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Hey Carlyn,
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Hey Carlyn,
Thanks for writing this!
I especially agree with ensuring your kids see you read. If I’ve learned anything from teaching it’s that actions speak louder than words.
I have one addition to Don’t Make It a Chore. I’d add that by simply supplying books in the car, in their room, etc that their curiosity will draw them toward it. The only issue is, this works better if it happens at a young age!
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https://medium.com/@nickmarmolejo/hey-carlyn-1b2b4737fb15
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['Rice']
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2020-12-16 17:50:45.303000+00:00
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['Reading', 'Advice', 'Parenting', 'Family', 'Fatherhood']
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Shifting SRE Left with Keptn
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Shifting SRE Left with Keptn
Keptn’s Lighthouse Service is at the center of analyzing SLIs and SLOs as part of delivery Andreas Grabner Follow Apr 1 · 6 min read
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is a concept that has been present in the IT community for over a decade, and it’s an idea that has helped many companies improve their operations in production to make their infrastructure code more reliable and scalable.
By developing the open-source software keptn, we are proposing the idea of taking SRE concepts and shifting them further left into delivery while simultaneously answering the question: How can you ensure delivering code that complies to every standard you set, test it in every stage but without slowing you down with manual work?
What is Site Reliability Engineering?
Before we talk about the keptn approach, let’s have a short refresher on what Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) actually is.
SRE is a well-known buzzword coined in 2003 by Google VP of Engineering Ben Treynor Sloss. It describes the idea of “applying the principles of software engineering, which are used to create highly reliable and scalable software, to the operations and infrastructure processes”. This approach helps maintain large systems with the help of infrastructure code that for system admins is more scalable and sustainable.
The two main concepts of SRE models are standardization and automatization. You take over the tasks that are usually done manually by the operations team and automate them based on certain standards. Its goal is to turn traditional monolithic operations into something that is more flexible and reliable for cloud-native or microservices-based software.
At the base of SRE we have three main concepts, SLIs, SLOs and SLAs, which build upon each other:
Service Level Indicators (SLI)
These are measurable metrics that can be used as a base for an evaluation.
Example: Error rate of Login requests.
Service Level Objectives (SLO)
These are binding targets for SLIs (what the value of an SLI should be to be considered successful).
Example: Login Error Rate must be less than 20% over a 30-day period.
Service Level Agreements (SLA)
These are business agreements between consumer and provider typically based on an SLO.
Example: Logins must be reliable & fast (Error Rate, Response Time, Throughput) 99% within a 30-day window.
In short: SLIs drive SLOs which inform SLAs
SRE in practice
Many companies have already put the SRE approach in place in production. We have seen this happening with Dynatrace clients who defined SLIs in production using the Dynatrace monitoring tool. This approach has delivered great results because it makes sure that the production maintains the standards set by the company.
However, we have also seen that setting standards only for production may cause deployments to slow down. Sometimes code is deployed from dev to staging without issues but is blocked in production because it does not meet the same requirements.
Furthermore, in a traditional pipeline, there always comes a stage where you run many types of tests, like performance, functional, monitoring, etc. But at this stage, these results either need to be analyzed manually or you need to build your own tools for it. And this slows down the pipeline even more.
Shifting SRE left with keptn
If we take the concept of SRE and evaluate SLOs already in every pipeline run, build or commit done in dev and staging environments, we can make sure that only code is deployed that complies with your standards. But this can only work if we fully automate those checks.
This is what keptn proposes to do with the core service Lighthouse a.k.a. Quality Gates.
But before we talk about this in more detail, let’s quickly talk about what keptn is and does.
With our open-source software project keptn we strive to simplify the traditional delivery pipeline and make it more manageable for cloud-based software.
A traditional delivery pipeline is often made up of lots of interdependent code that is hard to maintain and update. Because they have high interdependencies, traditional pipelines are bulky, resist change and slow down delivery. This is what makes us believe that they will become your next legacy-code challenge.
Keptn breaks up the pipeline into smaller phases: micro-pipelines (just like breaking up monoliths into microservices). Each phase is encapsulated in itself and communicates with other phases through interfaces in the form of events. There is a start event that contains the necessary data to execute the phase and an end event that represents the result of the phase.
Keptn separates process from tool definition and connects both via events
The keptn approach is to use a publish-subscribe mechanism, which allows you to subscribe to the relevant event types you need in the pipeline. The events that are sent control the workflow and how the events are processed controls the tooling.
This makes it easy to add and remove tools in your pipeline. There are no hardcoded integrations: the tool provides the functionality, and you can trigger it through an event. Once you set up a project, you need to define your pipeline in what we call a “shipyard” file that is saved in keptn’s internal git repository.
Here is an example:
A three stage delivery pipeline with embedded SRE validation expressed as a Keptn Shipyard file
As you can see, we defined a delivery process with dev, staging and prod stages, and for each stage we also defined what should happen. In “staging”, for example, we defined an automatic approval strategy, we run performance tests and the deployment strategy is “blue-green”.
Keptn will automatically create for every stage a git branch based on what is defined in this YAML file. And now the previously mentioned Lighthouse service comes into play.
Just like in shipyard.yaml, you define certain metrics in SLI and SLO YAML files against which data should be evaluated. Here is an example of what these SLI and SLO files may look like:
SLIs defined per SLI Provider as YAML
SLI Provider specific queries, e.g: Dynatrace Metrics Query
Service Level Indicators define how to query metrics from a specific SLI data source
SLOs defined on Keptn Service Level as YAML
List of objectives with fixed or relative pass & warn criteria
Sevice Level Objectives (SLOs) are data source independent and express your overall objective
The Lighthouse reaches out to your preferred monitoring platform through an event (right now we have integrations for Dynatrace, Prometheus, Neoload, Wayfront — but you can develop any integration you want or need) and returns the data for a particular timeframe.
Keptn looks at this data, evaluates it against the metrics, gives points and then sums up a total score based on the total number of SLIs and normalizes it between 0 and 100%.
Keptn can pull in data from any SLI Provider and calculated a total SLO score
Keptn comes with pre-configured SLIs and SLOs, but you can further configure them yourself either through a YAML file or through a dashboard.
|
https://medium.com/dynatrace-engineering/shifting-sre-left-with-keptn-f14c3f4973aa
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['Andreas Grabner']
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2021-04-01 06:01:07.102000+00:00
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['Sre', 'Continuous Delivery', 'Keptn', 'Open Source', 'Software Development']
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A Short Introduction to Making Money Online
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Selling your time
Develop a skillset people are willing to pay for and find the people who are willing to pay for that skillset.
Some of us possess a skill people are willing to buy. The rest of us can learn a new skill over the internet, and then utilize this acquired skill to sell services over the internet, e,g, video or photo editing.
You can sell your services on Fiverr and Upwork for people and companies to find you. Skim through the sites and find the skill you can learn fast — learn it and then offer your services for others over the internet.
Selling a product
Selling a product online can catapult your money earnings online. It is scalable, and it is not directly linked with your tie and effort.
You can sell third-party products, or you can sell your own products. Third-party items can be sold either via dropshipping, affiliate marketing, or selling customizable items.
Selling your own product requires development, reproduction, distribution, and maintenance. Here, digital products have a clear advantage compared to physical products. Their reproduction, distribution, and maintenance is relatively simple compared to physical products.
Digital products can be an App, a webpage, an online course, or an e-book, among others.
Use your likeability
To promote your services and your products, you need to find people who know, like, and trust you.
The best way to make people know, like, and trust you is by offering valuable and free content. Use the free and valuable content to build your mailing list, followers, and audience over time. When it is time to sell your time or product, these followers will most likely purchase it because they already saw the value of your free content.
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https://medium.com/the-money-plot/a-short-introduction-to-making-money-online-298ab533fa8a
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['Walid Ao']
|
2020-10-08 15:30:41.717000+00:00
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['Money', 'Online Business', 'Hustle', 'Enterpreneurship', 'Freelancing']
|
Capacity Planning at Parcel Companies in the Era of e-commerce.
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My objective in this document is to explain how Courier companies ( UPS as an example) manage growth and its supply and demand. How Parcel companies are undertaking many operational investments to manage consumer demands effectively, especially when it comes to capacity planning and peak preparation.
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS)
1. Company Profile
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is one of the leading courier service providers worldwide with a market share of 22% in the last decade, as you can see in figure 1–1 (Statista, 2019). According to UPS 2019 annual report, UPS handled 5.5 billion packages that falls under three reporting segments: International and Domestic Package, which together are referred to as “global small package operations (GSPO)” and contributes for 99% of the business, which will be our main focus in this study. The third segment is Supply Chain & Freight.
Figure 1‑1:UPS Segments Packages (In thousands) (UPS, 2020)
2. Operations characteristics (4Vs and 1P)
UPS GSPO service provides delivery services for express letters, documents, and small parcels via air and ground services for domestic and international businesses through one global integrated pickup and delivery network. Operations characteristics are as below:
Volumes: In 2019, UPS processed and delivered around 21.9 million packages and documents each day, passing through 1,800 facilities and 125,000 delivery fleet (UPS, 2020). This reflects the enormous volume UPS is processing. Hub processing capacity could reach 100,000 parcels per hour via a highly orchestrated series of conveyors and sortation systems (BURNS, 2018).
Variety: UPS GSPO services are limited to air, ground, domestic and international. Nevertheless, all are being processed similarly through the same pickup and delivery network. As per UPS “We combine all packages within our network unless dictated by specific service commitments. This enables one UPS driver to pick up customers’ shipments for any of our services at the same scheduled time each day” (Pressroom.UPS, 2020).
For Variation, UPS GSPO service is coming from mail and parcel delivery, but mail share is swiftly declining in the last period, and e-commerce business is taking over the business growth as seen in figure 2–1 and figure 2–2. Business is stable over the year, however; e-commerce energies a large seasonal spike during the holiday period beginning at Thanksgiving and lasting through Christmas, which is responsible for as much as 30% of total retail sales (mckinsey, 2019).
Figure 2‑1:Overall market-to-parcel Volume, ratio (Briest, et al., 2019)
Figure 2‑2: Parcel overall Market compound growth Rate, % (Briest, et al., 2019)
Demand predictability is a challenge for courier companies as UPS, still achievable. UPS have it is own forecasting models along with getting projections in advance from big retailers. Furthermore, many companies as National Retail Federation and Deloitte Retail do their forecasts.
Forecasts are done based on two variables: past results projected into the future and what consumers say they are going to buy (Danziger, 2017).
Customer visibility is limited to pickup and delivery process only, the rest will not be visible to customers at all, from sorting, consolidation and transportation to the end destination. However, with the new tracking technology, customer enablement the bar of visibility has increased, yet it is still far from being high or essential to manage.
Operations characteristics summarised in figure 2–1:
Figure 2‑1: Parcel Delivery Operations 4Vs and 1P Model
3. Performance Objectives
UPS strategy is to provide advanced logistics solutions through comprehensive services integrated with their customers’ businesses, commitment to deliver value, enhance quality and efficiency as they do, UPS performance objective falls under the below:
4. The Last-Mile Challenge
When it comes to parcel services, the most challenging part is “last-mile delivery” — the final leg of the parcel journey where a product arrives at the consumer’s hands. Below are the most challenging elements:
4.1 Cost:
Last-mile services account for more than 40% of total supply chain costs, as in figure 4–1. Parcel companies are a resource-based model with high operating costs, in which it consumes most of the organisation revenue stream; 89% for UPS, 88% for Aramex, and 95% for FedEx in the last two years (Aramex, 2020) (FedEX, 2021) (UPS Annual Report , 2020).
Figure 4‑1: Last-mile delivery is the most significant cost driver in the supply chain (Capgemini, 2019)
4.2 Speed and Consumer changing demand:
It is a key value-added step for those seeking a competitive advantage, especially with the growing consumer’s desire for faster home delivery. As Figure 4–2 shows, 55% of customers says that a two-hour delivery option would increase their loyalty, and 61% say the same for same-day delivery. On the other hand, only 30% say this will increase their loyalty when delivery moves out to three days or more.
Figure 4‑2: Faster deliveries build greater loyalty (Capgemini, 2019)
Large e-commerce players “which are the main revenue stream for parcel companies” have identified last-mile services as a key differentiator for their customers. Summarising figure 4–3, people expect to receive their parcels today, and online shopping decisions increasingly depend on it. Yet only 19% of firms offer two-hour or faster delivery (mckinsey, 2020).
Figure 4‑3: Polling respondents on delivery-time factors (mckinsey, 2020)
4.3 Demand & Supply Constraints:
Last-Mile companies are an asset-based model with a high operating expense. Therefore, assets should be carefully managed according to volume to avoid higher cost margins since operating expenses are directly impacted by the volumes, which means that extra resources are not feasible on the balance sheet.
Demand seasonality occurs when demand fluctuates based on the time of year or a month, including holidays, sales, and Merchants promotion (APICS, 2016). For UPS, holidays sales boost the total number of parcels in the last quarter of the year and fall in the next quarter, generating a high variation in demand throughout the year.
Figure 4‑5:Supply and Demand Characteristics
By looking into supply and demand characteristics (figure 4–5), parcel delivery service has a short lead time with predictable demand if there is proper forecasting and coordination with the clients. Still predicting the exact delivery location will be a mystery until the parcel is received at the operations facility. Coping with customers demands is vital to keep the service going.
4.4 Flexibility:
Consumers do want fast delivery, yet 73% said that receiving the parcel at a suitable time requested is more important than speed (Capgemini, 2019). Flexible drop-off options are essential for end customers, like secure lockers or local convenience stores, allowing customers to retrieve their package when it’s most convenient for them without meeting the driver (bringg, 2019).
4.5 Quality:
It refers to the ability to have performance in “a perfect delivery”, which means actual parcel being delivered to the right location, with the right products, in the right quantity, at the right time, in the right condition, with the right documentation, to the right customer, with the correct invoice (APICS, 2016). 48% intend to stop purchasing from the poor-performing retailer, and those who will continue to shop reduce their spending by 45%. (Capgemini, 2019)
5. Capacity Planning
5.1 Capacity Constraints
Capacity is the maximum rate of output of a process or system that the organisation can perform in a time (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010). For UPS, Capacity is the maximum number of shipments that the operations can handle or deliver in a day by keeping the service at optimum level.
For UPS, the Capacity challenge originates from three main constraints:
1. Service Constraint (Product Design): There is a limited time between pickup and the promised delivery date, as seen in figure 5.1–1, UPS ground service transit time map for shipments originated from Texas. All shipments should be processed immediately after pickup to guarantee shipment arrival on time.
UPS offers eight and ten different speed options for national and international shipping respectively, with specific services, delivery commitment is within 24hr (UPS, 2020). imposing UPS to have enough supply to meet demand all the time, inventory is not an option here.
Figure 5.1‑1:Figure 4.1 1: Transit Time Map — UPS Ground Service, (UPS, 2020)
2. Supply Constraints: UPS operates an asset-based model; one global integrated pickup and delivery network built on the delivery fleet, operations staff, operating facilities, and dedicated aeroplanes. By looking at UPS operating cost margin in table 5.1–1, a high operating expense is eye-catching (88%-90%), which represent the business’s operational activities cost (corporatefinanceinstitute, 2020). UPS carefully manage their assets according to volume to avoid higher cost margins, since the volumes directly impact operating expenses, which means that having extra resources is not feasible for UPS.
Table 5.1‑1: UPS Operating Cost Margin in millions (2015- 2019), (UPS Annual Report , 2020)
3.Demand Constraints (Seasonality): Seasonality occurs when demand fluctuates based on the time of year, which is in our case are the holidays (APICS, 2016). E-commerce is a significant part of UPS business, holidays sales boost the number of shipments in the last quarter. By studying GSPO revenue, a growth of 15% from Q3 to Q4 is noticed in the same year followed by a 12.5% reduction in Q1 the following year, triggering a high variation in demand throughout the year (Figure 5.1–2).
Figure 5.1‑2: GSPO Service Revenue (in millions) (USD), (UPS Annual Report , 2020)
5.2 Capacity Planning and Strategy
Capacity decisions have implications on all cross-functional departments. Accounting and Finance need to prepare the cost projections for the expansion and financial analysis for the proposed capacity; same applies on human resources, sales, marketing, and even procurement to communicate the plan for external partners and suppliers (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010). There are two types of capacity planning time horizons decisions:
5.2.1 Long-term capacity planning:
Those plans deal with long-term investments as new facilities, equipment, technology and air fleet for UPS; these plans cover at least two years into the future. Such investments are initiated to support both current existing business and expand the capacity for anticipated growth in the future. Below are some of the long-term capacity planning investment that is done by UPS.
In 2019, the company announced plans to add a total of 60 planes to its fleet by 2022, increasing the linehaul capacity (UPS Annual Report , 2020).
Combined with 2018, they have opened a total of 41 facilities with 10 million square feet, raising sorting capacity by approximately 800,000 pieces per hour, along with $750 million investment plan in its worldport global shipping hub at Louisville (Otts, 2019).
UPS signs partnership agreement with CVS pharmacy in the US to expand its Access Point network through more than 6,000 pharmacies. They are increasing their pickup capacity and providing more convenient service for their customers (UPSPressroom, 2019).
Investing in last-mile technology to enhance couriers productivity. As per UPS “The ORION program is the result of a long-term operational technology investment and commitment by UPS, ORION saves UPS about 100 million miles per year”; in which will increase UPS capacity indirectly by increasing driver daily stops (Sawers, 2020).
When it comes to infrastructure and assets, UPS is following an expansionist over wait-and-see strategy to expand its capacity in the long term; this can be noted by the amount of investment spent on the operations as anticipation of business growth (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010).
Investment is a necessity to compete in the market. However, nothing good comes as risk-free:
Longer-term forecasts: are needed for long term planning purposes, forecasting into the future becomes inherently less reliable as events further out in the future, creating more uncertainty (APICS, 2016). UPS need to place less reliance on them and keeps reviewing them frequently.
Diseconomies of Scale: Bigger does not always mean better, however, if investments were not carefully studied, placed in the right place and time, will result in diseconomies of scale, causing the average cost per shipment to get higher (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010).
Expansionist strategy investment will pass through this phase in the early stages until economies of scale have been achieved, as seen in figure 5.2–1.
Figure 5.2‑1: Expansionist strategy concept (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010)
5.2.1 Short-Term Capacity Planning:
UPS is a service provider company, and they have to cope with the varying demand; they need to adjust and grow their capacity in order to meet sales demand and avoid services failures. On the other hand; keeping the operations working at an efficient level is a necessity to compete in the market.
By looking at UPS GSPO Service Revenue in figure 5.2–2, having a level capacity plan will not be sufficient with the demand variability; thus resulting in lost sales or delay in service during peaks period, and excess capacity and underutilised resources and assets in off-peaks (Slack, 2018).
Figure 5.2‑2: GSPO Service Revenue (in millions) (USD) along with Level Capacity Plan, (UPS Annual Report , 2020)
UPS is obligatory to continually adjust its network and assets to align capacity with the fluctuations in demand. UPS operation is a complicated mix of resources. These resources are inputs to the process that allows the capacity to be expanded or contracted; changing these inputs will change capacity outputs. Below are some of the actions that UPS takes during peaks to adjust its capacity:
Seasonal employees to support the anticipated annual increase in package volume. UPS expects to hire more than 100,000 seasonal package handlers, drivers, driver-helpers, and personal vehicle drivers in October 2020 (Berman, 2020).
to support the anticipated annual increase in package volume. UPS expects to hire more than 100,000 seasonal package handlers, drivers, driver-helpers, and personal vehicle drivers in October 2020 (Berman, 2020). Weekend pickup and delivery services: UPS expands Saturday and Sunday operations, to provide more capacity for pickup and delivery as anticipation for peak season volumes.
UPS expands Saturday and Sunday operations, to provide more capacity for pickup and delivery as anticipation for peak season volumes. Sortation Capacity: for 2020 Holidays, UPS has added 5 million more square feet along with expanding automated package sorting capabilities by 400,000 shipments/hour (CNBC, 2020).
for 2020 Holidays, UPS has added 5 million more square feet along with expanding automated package sorting capabilities by 400,000 shipments/hour (CNBC, 2020). Extended working hours: late-night pickup for Local Next Day Delivery services to expand collections time windows to adapt to the growing number of pickups for the holidays (UPSpressroom, 2019).
late-night pickup for Local Next Day Delivery services to expand collections time windows to adapt to the growing number of pickups for the holidays (UPSpressroom, 2019). Linehaul Capacity: preparing for 2020 Holidays, UPS has leased 14 new aircrafts to cater for the transportation of the business across the US (Clifford, 2020).
Crowdsourcing is one of the trending solutions companies are utilising to increase last-mile capacity in peaks likemazon Flex (Amazon, 2020). On the other hand, Aramex the leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions in the MENA ergion, use ‘Aramex Fleet’, a crowd-based delivery platform that connects national citizens to flexible last mile delivery work to leverage on sharing economy and support strong demand for Aramex services (Aramex, 2018). This is something that UPS is not implementing currently.
We are looking at a hybrid strategy that mixes the chase and level concepts (APICS, 2016). UPS Model is designed to focus on economies of scale by utilising the base capacity (resources and assets) over the year, and temporarily extend the capacity when needed only in peaks as noticed in figure 5.2–3.
Figure 5.2‑3: GSPO Service Revenue (in millions) (USD) along with Hybrid Capacity model, (UPS Annual Report, 2020)
Last-Mile companies are struggling in adjusting their capacity temporarily to the peaks, a lot of efforts, preparation, and investment are being made by companies like UPS, FedEx and Aramex; this comes as results of focusing on customer experience regardless of the cost. However, it is worth mentioning that some of those costs are observed by the big retailers to fulfil their customers’ demands, as discussed in the next section of demand management.
6. Demand Management
Adjusting capacity is not the only thing UPS is doing, demand-influencing activities that align the demand and supply with the minimum investment is also on the top of the list for peak preparation. The main objective of demand management decisions is to reduce the variability of the demand, which is the holiday season for UPS (APICS, 2016). UPS is doing the below:
Preparing and communicating demand: the objective is to ensure that everyone in the organisation and retailers gets the same information about demand (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010). UPS works collaboratively with the largest E-Commerce customers to leverage capacity and to develop solutions to smooth out demand spikes during the peak season (Elliott, 2020).
the objective is to ensure that everyone in the organisation and retailers gets the same information about demand (Karjewski & Ritzman, 2010). UPS works collaboratively with the largest E-Commerce customers to leverage capacity and to develop solutions to smooth out demand spikes during the peak season (Elliott, 2020). Capacity allocation per Client: during peak preparation, UPS and large retailers agree on the capacity allocation; UPS will make sure that those retailers will not go beyond the assigned capacity and will seize pickup process in case they did, as happened with Nike and Gap during 2020 season (Higgins-Dunn, 2020).
during peak preparation, UPS and large retailers agree on the capacity allocation; UPS will make sure that those retailers will not go beyond the assigned capacity and will seize pickup process in case they did, as happened with Nike and Gap during 2020 season (Higgins-Dunn, 2020). Peak Surcharges: as per UPS, surcharges are applied during the peak period compensating the extra cost to cope with the temporary increase in demand, as shown in table 6. 1.
Table 6–1:Peak Period (inclusive of starting and ending dates) and Applicable Peak Surcharge ($/package) (UPS, 2020)
One of the hidden objectives behind this volume thresholds surcharges concept is to flatten the demand curve, minimising the investment impact during off peaks periods.
Heavy / Additional Handling Surcharges: UPS is applying a high surcharge on such shipments. UPS is encouraging shippers not to send large parcels or prioritising small parcels business to avoid extra pressure on the network. Or it is taking advantage of the duopoly in the parcel space to collect extra revenue and enhance their bottom line (Figure 6–2).
Figure 6‑2: Applicable Peak Surcharge ($/package) (UPS, 2020)
Shifting Demand, Earlier Promotion: flattening the demand curve by encouraging shippers to start their campaigns early. UPS says: “We’re recommending that customers work even harder to manage their volume and consider launching even earlier promotions” (Anon., 2019). This will help UPS to penetrate holiday demand by shifting demand outside the surge days.
Diverting to different delivery channels: UPS try to divert customers demand to different delivery channels as pickup points. Through UPS “My Choice”; provides options for customers to choose options other than door delivery, reducing stress on the last-mile delivery (Guffey, 2020). On the other hand, FedEx incentivising customer to choose pickup by getting $5 Walgreens Cash rewards with every FedEx pickup and drop off (FedEx, 2020). Aramex in the middle east is doing the same through a program called “Aramex Spot”, Aramex has partnered with commercial locations to utilise their outlets as convenient PUDO locations for its customers’ shipments (Aramex, 2019).
Figure 6‑3: FedEx promotion email (FedEx, 2020)
7. Summary
From an operations perspective, consistent demand with a low level of fluctuation will ease handling the operation, provide service stability, and cost-effectively cope with it (Slack, 2018). Unfortunately, this is not the e-commerce case; seasonality is built within the model, and parcel companies are absorbing the majority of the pressure and cost; 41% of the cost is coming from the last mile alone.
Parcel companies advise retailers, shop early, and flatten the curve of peak shipping volumes because infrastructure and labour can’t scale overnight. Parcel companies are trying to flatten the demand curve before and after the peak seasons with the demand-influencing activities, hoping to raise capacity baseline and reduce capacity adjustment costs (figure 7–1). Nevertheless, there is no way to avoid capacity adjustment costs to cope with demand. It is not about raising the supply bar; it is also about what will happen after peak demands stretch back to normal.
Figure 7‑1: Actual demand curve along with smoothed demand Concept
Parcel delivery is a resource-based model with a high operating cost in which it consumes most of the organisation revenue stream; 89% for UPS, 88% for Aramex International, and 95% for FedEx in the last two years (UPS, 2020) (Aramex, 2020) (FedEX, 2021). Last-mile is growing in the logistics sector and will go through many changes in the upcoming period; innovation will play a crucial part in surviving and winning the market by meeting service expectations and efficiency. With consumers, behaviour is also changing, which makes it a more Challenging situation than ever.
The holiday season has the potential to bring joy to revellers around the world, but it can also strike fear into the heart of unprepared courier companies. Preparation is a key to avoid surprises and being able to adjust to anticipated demand. Improved forecasts will aid in coping with unforeseen events. Sharing information and coordination between all stakeholders and retailers will bring all the operations in the chain into line with each other. Improved operational efficiency will increase capacity indirectly and reduce chain complexity. Managing and prioritising some retailers’ demand over others will be an excellent option to optimise revenue as a last resort for courier companies.
8. References
· Amazon, 2020. why-flex. [Online]
Available at: https://flex.amazon.com/why-flex
[Accessed 7 December 2020].
· Anon., 2019. How to increase e-commerce sales during the peak holiday shopping season. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.page?kid=art16e5b16be37
[Accessed 6 December 2020].
· APICS, 2016. Capacity Planning and Demand Management. In: APICS CLTD Exam Content Manual — Book 1. s.l.:s.n., pp. 2/ 1- 47.
· Aramex, 2018. Aramex Launches CrowdShipping Solution, Aramex Fleet, in Saudi Arabia. [Online]
Available at: https://www.aramex.com/us/en/media/in-the-news/details?contentId=60846a88-b3f2-659d-9310-ff0000e7fe0c&module=stories&page=6
[Accessed 28 July 2020].
· Aramex, 2019. Aramex Launches Aramex Spot, Expanding Delivery Options in KSA and UAE. [Online]
Available at: https://www.aramex.com/us/en/media/in-the-news/details?contentId=a0977588-b3f2-659d-9310-ff0100e7fe0c&module=stories&page=4
[Accessed 28 July 2020].
· Aramex, 2020. Annual Report 2019. [Online]
Available at: https://dotcomaramexprod.blob.core.windows.net/default/docs/default-source/default-document-library/aramex-annual-report-and-sustainability-report.pdf
[Accessed 19 April 2021].
· Berman, J., 2020. UPS and FedEx lay out seasonal hiring plans for heavily anticipated Peak Season. [Online]
Available at: https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/ups_and_fedex_lay_out_seasonal_hiring_plans_for_heavily_anticipated_peak_se
[Accessed 5 December 2020].
· Briest, P., Dragendorf, J., Detlev, M. & Florian, N., 2019. The endgame for postal networks: How to win in the age of e-commerce. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/travel-logistics-and-transport-infrastructure/our-insights/the-endgame-for-postal-networks-how-to-win-in-the-age-of-e-commerce
[Accessed 29 November 2020].
· bringg, 2019. The New Rules: Delivery Logistics in the E-Commerce Era. [Online]
Available at: file:///C:/Users/eyas/OneDrive%20-%20Aramex%20International/Eyas/Eyas%20Folders/Last%20Mile%20papers/Delivery-Logistics-in-the-E-Commerce-Era-Bringg-white-paper.pdf
[Accessed 12 June 2021].
· BURNS, J., 2018. UPS opens its 2nd largest facility in the USA in Atlanta. [Online]
Available at: https://www.caasint.com/12673-2/
[Accessed 7 December 2020].
· Capgemini, 2019. The Last-Mile Delivery Challenge. [Online]
Available at: https://www.capgemini.com/research/the-last-mile-delivery-challenge/
[Accessed 20 December 2020].
· Clifford, T., 2020. UPS CEO on holiday peak season: ‘We’ve been planning for this for months’. [Online]
Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/ups-ceo-on-holiday-peak-season-we-have-been-planning-for-this-for-months.html
[Accessed 5 December 2020].
· CNBC, 2020. UPS CEO on how the company has planned for peak season ‘for months’ [Interview] (29 October 2020).
· corporatefinanceinstitute, 2020. What are Operating Expenses?. [Online]
Available at: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/accounting/operating-expenses/
[Accessed 2 December 2020].
· Danziger, P. N., 2017. Holiday Sales Forecasts Are Not Worth The Paper They Are Printed On. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2017/11/07/holiday-forecasting-frenzy-how-to-turn-those-forecast-fantasies-into-retailers-reality/?sh=218fb5111799
[Accessed 29 November 2020].
· Elliott, C., 2020. Carriers Navigate New Levels of Efficiencies, Optimization, and Expansion Preparing for Peak Season and Beyond. [Online]
Available at: https://greenmountaintechnology.com/learn/articles/carriers-navigate-new-levels-of-efficiencies-optimization-and-expansion-preparing-for-peak-season-and-beyond/
[Accessed 6 December 2020].
· FedEx, 2020. Your FedEx deliveries, now at Walgreens.. [Online]
Available at: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/onsite/walgreens-package-pickup.html
[Accessed 8 December 2020].
· FedEX, 2021. 2020 Annual Report. [Online]
Available at: https://s21.q4cdn.com/665674268/files/doc_financials/annual/2020/377973_1_9_FedEx_AR_WR.pdf
[Accessed 19 April 2021].
· Guffey, M., 2020. A Peek at Peak 2020 … and a Plan of Action. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.page?name=a-peek-at-peak-2020-and-a-plan-of-action&kid=art17492aa1df7
[Accessed 5 December 2020].
· Higgins-Dunn, N., 2020. UPS places shipping limits on some retailers as holiday shopping heats up, report says. [Online]
Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/02/ups-places-shipping-limits-on-some-retailers-as-holiday-shopping-heats-up-report-says-.html
[Accessed 5 December 2020].
· Karjewski, L. & Ritzman, L., 2010. PLanning Capacity. In: Operations Management Processes and Supply Chain. New Jersey: Pearson Education , pp. 238–62.
· mckinsey, 2019. The 2019 holiday season: Shoppers are ready to spend but retailers need to personalize. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-2019-holiday-season-shoppers-are-ready-to-spend-but-retailers-need-to-personalize
[Accessed 29 November 2020].
· mckinsey, 2020. Same-day delivery: Ready for takeoff. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/same-day-delivery-ready-for-takeoff
[Accessed 12 June 2021].
· Otts, C., 2019. UPS touts $750 million long-term investment plan for Louisville air hub. [Online]
Available at: https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/ups-touts-750-million-long-term-investment-plan-for-louisville-air-hub/article_0adf1a04-e603-11e9-822d-1fc92c8ff03e.html
[Accessed 4 December 2020].
· Pressroom.UPS, 2020. Corporate Profile. [Online]
Available at: http://www.investors.ups.com/ups-profile/corporate-profile
[Accessed 29 November 2020].
· Sawers, P., 2020. UPS will now use dynamic routing to get parcels to you on time. [Online]
Available at: https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/29/ups-will-now-use-dynamic-routing-to-get-parcels-to-you-on-time/
[Accessed 4 December 2020].
· Slack, N., 2018. Capacity Management . In: Operations and Process Management . Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, pp. 273–308.
· Statista, 2019. United Parcel Service, s.l.: DHL.
· UPS Annual Report , 2020. 2019 Annual Report. [Online]
Available at: http://www.investors.ups.com/static-files/e4d06ff9-8dcd-45a7-a8f5-b400c944455e
[Accessed 2 December 2020].
· UPS, 2020. Corporate Profile. [Online]
Available at: http://www.investors.ups.com/ups-profile/corporate-profile
[Accessed 28 November 2020].
· UPS, 2020. Find a Shipping Service. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ups.com/service-selector?loc=en_US
[Accessed 11 December 2020].
· UPS, 2020. Transit Time Calculator. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ups.com/maps/printerfriendly?loc=en_US&stype=O&zip=76643
[Accessed 1 December 2020].
· UPS, 2020. UPS Annual Report. [Online]
Available at: chrome-extension://cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei/src/pdfviewer/web/viewer.html?file=file:///C:/Users/eyas/OneDrive%20-%20Aramex%20International/Eyas/Personal/Warwick%20EMBA/Operations%20Managment/Assignment/2019_UPS_Annual_Report.pdf
[Accessed 19 April 2021].
· UPS, 2020. UPS® Peak Surcharges. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ups.com/assets/resources/media/en_US/2020_UPS_Peak_Surcharges.pdf
[Accessed 6 December 2020].
· UPSpressroom, 2016. ORION Backgrounder. [Online]
Available at: https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=Factsheets&id=1426321616277-282
[Accessed 4 December 2020].
· UPSpressroom, 2019. UPS Holiday Message To Customers: “We’re Ready, Let’s Go!”. [Online]
Available at: https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=PressReleases&id=1574341798246-194
[Accessed 5 December 2020].
· UPSPressroom, 2019. UPS Launches Package Pick-Up And Returns In Thousands Of CVS Pharmacy Locations Nationwide. [Online]
Available at: https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=PressReleases&id=1563911285461-478
[Accessed 4 December 2020].
|
https://medium.com/@eyasalbakri/capacity-planning-at-parcel-companies-bf1810283a4f
|
['Eyas Al Bakri']
|
2021-08-27 15:45:14.202000+00:00
|
['Ecommerce', 'Capacity Planning', 'Gig Economy', 'Logistics', 'Last Mile']
|
A Gentle Introduction to Backtesting for Evaluating the Prophet Forecasting Models
|
The Prophet time series forecasting algorithm is amazing, it has definitely democratized the time series forecasting. It’s easier to start with and easier to improve the model quality if you know more about your subject.
If you’re not familiar with the Prophet, take a look at this introduction post.
But wait, what do you mean by ‘model quality?’
How can we know if a given forecasting model is good or bad?
How should we go about evaluating the model?
There are a few ways to test the forecasting models, but in this post, I want to introduce one of the most commonly used methods called Backtesting as a way to evaluate the forecasting model with metrics like RMSE, MAE, MAPE, etc.
I’m going to use the Prophet as an example in this post, but this is not specific to the Prophet, it can be used for other time series forecasting models.
Anyway, let’s start.
What is Backtesting?
The concept of the Backtesting is actually pretty simple.
It is to keep the later part of the data as Test data so that we can evaluate the model against this Test data.
Let’s take a look at how it works step by step.
Split the data into Training data and Test data
Before building the model, we separate the data into two parts, one is Training data and another is Test data.
2. Build a model based on the training data
Then, we can build the forecasting model based on the training data with the Prophet.
3. Use the model to forecast for the Test data period
Once the model is built, then we can use the model to forecast for the test data period.
4. Compare between Forecasted and Actual
For this Test period, we have answers, meaning that we have the actual data. Therefore, we can compare the forecasted values against this actual data and see how big or small the differences between the forecasted and the actual.
Example Use Case: Forecasting Store Orders
Now, let’s take a look at by running the Prophet in Exploratory.
Here, I have sales data. Each row represents an order at this e-commerce store.
Here is a line chart that visualizes the trend of the orders by week.
Now, let’s say we want to forecast the orders for the next 52 weeks (about 1 year).
We can go to the Analytics view in Exploratory and select Time Series Forecasting (Prophet).
Second, select Date column and set the time scale to Weekly.
Then, set the forecasting period to 52 weeks in the Property.
Finally, run the Prophet. We’ll get the result like below.
The orange line is for the forecasted values and the blue line is for the actual values.
After Jan 2016, there is only the orange line, this is the period that we don’t have the actual data and the model, which was built based on the blue line data, is forecasting the values.
Take a look at the below introductory post for more details on the Prophet and how to use it in Exploratory.
Evaluate Prophet Forecasting Model
Now, let’s evaluate the quality of this forecasting model.
We can open the property dialog and set ‘Test Mode’ to TRUE.
It will use the forecasting period as the length of the test period. We have set to 52 weeks above, which means that it will use the last 52 weeks of this data as the Test period.
When we re-run it with Test mode enabled, we get a slightly different chart like below.
You would notice that the actual data is split into two, Training period as dark blue and Test period as light blue.
Again, the orange line is showing the forecasted values.
But, the actual values are split into two lines. The dark blue is the actual values in the Training period, and the light blue is the actual values in the Test period.
The forecasted values in the Training period are very close to the actual data (dark blue). This is because the forecasting model was built based on this actual data! ;)
On the other hand, the forecasted values in the Test period seem to be farther from the actual values (light blue). Note that this is the period that the forecasting model doesn’t know the answers.
In the Test period, we can see that there was a big drop in February and big increases compared to the forecasted line.
The forecasted values tend to be further away from the actual values in the Test period. This is because the forecasting model assumes that whatever the trend and seasonality found in the Training data will be repeated in the future.
But hey, the history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes, right? ;)
Anyway, the real question here is, how big or small the differences are.
There are several metrics that can be used to evaluate how different between the actual values and the forecasted values, or how different between the orange line and the light blue line above.
Here are the three metrics that are used widely when evaluating the time series forecasting models.
RMSE (Root Mean Square Error)
MAE (Mean Absolute Error)
MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error)
Let’s take a look at one by one.
RMSE (Root Mean Square Error)
This RMSE is the same RMSE that is used for evaluating prediction models that predict numeric values such as Linear Regression, Random Forest, etc.
It calculates the difference between the forecasted and the actual (Error), squares them (Square), takes the average (Mean), then roots it back (Root).
Wow, that’s a lot of not-so-straightforward lingos right there!
No worry, here is how it works step by step.
Here’s an example of the forecasting data. The blue line is the actual and the orange is the forecasted.
And we are interested in how different between the two lines.
Calculate the differences
First, we want to calculate the differences.
2. Square them
If we just calculate the differences and take an average it might end up becoming closer to zero when we have positive and negative differences between the actual and the forecasted.
So, we square them to guarantee that they are all positive first.
3. Calculate the mean (average)
Then, we can calculate the mean (average).
4. Root it
Now this average number is pretty big and it’s out of context because we squared the original difference values above.
So we want to root the number to bring it back into the original context (or unit of orders).
And this will become 2.65. If the original unit is a number of orders, then it can be considered as 2.65 orders.
And what we have done here is to calculate a sort of an average difference between the forecasted and the actual. Yes, RMSE is basically trying to tell us this, and in this case, it is saying that the forecasted values tend to be 2.65 orders different on average compared to what the real values would be.
MAE (Mean Absolute Error)
MAE is very similar to RMSE.
For RMSE, we square the original difference values, then later root the average number. The reason we did all such extra works was that we were concerned that we might have ended up getting a value close to zero when we have positive and negative numbers in differences and add them all up.
But that is not the only way to solve the problem.
Instead of squaring/rooting, we can simply absolute the difference numbers, meaning that we make any negative numbers positive.
And that is MAE (Mean Absolute Error).
For MAE, we simply absolute the difference numbers, in this example all the numbers are positive so no extra action here, then we take the average.
This is saying that the forecasted values tend to be 2.5 orders different on average compared to what the real values would be.
RMSE vs. MAE
Both trying to do the same thing and trying to address the same problem.
But which one should we use?
The calculation of RMSE involves squaring the difference numbers, this means that this metric can be signified by large differences compared to MAE.
So when you are comparing two models (or three or more) and are interested in improving the larger differences, then RMSE would give you a more reliable insight.
Problems with RMSE & MAE
Remember, these are telling us the average difference between the actual and the forecasted values in the original unit, such as sales dollars, number of orders, number of users, temperatures, etc.
This creates a bit of a problem sometimes.
For example, when you are dealing with big numbers in your data then these RMSE and MAE tend to become bigger. On the other hand, when you are dealing with small numbers then they become small.
So depending on which part of the data you’re testing against, the metrics values can be quite different.
And also, when you have two sales forecasting models created for two countries. One country has data ranging between 10 to 50 and another country is ranging between 1,000 and 5,000.
Their RMSEs are quite different from one another. And this makes it harder for us to say which country’s model fits better for each country’s data.
This is when other metrics like MAPE come in handy
MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error)
This metric is calculated as an average of absolute percentage differences between the actual and the forecasted values.
It emphasizes the percentage (or ratio) difference, not the actual difference, hence it normalizes and would be much less impacted by whether the actual data is big or small.
Here’s how you calculate step by step.
First, you take the actual values.
Second, you take the differences (or errors) between the actual and the forecasted.
Third, calculate the ratio of the differences (or errors) against the actual values. Note that we make the numbers always positive, just like we did for MAE. This part is the Absolute part of ‘Mean Absolute Percentage Error’.
Lastly, we take the mean of these numbers.
That’s it!
Now that we understand those metrics to evaluate the forecasting models, let’s go back to our original example and see how they are.
Metrics in Exploratory
We can go to the Summary tab and take a look at those metrics.
The RMSE is 49.55, which means that there is about 50 orders difference on average between the forecasted and the actual in the Test period.
Metrics alone don’t help us to see if this model is good or bad. We always want to compare to see if it is better or worse.
There is a variable (column) in this sales data called Market. Let’s build multiple forecasting models each of which is for each market such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, etc.
We can check the quality of each model and compare them against each other under the Summary tab.
When we look at RMSE, we can see that Africa has the best forecasting model and North America comes in the 2nd. On the other hand, Europe has the worst performing model. Remember, for RMSE, the smaller is better, and the bigger is worse.
But not so fast.
If we take a look at MAPE, Africa is the 2nd worst and Europe is the 2nd best model. MAPE is also, the bigger is worse, and the smaller is better.
We are getting contradicting insights between RMSE and MAPE!
This is because RMSE is depending on the scale of original values.
The number of orders in Europe tend to be much bigger than the one in Africa. This makes the RMSE in Europe tend to be much bigger than the one in Africa.
On the other hand, MAPE is based on the percentage ratio. So it doesn’t really matter what the original values scales are. This is why we are seeing that Europe’s model comes out better than Africa’s.
To show what I’m really trying to say, I’ve set the Chart Setting to ‘Not sync the scale among the charts’ from the chart property.
This makes each chart has its own scale.
Now we can see the differences between forecasted and the actual for Africa wider!
|
https://blog.exploratory.io/a-gentle-introduction-to-backtesting-for-evaluating-the-prophet-forecasting-models-66c132adc37c
|
['Kan Nishida']
|
2019-07-07 16:58:42.306000+00:00
|
['Machine Learning', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Statistics', 'Forecasting', 'Data Science']
|
Is Rust ready for the web yet?
|
Why use rust?
“Given our dependence on Rust, we need deep in-house Rust expertise, just as we have with Java and other foundational technologies,” said Matt Asay, an open-source exec at AWS.
Having his first stable release on 15 May 2015 Rust is a relatively new programming language. Rust has a similar syntax to C++ but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker to validate references. Which means that it doesn't need a garbage collection.
The growing popularity of Rust is also notable. Since 2016 Rust is voted every year, in the StackOverflow developer survey, as the “most loved programming language”¹. Rust, has quickly established a fanbase at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and other tech companies.
There are many signs that Rust is here to stay and help us create better software and products. But is it ready to create web apps?
Building an API with Rust
In their webpage, Rust says that it comes with the command line, web assembly, networking, and embed built-in. In this article, I will stick with the networking part. We will build an example of a simple API with a “Hello World” JSON response.
First, we need to install Rust and for that. We will follow the Rust recommended rustup . To install Rust just run the following command in your shell. Ignore if you already have!
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
To build a web server and after some research, I choose to use the “ actix ” framework. Actix is a powerful, pragmatic, and extremely fast web framework for Rust. Given this description looks like it may solve our problem (build an API). Create a new project with cargo is pretty straight forward:
cargo new myapp
cd myapp
In your project directory, you should have a Cargo.toml . This file is like the composer.json for PHP. It is a manifest where you can describe the project dependencies among other things. Go to your Cargo.toml file and add the actix dependency:
[dependencies]
actix-web = "3"
Just to check if everything is OK and the web serves responds to our requests let's print the classic “hello-world” on a web page:
use actix_web::{get, post, web, App, HttpResponse, HttpServer, Responder};
#[get("/")]
async fn hello() -> impl Responder {
HttpResponse::Ok().body("Hello world!")
} #[actix_web::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
HttpServer::new(|| {
App::new()
.service(hello)
})
.bind("127.0.0.1:8080")?
.run()
.await
}
Got to your terminal in the project directory and hit: cargo run .
This command will download all the dependencies and compile the code into a binary file. The app will be running on port 8080 waiting for requests to arrive. If you go to 127.0.0.1:8080 you will see “ Hello world! ” on your web browser.
Our web server is working. Now, as I said before let’s get a JSON response with the same message. To work with JSON we need an extra dependency. Serde allows serializing and deserializing Rust data structures efficiently and generically. In your Cargo.toml append to the new dependency:
serde = “1.0.118”
The next step is to change our hello method to respond with a JSON instead of plain text:
use actix_web::{get, App, HttpResponse, HttpServer, Responder};
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize}; #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct MyObj {
message: String,
} #[get("/")]
async fn hello() -> impl Responder {
HttpResponse::Ok().json(MyObj {
message: String::from("Hello, world!"),
})
} #[actix_web::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
HttpServer::new(|| {
App::new()
.service(hello)
})
.bind("127.0.0.1:8080")?
.run()
.await
}
Here we declare the JSON (MyObj) structure that will be returned and in the response, we compose the JSON. The main remains the same as it is only responsible for route and print the response given by the method hello.
Conclusion
This is a pretty basic example and not challenging at all. It doesn't prove that Rust is suitable for web development. But I believe that has the requirements to build web apps. I know a few startups that are now shifting some services, previously written in other languages (PHP, node, etc), to newer languages like Rust. Getting started is easy. Because of the documentation and the fact that is a compiled language and is memory safe can make it a great tool to develop all sorts of software in the future.
Next time I will try to make a real web app. Like a to-do list or something similar, using a database, post and get requests. All that stuff that is required to build a web app. Working with Rust is fun and will do it more often in the future in my projects and I am excited to learn even more.
|
https://medium.com/dev-genius/is-rust-ready-for-the-web-yet-9ec38c01dcaf
|
['Eric Walker']
|
2020-12-24 10:11:19.412000+00:00
|
['Web App Developers', 'Web App Development', 'Rust', 'Programming Languages', 'Learning And Development']
|
URL的結構是什麼？
|
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/minoyo/url%E7%9A%84%E7%B5%90%E6%A7%8B%E6%98%AF%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC-d826a2aee9f4
|
['Mino Chen']
|
2020-12-18 14:54:03.374000+00:00
|
['Frontend']
|
When Is Enough, Enough?
|
When Is Enough, Enough?
Photo by Rux Centea on Unsplash
It is Friday evening, and you are getting ready to have dinner with your girlfriend. She has spent the whole day preparing a new recipe which she found online weeks ago, and promised to make a special dinner out of it. She even went out of her way to get the special spices from different markets and had to marinate the ingredients hours in advance. Basically, long story short, she made an incredible amount of effort to have a nice, cozy, and romantic dinner with you.
You have been working so late every night, and yet in the back of your mind, you have been pretty excited to be spending some quality time together.
As you sit down at the table, you realize how much the long week has taken a toll on your body and your mind…but you feel great that finally, it is Friday. Now you can start your very well-deserved weekend — in a relaxed and peaceful environment.
Your girlfriend brings a nice hot and delicious looking plate, and you are all set — ready to enjoy each bite.
As you start eating and asking your girlfriend about her day, your work phone starts vibrating, and you can´t help but check what it´s all about, hoping deep down that it is not your demanding boss.
And no, it turns out that it is not your boss who is sending emails…but rather David, that super annoying colleague of yours who is always trying to take credit for your work. He has sent you an email, cc-ing your boss, and as you are processing the whole thing, you see that your boss responds to him on your behalf — almost immediately.
This feels awful. What is he thinking responding so late on a Friday night? Does he think that you are not capable of responding to David yourself? Why can´t this wait until Monday? Your ego is hurt even more as your phone continues vibrating with emails back and forth between the two of them.
And now, you are the one on CC.
You have to say something now. They are completely sidelining you here. And it looks as if you are not dedicated enough to your job. And even though it is 10:30 PM, you feel this sense of pressure to respond and participate in the chain of emails.
The deadline for the project is not until next week; however, you feel that your perception will be damaged if you don't respond. You have worked so hard on this project. It has been 6 months of non-stop psychological and mental labour, and let's not forget all those late nights you put in. You have barely had time for your family…and your girlfriend is super annoyed at you.
But you have given your all to this project. And now, you can´t sit still and watch your colleague steal the thunder!
The overwhelming thoughts race through your mind, and you feel you have no choice but to respond.
“It will be just an hour of work” — you tell yourself, and then your girlfriend.
She is not happy at all, of course.
You start participating on the email chain and want to tell them to stop sending emails on a Friday night. But you are afraid to do that. How could you say that? This is not acceptable in your company. You are very well aware that the harder you “show” that you are working, the more highly the bosses think of you. And the more dedicated they think you are.
If you don't respond to these emails on your Friday night, you are risking your career future.
You keep thinking in your head:
“When it comes to getting the next promotion, of course, they will choose David over me because he is willing to go the extra mile”.
The thought of this drives you crazy. And puts even more pressure on you to forget about your Friday night.
You end up working for the whole weekend.
And this is not the first time this has happened. In fact, this has been happening regularly for the last few years. Having a weekend all to yourself has become an exception, and is not the norm.
And you have completely normalized this pattern.
|
https://medium.com/better-advice/when-is-enough-enough-5586929d1ca5
|
['Alex Weiss']
|
2020-12-02 10:29:39.925000+00:00
|
['Corporate Culture', 'Burnout', 'Career Advice', 'Respect', 'Overwork']
|
What Would Make YOU Use a London Bike Share?
|
What Would Make YOU Use a London Bike Share?
An overview of the London Bike Share usage from 2015 and 2017; the important factors and what it would mean for the future.
Introduction
London, with a population of over 9 million¹ people, it’s a city of its own. To a city of this magnitude, transportation is a vital component. The London Underground as well as the red double decker buses have no doubt, become icons of London.
London Bike Share, (or more popularly known as Boris Bikes or Santander Bikes²) is a younger icon of London. It was launched on 30th July 2010³ and we have just celebrated its 10th birthday. There are more than 750 docking stations and 11,500 bikes in circulation across London⁴, making it one of the largest bike share schemes in Europe.
Living in London, I enjoy walking from places to places, if I have to get to somewhere afar, we are always just a short walk away from a tube/bus stop. Therefore, I have never really paid much attention to the bike share schemes. However, the scheme has been going for over 10 years now, and regardless of my personal opinions, it must be important (or at least useful) to others.
Table 1. Bike shares in London per day between 2015 and 2017
Between the year of 2015 and 2017, on average, each day, there were over 27 thousand times a bike was used, with over 72 thousand times on the busiest day — that’s a lot of journeys!!
