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How to Disable Right Click on Blogger Post? — Smartest Blogger
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How to Disable Right Click on Blogger Post — Smartest Blogger
Hi Friends I am Sumit Pratap Yadav from SMARTESTBLOGGER.COM and in this blog post, you will get all the needy information about How to Disable Right Click on Blogger Post. So, before getting started on to the main topic don’t forget to Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel — Smartest Blogger
How to Disable Right Click on Blogger? — Smartest Blogger
So, it is very important to save or to protect our own post’s content from the parasites. They will copy your content from your site and will translate it and will post it in their Blogger Post. You h……..
For Continuous reading Visit:
https://www.smartestblogger.com/2020/12/How%20to-Disable-Right-Click-on-Blogger-Post-Smartest-Blogger.html
Instagram: @sumit_spy_985 Facebook: @sumitpratapyadav Twitter: @yadavsumit2
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https://medium.com/@smartestblogger/how-to-disable-right-click-on-blogger-post-smartest-blogger-2268fd605bbb
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['Smartest Blogger']
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2020-12-20 16:00:00.371000+00:00
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['Blogging Tips', 'Protect', 'Bloggging', 'Blogger']
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GO-TO-THE-MARKETS
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Certainly the phrase/concept GO-TO-MARKET is not new. For me it rings most common with products; and in the last many years definitely includes mobile applications as a massive amount of products. This is not a story about exploding the newest “APP”. I don’t do that; I provide professional consulting services and execution of the ideas I consult on. But there is something to be learned for just about any business by looking at others; especially those who are radically different than your own.
I constantly am thinking to myself how do I spread the gospel more? Every now and again, like now, I think out loud, about what professional services firms do (or don’t), to GO-TO-THE- MARKETS. Ah, there is more than one? Hmmm. You will have to decide whether there is just one or hundreds for you.
Markets are the life blood of any economic activity. A niche service does not likely have the value to warrant a Super Bowl ad. But likely there are a few for you to at least consider. So how do you go to them to let them know you exist? That’s a constant thought (or should be if you are going to be around for long).
The answers depend upon what you do, how aggressive you want to be, how much effort you want to exert, and how much return you want. Wait…I can decide those things? Well, you have to. And, you may have to decide how often do you want to re-invent yourself.
So how does a professional services business GO-TO-THE-MARKETS it wants to operate in and announce they exist. And broadcast what the proposition they have to make is? What’s the approach? Does this only apply to a service provider (seller), or could it apply to a service seeker (buyer) who wants to improve the services they buy?
Here’s one set of thoughts:
1. Figure out who you are;
2. Who you would like to hang out with and who may want to hang out with you (you’ll spend more time with them than your family);
3. What you won’t do and will; and
4. Where it’s at to satisfy all that.
Sounds intense!!!! Sounds like an exercise that may require you to put yourself on the coach and go deep! YES! Even if what you do seems simple and you think you already know what you need to do; do it anyway.
I recently learned about a way Charlie Munger thinks about stuff; Inversion. In Christian Busch’s Serendipity Mindset as I recall Munger’s statement was “If you want to help Somalia, first think about what hurts Somalia.” That was a major light bulb (especially for a contrarian thinker like I am).
I Can’t tell you how to be like Charlie Munger. I suspect that Mr. Munger would tell you that if you try to emulate him, you are missing the point. But hopefully my think out load moment was helpful, and in return I get some nuggets back from you.
Chad K. Wakefield, PMP
The Chief Champion of You!!!!!
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https://medium.com/@chad-revival/go-to-the-markets-436712a90257
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['Chad Wakefield']
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2020-12-29 16:43:41.547000+00:00
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['Go To Market', 'Business Development', 'Sales', 'Impact', 'Business Strategy']
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Coding four-layer neural network
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in my last post, I explained how the neural network in detail and I suggest to check it if you don’t have any idea about how neural network works otherwise you could skip it, however in this post we will code 4 layers neural network with just python and numpy .
what is the function that we will approximate
in this post, we will approximate the exclusive or function which outputs 1 when two inputs are similar and 0, when they are different, let’s take an example for that
0 , 0 => 1 | 1,1 => 1 | 1,0 => 0 | 0,1 => 0
import numpy and set hyperparameters :
generate data and initialize both weights and biases :
create the training data which is simply the true table of the Xor function :
initialize randomly the weights and biases from a normal probability distribution
create the activation function
sigmoid function
sigmoid function prime
write the train function
in this function, we have both the feedforward and backpropagation algorithm
if there is any concept I want you to leave with it from this post is backpropagation which is simply is calculating the partial derivative of the cost function respect to each weight and bias in the neural network and this value gives us a clear direction to how we should updating our parameters to serve the purpose of decreasing the cost function.
now time to train our model for 1000 epochs
It’s time to make a prediction !!
Finally that you get value from this post and stay tuned for more AI content
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https://medium.com/@chamakhabdallah8/coding-four-layer-neural-network-9e5cbaf95d5b
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['Abdallah Chamakh']
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2019-09-24 21:27:57.287000+00:00
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['Neural Networks', 'Numpy', 'AI', 'Machine Learning']
|
A Step-by-Step Introduction to the Basic Object Detection Algorithms (Part 1)
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How much time have you spent looking for lost room keys in an untidy and messy house? It happens to the best of us and till date remains an incredibly frustrating experience. But what if a simple computer algorithm could locate your keys in a matter of milliseconds?
That is the power of object detection algorithms. While this was a simple example, the applications of object detection span multiple and diverse industries, from round-the-clock surveillance to real-time vehicle detection in smart cities. In short, these are powerful deep learning algorithms.
In this article specifically, we will dive deeper and look at various algorithms that can be used for object detection. We will start with the algorithms belonging to RCNN family, i.e. RCNN, Fast RCNN and Faster RCNN. In the upcoming article of this series, we will cover more advanced algorithms like YOLO, SSD, etc.
I encourage you to go through this previous article on object detection, where we cover the basics of this wonderful technique and show you an implementation in Python using the OpenAI library.
Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
A Simple Way of Solving an Object Detection Task (using Deep Learning) Understanding Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks
1. Intuition of RCNN
2. Problems with RCNN Understanding Fast RCNN
1. Intuition of Fast RCNN
2. Problems with Fast RCNN Understanding Faster RCNN
1. Intuition of Faster RCNN
2. Problems with Faster RCNN Summary of the Algorithms covered
1. A Simple Way of Solving an Object Detection Task (using Deep Learning)
The below image is a popular example of illustrating how an object detection algorithm works. Each object in the image, from a person to a kite, have been located and identified with a certain level of precision.
Let’s start with the simplest deep learning approach, and a widely used one, for detecting objects in images — Convolutional Neural Networks or CNNs. If your understanding of CNNs is a little rusty, I recommend going through this article first.
But I’ll briefly summarize the inner workings of a CNN for you. Take a look at the below image:
We pass an image to the network, and it is then sent through various convolutions and pooling layers. Finally, we get the output in the form of the object’s class. Fairly straightforward, isn’t it?
For each input image, we get a corresponding class as an output. Can we use this technique to detect various objects in an image? Yes, we can! Let’s look at how we can solve a general object detection problem using a CNN.
1. First, we take an image as input:
2. Then we divide the image into various regions:
3. We will then consider each region as a separate image.
4. Pass all these regions (images) to the CNN and classify them into various classes.
5. Once we have divided each region into its corresponding class, we can combine all these regions to get the original image with the detected objects:
The problem with using this approach is that the objects in the image can have different aspect ratios and spatial locations. For instance, in some cases the object might be covering most of the image, while in others the object might only be covering a small percentage of the image. The shapes of the objects might also be different (happens a lot in real-life use cases).
As a result of these factors, we would require a very large number of regions resulting in a huge amount of computational time. So to solve this problem and reduce the number of regions, we can use region-based CNN, which selects the regions using a proposal method. Let’s understand what this region-based CNN can do for us.
2. Understanding Region-Based Convolutional Neural Network
2.1 Intuition of RCNN
Instead of working on a massive number of regions, the RCNN algorithm proposes a bunch of boxes in the image and checks if any of these boxes contain any object. RCNN uses selective search to extract these boxes from an image (these boxes are called regions).
Let’s first understand what selective search is and how it identifies the different regions. There are basically four regions that form an object: varying scales, colors, textures, and enclosure. Selective search identifies these patterns in the image and based on that, proposes various regions. Here is a brief overview of how selective search works:
It first takes an image as input:
Then, it generates initial sub-segmentations so that we have multiple regions from this image:
The technique then combines the similar regions to form a larger region (based on color similarity, texture similarity, size similarity, and shape compatibility):
Finally, these regions then produce the final object locations (Region of Interest).
Below is a succint summary of the steps followed in RCNN to detect objects:
We first take a pre-trained convolutional neural network. Then, this model is retrained. We train the last layer of the network based on the number of classes that need to be detected. The third step is to get the Region of Interest for each image. We then reshape all these regions so that they can match the CNN input size. After getting the regions, we train SVM to classify objects and background. For each class, we train one binary SVM. Finally, we train a linear regression model to generate tighter bounding boxes for each identified object in the image.
You might get a better idea of the above steps with a visual example (Images for the example shown below are taken from this paper) . So let’s take one!
First, an image is taken as an input:
Then, we get the Regions of Interest (ROI) using some proposal method (for example, selective search as seen above):
All these regions are then reshaped as per the input of the CNN, and each region is passed to the ConvNet:
CNN then extracts features for each region and SVMs are used to divide these regions into different classes:
Finally, a bounding box regression (Bbox reg) is used to predict the bounding boxes for each identified region:
And this, in a nutshell, is how an RCNN helps us to detect objects.
2.2 Problems with RCNN
So far, we’ve seen how RCNN can be helpful for object detection. But this technique comes with its own limitations. Training an RCNN model is expensive and slow thanks to the below steps:
Extracting 2,000 regions for each image based on selective search
Extracting features using CNN for every image region. Suppose we have N images, then the number of CNN features will be N*2,000
The entire process of object detection using RCNN has three models:
1. CNN for feature extraction
2. Linear SVM classifier for identifying objects
3. Regression model for tightening the bounding boxes.
All these processes combine to make RCNN very slow. It takes around 40–50 seconds to make predictions for each new image, which essentially makes the model cumbersome and practically impossible to build when faced with a gigantic dataset.
Here’s the good news, we have another object detection technique which fixes most of the limitations we saw in RCNN.
3. Understanding Fast RCNN
3.1 Intuition of Fast RCNN
What else can we do to reduce the computation time a RCNN algorithm typically takes? Instead of running a CNN 2,000 times per image, we can run it just once per image and get all the regions of interest (regions containing some object).
Ross Girshick, the author of RCNN, came up with this idea of running the CNN just once per image and then finding a way to share that computation across the 2,000 regions. In Fast RCNN, we feed the input image to the CNN, which in turn generates the convolutional feature maps. Using these maps, the regions of proposals are extracted. We then use a RoI pooling layer to reshape all the proposed regions into a fixed size, so that it can be fed into a fully connected network.
Let’s break this down into steps to simplify the concept:
As with the earlier two techniques, we take an image as an input. This image is passed to a ConvNet which in turns generates the Regions of Interest. A RoI pooling layer is applied on all of these regions to reshape them as per the input of the ConvNet. Then, each region is passed on to a fully connected network. A softmax layer is used on top of the fully connected network to output classes. Along with the softmax layer, a linear regression layer is also used parallely to output bounding box coordinates for predicted classes.
So, instead of using three different models (like in RCNN), Fast RCNN uses a single model which extracts features from the regions, divides them into different classes, and returns the boundary boxes for the identified classes simultaneously.
To break this down even further, I’ll visualize each step to add a practical angle to the explanation.
We follow the now well-known step of taking an image as input:
This image is passed to a ConvNet which returns the region of interests accordingly:
Then we apply the RoI pooling layer on the extracted regions of interest to make sure all the regions are of the same size:
Finally, these regions are passed on to a fully connected network which classifies them, as well as returns the bounding boxes using softmax and linear regression layers simultaneously:
This is how Fast RCNN resolves two major issues of RCNN, i.e., passing one instead of 2,000 regions per image to the ConvNet, and using one instead of three different models for extracting features, classification and generating bounding boxes.
3.2 Problems with Fast RCNN
But even Fast RCNN has certain problem areas. It also uses selective search as a proposal method to find the Regions of Interest, which is a slow and time consuming process. It takes around 2 seconds per image to detect objects, which is much better compared to RCNN. But when we consider large real-life datasets, then even a Fast RCNN doesn’t look so fast anymore.
But there’s yet another object detection algorithm that trump Fast RCNN. And something tells me you won’t be surprised by it’s name.
4. Understanding Faster RCNN
4.1. Intuition of Faster RCNN
Faster RCNN is the modified version of Fast RCNN. The major difference between them is that Fast RCNN uses selective search for generating Regions of Interest, while Faster RCNN uses “Region Proposal Network”, aka RPN. RPN takes image feature maps as an input and generates a set of object proposals, each with an objectness score as output.
The below steps are typically followed in a Faster RCNN approach:
We take an image as input and pass it to the ConvNet which returns the feature map for that image. Region proposal network is applied on these feature maps. This returns the object proposals along with their objectness score. A RoI pooling layer is applied on these proposals to bring down all the proposals to the same size. Finally, the proposals are passed to a fully connected layer which has a softmax layer and a linear regression layer at its top, to classify and output the bounding boxes for objects.
Let me briefly explain how this Region Proposal Network (RPN) actually works.
To begin with, Faster RCNN takes the feature maps from CNN and passes them on to the Region Proposal Network. RPN uses a sliding window over these feature maps, and at each window, it generates k Anchor boxes of different shapes and sizes:
Anchor boxes are fixed sized boundary boxes that are placed throughout the image and have different shapes and sizes. For each anchor, RPN predicts two things:
The first is the probability that an anchor is an object (it does not consider which class the object belongs to)
Second is the bounding box regressor for adjusting the anchors to better fit the object
We now have bounding boxes of different shapes and sizes which are passed on to the RoI pooling layer. Now it might be possible that after the RPN step, there are proposals with no classes assigned to them. We can take each proposal and crop it so that each proposal contains an object. This is what the RoI pooling layer does. It extracts fixed sized feature maps for each anchor:
Then these feature maps are passed to a fully connected layer which has a softmax and a linear regression layer. It finally classifies the object and predicts the bounding boxes for the identified objects.
4.2 Problems with Faster RCNN
All of the object detection algorithms we have discussed so far use regions to identify the objects. The network does not look at the complete image in one go, but focuses on parts of the image sequentially. This creates two complications:
The algorithm requires many passes through a single image to extract all the objects
As there are different systems working one after the other, the performance of the systems further ahead depends on how the previous systems performed
5. Summary of the Algorithms covered
The below table is a nice summary of all the algorithms we have covered in this article. I suggest keeping this handy next time you’re working on an object detection challenge!
End Notes
Object detection is a fascinating field, and is rightly seeing a ton of traction in commercial, as well as research applications. Thanks to advances in modern hardware and computational resources, breakthroughs in this space have been quick and ground-breaking.
This article is just the beginning of our object detection journey. In the next article of this series, we will encounter modern object detection algorithms such as YOLO and RetinaNet. So stay tuned!
I always appreciate any feedback or suggestions on my articles, so please feel free to connect with me in the comments section below.
|
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/a-step-by-step-introduction-to-the-basic-object-detection-algorithms-part-1-c61bebaf1038
|
['Pulkit Sharma']
|
2018-10-11 07:22:59.633000+00:00
|
['Rcnn', 'Fast Rcnn', 'Deep Learning', 'Object Detection']
|
Medium’daki yazıları Dev.to ile senkronize etmek
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forem/forem
For Empowering Community Welcome to the Forem codebase, the platform that powers dev.to. We are so excited to have you…
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https://medium.com/@hakanyalitekin/mediumdaki-yaz%C4%B1lar%C4%B1-dev-to-ile-senkronize-etmek-fc1bf4fe5ca1
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['Hakan Yalıtekin']
|
2020-12-26 13:34:02.876000+00:00
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['Turkish', 'Devto', 'Blog', 'Ｍedium', 'Türkçe']
|
The First Date that Almost Didn’t Happen
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COMING OF AGE
The First Date that Almost Didn’t Happen
Photo by Cameron Behymer on Unsplash
Dean worked the grill at McDonald’s; I worked the counter and in the drive-through. It was clear to everyone we were sweet on each other. His outspoken twin sister and I were friends, and she told me he liked me as we wiped down the fry station. Deanne held no secrets and suffered no fools.
Two awkward teens, he and I flirted sheepishly across the tall grill top, which separated his work area from the counter area. “I need a Quarter no onion!” I’d call out with a grin and slide the handwritten special order back to him. He’d smile back lopsidedly, a shock of dark hair cascading from under his boat-shaped paper hat.
Never mind that I’d kissed his best friend, Ed, last year at Christmas in the restaurant basement under the plastic mistletoe placed over the break room entrance. My first kiss. A brazen act (for me) done perfunctorily between early dinner rush and late dinner rush. Ed and I were just friends; he was going with Laura now, who also worked with us.
Prom season was coming up. And rumor had it that Dean planned to invite me to his.
The invitation
Straightening my pale blue polyester tunic, I finished handing food to the customer in a beat-up pickup truck, took a deep breath, and headed to the back of the store for a meeting carefully arranged by our handlers and intercessors.
Dean was at the deep sink behind the freezer, pretending to focus on the grill scraper. I approached and casually cooed, “Hey, Dean.”
His body turned toward me, as he began talking to his shoes. “Oh, hey. I was wondering. Um, would you want to go to prom with me?”
“Ok,” I responded, too quickly. Then, taking a breath, I added, “That’d be nice.”
“Cool,” he said.
With our business concluded, I returned to the drive-through window and whispered the big news to my waiting best friend.
The reckoning
That was the easy part, I soon realized. I still needed to run this whole idea by my dad.
I grimaced at the thought. To say Dad was strict and protective was an understatement. In our non-drinking, religious home, my siblings and I weren’t allowed to dance — not even in grade school gym class. The Southern Baptist high school I attended outlawed rock music (even “bubblegum rock” was considered gateway music that would lead inexorably to “acid rock,” promiscuity, drugs, and maybe even — gasp! — divorce). He joked endlessly about wielding guns to protect his daughters’ virtue…and we never knew exactly how much he was joking.
My mom worked the afternoon shift at a trucking company during my teen years, leaving the house around 4 p.m. and getting home after midnight. My siblings had flown the coop — one married and one away at college. I was going to have to manage this one without support.
“So, Dad,” I ventured nonchalantly when I got home, masking primal fear. “A guy I worked with asked me to go to prom with him. I was thinking maybe it would be ok.” Then adding, “It’s at your old high school!” (I figured the nostalgia factor would be a nice touch.)
He bristled — protective instincts in full bloom. He wanted to know all about Dean, the dance, and 100 details I had no clue about. I answered and assured as best I could. And then he lowered the boom:
“Well, if he wants to take you out, I’ll have to meet him first and he can ask me for permission!” he said with finality.
What? What on earth? It was a date, not a proposal! There’s no way Dean was going to agree to that. Why would he? We didn’t know each other nearly well enough, and I was sure he could find another date who wouldn’t be so much trouble. How could I even ask him to do that?
But I agreed. I’d waited 16 1/2 years to be asked out on a date, dammit. I’d figure out a way to make this work. I decided to talk with Mom in the morning to see if she could intervene. She was sympathetic but said Dad had his mind made up.
That night at work, I pulled Dean aside and, with great embarrassment, told him he had to meet my dad. His eyes widened in shock but he said, “Yeah, ok.” I left out the part about asking permission…there’s just no way to tell a 16-year-old boy that without scaring him off permanently.
A time and place were arranged. Neutral territory. Dad and Dean would come to McDonald’s as my shift ended one night later that week.
Dean arrived first. I smiled as he headed toward me. He and Ed had come together. Then, with horror, I noticed his shirt: loudly emblazoned with “Budweiser.” Possibly the king of beers to some, but I’d have a Clydesdale’s chance in the Kentucky Derby of going to prom if my dad saw it. I panicked.
“Your shirt!” I cried out, pointing.
“What’s the matter with it?” a confused Dean replied.
“You can’t wear that shirt! My dad will be here any minute!”
Taking charge, I said, “Ed, let me see your shirt. Okay, you guys go downstairs and switch shirts. But hurry! My dad is never late!”
They looked at each other, shrugged, and toddled off to the crew room as I scanned the parking lot for my dad’s car. Seeing him pull in, I asked my manager if I could punch out and went to greet my dad at the door. I was touched to see that he’d changed out of his work clothes and put on ’70s dad dress apparel— polyester pants and an open-neck dress shirt. And, while he tried to hide it, I could see he was nervous, too.
We found a booth, and Dean joined us a few minutes later, wearing a blessedly innocuous shirt. We all endured a painful conversation, in which no permission was sought yet was implicitly granted. The deed was done. The date was on. I began to breathe normally again.
Dad put his arm around me on the way to the parking lot and told me he loved me, something he told me at least once every day of my life.
The big night
With a clear green light, preparations began for prom night. We would ride with Ed and Laura, have an early dinner at a fancy(ish) restaurant, and then head to the high school gym for the dance. Then “straight home.”
I bought a Gunne Sax knockoff dress — simple ivory cotton with a lace-up bodice — which was very trendy at the time. Very demure…so much so that I’d wear it again to sing in church a few weeks later.
Mom, who had to work that night, was devastated to miss my first date. I got dressed early so she could see me in the dress. She hugged me and took off for work with tears in her eyes. And I was left, once again, to face Dad’s Tourette’s-like protective instincts alone.
Ed, Laura, Dean, and me on prom night. Photo by Dad.
Dean arrived, along with Ed and Laura. Dad, who had been instructed by Mom, dutifully took pictures, injected dad humor, and tried strenuously to be upbeat and friendly.
Just before we walked out the door, we went over all the instructions with him one last time. I was relieved. He did it! He was a normal dad and didn’t embarrass me once.
Oh, but wait….We weren’t quite out the door when Dad said, “Well, your dress is white as you’re leaving. Let’s hope it’s white when you get back!”
I flushed to the tips of my hair. Welp. There it was. Dripping with symbolism and not even a little subtle. We ducked out the door and into Ed’s car, with Dad standing in the doorway — chagrined and regretting his last remark. Had my organs not all just shut down, I’d have felt bad for him. Maybe.
Epilogue
Dean, Ed, Laura, and I had a good time that night. Dinner was nice, I bluffed my way through slow-dancing well enough (since I’d never been allowed to learn), and we came straight home, as promised. Dean was a perfect gentleman. I don’t even remember if he kissed me goodnight.
We never went out again but remained friendly at work.
|
https://medium.com/inspired-writer/the-first-date-that-almost-didnt-happen-531f8e532874
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['Tina L. Smith']
|
2020-12-02 19:08:11.641000+00:00
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['Parenting', 'Love', 'Humor', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Dating']
|
Covid-19 Live Updates: Americans Gather for Thanksgiving at a Moment of National Peril
|
The shadow of the pandemic hangs over the holiday, as President-elect Joe Biden urges the U.S. to “hang on.” Virus numbers reach records in the county that saw the first U.S. case, in January.
RIGHT NOWCuomo criticizes the Supreme Court’s decision barring New York’s restrictions on religious services.
Here’s what you need to know:
A somber holiday for the U.S. amid a record number of daily virus cases and deaths.
As with everything in 2020, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was drastically different.
AstraZeneca admits a mistake, raising questions about the efficacy of its vaccine.
England details post-lockdown restrictions, and other news from around the world.
In the county with the first U.S. case, virus numbers are hitting records.
With visits blocked by the pandemic, Thanksgiving in prison may be lonelier than usual.
Delta announces ‘quarantine free’ flights from Atlanta to Rome.
As N.F.L. crowds decline, the Dallas Cowboys keep the gates open.
The pandemic is ‘a crisis that reveals what is in our hearts,’ the pope says.
A somber holiday for the U.S. amid a record number of daily virus cases and deaths.
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Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday with the pandemic at perhaps its most precarious point yet.
Coronavirus cases in the United States have reached record highs, with an average of more than 176,000 a day over the past week. Deaths are soaring, with more than 2,200 announced on both Tuesday and Wednesday, the highest daily totals since early May. Even as reports of new infections begin to level off in parts of the Midwest, that progress is being offset by fresh outbreaks on both coasts and in the Southwest, where officials are scrambling to impose new restrictions to slow the spread.
The national uptick includes weekly case records in places as diffuse as Delaware, Ohio, Maine and Arizona, where more than 27,000 cases were announced over seven days, exceeding the state’s summer peak.
In New Mexico, grocery stores are being ordered to close if four employees test positive. In Los Angeles County, Calif., restaurants can no longer offer in-person dining. And in Pima County, Ariz., which includes Tucson, cases have reached record levels and officials have imposed a voluntary curfew.
“What we’re trying to do is decrease social mobility,” said Dr. Theresa Cullen, the Pima County health director.
Deaths are also surging, especially in the Midwest, the region that drove much of the case growth this fall. More than 900 deaths have been announced over the past week in Illinois, along with more than 400 each in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Health officials have worried aloud for weeks that large Thanksgiving gatherings could seed another wave of infections at a time when the country can scarcely afford it. In many places, hospitals are already full, contact tracers have been overwhelmed and health care workers are exhausted.
“Wisconsin is in a bad place right now with no sign of things getting better without action,” said an open letter signed by hundreds of employees of UW Health, the state university’s medical center and health system. “We are, quite simply, out of time. Without immediate change, our hospitals will be too full to treat all of those with the virus and those with other illnesses or injuries.”
More than 260,000 people have died of coronavirus in the United States. In a speech on the eve of Thanksgiving, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke of his family’s losses, and urged Americans to “hang on” and called for unity.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York accused the U.S. Supreme Court of political partisanship on Thursday after the high court rejected his statewide coronavirus-based restrictions on religious services, playing down the impact of its ruling and suggesting it was representative of its new conservative majority.
Regardless of the governor’s interpretation, the decision by the Supreme Court late on Wednesday to suspend the 10- and 25-person capacity limitations on churches and other houses of worship in New York would seem to be a sharp rebuke to Mr. Cuomo, who had previously won a series of legal battles over his emergency powers.
“You have a different court, and I think that was the statement that the court was making,” the governor said, noting worries in some quarters after President Trump nominated three conservative justices on the Supreme Court in the past four years. “We know who he appointed to the court. We know their ideology.”
Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, insisted that the decision “doesn’t have any practical effect” because the restrictions on religious services in Brooklyn, as well as similar ones in Queens and the city’s northern suburbs, had since been eased after the positive test rates in those areas had declined.
But less stringent capacity restrictions, also rejected by the Supreme Court’s decision, are still in place in six other counties, including in Staten Island.
Legal experts said that despite the governor’s assertion that the decision was limited to parishes and other houses of worship in Brooklyn, the court’s ruling could be used to challenge and overturn other restrictions elsewhere. “The decision is applicable to people in similar situations,” said Norman Siegel, a constitutional lawyer and former leader of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s applicable to any synagogue, any church, to any mosque, to any religious setting.”
|
https://medium.com/@duitpull58/covid-19-live-updates-americans-gather-for-thanksgiving-at-a-moment-of-national-peril-6c127eec8ba3
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[]
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2020-11-26 21:12:16.094000+00:00
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['Football', 'BBC', 'NASA', 'Covid 19', 'American History']
|
i get so lost in my head as everyday passes.
|
i get so lost in my head as everyday passes. sometimes i feel stuck on the same hour for days and forget time stops for no one. i understand i cant waste time, but i do. i feel like i have so much potential to create stories. but its so hard for me to write. so many thoughts in my head but i don’t know how to put them in words. I will try to, and if i fail at least i know i tried.
|
https://medium.com/@garciavedith/i-get-so-lost-in-my-head-as-everyday-passes-8a55375706c9
|
['Valeria Garcia']
|
2020-12-23 09:57:25.755000+00:00
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['Creative Writing', 'Creative Process', 'Psychology', 'Writing', 'Philosophy']
|
Opensea’s Alpha Palace of sleep
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Opensea’s Alpha Palace of sleep
Leg pillow – being a big alpha takes its toll on your delicate hips. Sleeping on the side popping one of this soft had boys between your legs will align your big strong spine. Lovely
Midland Bedding Knee Pillow, Best for Lower Leg, Back, and Knee Pain- Memory Foam Contour Leg Pillow https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07RXKNLWS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_5125Fb89C4P02
Sleep mask
Real mean have a favourite fabric. Mine is bamboo. The feel of soft silk on your eye lids is also mainly so for perfect darkness I suggest this silk blindfold.
Alaska Bear Natural Silk Sleep Mask, Blindfold, Super Smooth Eye Mask (One Strap, Black) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GSO1D9O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_C425FbE4PXYHV
Ear plugs -
Real men are not scared of animals attacking them at night. They have no need to hear predators so they can sleep in total silence
There are upmarket ear plugs then there is 50 pairs for £7- Alaska Bear Natural Silk Sleep Mask, Blindfold, Super Smooth Eye Mask (One Strap, Black) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GSO1D9O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_C425FbE4PXYHV
Matress
Bed shops are for boomers. Get an online internet Matress. The simba is god tier and your strong shoulder muscles will sink into it with a luxurious soft yet firm tender touch.
https://simbasleep.com/
Neck pillow
Dust inhibits testosterone. Real men use a hypoallergenic dust free cervical massage bamboo pillow for deep sleep.
Deal: Ecosafeter 2020 New Premium Cervical Contour Memory Foam Pillow- Standard Neck Pillow Cervical Massage orthopedic pillows,Deep Sleep Supportive Washable Hypoallergenic Pillow https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HNZVYZ3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_dlT3_h925Fb2C998CD
Leg brace
Long hunting sessions can trigger Plantar Fasciitis. To get back to manly pursuits as quick as possible Opensea recommends the use of this leg brace
Bodytec Wellbeing Brace Night splint for prolonged stretch of the Plantar Fascia for the treatment of Plantar Fasciitis and Achilles Tendonitis (up to 6.5 UK) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BE3VJXY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_pc35FbJ8NXQX7
|
https://medium.com/@onlinesignup123/openseas-alpha-palace-of-sleep-38c04c3e3afa
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[]
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2020-12-26 17:23:11.047000+00:00
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['Sleep']
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Celer Network x Cocos-BCX: Jointly Scale the Blockchain Gaming Ecosystem
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Celer Network’s upcoming collaboration with Cocos Blockchain Expedition (Cocos-BCX) marks a huge step toward a more vibrant blockchain gaming ecosystem.
Cocos-BCX is the world’s leading next-generation digital game economy platform, carrying the mission of creating an operating environment for the development and management of decentralized gaming applications and the circulation of digital assets on the blockchain. On the ride to building innovative technology and community standard in the blockchain space, Cocos-BCX has introduced a non-homogeneous token standard — the BCX-NHAS-1808. The 1808 standard has mapped out a whole set of unified digital asset standards and specifications which will build gateways for cross-chain asset exchange and circulation within the multiverse.
The existing blockchains’ poor processing speed and exorbitant costs have been a lightning rod for criticisms. Since its foundation, Celer Network has been striving to impart internet scale to public chains like Cocos-BCX with its layer-2 scalability solution. The blockchain agnostic Celer technology stack can be easily built on any existing blockchains with the integration of the layer-1 generalized state channel contract.
In light of this, Celer Network will dedicate its layer-2 scaling technology to Cocos-BCX’s speed upgrading and cost-cutting while helping promote the 1808 standard. Moreover, the CelerX Gaming SDK will bring smoother experience to the game developers and players within the entire Cocos gaming ecosystem with the ultimate goal to let both traditional and blockchain games thrive on CelerX.
Together with Celer Network, Binance Labs, Contentos, and Matic Network, Cocos-BCX has successfully co-hosted this year’s “Game Oasis Hackathon” in Shanghai, Seoul, and Bangalore, counting down the date for the fourth stop in San Fransisco.
The partnership will set out with integrating the CelerX Gaming SDK into the Cocos engine and launching the CelerX Gaming SDK developer package on the Cocos store. Cocos-BCX, with the whole Cocos gaming ecosystem at its back, is planning to leverage and promote CelerX in its developer community, so that both parties can share and monetize the magnitude of the game developing resources.
|
https://medium.com/celer-network/celer-cocos-86df4bbd77c2
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['Celer Network']
|
2019-10-23 01:56:02.056000+00:00
|
['Blockchain', 'Celernetwork', 'Celerpartners']
|
Five Facts About Web Hosting That Will Blow Your Mind.
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1. Web Hosting around the World
The first part of our journey will teach us more about the geographical peculiarities of planet Web Hosting. Is life there evenly spread, and which are the most densely populated regions? Those are just a couple of questions we’re going to answer today.
Now:
Web Hosting as a service came to be around 1995. By that time, the internet was already publicly available, and three US-based companies were quick to recognize the opportunity — Geocities, Tripod, and Angelfire. They laid the foundation of the multi-billion dollar industry that is web hosting today.
Asia is the continent with the most internet users, but the majority of providers are in North America ( almost 5000 ). Europe comes second, and Asia is third, with just over 1500 web hosts.
). Europe comes second, and Asia is third, with just over 1500 web hosts. Breaking down the providers by country, the web hosting stats indicate the US as a clear leader, with 58.08% . The next competitor,
. The next competitor, Germany, is trailing way behind at 8.33%.
Every major country has a different favorite host. GoDaddy is the top choice in the States. 1&1 reigns supreme in Germany, while the clear market leader in China is Aliyun .
is the top choice in the States. reigns supreme in Germany, while the clear market leader in China is . Web hosting is so home-based that 10/10 top hosts in the Czech Republic are local companies. Same goes for Italy (9/10 hosts).
are local companies. Same goes for Italy (9/10 hosts). Iceland is the country with the highest market penetration, with almost 100% of the population online .
. In comparison, a staggering 462 million people in India use the internet, but that accounts for only 34.4% of the population.
2. Industry Statistics
From housing websites to storing data or running an app — web hosting services have proven useful in numerous ways through the years. Adaptable with the needs of every user, the industry has spawned solutions like shared hosting, VPS servers, cloud hosting, colocation services…
But don’t go anywhere:
In the next part of the trip, we will learn more about the state of the web hosting industry and how its inhabitants rose to power.
The internet has entered our lives like no other technology. It took only four years for the Web to reach 1 million users. Telephone achieved the same penetration in 75 years .
for the Web to reach 1 million users. Telephone achieved the . How many websites are online right now? 1,691 billion . And they all need a host to power them.
. And they all need a host to power them. In 2017, the global web hosting market share had a 32.12 billion dollar valuation . The industry is expected to grow to 76.2 billion by 2023.
. The industry is expected to grow to 76.2 billion by 2023. The average price for a shared hosting service is around $3–10 . A decent VPS server will cost you somewhere in the range of $30–55 .
. A decent VPS server will cost you somewhere . Speed is crucial for clients and providers alike. By a rough estimate, the US economy loses around $500 million every year because of slow websites.
every year because of slow websites. 2018 was another successful year for ecommerce store owners. The global pool of clients increased by 8%, reaching 1.8 billion online shoppers .
. The ecommerce industry generated $2 trillion last year, and the numbers keep growing.
last year, and the numbers keep growing. Mobile usage is reshaping the industry, with over 58% of traffic coming from smartphones and tablets .
. Cloud computing is the fastest-growing tech service . Last year alone, the public cloud market grew by a massive 17.6%.
. Last year alone, the public cloud market grew by a massive 17.6%. There are >338,561 web hosting providers around the world, as of May 2019.
3. Domain Statistics
No website on planet Web Hosting is complete without its domain name. It is how citizens recognize and find one another.. You know, just like with the street names we have on Earth.
The market for domains often intertwines with and complements the web hosting industry. So let’s continue with some of the most remarkable domain name facts and stats.
The total number of hosted domains is 154,608,076 , according to web hosting statistics from Webhosting.info.
.com is the clear market dominator, accounting for over 81% of all domain registrations . A surprising second is the free .tk extension (property of the island country of Tokelau), a suffix to at least 24 million site names.
, according to web hosting statistics from Webhosting.info. .com is the clear market dominator, accounting for over . A surprising second is the free .tk extension (property of the island country of Tokelau), a suffix to at least 24 million site names. An average of 900,000 new domains are registered every week.
are registered every week. Over 3000 registrars provide domain registration services. GoDaddy is soaring ahead with 56 million names under its belt.
under its belt. In the dawn of the Web, there were only nine domain suffixes to choose from (.com, .net, .org, co.uk, .us, .gov, .edu, .mil, .co.il, and .co.us). In 2019, there are over 1200 extensions with new ones coming out frequently.
(.com, .net, .org, co.uk, .us, .gov, .edu, .mil, .co.il, and .co.us). In 2019, there are with new ones coming out frequently. Breaking down the domain distribution stats, 51% of site names are gTLDs (like .com) , while country-specific TLDs (like .de) account for 36%.
, while country-specific TLDs (like .de) account for 36%. There are 322 country-specific domain extensions . The most popular are .de (11.1%), .cn (10.5%), and .uk (9.09%).
. The most popular are .de (11.1%), .cn (10.5%), and .uk (9.09%). Fancy trying something more out-of-the-box? There are just over 25.5 million registered new gTLDs today. The clear crowd favorites are top (12.9%) , .xyz (8.8%) , and .club (5.8%) .
, , . Some people have adopted domain trades as a successful business model. The most expensive domain name, CarInsurance.com , was sold in 2010 for a whopping $49.7 million .
, was sold in 2010 for a whopping . Fun fact: The three top trending keywords on .com domains for Q1 of 2019 were Crew, Custody, and Apex
4. Hosting Company Statistics
Becoming a planet Hosting businessman is no big deal. In fact, it’s so easy that even you and I could do it. We simply register a company, set up a couple of web servers, and we are good to go.
Here’s the thing:
The low entry bar is a key reason why the hosting market is so oversaturated these days.
Hundreds of providers are trying to laud their own services, but in reality, most of them will probably be nothing more than a blip on the radar. Gone before you know it. Leaving their clients back to square one, searching for a new host.
Hence why many people prefer to safely bet on the well-known names that have been around for a while. Here are some peculiar web hosting facts about the big boys in the industry.
4.1. GoDaddy Stats
A clear market dominator, GoDaddy was one of the pioneers in the industry, starting its operations in 1997. The company has had a long history of controversy, but that did little to hinder its progress.
In fact, GoDaddy is so far up ahead of the competition, some of its web hosting stats are simply mind-boggling. Let’s check out a few:
Over 18.8 million clients, 78 million domains, 9000 employees — those are the numbers to beat for anyone who wants to claim the GoDaddy throne.
GD reigns over 19.51% of the market . The next closest rivals, Amazon AWS and 1&1, barely pass the 3% mark.
. The next closest rivals, Amazon AWS and 1&1, barely pass the 3% mark. GoDaddy aims to provide across-the-board services. This means you can find anything from a $1 domain name to a $179.99/mo dedicated server .
. Out of the top 10 million websites, GoDaddy hosts about 6.3% , followed by Amazon AWS (4.9%) and OVH (4.4%)
, followed by Amazon AWS (4.9%) and OVH (4.4%) GoDaddy is the most preferred provider in the US. 2019 web hosting stats reveal over 33% of US clients prefer GD, with Hostgator a long way in second, with 4%.
4.2. Amazon AWS Stats
The rapid growth of cloud technology gave Jeff Bezos an idea. He decided to dip his toes into the cloud game and created a subsidiary of his marketing behemoth. Amazon AWS’s primary goal is to provide on-demand cloud services and let every client take advantage on a per-need basis.
Today, many companies follow the latest web hosting trends and provide their own cloud solutions, but few can come as close to perfecting them as Amazon.
GoDaddy might dominate the web hosting and domain market, but when it comes to cloud solutions, Amazon AWS is a firm leader with a 64% share .
. Since 2014, AWS has registered a yearly growth of at least 40% .
. The provider has accumulated about $25.6 billion in revenue and $7.2 billion operating income, according to 2018 reports.
and $7.2 billion operating income, according to 2018 reports. The majority of Amazon AWS servers run on Windows (75.08%) . Other popular system configurations include Unix (7.31%) and CentOS (6.65%).
. Other popular system configurations include Unix (7.31%) and CentOS (6.65%). AWS hosts over 100,000 customers in 190 countries.
4.3. 1&1 IONOS Stats
German provider 1&1 has been there since the dawn of the internet. The company was founded in 1988 and just recently merged with cloud specialists ProfitBricks to create 1&1 IONOS.
So how does the grandpa of hosting providers stack up with the young guns?
Surprisingly well, actually:
1&1 IONOS is a major job creator. The company spawns offices across 10 countries, employing over 7000 people .
. The company prides itself on top-notch connectivity, “ 8555 faster than the average household connection.”
household connection.” 1&1 IONOS is the third largest provider, according to the latest web hosting stats and facts reports. The host accounts for 6.7% of websites in the world.
in the world. While GoDaddy dictates the US market, in Europe 1&1 IONOS still hold the largest piece of the pie. In Germany, for example, 1&1 hosts 26.47% of clients, followed by Hetzner with 13.78%.
4.4. Hostgator Stats
Hostgator was the product of FAU student Brent Oxley, founded in 2002. In the span of just four years, the company passed the 200,000 threshold for domains hosted.
Hostgator was one of the first companies to fall victim to the massive EIG consortium expansion, now including more than 70 hosting providers. But what separates HG from the rest?
Hostgator secures 2.2% of the market , which translates to 500,000 customers hosting over 9 million domain names.
, which translates to 500,000 customers hosting over 9 million domain names. EIG acquired Hostgator for a reported amount of $299.8 million , with $227.3 million paid in cash.
, with $227.3 million paid in cash. Every hosting company gets a chunk of clients moving away from other providers. HG gets most clients from Bluehost (49.09%) and GoDaddy (36.63%) .
and . In 2012, Hostgator was one of the victims of a major hacker attack, which resulted in 500,000 account and card details made publicly available.
5. Technology Statistics
In case you haven’t noticed, planet Hosting houses a modern society powered by all kinds of state-of-the-art technologies. From the operating core of their web servers, all the way to the sweet tools that help them build their website.
The next set of web hosting statistics is all about technology.
Who dominates the CMS market?
Is Linux more popular than Windows in hosting?
Which is the most profitable shopping cart?
Let’s find out.
Nearly 30% of websites in the world run on WordPress . The web-building software firmly dominates the CMS market with a 60% share.
. The web-building software firmly dominates the CMS market with a 60% share. Web hosting usage stats by W3Techs put Joomla and Drupal way behind WordPress, at a 5.1% and 3.3% share respectively .
. The free shopping cart WP extension, WooCommerce, continues to hold the reins in the ecommerce field. Over 2.9 million websites rely on the add-on.
rely on the add-on. Nginx and Apache now share the market for server technologies, with 29% each. Microsoft is falling further behind each month, closing May 2019 at just under 19%.
for server technologies, with 29% each. Microsoft is falling further behind each month, closing May 2019 at just under 19%. The ecommerce industry has a massive impact on the economy. Online sales are bringing $2 trillion yearly in the US alone .
. Most web projects utilize shared hosting services, while big companies are progressively moving to the cloud. Recent statistics indicate that 71.3% of all cloud services are enterprise-oriented .
. Windows is the most preferred OS for desktops and laptops, but web servers are a totally different story. A staggering 96.5% of the top one million websites run on a Linux configuration.
run on a Linux configuration. On average, companies are mostly spending their tech budget on backup solutions (15%), email services (11%), and web hosting (9%). Smaller businesses tend to spend more on hosting services and less on innovation.
I hope you enjoyed our fascinating web hosting statistics and will put them to good use
To Check The Best Offers Available Right now >>Click Here<< and find the offers or get a chance for free web hosting
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https://medium.com/@akshayraveendran210/five-facts-about-web-hosting-that-will-blow-your-mind-8f5e424b0472
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['Akshay Raveendran']
|
2021-12-28 05:52:55.979000+00:00
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['Web Hosting', 'Free Web Hosting', 'Website', 'Facts', 'Web Hosting Provider']
|
How to lower your tax and protect your assets with an offshore company
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After amassing wealth from years of hard work, it would be unfair for someone to come and take that away from you. It is, therefore, important that you are able to protect yourself from risks associated with losing money to taxation or related lawsuits, and one such way is by incorporating your company offshore.
What is an offshore company?
An offshore company is any company set up in a different country from that of its stakeholders for a number of reasons such as financial safety and privacy. Most people, at the mention of an offshore company, believe that offshore companies are for people looking to hide their illegal activities. However, this is not the case.
Benefits of incorporating offshore:
Tax Reduction
An offshore company is the best option for someone looking to reduce their tax. When an offshore company is structured correctly, it can reduce one’s tax amount to almost zero, especially if the company does not do any business, and the profits are not being drawn from the country of incorporation.
For example, the Hong Kong territorial taxation systems exempt profits drawn from business activities outside its territory from profits tax.
Asset Protection
Other than the tax advantages, incorporating an offshore business provides an avenue for wealth protection. An offshore trust will not only protect your assets from various entities and even the government, but it will also allow you to maintain control over the management of your assets while remaining independent from it. Some of the offshore destinations best for asset protection include Seychelles, Belize, and BVI, etc.
Cost-effective and simpler operations
Offshore companies not only get access to simple set-up processes but also flexible regulations after being fully incorporated. For example, most offshore destinations will not require offshore companies to submit any financial accounts or annual reports as long as they do not do any business within that jurisdiction. This helps reduce the budget on certain aspects such as record keeping and accounting.
Confidentiality and anonymity
Most offshore destinations will keep company information private since they do not disclose the company shareholders, beneficial owners, and the company directors to the public. Instead, the company is run by a nominee director, who will be in charge of all the company transactions and keeping company information from any public documentation.
Is it legal?
Unlike the media portrays it, there is nothing complex or illegal about the offshore world, and there is so much to it. Therefore, forget all the fear-mongering and misconceptions that were born out of the Panama papers and Hollywood’s portrayal of the offshore world being full of shady and illegal deals.
Offshore companies are created by law-abiding and honest citizens looking to take their businesses where they are treated best, and so should you.
How an offshore can help you reduce tax legally ?
Choosing the business tax rate
Moving a business to another country is no easy feat, but it is possible, and depending on the destination you choose, your business could end up paying 0 taxes.
Choosing a personal tax rate
You can also choose to move your life abroad, where you could be exempted from taxes. It is best that you first start by identifying the ideal jurisdiction for you.
Getting an offshore tax advisor
International tax law is not something that you want to be making mistakes on unless you want to face jail time or pilling up huge fines.
