — whether in my head or out loud. Do whatever feels natural for you. Maybe try starting out with a short meditation, and then try picturing yourself in the future and what your life looks like.
Thinking of my future self out there kicking ass and taking names — that gives me comfort. It makes me feel good to think that my future self is looking out for me.
I always think of her in times of high stress and when I’m extraordinarily worried about the future and all of its uncertainties. She’s always telling me, “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.” It’s nice to think of her out there in the future, established, successful, and happy. Because my future self is me, I can be her whenever I want to be. I will be her.
So knowing that my future self is out there and doing well makes me feel better about current me, and it makes my worries dissolve into the background where they should be.
Remember: You can’t plan for perfect timing
My cousin and I talk pretty regularly — in epic five hour phone calls or paragraph-long text messages. She has a lot of great tidbits of wisdom, and recently she said something that resonated with me.
She said that I’m trying too hard to plan everything and force things into happening. That I’m stressing too much and “it isn’t necessary.” That was the part that got me — that it’s not necessary to stress. That’s a completely foreign feeling to me.
I’m a high strung, high stress person. There’s always something to stress about. So to think that I don’t have to be stressed? That it’s not necessary? That just never occurred to me, because that’s not me. That’s never been a part of my existence.
But maybe it should be.
My cousin said to me, yes, you can stress and plan out every little thing and make your decisions that way — but you don’t have to. Try going with the flow, be open to whatever opportunities come up, and see what happens.
I plan so much, because I want everything to go perfectly. But you can’t plan for perfect timing. Some things have to happen in their own time, on their own schedule. Some things come from going with the flow. And worrying about it won’t make them happen any faster, better, or differently than they otherwise would.
Sometimes, things happen when and how they’re supposed to — without any input from you. | https://medium.com/moments-matter/stop-being-a-worry-wart-a-tutorial-f09a3cda0b2f | ['Megan Boley'] | 2020-08-04 15:37:22.907000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Life'] |
Dog licenses are due for renewal | Dog licenses are due for renewal
Dog licenses are due for renewal through Jan. 31, 2019. The license can be purchased at the Medford Township Office Building, 17 North Main Street, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Dog license fees are $12.00 plus an additional $3.00 for any dog that has not been spayed or neutered. Proof of rabies vaccination is required and must be valid until November 2019 in order to acquire a 2019 dog license.
Application forms for currently registered dogs are being mailed this week. Licensing may also be completed by mail by using the mailed form. The application is also located on our website at www.medfordtownship.com/forms under the Clerk’s Office. If you have any questions you may contact the Clerk’s Office at (609) 654–2608 ext. 334 or 328,
An additional late fee of $15.00 will be charged for licenses purchased after Jan. 31, 2019.
A Free Rabies Clinic for both dogs and cats will be held on Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019 from 9 a.m. to noon at Cranberry Hall, 88 Charles Street, Medford (located behind the Medford Township Municipal Office Building, 17 N. Main St., Medford.)
Medford Township Dog Licenses may also be purchased at the rabies clinic from 9 a.m. to noon inside the Municipal Office Building. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/dog-licenses-are-due-for-renewal-8432604a0663 | ['Melissa Riker'] | 2019-01-03 15:31:00.724000+00:00 | ['New Jersey', 'Dogs'] |
Weaning Naturally | Clelia Mirabella, 1965
“There is almost nothing you can do for your child in his whole life that will affect him both emotionally and physically as profoundly as breastfeeding.” — La Leche League International, from The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
Weaning has different meanings in different cultures. Usually, it either refers to the introduction of solid foods or to the end of breastfeeding. However, if we look at weaning from a more holistic approach, it can be defined as the process a child goes through to completely replace breast milk with other sources of nourishment.
UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding for at least two years, complemented with a healthy and balanced diet from six months of age. The introduction of solid foods starts the weaning process but it can take months or even years to completely wean a baby, so the key is to be patient.
Weaning your baby should come naturally, that means breastfeeding until your child outgrows the need to nurse. However, cultural and social beliefs have a strong impact on breastfeeding mothers. In many cultures babies are expected to wean around the first birthday or even sooner, but biologically, children are supposed to breastfeed for a lot longer. If we understand breastfeeding not only as a source of nourishment but also of comfort and warmth, we can acknowledge a toddler’s need to nurse when he is tired, ill or upset.
Many women feel conditioned by what’s socially acceptable and are afraid to follow their instincts, thus disturbing their breastfeeding relationship too soon. Breastfeeding is a relationship between mother and baby, so as long as you and your child are happy breastfeeding, there’s no reason why you should wean your infant before he’s emotionally ready.
Breastfeeding can be liberating for many mothers as it allows them to feed their child anywhere at any time. It’s also important to remember that as babies grow and their food intake increases, breastfeeding becomes less demanding. The needs of a two-year-old are not the same as those of a six-month-old, so many mothers who choose to breastfeed their babies into toddlerhood might only nurse twice a day by the time their child is over a year old. There are no established rules, so finding what works for you and your child is what really matters. It has also been proven that breastfeeding past the first year has many benefits for your baby. It not only offers comfort, but also acts as a pain reliever and still provides a boost of nutrition and antibodies in the early years. Moreover, research shows that children who are breastfed until they are ready to wean tend to be more confident and have a stronger immune system. Therefore, allowing a smooth transition that supports your child’s physical, emotional and mental development will be beneficial for your infant in the long run. However, if you choose to wean your baby early, try to do it gradually to avoid generating stress in your child.
Weaning can sometimes bring a sense of loss, as it marks the end of a very special connection with your child, and can lead to depression due to hormonal changes. But remember that your presence as a mother is precious throughout your child’s journey as an individual. A weaning ceremony to celebrate the end of your breastfeeding relationship with your infant can make the transition smoother. Allow yourself to be creative and let your child guide you through the natural process of weaning. | https://medium.com/@sara_mendez/weaning-naturally-4fa4c0fa327f | ['Sara Mendez'] | 2019-08-06 12:21:31.129000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Baby Led Weaning', 'Motherhood', 'Health', 'Breastfeeding'] |
Fresh Great Data Visualizations on Thanksgiving, COVID & Tree Equity — DataViz Weekly | Hey everyone! Continuing to curate the best charts, maps, and infographics from around the Internet, we invite you to meet four fresh great data visualization projects worth checking out.
Today on DataViz Weekly:
Visualizing the ways the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers were used — Nathan Yau
Understanding the scale of 250,000 deaths from the coronavirus — The Washington Post
Finding a correlation between scented candle reviews on Amazon and COVID-19 — Kate Petrova
Evaluating tree equity in American city neighborhoods — American Forests
How to Use Thanksgiving Turkey Leftovers
A roasted turkey is the centerpiece of a traditional Thanksgiving meal. These birds are usually quite large, so abundant leftovers are a common issue after dinner. Unless you feel fine about wasting food, of course. Luckily, there are a whole lot of recipes for turkey leftovers out there.
Nathan Yau, an expert in statistics and data visualization, had this problem again last week. If you would like to learn how it was solved, here is a cool Sankey diagram. The chart recently published on Nathan’s blog FlowingData shows all the ways his Thanksgiving turkey leftovers were used without having to consume the same thing for a number of days in a row. You can see that many pieces were eaten in different sandwiches. Recipes from YouTube, Allrecipes, and discussion forums were made use of as well.
Check out the visualization for more details. Keep it as a cheatsheet for next year, just in case.
Understanding the Scale of 250,000 Deaths
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 death toll in the United States surpassed 250,000. It is quite well known that large numbers can be hard to understand. So how much is a quarter million people?
The Washington Post’s new maps created by Tim Meko and Lauren Tierney provide context so that we could better realize the scale of this loss. Look at the first map — it is pictured right here above. 250,000 people is the entire population of the area within the yellow contour. So if all the reported deaths happened there, this territory would become completely empty.
See the article on The Post for more maps that allow us to visually compare this amount to the population of counties and regions, showing the scale of a quarter million deaths. That’s really a lot.
Finding a Correlation Between Scented Candle Reviews and COVID-19
A temporary loss of smell, or anosmia, is a frequent symptom of the coronavirus disease. About 80% of people with confirmed COVID-19 are reported to have this problem. So when Kate Petrova, a research assistant with the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Bryn Mawr College, stumbled upon a suggestion of a potential relationship between the unfolding of the pandemic and an increase of negative reviews of scented candles on Amazon, she thought it could be true and decided to check if data could actually reveal any connection there.
Kate charted Amazon reviews over time, for both scented and unscented candles, and identified an interesting pattern. As you can see on the charts, there really is a surge in negative reviews of scented ones since the first COVID cases. But no such downward trend can be noticed for unscented candles. So there may be a correlation! (Or not, because other factors could also have some impact.)
Look at the data in these visualizations by yourself. Don’t miss out on the original thread on Twitter where Kate provides more details about her research.
Evaluating Tree Equity in American City Neighborhoods
Sooner or later, the pandemic will go away and other significant issues will come to the fore (again). One of such problems is that cities lack trees which are known to help keep the air cleaner and reduce heat-related health risks. At the same time, tree cover is sparse in low-income neighborhoods, which means their inhabitants are left in worse conditions for living.
American Forests, an environmental protection nonprofit, worked out solutions designed to help solve this problem and achieve equity here with the help of data. The organization created a methodology that allows so-called Tree Equity Scores to be calculated for any city neighborhood, revealing what places require immediate action. The algorithm is based on evaluating data about the existing tree canopy, surface temperature, population density, income, race, age, and employment in the corresponding area. For now, the scores are available for San Francisco Bay Area, Rhode Island, and Maricopa County, AZ (with Phoenix). You can explore Tree Equity Scores and the underlying data across those three pilot locations using an interactive map.
In addition to that, American Forests also launched the Tree Equity Score Analyzer (TESA) — “for cities and states that want to dive deep into decision-making around Tree Equity Scores, catalyzing investment and estimating benefits of projects down to the parcel scale.” This interactive tool is currently available for Rhode Island only.
Feel free to explore the situation with the tree canopy in these locations and find out where investment in trees are especially needed. | https://medium.com/data-visualization-weekly/fresh-great-data-visualizations-on-thanksgiving-covid-tree-equity-dataviz-weekly-c8ad7d23b727 | [] | 2020-12-04 15:27:49.564000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Charts', 'Data Journalism', 'Infographics', 'Data Visualization'] |
Covering Segments by Points | Problem Introduction
You are given a set of segments on a line and your goal is to mark as few points on a line as possible so that each segment contains at least one marked point.
Problem Description
Task. Given a set of n segments {[a(0) ,b(0) ],[a(1) ,b(1) ],…,[a(n)−1 ,b(n)−1 ]} with integer coordinates on a line, find the minimum number m of points such that each segment contains at least one point. That is, find a set of integers X of the minimum size such that for any segment [a(i) ,b(i) ] there is a point x ∈ X such that a(i) ≤ x ≤ b(i) .
Input Format. The first line of the input contains the number n of segments. Each of the following n lines contains two integers a(i) and b(i) (separated by a space) defining the coordinates of endpoints of the i-th segment.
Constraints. 1 ≤ n ≤ 100; 0 ≤ a(i) ≤ b(i) ≤ 10^9 for all 0 ≤ i < n.
Output Format. Output the minimum number m of points on the first line and the integer coordinates of m points (separated by spaces) on the second line. You can output the points in any order. If there are many such sets of points, you can output any set. (It is not difficult to see that there always exist a set of points of the minimum size such that all the coordinates of the points are integers.)
Time Limits. C: 1 sec, C++: 1 sec, Java: 1.5 sec, Python: 5 sec. C#: 1.5 sec, Haskell: 2 sec, JavaScript: 3 sec, Ruby: 3 sec, Scala: 3 sec.
Memory Limit. 512 Mb
Sample 1
Input:
3
1 3
2 5
3 6
Output:
1
3
Explanation:
In this sample, we have three segments: [1,3],[2,5],[3,6] (of length 2,3,3 respectively). All of them contain the point with coordinate 3: 1 ≤ 3 ≤ 3, 2 ≤ 3 ≤ 5, 3 ≤ 3 ≤ 6.
Sample 2
Input:
4
4 7
1 3
2 5
5 6
Output:
2
3 6
Explanation:
The second and the third segments contain the point with coordinate 3 while the first and the fourth segments contain the point with coordinate 6. All the four segments cannot be covered by a single point, since the segments [1,3] and [5,6] are disjoint.
What To Do
To design a greedy algorithm for this problem, consider a segment with the minimum right endpoint. What is a safe way to cover it by a point? | https://medium.com/competitive/covering-segments-by-points-fc2c56c4b038 | [] | 2016-09-01 02:47:43.467000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Programming', 'Competitive Programming', 'Code', 'Cpp'] |
German Market Localization — All You Need to Know | As a game developer, you want to reach new markets, expand your business, increase your fan base and sales around the globe, but mostly in Western and Eastern Europe. What does it mean? And why is the German market important for the gaming industry? Which are its special characteristics that make you consider localizing your game for the German audience?
Well, let’s start with the beginning.
Expanding your game in Europe means you address a mature market. Generating revenue of $29.6 Billion in 2020 and having a 7.8% increase YoY, Europe is the third game market in the world, after Asia-Pacific and North America.
However, localization for the European market is complex, as the audience is very unique due to the variety of languages that they have in their respective countries in the region.
Typically, video games consumed in Europe would always receive translation and localization. If in the previous articles we explained why it’s important to localize for the Polish, Finish, Swedish, Dutch and Danish markets, with this post we’ll start our series of articles about localization for Western Europe.
Basically, this means to translate and adapt your game from all points of view to the four audiences: French, Italian, German, and Spanish. This practice is so popular across many industries, that the translation made for this region even has received its own acronym — FIGS or EFIGS if we also include English.
With a gaming industry revenue of $6,084 million, the German market was the fifth market around the world in 2020 and it’s also a very complex one. Therefore, we considered we should focus on this audience, helping you to better understand what the localization in the German language involves and how you could conquer this market. | https://medium.com/sandvox/german-market-localization-8-powerful-tips-you-should-know-d8301e29e3a1 | ['Sandvox Solutions Llc'] | 2021-12-13 08:11:13.031000+00:00 | ['Translation', 'Localization', 'Localization Companies', 'Gaming Articles', 'German Language'] |
Weekly update from Ubcoin: 04.07–11.07 | Product Development, Marketing, Tokensale and other Ubcoin news — a summary
Product Development
1. Ubcoin Market has developed a solution based on artificial intelligence to predict the optimal cost of goods. The system allows buyers to instantly receive objective information about the price of the goods in relation to the recommended price obtained on the basis of market analysis. Sellers are then able to confidently set an optimal price for their goods, ensuring demand.
Read more: https://medium.com/@ubcoin/how-ubcoin-market-determines-the-price-of-goods-using-artificial-intelligence-81e80602ebc0
Project Marketing
2. The BIG news is the announcement of a new large smartphone manufacturer — LG — among the partners of the projects. Contract was signed in the last days of June, and the news was officially announced last week.
Publications in 19 medias in English, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, German, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Portuguese.
3. Fresh Youtube video reviews:
Korea, Factor Hype https://youtu.be/kmEsDQSgCAQ
Poland, Nowampson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOHaggg6yM
Turkey, Kripto Mert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdV2AOMfoM
USA, Crypto Randy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5M-KnQWYHU
Japan, Kosuke https://youtu.be/OpXMPnSoWoQ
Tokensale updates
4. Procedural updates
Stage 5 of tokensale has ended on July, 10. The Stage 6 has started, discount is 9%.
The referral bonus payment is ongoing.
All airdrops tokens have been distributed.
5. Exchange listings:
Agreed with two exchanges on acceptable legal configuration required for listing.
Working with lawyers on obtaining legal opinions on UBC tokens under the laws of USA, Singapore.
Miscellaneous
5. Ubcoin team organizes a meetup in Seoul (South Korea) on July, 14 to showcase product development results. Ubcoin Market invites crypto enthusiasts and investors to its meetup that will take place in Novotel Ambassador Gangnam on July, 14 at 2 PM.
Please register here
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-rGNttsbEhvs7y_HCwowCfEoCdJwv6syghqbaksl7AYGBNg/viewform
More info — here: https://meetupkr.ubcoin.io
6. Last week Stan Danysh (Ubcoin COO) and Lana Mik (Ubcoin marketing manager) visited China to represent Ubcoin at Wuzhen World Blockchain Conference. Stan was interviewed by the Chinese media and attended a private exclusive VIP dinner with blockchain projects and investors. Ubcoin team had an impressive exhibition booth and was distributing flyers, key rings and special branded iPhone covers to visitors. During 2 days more than a thousand people visited Ubcoin booth — taking pictures, asking questions about Ubcoin, joining WeChat groups and taking part in the Ubcoin token sale. See pictures here: https://medium.com/@ubcoin/ubcoin-at-wuzhen-world-blockchain-conference-thank-you-china-3c1b41af1a0e
7. Preliminary exploratory partnership talks have commenced with a large Chinese blockchain platform. | https://medium.com/ubcoin-blog/weekly-update-from-ubcoin-04-07-11-07-fb4f6b1d6f45 | ['Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined'] | 2018-09-24 16:02:23.702000+00:00 | ['Ubcoin', 'Ubcoin Product', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
HVAC Certification in Florida: What You Need to Know to Get Started | If you want to work and earn more in any HVAC company in Florida, you are to possess a valid HVAC certification in Florida. Most private and public firms will not engage you for contract work if you have no proof showing your qualification approval from HVAC. HVAC/NATE certificates will convince clients and employers of your talents in the sector you are aspiring.
To become a qualified HVAC and NATE specialist in Florida, you’ll need a ton of exertion, devotion, and the correct preparation. However, as a technician, your knowledge, experience, and skill level will decide the majority of your success. Let’s look at what you need to know before starting your HVAC OR NATE Certification training online or otherwise.
How to Get NATE/HVAC Certification in Florida
Several HVAC training institutes in Florida can help you get your contractor license and become a qualified HVAC technician. There are several things you should have in mind when pursuing an HVAC certification in Florida. For a start, you should be up to 18 years of age: Most HVAC certifications are open to candidates that are 18 years and above.
As such, you should wait a little longer if you’re not 18 yet. Another major prerequisite is that you need a high school diploma. This is the minimum educational requirement for most HVAC certifications in Florida. Once you satisfy these basic requirements, here are the best steps you may take towards having your certification:
● Decide on the exact HVAC certification you want: There are various types of HVAC certification in Florida, each with its peculiarity. When you decide on the perfect one you need, you can go ahead with the other steps.
● Enroll for HVAC and NATE certification training online. This is to equip you for the exams involved.
● Complete an accredited heating and air conditioning program: Some Florida certification programs are only one or two semesters long and equip students to work as assistants. Other certification options include two-year programs that cover a variety of HVAC topics and prepare students for the Florida HVAC certification exam.
● Apply for examinations and additional industry competence certifications: Each examination has its peculiar requirement you need to fulfill before you may sit for it. You can learn about this when you apply for a course.
Is Online HVAC/NATE School Worth it?
Prospective HVAC students may have little choice but to attend part or all of the courses online due to a hefty workload. For others, online study is their sole option for acquiring a degree in their desired area.
Online students can also pursue a part-time job to pay for some or all of the expenses associated with the HVAC school program. Because an online lesson is not time-consuming, you will have more time to attend to other demands.
Conclusion
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) represent systems for moving air between the interior and outdoor locations. Also, for heating and cooling of both residential and commercial buildings. Obtaining this instruction through the most effective platforms can attest to your performance on the final exam for HVAC certification in Florida. | https://medium.com/@hvactrainingsolutions/hvac-certification-in-florida-what-you-need-to-know-to-get-started-8b907701fc13 | ['Hvac Training Solutions'] | 2021-06-08 09:40:03.302000+00:00 | ['Training Online', 'Nate Certification', 'Hvac Certification', 'Florida'] |
Let Yourself Microdose on Hope | Even the cynical chick tells everyone to look on the bright side now. Wow, that’s disturbing. And yet, it’s how bad things have gotten around here. Your dreams, you achieved them.
But then they curdled. Ewww.
You know what’s up. Welcome to the third round of severe budget cuts at a mid tier university, or a Fortune 500 Company. Wherever you wanted to wind up. Hey, cheers. At least you have an excuse to drink more. Don’t mind if I do. That’s what she said.
No, really. That’s what she said. Drink more. The cynical chick. Followed by what I said. On it. So what she said, times two, I guess.
Hope always sprouts up in the worst situations. Not exactly hope that your company — or university — will survive.
Just hope that there’s a future of some kind…
One that doesn’t involve waking up at 6 am to ask some jerk face if he wants extra foam on his latte.
Hope. It creates an alternate reality. One that might never happen. Maybe that’s why some of us think it’s evil. But it’s not. Hope is the medicine you need. And just like every medicine, you can overdose. | https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/let-yourself-microdose-on-hope-e1c7edf774b8 | ['Jessica Wildfire'] | 2019-06-20 09:41:14.189000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Humor', 'Success', 'Life', 'Hope'] |
Global AIOps market in 2025: An expected reality | Information is a popular expression nowadays. In the IT area, undertakings are regularly wandering and testing to discover best practices for their business. Investigation Insight figures that the worldwide AIOps Market is relied upon to develop at a CAGR of 43.7% during the period 2020 to 2025. The AIOps Market is assessed to be worth US$ 3127.44 million every 2025, ascending from US$ 510.12 million out of 2019.
AIOps consolidates computerized reasoning calculations and human mediation to give full perceivability into the exhibition of the IT frameworks. By and large, DevOps stresses an adjustment in culture and cycle. Artificial intelligence fueled DevOps in an IT environment can guarantee more prominent speed, better precision, consistency, dependability, and duplicates the number of conveyances made. AIOps can examine information about the current IT measures in the DevOps work process and concentrates on critical occasions identified with stoppages or blackouts, utilizing enormous information investigation and AI while additionally giving noteworthy and relevant insight.
According to an ongoing Harvard Business Review article, an ongoing worldwide study of CIOs from huge undertakings features why AIOps has become a basic part of overseeing present-day IT conditions:
Even after putting resources into 10 distinctive checking devices overall, IT groups have full recognizability into only 11% of their surroundings. Furthermore, regularly, the individuals who need admittance to these devices don’t have it. In a similar review, 70% of CIOs accept that mechanization might have spared their groups time spent on doing manual assignments when contrasted with just 19% of all repeatable IT measures which have been computerized. By utilizing AIOps to eliminate commotion and interruptions, it can empower IT, faculty, to zero in on fundamental issues as opposed to interruptions from superfluous alarms.
Aside from these, AIOps likewise permits distant joint effort and streamlines episode the executives, in this way, helping far off Ops groups (NetOps, SecOps, DevOps, BizOps, and ITOps) convey and work together successfully in virtual NOCs (network activities focuses). A portion of the AIOps merchant offer full-stack recognizability into the advanced insight (versatile, web, crash, ventures, channel), application to-organize observing just as help for cloud-local models. In the coming years, AIOps highlights are anticipated to reach out into the domain of online protection. At the point when this happens, one can anticipate AIOps to overcome any issues between IT activities and security tasks groups as well. | https://medium.com/@maxed-blog/global-aiops-market-in-2025-an-expected-reality-6ee0fbb2fb18 | [] | 2020-12-15 08:14:03.857000+00:00 | ['Aiops', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Aiops Platform', 'Information Technology', 'Aiops Market'] |
Calm Presence | Absorbing peace in morning stillness
During contemplations, meditations
Quiet calm presence of only myself,
No abrupt intrusions or interruptions
No disturbance of peaceful solitude.
Examining stirrings of my mind
Deep feelings of my inner spirit
Composites that make me whole,
Contemplations on its significance
Thoughts, feelings comprising me.
Watching new sun rising on the horizon
Taking in its spectral multicolored beauty
Acknowledging beginning of present day,
Meditations taken to quieten my mind
Helping body rest in muted calmness.
Enjoying this morning’s solitude
Joyful peace reverberates in me,
Quiet stillness, personal introspection
In quiet calm presence of only myself. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/calm-presence-509adb318232 | ['Randy Shingler'] | 2020-12-22 18:15:26.508000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Peace', 'Meditation', 'Self-awareness', 'Presence'] |
ScyllaDB Developer Hackathon: Scylla + S3 | by Ivan Prisyazhynyy
ScyllaDB’s internal developer conference and hackathon was very informative and productive. Here we’ll share with you the project we came up with, which involves implementing Binary Large Object (“blob”) support in Scylla along with the S3 API and integration with many interesting features.
Motivation
It started with simple ideas like how cool it could be to allow accessing Scylla with an S3 API that is popular, simple and for which there are a lot of open-source tools that support it. Why can’t we store large objects in our database? Users sometimes want to store media files in the database. Could we implement that in a convenient way? It turned out we could.
From that moment the flywheel of our imagination started to spin faster. We dreamt about possible applications and consequences of that. It turned out that storing large objects plays perfectly well with the S3 API support. From that, we moved far beyond what we could imagine at the beginning. S3 enabled Scylla to support browser access. Browser access pushed us to the idea of streaming live video streams right from the database via our S3 frontend and we came up with the necessity of ranged reads support.
Then it turned out we could expose our work as a filesystem via Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) and we made it happen. At that moment we truly understood the potential of what we were doing. It was like a vision of boundless freedom, a fresh breath of imagination, a borderless world of what could be achieved. In that process of collective collaboration, a feeling of something big that we are doing, we came up with absolutely crazy ideas like why would we not create a new compaction strategy for our large objects? Or why can’t we expose CDC streams via S3 and connect Scylla to Apache Spark as a Data Source?
It was like we were reinventing Scylla from new perspectives and it was so appealing to look at how seamlessly everything integrated together.
Everything we do we do because we love what we are doing. This project happened because we were able to summon all of our passion, face the unknown, and build together via a process of creativity in which we all became something more than just by ourselves. The further we proceeded the more it felt like we were going in the right direction. We had fun. We felt passionate. It was inspirational and that’s how great things must be born.
The Team
Our team, clockwise from the upper left: Developer Evangelist Ivan Prisyanzhnyy, Software Developer Raphael S. Carvalho (or at least the top of his head), Distinguished Engineer Nadav Har’el, Software Developer Takuya Asada (in silhouette) and Software Engineers Marcin Maliszkiewicz and Piotr Grabowski.
Collectively our team represented some of the most senior engineering talent at ScyllaDB (Nadav, Raphael, and Takuya have both been with the company for more than seven years) and some of the most recently added (Piotr G joined in 2020). The team spanned the world from Brazil, to Poland, Russia, Israel and Japan.
One of our project authors suddenly found himself in a situation where he was not able to participate in the project right before the start. So the project was at risk of not happening at all.
But we still wanted to give the project a try and decided to move forward with it. We were surprised when on the first day of the Hackathon he came back to us sharing that everything was okay and the circumstances had changed and he was able to participate. It was the first and best news in the long queue of what followed.
Implementation
The implementation consists of 4 sub-projects:
A Python proof of concept (PoC) that verifies that the data model works and the API is correct
A production-grade implementation in C++ based on the Alternator source code fork,
An Object-Aware Compaction Strategy, and
Change Data Capture (CDC) S3 support.
The foundation for it is the data model that allows for efficient implementation of the required S3 API and exploitation of Scylla internals.
Right next to it stands the organization of storage of large binary objects. It’s simple to imagine at least two approaches to store large objects: one is to split them into small pieces and another one is to store only the metadata in the database and data on the filesystem itself. There are different cons and pros for both. For the PoC we decided to go with splitting blobs into smaller pieces — chunks — and storing them right in the database.
The process of splitting a blob into chunks is known as “chunkifying.” No, we didn’t make that up.
When a user wants to upload an object we split it into many small pieces called chunks. Every chunk corresponds to a cell. Cells work best when small so we keep them around 128KB size. Then cells can be organized into a single partition of a larger size. For example, a partition can be 64MB. An advantage of that is that the partition can be read sequentially with a paging and a sufficiently large data piece will be served from a single node. This approach allows to efficiently balance cells and partitions sizes and connections to nodes distribution.
The key for a chunk can be calculated based on the chunk number in the blob. It makes it possible to access chunks without an additional index and allows greater parallelism in uploading / downloading.
When a user wants to read an object we just need to calculate the chunk to start from and start streaming data from the corresponding partition. It’s that simple.
Now knowing all those assumptions about the large object’s data that are usually a) immutable b) big c) stored in pieces that span continuously it is possible to reorganize the existing compaction strategy to make storage much more efficient for both reads and writes.
It’s somewhat obvious that STCS or LCS are not perfect for storing BLOBs (the object’s data). Using our knowledge about data we can reduce amplification factors by much. Basically, we can get rid of compaction in the old sense. Our new Object-Aware Compaction Strategy (OACS) has the following characteristics:
It keeps pieces of a certain object together. SSTable stores pieces only of a single object such that it’s much simpler to locate the required partition. This makes writing, reading, and garbage collecting objects much cheaper than with other compaction strategies. A user specifies a column to tell the compaction strategy what parts belong to the same object.
Flushing a memtable keeps different objects in separate SSTables from the beginning so no further sorting is required.
This approach gives the following advantages:
It allows for optimal write performance, because compaction will not have to rewrite any given object over and over again.
It allows for faster reads, because we can quickly locate the SSTable(s) which a particular object is stored at.
It allows for more efficient garbage collection, because deleting a given object through a tombstone will not require touching the other existing objects.
As always that was not enough for us. We also implemented the multipart upload to support scenarios of working with very large objects. It’s a S3 feature which allows the user to upload up to 10.000 parts of an object, up to 5 terabytes in total size, in any order with ability to re-upload any part if something goes wrong. It’s worth to note that after finalizing the upload you need to stitch the parts together. To achieve that one can reshuffle the data chunks or keep using the auxiliary metadata information at the expense of extra database lookups. For the PoC we decided on the latter which means that the finalization step is very fast even for huge files.
Was it Enough?
We used the phrase “Was it enough?” so extensively in our final presentation that it became our slogan and went viral internally. It was emblematic of our team, repeatedly one upping our accomplishments and our goals during the hackathon.
We only had the length of the hackathon to do our work, but consider all that we accomplished in that short time. We made Scylla S3 support that enabled following usage scenarios:
Use Scylla as a Large Binary Object storage (upload file up to 5TB size as in AWS S3)
Use Scylla via S3 API and tools like AWS S3 with MPU
Use Scylla as a file system via s3fs (FUSE)
Access Scylla data with a curl or browser
Stream media content from Scylla directly via the S3 frontend
Use Hadoop or Spark to read data right from the Scylla S3 API
Use CDC log to write right to the Scylla S3 API
Connect Scylla CDC log with Spark
While it’s still a long way off before our work shows up in a released version of Scylla, here’s a sneak peek at what we were able to accomplish with our S3 API:
If you want to follow along with our current and future work, you can find the code on Github here: https://github.com/sitano/s3-scylla/tree/scylla.
If you have more questions, we invite you to ask us on our Slack channel, or contact us directly.
We’d also like to invite you to our upcoming Scylla Summit, where you can learn about the other features we’ve been working on, and from your industry peers on how they’ve used Scylla in their own organizations.
SIGN UP FOR SCYLLA SUMMIT | https://medium.com/@scylladb/scylladb-developer-hackathon-scylla-s3-20228e29bdb2 | [] | 2020-12-15 18:11:34.256000+00:00 | ['Scylladb', 'Database', 'Blob Storage', 'S3', 'NoSQL'] |
27 August 2020 Song/Poem of the Day — The Light In My Heart | Photo source: omer-salom-xnynBH_ux_I-unsplash
Light In My Heart
It’s the darkness that lead me to you
To the light in my heart not seen or felt for so long
I never knew it was there
Could be found in the dark
The light in my heart so soft your glow
So gentle your warmth
You flicker with the beat of my heart
Even when it wanted to stop
You kept the light on in the depth of my soul
The darkest corners of my life
Like magic you appeared
I missed the trick to where I could disappear forever
Never to be seen again
The light in my heart appeared when I could see me
You entered without my noticing before I let go
You watched me from inside my heart knowing where I would go
In such a lonely place where darkness prevailed
Where all life dwindled away
No where be found, no desire to be seen
Light of my heart tricked me to seeing whose there
To see where I was
And to feel no more my despair
The cringe on my face now mimics a smile
I know I’ll make it one day
I remember a smile on my face
I recall the light in my heart
I know the days of no dark clouds all around
And the day I stepped on my shadow wishing I was gone
The light in my heart how far you’ve gone
How far I’ve sent you away only to return
Only to bring a smile on my face
To know a true feeling of happiness in my glory of being me
In my life, as I once wanted to be
To know me in the light of my heart
Suzanne Mondoux
27 August 2020
Year 2020 collection Song/Poem of the Day captured on my website (https://suzannemondoux.com/blog/). Thank you to all my readers and followers. Very much appreciated. List of my novels also available https://suzannemondoux.com/ | https://medium.com/illumination/27-august-2020-song-poem-of-the-day-the-light-in-my-heart-1e9de5d1a153 | ['Suzanne Mondoux'] | 2020-08-28 01:07:22.990000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Songs', 'Lyrics', 'Singing', 'Poetry'] |
Why Empathy above all else can help you win at business — and what you can do about it today. | The business world is notorious for being a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone is out to succeed, and if that means “eating a dog or two” on the way, the end often justifies the means.
I think that many newer business leaders cringe at this, but the truth is that we often define what is acceptable in a business leader, CEO or even our own employees in terms of hard hitting, uncompromising brashness. Some research as recent as a few years ago, even suggests this is great, and that being a jerk can pay off big time in business leadership.
But while we tend to pay more attention to these “hard” skills, there’s an increasing body of research that suggests it not only pays to show empathy, it can be a catalyst for significant business success. Yes. Empathy is not just great for the soul, it can also bring a powerful advantage to business.
As a person who strives to lead with an empathy-first approach in every aspect of business, I’ve witnessed the benefits firsthand; and I encourage you to do the same. This year especially, we could all use a bit more empathy in our lives. In the following quick article, I’ll lay out why empathy is so important for you success as a business and a leader within your business.
What role does empathy play in business?
Empathy is often regarded as one of the highest human virtues, and for good reason. It is at the core of what enables us to identify with the struggles, fears, motivations, and hopes of others, and to respond accordingly. It is at the core of what makes us human — the ability to connect and relate with others.
In recent years, it is an increasing requirement that brands have human faces. Research indicates that 65% of people say they become emotionally connected to a brand that shows them it cares. They are more likely to trust these brands because the brands identify with them and understand what they go through.
But it goes even beyond this. Being able to meet the needs of customers, or create products that truly solve their problems, requires a degree of empathy. The example is often given of Steve Jobs, who reportedly never paid for market research during his time at Apple. What he did instead was put himself in the shoes of his customers, and try to determine how they think, the challenges they face and how best to solve these problems.
Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Belinda Parmar asserts that empathy now tops the lists of “soft” skills employers should look for. According to her, “Empathy should be embedded into the entire organization. There is nothing soft about it. It is a hard skill that should be required from the boardroom to the shop floor.” Writing in the same vein, James Allworth also concluded that empathy was “the most important thing he learned at the Harvard Business School.”
The truth is that empathy is critical, not just as a human emotion, but also as a business leadership skill.
Why is empathy important in the workplace?
As mentioned above, empathy is critical to creating workplaces that make people feel heard, valued and involved. But the benefits of empathy are much more profound, and quite varied. And there’s a lot of research that backs this.
Help develop and market relatable products : One of the most fundamental benefits that empathy has to a company’s bottom line is its role in creating products that people want to use. The impact of empathy on Ryanair’s business is well documented. The company found that it was able to increase net profits from €867 million to €1.24 billion by implementing a program that removed many customer annoyances like hidden charges and restrictions to carry-on baggage. It was so effective, the CEO, Michael O’Leary, is reported to have said, “If I’d only known being nice to customers was going to work so well, I’d have started many years ago.”
: One of the most fundamental benefits that empathy has to a company’s bottom line is its role in creating products that people want to use. The impact of empathy on Ryanair’s business is well documented. The company found that it was able to increase net profits from €867 million to €1.24 billion by implementing a program that removed many customer annoyances like hidden charges and restrictions to carry-on baggage. It was so effective, the CEO, Michael O’Leary, is reported to have said, “If I’d only known being nice to customers was going to work so well, I’d have started many years ago.” Accelerate productivity and innovation : Empathy is related to increased job performance and productivity. A study released by Google, called Project Aristotle, found that while it had focused primarily on bringing people with technical skills, the company’s best and most innovative ideas came from “B-teams” made up of people with qualities including generosity and empathy. An analysis by the Center for Creative Leadership across 38 countries confirmed this, showing that managers who demonstrated empathy received higher performance reviews.