The above results comes from a dataset⁵ from Kaggle (with the raw source containing TFL data), I will be using this dataset to try to provide an unbiased macro-view of the usage as well as trying to predict bike usages for the future. I will be mainly using this dataset as it contains hourly London share bike usage between 2015 and 2017, as well as information such as weather, temperature, holidays season etc. It is perfect for providing a good overview for the London bikes.
|
https://medium.com/swlh/what-would-make-you-use-a-london-bike-share-b70a3d6a6bf1
|
[]
|
2020-11-11 20:16:38.241000+00:00
|
['Data Analysis', 'Python', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Bike Sharing', 'Machine Learning']
|
To be beautiful means to be yourself!
|
We are art. We are the sky. We are perfectly imperfect.
Mental health and self-love have always put me in introspection. What does “to love yourself” mean? Some time ago, a part of me was broken and that had shaken my grounds. But, I believe that everything happens for a reason. From then, I started evaluating myself and tried to look inward. I realized that, unconsciously or consciously we only try to impress others. In this process of acting and faking around, we tend to forget our originality. “Anything, good or bad that makes us forget about our own individuality or makes us immensely self- indulgent is toxic.”
The society in which we live is instrumental for us to believe that, “We are not enough.” Body shaming and tagging people on the basis of their looks exists right from school. We idealize particular body types. Knowingly or unknowingly, we tend to make fun of a person’s mental health, abilities and physical appearance. All of these contribute layer by layer to become a hard shell of toxicity.
I was vulnerable when I came across self-love. It started with acknowledging my fears and weaknesses. I started believing that, “I am complete!” I started accepting myself! When I started embracing my imperfections, I refrained from living for others and the beautiful journey with myself began! I asked myself, “I am my home and always will be. What’s the use if I don’t feel like home with my own self?” We divert our energy towards the outer world and try to fit in somewhere.
I ate amazing food, watched movies, went to different places, spent time with people and all of that didn’t make me feel good in any way! All that is just a way to deviate the mind from the damage for a short time! I accepted that being alone is fine. Some battles have to be fought alone and that makes a person stronger. For one to shed off negativity and get inclined towards one’s emotions, actions, thoughts and spending time with one’s own self is the real self-love.
I started speaking kind and brave words to myself. We usually talk good to the people and not to ourselves. I developed a strong conviction that, “I’ve to be kind towards myself.” I told myself a hundred times that, “Instead of fighting with the world, I should fight with myself.”
Speak to yourself, pen down things, dance, embrace your flaws, look after yourself like a mother does, be your own friend, meditate and be proud of yourself. No cosmetic is needed to make you beautiful because you already are! Do all that you love to do! Evaluate and know yourself on a daily basis. Be brave and self- sacrificing without losing yourself .The world is beautiful and always will be! Explore and enjoy all the shades of the nature.
“When life puts you through darkness, do not forget to love yourself a bit harder.”
|
https://medium.com/@rajeshjcs30/to-be-beautiful-means-to-be-yourself-64402bf4767f
|
['Rajeshwari C']
|
2020-09-03 09:30:31.806000+00:00
|
['Love Yourself', 'Self Care', 'Mental Health', 'Self Love']
|
The New Facebook Update: How To Get it With Dark Mode on Desktop
|
In the history of Facebook, there have been four major redesigns.
The latest one, FB5, otherwise known as The New Facebook, might be the most dramatic of them all. It’s a total shift in how Facebook looks and works on desktop and mobile. It even introduces a site-wide dark mode. It’s been many years since a massive design change came to Facebook, so this news is both welcomed and much-needed, even if it’s jarring.
To help you navigate the change, Polarity Technologies Ltd is breaking down what to expect.
At the F8 2019 conference, Facebook executives announced the social network plans to push out a massive redesign called The New Facebook. It’s an interface update that will place a bigger emphasis on Groups and Events — two of the biggest reasons people visit Facebook on a daily basis. This subsequently also means that the News Feed will be featured way less in The New Facebook.
As Polarity Technologies has learned from Eightpoint, both the desktop website and the mobile app will automatically receive the update. This will make Facebook easier to navigate while also modernising its look for the new decade. Facebook described it as a cleaner design, with more of an all-white look and even a dark mode option.
White design
Visually, Facebook’s redesign is carried throughout the desktop and mobile apps. It’s a cleaner, brighter, more contemporary Facebook. Here’s a look at CEO Mark Zuckerberg showing off the mostly-white design at the F8 2019 conference:
Dark mode
If you’re not a fan of all the bright look, you’ll be happy to know that, because dark modes have become a huge trend in the past year, Facebook has decided to offer its own dark mode for desktop users in this update.
News Feed and Groups
Perhaps the biggest change to Facebook is the News Feed. Facebook is doubling down on group communities and private interactions and has suggested we can expect a major disruption in how we get our content from Facebook in the future. It floated the notion that friends and family should be the core of our social lives. So, Facebook Groups will now be prioritised and surfaced more to you.
That doesn’t mean the News Feed is dead. In fact, press imagery for The New Facebook still shows a stream of status updates.
Facebook said the Groups Tab has been overhauled to make finding new groups that you might be interested in even easier. The feed for groups will also serve up recent activity within groups you’re a member of and may even replace the News Feed as the default feed. You’ll also see more connections among groups and the Facebook features you use the most, such as Marketplace or Facebook Watch.
Other features
There will also be new features events and for specific communities, like Chat for Gaming Groups, as well as interaction improvements for Facebook Live and those who use it for buying and selling purposes.
When will The New Facebook arrive?
Facebook desktop and mobile should auto-update for you once you sign in.
If you enjoy our Business, Tech and Lifestyle news follow Polarity Technologies Ltd on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
|
https://medium.com/@polaritytech/the-new-facebook-update-how-to-get-it-with-dark-mode-on-desktop-dd925e6d8c3f
|
['Polarity Technologies Ltd.']
|
2020-05-05 16:56:51.859000+00:00
|
['Social Media', 'Technology News', 'Facebook']
|
HDMI 2.1 support on 2020 Sony TVs is a mess
|
HDMI 2.1 support on 2020 Sony TVs is a mess
It only took a few weeks into 2020, and Sony’s entire lineup of new TVs is an absolute mess when it comes to HDMI 2.1 support. For some, and if we’re honest here, for many, HDMI 2.1 won’t mean a damn thing. You’ll be able to plug your Apple TV 4K or whatever method you use to watch Netflix and consume your media just like before. But for some, especially those eyeing PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the new standard can have a lot of consiquences.
Rasmus Larsen for flatpanels hd on two critical parts of HDMI 2.1 when it comes to gaming — VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode).
ALLM is a nice addition but not a huge deal, whereas 4K120 and VRR have the potential to improve the gaming experience markedly together with next-generation game consoles such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Both new consoles have been confirmed to support up to 4K120. Microsoft has also confirmed VRR for Xbox Series X while Sony has yet to comment on the matter in regard to PlayStation 5. HDMI eARC will be an important feature with next-generation game consoles if you own a AV surround receiver without HDMI 2.1 passthrough (meaning all existing and current receivers). You will lose 4K120 and VRR if you loop the HDMI signal through a HDMI 2.0 receiver. You must therefore connect next-generation consoles directly to the TV via HDMI 2.1 and use the HDMI eARC port to return audio to the receiver (must support eARC, too). Or alternatively upgrade to a HDMI 2.1-capable AV receiver.
With PS5 likely less than nine months away and years in development, that the team at PlayStation and Sony Electronics would be in contact to ensure both sides complement each other. This is doubly true as it only comes down to a single component, HDMI 2.1 input and not an entirely new screen technology, and yet, this is how Sony’s 2020 TV line will look.
two of Sony’s new LCD TV ranges for 2020 will feature an HDMI 2.1 port capable of receiving 4K at 120 frames per second (4K120) — and 8K60 for 8K TVs. These are the 8K Z8H (Z8H) and the 4K X900H (XH90) ranges. Last year’s Sony 8K Z9G (Z9G) will carry over into 2020 and also feature an HDMI 2.1 port for 4K120 and 8K60. In addition, X900H (XH90) will be the first Sony TV to offer support for HDMI 2.1’s VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). The former is variable refresh rate for smoother, lag-free gameplay via a PC or game console (must also support VRR). The latter allows the TV to automatically switch into ‘Game’ mode when it detects a game via HDMI. These features will be added through a future software update for X900H (XH90) only. Sony’s A8 OLED as well as X950H (XH95) and X850H (XH85) LCDs will not feature an HDMI 2.1 port capable of 4K120 but they will feature a single optional HDMI 2.1 feature that can be supported on HDMI 2.0 ports. This feature is eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel), which supports lossless audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD (with/without Atmos) and DTS-HD MA (with/without DTS:X). HDMI eARC is also supported in most other 2020 Sony TVs and some previous TV models.
And there you have it, the ‘entry-level’ X850H does not offer HDMI 2.1 while the more expensive X900H series will, at a later date, via a firmware update, but the even more costly X950H will not. But to make it even more confusing, the A8 OLED will not offer HDMI 2.1 but will support some of its features through HDMI 2.0, and the 8K Z8H fully does provide HDMI 2.1. Got it. Not a cluster fuck at all.
How the entire range of 2020 Sony TVs don’t offer HDMI 2.1 is mind-boggling and completely unsurprising. This should have been an easy win for Sony Electronics — want the best PS5 experience? Buy any of our 2020 TVs — but instead, consumers will have to either do their homework and dig out tech specs to make the right purchase decision, which isn’t solved by the old mantra of ‘pay more and get better specs’ or go to a competitor.
Is HDMI 2.1 support a must for you on your next TV?
|
https://sonyreconsidered.com/hdmi-2-1-support-on-2020-sony-tvs-is-a-mess-a4d5fdb8e167
|
['Sohrab Osati']
|
2020-02-17 18:17:23.187000+00:00
|
['Ps5', 'Television', 'Tech', 'Sony', 'Home Theater']
|
Granny’s Old House
|
So long ago of this house I remember
Down in the Bottom along side the river
Swinging Bridge just off of her front lawn
Another big swing on Granny’s porch swung
It was in this home in 1959 I was taught time
Three of our generations lived here in this house
This home where my oldest brother was born
Didn’t have a bath but it did have an inside toilet
Taking hoe baths before we knew what they were
The House stands, yet all the people, have passed on
|
https://medium.com/@oldandgrumpy56/grannys-old-house-2609382b966e
|
['T.R. Savage']
|
2020-12-23 19:59:01.293000+00:00
|
['History', 'Memories Of Childhood', 'Grannys Old House', 'Poems On Medium']
|
Why I Started LACH
|
My name is Kimberly and I am a mother of two beautiful children. LACH is an idea that came out of necessity. Read on to learn more!
About a year after my youngest child turned one, I realized that it may be time to get rid of my maternity clothing. I knew I was not going to have anymore children so I had no reason to keep my wardrobe. I went into full spring cleaning mode. Not only did I pull all of my maternity clothes, I also collected all of my children’s clothing. Once everything was in enormous piles, I was hit with a major realization. I realized just how little my children wore their adorable outfits before outgrowing them and the amount of money, my friends, family, and I spent on them. We all need clothes but it seems like such a waste!
Photo by fran hogan on Unsplash
This dress and cart cover are still in excellent condition!
My first thought was consignment. There were so many ways to do it but each had a flaw. Larger online consignment companies had so many categories I worried about whether or not my items would sell. Local consignment sales required way too much work between tagging and pricing each item and volunteering to work at the actual sale. I found that selling through social media was difficult because the only way to buy or sell was to know people in these active groups. It was all too confusing and time consuming. After realizing the hassle of these different channels, I decided there needed to be an app just for mothers. Enter LACH.
LACH is an app where mothers can find anything preloved, from maternity and children’s clothing to toys and accessories. We no longer need to scour the internet for places to buy or sell our babies’ items, it is all in one place. The best part about LACH is the specialist program. Want to sell items but don’t have time or feel like listing? Work with a LACH specialist who will list items for you! Want to make extra cash? Sign up to become a LACH specialist. You will work directly with buyers by collecting and listing their items on the app. The benefit? Commission and gifts! Mothers helping mothers is the name of the game and everyone is excited to be a part off it. Join the LACH family today!
|
https://medium.com/@LACHLLC/why-i-started-lach-c90f3afd9a18
|
[]
|
2020-02-09 18:23:17.859000+00:00
|
['Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Sustainability', 'Sustainable Fashion', 'Parenting']
|
Spiritually Minded
|
Romans 8:38–39 (KJV)
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans chapter seven ends with the mind serving the law of God. Chapter eight then is an essential lesson on the mind. To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
The final two verses speak of persuasion. The mind must become persuaded of the truth and become the “mind of the spirit” so that we mortify the deeds of the flesh, live in the hope of Christ’s image upon us, and rest in the promise, “if God be for us, who came be against us?”
To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.
Donate to Bible Baptist Church every time you make an Amazon purchase through this link, https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1265824
For this and more than 5100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.
If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.
For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.
My books are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org
Romans 8:38–39 (KJV) Spiritually Minded
photos from pexels.com.
|
https://medium.com/daily-visit-with-god/spiritually-minded-72ef2b43af8e
|
['Marvin Mckenzie']
|
2020-12-09 14:11:03.772000+00:00
|
['Bible Study', 'Christianity', 'Christian Living', 'Faith and Life', 'Christian']
|
Liberal Arts Blog — Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People VII: “Ode to Joy”
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Liberal Arts Blog — Thursday is Joy of Music Day
Today’s Topic: Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People VII: “Ode to Joy” (Beethoven/Schiller)
After a quick tour of Asia (China, Japan, Korea), and Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa), today, Europe, First stop: “Ode to Joy” (Beethoven/Schiller). Not only was this tune chosen as the European anthem — it’s appeal is so universal that it has become an integral part of Japanese New Year’s celebrations! Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
Flashmob Flash Mob — Ode an die Freude ( Ode to Joy ) Beethoven Symphony №9 classical music
LYRICS — An Die Freude (“Ode to Joy”) — Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)
1. Freude! schoner Gotterfunken (Joy! Beautiful, Divine Spark!’) Tochter aus Elysium (Daughter from Elysium)
2. Wir betreten feuertrunken (Fire-drunk we enter), Himmlische, dein Heiligtum (Heavenly one, your sanctuary)
3. Deine Zauber binden wieder (Your magic binds us again) was die Mode streng geteilt (what custom has divided)
All Menschen werden bruder (All men become brothers) wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt (where thy gentle wing hovers)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) — written in 1824–5, when he was basically deaf
1. The theme is introduced by cellos and double basses.
2. The first human voice is a bass-baritone solo.
3. Then comes the chorus with Schiller’s poem.
BEETHOVEN HIMSELF WROTE THE WORDS OF THE BASS-BARITONE SOLO THAT PRECEDES THE CHORUS
1. “O Freunde, nicht diese Tone! (Oh friends, not these sounds!)
2. “Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen!” (Instead let’s strike up more pleasing sounds!)
3. “und freudenvollere” (and more joyful ones!) Freude! (Joy!) Freude! (Joy!)
Bass-baritone solo with lyrics:
(Some of) the lyrics to Ode to Joy
Ode to Joy
10000 Japanese singing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in Osaka Japan — Oda a la alegría
YOUR TURN
Time to share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to music.
Or the coolest thing you learned in your life related to music. Say your favorite song or songs. Or your favorite tips for breathing, posture, or relaxation. Or some insight into the history of music….Or just something random about music… like a joke about drummers. jazz, rock….or share an episode or chapter in your musical autobiography.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And perhaps to cement in your memory something important you would otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters to you.
|
https://medium.com/@john-muresianu/liberal-arts-blog-keys-to-the-hearts-of-seven-billion-people-vii-ode-to-joy-9c42929722fd
|
['John Muresianu']
|
2020-05-21 12:50:07.901000+00:00
|
['Ode To Joy', 'Songs', 'Music', 'Liberal Arts Blog', 'Europe']
|
Balanced Binary Tree
|
Given a binary tree, determine if it is height-balanced.
For this problem, a height-balanced binary tree is defined as:
a binary tree in which the left and right subtrees of every node differ in height by no more than 1.
Example 1:
Input: root = [3,9,20,null,null,15,7]
Output: true
Example 2:
Input: root = [1,2,2,3,3,null,null,4,4]
Output: false
Example 3:
Input: root = []
Output: true
Constraints:
The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [0, 5000] .
. -104 <= Node.val <= 104
Please visit the below blog for solution with detailed explanation:
|
https://medium.com/@thefellowprogrammer/balanced-binary-tree-ad1982483f1
|
['Fellow Programmer']
|
2020-12-23 11:53:54.972000+00:00
|
['Leetcode', 'The Fellow Programmer', 'Java', 'Coding', 'Programming']
|
Consumer Wow Facts Of 2020
|
Any time I come across a stat that makes me go “wow, I didn’t know that!” I write it down in a Google doc. Even though this year has mostly sucked, I’ve ended up collecting a new set of interesting and sometimes very random data points about the broader consumer world, from retail to gaming.
The list is fully subjective — what I find surprising might be old news to others, and vice versa — but I found great joy & learnings in it, so hopefully you will too!
IKEA decided to “stop producing its iconic catalogue, once the most-printed book in the world ahead of the Bible and Koran” (!). At its peak in 2015, “IKEA produced more than 200M copies;” current 2021 catalogue dropped to “just” 40M copies. (Financial Times)
(!). At its peak in 2015, “IKEA produced more than 200M copies;” current 2021 catalogue dropped to “just” 40M copies. (Financial Times) … but according to HBR , “response rates from catalogs have increased by 170% from 2004 to 2018 . One jewelry ecommerce retailer in HBR’s study found that catalog + email marketing group experienced 49% lift in sales and 125% lift inquiries vs. control, compared to +28% in sales and +77% in inquiries for email-only marketing (Harvard Business Review)
. One jewelry ecommerce retailer in HBR’s study found that catalog + email marketing group experienced 49% lift in sales and 125% lift inquiries vs. control, compared to +28% in sales and +77% in inquiries for email-only marketing (Harvard Business Review) ~⅓ of China’s internet population (or 309M users in June ’20) has viewed e-commerce live-streams; however, given resulting impulse buying behavior, buyer’s remorse is common — “ only 51.5% of those that had bought products through online live streams were satisfied with the goods they received ” (South China Morning Post)
” (South China Morning Post) “3 out of every 4, or 244 million, people in the U.S. play video games as of July 2020, an increase of 32 million people since 2018” (likely mix of COVID and increasing popularity across demos); gamers average 14 hours per week of playing time, up from 12 hours per week in 2018. (NPD)
an increase of 32 million people since 2018” (likely mix of COVID and increasing popularity across demos); gamers average 14 hours per week of playing time, up from 12 hours per week in 2018. (NPD) Netflix owns just ~3% of its most-watched content : “Of the 52.6 billion minutes of streaming TV compiled by Nielsen over the last six weeks [as of Oct ‘20], Netflix owns the copyright to just 1.6 billion of those minutes. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal owns 14.4 billion minutes (27.5%).” (Quartz)
: “Of the 52.6 billion minutes of streaming TV compiled by Nielsen over the last six weeks [as of Oct ‘20], Netflix owns the copyright to just 1.6 billion of those minutes. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal owns 14.4 billion minutes (27.5%).” (Quartz) Peloton’s average monthly workouts per sub doubled in fiscal Q4 ‘20 (calendar Q2 ‘20) to 24.7 (!) , compared to 12.0 in Q4 ‘19. (Peloton)
, compared to 12.0 in Q4 ‘19. (Peloton) As of September 2020, Twitter’s LTM revenue & profit ($3.4B revenue and $295M EBITDA) is higher than Shopify’s ($2.5B revenue and $59M EBITDA)!
($3.4B revenue and $295M EBITDA) ($2.5B revenue and $59M EBITDA)! Analysts estimate that Apple sold 15M AirPods in 2017, 35M in 2018 (133% YoY), and 60M in 2019 (128% YoY) ! Airpods-only revenue is likely roughly equal to Uber’s and higher than Adobe’s, Nvidia’s, and Spotify’s (Kevin Rooke)
! Airpods-only revenue is likely roughly equal to Uber’s and higher than Adobe’s, Nvidia’s, and Spotify’s (Kevin Rooke) “ 5% to 10% of the typical quick service chain’s orders are digital . Domino’s share was 65% [in 2019] and has since climbed to 75%.” (WSJ)
. Domino’s share was 65% [in 2019] and has since climbed to 75%.” (WSJ) According to Grubhub’s Year in Food report, spicy chicken sandwiches have been the top item of the year on the platform (orders +318%) ; chicken burrito bowls have placed 2nd (orders +299%) and chicken wings 3rd (+287%). ’Twas the year of chicken / comfort food. Also, “with more cities allowing restaurants to deliver alcoholic beverages, orders of cocktails, beer and wine grew nearly 300%.” (Food Business News)
; chicken burrito bowls have placed 2nd (orders +299%) and chicken wings 3rd (+287%). ’Twas the year of chicken / comfort food. Also, “with more cities allowing restaurants to deliver alcoholic beverages, orders of cocktails, beer and wine grew nearly 300%.” (Food Business News) Malaysia’s Karex Bhd makes one in every five condoms globally ; initial coronavirus shutdown in the country caused a production shortfall of 100M condoms in just one week (The Guardian)
; initial coronavirus shutdown in the country caused a production shortfall of 100M condoms in just one week (The Guardian) TSA “discovered more than 300 guns in carry-on baggage nationwide in July [2020], which it said is about 15.3 guns per million people screened. That’s up from the rate of 5.1 guns per million people in July 2019 even though air passenger traffic is down 75%.” ~80% of guns found in carry-on bags were loaded. (CNN)
even though air passenger traffic is down 75%.” ~80% of guns found in carry-on bags were loaded. (CNN) Armslist.com is a “Craigslist of guns” with 5M+ monthly visitors ; a 2019 study found that fewer than 10% of its postings mention a background check (The Verge)
; a 2019 study found that fewer than 10% of its postings mention a background check (The Verge) 97% of retailers (!) have been victimized by ORC (organized retail crime) in 2019 with losses averaging $703,320 per $1B in sales (PYMNTS.com)
(organized retail crime) in 2019 with losses averaging $703,320 per $1B in sales (PYMNTS.com) In a normal (i.e. non-COVID year), fashion over-production (due to poor supply/demand match) runs at 30–40% each season (Forbes); additionally, 20% of water pollution across the globe is is the result of wastewater from the production and finishing of textiles (Quartz)
(Forbes); additionally, 20% of water pollution across the globe is is the result of wastewater from the production and finishing of textiles (Quartz) Throughout the 2000–2013 period, Amazon added $38B in sales while Costco added $50B and Sam’s Club added $32B . “Amazon had the higher growth rate, but the bigger problem for most brick-and-mortar stores was other, larger brick-and-mortar stores” (The New York Times)
. “Amazon had the higher growth rate, but the bigger problem for most brick-and-mortar stores was other, larger brick-and-mortar stores” (The New York Times) Japan’s vending machine industry is 4.6 trillion yen ($44B); “ monthly sales volume of beverages across the nearly 3M vending machines in Japan dropped more than 35% earlier this year” due to the pandemic (Bloomberg)
monthly sales volume of beverages across the nearly 3M vending machines in Japan dropped more than 35% earlier this year” due to the pandemic (Bloomberg) In a signal of nostalgia-driven marketing trends, “Est.” (as in, “Est. 2020”) has appeared in trademarks at a rate 17x higher in 2020 than in 1980. Among 2020 trademarks, avg. year that follows is 1992 (28 years ago), while in 2000 avg. year that followed was 1939 (61 year earlier). (Marker)
Have a favorite fun/surprising consumer-related stat from 2020? Let me know!
|
https://medium.com/@magdalenakala/consumer-wow-facts-of-2020-6b033af715f8
|
['Magdalena Kala']
|
2020-12-20 21:31:35.066000+00:00
|
['Fun Facts', 'Consumer Behavior', 'Retail', 'Trends']
|
Dietitians share their most hated foods, from deli meat and energy drinks to red wine
|
By Gabby Landsverk
Most of us realize by now that health experts will recommend we eat more kale than cupcakes in our typical daily diet.
But surprisingly, fast food and sweets aren’t the most pressing issues for nutrition professionals. Many are more worried about that second bottle of wine with dinner, telling ourselves it’s for the “Mediterranean diet.”
That came to light in a recent, popular post on Reddit asking dietitians to give their expert opinion on which foods are overall worst for health.
Alcohol, preserved meats, processed snacks, and energy drinks were the four major culprits that dietitians said can derail healthy eating.
And while we all know it’s not healthy to binge on beer and hot dogs, the experts said you’d be surprised how these things sneak onto plates, even of “healthy” people, from deli meats in your lunch sandwich to a packaged granola bar or a whisky or glasses of wine to wind down.
Most things, in moderation, aren’t going to harm your health too much. But here’s why the experts argue you may want to be wary of including too many of these in your regular eating routine.
Even red wine can be bad for you, despite some favorable research
By far the most common response from dietitians in the thread was alcohol.
Ethanol, or the active ingredient in beer, wine, and liquor that gives us a buzz, is a known carcinogen, and also increases the risk of cancer and stroke.
The more you drink, the more harmful alcohol is likely to be, irritating the tissues, causing inflammation, and releasing chemical by-products as your liver works to metabolize the ethanol.
Evidence is mixed on whether moderate drinking (no more than a glass or two a day) might be OK. Some studies find it can still be harmful, while other research suggests is there could be a small health benefits to an occasional tipple.
“The human body is such a complex machine, and there are so many factors,” wrote one student dietitian. “The problem is that alcohol is also a carcinogen, so obviously you don’t want to start drinking for the benefits [if you don’t already.]”
However, experts were particularly frustrated by how the general population often seems unaware of alcohol’s links to cancer and other illnesses.
“A lot of my patients perk up when I talk to them about the Mediterranean Diet largely for this reason. Their face falls quite quickly after I tell them that it doesn’t give them license to binge drink beer and brandy, however,” wrote one dietitian from Wisconsin, a state with high levels of binge-drinking.
While red wine does include some polyphenols with healthful properties, it’s important to consume in moderation — or find those healthy polyphenols in foods like grapes, berries, apples, tea, coffee, and certain vegetables.
Processed meats, like deli slices, are consistently linked to health risks
Another popular dietary culprit for dietitians is processed meat. Anything that’s cured, smoked, or salted falls into this category, from hot dogs, brats, and chorizo to ham, bacon, and deli meats.
Regularly consuming these foods is associated with risk of heart disease, as they tend to be high in saturated fat and cholesterol. They’re also linked to a higher risk of several types of cancer. Nitrates, the chemical additives that give processed meat their appealing color and flavor, are the main cause of the health risks, according to research.
Even foods that are labeled “nitrate-free” may contain similar forms of these preservatives, so experts recommended limiting how much processed meat you consume in your everyday diet.
Trans fats are banned, but can still show up in old processed foods
Also on the list of dietitians’ most-hated foods are products containing trans fats. Trans fatty acids, or trans fats for short, are found in manufactured processed foods such as pastries and snacks, to help improve flavor and texture and keep them shelf-stable.
But there’s extensive research showing trans fats are bad for physical and cognitive health, linked to dementia, heart disease, and stroke.
The FDA banned trans fats in the United States in 2018, so companies are no longer allowed to make foods that contain them, however, they may still be present in the food supplies as products manufactured before that ban. To avoid them, be wary of foods containing hydrogenated vegetable oil, a common source of trans fats.
Energy drinks can contain unhealthy amounts of caffeine and sweeteners
One dietitian noted on Reddit took aim at energy drinks, which can cause health issues in children and teens.
Coffee and tea are considered safe and good for you in moderation, with a natural dose of healthy antioxidants. However, caffeine in other forms can pose health risks.
Energy drinks loaded with sugar, artificial sweeteners, other additives, and excessive amounts of caffeine can worsen anxiety, lead to jitters or nausea, and cause a rapid heart rate and difficulty catching your breath. It may also disrupt your sleep.
For this reason, the Mayo Clinic recommends limiting caffeine intake to no more than 400 milligrams a day for adults (children and teens should avoid it).
No single food will make or break your health
Another common refrain from dietitians is that, while some foods are worse for your health than others, the most important factor in a healthy diet is balanced patterns of eating over time.
The foods you do include in your diet are just as important as the ones you limit.
Eating a lot of processed foods can mean you simply don’t have enough space on your plate for nutrient-rich options such as fruits, veggies, and whole grains. If you prioritize vitamins and minerals in your diet, in the form of whole foods, you then don’t have to completely eliminate some favorite “unhealthy” foods.
“Eating one salad or going on a juice cleanse for a weekend isn’t gonna make you healthy, eating some crazy shit like deep fried butter once isn’t gonna kill you. Keep healthy habits in the long run and you’ll be fine,” wrote one dietitian in training.
For more great stories, visit Insider’s homepage.
|
https://medium.com/insider/dietitians-share-their-most-hated-foods-from-deli-meat-and-energy-drinks-to-red-wine-71343092d047
|
[]
|
2020-12-26 19:02:18.757000+00:00
|
['Health', 'Science', 'Dietitian', 'Red Wine', 'Nutrition']
|
I have no milk
|
I have no milk
Reluctant poetry in iambics
I have no milk to give the world;
I have no blood or tears.
I have no sweat to prove my work,
my willingness to please;
too long I toiled and strove and dreamed
and no cathedrals rose.
So what remains when I am pressed?
Not riches; hardly those.
I spent it all, held nothing back;
Tore petals from the rose.
When all there was is all there is,
I give my words, my breath.
|
https://medium.com/notes-on-the-way-up/i-have-no-milk-85afdd7d001
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['Rev Dr Sparky']
|
2019-11-27 05:52:43.270000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Writing Life', 'Personal Development', 'Literature', 'Spirituality']
|
Top Scholarships for Indian Students to Study in the UK
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The United Kingdom is one of the best providers of higher education in the world. From Oxford to UCL College, four out of the top 10 universities in the world are located in the UK, according to the QS World University Rankings 2022. International students join UK universities to study bachelor’s or master’s degree programmes in a wide range of subjects.
The cost of studying an undergraduate degree in the UK ranges between £10,000 to £38,000 per year, and for postgraduate courses, it is between £11,000 to £32,000. The tuition fees vary depending on the course and college.
To make studying in the UK affordable for international students, the UK government and universities are offering a wide range of scholarships to worthy students who have impressive academic records.
Some of the top universities in the UK that students should consider for pursuing bachelor’s, master’s, or research degrees are:
The fees mentioned above are not fixed for any particular course or university. The tuition fees for particular courses can be higher or lower than the average mentioned amount.
Here are some of the popular scholarships available for Indian students to pursue their higher studies in the UK.
Rhodes Scholarships
GREAT Scholarships
Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan
Dr Manmohan Singh Scholarships
Rhodes Scholarships
The Rhodes Scholarship is one of the oldest and most prestigious UK scholarships. The programme offers fully-funded scholarships that help students from around the world to study at the University of Oxford.
To apply for the scholarship, the minimum eligibility criteria required are:
Must be a citizen of India with valid proof of citizenship such as passport or equivalent documents.
Must have undertaken a formal education at any recognised educational institution in India
The age of applicants applying for an Undergraduate scholarship should be at least 18 or a maximum of 24 at the time of application.
For Postgraduate programmes, applicants must have completed their undergraduate degree with a first-class or equivalent qualification.
GREAT Scholarships
GREAT Scholarships are offered to students from 18 countries of the world for studying postgraduate degrees at UK universities across a wide range of subjects.
The scholarship is jointly funded by the British Council, the GREAT Britain Campaign, and the participating universities.
The minimum scholarship amount offered to Indian students for a one-year postgraduate degree is £10,000. Some of the UK universities offering GREAT Scholarship are:
The eligibility criteria required to apply for the GREAT Scholarships programme are:
The candidate must be a citizen of India
Should hold an Undergraduate degree in the same or related field in which they are applying for a scholarship with evidence of keen interest in the subject
Must meet the English language proficiency level of the respective university
Willing to participate in networking event for all UK based GREAT scholars to capture perceptions and discuss their experience of studying in the UK
Willing to act as an ambassador for the GREAT scholarship and maintain contact with the British Council
Willing to share their experience as an alumnus of the GREAT scholarship with the potential candidates
Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan
The Commonwealth Scholarship Programme is available for worthy students from across the commonwealth countries who couldn’t afford to study in the UK without funding. The programme is designed to support and attract talented students from the commonwealth countries to study at postgraduate and PhD level at prestigious universities in London and around the UK such as UCL university, Imperial College London, University of Oxford, University of Bristol and the University of Manchester to name a few.
To apply for the Commonwealth scholarship, the minimum eligibility requirements are:
Be a permanent resident of an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person, or hold a refugee status under a Commonwealth country.
Hold an undergraduate honours degree of upper second class (2:1)
Unable to afford education in the UK without scholarship along with valid documents to support the claim
Chevening Scholarships
The British Chevening Scholarships is offered to applicants with leadership potential for a one-year Master’s degree.
Chevening scholarship is offered in the field of politics, business, civil society, media, academia, and religion. The scholarship is offered to international students from over 160 countries other than the US and the UK.
The scholarship programme is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office along with partner organisations.
To be eligible for the Chevening Scholarship, the minimum requirements are:
The candidate must be a permanent resident of a Chevening-eligible country.
Candidates must return to their home country for at least two years post completion of their degree.
Should have completed an undergraduate programme with an upper second class 2:1 honours degree or equivalent international degree
Have at least 2-years of work experience
The candidate must have applied to at least three Chevening partner university courses and received unconditional offers for at least one.
Contact the study abroad expert consultants at SI-UK India to assess your scholarship eligibility for free.
Follow us:- FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER
|
https://medium.com/@educationstudy/top-scholarships-for-indian-students-to-study-in-the-uk-a33bf6711f07
|
['Si Uk']
|
2021-11-26 06:03:12.645000+00:00
|
['Uk Study Scholarships', 'Study Abroad', 'Ucl London']
|
Mechanical CAD: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
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Computer-aided design, or CAD, has been around since the 1950s. The first graphical CAD program was called Sketchpad and came out of MIT¹. Since then, CAD has become essential to designing and manufacturing a hardware product. Today there are multiple different types of CAD. This article will be focused on mechanical CAD, used for mechanical engineering.
In digging into the history of computer graphics you will find some interesting connections between the most ambitious and notorious engineers. Ivan Sutherland, who won the Turing Award for Sketchpad in 1988, had Ed Catmull as a student. Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan won the Turing award for their contributions to computer graphics in 2019. This included their work at Pixar building RenderMan, which was later licensed to other filmmakers. This led to innovations in hardware, software, and GPUs. Without these folks, not only would we not have mechanical CAD, we also wouldn’t have the level of animated films we have today. We wouldn’t even have GPUs!
Modeling geometries has greatly evolved over time. Solids were first modeled as wireframes by representing the object by its edges, line curves, and vertices. This evolved into surface representation using faces, surfaces, edges and vertices. Surface representation is very valuable in robot path planning as well, not just modeling solids. Wireframe and surface representation contain only geometrical data. Today, modeling includes topological information to describe how the object is bounded, connected, and its neighborhood².
OpenCascade, Parasolid, and ACIS are all what is known as a boundary-representation kernel, most people refer to them as B-rep kernels. A B-rep model is composed of geometry and topology information. The topology information tends to differ depending on the program used. B-rep file formats include STEP, IGES, NX’s prt, Solid Edge’s par and asm, Creo’s prt and asm, Solidworks’ sldprt and sldasm, Inventor’s ipt and iam, and AutoCad’s dwg.
Visual-representation, or vis-rep, models tend to be much smaller in data size than b-rep models. This is because they do not contain as much structural or product management information. Vis-rep models are approximations of geometry and are composed of a mass of flat polygons. Vis-rep file formats include obj, STL, 3D XML, 3D PDF, COLLADA, and PLY.
CAD programs tend to use b-rep models while animations, game development, augmented reality, and virtual reality tend to use vis-rep models. However, the two are interchanged frequently. For example, if you had a b-rep model you were using for manufacturing but wanted to load it into Apple’s ARKit for some animations, you would first convert it to COLLADA, a vis-rep file format. The file should already be a bit smaller from dropping all the CAD data. If you wanted to make it even smaller you could tweak the polygon counts on each of the meshes for the various parts.
The tools we build with today are built on the shoulders of giants! But there is a tremendous amount we could do to make them even better. At some point, mechanical CAD lost some of its roots of innovation. Let’s dive into a few of the problems with the CAD programs that exist today and how we can make it better.
Single-threaded
Since most CAD kernels are built on cores from the 80s, they were not built for modern systems. Even if you have the latest CPU or GPU it won’t do much to help the performance since most of these programs are single-threaded³, or have single-threaded aspects, and have no awareness of a GPU. Sure, some of these kernels have been updated since the 80s but their roots are still tied to their predecessors⁴.
That does not mean that all CAD kernels are _entirely_ single-threaded. Parasolid is multi-threaded but that still means if you are importing or exporting to a file format other than Parasolid, you might have just switched back to a single-threaded process. Another example of a multi-threaded kernel is ImplicitCAD, which is written in Haskell.
One problem with making a whole CAD program multithreaded is the different file formats. For example, a STEP file, whose format dates back to the 80s⁵, pretty much mandates the need for a single-threaded process⁶. Additionally, most parametric CAD operations are single-threaded. However, the open-source project SolveSpace, which uses non-uniform rational basis splines (NURBS), has some parallel operations.
Duplication
In software development, when you want to get the contents of a memory address, you use a pointer. This allows you to reference the same content of memory over and over again without the expense of copying the content itself.
Some products built in CAD may never duplicate a part of their model ever — lucky for them! For folks who do have multiple similar parts in their CAD designs, most CAD programs are creating very expensive copies of the parts.
For example, let’s imagine a model of a server rack. The _default_ method of copying a part⁷ in Solidworks, as well as many other industry wide CAD programs, is to copy the entire contents of a child model to a new model. So if we have 32 sleds in our server rack and we use the default copy method in Solidworks, we have 32 of the exact same model in individual copies. This is very expensive! As you can imagine, each sled has a bunch more models inside, and then those models have child models as well. This exponentially increases the work on the kernel and on our program to even load our model in the first place since the program does not know these are all the same thing.
If we think back to software development, what we really want is a form of pointer to the model. In the CAD world, these are called instances. Then we can have one copy of the model stored, and all the other instances are actually just a reference to the original copy. This also saves the user a bunch of time! Imagine having to update parts of models in 32 different locations when a part in a sled changes. No one could describe this better than Albert Einstein when he said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
While the default copy method in Solidworks is very expensive, they do offer another option that is more in line with how pointers operate. However, since this is not the default, you can imagine most people might not even realize there is a better way. This might seem mundane and the answer should be “just use the other way”, but products should try to make the default path lead to the least amount of pain. Instead of having two methods for copying, have one! Make the default method act more like a pointer (or instance) _until_ the geometry, surfaces, or topology of the copy (not the main) has changed. In which case warn the user that this will now act like a unique part aside from the main copy. Or the user might have mistakenly meant to apply those changes to all the copies in which case they should apply the changes to the main copy.
There is another huge problem with this as well. Each individual CAD program has their own way of implementing and referencing instances. So if you export your program from one CAD program to another, likely you will still have 32 individual sleds versus the concept of 1 sled and 31 references to the original sled with only the xyz coordinates changed. Some programs offer ways to import instances but it all relies on the type of file format you are importing and if they have the support for that.
As an additional cherry on top, even if you are using instances you are still at the mercy of the single-threaded kernel and likely none of the copies are going to render in parallel.
Version control
For software teams that are accustomed to using git, having the ability to diff, fix merge conflicts, and work as a team in parallel on the same file is a huge time saver. For mechanical CAD, there are a number of startups trying to solve this problem.
Instead of re-inventing version control for CAD, folks who use git today want to continue to use git and not have to add another tool to their workflow. The way CAD files are today, there is no way to push them to a git repo, have several people modify the file, and resolve merge conflicts⁸. For all the startups working to solve version control for mechanical CAD, this is why they had to reinvent the wheel.
However, in a world where we could make a kernel that fully utilizes a modern CPU and GPU, can we not also use a file format that is human-readable and would allow for resolving merge conflicts? When you ask yourself “what is human readable and works well with git?”, the first thing that comes to mind is a programming language.
The other great win from using a programming language is: even if you don’t use git or want to use git, there are many different options already for version control of human-readable files. Additionally, integrations with GitHub and other version control tools could be extended with wasm support so that diffs could be visualized as renders as well.
Programmable
Let’s think back to our example of the rack of servers. If part of our rack contained complex math that we were calculating in a program like Mathematica, we would have to continuously re-evaluate the math in another program and update it in our model. If instead we could program in the CAD program itself, then we could do all our calculations in one place and the model would update if anything in our equations changed.
For our rack of servers, each sled has network cables that connect to the back of the sled. Using the GUI it is quite hard to make these perfectly aligned with the connector on the sled. Someone would have to sit with the model for an hour or so just tweaking each individual cable to be perfectly aligned. That is a huge waste of time! Rather, if we could program the alignment of the cables, we could ensure each was perfectly aligned with the connector.
The need for programming becomes even more acute if you want to do mesh or topology optimizations. Unfortunately, most optimizations are implemented through GUI click interfaces, and given their complexity to define, can often be more trouble than they are worth. Today, some of the industry used programs allow for scripting, but their APIs are COM based and as you can imagine built in the 90s. But it’s great they even offer it for the ones that do! Thank you AutoCAD for being the first CAD command line interface I got to use!
For the modern world, it would be great to generate sdk clients for the CAD program in every language. Much like how API clients are generated. This way, anyone could program in any language! It greatly lowers the barrier to entry since you wouldn’t have to learn a new language. This would allow for complex math to be done in the CAD program itself versus using Mathematica, MATLAB, or Wolfram Alpha.
A few scriptable CAD programs exist today and are great examples of paving the way for this: ImplicitCAD, libfive Studio, OpenSCAD, CadQuery, FreeCAD, and ruckus. Blender has a great console interface. Three.js, while not CAD oriented, is also another great example of 3D programming languages. Jonathan Blow’s Jai is for writing systems-level code, and a great example of creating a language thinking heavily about performance⁹.
Most of the mechanical engineering community is tied to the GUI, so you’d also need a way to generate code from GUI interactions. This is quite similar to an HTML “point and click” GUI that generates code on the backend. This allows folks who want to script to script and others who want to click can click. Both worlds can be happy — code on the left side, render on the right, just like a markdown editor.
If there is an SDK client for the CAD program and underlying kernel, you can imagine a very rich ecosystem of plugins and tools emerging much like the ecosystem that surrounds VSCode, vim, and emacs. Most CAD editors used for products are very closed off and don’t allow for this type of community-based development and sharing. Plugins could be written for any use case, for example: mesh/topology optimizations and supply chain system integrations. This includes the functionality for finding parts, creating bills of materials (BOMs), and computing lead times for parts of the model. Today, this is usually done in separate programs or even spreadsheets.
I’d personally love plugins to support a command+P function. In most programs, when you want to print something, you hit command+P¹⁰. For mechanical CAD, when I want to “print” my model the underlying program should discover all the 3D printers and machines on my local network (or plugged directly into my machine) and send the parts of my model that are compatible with that machine to be printed. You could even take this a step further — in a fully automated factory with robots, the program should set up and start the assembly for the model and all the parts.
Speaking of 3D printing, let’s dive in a bit to the STL file format. The STL format was defined in 1987 and its namesake comes from stereolithography, the first method of additive manufacturing. STL files represent geometry in a series of triangular surfaces. Since STL is a vis-rep format, it does not hold any data about internal structure, color, texture, or any other CAD data that a b-rep format would contain. Modern 3D printers have innovated past the simplicity of the STL format. For example, if you wanted to print a full color model, you should use a VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) file or you’d need an STL file associated with textures in order for the printer to add color and texture to your object. Plugins can ensure that your printer gets the right data for your specific model, without the pain of conversion and make sure no materials or textures are dropped.
Testing
The test flow of CAD models usually consists of running simulations. These can be for various different things but we can use airflow and thermals as examples.
In the software world, after pushing our code updates, typically a CI is run on our changes letting us and our teammates know if we broke anything and our code is safe to merge. CAD should work in the same way. If we make changes to a model, our simulations should run in a CI to let our teammates know if our code is safe to merge. Most of these simulations are very compute intensive so being able to offload the simulations to the cloud or remote servers would also be ideal.
Much like VSCode and other editors have nice plugins for offloading tests to other computers, a modern CAD program should have the same.
User Experience and Design
After trying numerous different industry CAD programs, most have one thing in common: a user interface that looks like it is from the 90s. It is a bit ironic that a tool used for mechanical design has not considered the design and experience of its user interface. Most CAD programs are in need of a makeover, however there are a couple outliers that do interface design well. Shapr3D, an iPad CAD app, has a great design and very intuitive interface. SketchUp has a more intuitive and beautiful design.
Additionally, CAD applications need to be native on MacOS, Linux, and Windows. Native applications built for their specific platform perform better than ones built with Electron¹¹ and the like. Especially for a program as graphics heavy as CAD, it is best to utilize the underlying OS graphics mechanisms to get the best performance possible. Today, you can only use CAD programs on the single OS that is supported by that specific program. Additionally, most of them use archaic GUI frameworks that truly show their age.
OnShape changed the mold by offering a software-as-a-service (SaaS) CAD program. This allows expensive compute processes to be easily offloaded to the cloud. This was truly revolutionary and a great idea. However, this limits users ability to work offline. In contrast, native apps can work offline but also have the ability to offload workloads to the cloud when you are connected to the network.
By focusing on having an intuitive design that does not fall into a trap of complexity, both new users and pro users should be productive. Just like I would use vim for a side project and also professional projects, I would expect my CAD tool to work for building a toy for fun, just as well as it would work for a complex project. A lot of this comes down to the interface design and extensibility through plugins.
A better tomorrow
Each of these aspects needs to be thought through for a new CAD program. To date, not one existing CAD program has solved all of these problems.
We owe so much of the amazing innovations of computer graphics to brilliant folks like Ivan Sutherland, Pat Hanrahan, Ed Catmull, John Carmack, and so many others. I can only hope some truly revolutionary changes are headed to the world of computer-aided design in the same way that computer graphics pioneers paved the way for rendering, animations, and virtual reality.
The hardware industry is desperate for a modern way to do mechanical design. A new CAD program built for the modern world would lower the barrier to building hardware, decrease the time of development, and usher in a new era of building!
|
https://medium.com/embedded-ventures/mechanical-cad-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow-981cef7e06b1
|
['Jessie Frazelle']
|
2021-03-23 18:11:12.980000+00:00
|
['Hardware', 'Engineering', 'Manufacturing', 'Mechanical Engineering', 'Software']
|
Using Python to Refine Your Spotify Recommendations
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Using Python to Refine Your Spotify Recommendations
Photo by sgcdesignco on Unsplash
Music plays a large role in many people’s lives, it’s hard to imagine a day without it. I, like many others mainly consume it through streaming on Spotify. If you ever scrolled down to the end of your playlist you have met Spotify’s recommendations. Once in a while they seem spot on, at other times I wonder whether the recommender system took a wrong turn somewhere. But maybe that’s just me and my diverse taste in music.
If you are satisfied with your recommendations you can still use this article to learn how to use the Spotify API with spotipy and how to successfully go through the authentication process.
Setup
Image by Author
The Spotify API enables you to get user data or recommendations, create or modify playlists, and much more. To use it you need to go through an initial setup with the following steps:
Login/Register as a Spotify Developer Create an app. Go to the app dashboard select edit settings and set the dashboard address as the Redirect URI. View the Client ID and Client Secret. Store this information somewhere safe. Don’t copy and paste it into your notebook/script and publish it on GitHub.
Authentication and using Spotipy
After this initial setup, you will have to generate an authentification token with the Python library spotipy.
This can be done by providing some info in the code below. You need to enter your username, Client ID, Client Secret and Redirect URI, which you find when opening your app dashboard.
You also need to set a scope of authorizations. For our purposes, the scope needs to contain at least “playlist-modify-public”. If you want to explore your data or do other things you need to add more to your scope.
To view all available scopes click here.
Initially, you may get a prompt asking you to paste the URI you were directed to. You only need to do this once as long as you don’t change scopes or usernames. After successfully getting the Spotipy authentication token you can use the API to start exploring and modifying your Spotify playlists.
If you want to do more than just get some new songs into your playlist once, I recommend writing a small function with the above steps to shorten the authentification process.
Loading your playlist and getting recommendations
Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
When you query any data from the API, it will return a pretty large and complex dictionary. These dictionaries also vary a little in structure depending on whether you query saved songs, playlists, recently played tracks, or artists.
To make life easier I suggest figuring out the structure and then writing a function to extract the relevant data from the dictionary to store it in a DataFrame. The next code block shows the create_df_playlist() function which returns a DataFrame from the sp.playlist()-query results and the append_audio_features() function which appends Spotify’s audio features to all songs in a given DataFrame. These are two functions we will use in our script.
I wrote a couple of functions while working with the Spotify API which might be helpful if you want to explore it further. You can find all of my functions here. Please note that they are still subject to change. Any help or constructive feedback is also very welcome.
Now let’s get to the fun stuff.
In the code below I query playlist data from the API and create a DataFrame from it. I then create a list of all tracks from the playlist to be used as “seed tracks” by Spotify’s recommendation.
As the API does not allow a long list of seed tracks I divided them up into “packages” of five tracks. These packages are used to get 25 recommended tracks with audio features. The process is repeated until we got recommendations for every song.
Now that we have a lot of recommendations it is time to filter them a little bit more.
There are a couple of approaches that could be used for such a task. I opted for calculating similarity scores between the audio features and selecting the most similar songs based on these scores.
Additionally, I also filtered the recommendations again by how similar they were to a “mean song” (the average of all audio features in the playlist DataFrame). I’m not going to discuss this here, as it’s just a small step from everything presented and only works well for playlists with songs of a similar sound/genre.
The similarity score is calculated through the function below. Note that I am only using the audio features to determine similarity. You could also include popularity or duration if you wanted.
I found that using cosine similarity works pretty well, however I encourage you to try out other methods, maybe you find an even better one.
After creating the similarity matrix through the function above, we end up with a matrix that contains one row for each song in our original playlist and one column for each recommended song.
I then used np.argmax() on each row to retrieve the index of the recommended song that is most similar to the respective song in the playlist. The recommendations DataFrame is filtered down through the use of these indices. As the last step, I check whether any recommended tracks are already in the playlist and reset the index.
We now have a DataFrame with recommended songs that can either be filtered more, sampled from, or just added to the playlist.
To add to a playlist we simply use user_playlist_add_tracks() from spotipy. The function requires your username, the playlist URI and a list of track ids that should be added to the playlist.
And that’s it!
I encourage you to explore spotipy and the Spotify API more. You could find out which artists you listen to most, which songs are your all-time favorites, or build more playlists for yourself and others.
Enjoy listening to your playlist, whilst coding or otherwise!
-Merlin
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/using-python-to-refine-your-spotify-recommendations-6dc08bcf408e
|
['Merlin Schäfer']
|
2020-12-20 17:40:35.186000+00:00
|
['Data Science', 'Spotify', 'Recommendations', 'API', 'Data']
|
a New software developer
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There are many types of developers and developer roles. Programming language specific developers, e.g. Java developers, Python developers, Ruby developers, Go developers.
What differentiates these developers from one another is their programming language of choice, paradigm (object oriented, functional), preferences on the aspects of application and systems development they enjoy (UX, backend, APIs, infrastructure etc) and toolchain “lifestyle” choices, i.e working in IDEs or on the command line. There may also be philosophical leanings on software licensing, i.e proprietary or open source.
What unifies these various developers is their analytical problem solving skills and a deep understanding of algorithms, data structures and logic. Additionally they will have skills and good practice around testing, version control, architecture and infrastructure. The best developers tend to be well rounded “technologists.”
Seasoned developers end up being polyglot. They are able to work in more than one programming language and can pick up new ones. This is their superpower for having that grounding in algorithms, data structures and logic. The fundamentals of computer science are ingrained through a cerebral alchemy of experimentation, practice and experience. Preoccupation with specific code syntax and idioms recede as problem solving musculature develops.