Choosing offshore destinations
You might not know, but there are countries out there competing for your business. However, most people will believe that their country is the best place to invest and do business and that no country is better.
However, dozens of countries out there are after successful people like you and are even willing to offer you efficient systems, fewer regulations, and lower tax rates, among other benefits. Some of these countries will take a small portion of your profits but will have set up tax regimes that will keep your share of the profits much larger and taxes much lower.
Choosing the tax rate
Choosing to stay put in a country with high tax rates means that you will be sending a huge chunk of your money into the taxman’s pockets. It is even highly likely that your government is succeeding is because of the high taxes they regularly draw from your income.
Interestingly enough, you have the power to choose the tax rate that should apply to you. You can opt for a smaller tax-rate and other benefits or even zero taxes. For example, you can choose to incorporate in Seychelles and BVI for lower taxes and other benefits or incorporate in Belize, where you will pay 0% in taxes.
Going where you are treated best means that you have the power to choose the tax rate that is better for you. Allowing you to take control of your life.
However, it is important that you keep off from strategies that will only cause you pain rather than lowering your taxes. There is a huge difference between choosing your tax rate, which is legal to skirting the taxman, which is illegal
|
https://medium.com/@sibinsebastian/how-to-lower-your-tax-and-protect-your-assets-with-an-offshore-company-c62b4309fbdb
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['Sibin Sebastian']
|
2020-12-14 11:39:49.814000+00:00
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['Tax Free', 'Taxes', 'Investment', 'Finance', 'Offshore Company']
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LoRa-What?
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You might already be excited for the rumours about local governments and telcos making moves to install LoRaWAN infrastructure in cities across Australia.
Then again, you might be like me and have no idea what LoRaWAN is (until of course your boss asks you to write a blog about it).
Maybe you heard the rumours — but you immediately put them in the “I don’t care” basket, along with the ages of your co-worker’s nieces and nephews.
Well, I’ve got news for you — LoRaWAN is relevant! And it’s cool! And it’s HERE (nearly)! And I’m explaining it!
Why do we need so much connectivity anyway?
Those of us of a certain age know just how much life changed with the advent of the smart-phone. Thanks to more or less unlimited mobile access to the internet, we can check the weather report, look up bus timetables, and check in with friends on the other side of the world — all for free, all while we’re on-the-go.
With the ever-expanding ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), this connectivity is increasing: objects (devices) are submitting their data to the internet, too.
The usefulness of this data varies enormously — we’ve probably all read stories of ‘IoT fails’ (smart prayer beads, smart toasters, and smart water bottles to name a few) — but data can also be wisely collected, shared and analysed to save time, money and energy.
Imagine driving into the city and knowing exactly where to find available parking.
Imagine being able to monitor your diabetic child’s insulin levels just using an app on your phone.
Imagine a manufacturing company pre-emptively saving thousands of hours of downtime by being able to accurately monitor their equipment.
It’s hard to name a sector which wouldn’t benefit from an integrated and well-planned IoT: town-planning, agriculture, health, education, industry, logistics and environmental monitoring to name a few.
Why can’t we rely on existing infrastructure to support a growing IoT?
Anyone who has moved into a house without a waiting WiFi connection can describe just how much many of us have come to rely on our connectedness. Unfortunately, however, WiFi has a limited range. Even in a large open space without any obstacles, the maximum range of the network is around 300m. Similarly, Bluetooth has a standard range of 10m — which isn’t very useful if we’re trying to send data across an entire city.
The mobile internet used in our smartphones has a much wider range — but it requires a lot of power. We don’t want to have to be charging monitoring devices daily, like we do our phones -especially if sensors are stored in remote or difficult to access locations.
Why is LoRa able to support a growing IoT?
LoRa is a type of LPWAN — a low power wide area network. It uses low radio frequency bands to send and receive communications at a very low data rate, but across a very long-range (up to 150km — but usually closer to 5km in the context of a built-up city).
A LoRa network can be relatively cheaply and easily expanded, simply by bringing more gateways online.
LoRa is unable to support voice calls, video or even image sharing — but it’s perfect for communicating sensor data, which is typically just a small collection of numbers (temperature, speed, density, etc). Its raw maximum data rate is 27kb/s (kilobit per second). Because of this tiny bandwidth, usage of LoRA only requires a small amount of energy — devices communicating on the network can last for up to 10 years on a single battery change.
What’s the difference between LoRaWAN and LoRa?
LoRa is the physical layer of communication — it’s the radio frequency signals used to transmit data. LoRaWAN describes the controls, protocols and systems which manage the usage of LoRa.
Because all the millions of IoT devices which use LoRa won’t all be made by the same company, are there are limits to how much and what kinds of activity LoRa can support, the network needs to be standardised: hence LoRaWAN. Frequencies, data rates and power have to be regulated to allow fair use of the infrastructure.
To prevent disruption of radio communications, there are strict regulations around which frequency bandwidths to use, which vary from country to country. In Australia, it’s 916.8MHz — 927.5MHz.
Similarly, in order to prevent the airways from being overloaded, each device is only permitted to transmit a signal (or ‘be online’) for 1% of the time — if a transmission takes one second, the device must wait 99 seconds before sending another.
What’s the difference between LoRaWAN and LoRa?
LoRa is the physical layer of communication — it’s the radio frequency signals used to transmit data. LoRaWAN describes the controls, protocols and systems which manage the usage of LoRa.
Because all the millions of IoT devices which use LoRa won’t all be made by the same company, are there are limits to how much and what kinds of activity LoRa can support, the network needs to be standardised: hence LoRaWAN. Frequencies, data rates and power have to be regulated to allow fair use of the infrastructure.
To prevent disruption of radio communications, there are strict regulations around which frequency bandwidths to use, which vary from country to country. In Australia, it’s 916.8MHz — 927.5MHz.
Similarly, in order to prevent the airways from being overloaded, each device is only permitted to transmit a signal (or ‘be online’) for 1% of the time — if a transmission takes one second, the device must wait 99 seconds before sending another.
How can I use LoRaWAN?
There are two main ways to connect to LoRaWAN — via community or commercial means.
There aren’t yet many locations in Australia with commercial LoRaWAN coverage that just anyone can tap into — but local governments are looking to change that, so it shouldn’t be long. We don’t know how much it will cost to access a commercially supported network — or indeed whether it will cost anything at all (hey, we can dream).
Another option is to hop onto The Things Network and have a look at their map of gateways. The Things Network is supported by the community: anyone can connect their LoRaWAN gateway to expand it. If there’s a gateway near you, just sign up, sign in and connect. If not, you could buy your own (current retail price is around $800), or try building your own. There are two main ways to connect to LoRaWAN — via community or commercial means.
There aren’t yet many locations in Australia with commercial LoRaWAN coverage that just anyone can tap into — but local governments are looking to change that, so it shouldn’t be long. We don’t know how much it will cost to access a commercially supported network — or indeed whether it will cost anything at all (hey, we can dream).
Another option is to hop onto The Things Network and have a look at their map of gateways. The Things Network is supported by the community: anyone can connect their LoRaWAN gateway to expand it. If there’s a gateway near you, just sign up, sign in and connect. If not, you could buy your own (current retail price is around $800), or try building your own.
|
https://medium.com/newieventures-blog/lora-what-e4138649530f
|
['Rayannon Innes']
|
2019-09-26 05:21:08.413000+00:00
|
['Connected Devices', 'Smart Cities', 'Internet of Things', 'IoT', 'Lorawan']
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Dr. Preeti Singh .
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Dr. Preeti Singh . . . What can you tell us about the current farmers strike? This is a huge deal that is not getting enough coverage on mainstream media.
When as many agricultural workers strike as there are adults in the United States, when farmers who supply the world with food cannot live and survive . . . This is not just an India issue . . . This is a global issue . . . A human rights issue.
I stand by your people and your farmers. Their work and their lives are valuable.
Much love from the States. Please let us know how to assist.
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https://medium.com/@TheJessicaBugg/dr-preeti-singh-61d1d0e41ac4
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['Jessica Bugg']
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2020-12-22 13:42:35.828000+00:00
|
['Human Rights', 'News', 'Trade', 'Economics', 'Short Form']
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My 2nd TEDx Talk is Live and it’s NOT about Detours…(or is it?)
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My 2nd TEDx Talk is officially live! It’s about transforming trauma — or any adversity — into a warrior’s adventure through creativity, story, wonder, and a bit of the archetypal hero’s journey.
On February 25th, 2017, I gave my 2nd TEDx Talk on how I healed from trauma, through turning myself into Tigerlilly, the warrior, using my “Four Hard Core Skills to Resilience” that I created from my roadmap….the archetypal hero’s journey.
Creativity was a mindset that literally saved my life. REMEMBER…we’re all artists at heart!
I would love to hear from you.
What does creativity mean to you?
Is there a story you’ve read as a child that’s always stayed with you?
After watching my talk, what step are you in on the hero’s journey?
How can you use that pattern to tell you where you need to go next in your life?
I gave this TEDx Talk for VCU’s theme of PATTERNS. Is there a pattern that has guided you? What’s your favorite pattern?
Oh, and what’s one pattern we all have in our lives?
DETOURS! And what’s a DETOURIST…?
Through sharing our stories, we become empowered, inspired and more comfortable with our life circumstances, as well as with who we are. Telling our stories helps us process it — just like you learn something better yourself when you have to teach someone else. Through our shared experience, we gain confidence and become travel-partners on our detours. And traveling is always less scary when we’re not alone.
Even if you’re not ready to share your story, read a book. Hear the stories of others –courageous, adventure stories! We learn by example, so when that difficult detour surprises you, you’ll be able to pull those heroic stories out of your back pocket and follow your own hero’s journey.
Watch my first TEDx Talk on Detours here…
I’d love to hear from you all on the patterns in your own life — and the stories you’ve heard that stick with you today.
As an artist…I love patterns…
Remember — everyone has a story worth sharing. Even if for now, it’s one that’s been told to us.
They’re your secret weapon!
Don’t believe me? Watch the talk !
More art at amyoes.com/galleries
Safe travels, Detourists and Warriors!
Oestreicher is a multidisciplinary teaching artist, TEDx speaker,PTSD Specialist, author, actress and playwright. See more mixed media artwork, learn about her plays, or catch her touring Gutless & Grateful, her one-woman autobiographical musical. Download a free guide to getting a TEDx Talk at www.amyoes.com/discover.
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https://medium.com/tedx-experience/my-2nd-tedx-talk-is-live-and-its-not-about-detours-or-is-it-2853274fc893
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['Amy Oestreicher']
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2017-07-24 06:38:27.130000+00:00
|
['Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Speaking', 'Ted', 'Tedx']
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July 2020 Election Violence Risk Briefing
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The Dominican Republic had the greatest risk of election violence this month, although no election has a risk of election violence greater than 50%.
La barque pendant l’Indonation by Alfred Sisley
The Electoral Violence Intelligence System (ELVIS) is a machine learning driven forecasting system that estimates the risk of election-related violence for every national election every month. These posts will provide updates on the outputs of our forecasting model, give an in-depth view of what to expect in the coming month and note any technical changes/updates.
Feel free to reach out to either myself ([email protected]) or Clayton Besaw ([email protected]) for any questions regarding our ELVIS platform or analyses contained in the updates.
June 2020 ELVIS Report:
Data and algorithm updates
Updated precipitation (SPI) estimates using NOAA’s May 2020 PREC/L release (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.prel.html).
Added final election outcome codings for the following countries: Ireland
Changed Macedonia to North Macedonia
Added previously missing election events for the following countries: Russia, Croatia, North Macedonia
Corrected election date for upcoming election event in Montenegro
Made coding/typo/date corrections for election events in the following countries: Barbados, Malaysia, Denmark, Myanmar, Namibia, Palau, Tajikistan, Togo, Dominican Republic. (Credit and thanks to Jonas Vesbty for identifying these miscodings)
Risk Forecast for June 2020
The Dominican Republic had a risk of election violence just shy of 50% for their presidential elections this past Sunday, which saw the unseating of the center-left Dominican Liberation Party after a 16-year rule.
The election featured a so-far isolated incident of violence in which an opposition leader was shot to death outside of a polling station in Santo Domingo.
On the same day, Croatia held early parliamentary elections which saw the incumbent center-right party gain a plurality of seats, upending expectations of a large opposition win. In line with ELVIS’ projections, there were no reported instances of election violence.
Finally, Russia held a referendum to extend president Vladimir Putin’s rule until 2036. The referendum passed, although the election appeared to feature an extensive amount of vote rigging.
Poland will be holding the second round of their presidential election on July 12, while North Macedonia will hold parliamentary elections three days later on July 15.
One notable addition the our list of most at-risk elections for the remainder of 2020 is Bolivia, which has a roughly 58% estimated probability of ERV. Cases of Covid-19 are expected to peak around September, while repression against the party of ousted president Evo Morales continues.
Indeed, an anti-corruption commission recently accused Morales of terrorism and financing terrorism and sought his preventative detention (Morales is currently residing in Argentina).
The charges center on two phone calls Morales made during unrest this past November following his ouster in which he is alleged to have helped coordinate blockades around a number of Bolivian cities.
|
https://medium.com/the-die-is-forecast/july-2020-election-violence-risk-briefing-9590614ac61
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['Matt Scott Frank']
|
2020-07-08 11:01:01.327000+00:00
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['Violence', 'Forecasting', 'Democracy', 'Elections', 'Election 2020']
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Embracing Failure: How to Become Comfortable with the Key to Success
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You need to fail.
I’m serious.
We are taught to fear failure. That failure is bad and, if we can help it, avoided.
The reality is that we have to fall on our a** sometimes.
Everybody fails. And if you haven’t, you either haven’t tried anything new or it’s just around the corner, lying in wait. We need to stop fearing failure and embrace it. Understanding that failure is inevitable is KEY to making sure you don’t panic when it happens. Every success is built on the back of hundreds, if not thousands, of failures.
How? First, there is a crucial thing you need to understand. Failure is nothing more than a sign that you’re innovating, experimenting, and not afraid to try.
To succeed, you have to try new things. If you try new things, some of those things WILL flop.
Success lies in being comfortable with failure.
All Failures are NOT created equal
An amazing former boss and mentor of mine divided them into two groups, Big Fs and Little fs.
The Two Types of Failure
Big Fs are the huge, giant blunders that are difficult to view in a positive light. These are failures like your start-up going under, losing a key client, or not passing a class in school. The important thing to remember about these failures is that while they happen to everyone, they are rare. These may be harder to bounce back from but you won’t encounter them very often.
On the other hand, there are Little fs. Little fs are your everyday, garden-variety failures. They’re the refusal of a project proposal or a cooking attempt with a “foolproof” recipe that fails spectacularly and sets off your smoke detector. Little fs happen all the time. These failures may cause a little dejection but are good for you and crucial to your growth. As long as you are innovating, learning, and growing, you will encounter different Little fs over and over.
Those are the types of failures. How do we deal with them?
Dealing with Big Fs
Dealing with Big Fs is not easy. No matter how many times you go through one, it sucks. A lot.
When you have a Big F, you will have invested a lot of time, effort, sweat, and tears into trying to make it successful. When you are recovering from a Big F, it’s okay to take time to feel sad, angry, and disappointed. But don’t wallow. Instead, give yourself a set amount of time, anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days, to process and just feel bad.
Once that set amount of time has passed, take a deep breath, and dive back into it. Go through the guts of what you were working on and pick it apart to figure out what went wrong. See what you could have fixed, what you could have done differently, and then get to work on making it better. Rework, rejigger, “re-whatever” the things that didn’t work, and double-down on what did. Continue to mold and form until you are ready to try again.
Dealing with Little fs
Since Little fs occur relatively frequently, dealing with them does become easier over time. When it comes to these, you may still feel bad, but I’m setting the actual limit for your suffering this time.
Thirty minutes.
That’s it. That’s all you get. And I’m being generous.
Feel sorry for yourself for a maximum of half an hour, then it’s time to get over it.
From here, the process looks very similar to dealing with Big Fs. You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and look at why this thing didn’t work. Then tweak, nudge, and reiterate until you have a new and improved version. Then try again.
Keep Pushing Forward
Being comfortable with failure is more art than science. As you try new things and push the boundaries, you will encounter failures — some big, some little. That’s okay! Keep working towards what you want and, eventually, you will succeed, and if you don’t, you will learn.
Failure is not an option — it’s a requirement.
|
https://medium.com/@settlesmarter/embracing-failure-how-to-become-comfortable-with-the-key-to-success-48086e48dcf
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['Dana Look-Arimoto']
|
2020-10-13 15:24:42.748000+00:00
|
['Leadership', 'Learning And Development', 'Growth', 'Failure']
|
Did You Tell Your Rapist to Stop?
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When I turned 15, I was talking with my school counselor. I saw her once a week at school on Friday mornings. It was part of a program for children with alcoholic parents.
I started talking to her and then stopped. And she looked at me quizzically. Almost puzzled that my mouth had stopped moving and that I had spaced out. I was having a flashback to the moment when my rapist had cum.
“Can I tell you something?” — I told Alleta.
“Always.”
I stopped and was afraid. I didn’t want to bring it up and then have to go through the process of telling my mom again. I didn’t know the repercussions of me telling her.
“Adan, you can tell me anything.”
“I don’t want to get into trouble again.”
“Adan, I am going to preface this by saying, if you tell me about anything illegal, thoughts of suicide, or any acts of violence at home, I will have to report it.”
“Okay”
I just stared at the clock in front of me. Fifty-six minutes and 37 seconds until this session is over. I can sit quietly for 56 minutes and then go back to class and pretend like this never happened. I can act like I never brought it up.
“Adan, what’s going on, girlfriend.”
I started to cry, and Aleta got up and hugged me. The biggest hug I had ever gotten. Something was so special about the way Aleta wrapped her arms around me. She reassured me that it’s going to be okay.
I collected myself and then told her everything. From the beginning, what happened eight months earlier, who he was, his name, the teacher that disregarded my trust I had in her, and the way my mom had been treating me.
Aletta looked at me as she shed a tear. She smiled and grabbed my leg, and leaned close to me. She looked me in the eye and told me that I would be okay. I wouldn’t need to carry this guilt anymore. I could let it go.
“I am going to have to report this, Adan.”
I knew that she would have to tell someone; I knew it because she told me earlier. I needed to give her all of the information because I couldn’t carry this anymore, and I was having flashbacks. I was shaking when I would see him in public. I panicked every time I thought of him ejaculating. It wasn’t going away.
Aletta picked up the phone, dialed the local police phone number, and told me that everything would be fine. As she clicked each number, I shuttered, knowing what was going to happen next.
“Hello, may I speak with an officer?”
I started to cry, and she grabbed my arm. She smiled and nodded, indicating that I was doing the right thing. At the time, it didn’t feel right. I was petrified my dad would know that I would be all over the newspaper as the stupid girl that let a man ten years her senior rape her.
Then an officer picked up the phone.
“Hello, My name is Aletta; I would like to report a rape.”
|
https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/did-you-tell-your-rapist-to-stop-1e5912185831
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['Adan Kovinich']
|
2020-12-11 20:17:49.647000+00:00
|
['Rape', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Feminism', 'Mental Health']
|
12 Sustainable City Trends (& Top 10 Eco-friendly Destinations In 2019)
|
The human race is on the rise let it be education, technology, science, medical advancements, and whatnot. If there is anything that is on the receiving end of the impact of all this progressive human population than it’s our poor planet Earth. People living in this world have pushed this planet towards the verge of an alarming situation where its climate, eco-system, and environment is at risk of losing all the positivity it had some 20 or 30 years back.
We have been witnessing some high risk climate and environmental incidents where we observed oceans that were flooded with plastic wastage, cities that were infected with diseases due to increase of garbage and daily wastage and a recent event of Amazon Fire that is still ongoing and Government of Brazil is doing everything they can to overcome this colossal damage. The impact of all such incidents creates a fragile environment and concerns for our generations to come as we experience the extinction of plants, trees, animals and natural resources.
To overcome this critical situation many countries have come forward to join hands for a mutual venture where they thrive over eco-friendly and pollution-free environments. On larger prospects, major cities of the world were the initial target and therefore a sustainability movement was initiated back in 1994 which were named Aalborg Charter for sustainable cities and towns. After this movement, many cities have stepped up in taking the responsibility of creating a sustainable environment for humans and other species and took an innovative and integrated approach to make it better and better in the coming years. Thanks to the global awareness that was ran across all countries and nations via different organizations like IPPC, WMO, UNEP, GCF and many more that were sincere about climate and environmental challenges planet earth is facing, people get to understand the real impact of these issues. Fortunately, we have some success stories and examples that were set by some cities on this very planet that has overcome some of the major and basic issues and sustain their overall situation regressively. Creating footsteps for many other cities was to follow, below are some of the sustainable city trends that are making the rounds globally and applying such an approach can take your city to a clean, safe and healthy environment.
Automobile Automation
One of the increasing sustainable trends of the current time is the focus on automobile manufacturing and implying the automobile automation program that promotes fossil-fuel-free cars example of which is Tesla that is making cars and vehicles that can be run on electricity. The use of self-driven vehicles is also on the rise in different cities and following this automation trend will help to reshape the vehicle industry.
Process of Farming- Sustainable Steps
Production of food and agricultural goods is one area where we have observed a very less impact of technology-driven processes that can improve and innovate the whole system of farming and by applying which wastage of water and other natural resources can be controlled. In 2019, the agriculture sector will be in focus.
Eco-system needs our attention
We are living in the century that is witnessing the extinction of plants, trees, animals and species living under the sea. Use of plastic and increased population has caused bio-diversity to deplete over an increasing rate. Thanks to the globally recognized organizations that are spreading awareness amongst public to avert the attention towards this issue and we can hope that in coming years our eco-system would become a better place for all the species our Oceans have. Some recent activities were performed in various cities where group of NGOs planned activities to clean the beaches and spread educational programs on pollution and wastage that is causing trouble for the species living in our oceans.
Idea of Recycling
Cities like San Francisco has set an example for the world that the idea of recycling if implemented smartly can turn out to be effective in terms of saving cities from wastage and extra consumption. When you start recycling you are basically utilizing your wastage to be reused for several purposes rather than making it end in a garbage truck. There are many other cities that are working on recycling concept to improve their consumption of utilities and wastage control.
Plastic Usage and its effects
One of the major reasons that cause environmental issues is the increasing use of plastic in number of daily use commodities. Starting from a bottle of mineral water to shopping bags and what not, everything you see today is made out of plastic or some form of plastic that once used just does not dissolved and hence creates issues to our planet Earth. Our oceans are being filled with more plastic bags and bottles than fishes in it. One of the hot trends for a sustainable city is the ban on plastic usage.
Public Spaces
Apart from working on environmental challenges its equally important for city governance to focus on general public needs and provide a healthy and active city life to the public. Parks, cafes, transportation, district and municipality services all needs proper attention in a sustainable city.
Control over CO2 emission
For a sustainable city, it’s important to take control over Co2 emission within city and reduce the usage of machines, vehicles and industrial burners that are damaging the Ozone layer and challenging the global warming. Steps like vertical gardens, alternative energy options and transport options that does not require an engine to burn fuel like bicycles, Segway, or e-bikes can bring a positive impact in sustaining the city environment.
Health care and Medical
In order to bring the efforts together to increase health care and medical benefits sustainable cities are working on more green environmental factors that includes more plantation of trees and natural resources. We have examples of Johannesburg and Seoul that set goals over tree planting and encouraging greener environment in the urban areas of the city. People living in metropolis city deprived themselves from the blessings of nature and hence fall early prey of diseases. It’s important to utilize the God’s nature and its gift to ensure healthier breathing environment in big cities.
Technology and Energy
With the help of energy and technology we can fight against all the challenges that we are facing in current time. Technology advancements helped us to find alternative solutions to farming, utilization of water, saving energy, labor efforts and enhancing the process of manufacturing and agricultural needs. Also, we have identified renewable energy option that can be handy in creating healthy and prosperous climate.
Building and Construction Material
Another area where intelligent minds have worked progressively to bring a positive change, a green building concept and effective ways of dealing with the garbage and waste construction of building creates. With the help of technology companies can reduce and smartly control the waste that is product while constructing buildings. On the other hand we have examples of cities like Singapore where companies have built vertical gardens on the top of their buildings to support greener environment.
Education for sustainability Social Action
Keeping all the action plans aside one of the most important step is to create awareness and spreading information about the current situation our planet is facing and how to overcome the climate challenges. We are lucky that technocrats, educationists and globally recognized faces have now step up to support this cause. Celebrities joining NGOs and United Nations to represent each of the climate challenges is a big deal that can bring all the people on one page. Leonardo Di Caprio is aggressively promoting awareness over Global warming and working on the goal to bring education to the people.
Public Interest and Investment
Last but not the least is the bureaucrats and investors’ interest in sustainable city movement. Individuals, private companies and business sectors are now coming forward to invest in the cause to make a city sustainable and a better place for people to live in.
We have number of set examples now with us that have created history in setting benchmark for other leading cities. Here we have shortlisted top ten sustainable cities that have achieved and already working on their future goals to overcome the challenges over planet is facing in terms of climate and global warming. Let’s have a look at those top ten eco-friendly cities destinations.
Apart from scenic landscapes and peaceful places to check out during holidays this city is listed as one of the top eco-friendly cities for two reasons.
Vancouver is surrounded by mountains, ocean and forest, which makes it one of the desired places to travel. Vancouver city is focusing on lowering their greenhouse gas emission and have set goals to achieve greener, safer and healthier environment for the city people.
3. Helsinki, Finland
Situated in Finland, Helsinki is one of the most visited cities and hence due to increased tourism they have enforced a complete eco-friendly accommodation system for tourists. Almost all the hotels in Helsinki are certified environmental friendly places.
4. Cape Town, South Africa
Another most traveled and visited cities in the world are Cape Town, their city government has worked on alternative energy use to contribute in the environment friendly atmosphere. They are more focused to build green places in the urban area of the city for public to feel more environmentally healthy.
5. San Francisco, California
San Francisco is in the list of top ten eco-friendly cities because they worked on water consumption, public transport, green building projects, Co2 emission reduction systems and alternative energy usage. Its high ranked among all other North American cities as the most eco-friendly place to visit.
6. Bristol, England
It’s considered second best city in the world in terms of environmental performances run by any city. As per the survey report of 2015 Bristol managed to save energy use by 16%. Their goal is to reduce Co2 emissions by 40% by 2020.
7. Oslo, Norway
Yes, Oslo is the world’s greenest and most eco-friendly city awarded by the European Sustainable City in 2003. Some of the recognized action plans taken by the city were;
8. Copenhagen, Denmark
Denmark is one of the top nations that are known for greener landmarks, healthy dairy products and established farming systems. They managed to achieve 50% mark in reducing Carbon emission successfully, they also emphasis on organic food and hence one of the reason why people of Denmark looks fresh and healthy.
9. Zurich, Switzerland
Ranked on the top of the list of sustainable cities back in 2016, Zurich aims to use only 2000 watts per person by 2050. City is focused on using renewable energy projects and invests big time in sustainable energy plans. It’s one of the most visited places by tourists and hence they are eventually playing a vital role in showcasing the most eco-friendly environment to the visitors.
10. Malmo, Sweden
Working on its plan to become one of the top eco-friendly cities, Malmo, Sweden is already in our list. They are set to achieve their goal of treating soil contamination and on reduction of greenhouse emissions by 2030.
Facts are getting straight and its more serious then we can imagine. People are now taking responsibility on an individual level to improve the polluted environment. We can hope that in 10–15 years the challenges we are facing now will be resolved. If not, we will do our best in the meanwhile 🙂
|
https://medium.com/@ricruben/12-sustainable-city-trends-top-10-eco-friendly-destinations-in-2019-d2ef7e408973
|
['Ric Ruben']
|
2019-12-13 08:31:39.708000+00:00
|
['Sustainable Cities', 'Eco Friendly', 'Sustainable Development', 'Climate Change', 'Eco Friendly Products']
|
4 Ways You Can Get Rid of Dirty Side Effects for Cleaner Code in JavaScript
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4 Ways You Can Get Rid of Dirty Side Effects for Cleaner Code in JavaScript
Photo by Pierre Châtel-Innocenti on Unsplash
According to an analysis, a developer creates 70 bugs per 1000 lines of code on average. As a result, he spends 75% of his time on debugging. So sad!
Bugs are born in many ways. Creating side effects is one of them.
Some people say side effects are evil, some say they’re not.
I’m in the first group. Side effects should be considered evil. And we should aim for side effects free code.
Here are 4ways you can use to achieve the goal.
1. use strict;
Just add use strict; to the beginning of your files. This special string will turn your code validation on and prevent you from using variables without declaring them first.
2. Loop
Take a look at the example below:
var names = [‘amy’, ‘james’, ‘anna’, ‘joey’]; for (var i = 0; i < names.length; i++) {
console.log(names[i]);
}
What could cause side effects in this example?
Notice the indexing variable i, it’s available not only in the for loop scope but also the outside one.
If you log the value of the variable i right beneath the for loop, it should be 4.
for (var i = 0; i < names.length; i++) {
console.log(names[i]);
} console.log(i); // 4
To avoid this side effect, we have two options so far.
Option 1: use forEach
names.forEach(name => {
console.log(name);
});
Using forEach, we don’t need to define an indexing variable anymore. So, no more side effects.
Option 2: prefer using let over var
ES6 comes with a lot of useful features. The let keyword is one of them.
When you define a variable with let, it’s only available in the current scope.
for (let i = 0; i < names.length; i++) {
console.log(names[i]);
} console.log(i); // error: Uncaught ReferenceError: i is not defined
As you can see, it causes an error if you use i outside the scope it’s defined.
3. Immediately Invoked Function Expression (IIFE)
An IIFE is a JavaScript function that runs as soon as it is defined.
One of the benefits of IIEF I found that you can hide variables inside the function to avoid leaking them out, so no side affect will occur.
const Calculation = (function () {
const PI = 3.14;
let mode = 1;
return {
sum: function (a, b) {
return a + b;
}, changeMode: function (newMode) {
this.mode = newMode;
}, printMode: function () {
console.log(this.mode);
}
};
})(); let sum = Calculation.sum(2, 6); // 8
Calculation.changeMode(4);
Calculation.printMode(); // 4
If you want to modify variables, the only way you have is to change the values via the returned functions of IIEF, which would avoid side effects.
4. Pure Functions
Pure functions are functions that will return the same output with the same input.
With that being said, a pure function only depends on its own arguments, doesn’t change variables outside of its scope so that no side effect will happen.
Take this example below for an impure function:
let person = {
name: ‘Amy’,
age: 28
}; function change(person) {
let someone = person;
someone.name = ‘James’; return someone;
} let someone = change(person);
console.log(someone.name) // James
console.log(person.name); // James
The above function is impure because it changes the value of the variable person, which is outside the function. That’s a side effect.
To prevent side effects, we need to transform that function to the pure one:
let person = {
name: ‘Amy’,
age: 28
}; function change(person) {
let someone = {...person}
someone.name = ‘James’;
return someone;
} let someone = change(person);
console.log(someone.name) // James
console.log(person.name); // Amy
Now, it’s pure.
Most of the time, to reduce side effects, it’s good to create pure functions for less surprising bugs.
We don’t need to make all functions pure. We can mix pure and impure functions based on our needs because not all impure functions are bad. Sometimes we need them to serve specific purposes.
Conclusion
Imaging your codebase is side effects free. You will be faster to investigate if having any problems. You will write unit tests easily and quickly. More unit tests means you increase the odds of bug-free for your application.
Hope you like this article.
Do you have other ways to prevent side effects? If so, please share them in the comment below.
|
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/4-ways-you-can-get-rid-of-dirty-side-effects-for-cleaner-code-in-javascript-e93c50ff2355
|
['Amy J. Andrews']
|
2020-10-27 20:28:39.194000+00:00
|
['Coding', 'Javascript Tips', 'Functional Programming', 'Clean Code', 'Javascript Development']
|
Quick tour : Go Context. A quick dip to the context package for…
|
Go’s context package and feature is a core part of how most Go applications are built today. The Context package is extremely useful and probably one of the most versatile packages of the entire language. It is highly unlikely that you are here and you haven’t come across context. If you haven’t come across anything dealing with contexts yet, you probably will very soon .
Before we move forward, here is the official documentation for the context package https://golang.org/pkg/context/. It’s really great and filled with practical examples. Do check it out, if you haven’t.
Prerequisites
There are 2 concepts that you need some familiarity with to understand context which is goroutine and channels.If you have no familiarity with the above topics, do check out the official documentation for them and then continue with the article.
Context
It is no brainer to derive the functionalities of the package from its name. A simple way to think about the context package in go is that it allows you to pass in a “context” to your program. Very often, you want to define a timeout, deadline or have the ability to cancel a certain operation and all the invoked functionality from running respectively. When building applications for the web, all of those decisions are usually made inside of a request-response cycle.
Getting started
Package context defines the Context type, which carries deadlines, cancellation signals, and other request-scoped values across API boundaries and between processes. Let’s check them one by one.
context. Background() ctx Context
This function is usually used in the top level request handler. It is used to derive other contexts(we will discuss about this later) and has an empty context as a return type.
ctx, cancel:= context.Background()
context.TODO() ctx Context
The TODO function is used when you are not sure what context to use or if the function has not been updated to receive a context. There can be cases where you plan to add context to the function in the future, but you want things to remain smooth at the moment.
ctx, cancel := context.TODO()
You must be wondering how it is different from the context.Background(), right?
The difference is, TODO can be used by static analysis tools to validate if the context is being passed around properly, which is an important detail as the static analysis tools can help surface potential bugs early on and can be hooked up in a CI/CD pipeline.
context.WithValue(parent Context, key, val interface)
One of the most common uses for contexts is to share data or use request scoped values. When you have multiple functions and you want to share data between them, you can do so using contexts. The easiest way to do that is context.WithValue. This function creates a new context based on a parent context and adds a value to a given key. You can think about the internal implementation as if the context contained a map inside of it, so you can add and retrieve values by key. It allows you to store any type of data inside the context. It is not recommended to pass in critical parameters using context value, instead, functions should accept those values in the signature making it explicit.
ctx := context.WithValue(context.Background(), key, “test”)
context.WithCancel(parent Context) (ctx Context, cancel CancelFunc)
This function creates a new context derived from the parent context. This parent function is passed in as argument . This parent context can either be a background context or a context that was passed into the function.
If you look at its return type , it returns a derived context and cancel function.
ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
context.WithDeadline(parent Context, d time.Time) (ctx Context, cancel CancelFunc)
As the function name suggests this function returns a derived context from its parent which gets cancelled with fulfilment of either of the two conditions which are when the deadline exceeds or the cancel function is called.
When that context gets canceled because of the deadline running out, all the functions that got the context get notified to stop work and return.
ctx, cancel := context.WithDeadline(context.Background(),time.Now().Add(2 * time.Second))
context.WithTimeout(parent Context, timeout time.Duration) (ctx Context, cancel CancelFunc)
Similar to WithDeadline , it cancels the contexts but this cancellation is based upon the time duration . This function returns a derived context that gets canceled if the cancel function is called or the timeout duration is exceeded.
ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), time.Duration(150)*time.Millisecond)
Good practices to keep in mind
As mentioned above, context.Background should be used only as the root of all derived contexts. It is advised that context.TODO should be used where you are not sure what to use or if the current function will be updated to use context in the future. One more good practice related to TODO is to never pass nil context , instead, use of TODO is advised . As mentioned above, context.Value should be used very rarely, it should never be used to pass in optional parameters. This makes the API implicit and can introduce bugs. Instead, such values should be passed in as arguments. Storing context in a struct is not advised, context should be passed explicitly in functions, preferably, as the first argument.
Final Thoughts
Contexts are used as part of Go basic features. Thus, it is very important to understand and know how to work with them. The context package provides a very easy and lightweight API to interact with this key component. Also, we discussed how single context could be used to control and carry cancellation signals as well as to carry scoped values. This makes the context a very important and powerful tool to create reliable and simple code.
I hope this helps. Happy Learning!
|
https://medium.com/@jha.vishesh/quick-tour-go-context-e53668b7a73a
|
['Vishesh Jha']
|
2021-07-11 16:37:18.409000+00:00
|
['Context', 'First Post', 'Learning', 'Golang', 'Go']
|
Insurrection & Infrastructure: a Dual Power Guide for Leftists in Britain
|
Dual Power is at last being talked about in British revolutionary left wing discourse, having previously been ignored outside of a small number of Syndicalist, Anarchist and Communist organisers already familiar with the subject. However the debate here needs to catch up fast to the state of affairs that we are presented with. Accordingly I have prepared this guide, which examines multiple aspects of the concept, including the most recent commentary on the subject from modern Communists and Anarchists in the USA.
This piece can either be read in depth as a piece of work in its own right, or readers can skim it for links to other bodies of work and the quoted texts that I have included. Those seeking a rapid definition of the concept should read the introductory points at the beginning and then skip directly to the Appendix at the end of the article.
Complex challenges require intelligent solutions. We are now faced with the problem of how to create a "liberty machine in prototype”. Dual Power, as a form of practice, may be crucial to that project.
What is dual power?
As myself and others have gone on about at length, things are rather bad right now. In the current context of electoral politics and mass liberal protests getting pulverised by the UK state and the inherent conservatism of much of British society, much of the radical left in the UK is turning to an area of revolutionary theory that has been left neglected for many years: dual power. This has particularly come to the fore in relation to questions about the correct organising model going forward, reflections on the Covid-19 crisis, the growth of mutual aid projects, as well as issues regarding climate destruction and ecological radicalism.
Dual power has seldom been explored by the left in the UK, but is the subject of serious debates across the entire spectrum of the left in the United States. With the obliteration of the credibility of the electoral route to power, and the total failure of the mass protest model espoused by liberal environmentalists, many Communists, Anarchists, radical ecological activists and Socialists in the UK are taking notice of this critical area of revolutionary theory.
However, because the movement here has ignored the concept for so long, few have a good grounding in the depth of the theory. This is bad, because dual power is not only a demanding organisational challenge, but it’s a complex and contested subject of theoretical debate.
So what is it?
The answer is complex and cannot really be answered by single explanations any more, as there are now multiple competing definitions, both complementing each other and at odds. In order to disentangle this I’ve attempted to assemble a combined explanation of core terms, definitions and technical concepts, as well as an overview of the modern debate over the term and the contest between the various definitions
The basic core idea is that dual power is where there is a complex of institutions that challenge State and Capital for control over logistics, resource access, political decision making, and social coordination. But the story does not end there…
What it is…
A strategic doctrine: In many ways, dual power is a framework of ideas about how to organise radical networks and groups in a specific way in order to oppose and actively disrupt the application of state power.
A form of practice/method: Because it is a strategic doctrine concerned with organisational behaviours on a wide scale, it is also concerned with organisational behavior on a group level, and on an individual level.
A diagnosis: If dual power is achieved then that means that a circumstance has established itself whereby dual power is physically present in an area or a section of society. In other words you can diagnose when it is happening and it is not an ephemeral concept that flits in and out of existence. It will be societally concrete, a set of existing social circumstances.
A set of physical things: dual power refers to the existence of physical assets and social institutions. This include physical control over machinery, buildings, food sources etc, combined with active worker unions, health clinics, occupied spaces, networks of supply for material goods under control of radical organisations, and so on.
A manifestation of behaviours: It isn’t just the dead presence of left-oriented institutions. Participants will be at least partially aware of the greater scope of the things they are involved in. They will know for example that a health clinic that is part of a dual power network is consciously developed as a challenge to state/capital monopolies on the right to supply the means of living.
Dual power must be counterposed against a lack, or a weakness in state/capital power: Ultimately it arises with the combination of all these aspects into a complex system which is able to actually wrestle control of certain aspects of society and the economy away from state/capital control. It is not merely the establishment of radical infrastructure alone.
It is thus defined by rupture: dual power stops being a simple collection of capacities by being tied to and a part of a rupture between the old and the new.
What is it Not…
Not synonymous with mutual aid: Mutual aid is a critical part of dual power but it is not the same thing. Mutual aid is a form of human activity which can have a radical context, such as with squats, refugee support etc, or can be totally cooperative with state and capital and totally alienated by them. Kropotkin describes mutual aid as an emergent characteristic of complex organic life. Humans are social species so they not only do this on basic material levels like looking after offspring, but also realise mutual aid through the social realm.
Not synonymous with guerilla war: guerilla war involves the development of power bases from which to mobilise against state or occupying armed forces, but this doesn’t make it exactly the same thing. dual power can be and often is a component of guerilla strategies, but does not have to be. Not all Guerilla forces seek to topple governments, or control over local institutions. Some do. Some are even in peculiarly cooperative relationships with local authorities on the fringe of central state control, in particular with Guerrilla forces that are closely linked to drug cartels.
Not something that can exist hand in hand with every strategy: Some strategies are effectively conceptually in opposition to it: for example entryism focused forms of vanguardism, and many electoral strategies are inherently aimed at things that run contrary to the goal of building dual power, due to many interpretations of the concept being based on opposition and usurpation of established unions, civic institutions, and pieces of government infrastructure. For example, establishing an alternate source of control over healthcare challenges local healthcare officials, healthcare charities within the NGO industrial complex, and mainstream unions.
Most critically it is not just the sum of its parts: it has to exist in a revolutionary context, which is sufficiently extreme as to force a confrontation against the state. Prior to this eventuality it exists as interconnected components with largely radical political characters.
Not our ideological baby: Dual power is a product of leftist theory but we do not have a monopoly on it as a strategic doctrine. There are examples of reactionary movements achieving similar structures both historically and in modern global politics. While in the leftist context it must be seen as inherently anti-capitalist and anti-state, the broadest definition of the doctrine can merely be anti-government and not bother about the state as a concept or capitalism as a system. In other words, it can be used by any form of insurgency. Remember that bit about guerilla war? At the end of the day, sometimes the guerillas that DO utilise dual power aren’t on our side.
It is not something that can liberate us on its own, and it is not something intended for peace.
Competing definitions within leftism:
There’s a lot of subtly different definitions of dual power. They aren’t set in stone by god: they overlap a lot, because a lot of development in the concept has happened very recently. In order to sort them at least vaguely, I’ve produced my own assessment of some broad cleavages in the modern definition as of mid-2020. Readers should interpret this section with a grain of salt because it’s a product of my own views on how to categorise the subject but I hope that it proves useful in explaining some elements of the evolving theoretical debate around the subject. There are many ways of seeing dual power, so here are a few:
Leninist origins, early Anarchist influences, and Diagnostic/Emergent perceptions:
Many people focus on thinking about dual power in terms of diagnosing emergent conditions in revolutionary scenarios. In other words, rather than primarily thinking of dual power as an active project alone, they think of it in terms of comparing existing situations to situations described in documented historical revolutions. This traces a direct line of descent back to the intellectual tradition of the Russian Revolution, where multiple theorists commented on the emerging situation of twin poles of political power, one being the Provisional government, the other being the various Workers Soviets. Lenin, Trotsky and others analysed the situation in the contemporary context of 1917. A fascination with these figures is a permanent feature of leftist writing in many circles, and lots of writers have tended to focus on if dual power has emerged in a given context and if the moment is ripe for Bolshevik ( or similar) action. This is not to say that the Leninist tradition is totally passive though, and to assume that Leninist think only of the subject passively, in the context of being observers would be erroneous. Many Leninists do focus heavily on advocating the proactive development of dual power if it is not already present, as it is often considered a prerequisite for revolution by many Leninists writings on the subject, particularly in relation to Maoist insurgency strategies (-more on this later). Many modern American Leninists are ardent in their support of dual power strategies, particularly in relation to debates that swept through the American left prior to 2020. (-more on this later as well.)
In “The Peculiar Nature of the dual power” Lenin states:
“This dual power is evident in the existence of two governments: one is the main, the real, the actual government of the bourgeoisie, the “Provisional Government” of Lvov and Co., which holds in its hands all the organs of power; the other is a supplementary and parallel government, a “controlling” government in the shape of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which holds no organs of state power, but directly rests on the support of an obvious and indisputable majority of the people, on the armed workers and soldiers. The class origin and the class significance of this dual power is the following: the Russian revolution of March 1917 not only swept away the whole tsarist monarchy, not only transferred the entire power to the bourgeoisie, but also moved close towards a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. The Petrograd and the other, the local, Soviets constitute precisely such a dictatorship (that is, a power resting not on the law but directly on the force of armed masses of the population), a dictatorship precisely of the above-mentioned classes.”
Other early influences on the concept include writings by proto-anarchist Proudhon, whose writings in “General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century” have exerted a modicum of influence on anarchist and libertarian socialist thought regarding questions of revolutionary Infrastructure. However, Proudhon is generally not favoured by many modern leftists, and undoubtedly it is Kropotkins omnipresent work explaining the role of mutual aid in natural life, society and politics that is the most influential in the Anarchist sphere on this matter. The importance of the concept of political mutual aid to the concept of dual power is so obvious as to not require going into any detail. To put it simply, political mutual aid is now a core pillar of the whole concept, and it is no wonder, given that Kropotkin considered mutual aid to be “the surest means for giving each other and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual and moral.”. Those unfamiliar with the concept should consult widely available anarchist and libertarian-socialist sources on the subject, or indeed, the man himself, particularly the latter chapters of the main body of the work.
Bookchinite/Municipalist/Council-Political influences:
The (in)famous Murray Bookchin made a few comments regarding the role of dual power in his models of a transforming society, as have other followers of his philosophical and ideological work. Much of this was focused around late 20th century developments in his theoretical trajectory with influence from studies of democracy and urbanisation. Accordingly, Bookchinite contributions often tend to focus on the town and city as being the centre of gravity for political transformation, and weighed heavily into the interpretations of dual power as being about the civic legitimacy of alternative centres of popular sovereignty. Another significant influence from this camp was the mild but noticeable introduction of ecological concepts which introduced the “green” side of the equation into the concept. As a result of this, the concept began to expand scope in the broad libertarian-left theoretical tradition, and Anarchists and Bookchinites has been particularly notable in its return to prominence. Bookchin’s writing came to more mainstream prominence particular in the aftermath of the 2011 revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, prompting even theoreticians willing to tolerate cooperation with liberal democracy to note his influence on their positions:
“At the time, however, “dual power” was essentially descriptive. The American anarchist theorist Murray Bookchin was the first to flesh out the concept into a strategic framework for transformative politics. In his political blueprint, called “libertarian municipalism,” confederations of directly democratic assemblies would be forced into conflict with the nation-state, making continued coexistence impossible. We advocate a somewhat more flexible approach than Bookchin’s — engaging with liberal democratic governments wherever possible to restructure them in a participatory and ecosocialist direction. Even so, his theoretical work on dual power is central to our strategy.” (From “Community, Democracy,and Mutual Aid: Toward dual power and Beyond. By John Michael Colón, Mason Herson-Hord, Katie S. Horvath, Dayton Martindale, & Matthew Porges, available as a PDF here)
Ultimately, the main effect of this was to lend weight to a growing tendency to use the concept of dual power in programmatic terms rather than descriptive ones, although it also made it open to a certain liberal de-fanging of its revolutionary potential. Since this contribution, the debate has expanded far beyond Bookchin’s particular ideological position, and has also taken on influence from other radical directions.