: Empathy is related to increased job performance and productivity. A study released by Google, called Project Aristotle, found that while it had focused primarily on bringing people with technical skills, the company’s best and most innovative ideas came from “B-teams” made up of people with qualities including generosity and empathy. An analysis by the Center for Creative Leadership across 38 countries confirmed this, showing that managers who demonstrated empathy received higher performance reviews. Become more successful : Since they have better functioning teams and more relatable products, companies with high empathy levels are also high-performing. According to the 2016 Empathy Index, the top 10 companies on the list earned 50% more and increased in value at twice the rate of companies in the bottom 10.
: Since they have better functioning teams and more relatable products, companies with high empathy levels are also high-performing. According to the 2016 Empathy Index, the top 10 companies on the list earned 50% more and increased in value at twice the rate of companies in the bottom 10. Bolster company image and culture: Every company wants to be perceived as being a great place to work, with a great culture and satisfied people. Empathy can be critical to achieving this as having high levels of workplace empathy results in better engaged workers, who feel valued and listened to.
Overall, there’s a very strong argument that empathy is not just a good quality to have in a company and its leadership. It should be a prerequisite for the entire company, from top to bottom.
How to improve on your empathy levels
Although empathy is an innate human emotion, the good news is it can be learned and improved upon. Proactive management practices that teach skills like active listening, compassion and open communication can be beneficial. The following can also be key: | https://medium.com/@zivhaklili/why-empathy-above-all-else-can-help-you-win-at-business-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-today-b103618a3b4f | ['Ziv Haklili'] | 2020-12-15 05:26:30.682000+00:00 | ['Empathy', 'Entrepreneur', 'Business Leadership', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
The 5Rs of Transformation | 2020 has prompted change in many ways:
Individuals have been forced to consider a different outlook on life Businesses have had to to rethink their operating models Relationships have either withered or have been fostered
All the changes have been prompted by a NEED… to survive, to improve, to succeed.
Change is not an easy process. It has to start with acknowledgement that there is a need for change, and followed up with acceptance of a new path forward. Easier said than done in most cases, right?
“Change is the only constant” is a common expression implying that the world moves forward and that we need to be prepared to adapt so as not to be left behind or lost. I like to use a variation of that phrase, “Impermanence is the only constant”. The difference in the latter expression being that it drives home that all aspects of life, good or bad, are not permanent. This helps us understand that we need to better appreciate the positives in our lives and have faith that we can and will overcome the negative. Mindset is everything!
Once we get our mindsets aligned with positive change, there are 5 key steps to transformation — Reflect, Rinse, Restart, Reinforce, Repeat.
Let’s see how these apply to a personal transformation:
Reflect — Asking ourselves what we want to change and why? What are our desired outcomes? How can we measure success?
Rinse — Releasing all the thoughts, forces or entities that have been creating negativity to our lives.
Restart — Reset in terms of mindset, relationships, and self. Aligning with our true “why” and associating with allies that can support you. Start a new today.
Reinforce — Change does not happen overnight. Persisting with new found ways to define the new you take time. The more you stay on the path, the more intuitive it becomes.
Repeat — Go back to “Reflect” to determine the progress you’ve made and adjustments needed.
In Season 3 of my podcast, Lead That Thing!, I focus on Personal Transformation with the 5Rs, providing a further breakdown and actionable advice on each phase. This has helped me get from “Fear to Freedom”.
You can listen to Episode 1 here — https://leadthatthing.podbean.com/e/s3-ep1-5rs-of-transformation-waruna-krishnan/ | https://medium.com/@arunakrishnan15/the-5rs-of-transformation-8b3acc3f8be0 | ['Aruna Krishnan'] | 2020-12-27 15:07:56.234000+00:00 | ['Leadership Development', 'Leadership', 'Personal Growth', 'Podcast', 'Personal Development'] |
How to Read Paintings: Apollo Pursuing Daphne by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo | This image is full of light and motion. A young man dashes up a hillside, pointing in the direction of a woman who appears to have tree leaves sprouting from her fingertips. It is a vivid image, not least because of the bold sense of movement that fills the scene.
I’ve looked at this painting many times, and for so long wondered how the artist managed to give it such energy. For the painting never seems to stay still. How can it be that Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne never seems to quite end?
Lines of composition in ‘Apollo Pursuing Daphne’ (c. 1755/1760) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Image source public domain. Edited by author.
One way of understanding how Tiepolo managed to conjure the movement is to notice how the painting is composed. Its structure relies on a distinct cross-shape that forms an X over the entire picture. Tiepolo built the image on a series if diagonal lines that constantly lead the viewer’s eye in different directions, linking the different elements of the picture into one overall X-shaped motif.
The painting, made in around 1760, is part of the Rococo tradition of Western art. Like many paintings of the Rococo tradition, its forms are made up of scrolling curves and sculpted mouldings, given with an additional air of lightness by the white and pastel colouration.
Rinaldo Enchanted by Armida (c.1745) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Image source Wikimedia Commons
It can be seen from other paintings by Tiepolo that he often used diagonal lines of composition to maintain a similar flow. Different oblique angles within the picture meet up with each other, connecting various points of interest, as in the work Rinaldo Enchanted by Armida (above) painted in around 1745. With a little imagination, it’s possible to see an X-shape form underlying this painting too.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770) was an Italian painter and printmaker from Venice who is best known for his large-scale frescoes on the walls and ceilings of churches and palaces. He also painted many small-scale works, often focusing on scenes from Classical mythology, as in Apollo Pursuing Daphne.
The story of Apollo and Daphne is as curious as it is tragic. In the painting, we see the god Apollo running up the slope. See how brightly dressed he is, wearing that billowing cape of yellow? His hair is golden too, and behind his head, a shining halo hangs in the air like the sun in the sky.
Detail of ‘Apollo Pursuing Daphne’ (c. 1755/1760) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Image source public domain.
These attributes are Tiepolo’s means of depicting Apollo, who, as one of the twelve deities of Olympus, was the embodiment of youthful, physical beauty. In classical sculpture, he represented the ideal form of male physical perfection, and in Roman times became known as the god of the sun.
To understand the symbolic meaning of the painting, perhaps the first detail that is worth noting is the small cherub boy hiding in the left-corner beneath the folds of a white robe. This is Eros, the Greek god of love and sex, known as Cupid to the Romans. By firing arrows from his bow, Cupid was able to kindle amorous love in others, and to inspire repulsion too.
Detail of ‘Apollo Pursuing Daphne’ (c. 1755/1760) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Image source public domain.
Cupid is really the genesis of the story being told in the picture. He is hiding because it was his mischief that brought about the rather tragic narrative that is unfolding in the main portion of the painting.
The story of Apollo and Daphne begins with a squabble between Apollo and Cupid after the sun-god had insulted the archery skills of the impish Cupid. In an act of revenge, Cupid fired a golden arrow at Apollo, the sort that aroused the fervour of love. In contrast, he fired a lead arrow at Daphne, the sort that turned love cold. Apollo fell in love with Daphne, who in response was repulsed and fled.
Daphne was a nymph and the daughter of the river god Peneus. Peneus is symbolised in the painting by an oar and an upturned urn spilling water. As Apollo followed Daphne, she called for her father’s assistance, “Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger! Let me be free of this man from this moment forward!” Thereupon her father transformed her into something that Apollo could no longer pursue: a laurel tree.
Detail of ‘Apollo Pursuing Daphne’ (c. 1755/1760) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Image source public domain.
Tiepolo depicted the moment of Daphne’s metamorphosis, as her hands turn into branches, her legs become a tree trunk and her neck stiffens into bark. Daphne’s transformation into a laurel tree can be seen as an act of eternal chastity, and gives the story its moral lesson: lust has been defeated by chasteness, purity has won over appetite.
When Apollo reached the tree, still enamored with his sweetheart, he mourned his loss, as Ovid wrote in the Metamorphoses:
Fairest of maidens, you are lost to me. But at least you shall be my tree. With your leaves my victors shall wreathe their brows. You shall have your part in all my triumphs. Apollo and his laurel shall be joined together wherever songs are sung and stories told.
This explains why the laurel is a symbol of Apollo and why winners of competitions in sports, music and poetry are to this day crowned with laurel leaves.
Tiepolo’s bright and dynamic painting gives the sense that the story is unfolding in front of us. It also captures something vital about Greek myth that may explain the longevity of these stories: their ability to be reinvented in different ages. For these tales, often strange or beguiling, have a maleable quality that make them constantly open to new and vivid representations.
Would you like to get…
A free guide to the Essential Styles in Western Art History, plus updates and exclusive news about me and my writing? Download here.
Christopher P Jones is a writer and artist. He blogs about culture, art and life at his website | https://medium.com/thinksheet/how-to-read-paintings-apollo-pursuing-daphne-by-giovanni-battista-tiepolo-16d6533b8264 | ['Christopher P Jones'] | 2020-07-08 16:39:07.305000+00:00 | ['Art History', 'Painting', 'Art', 'Mythology', 'Culture'] |
Want to Live Forever? Lengthen Your Telomeres | Want to Live Forever? Lengthen Your Telomeres
Death may not be inevitable.
The shortening of telomeres is the main cause of cell breakdown.
We are not machines whose parts get old and break. Our organs do not just get worn out and then give up. Our cells divide and die, leaving behind younger versions, so no cell in your body is as old as you.
Then how do we get old and why do we die?
Researchers in the last 50 years have shown that aging and natural death are the result of telomeres-the caps at the end of chromosomes-being chopped off with each replication. Once they have been completely chopped off, useful DNA is exposed, leading to the break down of the cell.
Living forever, therefore, is simply about finding ways to not only stop your telomeres from shortening but employing new-and perhaps controversial-methods to make them longer.
The Hayflick Limit: a Countdown to Death
A cell’s nucleus contains chromosomes, where DNA is packed closely and wrapped around proteins called histones, which determines how it is expressed. At the end of the chromosomes are telomeres, which help organize and protect the DNA. When DNA replicates, the DNA sequence is naturally shortened, as the enzymes responsible cannot reach all the way to the end, a problem known as “the end replication problem.” Therefore, vital information is at risk of being cut off with each cell division.
To protect our DNA, nature has created a buffer of expendable DNA. These are telomeres. They serve no function other than to help organize and stop the end of DNA sequences from being chopped off. The problem, though, is that each replication whittles down the length of the telomeres, eventually exposing the useful DNA. When this happens, cells begin to break down.
Based on the above, the length of telomeres is correlated with age and a rough predictor of death. More specifically, babies are born with 8,000 to 13,000 base pairs in their telomeres, and each cell division removes 25–200 bases. Regardless of lifestyle, a person’s cells can only divide so many times, before a wall is it. This is the Hayflick Limit, named after Leonard Hayflick in 1961. He found that the typical human cell can only divide 40–60 times.
Lifestyle Choices Can Speed Up the Clock
Excessive drinking, large amounts of red meat, smoking, etc. have been shown to shorten telomeres, speeding up your biological clock. All of these can lead to oxidative stress, which is caused by free radicals. Free radicals are atoms, ions, or molecules-the majority of which are oxygen-with a missing electron in their outer shell, meaning they can easily bond with atoms they are not supposed to, causing damage. A healthy diet, on the other hand, is rich in antioxidants, which are stable atoms that can protect against that damage.
In particular, free radicals target telomeres, interfering in their normal functioning and shortening them prematurely. The results of this paper found that “Numerous studies have shown that oxidative stress is associated with accelerated telomere shortening and dysfunction.”
Telomerase and Cancer
Telomerase is an enzyme that naturally adds length to telomeres, but it is usually not active in most of the body’s cells. However, it is active in the germ cells (the sex cells). This makes sense as these cells need to be as young as possible. Otherwise, babies would be born with short telomeres, making them genetically older than they should be.
This is exactly what happened to Dolly, the sheep cloned in 1996. She was cloned from old cells, meaning she began to feel the decay of old age while still a baby. She was put down at the age of 6 due to a lung disease and severe arthritis.
Furthermore, scientists have found cancer cells have shortened telomeres and active telomerase. For cancer cells to multiply at a problematic rate, it makes sense that they must stabilize their telomeres.
Achieving Immortality, Hopefully
The obvious first step is to stop engaging in a lifestyle that speeds up the shortening of your telomeres. Next, try some experimental treatments and hope they don’t give you cancer.
Authors of a new study published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications took blood samples from 3 people-114, 43, and 8 years old-and successfully added length to their telomeres. They did this by reprogramming their blood cells into mesenchymal stem cells, which are responsible for repairing structural tissue. The authors claim their results “indicate the potential to use reprogramming to reset both developmental state and cellular age in the ‘oldest of the old.’”
While this seems like a fountain of youth, a lot of work still needs to be done before being tried on a large scale. One fear in particular is the increased rates of cancer, as tinkering with telomeres has the potential to change the growth rate of the cells. However, with recent advancements in cancer treatments, this seems possible. | https://medium.com/discourse/want-to-live-forever-lengthen-your-telomeres-7f7f3d70b194 | ['The Happy Neuron'] | 2020-06-30 14:08:22.707000+00:00 | ['Dna', 'Aging', 'Biology', 'Science', 'Wellness'] |
Nutrionus- A brand committed to improving quality of life | As the world is coping with the pandemic, everyone has become much more conscious about their immunity and health. This article is about a brand which is significantly making a difference to it's consumers.
Presenting Nutrionus by Khushbu Samani and Ratin Thakkar, the founders of Nutrionus, who started this venture to help the consumers with healthy and nutritious food choices.
They wanted the brand to represent their nutritional responsibility towards the body and the World.
"After much of research and trial and errors we finally settled for Nutri-onus", quotes Khushbu.
An individual's responsibility of providing much needed nutrition to the body is not just a matter of personal health but also it concerns the fiscal health of our nation.
They wanted to bring that change in the snacking industry; so as to affect the fit to healthy ratio of our nation.
Nutrionus is a nutritious heaven for 100% wholegrain snack seekers. The products have no added sugar, chemicals and preservatives.
Then we came across their story of planning such a venture which is the need of the hour.
"It's actually a funny incident that had a greater impact on us and got us to this stage; where once while travelling in a foreign land we were so engrossed in gorging on our favourite fast food items and we often came across a banner outside some food store saying "you cant control everything in your life. But you can control what you put in your body".
From that moment till today this has been our go to thing, when we question ourselves about our products revolution and manufacturing processes." Quotes Ratin Thakkar.
Interesting, isn't it?
To be honest, interesting yet inspiring. Their best selling products include the trail seeds mix and multi-wholegrain diet mix.
The main motto of the brand is that every consumer should discover everytime they eat, it is an opportunity to nourish their body.
Now let me share a few pointers which I feel makes this brand stand out from the rest. All the products are whole grain products, which are healthy as well as wholesome. There are no preservatives or chemicals in the food items. All the products are organic.
Nutrionus is a brand committed to improving quality of life, Nutrionus brings food packed with goodness of nature and keeps you wanting for more.
With products spread across breakfast to mid-night cravings, Nutrionus is committed to 100% Natural, Organic and wholegrain products, free of chemicals and preservatives.
With variety of breakfast cereals, raw and roasted flavoured seeds, roasted snacks and many more, we stand strongly for health. As the products have clear functional benefits, they do tickle your taste buds and leave you enchanted.
So what are you waiting for? Check out the Instagram handle and order your favorites today.
Let healthy journey with Nutrionus begin today! | https://medium.com/@stamanna/nutrionus-a-brand-committed-to-improving-quality-of-life-cecd0192179e | ['Tamanna Sharma'] | 2020-12-26 12:35:47.831000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Food', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Nutrition', 'Healthy'] |
Augmented Reality: Five Ways to Connect Families Over the Holidays | Image Credit: catchoom
This holiday season family and friends are in our thoughts more than ever. The global pandemic has revoked our holiday plans and traditional routines, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our universal desire to connect with friends and loved ones.
Geenee WebAR unlocks the potential of the spatial web to connect people at any distance, place, or time. The holiday season is about the magical spirit of companionship, love, altruism, and celebration. Here are five ways that WebAR, browser-based (no app download required) augmented reality, can make this holiday season positively memorable:
1. Interactive Cards
The tradition of giving greeting cards as a meaningful expression of personal affection for another person is deeply ingrained in our culture. In the span of just a couple of weeks, over 61% of the amount of cards sent throughout the entire year will make their way into a mailbox for the Christmas holidays. Written cards enable us to share messages in between the fold of beautiful images, witty prose, and a holiday greeting. Emails accomplish this too, but Americans still send over 2 billion paper Christmas cards each year, while only 500 million e-cards are sent (Hubspot). E-cards and tangible paper cards are sentimental expressions, but both forms of expression are constrained by a 2D surface.
Rather than try to replace cards, we can amplify the experience with WebAR — type a URL or scan an artistic code, then scan the card and launch an immersive personal 3D experience, musical score, and voice-over. Bring physical cards to life with a special holiday message, story, experience, or gift. WebAR can create stunning visual effects, fun surprises and bring unforgettable memories to loved ones this holiday season.
Image Credit: The Superboo
2. Toys, Games
There are already some incredible toys and games on the market that make use of WebAR. Even if the concept of augmented reality is unfamiliar, many will recognize it from the success of Niantic’s Pokémon GO, a mobile AR game that in 2017, attracted 60 million monthly active users, 12 million of them who used the app on a daily basis.
Whether it’s a big get together or a quiet Christmas, WebAR makes it easy to share and play anywhere, and anytime. Release a WebAR expansion pack to your game or toys that will keep content fresh over the holidays and at the top of mind for kids as they enter the new year, swapping holiday stories with one another. Variable experiences can be launched in the morning, noon and evening, or even dynamically react to a user’s mood.
You might think that making a WebAR game or toy experience sounds like an impossible task to do just a few weeks out from December 25th, but check out this simple activation that our technology-powered for Star Wars, which is filled with new content, fun facts, movie trailers, quizzes and more:
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker WebAR experience produced by digital marketing agency Pretty Big Monster, powered by Geenee’s Image Recognition (IR) software. Try it.
3. Content
When it comes to the holidays, a lot of things are spur of the moment and last minute. However, WebAR works perfectly in the holiday rush. There’s no need to download an app, and content can be accessed and shared via a simple URL.
For example, enable your audience to connect with one another by powering interactive gingerbread houses that come to life with special messages, effects, photos, and interactive opportunities that capture the moment. These multi-user experiences can connect people from all over the world in a flurry of excitement.
Alternatively, give the gift of virtual travel, and teleport your audience to scenic places around the world. Lancôme presents an incredible selection of holiday treasurers from the virtual advent calendar, holiday beauty boxes, and virtual try-ons, brought to you from Paris. With WebAR, connect your global audience with a single click.
Image Source: Lancôme
4. Photos
Photos capture memories that stay with us for a lifetime. Each image forever holds the feeling of that incredible moment. Just like the physical card, photographs are another medium that is dear to our culture and storytelling heritage.
Brands like Prynt have effortlessly bridged the gap between the physical and digital worlds by bringing photos to life and supporting unique crafting and scrapbooking across realities.
WebAR is an extension of this, using the phone as a portal, a looking glass into a moment with overlaid special features such as snow, lights, stars, flurries, snowmen, and reindeer that can prance around your friends and family.
This year, WebAR can bring a new dimension to photography, a medium that brings generations, young and old, together across time and space.
Gift Wrapping
Last but not least, this Christmas, turn everything into a fun unwrapping experience with a surprise in each box. Transform objects into presents and unwrap the world with the joy of a holiday. Bring gift wrapping paper to life by animating colors and characters. Delight and surprise young audiences, enable them to discover incredible stories in the paper itself.
Christmas rapping wrapping paper!
Most importantly, we want to hear from you. What is your AR marketing strategy? How can we help you to enhance digital marketing campaigns with WebAR? How would you use AR to connect families this holiday season? You can reach the Geenee team at contact [at] geenee [dot]me. | https://medium.com/@geenee/augmented-reality-five-ways-to-connect-families-over-the-holidays-2b13165d7f39 | [] | 2020-12-17 20:34:23.901000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Christmas', 'Shopping', 'Augmented Reality', 'Webar'] |
Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Cleaning Practical Workout | Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Cleaning Practical Workout
Photo by fabio on Unsplash
Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is a vital part of data science as it helps to discover relationships between the entities of the data we are working on. It is helpful to use EDA when we’re dealing with data for the first time. It also helps with large datasets as it is not practically possible to determine relationships with large unknown data. As we deep dive in EDA, we find various patterns which prove to be fruitful for further data processing and modeling.
In this article, we will try to uncover the factors that affect an Indian engineering graduate’s salary and subsequently select only relevant categories that have high impact on the salary. The cleaned data will be ready for any regression algorithm to be used which can predict the salary.
Dataset
For this EDA, we will be using ‘Engineering Graduate Salary Prediction’ dataset available on Kaggle. It contains detailed information about the categories available in the data if you wish to understand the same.
Import the libraries
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
Load the data
df = pd.read_csv('../input/engineering-graduate-salary-prediction/Engineering_graduate_salary.csv')
df.head()
Now lets analyze the data and get basic overview of what we’re dealing with.
df.columns
Now if we observe carefully, there are some columns that obviously do not affect salaries like ‘ID’ , ‘DOB’, boards of 10th and 12th and so on. We will get rid of these redundant columns.
df = df.drop(['ID', 'DOB', 'CollegeID', '12graduation' ,'GraduationYear','10board', '12board' , 'CollegeState','CollegeCityID', 'CollegeCityTier',],axis = 1)
df.head()
Now, we should have 24 columns left.
Let’s check whether there are duplicates in our data.
df.duplicated().sum()
On running this code, we see that there are no duplicates to take care of.
Now, let us check the Specialization column.
df.Specialization.value_counts()
Output:
electronics and communication engineering 670
computer science & engineering 557
information technology 506
computer engineering 415
computer application 201
mechanical engineering 155
electronics and electrical engineering 148
electronics & telecommunications 89
electrical engineering 63
electronics & instrumentation eng 24
information science engineering 18
electronics and instrumentation engineering 18
instrumentation and control engineering 18
civil engineering 15
electronics engineering 13
biotechnology 12
other 10
industrial & production engineering 8
chemical engineering 7
mechanical and automation 5
applied electronics and instrumentation 5
telecommunication engineering 4
computer science and technology 4
automobile/automotive engineering 4
aeronautical engineering 3
electronics and computer engineering 3
mechatronics 3
instrumentation engineering 3
industrial engineering 2
biomedical engineering 2
metallurgical engineering 2
information & communication technology 1
computer and communication engineering 1
information science 1
mechanical & production engineering 1
ceramic engineering 1
computer networking 1
control and instrumentation engineering 1
electrical and power engineering 1
embedded systems technology 1
electronics 1
industrial & management engineering 1
Name: Specialization, dtype: int64
If we observe this, we can understand that there are a lot of single values which can unnecessarily affect the model if we try to train it using this data. Let’s group this data together as they’re not adding much value to the ‘information’ as a whole.
specialization = df.Specialization.value_counts() #Store the values # in specialization
lessthan10 = specialization[specialization<=10]
lessthan10 def correctSpecialization(val):
if val in lessthan10:
return 'Others'
else:
return val df['Specialization'] = df['Specialization'].apply(correctSpecialization) df['Specialization'].value_counts()
Cool. This data seems like something we can work with.
Lets check the statistics now.
df.describe() #Understand the statistics of given data.
If we observe we can see that GPA has max value 99.93 and min value 6.63 which is a big range and 6.63 probably is some wrong value. We don’t know that yet! But, something seems definitely wrong! Let’s analyze this and see if we can get rid of the outliers if any.
plt.scatter(df.index,df['collegeGPA'])
Graphs and plots can be relied on heavily when it comes to EDA. These simple steps easily help to visualize and identify with first look whether some outliers are there. This plot clearly shows that the values mostly lie in 50–100 range and we can safely drop values less than 20 which can introduce unnecessary bias.
df = df[(df['collegeGPA'] > 40)]
You can plot the same graph again and observe that the data is uniform now.
I’ve done similar steps with other columns and to save time, I’ve only mentioned which columns need further analyzing and cleaning. Other columns are quite uniform, but you can analyze them too for practice and use any method to deal with the same.
plt.figure(figsize = (15,15)) plt.subplot(3,3,1)
plt.scatter(df.index, df.ElectronicsAndSemicon)
plt.title('ElectronicsAndSemicon') plt.subplot(3,3,2)
plt.scatter(df.index, df.Domain)
plt.title('Domain') plt.subplot(3,3,3)
plt.scatter(df.index, df.ComputerProgramming)
plt.title('ComputerProgramming') plt.show()
Definitely in all 3 plots we can see presence of outliers. Let’s take care of that.
df = df.replace(-1,np.nan) cols_with_nan = [col for col in df.columns if df.isna().sum()[col]>0] for col in cols_with_nan:
df[col] = df[col].fillna(df[col].mean())
I’ve replaced the -1 values with nan first then replaced all those with the mean values of those columns.
Now if we compare this with original data, we can definitely observe that our new data is much more clean and workable with. It contains values that are uniform and affect the salary in some way.
Let’s check the number of males and females.
sns.countplot(df.Gender,palette = 'inferno')
Let’s see if there is any relation between 10th and 12th percentage.
sns.scatterplot(df[‘10percentage’],df[‘12percentage’])
Clearly, a linearity can be seen here between 10th and 12th percentage.
This data can be analyzed further using all the categories and comparing with the salary. For example:
plt.figure(figsize = (10,5))
sns.scatterplot(df.collegeGPA,df.Salary, hue = df.Degree,palette = 'inferno')
Here, we can observe that mostly B.Tech/B.E. students are getting jobs with higher salaries. Similarly other columns can be compared with salary.
Now let us see if there is any relation between ‘openess_to_experience’ and salary. It can be observed that higher scores graduates get higher salaries.
plt.figure(figsize = (10,5))
sns.scatterplot(df.openess_to_experience,df.Salary)
Data Preprocessing
This last part is done so the final data is ready to feed to the ML model.
Let’s check the datatypes to see if any processing is needed.
df.info()
Gender, degree, specialization need to be processed as they are of type ‘object’ not suitable for ML model input.
from sklearn.preprocessing import LabelEncoder
le = LabelEncoder() df.Gender = le.fit_transform(df.Gender)
df.Degree = le.fit_transform(df.Degree)
df.Specialization = le.fit_transform(df.Specialization)
Now, let’s check the final data.
df.head()
Yay! The data is finally ready. You can try various algorithms on this data now for salary prediction! This entire process is definitely important to cover to avoid bad model predictions and just increase all the work all over again!
That’s it from my side! Suggestions are always welcome. :) | https://towardsdatascience.com/exploratory-data-analysis-and-data-cleaning-practical-workout-2a20442b42fb | ['Mugdha D'] | 2021-08-11 13:35:02.642000+00:00 | ['Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Python', 'Data Cleaning'] |
A Guide to Freelance Journalism | A Guide to Freelance Journalism
Write what people want to read. Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash
Writers see the world through their eyes, journalists through the eyes of others.
I recently came across a guide published by the London School of Journalism on getting started with professional Freelance writing. I thought I already knew enough to be a freelance writer but some lessons from this textbook really lit up my day. Most of the lessons from this article are specific to the field of writing for journalism. But the format of thinking and the “formula” for developing a piece of work can be applied to other forms of writing as well.
Here are some condensed notes on what professional journalists say about Freelance writing. This article is divided into the following sub-sections.
Why you write (and should write if you want to get paid) For whom you write Profiling your readers and editors Pitching How not to write
Why do you write?
You can tell yourself that you want to write for passion. Because you care about the art form, because for writing itself. You might find it deplorable to write for money, like some sort of cheating on your art.
Say what you want, unless someone is willing to pay for what you write, it is of little consequence.
And just like in any other business, the customer is always right. Writing might have many causes, but the largest of them is to be read.
Difficult as it is to admit, it is the job of the writer to make himself be read, liked, and paid. It is all in a package. Not one of the above three conditions suffices to make a writer, you need all three of them.
Where do you get started, if you want to be read, liked, and paid? Here you go.
Understand what you like to write about
Broadly speaking, there are three types of writing in journalism. News reporting, feature writing, and sport. As you read these three titles, you already know what your area of love is.
If you are a writer on Medium, I assume that you are at least kind-of into feature writing. Each of these three goals asks for a different style of writing.
Feature writing can either be about a vast array of topics, or in a specific niche. Each of these two styles come with their own pros and cons.
If you are a generic writer, such as a writer of fiction, you have a large audience base. There is clearly a lot of market for fiction and fantasy. At the same time, it comes with a lot of competition to make your voice heard.
On the other hand, if you are a writer of niche topics of esoteric interests, you have a much smaller but specific market. Competition is relatively low, but of higher quality. Understand your market and your competition.
Understand what the readers want
It is about them, not you. Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
If you are going to be either a mainstream journalist, or a feature writer on niche topics, don't limit yourself to reporting stories from your own back-yard. there is one thing you have to bear in mind more than anything else:
Journalism is about people.
It is not about you, it is not about your personal experiences, it is not about your grandmother and it is not about what your boss thinks. It is an objective, impartial piece of research work and it needs to be written like that.
You have to work on keeping your work about the interviews, facts and figures, balance and impartiality. Your job is to identify the sources and put perspectives on it. The story on the other hand, tells itself.
Understand what your editor wants
If you are looking to be paid, you want to write for a major commercial publication or a media outlet. Every newspaper, publication, TV channel, or radio broadcast has its own voice. It has its own style, called the “house-style”. This includes design, language, content, and perspective.
Each source of information has its own target demographic to which the content and style are tailored.
Do some research and understand what the publication wants.
Are their readers rich, young, middle-aged, unemployed?
If your pitch and your sample article hit all the right spots, it is difficult for the editor to not ask you to shut up and take his money.
Where is your market?
A freelancer by definition is paid for exactly the amount of work done for the employer. He is not bound by the employer per hour, neither is he exclusive. For a freelance journalist, the internet is the oyster. A lot of what you read on the internet, starting from Buzzfeed and pop-sugar to Huffington post, might be written by freelance journalists.
It is a part of your job as a freelance writer to hunt for the correct market and not just shoot blinds and hope there will be a hit.
Google for newspapers, glossy magazines, and other small and big publications in an online media directory if you want to get your work published.
Then find out what the subscription costs, get some editions as a sample, get a feel for the target reader base. Look for the sponsors, do you see any big names? If it is an expensive publication, expect that the readership also differs from that of a publication for pennies.
At the beginning, especially target those publications which are small and have a dedicated space for your niche topic of writing. It is not the worst idea to look overseas in English speaking countries to find willing editors who publish pieces from abroad.
Choose a publication that you read, know, and relate with instead of directly aiming for the big fish whose inboxes are probably full. This will give you leverage when you apply bigger and also some experience as a novice writer. Don’t ever send a pitch without knowing what the publication habits of the publisher are. Else you are just waiting for an automated reject.
Prepare your pitch
Photo by William Iven on Unsplash
Take extreme care of how your email package looks. Take care to see that your article has the same tone and tenor which the publication usually assumes. Include pictures where necessary. Keep it under the word limit.
Be professional and keep your reporting accurate and entertaining.
Brownie points if your article is timely and focuses on current affairs with a new perspective.
The most important task is to be persistent. Keep sending in your pitches and well-timed articles on time. A large part of being a journalist is to be timely and to produce quick publish-ready wonders in small amounts of time. Here are some things you can check right off the bat:
Keep your formatting simple and don't go overboard with colors and fonts.
Keep it in size 12 pt. on MS.Word and in a common font like Calibri.
Don't have awkward spacing gaps.
Include your contact information on the top right and number the papers. Write “end” at the end and “more…” on other papers.
Every paper should contain your catchline in under 10 words on the top right. (eg. Women’s team brings home Gold).
Check-in in advance what formats of documents and image resolutions are required by your publisher.
Ask for a publication style guide if possible, here is an example of the Guardian-style guide. Feel free to use it for your draft if you don't know the style of the house.
Thus you will remove all fore-seeable hassles.
If you have issues with grammar or some doubts about the use of a certain comma or a certain word, don't be shy to go back to the basics once in a while. Mistakes are not uncommon among the most experienced journalists. Get tools like Grammarly, if you can.
How not to write
Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash
If the reader has to read any, ANY, sentence twice, it is a bad article. If there are loose ends and open questions, it is a bad article. If there is a logical flaw, or if the reader has to look away for a minute to see if there is logic to the flow, it is a bad article.
That said, the newspaper, as opposed to a work of science has the need to be entertaining. Don't dot it with savant jargon, don't show off your skills and knowledge, explain like to a child.
Be clear, edit until the removal of one more word makes the article meaningless. Most of all,
Be entertaining.
There was a time in the past where reading was reserved for an elite few. Those days are now gone. Writing must be understood by everybody. keep it simple, clear, and unambiguous. If someone reads and gives you feedback that they didn't understand a sentence or a part of the story, take it seriously. | https://writingcooperative.com/a-guide-to-freelance-journalism-cabbfe22740d | ['Sruthi Korlakunta'] | 2020-12-21 14:44:48.009000+00:00 | ['Writers On Writing', 'Careers', 'Freelance', 'Journalism', 'Writing'] |
This seems familiar…The Mandalorian Season 2 Finale | This seems familiar…The Mandalorian Season 2 Finale
In a distinct parallel to the previous season finale, Mando goes around the galaxy recruiting allies he’s met through the previous episodes (or rather, just Bo Katan as he has the others already). Reminiscent of Cara’s recruitment at the end of season one, Bo-Katan isn’t interested in his quest, but on hearing Moff Gideon is there she agrees. In they all go, outnumbered and squabbling but determined to rescue the Child. A classic hero band, in a classic wrap up that’s incredibly familiar.
There are fun easter eggs for fans as Bo-Katan and Boba Fett face off. She knows too much about Imperial clones, while he calls the Nite Owl warrior Koska Reeves “little one.” She retorts with, “I didn’t think sidekicks were allowed to talk.” With this, they all weigh their places in the pecking order. Mando, who contrasts with them all as more enlightened and leader of the operation, doesn’t make misogynist or anti-clone cracks.
Fennic, Cara, Bo-Katan, and her Nite Owl friend actually make a tough badass all-women’s team, something that breaks up the very masculine energy of the show. They’re efficient and cooperative, combining contrasting fighting styles to work as a team. Cries of “cover me” and “I got you” emphasize how well they work together. Their triumphant smiles also balance Mando’s featureless adventures. Cara’s moment repairing her gun in the elevator even tosses in a little humor. Balancing them is Mando the lone hero going it alone, determined to ride in, pure hero, and save the Child. Last episode ended with his challenging Moff Gideon on a personal, self-aware level, insisting that he’ll take the Child back, whatever the cost. Now, on a traditional hero’s journey, Mando goes, all alone (after splitting from his team) into symbolic death to save his beloved from the great villain tyrant. It’s a pattern used in most Star Wars films, and indeed most epics, once more a familiar and beloved tale. Adding to the scores of easter eggs, the team infiltrate the Imperials in one of their fighters, something memorable from Return of the Jedi and Rogue One.
In contrast with the typically ineffectual Stormtroopers, the Dark Troopers, now fully machine, are genuinely scary. Only one gives Mando in full beskar quite a pounding. He may have considered himself tough but, suitable for the final battle, the Imperials have raised their game. Meanwhile, the other Dark Troopers trying to smash their way out of their holding bay add a horror element. Frankensteinlike, they’re kept in cold storage and awaken with threats present.
When Mando reaches his destination (by now an obvious trap), Moff Gideon waves the darksaber over the Child’s head, gloating and casually threatening. He drops the piece of fanlore watchers of Rebels already know: “Whoever wields this sword has the right to lay claim to the Mandalorian throne.” He even reveals the Child unharmed. “All I wanted is to study his blood.” This scientific experiment has aided in fashioning horrific Darktroopers, but not fulfilled fan theories and made the Moff a Jedi or constructed worse monstrocities (as far as we know). More mysteries have been neatly wrapped up.
In the traditional hero’s path, Mando turns down the villain’s offer of power (in this case, kingship), wanting only the child. And in traditional villain form, the villain betrays him. As many expected was coming, a duel follows, beskar pole given by the magical lady of the forest, Ahsoka, against the sword of evil power (at least visually), the Darksaber. It’s brief but dramatic and Mando wins. Perhaps mindful of his allies’ quests, perhaps not needlessly vicious (especially with the Child unharmed and watching), he pulls back from the final blow. “You’re sparing my life. Well, this should be interesting,” Gideon says, aware what’s at stake.
Mando returns to Bo-Katan with the Child and also Bo-Katan’s and Cara’s desires — the moff and the darksaber. A team player, he has not only won definitively, but works to advance his friends’ goals instead of succumbing to anger or revenge. He’s a pure, selfless hero. There, of course, the moff tells him where his honorable actions have led him: “It’s yours now…the Darksaber. It belongs to you.”