Developers hone their skill and craft through experimentation, collaboration with other developers, curiosity and an innate passion for reading, writing and tinkering with code. Many started very early in life while others have discovered a new passion mid-career. Age and background are not limiters, there are examples of incredible developers starting at all stages of life.
The best developers underpin the great successes and achievements of the modern era. The dominance of the big tech companies is owed directly to developers, and many if not most, of the founders of those companies were also developers who wrote the code that propelled their companies to success.
So what about other developer roles? You may have seen other roles with “developer” in the title:
Dynamics developer. Sitecore developer. Wordpress developer. SharePoint developer.
What kind of developers are these? What do they do?
They also solve problems and develop solutions. They develop solutions using the features available in the commodity off-the-shelf, or COTS, software solutions they are specialised in. They do this with a deep knowledge of the features available in the product and how best to configure them to bring about a desired outcome.
They are product configuration specialists.
There are many sophisticated and highly configurable COTS solutions on the market which solve a range of problems. Good product configuration specialists will be able to develop solutions quickly and easily using these products. Many of these products can also be extended with custom code, so some specialists may also be software developers. This may be limited to a domain specific language, a small programming or scripting language designed for the purposes of customising the COTS solution, or they may be well versed in one or more general purpose programming languages.
Product configuration specialists are proficient in a particular COTS solution and its ecosystem of plugins and extensions. They may specialise in several products from a vendor’s vertically integrated offering. They could have a certification from the vendor or a third-party backing up their credentials for proficiency in the use of the COTS solution. There is an industry around training and certifying people for every market leading COTS product, delivering highly skilled, well credentialed professionals.
This is clearly beneficial. Well known and mature COTS solutions, established vendors with well defined support models and service level agreements along with a thriving market of skilled and certified specialists.
So which should you hire? Developers who write code in general purpose programming languages, or developers who configure COTS solutions?
It depends on what you are trying to do and the approach you are taking to do it.
Using a COTS solution may reduce time to market with “out of the box” functionality and minimal in-house expertise needed for operating the solution. Those can be positives.
On the negative side, COTS solutions will have certain limitations. Even the most sophisticated products can only be adapted to so many problems. They will be constrained by the range of features offered and the ways in which functionality can be configured or customised, and how expressive that means of configuration and customisation is.
You or your organisation may feel the need to compromise and choose configuration over customisation, limiting possible solutions to the scope of the features afforded by the COTS products you have selected. Actively limiting your options. This comes with some risks.
Sean Boots from the Canadian Digital Service talks about “Fake COTS” and the one-day rule. Chances are if a COTS solution takes months or more to configure to meet your needs then the “out of the box” promise may not be holding up as advertised. You may have to extend and customise the product to a point which renders it unrecognisable from the original vanilla product. Is it truly “out of the box” at this point or something bespoke requiring investment in order to maintain? “Big ball of mud” is normally levelled at solutions engineered in code, but the same can easily apply to COTS solutions over time.
If the COTS solution does indeed meet your needs, how closely does it do so? A common problem is the “last 10% trap” where most of your needs may be satisfactorily met, but that last 10% isn’t achievable due to some limitation of the product. That last 10% could be the essential functionality or element of critical user experience which makes or breaks the service for your users. This can result in creative workarounds by the users or your development team, which again leads to maintainability issues.
Someone who writes source code in one or more programming languages in order to develop and build an application.
So a software developer.
Questions to ask yourself:
How well do you understand the needs of your users? Are these needs emerging and changing?
Do you need to take an experimental approach by prototyping, testing with real users and iterating to arrive at the right solution?
Do you need to defer decisions and keep options open until you understand more about the problem you are trying to solve?
If the answer to any of the above is “yes” then you are likely operating in a complex and changing environment where requirements are continually being discovered. A COTS solution may not afford you the agility and flexibility to respond to those changing needs.
However, a well known and well defined problem could be solved by a COTS solution just fine, especially when you are confident needs are not going to change. An office productivity suite, a chat or collaboration tool, a payroll system. These are usually good examples of well defined problems which can be solved with effective out of the box solutions, for which many exist.
This is about recognising where the “heavy lifting” is. Where is it differentiated enough to need an experimental, iterative and bespoke approach? Where is it undifferentiated, well known, well defined and generically solved many times over? Recognising this is critical when making decisions around build vs. buy and whether to outsource or insource.
Choosing the right tool and approach for the job is key. Getting this wrong can result in pain. Pain for your users who will have to employ workarounds to make up for poor user experience or broken and missing functionality. Pain for your workforce who have to develop on a constrained solution, creating and maintaining workarounds themselves to plaster over the gaps. This is technical debt accumulating, something normally associated with bespoke software development. Here it can happen because a not-fit-for-purpose COTS solution turned into a chimera.
This can also happen by choosing a fully bespoke build for a problem which didn’t need it. The cost of running and maintaining a bespoke service can be a drain preventing you from working on things of genuine value to your organisation and users. Monetary as well as opportunity cost. It can also lower the confidence in software development as an approach and discipline within your organisation, preventing you from creating or retaining an essential capability.
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Poor choices create a legacy which makes the technology toxic to your organisation, something which Dave Rogers, former CTO at Ministry of Justice UK, covers in his series on toxic technology, explaining how insidious and corrosive it can be.
This can lead to a number of problems. “Failure demand” can generate unnecessary workloads in other parts of your organisation, as they rush to meet needs unmet by a poor solution. Not fixing the underlying causes and addressing the needs which were initially overlooked perpetuates a legacy of poor decision making. Doubling down on methods which have proved to be ineffective and opting for “quick fixes” are simply new coats of paints — especially when only making cosmetic improvements. This is all a legacy of debt with compound interest creeping up. All building pain.
Pain leads to an increasingly unhappy workforce spending most of their time fighting fires and keeping barely held together mission critical systems running, with no exit strategy in sight. Or following processes such as rekeying data, tabulating spreadsheets and other manual tasks which most people would prefer not to do. In that kind of climate, new ideas and innovation cannot exist. Transformation is not talked about. This can compromise the most important aspect of your organisation: its culture. It can lead to a breakdown in cooperation, siloed working, tribal behaviour and a blame culture.
Chances are if the initial solution choice and approach were driven by cost optimisation, it has now ended up costing far more and has proven to have been a false economy from the start. Not to mention the harder to measure cost to the overall performance, morale and health of your organisation and its people.
So how do you avoid these pitfalls? Or if you are experiencing some of this already, how do you improve things?
To begin with, the decisions around which approach and solution to apply should be made by those closest to the problem. It is very common in traditional, and even some otherwise modern organisations, for these decisions to be made by those on a board or committee — so those furthest away from the problem.
Next you want to think about capabilities. What capabilities does your organisation have? What capabilities does it need in order to make effective decisions about how technology should be used? Do you have the right capabilities for this or is the hard thinking being outsourced to a vendor? If you have the right capabilities, what ways of working do you need to empower them?
There are good answers to these questions, proven methods adopted by successful companies and organisations:
Working in user/customer focused ways. Working in small batches. Releasing early and testing assumptions. Iterating. But most of all, having long-lived multidisciplinary teams to own and solve problems. And then improve them. This is a long-term investment in capability — funding teams rather than projects.
It’s all about having options. Options to explore possibilities and solve a multitude of problems in many different ways. Which brings us back to developers. Software developers are key to this. Developers give you more options.
Having developers in your organisation will multiply your options for solving problems. Add to this agile ways of working, strong service design and a user centred approach with long-lived teams and you have the widest array of choices available. Which can still include healthy, sustainable and well informed usage of COTS solutions.
We live in an era of test automation, continuous delivery and cheap cloud hosting as a utility. All of that allows for cheap, safe and fast software development and deployment. Code can be released multiple times a day and is disposable, enabling experimentation. Developers can prototype and test unique solutions in code with real users.
The options are only limited by the development capabilities you’ve built in your organisation and how you have empowered that community. This is about owning what differentiates you, as James Stewart from public.digital describes in his post on why internet-era CTOs hire developers.
Building and growing a polyglot developer community pays in dividends. Having technologists around levels up your organisation and increases its reach.
|
https://medium.com/@uselectionnews/a-new-software-developer-72c77502806a
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['Queen Elizabeth']
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2020-12-02 15:53:02.267000+00:00
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['Developer', 'Developer Stories', 'Computers', 'Software', 'News']
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Soul (2020) | [25.DEC.2020] | FULL’HD
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Release Date : Dec 25, 2020
Runtime : 107 minutes
Genres : Animation, Comedy, Music, Fantasy
Production Company : Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar
Production Countries : United States of America
Casts : Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, Phylicia Rashād, Daveed Diggs, Richard Ayoade, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Angela Bassett, Fortune Feimster
Plot Keywords : new york city, jazz, teacher, selbstfindung
» Watch Soul (2020) Full Movie Online «
♚ I do not own this song or the Image, all credit goes,
It’s so Awesome. Subscribe and Share with your friends! to my channel. See for more videos!!. I want to say ‘thank you’ for being the friend!! Atelevision show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet.
✨ CREDITS ✨
The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 202044s. Televised events such as the 202044 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 202044 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 202044 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 202044 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 202044, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 2020, 202044 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 202044 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 2020, 202044. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 202044, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 202044, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.
💫 CREDITS 💫
Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 202044, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 202044, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[2020][better source needed] while the later series Jujutsu Kaisenlon 2020 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed] In 202044, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[2020] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 202044, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. On January 20200, 2020202020202020, WHO announced an outbreak of a coronavirus new (COVID-20204) as a Concerning Public Health Emergency World. To respond to COVID-20204, preparedness and response is needed critical nature such as equipping health personnel and facility management health services with the necessary information, procedures, and tools can safely and effectively work. health workers play an important role in responding to outbreaks COVID-20204 and become the backbone of a country’s defense for limit or manage the spread of disease. At the forefront, power health care providers that suspect patients need and confirmed COVID-20204, which is often carried out in challenging circumstances. Officers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-20204 in their efforts to protect wider society. Officers can be exposed to hazards such as psychological stress, fatigue, mental exhaustion or stigma. WHO is aware of their duties and responsibilities this big responsibility and the importance of protecting health care facility personnel.
💫 Aim
This material aims to protect health workers from infection and prevent it possible spread of COVID-20204 in health care facilities. This material contains a series of simple messages and reminders based on technical guidelines WHO is more comprehensive about infection prevention and control in facilities health services in the context of COVID-20204: “Prevention and control infection in health services when the new coronavirus (nCoV) infection is suspected “ (20204 January 2020202020202020). Further information can be found in the WHO technical manual.
✨ Readers of this material
This material is intended for health personnel and service facility management health and may be distributed to other health workers and to facilities health services. The Ministry of Health can provide this material to all hospitals and government health service facilities. Copy this material needs to be provided to private physician networks, medical associations, medical, nursing and midwifery to be shared and fitted accordingly necessity. The contents of this material can be adapted into local languages and placed in places in the service facility
💫 ALL CATEGORY WATCHTED 💫
An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both). Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their Jujutsu Kaisen move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone Jujutsu Kaisen out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Avan Jogia), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita.
💫 ANALYZER GOOD / BAD 💫
To be honest, I didn’t catch Jujutsu Kaisen when it first got released (in theaters) back in 404. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Jujutsu Kaisen….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 202040’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years. Flash forward a decade after its release and Jujutsu Kaisen finally got a sequel with Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 404 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Jujutsu Kaisen was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Jujutsu Kaisen 2020 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 404 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this Jujutsu Kaisen chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters. Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie as well as other film projects such as 40 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 4-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Jujutsu Kaisen enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 404 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 44 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Jujutsu Kaisen flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking. In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 20204 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well. There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Jujutsu Kaisen wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected. Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking). What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Jujutsu Kaisen character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Jujutsu Kaisen and are again in Double Tap. With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Jujutsu Kaisen characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie). The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Jujutsu Kaisen quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit. Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious.
💫 FINAL THOUGHTS 💫
It’s been awhile, but the Jujutsu Kaisen gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 404, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature.
|
https://medium.com/join-us-soul-2020/soul-2020-25-dec-2020-fullhd-5063f27ea102
|
['Da Ns Rulles']
|
2020-12-26 12:35:30.400000+00:00
|
['Music', 'Animation', 'Fantasy', 'Comedy']
|
Dare to Dream
|
By Monica K. Wanjiru, Nelis Kenya Coordinator and more
Image: Monica K. Wanjiru working on Nelis COVID 19 Micro Project in Kenya, 2020
I looked at the large herd of cattle, goats and sheep grazing in the field. I still couldn’t tell one from the other no matter how much I tried to study their differences. It only served to give me a headache, how the Maasai could immediately spot the difference was and is still a mystery.
Now and then I’d reflect on the urban surroundings I left behind when I was given in marriage. The scenery before me was far removed from what I was used to, furthermore, this place encouraged my tendency to feel out of place, worried, scared and I wondered when it’d become home for me. Never in my wildest dreams had I envisioned myself married at 16, with responsibilities of a huge homestead, a few hundred goats, sheep, cattle to herd, a husband and a child on the way. My ideal dream was one where I was in school studying so that I could develop a strong mix of skills that’d help me innovate and create the kind of life I wanted.
I was brought out of my reverie by the silhouette of a person in the distance. It was headed my way and was carrying something in his arms and a leash in the other. My heart skipped a beat when I saw who he was and what he was holding in his hands. On his left hand, he carried a young goat kid while his left hand held the leash attached to the mother goat he was escorting coming towards the house. I gulped, realization and fear holding me captive at the spot where I stood. I had managed to lose, yet again a goat and its kid. My first instinct was to hide but my legs would not move from where I was. This was becoming a daily occurrence; I’d lose a goat or sheep, he’d beat me up then punish me by sending me out to spend the night with the goats and sheep to watch over them because I failed to do so in broad daylight.
I glanced at my tummy and decided I’d had enough, I needed to protect us from the inevitable. Without another thought I grabbed a shawl and left through the back door leading to the path that led towards the stream. There was a clump of bushes that provided a perfect hideaway just a few meters downstream. Being in my third trimester, I was expecting to give birth any time and the constant beatings had me worried for my unborn child. It was also an unspoken agreement that I’d have to be circumcised on the day I gave birth. It was the tradition that every woman had to be circumcised before marriage but having grown up in a different community, I had not been circumcised.
That night as I lay there on the hard surface in the bushes, afraid of the buffaloes, hyenas and leopards that came to drink from the stream, with twigs poking my back, I was overwhelmed by how my life was turning out. My future looked bleak, all around me I was surrounded by women who seemed comfortable with this kind of life. I was ashamed of wanting these things, I wanted more out of life, I wanted fulfillment, I wanted joy, I wanted love, I wanted Acceptance but this kind of life wasn’t providing me with what I wanted. It was then that I realized that I’ve been waiting for people to give me what my soul yearned for, they’d all let me down. They imposed their wants on me and I was sick and tired of pretending to be okay with this life.
It was then that I made a promise to my unborn baby; that he/she would never have to live the life I was living. It was that moment that I remembered the dream I had; of studying to equip myself with the knowledge required to innovate and create a life of value and purpose.
Today as I write this, I’m sitting at the back of a pickup truck that’s ferrying goats from the market to the village. Of course, it’s not a luxury ride as the wind is blowing furiously causing my eyes to water, on my right leg the shoe is sodden with goat urine and my left leg is numb from sitting in one position for too long. This was the only available ride that’d get me where I was going on time, my visit to the village is not a leisure visit but a rescue mission. I received a call two hours ago that Tumiso, a friend of one of the girls under Entito Africa Initiative Kenya has been given away in marriage.
I’ve already called the local government area chief, a village elder and a police officer. At the village a group of four women is waiting to accompany us to the homestead where Tumiso was taken. Our entourage may look hostile but that’s not the case. We will simply initiate dialogue with both families, make them aware of Tumiso’s rights and educate them on the implications and consequences of marrying her off at an early age. After that it is totally up to them to negotiate terms for the return of the dowry. But once in a while, we encounter a stubborn father or husband. In this case, the law is enforced to protect the girl.This network of local influencers enables community members to set behavioral expectations, holding each other accountable. Not only that it fosters a spirit of unity among community members.
At an international level, Entito Africa Initiative Kenya has connected Maasai girls with girls from Europe where they exchange stories and experiences from their various backgrounds. This exposes Maasai girls to a world different from their own where they learn about different cultures and challenges faced by the European girls and vice versa. They get to make lifelong friends from these interactions as well.
If the mother of the girl rescued is not in our empowerment program, she is signed up where she undergoes livelihood skills training and included in our Sustainable livelihood program. In this program you’ll find women of all ages who are especially skilled at making crafts that Entito Africa sells on behalf of them. Others have formed groups where they practice agriculture, poultry, dairy, and/or pig farming. When I look at their vibrant faces every time they receive a payment, expand their business or buy equipment, I can’t help but pat myself on the back for going against tradition and empowering myself to be able to empower others.
Had I chosen to mold myself into the status quo, I’d be unhappily widowed, without a purpose in life and dreaming of the afterlife but today I wear my brand of an outcast with pride, my pain with humility and my rebellion with purpose because those are the tools I was given to catalyze my transformation. Yes,I dared to dream and my dream unfolds in the form of intense devotion to my passion. To me women empowerment is a commitment to my fellow women which has seen me go on a hair raising adventure. I’ve scaled the highest mountains of impossibility, given up, died and somehow keep coming back to finish what I start….all the while changing diapers, herding cattle, going through domestic violence, disinherited & disowned, homeless, penniless, doubtful and feeling unfit for it all. But in the end, the women win because they too dare to dream!
|
https://medium.com/@socialmedia-nelis/dare-to-dream-69a6d4b8c698
|
['Nelis Global']
|
2020-12-07 23:27:18.434000+00:00
|
['Empowerment', 'Npo', 'Dreams', 'Sustainability']
|
PPoS Test Report from Community Member
|
2020.3.14
Darmacash Website
This is Solensson. I am a crypto investor. My twitter is https://twitter.com/Solensson1.
Today I bring you the DPoS test experience of the DarmaCash project. DarmaCash should be the most promising anonymous project I have seen so far. The entire project team should have rich experience. Whether it is technology or the overall progress of the project development, it reflects the quality of a mature team. I currently guess its members are probably from the Monero community.
To understand this article, you only need to have some basic computer knowledge. For friends who do not have any IT background, I hope that after reading this test experience, you can feel like me that the project will be successful.
If you also want to test the DPoS beta version of DarmaCash, you can apply to the community administrator Lamp, and he will basically send you the test program immediately. You can reach Lamp at https://discord.gg/psH7Wjv or https://t.me/DarmaCash
I will demonstrate the Linux version here. There is no difference between the Windows version and Linux. When our lovely community manager Lamp gives you test software, you will have two files, darmad and darma-wallet-cli. Put these two software in your Linux server directory, then grant them execute permissions, and you can start testing. The other files in the figure below are automatically generated, except for dmc.sh, a small script I wrote, you can ignore it.
Execute below command to create your test wallet and get your testnet wallet address:
./darma-wallet-cli –testNet
I believe you must be able to follow the prompts to complete the creation of the testnet wallet and obtain your testnet wallet address. If you have doubts here, it means that your IT background is weak, you can go to DarmaCash’s Discord server for consultation, we are all there.
Execute below command to run DMC PoW node and mine test DMC to your wallet:
./darmad — testNet — mining-address=YOUR TESTNET DMC ADDRESS — mining-threads=1
It will run the DarmaCash daemon and mine DMC to your wallet address. Note you have to wait the database synced (around 3GB) and 50000 DMC to play with DPoS. Again, ask our lovely community manager Lamp, he will give you address to download latest testnet database for fast sync and give you some DMC to test.
Running a DPoS node is slightly more complicated than running a PoW node. We need both wallet and DPoS node live. Come to our Discord if you can’t figure out how to run DPoS. I also found that DarmaCash team is very careful in design. I know your effective reading will be crashed by my long test words, so I plan to explain that part in the next article if I have time. Some parts about DPoS as below:
Create DPoS Stake Pool
Run DarmaCash wallet at testnet and then type “e” to start prompt mode, execute command “register_stake_pool”, enter your “wallet password”, “pool name”, “Vote Address”, “Reward Address”, “Stake Pool Fee”, etc.
Once you done above steps, 50000 DMC will be locked and you will get your “Pool id = e6d9feff8ca4f78ad769496a104fa485cce43459f884dec77edd01e1e8c14ec9”. This pool id can be used by others to PoS their DMC through their wallet directly (Of course, you will get profit by operating a pool) which is really a cool part of DMC DPoS. I will do a demonstration later.
You can run list_stake_pool command at Darmad daemon to show the created stake pool
Do PoS your dmc directly at your wallet
Run DarmaCash wallet at testnet and then type “e” to start prompt mode, execute command “buy_share”, enter your “wallet password”, “ Pool ID”(the one we create above, because we want to do PoS at our own pool), “Reward Address”, “ Stake Amount”, etc.
Above picture shows that votes cost is 1000 and I use 350,000 DMC to buy 350 votes. Wait some time and you can see your wallet get income now.
Now we check our darmad daemon and we can see the voting success info as below
I personally think that the DarmaCash project has great potential. BlockDag-based DPoS anonymous projects have the potential to hit the top 20, or even the top 10. In addition, the anonymity of the project developer also keeps the project from beheading, which is very important for an anonymous project. A risk here is whether the early miners will dump their coins just like these days BTC price drop, but I think these issues will gradually become clear under the balance of interests, ecology, and markets. I personally have begun to buy DarmaCash project tokens through OTC. I think this project will have at least 2 to 10 times profit in the short term, and 100 times in the long term. It is recommended that 80% short-term + 20% long-term investment ratio.
I am Solensson, you can follow me at https://twitter.com/Solensson1.
This article can be reposted but be sure to retain all information.
What is DARMA Cash?
DARMA Cash (DMCH) is a high-speed blockchain which aims to integrate state-of-the-art privacy technologies on the basis of Monero (XMR) to achieve truly private addresses, concealed financial data, masked identities, traceless IP, private Smart Contracts and DeFi based on Oracle and atomic swap technology.
DARMA Cash Project v2 is the next generation of DARMA Cash blockchain v1. Consensus algorithm is PoW+PPoS(We call the decentralized PoS without node restrictions Pool PoS, or PPoS) based on original cryptonight. DARMA Cash is industry leading blockchain to have bulletproofs, TLS encrypted Network. PPoS and smart contracts will be launched in this version.
Specifications:
Block size: 1.5MB
Consensus: PoW+PPoS
Premine: 3% (All is donated to community by project team)
Algorithm: CN (ASIC friendly)
Block time: 15seconds
Max emission: 460 million(DMCH)
Confirmation time: 180 seconds
Speed: 70 TPS
Official Links
Website：http://www.darmacash.com/
BTT：https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193031.0
Community Links
Telegram：https://t.me/DarmaCash
Discord：https://discord.gg/MZTc5Hu
Twitter : https://twitter.com/CashDarma
|
https://medium.com/darmacash-project-community/a-dpos-test-report-from-community-members-5a259e5c108e
|
[]
|
2020-07-01 03:06:42.777000+00:00
|
['Btc', 'Smart Contracts', 'Defi', 'Crypto', 'Anonymous']
|
5 REASONS WHY FINANCIAL TRADERS LOSE MONEY
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5 REASONS WHY FINANCIAL TRADERS LOSE MONEY
Check out our new platform 🚀 https://thecapital.io/
Over 95% of Financial traders lose money when trading the markets (stock markets, Forex markets, or the Commodities markets), and the reasons behind this trend can be categorized into five (5) distinct groups. Even though Every trader at some point in his/her trading journey will lose some reasonable part of his capital or all of his capital (Blow his account) on his journey towards trading the market successfully, it can be said that some traders can as well navigate the Financial market without having to go through this ordeal and this is because they avoid the five (5) reasons why financial traders lose money while trading the markets.
The five (5) reasons
1. High Transaction cost:
Trading comes with some sort of cost, and this cost is called Transaction cost. The transaction cost could be in the form of a spread or commission depending on the type of broker the trader is using for his trading activities. Now when I say transaction cost is one of the reasons why traders lose money while trading, some people will ask how? This question can be answered with a simple example. Let’s take a look at a simple example below.
Assuming you have a $1000 trading account and for every transaction (Buy or sell) you make, your broker charges you $5 per transaction. Then let’s assume you make 40 transactions in a month, your total transaction cost will be: $5 * 40 = $200 per month. Out of your $1000 capital, you will have $800 to continue trading with for the next month. This means that for you to make profits in the market, you will have to rack up profits over $200 per month, which is over 20% of your capital ($1000) consistently, and the solution to this situation is to conduct your trading activities via a broker that charges low transaction fees ( low spreads or low commissions per trade) and the situation will be worse when you make a Net Loss in a month instead of a Net profit i.e. losing trades > winning trades.
2. Trading journal
A trading journal is the most effective tool used for trading performance management. A trading journal is where you record and review all trade setups and also record all executed trades for better output and future reference. A Trading journal is very important because it can help a trader track his progress as well as study mistakes made when planning or executing a trade. Most traders do not keep a trading journal, and hence they miss out on very important information that will help them to be profitable and not lose more money than they should. This is because trading journals contain information such as:
date and time of trade
the direction of the trade
commodities, stocks, or currency pairs been traded
market trends
position size
entry and exit prices
trade results
3. Poor Trading strategy
A Trading strategy is a Trading plan designed by a Financial trader and this plan is based on set rules that help the trader make informed decisions like; when to go long, when to go short, when and where to exit the trade. Generally, the sole purpose of a trading strategy is to help a trader make a profitable return from the market whenever he goes Long or short. Trading strategies after Trading Journals can make or break a Trader because without a strategy every trader is like a fish on dry land and what this analogy means for the trader is that the trader will not last long enough in the financial market. Some traders, especially newbies, dive right into the financial market without developing a proper strategy to use, although it is not just enough to develop a trading strategy, it is also very important that you backtest every strategy before launching them in the live market ( your live trading account). This reason summarizes that every trader without a trading strategy stands a very high chance of losing a lot in the market when compared with a trader with a proven trading strategy.
4. Bad risk management
Risk management is the term used to describe the act of identifying, analyzing, and controlling potential risks involved with Financial trading i.e. stock trading, forex trading, and derivatives trading. When these risks are either not identified, analyzed, or controlled, it will have a very negative effect on the equity of the trader, and such negative effects translate to huge losses and, in some cases, complete loss of trading accounts. As mentioned in my previous articles, Risk management is the most important skill that any successful trader must master to remain profitable in the long term while trading. Bad risk management = loss of equity.
5. Excessive trading
Excessive trading is the act of trading outside one’s trading Journal/ trading strategies just to make more profits. This act has caused many traders to incur excessive losses that could be avoided if only they stuck to their trading strategies. Excessive trading is very exhausting and can result in emotional breakdowns for traders as well.
Although the Financial markets run 24/7 per week, not all times or days are good times to trade. There are some very good times when there is a reasonable amount of Volatility in the Financial markets ( to be discussed in subsequent articles ) and some bad times when the market lacks direction.
Trading at times when the market lacks direction is like trying to sail a ship across shallow waters, so it is best to avoid these times entirely.
Summary
Losses are a norm in Financial Markets but the ability to manage the losses is a very important skill that every trader must possess. therefore every trader intending to be successful must thrive to avoid the five ( 5 ) reasons why Financial traders lose money
Thanks! See you in subsequent articles.
|
https://medium.com/the-capital/5-reasons-why-financial-traders-lose-money-5d1b4e2da238
|
['Bartholomew Anaeme']
|
2021-06-18 10:53:29.822000+00:00
|
['Financial Education', 'Forex Brokers', 'Forex Trading', 'Forex', 'Finance']
|
Why communication is key
|
To happiness, performance, and success.
by Edwin Stoop of Sketching Maniacs
Those who worked with me most probably had the chance of hearing me, at some point, say:
“A t the root of all issues and challenges lies bad, or the complete lack of, communication.”
For a long time, this statement was relatively intuitive, but as I gained knowledge and experience, I think I am ready to explain it, and back it up with some reasoning. It is, however, important to mention that I will be using the research of others to prove my point.
The three types of organisations
If you aren’t familiar with Ronald Westrum’s “A typology of organisational cultures”, it is a genuinely profound read. In his work, Professor Westrum used the information flow within an organisation as a proxy for indicating the type of culture that dominates in a given environment. Although one might argue that said approach flattens the concept of the organisational culture to a single dimension, I still believe that communication is the common denominator for all other characteristics of an organisation’s culture.
The classification best described by the table below:
Table from the original paper by R. Westrum
How It Impacts Happiness
Having looked at the system created by Professor Westrum, I very quickly concluded that I had come from a pathological organisation, spent time working for a bureaucratic one, and finally made my way to a generative one. And I immediately noticed a tight coupling between the culture and how I felt about my work.
To understand how the culture impacts happiness, we should start with the statement that people, in general, are good and want to do good. I would be brave enough to conclude from this, that we naturally want to solve problems which we encounter or notice.
I’ve seen good engineers who tried, many times, to deliver the message about problems which they noticed. But after having been continuously penalised or, in the best case, ignored, they grew apathetic. Instead of being passionate and full of initiative, they became unhappy and resounded to executing their tasks with merely acceptable levels of quality and performance.
But there is much more to the impact on performance and success.
The link to performance and success
Westrum’s paper goes on to prove that organisations whose culture can be described as generative perform better than those characterised differently.
For one, information flow is necessary for any learning to take place. Without the feedback about the impact of a decision or behaviour, we will be unable to take corrective action to prevent any undesired consequences in the future.
Therefore, the way an organisation reacts to a message about a problem will dictate whether the finding will be turned into an improvement, or left unchecked to cause more harm. Using this perspective to look at the characteristics of the three types of cultures will let us quickly understand the following scale of reactions:
Figure from the original paper by R. Westrum
If we consider that by moving from left to right, we also move from worse to better, it will not come as a surprise that it is the generative organisations which turn towards the right side of the spectrum.
As an example, the paper mentions a hospital which, after detecting a problem with a medical procedure, reacted with an inquiry and full transparency. That, contrary to what many might expect, did not harm the hospital’s reputation or performance. Instead, their patients were not only understanding but also impressed.
Accepting our mistakes and implementing a global fix or launching an inquiry will reassure those around us, that we are devoted to improving quality.
Beyond the Westrum model
If we look at the “Lean Startup” methodology described by Eric Ries in his book of the same title, we will find the principle “Build-Measure-Learn”. We implement it by following the process:
Formulate a hypothesis
Realise the solution described in our hypothesis
Gather feedback
If the solution yields expected results, persevere, if not, pivot
The key to a successful implementation of this approach is the gathering of the feedback. Without the return information, we cannot make the right decision whether to invest further in our solution, or whether we should be thinking of a new hypothesis.
A similar approach can be found in the Cynfin framework, developed by Dave Snowden and first described in a paper published in the Harvard Business Review in November 2007.
In it, the authors describe five decision-making domains in which leaders operate:
Disorder, when it isn’t yet clear in which of the following domains are we operating
Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious
Complicated, in which the said relationship can be found, but the process requires expertise
Complex, in which the relationship between the cause and effect is only known in hindsight
Chaotic in which the relationship does not exist
In the current day and age, that is one of almost unobstructed flow of information, services and products most businesses operate in the Complex domain.
In this domain, the authors argue, leaders must fall to an experiment based style, which they describe as “probe-sense-respond”. This approach, however, relies entirely on feedback. And that information flow is in very many cases a direct outcome of how effectively we communicate.
Conclusion
In my work, I have the privilege of working with various customers. Having the technological expertise, I get to consult those customers on how to develop their technical solutions and capabilities. But what I often see is that it isn’t the technology that is the obstacle between them and their objectives. More often than not, it is the culture. And culture, I truly believe, comes from communication.
|
https://stories.schubergphilis.com/why-communication-is-key-fc2e150965b0
|
['Radosław Wiankowski']
|
2020-12-18 08:47:40.320000+00:00
|
['Communication', 'Organizational Culture', 'Performance', 'Agile', 'It']
|
NeurIPS 2020 Sharing
|
We can all agree that 2020 has been a wild year. Even though being under such a tough condition, there’s still some silver lining and NeurIPS hosted from Dec 6th ~to 12th being one of them. This the first time for me attending NeurIPS conference. Usually a ticket to NeurIPS is quite difficult to get. NeurIPS 2018 tickets were sold in 12 minutes and 2019 it converted to perform a lottery ticketing system. This year, it is hosted entirely online while simulating the poster sections, roundtables and live Q&A with Gather.town virtual avatars and Rocketchat where you can actually “meet” people.
Walking around sponsored booths talking to company representatives.
Because this being the first year, I wan’t fully prepared for what to expect during the conference. This year, there were 7 invited keynotes, 7 virtual poster sessions, 16 tutorials, 60 workshops, 20 demonstrations, 16 competitions as well as multiple tracks of contributed oral and spotlight presentations.
With so much content, I found it impossible to keep track of what’s happening without constantly checking the main schedule. The good thing though, is that most sessions are both live and recorded. Even if you missed part of the talk, you can still catch up by dragging the video back. By doing this, you can attend both sessions even if they are hosted at the same time. It’s almost like entering parallel worlds while you can listen to several different sessions at the same time.
There’s also multiple social talks and events via Zoom and Gathertown where there aren’t recorded. I am happy that I didn’t miss those sessions. Especially the roundtable session from Women in Machine Learning Workshop taken place on Wednesday (12/9) 3:30pm EST. There were 50 roundtables to choose from covering varies topics in research or career life and advice. I attended Navigating the job search, Putting machine learning research into practice, and Non-traditional paths to machine learning. Each topic took 30 minutes and the event was from 3:30pm to 5pm so I can at most attend 3 topics. It was a really nice way to get interaction with mentors and I hoped there were more time since there’s still a lot more sessions I wish I could go to.
Attending “Navigating the job search” roundtable on Gather town interface.
The entire conference was more research focused (at least compare to KDD, the conference I went least year), so the participants are mostly PhDs or working in research institutes/departments. I often found myself sitting with a roomful of PhDs asking to apply for internship at research labs so I do feel out of place sometimes. I feel like most people has years of experience in research and lots of publications while I just mostly read papers and filter out the closest ones that fit our needs and bring them into our ecosystem. The New in ML workshop is meant to help with people just beginning so that draws my attention. I found the Q&A session Prof. Anima Anandkumar (from California Institute of Technology and NVIDIA) quite inspiring.
The conference covers a wide range of research topics, but can be roughly categorized into four main trends:
Below is some highlights that I will go over more in depth on separate posts:
There’s also some cools sessions that might not be as main streams such as the Machine Learning for Creativity and Design 4.0 Workshop. Seeing people using machine learning to produce music, analyze dance movements and create artwork is really fascinating. That’s also something I’m personally very interested in.
|
https://medium.com/@tzuruey/neurips-2020-sharing-9e8f8496d520
|
['Jenny Ching']
|
2020-12-24 05:51:05.823000+00:00
|
['AI', 'Neuroscience', 'Deep Learning', 'Neurips 2020', 'Machine Learning']
|
How Much Does Surrogacy Pay?
|
Nature and science seem to have been challenging each other since ancient times, but the main question remains, are they friends or foes? That is a point. No matter what we invent or create, nature goes alongside, but no one knows whether nature is just an observer or intruder. Humans are indeed. So, alongside these mentioned above, it is interesting to mention the artificial technique to make a natural birth possible. It is a unique case where science and nature have to be friends rather than enemies.
In the modern age, it has become important to create a family in which a child becomes the spotlight. However, it is not easy to do that especially when the mother of that family has some health conditions not allowing her to have her own child. Here comes the so-known technique called gestational surrogacy which has become popular in recent years. Of course, in a monetary way it contributed to those women who want to earn money by becoming a surrogate. So, it is important to know how much surrogacy can be beneficial for surrogates.
Paying For Surrogacy
How much does surrogacy pay in Canada or the USA? Or in other countries? There is no one answer to these questions. Given the rise of agencies, it has become more important to ask the question: What are the surrogacy agencies that pay the most? The payment paid to a surrogate mother is in terms of compensation and reimbursement. In other terms, a surrogate mother is paid for service and for the expenses the pregnancy period would entail.
The expenses of a surrogate can be different, starting from basic ones to medical expenditures. While being pregnant, a surrogate mother has to check herself and the baby inside regularly. Thus, doctor visits should be paid by the agencies which in turn charge these all from the intended parents. In order to avoid complexities and misunderstandings between the intended parents and a surrogate, the agencies play important roles as consultants in both medical and legal spheres. The more successful your agency is, the better the payment will be for the surrogate mother.
Why Are Surrogates Paid
This doesn’t seem hard to question to answer. As one said that if you can do something well then don’t do it for free. However, it is not only a journey of profit but at the same time, it is a journey of carrying a baby inside for someone. In other words, the job done by the surrogate is very hard and priceless. So, nothing can pay for this job, but anyway, there is a sum allotted for that.
But it is not easy to become an ideal candidate for surrogacy and that is why in order to become one, you will have to pass through several stages of check to be a surrogate. The process is quite challenging but worth it.
Conclusion
All in all, the journey of surrogacy calls for a surrogate who will carry the baby and take care of it like a real mother. So, there is no need to say that the payment a surrogate receives is really good. If to tell the truth, our agency in Ukraine can be regarded as the highest paying surrogacy agency, and thus in case you have some questions as a surrogate mother candidate or as the intended family, then visit our site.
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https://medium.com/@worldcenterofbaby/how-much-does-surrogacy-pay-8f4ca52623fe
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['Surrogacy Agency World Center Of Baby']
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2019-12-16 19:39:54.296000+00:00
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['Newborn', 'Surrogacy', 'Motherhood', 'Family', 'Pregnancy']
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love in the time of corona
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During the summer between my junior and senior year of college, I read the book Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. As sometimes is the case with pivotal pieces of literature in my life, certain books really stick with me well after I read them, usually deeply intertwined with whatever was happening to me personally while I was reading the book. What’s left when I reflect back on it — is usually an assortment of visceral memories of how I was feeling, what I was thinking, what was important to me at that time and how the characters accompanied me during a very specific chapter of my life. And Love in the Time of Cholera — she’s a big one for me.
If you’re unfamiliar with the storyline, it spans the late 19th, early 20th century love story of Florentino and Fermina — two star-crossed lovers in Colombia who fall for each other early in their youth. Over the course of the next five or six decades of their lives, you follow Florentino and Fermina weave in and out of each other’s stories — first banned from marrying by their families, then separated by their own choosing opting instead to marry other partners — all while cholera rages on as an ever present, ever looming threat. Eventually, after spending much of their lives apart, they’re reunited almost inexplicably — a testament to love in all the strange ways it finds us, leaves us, comes back to us and sometimes leaves us again.
When I first read the book, I was on the brink of a lot of changes — graduating from college, ending a long-term relationship and generally, trying to figure out what trajectory I wanted my life to take next. I suppose the narrative of this novel unnerved me at the time, because I couldn’t quite see the beauty of a non-linear love story yet. Or even a love story that felt largely unresolved as theirs did at many moments. But if the past year has taught me anything, it’s that the paths we navigate for our nearest and most intimate relationships with others (and ourselves) are rarely ever straight and narrow. They’re filled with detours. Dead ends. Wild U-turns. One-way streets. Riddled with tragedy and joy alike. You may walk them alone. Or you may walk with a partner. And sometimes, you might walk them alone again. But the important thing is — you keep walking them.
All of this is to say — I really enjoyed reading through all your love stories in the time of Corona and I’m so incredibly honored that you decided to share them with me. Each one is a beautiful insight into a time in all our lives that will largely shape us, hopefully for the better, for years to come. As noted, all stories here are anonymous and will take about 20 minutes to read from start to finish. So I’d definitely refill that cup of coffee now, if I were you.
2. “I connected with someone during a mutual friend’s virtual birthday party. We acknowledged our mutual attraction for each other but, as we’re on opposite ends of the country, agreed to continue getting to know each other platonically. It’s been wonderful so far, especially since we’re both emotionally mature and available enough to healthily maintain that boundary. We may meet in-person by the end of the year, which is exciting, and I’m at a place in life where I’m content with either remaining as good friends or becoming something more. The past year taught me that life is really unpredictable and enjoying things as they are in the present moment is the best outlook and mindset. Including in love (and I mean all forms of it)!”
3. “Not only did I move across country to a new city, where naturally meeting anyone is tough but to do so in a pandemic where human interaction is actually dangerous, was a problem. So where does one turn to? Of course, dating apps. Yet, I’m the type who shines in person rather than over dating apps. They just don’t work for guys like me. Alas, I tried a couple COVID dates, super cute movie nights on my roof with takeout since we couldn’t go anywhere but, it was all forced and. just confirming my doubts with dating apps. Therefore, as a hopeful/hopeless romantic, I’ll wait patiently for human interaction to exist again and maybe I’ll meet her at a coffee shop, the grocery store or even the dog park. The story is to be continued…”
4. “Celebrated our first full year of dating and ended up engaged at the curtain close of 2020. He surprised me with an in apartment chef and musician and my parents (our quarantine pod). It was the most wonderful evening and gives me an exciting task to focus on whilst navigating 2021!”
5. “At home 24/7 with my husband. We found a routine, we missed going out for dates, we made each other laugh and only occasionally drove each other crazy. I realized through all this togetherness that I am so grateful that he’s the one I. have chosen to spend my life with.”
6. “Me and an acquaintance both went through tough and unexpected break ups during COVID and he reached out to me (we weren’t close, originally) offering support when I mentioned mine. I think he said something like, ‘I’m sure you have a lot of people to talk to’ and I don’t know why I felt like brutal honesty was the best policy but I responded with something like, ‘No, actually I really don’t’ and without expecting anything in return, he just started texting me. Asking if I wanted to make plans and then actually following through with them. He’s also far away, geographically, and I don’t know where things will end up but having someone who actually offers support and then follows through with that support? An easy, no-expectations friendship, full of humor, good movies and bad TikToks — it’s been wonderful.”
7. “I think COVID brought us closer and make us deal with topics we wouldn’t have dealt with. Was it all rainbows and roses? Heavens, no! It’s been rough, but overall, helpful. And I’ve learned we need a bigger place if we are going to live together.”
8. “My boyfriend and I met in August of the pandemic on a dating app. I was moving to Chelsea and was looking forward to the dating scene downtown. I thought it was going to be a couple of awkward dates and then we’d move on. But I was wrong. We had an instant connection. I was badly sunburnt on our first date and was already so comfortable, I picked at my flaking skin! I was mortified when I realized what I was doing but apparently that didn’t scare him away. We started seeing each other 4–5 nights a week. A month into our relationship, we broke his leg playing soccer and things escalated pretty quickly. I became his emergency contact for the surgery and helped take care of him the first couple of weeks post-operation. Fast forward 7 months, we’re still together and planning to move in together this summer.
Prior to dating him, I’ve had a very strict ‘no boys allowed’ rule in my space. A week or so after my move, I had a chair delivered that I couldn’t push up the stairs of my four story walk up by myself. He offered to help me move it and I had to tell him about my rule of not allowing non-serious relationships hangout. He just said okay and asked what time he should come by. The man not only walked across town in the rain to help me, he showed up with a bottle of champagne for me to celebrate my first solo apartment. After moving the chair, he didn’t question me or try to overstay his welcome, and I packed my things for our night at his place. On the walk back to his, he offered to carry one of my bags. I told him no, I let him help me once today and it was a big ask, so we’re good for the month.
We got stopped at a light and he squeezed my arm, kissed my head and said, ‘I know it’s hard to ask for help. And I know you can do it, I know you can do anything. I just want to make the walk a little more comfortable for you, so can I please carry one of your bags?’
And that was the night I knew I wanted to keep him around for a long time.”
9. “My boyfriend and I moved in together after two months of dating. Four months later, the pandemic began and we spent the majority of it in a studio apartment. There were a lot of ups and downs and I learned a lot about myself, including that I love living alone. I asked him to move out after living together for over a year. We. are still dating but I learned that I want a relationship without co-habitating.”
10. “What about if I decided to date myself this past year and see how self-kindness and goal-setting and quietude has literally changed my life in every single aspect I could have ever fathomed?!”
11. “After being married for six years, I had a wake up call that we grew as partners, working/studying/building homes everywhere we moved and raising kids — but we were never US. At least, my side of the story…I realized that most of the time, I felt alone. When when he was gone, I didn’t miss him. When he was around, I became negative and toxic. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I tried so hard over the years (I am a romantic person and suppose he is not) setting up dates, dressing up but I felt like I was hitting walls or unheard. Then it all died and it all just became mundane routine. I hate routine. I lost myself and so we have been on a break since then. What will come, I don’t know but I finally stepped up to do something for myself, my first time being selfish and it hurts, but otherwise, it wouldn’t be me anymore.”
12. “Shortly prior to the pandemic, I had retired after 40 years in ECE (Educational Credential Evaluators). I was enjoying substituting and volunteering at my former school. Then lockdown. Lockdown with my husband of 27 years who had been at home with a comfortable routine which did not include me! We learned to walk together, outside every day. We dressed for the weather. It’s the simplest thing to do. When one of us didn’t want to go, the other lent encouragement. We’ve actually become healthier. We’ve also shared a newfound enjoyment of British mystery series. Most evenings we will watch an episode, only one, so as to make it last. Such very simple things but they’ve brought us closer. Sometimes we say that we’re grateful to have each other to spend the pandemic together.”
13. “A couple great dates:
We rode electric scooters from Fort Mason to Crissy Field in San Francisco. We had amazing chemistry right off the bat (7 hours on the phone chemistry) so we both had the idea to do something kitschy for our first date. He picked me up after work on Saturday and we did it.
Walked our dogs together.”
14. “I was a serial dater and during the pandemic I was still dating someone but I wasn’t being fulfilled in a way that I dream to be with a partner — emotionally, intellectually, culturally etc. — and so instead of trying to just ‘stick it out’ for either a subconscious fear of being lonely, I decided to just stop and really be kind to myself like a partner would: spoiling myself, accepting myself, pushing myself and learning to love myself. And this has catapulted my success in my career, my emotional and mental well-being and through a profound sustainable connection with family and friends continents over. If I hadn’t been single/’alone’ (in quotes because I never truly felt alone) during the pandemic, I would not have become the person I am today. And the gratitude I have for others who have changed my life thus far, is the same gratitude I have to myself for giving me a freedom I never thought I would feel.”
15. “I had the sweetest COVID romance. A friend set us up (long distance, SF — LA) late August and we had FaceTime dates until we decided to fly and work out of Oahu. It was supposed to be 12 days but ended up being 51. We event got a 1-month lease together. I thought he was the one. But then a big religious difference couldn’t be overcome (I’m not religious, he is, and he needed me to convert). So at the end of Hawaii, we broke up.
That’s the super reader’s digest version but there were so many sweet moments in there. Our first FaceTime date, he asked if I wanted to have a ‘happy hour’ date. I assumed it was BYOB but he took the time to Google three local places close to me that delivered cocktails and asked me to pick. It’s such a shame we couldn’t compromise on religion because he was a sweetheart. But boundaries are boundaries and his church (arguably a cult) was way too intense for me.”
16. “As doctors aren’t sure what effects there will be if you have had COVID and decide to have children, my best friend (who is a midwife, as well as certified OBGYN and therapist) and I decided to have a child before getting vaccinated. We both went to facilities and if everything is fine/a good match, they’ll make embryos in June, freeze them and my friend will use them in the winter of 2022.
Why? Well, I’m single, one of my last girlfriends died horrifically, the break up with the girlfriend after that was so hard, it took me more than a year to get over.
During quarantine and general life, I’ve grown so much and defined so many things for myself. One of those revelations is being OK if I don’t have another partner. However, I do want children.
I’ve already sacrificed so much in my life, I’m not willing to make many more compromises. I also have a multitude of goals I still want to achieve. Through online and in-person COVID dating, nothing has clicked.”
17. “Been with my partner for 5 years now and we’ve had wild adventures. From moving countries, food poisoning, living in a van together, long distance, traveling and so many dates around the world. Corona was our hardest time yet! I worked from home, but my partner is an essential worker for the trains. My favorite memories together in 2020 is our themed (at home) date nights. A cocktail and dinner themed to a country, sometimes a movie to match, sometimes a Marvel movie. Came out of lockdown (Australia) is COVID free now!) a little wounded but still bonded and full of love for each other and a few precious memories during a really tough time.”
18. “In September, we had our second son. Normally, my husband is a stay at home dad, and I go into the office every day. But since March of last year, I’ve felt so lucky to be home. There have been hard times, mentally and emotionally, but I still have my job, I still have my family. I’ve spent the first 7 months of my baby’s life at home with him. We were unscathed from all this. Sometimes I feel a sense of survivor’s guilt, because I know the rest of the world is hurting so deeply.”
19. “I ended an abusive relationship at the beginning of COVID with no job, no home and no money. It was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve done as a single mom.” (This reader also shared two blog posts she wrote on the subject, which she has given me permission to share with you all, in hopes it helps someone else! You can read her first post here and second post here.)
20. “A missed connection in NYC turned into a long distance correspondence. Our talks soon spanned 13 hours. From morning to night, from evening to sunrise in the three time zones between us, we confessed our inner most fears and desires and admitted our growing feelings for each other. 2020 was riddled with so many uncertainties in many different ways, but I’d never thought I would experience it in romance. Spring turned into summer and life has a funny way of evolving in other ways, too. Our 13 hour Zoom conversations whittled down to 30 minute phone calls and then finally down to absolute silence. My last few words to him were left unanswered. A ghost of a pandemic romance.”
21. “I learned that my partner is who I want by my side when shit hits the fan. We navigated graduating college in a horrible economy, a pandemic, starting new jobs (thankfully), death, social injustice etc. and they made it bearable and were able to find happiness even in those dark moments. Those goes for my friends as well. This past year made me realize who really is there for you even if it’s over an awkward Zoom happy hour.”
22. “My partner and I have no seen each other since March 18, 2020. We were on vacation in Mexico when COVID was declared a pandemic and we flew home to our separate destinations. Prior to the pandemic, we didn’t mind being long distance because we traveled around the world together. Now, separated by closed borders for 13 months and counting, we’re rethinking distance. I try not to think about the situation because I always end up sobbing. I even miss the mundane moments, like discussing how to flush the toilet. Now I’m looking for a job overseas so that we can be together.”
23. “Moved in with my boyfriend and a year later, I can actually call him my partner.
I went through a period of mourning that I didn’t realize I needed until I was in the midst of it. Truly mourning my single life, I spent so much time working to get to a place of pure bliss as a single person the years before meeting my boyfriend that when it came time to giving up my last bit of ‘just me’ which was my studio apartment that was with me through the whole time, it was really hard. I didn’t realize I felt that way until we moved into together. Plus, not just moving in together but working on the same sofa. The first few months were hard but once I came out of my mourning and let myself have that time, I truly felt like a fully bloomed flower. And now I know the true meaning of partner.”
24. “Man, COVID shattered it all for me. From reshaping my view of myself to reminding me why I married my husband. COVID was hard but it only brought us closer. We have been tested many times during our decade together and without fail we have always grown closer during hard times.
When we had our daughter three months early and had to navigate stress like I have never felt, we grew closer. He loved me through months/years of self distraction so COVID was not going to fuck with out bond. We compromised a lot and learned to truly coexist in a world that was put on pause. There was no hiding from each other anymore and allowing life to help us hide our issues. Like every time before we took the task of making COVID our bitch on together and here we are. I love him so much and I hope to god Coco (our mini human) feels the love every day. Lord knows Pupic (their dog) sure does.”
25. “I have two vastly different experience over the last year dating digitally/trying to make a connection when we’re so isolated. The first was six months of confusion and excitement but ultimately no emotional intimacy. I think it really dragged out because we were exclusive for safety’s sake but it turned out we wanted different things. I think some of the difficulty was not seeing each other in a normal environment meant it was more difficult to understand where the other person was coming from. If we had met in a bar on a night out, it would have been very clear from the beginning.
Now, I have been seeing someone for two months and it’s fun and secure and easy. Which makes me feel that at this point, when we’re used to all the complications and precautions of dating in a pandemic, it goes back to the basics. If you’re feeling that connection and feeling good about it, then that’s all you need. A rollercoaster relationship might be good for TV but in real life, it shouldn’t be a headache or a heartache.”