20th Century warfare/Guerilla influences:
Both via the Maoist tradition, and via the rise of other significant military-political movements, there have been a number of significant historical and contemporary examples of revolutionary forces using strategies similar to dual power in local zones of influence to enhance and support guerilla campaigns, and other forms of warfare. Maoist, and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological schools of thought often lay claim to this, but the history of the 20th century demonstrated that the concept of dual power is not the exclusive purview of the leftists. Many militant forces have used it. The Maoists were particularly notable for it at numerous points in time, notably in India, where the Naxalite movement was sufficiently developed to be at the point of setting up its own schools and mid level civil engineering projects as well as utilising their own concept of “revolutionary taxes”, a hotly contested term, even amongst Maoists. However, it is notable that some Naxalite writings claim that dual power cannot exist in certain specific circumstances in Guerilla campaigns:
“When the guerrilla forces have the upper hand, the people’s power can exist. The enemy rule will go on temporarily when the guerrilla forces retreat in the face of the enemy onslaught. There cannot be dual power in the same area simultaneously. It will be either the enemy’s power or ours.”
Trotskyist guerilla fighter & theorist, Regis Debray took a slightly different line in his work “Revolution in the Revolution”, stating:
“For the attainment of this goal, the guerrilla movement is not the highest form of revolutionary struggle; “dual power”must be instituted at the base, that is, a call must be made for the formation of factory and peasant committees, the proliferation of which will ultimately permit the establishment of a single United Confederation of Workers; this confederation, by means of instantaneous and generalized rising in the mountains and the cities, will be the instrument for taking power…”
Other key case studies that illustrate the influence of modern militia/terrorist/guerilla forces on the development of dual power as a theory include Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, who have made great use of the development of cultural and civic institutions to assist their integration within Ukrainian Civil society, and Hezbollah, one of the most complex and successful armed groups on the planet.
Hezbollah is particularly notable because it has a major presence in many nations, but specifically in its home nation of Lebanon it exists in such strength that is often described as a “state within a state”. Western writers, discussing the concept of counter-insurgency have made deep studies of the subject, producing various statements about the group and its simultaneous existence as a social force, political party and independent army within the Lebanese political context. In his work “Out Of the Mountains” , popular mainstream expert on Western experiences in counter-insurgency, David Killkullin notes that:
“…the example par excellence of a wide-spectrum group is Lebanese Hezbollah. Hezbollah brings to bear an extremely broad range of capabilities across the full spectrum of a well-developed normative system… … The organization began as a small militia that received training from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, funding from Iran, and political support from Syria as well as from the Lebanese Shi’a community. Over time, however, Hezbollah has expanded and diversified into a wide-spectrum social and political movement that not only includes a capable military wing but also maintains regional and district administrative councils, law enforcement organizations, dispute resolution and mediation systems, employment programs, health clinics, schools, labor representation, a reconstruction organization, charity programs, a mass political party with elected representatives in the Lebanese parliament and at the local and regional levels, a series of local radio stations and print publications, the satellite television channel Al-Manar, and a significant Internet presence. Hezbollah is, in effect, a counterstate within the territory of Lebanon. This counterstate fields an extraordinarily effective “fish trap” system of incentives and disincentives that fully encapsulate its target population: you can live your whole life within the Hezbollah lifestyle and almost never need to engage with the outside environment. Hezbollah’s strength derives from its ability to create a full-spectrum normative system that dissuades people from opposing its agenda, gives them tangible administrative and economic benefits in return for support, and persuades them to participate in its program. The system rests on three pillars — Hezbollah’s capable terrorist and military organizations (giving it coercive and intimidatory power); its social and administrative programs, which benefit Lebanon’s urban poor and marginalized communities of all religious groups; and its non-coercive political and propaganda capabilities.”
This brief overview of Hezbollah’s complex, dynamic power-plays in its regional environment should demonstrate to the careful reader three things of note: 1, that Hezbollah considers this systemic capacity to be totally core to its model, 2, that it differs ideologically, in the most extreme manner, from the practice of most Communists or Anarchists, and 3, that the integration of the project within existing states and cooperation with local inter-state geopolitical military alliances runs counter to the goal that most leftists would hold themselves as adhering to: emancipation from, rather than control of, the State and Capital. Nevertheless, it is a highly instructive real world example.
Just as stark in all those regards is the example of the conscious efforts of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis within their local civil society and state structures. The Azov Battalion in particular is notable for setting up a variety of social service institutions in order to develop their political legitimacy. A writer for Haaretz notes: “Semenyaka describes the movement as trying to build “a state within the state,” providing a number of services to people in a country where, plagued by poverty and a still-hot war with Russia, the government isn’t always able to step in. So Azov tries to do it all. It publishes a monthly newspaper, runs children’s camps (some with Ukrainian state help), provides services for veterans and generally does everything it can to show Ukrainians that it is a force for good.“ Further research into Ukrainian Neo-Nazi organisational methods by Open-Source investigators Bellingcat reveals that multiple Other Neo-Nazi groups are heavily focused on growing their presence in mutliple parts of the nations cultural apparatus.
Why are these reactionary organisations doing this? Because they sense power in the sinews of this form of activity. These efforts are not synonymous with what we call dual power, but they are similar and are major systemic elements in the campaign of Neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine to integrate their politics into the politic mainstream, and in Hezbullahs strategic of social control, protest repression and hegemonic maneuvering in the internecine domestic political environment of Lebanon. For this reason, they can be examined both to provide a warning, and a lesson.
Further influences toward Infrastructuralism- Modern complex theories of dual power emerge:
This brings us to the present: The historical confluence of multiple schools of theory, of multiple practical examples, of evolving modern movements, is all feeding into the continuing development of this concept. From this we reach the modern context: The Modern New Left movement, and the rise of millenial leftism and the current wave of radical youth movements. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, political events in the western hemisphere created numerous other currents that influenced the development of this theory.
As a result of numerous wide ranging contributions, dual power today is widely understood as being about more than alternative centres of decision-making and political/cultural sovereignty, or the diagnosis of political events. Rather, the always present, but frequently undernourished infrastructural side of the equation is now being emphasised by a growing number of writers, though not without pushback from some quarters. This has been heavily influenced by groups such as the Black Panthers, who famously advocated for the combination of a wide variety of social programs, run by their party, including soup kitchens and armed community defence, in turn leading to further influences on wider leftist radicalism following their dissolution into numerous successor parties, some of which have agitated for dual power strategies relatively recently. The other massive factor that caused the pivot to refocusing on infrastructure occurred during the Obama era, as disaffected left-liberals began to swell the ranks of the then nascent modern leftist revival in the United States, against a backdrop of events that destroyed community lifelines to thousands of working class people.
The Occupy movement and the Black Lives Matter movement are endlessly credited with creating much of the modern American leftist movement, and for good reason. Indeed there were early mutterrings on the subject of dual power in writings relatively close to those events and many modern African American led Leftist groups which benefited from or came into being after this period are also major proponents of the program, notably the Black Socialists of America, who relentlessly advocate for it on social media, and the well known Cooperation Jackson.
Notable events include massive mutual aid projects known as “Occupy Sandy”, and other similar disaster relief projects, as well as the popularity of notable modern guerilla movements which utilised the strategy, most well known of which being the EZLN:
“The Zapatista organization itself has very exacting requirements: in addition to adhering to its ideological principles, members must follow a set of standards that include rejecting aid from the official government and abstaining from alcohol. It is not surprising that at least some in each community decline to join. “The issue,” Pickard said, “is how to convince people to give you legitimacy, if not through an election” (given that the Zapatistas reject the current electoral system).
How do they do it? It’s certainly not through access to greater resources, although the Zapatistas do have a system of taxation. They charge a ten percent tax on projects by outside agencies including NGOs and the official government (the highway tolls were dropped in 2003). Within communities, assembly decisions are resourced by labor or in-kind contributions from each family in the community. Coffee and craft coops bring in additional venues and international solidarity provides a further supplement — the clinic at Magdalena, for instance, has been supplied by Médecins du Monde for a number of years. But the total budget of the resistance communities is, to say the least, austere.” Source.
The range of ideological influences is very complex, and developed in the Western political context largely amongst the new generation of Millennial/Zoomer leftists who are extremely theory oriented, though we hardly eschew organising and are now running the show in many groups. The new conception is much more focused on integrating mutual aid concepts, on integrating community action, supply of physical materials and meeting material needs, this trend takes ideological and practical inspiration from Black Panther food kitchens, independent unions, food-not-bombs etc, with special note to the climate change question, as well as combined deep organising models.
The kinds of US organisations involved in dual power Politics are often also concerned more heavily with workplace organising, and the influential Base-Building theoretical current in the communist /anarchist /socialist movement, and tend to de-emphasise electoral politics often totally rejecting it. This is not universally true however and there are some democratic socialists who advocate for movements towards Solidarity-Economy focussed routes whilst also holding to gradualist approaches, and on occasion even electoralist positions. Accordingly they frequently get into tangles with opposing theoreticians across the revolutionary spectrum.
There are various writers and organisations who are central to the North American revival of this theory, with the major organisational proponents including groups like the more revolutionary components of the Demcratic Socialists of America ( A dominant force in the American far-left), such as the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LSC) and the Communist Caucus, the former having created an entire manifesto based on the concept, the latter being ardent proponents of class struggle organising within the pluralistic, yet often fractious DSA umbrella. Other leading proponents that dabble in the strategy to one extent or another are the Marxist Center organisation, Black Rose/Rosa Negra and the Symbiosis umbrella organisation. All have made efforts in the direction of coordinated mutual aid and dual power organising, combined with deep organising models, to one extent or another. The BSA (not to be confused with DSA), which were mentioned earlier in this essay have also joined in rhetorical support of this trend. A selection of source materials by these organisations has been collected in the first appendix to this work.
The key conceptual development of this movement of modern theorists is this: Dual power is now commonly conceived of, in our circles at least, as being a matter of creating an independent network of infrastructure to meet material needs, both for normal requirements, and in relation to the logistical challenges imposed by future insurrection, by disaster, by austerity, and by climate collapse, combined with the more classical ideas about creating structures of alternative Sovereignty in communities. This is seen by many modern writers as being achieved via a complex of Alternative Institutions and Counter Institutions. In relation to Counter Institutions, the LSC claims “When possible, these counter-institutions link up politically, economically, and socially to form a self-sufficient ecosystem; and ultimately, confederate into direct-democratic political bodies in and across communities all over the world. Our goal in building up this infrastructure is to create counter-power. Counter-power is our ability to delegitimize, disrupt, and demonstrate our power against the current regime by developing and deploying cutting-edge cultural and organizational practices. These practices form part of the direct action toolbox which can collectively be used to undermine and delegitimize social, political, and economic hierarchies” , while the frequently cited ( and criticised) Sophia Burns wrote ia dual power FAQ linked below that lays out its own scheme for the distinction between alternative and counter institutions. Anarchist writers have weighed in over the last few decades from various points of view, ranging from the relatively moderate to the more hard line, whilst other sources have criticised a tendency to gradualism that has made itself known in the debate partially due the influence of Bookchin’s legacy, and partially due to other trends of creeping liberalism that have emerged via Marxist and Democratic Socialist camps. However, against the sweeping backdrop of electoralist solutions being wiped out, climate collapse advancing day by day, disaster communism becoming a shibboleth, accelerationism becoming all too real by the minute, this tendency, whether motivated by liberalism, by opinions of revolutionary tactics, or other considerations may yet give way to a determined, agitated and aggressive stance on this school of revolutionary theory.
How can we build it here?
Up until now I haven’t gone much into my opinions in this piece in any detail other than minor asides. I shall do so now, and accordingly, I would like to encourage readers who made it this far to strongly consider contributing in their own right to this debate.
Let us consider the physical components at play within our movement:
We already have some components that could be forged into the most basic skeleton of a nascent dual-power complex. (I have written about this, as well as other related concepts elsewhere.) Our base union movement is organisationally diverse and very dynamic, though two of the more popular grassroots unions have an element of friendliness towards mainstream politics, and may not be so conducive towards or final aims as they are towards the goals of the Labour Party. Independent medical infrastructure is existent in a prototype level, though it is miniscule and barely exists. This is exhibited in the LGBTQ cultural experience of evading the de facto embargo of healthcare on the trans community, in the recent growth of protest first-aid training and community care operations via Queercare, and has to a certain extent been hinted at in the recent and ongoing experience of minor levels of community care being exhibited in our mutual aid groups in response to the Covid-19 crisis. We have basic practice in small scale food logistics thanks to the mutual aid groups as well. The antifascist movement is still an operable force, but is only growing relatively slowly. Renters unions are experiencing a massive surge in popularity, yet the most well known ( ACORN, LRU and Living Rent) have a history of institutional cooperation and are not yet fully radicalised vehicles. It is possible that one or more of them may become so, but this will only happen with effort. The anti-raids network exists, again in highly limited form. The recently resurgent climate movement has been severely bruised with the obliteration and defeat of the liberal side of the movement led by Extinction Rebellion, but it is still present and intermingles with many other areas of struggle.
This is not enough, and is in fact, very little. We have not, as a wide movement, inflicted that many defeats on our opponents on any level other than tactical for quite a while. We do not hold much physical infrastructure at all. There are perhaps scattered squats, bookshops and cultural venues, but this is not remotely adequate, and barely deserves the title “infrastructure” in the sense mentioned in this context.
We therefore should:
1- Recommit to organising methods that directly strengthen components of what could become a dual power complex: We need to strengthen and further radicalise the base unions, with a particular eye for radicalising the community organising structures affiliated with the movement and the renters unions, which are still relatively moderate.
2- Select areas of focus in the mutual aid movement: We may need to be rather ruthless when it comes to selecting which mutual aid groups to focus our efforts in. It will be clear to anyone who is involved with the phenomenon that many of them are closely linked to right wing or liberal civic and political institutions like the Labour Party. We certainly do not have the ability to radicalise all of the mutual aid efforts, as the tendency to ignore early calls for a rent strike campaign and towards legalistic officialdom in many of the groups demonstrates.
3- Become much better at training organisers, not merely within organisations, but also across the whole spectrum. What do i mean by this? Well, basically, given the habit of activists to circulate between organisations, we are effectively in a large Petri dish filled with its own ecosystem of constantly interacting parts. Cross pollination between organisations and tendencies occurs naturally, and has many effects. One of the most positive of these effects is that people share skills and on occasion organisations will train people in other groups. This may or may not strengthen the organisation doing or receiving the training on a case to case basis but as a general practice it massively increases our capacity. In other words we need an internal mutual aid culture of training and skill sharing and that must go beyond occasional “skill-share sessions” and become organisationally habitual to our structures.
4- Begin assessing points of vulnerability in the political and economic system where we can carve out small niches. With patience and a durable application of effort we can establish situations where those niches coalesce into more coherent structures. However, if the squatting movement has shown us anything, it is that most efforts in this direction will fail.
5- Because of this we should be willing to accept and prepare for circumstances where a large quantity of our individual projects fail. It is common for committed activists to abandon organisations if a campaign they were committed to begins to falter or is deprioritised by the organisation. This is often a symptom of burnout in the individual. It is also a symptom of an organisational inability to account for that burnout, and prepare for loss. We are certainly very used to our projects failing, but we do not tend to put in place organisational redundancies to insure against this. This applies on the level of supporting individual activists in need of burnout, and it applies on larger levels as well. The challenge of figuring out how to do this is great and we are unfortunately only going to learn how to do it via bitter experience.
6- Because our projects will often fail, we must be adaptive and maneuverable, and prepared to prioritise and deprioritise efforts intelligently and collectively. Part of this means assessing the likelihood of success with sobriety, and part of this means deciding whether or not it is worth continuing with projects even if their failure is highly likely- there are many times when projects that are doomed in and of themselves, are capable of creating second order benefits. A failed organising drive may be worth continuing at a reduced level to hold onto existing gains, or to train more organisers, or to retain capacity for a future allocation of effort while a group of organisers recovers and assesses reasons for failure. The critical matter is that we should have a systemic ability to assess which battles are worth continuing for the sake of the wider struggle, even if the battle itself offers diminishing returns in its own local context.
7- Because of our currently limited numbers and the vast amount of work at hand, this general plan does mean massively deprioritizing support for reformist efforts: they must be considered an unnecessary indulgence now. No organisation currently existing has the resources, human, financial or otherwise, to simultaneously commit to the electoral front and to the complex and demanding tasks of deep organising and infrastructural development which are to hand
The subject of revolutionary strategy is a complex one and I will continue to write about it elsewhere. I hope that this document proves useful to its readers, and that above all it provokes a simultaneous debate of new strategies and a commitment to organising outside of the cliques of Momentum/Labour infighting, university radicalism, and failed vanguardism, and instead develops in a healthy cooperative relationship with seriously militant direct action, workplace and class organising and hard nosed practical protest agitation.
Good luck, and maybe I’ll see some of you out organising.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Appendix: Definitions and Commentary from Modern Western Organisations and Writers
Black Rose/Rosa-Negra:
“The term “dual power” has been used in several ways since it was first coined. The following definition builds on the previous meanings of dual power, most importantly by articulating the equal and necessary relationship between counter-power and counter-institutions. In the original definition, dual power referred to the creation of an alternative, liberatory power to exist alongside and eventually overcome state/capitalist power. Dual power theorizes a distinct and oppositional relationship between the forces of the state/capitalism and the revolutionary forces of oppressed people. The two can never be peacefully reconciled. With the theory of dual power is a dual strategy of public resistance to oppression (counter-power) and building cooperative alternatives (counter-institutions). Public resistance to oppression encompasses all of the direct action and protest movements that fight authoritarianism, capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the other institutionalized oppressions. Building cooperative alternatives recreates the social and economic relationships of society to replace competitive with cooperative structures. It is critical that these two general modes of action do not become isolated within a given movement. Counter-power and counter-institutional organizations must be in relationship to each other.” — SOURCE
Seattle Communists/Communist Labor Party:
“What does dual power mean? dual power is both a type of institution and a strategy to change the world. dual power means new, independent institutions for people to meet their own needs in ways capitalism and the government can’t or won’t. Unlike nonprofits, where a board of directors (and usually wealthy donors!) makes the decisions, dual power institutions are created and controlled by the people they benefit. By developing them, people create a second kind of social, economic, and even political power, separate from government and capitalism. (That’s what the “dual” means, in duality with the current system.) These new community institutions then govern themselves using participatory democracy, which means that everyone plays an active part in decision-making. What kinds of dual power institutions are there? dual power institutions come in two flavors: alternative institutions and counter-institutions. The two kinds of dual power institutions do this from different (but complementary) angles. Alternative institutions meet a need directly. Counter-institutions challenge capitalism’s way of doing things. Alternative institutions start making a system that’s just, while counter-institutions work against one that’s unjust.“ -SOURCE
Democratic Socialists Of America- Libertarian Socialist Caucus:
“Dual power is a strategy that builds liberated spaces and creates institutions grounded in direct democracy. Together these spaces and institutions expand into the ever widening formation of a new world “in the shell of the old.” As the movement grows more powerful, it can engage in ever larger confrontations with the ruling class — and ultimately a contest for legitimacy against the institutions of capitalist society. In our view, dual power is comprised of two component parts: (1.) building counter-institutions that serve as alternatives to the institutions currently governing production, investment, and social life under capitalism, and (2.) organizing through and confederating these institutions to build up a base of grassroots counter-power which can eventually challenge the existing power of capitalists and the State head-on. In the short term, such a strategy helps win victories that improve working people’s standard of living, helps us meet our needs that are currently left unaddressed under capitalism, and gives us more of a say over our day-to-day lives. But more excitingly, in the long run these methods provide models for new ways of organizing our society based on libertarian socialist principles. They create a path toward a revolutionary transition from a capitalist mode of production. This revolution will liberate us from both the need and the drive to create wealth for the rich, making possible a socialist mode of production that seeks to benefit all of humanity and free us from the lonely confines of commodity relationships.” — SOURCE
From UK Indymedia, circa 2002, by Brian Dominick:
|
https://medium.com/@kosigan/insurrectionary-and-infrastructure-a-dual-power-reader-for-leftists-in-the-british-isles-d9423d9ac081
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['I. Kosigan']
|
2020-05-09 01:32:19.130000+00:00
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['Communism', 'Revolution', 'Anarchism', 'Mutual Aid', 'British Politics']
|
Tell Me a Story
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www.pixabay.com
“Tell me a story” she asked her dad as he stared despondently out the living room window.
How she wished things could go back to how they once were.
She would climb onto his lap, neck tickled by his beard and feel protected and warm and loved and as if there would never be a reason to worry or be scared ever again.
Everything had changed.
The walls of her castle had crumbled.
The accident.
“Are you okay?” she uttered the words all the while knowing that silence would follow.
How she longed for a story, any story, as only he could tell.
His tales were expertly and intricately woven around the truth, meant to make her laugh and think and to send her off to dreamland with another day drawn to a sweet end.
Coffee-scented kisses goodnight.
Bear hugs that would make a bear proud.
All but gone.
“Dad?” But he was somewhere far away, as if all alone on a snowy beach in the winter.
She needed him so badly, but he wasn’t there.
Random memories flooded her brain and she remembered the loving murmurs heard through the walls each evening before her mom, his wife, their everything had been taken so abruptly from them.
The paper they were drawn upon had been irreconcilably ripped.
Nothing would ever be the same.
She wept.
|
https://medium.com/literally-literary/tell-me-a-story-6f81ec4aabde
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['Tommy Paley']
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2017-02-13 15:38:33.189000+00:00
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['Poetry', 'Love', 'Prose', 'Literally Literary']
|
Free iPhone Wallpaper — Disney Edition
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For my final BFA project I designed an iPhone App for Disney. I did a little illustrating which always makes me super nervous, but I am really happy with the way they turned out. I decided it would be nice to turn those illustrations into iPhone Wallpaper!
Cheers!
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https://medium.com/jordanblaser/free-iphone-wallpaper-disney-edition-6a5f057ea24a
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['Jordan Blaser']
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2017-04-30 04:08:57.267000+00:00
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['Disney', 'Free Downloads']
|
5 Insights you probably didn’t know about Europe’s best Football Leagues!
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“France has a farmer League, there is nothing else besides PSG.”
“Bundesliga is so much worse than Italy or Spain.”
“The greatest Clubs play in Premier League.”
Every football fan has heard or brought out one of these opinions at least once in their lives. And there are many reasons to believe that they hold true if you look at each country’s clubs performances in the Champions League or if you compare how many different Teams have won a Domestic League Title in the past 10 Seasons. However, there is much more to say about Europe’s top 5 football Leagues of Spain, Italy, France, Germany and England.
Entertainment doesn’t always have to come along with having the best Teams or Players. Or why else would you regularly enjoy your local team’s Sunday League matches? It is entertaining to see many goals, to witness change in leads from Half Time to Full Time or to visit matches of traditional Clubs with huge fan bases.
For that reason, we put together a dataset using match data from football-data.co.uk from the last 10 Seasons since 2009/10 of La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga and Premier League. Each row in that final dataset represents a Team that has played at least one season in the first division of its country in the past 10 years. Each Team has thirteen attributes that include describtions of its performance in Home Games over the past 10 Seasons.
Using those attributes we created a network with graphext to calculate similarities and clusters of connected teams (see figure above). Now each Node in the Graph represents a Row/Team of the original dataset. Teams that have similar performances are connected to each other. Teams with many connections among each other form uniquely colored clusters. The closer two teams are to each other the more similar they are.
Okay, but where can I find my favorite team now?
|
https://towardsdatascience.com/5-insights-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-t-3b28a132eace
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['Maximilian Zachow']
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2019-08-26 07:42:13.871000+00:00
|
['Soccer', 'Data Visualization', 'Sports Analytics', 'Data Science', 'Data Analysis']
|
Installing OpenCV 3.4.0 on the Nvidia Jetson Tx2
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When using the Jetson Tx2, I found that building OpenCV from source has been beneficial. This allows for other configurations for OpenCV that the Jetson JetPack does not support. For the most part, I followed the tutorial linked here.
The first step is to remove any instances of OpenCV that may already been previously installed on the Jetson. You can do this by applying this command:
sudo apt-get purge libopencv*
It is recommended that you also purge the pre-downloaded (from JetPack) numpy and re-install it using pip:
sudo apt-get purge python-numpy
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
I only installed OpenCV 3.4.0 for Python3. Here are the commands I used below:
sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade g++-5 cpp-5 gcc-5
sudo apt-get install build-essential make cmake cmake-curses-gui \
g++ libavformat-dev libavutil-dev \
libswscale-dev libv4l-dev libeigen3-dev \
libglew-dev libgtk2.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libdc1394-22-dev libxine2-dev \
libgstreamer1.0-dev \
libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev libjpeg-turbo8-dev libtiff5-dev \
libjasper-dev libpng12-dev libavcodec-dev
sudo apt-get install libxvidcore-dev libx264-dev libgtk-3-dev \
libatlas-base-dev gfortran
sudo apt-get install libopenblas-dev liblapack-dev liblapacke-dev
sudo apt-get install qt5-default
sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-pip python3-tk
sudo pip3 install numpy
sudo pip3 install matplotlib
Some of these libraries do not have support for the Jetson Tx2, and I haven’t run into problems in which it stopped my OpenCV from compiling, so I have not taken issue with the commands above. After successfully installing matplotlib, you’ll need to edit the matplotlibrc file and modify the backend to be “backend : TkAgg”. It may not be in the exact same place but I used the following command:
sudo vim /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc
There seems to be an issue with Jetson where you have to apply a particular patch. It deals with fixing a symbolic link. Now, when I was trying to apply this, it actually would not let me make OpenCV successfully. I would try without fixing it first because I think Nvidia actually resolved this problem (albeit, I am not 100% confident on this). I installed curl so that I could do the following (and get OpenCV).
sudo apt-get install -y curl
cd $folder
curl -L https://github.com/opencv/opencv/archive/3.4.0.zip -o opencv-3.4.0.zip
unzip opencv-3.4.0.zip
cd opencv-3.4.0/
If this works, make a directory inside of this folder and cd into it.
mkdir release
cd release/
My cmake is as follows; however, you can make it how you want:
cmake -D WITH_CUDA=ON -D CUDA_ARCH_BIN="6.2" -D CUDA_ARCH_PTX="" -D WITH_GSTREAMER=ON -D WITH_LIBV4L=ON -D BUILD_TESTS=OFF -D BUILD_PERF_TESTS=OFF -D BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..
After doing this, you can find cv2 (if you are using Python3.6) in /python3.6/site-packages. I found that the blog post had it in dist-packages for Python3.5 and it took me a while to find where it was located on mine. Last two commands:
make -j4
sudo make install
Hopefully, you install it successfully and you would have installed OpenCV 3.4.0 on your Nvidia Jetson Tx2.
|
https://medium.com/@conniegracexu/installing-opencv-3-4-0-on-the-nvidia-jetson-tx2-610ccd04efc1
|
['Constance Xu']
|
2019-09-04 14:38:14.957000+00:00
|
['Linux', 'Opencv', 'Opencv Python', 'Nvidia', 'Jetson Tx2']
|
What about the currencies out East?
|
What about the currencies out East?
My last article focussed around the three major currencies in the western hemisphere. To sum up that piece, I concluded that the Dollar would lead the way in the coming months, with the Euro pushing the Pound to the bottom of the class. Amongst the various feedbacks to that piece, I was interested to read the comments of one particular reader. I would certainly agree with you that trying to predict the FX dynamics in the coming years is remarkably tough!
In the shorter term, it is certainly worthwhile having a look into the currencies on the other side of the world, namely the Yen, Aussie and Kiwi. These are the national monetary systems of Japan, Australia and New Zealand respectively.
The Nikkei (main bourse in Japan) just enjoyed a record-winning streak of 16 days of consecutive gains, beating a record of 14 that had stood for over half a century. Prime Minister Abe’s shock general election call played out slightly better on 22nd October than Theresa May’s debacle from earlier this year. He returned to power with a roughly 2/3s majority. Japan’s much-lauded Abenomics programme with the triple prong of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural reform have paved the way for the stock market to hit highs for this millennium to date. Looking at the Nikkei chart for the past seven decades, it’s truly amazing to think that the Nikkei is still some 42% lower than its all-time high on the last trading day of the 1980s!!
And what about the currency? Well a look at the USDJPY (US Dollar versus Japanese Yen) for the past ten years reveals three general trends:
Firstly, yen strength (i.e. the dollar depreciated against the yen post crisis) through to the end of 2011. Secondly, three and a half years of fairly consistent yen weakness from the start of 2012, which then dramatically accelerated in 2013 and 2014 once the impact of Abenomics fed through. The third phase has seen Yen strength return particularly up to June last year, when USDJPY broke back below 100 for the first time in three years.
From a technical perspective, it would seem that a period of renewed Yen strength is in the offing (i.e. a return to the downward trend of USDJPY). Looking at the chart below from this year, we can see that it has twice in recent months failed to break above the 114 level. For those of you who are fans of Fibonacci levels, this mark represents a 61.8% retracement level from its early September lows to its January highs. We find USDJPY back here again. Should it fail to break through at the third attempt, a return towards 100 would not be wholly unexpected in the coming months.
So, having expressed positivity (despite calling for USDJPY to fall) towards the Japanese currency, what lies in store for the Australian Dollar in the coming months?
Local Australian currency traders may well be slightly distracted for the early part of next week with them turning out in droves at the racetrack in Flemington, Melbourne, for the race that stops a nation, rather than being glued to their trading terminals. The 2017 running of the Melbourne Cup will happen on Tuesday. My two fancies for which are the British trainer Hugo Palmer’s Wall of Fire and the French trained Tiberian, both at double digit odds. Those who have known me for a while will be well aware that my racing tips are mostly prodigiously poor. When Pelican launches its Sports Betting operation, Flamingo, you would do well to oppose all my sporting bets!
The past ten years has seen a similar three phases of direction to that of USDJPY. An initial decline, followed by a rise, before a general downtrend returns. This is the AUDUSD chart:-
Yet, you’d be totally wrong to say that one had witnessed a phase of strength — weakness — strength. That is because the price of the Australian Dollar and New Zealand Dollar are the first named currencies in their relationship with the greenback (US Dollar). So when the price moves up, the Aussie Dollar is appreciating against the US Dollar and vice versa. When the USDJPY moves up, it means that the Japanese Yen is depreciating against the US Dollar.
The overall movement of the Aussie Dollar has always been very closely correlated to the prices of commodities. In layman’s terms, when the world is hungry for natural resources, the Australians’ currency appreciates in value. It is no coincidence that the Aussie high coincided in August 2011 with Gold soaring to its multi-decade highs. A look at the below reveals the extent of this relationship. The correlation only really broke in the last couple of years that was during a period with overall US Dollar strength which limited any great Aussie Dollar acceleration against the US Dollar.
Given the facts that the Reserve Bank of Australia are unlikely to be raising interest rates any time soon (and certainly not at this week’s meeting on Melbourne Cup Day!), my view that commodities (particularly gold) are not about to tear higher and the fact that the general consensus is for the AUDUSD to move back above 0.80, I am slightly bearish the Aussie.
The Kiwi Dollar has a similar known as a commodity currency. Its 96% correlation with the Aussie Dollar is all too plain to see.
The Kiwi has often been the favourite trade of the Japanese housewives. With interest rates having been so low for so long, investors have looked further afield for yield. And in the case of New Zealand, the differential has been considerable for many years! This is commonly known as a “carry trade” where you sell a low interest currency and buy a higher interest rate currency.
The NZDJPY trade generally rises during periods of global economic growth and stability, while the inverse is true during times of stress. The chart for this current millennium plays this out.
Following on the trend of voting in young, very gifted leaders like in France and Austria, you may have missed the news that the new Prime Minister of New Zealand is a 37 year old central-leftist. Her new Finance Minister has been quoted as saying that a decline in the Kiwi is natural at theses levels and is not something that would overly concern him. Her plan to ban non-Antipodeans from buying in New Zealand, specifically to calm a Auckland house price boom) will also limit inflows. (Can you imagine what would happen to the UK’s house prices if Jeremy Corbyn would replicate that particular move?!)
So, my view is that over the next two quarters, the Yen (JPY) will outperform the Aussie (AUD), whilst the Kiwi (NZD), despite its comparative interest rate advantage, will be bottom of this particular triumvirate.
Whatever your view on the Eastern currencies mentioned here or the more popular pairs, Pelican is the choice of the experienced trader wanting to build his or her private or public discussion groups. Within your groups, you can see others’ positions, copy or, uniquely, oppose trades, all within a unique FCA-regulated environment.
|
https://medium.com/pelican-trading/what-about-the-currencies-out-east-8792930dbedf
|
['Will Armitage']
|
2017-11-06 15:06:29.693000+00:00
|
['Economics', 'Forex Traders', 'Forex Trading', 'Investment Management', 'Stock Market']
|
5 Levels To Professional Breakthrough — Stop Waiting And Build Your Own Career Path
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I spent my childhood listening to the sounds from the nearby factory. A stream of smoke pillared towards the sky day and night.
My hometown based its economy on the industrial complex — Timber in, paper out.
Nope. Its not my home town factory on this pic :)
Very early, I knew that working on an assembly line of a factory wasn’t for me. I wanted to work with computers instead. So, I became a software professional.
Not long into the career with software, I found myself in a new kind of trouble. I had become a part of the software industry and just another assembly line.
Anyone who’s ever gotten laid off or fired understands how assembly lines work. Useless parts get tossed. Inefficient parts get replaced. It’s even possible to receive an e-mail that says, “you don’t need to come on Monday.” That happened to me.
Regardless of their domain, professionals I meet have often settled. I see this in very personal messages I receive from people around the world. I see this in the workshops that I do. And I even can see it with clients that I meet.
But what do I mean by settling?
I believe there are five kinds of professional work. Judging by what I’ve seen, many are stuck on level 1. They have settled.
Level #1: A Gear in a Machine
Most careers start here, and it’s ok. Professional life works like a ladder, and usually, there are no shortcuts to higher handles.
To get on the ladder, you start from the one you can reach.
The only problem is that too many careers get stuck on the first level.
Level 1 is part of an industrial assembly line, just like in that pulp factory of my hometown.
The good news is that on this level, you don’t need to worry. Someone else brings you the gig. You don’t need to market yourself or sell your services.
You only do the job. Leave at five and get paid for whatever the average salary is.
The bad news is that you are generic. And while you may not need to worry, you should. When the economy turns, or the business falters, who gets the boot first?
Stuck on level 1, you are replaceable. Downsizeable. Optimizable. Automatable.
This entire post aims to help you figure out how you could take that next step and maybe reach for the next ladder with a conscious effort to become more!
It would feel awesome to one day receive a message telling a story how a post like this sparked an epic series of professional breakthroughs.
Level #2: The Handyman
I love snowboarding. So in the winter, I often make a weekend trip to Finnish Lapland. The drive takes about 5 hours. On Friday nights, when I drive, there is only one gas station that is open on the whole road.
If I need the toilet or snacks, that’s the place to do my pitstop. It’s handy.
The Handyman gets the job because she is handy. She just happens to be in the right place and at the right time. Simultaneously, she happens to have the skills that someone else needs, and there happens to be little competition. So the Handyman gets chosen for the job.
Level #3: The Craftsman
The Craftsman has fallen in love with what she does. Because of the passion for the craft, she becomes a little better than others.
The Craftsman gets picked when she is handy and at the same time rises enough above the average.
Level #4: The Noteworthy
The Noteworthy professional is unique. She is one and only. And because of it, she gets asked to do the job by name.
The Noteworthy has a reputation that trickles to spaces where she isn’t even present.
Being The Noteworthy is not easy, but it is worth it.
It requires daring, sweating, and skill development outside of the core. It takes things like attitude, passion, energy, coachability, going the extra mile, being prepared, and an unmatched work ethic. It can even require focusing on things like re-inventing the body language and finding your voice.
All of these things are an investment with uncertainty.
There are no certain rewards and certainly not upfront ones. But usually, with consistency and time, the rewards increase way above the norm.
Becoming The Noteworthy is a journey that may not feel safe or comfortable. But on that journey, you will build an asset that creates safety and comfort. With this asset, you generate options for your career; you become someone who would be missed by clients, colleagues, and bosses if you were to leave.
Level #5: The Outstanding
The Outstanding professional does work and delivers results that are far beyond the norm. She works in ways that significantly stand out from the rest. For that, she will be criticized and praised in public.
Work on The Outstanding level gets talked about because it’s WORTH talking about! It’s worth the second mark. Remarkable. Unmistakeable.
Often reaching this level takes exceptional customer service skills, no matter if it’s the clients, colleagues, or bosses you’re serving.
When you are The Outstanding, your reputation builds with the story that other people tell about how you work, how you communicate, how you appear, and how you deliver.
The rewards on the Outstanding level are drastically disproportionate to all of the rest.
So now is the time for you to decide.
Are you someone who just does a job and settles, or are you someone who decides to climb and reach for the next ladder?
The Tool
Here is a tool to use if you choose to level-up or wish to share the idea with someone else. Take out a sheet of paper and walk through the following steps in writing. Don’t try to perfect it; just keep that pen moving!
Step 1: Tell The Truth
Tell the truth to yourself. Where are you really on this five-level ladder? What’s the next reachable ladder for you?
Step 2: Set Your Aim
How high do you want to climb these five ladders? Why do you want it? What will you do with it when you reach it?
Step 3: Pay The Price
What price are you willing to pay to reach the level you desire? What are you ready to give up? What emotions do you need to endure to succeed?
Step 4: Build Assets
What skills, resources, habits, and beliefs do you need to build to make the next level unavoidable? What relationships should you develop? Can you even get a mentor or a coach?
Step 5: Take Action
Only consistent action will take you there. Reflect on your answers and look at step 4. Is asset building on your calendar? If not, make sure you put it there and commit to it!
P.S. Are you a software professional committed to become more? Check out the crazy end of year offer of my Storytools of Testing -book! prove.guru/thebook — The ideas in will totally be worth it!
P.P.S. Did you find this post useful? Tap that clap and please share the message.
|
https://medium.com/kaizen-hour/5-levels-to-professional-breakthrough-stop-waiting-and-build-your-own-career-path-b1922be92de0
|
['Antti Niittyviita']
|
2020-12-18 11:20:12.767000+00:00
|
['Growth', 'Leadership', 'Personal Development', 'Professional Development', 'Goals']
|
Use these five headers for your WordPress or Blogger site
|
When you are writing an article in WordPress or Blogger.
You may come across headings. Headings are the most important aspect of the blog.
Importance Of Headlines
A catchy heading attracts more visitors or readers to attract your article. So, heading play an important role.
So, to attract more visitors here I am mentioning 5 heading styles that attract more.
In the article, I am mentioning code for different headings that you can use on your website for catchy headlines.
Here are the different types of headings with code-
Blue Heading
h2 {
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
background: #5E17EB;
color: #fff;
padding: 10px;
line-height: 1.7em;
box-shadow: 0 2px 10px 0 #cac9c9;
text-align: center;
user-select: none;
cursor: pointer;
border-left: 20px solid #000;
}
One Side Red Heading
h2 {
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
background-image: linear-gradient(to right, #ff5f00, #ff782f, #ff8d4e, #fea26d, #fbb58c);
color: #fff;
padding: 10px;
line-height: 1.7em;
box-shadow: 0 2px 10px 0 #cac9c9;
text-align: left;
user-select: none;
cursor: pointer;
border-left: 20px solid red;
}
Side Rounded Heading
h2 {
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
background: #fff;
color: #000;
padding: 10px;
line-height: 1.7em;
box-shadow: 0 2px 10px 0 #cac9c9;
text-align: center;
user-select: none;
cursor: pointer;
border-left: 20px solid #ff0077;
border-right: 20px solid #ff0077;
border-radius: 55px;
}
Two Side Blue Heading
h2 {
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
background: #D9D9D9;
color: #fff;
padding: 10px;
line-height: 1.7em;
box-shadow: 0 2px 10px 0 #cac9c9;
text-align: center;
user-select: none;
cursor: pointer;
border-left: 30px solid #38B6FF;
border-right: 30px solid #38B6FF;
}
Stylish Curved Corner Orange Heading
h2 {
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
background: #fff;
color: #000;
padding: 10px;
line-height: 1.7em;
box-shadow: 0 2px 10px 0 #cac9c9;
text-align: center;
user-select: none;
cursor: pointer;
border-left: 20px solid #ff5f00;
border-right: 20px solid #ff5f00;
border-radius: 5px 55px 5px 55px;
}
How To Use Code
Now you know all the codes for different headings.
You can implement these codes in your WordPress as well as Blogger website.
Here I am doing it in WordPress you can use it as like as in Blogger also.
To do it first go to your WordPress dashboard and go to appearance and customize.
Then you land up to your customization setting here click on Additional CSS
Click on it and implement your heading code at the last line of these code lines.
After implementing the code click on publish.
Now you see that all your heading parts of your website get your required design.
I hope you like all CSS Heading codes for your website. If you like it want more designs then simply raise a comment in the comment box I will get back with the new stylish heading.
If you have any doubt comment it down I will try to give your answer.
Thank You!
|
https://medium.com/@pradhansoubhagya89/use-these-five-headers-for-your-wordpress-or-blogger-site-20d9881a5e0f
|
[]
|
2021-12-30 13:50:31.003000+00:00
|
['Blogger', 'WordPress', 'Heading', 'Headlines']
|
BECC Listed on COINEGG
|
Dear Supporters:
The deposit for BECC will be enabled at 7:00 (UTC) on Aug 14. Trading pairs will be added at 7:00 (UTC) on Aug 15.
Introduction to BECC
BeePay is a superwallet for all types of crypto asset. It integrates wallet, exchange, investment, market analysis, social networking functions. It not only a wallet to secure and store asset, but also an inclusive blockchain ecosystem.
Website: http://www.beepay.pro/
Whitepaper: http://www.beepay.pro/Beepay_Whitepaper_EN.pdf
Block Explorer: https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d4d05abcadbdbf877c5cd5eb9dac6ddaa17ff89
Risk Warning:
Digital assets are innovative investment product, and the price is volatile and unpredictable. Please make rational decisions when investing.
Enjoy your trading on CoinEgg!
COINEGG
Aug 13, 2018
|
https://medium.com/coinegg/becc-listed-on-coinegg-6fa8c3a909f4
|
['Coinegg Exchange']
|
2018-08-13 05:51:35.733000+00:00
|
['Altcoins', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Currency Exchange']
|
In Detroit and Flint (USA), no more water for the poor
|
I am Justin Wedes, a co-founder of Detroit Water Brigade, a non-profit advocacy and rapid relief organization responding to the city’s aggressive water shut-off program. I work on water issues with low-income families, the homeless, and unemployed people in Detroit and Flint.
In Detroit and Flint, people have been facing multiple ongoing crises that arise ultimately from inequality, bad state governance, and a lack of representation of people living in poverty in their local government. People are being denied access to clean water. Under a state emergency management, a city manager ruled over the city and decided to switch the source of water. That corroded the pipes in the municipal water and sent heavy metals, such as lead and cooper, into the homes of mostly people with low incomes. Thousands of people were exposed to toxic substances and affected children will have irreparable damage to their physical and psychological development. Furthermore, the city of Detroit continues to shut water off on thousands of people who can’t afford the water bills.
What does it mean for democracy when a city manager, appointed by a governor with no democratic input, has a full control over the city? I think it’s really important to unpack the term state of emergency; yes, when there is an urgent crisis we need relief and support, but emergencies are also declared under false pretenses and with the intention of doing harm to people (e.g. busting up unions and taking away people’s rights). When these conditions are imposed upon people, does it make the natural system of checks and balances then unable to confront issues that come up?
I cannot imagine that this decision would have been made under a democratic, self-governing municipality. In fact, when the recent mayoral election came up and the city moved out of the emergency management, a new mayor was elected on the platform of ending this emergency by calling in federal resources and fixing the infrastructure. This shows that democracy, the idea that people can govern themselves and that they can provide the oversight needed to ensure that public services are provided to meet people’s needs, works. But when you take it away from people, there are all of these perverse incentives that prioritize profits and political ambition over the needs of regular people, particularly people living in poverty.
We live in a country that is so heavy in corporate rule and power that it’s impossible to disentangle the role of corporations from that of politics. Corporations are the largest funders of our governors and the elected officials’ campaigns that the influence our government yields is directed and controlled largely by corporate interests.
It doesn’t make sense that thousands of people in Michigan don’t have access to clean water, when they are surrounded by 20% of the world’s potable fresh water in the Great Lakes. One of the ways to explain it is that the emergency city manager subverted the will of the people in favor of the interests of those who don’t even live in the region. Flint is a poor, majority African American city that did not vote for this governor, who was a Republican and did not come from the party that traditionally had a lot of African American support. So many people saw this as a punishment for not voting for him. Now that is a very cynical view, but the perception is real and I don’t think it’s entirely inaccurate.
Michigan has very few protections on campaign finance. We have the governor’s top aide, whose wife is a spokesperson for Nestlé Waters, a large bottled water company. Nestlé has many, very poorly negotiated contracts with the state of Michigan to extract water from the Great Lakes. The sad, cruel irony of this is that they are actually profiting from this crisis by selling more bottles of water to people who can’t access clean, affordable, public, municipal water. This is the epidemic of privatization, when people cannot get water from the tap but have to buy it by the bottle.
Many people I’ve known also have strived for dignity. This community in Northwest Detroit raised funds to help a barber who had the water cut off at his barbershop wrongfully. Although he was not overdue on his bill, they cut his water off anyway, claiming that his barbershop has the same water line as a business next door that had been closed for a month. A barbershop in African American communities in the US is in many ways a town hall; it’s the center of the community. We raised funds to help him recoup the cost of days without water and he gave free haircuts to all the kids in the community.