“Now it belongs to her,” Mando tries, but it doesn’t work that way. Like the creed, the laws of Mandalore are tying their hands, perhaps even forcing them in to conflict. Those who watched Rebels know that Sabine presented it to Bo-Katan after all the crowds acclaimed her as leader. However, now she has lost the Darksaber, either in combat or less honorably, and her world was destroyed. To win the disheartened remnants of her people back, she must prove herself — much more definitively than having it handed to her by a loner and fanatic. A feminist reading would add that a man’s winning it on her behalf and handing it over is just as humiliating. As Gideon notes, none of these are stories to rally the people.
Clearly, Mando’s surrendering the weapon isn’t good enough. However, Mando took it from Gideon and spared his life. If Mando holds it now, then Bo-Katan should under the same rules be allowed to take it from Mando and not kill him. While a mock duel wouldn’t cover it, she could try more than once if needed. (And if death is required, then it still belongs to Gideon.) Granted, a non-fatal duel isn’t a story for the ages either…
Of course, the problem remains unsolved thanks to a dramatic interruption. The Death Troopers (of course) return in great numbers. “You had your hands full with one. Let’s see how you do against a platoon,” Gideon smirks in his wrist binders. The battle begins with the moff handcuffed and gloating. Our heroes, half unarmored and vulnerable-looking, seem doomed.
The unidentified X-Wing arrives and Grogu looks alert. The frightening pounding of the Death troopers also stops, and Gideon cringes in fright as a mysterious Jedi, fully cloaked, battles toward the door. A single green lightsaber shows it’s not Ahsoka. (For Rebels fans, Ezra’s lightsaber is blue, though he might’ve upgraded. Green is one of the top two colors, indicating maturity and balance.) Clearly, the Jedi has come to save Grogu after the youngster’s summoning. The cloak remains up for all of the battle, not even revealing the Jedi’s gender or species (a black glove is a small suggestive clue). Meanwhile, the Jedi’s slaughter of the troopers, in contrast with Mando’s hard battle against one, shows how much more powerful the Jedi is, and how much more he can offer Grogu. Crumpling the final one only intensifies the message. Grogu reaches out to the monitor, watching the battle, spellbound. In fact, all the characters’ stunned watching of the screen heightens the Jedi’s cool factor as the heroes are audience stand-ins here — just as amazed and curious. Finally, the Jedi reaches them. The single green lightsaber emerges from the fog, as in Phantom Menace. Luke’s theme plays. And indeed, it’s him. This is Luke from Return, assured and collected, youthful but dressed in black. While Ahsoka and Bo-Katan’s appearances have inspired countless fans to watch the cartoons they missed, Boba Fett and especially Luke are the instant identifiers for casual fans. It’s the greatest cameo yet, one speculated on since the era of the show was revealed.
Luke, youthful-faced but a wise Jedi mentor in context of the series, agrees to take the Child, train him and defend him. Grogu is shy and conflicted but clearly trusts him. Rather than having a long conversation with the Child as Ahsoka did, Luke speaks to Mando with concepts that best reach him: “I will give my life to protect the Child. But he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.” Mando knows this will indeed give the Child the safest future and the one with the best chance to be the best “him.” This too is part of the hero’s journey — developing one’s gifts and pursuing one’s individual path (something Mando has aided most of his teammates in accomplishing).
Indeed, Mando has followed the quest he undertook and succeeded — which means suddenly parting. Once more, Mando must be the noble, honorable hero and send the Child to his proper home. (This too has been foreshadowed — not just through the quest, but through the Child’s happiness at playing with other children and exploring a safe planet.) they say goodbye. The baby touches the helmet in a request. As was foreshadowed with his previous helmet doffing, he does so again, and they say a touching goodbye. It’s a lovely moment of parental love and vulnerability. And as fans know, this, not all the combat, is the tough moment for the hero.
Artoo cameos next. (Grogu responds to him, making fans wonder if Artoo knew him in the Temple or even helped him hide.) Luke takes the Child — an odd passing of the torch from the new generation to the old. Epic music plays over his slow dramatic departure with the child. Keeping up his mystique, he doesn’t offer any practicalities of advice or directions, just departs. More prosaically, he may be taking the toddler off to play with the other Jedi kid, Ben Solo.
The heroes are left with the unconscious Moff Gideon, the Darksaber, a slightly trashed Imperial ship, and their goals. Bo-Katan wants the Darksaber, the Imperial ship, and Mando’s allegiance. Mando, having shown his face before his allies, the moff, and Luke (to say nothing of the previous episode’s Imperials) is likely no longer one of his creed. Taking Bo-Katan’s offer of a different path, in which they rebuild Mandalore, makes the most sense. (Also, at the moment, he’s their king in a sense.) His quest to deliver the Child to the Jedi has very dramatically very definitively concluded. He has no ship, no bounties. Aware now of a wider, nobler galaxy, with friends to fight beside, taking their quest on behalf of a greater Mandalore makes sense. He even may remove his helmet on occasion. Though there’s still the complication of who gets the Darksaber…and the bigger challenge — if the Child is offscreen will the viewers still tune in?
In a post-credits scene that, like a Marvel film, sparks an entire spin-off, Fennic Shand and Boba return to Jabba’s palace where his major domo is ruling and take their revenge. Boba claims the throne there, likely about to take over the crimelord’s empire for himself in a more petty reflection of Bo-Katan’s quest. The galaxy, like the expanding Star Wars franchise, is sorting itself out.
Valerie Estelle Frankel is the author of Hunting for Meaning in The Mandalorian: An Unauthorized Guide to Homages, Symbols and Backstory | https://popoff.us/this-seems-familiar-the-mandalorian-season-2-finale-5dc4012ffb7d | ['Valerie Estelle Frankel'] | 2020-12-19 04:21:05.566000+00:00 | ['Mandalorian', 'The Mandalorian', 'Star Wars', 'Heros Journey'] |
Assault Prevention: The Global Epidemic of Sexual Assaults | The United Nations reports that up to 3,000,000 ladies are killed on normal consistently, a large portion of which are gone before by assault or rape. Roughly 24,000 ladies disappearing in the USA consistently, not many of whom are ever known about again except if their remaining parts are found. It is assumed by law to require that a large portion of these ladies was assaulted and killed. Martha Stout, an analyst at Harvard University, appraises that up to four percent of the populace are sociopaths or mental cases… (the distinction between the two conditions is not applicable for these reasons).
In certain nations, yet not all, there is the public strain to explore these vanishings and murders and there are expanded endeavors to do this. Examinations, in any case, are afterward. More significant, obviously, is formulating manners by which these assaults and murders can be forestalled. It isn’t simply significant, it is essential for ladies, everything being equal, to learn systems and strategies that will empower them to decrease their danger of turning into a survivor of sexual stalkers. Ladies are regularly advised to stay away from risky zones for their security and prosperity however sexual stalkers are not kept to “perilous zones”; they can be available in the city, at parties, in distant zones, and even in the home.
The primary goal for each lady is to figure out how to turn out to be more mindful of their environmental factors consistently. This reaches from creating and utilizing their fringe vision to understanding their environmental factors, to perceiving expected peril, to not permitting themselves to get occupied, to creating road smarts. For instance, strolling after dull anyplace tuning in to a versatile sound gadget can make a lady an objective for hunters lurking in the shadows for casualties. Indeed, if ladies divert themselves as such, they can be assaulted or snatched without trying to hide in territories of meager pedestrian activity. Figuring out how to respond to outsiders, in any event, something as harmless as somebody requesting the time could be the set-up for an attack. Not covering windows in the home after dull or in any event, noting the entryway could have critical outcomes.
A few ladies hold self-protection gadgets, i.e., pepper splash, electro-stun gadget, or even a handgun where it is lawful, notwithstanding, except if these gadgets are in one’s grasp consistently, they will be of little use against an unexpected assault.
There are numerous procedures and strategies a lady can learn and utilize to diminish her danger and it officeholder upon her to learn of these things. Moreover, a piece of fundamental information on a commonsense technique for self-preservation can be important. It should be straightforward, immediate, simple, conceivably deadly, and can be educated in a brief time frame. In the event that a lady arms herself with this information, she should have the option to carry on with her life in security and unafraid. | https://medium.com/@kehinde694/assault-prevention-the-global-epidemic-of-sexual-assaults-248496331734 | ['Kehinde Awe'] | 2020-12-20 07:06:52.881000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Sexual Assault', 'Rape Culture', 'Sexual Assualt'] |
She Wasn’t Bad | They met at a friend’s house.
Actually, it was a trailer.
She was so cute and full of life.
He was happy to have met her.
She knew a lot more than he did.
Hell, he didn’t know anything.
He’d only ever kissed one other girl.
But she still liked him anyway.
She was the first,
but not the last.
She wasn’t bad,
just not the best.
When she answered the telephone
she’d always say, “This is she.”
That really impressed him.
She was smarter than she had to be.
She had a poor reputation.
He found it out much later.
But he couldn’t blame her for that.
He had one too, for different reasons.
She was the first,
but not the last.
She wasn’t bad,
just not the best.
He didn’t care what people said.
They didn’t know her.
He’d follow her anywhere,
all the way to nowhere.
And one day she broke up with him,
and of course, it broke his heart.
No need to dwell on the specifics.
Someday he’ll write about that part.
He cried and smoked a lot of reefer.
He didn’t come out of his room.
A sad song by Black Sabbath
kept him company through the gloom.
She was the first,
but not the last.
She wasn’t bad,
just not the best.
She wasn’t bad.
No, she was good.
She wasn’t bad,
just not the best.
© 2020 Stephen Ray Brown
All rights reserved. | https://medium.com/blueinsight/she-wasnt-bad-6d908b9b327c | ['Stephen Ray Brown'] | 2020-12-18 14:04:17.622000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Blue Insights', 'Poetry', 'Youth', 'Love'] |
Whitehat Jr is About to Do What Engineering mania did to Indian kids and their dreams. | Dear Whitehat Jr — teach coding but not kill dreams
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Story of Elon, an Indian kid
Elon, not Elon Musk :), is a five-year-old kid in the incredible country of India. Kids in India always have (at least used to have) a pretty good childhood. Like all children, Elon goes to school, finds friends, learns whatever his brain can retain, comes home, and life goes on. All good? How can it be?
Then comes COVID-19. The world stopped. So does India, and Elon. He is missing his friends and school. However, he got nothing else to do.
Elon’s dad is a typical Indian father. He’s worried that his five-year son is missing school and so he has to do something about. He calls his friend, who is the father of Mark, who is Elon’s friend. Mark father tells Elon’s father that his son will be on a flight to Silicon Valley soon. A dream sold!
Elon’s father is not educated. He often asks his friends for help when it comes to decisions about his son’s education ( and career too !). So how will Elon’s father send his kid to Silicon Valley?
Here comes Whitehat Jr and FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out — Elon’s father want his son to become the next Elon Musk as his son’s friend Mark becomes the next Mark Zuckerberg. Well played Jr.
Elon’s family have neither a smartphone nor a computer at home. So Elon’s father manages to buy one computer and buys his son a lottery ticket for a ticket to Silicon Valley. The curious Jr will now try to learn how to Build full Entrepreneur-ready Games, Apps, {;) Websites and AI/ML Models.
Enough backdrop Here’s my concern
I am from a world where Indian parents are sold dreams for their kids. Yes, I mean the Engineering Mania. Except for today’s Juniors, every Indian who went to school either knew or experienced what Engineering Mania did. I need not emphasise more on it.
Now comes the Engineering Mania v2. We are now at the outset of yet another tragedy. I believe in tech and agree that kids should be taught coding. I hope schools will get a coding curriculum not just tomorrow but soon. Schools can’t sell a ticket to Silicon Valley, right?
Image credit — Whitehat Jr website
We know the world is changing like never before. We did arrive at a time where Elon (not Elon Jr) is worried that AI will be catastrophic if not taken care of. The same Elon is shaping the future of space tech. It does not mean our Elon Jr should become the next Elon Musk.
Though coding is of paramount importance as a skill, it need not be the only skill that every kid out there should have. I am worried the same impact Engineering Mania had will be repeated. Impact, but of negative value.
I have no problem with Whitehat Jr changing the world by teaching kids to learn to code if they can. Even it may help the kids. But what bewildered me is the curriculum.
A beginner curriculum ( Grade 1) has Interactive Gaming App, Mobile App Development, Native Apps, Utility Apps, Database Management, Chat Bot Apps, SpaceTech simulation apps among others. This curriculum itself should make a kid meet the requirements for a Full Stack dev role.
Ads, website content etc. — The social dilemma
Whitehat Jr’s advert on YouTube
Chintu attended live coding classes on Whitehat Jr. Built an app and the tech emperors are fighting each other before Chintu’s house to invest in his app! Here we got Chintu, CEO, some-tesla-like-company.
The website got pretty UI and UX. I think some Jr might have developed it. Who knows? However, thanks to the content writing team. If I have been married and had a kid, I might have enrolled him on Whitehat Jr too :) | https://medium.com/fabrications/whitehat-jr-is-about-to-do-what-engineering-mania-did-to-indian-kids-and-their-dreams-c261d79c17e8 | ['Venkatapathi Raju Gangiri'] | 2020-10-08 02:55:39.619000+00:00 | ['India', 'Coding', 'Kids And Tech', 'Whitehat Jr', 'Education'] |
9 Simple Python Functions that will Speed up your Exploratory Data Analysis | Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) can be an essential part of your data science process. I want to emphasize the work “can”. I’ve seen many people expand their EDA process to a point of overkill. Of course there are always more patterns to be found, but you need to build a sense of awareness for when your EDA process has gone long enough, and you have a good feel for the data. The goal (in most cases) is not to explore the data — it is to analyze the data in some way, often through a model.
In an effort to make your EDA processes more efficient, here are 9 functions I use for quick EDA!
Note!!!! — These functions require Pandas and Numpy.
df.info()
For any data frame the .info() function will tell you how many entrees you have, the names of each column, the data type of each column, and how many non-null values you have in each column. You can compare the quantity of non-null values to the total number of entries to find which columns have null values.
Find Duplicates
print(df.duplicated().sum())
There are multiple ways to find duplicates rows in your dataset. This function above is the easies, as it will find all the duplicate entries and print how many there are. If it prints “0”, there are no duplicates and you are good to go!
Find Unique Values in a Column
df["column_name"].unique()
In much of you EDA, you are focused on a few key columns. This functions quickly prints all the unique values of that column, so you can understand the breadth and range of the values. Below is what the output looks like:
Find the Counts of Unique Values in a Column
df["column_name"].value_counts()
This function build upon the previous one by providing you the unique values in that column that have the largest and smallest frequencies. This is a great way to look for outliers.
Find all the Null Values in a Dataframe
df.isnull().sum()
This function combines .isnull() and .sum() and will return a list of each column in the data frame with the amount of null values in each column. Finding null values is an important part of EDA and data cleaning. Here is the output of the function call:
Fill Null Values with Zeros (or any filler)
df.replace(np.nan, "0", inplace = True)
This function will take your entire data frame and fill the null values with zeros, or whatever value you put in the second argument of the function. It is certainly the fastest way to get rid of your null values, putting your dataset in a place that will avoid more errors and dead-ends in your analysis. If you are not sure whether or not Null values will impact your analysis, I advise you to either fill them or delete the entries that hold the null values.
Filter Rows in your Dataframe
df2 = df[df["column_name"] > 100]
The line of code above creates a new data frame that hold all the rows, where “column_name” is greater than some value. You can, of course, filter on other conditionals such as “less than” or “equals to” and more complex conditionals, with multiple conditions.
Create a box-plot for any column
df.boxplot()
The function above will return box plots for all the numerical columns in dataset.
To specify that the box plot only be created for a certain column, use this function:
df["column_name"].boxplot()
Create a Correlation Matrix
df.corr()
This pandas function will only return correlations for pairs of numeric columns.
To see all 9 of these functions in action, here is a quick tutorial video:
Thanks :) | https://medium.com/trymito/9-simple-python-functions-that-will-speed-up-your-exploratory-data-analysis-efaa6de9f8bb | ['Jake Mito'] | 2021-08-19 06:32:45.113000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Pandas'] |
Camera2 - Everything You Wanted To Know | Components - Setup
The Camera2 API introduces several new interfaces and classes. Let’s break down each of them so we can better understand how to use them.
Nobody said this was easy
First of, we’ll start with the TextureView.
A TextureView is a UI component that is used to display a content stream (think video). We need to use a TextureView to display the feed from the camera, whether it be by preview or before taking the picture/video. Two properties that are important to use regarding the TextureView are:
SurfaceTexture field
SurfaceTextureListener interface
The first is where the content will get displayed at and the second has four callbacks:
The first callback is crucial when using the camera since we want to be notified when the SurfaceTexture is available so we can start displaying the feed on it. Be aware that only once the TextureView is attached to a window then it becomes available.
Interacting with the camera has changed since the previous API. Now, we have the CameraManager. This is a system service that allows us to interact with CameraDevice objects. The methods you want to pay close attention to are:
After we know that the TextureView is available and ready, we need to call openCamera to open a connection to the camera. This method takes in three arguments:
CameraId - String CameraDevice.StateCallback A Handler
The CameraId argument signifies which camera we want to connect to. On your phone, there are mainly two cameras, the front and the back. Each has it’s own unique id. Usually, it is either a zero or a one. How do we get the camera id? We use the CameraManager’s getCamerasIdList method. It will return an array of String type of all the camera ids identified from the device.
Disregard anything related to the ImageReader as it will be explained later
The next argument are callbacks to the camera state after we try to open it. If you think about it, there can only be several outcomes for this action:
Either the camera manages to open successfully
Either the camera disconnects
Some error occurs
And that’s what you will find inside the CameraDevice.StateCallback
The third argument deals with where this work will happen. Since we don’t want to occupy the main thread, it is better to do this work in the background. That’s why we need to pass a Handler to it. It would be wise to have this handler instance instantiated with a thread of our choosing so we can delegate work to it.
With everything that we have done, we can now call openCamera:
Then in the onOpened callback, we can start to deal with the logic on how to present the camera feed to the user via the TextureView. | https://proandroiddev.com/camera2-everything-you-wanted-to-know-2501f9fd846a | [] | 2021-08-03 15:38:53.636000+00:00 | ['API', 'Cameras', 'Android', 'Kotlin'] |
I’d Rather Have You | I’d Rather Have You
Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash
Pieces and fragments
of the day we first met
still linger in the back of my mind
I tried to save you and you tried to save me
We both kept meeting on opposite ends
Too deep or too shallow
We laid to rest on the shore of the beach
Breathing still and quietly
I told you where it hurt
and you tried to kiss the pain away
I tried to drown in your kindness
and you nearly let me
I asked for these memories
of you to be taken away
and they granted my wish, silently
And when the memories finally
began to fade, thoughts of you
kept finding their way back to me,
like they were never meant
to be thrown away
So I gave in to the sorrow and heartbreak
and torture of knowing you, because I
could not risk the chance of being
without you again
And when I get bored of you,
and you get tired of me,
promise me you’ll remember
the secrets we shared
underneath soft sheets | https://psiloveyou.xyz/id-rather-have-you-b051c8984ab | ['Jocelyn Villarreal'] | 2020-12-20 13:04:19.679000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life Lessons', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Love', 'Life'] |
Disease Outbreaks | Data Science Pipeline :
Data Collection : While we had limited organized data on past outbreaks, we had a vast collection of online news articles and pandemic reports cataloged in the WHO and CDC websites. These articles also included a detailed profile for each disease to include pathogen, host, sources, medium of spread, symptoms, and incubation periods. Our data collection task had the following three sub-tasks.
Web scraping using python library ‘Beautiful Soup’ to extract disease outbreak incidents based on date, country, from the year 1996 to 2020. From each article we extracted: date, country, disease name, and description that was populated to a .CSV file. Extensively used SpaCy for the NLP task to extract entities from the news articles and text descriptions. We automated the extraction of cumulative deaths and reported cases for each outbreak from the web articles. In addition to this, we populated an independent spreadsheet, with detailed information about 67 diseases from the past that have resulted in an outbreak. This included host, pathogen, source, transmission mode, pathogen host, symptoms, vaccination and incubation period.
SpaCy Extraction
Disease Insights
Disease Details
3. Used an API to daily update COVID-19 information from Kaggle (& Johns Hopkins Website) for detailed record of reported cases, deaths and recovered cases.
Data cleaning : Once the data was consolidated into csv files to include date, disease, country, cumulative reported cases, and cumulative deaths, the data was grouped and formatted using Pandas and Numpy libraries for model development and dashboard visualization.
Visualization : Power BI is a powerful dash-boarding tool that offers a range of features from loading data, interfacing with cloud platforms, transporting data for easy visualization and most importantly publishing the dashboard for online viewing. Once we had all the data for each country, and a profile for each disease, we used Power BI to create a visually appealing dashboard combining the two different information to study each disease. Our dashboard has a tab of ‘All diseases’ grouped by disease that displays all countries that had an outbreak of that disease. It also displays a profile for each disease, to include transmission medium, pathogen name, pathogen host, pathogen source, incubation period, symptoms, etc. A table shows the breakdown by country of the total deaths and reported cases, a line plot shows the year of occurrence. In the Dashboard, when we select a particular disease all the information about the disease can be viewed in a minimal verbose and understandable way. ‘COVID-19’ of the Dashboard is dedicated to the COVID-19 data to display infected cases, deaths and recovered cases over the past three months of the outbreak.
All Diseases Dashboard
Detecting Anomalies: Since most of our data for other outbreaks was compiled using an entity extraction NLP model, we used the Case Fatality Ratio(CFR) metric to detect anomalies. About 2 percent of the data had errors due to various factors including different authors for the news articles, different reporting time periods, and varied formatting of the news articles over the period of years from 1996 to 2020. These errors were fixed manually in the spreadsheet, and published literature was used to check our CFR calculation with approximate values for the CFR for each disease published in WHO, CDC websites.
Modelling : To understand the severity of an outbreak we used three metrics: 1. Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) and 2. Transmission Rate (Beta), Recovery Rate (Gamma). We had two independent models for each of these metrics.
To model the case fatality ratio, each disease occurrence was grouped based on country, and for each outbreak incident, a cluster was developed based on 3 times the incubation period. In calculating CFR, we used the fact that: If no new reported cases were detected for a period of 3 times the incubation period in that country, then the outbreak of that disease has ended for that country. If new cases came back after this period, then it would be considered a second wave of the same outbreak.
Equation: Case Fatality Ratio
To model the spread of COVID-19, we used a time dependent SIR model. The parameters for Beta and Gamma were learned from the COVID-19 data using the first 45 days of the outbreak for each country. The estimated transmission rate and recovery rate were used to predict the Susceptible (S), Infected (I), and Recovered (R) cases solving for the S, I and R differential equations. The details of the model are provided in the methodology section below.
Model Evaluation & Inference : The model was evaluated using true data published in literature, WHO sources and other data sources for the COVID -19. Evaluation of the SIR model was compared to the actual reported cases, using a hold out and test data-set.
Methodology :
Fatal Outbreaks between 1996 to 2020 : Each disease incident in a country was clustered into an outbreak based on the first reported case as the start of an outbreak in that country, to when no new cases are reported for a period of 3 times the incubation period. Once each disease and country were clustered, we calculated the ratio of deaths to the total reported cases. In total, we had over 475 clusters, and outbreaks for 67 diseases and 220 countries. The video below shows the most fatal outbreaks between 1996 to 2020 for each year including: Country, Disease, CFR, and deaths across the world.
Fatal Outbreaks between 1996–2020
Most Fatal Outbreaks since 1996 : The table below lists some of the most fatal outbreaks we have seen. Diseases like Ebola do not spread to a vast population, however it results in fatal consequences, it has a high CFR and death toll. About 70% to 90% of the infected cases die of the disease. Diseases that do not have a vaccine also result in taking a prime position until a vaccine is developed, an example is SARS in 2003.
Outbreaks like Dengue and Cholera do not have a large number of fatal deaths, their CFR is low in the order of 3% to 7% similar to COVID-19, however it infects a large population.
Example: A Dengue outbreak in Pakistan in 2019 infected more than 47,000 people and a Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2009 infected over 79,000 people.
It should be noted that the same disease can have different CFR’s for different countries depending on the country’s infrastructure and ability to manage the outbreak.
Example: The Influenza outbreak in Madagascar had a death toll of 357 people in 2002 with a CFR of 84.4%, and the avian flu had a CFR of 81% in Indonesia in 2008. The table shows an example for the current COVID-19 fatality ratio for different countries.
Countries that experienced most outbreaks : While countries like Congo and Gabon have had an outbreak every year, for some countries the COVID-19 is the first outbreak. The histogram bar plot, shows the countries that have seen the most outbreaks since 1996. Congo has had the most outbreaks since 1996, they have had a total of more than 37 outbreaks, followed by China which has had close to 24 outbreaks including the COVID-19. While all the outbreaks in Congo have been fatal, China has had a large number of low fatality Influenza and Avian Flu type outbreaks. A number of Corona-virus outbreaks have been witnessed in China over the past including the Avian Flu, and SARS.
SIR model : SIR model is a compartmental epidemic model that describes the dynamics of an infectious disease. The model divides the population into compartments — S for Susceptible, I for Infected and R for Recovered.
Susceptible is the group of people who are vulnerable to the infection. The group of infected represents the infected people. They can pass the disease to susceptible people and can recover in a specific period. Recovered people get immunity, so that they are not susceptible to the same illness anymore. SIR model mathematically formulates the transition of individuals in a population between ‘compartments’ that capture the infection status of individuals, leading to significant insights.
The model describes the number of people in each compartment using ordinary differential equations shown below. β is a parameter controlling the rate of disease transmission through exposure. It is determined by the chance of contact and the probability of disease transmission. γ is a parameter expressing the rate an infected recovers and moves into the resistant phase.
Equation: Relation of SIR with the population parameter n.
Equation: Differential Equation for Susceptibility(S)
Equation: Differential Equation for Infectivity(X)
Equation: Differential Equation for Recoverability(R)
A traditional SIR Model neglects the time varying property of the transmission rate and recovery rate, thus we are employing the use of a time-dependent SIR model, where both the transmission rate and recovery rate are functions of time t. We have a rolling FIR (Finite Impulse Response) window of 3 days to capture the time varying dynamics of the infectious disease over a certain period. We then used machine learning methods like Ridge Regression and Gradient Boosting Regressor to learn the parameters of transmission rate and recovery rate. The data was split into 45 days and 10 days as training and test splits. For other outbreaks, the train-test split is decided based on the data points available for the particular outbreak. We always had a hold-out set to test our model predictions.
Equation: Time Dependent Formulation of Beta(Transmission Rate)
Equation: Time Dependent Formulation of Gamma(Recovery Rate)
A time-dependent SIR model is more powerful in tracking disease spread, control, and predicting the future trend of an infectious disease. An example is that a constant β does not take into account the measures taken by government or the people to reduce the transmission rate. Moreover each country will have an independent measure of β, depending on how they handle the crisis.
Regression Equation for Predicting Transmission Rate
Regression Equation for Predicting Recovery Rate
Our model for predicting infected cases and recovered cases depends on the two parameters: 1) Transmission Rate and 2) Recovery rate. These two parameters are complex to model, it depends on several factors, from the disease epidemiological profile, disease management, government action, countries infrastructure, etc.
Using our model to train on the first 45 days of the outbreak, we learn these two parameters for each country. Two example plots for the model prediction on transmission rate and recovery rate are shown below for two countries: The USA and Canada. Our observation is that though the model is a fair prediction against data for these two parameters, the actual prediction of spread is significantly different from true number of infections.
USA insights :
Transmission Rate :
The plot below shows the actual data, model predicted data (using learned transmission rate) and a transmission rate that fits the data better. We notice a wide gap for certain countries between the actual transmission rate and the predicted transmission rate. This is due to the fact that the reported data does not capture the true infections that are spreading. For example in the United States on March 1, there were 70 reported cases of COVID-19, however the true figure may have already been in the 1500’s, which is not captured in the data.
Predicted Transmission Rate
Predicted Infections
Recovery Rate :
Similar trends can be observed for the recovery rate and prediction of the recovery rate. There is a dependency of recovered cases on the infected cases. Recovered cases are a lagging number from the infected cases, when there is a gap in the infection rate this will reflect itself in the recovery rate as well. Hence, we notice a difference from actual data to the model prediction for a future time period.
Predicted Recovery Rate
Predicted Recovery Numbers
Canada Insights :
Another important aspect of the transmission rate is each country will have a different behavior due the complex nature of transmission rate, and how effectively a country manages an outbreak. The plot below shows the model prediction compared to true data. We notice that the prediction model for Canada is much closer to actual and not as significantly different as compared to the US. This is due to the difference in the spread of the virus in Canada compared to the US.
Predicted Transmission Rate
Predicted Infected Numbers
Predicted Recovery Rate
Predicted Recovered Numbers
Evaluation : Our evaluation consisted of two parts, for CFR we used WHO published fatalities and pandemic reports to verify if our reported numbers match published literature. For transmission rate and recovery rate, the comparison is more complex, as explained the data generation process during an outbreak has certain limitations. Our model results also show this limitation of data reporting and the challenges of accurately modelling the transmission during an outbreak. Government officials, law makers and decision makers rely on the reported data to make decisions, but during outbreaks it is indeed prudent to not entirely rely on reported cases and deaths, but take action sooner. The spread and transmission is different for each disease and for each country, it is better to take action sooner, than later and safer to be more cautious in decision making as we are witnessing in the COVID-19 crisis. | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/disease-outbreaks-6254cc14b702 | [] | 2020-04-20 06:54:20.746000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Spacy', 'Outbreak Pandemic', 'Power Bi', 'Data Science'] |
Reducing Temporal Coupling in Our Code | Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
Time is often something that’s ignore in software architecture. The only thing that we’re preoccupied with is our schedule.
However, we got to concern ourselves with time in our own code as well. We’ve to concern ourselves with concurrency and ordering.
In this article, we’ll look at the ways we reduce temporal coupling in our code.
Allowing for Concurrency
We’ve to allow for concurrency in our code. This way, we don’t have to force one procedure to be run before another if they don’t have to.
This increases performance by allowing things that don’t depend on each other to run concurrently, saving everyone’s time.
Workflow
We have to analyze our program’s workflow to see which parts can be decoupled from each other in terms of ordering.
For instance, if we’re making HTTP requests to get unrelated data, then we can decouple those workflows by letting them run in parallel.
There’s no point for them to run serially and waste time if they don’t have to run in a serial fashion.
For instance, instead of writing the following to get 2 pieces if unrelated data from different sources:
async () => {
const michael = await fetch('https://api.agify.io?name=michael')
const joe = await fetch('https://api.agify.io?name=joe')
}
We can instead write the following to get them in parallel:
async () => {
const responses = await Promise.all([
fetch('https://api.agify.io?name=michael'),
fetch('https://api.agify.io?name=joe')
])
}
We can see the run time of the first snippet is much longer than the second one.
Therefore, if we allow them to run concurrently, then we can make sure that that one request won’t be held up unnecessarily since they aren’t related, to begin with, so they can be run concurrently.
Design for Concurrency
Linear code leads to sloppy programming. With concurrency, we’ve to think about time-based dependencies.
We’ve to make sure that one resource is available before the other. To call an object, we must make sure that the state is what we want before we call the next procedure that depends on the value of the produced from the previous process.
Therefore, we’ve to make sure to check for valid values and wait for them if they aren’t there.
The way to get dependent data differs in different languages. For example, in JavaScript, we make sure that dependent data from asynchronous processes are obtained before calling the next asynchronous process by using promises.
With promises, we can chain them so that we make sure that the previous promise returns the value we want before running the next one.
For instance, if we have the following JavaScript code:
const foo = async () => {
const res = await fetch('https://yesno.wtf/api')
const {
answer
} = res.json();
if (answer === 'yes') {
const res = await fetch('https://api.agify.io?name=joe')
const result = res.json();
console.log(result)
}
}
Then we make sure that we have the answer property from the response body and that the value of it is 'yes' before we call the next API to get more data.
This is something we’ve too often in JavaScript so always have to check that promise code resolves to what we want before we do anything.
Photo by Carly Rae Hobbins on Unsplash
Deployment
We can also be flexible with how our app is deployed. We can deploy the whole system at once or just one part of it.
If we divide them up into smaller services, then we don’t have to deploy the whole system every time we make some small change to some part of the system.
Decoupling them let us deploy different parts concurrently rather than deploying the whole thing in one go.
Adding concurrency to a non-concurrent system is much harder, so we got to think about that when we’re designing our systems.
Conclusion
Allowing for concurrency is something that we have to think about when designing our systems.
We don’t want unrelated things to run in series so that they aren’t coupled together unnecessarily and also saves the user time by not having to wait for something that they don’t have to wait for.
Concurrency also applies to deployment. If we divided our system into smaller services, then we only have to deploy that part if we want to deploy.
It’s much better than deploying the whole system every time we have a small change. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/reducing-temporal-coupling-in-our-code-2fdd48e76410 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-06-16 15:05:19.366000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
D3 in 5 Minutes, Create Bar Chart & Funnel Chart VisualiZations using D3 scales with example using React js | Basic knowledge of SVG is needed, think of SVG similar to HTML elements.
working in D3 is pretty much similar to HTML and a pinch of jQuery with all those chaining and selection of elements.
Basics first:
1.Selection and manipulation
Using D3 we can select DOM elements using their CSS selectors or the name of an element itself.
D3 provides us two methods to select DOM elements. They are d3.select() which returns the first selection and d3. selectAll() this returns all the elements matching the criteria.
// select h1 ,add style of color red and then insert text 'h1 tag' d3.select('h1')
.style('color', 'red')
.text('h1 tag'); // select body tag append a `p` tag to it with text 'First Paragraph' d3.select('body').append('p').text('First Paragraph'); // select all `p` tags & add style of blue color to it. d3.selectAll('p').style('color', 'blue');
Code Playground Link for D3 basics: https://scrimba.com/c/c36r67S8
2. Data loading and binding
var dataset = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; d3.select('body') .selectAll('p') .data(dataset) //loop onto data set .join('p') // appends paragraph for each data element .text('D3 is awesome!!'); //this adds same text for each data entry .text(function(d) { return d; }); //this adds text for each data entry
3. SVG elements
SVG or a scalable vector graphics is a powerful tool to define vector graphics for the web.
Using SVG we can create different shapes and apply different styles to them.
var svgWidth = 600, svgHeight = 500; var svg = d3.select("svg") .attr("width", svgWidth) .attr("height", svgHeight) var line = svg.append("line") .attr("x1", 100) .attr("x2", 500) .attr("y1", 50) .attr("y2", 50) .attr("stroke", "red") //stroke is like border in svg .attr("stroke-width", 5); var rect = svg.append("rect") .attr("x", 100) .attr("y", 100) .attr("width", 200) .attr("height", 100) .attr("fill", "#9B95FF"); //fill is like background color in svg var circle = svg.append("circle") .attr("cx", 200) .attr("cy", 300) .attr("r", 80) .attr("fill", "#7CE8D5");
Code Playground Link for SVG Elements : https://scrimba.com/c/c36r67S8
Scales 📏 are functions which will transform your data by either increasing or decreasing their values for better visualizations 📈.
Multiple types of scale 📏 are available and depending upon the input data you can choose the scales.
Example
Construct a new continuous scale with the specified domain and range, Linear scales are a good default choice for continuous quantitative data because they preserve proportional differences. Each range value y can be expressed as a function of the domain value x: y = mx + b.
Say if your linear scale domain is [0,100] and your range is [500,1000]
then your input values say 0,50,100 shall map to an output of 500, 750, 1000.
which can be understood as the min value of domain corresponds to min value in the range and max value of domain corresponds to max value in the range, and the mid-value of domain corresponds to min-value in range, and same is the case for any other value, basically the input is outputted proportionally based on domain & range.
var dataset = [1,2,3,4,5]; var svgWidth = 500, svgHeight = 300, barPadding = 5; var barWidth = (svgWidth / dataset.length);
var svg = d3.select('svg')// select the svg element .attr("width", svgWidth) // set its css attribute of width .attr("height", svgHeight); // set its css attribute of height var yScale = d3.scaleLinear() // create a linear scale // set domain of scale with min=0 & max as max value of dataset , D3 even provides us with mathemetical operations like max ,min,etc
.domain([0, d3.max(dataset)])
.range([0, svgHeight]);// set range of scale var barChart = svg.selectAll("rect") //📊 select all `rect` .data(dataset) //loop onto dataset .join("rect") // append all selected `rect` .attr("y", function(d) { return svgHeight - d }) //set y position attribute .attr("height", function(d) { return d; })//set height attribute .attr("width", barWidth - barPadding) //set width attribute with padding so that bar does not stick together & have a nice gap in betweeen
//set transform attribute else the bars would stack on top of each other .attr("transform", function (d, i) { var translate = [barWidth * i, 0]; return "translate("+ translate +")"; });
Code Playground Link for Bar chart 📊 : https://scrimba.com/c/ceqVqLCW
5.Funnel chart | https://javascript.plainenglish.io/learning-d3-in-5-minutes-and-creating-bar-funnel-chart-visualization-12b71142414e | ['Shobhit Singh'] | 2020-08-29 19:36:01.169000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'JavaScript', 'D3js', 'Visualization', 'Charts'] |
Tossing the Kurds Under the Bus…. and Strategic Thinking? | The Kurds have been fighting alongside US troops in many conflicts for a very long time. In Syria, they were part of the front lines against ISIS. Many sacrificed life, livelihood and limbs to fight with us against our common enemies. Their families also paid a high price along the way. The Kurds also fought with the US in Iraq against Saddam and against extremists. Tossing them under the bus by withdrawing our troops and equipment to allow a Turkish invasion of the north of Syria, where some of our former allied Kurds live, work, have families and fought, is a massive betrayal in the long list of betrayals of the Kurds that the US and many others were part of. One wonders how long the Kurds will put up with betrayals before they truly go rogue against us and our allies.