26. “I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years and fell back in love with myself.”
27. “We had big travel plans for April 2020 and we weren’t going to start planning a wedding until after that. COVID cancelled our travel plans and after a few months in our apartment, we really wanted to buy a house sooner rather than later. I’ve always said I would need to be married before buying property with a partner. We were talking about it in like May/June, and we were like, well…why don’t we get married? It escalated from the backyard elopement we initially envisioned, but we still had a very small (and affordable) wedding in September. It was just our six immediate family members in person and our friends and extended family got to watch the ceremony on Zoom. It was really wonderful. Super happy about how it turned out. Without COVID, we wouldn’t had a bigger wedding and I really, really loved having a tiny one instead. We asked our family to prepare some remarks (a poem, advice, a memory, whatever) over the meal afterwards and it was one of my favorite parts of our wedding. Definitely wouldn’t have been able to do that if had something bigger.”
28. “Mine isn’t a new love story, but an old one reignited. I never needed a reason to reignite my love for my husband, but being with him 24/7 was one of the loveliest and invigorating experiences for us and something we didn’t know we so desperately needed. I was always in love with my husband, but being in quarantine last year with him made me fall even more madly and irrevocably in love with my husband.”
29. “My boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship for five years now and when news of the virus broke out, I was shattered for many reasons and one was that I didn’t know when we would be seeing each other again safely. I remember crying and feeling overwhelmed, but through the days, we both learned as the world had stopped or felt that way that now we weren’t rushing through our days, as we both were in school and working from home at the time. We realized now we had more time to connect, not just at nights but throughout the day, we would call, FaceTime or Zoom call each other, sometimes we would just keep doing our thing and it felt nice to know the other person was there even through a video. We learned to communicate better, we cherished that we grew closer, although the pandemic was horrible and sad, we tried to hold onto the good and see some light on the very dark days.
After 10 months of not seeing each other, we finally reunited in November 2020 and because we were studying from home, we got to spend six months together, as before when we traveled to see one another, it would just be four weeks the most we could see each other. So even though all of the pandemic had been sad, worrying and scary, we both tried to hold onto the good and light and the opportunity that we we got to spend together and with our families. It’s hard to see the good at times especially in hard moments we dealt with this as it was all new to everyone but my take on it when I feel sad is to remember we got an opportunity to stop rushing and pay attention to small details we didn’t before and cherish and not take for granted moments with our loved ones and each other.”
30. “My boyfriend and I had lived together for a year before lockdown here in England but I can say with absolute certainty that we are better communicators than we ever were before and have become even closer. The lockdowns also made us value every moment that we’ve been able to spend going for meals or dates or days out more than we did before. Some of our best dates have been in the gaps between lockdowns over the last year. We didn’t actually want to go back to work (out of the house) because we realized how much we really enjoy each others company. Of course, we had moments of tension and challenges like anyone but they were so far outweighed by all the positives and I’m incredibly grateful for the year that we were able to spend together, both on furlough and working from home. There will probably (hopefully!) never be a time that we can spend an entire year together and while so many things have happened, I will always be happy that we had the time together and continue to.”
31. “My fiancé proposed to me on March 2nd of last year, which I’d been waiting for, for so long! It was so exciting for us as high school sweethearts who have been long distance for years since I left for college, he enlisted in the Air Force, then I moved again for law school. Unfortunately, within about a week of the proposal, COVID was declared a pandemic and I realized that we’d have to wait a little longer to be married. While that was a huge disappointment, distance learning for my last semester of law school meant I could quarantine with him in Oklahoma, where he is based. Those extra months of time together were so amazing — we usually only see each other for weekends or a week here a few times a year. But now, I’m back in California and waiting fro him to finish his contract with the Air Force and come home so we can safely be married, surrounded by our friends and family next June. I’ve been bittersweet to have to wait even longer to be married but to also have so much extra time together.”
32. “I live in Lawrence, KS and I went on a university trip (not a student anymore, but was invited with some friends who are staff and faculty) to London at the beginning of March 2020. The pandemic started becoming very real when we were over there. Classes started getting cancelled when the students got back etc. I met a guy who was a non-traditional student and he was my age. The friends who I originally went on the trip with went back to the States early, leaving me with a bunch of students I barely knew and an English professor! The guy and I basically had three day date, going to museums, drinking in pubs etc. We realized we lived four blocks from each other and had all the same friends. We flew back to the States and. had to quarantine immediately upon arrival. We essentially quarantined together for two. weeks and have been together ever since.”
33. “Our story began in November. Corona didn’t change much about dating here in Croatia. We met, we kissed, we fell in love. He works abroad (Germany), travels back and forth every month, so he gets tested a lot. It’s hard to be me apart, but that’s just a regular long distance relationship thing. Can’t wait to see him again. We don’t do video calls or stuff like that, keeping it old school.”
34. “I was living in Paris in 2020 and my boyfriend (he’s French) went to Vietnam in January on a two month work trip. He was supposed to be back in April but when the pandemic hit, he was stuck in Vietnam until September. My French visa ran out in July (I’m American) so I had to go back to New York before he could finally come home to France. Leaving without seeing him and knowing I was going even further away was one of the most heartbreaking things about this year. Since then, we haven’t been able to see each other because borders between the US and France are still closed. It’s been January 24 of last year (15 months!). I almost cried getting the first shot of my vaccine last week because I hope it means I can travel to see him soon.”
35. “Russel and I met and dated briefly in high school. We broke up, as kids do, but we stayed friends. After college, I moved to NYC, he to Oregon. Through the years, we stayed in touch mainly via him sending me postcards from his travels or him stopping by our hometown to say hello to my mom (who would then call me and question why I wasn’t with Russel. My answer was always, ‘Mom, we’re just friends!’)” But to him, I was always something more. About three weeks before the pandemic shut everything down I moved to LA for a job. The pandemic hit and Russel and I were trapped on the west coast together, albeit far apart. We reconnected via text and phone and talked often during 2020. There was a spark, something was there; I was dying to know what it was. In January 2021, he got a job in SoCal. I drove up to meet him, to see what would happen. I ended up staying the whole week. We fell in love, we’re still together. This is what I like to call a “silver lining of the pandemic.”
36. “I was single before the pandemic. I feel like the pandemic helped put things into perspective for me. Work had always made me happy, but the early months of the pandemic helped me recognize that work couldn’t be the only thing that made me happy and even as. an introvert, I was really craving social interaction (none of my friends had stayed in the city). Since the first couple of months were super lonely, I had a lot of time for introspection and reflection. I realized the qualities that were actually important to me in a significant other. Also, I would only put in the effort and get tested for someone I felt a genuine connection with.
I did meet someone wonderful (via Bumble) and our first couple. of dates were virtual cooking dates and picnic dates outside which was a nice change from the usual coffee or drinks. The one (extremely tiny) silver lining during this time has been that our relationship has stayed in a bubble and we’ve been able to focus on just spending quality time together and learning more about each other. Usually, I’d get more distracted with social activities with friends, work travel and other stuff. We were able to have our own mini-Thanksgiving and mini-Christmas celebrations, since in a usual year, we’d both be heading back to our parents’ homes, which was quite lovely.”
37. “My husband and I got married in August of 2020. Our wedding went from 100 people, to 50 people, to 30 people. Two weeks out, we found out my father (stuck out of the country) and older sister (tested positive for COVID — she’s fine now) could not come. To be honest, I strongly considered cancelling everything. At the end of the day, our love story during Corona was not just out love for each other, but the love we felt from our community, both present at our ceremony and via Zoom. We got so many messages of love. In summary, there were many tears and lots of champagne.”
38. “I moved into my ex’s empty West Village apartment and then packed it up when the lease ended.”
39. “Feels really hard to have missed out essentially on the entire year of my 20s when I’m in my prime.”
40. “My boyfriend and I started dating at the start of the pandemic. Moved in together after three weeks.”
41. “It was nice to have someone to quarantine with at first, then realized he wasn’t even close to being the person for me at all But grew a lot during that relationship.”
42. “Always wanted to elope, but feared upsetting our family. Pandemic = perfect excuse!”
43. “My girlfriend. and I have been dating for over five years. We had only lived together for about six months when the pandemic shut the city down. In every way, she worked to help me feel comfortable, safe and cared for during one of the scariest periods of our lives. She exemplified love in action this past year. I could not be more grateful for the person she is.”
44. “It was early October. I was suffering through a bad break up from a toxic, abusive relationship (in addition to all the pandemic loneliness). I was on dating apps because I needed a distraction. I had connected with several guys, had gone on a few dates, but I wasn’t particularly excited about anyone of them. Then one Sunday, I matched with him. He was older, handsome, but still had this cool air about him.
We decided to meet on a rainy Monday morning (Columbus Day to be exact), because neither one of us had work. I was excited but also noncommittal about it because likely, he’d be “just like the rest of them.”
I entered the back room of Blue Stone Lane on Greenwich, the perfect little enclave for this type of tête-à-tête. It was just us two and another couple. We introduced ourselves and quickly got into conversation. But not just any old small talk. It was more like we had known each other for years. It was magical. I felt an instant connection, almost in love (a rare occurrence).
The rain was tapping the tin roof in a rhythmic pattern. It was so romantic. I felt like I was in a movie. We ate breakfast and drank coffee, but that was almost an afterthought. I was lost in him, and it felt like he was in me. Hours passed and we realized we soon had to leave because we both had to get on with our day. I could’ve stayed forever. He offered to walk me home with an umbrella, but I declined — my heart was skipping faster than I could keep up with my thoughts and I just needed to process this chance encounter.
I texted him when I got home to thank him and he responded immediately with “I don’t know what you did, but I can’t stop thinking about you. Can I see you again this week?” I was floating on cloud 9. “I’d love that”, I responded. And so our whirlwind romance began.
I came to find out he was my neighbor, the building next door. That made it easy, convenient, but also dangerous.
We dove head first into it. We went on dates and spent our days flirting. I’d meet him for coffee just before he got his work day started. He’d text me in the middle of the day to tell me he was thinking of me and asked me if I was available for dinner so he could see me. He even asked me to be his girlfriend. I was smitten. It was such a pleasant, unexpected surprise. I almost forgot about the depression I was in.
Things remained this way for about a month. But you know what they say, “the higher you climb, the harder you fall”. And sure enough, he abruptly ended things. No explanation, just a token, “I’m not feeling it”. I was devastated. I hadn’t been vulnerable or been willing to open myself up to anyone for a very long time. I gave him all of me. He broke my heart.
That was the end of November 2020. I felt lost, more loss, again. It was really hard to accept, difficult to understand because I had no answers.
Fast forward, he still lives right next to me, so naturally, I think about him everyday. I’ve run into him a couple of times and I’ve avoided contact, although he’s seen me on those occasions. A piece of me has always secretly been waiting for a text to set in — “how are you?” or “I saw you today”. That hasn’t happened.
I continue to date, but let’s just say, I haven’t let myself be vulnerable ever again.”
Mara Hoffman dress (old, similar style here) // Vintage Chanel earrings
Photography
Allie Provost
|
https://medium.com/@krystalbick/love-in-the-time-of-corona-e07f0bb62841
|
['Krystal Bick']
|
2021-07-18 14:25:07.639000+00:00
|
['Love Letters', 'Covid 19', 'Love', 'Pandemic', 'Relationships']
|
What if….
|
The Indian government imposed a total socio-economic lockdown in the country in the wake of the outbreak of C-19 pandemic from 25th March 2020. The restrictions were relaxed gradually from June-2020 onwards.
In my view, it is almost impossible to assess the utility and true impact of lockdown exercise. We would never know, what could have been the situation if a total lockdown was not imposed in March. It could have been worse in terms of economic and health shocks; or perhaps the economic loss could have been less pronounced, sans total lock down.
However, this episode has further strengthened our already strong view that the incumbent government is unpredictable. It can take decisions having far reaching repercussions rather quickly; without adequate planning; and without bothering about the immediate consequences in terms of human suffering.
|
https://medium.com/@amitgupta0310/what-if-f527274e712d
|
['Amit Kumar Gupta']
|
2020-12-24 16:08:29.328000+00:00
|
['Coronavirus', 'Lockdown', 'Covid 19', 'Narendra Modi', 'India']
|
On a beach at Byron Bay
|
“My cogs have ground down,
my chains worn out; eight years
in gaol, can’t take
anymore — but I
ain’t gone soft, don’t you mistake — ”
fists raised, milky eyes
now flare and blaze, two
bright blue embers glow fierce,
fight rises in his
chest — then just as quick,
dissipates — he falls, doughy,
to the ground, muted
sobs bubble and burst,
head down, cowed and mumbling, “Soft,
nothin’ but a lump.”
|
https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/on-a-beach-at-byron-bay-b5fd30514fa2
|
['Zarina Dara']
|
2019-07-31 11:32:52.456000+00:00
|
['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Life', 'Haiku', 'Poetry']
|
7 HR Tips to Recruit the Right People for Your Company
|
7 HR Tips to Recruit the Right People for Your Company Margaret Williams Jan 16·5 min read
Australia consists of a variety of lucrative sectors and markets for businesses and investors, as well as for local and foreign workers. A dynamic economic climate — becoming the world’s fifth freest economy — coincides with a high quality of life and diverse incentives for lifestyles.
As a result, Australia has a wealthy, highly skilled, and diverse workforce. There’s a knack to tap into Australia’s talent pool for both budding and experienced businesses to pick out the best candidates for business needs.
Recruitment metrics is considered a smart approach which backs data-based decision making and saves cost and time per hire by streamlining the process.
1. Why Are Recruiting Metrics Essential?
Remember, if you don’t measure, you won’t improve!
Most recruiters believe that it’s time for the data-driven hiring process to shrink the Human Resources expenses and the effects of unfilled positions on revenues. It not only can track defined areas for change but can also show places where the recruitment team is doing well.
Many employers tend not to take any action on the collected data which bring them exactly where they started. Parameters should be presented in a way where it is easily shareable, usable and understandable.
Suppose, you have a broad hiring team, however you choose to share the data with only one of them. For better effectiveness, instead, you should share the data with the whole team so that everyone understands where they are lacking and find collective measures to improve the key points.
2. A Few Tricks For Hiring The Right Employees
There are many measurement tools available and many organisations have their own methods of measuring.
Measure Recruitment Trends And Statistics
A survey shows that filling the work vacancy in Australia will take about 68 days, on average. An organisation should make sure that they budget time and money accordingly. A role in a skill shortage sector will have tough competition.
Reach Out To Talents Every Way Possible
Being a recruiter, if you always assume that talents will come to you, then you may need to think twice. A recent survey suggests that 63% of the Australians have a LinkedIn profile. However, the survey doesn’t show how many are active users. So, instead of waiting for the right talent to apply for the job you posted, recruiters can search for talents and reach out to them.
Also, the government of Australia often launches many programs. For example, in 2018, the Australian government launched the Global Talent Employer-Sponsored Program, which allows the employers to fill the positions by sponsoring overseas applicants because those were difficult to fill locally. This kind of knowledge can help organisations to look for the right candidate in the right place.
3. Anticipating Cost Per Hire And Training Costs
In Australia, estimates about the average price per hire hover around AU$5000. This is only to get the new employee on board; once they are employed, they will possibly require some degree of preparation or assistance to achieve 100% of their role’s expertise and efficiency.
Once the hiring process is done, the recruiter must calculate the time taken for productivity. This helps to measure when a new hire starts contributing to the organisation. If an employee takes a few days to show his/her effectiveness, the recruiter can be assured that the organisation is going in the right direction for onboarding.
4. Focusing On Your Employment Branding
As a recruiter, you should not overlook the power of workplace culture and management style to attract valuable candidates in your organisation. Gathering feedback from the applicant can help determine the experience they went through during the whole process of hiring.
Many candidates often complain about being ‘ghosted’ by the recruiters that may cause a negative impact to accept the job offer. Your credibility lies in finding out how prospective team members can evaluate their workplace if they want to apply and accept a position. Remember, positive feedback helps attract more candidates in future.
5. Make Your Hiring Process Stress-Free
As a recruiter, you should focus more and more on improving the hiring process. The first thing is to measure how many candidates are completing the applications. Identifying where and why prospective applicants drop out of the process, and adjusting the requirements accordingly, will improve the completion rate of the application and ensure that talented applicants are not lost at the first hurdle.
The second thing is, measure the approximate time taken by the days between posting the job and finally, when the hiring is complete. Third but most importantly, measure how many candidates finally accept the job offer. Higher rate of acceptance implies that the candidate is happy with the aspects such as offered salary, growth opportunity etc. In contrast, a lower acceptance rate can indicate the missing factor between what a candidate wants and what is provided.
6. Hire More And More Interns
Some people may disagree with this point, but for many organisations hiring interns proved to be a valuable investment. Picking the right intern also involves a lot of hard work. Besides, you get to see them evolve to fit your work culture. So, if there is a related vacancy, why would you further invest your time in hiring someone else? An easier solution would be to simply promote the intern to fill the vacancy and save valuable time.
7. Check Work Culture Compatibility
As a recruiter, your main challenge can be finding someone compatible with the culture of the organisation. You can check their social media or prepare a questionnaire or a task to understand their willingness and compatibility skill. A candidate can deliver their best only when they get along with their colleagues, clients or managers.
One has to keep in mind that finding the quality applicant involves a few steps. What if the recruiters are making the mistakes in the initial stages by not screening the candidates properly? One of the earliest stages is to select a few ‘fit’ candidates out of a thousand applications, and this can be done through background screening.
Criminal Background Checks, a part of background screenings can streamline the process by scrutinising those who don’t have a relevant or a significant criminal background. KONCHECK, an accredited body of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) is a reliable, affordable and fast platform for recruiters which can assist them in aiming for more effective hiring.
|
https://medium.com/@koncheckau/7-hr-tips-to-recruit-the-right-people-for-your-company-ef174c2b8a95
|
['Margaret Williams']
|
2021-01-16 04:43:59.794000+00:00
|
['Australia', 'HR', 'Business Strategy', 'Business', 'Company']
|
Mobile App Design: Keeping the Thumb Zone in Mind
|
As the years go by, companies like Samsung and Apple keep touting that they have the largest mobile screen in the market. Phones have become “phablets” with their 6"+ screen sizes. Some phones even fold out into a full tablet experience. Larger screens are fantastic for media consumption, but we have to reach further and further with our thumbs.
Thankfully, there are plenty of guides out there for designing within the “Thumb Zone”. Keeping the thumb zone in mind is a great place to start, especially if you’re used to doing web design.
What is the “Thumb Zone”?
Image Source: Luke W — Designing for Large Screen Phones
The thumb zone (pictured above) demonstrates the range of reachability for a user’s thumb while they’re interacting with their phone with one hand. It give you an idea of whether or not your primary interactions are going to cause frustration for your users.
How to use the “Thumb Zone” in your designs
Step 1: Download Smashing Magazine’s Thumb Zone reference and insert it into your design file.
Image Source: Smashing Magazine — The Thumb Zone: Designing For Mobile Users
Step 2: Once you have the image file in your workspace, you can crop the phone template around the thumb zone colors, if you’d like.
Step 3: Set your transparency to around 40–50%, so that you can use the thumb zone as an overlay.
Step 4: Now you can place the overlay over your designs to see if your interactions are within reach of your users.
You can now see if your actions will cause reachability issues with your users.
Make sure to use the left and right handed overlays to accommodate all of your users or use the “combined” overlay to see how both are impacted simultaneously.
Helpful tips to keep in mind
Make sure that your frequently used primary actions aren’t out of reach. Depending on your secondary or tertiary actions, it may be okay if they’re a bit out of reach.
You may want to put destructive actions a bit out of reach, if they’re used sparingly and you want users to have a bit of friction before making that decision. Be cautious and listen to your users.
Speaking of users, try to get your design off of your screen and into your own hands to see if you run into any reachability issues. Even better, make sure to test your designs with your users and listen to their feedback.
|
https://medium.com/@philwijs/mobile-app-design-keeping-the-thumb-zone-in-mind-c1d4fafcd127
|
['Phil Wijs', 'Weiss']
|
2020-12-10 12:02:44.067000+00:00
|
['UX Design', 'UI Design', 'Accessibility', 'Mobile App Development', 'Usability']
|
My Story Surviving Covid-19, May 2020
|
So I don’t post much on social media, I like to be the quiet guy people don’t notice. But this seems to be the most effective way to let you all know what I’ve been going through over the last couple weeks. I wanted to share my story, some wisdom and a reminder to not get complacent. I’m now officially a Covid-19 survivor.
On Monday May 18th I started to develop a fever, diarrhea, nausea, body aches, cough and pains — generally felt crappy. I got tested (nasal swab) on Tuesday and received a positive test result for Covid-19 the following Saturday. I knew I had the virus as this was unlike any illness I’ve had before. That entire week I told myself it would be mild symptoms and that I would get through this at home (taking Tylenol to control the fever), hospital is not an option. This was not to be the case.
As my symptoms worsened that week, the cough especially got worse and my energy was drained, preparing food, doing anything resulted in a crushing fatigue. My friends & family were checking in constantly and I put on a brave face, “I’m still breathing ok, I will get through this”.. I eventually lost the ability to care for myself (I live alone), and had to have someone call 911, this was the day after memorial day.
Prior to calling 911 I had to organize my power of attorney and primary care directive — just in case the worst happened. I also need to get my will sorted out (a little late I know). This is a PSA to get your affairs in order.
I was taken to the ER at CPMC Davies Campus, where I had a fever of 104 on arrival. I was transferred to CPMC Mission/Bernal Campus — which has been setup to handle Covid-19 cases.
I spent one night in an isolation room and was transferred to the ICU the next day. The thing with Covid is it gets into your lungs, causing pneumonia and you lose the ability to absorb oxygen. But I thought I was still breathing ok, so what’s the problem? Without the correct levels of oxygen in your blood (90% plus), you feel lethargic, sleepy and cognitively challenged. While i was waiting to be transferred I was contacted about a clinical research program for the drug Remdesivir. Remdesivir is a broad spectrum antiviral used in the past to treat Ebola. It had seen positive results in shortening the duration of the Covid infection, less time can also mean less severity. So I signed up.
It became pretty obvious that I needed to go onto a ventilator, as I was diagnosed with Pneumonia. I was terrified, people don’t survive being on the ventilator was what the news had been telling me. I thought I was going to die. At this time I met Lara (not her real name) a respiratory therapist from Russia, an older woman who became my ICU mama and convinced me that I wouldn’t die and that she wouldn’t let that happen. She reminded me of my late mother. She held my hand and helped me process the consent I needed to give. I was then intubated and put on a ventilator. I won’t go into all the details, but the sedation drugs (Propofol) was tricky and they couldn’t get my dose right to induce a coma. The paralysation drugs were in full force so I was unable to move or communicate, and I was fully conscious (yet sedated) during the intubation procedure. I remained on the ventilator for a week. Lara would visit often at first and tell me to fight and that’s what I did.
That week started as a blur, the sedation was heavy to begin with and the crazy lucid dreams began. I later learned about a condition called ICU psychosis — basically the drugs can cause you to lose touch with reality, hear and see things and generally lose your marbles. At one point i thought certain nurses were trying to do me harm — so i managed scratch out on a piece of paper — Less Sedation. So they lowered my dose and the crazy subsided. This meant a new reality of being conscious whilst intubated, they usually prefer to keep you knocked out — apparently its just easier on everyone. Nurses included.
So for the next 4 days i had to remain somewhat sedated but aware i was intubated. My hands were tied down (to prevent trying to remove the tubes) and my only way to get attention was the button on the bed controller. The only way to communicate was to write on a pad, impossible at first. It was about this time they started to give me updates on my progress and started discussing when I could be extubated. Lara came in to give me the news and to let me know she was watching over me. It was also during this time I got to know my nurses and experience a kindness and tenderness from strangers I have never experienced before. No matter their gender, race or religion they showed me so much compassion, empathy and support. I was terrified and would often simply hold their hands whilst they were in the room unable to communicate. I am so blown away by the risk these people take, the kindness they show to strangers and their humanity in such trying conditions. I met nurses from all around the world and for all of them I will be eternally grateful — as they are my personal heroes.
My extubation was delayed to ensure I could breath once the tubes were removed, so I spent a period of time being ventilated and then demonstrating I could breathe without ventilation. Once removed, having to be re-intubated is very risky, so they make sure you’re able to go it alone. The tubes were eventually removed — cough and they’re gone. OMG this was the moment i knew I was through the worst of it i could breathe again and i was going to get better. It was at this moment I turned my phone on and rejoined the world. The outpouring of support on my phone from family and friends was overwhelming and humbling. I got to have my first drink of cold water in over a week, and one of the nurses spiked my water with some OJ (which they are not supposed to do) — I’ve never tasted anything so sweet and soothing.
From this point on my recovery was speedy, the next day I was transferred out of ICU to an isolation room and spent 2 more nights to complete my Remdesivir and antibiotic treatments. The ICU nurses all clapped as i was wheeled out, I was their success story, everything they worked so hard to ensure. I was the project they shipped (out of the ICU). I have never felt so humbled and grateful in my entire life.
My message to everyone is that this is survivable, even when severe. Go to the hospital before things get desperate, your strength matters, getting treated before losing all your strength plays a huge part in your recovery. Take it seriously. Keep a thermometer at home, the severity of the fever is linked to how well you are, just because you can breathe doesn’t mean you are getting enough oxygen.
I’m now recovering at home, this means being on oxygen support 24hrs a day, at about 30% of normal stamina, naps are good stairs not so much fun. I need to work my lungs to increase their capacity and ensure the damage isn’t permanent. It’s slow going, but each day I feel stronger.
In terms of how I contracted the virus.. It caught me by surprise as I’ve been very strict since starting the lock down in early March. It comes down to the grocery store, the corner store, walgreens (chemist for the aussies) and the weekly Lyft ride I need to get the groceries back home (I live on one of the biggest hills in SF). I got complacent, i did not observe proper sanitation process, i did not have gloves on (but i wore a mask) I touched an unclean surface and touched my face. It could of been the Lyft driver or previous passenger who transmitted the virus in the car. It could also be the food I get delivered or other packages. Whatever it was I will never know, the only thing that matters moving forward is to improve my self awareness and mitigate personal risk.
I have been told I’m no longer contagious, the virus usually runs its course over 2 week and starts to die. I will continue to test positive (for a few more weeks) as my body sheds and disposes of the dead virus. I should have some immunity for a period (but there is no definitive science here yet), this means I could potentially catch this thing again. This terrifies me the most.
Fun fact the virus can only live on any surface for 3 days, if you don’t need to open that Amazon package, let it sit there for 3+ days. Use gloves, wipe down anything that comes into your house, your home is your protective bubble, try to only bring clean things into your house, or have a sanitisation process to mitigate risk. Did you wipe down the last food you had delivered? Did you wash your hands after touching the food delivery bag and packaging? We all have to outsmart this thing, it’s the only way to ensure we avoid it.
Please don’t be complacent, please keep away from other people and surfaces you don’t know to be clean. All the protests on TV, whilst the cause is so so deserved — spreading Covid and contributing to a surge like no other is sure to come next. Seeing everyone like that terrifies me and the infection rates are starting to climb again. I was lucky the hospital wasn’t busy and I received the best care and had my own room. This can change in a heartbeat, when the hospitals are at capacity the level of care will drop, it’s inevitable. I was lucky to get Covid-19 when I did, a couple weeks from now — could be a completely different story.
So many people to thank. My doctor at CPMC Mission/Bernal Campus was Dr Dan Goodman, an infectious disease specialist. His entire team of nurses and respiratory specialists all contributed to my outcome — far too many to name, these people are my heroes. I will be contributing to the noise at 8pm every night in honor of these brave and beautiful people.
Feel free to donate here https://www.sutterhealth.org/cpmc/ways-to-give/philanthropy/covid-19
My sisters, my family and my crew. I don’t have many close friends here in the US and SF all of them stepped up to care for me, coordinating efforts and constantly checking in, they know who they are. My manager and friend Brendan McWeeney, I knew I made the right choice to work for this guy and sign-on at LinkedIn. Thanks guys! And all my old colleagues so many offers and support, it’s been so overwhelming and humbling. I am so grateful for all of you.
This virus is out there, the numbers are only as valid as the number of people who get tested. The testing is only reliable 40% of the time. Nasal testing is the most reliable form of testing. Most people have mild and or no symptoms at all — they will never show up in the stats (unless tested). Don’t fall for the news that this thing is no longer an issue. SF has had a similar story as we move towards reopening. This virus is real its out there still, no matter what fancy info graphics they use on the news — please all be smarter than that. Complacency is what will cause you to become infected.
Please take care, this thing is real, don’t let my story become your story.
|
https://medium.com/@jasonbayly/surviving-covid-19-1c28c6f50e27
|
['Jason Bayly']
|
2020-06-09 22:36:20.484000+00:00
|
['Covid 19', 'Covid Diaries', 'Coronavirus']
|
by Martino Pietropoli
|
First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.
Follow
|
https://medium.com/the-fluxus/wednesday-a-drift-c0ff3acd7cd4
|
['Martino Pietropoli']
|
2018-07-25 00:36:02.331000+00:00
|
['Humor', 'Comics', 'Wednesday', 'Art']
|
Design Patterns: Fácil implementação de alguns padrões de projetos em JavaScript com Typescript.
|
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/equals-lab/design-patterns-f%C3%A1cil-implementa%C3%A7%C3%A3o-de-alguns-padr%C3%B5es-de-projetos-em-javascript-com-typescript-f2137859a49e
|
['Guilherme Henrique De Melo']
|
2021-01-18 17:41:41.914000+00:00
|
['Development', 'Equals', 'JavaScript', 'Typescript', 'Design Patterns']
|
Missing Us
|
Darling,
I miss you. You’re around 37 weeks pregnant! We are together all the time, whether you’re working on your conference paper, or we are cooking and cleaning, prepping for this baby. You are my partner in every sense. We work seamlessly together. As if you’re my left hand, my equal. It sometimes feels like you can read my mind, honestly. My life has never been so intimately, wonderfully entangled with another. I am utterly devoted to you now and infinitely in the future — not just as the mother of our children, but as the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Creating our family has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. I can’t wait to meet our baby, and to meet us as parents. But waking up to you recalling your dreams from the night, seeing your hair curl out of your winter hat, the feeling of your arm linked with mine as we walk to the car, listening to you talk about your latest writing challenge…all the things I’ve started to appreciate more as your pregnancy and my injuries have temporarily changed a lot about how our bodies fit together, how much energy we have to dedicate to each other, how much time we have to really visit each other’s inner lives. It reminds me of all the ways I am still very much in love with you.
And I miss you. I miss us. Putting my dissertation on hold to care for you and the baby for the last stretch has made me realize how much we’ve had to carry, and what it takes to really put it all down. It made me realize that the amount of labor you’ve had to perform (while pregnant!) to get me through my injuries, relapses, and the job market probably had to stop much earlier. It has also given me enough of an emotional reserve to get a clearer sense of our lives beyond the logistics of work, the home, and preparations. And there isn’t much of us beyond that these days, it feels. Really, it feels stupid and selfish to miss you. What more could you possibly give to us? We have the luxury of spending our days and nights together all the time. Our baby needs our focus right now, and we are happy to give our baby everything we have and know. But here it is, a longing, an ache, a memory of you that keeps me awake. I am not sure what distinguishes this partnership we’ve developed from what I miss of us before. Maybe it is the feeling/knowledge of having all the time we need and infinite things yet to discover about each other. That’s what it felt like when I first fell in love with you. When it was just us, it felt light like forever, endless, free. I still feel like there are so many things I want to learn about you. But it doesn’t feel like there is enough time now. Now that we are starting a family, every moment feels weighted with ephemera, the pressure of making it count, the worry of not being able to reach deep enough. Is there ever going to be enough time?
This is not me asking for more. This is me promising to always find you again and again, through eager eyes, with more patience, and maybe, now, with a little one to help.
Love,
LtmW
|
https://medium.com/@letterstomywife/missing-us-1dad9922f1cb
|
['Letters To My Wife']
|
2021-06-01 23:39:15.864000+00:00
|
['Love Letters', 'LGBTQ', 'Relationships', 'Love']
|
How to Build a Digital Polaroid Camera
|
Today I get to tell you the story of my latest camera creation, a digital Polaroid camera that combines a receipt printer with a Raspberry Pi. To build it I took an old Polaroid Minute Maker camera, stripped out its guts, and replaced the innards with a digital camera, an e-ink display, a receipt printer, and an SNES controller to operate the camera. If you like this project, don’t forget to follow me (@ade3) on Instagram.
There is something magical about a piece of paper instantly coming out of a camera with a picture. It produces a thrill that you just don’t get from the video feeds of modern digital camera screens. Old Polaroid cameras always make me a bit sad because they are such wonderfully engineered machines but when the film went out of production they were reduced to nostalgic artifacts that collect dust on our shelves. What if you could breathe new life into these old cameras by using a receipt printer instead of instant film?
As I am prone to do, this post is going to go pretty deep into the technical details of how I built the camera. I do this because I hope that my experiments inspire a few people to try this project on their own. It’s not a simple modification, in fact it might be the hardest camera hack I have attempted, but I will try to give enough details from my experience to prevent you from getting stuck if you decide to tackle this project.
Why did I do it? After my coffee stirrer camera made the rounds I wanted to try something a bit different. Looking through my camera collection, the Polaroid Minute Maker camera jumped out at me as a great candidate for a digital conversion. This was the perfect project for me because it combined some of the things I was already playing with: the Raspberry Pi, e-ink displays, and receipt printers. Put them together and what do you get? Here’s the story of how my digital Polaroid camera was built…
Introduction
I’ve seen a few people attempt similar projects, but nobody has done a great job of explaining how they did it. I hope to avoid that mistake. The challenge of this project is getting all the various parts to work together. Before you start shoving all the pieces into the Polaroid shell, I recommend spreading everything out as you test and setup all the various components. This will save you from reassembling and deconstructing the camera every time you hit a snag. Below you can see all the parts connected and working prior to everything getting stuffed inside the Polaroid shell.
I made a few videos documenting the process as I went. If you plan on tackling this project you should start with this 32 minute video because you can see how everything comes together and get a sense of the challenges you might face.
Below are the parts and tools I used. When everything is all said and done the cost will probably surpass $200. The big expenses will be the Raspberry Pi ($35-$75), the printer ($50 — $62), the display ($37), and the camera ($25). Part of the fun will be making this project your own, so depending on what you want to include or exclude, upgrade or downgrade, your costs will vary. Here are the parts I used:
Parts List:
Tools:
Mouse, keyboard, and monitor (for Raspberry Pi setup)
Wire stripper/cutter
Pliers
Dremel tool
Soldering iron
Small screwdrivers
Hot glue gun
Wires, super glue, rubber bands, and other random things
The Polaroid Camera
The camera I used is a Polaroid Minute Maker. If I were to do it again I would use a Polaroid Swinger because it is basically the same design but with a prettier front plate. Unlike newer Polaroids, these models have more room inside and they come with a door on the back that lets you open and close the camera which will be very handy for our needs. With a bit of hunting you should be able to track one of these Polaroids down at an antique store or EBay. You can probably snag one for less than $20. Below you can see a Swinger (left) and the Minute Maker (right).
In theory you could use any Polaroid camera for a project like this. I also have some Land Cameras that have bellows and fold down but the nice thing about the Swinger or Minute Maker is that they are made of hard plastic and don’t have many moving parts other than the back door.
The first step is to strip all the guts out of the camera to make room for all our electronics. Everything must go. By the end you will have a bunch of junk that looks like this:
Most of the parts of the camera can be removed with pliers and brute force. These things aren’t made to be taken apart so you will be fighting against glue in some areas. Removing the front of the Polaroid is harder than it looks. There are screws on the inside that require some tool that apparently only Polaroid has. You might be able to unscrew them with pliers but I gave up and forced the front off. In hindsight I would take a bit more care here, but the damage I caused was fixable with super glue.
Once you have the front off you are again going to continue battling with parts that aren’t meant to be taken apart. Again, a pliers and brute force are required. Just be careful to avoid damaging anything that is visible from the outside.
The lens is one of the trickier elements to remove. There’s no easy solution that I can think of other than to drill a hole through the glass/plastic and pry it out. I wanted to keep as much of the look of the lens as possible so that people might not even see the tiny Raspberry Pi camera at the center of the black ring that formerly held the lens.
In my video I show a before and after comparison of the Polaroid so you can see exactly everything you will be removing from your camera.
Take care to make sure that the front faceplate can be taken on and off easily. Think of the faceplate as decoration. Most of the time it will be held in place, but should you want to connect the Raspberry Pi to a display and keyboard you can remove the front and plug things in. You can come up with your own solution here, but I decided on a magnet as the mechanism that keeps the faceplate in place. Velcro seemed to flimsy. Screws were overkill. Here’s an animated photo showing the camera with the faceplate on and off:
The Raspberry Pi
I opted for the full Raspberry Pi 4 Model B over the smaller Pi Zero. This is partly for speed, and partly because I am more comfortable working with it since I am relatively new to the Raspberry Pi world. Obviously, the smaller Pi Zero would have some advantages working in the tight space of the Polaroid.
An introduction to the Raspberry Pi is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but there are plenty of resources available if you are new to the Raspberry Pi. One bit of general advice is to take your time and be patient. If you are coming from a Mac or PC background it will just take some time to familiarize yourself with the nuances of the Pi. You’ll need to get comfortable using the command line and you’ll pick up some Python coding skills. If that scares you (I was intimidated at first too!) don’t be discouraged. As long as you come to it with a mindset of persistence and patience you will get it. Nearly every obstacle you encounter can be overcome with an internet search and persistence.
Above is a photo that shows where the Raspberry Pi will fit in the Polaroid camera. You can see where the power connects on the left. Also note the gray divider that extends across the width of the opening. This is basically to create a top edge for the printer to sit against and to keep the Pi separate from the printer. You will want to take care when inserting the printer to not smash the pins that the pencil is pointing at in the photo. The display cable connects to the pins here, and the ends of the wires that come with the display are about a quarter inch too long. I had to extend the cables with smaller ends so that the printer didn’t press against them.
The Raspberry Pi is positioned so that the side with the USB ports are pointing at the front. This allows the USB controller to connect from the front using an L-shaped adapter. While it wasn’t a part of my original plan, I also ran a small HDMI cable to the front. This allows me to easily pop the front off and plug a monitor and keyboard to the Pi.
The Digital Camera
The camera is the Raspberry Pi V2 module. The quality isn’t as good as the newer HQ camera but we don’t have the luxury of space. The camera connects to the Raspberry Pi with a ribbon. Cut a thin hole below the lens where the ribbon can fit through. The ribbon will need a twist on the inside before it connects to the Raspberry Pi.
The Polaroid’s front plate has a flat surface that is just right for attaching the camera. To attach it, I used some double-sided adhesive strip. You have to be a bit careful on the back because the camera’s board has some electronic parts that you don’t want to damage. I used some bits of the adhesive tape as spacers to prevent smashing these parts.
A couple other things to note in the photo above is that you can see how the USB and HDMI ports can be accessed. I used an L-shaped USB adapter to direct the connection to the right. For the HDMI cable in the upper left corner I used a 6-inch extension cable with an L-shaped connector on the other end. This can be seen better in my video.
The Display
E-ink seemed like a good choice for the display because the image is so similar to what would get printed on the receipt paper. I used the Waveshare 4.2inch E-Ink Display Module with a 400x300 pixels.
E-ink has an analog quality that I just love. It really does look like paper. There is something really satisfying about having an image on the screen when there is no power. Because there are no lights powering the pixels, once the image is created it stays on screen. That means that even without power the photos remain on the back of the Polaroid reminding me of what the last photo I took was. And let’s be honest, the camera is going to sit on my shelf much longer than it is in use, so it is kind of a nice that the camera almost becomes a picture frame whenever it isn’t in action. The energy savings aren’t trivial, either. Compared to light-based displays that draw power constantly, e-ink only sips energy when it needs to redraw.
E-ink displays have disadvantages, too. The big one is speed. It just takes longer to turn each pixel on or off than a light-based display. The other shortcoming is refreshing the screen. More expensive e-ink displays can do partial refresh, but cheaper models redraw the entire screen every time anything changes. The effect is that the screen goes black, white, then the image appears inverted, before the new image appears. The flashes only take a second, but that adds up. All said, this particular screen takes about 3 seconds to update from the time I push a button to the time a photo appears on the screen.
Another thing to keep in mind is that unlike a computer display that shows a desktop and mouse, you need to think of the e-ink display a bit differently. Basically you are telling the display what to show one pixel at a time. In other words, this isn’t plug-and-play, you need some code to make this happen. Every time a picture is taken, a function is executed that draws the image on the display.
Waveshare provides drivers for their displays but their documentation is terrible. Plan to spend time fighting with your display before things work correctly. Here’s the documentation for the screen I used: https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/4.2inch_e-Paper_Module
The display has 8 wires that you will be attaching to the pins of your Raspberry Pi. Normally you could just use the wires that come with the display, but since we are going to be working in such a tight space I had to extend the wires with ends that weren’t so tall. This saved about a quarter inch of space. I suppose another solution would be to cut additional plastic off of the receipt printer.
To connect the display to the back of the Polaroid you will drill four holes. The display comes with holes for mounting at the corners. Place the display where you want it, making sure to leave room below for the receipt paper to come out, then mark and drill the four holes. Then screw the screen down from the back. There will be a 1/4 inch gap between the Polaroid’s back and the back of the display.
You might be thinking that the e-ink display is more trouble than it is worth. You might be right. If you are looking for a simpler option you might want to look for a small color display that can connect through the HDMI port. The downside is that you will always be looking at the desktop of the Raspberry Pi operating system, but the advantage is you can just plug it in and go.
The Receipt Printer
You may need a refresher on how a receipt printer works. They don’t use ink, instead these printers use thermal paper. I am not entirely sure how the paper is created, but think of it as drawing with heat. A black area is generated when the heat reaches 270 degrees fahrenheit. If you were to get the roll of paper hot enough it would turn entirely black. The big benefit here is that no ink is used and compared to real Polaroid film, no complex chemical reactions need to take place.
There are cons to using thermal paper as well. Obviously, you only get to work in black and white, there is no color. And even within the range of black and white there are no shades of gray. You must draw the image entirely with black dots. As you try to coax as much quality out of these dots you will inevitably fall down the rabbit hole of understanding dithering. Of particular note is the Floyd-Steinberg algorithm. I’ll let you go down that rabbit hold on your own.
As you experiment with different contrast settings and dithering techniques you will inevitably end up with long strips of photos. Here are a selection of the many selfies that I took as I honed in on the ideal image output.
Personally, I like the look of dithered images. It reminds me of my first art classes when they taught us how to draw by stippling. It is a unique look, but it isn’t the same as the smooth gradations of black and white photography that we have been trained to appreciate. I mention this because this camera is departing from tradition and the unique images it generates should be considered a “feature” of the camera and not a “bug.” If we wanted pristine pictures we can use literally any other consumer camera on the market and save some money in the meantime. The whole point here is to do something unique.
Now that you understand thermal printing, let’s talk about printers. The receipt printer I used was purchased from Adafruit. I bought there “Mini Thermal Receipt Printer Starter Pack” but you could buy the pieces separately if you want. In theory you could get away with buying a battery, but you probably want the power adapter so you can plug it into the wall while you are testing. The other nice thing is that Adafruit has good tutorials and that will give you confidence that everything will work. Start with this one: https://learn.adafruit.com/instant-camera-using-raspberry-pi-and-thermal-printer
I was hoping the printer would fit in the Polaroid without modification. It’s a bit too big though, so you will either have to cut the camera or trim down the printer. I opted to trim the printer because part of the appeal of this project is to keep as much of the Polaroid’s exterior as possible. Adafruit also sells a receipt printer without the enclosure. This would save some space and a few dollars and now that I know how everything works I would probably use that one the next time I build something like this. That would come with a new challenge of figuring out how to hold the paper roll, however. A project like this is all about compromises and picking the challenges you want to solve. You can see in the photo below the angle that is needed to cut to make the printer fit. This cut will need to happen on the right side as well. Be careful to avoid the wires and internal electronics of the printer when you make the cuts.
One problem with Adafruit’s printer is that the quality changes based on the power source. They recommend a 5v power source. It works, especially for text-based printing. The problem is that when you are printing images the black areas tend to get light. The power required to heat the entire width of the paper is much more than when you are printing text and as a result black areas can come out gray. It’s hard to complain, these printers aren’t designed for printing photos after all. The printer just can’t generate enough heat across the entire width of paper at one time. I experimented with some other power cords with different outputs without much success. In the end, I needed this to be powered by battery anyway, so I abandoned the power cord experiments. Surprisingly, the 7.4V 850mAh Li-PO rechargeable battery I chose resulted in the darkest printing of any power source I tested.
Once the printer is fit inside the camera, cut a hole beneath the display that lines up with where the paper will come out of the printer. To cut the receipt paper, I used the blade from an old packing tape cutter.
The other shortcoming aside from the spotty black output is banding. Whenever the printer pauses to catch up with the data it is being fed it leaves a small gap when it starts printing again. In theory, this gap can be avoided if you could eliminate the buffer and let the data stream continuously feed the printer. And indeed, that seems to be an option. The Adafruit website mentions an undocumented pin on the printer that can be used to keep things in sync. I have not tested this because I don’t quite understand how this would work. If you tackle this question, please share your success with me. Here is another batch of selfies where you can clearly see the banding.
It takes a good 30 seconds to print a photo. Here is a video of the printer in action so you can get a feel for how long it takes to print an image. I believe this could be increased with the Adafruit hack. I have a suspicion that the gaps of time between printing are artificial delays that prevent the printer from out-pacing the data buffer. I say that because I read that the paper advancing has to be synchronized with the printer head. I could be wrong.
Just like the e-ink display, getting the printer working is going to take some patience. There isn’t a print driver, you are essentially sending data straight to the printer using code. Again, the best resource is probably Adafruit’s website. The code in my GitHub repo is adapted from their examples so if you get stuck, Adafruit’s documentation is going to be your best bet.
The SNES Controller
The advantage of the SNES controller, aside from the nostalgic retro benefit is that it gives me a set of controls that I don’t have to overthink. I need my focus to be on getting the camera, printer, and display to all to work together, and having a pre-existing controller that I can quickly map my functions to makes things easy. Plus, I already have experience with using controllers from my Coffee Stirrer Camera so it made it easy to hit the ground running.
The retro controller connects with a USB cable. To take a picture I press the A button. To print a picture I press the B button. To delete a picture I press the X button. To clear the display I can press the Y button. I haven’t used the start/select buttons or the left/right buttons on the top, so they remain available for new functionality if I have new ideas in the future.
As for the arrow buttons, the right and left buttons of the keypad cycle through a slideshow of all the images I’ve taken. Pressing up does nothing currently. Pressing down advances the receipt printer paper. This is handy after a picture is printed and I want to spit out a bit more paper before tearing it off. It also is a quick test to know that the printer and the Raspberry Pi are communicating. I press down and when I hear the paper advance I know that the printer’s battery is still charged and it is ready to go.
The Batteries
I use two batteries in the camera. One powers the Raspberry Pi while the other one powers the printer. In theory you could run both off of the same power source but I don’t think you would get enough power to sufficiently run the printer.
On the Raspberry Pi side I bought the smallest battery I could find. Sitting on the underside of the Polaroid it’s mostly hidden. I don’t love the fact that the power cord has to run up the front and around to the hole before connecting to the Raspberry pi. Perhaps you can figure out a way to squeeze another battery in the Polaroid, but there just isn’t much space left. The disadvantage of having the battery inside would be that you would have to open the back to turn things on and off. It’s nice to be able to simply unplug the battery to turn the camera off.
I used a USB cord with an on/off switch that I got from CanaKit. I might be getting a little too cute with this idea. I thought it would be great to just be able to use this button to turn the Raspberry Pi on and off. In practice, it is just as easy to disconnect the usb from the battery.
On the printer side I used a 850mAh Li-PO rechargeable battery. A battery like this has two cords coming out of it. One is the output and the other is charger. To give me a “quick connect” on the output side, I had to replace the connector with generic 3 wire connectors. This is necessary because I don’t want to have to remove the entire printer every time I need to disconnect the power. A switch would be better here and I might improve this in the future. Even better would be if the switch were on the outside of the camera so I don’t have to open the back door to unplug the printer.
The battery sits behind the printer and I run the wires out so that I can connect and disconnect the power as needed. To recharge the battery, a usb connection is also fed from the battery. I explain this in my video, too, so check that out if you want to understand how this works. As I said, the surprise bonus was that this setup yielded better photo printing than when it was connected directly to the wall.
The battery (bottom right) printed the darkest blacks
The Software
Here’s where I need to give a disclaimer. I can write Python that works but I can’t say that it is beautiful. There are surely better ways to do this, and a better programmer could improve my code tremendously. But like I said, it works. So I will share with you my GitHub repository but I can’t really offer support. Hopefully it is enough to show you what I am doing and you can improve it. Share your improvements with me and I will gladly update my code and give you credit.
Github Repo: https://github.com/adrian3/digital-polaroid-camera
So let’s assume you have the camera, display, and the printer all setup and working. Now you can run my Python script which is called “digital-polaroid-camera.py.” Eventually you will want to set your Raspberry Pi to auto-run this script when it boots, but for now you can run it from your Python editor or the terminal. Here’s what will happen:
The most recent photo is sent to the display The program watches for button presses on the controller When a picture is taken (A button) it is sent to the display When the print button is pressed (B button) it prints whatever image is on the display The arrow buttons are essentially cycling through a slideshow of all the photos that have been taken
I tried to add comments to my code to explain what is happening, but there are a couple things happening when a photo is taken that I should explain further. When a photo is taken it is a full color, full size image. This image is saved in a folder. This is handy because you will have a normal, high resolution photo if you ever need to refer to it later. In other words, this camera is still creating normal jpgs like any other digital camera.
When the photo is taken, a second image is created that is optimized for the display and printing. Using ImageMagick, the original photo is resized, converted to black and white, and the Floyd Steinberg dithering is applied. I can pump up the contrast in this step, too, although by default this is turned off.
This new image is actually saved twice. First it is saved as a black and white jpg so that you can see it and use it again in the future. The second save creates a file with an extension of .py. This isn’t a normal image file, rather it is the code that takes all the pixel info from the image and converts it into data that we can send to the printer. This step is necessary because, like I said in the printer section, there are no print drivers, so you can’t just send a normal image to the printer.
There is also some code to make beeps when buttons are pressed and images are printed. This is optional, but it is nice to get a little bit of audible feedback to let you know that things are working.
One last time, I can’t support this code, it is meant to point you in the right direction. Please use it, modify it, improve it, and make it your own.
Conclusion: What I Would Do Differently
This was a fun project and in hindsight there are a few things I would do differently or I might update in the future. The first thing is the controller. While the SNES controller does exactly what I wanted to do, it is a clunky solution. The wire gets in the way. It forces you to hold the camera in one hand with the controller in the other. It’s awkward. One solution might be to strip out the buttons from the controller and attach them directly to the camera. If I am going to go to that trouble, however, I might as well ditch the SNES altogether and use more traditional buttons.
Another awkward part of the camera is that I need to open the back every time I turn the camera on or off to disconnect the printer from the battery. It seems like a small thing, but every time I open and close the back I have to re-thread the paper through the opening. It wastes a bit of paper and takes time. I could move the wires and connections to the outside but I don’t want that stuff exposed. The ideal fix would be to have a single on/off switch that controls both the printer and the Pi that is accessible from the outside. Perhaps the printer charger port could be accessed from the front of the camera as well. If you tackle this project consider solving this problem and share with me what you came up with.
The last thing that is ripe for an upgrade is the receipt printer. The printer I used is great for text but it isn’t ideal for photos. I have been on the hunt for the best option for upgrading my thermal receipt printer and I think I have found it. My initial tests show that an 80mm ESC/POS compatible receipt printer is probably going to yield the best results. The challenge is finding one that is small and battery powered. This is going to be a key part of my next camera project so stay tuned for my advice on thermal printer cameras.
The End?