[caption id=”attachment_1054" align=”aligncenter” width=”600"]
Flint residents visit a local fire station to pick up donated water being distributed by the Michigan National Guard. Photo: Justin Wedes, 1/16/16[/caption]
Then we met his pastor, who was trying to acquire an abandoned elementary school in the neighborhood to turn it into a community center. We learned that so many people in the community had their water cut off and people were coming to his church for water. He was distributing water bottles and letting people fill water up in his bathroom for them to bathe and cook. Then he was overdue on his bill and the church, a non-profit church that served many people in the community, had its water and lights cut off. So we campaigned with him. I remember him passionately speaking outside of the district court house on the morning of the big trial that challenged water shut off: “We have a God-given right to water. Water is our human right. We need water to live.” Water is not a privilege. It’s not a private good you receive as a fruit of your labor; you need water to work. To cut water off shows negligence, a careless disregard for the needs of people.
We have to defend people. It’s not enough to deliver water bottles; it’s not enough to send water filters because those filters don’t even work at the high lead concentration that we’ve been seeing in homes. You have to be an advocate; you have to speak up for people who don’t have a voice. Isn’t that the lesson about poverty we’ve learned in this country: that you can’t eradicate poverty just with money? Whether it’s from a religious perspective or a civic perspective, we have an obligation to protect each other.
An article written by Justin, “The Flint Crisis is Not Just About the Water. It’s About Poverty” http://www.justinwedes.com/2016/01/21/the-flint-crisis-is-not-just-about-the-water-its-about-poverty/
Justin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinwedes
|
https://medium.com/together-in-dignity/in-detroit-and-flint-usa-no-more-water-for-the-poor-ab31fc59bfe6
|
['Atd Fourth World']
|
2018-02-12 13:51:52.416000+00:00
|
['United States', 'Human Rights', 'Discrimination', 'Racism']
|
When A Migraine Feels Like A Stroke
|
Women suffer from migraines more often than men do, and researchers say that hormones may be the culprit. Estrogen may make women more sensitive to migraine triggers. For this reason, oral contraceptives containing estrogen (i.e. most of them) are contraindicated for women who experience migraine with aura. There is plenty of evidence to back this up.
Migraine symptoms can mimic those of transient ischemic attacks, or “mini strokes”, which some studies suggest could foreshadow a “real” stroke. And alarmingly, women who experience migraine with aura might be at an increased risk as well; blood vessels temporarily narrow during a migraine attack, which can cause blood clots to form, making migraine sufferers more susceptible to full-blown strokes.
Maybe it isn’t “just a headache”.
When CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin recently “disappeared” in the middle of her set, fans on social media began to ask where she had gone.
That’s how quickly it happens; you’re fine, and then you’re not. Thousands of people responded to her post, expressing empathy, and sharing their own stories of being completely debilitated by a sudden migraine attack.
Thankfully, I haven’t had a migraine in a few months after consulting with my doctor and making some lifestyle changes. I still get them a few times a year, but it’s a drastic improvement from having them on a regular basis.
But still, I’m frightened each and every time it happens.
What if it happens when I’m driving? When I’m crossing a busy street? When I’m holding a pot of boiling water?
By the time I say to myself, “I think I’m going to have a mi — ”, it’s too late. I couldn’t even call for help if I tried.
Considering how common migraine attacks are and how dangerous they can be, it’s concerning that there are so few ways to make them stop.
There are abortive medications that take awhile to kick in. There are injectable triptans that work rapidly, similar to an Epipen, but need to be administered at the first sign of trouble. And there are pain medications that help you deal with the after-effects.
The key, perhaps, is in prevention.
Find out what triggers your migraines, and work with a doctor to eliminate as many triggers as possible.
Some of the triggers might be biological; you can address these with your doctor and try to eliminate the underlying causes.
Others might be environmental, such as exposure to bright lights.
While attempting to prevent all migraines can be futile, it’s important to realize that stopping a migraine in its tracks might be altogether impossible. Considering the potential risks of having recurrent migraines, it’s in your best interest to do whatever necessary to prevent as many of them as possible.
And when it comes to environmental triggers, there are usually simple solutions; you can tint the windows of your car darker than the legal limits, for example, with a note and an accurate diagnosis from a doctor.
|
https://kerisavoca.medium.com/when-a-migraine-feels-like-a-stroke-e4d35057bd4a
|
['Keri Savoca']
|
2020-11-11 02:13:39.738000+00:00
|
['Health', 'Life Lessons', 'Medicine', 'Women', 'Life']
|
How Do You Know There is a God? — MuslimGap
|
“Or were they created by nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]?” (Quran Surah 52. Ath Thuur verse 35)
During my first year at UCLA, I decided to go to a Dawah workshop held by one of the brothers involved in the MSA. The goal of the workshop was to teach Muslims how to share our faith with non-Muslims. I thought it would be a lecture where I would sit and listen to a speaker for about an hour. When I got there, the first question the speaker asked us was: “How do you know God exists?” He began going around and asking each one of us, and I started to get nervous because I never really thought of this question. There were a few people answering before me, which gave me a bit of time to think. I was anxious because I felt that I did not have enough religious knowledge to even answer. Brothers and sisters were giving all sorts of responses such as scientific proof and other evidence shown in the Qur’an. Then, it was my turn to answer.
“How do you know there is a God?” he asked. I could not really think of any clever responses, so I just gave the simplest answer that popped into my head. “I just know He does. I know because every time I hear recitation of the Qur’an or listen to a lecture about Islam; I get this feeling in my heart that is unexplainable.” It is a feeling that gives me goose bumps, but at the same time accompanies calmness.
It has been three years since I attended the lecture, and I know that I will never forget this question. I continue to think about it, and realized that there are so many answers to this question and each time I think about it, my answer changes. One particular scenario that I once heard in an Islamic lecture really helped me think about the existence of God. The speaker told us to imagine being alone in a desert, and then spotting a cell phone on the sand. You then ask yourself: could that cellphone somehow randomly appear on its own? Did all the parts somehow magically come together? No, someone had to design the phone, make the chip, etc. The wind did not just bring all the parts together creating this phone; there had to be a creator. Similarly, the human body, system and organs could not have randomly come together to form a human being. Just looking at the details of the human eye and heart alone, I know Allah (SWT) is the only plausible explanation.
I want to share this experience because the question may sound simple, but we sometimes forget to just pause and think about it. The answer is difficult because the response is different for each of us. Having this thought in the back of my mind has helped me become more God conscious and feel closer to my creator. Take a few minutes and try to answer it: How do you know God exists? Feel free to comment so we may all benefit insha’Allah. May Allah (SWT) strengthen our relationship with him.
|
https://medium.com/@muslimgap/how-do-you-know-there-is-a-god-muslimgap-aeb1f3060e5
|
[]
|
2021-02-20 00:03:01.814000+00:00
|
['Muslim Americans', 'Muslim', 'Islamic', 'Islam']
|
Thank you for putting these words out there!
|
Thank you for putting these words out there!
As a fellow teacher (7th year), much of what you said about burnout is true. Normally, I have this moment of reckoning right around Spring Break until the worry fades away. This year is different.
I’d like to tack on that many leaders within districts are either willingly or passively maintaining the status quo. And that just isn’t reasonable.
Admin and district leadership everywhere are showing how good they are at enforcing requirements, but failing to challenge broken systems.
|
https://medium.com/@nickmarmolejo/thank-you-for-putting-these-words-out-there-fe9100fbe9dd
|
['Rice']
|
2020-12-09 04:21:58.610000+00:00
|
['Children', 'Advice', 'Teachers', 'Parenting', 'Schools']
|
Clojure on Functional Programming
|
Authors: Ryan Towle and James Park
Date: November 10, 2020
Among college-level Computer Scientists, functional programming can get a little bit of a bad reputation. Programming is traditionally taught from a Java-based perspective–encapsulation, abstraction, inheritance, and polymorphism are truly the keywords of a beginner’s journey into CS, with other concepts like mutability left off to the wayside, along with many others. It’s for this reason that many are uncomfortable, let alone unfamiliar with the idea of immutability. We learn concepts like states, and even go in-depth into concepts like semaphores all for the sake of handling mutability, without even questioning why it is that we go to those lengths in the first place.
The truth is, the concept of mutability has been in the spotlight for so long that immutability has been forced to sit in the back seat, though not without good reason. Back during the 60s, when the first LISP was being developed, it just didn’t make as much sense to use all that extra space for what the language had to offer. Of course, when you live in a world where memory and storage isn’t as cheap as pennies on the dollar from your friends over at AWS, efficiency and re-usage become the best option, though as mentioned, not without their drawbacks.
However, the thinking of this era still prevails, despite the times changing quite so. Thankfully, we’re starting to see a bit of shift in the other direction. Over the last 2 decades or so, we’ve started to see a huge resurgence in the usage of functional programming languages, all thanks to a field called web development. It turns out that the key functional programming principles like immutability and function composition can be pretty useful in that context. As the market shifts more and more to the Internet of things, functional programming
Over this past summer of 2020, author and programmer Ryan Towle spent a few months at CollBox, a small finance startup based in Austin, Texas. There, he spent the summer learning a functional language named Clojure, which, much like Scala, is built on top of the Java Virtual Machine, though much more similar to LISP in its syntax and structure. It was there he learned about the fundamentals mentioned above.
It was from this experience that when Ryan was tasked with learning and utilizing Scala for a simple data analysis project, the process of applying functional programming fundamentals shared with Clojure became evident, as well as the differences between Scala and a type of LISP.
In terms of the programming fundamentals, there are two main differences between the two. Firstly, Scala is a statically typed language, while Clojure, being a type of LISP, is dynamically typed, essentially distinguishing where variables can be defined, as well as how they can be initialized before usage. Related to that is the second difference, Scala being object-oriented. Despite Clojure being built on top of the JVM, the language itself is not object-oriented, which aligns itself a lot more closely with more traditional functional programming languages.
Syntactically, Scala looks much more similar to Java, utilizing much of the same syntax surrounding variables, classes, and data structures, though still very different in terms of function calls, constructors, and function definitions. Clojure, being a type of LISP, takes a very different approach, treating the entire program as a single list. One of the signature traits of LISPs is the rather extreme usage of parentheses, as every function call comes at the beginning of a new pair of parentheses, with any related arguments coming afterwards. This even extends to basic functions like addition and subtraction. For example:
def number = 1 + 5
becomes
(def number (+ 1 5))
where the operator comes before the values, and is always at the start of the parentheses. These sorts of small syntactic differences make it often difficult to learn initially, but over time can reduce the complexity of learning new functions or libraries, as the format for a function call is standardized.
These are just a handful of both the syntactic and fundamental differences between the two languages, but hopefully these examples should make it clear that even within the paradigm shift that is functional programming, there are many different ways that languages can be expressed. After spending some time with them, we both recommend learning functional programming, due to the better understanding they can give you not just of functional programming, but even many other languages by proxy of understanding the alternatives.
|
https://medium.com/@twin-48562/clojure-on-functional-programming-34053fc7cd79
|
['Ryan Towle']
|
2020-11-11 03:42:38.154000+00:00
|
['Clojure', 'Scala', 'Functional Programming']
|
The Missing Piece to the Life Puzzle
|
“You can only get what you already have”
We all have so much love within. Sure, sometimes we feel disconnected, but make no mistake, it is all in there. The truth is, every thought and feeling exist within each one of us. The question is, where do we put our attention? Because it is our attention, our present awareness that decides what gets heard and reinforced. What we bring to our everyday lives.
It is like we are a radio gadget with all these possible channels, frequencies we can connect to. Let’s try it for a second: focus on someone you love a lot. Picture a few scenes where you felt connected to that person. Stay there. How does it feel in your body as you remember these scenes? Do you smile at yourself? Do you feel lighter instantly? Let that energy expand to you more and more. See? It is already there. We all have it. The more you come back to this feeling, the more you get to live from it.
You can do this with anything. Moments of great joy or thoughts of dissatisfaction, your choice.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that reinforces negative frequencies and we go with it, instead of actively exercising our ability to change stations. We accept suffering, misery, working for something without a purpose, not developing our dreams. We reinforce our worries on and on by keeping our attention on them. That can only happen from a place where we don’t see our worth more. We lack self-love and self-acceptance. Even worse, we accept dissatisfaction.
So off we go looking for dates so we are not lonely, instead of looking for people to expand our existing joy with. We act out of preventing the bad instead of expanding the good. These are such different places to act from.
Sadly many of us don’t think we deserve to live from a place of love and joy. We might say we do, but off our mind goes worrying about things, frustrated, disconnected, living “as it is”.
It is by connecting to the love we all already have within that we connect to love everywhere. If we go around looking for better situations outside without improving our radio station, the job will be infinite.
|
https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/the-missing-piece-to-the-life-we-want-to-live-8324bc671152
|
['Aline Müller']
|
2020-10-12 14:33:50.403000+00:00
|
['Self Improvement', 'Empowerment', 'Love', 'Self Love', 'Philosophy']
|
Flabbergast your Sweetheart in UAE with these 7 Fabulous Valentine Gifts
|
The four-lettered word “Love” is the most magical and affectionate love in the English dictionary. It has the power to make the butterfly dance in the stomach and make the wisest man on the Earth the craziest one. Such was the energy in this world that a day called “Valentine’s Day” was commemorated in its respect. Though this festival originated in the west, this day of love has left its impression on the entire world.
Lovebirds all over the world observe this festival with severe diligence and always lookout for new ways for surprising the love of their life. People, whose lady love are away from them in UAE owing to work commitments; don’t feel disheartened as they can still send their sweethearts some incredible Gifts for Valentine to UAE with the help of online gifting sites.
With such a wonderful variety of gifts available on these online gift stores like flowers, hampers, personalized gift items, cakes, chocolates, and teddy bears, people can effortlessly convey your romantic feelings with these incredible Valentine gifts. The amazing delivery services of these online stores will assist people in delivering their packages of love to their sweethearts anywhere in UAE. Below are some Valentine’s gift suggestions that can be considered to surprise the sweetheart staying in UAE-
Bouquet of blooming flowers
A Bouquet of Delight Standard
A bunch of flowers is the most precious and incomparable gift when it comes to expressing love and affection for the special ones. Flowers are not just an epitome of grace and beauty, but they can also convey a feeling called love in the most inexplicable way. Blooms like red roses, pink roses, carnations, lilies, and daises have a natural power to charm the beloved with their magical beauty and alluring aromas. This Valentine’s Day, let the flowers speak the heartfelt emotions and instill a feeling of longing in the beloved’s heart.
2. Aromatic candles
Think of a time when she enters her home after a stressful day at work, the beautiful aroma of the gifted aromatic candles will make her forget all the worries. That must be really satisfying to the lover! All this must have made many people decide on this Valentine’s gift suggestion. Even though the lovers are apart but the fragrance of these scented candles will bring them closer.
3. Customized Detox kit
Women have a natural urge to look young and beautiful. Just to maintain their beauty and charm, they often pay visits to the beauty salons and spa centers to rejuvenate their beauty. So let’s make this Valentine’s Day a perfect and a special one by sending a customized Detox kit to them. This basket of cosmetic products will certainly touch her heart and make her fall in love with you even more.
4. Personalized photo frame
Personalized photo frame
For people who are away from their families, photographs are the only source of happiness. Valentine’s is the time of celebrating love and when the beloved is far away in another country, nothing is more sorrowful. Therefore, this Valentine’s Day, gifting beautiful photo frame designed with the most memorable pictures which will bring back the cherished memories in the mind of the sweetheart.
5. Teddy bear with chocolates
Teddy bear with chocolates
Thinking of sending Teddy Day Gifts to Dubai to the special one? Though sounds a bit kiddish, they are the most wanted items during the week of Valentine. These cute stuff toys are most loved by women on the day of love. Sending a big teddy bear along with the beloved’s favorite chocolates will make fall deeper in love with his man. The gifted teddy will make her feel your presence around her. She will sleep keeping this teddy by her side and enjoy the chocolates while talking to her man over the phone.
6. Jewelry
There is no woman in this world who would say no jewelry. Jewelry is the best way to say “I Love You” to the lady of your dreams. Gifting the lady love with a piece of precious jewelry like a ring, necklace, bracelet, or earrings will undoubtedly melt her heart. This can be a small gesture in making your relationship even stronger and take it to the next level.
7. A surprise visit
No Valentine's gift in this world has the power to surprise a woman than a sudden surprise visit. Just imagine the look on her face? It’s just heavenly! So get the ticket booked before it’s too late. Don’t forget to pick a bouquet of vivacious flowers and a bottle of champagne for her after arriving in UAE. Meeting after such a long time will surely bring happy tears in the eyes of the lovers.
If there is confusion regarding the trustworthy online gifting site, then Flowerdeliveryuae.ae is one of the best online gifting sites efficiently delivering happiness along with Valentine Gifts in Dubai, anywhere in UAE. Happy shopping!
|
https://medium.com/@flowerdeliveryuae/flabbergast-your-sweetheart-in-uae-with-these-7-fabulous-valentine-gifts-e4a9cfe8b48f
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[]
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2020-01-23 07:06:05.770000+00:00
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['Valentines Day']
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Size Outweighs Style
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One of my favourite trends this year has been “is it a good fit or is she just skinny” because the answer is always resoundingly she’s just skinny. I’ve seen size 4 kids pulling up to classes in outifts that I know for a fact got me bullied in highschool (matching purple cashmere sweater/mini skirt anyone?) and being complimented. My tattoos are scary and intimidating even though they’re pretty basic black linework, where the bang-sporting, 5 foot 3, XS blonde from my sociology class’s tattoos are ‘super cute and fun’! Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid do the bare minumum and are constantly called style icons. All this is to say there’s bare hypocrisy going on and beauty/fashion is so far from objective it’s like getting taught science at a Catholic school.
To further explain in a very arrogant move, I have the current ideal facial features:
Full lips
Almond eyes with long ass lashes
Button nose
Little bit tan all year round
3A curly hair
High cheekbones
And I’m still ugly as shit apparently. Ariana Grande and Madison Beer? The Kardashians? They pay to get my mixed race vibe going on and even though I’ve got it, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I’m fat and tall. My style, which comes from years of mixing ethical street, contemporary, and business, falls short of a skinny kid in a sweatshop made tennis skirt and crewneck sweater. As much as it sounds like I think I’m the hottest out there and a fashion god to boot, that’s not what I’m trying to get at. What I’m aiming for is this simple truth that no matter how hard you try, how naturally blessed you might be, how up-to-date you might stay - size outweighs actual looks.
There’s this sick twitter thread that highlights it fully in a fashion context: https://twitter.com/raynefq/status/1283132756919083008
If you’re straight size (below size 14) and reading this, you’ve probably never thought about just how many of your trends are exclusionist. And hey, that’s not on you, dress how you want but that ignorance = privilege.
Oversized clothes? Name a brand that offers oversized for the ‘oversized’.
Thrifted band shirts? All the skinny kids take the big sizes to wear them as dresses, leaving fat people (who we know earn less) the scraps.
The recent, awful, resurgence of the lowrise jean and lace singlet combo? Yeah I’m getting a beating if I ever wore that.
Bodycon dresses and strappy sandals at night? Just give me the sign up sheet for pull-a-pig, and fat girl rodeo while you’re at it.
The thing about this though, is that these ^ are all just bits of clothes on a body. There is nothing that means one person deserves to wear these styles more or less because - and say it with me - fashion is irrelevant. It’s sacks of colour over bodies. It means nothing. I like fashion, but it’s an industry built on classism, capitalism, misogyny, fatphobia, transphobia, and appropriation.
I, as a 2–3xl giant, will never be on trend because clothing isn’t about clothing, it’s about body types. The 1950s favoured ‘real women’ with an hourglass shape, while the 80s and 90s wanted people without curves in ‘heroin chic’. The fabric isn’t the fashion, the body is.
So no matter how hard someone above a size 14 tries, we’re never going to be ‘fashionable’. We can have the ‘perfect face’ and it’s all cancelled out by having a slight double chin (Barbie Ferreira and Ashley Graham the skinny face queens). Appearances shouldn’t be important at all, but mainly for feminine associated people, it’s our entire social worth. Shit.
M
|
https://medium.com/@maiabearyman/size-outweighs-style-bd90ea1ed2e1
|
[]
|
2020-12-26 02:30:50.658000+00:00
|
['Style', 'Size', 'Fashion', 'Fat']
|
International Relations PhD Surprises: Coffee Conversations Episode 1
|
International Relations Career Ph.D. Surprises Webisode with Ilkmade Careers
I saw this interesting webisode on Ilkmade Careers about International Relations career PhD surprises.
Here is the video on Youtoube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVfGNivgsqQ
Rebecca Chen: Hi. I’m Rebecca Chen, and welcome to Ilkmade Careers’ Coffee Conversation, a show where we speak to various guests in the political space at different stages in their education and careers, digging deep to uncover the insight they’ve gained.
In this episode, we’re discussing International Relations PhD surprises, with Angela Ju, Visiting Assistant Professor at Quinnipiac University, Ivan Farias, Policy Consultant at Public Asesores, and Emeka Njoku, PhD candidate at University of Ibadan. We’ll look at how they dealt with some unexpected challenges and surprises, and how they overcame them.
What did you find really surprising while you pursued your PhD in International Relations?
Angela Ju: The most unexpected thing that happened to me while getting my PhD was just having to change my dissertation topic after having advanced to candidacy. I actually ended up changing almost all of my dissertation committee and getting a new dissertation chair.
Ivan Farias: Many of us can see the International Relations PhD as being only a preparation for getting into academia, and ideally a professorship. Actually, a PhD can also be a sort of tool or training for getting onto other things, research yes, but also policy practice and policy analysis.
Emeka Njoku: One of the things that surprised me when I started a PhD was how lonely the program can be.
Rebecca Chen: I think we all can maybe relate to some of that feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Emeka Njoku: You can just have an idea, and you really want to discuss it. You want to talk about it, sort of share those ideas and get feedback.
Was there some things that you did to kind of try to overcome that?
Angela Ju: Just developing a support network outside of academia. For me, that just really helped with my sanity, to not have to think about my research all the time, when I’m hanging out with friends.
|
https://medium.com/goodnow-content/international-relations-phd-surprises-coffee-conversations-episode-1-f2cb52de316b
|
['Michael Gaman']
|
2019-08-21 17:58:11.208000+00:00
|
['International Relations', 'PhD', 'Education', 'Careers']
|
Stop Carrying The World On Your Shoulders
|
Stop Carrying The World On Your Shoulders
Photo by Gong TY on Unsplash
Find your purpose in life. Your raison d’être.
Seek it.
Let go of everything else.
You cannot save the world.
Yes it’s hard to hear but it’s also a relief.
You’ll find comfort in knowing that you can save yourself, instead.
I refuse to believe the world is doomed and collapsing.
That people are either purely evil or not at all.
We are species put on this earth for God knows what reasons.
What is going on in the world, it is not yours to keep.
It doesn’t belong to you.
The pain isn’t yours.
Even though it hurts.
Yes we can all improve as mankind.
But first and foremost, it is you who must improve on your own.
If we all improve, by just a little bit, we will inhabit a safer world.
But it starts with you. It always does.
You worry a lot.
And it steals you away from the here and now.
From the little things that may cause you to smile.
Phone calls from your grandma.
The warm sun settling on your skin.
From ordinary life.
Life will never be perfect.
It will never be still.
Evil will never cease to exist.
Just like good will never stop lighting your life, even if it’s just with glimpses at a time.
Stop carrying the world on your shoulders.
Seek stillness.
Comfort.
Love.
Inspiration.
Purpose.
God.
Once you do, you will be abundant and have so much to give back.
This is the real cycle of life.
|
https://medium.com/@alaradiisra/stop-carrying-the-world-on-your-shoulders-49bbddad3058
|
['Isra Alaradi']
|
2021-06-17 11:15:31.330000+00:00
|
['Living', 'Life', 'Letting Go']
|
How To Solve Non-Linear Equations Using Matlab?
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How to Solve Non-Linear Equations Using Matlab
A step-by-step guide on how to find roots of non-linear equations using the bisection method on Matlab.
We all know that calculators have pre-installed general equations which give output basis on the inputs of the equation. The results are quicker and have fewer errors as compared to human solving the equation.
Similarly, solving equations on computers is faster and even have fewer errors as compared to calculators. Computers can perform multiple functions, whereas the latest calculators are limited to a few.
Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash
What is linear and non-linear equation?
Sometimes remembering the definitions can be a really hard task, at such times remembering small indicators is beneficial. How I remember the linear and non-linear equation is through their graphs.
Linear equations look like a straight line when sketched, whereas non-linear equations look like a curve. Linear equations have a constant slope, whereas non-linear equations have a variable slope. Furthermore, the output is directly proportional to its input for linear equations and vice versa for non-linear equations.
For better understanding, let me give an example of a simple linear and non-linear equation.
ax+by+cz=0 — Linear Equation x²-4 — Non Linear Equation
How To Solve Non-Linear Equations Using Matlab?
Algorithm & Source Code:
Algorithm And Source Code of Matlab Program (Bisection Method)
For better understanding, I shall explain how the program works.
As we all know, in order to solve any non-linear equation we need a code which asks the user for the equation. Using the input function, the display asks the user to enter the function and stores it as string because we used a syntax of the function in which we can tell the data type to store in as well. Here it was string s . The function inline converts the string into function.
After the user has entered the non-linear equation, he/she needs to input the limits of x; upper and lower, and tolerance error value.
The program checks if the user enters the correct limits, when the condition is true then the program continues, if not then the program asks user to input the limits again.
The formula for finding the root value of x is “xr=(xu+xl)/2” where xu is the upper limit and xl is the lower limit. After calculating xr, the program will increment tolerance error with 1 and store it in “aerror” variable.
The function fplot will plot the graph of non-linear equation with range of minimum limit (xl) and maximum limit (xu).
There is a pre-condition loop which runs until it fulfils the set condition. The condition is when approximation error is greater than tolerance. After entering the loop, there is an increment for the counter. In each loop, the program checks if the multiple of f(xl) and f(xr) is greater than 0. If the multiple is greater than 0, then the upper limit is stored in the variable of lower limit, whereas if multiple is less than 0, then the lower limit is stored in the variable of upper limit.
After which it recalculates the root value with a new set of limits. The value of approximation error is also recalculated. Then whatever programmer asked for is displayed on screen.
Output:
The graph above is of the non-linear equation “x²-4”, the limits are; 5 as the upper limit and 0 as the lower limit. The root is at x=2, it is circled because of the function plot .
The program will also output a set of values for;
|
https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-solve-non-linear-equations-using-matlab-252b54934dfb
|
['Syed Zaidi']
|
2020-12-21 17:50:28.375000+00:00
|
['Software Development', 'Coding', 'Programming', 'Matlab', 'Technology']
|
Xian Gaza and the art of the con
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“A THREAD: “PAANO LUMABAS NG BANSANG PILIPINAS NG MAY TATLONG WARRANTS OF ARREST AT LIMANG TAONG SENTENSIYA” Warning: The following heart-pumping storyline thread are based on real life events of yours truly Christian Albert Gaza on 30th of September year 2018.”
So begins the viral post of Xian S. Gaza, self-confessed swindler and conman, about his escape from the country and successful evasion of arrest warrants and an imprisonment sentence.
Xian Gaza. Photo from Inquirer. net
In June 2018, the Malabon Metropolitan Trial Court convicted Gaza for 11 counts of violating the Bouncing Check law and sentenced him to five years and six months.
Gaza posted the viral thread last April 7. As of presstime, it has over 19,000 likes, 12,000 comments, and 33,000 shares.
He recounts booking three different flights — two of them decoys and getting away on the third. He says he was warned by a Bureau of Immigration employee that upon passing her booth, airport security and police would be sent to arrest him.
Gaza says he evaded them by hiding in a restroom and staying there until his name was called for his flight.
The BI scoffed at his story that “sounds like it was taken straight out of an action movie… but sadly it’s not what actually happened,” BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said last week.
“Since he had no derogatory record when he left, he was cleared for departure. It was quite uneventful and ordinary, really. No Hollywood-level storyline, just regular immigration clearance,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval said the BI might take action against Gaza. “Stunts like this using the Bureau to gain fame and stay relevant are a security risk,” she said.
“He is making a mockery of our airport procedures for attention.”
Gaza apologized to the BI for his ‘revelation’ and insisted that his claims were — true. Whatever actually happened, Gaza got his 15 minutes of fame and more. He revels in his notoriety, milking his adventures for attention by regularly posting updates on social media.
He claims he fled the country to find a way to pay back his victims: “Kung magpapakulong ako ng limang taon para sa isang complainant at mababayaran ko ang 32M na utang ko habang nasa loob ng kulungan eh eto na susuko na po ako ngayon na.
“Kaso hindi… lalong walang mangyayari sa buhay ko at hindi ako makakagawa ng paraan para lahat sila’y mabayaran in time.”
Xian Gaza in jail. Photo from pep.ph
Can he be trusted? He has shown time and again what an incredible liar he is. Conmen are incredibly persuasive. They leverage confidence — they are full of self-confidence, and they gain your confidence and trust, which they then abuse.
But unlike many other criminals, Gaza is self-aware. He responded to comments that he has a mental disorder by saying, “Yes, meron po matagal na. May retainer psychiatrist ako sa QC [Quezon City] near Trinoma since when I was 17.
“I am a SOCIOPATH. I have antisocial personality disorder simula bata pa lang ako. I received ASPD [anti-social personality disorder] diagnosis many times already.” He added that he cannot empathize with the feelings of others, which makes it easy for him to manipulate and deceive.
He explains, “Sociopaths often break rules or make impulsive decisions without feeling guilty for the harm they cause. Malala yung case ko because I have five out of the seven traits ng isang taong may APSD.”
For all his faults, Xian’s larger-than-life narratives and witty repartee have gained him many followers on social media:
Karen Vera wrote: “Eto lang ata ung scammer na, imbis mbwesit ako sayo.. natutuwa ako. (smile emoji) NASCAMM MO RIN ATA ANG PUSO KO! (heart eyes emoji) (smile emoji)”
His recent status update shows Gaza in a trendy black suit with the caption, “Hulihin Niyo Ko Kung Kaya Niyo” — Main Character: XIAN S. GAZA. Some of the finest and trustworthy businessmen are slim yellowish chinitos in tuxedo. But not Xian, Xian will take all your life savings.”
Gaza is referring to ‘Catch Me If You Can,’ a film based on the life of super conman Frank W. Abagnale. While still a teen, he posed variously as a pilot, physician, lawyer, and college sociology professor, and scammed people of over $2.5 million in forged checks.
Is it time for a movie based on Xian’s shenanigans? Or do we give him a few more years to see what he does next?
Nyeeaam! ***
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. ~ aphorism / FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO
Originally published in Manila Standard, April 27, 2019, Saturday. http://manilastandard.net/opinion/columns/pop-goes-the-world-by-jenny-ortuoste/293329/xian-gaza-and-the-art-of-the-con.html
|
https://medium.com/@drjennyortuoste/xian-gaza-and-the-art-of-the-con-6e6477fc2283
|
['Dr Jenny Ortuoste']
|
2019-04-27 13:57:43.767000+00:00
|
['Trickster', 'Philippines', 'Conmen', 'Crime', 'Xian Gaza']
|
LOOK! Tips to Decorating a Bedroom Interior
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Redesigning a bedroom indoors may be a frightening task, in particular, whilst your daughter is developing up so fast. But ensure you’re making it amusing through inclusive of your daughter’s thoughts and character into the mix. As parents, we turn out to be distracted considering ourselves. Remember, creating a bedroom realistic is critical in addition to growing an area wherein a female can unwind and be herself. Are you looking for an Interior designer for bedroom?
These days it is so clean to create custom-designed furnishings. All you want is to collect a fixed of thoughts to redo your daughter’s bedroom. Compile bedroom thoughts through traveling furnishings shops wherein they have got a show bedroom. Sort thru furnishings and indoor layout magazines and select out your preferred indoor layout thoughts. Browse the net and store the limitless range of pictures to be had in your ee-ebook of bedroom thoughts. Interior design for bedroom is a leading blogging platform.
Once you’ve got fixed of bedroom thoughts prepared in a binder, talk all selections together along with your daughter and permit her manual you. Listen to the entirety she has to mention earlier than you start selecting paint color schemes and furnishings styles. You do not need to install all that difficult paintings without her approval. Agreeing together along with your daughter on a realistic bedroom indoors layout and “cool” bedroom indoors layout may be difficult. The key to decorating your daughter’s bedroom is patience.
When choosing the color scheme in your daughter’s bedroom indoors, studies the bedroom colorings. It is critical which you create heat and enjoyable surroundings in your daughter due to the fact colorings have an effect on her psyche. If your daughter desires the Barbie warm red color, comprise that warm red color in an accessory wall or sure furnishings. Compromise among your daughter’s likes and your preferences. Submit your blog through Interior design for bedroom Write for us.
Buying secondhand furnishings at your nearest thrift save is a profitable investment. I actually have observed portions of furnishings that wanted little retouching to seem like new. Browse thru Craigslist to grab a terrific deal on first-class furnishings. Drive-thru your community to store at backyard income. Yard income has hidden treasures! You need not spend heaps of bucks to redo your daughter’s bedroom. Just a bit of elbow grease out of your element pays off withinside the lengthy run.
If you’ve got cash to spend, discuss it with an indoor clothier. The indoors clothier will do all of the difficult paintings for you. Research their heritage and ensure you may talk properly with him or them.
Final Tips
Create a whole lot garage room in your developing daughter and preserve it properly prepared. Keep the room clutter-free, simple, and realistic without taking far from your daughter’s preferences. Keep tv and laptop outdoor in her bedroom. Instead, create a unique place in your daughter’s look at time wherein you may oversee her laptop use. Most importantly make the revel in of readorning your bedroom indoors amusing!
For more details visit us:- https://interiordesignforbedroom.com
|
https://medium.com/@nabilla12/look-tips-to-decorating-a-bedroom-interior-41f43cf2dd50
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[]
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2021-11-18 10:23:04.534000+00:00
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['Furniture', 'Interior Design', 'Bedroom Decor']
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Programming 101: Where to start your programming journey
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Software Engineering is one of the most lucrative careers these days and with the rise of Machine Learning, Data Science, everyone is talking about Computer Programming.
When someone starts to learn to program, it seems a huge task and most people don’t know where to start and certainly, there is a lot to cover if you are starting from scratch. So to make a task of programming easy for you guys who are just beginning their journey, I am writing about the most basic things about programming and which language you should choose as your first programming language so that you don’t get overwhelmed in the beginning.
I will discuss 5 things in this blog:
What is programming? What is a programming language? How many programming languages are there? Which programming language should you choose as your first? Some free resources to start learning to program from MIT and Harvard.
What is programming?
A computer is a physical(hardware) machine, it takes information as an input, processes it and stores it or give us an output.
Now, the computer doesn’t understand formal languages like English or Spanish. It understands the binary language, a complex set of 1 and 0.
We give instructions to the machine about how to perform a certain task in the form of some code in the language computer understands and the set of instructions that directs computer hardware to perform a task is called a program, or software program and this process of creating a set of instructions that tell a computer how to perform a task is called programming.
What is a programming language?
Now that you understand what it means by programming, let me tell you what you will need to become a programmer.
When you want to talk to someone or tell them what you want them to do, you use some kind of language, it could be English, Hindi, Spanish or even a sign language depending upon the need to make it easy to transfer the information from us to the person we are trying to communicate, in a similar way we use programming languages to accomplish the task of giving instruction to the computer.
So if you want to be a programmer, the first thing you need to understand is programming languages.
A programming language is a set of notations and rules which are used to generate the set of instructions and implement algorithms(we’ll discuss what is algorithms later in detail).
Now, the next question arises: how many programming languages are there and how many do you need to learn to start programming?
How many programming languages are there?
Now according to Wikipedia, there are approximately 700 programming languages and some sources tell us even this number could be in thousands!
But the good news is that you don’t need to worry about so many programming languages because you don’t need to learn them all, you can just start by learning 1 language.
Now some of the most popular languages are C, C++, Python, Java, Javascript, PHP, Swift, C#, Ruby, Objective-C, Go, R etc.
Which programming language should you choose as your first?
Now there is no hard and fast rule to choose or to say that one language is better than other, it just depends on what you want to achieve with that language and it depends on many factors. But if you are just starting and have no background in programming and technology, then you must go with some relatively easy language like Python so that you don’t lose interest in programming in the beginning because of complexities and C is also a great language to start if you want to understand computers on a basic level and want to learn about memory management. In fact, C was my first programming language.
Now, I don’t want it to get complicated for you, so I will give you some simple advice here. If you are not from a tech background and you are just diving in the world of programming then just go with Python, it’s relatively simple and you can make many cool things just after few weeks or months of learning it, so it will give you motivation for continuing your programming journey.
If you are in some university course then you can choose your first language according to your curriculum and needs of the course. Generally, people choose Python, C or Java as their first programming languages. It is not a rule and you can always choose some other language but I would suggest not to get too much pressure about it. After a certain point in your journey, it won’t matter. So just pick one and start this beautiful journey.
Note: I will write more about python and its various frameworks, so if you choose Python as your first language then you can read more blogs about it here.
Some free resources to learn in a structured way:
Programming basics, Scratch, C, Python, Javascript: CS50 Harvard University
2. Programming basics, Python: MIT Course Number 6.0001
|
https://medium.com/@gauravcy19/programming-101-where-to-start-your-programming-journey-49d2f63b202f
|
['Gaurav Chaudhary']
|
2020-12-20 08:37:41.429000+00:00
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['Python', 'Computers', 'Software Development', 'Programming Languages', 'Programming']
|
Talk is Cheap
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Pets
Talk is Cheap
Yadda-yadda-do-do-do on xmas eve
Photo by Łukasz Rawa on Unsplash
It’s widely known by humans that pets speak in the various languages of the countries in which they have permanent residency but one night a year. That night falls on Christmas Eve. U.S. pets, for instance, do not speak in English or ESL at any other time during the year. Sad but true since it’s a great loss to music, literature, and foreign language classes. Think what pets could contribute to global communication if they only chose to be heard more than one night. Ah me!
That said, at least we have the advantage of getting feedback from our pets during that window of time on Christmas Eve between the hour of midnight and 5 a.m. The little chatterboxes really talk up a storm during those five hours, and it’s a mixed bag of profoundity and profanity with a small smattering of deviltry thrown in to spice things up. I enjoy it heartily.
How do I know they talk? Well, doofus, I’ve heard them. I make sure to clean my ears of wax at least two weeks in advance, and then I station myself under the master bed or in the closet and listen to what my pets have to say. It varies from year to year. You never can tell if they’re going to criticize you for, say, the fact you ordered their food late once and they had to rough it a few meals with white-meat chicken and oatmeal for two days OR if they’re going to commend you for the fine sanitation and safety job you’ve performed during this dangerously pandemic year.
One year they decided to hold a debate and they split into two teams. Their forensic subject? Did the male person like them as much as the female person? I’m not going to bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the cats were extremely critical of the male person’s klutziness, which resulted in several near collisions and tails caught in slammed doors, as well as his protracted phone conversations that disturbed the cats’ slumbertime and were, frankly, boring as hell.
I’ll let you figure out which team won the debate, but the consensus was that the woman person — that would be me — showed a more caring attitude even if she displayed a borderline-too-casual attitude about adhering to feeding schedules.
Another year the gabfest started promptly at midnight and was so lovely I thought I was in another tabby’s house. Both the male and female persons got five-star reviews on TLC, and compliments relating to cleanliness of litter and dust-free chairs and carpets flew freely. I was so deliriously happy I almost cried, mind you, and that’s pretty darn hard when you’re crammed under a king-size bed with a quilt and two pillows.
Of course there was that dreadful year of ugly repartee that we don’t talk about. I don’t quite know why the pets ganged up on us, but they did. It might have had something to do with the house being painted, all those horrid smells, and the fact I crated them for nearly eight hours for two weeks.
They said horrible things like we were never home, we never tuned into animal-related TV shows, we never took showers, we never read the newspapers, etc. Much of it was made up, but they kept shouting these accusations so loudly and repeating them so many times that they practically convinced me that I was the worst owner in the world. I think they were then watching too much of the Trump soap opera on CNN. Then, at exactly 5 a.m. they gathered right outside my hiding place and yelled, “Fooled you, duped you” and went straighaway to their beds, laughing hysterically as they slid into their cuddlers.
I was horrified that first of all, they knew where I was hiding and second, that they’d play such a lousy, low-down, rotten trick on me. Believe it or not I thought twice about feeding them in the morning, but I relented. I guess they had already factored in my nebbishhness. So not to worry. Fortunately the little dears have never played that trick again. I guess they’ve matured considerably since then. They also didn’t like me stomping around the house and vowing I’d throw away all their toys.
I have no idea what they intend to do tonight except of course talk. Since that rotten trick that we don’t talk about, I’ve changed my hiding place. Now I stay in the closet with all my smelly running shoes that I never throw away because you never know when you’re going to need an extra pair.
I know they know where I’ll be tonight, but they’ll pretend they don’t know my ears will be pressed to the closet door. They’ll probably kick off the chatroom with complaints and then move on to gossip about the neighborhood pets and their “stupid” owners. They always seem to orchestrate a great finish. One year they said I was the coolest owner in the whole development. Another time I was the first person they would go to in an emergency. It’s almost as if they know I’m taking notes. Because I am.
I like to give myself an A-B-C-D-F score for the year based on the pets’ commentary. It helps me self-evaluate. It also helps me evaluate them. Oh yes, I do give them ratings, and this helps me determine how many vet visits and nail trims per year. They don’t get away scot free even if it is xmas and a time for peace and goodwill among men. I can be forgiving but that’s not until Yom Kippur!
|
https://medium.com/muddyum/talk-is-cheap-809d51eeb41b
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['Janice Arenofsky']
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2020-12-25 02:57:29.694000+00:00
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['Xmas', 'Pets', 'Talking', 'Criticism', 'Compliments']
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Is Software Architecture important?
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We may assume coding is the most important thing when we want to create software, but –sometimes– we forget about the structure behind or before the code that support the communication and the software itself.
When we talk about Software Architecture, we’re using a clear analogue to the architecture of a building. It functions as a design of the structure with the necessary elements, protocols, relationships, units and so on… in order to work.
Software architecture is about making fundamental structural choices that are costly to change once implemented. It’s the process of defining the system structure in order to achieve the technical and operational requirements.
Without Software Architecture, Software Developing would be a mess!!
So… if Software Architecture is one of the most important things in Software Developing… how do we design it? Which are the better architectures? Should we follow some patterns?
And here is where architectural style/patterns take place, because they’re specific methods of construction, characterized by the features that make it notable and we can you use as templates.
There are many recognized architectural patterns and styles, such as: Blackboard, Client-Server, Component-Based, Data-Centric, Event-Driven, Layered, Microservices, Monolithic, Model-view-controller, MVC, Peer-to-peer, Pipes and filters, Plug-ins, Reactive architectures, Representational state transfer (REST), Rule based, Service-oriented, Shared nothing, Space-based, etc.
Some treat architectural patterns and styles as the same, other as specializations; some of them are completely different, others are similar; some of them are used alone most of the times, other are a complement to the main software.
However, I gonna share with you 5 descriptions and examples of the most common Software Architecture Patterns:
1.- Layered Software Architecture
Maybe the most used and classical pattern. The idea is to split up your code into layers, where each layer has a certain responsibility and provides a service to a higher layer. There isn’t a predefined number of layers, but these are the more commons:
Presentation layer: Frontend/UI/UX
Business layer: business logic, rules, actions (Backend)
Persistence or data access layer: CRUD DB
Database layer: definition, creation, migration of DB
Layered Software Architecture Diagram, Google Images.
A clear example are the CRM Systems where the user watch the tables and charts (Presentation Layer); when they click any button, the business logical code take action to either make a change in the Presentation layer or ask something to the Persistence layer such as buy something; finally the Database layer make the changes in the DB tables.
2.- Event Driven Software Architecture
Event Driven Software Architecture Diagram, Google Images.
The idea is to think everything and I mean “everything” as “a significant change in state”. For example, when you receive an email, the notifications section changes. The email is marked as not opened state, but when you open it, the state change to opened state, and if you mark it as spam, the state change to spam. So every time the state of the email change, this change travels through an “Event channel” (like FTP protocol) and queue into the “Event queue” waiting to the “Event Mediator” to choose the most important changes in the queue and to send the changes to the appropriated “Event Processor” through another “Event Channel”. This is a great option for scalability.
3.- Microkernel Software Architecture
The idea is to organize your code and application as a core that functions perfect itself and has the ability to connect to other (plug-in) components in order to make it more powerful. This architecture is sometimes referred to as the plug-in architecture pattern.
Microkernel Software Architecture Diagram, Google Images.
Great examples are Wordpress, Sharepoint and Shopify. Let’s thing about Wordpress: the core system is installed in a cPanel on your Hosting provider or your own Server, and then you add plug-ins like Stripe or Google Adds, etc.
4.- Microservices Software Architecture
The idea is to do a specific task for other systems. It has its own internal components and architecture but it’s super specialized. That’s why we usually referred to it as API (Application Program Interface) Software Architecture, and –most of the times– we use it through the internet with HTTP protocol, so REST API applications are the best examples for this pattern.
Microservices Software Architecture Diagram, Google Images.
Think about the Yahoo Finance API: you make a request about some information of some companies, the microservice does whatever it has to do and gives you back an answer (in JSON or XML format if it’s an REST API) that you could use in your own application.
5.- Space Based Software Architecture
It’s a distributed-computing architecture for achieving linear scalability. Applications are built out of a set of self-sufficient units, known as processing -units. These units are independent of each other, so that the application can scale adding more units and managing them with the middleware controller.
Space Based Software Architecture Diagram, Google Images.
The way to use this architecture is by choosing different services/products and specifications of the Cloud Providers such as AWS, Azure and GPC.
Remember that the different Software Architecture Patterns could be combined to make the perfect application, but it’s important to design it before the implementation.
I hope the answer to the title question could be answered now by yourself!
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https://medium.com/@diegohd/is-software-architecture-important-817f15284914
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['Diego Hernández Delgado']
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2020-12-09 03:13:03.990000+00:00
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['Software Architecture', 'Software', 'Software Development', 'Software Architect', 'Develop']
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Mendel Letters 34 — Cross-Bronx Expressway
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Hebrew school at the Jewish Center of University Heights on Nelson and 174th Street
June 19, 2021
Dear Mendel,
After Mommy died, we didn’t have a car. Obviously you couldn’t drive. But that doesn’t mean the Cross-Bronx Expressway didn’t change our lives.