The Turks see the Kurds as a threat, and see the Kurds of Northern Syria, our former allies, as a particularly intense threat. But does that justify our leaving them behind to be slaughtered by the Turkish Army? No. If we considered them a threat to our security in the past then why did we work with them? They were not a threat to us. They may be after this betrayal.
There is an old Kurdish phrase that the only friends of the Kurds are the mountains. And when one looks back at the history of the Kurds, including their moment of potentially having their own nation in the 1920s, one sees lots of betrayals and deceits.
The conflicts between the Kurds and Turkey have been brutal and costly, with the losses of tens of thousands of lives, but one must think that there is a better way to deal with differences than intermittent slaughters and outright war combined with terrorism. Indeed, there must be a better way. However, moving out of the way for the Turkish Army to invade Northern Syria, a place that had a real chance for development and at least some form of democracy, is not in the right direction toward even a short-term peace between these long-term enemies. There must be a better way, but almost nobody is talking about these new ways.
I expect more horrors to occur in Syria because of this. I also expect the this move to move out of the way will make Iran, Russia, China, Assad and ISIS stronger in Syria, in the region — and beyond.
It used to be a deal was a deal, and that a handshake with honor meant something. What happened to that? Many in the region have questioned US resolve, reliability and straightforwardness for some time. This betrayal will not help with our reputation in the region and in the world.
The Turkish Army is known for its power and brutality against the Kurds. I see this likely happening again. When the world sees the film clips and videos of more refugees, freed ISIS fighters running amok after being freed from the prisons the Kurds kept in the north of Syria, and Kurdish and other families weeping in fear, what will they think of us? What will happen with we ask the Kurds for help in the future? And the Kurds have been a great help in the past on many issues.
Whatever happens to the Kurds in Northern Syria will have reverberations in other Kurdish areas in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. Many young Kurds may become radicalized, and those already radicalized may become even more violently so. And who is to say this radicalization will stay in the region?
The threat to “obliterate” the Turkish economy if they are too brutal in the invasion is a weak one when one looks at the data. The US is only about 6 percent of Turkish foreign trade. It is only about 10 percent of its foreign direct investment. It holds only about 10 percent of Turkish debt. Turkey’s strongest economic and financial relations are by far with Europe and Asia. And these countries will unlikely follow along with us to obliterate the economy of a NATO ally, and a big trading partner for them — as well as a source of many guest workers and new and long-term citizens, who still feel for their original land of Turkey.
Where could this leave us? Assad will solidify his power in the country he viciously destroyed to stay in power and rob its people. Russia will retain and strengthen its hold on Syria and, its reputation of power and solidity in Syria and the region. Iran will become stronger in Syria and along its crescent of hegemony. China will find more economic deals in Syria and in the region. ISIS, which will likely metamorphose into something else anyway, could find itself with a stronger base in Syria. It could also build in an increasingly unstable neighbor to Syria, Iraq. The southeast of Turkey could go into Turmoil. Iran’s northeast could become more unstable.
Extremism will increase. Moderation will decline. Chaos will grow. The national security of the US will be worse for all of this. If this is strategic thinking, then it is upside-down strategic thinking that will breed more chaos, more enemies, less allies and a whole lot of trouble for us and our allies in the region.
Please look at the maps of the region that show Syria’s connections to other areas via transport, economics, extremism and more. Halloween in coming on October 31. It came to Northern Syria yesterday — without the candy and children’s joy, and lots of fright and nightmares to come. Indeed, many children, including many young children could die in Northern Syria because of this. In addition, many may have to leave their homes and region to create yet another refugee flow. A refugee flow to where? Turkey? No. Lebanon? Maybe, yet they are under massive refugee pressures already. Iraq? Northern Iraq is a likely place, if they can get there. Europe? Yes. North Africa? Maybe? Why does this sound so horrifyingly similar?
Do we ever learn?
All opinions are Dr. Sullivan’s alone.
Source of photo: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-troops-begin-pulling-out-of-syria-leaving-kurds-without-support | https://medium.com/@drsullivenergy/tossing-the-kurds-under-the-bus-and-strategic-thinking-cdc7311e8b77 | [] | 2019-10-08 14:55:13.144000+00:00 | ['Syria', 'Syrian Refugees', 'Kurds', 'ISIS', 'Turkey'] |
Painful Reflux Leaving its Mark — Raising2Children | We have learnt what reflux really is and the impact it has had on our son as well as us.
It’s 3 am in winter, I jump out of bed, still trying to prise my eyes open, reflux is leaving it’s mark again. I hear for the third time this very night, my 10-month-old baby making noises that could be the sound effects out of The Exorcist. Matt and I jump into action like a well-oiled machine; I get the towels, wet wipes and cleaning spray. Matt picks up Daniel tilting him forward to the place where I’ve laid the towels out. These are last towels that are clean, the rest are still in the washing machine. Luckily this time, we dodged the projectile milk.
All cleared up. Daniel is still crying, he’s uncomfortable, tired and probably shocked with what keeps happening. Matt keeps cuddling our baby whilst I return to bed, desperate for sleep.
From the Beginning
Daniel was born 6lb 12oz and from the beginning struggled to feed. I blamed myself. Was it because I’m 37 years old that my milk didn’t come? Was it because, whilst I was pregnant, I wasn’t keen on the idea of breastfeeding but I knew it would be best for our baby and would try? I felt guilty, my first guilt trip of many as a new mum.
Daniel drank 20ml of milk a go. It was our first baby and he wasn’t feeding well so we stayed in the hospital for 4 days. The midwives kept encouraging me to breastfeed, massaging my boobs and even using a breast pump but nothing came. We were over the moon when Daniel was drinking 120ml, however now looking back to experiencing a second child, it was slow progress.
We had months where it was little and often feeds, with lots of wind and crying. The GP diagnosed Daniel with colic. Not silent reflux. Daniel would rock his lower body forward and back. I went to a baby massage class which we both loved, doing lots of return and serve. The only bit Daniel didn’t like was being put him on his tummy to massage his back. I thought he didn’t like his back massaged, after a diagnosis 6 months later, I realise it was reflux. A great massage technique to help with wind is I Love U. I would sit for hours doing “ I Love U’s “ which would help but as soon I stopped, the crying would erupt.
I Love You
Daniel would fall asleep easily cradled in your arms or pressed against you in a seated position. I was told by grandparents, friends and health visitors that I was spoiling him. I would cuddle my Daniel in the morning, drinking coffee while he slept in my arms looking peaceful, I was in love with my bundle. Not a pattern I would suggest for new parents, even if the baby has reflux as through advice, we learnt some handy hint and tips.
By 6 months, Daniel has horrific eczema on his face, where he would scratch until it was red raw. After a trip to A&E, Daniel was diagnosed with severe reflux and dairy intolerance. He was 9months old. All formula was changed. We regularly saw an NHS specialist paediatrician and dietician. They were amazing as they listened, empathised, problem solved and reassured. I felt safe and hopeful with his guidance. Once we knew the signs of reflux, everything felt clear, even just knowing without anything changing felt a huge relief. Daniel showed these common signs of reflux
spitting up and vomiting
refusal to eat and difficulty eating or swallowing
irritability during feeding
wet burps or hiccups
failure to gain weight
abnormal arching
chest pain or heartburn
disturbed sleep… every single night
Paediatrician Advice for Daniel’s Reflux
If your child has reflux or you suspect it, please check it out with a doctor and you can always run Daniels solutions by your doctor. Through our support network, we came up with solutions that worked for Daniel. It didn’t cure reflux and we struggled to gain quality sleep… I thought I looked dreadful, I hadn’t had a hair cut in a year, my wrinkles around my eyes increased by 67% (a little data, without no evidence!) and I turned into a hermit. As soon as Daniel slept, I went to bed, so I hardly socialised with my friends. Anyway, we had some tricks up our sleeve
Daniel slept better in the car seat being propped up. It would only last 2 hours but it was more than we had previously.
He was on medication for his reflux. Something we had to think about before we agreed to
Daniel drank dairy free formula and when weening, Daniel drunk Alpro Growing Up Soya Milk.
We avoided acidic food which could aggravate reflux
Daniel stayed sat up, 30 minutes after drinking milk before he laid down
We required patience as baby reflux usually goes away between the ages of 2–3yrs as the body strengthens. (which it did and so did his dairy intolerance)
We accepted help from the family so we could sleep
I re-evaluated my expectations on myself and what a family should look like by completing the circle of influence; it’s not all about walks in the park on a lovely summer day
Raising2Children’s Interpretation of Circle of Influence
Within a couple of months, his eczema disappeared completely. Daniel was on the low end of his weight scale so had to be monitored. Once diagnosed, he began to put a bit of weight on slowly which we were so happy to see.
Parenting Decisions that Went Against the Grain
Even after Daniel was diagnosed, we would hear, “just leave him in his cot” — even though he’d feel sick?!? Not for us. We would cuddle and cradle Daniel throughout most nights. I feel the dread even typing this now. As evenings approached, I would hate the feeling of utter despair.
The unselfish act of comforting your baby whilst your entire being is screaming to go to sleep is unbearable. My partner, Matt and I split the night into two shifts, and this went on for over a year. We stood our ground, well almost. Matt and I constantly talk about if we were doing the right thing. We needed to consider everyone’s opinions but when it came down to it, even though it was painfully hard, we couldn’t let our Daniel cry it out or be left to self-soothe.
Theory on Attachment
We were determined to ensure our baby felt comforted by his parents. One strategy we all use to feel secure is to seek comfort. You see this a lot with babies and toddlers. I also think you see it in every human being; when people feel distressed, they seek comfort. That may be in food, drink or contact with someone else.
Now we are talking about a baby who is fed, clean and not tired. Imagine your baby is crying, you pick them up and cuddle them, maybe make soothing noises which your baby starts to slow their crying down until they stop. Comfort is a basic human condition.
If the parent offers comfort when the baby needs it, their brain will note this; “that bigger version of me always offers comfort so we can go to them next time”. As the baby grows to a toddler, it becomes a learnt behaviour, I seek comfort when distressed. The toddler doesn’t try to suppress their distress or shouts it loudly, they just come to you and you both do what you always do, probably have a cuddle.
As the toddler grows to an infant and then a teenager and then adult, they will continue to use their learnt behaviour strategy by seeking comfort rather than suppressing or shouting or using aggression.
Simply put; by learning to identify when comfort is needed and acting upon means secure attachment. Suppressing feelings means an avoidant attachment. By shouting or acting out means an ambivalent attachment.
Reflux Leaving its Mark
A 3-year-old That Panics
This is where I am going to assert my “mothers intuition”, it’s something you cannot prove but it’s a feeling you know has a place of meaning. It’s the unexplained which is wrapped in attunement and a deep connection.
Daniel takes soya milk to bed every night. From 1yrs old, he panics if he cannot hold his milk bottle whilst falling asleep, in fact, he can’t fall asleep unless he has his bottle. The bottle gives him some sort of security. Since he was born, acid reflux would have created a burning sensation inside his windpipe. I imagine the milk would have instantly soothed the burning feeling. Unfortunately, milk contributed to the reflux which complicated the matter. A vicious cycle that could not be explained to a baby or toddler.
Every time Daniel had a tummy ache, felt unwell or visited a hospital, you could see he was unsettled. He would feel on edge and begin to panic. He felt unsafe. Without consciously knowing it, Daniel’s amygdala had created a memory of negative experiences. Those tummy aches ended up chundering, the 5 visits to A&E due to his undiagnosed reflux were frightening. When a memory triggers a response through the brain stem; fight or flight, Daniel requires lots of love, support and comfort to remind him he is safe. NOT to be left alone.
The World is Not a Lonely Place
I don’t want him to think, the world is a lonely place where you must survive on your own. I want him to learn that he is surrounded by a family and community who supports each other. There is a sense of belonging and identity which I believe helps builds secure attachment. Urie Bronfenbrenner would explain it also contributes to healthy child development.
Daniel is clingy, tired and attention needing when he comes home from nursery. He begins to cry. I am unpacking rucksacks, taking off my coat, desperate for a wee, putting the oven on to begin making dinner and Stanley who has just learnt to walk is trying to climb on a very unstable box. What is going on through your mind? Are you listening to your self-talk? What do you think is a priority?
Daniel’s eyes are looking around, he’s doesn’t know what to do. I ask if he wants food or milk. If he goes for the milk option, I know we are in trouble. I hear the word “sausages”, I relax, I cuddle more, I ask if I can make him his dinner… we have a plan.
Moral of the Story
Moral of this story is giving enough comfort will help the person deal with distress rather than bottling it up or becoming too animated. Listen to yourself and trust your instinct by offering that love and comfort. When your inner voice is saying I can’t cope, also listen to that too and try to seek comfort yourself by asking for help. I know all our family circumstances are different and you may not live close to relatives or close friends; you might have to bribe them with chocolate to visit the house to get a couple of hours so you can look after yourself.
I pick Stanley up and put him on the floor We put Yakka Dee on the TV I go to the loo I sit on the kitchen floor and cuddle Daniel — his belly hurts
Jen x (I’m off to hunt for chocolate now that I’ve mentioned it) | https://medium.com/@raising2children/painful-reflux-leaving-its-mark-raising2children-3d459597e868 | [] | 2020-09-21 10:12:32.367000+00:00 | ['Attachment', 'Baby', 'Support', 'Reflux', 'Parenting'] |
The Key | Pine facets
wrapped tight
in prehistoric fortress,
the key to nature is
a wooden flower
Spirals unlocked by sun,
hot tongues seed
in aridity,
and germinate
intuitively
the fingerprints of life
In too tight a grip,
fingers are pricked
that manipulate
the process of balance | https://medium.com/loose-words/the-key-a66220fd7ed7 | ['Jessica Lee Mcmillan'] | 2020-12-14 14:05:03.913000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Intuition', 'Nature', 'Poetry', 'Balance'] |
An Alzheimer’s Drug Rises from the Ashes | Originally published on April 11, 2020 in Hopkins Biotech Network’s newsletter The Transcript (link)
Memories have a curious way of rising to the surface. Some memories are so salient that even the most subtle sensations — the aroma of freshly baked bread, a wafting perfume, a chorus of light rain — involuntarily catapults those memories into the forefront of one’s consciousness. Other memories are so elusive that they escape one’s grasp, even when pressed to retrieve them. Though many have experienced the latter situation from time-to-time, patients with Alzheimer’s Disease find themselves confronting such experiences with accelerating frequency. Alzheimer’s Disease is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder that occurs in about 17% of people age 75–84 and 32% of people age 85 or older, though it’s associated with a far more rapid decline in cognitive function than the forgetfulness often found in typical ageing (Alzheimer’s Association). Disabilities associated with the condition exert a burden on both patients and their caretakers, as shown by a 60 Minutes special report that documented a couple’s experience with Alzheimer’s Disease over a 10-year timespan. Despite its high prevalence and devastating effects, there are no treatments that either slow or reverse its progression. Or, at least it seemed so until Michel Vounatsos, CEO of the biotechnology company Biogen, surprised the world in late 2019 by announcing the company’s intention to file a request for FDA approval of its Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab (Biogen press release). Let’s explore why the filing surprised so many people in the drug development industry and the implications that aducanumab might have on the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Biogen’s Gauntlet
On the morning of October 22, 2019, Biogen hosted a routine conference call in which they presented their quarterly financial results and business updates, as do all public companies. This call, however, was far from routine. It outlined a path by which the company would file for FDA approval of their Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab, in early 2020. If approved, it would be the first drug to be brought to market for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Both the timing and the nature of the announcement caught listeners off-guard. Flabbergasted analysts inundated Biogen’s executive team with questions about aducanumab during the concluding Q&A portion of the call; the answers further inflamed their curiosities. Why was the announcement so widely unanticipated?
Seven months prior to the call, an independent data monitoring committee had conducted a statistical assessment of two pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials, which aimed to measure the safety and efficacy of aducanumab across a large and diverse Alzheimer’s patient population. Their analysis forecasted that neither of trials would demonstrate meaningful improvements in key clinical parameters of the disease, so on March 21, 2019, the company announced that it would discontinue both clinical trials. Given that the two Phase 3 trials, called ENGAGE and EMERGE, were critical in the procurement of FDA approval, it seemed extremely unlikely that aducanumab would enter the marketplace. So, what changed between March and October?
Samantha Budd Haeberlein, Vice President of Late Stage Clinical Research at Biogen, explained the company’s more recent analysis of the two clinical trials. It focused on results seen in a cohort of patients from the EMERGE study that had been treated with the highest dose of aducanumab and contextualized those results with trends seen in another patient cohort in the ENGAGE study. Patients treated with higher doses in the EMERGE trial displayed a 23–46% slower rate of cognitive decline, as determined by four different cognitive tests. However, these findings were inconsistent with the results of the almost identical ENGAGE trial, which actually suggested an increased rate of cognitive decline in treated versus untreated patients in two out of the four cognitive tests. The inconsistencies were explained to be caused by adjustments made to the trial protocol. Nevertheless, the company argued that the ENGAGE data “trended positive” and, therefore, supported the findings of the EMERGE trial.
Biogen’s announcement elicited polarizing reactions. Panelists at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease Conference (CTAD), held roughly two months after Biogen’s initial announcement, adopted an optimistic posture (FierceBiotech). One panelist, Dr. Paul Aisen, Director of the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, referred to the EMERGE trial data as a “hugely important result”. In contrast, life science analysts largely regarded Biogen’s move as unlikely to garner FDA approval, citing conflicts between the success of aducanumab in one trial and the failure of the drug in the other (Reuters). Biogen’s gauntlet, their biggest challenge as it relates to convincing FDA officials that the drug slows the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease, depends on their ability to reconcile the findings of both clinical trials. While the drug’s marketing approval hangs in the balance, so too does the state of a central theory of Alzheimer’s Disease.
The Amyloid Hypothesis
In his influential 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, author Thomas Kuhn coined the term ‘paradigm shift’ to describe a three-step process through which scientific fields have historically attained maturity (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). In the first step, which he refers to as ‘normal science’, the majority of research efforts revolve around a set of fundamental rules that comprise a central paradigm. It’s practically taken for granted that the central paradigm is true. In maturing scientific fields, a second step often arises that throws ‘normal science’ off balance. Certain experiments present anomalies that disagree with the central paradigm, so the scientific community enters a period of crisis. The third step is the one in which a ‘paradigm shift’ occurs and a new set of fundamental rules replace the old rules.
For instance, the now obsolete ‘miasma theory’ attributed toxic air derived from rotting matter to epidemics like cholera and tuberculosis. This theory persisted up until the late 1800’s, when the German physician Robert Koch identified microorganisms as the root cause of both diseases. Dr. Koch was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his findings and the medical field replaced ‘miasma theory’ with ‘germ theory’ as the central paradigm for explaining infectious disease.
Some argue that the ‘amyloid hypothesis’, which aims to explain one of the root causes of Alzheimer’s Disease, has reached a similar turning point. The hypothesis proposes that toxic aggregates of amyloid beta (Aβ) proteins cause cognitive deficits seen in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease by disrupting neuronal signaling in areas of the brain that are responsible for memory formation and retrieval. Several pieces of evidence support the amyloid hypothesis. Brain tissue from patients with Alzheimer’s Disease often contain Aβ plaques (Brain). Furthermore, people with heritable mutations in the gene APOE4 and individuals with Down syndrome harbor genetic changes that lead to increased levels of Aβ proteins and, coincidently, have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.
If Aβ plaques indeed cause the neurodegenerative disorder, it stands to reason that removing those plaques could either halt or reverse declines in cognitive function. Biogen’s drug, aducanumab, is an antibody that has been demonstrated to effectively bind and clear Aβ plaques from the brain, as corroborated by brain images of treated patients in both the EMERGE and ENGAGE clinical trials. Yet, those same patients fail to display consistent improvements in cognitive function. In 2016, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly announced that their Aβ-targeted antibody failed to demonstrate cognitive improvements in patients with mild Alzheimer’s Disease (Eli Lilly press release). In early 2020, both Eli Lilly and Roche reported that neither of their Aβ-targeted antibodies demonstrated cognitive improvements in patients with a rare, inherited form of early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease (Eli Lilly press release, Roche press release). Furthermore, a handful of drugs designed to inhibit proteins that lead to the formation of Aβ, like γ-secretase and β-secretase, similarly failed to demonstrate efficacy.
These anomalies have inspired questions as to whether Aβ plaques play the role of an innocent bystander, as opposed to being the direct cause of the neurodegenerative disease. Additionally, another protein, tau, also forms fibrillary tangles in areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s Disease, and there is reasonable speculation that targeting amyloid beta alone will not be a sufficient disease-modifying therapeutic approach (Nature Reviews Neurology). Consequently, the FDA’s assessment of Biogen’s aducanumab could serve as a cornerstone event that molds the scientific consensus surrounding the amyloid hypothesis. In an effort to remove uncertainty related to Biogen’s already completed Phase 3 clinical trials, FDA officials might ultimately suggest that the company conduct a third Phase 3 clinical trial that more definitively demonstrates the ability of aducanumab to delay cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. Nevertheless, the scientific field of neurodegenerative diseases might be due for a ‘paradigm shift’. The field ought to reorient around other promising theories of what causes Alzheimer’s Disease in order to devise novel therapeutic strategies that improve clinical outcomes for the millions of patients around the world that need it.
Update: Since the article was originally published, the FDA accepted Biogen’s BLA for aducanumab, with a PDUFA date of March 21, 2021(Biogen press release). There are mixed signals as to whether the drug will ultimately get approved. A document released on November 4, 2020 revealed that FDA staff scientists largely endorse approval of aducanumab, while the FDA advisory committee (composed of outside experts) who met on November 6, 2020 largely voted against its approval (STAT). | https://medium.com/@rvchikar/an-alzheimers-drug-rises-from-the-ashes-46757f9531e1 | ['Roshan Chikarmane'] | 2020-12-25 05:09:19.741000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Biotechnology', 'Pharmaceutical', 'Medicine', 'Science'] |
Object-Oriented Programming in C++ | Source: OnceHub
C++ is one of the most powerful languages currently present. And, believe it or not, one of the reasons it emerged, is support for OOP (object-oriented programming).
OOP means creating and interacting with objects instead of writing procedural code. If you imagine a human being as a class, for example, it may have subclasses of Female and Male, and so on. There are various benefits brought by OOP support in the language, however, that is out of the scope of the current discussion. The article aims at exploring how OOP is supported in C++.
As with any objects, C++ objects have methods and properties. Methods are represented as functions that can be used on a given object and properties are data about a given object. For example, a class Dog may have properties of the breed, color, age, and methods of run, bark, and so on. This is how a sample C++ class looks like:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; class Dog
{
//properties
char name[20];
char breed[20];
int age; public:
//methods
void run(){ cout << "Running" << endl;}
void bark(){
if (self.age<20) cout << "Hav-hav" << endl;
else cout << "Woof-woof" << endl;}
};
int main()
{
//barkie is an object of class Dog
Dog barkie;
}
Encapsulation
As in other OOP supporting languages, in C++, you put the data and functions associated with a certain class inside the class definition and therefore can make properties private and have public methods to modify them. For example, one may have getters and setters to access and modify data. Let’s extend our previous code to have this concept:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; class Dog
{
private:
//properties
char name[20];
char breed[20];
int age; public:
//methods
void run(){ cout << "Running" << endl;}
void bark(){
if (self.age<20) cout << "Hav-hav" << endl;
else cout << "Woof-woof" << endl;}
void setAge(int age){self.age = age;} // setter
int getAge() {return self.age;} // getter };
int main()
{
//barkie is an object of class Dog
Dog barkie;
barkie.setAge(20); //now barkie's age is 20
cout << barkie.getAge(); //this will print 20
}
Abstraction
It is possible in C++ to hide internal details of the program and provide only meaningful methods to execute them. For example, if something can be calculated inside the class using data and methods present, abstraction can be achieved by hiding those details and having only method call in the main part of the program. Looking at our example above, we do not care about how the bark of the dog is implemented, we call bark on our object and get the output expected.
Inheritance
Objects in C++ can also have parents and inherit their properties and methods. This makes it possible to build a basic class and extend it to newer objects. For example, we could have an Animal class and extend it to get Dog, Cat, and other classes.
class Animal {
// eat() function
// sleep() function
};
class Dog : public Animal {
// bark() function
}; class Cat: public Animal {
// meow() function
};
We could have a blueprint for an animal and later create similar functions. This powerful feature makes C++ even more powerful.
With the addition of inheritance, some aspects become vaguer. For example, are private features inherited? What about protected and public? The answer is quite simple. Private features are not inherited. If we want to restrict the access from outside the class, but want the property or method to be inherited we need to use protected. As it is logically expected, public ones can be accessed from anywhere and are inherited.
Now regarding how we inherit classes. In the examples above, we use public access mode. However, there are two more options possible: private and protected. Now on the differences:
Public access mode makes the class inherit everything as they are. For example, if age is public property in the parent’s definition, it is inherited as public. Private access mode makes everything private when inherited. Protected access mode converts all public members to protected.
Overriding is also possible in C++. If parent class and child class have a member with the same name, the child’s member is used.
Polymorphism
Last, but not least, polymorphism is also supported. It refers to the ability of the object to take on many forms. There are, in total, four ways to use polymorphism in C++: function overloading, operator overloading, function overriding, and virtual functions.
For example, two functions could have the same names and have different arguments. And then, depending on the arguments, one of them is called. This is called function overloading. Example code:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; int calcSalary(int base, int premium) {
return base + premium;
} double calcSalary(double ratio, double base) {
return base*ratio;
} int calcSalary(int base, int premium, int bonus) {
return base + premium + bonus;
} int main(void) {
cout << calcSalary(5, 10); //15 is printed
cout << calcSalary(0.5, 1500.0); //750 is printed
cout << calcSalary(1000, 100, 100); //1200 is printed
return 0;
}
Another possible option is operator overloading. Here, we can define a new logic for a usual operator we know. However, you cannot do it for primitive types, such as int, double, float, etc. Example:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; class Human {
private:
int age;
char name[20];
public:
void operator ++() {age = age + 1;} //operator overloading
void setAge(int age) {self.age = age;}
}; int main(void) {
Human fidan;
fidan.setAge(22);
fidan++; //now age is 23
}
As discussed in the previous section, functions can be overridden in child classes, and depending on the object calling this function, the same function can execute differently. For example, Animal class may have an “eat” function. If Dog class inherits from Animal and also has an “eat” function written explicitly in Dog, then if “eat” is called on Dog, it will perform what is in Dog’s specification. But if you call “eat” on Animal, its eat function will be performed. This is known as function overriding.
Another important concept in C++ is virtual functions. These functions are used when we use pointers of the parent class to point at child class. In this case, to make sure that the function is overridden, we have to use virtual keyword.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Parent {
public:
virtual void print() {cout << "I am the parent" << endl;}
};
class Child: public Base {
public:
void print() {cout << "I am the child" << endl;}
};
int main() {
Child childInstance;
Parent* parentPoint = &childInstance;
parentPoint->print(); //this will print "I am the child"
return 0;
}
Therefore, we have achieved overriding by making the parent’s function virtual. | https://medium.com/@frmusazade/object-oriented-programming-in-c-b4fdcd463991 | ['Fidan Musazade'] | 2020-11-22 19:11:24.309000+00:00 | ['Encapsulation', 'Object Oriented', 'Polymorphism', 'C Programming', 'C'] |
How is sentiment analysis used in the real world? | Sentiment analysis is a subfield of natural language processing (NLP). It is used in determining and classifying emotions or attitudes within text data using NLP algorithms. It allows companies to identify customer sentiment towards products, brands, or services through a vast corpus of unstructured text data available from social media, user reviews, chatbots, forums, and news.
In a previous post, we explained the technique’s method and took a high-level look at its applications. In this post, we’re going to explore in more detail some examples of sentiment analysis in the real world, looking at how companies and organizations have successfully deployed the technique to help them achieve their goals. If you want to integrate sentiment analysis in your business, talk to our team to get started.
What makes a good sentiment analysis model?
Before we analyze the real-world use cases in more detail, let’s clarify some of the key evaluation metrics necessary to assess the effectiveness of a sentiment analysis model:
Walber / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
Accuracy: the percentage of correctly predicted observation to the total observations. It is the most intuitive performance metric. However, it is only useful when the classes in your sentiment analysis model are balanced, i.e., the number of observations in each class (e.g., positive and negative sentiment) is roughly the same. When the classes are highly imbalanced, i.e., a class is highly outnumbered, the below metrics are more useful.
the percentage of correctly predicted observation to the total observations. It is the most intuitive performance metric. However, it is only useful when the classes in your sentiment analysis model are balanced, i.e., the number of observations in each class (e.g., positive and negative sentiment) is roughly the same. When the classes are highly imbalanced, i.e., a class is highly outnumbered, the below metrics are more useful. Precision: this expresses the proportion of the observations our model identified as relevant to those that actually were relevant. It answers the question: how many of the sentiments we classified as positive are actually positive?
this expresses the proportion of the observations our model identified as relevant to those that actually were relevant. It answers the question: how many of the sentiments we classified as positive are actually positive? Recall: this refers to the percentage of total relevant results correctly classified by your algorithm. It expresses the ability of the model to find all relevant instances in a dataset. It answers the question: of all the positive sentiments, how many of those we correctly predicted as positive?
this refers to the percentage of total relevant results correctly classified by your algorithm. It expresses the ability of the model to find all relevant instances in a dataset. It answers the question: of all the positive sentiments, how many of those we correctly predicted as positive? F1 score: by definition, there exists a trade-off between the precision and recall metrics. If both the precision and recall are essential for the use case, a simpler metric called the F1 score can be used. It is the harmonic mean of the precision and recall values.
Rules of thumb:
Accuracy works best if false positives (e.g., classifying a positive sentiment as negative) and false negatives (e.g., classifying a negative sentiment as positive) have a similar cost and distribution (or counts)
F1 score is best if you have an uneven class distribution
Maximize precision if you want to be more confident about your true positives
Pick recall if having more false positives is better than false negatives
AYLIEN: the news intelligence platform
Aylien provides an AI-powered text analytics API which allows businesses to generate insights from the vast amounts of world news. A few applications of their API:
Predicting the best picture category at the Oscars : using their API, they pulled news articles from 01/01/19 to 06/02/20 that featured a nominated movie title in its text. They divided the stories by positive and negative sentiment, excluding neutral sentiment stories. They observed spikes in media coverage across the movie release dates. Interestingly, far more attention has been given to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joker in terms of the number of news stories. Unfortunately, the amount of press attention did not reflect the eventual winner, Parasite, which gathered comparatively little buzz.
: using their API, they pulled news articles from 01/01/19 to 06/02/20 that featured a nominated movie title in its text. They divided the stories by positive and negative sentiment, excluding neutral sentiment stories. They observed spikes in media coverage across the movie release dates. Interestingly, far more attention has been given to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joker in terms of the number of news stories. Unfortunately, the amount of press attention did not reflect the eventual winner, Parasite, which gathered comparatively little buzz. Sentiment around the Brexit saga: Aylien used their news API to analyse the sentiment around Brexit from June 24, 2016 — the day the UK held a referendum on whether to leave or remain — and January 31, 2020 — the day the UK officially left the EU. Using a similar approach to the Oscars mentioned above, they observed that the media reaction was overwhelmingly negative. They also analysed the average sentiment regarding Brexit from stories coming from each EU country.
Aylien used their news API to analyse the sentiment around Brexit from June 24, 2016 — the day the UK held a referendum on whether to leave or remain — and January 31, 2020 — the day the UK officially left the EU. Using a similar approach to the Oscars mentioned above, they observed that the media reaction was overwhelmingly negative. They also analysed the average sentiment regarding Brexit from stories coming from each EU country. Entity-level sentiment analysis (ELSA): this accurately predicts the sentiment expressed around each entity in a body of text, even when the sentiment about each is different. It allows us to extract more granular insights, and see how every person, organization, and thing was being talked about in the media.
The following example from the Aylien research blog highlights the use of ELSA:
Consider a sentence with three different sentiments expressed about three different entities — “Jeb Bush is ok, but lyin’ Ted Cruz is the worst. He’ll never be as great as your president, Donald J Trump”.
Document-level sentiment analysis would only return a single, negative sentiment. ELSA managed to identify the entities and return a sentiment for each, showing a negative sentiment for Ted Cruz, neutral for Jeb Bush, and positive for Donald J Trump.
The team went on to perform ELSA on coverage of the Google I/O conference and tracked the sentiment around 20 different entities, illustrating a broader and more detailed application of the technique.
Learn more about the process and discoveries at Aylien research blog.
KPMG: sentiment analysis on sustainability reporting
A sustainability report is a report published by a company or organization that covers the economic, environmental, and social impacts caused by its everyday activities. A sustainability report is vital for communicating sustainability performance and impacts — whether positive or negative. One of the departments at KPMG, a top auditing company, read client’s sustainability reports to provide an opinion on whether they can be published. By Global Reporting Initiative standards, the report is required to be balanced, i.e., reflects both positive and negative aspects of a company’s performance so that stakeholders can make a good assessment of the performance.
The issue is that the report is verified only by a single person in the sustainability department, and it is a matter of their opinion whether the report is balanced or not. Thus, the task was to make this balance measurable (quantitative) for the clients by leveraging sentiment analysis algorithms.
A frequent challenge we see at super.AI is handling nuance in data labeling, and this was a problem faced by the team at KPMG, as even negative statements were worded positively:
Due to this, they couldn’t use existing sentiment analysis solutions or models, as they were trained on the wrong kind of data. Thus, they obtained 8,000 newly labeled “sustainability sentiment” sentences.
They tried the following methods for sentiment analysis with little success:
Commercial: Heaven on Demand, Rosetta, Text-processing.com
Open source: Stanford Sentiment Treebank, Textblob
Self-trained: TensorFlow neural network pre-trained on 50,000 movie reviews
However, all these models disagreed. And most positively worded negative sentiments were still being predicted as positive.
To overcome these problems, they needed a model that could understand the context better. Hence, they used BERT or Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers. It is a pre-trained language representation model introduced by Google. More specifically, they used the BERT base (12 layers in the network) model instead of BERT large (24 layers).
They found huge improvements in the per-class (negative, positive, and neutral) classification accuracy, precision, and F score compared to the previous methods.
Learn more here.
McKinsey City Voices project
The urban-planning department of Brazil recruited McKinsey, a leading consulting firm, to develop a tool called City Voices that captures and analyses citizens’ sentiment across key aspects of city life to help leaders understand what matters most to their constituents.
McKinsey conducted a thorough study of different citizens and journeys, identified a list of more than 150 different metrics, and then whittled them down to a key 30, which were then subjected to sentiment analysis algorithms to arrive at the insights that could underpin public policy.
Learn more in McKinsey’s Voices on Infrastructure issue.
Do you know any creative or powerful examples of sentiment analysis in the real world or need help using sentiment analysis in your business? Reach out to us and let us know.
We’re going to continue exploring various techniques and use cases in the world of NLP over the coming weeks, so stay tuned to our blog to learn more. | https://medium.com/mysuperai/how-is-sentiment-analysis-used-in-the-real-world-3ffa580d5079 | ['Enrique Garcia'] | 2020-09-28 08:16:58.973000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Data Science'] |
Unconventional Ways to Motivate Your Team in 2021 | Unconventional Ways to Motivate Your Team in 2021
Leadership when it’s not ‘business as usual.’
Photo credit: Mitchell Luo
Let’s face it: this year was tough. Next year might prove nearly as challenging. Times like these have fundamentally changed what it means to be a leader. It’s no longer just about driving short-term results — building sustainable teams and processes is more important.