This has been a long post and I am sure I left out some important details. I’ll come back with updates as I inevitably improve my camera. I really hope you enjoyed this story. Don’t forget to follow me (@ade3) on Instagram so you can keep track of this and my other photography adventures. Stay creative.
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https://medium.com/@ade3/how-to-build-a-digital-polaroid-camera-e1140d7a05b8
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['Adrian Hanft']
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2021-04-03 17:15:14.456000+00:00
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['Makers', 'Polaroid', 'Cameras', 'DIY', 'Raspberry Pi']
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“You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way… to get in the way.”
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More from Momentum Follow
Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant anti-Black racism is leading to violence, trauma, protest, reflection, sorrow, and more. Momentum doesn’t look away when the news cycle shifts.
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https://momentum.medium.com/you-must-be-bold-brave-and-courageous-and-find-a-way-to-get-in-the-way-rep-john-lewis-6d9d079dd26b
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['Jada Gomez']
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2020-11-20 06:32:30.563000+00:00
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['Racism', 'Quotes', 'John Lewis', 'Civil Rights Movement']
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Top Trends in Online Food Ordering Software Solutions
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Restaurant owners and food delivery stores are seeing steps to improve the overall customer experience. Soon, given the accelerated velocity of life, a huge portion of the community is not capable of preparing meals or does not even discover time to dine in at a restaurant. This is why restaurants are preferred to give online food ordering choices to their customers.
Online food ordering gives up an important part of the restaurant industry and innovative approaches have grown important to continue fitting in the industry. To resist the opponent and put up with the ever-changing consumer demands, food delivery businesses have opted to spend on Custom Software Development Services for Online Food Ordering. As a decision, a large assortment of online food ordering apps has surfaced in the market with core importance on giving more reliable assistance to both restaurants and consumers.
Top Trends Food Ordering Technology Solutions
These are the top 10 trends in online food ordering solutions
Personalized Platform Preordering Food Order from Anywhere Real-time Delivery Tracking Intelligent Menu Options Push Notifications Virtual Waiters Rider Logistics Predictive Search Feedback Portal
Let’s examine these general portions in the food delivery market in detail.
Personalized Platform
Personalization has grown one of the foundations of victorious services for the food ordering apps. Within the online food ordering industry, there is a tremendous expense for building personalized experiences for each individual. The most widespread personalization plans for online food ordering apps are restaurant suggestions.
The app records and reviews all user actions and responses to recommend relevant restaurants or food items. For instance, if a consumer regularly orders pizza from a particular restaurant, the app could suggest other restaurants that have related menu items that the consumer may be engaged in. Easy personalization features like this have a vast positive influence on consumer satisfaction.
Giving a personalization platform performs it simple to give a tailored experience to all your consumers. It supports in occupying and making your connection with the consumer. Moreover, it aids in maintaining your current users as they will get what they require with the smallest effort.
Preordering Food
Image: Miro
Preordering Food
An aspect of giving a personalized experience for every user requires the new trend of the preorder opportunity. Some people order the same food items on a daily basis or need to schedule a delivery for the future. Custom Food Ordering Software Development has incorporated the point of enabling the user to keep a particular order or to put an order in advance in fresh food delivery apps. With this particular personalized innovation, online food delivery businesses can keep users the trouble of exploring for their preferred restaurant or food items regularly.
Order from Anywhere
Software Development for Online Food Delivery has offered a variety of mobile and web apps to aid consumers in ordering food online. In this digital age, food ordering apps are obtaining popularity as they give the comfort of ordering food from anyplace and in a suitable manner. Having a food ordering website or an app for a restaurant is no longer a choice.
It has grown a requirement for food delivery businesses. Consumers have been determined to opt for delivery when technology performs it more convenient to do so. People nowadays view instant food delivery and the convenience of having it ordered and distributed wherever they may be through food delivery apps on their smartphones.
Real-time Delivery Tracking
Real-time Delivery Tracking
Location-based assistance has provided online food ordering programs the capability to join with their consumers in a more loyal approach. Consumer immediacy rises once their order is done. Custom Food Delivery Technology Solutions give us real-time order tracking features utilizing GPS tracking operations. With this technology, consumers can trace their orders from when it is being made, to transmit and till they ultimately accept the order at their points.
Order tracking enables the consumer to have regular entrance to their order features, which gives precision and saves a bunch of uncertainty for both the restaurant and consumer. When users can observe how their order is happening, they don’t call at the restaurant repeat and repeat to pray when their order will be cooked and abandoned. In the same process, giving clearness of the entire manner to the user enables restaurants to streamline the entire food delivery service for the consumer that enhances performance in their processes.
Intelligent Menu Options
Artificial intelligence continues at the lead of all industries nowadays. Artificial intelligence in food ordering apps watches order models of all users according to different features, for instance, the time of day, weekday/weekends, or any special holidays. With this information, the app suggests intelligent menu items with honor to various parameters. For instance, for various times of day, the app will present a dissimilar variety of food items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner times.
Image: Marketingprofs
Push Notifications
Alerts or push notifications have become a robust mechanism to involve consumers by having messages pop up on their mobile or browser screens. With push technology, you can quickly grasp the observation of users and inform them about their order items, any discounts, or special offers. Push notifications in online food ordering apps were originally a consequence of Custom Food Ordering Software Development and applied to warn consumers when their order is active or when it has reached.
Nowadays the food delivery apps are frequently utilizing alerts to market their restaurants and contribute data regarding the latest deals. Push notifications in the food ordering app enable consumers to be conscious of their order situation. This essential feature takes the benefit of mobile technology to promote consumer order. Push notifications give seamless assistance from beginning to ending and save the users notified.
Virtual Waiters
Another trend in online food ordering is of pragmatic representatives and chatbots in food ordering apps to take orders or address any inquiries the users may have rather than selecting consumer service agents. Consumers can both type in their inquiry or order food by voice. The chatbot will respond to consumer queries and also apprise them about the newest deals.
Rider Logistics
The most essential element of giving a food delivery service to your restaurant is becoming a powerful and automatic management system. You necessarily know how many passengers you require; how many are open or are delivering an order at every time of the day. Custom Food Delivery Technology Solutions observe all rider changes from pickup to delivery.
Using AI and the real-time data ready, the food delivery app measures how many drivers it requires on the courts, which driver is best placed for which order, and so on. It can also communicate with real-world events such as huge traffic and suggest the best route for the rider. Rider logistics helps you develop your deliveries by monitoring driver data and discovering patterns from being data in the system. This assists you save capital on resources and fuel costs as well.
Predictive Search
Predictive Search
Predictive search is a vast feature that enables consumers to instantly explore the restaurant or product’s name. Based on prior user data, the exploration field will populate relevant restaurants and food items for the consumer according to their preferences. Filter opportunities with predictive exploration assist the consumer to navigate through and be presented with only the choices which pertain to their choice. These specialties let consumers discover what they require more smoothly and swiftly.
Feedback Portal
For the food ordering and delivery industry, consumer feedback is the easiest and most powerful method of gaining penetration to enhance your food delivery service. Consumers are the best root to examine and recommend modifications in your delivery services or menu selections. Food ordering apps incorporate a feedback portal which is revealed to the user once their order has been finished. This will enable the consumer to distribute their experiences or recommend any suggestions. Understanding consumer demands, these surveys can assist you to both recognize any problems in your assistance and to improve user activity in the future.
Final Words
The online food ordering industry has hugely profited from Custom Software Development Company for Food Delivery. Food ordering software helps in contributing valuable order and consumer management. The incorporation of modern and evolving trends in food ordering apps has made the important conversion of consumers towards online food delivery. These forthcoming parts implement constant change to the order using and delivering mechanism for restaurants.
Efreshh has now given a functioning answer to a food ordering business in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and also India. Our client AmberEat is strongly driving the online Food Delivery service and mobile app that is giving online food ordering to consumers in our local area. With expertise in online food delivery application development, Efreshh promotes the future as well as stabilized eatery businesses to consider their food ordering software demands. Discuss with us how you can increase your food delivery business with the online food ordering app to more reliable assistance the foodies.
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https://medium.com/dev-genius/top-trends-in-online-food-ordering-software-solutions-5165e33f2bc6
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['James Smith']
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2020-12-26 08:55:23.655000+00:00
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['Online', 'Food', 'Software Development', 'Software', 'Technology']
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#DataBlogSpp7: How to use TotalMTD/QTD/YTD #DAX function in #powerbi.
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By Soorya Parthiban — Data analyst, Blogger and Power BI Dev.
If Others Can do it, why Can’t We!
Hi everyone, I’m very happy to meet you all on another blog.
This blog practically explains:
Take a look at this imaginary pizza sales dataset:
We can see that we have the date-wise pizza sales and the delivery driver’s salary for those respective days. This is an imaginary dataset that holds values from the 1st of January,2020 to the 30th of April,2021.
As a data analyst, we’re asked to analyze this dataset to show how much money is used to pay the delivery drivers and how much money is left out with the store manager and to extract some important insights from this dataset.
We can achieve our objective by using the correct DAX functions in our dataset. Today we’re going to use the TOTAL MTD/QTD/YTD function.
1. What is the syntax for these DAX functions?
2. What do the above syntaxes mean?
Expressions: This is where we can perform arithmetic operators on the columns of our dataset.
Dates: Input the column from our dataset which has date value in it.
Filters: We can filter out any particular values here. For instance, if we have the same data with two branches, we can filter out by typing [branchName] = ‘Lower Hutt’.
year_end_date (Only for TotalYTD): This dataset has data from 01–01–2020 to 30–04–2021, if we’re asked to calculate only for one year, then we can type the last date till which we wish to do the calculations.
3. Where do we write the DAX functions?
Clicking the three dots near to the table name will show a drop-down list where we have to choose the option named as “New measure” to write the DAX formula/function.
4. Creating a table visual with the existing data and adding DAX functions.
The visual used here is the “Table” visual:
As we see here, we have the date of the sales, the total sale for each day, and how much did the delivery drivers earn that day. When we look up at our objective, we want to show much much did the store owner had in their hand, right?
4.1 Typing the DAX code and executing it.
Here we are summing up the total sales and subtracting it with the delivery driver’s salary which will give us the balance money which the store owner has at the end of the day. As I said above, any arithmetic functions can be used in the <expression> parameter.
4.2 Where to find the created measures.
The measure can be found under the “fields”.
4.3 How to add the created measure to the visuals?
To use the created measures in the visuals, drag it from the fields to values.
5. Understanding the visual.
The above visual clearly shows:
Every day’s total sales, delivery driver’s salary and the balance amount which the owner had at the end of the day.
The cumulative closing balance for each month and for each quarter.
6. Analyzing the trend.
The End!
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Thanks for your time, appreciate it.
© Soorya Prakash Parthiban.
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https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/datablogspp7-how-to-use-totalmtd-qtd-ytd-dax-function-in-powerbi-d4d16ae29b8c
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['Soorya Prakash Parthiban']
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2020-04-23 16:52:19.608000+00:00
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['Datasciencecourse', 'Machine Learning', 'AI', 'Data Science', 'Power Bi']
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How to Invent Radical Solutions to Huge Problems
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If you force a grasshopper into a jar and fasten the lid, the grasshopper eventually shortens its jump after hitting the lid enough times.
After a while, even if you take the lid off the jar, the grasshopper will stay put — it’s forgotten how high it can jump.
We’re a lot like grasshoppers in this way.
When we’re kids we believe we can be and achieve anything. But then, slowly, our big thinking starts disappearing, and before we know it, we’re playing it safe and setting goals we already know are achievable.
The problem with playing it safe, though, is it never results in a breakthrough.
This is why great leaders and organizations set moonshots — or wildly ambitious goals. These goals are at the heart of moonshot thinking, a unique and powerful approach to big thinking and problem solving.
Moonshot thinking is how we can take the lid off our own ideas, and according to some of our favorite innovators, there’s a blueprint for how to shift your mindset.
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https://medium.com/singularityu/how-to-invent-radical-solutions-to-huge-problems-745d8207649a
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['Singularity University']
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2016-11-17 22:28:24.767000+00:00
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['Moonshots', 'Innovation', 'Singularity University', 'Inspiration', 'Abundance']
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Why My Heart is Always Open
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Why My Heart is Always Open
Photo by Aliyah Jamous on Unsplash
With every new person I meet, I learn more about myself an others around me. I realize that there is only so much that one can give until they are left feeling empty. I am reminded that there is nothing we can do to change others. We can express how we feel when boundaries are crossed or we feel we have been disrespected. And at the end of the day, the only person that we can change is ourselves.
And that isn’t a bad thing. Living with my heart wide open has granted me such magical life experiences and wise life lessons. With each new experience I have in life, it helps me to love myself more. I am forced to grow and evolve and be made uncomfortable. When I am faced with difficult decisions or I am overflowing with doubt, I am able to tune in to my intuitive mind. I am able to let go and put my trust in the Universe.
Over the past week, I had become very disturbed by something. As tears streamed down my face, I spoke to the Universe and asked for clarity and peace. I didn’t ask to be rid of the pain or sorrow. I feel blessed to be graced with the richness of my emotions. I did find myself questioning my behaviors of the past, and what summoned this karmic energy to grace me seemingly out of the blue. I am not one to believe in coincidences, and in that moment I begged for my sins to be forgiven. I felt that at that moment, I was paying some karmic debt.
Even so, the emotional release granted me peace as well as lethargy. And at just the right moment, I received a phone call from a dear friend who lent a listening ear. I sobbed to her as my hands sat on my steering wheel. I told her I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong to cause this person to act this way. She empathized, and the sound of her voice soothed me as I felt my shoulders fall.
We breathed deeply together as I choked back tears and tried to compose myself before work. I suddenly came to the realization that my value hadn’t decreased just because someone else failed to see my worth. For me, this was a powerful realization about life itself. And a sense of intuitive oneness with myself shivered through my being.
And each time I am left with a palpitating heart and quivering soul, I become stronger. I love myself more. I remind myself that I am a powerful, independent, exuberant ball of light, and that no one can dim my shine. I bask in my capacity to trust my intuitive mind. I am pleased with the Universe’s undying ability to send me all of the answers I need at precisely the right time, definitive in nature.
I hold myself in its human form. I feel the warmth of my body and soul. I do what makes me happy and I leave what doesn’t. I am learning to love myself more each day, and I am proud of the person I am becoming. I feel such a propensity to trust my soul guides and connect with my star sisters in this lifetime.
And with grace, I breathe deeply and waste no time crying over someone who wasn’t meant to stay.
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https://medium.com/the-orange-journal/the-beauty-of-tears-and-why-my-heart-is-always-open-47ef0ebbdc45
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['Susie Pinon']
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2021-01-03 19:24:32.699000+00:00
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['Self', 'Spirituality', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Self Growth', 'Self Love']
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My review of Stephen Schwarzman’s “What it takes”
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This book is an autobiography of sorts of the founder, CEO of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman. In this book, Stephen also shares lessons (25 rules for work and life) from his career that one could apply in their entrepreneurial journeys.
I am a big fan of biographies especially that of founders as they provide a window into their journeys of building their business from scratch and vicariously allows one to experience the ups and downs that it entails. But I had mixed feelings about this book after I finished reading it. On the one hand, I was blown away by the sheer geniusness and ambition of Stephen in pursuit of his goal of building a billion-dollar fund in Blackstone (which was unheard of then) and scaling it to a firm that manages $500B in assets today. On the other, I wondered how Wall street at the end of the day is still run by White American Men and is a world that has its own rules, tight networks and is broadly inaccessible to outsiders. How much of Blackstone’s success can be attributed to the fact that Stephen had access to his network at Yale, HBS, and Lehman?
So first things first. Let me share some of the insights that I completely resonated with:
Set bigger goals. This seems almost self-explanatory but often first-time founders get intimidated and start with a smaller vision. That is the wrong approach. Building something is hard, very hard. Schwarzman’s shares very succinctly that if you are going to spend your entire life chasing a goal, it better be worth your effort, and the bigger the vision, the bigger the rewards. As he puts it, “It’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small. Both will consume your time and energy, so make sure your fantasy is worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.” Reach out for mentorship to people you admire: From his college days itself, Schwarzman made it a point to reach out to people in finance and politics, who he looked up to as his role models and he was often surprised because quite a few of them were open to giving him advice. This is a solid lesson in networking which a lot of us don’t realize early in our careers. Reaching out to people who we don’t know for advice is ok and it can have a cataclysmic impact on one’s career Hiring 10s and then giving them a lot of responsibility: When building Blackstone, Schwarzman focused on hiring top 1% talent who he calls 10s and then gave them crazy responsibilities. His theory is that the smarter the person, the more proactive they’ll be in sensing problems and more importantly will attract the other 10s creating a culture of excellence.
I also enjoyed Scharwarzman’s commentary on the 2008 housing crisis and recession and why it happened. It is pretty incredible that Blackstone was able to sense that there was a bubble in making in real estate much earlier and was able to sell-off the majority of their real estate investments before the crisis hit. I was intrigued by the author’s candid remark on how the government handled this crisis. Schwarzman gives an insight into what was going on in the congress at the time they decided to not bail out Lehman and roll out a relief plan for AIG and others. It is funny that people still blame only wall street for the crisis and consider that the government bailed them out although today all the debt has been repaid back to the government with interest. So the government actually recovered its entire loan with interest!
There were many other learnings that not only are valuable for first-time founders but also for young college graduates who have high ambitions and want to build a stellar career for themselves. But I also felt that a lot of these learnings may be more relevant to individuals who are pursuing careers in finance. The premise of this book is that it is a tough world out there and to make a mark for yourself, you ought to go all-in. Resonated with quite a few lessons. It is up for debate I think on how important a role Schwarzman’s privileged background played in Blackstone becoming what it became but credit ought to be given to his incredible networking skills. The book is insightful also because there isn’t a lot of content out there on how to build a fund although there are quite a few playbooks available to founders who want to raise private capital for business.
In short, if you are not among those who are influenced by the anti-billionaire, anti-wall street rhetoric which honestly in my opinion is more of a fashion trend these days rather than it having substantial merit, I would recommend reading this book for some great insights.
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https://medium.com/@rashiejain/my-review-of-stephen-schwarzmans-what-it-takes-66f41039f4c5
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['Rashie Jain']
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2020-12-22 07:13:43.968000+00:00
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['Wall Street', 'Biography', 'Private Equity', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Book Review']
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Positive and Negative Effects of Religion
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(Image: Wikipedia, “Mass in the Catholic Church”)
Does religion do more good or more harm for the world? This has been the subject of intense debate for centuries. In this article, I will try to weigh both sides. I have compiled a list of some of the positive and negative effects of religion on people and on society. I ended up with 30 positives and 25 negatives. I’ll start with the negatives:
Negative effects of religion:
1. Many religions teach that some people will go to hell after they die. That’s a pretty dark thing to believe. It’s pretty harsh to say that someone deserves to suffer for all eternity.
2. Some religious groups go even further and claim that you have to belong to their religion to achieve salvation, which would imply that anyone who doesn’t belong to their religion would automatically go to hell. That is an appalling thing to believe.
3. Also, some religious people worry that they themselves might go to hell, which is a source of unnecessary anxiety in their lives (since, after all, hell is probably not real).
4. Some religions, especially the Catholic Church, have a long history of trying to suppress human sexuality, even when it’s completely normal and healthy sexuality. And when it gets suppressed, people don’t learn how use it.
5. Many religions teach (or previously taught) that homosexuality is immoral. By doing so, they have ostracized the gay community.
6. Some religions have a long history of silencing and oppressing women.
7. Some religions have a culture that turns a blind eye towards physical and/or sexual abuse.
8. Religion has played a role in many wars throughout world history. (But please note: if people didn’t have religion, I’m sure they would’ve found something else to start a war over.)
9. Many holy books, including both the Bible and the Qur’an, contain some passages which are bizarre and violent and which have inspired some fundamentalists to commit bizarre and violent actions.
10. In the past, religious beliefs were used as a reason for executing or sacrificing people. (In some parts of the world, that still happens.)
11. Religion sometimes encourages people to be ascetic and delay happiness until the afterlife, rather enjoying this life while we have it.
12. Religion sometimes teaches people to accept injustice as God’s will, rather than to fight against it. (This was Karl Marx’s criticism.)
13. Religion sometimes displays a patronizing attitude towards poor people in the Third World.
14. In Christianity, some of Jesus’ teachings are rather extreme (e. g. “sell all that you have”).
15. In some countries, religion has too much influence on the government.
16. Some religious groups encourage people to vote for political candidates who are opposed to any sort of progress, just because they are socially conservative.
17. Religion teaches people not to question things.
18. Religion has a history of resisting the development of science.
19. Some religious people, inspired by their beliefs, refuse to accept sound medical advice.
20. Religion encourages people to believe in superstitions (e. g. the idea that if you pray for something, God will make it happen).
21. Related to this, religion teaches people to believe in doctrines that are very unlikely to be true and that an intelligent person should not otherwise believe. An example would be the Catholic doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ, which — let’s be honest — is probably not true.
22. Some religious groups place too much emphasis on following the letter of the law with regard to their rules, dress, rituals, etc.
23. Religion fosters an attitude of contempt towards people who are less religious.
24. Some religious communities are very insular and fear the outside world.
25. Some very extreme religious groups believe that the end of the world is imminent and that we need to prepare for the end-times. That is a very irrational and self-destructive thing to believe.
The belief in hell is one of the most negative effects of religion. (Image: Wikipedia, “Hell”.)
Positive effects of religion:
Religion allows people to believe that their lives have a purpose.
2. Some people attest that it is religion that gives them the strength to keep going in life (“The Lord is my strength”).
3. Most people want to believe that there is more to reality than just the physical, scientific universe, and religion teaches us that indeed, there is.
4. The religious view that “everything happens for a reason” can be comforting during difficult times.
5. The religious view that “God has a plan for you” makes life seem less chaotic.
6. Religion allows people to believe they’ve been forgiven when they feel regret and remorse over things they’ve done wrong.
7. Religion allows people to believe that someone (God) understands them and loves them.
8. Religion teaches us to be kind to others.
9. Religion teaches us to serve others.
10. Religion teaches us to forgive others.
11. Religion promotes humility.
12. Religion promotes gratitude.
13. Religion makes the concepts of right and wrong seem more palpable.
14. Religion can help people accept painful things about the world.
15. Religion reminds us that some things can never be known (“God only knows”), which can help to relieve anxiety.
16. Religion can help people come to terms with their own faults and shortcomings.
17. Religion teaches us to focus on what really matters, rather than worldly success.
18. The hope for the afterlife can be a source of comfort for people who are unhappy in life.
19. The hope for the afterlife can also be a source of comfort for people who have recently lost a loved one.
20. In general, the hope for the afterlife makes death seem less frightening.
21. Religion provides us with role models (e. g. the saints).
22. Religion builds community. The deep sense of community that one finds in religion is difficult to find anywhere else.
23. Religion provides a structure to time.
24. Some people find religious rituals to be very meaningful (e. g. praying the Rosary).
25. Religion is the origin of most of the world’s holidays, and holidays are fun.
26. Religion has been the inspiration for much art and music over the centuries.
27. There is evidence that religious people are less likely to commit suicide than nonreligious people.
28. Religious groups have been a driving force behind some progressive movements in history, including the abolitionist movement and the Civil Rights Movement.
29. Early Christianity was much more supportive of women than were most other societies during that time period. Christianity (arguably) played a role in the long-term development of women’s rights in the Western World.
30. Many religious institutions and organizations provide medical care and necessary services for people all over the world.
Religion gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. (Image: Wikipedia, “Our Lady of Guadalupe”.)
Conclusion:
So which is greater, the positive effects or the negative effects? Well, it’s hard to say.
In my personal opinion, the positives ultimately outweigh the negatives. But you don’t have to agree with me.
However, what has become clear to me is that most of these effects, whether positive or negative, are not directly caused by religion. Rather, they are caused by how people choose to use religion. What matters is not how religious or nonreligious you are; what matters is how you choose to make use of your religious views, whatever they may be.
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https://medium.com/illumination/positive-and-negative-effects-of-religion-7ec841feef07
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['Matthew Gliatto']
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2020-12-29 00:52:20.996000+00:00
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['Religion', 'History', 'Sociology', 'Meaning Of Life', 'Philosophy']
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Healthcare CIOs must act boldly with technology partnerships
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The move to value-based care was already in full swing when the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted. But the health system’s response to the pandemic offers a clue to the bold idea that technology can enable healthcare delivery organizations to provide safe and cost-effective care.
Value-based care puts a premium on using approaches that get care to patients quickly, identifying problems as soon as possible, when they are less severe and can be treated at less cost and risk to patients. There’s been some adoption of simple solutions, but few bold initiatives had gained traction.
In-home solutions
In March, COVID-19 came like a freight train, and provider organizations had little option but to change practices immediately. Telehealth is a case in point; data gathered by Harvard University and Phreesia, a healthcare technology company, and published by the Commonwealth Fund showed that the number of telemedicine visits, as a percentage of all healthcare encounters, rose from 1 percent in mid-March to 14 percent of all encounters by April 19. Years of resistance to telehealth were reversed as clinicians and patients alike became addicted to the immediacy of access.
The move to virtual care also raises a potential link between remote patient monitoring and home care delivery. Years ago, cable TV companies such as Comcast studied using their connections into consumers’ homes to bring healthcare services, but demand wasn’t there to support it. Now, with coronavirus concerns leaving more patients recovering at home and healthcare workers stretched too thin to care for them regularly, technology is seen as a way to fill the void. Healthcare providers must explore non-traditional partnerships to enter the patient’s home.
Froedtert Health has increasingly been prescribing Babyscripts, a smartphone-based app that enables pregnant mothers to have virtual visits and record personal information for review by their doctors. By doing so, virtual visits can be used to reduce in-person visits. For expecting moms at risk of complications, they can use Bluetooth-connected devices to monitor weight or A1c levels, and those measurements can be monitored daily.
The linkage between virtual care modalities became more evident in recent months with Teladoc’s acquisition of Livongo, which offers a platform for remote monitoring of diabetes and other chronic conditions, in an aggressive buy estimated at $18.5 billion. This acquisition solidified the future of bringing together technology solutions to provide intelligence on sensors or data points connected to a patient.
Gig company partnerships
CIOs should explore technology partnerships with other industries that haven’t worked together in the past, particularly to meet substantial deficits identified as social determinants of health (SDOH).
For example, health systems should explore working with a grocery delivery service platform like Instacart to ensure that patients get appropriate groceries as selected by a certified dietician. This model could also be used to ensure that patients get timely delivery of prescribed medications.
Other SDOH initiatives health systems are using include offering ride vouchers to enable patients to get rides from Lyft or Uber for medical appointments. The potential for technology to address SDOH is one reason why AHIP started Project Link to bring together industry players across different markets and geographies to work on social issues and barriers to care like housing, healthy eating, and transportation.
The acceptance of technology in a rush to safely deliver care during the pandemic has opened the door to the industry’s approval. Health system CIOs need to look at new options with no hesitation and take the leap now. A risk-averse mentality will not work in the new normal.
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https://medium.com/@realdavidchou/healthcare-cios-must-act-boldly-with-technology-partnerships-210ca3dc582d
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['David Chou']
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2020-12-02 23:23:54.901000+00:00
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['Hospital', 'CEO', 'Cio', 'Technology', 'Healthcare Technology']
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How To Write Copy For Your Own Business
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My number one piece of advice regarding generating copy for your business is this: Hire a copywriter. It’s worth the money, and — so long as you hire a good copywriter — will almost always yield better results than trying to do it yourself. Trust me; it’s not as easy as it looks. However, hiring a copywriter isn’t always possible. It might be out of budget, you’re just starting up, or you don’t have the time to find the right person. For situations where hiring a professional copywriter is out of the question, use this guide.
Note: This guide is designed for generating copy for a specific project. Whether that’s a website, a brochure, a memo, use this guide when you have a project underway. It is not a guide to ‘teach copywriting skills.’
Step 1: Outline Your Project
Outlining your project is the best way to ensure you don’t get off course. There is no right or wrong way to do an outline, but if you’ve never written an outline before, this process should be efficient and straightforward.
Begin with your project’s title or goal — for example, the ‘About Us’ section of our website. For demonstration purposes, we will pretend that you are starting a local design agency.
The next step is to list out the critical information that needs to be included in the copy. In this example, that would be:
We are a new design agency
We are passionate
We guarantee results
We have over 50 years experience between us
We are based in New Orleans, LA
We specialize in web design, but have experience in print layout design as well.
Step 2: Write A Rough Draft
Once you have all of your ideas down on paper, ask yourself, “What result do I want this copy to achieve?” In almost all cases, you are writing this copy in hopes that the reader will take a specific action. What is that action? In our example here, we want the client to reach out. We are hoping that they will read about us and be compelled to hire us. With that in mind, we will write a quick first draft.
We are NOLA Design a design agency that is passionate and guarantee results. We have over 50 years experience between all our employees. We are based in New Orleans Louisiana. We specalize in web design, but have experience in print layout design also. Please contact us today.
If we turn our outline into copy with no thought or strategy, it might look like the above — and that’s okay. You have your first draft, which is a wonderful place to start. We’re going to start by running this copy through Grammarly to catch all the basic mistakes.
Grammarly results from our rough draft.
As you can see, we have several. Grammarly is an excellent tool for cleaning up copy, but it is not perfect. In my experience, there is typically at least one ‘mistake’ that Grammarly will either be wrong about or will offer a suggestion that is incorrect. In this case, Grammarly is suggesting we switch the word ‘between’ with the word ‘with.’
Grammarly is not always correct.
The sentence would become, “We have over 50 years experience with all our employees.” That would suggest that our brand new company has been working with the employees for 50 years, but that is not what we are trying to say.
In this situation, you can Google the sentence you are trying to fix to get some new ideas. How do other companies say this? A quick search will show you that many other organizations use the term ‘combined experience.’ We might also notice that several organizations refer to their employees as their ‘team’ instead. So let’s change that sentence to:
“Our team has over 50 years of combined experience.”
Grammarly has found no additional errors!
And now we get a green light from Grammarly — Great! But you’re not done yet. Just because your copy doesn’t contain errors does not make it good copy.
Step 3: Read It Out Loud
The next step makes a great team exercise, but you can also do this by yourself. Read the copy out loud to see how to sounds. You can record yourself and then play it back, or simply recite it several times. Are there any portions that sound weird or clunky? In most cases, people produce the best writing when they write the way they talk. Naturally, this means bringing in a team will help you generate different perspectives and ideas.
Here is an example of what I came up with:
NOLA Design is a passionate and experienced agency based in New Orleans, LA. Our team has over 50 years of combined experience in web and print design, and we guarantee excellent results for every client. Contact us today about your next project!
This copy is short and straight to the point, communicating everything we wanted to say in just three short sentences. Once you have your finished version, run it through Grammarly one more time to make sure there are no mistakes. When your copy is clean and sounds pleasing to the ear — congratulations! You’ve just written some good copy!
Other Tips
Brand Voice
The example above uses a fictional, underdeveloped brand. You will likely want to consider your ‘brand voice’ when developing the copy. If you are unsure of your brand’s voice, consider different traits you would associate with a person. If your brand was your friend, how would you describe them? Are they fun? Authoritative? Direct? Gentle? Firm? Use those characteristics to adjust the tone of your copy.
Longer Copy
If you are writing a longer piece of copy or content for your business, you may want to use another tool in addition to Grammarly. HemingwayApp is a tool that will examine your text for difficult-to-read sentences. It will highlight them in yellow and red so you can make changes. Once you paste your copy into HemingwayApp, you’ll be able to see what the reading level is for your document. The average person can read at a 9th-grade level and is most comfortable reading two levels below their ability. Aim for a 6th or 7th-grade reading level.
Hire Professionals If You Can
While this guide will help you generate good copy if you find yourself in a bind, it is not comprehensive. Don’t forget that a professional copywriter can do wonderful things for your project. There are too many aspects to copywriting to cover in this short guide. If you are working with an essential piece of content for your business, handle it like you would anything else. Hire a professional.
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https://medium.com/@lattie/how-to-write-copy-for-your-own-business-e68e976469e8
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['Shane Lattie']
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2020-10-19 15:34:25.789000+00:00
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['Entrepreneur', 'Business Strategy', 'DIY', 'Copywriting', 'Copywriting Tips']
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Obter acesso como ROOT — Kernel 2.6.39 Vulnerável
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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
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https://medium.com/100security/obter-acesso-como-root-kernel-2-6-39-vulner%C3%A1vel-d67aca435c4a
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['Marcos Henrique']
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2020-12-23 11:28:08.835000+00:00
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['Root', 'Kernel', 'Linux', '100security']
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How Letting Go of Expectations Allowed for My Love Story to Blossom
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How Letting Go of Expectations Allowed for My Love Story to Blossom
There is nothing more vulnerable than to allow oneself to love another. For me, as a teen and young adult, I lived by those words although I will admit to knowing nothing about vulnerability at that time. I loved freely and often. However, most of my love pursuits would often fall short. While they were not without their moments, this led to an ounce of fear mixed in with each romantic venture— I often expected to be let down and more often than not, this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is until I decided to throw all caution to the winds and to give my whole heart out without expecting anything back.
I still remember the moment I saw her. It may have been one curated by events way outside of my control or at least that is how it felt based on the preluding moments. That night, I was at the ROM night live — a yearly and eclectic event set up in Royal Ontario Museum where the whole of its 5 floors turn into a night club and a raver’s dream journey into the wonders of history. After hours of running around on a scavenger hunt that took us through the Jurassic era all the way to ancient Rome, I found myself dancing away on the main floor amongst 200 other odd souls — until one of my friends spurted the ludicrous idea of staging an impromptu catwalk on the main DJ’s stage, in front of said souls.
I remember thinking ‘no way in hell would I do that’ — in fact, I may have voiced those words out loud. However, upon seeing five of my friends make their way up, I thought why not — famous last words at times but in this case, akin to giving the ropes of fate onto the universe. The crowds went ballistic and deafening applause rained down upon us — I still remember that moment as one of class, of vulnerability and excitement beyond expectations. I came down the stage in a state of euphoria. Unbeknown to me at the time, my mother and sister, who had accompanied us but of whom I had lost track hours ago, were in front of the stage. For my mother, who had known me as a shy and introverted kid, it was a surprise mixed with glee and astonishment as she recognized her son — I remember this moment fondly as she looked as fangirls would. We hugged and carved this precious moment in our memories. It was at this moment that my eyes befell on a figure moving with the music, with a flow in her moves that just dazzled me. Our eyes met and time froze.
I recognized her as someone who has stood out to me before. Somehow though, to see her dance, to meet her gaze and feel a glimpse of the depth of her soul took my breath away. I may not have fully recognized it then but this was the moment I fell head over heels. From then on, there was only one path forward. We connected and met several times over the course of the next month. We were both into dance, spirituality, community, self-improvement, and living a full life. We bonded quickly and I knew that I would soon bring up how I felt. I must say that at this point, that in my history, this was the ‘do or die’ moment which more often than not ended in disappointment. This time, however, I wanted to do things differently.
I sought out some advice from a dear friend who suggested I re-look at all my past relationships and my patterns for I could only change what would be through understanding what was. This led to two realizations; first, I would not always set myself up as a romantic candidate and would often blurt of my feelings too soon; second, we all fall in love at different paces — for me, it tended to be relatively quick but for others, including her, it could take much longer. So this time, I opted to wait. About two months later after many mindful and dance events, on a night at a restaurant, I opted to finally share my feelings. This was lesson three — it is often easier to ease into such conversations once the topic of a date has been brought up. As things turned out, although I did not hear a ‘no’ that night, I was left with an ambiguous answer of ‘I don’t have an answer’. I left that night convinced that this was it and that I would have to move on.
What came next was the most important lesson of all. Although I was not a believer at the time in ‘signs’ from the universe, I had recently heard about an abstract concept of attributing meaning to numbers. The following day, I kept seeing the numbers 999 at different moments. Looking it up, those numbers meant ‘to let go’. How fitting I thought that the universe was telling me to move on. However, I also saw another path — I wondered what would happen if I simply let go of any expectations I had built up and simply cherished the time we spent together. Upon doing so, I found that I delved into an even deeper well of love. I began noticing details I had previously missed and somehow, without any effort of my own, I could feel a change in how our bond was evolving. Our time together slowly became more gentle in nature. We both knew and respected where the other stood. It was not long before I felt the tide change and finally requested a date. This time though, there were no hesitations, no doubts and through a moment of flow, just like that initial gaze where time stopped, I felt the universe pause and she said yes.
It is now almost three winters since and as a couple, we have evolved through more than I could have imagined. However, even today, I still look back to those first few months. To a time, where I decided to pause, to reflect, to allow, and finally to let go. To be vulnerable is commonly looked up to today but often, this means more than to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve for the world to see. While the latter holds some truths, to be truly vulnerable and create the space for magic requires for one to also let go of any expectations as to what or where such vulnerability may lead to. Be it a matter of hearts, in the case of a relationship or beyond that, I highly encourage you, the reader, to pay mind to any expectation that you may hold, and to what is possible, once you commit to taking the arduous step of letting go.
|
https://medium.com/hello-love/how-letting-go-of-expectations-allowed-for-my-love-story-to-blossom-5efd0d26aece
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['Kushal Geesawor']
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2020-12-20 04:11:09.076000+00:00
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['Self Improvement', 'Love Lessons', 'Life Lessons', 'Love', 'Vulnerability']
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Artist Interview: No Sleep For Lucy
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Tell us about yourself and your music
No Sleep For Lucy is an Swedish alternative Arena/Rock band. We have played together for about 5 years and we can still remember when we first met “Lukas” our singer. We had been tipped off from “Christian”(the guitarists) sister that she knew a good singer we should audition. We wrote 3 songs that day and 2 off them is on our album “Until The End” thats soon is going to be released. Writing music has always comed out naturaly since all off us three is listening to the same music, mostly melodic pop/rock bands from USA. We have heard from people trying to describe us that we sound like “Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, 30 Seconds To Mars” etc.
Talk to us more about your latest release
We have released 3 singles so far, “Feel Alive”, “Going Down” and lastly “Closure”, all of which have been voted into top-5 most wanted songs on Sweden’s №1 rock radio station, “Bandit Rock”. The success also led to the band being nominated for a “Bandit Rock Award” in the category “This year’s breakthrough” in 2015. We are soon going to release a new single “Don’t Let Go” before we release the album “Until The End”. That we had the privilege to write with “Stevie Aiello” the bass player in “30 Seconds To Mars”.
What inspired you to write this release?
For the upcoming single release “Don’t Let Go” we wrote that song in “Hollywood Hills” with “Stevie Aiello”. The inspiration was that we had the pleasure to write the song with a member from a band that has been an inspiration for us for years. And that we had an amazing view over LA while doing it just made it better.
Any plans to release a video?
We have recorded a video for the next single “Don’t Let Go” but haven’t got an release date yet. Hopefully in the end of february.
Any plans to hit the road?
We are finalizing everything for our album release so no planned giggs yet. We gonna have an release gigg as soon as we have a date for the album.
As an indie artist, how do you brand yourself and your music to stand out from the rest of the artists out there?
This field we need to better in we think, there is so much that can be done but you need time. We always focus on writing music. What we have done is to sign us up on the most common social media pages for music like Reverbnation, Soundcloud etc. And we have been lucky to get featured on several on them. What stands out from the rest is that we have been lucky to get some great co-writes name on the music we have written like, Tommy Henrikssen(Alice Cooper, Bowling For Soup, Simple Plan), Mark Holman(Halestorm, Daughtry) and Stevie Aiello(30 Seconds To Mars).
Who have you been listening to lately?
Ed Sheeran and Florida Georgia Line
Tell us about your passions
Training and being outdoors as much as possible when it’s not winter and minus 20degrees.
What else is happening next in your world?
Trying to get our album out there as soon as possible.
Thanks for an awesome interview, Christian!
Connect with No Sleep For Lucy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nosleepforlucy/?fref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nosleepforlucy
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/NoSleepForLucy
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/nosleepforlucy
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/nosleepforlucy
Source: ArtistPR Indie Artist Interviews
|
https://medium.com/@artistpr/artist-interview-no-sleep-for-lucy-7fd0a14aa78a
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[]
|
2019-10-16 08:34:45.367000+00:00
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['Rock']
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Case study: Giving the Chase bank app a UX makeover
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Analog Banking in a Digital Age: Background
JPMorgan Chase is one of the largest banks in America and serves over half of this country’s households. They’ve been around for more than 200 years, starting with small banks in New York at the end of the 18th century as The Bank of Manhattan, and expanding during the mid-1900s when it merged with Chase National Bank (which existed separately from 1877 to 1954). Chase is still going strong today, with more than 5,100 branches and 16,000 ATMs nationwide. They have more than 250,355 employees (as of 2016) and operate in more than 100 counties. JPMorgan Chase has nearly $2.5 trillion in assets as of 2016 and is considered one of the Big Four banks of the United States.
So what’s the problem? Well, let’s hear what Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates had to say a quarter of a century ago:
Bill Gates famously said in a 1994 speech at a Bank Administration Institute conference that “Banks are dinosaurs, they can be bypassed.”
Banks are finding themselves less relevant in 2020. The financial landscape has changed drastically in the last two decades and large national banking institutions are struggling to keep up. We’ve shifted to a faster-paced, digital culture where banking is done on the go, and though the bigger legacy banks are adapting, they don’t seem to be doing it fast enough.
Banks Out, Fintech In!
FinTech (financial technology) is a somewhat recent innovation that is doing its best to disrupt the established financial management industry. It’s more personal than banks, quicker, and most importantly, mobile-friendly.
What are the FinTech Apps? Fintech is anything that leverages the power of technology to offer better financial services to customers. This could be a credit-based loan disbursing company, an online insurance policy vendor, a marketplace or an aggregator for it, a UPI service provider or more.
Specifically, Fintech offers easily downloadable apps for your mobile device that offer lightning-quick ways to budget your finances, save for a rainy day, match you to an appropriate IRA (retirement fund), and automatically round up your savings & invest in ways which are much easier and clearer than traditional banking apps.
Invest in Millennials
Chase wants to appeal to Millennials, which is anyone born between the years 1981 to 1996. (Ages 23 to 39 in 2020. Generation Z, people born in 1997 and beyond, are consequentially a target group too.) Millennials are leading the way in this fintech charge and quickly changing the landscape of banking as a whole. By tapping into the immense influence millennials have in this digital age, Chase can successfully navigate from something considered ancient and unnecessary, to a more relevant and essential staple in mobile culture.
Mission
What Chase wants me to do as lead UX is to find a clever way to introduce fintech accessibility to their mobile app. As it stands, their mobile app is as basic as it gets: take money out, put money in, check your balance, and move on. Any investment/insurance/budgeting information that is clickable will move you out the app and onto their main site. My first responsibility is to get right to the point and define the problem we wish to solve. We also need to ask important “how might we” questions:
How might we: Design a new personal finance management feature that embeds within the current Chase app, and flow naturally with its current branding?
My job is to thoroughly examine and answer this question through a specific UX design process. My goals and Chase’s have to align, and I’m excited to begin!
Let’s Get Started
What I’d like to do now is to identify the UX design process, and define each stage before going into more detail throughout the case study. Take a look at the graphic below to get an idea of the outline I followed throughout this process:
|
https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/bringing-chase-bank-up-to-speed-a-ux-makeover-aac30da9131c
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['Spencer Goldberg']
|
2020-11-14 00:16:51.557000+00:00
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['App', 'Case Study', 'Product Design', 'Mobile', 'UX']
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You Are Not Alone
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You Are Not Alone
Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash
The current pandemic has left us all wondering what the future holds and scared life will never be the same.
Your life may never be the same as it was before, but it is possible it could be better. That’s the thing about life, the only certainty is change. And death.
There are important lessons in pain, despair and loss. It would serve us well to remember we are here for a short time on this earth and we do not know when our time, or that of our loved ones, is up.
Regardless of the outside packaging, race, gender, ethnicity, beliefs, etc., humans are more alike than they are different. Every human being wants to feel loved and appreciated for who they are at their core.
The broken pieces of us where we hurt can cause us to shut down or act out if we become stunted in working through that pain and only react instead of learning, growing, sharing and transcending it.
We need to treat each other and ourselves with kindness, respect, appreciation and dignity. Each of us can learn something from every person, whether or not we agree with them, or even like them.
This point in time in history with a worldwide pandemic is a personal reckoning for humanity. It is time to look within oneself, to acknowledge and heal our broken parts, to love ourselves fully as we are. Then look outside oneself and shine your light for others who are feeling lost, searching in their darkness.
I hope you choose to be that light. Learn to love, to appreciate, to forgive, to heal yourself and others as you resolve to make a positive impact in this world.
Life may not be the same as it was before, but it can, and you can be better and stronger and softer and more compassionate and more loving to yourself and others than you ever were before.
|
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/you-are-not-alone-ac4c759be262
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['Katherine G. Macrae']
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2020-12-09 09:00:44.585000+00:00
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['Compassion', 'Healing', 'Kindness', 'Covid 19', 'Love']
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Solar Power + Real State: The Next Big Thing?
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The real estate sector is one of the most dynamic and innovative, always seeking to satisfy an increasingly sophisticated demand by companies, so the real estate has been evolving in terms of sustainability.
Solar energy offers owners and managers of commercial real estate an exceptional opportunity to increase cash flow by reducing utility costs, increasing rents and increasing maintenance reimbursement for common areas. The installation of a photo-voltaic solar array (PV) also fosters closer connections with tenants and their customer bases, facilitates lease extensions and allows a sustainable footprint.
If you are an real estate agents, this is what you need to know to represent buyers and sellers of homes with solar energy.
Solar Houses Are Sold For More.
Buyers will pay a premium for households with solar energy systems.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) produced a report that definitively demonstrated that solar-powered homes are sold for more than homes that do not. The 2015 study, Selling Into the Sun: premium price analysis of a multiple-estate data set from Solar Homes, analyzed 22,000 home sales in 8 states, 4,000 of which included photo-voltaic systems, from 2002 to 2013.
The study found that each watt of solar energy adds an average of $ 4 to the value of the house in California and an average of $ 3 per watt elsewhere. This represented an average price increase of $ 20,000 in California ($ 4 x 5,000W for the average system size) and $ 15,000 outside California ($ 3 x 5,000W).
Prove The Value.
If you are the seller’s agent, help him get the full value of his solar energy. Suggest that they gather documents that show their solar benefits and show them in open houses:
Copies of electric bills that show very little due or even a credit
Documents that show the amounts of recent “green income” payments if they are received: canceled checks or an extract from your “aggregator”.
A note saying that solar energy is exempt from property taxes, if that is the case. (varies by city).
Your House Will Sell Faster.
Houses sold 17% faster and 20% more even in a market crash.
Although the real estate market was in a recession, solar houses maintained their value. The other developments in the study also sold their solar homes approximately 17% faster than non-solar ones. The floor plans and the specifications of each home in the market were exactly the same. The only difference — solar. If the solar energy was already installed and the price was taken into account, the buyers were willing to pay more and took the opportunity to own their own solar system.
Another interesting finding is that these houses were not as solar as they could be. Most had smaller 2.5 kW photo-voltaic systems (most homes need a 5kW system to power all their appliances) but their energy bills are still reduced by 54% compared to their neighbors with network power. This shows that solar energy should be an industry standard for new construction. Even if developers implement smaller and cheaper systems, it can attract buyers quickly who are eager to reap the benefits of energy savings and independence.
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https://medium.com/@sales_82247/solar-power-real-state-the-next-big-thing-f1b36c1e64b8
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['Core Energy Solar']
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2020-02-03 20:01:01.374000+00:00
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['Real State', 'Savings', 'Solar Power', 'Money', 'Enviroment']
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An Annual Comparison
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This is just going to be a case of me looking back over 2019 a little, as well as planning for 2020. It feels a little overdue but I also wanted to tap into how it’s been so far (which will probably have me talking a lot about the biggest current event :[) and what I’m hoping will change over the next few months.
Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash
What went down in 2019
So, last year was full of debate for me. There was a lot of self-realisation and looking to improve on my own wellbeing, as well as a lot of career planning. This mainly came down to the fact that I had been working at the same company for the past 6 years, and I’d finally decided to call it a day. To be honest, this was mostly due to the fact that I was no longer getting a solid salary because the business was struggling, but I also realised I had to change things up and try to get out there a little more. If it wasn’t for the money problems though, I might have stuck around a lot longer, because I enjoyed it and I tend to get set in my ways sometimes.
That job was a great way of maintaining a comfortable lifestyle that allowed me to see my family often and was something that I felt I was good at, something I cared about and had dedicated a lot of time to — however, it didn’t leave a lot of room for future aspirations, particularly when it came to finances. So, sadly, things came to an end and I took the opportunity to have some ‘me’ time while exploring new options for an occupation. I worked on getting a little healthier and dabbling in my hobbies a lot more, because I’d struggled to make time before now, and I taught myself a few new skills too. Outside of work, health and fitness, I have also been working alongside my boyfriend to make our home more comfortable, more visually appealing and more suitable for our needs. I should add that Marie Kondo (KonMari) played a large part here as well!
Life unemployed
Having no current job, but some savings to live off of made it a little easier over the holidays, spending lots of time with the family and enjoying my free time — but time does fly. After a lot of fun and festivity, I assured myself that 2020 would be the ‘year of me’. The time of sitting comfortably and being careless would be over. This would be the year where I sort things out for myself in terms of: a good, stable career with a steady income, a healthier, more active lifestyle, saving for the holidays we have planned and the home we hope to have some day, and working on my outside of work skills and hobbies further. Of course I would still visit my family as much as possible, but I would also try to focus more on bettering my life as an individual.
To be honest, so far the job hunt has been rocky, but not hopeless. I’m feeling okay about it all, other than a mild sense of shame when people ask me how long I’ve been out of work now, but that’s not to say I didn’t need or deserve a break to think and recuperate — things happen anyway. In terms of my health currently, I still have some work to do (it is only March after all) but I’ve been to the doctors, the dentist and the opticians recently in order to get myself ship-shape, and I’ve gotten a little more serious about my workout regime/watching what I eat. I hope to keep this up, but I do feel like having a lot of time at home has allowed me to self-care more and avoid getting sick as much as I usually do — I don’t know if I could keep that up once I’m back on the horse. However, I will try my best!
Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash
Hiccups
Along this “year of me” journey (which is still in it’s early days) I have run into/foreseen a few issues with my plan. I have had a few setbacks in finding myself a salary due to an indecisive nature when it comes to choosing a field, and most job offers being a little too far outside of the area — or just plain slim-pickings when it comes to available vacancies. I have also on occasion missed out on opportunities due to being in the wrong location when interviewing. I haven’t travelled much this year, but I did spend a week back home with my family recently — receiving an email whilst I was literally on the train that asked me to come interview ‘that week’. I asked if there was any way we could reschedule for the following week or if they could get in touch with any unfilled positions at a later date, but they didn’t respond, and presumably moved on to the next candidate.
Other than that, there has been another very obvious hiccup to everyone’s plans this year — which is the pandemic we’re currently facing. Although I try not to give in to scare-mongering and I’ve tried to just use common sense to get by, hoping this is short lived, I am nervous about where the spread of the coronavirus is heading and how it’s affecting everyone. For one thing, despite all the jokes that are being made to lighten the mood and spread awareness through satire — people are dying as a result of the COVID-19 virus, which is heartbreaking. For another — people are beginning to show how selfish and irresponsible they can be when it comes to doing something about this. I understand that sometimes accidents happen, that people simply must make it to a certain location, or that sometimes people have a hard time believing in the facts (especially when they’re new or slightly more theorised) but I feel that if you are told that the best thing you can do is use proper hygiene and avoid travel/communal events where possible — that really shouldn’t be that difficult. For people to then start sweeping shelves in stores without a thought for anyone else, or selling the necessities at extortionate prices themselves; or jumping on a plane because the flights are now cheap is just despicable, and is one of the reasons this virus won’t likely be eradicated for a while.