They started building the Cross-Bronx in 1948 in the East Bronx so the disruption to our lives didn’t hit until about 1960. We lived on Jesup south of what would be the Cross-Bronx cut. PS 104 was on our side, but Hebrew school at the Jewish Center of University Heights on Nelson and 174th Street and JHS 82 were on the other side of the neighborhood divide. That meant we walked back and forth to Hebrew school four nights a week through vacant lots and rubble. I used to sing aloud as I walked to scare away the ghosts. Before the Cross-Bronx I used to walk up the hill on Jesup, cut over to Shakespeare, walk past PS 104, and continue to Featherbed Lane where Shakespeare merged into Nelson. The Cross-Bronx permanently blocked Shakespeare Avenue so going we crossed the Cross-Bronx on Jesup. If we were going to Hebrew school we turned left on Featherbed Lane to Nelson. When we were going to JHS 82 we turned right and went up Macombs. One advantage of the new route was we passed an Olinsky’s Supermarket on Featherbed where they had a giant pickle barrel and you could buy a nickel pickle. A lot of buildings were torn down for the Cross-Bronx so families and school friends began to move away. Construction also meant we lived with a lot of dust in the air.
The big change for us came with changes in traffic flow once the Cross-Bronx was completed. Before the Cross-Bronx, traffic between Manhattan and the Bronx crossed the “Little Washington” Bridge and ran up and down E.L. Grant Highway. There were a lot of taxicab garages in the area, which meant business for your small luncheonette during shift changes. When the Cross-Bronx opened the cabs headed for the highway to get to Manhattan more quickly and your customers disappeared.
As an adult I have one “funny” Cross-Bronx story. The Bruckner Traffic Circle near where the Cross-Bronx met the Throgs Neck and Whitestone Bridges and the New England Thruway was always a hellish traffic jam. One summer in the early 1970s I was working for a summer sleep away camp locate in the Catskills. During session changeovers I drove our red stake-back truck into the city with returning camper luggage and then drove back to camp with luggage for the next session. On the Cross-Bronx at the start of the Bruckner Traffic Circle I blew a radiator hose and the engine stalled out. I’m listening on the radio as traffic reports detail the entire eastbound Cross-Bronx Expressway virtually shut down starting at the GW Bridge. Fortunately I had my Swiss Army Knife, duct tape, and a rubberized rain poncho. I cut strips off the poncho, climbed under the hood, wrapped the strips around the radiator hose, and taped the strips on securely. I found a towel in the luggage pile, wiped down all of the engine wiring, poured water into the radiator from some canteens, primed the carburetor, and drove to our store front in Brooklyn. The whole operation took about a half an hour to forty-five minutes. Parents were waiting for their kids clothing when I got there.
Your son
Hard copies of these typed letters were discovered in an old camp trunk in the basement storage facility of one of the few buildings that remain standing in this Brooklyn neighborhood. The building is quite decrepit and is scheduled for demolition. The letters were found in November 2048 by a teenager who believes they were written by his great-grandfather. The letters are addressed to Mendel, the letter writer’s father, who appears to have been dead for at least six years when his son, whose name we are unsure of, started to write him. The son appears very agitated in some of the letters. With permission from the family, we are publishing them on the date they were written, only 28 years later
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https://medium.com/@alansingerphd/mendel-letters-34-cross-bronx-expressway-28ddb47d0ab9
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['Mendel Letters']
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2021-06-18 14:19:19.448000+00:00
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['History', 'Jewish', 'Bronx']
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Why I hate it when people ask ‘How are you?’
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Usually, I would argue that social norms are fantastic. As a nervous and awkward introvert, social settings can sometimes be very daunting, and they provide structure and guidelines to a world in which I am not always the most comfortable or confident in. There is, however, one thing which has recently been affecting me and which, instead of working in my favour, is constantly working against me, and that is the issue that comes with asking ‘How are you?’.
The reason I hate this question so much is because it sounds like an invitation to open up to someone when really, all it is is a mere formality. Few people who ask it actually care about how you truly are, and those who do would rarely know how to react if I broke down into tears and told them EXACTLY how I really was. It is a bittersweet question because it creates the illusion that your wellbeing matters to whoever you’re speaking to when the truth could not be any further from it. The social convention in this case is to reply, “I’m good”, or “I’m fine” if you’re ready to risk coming across as curt in an attempt to not tell an outright lie. Because lying is exactly what I do whenever I answer that question. I could not be any less than fine, but however much I am tempted to reply honestly, I know that doing so would create an horribly awkward situation and make my relationship with the speaker extremely uncomfortable– perhaps even irreparably damaged.
This fear of losing them when I share every aspect of myself has caused me to be unable to open up to anyone, because I know that half the time they are only asking out of politeness and the other half they couldn’t even begin to deal with my many problems. My friends tell me ‘I can talk to them’, and while I appreciate the feeling, I know from personal experience that letting them into the mess that I am inside would only drive them away forever. They wouldn’t even have to delve very deep either; the tip of the iceberg would be enough to make them flee immediately and with a haste never before seen. Not necessarily out of disgust or lack of compassion, but simply because they just wouldn’t understand everything that I’m going through. Plus, they don’t deserve for me to dump all my worries on them anyway. Sadly, this is not a case of having unsympathetic or toxic friends. They are all amazing and caring and very willing to listen to me should I need them, but I know for a fact that they wouldn’t be able to handle that darkness inside me. It’s not their fault; I doubt there are many people who would. Unfortunately, none of those rare poeple are currently a part of my life and this leaves me with no one to talk to so asking how I am hurts even more than it usually does due to my desperation to unburden myself and share my troubles with someone and my inability to do so at the moment.
I feel guilty about sharing this, just as I feel guilty whenever I try to share my troubles with a friend. It’s partly due to the fact that, despite being the priviledged individual that I am with the perfect life and everything I could possibly want, I struggle so much to find joy in life, but also because I worry about spreading negativity and casting a shadow over someone else’s day with my grey thoughts. It has come to a point, however, when I need to share what I feel, and the internet seems the only viable option at the moment. I have no one else to talk to, and I’m better at expressing myself through my writing at any rate. All I wish is that people would stop asking me how I’m feeling and expect me to pretend like everything is alright, but unfortunately society dictates that enquiring after someone’s wellbeing be a mandatory start to many conversations so I guess that wish is futile.
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https://medium.com/@aforanonymously/why-i-hate-it-when-people-ask-how-are-you-52c96699023f
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[]
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2020-12-24 13:50:27.029000+00:00
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['Social Etiquette', 'Mental Health Awareness']
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Governance in distributed organizations, part 3
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In the second part I’ve walked through fundamental internal problems with centralized organizations and tried to show how organizations learned to grow in highly uncertain environment. If you’re looking for the first part, you may find it here.
In third part, I’ll take a look on few of existing implementations of governance in blockchain systems.
Designing governance systems
Governance systems in blockchain projects are hot topics. They are varieties of them, of different design, cost, and efforts required to participate in them
As I’ve said on twitter, as a byproduct of another discussion:
When designing governance systems (at least in crypto), you’d better start with 3 questions: 1. What voter losses in case of a bad decision or a conscious attack? 2. What voter pays/contributes in exchange for the voting right? 3. Who has the right to vote and why?
Let’s see how few governance systems in cryptocurrencies worked out..
Failed examples: TheDAO
The DAO was a digital decentralized autonomous organization, created in 2016 to mimic a venture fund on an Ethereum network. It a crowdsale it collected about $150mln worth of Ether (at May 2016 price) which was about 14% of all existing Ether tokens at the moment (12.7 mln ETH).
For several short weeks it seemed that the Holy Grail was found and future organizations would mimic TheDAO structure. Yet, in June 17, 2016, TheDAO smart contract was a subject of an attack, which siphoned about one third of the collected ETH, in violation of the spirit of the project (but strictly adhering to the compiled code).
What would happen if there would be no bug, or at least it won’t be discovered as fast? Would be TheDAO a successful example? Nobody now knows for sure, but for the short period TheDAO was alive, it collected enough criticism, besides code quality:
The status of curators wasn’t quite clear
The initial choice of curators wasn’t quite clear
The process of whitelisting of proposals had to be yet figured out
Various game-theoretical properties of splitting off TheDAO weren’t explored (and the attacker finally used exactly this feature to drain the funds)
Also, Dan Larimer pointed to other social problems that TheDAO had might face later:
Low voting participation
Proxy for proxy voting is performed on cultural (party/philosophical/like/dislike) lines, not on objective merits
Reliance on the price of the underlying asset (ETH)
Anti-spending movement: big proposals would sell the ETH, dumping the price and increasing the volatility.
Voting coalitions
Non-voters would be rewarded with minimal risks, voters can’t split out.
For sure, it would have been fixed with time, but the time it had not.
False examples: ICO’s
What TheDAO did do, is to create a tested roadmaps for various Initial Coin Offerings, ICO’s. In 2016 and, of course, in 2017, lots of blockchain (and not only) projects rushed to use this crowdfunding method to raise the funds.
Investing into ICO’s was a crazy gold rush in 2017, with all them collectively raising north of US$6bln.
Yet, most, if not all ICO projects lacked the major point of TheDAO: they were centralized with all problems and risks associated with having a single point of control.
Thus, when SEC issued its “The DAO report” in July 25, 2017, it was a cold shower for the market. And SEC’s subpoenas killed retail crowdfunding.
In 2018, to date (early Sep), all ICO’s collectively raised more than in 2017 ($6.9bln vs $6.1bln), but most of those funds were coming from big players (VC, hedge funds, family funds) and not from retail Joe Doe. And on month-by-month scale, the amount raised is declining.
Kinda success: Dash DAO
There’s another example of the DAO (lowercase “the”): the one of the Dash cryptocurrency.
You may find more detailed explanation here and here, so I’d put just an overview.
Dash network recognizes that there are several participants in a successful blockchain:
PoW miners, who supply security to the network
Collateralized MasterNodes, who store the full copy of the blockchain and run second layer of the service
Others, who are impossible to qualify on the protocol level, but human judgement would be able to sort them out.
Therefore, Dash network directs up to 10% of the block reward to the Treasury. Interested parties may submit human-readable proposals to the Treasury and MasterNode owners, who hold a significant collateral in Dash) vote for those proposals. Proposals, that had the majority of Yes votes, are given grants in order of decreasing Yes/No votes difference, until Treasury for this period won’t be completely used. Periods are approximately one month in length. Unspent, unclaimed funds aren’t created.
Grants can be one-time or multi-month. In the later case, MN owners can change their mind and downvote the project, so it won’t receive more funds from the Treasury.
So far it works pretty successfully, it wasn’t hacked, and it funded many projects around the world, yet…
Grants are grants, not a loan, or investment, or any other commercial interest. The only thing that precludes the proposal owner from running away with funds, is his reputation.
Dash Treasury is single layer system and, since Dash doesn’t support any 2nd level tokens yet, it could not be scaled in obvious ways.
Both of those caused misuse of funds (some may call them even exit scams) and difficulties in scaling the proposal system to support many tiny activities.
In the upcoming part I will outline a suggested system, that I’m working out, that’s designed to keep simplicity and clarity of Dash DAO while (hopefully) answering the challenges.
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https://medium.com/devnull-ai/governance-in-distributed-organizations-part-3-fb5b60f26ff3
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[]
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2018-10-08 15:46:39.637000+00:00
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['Governance', 'Censorship Resistance', 'Blockchain', 'Thedao', 'Ethereum']
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YOU CAN MAKE A LIVING DOING GOOD
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Happy first birthday to us. Glimpse is officially one today.
We’ve been going a while longer, but today is exactly 365 days since we got incorporated as a non profit company, limited by guarantee. What started as an experiment to try and bring commercial creative flair and positivity to social issues with CATS, has grown into a proper grown up organisation. We are now a living, breathing, evolving, activating company.
C.A.T.S our first ever campaign
We work with NGOs like Help Refugees, The RSPB, The Fairtrade Foundation, Cool Earth and Greenpeace, we run our own campaigns with our collective and we offer creativity training. As we mark our first birthday I thought I’d take this chance to celebrate where we’ve got to, share some insights and answer a few questions everyone always asks me.
Firstly a little bit about me and why I’m so happy and grateful to be marking this milestone.
I’m co-founder of Glimpse, along with James who used to be comms director at Greenpeace - he came up with this idea called Glimpse. I put my hand up way back when James asked who wanted to try and make this thing work — an organisation that brought the positivity and creativity of brand comms to charities and causes. My background isn’t in charities but in commercial publicity as a creative director. If you can buy it, I probably PR’ed it.
I was always inspired by my Dad and how at an early age he knew what he wanted to do. When he was 13 he wrote in a school essay that he wanted to become a foreign correspondent “a life of travel, excitement, freedom: in short a journalist”.
Dad in Nigeria in 1968
That was in 1943 and he went on to do it — writing for The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC in countries as diverse as Nigeria, India, Israel and France. About 60 years later I had started my career in consumer PR. I was a super keen, super wasted publicist (the early noughties were very boozy) working for the likes of Danone, Playstation, Vodafone and Heinz. Big brands and a cool job. But not something I’d ever dreamed of doing when I was a teenager. Calling people consumers didn’t sit right with me- however glossy the brand is. Late one night at a party, I said that one day I wanted to use my comms skills for good. I wanted to set up an organisation that worked on environmental and social campaigns.
Fast forward 15 years — and having worked with some fantastic people and organisations — we’ve done it! Happy Birthday Glimpse! We now have a catalogue of great work, an amazing group of colleagues, an office space, a website and a wonderful inspiring collective of nearly 2000 people who have joined us on the Glimpse journey.
Choose Love pop up shop with Help Refugees 2018
As is customary in these reflective / anniversary pieces I thought I’d answer some questions I get asked a lot. There isn’t any particular theme- just their frequency
#1 The biggy…do you make any money? Everyone wants to ask this. The short answer is yes. We pay our bills and have money for snacks. But we don’t make as much money/ profit as we used to. And that’s totally cool. I’m learning to see profit in a different way. Profit can mean buying more shoes (I used to love buying shoes on payday) and posh brunch. But profit can also mean having a 4 day week; working with great people who share your passions and actively caring about the impact of the work you do. If you work with us or you work in our sector you may well earn less but it’s worth it.
#2 Do you only work with charities? No, but we only want to work with organisations that have a mission that’s not just about money. Charities and NGOs have a captivating and inspiring vision that draws you in a way that brands just don’t. There’s nothing wrong with selling stuff but buying it shouldn’t define us. We believe that valuing people, places and our environment is more important than profit.
#3 Brainstorming doesn’t work does it? Not true. Brainstorming is a fantastic part of the creative process and has been crucial in all our campaigns and work with our partners. The problem is people see a ‘brainstorm’ in isolation as if it’s one moment that’s going to smash it. When it doesn’t, they see it as a failure. Collective thinking about something is one super tool in the box but not the only one. It’s rewarding for so many reasons- building insight, forging relationships and launching ideas.
#4…. is one we ask ourselves a lot.
What’s the next 12 months look like? Well, we want to grow at a manageable rate- that’s to say we want to make sure that everyone at Glimpse feels secure and motivated but not stretched with unrealistic expansion. Along with our existing work with partners, we want to do more work with the collective on interesting subjects such as speciesism and ageism.
And continue to craft and improve our training programmes by going on more ourselves - all recommendations greatly appreciated.
Since our coffee and cake days last year (where you do a lot of talking rather than work), we’ve been joined by the fantastic Anella and Ruth. Anella joins from being a brand director at ActionAid whilst Ruth was Head of Production at Action films. We want to get our own office (as I write this we’re waiting to hear back on our dream space) and we want to keep showing that it’s possible to align your values with the work you do.
Want to celebrate our birthday with us? — buy Let Nature Sing from The RSPB and help us get Nature to #1
Want to join the collective? sign up here
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https://medium.com/@zacschwarz/you-can-make-a-living-doing-good-ece0ea3bf7bb
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['Zac Schwarz']
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2019-04-12 07:57:33.101000+00:00
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['Creativity', 'Pr', 'Charity', 'Ngo', 'Positivity']
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Equating Black Girls With Bad Attitudes Is Not the Answer
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To fall from favor is emotionally taxing and physically draining, but when someone believes herself to be “fit to wear a crown,” she embraces her full potential. One of the girls I spoke with at Ms. Patton’s school referred to being Black as being part of “royalty.” To her, racial pride was at the center of her belief in herself as a member of this learning community. She was worthy of investment, worthy of praise. While most children may not be of actual royal lineage, when they believe they’re “fit to wear a crown,” they’re likely to feel worthy of redemption. Even when they make a mistake, they understand that the response is not intended to derail their learning or their lives, but rather to reconnect them to their true purpose. The neglect — or erasure — of this identity can lead to girls internalizing harmful historical narratives about their inferiority, and could even leave them feeling as if no one cares about them at all.
For teachers and other educators, reinforcing the royal mindset requires a commitment not to equate accountability with discipline and punishment. We have conflated them for too long. Rejecting this false equation should be the norm, a baseline for all learning institutions. It isn’t something to consider, debate, or negotiate. As a premise, it is simply too faulty and dangerous.
Disciplinary action against Black girls included dress code violations, disruptive behavior, and cell phone use — discretionary judgments that are often made through a racialized and gendered lens.
Overall, students in U.S. schools are effective learners who do not exhibit behavior that warrants exclusionary discipline. However, racial disparities continue to plague those girls who do get into trouble in school. The research on Black girls and other girls of color in assessments of school discipline shows that the actions that lead to their suspension or expulsion do include fighting but are more often minor infractions whose punishment is not in fact about protecting the school from violence. Girls of color are more likely than others to be suspended for violations of school rules (for example, dress codes embedded in codes of conduct), for failure to comply with adult requests (for example, producing identification when requested), and for subjective, even arbitrary, infractions that leave ample room for personal biases to reign supreme, such as “willful defiance.”
In Kentucky, where researchers Edward Morris and Brea Perry examined the specific infractions leading to the use of exclusionary discipline statewide, they found that African American girls were more likely than white girls to be suspended for subjectively determined “violations” of school order, and that the racial disparities were more prevalent among girls than boys. The study acknowledges that “black girls are much more likely than other girls to be cited for infractions such as dress code violations, disobedience, disruptive behavior, and aggressive behavior — and these gaps are far wider than the gaps between black boys and boys of other races for these offenses.” The Kentucky study found that the specific infractions leading to the disproportionate use of disciplinary action against Black girls included dress code violations, disruptive behavior, and cell phone use — discretionary judgments that are often made through a racialized and gendered lens. Morris and Perry found that Black boys were twice as likely as boys of European descent to receive a disciplinary referral; however, Black girls were three times as likely as girls of European descent to receive a referral, based largely on the school administrators’ interpretation of behavior as disruptive or disobedient.
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https://zora.medium.com/we-need-to-stop-criminalizing-school-age-black-girls-236ca856b607
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['Monique W. Morris']
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2019-08-26 18:42:05.187000+00:00
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['Culture', 'Race', 'Racial Justice', 'Equality', 'Education']
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Programming Paradigm — Onload Code
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In this article, we are discussing programming paradigms regarding System design and architecture.
This is the second article on the System Design and Software Architecture series.
previous articles
What is Programming Paradigm?
Programming Paradigm is an approach to problem-solving using a programming language. We can also say that it is a problem-solving method using the tools and techniques available to us by following a specific approach. Since there are so many programming languages, you should follow some strategies when they implement. And this process is named as paradigms. In this article, we are going to discuss the types of programming paradigms.
Types of Programming Demonstration
1. Imperative programming paradigm
The ideal consists of several statements, all of which store the result after execution. It involves writing a list of instructions to tell the computer what to do step by step.
In an essential programming parameter, the sequence of steps is essential, because when a step is executed, a given step has different consequences based on the current values of the variables.
Features
Demonstration of procedural programming
The Procedure Program (which is also essential) allows those instructions to be subdivided into procedures.
Procedures are not functions. The difference between the two is that functions provide value and procedures do not. More specifically, functions are designed to have minimal side effects and always produce the same output when the same input is provided. Procedures, on the other hand, have no benefit value. Their primary purpose is to perform a given task and cause the desired side effects.
An excellent example of a cryptocurrency is a well-known fact for loops. The primary purpose of for loop is to cause side effects, and it does not provide value.
Features of the procedure code
Procedural programming is excellent for general task programs.
With coded simplicity and ease of implementation for compilers and converters
Large books and online course courses available on the tested algorithm make learning the material easy.
The source code is portable.
The code could reuse in different parts of the program without the need to copy it.
The program stream is easy to find, as it has a top-down approach.
2. Object-oriented programming model
OOP is the most popular programming model because of its unique advantages, such as the modularity of the code. And the ability to directly link real-world business issues in terms of code.
Critical features of object-oriented programming include class, abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and multimeter.
A class is a mould or plan that creates objects.
Objects are instances of classes. Objects have properties/conditions and methods/behaviours. Properties are data related to the object, and methods are the actions/functions that the object can perform.
Abstraction separates the interface by activating the summary. Encapsulation is the process of hiding the internal activation of an object.
Inheritance is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming (OOP) languages. It is a mechanism by which you can get a class from another class, and it shares a set of attributes and methods for a hierarchy of classes. It explains how class hierarchies support the reuse of code readability and functionality.
Polymorphism is an object-oriented programming concept that refers to the ability of a variable, function, or object to take different forms.
Programming languages with OO model implemented: Ruby, Java, C ++, Python, Simula (first OOP language)
3. Parallel processing approach
Let see what is parallel processing. Parallel processing is the division of program instructions into multiple processors.
A parallel processing system allows you to run a program in less time by splitting it into multiple processors.
Languages that support parallel processing access:
NESL (oldest)
C
C ++
java
4. Declarative programming paradigm
Expression programming is a style of building programming that expresses logic without talking about the control flow of calculations.
Publishing programming is a programming parameter that defines what a programmer should accomplish without defining how it should be implemented. In other words, the approach focuses on what needs to be achieved rather than advising on how to achieve it.
In the situation of the union, think of the President expressing his intentions for what he wants to happen. On the other hand, essential programming would be like McDonald’s voter manager. They are very essential, and as a result, it makes everything meaningful. So, they tell everyone how to do everything from simple actions.
So the main difference is that the essential thing is how you do something and the statement tells you what to do.
5. Logical programming model
The logical programming model takes a publishing approach to problem-solving. It is based on formal logic.
The logical programming model is not made up of instructions — instead, it is made up of facts and clauses. It uses everything it knows and tries to come up with a world where all those facts and statements are actual. This can use to express knowledge without relying on execution, and programs are more flexible, compressed, and understandable.
It enables the separation of knowledge using, that is, the configuration of machines, without changing programs or the code beneath them. It can modify and expand in natural ways to support specialized knowledge, such as the advanced level meta-level.
And also it can use for non-computer subjects that rely on logical and accurate means of expression.
6. Functional Programming Paradigm
The functional programming parameter has been popular for some time now, as it has long been popular because of the functional programming language called JavaScript.
The functional programming parameter has its roots in mathematics and is independent of language. The main principle of this idea is to implement a series of mathematical functions.
You write your program on short tasks. All codes are in a function. All variables are in the range of the function.
In the functional programming parameter, functions do not change any value outside the scope of that function, and those functions do not affect any value outside their scope.
Clean Tasks — If the input array, the output will be a new array, and the input array will not change. Therefore in a pure function, the output depends only on the input.
Repetition — A repetitive function is a function that calls itself when it is executed. This allows the function to be repeated several times, with the result being output at each stop process.
Reference Transparency — this can replace an expression with its corresponding value without changing the behaviour of the program. As a result, estimating a transparent function gives the same value for static arguments.
Variables cannot change — in functional programming, you cannot change a variable after it has been started. You can create new variables, and this will help maintain the status of the program throughout its run.
7. Database Processing Access
This programming system is based on data and its movement. Program statements are defined by data rather than hard coding of a series of steps.
According to Oracle, A database is usually a collection of structured information or data stored electronically in a computer system. A database is usually managed by a database management system.
Database tables use to process as well as to query data. Data can then easily access, managed, modified, updated, and controlled.
A right database processing approach is essential for any company or organization. This is because of the database stores relevant information about the company, such as employee reports, transaction reports, and salary details.
Many databases use Structured Query Language (SQL) for writing and querying data.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading the article programming paradigms regarding System design and architecture.
|
https://medium.com/@jaya-maduka/programming-paradigm-onload-code-d8419b878ce7
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['Maduka Jayawardana']
|
2020-12-13 11:17:08.728000+00:00
|
['System Design', 'Architecture']
|
THE POWER OF WILL
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Many of us often come around a situation when we are expected or desired to do something,something that requires courage and determination more than what we usually posses.That moment is among those very times when we can come up and act like a hero.Being a hero doesn’t only mean like leading a mass of followers or swinging a sword in an arena full of crowd.A hero is anyone who rises up above something that he always has considered to be his saturation point.Talking about the saturation point,it is something that we humans, many a times, consider as our limit of doing or possessing something.We make ourselves restricted to a point where we feel that the zone of our comfort has ended.While the fact is that the humans are the most capable and unique species that ever have existed on Earth.We actually don’t have any saturation point.This saturation point exists only in our minds.And the DNA that gives birth to this point is FEAR.
THE ONLY TIME WHEN YOU CAN BE BRAVE IS WHEN YOU ARE AFRAID.As the saying goes,it is useless acting like a brave when your aren't even afraid.The real power calculates in times of hardship and in times of fear.We all suffer from some or the other kind of fear.Some fear of getting rejected,some fear of getting lost,some of losing in love,some of losing in life.Its all in our mind-this fear-this assumption.The one who learns to control his mind is the one who rises above all his fears.
History is evident of people who have defeated their fears and rose to rule the world-their world.What did they use to overpower they fear? It was nothing else then their WILL POWER.They did nothing much but told themselves that they are not going to lose,they are not going to be afraid and they stood firm enough to fight out their biggest enemy-the enemy that lied deep inside them-their inner fear.
History saw Nepolean crossing The Great Alps and marching his army to the enemy lands when everyone thought an army of sixty thousand men,an impossible task,to cross the Alps.It was Nepolean who denied to bow down and crossed his fears.Nepolean was the leader of French Army and the France was at war with nearly all the countries.He wanted very much to take his soldiers to Italy;but there was a huge monster in between France and Italy-and the monster was the Alps-the top of which was covered with snow.
"Is it possible to cross the Alps?" asked Nepolean.The man who had been sent to look at the passes said,"It may be possible ,but"--
"Let me hear no more"said Nepolean."Forward to Italy!".
People laughed at the thought of thousand men crossing the Alps where there was no road.But Nepolean being firm enough gave the orders to March.The long line of soldiers and horses and canons stretched for twenty miles when they came to a steep place and where seemed no way ahead.The Captain of the army asked Nepolean for the lead.Nepolean told them Alps was still far away and thus they still should March.After marching for hours the army came to a halt feeling depressed for they didn't even reach Alps after walking so long.The Captain expressed his grief and the army resisted to March any further.Its when Nepolean told them they already have crossed the Alps and thus entered Italy.He then told the Captain that it was not The Alps which tried stopping their way...It was the fear of The Alps.
I have seen people shedding the mass out of their body even after reaching at a point when nobody thought positive about them .I have seen people running day and night on the concrete just to prove their fears wrong.This is the power of Will.
The more we think about our fears,the more we get depressed.When we live our life with a fear of failure-what we actually miss out is that without facing failure we can't really feel how delicious the taste of success can be.
|
https://medium.com/@writervikram/many-of-us-often-come-around-a-situation-when-we-are-expected-or-desired-to-do-something-something-f0f94b1d7b03
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['Vikram Tomar']
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2020-12-06 16:16:35.271000+00:00
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['Life', 'Content Writing', 'History', 'Happiness', 'Freelancing']
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Do you stand by your data analysis?
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Do you stand by your data analysis?
How we made sure our reports were watertight for COVID-19
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
When COVID-19 hit, many teams across Xero had to pivot their work to focus on immediate support for small businesses and their advisors (accountants and bookkeepers) around the world. A huge amount of change took place in a very short period of time, from government assistance packages to new ways of working.
To help our teams build features that supported these changes, we needed to provide more internal reporting. We also needed to share high-level insights to governments on the health of the small business sector.
Most data is not designed to be reported
A global pandemic is not the time to accidentally release inaccurate data analysis, especially when it’s also used by governments and industry analysts to measure the health of the small business sector. Our analysis was very much in demand, so we needed to make sure it was 100% accurate. That’s not to say we don’t normally check the accuracy of our work. We do. But data is complicated and often not structured with ease of reporting in mind.
In some cases, data that is customer friendly is not analysis friendly. For example, we allow customers to date invoices whenever they need to — today, next month, three years ago. This plays merry havoc on our ability to report on invoices, as invoices are always being entered in the past, causing historical numbers to change daily. Then there’s the fact that we don’t have one source of data — there are multiple streams of data for each product on our platform. And each stream is huge, often surpassing billions of rows of data. Like I said, it’s complicated.
We sadly don’t have a bank of pre-canned reports for every single eventuality. Instead, a problem arises and someone asks us to make a report with the data we have. We then combine data together to get an output. Sometimes the data isn’t designed to be combined, or needs to be combined in ways we couldn’t foresee when creating the data. For these reasons, it can be hard to make reports watertight. In some cases, the problem can’t be solved with the data we have.
At Xero, we’re very candid about the challenges we face when working with teams that ask us to do data analysis and reporting. This is especially true when we’re analysing something for the first time. We’re always doing our best and sometimes work with teams for years on the same problem to get it right. So how did we make sure we released accurate data analysis when we didn’t have years to get it right?
Ring-fencing our data analysis
We made two significant changes in our COVID-19 response. First, we ring-fenced all COVID-19 analysis. We have a lot of analysts at Xero who are quite independent in the work they do and the processes they follow. This gives our teams plenty of autonomy to do their best work, but wasn’t ideal in a pandemic. So we reached out to our analysts and let them know we were establishing a new process. This gave Xero confidence that we had oversight of all analysis as it was centrally managed.
Second, we looked at how we currently reviewed and released data analysis, and applied more rigour to it. For example, we made sure that only analysts familiar with the subject matter were creating the reports. It wasn’t the time for analysts to learn how to manipulate data in a new area. Likewise for those who reviewed the analysis. They also needed to be subject matter experts of that data. This gave us a lens to catch the nuances that would otherwise go undetected.
Then, in an effort to make sure the analysis didn’t succumb to effects of groupthink, each report (including its intent, methodology and results) was submitted to a cohort of peers to review in a process we referred to as the Data Use Submission. These peers included people from finance, customer, communications, governance, and legal teams. It also included other interested stakeholders and analysts.
The peer group reviewed everything from the individual logic we used, to the suitability of the output in comparison to the request. If you’ve ever been part of a critique, it was a lot like that, but over Slack and a shared Google doc. The results were then cross referenced with other supporting analysis, and in some scenarios counter analysis was performed. As a final check, the analysis was approved by the heads of governance, legal, finance, and communications before it was allowed to be released.
The amount of time and energy applied to every single analysis wouldn’t be considered appropriate in normal times — it made deadlines harder to meet as we were never sure just how much back and forth would be required during the submission process. But it was a necessary step in our COVID-19 response. One thing that made it easier was the fact that we could ask various people to pause what they were doing to help us, because it was so important.
Reflecting on what we learned
While it was a very manual and detailed process, it worked. Our new process forced everyone to look at what they were doing and ask: ‘If this goes out to the public tomorrow, and policy makers start making decisions based on this analysis, do I stand by it?’ It also gave us an opportunity to take some of the learnings and methods we used during this project and apply them to data analysis more broadly at Xero.
For example, some of the methods our peers used to test and question the way we create reports were highlighted in our retrospective as good techniques. The way we formatted our COVID-19 reports and the plain English language we used to explain our logic was also something we decided could be applied to many of our other processes. Working with such a diverse group of people also helped us understand each other’s worlds and as a result, relationships between teams became stronger.
Analysts who would never normally work together got to compare notes on how they solved similar problems, learning from each other’s experience. Teams who had traditionally just consumed the reports at the end of the process got to come along for the ride and learn what goes into creating a report. They also started to understand why reporting on data can be a real challenge. This was a huge win, because now they understand why we struggle or are slow to do things they perceive as easy.
The learnings also went the other way. I got to peek inside some of my stakeholders’ worlds to learn more about what they do and see how they responded to the demands of COVID-19. It was also interesting to see how our data analysis tied into what they produce — giving us a deeper insight into the value of data and how reports are actioned by stakeholders across the business. These were invaluable lessons that will do doubt help our work in the future.
Adapting to the new normal
I would say we did about one or two years’ worth of stakeholder engagement in about two months, which of course is paying dividends now. Although the COVID-19 crisis continues, we have a strong process and have now settled into a good rhythm. We interact with more teams on a regular basis, and there’s a shared understanding of what goes into ‘making the cake’ now they’ve seen it first hand. This has helped us find solutions faster, which benefits our teams and ultimately, our customers.
It will also help us as a data team going forward. Just like any company, we’ve planned to improve our data in the coming years so we can help customers get more value out of it. The difference is, now we know what’s missing and what couldn’t be achieved during COVID-19. That means we can focus on improving those areas, and we have some friends to help us when we’re ready to make those changes. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved.
The processes we implemented to make sure Xero didn’t release inaccurate data analysis during a global pandemic wasn’t easy, but it helped so many people in so many ways. We got to make sure our data analysis and reporting was watertight, while bringing a whole lot of people at Xero along for the ride.
|
https://medium.com/humans-of-xero/do-you-stand-by-your-data-analysis-b1915630f967
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['Ron Soak']
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2020-09-20 21:40:57.322000+00:00
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['Data Analysis', 'Technology', 'Covid 19', 'Data', 'Reporting']
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Good communication fosters…
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Different professionals will give you many answers to this question, based on their view of the world.
A business analysis will tell you it fosters good context acquisition. A project manager will tell you it fosters good client engagement. A developer will say to you it encourages good, easy to understand requirements.
for me, the real question is:
Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash
Why good communication have such a positive impact? And how does it happen?
Humans are, by nature, social animals.[0] We crave interaction and acceptance by peers.
IT teams and Design teams draw their strength not by the individual’s strength but by the synergies between individuals that empower the group as a unit.
As a professional, fostering good communication empowers your team to be more efficient and more in sync.
Techniques such as Agile [1] and Lean UX [2] rely heavily on good communication as their base stone. An agile team that does not have good communication transforms the agile method into a kind of agile half-breed waterfall.
Good communication and explicit content help the team have a common understanding of the sprint and have issues shared early on, making the team more efficient and improving teamwork.
Photo by Lili Popper on Unsplash
There is no straightforward answer (one key fits all) on good communication within the team and with the client.
Nevertheless, some key ideas help you improve your communication. Let’s explore some of them:
Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
Active Listening
“Today, everyone is talking, and all of us forgot how to have a conversation.”
All of us once in our life heard this expression or a variant of it. Albeit some would say it is an expression of the old way of communicating; for me, it expresses something that in a way or the other professional tend to forget. Listen first, then reply!
David Levithan states
“As humans, we all have an urge, a need to be heard” [4]. We need to communicate, to relate with others. AS UX professionals, we need to foster this need from the clients and the users. A+Having a hearing posture allows giving the communication initiative to the others and ear the most about a specific context on the voice of those who experienced it. Having this posture enables us to gain more information and direct the interview/test plan to the context of the one we are communicating.
Active listening provides a framework that supports the listening posture, be suggesting the next five steps:
Pay attention to others say
show that you are listening
provide feedback
defer judgment
respond appropriately
For more on active listening, please refer to [3].
Photo by Sasha Yudaev on Unsplash
Engagement
Engagement in a context is critical to keep a team together and cooperating in an efficient fashion, and the same is valid when interacting with clients.
So why Engagement is it so important?
Humans have a craving to belong to a group, team, and live in a context of like-minded individuals. [5]
If you have this in mind, it starts to get clearer that if you have your team engaged in solving a problem or your client cooperating with your team, both will have a better emotional engagement to the project.
Consider that an engaged client and team members are more likely to go above and beyond to help achieve the solution.
So how does this relate to communication? It’s easy if you are engaged in a context; it is most likely for you to use the context dialect to communicate, which in the end, helps the communication.
Photo by Wan San Yip on Unsplash
Know your audience
One of the steps to engage your audience is knowing your audience.
If you take the time to understand to whom you are talking. What is the other interlocutor’s context of work? What is their vocabulary? Answering these questions prepares you to learn the tools to connect to them, spark innovation, and make your point across in a way they can understand.
In essence, knowing your audience allows you to connect with it, so you pass from making a presentation they might not understand having a conversation they feel connected to.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Repeat what you have heard
When having a conversation, it is very satisfying as a communicator, at least for me, when others acknowledge the message you are conveying.
So how can you make others feel the same way when communicating with them?
Structure your dialog, so you always have the opportunity to start your reply by acknowledging what the other person said and creating your argument from that. By doing this, you will make others feel heard and bases your idea on what they communicated.
Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash
Defuse the fire, don’t fuel it
Everyone can have a bad day!
It is a truth that you need to acknowledge because it is straightforward to be contaminated by someone’s bad mood, and it will influence the conversation.
For me, it works by trying to acknowledge the situation and let the other person decompress and share his/her problem. By earing the person, you are helping that person to cope with it. Help that person look at it thru your eyes and share your feedback on it. Remember to share your insights and not be judgemental; you are trying to defuse the fire, not fuel it.
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
Expect the unexpected
One reality you need to acknowledge is that unexpected things will always happen in any communication, the conversation you don’t control.
Knowing this will prepare you to expect the unexpected and to deal with the situations accordingly.
For instance, during a presentation, someone important makes an unexpected question that you don’t know the answer to. So what do you do? Breath in, don’t get nervous, explore the problem to narrow it down to a specific context and then if you don’t have the answer, give the honest reply you will follow up on it and provide a solution later.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
let’s hope this article clues to explore further the advantages of fostering good communication because doing this was a life-changer.
References
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/39a015c6-6bc7-11e3-85b 1–00144feabdc0
[1]https://www.guru99.com/agile-scrum-extreme-testing.html
[2]https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-simple-introduction-to-lean-ux
[3]https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm
[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-neurochemical-self/201109/the-urge-be-heard-your-core
[5] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-need-to-belong-2795393
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https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/good-communication-fosters-8128fd81b6c
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['Miguel Pinto']
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2020-12-26 20:13:48.084000+00:00
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['Communication', 'Teamwork', 'UX', 'Celfocus', 'Strategy']
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Ode To Mary Oliver, Poet to attention
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(please note that all italicized words are from her poems)
by Thalia Dunn
Through your simple words,
your odes to rocks,
whelks,
turtles,
and “whistling swans”,
I fell in love with nature again.
I was “just breathing and calling it a life”
until your West Wind blew.
You reminded me
to slow down,
to inhale deeper.
Mary, your poems led me
to the garden
so I could
listen to the flowers,
be steeped in their hues;
bathe in the morning dew;
to caress sun-drenched stones,
eons old, and ponder how they arrived
in my garden soil
and will still be here
after I turn to dust.
I fell in love with nature again,
thanks to you.
We share a love of goldfinches,
riding white waves in the sky,
and in my morning walks
I blow kisses to them as they fly
and swoop and call.
I join the chorus,
“wild, wild sings the bird”
and I don’t want to miss a single note.
You coax me to explore;
to relinquish my fears
buried within;
Ever so gently,
your words heal.
I can breathe.
Morning breeze tickles.
Beauty awaits.
I gulp for air, fling my arms out
and yield to the sky above.
You remind me
that trees are poems
and poems are trees,
rooted in life
yet reaching upward,
that poems
and trees
and birds
blend as one.
I fell in love with life again,
thanks to your words.
|
https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/ode-to-mary-oliver-poet-to-attention-5cfa5e62e4d3
|
['Thalia Dunn']
|
2020-08-27 21:07:39.589000+00:00
|
['Poetry', 'Nature', 'Mary Oliver', 'Birds', 'Poems On Medium']
|
Emily in Paris Hits Close to Home
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OK, I know I’m a few weeks late to the Emily in Paris game. But watching this show three months into my own move abroad was perfect timing to reflect on my experience through Emily’s.
Recognizing that Emily in Paris is television and not reality, we can move past all the chocolate croissants, sex, and offensive French stereotypes and instead focus on three key themes of Emily’s move: cultural awareness, support network, and the job.
Cultural Awareness
Although Emily arrives in Paris with a lack of French language skills and with limited knowledge of workplace and social norms, she does make an effort to learn — both formally in language class and informally through colleagues and friends. As Emily is given her assignment on short notice, perhaps she does not have the time to start the cultural assimilation process before the move (a generous interpretation).
Prior to my move to Hong Kong, I participated in cultural awareness training with Jamie Gelbtuch at Cultural Mixology. This holistic training focused on cultural values and business norms in Hong Kong (and other Asian countries I would be working with) but also on American values and norms, allowing for self-reflection and intentionality around how others may perceive me. While I am continuously learning how to best communicate and collaborate, I am building from a solid foundation.
Language is not as much of a barrier for me as it is for Emily. Everyone in my office speaks English, and signs, menus, and MTR announcements are all in English as well. I have been able to pick up a few Cantonese phrases: my vocabulary now consists of “good morning,” “thank you,” and the number five. But as Jamie taught me in cultural training, communication is far more than the words that are spoken: body language, directness, and cultural references all contribute to understanding.
Support Network
Emily’s boyfriend’s unenthusiastic reaction to her opportunity made it clear that he would not be a major character in this series (I don’t even remember his name). And friends and family in Chicago are totally absent, both before the move and while Emily is abroad. However, Emily has been able to quickly make friends who help her adjust to life in Paris.
I am incredibly lucky to have a partner who has been the most supportive — from encouraging me when an expat assignment was just an idea in my head to dealing with the many, many logistics of the move. Even if Emily’s boyfriend Doug (Googled it) wasn’t willing to follow Emily to Paris, he could have done much more to provide support from afar, or at the very least he could have learned the time difference.
Moving abroad can sometimes feel lonely, even with my husband by my side. Keeping in touch with my family and friends in the US has made the distance feel smaller. My nieces and nephews are always excited to see the sun shining here when we FaceTime during their bedtime. Just like Emily, I’ve also enjoyed making new friends abroad who have shared invaluable knowledge like where to get lunch by my office, where to hike on the weekends, and where to get a curly haircut.
The Job
Emily constantly reminds herself and the audience that her move to Paris is for work, not play. She recognizes that an expat assignment is a unique and privileged opportunity, especially for a woman in her 20s. Although Emily is sent to Savoir to bring her “American perspective,” she has much to learn from the local team and strives to find a balance between speaking up to share her ideas and listening to others’ opinions.
At a check in with my manager before my move, he shared with me a related lesson on the importance of listening, particularly for someone coming from New York headquarters. Through listening, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of how business gets done in each of our markets. I’m also grateful to work for a company with strong leadership and consistent values across the organization, so although the country culture is different, the company culture is the same.
Moving abroad comes with lots of adventure: exploring new food, places, and culture. But that’s not the adventure I came for. I’m in Hong Kong to do my job, to gain a different perspective on the business, and to develop skills that will help me continue to grow in my career.
—
Emily stumbles into her new role and new city unprepared and without a support network. Watching her journey has provided me with reminders of what not to do but also of how challenging this transition can be. She certainly makes mistakes, but Emily’s dedication to her work and willingness to learn help her adapt and eventually thrive.
After three months of living in Hong Kong, I’m starting to feel settled. My apartment is totally furnished (thanks, IKEA), I have go-to restaurants on Deliveroo (the Seamless of Hong Kong), and I even feel confident navigating around a city without a grid (no thanks to Google Maps which is nearly useless here). Just like Paris, Hong Kong seems like a big city but is really just a small town.
Stayed tuned for Season 2 of Charlene in Hong Kong…
|
https://medium.com/@charlenethrope/emily-in-paris-hits-close-to-home-839c5460896c
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['Charlene Thrope']
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2020-12-16 13:41:13.747000+00:00
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['Emily In Paris', 'Expat', 'Hong Kong']
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How We Communicate Weekly Updates And Plan Hackathons
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It’s already the last day of the week! This is the fifth and final part of the “A week in work at Fellow” blog series, and if you haven’t already, you can read through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ‘s posts.
Friday
Fridays are all about the Weekly Summary — and today is a special day because we’re starting the sign-up process for our hackathon!
⏰ 9:00 am: Hackathon sign-up
Back in July, we had our inaugural Fellow hackathon! It was a big occasion, with two days of hacking away at a project, and an afternoon of taking a school bus to a cottage where we enjoyed a BBQ, swimming, and presentations huddled around the TV in the living room.
If you haven’t heard of hackathons before, don’t worry, we weren’t hacking into systems! Hackathons are events where people come together to create something that they wouldn’t otherwise have the time or resources to do. For us that meant engineers teaming up to build features they wanted to see, sales and customer success tinkering with analytics to find interesting stats and trends, marketing working on a guide about one-on-one meetings, and even our CEO defining our first set of values and operating principles.
Even though you’re free to create whatever you’d like, hackathons take a lot of planning and some basic rules need to be thought through. Plus in the weeks leading up to the event, you want to encourage people to find teammates and start thinking of ideas.
Of course, being Fellow, we created a note for the hackathon that was tied to the event in our calendars ⤵️
The note housed all the details about the hackathon like when it would take place and how we were getting to the cottage. The details were evolving over the course of a few weeks, so it was handy having this living document with a version history to reference.
The bottom two sections of the note were the most important: the team list, and the classifieds. To make it easier for everyone to know who was available to join a team (and which teams still had space), everyone who had started to form a group listed their team name and members on the note. If someone had an idea but no teammates yet, they’d list themselves under the “Classifieds” header, along with any other freebie ideas that generous people had written down.
When the time came to present our hacks huddled in front of the TV in the cottage, we pulled up the note and followed the list of teams, checking each off as we went. We had first dragged each team name around a bit in the section to randomize the order of presentations.
After a few hours of being wowed by potential new product features, internal tools, and flashing strips of LEDs, we stowed away our laptops and spent the rest of the day in the lake 🛶🍔
And then what’s a Fellow note without a corresponding feedback request?! We all gave our feedback on the hackathon through the product, and I can’t wait to see what it leads to in our second hackathon.