All the while, those at the helm are charged with demonstrating authenticity, encouraging others to be themselves while maintaining the integrity of organizational culture.
The challenges are immense, but so are the opportunities. A long-term focus creates the need for better incentive alignment. Honesty allows us to get to the root of problems faster. And a world in which the individual is celebrated paves the way to more effective collaboration.
Ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table
It’s not enough to get it right once anymore. Winners are replicating success by facilitating the right teams, processes, and most importantly, incentives.
Have you ever heard of the “agency problem”? Economists define this as:
“A conflict of interest inherent in any relationship where one party is expected to act in another’s best interests.”
For example, let’s say Jon wants to start and own a consulting business. If he hires two employees to work on the business and only rewards them with minimum wage, they have no incentive to think like an owner.
However, this problem could be mostly solved if Jon gave the two employees a reason to work harder, such as stock options or performance-based bonuses. A classic case of incentive alignment.
Such a mechanism becomes even more important when we zoom out to examine companies with shareholders. CEOs are tasked with driving stakeholder profits, but often act on their own interests to maximize wealth. Without a system in place, this should be expected since it’s human nature.
Because it’s not the player, it’s the game.
The good news is, in a world where long-term visions are gradually overtaking short-term targets, this might become less of a problem. As leaders, employees, investors, customers, and the world begin to prioritize sustainable outcomes, incentive alignment is being spoken of more often.
The most tangible way I’ve seen this play out is the transition from customer acquisition to retention. When a business changes their key metric from reducing customer acquisition costs (CAC) to improving lifetime value (LTV), they are making a statement.
That keeping a customer matters more than the costs of acquiring them. As you might imagine, this can cause a ripple effect across an organization, shifting everyone’s focus from “bait and hook” to “surprise and delight”.
Having honest conversations about real problems
Live virtual events and meetings bring a certain sense of excitement.
Because they’re not always scripted or rehearsed, which creates an environment in which serendipity and transparency are possible. There’s only so much you can prepare, and that’s a good thing.
Real-time conversations force us to draw from experience, rely on intuition, and say how we truly feel. Instead of one-way dialogue, interactive experiences are about co-creation. You’re learning more about yourself as you speak, and hopefully imparting some lessons to others at the same time.
It’s a journey, not a destination.
And such gatherings are more important than ever before. After hearing “all things considered” during every call or witnessing the perils of miscommunication due to less time in-person, we know this to be true.
So instead of controlling the discussion, it behooves leaders to participate. By striking a balance between your personal and professional lives, prompting others to speak their mind, and fostering a community as opposed to a cult.
That’s how leaders harness the power of authenticity to solve problems faster.
Bringing the best out of individuals and their teams
This year has made it clear that at the end of the day, we’re on our own.
Which isn’t good or bad, it just is. We’re all responsible for our own health, financial security, upward mobility, and career trajectory. The only difference from years past is that the lesson came to us as less of a frog in boiling water and more of an emergency crash course.
Similar to how the Great Recession influenced Generation X’s perspectives, the pandemic will change our way of thinking about work and fulfillment. You might be thinking that this makes the job of a leader only harder.
I say the opposite.
Instead of having to be the source of motivation, leaders can and should ask teams to take matters into their own hands. Let individuals find their drive, searching across the landscape for hints of impact from customer testimonials, revenue growth, and user success stories. Then reward them for performance.
After all:
“True leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.” — Tom Peretz
We’re better off designing systems as opposed to a patchwork of parts. Especially when the not-so-distant future looks so opaque and unpredictable. Instead of offering prescriptive advice, organizations will benefit from having the proper guardrails in place.
Structuring the right incentives, deploying radical honesty, and providing autonomy will empower happier, more effective teams come 2021. | https://medium.com/swlh/unconventional-ways-to-motivate-your-team-in-2021-710bf46fefc5 | ['Sid Khaitan'] | 2020-12-28 19:02:46.669000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Culture', 'Teamwork', 'Collaboration', 'Leadership'] |
Adulting? | I’m just curious.
I have officially entered Adulthood,
but I’m mentally stuck in my teens.
What is it like to be an adult?
Is adulting nice?
I’m beginning to know,
how the whole of adulting
is to make you follow the norm, make you
take the “easier way out” that masquerades as being “practical”.
Whatever happened to “take more risks”.
To be an adult is to banish and crush those,
who challenge the norms
who dare to pursue the road not taken, to dust.
Yet, celebrate some, who have made it through all these challenges.
I’m not saying it is not impossible to make it.
but I don’t get why does it have to be so hard?
Instead of material wealth, if success is defined as how much of it was what YOU wanted,
many of us might be miserable failures.
I might be wrong,
I might not achieve my goals,
but it is still a 100% better than,
making my life a collection of others opinions.
Adulting
shouldn’t make you more fearful-
of making the wrong decisions,
fear of being left behind.
Adulting,
just like a bird
should make you spread your wings and fly free. | https://medium.com/@poojahariharan/adulting-66b1cea2c4fa | ['Pooja Hariharan'] | 2021-02-14 10:01:06.864000+00:00 | ['Goals', 'Growth', 'Life', 'Adulting', 'Poetry'] |
Casey Bell’s Insights on Writing, Art and Life | Casey Bell is an author, playwright, screenwriter, poet, and A.S.C.A.P. songwriter. As an author he has published over twenty books in multiple genres from poetry to children to horror to non-fiction to young adult. His latest work, American History is a children’s book series. He has also authored many plays one of which has been produced three times, twice for the stage and once as a play reading for YouTube. He has also produced a short film for YouTube. Casey Bell is also a member of A.S.C.A.P. as a songwriter. His motto in life is to be as unique as your fingerprints. Learn more about Casey here. Credit: Casey Bell, Theatre Art Life
Casey Bell’s Book Club — Visit Here | Audio Interview — Visit Here | https://medium.com/kreative-circle/casey-bells-insights-on-writing-art-and-life-e07c26b9aee0 | ['Kreative Circle'] | 2020-12-21 03:15:39.927000+00:00 | ['Artist', 'Writer', 'Songwriter', 'Design', 'Books'] |
Amazon CloudSearch For Dummies | I. A Brief Introduction to Database Searching
Nowadays, there are so much information on the internet which may overwhelm the users. It’s hard to find exactly what they need. Let’s face it. Users are lazy. They are not going to browse through your entire websites or web apps for what they need. The harder it is to find what they need, the faster they leave. In other words, it matters to make your content search-friendly because that’s how you get more user. More user means more money to your pay cheque. This leads us to another problem.
Making searching easy, fast and accurate has traditionally required a lot of hard work. You have to:
Set up servers
Install configured search software
Write a bunch of code to integrate your search functionality into your app.
This complexity slows the development of new apps, and there is an extra layer of infrastructure that needs to be managed, scaled, tuned and upgraded. One of the most common challenges for search is trying to determine the optimal amount of hardware you need to meet the demand for both the data indexing and the volume of traffic to your site. Getting this wrong could lead to excess capacity. As a result, it would cost you extra money and resources, or worse: not meeting the demand of your costumers’ search requests, leaving them with slow or broken search functionality.
However, what if you can replace all of this complex search engine hardware and software infrastructure with a simple cloud-based search service that can manage everything for you?
II. What is Amazon CloudSearch
Amazon CloudSearch is an automatically scaling, cloud-based search service. It can be integrated into other applications. It offers:
Fully managed and fully- featured search service.
Automatically scales for data & traffic.
Handling both structured and unstructured data. Structured data is comprised of clearly defined data types whose pattern make the easily searchable such as: names, dates, address, credit card number etc. Unstructured data is comprised of data that is not easily searchable, including formats like audio, video and social media posting.
is comprised of clearly defined data types whose pattern make the easily searchable such as: names, dates, address, credit card number etc. is comprised of data that is not easily searchable, including formats like audio, video and social media posting. Near real-time indexing.
Up and running in less than 1 hour.
III. How Search Works & What Cloudsearch can offer
Let’s take a look at the image below, for the sake of simplicity.
What we have above is the representation of the search result for the keyword eyelash. On the right side is the relevance/ranking of our search result. On the left side we have the faceting for our search. Facets are a way to add specific, relevant options to search result pages or category listing, so that when users search for a product or browse categories they can see where in your catalogue they have ended up.
Filters use certain product data as visible criteria visitors can use to refine the list of product. On the other hand, facets take it one step further and allow users to narrow results by several dimensions simultaneously such as: range searching, boolean searching, field searching. As a result, users will have a more complex relevance for what they’re looking for.
To make it easy for developers, Amazon CloudSearch offers full-featured search:
Free Text (about 34 languages, plus “multiple” to handle mixed language fields), structured data and boolean search
faceting
Customizable relevance ranking
Fielded and range search
result sorting
Text Processing options
Near real-time indexing
IV. Amazon CloudSearch Architecture
You interact with Amazon CloudSearch through three services:
Configuration service: The configuration service enables you to create and configure search domains. To set up a search domain, you give it a unique name and configure indexing options, text analysis schemes, availability options, scaling options, suggesters, and expressions
The configuration service enables you to create and configure search domains. To set up a search domain, you give it a unique name and configure indexing options, text analysis schemes, availability options, scaling options, suggesters, and expressions Document service: You use the document service to make changes to a domain’s searchable data. Each domain has a unique document service HTTP endpoint.
You use the document service to make changes to a domain’s searchable data. Each domain has a unique document service HTTP endpoint. Search service: The search service handles search and suggestion requests for a domain. Each domain has a unique search HTTP endpoint. When you send a search or suggest request, the search service returns a list of matching documents. Results can be returned in either JSON or XML.
V. Understanding Amazon CloudSearch Limits
Although Amazon CloudSearch is a well managed search engine, it also has limits.
VI. Amazon CloudSearch Integration
AWS Lambda natively supports Java, Go, PowerShell, Node.js, C#, Python, and Ruby code, and provides a Runtime API which allows you to use any additional programming languages to author your functions.
There are 3 main APIs:
1. Search:
Retrieves a list of documents that match the specified search criteria. How you specify the search criteria depends on which query parser you use. Amazon CloudSearch supports four query parsers:
simple : search all text and text-array fields for the specified string. Search for phrases, individual terms, and prefixes.
: search all and fields for the specified string. Search for phrases, individual terms, and prefixes. structured : search specific fields, construct compound queries using Boolean operators, and use advanced features such as term boosting and proximity searching.
: search specific fields, construct compound queries using Boolean operators, and use advanced features such as term boosting and proximity searching. lucene : specify search criteria using the Apache Lucene query parser syntax.
: specify search criteria using the Apache Lucene query parser syntax. dismax : specify search criteria using the simplified subset of the Apache Lucene query parser syntax defined by the DisMax query parser.
Parameters syntax:
$result = $client->search([
'cursor' => '<string>',
'expr' => '<string>',
'facet' => '<string>',
'filterQuery' => '<string>',
'highlight' => '<string>',
'partial' => true || false,
'query' => '<string>', // REQUIRED
'queryOptions' => '<string>',
'queryParser' => 'simple|structured|lucene|dismax',
'return' => '<string>',
'size' => <integer>,
'sort' => '<string>',
'start' => <integer>,
'stats' => '<string>',
]);
Since there are many of them, we will go through the most common in a search:
cursor <String> : Retrieves a cursor value you can use to page through large result sets. Use the size parameter to control the number of hits to include in each response. You can specify either the cursor or start parameter in a request; they are mutually exclusive. To get the first cursor, set the cursor value to initial .
: Retrieves a cursor value you can use to page through large result sets. Use the parameter to control the number of hits to include in each response. You can specify either the or parameter in a request; they are mutually exclusive. To get the first cursor, set the cursor value to . expr<String>: Defines one or more numeric expressions that can be used to sort results or specify search or filter criteria. You specify the expressions in JSON using the form {"EXPRESSIONNAME":"EXPRESSION"} . You can define and use multiple expressions in a search request. For example: {"expression1":"_score*rating", "expression2":"(1/rank)*year"}
Defines one or more numeric expressions that can be used to sort results or specify search or filter criteria. You specify the expressions in JSON using the form . You can define and use multiple expressions in a search request. For example: facet<String>: specifies one or more fields for which to get facet information, and options that control how the facet information is returned. You can specify the following faceting options: buckets, size, sort
specifies one or more fields for which to get facet information, and options that control how the facet information is returned. You can specify the following faceting options: query<String>: Specifies the search criteria for the request. How you specify the search criteria depends on the query parser used for the request and the parser options specified in the queryOptions parameter.
Specifies the search criteria for the request. How you specify the search criteria depends on the query parser used for the request and the parser options specified in the parameter. queryParser<String>: Specifies which query parser to use to process the request. If queryParser is not specified, Amazon CloudSearch uses the simple query parser. There are 4 types: simple : perform simple searches of text and text-array fields, structured : perform advanced searches by combining multiple expressions to define the search criteria, lucene : search using the Apache Lucene query parser syntax and dismax : search using the simplified subset of the Apache Lucene query parser syntax defined by the DisMax query parser
Specifies which query parser to use to process the request. If is not specified, Amazon CloudSearch uses the query parser. There are 4 types: : perform simple searches of and fields, : perform advanced searches by combining multiple expressions to define the search criteria, : search using the Apache Lucene query parser syntax and : search using the simplified subset of the Apache Lucene query parser syntax defined by the DisMax query parser size <long, int or float> : Specifies the maximum number of search hits to include in the response.
: Specifies the maximum number of search hits to include in the response. start<long, int or float>: Specifies the offset of the first search hit you want to return. Note that the result set is zero-based; the first result is at index 0. You can specify either the start or cursor parameter in a request, they are mutually exclusive.
This the common result syntax:
[
'facets' => [
'<String>' => [
'buckets' => [
[
'count' => <integer>,
'value' => '<string>',
],
// ...
],
],
// ...
],
'hits' => [
'cursor' => '<string>',
'found' => <integer>,
'hit' => [
[
'exprs' => ['<string>', ...],
'fields' => [
'<String>' => ['<string>', ...],
// ...
],
'highlights' => ['<string>', ...],
'id' => '<string>',
],
// ...
],
'start' => <integer>,
],
'stats' => [
'<String>' => [
'count' => <integer>,
'max' => '<string>',
'mean' => '<string>',
'min' => '<string>',
'missing' => <integer>,
'stddev' => <float>,
'sum' => <float>,
'sumOfSquares' => <float>,
],
// ...
],
'status' => [
'rid' => '<string>',
'timems' => <integer>,
],
]
2. Suggest:
Retrieves autocomplete suggestions for a partial query string. You can use suggestions enable you to display likely matches before users finish typing.
Parameters syntax:
$result = $client->suggest([
'query' => '<string>', // REQUIRED
'size' => <integer>,
'suggester' => '<string>', // REQUIRED
]);
query<String>: specifies the string for which you want to get suggestions.
specifies the string for which you want to get suggestions. size<long, int or float>: specifies the maximum number of suggestions to return.
specifies the maximum number of suggestions to return. suggester<String>: Specifies the name of the suggester to use to find suggested matches.
Result Syntax
[
'status' => [
'rid' => '<string>',
'timems' => <integer>,
],
'suggest' => [
'found' => <integer>,
'query' => '<string>',
'suggestions' => [
[
'id' => '<string>',
'score' => <integer>,
'suggestion' => '<string>',
],
// ...
],
],
]
3. UploadDocuments
Posts a batch of documents to a search domain for indexing. A document batch is a collection of add and delete operations that represent the documents you want to add, update, or delete from your domain. Batches can be described in either JSON or XML.
Parameter Syntax
$result = $client->uploadDocuments([
'contentType' => 'application/json|application/xml', // REQUIRED
'documents' => <string || resource || Psr\Http\Message\StreamInterface>, // REQUIRED
]);
contentType<String>: The format of the batch you are uploading. Amazon CloudSearch supports two document batch formats: application/json, application/xml
The format of the batch you are uploading. Amazon CloudSearch supports two document batch formats: application/json, application/xml documents<string|resource|Psr\Http\Message\StreamInterface>: A batch of documents formatted in JSON or HTML.
Result Syntax
[
'adds' => <integer>,
'deletes' => <integer>,
'status' => '<string>',
'warnings' => [
[
'message' => '<string>',
],
// ...
],
]
VII. Setting up Amazon CloudSearch
Setting up amazon CloudSearch is quite simple through the CloudSearch’s management console.
First we log in to CloudSearch using our credentials and create a domain
Tap on Create a new Domain
In the next screen choose your domain name and desired instance type:
We can have many options to configure our CloudSearch Domain, but in this tutorial we will use manual configuration
After that we will choose the field we want to create for CloudSearch
Next we will choose the access policy. Since this is a demo we will allow all access:
In the next screen, check to make sure everything configuration is correct then click confirm
After clicking confirm button it will take a while to index your CloudSearch.
When it’s done you can see the dashboard in the management tool
Starting from there you can upload your document to CloudSearch.
Resources | https://medium.com/mti-technology/amazon-cloudsearch-for-dummies-3dfdada10c22 | ['Kiem Ngoc To'] | 2020-12-21 08:00:51.827000+00:00 | ['Mti Technology', 'Amazon Cloudsearch', 'Database Searching', 'Cloudsearch', 'Mti'] |
Update Queries without changing RecyclerView Adapter using FirebaseUI — Android 🔥 | FirebaseUI
In this article, you will learn how to change Firebase Realtime Database/Cloud Firestore queries without changing the whole adapter of a RecyclerView in Android by using the FirebaseUI-Android library.
Let’s say you need to populate a list using RecyclerView to show data loaded from Firebase Realtime Database or Cloud Firestore and you have implemented a custom RecyclerView.Adapter to hold data or you used FirebaseUI-Android which is an official open-source library developed by the Firebase team. In this article, we’re going to use the FirebaseUI-Android library.
We’ll load data from Firebase Realtime Database/Cloud Firestore and populate a RecyclerView (Simple + Paginated) using the adapter. After that, we’ll change/filter the query based on some user interaction at runtime without changing whole adapter.
In the end, you will see app like this 👇. After clicking on one of the buttons, data in RecyclerView will be replaced by new data. | https://medium.com/firebase-developers/update-queries-without-changing-recyclerview-adapter-using-firebaseui-android-32098b3082b2 | ['Shreyas Patil'] | 2020-03-13 14:56:59.620000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Cloud Firestore', 'Firebase', 'Recyclerview', 'Kotlin'] |
Tips on Dui Legal Lawsuit through DUI Legal Professional | Drunk driving and intoxicated driving charges are very major, and the law utilizes such cases to set an example. The charges and laws surrounding such charges differ from state to state, as do the possible improvements that can increase the severity of the charges.
Increased DUI Class Changes
Potential improvements depend upon a number of aspects, however the most common types of enhancements to dui charges include running a motor lorry with a BAC of 0.15% or higher, intoxicated driving with a minor as a traveler, driving under the influence that causes another person physical injury, and dui that causes the death of another individual. Listed below you will discover a short description of the most typical types of drunk driving charges in the United States.
Intensified DUI and DUI School Techniques
An intensified DUI is any typical DUI charge, however with improvements. See enhancement examples above. Intensified DUI charges are the very same thing as Felony DUI charges, which is the term utilized in a lot of states. Additional exacerbated DUI offenses consist of DUI in a school zone, operating a school bus under the influence of drugs or alcohol, driving intoxicated without a valid license, having numerous convictions within a short time frame, and more.
Drugged Driving (DUID) Lead To DUI Classes and School
Alcohol is not the only substance that can cause a DUI arrest. Operating a lorry while under the influence of Arrange I or Arrange II drugs, whether legal or unlawful, can cause a DUID charge in a lot of states, which stands for "driving under the influence of drugs." A policeman can lawfully apprehend you for https://reclaimucounseling.com/classes/court-ordered-drug-and-alcohol-classes/ a DUID charge merely based upon an affordable suspicion that such drugs remain in your system.
DUI Deaths
Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is a serious criminal activity in itself, but couple it with a mishap and the charges worsen. For instance, in Indiana, DUI-related accidents are identified as Felony DUI charges and come with severe penalties.
DUI Murder
When DUI mishaps end with deaths, the charges increase to DUI murder. Although the casualties in these cases are unintended, the charge still includes very extreme charges in a lot of states. DUI murder is a Level 5 Felony, which is a very major charge.
Felony DUI Penalties include Loss of License and DUI Classes
First-offense DUI charges are normally misdemeanors. However with improvements or previous convictions, DUI charges turn into a felony really quickly. Such elements include numerous convictions, deaths, presence of kids, physical damage, home damage, and more. With the help of a tough defense legal representative, felony DUI charges can sometimes be lowered to lower felonies or misdemeanors.
Misdemeanor DUI
A normal DUI charge is a misdemeanor criminal activity, unless there are enhancements included, or an individual has prior DUI convictions within a particular time frame (typically 5 to ten years). Very first time DUI offenses are Class C misdemeanors, however with BAC levels greater than 0.15%, they jump to Class A misdemeanors. With the assistance of a legal representative, Level 6 felony DUI's can usually be decreased to DUI misdemeanors.
Property Damage DUI
When a DUI accident ends with home damages, the penalties and fines increase considerably. An individual can expect longer jail time, harsher sentencing arrangements, and severe fines. And although these are thought about aggravated DUIs, they are not always charged as felonies. However, if residential or commercial property damages are comprehensive, the charge is most likely to increase to a charge.
Minor DUI
Most states have a "per se" stance on minor drinking and driving. This implies there is a zero-tolerance guideline for minor drinking. Anybody under the age of 21, the national legal legal age, is prohibited to consume or purchase liquors. Minor drinking is a criminal activity in itself but integrated with driving and DUI charges, minor drinkers deal with serious penalties. Requirement charges consist of license suspension, prison time, probation, significant fines, neighborhood service, and diversion programs. | https://medium.com/@paleri1nwp/tips-on-dui-legal-lawsuit-through-dui-legal-professional-f46257d104e4 | [] | 2019-10-09 11:31:59.344000+00:00 | ['Prison Reform'] |
Data Challenges Superiority of Manualized Psychotherapy | New data fails to support the promotion of manualized psychotherapy as superior to non-manualized forms of psychotherapy.
By Zenobia Morrill
Photo Credit: Flickr
A recent systematic review comparing manualized psychotherapy to non-manualized psychotherapy has challenged the ongoing promotion of psychotherapy manuals as a necessary part of evidence-based treatments (EBTs). Researchers, Dr. Femke Truijens and colleagues in Europe, found that manualized psychotherapy is no more superior to psychotherapy delivered without a manual.
“Manualized treatment is not empirically supported as more effective than non-manualized treatment. While manual‐based treatment may be attractive as a research tool, it should not be promoted as being superior to non-manualized psychotherapy for clinical practice.”
Psychotherapy treatment manuals are intended to direct therapists in the application of their approach. Manualized treatments specify a theoretical basis, the number and sequencing of treatment sessions, the content and objectives of each session, and the procedures required to achieve the objective of each session. The use of manuals have been embraced, and at times required, by overseeing institutions such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
“This requirement captures the assumption that it is more effective to apply manualized treatment than to provide treatment in a less or nonmanualized form. As this assumption seems vital to justify the dissemination of manual‐based EBTs to clinical practice, in this paper, we review the empirical evidence for this assumption,” Truijens and colleagues explain.
They note that in clinical practice, there has been pushback to manualized approaches and the utility of manuals has been critiqued. Scholars and psychotherapists have expressed concerns that manuals inhibit flexible application of approaches, and impedes on one’s ability to tailor therapy to individual needs or adapt interventions to multiple, or “comorbid” presentations of distress.
In addition, manuals tend to be constructed around diagnostic presentations such that specific approaches are delineated for specific “disorders.” Practitioners critique the feasibility of mastering each approach. One response to these concerns has been to encourage the flexible adaptation of treatment manuals. For example, through the use of “transdiagnostic” manuals.
Nevertheless, the research has been focused on how to apply manuals rather than on whether or not manualized approaches are more effective. To address this gap in the literature, the authors consider the following questions:
“Does the use of manuals actually increase therapy effectiveness? And should manuals, therefore, be embraced in clinical practice and training?”
Truijens and team sought to add to this discussion by reviewing the empirical evidence. They write, “Given the current requirement of manuals as the core of evidence-based psychotherapy, it seems crucial to substantiate this discussion with empirical evidence.”
In this systematic review, the research team evaluated whether or not manual-based psychotherapy was more effective than psychotherapy delivered without a manual. They also examined the efficacy of manualized and non-manualized psychotherapies as compared to no treatment, delayed-treatment, minimal treatment, or alternative treatment control groups. Lastly, they examined lower levels of therapist adherence to the manual. The hypothesis was that if manualized therapy is indeed more effective, then the extent to which the therapist adhered to the manual would be linked to effectiveness.
To explore these three hypotheses, Truijens and colleagues conducted a systematic review of the existing literature. For the first hypothesis, they examined six relevant empirical studies. Eight meta-analytic studies applied to the second hypothesis and one meta-analysis of 15 studies was used to explore the last hypothesis regarding manual adherence.
Their results did not support the superiority of manualized psychotherapy compared with non-manualized psychotherapy. The researchers review of the six articles comparing manualized and non-manualized therapy directly found that three studies yielded no significant difference between the two, two observed superiority of non-manualized therapy, and one supported manualized delivery. The one study that did support manualized psychotherapy was interpreted by the authors to have been started “from a single specific intervention that appeared to be exceptionally effective, regardless of the administration via a manual.”
When manualized and non-manualized psychotherapy was compared with no treatment, delayed treatment, minimal treatment, or alternatives, the superiority of manualized psychotherapy was also not conclusively supported. Out of the eight meta-analyses reviewed, three demonstrated an advantage of using manualized therapy, one indicated the superiority of non-manualized delivery, and four showed no significant difference. The authors interpreted these findings:
“Here, we have to remark that it is fairly complex to meaningfully compare effect sizes of treatments that are so different in nature, given their varied understanding and operationalization of treatment, control groups, diagnosis, and outcome. First and foremost, this underlines how the universal hypothesis of manual efficacy is in trouble with respect to empirical support, both as a direct and as a moderating factor.”
Finally, when therapist adherence to the manual was explored, results were similarly inconclusive. One meta-analysis found that the degree of therapist adherence to the manual did not affect outcomes. The remaining 15 studies provided unclear results. Truijens and team comment on these findings:
“As such, the suggestion that adherence and fidelity to treatment principles may impact a positive treatment outcome remains a worthwhile avenue for further research. However, as an indicator for ethe fficacy of the manual as a general principle for clinical practice, this conflicting body of evidence is insufficient.”
The findings of this study do not support the superiority of manual-use in psychotherapy. The authors write that the failure to corroborate this claim “points to a severe problem in the justification of EBT dissemination.” In their conclusion, Truijens and team encourages consideration beyond the question of “manual or no manual?” toward the components and steps of the therapy process required to attend to different people and different presentations.
“Based on this review, we are not inclined to call for more research to settle the dispute about manualization in general; rather, we urge both researchers and clinicians to go beyond the dichotomy, as the next step in understanding what works for whom in psychotherapy.”
****
Truijens, F., Zühlke‐van Hulzen, L., & Vanheule, S. (2018). To manualize, or not to manualize: Is that still the question? A systematic review of empirical evidence for manual superiority in psychological treatment. Journal of clinical psychology. DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22712 (Link) | https://medium.com/mad-in-america/data-challenges-superiority-of-manualized-psychotherapy-885805ba85c6 | ['Mad In America'] | 2018-12-20 21:47:03.670000+00:00 | ['Depression', 'Suicide', 'Medicine', 'Mental Health', 'Mental Illness'] |
Guardrails for Funding Rates | A couple of months of activity and trades on the Leverj perpetuals markets has given us a good sense of how funding rates are playing out on the platform. Curious minds may want to look at our weekly funding rate publications.
On a few occasions the intermittent absence of quotes or widening of spread led to sharp funding rate increases. Consider reading the detailed notes on how funding rate is calculated for the perpetual markets. Also, dig into how funding payout impacts liquidation and deleveraging.
If the futures price and the underlying index is naturally diverging then high funding rates are expected and in line with derivatives market behavior. However, we wanted to put a few checks and balances in place to make sure any small quote adjustment windows or widening of spread for a split second didn’t adversely and disproportionately impact the rates. Some of the rate spikes were because of such intermittent samples and so we want to address it proactively.
You may recall from the funding rate math discussion that we take 60 samples every hour. These samples go into the calculation of the hourly rates. We have made a minor but important modification to how we consider this sample. If any of these samples are taken at a time during a sudden blip, when the spread between bid and ask is beyond a specified amount, then it is dampened by bounding it to a maximum value.
Let’s walk through an example to illustrate what we are doing. Consider the case where we have both bids and asks on the book on a given minute, when we collect one of the 60 samples. The average of the best bid and the best ask is considered the futures price for that particular sample. The difference between the futures price and the underlying index for this particular sample contributes towards the calculation of the funding rates. Details are explained in a previous post titled: Funding Rates and Payments.
With our new guardrails, we look for relative divergence and make sure it never exceed the specified tolerance limits. That is:
|index_price - futures_price| / index_price < tolerance limit (or bound)
If the relative divergence is above the tolerance limit or bound, we simply take that tolerance limit into ascertaining the specific sample. Remember, that a specific sample has 1/60th impact into the funding rate for that hour.
This simple modification allows us to facilitate fair markets, while containing disproportionate impact from unintended momentary issues.
The current tolerance limit is set at 3% and could be adjusted in future.
Funding rate has been a topic of discussion among our early adopters. We appreciate the feedback and support from our community and do hope that this minor but important change makes for a better trading experience. Thank you for being part of this exciting journey! | https://blog.leverj.io/guardrails-for-funding-rates-8f2b2da31396 | [] | 2021-01-28 14:02:54.227000+00:00 | ['English', 'Announcements', 'Perpetual Contracts', 'weekly funding rate publications', 'Funding'] |
HTMLAudioElement Can Decode Encoded Strings | I was messing around with Google Cloud’s Text to Speech API and wanted to test it out by making the call on a Rails backend and receiving the response with a React frontend and playing the sound.
I won’t go into how to use the Google Cloud Text to Speech SDK Gem for Rails, but needless to say, the example code given in the documentation has everything you need.
I will, however, walk through how I made the call to Google Cloud to get the “sound” of the text I sent it.
I created an App called “Du It!” which I made specifically to make reading novels in Mandarin easier for learners of Mandarin who speak English.
https://youtu.be/VHXAkeIC1_0
In my Rails API, I have a model called ‘Word.’ A new instance is created when a user looks up words in the app itself. Upon instantiation, a separate request to Google Cloud Translate gets the English definition, while a useful gem I found provides the pronunciation for the given word.
Now for the audio.
The request to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech is made when a user clicks on the character for the gender of voice located on each bottom corner of the definition card:
Note that the gender is the Chinese character for male/female respectively, for the diligent learner of Mandarin.
Once clicked, the following instance method will be called on the specific word object:
An instance method of the Word model, which is called by a method in the Words Controller. The value ‘female_response’ is JSON, with a key ‘audioContent’ and value of a base64 encoded string.
The response received from Google Text-to-Speech will be a base64 encoded string.
Before this, I was pretty ignorant of how to use encoded strings, and doubly ignorant of how to handle audio that’s encoded as one. Even the documentation for the HTMLAudioElement doesn’t clearly point to any capability of dealing with them.
Nevertheless, I stumbled across a JS Fiddle by Andrey Kogut that cleared everything up for me spectacularly:
Notice the parameters passed into the Audio() constructor: ‘data: audio/ogg; base64, …’
Andrey here used audio/ogg for his formatting, but mine was in audio/mpeg (i.e., an mp3, as you’ll notice in the options specified in the instance method.
So, it was just a simple matter from there to specify “data: audio/mpeg; base64” and the entire encoded string for the Audio() object to decode; which I implemented as such in a method on my React front-end:
I love interpolating strings.
The result? Actual audio of the word that can be heard as the user reads a novel in Mandarin. It’s amazing and I’m really thankful that I was able to stumble across Andrey Kogut’s JSFiddle as I did.
I can’t say how many times I’ve tried to bunker down and commit to reading in my 2nd language, only to be derailed because I had no idea how to pronounce a character/word. Having a flow to your reading is where the joy of reading springs from; and the potential to develop that love for reading in another language only adds to the joy of reading. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/htmlaudioelement-can-decode-encoded-strings-b4fe67642c8a | ['Josh M.R. Allen'] | 2021-02-02 15:46:10.185000+00:00 | ['Ruby', 'JavaScript', 'Rails', 'React', 'Web Development'] |
Oklahoma’s tribes unite against a common foe: Their Cherokee governor | Gov. Kevin Stitt’s demands for more money from Indian casinos have sparked a bitter feud with economically powerful tribes — including his own.
When Kevin Stitt campaigned for governor of Oklahoma, he said his identity as a citizen of Cherokee Nation gave him “firsthand” knowledge of the clout tribal nations wield in the state. But since his victory in November 2018, tribes have been teaching Mr. Stitt lessons in the politics of Indian Country.
In a rare act of coalescence, nearly all of Oklahoma’s 39 tribal nations are united against the governor. Soon after taking office, Mr. Stitt proposed a sharp hike in the fees that the tribes pay to operate their 130 lucrative casinos, unleashing fierce discussions across the state about identity, economic power and tribal sovereignty.
“He has a total ignorance of Indian Country,” Rocky Barrett, chairman of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a tribal councilor for the past 40 years, said of Mr. Stitt, the first tribal citizen to become governor of Oklahoma since the 1950s.
Other tribal leaders have been just as pointed. “I don’t think he can spell sovereignty,” said John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw Nation.
Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. poses for a portrait with tribal members during an MLK Day celebration at at a community center in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation is responsible for millions of dollars of infrastructure in the state. | Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
On a deeper level, many tribal leaders said they felt betrayed by the governor, who has said in media reports that he understands “what a tremendous benefit the tribes have been” to Oklahoma, a state whose origins are rooted in the genocide and forced relocation of Indigenous people and the encouragement of white settlement, which threatened the sovereignty of tribal nations.
Several of Mr. Stitt’s allies have turned against him, and some Cherokees have begun collecting signatures in a movement aimed at pressuring the Cherokee Nation to revoke his citizenship.
Pointing to the growing economic sway of tribal nations in Oklahoma’s economy, money is at the heart of this dispute. The tribes paid $148 million in fees from casino operations to the state last year, 88% of which was earmarked for Oklahoma’s public schools, which rank among the most underfunded in the country.
Mr. Stitt, a Tulsa mortgage banker and conservative Republican, proposed that the tribes pay a much higher revenue rate to Oklahoma to operate their casinos, a move that tribal leaders have seen as an aggressive approach and a continuation of generations of broken agreements between the state and tribal governments.
The gaming agreements between the tribes and the state were set to expire on Jan. 1. Mr. Stitt had proposed a new contract to begin this year that would bring the revenue rate more in line with what casino operators pay in Arizona and Nevada. He warned that casinos would be operating illegally if a new agreement wasn’t signed, but operators said they believed the compact would automatically renew if new agreements were not made. Three tribes filed a federal lawsuit in December seeking clarity.
Read more here: https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-oklahomas-tribes-unite-against-a-common-foe-their-cherokee-governor | https://medium.com/high-country-news/oklahomas-tribes-unite-against-a-common-foe-their-cherokee-governor-eee82e8f5e2d | ['High Country News'] | 2020-02-20 17:51:01.453000+00:00 | ['Sovereignty', 'Tribes', 'Indigenous', 'Gaming'] |
Fundamental Concepts of Application Development With Flutter | Mobile applications are ubiquitous and everyone has app ideas yet very few people have the skills to actually build a fully functioning app. Low supply + high demand = high pay for dev’s. In this post I’m going to teach you the fundamental concepts of app development in Flutter. This way the next time you or someone you know has a great idea you can be the one to take action.
Flutter is Google’s framework for building iOS and Android applications. A framework is best thought of as a tool for laying the foundation for building an application. Flutter allows programmers to write UI’s in the Dart programming language using Object Oriented Programming (OOP) .
Dart is a low-level language that is similar in syntax to C++ and Java. OPP is a computer programming concept where a programmer creates a recipe for something they will use (an object) and then repeatedly use instances (slight variations, renditions) to program Cool Stuff. An object is analogous to the core recipe for baking a cake and the instances of this recipe are the different types of cake you can bake with. Checkout the example below:
The class Cake defines an Object which we will use for building various cakes. Inside of the function main I’ve used the cake recipe to bake two different Instances of the cake class. When using Flutter the name of the game is knowing: 1) Which Object (recipe) to use and 2) Which arguments (ingredients) to pass into an instance of a class to make the best looking UI.
In Flutter you build your own classes which are an extension of the Widget class provided by Flutter, Widgets are analogous to Components the components of React. For new programmers a Widget can be thought of as a puzzle piece. Every custom widget you make will inherit its characteristics from the class of Widget which the dev’s at Flutter graciously provided to us for free, thanks Flutter team!