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash
Working through things
I am doing my best to avoid catching or spreading the coronavirus, hoping that it hasn’t even reached the areas in which my loved ones reside, but also hoping for the safety of everyone who is already at risk in other countries. It saddens me so much to see the numbers rising, especially knowing some people have done nothing to help the problem. I can’t do a lot to help the people I know in other parts of the country (nor can any of us really help the people we don’t know with this horrible issue), but for what I can do when it comes to basic hygiene, self-control when shopping and avoiding social situations, I hope that everyone else is able to do the same. I have in turn, sacrificed some of my plans, had events cancelled and don’t know when I’ll next visit my family. I’ve also found myself once again being a little less physically active. I only go out when I need to (and possibly take a walk in uninhabited locations with my hand sanitiser at the ready) so while I’m at home I have to try to workout as much as possible as a result of being too ‘indoorsy’.
As a bit of an introvert, and as someone who always has their cupboards fully stocked in general, to be honest, staying in more doesn’t worry me too much, but with my fingers crossed for job interviews and my desire to see my family again soon, as well as missing general events, it’s not ideal. My main concern though is that I just don’t want to catch it — I don’t know what my body is capable of other than getting colds quite a lot, I worry about my boyfriend who has mild asthma and once had pneumonia, I worry about any vulnerable person that happens to use the same door handle as me — I just worry. We don’t know enough for sure about the virus and how it’ll treat us, but so far it’s given more than enough causes for concern, and I just don’t want people to get sick. We’re supposed to be going to Japan this winter, which I actually shed tears of happiness about, and that we’ve already put money into — but it’s likely that won’t be happening now, and while that pains me and kind of shatters the excitement I had in my heart for the rest of the year — that is the very last of my worries right now. I just want this to be over.
2020 planning
I envisioned writing this blog last year, following up and future-planning, however I didn’t anticipate this unknowable situation to be going on right now, so all I can really say is that I sincerely hope plans can resume soon and that no more people have to die from this terrible virus. Originally this year involved an epic holiday in the wintertime, a trip to Liverpool for the Pokemon Go Safari event next month (unlikely to go ahead now), possibly trying to go to Germany again for the summer (not dead-set though) and I had a few upcoming gigs over the next month. We weren’t much looking forward to one of those gigs now, on account of the sickness-spreading, but it got postponed anyway. On top of that were my plans for general betterment, celebrating birthdays and helping my sister with a bedroom conversion. For now it’s all a case of wait and see…
I don’t see things calming down any time soon, but I can still hope for improvement. In a perfect world, for 2020 I’d hope that we’d all be so clued in now that the virus stops spreading any further, that people are cured all around the world of their current ailments and that any remnants of COVID-19 die out. Then we might resume what we were doing, returning to the plans we had and taking more sanitary procedures in general to prevent problems like this recurring in future. Sure, there is concern that it might be forgotten about soon enough and there would always be the risk of a return or a new threat someday, but that’s pretty much true of any day and at least now we might be a little wiser, and they may have even developed a vaccination by then.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Concluding
I honestly don’t know what will happen here on out, but if things do settle — I hope that we get to return to Japan and even if we can’t, I just hope that no one else has to suffer during this epidemic. In terms of my personal life , I hope that I somehow manage to luck out with a nice, fitting occupation (potentially allowing me to work remote when needed…) that also allows me to replenish some savings for trips around the world and for eventually settling into a new residence. I will continue to try to become more fit and healthy, I will work on my art more often in my spare time, I’ll try to become more fluent in Japanese (still learning!) and I will make time for my loved ones whenever I can. That’s all I’m really asking for of this year.
|
https://medium.com/@leannacarl/an-annual-comparison-9702d77d8a18
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['Leanna Carl']
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2020-03-16 19:48:15.064000+00:00
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['2019', '2020', 'Quarantine', 'Health', 'Year In Review']
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Chile Pepper Profile #11: Mirasol
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Mirasol
Mirasol means ‘looking at the sun’ in Spanish and describes the erect nature of the pods which grow on a compact plant. The pods are 3 to 5in in length and can be used both fresh and dry. At about 5,000 scoville heat units, these peppers…
Click Here for more.
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https://medium.com/darn-hot-pepper-blog/chile-pepper-profile-11-mirasol-918f304d7de8
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[]
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2017-04-23 01:55:46.490000+00:00
|
['Mirasol', 'Photos', 'Peppers']
|
Seven ineffective coding habits many F# programmers don’t have
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This post is part of the F# Advent Calendar in English 2014 project. Check out all the other great posts there! Special thanks to Sergey Tihon for organizing this.
A good coding habit is an incredibly powerful tool, it allows us to make good decisions with minimal cognitive effort and can be the difference between being a good programmer and a great one.
“I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.” - Kent Beck
A bad habit, on the other hand, can forever condemn us to repeat the same mistakes and is difficult to correct.
I attended Kevlin Henney’s “Seven Ineffective Coding Habits of Many Programmers” talk at the recent BuildStuff conference. As I sat in the audience and reflected on the times I exhibited many of the bad habits he identified and challenged, something hit me — I was coding in C# in pretty much every case even though I also spend a lot of time in F#.
Am I just a bad C# developer who’s better at F#, or did the language I use make a bigger difference than I realized at the time?
With this question in mind, I revisited the seven ineffective coding habits that Kevlin identified and pondered why they are habits that many F# programmers don’t have.
Noisy Code
Signal-to-noise ratio sometimes refers to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. Noisy code requires greater cognitive effort on the reader’s part, and is more expensive to maintain.
We have a lot of habits which — without us realising it — add noise to our code. But often the language we use have a big impact on how much noise is added to our code, and the C-style syntax is big culprit here.
Objective comparison between languages are usually difficult because comparing different language implementations across different projects introduces too many other variables. Comparing different language implementations of a small project is achievable but cannot answer how well the solutions scale up to bigger projects.
Fortunately, Simon Cousins was able to provide a comprehensive analysis of two code-bases written in different languages — C# and F# — implementing the same application.
The application was non-trivial (~350k lines of C# code) and the numbers speak for themselves:
Not only is the F# implementation shorter and generally more useful (i.e. higher signal-to-noise ratio), according to Simon’s post it also took a fraction of the man-hours to provide a more complete implementation of the requirements:
“The C# project took five years and peaked at ~8 devs. It never fully implemented all of the contracts. The F# project took less than a year and peaked at three devs (only one had prior experience with F#). All of the contracts were fully implemented.”
In summary, by removing the need for { } as a core part of the language structure and not having nulls, F# removes a lot of the noise that are usually found in C# code.
Visual Dishonesty
“…a clean design is one that supports visual thinking so people can meet their informational needs with a minimum of conscious effort.” - Daniel Higginbotham
When it comes to code, visual honesty is about laying out your code so that their visual relationships are obvious and accurate.
For example, when you put things above each other then it signifies hierarchy. This is important, because you’re showing your reader how to process the information you’re giving them. However, you may not be aware that’s what you’re doing, which is why we end up with problems.
“You convey information by the way you arrange a design’s elements in relation to each other. This information is understood immediately, if not consciously, by the people viewing your designs. This is great if the visual relationships are obvious and accurate, but if they’re not, your audience is going to get confused. They’ll have to examine your work carefully, going back and forth between the different parts to make sure they understand.” - Daniel Higginbotham
Take the simple matter of how nested method calls are laid out in C#, they betray everything we have been taught about reading, and the order in which information needs to be processed has been reversed.
Fortunately, F# introduced the pipeline operator |> which allows us to restore the visual honesty with the way we lay out nested functions calls.
In his talk Kevlin also touched on the placement of { } and how it affects readability, using a rather simple technique:
and by doing so, it reveals interesting properties about the structure of the above code which we might not have noticed:
we can’t tell where the argument list ends and method body starts we can’t tell where the if condition ends and where the if body starts
These tell us that even though we are aligning our code, its structure and hierarchy is still not immediately clear without the aid of the curly braces. Remember, if the visual relationship between the elements is not accurate, it’ll cause confusion for your readers and they need to examine your code carefully to ensure they understand it correctly. In order words, you create additional cognitive burden on your readers when the layout of your code does not match the program structure.
Now contrast with the following:
where the structure and hierarchy of the code is much more evident. So it turns out that placement style of { } is not just a matter of personal preference, it plays an important role in conveying the structure of your code and there’s a right way to do it.
“It turns out that style matters in programming for the same reason that it matters in writing. It makes for better reading.” - Douglas Crockford
In hindsight this seems obvious, but why do we still get it wrong? How can so many of us miss something so obvious?
I think part of the problem is that, you have two competing rules for structuring your code in C-style languages — one for the compiler and one for humans. { and } are used to convey structure of your code to the compiler, but to convey structure information to humans, you use both { } and indentation.
This, coupled with the eagerness to superficially reduce the line count or adhere by guidelines such as “methods shouldn’t be more than 60 lines long”, and we have the perfect storm that results in us sacrificing readability in the name of readability.
So what if you use space for conveying structure information to both the compiler and humans? Then you remove the ambiguity and people can stop fighting about where to place their curly braces!
The above example can be written in F# as the following, using conventions in the F# community:
notice how the code is not only much shorter, but also structurally very clear.
In summary, F#’s pipes allows you to restore visual honesty with regards to the way nested function calls are arranged so that the flow of information matches the way we read. In addition, whitespaces provide a consistent way to depict hierarchy information to both the compiler and human. It removes the need to argue over { } placement strategies whilst making the structure of your code clear to see at the same time.
Lego naming
Naming is hard, and as Kevlin points out that so often we resort to lego naming by gluing common words such as ‘create’, ‘process’, ‘validate’, ‘factory’ together in an attempt to create meaning.
This is not naming, it is labelling.
Adding more words is not the same as adding meaning. In fact, more often than not it can have the opposite effect of diluting the meaning of the thing we’re trying to name. This is how we end up with gems such as controllerFactoryFactory, where the meaning of the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
Naming is hard, and having to give names to everything — every class, method and variable — makes it even harder. In fact, trying to give everything a meaningful name is so hard, that eventually most of us simply stop caring, and lego naming seems like the lazy way out.
In F#, and in functional programming in general, it’s common practice to use anonymous functions, or lambdas. Straight away you remove the need to come up with good names for a whole bunch of things. Often the meaning of these lambdas are created by the higher order functions that use them — Array.map, Array.filter, Array.iter, e.g. the function passed into Array.map is used to, surprise surprise, map values in an array!
(Before you say it, yes, you can use anonymous delegates in C# too, especially when working with LINQ. However, when you use LINQ you are doing functional programming, and the use of lambdas is much more common in F# and other functional-first languages.)
Lego naming can also be the symptom of a failure to identify the right level of abstractions.
Just like naming, coming up with the right abstractions can be hard. And when the right abstraction is a piece of pure functionality, we don’t have a way to represent it effectively in OOP (note, I’m not talking about the object-orientation that Alan Kay had in mind when he coined the term objects).
In situations like this, the common practice in OOP is to wrap the functionality inside a class or interface. So you end up with something that provides the desired functionality, and the functionality itself. That’s two things to name instead of one, this is hard, let’s be lazy and combine some common words together and see if they make sense…
public interface ConditionChecker { bool CheckCondition(); }
The problem here is that the right level of abstraction is smaller than an “object”, so we have to introduce another layer of abstraction just to make it fit into our world view.
In F#, and in functional programming in general, no abstraction is too small and functions are so ubiquitous that all the OO patterns that we’re so fond of can be represented as functions.
Take the ConditionChecker example above, the essence of what we’re looking for is a condition that is evaluated without input and returns a boolean value. This can be represented as the following in F#:
type Condition = unit –> bool
Much more concise, wouldn’t you agree? And any function that matches the type signature can be treated as a Condition without having to explicitly implement some interface.
Another common practice in C# and Java is to label exception types with Exception, i.e. CastException, ArgumentException, etc. This is another symptom of our tendency to label things rather than naming them, out of laziness (and not the good kind).
If we had put in more thought into them, than maybe we could have come up with more meaningful names, for instance:
In F#, the common practice is to define errors using the lightweight exception syntax, and the convention here is to not use the Exception suffix since the leading exception keyword already provides sufficient clue as to what the type represents.
In summary, whilst F# doesn’t stop you from lego naming things, it helps because:
the use of anonymous functions reduces the number of things you have to name significantly;
being able to model your application at the right level of abstraction removes unnecessary layers of abstractions, and therefore reduce the number of things you have to name even further,
it’s easier to name things when they’re at the right level of abstraction;
convention in F# is to use the lightweight exception syntax to define exception types without the Exception suffix.
Under-Abstraction
In his presentation, Kevlin showed an interesting technique of using a tag cloud to see what pops out from your code:
Compare these two examples you can see the domain of the second example surfacing through the tag cloud — paper, picture, printingdevice, etc. whereas the first example shows raw strings and lists.
When we under abstract, we often find ourselves with a long list of arguments to our methods/functions. When that list gets long enough, adding another one or two arguments is no longer significant.
“If you have a procedure with ten parameters, you probably missed some.” - Alan Perlis
Unfortunately, F# can’t stop you from under abstracting, but it has a powerful type system that provides all the necessary tools for you to create the right abstractions for your domain with minimal effort. Have a look at Scott Wlaschin’s talk on DDD with the F# type system for inspirations on how you might do that:
Domain Driven Design with the F# type System — F#unctional Londoners 2014 from Scott Wlaschin
Unencapsulated State
If under-abstraction is like going to a job interview in your pyjamas then having unencapsulated state would be akin to wearing your underwear on the outside (which, incidentally put you in some rather famous circles…).
The example that Kevlin used to illustrate this habit is dangerous because the internal state that has been exposed to the outside world is mutable. So not only is your underwear worn on the outside for all to see, everyone is able to modify it without your consent… now that’s a scary thought!
In this example, what should have been done is for us to encapsulate the mutable list and expose only the properties that are relevant, for instance:
type RecentlyUsedList () = let items = new List<string>() member this.Items = items.ToArray() // now the outside world can’t mutate our internal state member this.Count = items.Count …
Whilst F# has no way to stop you from exposing the items list publically, functional programmers are very conscious of maintaining the immutability facade so even if a F#’er is using a mutable list internally he would not have allowed it to leak outside.
In fact, a F#’er would probably have implemented a RecentlyUsedList differently, for instance:
type RecentlyUsedList (?items) = let items = defaultArg items [ ] member this.Items = List.toArray items member this.Count = List.length items member this.Add newItem = let newItems = newItem::(items |> List.filter ((<>) newItem)) RecentlyUsedList newItems
But there’s more.
Kevlin also touched on encapsulation in general, and its relation to a usability study concept called affordance.
“An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, whilst a cord affords pulling.” - Wikipedia
If you want the user to push, then don’t give them something that they can pull, that’d be bad usability design. The same principles applies to code, your abstractions should afford the right behaviours whilst make it impossible to do the wrong thing.
When modelling your domain with F#, since there are no nulls it immediately eliminates the most common illegal state that you have to look out for. And since types are immutable by default, once they are validated at construction time you don’t have to worry about them entering into an invalid state later.
To make invalid states un-representable in your model, a common practice is to create a finite, closed set of possible valid states as a discriminated union. As a simple example:
type PaymentMethod = | Cash | Cheque of ChequeNumber | Card of CardType * CardNumber
Compared to a class hierarchy, a discriminated union type cannot be extended and therefore invalid states cannot be introduced at a later date by abusing/exploiting inheritance.
In summary, F# programmers are very conscious of immutability so even if they are using mutable types to represent internal state it’s highly unlikely for them to expose their mutability and break the immutability facade they hold so dearly.
And because types are immutable by default, and there are no nulls in F#, it’s also easy for you to ensure that invalid states are simply un-representable when modelling a domain.
Getters and Setters
Kevlin challenged the naming of getters and setters, since in English ‘get’ usually implies side effects:
“I get married” “I get money from the ATM” “I get from point A to point B”
Yet, in programming, get implies a query with no side effects.
Also, getters and setters are opposites in programming, but in English, the opposite of set is reset or unset.
Secondly, Kevlin challenged the habit of always creating setters whenever we create getters. This habit is even enforced and encouraged by many modern IDEs that gives you shortcuts to automatically create these getters and setters in pairs.
“That’s great, now we have shortcuts to do the wrong thing. We used to have type lots to do the wrong thing, not anymore.” - Kevlin Henney
And he talked about how we need to be more cautious and conscious about what can change and what cannot.
“When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.” - Lucius Cary
With F#, immutability is the default, so when you define a new record or value, it is immutable unless you explicitly say so otherwise (with the mutable keyword). So to do the wrong thing, i.e. to define a corresponding setter for every getter, you have to do lots of extra work.
Every time you have to type the mutable keyword is another chance for you to ask yourself “is it really necessary for this field to change”. In my experience it has provided sufficient friction and forced me to make very conscious decisions on what can change under what conditions.
Uncohesive Tests
Many of us have the habit of testing methods — that is, for every method Foo we have a TestFoo that invokes Foo and inspects its behaviour. This type of testing covers only the surface area of your code, and although you can achieve a high code coverage percentage this way (and keep the managers happy), that coverage number is only superficial.
Methods are usually called in different combinations to achieve some desired functionality, and many of the complexities and potential bugs lie in the way they work together. This is particularly true when states are concerned as the order the state is updated in might be significant and you also bring concurrency into the equation.
Kevlin calls for an end of this practice and for us to focus on testing specific functionalities instead, and use our tests as specifications for those functionalities.
“For tests to drive development they must do more than just test that code performs its required functionality: they must clearly express that required functionality to the reader. That is, they must be clear specification of the required functionality.” - Nat Pryce and Steve Freeman
This is in line with Gojko Adzic’s Specification by Example which advocates the use of tests as a form of specification for your application that is executable and always up-to-date.
But, even as we improve on what we test, we still need to have sufficient number of tests to give us a reasonable degree of confidence. To put it into context, an exhaustive test suit for a function of the signature Int –> Int would need to have 2147483647 test cases. Of course, you don’t need an exhaustive test suit to reach a reasonable degree of confidence, but there’s a limitation on the number of tests that we will be able to write by hand because:
writing and maintaining large number of tests are expensive
we might not think of all the edge cases
This is where property-based automated testing comes in, and that’s where the F# (and other QuickCheck-enabled languages such as Haskell and Erlang) community is at with the widespread adoption of FsCheck. If you’re new to FsCheck or property-based testing in general, check out Scott Wlaschin’s detailed introductory post to property-based testing as part of the F# Advent Calendar in English 2014.
Summary
We pick up habits — good and bad — over time and with practice. Since we know that practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent; only perfect practice makes perfect, it is important for us to acquire good practice in order to form and nurture good habits.
The programming language we use day-to-day plays an important role in this regard.
“Programming languages have a devious influence: they shape our thinking habits.” - Dijkstra
As another year draws to a close, let’s hope the year ahead is filled with the good practice we need to make perfect, and to ensure it let’s all write more F# :-P
Wish you all a merry xmas!
Links
F# Advent Calendar in English 2014
Kevlin Henney — Seven ineffective coding habits of many programmers
Andreas Selfik — The programming language wars
Simon Cousins — Does the language you use make a difference (revisited)
Coding Horror — The best code is no code at all
F# for Fun and Profit — Cycles and modularity in the wild
Being visually honest with F#
Ian Barber — Naming things
Joshua Bloch — How to design a good API and why it matters
Null References : the Billion dollar mistake
|
https://medium.com/theburningmonk-com/seven-ineffective-coding-habits-many-f-programmers-dont-have-3e4c316d3cf3
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['Yan Cui']
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2017-07-03 20:56:47.543000+00:00
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['Functional Programming', 'Programming']
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Leadership Lessons from undergrad days-Crossfire and Guest Lectures, Pragyan 2020
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CFGL(Crossfire and Guest Lectures) is one of the fifteen teams that come together to organize Pragyan, NIT Trichy’s ISO-certified techno-managerial festival. At CFGL, we work to bring people of eminent stature to campus for engaging guest lectures and a fiery debate which we call the Crossfire.
Why I am writing about CFGL in particular is because I headed the team in my final year, which was among the best things that happened to me in college. Now when I say ‘best,’ I most certainly do not mean a smooth ride. In fact, it was far from a smooth sail. Just working in close association with people of different backgrounds in a team gives one a thousand opportunities to learn, which sums up my final year.
Let’s do some flashback!
After multiple rounds of interviews, a group discussion and several tasks, I got an email from the then-team heads that I had made it into the team. An acceptance email was something unusual for a team in college. But I came to realize later on that that’s how we roll at CFGL — we are a very professional team, in the words of one of my favourite people.
Through my years in CFGL as a coordinator (in my 2nd year of college), a manager (in the 3rd year of college) and eventually the head in 2020, I learned many skills. From drafting a professional mail to the challenging task of respecting opinions even when they are antithetical to yours, I grew as a person.
Heading the team of 2020
As a team with a diverse portfolio of activities, the team members (including the heads) are always working on different things throughout the year. Unfortunately, Pragyan 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 global pandemic (Pragyan 2020 — forever 5 dtg(days to go)!).
But I am immensely proud of all the amazing things that my team has done in the last year.
I consider myself as someone who focused on getting work done. Hence, I have bifurcated the crux of the article into the following two sections that mean a great deal to me.
Executive Deck
Execution >> Ideas
As a team leader, there are various sources you can get ideas from- your co-heads, your team members, members from other teams, your friends etc. Of course, there might be constraints that come in the way of the idea becoming a reality. But once you find a pretty feasible idea, you gotta have the grit to see it to the end.
“A vision and strategy aren’t enough. The long-term key to success is execution. Each day. Every day.” — Richard M Kovacevich
It honestly doesn’t take the CEO of Wells Fargo to tell you this. You learn it every day when you have great ideas in your head but put them off for reasons that are no stranger to you.
There have been instances when mid-way, something would come up that would force us to drop the idea., But what came to my mind in all of those times were the logical reasons behind going ahead with the idea and the progress that has been made so far.
2. Professional Communication matters a lot
Your communication with team members who report to you, representatives of other teams, people you report to and how you put yourself across will determine how they respond to you and will reflect in the work they do for/with you.
A proper balance of being amicable and professional helps. You can always tweak the ratio according to the situation. The right balance goes a long way.
At the end of the day, being true to yourself and your commitment is what should decide between you unleashing your princess Fiona, your fairy godmother or something in between (Shrek reference as I am in absolute adoration!).
3. Always work with a timeline
This might sound banal but this is the skill that is taken for granted the most. Without a written/digital timeline for your projects, your inner demon reigns and you start to procrastinate. It is hence imperative to use dates and times to start and close projects, set deadlines and make a routine, along with regular ideation sessions for new projects.
4. Work on at least one project that motivates you
You cannot always expect all the elements of work to excite you. Well, if they do, then it’s a jackpot of a job. To ameliorate the boredom that some parts might bring, always have at least one project that motivates you at all points of time. The projects may vary but stay motivated and excited for at least one of them.
5. Always take responsibilities for your actions and those of your team’s
We all know that you are responsible for your team, very trite, but when times are hard and when frustration reigns, we tend to want to let go. When you are the team leader, you are not just the face of the team during its triumphs. You represent the team for all its ventures and actions. You must always have a sense of belonging towards your team. This will help you work better and own your mistakes as much as your victories.
Interpersonal skills/Personal skills
Choose what battles you fight
Differences of opinion are bound to happen among teams. There will be moments when you can’t really be dispassionate and objective.
You have to choose which battles to fight; there are many, but not all of them are worth your time.
2. Keep work away from home
As much as I failed to achieve this, I am still trying. Home is one place where you are meant to be calm and happy. You deserve it after all the hard work you have put in at office/work and your family deserves so much more of you outside work. Ergo, zip up all your work before you leave for home or to make it germane to the current circumstances. In short, don’t work outside of work-from-home hours!
3. You can be kind, compassionate and assertive at the same time
When it might be in your nature to be kind and compassionate, you tend to be stereotyped as a weakling. Well, it is fine as long as you know it is not true and that you can be assertive if need be. While you don’t have to be vile to get things done, you can don as many hats as you want and be true to what you believe in. But remember not to let anyone walk over you because you are too nice.
4. You needn’t know it all
Yes. Had it been the case, you would not need a team. Your primary goal should be to manage your resources well with a good vision of your end goal. I have had moments where I have been overwhelmed by my prolific team and many a time doubted my ability to take the helm. But fortunately, I have been able to sort things in my head, push myself and go ahead.
For the same reason that you don’t know everything, ensure that you give no room to condescension. Any idea has the potential to be a great success in the right environment with great planning and execution. Hence, listen without judgment and assess without blocks.
CFGL at She Talks: She talks was conceptualized by the Social Responsibility wing of Pragyan, aimed at bringing together women in the academia and industry for a day-long session with college girls.
PS: This might sound old-school but I have always found it endearing when people remember my name and I have tried remembering the names of almost all the people I come across irrespective of whether or not we have worked together or shared a close bond. And appreciate when due!
PPS: This article is to serve as a manual for future me, in case (and I am sure I will) I get lost somewhere along my journey. Feel free to use the tips at your own risk. Remember, you are unique and I am sure you would have a thousand better ways to handle projects and people!
PPPS 😆: A huge shoutout to my team of 2020 who worked relentlessly to make Pragyan and ourselves proud!
I would be happy if my perspective adds some value to yours and I am all ears to hear your stories!
Our guest-lectures line up was all set before the pandemic struck, hence these are the memories I cling to!
Last team trip to Yercaud
Team forever 5 days to go!
I would be happy if my perspective adds some value to yours and I am all ears to hear your stories!
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https://medium.com/@navyavijayan/leadership-lessons-from-undergrad-days-crossfire-and-guest-lectures-pragyan-2020-7c8fb03b529d
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['Navya Vijayan']
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2021-01-21 07:29:34.037000+00:00
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['Leadership', 'Team Collaboration', 'Learning And Development', 'Strategies For Success']
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5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10 — MindBank.NG
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We have taken time to talk about 5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10 in this article.
Microsoft has played a major role in the significant workplace accessibility for office workers and remote workers. Even in the last decade when their competitors are becoming so tough on them, they are still very significant in their features and expectancy for their office suite software. Since they have had a very proficient portfolio si portfolio existence, people still rate them very high. However, there is a bit of an issue attached to their existence which is their price tag. Of course, everyone wants something easily accessible and very familiar with their work pace but no one is ready to pay the price for it.
This article will be a revelation to the clear alternatives to the Microsoft Office suite but before we proceed, let’s look at the most important Microsoft Office alternatives to the Microsoft Office suite in recent times.
The Microsoft Office suite known as the Microsoft 365 is a very reliable and solid suite that can save and mimic office work even faster than the normal office. It contains Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and so on which performs almost I’m an office functi9n.
The only difference is that files are changed digitally. Whereas it comes with an extreme advantage that almost every professional wants to work with. Every feature you will need for prime office work is situated ok the Microsoft office suite. This makes the value attached to a higher price point. For about every task you carry out in your office, a price should follow but this has been brought down to something relatable and higher than what everyone is seeing in their alternatives. Especially if someone just needs to use a special part of the features and not all.
No matter the issue you have with the Microsoft office you will still need this alternatives to work with. Even if you just want to step out a bit from this Microsoft office suite to another office suite as well. This is the reason we have written the article for you to choose which of the most significant alternatives to the Microsoft Office suite to choose.
You would also like: How to use 2 WhatsApp Accounts on A Phone (3 Best Methods)
5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10
This is one of the 5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10. This Google workspace is the main reason why Microsoft is never stopping in its plan. Although this is not available offline like Microsoft office suite, it still offers a great advantage over what is expected. Another fact is that they are available for free if they are divided into their sectors.
Let’s point out that the Microsoft Office suite is available for free as well if they are divided into their sectors. For Google workspace, Google docs, Google Sheets and Google slides are free as well as the same applications you find on Microsoft Office suite which are word, excel and PowerPoint respectively.
Let’s delve into the details for google workspace which is a very great alternative to Google workspace. Google workspace contains Google docs, sheets, forms, slides and many other which works only in place of very good internet access. Another way to look at it is the opportunity for an online meeting through google meet. The tools work well in any modern web browser, which makes deployment across an organization a cinch. Unlike any other Microsoft office suite, google workspace is also available in a variety of mobile and computer operating systems.
This is a very important suite that allows for familiar working collaborations with team members on certain projects without any problems. With $4.20 per month, you are free to enjoy all the features of google docs all through the day.
This is another office suite that works well with the Linux OS and has been a very great alternative to Microsoft office suite and google workspace. Although it may lack a bit of the strong portfolios held by both Google suite and Microsoft office workspace, it is still the most used free office suite application. It is very reliable and responsive to anything being carried out. It has a closer feature to that of Microsoft Word.
You don’t have to work too hard on yourself when you have a reliable and most importantly free and open-source Libre office. Its files can be converted to Microsoft files and pdf files without any problem. This makes it easily used and adaptable to any kind of operations in any system. It just works anywhere except that it’s not mobile-friendly.
Even if you have never used a computer system or you don’t have any deep knowledge about office files and documents, WPS still got you covered with its reliable and easy to use features. It is one of the 5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10.
The main significance to point to is that it does not need any technical effort to use. You can always use the free premium for anything you want but if you require more features, then you might as well need to fall into the premium sector. It’s one of the alternatives Microsoft office but it might run slow and still be very easy to use.
let’s delve into a cloud-based office suite that makes work easy, fast and efficient. It is available on Windows, Linux and more importantly mobile Android and iOS. This means it is very adaptable to any kind of setting it is which makes it very easy to use. The only office is an exciting alternative to the Microsoft Office suite and has been specifically coated free. Just like Google workspace, it also requires a standard online source for all its operations.
This is specifically created for Apple and Apple products. It works well on the iOS and Mac OS as well. The office suite of Apple is another competitor it is bringing to the table for the can’t competitor which is Microsoft. A great effort has been put into these to satisfy a healthy working and file management environment for Apple users. Work is very easy to use and has different features such as word processing, spreadsheets, excel and so on but still has a few setbacks to the set-up of the Microsoft office suite. However, what is more, unique for Apple users is iWork and it is proving its purpose all the time.
If you enjoyed our article about 5 best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows 10, you would also like: 5 Best VPN Services For Tech Lovers
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https://medium.com/@israelotoijamun/5-best-free-microsoft-office-alternatives-for-windows-10-mindbank-ng-74ff05ee7b3e
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['Israel Otoijamun']
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2021-08-23 15:02:02.956000+00:00
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['Tech', 'Windows', 'Technology', 'Microsoft']
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3 Best Afterlives in Pop-Culture
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“The Exorcist III” Dir. William Peter Blatty (1990)
2020 has been a shit year for most of us. A deadly virus has joined forces with natural disasters and terrible governance to give the whole epoch a very “and then the Fire Nation invaded” vibe. On top of all of this I and a few of my friends have suffered losses this year due to the circumstances surrounding COVID. Family members and friends have been taken from us and there are few things I can do to keep it together while I’m stuck in my own house waiting for a vaccine than to either write or consume media. I noticed a trend in my media consumption (as did my roommate). I ended up gravitating towards pieces focusing on an afterlife of some sort. Anne Rice’s The Mummy; or Ramses the Damned is a book I happened to pick up about the first Egyptian mummy to actually live up to the ‘rise from the dead’ hype. I re-watched The Exorcist III wherein a weary police detective named Kinderman (played by George C. Scott) is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a demonic serial killer and along the way ends up in “Heaven,” which turns out to be a massive waystation run by angels and filled by the recently deceased (most of whom don’t mind being dead)…also Fabio was there.
You thought I was kidding
This and some past articles and podcasts set me an an innocent thought experiment, namely which fictional afterlife is the best and why;
#3 The Haunted Mansion
I know it’s a weird place to start but go with me on this one
The Haunted Mansion is a dark ride at Disneyland Resort in California, The Magic Kingdom in Florida, and Tokyo Disneyland. It also happens to be a 2003 live action Disney movie staring Eddie Murphy (which I will not be talking about). The premise is basic. There is a house inhabited by “999 happy haunts.” Why is this one of the most banging afterlives you might ask.
Try a non-stop party where the music never dies and scaring the ever-loving crap out of those poor fools who wander onto your lawn…in good fun of course.
The mansion is a phantasmagoric celebration of life. The dead loved living so much it seems they never stopped. The pipe organist can summon banshees, the bride in the attic faces opposite her groom as his head appears and disappears from a hat box at his side (at least after he was re-added in 2006). You can swing from a chandelier chugging mead and never get a hang-over. Got beef with another spirit? Have a consequence free duel in the grave-yard. You can be what ever you want to be in the mansion. You can be a singing statue like Cousin Algernon. Oh and there will be singing if your into that sort of thing. Otherwise you can always be the silent guy in the coffin constantly raising the lid. And if it ever gets old there’s always a way out. Just catch a ride with some unfortunate meat bag who wandered in…
Wherever we’re going I hope there’s wi-fi
Delightful as it may sound some people just can’t find the joy in death. The next afterlife has significantly less macabre baggage.
#2 The Trill from Star Trek
There aren’t many afterlives in the Star Trek franchise. It was designed by Gene Rodenberry initially to eschew all forms of spirituality for enlightened ideals. All forms of religion in the Star Trek franchises beginning was anathema to the ethos of the show, though it did roll through from time to time. When it poked its way in it was eventually met with a sound disproving captain explaining why what ever deity they had just encountered was not actually a god, it was just mistaken for one. On more than one occasion they were just outright imposters. In the OG series “Who Mourns for Adonis” (season 2, episode 4) Kirk and the crew roll up upon the honest to Zeus Greek pantheon only to find out that they were merely sexy aliens from Pollux IV with some intense psychokinesis. From there it only gets weirder.
In the Next Generation episode the “Devil’s Due” (season 4, episode 13) Picard and company find a planet under the control of the devil herself as they had singed a Faustian pact with her. Despite mounting evidence that the Enterprise crew are dealing with ‘for-real’ Satan (the Satan architype from across all Federation cultures) they give into her demands since the universe is bigger than any one of us and just because we don’t believe in something doesn’t me we ignore the evidence. Just kidding they disable her ship and prove that she is no more than a technologically advanced grifter.
This all hits a head when in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier the OG crew meet ‘capital G’ God who wants only a starship with which to spread his message…
This goes about as well as you think it goes…
After big Gene passed into the afterlife himself, the afterlife started to find its way into the franchise but this time without the fedora tip each of these scenes implies its writer doing. In the pilot for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we are introduced to the Prophets of Bajor who are interdimensional beings and the center of the planet Bajor’s major religion. They play a roll in the events of the show until its end and are probably the most positive examples of gods in all of Star Trek. In Voyager’s “Barge of the Dead” (season 6, episode 3) B’Elanna Torres dies in a shuttle accident only to find out Klingon Hell is real and metal as fuck. Gre’thor is accessible upon a ship surrounded by blood oceans and the voices of friends and loved one’s trying to tempt you in.
*Pause for guitar solo*
But before I lead us any further afield…
Future Legend; Jadzia Dax
This is Jadzia Dax. She is a Trill from planet Trill and as the meme would suggest she has a worm inside of her. The worm is a symbiont of which there are many on Trill. It is a long standing tradition of Trill society that if you are found capable you are joined with one of these symbionts which chill in caves beneath the surface. Where’s the upside? I hear you ask. Unlike your usual brain slug sci-fi where the parasite takes over your body essentially piloting you like a human mech suit the Trill have a very different situation worked out. The symbionts bring with them the life, experience, and memories of every Trill it had ever joined with and the host brings a new set of talents, personality traits, and knowledge the symbiont might not have acquired yet. The Dax symbiont in all of its lifetimes has been; an engineer, an Olympic gymnast, the head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission, a pilot, a musician (and serial killer), the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, and a Starfleet Science officer. It’s a constant evolution for the symbiont but what’s in it for the host? Oh just, ACTUAL IMMORTALITY!
Pictured above; actual immortality
In the DS9 episode “Facets,” (season 3, episode 25) we find get to see a ridiculously cool Trill ritual involving all of Jadzia’s past hosts. The personalities of those hosts are still contained within the symbiont and in this ritual they are pulled out and literally posses the DS9 crew. She gets to have one on one gab sessions and legitimate closure from all of the people she used to be. She has trouble getting one of her more rambunctious former selves back into her body but it seems as though peacing out of this afterlife at any time is apparently and option. He does go back in the end though as they all do because they do get to live on until the symbiont ages out of being joined. And then they die right? lol
According to the DS9 extended universe the old Trill symbionts sink to the bottom of the pools to become caretakers for the super old symbionts who join with each-other building a sort of Voltron of life experience in the depths of the caves. Until apparently they get to join this mega being and become something cooler than any human ever got to become. That’s hard to beat man…I’m not sure if I could top that. How about you tell me the best fictional afterlife and I’ll tell you why it’s the X-Men.
#1 The X-Men
Spoiler alert; this is not the last time they will see each-other
This may seem like the worst afterlife or afterlives (for there are several ways to go in the X-Men universe but it’s not quite as bad as all that). Sure Jean Grey has died, and Colossus, and Wolverine, and Cyclopes, and Professor X…Nightcrawler…Psyloch…I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Well, too late to stop now. Sure these people die but unlike Uncle Ben they don’t stay that way. In the Phoenix Saga from the 80s Jean Grey realizes that she is the only hope to save her friends. Sure people try to stop her but eventually they defer to her judgment. She uses her powers one last time to save the day and earns a hero’s funeral and no one ever asked for more from this brave woman.
psyche!
She gets resurrected by a sentience from outer space dubbed “The Phoenix,” the source of fire and life incarnate, and now she’s dating Scott Summers.
Honestly she could do worse…
See the thing is she dies again after this. In one version (after she did all the bad things in those two movies we hated) she was actually MIA for the whole Dark Phoenix story line as the Phoenix made a copy to inhabit before sacrificing itself eventually letting real Jean come back. Colossus was killed by allowing his body to be used as the catalyst to cure the Legacy Virus (a.k.a. mutant AIDS) only to find out he was re-animated and kept on an alien ship until his arrival would be super emotional.
The thing is, in this universe death is common, but unlike our universe it’s not exactly permanent. You’re down for the count until it’s time to roll up with the crew to save the world. Or maybe it’s a heel turn. If you end up like Psylocke you could die, have your soul put back in the wrong body, adventure a bit and then have the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants (which is totally a thing and I’m living for it) reanimate your dead body because, oh right, they have someone who can do resurrections on their team.
Her name is Spiral and you will respect her
Psylocke gets brought back and brainwashed but still, by the end of the day, the power of friendship is stronger than momentary allegiance. The fact that she cheated death is almost completely incidental to the story. Then there’s Kurt Wagner (a.k.a. Nightcrawler). He died trying to help Hope Summers escape to the mutant island of Utopia and seemed to stay dead a minute. Sure he would kick it in heaven with Professor X, help Wolverine out when he became possessed by a demon. Eventually he just swash-bucked his way back to life after defeating his demon father Azazel.
In the X-Men you’re gone but not forgotten, not even completely gone. Imagine a world where the pull of family can bring you back and you might be gone again later. But that seems way more interesting than what we got going on now. And what the X-Men have going on now trumps all that came before. In the current story arc “House of X” and “Powers of X” mutants have come together, created a civilization of their own and have begun to conquer death itself. Five mutants; Eva Bell, Proteus, Hope Summers, Elixir, and Egg (although to me he will always be Gold Balls) can combine their powers in such a way as to restore the dead to life. In this reality not only are the lines between life and death blurred but all mutants have come together to restore their friends to life and literally undo genocides like what happened in Genosha. A consummation devoutly to be wished. If you like what you read give me a clap or a comment and hit me up on Twitter or Instagram.
https://twitter.com/Bryce_Skidmore
https://www.instagram.com/the_byronic_man/
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https://medium.com/@bryceskidmore/3-best-afterlives-in-pop-culture-8c71d650d2bb
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['Bryce Skidmore']
|
2020-12-22 01:39:00.492000+00:00
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['Death', 'Disney', 'Star Trek', 'Heaven', 'X Men']
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Indonesian College Kids Stock Trading Experience
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I started investing in stock when I was pursuing my bachelor in business administration. Driven by the thrill of capital market, the first thing that I did is to join a seminar held by a state-owned brokerage firm. That session was confusing to me but at least I learned that the firm has a branch on campus. So the next day, I visited that branch to open an account. To my surprise, they only offer services for new account with IDR 10 million rupiah deposit. As a broke college student, that was a huge amount.
I noticed that my classmate, Risky Mayang Sari, parent trade on a smaller brokerage firm that much more inclusive, so I reach out to one of their salesperson to set up a meeting and open an account. We met at Starbucks. He did interviewed me a bit regarding my background and my financial goals. Then I filled my personal information on a paper form.
Back in those days, that firms only provided Desktop apps for doing trades. The UI/UX is, i must say, intimidating. The whole theme is dark background with touch of red and green. My younger self found it impressive, it’s just like what I’ve seen on movies, with daunting charts, indicators and hypnotizing running live trades. So I spend hours and hours to monitor the market on my laptop.
Then I did my very first transaction. I bought TOTL (Total Bangun Persada Tbk.), a private-owned construction company. The reasoning is my salesperson said so. I didn’t look at the price movement, financials, not even know any other facts other than they are in construction business. It was a small win, I forget the actual gain but I believe I sold the stocks on 5% profit after several days.
After several trades whispered from my salesperson, I started losing grip. He was no longer reply my texts and calls. My guess is that he saw me as an unimportant client with small amount of money. Maybe
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https://medium.com/@aktiva/how-i-get-to-know-stocks-f95ff5c4c709
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['Paulus Reinhard Jonathan']
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2021-01-09 16:19:09.521000+00:00
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['Trading', 'College', 'Stocks', 'Investing', 'Finance']
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DISCOVER YOUR GENUINE PASSION AND DESIGN A LIFE YOU LOVE
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ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR CURRENT LIFE?
Do you often think you would make a drastic move or in other words a life-change? Do you ponder if you only had savings, better education, discovered a new profitable business model or just courage enough to chase new opportunities and act upon these? Maybe you already have achieved a comfortable lifestyle and it would be such a risk to you to cross the lifeline — it simply does not meet your criteria for a viable option. Even though, you would not be entirely satisfied with your 9 to 5 frameworks with constant pressure from above you. Do you have an innermost feeling that you are not really living a life you truly deserve? How about, if you would be given nurturing insights and mentoring, would you still ignore opportunity for personal growth and change?
Unleashing your potential is a real life adventure
CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR COMFORT ZONE?
In real life a few permanent life-changes occur without some true suffering or hardships. Otherwise, you are simply not able to realize the context in which to grow and achieve challenging goals needed for the change. Instead, most common pattern is that a person must face a wall in order to learn how to climb. In real terms you may have been sacked, divorced, lost love ones, felled sick, suffered financial meltdown etc. According to various academic studies, it is widely accepted assumption that staggering changes do not happen when individual is living at comfort zones. It is more like opposite, when you have no other options left, you simply must act, or you would risk losing everything.
OUTLIER DECISIONS MAY MAKE YOUR LIFE FLOURISH
Modern human life path does not, by definition, support outcomes which locate as outliers on normal distribution charts. However, those outlier locations are in most cases those opportunities that may change your life permanently and abundantly. You may face some fear, obstacles and failures during your way towards outlier adventures of unknown, but once you reach your genuine ultimate dreams and goals, the reward is usually imminent — it becomes profound and you would never look back to life you lived before. Vice versa, you would certainly blossom forward and gather ever increasing momentum. Do you ever ponder, where your human capabilities might lead you, if you would be able to unleash your full potential? Most people live mean reverting life and regret it afterwards.
RECOURCEFULNESS IS A GIFT AND PRODUCES JOY OF LIFE
Unfulfillment nor dissatisfaction in life are not typically caused due to people are not gaining material success, but rather, not using their unique passion and potential. According to many academic studies, real fulfillment in life is normally found by progressing in spirituality and being able to help others strive as well. More specifically, growing to better human being, having time to care about others and family, being able to allocate time and share experiences with your loved ones are essential in order to enjoy life more abundantly. Freedom of choice will create happiness and joy, which will reflect to all areas of your life.
Design your own path and follow your dreams
EXPLOIT DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES AND DESIGN A LIFE YOU LOVE
Digitalization is currently by far the fastest growing segment in the economy, which will impact everyone in ever increasing phase. It creates new business models, which are about to change most of the traditional setups in society. Personally speaking, you do not have to trade your time inefficiently and unjustified with your employer anymore like in past. There are plenty of ways available to organize your life towards more meaningful things for you and find genuine purpose for your daily efforts. You may utilize the massive potential online and change your life permanently to meet your dreams.
Please, download your free online business guide HERE!
Take action and start discover, learn, and implement digital skills
Therefore, it is vital to possess skills in order to cope in future digital world. It also only makes sense to learn from top online achievers, right? How to realize your unique position in fast evolving digital economy? Here comes the magic trick for your success online: don’t ever try to figure out it alone — seek mentoring and guidance instead and prepare to work persistently. If you feel compelled to learn more about online opportunities and personal growth right now, CLICK HERE!
Please also visit HERE and receive information that is capable to change your life. Are you ready for the CHANGE?
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https://medium.com/discover-your-genuine-passion-and-design-a-life/discover-your-genuine-passion-and-design-a-life-you-love-b4624ef4790c
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['Riku Wiitala']
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2020-12-27 14:12:08.072000+00:00
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['Freedom', 'Digital Marketing', 'Passion', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Lifestyle']
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Explainable AI in practice
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Explainable AI in practice
How committing to transparency made us deliver better AI products
Photo by Kumpan Electric on Unsplash
Introduction
There has been quite a bit of debate around black box AI models being applied to real-world problems. Common AI models have become so large and complex, that even the developers and product managers building the thing don’t exactly know what kind of decisions it will make.
This has resulted in all sorts of unwanted outcomes and potential severe negative consequences for society. These have been evidenced by automated decisions with a racist or sexist bias, such as Apple’s infamous credit card launch in late 2019. Or other dangerous consequences, such as a Tesla misinterpreting a 35 miles per hour speed limit sign after it had been altered with a small piece of tape.
Even with these risks, the vast majority of people still believe in the power and potential of AI. This article looks at three real-life cases in which harmful consequences of black-box AI were mitigated. It closes off with a 6-step transparency guideline that we have implemented in our own development process at Slimmer AI to ensure we avoid the pitfalls of back box models.
Explainable AI
There are techniques and best practices to open up AI models and peek under the hood. Sometimes this is done by selecting a simpler so-called white box model that lets itself be explained more readily. Other times, this entails using novel techniques or grabbing another AI model with the sole task of explaining the first one. The subfield of AI that is concerned with improving model transparency is called explainable AI (or XAI for short). As is perhaps evident by the name, XAI helps human beings understand why the machine reached a particular decision. If humans need to act on decisions made by the system, it’s often very important for these outcomes to be explainable.
Within explainable AI, there is a noteworthy distinction between global interpretability — which enables you to understand how the model generally responds in any situation — and local explanations — which show why a decision was made in one specific case. Global interpretability is very useful for developers and business operators because it improves debugging, understanding and adherence to regulatory compliance. Local explanations are also important to end users who want to know how an algorithmic decision came to its conclusion in their specific case and whether it used fair criteria in the process.
Do we have time for explainable AI?
In a typical AI development workflow, putting in the effort to open up a model might oftentimes feel like time you cannot afford. Machine learning engineers have done their data analyses, feature engineering, model selection and (hyper) parameter tuning in several cycles and finally landed on a model that gives satisfactory, may you even say impressive, results. Product managers have become excited about the model’s performance and its implications for business outcomes. Everyone is on fire to get this thing into production.
Why pause now and take the time off to play around with the outcomes?
Because, in my five years as a machine learning engineer at Slimmer AI, a company with more than 10 years of experience building over dozens of AI solutions, I have seen quite a few cases where explainable AI saved the day.
Three real-life examples
Case 1: Don’t copy that
One of the AI products in the Slimmer AI Science team classifies scientific documents based on relevant pharmaceutical information. When development started a few years ago, we were all excited that the first results seemed very promising. With both very high precision and recall, we were able to pinpoint which documents mattered.
To our customer however, an automated decision wasn’t enough. Their workflow — and the pharmaceutical industry itself — is heavily regulated. They needed to know why a document was classified in one category and not another.
Initially, we used LIME (paper, code) to get an approximation of which words in the preprocessed text had contributed most to the results. LIME fits a simple white box model on the feature space directly surrounding a data sample. This way, it learns what subtle differences in input values cause one prediction over another and hence, which features — in this case, words — are most important.
An example of applying LIME Text Explainer on a scientific document. Highlighted words have contributed the most towards the eventual classification of the paper. Photo by author.
To everyone’s surprise, one of the most important “words” that popped up in several texts was the number 169 at the end of the last sentence. We were baffled by this random looking number and checked the original text for clues.
It turned out that texts from one specific source almost always included a copyright mark in html tags at the end of the text. After preprocessing, only the number 169 remained. Typically, texts from this source had a higher likelihood of belonging to one specific category, hence the model had picked up on this by using the copyright reference to discern between categories.
While it might be a good idea to include a feature that specifies the source of the text, our model would not have been robust if we had put it into production in its current form. All it would take is for this one data source to remove the copyright symbol, or for another source to add it to their texts as well, and our model’s predictions would be incorrect.
We improved our preprocessing by properly removing whole html tags, increasing our confidence in the outcomes of this new model in production.
Case 2: Do you see what I see?
In a pan-European medical partnership we were the designated party to automatically detect skin infections surrounding the driveline tube of patients with a ventricular assist device. The final AI product was an app through which patients could check the wound surrounding their driveline. In case of moderate or severe infection, immediate contact with a physician would be warranted.
In the initial dataset, photos of the driveline entering a patient’s body were categorized by human physicians into one of four categories ranging from no to severe skin infection. Because the physicians sometimes disagreed, it wasn’t possible to obtain a perfect score. Even more, the photos were often cluttered with tissues and bandages and the dataset was relatively small.
With such ambiguous data, it was even more important to make sure the model made sensible decisions.
While deep neural networks often get a bad reputation for being opaque black boxes, a technique called Grad-CAM (paper, code) enables you to visualize what the network is paying attention to when making its decision. For many use cases, this is a helpful technique to determine whether or not you should trust a prediction at face value.
Grad-CAM showed that even though our model often made very sensible predictions, it occasionally based its decisions not on the wound surrounding the driveline, but solely on the driveline itself! Presumably the small size of the dataset and the prominent appearance of the driveline had given the model the false impression that the orientation of the driveline contained an important clue.
Left image shows the driveline tube as the main area of interest. Right image shows the neural network’s interest in the wound itself. Photo by author.
This insight prompted us to automatically filter out the driveline from the photos before presenting them to our model. We tested and compared several masking and filling techniques, each time using Grad-CAM to analyze the impact. Eventually, we were able to settle on a specific filling technique that made the model’s predictions a lot more robust.
Case 3: Can’t touch this
In late 2018, we partnered with an institution to help identify customers at risk of getting into severe debt. The institution intended to reach out to these persons early on to get them on a customized payment plan before their finances would worsen even further.
Their database consisted of a multiyear fine and transaction history of millions of customers. They also had access to another database from a different institution, containing additional personal information about their customers.
The domain experts involved intuitively felt that this second database would provide valuable information. However, due to privacy concerns, the organization was wary to combine these two databases unless this proved to be significantly beneficial to the cause.
Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash
We trained two models on the data in the first database: a simple logistic regression and a gradient boosted trees model (XGBoost), both using a large collection of engineered features. XGBoost easily outperformed logistic regression, giving us confidence that a more complex AI model was justified.
Next, we tested if we could make these predictions even better by adding the second database. To everyone’s surprise, the resulting model did not lead to any better results.
We therefore computed the feature importances of both models. This showed which input characteristics had the largest impact on predicting who would end up with severe debts.
For the model using only the first database, one particular customer fine in combination with several payment behaviors proved to be most important. For the model using both databases, it turned out that one specific characteristic from the new database was by far the highest contributing feature.
This meant that the second database indeed contained information that significantly contributed to making a correct prediction, just as the domain experts had suspected. But the same information was already captured in the model using only the first database, albeit through a more complex combination of several manually engineered features.
This led to a sigh of relief, as the client we had partnered with felt they could safely focus on the first database and uphold their value of privacy by removing any dependency on the second database.
Embedding explainable AI into your workflow
In the three different problems from the examples above, three different approaches to explainable AI were used. This shows that explainable AI is not just a single trick you can apply to each use case; it is a whole subfield of AI that is waiting to be mastered.