⏰ 4:00 pm: Weekly summary
In our internal Slack workspace, we have a #team-pics channel where we post any and all pictures of the team, whether it’s from our launch celebration, our first Fellow baby shower, our archery tag team activity, or even just goofing around at lunchtime. It’s become this great album of pictures showing big moments in our history that brings waves of nostalgia from posts even just a year old.
That channel does an amazing job of capturing the growth and spirit of all the Fellows, but it doesn’t show our new features, or marketing initiatives, or anything about the work that we’re producing.
We decided that this is something we’d like to document on a regular basis so that we could look back a few months or years down the line to see just how far we’ve all come. At the same time, we wanted a strategy for departments to communicate what they’re working on to each other.
And so the “ Weekly Summary” was born! All of us have the Weekly Summary event booked in our calendars on Friday afternoons, but we never meet in person, we use the event to create a note in Fellow where everyone can add details about what they did that week.
Each department gets its own header, where they can add important numbers, features released, new initiatives, exciting news (like new hires!), and anything else that they deem worth documenting.
On Monday morning, our CEO Aydin looks back on the week and writes a summary with any other important things to note at the top, and then sends the note to all of us over email. This note bookends my weekend and has become a bit of a ritual: the last thing I do on Friday is fill in the engineering section, and the first thing I do on Monday is read through everyone else’s sections.
This strategy has worked extremely well for us to keep everyone in the company up to date on the latest happenings, and it’s already been incredible looking back on the last few months of our growth as a team.
. . .
And that’s my week in work at Fellow! I hope you enjoyed the glimpse into how we work and start creating your own unique workflows and templates. We’d love to know how you’re using the product, reach out to us as @fellowapp to show us your cool use cases!
About the author
Alexandra is a full-stack software engineer at Fellow.app, where she’s helping to build the future of work. In her spare time, Alexandra designs and sews clothes while incorporating tech by 3D printing custom elements and programming sewing machines. Alexandra is also a Twilio Champion and the new co-leader of Ottawa’s Slack Platform Community.
About Fellow.app
Fellow helps managers and their teams have more effective 1-on-1s and team meetings, exchange feedback, and track goals — all in one place!
Try it for free — your team will thank you
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https://medium.com/fellowapp/how-we-communicate-weekly-updates-and-plan-hackathons-b20d99cb7958
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['Alexandra Sunderland']
|
2021-09-16 20:35:48.017000+00:00
|
['Startup', 'Hackathons', 'Engineering', 'Engineering Mangement', 'Communication']
|
7 Things Highly Productive People Don’t Do
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7 Things Highly Productive People Don’t Do
They understand that time is limited.
Photo by Toni Koraza on Unsplash
You can travel the world, write books, start businesses, and retire by the time you’re 35.
People that run 10 companies from a Yacht in the Mediterranean are real.
The good news is that you can be one of those founders with 10 companies and more free time than a toddler. The ideas and concepts are easy to understand. I’ve published 300+stories, wrote a novel, traveled 6 months this year, started a Medium publication and a digital agency in London, and lost 20 pounds while never having to lose a single second from my social life.
However, most people will never dare to take control of their time.
Focus on getting the right stuff done to achieve more in less time.
1. Highly productive people don’t create unnecessary conflict.
I’d rather wash the dishes myself every day than have to discuss who’s house chore it’s supposed to be that day.
Taking 10 minutes out of your day to avoid an unnecessary conflict feels good and keeps your mind focused on what’s important. Trust me, dishes are everything but important. And cleaning can be quite therapeutic. I’ve cut down on friction at home by simply taking the whole task for myself. Mutual respect is essential for any co-living and co-working environment, but sometimes picking your battles can free more mental bandwidth for what is important to you.
And the dishes are rarely that important.
2. Highly productive people don’t fall out of the blue on every task.
My writing routine jumped to another level when I started annotating my plans and images.
You can create mental maps and timestamps about any of your plans and tasks. With free tools like Good Annotations, you can simply snap your screen and add text to it for later use. Also, design your workflow, how-to images, and product templates with simple annotation tools.
Good annotation skills made a difference between writing a single article and writing two in the same time-frame.
3. Highly productive people don’t tease themselves with things they might regret later.
Know yourself.
Are you one of those all-in addictive personalities, like most people?
My life changed when I just stopped trying to self-contain myself around personal vices. I know I can’t just smoke socially, and that trying to smoke only a few cigarettes a week leads to eventually buying a pack every day. I don’t entertain myself with only one beer because I know that it might lead to a wild party and a hangover the next day.
Know yourself, and don’t push the wrong buttons when you’re trying to stay productive.
4. Highly productive people don’t indulge in random distractions.
I don’t entertain myself with only 10min of YouTube in the middle of my workflow.
I know YouTube binge will probably take an hour, and I’ll feel frustrated with myself later on. Focus on the task at hand until you reach the flow-state. When you’re chasing the next task just for the sake of getting it out, it is a telltale sign that you’re in the flow-state. Your work becomes self-sustaining, and you want it only for itself.
Who you’re working for and why you’re doing it is not as important as getting it done.
5. Highly productive people don’t create unattainable goals in short time frames.
Instead, develop long-term systems and chase short-term goals. My shift from working for a boss to being a self-sustaining entrepreneur comes from systems and not goals. I decided to write every day and publish every day.
I wrote 15min every morning until I had a 300-page novel in my hands. I study languages daily with 15min tasks and can communicate in 5 languages, and speak two fluently.
6. Highly productive people don’t overstuff their schedule.
How many nights did you go to bed with the plans to change the world the next morning?
I did that most of my student days. Some something happens within your brain right before you fall to sleep. The doors of immense creativity open, everything seems possible, and you suddenly know how to fix everything. My plans fell short from the reality of the next day. I was still the same person, and now I felt unaccomplished because of all these unrealistic ideas I had planned for the day.
Motivation plays a key role in staying productive, and having a real to-do list is essential to win the day.
7. Highly productive people forgive themselves when they fail.
Dwelling on your mistakes and bathing in self-pity is the surefire way not to accomplish anything for the day.
Your life is full of bad and good karma, and you can choose what you focus on. Focusing on salvaging, damage-control, and proactive approach has helped me overcome the worst days. I know I can’t perform at my best and realize all my plans exactly how I imagine them in my head. And that is fine.
Forgive yourself.
You can always make more money, but you can’t ever get the time back.
Highly productive people understand that time is the only commodity that is limited for everyone. You’re getting more of your life for yourself by staying productive and using more time within your hours. I’m buying time now.
Once you run out of time, you can’t ever get it back.
|
https://medium.com/the-ascent/7-things-highly-productive-people-dont-do-de769608ef15
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['Toni Koraza']
|
2020-10-15 22:07:38.061000+00:00
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['Writing', 'Time Management', 'Productivity', 'Success', 'Entrepreneurship']
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3 Git Commands You Should NEVER Use
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Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
Git is a powerful tool. And, in my opinion, the only version control system software developers should be using in 2020. Perhaps there will be a new king in town one day. But in 2020, Git is the only solution worth investing your time with. Why? Because everyone uses it! Literally, everyone.
However, not everyone is an expert with git! These are three git commands that I believe you should NEVER use unless you truly understand what you’re doing!
Update 11/26/2020: This article got WAY more traction than I was expecting and there are a lot of comments with valid criticisms that are easier to address up front than individually. First, my appologies for the title and tone of the article. By “NEVER” I do not truly mean never. Although I am a fan of hyperbole, the idea I’m attempting to convey here is that these commands have the potential to increase complexity enough that it may be easier to just not use them and solve your problem more simply. For example — there are usually easier ways to handle pure dependencies than git submodule. Also, if you don’t have an overabundance of parallel active branches, I believe git merge to be generally easier to use and understand than git rebase. However, I recognize that I am biased because I work almost exclusively on relatively small projects which solve relatively pointed problems with smallish teams of 1–7 engineers. I’m not the guy developing the next Google (yet!). I’m the guy solving specific problems for each of our clients. If you work on larger teams with highly complex projects, git rebase and git submodule may be necessary to allow the history for your project or your sub-components to be reasonably navigable. If you are in this camp, hopefully an article written on a bit of a whim by a random person on the internet should not change your mind on whether or not using git rebase or git submodule is the correct answer. Let the official git documentation guide you. https://git-scm.com/doc
git submodule
Simply put, the git submodule command allows you to add a git repository into your git repository! However, managing a project where multiple submodules are used can be cumbersome.
git submodule add <repository location>
The above command adds the repository specified as a directory within your current git repository. This directory is itself a complete git repository. If you change directory into the new submodule you’ll notice that ALL of your git commands behave as if you just moved to a completely new repository. Because you have!
We’ll hereby reference the top-level repository as the “parent” repository and the submodule as the “child”. Within the parent repository, the directory which is the child submodule is treated more or less exactly how any other file within git would be treated. When the child repository is changed, you’ll see in the git status of the parent that the submodule has new commits or has modified content. Under the hood, from the perspective of the parent, a git submodule can be thought of as nothing more than a single file that contains a remote location and a commit id! The only way to update this file, and thus the parent’s reference to the submodule, is to track a different commit ID. Only when the most recent commit (aka the HEAD) of the child repository changes can the parent repository git add/git commit the updated submodule.
This intuitively means that if you are actively working within the child submodule, your workflow must also include managing the parent’s reference to the child. For instance, when you make a new commit in the child, you need to ALSO commit the parent’s reference to the child in order to keep the full project up to date. This can clearly become painful. Especially if you have many submodules or multiple levels of nested submodules. Each commit in any child repository equally requires updates to all references to that repository. This is why, in my opinion, submodules should only be used if the development team of the parent repository is different from the development team of the child. Submodules work well to keep track of references to external source code dependencies. However, I believe submodules do not work well to segment a single development team’s project into multiple sub-components. The resulting increase in complexity is not worth the additional effort required to maintain the parent/child relationship.
An additional note of interest: when using git submodules you must recognize that the parent repository will store no backup of the contents of the submodule. Only a reference. If you do not own the location which the submodule references, there is no guarantee that what you’re referencing will continue to exist at that location forever. If you do not own the remote location, I highly suggest creating your own remote location which is a clone of the original location as opposed to depending on a third party to maintain their repository at that exact location forever.
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https://mquettan.medium.com/3-git-commands-you-should-never-use-99f6ec910989
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['Marcus Quettan']
|
2020-12-02 15:15:36.732000+00:00
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['Collaboration', 'Programming', 'Advice', 'Software Development', 'Git']
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How I’m Surviving Self-Care Being Forced Into My Life
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Because I was a socially awkward child who craved, but never quite received enough human acceptance to counterbalance the soul-crushing anguish of a childhood that involved bullying, socioeconomic blight, racism, childhood obesity, and more, I live for validation. That validation is best envisioned as me, gathering people — yes, who in my head all caterwaul on social media and at social events like a harping group of witchy Baba Yagas living in a home built on top of a chicken’s feet — who are proud of my creative professional accomplishments, into a hut of sorts that I oftentimes struggle to carry on legs that, like a fowl’s, appear too spindly to accomplish the task.
I’ve been creating things and storing people in my Hut On Fowl’s Legs because of these things, for ten consecutive years. As well, I’ve probably been storing people in my hut for at least a decade prior to being a true “creator-first” person. Therefore, I genuinely believe — because I’m actually this shallow of a human being because of the hole in my soul that a tormented youth left me — that there are at least one million unique people occupying a metaphorical hut that I carry on my back and balance on my own two legs.
Maybe I create so much, do so much, and stuff so many people into this hut because I’m a sick, sad person who, after enduring what I felt was the enforced victimization of an ugly duckling childhood, can’t imagine a day without adoration. Maybe I create so much because I’m actually good at it and did all of the reading and all of the studying and did all of the work the exact way that the experts tell you to do all of the work. Maybe the best answer is somewhere between the two. Maybe I do this because I feel so sick and so sad so often, thus tossing myself into every book and knowing every word on everything is a Band-Aid. Then, that makes my Hut On Fowl’s Legs into some sort of ultimate salve, something that exists to constantly fill up the emptiness I feel and make me and my life feel better. But then, what about when that home that I carry about, supported by my meager legs, doesn’t quite make it all feel right, anymore. Then what?
“Put the fucking hut down.” That’s what I need to do, and that’s exactly what is going to happen. As an adult, I can admit that I have lived a life that has superseded the angst I felt as a child. Using anger and depression as the sources of strength by which to lift and carry an ever perpetually weightier Hut on Fowl’s Legs are what fueled me for two decades. It’s easy to smile in front of the world’s faces and cameras when the pain and anguish I feel is caught up in bearing a metaphor on my shoulders that is actually impossible to carry well. Moreover and related, as Everyday Health notes, the following:
Anger can be good for you if it’s addressed quickly and expressed in a healthy way. In fact, anger may help some people think more rationally. However, unhealthy episodes of anger — when you hold it in for long periods of time, turn it inward, or explode in rage — can wreak havoc on your body.
For a myriad of reasons, I’ve been extraordinarily pissed off for the better part of 41 years. I’ve held in that anger for 41 years. And now, I’m letting it go. That Hut On Fowl’s Legs is now just a hut grounded, sitting next to a plot of allegorical land, where I’m building a symbolic home. My idyllic resting place? A locale reflective of all of the joys I denied myself because anger was ruling my life and weighing me down.
Everyone and everything in that Hut On Fowl’s Legs that I trudged around with for 20 years? They’re right next door to me, just far enough away to shout encouragement or have a joyous memory of things past. But my future? Building a house uninhabited by Baba Yagas, but just by me, and the guests I choose to let in without any desire to allow their weight to occupy a space defined by me attempting to not process the negativity in my life.
Anger allowed me to rationally create and do wonderful things for 20 years. But it’s in discovering the joy my life can have and crafting my own self-care that will allow me to live and breathe for a lifetime more.
|
https://marcuskdowling.medium.com/how-im-surviving-self-care-being-forced-into-my-life-26eb079fb449
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['Marcus K. Dowling']
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2019-04-26 00:01:03.293000+00:00
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['Depression', 'Psychology', 'Joy', 'Life']
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Forward “Back,” or Forward “Forward”: The Nation Must Decide
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Today, the Nation is in a position not very unique from just before the Civil Rights movements for change or even the period just before the Civil War erupted, even as it feels like nothing the nation has ever experienced before in its history. It may very well be that two or more eras will mark this period of time, people, and experiences in the future. One thing for certain, however, is the generational division which still exists among the nation’s people on account of Race.
Yet, the Nation continues to feign shock and surprise over the rise of White Supremacy and the proliferation of Racism. This fantasizing over its greatness and denial of what it actually looks like to the world, coupled with tacit acknowledgement of the failure of its promise, and the reliance on pretense, is now jeopardizing the very Democracy upon which this country was built.
Again, in this paradoxical nation of is and isn’t, was and wasn’t, and forward and back, one side of the divide is ecstatic over the prospect of taking the United States forward and back into a state of openly superior Whiteness; that grand time prior to the 1960s when white people could claim whiteness as golden, whiteness as exceptional, and the term, “white” once again being prefaced before the literal personification of the term, “man.” This is the side of the divide who always felt they lost their identity, who had become invisible; forgotten during the Post Racial Color Blind era. They could be poor, but at least they were white, and now, for them, white lives mattered again. Indeed, as President Trump said in reference to a white supremacist group during the first debate of his incumbency, one could say this side of the divide is literally “standing back and standing by.”
Then, there is the other side, who, in their moderately liberal minded acuity, believe the nation should move forward, back into the time when the expression of true Whiteness had become a privilege for only the wealthy, in the form of “exclusivity,” and extended outward within the White economic class caste structures until the masses of them in the middle and lower classes no longer referenced their Whiteness lest they be called “Racist.” It was a relatively quiet time for this side. Although discrimination existed, and segregation persisted, at least no one was “protesting.” This side would extol the virtues of merit as the measure of value in society and relegate the overt faces of the white supremacist, swastika clad, confederate boot boys and girls back to their places, dangling precariously on the fringes of the Nation’s fabric, instead of in the Senate, the House, the Courts, and the White House.
The country actually knows that over fifty years of denial and pretense by way of the Post Racial Color Blind era brought this country to where it is at this time in history. It knows that four hundred years of inequality, inequity, injustice, and lack of opportunity also brought us to where we are in this time in history. The slide into Fascism by other countries is documented through even less similar circumstances. Therefore, in order to prevent the decimation of Democracy here in the United States, the country must release itself from its contradictions. The continued life breath of this Democracy demands that it move forward, not through a paradoxical spiral leading forward back to either side of the divide, but forward, forward into something completely new, something this country has never experienced before: true equality, equity, opportunity and justice for ALL.
*Excerpted from the Epilogue of an upcoming text by Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith tentatively entitled, “White Supremacy and the Post Racial Color Blind Era: Exploring Visible and Invisible Whiteness and Racism in America — An Unbook Look
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https://medium.com/the-baldwin/forward-back-or-forward-forward-the-nation-must-decide-c3e9af798555
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['Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith']
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2020-10-02 17:24:16.337000+00:00
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['Race Relations', 'White Supremacy', 'Bulletbybaldwin', 'Fascism', 'Democracy']
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Are you looking for Reliable Road Freight and Express Road Freight transport to Austria solutions ?
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Are you looking for Reliable Road Freight and Express Road Freight transport to Austria solutions ? Maxi Logistics Services ·Oct 28, 2021
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https://medium.com/@maksitransport/are-you-looking-for-reliable-road-freight-and-express-road-freight-transport-to-austria-solutions-8ad5279b5034
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['Maxi Logistics Services']
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2021-10-28 13:05:45.739000+00:00
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['Export', 'Maxi Logistics Services', 'Supply Chain', 'Austria', 'Logistics Ask Us']
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The Gender Square: A Different Way to Encode Gender
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Image: square with two axes, the horizontal reading Masculine and Feminine and the vertical reading Low Gender Association / Agender and Strong Gender Association
As non-gender-conforming and transgender folks become more visible and normalized, the standard male / female / other gender selections we all encounter in forms and surveys become more tired and outdated. First of all, the terms “male” and “female” generally refer to sex, or someones biological configuration, “including chromosomes, gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy.” Male and female are not considered the correct terms for gender orientation, which “refers to socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people.” Although sex exists on a spectrum which includes intersex people, gender has a wide range of identities, including agender, bigender, and genderqueer. This gender square method of encoding gender aims to encompass more of the gender spectrum than a simple male / female / other selection.
Image: triangle defining sex, gender expression, gender attribution, and gender identity
Upon encountering this square in a form or survey, the user would drag the marker to the spot on the square that most accurately represents their gender identity. This location would then be recorded as a coordinate pair, where (0, 0) is the center of the square. The entity gathering the data would then likely use those coordinates to categorize respondents. However, using continuous variables to represent gender identity allows for many methods of categorization. The square could be divided into quadrants, as pictured above, vertical halves (or thirds, or quarters), or horizontal sections. This simultaneously allows for flexibility in how to categorize gender and reproducibility of results by other entities. Other analysts would be able to reproduce results if they are given respondents’ coordinates and the categorization methodology used. Coordinate data could even be used as it was recorded, turning gender from a categorical variable into a continuous one.
Although this encoding of gender encompasses more dimensions, namely representing gender as a spectrum which includes agender identities, it still comes with its own problems. First of all, the gender square still does not leave room for flexible gender identities including those whose gender is in flux or those who identify as genderfluid or bigender. There are a few potential solutions for this misrepresentation on the UI side, but these create new problems with data encoding. Genderfluid folks could perhaps draw an enclosed area in which their gender generally exists, but recording this data is much more complex than a simple coordinate pair, and would become an array of values. People who identify as bigender could potentially place two markers, one for each of the genders they experience. Both this approach and an area selection approach make the process of categorization more complex — if an individual’s gender identity spans two categories, would they be labeled twice? Or would there be another category for people who fall into multiple categories?
Image: a gender spectrum defining maximum femininity as “Barbie” and maximum masculinity as “G.I. Joe”
Another issue might arise with users who haven’t questioned their gender identity along either of these axes, and may not understand the axes (particularly the Gender Association axis) enough to accurately use the gender square. When implemented, the gender square would likely need an explanation, definitions, and potentially suggestions. Suggestions could include examples such as “If you identify as a man and were assigned that gender at birth, you may belong in the upper left quadrant.” Another option may be to include examples such as in the somewhat problematic illustration above.
This encoding of gender would likely first be adopted by groups occupying primarily queer spaces, where concepts of masculinity, femininity, and agender identities are more prominent and considered. Within queer-centered spaces “current approaches to improving gender and sexual inclusivity on surveys often emphasize increasing the number of possible options that respondents can choose from to describe their identities.” Utilizing the gender square would allow for infinite unique gender identities without having to create and label an exhaustive list. If used in places where data on sex and transgender status is vital information, such as at a doctor’s office, then the gender square would need to be supplemented by questions obtaining that necessary information. Otherwise, it is intended for use in spaces where a person’s sex is irrelevant information (which is most situations where gender information is requested).
Although still imperfect, representation and identification of gender along two axes represents more of the gender spectrum than a simple binary, and still allows for categorization, which is necessary for data processing and analytics. With potential weaknesses in misunderstanding and inflexibility, it finds its strength in allowing individuals to more accurately and easily represent their own identities.
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https://medium.com/@emmatebbe/the-gender-square-a-different-way-to-encode-gender-86a36de11e1c
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['Emma Tebbe']
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2020-10-15 20:27:58.209000+00:00
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['Gender Identity', 'Data Collection', 'Gender', 'Categorization', 'Data']
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Settling: We All Do It But Why?
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Hola mis amigos!!! Hope you’re all well! Have you ever been in a situation that wasn’t right for you, but you participated in it anyway? And then looking back, you’re like, dang, I really settled? Yeah, me too. Let’s be real with ourselves, we have all settled at some point or another. Whether that’s settling in a relationship, a job, or education. But, fully aware of our settling, we do it anyway. Why do you think that is?
I’ve settled a lot in my life. For one, my first relationship, I settled. It’s a relationship that should have never really taken off. We weren’t a good match, and ultimately, it wasn’t someone I could have seen myself having a future with. It’s easy to point this stuff out now, but in the moment, I thought this person was the one for me. But, I never really asked myself why I was with this person. Well the hard truth is, I was 18 and never had a boyfriend and I wanted one. I wanted to feel wanted. And I felt like someone might never love me so I needed to take any chance I got, even if they weren’t right for me. Sad, but true.
Another example of me settling would be when I didn’t go to a 4 year college. I think I was so scared of failing that I just settled on going to a community college. Now, don’t come for me! I think community college is amazing and the education you get there and the skills you acquire are invaluable. You can’t go wrong with going to community college! However, for me, I went to community college and kind of gave up. I never even finished my degree, something I regret but am in the process of rectifying. I got lazy and I lost the drive I once I had for my education.
I can’t speak for everyone but I know most people tend to settle because of low self-esteem. I know that’s for sure why I have settled for things. I went into a relationship that wasn’t meant for me because my confidence was so low. I didn’t think anyone could love me for who I was. I didn’t apply myself in school because I didn’t feel like I was good enough which led to a fear of failure. Luckily, as I’ve gotten older, my self-esteem has grown and I have realized that I deserve things in life that bring me joy and fulfillment. I look back on that young Olivia, wishing I could go back in time, hug her, and let her know how worthy she is.
So, if you aren’t in the place to fully know your worth yet, let me enlighten you. You will get there. You are worthy of everything you want and need. You will find a man/woman that will cherish and love you, and that is the perfect person for you. You will get your dream job, get your degree, or go after any dream you want. You can achieve anything you set your mind to. Oh and guess what? You are ALL that and a bag of Hot Cheeto Puffs!! Know your worth babycakes!!! And like I said, you may not be in that place yet, but, you will and you can be. Things that are worth it take time. Know there are people that love and care for you (I do)! I believe in you cuties!
Love always,
Liv <3
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https://medium.com/@o.dutracormier/settling-we-all-do-it-but-why-5564793c3a51
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['Olivia Dutra-Cormier']
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2019-04-01 23:53:36.617000+00:00
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['Love Yourself', 'Dont Settle', 'Self Esteem', 'Know Your Worth', 'Self Love']
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Fighting the Unwinnable Fight
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Fighting the Unwinnable Fight
I look in the mirror and hate what I see
Even though the reflection is a creation of God
I look for him in books and prayer
When he is inside of me all along
Why do I cry out and scream for his help when the help that I need and desire is only a whisper away?
My soul is aching for peace, I promise to be better, but never follow through.
I hang onto the past like an anchor keeping a boat from moving, even though in my heart I know that all I have to do is release the anchor and there is nowhere that my soul can’t sail towards
I look towards the mountains and hope to see the promised land never accepting that where I am today at that very moment is where I am truly meant to be.
I fight and fight against the ghosts of the past and the demons that lay ahead, never accepting that the safest port and the true destination of happiness is today.
If I know all of this, why do I continue to fight? I know how to win, but I choose to continue to lose.
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https://medium.com/spiritual-tree/fighting-the-unwinnable-fight-f907d3d03c6e
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['Bob Pepe']
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2020-12-24 12:39:54.167000+00:00
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['Hope', 'Spirituality', 'Spiritual Tree', 'Life', 'God']
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The wealthy, get wealthier?
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Let’s get into the basic understanding of why investing is something that everyone should consider, working from 9 to 6 just to get by with your life and for many is hardly paying the bills, especially during those critical times. Humans by nature have tendency to avoid things they don’t understand, but worse is the fact to miss out on the opportunities unfolded.
If you want to build wealth and financial stability, investing is what will get you there. Investing is something that everyone should do. There are so many benefits of investing that it makes no sense not to get started.
Just to name a few reasons:
First, you stay ahead of inflation; if you don’t invest and grow your money, you will actually end up losing money over time. This is all thanks to inflation. Inflation is the general increase in prices that happens every year and the decline in purchasing power of your money. The rate of inflation can vary widely but historically inflation has averaged to around 3%.
Second, Investing Will Help You Build Wealth; we think this should go without saying, but we are going to say it anyway: Investing is how you build wealth. There are hundred ways to invest and grow your money. If you are serious about building wealth, then you need to create an investment plan that suits you and your goals. The wealthy invest, the broke do not.
Third, Investing Will Get You to Retirement or Early Retirement; in order to have enough money to retire you need to make your money work for you. Leaving your money sitting idle will actually work against you! The more you invest the more you will be able to take advantage of the power of compound interest. Compound interest is what happens when your interest starts earning interest.
Fourth, Investing helps you meet other financial goals; you can also consider investing to help grow your money to meet other financial goals or achieve long-term financial dreams. For example, build a nest egg for retirement, repay your mortgage early or pay university fees for your children.
There are many benefits of investing. If you want to create financial stability, grow your wealth, and stay on track for retirement you need to come up with an investing plan that suits your needs.
At AIX Investment Group we have a range of investments that can provide you with regular income that meets your financial goals, for you and those you care about.
Tailor to your changing needs — You along one of our Financial Advisors can design your investment portfolio to achieve different goals as you go through life, e.g. you may prefer safer options as you get older. With careful planning you can tailor your portfolio to reflect your changing goals and priorities.
If you plan on investing over a long time period, you may want to invest in one of our product that have growth potential, If you are approaching retirement, you may want to invest in more income-focused options.
AIX Investment Group has various investment products suitable for different risk/reward appetite, so you can create the right portfolio for your financial goals. Invest to fit your financial circumstances. As your financial circumstances change over time, you can change how you invest to suit your needs. You can invest lump sums as and when you can, or smaller regular amounts in a tailored investment plan. If you have the money available, you can start investing straight away. The sooner you invest, the longer your investment can grow. Alternatively, investing on a regular basis can help iron out fluctuations in the capital market, particularly in a volatile market.
Our investment options let you top-up your investments whenever you like. Also, you can diversify into different products whenever you want. Reach out to us and we will do the rest.
|
https://medium.com/@aixinvestment/the-wealthy-get-wealthier-5f952362014f
|
['Aix Investment Group']
|
2020-12-01 04:52:54.596000+00:00
|
['Investment', 'Retirement']
|
Chronicles Of A Wimpy Writer
|
Chronicles Of A Wimpy Writer
Image courtesy: the author
This is a picture of my desk. I took this picture from my new ‘one plus 8 pro’ which cost me 899 USD. The funny thing is that I bought this with my parents’ money.
Well, it makes sense. You see I’m only 23, unemployed, and currently studying in a medical school to which my parents pay, and in my line of work here in Pakistan, I won’t be earning enough money to afford this phone in the next 8 years.
You might be surprised__ but it’s a norm in Pakistan. Parents are supposed to pamper us and take care of us until we are well-grown adults and in return, they get to make our major life decisions as to what career to pursue, which girl to marry, and where to live. So it’s a dual exploitative relationship; just like the ones, average Americans have with their insurance companies.
It’s not a problem for most of us. Like culture, we have gotten accustomed to it. We even judge the parents who ask their teenage children to stand on their own feet.
But during this pandemic, as I was locked down with my parents in the same house after 5 years, it hit me hard____ the fact that I am basically a parasite and completely dependent on them even for my minor needs and desires. So, I started looking for online ways to earn some money and after going through some YouTube videos, I found Medium. It seemed easy money and since I knew writing, I thought to myself, “Let’s do it”.
Now, I have this problem, with online productive gurus. They have a habit of glorifying everything they do so beautifully. (I guess it’s a market strategy because it worked alright) The way they explained how easy it was to earn by writing articles, I couldn’t help but picture myself earning 4 figures right away_______ and that bubble popped real quick.
I don’t blame them. I not an out-of-the-world-good writer and I am certainly not a consistent writer. It’s like if consistency was a beautiful, hot chic from playboy magazine, then I would be strictly gay…… Because I cannot make myself try hard for her (pun intended)
For every piece that I write, I refresh the stats page like a billion times in hope that the medium curators might choose it for further distribution. Don’t judge me! America gave me this hope. Hey! you guys elected Trump as your president out of nowhere so; anything can happen. But in three months it never happened. ( should have written something racist or homophobic!) Right now, I only got 27 followers and 5 cents. Way less than the monkey whose juggler taught him to smile while receiving a banana.
The thing is, it’s difficult for me to sit down and choose a topic. Every niche seems so saturated and my mind basically goes like this….
“ Hmmm.. what should I write on? Self-help? Naah… there are a lot of writers out there for that”.
“Hmmm…… popular advice is that I should write about the stuff I am good at”.
“……. What am I good at?”
“Would someone be interested in 6 ways to justify procrastination? cuz I’m real good at it.”
“There should be a self-destruction category as well___ for writers like me. If The Ascent would have ugly, broke, and dumb instead of healthy wealthy and wise sections____ I would be their Tim Denning”.
He’s an amazing writer by the way. It’s cute when he tries to show humility about his success. I read one of his articles and he was like “I was an average Aussie who didn’t even know grammar.”….. Dude!! it’s easy for you to say. You have like hundreds of thousands of followers. You should start a religion; go write a scripture or something.
For me, it’s a struggle to write.. but I am a good talker and listener. I often have long meaningful conversations over cups of coffee with my friends. so I thought to myself, why not write like that. As if I’m making random conversation with all of you over a cup of coffee. What better way to write my thoughts out like this. To inspire and be inspired like this. To laugh, smile, cry, and learn like this. I hope to continue these chronicles in the future, apart from my struggle with writing in other niches of course. Feel free to respond because a conversation is not a conversation when no one’s responding. It becomes a senate speech. I’d love to be a senator though.
|
https://medium.com/illumination/chronicles-of-a-wimpy-writer-6a60e01bd7a
|
['Awab Hussain']
|
2020-12-18 07:43:14.489000+00:00
|
['Illumination', 'Productivity', 'Writing', 'Sarcasm', 'Comedy']
|
Startup Investors: The Significance Of Passion & Ability Within A Founding Team, With Jason Kraus of EQx Fund
|
Startup Investors: The Significance Of Passion & Ability Within A Founding Team, With Jason Kraus of EQx Fund
Mindset Clip #313
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4NcaRVWXTk
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
*Gain access to all full length investor interviews by joining our Mindset Founders Slack Community for FREE. Here’s your link to register today: https://mindsetacademyondemand.com/slack-free-access
*Gain FREE access to investor interview clips, organized by interview topic by subscribing to our YouTube channel today: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdr70xJrIQce7H-fYhV7P3A?sub_confirmation=1
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
#venturecapital, #startups, #fundraising, #startupinvestors, #capitalraise, #founders
|
https://medium.com/@mindsetstartupacademy/startup-investors-the-significance-of-passion-ability-within-a-founding-team-with-jason-kraus-cde7fffabe1b
|
['Mindset Startup Community']
|
2020-12-18 15:36:48.565000+00:00
|
['Eqx Fund', 'Startup Lessons', 'Founders', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital']
|
Take Help of Best Love Vashikaran Specialist Babaji
|
Love is a blessed feeling. We are individuals and we do have exceptional affections for extraordinary individuals. In any case, getting a genuine romance is surely a troublesome situation. A portion of the individuals attempt to prevail upon the hearts of the one, whom they have extraordinary emotions. However,some of them become hopeless.
Getting genuine affection is unquestionably an extreme undertaking. And still, after all that, there is an enormous possibility of getting fizzled. Things being what they are, how to get genuine affection? Just, let me talk about how normal bodies influence your love life. Our love life or love marriage problem is generally impacted by the movements of the stars and planets. The universe is loaded with vitality. This can be certain or negative. The positive vitality drives us forward for progress while the negative vitality carries hardship and disappointments to our life but vashikaran is the solution of all problems.
What to do to bring true love in life? Astrology based solutions can easily help in bringing true love in your life. This is a science which helps in providing you the information about what is stored for you in the near future. It provides the causes about the happenings which are taking place in your life. If something bad is about to happen to you, then love vashikaran specialist solutions will help in controlling these things.
There are different love marriage specialist who are rendering their services. These vashikaran specialist can help you in getting back the lost love in your life. They have taken this information from the old books and are utilizing these supernatural spells to support you.
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https://medium.com/@rs5473635/love-is-a-blessed-feeling-adf38ac145c9
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['Riya Sharma']
|
2019-11-27 07:35:34.058000+00:00
|
['Vashikaran', 'Mantra', 'Solution', 'Love', 'Problem']
|
How javaScript Asynchronous works under the hood?
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in this brief Article i’m gonna show you how Event loop , Call stack , Callback queue and web APIs (Events table) work together and handle the asynchronous and synchronous functions. ok let’s dive into it.
what is Call Stack ?
when we write some functions in our code and call them , these guys are sent to Call stack to run and after that they pop out of it.
in the above gif it shows how functions orderly go to to call stack and after execution they pop out of it and one intresting thing that catches your attention is that asyncronous setTimeout function which is not gonna end up right here (we’ll talk about it more), but first let break the gif down into a few parts to see what exactly going on:
greet function is called this function goes to call stack to run now call stack executes this function and return “hello” greet function pops out of call stack now respond function goes the same way above
that’s it for the gif, let’s continue…
Web APIs ( Events table ) , Callback Queue , Event Loop
Introducing of Web APIs(Event tables) :
every functions that is asynchronous like Ajax , setTimeout , event handlera , etc.., joins to Events table and wait for the time for execution to come for example: setTimeout waits 3000 ms to run or event handler waits untill Click event happens and then run. as we know functions are executedin call stack but these guys can’t join the others in call stack yet, so… they should go somewhere else but wher?!
Introducing of Callback Queue :
as it’s called , this is a queue of callbacks (the gusy in the events table, remember?), thus callbacks which are waiting for get executed will join to this queue. this queue is not going to execute callbacks or even puah them to call stack so what it does?!
Introducing of Event loop :
This dude is an intermediary between web APIs and callback queue , what does it mean?
event loop waits and keeps an eye on call stack and callback queue and when call stack is emty and there is no synchronous function to execute , event loop takes first callback from callback queue and sends it to call stack and as usual, call stack will execute it just like other functions.
now we know how any of these works, let’s see it in the gif below to understand this cooperate better.
attention: watch this gif twice ,first time just look at bar function and its setTimeout and second time look at the rest of the functions which are synchronous.
let’s see above gif as a code now:
now we can see although bar function get called first but because it’s asynchronous it has to wait for synchronous guys to get executed first, it is good to know that if setTimeout time was even 0 ms it wouldn’t be change anything , it’s ashnchronous function afterall.
well , that’s pretty much it
now , you are a better programmer than 10 minutes ago.
goodbye and good luck.🤞
|
https://medium.com/@samaghapourdev/how-javascript-asynchronous-works-under-the-hood-57ca050a8e1a
|
['Sam Aghapour']
|
2021-09-07 22:37:06.855000+00:00
|
['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Asynchronous', 'Synchronous', 'Event Loop']
|
Is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood Still Worth Watching?
|
In reviewing a series called JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, I think it’s fitting that we start by examining the titular JoJo himself: the thickly-eyebrowed Jonathan Joestar. Unlike the other JoJos, who either start the series as muscular badasses (Joseph, Jotaro) or are at least courageous enough to do what needs to be done (Josuke, Giorno), Jonathan begins his adventure as a (pretty wimpy) child, just introduced to his adoptive brother Dio Brando, a boy who jumps dramatically out of a stagecoach and begins a new, and troublesome, life as a member of the Joestar household.
The interesting thing about this setup is that it shows how Jonathan, emotionally manipulated by his foster brother and misunderstood by his clueless father, gained the kind of steely resolve and determination that would later define him. Dio kills his dog, poisons his father, and, famously, kisses his crush, but cannot destroy the will of Jonathan to prove himself righteous, even if he can defeat the Joestar boy at every turn.
The problem is that Jonathan’s character, even when fully developed (after the burning mansion fight), is not particularly interesting. What are his character traits? Oh, he’s so brave, so noble, so kind. What are his character flaws? Um…he’s too brave, noble, and kind? Jonathan’s one “failure” after his character is developed is the failure to destroy Dio’s head, but he can hardly be blamed for that, since no one fully knew what Dio was capable of. This is not helped by the fact that all the other characters, especially Robert E. O. Speedwagon, cannot stop praising Jonathan for being such a cool guy. Likable characters aren’t likable because they’re good people — they’re likable because they’re relatable, and Jonathan isn’t very relatable.
So much for Jonathan. Are the side characters any good? Well, there’s Speedwagon. A thief from the heart of the East End of London, Speedwagon’s inexplicable gratitude to Jonathan for punching him in the face — but nobly — is matched only by his desire to explain out loud what’s going on. He is a fan favorite, but — and I can only speak for myself here — Speedwagon memes aren’t quite as funny right after watching an episode of Phantom Blood. That’s because the guy is genuinely annoying. Action in anime does sometimes require explanation, but later seasons of JoJo’s would do this better. Plus, he steals Zeppeli’s hat.
Speaking of Will A. Zeppeli, the Italian baron is the only character to receive much in the way of backstory or character development. He is Jonathan’s friend and mentor, and a genuinely interesting character with a quest-for-revenge motive. He teaches Jonathan Hamon and goes on to die a hero’s death, becoming the first of many JoBros to heroically sacrifice themselves in the line of duty. If there is a problem with Zeppeli, it may be that his flamboyant appearance and serious manner don’t match — which, of course, is a series staple for JoJo’s, but since this is the first time we see it, it’s a bit disconcerting.
There are also a number of unimportant side characters, the most memorable of whom is probably Dire, who’s also on a revenge quest and uses probably the single greatest move in the whole anime with his Thunder Cross Split Attack. It’s so utterly impossible to suspend disbelief and take the show seriously when he does this, and I find it side-splittingly funny every time. I’m not sure his inclusion, or the inclusion of many of the others, added much to the story, but I’m willing to give Araki a pass on that. It was worth it just for that one line.
As far as villains go, Bruford and Tarukus are the only ones besides Dio to receive much attention. While they have an interesting backstory, featuring the only time in JoJo’s history that characters interacted with real historical figures, Bruford suffers from Speedwagon disease, and instantly sees the light after getting beaten down by Jonathan. Why? Because Jonathan is so noble. As if we didn’t know that already. As for Tarukus, he just sort of…stays evil, which makes more sense, but takes away any potential for character development.
The part’s best character is undoubtedly Dio himself. He has all of the agency in the plot and all the best lines, and he goes from cunning schemer to flamboyant villain over the course of the storyline. His goals are pretty vague, but that matters less than it maybe should — it doesn’t matter to me how he wants to be evil as long as he does it in style, with his army of Halloween-store baddies. Maybe viewers won’t find Jonathan relatable, but they will love to hate Dio. I wasn’t rooting for Jonathan as much as I was rooting for his foster brother’s destruction. It’s pretty obvious why Araki brought him back for another round — he must have been incredibly fun to write.
|
https://skeezixblogs.medium.com/is-jojos-bizarre-adventure-phantom-blood-still-worth-watching-d1f8e78d6ef7
|
[]
|
2020-06-03 23:29:08.676000+00:00
|
['Review', 'Anime', 'Geek', 'Anime Review', 'United Kingdom']
|
In Due Time: Story of Miami’s Dewayne Dedmon
|
“Coach.. My name is Dewayne Dedmon. I want to play basketball.” Those words quoted in a 2011 Sports Illustrated article is where it all started for new Miami Heat center DeWayne Dedmon.
While some athletes utter those words as soon as they can speak, that isn’t Dedmon’s testimony. The seven-footer didn’t start his basketball journey until his senior year of high school.
You read that right, 12th grade.
It wasn’t because he didn’t want to before then, it’s because he wasn’t allowed to.
As a Jehovah’s Witness, Dedmon’s mother believed allowing her son to join a team was a sign of him showing allegiance to something other than God.
Once Dedmon turned 18, he took a stand and decided to go his own way.
After a solid senior season at Lancaster High School, he started his college career at Antelope Valley College before ending up at USC.
The mindset he had going into his first game at USC in 2011 has become his identity over his 8-year NBA career.
“I’m gonna play hard every game.. And that’s what you can expect every game. I’m gonna give 100 percent,” Dedmon told a USC reporter.
It had been a while since Dedmon was able to meet those expectations, though. He was traded by the Hawks to Detroit in November 2020 and the Pistons immediately waived him.
It would be almost six months before he’d play ball again. The Heat signed him in April at the NBA roster deadline.
“I was at the crib just working out and was available for any team that would call,” he said in his first interview with the team.
To some fans, it might seem like Dedmon came out of nowhere. A random pick up without much thought.
But that was far from true, according to Head Coach Erik Spolestra. Dedmon actually played with the Heat in the 2013 Summer League.
“We’ve always been a fan of his grit, to be able to get into this league and then create the career that he has, and then play specific roles on different teams that he’s been on, something that we’ve always taken notice of,” Spo told the Sun Sentinel.
“We’ve always just kind of kept in touch and connected with him. And the timing was great for us.”
The Heat’s need for size was exposed in their NBA Finals loss to the Lakers. LA with 7 players 6’9 or taller, while the Heat had 3.
“They were in need for a big and a rim protector and I felt like that one fit.” Dedmon said.
In nine games with the Heat, Dedmon is already averaging 7 points and 5 rebounds in 13 minutes off the bench, only trailing starters Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler in rebounds.
As Miami closes in on their final seven games of the season, there’s no doubt Dedmon will play a huge role going into the playoffs.
And Heat star Jimmy Butler agrees.
“He plays incredibly hard, he’s unselfish and he takes all the right shots.. He’s a pro’s pro,” Butler said.
“He comes in, he stars in his role and he’s not handed anything. I think he has earned every trip up and down that floor and every minute that he has been given.”
|
https://medium.com/@britnee/in-due-time-story-of-miamis-dewayne-dedmon-ca702b7d20cc
|
['Britneé Davis']
|
2021-07-02 23:02:43.380000+00:00
|
['Miami Heat', 'Dewayne Dedmon', 'Basketball', 'NBA', 'Miami']
|
Music, statistics and data visualization
|
“Music critics get their records for free, so their opinions generally don’t interest me” (Marilyn Manson)
“Competitions are for the horses, not for the artists” (Bela Bartok)
“Everything can be explained with statistics, 40% of people know it” (Homer Simpson)
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion” (William Deming)
Since I was a little child I have been passionate about music and all the data and information related to it.
I remember those early ’90s when I faithfully accompanied the weekly Top 20 of Saturday Box Office (1) or going out to buy Rolling Stone magazines to read, mainly and first of all, the reviews of recently released albums. Came to my mind the indignation I felt when I saw that the score of an album, that I liked so much, barely reached three stars. I was also looking forward to the annual Si! Supplement survey by the Argentine newspaper Clarín, to find out about the year’s outstanding artists and releases.
In short, I haven’t left any music article without reading; if it was in the form of lists or ranking, with associated numbers, even better.
Then the Internet came, and everything changed. I began to have access to new artists, I exercised my listening, and today I enjoy sounds that I would never have imagined before. I’ve lost a bit of innocence and matured in disbelief. I understood how the market works, that music is actually another industry, and my interest in recognized music rankings and awards ceremonies diminished, although I confess that I still feel like a teenager when Spotify sends me the year summary with my statistics of reproductions and list of personal preferences.
I am an engineer and musician (2). I love attending concerts, I declare myself a music lover but not a religious audiophile and, finally, I resigned (almost) definitely the beautiful ritual of buying a physical album for the practicality of having the musical universe just a couple of clicks away.
Repeated coffee talks, in which an attempt has been made to define whether Megadeth is indeed better than Metallica. The eternal combat of two heavyweights of metal, where surely the disruptive defense of some indignant minority fan of Slayer will be present. Music lovers have lived through several of these debates and, in a way, we end up enjoying them, even knowing that most of them are more encouraged by the press than by the artists themselves.
On some occasions, almost all of us have heard the firm assertion, initially irrefutable, that the Beatles were, are, and will be the best band in history. Days ago I saw a BBC documentary where one of the interviewees strongly doubted this statement, arguing that Kraftwerk is indeed the best and most influential band of all time (3).
I was part of a musical band for more than a decade and despite being an extraordinary and extremely rewarding experience, especially those sporadic and ephemeral moments where individual performances achieve maximum group synergy, it was always a bit tedious for me that all compositional decisions must be permanently agreed upon. Over time, this concept led me to think if artistic teamwork does not end up damaging the quality of the musical product and if the creativity of the artist who composes alone ends up being much more artistically effective.
I have wondered, on more than one occasion, if I have become more demanding or the quality of the artists’ musical work is effectively decreasing with the progress of their career. Or will it be the opposite, could it be that musicians are really like wines: the older the better?
Homer Simpson, a great fan of rock in his youth, but sadly gentrified by the crushes of life itself, once argued that Rock achieved perfection in 1974. As an admirer of the character and a fervent Queen follower, I always had sympathy for that sentence; that year saw the release of what I consider to be the best album Queen has ever released: “Sheer Heart Attack” (4). The dispute over which period of this band was better, the seventies or the eighties, is also a thing to define.