Unlike school memorization in UI design is futile. Even pro developers don’t have every Flutter Widget and it’s arguments memorized. I’ve found that the most effective way to get things done is by following this workflow:
1) I have a vision in my head of what I want to build, 2) I search through Flutter’s base widgets to find anything that’ll help me and 3) I begin building the UI in small divisible parts and repeat the process until I’ve completed the entire page.
There is a good chance that what you want to build may have already been built. Professional dev’s recycle code all the time. It is not shameful to utilize or tweak someone else’s code, in fact in my opinion that is the best way to learn. I’ve found that the best places to search are Medium, the Flutter documentation and Youtube. Thanks for reading and good luck! | https://medium.com/@c0reygardner63/fundamental-concepts-of-application-development-with-flutter-d66069debd9 | ['Corey Gardner'] | 2020-12-20 21:33:04.104000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Flutter', 'App Development', 'UI', 'Android'] |
Serenity.Exchange Development Report | September 11th — October 7th
Dear friends! We continue to share updates! During the period from September 11th to October 7th, we had been improving the Serenity exchange and now we are happy to tell you about our progress:
A bug when applying for a withdrawal of funds has been fixed.
Frozen windows will no longer be confusing and disturbing to users. Now, after filling out an application for withdrawal of funds the application window closes correctly.
2. The customer identification process has been improved.
Errors when loading documents has been fixed, appropriate notifications have been added, formats of loaded documents have been determined.
3. Errors in displaying the time of transactions have been fixed.
The transaction history timeframes now are configured accurately. From now on the time of transactions is displayed correctly.
4. The bug in displaying orders with the same price has been fixed.
Previously, not all orders with the same price were displayed into the order book. Now every order is shown and executed in accordance with the order.
5. The correct display of the password change form is configured.
Issues causing cyclic reloading and page freezing after clicking on the link in the email to change the password has been fixed. The server response now appears directly in the form of a password change.
6. TradingView databases have been updated
We always update software for libraries and graphics. When using third-party software, this is very important to ensure the security for our users.
This was the second report of the Serenity team. In the report we have described the most significant improvements. Also, a lot of work has been done regarding small details. We will continue to inform you about our updates and innovations. Ask questions, write comments — Serenity is always in touch! | https://medium.com/serenity-project/serenity-exchange-development-report-e3e70967b651 | ['Serenity Financial'] | 2019-10-08 12:45:59.942000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptoexchnage', 'Exchange Listing'] |
How to Find a Good Lawyer in Toronto? | When it comes to finding a lawyer, you have options. If you have a court case looming on the horizon or if you’re trying to file for divorce, then the lawyer may be your best bet. On the other hand, if you just need some legal advice due to a contract dispute with a friend or family member, then the lawyer may not be the best option. In that case, hiring a solicitor might be more appropriate as they tend to work with smaller and less complicated cases than lawyers would.
The Complexity of the Case
Regardless of whether a lawyer or solicitor is better suited to represent your legal interests depends on what kind of issue it is and how complex it is. But there are certain things that will hold true no matter what — like both lawyer and solicitor must complete law degrees and pass professional examinations in order to be certified by the Law Society of Ontario. That is, they both must have a lawyer’s license.
In either case, it is always best to find a lawyer who specializes in your type of legal matter. For instance, if you need help with an injury claim then the lawyer will probably be able to provide better insight and more efficient services than a lawyer would since solicitors tend to deal with smaller legal matters that are less complex and require less specialization. However, if you’re going through a difficult divorce, a lawyer may be a better bet since they can handle more complicated cases involving children and large amounts of property division issues.
The Legal Needs
If you aren’t sure whether a lawyer or solicitor is right for your specific legal needs, the lawyer may be a better bet. As mentioned before, lawyers tend to work with a large range of different legal problems and have the experience that is necessary for dealing with complicated cases. If you need help with real estate law or if you’re going through bankruptcy proceedings, the lawyer would probably be able to offer more assistance than a solicitor would.
Real Estate Lawyers in Toronto
Finding the right real estate lawyer is like finding a needle in a haystack. The problem becomes worse when you’re looking for one that has an approach based on your needs and not just what their advertising says.
Toronto is filled with lawyers that deal in almost the majority of the properties. But, sometimes they are not who they are advertised as. It’s either the services that are problematic, the not-so transparent fee structure, or piling files on the desk, which might include yours.
All you need to find is a real estate law firm that has a client-centered philosophy that will make sure to take care of all aspects. It can be related to buying or selling property; including seeking legal advice if needed before signing any documents without hesitation.
Since real estate lawyer Toronto is trained in handling numerous types of cases, he/she will know all the different pitfalls that can come up during legal proceedings and will be well equipped to deal with them as they arise.
With a real estate lawyer, the rate of success varies depending on how promising your case seems to be. If the lawyer thinks that there’s little chance of winning the case, then they may decide not to take on the job.
If the lawyer decides to accept your case, the lawyer, who is also an attorney will represent you in court and may work closely with other legal professionals such as legal secretaries or paralegals who do most of the actual legwork of researching laws, collecting evidence, and filing motions with the court. | https://medium.com/@minigross85/how-to-find-a-good-lawyer-in-toronto-6b0d73b7c484 | ['Courtney Miller'] | 2021-12-28 10:59:02.076000+00:00 | ['Lawyers In Toronto', 'Types Of Lawyers', 'Law Firms In Toronto', 'Lawyer'] |
It's to your great credit that you continue to look after your mother, despite the abuse she… | There’s no straight line for neurodivergent people or trauma survivors. We have to honor the time it takes to heal and accept that some journeys never end.
It's to your great credit that you continue to look after your mother, despite the abuse she heaped on you. Having also had a mentally-ill, unpredictable mother, I remember how terrifying it was. We have a sense of impending doom because that was our lived experience. I used to dread coming home from school. Even though my mother has been dead for many years, I’m still unpacking the effects her behavior had on me and my siblings. It is indeed a lifelong process. | https://medium.com/@marysz/its-to-your-great-credit-that-you-continue-to-look-after-your-mother-despite-the-abuse-she-4456ae563e07 | [] | 2020-12-21 12:48:20.318000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Dysfunctional Family', 'Life Lessons', 'Depression', 'Mental Health'] |
Crossed Over | “I’m sorry, Sir. We’ve done everything we could. We’ve done our best. Your wife has passed away.”
The world crumbled and crushed.
Tears, sobs, everywhere.
My legs gave out and I sank on the floor, tears ran like rivers down my face, my mouth opened with no sound coming out.
Seconds, minutes ticked by.
I looked up, willed my legs to stand and walked in a daze to my grandma.
We were both heaving.
“Why, why do you leave your old Ma here?” she repeated like a broken casette record. “Why? You should have waited. You should have waited. Why?”
She lost a child before. And I was terrified.
“Grandma, she’s still here. She lives. She lives in us. She is a part of us, your 3 grandchildren. She is here with you, through us. It will be okay again, Grandma. It will be okay again. She lives in us,” I heard my own fragmented voice, my own heart breaking into pieces.
Then I saw my dad.
Photo by Tobi Law on Unsplash
My Superwoman lost a battle and my Superman fell.
Tears and snot, disjointed, incomprehensible words.
I stood and hugged him.
“Please, please, Doctor. Give me… *uncontrollable sobs* one more… chance. Please, please, please help my wife.”
Barely audible in my own ears.
A broken man with a broken sentence.
I broke too.
I heaved and sobbed into his shirt, fear tugging on my chest. “Please, Dad. Please. It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. Please. It’s okay.” | https://medium.com/sky-collection/crossed-over-c41e86bb8f63 | ['Agnes Louis'] | 2020-07-29 12:52:35.899000+00:00 | ['Writing Prompts', 'Mothers And Daughters', 'Death', 'Grief', 'Life'] |
Congress has passed a stimulus package or a coronavirus relief bill. | Photo taken off of CNBC top page.
Congress has passed a stimulus package or a coronavirus relief bill. Like it or hate it we needed it. Our economy was flattening not tanking nor rising. This will be a broad stimulus less then the one in April but that was guaranteed. This will put money into small businesses and individuals which will hopefully revive the economy quicker. Also airliners are saved so the 30,000 jobs almost lost coming back.
Sometime people don’t feel they got money from the stimulus but if your job is kept you benefited. The $600 direct payments to incomes less then $75,000 will help everyone if they need it or not which is good. $300 extra in unemployment benefits and unemployment is extended to 50 weeks so that’s also another benefit. These systems are in place to help the worse off and a get me back up. Not a line to continue to hold as long as you can just till you get a job, which is important during a recession/economic term oil or pandemic. We need to fight the pandemic so baseball and other live events can come back. | https://medium.com/@mishasmith95/congress-has-passed-a-stimulus-package-or-a-coronavirus-relief-bill-4c81f6823a34 | ['Misha Smith'] | 2020-12-22 16:22:08.306000+00:00 | ['Stimulus', 'Money', 'Congress', 'Economy', 'Jobs'] |
Episode 4 — “Attack on Titan” (2020)S04 EP. 4 Animation (ENGSUB) on NHK | Watch On ►►http://watchstream.dplaytv.net/tv/1429-4-4/attack-on-titan.html
Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 04
Attack on Titan Chapter 04
Attack on Titan 4x04
Attack on Titan S4E004
Attack on Titan NHK
Attack on Titan Episode 04
Attack on Titan Season 4
Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 04
Attack on Titan Temporada 4 Capitulo 04
Attack on Titan Series NHK
Attack on Titan Watch Streaming
Attack on Titan P.L.A.Y ▶ Watch On ►►http://watchstream.dplaytv.net/tv/1429-4-4/attack-on-titan.html
Watch Attack on Titan Episode 04 [EngSub]
TELEVISION 👾
(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 5540s, 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 55040s, 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 4000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (55i, with 505054 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: 545045044, 545045044 and 454. Since 4050, 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 4055, 54% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[4] 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 5550s. Most TV sets sold during the 4000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-4050s.[5][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 4050s.[04][4][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 4.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 4050s.[5]
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 4000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 4000s, 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 4050s. 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 5450s, and endured into the 5450s. 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 5445–045, 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/attack-on-titan-episode-4-on-nhks/episode-4-attack-on-titan-2020-s04-ep-4-animation-engsub-on-nhk-4597999108c1 | ['Mam A N G Ole H'] | 2020-12-27 10:04:30.859000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Mystery'] |
Cheat-sheet for Google Colab | Lists
As we all know there are two types of lists:
Ordered List Unordered List
As the name suggests an ordered list has an order (1, 2, 3,… or other). But an unordered list has no order, as shown below.
Ordered and Unordered list in Markdown
In markdown for the ordered list, you can straightaway just type numbers like 1, 2, 3, and so on . But for the unordered list, you can start with a * and this intern creates a bullet list.
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
HTML
We can use the HTML tags to play with the lists as shown below:
Ordered list
In the ordered list there are normal list, type 1, A, a, I, i types as shown below:
Normal list
Use the ol tag and for the list contents use the li tag as shown below:
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
Type = “1”
Just add type = "1" inside the ol tag this will create an ordered list of 1, 2, 3, and so on. The list items will be numbered with numbers (default).
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
Type = “A”
Just add type = "A" inside the ol tag this will create an ordered list of A, B, C, and so on. The list items will be numbered with uppercase letters.
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
Type = “a”
Just add type = "a" inside the ol tag this will create an ordered list of a, b, c, and so on. The list items will be numbered with lowercase letters.
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
Type = “I”
Just add type = "I" inside the ol tag this will create an ordered list of I, II, III, and so on. The list items will be numbered with uppercase roman numbers.
Image Credits to Author (Tanu Nanda Prabhu)
Type = “i”
Just add type = "i" inside the ol tag this will create an ordered list of i, ii, iii, and so on. The list items will be numbered with lowercase roman numbers. | https://towardsdatascience.com/cheat-sheet-for-google-colab-63853778c093 | ['Tanu N Prabhu'] | 2020-05-02 20:48:44.742000+00:00 | ['Documentation', 'Data Science', 'Programming', 'Markdown', 'HTML'] |
Vanilla Sky: Όταν η πολυσύχναστη Times Square εκκενώθηκε για να κάνει γύρισμα ο Tom Cruise | Filmmaker (film producer, screenwriter, film director) and Author and Editor (Movies & Series) for Three Pixels Lab Media Production. | https://medium.com/@christosarfanis/vanilla-sky-%CF%8C%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BD-%CE%B7-%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%85%CF%83%CF%8D%CF%87%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B7-times-square-%CE%B5%CE%BA%CE%BA%CE%B5%CE%BD%CF%8E%CE%B8%CE%B7%CE%BA%CE%B5-%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1-%CE%BD%CE%B1-%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%B9-%CE%B3%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%B1-%CE%BF-tom-cruise-384c771588fb | ['Christos Arfanis'] | 2020-12-25 23:14:39.235000+00:00 | ['Times Square', 'Movies', 'Tom Cruise Movies', 'New York', 'Vanilla Sky'] |
GOD OF WHEAT | Image from Kevin Jones
I slattern bramble and wood and moss and amber and sap and milk and buck every frond and arching stem.
I am god and spokey like wheels on a ribbon hung from a neck of sky.
I am the light of florets ignited, my saffron hunger boils at the heart of every spat, each spike of lightning.
I stain the moon, white with flour, and when I laugh dry spikelets click in my chest where I have no ribs.
I shiv like a mandolin through bone and fissure, belting songs like wheat spumes on wind.
I am fisted handfuls of flag leaves and twelve points of whimsy.
I am smatter of rain in the morning and under-bridge goblins are my dearest disciples.
I grit teeth when I sleep and twittering birds cloy over me, collapsing on wind like prayers and dollar bills on my eyelids.
I am bitter brew torching veiny gullies, leaving glassine pools of spit in my wake.
Sprung, I take shape.
I cut myself from the ground for it is a dwindling thing and I suffer no keepers. | https://medium.com/revolver-reader/god-of-wheat-51f05241a3d5 | ['E. Obrien'] | 2015-11-19 13:47:39.338000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poem'] |
One Formula to Guide Your Paid Media Strategy | One Formula to Guide Your Paid
Media Strategy
Paid promotion isn’t just for the content marketers, but you’ve got to think harder about ROI if you’re in the influence game
It’s among the thorniest questions in digital marketing. For all the persuasive arguments about why modern companies must act like publishers — and for all the obvious advantages of leading a conversation around topics central to your brand or mission — the real key to enduring success lies with how you define and measure ROI.
The reason is simple. Without that clear sense of purpose, even if some of your efforts work, you won’t know which things to grow and repeat. To throw a buzzword at the problem: Your successes won’t scale. And beyond that, without some evident connection to “the bottom line,” it all begins to look like a hopeless exercise in vanity.
That’s true of any marketing or content-creation program, of course, but it’s of particular significance for promoting your work with paid media. When your team is spending money on channels like Facebook or Taboola, the investment is no longer just about creating repurposable knowledge assets or branding — it’s about direct audience development. If you mess it up, you’ve squandered your money on someone else’s platform with nothing lasting to show for it.
But it’s also true that audience building is the most pivotal and unpredictable piece of the whole puzzle, and paid media can be a critical component of that. So the lesson isn’t to turn up your nose at the price and walk away. Rather, you have to have a disciplined way of gauging whether you’ve gotten your dollar’s worth.
At heart, that boils down to one simple and familiar formula:
Acquisition cost < Long-term value
In this instance, that simply means the cost of acquiring a customer should be less than the long-term value said customer provides your business or organization. If that basic comparison holds, you’ve made a good investment.
Naturally, the word “customer” here can take many shapes. For content marketing, it’s more literal, and thus ROI is relatively easy to calculate: success equals sales. It’s highly measurable so long as your analytics are set up correctly.
That also means when it comes to assessing audience quality — the factor that should be driving your paid media decisions most directly — the content marketers again have a leg up. Quality here can be judged most purely by someone’s propensity to buy, meaning the question of whether your paid promotion was worth it can be answered mathematically. If you spent less acquiring the prospect than the average contract value you obtain from that customer — taking into account the varying rates of conversion across different channels — then your efforts paid off. There’s nuance to each of these steps, certainly, but it’s a clean calculation in principle.
Of course, it’s also much easier in this case to tell if the “cheap traffic” you’re getting from the big social platforms isn’t actually a bargain at all. It doesn’t matter if you get twice as many clicks on your sponsored post on Facebook as you do on LinkedIn if those Facebook visitors are only a quarter as likely to turn into qualified leads.
That brings us to the moneyball question: if you’re trying to own a knowledge niche or develop a voice in your industry rather than make a sale, how is it clear what’s working?
The objectives, even if clearly defined, usually aren’t directly monetizable — they often include things like influence, visibility, validation, and access. That can be true for certain business campaigns or initiatives, but of course it goes double for think tanks, associations, advocacy groups, and media providers.
It’s a big, knotty question with a lot of implications. When it comes to determining ROI, the basic cost-value formula doesn’t change — but at its crux is the need to define “value” differently than just a contract.
That value can take numerous forms. Closer interaction with your key audiences helps to strengthen your ideas, your brand, and ultimately, what you bring to market. And it’s a good reminder that these relationships shouldn’t be defined purely as a series of business transactions — they can be thought of as pathways to better internalize your audience’s ever-evolving needs.
So if the goal is to nourish these types of connections, paid channels clearly have a role to play. Two criteria must drive your decision-making, however: retention and audience quality. Most organizations can’t justify paying even a few dollars every time an anonymous someone clicks, reads 500 words, and then never comes back. You need lasting value.
How do you get there? The starting point is to have a strong, precise understanding of your goals, your audience, and how your content supports both. But what’s just as critical and often overlooked is having a clear conversion goal and funnel for each target.
Among the most common and valuable of these conversions is email signup, which — with the right subscription experience — can help with both retention and understanding your audience at a more granular level. But depending upon what you’re doing, there’s room for creativity here. Your platform might invite people to sign a petition, join a select community, or enter a co-creation contest for a new product or feature.
“Engagement” is often a hollow word, but it works as a game plan when it’s tied to specific participatory experiences.
Once you’ve mapped out these funnels, the importance of selecting your audiences carefully becomes crystal clear. Higher-value platforms like LinkedIn can help you to avoid the cheap-traffic trap with more sophisticated targeting tools and analytics reports than competitors offer. Then, once someone clicks through to your site, the key is to A/B test conversion channels aggressively to gauge what’s most effective.
It takes commitment, but once conversion “beyond the click” rests at the heart of your paid promotion strategy, you’ll be well on your way to forging connections that have real impact. | https://medium.com/atlantic-57/one-formula-to-guide-your-paid-media-strategy-55bdbed18b58 | ['Ross Lawrence'] | 2020-04-22 20:37:41.773000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Digital Marketing', 'Advertising'] |
School board nomination petitions due July 30 | School board nomination petitions due July 30
Interested candidates can secure petitions at the Gloucester County Clerk’s Election Division.
The deadline for filing nominating petitions to run for positions on the Washington Township Board of Education is Monday, July 30. Those seeking candidacy for the Board of Education must obtain a “School Board Candidate Kit,” which provides material about serving on a school board, ethics information, important dates in the election process and the nominating petition that places a name on the ballot. The “School Board Candidate Kit” can be found on the New Jersey School Boards Association website, www.njsba.org/candidacy.
Interested candidates can secure nominating petitions at the Gloucester County Clerk’s Election Division, located at 550 Grove Road, West Deptford. For additional information, visit the county clerk’s website at [email protected] or http://www.co.gloucester.nj.us/depts/c/cclerk/elecserv/default.asp, or call the County Clerk Election Division at (856) 384–4530.
A full term on the school board runs three years. In Washington Township, there are three, three-year full-term seats open. All candidate nominating petitions must be filed with the county clerk by 4 p.m. on July 30. School Board elections will take place on November 6. | https://medium.com/the-washington-township-sun/school-board-nomination-petitions-due-july-30-3d0a7ac3da6d | ['Krista Cerminaro'] | 2018-04-27 16:27:09.057000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'New Jersey', 'Education', 'Schools'] |
Keeping My Promise | delfi de la Rua for Unsplash
Well, it’s a rare occurrence, but my hubby is sick, ill enough that he even went back to bed…poor guy. So, I am taking advantage of the quiet time, to keep my promise to write a little something here every day. It may not be monumental or help anyone but me, yet here it is. Normally, on a Saturday we would be out running errands, having our “together” time. Today, it seems we are on our own, free to do whatever we want, so I am writing while I can.
Of course, I have been writing posts on my blog every day as well, fulfilling prompt challenges and/or posting about whatever is going on or seems important to me that day. The point is, to keep writing, practicing, and hopefully, getting better. I have to prove my point that I am in this thing 100% and that I will work my butt off to eventually have something to show for all this writing, a paycheck, a legacy…something. Maybe even a book someday-who knows? If nothing else, the daily practice keeps my mind, and my fingers engaged and productive…that has to count for something, right?! | https://medium.com/100-naked-words/keeping-my-promise-494871637510 | ['Kim Smyth'] | 2020-02-10 17:01:01.350000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Practice', '100 Naked Words', 'Writing'] |
Motivational and Inspirational Quotes with Images | Here is the collection of best Motivational & Inspirational Quotes with Images that might give you the boost you needed to get back in the game. You can also share them with your friends and family to inspire and motivate them.
1) “Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” –Teddy Roosevelt | https://medium.com/@er-sumitambekar/motivational-and-inspirational-quotes-with-images-eaab6fb7967e | ['Sumit Ambekar'] | 2020-12-08 03:43:30.872000+00:00 | ['Best Quotes', 'Inspirational Quotes', 'Image', 'Motivational Quotes', 'Quotes'] |
Setup Mongodb, Mongoose, Node.JS, Express dan JWT bagian 2–Mengenal ORM Model | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/javascript-indonesia-community/setup-mongodb-mongoose-node-js-express-dan-jwt-bagian-2-mengenal-orm-model-100060ef4b41 | ['Fredy Y', 'Https', 'Www.Linkedin.Com In Ftansari'] | 2020-12-10 23:27:40.056000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Orm', 'Mongoose', 'Javascript Development', 'Mongodb Tutorial'] |
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021 | best gardening tool set home depot India 2021
best gardening toolset for beginners online in India
Kraft Seeds! Amazing’s Choice |Gardening Tools Set –Top 5 Heavy Duty Garden Tool Set with Non- Slip Plastic Handle –Garden Tools with…
Features
These gardening tools are set 100% made in India, not China. In this gardening tools set 1 pc each of garden small trowel, big trowel, cultivator, weeder and fork with pruners scissor and hand gloves.
Gate garden 5 spectacular gardening tools set with heavy gardening cut tool and one pair hand gloves by gate garden
Gate garden we are committed to producing top quality products that we know you will love.
Review
In this gardening tool set online in India, I am only able to extensively use BIG Trowel ( Helps in making the pot mix or collecting Sand, garden soil, etc) and Weeder (helps in ‘Kudai’ ) that’s it! rest of the items like gloves tried once and it is of no use because of extensive sweating and if it is your hobby then you want to enjoy the time you spend with soil and your plants. Now cultivator can be of use if you have a garden, I have only pots in my balcony so no use.
cutter with minimal efforts you get a fine cut without damaging your plant stem and the same you can propagate. If you are serious about your plants, you use this.
gardening toolset and its quality are excellent. It's very useful for my day to day gardening needs.
So ln short, I would definitely recommend this gardening toolset to others.
Just go for it without any hesitation !!!
Product details
Design: Tool Set
Package Dimensions : 29 x 14.2 x 12.8 cm; 860 Grams
29 x 14.2 x 12.8 cm; 860 Grams Date First Available: 22 May 2018
22 May 2018 Manufacturer: Kraft Seeds
Kraft Seeds ASIN : B07D7WGBBR
B07D7WGBBR Item part number: Gate14
Gate14 Country of Origin: India
India Manufacturer: Kraft Seeds
Kraft Seeds Packer: M/s KRAFT SEEDS PLOT NO. 218, PKT-N, SEC-1, DSIIDC, BAWANA INDUSTRIAL AREA, BAWANA, North West Delhi, Delhi, 110039, Ph. 9811107503
M/s KRAFT SEEDS PLOT NO. 218, PKT-N, SEC-1, DSIIDC, BAWANA INDUSTRIAL AREA, BAWANA, North West Delhi, Delhi, 110039, Ph. 9811107503 Item Weight: 860 g
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021
Spectacular best gardening toolset for beginners India 2021 | https://medium.com/@purveshmega508/spectacular-best-gardening-toolset-for-beginners-india-2021-45d013577652 | ['Purvesh Mega'] | 2020-12-07 13:00:48.926000+00:00 | ['Gardening Tools', 'Gardening', 'Gardeninginfo Online'] |
Legs Workout-lower body workout | 🔥🏆 Leg workout for Men — Lower Body Exercises At Home app brings you all lower body exercises so you can get into better shape and have strength.
🌟Get Ready to Learn — How to Treat Back Pain🌟
We all dream of a better-looking body, so we need to workout. Home workout is becoming popular day by day. Anyone can get a healthier, fat-free body by working at home with no equipment. Our new Leg workout for Men — lower body exercises app contains all types of legs and glutes exercises you can do anywhere, anytime.
Our app has three levels, including beginner, intermediate, and advanced. If you are a newbie, start with the beginner lessons. You can start with easy exercises such as booty workout and hips workout.
🌟Key features of our Leg Workout for Men app🌟
👉No-equipment and No-weight exercises at home
👉 Contains 30-day workout challenge for both men and women
👉 Legs and buttocks workout for both men and women
👉 Leg fat loss workout for men and women
👉 Calf workout to get stronger calves
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👉 Weight loss progress tracker
👉 Track your calories burned
👉 BMI calculator
Our lower body exercises helps you lose weight and stay in better shape with a huge collection of leg workout for men exercises. Our app is one of the top leg workout apps you will find online, helping you with thigh gap workout, booty workout, glute workout, and all types of the thigh, leg and lower body exercises.
If you are into male fitness, this app works as a muscle booster. Legs exercises at home app bring legs and glutes exercises for men. Men can get more muscular looking legs and butts with the help of our Leg workout for men — Lower body exercises at home app.
Thighs workout, leg workouts, and lower body exercises are essential for losing weight and getting stronger muscles. Everyone doesn’t have enough time to go to the gym. Our at-home workout brings all lower body exercises for you so you can exercise at home without equipment and get your desired body.
Our Lower body exercises app also contains a 30-day meal plan. You will get standard and vegetarian meal plans every day. Workout and start having a healthy meal that will help you get into shape faster. Leg exercises become more challenging as you start the advanced level, so if you have no workout experience, start with the beginner level, which is only 5 to 10 minutes a day. You can also view the history of your workout routine and track progress.
All the app’s workouts are gathered from trainers, so you can start digging in without worrying. To get stronger and defined legs and lower body workouts are a must. Our leg workout app is designed for both men and women. Women who are interested in splits can practice splits in 30 days. Also, thigh gap exercises are available in the app.
🌟Why choose us:🌟
👉Three levels in the app are very defined so that you can understand quickly where to start. You will find 30 different leg exercises for strong and defined legs, glutes, buttocks, thighs, and calves. If you are looking for the best lower body exercises, try our legs workout app.
👉 Each lower body exercise contains detailed audio, video, and text instructions so the users can easily practice.
👉 All 3 training categories provide effective thigh and glutes workout. You can set the level of difficulty and length while working out. Start your 30-day leg challenge, and see the results.
For losing weight and getting into better shape, there is no way other than working out. When it is tough to go to the gym, you can try our leg workout-lower body exercises app.
🙌Install the app for free and start your 30-day workout challenge at home. | https://medium.com/@abhinavverma1701/legs-workout-lower-body-workout-13a851a9702f | ['Abhinav Verma'] | 2021-04-25 14:15:20.053000+00:00 | ['Exercise', 'Exercise At Home', 'Fitness', 'Apps', 'Workout'] |
The many things AI needs… | Perception
Let’s take vision, which is probably the most researched domain in both computational neuroscience and AIs… A camera required for emulating human vision ( at least in resolution) is more or less common these days, what’s not common is the sophisticated processing your eyes and 1/3rd of your brain does, in comparison computer vision uses shallow task specific algorithms which for the most part are useless if you change the task.
A circle detecting script is useless for depth perception unless you code it to also detect depth, and now this new script is useless for text recognition, and on and on, we haven't written down the one program that does it all.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can process a lot of information and in many cases perceive something as belonging to certain class ( usually a single class or family ) but this takes training that in turn takes time. In contrast we get our training through a mix of biological evolutionary systems and our daily life and experiences, ( more on this later ) and we can also modify what we see based on higher ( top down ) cognitive processes like conscious or subconscious attention.
A common example of top down subconscious perception: You just bought a new car and chose RED as the paint color, for the next few days you can't help but notice how many RED CARS are on the road, they have always been there, it's just that with your recent purchase the color RED + CAR has gained importance in your mind and that is what your senses are now tuned for.
The point here is that we perceive the world in a different way, at least where it regards to vision, it’s an active top down/bottom up affair we haven’t quite been able to emulate.
The other senses are a mixed bag; touch, smell, taste and the less popular senses like the sense of balance are mostly absent or fully solved, hearing is somewhere in the middle and can be recorded at higher resolutions than we can and in some cases ( like cochlear implants ) the neural code can even be emulated yet when we go up the task ladder of things we do with our hearing AIs fall short.
Think about a crowded room, you can easily pick out the voice of your friend on the other side of the room and make sense of voices you have never heard, even when spoken with heavy accents, you can also perceive the emotional content in voices to derive further meaning. | https://medium.com/an-idea/the-many-things-ai-needs-a3f546ee899b | ['Keno Leon'] | 2020-09-17 05:23:47.198000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Neural Networks'] |
Ladies — Please Stop Douching, Steaming, and Powdering your Vagina | Flash forward one week after my douching experiment. My legs are splayed over the edge of an examination table as I silently count the ceiling tiles in my gynecologist’s office. I hear the crank of her cold speculum and her calming voice, “this might be uncomfortable.” Sure. It always is. But this time was different. Because it was not a routine Pap smear.
I had gone and messed up my lady bits.
After my exam, my gynecologist spoke to me in that pedantic tone reserved for women who didn’t pay attention in third-grade biology. She explained that by douching, I had flushed away good bacteria, which led to an overgrowth of bad bacteria. Not only did I drop a napalm bomb on my vaginal ecosystem, but douching put me at a higher risk for ovarian and cervical cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, reduced fertility, bacterial vaginosis, and contracting HIV.
I folded my arms over my paper gown and nodded my head in silence. I didn’t need to be doc-splained bacteriology. I needed a therapist to knock me on the side of the head and convince me to ditch the misogynist lover.
I turned to my friends instead.
I was surprised to learn how many of my female cohorts douche regularly. 1 in 5 women douches and more than 50% of women do so because they have been encouraged by their partner. One well-intentioned friend explained I was “doing it all wrong.” Apparently, douching is “ghetto.” For ultimate freshness, I should be “steaming my vagina.”
“Excuse me? Steam….what??”
For those of you who are not familiar with the practice of treating your vagina like a wrinkled shirt, vagina steaming or “V-steaming” is squatting over a steaming pot of fresh herbs to cleanse your vagina. Although it is marketed as “vagina” steaming, it really should be called vulva steaming. (If we are going to do stupid shit to our body, let’s at least name the correct body part.)
This spa treatment might sound harmless, but steam can burn. One woman learned this the hard way when she experienced second-degree burns after steaming her vulva.
Do me a favor — go ask your male friends if they would risk second-degree burns to cleanse their scrotum and penis. I think you know what the answer will be. So why do women torture a body part that is already pretty darn perfect?
To answer that question, let’s examine the complex history of female hygiene.
A brief history of vile vaginas
Dangerous female sexuality is nothing new. Mermaids drowned sailors in their amniotic fluid. The succubus ravaged men while they slept. In Russian folklore, women scared bears away by flashing their genitalia. And my personal favorite, the vagina dentata — a vagina with teeth — castrated men. (Sidebar that is not helping my argument: a toothed vagina is a real medical condition in which a woman’s vagina has Ovarian Teratomas — dermoid cysts composed of hair, teeth, and bone. The condition is very rare.)
If a vagina could sprout canines and have enough erotic power to tame bears, the vagina needed taming too…or at least a strong industrial solvent.
What do toilets and your vagina have in common?
The word “douche” is French for “wash.” Throughout antiquity, douches with honey, wine, olive oil, or vinegar were used to wash away pregnancy. (No, douching does not prevent pregnancy. If only wine slowed sperm…)
In 1832, the father of American birth control, Dr. Charles Knowlton, also recommended douching after sex. Macbeth’s witches would have cackled at his concoction — pearls, alum, salt, and ‘sulfite of zinc.’ Although this did have a contraceptive effect, it did so by damaging both sperm and delicate vaginal tissue.
By 1880, physicians turned to a mixture of carbolic acid and water to annihilate the girl cooties. Carbolic acid was used in embalming fluid, so this probably worked best on a cadaver’s vulva.
By the 1920s, Lysol hopped on the shame train and marketed its disinfectant as douching contraception. Lysol contained cresol — a corrosive compound used today in crude oil, wood preservatives, and explosives. Cresol caused burns in lucky women and death in the unlucky ones.
But if you didn’t pickle your vagina with toilet bowl cleaner…your husband might leave you. Your choice.
Lysol was not the only disinfectant promising to cleanse the cesspool between your legs. In the 1930s, Zonite was the “germicide” solution to destroy “odor-causing waste substances.”
Methodshop on Flickr
Clearly, ladies could not be blamed for their smelly crotches if they didn’t know the “physical facts.” But what 1930s women really didn’t know was that Zonite contained sodium hypochlorite — a weak bleach. Ouch.
A sprinkle of cancer
If fumigating your vagina with bleach didn’t celebrate your femininity, then Johnson & Johnson had the solution — talcum powder. In the 1950s, women were told to use baby powder to absorb moisture and odor. Decades of advertising fed fears of women’s freshness and resulted in a far more odious crime — baby powder caused ovarian cancer.
In February of 2020, a jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay 750 million dollars in damage. Johnson & Johnson recently agreed to stop selling baby powder in the U.S. and Canada.
Fear is sometimes stronger than science
While “scrotal soap” will never find a market, douching continues to be a multi-billion dollar industry. In a recent survey, 50% of women who douched believed it was good for their health. When asked why they said it made them feel “fresh” and “clean.” Most of these women were unaware douching causes severe health issues like cancer and reduced fertility. And most did not know it would aggravate the problem they were trying to alleviate — smell.
Men are also not lopping off their too big bits. Between 2002 and 2012, labiaplasty increased by 500 percent. When a man’s anatomy bulges out of his jeans, he is a virile stud. But a labia poking through yoga pants…that’s disgusting “camel toe.” Why? Perhaps if women learned how marvelous their vaginas were, then we might stop punishing them. That’s at least my hope.
Culture is catching up. For years, we valorized the phallic at the penis museum, but this year, the first vagina museum opened. Museums like this not only glorify the feminine but also dispel myths. | https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/ladies-please-stop-douching-steaming-and-powdering-your-vagina-a03cd6f4e385 | ['Carlyn Beccia'] | 2020-05-20 18:45:02.714000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Women', 'Feminism', 'History', 'Self'] |
Carnage | Written by
I am retired, enjoy reading, writing and painting watercolours. I keep a curious outlook on life. Remember the past. Live in the present. Welcome the future | https://cfaandrews.medium.com/carnage-4d916647315f | ['Christine Frances Annette Andrews'] | 2020-06-18 04:41:24.333000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Indigenous', 'Landscape', 'Haiku', 'Culture Shock'] |
Solving the problem of distributing personalized employee training — at scale. | The way people interact, work and learn has shifted rapidly, and the need for a personalized learning experience has almost become expected. However, while a tailored learning experience is relatively simple to deliver to an individual, how do you provide the same experience to thousands of distributed teams across the world, in role-specific packages and multiple languages, while maintaining the same quality standards and effectiveness?
To address this challenge we’ve developed a unique piece of functionality called Smart Assignments — our solution to distributing personalized learning at scale. Smart Assignments use tags to identify user groups or business units within the structure of your organization. A user simply selects the tag(s) that best describes their job-role, and the relevant content will be automatically assigned to them This ensures that the correct content is distributed and assigned to the right user groups across an organization.
What makes our Smart Assignments even smarter is that using the same logic, the platform will also automatically assign the right content to new employees who fit the assignment criteria. This allows L&D managers to minimize management overhead and accelerate onboarding.
Smart Assignments give us an exciting glimpse into the future of learning by being able to design and deliver a personalized learning experience to all your learners — no matter where they are.