The main takeaway is that even though it is essential to have concrete metrics such as F1 scores and accuracy, we must also take the time to get to know and understand our models. No metric will capture the insights you can gather from opening up your model and getting an understanding of why it makes the predictions that it does.
To make the most of explainable AI, we use a 6-step transparency guideline at Slimmer AI when diving into a new AI adventure:
1. Agree on the goal
Before doing any data prep or model selection, align both engineers and business stakeholders on what the model is going to optimize. When building a predictive engine, how do we represent each category? And what are the business consequences if the model misses an instance or when it makes a mistake? The answers to these questions will determine how the model should be fine-tuned and help establish your first step towards a more transparent model.
2. Explore the data
Next, get to know your data through descriptive statistics and correlation plots. This will already provide some insight on class distributions, outliers and most relevant features. The results from this step will often cause you to refine the goal from step one. If the data contains personal information, rank the risk of using each feature or specific samples with respect to discriminative outcomes. Unfair bias should be checked at the end of the development cycle, but now is the time to make a first selection.
3. Start simple
It’s best to start off with the simplest baseline model you can think of to avoid overfitting on your data. Additionally, simple models are often more interpretable out of the box. Although customers and marketing may love the idea of a deep neural network, if a good ol’ linear regression can do the job just as well, then it’s best to stick with the basics.
4. Get some perspective
Before presenting evaluation scores to your team or other stakeholders, look at the relative importance of each feature. Does this make sense? Does domain expertise acknowledge their importance? Could any of these features indicate unfair bias? Present these global model explanations alongside your evaluation scores and bias report to stakeholders to improve the model’s trustworthiness.
5. Zoom in
Next, look at the local explanations of both correctly and incorrectly predicted samples. Is it plausible that the samples were misclassified given these features and their values? Often your features can be further fine-tuned based on the information you gather during this review. Once you’re satisfied with the model’s results, report indicative sample explanations so that stakeholders gain an intuitive understanding of the model’s limitations. If possible, present explanations alongside predictions once your model goes into production.
6. Monitor
Once your model is in production, make sure to continuously check for changes in the input data which could cause your model’s performance to degrade over time. Monitoring data drift and real-time performance will increase confidence in the model’s robustness.
Graphic by Author
Closing thoughts
I hope these examples have made you excited to embrace explainable AI in your own workflow. It’s a topic I’m very passionate about and at Slimmer AI we are constantly monitoring and testing novel ways to improve our models’ transparency. Our current R&D focuses on whether some of our high performing tree ensembles could potentially be replaced by a more white-box Explainable Boosting Machine.
What is your favorite technique? And do you have any other examples where explainable AI saved the day? Please comment here or reach out to me to discuss!
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/explainable-ai-in-practice-6d82b77bf1a7
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['Ayla Kangur']
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2020-12-29 17:59:55.772000+00:00
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['Machine Learning', 'Editors Pick', 'Model Interpretability', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Explainable Ai']
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What is Cohort Analysis and How Should I Use it?
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What is Cohort Analysis and How Should I Use it?
A beginner’s guide to cohort analysis in Google Analytics
Last week, I asked our Analytics for Humans community on Facebook for a few suggestions on topics they’d like to learn more about.
Based on the responses, people were very interested in hearing about cohort analysis, so let’s go ahead and talk about it!
As one of the newest features in Google Analytics, cohort analysis is also the one that creates the most confusion in analysts.
The confusion primarily come from two places.
First, unlike most of the analytics features in Google Analytics (such as session analysis, page analysis, etc.), cohort analysis is dynamic.
It means that instead of summing your session or page activities over a fixed time range, cohort analysis describes behaviors of various groups of users OVER TIME on your website — which make the analysis somewhat harder to interpret and understand without deep understanding.
Secondly, cohort analysis is hard to use to produce actionable insight.
It might be good to know that my users are coming back to my website more over the past couple of weeks, but this information by itself is meaningless — how can I combine what I learned in cohort analysis with other analyses in Google Analytics to figure out what I can DO to make my user come back to my website more?
This article will help you resolve both confusions by
Offering a comprehensive look at the cohort analysis technique, and few key points you need to grasp in order to understand how it is actually conducted Offer you a few key ways you can use cohort analysis, combining with other analytics modules in Google Analytics, to figure out how to make your users come back to your website more.
Then, we will continue the topic discussed in this article with another installment of our “Google Analytics API for Absolute Beginners” so we can reap benefits from the added functionality provided by the Google Analytics API, but that would be the topic of our next article.
What is cohort analysis?
Let’s begin by talking about what cohort analysis actually IS.
As hinted a little bit in the introduction, cohort analysis is
an analytical techniques that focuses on analyzing the behavior of a group of users/customers over time, thereby uncovering insights about the experiences of those customers, and what companies can do to better those experiences.
Well, throwing that huge chunk of definition in your face is probably like throwing a brick — it hurts, but you have no idea what it means, so let’s now break that definition down.
The key for understanding cohort analysis is to first step OUT of the technique itself, and consider yourself in the shoes of your customers.
Easy example of a cohort — fish in a fish tank | Picture by Frederica Diamanta on Unsplash
Let’s say that your customer Bob entered your online store four months ago in response to a 50% discount, looked through your wares, and bought a tiny trial set of your avocado cosmetics.
As a business owner, it is natural to ask yourself — are people like Bob coming back to my store as result of that trial set purchase? How fast is he going to come back and what value is he going to present to my company?
So you ask your store attendant (their name is “Cookie”) to keep track of behavior of people like Bob, and see if they return and make a purchase, and how frequent those returns are.
Now, four months later, you and “Cookie” sit down in your office desk and look through all Bob-like users that visited your store during the time of that specific promotion and bought a trial set. (by the way, this group of users that came in in that specific time frame is called a cohort).
You realized that 70% of the people who bought the trial set never came back (bummer!), while 20% came back to your store at least once but didn’t buy anything, and the remaining 10% bought something in this four month period.
So what happened, and how can we fix this?
First, you hypothesize that most of the users who never came back did not do so because they weren’t interested in your product, but rather because they just forgot about you in the vast sea of information (damn goldfish memory).
Given that, you probably should start running retargeting ads right at the end of the usage of their trial product to remind them to buy more of your product if they are satisfied.
Yeah turns out that this is super expensive — maybe give it to your customers for free? Picture by Bench Accounting on Unsplash
Secondly, you looked into the experiences of those who have visited your website but didn’t purchase, and realized that most of them stopped at the “shipping and handling” page of your product, meaning that they are hesitant about your shipping cost.
Maybe you should launch a free-shipping campaign for those returning customers so it is no longer a concern for them anymore.
Now, with those analyses above, you came up with two concrete actions that you can do to improve the conversion rate of those group, and most importantly, for all groups in the future in case you are repeating similar promotional events — now it is time to go do them, and see if your retention rate and conversion rate for the future improve!
That, ladies and gentlemen, is cohort analysis in plain words.
Three key anchors to understand cohort analysis
Now let’s talk about doing cohort analysis in practice.
To conduct cohort analysis, you will need three pieces of information to serve as “anchors” for your analysis.
The first “anchor” is the definition of the cohort, which is always a time period in the past.
Just as you would expect from its name, a “cohort” is always time-bonded, defining a group of people who entered your website/store at a certain time period. Therefore, you need to first decide which time period you want to analyze.
Cohort analysis is about groups you’re getting that from this imagery right? | Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash
The way I like to imagine cohort analysis is like a 400m race with a beginning and end, during which we want to keep track of the behavior of all of our racers (our customers/users).
The definition of cohort defines the moment in which we are going to start the race, and we will start tracking the behavior of each of the racers
If you are analyzing the behavior of your customers from a certain promotional event, your cohort could be all customers coming onto your website within the time range of that event.
You can add additional filtering to the cohort definition by only analyzing the customers who have visited your website via a specific source (such as Facebook, Google, etc.), however, the time-bond definition always needs to be there for the cohort analysis to work.
With the cohort defined, now it is time to decide how long you want to run your analysis for (the lagging period), which is the second “anchor”.
If you want to see how users behave one month after their initial visit, your lagging period would be 1 month.
This number is selected largely based on your preferences and your company’s industrial environment.
Finally, with both the lagging period and cohort determined, we can figure out our final anchor, which is the termination time of your analysis.
For example, if you are tracking the behavior of your cohort that visited your website from March 1st — March 7th, with a one month lagging period, the earliest you can get this result is by April 7th, which signals the end of the lagging period of the last possible person in that cohort.
This detail is easy to omit in Google Analytics since it treats an unfinished cohort as finished.
What do I mean?
This illustration displays a sample account with cohort size being on a weekly basis. The first column represents average duration spent in the first week from the time the cohort first visited the website. Meaning that if the cohort is May 27th — June 2nd, it calculates the average session duration of this same group from June 3rd — June 9th.
Now zoom onto the last two records of the week 1 and week 2 column, which gives the lowest average of :04 and :01.
Before you panic, think about it: at the time of this article’s writing, we are at the beginning of week of July 8th — July 14th, which means that the most recent 1 week and 2 week retention are only collected for the day of July 8th and 9th, 2/7 days — so this data is not accurate and should not be displayed in the first place!
Therefore, always pay attention to the final anchor of your cohort analysis to make sure that you are at the time to be absolutely certain that all data related to your cohort are collected, which in this case is July 15th.
Cohort Analysis in Practice
Since this article is dedicated to talking about all details of cohort analysis, let’s also touch on how you can do cohort analysis on your data without assistance of tools such as Google Analytics.
And more importantly, I will show you why Google Analytics is giving you inaccurate data in their cohort analysis feature.
A common misconception I see people have about cohort analysis is that they think cohort analysis is merely aggregation of data points for the beginning period (March 1st — March 7th) and the ending period (April 1st — April 7th).
The fact is, if you think more about it, it is in fact impossible to compute your cohort performance with aggregate data, because there is no way to tell whether the session visit in March is from the same person who visited in April.
In fact, to compute cohort analysis, you need to identify all users who visited during the initial period (March 1st — 7th), and look at the behavior of each of these users one by one to see if they visited by the end of their lagging period, which could fall between April 1st — April 7th.
Then, you aggregate all of those individual users’ experience together to produce the final cohort analysis data.
During your computation, there is a catch: if a user visited in March 2nd and returned on April 3rd, they should not technically be considered as “returned” due to the one month limit on users’ return.
This means, to ensure maximum accuracy on your data, the termination time of your analysis will range from April 1st — April 7th, depending on when the users first visited your website, instead of one single termination date of April 7th as used by Google Analytics.
Having a single termination date will make the data slightly inconsistent — as your users technically have a lagging period ranging from 1 month — 1 month 7 days. This will result in a slight inflation of your end result.
However, the reason Google does this is perfectly sound — computing some slightly less accurate data is a lot more computationally efficient, given the volume of computation required by Google Analytics to provide cohort analysis for all users.
As users, you just need to aware of the fact that all your cohort metrics are inflated a little compared with the most accurate computation when using Google Analytics.
How to use cohort analysis in your business
Now let’s wrap this part up with a brief introduction of types of cohort analysis you can do with your data, and what type of business insights you can draw from each.
Overall, it is hard to extract business value from one-time cohort analysis immediately compared to other popular analytics methods.
This is mostly because you cannot really react based on your cohort analysis data.
If you are running, let’s say a funnel analysis, and see some users dropping out of a part of the funnel very rapidly. You can immediately launch a retargeting campaign to those users, while patching the funnel up with some site redesign to make sure you don’t lose those users.
However, when you are doing cohort analysis, the feedback cycle is usually way longer.
For example, if you are running a 1-month lagging cohort analysis and implemented some improvements on your 1-month user experience, you really cannot fully comprehend the result of those improvements until 1 month later when you can see the full journey of your current cohort.
And then, further changes will take one month further to see effect — which is really slow from a digital marketer’s perspective.
However, while slow, cohort analysis provides a much more complete look at your user journey, and it is incredibly helpful to help you design a campaign that not only sees result immediately, but also is sticky and creates long-term value for your company.
For me, cohort analysis can be used for two primary purposes: for one-time campaign retrospection, and for ongoing user engagement benchmarking.
Almost all great marketers and campaign managers run retrospective analyses on all of the campaigns they can for their clients or their company.
In the retrospective, the manager look at all data related to the campaign 3–4 month after its passing, and perform a final assessment on whether the campaign was effective in bringing intended results for their clients in the longer term, and in the short time.
Here, cohort analysis can provide a great amount of information for the company and managers as to the behavior of the customers that was acquired or/and converted throughout the campaign.
For example, if you are running a promotional campaign that sells a trial set of your product for a below margin discount, what you really want is for those people who bought your product to come back and make a “real” purchase.
Cohort analysis can help you figure out whether that’s the actual case, and provide you with a final sanity check of whether you should continue the same campaign next year or next quarter.
Now let’s talk about the second analytics use case, which is ongoing user engagement benchmarking.
For those of you who read my stuff a lot, you know that I always hesitate over changes in key metrics such as sessions and bounce rate in a short term, since they are usually very volatile.
However, for cohort analysis, since it is computed over a large period of time, it is less prone to those short-term influences, and are likely reflect your true customer engagement level in a long-term perspective.
But, that’s enough information for you to truly master and understand cohort analysis. Next part of this series, we are going to talk about how to conduct cohort analysis in the Google Analytics user interface, and then move onto doing more analyses using the Google Analytics API.
Stay Tuned!
|
https://medium.com/analytics-for-humans/what-is-cohort-analysis-and-how-should-i-use-it-3ac7c39c50dd
|
['Bill Su']
|
2019-04-05 12:38:41.278000+00:00
|
['Cohort Analysis', 'Marketing', 'Google Analytics', 'Analytics', 'Digital Marketing']
|
Onyx Coffee Lab Labels Create A Bold Brand Identity To Match Their Green Coffee Roasts
|
Onyx Coffee Lab Labels Create A Bold Brand Identity To Match Their Green Coffee Roasts StickerGiant Jun 17, 2019·3 min read
Onyx Coffee Lab strives to create the perfect cup of coffee by mixing science and artisan methods of roasting, brewing, and sourcing coffee. To match their brand aesthetic, they ordered up matte coffee labels packed with information and clean design.
Onyx has four locations in northwest Arkansas, with Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville and Rodgers.
The Rodgers location is a new Onyx cafe and the Onyx HQ. Under one roof you’ll find their new shop with a one-of-a-kind coffee bar; The Foreman, a speakeasy; Dry Storage, an event space; and Doughp, the Onyx bakery. With all of these brands, options and diverse businesses, Onyx is building something bigger than coffee: community.
Sometimes, customers don’t live near an Onyx location, but they need freshly roasted and convenient Onyx coffee. To solve that problem, Onyx offers hassle-free coffee subscriptions. Every Tuesday they roast and ship out their subscription coffee. Customers can choose the frequency of deliveries, the quantity and the coffee style, with choices ranging from their Southern Weather, Geometry, Monarch, Decaf Colombia Medellín, Cold Brew, or Roaster’s Choice styles, which is a different single origin coffee with each delivery.
The company was started by Jon and Andrea in October of 2012 on a dream that started with serving a sweet, black cup of coffee to customers in Arkansas. From the beginning, they viewed coffee as a mythical drink where delicate flavors present themselves through a green coffee bean that’s grown and processed with love and care. They roasted to enhance but not mask flavor, and the Coffee Lab team brews to highlight those flavors. Out in their stores, the Onyx staff provides the kind of service that meets people where they are, focusing on a kind approach and a desire to please customers in the exchange at the counter and throughout their stay, whether it’s a business meeting or a meetup between two old friends. They have an extensive collection of coffee equipment for their discerning clientele to have at-home and on-the-go Onyx experiences, and an educational video series to teach customers how to maximize the flavor in their cup.
Every beverage that comes from Onyx Coffee Lab starts with green coffee. They believe that no amount of roasting expertise or beverage mixology can take the place of the kind of green coffee that’s the result of intentionality at the farm level. Onyx coffees are grown and harvested to maintain quality and consistency from cherry ripeness to density then processed to continue that quality creates a coffee that is clean, flavorful and interesting from cup to cup.
Jon also serves as the green buyer, drinking hundreds of cups of coffees in various locals in an effort to find the select few that make it back to their coffee. Back in the Lab, the team roasts and cups dozens of coffee samples a week, and they source coffees that taste great as a solo espresso, as a part of their Southern Weather house blend, or in a single bag of coffee that they vac-pac and sell in small releases.
But back to these coral-colored product labels for their year-round Monarch blend. They are a beautifully crafted piece of information design, with bold colors and strong use of typography. There is space for elevation, origin, cup flavor profile and brew strength. They even manage to add their logo and the partnership with Metad in Ethiopia.
When brewing up a brand experience, it takes time to get the messaging just right, kind of like slow roasting green coffee beans to make the perfect cup. For this label design the end result is nearly as good as the roast itself.
|
https://medium.com/@stickergiant/onyx-coffee-lab-labels-create-a-bold-brand-identity-to-match-their-green-coffee-roasts-989b20287334
|
[]
|
2019-06-21 20:27:21.236000+00:00
|
['Coffee', 'Sustainability', 'Food And Drink']
|
UI Animations With Swift
|
I’ve been interviewing for iOS roles lately. In most cases, I’ve been asked to work on a small iOS app that I have to return in a week so they can review it and hopefully give me feedback. I like this process because you can really show off your skill set, and they can get a true understanding of your coding style and problem-solving abilities (depending on what they ask you to build).
The last one I worked on was for an application that has developed a solid and heavily animated UI. Because of that, one of the requirements in the iOS take-home was to include animations. This was a good opportunity for me to dig more into animations, and I spent some time playing around in our Playground.
Playgrounds are really cool! It’s a coding environment that allows a user to interact with Swift code, without requiring the user to create a project. That makes it a truly powerful tool to learn swift and to test some code or prototyping views.
|
https://medium.com/better-programming/ui-animations-with-swift-2ebb5e6d2292
|
['Xiomara Figueroa']
|
2019-11-03 15:26:39.029000+00:00
|
['UI', 'Programming', 'iOS', 'Swift Playgrounds', 'Swift']
|
Embarkation
|
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
When love writes itself
upon the empty page,
does it dart and strain
meandering slowly here
and there and taking up
the cadence of a mad god?
Footfalls close
Hands close
Hearts closer still
until
the last trail of ink
bleeds into the page below
and screams into
some lost void
the enormity of what
has only just begun.
|
https://medium.com/scribe/embarkation-45ebfae871c9
|
['Elle Rogers']
|
2020-10-23 13:49:37.581000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Love', 'Relationships', 'Free Verse']
|
Essential guide to perform Feature Binning using a Decision Tree Model
|
Essential guide to perform Feature Binning using a Decision Tree Model
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
Feature Engineering is an essential component of a machine learning model development pipeline. A machine learning model understands only numerical vectors, so a data scientist needs to engineer the features to train a robust machine learning model.
Binning or discretization is used to encode a continuous or numerical variable into a categorical variable. Sometimes numerical or continuous features do not work well with non-linear models. So binning of continuous variables introduces non-linearity in the data and tends to improve the performance of the model.
There are various techniques to perform feature binning including the Unsupervised and Supervised methods of Binning.
(Image by Author), Technique to perform feature binning
Read my previous article, to get an in-depth understanding of feature encoding strategies
In this article, we will discuss one of the best strategies to bin the numerical feature using a decision tree model.
What is Feature Binning?
Feature binning refers to a technique to transform or bucket the numerical or continuous feature into a categorical variable.
Pandas come up with a pd.qcut(x, q) function that buckets the continuous feature into q buckets, with equal percentile differences.
df['Sepallength_quartle'] = pd.qcut(df['SepalLengthCm'], 4)
(Image by Author), Bucketed Result Sample
Or one can also use pd.cut(x, bins, labels) function and pass custom bins and labels for bucketing.
These kinds of bucketing strategies do not involve the target variable while computing the bins. Hence the bins night does not have any correlation with the target variable. The aim of feature binning is to introduce non-linearity in the data which may further improve the performance of the model.
Idea:
The main purpose of feature binning is not met, by performing random, count, or quartile-based bucketing. The idea is to find the best set of buckets or bins using a decision tree model that will involve correlation with the target variable.
Data Source: We will be binning the ‘Sepal Length’ feature from the Iris dataset that is downloaded from Kaggle.
Follow the following steps to decide the optimal ‘Sepal Length’ bins:
Train a best-fit Decision Tree model with feature ‘Sepal Length’ as training data and ‘Species’ as the target variable.
X = df[['SepalLengthCm']]
y = df['Species'] params = {'max_depth':[2,3,4], 'min_samples_split':[2,3,5,10]}
clf_dt = DecisionTreeClassifier()
clf = GridSearchCV(clf_dt, param_grid=params, scoring='accuracy')
clf.fit(X, y) clf_dt = DecisionTreeClassifier(clf.best_params_)
Plot a decision tree using Graphviz.
tree.plot_tree(clf_dt, filled=True, feature_names = list(X.columns), class_names=['Iris-setosa', 'Iris-versicolor', 'Iris-virginica'])
plt.show()
Decide the feature buckets from observing the graph nodes.
(Image by Author), Decision Tree representation using Graphviz
From the above graphical representation of the Decision tree model, we can conclude that Iris-setosa has most of the points having sepal length ≤ 5.45, and a majority of Iris-virginica data points have sepal length > 6.15. The majority of Iris-versicolor data points have a sepal length in the range of 4.86 — 6.15.
Using the above observation we can prepare the buckets to bin the ‘Sepal Length’ continuous feature.
bins = [0, 5.45, 6.15, 10]
labels = ['Less Than 5.45','4.86 - 6.15', 'Above 6.16']
df['SepalLengthBucket'] = pd.cut(df['SepalLengthCm'], bins=bins, labels=labels)
(Image by Author), Correlation between Bucketed continuous feature (‘SepalLengthBucket’) and target variable (‘Species’)
The bucketed Sepal Length feature is well-correlated with the target variable and will train a much robust model better than random, count, or quartile-based bucketing strategies.
Conclusion:
Binning of continuous variables introduces non-linearity in the data and tends to improve the performance of the model. The decision tree rule-based bucketing strategy is a handy technique to decide the best set of feature buckets to pick while performing feature binning.
One must keep in mind not to train the decision tree model having larger depth, as it becomes difficult to interpret the feature buckets.
References:
[1] Scikit-learn documentation: https://scikit-learn.org/stable/modules/tree.html
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/essential-guide-to-perform-feature-binning-using-a-decision-tree-model-90bcc66d61f9
|
['Satyam Kumar']
|
2021-09-02 18:35:12.734000+00:00
|
['Feature Engineering', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Education', 'Machine Learning']
|
How to Migrate Your Local MongoDB Database Between Computers
|
Restore MongoDB Data
At this stage, you already have your dump-files directory in your new machine. Next, we can proceed to restore the MongoDB data.
Let’s assume I saved my dump directory at this path ~/Downloads/mongo-migration .
Now we can use the default root role we have in our MongoDB to restore the database. Refer to the command below.
We can use this single command to restore all of the database, and you’d have the exact same database as previously.
Restore multiple DBs
However, there could be a scenario where you only want to restore a few DBs, excluding a few DBs from the dump directory.
For example, I want to restore the audit and client tables during this round. We can do this by using --nsInclude with the nsExclude option in mongorestore .
Example of using --nsInclude
We can use --nsInclude to select only the database and collections that we want to restore. In the command below, we restore all the collections in the audit database using audit.* and all collections in the client database using client.* .
The wildcard after the dot notation means all collections in the database. If you want to include or exclude multiple databases, you’d need to specify it as nsInclude or nsExclude . Refer to the example below.
Example of using --nsExclude
We can use nsExclude to exclude the database and collections we don’t want to restore. In the command below, we exclude the partner , promotions , transaction , and utilities databases.
Restore a single DB
Lastly, this is the command to restore a single DB. There are a few things to take note of here:
-d options: Specify the database name to be restored. This is a required option.
options: Specify the database name to be restored. This is a required option. Specify the correct dump directory. For example, if I’m restoring the utilities database, I must specify the utilities database dump directory.
Refer to the command below.
|
https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-migrate-your-local-mongodb-database-between-computers-debe57092ab5
|
['Tek Loon']
|
2020-07-31 14:22:05.348000+00:00
|
['Database', 'Mongodb', 'Software Engineering', 'Mongo', 'Programming']
|
Can Digital Products Be “Timeless?”
|
Can Digital Products Be “Timeless?”
Do websites and apps belong in the MoMA? (They do)
Working at HODINKEE, I’m exposed to iconic, timeless designs nearly every day. From vintage watches and design objects that come by my desk, to the classic cars I get to drive on the weekends, I’m fortunate to be surrounded with timeless design.
However, before working here, “iconic” and “timeless” were never words I would use to describe digital products during my years working with startups. “Does it solve the problem?”, “Is it useful?”, “Is this design easy to understand?” certainly come to mind, but never in my career had I wondered, “Is this design timeless?”
The Rolex Submariner, a timeless design.
What is timeless design?
For a product to become timeless, it must first have fundamentally good design.
Second, it must be iconic, in that it sets a new benchmark in the field and is instantly culturally recognizable.
Then, (this is crucial part) it needs enough time to prove it’s as good, or even better, today as it was 10, 20, 50+ years ago. No easy task!
So, I wonder, as the consumer internet approaches nearly 30 years old at the time of writing this, why don’t we ever think of digital designs as “timeless?”
Digital design’s handicap
Well, most digital designs are never intended to be timeless in the first place. The web is living medium and probably the fastest changing one designers have ever had to work with. Entire paradigm shifts can happen over night, platforms come and go, and designs can get flipped on their heads in order for a business to survive.
However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes digital designs endure against all odds. And I would argue, may one day be considered timeless.
Porsche 911 vs Google Homepage
|
https://medium.com/startup-grind/can-digital-products-be-timeless-a04e30662029
|
['Adam Kopec']
|
2017-05-12 18:12:28.622000+00:00
|
['Design Thinking', 'Tech', 'UX', 'Art', 'Design']
|
Dark Times ~ Praise Osawaru
|
Photo by Suparerg Suksai from Pexels
For three days it has rained intermittently
The stalks have altered their stance into an eternal bow /
and the roads are now mud-colored.
My neighbor’s house now glugs water through an open roof —
the aftereffect of an ardent rainstorm.
_
My dad says God is attempting
to cleanse the earth from darkness
and the rite demands a sweeping force.
The power company borrows that
as a justification for our deprivation of light.
_
I look up and gawk at dark clouds
encroaching the sunless blue sky /
sculpturing dander from an unruffled sky.
_
Last midnight our fence kissed the ground
after meeting with the ceaseless downpour and wind /
the surrounding waters altered our home into an island.
_
So, I clutch my younger sister & say,
We’re in dark times,
prepare for abundant chill & obscurity.
_______
Praise Osawaru is a writer and poet of Bini descent. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, FERAL, Ghost Heart Literary Journal, Kalahari Review, Serotonin, and elsewhere. He was longlisted for Babishai 2020 Haiku Award and Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2020. He’s on Instagram/Twitter: @wordsmithpraise
|
https://medium.com/sub-saharan-magazine/dark-times-praise-osawaru-bd1fd0abac3b
|
['Chigozie Nelson']
|
2020-09-22 20:04:07.573000+00:00
|
['Poetry Writing', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry']
|
The Nothing-Nothing People, Waray-Waray
|
The sun hadn’t yet risen over the sea. The sky to the left was beginning to glow like a quiet fire. The rest of the sky was a soft blue broken by a mountain of rain clouds. And directly beneath that the wide sea was broken only by the broad outline of the island Homonhon. Macawile gazed at this scene hoping the sun would come soon to warm his skin. He heard small footsteps behind him and turned to see a boy carrying something wrapped in a banana leaf under one arm. A dusty-brown dog followed dutifully. The boy quietly took Macawile’s hand, raising it to his own forehead.
“Maupay…” Macawile said, craning his neck to catch the child’s sleepy eyes and get a polite morning greeting back.
“Maupay…,” he muttered back softly, as he raised up his banana-wrapped package to offer it.
“Salamat,” the young man chuckled as he took the package and unwrapped. It was lugao — sweet rice. Macawile lifted a foot onto the leaning coconut tree that made his seat; he propped up one knee and started picking at his breakfast.
The sun continued to warm up the sky. Macawile looked over his baluto from end to end — a narrow boat; attached on each side by thin wooden rods was a thick shaft of bamboo slightly shorter than the hull. He mentally reviewed the supplies he had stowed including a net, a basket, a spear. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the boy pick up the sundang machete from next to him on the coconut tree and take it out from its sheath. Macawile didn’t mind. And as he kept chewing his rice, he remembered when he was too young to carry his own tools. And how eager he was to get his own sundang. The boy wandered a few steps away with it, swinging idly at the underbrush. The dog was almost startled by the motion as it sniffed around the child’s feet, but it knew well enough to keep clear of a swinging sundang.
By the time he had picked the banana leaf clean, the sky was bright enough to have Macawile worried that he was taking too long. He picked up the sheath, shambled over to the baluto, and caught the boy’s attention.
“Hoy, pag-umangkon! An akon sundang, alayon…”
The boy walked over, still quietly and sleepily, and extended his arm towards the young man, pointing the blade directly towards him. Macawile gave the boy a look. “Is that how you hand someone a sundang?”
The boy simply lowered his arm, looking up at him with wide eyes waiting to be told what he’d done wrong. Macawile took the sundang by the handle and turned it around in the boy’s hands.
“Hand it to me backwards,” he explained. “It’s rude to point the sharp end at somebody.”
The boy did as he was told, pointing the blade down towards his own feet and offering the sundang handle-first.
“Salamat!” Macawile smiled.
A few moments later, Macawile was pushing his baluto into the water. Where the water was up to his knees, he climbed into the center of the boat, took a seat, and silently asked the boat if they would have good sailing today. He waited a moment… the boat answered with a steady rocking back and forth in the soft waves. He nodded to himself with satisfaction and turned to send the boy back home. But he was already walking back into the brush. The dog stood expectantly at the edge of the water, looking from the young man to the boy and back again. Macawile waved goodbye to the dog and took up his paddle.
As he worked the paddle in and out of the water, he was mindful not to get it tangled among the culapu leaves growing in the shallow water. As he pushed further away from the shore, he felt the wind cooling his skin, despite the rising sun bringing more and more heat. When the waves were strong enough that he could no longer see the sand or the culapu kelp beneath them, he unfurled the sail of his baluto and tried to catch the winds that would take him in the direction of Manicani island.
~~~~~~~~
After an hour or two of sailing, Macawile was far from the shoreline of Samar behind him. He kept an eye out for any sign of fish. Eventually, he saw a fish leap out of the water not too far ahead of him. He was grateful for a lucky day of sailing indeed! It was the right size and color to be a black snapper, or so he’d hoped. He furled his sail and readied his net. When he was close to where he thought he’d seen the fish jump, with the paddle Macawile brought the baluto to a stop as best he could. And he stood up with his net slung over his shoulder. He carefully edged to one end of the boat, constantly adjusting his footing with the motion of the waves. Then, twisting his body he threw the net off his shoulder, holding the line by the same hand. The rocks weighing down the edge of the net hit the water in a circle and the cords slipped underwater. After several moments, Macawile would pull up the line and hopefully find some decently-sized fish shaking about in the net. He repeated the process until his basket was just about full.
~~~~~~~~
After at least an hour of casting and recasting his net, Macawile sailed on. The sun was still well above the horizon, so he was making decent time.
Finally, Manicani island was nearly all he could see ahead of him. He was passing several sandy shoals to his left, and Homonhon still dominated the horizon ahead and to the right, with its mountain of a rain cloud above. Macawile kept his distance from the coast of Manicani, while he turned right to pass around to it’s far side, where he had been instructed to meet his uncle.
At last, while the sun was still not yet touching the horizon behind him, Macawile came upon a cluster of boats off the coast of Manicani. He waved at them as he approached and announced himself, “Maupay!”
Amongst the voices greeting him in return he heard his uncle. As he paddled even closer with his sail furled he was able to recognize the faces of his relatives on one large boat and a couple balutos like his own. Some strangers who might’ve looked vaguely familiar occupied a few more boats among them. Macawile paddled up close to his uncle’s large boracay boat. He climbed from his boat to the larger one and politely lifted his uncle’s hand to his own forehead, asking for a blessing.
“Maupay nga culop, Batá…”
“Maupay!” his uncle replied, with a proud smile.
Macawile then reached back to his baluto and pulled the basket from it. He offered it to his uncle, telling him it was a fresh catch and that he hoped it would feed the family well.
Taking the basket and looking it over, his face lit up. “Lapu-lapu!” he exclaimed, “that’s a strong fish, always good to eat! Salamat, my umangkon…” and he handed the basket to one of Macawile’s cousins to stow. “Macawile! Thank you for coming,” he continued, taking on a slightly sterner face. “You taking care of your Nanay?”
“O o,” the young man confirmed with a nod. He took a seat on the edge of the boracay and held his baluto close with one hand.
His Uncle returned the nod, unsurprised. “My umangkon Macawile, do you want to go to Cebu?”
“Cebu?” Macawile replied, a little surprised, “what’s in Cebu, the market?”
“The market! I need to sell all these,” and he waved his hand over his cargo, partly covered in rice mats. Some piles of coconuts in different stages were partly visible; hairy brown lahing and smooth green silot.
“You’re not going to sell them here?”
“You ever been to the market at Cebu?”
Macawile was quiet, knowing his uncle knew the answer to that.
“There’s so much more to buy there! And more people to sell to. Look at this,” he said as he pulled his kampilan sword and sheath out from his belt. “I know I always see you admiring this…” He turned it over in his hand, showing off the leatherwork on the sheath while keeping the carved handle and pommel easy for Macawile to see. Just seeing the craftmanship of the wooden monstrous face was enough for Macawile to know the blade was expensive quality too.
“I’ll buy you one in Cebu, eh?” His uncle continued, tucking the kampilan away again. We need help on here. And when we get there. You’re a strong man!”
“Maybe…” Macawile wasn’t used to sailing that far. And he knew his uncle was flattering him, but still he’d be safe among family.
“Tatay wants to sell to the new Chinese people,” one of Macawile’s cousins explained. Seeing Macawile still unsure, he continued, “there are some people at Homonhon right now,” and he casually pointed with a wag of his chin in the direction of the island beyond the other boats.
“O o,” a stranger acknowledged from an unfamiliar boracay. “We saw them. Their skin is light. They sail in big jong boats — “
“And they like to buy coconuts!” Uncle interjected.
The stranger explained, “some of them are sick, so they bartered some things for food.”
“Like this,” another stranger called out from next to the first one and lifted a red hat off his head. “And this,” he added, pulling out a mirror from under his bench.
Macawile turned back to his uncle. “Batá, are you just going to go over there? To Homonhon?”
His uncle shook his head, and one of the strangers — who apparently came from either Suluan or Homonhon — said, “they’re leaving by now. They wanted us to take them to Cebu.”
“Look, you can see them now!” His uncle pointed across the water and Macawile saw three boats far away sailing along Homonhon island. They had white sails and black hulls larger than his uncle’s boracay, but it was hard to tell how much larger from such a distance.
“That’s what a jong looks like?” Macawile asked aloud to no one in particular.
“You’ve never seen one?” His uncle asked, and again Macawile stayed quiet, knowing his Uncle knew the answer.
“I thought they didn’t come here. Just Cebu,” Macawile stated.
After a moment, one of the Suluano boatmen offered a guess, “Maybe they got lost. Like the wind took them too far. That’s why they had to ask where Cebu is…”
A few more moments later, Macawile stopped wondering. And the crowd simply watched the unfamiliar ships in the distance sailing through the waters they’d known their whole lives.
|
https://medium.com/@josephcmw/the-nothing-nothing-people-waray-waray-ad3c60ab80a6
|
['Joseph Cmw']
|
2021-09-11 19:24:18.437000+00:00
|
['History', 'Philippines', 'Waray', 'Samar', 'Asian']
|
The Blue End
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The Blue End
Poem
Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash
Algae’s scream
In the pillar of my soul
As sounds moved by
To my shores
Children of the blue
Know it like the back of their hand
That is running away
Is just returning in another way
When it falls on my last day
In the coyest wave
“How would you know her?” Father will ask
“She was the blue “
Answer with line one true.
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https://medium.com/illumination/the-blue-end-4626c2a4d1af
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['Eden Kunter']
|
2020-12-26 08:08:09.012000+00:00
|
['Poetry Writing', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Poem']
|
craven
|
cowards love it
when you carry
their weight
grateful eyes are a tactic
tacit disregard lines the look
the traveler throws her
keepsakes off the caravan
until she looks back
push the ponderous stone
off your heart and rummage
through your wrecked belongings
there must be something left to salvage.
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https://medium.com/meri-shayari/craven-9752d7c30806
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['Rebeca Ansar']
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2020-12-24 20:54:55.701000+00:00
|
['Life Lessons', 'Storytelling', 'Poet', 'Poem', 'Poetry']
|
Leading with the right Objective and measurable metrics — Objective and Key Results
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Objectives and Key Results — Measuring what matters
Let me start off with a quote which you come across in the book ‘Measure What Matters’ — “Ideas are easy but execution is everything.” Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a simple idea, yet challenging. It pushes you to focus on the true goal, and helps you getting the buy-in from the team to then focus on the execution.
What is an OKR — Objective and Key Result?
Objective is the “What” to be achieved and key results is the “How” one gets to the objective.
OKR mastermind, Andy Grove steered Intel to new heights by setting challenging objectives and clearly measurable key results for his team. His influence spread across industries, and companies in various industries have used OKRs to focus on the key priorities and steer the team for greater success. It sounds simple, yet little hard to get the Objective in the OKR correct.
Lets ponder on this question — what should be the key metric for YouTube for the coming year? Should it be videos watched OR Ad revenue generated OR minutes watched OR Data compression and storage? What would be the North Star metric for the objective set that quarter or year? How about deciding on the objective and key results for a startup pizza delivery company? Should it be targeting what other big players in the industry are targeting? What is the true metric, which matters for the company and will move the needle?
These objectives and key results evolve, change, and add on to the previous wins, and over repeated execution, the right OKRs will get you compounded wins. In order to do so, setting the right objectives matter, and they should be supported by succinct, measurable, specific key results.
A well thought-out OKRs creates alignment across teams, provides clarity to employees, and can have the entire organization working towards the key needle movers. There is transparency & employees know how they contribute towards a well defined goal.
OKR — Simple Idea, powerful results when executed right
As part of a company initiative, OKR has become a key part of leading my vertical. I am in my fourth quarter of putting in the OKRs, and I am in the draft mode for Q1 2021 (it is mid Q4 2020, as I type this). These are my OKR journey learnings.
A well thought out OKR is tough, and that’s good.
The first quarter I was warming up to it, the following quarters, the intent was to really hone in on the important things and what is achievable in the timeframe. The process of setting an OKR really questions you on what is truly needed. Once they are set, the goals have to be challenging and force the team to go the extra mile. Achieving a goal easily — say 100% or 1.0/1.0, whatever metric your choose, means your goal was not challenging enough. The true intent is to hit the fully committed goals and also the stretch goals but get to the 80–100% with a struggle (in some cases only around 70%). You are taking challenging bets on what would work for the consumer and company, so your target and metric should make you feel that getting a 100 is tough and not easily doable. But don’t confuse it with the wrong objective, say, you have embarked on an objective, and midway you realize they were the wrong ones which do not make an impact. You have to scrap them, and focus on what matters. The key is to ensure you put in the effort to plan for the right ones before you spend time on them, but if you do have the wrong objectives, discard them and focus on what matters.
Transparency is a big win in this process, you get to see what everyone is working on, your objectives become transparent as well. You are now open to questions, feedback, or input from people who want to help and contribute. This helps in alignment, and highlights what others are working on, and how your objective fits the bigger picture.
Conversation, feedback becomes more simple. You regularly check in with your team members and keep the discussion about the OKRs and share feedback both ways. What was tough, was it challenging, what dependencies? It really helps in the transparency part, and everyone knows what the discussion is going to be about. And because it is transparent, the right team and member gets recognized for the wins.
So how does an OKR look, there are various examples on the net, here is one super simple example I just made up.
Objective:
Share what I read in Q4 2020.
Key Result:
Read and finish 3 books in Q4 (one book in 4 weeks). Summarize the book to less than a 4 minute read. Share on Medium and LinkedIn within 2 weeks post reading.
If I am easily able to hit Key results at 100%, then it probably needs to be a little challenging. Ideally reduce it to 3 weeks. If I am unable to hit the 4 week mark, then, the question is, is this truly the priority or am I working on things which should be discarded.
Andy Grove grew Intel to new heights in an uncharted territory using OKRs, his philosophy influenced companies like Google, Yahoo, BMW, clearly crossing industry lines. Measure What Matters is a good read on how CEOs and leaders used OKRs to drive their companies to greatness. Hopefully by the end of it, you question what is truly important, and have clear measurable metrics to support that vision of yours.
|
https://medium.com/agileinsider/leading-with-the-right-objective-and-measurable-metrics-objective-and-key-results-45d024ba4646
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['Supreeth Rajan']
|
2020-11-30 02:12:33.562000+00:00
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['Goal Setting', 'Product Management', 'Objective And Key Results', 'Measure What Matters', 'Leadership']
|
The Man Who Ate the Art
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The Man Who Ate the Art
The bizarre incident of the man who ate a $120,000 banana.
Photo by Cherylyn Ang on Unsplash
I love art. It moves me to see what people create. Every gallery I enter holds curiosities that make me think about message and motivation. Even the most bizarre displays are fascinating. But sometimes I am left thinking, what on earth does it mean?
Artist Maurizio Cattelan, displayed a banana purchased at a local grocery store and fixed it to the wall with a single piece of duct tape. He called it “Comedian”.
Indeed.
The piece was priced at $120,000 and was placed on display at Art Basel Miami.
Interesting note, the artist left no instruction to the purchaser on what to do when the art begins to decay. I love this story.
Unbelievably, of the three banana works on display, two had already sold. Gallery founder Emmanuel Perrotin told CNN the bananas are “a symbol of global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor.”
I know it doesn’t seem possible, but the story got much funnier.
Enter David Datuna, performance artist.
This guy walks into the gallery, pulls the banana off the wall and starts eating to the horror of the crowd. Of course, someone whipped out their phone and shared on Instagram. Thank goodness. You must see the awkward scene.
Apparently, gallery attendees were begging David not to do it. But he ate it anyway.
Taping a banana to a wall begs the obvious question, is this art?
You can find endless definitions of art. Ask anyone what constitutes art and you will get a wide variety of definitions. But in fact, it falls in three main categories: representation or imitation, expression of emotion or formal.
Imitation is simply a copy of something beautiful. A painting of a field of flowers. The portrait of a child. Expression of emotion is the sticky one. Art intended to evoke an emotional response. It provokes. A banana taped to a wall. Formal art is without concept and adheres to a conventional set of principles. How literally can you create?
People love to say, my kid could paint that.
Maybe he could. He certainly could tape a banana to a wall. But did he?
The question of art is in novelty, expression of an idea, evoking a response. Things do not have to make literal sense. They can be funny or weird. But do they make you think? Has your curiosity and creativity been sparked?
Our banana eating friend felt the artistic expression did not end with the fruit taped to the wall. He felt it needed something.
“I love Maurizio Cattelan artwork and I really love this installation. It’s very delicious.” -David Datuna
The fact of the matter is that taping a banana to a wall is funny. But eating it in a packed gallery is even funnier. For a piece titled Comedian, I would say mission accomplished.
|
https://medium.com/mindful-muse/the-man-who-ate-the-art-7fbfd8a6929b
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['Colleen Murphy']
|
2019-12-10 04:56:11.548000+00:00
|
['Artist', 'Business', 'Art', 'Creativity', 'Life']
|
Dream of Ballet, This Midsummer Afternoon
|
Fans of ballet, the works of Shakespeare, and great music will love the showing of a performance of the ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Medford Leas Theater on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 2 p.m. at the Medford Leas Theater located at 1 Medford Way. The two-act ballet was choreographed and set to music, composed by Felix Mendelssohn, accompanying Shakespeare’s play of the same name.
BBC Concert Orchestra Conductor Stewart Kershaw conducted; the production featured dancers from the Pacific Northwest Ballet, with choreography from George Ballanchine. Enjoy the ballet from the comfort of the Medford Leas Theater, which boasts a state-of-the-art projection screen and surround sound system that will immerse you in the performance and the music. Enjoy scrumptious hors d’oeuvres and other delicacies during intermission.
The great performances and cuisine are the next best thing to being at the concert in-person. A suggested donation of $5 is payable at the door. More information is available at http://www.medfordleas.org/event-categories/leasmusicast.
Medford Leas is a nationally accredited, not-for-profit community guided by Quaker principles for those aged 55 and older, with campuses in Medford and Lumberton, New Jersey. For more information, call 609–654–3000 or visit www.medfordleas.org.
|
https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/dream-of-ballet-this-midsummer-afternoon-416cbb57bd53
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[]
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2016-12-19 15:55:44.114000+00:00
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['Entertainment', 'Headlines', 'Medford Leas Theater', 'Families', 'Bbc Concert Orchestra']
|
Nudging, steering or shoving people into the big society?
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Nudging, steering or shoving people into the big society? noelito Follow Aug 26 · 3 min read
How will we be motivated to want to help each other when we are warned that our colleague who’s been laid off or our neighbour who’s disabled and cannot work are not as deserving as us and are becoming a drain on the economy? For those of us out of work, how can we get a job when there aren’t any and when they are hardly any available?
We also know that the biggest costs to public services — i.e. from health to policing and even welfare — are around chronic lifestyle behaviours and conditions.
So could the government be using this “behavioural” approach to welfare reform? They could encourage benefit claimants to be able to do paid volunteering without having their benefits cut through a Community Allowance. This would improve their skills, give them something productive and meaningful to do and increase the likelihood of getting a job. Or should they use a “shove” approach — from shoving them on a bus to go and get a job?
If we reflect on what motivates us to act and think in certain ways, we are often treated as individuals acting in isolation of everything and everyone except the money in our purse. But people influence us, our neighbourhood influence us, things we cannot predict influence us too. Context changes that too, it’s unlikely that the person who encourages you to smoke more is the person who has the greatest influence on how you manage your pension.
If you are trying to nudge the general public into contributing to society, you need to generate a “cascading” of community behaviours. You can only do this if there enough community activists in a particular neighbourhood who are contributing towards the community. This increases the level of “persuadibility” in that neighbourhood of others feeling motivating to participate.
Likewise, if there are enough people in a neighbourhood who don’t work, then the level of “persuadibility” of new entrants to get a job will be much lower and therefore more difficult to get them into work. You could therefore have a “boom to bust” mechanic going on in particular communities, where public services and community groups have been able to support these catalysts and where that support is suddenly withdrawn and in parallel, many people become unemployed, the desire for communities to help each other suddenly fades away and the desire for people to find work also degrades.
We need to give people the tools to understand how their brains, behaviours and environments interact helps them make better decisions and tackle habits such as smoking, binge drinking and overeating.
But where worklessness has been embedded into communities, how can we re-inject that sense of hope and energy?
As @davidwilcox says “if u want people to act, support them. If u want people to talk, listen“
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https://medium.com/carre4/nudging-steering-or-shoving-people-into-the-big-society-7c60b4275eb1
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[]
|
2020-08-27 17:51:47.248000+00:00
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['Design', 'Leadership', 'Places', 'Innovation', 'Government']
|
Farmers' miseries under new farm bills, 2020
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Farmers' miseries under new farm bills, 2020
A case was registered under the new farm laws against a trader in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior on Wednesday. The trader allegedly ran away without paying the money to the farmers after buying paddy from them. The administration of Gwalior, however, said that the house of the trader was auctioned to pay the farmers and that his fields will be auctioned too.
This is not the sole case that highlighted the misery of the farmers under the new farm laws brought by the central government. Around 13 farmers of the Jamra village of Guna tehsil in Madhya Pradesh had sold their crop to a trader in June. But the trader did not pay them the money for their produce.
“When I used to sell the produce in the Mandi, I used to get paid at that time itself. Now I have a loan of Rs. 1 lakh for farming,” said one of the farmers.
Such cases have also come out of other districts of MP such as Jabalpur, Barwani, Hoshangabad and Balaghat.
In Balaghat, some farmers had approached the police officials alleging that the owner of the rice mill had not paid them for their produce. Farmers from different regions had also stated that after they registered cases against traders for not paying them for their produce the latter threatened them and sent goons to their homes.
Though PM Narendra Modi had talked of the three resolved cases of farmers under the new farm laws in his programme, ‘Mann Ki Baat' earlier the truth is that many cases are still unresolved and many farmers fear that they will be left at the mercy of the traders or the big companies after these new laws came into effect.
The farm bills — The farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act were passed by the parliament without any consultation with the farmers. Though the government has said that these reforms in the farming sector will accelerate growth through the private sector’s involvement the bills only reduce the right of the farmers over their produce.
|
https://medium.com/@sreelakshmidethan/farmers-miseries-under-new-farm-bills-2020-8507fbd1364
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[]
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2020-12-23 17:52:40.989000+00:00
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['Farm Bills 2020', 'Modi Government', 'Farmers', 'Farming', 'Farmers Protest']
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Private, Public Keypair and User Name
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Private, Public Keypair and User Name
Tiluf Network runs on blockchain technology. To join a blockchain network, some protocols might seem different than simple user ID/Password login. There are keypairs, i.e- public key or public address, private key, and username. Here is a simple analogy to understand public keys, private keys and usernames — what are they, and how they work!
Consider that you own two locked treasure chests which are kept in a public place where other people also keep their chests.
You keep all your coins in one chest and all your other possessions in another chest. Whenever they receive money or goods, they do not need to open and others can just drop things in like they do for donation boxes.
However, you own the key (called the private key) which unlocks both the chests. And, you can open them using this key whenever you want to use your possessions!
Now come to the blockchain side — the chest where you keep your money is your public address. The coins in it fuel all your activities. If you want to send your coins to someone, you use your private key and easily do it. If you want to receive coins from someone, you can share your public key and they can drop in some money
Now, you must be wondering about your other treasure chest — which is your user name. Here all the possessions you owned, designed, or acquired are kept. You can send your possessions using your username with your Private Key. And, you can share your user name with anyone to receive possessions.
The secret key i.e., the private key that opens both the chests, is the most valuable thing you have. Only you in this whole world, know your private key. Sharing a private key with others implies giving the ownership of all your possession and coins away.
As blockchain is a decentralized platform, if you lose your private key, you can’t lodge a complaint or petition to any authority (since there is none), for a new key. So, be extremely careful with your private key. Keep it hidden and safe somewhere — if possible only in your mind. But beware — a forgotten key = all possessions lost.
With such decentralization, you have the complete authority over everything that’s yours. Therefore, be responsible!
|
https://medium.com/tiluf/private-public-keypair-user-name-7c9ade480e6c
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[]
|
2021-01-29 14:16:38.199000+00:00
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['Blockchain', 'Keypair', 'AR', 'Key Management', 'Tiluf']
|
How Poor LMS UX Design Disenfranchises Employees
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Your company’s onboarding process is one of the first impressions that you get to make on a new employee. A good portion of that, especially in entry-level positions are going to be done, not face to face, but by the learning management system that you choose to train these new hires with. A great training can give your employees everything that they need to be successful, but a poor user experience can start a domino effect that leads to poor job satisfaction or high turnover rates. Here are four ways your LMS technology is holding you back, and ways to turn that around.
1. On-site Training LMS UX vs. Accessible Training LMS UX
Needing your employees to spend hours on a desktop computer in the back office is a thing of the past. Old learning managements were limited to software that was device-specific, with bad usability design if it left certain resolution or input parameters. But, nowadays, many learning management systems can be run on anything from a laptop to a smartphone or tablet, and are available anywhere, asynchronously. Trainings can be completed at home at the trainee’s convenience, while still giving the supervisor access to test results and the ability to give feedback.