A large number of friends and acquaintances who go through half of their lives argue that the ’80s were the best years in terms of music releases, while older adults nostalgically remember the good 70’s. On the contrary, I always maintained that the ’90s was indeed the golden decade of Rock, especially, the year 1991 when great classic albums were released. In that year were released the admired Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the magnificent Ten by Pearl Jam, the disruptive Nevermind by Nirvana, the futuristic and revolutionary Achtung Baby by U2, or the multiplatinum Black Album by Metallica, to name only a few. There’s no way another year can beat 1991, not even 1974, right?
With great advertising cunning, the United States has always managed to position itself as the best country in the world when it comes to almost anything. In this case, it may be justified; after all, it is the country that gave birth to great legends, such as Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Velvet Underground or Ramones. Personally, I have always felt that it is actually England who has been and continues to be, the best world producer of musical content. Could I be wrong?
I decided to fusion my two cerebral hemispheres, combining my passion for music with my academic background, and start a path of research where, through certain premises, assumptions and simplifications, I can try to answer these and other questions related to the world of music, in an analytical and structured way.
This is how MOC| Music On Charts was born
At the time of writing this article, the database has more than 1,000 recognized and popular artists and their respective 10,000+ officially released studio albums. It does not (obviously) include the whole universe of the music published worldwide, but it is a sufficiently representative sample of the musical releases of the most prominent and popular western bands and solo artists of the last 60 years, a period that extends from Elvis Presley to Billie Eilish.
Knowing that music is art, and all art is personal and subjective, the analysis is only possible if a quantitative variable is found, that acts as a means of comparison. In this sense, and within the subjectivity field, there is no more “objective” numerical analysis tool than the album ratings.
Album ratings are obtained from a mathematical algorithm that weighs several reviews from different sources; not only are considered the evaluations of music critics from recognized media, but also the ratings made by thousands of music followers on different alternative and independent websites.
All these 10,000+ records, analyzed with data visualization tools, allowed me to answer some of my old concerns and obtaining different conclusions.
Below, I detail a few conclusions that I arrived at:
a. The best album ever is Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (1975), with a weighted average rating of 4.92/5.00. The worst one, Summer in Paradise (1992) by The Beach Boys with a score of 1.04.
In MOC you will be able to discover the complete list and, if you stop to observe closely the values, perhaps you will agree with me that it would probably be fairer to talk not about one, but the five or ten best albums in history; the mathematical difference in the result is truly minimal.
b. The ‘70s have been the best decade when it comes to musical releases. This analysis considers approximately 1800 records counted in each decade, from 1970 to date. The number of recorded albums that belong to the 1960s is not representative in the database, so it was excluded from this analysis.
c. The overall average rating for the 10,000+ albums is 3.47. Bands as a whole have a better rating than soloists; female artists have released better works than their male peers.
d. 1970 has been the best year. Homer Simpson has been much more correct than I in his prediction.
e. The correlation index of the discographies of each artist, complemented with other charts, allows me to conclude that the number of artists who have managed to have a sustained upward career over the years is very small; the vast majority of artists have an irregular and oscillating or downward trended career. In fact, at the aggregate level, it is observed that the artists begin a pronounced artistic decline from their fourth album.
F. The UK (3.48/5.00) has released better albums than the US (3.44/5.00). It should be noted that I am considering 5,200 US albums versus 3,200 UK albums.
g. James Brown, Johnny Cash, and Tangerine Dream have been some of the most prolific artists when it comes to the number of official studio releases.
h. One of the charts shows how the music industry has been professionalizing itself over time, with a marked inflection point from the year 2000. From the beginning of this millennium to the present day, the ratings of the albums are highly concentrated around the general mean; with few exceptions, no excellent or terrible work has been released lately, most albums are just acceptable, good, or average.
i. Queen of the 70s has been artistically better than Queen of the 80s, and their best work was indeed A Night at the Opera (1974), with a rating of 4.67. Paradoxically, the band reached its peak of global popularity in the mid-80s. And yes, Metallica’s official discography is indeed better than Megadeth’s one.
j. When talking about the average of the released albums to define the best artist in history, it is necessary first to consider a threshold regarding the number of released albums. Considering all those artists who have released more than 7 official albums, then the initial hypothesis that The Beatles is the best band of all time is confirmed, followed by Led Zeppelin in second place. In turn, Nick Cave is the best solo artist.
I invite you to visit the MOC website and go deeper into this subject, stratifying the data with the available filters in the interactive chats.
k. If we (arbitrarily) consider that an excellent album is the one whose rating is greater than 4.75, and a bad album is the one whose rating is less than 1.75, then the proportion of excellent albums (1.8%) is much higher than the bad ones (0.7%). More than half of the albums ever released are actually good.
If we randomly select an album, there is a probability of more than 75% that the album is, at least, good. This does not necessarily mean that we end up liking it ;)
After analyzing all the data, and arriving at some conclusions, surely another question arises:
Is it fair and/or sufficient to evaluate an artist strictly by scoring their official musical releases, or are their studio albums just a cog within a more complex mechanism, which also includes their appearance, their public statements, their charisma, their media handling, its management and advertising structure, the art design of the albums, their live shows, their controversies, etc?.
This discussion is as complex as it is passionate, impossible to be quantified, so not only exceeds the scope of this project but it should remain part of the musical folklore and endless hours of coffee talks.
Dani Roperto // www.DaniRoperto.com // www.MusicOnCharts.com
1. Saturday Box office. TV program. Chile.
2. Drummer and sound artist.
3. Kraftwerk, Pop Art. Documentary, BBC.
4. Yes, even better than “A Night at the Opera”.
|
https://medium.com/@daniroperto/music-statistics-and-data-visualization-fbd19dc4643c
|
['Dani Roperto']
|
2020-12-08 10:42:49.849000+00:00
|
['Artist', 'Music', 'Review', 'Statistics', 'Rock']
|
Juvenile Inflammatory Arthritis and a Plant-Based Diet
|
I was diagnosed with Juvenile Inflammatory Arthritis (JIA) when I was 12 years old so I’ve had well over 20 years of learning to live with and manage this condition. I struggled through my teenage years and the early part of my university education trying endless NSAIDs with lots of courses of oral steroids thrown in as well. As a child my mum took me to see so many different people, desperate to try and find me help and relief. We tried physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, saw an osteopath, a homeopath and several different rheumatologists; some of these things made a little difference, but nothing sustainable or long-lasting. By the age of 17 I was suffering from depression due to being in pain for so many years and I’d missed out on seeing my friends and missed about a third of my sixth form education. I sometimes used a wheelchair because the pain was too bad to walk or get around.
‘As a child my mum took me to see so many different people, desperate to try and find me help and relief’.
As I was starting university at 18, I pleaded with my rheumatologist for more help and I was put onto methotrexate. With the exception of 18 months in 2011/12 whilst I had my daughter, I’ve been on that ever since in varying doses. In around 2015 my symptoms got a lot worse and I added another DMARD into the mix, and when that failed to help, I also tried a biologic. The side effects of the biologic were so severe that within three months I’d stopped because for me they were intolerable (hair loss, upset stomach, multiple bruises, sores and rashes around the injection sites, headaches, to name a few), and it made no difference at all to my joints.
‘I sometimes used a wheelchair because the pain was too bad to walk or get around’.
Nothing really seemed to help or make that much difference so I went back to “only” taking methotrexate and slowly managed to help myself in other ways by starting to practice yoga regularly and exercising more when my joints would allow for it. In 2019 I trained to become a yoga teacher and also started doing regular resistance and strength training with a personal trainer. Despite asking for other suggestions that might help my condition, at no time did the medical community suggest that a change to my diet could have a really positive impact on not only my disease, but my overall health and wellbeing. I have since learned that medics are given very little, if any, formal education on nutrition and its link to disease prevention, management and reversal, so who can blame them for not suggesting that to me?
‘However, at no point were the inflammatory properties of certain food types discussed, for example meat and dairy’.
Historically I’ve eaten an omnivorous diet including meat, fish, eggs, dairy, fruit and vegetables. I generally didn’t eat a lot of processed or high fat/sugar food and considered my diet to be pretty healthy (according to the NHS eat well guide). I was told a few times that weight loss would be beneficial for my joints but I’d tried all sorts of diets and eating plans, managed to lose some weight, only for it all to go back on once I went back to eating “normally”. It sounds pretty obvious when I spell it out like that, but with a BMI of 25–26, I always figured I wasn’t doing too badly in comparison to a lot of people. However, at no point were the inflammatory properties of certain food types discussed, for example meat and dairy. In reality my overall health wasn’t great, and a big part of that was my “healthy” diet.
Towards the end of 2016 I met a fellow mum on the playground whilst waiting to collect my daughter from school. We quickly became good friends and I started to learn about her life. I learnt that she is a GP and had recently changed her diet to be fully plant-based, after trying “the Joe Wicks thing” and not feeling comfortable with the amount of meat she was eating. She and I talked a lot about why she’d made that change and apart from ethical and environmental reasons, health and wellbeing were high on her list. This was the first time I considered changing my diet significantly and yet I still resisted. I always had an excuse: it’s too hard; we’re meant to eat meat; fish is good for you; I eat plenty of fruit and vegetables; my daughter is a fussy eater; it’s hard to eat out… the list goes on! She even gave me a book about Iidamaria van der Byl-Knoefel’s story — someone with a very similar condition to mine and who had been through a very similar experience to mine… but for whatever reason I wasn’t ready to make the change.
‘It took me about three or four months to transition to be fully plant-based and the interesting thing was that it really wasn’t that hard’.
For the next two to three years, I battled internally with making the change to my diet. I did Veganuary a couple of times and started reading the research linking plant-based and plant-based whole food diets to improved health and less disease. In early 2020, just before lockdown hit, I made my choice: I was going to do it. It took me about three or four months to transition to be fully plant-based and the interesting thing was that it really wasn’t that hard. I did miss cheese (standard), but the benefits far outweighed any food I missed. I immediately started to lose weight (a total of 12 kg in the end), my skin was better, I felt less tired, I had more energy, my bowel movements became regular, and best of all my joints felt amazing. In August 2020, I decided to come off my methotrexate altogether just to see how I coped: really well! I had my inflammatory markers checked in February 2021 and my CRP was 0.8 and my ESR was 2, and that was with no medication at all. I’m not against medication by a long stretch — some people see real benefits from it and it allows them to live their lives as they want to, but I do wonder how many of those people with similar conditions to mine would still be on the same dose or any medications at all if they made that switch to a plant-based diet. Only time and education will tell.
‘I’m so glad I made that change and getting on for a year in, I’m converted and convinced. I would never go back and I’d encourage others in my position to give it a try’.
I’m so glad I made that change and getting on for a year in, I’m converted and convinced. I would never go back and I’d encourage others in my position to give it a try. My friend who helped me is now my partner in life and I’m forever grateful to her and this organisation for educating us all in the benefits of plant-based eating.
March 2021
For more about my story, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook @yogiclarebear
If you have found this article useful, please follow my organisation ‘plant-based health professionals UK’ on Instagram @plantbasedhealthprofessionals and facebook. You can support our work by joining as a member or making a donation via the website.
|
https://medium.com/@shireenkassam/juvenile-inflammatory-arthritis-and-a-plant-based-diet-f9a865130aa1
|
['Shireen Kassam']
|
2021-03-01 20:13:58.303000+00:00
|
['Plant Based', 'Pain', 'Vegan', 'Lifestyle', 'Arthritis']
|
The Different Social Media Platforms and How to Use them in Content Marketing
|
# FACEBOOK
Content marketing is a great way to promote your business because it allows you to get well in touch with your target market and engage them even when you are not selling. This way, you can turn them into loyal customers. Facebook allows you to perform the first task of content marketing which is to grow an audience. With its over 2 billion users, incorporating Facebook into your content marketing strategy is a sure way to reach a wide range of users.
You can optimize the effect of your blog posts by posting them on Facebook. Blogging is the running point channel for content marketing because it can bring you lots of traffic through its immense tools. But this can only be achieved when people find your content there. This is where sharing on Facebook comes in. You will have access to different interest groups to engage with the different blog posts you have.
Facebook ads will also help significantly boost your content marketing campaign. Since it owns Instagram, you will also be getting more clicks from both if you have them linked. This works better when you include pictures and videos alongside your content. Facebook also is perfect to test your content ideas before trying them out on even your blog.
# INSTAGRAM
Instagram has all the tools you need if part of your marketing goals is to build trust with your customers. Most brands feel they will compromise their integrity by using Instagram because of how shallow the content most people share and engage with is. This is not necessarily true. With mini videos for instance the newly introduced feature — reels on Instagram you, can take your audience through the unveiling of a new product line and have it become a household name long before it is launched.
With Instagram stories, you can better showcase the interior and behind the scenes part of your company. This goes long way in getting your audience to relate with your brand on a personal level. Also, no other platform provides the level of ROI on influencer marketing like Instagram. Also, your content will have higher chance of being viewed when it is endorsed by an authority figure in your industry.
# TWITTER
Twitter is the ideal social media platform for content marketing. With over 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users, it allows you to keep in touch with much of your audience. Most corporate bodies connect with their audience using Twitter because engagement on it is higher and more productive than most other platforms. It allows you to easily build brand awareness and participate in the daily conversations that your target audience are participating in.
Twitter hashtags are the ideal sources of content ideas because they are relevant and influence the trends of other social media platforms. Also, implement twitter cards so that every time someone shares your content on their timeline, the card visibly shows up. It is a great way to grow your brand and boost your content marketing efforts.
Instead of using your emailing list alone to run your content marketing campaigns, use Twitter ads to target the people on your list. This is very helpful when your open rate on email marketing is getting low. Witter has the capacity to match the email addresses on that list with its users thereby making your advertisement more targeted and cheaper. You can also find the twitter influencers around your industry and engage with them.
# LINKEDIN
There are many reasons why LinkedIn particularly should be part of your B2B marketing strategy. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter will get you the right kind of audience but will fail in doing so in the right context. Most users don’t engage so much with business content on their timeline. Instead, they are looking for stories, memes and pictures. This is where LinkedIn comes in to present you with professionals who are looking for the content you have.
With the platform now permitting users to update video content, you will now easily reach your audience including those who prefer engaging with video content. What is more, you can share your content as many times as possible thereby driving more traffic to your website each time.
Apart from offering you better-qualified leads than most other social media platforms, LinkedIn allows you to easily establish trust and position yourself as a leader in your industry. You do not have to worry so much about how analytical or technical you sound in your content. In fact, most of the over 500million LinkedIn users are there to develop themselves and would respond well to thought provocative and insightful publications.
# PINTEREST
Pinterest allows you to stay ahead of what your audience are interested in. With its analytics, you get to see what your target audience are repining. The only thing is that you have to have your business account verified. Once you have got this out of the way, Pinterest will make available its analytics data. Other Pinterest tools like Pin league allows you to see which of your images have been re-pinned, by whom and how many times. This gives you insight into the kind of content ideas you should be working on and the demography it appeals most to.
You stand a better chance of getting shares on Pinterest than any other social media site because, unlike say Twitter, re-pins are much more important on Pinterest than individual pins. It allows you to include your own content in your board which is the most important element of Pinterest as far as content marketing is concerned.
# YOUTUBE
Apart from having a large number of users, YouTube can be a great resource for content marketing if you know how to use it well. A large part of content marketing is getting your target audience to trust you. With consistency and a personal touch, you get to earn their trust and position yourself as an authority in your industry. YouTube allows you to achieve both better.
It's s video os content allows you to properly intimate your audience with your new products and the faces behind your content marketing campaigns. You can quicken the process by using YouTube influencers. With them, you can better get your message across to the right audience and have them engage more with your content. This is possible because your target audience trust your industry influencers and the latter have a large audience and knows what they want.
# REDDIT
Reddit allows for two kinds of posts namely link posts and text posts. The former is idea for when you are looking to generate traffic to your website while the latter is the best pick for when you are looking to get links. Generally, Reddit is a huge ally to your content marketing strategy as it allows you to easily position yourself as an industry leader through subreddits.
For instance, Askreddit is the subreddit where people submit all sorts of questions. It is also the most popular subreddit on the platform. You can monitor it and provide answers to the questions pertaining your niche. Subsequently, users will begin relying on you for thought-provoking and informative content on their areas of interest and go ahead to make your site their go-to place for answers.
|
https://medium.com/illumination/the-different-social-media-platforms-and-how-to-use-them-in-content-marketing-d7d2149ee7df
|
[]
|
2020-12-11 15:29:37.607000+00:00
|
['Content Creation', 'Content Marketing', 'Social Media Management', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Content Strategy']
|
What is the difference between a native app and a hybrid app?
|
Hybrid apps are based on web technologies, so the same app can run in a browser like any other website or it can run as progressive web app (PWA).
The hybrid app can deliver the same consistent user experience across all platforms, regardless of user movement between different devices or browsers. Native plugins are required to access native platform functions such as camera, microphone, etc. (native plugins are like a container on top of native libraries or components)
Graphics apps, HD games, and heavy animation apps can work well as native apps because native code is always faster than HTML and JavaScript. WebGL standards help the browser and hybrid application for gaming applications achieve performance, but the native always has the edge.
Native SDKs allow you to access device functionality without having to deal with the complexity of native plugins, and new device functionality will be available immediately with SDKs.
|
https://medium.com/@itechscripts/what-is-the-difference-between-a-native-app-and-a-hybrid-app-50c265c2f535
|
[]
|
2020-12-25 06:29:36.906000+00:00
|
['Web Development', 'iOS App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Android App Development']
|
Why Should You Hire Bollywood Dancers in Melbourne for Your Office Christmas Party?
|
Bollywood dance has become a major phenomenon in Melbourne and in the rest of the world. Some of the main reasons are the colour it adds to any occasion and the various health benefits it entails.
With relation to such popularity, hiring indian dancers in Melbourne for function has also become a trend. One such occasion where you can hire such Bollywood dancers is a christmas party in your Melbourne office.
A corporate wants to make sure that they hire the best Bollywood dancers in Melbourne for their next christmas event. Some of the main reasons for this are as follows.
Stress Reduction
Bollywood dancing is fun and energetic. Hence, when you practice this dance form it releases endorphins that actively reduce stress levels.
Hiring a Bollywood dancer in your Melbourne office will give your employees and guests an opportunity to unwind and relax. Thus can help them cope from work stress and heighten their spirits so that they can fully enjoy their christmas.
Adds a Fun Element to Your Festivities
Corporate christmas parties can be a boring affair when celebrated in the same old ways. Bollywood dance in Melbourne adds a twist to the typical festivities.
Since Bollywood dance is filled with energy, it adds a fun element to your festivities. It will captivate the audiences and colour as well as zest to your celebrations, making your party moreish and enjoyable.
Inclusive of Various Dance Styles from Different Cultures
Bollywood dance is an amalgamation of different dance styles. It is essentially a fusion between traditional indian dances with modern styles and cultures such as Arabic and Latin.
This makes hiring Indian dancers in Melbourne an inclusive affair that is accepting to each and every individual in your office.
Promotes Diversity
As mentioned earlier, Bollywood dance is a combination of various cultural dance styles. It is thus a celebration of diversity.
Bollywood dance in Melbourne can therefore be beneficial for a corporate firm that has employees from various walks of life, following different religions and speaking a variety of dialects. It thus celebrates the true essence of christmas that is spreading love despite the differences.
Spreads Cheer and Motivates Individuals
Hiring the best Bollywood dancers in Melbourne can spread contagious excitement and enthusiasm. This can bring a smile on all your attendees faces and give them a chance to celebrate together, no matter the hierarchy.
This form of dancing thereby spreads christmas cheer, refreshes your staff and motivates them to work better in the next year.
Branding Opportunity
Appointing Bollywood dancers for your corporate christmas party in Melbourne gives you an opportunity to improve your brand reputation in front of clients.
Captivating indian dancers in Melbourne will impress your clients in attendance, convert your party into a timeless memory and send them talking about your brand with future potentials.
How to Hire the Best Bollywood Dancers in Melbourne?
Ignite Bollywood provides the best Bollywood dancers in Melbourne to enchant your event audience with spectacular performances.
Looking to make your next corporate christmas party more cheerful and fun-filled with Bollywood dance in Melbourne? Give us a call on 0423 080 724 or visit https://www.ignitebollywood.com.au/ and hire our indian dancers for the most affordable rates throughout Melbourne.
|
https://medium.com/@ignitebollywoodaus/why-should-you-hire-bollywood-dancers-in-melbourne-for-your-office-christmas-party-dccf4ce6c71a
|
['Ignite Bollywood Dance Company']
|
2019-11-15 06:35:08.582000+00:00
|
['Dance', 'Bollywood Dancers', 'Bollywood Dance Melbourne', 'Indian Dancers Melbourne', 'Best Bollywood Dancers']
|
Stress in Sport: Is it a Bad Thing?
|
We’ve all been there as a sports fan. End of the game, heart beating through the chest, palms are sweaty, knees weak…okay I’ll stop there. But every fan knows that stress and anxiety can skyrocket while watching a match, especially in crunch time. As an athlete myself, anytime I am watching a stressful game on TV, I always think: “Hey, at least we’re not in the game right now.” Considering the stress I have from simply watching the game, I could not imagine the amount of stress these athletes feel actually being in the environment (especially pre-COVID with thousands of fans in attendance).
However, time and time again, these professional athletes are put into extremely stressful situations. Granted, not all of them come through in these moments. We have all seen someone choke under pressure at one point. But a majority of the time, these athletes are able to perform at the highest level, even with all the stress in the world on their shoulders…how?
When looking at this idea, it is important to first understand the process of stress and how it affects our behaviour. Researchers have been able to describe the process of stress in a model that looks at the emotion from a chronological standpoint:
(Fletcher & Arnold, 2017)
Stressors
The start of this process is the environmental demands that individuals encounter. These stressors can be events, situations, or conditions that come up in different areas of life. For pro athletes, they have to deal with three main types of stressors: Competitive stressors, organisational stressors, and personal stressors (Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014). The competitive stressors are extremely abundant for these individuals considering it is their job to compete, thus putting a lot of pressure on their performance. Now pile on top of that the organisational stressors such as the coach’s expectations, media attention, and constant travel and accommodation, along with whatever personal issues the athlete may be dealing with. Fletcher et al. (2012) confirmed this idea that higher-skilled athletes experience more stressors than lower-skilled athletes.
Overall, it is clear that these pro athletes have to deal with way more stress than the average person, especially during a high stakes performance. The stress is so palpable that we can feel it ourselves even though we’re not even in the environment.
So how do they perform with all this stress?
Appraisal
Let’s look at the next step in the process: appraisal. This can be defined as the evaluation of stressors and available resources and is split into primary appraisals (How might this affect me and do I care?) and secondary appraisals (What can I do about this and will it be enough?) (Fletcher et al., 2006). The key point about appraisals is described by Lazarus (1999), emphasizing the mechanism is nothing more than an evaluation of coping options and is not actually the implementation of coping strategies. However, this evaluation is still vital in the stress process. Those who appraise their stressors in a more positive, optimistic light will react in a more beneficial manner than those who appraise those stressors more negatively.
In this context, it is also important to look at what influences these appraisals. Lazarus (1999) splits the factors that influence how people appraise stressors into 2 categories: situational variables and personal variables. Situational variables include things like team culture, opportunity, and demands, while personal variables include factors such as goals, beliefs about the self, and personal resources (Lazarus, 1999).
When looking at professional athletes, almost all of them have experienced a great deal of success throughout their athletic career. Usually this comes with a high self-esteem within their sport, and they can use that confidence to positively appraise these stressors so they don’t hinder their performance. In other words, these pro athletes are so attuned to overcoming stressful situations that they are wired to not let stressors feel like the worst thing in the world. So when you are on your couch feeling extremely stressed out about your favorite team in crunch time, just understand they are probably not letting those stressful moments feel as stressful as they seem on paper. This is the main importance of the appraisal process.
Response & Coping
When looking at the last two steps in the process, they are very intertwined as our response to stress usually is related to how we cope. These responses can be a combination of psychological, physiological, and behavioural responses. The stereotypical responses to stress we all have experienced before include doubts and panic (psychological), muscle tension and a pounding heart (physiological), and fidgeting or pacing back and forth (behavioural). However, when you’re an athlete in the middle of an important performance, none of those responses are acceptable, especially at the highest level. Those who have made it to the top of their sport have succeeded many times in stressful situations. They have learned the optimal response (or lack thereof) to these stressors and understand that the negative responses described above are simply not going to correlate to success in their sport.
This is described very well by Fletcher et al. (2006) from an organisational standpoint. If one athlete has a run-in with their coach, they might label their anger or frustration from that interaction as debilitative, and use it as an excuse to not put as much effort into their sport. On the other hand, if another athlete has the exact same conflict with their coach, they could label that anger as facilitative, and use that emotion as motivation to spur them into investing more effort into their sport (Fletcher et al., 2006). These are the two ends of the spectrum in regards to responding to stressful situations, and for the most part, those who make it to the top league in their sport are responding in a facilitative manner, using their stress and other negative emotions as motivators.
In essence, these professional athletes have not only learned to positively appraise their stressors, but they also go a step further. They use that optimistic viewpoint to motivate themselves to invest more into their sport, and respond in a way that promotes hard work and success.
Related to this response process is the coping mechanisms athletes use during stressful situations in their sport. Research has shown that negative outcomes occur through the inadequate or inappropriate use of coping strategies (Fletcher et al., 2006). Coping can be described as cognitions and behaviours used by the individual following the recognition of a stressful encounter that is designed to deal with that encounter or its consequences (Dewe et al., 1993). Thus, coping involves all parts of the stress process; it includes the occurrence, appraisal, and responses to a stressful event. However, coping is a very complex mechanism that is demonstrated through research to be very individualistic, and cannot just be approached with a “one-size-fits-all” strategy (Didymus & Fletcher, 2014).
Because of this, coping strategies are split into different categories: problem-focused (dealing with the problem that arises), emotion-focused (dealing with the emotions that arise), and appraisal-focused (dealing with your interpretation of the stressors that arise). Evidence suggests sport performers use a wide range of these strategies, and it is beneficial to combine these focuses for the most optimal coping strategy (Fletcher et al., 2006).
Overall, there is no consensus on the most advantageous way to cope with stressors. However, pro athletes have learned how to overcome these stressful situations in part due to their ability to master the optimal coping strategies that work best for them.
To summarise, stress is a major part of competitive sport. There is no avoiding it as an athlete, so as a sport psychologist it is very important to understand the process in its entirety. It is also very essential to use the best athletes as models for success and learn from them. These professional athletes are able to thrive in these stressful environments due to their ability to positively appraise, respond, and cope with their stressors. They have trained themselves to use stress as a motivator rather than a debilitator. I think it is important to learn from the best in their field. Here are a few takeaways that we should all be aware of in our everyday life:
|
https://medium.com/@joeyhewitt/stress-in-sport-is-it-a-bad-thing-16567b6f4157
|
['Joey Hewitt']
|
2020-12-04 20:24:28.307000+00:00
|
['Stress Management', 'Sport Psychology', 'Athlete Development', 'Stress', 'Stress Management Tips']
|
Chaos A Poem
|
Thee Quest-Poetry Prompt “Chaos”
Every ripple sends its own wave, fleeing to gain power. When moments occur that create havoc, we feel chaos deep within our soul.
Death brings immediate breakage of common sense, the logic that builds a layer of ripples that often needs years to understand.
Living with it threatens to create upheaval that might kill emotions, making you doubt your belief system.
|
https://medium.com/theequest/chaos-a-poem-ed8b60e8e353
|
['Pierre Trudel']
|
2020-11-06 17:10:52.375000+00:00
|
['Discrimination', 'Religion', 'Theequest', 'Culture', 'Chaos Theory']
|
Samāpatti BTC 12hr Strategy Backtest
|
Welcome to River Algos!
I’m an ex-pat full time Crypto bot coder, bot investor, and former Theravadan Buddhist monk in Thailand. I’ve been working on Bitcoin strategies using Pine script for 3 years. Samāpatti is my first available fully automated strategy!
The Backtest has had extraordinary results before fees and slippage of 2,728,921,432% over 588 trades since 2011 with a 49.49% winrate and 3.262 Profit Factor, while the forward testing usually do not match such success, the forward test had 152% gains in 3 months.
This is now available publicly on Zignaly, and Coming Soon to Stacked.
https://riveralgos.medium.com/getting-started-with-sam%C4%81patti-on-zignaly-9c08e77f48ab Getting Started with Samāpatti on Zignaly
https://t.me/RiverAlgos Main Samāpatti Bots discussion
https://discord.gg/wvxVU8y2 River Algos & BotClub Discord
https://t.me/joinchat/HnEKIhuqgtgb7yZBPpC-WQ BotClub Telegram
https://t.me/samapattibtc4h Samāpatti BTC 4hr Trades, Results and Announcements
https://t.me/samapattibtc12h Samāpatti BTC 12hr Trades, Results and Announcements
https://t.me/samapattieth4h Samāpatti ETH 4hr Trades, Results and Announcements
https://t.me/samapattieth12h Samāpatti ETH 12hr Trades, Results and Announcements
https://t.me/RiverCryptoBlog River Crypto & Meditation Blog
https://t.me/mysterywave BTCÐ TA Discussion
https://t.me/tradingroomalt Discussion Room for Altcoins.
https://twitter.com/RiverCrypto River Crypto’s Twitter
|
https://medium.com/@riveralgos/sam%C4%81patti-btc-12hr-strategy-backtest-5e0ea340a3c9
|
['River Algos']
|
2021-01-12 05:03:03.575000+00:00
|
['Bitcoin', 'Quant', 'Btc', 'Algorithmic Trading', 'Bots']
|
A year
|
muddy heart. The author took the picture
A lopsided,
unpredictable year,
of which
we chewed the Latin adagio
“annus bisextus, annus funestus”
smiling with irony
and a crude expression.
A year that gave us
a demonstration
of how
small and vulnerable
we are.
A year that tore
the veil of our failings.
A year of which we will tell
to our grandchildren.
A year of which
we will read in a history book,
with the same disregard and detachment
we used to read about
the plague in the seventeenth century.
A horrible year?
Yes, because it forced
each of us to look
in the eyes
our truth,
shadowy and slothful.
A year that forced us
to recompose some units,
both familiar and personal.
A year with monitors and Zoom
and discovery of our own home.
A year that gave us
different eyes
to see
to understand
and accept
the new one
that is about
to come.
|
https://psiloveyou.xyz/a-year-a05fc3b56d38
|
['Tiziana Arnone']
|
2020-12-27 13:03:01.047000+00:00
|
['Hope', '2020', 'Poetry Sunday', '2021', 'Life']
|
Crowd-investing in technological approaches to mitigate climate change
|
Here I try to outline a way to align humanity in addressing the climate change crisis through a financial instrument.
Today there are many currently speculative technical approaches to mitigating and reversing the effects of climate change: for instance, capturing CO2 from the air, growing better trees, and modifying food for farm animals to decrease methane emissions, etc. Considered individually, each approach has a low probability of success. The only way to make progress slowing climate change is by trying out many of these approaches in tandem and supporting what works.
Funding for climate change companies is limited, and as a result, they are few in number. I am proposing a fund focused on helping develop these companies. The fund would help raise money, recruit founders, and incubate their ideas. The mission of the fund would be to empower any individual on earth to contribute to solving climate change.
This fund would provide money to as many (reasonable) startups working on climate change funding as possible. Investments in the fund should be primarily viewed as very high risk (or even philanthropic), and the fund should be public, which allows global contribution. Having a public fund that benefits the whole of humanity should allow the raising of billions of dollars. This capital infusion would increase the amount of money and startups dedicated to environmental technology, which is likely to result in rapid advancements.
Currently, individuals have no easy way to support the development of negative emissions technologies and early-stage approaches to solving climate change. The fund would provide an avenue for individuals to contribute to environmental technology through personal investments. Although some individuals like myself can angel invest in environmental tech companies, doing so is not straightforward. Startups are usually open only to select individuals, and the process is quite bureaucratic for a casual investor. A public fund present on the stock market and accessible through a few clicks on Robinhood would make it considerably easier for me and others to give away part of our wealth for a better future.
Investing in such an organization should be of interest to governments of coastal cities like New York. New York plans to spend billions of dollars building coastal barriers to protect the city from floods. The build-up of the coastal barriers is treating the symptoms, not the disease. A fraction of this money could and should be devoted to the funding efforts to combat climate change directly.
Because these companies are working on frontier technologies and focused on environmental impact, they come with many more operating challenges than the average company. As such, investment in the fund should be considered high risk. There is a chance that investments would bring profit. For example, startups could make money by buying carbon offsets , or selling concrete reinforced with CO2.
Because stockholders of the fund would have a financial interest in solving climate change, they should be incentivized to push for and support policy efforts that could make companies working on global warming more successful. For example, they could lobby to increase the carbon tax which would directly help companies working on carbon capture. The fund’s success in lobbying governments results directly from its broad base of individual, institutional (and perhaps municipal) ownership.
The fund should also seek to bring transparency and data orientation to the fore in a nonpartisan way. It would track environmental metrics such as the reduction in CO2, reduction in methane, and pH of the ocean and impact of technologies on emission budgets. The details of the structure would have to be worked out.
Getting $50 from 5% of adult Americans who care about global warming would raise more than $500 million. I would personally pledge $10,000 into an organization that looks like the one described here. I hope others will join me in calling for the formation of such an organization, and that pre-commitments of capital might move someone to bring it into existence. I believe that executing the idea presented in this post could have a positive impact on the world.
|
https://medium.com/@woj.zaremba/crowd-investing-in-technological-approaches-to-mitigate-climate-change-ef30398b33b6
|
['Wojciech Zaremba']
|
2019-11-20 14:56:58.236000+00:00
|
['Climate Change', 'Investment', 'Stock Market', 'Crowdfunding', 'Humanity']
|
O Turner of the hearts!
|
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The Arabic term for heart is Qalb, which means to change. When we study tajweed, we learn that when we change the sound of one letter into another letter it is call iqlab. Qalb is something which changes, which is not a constant.
If there is one word which could describe the heart, it would be “change”. How many times have we experienced our feelings, our emotions and our inclinations change. Our desires, our wishes, our passions, everything is in a continuous rollercoaster of change.
And Imaan which originates in the qalb, changes like everything else.
One day we may experience a spiritual bliss in our tahajjud, we may cry while reciting Quran and yet on other days we may have to drag ourselves to offer a fardh salaah. We may have to force ourselves to open the Quran.
But its ok. The creator of our hearts, the one who made it the way it is, knows it and He understands our struggles better than we do.
“Alif, Lam, Meem. This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah — Who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them, And who believe in what has been revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what was revealed before you, and of the Hereafter they are certain [in faith]. Those are upon [right] guidance from their Lord, and it is those who are the successful.” [Al Baqara: 1–5]
When Allah talks about the those who believe, Allah chooses a verb, and a present tense verb at that, to describe it. Yuminoon as opposed to muminoon. The present tense (or imperfect verb as it is called in Arabic) implies a meaning of continuity, a deed which hasn’t finished yet. An Imaan which is still a work in progress. Which is not perfect yet.
So the people of Imaan are not only those who hear Quran with rapt attention, those who have to force themselves to open it are also people of Imaan, as far as they open it. And the person who has to exert him/herself to keep their mind from wandering in salaah is as much beloved to Allah as a person who has perfect khushu, as far as they are trying hard.
So rejoice in the mercy of our Rabb and strive harder. And ask the the Turner of the hearts to make our heart firm on His deen.
سبحانك اللهم و بحمدك نشهد ان لااله الّا انت نستغفرك و نتوب اليك
|
https://medium.com/tadabbur-fil-quran/o-turner-of-the-hearts-c17aa3040208
|
['The Niqabi Coder Mum']
|
2016-09-20 19:44:09.395000+00:00
|
['Islam', 'Quran', 'Al Baqara']
|
The Pearl Anniversary
|
I woke up early on Saturday morning, very early. After all, I had been waiting for this weekend for a long time. Three years actually. Three years were a long time to wait, and I had grown impatient at times of course, you did when you were so eagerly looking forward to something. But I bid my time. I continued to think about how I could make this particular Saturday absolutely perfect. And now the weekend had come and I knew it was going to be a memorable one.
It was our thirtieth anniversary. Thirty years of marriage was ten times as long as the time it had taken me to plan the anniversary itself.
My husband was still asleep at my side, snoring gently. It used to drive me crazy, the constant snoring, but I got used to it. You got used to a lot of things in thirty years of marriage.
Mark was the first person I met when I moved to the city. I had literally just arrived and I was struggling with my many boxes in the staircase. Mark happened to live just across the hall from my studio. He offered to help me and later that day he took me out to that little Chinese place down the street. I fell in love with him within a couple of weeks. I moved in with him within a couple of months. We were married by the end of the year.
Yes, it was fast. But he worked in the army, which meant he was often away on overseas missions and I always had that irrational fear that something would happen to him, that one day he would not come back. At least as his official next of kin, I would be the first one to be notified if something happened. Not that it would change anything in the grand scheme of things if something did happen and Mark did not make it home. But it reassured me, somehow. And Mark always did come home.
Now Mark was retired and did not have to go abroad so much anymore. He was still travelling quite a lot without me though, with his cycling club. He said it was his time off with the “lads” from the army. Fair enough. It was quite a change for him already, retiring from the military. He said he needed this kind of connection to his former life, and he could not stay put for too long.
Mark snored again. I sighed. Yes, you got used to a lot of things in thirty years, but still. I carefully got out of bed so as not to wake him, tiptoed out of the room and climbed down the stairs to the kitchen. There I set out to prepare the perfect breakfast. I would make pancakes.
I had told Mark that for this anniversary weekend, I wanted to organise Saturday and he would do Sunday. I wondered what gift he had for me for tomorrow. It was our pearl anniversary so maybe pearl earrings. In Greek mythology, pearls were actually tears shed by the gods. But in Ancient Egypt, pearls were a symbol of healing and life. Different stories but both poetic, I thought.
Anyway, it did not matter much what gift he had for me or what he had planned for Sunday. I already knew nothing could beat my surprise.
Once I finished making the pancakes, I went out to the garden to cut a red rose to add to the breakfast tray. Cheesy maybe, but it was a nice touch I thought. I went back to the bedroom, where Mark was now awake: “Happy anniversary darling.” His tone was cheerful as always, confident that it was going to be a great day. “So what do you have planned for me today then?” he added, grinning.
I smiled mysteriously. “You will have to wait till tonight for the surprise I am afraid, darling. For now I have made your favourite breakfast. Then you can get ready to go cycling.” “Cycling? But you don’t even like cycling that much”.
No, I do not, I thought. But I also remembered that little village on the cliff that overlooked the sea. We had spent a day there, years and years ago. It was a long ride from our house, and it would take us a while just to get there, but the cycling path was beautiful. We would stop on the way of course, in other little villages that sprinkled the countryside around here, but ultimately, it was that particular village on the cliff I wanted to go back to. And I knew it meant just as much to Mark as it meant to me.
A thunderstorm had caught us by surprise at the top of the cliff more than thirty years ago and we were absolutely drenched. But then the sky had taken that amazingly dark colour that was made even more breath-taking by the brightness of the sun coming out through the clouds. It was then that Mark proposed to me, on the spur of the moment, because the scenery was so dramatic he felt that was the perfect time and the perfect place. He had always been the impulsive one, Mark. I was the analytical one, the logical one. The one who would spend three years waiting for an anniversary.
And now, after a good few hours of cycling and enjoying the countryside, we were back to this village at last, at the top of that cliff, again. Except the weather was nothing like it was when we had last come here. It was a beautiful day and the sea below us was as calm as it could be. We sat on a bench, tired after a long day of cycling. We were not as young as we used to be after all.
“Can you believe it? Thirty years,” Mark said in a low voice. “Thank you,” he whispered. We said nothing for a while then, just holding hands and taking in the cool breeze of the afternoon and enjoying the view.
I took my time cycling back to the house, because I knew the best part was yet to come and I was in no rush to reveal it. The sky was taking on a pink and purple colour by the time we arrived at the house. Mark got off his bike, opened the door to the garage and parked his bike, but I stayed outside.
“What are you doing, are you not coming in?” he asked, coming back out when he saw I was not following him.
“No, I’m not actually” I replied.
“Oh I see, is it all part of the big surprise you have kept for last?” a smile on his face as he teased me. I said nothing.
“Honey?” Mark was starting to look confused. “What’s going on? Is everything ok? You look so serious”.
“I told you, I am not coming back in.” I repeated, my tone even. I held my gaze steady, looking straight at him. « I know about Nathalie. »
Mark stopped smiling. “Honey, I don’t know what you think you know but…”
“Oh I know it all very well” I interrupted him matter-of-factly. “After all I’ve had the past three years to do my research and familiarise myself with all the facts. I do know what I know”.
I was enjoying the moment more so than I expected to. The more anxious he looked, the more confident I felt. It was not even the confrontation I imagined it would be. Mark was too shocked to be in a confrontational mode. His face was pale now, strained. Realisation was starting to dawn on him and he must have known there was no way out for him.
Three years ago, I found out he had a daughter. It did not take me long to realise from her date of birth that she had been conceived a mere few weeks after our wedding. I thought about confronting him of course, and of leaving him straight away. But I did not. I guess part of me felt incredibly naïve for failing to know such a crucial thing. True, it must have been easy for him to see her before or after his various military trips without me being any the wiser but still, how could I have not be suspicious at all? In all that time? I was ashamed of myself. So I kept quiet. And then, the shock of the betrayal turned into rage. But the quiet rage that could eat at you if you did not find a way to control it. The one thing I was craving above everything then was precisely that, control. I had not been able to control what had happened, but I could control my reaction to the truth. The rage turned into resentment. That was when I started wondering how I would get back at him. When he would least expect it.
And today, I was finally doing just that. Three years I had waited for this.
So I climbed back on the bike, and turned away from the house and from Mark. I did not look back as I cycled away. I was smiling. The weekend was just starting.
|
https://medium.com/reedsy/the-pearl-anniversary-b74a2876b446
|
['Caroline Beaujet']
|
2018-08-17 02:44:52.091000+00:00
|
['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Writing Prompts', 'Creative Writing', 'Marriage']
|
How Timberland Became Hip-Hop’s Unofficial Dress Code and Built A Billion-Dollar Brand
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1990's-2000’s: Hip-Hop made Timberland boots shine
In 1980, Timberland opened its first international store in Italy, and people went crazy for them. Such was the craze that people would fly down to the U.S.A. and buy Timberland boots to sell them in Italy for higher profits.
After such traction, Timberland had to open multiple stores in the U.S.A. Soon street kids, workers, and hustlers around the street saw Timberland popping up in their nearby stores.
With ever Evolving hip-hop community, they liked what they saw. The boots were stylish, durable, dashing, and does go well within their pennies.
Major credit should be given to Timberland’s lasting quality, reliability, and affordability of their boots.
Hip-hop stars like Nas, Mass Deep, and Biggie Smalls either showed up wearing Timberland boots in their songs (or) Included them in their song lyrics.
For hip-hop admirers, those shoes became the status of fashion and a badge to their community. Hip-hop stars from the 1990s to early 2000’s adopted Timberland boots and indulged it in their music.
Some popular examples will be:-
Nas — The World is Yours
The world is yours is a 1994 rap song by Nas. He referred Timberland boots as ‘timbs,’ and the line was
Suede Timb’s on my feet makes my cipher complete.
He was a prominent figure in the hip-hop community. Nas’s influence cleared showed up within his young followers who started to wear Timberland boots, and many other hip-hop artists began to called it ‘timbs’ and included in their music albums.
Mobb Deep — The Infamous
Mobb Deep wearing Timbs for his ‘The Infamous’ album cover (Source: Medium)
Back in the ’90s, Mobb Deep was considered a strong spirit with how he sings and represents himself in a dashy street look.
On the cover of The Infamous, Mobb Deep was firstly seen wearing 6-inch Timbs, and the look was as badass it gets.
Busta Rhymes
In the significant red-carpets in the early 2000s, Busta Rhymes was seen wearing customized Timberland shoes, which matched his outfits.
The impact of Hip-hop lasted over a decade on Timberland. Other significant artists like Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac adopted Timberland boots in their song lyrics and even in their fashion.
As all hip-hop stars started wearing them and talking about them in their songs and albums. In the 2000's — this craze spiked Timberland sales.
Thanks to the decade of 1990–2000, Timberland sales grew to $1 Billion in 2001. It’s was inevitable that the significant impact on the company’s growth was due to hype built by the hip-hop community.
|
https://medium.com/@rahulthakursingh/how-timberland-became-hip-hops-unofficial-dress-code-and-built-a-billion-dollar-brand-2c7a8178c825
|
['Thakur Rahul Singh']
|
2020-12-26 15:32:31.916000+00:00
|
['Timberland', 'Branding', 'Business', 'Hip Hop', 'Success Story']
|
15
|
Why is it still so hard to forget everything that’s happened? Why is it still stuck in my mind? I’m trying everything that I can to get it out of my mind but it’s just not working…
I’ve talked to someone about it for the first time ever and I admit it did make me feel a little lighter but at the same time, I don’t think anyone can understand how it made me feel and how it continues to affect me ’til this day. As much as possible I do try to shrug it off whenever the thought enters my mind but, it’s just at the back always lurking and I’m tired! I’m tired of working so hard to get the thought out of my mind.
I’ve been busy, so I’ve been trying not to think about things that I know won’t make my life any easier. It just would be nice for someone to understand me; to say that everything that I feel is valid and there’s nothing wrong for being down sometimes because of it. I just want that but, unfortunately, there’s no one in my life right now that can say that to me.
I guess I should stop sulking now. I just wanted to get my frustrations out rather than keeping it all in and exploding, because to be honest, I don’t have the time to do that at this moment in my life.
I’ll keep trying to be as positive as I can.
|
https://medium.com/@dearshine/15-530ef3921ab2
|
[]
|
2019-11-15 10:06:23.622000+00:00
|
['Life', 'Journal', 'Personal', 'Diary']
|
Creative Focus: Reach the right people with the right message in any industry
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Creative Focus: Reach the right people with the right message in any industry
By: The Civis Team
Today, we’re excited to announce General Availability of Civis Creative Focus, our online message testing tool. Now, users in any industry can build better messaging, create more focused advertisements, and generate positive brand perception to improve advertising ROI.