Learn more about Smart Assignments here and watch the video below. | https://medium.com/lobsterink/solving-the-problem-of-distributing-personalized-employee-training-at-scale-938ba4201b66 | ['Ashley Kooter'] | 2019-04-16 08:11:43.389000+00:00 | ['Training', 'Elearning', 'Education', 'Learning', 'Personalized Learning'] |
Everyone loves a great story. | Everyone loves a great story.
And behind every great story, there’s an even better storyteller.
Welcome to our ever-evolving community.
The Narrative is the groundbreaking, independent publication that is unique in its ability to create a platform for cutting-edge, influential writers. With a forward-thinking approach, we address an eclectic mix of topics from the perspective of educated, culturally aware individuals from across the globe.
Our publication displays a strong emphasis on inclusivity and diversity, and we welcome contributions from all voices.
Do you want to write for The Narrative?
The Narrative is currently open for new submissions. To become an active contributor for our publication, please comment below with 2–3 sentences stating why you’re the perfect fit.
Please note that as of 11/23/19, The Narrative has transitioned into a community-based pub where every writer is made an editor. This means that you have the privilege to self-publish posts whenever you please without waiting for our approval.
Why self-publish?
As Medium’s userbase keeps growing, I understand that it may become increasingly difficult to get eyeballs on your articles. This is why I decided to re-brand the publication and use a model that has been working for a lot of active users.
When you self-publish, other writers will instantly receive a notification for your article. This will not only help you gain a few new followers, but it will also provide more exposure for your writing too.
Things to remember.
As an editor of The Narrative, editing the posts of other authors without their permission will be frowned upon. Please be mindful of this when contributing to the publication.
The Narrative does not promote any hate speech or plagiarism. If you violate these terms, we will immediately revoke your participation from the publication.
Supporting other writers is highly encouraged. To keep the publication a positive space, we recommend you to read the work of others, highlight and comment as much as you can.
Thank you for your interest in becoming a part of The Narrative. We look forward to hearing your stories. | https://medium.com/narrative/seeking-storytellers-for-the-narrative-9a75e23abbb0 | ['Katy Velvet'] | 2019-12-12 08:07:18.704000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Writing', 'Community', 'Life', 'Inspiration'] |
Convention of Ruby on Rails | this blog post is a quick tour through the convention of Rails
Controllers are where the URL makes an HTTP request through a route and goes to controller action to get the info. Some basic information is as follow’s: The name for controllers is the camel case which is this: “CamelCase”. Controllers' suffix is always singular and they also follow a restful routes “direction” or a “crud” path. C.R.U.D stands for creating, read, update, and delete.
C, or create portion, of it has two main routes: 1) its “new” route renders a new form and 2) the “create” uses the info the user inputs and posts it into the database as a “params hash”.
R, for reading, is either “index” which renders ALL the data for that particular object or it also stands for “show”: that shows a specific item(singular) from that list.
U, or update, in my understanding, is that “edit” renders the form and “update(patch)” actually updates the new info the user just inputted but not before finding the specific object by id or name.
Lastly, D is for delete which, deletes specific items from your database!
Models and database hang out together. We use the active record to extract data from the database. Model class names use CamelCase (explained above). The attributes and methods use the snake case “this_is_snake_case”. We associate them with has_many, has_many: through, and belongs_to, to name a few. belongs_to are singular while has_many is plural. Joint tables use foreign keys in the database and they have to have an _id suffix. That helps us connect our models together.
For Database or Tables, we usually run: “rake DB:create_migration NAME=create_dogs” and make sure it’s PLURAL! It usually comes out always CamelCase’d and we also throw in a “create”. So it would look something like this:
(class CreateJournals < ActiveRecord::Migration).
We make sure our tables match together or with associations but, we could also run it in a tux. We would have to create a new instance, then we save it inside of a variable. Kind of like this:
Sophie = Owner.create(name: “Sophie”) maru = Cat.new(name: “Maru”, age: 3, breed: “Scottish Fold”) maru.owner = sophie maru.save
Or we could call “build” on it. (haha)…. that won’t create/save anything but make a new object in memory so that the view can take this object and display something mostly used in associations.
Lastly VIEWS. That’s where the user interacts with your website and app. It’s considered the “front end “ of programming, kind of where we make everything look pretty and usually where we display information. Also, it’s where we make forms where we get information from the user, and then the controller uses that info in a params hash.
thank you, Jonathan
check out some more….
Javascript 1 (link to: variables and data types)
Javascript 2 (link to: numbers and strings)
Javascript 3 (link to: bracket notation and 20 diff string methods)
Javascript 4 (link to: functions and how they work)
Javascript 5 (link to: hoisting, comparison operators, and if-else statements)
Javascript 6 (link to: diff. Equal signs, null, and undefined)
Javascript 7 (link to: logical operator, &&, || and ternary operators)
Javascript 8 (link to: switch statements and arrays)
Javascript 9 (link to: commonly used arrays in javascript)
Javascript 10 (link to: Math. And parseInt Usage) | https://medium.com/@jonbleibdrey/convention-of-ruby-on-rails-ce3e2b0284c0 | ['Jonathan Bleibdrey'] | 2021-02-09 15:17:12.244000+00:00 | ['Convention', 'Ruby', 'Coding', 'Rails', 'Create'] |
Attention Mechanism: A Quick Intuition | Contents:
Introduction Sequence-to-Sequence Models Problem with Seq2Seq Models Need for Attention Custom Keras Attention Layer — Code Example Update with TensorFlow 2.0 Conclusion References
1. Introduction
In this article, we will try to understand the basic intuition of attention mechanism and why it came into picture. We aim to understand the working of encoder-decoder models and how attention helps achieve better results.
We will see how to build a custom attention layer with Keras and default attention layer that is provided with TensorFlow 2.0.
2. Sequence-to-Sequence Models
A sequence to sequence model aims to map a fixed-length input with a fixed-length output where the length of the input and output may differ.
Example: “You are reading this article” in English is “Vous lisez cet article” in French where
Input length = 5 words
Output length = 4 words
Here LSTM/GRU would fail to map each word of English to French hence we use a sequence to sequence model to address problems like this one.
The encoder-decoder model for recurrent neural networks(RNN) is a powerful type of sequence-to-sequence models. These models are used a lot in the field of natural language processing with use-cases like machine-translation, image captioning and text summarisation.
Google Translate
A sequence to sequence model has two components, an encoder and a decoder. The encoder encodes a source sentence to a concise vector (called the context vector), where the decoder takes in the context vector as an input and computes the translation using the encoded representation.
3. Problem with Seq2Seq Models
A problem with these models are that, performance decays as the length of the input sentence increases. The reason being —
The words to be predicted depends on the context of the input sentence and not on the single word. So, basically to predict a word in French, we might make use of 2–3 words in the English sentence. That is how humans translate one language to another.
Another limitation is that with longer sentences, we have to compress all the information of the input sentence into a fixed length vector. Not all words in the sentence are important to predict the correct word.
Now, with the length of the input sentence increasing, over time our LSTM/GRU loses the context of the long sentence thereby losing the meaning of the whole sentence and eventually resulting in poor performance.
4. Need for Attention
To tackle the above mentioned limitations, Attention mechanism was introduced.
The whole idea of attention is instead of relying just on the context vector, the decoder can have access to the past states of the encoder. At each decoding step, the decoder gets to look at any particular state of the encoder.
Attention mechanism tries to identify which parts of the input sequence are relevant to each word in the output and uses the relevant information to select the appropriate output.
Working
Here, we make use of bi-directional GRU cells where the input sequences are passed both in forward and backward direction. The output is then concatenated and passed on to the decoder.
Bi-directional GRU cells
In order to tackle the limitation, we use the weighted sum of selected number of past encoded states. We have two constraints:-
1. Number of past states necessary
2. Weight for the selected past states
Since these constraints can be learned with back-prop, we can assume this to be as a layer which fits between the encoder and decoder
Attention Mechanism in Encoder-Decoder Model
5. Custom Keras Attention Layer — Code Example
This is a code snippet that was used to create Attention layer for one of the problems.
from keras.layers import Layer
import keras.backend as K class Attention(Layer):
def __init__(self,**kwargs):
super(attention,self).__init__(**kwargs)
def build(self,input_shape):
"""
Matrices for creating the context vector.
""" self.W=self.add_weight(name="att_weight",shape=(input_shape[-1],1),initializer="normal")
self.b=self.add_weight(name="att_bias",shape=(input_shape[1],1),initializer="zeros")
super(attention, self).build(input_shape)
def call(self,x):
"""
Function which does the computation and is passed through a softmax layer to calculate the attention probabilities and context vector.
""" et=K.squeeze(K.tanh(K.dot(x,self.W)+self.b),axis=-1)
at=K.softmax(et)
at=K.expand_dims(at,axis=-1)
output=x*at
return K.sum(output,axis=1)
def compute_output_shape(self,input_shape):
"""
For Keras internal compatibility checking.
"""
return (input_shape[0],input_shape[-1])
def get_config(self):
"""
The get_config() method collects the input shape and other information about the model.
"""
return super(attention,self).get_config()
Model building
input_text_bgru = Input(shape=(MAX_SEQUENCE_LENGTH,), dtype='float32')
embedding_layer_bgru = Embedding(len(tokenizer.word_index) + 1,
300,
weights=[embedding_matrix],
input_length=MAX_SEQUENCE_LENGTH,
trainable=False)
g = embedding_layer_bgru(input_text_bgru)
g = SpatialDropout1D(0.4)(g)
g = Bidirectional(GRU(64, return_sequences=True))(g)
att = Attention(MAX_SEQUENCE_LENGTH)(g)
g = Conv1D(64, kernel_size = 3, padding = "valid", kernel_initializer = "he_uniform")(g)
avg_pool1 = GlobalAveragePooling1D()(g)
max_pool1 = GlobalMaxPooling1D()(g)
g = concatenate([att,avg_pool1, max_pool1])
g = Dense(128, activation='relu')(g)
bgru_output = Dense(2, activation='softmax')(g)
6. Update with TensorFlow 2.0
With TensorFlow 2.0, Attention layer has been added as one of the layers and can now be directly implemented without defining it explicitly.
query_value_attention_seq = tf.keras.layers.Attention()(
[query_seq_encoding, value_seq_encoding])
This makes it easier to implement and becomes less cumbersome for Machine learning developers while designing complex architecture.
7. Conclusion
Attention Mechanism doesn’t limit itself to machine translation. It is used in image captioning where we use Visual Attention with help of CNN to get the feature maps.
Attention mechanism has uses beyond what we mentioned in this article. Hopefully you could get a general overview as to what problem Attention Mechanism is trying to solve. We implemented basic Attention Mechanism in Seq2Seq models with RNNs in this article. However, Transformer models like Google’s BERT and XLNet are major advancements which makes use of self-attention mechanism, are currently state-of-the-art in the field of NLP.
8. References
Connect with me
*** Thank you all for reading this article. Your suggestions are very much appreciated! *** | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/attention-mechanism-a-quick-intuition-26e154cdb49a | ['Nihal Das'] | 2019-12-24 09:03:46.767000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Language Translation', 'NLP'] |
Why is Accepting our own Bodies so Difficult? | As a young girl in high school I am very self conscious of my body. At times I find myself always looking in the mirror finding more and more insecurities about myself than I had the day before. Some women would tell you, “It’s okay to be self-conscious everyone is” or “I learned to accept who I was and then I didn’t care what I looked like”. But it’s hard to just move on and accept who I am when I’m surrounded by girls who I believe to be much prettier and skinnier. It’s hard to look in the mirror and see a body I’m not proud of.
In this day and age the perfect body is pretty unattainable unless you’re born with it and have the luckiest genes. Guys want a girl who’s got big boobs and a skinny waist while also having a big butt and thick thighs. This perfect girl they want is not even real or attainable.
The most rational thing to do would be to screw them and say, “If my body isn’t want they want then they’re not worth it” but for some reason I can’t do that. Maybe it’s cause in movies and TV I see girls who have “the perfect body” or because I see girls at my school that have all the guys and have a great body. I’m literally surrounded by things that tell me I should be un-satisfied.
I hate reading articles or seeing tv shows where in the end the girl decides to love herself and accept who she is because that’s just not realistic anymore. The message is great but they always get a guy who accepts them or they’re in a society where they can be themselves and people admire it. If I wore a bathing suit in public that said screw you on the back of it people would just laugh and stare; unlike in the movies where they look at the girl and go “ooh. I like her vibe”.
Our minds are not programmed to not hear at what others say about us or not compare ourselves to others. It’s not in our nature to not feel bad when others stare or when people tell us we don’t look good. So why are we so pressured by other’s to accept what we look like when others don’t like it?
Instead of trying to accept who I am and trying to be happy with my body, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m unhappy with my body and there will always be things I wish were different. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not perfect and I think as long as I realize that I’ll be okay. | https://medium.com/@tessabragg/why-is-accepting-our-own-bodies-so-difficult-e827790bd535 | ['Tessa Bragg'] | 2020-12-27 01:25:53.506000+00:00 | ['Accepting Yourself', 'Body Positive', 'Im Not Perfect', 'Being Proud Of Yourself', 'Body Image'] |
The Micro-Inequities that Destroy Morale and How to Overcome Them | Part 1: The Macro Impact of Micro Hurts
Introduction
Picture this. You are taking part in a video conference call about how to be nicer to your colleagues so you can work better as a team. The agenda mentioned something weird called micro-inequities as part of your team problem. Your boss has called the meeting for 10:00 am sharp. Your colleagues are visible on their tiny little screens along the edge of your monitor. Everybody is ready. Your boss, as is his style, has taken up the big screen space. Clearly, he is not ready. He is scrolling on his smart phone. Time passes.
Finally, one of your braver and less patient colleagues unmutes her mike and coughs purposefully. Your boss looks up into the web cam.
“So,” he says, “You want to know what the heck a micro-inequity is. Well, you have just been exposed to two micro-inequities. Hands up those of you who felt annoyed that I ignored the time, even though I insisted that you be on time? And who felt irritated with the way I ignored you while playing with my phone? Those are two common micro-inequities at work. Not being shown due respect and being ignored. Now, hands up those of you who did not like my use of the phrase ‘what the heck’. Yes, to some super sensitive souls, slightly inappropriate language can feel like a micro-inequity. Okay, now, who felt annoyed by how I said ‘super sensitive souls’? Exactly! That was another one! Not the phrase itself so much as the way I said it, implying that those who dislike crude language at work are somehow inferior to me.”
Even though this was a picture-it set up, in reading it and picturing it, you probably had a deja vu moment, an instant gut recall of having been in an actual situation like this one. Yes?
So what do we have so far? At least five good points about micro-inequities.
What the heck is a micro-inequity?
Which one is the super-spreader? (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
A micro-inequity makes you feel uncomfortable. Any minor event that makes you feel uncomfortable, or uneasy, could be a micro-inequity, at least to you.
Micro-inequities trigger feelings. It’s like stepping barefoot on a thorn. You recognize it after you feel it. You will recognize a micro-inequity in how it makes you feel when it happens.
Micro-inequities are small and fleeting, but add up. On their own and in singles, they are tiny and insignificant. However, if you keep adding ones together, you end up with something big.
The “at least to you” bit in #1 above is important. Often the person performing the micro-inequity is not even aware of what he or she has just done. Micro-inequities are often unintentional and therefore unrecognized by the perpetrator.
You are a carrier. As with a virus, you don’t even know when you’ve passed one on. And why not? Because you don’t define what a micro-inequity is. The person experiencing it defines it. It’s like how your immune system determines whether you will catch a virus.
Now, because micro-inequities are so small, so pervasive, and so “not my fault on purpose”, you might be tempted to shake your head and say “what nonsense!” You might think the same way I did when I first heard the term micro-inequity, “Oh no! Not another buzz word. Not another management training fad.” Well, between you and me, there might be some merit in this one. Let’s explore it some more.
Categorized, Labeled, and Pinned
Hard to describe because it can be so subtle. (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
So what does the word micro-inequity mean? The word inequity means unjust or unfair. Add micro to that and we get “little injustices or tiny unfairnesses.” That’s exactly what Mary Rowe, who coined the term way back in 1973, observed at MIT. As part of her job working for the president and chancellor of MIT, she noticed how minor issues, little acts of disrespect, corroded relationships. She defined micro-inequities as “small events which are often ephemeral and hard-to-prove, events which are covert, often unintentional, frequently unrecognized by the perpetrator, which occur wherever people are perceived to be ‘different.’”
Add “hard to describe because a micro-inequity can be so subtle” and you see the difficulty. After all, anything blunt and blatant, anything that is obviously rude, is not a micro-inequity.
There are two big issues in dealing with micro-inequities:
Because a micro-inequity is subtle, often unintentional and even unconscious, the perpetrator can deny it with sincerity. In other words, the perpetrator can be innocent of knowing, but not of the doing.
If the thing is almost invisible and the perpetrator can deny it so easily, how can the victim be sure it happened? (Do you see the problem?)
Let’s discuss the problem in terms of signals sent and received.
Micro signals
Some are fairly common and pretty harmless on their own. (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
There are several (micro) signals that should alert you to a micro-inequity: facial expression; rolling of the eyes; tone of voice; body language (especially hand gestures); choice of words; lack of eye contact; style of interaction (specifically type of questions asked); constantly being interrupted while you are talking; being left out of a discussion; trying to speak with someone who continues to do e-mails; talking with someone who keeps looking at his or her watch; not being introduced in a meeting and then being ignored; having your name mispronounced; having your name spelt incorrectly; fake, masked or forced smiles; and so on.
Actually, this is not quite correct. Many of these signals are fairly common and pretty harmless on their own. We see and hear them all the time. What really alerts you to a micro-inequity is the feeling in your gut. If you felt it, then a micro-inequity probably happened.
Here’s a last clue. We tend to see a micro-inequity as such because a micro-inequity is selective. If your boss treats everybody consistently the same, with the same little injustices and tiny unfairnesses, would these be defined as micro-inequities? For example, if your boss never makes eye contact with anyone, is this a behavior trait or a micro-inequity? Think about it.
Don’t worry about how unspecific this information appears to be, how tricky it is to define a micro-inequity. You will get the hang of it easily. After all, you are also a perpetrator!
Believing is feeling
Some of us see a UFO where others see a meteorite. (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
If your nonsense antennae are anything as sensitive as mine, then you probably feel that we are making a mountain out of nothing. Well, hold on to your seat because I am about to make it even zanier. I am going to make a statement that will either annoy you or make you shout “nonsense!” or both. Ready?
If you experience a micro-inequity, then it is because you created it.
No, no, calm down. I don’t mean that you made someone be rude to you. What I mean is that you could interpret an innocent event as a micro-inequity, because you were expecting one, because you believed it will happen to you. Not long ago we were taught that “seeing is believing.” Psychologists and social scientists have now shown that we are more likely to see something if we already believe it to be true. Let me explain it this way. Some of us see a UFO where others see a meteorite.
We would encounter far less nonsense if we would only admit that, “I would not have seen it, if I had not already believed it to be true.”
So what does this mean in terms of micro-inequities? Three major points:
You may experience an innocent event as a micro-inequity simply because you believed it to be true.
Because believing is seeing, others may not agree with you when you claim to have experienced a micro-inequity.
This one is tricky: Because you felt a micro-inequity, it is a micro-inequity to you… because you believed it. Get it?
Hopefully, by remembering these three points, you will never take micro-inequities so personally that they prevent you from functioning appropriately. One sure way of functioning appropriately is to remember that you don’t live in a vacuum. Always take context into account. Context is the circumstances that form the setting for an event, such as a micro-inequity. And it is context that will enable you to make sense of the event, to clarify its meaning, or to interpret it correctly.
What we could describe as a micro-inequity in one environment (e.g. the boardroom) might not be one in a different setting (e.g. the pub). In some situations, a pat on the back might mean you are part of the group. In other situations, ordinary politeness might mean, or make you feel, that you are excluded.
Always consider how everyone else is treated, not only how one person is treated. Remember, equity is about fairness and justice for all. A micro-inequity is a micro-inequity because it is selective, it is specific to one person and not to everybody. As I asked previously, if your boss never makes eye contact with anyone, is this behavior a micro-inequity if he never makes eye contact with you?
Now that I’ve mentioned pub and boardroom behavior, consider this. If your colleagues all get a slap on the back from the boss and you don’t, what does that mean? Are you being excluded while they are being included? Yes, micro-inequities can be a way of excluding people, but it gets worse. Even when the exclusion was unintentional, it can cause you to withdraw if the no-slap makes you doubt whether you are part of the team. Got that?
The macro impact of micro-inequities
Is he really con artist? (free public domain: clipart-people.com)
We all know that dynamite comes in small packages. So let me tell you a true story of how a little joke becomes a big problem. One day I was walking with a colleague when he suddenly interrupted himself and said, “See this guy with the plaid shirt coming toward us? He’s a con artist.” I studied the guy as he passed us, and then my colleague started laughing. “I don’t know that guy from Adam,” he said, “But I bet, now that I’ve planted the seed, the next time you see him you’ll still suspect him of being a con artist.” Now imagine what would happen if I met Mr Plaid Shirt. He would not understand why I am aloof. He would have to work hard to gain my trust, even as he sees that others have an easier time of it.
Here’s the real problem he faces. The harder he works at gaining my trust, the more I will suspect that he is setting me up. But to cover my suspicion, after all I have no proof, I will remain friendly and polite. So, on one level he can see that I am not pushing him away while in his gut he knows something is wrong. He’s in a double bind, because I am sending out conflicting messages. My friendliness pulls him in, but as he gets closer, he senses my coldness. Eventually, he will become annoyed, give up on me and stay away.
A victim of a micro-inequity is likely to go through the following stages:
Try harder
Become de-motivated
Under perform
Be warned about poor performance
Lose self-confidence and self-esteem
Make mistakes and become ineffective
Become history.
What is the impact of this? Obviously the individual suffers. But as his or her attitude and performance deteriorates, colleagues suffer, the team performance suffers and ultimately the organization pays the price. A micro event can have a macro impact. Like the idea that a butterfly, flapping its wings, can trigger a hurricane. Now do you understand how a micro-inequity can spread its harm beyond the two parties directly involved? It’s like a virus, an airborne virus.
The outcome can be a negative impact on performance, even if you are merely an observer. Every time you observe the injustice of a micro-inequity, you will devalue the perpetrator for abusing power and you will devalue the victim for not standing up to it. You might not be consciously aware of your change in attitude, but the negative feeling will grow.
Here’s why the negative feeling will grow. Remember what I said previously about context? Well, micro-inequities become clearly visible when they clash with the corporate culture. Corporate culture is just the-way-we-do-things-here. If the-way-we-do-things-here includes little injustices and hints of unfairness, then micro-inequities will be almost invisible. So ask yourself, does your organization’s culture tolerate and even encourage micro-inequities? Or does it frown on them? If it frowns on that behavior, then when you experience or observe a micro-inequity, it will worry you and impact on your performance.
Is that the outcome you want for yourself, your colleagues, your team and your organization? Of course not. That’s why you should make micro-inequities work for you. I’ll explain how to do that in Part 2: How to Turn a Micro Hurt Into a Macro Boost. | https://medium.com/@nonsenseatwork/the-micro-inequities-that-destroy-morale-and-how-to-overcome-them-c2665f7f9f5a | ['James Mcintosh'] | 2020-11-20 19:55:04.715000+00:00 | ['Unconscious Bias', 'Nonsenseatwork', 'Discrimination', 'Life Lessons', 'Bullying'] |
Channels, @mentions and DMs in Slack — what’s the protocol and etiquette? | When do I make a channel and when do I @mention or Direct Message someone?
We all have them — people who abuse @mentions every 👏 single 👏 time 👏 they need something. This is hardly good etiquette! I’m sure we’ve all seen channels like #thursday-sensible-lunch and #friday-lunch-shenanigens . Wildly inappropriate!
Try these guidelines in your workspace for maximum productivity and reduce the amount of unnecessary cognitive load given to slack.
These guidelines and frameworks also apply to other chat tools like Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook. The principles are totally the same!
When should you create a channel?
Over time I’ve noticed just five distinct reasons a new channel should be created. That’s it! Each has a specific purpose and each should get a certain level of your attention — adjust notifications accordingly.
#team — your team-wide channel
Use this channel for communications that need to notify everybody in your team. Use it as a place to host your stand ups, pass down announcements from higher up, check attendance and so on. Anything that you’d normally do as an entire team should live here. Needless to say, there should only be one of these per team.
#project — a channel for a specific project
Any time a new project kicks off, create a channel for it. This keeps all relevant communication, documents and artefacts in one place. Best of all, it’s a chronological recount of developments throughout the project. Use it to ask team members for help when you’re blocked so that there is a public record and other team members can benefit from the discussion. You can also pull in project specific integrations such as task boards for that project to keep everyone in the loop — even if they don’t open Trello, Asana or Planner as much as they should 😉
#ongoing-topic — a channel for ongoing learning, updates, etc.
A place for rolling updates around a specific topic where there is a lot of communication that shouldn’t pollute other channels. Some examples could be #covid19-response , #corporate-restructure , #javascript-learning and so on. Users can opt-in to this information if they find it relevant. Be sure to let everybody know the channel has been created in a team channel so people don’t miss out!
#integrations — a channel for integrating specific services to slack.
You might setup an integration for #power-bi that sends daily reports on website traffic to your workspace. If it’s not project specific, it’s probably something people want to opt-in to and be able to check when it suits them. Most integrations let you funnel notifications into specific channels. Use this type if you don’t want to mix discussion with integration notifications (though I wouldn’t recommend it).
#extra-curricular-and-random — channels for things unrelated to work discussion.
Examples would be #exercise , #bangin-spotify-playlists, #random , #news , #birthdays and so on. As slack puts it, these are places for “Flim Flam” and communication unrelated to work. You can even mix in integrations like PinPon — a favourite of mine — for keeping track of your highly competitive #table-tennis tournaments.
It’s important to have some level of discipline about where you ask people things. This comes naturally to most people and you’ll occasionally find the“Slack Police” telling people to please stay relevant.
Slack police staying on top of everyone
@mentions, DMs and the concept of synchronous vs asynchronous work
There are two distinct types of work that you perform all day, err day. Those are synchronous and asynchronous work tasks (yes, we’re borrowing this concept from programming). How you contact someone depends on what kind of work you’re doing. | https://medium.com/@harley_84337/channels-mentions-and-dms-in-slack-whats-the-protocol-and-etiquette-48b7f2b18226 | ['Harley Alexander'] | 2020-04-23 00:19:12.365000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Slack', 'Remote Working', 'Communication', 'Messaging'] |
Smart Contract Developer in Gwalior +919870635001 Nadcab Technology | Direct Whatsapp- https://bit.ly/2op0VQr
Website Visit- https://bit.ly/2nJJwBV
Smart Contract Development Process
Of course, let’s look at the blockchain documentation from the developer’s point of view. This is not a tutorial on how to develop blockchain smart contract development services, but general information to understand the step-by-step operation. You can also use this guide to choose the right technician for your project.
smart_contract_developer
Plan
Just as investigating to understand the project’s goals, developers conduct their own investigations to gather up-to-date information about smart contracts for similar purposes. The code is open source and changes daily. That’s why keeping track of the news is very important.
Development
You already know what security means on the blockchain, so give the developer time to get all the details of the smart contract right and set all the nuts and bolts in the right place.
Testing
They say that off-the-shelf smart contracts are like spacecraft. Once fired, there is no way to reverse it. As we know in web development, all bugs are temporary and can be handled quickly by experienced technicians. Blockchain Smart Contract Development Company is not the same. It cannot be changed upon request. The final product should be fully armed and ready to respond to malware attacks. This is the main reason there is so much talk about the security of smart contracts. Initially, the developer checks the product through the local blockchain.
Deploy to Testnet
Testnet is another level of protection for smart contracts. Here, the developer can double-check everything and see if the contract is ready or not while playing with real cryptocurrencies. For Ethereum, this is a principle that can be used by a team hired by Robstens or Rinke by. Here the developer works with Testnet Ethernet. You can get it for free on the platform.
Deploy to Production
The blockchain smart contract development services should only be activated after all necessary verifications have been completed. If the developer needs more time for testing, it’s okay. This can help reduce gray hair later. When everything is ready, the contract is deployed to production. It is the last step in this procedure
How does Smart Contract Development Work?
Smart contracts work in a very simple and fair process. It mainly follows three steps:
· In the first step, the contract is written in code for several parties and published on the blockchain platform.
· Second, events are triggered by contract execution.
· In this case, the contract is executed.
Upon completion of the process, both parties will receive funds, tokens or assets as promised. If the conditional protocol is not met, the smart contract returns the product to its owner. In addition, the smart contract ledger stores complete details and impose immutable functionality. In other words, once the data is saved, no one can change/change it.
To create an ICO blockchain smart contract development services you will need:
ICO Contract Subject: The software needed access to goods, services, etc. to lock or unlock automatically.
Digital Signature: All participants of the contract must sign a digital signature with a private key.
Contract Terms: A sequence of actions required to execute a smart contract. In addition, all participants must sign.
Smart Contract Development
Smart Contract Development Company is a virtual contract built using a blockchain platform for stability and privacy purposes. This smart contract can be concluded between two parties without the intervention of a third party, and the terms and conditions are drawn up according to the authority. Once these terms and conditions are met, funds are automatically transferred from one party to another. Smart contract data is stored on the ledger to enhance security. These enticing qualities not only make smart contracts stand out from the box but also garnered attention from various industries.
Nadcab Technology, a leading smart contract, provides a comprehensive range of smart contract development, security audit services, and solutions based on customer requirements. Complete blockchain smart contract development services architecture and code-based evaluation to ensure the security of smart contracts. Our team of experienced developers has the expertise to develop all types of smart contracts across a variety of blockchain platforms including Ethereum, Hyperledger, EOS, and Corda, as well as languages like Solidity, Golang Vyper, Truffle, and more. | https://medium.com/@nadcabofficial/smart-contract-developer-in-gwalior-919870635001-nadcab-technology-f78c031ea7a4 | ['Nadcab Software Development'] | 2020-12-24 12:03:46.223000+00:00 | ['Smart Contract Blockchain', 'Smart Contracts', 'Nadcab Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Tron'] |
A Summary for Node.js, socket.io, middlewares, and express.js | Node.js is introduced 11 years ago by Ryan Dahi. In 2009, Even if Apache was so popular, it couldn’t handle concurrent requests. For this reason, he developed node.js which is a runtime based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. It can be used for creating a web server, streaming, real-time applications, collecting data, browser games, etc. The webserver and scripts run in the same server-side application allow for much stronger integration between the web server and scripts. Also, the webserver can run instantly on the Node.js platform as a Node.js module. This means that it is much easier than creating an Apache server and combining it with server-side scripts.
Google’s V8 engine is a program that converts Javascript code into a lower level or machine code it is open-source and high-performance. V8 implements EcmaScript and can be embedded in any C++ program. Also, it compiles and executes javascript codes besides handling garbage collection and memory allocation for objects.
Among the most popular technologies. According to the StackOverflow user survey, node.js is among the most popular frameworks. It can easily be seen that in the future, a lot of companies will give a try to this technology. On the other hand, nowadays, Real-time applications and microservices have been spreading very fast, which means the need for this kind of technology will be more important than ever. For example, autonomous vehicles’ technologies are hardly dependent on real-time applications and using this or similar frameworks might be a solution for cutting-edge technologies.
Top companies using Node.js. Many big companies use this technology: Netflix, Linkedin, Walmart, Trello, Uber, Paypal, Medium, eBay, NASA, and so on. For example, Linkedin changed its mobile backend from ruby on rails to node.js. Kiran Prasad, Director of Mobile Engineering at LinkedIn, mentions that node.js was chosen for better performance, fewer servers, and using front-end developer for the back-end.
Languages used. According to 2018 node.js user survey report, developers use other programming languages besides node, largely JavaScript, Python, Java, and PHP. More detailed: JavaScript(93%), Python(37%), Java(35%), PHP(31%), .Net(20%), C++(16%), Go (16%), C (15%), Ruby (14%), Swift (9%).
Important topics of Node.js is that node package manager (npm), modules, socket.io, middlewares, and express.js
2. What is NPM?
As it is understood from the name of NPM (Node Package Manager), it is the node module manager created for saving and using node modules in a commonplace (https://www.npmjs.com/). Over time, it has become available in frontend libraries thanks to tools such as webpack and babel of node modules. Javascript has become available in both browser, server, developer, and desktop applications.
Previously Javascript was only running web pages on the browser with a single library such as Mootools and JQuery. Along with the advancements, there is a need for a “structure” in which many large and small modules can easily be accessed. The need for these modules to be found in an open-source area caused the birth of NPM. And this requirement provided by npm.
In fact, this type of module sharing platform existed in other languages, and it has been used for a long time. For example, we can see the development of package management tools such as npm, NuGet, PyPI, etc. at http://www.modulecounts.com/. Of course, this module count is an important resource in terms of showing the interest in languages even if the numbers and increase do not show the quality of these packages.
Figure 1: Module counts, source: http://www.modulecounts.com/
While developing new generation projects with npm containing over 1 million JS packages, we are dependent on hundreds and thousands of modules, and how we can manage this dependency and their updates. Here, SemVer (Semantic Versioning) comes into play [1] [2].
Thanks to Semantic versioning, it becomes possible to manage the dependencies of so many libraries. For example, the 3 digits in the 1.2.6 version do the following. When using a library, how the changes in that library affect your component.
major (breaking): We will need to make some updates to your code when you make an update due to a change in the module interface.
minor (feature): Adding a new feature without modifying the module interface.
patch versions (fix): If we solve just one mistake and without any changes on the interface.
Figure 2: An example of how versioning works for different stages. Source: npmjs.org
3. Module and module.exports
After defining any object, function, variable with Node.js, we can use the code of module.exports or exports to use the codes written in other files. The keyword module.exports and exports is a global object that can be used within every Node.js file. For example; exporting a variable [3]:
index.js
console.log(“This is the index file”); const message = require(‘./another_file’); console.log(message);
another_file.js
module.exports = “This message from another file!”;
Result:
This is the index file This message from another file
Export property
Since the data type of the” exports” keyword is an object, we can add several properties to the exports object. The message property written in the message.js module is exported as the property of the exports object below.
message.js
module.exports.mytext = “Hello Node!”;
index.js
console.log(“This is the index file”); const message = require(‘./message’); console.log(message);
Output:
This is the index file { hello: ‘Hello Node!’ }
The module returns the { hello: “Hello Node!” } object with the required function and assigns it to the message variable. The message property in the object is reached by message.hello
Export method
Since the data type of the export keyword is an object, we can add various methods to the exports object. The print function written in the posts.js module is exported as the method of the exports object below.
users.js
exports.showUserInfo = function (parameter1) { console.log(parameter1); }
index.js
console.log(“This is the index file”); const users = require(‘./users’); users.showUserInfo(“My name is Hasan!”);
Output:
This is the index file My name is Hasan!
Export function
index.js
console.log(“This is index file”); const users = require(‘./users’); users(“Hasan”, “Gökçe”);
users.js
module.exports = function (name, surname) { console.log(name + “ “ + surname); }
output:
This is index file
Hasan Gökçe
Export function as a class
Posts.js
module.exports = function (postId, postTitle) { this.postId = postId; this.postTitle = postTitle; this.postInfo = function () { return this.postId + ‘ ‘ + this.postTitle; } }
index.js
const Posts = require(‘./Posts’); console.log(“This is index file”); let post = new Posts (23, “This is a post title.”) console.log( post.postInfo() );
Output:
This is index file 23 This is a post title
4. Socket.io
Socket.io is in a continuous loop between a browser page and a server running in the background; is a double-sided and event-based library. So let’s consider an HTML page and server, for example, a javascript page. In the events on our browser page, we may want to take a background action instantly or access all users using this page. In this case, we come across a structure that allows us to instantly communicate with the background with a very simple process. Socket.io provides us with a two-way bridge with the server. Of course, this bridge can sometimes break. This is a loop and it will always try to reconnect. For this reason, we call it real-time.
Namespaces can actually be thought of as neighborhoods around the world. Each neighborhood must have its own name. There may be private rooms within these domains. So apartments. These apartments may also have their own names and special messages can be sent to the residents of this apartment. We may want to join this room, ie the apartment, and leave. This channel allows you to send a private message or request. Of course, we don’t have to be connected to a single apartment because you are in this room. We can also send messages to other apartments, the outside world.
5. Middleware
Middleware is intermediate software between applications that communicate with each other to perform repetitive tasks. They do not take action alone. For example, they can provide communication and data management for distributed applications. However, they cannot initiate direct communication or exchange data.