2. Outdated Designs and Building for the Future
When choosing a learning management system and creating content for it, some designers get stuck in their current needs, and this can have a severely limiting effect on the future of the training. Trainings that are developed in one system don’t always translate to the next, or to other LMS programs. But with modern, flexible trainings that are developed with an eye for portability, all of that hard work doesn’t have to go to waste when your system gets an upgrade.
3. Ease of Use for Accurate Content
The more steps your content has to go through before it gets in front of the end user, the more the accuracy and vision of your subject matter experts is going to degrade. Explaining a process to someone who can put your content into a complex learning management system, or having to have a go-between any time you want to update content is simply no longer best practice. A modern LMS is one that can be updated in simple language, as often as is necessary, while keeping costs down.
4. New LMS UX Isn’t Always Intuitive
Not every new employee wants the same thing from their employee training, and not every training manager is going to use the data that they gather the same way. One employee who thrives on practical knowledge and gamification may find word-heavy slides intolerable, and the other may be the opposite. A good UI is flexible and diverse, while being customizable enough to fit the training in exactly the way that the designer had in mind. One corporation may have mandatory testing with a certain grade, while others may just observe how the trainee implements these skills.
If you’ve run into any of these problems, or if it’s something you’re worried about, you can read deeper into these issues and more with Your LMS is Holding You Back — 3 Steps to Move to an Integrated Learning Solution.
|
https://medium.com/@playerlync/how-poor-lms-ux-design-disenfranchises-employees-927dd73b0e04
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[]
|
2020-05-06 18:56:05.267000+00:00
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['Retail', 'Employee Engagement', 'Restaurant', 'Learning And Development']
|
Protecting The Table With table Cloth
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Protecting The Table With table Cloth
So as to ensure dressing table in Kenya and preserve the quality of the table top, a kind of protective material is designed so as to shield between the table top as well as other physical items which are placed on the table. Coffee tables in Kenya need to be dressed and protected from scratching which can result from objects placed on it. The most commonly used protector is table cloth because of its cheap price, various designs as well as colors. Coffee stools in Kenya can be cleaned so that other users can sit on them. One of the demerits of cotton table cloth is that they get dirty easily but with the aid of modern technology, PVC is used for coating coffee tables in Kenya. PVC is a synthetic material which is durable and can be maintained easily.
Also, with the appropriate design, size as well as shape of coffee tables in Kenya, one can make any space classy and inviting. Because of that, there are several kinds of design as well as material selection which are available for coffee tables in Kenya. From classy elegant to uniquely retro, wood to glass, the combination as well as design of materials which are available for coffee tables in Kenya is limitless.
Definitely, there is a kind of coffee table in Kenya which would complement your taste. Also, the materials as well as design of coffee table stools follow similar trend. It is always a great approach to add something extra, especially when it comes to the design of living space. Adding up stylish stools to your living room will enhance the design of your coffee table. Hence, adding coffee table with stools to any living room will definitely enhance the client experience.
There are different designs as well as forms which are available for coffee stool in Kenya. If you are seeking for contemporary design accents, the combination of table and stools show a great modern line. Additionally, there is an appealing chrome or steel construction with wood, glass or marble top. For retro style, the design as well as form is usually unconventional. Unlike the actual vintage table and stools, you will not need to worry about rusting with retro design pieces. For traditional stool and tables, you will come across several designs which incorporate tasteful combinations of wood, metal or glass. The availability of this furniture has made the interior design very easy and adorable.
Coffee table with stools likewise serves as a great centerpiece for any living space. For rooms, living rooms as well as any other rooms within the house, this design would bring out an added character especially when the area is dark. Majority of the interior designers start with coffee table sets whenever they are constructing the design approach of their space.
Whenever an eye-catching design of coffee table is chosen in Kenya, a designer or homemaker can easily turn a dull room into a lively one. not only that, the addition of this design piece is also great for accommodating youngsters, for special occasions, spending a tea party around the coffee will also be a delight to the ladies. From simple to less ornate design, the use of this design is very versatile bringing it to your home will be a great investment.
|
https://medium.com/@engineeringke/protecting-the-table-with-table-cloth-b0b102f734f5
|
['Engineering Kenya']
|
2018-10-12 12:14:30.411000+00:00
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['Interior Design', 'Furniture', 'Kenya']
|
Our Favorite Keyboards For MAC
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Are you a programmer, huh? Do you love coding? The idea is if you spend most of your time typing or coding on MAC keyboards, the Bluetooth keyboard leather is a worthwhile upgrade to a much cheaper, less convenient keyboard.
Every fashionit wireless keyboard is truly reviewed, and we’ve found some fantastic Keyboards For MAC, thanks to AZIO for the best quality. Here are my best picks:-
RETRO CLASSIC BT RETRO COMPACT KEYBOARD (RCK) RETRO CLASSIC USB MK RETRO MK MAC USB
The top five picks' best choice is consistency, modern typewriter features, round keycaps, and fabulous long use times.
Several switch keycaps include black, white, brown, and cream on this premium wireless keyboard.
When confusing and not knowing which one to select, Retro Classic BT, which is well-known as a backlit keyboard mechanical for this brown usb mechanical keyboard, would be preferable.
I love that usb mechanical keyboard is available in round keycaps and robust metal alloys. It comes with a mini usb reversible cable and a wire keypad puller. Keyboards For MAC is not completely programmable, but it has easy media keys, and many functions are customizable. Keyboards For MAC usually cost around $210 — around the average cost of a large mechanical keyboard — although some switching models, keycap sets, and backlight options cost a little more.
Apart from this, RETRO is equally excellent with similar features like PC support, Mac, Tab., backlit LED connection, Bluetooth or USB connection, 5000mAh of lithium-ion rechargeable battery, USB-C port simplified and palm rest matched.
Availability can often be a challenge for many of the big keyboards for MAC. You should preordain from AZIO Corp if the issue persists. AZIO has reviewed and tested both items against easier alternatives. I find more quality items for both of them than others but if you can’t wait, look at the other keyboards you have available.
|
https://medium.com/@aziocorp/our-favorite-keyboards-for-mac-924f0d284412
|
['Azio Corp']
|
2021-01-28 04:15:19.126000+00:00
|
['PC', 'Mechanical Keyboards', 'Keyboard', 'Keyboards For Developers', 'Mac']
|
How Bloggers & Influencers Can Grow Their Following Using Alexa
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At The Voice Event 2020, I talk to my friend Jeff Blankenburg from Amazon about how Bloggers and Influencers can grow their following using Alexa.
In addition to what he mentions in this video, bloggers can also voice enable their WordPress blog for Alexa and Google Assistant using a plug-in called TheVoiceDesigner.com.
Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC and founder of The Voice Event, and The Voice Designer, has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 15 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing, Email Marketing and most recently, Voice App Design and Development — Alexa Skills and Google Actions. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.
|
https://medium.com/@datadrivendesignnashville/how-bloggers-influencers-can-grow-their-following-using-alexa-a7dd55e70d95
|
['Paul Hickey']
|
2020-12-20 23:54:07.751000+00:00
|
['Voice Technology', 'Wordpress Plugins', 'Blogger', 'Alexa', 'WordPress']
|
Steps to approach a Machine Learning Project
|
Starting a Machine Learning (ML) project from scratch is not easy especially when you’re a newbie. From my own experience here is a post about the different steps to build and kick-start such projects.
The idea of this post came from my friend Genelva, which I will like to thanks for asking me how can we start a ML project, considering a data set you have in your possesion. Well, here was my answer 😉 :
The Origin and nature of the data
Knowing where the data comes from could be a source of valuable insights to your ML model as it can give information on how the data has been splitted. Generally, raw data are splitted into 3 sets, training validation and testing set, considering that the validation set is obtained from the training set. The splitting of the training and testing data is not usually random, and most of the time follows the same distributions (even if it is not the case, the idea is to identify which distribution both the train and test set follows) this information can help you think about which patterns the two sets of data points follow. Moreover the nature of the data could help you choose a suitable model for the training (example time series data suit well with recurrent neural networks 😊)
Exploratory data Analysis (EDA) and data preprocessing
Most of the time physical phenomenom generate data which follows a normal distribution. The trick is that most of these data are collected either by humans or machines which can bring out sources of errors called outliers. Outliers are set of values which do not follow the same distribution or rules like normal values. EDA can help you identify this data points easily as they may affect your ML model in a bad way. But it is important to note that, outliers can also give some extra information to your model (for example a drastic drop of the temperature of an area could be as a result of a change in seasonality, not necessarily a wrong value). EDA can also help you identify skewness in the data which generally need to be normalized or standardized, usally done during the data preprocessing stage. Dealing with large values in ML can cause overfitting of your model. The reason been that, higher valued variables are much more prioritized than lower ones. To overcome this problem, it is important to draw back these values to a range suitable for training (generally between 0 and 1).
Feature Engineering
I like this part 😍. For me feature engineering is an art, the art of creating new and explicit features from already existing ones. Unfortunately this is where most data scientist give up! because it is time consuming and require alot of reflexion and intuition testing (a data scientist should be patient…generally I eat biscuit and drink milk when i enter into this critical thinking stage 😂😂). However it is worthy to do it !! since it boost the performance of your model.
Model Selection and Validation Strategy
Now you can select your model, this is the right time to do it. Generally most of us decide to choose a ML model before any analysis thinking that the best model will always win ….Nope! this is wrong (but as I said in the first point the nature of the data can give you an idea of which model to choose) . Talking of the validation strategy, your model should be able to fit well with unseen data, this is useful for the deployment phase of your project. Depending of the latter, I can mention K-Fold cross validation and Stratify fold validation. The efficiency of ML models are improved using this approaches in most cases.
|
https://medium.com/@tchangmenaa/steps-to-approach-a-machine-learning-project-a62ed9e76708
|
['Nken Allassan']
|
2021-09-09 16:11:45.890000+00:00
|
['Data', 'Machine Learning', 'Feature Engineering', 'Data Science']
|
The Skiff’s Inclusivity Membership Programme
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This post outlines The Skiff’s inclusivity membership programme. It’s entirely possible that this does not apply to you, but you still have an important role to play — please pass on the message to help seek those out who can make use of free or reduced membership to The Skiff.
Many people close to The Skiff are struggling right now.
For some, their businesses haven’t yet recovered from the effects of the pandemic. Others aren’t being supported by their employers to make working from home sustainable. And too many, particularly from groups under-represented in tech, are missing out on getting to know people who work the way we work. This includes (but is not limited to): people of colour, LGBTQIA+ people, women and people with disabilities.
Fewer real-world meet-ups mean the people who are struggling are all far less visible too.
But we know they’re there.
We regularly heard from people in difficulty before the pandemic. Some current members and prospective members found the cost of membership a barrier. And it’s always been difficult for people early in their careers to find freelance work or get jobs in small businesses when they’re inexperienced.
For many, things are even worse now.
When you’re in financial difficulty, loneliness and isolation won’t help.
Being around the right people can make a huge difference. You might directly find some work from them. Or, more likely, learn from them how to find the right work for you.
The Skiff’s helped hundreds of people to build the relationships they need — they gained that sense of belonging that’s so difficult to find when working alone.
Over 100 of us are feeling very fortunate that The Skiff is still here for us today.
We have members whose businesses have thrived over the last 18 months. And others, whose income has been unaffected. Many of them have made extra contributions to The Skiff to keep us going.
Now we want to help more people who have been less fortunate.
We’ve launched a sponsored membership programme.
We’ll provide free and heavily reduced memberships to people who need it for three months at a time. It’s for anyone who feels the cost of membership is a barrier to them starting Coworking or using The Skiff more. But we’ll be prioritising memberships for people from groups underrepresented in tech.
So far it’s been entirely funded by current members of The Skiff.
If you know anyone who could benefit from this please ask them to fill out the form linked from here:
Apply Now
All applications are treated confidentially, only Jonathan and Anna Markwell will view them. We will not publicly announce who the sponsored memberships go to (though participants are welcome to say so themselves). We’ll review applications each month and notify everyone who applies of the outcome of their application.
Our goal is for 10% of the people at the Skiff each day (2 to 3 out of 20 to 30) to be there with the support of this programme.
Please spread the word. Maybe by sharing this thread on Twitter. (or this post on LinkedIn)
This programme is heavily inspired by the scholarships programme run by Remy and Julie Sharp for the brilliant ffconf. Sadly it’s one of many valuable community events that’s been unable to run for the last two years.
If you’d like to help support this programme financially, lookout for more information soon.
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https://blog.theskiff.org/the-skiffs-inclusivity-membership-programme-c42f8da163a0
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['Jonathan Markwell']
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2021-11-17 13:28:33.916000+00:00
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['Brighton', 'Sussex', 'Coworking']
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20 Helpful Principles To Speak Up More
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Key Takeaways
Design your own credo to be more courageous, confident, and assertive.
A credo is a set of principles that reflect founding values and beliefs.
Consider including identity, speaking up, ownership, mindset, and action principles.
When I worked at Johnson & Johnson, I learned how powerful a credo is.
A credo is a set of principles that reflect your values and beliefs. Your principles give you strength, confidence, and clarity.
For example, in their credo, J&J prioritizes people over profits. They also made their credo public which facilitates interactions with others outside of the organization because it shows others what is important to them.
Leaders at J&J consulted their credo to deal with difficult situations. For example:
When the strategy plan was unclear
During crisis management
When making difficult decisions
When solving diverging views
Here are some of the critical moments in their history that was guided by their founding values shared in their credo.
When they went public, they communicated their credo to shareholders saying their commitment to consumers, employees, and community came before shareholders.
During the great depression, not only did they not lay off their employees, they also advocated on behalf of all American workers by writing to the president at the time to request for higher wages and lower working hours.
When 7 people died while consuming their Tylenol medication, they recalled 31 million bottles of that medication worldwide and offered replacement free of charge, costing them more than $100 million dollars. Then they focused on R&D to create a the first tamper-evident packaging.
Ray Dalio, the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, also created and published the set of principles that guide his company and his own life. He even wrote a book about it.
Design your own CREDO.
Do you have your own credo? Are you clear on what your principles are? Do you have a list of principles that can help you boost your courage to speak up for what’s important to you?
If not, let me help you create one.
Here are 20 principles that can guide you to become more courageous, confident, and assertive. Choose what you like the most and change it to suit your own principles and beliefs.
Your principles are your strength.
Identity
I am thoughtful, kind, and respectful but without omission.
I seek respect not liking.
I am exclusive, not generic.
I value myself so I commit to “me” moments every day.
Speak up
I make myself understood.
I speak my mind, heart, and soul when it matters.
I agree to disagree.
I cultivate courage every day to express my personal freedom.
Ownership
I champion my dreams even if others don’t like it.
I protect my energy and time like there’s no tomorrow.
I own my power, decisions, and happiness; I don’t seek permission.
I don’t react; I give myself the time I need to respond.
Mindset
I get excited with uncomfortable conversations because of what lies on the other side.
I crush my relationship dramas with curiosity.
I lead my decisions and actions with purpose, leadership, and integrity.
I lead with vision not fear.
Action
I bias towards action.
I show up fully, show my talent, and play big unapologetically.
I seek cordial conflict.
I celebrate my progress.
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https://medium.com/@assertiveway/20-helpful-principles-to-speak-up-more-d269cafc1da9
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['Ivna Curi']
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2020-12-15 17:51:07.712000+00:00
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['Credo', 'Infographics', 'Values', 'Principles', 'Johnson And Johnson']
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Tomorrow Is Here
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Sometime today, if all goes according to custom, Pennsylvania will join Michigan in formally certifying the vote and the obvious will become the undeniable — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be the next President and Vice President of the United States. For their administration to succeed, indeed for America to succeed, we have to do more than “turn the page” on the Donald Trump years. We need to confront our social and political realities, without flinching, and shape our own better tomorrow.
More Americans participated in this presidential election than ever before in our history. Though the COVID-19 pandemic presented unusual challenges, our voting systems on the whole performed well. According to the accounts of officials and party observers present, the vote was fairly counted and recorded — delivering to Joe Biden the highest vote count ever. But our democracy is damaged, and not just by Donald Trump’s evidence-free complaints of voter fraud and characteristically childish refusal to concede.
We have a democracy to repair. We have a pandemic to defeat, and an economy to revive.
Apart from Trump’s noise, it is still true that our voting system is uneven and ill-equipped with modern tools like voting online, by mail or by early voting. It is still harder to register and to stay registered than it ought to be. Congressional district lines are still often drawn so that candidates and parties pick the voters they want rather than the other way around. Voter suppression by legislation and party operatives is open and notorious, and central to the modern Republican playbook. And our politics are awash in money, too much of it dark.
So we have work to do. We have a democracy to repair. We have a pandemic to defeat, and an economy to revive. We have an immigration system to modernize, a health care system to reform, and a planet to save. We have to address the lasting damage that recession does to families, communities and small businesses, and that racism does to generations of citizens. Many good ideas surfaced during the Democratic primaries. There is more to learn by listening to people in urban neighborhoods and rural communities, to workers and management in small and large companies, to people who have solutions not just grievances.
But none of it matters unless we learn to reject false choices.
I am a proud and loyal Democrat. I know you don’t have to hate Republicans to be a good Democrat. You don’t have to hate business to believe in and work for social justice. You don’t have to hate police to believe Black lives matter. Choices like these are false, yet they are the steady diet of modern politics. And they are holding us back.
In reality for most people most issues are interconnected. For example, we need an expanding economy because everyone needs work and an opportunity to provide and to flourish, but we need those opportunities accessible to everyone and the conditions of work to be fair. Similarly, most people understand that we can transition to a carbon free future without turning off the lights because it’s already happening. In these examples and others, we can have and, more importantly, must have both. Treating them as alternatives is a false choice.
The truth is that unless we defeat the virus the economy will suffer.
Trump’s management of the pandemic foundered on the false choice of either shutting down the economy or defeating the virus. He positioned Democrats as advocates of “national shutdowns” or “mask mandates,” arguing that the cure would be worse than the disease. The truth is that unless we defeat the virus the economy will suffer. People will not risk serious illness or death to shop for shoes or have dinner out, but they can do all that and more safely if we take seriously the precautions that public health experts have advised. Defeating the virus by denial was never going to work for Trump. Disassociating the virus from people’s economic needs won’t work for Democrats. We can have and must have both health safety and a functioning society.
Democrats must be careful not to fall for a false choice posed today within the party itself. Though we succeeded in winning the White House, we were less successful down ballot, which led to party infighting over whether being “progressive” or “moderate” is a better way to win elections. Here again, we need both. As long as all sorts of Americans in every corner of the country are dealing with economic fragility, social isolation and despair, we need bold, progressive ideas that help people help themselves. But those ideas must work, must put us on the best path for lasting, meaningful change. Progressive objectives are often achieved by moderate means.
Healthcare is a perfect example. Democrats want every American to have affordable, accessible, quality healthcare. Republicans don’t. That contrast could not be clearer or more important. How we deliver on our commitment is less important than that we deliver the desired outcome.
In Massachusetts, we delivered health coverage to over 98 percent of our residents. No other state has yet achieved that goal, and we did not use a single payer system to get there. Medicare-For-All may well be the best means to achieve universal national coverage in the end. But if Biden’s public option achieves the same outcome within the ACA, isn’t that success?
Instead of being defensive about our objectives, Democrats ought to challenge Republicans to come up with better means.
Progressives are no less bold if we deliver universal care by a blend of public and private strategies. And if we do moderates are no less exposed to standard Republican cries of “socialism.” Remember Republicans want to take health care away from Americans, even in the midst of a public health emergency, and have no alternative of their own. Apparently, any health care solution that involves the government is too radical for them. So let’s stop trying to adjust our agenda to theirs.
When Democrats and pundits claim we lost political ground because of Black Lives Matter protesters, think about what that means. By all objective accounts, we need better, more responsible, less repressive, more engaged, less militarized and more comprehensive public safety. Democrats would be both morally wrong and politically foolish to deny those objectives. That does not mean we have to take the activists’ “defund the police” slogan literally. We can achieve progressive objectives through more moderate means without abandoning our convictions.
That is, after all, what Republicans want. Republican charges of “socialism” or “tax and spend” or you name it are predictable. To an irritating degree, they cause us to start negotiating with ourselves. Republicans should care about universal health care, affordable housing, modern infrastructure and quality education, just as Democrats care about economic competitiveness, job creation, budget deficits and military readiness. Instead of being defensive about our objectives, Democrats ought to challenge Republicans to come up with better means.
The most maddening false choice we face is the one between the impact of a media campaign versus grassroots organizing. It’s maddening to me, personally, because the emphasis on media advertising seems most often to win out. Both have value. But I am convinced that Democrats and our agenda suffer from the lack of a permanent grassroots infrastructure. Because we have not everywhere invested the time and money to develop local relationships, neighbor to neighbor, community by community, we are easily tagged as elites, out of touch with local needs. And because Republicans have invested the time, what people know about Democrats in many places in America is what Republicans have been telling them.
We have much to celebrate, but still so much work to do.
To see what Democratic success can be, look at what Stacey Abrams has built in Georgia. Over many years of showing up, listening, and engaging in community organizing, Abrams and her coalition of grassroots organizations registered 800,000 voters in Georgia. She was pushing neither a progressive nor a moderate agenda. She has been about solving the problems people are facing and she has been focused on helping those who often do not vote, a community that tends to skew younger, less affluent and more racially diverse than the electorate at large.
Because Abrams’ coalition emphasizes problem solving over party, because they are a permanent part of the communities they serve instead of an operation assembled for the next election and dismantled right after the vote, Georgia “turned blue” for Biden in 2020. Imagine taking a portion of the obscene amounts of money spent on television ads this cycle and investing instead in organizing at the grassroots to meet local needs. And imagine doing so in every community in every corner of America. Not only would it be a foil for the massive Republican propaganda machine, with it’s sometimes inventive but mostly recycled attack lines, it would position Democrats for electoral success and Americans for fundamental change well beyond Georgia.
We have much to celebrate, but still so much work to do. I hope the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will go big and bold, unyielding in their goals and willing to compromise on how best to achieve them, progressive and moderate at once. I hope we won’t listen to those who want to push voices and views out of our party and our politics because they are new, brash or jarring, especially at a time when we need to model the kind of politics that says we don’t have to agree on everything before we work together on anything. And I hope we will keep our eye on what America needs most, which is not more partisans but more progress.
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https://medium.com/@DevalPatrick/tomorrow-is-here-96dbe53d651a
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['Deval Patrick']
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2020-11-24 15:42:13.489000+00:00
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['United States', 'Democratic Party', 'Politics', 'Joe Biden', 'Donald Trump']
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Don’t distress About Smudge Makeup look
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We in general had the subsequent when we explored the mirror to see the make-up we applied before was totally smeared after some time or the next day or disappeared overall. It will in general be disturbing to have to lead early afternoon last subtleties, whether or not you sweat off your lipstick, cry it away, or it up and disappears.
A couple of changes in your cosmetics will assist you with looking lovely last longer in a day by day schedule. At whatever point you are putting on cosmetics all over, take care that your skin should be appropriately ready prior to applying that is intended to keep going long. When it’s on, you can likewise find ways to cover your cosmetics. Here, makeup academy in lucknow will let you know an assortment of variables adding to the blurring or smirching of our cosmetics:
Beginning to Sweat: If you’ve anytime been to a mid year wedding, you know the trial of endeavoring to look new and beat the hotness with a daisy. Sweat blends in with beauty care products and melts it away, and the condition isn’t improved by spreading.
Smooth Skin: Oily skin is additionally one more issue with summer weddings. Smooth skin really makes our skin gleam and shimmer, yet if you put on magnificence care items on your skin following a couple of hours, or a period stunner care items spread off that looks outstanding in a breaking point or a wedding. Take fitting considered smooth skin while excellence care items continues.
Using fake brands: For your appearance or the necessities of your skin, you may be using some forbidden wonderfulness care things. There are subtleties giving benefits that are Mattifying, lowering, waterproof, or making moves to making. Absolutely, even the foundation of remarkable etchings apparently won’t have, the truly stunning quality greatness care things regularly. Enduring you really want to adhere to drug store brands, expecting that you are looking for life length, attempt to avoid any of the more sensible etchings. The basically lesser nature of radiance care things doesn’t have the suffering power in your tone. Expecting you are looking for reliable quality greatness care things you should avoid a piece of the more sensible names.
Quit Touching your skin: Touching your skin in a steady way will stain or take magnificence care items off your face, furthermore causing likely breakouts. Without a doubt, even we overall know what magnificence care items can do by scouring your eyes (raccoon eyes).
The best strategy to make your beauty care products long later:
Incredible skincare: Implementing extraordinary skincare so you start with the ideal material is the best method for giving beauty care products some spine. To dispense with soil and excess oil, start by using a cleaning specialist anticipated your skin type. To buff away dead skin, use a sensitive Exfoliator twice consistently and produce a smooth surface that will make beauty care products go on more similarly and last longer. Return again to a without oil cream containing a SPF of no under 30 after you have cleansed and smirched your face dry. Preceding forging ahead to beauty care products, it’s ideal in any case a strong guarded foundation. Finally, preceding putting on beauty care products, remain by two or three minutes to allow the cream to be absorbed into your skin.
Apply groundwork before cosmetics: You can likewise apply preliminary before cosmetics since preliminary seals your cream in and offers a smooth and surprisingly surface for cosmetics. It will likewise assist the cosmetics with being ingested, by giving it more prominent solidarity to remain. It obscures blemishes and the presence of scarce differences and kinks is limited. It additionally plumps and mellow the skin while cell reinforcements fight against indications of maturing. As per Bridal makeup in lucknow prior to putting on cosmetics you will have perfect and young skin.
Sans oil base: Use a without oil base and it will sneak off your face. You ought to in like way try establishments and concealers made to languish over the term of the day, which are long-wear nuances.
Cream become flushed: If you truly need some ruddy cheeks or flashing cheeks that will not dark then, at that point, go for a cream stain rather than a powder since powder darkens more rapidly rather than the cream. Cream become flushed has a more outrageous shade for long Laster tanned cheeks.
For lips: Before applying lipstick, apply a slight layer of establishment or a concealer or a lip disguising premise that will make it even more overflowing. Apply a lip covering that experiences quite a while. Go for a lipstick that isn’t extravagantly matte, since lips will dry out. By keeping lipstick away from moving outwards onto the skin, lip liners will truly up to your long-wear game
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https://medium.com/@amirahmad585111/dont-distress-about-smudge-makeup-look-37fa29096675
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['Aamir Ahmad']
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2021-12-11 07:02:27.074000+00:00
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['Beauty Tips', 'Beauty', 'Makeup']
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Having a Panic Disorder made me a better person:
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Having a Panic Disorder made me a better person:
Having a panic disorder gave me a sense of compassion and even more empathy towards other strong humans that struggle with it every day of their lives. I use to think of it as a curse that hindered me from living the life I wanted (which at the time was ballet dancing professionally) when the truth is it was a huge blessing in disguise.
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https://medium.com/@kennedymontecue/having-a-panic-disorder-made-me-a-better-person-579ea01ab2d9
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['Kennedy Montecue']
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2020-12-19 06:37:24.294000+00:00
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['Anxiety', 'Mental Illness', 'Panic Attack', 'Mental Health', 'Short Form']
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Save big on headphones, including a Bose model with active noise cancellation
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Headphones can be a nice audio upgrade over earbuds, but they can run expensive—especially if you want active noise cancellation technology. But as Black Friday approaches, we can highlight two awesome pairs from Cleer and Bose that give you immersive audio without cleaning out your wallet.
The Cleer Enduro 100 headphones are $60 on Amazon today, the cheapest we’ve ever seen them. These headphones boast an awesome feature set: In our review, we wrote, “Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX HD, Google Fast Pair, Siri invocation, and USB-C connectivity put these headphones comfortably into state-of-the-art category.” Up to 100 hours of playback on a charge, as well as up to 13 hours of playback on a 10-minute quick charge, means you’ll be able to use these headphones all day, or even all week, without running out of battery. They also come in two different colors, “Coronado sand” and navy.
We gave the Cleer Enduro 100 headphones 4 stars out of 5 as well as an Editors’ Choice award for their awesome sound quality, packed feature set, and lengthy battery life.
Want a serious upgrade with active noise cancellation? The Bose Headphones 700 are available from B&H Photo Video for $299, down from a list price of $379. These over-ear headphones feature 11 levels of noise cancellation, so whether you’re looking to block out all sound, or keep an ear out for environmental noises, you can set the noise cancellation accordingly. Built-in Alexa and Google Assistant allow for easy hands-free voice control with one touch, while earcup controls make it even easier to take calls, navigate through music, and more. In addition, up to 20 hours of wireless battery life keep the music going all day long.
We gave the Bose 700 4 out of 5 stars, and they average 3.5 stars out of 5 across more than 750 user reviews on B&H Photo Video.
[ Today’s deal: Discounts on Cleer Enduro 100 and Bose Headphones 700 ]
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
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https://medium.com/@muhsin14354134/save-big-on-headphones-including-a-bose-model-with-active-noise-cancellation-ae215ce6d521
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[]
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2020-12-16 22:27:11.221000+00:00
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['Chargers', 'Entertainment', 'Cutting', 'Services']
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Where to seat people to maintain social distancing
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A constrained optimization approach to seating arrangements through Simulated Annealing (SA)
Introduction
The Covid 19 pandemic has brought with it a complex set of restrictions regarding live events. E.g.:
one can seat by people of the same social bubble,
but must have a free seat at the top and bottom,
and also two free seats to the sides.
What is the problem?
Given a set of already sold tickets to an event, we need to seat as many of them as possible, while respecting COVID guidelines.
Simple example — hello world
Applying the approach explained below, with the sample constraints explained in the introduction, to a standium of 1000 people, we can improve the number of people which we can fit by about a +15% of the initial random guess.
In the plot below, it can be seen how the SA algorithm is much more conservative towards the end of the schedule budget, due to the exponential decay of the acceptance probability function.
number of people (taking the absolute value) which the algorithm can fit over the number of iterations run
final distribution of the seating; a white pixel is an empty seat, a black seat is one with a person on it
How do we approach it?
We don’t have a mathematical expression of some analytic function we can use to optimize. That is, if we figured out a scalar function which, given some parameters, returns the number of people we can fit, we could just derive it to find its global extrema. However, life is not this simple.
Brute forcing the problem could be a solution, but given a realistic situation (with a standard number of seats and attendees), it has an extremely huge search space.
However, we can approach the optimization through a metaheuristic method; we will be using Simulated Annealing. Given an ordered list of people, the algorithm will seat them respecting the order and the social distancing constraints (so if some seat must be left empty due to some constraint, it will just jump to the next one and try to seat the person there); our “parameter” is the order in which people is seated. Hence, the SA algorithm will try to find this optimal order.
Simulated annealing
Simulated annealing (SA) is a metaheuristic used to approximate a global optimization in a large search space. This fits exactly our needs! Also, it supports the use of discrete variables, which we will make us of. SA might be modeled as a random walk through a search graph of the initial guess and its neighbours.
SIMULATED ANNEALING ALGORITHM
Let S = S0.
Let k = MAX_K.
WHILE k >= 1:
Let S' = NEIGHBOUR(S).
Let T = (k + 1) / MAX_K.
IF UNIFORM_RANDOM(0, 1) <= P(S, S', T):
Let S = S'.
k--
S
The prior SA algorithm uses a fixed cooling schedule, but adptative solutions based on the change rate can also be designed.
This implies that we will also implement:
A function to get a neighbour of a solution, performing a small random mutation to the initial solution.
A cost function (a fitness function) to evaluate the cost of some solution. In our case, this could be simply a negative cost per person we can fit, and positive cost if that person is far from the family (e.g.).
A function which defines the probability of accepting a neighbour.
P(S, S', T) -> FLOAT:
IF COST(S') < COST(S):
RETURN 1
ELSE:
RETURN EXP(-(COST(S')-COST(S))/T)
More about simulated annealing.
Check out the code here.
Thanks for reading!
|
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/where-to-seat-people-to-maintain-social-distancing-854851de1810
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['Miquel Vir']
|
2020-11-08 17:08:46.105000+00:00
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['Python', 'Covid', 'Seating', 'Social Distancing', 'Simulated Annealing']
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Men With Breast Cancer Have A Monthly ‘Virtual Meet Up’ Thanks To Charity Collaboration
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A transatlantic project between cancer charities has led to a new monthly online meet up which aims to help men with breast cancer.
The peer-led ‘Virtual Meet Up’ is from De Montfort University, Walk the Walk, and American charities AnCan and the Male Breast Cancer Coalition.
Dr Kerry Quincey, 33, lecturer at De Montfort University and a founder of the VMU, helped give men this platform.
She said: “It’s ran for men, by men with a history of breast cancer.”
Dr Quincey knew this would be a challenge, but sees men exhibit a want and need for this group.
Image Courtesy of Walk the Walk
Doug Harper, 58, Walthamstow, is in complete remission of his stage two breast cancer and one of the groups leaders, he talked about the first time he met another man with breast cancer:
“We didn’t particularly talk about our experience of it, it was just identifying somebody else with the same condition.
“It was like we all knew each other, there was nothing forced about it, nothing staged, everyone was just relaxed.”
Walk the Walk collaborated on the ‘Virtual Meet Up’ to ensure that these invaluable connections can be forged, Sally Orr, Communications Director, said:
“Walk the Walk recognises the importance of the men meeting other men, once a year we get them together — many of them have never previously met a man who has had breast cancer.”
The VMU allows men to meet monthly, instead of just once a year.
David and Doug have used the arts to tell men about male breast cancer
Breast cancer patient David McCallion, 56, Greater Manchester, had his treatment fast tracked during the pandemic and sees how valuable the VMU is after you leave the care system.
He said: “When you get past the bit where you’ve had all the major therapies, to a degree then you are no longer part of that emergency network.
“That’s when you feel a little bit out on a limb again.”
Despite only 370 men being diagnosed with breast cancer a year in the UK, one in five of those men will lose their life to the disease.
You can find out more about the VMU here.
|
https://medium.com/@w-nelson/men-with-breast-cancer-have-a-monthly-virtual-meet-up-thanks-to-charity-collaboration-59b5086d60cf
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['Will Nelson']
|
2020-12-18 16:00:09.969000+00:00
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['Cancer', 'Breast Cancer', 'Mens Health']
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How Important is QA for DevOps?
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DevOps has become a catchphrase in the field of software development. And, a drastic increase in DevOps adoption over the past few years states its significance in the process of ensuring quick release and smooth delivery of software. So, how does Quality Assurance in DevOps fit in?
A fitting extension to the Agile methodology in software development, the right DevOps services make the philosophy of bringing the development and operations teams together for ensuring the most efficient product testing and release processes.
But, how does QA or Quality Assurance come into the ‘DevOps’ of it all? We explore that!
DevOps Terminology
Multiple definitions are lined up on search engines that describe this practice. In simple terms, DevOps is a philosophy that fosters collaboration between the development and operations teams, thus making sure that software always stays updated and in a deployable condition with these updates.
The biggest feature of DevOps is how it makes everybody -from Junior Engineer to Project Manager, Developer and Quality Analysts, equally responsible and accountable.
Now since you have got an idea about what DevOps is, let us go through the basic terminologies associated with DevOps-
CI refers to Continuous Integration, where code implementation takes place at a very high frequency. There are use cases where this implementation happens even on an hourly basis.
This term has two contexts: Continuous Delivery, which ensures that any piece of code is always up and ready for deployment. In other words, all kinds of code updates- bug fixes, new features, new configurations can always be deployed to the production ecosystem.
It also means Continuous Deployment, where every change gets automatically transferred to production.
Continuous Testing refers to a cluster of automated tests that bring executable code every time a new code build gets sent to the repository. Whenever a new code is deployed, a series of tests verify this code for any kind of errors before they get sent to production.
With Continuous Testing, software gets verified at the initial stages with the developers and the testing of code. Systango ( DevOps Consultancy, London) utilizes the practice of continuous testing to find out bugs that may have the potential to affect production at the later stages.
Moving on, let’s explore the role of QA in DevOps.
Role of QA in DevOps
With the Quality Assurance in DevOps ecosystems, the lines between QA and development have started becoming more blurred than ever before. This only means that a major portion of the quality assurance process blends well with DevOps, building a strong foundation of product development as a whole.
The role of QA in DevOps has more to do with the situation that generally prevails in the non-DevOps scenarios, where the developer teams are not aware of issues that generally plague the Operations and QA teams.
The entire premise of DevOps services revolves around ensuring that the QA and developers are aware of everything that takes place in the phases of software development. It’s a contrast when compared to organizations working without DevOps practices in place, where the entire process is just the responsibility of a specific team.
Reasons Why QA is Inevitable for DevOps
Everyone is a witness to the kind of intense competition that organizations today have with each other. This is a big reason why companies are also competing with time to make their products reach out to the customers as quickly as possible. Customer expectations too have changed dramatically, and now they expect nothing but the best in everything they look at.
DevOps brings immense business growth in these market situations by making them adapt to quickly changing markets in real-time. Consequently, DevOps allows organizations to attain a competitive advantage that allows growth. In other words, QA blends with DevOps at every stage.
As a renowned DevOps consultancy in London, our DevOps engineers at Systango analyze market scenarios for clients and bring in the most appropriate QA measures for better DevOps functioning.
Here are some important reasons why QA is very important for DevOps-
1- DevOps as a Strategist
In DevOps situations, both the developers and testers play an important role but the separation between them becomes a little confusing. DevOps encourages collaboration between the development and operations teams to create top-notch software. QA then plays more of a strategic role in such situations by ensuring that quality is considered a responsibility by both the development and operations teams.
With equal sharing of responsibilities for teams, if the QA strategy is not clearly defined, then continuous testing and its related aspects of quality and pace fail to get met.
Professional DevOps service providers like Systango ensure that QA fits in this strategic role to appropriately make the DevOps implementation realize its full potential.
2- Quicker Bug Detection with QA
When we talk about the traditional approach to software development, the role of QA is putting processes in place that help in the detection of bugs. With DevOps in the midst, QA is elevated to the next level, where it not only looks after just the processes but also assists in detecting these bugs early too.
It’s a must in a setup where quick delivery is a priority, and updates get released in a matter of a few hours.
Consult the best DevOps service providers and witness how QA can work wonders with DevOps in your development and deployment process.
3- QA Brings Development & Operations Together
DevOps does bring both development and operations together, but it is QA that brings a certain business value to it. QA does it because, despite every segregation or categorization, quality is of utmost importance.
In all DevOps operations and processes, Testing and QA will keep playing pivotal roles, all with ensuring the quality during every stage of the development process.
4- QA Makes Achievement of DevOps Objectives a Reality
The benefits of DevOps are numerous, which is a big reason why companies are adopting it at an exponential pace. As a result, the corporate world is arriving at a stage that allows for accelerated build cycles and testing following customer demands and expectations. At the same time, it’s also important to choose the right set of DevOps services for the best results.
As a result, consistent quality checks become a priority, as quality is something that’s ingrained within the core DevOps ethos as a whole and not separately. Exactly where choosing Systango will pay handsome dividends for your organization.
Here’s a case of a client among many that experienced many positive changes with our services.
How Systango Helped Waitlist Leverage DevOps?
They required our technical experience in converting their MVP into a full-fledged Queue Management platform that worked on the SaaS philosophy, while also revamping their iOS and Android applications.
Did we go through?
Absolutely! The waitlist has been a client since the year 2012, where we have been looking after their Google Cloud environment, iOS and web apps, and some other integrations too. Approaching a decade of association, Systango is well-aware of the philosophies and core values that drive Waitlist.
Quality Assurance in DevOps is an intricate process, but given our experience over the years, Systango can undoubtedly assist you in your DevOps endeavors. As a DevOps service provider, we use effective tools for quality assurance to help you achieve better resilience to volatility. We also focus on continuous integration, continuous deployment, client collaboration, proactive monitoring, and regular process improvement to help enterprises of all sizes optimize their IT operations. Leverage our hands-on experience on tools Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes to get robust systems that drive results. Get in touch with our DevOps engineer today!
After all, our service quality truly makes us a DevOps consultancy in London to watch out for.
|
https://medium.com/@systango/how-important-is-qa-for-devops-337ce374baae
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[]
|
2021-06-17 11:49:57.036000+00:00
|
['DevOps', 'Quality Assurance']
|
🇹🇼 🍺台灣第15任總統就職紀念的柑橘味，「台啤特釀 · 淬」啤酒（小七） Taiwan Beer Special Brewing for 15th Presidential Inauguration
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對印度淡色艾爾啤酒迷來說，台灣啤酒本是無緣，在台灣啤酒產品，找不到那種印度淡色艾爾啤酒獨有的柑橘味。
For IPA beer fans, Taiwan beer was not a familiar brewery. In Taiwan beer products, the unique citrus flavor of Indian light beer did not exist.
然而，「台啤特釀 · 淬」啤酒，似乎擁有與其他台啤產品不同的柑橘味。
However, the “Taiwan Beer Special Brewing for 15th Presidential Inauguration” beer seems to have a different citrus taste from other Taiwan beer products.
台灣啤酒官網上，說明這款啤酒用全麥及歐洲貴族啤酒花，選用果香型酵母，遵循比利時金色艾爾啤酒工法釀製而成，酒精度5.5%。
The official website of Taiwan Beer states that this beer is brewed with whole wheat and European noble hops, selected from fruit-flavored yeast, and brewed according to the Belgian golden Ayr beer method, with an alcohol content of 5.5%.
這款啤酒，泡沫不多，泡沫也不細緻， 但的確有明顯柑橘味，堪稱2020年台灣啤酒廠產品的首選。 This beer is not too foamy and the foam is not meticulous, but it does have a clear citrus flavor, which is the best choice for Taiwanese brewery products in 2020.
味道不差，反倒是名設計師聶永真設計的啤酒罐，銀底白字的設計，造成閱讀基本資料的困難，連酒精濃度的標示都要找好久
The taste is not bad, but rather designer Nie design of beer cans, silver and white on the design, resulting in difficulties in reading basic information.
不過，慶祝台灣第15任總統副總統就職，5/6起各通路都買得到的「台啤特釀 · 淬」啤酒，無疑是近年台啤少見的佳釀。
However, to celebrate the inauguration of the 15th President and Vice President of Taiwan, the “Taiwan Beer Special Brewing for 15th Presidential Inauguration” beer that has been available since 5/6 is undoubtedly a good brew of Taiwan Beer in recent years.
|
https://medium.com/need-a-drink/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E7%AC%AC15%E4%BB%BB%E7%B8%BD%E7%B5%B1%E5%B0%B1%E8%81%B7%E7%B4%80%E5%BF%B5%E7%9A%84%E6%9F%91%E6%A9%98%E5%91%B3-%E5%8F%B0%E5%95%A4%E7%89%B9%E9%87%80-%E6%B7%AC-%E5%95%A4%E9%85%92-taiwan-beer-special-brewing-for-15th-presidential-inauguration-14c6432a1da2
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['Kyle Chu 微風捕手']
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2020-08-03 11:15:37.082000+00:00
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['Beer', 'Taiwanese', '啤酒', '中文', 'Taiwan']
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The best smart speaker: Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple, Sonos & more — 2020
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The craze of smart speakers is increasing a lot nowadays. It is one of the few essential gadgets to make a home smart. Smart speakers work through the virtual assistant of smartphones. If you have a smart speaker in your house, you can also play music along with turning on the home light through voice command. Not only this, but smart speakers also answer your questions and even tell you the weather conditions along with the latest news. If you, too, are thinking of getting a smart speaker for yourself, then we are telling you about some of the best options.
Sonos One
Coming at the price of around Rs 14,000, this smart speaker is much better than the expensive Apple HomePod and Google Home Max. It can be used for stereo as well as a multi-room audio setup. Now, coming to the features, you can choose whether you want Alexa’s feature or Google Assistant feature during its configuration. The new updated version comes with more memory, an improved processor, and supports Bluetooth LE. Besides, it has excellent sound, deep bass, and supports loads of streaming options, including AirPlay 2. But, its microphones need improvements, especially for Google Assistant.
Bose Home Speaker 500
Bose has launched its new smart wireless speaker (Bose Home Speaker 500) and two smart soundbars (Bose Soundbar 500 and Soundbar 700) in India. These new products have been introduced with Amazon Alexa, and the company has promised that in the future, it will also support voice assistants like Google Assistant and Airplay 2. These devices have been introduced with the company’s mic technology, which can be seen in its headphones and earphones. In a press statement, the company has informed that speakers will be able to listen to voice commands better with the help of this mic technology. This technology uses eight microphone setups custom-designed for near-field and far-field voice pickup. In the Bose Home Speaker 500, two custom drivers have been fitted in different directions. The company believes that it provides better audio quality. This speaker has a button at the top for navigation.
Trending Bot Articles:
On the other hand, talk about Bose Soundbar 700 and Soundbar 500, the company has its ADAPTiQ technology, which adjusts the soundbar according to the surround. They can be connected to a wireless base module and rear speakers for a full 5.1 sound experience. The Bose Soundbar 700 features Bose DSP, custom low-profile transducers, and QuietPort technology. The company has announced that it gives strong audio quality. Also, a smart universal remote with a soundbar has been provided to control all smart devices.
Amazon Echo Speakers
Amazon has launched three new Echo smart speakers in India. The latest Amazon Echo devices come with fabric design and premium sound. The company’s next-generation Echo speaker is priced at Rs 9,999 in India. In the Echo Plus speaker, the company has given 3-inch woofers. Amazon has introduced this smart speaker in blue, black, gray, and white color options. The new Amazon Echo has a spherical shape and brings features of the Echo Studio at low prices. It has replaced the Echo Plus and includes a Zigbee hub for smart home device connectivity, supports Amazon’s Sidewalk service, gets a Dolby-powered stereo, and a 3-inch woofer.
Along with this, the new Echo Dot speaker watch has been launched with the LED display given shows the time, temperature, timer, and alarm. The company launches Echo Dot at a price of Rs 5,499. The brightness of the LED display given in this speaker is automatically adjusted according to the room’s light condition. It has a brand new Echo Dot and a Kids Edition with features like Reading Sidekick that children can use for reading. Alexa can now learn child profiles and switch to child mode when a child interacts with them.
The Echo Show 10 offers many exciting features. However, the unique selling point is the ability to follow users as they move around the room. Device SVP Dave Limp pointed out that it does this by tracking people’s size and that intelligent movement does not require facial recognition. The 10-inch screen comes with a pre-installed Netflix and ZigBee hub to control smart devices. It also has a wake and wake mode that allows users to monitor events in their homes when they are not there.
Google Home Mini
Google Home Mini is very similar to Amazon Echo Dot in terms of design, feature, size, and sound quality. Due to coming with Google Assistant Support, it gives you news, weather information, and other updates. Talking about the price, you can buy it for Rs 3,499.
Apple HomePod
Apple’s HomePod is the first smart speaker to work on Siri. Its sound quality is quite good. Coming at a price of Rs 21,000, this smart speaker automatically adjusts the sound output according to the room. However, it has some limitations. If you ask to play music from it, it will play the same songs on Apple’s music service. Along with this, only those devices that come with Apple Home Kit support give voice command control.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !
|
https://chatbotslife.com/the-best-smart-speaker-google-assistant-amazon-alexa-apple-sonos-more-2020-cd5f8a547e85
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['Tapaan Chauhan']
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2020-12-21 14:55:11.807000+00:00
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['Smart Speaker', 'Google Assistant', 'Voice Assistant', 'Bots', 'Amazon Echo']
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The Surprising Way Gratitude Will Change Your Life
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I started practicing gratitude in 2017 to feel happier. On a daily basis, I would write about 5 things I found myself grateful for.
Yep, sounds pretty crunchy.
But the evidence for the benefits of practicing gratitude is compelling. By simply recalling and feeling appreciation for something, we trigger a cascade of physiological and emotional changes in ourselves.
It tells your parasympathetic nervous system you are safe to thrive and relax. Dopamine and serotonin increase, causing you to feel happy and in the flow. Gratitude predictably and consistently creates a good sense that “everything is ok.”
It’s in this warning system reboot that we find a way to alter our mindset in a fairly easy and effective way.
The most surprising thing about gratitude is that it will give you the power to interrupt your current series of causes and effects and make a better decision for the future.
It’s like pushing pause on all the things dominating your focus right now and setting aside all dramas and moods for something real and authentic. Within seconds of practicing gratitude, your mind relaxes into ease, your body calms, and a subtle light warms what you see and feel.
With gratitude, you interrupt the path you were on for something inevitably better.
Your next conversation will be engaging. Your next insight will appear with ease. Your next action will be consciously made.
When practiced once or twice, gratitude will feel pretty good. When practiced daily, you will change the course of your life for the better. It’s a grandiose and prescriptive statement, but it’s been true in my life.
The simple nature of gratitude makes it accessible to us at any moment; the powerful nature of gratitude gives us a tool to change our lives.
Here are some things you can be grateful for right now:
You are alive. After billions of years of random chemical interactions in a seemingly endless space, you exist on a rock barreling through the darkness at millions of miles per hour.
After billions of years of random chemical interactions in a seemingly endless space, you exist on a rock barreling through the darkness at millions of miles per hour. You are reading this. That means you have access to technology, you live in a society that has the infrastructure to support the internet, and you have the time.
That means you have access to technology, you live in a society that has the infrastructure to support the internet, and you have the time. You have a purpose. Your life has meaning. If not, you simply wouldn’t be here.
And I am grateful for you and your time spent with my words.
Thank you, and have a wonderful day.
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https://medium.com/spiritual-secrets/the-surprising-way-gratitude-will-change-your-life-245b25f24a57
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['Ricky Lyman']
|
2020-11-04 20:04:23.019000+00:00
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['Mindfulness', 'Happiness', 'Spirituality', 'Life Lessons', 'Gratitude']
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Three pieces of bullshit advice about being a working copywriter
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The path to becoming a fulltime working copywriter is different for everyone. Sure, there are best practices recommendations that are worth following, and pitfalls you should avoid. But very few things fall into the category of “NEVER” or “ALWAYS” do this.
I want to share with you some pearls of idiocy that I’ve heard over the years from so-called “copywriting gurus”. I’ve fallen for most of these bits of “advice” myself, and found out the hard way why they’re stupid.
Bullshit Advice — “Never work for free”
If you want to work for free, do it. Just don’t let anyone force you into it. Remember, payment doesn’t always have to come in the form of a monetary exchange.
There are many reasons why you might choose to do a project for free.
Maybe it’s for a cause that you feel strongly about, and you want to contribute to it by doing some pro bono work. Or you might be trying to get some experience in a brand new industry, so you want to offer a prospective client a low-risk opportunity for collaboration — they get the copy, you get the experience and testimonial.
Bullshit Advice — “Charge high fees or you’ll never be able to raise your prices later”
There are no industry standard prices for copywriters. What you charge, depends on a mix of factors, mainly:
What kind of results you’ve been getting for clients How selective you want to be with the clients you pick up How competent you feel
Here’s what worked for me.
I started out cheap, because I wanted to get people into the door. Most of the jobs I did, weren’t worth it in terms of monetary compensation, but I made sure I was compensated in other ways, such as strong testimonials.
Once I started reaching my client capacity, I started raising my fees for new clients. I wasn’t earning a ton of money, but at least my client portfolio made me comfortable enough to be ok with losing a sale.
Eventually, I started raising my fees for my existing clients too, giving them fair warning ahead of time. Most of them stayed, some of them dropped out. And that’s fine.
Bullshit Advice — “Confidence trumps competence”
You need both. But nothing builds confidence better than results, so work on becoming competent first. Impostor syndrome will never be too far away, but if you build yourself a good track record, it will give you the confidence boost you need.
On the flip side, if you try to sound confident without having anything to back up that feeling, you’ll be fighting a losing battle.
I’m not saying you should present yourself in front of your client in a terrified mess. Maintain your dignity and focus on what you can offer. You might not have a track record of massive sales, but there is one thing you can consistently promise and deliver — excellent service.
Your turn, tell me
I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of bullshit advice thrown at you from the high and mighty. Let’s hear it!
|
https://medium.com/heycopywriter/three-pieces-of-bullshit-advice-about-being-a-working-copywriter-97ef99e59805
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['Cedric Debono']
|
2021-04-05 06:20:42.310000+00:00
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['Freelance', 'Copywriting', 'Freelancing', 'Copywriter']
|
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