The Problem with Messaging Spend Today
Whether you’re thinking of creative content or wording, motivating your current and prospective customers to act on a message they encounter from you isn’t as simple as it seems. It can be hard to deliver the right message to the right audience on a consistent basis, and marketers need to know with confidence that budget and resources are well spent.
Currently, over 40 percent of ads have no impact on a person’s behavior, and one in ten actually causes a negative reaction — whether or not your brand is helped by an advertisement is literally a coin flip. Combined with the time-consuming process of message testing, and platforms that currently encourage buying more ads, and not necessarily the best ads, marketers are facing a handful of challenges.
The Evolution of Creative Focus: Better Messaging for Any Industry
Today’s announcement reflects an expansion of Creative Focus’s capabilities to meet the needs of marketers, communications and insights professionals in any industry.
We introduced Creative Focus earlier this year to meet the needs of progressive campaigns that wanted to conduct effective and actionable message testing. We quickly discovered that the insights derived from Creative Focus could serve not only political and non-profit organizations — but any organization looking to make the most of their marketing budget.
Create a test
Why Creative Focus?
Our proven message testing solution offers you the chance to test your ads before spending the money to put them in market, and ensure they will be the most effective.
Choose an audience
Creative Focus tests the message efficiency among key audiences and subgroups, enabling you to make data-driven targeting decisions to further engage the right people. You can optimize creatives by audience to tailor messages effectively and decide which to promote in new campaigns. The tests are quick, affordable, and automated, so you can spend more time developing strategies for future campaigns.
You’ll receive actionable results based on KPIs (i.e. brand favorability, brand awareness, and intent to purchase) that will move you closer to your business goals instead of reporting on vanity metrics like click-through rates or shares. Brands have been using Creative Focus to identify the most effective ads for their key audience, so they can reach the right people with the right message at the right time.
Upload your images/videos/text
How It Works
Creative Focus is built on the gold standard of scientific research — randomized control trials. This means that it randomly assigns respondents to either a treatment group or a control group. Those in the treatment group will see one of your creatives, and those in the control group will see no ad at all. By measuring the opinions of each group and comparing them against one another, Creative Focus minimizes noise and directly measures the impact of each ad on the outcomes that matter most, like purchase intent and brand favorability.
View your results
Within a few days of the original request, see how your messages performed overall, measure any potential backlash, and understand which subgroups were most receptive to each creative.
Creative Focus can also help you optimize targeting across digital channels. Once the test is complete, leverage the results and use Civis technology to activate a list of individuals who are most likely to be persuaded by each creative, and target them accordingly. Based on your results, you’re able to use Civis tools to generate a custom model to predict persuadability, score the consumer file to find similar individuals, and then generate a list of your best targets. Then, pass the list to data onboarding partners (i.e. LiveRamp) for activation. Most importantly, this creative-first targeting means that you are delivering your best messages to the most receptive audiences.
Getting Started
Creative Focus is now available for demos and testing — if you’re interested in learning more, reach out today!
|
https://medium.com/civis-analytics/new-updates-to-civis-creative-focus-reach-the-right-people-with-the-right-message-in-any-industry-c58ef6843b16
|
['Civis Analytics']
|
2019-01-18 19:33:53.675000+00:00
|
['Message Testing', 'Software', 'Analytics', 'Advertising', 'Marketing']
|
210,000: A Failure of Conscience. We inheritors of the Protestant…
|
Photo by visuals on Unsplash
That’s the number of dead.
We inheritors of the Protestant Reformation have a special relationship with conscience.
Our tradition has insisted upon it. And many have given their lives in its service. Both a summary of and central to that tradition is the work of Henry David Thoreau.
For example, in 1849 he wrote a poem titled “Conscience.” Here are a few lines from that poem:
. . .
I love a soul not all of wood, Predestinated to be good, But true to the backbone Unto itself alone, And false to none; Born to its own affairs, Its own joys and own cares; By whom the work which God begun Is finished, and not undone; Taken up where he left off, Whether to worship or to scoff; If not good, why then evil, If not good god, good devil.
Also in 1849 Thoreau wrote his greatest essay, “Civil Disobedience,” the inspiration for such people as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Thoreau wrote:
A very few — as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and people (men) — serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. . . . Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a person’s (man’s) real humanity (manhood) and immortality flow out, and the (he) bleed(s) to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.
Yes, the freethinking tradition takes conscience extremely seriously. Many in our tradition have “serve(d) the state with their consciences . . . and so necessarily resist(ed) it for the most part.”
One of my go-to definitions of Humanism is that:
Humanism is a way of thinking and living that focuses on human action in relation to the wellbeing of sentient beings and the planet.
We human beings are the sentient beings with a conscience on this planet, and that calls us to an ethics of responsibility and care for all the other sentient beings and the planet itself. That is our hope; and our meaning; and our purpose.
This bears repeating. Often.
You may have seen or heard about the editorial in the most recent New England Journal of Medicine that begins this way:
Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.
Our greatest national failure in this pandemic has been a moral one. A failure of conscience.
Failure to have established a functioning and widely available health care system.
Failure to assuage as best we can the economic disaster so many of our fellow citizens are suffering.
Failure to care for the traditionally oppressed.
Failure to care for each other by taking minimal safety precautions.
Failure to look reality in the face.
As a nation, we turned away.
There was no listening. And for those with a social conscience, this is an unforgivable tragedy.
FirstUnitarian.org
Huumanist.org
YouTube
Facebook
|
https://medium.com/humanism-now/120-000-a-failure-of-conscience-d235f122bf93
|
['David Breeden']
|
2020-10-15 15:53:56.826000+00:00
|
['Covid 19', 'Responsibility', 'Humanism', 'Unitarian Universalist']
|
Album of the Day — January 22. Aerosmith — Get Your Wings — 1974
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Album of the Day — January 22
Aerosmith — Get Your Wings (Columbia Records)
22.January.2021
Aerosmith
Get Your Wings
1974
I’ve settled my beef with Aerosmith. It’s not the band's fault their lead singer, Steven Tyler, is such a nut job.
For the release of their second album, Get Your Wings, Tyler’s case of LSS (Lead Singer Syndrome — see David Lee Roth) had yet to surface fully.
However, it began percolating on Get Your Wings. If only because this album is such a giant leap forward from their debut album (even if that record did contain the perennial and insufferable “Dream On”). Get Your Wings was the album that set them on their way to being rock stars.
Get Your Wings would also be the album that began their collaboration with Jack Douglas, who would go on to produce the band through their creative peak in the 70s:
Get Your Wings
Toys in the Attic
Rocks
Draw the Line.
Arguably, Aerosmith was never this good again.
Get Your Wings didn’t just see Tyler’s toxic LSS begin to percolate, but it also saw the band finding their own musical voice. Guitarist Joe Perry unleashes a bevy of riffs on par with his contemporaries Jimmy Paige and Keith Richards.
Lyrically, Steven Tyler begins his foray into the double entendre and sleaze. “S.O.S. (Too Bad)” is a perfect example. As is the second track, “Lord of the Thighs.”
Allegedly, “Thighs” was the last song written for the album. What makes this song so interesting is not only Joey Kramer’s drum intro, which foreshadows “Walk This Way,” but the lyrics, which belie their darkness. The inspiration came from the characters they saw around the studio where Get Your Wings was recorded— Record Plant Studios in NYC. Located at the time on Eighth Avenue, which in 1973 was the flesh trading floor in NYC.
“Lord of the Thighs” is the first real indication that Tyler, as a lyricist, was more clever than he is often given credit for …and that he has more depth.
Well, well, Lordie my God,
What do we got here?
She’s flashin’ ‘cross the floor,
Make it perfectly clear
You’re the bait, and you’re the hook, someone ‘bound to take a look
I’m your man, child Lord of the thighs
Love him or hate him, Steven Tyler was very good with wordplay.
Critics at the time mostly liked the album. Even Robert Christgau considered Aerosmith “loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat” for the people who liked such music …but still referred to them as a “dumb band.”
Retrospective reviewers like AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said the band “shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, and it’s where they turned into songwriters.”
The shame of “Rock so hard you’ll shit your pants” Classic Rock Radio is that they play almost nothing from the mid-70s peak era of Aerosmith. You hear “Dream On” incessantly, “Walk this Way” frequently, “Toys in the Attic” rarely, and once in a blue moon, “Same Old Song and Dance” or “Train Kept A-Rollin'” off Get Your Wings.
Classic Rock Radio’s focus is on the band's songs from their wildly popular and sober resurgence in the 80s and 90s.
But if you’re curious to hear why Aerosmith matters and just how good they can be, listen to Get Your Wings.
|
https://popoff.us/album-of-the-day-january-22-b139f43985f3
|
['Keith R. Higgons']
|
2021-01-22 14:50:31.611000+00:00
|
['Art', 'Album', 'Music', 'Rock And Roll', 'Rock']
|
Smart Contract Software Developer in Kolkata 2021–9870635001|Nadcab Technology
|
Direct Whatsapp- https://bit.ly/2op0VQr
website visit- https://bit.ly/2nJJwBV
What is Smart Contract Software Developer?
Blockchain Smart Contract Software Developer is a virtual contract built using a blockchain platform for stability and privacy purposes. This smart contract can be concluded between two parties without the intervention of a third party, and the terms and conditions are drawn up according to the authority. Once these terms and conditions are met, funds are automatically transferred from one party to another. Smart contract data is stored on the ledger to enhance security. These enticing qualities not only make smart contracts stand out from the box but also garnered attention from various industries.
Nadcab Technology, a leading smart contract, provides a comprehensive range of smart contract development, security audit services, and solutions based on customer requirements. Complete blockchain smart contract development services architecture and code-based evaluation to ensure the security of smart contracts. Our team of experienced developers has the expertise to develop all types of smart contracts across a variety of blockchain platforms including Ethereum, Hyperledger, EOS, and Corda, as well as languages like Solidity, Golang Vyper, Truffle, and more.
Why use Smart Contracts to Build Blockchain Applications?
One of the most important features of blockchain technology is its decentralized nature. This means that the information is shared by all parties in the network. Therefore, no intermediaries or intermediaries are required to facilitate operations. This feature is especially useful because it saves one from the possibility of hacking and fraudulent activity. Blockchain technology is feature-rich and provides a fast, inexpensive, and efficient mode of trading. Therefore, most organizations in the government and banking sectors are starting to adopt this top-notch technology.
Smart Contract Development Process
Of course, let’s look at the blockchain documentation from the developer’s point of view. This is not a tutorial on how to develop blockchain smart contract development services, but general information to understand the step-by-step operation. You can also use this guide to choose the right technician for your project.
Plan
Just as investigating to understand the project’s goals, developers conduct their own investigations to gather up-to-date information about smart contracts for similar purposes. The code is open source and changes daily. That’s why keeping track of the news is very important.
Development
You already know what security means on the blockchain, so give the developer time to get all the details of the smart contract right and set all the nuts and bolts in the right place.
Testing
They say that off-the-shelf smart contracts are like spacecraft. Once fired, there is no way to reverse it. As we know in web development, all bugs are temporary and can be handled quickly by experienced technicians. Blockchain Smart Contract Software Developer is not the same. It cannot be changed upon request. The final product should be fully armed and ready to respond to malware attacks. This is the main reason there is so much talk about the security of smart contracts. Initially, the developer checks the product through the local blockchain.
Deploy to Testnet
Testnet is another level of protection for smart contracts. Here, the developer can double-check everything and see if the contract is ready or not while playing with real cryptocurrencies. For Ethereum, this is a principle that can be used by a team hired by Robstens or Rinke. Here the developer works with Testnet Ethernet. You can get it for free on the platform.
Deploy to Production
The blockchain smart contract development services should only be activated after all necessary verifications have been completed. If the developer needs more time for testing, it’s okay. This can help reduce gray hair later. When everything is ready, the contract is deployed to production. It is the last step in this procedure
Advantages of Smart Contract Development
Independent
When a smart contract is implemented on a blockchain network, it runs constantly and automatically as scheduled events occur.
Security
The secure and consistent execution of smart contracts is provided by the decentralized nature and consensus algorithm of the blockchain network. Neither party can change the smart contract once it is deployed on the blockchain.
Efficiency
Blockchain Smart Contract Software Developer allows inefficient parties to be excluded from the supply chain. Transactions are executed automatically without further approval from the smart contract party.
How does Smart Contract Development Work?
Smart contracts work in a very simple and fair process. It mainly follows three steps:
· In the first step, the contract is written in code for several parties and published on the blockchain platform.
· Second, events are triggered by contract execution.
· In this case, the contract is executed.
Upon completion of the process, both parties will receive funds, tokens or assets as promised. If the conditional protocol is not met, the smart contract returns the product to its owner. In addition, the smart contract ledger stores complete details and impose immutable functionality. In other words, once the data is saved, no one can change/change it.
To create an ICO blockchain smart contract development services you will need:
ICO Contract Subject: The software needed access to goods, services, etc. to lock or unlock automatically.
Digital Signature: All participants of the contract must sign a digital signature with a private key.
Contract Terms: A sequence of actions required to execute a smart contract. In addition, all participants must sign.
|
https://medium.com/@btcclubofficial/smart-contract-software-developer-in-kolkata-2021-9870635001-nadcab-technology-8ebe532f1072
|
['Nadcab Technology']
|
2020-12-24 12:09:37.687000+00:00
|
['Software Development', 'Smart Contract', 'Smart Contract Software']
|
How Elon musk changed my thought process.
|
I am familiar with lots of entrepreneurs worldwide, but there is only one revolutionary entrepreneur who changed my thought process.
Elon musk, the name is enough. He is the person who defines science and technology from zero.
He is an Engineer, software developer, Rocket engineer, etc.
Oh man, how one person can do such things in one life.
Elon thinks like a pro. One important thing I like about him that he is a problem solver. He never stuck with problems; he always knows there is a solution.
After twice time failure of Space -X, he not stopped. He tried, then he gains success, the first man in history, created a reusable rocket.
And guess, what is the amazing part of this?
He has not taken formal education in rocket science, but his attitude that he knows that he has an idea he closed the room started learning about Rocket from zero. Ended with plenty of books and articles on the internet.
Now New Elon musk is ready.
Space: X is one of the great inventions of him.
One trait I admire his lot that he never believes formal education. He focussed on the knowledge that can be practically applicable or not.
I thought that when he gets the idea of Space -X, No one supporting him, but he never laid down.
He moved to Russia for his Space -x, but ultimately he got permission from Nasa, then the game begins.
The first time,-Launch fail, Second time-launch fail, third time-success.
He always learns from his mistakes. Then he grows.
Man, his thought process is amazing.
If I get the chance to meet him, I would definitely ask him how he thinks.
Tesla motors-
Musk usually addresses the whole planet with his invention. Looking at greenhouse gas growth and global warming, he decided to create electric energy 4 tire vehicles to solve the whole world problem.
Earlier, this vehicle cost is so huge that he got his car at an affordable price after continuous huge research and development.
Hyperloop project-
Hyperloop is basically a new mode of transportation between two places. It is the new form of transportation invented by musk.
Musk claimed that it is much safer than planes and trains. It can trigger up to 700 mph.
He uses physics law while creating a hyperloop. He diminished friction to zero and created a vacuum in the hyperloop.
Again his thought process is great. He never thinks with a conservative mindset; he always thinks out of the box.
Man, he is incredible.
I admire him, and I write this post only to show my gratitude toward him. I wish that I can do some kinds of stuff like him.
|
https://medium.com/@8577805223vinay/how-elon-musk-changed-my-thought-process-ffe933041158
|
['Vinay Sharma']
|
2020-12-10 08:31:30.447000+00:00
|
['Elon Musk Motivation', 'Spacex', 'Elon Musk', 'Elon Musk Story']
|
What 2020’s Election Data Says About 2024.
|
However, as this happens, the GOP won’t actually be able to hold onto the essence of the Trump base, the way Trump did. Trump lost the election he once won, for the same reason. He was Donald Trump- a message that never betrayed his voters. The next candidate will be a lot less vulnerable to ad-hom’s. They’ll have to carry a different type of brand with them.
See, in order for the GOP to maintain itself, it’s going to have to dismantle the Democratic Coalition- which is far stronger than the Democratic Party.
The reason why is because of electoral advantage: The California effect (Californians leaving to other southern states- bringing left-leaning politics with them), the influx of city explosion in the sun-belt, and greater diversification)), mean that the GOP is losing the states that gave it the ability to win the election in the first place. States like Nevada and New Mexico are now becoming that are becoming bluer. 2020 took Arizona plus Georgia, and with the Texas election being as close as it was- with the rapid growth of its cities, it’s becoming more and more of a purple state to go blue.(WSU9, 2020)
But, this brings us to the second GOP win of the night: Minorities.
The GOP, and Trump, took a great increase in minorities over this year, with CNN exit polls showing a 41%-55% split in the vote for Trump, 41% being minorities. Historically, Trump’s showing with minorities gave an indication that the voting patterns have the potential to increasingly blur lines, offsetting the demographical effect that the electoral advantage may one day deliver. (CNN,2020)
This puts up for question the need for the GOP to not only run a candidate that might have to work with the Trump base but one that can bring in moderates as well. What this means is that the party will, in fact, have to change a substantial part of its platform. A likely direction will be that of looking towards the conservative ends of the minorities that go blue due to a more inclusive pitch (but could go red based on the economic standards, which was a huge part of Trump’s minority pitch in 2020).
What could this mean? It means that the party may have to spend more time taking part in the conversation of immigration, culture, religion, and job outlook, looking at where the conservative minorities stand and moving to the left of that direction, and finding more distinctive ways to separate them from the left. A 2024 conservative pitch, for example, greatly loosening asylum restrictions on religious minorities seeking asylum. More fundamentally, this would have to entail those from the east, them having the most conservative turnout compared to all other minorities. This lean, statistically, would be able to further blur the lines of voting demographics.
Speaking of blurring the line, there comes a third part- one that the GOP, with more of a “refined” strategy, per say, will be breaking apart the Democratic Coalition. Once again, as per CNN exit polls, 53% of people who voted for Trump voted-for Trump. Nearly 68% of Democrat voters voted against him, not for Biden. (CNN,2020) The coalition of conservatives, moderates, liberals, and progressives, mean that ideologically, the Democratic Coalition is a defensive one- to keep a more ideologically off-center Republican party, from the government. However, this also means, internally, the coalition will disagree and be far less concentrated- on economics, climate, and social policy.
To break this down, if it can retain both advantages it already has, the GOP needs to win back the center. The coalition can be an anomaly, and the GOP would have to all but seduce the center, in a larger fashion, towards expanding their centrist faction. Concentrated within the “IDW” and right-wing media, placing a priority on the diversity of thought would reform a more diverse conservative platform that isn’t as heavily built on a coalition so much as it is on consistency and moving to a new direction in politics controlled by the diversity of thought over populistic demand, and instead, using that wing as a mechanism to keep the party moving.
Does that mean the GOP moves to the left? Probably. Not as a leftist party- but closer to the center than where it is now. But that’s the GOP, that from its data in 2020, can see that it can head into.
Of course, a “Trump Extention” candidate all but sounds like an antonym to that, but breaking down the Trump outreach, it follows a couple of major patterns.
#1: Extreme Confidence. What Trump built to his followers was an image of security to the fear that they have been forgotten, that their voice is not being heard. That was the center of the campaign, not the policies following it. His Extention candidate would still have to make this a priority.
#2: Flaghshipping big ideas: This does not need to be held to a right-wing standard. UBI, and Andrew Yang, for example, cleared a similar effect.
#3: Vilifying. Trump didn’t just position himself as an anti-democrat. He made them look like a villain, where he would be the weapon to disarm them- and the audience, they are the hero. It’s story branding, done in politics. It’s important to remember that at one point, Trump was a Democrat.
Donald Trump’s character was a powerful one, but it was those 3 components that made him heard and cater to a base that, whether or not the left wants to acknowledge the righteousness of being empathetic towards, was worried about losing their jobs. Living in rural, forgotten areas.
To those who feel forgotten, a flashing light coming forth is a light that breathes the necessity that the moths see come night- and to those, to those, the proclamation of their existence- their world, and their experiences, is what decides their ballot.
|
https://medium.com/discourse/what-2020s-election-data-says-about-2024-16af355852e3
|
['Shaurya Pandya']
|
2020-12-03 22:27:27.093000+00:00
|
['Data', 'Politics', '2024 Elections', 'Technology', 'Elections']
|
Technology: Apple Products
|
Apple Products: Wat makes them Special?
This year, Apple launched its newest iPhone SE model which has a resolution of 750 pixels by 1334 pixels and a 4.70-inch touch screen display.
There are people who will run into queues to get themselves dis new phone but the reason I write about dis coz I kept seeing friends putting down their old phones to buy dis new product from Apple. It may sound ridiculous that someone would dash a phone just to be among the first to get the phone.
As a technological researcher, the Apple product is something I admire and respect among other brand products.
The numerous fans waiting to promote and buy any Apple product until nothing is left. These fans will buy everything no matter the price tag or cost involved. They are known and accepted worldwide and still tops several brand products around the world. Wow!
IOS Apple
How are they achieving this over the years now?
Trust they know the market preference
They have a consistent plan
Understand their purpose
Innovate their products
They are flexible
They lift their customer Status
They invent new ideas
I did a quick data poll to find out why Apple has more customers, and the outcome includes; they provide much more quality devices and their products just deliver perfect results. In terms of functionality, Apple products are very lucrative and user friendly.
The latest from Apple is to design a 5G network phones, using the highest network speed and performance.
Apple is non widely to produce easy to use products as technology gradually advance; Apple is focused on creating user-friendly products and gadgets for their users. Apple is a company that always put their workers need first and to design the preferred product.
If there’s an empirical thought, one thing that Apple is does often is, t has a consistent brand. dis can change as time moves on and I can tell their changes won’t affect r differ from their trends.
Apple doesn’t spend more money advertising for new customers in many countries but they sell more than you can imagine, dis means, they have the trust of the public and you could be watching an Apple advert and foretell what it is before they show the product. All these shows how customers are following Apple, you’ll know that it’s Apple without asking whenever you set your eye on any of their product.
These significant trends run throughout every channel they have. You can expect the same customer experience when you are visiting their website as you do if you were visiting one of their stores.
Their clean modern intentions are easily non and seen across everything they do, dis rally helps people become familiar with them, no matter which channel you’re choosing to connect with them.
Apple is doing very well and several other phone companies are learning and copying from their brand style. A company has to be evolving; dis will encourage success in various competitions. Apple will always be flexible and grow wif time but will not be difficult to understand and use. They will always bring something new and special. They choose to make and design products for the market, ensure the product is simply good, and satisfy all users.
They do not stick to old ways and fashions but evolve with time and flexibility in product development. There are several researchers and strategic workers who continuously plan to develop new things for the market and users.
Apple is famous for:
Computer products
Phones
Television
Music
Designs among others
Apple enhances user status and prestige, people feel big and proud whenever they own an Apple product, making the users feel like they are better and successful in life.
The description and information they provide are very powerful and enticing to the human way of life; it drives growth, improvement, passion, style, and success. Followers look up to them for exclusive marketing strategies and businesses receive motivations from them. Whenever you are seen using Apple products, you indirectly share and represent their success and ideals.
IOS
When you see the comments and feedback from users of Apple, one single pinpoint is a powerful design and product. The features work so well and their performance exceeds imagination. Every image and air adverts show the sleek design of their products. It’s all about telling a powerful story that will make your audience want to be a part of everything you do.
If you think you can or think the opposite, you will decide on your option. In the world of business, there are several controversies, but Apple does not rely on individual guesses and sayings, they focus on making enough research and testing before creating any new product.
They have a group of researchers who dedicates to understanding innovations and future plans. Their designers and engineers work as a team wif self satisfactory intentions to produce goods they will want themselves. The product is made in a way that, users can not live without, and produces will also have much interest to use the product often.
Behavior of Apple
There are so many channels and directions for Apple to hear from customers and commune wif them on new innovations coming up. They are really designing enough hardware and business opportunities for people around the world. They recruit people from different countries and come up wif fast and slow approaches to meet a target. Some plans take years to finish while others take days or months, their behavior is directed to making technology free and better for all. Difficult tasks that may seem impossible to some technology companies are being worked on by Apple innovators and researchers.
They do not rash to develop new products, they spend time trying to perfect their products to make sure that they hit the mark.
Apple scrap and remodel many products, not all phones from Apple comes out, this shows the years they spend on new ongoing products before they are certain to release them to the public.
To deliver very good work as a producer and business organization, you need to make time to do so.
|
https://medium.com/@jonesahiati/technology-apple-products-fddb1e5c6f3a
|
[]
|
2020-12-01 14:20:26.502000+00:00
|
['Academia', 'Technology', 'Apple', 'International', 'Fashion']
|
How To Manage a Team Like a Natural-Born Leader
|
Ten management team tips that will make your job a lot easier
1.Hire the right people
Finding the right team members for your team can be difficult and time-consuming, but it’s crucial to your team and project productivity. When hiring persons, you should evaluate the potential candidates’ competencies in terms of professional qualifications and skills. The hiring details help match particular potential candidates to the team’s specific tasks or positions, thereby ensuring that they are competently composed. The team should also be well balanced along critical lines such as gender, professional qualifications, age, and skill sets, among other team dynamics and diversity elements. Get to know them one-on-one to learn more about their talents, skills, and strengths.
2. Establish the team’s achievable goals and mission
Every team member should know daily the clear, concise, and articulated goals. Otherwise, they will miss deadlines, forget tasks, or feel their work is in vain. If you want your team to work together, then give them something to work for together. Set goals as a team and discuss individual goals with each person to confirm you are all on the same page.
There is no doubt the daily goals are important, but your team must also reach and achieve a long-term pursuit. Open up a discussion for your team members to provide insight or suggestions on this matter. Use this feedback to set a team mission for all of you to work toward every day.
3. Maintain open communication
Employees want to be kept in the loop about ongoing projects, goals, and deadlines, so you must communicate well with them and inform them about the organization’s goings-on. Maintaining communication channels wide open is vital to the success of any project. Communication is the most critical aspect of teamwork as it defines the capacity and ability of all team members to channel crucial information to one another. Good communication practices ensure that each team member is allocated tasks that are then effectively done and relayed back to the necessary team authorities. Good teamwork communication allows your project to run smoothly and avoid responsibility to overlap or deadlines being missed.
4. Nurture positive vibes in your team
Your job as the team manager is to uphold a positive vibe in your office space and promote a positive work environment by providing compliments and recognition when someone excels in their position.
As a manager, you are the soul and spirit of your team daily. Everybody in your team should feel appreciated for all of the hard work they do, and it is your job to ensure they have that sense of accomplishment. Motivate your group with short pep talks or one-on-one encouragement sessions to boost team morale.
5. Delegate responsibilities in a balanced manner
It’s easy for tasks and responsibilities to fall by the wayside when multiple people work on the same project. Part of why it is vital that you, as a team leader, establish a relationship with your team and get to know them individually so you can assess their strengths. People perform better and are more engaged in roles where they feel they are employing their best skills, so delegating proper functions that suit each will significantly impact the team’s productivity. A balanced delegation of tasks, in such a case, ensures that the team members can competently deliver without compromising on deadline and quality.
6. Discuss teamwork and resolve team issues
Great leaders actively listen, build accountability, ask questions, and discuss teamwork. Accountability is essential to maintaining an effective work environment, which is why you should be holding performance reviews whenever it is possible, at least once per year. During these meetings, you must address each one’s contributions to the team.
From time to time, teams can disagree on specific issues, and they don’t always work themselves out, so there may be times where you need to step in and help those involved find a solution or reach a compromise.
7. Provide constructive feedback and publicly reward the worthy ones
When a member of your team does something exceptional, reward him/ her — with a bonus, a small trophy, or even just a vocal recognition in front of the group. Such practices make the intended recipient feel good and show the rest of the team that hard work is rewarded. Sincere praise provides motivation and drives for the entire team. The only caution goes back to rule one: be consistent in your rewards so you won’t be seen as playing favorites.
Don’t be one of these bosses who only give feedback when you’ve got something to criticize! Providing your staff with positive feedback will help build their confidence and encourage them to get more involved in the future, so you must acknowledge their achievements and the effort they are putting in. The more people you have actively participating in discussions and attempting to improve the organization, the better.
8. Do your part and more
Team management isn’t about pointing a finger and merely giving others instructions to do all the work. Your staff will look to you for guidance and inspiration, so you should set a good example to gain their respect. When deadlines draw near, or the workload is falling behind, be readily available to jump in and help however needed. If you expect them to behave professionally and commit to their work, you must do so yourself. Make sure that you are doing your job, continuing to develop your career, and support your team in doing so too. Strive to be your ideal of the perfect worker.
9.Master conflict management
Bringing different personalities to work together in a team is challenging, and conflicts may arise from time to time. Turning a blind eye could lead to a negative atmosphere, which could have implications for staff productivity, and communication among the team may suffer. When an issue arises, you must address it straight away before it builds. To maintain a suitable and friendly working environment free of any tension, as a team manager, one should organize team building activities that help bond team members together.
10. Be enthusiastic, celebrate wins
All good managers know that a good mood is contagious to those around them. There will be times when the work is overbearing or challenging. Find ways to maintain a positive attitude within your group. You should be ready and available to reward hard work whenever your team’s goals and missions are achieved or surpassed. Schedule a team party or find ways to honor your team individually as a triumph over their goals.
|
https://medium.leaveboard.com/how-to-manage-a-team-5a7ff86caa86
|
['Hr Advice']
|
2020-12-22 09:03:33.175000+00:00
|
['People Management', 'Employee Management', 'Hr Management', 'Team Management', 'Human Resources']
|
Why Elixir uses linked lists
|
I’ve always thought data structures are cool, but you know what’s cooler? Seeing them in the wild!
While going through Elixir’s docs, I saw that Elixir uses linked lists under the hood for their linear data structures. I thought this was cool, but something struck me; I understood arrays and linked lists, but I had no idea how they related to programming languages. It’s bothered me ever since, and I needed to find out why linked lists were used…hence this article!
So back to the article: from what I’ve found so far, there are three reasons as to why Elixir does this (and I could be totally wrong, feel free to correct me!). Let’s go through one by one:
Immutable Data
In Elixir (most functional languages actually), data are immutable. This is an important first step to understanding why linked lists are used, so let’s explore this.
Immutable means that once data is declared, it cannot be mutated/changed anymore.
Assuming you know how arrays work under the hood (check out my other article if you want a refresher), let’s take a look at what happens if we try to implement immutability with an array!
An array is defined as a continuous block of memory. The problem with this is that an array of 5 elements is still just ONE array, and when we are adding/deleting an element, we are MUTATING it. How can we use immutability with arrays then? It’s not impossible, but let’s look at why that’s not practical.
If we want to enforce true immutability in arrays, this means that we need to make a full copy of the old array every time we want to add/delete in the array.
Which means, if you have an array of size 5, if you want to add a new item to the array, your memory usage is instantly doubled (because you need to keep the old array as is, and you also need to make a new array of the same elements). And that’s just space complexity — there’s also time complexity that we need to think about!
A linked list doesn’t have the same constraints, as the nodes are all stored separately in memory, which means we don’t really need to worry about space/time complexity while adding/deleting nodes in the list.
This gives us our first reason as to why it uses a list, however that’s not the whole story. Here’s where recursive structural/tail sharing jumps in and everything starts making sense.
Recursive structure
Did you notice that linked lists are recursive by definition?
For example, A -> B -> C -> D is a linked list, but so is B -> C -> D , C -> D and so on, and each linked list is just a sub structure of another linked list!
Well that wasn’t very exciting on its own, but this is vital to the next piece of puzzle!
Fun Fact: The recursive nature coupled with the fact that data has to be immutable (so you can’t have a loop counter) is why functional languages are usually associated with recursion — they kinda have to!
Structural/Tail Sharing
So, we know linked lists are recursive in nature. Combined with the immutable nature of the language, we know that the data can never change.
This is interesting, because now we can confidently say that A -> B -> C -> D is a different list from B -> C -> D (even though one recursively contains the other one). Because we have that guarantee (along with the fact that a list CAN'T change), we don't have to define the same data twice, and we can reuse existing linked lists! This is called Structural sharing.
Awesome isn’t it? Let’s look at an example.
e.g:
Now we have THREE different lists! list , list_one and list_two , but all of them share the same reference (the tail) and the only difference between them is the head pointer.
This means that there will be a total of 6 elements in memory. Adding to list has low memory cost, while retaining the immutability that we desire.
Reusable baby!
If you want to read a little more, you can look into Trie trees which have the exact same concepts of sharing datas/prefixes!
Garbage Collection & Caching?
These two I’m not quite sure about, but I’ve heard that linked lists are good for GCs and that tail sharing makes a good candidate for locality of reference/caching (I don’t get how, because they aren’t stored in the same places). Would appreciate if someone wants to chime in!
Closing Note
Side note: in actuality, it’s not as much about Elixir since it compiles down to Erlang. But it’s also not much about Erlang, because all functional programming does pretty much same thing…but this is what prompted my curiosity, hence the ties to Elixir.
While writing this article, I found that I had to write in depth on how arrays work before I was able to dive into the Elixir part, so I’ve published that as another article over here instead. Do read that to gain a better understanding on what the tradeoff is!
I also did not really talk about Big O notation, because I felt it might add unnecessary reading time and complexity to the article, but it’s pretty vital and fundamental to computer science, so I suggest you brush up a little on it.
If you’re a podcast kind-of person, there’s the BaseCS by CodeNewbie, co-hosted by Vaidehi Joshi and Saron.
If you want to read though, Vaidehi Joshi’s blogpost version (which is what inspired the podcast, I believe) is great too on BaseCS Medium.
As for video, MyCodeSchool is beyond amazing and is practically where I learned everything that I know now, highly recommended!
Other than that, hope you all enjoyed the article as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Sources
https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/basic-types.html#linked-lists — The piece that prompted this article
|
https://medium.com/free-code-camp/elixir-why-linked-lists-aa6828b6b099
|
['Edison Yap']
|
2019-03-18 21:36:30.686000+00:00
|
['Tech', 'Elixir', 'Functional Programming', 'Computer Science', 'Programming']
|
8x04 | 90 Day Fiance (Series 8>Episode 4) Full [“EPS ”]
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Film, also called Episode, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film The Flight Attendant, and to the art form that is the result of it.
TELEVISION (TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new iNBCovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 8s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 180s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 882 intertwined lines of goal and 882) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 88288 and 174. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 882s. Most TV sets sold during the 180s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 180s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 180s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous iNBCer electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire soNBCets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero fuNBCies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk.
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https://medium.com/90-day-fiance-s8e4-tlc-full-show/8x04-90-day-fiance-series-8-episode-4-full-eps-88fcf41370d2
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[]
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2020-12-25 16:31:13.591000+00:00
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['Millennials', 'Sadness']
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The Great Humbling
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Recreating the Shackleton Expedition’s rescue voyage 2013
Billions of years of fossilised sunshine burnt that is in turn overcooking the planet. A reckless fratricide and sororicide of the family of life driving the sixth mass extinction. A vampiric siphoning of wealth into a mosquito-like 1% of the population from the body of humanity (which reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon ‘Pull out Betty! You’ve hit an artery!’). Populist politics hollower than a dry bone, empty of the marrow that truly sustains. And now a silent, deadly seemingly irresistible contagion sweeping invisibly across the globe. What a time to be alive!
Our leaders vacillate between laissez-faire and lockdown. The first in fear of a corrosive economic collapse, the latter perhaps the inevitable aftermath of the former. China welds shut apartment block doors, Italy is paralysed, and the UK is apparently terrified by the potential inability to wipe it’s own bum. The news blasts a torrent of contradictory uncertainty at us, any attempt at rational seamanship for this boat of the collective mind is inevitably swamped by the deluge, with an even more sinister undertow as the numbers of coronavirus cases inexorably rise. Don’t you just love taking back control?
The world we have built is clearly far, far more fragile than the ivory towers of our imaginations. Laid low by microscopic invaders and macroscopic megatrends, the boiler on the steam engine of infinite growth, into which we’ve been frantically, manically shovelling coal (and oil, and gas, and fissile atoms), feels like it’s about to blow. And yet perhaps this moment is the eye of the storm? The calm lacuna in the maelstrom? That weird almost unworldly moment when the screaming whirlwind stops, and for a time a strange serenity reigns…before the eye passes and the tempest roars once again. A chance to think deeply , and perhaps quickly, about how to react when the hurricane returns.
What does it mean to be truly ‘humbled’? It means to be less proud, to feel less important. It is to be profoundly defeated. From the Latin ‘humus’ — ground, to be grounded, and ‘humilis’ — made low or lowly. It is about a re-centering, a reconnection, being forced to make a radical reappraisal, to stare into the dark mirror and reflect on the reflection we see staring back at us, unblinkingly. There’s a message in the image.
In the panic and pandemonium of the pandemic we’re all riding in the same pantechnicon, the pantheon in which we worship is in question, and as we panhandle for solutions in the aftermath of the Pandora’s box we have opened, we risk imprisoning ourselves in our own panopticon. This pantomime requires us to envisage a bigger panorama of what is really going on here.
‘Pan’ is the God of the wild, and ‘Demic’ stems from ‘demos’ — the ancient Greek for ‘commoner’. Coronavirus is literally the mischief-making wilding of the people. I fear for the economic carnage wrought on the most vulnerable, the part-timers, the freelancers, the ‘just-about-managing’ toilers of the gig economy, as our growth engine judders and stalls, not through lack of fuel, but the evaporation of the very lubricant that keeps it’s pistons firing — people.
And yet as industry is suspended and cars remain parked we can breathe again. Like the grounding of all of Europe’s aluminium birds during the Icelandic volcano eruption a decade ago, that brought pristine con-trail-free skies to the continent for a week or more, there is a chance for a pause, a reset.
Perhaps those who choose to sweep clear the supermarket shelves to selfishly stock-pile for their own needs might experience a flicker of empathy for the displaced and desperate migrants and refugees for whom external factors have become truly existential?
Perhaps remote-working compels us to reimagine our practices of over-work and over-travel? What is being served by our hyper-mobility? Our harassed and harried pinging from place to place, wherever, whenever and however often we want, for whatever reason seems, well, in a twisted sense ‘reasonable’?
Perhaps the pseudo-connections of our virtual online worlds, thousands of ‘friends’ with whom we are constantly in contact but never actually see, might cede a little more attention to our genuinely nearest and dearest? Those whom we ought to hold closer?
Perhaps the absence and ending of deeply ingrained physicality, the potent symbolism of embraces and handshakes, will remind us of how utterly vital the rituals of connecting sword-hands and hugging heart to heart really are?
We have and are being forcibly severed from the very things that make us human. That make us just another animal in the bustling, jostling entourage of life. And this severance requires us to find, I believe, a greater reverence. A re-evaluation of relationship. Whether it’s a boiling climate, a decimation of nature, a stratified distribution of wealth that would embarrass a champagne glass, and now an infinitesimally small virus, we either attempt to reconcile these challenges together. Or we all go down together.
We all know somewhere in our bones, our churning stomachs, breaking hearts and possibly feverish brows that a great change is coming, and indeed has to come. Legendary activist Joanna Macey calls our time ‘The Great Turning’. Dark Mountain co-founder Dougald Hine has described it as ‘The Great Humbling’. That resonates profoundly with me.
This is not a time for the heroic Shakespearean leadership of Henry V. We are hopefully not yet at the stage, heaven forfend, of the breach in which we must ‘close the wall up with our English dead’. It is not about victory. It’s about homecoming. It is a time of reappraisal and to begin to embark on the seemingly impossible, like Ernest Shackleton and his crew setting sail in a lifeboat from Elephant Island to cross 720 miles of raging Southern Ocean. Heroism yes, but not in a battle against a French or foreign enemy, but a struggle against the monumental elements beyond his control; the screeching winds of the sky, the mountainous waves and the bone-gnawing cold. Forces he would have to work with not just conquer. But perhaps most of all, a wrestle with their own psyches, their own beliefs, their own determination to do what simply just had to be done if survival was going to be secured despite the improbable odds.
If we can genuinely recognise who we are now, one collective faction in life’s planetary tribe, where we are now, in the storm’s eye of our own creation, then what we must do becomes much much clearer and simpler. The journey ahead of us is not easy. It will inevitably necessitate a Great Humbling. But on a clear day, when a break in the weather soothes the sea and the clouds are swept from the darkening skies, like Shackleton, I can catch a glimpse of South Georgia glinting on the horizon and everyone coming home safely feels possible once more.
‘The Great Humbling’ is now a podcast series in collaboration with Dougald Hine. You can find it here and on Facebook, ITunes and Spotify.
Ed Gillespie is a writer, speaker, futurist and poet. In 2007/8 he circumnavigated the world without flying and wrote ‘Only Planet — a flightfree adventure around the world’. He is a serial entrepreneur and an adviser to or investor in a number of ethical businesses. Ed is also a facilitator with the Forward Institute’s responsible leadership programme, a Director of Greenpeace UK and Co-Founder of Futerra
Follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
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https://medium.com/@edgillespie/the-great-humbling-68ecf91444a7
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['Ed Gillespie']
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2020-04-10 12:57:14.130000+00:00
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['Climate Change', 'Crisis', 'Corona', 'Pandemic', 'Climate Action']
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Podcasts Without Apps
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Podcasts Without Apps
Building a fully featured podcast player for mobile web.
Photo: Teri Pengilley
We’re all so programmed to appreciate the conveniences that smartphone apps provide us that it’s easy to forget how much of a barrier they can be to moving through everyday activities on a phone. In the middle of a web search, a conversation or a journey, a user can be diverted to an app store, wait for an app to download, then get dumped at a launch screen totally unrelated to their original activity.
But there are ways around this. The lab has experimented extensively with the web Notification and Push APIs, and even though they’re still Android-only, it’s been fascinating to see how easily you can build an audience on the web when you remove the barrier of having to download and use an app. We recently took a trip to the Guardian offices in London that coincided with a Hack Day they were running, and I took the day to explore how we might combine these and other web APIs in an area that’s booming right now: podcasts.
Why podcasts on mobile web?
For one, many Android phones, unlike iOS devices, don’t come preloaded with a podcast app. Which means podcast producers have to rely on users finding an app on their own or being recommended one to download. Otherwise, publishers might promote discovery by integrating podcasting functionality into their own native apps. All pose significant barriers to gaining an audience. Plus, the fact that iOS does have a podcast app means that the Android-only nature of these web APIs isn’t a hindrance.
Also, it’s timely. Google have just announced support for the Media Session API in Chrome 57, and it seemed like the ideal size to take on in a hack day.
Part 1: Media Session API
This was the easiest part to implement, as it doesn’t require a Service Worker or any extra hooks other than an extra few lines of JavaScript. Whenever an <audio> or <video> tag starts playing in Chrome, a notification is created to allow users to pause and stop. This notification can be augmented with two basic pieces of functionality — metadata, and event hooks. First, in order to add an image, title and artist to our podcast display, we add this:
navigator.mediaSession.metadata = new MediaMetadata({
title: "The people's memes: how social media and populism are
changing our lives – tech podcast",
artist: "Technology",
artwork: [
{
src: "https://www.theguardian.com/thumbnail.png",
sizes: "500x500",
type: "image/png"
}
]
});
However, play controls aren’t added to the notification until we add event listeners, like so:
let audioTag = document.getElementById("theTagWeWantToPlay"); function seek(amount) {
audioTag.currentTime = audioTag.currentTime + amount;
} navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("play", () =>
audioTag.play()
); navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("pause", () =>
audioTag.pause()
); navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("seekbackward", () =>
seek(-15)
); navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("seekforward", () =>
seek(15)
); navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("previoustrack", () =>
seek(-60)
); navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("nexttrack", () =>
seek(60)
);
The good news is that these are generic event handlers that let you do anything in response to taps — in this instance, because we’re dealing with a podcast, I set the skip forward and skip track buttons to move 15 seconds and one minute respectively. Behold, our new player notification:
Part 2: Subscriptions
This part is more involved, as it necessitates creating a service worker. But it’s still not that complicated — once we’ve requested permission to send notifications to the user using Notification.requestPermission():
I can’t recommend ngrok enough for testing your localhost code on mobile devices (especially as it provides HTTPS for free, which Service Workers require)
We use the lab’s service-worker-command-bridge library to send a subscribe request from the web page to the worker. The worker will then get a phone-unique notification identifier using PushManager.getSubscription(), and send that to any web notification service — in this case, Google Firebase Cloud Messaging. We use its topic-based messaging to sign the user up for a topic specific to the podcast they’re listening to.
Now we’ve able to send a message to that topic whenever a new episode is available, and present a notification to the user prompting them to listen:
And there we have it — a subscription-based podcast player that never leaves your web site. Zero friction, and hopefully far less confusing to users who don’t normally listen to podcasts.
What we can’t do… yet
Of course, there’s some functionality missing here. There’s some good news and bad news on that front:
Downloading episodes
One of the really useful features of a podcast player is that it downloads the episode when you’re on wi-fi so it’s available instantly whenever you want to listen, whether you’re online or off. It is possible to add an item to the service worker cache when we receive the notification of a new episode, but it’s not really designed for large files. If the download takes too long the worker gets terminated, and you can’t limit the download to wi-fi only. But change is afoot — Google has proposed new service worker functionality called Background Fetch which will allow us to do all this and more. One to keep an eye on.
Play directly from the notification
One small UI concern — even when we have Background Fetch implemented in browser, we still won’t be able to start playback without opening a browser window and waiting for the user to tap on the play button. There is no way to play an audio file from inside a service worker. Ideally we would be able to manually create a MediaSession, providing the same metadata along with source information. There are no plans to implement this so far, though.
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https://medium.com/the-guardian-mobile-innovation-lab/podcasts-without-apps-8b7a9c129e40
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['Alastair Coote']
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2017-09-19 16:17:05.735000+00:00
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['JavaScript', 'Podcast', 'Mobile Web', 'Innovation', 'Mobile Development']
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要為mewe 平反下啦
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https://medium.com/gausee-%E5%AF%B0%E9%9B%A8%E8%86%A0%E4%BA%8B%E9%8C%84/%E8%A6%81%E7%82%BAmewe-%E5%B9%B3%E5%8F%8D%E4%B8%8B%E5%95%A6-6a7d4ab48ab7
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['Jeromy-Yu Von 寰雨膠事錄']
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2020-12-03 13:06:42.673000+00:00
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['Social Media', 'Media Criticism', 'Hong Kong', 'Analytics', '中文']
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