To summarize, a web server can return dynamic web pages in relation to the user’s profile through middleware. Here, the application handles the session/identity management of the user. In a classic web application, the user sends the request and receives a response from the server in return. In an advanced structure, the request is transmitted to the intermediate application. For example, it checks the user’s session and evaluates the information from the server in relation to the user. If the user has not started a session, it redirects them to the login page. Otherwise, control operation would have to be repeatedly performed on each routing operation. This, of course, will both increase the costs and make the application difficult to control. As another example, adding the character set to the response from the server can be considered.
Depending on our short definition, middleware can be created for purposes such as database transactions, transactions between application servers, message controls, and authentication. Structures such as soap, rest, and JSON can be used in the communication of applications. The middleware acts according to all these purposes.
Considering its features, it can be positioned at an intermediate level:
Application-level middleware
Router-level middleware
Error handling middleware
Built-in middleware
Third-party middleware
Intermediate applications/layers often appear at the application level if they are used for purposes such as login control or log and can interact with each process. Router-level interactions come into play on the basis of the specified URIs.
For example, a web framework Express defines itself as a set of middleware functions, and often tasks such as executing a code, making changes to request and response objects, terminating the request-response loop.
6. Express Framework
Thanks to the Express, which we can install as a package over npm, we can do Url parse and routing more easily, and we can do our static file management works more easily. In short, Expressjs provides us with all the necessary infrastructure to make a website/application with nodejs. It is enough to write npm install express –save to the console to install Express. It will be installed like other packages in Express. Let’s make a small example.
var express=require(‘express’); var app=express(); app.get(‘/’, function (req, res) { res.send(‘Hello World!’) }); app.listen(3000,function () { console.log(‘Server is listening to port 3000!’’) });
Routing is the structure that we have specified how to proceed and where it should be directed according to the incoming Url. It is very easy to do this in the Express Framework. The routing structure in Express works with HTTP methods. The general structure is app.method(URL, CALLBACK). Methods of the HTTP protocol such as GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE are used in the method section.
As we know, websites/applications run on the HTTP protocol. When you type the site address in a browser, it goes to the server over HTTP protocol along with any method of HTTP. In this way, operations can be performed on the server according to the URL and HTTP method. The default HTTP Method is the GET method. When we try to enter an address via the browser, the browser uses the GET method by default.
If the incoming URL matches this pattern, the CALLBACK function is executed. The callback function takes two variables. The first one is the variable that we get information about the request and the response. We can change the variable names as we wish. Let’s make an example related to routing.
const express=require(‘express’); const app=express(); app.get(‘/’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘Home’); }); app.post(‘/’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘Home Post’); }); app.get(‘/page1’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘get page 1’); }); app.post(‘/post’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘method post’); }); app.put(‘/put’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘method put’); }); app.delete(‘/delete’,function (req,res) { // not implemented yet res.send(‘method delete’); }); app.listen(3000,function () { // not implemented yet console.log(‘listening to port 3000’) });
If we look at our codes, we first put the express package we installed in the express variable. Then we created an express application named app. We create a route in the next process. We have specified what should happen when ‘/’ is entered on this route as url, that is, when it is left blank. For this, we used the get function of the app application we created. The callback function of the get function takes two variables: req, res. One is the request, that is, the req we manage the request, the other is the response variable, which is the response variable we manage. Within the callback function, we can send information to the user with the send function of the res variable. We sent the article. In the other route process, we look at what should happen when the ‘/ ‘ is entered as the url, but the Http Post method is used. In other route operations, we specify different Http methods and what to do on different URLs. Logic is simple. Choose http method, set url, write callback. That’s the routeing logic in Express. In the last part of our sample code, we ensure that the app express runs from 3000 ports. [4]
var express=require(‘express’); var app=express(); app.get(‘/’,function (req,res) { res.send(‘Home’); }); app.all(‘/pegeall’,function (req,res) { res.send(‘Page All’); }); app.get(‘/ab?cd’,function (req,res) { res.send(‘Page ab?cd!’); }); app.get(‘/de+fg’,function (req,res) { res.send(‘Page de+fg!’); }); app.get(‘/hi*jk’,function (req,res) { res.send(‘Page hi*jk!’); }); app.get(‘/page/:variable1/parameter/:variable2’, function(req, res) { res.send(req.params); }); app.listen(3000,function () { console.log(‘listening to port 3000’) });
If we look at our example, it is actually almost the same as the previous example. In the beginning, we created an express application again. Then we defined routes. Then we opened the application over 3000 ports. The difference is in route identification.
The first route definition is the same as in the first example. If we look at the second route definition, the app.all (…) function was used differently. This function shows that this route definition will work with all HTTP methods as long as the URL is provided.
Let’s look at the third route definition. Differently, the expression “/ab?cd” was used in the URL section. The sign indicates that the preceding letter is optional. In other words, if we write in “/abcd” through the browser and write in “/acd”, this route will work again.
Fourth, in the route definition, “/ de+fg” expression was used in the URL section. The meaning of the + sign here means that the letter coming before it can be duplicated as much as it wishes. So if we write in “/defg”, write in “/deeefg” this route will work.
In the fifth routing definition, “/hi*jk” expression was used in the URL section. The * sign here means you can write whatever you want together. In other words, if we write “/hijk”, “/ hi123456jk” means that this route will work.
If we look at the sixth and last route definition, there are two variable definitions in the URL, namely variable1 and variable2. Variable definitions are indicated with a “:” sign before them. Whatever is written to these variables in the URL means that we can access them from within the application. We can access these variables with the params variable of the req variable in the callback function of the route definition. For example, when we write the URL “/page/11/parameter/22” we can access these variables as “req.params.variable1” or “req.params.variable2”.
But most of the big projects have dozens of CSS, js, and image files. Do we have to define routes for each of them? Of course no. The authors of the Express Framework thought about this and wrote the Static Files feature for this.
app.use(express.static(‘public’)); app.use(‘/js’,express.static(‘static’));
Conclusion
Node.js and its frameworks and libraries handle numerous works with JavaScript language. This technology reduces development time for an application. The second conclusion, it is relatively a new technology, developers must be careful about security issues.
References
[1] https://docs.npmjs.com/about-semantic-versioning
[2] https://blog.npmjs.org/post/162134793605/why-use-semver
[3] https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v14.x/docs/api/modules.html
[4] https://expressjs.com/tr/starter/basic-routing.html | https://medium.com/@codewithhasan/a-summary-for-node-js-modules-socket-io-middlewares-and-express-js-b51876421a20 | ['Hasan Gökçe'] | 2020-11-24 17:32:27.723000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Expressjs', 'Socketio', 'NPM'] |
WSL2 window 10 developers environment | I’ll share my developer environment using new WLS2 in windows 10.
Image from scotch.io
Microsoft has officially announced WSL2 and I’d like to use it in my windows PC and this is really awesome 💯.
Let’s go over how I’ve set this up and use in my labtop. By the way I am using dell xps 9700.
Firstly, run win + r and run winver to find out your Windows 10 version.
Your Windows 10 version must be higher than the Version 2004, Build 19041 . If not, you should update your Windows from Settings -> Windows Update . If you can’t find any updates although you are in lower version, you can try download the updates from the link.
After restarting your computer, you are ready to install WSL2. Actually the way to do is well written in the official Microsoft doc.
1. Open PowerShell as Administrator and run below
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
2. Enable the Virtual Machine Platform optional component
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart
3. Set WSL 2 as your default version
wsl --set-default-version 2
4. Open up Microsoft Store and select your favorite Linux distribution. I have installed Ubuntu which is 20.04 currently
5. After the installation, setup your Linux user
6. Run PowerShell with administrator again and write below command
wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2
7. Switch wsl to wsl2
wsl --set-default-version 2
Now you’ve gotten wsl2 in your computer if you did not have any troubles 🎉. Below are more setups I’ve had in my environment.
1. Install Windows Terminal
2. Open Windows Terminal and open settings.json
3. Look for the guid from the settings
4. Change the defaultProfile guid to Ubuntu .
You can also startingDirectory as below.
"startingDirectory" : "//wsl$/Ubuntu-20.04/home/<Your Ubuntu Username>"
5. Install zsh
sudo apt install zsh
6. Install oh-my-zsh
$ sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
I also recommend you to install zsh-syntax-highlighting
7. Remove ugly highlights when writing ls -l .
You can remove it by adding below in ~/.zshrc . Followed by the article.
LS_COLORS='ow=01;36;40'
export LS_COLORS
8. Install nvm
Run source ~/.zshrc after installation.
after installation. Also install stable node using nvm. nvm install stable .
9. Install yarn globally
npm install -g yarn
Export yarn global path in ~/.zshrc .
export PATH="$PATH:'yarn global bin'"
10. Install vscode
Also, update settings.json for vscode. Here are the settings in gist, I use currently.
11. Install plugins for vscode
Specific lists are listed below
DotENV
EsLint
Git History
GitLens
GraphQL Language Support
Import Cost
Live Share
Remote WSL
sort-imports
Vim
vscode-styled-components
Bracket Pair Colorizer 2
Lastly, I am going to tell you very important concept in WSL2. If you want to experience the dramatic performance gains using WSL2, you should place your sourcecode in Linux filesystem which will start with /home/{username} . If you put them in Windows filesystem which start with mnt/c/* , you will experience even worse performance compared to WSL1. Here is the issue with related discussion.
I really enjoy working with WSL2. Hope there are more users with my environment.
Thanks for reading 😄 | https://medium.com/dooboolab/wsl2-window-10-developers-environment-22bda52d1d04 | [] | 2021-02-10 17:12:39.121000+00:00 | ['Dev Environment Setup', 'Dooboolab', 'Wsl 2', 'Ubuntu', 'Windows Subsystem Linux'] |
Mickael Deschamps — His Start, His Goals, His Dreams. | Today’s story comes from Mickael Deschamps from Quebec, Canada. A compatriot of mine! When he told me his story, I was in awe and thought that I had to share it! The steps that he’s taken is nothing short of courageous and I think everyone who is in a similar situation can get something out of it…here’s his story:
I started dancing 5 years ago thanks to my best friend… She and my other friends used to go practice behind the school yard and I just followed them every time and I sat there and watched… Until one day I went to see one of their show and I thought “omg this is what i want to do” so I started learning choreographies on the internet and I practiced every night and I got involved into a school show which was my first show experience ever. Then my mother realized I was into dancing a lot so she subscribed me to a hip hop session a my studio Kdanse as a Xmas gift.
Then, I did the whole session and when we did our practice in front of the other dancers, people came to me saying I stood out of the group and that I should go and try out for competitions… I was not sure but hey what do I have to lose? So I did the auditions, and I got in! Thus, I did my first year of competition and had a lot of fun! After I had to stop dancing because I went to college and I want to take a pause because of money problems, it was really expensive doing competitions.
But that same year that I stopped I took a pause I started teaching hip-hop at my studio which was a really really really cool experience I started teaching there so the whole year that I stopped dancing, I was still teaching so I never really stopped.
I just took a pause and it was really nice because I got the chance to experience other things and just dance in front of people. I just could just, you know, show it to other people.
And So I realize that I really loved teaching and that’s what I wanted to do for a living. The year after I returned to my crew to do competitions.
Also, I continued on with college studies and stuff but then at the end of the year in April I decided to stop everything because I thought that going to school was slowing me down. For my dreams is to go to Montreal and be a professional dancer and eventually go to California to dance with the biggest artists such as Chris Brown, Tyga, and Beyonce and stuff like that so I decided to take every contract that my studio could give me.
I decided to go everywhere. I decided to do a lot of workshops in Montreal and in Quebec. As well I spoke to professionals, they gave me advice on how to get there and right now I have a YouTube channel on where I post a lot of videos of me dancing.
They’re my choreographies and I just love what I do and I wish that one day I’ll be able to do this 24/7 and do it for a living. The biggest struggle that I have it’s the fact that I live in a small town so growing up as a dancer is not easy because we don’t have a lot of opportunities such as in Montreal. They have a lot, so I’m thinking about moving to Montreal to get more opportunities and get known more and make a name out of it, so yeah that’s pretty much it, I have a lot I have a big story of dancing but if you want to know more you can just ask me about it.
You can reach/follow out to him on
IG: https://www.instagram.com/magik__mikee/ YT://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmUTQLI5FG0rTar8Y_FVQlg | https://medium.com/@donaldlee50/mickael-deschamps-his-start-his-goals-his-dreams-754c42076c37 | ['Donald Lee'] | 2019-06-25 14:34:28.377000+00:00 | ['Dancer', 'Dance', 'Stories', 'Hip Hop', 'Canada'] |
The patriarchal Mexican board | March 11th, 2020
Hope you are having a great week and welcome back to our brief thoughts on ESG. This week I’d like to share with you an article Damian and I co-authored on gender equality in Mexican boards.
What do Mexican corporate giants Grupo Alfa, Grupo Mexico, Televisa, Alpek, Grupo Elektra, Grupo Carso, Coca Cola Femsa, ASUR, Gruma, Cuervo, Peñoles and Megacable have in common? Well, as of 2019 none of them had women in their board, and they are a full third of the of 35 top companies in the Mexican Bolsa’s IPC index surveyed by Miranda ESG/IR. This puts Mexico behind other countries.
In the US all 500 companies in the S&P 500 have had since July 2019 at least one woman board member. Overall, about 9% of board seats in Mexico of the top listed companies in 2019 were taken up by women in 2019, versus 27% in the USA.
Some of the names on the men-only boards are not especially surprising. Grupo Mexico, Grupo Carso, Grupo Alfa and Peñoles are traditional mining and industrial companies, run by patriarchs for generations now. But it’s surprising to see media company Televisa and consumer goods players such as Coca Cola Femsa and Gruma in the same list. Whatever the controlling families’ personal views on gender balance, it would seem a fairly obvious public relations blunder in 2020 to exclude a little over half the world’s population from the company’s ultimate decision-making body.
And kudos to Santander Mexico (45%) and Wal-Mart de Mexico (35%) for having over a third of their board female. Indeed, Santander Mexico went a step further this year and brought Laura Diez Barroso in as chairman of the board. A number of studies have shown that board representation of women needs to move to about 30% for a strong positive impact to be felt.
There are at least four reasons why Mexican companies should have more women in the boardroom.
First, it’s the right moral and ethical to do, irrespective of the consequences. Mexico’s own code of ethics for large businesses recognizes this.
Second, it’s more likely than not to improve decision-making at the board level by bringing another viewpoint, and one that may have useful insights into women employees and customers by sharing a common gender experience with them. By some measures, women account for 70%-80% of consumer purchasing, and so you would think it is important to understand them. An often-quoted study of about 20,000 companies around the world by the Peterson Institute of International Economics showed that “an increase in the share of women from zero to 30 percent (in top management) would be associated with a 15 percent rise in profitability”. A recent, excellent report by Bank of America (“Womomentum”), March 2020, shows that companies with a high proportion of women in leaderships positions have higher valuations, and better profitability.
Third, more and more institutional money is linked to ESG factors, of which gender balance in the board is a fairly easy one to measure. If you want to attract such money, it makes sense to avoid appearing to be misogynistic in a way that is impossible to hide. (As board representation is public, it’s the first thing a Norwegian ESG fund is likely to look at.) Goldman Sachs no longer will take US and European companies public that do not have a women board member.
Fourth, mandatory female representation may soon become law in Mexico. Quotas for female board members is already in the law in Norway, Denmark, Finland, and even California, among many other places. There are at least two initiatives in Mexico’s Congress (one from PRI, one from Movimiento Ciudadano) which are pushing for a similar rule in Mexico, according to press reports.
As none of this is especially new, and most large Mexican listed companies are fairly sophisticated, why do they not push harder for female representation? The standard argument from the companies is that experienced women board members are hard to find. Given that qualified board members often need to be former top executives of companies, and not many women make the executive suite (only 8% of CEOs, 10% of Executive Committees, and 16% of VPs in Mexico are women, according to McKinsey), there is obviously some merit to that argument.
That said, raising female board representation may help break the vicious cycle, by having board members pushing harder for women’s promotions, and acting as role models. And as if each of the top 35 IPC had two women board members, and there was no overlap, we are only talking about 70 women board members in a country of nearly 130 million. (As it there is plenty of overlap; both Blanca Treviño of Softec (Walmex, Bolsa) and Laura Diez Barroso (GAP, Santander) are on at least two boards of IPC companies.
Of course, composing the perfect board is more than about obtaining some semblance of gender balance. Clearly qualifications of each board member are key, as is their complementarity with each other. That aside, the number of board members, how many other boards do board members sit on, age balance, tenure limitations, independent/family balance should play a role too in composing the perfect board. Here the data is harder to come by, as not all companies provide ages, tenure, and their definitions of independent and non-independent directors are somewhat subjective.
A board of more than 20 people is probably too big. The average in Mexico is 13, which is about right. However, companies with boards that are likely too big include Femsa (20), Arca Continental (20), Grupo Televisa (20), Grupo Bimbo (18). With respect to multiple board representation, Claudio X. Gonzalez L. (age: 85), notwithstanding his brilliance and superb business track record, is on 5 boards of the top 35 list (Grupo Carso, Bolsa, Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, Alfa, Grupo Mexico). Also on five boards are Ricardo Touche, Fernando Ruiz, and Armando Garza Sada. With respect to women, apart from Laura Diez Barroso, Blanca Treviño is on the board of two companies (Wal-Mex and BMV).
The average age of a Mexican board is 65 which strikes us as too high, and average tenure is 12.5 years, which seems too long. Overall Mexican boards need to be younger and turn over their people more frequently and more genuinely independently. At America Movil, Mexico’s second largest company after Wal-Mex, one board member is 90 (David Ibarra). At the other extreme the only female board member Vanessa Hajj is 22, presumably only just graduated, and is the daughter of the CEO and grand-daughter of the Honorary Chairman, Carlos Slim Helu. About half of the board members are classified as independent; this is probably a little misleading as many independent board members are part of the friend group of the controlling shareholders..
But, does the board actually matter in Mexico? Clearly in a family-controlled entity, the family and not the board per se is the ultimate decision maker. But in theory the family should express its control through taking decisions in the board itself, and not over the Sunday dinner table. As families grow and control groups widen, and as more companies are founded by private equity firms, the importance of the board versus the family is growing. And whether family controlled or not, the board projects the company’s values to the outside world.
So, the board does matter, or at least should do, and whether owners like it or not, some gender balance may well soon become a regulatory and ESG requirement. Our counsel is to be ahead of the curve.
Hope this was of use. If you’d like more detail on the boards of these companies, reach out as we have an xls with more granularity. And as usual, if there is anything we can help you with, please reach out. Also, don’t forget to recommend any ESG subject matter that you would like us to research and put in a forthcoming weekly
Regards,
Marimar
Partner, Miranda ESG | https://medium.com/@marimartorreblanca/the-patriarchal-mexican-board-b412d828229f | ['Marimar Torreblanca'] | 2020-11-27 16:49:40.808000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Women In Business', 'Esg', 'Equality', 'Finance'] |
My First Flutter App | One of my very first flutter application I did after watching some tutorial was a calculator app. It was a very interesting experience, I spent most of the time googling things, I also wanted to stop and watch another video, since I though a video will help me but I ended up doing it by myself.
I started by looking up some designs in Dribble, and I finally decided on one particular design.
I will be walking you through how I created this UI and implemented the app. We will start with the dark theme design. Let’s open up Android Studio and create a new flutter application. After removing the sample code, we should analyze how we shall proceed. It important to consider everything on the screen as a container, it personally helped me to picture how I will implement the design.
It’s clear that we will be using a Column widget since the layout is from top to bottom. Let’s create 3 additional files namely calculator.dart, calculatorButton.dart, and shadow.dart as shown below.
In our main.dart file let’s return a MaterialApp Widget and assign Calculator() to our home.
Let’s move to our calculator.dart file, import material.dart and create a StatelessWidget, where we will return a Scaffold Widget, with an AppBar (contains Icons and title) and Column() in the body section. I captured the background color from the UI and used it here, to have the same design.
For the screen section, I created a Container widget as child a Column() (with 2 Text widgets as children), then added Padding and Expended Widget to the Container Widget.
Now let’s continue to the buttons, I noticed that it will be easier to create a Row Widget then add as children different Column widgets with the desired number of design buttons inside it. But first let’s create a button in the calculatorButton file. We are going to import material.dart create a StatelessWidget and return MaterialButton widget, as child a Text widget I then added some styles on the Text widget and Button to give it a circular shape.
Moving back to our calculator file, while adding the buttons to the UI, I ended up repeating some things just to have the UI going. As we continue with the app we shall refactor our code.
Let’s see how our app looks for far
We shall continue with our app later, for the meantime play with the code and try to make it better. I’m open for suggestions, feel free to leave a comment will love hearing from you.
How was your experience with your first flutter application? | https://medium.com/@nancyepey/my-first-flutter-app-1b4dba570507 | ['Epey Mary Nancy E.'] | 2020-11-23 17:59:31.688000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Mobile Apps', 'Calculator', 'Flutter App Development', 'Flutter Ui'] |
I jumped off a 17 story building | I jumped off a 17 story building
My Bungee Jumping trip in AJ Hackett Sentosa, Singapore.
Those upfront soars to touch the softness of a cloud
leaving behind reverberated shrieks and dangling ropes
jump to chase their own plunging shadows.
There's something in their heart
easily put into words:
Insanity.
Oh, it's my turn?
I smiled at the Go Pro lodged onto my wrists
lips carefully covering the magnitude 10 earthquake caused by teeth.
I shuffled forward
to be greeted by a questionable scenery —
two very intimidating men with tattooed arms and
exhales that can quench the thirsts of vodkaholics.
Whoever said everything looks better from above
definitely didn't need to jump down.
My hands are left numb without their warm clasps of mine
and the calm words of consolation
that they so well hide under erratic palpitations.
My perspiration alone could create its own magnolia cloud,
told to look far into the horizons
but my eyes distance from where the sky touches the sea
instead, stare down
at all that's minimized.
In the expanse of soft sand and a pit of ice warm water for a pool
dots of blackheads also known as humans
shuffle around like ants in a sizzling pan
whipping out phones to blind me with flashes of the latest Fruit phone.
In the very last moments of my flawed life decision
I arrest my eyes on 2 familiar faces
Mom and Dad waving at me.
They’ve already jumped
leaving only me and my wits
left on the checklist of the Grim Reaper’s quota.
Gripping my whitened toes on the edge of the platform
I look far with them squinted eyes of Tom Cruise
and spit words that parents heavily frown upon.
Hey, at least they cant hear the Fs from up here
I don't know what got into me
either my supportive parents
or a girl below grinning with thumbs up.
After about a century of the phrase “ let me catch my breath”
I jumped.
( the girl would probably leave now after hearing my screams 8 octaves higher than my mother’s)
And as the minimized images soon magnified
I found myself
headfirst into a pool
before being bounced back up
the droplets of water still dripping
from distorted hair and a flustered countenance.
I jumped.
I actually jumped!
And as fear eluded me to be replaced by accomplishment
and the shower of rousing applause
the words on the signboard suddenly resonated in my blood-rushed head
why stay on the edge when you can jump off? | https://medium.com/scrittura/i-jumped-off-a-17-story-building-a14dcc3fa71f | ['Daniel A. Teo'] | 2020-12-21 16:03:30.262000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Daredevil', 'Bungee Jumping', 'Experience', 'Poetry'] |
Ascending in the Age of Aquarius: 3 Ways to Achieve Your Divine Flow | Empty Your Vessel
A glass overfilled begins to spill. Over commitment creates a state of being where you become clumsy, and your emotions spill out onto others. A state of being that can be stuck in the past, igniting and channeling traumatic memories of those who have poured their frustrations out onto you. Do you find yourself, at times — reckless, overbearing, and unable to break the cycle?
In the poem For the Thousandth Time, I want to know, Mark Nepo offers the reader a refreshing perspective on breaking the cycle of stress and suffering. His poem is featured in his book The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting, Sounds True, 2016. It is also featured in Sufi issue #61.
Even if an empty box
is torn apart, the air
inside joins the rest and even if an empty heart
shatters, the love inside
coats the stars and when a bird it’s born
its shell is done. How much we fear we know
depends on whether we live
as something torn apart
or as the air released. How much pain turns to suffering
depends on whether we live
as something shattered
or as the love about to join. We can live as a shell
waiting to crack
or as a bird waking
to its song.”
Making the transformation described in the poem means accepting unpredictability, and that each moment in your life is enough. It means maintaining your high standards while being dispassionate about perfection. It means refusing to only be satisfied, uplifted and empowered when things go smoothly.
“What do I do to achieve this placid existence?” you ask.
Nothing.
Doing nothing, in fact, may be your best path to real transformation in this new age.
You say to yourself, “How is that possible? I have so many commitments!”
From extra curricular activities to entertainment, you’re doing a lot. You’ve signed up for parties, events and activities, and when the weekend hits, it’s suffocating you.
Stop.
In her book, “The Happiness Track,” Emma Seppälä talks about the value of taking time to do nothing.
She explains the guilt that comes with planning for real rest and rejuvenation, and how resting becomes the exception, not the norm. Your instincts tell you to always be on the go, to always be “at war,” based on your fight or flight response.
If you feel you are in this sinkhole — how do you pull yourself out? | https://medium.com/@cryptohydrate/ascending-in-the-age-of-aquarius-3-ways-to-achieve-your-divine-flow-4840e7753ba7 | ['Drew Harrison Marshall'] | 2020-12-22 14:15:36.213000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Wellness', 'Aquarius', 'Stress', 'Meditation'] |
Boost Up Your Business Conversations With Best Dialers For Salesforce | Boost Up Your Business Conversations With Best Dialers For Salesforce WahInnovations Jun 8·2 min read
Salesforce dialers are the best and most beneficial tools for sales and management teams. It’ll spend less time on phone dialing and boost productivity to obtain more customers and potential for your sales and marketing staff.
A dialer for salesforce is a technology or a business tool for making sales calls. The dialers are quite effective for your B2B sales performance and productivity but let us know a few facts about sales dialers before selecting a dialer for your business.
There are three types of Sales Dialers:
Click-to-Call Dialer
List-Based Dialer
Agent Assisted Dialer
Let’s know more about these dialers;
Click-to-Call
Click-to-Call dialing works as you choose your potential customer, click on their number, and call from your laptop, using your Salesforce system or other CRM systems. When you click on the telephone number, you need not worry that the numbers are inaccurate when you dial.
List-Based Dialer
You upload a B2B list of sales prospects into your CRM system through a list-based dialer, such as our Dialer, commonly known as the “Flow Dialer.” When you start calling, you click on the first call number and then proceed through your list one by one, and you don’t have to check the phone on your list. Consider this as the next step from Click-to-Call.
Assisted agent dialer
Either robot or human agents use agent-assisted dialing to navigate the gatekeepers, voices, busy signals, and the incorrect numbers from the sales representative. That allows your sales representatives to focus on sales talks. Once the sales representative is indicating that they are ready for the next chat, the agent dialer begins calling them till they reach a live person. During your conversation, you will be advised by your sales representative that you start ringing back up till the call is over.
Final Words
The appropriate technology for sales involvement can save your B2B sales force time, boost productivity and reduce stress. Mango Dialers is one of the best dialer for Salesforce, created by Wahinnovations. Mango Dialer offers quick to set up, easy browsing UIs, preview dialers and predictive dialer functions, and auto dialing software. | https://medium.com/@wahinnovations08/boost-up-your-business-conversations-with-best-dialers-for-salesforce-a4fc671bcd2e | [] | 2021-06-08 08:04:34.743000+00:00 | ['Dailer', 'Salesforce', 'CRM', 'Best Dialer', 'Software'] |
Search (Pt 1) — A Gentle Introduction | Search (Pt 1) — A Gentle Introduction
Photo by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels
The ability to search the entire web in less than a second for whatever we fancy knowing is one of the greatest achievements of recent history. But how does it work? What are its building blocks? And, most importantly, … can we hack together our own version of it? The latter is important because search is inevitably personal: it is all about our focus, preferences, resources at our disposal and even emotions. Plus, it’s really cool!
In this three part series, I will:
Pt 1. Provide a gentle introduction to Search using both Google and Elasticsearch as examples
to Search using both Google and Elasticsearch as examples Pt 2. We will explain some state-of-the-art NLP techniques, compare results to traditional approaches and discuss pros and cons
compare results to traditional approaches and discuss pros and cons Pt 3. Provide a hacker's guide to building your own search engine with Elasticsearch engine containing 1 million news headlines & employing state-of-the-art NLP for enhanced semantic searches…
Search - in a nutshell
When we talk about search nowadays we often mean Semantic Search. What is semantic search, you ask? Imagine searching for the word “virus threat”. A simple lexical search approach will come back with documents containing the words exactly and with in particular order of importance. Additionally documents about "security threat" will also be considered relevant as they contain part of the query.
Semantic search, on the other hand, is also able to pick up on the idea of “disease”, “infection” and “corona” - we have a far wider and potentially more accurate search reflecting the "meaning" of what we are looking for instead of sticking to its specific keywords. In this section, I have often sourced ideas from the work by Bast, Hannah; Buchhold, Björn; Haussmann, Elmar (2016). “Semantic search on text and knowledge bases”. In that text they state:
Semantic search denotes search with meaning, as distinguished from lexical search where the search engine looks for literal matches of the query words or variants of them, without understanding the overall meaning of the query
The diagram below shows core components of a search engine of this kind
Image by the author
We focus on semantic search on text with some additional annotations (such as names, dates, links, etc) as opposed to say search on structured databases. This is essentially the typical web search we use all the time.
Please note, the article deals with a search that produces lists of relevant documents or individual facts, not additional steps such as ranking based source quality, eg PageRank, results summarisation, etc.
Query Types
These can be broken down into:
Keyword - these are shorthand searches, not proper sentences but where the set of keywords and sometimes order carries semantic meaning, for instance Neil Armstrong date of birth, pasta recipe under 10mins
- these are shorthand searches, not proper sentences but where the set of keywords and sometimes order carries semantic meaning, for instance Neil Armstrong date of birth, pasta recipe under 10mins Structured/Semi-structured - special syntax used in a query. It can represent either the full query or just refinements to it. For instance, this might be a restriction to only search a specific source, e.g. news from AP only. In other cases this might restrict the languages of the results or state mandatory elements of the query
- special syntax used in a query. It can represent either the full query or just refinements to it. For instance, this might be a restriction to only search a specific source, e.g. In other cases this might restrict the languages of the results or state mandatory elements of the query Natural language & natural questions - fully or mostly grammatically formed questions: “What is Neil Armstrong’s date of birth?”. This is the most natural way to interact with search, however, it also poses many difficulties. For instance, we could be asking multiple questions at once "Where can I park and what are opening hours?" or pose philosophical queries instead of fact searching ones "What is the meaning of life?". As you can see from the examples, the scope of questions is quite broad. While those make sense to us, algorithms tend to specialise in narrow tasks, hence the need for various algorithms working in concert that are able to determine which results are appropriate.
Query processing
These are the different types of transformations the system might need to perform on the original entry before passing it on to the search algorithm. Those could be
Extractive - where specific names, entities, places are extracted to further help the search and compare with values in the document metadata or against knowledge bases. For instance, in the below query Neil Armstrong the information box on the left is a result from invoking google’s Knowledge Base because the query was successfully matched with an entry from it
Filters and constraints - in cases where semi-structured queries specify some restrictions on the results, e.g. only news in English, the scope of the search will be translated to the search engine
- in cases where semi-structured queries specify some restrictions on the results, e.g. only news in English, the scope of the search will be translated to the search engine Other transformations are modifications to the search, e.g. for wildcard or fuzzy search. In which case the original query may be transformed into one or many variants. For instance, with fuzzy search, we might allow for some number of character modifications to the key words entered until we find the most likely word searched. See below, the result in Google when I look for Neil Armslong. Even though a gentleman by the name Armslong probably exists and is important, the system considers it is far more likely we made a typo.
Search and Rank
Finally, one or more types of search & ranking approaches may be used. These will either be able to find an answer or return a ranked list of results matching the query. Ranking makes sure that more pertinent results are higher up - those might be results that mention keywords of the search more often than other results or contain relevant information to the query in their title or opening paragraphs. There are:
Keyword searches - the most common types, where exact or very close to literal matches are made. The predominant part of searches is still done this way. What makes them semantic - they would use term occurrences to rank higher documents that appear more relevant to a keyword and recognize when some of the keywords are rare ranks hits on those higher than hits on more 'common' words in the query. A number of algorithms are available: BM25, tf-idf, various Learning to Rank methods, etc.
- the most common types, where exact or very close to literal matches are made. The predominant part of searches is still done this way. What makes them semantic - they would use term occurrences to rank higher documents that appear more relevant to a keyword and recognize when some of the keywords are rare ranks hits on those higher than hits on more 'common' words in the query. A number of algorithms are available: BM25, tf-idf, various Learning to Rank methods, etc. Contextual searches - I refer to any search based on textual embeddings that attempts to use the query entirely and find contextually relevant results. This is opposed to relying on any specific keywords or phrases individually to determine results. We will focus on this a bit more later, as it is central to this series. Some recent advances in NLP techniques here will help us improve the quality of search significantly.
Lets quickly have a face-off - keyword vs contextual search. Searching for “virus thread”, on news headlines, the left set of results are from a keyword approach while the ones on the right are from contextual search. The latter gives us a number of results which are not matching any search term directly like example 5 on the right: “WHO highlights dangers of vector borne diseases”
Knowledge base - as seen above, entries from a knowledge base can be matched directly to entries in a knowledge base and used further for generating a result. More advanced techniques can also apply where a keyword or natural language query can be transformed into a query to a knowledge base. For instance, ‘Astronauts on the moon’ would return another knowledge base result
Question-answering - traditionally, search engines have used modifications from the processing step to transform a natural question to a more keyword-like query and process it as such. More recently, advances in NLP have shown strong performance by algorithms that directly pinpoint whether and where an answer to a natural question can be found within a specific document. Unlike the other search paradigms from above, question answering focuses on providing an actual (single) answer as opposed to a list of documents (like the others in this list). Here is what happens when we ask about the moon landing as a natural question. In addition to a list of answers we get a specific answer.
However, the technique works similarly from a not-so-natural question ‘year of first moon landing’
Finally, slight modifications to the query can break the result and we no longer get an explicit answer, we even land somewhere else completely | https://towardsdatascience.com/search-pt-1-a-gentle-introduction-335656c0f814 | ['Mihail Dungarov'] | 2020-09-19 08:40:47.253000+00:00 | ['Search', 'NLP', 'Knowledge Graph', 'Articial Intelligence', 'Transformers'] |
“Edward Scissorhands”: A Classic for All Seasons | About “Edward”
On one level, “Edward Scissorhands” is a fable about a boy, with scissors for hands, who cannot touch.
As to the plot, it’s basically a new take on “Frankenstein,” with several twists.
The film opens with a framing device: A kindly old woman (Winona Ryder) tells a bedtime story to her young granddaughter about the origin of snow. Years before, there lived a boy named “Edward” and an old inventor (Vincent Price, in one of his last roles) who was not yet finished with his creation. They lived in a dank mansion atop a mountain, and in place of Edward’s hands, which were not yet ready, the inventor had temporarily attached scissors in their place.
The inventor dies, however, just as he presents Edward with his new appendages and the promise of imminent completion.
Edward now exists in the mansion alone, until Peg Boggs (Dianne Weist), a hard-up Avon lady, unexpectedly visits looking to sell products. She invites Edward to stay with her, which stuns not only her husband (Alan Arkin) but her nosy neighbors.
In short order Edward becomes a neighborhood sensation, cutting hair, grooming pets and trimming bushes. Edward, though, is a timid stranger in this new culture, frightened by his own shadow. He falls in love with Peg’s daughter, Kim (Ryder, soon to be revealed as the grandmother from the open), who is dating the neighborhood bully, Jim (Anthony Michael Hall).
When Kim begins to respond to Edward’s affection, a jealous Jim frames Edward for robbery, turning the town against the interloper and leading to tragedy …
Filmmaking Specs
The plight of the outsider, as cinematically defined by pioneering artists such as Chaplin and Keaton, is very nearly equaled in Depp’s remarkable performance ... as directed by Tim Burton and written by Caroline Thompson, based on a story by them both. The acting is impeccable, as is the direction, and Danny Elfman’s score …
Breathtaking.
Special note must go to the visionary Burton, whose eccentric filmography proves he was one of the very few auteurs who could carry off such a gothic and pastel feat.
The “Batman” director’s filmmaking partnership with the future Captain Jack Sparrow, of which to my mind “Ed Wood” is the other standout, is notable for its many portrayals of societal misfits. | https://medium.com/media-cake/edward-scissorhands-a-classic-for-all-seasons-373029b888ee | ['Joel Eisenberg'] | 2020-01-18 12:50:42.004000+00:00 | ['Fantasy', 'Johnny Depp', 'Movies', 'Writing', 'Tim Burton'] |
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